Talk:Kentrosaurus/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Reid,iain james (talk · contribs) 13:02, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi all. I've decided to take up this review, and hope that it can make it to FA.First off:

• why is the taxon box age 155-150, when the article specifically states Kentrosaurus existed around 152 mya?
• don't dinosaur articles normally have the name meaning directly behind the first mention of the name?
• "A single species has been named in the genus:" this sounds very weird, I recommend changing it to "The genus is monotypic, with the only species being K. aethiopicus"

Changed. LittleJerry (talk) 23:34, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

• "Kentrosaurus was named and described ..." this implies that only the genus was named by Henning, should be changed to "The taxon was named and described ..."

Changed. LittleJerry (talk) 23:34, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

• The problem is that we don't know how far "around 152 mya" extends. The taxobox forces us to indicate a "range"; just indicating "152" suggest a precision that simply can't be justified.
• Well, there is also Kentrosaurus longispinus, so the initial statement was incorrect anyway. This also implies however, that the genus is not strictly monotypic.
• Dinosaur species indeed often have the etymology directly after the first mention of the name. It is a tad silly, though and also quite inelegant but I have to admit people really like to know these things right away. Anyway, I'll not be the one to use the l-word :o).

• "Often thought to be a primitive member of the Stegosauria ..." reverse to "Often thought to be a derived member of Stegosauria closely related to Stegosaurus from North American, several recent cladistic analyses find it to be more primitive within the group."
• "probably had a double row ..." this states that the plates are not known, should be changed
• "could use its tail as a thagomizer for defense" couldn't use its tail as a thagomizer, the tail was the thagomizer

Changed. LittleJerry (talk) 23:34, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

• the lead should be expanded to at least contain paragraphs on (1) discovery and classification, (2) description, armour and defense info (in that order underneath the very first paragraph)
• the lead can still be rewritten a bit

Explain. LittleJerry (talk) 23:32, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

• is the body plan of Kentrosaurus typical for a dinosaur, seems like it should be ornithschian.

Changed. LittleJerry (talk) 23:32, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

This edit was reverted, so I will edit it myself giving a new reason for my edit. IJReid (talk) 16:28, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

That's it for now, in two days (I have a soccer tournament today and tomorrow) I will provide many more comments. Good work and good luck - IJReid (talk) 13:02, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

• Well, it used to be thought it was basal and later analyses showed it to be derived, so this should not be reversed.
• The point is that the exact configuration isn't known. Perhaps, "had a, probably double, row" will solve this.

there is good reason to assume a double row, brought forth by Janensch 1925. "because all spikes are "handed", i.e. there is a left and a right version, it is likely that they formed a double row" HMallison (talk) 00:44, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

• Kentrosaurus (probably :o) had no tail end structure clearly separated from more forward spines, so a "thagomizer" should not be referred to.

"thagomizer" can be seen to refer to a special, separate structure, but it could also be interpreted as "the business end that you get whacked with". Thus, one could argue that it should refer to the final spike group, in the case of K. the final pair. HMallison (talk) 00:44, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

• The lead should indeed be restructured.--MWAK (talk) 05:40, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh, sorry MWAK. I was thinking of Stegosauridae when I mentioned the reversal of the statement. Added some more comments. IJReid (talk) 14:03, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

• could the description section have a brief overview the likes of which are here

MWAK expanded it and thinks it's better that way. LittleJerry (talk) 11:38, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

• the image of the "thagomizer" in the armour section should be relabelled or replaced, as Kentrosaurus did not exactly possess a thagomizer like Stegosaurus

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 22:06, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

• "had extensive osteoderms ..." might be better as "had extensive osteoderm covering ..."

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 22:06, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Could you remove the comma after the brackets? IJReid (talk) 23:54, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Done. LittleJerry (talk) 11:44, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

• I would rearrange the discovery section as:

That is way too complicated. I don't see the point. It seems rather arbitrary to me. LittleJerry (talk) 11:38, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I agree with you on that point there, but I still have more comments on that section. I think once my comments are fixed I will do my only large change to the section, and rearrange it to better help the layperson with understanding, as the section is choppy and jumps around. IJReid (talk) 16:07, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

• Which year did Paul suggest that the different material locations housed different species?

Added. LittleJerry (talk) 15:52, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

• If it was in 2010, then other references are needed to support the comment that his suggestion is not accepted.

Better? LittleJerry (talk) 00:00, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

How about you change the sentence to "However, most recent reviews of the taxon find only one species, K. aethiopicus referable to the genus." as this statement is easy to support with citations. IJReid (talk) 01:56, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Done. LittleJerry (talk) 14:13, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

• Paul does not normally list previous classifications in his Princeton Guide to Dinosaurs (I know because I looked through it once) so the K. longispinus statement about not being accepted probably wouldn't be supported, but if in this case he does, just let me know.

Removed. LittleJerry (talk) 00:00, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

• "The type and sole species ..." should be the start of a new paragraph on previous species and their assignments.

Done. LittleJerry (talk) 20:01, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

A few choice words on Paul 2010

Paul's work is at about the quality of a yellow-press tabloid. As editors on wikipedia we need to sort sources. Just because something has been published doesn't mean that is has the least bit of truth to it. It can be utter junk. Everybody will happily ignore creationist or nutcase websites. The reason is simple: more shit gets published than anyone can go and disprove. it is essentially the problem of countering a Gish gallop.

Paul has done some OK work in the past. His 2010 abortion, though, has been taken to task repeatedly ([1], [2] for example) and shown to be horribly inaccurate, inconsistent, fantastical and useless as far as taxonomy goes. Therefore, we can here ignore it not because an individual claim in it regarding Kentrosaurus is wrong, but because the work in its entirety has been shown to be unreliable. HMallison (talk) 15:22, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Well, we have to be very careful here. You invoke reliability, indeed an important principle under WP:Undue weight. However, reliability regards the facts. Now, Paul (2010) very largely follows the results of modern cladistic analysis. His main idiosyncrasies reside in the way he groups species into genera. But that is not a matter of fact but of choice. He cannot be unreliable in this as there is simply nothing to be reliable about. So here another principle applies: "Any source can be a reliable source for its own opinion". Paul (2010) also habitually assumes that remains found in formations differing in time represent different taxa. Is this "inaccurate, inconsistent, fantastical and useless"? Why, no. It simply constitutes a set of relevant hypotheses, testable by e.g. morphospace analysis. If some institution would offer you a grant to perform such an analysis to test whether the Kimmeridgian Kentrosaurus remains could indicate a speciation event resulting in a branch surviving into the Tithonian, would you reject it? So there ;o). Perhaps a more interesting aspect is whether Hennig ever addressed this issue. Did he at any point comment on the possibility that there were two taxa?--MWAK (talk) 19:05, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, Hennig did check, and came to the conclusion that there aren't two taxa. Additionally, Paul's is indeed fiction, because he worked WITHOUT EVER SEEING THE FOSSILS - for real or published illustrations! The relevant material is figured only in the tiniest parts in Hennig, Janensch and Galton works, yet *because of a presumption about species longevity* Paul invents a new one. DUH!

People give him way too much credit. A study to test if there are several taxa present based on the avaiable data woul not pass review and would never get funded. So there ;o) HMallison (talk) 13:28, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

and, by the way, Maidment et al. 2008 found one species, in a study specifically looking at stego taxo, and Barden & Maidment 2011 found two morphs of one species. HMallison (talk) 13:34, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

We have a problem here in that the suggestions by Olshevsky and Paul have been largely ignored. So it is very true that they were not supported but this negative fact is then hard to source. I propose that by a rephrasal it is made clear to the reader that their thoughts were very tentative. This can easily been done, I think.--MWAK (talk) 08:17, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

• "The type and sole species ..." is biased against Olshevsky. Currently, only one ref is used against the assignment of longispinus to K., and in wikipedia we are supposed to be neutral, so I recommend changing this to The type and solely accepted species is Kentrosaurus aethiopicus, named by Henning in 1915." with multiple refs supporting this statement.

Done. LittleJerry (talk) 20:01, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

• How can a 1997 ref support the remodelling of a mount in 2006/7

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 20:14, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

• The last statement of the second paragraph needs a citation. IJReid (talk) 14:28, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Removed. LittleJerry (talk) 15:27, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

• Type specimens and locality section should be a subsection of description

This is not typical for dinosaur articles and the description section is big enough. LittleJerry (talk) 18:16, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Bleah, I meant to type Discovery section. IJReid (talk) 14:44, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Done. LittleJerry (talk) 16:33, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

• "modern cladistic analysis" use the plural analyses

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 18:16, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

• "until the 1980s seen" change to "until the 1980s to be seen"

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 18:16, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

• "A successful hunt of Kentrosaurus may have required group hunting." redundant, change to "A successful predation on Kentrosaurus might have only been possible for a group of hunters."

Fixed.

• the notes section can be removed, as it is currently empty.

Removed. LittleJerry (talk) 18:16, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Other than these minor quibbles, Kentrosaurus seems ready to pass. I have not checked the references, although on the basis of Mallison's rewrite draft, which I trust as he is likely to get the sources, I think the citations are at least adequate. IJReid (talk) 16:21, 5 July 2014 (UTC)