Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of ant subfamilies/archive1

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

The list was archived by SchroCat 20:42, 14 October 2014 [1].

List of ant subfamilies[edit]

List of ant subfamilies (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): jonkerz ♠talk 16:50, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is my first nomination, with the list being written by myself, and the intro section, 'Clades' and 'History of classification' consisting of 95% [attributed] Creative Commons-licensed content from Ward, Philip S. (2007), "Phylogeny, classification, and species-level taxonomy of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)." (PDF), Zootaxa, 1668: 549–563.

In my opinion, the list meets the criteria; but it's worth mentioning that 1) English is not my native language, and 2) the previous dorylomorph subfamilies (Aenictinae, Aenictogitoninae, Cerapachyinae, Ecitoninae and Leptanilloidinae) were recently synonymized under Dorylinae by Brady et al. (2014).

While not very obvious, Ward's 2007 article is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. From the website of Magnolia Press (mapress.com), the original publisher of Zootaxa: "All open access papers are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License." (see [2]). Now, not all Zootaxa articles are open access (most are not), and the licenses are not mentioned in the PDFs. To confirm that this article is open access, you need to find the article listed on MP's website: search for "Phylogeny, classification, and species-level taxonomy of ants" in the list of Hymenoptera-related articles, and you find that it says "open access" in the description.

Most refs are available online in one way or another; let me know if you need help finding any particular reference. Much appreciated, jonkerz ♠talk 16:50, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Quick Comment I would link the captions of the photographs to the species page, especially if it's not linked already in the description. Looks like a good list! Mattximus (talk) 15:09, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Mattximus: Thanks! My internet connection is very unstable at the moment, but I'll link the species as soon as possible, it makes a lot of sense. jonkerz ♠talk 23:49, 2 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Some comments:

  • Why list the number of extant genera as "N/A" rather than "0"?
  • You should link the species names in the image captions (even if they will be redlinks)
  • I think it may be worth mentioning that there are some taxa which are incertae sedis. I'm not sure if it belongs in the table, but it certainly belongs somewhere in the article.
    • Added two sentences about the incertae sedis genera to the 'History of classification' section. jonkerz ♠talk 18:52, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the navigational list in the lead, surely incertae sedis should be at the bottom? Also, why do you list Formiciinae under "others" rather than on its own?
  • "In Bayesian analyses of multi-gene data sets Leptanillinae is sister to all other ants, while the poneroids form a clade that is sister to the formicoids, but this result appears to be confounded by data artifacts including long-branch attraction between Leptanillinae and other aculeate outgroups. It does not have statistically stronger support than alternatives in which the ant root lies within the poneroids or on the bipartition separating formicoids from other ants." This is a little jargony- I couldn't easily follow.
    • I've shortened the sentence to make it more readable. jonkerz ♠talk 18:52, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • This may be difficult (I assume AntWeb and other databases would be helpful) but how would you feel about including a "synonyms" column?
    • Sourcing (without using 100 different sources) may be a problem, and one subfamily with tons of synonyms may make the list look messy with little apparent gain. I'll make some research. jonkerz ♠talk 18:52, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've given it some thought and came to the conclusion that it's better to not include all synonyms in the table, but only mention recent or well-known synonyms in the comment cell. For example, Brady et al. (2014) created at least 10 new synonyms of Dorylinae (Acanthostichini, Aenictinae, Aenictogitoninae, Cerapachyinae (Eusphinctinae and Lioponerini), Cheliomyrmecini, Cylindromyrmecini, Ecitoninae, Leptanilloidinae), but not all of them are noteworthy. jonkerz ♠talk 17:14, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "However, the apparent lack of a metapleural gland in Armaniinae fossils could be due to preservation bias" "Preservation bias" is unexplained jargon (and, unless it doesn't mean "bias" in the typical sense, I'm not sure how a bias could result in an ant not having a particular gland)
    • Changed to "poorer preservation". jonkerz ♠talk 18:52, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I made a number of changes; please check them! Good luck- it may be worth contacting some WikiProjects to bring insect specialists to this review, as I suspect not many of them will watch the FLC page. J Milburn (talk) 22:32, 10 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments and edits, J Milburn. I've made some changes to the list, more to come. WP:INSECTS has already been notified. jonkerz ♠talk 20:04, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@J Milburn: I have updated the article and addressed all comments. jonkerz ♠talk 18:52, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support
  • This is a very nice list, though I feel like a need a shower after looking at all those ant pictures
  • You don't link either taxa or genera, which is a bit strange since you're willing to link family and order
  • In the Aneuretinae row of the table, you say there's 8 fossil genera and then state there's 7.
  • In the Dorylinae row, you put both notes in the fossil genera column, but it seems that both notes are about an extant genera, not a fossil one- though they could be, you never state what the fossil genera is. If either of the notes are about a fossil genera, please state it in the note, and if they're about extant ones, move them to that column
    • The notes are referring the the fossil genera; I've updated the notes to make it clearer. jonkerz ♠talk 12:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Formiciinae row: "With queens the size of a rufous hummingbird" - that's... an oddly specific comparison between an extinct ant and a modern bird. Is that the comparison made in the source, or is there some other reason you didn't just say 3 inches long?
    • It is from the source. The comparison makes more sense with this photo, showing a Titanomyrma lubei with rufous hummingbird for scale. Do you think this needs changing? jonkerz ♠talk 12:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, so I can tell from context that you put a dagger in front of any group that is composed solely of fossil species, but you never actually state that anywhere. You should do so.
    • Added a legend to the top of the list. jonkerz ♠talk 12:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the sidebar, you have sources cited for... one subclade and one subfamily. And those sources appear to both be 2 of the 3 listed at the bottom of the box. Why are those special?
    • Removed inline citations to avoid confusion. jonkerz ♠talk 12:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there a particular reason you've chosen to stick notes on their own line in a cell instead of just leaving them next to the item like references?
    • "note 1" is too long to fit on the same line without messing up the layout. Adding the notes on their own lines makes sure that the number of species is still centered. This is what is looks like with lower case latin letters; maybe it is better? jonkerz ♠talk 12:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Type Genus column isn't sorting correctly- Formicium is getting sorted to the end. Appears you're missing a sort template for that one.
  • Fossil Genera column isn't sorting correctly; same row
  • The publisher for refs 16-18, 24 is AntCat, not "An online catalog of the ants of the world".
  • For ref 26, you don't need to list both work and publisher like that if they're identical and there's not another work by that publisher; in this case just list the publisher as AntWeb and leave out work.
  • Redirecting links are unavoidable for tree of life articles, given the constant merging and splitting of articles, but ones of note that aren't just redirecting to scientific terms or moving up/down the tree- Subfamilies in the lead, Carl Linnaeus in the table and the history section (but not the refs), and Harvester ants in the table
--PresN 18:33, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your comments, PresN, much appreciated. I have addressed all comments. jonkerz ♠talk 12:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Switching to support. For the notes, I prefer the 'letter' method, but if you want to leave it as it is that's fine. --PresN 17:49, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! I've changed the style of the notes to "lower-alpha". jonkerz ♠talk 18:08, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Well written article, very nice layout and well referenced. I did not spot any major problems, or any problem infact. It's an article/list worth featuring! Burklemore1 (talk) 01:13, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose From WP:Close paraphrasing: "Editors should generally summarize source material in their own words".
Source: "With more than 12,000 described species (Bolton et al. 2006) and many others awaiting description, ants are the most species-rich of all social insects."
Article: "Ants ... are the most species-rich of all social insects, with more than 12,000 described species and many others awaiting description."
Source: "They have come to occupy virtually all major terrestrial habitats, with the exception of tundra and cold ever-wet forests."
Article: "Ants have come to occupy virtually all major terrestrial habitats, with the exception of tundra and cold ever-wet forests."
Source: "They display a remarkable range of social behaviors, foraging habits and associations with other organisms (Hölldobler & Wilson 1990), which has generated intense scientific and public interest."
Article: "They display a wide range of social behaviors, foraging habits and associations with other organisms, which has generated intense scientific and public interest."
This is just from the lead paragraph. I think the article needs to be gone through with a fine-tooth comb to ensure there aren't any other similar examples of close paraphrasing. Sasata (talk) 17:12, 25 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Sasata: Thank you for taking a look at this. First of all, per Wikipedia:Close_paraphrasing#Public_domain_or_free_use_content, this is not a WP:COPYVIO issue since the content is attributed (please see the first paragraph of this nomination: "This is my first nomination, with the list being written by myself, and the intro section, 'Clades' and 'History of classification' consisting of 95% [attributed] Creative Commons-licensed content from Ward, Philip S. (2007) ... ", and note the template at the bottom of the article: "This article incorporates text from a scholarly publication published under a copyright license that ... "). Now, one could argue that basing a WP article on single source is problematic; this is of course true, but I do not think that is an issue here. The relevant sections are not very controversial and I have added a couple of references to take into account new findings. Also, the original article published in Zootaxa has been peer-reviewed and was written by a respected entomologist, Philip S. Ward of the Department of Entomology, University of California, Davis. jonkerz ♠talk 18:14, 25 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I did not indicate in my oppose that there was any issue with copyvio, or with largely using a single source. I don't think a featured article should copy so closely a source (even if it is free use content) when it it not particularly difficult to rewrite in one's own words. I see now that the featured list criteria do not make any specific mention of close paraphrasing, so perhaps that is accepted custom here? If so, the closing delegate can ignore my oppose. Sasata (talk) 20:00, 25 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm crossing out my oppose. The template at the bottom of the page (didn't make it that far down on first read) provides sufficient attribution according to policy. Sasata (talk) 20:09, 25 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate comment

  • I'm also a little concerned by some of this close paraphrasing. Just because a document says you can use it however you wish, it does not give carte blanche for a straight copy without direct attribution through the use of quotation marks and in line citations. I suggest a close re-write that makes much of the text more original, and that anything that is a direct quote is properly attributed as such.
According to Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing#Public domain or free use content, properly attributed content may be used in this way: " ... or may include more general attribution that indicates the material originates from a free source, either as part of an inline citation or as a general notice in the article's 'References' section". jonkerz ♠talk 16:39, 5 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm uncomfortable in signing off something so closely paraphrased from one source, but somewhat surprisingly it appears to be within the rules, although I disagree with them deeply. However, there is an issue here with the licence here. Please see User talk:Moonriddengirl#Close paraphrasing from PD source for the issue, which will need to be sorted. - SchroCat (talk) 07:58, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've added a link to the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, as required by the license (see this diff for the admittedly an ugly workaround). I think it meets the licensing requirements, but I'll ask on Template talk:OA-attribution#License compliance to find out for sure. jonkerz ♠talk 10:13, 13 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also suggest using a few other sources to soften the 95% single-source problem, which will also help the issue above. - SchroCat (talk) 19:26, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have added a couple of additional references, and like I mentioned in another comment, the content was peer-reviewed before it was published in Zootaxa. What is important is that the material is verifiable and referenced to reliable sources, which I believe it is. jonkerz ♠talk 16:39, 5 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FLC/ar, and leave the {{featured list candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Aside from the above comments, which should be cleared up through the OA attribution thread if they have not already, after two and a half months there just isn't enough of a consensus to promote, I'm afraid. - SchroCat (talk) 20:50, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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