Talk:Ctenophora/GA1

GA Review

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This review may take some time, since I'm quite busy. I'll ce as I go along, so please check that you are happy with my changes. Here goes jimfbleak (talk) 14:50, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• The Ctenophora (pronounced /tɨˈnɒfərə/), commonly known as comb jellies, is a - "jellies" followed by "is" reads oddly, can this be rephrased?

Changed to "are", how did I miss that? --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• ''in all types of marine waters worldwide. - Do you need "all types"?

removed. --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

*millimeters to 1.5 metres - mixing BE and AE spelling

I usually write AE except on specifically Brit topics, so changed to AE. {{convert}} defaults to BE / French, but I've now forced the AE option. --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

*Beroe is a disamb page

Unlinked all. The only relevant article is Nuda, but that's a comically literal translation from German WP, so I'm not even going to set up Beroe (ctenophores) as a redir to Nuda. --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• cydippid is used from the word go with no link or gloss - I don't know what it means.

It's explained in the lead ("cydippids with egg-shaped bodies and a pair of retractable tentacles"). Section "Description" says "At least two textbooks base their descriptions of ctenophores on the cydippid Pleurobrachia" (incl unsuccessful w-link), and the first sub-section shows a diagram of Pleurobrachia. I could resolve the redlink by knocking up a quick cut-n-paste article, but would not spend more than 30 mins. Main contents would be very brief description (poss shorter than here unless a full cut-n-paste works) plus the phylogeny, to point out that cydippids are considered paraphyletic and the LCA of extant ctenophores was a cydippid. What do you think? --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

At the first occurrence, (in the lead) where it needs explaining, I took cydipppid to be a descriptive term, like egg-shaped - perhaps simply changing to the cydippids would avoid misreading by the likes of me jimfbleak (talk) 05:39, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

"the cydippids" makes it look like the word denotes a useful classification, and that turns out not to be the case. If neither of us can think of a better solution, I'll create & link to a quick cut-n-paste article. --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, stet

• At six paragraphs, the lead seems over-long

Six?

I wondered why I was still counting on one hand! jimfbleak (talk) 05:39, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Phyla are big subjects with a lot of aspects. The GA reviews of Arthropod and Chelicerata explicitly concluded it was best to WP:IAR, after a second opinion in the case of Talk:Arthropod/GA1. The reviewer of Mollusca accepted it w/o comment (that was when it had 5 paras - another editor has since gone OTT dividing paras). Ditto Talk:Cnidaria/GA1. OTOH I got a little ribbing at Talk:Flatworm/GA3. --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• favorable - are you writing in AE or BE? most units appear to be BE

Despite being a Brit, I got into the habit of AE on non-UK subjects because most editors seem to use AE. --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• ''basement membranes; muscles; nervous systems - I don't like the semi-colons, what's wrong with commas?

No fair quoting "basement membranes" - the full wording of that item is "cells bound by inter-cell connections and carpet-like basement membranes; ...". I could replace the middle group with " muscles and nervous systems;" although that's just an arbitrary trick. --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• there is a lot of over-linking throughout, not only of technical terms, but also words like "stomach" and "muscle" which I'm not sure need linking at all. jimfbleak (talk)
• center AE?...

Yup. --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• up to 2 millimetres ...BE

AE now. --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• Symmetry and axes - is it worth having a separate section for three lines?

I think the only section in which it would fit decently would be the top-level "Description" one - what do you think? --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

That's where I'd put it, but not a big deal if you prefer as is jimfbleak (talk) 05:39, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Have to stop for now, more tomorrow jimfbleak (talk) 15:19, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Jim, thanks for reviewing this. --Philcha (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• Ranging from about 1 millimetre (0.039 in) to 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) in size BE/AE
• The table appears out of the blue - it could do with an introductory sentence, or perhaps better a title row (see puffin or nuthatch) just to explain that it's comparing these groups.

Captioned "Comparison with other major animal groups" - can't say "phyla" because "Bilateria" embraces so many. --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• Mnemiopsis, Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction Mexican wave and monophyletic are redirects

They all link to the targets I intended, and the link phrases are appropriate in this context. Taking them one a at a time:

Mnemiopsis - first use refers to the genus as one of the 3 that are well-studied. There's no article on the genus, but it appears to be monospecific. I have no intention of creating one on the genus, as the articles on high-level animal taxa are not ends in themselves for me, they're part of my dastardly master plan to take over the world. --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

"Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction" is the common term even in scientific literature, I don't know why WP added the superfluous "event" to the titles of extinction articles and it would only puzzle readers - and in some cases it's inappropriate, e.g. the Late_Devonian_extinction#Duration_and_timing_of_the_extinction_events was quite protracted. --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

"Mexican wave" is the only name I've seen or heard for the behaviour, "Audience wave" sounds like it was invented by someone who thinks "encyclopedic" = "bland". --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I see no problem with "monophyletic". --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I prefer to pipe rather than have redirects myself, but as long as you've thought it through, that's fine jimfbleak (talk) 15:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• Leucothea please check this link

Good catch. I've unlinked, depriving readers of the opportunity to ogle the classical totty. --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Too late, I've already ogled! jimfbleak (talk) 15:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• An unusual species any reason not to name it?

Not yet named, see Mills' estimate of recognized but undescribed and therefore unnamed cteno species. This is one of the least well-studied animal phyla, because it's so hard to capture & preserve them. Arachnologists also have a naming backlog, but mainly caused by the huge diversity of rain-forest spiders. --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Oops, found it. --Philcha (talk) 09:26, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• up to 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) and 90 centimetres (3.0 ft) long respectively. ...sigh

Sigh indeed. I've forced all the {{convert}}s to use AE - I hope. --Philcha (talk)

• forced image sizes override user preferences, so I've removed them from the non-annotated images

I wish you hadn't done that. The "no image resizing" part of MOS does not apply to GAs, it's one of the most controversial parts of MOS and IMO one of its dumbest - I won't bore you (any further). --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, not a big deal - in fairness, I normally do this for images set at larger sizes jimfbleak (talk) 15:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• mollusc x 2 - this is BE. First para of prey section also has several redirects

See discussion at Talk:Mollusca#Titling, even American scientists use a "c". --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• [[Vendobionta]], porifera, Calcarea - redirects

porifera & Calcarea do the right thing.

Vendobionta's tricky. I'm tempted to changed the current redir to target the specific section Ediacara biota#New phylum. What do you think? --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

leave as if if you wish jimfbleak (talk) 15:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• ref 10 has an equals sign in it

Removed. --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• still heavily overlinked, sometimes with multiple linking even within a section, and unnecessary links too - would anyone reading this need animal muscle or stomach to be explained?

I've just checked through and found no "multiple linking even within a section" - what have I missed? --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Re the rest, it all depends on how much prior knowledge we expect of readers. I generally set my target as a bright 12-year old, because I think that's where general encyclopedias are most useful. By that standard I may have under-linked, e.g. no link to cell (biology). I've set up a heading below where we can discuss these case-by-case. --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Obviously a thoroughly researched and competent piece of work. For future reference, I'd be inclined to avoid "however" and "in addition" when they are just padding, check BE/AE, and avoid such heavy repetition of wikilinks. I'm not sure that I would have left so many red links - if there isn't an existing article and it's not essential to have one, I wouldn't link at all, but that's up to you. As before, I've done some copyediting, please check. I look forward to signing this off soon, jimfbleak (talk) 06:49, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your copyedits, thanks. --Philcha (talk)

What to wikilink?

This can get complex, and depends on the amount of prior knowledge we should expect of readers: --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I think there are two issues

1. Overlinking: taking just two examples, Mnemiopsis is linked at least three times, and pharynx at least five times. I suspect that anyone who had to look up what pharynx meant in every section would either have attention deficit or quite severe dyslexia. To me this seems OTT
2. What to link - this is just personal preference. I would try to avoid linking common words like stomach, animal or even US unless there was a good reason to do so, but you can ignore this point completely.

I'm obviously going to pass this anyway, but I'd like to leave the formal assessment until you have had a chance to read my latest comments and this paragraph. It's not a deal-breaker, but I'd just be interested to know why you, as a very experienced GA reviewer, have a completely different approach to linking jimfbleak (talk) 15:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

My first GA was a chess article, and there the convention appears to be link the first occurrence in each section, unless the sections are pretty short. In addition I prefer not to assume that readers will read the whole article from top to bottom - especially as phylum articles are long and complex (or is that just the way I make them?) - see How Users Read on the Web. --Philcha (talk) 21:08, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I assume mine are such gripping prose that readers can't stop {: OK, let's do it

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail: