Template:Did you know nominations/Hypercycle

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 20:30, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Hypercycle (chemistry)

edit
The hypercycle model.
The hypercycle model.
  • Comment: The three lines long article was expanded by us as a part of PLOS Computational Biology "Topic Pages" collection.

5x expanded by Szymcio2001 (talk), Nszostka (talk), and Daniel Mietchen (talk). Nominated by Szymcio2001 (talk) at 10:03, 11 April 2016 (UTC).

  • New and long enough. There are many paragraphs without citations, or that end without citations. QPQ not needed since nominator has no DYK credits. Earwig finds no copyvios; of course the article has been simultaneously published in PLOS. Hook is great, though I changed it to past tense. Image checks out, and I recommend using it since the hook is less impactful without it. Once the citation placement is addressed this will pass. Antony–22 (talkcontribs) 01:31, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Thanks @Antony-22: - we have added missing citations. In the previous version of the article, we had reduced the number of citations because most of them were citations to one of the Eigen's publications that had been already cited many times in the article. Following your advice, we added all these citations. Szymon Wasik 10:57, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Awesome. Antony–22 (talkcontribs) 01:25, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
There are still many uncited paragraphs. -Zanhe (talk) 04:21, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
@Antony-22: @Zanhe: could you explain this to us? Do you want to say that each paragraph should end with citation even if the fact described in the paragraph was cited earlier in this paragraph? We could move all these citations to the end of paragraphs, however, I thought that we should cite them when we first mention the fact, not at the end of paragraph (I found information like this somewhere in the rules describing citations at Wikipedia). Sorry for the simple question, but it is my first longer article at Wikipedia. Szymon Wasik 11:56, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
In Wikipedia, general practice is that citations refer to all the text before them, back to either the previous citation or the beginning for the paragraph. This is different than how citations are generally used in academic writing. You shouldn't push all the citations to the end of the paragraph if different sentences have different sources. But effectively if there isn't a citation at the end of the last sentence it could be unclear which source is supporting it.
That being said, I see only one completely uncited paragraph in the entire article (plus the timeline). Technically, the DYK criteria suggests one citation per paragraph, but neither it nor WP:V regulates placement of the citations. In this case it seemed clear enough that the final sentences were attached to the citation prior to it, so I wasn't going to put up a big stink about it. But yeah, conforming to general practice doesn't hurt either. Antony–22 (talkcontribs) 16:56, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you @Antony-22: and @Zanhe: for detailed explanation. I corrected citations to conform with the rules that you explained. And in the future I will know how to cite at Wikipedia. Szymon Wasik (talk) 09:46, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
All paragraphs now more obviously cited. Antony–22 (talkcontribs) 19:34, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Hi, I came by to promote this, but am having trouble finding the hook fact in the article. Could you point me to it? Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 22:50, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
From the first paragraph: "It was proposed as a solution to the error threshold problem encountered during modelling of replicative molecules that hypothetically existed on the primordial Earth (see: abiogenesis)." Jargony, but functionally equivalent, as "abiogenesis" is a synonym for "the beginning of life on Earth". The cited source is behind paywall, but the abstract to Ref. 10  additionally confirms it. Antony–22 (talkcontribs) 00:44, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you @Antony-22: for clarifying it. It is exactly what I wanted to write. By the way - first free references, cited multiple times in the article, are the comprehensive analysis of possibilities how the life could begin by Eigen and Schuster. Szymon Wasik (talk) 05:49, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Well, this is Wikipedia, not a chemistry textbook. Would you mind writing that in plain English for us plebes? Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 22:05, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
Well, my first instinct was that this isn't GA and we don't have a requirement for "clear and concise" prose, as long as it's neutral and cited... But I see what you mean. Perhaps the article authors could add a sentence or two along the lines of the hook to the article lead that is understandable to laypeople? Antony–22 (talkcontribs) 23:37, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
@Antony-22:, @Yoninah: I added one sentence of explanation to the first paragraph of the article based on your suggestions. Szymon Wasik (talk) 07:26, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, @Szymcio2001:. Could you add an inline cite to this sentence for DYK purposes?

  • As such, it explained how the life on Earth could begun using only relatively short genetic sequences, which in theory were too short to store all essential information.
  • Yoninah (talk) 12:31, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
@Yoninah: of course, I have just added it. Szymon Wasik (talk) 16:52, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
Okay, hopefully this is satisfactory to everyone now. For the future, it's good practice on Wikipedia to have at least the lead and the first section accessible to laypeople, with any jargon explained. If this were a Good Article review I'd be insistent about that, but as I said it's mostly beyond the scope of a DYK review, which is less stringent. Though the hook fact itself is I suppose an exception to that. Antony–22 (talkcontribs) 03:40, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you all very much for all your advice. It was my first article at Wikipedia and your help was very useful. Szymon Wasik (talk) 21:02, 29 April 2016 (UTC)