Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Opisthocoelicaudia/archive1

Opisthocoelicaudia is a genus of sauropod dinosaur of the Late Cretaceous discovered in the Nemegt Formation in what is now the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. Named and described by Polish paleontologist Maria Magdalena Borsuk-Białynicka in 1977, the type species is Opisthocoelicaudia skarzynskii. A well-preserved skeleton lacking only the head and neck was unearthed in 1965 by Polish and Mongolian scientists, making Opisthocoelicaudia one of the best known sauropods from the Late Cretaceous. Tooth marks on this skeleton indicate that large carnivorous dinosaurs had fed on the carcass. Two more specimens have been found, including part of a shoulder and a fragmentary tail. A relatively small sauropod, Opisthocoelicaudia measured about 11.4–13 metres (37–43 ft) in length. Like other sauropods, it would have been characterised by a small head sitting on a very long neck and a barrel-shaped trunk carried by four column-like legs. It may have been able to rear on its hind legs. (Full article...)

Resolved comments by Squeamish Ossifrage

Looking primarily at the references and reference formatting here. In terms of providing a comprehensive literature survey, this looks pretty solid.

First round of reference format checks

Check that IPA pronunciation, because it does not look right to me (and probably needs a primary stress indicator as well). Done Quite a few references (Packard, Paul, Salgado, probably others) are manually formatted instead of being handled by a citation template. That's fine, but the manual entries don't match the formatting, resulting in problems across the board: author name order, publisher location formatting, journal volume bolding. See especially the difference between references 3 (Anderson) and 4 (Packard), both from the Journal of Zoology but formatted very differently (in my opinion, reference 4's formatting is simply incorrect). Some of these, like Salgado, may have further problems, but standardizing formatting will resolve many and reveal the rest. Done The Paul reference needs an ISBN. So does Maryańska. Probably others, so check throughout. Done In general, ISBNs shoud ideally be presented as properly-hyphenated ISBN-13s. Use this tool as necessary. Done You give publication locations for some but not all book sources; they are optional, but they're all or nothing. Done The Upchurch reference should probably read "2nd" rather than "2." for its edition. Done Several of the journal references are missing page ranges (see: Kielan-Jaworowska 1968, Gradziński). Done

Second pass

Neutral on promotion on reference grounds at this time. This is well-sources, but there have clearly been several waves of sourcing by different editors, and the inconsistencies and missing bibliographic information are a problem. That said, it's a resolvable problem, I think. No prose or image review performed at this time. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 17:04, 12 August 2015 (UTC) Hi Squeamish Ossifrage, thanks for the review! You are right, the references were a mess. I did check every single one, I hope I have not missed anything (if so, let me know)! As for the IPA pronunciation, I tried to correct it, but I'm no native speaker – could you please check if its correct now? For an pronunciation example, see here: [1]. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:54, 13 August 2015 (UTC) Made another pass through the references for formatting checks. This is much better, but there's still some improvement possible. I'll try to get back this way in the next few days to look at prose too. Because, really, who doesn't love dinosaurs? Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 20:12, 13 August 2015 (UTC) Ref 1: [D]inosaurs, for title case. Done Ref 5: This is cited as |series=37, but that's not correct. It should be |volume=37 and |issue=5. Done Ref 6: Ideally, convert this ISBN-10 to ISBN-13. See also reference 11, 13, 28. Done Ref 8: This citation is incomplete. There seem to have been partial and/or abstract prints of this article in two different versions of the same Argentine journal. I really don't know how to fix this without knowing what was consulted. Done Ref 13: Ideally, provide the page range for this chapter/section. Done Ref 16: Palaeontologia Polonica doesn't have separate volume and issue numbers; by convention, when there's just the one, it's always treated as volume. This affects the formatting in this reference and in reference 21 (but is correct in reference 25). Done Ref 25: Although Google Scholar disagrees with me, I think this publication date should be 1969. That's what the Palaeontologia Polonica archives give as the year of publication for volume 21, and its what is cited here as the year for a later article in the same volume, in reference 21. If there's a copy of this that actually says 1970, then my confusion transfers smoothly to the reference 21 article (but I don't think there is!). Done Ref 27: [G]ondwanan. It's this way in the original, which is nice, since that's also correct. Done Hi Squeamish Ossifrage, thanks again for all the hints, I have fixed everything now. Looking forward to your prose review! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:10, 14 August 2015 (UTC)