Talk:Fossil genome shows hybrid of two extinct species of human

Reporter's notes

Some crib notes, in case a reviewer has difficulty (as I sometimes did) finding some of the specific facts:

• The analysis took place in Leipzig:

BBC says the single bone fragment was taken to Leipzig for analysis.

• First discovery of a child with parents of different human species:

Looking carefully at the first two paragraphs of the Science source, the last sentence of the first paragraph says it's the "most direct evidence yet" of human species interbreeding (apparently they'd plenty of evidence of traces of genes from one species showing up in another, including modern humans with bits Neanderthal or Denisovan genes), and the quote at the end of the second paragraph says "Now we have the love child of two different hominin groups"; that quote clearly implies that we didn't have such a child before.

• Denisovans discovered in the same cave in 2011:

Deutsche Welle source, section "Miracle discovery", third paragraph (just below a "Read more" note), and Science source first paragraph.

• Only place where both species have been found:

BBC, section "Is everyone part Neanderthal?", fourth paragraph.

• Nuclear DNA

Not mentioned by name in these three sources, although the Science source does use the term mitochondrial DNA when explaining how they know which parent was of which species. I treated it as "common knowledge" that the other kind of DNA besides mitochondrial is nuclear; Science calls it "chromosome pairs" rather than "nuclear DNA". There is a mention of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA on the page for the Nature article (which I've listed under External links) in the title of source number 11.

• Rechecked the results:

Science paragraph three.

• The other species were around more than 40 thousand years ago:

Mentioned by BBC and DW.

• Only 24 such genomes have been done:

Deutche Welle section "Miracle discovery" paragraph one (the associated Paabo quote is the next paragraph after that).

--Pi zero (talk) 19:44, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Such notes on highlighting where information can be found does not help the review, and should be avoided -- as it does not eliminate the cases of conflicting reports. (Oh, and, Deutsche Welle is not a print publisher) --103.254.128.86 (talk) 02:14, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Speaking as a reviewer, I disagree about helping review; sometimes, despite reading through the sources will all due diligence, some particular detail can become a sticking point, and crib notes can come in handy. (Not sure what significance attaches to the point about Deutsche Welle.) --Pi zero (talk) 03:07, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Lede

Here are some supplemental remarks on why I wrote the lede the way I did.

• The first sentence of the lede, especially, needs to get very quickly to the most important point(s). It therefore shouldn't be a long sentence unless it can deliver its punch early and allow the later parts of the sentence to cover some lesser points of the lede.
• Question "where" covers, in this case, three things: where was the result published, where was the bone discovered, and where was the scientific work done; given that the result was published in a reputable journal, I didn't feel where-was-it-published important enough to add additional complexity and additional delay at the front of the first sentence, so I chose to put all three aspects of where in the second sentence.
• Three things I felt were particularly important to cover in the lede for contextual reasons:

• Neanderthal and Denisovan are species of humans; this I felt ought to be explained for a general audience.
• Both of those species are extinct; again, clarification for a general audience.
• First discovery of a child of different human specifies; this is why the story is relevant.

--Pi zero (talk) 17:31, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Review of revision 4428592 [Not ready]

Revision 4428592 of this article has been reviewed by Acagastya (talk · contribs) and found not ready at 13:10, 25 August 2018 (UTC). Copyright: Not reviewed. Please address other issues. Newsworthiness: Not reviewed. Please address other issues. Verifiability: Not reviewed. Please address other issues. NPOV: Not reviewed. Please address other issues. Style: Not ready: Comments by reviewer: I guess style would be the most accurate of all to flag it. When writing about scientific discovery, the focal point is not just what the discovery was; but also when the study was published, after all, that is the answer for "when", which establishes freshness. Something that has been mentioned several times, (ask Darkfrog24, if you think otherwise) Now, since the focal point is about publication of the discovery, it is very important to mention where the article was published. It is something atomic and can not be divided. Well, it can be divided, but should not be. Otherwise enwn is making mistakes that MSM failed to fix. It is something that can be easily fixed, but it is important that the author does it, in order to learn. See the "detailed" guide in case of doubt. (Like for example, spelling out whole numbers smaller than 20. The limit is not ten. TL;DR: do not split atomic things (That is, where the discovery was published, for any discovery related article) Questions about the above? Ask. If possible, please address the above issues then resubmit the article for another review (by replacing {{tasks}} in the article with {{review}}). This talk page will be updated with subsequent reviews.

Revision 4428592 of this article has been reviewed by Acagastya (talk · contribs) and found not ready at 13:10, 25 August 2018 (UTC). Copyright: Not reviewed. Please address other issues. Newsworthiness: Not reviewed. Please address other issues. Verifiability: Not reviewed. Please address other issues. NPOV: Not reviewed. Please address other issues. Style: Not ready: Comments by reviewer: I guess style would be the most accurate of all to flag it. When writing about scientific discovery, the focal point is not just what the discovery was; but also when the study was published, after all, that is the answer for "when", which establishes freshness. Something that has been mentioned several times, (ask Darkfrog24, if you think otherwise) Now, since the focal point is about publication of the discovery, it is very important to mention where the article was published. It is something atomic and can not be divided. Well, it can be divided, but should not be. Otherwise enwn is making mistakes that MSM failed to fix. It is something that can be easily fixed, but it is important that the author does it, in order to learn. See the "detailed" guide in case of doubt. (Like for example, spelling out whole numbers smaller than 20. The limit is not ten. TL;DR: do not split atomic things (That is, where the discovery was published, for any discovery related article) Questions about the above? Ask. If possible, please address the above issues then resubmit the article for another review (by replacing {{tasks}} in the article with {{review}}). This talk page will be updated with subsequent reviews.

@Acagastya: I've spent several hours trying to convince myself that perhaps this is not an abusive review, but I have not been able to convince myself. Here is why I see it as abusive, and why I see that as disastrous for the project.

• We're talking about a prepositional phrase, consisting of maybe four words, that you want moved from the second sentence of the lede to the first sentence of the lede. The information involved is important enough to include in the lede, certainly; that's why I put it in the lede; but if it weren't mentioned it would probably be minor enough for a reviewer to just insert, it could conceivably be put in a later paragraph rather than in the lede, and if it somehow got left out altogether, the omission would be unfortunate but not {{correction}}-worthy. Given that here the name of the journal is already in the lede, but apparently not as far forward in the lede as you would put it if you were writing the article, you deem moving it forward minor enough for you to do within reviewer's purview. Yet you are willing to prevent the article from being published in order to insist that it's important enough to require but to refuse to do it yourself.
• This is far below the threshold for a not-ready review. Clearly if you were writing the article you would arrange the words a little differently, but that's a matter of personal writing style, not fundamental principles. If it were your article, with (let's say) the same lede except the name of the publishing journal was near the start of the first sentence, and I were reviewing it, I might leave it be, or might conceivably tweak it a little if I felt I could do so sufficiently unobtrusively; besides minimizing involvement, I try not to impose too much of my personal writing style on others, since their personal writing style is part of what makes it their contribution to the project rather than someone else's. I might consider making the change only because, in my judgement, the first sentence would be diminished in impact by tangling up the reader in the minor detail of just which journal was used by the authors before even describing the core substance of what they said (the authors are, after all, the primary "who"). But even if I didn't tweak it, there'd be absolutely no question of not-ready'ing over that precise placement of the information because it's only a matter of personal writing style within the framework of the great principles that govern the project. If I didn't feel I could change it within my purview as reviewer, and if I had to not-ready the article for another reason, most likely I wouldn't even mention it in my review comments.
• If reviewers not-ready articles for trivial reasons like this, it's a betrayal of trust, a sort of hazing. We can't afford a reviewer who does things like that. And exercising good judgement in distinguishing between fundamental principles of the project and minor points of personal style is part of what we choose reviewers for.
• When newcomers (or anyone else) receive a not-ready review, reviewers not only need to be good-natured and helpful about it, but also must have the moral high ground by being able to say honestly that no reviewer would not-ready an article unless it had a fundamental problem. That moral high ground allows us to say, you don't get to choose which reviewer you'll get. It allows us to say, you should be fixing the problem rather than arguing with the reviewer. It allows us to say, don't resubmit without addressing review concerns. We don't say those things just because reviewers have been given power; we say them because we make sure reviewers don't abuse their power.
• If you want other people to write using your personal writing style, you're saying you want to be the only writer on the project. The project can't survive that.

So here we are. The project can't afford an adversarial relationship between writers of good faith and reviewers of good faith, but that's what you're imposing. If you had changed it during review, especially if you'd done so without first raising a stink over the matter in an unpleasant way beforehand, I might well have just shrugged my shoulders and accepted it without comment. That leaves me with four choices:

• allow you to impose your personal writing style on others. But, frankly, the project can't afford to have reviewers getting away with that.
• resubmit without change. Which is one of the things we can tell people not to do because we make sure reviewers don't abuse their power.
• allow the article to die, and Wikinews to go for who-knows-how-long without any published articles. I don't like that option.
• find a way to revise the lede that might alleviate the concerns you mention. I'm not happy about it; I think what I originally submitted was better; but at least there's still some chance of not losing this article. So that's what I'll try.

--Pi zero (talk) 17:17, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I am not going to go through the bunch of paragraphs. It is waste of time. But well now since this talk will be a public record, you can come again (hopefully see why some atomic things can not be divided -- the more you write, the more you learn. Well not in all cases) I would really like to know what @Darkfrog24: thinks about that. The day, you might have experienced a part of what they experience. And in all fairness, instead of pointing what I did or did not do, why don't you think about the reverts when you actually had time to -- an advice, if you odn't know how to handle an {{issue}}, don't remove it -- let another reviewer/editor fix it. (apply the excuses you had for the category related not-ready.) I had an honest attempt reading the article in the state of how it was first submitted, and I had to go through a lot of details including some geographical locations yet I did not find mention of the publication anywhere until 56 words! Publication has connection with reliability and authenticity -- and you just can not dump it in a corner of the lede.
•–• 18:47, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

It is not that I could not have fixed it -- but you failed to address the issue (I guess thrice, removing the {{issue}}) and for any discovery, where the study was published is very important. This is something any author has to learn. After all, the goal is to learn from mistakes. I hope you would learn from this to not make such mistakes which downgrades the standards to any other MSM outlet.
•–• 18:52, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

@Acagastya: There is room for misunderstanding in the way you worded that. Do you mean it would be a waste of time to read what I wrote, or that it would be a waste of time to reply to the points I made? I made important points, so that you could learn from them, and spent hours trying to avoid being unnecessarily harsh about them (by the time I finish writing this, I will have spent pretty much an entire mortal day of my life trying to be helpful to you). It seems as if you didn't learn anything from those points; and, thanks to the ambiguous wording, I don't know whether or not you even read them.

I do try to allow for the possibility of such misunderstandings, that perhaps you're not saying what it seemed to me as if you were saying.

• The {{issue}} approach is inherently flawed; it renders the article instantly unpublishable-in-current-form, so should never be used except in combination with removing the article from the review queue — otherwise it's effectively vandalism. I appreciate that you're experimenting with alternative ways to do this stuff, but I have to tell you that that one does not fit smoothly with the way the project works. The traditional tactic, if you want to flag out a problem but aren't doing a review are don't want to fix it, is to write a note on the talk page.
• I see no case made for absolute atomicity of these two facts in article text — date of publication, and name of journal of publication. You assert that they have to go together, but on the contrary I see this article being clearly of lower quality than it would have been if it had been published in the form I originally submitted, in which case you should be learning from it that you were wrong to insist on putting the two together. And I carefully made the point earlier that this is a matter of personal style, not fundamental principles of the project.
• As for msm, the actual mistake they make is in failing to answer one or the other question; of the three sources I cited here, two of them name the journal but fail to specify the day of publication, while the third specifies the day of publication but doesn't name the journal.
• When you talk about what others experience, the line of your reasoning escapes me. I can't even tell whether you're changing the subject; possibly insinuating things either about how I review or perhaps about what I do and don't understand about the writers whose work I'm reviewing, or both; or something else.

-Pi zero (talk) 20:56, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I am sorry that I did not see this ping in time to make a meaningful contribution here. I've been on Wikibreak for unrelated reasons. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:51, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Review of revision 4428708 [Passed]

Revision 4428708 of this article has been reviewed by ShakataGaNai (talk · contribs) and has passed its review at 18:25, 25 August 2018 (UTC). Copyright: Passed Newsworthiness: Passed Verifiability: Passed NPOV: Passed Style: Passed Comments by reviewer: looks good. The reviewed revision should automatically have been edited by removing {{Review}} and adding {{Publish}} at the bottom, and the edit sighted; if this did not happen, it may be done manually by a reviewer.

Revision 4428708 of this article has been reviewed by ShakataGaNai (talk · contribs) and has passed its review at 18:25, 25 August 2018 (UTC). Copyright: Passed Newsworthiness: Passed Verifiability: Passed NPOV: Passed Style: Passed Comments by reviewer: looks good. The reviewed revision should automatically have been edited by removing {{Review}} and adding {{Publish}} at the bottom, and the edit sighted; if this did not happen, it may be done manually by a reviewer.