User talk:185.70.188.154

December 2020

Hello, I'm Samf4u. I wanted to let you know that I reverted one of your recent contributions—specifically this edit to Fine-structure constant—because it did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you have any questions, you can ask for assistance at the Help desk. Thanks. Samf4u (talk) 14:39, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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Just to clarify, there were three issues with your edit. The first (minor) problem is that you got the typography wrong; if the decimal places were wanted, they should have gone inside the {{sfrac}} template to produce ⁠1137.035999206⁠ and not ⁠1137⁠.035999206. The second, more important problem is that the text already deliberately used a rounded approximate value, and adding decimal places was not an improvement. The third problem is the most complex: that the specific value you inserted was a very recent measurement. The agreed "official" 2018 CODATA value is the average of many past measurements and the most reliable value from a WP:SECONDARY source. While the new measurement is an important contribution, it does not simply supersede the past measurements. Per both the Wikipedia:Reliable sources policy and standard scientific practice, a newly published WP:PRIMARY source like this is subject to review and discussion before being accepted. The description in the text of the article is quite prominent enough.

Those doing WP:Original research in the field who need the last few decimal places are quite aware of the new measurement and can assign their own weight to it. For less specialist audiences, Wikipedia will stick to the consensus value until a new consensus has formed.

Thank you for what was by all appearances a good faith attempt to improve Wikipedia; there are just some editorial subtleties in the process. 64.44.80.252 (talk) 21:11, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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