Talk:Achelousaurus/GA1

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reviewer: Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs) 10:08, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

• Happy to review this, give me a couple of days. Looks like fine work at the outset. Vanamonde (talk) 10:08, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Checklist

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   All concerns have been addressed

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:

   All sources are now reliable for the information for which they are used.

   C. It contains no original research:

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   Earwig's tool is clear

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

   Only minor issue, that of "advanced" vs "derived", has been addressed

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

   Stable

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   Image licenses (and there are a lot of these) check out to the best of my abilities.

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   No issues

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   All concerns addressed, passing shortly.

Comments

• Thanks, I'll ping co-nominator MWAK, since he didn't seem to get the automatic notification. FunkMonk (talk) 12:15, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

I'll also ping Lusotitan, in case he still wants to add some more technical comments. FunkMonk (talk) 17:55, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

• Any reason for "Spring" to be capitalized?
  • Done. Just being old-fashioned :o).
• Sentence beginning "In August 1986 at a nearby site" is not wrong, but very difficult to follow..
  • The, indeed too long, sentence is now split.
• "near the Canyon Bone Bed, MOR 485." To the uninitiated, what MOR 485 is is not clear.
  • "Specimen" added.
• Prose is a trifle wordy in places: for example, "Because he had already made extensive arrangements for a new field season, he was suddenly forced to seek an alternative site" would read easier as "Having made extensive arrangements for the field season, he was forced to seek an alternative site". But this is aesthetics, and not clarity or precision as such: so I just want to flag it, and leave it at that, not something to affect this review.
  • Well, the source strongly stresses the predicament Horner suddenly found himself in. I tried to convey that a little, also in connection with the serendipitous nature of the finds. Horner wasn't looking for horned dinosaurs but wanted eggs.
• "on the Hadrosauridae family, having less affinity with other" can be parsed multiple ways: need to clarify it wasn't Horner who had the affinity.
  • Done. This never occurred to me :o).
• Some more of the technical terms need linking, I think: Sacrum, brain case, parietals, bosses, squamosal bone, supraorbital horncores.
  • All first occurrences of these terms are now linked with the exception of "boss", which is not likely to have its own article and the special meaning of which is explained in the text.
• " in each maxilla, upper jaw bone, " Something missing there, methinks...
  • Put "upper jaw bone" into parentheses.
• "to prove it is a valid taxon." was a valid taxon, or am I misunderstanding something?
  • Done. Sampson no doubt hoped for a perpetual validity but we shouldn't be too subtle.
• "derived or advanced centrosaurines" Not a fan of the "advanced" terminology, which I believe is somewhat archaic. "derived" is okay: "more recent lineage" or something like that would be even better, and plainer language.
  • I fully agree that "advanced" is an obsolete and dangerous term. But it still has an explanatory value. "More recent lineage" stresses a temporal aspect that is really absent in the source. It is the morphology that is relevant here. Also, the reader would be justified to wonder which lineage we are referring to exactly, which we would be unable to answer — because the source refers the morphology. We can apply scare quotes to "advanced".--MWAK (talk) 13:41, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

We could also add derived in parenthesis, or the other way around? FunkMonk (talk) 15:15, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

That would then be the other way around, if "advanced" is objected to. Of course there are a great many parentheses in the text already. If only for the sake of typographical variety they might be alternated with dashes, clauses, ors, or id ests :o).--MWAK (talk) 18:29, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

As far as I remember, the source says "advanced" ("derived" seems to have been favoured later), so we should mention the term in any case. I had a similar issue at Stegoceras, where I used both terms, though chronologically according to the sequence of cited papers. FunkMonk (talk) 18:35, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Weellll, I'm still not too happy about this. Yes, sources say it; but they also say other things which we ignore because the concepts are dated or proven to be incorrect...in this case, if we want to be clear to the layman, I think we ought to say "derived" and then add a parenthesis to say something like "diverged greatly from the ancestral form". If that is too wordy, I think even "more evolved" is better than "advanced".

I agree we should say derived throughout, but in addition to explaining what it means, we could add "the term "advanced" was used at the time" or such? Leaving it out completely seems a bit revisionist. FunkMonk (talk) 19:26, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that is reasonable: I do agree that we should explain rather than erase historical terminology. We just need to be careful about using/endorsing it ourselves. Vanamonde (talk) 04:08, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

• "One possible explanation could be that this had been caused" bit confusing. "A possible explanation for this phenomenon"? Or some other variant.
  • Reworded.
• "This was confirmed by the assumption" you can't confirm something by assuming it's true, right? I'd suggest rewording a bit.
  • Idiom corrected.
• "Horner et. al. purposely did not name species" Could lose the "purposely"
  • Reworded.
• The "Horner's hypothesis" and "phylogeny" sections strike as a little too detailed, if anything. I don't think its necessarily a problem at GA, but if you want to take it to FAC, I personally feel you need to trim just a little. Phylogenies are revised often: I'm not sure we need each stage in that process.
  • The complete cladistic history was added for the sake of completeness. Though it might be useful for finding studies in which Achelousaurus was included, it is indeed less relevant. Perhaps we could condense it in a future FAC process? Horner's hypothesis is in itself a delicate construction that can best be explained step-by-step. It is also central to subsequent research, which either has to refute it by showing that Achelousaurus is a real species, or confirm it. Of course, Horner himself dedicated entire chapters to his hypothesis :o).
• "convection storms" needs linking or explanation, I think.
  • Linked.
• Unclear why the Dinosaurs depended specifically on Oxbow lakes, or why they were likely to die in the lakes.
  • Clarified.
• I'm uncertain of the relevance of the paragraph beginning "Like with horned dinosaurs"
  • Introductory explanation added.
• "torsion resistance" needs linking or explanation
  • Linked.
• I think you need to link or explain, at least in a footnote, how oxygen isotopes in a fossil allow the determination of body temperatures in the living animal

Since I wrote that text, I've added a short explanation. How does it look? FunkMonk (talk) 19:26, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

• "Earlier it had been suggested" Earlier than what?
  • Changed into "previously".
• I'm a little hesitant about using theses for sources, though I can understand that their use varies by topic. Are the Master's theses, in particular, required?
  • (Now Professor) Roger's thesis was part of the research programme then carried out at the Landslide Butte. It would have had to be mentioned anyway — so we might as well use it as a source :o). VanBuren's thesis is relevant in that it contains some rare information about the postcranial skeleton of Achelousaurus, which otherwise remains largely undescribed.
• Likewise uncertain about the use of personal communication in ref 1.

I've long thought we should snip this. I'll see if MWAK has any comments first. FunkMonk (talk) 14:45, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, the basic problem here is that it is always difficult to give reliable sources for pronunciations. Ideally, descriptive scientific research is available showing how a word is actually pronounced. In reality such data are largely absent for dinosaur names and people expect from us some normative instruction to prevent making a fool of themselves. If we want to oblige them, we might as well provide the best advise we can get, which is undoubtedly that of Ben Creisler, who has studied the etymology of these names for decades.--MWAK (talk) 15:04, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

• Ref 32 needs a little more information: if it's a book, a publisher, if it's a journal, then a volume or something.
• Likewise ref 33: as of now it doesn't seem to have the name of the publication, unless I'm missing something.

N.b. for editors - they are both from the book New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs: The Royal Tyrrell Museum Ceratopsian Symposium (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010). Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 15:55, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

I'll try to take care of these, there were so many relevant chapters in that book that I just copied and pasted titles quickly to get to the writing. FunkMonk (talk) 17:12, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

I fixed those two, how does it look? If it is ok, I will do the same with the remaining chapters. FunkMonk (talk) 02:35, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Looks great to me ;o).--MWAK (talk) 06:13, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• @FunkMonk and MWAK: I think there's only two issues that remain; the first is tweaking the "advanced" wording in accordance with the last comments on the issue above (I'd say it's better to be wordy than potentially misleading here); the second is the pronunciation ref. MWAK is right that we should provide the best sourcing possible, but when such sourcing is still very far from our usual RS, I'd say we're better off leaving out the information altogether; or if it must be included, attributing it inline: "professor so and so described..." Cheers, Vanamonde (talk) 06:23, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

I presented Creisler in the note and added a short explanation of "derived" in parenthesis, along with a mention of "advanced". Better? FunkMonk (talk) 03:57, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

• Yes indeed, much better. All my concerns have been addressed, and I'm happy to pass this. Thanks for a remarkably detailed and thorough article. Regards, Vanamonde (talk) 05:53, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for an intelligent and very constructive review!--MWAK (talk) 09:08, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Second that! FunkMonk (talk) 15:52, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Congratulations on the GA! Got any other articles in mind? Personally getting Corythosaurus to FA is still next on my to-do list, but I've yet to finish Nipponosaurus. Lusotitan 03:34, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! Next step is to get this to FA, and I'll work on Elasmosaurus next, so it will take a while before I at least get to another dinosaur (which will most likely be Dilophosaurus). But maybe the experience will make MWAK more interested in the process... But yeah, among ornithopods, Corythosaurus isn't too far off, seems I completely forgot I was the one who GA reviewed it, so I probably can't FA nominate it. But IJReid GA nominated it, so perhaps he wants to help. FunkMonk (talk) 14:05, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.