Talk:Mesozoic mammals of Madagascar

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Mesozoic mammals of Madagascar/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: – VisionHolder « talk » 13:31, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Looks great! – VisionHolder « talk » 21:37, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Comments:

• No images are provided, which is understandable. However, could one or more of the global paleogeographic reconstructions located here, such as File:LateJurassicGlobal.jpg and File:LateCretaceousGlobal.jpg, be used? And if you want the middle Jurassic rather than the late Jurassic, the images come from here, and with an image of the middle Jurassic available. The uploader (and author?) left comments on my talk page without signing several months back, so maybe you could try to track him down and see if you could upload more of them.
  • I considered that, also for UA 8699, but there are two problems: the maps don't cite any reliable sources, and they aren't contemporaneous with the Mesozoic faunas. The late Jurassic one is about 15 Ma younger than Ambondro and the late Cretaceous one is about 25 Ma older than the Mahajanga Basin mammal fauna. Ucucha 16:03, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
    • The citations for the maps can be found on the website that they originally came from. Also, I said there is a map of the middle Jurassic that dates to 170 mya and a map for the Maastrichtian, which dates to 65 mya, on the original web site. I'm sure you could get approval to upload it to Commons if you contacted the author or tracked down the original uploader. Obviously, I won't hold up the GAC if you try and end up waiting for an email response. It's ultimately up to you, though. – VisionHolder « talk » 20:18, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
      • OK, I'll e-mail the author. Ucucha 20:35, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

• "The fossils come from the Maastrichtian (latest Cretaceous) of the Anembalembo Member of the Maevarano Formation." What's the "Anembalembo Member"?
  • A member is a subunit of a formation; put in a link to clarify. Ucucha 16:03, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

• "Recent Madagascar fauna" – "Recent" or "recent"?
  • As Awickert explained at the C. spelea FAC, "Recent" in geology has a particular meaning where it is capitalized, and that meaning applies here. Ucucha 16:03, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

• If possible, please briefly describe "zhelestids"... it's red-linked with no description, giving the reader nothing to go off of.
  • Poor things, they deserve an article. I put in a short explanation. Ucucha 16:03, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

• I'm not going to hold up this GAC over FAC issues, but if you plan to go forward with this article, the language, especially in the lead and opening sections, is a bit dense and poorly described. I hate pointing this out because I know complicates the article.

I'm not sure whether I'll bring this to FAC, but regardless of that I'd like the prose to be as good as possible, so please do bring up any issues you see, even when they go beyond the GA criteria. Ucucha 16:03, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not as good as you at critiquing prose. On the first read, it went fairly smoothly, with only that one correction I made. As for clarifications for the readers...

1) In the lead, terms "tribosphenic molars" and "multituberculate" are linked by not described. Personally, I don't care as long as you provide a link... but at FACs, I've had people demand brief explanations.

Expanded a little. I think it would really go too far to say exactly what tribosphenic entails—a talonid basin isn't exactly a familiar thing to most people—but I have put in a little more.

2) In the Jurassic section, "tribosphenic pattern" is mentioned again. I'd recommend a very brief explanation here or in the lead (per the previous point).

I think what is there, with what I added in the lead, should be enough; this is a summary article that deals mainly with the big patterns and the exact morphological basis of tribosphenicity can be left to the article on Ambondro.

3) You mention clades without even a link to Cladistics. I don't think you can assume, even in an article like this, that readers will know what a clade is.

Clade is linked, though; shouldn't that suffice? Ucucha 20:35, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I missed the link. I'm sorry. – VisionHolder « talk » 20:59, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

4) "Cat-sized mammal" – Are we talking a house cat or a tiger? I know what you mean, but I'm not sure if anyone else would call you on it.

House cat, I assume, but the source doesn't say more than this.

5) "procumbent" – Yes, I obviously know what it means, but to an average reader, they may not understand.

Replaced.

Anyway, I may have been a little easy on you compared to some of the FAC reviewers, but I also understand the complications created by adding extra descriptions and/or writing at the high-school level for graduate-level material. – VisionHolder « talk » 20:18, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

You don't need to be easy on me; as I said, I'd like the article to be as good as possible and any comment can help. Ucucha 20:35, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going easy on you as a favor. If I am going easy on you, it is strictly because my views seem to conflict with those of other editors who feel every article should be written at a high-school level or lower. I sincerely feel that certain material is simply beyond that level, and writing about it at a lower level is either futile or confounding. For example, if a high-school student who is just learning the ins-and-outs of algebra wanted to know what Calculus was, I wouldn't want the Wiki article written at their level. That's what wikilinks are for. An article on the topic of calculus should be written at the level of a student studying at a college-level, or "Calculus I" level. Similarly, Mesozoic mammals of Madagascar should cater to reading level of the people who would be coming into the field (paleontology). No high-school that I know of teaches paleontology, and most readers wouldn't know a tibia from a metatarsal. So, in short, I think the article is fine. If some illustrations could be added, that would be ideal. Otherwise, as long as the literature has been adequately covered, I think the article merits a run as FAC. If you are okay with this opinion, then I will pass this GAC and leave its progress in your hands. However, if you want me to knit pick from a high-school reading level, I can give it a try. – VisionHolder « talk » 20:59, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you there, so there's no need to go for a high school reading level. Thanks for the explanation. Ucucha 21:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Otherwise, great work as always! – VisionHolder « talk » 13:31, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for taking up the review. Ucucha 16:03, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm pleased to pass this article. One last suggestion would be to look into creating a map of fossil sites for this article. Are there a lot of them? – VisionHolder « talk » 21:37, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! There are basically only two: the one where they got Ambondro (near Ambondromahabo) and the Maastrichtian one (several sites closely together near Berivotra). It can't hurt to have a map, but it's not as useful as for Recent mammals. Ucucha 05:21, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

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Article for deletion

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. (non-admin closure) JC7V (talk) 05:46, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Mesozoic mammals of Madagascar

Mesozoic mammals of Madagascar (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD · Stats)

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There is absolutely no reason why there should be a specific article focusing on Madagascan mammals of the Mesozoic (especially because the island only formed in the Late Cretaceous). It would make more sense to focus on other areas (such as China) with a more diverse mammalian fauna if at all, but in any case it would be redundant somewhat with Evolution of mammals. I think the only reason this article exists was to create a parent article for a Featured topic. It doesn’t meet the “Presumed” requirement of WP:GNG, and though cites a lot of sources, “significant coverage in reliable sources creates an assumption, not a guarantee, that a subject merits its own article.” There are plenty of sources for the Mesozoic decapod crustaceans of Madagascar (like this, this, and this) but that doesn’t merit an article   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  01:59, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

The featured topic page[1] state sit covers some fossils that are not covered in other articles, so we would at least need to find somewhere else to put that information before doing anything here. FunkMonk (talk) 06:22, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

I’d argue it’d be best to wait until those undetermined fossils are given some kind of identification before bringing them up anywhere, or give a small sentence in their respective articles (like the multituberculate molar would be mentioned in Multituberculata)   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  16:26, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Africa-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 06:44, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

• Keep Mesozoic mammals is a topic - it's a WP category, and also one in other publications, in general and in Madagascar specifically (eg 'Madagascar's Mesozoic Secrets' in Scientific American [2], Mesozoic Mammals: The First Two-Thirds of Mammalian History [3]) and university courses (eg [4]). It therefore meets WP:GNG Other publications also have articles about Mesozoic mammals in other countries/continents (eg Science China Press 'Mesozoic mammals—what do we know from China?' [5]). The fact that Wikipedia does not yet have articles on Mesozoic mammals of other countries/continents is not a reason to delete this article. RebeccaGreen (talk) 08:53, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah and there’s this, this, and this about the Mesozoic decapod crustaceans of Madagascar. Does that mean it should have its own article? No, because “significant coverage in reliable sources creates an assumption, not a guarantee, that a subject merits its own article”   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  16:11, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

• Keep per RebeccaGreen. The nom writes "[t]here is absolutely no reason why there should be a specific article focusing on Madagascan mammals". I could equally argue "there is absolutely no reason why there shouldn't be a specific article focusing on Madagascan mammals". It's an invalid argument either way – Wikipedia doesn't have to have articles on anything, but it can have articles on everything. No policy-based rationale for deletion has been advanced. SpinningSpark 11:55, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

It doesn’t meet the “Presumed” requirement of WP:GNG, and I’d like to remind you Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  16:26, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 07:02, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Animal-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 07:02, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

• Keep, meets WP:GNG, article has plenty of independent references. Coolabahapple (talk) 07:07, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
• Keep I'm honestly not seeing much of a problem with this article. Content, form and sourcing are fine, so the remaining question is whether the article fits appropriately into the current subject organization (as essentially was the issue with the recent lion articles brouhaha). That also seems fine by me; it's a useful hub article. Clearly it will never get as much material as an equivalent one about, e.g., China, but arguments that "we should rather be focusing on topic X instead of Y" are not what has generated Wikipedia - quite the opposite ;) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:41, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

It seems rather trivial to have an entire article about a loosely connected group of less than 10 species on a land mass that formed in the last stages of the time period it encompasses   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  18:11, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

The island formed in the last stages. The landmass formed long before that. SpinningSpark 21:10, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

My point still stands, it is largely trivial to give an article to one small group of creatures on one small corner of the world. The entirety of the Jurassic section is just a rehash of the taxonomy section of Ambondro. The first paragraph of Cretaceous is an incredibly long summary of Maevarano Formation (which could probably be reduced to a sentence), and remaining paragraphs talk at length about undescribed teeth which usually aren’t considered notable until they’re given at least a genus designation   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:26, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

• Keep as per RebeccaGreen. Just because someone has not bothered to create an article yet about another notable subject does not mean an article on another notable subject should be deleted. Who decides the order of notability and the order of article creation? If we are to go that route a lot of articles will be pulled down. There is significant and in-depth coverage from several independent and reliable sources. This article therefore satisfies the general notability guidelines and merits a stand alone article. Reading the nominator's rationale and examining the article for myself, I have so far seen no evidence that this article fails GNG or should be deleted because of WP:NOT or any policy for that matter. I don't like it or what about X are not good reasons for delete. Tamsier (talk) 01:50, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.