Talk:Rotating locomotion in living systems/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: AIRcorn (talk) 07:18, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

Unfortunately I am unable to pass this. There are two major problems; 1) It is not written in an encyclopaedic tone and 2) The scope is currently too broad and not clearly defined at the start. Together these two problems are too large to be overcome in a good article review. Even though it is an interesting topic and could potentially become a good article, currently it reads like an essay on why wheels have not evolved in nature. I suggest trimming and re-wording the disadvantages and constraint sections and re-doing the lead for starters. AIRcorn (talk) 07:37, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): ? b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): ✗ Fail
The lead should describe the topic and then summarize the article. This lead reads like the introduction of an essay. It should not pose questions to the reader or engage in any original research.

Sentences that start like Stephen Jay Gould discusses this curiosity... and Michael LaBarbera illustrates... to name a few, are examples of essay writing. Other examples are when the article refers to itself (i.e see above/below) and sentences like On the contrary, given the mechanical disadvantages and restricted usefulness of wheels compared with limbs, the central question can be reversed: not "Why doesn't nature produce wheels?", but rather, "Why don't human vehicles make more use of limbs?". Throughout it reads like the article is trying to make a point, not simply present verifiable information. The most encyclopaedic sections are the Rotation in biology (which is what I thought this article would be about from the title) and Rolling and wheeled creatures in fiction and legend. The last section would benefit from being turned into prose though.
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): ✓ Pass b (citations to reliable sources): ? c (OR): ?
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): ✓ Pass b (focused): ✗ Fail
From the title I assumed this was going to be about the flagella and possibly ATP synthase. However the scope is much broader than that. Under the rolling section it refers to animals that roll when under threat, animals that curl up into a ball, tumbleweed being rolled by the wind and even dung beetles rolling dung along the ground. This seems to be falling foul of WP:Indiscriminate. I can understand the rolling away when threatened and even the tumbleweed, but the others seem to be stretching it a bit (the dung beetle in particular). The same can be said for the fiction section. My advice would be to convert it to prose with the most obvious (and citable) examples. That would discourage random editors inserting there favorite spinning creature.
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias: ?
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.: ✓ Pass
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): ? b (appropriate use with suitable captions): ?
I feel that Escher's Curl-up is borderline as there must be other images that can convey weeled, rolling, rotating organisms in fiction. The mountain goat picture should have a better caption relating it to the article topic. In fact the same can be said of most of the captions below pictures that are not immediately obvious to the topic.
Overall:
Pass/Fail: ✗ Fail

Second opinion requested

I am requesting that another editor review this article. I thoroughly disagree with each of the comments offered above, but Aircorn could apparently not be bothered to wait for any sort of response before hastily closing his "review". I am hoping another editor will be more willing to engage in the iterative process that typifies decent GA reviews. » Swpb^{τ • ¢} 16:14, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Each of the comments? Or just most of them?

For example, do you object to having a caption under the mountain goat that says something about rotating locomotion in mountain goats, in case a reader only looks at the pictures, rather than reading the whole section? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:48, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, most of them. 69.140.197.249 (talk) 18:06, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And have you made all of the suggested changes that you believe would be appropriate? You've never struck me as the sort of person who refuses to make improvements merely because the "wrong" person suggested them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:53, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am fine that Swpb is unhappy with the review and welcome someone else to review it. However I feel this should be performed as a completely new review, not as a second opinion under my review. If enough editors feel that this article actually does meet the good article criteria then I will be happy to change to a pass, but this should really be done through community reassessment. I will leave it open for a little while to see if anyone else comments, otherwise I think it would be best to go with one of the other two options (new review or community reassessment). AIRcorn (talk) 06:07, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:GAR is all about de-listing good articles; its use for promoting them is "infrequent" at best. I think that after being listed here for over a month, the article deserves a properly-conducted review here at WP:GAN, before it gets dragged into a whole alternate process. » Swpb^{τ • ¢} 18:38, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

After your comments on my talk page I have no intention of keeping this open any longer. I am going to fail it again and I suggest you either re-nominate it or put it up for reassessment. Gery Chico is an article there currently that was previously failed. AIRcorn (talk) 23:54, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While this seems to be winding down, I do have one comment to make, namely in response to 3b. While I can see your point, IMHO, rotation at the whole-organism level is actually considerably more interesting and more worthy of a substantial article such as this than molecular systems - after all, molecular systems face few to none of the challenges present at the whole-organism level since they are, basically, machinery that's assembled. Furthermore, while I agree that the list might need to be trimmed and/or rewritten (I'm loathe to lose information, but rather move it to a list page), extensive coverage in some form is warranted IMHO both because of the rarity of biological wheels as well as because it illustrates that, in spite of the limits and barriers to biological wheels, they've clearly evolved multiple times throughout multicellular life. Lastly, I'd actually consider dung beetles one of the best to include because 1) they're "charismatic" examples that are widely recognized, 2) they've adopted a wheel via a novel mechanism and 3) they are by far the most successful and diverse group of wheeled organisms. I'll take a crack at this and other issues if/when I can, but my RL experiments are keeping me busy ATM. Mokele (talk) 02:48, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

After some thought and advice I could have handled this review better. Maybe an expansion on each case would make it clearer why they belong in the article and would probably be more interesting. Does the dung beetle use the dung as a wheel to aid its motion or does it simply roll the dung? It reads like the latter, but if it is the former that would definitely be worthy of inclusion. I will step away from it now to allow you, Swpb or anyone else to start afresh. Good luck. AIRcorn (talk) 03:44, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]