Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Oxygen

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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 promoted 00:08, 6 February 2008.

[edit] Oxygen

previous FAC (21:43, 27 December 2007) and recent peer review (21 January 2008)
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Co-nomination between mav, Nergaal and WikiProject Elements This article had 26KB of prose before the FA push was started in mid-September. Since then I've added a bit over 20KB of prose and others have added more, making the total prose size 53KB before we moved the excess text to daughter articles (there is now 43KB of prose) and left, what I think, are great summaries here. Since this is a Vital Article covered by 3 different WikiProjects, bringing it to FA quality has been nothing short of a monumental effort that required a great deal of work from many different people. For example, Nergaal has extensively copyedited, cited and reorganized the article and other members of WikiProject Elements and other WikiProjects, especially (in no particular order) Sbharris, Pyrotec, Tameeria, Plantsurfer, Derek.cashman and others have helped bring this article to its current state. I certainly could not have done this alone. So, what else, if anything, is needed to bring this to to FA status? --mav (talk) 00:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

  • I forgot to mention that this article received Good article status in December. I also, of course Support my own nomination this time. --mav (talk) 01:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I found the lead section rather overlinked, & have removed a number of unnecessary links (eg life, energy & teeth). I suspect that a few more could be removed without any loss of information but with a corresponding gain in readability.
I also feel that some of the detail should be dropped from the lead. For example, does the reader really need to be burdened with terms such as obligate anaerobic organisms? Indeed, the sentence However, free oxygen is toxic to obligate anaerobic organisms and was a poisonous waste product for early life on Earth contains a verbose tautology & should perhaps be shortened to However, free oxygen was a poisonous waste product for early life forms on Earth.

I'll post some more general comments when I've had time to read through the rest of the article. My initial impressions are favourable. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 17:38, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions! The lead has been significantly refactored and I think we have addressed your concerns with it. --mav (talk) 04:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
The lead is far better now: condensing 4 paras into 3 was an improvement too. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 09:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment It was only when I read down as far as the section on Allotropes that I discovered that This article is primarily concerned with this allotrope (ie O2). It seems only fair to tell the reader what the article's about by including this fact in the lead —& I've done so in para 3. I've also condensed the aerobic/anaerobic distinction in an attempt to bring out the contrast more strongly: please edit this if it isn't expressed correctly! --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 22:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I removed that statement from the body since this article is about all aspects of oxygen. But since that is the dominant free form, that allotrope does get a lot of coverage in the article. I like your edits, BTW. --mav (talk) 04:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Flattery is no way to get to FA status—but thanks all the same! It's looking good now. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 09:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
It rarely hurts :) --mav (talk) 14:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose - first line: "Oxygen (pronounced /ˈɒksɪdʒən/) is a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas with the chemical symbol O and atomic number 8" is just wrong. Oxygen the element has the chemical symbol of O and atomic number 8, Oxygen gas has a chemical formula of O2 and an RMM of ~32. At different points throughout the article it is unclear whether the element or the gas are being refered to. Guest9999 (talk) 03:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
That's a valid point. We have started to make the distinction more clear when and where it might make a difference. The lead is already much more clear, I think. --mav (talk) 04:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I have changed oxygen into dioxygen where was the case but wasn't clear enough. I also tried to make a clearer disambiguation message at the begining of the article. I hope it is better now, and please try to be specific if you still have problems with this (i.e. list problematic sections). Nergaal (talk) 07:29, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Comment I'm sorry, but I think you've gone overboard on this. I think we just have to live with the fact that in many applications (aviation, diving, even industry) oxygen is the accepted usage: using dioxygen will simply confuse many non-specialist readers. When the cabin of an aircraft is depressurized we expect to see oxygen masks drop down: the last thing the passengers want to hear is that prefix di-!
Perhaps you should establish at the top of the article that, unless otherwise stated, oxygen refers to O2. Usually the context will make it clear which you mean; only when ambiguity might arise should you use dioxygen. Otherwise it simply sounds pedantic. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:21, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I see your point and think that a good compromise is to make sure that the context is set correctly. In many cases that will require replacing dioxygen with oxygen gas if the context of the sentence does not make it clear that we are talking about free oxygen at STP. I see to this after work today. --mav (talk) 14:50, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
OK - pedantic overuse of "dioxygen" is now history. --mav (talk) 02:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
... & the article looks much better as a result! --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 12:23, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - leaving aside the fact that I am also a nominator, I do actually believe that except for minor tweaks this is a great article. A ridiculous amount of work has been put into this article to be both comprehensive and concise, but also well written. Nergaal (talk) 07:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment The heading Anthropogenic production is pretty dreadful: how is the poor reader looking through the TOC meant to guess what it means? Unless this is a standard heading in all chemistry articles, I strongly recommend translating it into English & changing it to something like Industrial production. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 09:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Not all the methods discussed are necessarily industrial. I would just call the section "production". I think it is normally implied in chemistry that "production" refers to (artificial) production by humans. The other "natural" forms or production are usually discussed under headings such as biosynthesis or geological cycles. Besides, "anthropogenic production" is a term that one hears most often in discussions of CO2 and global warming, and may bring the unintended connotation of "pollution", hardly a problem with oxygen! --Itub (talk) 10:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Fine: Hydrogen has Production (with 3 subheadings). --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Support. While there may be some minor changes of wording that could still improve the article a bit, I believe it already meets all the necessary criteria. I congratulate the principal authors because this is one of the most difficult chemical elements to get to FA IMO, due to its ubiquity and the richness of its chemistry. --Itub (talk) 10:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - would it be appropriate to mention anything about Oxygens' role in different types of fuel cell? Guest9999 (talk) 11:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I might be wrong, but I think this comes from the fact that the solutions to the Schrödinger equation have been calculated exactly for hydrogen, while for oxygen is faaar messier. Nergaal (talk) 20:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Minor quibble re. heading "Allotropes". While "allotropes" is technically correct, it's also rather a rather uncommon word. I'd say that "molecular oxygen" or something like that would be easier for most readers, and the subarticle as well as a link to allotrope could follow directly after the heading. If there are good reasons for keeping it the way it is, I'd accept that of course. Kosebamse (talk) 17:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Molecular oxygen would be at least confusing. Forms of molecular oxygen would be too verbose. I am not sure what better options are there, but IMO I think the same could be said about isotopes. Nevertheless, this problem could be solved by being extra-sure that the reader understands the meaning of allotropy from the first sentence in tha section. Nergaal (talk) 20:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
"Forms of molecular oxygen" does not sound awkward to me, and has the advantage of being easily understood as well as factually correct. But as I said, I won't insist.
Otherwise, a very long but well written and interesting article. I have not read all of it but from what I have seen I would support FA. Kosebamse (talk) 22:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
"Forms of molecular oxygen" could be unclear, for example 16O=16O and 16O=17O could be considered to be two different forms of molecular dioxygen. Also is the solid metallic allotrope mentioned actually molecular? Guest9999 (talk) 03:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Metallic substances are not molecular (see metallic bond). Nergaal (talk) 05:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Exactly, so "Forms of molecular oxygen" would be an inaccurate title for a section that includes a metallic alotrope, irrespective of how awkward the wording sounds or how uncommon the scientific (but accurate) title is. Guest9999 (talk) 14:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment There's something slightly alien & Spock-like about the phrase Humans produce oxygen in para 3 of the lead section. Much though I prefer the active voice in general, I think that in this case something like Oxygen is produced industrially ... would be preferable. And do we really need to say Human uses of this oxygen? Why not simply Uses of this oxygen or even just Uses of oxygen? There's no real ambiguity here.
You are right, and your point really made me laugh. The version now gives the same information without bieng Spocky :). As for the intro, you are right. Me and Mav spent a lot of time and edits on it, but it seems we still missed some points. Thanks for the observations. Nergaal (talk) 10:42, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
A fresh pair of eyes is always useful (I've certainly found this to be the case when I've been heavily involved in preparing an article). I'll continue scanning some of the other sections, though I'm certainly no expert on chemistry. I'm just playing devil's advocate & trying to represent the poor ignorant layman ... Good luck! --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 14:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm concentrating on the lead section because of its great importance in setting the tone for the rest of the article—not to mention the fact that many readers aren't going to read much further! --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Done. I've gone ahead with my suggested changes. If you're happy with them I'll strike out the comment above. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:37, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Is it true that Lavoisier also renamed 'azote' to nitrogen? The fact remains that the modern French for nitrogen is still azote. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 14:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
PS According to the French WP article Azote, Lavoisier coined the term azote. Why would he then have gone to the trouble of renaming it nitrogène? (The latter term does exist in French, but it is rarely used.) Could someone please check the source (Cook 1968:500)? Alternatively, you could just drop this sentence, which isn't really relevant in this article. If you do retain the sentence, the French spelling nitrogène should presumably be used. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 14:08, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
PPS A quick Web search suggests that it was not Lavoisier but Jean-Antoine Chaptal who coined the term nitrogène (in 1790). --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 00:17, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I rechecked Cook and sure enough, it does not say that Lavoisier renamed azote to nitrogen. So I removed that statement. --mav (talk) 02:52, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Para 2 states that The common allotrope dioxygen (O2) is produced from water by cyanobacteria, algae and plants during photosynthesis. Shouldn't that be from water and CO2? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 15:15, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
The O2 in photosynthesis really comes from the water. The CO2 ends up in glucose. Of course, CO2 is also required for photosynthesis, so this is a matter of how you read the sentence. --Itub (talk) 15:41, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
You're quite right: I think my attention was wandering when I wrote that! --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 18:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Support I think this is an excellently written article, and I learned quite a bit even though I have already made extensive studies into the properties and history of oxygen. I see no obvious problems. J.delanoygabsadds 18:25, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Several of the citations could be moved to the References section, where they can be listed alphabetically. For example, P Wentworth Jr & his 12 [sic] co-authors; Evans & Claiborne; & several others. The footnotes would then simply read Wentworth et al. (2002) and Evans & Claiborne (2006): much tidier. The fact that some references are only cited once isn't relevant.
This appears to have been done in some cases: eg Daintith (1994) & Cook (1968)—though for some reason Cook's co-author Lauer doesn't get a mention in the footnotes.
  • A separate issue is whether to have a separate section of References for online sources: many articles do this as a matter of course. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 11:55, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Comment Any reaction to my remarks on footnotes & refs above? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 18:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I went through and wikiciteified all book, journal and conference references. That was a hell of a lot of work - this really needs to be automated and I don't think I will do that level of wikicite templating again. --mav (talk) 02:52, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for all your hard work! I'm sure if I hadn't pointed out the need for it, someone else—perhaps with the initials SG, who knows?—would have done so at the last minute. I hope you agree that it looks a lot tidier & more user-friendly now. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 12:23, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
PS ISBNs are missing in 3 book references: Crabtree, Smart & Walker. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 12:32, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Done with the forst 2 but not very sure about the alst one. Nergaal (talk) 08:06, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment This sentence in Occurrence needs to be amplified: The higher solubility of O2 at low temperatures has important implications for ocean life, as polar oceans support a much higher density of life due to their higher dioxygen content. Higher than what? What are these important implications?
In the same section we read it would take at least 5,000 years to strip out more or less all dioxygen. This is very flabby: I'd rewrite it myself if I understood what it meant!
I tried to rewrite both issues. Here is what was their meaning: 1) the O2 is more soluble in water at 5 degrees C than at 25. 2) is photosyntheses were to stop completely, it would take 5000 years for all the oxygen to be consumed assuming organisms could keep up their respirations (which won't happen since for example humans breathe in at 21% and breath out at about 16%, so probably only 16% is deadly for us). Basically 5000=total amound of free dioxigen/annual rate of oxigen being burnt by all the biosphere.
In Anthropogenic Industrial production the text says that the price of liquid dioxygen in 2001 was approximately $0.21/kg. Do we want to include the price from a specific year already receding into the past? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ndsg (talk • contribs) 22:24, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I think it is useful to give the reader a measure of the price. An exact price is not necessary, but something like 5kg per dollar sounds fine.Nergaal (talk) 00:43, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support I've now worked through the article, making the odd change here & there—& learning a lot in the process. I still think that dioxygen could be changed to oxygen in many places (admittedly not in every case!) throughout the article; and my personal preference, expressed above, would be to move most of the detailed citations from Notes to the alphabetical bibliography in References. But the overall standard is definitely FA. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 23:04, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Now that the weekend is upon us I’ll be able to address your remaining concerns about dioxygen and the list of authors. It is a pity that MediaWiki does not automatically generate an alphabetical list of authors. -- mav (talk) 13:29, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
You could try OttoBib, which will generate a biblio from just the ISBNs. It seems, however, to put each item in its own box, so that each one has to be pasted individually—or so it seemed to me when I tried it out. Potentially it looks like a very useful tool. I'd be interested to see if you can get it to work in a useful way. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 13:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Whew - Notes section is much cleaner now. I didn't get around to doing the same for the web references because they change so often and really should be switched with book/journal/conference references. But I won't object to anybody else wikiciteifying those. --mav (talk) 02:52, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment First. I would include a drawing of oxygen with only one bond and two radical electrons to get the wrong picture of the double bond out. I personally would change the wording from simplified in description as a double bond to wrongly or over simplified, because singulet oxygen is a diradical and acts accordingly. Second. The What Lavoisier did indisputably do was to conduct is right for know, but if somebody reads a article from the time of the Franco-Prussian war for example from Kolbe the acchivements of Lavoisier where critizised. (This was in time of war and overboarding nationalism). If this is only my view than the article has my full Support.--Stone (talk) 16:03, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I added over simplified and a mention that the importance of Lavoisier's experiments were not immediately recognized. --mav (talk) 02:52, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Now you have my Support and I wanted to bring a proof of the Lavoisier critics Article from Praktische Chemie 1870--Stone (talk) 11:20, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support—Overall a fine article. The only things I found missing was a density of oxygen in its liquid and solid states, and mention of Oxygen's (forbidden transition) role in Nebulium, as explained by I. S. Bowen.[1][2] But these are minor concerns. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 21:29, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Notes; endashes are needed on page ranges in citations; to avoid correcting them manually, you can ask Brighterorange (talk · contribs) to run a script that will fix them. I also saw some WP:OVERLINKing of common terms (like skin and eyes) that should be addressed throughout. There are also WP:MOS#Captions punctuation problems (see difference between final punctuation on sentence fragments vs. full sentences.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:22, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support Fixed a couple of typos, v good article. Jimfbleak (talk) 11:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Note I've removed a number of unnecessary non-breaking spaces: I think a previous editor was rather too liberal with their use. For example, it's true that 90 million should be typed 90 million; but it seems to me that to write 90 million years ago for 90 million years ago is going to extremes, & leads (indeed, was leading) to some very short lines in the text. And in phrases like 30% per volume there is no need at all for a NBSP (the text previously read 30% per volume).

This confusion may have arisen because in some compounds you do need to extend the NBSPs beyond the first 2 words: eg 12 sq yd needs to be typed 12 sq yd to avoid splitting sq yd. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 14:37, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment In Lavoisier's contribution you state that "Oxygen entered the English language despite opposition by English scientists and the fact that Priestley had priority". Presumably this means "despite the fact that Priestley had called it dephlogisticated air"; but as it stands it looks like a slightly puzzling non sequitur. Needs to be expanded or rewritten. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 15:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - having read through the article carefully a couple of times, I'd say it's ready. Nihiltres{t.l} 17:19, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Two phrases that might be shortened/omitted in the Intro:
  • At standard temperature and pressure two atoms of the element bind .... I know why this expression is used, but it strikes me as a bit jargony for the Intro. Is there some shorthand way of getting the idea across?
  • ... but Priestley is usually given priority because he published his findings first. This point is discussed in the article, but seems a bit too detailed for the Intro: does the reader coming fresh to the subject really need to be informed of nitty-gritty issues of priority at this stage? Consider omitting either the whole clause or the words because he published his findings first. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 21:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.