Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tarbosaurus

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 00:09, 31 January 2008.

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Tarbosaurus

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Self-nom as I wrote most of the article with assistance from my compatriots at WP:DINO. Tarbosaurus is another tyrannosaurid genus article to go along with the already-featured Albertosaurus, Daspletosaurus and of course the King himself, Tyrannosaurus. While less has been published on this Asian genus than the North American ones (typical), it is still very well-known from fossil material. Currently this is the 22nd longest dinosaur article on Wikipedia and the 16th longest article on a single dinosaur genus. I believe that it is very comprehensive and well-sourced, with appropriate images and diagrams and no redlinks. I hope that the reviewers find the prose worthy of its subject. Thank you! Sheep81 (talk) 20:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE: The article has just been copyedited by the aptly-named User:Finetooth from the League of Copyeditors, significantly improving the prose in my opinion. Sheep81 (talk) 07:54, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support - I copyedited the article before coming here and I feel it is at least as good as the other dino FAs. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support Excellent depth, well referenced, no evident MOS or grammar issues. Caknuck (talk) 21:27, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your review! Sheep81 (talk) 21:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support Nice article, I couldn't find any significant issues. Jimfbleak (talk) 07:19, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Jim! Sheep81 (talk) 09:40, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• Objection I believe the writing could improve significantly.
  In the lead: "Even if the two are not synonymous, Tarbosaurus and Tyrannosaurus are considered closely related genera." - I have personal dislike for this kind of sentence, introductory ___, and would like to know why. Here's how I prefer it: "Tarbosaurus and Tyrannosaurus are considered closely related genera." - Is this a controversial change?
  "Over the years, other Chinese localities have produced tyrannosaurid teeth and fragmentary remains, several of which have been given names." I believe could be improved to "Tyrannosaurid teeth and fragmentary remains have [later?] been found in other locations within China, and have been classified as [new genera?]"
  I don't believe prefrontal bone should be linked - and rather that frontal bone is a compound - frontal and bone, and that pre frontal (bone) means behind the frontal (bone.
  --Kiyarrllston 14:58, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for looking over the article. We'll go through it and try to improve the prose, and I've also got a request in for the League of Copyeditors. As far as your last point, I'm a little confused about what exactly you mean, but if you are trying to suggest that there is no prefrontal bone, that is incorrect. The prefrontal is a separate bone in reptile skulls (probably other kinds of herps too). It's very small in tyrannosaurids but still separate. Thanks for finding that redlink by the way, I thought I got them all! Sheep81 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 06:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I've written a short stub on the prefrontal bone so there is that at least. Sheep81 (talk) 07:39, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for reading my comments, I hope they were helpful.

I noticed, finally that synonymous links to synonymous (taxonomy) - I believe a better place for that link would be under the heading "possible synonymns"

and just now I noticed that "even though they are not synonymous" is an introduction, not to that sentence, but to that entire paragraph - I suggest "Tarbosaurus as a term is closely related and even synonymous to many other terms" - as a more suitable way to begin that paragraph

--Kiyarrllston 15:58, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

PS: Oh -wiktionary:sheepish and I didn't know that about prefrontal bone, read that too :D —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dwarf Kirlston (talk • contribs) 16:00, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• Provisional support. I don't know much about Tarbosaurus, but some sources indicate that Albertosaurus periculosus is possibly a junior synonym of Tarbosaurus, so this should probably be discussed in the synonomy section (it is not currently discussed anywhere in this article, and is not present in the taxobox synonomy section). I've done a bit of copyediting on this article, and I think it's FA worthy (of reasonable length, free of errors, well-sourced, etc). Finally, please do not do as suggested above and change the wording of "Even if the two are not synonymous, Tarbosaurus and Tyrannosaurus are considered closely related genera," to "Tarbosaurus as a term is closely related and even synonymous to many other terms," which misses the point about the animal being closely related (possibly even the same animal) as another dinosaur. Firsfron of Ronchester 01:37, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
  • "Even if they are not synonymous is supposed to be a suggestion that they might be? - so "Tarbosaurus is a synonymn of other taxonomic terms." I think would be proper. Continuing with "It is notably closely related to Tyranosaurus but not a synonymn."--Kiyarrllston 15:13, 28 January 2008 (UTC) [PS: or "and possibly synonymous"] --Kiyarrllston 15:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I've moved that clause to the end of the sentence, hopefully it reads better while conveying the same meaning. Sheep81 (talk) 19:11, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I added periculosis to the synonymy section. It's in Holtz 2004 so I don't even need to add another reference. Not adding it to the taxobox since Albertosaurus is definitely not a synonym of Tarbosaurus. Sheep81 (talk) 07:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

My sole concern (about A. periculosis) has been addressed. No further observations here. Firsfron of Ronchester 21:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Moral support as a member of WP:DINO and a very very minor contributor. It's comparable to other recent dinosaur FAs, no flags are going up, and if there's something reasonable that needs addressing, I know it'll get done. J. Spencer (talk) 07:01, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

• Please review links. Please address WP:OVERLINKing of common terms known to most English speakers, examples river, teeth, brain, force, etc. Also review WP:MOS#Captions regarding the difference in punctuation of full sentences and sentence fragments on image captions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Regarding linking - agree about first 3 mentioned. I think force is more valuable in this case as it has more of a specific and scientific connection. I'll look further and I am sure Sheepy will too. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Samples only, will leave it to your better judgment. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:20, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The periods in the captions were added just last night, when we were asleep. They've been re-removed. Firsfron of Ronchester 21:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

That'll teach you to sleep :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:20, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Bwahaha! Well, we've learned our lesson now: we'll sleep in shifts! ;) I've fixed the dead links. Paleo Graveyard just recently went off-line, so we were caught off-guard by that. The link to BioOne works when you click it, but shows up as a dead link in the Dispenser tool. Advice as to how to proceed is welcome. Firsfron of Ronchester 21:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The linkie-checkie tool is only a tool; it helps, but has issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:45, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Gah! There's still a dead link. I will fix it this afternoon, but don't have time now (RL issues). Thanks. Firsfron of Ronchester 22:14, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I just clicked on the Carpenter link and it works fine, even though the tool says it doesn't. It links to Carpenter's PDF archive rather than directly to the paper though. Sheep81 (talk) 00:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip, Sandy. And thanks for implementing them, guys. I re-added the link to fossil cause a lot of people don't know what fossils actually are (and aren't)... seems like a different situation than the other examples Sandy listed. Sheep81 (talk) 21:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. The other links are good I feel. The article is denser than many that pass through here with terms that benefit from a bluelink, due to its technical nature. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I concur! Sheep81 (talk) 00:16, 31 January 2008 (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.