Talk:Ear/GA1
GA Review
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Reviewer: Saskoiler (talk · contribs) 05:21, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
It's my pleasure to take on a GA review of this article. I will assess one criterion at a time, capturing the assessment in the table which follows. After the table, I'll list items which I believe need attention, if any. -- Saskoiler (talk) 05:21, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Saskoiler thanks very much for your thorough review, I will try to respond point by point below and appreciate the effort you've put into it. Unfortunately I can only really do this justice by starting in a few days time, but rest assured I will be on the case. Sorry about this! --Tom (LT) (talk) 05:32, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- No problem at all. There's no rush. It took me a long time just to get through my first review. I look forward to seeing your updates as time allows. (I see that you've begun already!) Saskoiler (talk) 01:38, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
Rate | Attribute | Review Comment |
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1. Well-written: | ||
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1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. |
Overall, the prose is at a good level. For a complex topic, most concepts have been communicated with good clarity. However, I have numerous questions and suggestions for improving the prose. See below: "Prose" (Note: These have been addressed.) |
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1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. | Lead - I like much of the structure of the lead, but I think it can be improved to more closely summarize the various article sections. See below: "Lead" (Note: These have been addressed.)
Layout - The organization of body elements is good. The flow from section to section is pretty good. There is good use of "Main article: ___" links. I do have a few questions, however. See below: "External links" and "See also" (Note: These have now been addressed. Thank you.) Words to watch - No issues discovered. Fiction - n/a List incorporation - n/a |
2. Verifiable with no original research: | ||
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2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. | There is a "References" section which contains a list of 64 sources supporting inline citations. |
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2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). | I have checked all of the citations for which links to source text have been provided. I confirmed that all of these support the article claims. Sources are reliable, including many textbooks, scientific and medical journal articles, and other books. |
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2c. it contains no original research. | I see no evidence of original research. |
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2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism. | There are no copyright violations that I can see. The copyvio tool shows no problems. |
3. Broad in its coverage: | ||
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3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. | The main aspects of this topic—structure, function, development, clinical significance, society and culture—are addressed by this article. The sections and subsections appear well-planned and clear.
However, my confusion is that the distinction between "ear" vs "human ear" is pretty blurry. Because of this, the scope lines of this article are a bit vague. Therefore, I'm not certain if there are gaps of missing information in several sections. See below: "Ear vs Human ear" (Note: The discussion below has resolved the issue. Thank you.) |
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3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). | There's a good level of detail in this article, and it achieves fairly good balance. The article makes good use of summary style, and refers off to dedicated articles on sub-topics several times. |
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4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. | The article shows no sign of editorial bias. |
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5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. | The article is stable. I see no evidence of an edit war or content dispute... just a steady series of productive edits. |
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio: | ||
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6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. | All images are tagged with their copyright status, and there are no apparent licensing issues. |
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6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. | All images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. The various diagrams are of particularly high quality. The image chosen for the top-left of the article is simple and inviting.
Although the article passes the image criteria as-is, I think there is room for future improvements here. In particular, I think the "Society and culture" could be augmented with a set of images. Also, the "Other animals" section could be enhanced greatly by having a gallery of images showing the many variations of ears. |
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7. Overall assessment. | I enjoyed reviewing this article, and I learned a great deal about the ear in the process. Thank you to all contributors of this article.
There are quite a few items to address or discuss below, so I will delay making a final assessment at this time. Hopefully, the issues are not too difficult to address. Update: After many iterations, all issues below have been addressed. I believe that this article now meets the GA criteria, and I am passing this review. Congratulations. I hope that improvements will continue to be made to this article, perhaps someday approaching featured article quality. Future improvements might include:
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Items to Address
[edit]The following is a list of items which need attention. Please respond to each to let me know when it is resolved, or enter an explanation to justify why it should not be changed.
External links
Addressed - Confirmed
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See also
Addressed - Confirmed
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This is quite a large number of articles, and I'm not sure this is optimal.
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Ear vs Human Ear
Addressed - Confirmed
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Some other anatomical articles are split into "part" and "human part" articles. For example, Nose vs Human nose; Eye vs Human eye; Brain vs Human brain; Skin vs Human skin; Tooth vs Human tooth. I'm not suggesting a split of this article (that would be for someone who understands the similarities/differences much better than I), but I do sense some "tension" in this article at times as it seems to drift into "human ear" mode quite a bit. If this is really a human ear article, then I wonder why we're specifying "human" so many times. Similarly, perhaps all mention of other animals should be restricted to the "Other animals" section?
Focusing an article on humans is standard practice for anatomy articles. We have about 5,200 articles on anatomy on Wikipedia, about 20 of which have "Human" subarticles. We generally do this when there is enough content to justify splitting. Humans get primary focus for a number of reasons:
This is not an optimal state of affairs but it is the way that it has worked thus far. It would be next to impossible to cover in the same depth animal anatomy. For that reason we generally have a main section to do with humans, and then an "Other animals" section on other animals, with "Other" implying non-human. Perhaps in the future this section will be expanded. As it is this is part of the current manual of style entry for this: WP:MEDMOS#Anatomy. I hope this reply helps. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:37, 20 March 2016 (UTC) Your arguments are reasonable. The 20/5200 fraction is particularly compelling. I'm convinced. Saskoiler (talk) 04:18, 22 March 2016 (UTC) |
Lead
Addressed - Confirmed
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Prose
- General
Addressed - Confirmed
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I think if we centralized on just "eardrum" (other than the single case where we provide the alternate term), the article would be clearer... unless there's some technical reason not to.
(Note: there is a case of "secondary tympanic membrane" which needs to be left as-is, I think. It's odd that it is not wikilinked as a full phrase, but it is wikilinked as simply "membrane" later in that sentence.) |
- Lead
Addressed - Confirmed
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- Structure
Addressed - Confirmed
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- Structure - Outer Ear
Addressed - Confirmed
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- Structure - Middle ear
Addressed - Confirmed
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- Structure - Inner ear
Addressed - Confirmed
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- Structure - Blood supply
Addressed - Confirmed
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Question.
Addressed - Confirmed
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I have arbitrarily decided not to include too much detail on the structure or function of the inner ear (ie the semicircular canals and the cochlea) because it is quite complex. In your opinion, is it worth expanding on this area? --Tom (LT) (talk) 03:17, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
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- Function - Hearing
Addressed - Confirmed
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- Development
Addressed - Confirmed
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- Clinical significance - Deafness - Congenital abnormalities
Addressed - Confirmed
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- Clinical significance - Injury - Outer ear
Addressed - Confirmed
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- Society and culture
Addressed - Confirmed
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- Other animals
Addressed - Confirmed
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- Citation errors
- Somewhere along the way since this review began, two citation errors got introduced: #17 and #20.
Done --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:26, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
- Somewhere along the way since this review began, two citation errors got introduced: #17 and #20.
-- Saskoiler (talk) 05:21, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- I look forward to working with you to get this promoted :). Thanks for taking up this review! --Tom (LT) (talk) 06:31, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- I took the liberty to make a number of copyediting updates when I was fairly confident. Don't hesitate to revert one or more of my changes if I've botched things. -- Saskoiler (talk) 01:42, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
- Many thanks. I've grouped together issues that I feel are addressed and collapsed them so I can keep track of what I need to do. Please move bits out if you want to continue discussion. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:37, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
- I like the collapsing effect. Please continue to use it for sections which you feel have been addressed. I've glanced at a few of your changes, and it looks good so far. Saskoiler (talk) 16:18, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks very much for your thorough review, Saskoiler. I feel I have addressed your concerns, including the ones which have crept in :). Awaiting your reply, --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:26, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
- You've made some great improvements throughout the article. I was able to check and confirm many sections this evening. I've got a couple more to go, and I need to give a final read to cover the various new sections (or significantly reworked/expanded sections). Due to prior commitments, it may take me a couple of days to get back to it. Saskoiler (talk) 05:10, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
- Not to worry, I'm happy to take a few days off too. --Tom (LT) (talk) 02:54, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
- I've now confirmed all sections. I performed a series of copyedits on my final read. I also removed one image (the Vacanti mouse) because my understanding is that the fair use claims are contingent on the image only being used on its own article. It's a good image, but a reader can easily click on the wikilink to find that article if desired. Saskoiler (talk) 04:38, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
- Not to worry, I'm happy to take a few days off too. --Tom (LT) (talk) 02:54, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
- You've made some great improvements throughout the article. I was able to check and confirm many sections this evening. I've got a couple more to go, and I need to give a final read to cover the various new sections (or significantly reworked/expanded sections). Due to prior commitments, it may take me a couple of days to get back to it. Saskoiler (talk) 05:10, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks very much for your thorough review, Saskoiler. I feel I have addressed your concerns, including the ones which have crept in :). Awaiting your reply, --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:26, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
- I like the collapsing effect. Please continue to use it for sections which you feel have been addressed. I've glanced at a few of your changes, and it looks good so far. Saskoiler (talk) 16:18, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
- Many thanks. I've grouped together issues that I feel are addressed and collapsed them so I can keep track of what I need to do. Please move bits out if you want to continue discussion. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:37, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
- I took the liberty to make a number of copyediting updates when I was fairly confident. Don't hesitate to revert one or more of my changes if I've botched things. -- Saskoiler (talk) 01:42, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
Hurray! Many thanks for your thorough and systematic review, Saskoiler. --Tom (LT) (talk) 04:45, 26 March 2016 (UTC)