Talk:Forest cobra/Archive 1

Archive 1

GA potential

There is a wealth of information out there on this species. It won't be long before this is a good article. --DendroNaja (talk) 17:38, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Forest cobra/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Reid,iain james (talk · contribs) 16:26, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Well-written:

the prose is clear and concise, respects copyright laws, and the spelling and grammar are correct; and

Unknown

it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation

 Done

Verifiable with no original research:

it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline

Needs to add pages to non-web references and should use {{cite}} templates for all references

it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines and

Unknown

it contains no original research.

Unknown

Broad in its coverage:

It needs many more recent references and less internet references

it addresses the main aspects of the topic and

Needs more detail in the decription section to make it less like a list

it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

 Done

Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each.

Unknown

Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute

Unknown

Illustrated, if possible, by images:

images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; and

Unknown

images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions

First image in the article lacks a caption which it needs, and gallery images that should be moved to the article also lack captions

One thing off-the-bat that I noticed that could prevent the article from becoming a GA is the lead, it should be a summary of the whole article, and the lead here is way to short, also, the information in the lead should be in the article so the lead shouldn't have any references unless there is no place in the article for the information in which case, a ref is needed. More to come. Iainstein (talk) 16:26, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Taxonbox

• It is better to have an automatic taxobox than a manual one, its not needed but it would be good to have
• The genus name should always be italic unless it is a nomen nudum (in "quotes")
• A species can not be a synonym of itself, you have it in the synonyms box three or four times
• Since the article is about the species, you shouldn't have a collapsible list labeled species synonyms, it is redundant
• It has more than one common name [1]

Article

• The Distribution section is a little short and is just like a list
• The Gallery is not needed, there are plenty of spaces in the article for the images

References

• The most recent publication of a ref I can find so far is 2006, although some internet references might have been published more recently. To make it broad in its coverage it would have to have some more recent non-web refs.
• For internet references, if they have references for them, and if you can access them, use the ref for the web ref instead of the web ref because they are not always reliable.
• The references need to be consistent, authors should al have their first name either abreviated or in full, all references with "DOI"s should not have accessdates, all book refs should have "ISBN"s, all refs with pages should have page numbers, all book refs should have locations before their publisher and their location should be a city, all names should have their last name before their first, and more...
• Ref 1 - not needed, for synonyms use "Forest cobra". Encyclopedia of Life. Retrieved 5 January, 2014. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
• Ref 2 - not needed, use eol and Hallowell refs instead
• Ref 3 - use full "Naja melanoleuca". WCH Clinical Toxinology Resources. University of Adelaide. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
• Ref 4 - I cannot find anywhere in "Hallowell, E. 1857" the mention of Naja melanoleuca, the only mention is Naja haje var. melanoleuca. Is there some reason for this
• Ref 5 - looks fine
• Ref 6 - apart from the missing page it looks good
• Ref 7 - proper way to add editions is like this Burton, M. (2002). International Wildlife Encyclopedia (Third ed.). Marshall Cavendish Corps. pp. 481–482. ISBN 0-7614-7270-3.
• Ref 8 - when adding a location it is not appropriate to have the country, page is missing, otherwise, looks good
• Ref 9 - it is not needed to have a republished date, for most of the time that symbolizes a second edition, and if not, it means nothing
• Ref 10 - looks good
• Ref 11 - should be more like this Haji, R. (2000). "Venomous snakes and snake bite" (PDF). Zoocheck Canada Inc. p. 14. Retrieved 27 February, 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
• Ref 12 - should be Tryon, B.W. (1979). "Reproduction in Captive Forest Cobras, Naja melanoleuca (Serpentes: Elapidae)". Journal of Herpetology. 13 (4): 499–504. JSTOR 1563487.
• Ref 13 - is it reliable?
• Ref 14 - dead link, remove ref, find url, or find new ref
• Ref 15 - not reliable, not needed
• Ref 16 - not reliable, not needed
• Ref 17 - 184 pages
• Ref 18 - 203 pages
• Ref 19 - doesn't need access date

I have to fail this review, for the article, and it has not been edited in the last month

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Forest cobra/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Reid,iain james (talk · contribs) 15:31, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

@DendroNaja: Hello. This time, the article is much better, and I see you have fixed my previous comments.

Lead

The lead has been expanded a lot since the last review, but is still not GA worthy. First off: ::The diet of the snake is already listed, and cited in the article, so the ref in the lead is unneeded and should be removed ::Again, any ref that is in the article citing the same information in the lead should be removed from the lead. ::For any weight or length measurements, {{convert||m|ft|abbr=off}} or {{convert||t|LT ST|abbr=off}} should be used. ::Any cited information in the lead that is not in the article should be added to the article.

Etymology

The Etymology section has not changed much. ::The species etymology should have a ref, and if it is not able to be referenced, should be removed ::Other than that, this section is fairly standard.

Taxonomy and evolution

This section is good, at least for now.

@DendroNaja: The Zootaxa ref (#3 I think) includes a cladogram of Naja relations. If could be a great addition to the article to show how it classifies in its genus. If you are not sure about the coding, please inform me and I will add it.

The cladogram would be wonderful, but yes, I have no idea how to code it in. Sorry! If it too much trouble, I will take the time to learn the coding and do it myself. My only problem with the cladogram is that it's missing Naja oxiana, Naja philippinensis, Naja samarensis, Naja sagittifera, and Naja sumatrana. Why that's important is that N. oxiana and N. philippinensis are the most venomous and second most venomous species, respectively, within the this genus. They are extremely well-known species (and probably the most medically important species from a toxinological point of view) and I don't want there to be any misinterpretation. I think I know exactly how/where they would be placed within the cladogram, but it's not in the paper and I'm no Ph.D. It might be a non-issue, I'm not sure. --Dendro†Naja^{Talk to me!} 00:19, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I will let it go for the GA but it might be a problem when it comes to FA. When it comes to that, I can check if there are any references that might have a full cladogram. Many articles don't have cladograms, which I think are important, so in a GAR I tend to let a cladogram go unless I know of a much more complete/reliable/recent analysis including more taxa. IJReid (talk) 01:17, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, it looks really good!--Dendro†Naja^{Talk to me!} 20:01, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Description

::The scalation section is short. It would be better if a small description of scales was in it, along with the scalation list. ::For convert templates, if not in the lead the |abbr=on parameter should be added

The rest of the article is good, but I will go over it in more detail later. IJReid (talk) 15:31, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I addressed all your requests. If there is anything else, please let me know. --Dendro†Naja^{Talk to me!} 19:21, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

::*The wording "A child in Ghana died within 20 minutes of a bite from a snake suspected to be of this species" should be changed to something like "A child in Ghana died within 20 minutes after being bitten by a snake suspected to be from this species ::*1102 mg (dry weight) can be converted using the template I suggested above. Using the |abbr=off setting in the template will add in the full weight measurement. "Dry weight" is not even needed, in metric, there is no other megagram (or whatever the abbreviated word is). ::*the subgenus Boulengerina should be linked in its first mention in the taxonomy section. ::*Naja melanoleuca should not be linked, as it is explained what the species' common name is. ::*Sexual dimorphism should be linked in the article. ::*"The head of this snake is large, broad, flattened and is slightly distinct from the neck. It is a slightly depressed, tapered and moderately thick bodied snake with a slender tail that is medium in length. The body is compressed dorsoventrally and sub-cylindrical posteriorly. The forest cobra has long cervical ribs capable of expansion to form a long, wedge shaped hood when threatened. The canthus is distinct, while the snout is rounded. Its eyes are large in size with round pupils" is much to complex for the average reader, the terms should be explained and linked when possible. ::*The colour and scale info should be moved into the Scalation section.

So far so good. IJReid (talk) 00:17, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

• After these comments are fixed, the article is GA worthy. IJReid (talk) 01:14, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Oldest snake

A male specimen, held at the Melbourne Zoo in Australia, recently turned 35 years old, surpassing the 28 year-old one in the article by 7 years:

http://www.zoo.org.au/news/rare-reptile-raches-milestone

Born in New York's Bronx Zoo in 1979, this snake has lived its entire life in captivity. Flanker235 (talk) 06:58, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Some awkward structure in the Scalation section

I find the details on colouration in the Scalation section to be awkwardly phrased:

The colour of this species is variable, with three main colour morphs. Those from the forest or forest fringe, from Sierra Leone east to western Kenya and south to Angola are glossy black, the chin, throat and anterior region of the belly are cream or white, with broad black cross-bars and blotches. The sides of the head are strikingly marked with black and white, giving the impression of vertical black and white bars on the lips. The second colour morph, from the west African savanna, is banded black and yellow, with a black tail, the head is brownish-yellow on top, the lips, chin and throat are yellow. The third colour morph, from the coastal plain of east Africa, south to KwaZulu-Natal, inland to Zambia and southern Democratic Republic of Congo, is brownish or blackish-brown above, paler below, the belly is yellow or cream, heavily speckled with brown or black, and specimens from the southern part of its range have black tails.

There are two main problems:

1. The sentences are awkwardly long and hard to parse. It seems like it would be preferable to separate the locations of each colour morph from their descriptions if possible. It feels like what we really have is tabular data: a set of three main colour morphs for which we have two facts to list each: location and colouration details. Particularly if we happen to have, or get, decent images for each colour morph, converting some of this information into a table might be a good idea.
2. The sentence structures of the colour morph descriptions are poor-quality. For example: "The second colour morph, from the west African savanna, is banded black and yellow, with a black tail, the head is brownish-yellow on top, the lips, chin and throat are yellow." The first, unemphasized part of the sentence creates an expectation of a list, and the second, emphasized part of the sentence consists of two phrases that could be valid sentences on their own. This makes for poor readability; I don't feel like I can correct each of the colour morph description sentences because of the ambiguity produced by the inconsistent structure. In "[…] the belly is yellow or cream, heavily speckled with brown or black, […]", for example, which part(s) of the snake are speckled? Is the whole snake speckled, or just its belly? I'd prefer that these sentences be rephrased for clarity, but at minimum some of the commas ought to be replaced with semicolons to distinguish the other commas as internal punctuation of list items. I'd do it myself, but since I'm not familiar with each colouration, I'd rather avoid the potential to introduce an error through aggressive copyediting.

Cheers, {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 19:04, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

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