Talk:Polistes exclamans/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Choess (talk · contribs) 02:57, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I'm Choess. I'm a longtime editor here and I've written several biology GAs, so I feel comfortable looking over your article. I'm going to start by just going through the article top-to-bottom and listing my observations as I make them. When I'm done, I'll sort them out to see which of my comments specifically apply to Good Article criteria and which are not applicable (but are probably good things to do!) Choess (talk) 02:57, 30 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The beginning of the article does not follow WP:LEAD. "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies." Most of the facts in the present lead should be dispersed into appropriate sections in the article, and the lead should be re-written as the quotation above suggests. From my personal experience, I often write only a sentence or two in the lead until I'm done the rest of the article. Then I look it back over and try to summarize it to create the lead.
 * The first source cited (Sepa, Queller & Strassmann, 2002) is about Polistes carolina, not Polistes exclamans! It is by no means clear that all the findings about P. carolina apply to P. exclamans. This reference is cited to say that P. exclamans "are also unique in the fact that they have been observed occupying artificial nesting places". If this refers to the "wooden boxes" used by Sepa, Queller & Strassmann, then it's P. carolina that's unique, not P. exclamans. Furthermore, that's a very awkward sentence. Say "unique among Polistes in occupying..." Makes the same point and doesn't sound nearly as clunky.
 * Thank you for catching this error. I have removed all references to this paper with the exception of two instances where the statements apply to all members of Polistes.Jeremy.winkler (talk) 06:03, 10 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Sepa, Queller & Strassmann, aforementioned, cite "Reeve HK, 1991. Polistes. In: The social biology of wasps (Ross KG, Matthews RW, eds). Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press; 99-148." This reference looks like it's got information about the genus in general which could be used to help describe P. exclamans. You may want to try to get hold of it.
 * I have skimmed the Polistes and from the first read it appears to mainly have behavioral information which I have found in other sources. I intend to read this chapter in more detail to determine whether it discusses topics that I haven't read about.Jeremy.winkler (talk) 06:03, 10 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Make sure your references are in order; I fixed a number of them where the same reference had been defined in full several times over. You might consider using Shortened footnotes. To use them, you create both a "References" section (containing ) and below it, a "Bibliography" section. In the "Bibliography" section, you put all your references in order: it's a long list of ,  , or  , and if you're using one of the first two, make sure to add the "ref=harv" parameter. Once you've done that, you can just write  , and it'll generate a citation that says "West, 1968, p. 5" in the references section; it will automatically link to whatever line in your bibliography was authored by West in 1968. THIS IS COMPLETELY OPTIONAL. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO CHANGE THIS TO BE A GA. I only mention it because I've found it very convenient in writing biology articles, where most sources have a clear author and year of publication. It certainly avoids the duplicate references problem. You do have to split up the authors to make it work: instead of "author = Seuss, Dr. & Melville, Herman" you have to specify "first1=Dr. | last1=Seuss | first2=Herman | last2=Melville" and so forth.
 * You should be consistent in how you list authors: last name only? last name and initials? first and last names?
 * This has been fixed.Jeremy.winkler (talk) 06:03, 10 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I think I've fixed them all, but whenever you have a range of numbers, they should be separated by an en-dash, not a hyphen. Some had one, some didn't. See WP:MOSDASH.
 * You have "doi" in all your references, but nothing following it. DOI stands for Digital Object Identifier. If you look around in the bibliographic information in that Seppa et al. paper, you'll see "doi: 10.1093/beheco/13.4.531". In the . instead of just "doi", put "doi=10.1093/beheco/13.4.531". That will create a formatted link in your References section to that paper at its publisher's website. If you want to look up the DOI for a paper, use this tool.
 * I added the DOIs for most of the articles; however, there were 3 articles that I couldn't find DOIs for. What is the protocol for this?Jeremy.winkler (talk) 06:03, 10 December 2012 (UTC)


 * The "Morphology" section is misleading. Seeing that section heading, I expect to see a description of the wasp's morphology: shape of thorax, abdomen, coloration, whatever else constitutes distinctive characteristics for hymenoptera, and ideally some explanation of how one distinguishes it from similar species. That kind of morphological description doesn't exist anywhere in the article as it stands, and I think it's key for a good article about a particular species.
 * I have struggled to find specific morphology on P. exclamans. I found some using McIlveen & Hamman. I will attempt to add more to this section ASAP.Jeremy.winkler (talk) 06:03, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

That's as far as I've gotten so far; more later. Choess (talk) 03:40, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Continuing:
 * McIlveen & Hamman might be helpful in developing a morphological description.
 * When you abbreviate a genus name (e.g., P.), write "&amp;nbsp;" instead of a space before the specific epithet. This will create a nonbreaking space, so that the genus abbreviation and the specific epithet will not be separated by page breaks if someone changes font size.
 * The conclusions of Strassmann, 1980, seem to be somewhat overstated. Workers can take over egg laying when the queen dies before July, but it's not clear that they do so "at any time".
 * "Begs the question" does not mean what you think it does; it means to assume a particular answer to a question which, in fact, has yet to be resolved. Find another way of stating it.
 * Link the sugars fructose etc.
 * Explain the significance of these sugars: they are believed to be the cryoprotectants. Don't just say they have "different" levels; which was higher and which lower, and what effect would that have on their survival?
 * I can't view the full text of Bohm, 1972, but it appears to be about P. metricus. Are these conclusions applicable to all of Polistes?
 * To my best understanding, it seemed that the conclusions that I referenced were about Polistes as a genus and not specifically P. metricus.Jeremy.winkler (talk) 06:03, 10 December 2012 (UTC)


 * If these conclusions remain applicable, explain what "day chambers" are. Link juvenile hormone.

I'm going to put the review on hold for now, because there's a lot to plow through. My suggestions:
 * 1) Go back through the sources and check to make sure that all of them are applicable to genus Polistes in general or to P. exclamans in particular. Remove information that is really about another Polistes species. (see point 2 of the Good article criteria)
 * 2) Make sure the article provides a well-rounded description of P. exclamans. The lack of overall description has been noted above. See the note at WikiProject Insects to get an idea of what would be good to see in a well-balanced insect article. (see point 3 of the criteria)
 * 3) Start rewriting the lead section once the content of the rest of the article has been straightened out.

If you can fix that (and it's a hefty chunk of work), I'd be happy to come back and continue to review in detail. Choess (talk) 02:01, 1 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi, Choess. Thank you very much for all of your comments/suggestions! Jeremy.winkler has been working on this article most significantly for our class mentioned above, and together we would like to improve it as much as we can. We will start chipping away at the suggestions you have very soon and let you know when we've made significant headway. Thanks again! Nsavalia23 (talk) 21:08, 2 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Great, thanks! I've watchlisted this page, so I'll see. I do appreciate the work all of you have done digesting this technical information; we can always use people willing to do that. Making an article about a scientific topic, even a single animal, well-rounded and balanced is surprisingly difficult; it's comparable to writing a literature review, IMO. So don't feel abashed because of the volume of comments above. Choess (talk) 23:42, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

These are the edits that have been made so far. I have double checked that all of my conclusions are based on P. exclamans or at least to Polistes. I have asked around for some additional sources on morphology and I expect to hear back shortly. Thank you for your help.Jeremy.winkler (talk) 06:03, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Comment: Choess, there hasn't been an edit by Jeremy.winkler on Wikipedia since December 10, well over three weeks ago. It may well be time to close this. There was a trio of edits by another editor on December 19, so you may want to take a look on the off-chance that they've addressed all the issues you raised. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:12, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
 * He now seems to have addressed most things on Jan. 9 if this could be re-looked at. Wizardman  23:52, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I found one further issue. This doesn't strike me as a reliable source; it should be replaced. Wizardman 18:54, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Fixed myself, passing. Wizardman  17:40, 21 January 2013 (UTC)