Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Asteroid belt

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 00:48, 7 December 2007.

---

Asteroid belt

I'm nominating this article for featured article because it has completed a peer review and has undergone a great number of improvements since its GA promotion. Serendi^podous 11:25, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

*Comments Just begun reading and the prose looks pretty polished in areas, but there are a few bits which have a few commas and need reorganizing. I'll highlight some below:

Also, in Characteristics, that should be apparent magnitude, not absolute (?). cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:22, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

fixed 13:46, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Para 3 of Largest asteroids is repetitive and clunky. Feel free to add some material if it smooths it out. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I had a go at reducing the choppiness, but finding new material is actually quite difficult. I struggled to find decent info on those asteroids as it was. Serendi^podous 14:00, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I did notice - formed below the Solar System's "snow line" - beyond the snow-line? cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

How about "inside"? Serendi^podous 13:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Sure (so I got the directions wrong)...or 'within'? either is fine. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:44, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Under Formation, the first and last paras discuss similar material and may be better discussed together. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I really don't like that second paragraph; it sticks out like a sore thumb no matter where you put it. I think it might be a good idea to create an article to describe that theory, since it seems a bit fringe at the moment. I've invisotexted it for now. Serendi^podous 13:46, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'm not familiar with the theories so difficult for me to figure sometimes what's 'canon' and what's 'fringe'..cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:32, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Under History of observation it would be better if the last 2 stubby paras are moved to begin discussions on their respective topics (Kirkwood gaps and composition respectively). They stick out currently and are bad flow-wise - leaving the reader hanging a bit. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

fixed 13:46, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Overall, looking pretty good and should pass this nom. There was another few little bits of choppy prose with some long sentences with lots of commas but I can't find it now. Tony's found some stuff which I saw, then missed... I'll be back later. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

• OpposeSupport Much improved, but can you remove the final period from ?seven of the captions—only use f p when a full, formal sentence.

Done. Serendi^podous 07:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

until copy-edited. Get someone new to run through it in great detail. The lead is full of issues, and so is the rest.

• Right at the top, it is SO confusing: "Asteroids, or minor planets, are small celestial bodies composed of rock, ice, and some metal that orbit the Sun. This region is termed the main belt when contrasted with other concentrations of minor planets, since the latter may also be termed asteroid belts." Which region? Other concentrations of minor planets? Huh? Please take care that we know what these terms refer to, and that you've already introduced concepts such as regions, so we know what they're back-linking to. And "con ... con ...".
• You link "gravity", but not "planetesimals". Explain in a short phrase bound by commas?
• Majority of mass. No. "Most of". Two of these.
• Read MOS on final periods in captions.
• Remove "can".
• "Perturbed is linked on second appearance. Change to the first.
• Commas not wonderful. Audit whole article for usage. "The asteroid material is so thinly distributed however, that multiple ..."—Comma before "however" as well, but why not put that word at the start of the sentence so we know your angle? "Together, ...".
• Majority of asteriods—yes, there you can use that word, but do you really want to stress "more than 50%"?
• "Possess" --> "have" (plain English, please). Tony (talk) 00:43, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I think all your stated issues have been dealt with. Serendi^podous 12:51, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comments In this quote:

Neither the appelation of planets, nor that of comets, can with any propriety of language be given to these two stars ... [They] resemble small stars so much as hardly to be distinguished from them. From this, thier asteroidal appearance, if I take my name, and call them Asteroids; reserving for myself however the liberty of changing that name, if another, more expressive of their nature, should occur.

Should thier be changed to their or was it written thier? --Hadseys (talk • contribs) 09:49, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that was my fault. The source text was un-copy-paste-able. Serendi^podous 09:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

• Support. However I have a few comments.

1) While I removed 98.5% statement from the lead, please, remove it from 'Mass' subsection. This statement is confusing.

2) I am not happy how the formation of the asteroid belt is presented. Asteroids are not planetasimals. They are either the product of collisional fragmentation of embryos formed here or they are surviving embryos (protoplanets) themself like Ceres. I will leave this issue for the future, since I am currently studing the formation of Solar System in the view of rewriting some wiki articles about it. I support this nomination because it is still true that asteroids are remnants of the preplanetary material, which have never found their way into the planets.

Ruslik 11:09, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I've added a paragraph explaining the ambiguity. Although I personally agree with you Ruslik, it seems a lot of scientists do not. On the other hand, a lot of scientists do, and this is one of those tiresome "definition things" we have to deal with. The Wiki article on planetesimal linked to a conference at which an informal definition of "planetesimal" was agreed on which included the asteroids, so I've added that link. I've also added a link to an article which treats the asteroids as separte from the planetesimals. Serendi^podous 12:39, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

• comment what is the problem with with footnote #40 Hmains 06:15, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

• Rejoinder—Dealing with all of the examples I raised was not the point: the whole text needs treatment. At random, I found:
  • "The asteroids are not pristine samples of the early Solar System. They have undergone their own considerable evolution since the Solar System's formation,"—Pristine?
    • Pristine is not only the standard term in the field; it is etymologically correct, unusually so for scientific English, for material which is unaltered from the very early (Latin pristinus<priscus<prius) Solar System. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:34, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Sentence starting with "So". (Thus,)
  • "there has not been a significant increase or decrease in"—so much nicer to say "there has been no significant increase or decrease in".
  • "An exception are the high inclination Hungaria asteroids which lie slightly closer to the Sun, and were protected from these disturbances by this high inclination." Spot the four issues? "Exceptions are the high-inclination Hungaria asteroids, which lie slightly closer to the Sun and were protected from these disturbances by this high inclination."
    • Wrong. "An exception is", in all forms of English; but the exception is the cluster, not the individual asteroids. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Before you get too excited about declaring "Wrong", why not reverse the order to make it more comfortable? "The high ... are an exception". Otherwise, it's like "It am I at the door". See Halliday on that. Tony (talk) 02:32, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Needs attention throughout. Tony (talk) 14:26, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

As ever, kudos to Serendip for bringing a core astronomy article to FAC. I have started to go through, from the bottom. The main issue I see are wordy "it is this that" constructions. Comprehensiveness and sources seem excellent. Marskell 16:54, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and do you mind if I introduce the serial comma, Serendip? I've started to but don't have to continue. Marskell 16:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Fine by me. Serendi^podous 17:48, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

• Tim, lots of commas in this kind of formal text, so you may consider using serial commas only to disambiguate; i.e., when there's an adjective before the penultimate item. But up to you. On "it is this that"—it's a thematic equative, which carries the specific meaning = "this is the only thing that". Neat, hey? ("It's eggs I need for breakfast" = I need only eggs for breakfast). But should be rationed to places that need grammatical marking. Now I've finished being a busybody. Tony (talk) 12:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I've been so slow with this. I will say now that I support in terms of comprehensiveness and sourcing. I'll carry on with the language. Serendip, you might want to audit for duplicate blue links. Marskell (talk) 17:50, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Tim. I just removed some of the more flagrant overlinking. Serendi^podous 20:06, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm basically done with the body. Tony is more of a stickler than I am, so he may still have concerns. I subbed pronouns for repeated common nouns ("these asteroids" --> "them") and generally tried to shorten it. Here is a good example. I also don't like sentence initial "however" (though maybe that's just me).

A snake remains at the beginning of History, the sentence beginning "If one began a numerical sequence..." I don't like the use of "one" or the "then 3, then 6" structure, and it's too long; I couldn't figure how to fix it up.

The lead still needs a look. The first three sentences of the second para are past, present simple, present perfect, which doesn't feel right to me. Marskell (talk) 14:08, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I just rewrote the lead. Didn't realise how messy it was. Serendi^podous 16:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I suppose I'm fully supporting then. I appear to disagree with Tony on sentence initial 'however' in reading up. Marskell (talk) 17:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

• Support - I don't feel as confident on prose as some other FACs but it is a very tricky subject to get to flow smoothly and I can see the improvement since last I looked and think it will be hard to do better all things considered.cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:52, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
• Support w/ comments — I admit a certain bias in this regard, but I do think the article is now FA-worthy. Two changes that I would suggest making are:
  • Get rid of the "Mass" section label, leaving the mass discussion to follow the paragraph on asteroid numbers
  • Merge the paragraph that discusses the "snow line" with the final paragraph in the composition section (on comets).

  Thanks.— RJH (talk) 23:44, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Done. Though I think the resultant merged paragraph has more to do with "evolution" than "composition" Thanks. Serendi^podous 07:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

It looks good to me. Thank you. — RJH (talk) 19:10, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.