Talk:Phenotype microarray

Content issues
Although the article tells us a little bit of what a PMA does, it does not say what it is or how it works. It looks like the article is being wirtten by people that are cell biologists and have difficulty seeing beyond their specialty. Note that "phenotyping" is done with whole plants and animals, too, and that respiration kinetics are certainly not the only phenotype used in high-throughput phenotyping. This article should be written for people who do not know what A PMA is, not for people who already know the thing... Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 13:31, 23 January 2013 (UTC)


 * At the end of January quite a few of additions have been made. The purpose of the Technology section is to explain how PM works. If more details were of interest, the biologists who contributed to that article would probably be happy to include them eventually. But if a perceived problem of the article is that some issues are hard to understand for non-specialists, reviewers of the article would need to know more specifially which parts of the text would particularly need to be revised. Viennotia (talk) 18:34, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The issue is not so much that this is difficult to understand for non-specialist, but that it can only be understood if one already knows what this is... The article suffers from severe tunnel-vision (as also evidenced by how it describes phenotyping, something that is done on all kinds of organisms for all kinds of characters, varying from metabolic parameters to animal behavior). --Randykitty (talk) 10:39, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, does the article make any indication that phenotyping is not "done on all kinds of organisms for all kinds of characters, varying from metabolic parameters to animal behavior"? I am not aware of any evidence that the article implies this. And explicitly explaining, or even mentioning, the whole variety of things subsumed under the term "phenotype" IMHO is clearly beyond the scope of an article on Phenotype Microarrays. Are we actually dealing with "tunnel vision" here, or did the authors just succeed to focus on the very topic of this Wikipedia entry? Viennotia (talk) 17:47, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Mentioning specific products
I see no sign that the specific product mentioned is notable in any way. I see no reason why one specific product should be mentioned over any other specific product. The includsion just seems very spammy to me. - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:00, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
 * See my remark above, it almost starts looking like this article solely exists to promote that software package. --Randykitty (talk) 15:18, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Exactly. One reverter called the removal "arbitrary".  It really is not.  I really have to wonder why the article needs to mention or like link to any particular product, and why to that one specifically? - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:36, 23 January 2013 (UTC)


 * The modification by TexasAndroid that was reverted by me caused fewer, not more, software products to be mentioned in the article. TexasAndroid deleted the link to PhemaDB and left opm. After my reversion the article lists the original number of software solutions again, including both PhemaDB and opm. For this reason, the rule that one should not mention a specific product over others appears to favour my version, not TexasAndroid's version. Viennotia (talk) 18:24, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Fair Use Violations
Parts of the article is actually just quoted from a manufacturer's website. While that's nice and all, it does potentially violate IP laws.

To wit:

"Just as DNA Microarrays and Proteomic Technologies have made it possible to assay the level of thousands of genes or proteins all at once, Phenotype MicroArrays make it possible to quantitatively measure thousands of cellular phenotypes all at once." This comes from here: http://www.biolog.com/products-static/phenotype_microbial_cells_overview.php

While this: "Just as DNA microarrays and proteomic technologies have made it possible to assay the level of thousands of genes or proteins all a once, phenotype microarrays (PMs) make it possible to quantitatively measure thousands of cellular phenotypes all at once.[1]" comes from this site.

168.7.220.129 (talk) 19:25, 12 January 2016 (UTC) Daniel K.