Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Star/archive2

Star

This article has a previous failed FAC archived here: archive1

Okay I like to think this article has finally reached a level of quality and completeness that may be deemed FA-worthy. It has undergone a PR and is a GA. Three of the non-English articles on this topic have already been FA'd, so I went through those and tried to make sure this article was at least as thorough. It is also heavily cited, and is a tad on the long side. But it's a major subject, so it's difficult not to be long and still provide a complete overview. (There are already quite a few daughter articles, although many of those are in need of further development.)

My biggest concern has been that this page is subject to the occasional puerile vandalism, perhaps because the subject has a high visibility. However I've observed the vandalisms for several weeks now and they seem to get as quickly reverted, so perhaps that isn't an issue? Anyway, please take a look and let me know. I'll try to deal with any issues that arise. Thank you. — RJH (talk) 18:58, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: Just quickly before I have to go. The diagrams in the fusion section have had SVG's created for them (click on the images for details) and the SVG's should be used in place of the PNG's. I fixed a few small ref spacing problems, and I think I got them all but it might be worth going over them and checking there is no spacing between punctuation and refs. darkliight^[πalk] 19:21, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
  • It looks like the SVG issue has been addressed. Thank you. — RJH (talk) 15:38, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
• Comment/Support: Some parts of the article, especially the introduction, lack footnotes. Also, the star designations-section have some grammar issues and inaccuracies, such as using "mythology" as a plural of "myth", listing Uranus as a Roman god(Uranus is the Latin transliteration of the Greek Ouranos. The "Latin Uranus" is called Caelus), and the like. Also, Babylonian astrology, which is almost even more important than the Greco-Roman one, barely gets a mention. I'll try and correct the latter issues myself, if you want me to. Otherwise the article looks fine. I'm quite confident it'll reach FA status soon. Lemegeton 19:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment: The introduction should not have footnotes, since it should be a a summary, and all the footnotes should therefore be found later in the article. --Peter Andersen 20:50, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment: I've seen plenty of articles, FAs even, which contain footnotes in the introduction. It's important in that introductions often state certain facts. Lemegeton 22:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

There's no rule (not even a guideline or suggestion) that sources shouldn't be cited in an article's lead. Personally, I think it's for the best that they be cited everywhere they need to be, including the lead. Ryu Kaze 23:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I personally don't mind footnotes in the lead as long as it's not overflowing with them. And as Raul654 pointed out (elsewhere), if the lead is indeed a summary of the article, there may not be a need for them in the lead.Rlevse 15:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

While there's technically not a need for them there per se (because, as you said, the lead is a summary of the rest of the article), it's just playing things safe to source claims whenever made. That and some people will take one look at a lead section that has no sources cited for its claims and say that the article doesn't properly cite its claims without looking at the rest.

I personally like sources to be cited in the lead, though. If the lead's summarizing some of the major points of the article, it's convenient to be able to access the sources for those right from the start. Ryu Kaze 16:56, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

• • I added some general footnotes to the introduction. Every other section has footnotes, so I'm unclear about what you mean regarding "some parts". Perhaps you could clarify? I wanted to keep mention of astrology to a bare minimum, and I think further coverage of that topic is best left to the astrology page. In fact I'd like a good excuse to rip even that brief mention out of the article, as I don't believe that the supposed "influence of the heavens" has anything to do with the topic of a star as an astronomical object. Thanks. :-) — RJH (talk) 17:57, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment Admitting I'm no expert on historical astronomy/astrology, this article seems good to me except that it ignores possible early Asian/South American contributions to the field. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there were significant Asian and/or South American contributions that predate the Greek/Roman/Babylonian ones.Rlevse 16:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

While it is fully possible that they might predate them, there is little amounts of evidence of such. South American, maybe. "Asian", doubtedly. If you said "Indo-European", I might see what you mean, since the various Indo-Aryan epics(particularly the Rigveda) contain numerous astronomical references.

Though modern, or at least Western, astrology, and perhaps also astronomy, has its origins in Mesopotamia. Lemegeton 18:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I have to admit I'm confused by this concern. This article is primarily focused on the modern understanding of the star. There is a section on the Astronomy page that covers the more general topic of the history of astronomy. The only reason for the mention of Arabic/Latin contributions was for the purpose of explaining the naming conventions. Is there something specific missing that is related to the "Asian and/or South American contributions" concerning our modern viewpoint of stellar astronomy? Thanks. — RJH (talk) 15:35, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I've come to the conclusion that this commentary was entirely about the astronomy article, and so is unrelated. No action taken. — RJH (talk) 15:38, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

• Object - needs further copyediting. I did a little work on the lead, which included fixing a link to a disambiguation page. I also happened to notice that at least one other disambiguation link exists in the article — give it a full check. "Surprise links" needs to be removed. For example, the word "radiated" is linked in the lead, but takes the reader to "Black body" — this is confusing to the average reader. The sentence "This scientific study of stars is called stellar astronomy." in the lead is rather clunky, it feels thrown in. Other examples at random:
  • the amount of helium in a star's core will steadily accumulate - The amount can steadily increase, or the star can steadily accumulate helium, but the amount cannot accumulate.
  • Larger stars will also fuse heavier elements, all the way to iron, - This doesn't sound very scientific.
  • Astronomers estimate that there are at least 70 sextillion (7×1022) stars in the known universe.[29] That is 70 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 stars, - does this number actually need to be written out?
  • the theoretical minimum mass the star can have, and still undergo fusion at the core, is estimated to be about 75 Jupiters - Is the "Jupiter" an accepted unit of measurement?
  • (which exists as a steady stream of electrically charged particles (such as free protons, alpha particles, and beta particles) emanating from the star’s outer layers) - Try to avoid parentheses within parentheses.
  • Intrinsic or absolute magnitude is the apparent magnitude a star would have if it were observed from a distance of 10 parsecs (32.6 light-years) from Earth - I think the author intends to say that absolute magnitude of a star is what the apparent magnitude of the star would be if the distance between the star and the Earth was 10 parsecs. However, the sentence seems to indicate that the observer is 10 parsecs from the Earth, not the star.
  • The star with the hightest absolute magnitude is currently LBV 1806-20 - Spelling mistake aside, the term "currently" is somewhat confusing. Does this mean "currently known", "for the next month", or "for the next few millenia or so"?
  • The main classifications can be easily remembered using the mnemonic "Oh, Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me" (variant: change "girl" to "guy"), invented by Annie Jump Cannon. There are many other mnemonics for star classification. - Do we really need to include a mnemonic in this article? Further, the classifications for which this mnemonic is used are not even introduced.
  • Many stars undergo significant variations in luminosity, and these are known as variable stars. - Yikes.
  • Finally, there's one image problem: Image:Crab.nebula.arp.750pix.jpg appears to be used under a non-commercial license. If this is correct, it should be deleted.

Pagrashtak 15:01, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

One small point re Pagra's extensive list: "Jupiter masses" or simply "Jupiters" is not a formal unit of measure like "solar mass" but it is common and accepted to describe large planets and small stars this way in ordinary descriptions. Example: "A Jupiter-mass companion to a solar-type star" as an article title in Nature. Marskell 09:58, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

"Jupiters" was changed to "mass of Jupiter". — RJH (talk) 15:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the good look-over. I believe I've just addressed the specific concerns you had listed, but please check if you would. The "OtherUses4" template reference is showing up because it is used as part of the "OtherUses1" template. That's the only use of an OtherUses template I could find. — RJH (talk) 15:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC)