Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Perseus (constellation)/archive1

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

The article was not promoted by User:Ian Rose 08:33, 22 August 2013 [1].

Perseus (constellation)[edit]

Nominator(s): StringTheory11 (t • c) 18:52, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe that it meets the FA criteria. From the peer review that was just archived, people seem to think that it is ready for an FAC. StringTheory11 (t • c) 18:52, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - while I do believe that this article is generally good and could become a featured article, there are some sections of prose that need to be fixed:
    • Second paragraph of lede begins with "Its brightest star", which doesn't look too good. Please replace with something like "The brightest star in Perseus is..."
    • the annual Perseids meteor shower, one of the most prominent should become simply the prominent annual Perseids meteor shower.
      • I disagree with this change. While there is nothing specifically wrong with the proposed replacement, we lose the information that the Perseids is one of the most prominent meteor showers in the sky, not just your run-of-the-mill meteor shower. I've reworded it slightly to fix the word-sense ambiguity present, however. StringTheory11 (t • c) 22:57, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well that's okay. I'm perfectly fine with what you've done. Wer900 • talk 01:21, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • T'ien-tchouen, translated as the "Celestial Boat", was the third paranatellon of the third house of the White Tiger of the West. It represented the boats that Chinese people were reminded to build in case of a catastrophic flood season. Tsi-choui, translated as the "Swollen Waters", was the fourth paranatellon of the third house of the White Tiger of the West. It represented the potential of unusually high floods during the beginning of the flood season, which commenced at the end of August and beginning of September. Ta-ling, translated as the "Great Trench", was the fifth paranatellon of the third house of the White Tiger of the West. It represented the trenches where criminals executed en masse in August were interred. The pile of corpses prior to their interment was represented by Tsi-chi (Algol), the sixth paranatellon of the third house of the White Tiger.[3] This section is pretty choppy; some sections should be combined and there is no need to keep repeating the "third house of the White Tiger of the West."
    • The Double Cluster, h and χ Persei, had special significance in Chinese astronomy. Please add "also" before "had special significance."
    • The section heading "Characteristics" could be replaced with something stronger.
      • If we do this, I would rather we discuss this at WT:AST, as this is something that would need to be changed across a large number of constellation articles for consistency. StringTheory11 (t • c) 22:57, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Okay, then, we can keep "characteristics" as it's a good catch-all for the general information found in that section. Wer900 • talk 01:21, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • The "Notable features" section does not, by my reckoning, appear to need any major change.Wer900 • talk 20:22, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Update - upon a closer reading of this section, I found some errors:
        • IC 348 is a somewhat young open cluster that still contains its nebulosity. I understood what this means, though it's a bit confusing and incorrect. How is it possible to "contain nebulosity"?
        • an object with a maximum mass of 6 times that of Jupiter and an orbital separation of 3.3 Astronomical Units.[43]; please make astronomical units lowercase.
        • ; at a redshift of 0.0179, it is the closest major cluster to Earth. Please link redshift as it is a concept many of our non-astronomer readers will not readily comprehend.
      • Once you've fixed the errors I mentioned, as well as others that other reviewers may identify, I'd be happy to support. Wer900 • talk 01:21, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support upon completion of image review.

Image review

  • Captions that aren't complete sentences shouldn't end in periods
  • File:Perseusurania.jpg: attributed author is an en-wiki user, but they are only the uploader, not the original author, and the upload date is not the date of creation/publication. (Both details are in the description link, just need to be changed in the template)

Note also that there are some HarvErrors that should be fixed before a source review. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:14, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've removed the {{sfn}} templates; no matter how hard I try to learn them, they always confuse me, so I've just switched them to plain text, which should work, I think. StringTheory11 (t • c) 21:32, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support (morally or otherwise as sometime tinkerer of the article) - I've done some editing on this over time and watched it improve. Only thing remaining is that it might be better to list when the September Perseid were discovered rather than just use "recently" - otherwise looking good on comprehensiveness and prose. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:44, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Thank you for addressing my concerns. The article appears to satisfy the FA criteria so I'm providing my support for promotion. Good work. Praemonitus (talk) 20:57, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: It's a decent article and close to FA. I made a few edits and have some concerns that I'd like to see addressed:
  • The entry "Main stars 6, 22" in the infobox should be clarified in the article; possibly in the Characteristics section.
  • The sentence "Many brown dwarfs have been discovered in this cluster due to its age" needs clarification. A reader might assume from this that brown dwarfs evaporate, for instance.
  • The first use of "arc-second" and "galaxy cluster" needs to be linked.
  • "...well known for its low-star formation": what's a 'low-star'? It probably should read "low star formation", but why is this a reason to be well-known?
  • "...produces massive bubbles which surround the galaxy with its jets of material": This doesn't quite make sense to me. Is it trying to say: "...produces jets of material that surround the galaxy with massive bubbles"?
  • There are a few issues with the citations:
    • Why doesn't Dinwiddie (2005) have an ISBN?
    • Why does White et al (1982) list Astrophysical Journal twice?
    • The first use of SIMBAD should be wikilinked.
    • The author list for Levesque et al (2005) is inconsistent with the other journal citations.
    • For Mikolajewska (1992), why don't the initials for Kenyon appear?
    • 'Gary W. Kronk' is inconsistent with the other author entries.

Otherwise I'm ready to support. Thank you. Praemonitus (talk) 16:32, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source review by Sasata (talk) 18:50, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • ref#1: author, accessdate?
  • titles are not consistently in title or sentence case
  • ref#6: "et al" should be "et al.", but more importantly, the author given (Dinwiddie) does not match that given by WorldCat (Rees). If only a chapter in this book was used, it should be formatted as such (i.e. fill out the "title", "chapter", "editor-last" parameters). Also, this book is written for a "juvenile audience"; does it qualify as a high-quality reliable source?
    • Removed as redundant; the next ref also gives the information, it seems. Consider this Done. StringTheory11 (t • c) 21:02, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • ref#9: page #?
    • Hmm, the ref was in here before I started work on this article, and I don't have access to the book. If anyone has access to it, I would be grateful for help. StringTheory11 (t • c) 21:02, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I did a Google Books search and it appears the cited information is on pages 60–61. Sasata (talk) 19:13, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Done. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:36, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • refs#24, 32, 39, 40, 57: issue?
  • There's no need to give the full publication date for journal articles, only the year is required (if you insist on the full date, ensure it's given consistently throughout)
  • please give full page ranges for journal articles
    • Appears to already be done. Could you point me to some specific examples? StringTheory11 (t • c) 02:56, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
ref#27 gives page 1254, when the actual page range is 1254–1257; ref#31 gives page 349, when it's actually 349–376; see also refs#39, 41, 42, etc. Sasata (talk) 19:09, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think I've done all of them now. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:36, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • ref#24: fix "comparaison"; issue# ?; it's redundant to give both the doi and the bibcode if they lead to the same place (check throughout article for other instances)
  • ref#29: et al. not italicized (unlike previous instance)
    • All are all not italicized (it appears that the templates automatically uses et al with more than 8 authors). Consider this Done. StringTheory11 (t • c) 21:02, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • ref#33: missing a grapheme in the name Krtička and an a-acute in Kubát. (Similar issues with "Mikołajewska", ref#39 and Jørgensen, ref #57). Why does this article not have a volume, issue and page#'s?
    • Diacritics Done, but there does not appear to be a volume, issue, or pages associated with this, strangely. Could somebody else look into this? StringTheory11 (t • c) 21:02, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, I can't find this info either, so nevermind. Sasata (talk) 19:09, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • ref#39: shouldn't link to an abstract unless you use {{subscription required}} template. Probably best to unlink (or better yet, link to the fulltext here), and add the doi (10.1086/116085)
  • ref#44: page #'s?; journal name should be italicized
    • I've replaced the ref as I had trouble finding it, so Done. StringTheory11 (t • c) 21:18, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • ref#50: Spitzer is italicized according to source; add missing space; use endash rather than hyphen for number range
  • ref#52: ISBN missing hyphenation (unlike most other examples). You might consider converting all of the isbn-10s to the recommended isbn-13s (there's a tool here)
    • ISBN removed. I don't know where the bot got that from, so Done. StringTheory11 (t • c) 21:18, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • refs#58, 59, 61: publisher should be Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
  • ref#62: this is the only book source that gives the publisher location
  • ref#63: fix formatting of authorlink; should update 4-year-old accessdate (ensure source still supports cited text)
  • author format in "Further reading" section slightly different than previous (use of "and"); could this source just be used in the article somewhere?
I tweaked a few more; the reference like fine now. Here's a few nitpicky comments from a quick readthrough of the article:
  • "It is a great target for astrophotographers." doesn't sound like neutral encyclopedic language
  • "Due to its low surface brightness, it is a very difficult object when observed visually." Difficult in what way? Perhaps ", it is difficult to observe visually."
  • "The September Epsilon Perseids are a recently discovered meteor shower" should avoid the use of the datable word "recently" and maybe just give the year of discovery instead
  • please check article for duplicate links like open cluster, Double Cluster, NGC 1275, IC 348
  • link Greek mythology, Chinese constellations, X-ray, accretion disc, spectrum, symbiotic binary, megaparsec; is there an appropriate link for Shapley class?; Gorgon should be linked earlier
  • T'ien-tchouen, Tsi-choui,Ta-ling, Tsi-chi, His and Ho should be italicized as they are non-English
  • "third brightest star" should be hyphenated
  • "that they are distorted into egg-shapes." should not be hypenated
  • "An interesting member is X Persei" shouldn't tell the reader what is interesting, per NPOV
  • "it is too dim to seen even on the best nights." What is "best"? Do you mean "clearest"?
  • "It is one of the more massive stars, with a mass between 26 and 32 solar masses." repetition
  • the abbreviation "ly" is used but never defined (and is used inconsistently–sometimes spelled out, sometimes not); conversions to pc are inconsistently given
  • "These classifications indicate that they are both quite rich; NGC 869 is the richer of the pair." what does rich mean in this context?
  • "M34 can be resolved even with good eyesight"
  • "and peaking in activity being between August 9" fix

Oppose - the prose is not to FA standard. Here are some examples:

  • "a double star with one component being in between an O-type giant and a B-type main sequence star, and the other component being a neutron star". Fused participle and bad phrasing
  • "with the brightest (SU Persei) only being of magnitude 7.9" Fused participle
  • "An interesting member is X Persei," Non-encyclopedic tone
  • "In this system, one component is likely a black hole" Poor grammar
  • "and peaking in activity being between August 9 and 14 each year" Poor grammar

*Ref 62 is missing a page number(s)

    • Again, I do not have access to this book, as it only has a snippet view on Google Books and this reference was in the article before I started work on it. Any help is appreciated. StringTheory11 (t • c) 23:09, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I spotted these after a cursory reading. I think a thorough copyedit is needed. Graham Colm (talk) 21:55, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've requested a copyedit at the GOCE. StringTheory11 (t • c) 23:11, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments

  • Here, "It is 92.8 light-years (ly) from Earth" - I can't see where the abbreviation for light years is used again.
  • There's a fused participle here, "with SU Persei (the brightest of the three) having an apparent magnitude of only 7.9,[37] making it visible through binoculars." How about The stars are not visible to the naked eye; SU Persei (the brightest of the three) has an apparent magnitude of only 7.9, but it is visible through binoculars.
  • Can we fix the close repetition here "...in this case a red giant. The red giant is transferring..."?
  • This is confusing, "The system is one of the few eclipsing binary symbiotic binaries." binary binaries?
  • With regard to the missing page numbers in (now) reference 64 (about the the sound waves), if the page numbers cannot be found why not use this NASA source instead [2]. Graham Colm (talk) 05:01, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - Hi, I'm working on the requested copyedit and have a couple thoughts you may want to consider. The History and Mythology section is a little thin, I would love to see more detail of the Andromeda myth and, if possible, the Babylonian associations. I think this paper or this paper would be good resources to check out. Also, Ian Ridpath gives details of which stars were in each of the Chinese constellations in Star Tales. I might not have time to SOFIXIT this weekend (conference), but if you want me to add some of that I'd be happy to. :) Great work here! Keilana|Parlez ici 18:55, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry it's taken awhile to do this; I just saw it and I'll get to it tomorrow. StringTheory11 (t • c) 06:10, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think the Greek section is good now, but I have literally no knowledge of Chinese or Babylonian mythology, so it might be better if somebody else does that. StringTheory11 (t • c) 19:21, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Apparently someone said that bibcodes shouldn't be present on this article. I don't know what the logic behind that rationale is, but it can't be very well thought out. Bibcodes are the most useful astronomical identifiers, and give links to the ADSABS database. Omitting them from the article introduces a big flaw, and greatly reduces the value of the references given. Bibcodes need to stay, otherwise this article does not meet the standards for FAs.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:19, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've removed the DOIs and inserted the bibcodes instead. The problem was that there was the preference that each reference should only have one external link to the article, and we had both the bibcode and DOI, so I removed the bibcodes, but I'll reinsert them and remove the DOIs instead. StringTheory11 (t • c) 18:55, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Hmm, on closer examination, it appears that the bibcodes take us to a different place (although still the same article) than the DOIs. Therefore, I'm leaving both in the article unless somebody says otherwise. StringTheory11 (t • c) 18:58, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from hamiltonstone[edit]

Oppose at present, just on the issue of the section on chinese astronomy. I have done some further hunting on this. The current sole source for these paras is classed as "juvenile non-fiction". I used google scholar to find a couple of serious texts on chinese astronomy, and hit upon Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient China: The 'Zhou Bi Suan Jing' By Christopher Cullen, and The Chinese Sky During the Han: Constellating Stars and Society edited by Xiaochun Sun, Jacob Kistemaker. I tried to do word searches of both of these on the various constellation names (both chinese and in English) that are referred to in the article text, and came up with nothing. This is on top of fiinding no obvious correlation between the constellations / legends reported in this article, and the contellation names etc in the articles that are cited in the WP article on chinese astronomy. This paragraph needs to be redone based on some reputable sources. I am happy to support if this can be fixed - the rest looks OK. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:31, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I currently don't have access to a library to look for book sources on this, but if you want, I can look for some in early September, when I should next have library access. I'll hunt around on Google and Google Scholar a bit too; I'll hopefully find some stuff within the next week. StringTheory11 (t • c) 18:15, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Prose issues (since resolved):

  • "East (the cardinal direction)..." what is the point here? Other directions are not cardinal? I didn't understand this.
  • "In the sky, Perseus is near Andromeda, Cepheus, Andromeda's mother Cassiopeia, Cetus, and Pegasus." Sounds clumsy. Also, are these things all constellations? Are any of them stars? Can't tell.
  • "Four Chinese constellations existed in the area of the sky now assigned to Perseus". Nobody owns the sky: on what basis does it say that the Chinese constellations no longer exist? "assigned" sounds a little strange too.
  • Given that there is no article on paranatellons, the term is going to have to be explained briefly.
    • Isn't that the purpose of redlinks; to point to articles that need to be started? I don't see the issue here. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:31, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, but the reader still needs to be able to understand this article. Without a brief concept of what a paranatellon is, this passage isn't readily comprehended. That would actually still be true even if there was an article on p's. Suggest a phrase be added to give the reader something to work with. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:30, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Actually, I had a look at the chinese astronomy article, two of the sources cited for it, and googled it, and I'm now not happy with this paragraph. None of the sources I read used "paranatellon" at all, they referred to mansions or lunar lodges / lodges; and the names / characters etc assoicated with the constellations did not appear to be those referred to in the current article. I am now not confident that the Staal source is high quality. Suggest editors do a bit of reading and re-frame this para. hamiltonstone (talk) 05:31, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Pinging @Keilana:, who seems to know a lot about chinese astronomy and has added most of the section. StringTheory11 (t • c) 15:31, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • Hi. I'm at Wikimania and therefore don't have access to my Chinese sources (yes, I realize that's funny as I am in Hong Kong) but paranatellons are the same as lunar mansions, as far as I know. As for the reliability of Staal, most of what he says is corroborated in other sources and I find him to be fairly reliable. If there's a specific statement sourced there that you have issues with, I have access to plenty of alternative sources we could try. What statements are you concerned about? Keilana|Parlez ici 01:29, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Mirfak has a luminosity of 5,000 times the sun and diameter of 42 times that of our sun" needs rephrasing.

Maybe "Mirfak has 5,000 times the luminosity and 42 times the diameter of the sun"?

  • "of another moving group of bright blue-white giant and supergiant stars" Moving group???
  • "Once thought to be a member,[26] Omicron Persei..." A member of what?
  • "They are so close to each other that they are distorted into egg shapes." Would probably delete this factoid. If you don't want to delete it, then the para needs a copyedit to avoid the repetition of the phrase "each other" in consecutive sentences.
    • I think the new wording should work, so Done. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:31, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "...the system is thought to lie too far to belong to the Zeta Persei group". This needs reworking. I sort of understand, but the "too far" needs a subject. Too far from what? Presumably from the star/s that definitely form the Zeta Persei group, but it isn't well expressed.
  • The whole thing about GK Persei is a bit odd. There seems too much detail for events that occurred over a century ago. The passage concludes "It faded to 13th magnitude around 30 years after its peak brightness". That would have been circa 1930. What is its magnitude now? At such incredible faintness, this would make it one of thousands of stars within the field of the constellation. Should it really be singled out? I'm not sure.
    • The reason it's interesting is for how bright it got; magnitude 0.2 is incredibly bright. I've trimmed out a little of it, so Done. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:31, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is some variation in the expression of magnitudes, sometimes with no decimal places, sometimes one decimal place and sometimes two. I don't know if this is an issue or not. The one place I found it odd was in describing the magnitude of a galaxy to two decimal places, which as a lay person I found slightly counterintuitive - a high level of precision for something that is an object made up of many light sources.
    • I personally don't see the issue here. I'm just reporting the values given by the sources here. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:31, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's about it. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:40, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate comment -- This has been open almost two months and I need to know where we're at re. the outstanding oppose. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:43, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose Not happy with the quality of the prose, sorry, as I can see String has made a great effort to promote this, especially on such a tricky subject. I think it has a lot of short sentences and random statements which lacks the polish of an FA, especially on such a scientific topic. I think it still needs a copyedit to rid of a lot of the snappy sentences and to improve the flow.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:08, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that these articles are extremely tricky to get right...and the bigger ones are the worst...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:16, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It does look a very difficult article to write, largely because it is an account of observation through a lens unlike worldly topics. I was initially uncertain as to whether or not it was scientifically as comprehensive as it could be but in fairness given its extreme size and how very little man really knows about it, it's likely fine. I'd like to see the article flow better though before I'm ready to support for FA.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:45, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we're certainly no closer to consensus to promote than when last I checked here, so I'm going to archive this and ask that further work take place outside FAC. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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