Talk:Isotelus

Asaphus

I removed the Asaphus kowalewskii picture. That is of a separate genus (Asaphus) and is treated elsewhere. --DanielCD 03:00, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

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GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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

Nominator: Prehistorica CM (talk · contribs) 19:32, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 14:25, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Comments

• I've marked several paragraphs with 'citation needed' tags. These need to be addressed before I go further with this review. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:25, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

  fixed Prehistorica CM (talk) 17:56, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Many thanks.

• Date of discovery by Sherman?
  • Never given in the original paper by De Kay. Prehistorica CM (talk) 04:51, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• Can't see any need to mention Dunkleosteus: this article isn't about state fossils.
  • I have shortened this mention, but do not think it is helpful to remove. There are 2 state fossils for Ohio, and to mention only Isotelus as the state fossil would be misleading, I think. This also differentiates Isotelus as the first of those 2. Prehistorica CM (talk) 04:51, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• I see the mass of trilobite-specific technical terms is explained quite well over at Trilobite with coloured diagrams. The effect here in this article, with a mass of similar photographs, a lot of technical terms, and no diagrams is rather less good. You might consider labelling one of the photos - an easy way is to put the photo in a PowerPoint slide, add text labels and label lines around the photo, and then to save the slide as an .SVG file (uploaded to Commons). That would make the image do some useful work and "remind" readers of the terminology.

• Names of species and genera should all be in italics. e.g. Procambarus, Homarus, Asellus. There are even some Isotelus in 'Description' and elsewhere that aren't in italics.
  • My bad, I didnt notice there were so many. I think I've corrected them all now. Prehistorica CM (talk) 04:51, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• All the mentions of a species in a section, except the first, should be abbreviated.
  • Should be done now. Prehistorica CM (talk) 04:51, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• Refs [1] and [2] occur only in the lead. Both should be moved out into the main text (with the text they support) if they're adding anything "new", or dropped if not.
  • added them to main text. Prehistorica CM (talk) 04:51, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• It's not clear why you'd mention 3 Canadian provinces in the lead ("Eastern Canada" would match "northeastern United States", for instance). I also don't exactly see the list of provinces in the main text anyway, they are named but scattered about.
  • condensed into eastern canada. Prehistorica CM (talk) 04:51, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• The word "also" is overused; please remove most of the instances.
  • got rid of most of them. Prehistorica CM (talk) 04:51, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• In 'Description' you use "terrace" before you explain it.
  • "terrace" is used within its standard meaning, and was linked for any further clarification. I have now also clarified it in the text Prehistorica CM (talk) 08:36, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• Some technical terms are glossed (like hypostome), while others (like glabella) are not.
  • unsure what is meant by glossed, hypostome is already explained as the fork-like triangular mouthpart, and i have now added a brief explanation of the glabella. Prehistorica CM (talk) 08:36, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• Some links need to be better targeted; e.g. "free cheeks" needs to go to the 'Facial sutures' section of "Cephalon (arthropod head)".
  • better targeted now. Prehistorica CM (talk) 08:36, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• "remarkably" seems to be your editorial comment? If not, the word needs its own citation.
  • removed. Prehistorica CM (talk) 04:51, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• A bit of copy-editing is needed, e.g. "tunnel for Huffman Dam" needs a "the", as do quite a lot of other nouns in the article.

Images

• All are relevant, on Commons, and plausibly licensed.

• The number of somewhat similar images is surprising (especially of I. maximus), but not totally out of bounds. Part of the issue seems to be that you are trying to cover the whole genus here, in the absence of species articles. It would be tidier and more usual to have an article on a popular species like I. maximus, and probably on I. gigas too, with just one image of each species here.

• Image layout is somewhat chaotic, with unusually large images in a range of different formats. The worst is in 'Description; where the images sandwich the text unacceptably. It would be better to put those into a gallery at the end of the section, but it's unclear why we need three views of the "enrolled" specimen, for instance, nor why it's worth adding an image "from the type locality", as the specimens are not hugely different (i.e. the image is not needed to support article text about the type locality).

• The formatting of images in 'Paleobiology' also needs attention. I'd suggest you do away with all the "multiple image" templates and either use galleries to arrange the images less disruptively, or use fewer and smaller images.

• The multiple image in 'Species' don't work at all; the upright image of I. rex is forced to be way too large to match the width of the horizontal image of I. gigas above it.

• It is unclear why we need two rather similar images of I. rex (infobox and 'Species'); one would seem quite enough given that this article is about the genus not the species.

• The placement of the I. maximus with the healed injury - it appears beside 'Group 2', 'Group 3', or actually 'References' depending on the width of the browser window - is particularly unfortunate. It's also a much less convincing image of a healed wound (readers will wonder where the wound is) than the "40 centimetres adult" with the missing eye; I suggest the non-eye healing image simply be dropped as redundant.

• The captions too leave much to be desired. For example "Hypostome of the trilobite Isotelus (Ordovician, southern Ohio)" redundantly tells the reader that it's an Isostelus (yes, this is the Isostelus article, see the title) and that it's a trilobite. I suggest that you write "I. rex" (etc as appropriate) when you want to name a species in a caption.

• The caption "Specimen of Isotelus gigas from the Walcott-Rust quarry. Large numbers of small, complete, and uncompressed fossils of Isotelus gigas were discovered at this site, particularly in a single layer." breaks the basic rule that a caption is there to describe the image. The second sentence is basically off-topic and should be removed; the first sentence could be rewritten I. gigas, Walcott-Rust quarry", which says all that is required.
  • Although i feel personally that this does not improve the article aesthetically or informationally, I have removed many of the images, reduced their size, and trimmed their captions to the bare essentials as requested, as well as collapsing the genus name for species. I am keeping the enrollement image as is, as I feel most viewers would be confused if left with only one angle (for example, the top image, which would by itself appear to be an isolated cephalon). Prehistorica CM (talk) 08:29, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• Your reconstruction looks very nice, but the caption needs to be cited (how do we know they gathered to moult and reproduce?). The large endocerid is distinctly non-obvious, too, and was "stalking" involved (could trilobites run for cover?).
  • added citation and removed endocerid mention

Sources

• The sources are all reliable and relevant to the article.

• Love Mr "Writer" in [2]. But we don't use bylines.
  • auto-citaiton mistake, fixed Prehistorica CM (talk) 04:51, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

• Spot-checks: [1] ok; [17] ok; [32] ok (that rare thing, a reliable blog).
  • I must not have added 32, I have no idea why its there. It must be from an earlier edit, I dont know why they chose this as a source. I am going to remove it. Prehistorica CM (talk) 04:51, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Summary

• The article seems sound but needs work to make it encyclopedic in style and appearance.

Thanks for progress, looking forward to the rest. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:55, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

OK, it seems you've addressed the issues, many thanks, and the article certainly looks more like a Wikipedia GA. Happy to pass it now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:11, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.