Wikipedia:Featured article review/Homo floresiensis/archive2


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

The article was kept by Gimmetrow 00:45, 22 March 2009.

Homo floresiensis

 * Notified: Rebecca, UtherSRG, Edhubbard, Paul Barlow, Pharos, Joelr31, Jengod, WP Primates, WP Palaeontology, WP Mammals, WP Anthropology, WP Biology.

Fails criterion 1(b) comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context;
 * The sections Laron syndrome and Bone structure are not detailed enough and the proportion devoted to these studies does not correspond to the parts devoted to studies on microcephaly.
 * The article needs updating. There is e.g. no information about the studies on the possibility that H. floresiensis was an individual suffering iodyne deficiency. Information about missing parts of the skeleton in 2005 also needs updating (are they still missing or were they returned?, if they are missing, what happened with them?) Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 19:59, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Two quick replies to this.
 * First, the iodine deficiency argument is mentioned right in the lead of the article, where it states:
 * The most recent hypothesis to be published is that the individuals were born without a functioning thyroid, resulting from a type of endemic cretinism (myxoedematous, ME). This idea has been dismissed by members of the original discovery team as based on a misinterpretation of the data.
 * If you would like to expand on this idea, please be bold!.
 * Second, in general, the article can only reflect information which is in the public sphere. So, for example, the complaint about the missing leg bones is only really accurate if this has been recently discussed and updated in verifiable reliable sources. Otherwise, it would fall under original research. To the best of my knowledge no such reliable, verifiable evidence is out there.  I've just done a google search to make sure that nothing has escaped my notice, and I don't see anything new out there (please be bold and add it, if recent verifiable, reliable, reports have appeared on this subject).  The mere fact that something is not mentioned in the article is not evidence that the article itself is incomplete.  It is also possible that the public record, upon which we are required to draw for wikipedia, is incomplete, and we would therefore be unable to do anything else. Edhubbard (talk) 01:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Note Jan, I believe your concerns might have been solved in the article's talk page if you had allowed considerable time for others to answer your inquiries. If you have no other concerns can this FAR be closed and the discussion be moved into the talk page? Joelito (talk) 02:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to Edgubbard and Joelito to join the discussion.

I am not sure, whether I am the right person to expand the endemic cretinism idea, since I did not even know that it is somehow connected with iodyne deficiency. But I will of course try to improve the article as well.

However, the endemic cretinism idea is mentioned only in the lead. Because the lead should sum up the most important information from the main body of the article and prepare the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections, it also means that the article partially fails the criterion 2(a).

I would really prefer if this review could continue. Maybe that the questions I raised can be discussed at the article talk page too. But this review will surely attract more people to cooperate than just a talk page discussion.

Expanding all the parts I have requested to expand would also mean that quite a substantial portion of text would be added. And this new text in a featured article will also need review, whether it fulfils all the criteria for FA.

Edhubbard wrote that no more info about the missing leg bones can be found. One of the reasons may be that both of us are able to search only English written online info, but neither of us has access e.g. to Indonesian printed media or at least understands Indonesian online media. I will try to raise the question at the WP Indonesia. There are also many paper anthropological journals. It is quite difficult to believe that the bones simply disappeared and nobody was interested, and although we finally may not be able to find the answer, it is legitimate to ask the question and hope somebody knows it. But this was just one of several things I requested to expand.

Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 22:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think it's at all difficult to believe that the bones disappeared and nobody in the media was sufficiently interested to report on the later developments. It happens all the time. I made considerable efforts a while back to update the article on alleged murderer/cannibal/cult leader Steven Tari which ends in October 2007 stating that his trial had been delayed until December 2007. But I could find no more information. The world's press simply lost interest when the lurid stories faded. We can't be expected to obtain information directly from individuals and institutions involved. It's quite possible that the objects were located and returned without the fact ever being reported. Anthropological journals typically don't document such matters. By far the most published material is on microcephaly. The other proposals are largely suggestions, and have not been subject to such detailed discussion. Paul B (talk) 00:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikiproject Indonesia seems uninterested, bud I have also asked at the Indonesian Wikipedia for help and received the answer that after some search no online record was found in Indonesian media. There are a lot of offline anthropological journals and I believe some info may be hidden in them, but I have no idea who should I aks for help. So I think we may leave this question unsolved and focus on the other topics of this review. Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 21:27, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Although the other proposals are just suggestions, they make readers curious why they were made and deserve better explanation. Especially the professional terms mentioned in the lead, have to be described in the main body of the article as well. Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 21:40, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I have added a section on endemic cretinism to the article. Could somebody review it, please? Thanks. Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 22:21, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Now I would like to sum up, which points have not been solved yet, and add some new points.
 * ✅ the Laron Syndrome section needs expanding, there is more information available
 * ✅the Bone Structure section needs expanding, too
 * the whole article has undergone substantial changes since the last review. So new review can only help this article.
 * ✅ Section Discovery: I think the quotation in the second paragraph should have some ref
 * ✅Section Small bodies: there are a lot of numbers on the sizes of various populations of small people. I think a ref would be appropriate here as well.
 * I would really appreciate any help with solving these points. Thank you.Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 00:19, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I wrote the Larone Syndrome section. Could anybody review it please? Could more people help? Sometimes seems to me I am mostly talking to myself. Thank you.Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 22:14, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Jan, I've copy-edited the section on Laron syndrome, so I think that section is good. I'm trying to track down the reference for the "wet blotter paper" quote, and I've managed to find a blog that refers to a Nature commentary, but the link to the article doesn't work... I'm working on it though . The references for the various sizes are probably all pulled from the primary scientific sources, and references contained therein, but I will move onto that in a bit. That just leaves bone-structure. If you have time to give that a shot, that would be great. Edhubbard (talk) 05:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, got the ref for "wet blotter paper". Edhubbard (talk) 06:02, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I have written something on the bone structure, but it seems that there is still more work to be done. Does anybody have full access to Jungers' article Descriptions of the lower limb skeleton of Homo floresiensis? Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 10:07, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I have this article! I've left a message on your talk page, I think email may be the best way for me to get it to you, I've got institutional access to the site through Athens so I've saved the file on my computer. If anyone else wishes me to provide them with this article, just let me know and I'll try and work something out.
 * Hi Jan, I've gone through and copyedited the section you added. I'm traveling for the next week, so I won't have much time to work on things, but your additions look really good. I've changed a little bit of the wording, and cut all the references to Homo floresiensis to H. floresiensis since the full name has been cited earlier in the article, so we should use only hte abbrviation in subsequent mentions.  In fact, this might be something to go through the whole article to check on after we finish the other edits. Edhubbard (talk) 00:17, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That's OK, I am also going to have less time now, so other additions may take a while. Thanks for the copyedits. Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 11:27, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

✅ File:Flores map.png has an uncertain license tag because it is not known whether the image was created by the uploader, or taken from a public domain source. Either way, there is no source given, and the uploader is inactive. I recommend using File:ID - Flores.PNG instead. DrKiernan (talk) 15:09, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Image problem

(undent) Hi all, it looks like this has sort of settled down recently. Jan has already expanded the bone structure section, so I've marked that as done. I'm going to track down some references for the heights, as Jan suggests. Then, the article really only needs a fresh top-to-bottom copy-edit and the image problem noted by DrKiernan resolved. I know that it's getting to be time to move this to FARC, and I'm wondering if we can agree to avoid that step. Are the other editors happy with the changes and improvements? Edhubbard (talk) 17:38, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I've gotten the references Jan wanted, so that's all good. All that's left is a copy-edit and perhaps just changing to the other image DrKiernan suggested.  Thoughts? Edhubbard (talk) 18:44, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Hello. Thanks for the help. I got the above mentioned Jungers' article on the lower limbs. However, I have been quite short of time recently and it will take me a couple of more days to add the info into the article. Then I would like to read the whole article in detail again and think about it once more. Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 22:24, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Note Do we feel this one needs to go to FARC? Joelito (talk) 02:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I've had a go at copyediting it, but it could probably do with another run through by someone with fresh eyes. I don't see any other problems, so moving it to FARC is probably unnecessary. DrKiernan (talk) 10:36, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. I don't think that moving to FARC is necessary.  I know that Jan still has one reference that he wants to add, but I think that his primary concern, that the article was not comprehensive, has been met.  I'll give it a top-to-bottom read in the next couple of days, but these sorts of things shouldn't require a move to FARC. Edhubbard (talk) 14:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup needed, the article has WP:ACCESSibility and WP:LAYOUT issues that need attention. Images go within sections not above them (see WP:ACCESS). Portals go in See also, and sister projects go in External links. Please complete a MoS review. Why is Hobbit italicized in the lead (See WP:ITALICS)? And there are serious citation cleanup needs; there are missing publishers on many sources. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 03:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * LAYOUT and ACCESS issues done. DrKiernan (talk) 14:21, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Sandy, I'm confused. For many of the citations, the sources are journals like Nature and Science.  Has there been a shift that journals like this should include "The Nature Publishing Group" and "The American Association for the Advancement of Science" as their publishers throughout?  Is this a new policy about references that I am not aware of (as you've noticed, I haven't been on-wiki as much lately)?  Now that you mention the citations, I see that there are some things to clean up and standardize, but didn't see publishers as being among them.  Cheers, Edhubbard (talk) 14:49, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I'm referring to something else. By missing publishers, I mean entries like this:
 * Hawks, John (July 3, 2007). "Another diagnosis for a hobbit" (online). Retrieved on 2009-02-10.
 * There is no publisher identified, and it is actually John Hawks blog, which means there may be more serious issues here with reliability of sources, obscured by the failure to identify publishers on all sources. (To use someone's blog, we need to meet WP:SPS).  We cannot tell if this article is reliably sourced when publishers are missing.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 20:10, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks good to go now ! Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 03:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.