Wikipedia:Peer review/Bone Wars/archive1

Bone Wars

 * A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for August 2008.
 * A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for August 2008.

This peer review discussion has been closed. I'd like to get this article up to FA status in the future. I know it's some rough copy, so help with spelling and grammar is appreciated, but any more fundamental suggestions for improvement I would love to hear as well.

Thanks, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk  ) 18:50, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Here's an image which could demonstrate that it was almost a war in the literal sense, with guns and similar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:OCmarsh.jpg Not sure what the caption should be. FunkMonk (talk) 20:20, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Nice, I've got some info I can add that will work for a caption; I hadn't gone trawling for free use images yet. :) (Something about how Marsh feared for his safety :P) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk  ) 20:47, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: Nice and quite interesting article. Very briefly, here are some suggestions for improvement. If you want more comments, please ask here. Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 21:48, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Since you already know it needs copyedit help, I will not comment beyond saying I agree. You can ask at WP:PRV for a copyeditor.
 * My biggest concerns were lack of context (see WP:PCR) and comprehensiveness. I wound up reading the articles on both men here and both had things that should be included here too. These would both be problems at FAC. For example, the lead sentence says the Gilded Age, but this is a fuzzy time period to most readers - I think the phrase The digging lasted from 1877 to 1892... later in the lead would be better here. Or nowhere does it say the professional affilliations of the men - one was at Yale and the other was essentially a freelancer with connections to the USGS and University of Pennsylvania. Or Cope supported neo-Lamarckian theories - surely this played a role too?
 * References are odd in places - ref 1 is to "Dodson" which I had to use search on my browser to find was an interview subject in a PBS documentary. Or what makes http://www.levins.com/bwars.shtml a WP:RS?
 * There are places where the language is imprecise - Elasmosaurus is a plesiosaur, not just a "sea reptile". Or Among the species the two men discovered are the most well-known dinosaurs today, including species of Triceratops, Allosaurus, Diplodocus, Stegosaurus, Camarasaurus and Coelophysis. the first "species" is somehwat misleading as each name given is of a genus. (I had to check to make sure these were genera and got it wrong myself at first )
 * There are stories in the articles on Cope and Marsh that should be here - they met in Berlin, the Triceratops discovery by both men with a garbled telegram changing the assigned credit. The chronology is fuzzy here too - it seems more dates could be given.
 * Perhaps some images of dinosaurs excavated by these men could be used in the article? Or sketches they made? What about something like Image:Sharp lull brontosaurus.jpg?

Comments from
 * You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC. (I'm still in shock it's not a computer game..)
 * What makes the following sources reliable?
 * http://dml.cmnh.org/1994Oct/msg00196.html
 * http://www.levins.com/bwars.shtml
 * http://www.bookslut.com/features/2006_01_007441.php
 * http://palaeo-electronica.org/1999_2/books/bone_wars.htm (Cool! There's a sequel! I didn't know that...)
 * Agree with Ruhr about the Dodson ref, it needs more bibliographical information given.
 * Need to spell out abbreviations such as ANSP in the refs, and it should be alphabetized correctly.
 * Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 13:15, 24 August 2008 (UTC)