Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/November 4, 2019

"Cretoxyrhina was a large mackerel shark"

Cretoxyrhina was a genus of four species: can it make sense to say it was a large mackerel shark? In what sense is it singular? The same issue is present in "this genus was one of the largest sharks of its time". Kevin McE (talk) 12:47, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

It's not true that a species is one thing but a genus is a lot of things ... members of species are just as plural in number as members of genuses/genera are, and the same considerations that rule whether you can say "the species was" apply to genuses. I agree that there's room for misinterpretation, and we need to be careful, but this language is standard, both on and off Wikipedia (provided of course that all of the sharks in the genus match the given description.) - Dank (push to talk)

I think that it is understood that a species is a singular type (non-technical use of 'type'), in a way that a (non monotypic) genus is not. I do not believe it would be acceptable to write "Panthera is a large cat ... this genus is an apex predator". Kevin McE (talk) 13:21, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I've seen that in a number of instances in the public realm some polytypic genera are treated as if it were a single species; this is especially the case for extinct animals. But whether or not this is a correct usage is something I am unsure of. Macrophyseter | talk 05:07, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

"mackerel shark" is ambiguous: it can refer to a member of the order Lamniformes, or more restrictively to those in the family Lamnidae. The link will specify, but our text should be clear without recourse to other pages. Kevin McE (talk) 12:47, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any other common name we could use, and we generally use one common name if there is one. Common names are often ambiguous. - Dank (push to talk)

If there is not a clear and precise common name, then I think we should use a scientific one: a large shark of the Lamniforme order ... Kevin McE (talk) 13:21, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

How about "Cretoxyrhina is an extinct genus of mackerel shark"? I'm fine with common name so long as it links to the specific name (which, depending on platform, will display on hover-over). – Reidgreg (talk) 16:32, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Explicit reference to this being the genus neatly addresses the singularity issue above, and allows for the introduction of discussion of a particular species, but still within the scope of the article, below. What it doesn't address is the matter that it is a mackerel shark by one definition but not by another. I guess we are dependent on people not knowing what might be meant by a mackerel shark in the first place, but we have the situation where we are told it is a mackerel shark, and that it "bore a resemblance to the modern great white shark [probably the best known mackerel shark] in size, shape and ecology, but the two sharks are not closely related." Kevin McE (talk) 17:12, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

If mentioning the shark's placement within Lamniformes creates a sort of catch-22, I personally would just drop it altogether and refer to it as simply an extinct genus of shark.Macrophyseter | talk 05:07, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

"Cretoxyrhina is anatomically one of the best understood extinct sharks to date." The position of the adverb seems awkward: I have thought about other places to place 'anatomically' here, and none of them seem to work quite correctly. Maybe "Cretoxyrhina is better understood anatomically than most extinct sharks" Kevin McE (talk) 12:47, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

"better than most" isn't a good substitution for "one of the best". I don't think it's wrong as written. - Dank (push to talk) 02:35, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I wasn't convinced myself by 'better than most'. My main point is the positioning of the adverb: at present it is qualifying the nature of Cretoxyrhina rather than the verb understood.

The claim is not explicit in the article to guide us in the phrasing, and even as an implicit claim it can only be applied to one of the four species (thus failing your test above "provided of course that all of the sharks in the genus match the given description"). "The anatomy of C. mantelli is better understood than that of most extinct sharks, due to several 19th and 20th century fossil skeleton discoveries." Kevin McE (talk) 13:21, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm a little lost here. It might (or might not) help to pull in other copyeditors, at least as a first step. Gog and Reidgreg from WP:GOCE have been working on copyediting TFAs recently ... any thoughts? Like I say, I don't think I'm following the thread here. - Dank (push to talk) 14:17, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

How about "the species Cretoxyrhina mantelli is one of the anatomically best-understood extinct sharks to date." Specify the subject, group the compound modifiers and hyphenate for clarity. On review, I feel we can omit "anatomically" and "to date". – Reidgreg (talk) 16:32, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Does that work for you, Kevin? - Dank (push to talk) 17:07, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Looks fine as text, but I still don't see the explicit comparison with other extinct sharks in the article. It is implicit, and I don't doubt that it is true, but is that enough? Kevin McE (talk) 17:12, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I think it would be evident enough, probably shorten the scientific name mention to C. mantelli. Macrophyseter | talk 05:07, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Pinging the other participants from the TFAR: Spinningspark, Macrophyseter. Thoughts on the points above? - Dank (push to talk) 20:20, 30 October 2019 (UTC) Also pinging the FAC supporters: @Ichthyovenator, IJReid, FunkMonk, and Casliber. - Dank (push to talk) 20:37, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Made some of my opinions above. Macrophyseter | talk 05:07, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks much. I'll add a pointer to this discussion at ERRORS in 36 hours so we can get more people involved. - Dank (push to talk) 12:28, 31 October 2019 (UTC)