User:Andrew Su/Comments/Action potential

Thank you very much, Andrew! :) I'm not sure if you've been noticing, but I've been gradually fixing most of the things you noticed. It's really nice to have people helping; I was getting lonely editing all by myself. :P Willow (talk) 21:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Section on lithium unnecessary?

Removed, at least for now. Lithium is a pretty common drug, though, and I suspect that some people might wonder about a connection with action potential, which indeed there might be. Willow (talk) 21:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Remove “(10×10)” and “(10×10×10)”?

Remove entire clause “… thus, the current from a hundred-fold (10×10) ratio of concentrations would be canceled by 116 mV (2×58 mV), whereas a thousand-fold (10×10×10) ratio would require 174 mV (3×58 mV)” as redundant from previous sentence?

I felt like we needed to show a worked example, since I'm worried that most people won't understand it otherwise. It's a dilemma, of course; some readers will get angry and say, "Don't treat me like a moron!" and others will say, "Umm, I still don't get it; can you explain it again, in maybe another way?" In my opinion, it's the kernel idea, from which all else flows; so I really want our readers to understand it. Willow (talk) 21:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I find this article to have too many semicolons, most of which IMHO would be better replaced by a period or “and”.

Yes, that's just my 19th-century loquaciousness and affection for spinning out yarns. ;) The sentences make sense to me, of course — at least they do when I write them, afterwards I'm not always sure. ;) Feel free to break up and pithify such semicolonic sentences; make gnocchi from linguini. ;) Willow (talk) 21:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the “Transport across the plasma membrane” section is largely tangential to the main topic, and the relevant topics could be summarized in 1-2 sentences in the following “ion pumps” section.

I tried to condense all the "context" sections today. Willow (talk) 21:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Introduce myelin and nodes of Ranvier in section on “anatomy of a neuron”?

Brilliant idea; I'll do that later. We definitely need a better image... Willow (talk) 21:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Move “Initiating stimuli” section above the termination sections?

Yes, and I put them all together: first initiation, then propagation, then termination. Of course, some of those subsections are just stubs. :( Willow (talk) 21:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Although less beautiful, would Template:Neuron_map convey more information than the current figure under “Anatomy of a neuron”?

Maybe; unfortunately, neither of them is very helpful for us. I might craft some new figures using Blender. Willow (talk) 21:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Move “Evolutionary advantage” and “taxonomic distribution” sections further down? For most readers who will want to learn about how the action potential works, this will be a distraction.

Vague structural comment: I actually think the article takes too long to get to the meat of the article, which as I see it is in the “Phases” section. I’ve suggested a few possible cuts above that get at this point. I think all the sections that lead up to the Phases section could be trimmed substantially to only the background information that is necessary to understand the meat of the article. The other true-but-tangentially-related info could be moved to other articles.

I think you're right on both points, and I'm very grateful for you pointing me to what is the essential part of the article. Being a non-expert, it's a little hard for me to judge what's important and what's not, and how much emphasis to give each section. I've followed your advice, and have been setting the stage in the Context section, so that I can swoop down on the key Phases section like a hawk and cover its subsections, umm, breezily. ;) Willow (talk) 21:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Hope these are in some way useful... AndrewGNF (talk) 19:31, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, thank you, thank you! :) If you have any more suggestions, that'd be great. :) Pip-pip and cheerio, Willow (talk) 21:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)