Talk:Misumena vatia/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: MeegsC (talk · contribs) 22:28, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take this one! Given that it appears to have been a class project, I'll post a few initial comments to make sure the nominator is still willing to work on the article.

~~All measurements should be in imperial as well as metric units. The {{convert}} template is a great one to use here. Ping me if you're not sure how to use it.~~
~~Section headings should only have the first word capitalized: for example "Patch choice" rather than "Patch Choice".~~
~~Fully spell out the genus name anywhere that it starts a sentence: e.g. "Misumena vatia have two rows..." rather than "M. vatia have two rows..."~~
The lede should summarize the major points of the article. This one doesn't appear to do that, and should be expanded accordingly.

Once the nominator indicates that they're willing to make the necessary improvements, I'll continue with my review. Feel free to strike things out as they're resolved. MeegsC (talk) 22:28, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi MeegsC, thanks for your feedback and for reviewing the article! I'll get started on these initial changes and look forward to working with you to get it up to GA. Eanisman (talk) 23:03, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Eanisman. It's great to see someone working on the article! I'll continue my review, but it might be a few days before I have it completed. I'll be watching this page, but please feel free to ping me if you have any questions. MeegsC (talk) 18:23, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi MeegsC, I've beefed up the lead section a bit and I'd welcome any feedback on those changes. Please let me know if you think it is missing any other important info. Eanisman (talk) 23:10, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Eanisman, I'm so sorry for the delay! Will take a look tomorrow at what you've added, and will post any other suggestions then. MeegsC (talk) 22:22, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments

Overall, Eanisman, this is very close to GA already; great work on expanding the lede and cleaning up this bits I pointed to earlier. It's certainly a nicely comprehensive article. I do have a few suggestions.

Take a look at redback spider, one of Wikipedia's FA-level articles. I'd suggest that you structure this article similarly — i.e. with a taxonomy section to start, followed by description, behaviors, distribution and habitat, etc. You obviously won't need all of those sections (this spider, for instance, isn't venomous, so you don't need a huge section about venom, and it's probably not as culturally important as that one is), but it would be good to be consistent where possible with other spider articles. Right now, this is a bit all over the place. For instance, the color section should be folded into either the description section (which is what I'd recommend) or the diet section (perhaps the bit about dietary influence belongs there rather than in the description section).
The many sub-subsections make the read somewhat choppy. I'd suggest a judicious pruning. You could use redback spider or the recently-promoted Pholcus phalangioides as your template.
You need a Taxonomy section, briefly describing who first named the species (and when) and where it fits into the "crab spider" family. Is it in the same genus as any other spiders? (Yes.) If so, are the others also found only in NA, or are they more widespread? (Members around the globe.) The Misumena article will provide some useful refs, if you need them. Your "Population structure, speciation, and phylogeny" section should get folded in to make a "Taxonomy and phylogeny" section. (Clade names, by the way, should be capitalized.) Are the similar species you mention in your current section found in North America? (i.e. are they spiders that people might confuse for this one?) If not, remove them. If so, I'd suggest moving them to a subsection of the Description section and calling it "Similar species".
Be careful about switching between singular and plural and back in the same paragraph; it makes for a jarring read. This happens in a few places throughout the article.
You've got a lot of very small—i.e. 1–2 sentence—paragraphs. There are virtually none which couldn't be combined with another paragraph or two.
In your Description section, I'd suggest that you start with an overall description of the spider (i.e the first paragraph of "other physical characteristics" and the bits about size differences) and follow that up with the information about color, number of eyes, etc. The shape, after all, is what makes them crab spiders!

Ping me once you have these bits done, and I'll take a final look. You've done a really nice job here! MeegsC (talk) 17:43, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for your review! I have a busy couple of weeks but will get working on this ASAP. Eanisman (talk) 06:08, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Eanisman. I'm wondering how things are going. Do you think you'll have time to finish this up soon? It's been three weeks now. MeegsC (talk) 17:20, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi MeegsC, sorry for the delay. I just published some of the edits I have been working on, mostly combining smaller sections into larger ones and rearranging the sections so they better match other spider articles. I'm currently working on the Taxonomy section. Will let you know as soon as that's done. Thanks so much for your patience. –Eanisman (talk) 17:45, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Eanisman Great! No rush; I just wanted to make sure you were still out there. ;) MeegsC (talk) 17:47, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi MeegsC, let me know what you think of the changes I have made! Thanks, Eanisman (talk) 00:31, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wow – this is really great work! I did some light copyediting; be sure to check that I haven't inadvertantly changed the meaning of anything. I found a few remaining things during my copyediting pass.

Link the first occurrance of opisthosoma. Right now, it's used several times before you link.
Distribute those gallery pictures through the article; galleries are largely discouraged unless text is seriously limited, which it certainly isn't here!
There's some discrepancy re: where they're found. In the lede, you say they're commonly found hunting in goldenrod sprays and milkweed plants in the autumn. In the "Color" section, you say In North America, they are most commonly found in goldenrods, bright yellow flowers which attract large numbers of insects, particularly in autumn. In the "Habitat and distribution" section, you say Misumena vatia is terrestrial and can be found on several plants and flowers such as milkweed, trillium, white fleabane, white flower, and goldenrod. In the "Hunting patterns" section, you say Adult females hunt, "in the upper stratum of the field vegetation, primarily on the flowers of ox-eye daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum), red clover (Trifolium pratense) and buttercups (Ranunculus acris)." I think these various bits need to be explained a little better, if possible. Do they feed on ox-eye daisy, red clover and buttercups in the summer and then move to others in autumn? Or are they on goldenrod in NA and daisies, clover, and buttercups in Europe? It just caught my attention while reading that the article specifies different flowers in different sections. It's particularly important that you specify (in the lede) that you'll find them on goldenrod/milkweed only in NA. Those plants aren't native to Europe—the other half of its "holarctic distribution". ;)

Fix those few things, and I'm happy to give this its GA. In fact, I'd suggest you think seriously about submitting it for an FA attempt! MeegsC (talk) 10:51, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

MeegsC, thank you! I've consolidated the information about where they are found to the best of my ability, since I can't find a good source for their seasonal preferences. I believe I have linked the first instance of "opisthosoma" in the Diet-induced color change section, is there somewhere else you would like me to link it as well? Thanks again for your help! Eanisman (talk) 17:53, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to pass this one. Nice job! MeegsC (talk) 21:46, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]