Talk:Takakia

Many thanks for an interesting and informative article! Good work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.41.167 (talk) 13:15, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

Good article discussion

I'm not a stickler for the precise hoop-jumping necessary for GA status, but if someone's keen to make improvements, there's a couple of things that would improve the article further:

• It would be nice to have an image: perhaps something could be found under a "fair use" license if one can't be readily acquired?
• The lede is a bit confusing; the first sentence in particular is rather clumsy and confusing. I like the first paragraph to tell me what the article is about, and more importantly why it is interesting: it currently skims lightly on the intriguing nature of the organism and its history. Maybe write in some "hooks" to grab the casual reader's attention and persuade them to read more thoroughly.

References

• The discovery section comes before any details about what's actually been discovered! Perhaps describe and introduce the plant first, then explain its history.
• It's not entirely clear why the plant is unusual. More context about the properties would be useful - don't assume that readers know what "normal" plants do, and explain why it is interesting that there are only 4 chromosome pairs (for example)
• Species list is duplicated in text and taxobox. It doesn't really fit into the flow of the article so perhaps incorporate to Taxobox.
• No mention of the Andreaeopsida, which are mentioned quite frequently in Takakia literature(e.g. )
• No mention of its wider role as an outgroup, for example in nad7 studies

Verisimilus T 10:34, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I find your comments on the article ironic given the edits you've been making to fossil plant articles.

• If you have an image, please provide one. I don't live anywhere the plant grows and there are no free-for-public images available.
• What kind of "hook" do you mean? I've looked at the pages you've been creating/editing on plants, and most of them are stubs containing one or two sentences, so they don't provide any insight into what you mean.
• The discovery section comes first because the firm placement as a moss is still new. Most literature people will be familiar with call this plant a liverwort, so establishing the discovery and classification changes up front is very important.
• The article specifically noted that the chromosome number in Takakia is lower than in all other plants, so if you still don't know how Takakia is different from other plants, editing the article won't help you.
• Yes, the species list appears in both the article and the summary Taxobox. That is normal. We don't include information in the Taxobox only; it should also appear in the article. Please remember that and do not insert new information only into Taxoboxes when you edit. The taxobox is there to summarize information in the article and provide links to other points in the classification. It should not be the only place in the article where that information is located.
• Yes, Andreaeopsida is mentioned in articles where Takakia is mentioned. I can do word searches too. However, there is no reason to put that information into a Wikipedia article. What would it say? "The group Andraeaopsida is often mentioned in articles that mention Takakia." That's not relevant to the biology of Takakia or to anything else.
• Mentioning its use as an outgroup would also be meaningless. An outgroup, by defnition, is a taxon used in a study because it's not part of the group you're interested in. So, putting that information into the article would be saying, essentially, "this group has actively not been studed in many papers."

The references you provide are comical. Did you read the first article at all? It is about Andreaeopsida, not about Takakia, and mentions Takakia as a kind of sensationalism. It dates from a time when the placement of Takakia was still among the liverworts, so the article is simply saying that the moss being studied (not Takakia) shares characters with a "liverwort" (Takakia). In light of current information, what it reall says is that both groups are primitive mosses, which is not new information to the article. The second reference you've listed is already in the article as it currently stands. Did you bother to look? The third reference is about a synapomorphy between mosses and flowering plants. Yes, Takakia is mentioned, but so are dozens of other plants. Are you advocating that the reference should be listed and discussed on each genus of plants used in that molecular study? Why? --EncycloPetey 14:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Unfortunately, I've been too busy of late to devote the kind of time and attention to this article and others that I'd like to. I'd hoped these suggestions might have been a time-efficient way to improve this article. Sorry if my non-expertise is beguiling.

Putting the discovery section first for that reason sounds sensible. Perhaps the reader could be given a little more insight into the plant by, say, describing what features led Mitten to describing it as a liverwort? Perhaps the sentence "the many unusual features of these plants" could be embelished with " - such as... ". That way, the reader who doesn't know anything of the plant is being introduced to it gently.

From my knowledge of animals, chromosome number is of little phenotypic significance. I'm aware that there are vast differences in plants, but as it stands, the point (which I'm sure has significance) reads a bit like a piece of trivia. For an example I'm more familiar with, I could say that "such and such a liverwort is the earliest to be discovered, at 390Ma"; but explaining the significance - in terms of the colonisation of land and the diversification of Liverworts from Mosses - would make an article on said liverwort more informative and interesting. Further, I'm sure the 1958 redescription was based on more unusual features than the number of chromosomes. I for one am interested to know what they were!

Without delving into the manual of style, I think that lists with no context are discouraged in articles - hence my opposition to the list of species. I'm suprised that the taxobox is not allowed to hold information that isn't also in the article; indeed, I've seen few articles detailing the complete heirarchy of family, class, order etc. in the article text. Summarising is fair enough but plain duplication for its own sake seems a little pointless.

My sense is that there was a reason that the two groups Andreaeopsida and Takakia are often compared. I thought that someone more knowledgeable about the subject might be able to add this into the article.

I don't have access to the first article, so couldn't read it. As I'd intended to imply, the first two were given of examples of the two being linked.

I take your point about outgroups; but it is of some significance if it widely used, suggesting an early evolutionary split.

Verisimilus T 17:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. These responses are useful feedback. The comparison with Andreaeopsida is an artifact of both being mosses without all the complex synapomorphies of peristomate mosses. They're both basal moss taxa, which is why they are similar -- all the basal mosses share plesiomorphies of being an early moss. The comparisons were made because, at the time, people didn't yet know that Takakia was a moss, and thought they'd found some significant link between liverworts and mosses. In fact, they'd just found a link between one moss and another moss.

When a taxon is widely used as an outgroup, it's usually because the genetic data was already extracted by someone else, and it saves the workers the time of hunting down a taxon that is unfamiliar to them. It doesn't make Takakia any more significant than Sphagnum, Andreaea, Oedipodium or any other basal moss. --EncycloPetey 22:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

failing as a GA

There are some significant issues with the article that need to be addressed before it's up to good article standard. The material there is good in general but it really needs a set of independent eyes to go over it (try peer review).

Well written

Numerous grammar errors or unclear wording (below are a few examples )

• Takakia is a genus of only two species of moss known from western North America and central and eastern Asia. really needs a comma, is unclear and only is redundant. Try - Takakia is a genus of moss with two species. It is found in western North America and central and eastern Asia.
• It has had a history of uncertain placement, but the discovery of sporophytes clearly of the moss-type firmly supports placement with the mosses. what does this mean ? I know but few casual readers will decode this.
• described by Mitten - there is nothing to say who he is and his name is not in the info box.
• The article is too technical for a general audience. Terms can be used but must be simply explained at the first use. Technical terms like sporophyte, archegonia, bryophytes etc. that are critical to understanding the article must be explained. Wikilinks are not enough for such uncommon terms else people who print it to read will have no chance and webreaders must bounce around to get even a small understanding.
• The lead is too short and does not summarise the article - see WP:LEAD
• ...Dr. Takaki in Japan sparked more interest... . Can't find that any interest was previously mentioned so is this more than none ?

Broad

Reads as too short to cover the subject broadly. A significant amount of the below at least is needed(this is not an exclusive list):

• It mentions that Takakia is unusual/odd but there is very little on how it is odd. What are its unusual features ?
• Needs an ecology section
• Is the plant used by people for anything ? What eats it ? Is it widespread compared to other mosses, rare, endangered, diminishing, growing or does no one know ?
• are there museum samples from the collected specimens ?
• Who is Grolle ?

- All up an interesting article but a way to go yet. An image would also be nice but is not critical for GA status. Keep up the good work - Peripitus (Talk) 11:43, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the review. This will help with the revision and with similar articles. I would try peer review, but the WP:PLANTS peer review has only just started recently and doesn't seem to have any activity yet.

The only point where I would disagree with you is on the use of some techincal terms. Words like sporophyte, archegonium, and bryophyte will appear in all articles on bryophytes. If we have only one article on each bryophyte species and each higher taxon of bryophyte, that works out to about 20,000 articles. Will all 20,000 articles need to explain fully the meaning of the terms sporophyte, archegonium, and bryophyte? Doing so would be wasteful and repetitive. There are some terms that, while technical, are so fundamental to understanding in a particular area, and are used with high frequency in that subject area, that it is reasonable to expect a person to look them up in a central location rather than explain them over and over. Each economics article should not have to explain the meaning of capital; each language article should not have to explain the word sibilant; each physics article should not have to explain momentum; and each of the (eventual) 20,000 articles on bryophytes should not have to explain what a bryophyte is. --EncycloPetey 22:27, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you are correct... looking at Category:FA-Class plant articles there uncommon terms left unexplained. On the other hand adding a sentence They neither flower nor produce seeds, reproducing via spores. after the first instance of bryophyte would help readability enourmously. I do like the way that brittanica does this -

The bryophytes show an alternation of generations between the independent gametophyte generation, which produces the sex organs and sperm and eggs, and the dependent sporophyte generation, which produces the spores.

bryophyte. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved November 3, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online Library Edition: http://library.eb.com.au/eb/article-9106097

with links to gametophyte and sporophyte. This explains the terms concisely and, yes, I'd like to see these in each of the 20k articles. I've received the same sort of commentary on terms like escarpment and catchment which are common in geology and rivers respectively. - Peripitus (Talk) 01:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

But "they neither flower nor produce seeds" does not say what a bryophyte is; it merely says they are not angiosperms (flowering plants) and not spermatophytes (seed-bearing plants). It would be like explaining placental mammal by saying "they neither lay eggs nor have feathers". The Britannica explanation is better, but explaining it over and over for every species still does not seem a reasonable approach to me. To put it another way, does the Britannica article on peat moss explain what a bryophyte is? Or does it simply refer the reader to the article on moss for that information?

The entries for biological organisms differ fundamentally from other WP entries in that there is a Taxobox in the upper right for each taxon. One can always move up the hierarchy for additional explanation in a way that isn't usually possible in other sorts of articles—even other kinds of life science articles or articles with other kinds of infoboxes. --EncycloPetey 01:57, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you've highlighted the issue I pointed out in this. When reading the article as part of the review it was not obvious what these terms meant. I followed one through and picked what looked relevant from the next article and still got it wrong. It's taken an expert view (yourself) to put me on the correct track. You are best to talk this over with the Wikiproject Plants people but the Wikipedia:Technical terms and definitions from the style manual mostly covers my direction in this. I think that wikipedia should be (and somewhere there's a page to back this up) written for well-educated people who are not familiar with the area of the article. I could try to finish the article on SMT Placement Equipment but if I left terms like wetting, quad pack, stick format, stencil etc.. without any explanation then the article would be not useful or comprehensible for most readers. As for Peat moss, brittanica neither defines bryophyte or even mentions it, but does define sporangium as a spore case (this is the library edition though not the full one) - Peripitus (Talk) 08:55, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I have no trouble with explaining sporangium as a spore case; that is s simple, short, and reasonably precise description that may be inserted into running text without making it difficult to read. However, explaining sporophyte concisely is simply not possible to do without losing a great deal of accuracy and giving a false impression of the meaning. Please note this passage from the first paragraph of Wikipedia:Technical terms and definitions:

It is also the case that such an article can cover a range of related subjects that might not each justify a separate article or Wikipedia page, and therefore making technical terms stand out in the text is the first level in a sequence from definition to subtitle to separate article. On the other hand, do not treat every “scientific” word as a technical term. Ask the question: Is this the only article or one of a very few where the term might be encountered in Wikipedia?

The implication made is that if a technical term will appear in numerous WP articles, then the term should be explained in a separate article, not on every page. This implication is made stronger by the context of the preceding sentences. --EncycloPetey 11:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I think we're going to have a discussion on this longer than the article ! Given that an introduction is a usually a summary I look to the first two sentences of Wikipedia:Technical terms and definitions. Note though that this is a guideline and sense has to be paramoiunt. However it is done, though, the article must be comprehensible to a general audience.. I do suggest getting more Wikiproject people looking at it some time as there are some very good plants articles to use as templates - 10:08, 4 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peripitus (talk • contribs)

Unfortunately, that isn't true. The handful of plants articles rated GA or better are either articles about showy, large, well-studied flowering plants, or are not articles about specific kinds of plants (as this one is). There is only one other article on a non-flowering group that is rated GA, and I wrote that one article myself. So, I don't really have other comparab;e articles for reference in this case. Worse, there is only one other bryophyte specialist in the wikiverse that I've encountered (he's on the Portuguese WP), so I don't have help from that end either. These are two reasons I'm discussing the editing/review process so thoroughly. While this discussion may be lengthy, it will be very valuable in writing other bryophyte articles (for which I may end being the sole author for all of them!). --EncycloPetey 13:47, 4 November 2007 (UTC)