Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Saadanius/1

Saadanius[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Closing Saadanius GAR as "keep" based on satisfied criteria based on recent article emendations. PrimalMustelid (talk) 16:56, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So this article was promoted to GA class back in 2010, and I have to say that it doesn't seem to have aged well to remain in the same class. It doesn't follow the typical Cenozoic fossil taxon page format (taxonomy - description - paleobiology - paleoecology). It's also missing more recent sources made long after the genus name was established, so it has few sources. In addition, it says that anthracotheres and proboscideans were found which indicates a Paleogene range, but both extended to the Miocene in Africa as well, so it's pretty non-specific if it doesn't reference individual genera found.

Unless someone can drastically revamp the article, this article isn't up to Project Palaeontology's GA standards anymore. PrimalMustelid (talk) 01:43, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

PrimalMustelid sorry, I'm a bit confused. Can you clarify which part of the GA criteria this article does not meet? Thanks, ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 02:05, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The article no longer meets criteria 1 ("Well-written") on the grounds that it does not comply with modern formats of recent Cenozoic fossil taxon articles, is a bit too detailed in "Phylogeny and significance" (should be a subsection of taxonomy/research history anyways), and lacks much academic sources after the year it was described, instead using several news articles (it only uses 2 academic article sources). PrimalMustelid (talk) 02:13, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Only the second of those is part of the GA criteria, PrimalMustelid, but excessive detail is much easier to fix than too little—it can just be trimmed out.

An article is not well-written only if the prose is not clear, concise, or understandable, if spelling or grammar is incorrect, or if certain MOS pages are not satisfied; and unlike FA, GA does not require that reliable sources are high-quality. If you feel that the omission of academic sources leads to major aspects of the topic being left out, that is a different matter and comes under criterion 3a).

It is good to hear of Project Palaeontology's high standards, but the GA process is meant to be a common standard for all Wikipedia articles to follow. I don't know if your project has an A-class assessment process—perhaps you could think about setting one up? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:07, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Original author here. I wouldn't mind a reorganization along the lines of the Paleontology project's standards (are those written down somewhere?). The article was written not long after the taxon was announced in 2010, and it should definitely be updated to reflect more recent research. I'll see if I can find some time for that. Ucucha (talk) 03:50, 2 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, so far it looks better, but there are still major issues:

"The discovery of Saadanius may help answer questions about the evolution and appearance of the last common ancestors of Old World monkeys and apes." That has an advertising tone, try changing the sentence.
Have "phylogeny" be a subsection of the taxonomy section, they're similar enough as a topic.
The description section should definitely be expanded upon more using the original source that described its specimens. Base it off diagnoses listed in the journal article source and explain more about how its anatomical features differ from other anthropoids. I especially recommend incorporating dentition information in addition to cranial information, perhaps make them separate subsections of the description section. PrimalMustelid (talk) 02:36, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ucucha, have you seen the above? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:37, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but I haven't had a chance yet to edit the article further. I'd prefer to keep the "Taxonomy" and "Phylogeny" sections separate as the article would otherwise look unbalanced. Ucucha (talk) 18:51, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd renamed the Taxonomy section to "History and naming" and Phylogeny to "Classification". Also, that list under Paleoecology, which should be in prose. Otherwise, the only big thing is that the article needs updating with any papers that have come out since its GAN. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 21:47, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If the more recent papers have any hugely significant areas of information the articles don't currently mention, then that should be raised here. Otherwise, being comprehensive to the point of including all recent finds shifts towards FA considerations rather than GA. CMD (talk) 17:00, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I looked through recent papers and didn't find anything too significant; mostly just brief mentions of the genus in comparisons with other new taxa. I will add some more discussion of anatomy though, as PrimalMustelid suggested. Ucucha (talk) 01:48, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ucucha, did you find anything usable? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:40, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I added a bit some time ago. The original description doesn't go into a ton of anatomical detail. I don't think more is required for GA status. Ucucha (talk) 22:52, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think that is satisfactory @PrimalMustelid, SilverTiger12, and Chipmunkdavis:? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:02, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Still not yet, it's leaving out a lot of diagnoses described in the original article (i.e. the medium size comparable to siamangs, the broad molars with thin enamel, etc), a fossil taxon is not adequate without mentions of its major diagnoses. The sentence "The discovery of Saadanius may help answer questions about the evolution and appearance of the last common ancestors of Old World monkeys and apes" has also not yet been addressed still, so I'll suggest something along the lines of "Saadanius has been of interest to paleontologists because of its potential evolutionary link to Old World monkey-ape divergence." PrimalMustelid (talk) 23:11, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I overlooked the part where the wiki article says that its size is comparable to gibbons, so that should be changed to "siamangs" to be more specific since they're the largest extant gibbons. Just pull information from the diagnosis paragraph and we should be good. PrimalMustelid (talk) 23:28, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ucucha May you address these concerns? I'm sure neither of us want this reassessment up in the air for too long. PrimalMustelid (talk) 21:19, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Alright look, given usual GAR protocols, I should have already set this article for delisting, but I do want to see it be improved. So, I'll give it until March 4th for improvements to be made, and if there are no improvements and no objections, I'll have to set it for delisting. It's really only 2 issues that you have to address. PrimalMustelid (talk) 23:42, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Could you not do that yourself PrimalMustelid? In any case, I'm not sure I see a consensus to delist. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:26, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, because the author knows about their topic better than anyone else, and I made my concerns clear-cut. This isn't some minor grammar mistake, this is missing information here, so the author would be expected to patch these issues in either a GAN or GAR. PrimalMustelid (talk) 00:53, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I reworded the breathless sentence in the lead and added a paragraph listing some diagnostic characters in the original paper, focusing on characters listed in the comparisons table in the supplementary material. Ucucha (talk) 16:09, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Does that work PrimalMustelid? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:36, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, think the article's in a better state, I'll consider it done now. PrimalMustelid (talk) 16:54, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.