Bacteria 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.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on January 20, 2007.
Article milestones Date Process Result January 14, 2004 Featured article candidate Not promoted August 11, 2006 Good article nominee Listed November 19, 2006 Good article reassessment Delisted November 29, 2006 Peer review Reviewed December 3, 2006 Featured article candidate Promoted Current status: Featured article

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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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Thanks Ajpolino. Graham Beards (talk) 11:16, 5 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

In the article it says that only bacteria and some archea can synthesize Vitamin B12. This is simply not true. Humans can indeed synthesize Vitamin B12, people have been making and selling vitamin supplements for years. --  ApChrKey   ^Talk 11:37, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Don't be daft. We are talking about human physiology – not labs. Graham Beards (talk) 13:15, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And industrial production of B12 is based on fermenting bacteria.Microbial cell factories - Donald Albury 00:39, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is not an improvement.[6] The prose is not FA standard and there is an inaccuracy. The Kingdom is Eubacteria not Bacteria. And, "Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria..." is much better prose than " Being prokaryotic microorganisms, they are typically...". And there is an annoying repetition of "kingdom" (four times in one sentence. We usually discuss edits to Featured Articles on the Talk Page first. --Graham Beards (talk) 10:51, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What, the evolutionary cabal that run Wikipedia lock another page, surely not? Scared of the truth guys?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 36.11.225.34 (talk)

I'll ask whether it is time to un-protect this page. In the meantime, you can request changes to be made to the page using Template:Edit semi-protected. - Donald Albury 14:11, 15 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The article has been protected (autoconfirmed) for a little over ten years. Is it time to try un-protecting it? - Donald Albury 14:11, 15 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Given the comment above, probably not. Graham Beards (talk) 15:41, 15 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

An IP whose first edit is to complain about the cabal gave me pause, but ten years is a long time to keep an article locked. - Donald Albury 18:59, 15 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The nomenclature usage in the article seems confused. This CDC source [7] says:

"Italicize family, genus, species, and variety or subspecies. Begin family and genus with a capital letter. Kingdom, phylum, class, order, and suborder begin with a capital letter but are not italicized. If a generic plural for an organism exists (see Dorland’s), it is neither capitalized nor italicized.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis

family Mycobacteriaceae, order Actinomycetales

mycobacteria

Binary genus-species combinations are always used in the singular. Genus used alone (capitalized and italicized) is usually used in the singular, but it may be used in the plural (not italicized) if it refers to all species within that genus.

Salmonella enterica is…

Salmonellae are ubiquitous…"

I think we should only be using upper case initial letters when we are talking specifically about the family or genus. For example, when referring to Mycobacteria in general we should write mycobacteria. -Graham Beards (talk) 11:31, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Italicize Family? That does not accord with Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Scientific names. - Donald Albury 18:02, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fortunately not many families are mentioned. We only have (not including the citations) Enterobacteriaceae and Hydrogenophilaceae, which are (and have been for a very long time) in italics to worry about. It seems odd that Wikipedia and CDC differ on this. Graham Beards (talk) 18:55, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I got curious about why we do not italicize family names. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Organisms also explicitly says to italicize at the genus level and below. I don't see any obvious discussion of whether families should be italicized in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting. The only discussion of italicizing family names that I found in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Organisms is in the section Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Organisms#Viruses, which was a discussion of when to italicize family and genus names in articles about viruses. A quick Google search for "italicize family names" finds several sites saying to limit italics to genus and below, while some sites say to use italics for families, and, in at least one case, even for higher levels. - Donald Albury 21:30, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Simplify, concise.

Change:

Most bacteria have not been characterised, and only about 27 percent of the bacterial phyla have species that can be grown in the laboratory.

To:

Most bacteria have not been characterised, and only about 27 percent of the bacterial phyla species can be grown in the laboratory. UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 20:45, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, the meanings are different; the suggestion is not accurate. Graham Beards (talk) 21:07, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some concerns - "and only about 27 percent of the bacterial phyla have species that can be grown in the laboratory" in the lead, and doesn't seem to be in the body

• The name "Schizomycetes" only seems to appear in the lead
• "Tuberculosis alone kills about 2 million people per year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa" - also only in lead
• "S-layers have diverse but mostly poorly understood function" - source is from 1997, is this still poorly understood?

There's some more stuff like that, but I'm not seeing any major issues and this does not required FAR, so marking as satisfactory at URFA/2020. Hog Farm _Talk 02:28, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I have added a sentence or two on Schizomycytes to the Classification section. I have deleted the dated sentence about TB in the Lead and I have updated the section on S-layers.

There's still a little more work I want to do on the article, but I think the FA standard is safe.Graham Beards (talk) 09:08, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]