Wikipedia:Peer review/List of fatal bear attacks in North America/archive1

List of fatal bear attacks in North America

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I feel it is a solid list, and would like to know how else it can be improved. I have sourced every entry completely, found new entries, copyedited the descriptions, and expanded the lead. I've never gone for featured list before, and would like to be prepared.

Thank you, CutOffTies (talk) 04:56, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: This is an unusual list, interesting in a rather macabre fashion. I do however have a number of questions:-

• Why does the list begin with the 1870s? There must have been bear attacks before then. The reason for beginning the list from that point in time should be given in the lead, and reflected in the title, e.g. "List of fatal bear attacks in North America since 1870".

• • I realize the ambiguity regarding completeness it is a bit unusual for an encyclopedia article, and this is one of the reasons I'm bringing the article to Peer Review.
  • I collected all the documented instances I could find. There are a lot of different ways to modify the article to fit this. Perhaps it should start with the title. One thing I'm thinking of is limiting it to since the 20th century. The few entries in the 19th century don't have the strongest cites, and I see little potential for growth there, even though there were surely many fatal attacks before the 20th century. After I receive the journal article mentioned in the next paragraph, I will be confident that the list of documented attacks since the 20th century will be complete.

• You say this is a list of "known" fatal attacks by bears. Although you don't specifically say it, "known" implies "all known". Known by whom? Is there some central register that records these instances (I guess not, since you would have used it as a source)? So I am curious to know what was the basis of your research, how you located these press reports, and how you can substantiate the assertion that these are the "known" attacks - might there not be other press reports of other attacks that you have not located?

• • Obviously, this relates to my previous answer. I gathered most of the entries simply by doing exhaustive searching on google news archive and a library database. I also have a book by an expert in the field of bear attacks, Stephen Herrero. I've e-mailed him, and he told me that a soon to be published academic journal will have an complete list
  • "known" is most likely a bad word choice. Do you think "documented" is better?
  • Also, there's an "incomplete" list template that can appear at the top of the list, but I don't think that applies here, though I could see an argument as to why it should.

• I did some copyedits in the lead (which you have since large rewritten). Some of the prose explanations in the tables look in need of attention. For example:-
  • "pieces of a culvert" is odd terminology; "sections", perhaps?
• "The bear was trapped and tranquilized hours before, as part of a Grizzly Bear research team." Doesn't make sense.
• "After a bear got injured..." Ugly; "was injured"
• "After Lavoie didn't return to her cabin..." Don't use contractions ("failed to return")

These are a few examples. A thorough trawl through the prose is suggested.

• • Thank you, weak copy is my downfall, and I will put more work into this.

• For clarity, I would head the first two columns of each Table: "Victim's name, age, gender"; and "Date of attack". In the tables for the 1870s and 1880s "date" should read "year".

• • Good suggestions, thank you.

• The list would benefit from the use of images. Among those you could use are File:Polar Bear - Alaska.jpg, File:Canadian Rockies - the bear at Lake Louise.jpg, and File:Brown bear.jpg.

• • I don't want to use generic bear images, because this is a list about attacks. Very few bears attack humans. Murderer wouldn't use a generic image of a human being, correct? If I had an image of a bear who was involved in an attack, I would post it, but those are difficult to access.
  • I did complete work on this map, Template:Fatal Bear Attacks in Canada.. I plan on doing the same thing for the United States. Distinguishing wild/domestic attacks was important for me. I welcome your comments on images, as I realize this is another ambiguous issue with this list.

• Ref 98 ("He's bullish on bears") shows as a dead link on the checker tool, but I ws able to access it OK.
• Finally, you should ensure that your text does not represent too close a paraphrase of source texts, thus risking copyright violations. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.

As I am not able to watch peer reviews, please leave a message on my talkpage if you want to raise any issues with me arising from this review, or if you want me to look at it again. Brianboulton (talk) 16:51, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Hokeman comments: I created this article in 2006; and will try to use this space to respond to some of the questions Brianboulton has raised, as well as express some of my own thoughts. This was the second creation of five lists (Shark, Bear, Alligator, Cougar, Snake) relating to fatal animal attacks in North America or the USA. My intent in creating the first, List of fatal, unprovoked shark attacks in the United States, was to provide users a centralized, concise summary of what, when, where and how these attacks happened. This article, in particular, has benefitted from some terrific collaboration from many Wikipedians; none has contributed more than User:CutOffTies, who deserves special recognition. Well done.

The article begins around 1870 bacause that is probably the earliest attack for which information is readily available. Information on attacks that occurred in recent years in places like Yellowstone or Glacier NP's is generally readily available. Much harder to find is information on attacks in remote areas and/or that happened a long time ago.

With respect to the "known" paragraph, I don't know of any other central register. That was one of my goals in creating this article. I just started by googling phrases such as 'fatal bear attack', which led to articles. Sometimes, I would find a information about more than one attack in a source. Once I had names, dates, etc. I could find more information.

As far as putting photos in the article, I'm not sure what would be appropriate or not in poor taste. Maybe a photo of a bear in Yellowstone or Glacier NP.--Hokeman (talk) 06:30, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Additional comments:

• If as stated above, an academic journal is shortly to publish a complete list, it makes sense to defer work on this article until such a list is produced.
• While I understand your point about images, I don't think the analogy is altogether sound. We all know what humans look like, but not everybody knows exactly what bears look like, though we have some vague ideas. However, this is a point for you to decide. Brianboulton (talk) 00:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)