Talk:Haplogroup R1a/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Comments by PB666, Vested referee
Comments on the Lede. [Note I have worked on this article. I nominated the page, these are not all of my critiques, some critiques I wish to have a clean and unbiased opinion of so I have not placed them here. I am placing myself in the position of a technically uninformed but well-read reader. I should note I may be commenting on sentences that I myself wrote so.....] PB666 yap 16:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Info box description in "defining mutations" should be further simplified.
 * Lede intro is not explanatory enough for a general audience, the term haplogroup is obscure in common lingo.
 * "In other words, it" ....should be replaced
 * "It is" . . . reword avoid starting
 * " The mutation that is currently used to define the R1a family most broadly is M420." . . . "The mutation that is currently used to define the R1a family most broadly is the M420 marker."
 * No mention of R1a1a7? Why not?
 * The lede should be richer and more attracting to readers.

Comments on Major Section 1 "Phylogeny (Family Tree)" *"SNP mutation" is a redundant phrase, it is equivalent of: "automobile cars". PB666 yap 16:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * "The most recent publications on this subject have increased knowledge of the complexity of the R1a." - The is an unnecessarily "high-worded" sentence.
 * "R1a1a (old R1a1) makes up the vast majority of all R1a, over its entire geographic range, and most statistical or other analysis of R1a is therefore by definition focused upon it". This is poorly worded sentence, unnecessary [weasel words] use of statistics when other more explicit wording would suffice. Does this sentence need to be in the paragraph at all since these topics are covered in the second and third sections?
 * Nice figure of R1a1a7, however almost no discussion of R1a1a7 within the text. Same is true for R1a1a6 and its table.

Comments on Major Section 2 "Distribution of R1a1a (R-M17 or R-M198)" PB666 yap 16:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * propogated should be propagated
 * population bottlenecks should be wikilinked.
 * In subsection: "Central and Northern Asia" is a difficult read.
 * In subsection: "Middle East and Caucasus" this sentence runs on: Regueiro et al. (2006), in a study of Iran, noted much higher frequencies in the south than the north and suggested "the lineage may have had an influence on the populations of south of Iran and the Dash-e Lut (sic.) desert would have played a significant role in preventing the expansion of this marker to the north of Iran".
 * In subsection: Middle East and Caucasus" this section has 2 one sentence "dangling" paragraphs.
 * "In subsection: "Europe": "R1a was present in Europe at least 4600 years ago, as demonstrated by Y-DNA extracted from the remains of three individuals near Eulau, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, discovered in 2005." The end of the sentence needs to be reconstructed, and is it necessary to disclose when they were discovered at all, the focus of the page is on R1a, not when scientist discover old bones, that can be reserved for the page on This_old_site remains?PB666 yap 16:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * A map of the distribution of R1a1a would be appropriate? ;^).

Comments on Major Section 3 "Origins and hypothesized migrations of R1a1a (R-M17 or R-M198)"
 * In the subsection "Eastern European migration hypotheses": Without commenting on the bullet list, isn't the use of bolding excessive and distracting?
 * Repaired inappropriate capitalization: page should be scanned for punctuation and capitalization problems.
 * "Theories that the earliest generations"... Are these theories or hypotheses?
 * The use of the term R1a1a (M17/M198) only needs to be done once per major section or once per major paragraph in a section, repeated use of the R1a1a (M17/M198) versus R1a1a is a distraction. I think the readers get the point. Question, would not the terminology R-M17 be more appropriate thoroughout the page?
 * in the subsection "South Asian origin hypothesis" : This section is a difficult read, even for someone informed about the topic.
 * What is Y microsatellite Y-STR? Is this important to the article? There is a figure off to the left giving coalescence times, Should not Y-STR diversity be better explained, should not coalescent times be replaced with better word or explained in the text?
 * Cannot the following be simplified? "Studies which have argued this case most strongly include Sengupta et al. (2005), Sahoo et al. (2006), and Sharma et al. (2009). Studies which have concluded that the data is at least consistent with this scenario include Kivisild et al. (2003), Mirabal et al. (2009) and Underhill et all. (2009)."
 * Foot note 48 may be the longest footnote in the entirety of Wikipedia. Is this level of discourse necessary, and if so should it not be explained better in the main article of the text and simplified?

PB666 yap 16:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

[Again, I repeat I have worked on this page and you can take these comments or reject them. I think that this page has progressed quickly upward and therefore the major editors could easily work together to promote this page to GA status, the problems relative to the previous state of the page are relatively minor]PB666 yap 16:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC) Reviewer: PB666 yap 16:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Validity of GAN
PB666, since you nominated the article and have been involved in developing it, I take it that you're not actually peer reviewing it. However, by opening this page and putting comments on it, it looks like it's already being reviewed because the GAN template on the talk page says so. These comments would probably be better placed on the article's talk page, or in a peer review. Do you need a GA reviewer? MMagdalene722 talk to me  12:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * It is a good question MM. See . The stated aim of the nomination by PB666 was to make other editors who disagree with PB666 sometimes, especially me, more "self critical" which means "giving way to PB666". The nomination was also explicitly made during a content dispute with the aim of seeing what side reviewers would take. I have proposed that this is a wrong approach to GA reviewing, and a very wrong approach to trying to work towards consensus by making your case and trying to understand the cases made by others, (because effectively the GA review is being requested in order to avoid that). I would of course welcome more views about this article (do you have a moment?) but I would understand that a GA review as such would be more appropriate when the article becomes more stable? We are currently digesting a series of new articles in the literature which have meant that the whole article has been changed quite recently, with discussion, sometimes awkward, still continuing.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I would like to see the article undergo GA review, many of the problems I stated above have been fixed in one way or another, I think the article is now ready. This GA review is not to resolve a content dispute, as Andrew said many time this is not about content, the issue here is about style and quality. As of yet the HGH project members have never promoted an article beyond B class, so I think it time that we at least tried. Please, go ahead with the review. As stated on the articles talk page I am looking for critiques of the article, at the point I posted that I did not see any obvious or glaring errors, although it appears that we have one remaining issue that will require a minor adjustment. PB666 yap 14:21, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, after a brief glance at the article's edit history, it's clear that the two of you are in some kind of edit-war. From reading discussion on the talk page, it doesn't look like you're discussing differences of opinion in a constructive way.  I'm going to quick-fail this GAN because of the lack of stability due to the on-going edit war.  What I suggest is that you post the article for peer-review by third-party, non-invested sources.  Once the issues have been resolved, then you can try again. Mr. Lancaster, if you feel that Wikipedia policy is being violated in the article or on the talk page, I suggest you request the input of an administrator.  What may be most appropriate here is to lock the article until the disputes are resolved.  MMagdalene722  talk to me  14:48, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * We are not in an edit-war. Although Andrew does have come issues with criticism, he has never been through the process of article promotion, in certain ways he resents it. I posted on the talk page a request for any final critiques of the article. "Mr. Lancaster, if you feel that Wikipedia policy is being violated in the article or on the talk page, I suggest you request the input of an administrator. " He already has, they recommended he take some time off, as I have from editing. What has happened is that after I submitted GA Andrew found 2 new papers and he has been aggressively adding information to the page, however what he has added needs to be tweeked, he left important bits out and he added stuff that appears to be speculative. The Edit-war is basically on the talk page.PB666 yap 14:57, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * When I look at the page's history and see 10-20 edits between the two of you per day, that indicates that the article is definitely not stable. It's not ready for GAN.  As I said before, neither a GAN nor the talk page are appropriate places to solicit comments for article improvement - that's exactly what the peer review process is for.  MMagdalene722  talk to me  15:31, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I disagree with PB666's denial. I'd say PB666 is definitely just holding himself on the edge of edit war, going to 2R per day and then making up misleading edit remarks for example. (Just shortening out this paragraph by removing this stuff I have already deleted three times.) I think it would just depend which admin judged it. PB666 is also not very "self critical" about what the admins on ANI said: . One admin commented that PB666's talkpage editing was described as a "clear series of WP:TALK violations". The admin who suggested I take a break was explicitly doing so on the basis that PB666 was deliberately baiting me. The third admin wrote that PB666's "attitude towards [ownership] is indeed quite extreme, and does seem to need some considerable adjustment". So while no-one has taken action, which is common on ANI, the message was clearly very different to how PB666 would like to remember it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:32, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Mmagdalene decision to quick fail this process. Indeed some administrative intervention may be necessary as the talk page discussions are at this stage unhealthy and not constructive. Miszabot is auto-archiving threads older than 5 days, and the talk page is still almost 300kb. Pdeitiker is indeed baiting Andrew into conflict, and seems to be enjoying the dispute, and will use every opportunity to extend the dispute.
 * The field of Genetic genealogy is a fairly new discipline, and as result it is still quite unstable. Scientists are continuously revising their findings. As a result, I don't believe that articles in the WP:Human genetic history are good candidates for GA status at this time. Articles from more established disciplines are more likely to meet GA status than articles from new fields like genetic genealogy. The haplogroup R1a (Y-DNA) article is probably one the best articles in the project, but it still falls short because the scientists themselves are uncertain about many aspects about the lineage. This lack of certainty is what attracts controversies, disputes, original research, and forum-like talk page postings, all of which don't go down well with reviewers. I don't believe Pdeitiker really thought that the article could achieve GA status, but it was a useful strategy to stoke the flames. Wapondaponda (talk) 16:33, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not baiting Andrew.PB666 yap
 * You cannot deny a page GA promotions on the grounds you stated.PB666 yap 16:37, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I really do believe the article can achieve GA if Andrew will stop trying to derail the process.PB666 yap 16:37, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * You simply do not read read what you reply to.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:28, 30 November 2009 (UTC)