Wikipedia:Featured article review/Chemical synapse/archive1

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

The article was removed 07:45, 10 April 2007.

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Chemical synapse

Review commentary

Messages left at 168... and Molecular and Cellular Biology. LuciferMorgan 17:17, 7 March 2007 (UTC) Message left at Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine Announcements. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:06, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Reviewed in May 2006 here. Parker007 brought this article to my attention, and I agree that it needs some work to get back to featured article quality. I'm concerned that an article of this length is not comprehensive; specifically, it lacks any historical information about the discovery of chemical synapses, and each section is only one paragraph long. It was also a very poor read for me since the jargon used is poorly (if at all) defined. There are very few inline citations too. I know science articles have their own guidelines for that, but I don't see why the citations can't be of the same quality as those in Proteasome. ShadowHalo 07:44, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I also want to state that the section "Anatomy and physiology" is in horrible condition and I removed 2 sentences and left this message on the talk page of the article:

Second Sentence

• The biological membrane of the two cells side each other across a slender gap, the narrowness of which enables signalling neurotransmitters to pass rapidly from one cell to the other by diffusion. This gap, which is about 20 nm wide, is known as the synaptic cleft.

• Which 2 cells? --Parker007 06:20, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Third sentence

• Such synapses are asymmetric both in structure and in how they operate.

• Which such syapses? --Parker007 06:23, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

--Parker007 20:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I've mostly reverted to the version from before this review started, saving some minor changes. Basically all edits had reduced article quality. To Parker: (1) The two cells talked about in the previous sentence. (2) The prototypical synapses that have been the whole topic of the section thus far. I really don't see how you would have trouble with this, nor do I see how simply deleting the sentence is helpful. That said, the article could use some work. It doesn't appear, for instance, to treat metabotropic receptors, instead discussing NT receptors only in terms of ion channels. In general there is an awful lot to say as this is a pretty fundamental article for neurobiology. On the plus side, inline citations do not appear to be a serious problem; this is all pretty fundamental and unlikely to be challenged. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

(1) The two cells talked about in the previous sentence. So can you name the cells? Because it is very ambiguous. --Parker007 04:59, 11 March 2007 (UTC) (2) The prototypical synapses that have been the whole topic of the section thus far. What is a prototypical synapse? --Parker007 05:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

A prototypical synapse is a synapse that is prototypical, that is model. I have changed the term to archetypal to make this clearer. The two cells are any two cells at a synapse, I am not sure what you mean by naming them. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:08, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• The problem probably stems from the fact that there are many related articles that could form part of a greater article. For example Postsynaptic potential, Neurotransmitter, Neuromuscular junction, Receptor, Electrical synapse, etc. could all form part of this article. Maybe we can work to have clearer redirects to the sub-articles. Otherwise we could basically have a whole encyclopedia-length article on Synapses alone. Nrets 00:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

It would be good to have some quantitative information e.g. the statistical distribution of the number of synapses per brain cell in the brains. (JRi)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are comprehensiveness (1b), and citations (1c). Marskell 11:31, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• Remove per 1c. LuciferMorgan 09:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
• Remove, 1c. Some improvements during review, but not at all adequate. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
• Remove. Per 1c. Notes and references need some cleaning. And why all these words in bold?--Yannismarou 10:13, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
• Remove—what a pity. Ic plus 1a. My copy-edit of the lead alone suggests that the whole thing needs a good massage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talk • contribs) 23:02, April 8, 2007

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.