Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ununoctium

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 01:51, 21 January 2008.

Ununoctium[edit]

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I have worked for some time to this article and spent a lot of time finding everything is known in the research literature about this element. The article is a GA, and I believe it is well written, well formatted, well referenced, and broad enough for the FA criterias. The article has also passed through a peer review recently. Any comments, thoughts, suggestions would be welcome. Thanks. Nergaal (talk) 08:44, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I think the article contains some speculation presented as fact. For example:

Done "Ununoctium, like all noble gases except helium, has a "full" (eight electron) valence (outermost) electron shell (also called closed shell), thus making it a highly unreactive element". If there have only been 3 atoms ever synthesised, and the t_½ < 1 ms, how could it be known to be highly unreactive. Expected, yes, but not known.
Done ~~Sentence about bond length, compared with radon dimer, can be read as saying an actual sample of Uuo₂ has been studied, whereas results are from theoretical investigations.~~

Also, the compounds and use section needs correction of grammar and expression:

Done ~~"No compounds of ununoctium have been synthesized yet, and if the ionization energy will be high enough, ..." - maybe "is found to be high enough"?~~
Done "For the fluorinated compounds UuoF₂ and UuoF₄ an increase in stability of the +2 and +4 oxidation states it was calculated, which is ..." - maybe "has been calculated", or maybe even 'predicted', as neither compound has actually been made.
Done ~~"Unlike the other noble gases, ununoctium was predicted to electronegative enough to form a bond with chlorine (Uuo-Cl)" - maybe "is predicted to be sufficiently electronegative to"~~

Other concerning parts:

Done The statement "Moreover, it has been calculated that ununoctium exhibits electron affinity." seems strange to me. Electron affinity is the energy change for the one-electron oxidation of the 1- anion of an element - so every element has an electron affinity. Is this saying it is expected to have a positive EA, or a negative EA, or ...?

negative electron affinity would be the same thing as saying that it does not have/exhibit electron affinity (but it repulses it). so from a scientific point of view, having "positive electron affinity" is slightly redundant. nevertheless, I agree that it is more clear with the psoitive adjective in frontNergaal (talk) 20:27, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done The statement "Ununoctium is a noble gas because all its electrons are in a closed shell." is also problematic - it is expected to be condensed at RT, and not liquid. Maybe "belongs to group 18 as all ... shell" and then a comment about the group often being referred to as the noble gases, but recognising this may change if a non-gaseous element is added. I'm also uncomfortable with all electrons in a "closed shell" - just because it has 7s²7p⁶, for example, doesn't mean that there is no 7d sub-shell, and thus that shell 7 is closed.EdChem (talk) 13:50, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

the closed shell and valence electron artcles should explain why ns²np⁶ is actually a closed shell. also by your way of thinking, 7s²7p⁶7d¹⁰ would also not be a what would be commonly thought as a 'closed shell' - since it would not include the f, g, h and i orbitals that come with the 7th shell.Nergaal (talk) 21:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

~~Almost~~ support. The article is much improved since I reviewed it for GA, and I'm happy to see that the predicted properties now refer to the scientific literature rather than to websites that don't say where they got their data.
- - Done My only concern is that the wording could be improved in some places, such as in the properties section (I took the liberty to try to improve the first paragraph a bit, I hope it helped). I noticed some superlatives and expressions that don't sound appropriate to an encyclopedic article, such as "enormous" and "it is difficult to argue". I then noticed that these are the same expressions used by the source (J. Phys. Chem. A 109, 3493). I suggest either rewording to a more sober tone, or attributing the wording explicitly to the author of the paper that is referenced. I prefer the former.

- - Done I would also remove the "reputedly" from the lead; if the new discovery is ever retracted or a heavier element is recognized, we can amend the article, but I see no need to use such a "defensive" language.

- - Done The discovery section says that there was a single detected event of the synthesis of an atom of this element, yet later it says that the decay of three atoms was detected. On first reading this sounds confusing, I don't know if it could be made clearer in some way. I'm assuming it means that at least two more atoms were made but only detected after they decayed?

- - Done ~~Finally, I noticed that the figure in the infobox has the wrong number of neutrons; it has the number corresponding to the isotope that was retracted, not the one that was discovered later.~~ --Itub (talk) 10:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

~~I am not sure how to solve this problem since I did not create the image. Anyways, it is possible that 293 would be one of the more stable isotope, and therefore might not be such a big problem.~~ Nergaal (talk) 04:38, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support Oppose for now.
- - Done ~~The lead doesn't summarize the article. There is nothing about compounds or decay, for example.~~
  - Rewrote the intro. Is it ok now? Nergaal (talk) 08:34, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Done ~~Multiple first use of units are unlinked. E.g. "g·mol⁻¹" and "cm⁻³". There is also some overlinking of units, such as "K", "kJ·mol⁻¹" and "kJ/mol" (one form should be used).~~
    - Solved the consistency problem, but the overlinking is due to the use of {{Elementbox}} (I am not sure if changing this would be a good idea since it would affect half of all the elements).Nergaal (talk) 04:38, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - The Phase entry in the infobox has some extraneous square brackets at the end.
  - Done The discussion of the element's "half-life" and "decay" should first clearly explain that this element is radiactive and perhaps add a little about why this is so. I don't think the image caption is sufficient.
  - Done This jargon needs to be explained: "closed valence shell", "p-block element", "energetic destabilization and radial expansion of its occupied 7p3/2 spinor shell", "positive electron affinity", "quantum electrodynamical", "+2 and +4 oxidation states", many parts of the third paragraph in the "Compounds and uses" section, &c.
    - I inserted explanations and/or links for these terms. Is it ok now? Nergaal (talk) 06:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      - Close enough. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 16:22, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Done ~~The non-existant category needs to be established or removed.~~
  ~~Sorry.~~—RJH (talk) 22:22, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support Excellent article with great citations and an astonishing amount of information considering how little is known about this element. Not to mention the fact that only 3 atoms of it have ever been created. Also, I modified the picture to reflect the fact that the only currently synthesized isotope has 176 neutrons. (see comment on the image's commons page .) Thingg ^⊕^⊗ 19:02, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the image! Nergaal (talk) 07:58, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support - I agree with Thingg's comment that there is a lot of information about Ununoctium given that it's pretty rare and recently discovered. Let's go for it. MP ^{(talk•contribs)} 19:55, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Great article. —dima /talk/ 00:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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.