Talk:Ceres (dwarf planet)

Who approves of US missions?

The paragraph ending "Other missions to the asteroid belt were proposed in the 1980s by France, Germany, Italy, and the United States, but none were approved" reads as if the European Space Agency has dibs on missions to this place. I suspect that if the United States or rather someone in the United States were proposing a mission it would be NASA or Congress that was the decider. ϢereSpielChequers 14:44, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Fixed I think. I can't check the soruce, since it's a book, but I assume that's what was meant. Serendi^podous 15:59, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, that works for me. ϢereSpielChequers 16:52, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I suspect that will get deleted during copy-editing, as it's completely redundant. "Other missions" can't be read to mean "the same mission". — kwami (talk) 22:05, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Wow. And there I was thinking you were going to say something constructive. Speaking of, what's the point of that graph? The selection of comparative objects seems completely random. Serendi^podous 23:39, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

No need to be hostile. It probably will be deleted some day, because people are going to think, "of course, who else would approve of the missions?", just as the title of this thread states. It's even confusing, because the reader is going to wonder why we would say something so superfluous -- surely we meant something by it, but it's not clear what that could be. Then when they realize it doesn't mean anything, they'll delete it to clean up the article.

The selection of objects is those closest to Ceres in mass. If it were random, they wouldn't be comparable -- either they would be invisible or Ceres would. Orcus we mention in the text. — kwami (talk) 00:14, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

What's the point of comparing Ceres to a group of objects of similar mass? Surely the point of such visual comparisons is to show differences, not similarities. The real question is, given that no one outside of astronomy nut-dom has a clue what those names mean, shouldn't we use more familiar objects? As for hostility, well as it happens the guy you just said was too stupid to understand something so obvious as who would launch a space mission is a friend of mine. So yeah. Not happy. Serendi^podous 01:16, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I never said anything of the sort. You really do seem to search for things to be offended about. What I said was stupid was claiming that 33% is a "quarter". That is stupid, and if you're offended by that, too bad. As for the above, I wasn't criticizing the objection, but the awkward fix.

What's the point of comparing Ceres to other DPs? We do that in the text. In fact, you were adamant about doing that to the point of inaccuracy. What's the point of comparing it to other asteroids? We do that in the text. Personally, knowing that Ceres is about the size of Dione or Ariel, rather smaller than Charon, and midway between Orcus and Quaoar among DPs gives me a better feel for the Solar system than just a raw number for its mass. If you want to show differences, fine and good: what did you have in mind? — kwami (talk) 03:54, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree with kwami that it's redundant. But I guess, if someone has wondered about what it means already, then it's better that it's redundant than slightly confusing.

I like the comparison of Ceres to the largest asteroids, but I think that there should be a few more, not just the big five, or at least a sector for "all other asteroids". Otherwise it looks a bit weird to have that pie-slice that looks like it's more like two-thirds than one-third.

The comparison to similarly-sized round objects seems quite nice to me too; it makes me understand about how big these things are. Admittedly this is because I have a feel for the planemo moons' sizes already, so maybe that's a case of "astronomy nut-dom". But outside that, what's better? Size of the Earth? That's not exactly a comparison in similar scales anymore. Size of the Moon? Better but still not much? Size of Pluto? Judging by how it's often depicted on solar system posters as comparable to Mercury (combined with Jupiter and Saturn failing to look as overwhelming as they should), I suspect the average person has a pretty wrong idea of what that is. Although at least that seems like a more reasonable comparison, of Ceres to the other DPs. Double sharp (talk) 15:27, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I was leery of adding many more, because their masses are so uncertain. For these five, we're pretty sure that's the order they go in. But after that, any new estimate is likely to scramble the order. I agree that having them as a %age of the whole belt would be useful, even if we only have a very crude estimate for it. That's what we currently have at asteroid#Largest asteroids. That chart's already badly dated, so I should probably replace it. — kwami (talk) 23:25, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Updated values

JPL's small body database has orbit parameter updates to a new reference epoch 2000001 1 Ceres (A801 AA) epoch=2022-01-21.0 e=0.0785 a=2.76 q=2.549 i=10.59 om=80.27 w=73.64 ma=291.38. 112.119.158.212 (talk) 07:42, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Updated. Little diff at 3 sig fig except for mean anomaly. — kwami (talk) 00:15, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Multiple entries saying that this is an "Asteroid"

On the NASA website this is stated as NOT being an asteroid. Yes, it is in the asteroid belt, but it a dwarf planet. PAGE: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/dwarf-planets/ceres/overview/ (look at No.4 on list). I believe NASA should be considered a very valid authority. NASA tends to defer to other agencies/ organisations as well. If no one objects I can go through and remove references implying it is an asteroid. If someone beats me to it then fine. EDIT: I have now found there is a large archive... Look the issue is that there is contradiction. It is either a dwarf planet or asteroid! It says in the opening paragraph, so any further refs are indeed contradictions (asteroid). 92.238.237.65 (talk) 03:46, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

I object. Numerous objects fit multiple categories. -- Kheider (talk) 06:40, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. "Asteroid" has no formal definition. BTW, I'd like to know where they got their estimate of the mass of the asteroid belt from, that Ceres is 25%. (I assume that's spurious precision for a quarter.) — kwami (talk) 21:29, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

In general parlance, Ceres is both a DP and an asteroid. There is no formal definition of "asteroid", so no chance for a contradiction in that sphere either. Double sharp (talk) 15:11, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Boulders

Re "Their maximum age is calculated to be 150 million years" calculated sounds precise, I'm not sure what method was used - an explanation or a link to that would be great, but given that geologists don't have a sample of those boulders to test, I'm wondering if calculated is more accurate than estimated. ϢereSpielChequers 10:51, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

ENGVAR

In 2010 this article was written in British English (Harbour, vapour, colour). Was there a consensus to change it to US English? John (talk) 19:32, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

The 2007 FA version also had these spellings. "Honour" as well. I wish people wouldn't do this. John (talk) 21:36, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

"Do this" suggests someone actively changed something. More likely people just wrote the way they write, and if the result is a mix of Oxford and Cambridge spelling, or whatever, who cares? It's not like readers are even going to notice the difference. — kwami (talk) 21:46, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Well, we have MOS:RETAIN which recommends not doing this. It isn't "Oxford and Cambridge spelling, or whatever," but UK English being replaced by US English. WP:ENGVAR is there for those of us who care. John (talk) 21:54, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Again, you're talking about someone "doing this". Do you have any reason to think that's the case? — kwami (talk) 22:50, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Regardless, the article was originally written in American English, so we should RETAIN that, even if someone done changed it in the meantime. — kwami (talk) 23:09, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Really? When was that? John (talk) 09:20, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

2002. Just click on "oldest" in the history. — kwami (talk) 18:21, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

BTW, I tentatively reverted your copy edit. Am I missing something? Or is it just that the meaning is so obvious from context that it's best to make an exception and not hyphenate? — kwami (talk) 23:29, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

That's fine. Let's sort out the ENGVAR matter, then we can do the other copyedits. John (talk) 09:20, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

There should not be a mix of Oxford and Cambridge spellings. That would be unprofessional and un-encyclopedic. I don't care what it is but there should be consistency. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:27, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, whatever its original spelling, it's in American English now. I can't find any examples of British spelling. So, let it be. Serendi^podous 20:22, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Policy suggests otherwise. John (talk) 21:25, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Policy depends on what we have here. If it was changed gradually to American English, and been mostly stable in that rendition, policy states "When an English variety's consistent usage has been established in an article, maintain it in the absence of consensus to the contrary." Otherwise we don't use the first variety that article was made with in the beginning... we use the first "non-stub" version of the article. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:50, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't get it. If it changed (gradually or purposefully) from US to RP (at least for a few words?) and then back to US, why wouldn't we leave it? — kwami (talk) 22:16, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

I can't see where it was ever written in American English in a non-stub revision. I see things like "kilometer" but I also see "catalogue" in the really early versions. But when it first passed FA, the peer-reviewed version used UK English spelling (RP is something different). It's a long-standing practice in our project not to switch versions of English in an article this way without good reason. This is embodied in the Manual of Style, but it's also just obvious good manners to the previous editors who wrote in their own version of English. Sometimes there might be good reason to change, but I'm not seeing it here, and "people just wrote the way they write" isn't great when we are in a FAR, where MoS compliance is one of the criteria. John (talk) 23:15, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I was looking at the initial stub.

It's unreasonable to expect people to write in an orthography that's not their own just because that's how the preceding editor wrote. If I tried writing in British English, it would probably look like a spoof. If an article is supposed to be in a particular orthography, a Wikignome can fix it. Failing that, the editor who expanded the article in the first place should have it on their watch list, and keep it in a consistent orthography as others edit it. If they don't, then it evidently isn't an issue for them, and the article's going to evolve in the direction of its later editors. That's different than someone coming along and intentionally changing the orthography. — kwami (talk) 00:42, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

That makes sense. Unfortunately, unless this is resolved, I don't think the article can be a Featured article again. MoS compliance is one of the criteria. How do we best resolve this? John (talk) 07:03, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Why would you say something like that? It can't be FA because it's in the wrong orthography? Change it to British if you like, I don't care. But that has nothing to do with FA. — kwami (talk) 08:16, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

When the article hit 6kB, it was no longer a stub, and at that time was in a mix of British and American orthography. Therefore per RETAIN the article should remain with mixed orthography. — kwami (talk) 08:25, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

I swapped it out. Can we put this to rest now? Serendi^podous 09:04, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

It hardly matters, but I just noticed that when it first passed FA, it was written in a mix of British and American orthography. Evidently the FA reviewers didn't care about such trivia either. — kwami (talk) 16:27, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Nice work, Serendipodous. Kwamikagami, not that it matters, but where do you see American spellings in the 2007 version? I assure you that the criteria definitely included decent writing back then, and decent writing includes (at a very basic level) consistent spelling. John (talk) 22:46, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

The date formats were American at first, later mixed American and British. It appears to have passed FA that way. — kwami (talk) 22:53, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't feel a couple editors should arbitrarily change the article to British English only so I've started an RFC to gain consensus. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:11, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Date formats and spelling are two different things. Date formats were still controlled by linking in 2007 so it was less of a thing. Is there any evidence that the spelling was ever in the American style in any post stub version prior to the recent work? John (talk)•

"The 2007 FA version" was 15 years ago, how this fact is even relevant for current state of the article?! If people use different spelling now, just let it be so, it should be the most simple and logical solution. Artem.G (talk) 18:09, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Shall this article be deemed American English or British English only?

As the discussion above illustrated, there are reasonable reasons for using either English variant in the article. It appears to have started in American English (semimajor rather than semi-major), when more than a stub it may have been both American and British English (hard to tell), and when first nominated as a good article it looks to be a mix (colour but neighborhood) with American dates. When it made "good article" it was still a mix of usage and dates. When it made featured article it was still a mixture of styles plus it had American dates. It went through years of demotions. In 2021 it was relisted as a good article... American English but British dates. That has stayed ever since, until yesterday. Having both styles in one article is messy for an encyclopedia so we should settle on one type and use it throughout. Yesterday someone changed it all to British English and today someone added the template "British English Only." This is a level 4 vital article and a former featured article; current and past good article. There should be consensus before adding such a permanent template to this article so I'm attempting it here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:07, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

• American English only
• British English only
• Use both styles in the article (This would be against Wikipedia's MOS:CONSISTENT)

Survey

• I started the RFC and I'm totally flexible on what we use so long as it has consensus. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:07, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

• BrE. i) I don't think this requires an RFC. It could have been resolved on this talk page. ii) the RFC introduction acknowledges that there are good reasons for either AmE or BrE, then only lists the reasons in favour of AmE, which is not neutral. iii) I don't think it particularly matters, iv) there are no obvious national ties per MOS:TIES and v) the oldest version I can find which uses a specific variant of English in the text (as opposed to wikicode or links) is [1] in August 2004. That used the BrE spelling 'catalogue'. So unless I missed an earlier diff, MOS:RETAIN means the article should be in BrE. Modest Genius ^talk 15:05, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

  What reasons did I give to use either? I simply checked key milestones and reported what I found. And "catalogue" is part of a proper name so of course it used that spelling. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:28, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

• Unified English and ISO dates. — kwami (talk) 23:56, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
• MOS:RETAIN pertains to the first non-stub version of an article. Back in the day dates were linked and auto-formatted to taste, so date format does not imply English format, and indeed NASA, for example, uses dmy format in its books. Language and date formatting do not require an RfC but can be changed for an individual article based on local consensus on the talk page. In this case there are no obvious national ties per MOS:TIES so I would recommend sticking with DMY dates. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:07, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
• British English, per Modest Genius. I do not see the relevance of semi-major v semimajor. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 23:10, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

  Semimajor is the American spelling. The usage of a hyphen is British. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:27, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

  According to which RS? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 08:18, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

• British English, per Modest Genius. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:15, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

• British English, per Modest Genius. John (talk) 20:31, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

I don't yet see evidence that the article was started in American English. Can you provide such evidence? John (talk) 23:19, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

You mean like the very first entry where the editor used an American English date format? Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:27, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

No, I mean spelling. Date formats are not spelling and were less important back then. It would be a shame to have an RfC based on a false premise. John (talk) 23:35, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

It is important but also we have the use of "semimajor axis" in the second edit which is usually the American English variety as opposed to the British "semi-major axis." I don't think there is any doubt it was done in American English to start. But it really doesn't matter as it was a stub at that time. It may also have been only American English when it was first more than a stub... but it's hard to tell. I did tweak the wording to say it "appears" as opposed to ironclad. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:38, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

It's not that hard to tell. You just have to go back and find a nonstub revision that was written predominantly in American English. This would evidence the assertion in the RfC. Otherwise, what's the point of the RfC? John (talk) 06:35, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

It is hard to tell. If it's extra easy you find it instead of nit-picking. There are hundreds of non-stub versions where I'm searching for British spellings vs American spellings. The point of an RFC is to get many editors from space and science to come to a consensus agreement. That's all I'm trying to do. I read the above discussion and wrote the RFC based on what I found myself, and if it doesn't satisfy you then !vote for status quo mixed. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:58, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

It isn't nit-picking to ask you to provide evidence for the assertion you made in your statement above. If you are unable to provide any evidence, but still want to have an RfC, I will consider this as a borderline WP:POINT activity, especially alongside your (equally false, or at least unevidenced) assertion that the current status quo is "mixed". It is not, and cannot be. Why on earth would anyone !vote for that, or recommend someone else to? Another problem is that you have not clearly stated in your RfC whether you are talking about spelling (my concern) or date formats (which has not been raised as a concern). I think you need to rethink the whole thing. The article was stable and peer-reviewed in 2007 using UK English spelling, so RETAIN tells us to leave it in that spelling. The solution was to follow RETAIN. There is no need to have a malformed RfC based on false premises to solve this. John (talk) 09:12, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Goodness gracious. I gave evidence that you seem to ignore. The status quo is mixed as far as words and dates. The most recent long term status quo is a mix of American English words and British dates. What we see right this second is not the status quo, it was just not reverted. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:05, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

My last effort to resolve this here. "For any given article, the choice of date format and the choice of national variety of English (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Strong national ties to a topic) are independent issues." The US military, for example, uses day-month-year dates, and so we are recommended to use this date format on US military-related articles, although they would use American English spellings. If you want to go off on a tangent about dates, have at it, but I am concerned with spelling. I have seen no evidence presented here that spelling (never mind dates) was ever standardised on US English on a non-stub version of this article until the recent work. On the other hand, there is lots of evidence that the 2007 FA version was written in British English. Therefore, per RETAIN, it should have been retained in this spelling, in the absence of strong national ties (nope) or a strong consensus to change it (don't see that either). It seems wholly straightforward to me and not worth the effort of an RfC when we already have a very clear policy in place to cover cases like this. John (talk) 16:20, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

If we go by Retain. it should then be retained as American English since the first non-stub version was American English. And the last time it passed a good article it was not in British English. I should also point out that this came about because someone unilaterally just changed this article to British English. If nothing happens with this consensus building it goes back to American English. Fyunck(click) (talk) 02:20, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

This version is in British English (catalogue, not catalog). It does not seem like a stub to me. Is there an earlier version in US English? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 23:01, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I now see that Modest Genius has already made this same point. I concur. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 23:07, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

The thing is, even in American English that catalog tends to be called "Mayer's zodiacal catalogue" or "Catalogue of Zodiacal Stars." It a proper name. And throughout all those edits it was using semimajor rather than semi-major. The first thing I can see that isn't a link or proper names is in the 24 August 2006 update when space authorities update the definition of a planet. American English "neighborhood" is used. We have to really dig in and search to find these things because it isn't obvious which to use. The last time it made "Good Article" it was American English, and when it made Good and Featured prior it was a mixture. Basing a decision on any of these past items is probably a mistake as there was never anything set in stone. That's why I was hoping that a whole heap of wiki space editors could come up with a newer reason and consensus for one version or the other. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:42, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

But what reason could there possibly be to prefer one over the other? And why not Ozzie? The only reason for preference would be whichever orthography the article was originally written in, which it appears we can't agree on. I mean, if we can't even tell the difference, how important can it be? If we want a later reason, then I suppose we could go with the Dawn mission sources, which are presumably largely in American English. But the article was already well developed by the time of Dawn. — kwami (talk) 08:51, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

What I propose is that whoever contributes to the article writes however they choose. And the rest of us leave it alone and stop quibbling over trivia. I mean, if it reached GA and FA as a mixture of orthographies, that's evidently good enough. — kwami (talk) 08:53, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

No. An inconsistent article is a crappy article. EEng's proposal is better. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 10:22, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

• Would there be anything wrong, since all the parties seem friendly and cooperative and no violence has yet broken out on this trivial matter, with y'all saving further time investment by agreeing to have a neutral and utterly (I assure you) disinterested party (me) flip a coin and tell y'all the result? Heads = Br, Tails = Am. OK? EEng 23:12, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

  I support EEng's excellent - if somewhat unconventional - proposal. If his coin flip yields Tails I pledge to reverse my preference to US English. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 23:30, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

  Apparently you and I are the only sensible ones here. EEng 20:25, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

  In case it is unclear to others, EEng is an honourable editor and his proposal is a serious one. He and I often disagree on substance, but I respect him because he edits with the highest ethical standards. If he says he would flip a coin, he would, and I trust him to report the result fairly. I contend there is no better way to resolve this dispute. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 10:48, 24 September 2022 (UTC)