Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Earth/archive2

Earth

Great article about essential topic. Luka Jačov 20:34, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Support - per nomination. Luka Jačov 20:34, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

• Temporary oppose This is mostly an aesthetic issue. Can you somehow integrate section 7.2.1 "Extremes" so the material is at the same header level as the other sections? It sticks out like an ugly duckling at the moment. The heading "Descriptions of Earth" did not give me much of an idea of what to expect. Presumably the whole article is a description... "Symbolism"? "Cultural significance"? I also corrected a layouting issue by placing one picture on the right rather than left. If you really want to have it on the left, let me know, I may have an idea how it can be done. Cheers. Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Also please respond to User:OldakQuill's concern, below. My support is conditional on this. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 11:27, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

• Conditional support. The article is nice but could use a few improvements:
  • The "Geography" section is waaay to listy.
  • Plate tectonics is a theory? I thought it was an established fact... (I'm no expert though)
  • "Extreme" section is listy.

That's all I can think of atm, but these should be fixed. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Theories can be true. My impression is that this change in usage happened in the evolution vs. creationism debate - now any theory with solid evidence is called a "fact". Facts, however, really are observable little fragments. Hypotheses about how things work are often not directly observable contemporaneously in their entirety and therefore couldn't be considered "facts". Talk about scientists getting emotional... - Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Facts, theories and hypotheses are three quite distinct things, their meanings have not changed in recent times. A fact is an objective and verifiable observation. A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural phenomena. A hypothesis is a suggested explanation of a phenomenon or reasoned proposal suggesting a possible correlation between multiple phenomena. Despite all the evidence we have for plate tectonics, the entire process has not been objectively and verifiably observed. --Oldak Quill 04:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:51, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

• Weak oppose for now. Right off the bat, 21 inline citations and another three non-inline refs to reference the planet upon which the subjects of most other Wikipedia articles resides is just too thin. Obvious things that need easy sourcing exist, as with the paragraph on Hitchhiker's Guide. Two page references, one for the "Harmless" entry and one for the "Mostly harmless" entry. The see also section could (and should, IMO) be converted into a template rather than an odd table of links in the article (it would connect various "Earth" topics much more nicely). Also, the development of life on Earth is rather jumpy in the summary history section, maybe the topic warrants a subsection of history (certainly needs some expanded coverage). Also, the article seems heavily scientific. The Descriptions of Earth section isn't very well written, is very thinly referenced, and doesn't include what seems like a logical section to be merged in - the "Symbol" section from Lexicography. Even that single section of non-scientific content is heavily scientific with little note of lore. Earth has played a massive role in images and stories from various societies, but figures like Gaia get half of a parenthetical in one sentence that isn't referenced? Finally, the lead could probably use some trimming. Basically, to summarize:

1. More references, preferably inline.
2. See also section converted to a template.
3. Expand the development of life on Earth info one way or another.
4. Merge "Symbol" into "Descriptions of Earth"
5. Properly reference what text is currently in "DoE"
6. Expand and possibly rewrite "DoE".

Sorry for the long list, but this is a pretty wide piece of subject matter. Staxringold _talk^contribs 21:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Only 21 citations and 3 references for Earth? That's really low for something like this. There obviously have to be thousands of books you could get information from. The section needs to be beefed up. I'd like to see at least 10 books and 50 cites for a scientific article of this importance. --SeizureDog 00:21, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose. One of the most amazing features of Earth is that it has had the correct conditions for life to evolve. There is too little information on this (primordial soup to present day biosphere) for this article to be featurable. --Oldak Quill 04:25, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

See the first paragraph of ==Environment and ecosystem==. If there is not enough info there, it it is due to the necessary summary style of the whole article. -- Rmrfstar 15:08, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Support—Mostly well written.

• • The link fairy has been hard at it, diluting the value of the important links (I've removed some at the top).
  • The third paragraph requires references.
  • "Changes in the orbit of the planet may also be responsible for the ice ages that have covered significant portions of the surface in glacial sheets."—Doesn't the changing tilt of the planet also contribute to ice ages? Insert "partly" before "responsible"?
  • You state that "The Earth does not have another natural orbiting body other than the Moon" and that the Moon is the Earth's "largest natural satellite". Tony 16:17, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support

**Geology and atmosphere sections are too short **Magnetic field should be before Earth in the solar system section **Geography is like a data list. It should be in prose. At least the first part of it

• • Earth's future section: what about the impacts of human being?

**Needs mush more references and external links. BTW: good article. NCurse _work 20:12, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

• Object. Without actually reading most of the text, the formatting of the article is clearly poor and lists (as opposed to prose) abound. Try to turn some of the lists into paragraphs, improve the use and spacing of images and expand or merge some of the shorter sections. —Cuiviénen 03:09, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support: Easily meets FA standards. We do not need citations for citations' sake, and the facts are well-referenced where necessary. Again, we must remember that not everything about Earth can be dealt with here in full. -- Rmrfstar 15:08, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose. Not enough inline citations, there are entire sections which as far as we know are somebody's fictional ideas: 'Lexicography', 'Atmosphere', 'Earth in the solar system', 'Magnetic field', 'Plate tectonics'... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)