Talk:Opah

Problems with Article
This encyclopedia article on the Opah is rife with rampant and manifest violations of Mr. Jimbo Wales proscriptions against original research and point of view.

To begin: the article makes numerous serial unsupported assertions as to fact about the Opah, when the very article itself admits that very little is known about the Opah. I find the article extraordinarily interesting and informative: and I take everything that the very hard working contributor(s) submitted as tentative and subject to a lot of hard further work.

Still: the article as it presents is violative of Mr. Jimbo Wales' strict prohibitions against No Original Research and Neutral Point of View.

There is an over-arching sense to this article that it is written by the Opah Fisherman's Association which evidently seeks to elevate the "Moon Fish" to the culinary level of the Patagonian Tooth Fish.

Let's begin an inventory of the problems, beginning with No Original Research.

The author writes:


 * "There are only two living species in a single genus: Lampris (from the Greek lamprid-, "brilliant" or "clear"). One species is found in tropical to temperate waters of most oceans, while the other is limited to a circumglobal distribution in the Southern Ocean, with the 34th parallel as its northern limit."

None of this (immediately above) jumps even the loosest epistemological hurdle as to what can possibly be known about the Opah. We actually know practically nothing about the Opah: and everything stated in the above quotation must be struck as it violates Jimbo Wales' strict prohibitions against No Original Research. In the alternative, Mr. Wales may have to revise his rules to reflect the clear fact that this is an excellent article which serves as a very high vantage point from which to begin any enterprise with respect to the Opah Fish. But when one takes a strict construction of Jimbo Wales' rules: it is perfectly clear that all this work must go.

Here is a second example of problems with the article as to Neutral Point of View:


 * "Opah is becoming increasingly popular in seafood markets."

I ate my first Opah last night: I am inclined to agree that the author(s) statement about growing popularity is true. But, the statement reads as if it is an advertising pitch from the Opah Spear Fishers and Deep Divers Association.

Without attribution or citation: the statement must be either struck or modified.

Now what happens if the Mahi-Mahi people decide decide to work on this article. At the next Mahi-Mahi Long Liners Association meeting about 20 members agree to act in concert to gang-revert the favorable reports about the enjoyment that can be had eating an Opah.

And then, the Mahi-Mahi people being considerably better financed than the Opah people, the Mahi-Mahi lawyers get in touch with Jimbo Wales' lawyers, make a small contribution to Wikipedia (let's say $10,000): and suddenly the author of Opah is banned from Wikipedia.

Does this sort of thing happen an Wikipedia? Yes. And I am very happy to provide an explicit example.--Puckslider (talk) 19:17, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Warm-blooded fish
There are two conflicting views in this article that stipulate either 1) the fish is totally warm-blooded (cited) and 2) that it has warm-blooded characteristics but is not considered warm-blooded (which is something found in many fish). The difference needs to be found and expanded upon to give better information on the subject because as the article stands now, it is confusing to read and understand. ThoHug (talk) 18:30, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The Opah has been recently discovered to be the only fish (on record) to be fully warm-blooded, and in my opinion, the article states that very clearly. 67.182.156.40 (talk) 02:48, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Warm-blooded has various gradations, and it seems to me the article is not saying that this fish fully fits them all. That is, it is endothermic like many fish but not homeothermic like mammals or birds.  In turn, this suggests that even if the the term "totally warm-blooded" is not actually mistaken, it is vague to the point of being likely to mislead.  Precision ought to be able to take care of that. Jim.henderson (talk) 17:56, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, the article does not actually explain what "totally warm-blooded" means beyond implying that other warm-blooded fish are less-warm-blooded than the opah.--Mr Fink (talk) 18:14, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * In the whole of Wikipedia I fail to find a general discussion of warm blooded fish. Not in warm-blooded, endothermy, rete mirabilis, or anywhere else. Perhaps the question deserves such a discussion. Jim.henderson (talk) 11:22, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhaps as its own article, ala "Endothermy in fish"?--Mr Fink (talk) 13:49, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Link to Japanese wikipedia article missing
Can someone please link this article to its Japanese wikipedia article? I cannot access it from the side bar. http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%82%AB%E3%83%9E%E3%83%B3%E3%83%9C%E3%82%A6 - 04:22, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
 * That's because we can not link to that article from this article because that article corresponds to Lampris guttatus, a specific species of opah, whereas this article is about the genus, Lampris, and that there is no corresponding article devoted to just the genus in the Japanese wikipedia article.--Mr Fink (talk) 04:36, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Opah. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090220223520/http://strata.ummp.lsa.umich.edu/jack/showgenera.php?taxon=611&rank=class to http://strata.ummp.lsa.umich.edu/jack/showgenera.php?taxon=611&rank=class

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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 04:14, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Number of species
The lead says there are only two living species, but the body of the article mentions several more. Apparently recent genetic analysis has resulted in one of the "original two" being split into five distinct species. I'm neither a fish nor genetics expert, but I think the inconsistency between the lead and body needs to be resolved. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:10, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

To add to article
To add to this article: is it eaten by humans? 173.88.246.138 (talk) 02:59, 17 October 2021 (UTC)