Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Opisthocoelicaudia/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 00:17, 30 September 2015.

Opisthocoelicaudia

 * Nominator(s): Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:44, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Opisthocoelicaudia is an interesting long-necked dinosaur from Mongolia, and a recent effort of the WP:WikiProject Dinosaurs. It contains everything that has been published on the topic. Looking forward to your comments! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:44, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Comments from Squeamish Ossifrage

 * Resolved referencing comments removed to the Talk page

So, referencing looks a lot better, and I promised a prose review, because dinosaurs.


 * General comments:
 * There are quite a few duplicate links in the body. Accordingly, I'm not going to list them all here; I recommend running one of the dup link detection tools.
 * done
 * Statements supported by multiple references need to cite those in number-order, one of the MOS conceits that annoys me when I'm writing. I didn't survey systematically for this, but there's at least one ([17][16]) in the Discovery section.
 * done
 * So, in general, I don't think the structure of this article is ideal. There's a lot of repeated information - about bits of taxonomy, about details of the holotype, even about the paleoecology. A lot of the dinosaur FAs are older, but I'd consider using Ankylosaurus as something of a model.
 * I've fixed the issues you pointed out below, and did some additional minor tweaks. The structure follows that of Ankylosaurus; with the exception of the paleoecology section, which is not at the end but in the middle of the article (it has to be before the paleobiology section, especially because of the footprint discussion).


 * Lead:
 * That IPA still needs works. Currently, I believe it reads as Opithtotholicaudia
 * done, kindly fixed by User:Kwamikagami


 * Description:
 * "Like other sauropods Opistocelicaudia": needs a comma after "sauropods"
 * done
 * Units should be abbreviated after first use (especially in the conversions). There's a flag you can set on the conversion templates to do that.
 * done
 * "2/3 the length": should be "two-thirds" per WP:MOSNUM.
 * done
 * "distinguishing Opisthocoelicaudia from other titanosaurs": You use a phrase very similar to this twice in two paragraphs.
 * done, reworded
 * I'm normally fond of glossed terminology, but I'd drop the parenthetical "(hand)" here. It's not strictly accurate, for one thing, and anyone who has gotten this far into the description without being familiar with anatomical terms has probably learned to click the links anyway.
 * done
 * "The foot anatomy is completely preserved in Opisthocoelicaudia – to date, only two additional complete titanosaur foot skeletons are known, which show an aberrant phalangeal formula.": I'm a little lost in this sentence. Are there only two feet with an aberrant phalangeal formula known (in which case, the clauses are misordered), or two total? I'm not at all sure what an "aberrant phalangeal formula" is, for that matter.
 * done, section was rewritten and expanded
 * In general, I'm not entirely sure that this section steps through the description in a natural order, but I don't have a concrete recommendation as to what to do about it, if anything. Since the tail is the most important physical characteristic of this dinosaur, breaking it out to a subsection might help.
 * I do not see the problem here, could you elaborate on this? The description follows the order "Skull" -> "Axial skeleton" (vertebral column and ribs) -> Appendicular skeleton (girdles and limbs). This is the standard order used to describe vertebrates. I think it is better to describe the whole vertebral column together in a single section, to allow comparisons between neck, back, and tail vertebrae.


 * Discovery and specimens:
 * Specimen numbers are fine, and standard for FA-level dinosaur articles. But is there anything to link for ZPAL MgD-Ij48?
 * done
 * "the next place that was accessible for trucks": I'd reword this to avoid "place", which seems both imprecise and a poor tonal match for the article.
 * done, section was reworded, much better now
 * "More recently, Philip Currie and colleagues (2003)": I'd reword this. Drop the date in the sentence directly and you can get rid of both the project-unfriendly "recently" and the parenthetical.
 * done
 * Does the mention of Nemegtosaurus imply that the authors were uncertain of the tail fragment attribution? As I reader, that's the sense I'm taking from this construction.
 * done


 * Age and paleoenvironment:
 * "The Nemegt Formation has been deposited": Wrong tense.
 * done
 * I know that subhumid is more humid than semiarid. But it's a surprise for the reader to see the paleosoils described as "relatively dry" immediately followed by "Thus, [it] was somewhat more humid".
 * done


 * Taphonomy
 * Again, I wouldn't parenthetically gloss here.
 * done
 * I'll reiterate here that I'm not sure the structural organization of this article is the way it needs to be. This section is the worst offender; this is all about the holotype specimen, not the dinosaur in general. It shouldn't be a top-level section. Rather, it should be included organically in the discussion of the holotype.
 * done. Its now with the section "discovery and specimens"


 * Classification:
 * You should strive to avoid parenthetical dates in prose here, too. This happens enough, it should actually be in my general comments section, frankly.
 * done. Fixed elsewhere in the text as wel.
 * "that the grouping Alamosaurus + Opisthocoelicaudia": I'd suggest reworking this to avoid using the plus sign in prose.
 * done
 * The Titanosaur article includes a cladogram based on a 2007 article by Calvo et al.; that's more recent than either of the cladograms you present, and should (after trimming it down to a sane subset) probably be the taxonomy represented here.
 * done. I removed the other cladogram, as it is not really the alternative hypothesis here (only one of many).
 * I'm not sure what to do with the mess that is taxonomic ranks named after Titanosaurus. But I think the approach here is somewhat confusing. "While the name Titanosauridae is currently considered invalid by many scientists, some use the name Lithostrotia to describe the same group." That's not my favorite sentence in the article, especially followed up with "Within the Titanosauria and Lithostrotia" ... but aren't those the same thing, like you just said?
 * No, Titanosauridae and Lithostrotia are the same thing, not Titanosauria and Lithostrotia. Its a total mess, I will see if I can formulate this more clearly.
 * I have reworked the whole section, and simplified everything I could. I hope it is clearer now.
 * "Synonym of Nemegtosaurus?" is not how to title this subsection in an encyclopediac tone. Maybe "Relationship to Nemegtosaurus"?
 * done, good idea.
 * Don't reverse-gloss synonymy. Use it where it belongs, and pipe a link to Synonym (taxonomy).
 * done, fixed the same issue elsewhere in the text as well.
 * The issues about that tail fragment I noted way up in the Discovery and specimens section are essentially repeated here. Sometimes its unavoidable for an article to cover the same ground twice, but as I read, I feel that happens more systematically here than desirable.
 * done


 * Paleobiology:
 * "withstand the forces that appear during rearing": Maybe just "the stress of rearing"? I'm not sure, but I'm not fond of "the forces that appear". Forces don't just appear.
 * done
 * Another example of covering the same material repeatedly, if differently. " According to Currie and colleagues, Opisthocoelicaudia was probably the only sauropod present in the Nemegt Formation, with Nemegtosaurus constituting a probable synonym, making it unlikely that the tracks were left by another, similar titanosaur." You devote a subsection to the question of whether these are synonymous, then just hand-wave them as "probably synonym[s]" here.
 * I'm not sure with this one. Footprints never can be attributed to any specific dinosaur based on morphology alone. The only argument that these footprints belong to Opisthocoelicaudia is the absence of other sauropods from the formation. Thats the point of the sentence. The only repetition is "with Nemegtosaurus constituting a probable synonym", but this is necessary as not everybody will remember that Currie and colleagues favored the Synonymy hypothesis.
 * "so it was probably created by an adult, which would have been larger than the type specimen": Structure of this sentence implies a contrast (that is, it implies the holotype was not an adult). But the holotype was an old specimen...
 * done

Neutral on promotion at this time. I think there's the core of an FA-level article here, and I'm not quite willing to explicitly oppose promotion, but neither can I offer support as it stands at the time of this review. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 16:35, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for the comprehensive review. I will work my way through, and will ask you to have a second look when I'm done. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:40, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi, many thanks again, your review has greatly improved the article! I have addressed everything now. Would you mind taking a second look? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:52, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

A second look it is, then! In general, I think this article is much-improved. I have a handful of remaining quibbles after a second pass:
 * "digit bones (phalanges)": Still not fond of parenthetical glossing. Your mileage may vary.
 * done


 * "Foot skeletons of titanosaurs are rarely found.": I realize that this introduces the following sentences, but it's jarring to read, because, until you get to those sentences, it comes across as a non sequiteur. Perhaps there's a way to reword this without the full stop? I don't have an immediate suggestion.
 * done


 * Pipe a link for "derived" to derived trait, near the end of Description (you link it in the lead, but lead links don't count against body links for link duplication, and it's probably nice to have here; this section will be dense to a lay reader).
 * done


 * "Osteoderms have been found with 10 of the over 40 known titanosaur genera, bony plates covering the bodies of these animals.": Dangling modifier. Move the gloss adjacent to the term being glossed. Also, the word osteoderms appears four times in three sentences.
 * done


 * "10th and 23 June, 1965": Mismatched date formats.
 * done


 * I'd pipe a link to Valid name (zoology), probably from the first use of "invalid" at the top of Classifaction.
 * done


 * I'm still not happy with the "probably synonym" phrase as currently used in the Footprints section. I think a more robust rewording word help, making it clear that we're reporting on the researchers' opinion of synonymy here; it's far to easy to read that phrase in the encyclopedia's voice (basically, as reminder text, rather than attribution). Also, while I'm at it, "Currie and colleagues" is used twice in a paragraph, so there's probably a better way to format that in general.
 * done, reworded


 * I'm dubious about citing the pronunciation to a Youtube video. The IPA for most, if not all, FA-level dinosaur articles is uncited, so that's clearly been taken as acceptable. And the source provided doesn't appear to satisfy WP:RS.
 * done, moved it to "external links" (for the readers not familiar with IPA)

Moving to conditional support. I have full confidence that this will be ready for the bronze star by final evaluation time. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 14:11, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot for all your comments, and your support! All fixed now. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:02, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Comments Support from Edwininlondon
Well-written interesting article. Just a few comments:
 * Taphonomy is only mentioned as a header, and linking headers is bad, but I bet we leave the average reader wondering what this means. Anything that can be done in the first sentence?
 * Done


 * "Footprints were unknown from the Nemegt Formation until 2003," may I suggest -> "Footprints were unknown until 2003,"
 * Done

Edwininlondon (talk) 06:18, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Image selection is great. Ideally an image of the footprints to conclude. If they exist and have no rights issues.
 * Thanks ! When we started with the article a year ago, we barely had any images at all, so we were quite lucky to get that many! We asked Commons user Adrian Grycuk to visit the museum to take pictures of the mount, and he did a fantastic job. drew a high-quality life reconstruction and found an additional pic on the internet.  got OTRS permission for the professional skeletal drawing. And I did the posture diagram. We unfortunately cannot use images of the footprints because of copyright. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:54, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I contacted professor Currie and he kindly sent me some of his own photos and granted permission to put in the public domain. I just uploaded the best one. If you like it, use it. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Opisthocoelicaudia_footprint.JPG Edwininlondon (talk) 21:03, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Many thanks, this is a really great addition to the article! I just added it. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 06:39, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Comments from Cas Liber

 * Taking a look now: Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:05, 26 August 2015 (UTC)


 *  ... the possession of a neck of medium length of roughly five meters - any reason why this is not written abbreviated with imperial unit conversion?
 * done
 * I tweaked some stuff, just check if you're ok with it (rationales in edit summaries)
 * Great, thank you!

looking on-target. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:32, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Cas Liber, thanks for taking a look, let me know if you have any more comments! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:02, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * No, I am supporting now on comprehensivenessa and prose. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:07, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Images check: All good. LittleJerry (talk) 02:08, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The footprint image uploaded by would need an OTRS permission, though... FunkMonk (talk) 22:57, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think an OTRS is different than a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. That appears to be what he allowed it to be published under via email. LittleJerry (talk) 14:08, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * OTRS is just to prove that a given image has been released under any license, it is not a license itself. FunkMonk (talk) 20:17, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'm on it. LittleJerry (talk) 20:27, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Dr Currie won't be at his email until Sep 21. LittleJerry (talk) 22:13, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I removed the image for now. LittleJerry (talk) 21:30, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Curries has confirmed the license via email. I have forwarded it to wikicommons. LittleJerry (talk) 20:38, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Source review and spot check from Cas Liber
Watch this space.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 17:54, 22 September 2015 (UTC)


 * FN 8 should say what language it is in.
 * done --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:53, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * bueno. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:07, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Otherwise refs look all consistently formatted.

Spot checking...


 * I can't see where in this reference it supports "While unique in titanosaurs, this feature can be found in several other unrelated sauropods, including Diplodocus and Euhelopus, where it evolved independently."


 * This is based on this part of the text: "In some sauropods, the cervical neural spines are bifid (i.e., having separate left and right metapophyses and a trough between them). This morphology appears to have evolved at least five times (in Mamenchisaurus, flagellicaudatans, Camarasaurus Cope, 1877, Euhelopodidae sensu D’Emic (2012) and Opisthocoelicaudia Borsuk-Bialynicka, 1977) with no apparent reversals." No question that Diplodocus is a flagellicaudatan, and Euhelopus is obviously a member of the Euhalopodidae. Is this to much interpretation? If so, we can just use Apatosaurus and Camarasaurus instead, which are explicitly mentioned. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:53, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Aah, my bad. I was looking for the wrong keywords. all in order then. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:05, 22 September 2015 (UTC)


 * material sourced to FN 16 faithful to source and not paraphrased (both cites checked).


 * FN 5 (and all the sentences it supports) checked - material faithful to source and no unnecessary paraphrasing remains (I tweaked one word..)

Thus, spot-checking of three sources (including one that was used 18 times) passes muster. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:38, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

-- Laser brain  (talk)  00:17, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.