Wikipedia:Featured article review/Homo floresiensis

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[edit] Homo floresiensis

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Primates and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life. Sandy 21:49, 12 September 2006 (UTC) Additional message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Evolutionary biology. Sandy 21:06, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Nice article on the species, but there are a few issues with its content, most issues are to do with 1.

1. The text is disjointed, and not very well written (many paragraphs exist of just two sentences). (1a)
2. There are also some POV issues about the status of the hobbit, the article is set up (structure) and argues for the hypothesis that is is a new species, while the counter argument is not given much weight. (1b,c and d)
3. Lots is paraphrased from the Nature articles, but the sources are not well identified. It is also presented as fact, rather than as a hypothesis. (1c and d)
4. Significance section is weasley, as is the reaction section. (1a) They might be better merged into a section specifically about the discovery and publication of the original articles.

--Peta 06:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Under-sourced definitely. The Ebu Gogo paras are begging for cites (did the discoverers themselves really support the idea?). Last four sections need significant reorganization, as the species debate is brought up repeatedly in a disjointed way. I don't think the counter-argument is ignored, but clauses like "If in fact it is a new species,..." need to be introduced throughout, even if it is tedious. That said, this is probably in better shape than other 2 yr old FAs. Hopefully, it still has some watchers. Marskell 13:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

The counter argument is not ignored- it's just presented in such a way that the pro species POV is overt.--Peta 22:54, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Needs inline citations, especially the "Reaction" section. LuciferMorgan 18:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
• Comment:Definitely under-referenced. Some sections are full of one-sentence paragraphs. This needs work as well.--Yannismarou 09:04, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
• Comment:Regarding the "pro-specices POV", one thing that has to be considered here is whether the "pro-species POV" is the majority view in the scientific community (i.e., following NPOV:Undue weight). It's not POV if it's the majority view. The difficutly here is that there are, as of yet, very few peer-reviewed publications on this find. Therefore, simply counting references won't work to establish the majority view. A second proxy for number of publications might be to look at the amount of data and research that has gone into the few publications that are out there. In that respect, the original discoverers would be expected to have had time to collect the most data and do the most comprehensive research, and their opinion would have to be accordingly given more weight than that of others who have had less time to examine the samples. The main problem with the criticism section is that it introduces the counterarguments before properly introducing the objections. This seems to be a problem with logical flow, but I am not sure it rises to the level of POV. My own research area is neuroscience, not anthropology, but I have an interest in brain evolution, and I found some of the arguments made by the Falk et al. 2004 study concerning brain structure (reference number 14 in the article) to be quite persuasive. Perhaps dealing with POV here is more a matter of clearing up flow and explaining the data beter, not eliminating a "pro-species" POV. Edhubbard 07:28, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. It is significantly under-sourced by current standards. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:22, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

• Comment on above by Samsara. Again, as I noted above, there aren't that many peer reviewed articles. A quick pubmed search for Homo floresiensis turns up exactly 11 citations. However, eight of those are in Nature or Science, the two most prestigious scientific journals around. So, if you simply evaluate the quality of the article by the number of citations, it's going to fail the number of citations test, but if we evaluate the article on the basis of the prestige and importance of those citations, we may reach a slightly different conclusion. The current version of the article only includes four of these peer-reviewed sources, and doesn't always cite them where it might be appropriate, so the referencing can be improved, but the total number of citations probably won't increase dramatially. Edhubbard 21:45, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not talking about the number of references. I know that literature reasonably well. I'm talking about the fact that there are some long paragraphs in the article that do not indicate the providence of the material. References can be used more than once, and each statement made should indicate which reference supports it. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 06:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• The POV is a real issue when the article presents the species issue as fact, uses the dismissive section title "A new species?" claims that this is a "controversial issue" and then really gives no space to the argument as to why it isn't a species; in this case I don't think it is up to us to choose the new species argument over the alternative since nothing has actually been confirmed. The article is sill also pretty disorganised and the lead is out of date.--Peta 23:35, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I have managed to obtain copies of both Nature articles used in the article. Providing citations should not be a problem :-) Joelito (talk) 23:38, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I have now downloaded all of the pdfs of everything I could find in the pubmed data base (Nature and Science, but also some specialist journals). Joelito, if you would like copies of any of them, please feel free to contact me off wikipedia at edhubbard AT gmail DOT com. I will incorporate the Falk et al. article, and the debate that it spawned, into the article this weekend. Along the way, I hope to improve some of the other references, and along the way, perhaps I can clarify what is proposed by the original discoverers and what the counterarguments are... since much of the debate in the Homo floresiensis debate revolves around brain endocasts and the suggestion of microencephaly, I'm not going too far outside my realm of expertise here. The Ebu Gogo stuff, on the other hand, doesn't appear in the scientific publications I've looked at so far, and is getting a bit further outside my comfort zone. How much longer do we have on FAR to get this back into shape? Edhubbard 19:45, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the offer but I have access to the majority of peer reviewed and scientific journals. I have downloaded the majority of H. floresiensis related articles but I am currently working on a FAC I recently submitted.
    • The review process usually lasts 2 weeks and the removal process lasts two weeks. Both deadlines can be extended if people are working in the article. Joelito (talk) 20:01, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Best of luck with your FAC! I am pretty confident we can get this back up to snuff before the end of FARC, at worst. Edhubbard 20:05, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are writing quality (1a), POV (1d), and sufficiency and deployment of sources (1c). Marskell 16:37, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment. Moving this down to keep it on pace. Edh, let us know when you feel it's been properly improved. Marskell 16:39, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment. Thanks for the heads up. I've gone back through the history since the article was promoted on Dec. 24, 2004. It seems that since that time, as each new discovery or analysis has been made, there was a small flurry of activity adding the paper to the article. However, there has been no attempt to really step back and look at the overview of the article, and how to structure it. I am starting to see the outlines of a bigger revision than just adding the references and eliminating POV. Another problem is that many of the additions seem to be made on the basis of secondary sources, such as newspaper articles, rather than on a reading of the original scientific papers themselves. I still think that saving it from FARC is reasonable in the next week and a half, but I'll be sure to keep you posted. Edhubbard 08:15, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Several concerns:
• "Those who suggest that LB1 is a pygmoid H. sapiens with microcephaly obviously find such speculations unnessecary.[5][6]". Is this appropiate for the lead? I find the tone unencyclopedic but I have no idea what to do with the sentence other than to rewrite it altogether.

• Reply: In their 2006 PNAS article, Jacob et al say "Most importantly, premature elaboration of speculative evolutionary scenarios diverted attention from detailed study of the morphological characteristics of the specimens themselves." (p. 13421). There is a probably a better way to phrase it, but this is the sentiment I was trying to capture; that essentially, speculations on evolution are premature until the species status is resolved. Feel free to rewrite as you have time (see more below).

• The recent survival section is mostly unreferenced but it shouldn't be too hard to source it.
• The last paragraph in the recent survival section troubles me. Are we speculating/ editioralizing here?
• Significance has many stubby paragraphs.
• Since there are two controversies, access and classification, should we merge into a single controversy section with subsections for each controversy?

• Reply: I am hoping that the scientific controversy section will be large enough to justify it's own first level heading at some point, but since I can't work on it for a week or so, I leave it to you to decide, and then I'll pick it up after my conference. Edhubbard 06:42, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

• There are still some redundancies. I will try to correct them though. Joelito (talk) 04:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment, in addition to Joels comments (which I agree with) there are some other things:

• The lead is too long; the third paragraph is not necessary at all
• The shortness of access controversy makes it stand out like a sore thumb; some combination of reaction, access controversy and species classification controversy might be worthwhile since they all cover related information. Mabye called "challanges" or "controversy"?
• The article still assumes that this is a new species; could use the liberal addition of "reserchers propose", "if the hypothesis is true" etc. Stuff like the long quote from the Nature editor (not really a specialist in the field) just add to the pro species/great discovery hyperbole.
• In general the significance section is just really weasely
• Ex links could use pruning

--Peta 05:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment: I've now read the 20 so peer-reviewed articles that are out there (some are little more than one page peer reviewed debates), and based on the state of the current literature, I think the case for a new species is much weaker than I thought it was when I first started working on the page. The main thing the article needs is for things like the "Species controversy" to be integrated into the relevant data sections. My idea was to integrate the debate by presenting the scientific deta that has been published, both for and against the species view, and then let the reader see where the weight of the evidence lies. My goal was to have a much longer, and more comprehensive section, but I've been buried under work. I am leaving for a conference (The Society for Neuroscience meeting in Atlanta) this morning and just have been too busy to really complete the project I set myself here. In the final version in my head, I think the scientific controversy will be big enough that it might still deserve a separate section. I'd like to see the article saved, but I'll be gone for a week (until Oct. 18) and I can't justify keeping this article in limbo until then. Sorry to leave the article in not the best shape, but hopefully, a little better than it was. I still have my plans for improving it, which I will do even if the FARC closes before I can get back to it. Honestly, though I'm surprised and disappointed that more people that work on the related projects that Sandy contacted didn't come out to help save their FA. Edhubbard 06:39, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not entirely happy with the TOC. I think some of those later sections can be merged/shuffled. Given that Ed is still up for working but not immediately, and that it still has issues as identified by Peta, I'm a remove. No worries Ed, BTW; you've done what you could and definitely improved the sourcing. I'd like to see this come back to FAC if it loses status as I think it a vital topic; you can work toward that. Marskell 22:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I've done a fairly severe edit, removing most of the problematic text and reorganising other parts. If someone can source all the things that still have cite needed tags then the article is probably OK as an FA and will hopefully be further enhanced by Ed at a later date.--Peta 05:07, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Concern over TOC has been addressed with this edit. Not a keep yet, however, as Recent Survival needs sourcing. Marskell 10:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

• Keep I believe the article is properly cited and FA quality. Only one paragraph lacks citations. I do not have access to the papers that support the paragraph. I have read websites that support the text but I prefer to add the peer reviewed references since they are more reliable. I believe everything is fully cited now. Joelito (talk) 21:25, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep The article looks much better with Joel's changes. I am still interested in adding more scientific details, but as it stands it seems to now meet FA standards. Edhubbard 12:10, 22 October 2006 (UTC)