Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Pseudoryzomys/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 Karanacs 20:14, 16 December 2009 [1].

Pseudoryzomys

Nominator(s): Ucucha 21:42, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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This is another South American rodent, related to Lundomys, which has just become an FA. It has had a complex history and is interesting morphologically, but its natural history is very poorly known. It is a current GA; thanks go to Casliber for a GA review that markedly improved the article. Unfortunately, there seem to be no free images other than the old picture of the skull that is now in the article. Ucucha 21:42, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments 2c: Fifelfoo (talk) 21:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Works are misdated. (Percequillo etal 2008/2009)
Citations lack page / paragraph references. (Percequillo, Pardiñas, others)
Dates within citations are consistent.
Citations style is consistent (I think ugly, but some fields don't like quotes or italics) Fifelfoo (talk) 21:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed the 2008/2009 thing. Percequillo et al., 2008, is an online source which doesn't have page numbers. I sometimes omit references to page numbers where the reference is to the whole paper; for example, Pardiñas et al., 2004, is all about the distribution in Argentina. That said, there may be a few where specific page number can be inserted; I'll have a look at that. Ucucha 22:02, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I inserted specific page numbers for all but a few now. Ucucha 20:48, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Needs work:
    • Taxonomy section is too detailed and too much focused on past classifications rather than current ones. Probably not so long that it should be a separate article, but suggest reorganizing to more clearly highlight what is currently believed/known about relationships.
    • Likewise, the morphology material is kind of monotonous.
    • Ideally, there would be much more on ecology. The paragraphs we have are good, and if this is all that is known, perhaps that is all that can be done.
In terms of the criteria, I'm mostly talking about 1a (especially whether the prose is engaging) and 1b (placing subject in context). We also need a few more images (criterion 3). If we can't find images of the animal, we should be able to find images of the habitat and predators, or images which illustrate some of the anatomical points in related species. Kingdon (talk) 20:48, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Heck, I'd even go for a photo of one of the scientists who worked on it... Kingdon (talk) 20:54, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd agree, even if there are plenty of images available, as with some of the bird FAs I've done, adding habitat, predators, image of original description etc adds variety and interest to the page, and is relatively effortless Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:20, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments. The "taxonomy" section places the subject in context by providing a historic overview of how our current understanding of the creature's taxonomy has developed. Two of the four paragraphs (the last two) are largely about the current classification, and I added a few sentences explaining its placement in the subfamily Sigmodontinae and family Cricetidae.
The description is comprehensive, and I attempted to lighten it up by interspersing notes about the significance of particular characters. Note that criterion 1a says that the prose should be engaging, not the content; I don't believe that there is a problem with the prose of the "description" section.
Well, here's an attempt to tweak the taxonomy section a bit. I reverted myself because (a) without reading the source, and/or spending more time, I wasn't sure I had preserved accuracy (particularly about the Holochilus/Lundomys/Pseudoryzomys clade versus clade D), and (b) I was unsatisfied with the amount of repetition between the lead of the article and the text I was putting at the start of the Taxonomy section. Perhaps some of what I wrote is worth bringing back, or gets the creative juices flowing for someone. Kingdon (talk) 01:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't quite like that, because the information you provided largely duplicates the lead (and a little more so now, since I expanded the lead by mentioning Sigmodontinae and Cricetidae). I now introduced subsections per Sasata's suggestions below; what do you think of that? Ucucha 19:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is really surprisingly little known about ecology. I don't think there are any more relevant things to say than what is already there.
I added photographs of a superficially similar species (the Marsh Rice Rat), its Gran Chaco habitat, and a predator (the Barn Owl). I believe all are adequately sourced, but could someone do a check on that? Ucucha 20:48, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nice photos and captions. I would alternate left and right (with the taxobox counting as a "right") and move them all down the page a bit (to put them closer to the text they go with, and avoid a big dead space with no images). Kingdon (talk) 01:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
They are alternating now. The rice rat is next to the paragraph about external morphology, which is where it should be, because it is supposed to be similar to Pseudoryzomys in appearance. The owl and the chaco should ideally both go to the "Distribution..." section, but there is not enough space for them there, so I kept the chaco where it is, providing some visual relief in the long description. I moved the owl up a bit to prevent it from extending it to the footnotes section, which doesn't look good. Ucucha 19:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • 50 g needs a conversion to imperial. There should also be a non-breaking space between the number and the unit (which will be placed automatically if you use a convert template). Also, shorthand g in used in the lead, but spelled out in full in the description section.
    • Done.
  • Similarly, there should be a non-breaking space between all occurrences of the shorthand genus and species name (P. simplex); this prevents unsightly line wraps in the middle.
    • Done.
  • "...with a gray–brown fur, ..." remove the "a"?
    • Yes, that's better. Done.
  • "It is the only species in the genus Pseudoryzomys, which among living species is most closely related to the large rats Holochilus and Lundomys, which are semiaquatic, spending much of their time in the water." Reword to remove repetitive "which"
    • I had noticed that too, but couldn't think of a better wording. I rephrased it now.
  • suggest wlinking genus in the lead (since the article is about a genus)
    • Done.
  • "...and by a reduction in the complexity of the dentition..." Since it's the lead, I'd suggest rephrasing to use the more common "teeth" in there somewhere
  • millimetres in British English vs. "color"
    • That's {{convert}} doing nasty things. I fixed it to US spelling and abbreviated "mm" and "g" on subsequent occurrences.

Taxonomy

  • "It was first described in 1887 by Danish zoologist Herluf Winge," how about adding a citation to the original publication?
    • Sure, done
  • "Like most other species Winge proposed, H. simplex was mostly ignored in the systematic literature for a long time," sounds like there's an interesting story behind this... is it relevant enough to elaborate here?
  • phyllotine is linked in consecutive paragraphs
    • Fixed.
  • wlink specific name
    • Done.
  • deermice leads to a redlink... is it the same as deer mice (Peromyscus)?
    • Created a redirect, and bypassed it.
  • wlink molecular phylogenetic, morphology
    • Done.
  • "Together, the three genera form part of a large group of oryzomyines ("clade D")..." I can't see how mentioning the arbitrary clade name will help the reader's understanding here...
    • I see your point, but I intend to someday introduce discussions of these clades into the Oryzomyini article, and I think it's helpful to have them mentioned in the genus articles.
  • "Together, the three genera form part of a large group of oryzomyines ("clade D"), which contains tens of other species, including several that, like Pseudoryzomys and its relatives, display some adaptations to life in the water, being partially aquatic." This sentence has lots of parts connected by commas and doesn't seem to flow well.
    • Rephrased.
  • In general, this section is long and tough reading, I suggest splitting into a subsection or two to help give the reader a mental break.

Description

  • wlink buff
    • Done.
  • lots of talk about toes, but no mention of how many toes there are (do rat feet have 5 toes? I really don't know)
    • They do. I added it to the page.
  • suggest abbreviating convert template output to mm, then you don't have to also specify Brit/Am spelling; also, should adjust the output so that there's an equal number of sig figs in the numbers before and after conversion
    • Did the first part, except for the first occurrence, and tweaked one output. The one for head-body length now technically has one significant figure too much for the minimum figure, but I think that is preferable here.
  • "The female has four pairs of teats, including one on the chest," where are the other pairs?
    • Added.
  • "Pseudoryzomys has 19 or 20 thoraic (chest)" should be thoracic?
    • Yes.
  • The last three subsections of the description section are a tough read. You've done a pretty good job of explaining unfamiliar terms, but there's a few missing (e.g., entepicondylar foramen, hernal arches). Ideally, all of those redlinks would have nice descriptions.... I'll come back for a reread later when I'm more awake :)
    • I added something about the foramen. I think the hemal arches are already adequately explained as small bones between the second and third vertebrae. The ones I see that may require some explanation are "centromere" and "cartilaginous", but these should be known to someone with at least a rudimentary background in biology and are also bluelinked.

Distribution

  • wlink pelage
    • Changed to "fur" instead.
  • "A fragmentary subfossil lower jaw" what is a subfossil? (i.e., how does it differ from regular fossil?)
    • See subfossil. I just deleted the word as it didn't add much to the sentence.

Comments... continued: Sasata (talk) 05:28, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks for making the above fixes so quickly, consider them all stricken.
  • Several of the journal article sources should have DOI's
    • Should they? They are not in the similar, recently promoted FA Lundomys and in my view add superfluous text; we'll be able to deal with linkrot.
      • I think they're added for the same reason ISBNs are added to books, to make it easier for interested readers to find the source. I've usually been asked to supply them when possible at GAN and FAC. Maybe someone who's more sure than me could comment? Sasata (talk) 17:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • I do think it's different, though. I give the ISBN for the books, but no other way to find it. For the journal articles, there either is an online version, in which case I link to it directly, or there is not, in which case there is no DOI either. So I don't see what the DOI really adds to that. Ucucha 19:33, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay you've convinced me on 1b and 1c. I'm leaning towards support, but still think the description section needs some tweaking to make it more reader-friendly. I'll come back later after others have had a chance to comment. Sasata (talk) 17:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support I read the article again and feel it has improved considerably since the first version I read. One last suggestion, wlink process (anatomy) on its first occurrence. Looking forward to seeing more rodent taxon articles at FAC. Sasata (talk) 04:14, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Thanks for taking the time to read it. I added the link you suggested. I certainly have plans for some more rodent FAs; Noronhomys is next in line (though it'll get some improvement before I'll put it up here). Ucucha 04:46, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment

Very interesting article, but I have reservations about the quality of the writing.

Overall
  • Excessive use of commas.
  • Overly lengthy sentences. Many are much too long. Shorter sentences would improve readability.
    • I went over the article to look for both points, and made some changes. Please let me know what specific sentences remain that you think problematic.
Lead
  • Paragraph 1, sentence 1: The opening sentence says that P. simplex is a species of rodent, from South America, in the Cricetidae. This amounts to the form "a species of A, in B, from C", which associates B (South America) with C (the Cricetidae). It should be in the form "a species of A, in B, from C" - for example, "a species of rodent in the family Cricetidae from south-central South America".
    • Done.
  • Sentence 2: Is it redundant to say that it is found in "palm savanna and thorn scrub habitats characterized by seasonal rainfall"? Aren't all palm savannas and thorn scrubs in South America characterised by seasonal rainfall? (Minor, but kinda bothers me.)
    • The Red List does say this. I took the "seasonal rainfall" part out of the lead, though, as it's really too much detail.
  • Sentence 3: is "hindfeet" a single word?
    • In zoology, yes. In other contexts, I don't know.
  • Para 2, sentence 1: "it is most closely related among living species to the large rats Holochilus and Lundomys" - wordy; it would be better phrased as something like "its closest living relatives are the large rats Holochilus and Lundomys..."
    • That quite improves the sentence. Done.
  • Sentence 1: "which are semiaquatic, spending much of their time in the water" - it seems a bit repetitive to say that a semiaquatic species spends much of its time in the water. If it's important to point out that these species spend much of their time in the water (as opposed to "little"), then I would suggest something along the lines of "semiaquatic species which spend much of their time in the water". Without that it seems like the article is explaining what "semiaquatic" means, which seems out of place in the lead, given that the term is Wikilinked.
    • It is repetitive, but because "semiaquatic" is a term many readers are unlikely to know, I am explaining it here. It is blue-linked, true, but I think the article should (as much as possible) be understandable without forcing people to look at another article.
  • Sentence 2: I would recommend splitting this into two sentences. In addition, there appears to be a stray "]" after "molar"
    • I rephrased it, but kept it in one sentence. What do you think of the sentence as it is now? I don't see the stray ].
  • Sentence 5: "Pseudoryzomys simplex was independently described in 1887...and in 1921". Wasn't it described in 1887 and then independently described in 1921?
    • I don't see much of a difference. Two people described it, independently from each other. "Independently" refers to both 1887 and 1921. It might be better to move "independently" to 1921, though.
Taxonomy
  • Para 1, sentence 4: "H. simplex was mostly ignored in the systematic literature for a long time, but from 1952 it was used" - no need to say "it was ignored for a long time" and "it was ignored until 1952". Either statement conveys the information - the latter one conveys more information, since it avoids the nebulous "long time".
    • That is not completely accurate, as it was ignored again after Hershkovitz noted that the Oecomys ID was incorrect in 1960. I moved a few words around in these sentences.
  • Para 3, sentence 1: Is "restudy" a word? "Re-study", perhaps, but I think "reexamination" would be more normal.
    • Rephrased the sentence.
  • Sentence 2: "Since this study,..." - in this context, "since this study" is more likely to be read to mean "given that this study..." rather than the intended "since the time of this study". "Since then" is simpler and far more clear.
    • I'm not sure I agree on your first point, but it's true that "since then" is better. Changed it.
  • Para 4, sentence 1: The parenthetical portion is a separate sentence, and needs to be written as such.
    • Done.
  • Sentence 2: This sentence is far too long and convoluted. It has too much detail (the independent loss of the mesoloph(id)s would be better as a footnote) and too vague ("other characteristics" which unite the oryzomyines are mentioned, but not named).
    • The independent loss is relevant because some of Pseudoryzomys and its friends were previously regarded as relatives of those species because of similarities in molar structure. I split and rewrote the sentence.
  • Para 5, sentence 1: The sentence should be split at the semi-colon. It doesn't even kinda do the job of uniting the two segments.
    • Rewrote it.
  • Sentence 2, and many places in the article: "oryzomyines" or "the oryzomyines"?
    • Changed it to "Oryzomyini" here and at a few other places.
  • Sentence 4: "clade D"? What is the significance of this name? What's the context for its inclusion? It isn't used elsewhere in the article, and it appears to be just an arbitrary term for the clade. If so, then is shouldn't be in the article.
    • To the other reviewer who noted this, I said: "I see your point, but I intend to someday introduce discussions of these clades into the Oryzomyini article, and I think it's helpful to have them mentioned in the genus articles." I will try to move "someday" up to "in a few days" and link this to the appropriate section in the Oryzomyini article.
  • Figure: Figure captions should be interpretable without reference to the text. IRBP needs either to be explained in the caption, or wikilinked.
    • I linked it.
Description
  • Para 1, Sentence 5: it needs to be made clear that you're talking about the tail here. While it's obvious to anyone who knows anything about rats that the scales are on the tail, not everyone knows much about rats.
    • Done.
  • Sentence 8: This needs to be split into two sentences. You can't talk about webbing, compare it to other genera, and then come back to the tufts of hair. Anything after the "but" has to be part of the comparison. If it's not, then it needs to be a separate sentence.
    • What about the current phrasing?
  • Para 2: The lengths are given to the nearest mm, but to the nearest hundredth of an inch, or about 0.25 mm. Unless there's some reason to assume that the measurements are taken to the nearest 0.25 mm, converting to the nearest 0.01 inch amounts to the introduction of spurious accuracy.
    • Fair enough. Done.
  • Para 3: It seems odd to lumps anatomy (teats, gall bladder, penile bones) with chromosome counts. I think these should be separate paras.
    • It's intended as a bit of a miscellaneous paragraph, but you are right that the karyo is out of place there. I split the paragraph.
  • Skull, Molars and Post-Cranial Skeleton are all level-3 headers. Aren't the molars part of the skull?
    • Technically, yes. As you can see in the article, keeping the two separate makes the article more balanced, though. Weksler (2006) also keeps the two separate (substituting "dentition" for "molars", but we don't have anything interesting to say about the incisors here).
Molars
  • Para 1, sentence 4: Mesolophs? After an extensive discussion of the systematic significance of the lack of mesolophs in Pseudoryzomys, we now have mesolophs, but no anterolophs. Huh?
    • It has small mesoloph(id)s, which don't extend to the edge of the molar as they do in other oryzos. I was careful to say that it lacks complete mesoloph(id)s previously, but I did lose that care in some passages of the taxonomy section.
  • Figure: Only mention of Gran Chaco; should be wikilinked. In addition, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil do not appear to be wikilinked.
    • I instead changed it to "Chaco", as in the distribution section. It seems like the only reason "Gran Chaco" is the title of our article is that "Chaco" is also the names of provinces in Argentina and Paraguay. I deliberately did not link the countries as it could be considered overlinking.
Distribution, ecology, and variation
  • Para 1, sentence 2: needs to be split.
    • Kept it in one sentence, but rephrased it. What do you think of it? Or did you mean sentence 1?
  • Sentence 3: Full colon, not semi-colon
    • I believe I addressed this.
  • Sentence 4: what's the significance of a 1.4% difference in cytochrome b?
    • Not much (though some GSC proponents have argued that a 2% cyt b difference may be enough to recognize different species). It's relevant as the only genetic evidence of geographic variation, though. The sentence previously stated that no genetic study of geographic variation had been carried out, before I found this paper, and I added something similar to the current sentence, which serves to place it in a little bit of context.
  • Para 3, sentence 2: cerrado and caatinga are not proper nouns, and should not be capitalised.
    • Both are commonly capitalized in the specialized literature. Cerrado and Caatinga are understood as both a habitat and a region, I think, which confuses the spelling. They are similar to "Chaco", which you didn't note as being miscapitalized (or was that not deliberate?).

Guettarda (talk) 04:50, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for a thorough review. It's clear that you read the article closely, and it's produced quite some improvements. Ucucha 19:48, 4 December 2009 (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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