Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Majungasaurus

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 18:13, 25 August 2007.

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Majungasaurus

Another dinosaur article from WP:DINO. You've probably never heard of Majungasaurus, but it has recently become the subject of a detailed monograph after the discovery of very complete remains in Madagascar. While the papers in that monograph are my primary source, I have cited many other publications that deal with it directly or indirectly, and this article is a comprehensive summary of what has been published on this very interesting beast. It is currently the eighth longest dinosaur-related article and the fourth-longest article on a specific genus. This is a self-nomination as I am the main contributor, although many other editors have put work into it, and I would especially like to recognize the always fantastic artwork of User:ArthurWeasley. Thank you! Sheep81 07:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• Support - this is the 17th dino FA candidate and I feel ranks up with the best in terms of prose. Sheepy did such a good job that it was difficult to find much to improve - a few of us have had a good look too....cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:51, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - most Dinosaur FA's have a dinosaur/human size comparison image, could you make one for this dinosaur? HHermans 15:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I can ask for one to be made, sure! Sheep81 16:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, a scale diagram has been added. Thanks for the suggestion. Sheep81 12:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• Support - quite comprehensive, as above (though it does need that one cite for the formal synonymization of -saurus and -tholus. Minor thing, I'm sure it's one of the several papers already in the references). I made a size comparison chart, currently pending image review. It would also be nice to have at least stub articles for some of the redlinked scientists in the article. Dinoguy2 00:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. No redlinks in the article anymore. ArthurWeasley 02:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• Support - The article is well written, well cited and certainly comprehensive. Don't see any reason to oppose. Great work, Sheep ! ArthurWeasley 02:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose→Changed to support - At the start of "Paleobiology" - "The abundance of Majungasaurus remains and their excellent preservation have given scientists an extremely detailed knowledge of its anatomy and allowed educated discussion of other aspects of its biology that are not always able to be analyzed in less completely known theropods." -- What aspects? What scientists? And a source? This should be easy to find and I will change my stance once this has been fixed. Cheers, :) Spawn Man 08:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The aspects listed as subheadings of that section? The scientists who wrote all the publications cited in the text? Do you really want to add a bunch of redundant words for no real reason? If so, go ahead and add them... Sheep81 08:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

On second thought, that whole sentence is a bunch of redundant words so I just deleted the whole bit. Sheep81 09:06, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

By what aspects, I meant that in the subheadings they didn't say "this is a feature depicted in this dinosaur not analysed in other dinosaurs" etc, so it could have been any of the subheadings. In any case, you've deleted it, so that solves things. Changing to Support above.↑ Great article. Cheers. Spawn Man 10:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah-ha. Fair point. Well, thanks for your support, Spawn! Sheep81 10:14, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Sheep (and others) have done a wonderful job on this (relatively speaking) obscure dinosaur. I was pretty sure not much more could be written after the re-write on August 3rd, but a lot has been added since then, too. Sheep has added the citation for the formal -saurus/-tholus synonymy (older sources indicated they were not synonymous). A lot has happened since I created this article (originally a redirect to Majungatholis; Majungatholis is not a very appropriate name for a non-pachycephalosaur! Thank goodness for ICZN senior synonymy rules!). I'm pretty sure Sheep has written a very comprehensive article. There appear to be no WP:MOS issues, and good sources have been provided. My only worry is that in the middle of the article, the inline citations become somewhat sparce (Feeding behavior, Respiratory system, and Brain and inner ear system each have large blocks of text without inline cites). If it's just that the entire paragraph is supported by a single reference, that's one thing, but there are two large sections supported by a single reference each. Are these really the only references for this information? If so, we may want to reword this to state something like "the only complete study on the respiratory system has concluded..." to indicate that only one paper has been published in that area, leaving us some wiggle room when a later study is published. Still, this issue isn't enough to prevent me from supporting this fine article for FA. Firsfron of Ronchester 09:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your work Firs. As far as the one-ref paragraphs, yes other things have been published on dinosaur pneumaticity, brain structure, etc. etc. but not on Majungasaurus. We have only really started to know about this beast in the last 10 years or so. I could cite more general articles but I'm wary of veering into original research or original synthesis. Sheep81 10:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Work? I did no work on this FAC, silly! :) Hey, if those are the nly refs available, that's all you can do. No objections from me. Firsfron of Ronchester 16:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• Support - That's one ugly dinosaur! anyways this article is well written and comprehensible, it contains a somewhat small ammount of references but they manage to cover the text nicely, the image that dysplays the Majungasaurus crenatissimus compared in size to a human could be moved because its pushing the text down (at least in my resolution) but regardless of that this seems like FA material. - Caribbean~H.Q. 18:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your support! Where would you like me to move the picture so that it looks better? Sheep81 22:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Moving it to the left and a little down might take care of the problem, it appears like the image is currently stuck at the bottom of the infobox and is pushing the text down, so I assume moving it away from the infobox will do the trick. - Caribbean~H.Q. 22:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Perfect. - Caribbean~H.Q. 23:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, and thanks to Mgiganteus1 for moving the picture for me! Sheep81 23:44, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• Support - Good to see a lesser known dinosaur nominated. A high quality, thorough article with great artwork, definitely worthy of FA status. Kare Kare 04:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.