Wikipedia:Peer review/Ocepeia/archive1

Ocepeia

This peer review discussion has been closed.
Doing a pre-GAN review, would like to get broad opinions on readability, level of detail, or any glaring omissions or weaknesses. The ideal article would achieve a balance of comprehensive coverage that is still accessible to non-scientist readers (with a nod to WP:TECHNICAL), and I could use some new eyes on this. Comments from editors with and without a paleontology background are equally appreciated. The majority of this article has been composed by myself and IJReid, and we welcome any feedback and constructive comments. Thanks, --Animalparty! (talk) 03:26, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Happy to take a look.

• "the skull of Ocepeia is the best and only known mammal skull from the Paleocene of Africa" If it's the only known one, of course it's the best known one; or have I misunderstood?
  • My reading from the source is that the skull is the only known, which makes the genus the best known (since skulls may offer much more details than isolated teeth or ankle bones. I'll try to clarify.--Animalparty! (talk) 19:59, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
• I know this is not necessarily something that the sources will comment upon, but I'm struggling to picture this thing- are we looking at something aardvark-like? A pig? A tapir? Even if comparisons have not been mentioned, is there any speculation on what the animals would have looked like beyond weight?
  • I haven't found such speculation, which may not exist in reliable sources, constrained by the fact that the animal is only known from skull material- posture and height are beyond the realm of known material. The handful of dental comparisons doesn't mean much, but the sources describe body mass and skull size as comparable to hyraxes and Meniscotherium, so squinting at those and taking in the skulls and reconstructions might be the best gestalt, even if approximate.--Animalparty! (talk) 19:59, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
• "fully-grown males features" This doesn't quite work
  • Clarified.
• I think "robust" is jargon- it's also repeated a few times in the description, which jars a little.
• In the description, be aware of your tenses jumping back and forth- features "allow it to be assigned", while "CT scans revealed", for example.
• "The ancestral eutherian condition is having four premolars" I don't understand
• "an large pneumatization of the skull bones" Typo?
• "than the row of tooth" Jargon?
• I'm on a poor Internet connection, so I don't want to check at the moment, but I'm a little worried about the possibility of close paraphrasing in the "Distinguishing features" section. Something to be aware of!
  • To be honest, I think this section is the one most in need of trimming- it adds little clarity and is somewhat redundant to other sections. I personally find it overly detailed for a general use encyclopedia, and probably would need to be greatly simplified to reach FA quality. However, the cited source is CC-licensed, so even a pure copy-paste would be within copyright. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:59, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
• "and placed the family in an undetermined (and possibly new) order questionably within Paenungulata" I'm assuming that they didn't name this order?
  • Correct. To paraphrase source, its order is incertae sedis and probably new. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:59, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
• Should "Paleoecology" be a subsection of "Paleobiology"
• "of the Paleocene, (59-60 MYA) which" Should that comma be after the brackets?
• "slightly younger (more recent) in age" I think "slightly younger" is fine alone- there's no need for "(more recent) in age"
• If we have one, a map showing the position of modern-day Morocco in the days of the Ocepeia would be a nice addition to the Paleoecology section. Even a reconstruction of the kind of habitat/a photo of a similar modern habitat.
  • I agree. Will work on this.
• Your sources are, of course, excellent, but I'd recommend spelling out your journal names.

Based on this look through (I've not looked at the sources/images in detail due to the aforementioned connection- I'll drop back another time) I'd say that this would have very little trouble at GAC, beyond perhaps having to wait for a review. Nice work! Josh Milburn (talk) 16:30, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

And, in case it isn't obvious, I have no paleontology background, and only an "interested outsider" background in biology generally (though I have written some biology FAs here on WP). If you're looking for people who know a bit about paleontology and who might be willing to take a look at this article, Ucucha (talk · contribs), FunkMonk (talk · contribs) and Casliber (talk · contribs) spring to mind. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:36, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

@J Milburn: Thanks so much for your comments. I've made some changes already, and will use your feedback for more refinement. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:59, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Comments from FunkMonk

• Hi, I'll have a look at this soon. First thing, as I said elsewhere, as this is an animal only known from fossils, it may be a bit misleading to have a hypothetical life restoration in the taxobox (we know nothing about the external features of this animal). Fossils or restored skeletons would probably be more "neutral". FunkMonk (talk) 17:28, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
  • If I can chip in, I would normally (strongly) agree, but, given that this is a restoration from a recent peer-reviewed article in a well-regarded scientific journal, I think it may have a place there. Making the provenance more clear in the caption (as well as acknowledging any limitations) might make the use a bit more "valid". That said, I wouldn't be opposed to replacing it in the taxobox but placing it elsewhere in the article. Josh Milburn (talk) 19:21, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, certainly more citable as it is from the paper, yet the artist and authors would have little to no more chance of guessing the colouration, hair density, ear and snout shape, etc., than any skilled paleoartist. Seems the extant phylogenetic bracket has led them to base it somewhat on a giant otter shrew.[1] Also, restorations in peer reviewed papers are sometimes inaccurate or downright ugly, weirdly enough (some recent examples[2][3][4]), so that alone doesn't guarantee much. If it had been a more recently extinct animal, the guesses would be much safer. But anyway, this is pretty much a pet peeve of mine, and will probably not have much bearing on whether other people support or oppose this article. Just a thing to keep in mind. I have added restorations to taxoboxes myself, but only when I didn't have photos or drawings of actual specimens. FunkMonk (talk) 19:30, 13 August 2015 (UTC)