Talk:Seychellum

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Seychellum/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 21:45, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Just claiming this one now- I enjoyed your last article, so I'd love to do more of the same! J Milburn (talk) 21:45, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

• Considering the article title is the genus, could we perhaps focus on the genus a little more? Open with the genus, as opposed to the species? See Rhodotus or Lavanify for examples where this is done (but, if you prefer, keep as-is- FAs including Pennatomys do it similar to how you do).

• I think this is largely semantics. Although the definition of the genus and the species are not necessarily the same, they define the same group of animals. In every useful sense for the reader, the genus is the species. Nomenclaturally, they differ, but the ecology, description, distribution, and so on are by definition identical. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

• "granitic high islands" Links?

•  Done. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:14, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

• Is there no more description available? Don't be scared to get technical, provided it is not too jargon-y.

•  Done. Rathbun's (synonymous) description provided some details. My Google Translate–aided reading of the French description suggests that they said the same things, just in a much more verbose way. Rathbun was brilliantly terse. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:14, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

• "in the genus Deckenia, D. alluaudi; the" The punctuation doesn't seem right here

• Seems OK to me. One could use a colon or a dash instead of the comma, I suppose. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

• "Seychellum alluaudi is the only truly freshwater crab in the Seychelles; all the other true crabs in the islands have marine larvae.[3]" Could this perhaps not be added to an ecology section, along with issues like predators and food?

• These details haven't cropped up in the sources I've seen. They all seem to concentrate on the biogeographical conundrum, and seem happy to assume that the species' ecology is pretty normal for a freshwater crab. Ecological studies often lag behind the raw taxonomy, and this seems to be a case in point. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

• "D. imitatrix" Why haven't you linked?

•  Done. I probably left the link off because I knew that Deckenia imitatrix is currently merged in to Deckenia. It should of course be linked, for if/when it gets split off again. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:14, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

• "That taxon is now considered a subfamily of the larger family Potamonautidae, and Seychellum is again considered a part of it.[2]" Who do we have to thank for that? Why was it brought back?

•  Done. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

• I'd personally put the taxonomy at the top, with conservation status at the bottom. I'm not aware of a specific guideline on this, but we could probably find one; I just follow the likes of Sasata and Ucucha.

• I always prefer to put the taxonomy lower down, because I'm sure it's the section the average reader cares least about. I would be open to moving the Biogeography section to above Taxonomy; I suspect the main reason for not doing so was to improve the image layout. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

• You vary how you refer to the redlist ratings between "Least Concern", Least Concern and Least Concern. I don't really mind too much, but consistency is good.

•  Done. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

• "two species of Deckenia from the African mainland, which together form the subtribe Deckeniina." Subfamily?

• Subtribe is correct here; Deckeniinae would be the subfamily. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

• "bilobed form of the last segment of the mandibular palp, which had been used to argue for a close relationship between Seychellum and Indian crabs of the family Gecarcinucidae, does not appear to be a reliable phylogenetic character." Suddenly very technical- rephrase/links? (Also, these kind of details may belong in the description section?)

•  Done, I think. I have changed "bilobed form" to "two-lobed shape", which is probably easier for the reader; hopefully that's enough to counterbalance "mandibular palp", for which I can't see a good way of simplifying. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:14, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

• Can we have a year for ref 3?

•  Done. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

• Language parameter on ref 6?

•  Done; I've also added a translation of the title. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

• Can we have a subcategory of Category:Animals by year of formal description?

• Already present on the species redirect. This is one of the few facets where the species is different from the genus. Category:Animals by year of formal description is explicitly a subcategory of Category:Species by year of formal description, and Seychellum cannot be categorised as a species. The correct place for the category is on the redirect Seychellum alluaudi. I standardised this across all animals a little while ago; I think I made a start on the plants, too, and I believe fungi are starting to be treated the same way. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Generally looking good, but I think there may be a little more to say. Shame about the lack of illustration, but I can't say I'm surprised! No diagrams we can nab from any of the older sources? J Milburn (talk) 00:24, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I have just found the original description online. Its figure is credited to "Richard"; in the absence of any further information, I might assume that the artist died more than 70 years ago (which is true for Milne-Edwards, but not for Bouvier, nor Rathbun as it happens), making the work public domain. I will also try to get some more morphology out of the paper; 19th-century French is not my strong point, so it may take a few days! --Stemonitis (talk) 07:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

If the paper was published before 1923, it's public domain; if it was first published in the US, it can be uploaded to Commons, but, if not, it can be uploaded locally with {{PD-US-1923-abroad}} and {{Do not move to Commons}}. J Milburn (talk) 10:22, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

That's brilliant – I didn't know that applied.  Done! --Stemonitis (talk) 10:46, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Fantastic, that's a great picture! J Milburn (talk) 11:44, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Second read through

Loving the expansion; a couple of issues remain (or are now present):

• The lead looks a little short. I think it could afford to be twice as long as it is now.

•  Done. Your guess was a good one; it has turned out to be just over a twofold expansion. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:14, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

• The description section mentions names without providing context (this would perhaps be a reason to put taxonomy first, though your reasoning for putting it lower is solid- I have no objection to it appearing lower in the article if that is how you prefer it)

•  Done. Although it's already mentioned in the lead, I have clarified in the body that Deckenia is the "closest relative" of Seychellum. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:27, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

• What colour is it?

• I specifically meant "Rathbun", although that is a good addition. J Milburn (talk) 08:24, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

•  Done. Colour tends not to be used as a defining character for Crustacea, because it fades quite quickly in alcohol, and so can't be seen in museum collections. Fortunately, Milne-Edwards and Audouin Bouvier did make passing mention, which I have quoted in full, and translated. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:27, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

• "At the time, the only other species in the genus was D. imitatrix from the coast of East Africa, and a second species, also from East Africa, was added in 1898.[2]" Why not name the second species?

•  Done. Named, and linked. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:27, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

• You don't mention Deckeniina in the taxonomy section- it's relevant, surely?

• Hmm. I'm not sure about this. I think everyone recognises that Deckenia and Seychellum are close, but differ in how to represent that in the classification. Cumberlidge et al. (2008) use subtribe Deckeniina; Ng et al. (2009) do not use tribes anywhere, but do indicate that Deckenia+Seychellum may need to be recognised as a separate subfamily; De Grave et al. (2009) recognise that group as the subfamily Deckeniinae. I don't think that's something the article wants to get into, so I thought it best simply to remove the clause "which together form the subtribe Deckeniina". --Stemonitis (talk) 07:27, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

• "mandibular palp" is still a little jargony. Is there somewhere we can link to, maybe?

•  Done. I have redirected mandibular palp to a section in mandible (arthropod mouthpart) which goes some way to explaining this. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:27, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

• Again, I'd be inclined to go with "conservation status" at the bottom. Wikipedia:WikiProject Animals/Article template, which, admittedly, doesn't look great, goes for it, but I'm suggesting it because it is generally the way articles are structured by other writers on similar topics- Ucucha, Visionholder, Yzx and so on. If you're happy with it where it is, I'm not going to force it- I've got no right to claim that my way is better than yours.

•  Done. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:27, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

If you can resolve the above issues, I'd be happy to promote. J Milburn (talk) 22:30, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Looking again, the article's looking fantastic; near enough the epitome of a good article. Great work; I'm going to promote at this time. I look forward to seeing more of your articles at GAC! J Milburn (talk) 22:54, 14 December 2011 (UTC)