Talk:Tardigrade/GA1

GA Review

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Nominator: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 13:59, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Esculenta (talk · contribs) 21:24, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to review this. I have a personal interest in this subject area and was planning on eventually working on the article myself, "after all of the lichens were done" (heh), but this way will be much more efficient! Comments in a few days. Esculenta (talk) 21:24, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks. Only 9991 lichens to go then ..... Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:11, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's a bit of an undercount, but something like that. Esculenta (talk) 17:20, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Spot-checks

Initial source spot-checks reveal concerns about citation accuracy in this article. The citations appear to have accumulated through multiple edits over time without careful attention to their precise placement and support of specific claims. These is a list of issues from only the first section of the article (Description):
"Most range from 0.3 to 0.5 mm (0.012 to 0.020 in) in length," not in cited source
"The legs are without joints", "suction discs", "The cuticle contains chitin", none of these facts are supported by any of the three citations following this block of text.
"In 1962, Giuseppe Ramazzotti [it] suggested that the Tardigrada be promoted to a phylum." the first source cited for this statement mentions that Ramazzotti "proposed" the phylum in 1962, but doesn't mention anything about "promotion" (which would imply that it was previously classified at a lower taxonomic rank)
- Said proposed ('Taxonomy').
"The eggs and cysts of tardigrades are durable enough to be carried great distances on the feet of other animals." not in cited source
"The brain comprises about 1% of the total body volume." verified, but this study is based on a single species, Hypsibius exemplaris, so that should perhaps be mentioned
"The brain is attached to a large ganglion below the esophagus" Not supported by the source. The paper does not describe a large suboesophageal ganglion. It describes a "ventral cluster" with only 25-35 nuclei mixed with muscle cells. "a double ventral nerve cord runs the length of the body" - Not explicitly stated in this paper. "The cord possesses one ganglion per segment" - Not explicitly stated, though the paper does discuss ventral ganglia. "each of which produces lateral nerve fibres that run into the limbs" - Not discussed in detail in this paper. "Many species possess a pair of rhabdomeric pigment-cup eyes" - Partially supported but with important differences. The paper states that many Eutardigrada and some Arthrotardigrada possess inverse pigment-cup ocelli, and describes them as having both microvillous (rhabdomeric) and ciliary sensory cells, not purely rhabdomeric. "numerous sensory bristles are on the head and body" - Not mentioned in this paper.
"Tardigrades possess a buccopharyngeal apparatus, a swallowing device made of muscles and spines that activates an inner jaw and begins digestion and movement along the throat and intestine. this, along with the claws, is used to differentiate species." The Elzinga (1998) paper is focused on microspines in the alimentary canal across different arthropod groups, and while it discusses various digestive structures, it does not mention a buccopharyngeal apparatus in tardigrades or its use in species identification.

So about half of the statements in this section have dubious verifiability. I would suggest a more thorough audit of text-source integrity for the remaining citations. Let me know how you'd like to proceed. Esculenta (talk) 17:20, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Checked

Thanks for checking. I already removed about 40 refs and added 20. I'll go through the rest of the text in more detail from Brusca, i.e. I'll take this as authority to rewrite rather than continue struggling to revise. Will keep you updated with progress. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:49, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

'Description' - redone.

'Reproduction' - checked/reworked.

'Ecology' - redone.

'Environmental tolerance' - checked/reworked, slimmed down refs.

'Taxonomy - seems both of us have checked this.

'Evolution' - checked, slimmed down refs.

'Genomics' - checked, slimmed down refs.

'In culture and society' - checked, slimmed down refs. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:32, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Esculenta: ok, I've radically simplified the sourcing, rewriting some sections and checking the rest. Should be easier to review now, let's hope so. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:58, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

GA review and massive removal of content

Apologies if I enter the discussion without having a significant understanding of the GAN process. Reading the review above I do not see a clear justification for substantial removal of content such as in this edit, for example. Am I missing something? I am grateful that the reviewer noted how there was a need to align content with sources, and I am grateful to Chiswick Chap for their work; however I am concerned about what look like quite significant deletions of content from the article without a clear rationale. Thanks for your kind patience. cyclopia ^speak! 17:34, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your concern for the article. However, in every case where I've removed something, I've also added something, and the latter is from a source I'm actually reading at that moment. The effect is to reduce the profligate mix of sources to something more manageable. Sources that have gone have been in several categories: low-quality chatty popular science websites; general news sites or newspapers (usable with care, but definitely second to actual research); multiple introductory overviews of tardigrades etc in general (we don't need a dozen of those all saying the same thing). I've also slimmed down the pop-sci look-how-amazing-tardigrades-are-they-can-survive-a-train-crash-at-17-zillion-mph materials as not telling the reader much that's scientific; instead, I've summarized tardigrades' robustness concisely from fewer sources. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:45, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]