A fact from Bramble Cay melomys appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 20 July 2019 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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The fact that a cartoonist made a cartoon is not inherently worth inclusion in a serious encyclopedia. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trivia sections says "Trivia sections should be avoided." WP:ONUS says "Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion". Per WP:PROPORTION, part of NPOV policy, "An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject." Per WP:NOTEVERYTHING, Wikipedia isn't a place to shoehorn every bit of verifiable information. I maintain that the fact a cartoonist made a cartoon about the subject does not rise to the level of prominence worth discussing. You would never find such trivia in a formal encyclopedia. And if it must be mentioned, the relevance of the cartoon to the subject must be demonstrated. Do reliable sources discuss it frequently in relation to the Bramble Cay melomys? Did it make any lasting change? How does this help readers learn more about the Bramble Cay melomys? It's akin to stating "in 2019 a journalist wrote an article about the extinction of the species". In short, why should anyone care? @Laterthanyouthink:, per WP:ONUS, the onus to achieve consensus for inclusion this disputed content falls on you. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:04, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Animalparty, I'm familiar with all of those sections, but none of them has a ruling that specifically excludes this kind of thing, as far as I could see, and Wikipedia is not a formal encyclopedia. Thanks to Gdeblois19, who made the last change to improve the sub-heading (I had thought of "In arts and literature" but that seemed a little lofty and I was pushed for time!). At least one editor had previously thanked me for the edit, and a couple of others made other edits without thought of removing the section, so I'm not the only one in favour of leaving it there. This is not trivia in the true sense of the word - it's a little fun, a little social/political commentary and ultimately a sign of the significance of the event of the extinction (and one which has been shared thousands of times on social media, although I realise that this not necessarily add weight in WP terms).
Obviously I will be happy to submit to any consensus view here. It's really not a big deal for me. I should just add though that you made a reversion without reference to any WP guide, and I'd say that an edit summary of "dumb" does not pass WP:CIV. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:01, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we need a section dedicated solely to one comic, but a comprehensive article should make it clear that the extinction attracted wide comment. It's no surprise that Nature and National Geographic would report this, but it was also reported in the financial sector (Forbes, Fortune), Fox, even Breitbart (link blacklisted). I suggest that a sentence or two at the end of Extinction confirmed would be appropriate, though I'm not sure how to word it. The comic in The Guardian would be better described as "Australian media" than "popular culture". Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 06:58, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The lorax: Thanks for sending this to GAN. It is courteous when doing so, however, to ping major contributors to the page, especially when other editors have written most of the content currently in the article. This is both to ask whether they would be co-nominators, as well as to invite comment with respect to content. In this case, Laterthanyouthink and myself have both written a substantial portion of the current content. I will run through the sources I have access to later today, and hopefully will finish doing so before someone picks it up. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:43, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the heads-up and for offering to do further checking, Vanamonde93. I can't claim much credit for it - having just done some clean-up and a bit of tinkering some time ago - but how do we know if it gets selected as a GA? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:10, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Laterthanyouthink: An editor uninvolved with this article has to conduct a GA review, according to the process described at WP:GAN. After judging the article against the criteria, they can pass it immediately, leave us some comments to address (and pass/fail it depending on whether we address those), or fail it immediately. Having been responsible for a few GAs, I'm confident an immediate fail in this case isn't going to happen. It may be a while before this is reviewed, though; the backlog at GAN is quite long. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:44, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
and Joseph Jukes collected a holotype. – Holotypes are important for extinct animals. I would add where the holotype is stored now (British Museum of Natural History).
The first paragraph of the "Distribution and ecology" does not fit under this section. To be consistent with other biology articles, I would have it under "Taxonomy" as the first section of the article.
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