Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rotating locomotion in living systems/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 00:47, 24 September 2017 [1].

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Rotating locomotion in living systems

Nominator(s): —swpb^T 15:58, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

This is my first FA nomination, and what I think is a rather interesting topic. The article has had a peer review by User:Dunkleosteus77 (here), and a thorough mentor review by User:Brianboulton (here). I will do my best to respond to review comments as quickly as possible. Thank you to all reviewers. —swpb^T 15:58, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Mentor's comment: I was not involved in the general preparation of the article, which was already a GA when I offered to act. My role has been to help it bridge that important gap between GA and FA. The article is original and interesting, and I'm satisfied that it holds up well when tested against the FA criteria. I look forward to reading reviewers' comments. Brianboulton (talk) 16:44, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Consistency review from Gertanis

• Be consistent in whether you write "The University of Chicago Press" or "University of Chicago Press"
• Same goes for shortened page ranges (we have both '182–184' and '167–91')
• Ditto inclusion of publisher locations

That's the only inconsistencies I spotted. Well done! Gertanis (talk) 19:42, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Ok, I've gotten those fixed up. Thanks! —swpb^T 20:13, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Image review

• File:Wheeled_animal_-_East_Mexico_cultures_-_Ethnological_Museum,_Berlin_-_DSC00852.JPG: the description states that the artwork is PD because artist died over 70 years ago - to my knowledge Mexico has never used that rule. Should include an explicit tag.
• File:Fitness-landscape-cartoon.png: what is the source of the data used in this image?
• File:Buer.gif needs a US PD tag. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:12, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

I've fixed the tagging on the Mexican toy and Buer images. The fitness landscape image is notional – the curve is an arbitrary example with peaks and valleys to illustrate the concept of optimization via an evolutionary process; there is no data corresponding to the depicted function. —swpb^T 13:32, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Support on prose Comments by Finetooth

This is professionally written, clear, and very interesting. I'm what you might call a lay reader with no special knowledge of biology, thus I can't say much about the more technical aspects of the article. I have a very small number of suggestions.

Rolling

• ¶2 "Several species of elongate organisms will form their bodies into a loop in order to roll..." – Delete "will" since present tense works just fine here.

Changed as suggested. —swpb^T 13:17, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

• ¶3 "Tumbleweeds are the above-ground portions of certain plants, which separate from their root structure and roll in the wind to distribute their seeds." – Here I would move the modifying phrase to put it snug against the thing modified: "Tumbleweeds, which separate from their root structure and roll in the wind to distribute their seeds, are the above-ground portions of certain plants."

I've modified this sentence differently than suggested, because, WADR, I think the suggested change would be detrimental. The fact of rolling is the thrust of the sentence, and it carries the most impact at the end of the sentence. —swpb^T 13:17, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

I like your modification. Finetooth (talk) 16:13, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Rolling resistance

• I think the illustration of rolling resistance could be made more clear. In the absence of labels, I assume "W" is weight, and "r" is radius. "N" is the reaction force, but perhaps F should be named or explained. The hash marks indicate a counterclockwise rotation for the wheel; the F arrow points left, and the hash marks indicate resistance to movement to the left. Would it be helpful to make the abbreviations and direction of rotation and linear movement more explicit in the caption?

I've added explicit explanation of the symbols used to the caption. —swpb^T 13:17, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Obstacle navigation

• The MOS advises against repetition in the article heads and subheads. For that reason, I'd trim the subheads in this section to "Going around" and "Going over."

Changed as suggested. —swpb^T 13:17, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Rolling and wheeled creatures in fiction and legend

• To avoid repetition, I'd tighten the head to "In fiction and legend" and let the subheads expand on the basic idea.

Changed as suggested. —swpb^T 13:17, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

References

• Some of the ISBNs (citations 22, 37, 40, 45, 51, 53, and perhaps others) are missing their hyphens. A converter lives here.

I've been told that ISBN-13 is preferable in all cases to ISBN-10, and that converter appears to only produce ISBN-10s. Do you (or anyone reading this) know of a converter that produces 13s, or are hyphenated 10s preferable to (partially) un-hyphenated 13s? —swpb^T 13:17, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Ah. A sly trick, not explained at the converter site, is to convert the unhyphenated 13 to a 10 and then plug the 10 in and convert it to a 13 with hyphens. Finetooth (talk) 16:05, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

That is a sly trick! Done. —swpb^T 17:55, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

• This is exceedingly nitpicky, but in most cases you use sentence case for article and book titles, but in some cases you use title case. You can use either, but consistency is good.

Changed as suggested. —swpb^T 13:17, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

That's all. Finetooth (talk) 20:27, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

To editor Finetooth: Thanks for your review! I apologize for the delay in my reply; hence the ping. I've responded to each point above. —swpb^T 13:17, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Happy to support on prose, as noted above. Finetooth (talk) 18:43, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! —swpb^T 12:53, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Comments Support by Cas Liber

Interesting choice of topic....comments to follow..

• I can't help feeling the Rolling section is on the brief side - and the isolated sentences make it choppy to read. If this section can be enlarged it'd be helpful. Particularly as it is highly pertinent to the subject matter.

• I generally find little value in See also sections - for the most part, items are important enough to be discussed in the article body or too tangential to warrant a mention.

More later. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:18, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

To editor Casliber: Thanks for your comments so far. In the Rolling section, I've expanded each of the short paragraphs. Re the "See also" section, are there particular entries you take issue with? I've added descriptions to clarify the relevance of entries, and I've tried to only include entries that fall into the sweet spot of being clearly related to the article topic, but not directly enough to be discussed in the body. There are two exceptions, Biologically inspired engineering and Terrestrial locomotion, that are linked in the body, but that I think are important enough to bear repeating at the end. I'm certainly open to revisiting any aspect of the section, particularly if there's concurrence from other reviewers. —swpb^T 15:22, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

• More specifically - I'd add to Rolling section - are all rolling animals doing so for defence/escape? Either adding that or noting exceptions would be good.
• Adding some examples of species that make tumbleweeds

As noted in the Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Layout#.22See_also.22_section - "As a general rule, the "See also" section should not repeat links that appear in the article's body or its navigation boxes." - i.e. it is sufficient if material is already covered in the article body, so Biologically inspired engineering and Terrestrial locomotion do not require links at the end

• I find the link between this and astrobiology to be too tenuous to warrant a link, espeicially as the latter topic is all hypothetical anyway (and hence maybe covered in the fiction stuff anyway)

Ok. I've added species examples to the tumbleweeds paragraph, and I've removed the "see also" entries you mentioned. As for why animals roll, I think it's generally assumed that defense/escape is the main reason, but I don't think the necessary studies exist to say definitively that this is always the reason, or to delineate cases that may be exceptions. I will see what I can find in RS's that speaks to this, but it might not be much.

Why I am pushing for embellishing on the section is the article has a lot of why but not as much what as I'd like for balance, if you know what I mean, and hence reads a little more like an essay. But overall the writing is fine and is otherwise comprehensive. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:00, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

I've reworked the paragraph a bit to speak more to why animals roll themselves up, and in some cases away. —swpb^T 15:15, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

I do question your combining of rotifers and keratinocytes into a single paragraph, and moving them above tumbleweeds. These are two pretty distinct examples – one an organism that doesn't really roll, but appears to and has a name suggesting it does, and the other not an organism at all, but a cell type within a multicellular organism, that does roll. I would like to separate these again, and move them lower in the section, since, like dung beetles, they are not true examples of rolling organisms, but are related enough to bear mentioning. —swpb^T 13:49, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Yeah happy for the revert on that, was just trying to make para less choppy. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:00, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Overall I think it is comprehensive and straddles the line between exactness of meaning and accessibility well. Nice read (and support). Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:26, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! —swpb^T 12:53, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Comments by Wehwalt

Seems very readable, have only time for a short comment now, more to follow:

• "Other species adopt more spherical postures, primarily to protect their bodies from predators; this behavior has been seen in pangolins and wheel spiders (which have been observed to purposely roll away from predators),[5][7] as well as hedgehogs, armadillos, Armadillo girdled lizards, isopods, and fossilized trilobites." I'm not fully comfortable about the present tense describing the trilobites. I'm not sure their behavior has been seen by humans ...--Wehwalt (talk) 01:15, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Good insight. I've revised "behavior" to "posture", as that can be directly observed in fossils by humans. Looking forward to your next comments; thanks for taking the time to review. —swpb^T 13:42, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

• "Estimates of the speed of rotation of the style in vivo vary significantly" the style?

"Style" is the technical name for this structure, from the same root as "stylus". —swpb^T 13:06, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

• "The evolution of ATP synthase is thought to be an example of modular evolution," Maybe development for evolution to avoid the repeat?

I've reworded the sentence a different way; "development" is used elsewhere in the article in the sense of embryological development, and I don't want to introduce confusion with that meaning. —swpb^T 13:06, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

• " (In species of the genus Vibrio, ..." I might delete the parentheses. Some minor modifications to text might be needed.

I don't know, I think the parentheses are a useful way of showing that this sentence only has tangential relevance – it expands on the content of the previous sentence in a way that may interest some readers, but is not integral to the main thrust of the paragraph. —swpb^T 13:06, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

• "wheels are not especially efficient on soft terrain such as soils," I might say soil, not soils.

Changed as suggested. —swpb^T 13:06, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

• " The primary means of obstacle navigation are to go around obstacles and to go over them; each has its attendant challenges." While I don't think what you're saying here is particularly controversial, I would cite it.

I've cited the "each has its attendant challenges" bit with the major sources used further down in the section. The first part of the sentence I argue falls under WP:BLUE. —swpb^T 13:06, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

• "Without articulation, this can be an impossible position from which to recover." ditto.

I've spent some time trying to find a way to reasonably source this, but I tend to think it also falls under WP:BLUE – this is just saying that there can be a vehicle which, when flipped over, can't right itself by just spinning its wheels, which describes almost all wheeled vehicles in existence. —swpb^T 13:06, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

That's it. Very interesting and well written. It certainly is a novelty.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:15, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the complements! I've replied point-by-point above; I'm happy to revisit any concern until you're satisfied. —swpb^T 13:06, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Support Looks good. I don't have any great concern over that material, it is simple stuff.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:06, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Source review and spot check by Sarastro1

Coordinator comment: Unless I've missed it somewhere, we still need a source review. This can be requested at the top of WT:FAC. As this would be the nominator's first FA, we would require the usual spot-checks of sourcing for accurate use and close-paraphrasing; however, if Brian looked at this during the preparation, we would be OK on that count I think. Sarastro1 (talk) 19:44, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

My comments on sourcing are contained within the peer review, here. I didn't do any spot-checks. So a sources review with spot-checks is necessary. Brianboulton (talk) 20:22, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Source review: All sources high quality, reliable and appropriately formatted. Earwig looks fine. Sarastro1 (talk) 09:29, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Spot check: As this would be the nominator's first FA, a spot-check is needed. No problems with copyvio or close paraphrasing. I chose five references and checked the text for which they were cited was supported by the reference. One issue, but the rest fine. Sarastro1 (talk) 09:38, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

• "Although stiff wheels are more energy efficient than other means of locomotion when traveling over hard, level terrain (such as paved roads), wheels are not especially efficient on soft terrain such as soil, because they are vulnerable to rolling resistance. In rolling resistance, a vehicle loses energy to the deformation of its wheels and the surface on which they are rolling. Smaller wheels are especially susceptible to the effect": Checks out OK.
• "Limbs used by animals for locomotion over terrain are frequently also used for other purposes, such as grasping, manipulating, climbing, branch-swinging, swimming, digging, jumping, throwing, kicking, and grooming. With a lack of articulation, wheels would not be as useful as limbs in these roles": Checks out OK.
• "Because of this limitation, wheels intended for rough terrain require a larger diameter": Checks out OK.
• "The processes of evolution, as they are presently understood, can help explain why wheeled locomotion has not evolved in multicellular organisms: simply put, a complex structure or system will not evolve if its incomplete form provides no benefit to the organism": Checks out OK.
• "The Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher illustrated a rolling creature of his own invention in a 1951 lithograph”: Checks out ok. However, as a matter of interest, how was this list of artists chosen? Is it in a source, or was it just chosen?
• One problem: "In typical mechanical systems, some type of bearing and/or lubricant must be used to reduce friction at the interface between two components. Reducing friction is vital for minimizing wear on components and preventing overheating. As the relative speed of the components rises, and as the contact force between them increases, the importance of friction mitigation increases. In biological joints such as the human knee, friction is reduced by means of cartilage with a very low friction coefficient, as well as lubricating synovial fluid, which has very low viscosity." This isn't in the source cited (unless I've missed it) and I think it needs referencing. (The end of the paragraph, "Gerhard Scholtz of Humboldt University of Berlin asserts that a similar secreted lubricant or dead cellular material could allow a biological wheel to rotate freely", is in the given source.) Sarastro1 (talk) 09:38, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! I've revised and added three new citations to the paragraph on friction that should address the gaps there. As to the artists in the "fiction and legend" section, the list did not come from a particular source, but is essentially a complete list of the most notable occurrences of the trope. The main article Rolling and wheeled creatures in fiction and legend offers a few more examples that are a bit less noteworthy. —swpb^T 16:21, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

OK, did a few more spot checks and everything looks good to me. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:13, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Support from Brianboulton

As the article's mentor, my support might reasonably be assumed, but I have watched the article's progress carefully over the past few weeks, and am convinced that it it now satisfies the FA criteria fully. I hope this nominator will be emboldened by the experience to return to FAC with another article in the not too distant future. Brianboulton (talk) 21:12, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Deeply appreciated. —swpb^T 15:25, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 00:47, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.