Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Albertosaurus

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[edit] Albertosaurus

This is the second attempt by WikiProject Dinosaurs to get a specific dinosaur featured. I believe we learned a lot the first time around and that this article is at FA standards or close enough that we can make it worthy after hearing comments here. Albertosaurus did have an extremely uneventful peer review and most of the discussion has been between Project members on the article's talk page. This is a self-nomination as I wrote most of the article, although several others have made valuable contributions. Sheep81 09:48, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Last sentence of first paragraph a bit on the confusing side. Please redo.--ZeWrestler ^Talk 12:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
  • You're right, thank you. I just fixed it, I think. Any additional comments would be greatly appreciated. Sheep81 13:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
    • North and south of what? --ZeWrestler ^Talk 18:43, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
      • Well, Alberta, as mentioned in the previous sentence. Does that need to be clarified too? It's hard for me to tell from the reader's perspective since I already know what I'm talking about. Sheep81 07:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
        • Support --ZeWrestler ^Talk 13:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
• Conditial support - Good article, and I have only one issue with it. There's a question mark in the section on the Albertosaurus libratus, why? It may have to do with the status of the genus, but it is unclear to me. Jeronimo 13:19, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Well that particular species is questionable as it may belong to the genus Gorgosaurus instead. That is often represented with a question mark in front of or behind the genus name in scientific papers... if you think it is too confusing we can find another way to represent it. Thank you! Sheep81 13:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
    • I see you've removed it, so I support. If the ? is indeed common, it could also be included, but perhaps linked to an explanation such as the one you gave. Jeronimo 17:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
      • Thank you. The ? is common in scientific publications, but I am now thinking it is a bit jargony (like that's a word or something) for an encyclopedia article. I think it's better now that Spawn changed it (thanks Spawn). Sheep81 07:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
• Comment IMHO, the question mark method is a little conusing for a general audience--it's not clear whether that species is questionable or the source, or even the spelling.Reimelt 15:15, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Fair enough. I am going to change the entire subheading A second species?. Would it better to just not have a question mark in the subheading at all, or is that title encyclopedic enough? I thought about changing it to Gorgosaurus libratus but I'm concerned that might be confusing too as the article is not about Gorgosaurus. As a general reader, would you have a preference? Sheep81 15:35, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

• Support. I'd love to support Sheepy, but the article needs a few things done. I'm gonna do a few things, but I need opinions on others. The article is way too short. And with those gigantic pictures, it looks like a thin piece of ribbon with writing on it. However, minimising the pictures would be sadly mean. Maybe a few of them can drop in size, but overall, for that amount of huge pictures, the article needs radical fleshing out. If I was here for Psittacosaurus, I would have said the same thing. The A second species? heading should be changed to Gorgosaurus libratus for sure, & I'll fiddle around with the lead picture, as they should always be as big as their frame. I've done that now. So all you need to do is just generally flesh it out & with the stuff I'm doing, it'll all be great. Spawn Man 22:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I await your picture fiddling. But what, exactly, do you think should be added? "Generally flesh it out" is not quite as helpful at one might think it is. Are there topics that I failed to address? Research I overlooked? Do I just need to fill more space with more words about the same things? Please be more specific so I can address your concerns. Sheep81 22:16, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
    • I've reduced the picture of the Red Deer River. Sheep81 23:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I've also reduced the pic of the dino skull. Yes, the article is very informative, & well written, but yes, it needs to be filled with words to flesh it out. I don't care what words, if they give new info, old info, no info, the same info, I just think FAs should be larger. Spawn Man 00:00, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Well I'm not going to just start adding extra words and sentences, especially since Tony down there is telling me to remove unnecessary words. Would love to write more if I get some indication of what you would like me to write, but I think I covered most of the recent published research on this beastie. If you know of anything else, please let me know, or go ahead and add it yourself! I suppose I could start adding random factoids but that might not be all that encyclopedic.Sheep81 05:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
      • Well who says Tony isn't an idiot? We have to consider these things ya know.... Spawn Man 05:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Looks better... Changing vote, but stop deleting words now. Spawn Man 23:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
      • I think I am done with major copyedits as long as there are no big objections. Possibly (I or someone else) could still add things if there is anything important to be added though. Thanks for reviewing, man. Sheep81 07:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
• Object—2a. Sheep, are you the one who wrote that the Redwood National Park below is a "beautiful article" and "thoroughly a good read" (sic)? I hope your standards are better here.I've struck that comment as being a little harsh. Sorry. The opening paragraph doesn't fill me with confidence that they are:

"... over 70 million years ago. Scientists currently disagree on the number of species represented within the genus, recognizing either one or two species. If only the type species is considered, this genus was restricted to the modern-day Canadian province of Alberta, after which it is named. However, the range may have extended farther north and south if additional species are recognized."

• • Most US style manuals prefer "more than" to "over". It's less likely to be ambiguous, and is processed more quickly by the reader.
  • For heck's sake, get rid of "currently", the oldest redundancy. Haven't you used the present tense in that clause?
  • "in" would be nicer than "within"—trust me: go for plain, direct language.
  • "extended farther north and south"—doesn't "extended" say it all? Why not remove "farther"?

In the second para:

• • "tyrannosaur"—is this a genus? Consider linking it.
  • The head was lined with teeth?
  • "albeit" is too literary for this register; what's wrong with a simple "although"?
  • "over"—as before.
  • So because there are lots of fossils, the species is one of the "most completely known"? Knowing it completely is surely an overstatement; and are there gradations of complete knowledge? I'd have thought it was a binary concept: either complete or incomplete.

Please get someone who's relatively unfamiliar with the text to go through the whole article to remove redundancies and otherwise to clean it up. If you need to prime yourself, undertake some exercises. Tony 01:34, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

• • Thank you for getting to the nitty-gritty, Tony. Your exercises were very helpful. I'll make your suggested changes, quickly scan the article for any similar errors, and then attempt to find someone to read and copyedit it. Please stay tuned to see if conditions improve. I've revised the article with input from someone outside of Wikipedia. I'm not asking you to copyedit the whole thing, but if you wouldn't mind giving it a quick scan and noting any objections here (grammatical or otherwise), I would be grateful. Thank you again for your assistance. Sheep81 06:49, 10 June 2006 (UTC)Sheep81 22:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Good work, I don't see anything wrong. RyanGerbil10 (Drop on in!) 15:24, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
• Comment the graph shown on the page is quite unique. I don't believe there are any other graphs on all the other 800+ dinosaur genera articles, making this article really stand out. I hope future articles may also include graphs, where appropriate.--Firsfron of Ronchester 00:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support...I might like to see more in the Paleobiology section, or maybe remove it altogether, but otherwise, I think the article meets the criteria needed to be featured.--MONGO 03:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
• Comments: I would like to see the following sentences explained more clearly (and I left inline comments to that effect in the article):

"It may have been the top carnivore in its environment." - mention food chain or whatever is necessary.

"The two skulls were referred to the existing species Laelaps incrassatus by Edward Drinker Cope in 1892." - what does "referred" mean here?

"A bonebed in the Two Medicine Formation of Montana was recently described as containing three Daspletosaurus, associated with several hadrosaurs." - what does "associated" mean here?

With fixes to those sentences I support the article. (I contributed recent proofreading and editing which I hope, but don't assume, improved the article.) Outriggr 00:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• • Thank you for your edits. I'll go ahead and try to clear those things up. The food chain bit I will explain in the body of the article rather than the lead, if that is okay. Sheep81 10:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC) I modified all of the above lines to make them more accessible to lay readers (hopefully). Let me know if further changes are needed. Sheep81 03:28, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Support. Good job following up on all this feedback :-) Outriggr 03:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support. This article was considerably better than I expected. My only criticism is that the growth curve diagram looks ropy and hand-drawn, and should be replaced with a PNG (as opposed to JPEG). Soo 12:08, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
  • That's because *cough*it was hand-drawn*cough*. I'll remove it until a more professional graph can be made, unless someone tells me to keep it. Sheep81 10:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep it. It's a cool lil' thingy that doesn't really do anything but somehow I like it. Please bring it back.... Spawn Man 22:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
    • All right, it's back. I still plan to create a better one but the current one will do until then. Sheep81 08:43, 21 June 2006 (UTC)Okay, new graph created in PNG format. Still hand-drawn, but a little more carefully so that it looks smoother. Sheep81 04:23, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
      • Better :) Soo 21:33, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Support - Model dinosaur article. Good tone. Thoroughness. I have only one point of criticism, and that is on the last paragraph of "Pack behavior". This paragraph seems to come out of nowhere and discuss too much other species of dinosaurs. In other words, I think it doesn't relate directly enough to the topic at hand. Maybe the significance of the large number of skeletons found at the Barnum Brown site should be explored there instead. Kudos, though, for the rest of it! -- Rmrfstar 23:22, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I'll work on that section. Thank you very much. Sheep81 10:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC) I have shortened that paragraph and added language which I hope indicates why that information is relevant. Hope that helps. Sheep81 03:28, 22 June 2006 (UTC)