Talk:Wet market/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 13:16, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have a go at this one.

Initial thoughts

I see that the article has greatly expanded, and naturally taken a look at the COVID and related issues, since October 2019 when the article was much smaller (with 13 refs). An immediate concern therefore is balance and the avoidance of WP:COATRACKery. At first glance the editing has made quite good progress in this direction, despite the obvious pressures. It may be helpful to say that both as a reviewer and as a nominator, I'm used to working through a GAN process that involves negotiation and sometimes substantial changes to the text, even if this takes a bit of time. The comments that follow below are just my first thoughts and I'm happy to hear your thoughts and any constructive suggestions.
- @Chiswick Chap: Thanks for starting the review! It may take me a few days to get around to many of these since expansion and splitting could be quite involved, but I think that these are some really good suggestions. — MarkH₂₁^talk 17:20, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Sorry for the delay, I'll try to carry out the expansion & splits this week. — MarkH₂₁^talk 01:17, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - Thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:15, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - Apologies again for the ongoing delay for the last two points, I'm gathering sources and I may not be able to use them right now, but hopefully soon. The patience is very much appreciated! — MarkH₂₁^talk 07:28, 15 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        MarkH21, can we close this out? Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:32, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Sorry, I've been gone for a bit. This last step may take me a while to finish. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:57, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        MarkH21, do you have an update? I appreciate if it will take you a while to finish - just don't want to see this GAN go stale. Urve 10:40, 29 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        
        Urve - thankyou. The article is almost at GA, almost all items have been completed. Would you like to take over, it seems that MarkH21 is unavailable just now? Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:47, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Chiswick Chap, sure. Am I right in thinking that the only thing that remains is the coverage of wet markets in Europe? Or am I missing another issue? Urve (talk) 15:46, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's all. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:48, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please take a look and let me know what you think. The only references I could find relate to two markets, in France and Italy. Urve (talk) 16:18, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Good work, just what was needed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:02, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Urve and Chiswick Chap: Sorry for being MIA, and thank you both for finishing this up! — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:00, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Europe is very lightly represented, with just one example (Dublin). This certainly does not do justice to Europe's rich array of traditional markets selling fresh fish, meat, dairy, and vegetables on street stalls every week.
- Not a lot of sources use the exact terms wet market when discussing traditional markets in Europe that would otherwise fit the definition so there is a minor WP:SYNTH concern. Otherwise though, the section could definitely otherwise be expanded under the alternative name of "traditional markets" as listed in the lead. What do you think about this? — MarkH₂₁^talk 17:20, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - I think we'll be all right, provided you give and cite a decent definition. You may find Wet Markets and Food Safety by Kogan et al 2019 useful, as it makes it clear that wet markets occur in Europe as elsewhere, and provides a simple definition which unquestionably includes Europe and indeed all continents.
    - Thanks, I'll get on this soon; this may also be useful at the beginning of the Wet market#Around the world section. — MarkH₂₁^talk 07:52, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - Yes. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:02, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hong Kong and to some extent Indonesia and Nigeria are over-represented. I'd suggest they be cut down so that we have roughly even coverage per region, and one paragraph per chosen country (I don't think we can cover every country, nor would it be appropriate to make this such a long list). Since Hong Kong is now governed by China there seems little reason to give it such prominence or indeed to give it separate coverage at all; if the China section is to be split out as a separate article, say "China's wet markets" then the Hong Kong section should go with it, leaving just one "main" link and one paragraph of summary text.
- A split of Wet markets in China could be warranted here and possibly Wet markets in Hong Kong as well. My understanding is that country-specific articles are often separate for Hong Kong and China, e.g. COVID-19 pandemic in China and COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong, and they both have a slightly different development from each other given the unique history of Hong Kong. There is definitely enough RS material to expand both into proper articles. — MarkH₂₁^talk 17:20, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - OK, well go ahead and split, and then we'll see how the article looks.
    - The Wet market#China and Wet market#Hong Kong sections have been split to Wet markets in China and Wet markets in Hong Kong respectively. I've shortened the content here, particularly the COVID-19 content in the China paragraph since that is redundant with the Wet market#COVID-19 section anyways. — MarkH₂₁^talk 07:52, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - Thank you. Refs 18, 61, 74, 91, and 121 are now broken - the bot may well fix 'em however.
        Done — MarkH₂₁^talk 08:16, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Given that (I assume) we're not going to try to cover every country with a list of 200 or so country-paragraphs, I suggest that each continent's section (e.g. "Africa") should be introduced with a brief paragraph describing the general situation in the continent - many countries rely on farming for much of their income, and wet markets for much of the food in the cities. Then the countries can be introduced as examples, one paragraph each, probably without a separate subsection heading for each country as they're just examples. Alternatively we could split off a list article for all the countries (leaving a "Main" link), if you preferred, and perhaps we'd just discuss the situation briefly for each continent here.
- Both the introductory paragraph and the split seem reasonable (and yes, I wouldn't try to create 200+ subsections here for all of the countries either). In fact, we could even do both. Will return to this. — MarkH₂₁^talk 17:20, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - OK. We have some sort of coverage which I think makes "the main points" as required by the GA criteria, and it's suitably cited.

The question of whether the 600 words on China's wet markets is overweight needs to be discussed; the country is of a similar population to India but it gets three times the coverage, so a priori the answer is yes, it's too much if the subject is "Wet market"; of course it's easier to justify if the subject is "Wet markets and COVID" or "Wet markets and disease" (or similar title) but that would be a COATRACK for this "Wet market" article. The same goes, of course, for the 860 words on "Health concerns and links to disease" (1000 words if the "Media coverage" section which is also COVID-based is included). I suspect therefore that we should be thinking about balancing out this article. Given the large number of COVID- and China-related sources (of good quality) available, we might be thinking towards having a "Main" link to a subsidiary COVID-related article, leaving a short summary here in the form of a short "Disease transmission" section, and a single paragraph on China in the very promising "Around the world" section. As I say, I'm happy to discuss this and reach a workable solution here.
- I agree the there is a bit of a WP:RECENTISM bias in terms of how the article is currently balanced, which can be solved by the suggested split. The COVID/disease section is also specifically about live-animal wet markets and wildlife wet markets, which are a subset of wet markets as a whole. So Live animal markets and disease, Live animal markets and COVID-19, or similar might be more appropriate and specific. — MarkH₂₁^talk 17:20, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Go for it.
    - I was halfway through creating a split to Zoonoses in live animal markets when I found the existing article Wildlife smuggling and zoonoses. Those two articles would be very similar in scope, I'm thinking that a better solution now would be to move some of the content here to Wildlife smuggling and zoonoses (which barely mentions COVID-19) and then trim the section here. — MarkH₂₁^talk 08:44, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - OK, there may be an issue in that the target article covers 2 subjects but that's not our concern in this GAN. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:51, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Right, but my point was that rather than move content from here to create Zoonoses in live animal markets, which would be a merge candidate for Wildlife smuggling and zoonoses, I could instead move content from here to a section in Wildlife smuggling and zoonoses directly. — MarkH₂₁^talk 08:56, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Yes, that's what I understood. Go right ahead. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:28, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Done Moved content from Wet markets#Wildlife markets and zoonoses into Wildlife smuggling and zoonoses#Zoonoses in wildlife markets and Wildlife smuggling and zoonoses#Prevention and management, and subsequently trimmed. — MarkH₂₁^talk 10:07, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The "Media coverage" section clearly relates specifically to COVID, and should be grouped with that section. Since that section is already arguably overweight, I think that means merging the sections, followed by splitting out "Wet markets and COVID" article as discussed above.
- Agree, this resolution is dependent on what happens on the above bullet point so I'll just focus on that one. — MarkH₂₁^talk 17:20, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Done Merged into the Wet market#COVID-19 section. — MarkH₂₁^talk 08:33, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

~~The article is richly cited to good sources; if there is a concern there at all, it would be that the China section is over-cited.~~
- The China section (post-split) now has bunches of six or seven refs together; it might be worth grouping those as single refs (containing multiple citation templates). Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:02, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Done — MarkH₂₁^talk 08:16, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

~~The images are basically all appropriate, but I expect (per the above) that the China and Hong Kong images will be reduced in number to match the (probably) reduced text.~~
- Done Now just one each for the China and Hong Kong sections. — MarkH₂₁^talk 08:17, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

~~The Brazil photo should be the same size as the rest.~~
- Done — MarkH₂₁^talk 17:20, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Summary

Many thanks, both, for getting this over the line. I'm pleased by the article's progress through the GAN cycle and am satisfied that the article is now focused, properly cited, and suitably informative on the topic. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:05, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]