Wikipedia:Peer review/Long-toed Salamander/archive1

Long-toed Salamander

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for January 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because…

I did my masters thesis at the University of Calgary on the long-toed salamander. Over the past week I have spent numerous hours going over and completely revising the long-toed salamander page. I have compared this page to others and believe that it is ready for a review. I have yet to request a page review - so I am new to this process and would like to learn the process. I have worked on other pages and feel this page is perhaps the most prepared. I would like this page to become a featured article. The sort of questions I have are: 1) Is the article long enough? I have other additional information on the long-toed salamander that could be included, however, there is a point where the reader can follow through on some of the listed references to learn more. 2) Have I included enough headings or would it be more appropriate to break the article into different parts than those listed? 3) Is there anything that is apparently missing? 4) Are the citations appropriate? 5) Is the language appropriate or should it be simplified even more-so?

Thank you in advance! Any assistance that you might be able to provide - would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Mark Thompson

Ruhrfisch comments: This loooks pretty good for a first effort, but needs some work to pass at FAC, so here are some suggestions for improvement.

• Model articles are useful for ideas and examples to follow - there are many animal FAs at Wikipedia:Featured_articles#Biology and Australian Green Tree Frog, Blue Iguana, and Cane Toad may all be useful models.
• I would expand the lead per WP:LEAD to at least two paragraphs. The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article. Nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself. My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way
• Per WP:CITE references come AFTER punctuation, and are usually at the end of a sentence or phrase . There is no space or comma between refs. I fixed one example.
• Article is generally well-referenced, but needs more references in a few places, for example Adults may also drop parts of their tail and sleek away while the tail bit acts as a squirmy decoy; this is called Autotomy. The regeneration and re-growth of the tail is one of those remarkable feats that amphibians are able to accomplish. For obvious reasons, this physiological process is of great interest to the medical profession. needs a ref. My rule of thumb is that every quote, every statistic, every extraordinary claim and every paragraph needs a ref.
• Watch out for peacock language - try to make the article more encyclopedic in tone. Generally the examples themsleves prove the point - Show, Don't Tell and WP:PEACOCK Things like "remarkable feats" in the quote above or "amazingly" in Amazingly, this species is found to occur at sea level and up to 2,800 metres (9,200 ft) above sea level. are to be avoided - if you can include them as quotations, that is OK.
• Per WP:HEAD the section names need some work, for example "Biology & Life Cycle" should be "Biology and life cycle", or avoid repeating header names in subheaders, so the "Subspecies and genetic diversity" section subheading "Sub-species morphological characteristics" could just be "Morphological characteristics" (we already know it is for subspecies). ALso be internally consistent - is it subspecies or sub-species?
• Images are very nice, but there are too many for the current article length. Per WP:MOS#Images avoid sandwiching text between images. One thing to do is put the images in a category on Commons and use {{commons category}}

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 05:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Thompsma (talk) 08:30, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback Ruhrfisch. I have made some of the changes you suggested with some additions. It is true that there are lots of pictures, but they show specific examples of some of the biology of this species described in the text. I've tried to expand on the discussion to see if the number of images will match the size of the article. I'll think about this more and see what I come up with. I think that the rating of B is a little low. I looked at other B rated articles and was hard pressed to find anything that matched what I have accomplished. Most B rated articles lack references, are brief, and poorly written. I do intend to go through and improve on some of the formatting and styles - which is needed to bring this up to par for a featured article, but a B rating doesn't seem appropriate. I'm a published author on this species and have published several other scientifically peer-reviewed articles, so I like to think that my writing style is at an appropriate level. I wonder why American toad has a high importance rank while my article has a low? Just curious. Thompsma (talk) 23:26, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Just as you need to use different styles for different journals, so too Wikipedia has its own Manual of Style that articles should follow, most of my comments above pointed out where the article did not follow the MOS when I read it. Assessment is not my cup of tea - I would ask on the WikiProject Biology talk page for someone to reassess the article. As for Low priority, I think that is about the subject, not the article. There are lots of American toads, so a prominent species typically has a higher priority. I have written several FAs on covered bridges - they are all low priority (a few cars a day use them) compared to the high priority Brooklyn Bridge. Article quality is not the same as priority - priority is more based on what are the most important topics in a subject or field. An article can even be different priorities in different projects (a bridge in Pennsylvania might be medium priority as a bridge article, but low priority as a Pennsylvania article)Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 17:03, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Once again - thanks for the review and for coming back to make further comments!! I have tried to find a reviewer on WikiProject Biology, but no takers yet. I'm reading and learning about Manual of Style and will bring this page up to par in time. Still, however, I think a visit to other B rated articles will show that this article deserves a higher category. I have visited about 20 B rated articles and none have had a comparable level of detail, references, or style. As a kind suggestion - I would recommend that you do the same - it might help you with your assessment skills (i.e. "Assessment is not my cup of tea"). As for the priority aspect - I have written about this and believe that it is a misleading aspect to wikipedia: Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Release Version Criteria#Remove Importance Scales. The comment that there are lots of American toads doesn't hold - there are lots of long-toed salamanders - indeed it is one of the most widely distributed salamander in North America, second only to the Tiger salamander (which - depending on the taxonomic status may be broken into different species with lesser range). I don't have the biomass estimates - however - I would venture a guess that there is at least an equivalent, if not more, long-toed salamander biomass than compared to American toads. The reality is that we don't know - so this shouldn't qualify as a standard to rank the 'importance'. Moreover, the long-toed salamander is the only salamander species covering most of British Columbia's forests. This means that it has extremely high importance sustaining the soil ecosystems that support the forest industry and the economic sector. It is a matter of perspective on priority, which is why I believe a rank free article tree is more appropriate - it doesn't mislead. This is a critical point in relation to species conservation efforts. People might see 'low' importance rank and think that the species is irrelevant - and nothing could be further from the truth. Thompsma (talk) 19:11, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I think most readers never look at the talk page or the assessments = I have no desire to do assessments or improve my skills there. I am obviously unqualified to rate the importance as I did not know their numbers were comparable. The idea I had was a guess (I do imagine the toad has a wider range?). Higher than B class is either WP:GA (which has to pass WP:GAN) or WP:FA {which has to pass WP:FAC} or A-class (which usually is set by the WikiProject). I think this would do well at GAN, haqs a way to go before FA, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 11:07, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments from Casliber

OK, looking good...some notes to follow...Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:56, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

heading called Historical biogeography and taxonomy - man, that's a mouthful! Why not just Taxonomy and evolution? remember the readership...

Try to think of places where plainer, simpler words can be substituted without losing any meaning to keep the audience as broad as possible.

Am I missing something, does it have a description section, where the thing is described? How long, colours etc. I'd stick it after the taxonomy bit.

Awesome! Thanks for the excellent feedback. I'll work on these suggestions.Thompsma (talk) 04:01, 13 January 2009 (UTC)