Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Planet

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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 20:55, 8 February 2008.

[edit] Planet

Check external links

This is a GA-class article and I believe it could become a FA. Comments & suggestions are welcomed. Nergaal (talk) 04:27, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Note: Serendipodous is the user that contribuited extensively (and probably the most) to this article. The Enlightened did contribute a lot in the past. Nergaal (talk) 01:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Article stats:

1. Serendipodous 442
2. Nergaal 239
3. The Enlightened 232
4. Ckatz 137
5. RJHall 74

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:58, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Support. Well written, well referenced, no serious problems as far as I can see. (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 04:47, 27 January 2008 (UTC))
  • Comment: The big thing for me is that the History section begins with the heliocentric era; there is nothing about the planets and how they were perceived in geocentric times. Specifically I would like to find the earliest historical record of a planet's motion; also, I would like to include something about their role in astrology and religion. Serendipodous 13:55, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
While I agree with the geocentric part, I really do not believe that religion and astrology have enough space to be included. The article is allready close to 70k. There is allready a link in the See also section. At most I think there should be a sentence or two right after the contention with regards to the 2006 definition (after the 10th planet statement) as in why did people care about the 9th planet. Nergaal (talk) 20:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Added details about geocentrism and a note about Sumerians.Nergaal (talk) 09:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Support the astronomy articles are always great (except those asteroid ones, of course). Also, Serendipodous, planets in geocentric times is on the Etymology section. igordebraga ≠ 14:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Support. Very well written. Good image as well. Basketballoneten 18:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Serendip. Again, I think we have a situation where someone who hasn't edited the page has brought something forward prematurely. Yes, ancient times is in etymology—but that underscores that the page is not properly rationalized. Basic things, such as excess dabbing, do not seemed to have been checked for. When something as major as this comes to FAC I like to see the "last push" in the history, where minor things have been addressed as much as possible. But I don't see that here. Suggest withdrawing until primary authors are ready. Marskell (talk) 20:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
I did rewrite the titles so it makes more sense. I also went though all the article except for properties and I will do that today-ish.Nergaal (talk) 22:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Tentative Support Oppose—While it's a nice article, it doesn't appear to have gone through the final rigorous cleanup and editing needed to reach FA. Here are a few concerns I had:
In the following sentence, the naming sequence does not appear to follow from the initial remark: "The order of shifts began with Jupiter and worked inwards; as a result, a list of which god had charge of the first hour in each day became Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn..." This needs to be clarified. Done.—RJH (talk)
I read the link and reworded Nergaal (talk) 22:47, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, but the remainder of the paragraph needs work. What is a "fist day"? If it is a typo for "first", does it need an article? What does this mean: "The god that was in started the day gave the name of the day - this is from where the order of the present weekdays comes"? It needs cleaning up and clarification. Done.RJH (talk)
Tried again. How is it now? Nergaal (talk) 23:15, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
This needs a reference: "Since Earth was only generally accepted as a planet in the 17th century, there is no tradition of naming it after a god." Also the Online Etymology reference says the Earth was considered a planet from circa 1400. (Which is correct?) The later citation is also incomplete as it lacks an author, date and publisher.
Done (I think).Nergaal (talk) 22:47, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Nope. Please provide a citation for the statement that "there is no tradition of naming it after a god."
There is a reference for the Earth being accepted as a planet in 17th century. As for naming after god, seriously, if anyone knows which god is that then perfect, otherwise I am not sure this should be referenced (Earth<=earth does the word earth come from a god?).Nergaal (talk) 22:47, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
If this opinion can't be supported by evidence, then perhaps it should be restated? Since the context is the greco-roman naming scheme, it might make sense to limit the statement specifically to just that.—RJH (talk)
found this in the Earth: The name Earth originates from the 8th century Anglo-Saxon word erda, which means ground or soil. In Old English the word became eorthe, then erthe in Middle English.[1] Earth was first used as the name of the planet around 1400.[2] It is the only planet whose name in English is not derived from greco-roman mythology. Nergaal (talk) 22:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
strange, this was allready in the article: the Germanic languages, including English, use a variation of an ancient Germanic word ertho, "ground,"[17] as can be seen in the English Earth, the German Erde, the Dutch Aarde, and the Scandinavian Jorde. Nergaal (talk) 23:20, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Citation #16 (Template:Cite journal PIG) is invalid. Done.—RJH (talk)
It was probably a vandalization.Nergaal (talk) 19:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
This sentence needs a reference: "In Japan, the names of days of the week were calqued by naming them after the elements that corresponded to their European planetary names." Done.—RJH (talk)
I added a link to Days of the week article but that might not be enough. Anybody got a good reference? Nergaal (talk) 22:47, 28 January 2008 (UTC) Deleted it since it was somewhat off-topic. Nergaal (talk) 09:18, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
The paragraph that begins "During the 1800s, astronomers began to realize..." needs work. The initial sentence is empty of context, and only becomes clear after the third sentence. Done.—RJH (talk)
Rewrote it Nergaal (talk) 22:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
"Its closest distance to its is..." missing a word. Done.—RJH (talk)
It was star.Nergaal (talk) 22:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
"Earth's atmosphere is greatly different to the other planets..." seems somewhat awkwardly written and is vague. "The composition of the Earth's atmosphere is different from the other planets..." Done.—RJH (talk)
Took your suggestion. Nergaal (talk) 22:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
The important attribute of a planet's magnetic field is completely missing from the "Physical characteristics" section. Done. Thanks to the editor for the contribution.—RJH (talk) 23:34, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Done? Nergaal (talk) 21:00, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
One more thing... I'm very tempted to suggest moving the "Attributes" section to just after the "Formation" section. Doesn't it make sense to discuss what a planet is before talking about specific examples?
Took your suggestion - although looking back, I am not 10% convinced anymore it should be there. Nergaal (talk) 22:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Not done.—RJH (talk) 21:30, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
? what do you mean?
He means there's no "Magnetosphere" in the "Physical characteristics" section. I've asked someone who knows about these things to have a crack at adding it, so it should be inserted within a few days. Serendipodous 22:45, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually the "not done" was for the organization, rather than the magnetic field. But now I see that I was mistaken; the 'formation' section was moved down to just before the 'attributes' section. That wasn't quite what I had in mind; I would like to see a general discussion of planetary formation and properties before giving specific examples. You now have that reversed. Discussing planetary properties first allows the examples to make more sense.—RJH (talk) 18:55, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
done Serendipodous 18:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Err?—RJH (talk) 23:34, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
However, I enjoyed much of what has been done already by the editors and with some more work this can readily become an FA.—RJH (talk) 17:36, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't really understand etymonline's claim. Perhaps they are referring to Earth as a whole spherical object, as opposed to just "the ground". Earth was certainly not considered a planet in 1400, because no one believed it moved, and in order do be a planet, movement is somewhat mandated; that's what the word "planet" means. Serendipodous 17:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Well that's the only citation in the entire paragraph. So I'd say it needs some shoring up. :-) Thanks.—RJH (talk) 18:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Etymonline's claim seems to be a quick summary of the Oxford English Dictionary's definition 10. a. Considered as a sphere, orb, or planet. The early references for that definition (1400, 1555, 1658) refer to the sphere of the Earth, but not to it as a planet. Culpepper in 1658 is cited for "The Earth is a great lump of dirt rolled up together, and... hanged in the Air." The first reference that implies it's motion (1726) speaks of its aphelion and perihelion and it is only 1854 when the OED finds an explicit statement that "the Earth is a planet."
On other matters, I think the historical names and mythology sections (in all cultures) need to address the mythology and terminology of the Sun and Moon. Someone up on the appropriate cultures need to address that. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:24, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Appropriate links for this will be to Helios/Apollo and Selene, the Greek solar and lunar deities, and Shamash and Sin (mythology), their Mesopotamian equivalents. I can't find the Greek names for the Sun and Moon as planets yet. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Someone is adding "done" comments to someone else's edits. Please do not alter other editors' edits, and please remove. When someone else's comments are altered, the only way for me to know who considers something "done" is to step through the diffs. Per WP:TALK, please don't alter other people's text. An issue is not "done" until the reviewer says it's done; if you want to respond to a review, please thread comments below the reviewer's comments rather than editing the reviewer's comment. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:20, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Please read the WP:FAC instructions regarding graphics. Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. I'll strike my oppose for now, as clearly there is work going on to take it forward. Small note on the etymology: the German Erde and Dutch Aarde, in use for the planet, are obviously cognates with Earth, so I'm suspicious of the claim that it was only used for the planet in 1400. Unless all three languages saw the same denotation shift after they split, you'd have to guess the denotation dates to the common Germanic (Also, Norwegian Jorda and Swedish Jorden.) And it raises an obvious question: what were the Anglo-Saxons calling the sphere from 700 to 1400 AD?
Maybe I misunderstood your question, but wasn't the planet thought to be flat before 1400? If they thought it is flat, then "earth" should be similar to rocks/mud and has an anthagonistic meaning to the words sky or ocean. Nergaal (talk) 11:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
That's a common misconception. The Earth was known to be a sphere as far back as 500 BC. Ptolemy provides empirical evidence for the sphericity of the Earth in his Almagest in 150-odd AD. Whether the Anglo-Saxons knew it was a sphere before then is a different question, since they didn't have access to detailed astronomical knowledge until a long time after their conversion to Christianity in 597 AD. Serendipodous 11:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I know that Greeks new the planet was flat, but this knowledge was lost in the Dark Ages, and popular knowledge and the Catholic Church assumed its flatness. At least the masses must have thought it is flat, and I bed very few scholars actually had an idea about roundness. Giordano Bruno? Flat Earth Nergaal (talk) 11:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, Flat Earth doesn't support that. The English Bede is quoted, amongst others. Marskell (talk) 11:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Anyone have access to the OED? Marskell (talk) 11:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
What for? Nergaal (talk) 16:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
To help answer the question. Marskell (talk) 23:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Mr McClusky cited the OED a few posts up. I don't think it's that relevant here though, because the OED mentions only English citations, while until the 18-19th century most scientific papers would have been in Latin. I haven't read Newton's Principia from cover to cover, but I'm pretty sure it mentions planets, and it was published a long time before 1726 Serendipodous 18:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, he did, sorry; Bede is in Latin, of course. Perhaps someone wants to do a quick read of the Canterbury Tales to see if some reference to the sphere exists :). I didn't mean to bog things down with a pedantic point. Marskell (talk) 23:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

It would be nice if the Greco-Roman info in ancient history could be balanced with more from India and China. Marskell (talk) 10:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment. Maybe it's just me, but I really dislike the floating table of contents, as it messes up the layout IMO. I'd rather have some blank space on the right of the TOC as usual. Regarding the etymological question: I'm not a linguist, but in case anyone cares in Spanish "tierra" means the Earth, dirt, ground, and land. My guess is that using the same word for "the world" and something like dirt must be common in many languages, although it still seems plausible that no one the Earth a planet while the geocentric model dominated, because the Earth was special (despite being round). --Itub (talk) 13:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I removed the floater. It was a bit eye-twisting. Yes, this leaves a gap but it's a lot easier to view. Serendipodous 13:59, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Lots of cleanup needed. There is one quote box that is bolded, and another in italics, see WP:ITALICS, WP:MOSBOLD and WP:MOS#Quotations, quotes should be neither bolded nor in italics. See WP:GTL, ideally see also should be minimized in a comprehensive article, as any other article worth discussing should already be linked within the text of this article and should not be repeated in See also. Can the external links be pruned (see WP:EL, WP:NOT)? There is inconsistent date formatting in External links as well (see WP:MOSDATE); please use one date formatting style throughout the article. The citation formatting needs a good deal of cleanup: there is incorrect use of hyphens instead of endashes on date and page ranges, there are numerous missing publishers (and some of the sources appear to be personal, self-published sites), and there is inconsistent date formatting in citations as well. Here's a sample that is missing a title, publisher and has an unformatted date: Spitzer.caltech.edu Retrieved on 04-25-07 and is possibly a personal website. Within the body of the article, there is a mixture of unspaced and spaced emdashes for punctuation; pls see WP:DASH and use one style consistently. Punctuation on image captions (sentence fragments vs. full sentences) needs attention per WP:MOS#Captions. Of most concern is the lack of publishers and the possible use of non-reliable sources, which is something that should be reviewed; all citations should be completed as in WP:CITE/ES. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Done: quotes formatting; captions punctuation; see also and external links trimmed; went through several of the references; added publishers and formatted the dates of (I think) all the references; all the references use {{citation}} or similar templates. Nergaal (talk) 06:47, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Not done: hyphens instead of endashes? WP:DASH? Not sure what they mean, nor why are they acually required (besides esthetics). Help anyone? Nergaal (talk) 07:02, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Done: I think that I've caught all of the en-dashes. I've also taking the liberty of replacing un-spaced em-dashes with spaced en-dashes: the latter is more common in British scientific literature, and the article uses British English. Bluap (talk) 01:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
There are still unidentified publishers and personal, self-published websites used. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:45, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Also, what makes space.com a reliable source? I can't determine authorship, ownership, factchecking, any kind of oversight. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
except for the video, references that do not have publisher have instead work. so this is not enough? Space.com while not referenced looks interesting. As for self-published websites I am not sure what to to about it since a lot of that stuff would require lots of hours for finding more official sites. Nergaal (talk) 05:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I've replaced a few of the self-published references with proper refs and tagged a few more as needing to be verified or (more likely) replaced. It will take some time. I'll try to work on it in the next few days, but may or may not get to it. All of the citations on the article for space.com are authored, dated news stories; looks reliable to me. (Ought this discussion be moved to the article talk page? These seem like substantial enough issues that we shouldn't be clogging up the FAC page.) Ashill (talk) 16:48, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Gibor Basri is a professor of astronomy at Berkeley. I'm not sure what makes him an unreliable source. Ditto an astronomer from the Harvard Center for Astrophysics. nineplanets.org is a page often cited by scientists. Why is it unreliable? Serendipodous 17:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I tracked down better sources using the article by the CfA astronomer. However, in doing so, I found that one of the statements allegedly referencing that work isn't in there, and I haven't heard it before: "After initial observations led to the belief [Pluto] was larger than Earth, the recently-created IAU accepted the object as a planet." Is there a source for that statement? I tagged it as citation needed. Ashill (talk) 01:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
A person isn't a source at all; it's the fact that it's a self-published web site that makes it unreliable. A book, journal paper, or other published writing by him would certainly be reliable; I'll try to find a relevant one tonight if someone doesn't find one first. (WP:SPS.) Nineplanets.org is sort of OK, but I think a more permanently published source would be better. Ashill (talk) 17:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
From the about us link on space.com, Imaginova Corp. is the owner. Ashill (talk) 16:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
No, the discussion shouldn't be moved; WP:V is a core policy, and discussion of reliability of sources in a featured article is critical. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
For example the statement

Several projects have also been proposed to create an array of space telescopes to search for extrasolar planets with masses comparable to the Earth. These include the proposed NASA's Kepler Mission, Terrestrial Planet Finder, and Space Interferometry Mission programs, the ESA's Darwin, and the CNES' PEGASE.[59]

is referenced by space.com. Why in this case space.com is not a reliable source? Proposals cannot be referenced by sites such as space.com? Nergaal (talk) 00:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
IMO space.com is a reputable-enough source for the claims for which it is being cited. It is being cited four times; two are news stories about the reception of the "Pluto decision" and one is an interview. I don't think space.com is less reliable than the average newspaper when it comes to these (it has named authors and a media company behind it, so it's not like citing a random Geocities fan page). Only in one case I think that adding a more "scientific" reference might be helpful ("However, recent analysis of the objects has determined that their masses are each greater than 13 Jupiter-masses, making the pair brown dwarfs.[68])". --Itub (talk) 13:00, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree that Space.com is reputable for the statements it's cited for. I checked on the statement about the brown dwarfs; that is stated in the journal article about the system as well as in the Space.com article. I moved the journal citation to make that clear, but left the Space.com article so that there's a public audience-level citation as well. Ashill (talk) 13:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Ref 21 may now be irrelevant, because it was intended to reference discussion of the apparent 5/7-planet split found in ancient sources. Unfortunately all reference to that split has been removed from this article. However, it has led to the article claiming that Ptolemy said there were seven planets, which is flatly wrong. Given the article's current makeup, however, I don't see how to fix this. Serendipodous 08:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Noticed a big hole in this article. There is no mention of the planets' motions as observed from Earth; no mention of diurnal motion, apparent retrograde motion or the varying motions of each planet relative to the fixed stars. Serendipodous 08:50, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps. But those topics are related to any Sun-orbiting objects as seen from the Earth, including asteroids. The subjects may need to be covered on the orbit page first (which they aren't right now).—RJH (talk) 18:05, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Still categorized as needing cleanup and having unsourced statements; is work progressing on that? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:59, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes. Those are the unreliable sources, which are being whittled away, and a statement that was uncovered as unsourced in looking at an unreliable source. Ashill (talk) 17:26, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I think that all the unreliable sources and unreferenced statements I've found are cleaned up now.
Cautionary tale in doing so: I found a number of statements (particularly in the discussion of extrasolar planets) taken from recent press releases which were put out by the press offices of authors of Science and Nature papers. Of course, Science and Nature papers tend to be about surprising, new results, and the press offices tend to pick out the most surprising points from these papers (even when the point is downplayed by the authors themselves). We need to exercise caution in pulling those statements out of the press releases and resulting news stories because they tend to be not well-settled — they shouldn't be presented as pure fact. Of course, that's hard in a rapidly-developing, brand new field like extrasolar planets. Ashill (talk) 19:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I believe this is not an issue anymore. Nergaal (talk) 08:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • This will not hold up the FAC, but it's an irritating little thing that should eventually be fixed. There is a mixture of citation methods used, causing a bolding issue. The cite templates no longer bold volume number on journals (removed from WP:MOSBOLD), while apparently the citation template still does (grrrr ... ). Since this article mixes templates (I suggest getting away from the citation template, and using the cite templates), some of the journals are bolded in citations, while others aren't. Irritating, but a product of people fiddling with these templates. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:58, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I've been using the citation template, not cite, because it allows Harvard citations, should they be useful. Is there an advantage of the cite template, other than the formatting? I placed a request on the citation template talk page to be consistent with cite journal, but no one's replied or changed the template, and I don't feel comfortable changing it. Ashill (talk) 22:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Citation template does not display doi numbers which are way more important than Harvard citations. Nergaal (talk) 07:50, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
It's not a matter of one being better than the other. Although all of the inconsistencies were cleaned up a few days ago, because of the mixture of citation methods, the article is back to inconsistent date formatting in citations, with hyphens on page ranges again rather than endashes. The issue is that citation handles things like date formatting and PDFs differently than cite templates, so you have inconsistency in citation formatting (2c). I left sample edits. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:21, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
page ranges have no more hyphens and I switched almost everything into cite templates. There should be more consistency now. ps: why isn't there a bot dealing with the hyphens in the page ranges? Nergaal (talk) 08:49, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
That was answered here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:45, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
A similar lack of standardization of formatting of author name (some have last name first, some first name first, some separated by commas, some by semi-colons, some with ampersands, and so on). Partially caused by different citation methods, partially different editors I suppose. A consistent citation style should be used throughout. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I went through almost all refs and I tried to set up the "last, first; next" format. I might have skipped a few though. Nergaal (talk) 08:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Again, this won't hold up the FAC, but the inconsistency in citation formatting still exists (see 2c, which calls for a consistent citation style). The author names are all over the map. Some use commas, some colons, some have punctuation after the date, some before, some use ampersands instead of commas, some use more than one of all of the above within the same citation. For a sample of how to consistently set up clean author citations, see autism or Asperger syndrome. Using the cite templates correctly, they have:
  • Smith AB, Jones BC, Williams DE (2000).
Clean puncutation, standardization of names, consistent, final punctuation after the date. Just an idea for future work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:38, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I've chosen the format that seems most common on this page and tried to apply it consistently. I'm using the format that you get if you give the last= and first= parameters to the cite/citation templates (they actually agree on this point!), using a period and a space for multiple initials. Depending on whether the first name or middle initial is available
  • Hill, Alex S.; Coauthor, Jane D. (2008).
  • Hill, A. S.; Coauthor, J. D. (2008).
  • Hill, Alex; Coauthor, Jane (2008).
Ashill (talk) 17:27, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • This has been under review for 2 weeks now. So what other comments need to be solved, or what is it still missing? Nergaal (talk) 08:58, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • As of yesterday, it had cleanup tags still. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:38, 8 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.