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Action potential

Review commentary

User:Filiocht‎, User:Pakaran‎, User:Dpryan‎, User:168...‎, User:Synaptidude‎, User:Diberri‎, User:RedRabbit1983, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Neuroscience‎, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Medicine‎, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology notified.‎

This article has been nominated for Featured article review because it does not fulfill criteria 2(c) of featured article criteria. It referencing system is inconsistent and has only 5 inline citations. Medos2 10:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are references (1c) and their formatting (2). Marskell (talk) 09:43, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

• Strong retain and immediate close as frivolous. Footnote counting at its worst. This is textbook stuff, and five textbooks are cited; I would expect almost all of this article to be in any of them. I see no inconsistency in citation; does the nom mean something invisible to the reader, like sometimes not using cite templates?

• What would be actionable is the following: Find a claim which has no explicitly indicated source, and which is likely to be challenged. Look in any one of the five textbooks, and if you don't find it trivially using the index, list it here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:26, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

• Remove The citation is sparse and there are three different methods of referencing. No scientific article would get published with a hodge-podge of referencing methods. This was not to do with footnote counting. I admit that there are very few sources but the fault is due to the lack of in-line citations not the lack of sources.

In short, your problem is not that you disagree with the article, or regard it as unsupported, but that the five footnotes use different styles. Since they source different materials, this is in part unavoidable. You could have fixed that yourself; I've now done it. I hope I have rightly replaced the one that was a broken link. Take it out if you find it unnecessary. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I DO regard it as unsupported. There are NO footnotes in this article. Footnotes usually appear in books at the end of pages. They offer further information allowing the reader to continue reading if he/she expands on. They are self contained within the article or book etc. The five "footnotes" you are refering to are in-line citations linking to references. They are not the same. You miss the point about my inconsistent referencing. There are 3 sections at the end of the article - General sources, Primary sources and specific citations. The first 2 sections should be included within the in-line citation section to indicate what information has been used from the source. The section in-line citation should also be retitled references.Medos 19:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

• What can be decided as what is likely to be challenged in this type of article? Most people are unaware of action potentials and therefore you cannot verify that claims one way or another. I know from personal study that the content is accurate and you are correct to add that any text book is likely to have this information. I cannot see the logic of the claims as the in-line citations that are in the article reference facts which are as easily challenged as almost any other part of the article(with the possible exception of citation 2 which is more likely to be challenged). Medos 16:09, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

That is a matter of editorial judgment. Put footnotes where you think the textbooks don't cover things, or someone may find the text surprising. But an unnecessary footnote or two is harmless. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Textbooks don't cover things? What someone may find surprising is difficult to say. I have no objection to the use of what you refer to as unnecessary "footnotes", in fact the lack of them is the whole problem with the article.Medos 19:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

• Prose needs work I think it could stand some re-writing. Even the first sentence: "An action potential is a "spike" of positive and negative ionic discharge". It can't be both positive and negative. That would just cancel out. Later on we learn that it is a dynamic change: "An action potential is a rapid change of the polarity of the voltage from negative to positive and then vice versa" which seems clearer. Similarly, the term "resting potential" is used in the first paragraph of the "Overview" section but is not defined until the next section. Besides which, there shouldn't be an overview section as the lead should be the overview. These are just examples from the first few lines. DrKiernan (talk) 14:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I would agree in part with that comment realting to the first sentence. It is very misleading. By saying it's a spike I'm presuming the author intended to refer to the sudden change to positive charge followed by a negative charge. It's a tricky point for me because I know the topic. The sentence is not exactly wrong but I will admitt that it's badly worded. The key point I suppose is to make sure that it's not interpereted as if the change in charges is happening simultaneously. It's just very quick Medos 15:19, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• Keep featured pending a more compelling rationale for removal. Without an indication of what statements are likely to be challenged, it's difficult to find referencing problems. An ideal article on this topic, I think, wouldn't contain much that isn't found in a basic neurobiology text, so it's hard to see where challenges would come from. As for reference formatting this is a minor concern and not sufficient grounds for removing status; it does not materially diminish the quality of the work. I do think the article could use some better diagrams but this is not essential. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

• Remove. Tagged, appears abandoned since long ago with no regular editor keeping it up to date. The WP:LEAD is at best a meager summary of the article, and contains a throwaway sentence that typifies some of the text ( This article is primarily concerned with the "typical" action potential of axons). There are parenthetical see also's throughout the text (example: When the membrane of an excitable cell becomes depolarized beyond a threshold, the cell undergoes an action potential (it "fires"), often called a "spike" (see Threshold and initiation); better prose would be to incorporate these links seamlessly into the text. See also needs attention and there's an external link farm. Throwaway sentences provide examples of prose tightening needed (The sequence of events that underlie the action potential have been outlined below:) Serious attention to wikilinking is needed, and there is a lack of inline citations, per 1c. Attention to the difference between a minus sign and a hyphen is needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:19, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
• Remove. Needs much attention in terms of style and footnoting. Could be resubmitted quickly. Needs the caring hand of someone knowledgeable in neurophysiology. JFW | T@lk 23:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
  • So go find a neurophysiologist; I'm not one. But if this well-written technical article is delisted for these trivial reasons, FA will have ceased to serve the encyclopedia. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:22, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
• Remove Lacks inline citations, several formatting problem including WP:DASH issues. The prose needs significant work; it is interrupted by parenthetical comments rather than flowing, for example. There is also an "Overview" section, is it poorly named or an attempt at extending the lead outside the lead section? Jay32183 (talk) 22:26, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Always ignore MOScruft. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:37, 25 February 2008 (UTC)