Wikipedia:Peer review/Myliobatis goodei/archive1

Myliobatis goodei

I've listed this article for peer review because…

This is one of the few articles I've created that I've been able to find a substantial amount of information about. I really would like to improve this article in any way possible, so it could be nice to have some suggestions as to how the article can be improved. If one thinks that it may be able to be upgraded to C class, please do so. Otherwise, I welcome any way that I could make the article more appealing to readers. As for adding actual content, I've looked everywhere and I have added everything I could that came from a reliable source to the article.

Thanks so much! SkyGazer 512 ^{Oh no, what did I do this time?} 20:31, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Just a few quick comments. It's an interesting article with, sadly, a poor infobox illustration. Why not use this real photo rather than a derived sketch?

• In the lead, swap round the sentence about its size with the one that follows it. Dimensions are less important than habitat and distribution, in my view.
• "Its width is somewhat bigger than its length," - ugh! I think "somewhat greater than..." sounds much better.
• "Southern eagle rays usually have a darker brown colored back." Darker than what? Other species? Or darker than its underside? I think this needs to be clarified. Do rays have backs? I'd prefer to use upper side or dorsal surface, not 'back'.
• The lead sentence is a bit tautologous, effectively saying the "Southern eagle ray is a species of eagle ray." (That's how it looks when previewed in a hovercard.) I'd suggest saying "Southern eagle ray is a species of ray in the family Myliobatidae. As that link redirects to eagle ray, you've said the same thing, but in a more informative manner, I feel.
• I would suggest rereading some of your references. I think you could extract a lot more; in fact, you have drawn a wrong conclusion on threat in a single sentence, whereas you could have expanded the content by creating a 'Conservation and status' section. I don't think it's correct to simply say it is threatened by fishing. It clearly is a bycatch component, and there have been significant declines, however the reference makes it clear that more research is needed, hence its IUCN listing as 'data deficient', and the taxon has no conservation measures in place.
• "A sighting was also recently reported in the island of Maldives," - beware the use of 'recently'. Tell us when, because this page may survive for 100 years. It won't be recent then!
• Galleries: I thought these were deprecated, and I really don't think one is needed here at all. Just use the images within the article, avoiding phrases like "You can see that it is a rather dark color.." because this sounds much too chatty, and not encyclopaedic in tone. Try to find a different way to draw attention to colour differences.
• There's nothing on their life cycle, or being Ovoviviparous. As a result, the rather clumsy statement about feeding on yolk and then uterine fluid leaves the reader wondering what on earth they're up to. Again, re-read the sources and take care not to omit or misinterpret key information.
• Comparison chart. There's nothing about depth of water found in. You do have this information for both taxa, and the differences are quite significant, and worth mentioning. (i.e. M. freminvillei not found below 10 metres depth)

I hope this gets you off to a good start; no doubt other reviewers will add their additional thoughts, too. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 19:21, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate you taking the time to read the article thoroughly and provide this feedback. I've implemented some of your suggestions in my last edit - specifically, I think I have satisfied your 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th comments so far (out of the 9 total). I am definitely planning on trying to take the rest of your feedback and add it to the article - just those will probably take a bit more time. Thank you!--SkyGazer 512 ^{Oh no, what did I do this time?} 20:57, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

What about "The species is somewhat wider than it is long" or some variant of that? Fritzmann2002 19:40, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Does this look better for phrasing? Btw, I think I have now addressed all of the points that Nick Moyes pointed out, but I could be forgetting something.--SkyGazer 512 ^{Oh no, what did I do this time?} 18:55, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

• If "Southern eagle ray" is the most commonly used common name then it should be listed at that name. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:15, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

@Casliber: The edits you made to the article look very nice - thanks. So do you think the page needs to be moved to Southern eagle ray? I can start a move discussion if needed.--SkyGazer 512 ^{Oh no, what did I do this time?} 13:10, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

It's pretty standard and uncontroversial move. Done now. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:34, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

• Well, nobody's commented on this for 2 months now and it's been open for a whole 5 months, which is much longer than is recommended at Wikipedia:Peer review/Request removal policy. So, I guess that means I should probably close this. I will say that I believe my article creation skills have improved since creating this article, as I'm now much more familiar with how the standard layout of an article should be and how I can word articles so that they flow better and look nicer. I may be making some copy-edits to this article in the future, but I have some other projects I'm doing currently on Wikipedia, so I probably won't be doing as much. Thanks for the feedback, everyone, it was very helpful. :) If anybody has any additional ways they think the article can be improved, feel free to reach out to me.--SkyGazer 512 ^{Oh no, what did I do this time?} 02:15, 28 October 2018 (UTC)