Talk:Bacteria

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Featured articleBacteria is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on January 20, 2007.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
January 14, 2004Featured article candidateNot promoted
August 11, 2006Good article nomineeListed
November 19, 2006Good article reassessmentDelisted
November 29, 2006Peer reviewReviewed
December 3, 2006Featured article candidatePromoted
Current status: Featured article
Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team / v0.5 / Vital / Core (Rated FA-class, Top-importance)
WikiProject iconThis article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team.
Featured article FA  Quality: FA-Class
 Top  Importance: Top

Bacteria has 5 flagellation arrangements Monotrichous Lophotrichous Amphitrichous Retrichous Atrichous — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arizone Andrew (talk • contribs) 09:38, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Uncited material[edit]

For an FA, this article contains a surprising amount of uncited material, for example in the Cellular structure section to name just one. I hesitate to slap a {{refimprove}} tag at the top as that would be tantamount to asking for a FA review, but the article has plainly diverged markedly from its assessed state, and requires more careful citation, to say the least. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:31, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Looking through the article, I can only agree. I think it needs either tagging for refimprove or review. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:28, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
Sorry for being late to the party. Working on it. Will add//update references where appropriate. Starting a talk thread below. Ajpolino (talk) 23:20, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
Removed the {{refimprove}} tag since I've removed or added refs to the worst of it in the cellular structures section. Still working through the rest. Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 23:13, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Article cleanup[edit]

Hi all! As you can see from the refimprove tag at the top and the comments above, this article has drifted a bit from the state it was in when it passed FA review 10 years ago. It's probably time for us to go through, cleanup extraneous content that has crept in over the years, add/update references, and add any new content that's appropriate. I'm opening this thread as a forum for discussion on that.

I made a few changes to the origins section that I also wanted to explain here:

  • I removed a sentence on macrofossils and a sentence on secondary endosymbioses (both of which seemed like an aside on paragraphs about the origins of bacteria
  • Uncommented the bit about the prokaryotic ancestor being a hyperthermophile (I know the refs are old, I'll look for something more recent)
  • Removed the paragraph about the recent putative fossilized microorganisms. I think it's a great addition for the pages on life and its evolution, but for a page on bacterial origins, I think the first sentence about how microbial life emerged ~4 billion years ago is sufficient. The latest estimates on that timing probably aren't necessary for a bacteria article. If others disagree, I'm happy to chat about it and come up with some compromise (maybe we could incorporate that info into the section a bit more smoothly).

If you have comments/concerns about those changes, feel free to revert and lets discuss it here. Also if you have other ideas for how to improve the article, I'm all ears and happy to help. Thanks! Ajpolino (talk) 23:30, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Made a few changes to the morphology section. Removed some primary refs and updated some refs. I also took out the biofilms picture which didn't appear very informative and brought back the scale image that had been removed last year due to factual inaccuracies (I think its still informative for our purposes). If someone has time and could update the refs in the biofilms section, that would be a huge help. I think about a million biofilm reviews have come out since the ones cited here. Lastly, I moved the myxococcus multicellularity example up before the biofilm paragraph where I thought it might fit better. Any issues/concerns, happy to discuss here.Ajpolino (talk) 02:13, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Percentage of total biomass[edit]

Hi, the article states that bacteria forms "a biomass which exceeds that of all plants and animals," but more recent research here (https://www.pnas.org/content/115/25/6506) shows that plants make up most of the biomass in the world. I recommend that this be changed. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.12.120.76 (talk) 01:46, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Lacking citations[edit]

For a Featured Article this contribution has too may unsourced statements. I intend to overhaul the article in the forthcoming weeks to address this issue and update the text where necessary. Graham Beards (talk) 16:44, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Ah yes, I tried to go through the article a couple of years ago, but ran out of steam somewhere in the behavior section. If you'd like a hand let me know; I'll have some time in a couple of weeks. Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 06:01, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Ajpolino. Graham Beards (talk) 11:16, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Style used[edit]

Hello Graham Beards - Gram or gram — The style used on the page - long-standing, has been for the use of lower case. There have been seemingly unresolved arguments re this but as far as I am aware due to the ambivalent usage in various sources the style choice was left to the editors - some pages use one type others use the other. Gram stain uses lower case as does gram-negative as an editor wishing to change the style usage it ought to have been taken to talk page - that's why MOS:VAR was cited. --Iztwoz (talk) 10:40, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi Iztwoz, you didn't cite MOS:VAR you cited WP:VAR. WP:MEDRS sources use the upper case. (See PMID32187986). Also we don't say ziehl–neelsen stain, we correctly write Ziehl–Neelsen stain. With regard to my undiscussed edits, I was asked in Tim Vicker's absence to restore the article to FA standard and I made numerous changes.Graham Beards (talk) 10:50, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
I acknowledge that you have improved the page but a long standing usage of something needs to be taken to talk page. You asked me to see Gram stain? The accepted use is of upper case Gram here. My own preference is for lower case for descriptions of the bacteria, it makes for easier reading and editing and is in my view less 'dated'. --Iztwoz (talk) 11:10, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
One example from a journal resolves nowt - it is well established that both styles are used. Ferri's Clinical Adviser 2019 for one, uses lower case throughout.--Iztwoz (talk) 11:51, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
When the article was promoted to FA it used Gram- throughout ([1]). Seven years later the uppercase was still in use. ([2]). In 2016 both the upper and lower case are used seemingly randomly ([3]). In March 2016, both are still used ([4]). On 25 May 2016, you changed them all to lowercase. ([5]). I can't see where you discussed this on the Talk Page. Graham Beards (talk) 20:45, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
If both types were used on the page i would have gone ahead and chosen one type for consistency. Since i had already done a fair bit of editing on gram-negative bacteria, and the use there in 2014 had been queried and an orthographic note added, and the page had used the lower case since its creation in 2002 i would have felt that this was the more correct usage. Had this change on this page not been welcome at the time, i would have expected one of the many editors and page watchers to have responded but since 2016 there has not been one query - which one would take to be an overall acceptance. Best --Iztwoz (talk) 07:31, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
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