Wikipedia:Peer review/Concatenated error correction codes/archive1

Concatenated error correction codes

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because in it current form it is unreadable to the general population.

Thanks, Eyreland (talk) 11:41, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: I can only offer comments from the point of view of someone with superficial understanding of computer codes. On the other hand, I know the Manual of Style pretty well. Here are my thoughts, questions, and suggestions.

• Most of the article lacks sources and therefore does not meet WP:V. A good rule of thumb is to provide a source for every paragraph, every set of statistics, every direct quotation, and every claim that has been challenged or is apt to be challenged.

• The lead is to be a summary or abstract of the whole article. A good rule of thumb is to include at least a mention of each of the main text sections. The existing lead says nothing about the main text but is instead an introductory paragraph. If you imagine a reader who can only read the lead and nothing else, you can see the problem.

• The lead might be more clear if you explained or linked "concatenation" and "block length". Even though you might not be able to make a technical subject like this clear to a wide audience, the more jargon you explain, the more readers you might attract. Other terms in the article that will be mysterious to most readers unless explained include "code rate", "channel", "codeword", "block code", "constraint length", "hard decision block code", "iterative decoder", and "convolutional code".

• Would it help to include a relatively non-technical explanation, if such a thing is possible and can be reliably sourced?

• Would it be possible to give a specific example of a concatenated code? Can you show us one? What does it look like? Would it be possible to show a concatenated code in action, showing a result?

• Could you show us five iterations of the Galileo code? Or five iterations of any concatenated code?

• The description section reads like a mathematical proof rather than an encyclopedia article. Furthermore, it reads like original research rather than an explanation based on a secondary source or sources. Who is the "we" referred to in "We regard this as a channel which can transmit one symbol from the alphabet A, also of size k"? Wikipedia doesn't present original thought or original material; it is a tertiary source that summarizes material from reliable sources outside itself. Therefore, it never refers to itself as "we" or "I".

• "Turbo codes: A parallel concatenation approach" - I'd suggest shortening this to "Turbo codes" to avoid repeating main words of the article title.

• The dab finder tool shows that Deep Space links to a disambiguation page rather than the intended target.
• I'd suggest adding the place of publication to the references. You can usually find missing data via WorldCat.

I hope these comments prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog at WP:PR. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 03:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)