Jump to content

Talk:New study of endangered whale shark youth shows vital habitat similarities

Page contents not supported in other languages.
Add topic
From Wikinews, the free news source you can write!
Latest comment: 6 years ago by Pi zero in topic Review of revision 4412416 [Passed]

Species parentheses

[edit]

I know we've had some discussions about appropriate vs. inappropriate use of parentheses lately, but I assure you it is entirely customary to enclose Latin species names in parentheses as I have done here. If anyone needs a source to support this, I will gladly provide one. If anyone wants to change the punctuation anyway, go ahead. I'm not going to fight you on it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:39, 9 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

This particular use of parentheses feels to me marginally within bounds. It's clearly possible to use some other punctuation, and at the same time I find it relatively inoffensive. I feel there's some generalization lurking in the back of my mind that might explain why it isn't setting off more alarms for me; if I end up changing it, it may be more because it bothers me that I can't pin down why it's not bothering me more, than because of being directly bothered by the thing itself. --Pi zero (talk) 23:49, 9 June 2018 (UTC)Reply
Do you think it could be because this is a highly specific situation in which parentheses are customary rather than just random text in which they're optional and often overused? Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:02, 10 June 2018 (UTC)Reply
I've no doubt that's part of it. I've a sense there are further nuances to it (there generally are). --Pi zero (talk) 01:11, 10 June 2018 (UTC)Reply
@Darkfrog24: On further consideration, I think my reluctance to apply the parenthesis-avoidance principle can be viewed two ways, depending on whether I want to be especially hard on myself.
  • Allowing myself to be intimidated by anticipation of unpleasantness (which is wimpy of me, and shortchanges my responsibilities as a reviewer).
  • Desire to boil things down to simple principles, if at all possible, before taking a stand (it sounds so much better when put that way).
The one use of parentheses we routinely practice is first-instance definition of initialisms. I was likely momentarily distracted by the vague similarity between specifying in parentheses what an initialism stands for, and specifying in parentheses what the scientific name of a species is. However, the scientific name associated with a common name altogether lacks the very-close tie between an initialism and what it stands for; it's even more loosely connected than a translation. The considerations for which we avoid parentheses on Wikinews do not bear on scientific literature, the context from which the described convention hails, so it's entirely within expectation that the described convention would not apply here.

My conclusion is, there's no grounds to except this from the parenthesis-avoidance principle. --Pi zero (talk) 15:03, 10 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

Slow news weekend

[edit]

Thank you so much for some content to look at. AZOperator (talk) 01:30, 10 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

A pattern I've observed for some years is that once a dry spell with nothing published is broken, it may stir up more submissions, and things start to snowball — until we bounce off the barrier of our review capacity, contributors get frustrated, and we lose whatever momentum we'd built up. The need for much higher per-reviewer review capacity seems crystal clear to me; frustratingly it entails solving some genuinely difficult daunting technical/interface challenges. --Pi zero (talk) 01:54, 10 June 2018 (UTC)Reply
@Darkfrog24: I made some tweaks to a few things. The biggest thing I had an issue with was aggregation, which is the act of collecting data from multiple sources, the analysis can come from a number of statistical methods including regression which is more likely. Also, Dr. Stewart should have Ph.D. after his name, he worked hard for it. Some of the sentence structures were difficult to understand so I switched it around. Please have a look at it, I don't want to misrepresent things. AZOperator (talk) 02:07, 10 June 2018 (UTC)Reply
@Pi zero: Well I had a look at this article and took care of some things that should make reviewing easier on you. AZOperator (talk) 02:09, 10 June 2018 (UTC)Reply
This is a collaborative project. I have no problem whatsoever with you making changes in general. "PhD" is not actually required after the guy's name--it's clear from context that he's not an MD and "Dr" establishes he's a scholar--but you can add it if you want. Darkfrog24 (talk) 09:46, 10 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

Endangered Status

[edit]

The article mentions critically mentions the whale shark as being "critically endangered" where and who declared that status. Was it the international whaling commission. What does that actually mean, "critically endangered"? Something that would really drive home why a reader should care. AZOperator (talk) 02:21, 10 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

"Critically endangered" is one of the official levels of endangered, like "vulnerable," "threatened" and "least concern." Darkfrog24 (talk) 10:10, 10 June 2018 (UTC)Reply
Yeah that is the kind of material I think would add to the article. AZOperator (talk) 17:40, 10 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

Preliminary thoughts

[edit]
  • This headline feels quite generic. Tell the most important and unique thing. (SG) Seems we should be able to do better.
  • What is "Peer"? Without an explanation of that, the lede is failing to answer an important part of who, with bearing on relevance.

--Pi zero (talk) 12:26, 10 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

Should be okay now. AZOperator (talk) 18:07, 10 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

Review of revision 4412416 [Passed]

[edit]