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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archaeoindris/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by GrahamColm 08:02, 6 October 2012 [1].

Archaeoindris edit

Archaeoindris (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): – Maky « talk » 19:04, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it is comprehensive and meets all the requirements. – Maky « talk » 19:04, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • Be consistent in whether you include locations for books
Done. – Maky « talk » 17:39, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Check formatting of quotes within quotes in titles. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:20, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure if I understand this one. Can you please give an example? – Maky « talk » 17:39, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"How big were the "giant" extinct lemurs of Madagascar?" should be "How big were the 'giant' extinct lemurs of Madagascar?". Nikkimaria (talk) 17:53, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Got it. – Maky « talk » 17:58, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments by Sasata (talk) 04:58, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the second largest and highly specialized genera of sloth lemurs." sentence is confusing –– the genus was the second largest? Shouldn't genera be the singular genus? What does "highly specialized" mean in this context? (ok, I figured it out from the text later on, but it's not so clear here; perhaps just leave out the highly specialized part?))
Good point. It's been fixed. – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • genus should be linked earlier (as "genera", although this might get changed per above)
Due to the previous fix, this isn't an issue any more. – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Three consecutive sentences in the 3rd paragraph conspicuously begin with "Its"
Fixed. – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done. – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • is Antoine Maurice Fontoynont notable enough for a redlink? How about Académie Malgache? (there's a stub in the French Wikipedia)
I've tried to create articles for Charles Lamberton and Herbert F. Standing, but like Standing, there is so little information about Antoine Maurice Fontoynont that I doubt I could write more than two or three sentences about him based on the sources. As for Académie Malgache, I've created a stub by translating the French article and adding a bit from a news article I found. Thanks for pointing it out. – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • link phylogeny
Done... though it feels odd adding a link to a table title... – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree; how about making it a caption instead of a title? Sasata (talk) 01:34, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I like it best as a title... We'll see what other reviewers say. – Maky « talk » 02:46, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure the average reader will know the word "speciose"; is there a way to reword?
Hmmm... seems like basic to me, taking the word species and appending the suffix "-ose". Anyway, I've replaced it in both places. – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "are stored in the collection at the University of Antananarivo." Stored in what collection?
Source did not say, otherwise I would have included it. Maybe say "a collection" (although the source says "the collection")? I assume it's the collection of subfossil lemur remains, but I've never seen it myself, nor do I know much about their collections. – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The mandible contains a complete dentition" Can dentition be used this way? It's defined as "The type, number, and arrangement of a set of teeth." and so seems to be a word used to describe teeth, rather than a synonym for "a set of teeth". Also, it's linked in the following sentence, but should be linked earlier.
I think I've seen it used this way (maybe even in the source for this sentence), but I'm fine with re-wording it. Done. – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • any chance you could stub Ampasambazimba, or tell us what kind of place it is (city, state, mountain?) (aha, I see later it's a subfossil site; could you mention this earlier?)
Added an explanation on first mention. I will look into creating a stub this evening... although I may wait until I can gather enough sources to write a proper article. – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • who was Alice Carleton? Martine Vuillaume-Randriamanantena? (redlink-worthy?) Also, can you confirm the spelling is Randriamanantena and not Randrianamanantena as per here.
As with Antoine Maurice Fontoynont above, there is practically nothing about Carleton. As for Martine Vuillaume-Randriamanantena, as far as I can tell, he wrote a few papers about Archaeoindris and maybe a few other subfossil lemurs, and then disappeared. There is nothing written about him by other people (except as citations). – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh... and I verified the spelling as Vuillaume-Randriamanantena: see the original paper. The source you pointed to spelled it both right and wrong on the same page (referencing the same work). My citation and usage is correct. – Maky « talk » 02:46, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think "and colleagues" is more reader-friendly than "et al." in article prose.
Done. – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Jungers et al. generated the current best estimate" How do we know the estimate is "best" if we don't know the actual value?
It's complicated... Basically, the midshaft of the bone bore a lot of stress from the animal's weight during life, and by measuring this (rather than the femoral head diameter, etc., it gives a much better estimate. I'm not really sure how to explain this without making the section horribly complicated and hard to follow... But I'll give it a try. Let me know if it's understandable. – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The jaw exhibits a long, robust mandibular symphysis (joining of the two halves of the lower jaw), which fuses early." early in what sense? (Developmentally? Spatially?)
Development—fixed. – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Like other sloth lemurs, it is thought to have experienced" "it is thought" is a bit weaselly and easily reworded
How about "it likely experienced..."? – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • link crown
Done. – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "suggest that it began processing fibrous foods in the mouth." Does "processing" mean chewing? What's the alternative, swallowing the leaves whole and starting "processing" in the stomach?
Yes, it means chewing... but chewing is the first stage of processing (digesting) food. We take this for granted because humans cook their food, have weak chewing muscles, and have severely reduced jaws and teeth. We basically do minimal chewing, just enough to break things up a little bit so that we can swallow. (Many people take it to the extreme and hardly chew at all.) The rest of our digestive tract does most of the work (though its efficiency is greatly improved by proper chewing). In contrast—particularly in animals that eat leaves—chewing is a much more important process. These animals will chew their food for much longer periods of time, and consequently have more robust jaws/teeth as well as massive chewing muscles. Anyway, I remember learning about "food processing" in basic biology. I've tried to tweak it, but I'm not really happy with the result... – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "However, given its bulky size, this would be surprising." "Surprising" suggests a degree of astonishment, a feeling that may or may not be felt depending on who might learn this; perhaps it's more neutral to use "unexpected"?
Good point and good suggestion. Fixed. – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • please give us the dates for the Late Quaternary
The source only says "Late Quaternary", and it seems sources claim that it's refers to the last .5 to 1 million years. I believe the oldest subfossils date to ~26k years ago. I'm not sure what to state without going beyond my source... – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would it be worthwhile mentioning that Gigantopithecus blacki was another fossil primate comparable in size (or even larger) than Archaeoindris? I think laypeople like reading about comparisons like that.
It would be, but none of my sources compare Gigantopithecus blacki to Archaeoindris. But from what I understand, only jaw bones have been found for Gigantopithecus, and not much if anything from the postcrania. If that's true, size comparisons are kind of pointless—considering what I said above about best estimates. (This will be more evident when I write about Megaladapis, which had an even larger skull and jaw than Archaeoindris, yet was smaller.) So I agree that it would be good to compare them, but I feel at this point such comparisons may be misleading. If my sources directly compared them, then I'd provide it. But since I would have to bring together separate sources for the comparison, I think it's best not to. – Maky « talk » 00:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This source quickly compares them (citing Simons, 1972, but I can't see p. 117 where this citation is). Sasata (talk) 01:34, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Good source. It's ambiguous enough, yet still makes the important point. I will include it now. Thanks for the review and support!

Support I think the article meets the FA criteria. Sasata (talk) 01:34, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments from Jim Nice article, comprehensive and engaging. No duplicate or dab links found. Just a few nitpicks before I support Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:56, 22 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Is there any way of rephrasing the opening paragraph of the lead to reduce the number of repeats of "extinct"?
I took out a couple of them. Better now? – Maky « talk » 20:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • multiple regression analyses — it would look more natural to me to pipe "multiple" into the link, but not a big deal
Done. – Maky « talk » 20:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • savanna — link?
Done, along with a few others. I can't link "bushlands" because the Wiki article for it is Australia-centric. – Maky « talk » 20:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • mistakenly attributed to Archaeoindris, resulting in mistaken interpretations ' — rephrase to avoid repetition?
Done. – Maky « talk » 20:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • lacked trichromatic color vision ' — how can you tell from bones?
I think this is based on what we know about the genetics behind color vision, so it's fairly safe to assume that these lemurs were similar to other lemurs in this regard. I'll have to check the source again tonight to see if there's more to it than that. I'll try to add a simple explanation if one is available. – Maky « talk » 20:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Material added. Hopefully the brief explanations and wikilinks make it understandable. – Maky « talk » 03:07, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • However — please check that all are essential
Will do that tonight. – Maky « talk » 20:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done. – Maky « talk » 03:07, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • despite its rarity. It would have been vulnerable to hunting and habitat loss."— Ungrammatical, you have full stop and "It", instead of comma and "it", but in any case this reads to me as if you would normally expect rare species to be less vulnerable, which is perverse. Do you mean something like already rare, it would have been vulnerable to hunting and habitat loss.?
Done. Better? – Maky « talk » 20:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not really part of the review, but I was interest to see the "Subject bar set " where I might have expected a navbox. Is this a recommended practice that I've overlooked, or something your project is trying?
It's a long story. I created the template because the people were putting in boxes for multiple projects, books, etc, and it was creating a lot of extra white space. This template pulls all of that together into something small, simple, and lacking in white space. It also puts them in the correct order (internal links followed by external links). I discussing it in the appropriate places, got some very positive initial feedback, and then someone laid into it and the feedback stopped. Basically, it seems that everyone on Wiki does whatever they want. This template seems to do what it needs without violating guidelines or policies (that I can tell), so I use it on all the lemur articles I write. It's passed FAC before, though someone usually asks about it. Anyway, that's the short story. – Maky « talk » 20:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review. I have to run, but will be back tonight to handle the lingering issues. Best, – Maky « talk » 20:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can see, you only have a couple of minor things to check or fix, so I'll support above assuming you'll soon finish these. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:42, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the support. I have made the requested changes. Please let me know if I introduced any problems. – Maky « talk » 03:07, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image Review - images are both appropriately tagged with copyright info and contribute to the article. Lemurbaby (talk) 19:10, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Lemurbaby:

  • "Size estimates based on the limited remains..." - weight estimates?
Every source I've seen talked about the "size" of fossil species in terms of weight. If they want to note the height, they say X meters tall or Y meters long. This is also done for living animals, too. For example, we say an African elephant (4 m and 6,048 kg) is larger in size than a giraffe (6 m and 1,600 kg). – Maky « talk » 04:10, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The jaw exhibits a long..." - in this paragraph you use a lot of present-tense verbiage. It contrasts with the past tense you used before it. What's the system you're using to determine verb tense, and does this fit?
I've set the section to past tense, though some sections and statements necessitate present tense. For example, "Archaeoindris is only known from one subfossil site..." or "The area today is dominated by grasslands..." – Maky « talk » 04:10, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The explanations of scientific terminology in parentheses seems a little arbitrary, as some more recognizable words are explained (palate, tibia) while other more obscure ones are not. Perhaps it would be best to remove the explanations unless they are critical to an understanding of the sentence or paragraph's larger point (the conclusions drawn from bone comparisons can be understood without needing to understand which bones are being described, for example)... or otherwise go through and add explanations everywhere that highly scientific terminology is used.
This is a long-standing FAC issue. I used to just link terms that needed explaining, but some reviewers expect the explanations inline if the simplest possible word can't be used. If there is no parenthetical explanation, it's because it's too complicated to explain briefly or weave into the text. In those case, I make sure there's a blue link. If some terms are too obvious and the explanations can be removed, I'm fine with that. It's just hard for me to tell what is too obvious since I have had requests for explanations of words that I learned in 5th grade. I agree that "palate" and "tibia" are obvious, but others have disagreed in the past. This issue, unfortunately, sits at the crossroads of a much more significant dispute: Should Wikipedia offer specialist information (for being comprehensive) or just the fundamentals that laypeople can understand? I would argue the former (otherwise this article would be about 3 paragraphs long). If anything, I've come to accept this as a compromise. If you can help draw a clearer line, I'd be very grateful. – Maky « talk » 04:10, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the difficulty here, and definitely agree with you that the comprehensiveness should be maintained with the brief explanations you've provided.
-Lemurbaby (talk) 01:44, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spot check:

  • "indris, a common variation of the generic name Indri" - supported, with minor but accurate interpretation
  • "In 1934, Lamberton missed earlier attribution errors..." - supported
  • "Gigantopithecus blacki, a close relative of orangutans..." - supported
  • "Archaeoindris spent considerable time in the trees..." - supported
  • graphic - supported
  • "..selected in honor of Antoine Maurice Fontoynont..." - supported
  • I can't verify other sources as they have no weblink provided, but in light of the accuracy reflected in Maky's other refs, I'm confident they would be equally correct. Sources are all accurately cited and their content correctly represented in the article. Lemurbaby (talk) 01:44, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the review! The eye for tense was very good. I'll have to start watching for that in the future. – Maky « talk » 04:10, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support The article meets the FA criteria. Really nice work Maky. Thanks for all the time and energy you invest into producing high quality lemur articles on WP. Lemurbaby (talk) 19:34, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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