Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Laquintasaura/archive1

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

The article was archived by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 20 October 2024 [1].

Laquintasaura

Nominator(s): LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 06:49, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about one of the earliest known members of Ornithischia, one of the three major groups of dinosaurs. It's a very important picture of their evolution and the first time a primitive ornithischian rather than one of the more famous later forms has made it up to FAC—though hopefully not the last. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 06:49, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

General thoughts by Generalissima

I would heavily, heavily recommend using SFNs or some other form of page notation for every book/journal cite. This makes it a lot easier for both readers and reviewers.
As far as I understand citation style between full and short notation is a matter of preference; I've always found them needlessly obtuse and, on a more objective note, they see next to no use within the Dinosaur WikiProject, especially at the FA level. The current citation approach is consistent with these other articles.
A lot of these paragraphs are a bit too large to be easily readable in my eyes; the penultimate paragraph of the Discovery and naming section is the worst offender here.
Breaking up all of the paragraphs, which are separated based on content, would be very damaging to the flow in my opinion. I have however moved a sentence out of the specific paragraph you highlighted to a smaller paragraph in the section in order to alleviate the worst case.
Lede seems a bit short relative to the total length of the body, might be good to beef it up a little.
I was initially skeptical how much of an introduction could be written about such a simple taxon, but I've expanded it significant and am quite happy with the result.
All images are appropriately licensed. This isn't a FA requirement, but I'd recommend adding alt-text.
Added; I don't have a lot of experience with alt text so I hope I did alright.

That's all at first check. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 07:25, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Okay! With the changes things are looking a bit better. Support on image/prose. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 23:14, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback by Shushugah

I did not realize how prominent country locations were for Dinosaurs, despite fact that Earth/geopolitics has changed a lot since. For example Lesotho is enclaved within South Africa. But if this is the convention, I accept it.
I wasn't aware of guidelines surrounding country linking; removed the links.
~~Use straight quotes ie wiki conventions for MOS:APOSTROPHE e.g not ‘’~~
I've fixed what I think is the only problem case here, but let me know if I've missed one.
a partial left ischium
Fixed.
~~Place image of skull in Section about features, particularly passage about uniform teeth~~
No free images of the skull material are available, but I will see if any of our usual palaeo diagram makers can whip up one of the teeth since they're the distinctive portion.
Never mind, I mixed up what is represented in File:Lesothosaurus sp skull 3894.jpg
~~In the diagram, why do other names e.g Parapredentata preview to Ornithischia?~~
They do not have their own pages and so redirect to their parent clade, which is considered to be similar enough in topic that it would be redundant to give them all pages. Either way it's not particularly the concern of this article how the higher clades are organized on the site.
Putting two wide charts in same row is inaccessible on desktop and certainly mobile. Move them to separate and avoid language like "left/right" chart and instead refer to first/second charts.
It can certainly be made sequential if it's a dealbreaker issue, but it's been used in dinosaur FAs such as Lythronax and Spinophorosaurus before. Desktop setups will vary but the mobile app does not have any issue displaying the two cladograms for me.
Formally WP:ACCESSIBILITY is not part of FA criteria, but I find it very unreadable on mobile (web view) and think it could be improved with a table title for each.
How does this version with sequential cladograms look?
Section named Palaeoecology does not make it obvious what Palaeoecology even is.
This is a standard section in many dinosaurs FAs (sometimes substituted for palaeoenvironment), and does not usually include an explicit explanation. But as soon as I track down a citation I can add a link to the paleoecology page if necessary.
I can open the article on Palaeoecology, if I know to search/click for it. So a short 1-2 line intro helps. Readers might be avid paleo-enthusiasts or completely new to the topic, so should cater to both audiences.
I like the layout of Theropoda where it has a Biology section, and within each is organized by section for easier navigation.
While a dinosaur article would usually include a "palaeobiology" section touching on the various physiological functions of the animal, this research simply doesn't exist in Laquintasaura. The only potential contents would be the couple sentences of histological information currently within the [physical] description section instead.

Sourcing and references

Wiki link all journals/websites mentioned in sourcing
Done.
~~Consistently link to DOI~~
As far as I can tell this is already the case.
You are right. I was checking in edit mode
~~Consistent author names Breeden III, Bejamin T. and Breeden, Benjamin T.~~
Fixed.
Inline body, is it normal to quote full name of first author and only last name of second author? Example A later 2021 study by Carlos-Manuel Herrera-Castillo, Sánchez-Villagra
I'd consider that an oversight, I'll change it.

Oh, I actually see why this was written that was now. Sanchez-Villagra was already introduced with his full name earlier in the section, and so just used his last name afterwards. Herrera-Castillo is first referred to in this sentence and uses a full name.
Some incorrect source parameters including incorrect pages e.g pages=e75248, pages=e1791894 and pages=e12619.
I was under the impression this was how the way to implement those codes for digital publications, but perhaps I am incorrect.

~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 11:54, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FM

I'll have a look soon, some preliminary comments below. FunkMonk (talk) 10:33, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Modern countries are usually not linked, per WP:What generally should not be linked.
Fixed.
I see some WP:duplinks, they can be highlighted with this script:[2] Ignore those duplicated from the cladograms, of course.
Could pipelink paleoart at restoration, since often that term causes confusion among layreaders.
Done.
Why are Thyreophora and Neornithischia bolded in the cladogram?
I imported it from the Ornithischia article where they're highlighted as major clades and overlooked removing the bolding. Now fixed.
"whose remains are found in the same bonebed as Laquintasaura" Were found? Why present tense?
Tenses have always been my biggest struggle with writing. Fixed.
"showing a distinct triangular shape" Its triangular shape?
Fixed.
"Holotype tooth of Laquintasaura" Link holotype.
Fixed.
"it may have shared omnivorous behaviour" Diet instead of behaviour?
Fixed.
"and a quadrate" Link and spell out quadrate bone, even explain where in the skull it is located in parenthesis.
How's it look now?
You can link anatomical terms to the Dinogloss.
Did this for description, but overlooked it for discovery. Added now.
"an early ornithischian" Link this and other terms at first mention always.
Added in that case.
"Finding no vertebrate fossils" Link vertebrate.
Added.
Unlink Argentina.
Removed.
Link fossil preparation.
Added.
"by a team of French palaeontologists" Who led this expedition?
Neither the 2021 paper nor the 1992 paper (which I hadn't managed to access until trying again just now) state as much explicitly. The 1992 paper uses the plural first person pronoun "nous", so by context I'd assume Russel, but there's no direct source for this.
"Several years later in the late 1990s, he would become aware" Who is "he"? You mention no people in the preceding sentence.
Sánchez-Villagra; switched in pronoun for his name.
"their return to Venezuela as well, when they were deposited in the collections of the Museu de Biología de la Universidad de Zulia (MBLUZ)." "where" make more sense than "when"?
Fixed.
"conduct additional expeditions to find additional material" The double "additional" is repetitive.
Removed first one.
" they were referred to the genus Lesothosaurus" In what what? As L. sp. or to a specific species?
cf. Lesothosaurus sp., now clarified in a prose format.
"became aware he was no longer permitted to study it there" Do we know why and what happened to the material?
The 2021 paper simply states that he became aware he could not access them.
"obtained a grant from the Jurassic Foundation" Where is this organisation?
America, apparently. I'm not sure what to source that to, though. It seems like a big organization, but I don't see a ton of dedicated academic sources and none of the Laquintasaura papers specify this.
Do we really need to know in what journals studies were published in? Doesn't really seem to add much to the story, and can just be checked in the citations.
I suppose not, removed.
"Tibia and ischium of Tachiraptor, whose remains are found in the same bonebed as Laquintasaura" Do we know when and during which expeditions?
Not as far as I can tell.
Link more bone articles when you list the known elements under discovery. Many of the are also uncommon enough that they could need in-text explanation in parenthesis.
Added.
It would make more chronological sense to list what the type specimen(s) is in the paragraph where you deal with the naming and material than in the subsequent paragraph where it seems unrelated to the surrounding text.
I've tried an extensive restructuring of the last two paragraphs to be more sensible in this respect while not overburdening the size of either paragraph. Hopefully it's better.
"later described with a newly recognized tibia" Newly means little if you don't give a date.
It's meant to be newly relative to the teeth, but I've reworded the whole sentence to be more clear.

Actually, it seems I misunderstood and the teeth and tibia are two unrelated discoveries, with the former not referred to Tachiraptor. I've reworded the sentence again to correct this.
"Locality of the bonebed" You could add the name of the country or the formation to the caption.
Added.
You start by mentioning a French team, and the go on to mention another team that appears to be local, but without giving their nationality. Could be good to mention for context. And since much of this seems to be "parachute-science", perhaps also for other people mentioned.
The other scientist from the 1989 reconnaissance is acknowledged as Venezuelan, but the membership or nationality of the expeditions from 1992 to 1994 isn't specified aside from James Clark, who is American (not stated in the paper). Sánchez-Villagra is apparently Argentinian/Venezuelan and resides in Switzerland, but I don't imagine there's an academic source for that. As far as the parachute science goes I did add a note from the 1992 paper that there was intent to return the specimens to Venezuela after study, though this doesn't appear to have actually happened until Sánchez-Villagra intervened.
Looks like many generic names need italics in citation titles.
Fixed, and added missing citation urls while I was at it. Left Tachiraptor un-italicized in the news article source to match the formatting used on the website.
"The small size and conservative skeletal anatomy of the species" Since you mainly use the generic name, including in the preceding sentences, it seems off that you say species and not genus.
Switched to genus name.
"with traits with armor and quadrupedality" With traits like?
Fixed.

Changes so far look good, review of the rest below. FunkMonk (talk) 16:25, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Link tooth crown?

Explain denticles (serrations).

Explain where the premaxilla and maxilla are.

"Convergently similar anatomy, with a tall tooth construction and striations, does occur convergently in" Is it necessary to say convergently twice in a sentence?

Premaxilla is linked at least three times.

Explain diastema.

Link and explain basal.

Link suture.

"than the dentition, the postcranium" Perhaps say "postcranial skeleton" for clarity.

Explain diagnostic in this context.

Explain synapomorphies.

You'll probably be asked about this for the image review, so you could add references to the Commons description of the life restoration that supports the anatomy shown. Note I fixed the arm position and made the snout a bit longer on IJReid's request.

The skeletal diagram by Maurissaurio could be referenced (He, Mauricio Garcia, is a published researcher in the area). IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 20:22, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Could add a reference to the size comparison Commons page for the size shown.

Link taxa.

The tooth diagram could have a reference for what source it is based on (perhaps IJReid knows).

Just the type tooth in the original description. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 20:22, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Link and explain derived.

"described in detail in the supplementary material of the 2014 description paper" I think it would be better to explain some of these in the article, the sentence basically says "read the supplements" instead of summarising them.

Explain what and where the predentary bone is.

"may be intermediate to that of Triassic silesaurs and Jurassic ornithischians" Intermediate between?

"Its fourth trochanter is wider and lacking in protrusion than other Jurassic taxa" Protrudes less?

"Similarly, the head of the femur has flat shape" A flat shape?

The phylogenetic relationships of Laquintasaura remains" Remain (relationships is plural).

"It is robustly considered" Widely would be a more straightforward way of saying it.

"but its exact position within this clade are unresolved" is unresolved (position is singular).

Explain polytomy.

"Some later phylogenetic analyses have had to remove the taxon from phylogenetic analyses outright" No need for double phylogenetic analyses, and the term should be linked at first mention.

"early member of the group Thyreophora (armored dinosaurs)" Add the explanation of the term at first mention, this is many mentions down.

Explain sister taxon.

Link and explain bone histology at first mention.

"known Saphornithischia" missing as.

"and an grade of animals" A grade (starts with a consonant).

Remove link to Silesauridae, already linked in preceding section.

"by André Fonseca and colleagues" Give year as you do for other studies mentioned.

"Clade names have been inserted based on definitions established by a paper by Daniel Madzia and colleagues in 2021 for clarity" This might be problematic, per discussions about whether this constitutes WP:synth. Can we get the cladograms as they are in the respective papers alone?

Fonseca et al. (2024) does have Laquintasaura as a basal thyreophoran with clades labelled if needed. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 20:22, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also newer, so could be better. FunkMonk (talk) 02:46, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Explain grade. Perhaps specify evolutionary grade.

"found to belong to subadult individual who had not " individuals?

"tightly spaced lines of arrested growth and extensive bone remodelling" These terms need explanation and links if most people are going to understand them.

"Laquintasaura hails from the La Quinta Formation in what is now Colombia and Venezuela" Could say of instead of in, to make it clearer Laquintasaura is not known from Colombia.

"potentially as little as one hundred and fifty thousand years from the end of the Triassic period" Could specify "the preceding Triassic period".

Link equatorial.

Jurassic is linked a lot of times.

Explain taphonomy.

Tachiraptor is linked multiple times.

"and maybe have lived together in life" May have lived? Maybe lived? Current wording is odd.

"A small animal, it is thought to have been a lightly built" Remove "a" before "lightly built".

" One of the first species known to possess the distinctive bird-like hip bone of ornithischians, it would have been a capable bipedal runner." Only stated explicitly in intro, which should not have unique info.

"Unlike the leaf shaped teeth" You should use this term in the article body too.

"These may have contributed to an omnivorous diet" That's an odd way to put it, reflected an omnivorous diet?

"make it a key insight" I'm not sure you can say a dinosaur is an insight, must be another way to put it. It gives insight?

"Taxonomic uncertainty has led to conflicting hypotheses that it is either an early diverging ornithischian or part of the subgroup Thyreophora." You should add before this that it is widely considered an ornithicschian at least.

"early dinosaurs on the supercontinent of Pangaea" You only mention Pangaea in the intro.

"Previous research had cast doubt on whether dinosaurs lived around the equator during their early evolution, and on when ornithischians first spread to the northern Hemisphere" The article body doesn't state there was doubt about the latter point.

Jens

I already reviewed this at GAN, but here some more comments, for now just on the lead:

The first sentences generally feel too complicated with unnecessary technical terms, while focus on the crucial information is lacking. I suggest to follow the usual formulations we use in other dinosaur FAs, something like "Laquintasaura is a genus of ornithischian dinosaur that lived during the Early Jurassic in what is now Venezuela. The only known species is Laquintasaura venezuelae." This now contains "Early Jurassic", which is a crucial information that should appear at the beginning of the lead. Also, you avoid "Venezuelan dinosaur", which, I think, is not fully accurate (it was discovered in Venezuela). Also, it avoids the unnecessary technical term "type species".
The lead also lacks some wikilinks (we usually link terms such as "primitive", "Greek", "trait"; I would also link "palaeontologist" and "prepared" (to fossil preparation), note that this will appear on the main page to attract a wide readership with no background, so it should be as accessible as possible.
and being preyed upon by the contemporary Tachiraptor – I am pretty sure this needs a "possibly", since we can't know for sure, can we?
Aspects of its femoral anatomy, possessing only some traits of later relatives – "femoral" needs wikilink, but I would even suggest to reformulate as "Its upper thigh bone (femur) has only some of the traits found in later relatives".
northern Hemisphere – why capitalise here?
numerous expeditions have been conducted – please check if "numerous" is adequate here; I can't find this in the body at first glance, too. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 23:08, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note

Three weeks in and just the one support. LittleLazyLass, I notice you haven't edited since 30 Sep but if you're seeing this, I recommend that you resolve the outstanding comments by reviewers above and ping them when done otherwise it might have to be archived in the next few days if there's no progress. FrB.TG (talk) 07:15, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'll make sure to make more edits today. I've just been busy lately, sorry. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 15:55, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

LittleLazyLass, I realise that RL happens, but given that there are many unaddressed two-week-old comments above I am on the brink of archiving this due to lack of responses, and if all of the currently outstanding comments have not been addressed within 24 hours I will do so. This may be for the best, as it will give you a chance to consider the many helpful suggestions without RL pressures and bring the article back here when you are satisfied that it is in better shape. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:52, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Gog the Mild, I support archiving. On a Venezuelan topic, I had intended to write much more, but there are considerable prose issues (start with, for example, the second sentence, "It is ~~known for being~~ one of the ~~and~~ most primitive"), and the paragraph beginning with "Soon after the transfer of material to the Universidad Simón Bolívar ... " is not an accurate reflection of the source (see p. 56). The recent (2024) discoveries are not mentioned. So, prose, comprehensiveness, and source-to-text integrity issues are present, enough to warrant an oppose. The article is not FAC ready, and I suggest coordination with an experienced FA writer like Jo-Jo Eumerus would help before re-approaching FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:52, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Given the various comments above I am archiving this for improvements to be made off FAC. Visits to GoCE and PR should be considered before bringing it back here, as should finding a FAC mentor per Sandy's suggestion. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:53, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:53, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.