Talk:Dyson sphere

Dyson sphere around white dwarfs

"This type would avoid the need for artificial gravity technology, in contrast to the AU-scale Dyson Spheres. In fact, we show that parameters can be found to build Dyson Spheres suitable —temperature- and gravity-wise— for human habitation. This type would be much harder to detect." from: http://phys.org/news/2015-03-idea-dyson-sphere.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.101.62.159 (talk • contribs) 16:46, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

@Luizpuodzius:

Querendo traduzir é só dar um toque. Att

Good article reassessment

Dyson sphere

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found

Result: Problems with OR, and plagiarism, and general sourcing issues. Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:01, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

This article was promoted back in 2007 upon its second nomination. Even then, the promotion was controversial because of perceived issues with the sourcing. Looking at this today, there are major sourcing issues, some of which I have highlighted by adding maintenance templates to the article. Large portions of the article are unsourced. Several references are to sources that do not appear to be reliable. Spotchecking sources reveals both material failing verification and plagiarism. The article consists to a large extent of WP:Original research by way of editorial WP:Synthesis, where sources are used to verify the underlying factual basis for the assertions made in the article (rather than verifying the assertions themselves) in a manner one would expect to find in an essay, rather than being cited in context and on topic as WP:NOR mandates. TompaDompa (talk) 23:23, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

In its present form this article falls far short of GA requirements. Much of the original research and synthesis, especially in the Variants section, is unlikely to be sourceable to anything reliable, and I'd suggest stripping all that out as a first step. Much of the rest (scientific rather than fictional/speculative) looks better, and there might just possibly be enough of that to save the article. Before things are removed wholesale - does anyone think the tagged material is at all sourceable? MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:05, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Some parts almost certainly are sourceable. I expect that the article would fail the broadness criterion if all the dubious material were removed (in fact, it might already do so). I agree that removing it would be a good first step, but I don't think it would be sufficient to meet the criteria. TompaDompa (talk) 16:22, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Star Trek

P Aculeius (and others): Do any sources on the topic of this article—Dyson spheres—discuss the Star Trek episode? See WP:PROPORTION: An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. (other ways of explaining the same concept in the context of fiction-related articles can be found at MOS:POPCULT and the essays WP:CARGO and WP:IPCV). "On the subject" is key here; It is not sufficient for sources on Star Trek (or that specific episode) to mention it. TompaDompa (talk) 13:24, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

You have clearly become a gatekeeper for this article, having deleted the same mention on previous occasions for various reasons. This is clearly a notable occurrence; the preceding paragraph mentions some relatively obscure novels that, with all page views combined, don't have half the views of the article about this one episode of Star Trek. It's the only example cited in the section that actually contains a three-dimensional, visual depiction of a Dyson sphere; all of the others are "mentions" or appearances in novels. The fact that Freeman Dyson himself watched and commented on the episode would seem to place its notability in reference to the concept beyond question. So it utterly baffles me that you're complaining—within minutes of the paragraph being re-added, with multiple citations to reliable, verifiable sources, since that was your reason for deleting it when someone else mentioned it in the past—that doing so now is giving undue weight to the source simply because television is popular culture! I'd love to see what other experienced editors have to say about this, because this complaint is really over-the-top! P Aculeius (talk) 13:36, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

The visual depiction of a Dyson Sphere in this particular Star Trek TNG episode is one of the more notable references in fiction to the subject of the article. I appreciate that on Wikipedia there can be a lot of shoehorning 'popular culture references' into articles where it doesn't belong. In this case where the topic is a conceptual object which hasn't had too many fictional depictions it seems entirely appropriate however. That said, the sourcing could be improved. In particular there shouldn't be a cite to Wikipedia, that's a circular reference. ChiZeroOne (talk) 13:56, 20 March 2024 (UTC)