Talk:Mensa (constellation)

Mensa (constellation) 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 December 29, 2018.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
May 18, 2018	Good article nominee	Listed
November 13, 2018	Featured article candidate	Promoted

Current status: Featured article

Request

Cas; can you make this clearer: "Lacaille labelled eleven stars with Bayer designations Alpha through to Lambda (excluding Kappa)." Ceoil (talk) 09:12, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Is this better? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:18, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Mensa (constellation)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: AhmadLX (talk · contribs) 13:09, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I will be reviewing this--AhmadLX (talk) 13:09, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	~~History~~ "..often covered in cloud.." maybe "clouds"? "Hence he made a "table" in the sky under the clouds." I don't get what this means. "..Lacaille himself had abbreviated his constellations thus on occasion." Which occasion? Maybe this means "occasionally"? Where does mesa come in from? Is "Tafelberg" name of this particular mountain in Cape Town? "—the explorer Bartolomeu.." maybe ". Explorer Bartlomeu"? ~~In my view almost all sections need significant copy editing. Please have a detailed look. Thank you :)~~ Fixed myself. Now good overall.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Lead okay, layout perfect, free of other things.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	Well referenced.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	Source [5] says that it is visible (fully) from 5N-90S. Lead says "essentially unobservable from the Northern Hemisphere". Also, article (also source) notes that it's partially visible in range 20N-5N. Given that, is "essentially unobservable from NH" okay? Distance value of star Alpha Men could not be verified from source [11] as paper doesn't mention the star itself and the link to the 'New Catalogue' is dead. So, there is no way to verify claims for which this source was added. There is no easier way to verify that star in ref [13] with properties mentioned in the article is actually Alpha Men, as paper doesn't mention the name. HIP number is given and then one has check that in SIMBAD if it is Alpha Men. ~~RA values differ in infobox (4h-7.5h) and characteristics (3.2h-7.5h)?~~ All journal articles on stars give either HIP numbers or HD numbers. For the sake of verifiability, I would suggest that these numbers should be mentioned with stars or at least simbad links to all stars be given in a separate section below refs (as is done in article on Andromeda (constellation)). I have seen many articles on stars which do without it, but if somebody wants to verify the claims and if they are new to the filed, they are doomed. I won't hold Pass on this, but it should be done nevertheless.
	2c. it contains no original research.	Everything based on reliable sources. Only routine calculations (e.g. distance from parallax). So okay.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	No violations found with Earwigs, url comparison, and manual checking of some sources.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	*~~Is there a reason that NGC 1987 is not mentioned in Deep Sky Objects?~~ although there are stars which can be mentioned, but aren't much notable and finding sources for them would also be problem. Also they are trivia: so good for GA.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	Well focused.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	Not subject to bias in the first place, due to nature of the topic.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	No warring.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	All images licensed properly.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Just an extra thing: may be this image will be an add to text in regard of LMC thing; it is not clear in either of the images already present. Just an opinion :-/
	7. Overall assessment.	Meets criteria after some work has been done.

Regarding observability statement, I made it align more closely thus Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:43, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have made some changes in Lead. Please check for grammar and unintended changes in meaning. thanks--AhmadLX (talk) 13:52, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

the changes are ok Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:06, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the image suggested, I am in two minds...are we worried that it is a little too similar to the infobox image and hence makes the article a bit repetitive? If not a concern, I am happy to add. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:47, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you are right. But since license of IAU chart is CC BY 3.0, so I was thinking that may be labeling of LMC and connecting 4 brightest stars in that image should do the job. But again, this is only a subjective opinion, so it should do without as well.--AhmadLX (talk) 13:52, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I hadn't added NGC 1987 as one of the guidebooks dismissed all the open clusters as non-notable, but I can add Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:50, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We have a Wikipedia article on it, so in my opinion it is notable enough to be included.--AhmadLX (talk) 13:52, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

added something on NGC 1987 now Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:38, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the distance of Alpha Mensae, one has to go to the online data page of the paper and enter the hipparcos number. This yields the parallax which yields the distance. I've never had to make it explicit before. It is very frustrating that many astronomy papers only use obscure identifiers for stars. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:50, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, true. They have large data sets that they publish elsewhere on the internet and sometimes links provided to those pages don't even work. May be something like this should be helpful. --AhmadLX (talk) 13:52, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The link you have there is pretty much the same as if you click on the bibcode. And both of those have a link to online data. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:09, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bibcode thing took 4 subsequent clicks to get here (one more required, and here too we have strange numbering with no common name of the object), while the link took one click to get here (here we have the common name): in general, SIMBAD links are better than VizieR links (for our purpose) and journal articles give latter :D AhmadLX (talk) 14:24, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, I didn't scroll down the first time nor see the whole list! I have learnt something today and am thankful. That changes things alot and is a good thing to add. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:01, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Something's gone wrong here...van Leeuwen is only showing 14 objects (?!) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:18, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is a bit weird. If you go to individual star pages they report parallaxes from this study, but catalog shows only 14 :-/. I have tried to fix this by attaching a note to ref, explaining briefly how these values are obtained. You may ave a look.--AhmadLX (talk) 18:49, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The footnote is helpful I think. Any reason why 3300 and not 3260? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:44, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Because our pc/ly conversion template uses 3.3. But I've changed it to 3.26.AhmadLX (talk) 21:30, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

regarding "..often covered in cloud..", personally I see it as a collective noun, but also see the normal usage so changed to "clouds".

the "table" in the sky under the clouds is/are the stars that form the asterism of Mensa under the LMC, just like the terrestrial table mountain under cloud here.

I changed "..Lacaille himself had abbreviated his constellations thus on occasion." to ""..Lacaille himself had abbreviated some of his constellations.""

"Tafelberg" is Table Mountain's name in Afrikaans.

"explorer" is not an official rank so should be lower case.

"Mesa" is merely a flat-topped mountain - hence it refers to the flat topped bit in the middle in this sense.

I find astronomy articles can be challenging to get the wording right due to some complex concepts. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:07, 18 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I aligned the inforbox to the text Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:09, 18 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Surely the term 'South Celestial Hemisphere' in the lede should not have initial caps. Lots of other spurious capitalization in various related articles too. Needs some kind person to clean it up. Skeptic2 (talk) 10:20, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sinbad the Sailor

"Another myth relating to its dangers comes from Sinbad the Sailor, an Arabic folk hero who saw it as a magnet pulling his ships to the bottom of the sea," says the text, referencing a book by Julias Staal. Does anyone have any idea how Sinbad might have known about Table Mountain or, for that matter, magnetism? This sounds like another of Staal's dodgy 'myths' for which he is the only source. Unless anyone can find an independent and reliable authority, I propose to delete this sentence. Skeptic2 (talk) 11:32, 30 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Fair point. Delete away. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:12, 30 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Thanks for the support. Skeptic2 (talk) 14:15, 30 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Skeptic2: it's funny, it didn't seem so far-fetched when I scanned it the first time but when you point it out, umm...yeah, anyway gone now. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:14, 30 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]