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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 3:32, 19 November 2022 (UTC) [1].

Planet

[edit]
Notified: Double sharp, Serendipodous, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Science, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Solar System, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy, talk page notice 2022-01-27

I am nominating this featured article for review because of its many problems. I've looked through the majority of "citation needed" tags - there are 40 of them now, and it seems that a LOT of work is needed here. Some sections are good enough, but some (probably added after the FA nomination?) are in a great need of copyedit and sources (f.e. "21st century", "Geophysical definitions", "Mythology and naming", "Formation"). Section "Solar System" has 10 'cn', though it's mostly a list of planets with one-sentence intro of planet types. "Exoplanets" needs a rewrite and good sources. "Physical characteristics" has a "needs expansion" template. I never wrote a FA, but this one clearly fails even milder GA standards. Artem.G (talk) 11:58, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Artem.G, please also notify major contributors. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:02, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Done, I notified Double sharp and Serendipodous who edited the page not so long ago and who write about astronomy-related stuff; don't know how to find other major contributors who are active now. Artem.G (talk) 17:50, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm very busy for the next two or three months, but I fixed some cn tags where a citation immediately came to mind. Many of them are pretty standard facts. My apologies that I cannot do much more than this for the time being! Double sharp (talk) 18:35, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Upon a first quick examination, it seems that most of the {{cn}} tags can be filled by standard textbooks and/or digging references out of neighboring bluelinks. XOR'easter (talk) 19:25, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The lede is something of a mess. For example, there's no way that a niche term like "planemo" belongs in the first paragraph. (To illustrate, it gets 111 hits on Google Scholar, versus 4,380 for "planetoid" and over 20,000 for "planetesimal".) Nor does it follow the article's organization, jumping into arcana of the IAU definition (which I gather to some people is what MOS:ERA is for Wikipedians) before summarizing the history. XOR'easter (talk) 02:16, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I tried my hand at drafting a new lede here, though I'm not sure whether the lede should be fixed first or last. XOR'easter (talk) 20:26, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I like your version, it's definitely better than the current one! If nobody would object I see no reason why the old lede should be preferred. Artem.G (talk) 16:27, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and kicked the hornets' nest replaced the lede. I even resisted the temptation to add "so let's not fuck it up" to the end of the first paragraph.
We're down to 19 16 citations needed. Some of them can probably be filled in without altering the surrounding text, while others might be eliminated by purging the accumulated cruft. The page needs a lot of work, but what I can't yet say is how hard that work will be. Some of the problems might well be solved by taking a good look, recognizing that the sentence doesn't belong in a broad overview of a big idea, and cutting it away. Applying a machete can go pretty quickly. XOR'easter (talk) 22:58, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if I'll be able to work on this any more; sorry. XOR'easter (talk) 04:47, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I added in the missing citations. I don't really have the bandwidth to think about what should be chopped and what should be kept. jps (talk) 20:41, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There appears to be a bunch of quotations in the subsection about the 2006 IAU definition of a planet that make the section look choppy, maybe we could try reducing it? Blue Jay (talk) 09:49, 24 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Could we get an update on status here? Nikkimaria (talk) 18:18, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The question of poor referencing is addressed, in "Size and shape" there is still 'needs expansion' template. Everything else is not bad, though a copyedit would help (maybe should ask at GOCE?). There is a question about 2006 IAU defenition raised above, but I don't really know how it can be reduced - quotes are from the IAU, so probably it's better to have a quote than a cluncky paraphrase. Artem.G (talk) 07:21, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I took a break from my break and expanded the "Size and shape" subsection a bit. I don't know what to do with the IAU definition business. XOR'easter (talk) 00:29, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think the quote from Soter could be paraphrased; it's not an official statement of any kind, so we don't need to worry about preserving its exact words. XOR'easter (talk) 18:16, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I tried my hand at paraphrasing the Soter quote. Maybe that subsection is a little less choppy now. XOR'easter (talk) 22:49, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't even started looking at reliability of sources, article organization, or prose. It is troubling that the Astronomy project has not kept any of its FAs up to snuff, and seems to expect XOR'easter to fix up every one of them. If I Were Queen of the Wiki, I'd MOVE TO FARC, and we'd speedily delist the lot, and save XOR's talents for other work. I suggest the Astronomy project should get kicking; years of decline are insufficient excuse for why so few should have to work so hard to bail all of these out. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:28, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree on the very last bullet point; "remains" was chosen deliberately for contrast with the first half of the sentence, which is about the discovery of potentially habitable planets. This isn't a verb choice I'm ride-or-die for, just a case where "is" lacked the desired punch.
My attempt at a lede did put the "at least eight planets exist" line before the nebular hypothesis part, not out of any grand design but just to roughly follow the structure of the article body. I've done some checking for punctuation consistency and have made a first go at pruning the "See also". XOR'easter (talk) 16:52, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Struck that one, will catch up on the rest later today ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:53, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Looked at your this version of your sandbox ... the proposal looks to be an example of a lead articially constrained to four paragraphs by the silliness at WP:LEAD. I'd advocate for consideration of five paragraphs, reorganized .. things like perhaps adding the etymology to the history paragraph, etc. Huge first para, followed by two very short paras feels artificially constrained. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:58, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That sandbox was my replacement for the lede that the article had when this review was opened (see the above comments from early May). It was reorganized two months after insertion, bringing the etymology together with the history and evening out the paragraph lengths. XOR'easter (talk) 17:24, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Some suggestions for technical language in the lede: replace "stellar remnant" with "remnant of a dead star" (keeping the same wikilink)? Elaborate on the meaning of "accretion" with some phrasing like "...the gradual accumulation of material driven by gravity, a process called accretion"? I have no ideas that I'm really confident in. XOR'easter (talk) 18:25, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Work for me, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:29, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I've made that change; maybe someone can improve upon it. XOR'easter (talk) 23:12, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As the second encountered in the article, this sentence is still quite dense to the layreader ... I still have to look up many terms.
Must the sentence be second, and can it be moved to the end of the para? And could it be:
I'm fine with that rewrite. I'm not sure it would work at the end of the paragraph, though; jumping from the specificity of Saturn's rings to the very general theme of planet formation is jarring to me. XOR'easter (talk) 01:29, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Will leave final decision/install to you. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:36, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can't decipher why two blockquotes (but not others) are displaying in tiny font from an iPhone (but not iPad): the definition of Planet quote and the quote about "substellar-mass body" in the Geophysical definitions section. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:52, 12 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea what would cause that. Maybe someone at the technical Village Pump would know? XOR'easter (talk) 01:25, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
VPT query. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:59, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing yet at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Planet: small font on block quotes. (I think we should try to get this sorted, because of the number and size of images used throughout planetary articles.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:47, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
XOR'easter see my sandbox: User:SandyGeorgia/sandbox#2006_IAU_definition_of_planet. Will that work? It leaves the font sizes of surrounding text unaffected, but has to be placed in the middle: first, to avoid the font size problem, and second, per MOS:ACCIM, not to place it at the bottom. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:12, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't particularly care how that image is placed. XOR'easter (talk) 20:04, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
OK, see also this. So I'll go ahead and fiddle with these two then, and make sure they work without doing anything outside of MOS recommendations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:43, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Done fiddling, this version, struck; I have rearranged the large images with respect to the block quotes, and everything looks good on all my devices; I hope others will check different devices and browsers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:00, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • The highlight template isn't supposed to be used at FAC and FAR, as it causes template limits problems in archives, but I have temporarily highlighted above the only things above not yet addressed. I'll remove the highlighting as soon as they are seen. 19:09, 12 July 2022 (UTC) Done, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:52, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm a lot happier with this article than I was when we started. But now I've been looking at it so much that I can't see problems (if that makes any sense). I'll step back for a day or so to refresh my eyes and let others work uninterrupted. XOR'easter (talk) 13:53, 14 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is some bouncing around of topics that may be unavoidable, but is worth looking at. Because History is presented before Solar System, a lot of concepts are discussed in multiple parts of the article before they are fully defined, or defined in bits and pieces here and there, or there is repetition. As examples of this, consider dwarf plaent and neighborhood clearing-- there are others. I'm not sure if moving History after Solar System would solve the problem, or just introduce other problems. Unsure how to fix this, or if it even needs to be fixed, but is something for the experts to look at. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:50, 14 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I noticed that repetition but am also unsure what to do about it (or if anything in fact needs doing). A modest amount of repetition may be acceptable if a point recurs in multiple contexts and we do not assume the article will always be read top-to-bottom. XOR'easter (talk) 17:41, 16 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take a look through this article over the next couple days, and probably make tweaks as I go along. Ovinus (talk) 21:34, 27 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I looked through the article from top to bottom; thanks to many editors, and especially XOR, I think the article satisfies FA standards. As a nominator of this FAR, I think it should be closed, and article should stay FA. Artem.G (talk) 09:07, 29 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think I have stared at this article too much by now to be able to see what needs fixing. XOR'easter (talk) 04:37, 4 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Wait, I've said that twice in the same review? Ouch. XOR'easter (talk) 17:49, 6 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed with Artem; the article is actually in great shape thanks to XOR and others' efforts. I'll probably make a few prose tweaks, but it is a fine, FA-level article. Ovinus (talk) 19:04, 4 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • @SandyGeorgia: I agree it should be shorter, and I perhaps focused too much on the small scale writing issues. Moving History down seems wise; we should be starting with "Definition" anyway. XOR'easter Double sharp what do you think of that? I'll also try to trim the Mythology and Solar System sections; I'm not sure we should spend a lot of space in the Planet article on a topic which can be much better covered in Solar System. Ovinus (talk) 16:37, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • @SandyGeorgia: I agree it should probably be shorter, so I won't formally support closure at the moment. Moving History down seems wise; we should be starting with "Definition" anyway. XOR'easter Double sharp what do you think? Ovinus (talk) 16:37, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      One of the reasons this is not a firm objection from me is that I had a horrible time trying to deal with the same problem at dementia with Lewy bodies, and couldn't get it below 9,000 words, to the 8,000-word range I prefer. But the difference in that case is that the recommended sections at MEDMOS make it very clear where any new text should be placed, so that together with MEDRS sourcing requirements, I have been able to keep the article from exploding. I'm not convinced we have a tight enough structure to serve us well going forward here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:49, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I think having "History" before "Definition" makes sense in this case, because the history is part of why spelling out a definition is not simple. XOR'easter (talk) 17:13, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, I was concerned that adjusting this is not an easy fix (six of one, half a dozen of another) but can we find a solution, perhaps by seeing some sandbox mockups? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:28, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      That's a good point. Hm. Ovinus (talk) 20:35, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I think it is not so bad as all that. There are two main definition types in the literature: dynamical (following the IAU), and geophysical (everything round is a planet). The geophysical definition is pretty much to take clause (b) of the IAU definition and reject clauses (a) and (c). This is not that hard to describe, I think. The history is part of why there is this conflict indeed, but another part of it is the attributes of the planets themselves: to a geologist, the Moon is obviously in the same class as the Earth, because it has canyons, craters, and volcanoes just like the Earth does, whereas to a dynamicist, it is equally obviously not because the Moon orbits around the Earth, while the Earth orbits around the Sun. So it is not surprising that the two disciplines use "planet" differently to express what's more important to their fields. We already put "Attributes" at the bottom, so I don't see why "History" has to be at the top. Double sharp (talk) 03:56, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I made a few small additions about the large moons and dwarf planets. I concur with the general opinion here – the article meets FA standards now. Double sharp (talk) 11:11, 6 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    These additions look good to me. XOR'easter (talk) 17:48, 6 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I added the dwarf planets and moons to the "Planetary attributes" table. Also threw together a short section on planetary symbols, since previously we mentioned them in the context of changing attitudes towards the asteroids but never said what they were. Double sharp (talk) 09:26, 8 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This one's looking a lot better: any chance of getting page numbers to help with verification for some of the longer sources, such as :

Also some citation formatting issues:

  • "Mike Brown, 'How many dwarf planets are there in the outer solar system?' Archived October 18, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Accessed November 15, 2013" needs some citation formatting improvements.
  • ""The Origin and Early Development of the Nine Planetary Deities (Navagraha). (Volumes I and II) – ProQuest". www.proquest.com. Retrieved 13 May 2022." - proquest isn't the publisher its the University of Michigan and we're missing the author, the date, and the fact that this is a PHD thesis
  • "Ali-Abu'l-Hassan, Mas'ûdi (31 July 2018). "Historical Encyclopaedia: Entitled "Meadows of gold and mines of gems"". Printed for the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland – via Google Books." - despite what the citation says, this is actually from 1841 if I read the Roman numerals right.

Concerns about the reliability of a few sources: " "earth in Greek | English-Greek translation | YourDictionary". www.yourdictionary.one. Retrieved 13 May 2022." is this really high-quality RS?

  • "Natan, Yoel (31 July 2018). Moon-o-theism. Vol. I of II. Yoel Natan. ISBN 9781438299648 – via Google Books." - definitely self-published. Can't tell if this related to the Allah as a lunar deity theory or is a Jewish polemic against Islam (a skim of the table of contents suggests maybe some of both), but I wouldn't consider this a useable source for what its citing
    • I've deleted the claim, as a start.
    • But there's more problems there. The Mars etymology is cited to an 1841 source that only lists it as one possibility. Apparently the actual origin of the Arabic word is not that clear; Wilhelm Eilers (1975, pp. 76–78) puts forward some theories. He also disagrees with the etymologies listed for Arabic Mercury and Jupiter. There's some interesting links to papers in this History Stack Exchange answer (I know, not an RS, but links to some). What I am getting is that the etymologies of the Arabic names for the planets are not really well-understood or agreed on, but I start to suspect that we'll need somebody with a linguistics background to sort this out neutrally. Double sharp (talk) 14:58, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • ""Planetary Spheres كواكب". 29 August 2016." - any indication at all that this is RS?
  • "Strobel, Nick. "Planet tables". astronomynotes.com. Retrieved 1 February 2008." - Strobel's personal website, what are his credentials for this subject matter?

Sourcing has improved since SandyGeorgia's look-through, but I still have a few concerns. Hog Farm Talk 01:26, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I will do a read-through once the sourcing issues and page numbers by Hog Farm are cleared up (please ping me when that is done, I am determined for now on clearing up our oldest-- much older-- FAR, Joan of Arc, and want to stay focused there).
I remain concerned that others take a hard look at whether the text bouncing around can be addressed-- mainly in the hopes that the text can be trimmed via looking at the organization. Is the placement of History before other more definitional sections contributing to this problem? If history is moved to the bottom, with earlier sections focusing on the present, can the article be more tightly summarized? As one example, search the text for Dwarf Planet and notice how many times dwarf planet is linked (overlinked) and discussed before it is defined. Editors have rightly focused on getting the prose shiny and fixing sourcing, but has anyone taken a hard look at whether a different organization might result in a trimmer article? If we let this out of FAR with repetition at 9,000 words, a year or two from now, we're likely to find the article at 12,000 words, as there are so many opportunities for others to stick new text in wherever they fancy.
Once I turn my attention to a read-through, this is not going to be a strong objection from me, as I do recognize readers will bounce around as well to the topic that interests them, but I'm still worried that we can do better on this. I hope we can take a top-level look at whether History should be moved later in the article, whether Mythology and naming can be trimmed, and things like that. I'd feel more comfortable if the article could be made tighter, trimmer, with less repetition, and end up at around the 8,000 word range, so that we can more clearly steer future editors who seek to add new text, so the article doesn't explode again. But, in the end, I will defer to the experts on this ... pls ping me when HF's issues are addressed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:54, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, both Artem.G and Ovinus have declrations above that look like Close without FARC declarations; if that is the intent, such declarations should be stated and bolded for clarity (for the Coords). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:58, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I added bits to Planet#Mythology and naming to explain how the non-European traditions listed deal with the modern planets. I would've liked to do it for the Indian tradition as well – Hindi at least is listed by Wiktionary as having names for Uranus and Neptune – but I can't find good sources, probably because of a language barrier. (The Persian names of the planets are also quite interesting – from what I understand, there is a native set used in addition to a set borrowed from Arabic, but again, language barrier.) Double sharp (talk) 08:31, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to look through this again soon, although it may be the weekend before I can get to it. Hog Farm Talk 15:38, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Same ... it's on my list, but real life has not been kind for a while ... I'll get to this as soon as I'm able. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:24, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A few more comments:

  • "There is no official definition of exoplanets, but the IAU's working group on the topic adopted a provisional statement in 2018." - is it possible to cite this?
  • " Ronan, Colin. "Astronomy Before the Telescope". In Walker, Christopher (ed.). Astronomy in China, Korea and Japan. British Museum Press. pp. 264–265." - need date for the reference if it can be found
  • " Holden, James Herschel (1996). A History of Horoscopic Astrology. AFA. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-86690-463-6." - is the American Federation of Astrologers really a source we should be using?
  • "The most common astronomical symbol for Uranus, ⛢, " - both sources predate the American Civil War. Are they really great support for this still being the most common symbol?
  • ""earth in Greek | English-Greek translation | YourDictionary". www.yourdictionary.one. Retrieved 13 May 2022." - I don't know that this is a FA-quality source

This one's come a long way, and I think we're getting pretty close to being able to close this one. Hog Farm Talk 02:59, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Hog Farm: I think I've addressed your concerns. Double sharp (talk) 15:24, 21 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try to check back in within the next few days. Hog Farm Talk 03:02, 23 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think all the major concerns I had have been addressed. Unfortunately, there's a somewhere around 2.5% chance I get back to this at some point in November. Real life is just getting more and more hectic every day, and the extent of my wikipedia activity for the next month or so is almost certainly going to be limited to periodically checking my watchlist for vandalism. Hog Farm Talk 04:13, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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