Talk:Sixgill stingray/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 14:41, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I'll respond down here:

The most obvious concern is that the article is somewhat short, not necessarily a failing. I've placed a Cladogram on the talk page as this might be one way to flesh out the article a little (i.e. in Phylogeny, edit the cladogram as desired, discuss the relationship with the other stingrays, talk about the fossil relative a little more?).
 * Maybe clarify there are sixgill sharks known.
 * I've added a line about it, though I'll note that there's no evolutionary relationship between them. -- Yzx (talk) 00:38, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * thanks.


 * In Description, the weight of the adult (and the newborn pup) would be of interest.
 * This information is not available. -- Yzx (talk) 00:38, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * If this is indeed 1 sp. so widely scattered, the question of its earlier distribution is interesting; if the populations are now isolated and they don't differ genetically, the species is either changing very slowly or is very recently isolated, either of which would be remarkable. Has anyone written about this?
 * There is no data on intraspecific genetic diversity or biogeography for this species. -- Yzx (talk) 00:38, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The Biology and ecology is very brief; would be nice to know more.
 * I've collected pretty much all the natural history info that's been published about this ray. There simply isn't much. -- Yzx (talk) 00:38, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * So I guessed.

As far as the phylogeny goes, there's disagreement about how the remaining stingray families are arranged, for example whether there's an early divide between the "undulating" families (stingarees, round stingrays, whiptail stingrays, freshwater stingrays) and "flapping" families (butterfly rays, eagle rays), or whether the family Dasyatidae is monophyletic, etc. This is a complex issue that I don't want to bring up here, which is why I restricted the phylogeny in the article to just the position of Hexatrygon.
 * There is however no dispute about the outlying position of this species; but it's not a GA requirement (which is why it was a suggestion).

I personally don't see the problem in a short article; I think it's preferable for an article to be tightly focused. -- Yzx (talk) 00:38, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I feel a little like a high school teacher here, presented with an artistically short essay (or maybe the art teacher, challenged with a white sheet of paper for a homework, entitled "Untitled"). On the one hand, crisp is good; on the other, when as sometimes happens we have a new species about which nothing much of interest is known, we have a stub not a GA, so you'll understand the dilemma for the reviewer, but fortunately this article is not quite that short. The following factors weigh in the article's favour: the submission is considered; the species is interesting for its extraordinary proboscis, its outlying position within the stingrays, and its remarkably recent discovery; and the article is clearly well-written. I am therefore happy to categorise this as a Good Article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:54, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the review. Having written many articles about newly discovered species (this one isn't that recent, compare Ningaloo maskray that I wrote last week, which also pulls from every source I could find), I get your doubts about whether a sparse article can be GA. I think the benefit of GA though is that short articles that are comprehensive about their (little-known) subjects can still make it.-- Yzx (talk) 07:09, 13 May 2013 (UTC)