Talk:Opabinia/GA1

GA Review

Hi, I will be reviewing your article for GA. It looks like a very interesting article. I will be adding comments as I read through it. Please feel free to add comments or to contact me. —Mattisse (Talk) 00:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Lead

• "it was thought to be" is repeated in the lead. For variety, other wording should be used. Also, it is in the passive voice. If possible, it would be better to say who thought it rather than being indirect.

Rephrased, see what you think. -- Philcha (talk) 08:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Description

•  Done "Opabinia looks so strange that the audience at the first presentation of Whittington's analysis laughed." This needs a direct citation. -- Philcha (talk) 08:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

W's 1975 paper.

•  Done Budd should be wikilinked at first mention.

Also w-linked Derek Briggs. No articles exist for Bergström or Zhang. -- Philcha (talk) 08:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Theoretical significance

• Is there a link for the "explosive" hypothesis"?

No, but there's a "main" article about the whole complicated issue. -- Philcha (talk) 08:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Further comments

• I think the article is very good. You have done an excellent job. There are a few irregular things like using quotes for words like "aunt" and "cousins" but I assume that the referenced text used those words as well. And for "triangles", the quotes seem the best way to go.

Re "triangles", I'm glad you agree. IIRC the refs use "sub-triangular ...", which would have to be explained without using the (copyright) pics in the refs.

"Aunts and cousins" appears to be my own coinage, but make the family tree implications obvious - including that the concepts are relative, see the comments on tardigrades. "Aunts and cousins" are an extension of "sister-group", which is common in the literature. I chose this approach because Wikipedia:Make_technical_articles_accessible encourages the use of familiar analogies - e.g. I used a couple in Tyrannosaurus#Locomotion to avoid having to explain the physics of angular momentum, and everyone seemed happy with that. In a lot of WP paleo articles I think "aunts and cousins" does the job without the need to refer to and explain stem groups, etc. In this case I had to define "stem group" etc. in the theoretical section because historically the theory and the finds of other lobopods combined to change the evaluation of Opabinia's implications for the Cambrian explosion. But that's at the end, and I think the analogy does the job well earlier in the article. -- Philcha (talk) 21:12, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

• I wonder if lobe+gill should be spelled out more formally: lobe-plus-gill or lobe plus gill.

If I had to change it, I'd want the hyphenated version, as it's the combination that's significant. I went for "lobe+gill" becuase I think that makes the point even more visibly.

• Under Further reading the books need isbns.

Removed the section:Gould is cited (incl ISBN); Opabinia fossils have been found (so far) only in Burgess Shale, not Chengjiang. -- Philcha (talk) 21:12, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Final GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

—Mattisse (Talk) 23:58, 6 September 2008 (UTC)