Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Deinonychus

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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 promoted 00:00, 16 July 2007.

[edit] Deinonychus

The latest offering from the team at WP dinosaurs. This article is about as comprehensive as possible. It has been extensively copyedited and I feel the prose is tight It is factually accurate, referenced and laid out in a hierarchical manner. The images were either authored by wikipedians or used under fair use criteria. A few of us are ready to pounce on actionable fixes identified. nominated cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:31, 3 July 2007 (UTC) though main credits are ArthurWeasley, Dinoguy2, Firsfron , J. Spencer..................cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:31, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Needless to say, Support as nominator...cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:39, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Is it possible to include one of the Feathered images closer to the first mention of feathers? As is, the images look very random where they are. Circeus 16:45, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
The b/w image is below the text mentioning the feathers. Unfortunately, the other image occupying the space it would go is also relevant to that section (similarity of the two arms). I have moved a subheading out of the way but could also place a (see below) or (pictured below) in the text mentioning the feathers cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Support It might also be a good idea to include a closeup view of the claw which gives this creature its name._Dragon Helm 20:20, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
There is none as is on commons but the colour image next to the text which mentions it has a fairly obvious claw, which I've noted in the description. We could leave as is or magnify and make an inset box with closeup.cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Support as co-nominator and co-author. The prose of this article (3097 words) is more than six times as long as the equivalent Britannica article (488 words). It is nearly 30 times the length of the same entry in The Dinosaur Encyclopedia (105 words). It is clear other encyclopedias haven't been nearly as comprehensive when it comes to this genus. Deinonychus is the 12th longest dinosaur article on Wikipedia (on a par with the other Featured dinosaur articles), and the content has been vetted by nearly all the active WP:DINO members. There appear to be no errors in terminology or errors of omission; 32 scientific papers (primary sources) were used as references.
The last major dust-up (concerning a feathered image used in this article) occurred over a year ago, and I'm fairly certain the issue has been settled. Historic, but now discredited views (such as lack of feathers, cold-bloodedness, the "ossified tendons" that turned out to be ribs) are discussed, but not given undue weight. The prose is professionally written but in a way I think is accessible to the average reader. Firsfron of Ronchester 05:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Tentative oppose Working on a deeper analysis, and the lead alone warrants this. As a preliminary comment, I'm not sure the 7 (!) references there are absolutely necessary, and it fails to give a physical description (and probably to give a good summary). It would probably flow better if it stuck closer to the structure of the article, too. Circeus 19:33, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I realised as removing refs from lead that there was a bit there not in text and vice versa. I might be a bit busy today so feel free to muck in too (I trust you) cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:37, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose→Now Support - Great work guys on fixing Circeus's reservations - I, however, have a couple of my own. I don't feel that the picture featuring the Jurassic Park Velociraptor should be included in the article; generally articles should steer clear of fair use images in their text unless absolutely needed. In this case I feel a mention & the link to Velociraptor would suffice for the whole issue. My only other comment would be in regard to Circeus's request for a citation in regard to the whole Jurassic Park/Velociraptor is actually meant to be Deinonychus issue in the Pop culture section; I think I remember citing that issue in the Velociraptor article somewhere, maybe you could check there for a citation? It may be gone now though... Anyway, other than those reservations, the article looks top notch, a good length, informative & I'd have no problem supporting it later if those things are fixed (namely image & citations). Cheers, Spawn Man 08:26, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
I must say I am not too fussed if the image goes - on my browser it hangs down in the next section so looks clunky. But I'll wait for the others to see how they feel about keeping or ditching it. I'll hunt around on its little cuz's article page and history. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:18, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Just had a look and realised I had the &%(&$#^# book gathering dust on my bookshelf all the time....cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:25, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
I disagree that the image is unnecessary. JP had a MASSIVE (though its depictions were in several cases inaccurate) impact on the vision of dinosaurs in general, and "Velociraptor" in particular in popular conscience. Circeus 14:31, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, indeed in the view of "Velociraptor" - that is why we shoudl link to the "Velociraptor" article with the picture, as it is more relavent there. Just because we can have a fairuse picture on every article if we propose rationale doesn't mean that we should. My oppose stands - in general, fair use pictures should be avoided & providing a link to the page it is more relavent on should be suitable. Spawn Man 08:40, 10 July 2007 (UTC) P.S. Hahaha - good work Cas. Stuff is always in the last place you look & the last place you look is usually right in front of you. :)
  • Support pretty much all of my concerns have been taken care of, or are in the process of being. Circeus 09:13, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Support as one of the co-author. This is certainly the most comprehensive article written on the subject available on the web and that could be found in a general encyclopedia (including Encyclopedia Britannica) and certainly the most up-to-date, as relationship with newly discovered dinosaur such as Tsaagan is mentioned, as well as the latest hypothesis on its hunting behavior. ArthurWeasley 19:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Moral support as WP:DINO member and secondary editor; appears comprehensive in terms of topics covered, with clear writing. I'd like to see the last few concerns Circeus raised in the subpage addressed, but they're pretty close to completion.
[copy/paste from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs:]
As for the [Jurassic Park discussion and] picture, I would have supported keeping it in until I reread Velociraptor and the introduction of Raptor Red. I don't know if I've ever seen a source who worked on the movie come right out and say "it's Deinonychus"; in fact, the Raptor Red intro says the opposite, in that the animators were displeased to be animating an oversized "raptor" that didn't exist, and that Utahraptor was coincidentally the right size. The information might be better placed in Dromaeosauridae. J. Spencer 00:48, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I think, JSpencer has a point here. The JP image doesn't add anything to the content of the article anyway so I would have no remorse to let it go. ArthurWeasley 01:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
My point exactly - I'll wait a bit to see if there's any other opposition to the removal & if not, I'll remove the picture. Cheers, Spawn Man 04:36, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I think the whole section is iffy without a ref where somebody 'fesses up to substituting Deinonychus for Velociraptor. The novel velociraptors are explicitly identified as V. mongoliensis, only with scaling closer to Deinonychus. Checking the Dinosaur Mailing List archives just brings up speculation and "everyone knows D = V in Jurassic Park" statements. This is looking more like an urban legend than anything else, which is interesting in itself, but a different story. J. Spencer 04:54, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Right - given as Bakker reports in his book that Utahraptor actually fits the dimensions best, I agree that the best place for it is the Dromaeosauridae page. If the size is Utahraptor and the name is Velociraptor then the link to Deinonychus is pretty tenuous.cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:02, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
All my concerns have now been adressed - thanks for the great effort. Now changing to Support↑ above. Cheers, Spawn Man 07:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Oppose for now: there is one run of several sentences across two paragraphs with no references: "Expeditions during the following two summers uncovered more than 1000 bones, among which were at least three individuals. Since the association between the various recovered bones was weak, making the exact number of individual animals represented impossible to determine properly, the type specimen of Deinonychus was restricted to the complete left foot and partial right foot that definitely belonged to the same individual. The remaining specimens were catalogued in fifty separate entries at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History. [pbreak] A skeleton of Deinonychus including bones from the original (and most complete) specimen can be seen on display at the American Museum of Natural History, with another specimen on display at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. The American Museum and Harvard specimens are from a different locality than the Yale specimens."

You should also make sure that you put references at each mention of a fact that is derived from that reference, not just in the first sentence of a paragraph, because otherwise your article will be literally destroyed by people who come along two years later and decide to refactor. Having a featured article is nice, but we know they don't last (edit creep), and they're by no means set in stone, or necessarily permanently being watched for all eternity. Make it future-proof, please, even if that means making some layout sacrifices. Spamsara 11:41, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

One of the ways I consider safe-guarding good versions is this process here. For several articles a year on I have gone back to the time they were passed to compare versions to see what's happened. Did you mean the last sentence of a paragraph above as well/instead of? I'll get onto that issue pronto. Are there other unreffed segments you're concerned about? cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:01, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
There are several instances in the article. I don't need to point them out to you - you can find them yourself. My position is that ideally, each sentence will have a reference at the end, unless there is a good reason not to (e.g. the sentence is merely stating something that can be considered common knowledge). Certainly when there are entire paragraphs without a reference, or several consecutive unreferenced sentences at the end of a paragraph, that needs fixing. Regards, Spamsara 04:34, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
What about the last two paragraphs - in the subsection Eggs? Both are clearly conherent ideas from beginning to end with an inline ref at the end. Do you feel this is not clear enough and if not how many inline tags from teh article do you propose we put in there? This article could accrue a quite a number of inlines...cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs)
Yes, it would seem prudent to do this for pretty much every sentence, except where stating obvious things, or things that arise trivially from context. You'll find various such places when you comb through the article. Don't be afraid to pepper the article with <ref> tags, as a bug report has been filed for a feature that will allow hiding these. Spamsara 06:33, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like an intriguing idea - can you show the link to where the request is? Do you have an idea on how long will this be in the pipeline?
PS: So let me get this straight - for a paragraph where all info comes from one particular source, you want every sentence tagged with the ref tag, because until this bug report comes through it will look pretty awkward. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:53, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
[1] I entered the bug today after previously being under the illusion that it had already been entered. It may be a duplicate of something I saw earlier, and couldn't find again today. As for developers' priorities, I really have no idea. Spamsara 10:26, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
We generally don't tag each sentence with a citation, Spamsara; as it currently stands, there is one citation for roughly every two sentences in this article. In the past, I have seen articles opposed because of "over-citation". I believe tagging every sentence could be viewed as over-citation. Also, it appears that your request to have repeated citations hidden has been marked with "WONTFIX". Firsfron of Ronchester 10:52, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ailanthus altissima for the reasoning behind the request. I was expecting it to get tagged WONTFIX. People are lazy. Spamsara 11:23, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.