Talk:Human uses of reptiles/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: QatarStarsLeague (talk · contribs) 17:45, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

The intro is solid, pretty comprehensive with a logical chronology and temporal order.

• Thanks!

My only concern is with the contemporary snake-bite threat being portrayed as only Indian, certainly people are bit the world over.

• Fixed.

The "Mythology" and "Religion" sections seem to coterminous to really allow for a logical separation of two sections. I think two sections is okay in principle, but many religion paragraphs deal with sections that could easily slot under Mythology, namely the Ancient Egyptian and Mesoamerican parts.

• Merged the sections. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:26, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Also, I'm not convinced that the dragon article should be labeled as the Mythology section's main article. Why not Medusa or the Gorgons.

• Yes, you're right. Removed the main link.

I also think that we could maybe widen our scope some for these two sections. The Angkor Wat reliefs depicted could see more of a write-up. Off the top of my head, St. Patrick is missing, along with St. George and his dragon. Australian Aboriginal cultures has a reptilian deity in a similar vein to the Aztecs I believe. There is also the urban legend surrounding NYC's sewer gators. And that's just off the cuff. Suffice to say, there is much to be added here. Reptiles in Culture is a category here on Wikipedia, could be useful.

• I think I created the category. Added Saints Patrick and George. The Australian Woolunga is already mentioned. Added sewer alligators, and a lead-in paragraph for the combined section, which is now quite detailed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:10, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

In Art is a nice section, with a solid patchwork quilt of reptile depictions spanning the Earth.

• Thanks.

A Literature section is something I would propose, with maybe the Shakespeare/Mandeville reference emigrating to it. Terry Pratchett, Rudyard Kipling, and J. K. Rowling are just a few names who have written reptiles extensively into their stories' plots. Not to mention cartoons like Wally Gator and Dino from the Flintstones. The page List of fictional reptiles should come in handy.

• Section created, from Mandeville to Kipling by way of Milton and D. H. Lawrence, among others. Added Rowling and others. Added further link to the list of fictional reptiles.

The Dinosaur section reaches a level of comprehension I would deem aspirational to the rest of this article. Neatly and wholly summarizes dinosaurs in pop culture. Sure there are some books and films elided, but a good "grand picture" as it is.

• That's very kind of you to say so.

Alligators are also farmed commercially and eaten as a delicacy in Florida and the rest of the Deep South. I would imagine every society on the globe has some kind of consuming contact with reptiles at some point.

• Added. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:12, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

The medicine section itself could delve into antivenom. Also, the mention of snakes as pets is notable enough to see some more info. Lastly, bearded dragons, monitors, and turtles are also kept as pets. They deserve mentions.

• Antivenom is covered under Threats.
• Pets extended to cover more species and issues.

Very noble choice for an article, all-encompassing reports such as this are hard to write. There is quite a bit of material missing from a fully comprehensive summary of reptiles in culture. Much work to be done, but certainly a great start. QatarStarsLeague (talk) 17:45, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• We'll see what we can do. This may take some days as I have little immediate availability. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:32, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

QatarStarsLeague: I've responded to your comments above. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:25, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Second reviewer

I'm picking up this as a second reviewer, per this and this. I'm reading it now and will post comments either tonight or some time this weekend. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:46, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

That's very good of you, thank you. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:14, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

• Not necessary for GA, but checklinks finds some dead links.

Tatler link is flagged but actually works fine; updated the crocodilian URL; new source for snake blood.

• Earwig doesn't find anything alarming, though I'm baffled by the Turnitin results near the top. I suspect they're mirrors but I can't make those links work.

Yes, they all seem to be dead. You must be right that they were temporarily mirroring (bits of) the article, presumably to fill up some auto-generated page.

• How about a red link for Woolunga?

Might be desirable; unfortunately it redirects here. Not sure that deleting the redirect would be an improvement exactly.

• After reading through fairly quickly, I have a question I'd like to ask before I go further with the review. How are you determining what lies in and out of scope, and what is notable enough to include? I haven't spot checked the sources, but I'll take it on faith for now that you're accurately representing what you find. But there's obviously a mountain of possible appearances of reptiles in culture to include; heck, Dragons in mythology could be a gigantic article by itself. As far as I can see there's no authoritative secondary source in the references that you're using to identify what is to be covered, so how are you determining what belongs in this article and what does not? As far as the GA criteria are concerned, I ask because I don't see how to say that this article is "broad in its coverage" without some agreement on that point. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:13, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Added an overview from Ceriaco 2012 to show the scope of ethnozoology (indeed of 'ethnoherpetology'), which includes both the practical uses (food, medicine, materials, ecological) and symbolic (myth, folktale) and its consequences (persecution). On dragons, as they're entirely mythical, Dragons in mythology would be a redirect to the main Dragons article, which this article briefly summarizes.

Looks like some good material from Ceriaco: his study participants were all Portuguese but he gives some more general information too. (As an aside, should this article and ethnoherpetology be merged?)

Thanks: I've mainly used the secondary (general) material. Ethnoherpetology, like all the ethno- -ologies, is an academic discipline, whereas the role of xxx in culture is to describe the materials in the world that the discipline studies, or ought to study: reality is always bigger than academia.

I searched Google Scholar and JSTOR for sources and found a handful of other papers about ethnoherpetology among specific groups and about specific reptiles. I haven't looked very deeply at the material you've included, but I'm still unsure how we can be sure this is broad coverage. Would Ethnozoology: Animals in Our Lives, by Alves and Albuquerque, be a suitable secondary source to give us confidence that nothing important is omitted? As far as I can see you don't cite it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:32, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

There are two answers to this: one is, we keep on checking Alves et al, and see that each such analysis covers the same territory; for the avoidance of doubt, I've added a summary of the main topics covered by Alves. The other is, that we have no doubt whatever what human culture and human uses of reptiles covers, nor do we have the slightest doubt what reptiles are. Happily the two approaches give the same answer, which is, the coverage I've listed above, and also the structure of the article.

OK, that seems reasonable. I'll go ahead with the review on that basis. If you're planning on taking this to FAC I think this question might come up again, though. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:22, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Comments

I'll copyedit as I go; feel free to revert anything you disagree with.

• Depictions and descriptions range from deceptive snakes and dangerous crocodiles to dinosaurs: I think the structure of this requires an adjective for dinosaurs. It might be better just to cut the sentence, though; the previous paragraph talks about the danger posed by crocodiles, and it's not that informative to add that they are depicted that way. Snakes are discussed later in the paragraph.

Cut.

• Suggest cropping the image of Sobek to get rid of the other figures so the crocodile head can be seen without clicking through. Perhaps this version?

Done.

• In Hinduism, snakes are worshipped as gods, with many women pouring milk on snake pits: I'm not quite clear what this is saying. Are these snake pits constructed at temples for purposes of veneration? And shouldn't it be "into", not "on"? And since the milk is presumably not food for the snakes, do we know why the women do this?

Fixed. It's gifts of milk.

• Any reason why we need to mention that the legend of St. Patrick banishing the saints is non-biblical? Anything to do with any saint other than the apostles and Paul has to postdate the bible, so is obviously non-biblical.

Cut the word.

• I'm not crazy about using an 1830 speech to cite the "forked tongue" comment; it would be better if the material you're using came from secondary sources. This is really a primary source. It's straightforwardly relevant, so I won't ask you to remove it, but it would be good to improve the sourcing. Incidentally, according to the source, Jackson said that he himself spoke with a straight and not with a forked tongue; it doesn't support the phrasing as you have it in the article.

Fixed the wording.

• The statements about what the tortoise symbolizes are given without qualification, as if they are universal; shouldn't these be qualified as applying to particular cultures?

Fixed.

• apparently intentionally deviated from the centre of the road: the source doesn't support "centre". How about "the drivers apparently deliberately swerved to"?

Done.

• Shouldn't "Amphibian and Reptile Conservation" be in italics, if it's a journal title?

Done.

That's it from a read through the text. I'll look at the sources next. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:31, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Source comments

• TourEgypt is not a good source for statements about Egyptian mythology; it's probably not wrong but surely a better source can be found for this.

Replaced ref.

• What makes Atlas Obscura a reliable source? Again I would think a better source can be found.

Replaced ref.

• What makes Ancient Origins reliable? They say "Our goal is to highlight the very latest archaeological findings, peer-reviewed academic research and evidence, as well as offering alternative viewpoints and explanations of science, archaeology, mythology, religion and history around the globe. We’re the only Pop Archaeology site combining scientific research with out-of-the-box perspectives." John Black doesn't appear on their regular writers list so he's presumably a guest writer, but even with the regular writers it's not clear what credentials the writers have or whether there is editing oversight.

Replaced ref.

• East European Monitor/East European Development Institute -- looks like a magazine but I can't tell if it's just one person's website or a genuine academic publication with editorial review.

Replaced ref.

• The ref to mythfolklore.net is uncontroversial but I think a better source could be find.

Replaced ref.

That's it for the sources. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:57, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm no image expert, but as far as I can tell the images are all fine. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:06, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Everything looks good, so I'm passing this. I do still have a concern about the scope but the approach taken here suffices for GA. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:10, 8 October 2018 (UTC)