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GA Review

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Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 22:24, 18 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]


First reading

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In general it looks pretty good, but I have the following more detailed comments, which it would be helpful to address before I get to the actual assessment against the good article criteria:

Lead section
Extended content
  • Photo: unfree but appears to have a valid fair-use rationale; no action needed.
  • "Ann Trommershausen Bowling": do we not have any information about her original middle name? (I didn't find any in a quick web search, so maybe not.)
    • No other middle name. The source is the cnasha ref used in the article. Do I need to add a footnote somewhere? Even her doctoral work has "Trommershausen" (Hm... her surname was "Smith" in 1971 -- she must have had a previous marriage, but nothing about that anywhere)
Early life and career
Extended content
  • "family later moved to Boulder, Colorado": the same phrasing appears in source [4]; can we rephrase?
  • "Her husband was Michael Bowling and they had one child, a daughter, Lydia" (and the same information in the infobox): does this personal information contribute anything useful to the article? Is it related at all to her work? See http://www.doublexscience.org/the-finkbeiner-test/ and http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/male-scientists-biographies-written-if-they-were-women. Or, if we are going to mention her husband, we might also say something that connects him to the article; in particular, reference [4] notes that he was a geneticist. Did he ever collaborate on genetics work with his wife?
    • Open to ideas for improving this, but yes, I think family background is generally valuable in painting a full picture of someone's life in a biographical article. (I also include men's families when I do articles, e.g. William Robinson Brown, etc.) But also yes, Michael Bowling did collaborate with her, at least on the Arabian mtDNA study and also informally by writing general-audience articles about similar topics and this, where she cited him, and I think he still runs the family horse breeding operation. He does not have a doctorate, as far as I know (he's always caled "Mr." not "doctor"), but he has continued to do a great deal of writing on Arabian horse genetics, so yes. Hard to know quite what to say about him that isn't getting into SYNTH territory, (could I cite the Horsetalk article or the Millions article to say he's a "geneticist"? -- I've never heard what his academic credentials are) but tip of the iceberg of stuff he's done both before and since her death, mostly in general interest Arabian horse publications: [1], [2], [3], a speaking gig, [4], It is generally noteworthy when a woman of her generation manages a family and a doctorate in genetics. Also, the daughter apparently is a vet, or at least was in vet school: [5]
  • "they had one child, a daughter, Lydia": not supported by the source, reference [5]. It says that she was survived by a daughter but not that this daughter was their only child.
    • I could rephrase that she was survived by her husband and daughter? Open to suggestions -- the Millions source and cnasa source also states just the one child (there appear to be no other living children, nothing in any of the obits about a child preceding her). Again, this new source I just found may also help: [6]
  • "1969 at the University of California, Davis": wikilink the university (as the first instance of this subject outside the lead, where it is also wikilinked).
    • I can, but perhaps you could shoot me the MOS on that, I've usually been nailed for overlinking... glad to do it, but do cite MOS for me (and for future reference).
      • See MOS:DUPLINK: "if helpful for readers, a link may be repeated ... at the first occurrence after the lead". —David Eppstein (talk) 01:10, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, I think I'm not going to unless it is really important to you, as if I take it to FAC, another reviewer is just going to go in and tell me I'm overlinking. (Been there, done that) I went ahead and linked it -- but It's an optional parameter and I've been hammered for overlinking too many times in the past. Montanabw(talk) 05:24, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "completing her thesis on the genetics of plants under the supervision of G. Ledyard Stebbins": how does a journal paper published with Stebbins support this claim? The paper has a footnote that it was part of a doctoral dissertation but not that she completed the dissertation nor who supervised whom.
    • It's in the Million article that she studied with Stebbins, which Keilana can probably access in full text (I can view it via SciHub, but not sure if that's legit, really, but if it's not blacklisted... https://sci-hub.bz/10.1046/j.1365-2052.2002.00845.x) (but if Kei can shoot you a legit copy of the full text, that would be better) That is probably the most comprehensive of the obituary and memorial pieces.
    • Also, as Stebbins has a bion and was born in 1906 and obtained his doctorate in 1931, I think it's pretty clear...  ;-) Montanabw(talk)
      • I'm not doubting that she was supervised by Stebbins. What I'm skeptical of is that a sort-of-related journal paper by the two of them is useful makes a useful reference for this claim. The reference is still listed there. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:10, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Animal parentage identification
Extended content
  • References 7-11 and 13-14 (in animal parentage) are all primary. Can we find secondary sources to support Bowling's role in these discoveries?
    • Well, again, the question is probably how many times we should repeatedly cite the various obituaries, Millions, cnasa, etc., WP:PRIMARY does not say we cannot use these sources, just that we cannot synthesize-- I was careful to phrase the text with the refs to simply say she did work on these topics... I don't discuss how much, though in some cases she was the sole author of various studies... but also, when someone is the lead author on a scientific paper, that generally means they directed the research. I'm open to how to do this better. Cite Millions more?? Thoughts???
      • This section is still mostly primary-sourced. I don't want a listing of everything that cites her. What would be helpful, though, would be if every claim in the article of the form "Bowling discovered X" was backed up by a secondary source (best a textbook or survey article, but if those can't be found a research article by someone other than Bowling) that clearly states that she did discover that. The references to her own publications are better collected in a "Selected publications" section than used as references.
        • I made one claim of "discovery" (lethal white) and that is backed by a secondary course (the APHA article -- they were the organization that funded the research). If it helps, can you look at the preface to the 2nd edition of the genetics textbook she originally wrote and let me know if something there is useful? It pretty much says she "contributed to many of the advances..." Most of the things discussing her legacy are like this, where a writer basically says, "she did a lot of stuff." But if that helps...? Montanabw(talk) 05:24, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • As for the broader primary source question, one problem is that like so many women scientists, she tended not to blow her own horn, and was pretty low-key, so most third-party references out there tend to say "researchers at UC Davis... ". That said, WP:PRIMARY does not preclude use of primary sources. Sources 2 and 20 (used several times each) point to UC Davis or other work, not to a Bowling article. The primary sources do not make claims of "discovery," they merely stand for proof that she did A or B... But, more to the point, as far as I can tell, I have backup sources for any claims of "discovery." (mostly the Lethal White issue) Do enlighten me if you have a specific example that is a concern to you? Montanabw(talk) 05:24, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
          • The first and third paragraphs use her own publications only for factually worded statements about the general topics of her work. But "she next demonstrated that DNA typing was as effective as blood typing" is an evaluation of her priority for this result, needing a secondary source.
                    • Rephrased to say she studied the topic. The following sentence, (which I rephrased) should handle the conclusion. Better? (We take DNA parentage testing so for granted today, sorry to be a bit sloppy on that one.) Montanabw(talk) 23:32, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
          • Checking into this led me to another major incident of copying too closely from the source: In one sentence of [7] we have phrases "microsatellite DNA markers, ... becomes the first ... laboratory to offer DNA testing on horses, cattle and camelids such as llamas and alpacas." and in the corresponding article sentence we have nearly identical phrases in the same order "microsatellite DNA markers, ... became the first laboratory to offer DNA-based parentage tests for ... horses and camelids such as llamas and alpacas". This is not acceptable and if more of this turns up it will be a quick fail.
              • Rephrased. Better? Montanabw(talk) 23:32, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
                • It's improved, but I'm still unhappy with the "became the first lab to offer" phrasing which still appears copied. There are lots of other ways to say that. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:40, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
                        • OK, one more whack: "Bowling's work to develop DNA-based tests occurred as UC Davis became the first lab in the world to conduct animal parentage testing using microsatellite DNA biomarkers. Some of the species they could test included horses and camelids, animals for which Bowling herself had conducted research." If that doesn't do the trick, please recommend specific phrasing that you think does not exceed the sources and I'll use it. My brain has fried on that one. Montanabw(talk) 18:46, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
                          • It still looked like close paraphrasing — masking a copy by changing some words for synonyms. It needed a more drastic rewrite, with the order of ideas no longer drawn 1-for-1 from the source, which I just gave it. So now this is ok. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:52, 6 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
                            • Thank you. We had a classic case here where I had just gotten so close to the source material that I was truly having difficulty seeing another way to say it. Your assistance with the logjam is appreciated. Montanabw(talk) 06:07, 8 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
          • In the same sentence, our article credits Bowling for the microsatellite DNA marker research used in these tests but the source doesn't mention Bowling. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:59, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
              • Good catch. Rephrased. Better???
  • "Beginning in the 1980s, she ... and blood typing was instituted": inconsistent subjects.
  • "Bowling applied her work on identifying parentage to help preserve the genetic diversity of the Przewalski's horse; among other work, she reconstructed the herd book of the captive Askania Nova herd in Ukraine using parentage testing data.": I think this long sentence would be better split into two shorter sentences.
    • Done.
  • "a 1996 investigation by Scotland Yard": the source doesn't mention Bowling being part of this investigation, only that it caused her to expand the scope of the lab. Additional sources would help triangulate Bowling's role in these events.
    • You're right. She was the director of the lab at the time, so I rephrased. Better?
Genetic disease and equine coat color research
  • References 15-23, 25-26, 28: Again, these are all primary, and much of this section has no secondary sources.
    • Like those in the previous section, they go to verify that she did the work, not an analysis of the work. Also, most of those are not primary sources (15 is, 16-18 are not, 19 is, 20 is not. 21-23 are.
      • References from her department, or references that source article statements about follow-up research by referring to the original publication of that follow-up research, are still prlmary.
        • What is the problem? We are stating what she did. WP:PRIMARY states, "primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia; but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.[4] Any interpretation [my emphasis] of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts" I think this is what I have done. I use the primary sources for factual material -- she did A or B or C. If you see synthesis without a source, pinpoint it and I'll see what I can do. Montanabw(talk) 05:24, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • Also, she died 16 years ago, if "her department" is still mentioning her, that probably is no longer "primary." Montanabw(talk) 05:24, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is the above ↑ ↑ resolved?

          • "The tests on this herd established the condition had a recessive mode of genetic inheritance" implies that it was her research that established this, but the source from the next footnote doesn't mention her.
              • Right. Perhaps you can help me break my brain logjam here. Bowling established the herd in 1985, and it was experimental breeding of animal in the herd that provided strong evidence for the hypothesis that CA was a recessive, but I think there were only about 40 horses in the herd, and thus not enough to establish statistical validity. Her known credit is for starting the herd. I have general interest sources like this one that credit her for uncovering the recessive mode of inheritance, but according to that source and this one she died before she published the results of the studies. She died in 2000, the first DNA marker test came out in 2008 and the actual causative mutation was identified in 2010. The major paper on CA genetics came out in 2011. That was the first time a peer-reviewed publication conclusively stated it was recessive; prior to then, it was "proposed" or "theorized." My guess is that VGL had the research but didn't publish until they had stronger statistical evidence. Montanabw(talk) 01:29, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I explained, so how is the above ↑ ↑ to be resolved?

          • "She was part of a research team that studied lethal white syndrome (LWS), a fatal condition in newborn foals" is sourced to a primary paper that does not use the phrase "lethal white syndrome". The closest it comes is a sentence near the end that says that what it studies should not be confused with "the syndrome associated with the lethal dominant white gene". Also, references 31 and 33 have different titles and their appearances in different sentences makes them appear to be different pieces of research, but they have the same publication data. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:09, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
                • Added a source that explains that Congenital Intestinal Aganglionosis is "lethal white foal syndrome.' Hope that's close enough. (and yes, it's not the same as Dominant white, which is lethal for a totally different set of reasons). Fixed the duplicate Vonderfecht source. Better? Montanabw(talk) 01:29, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

the above ↑ ↑ was fixed

The above ↑ ↑ was fixed.

  • Reference 24: automatically closes its browser window as soon as I open it, making it very difficult to view. Doesn't appear to mention Bowling.
    • Here's a wayback link (I'll fix that url too!) [8], no, it doesn't mention Bowling, as it sources the bit that LWS is linked to frame overo and found in Paint horses.
  • "with genetic disease research with": awkward word repetition.
    • Rephrased "dovetailed with genetic disease research when she studied..." Better??
  • "Lethal White Syndrome": this capitalization is not what is used in the linked article and seems to be contrary to MOS:CAPS.
    • Oops, fixed.
  • "She was part of a research team that studied Lethal White Syndrome (LWS),[22] and as early as 1983 identified the fatal condition in newborn foals as linked to a coat color spotting pattern[23] later identified as frame overo, found in the American Paint Horse and related breeds.": another overlong sentence.
    • Rephrased. Tricky to keep one source's info separate from another. Better now?
  • "at one time, some horse breeders thought might be linked to Lethal White Syndrome": not really supported by the source, which calls it a common misconception, but doesn't tie it to the time of Bowling's research nor to a specific group of people who thought this.
    • Hmmm. How to rephrase? This was a big deal in its time. I actually took an equine science class about 1987 or so where they taught flat out that the cremello was "maybe lethal white" -- it was an extremely widespread belief -- the AQHA refused to register blue-eyed creams,[9] The reason the lethal white researchers looked at cremello at all was because of the prevalence of this belief. But we are talking about stuff published in the pre-Google age... a lot of it in horse magazines and agricultural news materials that simply are no longer easily available. This also mentions that cremello is not lethal white -- it's one of those things that's such common knowledge in the horse world, so no one explains it... I'll make some changes, tell me what you think.
      • It's a matter of nuance, but our article as written gives the impression that the cream-LWS link was at one time the standard belief in this area, held by experts, and that Bowling debunked it. Which may for all I know be true, but instead the source gives an impression of timelessness, that the cream-LWS link is an ongoing misconception, held by the uneducated. Also it's another run-on sentence. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:10, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • I fixed the run on. As for the rest, It was. She (and the other researchers) did. And yes, the uneducated person is still a problem: They still have to explain it to people: see here, search "lethal white'. I added one more source, all it says is to point out that two cremellos don't produce a lethal white, but it probably helps. Montanabw(talk) 05:24, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
          • The new source is a worthwhile addition but it still doesn't source the "At one time" part of the sentence, which implies a temporal dynamics to the misconception that neither source mentions. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:09, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
              • OK, my brain has fried on that one. How do you suggest I proceed? Is this a minor copyedit problem or a sourcing problem? Can you propose a rephrase that works? (or you can tweak it yourself if you'd like...) Montanabw(talk) 02:09, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The above ↑ ↑ apparently requires a breaking of a logjam

Horse genome project
Extended content
  • "one of the founders of the horse genome project": not very strongly supported by the source, which has the project and Bowling's work in two separate clauses of the relevant sentence. Who did she found it with? How did they get together, what goals did they set, and what steps did they take to get the project going?
    • I added this source Is that enough? It was a worldwide project started in 1995 [10] and not completed until after her death. The cited source states "...Penedo and James Murray, professor in the Department of population health and reproduction, have worked with the horse genome project practically since its inception in the 1990s, when the late Ann Bowling and colleagues began to develop a genetic map of the horse. " Not copperplate prose, but I read that Bowling was one of the people in at the outset. the first report when the project got underway in 1995 mentions UCD - VGL generally. Some of her specific contributions are listed here. I found a few abstracts: [11], [12][13], and by 2003, they mention her quite a bit. [14]
      • Well, that source calls her a "leader", not a "founder", in a list of 18 people. So I'm still not convinced that it supports the article text. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:20, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • The millions source states, " Dr Bowling played a significant part in the development of the horse genome map and was a major contributor to this work before a concerted effort was established." I've searched high and low for a list other than the Sellnow article, but basically, this source states, "In October 1995, 70 scientists from 20 countries met in Lexington, Kentucky to make a plan for mapping the horse genome. By the end of the meeting the Horse Genome Project was born." No one is named, and what we have in the article is a photo of five guys sitting around having a beer. ;-) (You are expecting horse people to be organized. They aren't. They are also protective of turf. There may be no online record of who was there, though if you have any notion where I could look, I'm game to keep digging.) In the meantime if "leader" works, I'll pop that in instead. Montanabw(talk) 02:09, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Horse breeding
Extended content
  • reference 32 is again primary, and we could use secondary sourcing for this material.
    • Well, it summarizes the study. The Arabian industry was not happy to see their fairy tale myth about Al Khamsa exploded, so it's been somewhat buried. But here is one follow up article that discusses all the horses by name, but they are going in a little different direction.
Publications
  • "including two books and over 60 scientific journal articles, including": another awkward repetition.
    • tweaked. Better?
      • Sure.
Notes
  • What distinguishes these from references?
    • End footnotes, in those two cases, content where having multiple footnotes at the inline point would look a bit klunky, as essentially they are content that is an "aside" from the primary narrative but of use and interest to those who want to drill deeper. There may be some way to put two ref templates inside a single set of ref tags if you want me to try, but usually it looks weird when I've tried it.
References
  • Reference [5]: Fix the title (use the subject of the email as the title).
    • done
  • The reference style appears to be primarily Citation Style 1 (what you get from the cite templates) but with highly inconsistent author name formatting. Some are "Last, First M", some are "Last, First M.", some are "Last, F. M.", some are "Last, F.M.", and some are "Last, FM". Can this be fixed, please?
    • That's the way they were listed by the sources. I am hesitant to change that if that is how they are published or the cites used in official sources. Again, use, I used the citation template almost exclusively and usually with doi or pmid to propagate the content.
  • Some journals are listed with their publisher, some not, sometimes in both forms for the same journal (e.g. Veterinary Pathology). Can this at least be made more consistent? I'm not convinced that journal publisher data is necessary but if it is it should be listed for all journals. Also, I suspect that many of the references published in scientific journals have dois that are not listed.
    • I tossed publisher from the Veterinary pathology one. All the others were the "publisher" parameter was used were mostly links to various pages on the UCD web site, not journals. One was the publisher of the Paint Horse Journal. I don't think any of the remaining scientific journals have the publisher parameter in use, only the books.
    • Is there a script that finds dois? I usually used the doi in {{cite journal}} to propagate these references in the first place. (or, sometimes PMID). Montanabw(talk) 05:56, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

—David Eppstein (talk) 00:28, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

            • Eh, I was hoping for a wikipedia script that would scan the article. (Someone has that capability, I think, because the wikignomes periodically come around an add them to other articles.) I thought I had doi or PMID for everything because that's how I completed most of the references. Anything jump out at you? At any rate, if I see one, I'll fix it, but is this a GA-level requirement? Montanabw(talk) 02:09, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
              • I don't think adding dois is the level of detail necessary for GA, as long as the rest of the reference formatting is consistent. And anyway it's the sort of thing that some gnome or bot will likely eventually find and fix. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:58, 6 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]


  • Thank you for your comprehensive review. I think I replied to all your questions, I fixed quite a few things, and I had a few questions for you. Overall, I hope I answered everything you wanted to know and I invite further discussion. Montanabw(talk) 05:56, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • You may also want to see if either of these are of further help to you (simply search on "Bowling") I don't know if they'd be a supplement to the primary sources you have been concerned about or not: [15], [16]
  • Comment on discussion:
apparently talking to myself
One thing that jumps out at me is that horse genetics is a very small group; I think the horse genome project brought in about 70 people worldwide. The details on Bowlings work are often phrased in vague generalities (like the end of the article here) There is simply not a lot of money spent on equine research (relative to other things) and the researchers don't spend a lot of time doing meta-analysis and literature review; they are busy with their own stuff. There is just not going to be a lot of things out there that summarize Bowling's work, particularly given that she died at the dawn of the age of equine genome study and a lot of the groundwork she laid has now been built upon significantly beyond what she started -- again, the preface to the second edition of the genetics textbook she wrote sums it up. She was in at the dawn of the revolution but died far too soon. Montanabw(talk) 05:24, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. As I already explained on my talk,

  1. Re the misconception about cream coloring vs LWS: you need to either rewrite this to avoid implying a temporal change (that this misconception was once widely held but isn't any more) or you need to find sources that cover such a change.
    For now, will take the former. Reworded to "...a dilution gene with no deleterious effects, though a misconception exists that cream colors might be linked to lethal white syndrome." I think that fits the existing sources. And people apparently still believe it, else there would be no need to keep mentioning it. Better? Montanabw(talk) 03:58, 17 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Re "The tests on this herd established the condition had a recessive mode of genetic inheritance": you need to either rewrite this to avoid implying that this was her research (in which case why are we even mentioning it) or find sources that state that it was Bowling that established this
    I added a source from a general interest publication and rewrote the the section, per this diff: [17] Will this work? Montanabw(talk) 03:58, 17 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

These were problems already pointed out in my initial review that have still not been addressed. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:26, 13 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • On it. I was unclear about the precise concerns and the direction to go in fixing them, but I see what you are asking now. I probably was over-thinking the issue or we just got wires crossed and I was not quite clear about what you were needing. Sorry for the delay, was off the grid for a few days. Montanabw(talk) 03:39, 17 June 2016 (UTC) David Eppstein: All done now pending your review. Montanabw(talk) 03:58, 17 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Assessment

[edit]
GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

All issues addressed, passing.

  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:

—David Eppstein (talk) 21:47, 18 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

HOORAY!!!! Thank you! Montanabw(talk) 21:58, 18 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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