User:Telfordk/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Euophrys omnisuperstes

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
This species grabbed my attention because I was looking through the jumping spiders page (I think they're awesome!) and saw a note about this species in particular. It is reported to be the species that lives at the highest elevation, having been collected from the slopes of Mount Everest. I had no idea they could survive at those elevations and temperatures.

Evaluate the article
Overall, it is a short article only containing 10 references, but mostly well put together with the information available. Given the remoteness of the species and the fact that it wasn't accurately described until 1975, it isn't surprising that there is not a plethora of data available on this species.

I thought the lead was a bit short but did cover the main points. The leading sentence does a good job of providing a quick overview of the species, however the follow up sentence is very short and doesn't form an introductory paragraph. My other issue with the lead is the fact that they mention the species is toxic, but that is not referenced anywhere else in the article and isn't linked to a source.

The content of the article covered the basic points when describing a species and again, given the lack of information out there on this species, it is as fleshed out as can be right now. The discovery section is the 2nd longest section and that is due to the some-what interesting history behind it's discovery. However, that then causes the rest of the article to feel a bit less balanced given that the description of the discovery is more about the people who discovered it than the spider itself.

The description and taxonomy section are relatively short, but the description at least is mostly thorough. A discussion on the toxicity of the spider should have been present in the description section which would also help to lengthen that section and balance out the discussion. The taxonomy section certainly needs more content. There is no discussion of its taxonomy outside the meaning behind the scientific name. Given that I found the article from the jumping spider page, there should at least be some information on its place in arachnid and close relatives.

Distribution and habitat is the most fleshed out section of this article. The first two paragraphs provide a suitable description of the habitat and environment it was found in. However, the final paragraph seemed unnecessary and speculative to me the first time I read it since the description indicates there is no solid evidence that this species was actually found in India. Upon closer review of the reference, this seems to be true. The article states the following sentence "As of September 2017, the World Spider Catalog notes Prószyński's view, recording the distribution of E. omnisuperstes as "Nepal, India?"." I looked at the reference for this statement and the catalogue no longer has "India?" listed. Therefore, this information is out of date and incorrect.

The final section of the article is ecology. Again, a relatively short section that doesn't provide much information about the spider, but something else instead. Here, there is only one sentence actually related to this species where it mentions that they do have prey available in this habitat. The rest of the paragraph then discusses the prey itself, specifically what it feeds on and how it has been found at higher altitudes where these food sources were lacking. Then the final sentence discusses a speculation of how wind-blown debris could be supporting that ecosystem. Like the discussion in the discovery section, I would argue that this content isn't relevant enough. It could be claimed that this is a theory on how these spiders are able to find prey at those altitudes, however that information should be in the article on its prey or the paragraph should conclude by linking it back to the spider.

As far as tone, other than the few speculative and unnecessary comments that I do not think should be in there, the article maintained a neutral point of view and tone throughout.

As mentioned, there were only 10 references listed for this article, however that is misleading as several references were from repeated sources. Overall, I counted 6 sources for the article including the outdated reference to the individual found in India. Of the 5 other sources, 4 were peer-reviewed articles which does give credit to the information being presented. However, there is clearly a knowledge gap on this species and we must consider that the information presented in the article is still coming from very limited sources.

The overall article is organised well with the sections in logical order. There are no images, but it seems that there may not be any available photos of this species.

The talk page is short, but it does, somewhat, reference my main concern of speculation. Even one of the authors comments on their sources, "Whether they are "good" by the standards of WP:RS is another matter." They also removed a speculation that had previously been mentioned, that they feed on wind-blown insects which was the incorrect interpretation of the original speculation that the insects feed on wind-blown debris. So, while that is obviously an improvement, I still believe that whole discussion is too speculative and not relevant enough to the spider species to be present in this article.

I would say that this article is a fine review of the species. It is clearly lacking information in several areas, however that is due to lack of research. I believe the authors who worked on this article were trying to compensate for the small amount of data on the species by filling it with less relevant information on other things (the discovers and the prey).