Talk:Negative resistance/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Lingzhi (talk · contribs) 13:18, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

• "Timely" is a relative word; this review may take weeks. But I hope I can help.
  • Many assertions are backed by multiple cites. No need for that unless the statements are controversial, or if different sources offer some meaningfully different explanation(s) or insight(s). Thinning these would be particularly helpful. In general, keep the most reliable source (of course)... One option that covers cases where multiple cites are needed (see "Most authors[3][20][21][22][23][45][52][53][54][58][73][87][88]") would be to use your Notes section for a single note that lists the sources [In that particular case, even my untrained eye suspects that some of your sources are not among the most cited on the planet, e.g., "Physics Quick Study Guide for Smartphones and Mobile Devices." Trimming some of these would reduce eyestrain/cognitve load.]

    The reason for the mass of sources seems to be to justify the "most authors" claim. This is not a legitimate way of verifying such a claim and amounts to OR, the proper way of doing so would be to present a source saying most authors do it this way. I have avoided the problem by rewording and trimming down to two of the more authoritative sources. Chua, in particular, has great standing in this field and him alone would be enough for most verification purposes. SpinningSpark 15:27, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

@SpinningSpark: Very good catch on labeling that OR, SS. I slipped up a little; I should have realized that myself. Thank you very much for pointing that out. I will always bear that in mind. • Lingzhi♦(talk) 00:46, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Edit looks good, SS. You're right about the sources; I was hoping to find a source saying how "most authors" treat negative absolute resistance. I never found one so I just left the list of example sources I had accumulated in the article. Should have taken it out. --Chetvorno^TALK 23:12, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

• Fix (Hull 1920)

Were you objecting to the cryptic phrasing? Rephrased and cited it.--Chetvorno^TALK 01:52, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Harvard referencing like this is a legitimate form of citation and permitted on Wikipedia, but it should not be mixed in the same article with another style. I am guessing that is the objection here. SpinningSpark 06:32, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the prob was mixing, not use of Harvard. But if you do use Harvard, be prepared for marching minions to try to "fix" your "mistake": case in point

Actually, the original text wasn't meant to be Harvard referencing. "...magnetron (Hull, 1920)" was just a shorthand phrase for "...magnetron, invented by Hull in 1920." When I wrote that I didn't realize how much it resembled a Harvard citation. --Chetvorno^TALK 09:53, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

• Many probs with text wrapping when punctuation follows math formulae. I'vebeen putting nowrap templaes around these, but now I wonder if including the punctuation within the <math></math> would be cleaner and similarly effective...?

  Including within the math tags is a popular method as it keeps the typeface and point size consistent. SpinningSpark 15:30, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

  @SpinningSpark: OK, I tried the method we discussed. Results were not wholly as desired. If I use nowrap templates, everything looks as should be. If I place the punctuation inside math tags, e.g. Thus power sources formally have negative static resistance (<math>\scriptstyle R_\text{static}\;<\;0).</math>[20][21][22][45][52][53][54][55], the punctuation no longer wraps, but the multiple cite numbers do. Thinning those cites down to one or at most two would vastly reduce the probability that the cite would fall precisely at the end of a text line and thus would wrap. However, there still would be that small chance that there would be a single stranded [20] at the beginning of a line somewhere... Your call, but I am leaning toward the nowrap templates. • Lingzhi♦(talk) 01:06, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

  Personally, I tend to avoid attaching refs to display formulae, preferring to place them at the end of the text sentence that led into the formula. However, this would not solve the wrapping issue, a line of refs will wrap wherever they are placed. My preference in articles I write is to use cite bundling, although that can have its own problems, particularly with text-source integrity. By the way, you do know that citation style is not a GA criteria don't you? GA does not even require a consistent style. In any case, what certainly should not be done is the removal of references just to make the layout tidier. Preserving the verification is way more important and that actually is a GA criteria. SpinningSpark 14:17, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

  My qualm about the excessive refs isn't mainly about "tidiness" per se, though I may have expressed it that way. It's about standard academic practices (which is, in turn, about verification). It's about offering precise arguments and evidence. If one cite is clearly strong enough to establish a fact, then attaching 3 or 4 or 5 others simply isn't done. Attaching one or more refs from some weak reference(s) following a far stronger one implicitly suggests that the stronger one is in some way insufficient, which in turn casts doubt on the author's ability to distinguish between the references, which in turn casts doubt on everything the author writes. I'm very sorry if this creates an extra bit of work for Chetvorno. I hate to sound like a broken record, but I almost never go a whole week without linking to meta:eventualism. This is one step in a process that requires patience. The goal here is not to grab a GA and move on to the next article. GA is an intermediate step in a process that takes time. The goal is to work this article up to something near-ish academic standards. On a more personal note, there's very little chance I can bring my understanding of the topic domain up to the point where I can pass GA (or anything else) based on its correctness. I am actually hoping to find some domain expert to take a look to decide whether too much or too little has been said about any given subtopic... All I can do is spot-check various formatting things (I still see more than few things that could be improved; I'll try to list them tomorrow) and spot-check a few facts here and there. If that is unacceptable to you, then I can withdraw from reviewing. Let me know. Thanks. • Lingzhi♦(talk) 15:28, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

  I'm fine with you bringing up issues wich are not strictly part of the GA criteria. I'm not even averse to fixing some of them to just improve the article. Where I would have a problem is if you insisted on failing the article for such a shortcoming if we did not get around to fixing it or just declined to do so. It is unfair to demand in a GA review that an inordinate amount of non-required work is done (and reviewing numerous refs to investigate perceived overreferencing is an inordinate amount of work). SpinningSpark 17:48, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

  @Spinningspark: No way would I fail an article based on something not mentioned in the Criteria, but on the other hand, I also could not personally pass one with this issue. This tension could be resolved in any one of 3 ways: 1) We work as much as we can on all other issues, then in the end I put it on Hold with an explicit note that the only qualm I have is one that is not mentioned in the Criteria; 2) I step aside as a reviewer before that happens, or 3) Someone thins the refs. Chetvorno has suggested that at present he is willing to follow the third option. • Lingzhi♦(talk) 01:48, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

  Although I was hoping to keep them, I don't want to give the appearance of povpushing through CITEOVERKILL, so I will cut back the citations. The reasons I used so many were:

1. I thought certain aspects needed more support. Although negative resistance is not controversial in electrical engineering, it is controversial and baffling to laypeople, as forums [1], [2] and the archives of this Talk page [3], [4], [5] show. In particular many people don't believe there is negative absolute resistance, so I thought that area needed to be widely sourced.
2. Extra refs would give the article a longer "shelf life" before new ones have to be found. In my experience, links to high-tech sources are more subject to linkrot and tend to go dead or become unviewable quickly. I'm finding in the 2 years since I wrote this article, many of the refs have already evaporated. With extra refs we could just delete the dead ones as they die.

But I take your point, Lingzhi, lots of refs don't look good. I'll start picking out the ones to keep. --Chetvorno^TALK 20:37, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

The way to protect against link rot is to archive the page with a service like WebCite. It is free and easy to do so. Here's a link to the archiving form [6]. The cite web template has parameters for dealing with the archive copy. See the archive-url=, archive-date=, and dead-url= parameters in the template documentation. SpinningSpark 00:05, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• "and a device can have negative resistance over only a limited portion of its voltage or current range" Some devices, or all devices? The sentence immediately following this one strongly suggests the latter.• Lingzhi♦(talk) 01:16, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

  Rephrased, see what you think. --Chetvorno^TALK 10:07, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

• "How it works" illustration: "In a positive static resistance, [formula], so v and i have the same sign." It's not clear to me, looking at the illustration, that v and i have the same sign. Could you pls explain the labeling of the illus.? • Lingzhi♦(talk) 02:59, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

  The animation shows positive charges, plusses, entering the top side of the device from the wire (although the moving charges in a circuit are actually electrons which have negative charge, electrical engineering employs the convention that the direction of current is the direction that positive charges would move). On the left, the top wire is labeled with a plus and the bottom with a minus. This indicates the polarity of the voltage v applied. When v has a positive value, the top wire is positive with respect to the bottom. So the animation shows the current entering the positive voltage terminal and exiting the negative voltage terminal. The passive sign convention, in the previous paragraph, specifies that this must be the direction of current in a passive device such as a resistor, in which v and i have the same sign. Maybe you can suggest a better way to say this? --Chetvorno^TALK 10:56, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

• "The physical nature of “negative resistance” remained mysterious, but the lack of theoretical understanding did not prevent engineers from using the effect in their daily practice." Hong p. 165. This is interesting. Did you draw out this point? • Lingzhi♦(talk) 04:15, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
• Speaking of Hong, the Hist section seems to skate somewhat close to reproducing Hong's organization. Forex, Hong steps out of straight chrono order to mention Linvill 1953, as does this article. • Lingzhi♦(talk) 04:40, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
• "A tuned circuit connected" This seems to be one long sentence fragment. It doesn't have a matrix clause (missing the main verb). • Lingzhi♦(talk) 12:04, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
• Is it standard/conventional in similar Physics articles to have "Negative resistance devices" section at the very top, before definitions, explanations, etc.? To me that seems odd, but of course if it is standard format, then it is all good too go...• Lingzhi♦(talk) 12:19, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

  No, it isn't standard. It's probably more common to put a list of types of electronic components after the definitions section. The "Negative resistance devices" section could go there. I think I put it where it is just because there is a nice segue from the statement "...and each type of device has its own negative resistance characteristics, specified by its current–voltage curve." at the end of the "devices" section, into the discussion of current-voltage curves in the "Definitions" section. --Chetvorno^TALK 15:59, 9 July 2015 (UTC)