Wikipedia:Peer review/European Southern Observatory/archive1

European Southern Observatory

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review as a way of preparing it for FA candidacy. The page has been substantially improved in the past few weeks, with new sections and subsections added, improved text and new images included. In addition, an extensive list of in-line references has been added. However, scrutiny from more experienced editors is needed to understand what else should be changed for the article to meet the requirements of a FA.

Thanks, Barbara Ferreira (writing on behalf of Lars Lindberg Christensen, director of ESO's education and public outreach department) Lars Lindberg Christensen (talk) 14:37, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Review from Ruslik0:

The article generally is not so bad, but some problems remain. (I have read only around one third of it.)

1. The leading section, in my opinion, should mention ALMA and E-ELT. They are the most important projects for the ESO. SOLVED Lars Lindberg Christensen (talk) 13:17, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
2. In 'History' section, can more information be provided about what happened between 1954 and 1963? How, for instance, the convention was negotiated? Currently there is an apparent gap in coverage. SOLVED Lars Lindberg Christensen (talk) 15:24, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
3. ESO's European departments moved into the new ESO Headquarters in Garching near Munich, Germany in 1980 Where had they been located before? SOLVED Lars Lindberg Christensen (talk) 15:24, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
4. I noticed that many paragraphs lack references.
5. Per MOS mdashes should be without spaces. SOLVED Lars Lindberg Christensen (talk) 15:54, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

More to follow. Ruslik_Zero 17:19, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I copy-edited parts of the article. I also advise you to reduce the number sentences like VLT contributes greatly to making ESO the most productive ground-based observatory in the world. as the article should be written in the dry encyclopedic style avoiding too much praise. Ruslik_Zero 19:21, 18 May 2011 (UTC) SOLVED Lars Lindberg Christensen (talk) 15:54, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Review from Iridia:

• "composed and supported by fifteen countries" - needs better wording, that sounds rather odd
• "the aim of providing state-of-the-art facilities and access to the southern sky to European astronomers" this sounds rather like an unattributed quote.
• "ESO is known for building and operating some of the largest and most technologically advanced telescopes in the world." With that phrasing, you're either going to have to show a) that ESO is famous for this or b) change it to "ESO has built", which is less debatable.
• "The ALMA project is an international collaboration between Europe, East Asia and North America in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The European executive is represented by ESO, which also hosts the European ALMA Regional Centre.[2]" could shorten, since it's the lead: "ALMA is a collaboration between Europe (represented by ESO), East Asia, North America and the Republic of Chile.[2]" This type of summary style is necessary to keep the lead manageable.
• "currently in detailed design phase" - unlinked jargon
• "and will be "The World's Biggest Eye on the Sky". - marketing slogan, not acceptable.
• "Being an extremely large telescope, it will vastly advance astrophysical knowledge, allowing detailed studies of subjects including" shorten: "The light-gathering power of this telescope will allow detailed studies of ..."
• lead doesn't summarise the contents of the body of the article. eg. could summarise "Facilities" with "ESO operates three observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Llano de Chajnantor."
• Needs a read through for small things like "On the January 26 1954".
• Trim the External links severely. The Facebook link is pure marketing only.
• Only minimal mention of how the site testing and selection were done.
• As Ruslik mentioned, phrasing like "goals of both surveys include many of the most exciting problems in astrophysics today" has to go.
• The tone from "Science with ESO Telescopes" onward is particularly noticeable as being that of a press release.
• Few of the citations are formatted correctly.
• The See also section can go, as all the links in it are already referred to in the text.
• Almost all the citations seem to be self-publications by ESO. There needs to be less er, recursion in an article about ESO, though I am aware that a lot of such material must be from ESO. Things like comparisons of productivity between astronomical observatories exist in the scientific literature, eg. Trimble, V.; Ceja, J. A. (2008). "Productivity and impact of astronomical facilities: Three years of publications and citation rates". Astronomische Nachrichten 329 (6): 632–647. Bibcode 2008AN....329..632T. doi:10.1002/asna.200810999.
• You might want to have a look at a currently featured article like Ben Gascoigne which contains sections discussing observatories to see a related example of what the FA standard will require. Iridia (talk) 14:55, 25 May 2011 (UTC)