Talk:Emerald ash borer/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 12:27, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Happy to take on this review. Josh Milburn (talk) 12:27, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

1. The lead feels a little short- ideally, it should summarize everything else in the article.
2. There does seem to be a moderate US focus, which feels like undue weight or perhaps recentism. If anything, I would have thought the focus should be on the native range. For example, the distribution section has one sentence on the "natural" range, one sentence on invasion generally and three on the US specifically. In addition, you have lots of information about host ash species in North America, but very little about elsewhere in the world, and all I know about "the specialized predators and parasitoids that suppressed EAB populations in Asia" is that many of them "were not present in North America."
3. There's no description section. The taxonomic information is also a little light. Compare to Aleeta curvicosta and Thopha saccata, for example; both were fairly recently promoted to FA, and, in both, the description section and the taxonomy sections are among the longest sections.
4. You've got a lot of stuff dropped into "life cycle" that I don't really think belongs there. As above, I'd recommend splitting off the description details into their own section and expanding it, while the details about the invasiveness probably belong in the distribution section. Much of the rest probably belongs in a "human interactions" section.
5. The focus of the article seems to be very much on the EAB as a pest, and on when they do and do not cause damage to ash trees, rather than on EAB as a species of insect (eg "but cause little defoliation in the process" and "only a sporadic pest on native trees as population densities typically do not reach levels lethal to healthy trees"). I'm certainly not saying that the pest angle should be neglected, but surely the focus should more be on what the insect is and what it does, rather than on commercial interests? The pest angle should probably be covered primarily in a dedicated section.
6. "Immature larvae can overwinter in their larval gallery, but can require an additional summer of feeding before emerging as adults the following spring." So if they spend one winter, they can need to spend two?
7. Phrases like "the agencies running the program know that proper quarantine measure must be instituted" and "Insecticides are typically only recommended" don't come across as particularly neutral.
8. At a glance, the sources generally look good. It's probably better not to abbreviate journal names, there are a few small inconsistencies and it's probably not necessary to add accessdates to the journal citations, but these are not a big deal at GAC. Is http://www.dontmovefirewood.org/gallery-of-pests/emerald-ash-borer.html definitely reliable?
9. The source links on File:Agrilus planipennis mating.png and File:Ventral adult eab.jpg are dead.

I think that the point of view issue (specifically, the focus on EAB-as-US-invader and EAB-as-pest) is a big problem. This, combined with the need to expand on key information (the physical description being the obvious example) and the desirability of a moderate restructuring suggests to me that this is not yet ready for GA status. I'm happy to leave the review open for a time if you think these are things you can fix fairly quickly. Josh Milburn (talk) 13:34, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the review J Milburn. I'll address the various points with new edits and summarize more here when I'm wrapped up. These things can be fixed quickly or at least addressed as best we can, so I can respond to this all tomorrow. I should point out though that the North American centric view is because that's where most of the information has been gathered. Prior to the introduction, the literature could basically be summarized as "A green wood-boring beetle that we otherwise don't know much about that rarely shows up in dying ash." Hopefully the correct sectioning helps just a little bit, but I have a few edits I'm thinking of that can help address that question. More to come tomorrow. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:09, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

J Milburn, another set of eyes really did help here, so thank you for that. I went and numbered your comments instead of bullets to sync my comments up a little easier. Hopefully the edits and comments below address your various comments:

1. I modified the lead to concisely summarize the various concepts in each section.

   It still feels a little short. I'm not sure the final sentence makes sense. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:37, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

   Could you be a bit more specific here about what's not making sense? It's summarizing the various sections at the end of the article dealing with various management tactics for EAB (management is mostly done by government agencies). Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:27, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

2. In this case, the large amount of attention on EAB in a North American context is what NPOV calls for because that's how the sources describe it. A lot of the information is over 5 years old, so it's difficult to see recentism here. Like many invasive species, there was little information discussed in sources about EAB before it became invasive. Sources started discussing it more as it became a problem, which is a real-world bias in sources (rather than an internal Wikipedia/editor bias), so we tend to reflect according to NPOV since that's what the sources give weight to. In the native range, sources could essentially be summarized into a stub saying, "EAB is a wood-boring beetle that can rarely be found in dying ash trees." because no one paid attention to it. Even though this current version does try to pull away as much as possible from the North American focus, that's a real world bias we'll probably always be seeing in this topic unless EAB becomes pandemic. There is one source discussing the biology in China that is currently cited (mainly that EAB is now a problem in China on North American species brought over there). It's a primary study though, so we can't use that source too much. The source gets some mention in the hosts section, but I added a small summary addressing this here. There's a lot that just isn't known or commented on for decades to start summarizing about other locations.

   The reason I mentioned recentism is that the species has been known for over a century, but most of the article seems to focus on something that has only been happening for a few decades. It may not have been the right word- the weighting issue is the real worry. However, the fact you have a good, peer reviewed article saying that there was little known about the species is great- I'd include that factoid in the lead, and possibly elsewhere, rather than just in the invasive species section. This justifies the article's focus. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:37, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

   I added some explanation to the lead. Unless something comes up where the biology is very different in Asia, I'm not really seeing additional places to mention the attention gap at this time. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:27, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

3. Some of the description related to life-history traits is already in the life cycle section where it has a better fit for more general information. I added some defining characters for actually identifying the species in the identification section. I'd actually consider the FA descriptions you listed too technical for an encyclopedic audience, so this is probably about as in-depth as I'd want to go in terms of general description [1].

   I'm not necessarily asking for that degree of detail (though I wouldn't be opposed to it). I'd certainly want to see a non-technical field-guide level description, and I do feel that it should be in its own section. Description details, too, are surely a nice way to balance information about the beetle-qua-beetle with beetle-qua-pest. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:37, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

   In general, what kind of information do you see lacking for a description that isn't in the life cycle section? I have a preference for keeping descriptive details of each stage of the life cycle in the section for continuity rather than having separate life cycle and description sections that can become a bit redundant. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:27, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

4. Having those sections appear in the life cycle section was unintended (missed an edit awhile back that changed the sectioning). The current version should appear less disjointed and help with separate the North American focus as originally intended. The content mostly integrates in pretty well under the "As an invasive species" section, so a human interactions section would be difficult to pull off since the human interactions and ecological concepts are closely tied (e.g., biological control and releases). For background, the invasive species section essentially was split off as its own article at one point (with essentially nothing here). It's a huge chunk of the EAB story, and some editors in the past did not like seeing that be some prominent on the page. After some time though, this is the best integration we've come up with to have a complete article on the topic.

   I can see the sense in having separate articles- I seem to remember that we do this with some fungal pathogens. One article about the fungus, one article about the "disease". The split now makes a lot more sense to me. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:37, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

   Many times those splits are problematic because insects are so closely tied to their pest status and vice versa. When we split articles, the "disease" article often just repeats what's on the species article, so there's next to nothing unique on the species article. If you want to comment on the species article about ecology, you're almost always going to be butting heads with the other article. That happened here, which is why this article was merged back again. When it comes to invasive species, the focus in sources will change compared to beneficial insects or more general interest species. If you want to see an example of a GA invasive insect article, check out Sirex woodwasp. It does not have quite the amount of attention EAB does on treatments in sources because of different environments, but much of the focus relating to ecology (not just human interactions) goes back to the pest status in some way. It's not quite as a huge of a problem as EAB in terms of invasiveness, but it's a pretty parallel example for this topic. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:27, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

5. Similar to the North American focus, pest status is also the focus of most sources relating to this species. As an invasive species, it is not only a pest in terms of commercial interests (I'd argue the commercial side is minor here, but that's just me). It's a problem ecologically too, as are most invasives, which is outlined throughout the article. In the content you mention, there is no mention of commercial interests, just what the insect is doing at a particular life stage. If we say it's eating leaves then, we should reflect what sources say and say it's not a detriment to the tree in that case. If there's a plant-insect interaction going on, that question is almost always going to come up in terms of weight.

   It's not just commercial interests that I'm worried about; I don't want to see the view of the beetle as a pest or a problem reinforced in Wikipedia's neutral voice. We should describe that others have called it a pest and what they have done about it. (This is a general comment- I'm not thinking of any comment in particular.) Josh Milburn (talk) 16:37, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

   I'm a bit concerned we're stepping outside the bounds of NPOV or even getting into WP:OR with this concern. We especially assign weight according to secondary sources, and review articles are about as high as we can go there. If they choose to focus on certain areas and neglect others for whatever reason, we do the same here under NPOV. Since the insect does not get as much attention in its native range or as a non-pest, we aren't here to right that wrong (I wish there was more too), but just describe what has been found in reliable sources. It's definitely a real-world concern for scientists when we have gaps in research, but that's a different concern than NPOV and editors writing an article in this context. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:27, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

6. Correct. I don't think anyone is going to be confused by thinking time traveling is going on, but I tried tightening up the language a bit [2].
7. Fixed the agencies piece. I'm not seeing how the insecticides are recommended piece is not neutral though. We did have a problem in the past in this article with people apparently selling insecticides trying to push products, but this piece of content is a more measured response from researchers. I added an additional reference here as the sentence was leading into the reference cited in the next sentence.[3]

   WP:NOT#HOWTO also springs to mind with "Insecticides are typically only recommended". The tone doesn't feel quite right. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:37, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

   I shuffled things around here a little bit that should help tone. I should say the part you quoted was actually meant to address WP:NOT#HOWTO since the statement often comes up in literature as a sort of caution against do it yourself folks just going out and applying insects randomly or companies trying to sell insecticides as "insurance". These are broad recommendations from academic experts to city and local government in addition to homeowners, and that is important context for how they are intended to be used rather than how to use them. It's nuanced, but a distinction that sources make from an academic perspective. If you would like to see some of the main not-how-to issues we've dealt with in the past, here's one for context [4] Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:27, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

8. Cleaned up the various references. I did a little digging on the The Don't Move Firewood campaign. I assumed it was run by the USDA-Forest Service, but it's actual by a non-government organization, the Nature Conservancy. Still not a big deal, but I removed the source since it wasn't actually adding anything unique.
9. Updated the url on the first image , changed out the second since it wasn't really tied to content to focus more on the description of the species.

Let me know if you have any additional comments or questions. I agree that there is a lot of focus on North America / pest status, but since that's more of a real-world bias, that's unfortunately what we're left with when following NPOV (i.e. reflecting what the sources focus on rather than what we want to see). I don't believe that aspect disqualifies the article from GA status per se, so I'm happy to chat if we need to dig into that topic more or make some smaller tweaks with this in mind. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:07, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the fixes you've made so far and the detailed response here. I'll take another look through the article in the coming days. Josh Milburn (talk) 23:12, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I've offered some initial replies- I'll have a good look through the article again in the next few days. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:37, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Just a quick comment on the newly added lifecycle images- your licensing is all wrong. The website claims that they are released under CC-by-NC-3.0-US, which is not a Commons-friendly license. There's no indication that they're released under CC-by-2.5, which is what you've uploaded them under. If they are USDA works, they should be tagged with Commons:Template:PD-USGov-USDA, but we'd need to be sure. (Also, you can download much higher resolution versions of them.) Josh Milburn (talk) 16:55, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

That's really odd considering they were all uploaded as under the 3.0 option. Good catch on the non-commercial ones though, I'm so used to public images (USDA, etc.) and academic use that I forgot Wikipedia doesn't like non-commerical. I'll have to tackle this when I'm back after the weekend, so I just deleted the non-commerical images for now and updated the others. Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:55, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Josh Milburn, I addressed the remaining points. Sorry for the delay (work got a little hectic this week), but I'll be able to respond in the next few days with no problem. I'll be adding in more pictures from appropriate sources for the life stages later today. Thanks again. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:27, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Great- I'll have another good look through in the coming days. (By the way, if you're not confident about the licensing of the images you've removed from the article, can I recommend you nominate them for deletion on Commons?) Josh Milburn (talk) 19:09, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Already done. I technically could claim they are public government works since they say they are produced in affiliation with the Forest Service, etc., but I figured I'd be on the safe side since the person specifically released them as non-commercial. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:16, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Closing review

I am going to close this review at this time; the article seems surprisingly unstable, which has led to me protecting the page. Some of my concerns from above remain. For example, I would recommend thinking again about a more typical structure for the page so that there is a good focus on the species itself. The article is looking a lot better, and I'm sad I won't see the review through to the end, but I do not think that now is the right time for a review. I encourage you to renominate once issues have been resolved, and, depending on other commitments, I may well be able to take up the review again myself. Josh Milburn (talk) 12:23, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Non-GAC discussion moved to Talk:Emerald ash borer by Josh Milburn (talk) at 13:01, 24 July 2015 (UTC)