Talk:Megalosaurus

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GA Review

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

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 19:05, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm happy to take on what looks to be an interesting article.

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Prose: needs work, see comments; Copyright: seems ok; Spelling, grammar: see comments
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Lead: needs to reflect contents; Layout: ok; Weasel: ok; Fiction: n/a; Lists: suggest splitting out, see comments. --- move to end has improved readability
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	See comments.
	2c. it contains no original research.	No sign of it.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	Lists need attention, see comments.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	Reasonable stability in recent months.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	All from Commons.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	This article has now reached the threshold for GA status. I suspect that splitting of the Carrano references and the removal of the large species list would be necessary to get past a posse of FA reviewers. Had I known the size of club that would be needed to despatch this mega-beast of a GA, I might not have bothered, but there is no doubt the article is in better shape now than when we started. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:54, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• There are some infelicities of style, e.g. "was in 1869 by Thomas Huxley assigned to M. bucklandii." and "It was in the second edition of The Dinosauria by mistake spelled". There are other cases too.

Sorry for being late, but i was busy. Hopefully got to all of these. Iainstein (talk) 23:33, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

• It would be better to have a section (something like 'Etymology and naming') to describe how it was named and what the Greek means, rather than scattering it across the lead and other sections.

Sectioned

• Could each historic image please include its date in its caption, and where possible the artist. The provenance of each fossil might also be of interest to readers.

Took a while but done.

• The jaw fragment is sometimes called 'dentary' and sometimes 'lower jaw'. Is there a reason for this?

The dentary (see: File:Spinosaurus skull en.svg) is only part of the lower jaw.

Perhaps this needs to be explained very briefly (e.g. 'the dentary (a bone of the lower jaw)...'), as the article gave the appearance of using different terms for the same fossil. Please note that if a piece of text has misled one reader, it may do the same for others.

Labelled once at first appearance in article.

• The lead section probably needs to be rewritten to some extent to reflect the drift of the sections of the article.

Rewritten how? The etymology and age and group always goes first, followed by the next most interesting info, Description, for historic dinos, History, Naming, Classification, in whatever order.

I didn't feel it covered the article without I'm afraid analysing why I had that impression. Perhaps the main reasons for this were these: it seems the only true Megalosaurus is only found in Oxfordshire, which might be worth stating directly. The vagueness of the phylogeny for an extended period - I guess that's the reason so many species were suggested for the genus - seems to need a mention also. Robert Plot and Richard Brookes' early conjectures are interesting and were not mentioned. The early reconstructions by Buckland and Owen were influential on both geologists and the public via the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs; that might be worth stating and wikilinking in the lead also. Most of these issues could be fixed by an additional history paragraph in the lead,.

• The 'Species' section (with its long subsections) is problematic as being long, technical, and consisting of many almost unconnected facts. It should probably be hived off as a separate list article (or more than one) rather than trying to treat the list of facts as text, leaving behind a shorter, more readable summary of the key points in a connected story, with a '{{main|List of Megalosaurus species}}' (or whatever, choose a better name) link. The language too is awkward; 'preoccupied' means 'busy thinking' to most people, so 'by a mite' comes as a shock ('had already been used for a mite' would solve that, but the larger issue remains). The key point is that Wikipedia has a general readership, and dinosaur articles should be (highly) accessible.

A wise man warned me that this might happen. I think it would be better if this is left in the article for the sake that a lot of people seem to remember species of Megalosaurus that have since been reassigned and if it does not say in the article what happened to them they may be discouraged instead of being shown what became of the species. I will try to make the layout more reader friendly but I will leave some terms (like "preoccupied") in the article for their merrit. If you want to see an extremely reader friendly article on megalosaurus maybe you could expand the simple wiki article a bit more.Iainstein (talk) 00:20, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree. Kindly do not patronise me with talk of Simple or make such inferences. The reader we should have in mind is a person who is intelligent, likes reading about science but is not a palaeontologist. We need to split out the list, leaving being a paragraph or two of clear text for the general reader summarising the list and explaining the key points of interest, perhaps with a couple of examples, in other words using 'summary style'.

Well, the article is about the genus Megalosaurus. What species have been named in a particular genus is the most important part of the encyclopaedic information that can be given about a genus. A genus is, after all, basically nothing but a set of species. That's bloody boring of course when the number of species is high, but it can't be helped. The list as such cannot be meaningfully summarised, except in a very trivial way, like "x species were named, y in the 19th and z in the 20th century". Why dinosaur articles in particular should be highly accessible, is beyond me. If people are especially interested in some subject, they are probably happy to be presented with correct information, even when they would have to get acquainted with the concepts needed to understand it.--MWAK (talk) 14:30, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Could we please drop the 'highly accessible' bit now, that point has been made twice but it is not my meaning. The article requires the normal readability of a global encyclopedia for a general readership for GA status, which it currently does not have, and won't have with the list here. If you can't summarize the list, simply move it out and leave a link behind.

Just to chime in, looking at other dinosaur FAs, long species history sections do seem to be the norm. Especially in a waterbasket taxon like this, it would be essential, but the section could maybe be moved further down as a compromise? FunkMonk (talk) 15:40, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I have examined several examples of lists in other articles, all much shorter than this one, so there is some kind of precedent for 'lumping' as well as plenty for 'splitting'. Since you people are clearly 'lumpers', and the article looks uncomfortable as it is, perhaps the simplest compromise is to move the species lists down to near the end of the article, just as when an author's long list of works is placed immediately before the References section. It is not what I'd consider right but it would be better than the current state. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:05, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Seems I spoke too soon, unilateral action has partially reverted the agreed move. I can see the reason, but the Popular culture section looks very strange, isolated after the long species lists. Why not just put that short section above Species? This has already been extensively discussed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:23, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

• "a limestone quarry (Stonesfield quarry) at Cornwell, near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England" could be simplified, e.g. to 'Stonesfield limestone quarry, Oxfordshire'.

Question, how many reviews have you completed? Not to discourage you, but if it is less than four I would suggest you asked for a second reviewer to find the minor details like spelling, grammar and flow.

The location does not need to be specified in that detail, as the Stonesfield link is sufficient. Also the link to the Taynton Limestone Formation should be explicit, not an 'Easter egg'. Have made the change.

It doesn't matter for GA, but the page reference style is not consistent, being sometimes like 5: 123–125, sometimes vol. 5: 123–125, sometimes p. 123–125 (that must be wrong) and sometimes pp. 123–125. Also there is sometimes a "." after the page number.

As the son of a typographer, I certainly agree with the last point :o).--MWAK (talk) 14:30, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

This might cause some comments, but for older refs with a name and a location (in brackets) behind the title, the name is the publisher (for some reason). Iainstein (talk) 17:58, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

It should clearly be fixed when possible, and would be a showstopper at FA. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:29, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

The following data are missing from the references:

* 1. Robert Plot: publisher missing * 6. Brookes - page still missing

• 7. Halstead. "Journal of Insignificant Research" Is that a reliable source? It is, even though the name hints it isn't

* 8. Gunther - page missing * 10. Parkinson - page missing * 11. Glut - page still missing * 16. Mantell - page missing * 17. Meyer - page missing

• 27. Carrano et al - the 27 refs to this paper all share the full 90-page range which might not be ideal for all readers. Perhaps more specific page ranges might be given as this is a very long paper - especially if you're hoping to move this on to FA at some stage.

* 30. Quenstedt - page missing (and page count appears to be listed for some reason) * 31. (Bulletin) Author and page missing * 44. Lennier - page missing * 38. von Huene - page missing * 44. Olshevsky - page missing * 67. Romer - page missing * 79. Lapparent - page missing * 80. Kuhn - page missing * 82. Steel - page missing * 79. Paul - page missing * 80. Probst - page missing * 81. Windolf - says Pp not pp * 83. Naish - reliable source? Seems to be a message. What is CMNH? Reliable * 88. Glendening - page missing * 89. OUMNH - dead link or server down today; title (and possibly author, date) of web page missing * 90. Norman - page missing * 93. Bonaparte - page missing * 96. Molnar - in other article-in-book refs you list page range then book details, here the reverse. * 97. Dickens - page missing (you might want to add a modern edition and give chapter and page) * 99. Knight - page missing * 100. IMDb ? Not a reliable source, and anyway the fact is not in citation given * 101. Rayner - page missing

It's traditional to give a page count when citing books.--MWAK (talk) 14:30, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Fine - I only mentioned it in case that optional field had been used in error as sometimes happens for the actual page number or page range, which is required for books, and in the case of very long papers like Carrano is probably necessary. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:47, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

In the last case, you mean we should list the article in a separate section and then cite it as "Carrano (2012) p. x"?

That would be one way; another would be to use {{rp|123–127}} or a similar format after each Carrano ref in the main text to add page numbers or ranges while only having it once in the list of refs. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:11, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

The rp style seems to be a very inappropriate way of citing specific pages. they were removed here and here by me and a discussion was made somewhere that they made the article confusing for the reader. Iainstein (talk) 16:04, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Please let's not criticize everything. For the record, I'm not advocating it, but it is clearly an allowable method (else, what's it for). 'Carrano (2012) p. 123' would be just fine, and I quite often use a short form ref myself. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:25, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

• Following discussion here[1], I looked a bit closer at the "pop culture" section, and I really do not think it is needed. Worse yet, it seems some of the text is not supported by the sources used. Would be better to just chop it out, a single mention in a single book doesn't warrant an entire section. FunkMonk (talk) 22:30, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I left for a bit, but back now. I think the pop culture section might as well be called "Appearance in Bleak House". It's not needed. Iainstein (talk) 01:43, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I think I fixed all the ref problems, but with the new page arrangement the ref #s are off. Will go through again. Iainstein (talk) 01:43, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Done, but the reviewer might disagree. Iainstein (talk) 18:00, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't, but for future reference, it's not a great idea to argue with 'the ref'. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:54, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

LOL and thanks for the review! Iainstein (talk) 15:05, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

FA time?

Seeing how much info is in the article, and how little info I know of isn't how about we try to get it to FA soon (preferably during the first round of wikicup 2014, which I am competing in, but whenever its ready is also fine. Also, there are two article that I nominated for GA that need reviewing). The only problem would be the older refs that have a name as the publisher, what should we do with them? Iainstein (talk) 16:50, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Keep in mind that much more dramatic changes may be proposed during such a review. And it is rarely fruitful to argue with FA reviewers. FunkMonk (talk) 20:16, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, it should be understood that a FA-proces would probably result in the total removal of the species section — which means that the article would become basically very flawed, given the historical function of the genus. The older references are just fine as they are: older books were often just brought to the printer without any company in the modern sense being involved.--MWAK (talk) 20:24, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

If that is so, should we even ever nominate it for FA, or at least until all species are reclassified (which might also be never)? Iainstein (talk) 00:00, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

One problem is that with a genus like this, where so little is known, and the history is very complicated, when FA people take a look at it, they would want most of it simplified, or cut out. Take a look at this FA I nominated once for example, which was hell to get through: [2] Unless you're very experienced with this sort of thing, and know all the FA tricks, it is likely to fail. I'd get some experience with less complicated articles first. This could need a new size comparison image, though. FunkMonk (talk) 09:41, 2 January 2014 (UTC) FunkMonk (talk) 00:18, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Awesome idea!!!!

I came up with a completely great idea. What If someone could code a template that would allow us to collapse the Species section, or the sections inside it, so that only people that want to see it can see it. Anyone here good a coding? Iainstein (talk) 14:56, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

This already exists and is used in the taxobox: the same code should work in the main text. MMartyniuk (talk) 17:22, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I think only the lists should be hidden, not the text. No one has complained aout that. FunkMonk (talk) 20:26, 7 February 2014 (UTC)