Talk:Phodopus/GA1

GA Review[edit]

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Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 00:27, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just claiming this one now- the review will come later. Hopefully tomorrow. J Milburn (talk) 00:27, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article is by no means awful, but there are a few issues which would really need to be resolved. I do not believe that you are structuring this article in the best way.

First thing that hits me is the lack of pictures- there are three species here, so why not have one of each?
Done Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 22:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How can the type species be from another genus?
It does not refer to the genus, it refers to the sub-family.
So that's the type species of the sub-family? We need the type species of the genus in this article. J Milburn (talk) 23:35, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh wait sorry, Miller found the Roborovski hamster and then gave it the type species of Cricetulus bedfordiae but then it was re named to Phodopus roborovskii after the Campbell's dwarf hamster and the Djungarian hamster were discovered. I am going to clarify this in the article. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 09:48, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think I have clarified it now. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 10:01, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I put the type species in the taxobox, citing MSW3 for the fact and following Template:Taxobox/doc#Type species for the presentation. @Puffin: In the article you added "However, G.T Miller later re named the genus to Phodopus after researching that Phodopus sungorus and Phodopus campbellii also had similar traits to Phodopus roborovskii and grouped the the three species together in the genus of Phodopus", citing MSW3, but MSW3 says none of that. Please don't make stuff up like that. The name P.roborovskii was actually first coined by Argyropoulo in 1933, as the Ross paper on this species (FN4) states. I am going to correct this now. --Stfg (talk) 10:59, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've no idea how the previous ref msw3 disappeared, but I've restored it. For future reference, when citing MSW3, please use Template:MSW3, not {{cite book}}. --Stfg (talk) 11:11, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Look, I'm not sure what's going on here, but the type species cannot be in a different genus. That doesn't make any sense. J Milburn (talk) 11:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The type species is the species now known as Phodopus roborovskii. But in 1908 that same species was known as Cricetulus bedfordiae, and that is what Thomas declared. What's going on here is that things have been renamed over the past century. The article presents it as the scientific literature does (and conforms to the rules of taxoboxes, as linked above). --Stfg (talk) 12:34, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, this phenomenon is very common. Two of the three featured articles by Ucucha that you mention below, Oryzomys and Transandinomys, also display it. --Stfg (talk) 20:36, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For an article of this length, I would really want to see a slightly longer lead- two paragraphs would be ideal.
Done Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 22:53, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"There are three extant species of Phodopus" Are there any extinct species? Or are these all of the known species?
I didn't write that, I don't even know what exatnt means. I am going to remove that because there are no extinct species. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 22:53, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You mention that there are fossils further down the article; are these fossils of these species, or of another species? J Milburn (talk) 23:38, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Done now Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 10:07, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I wrote it. At the time, I thought I remembered some mention of extinct species, but I've had a long look today and can't find it, so I'm probably mistaken. However, the "Fossil Records" section of this paper (FN2 of the article) says "Fossils referred to the genus are known from the Pleistocene" - to the genus, not to a species - which is suggestive, though not conclusive. I think it could be best to be explicit that there are three extant species, and agnostic about extinct ones unless there are good sources about that. Puffin, you cannot know there are no extinct species unless you can guarantee that all Phodopus fosils have been discovered already! But if J Milburn and/or Lhynard think "extant" should come out, I'll be OK with that.

The same section of the same paper continues "Some early Pleistocene fossils identified as Cricetulus from Somerset Cave in Britain ... were assigned to Phodopus by Schaub (1930)". [Schaub 1930 is our FN24]. Genus mentioned here, but not species. In the "Fossil Record" section of Ross's P.sungorus paper (our FN3) there are mentions of sungorus fossils (this time Late Pleistocene). But her P.roborovskii paper has nothing about robobovskii's fossil record, and doesn't cite Schaub. Also, Schaub published in 1930 and the robo only got the name Phodopus roborovskii in 1933.

For these reasons, I doubt the accuracy of our article's final paragraph before the references. Please, does anyone have access to copies of McKenna (FN20) and Schaub (FN24) and could quote some sentences, or at least do a citation check? --Stfg (talk) 19:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, I prefer the inclusion of "extant". It is technically more correct, even if we are "agnostic" about the fossil record. ~ Lhynard (talk) 20:02, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, the book is horribly complicated and very hard to get hold of (the book is in a library very far away) and so I think that extant should just be included. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 21:15, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How on earth is "extant" more technically accurate? I'm really not following your argument. We want to cover all the species, not just the extant ones; if there are three extant species at least one undescribed extinct one, as seems to be the case, say so. J Milburn (talk) 11:17, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We can only cover the species known to science, and we don't know if there are any extinct species, and if so how many. I did search quite hard yesterday, and found none, so I suspect there are none known to science, but I can't give a citation for that. So we don't know the total number of species. We do know the number of extant species. Explicitly saying "extant" is a way of making clear the limitations of our knowledge. --Stfg (talk) 11:44, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Genera are human constructions. If a species is not known to science, it's not in the genus. If you want to split hairs, say that there are three described members of the genus, with a link to somewhere appropriate. When you say "there are three extant members of the genus", you are implying (or, technically, implicating) that there are extinct species, which is not a claim you seem to be willing to make. (For comparison, if I say "John hasn't been in prison in the last year", I imply/implicate that he was in prison previously, despite the fact that I have not explicitly said so.) J Milburn (talk) 11:58, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Fair point. I'm cool if "extant" gets deleted. Puffin? Lhynard? --Stfg (talk) 12:34, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ok delete it. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 17:28, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to Webster's, "extant" means "currently or actually existing" or "not destroyed or lost". It is not a synonym of "surviving", as you seem to be treating it, J Milburn. Even if there only ever were three species, those three species are extant by the definition of the word. So it's not incorrect to use it. In fact it's more precise to use it, because otherwise "species" could imply both extinct and extant. (If we can find some extint ones to list, we should of course include them.) So I still vote to keep it in. But it's not something I'm about to get in an edit war over.~ Lhynard (talk) 21:05, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Rememeber that this is not an article about three species, but an article about the genus. In the description, I'd ideally like to see a discussion of what defines the genus in addition to brief details about each of the species.
Done Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 23:05, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It'd be nice to have some more taxonomic info in the taxobox. Authorities? Years of description?
Please understand, it is much easier to get these for more specific species of Phodopus and so that's the maximum amount of information I can get! Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 23:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the authors and years of description for the genus and the species. J Milburn (talk) 23:38, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, Done Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 10:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"9 mm (0.35 in) long" Should only be to one significant figure (there are other examples- most of the Djungarian hamster section)
Done Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 23:14, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Again, in the "behaviour" section, I'd want to see more than just a description of the behaviour of the three individual species
Done Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 10:28, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why have you put the skeleton separate to the description?
Moved to description. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 23:05, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is surely much more to be said in "History & Etymology"? (I'd rename it to "taxonomy", shift it up in the article and move the pest issue out- perhaps add that to a section that mentions their status as pets?) This is going to be a key feature in any decent article about a genus, as many of the other articles
I renamed that section per your suggestion. ~ Lhynard (talk) 15:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Be aware that section titles should be in sentence case- rather than "Habitats & Conservation Status", go for "Habitat and conservation status" (not that the two subjects would normally be linked)
I did not write that! I am changing it right now. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 23:20, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(Re: caps: That was me, entirely by accident. I know better. Sorry.) ~ Lhynard (talk) 15:46, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are some other things which will need to be fixed up, and I'm yet to delve into the sources, but I think this will give you enough to be working on.

Again, I think the structure here is a little wrong- To get an idea of the structure and style to aim for with an article like this, I'd recommend looking at featured content- luckily, Ucucha (talk · contribs) has written a lot of great articles in a similar area. For other extant rodent genera, take a look at Voalavo, Oryzomys and Transandinomys (all featured articles). I hope this review's been helpful, and I'm sorry if this is coming across as overly critical. J Milburn (talk) 18:04, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Slightly critical, but it's fine. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 23:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid that the continuing instability of the article and legitimate concerns raised on the article talk page (and flagged by cleanup templates on the article itself) are showing no signs of being resolved soon, and so I have no choice but to close this review at this time. I hope the concerns can be resolved; I urge you to renominate the article when they are. Good luck, and I'm available for a third opinion if necessary. J Milburn (talk) 22:39, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

NO!!!!!!!!!!! Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 17:38, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]