Talk:Monster of Aramberri

This review is transcluded from Talk:Monster of Aramberri/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Amirani1746 (talk · contribs) 09:57, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Jens Lallensack (talk · contribs) 23:06, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I will review this now. We have one major issue, regarding GA criterion 1 "well written"; below are only examples, it is too much to pick up everything. Please fix these, and look for and fix similar issues yourself; if done, I will have another look and hopefully won't find such issues anymore.

Language (examples):

• During an excursion conducted in the fall of 1985[a] In the Mexican state of Nuevo León, – New sentence with "In" and dot missing, or "in"?
• under the code name UANL-FCT-R2 – "specimen number" is the term here, not code name
• As the hemipelagic sediments surrounding the region and the anatomy of the specimen contradict this initial interpretation,[8] followed by a first re-examination led by Marie-Céline Buchy and her colleagues in 2003. – makes no sense?
• among other things, – "things" -> "elements"
• The first concretion contains numerous postcranial elements which include, among other things, seven pectoral vertebrae (transitional vertebrae between the cervical and thoracic regions), fragments of coracoids and a left scapula, ribs as well as gastralia (abdominal ribs). The second concretion which included – you switch in tense here "contains", "included".
• The second concretion which included a rostrum with teeth was however lost and noted as such in 2003,[9] although it was briefly described by Hähnel in 1988. – "however" makes no sense to me here.
• The new fossils are still being prepared and should receive much more detailed descriptions for future work. – "in" future work?
• The Aramberri specimen is one of the largest pliosaurs whose fossils discovered are at least well preserved. – I don't understand. What means "at least well preserved"?
• Like all plesiosaurs, however, short tail, a massive trunk and two pairs of large flippers.[23][24] – verb missing.
• and some of them have even been lost regarding the rostrum and teeth – "regarding the" makes no sense to me, and I don't understand the sentence. You just want to say that the rostrum and some teeth have been lost?
• According to the descriptions, the rostrum would measure 60 cm (24 in) long – You can remove "according to the descriptions". If you give anatomical data, it is always some sort of description. Also, "would measure" means what? Is it 60 cm long or not? Or do you want to say "would have measured 60 cm in life"?
• it is uncertain whether the rostrum would come from a dentary – "represents" instead of "come from"?
• As these characteristics cannot be assimilated to a bite, these may prove to be a distinctive feature that could prove diagnostic of the animal for future studies – no idea what you wanted to say here.
• These characteristics are the foramens – the plural should be "foramina"
• The presence of this imposing pliosaurid in this region is an argument in favor of the existence of communication between the northern Tethyan domain where most of the fossils were found, and the epicontinental seas which bathed South America at that time – "communication" --> connection; "bathed" --> covered.
• Ichthyopterygians have been known since 2006[51][57] but it is from 2009 that ophthalmosaurids have been reported. – "but ophthalmosaurids have only been reported from 2009".

Sourcing:

• Just wondering what makes "The Plesiosaur Site" a high-quality reliable source? Is it a personal website?
• The ichthyosaur in question would likely have been the specimen's last meal before its death, but further studies are needed to confirm this statement.[31]
• There are mistakes in the references, e.g. "The monster of Aramberri and friends: News finds of marine reptiles in the Mesozoic of northeastern Mexico" (New, not News).
• Otherwise, sources are of high quality

Spot checks:

• it is likely that this specimen would have been one of the possible causes of the over-exaggeration of the measurements of Liopleurodon in the 1999 BBC documentary series Walking with Dinosaurs, – this doesn't check out, the source says it's the other way around.
• others check out.

Other major comments:

• Size estimates published in the media are absolutely not reliable and, I think, should not be mixed with scientific estimates. I suggest to move all of those media "estimates" to the "In popular culture" section, where size is already discussed.

Minor comments:

• Upper Kimmeridgian – should be lower case ("upper Kimmeridgian"), as substages are informal.
• “monster of Aramberri” – be consistent with capitalization
• wikilink terms such as postcranial, ventral
• et al. – elsewhere you use "and colleagues", be consistent ("and colleagues" is better as it avoids a technical term)
• The specimen was incorrectly assigned to the species Liopleurodon ferox by the media during the 2000s – The media cannot assign anything, and it is not really relevant what the media says anyways as they are not reliable sources in this case; we have to stick with what peer-reviewed publications say. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 23:06, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for starting the review Jens Lallensack ! I've corrected a lot of weaknesses that you have pointed out, I will start rewriting some elements soon. Amirani1746 (talk) 08:05, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Jens Lallensack I removed the Plesiosaur Site. Even if consider this site as serious because it mentions some of source used here, it was pretty useles, because it contains affirmations already sourced. Amirani1746 (talk) 13:13, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Jens Lallensack what do you think about the actual state of the article ? Amirani1746 (talk) 16:25, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The article is not at GA level yet, unfortunately.

• You did not seem to have addressed all my comments (for example, the spotcheck that didn't check out, which seems to be a mistake in the article). It would help (for both of us) to reply to each point individually, so that we see what has been fixed and what not.
• The "In popular culture" section does not seem to be fully supported by the provided sources now.
• There are some logic issues, too (you now write that South America has been covered by seas; it's the correct word now but of course it has not been entirely underwater!)
• There are still language issues to numerous to list them here (starting with the first sentence in the lead; here, "nicknamed" does not work with "as the", you can say "it was nicknamed the "Monster of Aramberri", but not "it was nicknamed as the "Monster of Aramberri"). You introduced some new ones in your fixes, too. GAN is not the best place if the language needs to be improved substantially; it really takes the reviewers a lot of time, and several rounds of review. Per GA instructions, the obvious thing to do in such situations is to simply fail the article because it is too far away from meeting this criterion. I suggested this to you before, but I really think that you should use a good grammar checker, for example this one (https://www.deepl.com/en/write). With this you should be able to fix at least most of the issues. Another idea is to use a translator to translate from French (e.g, https://www.deepl.com/en/translator). Whatever you do, you should find some way to improve the English of your articles to an acceptable level before nominating them at GAN. I am not sure if I have the time to copy-edit the article myself this time; at least not in the next few days. Please try something to improve the language by yourself first, and then we will see. Thanks. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:51, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• No worries, I should have time to do a copy edit next week. In the meantime, please take care of the sourcing in the "In popular culture" section. Thanks! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:47, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Jens Lallensack Well, I will therefore continue the work so, hope that your intervention will be useful ! Amirani1746 (talk) 10:24, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Just checking; you are still working on the text-source integrity of the "In popular culture" section per my comments above? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:49, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Sorry, I was occupied on French Wikipedia, where I'm mainly active. Amirani1746 (talk) 09:04, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Jens Lallensack I know that the exaggerated size of the animal and the erroneous attribution by the media via Liopleurodon are important parts of the popular culture surrounding the animal, but I don't see why we would talk about it any differently. Amirani1746 (talk) 09:12, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  To repeat: My concern above was that the statement "it is likely that this specimen would have been one of the possible causes of the over-exaggeration of the measurements of Liopleurodon" seems to be incorrect (it is not what the Plesiosaur says) and, more importantly, not currently supported by any source, since you removed the "Plesiosaur Site". If we have sourcing issues here, please check the other claims of the paragraph too, to make sure that everything is supported by the sources. Thanks. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 09:49, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  There is the 2009 McHenry's thesis who also have these affirmations. Amirani1746 (talk) 16:57, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Unless I am missing something, he does not, at least not on page 360 that is cited in the article. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:32, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Jens Lallensack There is also other pages mentionned in the thesis. Amirani1746 (talk) 08:35, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Closing note: I reminded you six (!) times to address the issue I pointed out in the "spot checks" above, and this is the seventh time (again, that sentence is not supported by the source AND, independent from that, it is inaccurate as well). Instead of addressing the issue, you seem to try to evade it. I did everything I could, but if I cannot persuade you to fix a clear and obvious source-text integrity issue, I don't know what I should do anymore. Before renominating, you would also have to fix the language issues, because the article still does not meet criterion 1 "well written". --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:16, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]