Talk:Protist/GA1

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reviewer: Etriusus (talk · contribs) 05:41, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Grabbing this, my notes are a mess right now, I'll have them cleaned up soon enough. Glad to see you again for another GA review, it's always a pleasure to see the same nominators show up again from time-to-time. I already know how big Vital article reviews can get, so I'll be lenient on the time constraints. 🏵️Etrius ( Us) 05:41, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Etriusus, thank you for reviewing. I will try to answer to every point here:

Images

• "File:Biomass of Earth 2018.svg" This image is rather redundant to the prose and just clogs up the page

• Images: took out the redundant image.

• File:Giardia lamblia.jpg link doesn't redirect properly, possible dead link
• There are a large number of the captions are unsourced. Most of these captions are too complex/detailed to fall under obvious knowledge.
• As a whole, I'd say about a half dozen of these images should be cut, per MOS:NOTGALLERY. There are two many images, oftentimes, the images are too specific for what should be a rather broad subject.

Sourcing

• "Protist pathogens share many metabolic pathways..." latter half of this paragraph is unsourced
• "Fossil record" entire section is unsourced

• Sourcing: deleted the unsourced paragraph on parasites. I will redo the entire fossil section within the next days, it's something I've been wanting to do since I started working on this article. Right now I have not enough time, but I will get to it soon.

Copy-Vios

• Neither spot checks nor Earwig finds anything of note. I'll do more, but no news is good news.

External Links

• A java applet for exploring the new higher level classification of eukaryotes - Java applets have been largely defunct since 2020ish, neither firefox nor chrome support it.
• Holt, Jack R. and Carlos A. Iudica. (2013). Diversity of Life. http://comenius.susqu.edu/biol/202/Taxa.htm. Last modified: 11/18/13. -dead link
• Plankton Chronicles – Protists – Cells in the Sea – video -Not supported either, I couldn't get the video to work

• External links: deleted unworking links and added one working link.

Prose

• Lead is way too short for a level 4 vital article. I'd expect at least 2 hearty paragraphs.
• Protists represent an extremely large, undescribed genetic and ecological diversity, recognized only in recent decades and still in the process of being fully discovered. Sentence needs grammar clean-up, hard to follow
• "The study of protists is termed protistology." Not technically cited
• Examples of basic protist forms, that do not represent evolutionary cohesive lineages, include: The point of this bulleted list is vague, appears to be largely redundant to the classification section.
• "lineages" please define what this means
• " stalked reproductive structures " link
• "often very distantly from true fungi" specify
• "elucidated " simplify
• "and novel biodiversity" what does this mean? clarify
• "resulting in dramatic changes to the eukaryotic tree of life." Cut, WP:PUFFERY
• The newest classification systems of eukaryotes do not recognize the formal taxonomic ranks (phylum, class, order...) and instead only recognize the group that are clades of related organisms, making the classification more stable in the long term and easier to update.

-Is this sentence necessary? Unless you're prepared to discuss the complexities of the old and new system, mentioning that Protist use a clad system should suffice. Also, grammar.

• "Viridiplantae or Chloroplastida..." specify that its 7000 species, 10 species, etc. in the parenthesis
• "Sar, SAR or Harosa – a clade of three highly diverse lineages exclusively containing protists. " Please explain exactly what unifies this superclad
• "extremely diverse " WP:PUFFERY
• " some unusual algae" cut unusual, unless you can elaborate
• " large and abundant" clarify or cut
• Much of the rhizarian diversity lies within the phylum Cercozoa, filled with free-living flagellates which usually have pseudopodia, as well as Phaeodaria, a group previously considered radiolarian run-on
• "important parasites" again, WP:PUFFERY
• As a whole, the Modern classification section is too detailed. There are already two other articles that link from this, this is the point of having a see also/main article template. This section should be substantially shortened, especially since you already have a cladogram present.
• Don't collapse the cladogram
• The history section is missing a large amount of info, there's no mention of Antony van Leeuwenhoek's animalcules classification
• So, I can't read German. But English sources say that Goldfuss referred to them as "protozoon"
• 'Historical classifications' make a level 1 heading
• " bacteria and eukaryotes, both unicellular and multicellular organisms, as Protista." Reword, this implies that bacteria=unicellular and eukaryotes=multicellular. I get that in broad strokes this is generally accepted but Eukaryotes aren't universally multicellular.
• "He retained the Infusoria" specify who
• "At first, he included sponges and fungi," again, specify who
• "He clearly separated Protista..." cut 'clearly
• "German naturalists asserted this view over the worldwide scientific community by the turn of the century." and "dogma of German cell theory." almost like WP:POV
• " which the term Protoctista (meaning "first established beings") did not" did not what?
• "According to molecular data" bordering on WP:WEASEL
• "in several groups the number of predicted" WP:WEASEL
• "morphological diagnoses" what does this even mean?
• An unexpectedly enormous, taxonomically undescribed diversity of eukaryotic microbes is detected everywhere in the form of environmental DNA or RNA. Simplify this, wayyy too many buzzwords
• "probably constrained by intense predation" Don't say 'probably' be more specific on why there is doubt.
• You say " highly diverse", "extremely diverse", etc. throughout. At this point it's just WP:PUFFERY. Please go through the article and clean these up.
• "; fractions larger than 5 μm are instead dominated by diatoms and dinoflagellates" reword, simplify
• Mixotrophic marine protists, while not very researched, are present abundantly and ubiquitously in the global oceans, on a wide range of marine habitats reword
• "They are an important and underestimated source" vague sentence
• "They can be divided into two" two what?
• "dinoflagellates" define
• "Generalist ciliates can account for up to 50% of ciliate communities in the photic zone. The endosymbiotic mixotrophs are the most abundant non-constitutive type" Cut, this info is out of ordeer for the flow of the paragraph and just confuses the reader.
• "highly heterogeneous" "hydrological dynamic" unnecessary jargon
• "behave alternatively" alternative to what?
• " are ecologically the richest" What does this mean?
• "extremely heterogenous" WP:PUFFERY, simplify
• The constantly changing environment promotes the activity of only one part of the community at a time, while the rest remains inactive; this phenomenon promotes high microbial diversity in prokaryotes as well as protists. sentence is missing a ton of context, how does it do this? why is it constantly changing? This sentence assumes info that isn't there.
• "oceanic systems" just say oceans
• "Around 100 protist species can infect humans. Recent papers have proposed the use of viruses to treat infections caused by protozoa." This is all you're going to say? This is a very complex issue.
• "a cycle of diastole and systole" you mean contraction
• "early mitochondria" clarify, do you mean primeval or dividing mitochondria
• "probably all motile algae exhibit a positive" dont use probably, remove positive

-You establish how they do this but never explain why.

• Add, See main: Evolution of sexual reproduction
• "This view was further supported by a 2011..." cut paragraph, or condense to a sentence. Amoebae is a very broad category that includes multiple kingdoms.
• "extremely complex" cut
• "invertebrate vector," buzz words
• You said you'd redo the "Fossil record" section, so me reviewing this is largely irrelevant.

• Prose:
  • I expanded the lead, let me know what you think now. Should it be longer?
  • Cleaned up the grammar of that long phrase, dividing it into several.
  • I cited the protistology phrase, see: "He (Otto Butschli) coined the term protistology and solidified it as a branch of study independent from zoology and botany"
  • I don't think this list is redundant. The 'Classification' section talks of purely taxonomical and phylogenetic classifications, while this list represents the living forms most people recognize as protists. It's an informal, purely visual classification, and I think it's important that it goes in the 'Definition' section. Is there any way I can improve it? —Snoteleks 🦠 12:24, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

-If that's the case, please clarify what criteria are being used. It is rather vague on what is being classified, all it says is " basic protist forms" which could mean anything. As a whole, I still struggle to see why the list isn't just a part of the classification section.

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There is little discussion about evolution, or endosymbiotic theory, which is a major component to understanding protists. There is almost no discussion about interactions with humans, including food and medicine. The use of a definition section, followed by a classification section is something that is difficult to follow and feels like an arbitrary separation. If this bulleted list is based upon morphological differences, why is this not in the Biology and Physiology section?

I used Plant and Bacteria as comparative models for this review, both of these articles are far more digestible. As a whole, the article suffers from a writing style that is WP:TECHNICAL and at times devolves into full on journal club. I get that you're an expert in this field, but remember that the article needs to been kept at a reading level that is understandable to the average person, I hold a degree in anatomy and still had difficulty following this at times. The prose as a whole needs to be simplified, and streamlined. Some sections are overly detailed while others are super short. The standards for species articles' wording tend to be lower since the literature is limited, but this is a broad, level 4 vital article. I recommend sending this to WP:GCE.

More specifically, the page loses the forest for the trees. It spends a large amount of time on specific protists and how to classify them, but doesn't give a broad idea of what a protist is or does. At this time, I am going to fail the article, the prose issue is systemic and there's an entire section that is completely unsourced. I understand that failing a GA review can be disheartening, but I applaud the work you'd done so far. Given some time, this will make a fine addition to the GA halls. I hope to see this at GA again, soon!!! 🏵️Etrius ( Us) 05:16, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.