Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Laika

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[edit] Laika

Self-nomination. I've done a lot of updates to this article recently and it is an interesting story. Laika was the first living creature in space Zerbey 17:22, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

• Support. Object. There is too much missing from the story, e.g. the training, the feelings of her handlers, the news stories, the equipment. It also needs another photo, perhaps of a postage stamp or the plaque. It's a rather short article. --Yath 19:20, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  Even though it's kind of short, I don't know whether more material is available. And it is pretty well-rounded. --Yath 21:56, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Support. I doubt if there was any significant training for the stray from the streets of Moscow. The Soviet Union didn't provide so much detail in their news. I'm impressed to see so much on the top dog. Captions could use some work. -- ke4roh 16:18, Jun 30, 2004 (UTC)
• Following suggestions by other users, I've added the requested updates and tidied up the article. Feedback would be appreciated. --Zerbey 20:48, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Small objection: Image credits: What makes the stamp PD in the US - Are we sure it wasn't protected under Berne once the US signed that? Is the Sputnik 2 image actually produced by NASA (hence PD) or someone else's that was on their site? Same for the image of Laika - David Gerard 21:26, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • The Sputnik 2 image appears on NASA's website with no attribution, it appears on several other websites captioned as a mockup of Sputnik 2 on display in a museum in Russia. It appears to be public domain. I have corrected the attribution on Laika, this was also taken from NASA's website. The stamp picture also appears to be public domain and appears on many web sites about Laika, but I will try and find out if it is definitely OK to use. I'm investigating all pictures to make sure they are PD. --Zerbey 21:53, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • Found [1]. How annoying. But I'm sure Philip Clark doesn't own them either. The article definitely needs pics, probably these pics ... do we have any readers based in Russia? - David Gerard 22:05, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
      • Copyright solved: as per Wikipedia:Copyright issues, "Soviet Union (pre-1973): Soviet copyright laws are non-retroactive, and all Russian works published prior to May 27, 1973 remain unprotected outside the former Soviet Union." The clearly Soviet pics are clearly PD. - David Gerard 23:48, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Support. Neutrality 03:59, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• SupportAvala 19:19, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Object. 1) One of the scientists said, "We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of a dog" — what exactly did the scientists learn from the mission? The article could do with some discussion of this. 2) The lead needs to summarise the entire article, including the controversy about how the dog died. 3) "In Russia and elsewhere, it sparked a debate on animal cruelty." — I think we should attempt to provide a brief summary of this debate. 4) "References to Laika" should be merged with "External links" 5) " Laika's final voyage was as a shooting star in the night sky." — this is a tad sentimental / slushy for an encyclopedia article; could we reword it? 6) Russian Space Dogs discuss Laika and say that "She was also known as Zhuchka ("Little Bug") and Limonchik ("Lemon")."and "She died between five and seven hours into the flight"; this information isn't included in the main Laika article. 7) There's internal links in

the external links section. 8) "It sparked a debate across the globe on the mistreatment of animals to advance science" — was this the first / one of the earliest / a well-known reactions to animal testing in science? 9) There's too much information about Sputnik 2 in this article; we have a separate article on the spacecraft itself, we only need at most one paragraph. 10) There's information about Laika in the Sputnik 2 article that's not present in the Laika article. — Matt 16:57, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

• • Updates have been added to the article which should address your concerns --Zerbey 16:23, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • Hmm, I've still a few issues, I'm afraid. — Matt 16:57, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)
      • 1) This is addressed at the end of the article, 2) Lead has been reworded to include the requested information, 6) Alternate names have been added, but the rest is already in the article, 7) fixed, 8) I couldn't find any more on this! Any other Sputnik buffs out there who can help out?, 9) This has been condensed, 10) More information please, I can't see anything relevant in the Sputnik 2 article that is not included in the main Laika article. --Zerbey 18:55, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)
        • OK, I think most of these are covered between your and my changes. Re: "8" — it's just that Laika seems to be an important? early? example in the history of the debate over Animal testing, and it would be good to go into that in a little more detail. I'll "unobject" on this point, though. — Matt 19:38, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Support, but a couple of small comments: 1) The stamp doesn't look Russian to me, as it's not using a cyrillic alphabet; 2) I don't think there is a need to summarise the debate on animal cruelty directly, but I'd like to see a link to a Wikipedia article on vivisection, and would suggest that such an article include a ( brief ) note on Laika's contribution to the vivisection debate. IM.
  • The stamp turns out to be Albanian. How annoying. And Albanian law is closer to European law. More research is indeed needed. - David Gerard 13:55, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • It turns out, after research, that Russia never had an image of Laika the space dog on a stamp. Apparently, there's also a breed of dogs called Laika that have feature, but they look different (Laika was a mongrel). They did have an image of Sputnik 2, however. She has appeared on numerous other items, such as posters, toys, clothing, cigarette packets, etc so I'll put one of those up. --Zerbey 15:49, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • A new section has been added that covers the vivisection debate, the stamp has been replaced with a different memorial and is definitely Russian this time. --Zerbey 14:38, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Object. 1. We could do with a Russian Cyrillic alphabet spelling of Laika (and possibly Kudryavka) (and if this was to be a Wikipedia:Perfect article, Zhuchka and Limonchi as well!). 2. How famous is Laika among real dogs? I'm trying to think of other famous, non-fictional dogs, but I can't think of any (Lassie go home...). Surely Laika isn't the world's most famous dog? 3) What's a "Blok A" core? Could we mention what it is in the article? — Matt 02:58, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • I've no idea what a Blok A core is, and it's beyond the scope of this article anyway, I've rephrased this section. --Zerbey 17:52, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • If you can't think of any, that doesn't mean it's the nominator's job to try to concoct some. We are, after all, working to Wikipedia:What is a featured article, rather than necessarily Wikipedia:The perfect article. (Though you've done a hell of a lot for the article yourself.) I'll see if I can turn up the Cyrillic - David Gerard 10:59, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • Sorry, the objection was phrased badly; let me try again. The article really should mention how famous a dog Laika is compared to other canines and animals. As an aside, I've a suspicion that she's the most famous real-life dog ever, but I wanted to check that before adding it, hence the somewhat speculative wording. — Matt 13:16, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
      • I should have something for you later, I already had plans to add this to the article. We're getting dangerously close to TMI here, though.. Added some other famous dogs. --Zerbey 17:23, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
        • Object. The list of famous dogs doesn't belong here, but should probably appear in the general dog article. Other than that the article is excellent. 81.168.80.170 21:25, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
          • I've removed it (again), following discussion in #wikipedia the general consensus seems to be it's not worth using but I'd appreciate Matt's comments as well. Maybe this discussion should be moved to the article's talk page? See talk page for more. --Zerbey 22:36, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)