Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Thescelosaurus

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 03:22, 12 April 2007.

---

Thescelosaurus

The Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs members have been very productive lately, with Featured Articles Archaeopteryx, Compsognathus, and Iguanodon in the last few months, and now I present for your approval Thescelosaurus, the "wondrous lizard". Thescelosaurus, a well-known hypsilophodont (small bipedal herbivore), has been a pet project of mine for months. It is already a Good Article, and I think that it is comprehensive and thoroughly-referenced (42 referenced documents), with a good balance of information in different topics, useful images, and detailed coverage of the 2000-2001 "dinosaur heart" controversy. J. Spencer 00:27, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support. I'm not able to judge the prose very well (is it clear to a novice what this all means? I cannot say after reading so much about dinosaurs), but Mr. Spencer, the major contributor to this article, has a Master's degree in Geology from the University of Colorado[1][2]. It's clear he knows his stuff, and I'm pretty confident he has included just about everything known about this genus. There are no "diet" or "habitat" sections in this article, which gave me some pause, because other FACs such as Compsognathus and Stegosaurus have had them, but the diet section appears to be covered in Thescelosaurus#Description and habitat is covered in Thescelosaurus#Temporal_and_geographic_range. Therefore, I feel this article is comprehensive. (For the record, I am a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs, so take my support with a grain of salt). Firsfron of Ronchester 02:30, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I pondered a separate diet part, but thought it would be redundant, as there is not as much that has been written about its feeding and diet as for other dinosaurs (and with good reason; no one has ever described a complete skull). There is now a habitat section, though. J. Spencer 01:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
    • No worries. It wasn't a deal-breaker anyway; I was just surprised when I didn't see the "standard" sections (or what have come to be the "standard" sections). But all the information is there, it was just presented with different headings. There honestly was no need to change it on account of my comments here, man. Firsfron of Ronchester 20:13, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support - I am wikiproject dinosaurs coordinator currently and have contributed a bit to this article. I feel it fulfils all criteria. cheers, Casliber | talk | contribs 04:50, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support - Excellent article on one of the lesser known dinosaurs written by the author of one of the most trusted dinosaur website. [3] Meets all criteria for FA status. ArthurWeasley 06:04, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support, though I find the sentence The issue remains unresolved and many scientists are now doubtful of both the identification of the object and the implications of such an identification. horrible. If the find isn't verified then the implications obvioulsy are suspect, you don't need to state that. Sabine's Sunbird talk 08:42, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I took out the first portion, so it now starts with "Many". How's it now? J. Spencer 17:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

• Reluctant oppose for now→Changed to Support below↓ - Alas, I must oppose for now... My only concern is the prose. Just randomly selecting one short paragraph & you'll see what I mean - "They suggested that the heart had been saponified (turned to soap) under anaerobic burial conditions, and then permineralized by goethite, an iron mineral. The authors interpreted the structure of the heart as indicating an elevated metabolic rate for Thescelosaurus (i.e. greater than reptilian ectothermy)..." Quite a few high level words there. Overall, a previous discussion between members of Wikiproject Dinos said that we should try & keep articles at a highschool level. However in this paragraph you see stuff like "anaerobic", "permineralized" "elevated metabolic rate" & "reptilian ectothermy" either unexplained or have a link to anoter article. Generally per MOS, articles should ideally contain all the info you need to know & only rarely need a link to explain a subject such as the ones discussed above. Sure some of us may know what they mean, but others might not, as Firsfron suggested above with his concerns about prose. This is a brilliant article - it would be a shame to see it go to waste because of prose issues. I suggest either a non-paleo editor goes through & rewrites the problem areas or someone from the Project goes through & "dumbs down" the article a latch so it is easier to read. Other than that, my vote would be support, but not just yet until this is cleared. I'd do it myself, but this is a busy week (Birthday), & just so you know, if you feel you've completed the task & I haven't responded whether I approve/disapprove, take that as I haven't seen that & remove my vote, as I may not be able to respond before voting closes. Thanks, Spawn Man 02:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Miscellaneous/trivia/etc. aren't encyclopedic headings; content should be merged elsewhere or a better heading found. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I did find that section a bit odd. It doesn't really count as pop culture & doesn't really add anything to the article. It also has a very unusual section name too... Maybe it would be best to delete it & merge any relevant info into the article... Spawn Man 03:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Both Spawn Man and Sandy have good text suggestions, but I probably won't be able to do anything about them until this evening. J. Spencer 15:06, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. I've attempted to rework the sentences Spawn Man discusses above, though I thought we weren't supposed to "dumb down" articles. I can see the benefit of keeping the text to simpler words when there are simpler words to use, but permineralization is a complex process not easily explained using a smaller word (or explanatory phrase). Firsfron of Ronchester 16:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
    • • Comment - A agree that I am a little suspect of the dumbing down concept. I know the MOS likes the articles to be approchable when the topic is not so advanced that it woudl be impossible to cover without some specialized knoledge (which is the case here). Howevere, I did nto see anythign in the article that was that advanced. MOst hischool kids for example will know exactly what anaerobic is. Other than that I think wikilinking advanced terms is acceptable when the term is understandable immidatly in the openign paragraph or even by the redirect (as is the case with ectothermy), then again I have pop-ups enabled so hovering over a link gives me the opening paragraph of the article so maybe I am biased. Dalf | Talk 02:20, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment Thanks for the assist, Firs! I reworked a few more obvious offenders. On the Miscellanea, what if the first paragraph became "in popular culture" (I realize it's a bit of a reach, but similar information has gone under a comparable heading in Triceratops and Compsognathus)? The other paragraph...well, I could take it or leave it. The modeling question is interesting in that it brings up a dinosaur that hasn't made the limelight outside of the heart, and that the wrong attribute is picked. Does anyone find that reference useful or interesting? J. Spencer 01:51, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I like the 2 paras in miscellanea. I'd work para 1 into the lead and para 2 under paleobiology. i'd do it now but wanted to see what you guys thought. cheers, Casliber | talk | contribs 02:04, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

• Reply to the above comments - "Dumb down" was in quotation marks to show that it was only a common phrase used to make the text more accessable to younger readers, not how you took it, in its literal context. I've had this conversation before with Sheep81 & at the time, everyone on the Dino project agreed that writing level should be at a highschool grade. By "dumbing down" I didn't mean adding those annoying brackets everywhere like this (this is a word...). It gets quite annoying & I should've added to my request that some other solution to the prose problems should be used instead of bracketed terms. Not just the section which I highlighted at random, but all the article needs to be rewritten. If you start now, it can be done in a few hours. Most highschool students in New Zealand wouldn't know what the heck anaerobic means - we don't teach it & topics relating to this sort of thing until much later when specialized learning enters. This site isn't just for Americans or the British ya know, other countries don't teach advanced methods until a few years after US schools teach them - not saying we're dumb or anything, but we have a different learning pattern here. So my point is that not everyone knows what it means & I certainly would have to look it up in the dictionary if I was reading it in a book somewhere lol... As for pop culture, as I said above, the sections do not add much if anything to the article & are certainly not pop culture - the best solution would be to delete the whole section, as it adds nothing. -- Spawn Man 04:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with the idea you are putting forward here but I think the bar shoudl be a little lower on understandability than you. I think it should be approachable by a majority of global higschool students if you include the lead section of all linked terms. With tabbed browsing (and Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups) this is not a burden at all and is the mode in which I (and many others) read wikipedia. Dalf | Talk 20:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone believes New Zealand high school students are less educated than American high school students (quite the opposite, in fact). Whenever possible, Wikipedia should strive to present articles which are understandable to a general audience; considering the type of vandalism which occurs to Wikipedia's dinosaur articles, I have a suspicion that many readers of our dinosaur articles are in fact very young children. Still, Wikipedia has a Simple English edition for our youngest readers. The high school cut off point used by user:Sheep81 has been my guideline, too.

I took a look at the Thescelosaurus article, and there are around 40 words which are likely university-level, beyond most high schoolers' understanding. However, these terms are wikilinked in all but one instance, and in many cases, the explanation is already in the text itself. Cursorial is defined as "built for running" in the text itself. Premaxilla is defined in the text as "the upper beak". The text discusses "rod-like bones called palpebrals", the "femur or upper leg", and "the tibia or shin". "Anaerobic" is now replaced with "airless". "Paraphyletic assemblage" has been changed to "unnatural family". "Saponified" is defined as "turned to adipocere, or grave wax". "Polyphyly" has been replaced with "not a natural group".

Many of the remaining terminology relates to different groups of dinosaurs (ceratopsids, hadrosaurids, ankylosaurid, pachycephalosaurians, theropod, hypsilophodont, ornithopod), each of which is wikilinked to the appropriate article where it can be covered at length. Anyone can click on the term if they don't understand it, and these aren't terms which can be altered.

The remaining terms are all wikilinked to their appropriate articles in the text: genus/genera, Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, scutes, ossified, pathology, carbonized, epidermis, clade, basal, derived, beds (in the sense of strata), monograph, iridium, nonavian, angiosperm, capybara, tapirs, aorta, adipocere, goethite, metabolic rate, concretion, and individual formations and faunal stages.

The only term which doesn't wikilink to an article which explains the term in depth is permineralized. Firsfron of Ronchester 21:32, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support - the perverse criterion of "understandability" is not actionable. The video game ads we see running every other day don't even have to explain what "power-ups" and "health" and "hitpoints" are. Meanwhile the Democrats in spirit on this forum are busy cutting each other off at the knees with hand-wringing over whether "metabolism" is too frightening a word to have in an encyclopedia. Enough of this nonsense! Either we unrepentently brandish dinosaur articles at the masses, or else for God's sake let's cancel this "feature article" debacle and replace it with pay-for-play ads. That way at least Wikipedia gets some money for its shame!204.186.14.201 23:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

• Annoyed reply - I pretty annoyed at the moment! On the compy FAC, someone opposes because the captions have full stops & you guys run around like blue assed flies placating him. However, when I come along with an oppose which is both actionable & has been used at least a gazillion (large number) times on other FACs, you all gang up on me saying it's not actionable, not rational, & completely wrong. Well I've had enough! This is the 2nd time this has happened to me on a dino FAC. During my FACs I don't defend, I do. Not only am I not going to remove my oppose vote, as my requests haven't been fully met (as any oter knowledgable FAC goer will tell you, linking is not always the best way to explain things - I can provide links & diffs if you so wish) but this will be the last time you will have my support at any dinosaur FAC as I will not be partaking in anymore. I don't have to stand here & have some IP criticize my perfectly good oppose. Thanks, Spawn Man 02:58, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually my bias is not pro-dinosaur but anti-ad. I think that Wikipedia had guidelines that were not intended to explicitly favor advertisements over all other featured articles, but an uneven and unfair review process has made it that way. I picked this article for that response simply because it has the major advantage of being relevant, scientific, interesting - it has Wikilinks pointing out to something that doesn't fit in a small glossy box on a store shelf; it teaches. That should be a point in its favor, not against it.204.186.19.10 14:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• • Oh & incase you think I'm wrong, I have a page to back me up - Wikipedia:The perfect articleThe article is "...is nearly self-contained; it includes essential information and terminology, and is comprehensible by itself, without requiring significant reading of other articles..." If what Firsfron says is true, that over 40 universoty level words are wikilinked, then does that count as "significant reading of other articles" to find out what they mean? The answer is yes - just linking them is not a solution & is why my vote will remain oppose until you all get a change of attitude with some action rather than defending... Why can't you just say instead of (eg - feline (cat)) say (eg - [[feline|cat]])? -- Spawn Man 03:08, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Hi Spawn Man, thanks for your note. Everyone's been working to correct the problems you and others have pointed out over the past few days. There has been action, though clearly not enough to satisfy you. Perhaps, given time, you will come to support, but no one wants to push you into supporting something which you feel is not ready. Best, Firsfron of Ronchester 03:34, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
      • I've done several more terms over in such a style. Feel free to take a whack at any I'm overlooking. J. Spencer 03:42, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Spawn, (and anyone else feeling the same way) the same page and the same line on Wikipedia:The perfect article also states "is nearly self-contained;" . Note the word, nearly. Also, the next line states "branches out; it contains wikilinks and sources to other articles and external information that add meaning to the subject." . We are trying hard to facilitate the accessability of the article to all readers however, the degree of technical terms and variance in the vocabulary of all readers means some wikilinking of some terms is clearly necessary. Nevertheless we recognise that some can be expressed in plainer English and are goingthrough the article. Furthermore it is alot easier and quicker to stick in a few full stops than sit and figure out a balance between plain english, jargon, exact meaning and accessability. cheers, Casliber | talk | contribs 04:49, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Spawnman, I just wanted to say that before you hole anythign against the guys doing (amazing) work on dino projects I just wanted to say that I am not actually a member of that wikiproject and was only disagreeing with you on the idea that some of the terms you used as examples are not highschool level terms. Your criticism was in itself valid and I think several people have been working on it I was only disagreeing in a matter of degrees. Though I do think there are some topics which simply cannot meet the FA critera for completness and accuracy and be written on a hischool level, dino articles are probably not in this group. Dalf | Talk 05:14, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Well I am one of the "guys doing amazing work on the dino projects"! You'd think they'd at least take me as seriously as someone who complains about dots in captions. But no. I have no further wish to continue this discussion with you guys before I say something I regret. Spawn Man 07:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Example integument - this could be replaced by plainer english as it is not in common usage, but what? Any expression I can think of sounds cumbersome and vague and I feel detracts from the flow of the article (hence the beauty of the wikilink)cheers, Casliber | talk | contribs 04:53, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support - though I would like to see one of those size compairson charts with a human outlint next to the dino loutlint that some of the other articles have (if such is avalible or can be made). I think these images give a unifying feel to the dino articles. Dalf | Talk 03:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Done! Thanks to Dropzink. ArthurWeasley 22:31, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

• Needs a copy-edit throughout to weed out redundant wording.
  • "The good preservation and completeness"—"Good" is weak; just remove it.
  • "There was much subsequent discussion over whether the remains were actually of a heart or not." There could hardly have been prior discussion, so remove "subsequent". Remove "or not".
  • "Many scientists are now doubtful of both the identification of the object and the implications of such an identification." Verbose; try "Many scientists now doubt ...". Tony 00:57, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Did someone just say weed? Anyway I agree with Tony, it could use a bit copyediting throughout, but otherwise it's a very good article. Random suggestions:

• Split the references to two, or even three columns.
• Charles Gilmore described patches of carbonized material near the shoulders as possible epidermis, with a "punctured" texture but no regular pattern,[7] but no further reports of scalation or skin have been published. William J. Morris suggested that armor was present, in the form of small scutes present at least along the midline of the neck,[13] but no additional reports have surfaced - Sounds a bit strange considering the two sentences basicly end with the same commentary which only differs by its wording. Shall I suggest adding "as well" in the end of the second sentence?
• Many scientists now doubt both the identification of the object and the implications of such an identification - "both" redundant.
• ...including skeletal restorations,[7][4][14] and models - Unecessary comma.
• nonavian > non-avian. Maybe replace "avian" with "bird".
• Books since the publication of "Willo" - Isn't "Willo" a skeleton?
• "Miscellanea" as a section name is commonly trivial, which we attempt to avoid. I advice renaming it to "In popular culture". Michaelas10^{Respect my authoritah} 19:34, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Got these ones :) J. Spencer 22:59, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support Its very well cited, I give it that much. Its definitely a complete article, and I support its promotion. User:RideABicycle/Signature 01:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Everything seems fixed. Good work. Spawn Man 07:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.