Talk:Apep (star system)

Infobox bloating
The purpose of an infobox is to summarise key facts from the article. The SIMBAD database link may be useful, as the in the infobox claimed, but it would be extremely difficult to argue that it is a "key fact" that belongs in an article summary. It does not appear once in the article prose as a key fact, and is already being used in a more appropriate location under "External links". So, it is being used and is being useful, but just in a better place for it in the article. The section is literally called "External links", after all; what better place could there be for the link? – PhilipTerryGraham (talk &middot;&#32;articles &middot;&#32;reviews) 01:02, 23 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Isn't it being used as a reference to the data presented in the infobox? And as SIMBAD is a standard astronomy source, it would be a standard link that should be available somewhere. (If this were an extragalactic object, I'd also say NED). -- 70.51.45.46 (talk) 19:02, 25 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Partly. Simbad is a portal and almost universally-useful link for stars and many other astronomical objects, therefore it is in the starbox.  Burying it amongst the good, the bad, and the ugly of the external links section is not very kind.  Other sources are available in starbox reference, and the lesser-known starbox sources, but except for specific cases such as exoplanet hosts none are as helpful or complete as Simbad.  However, Simbad is not a particularly good reference for Wikipedia purposes since the information it shows about a particular object will change over time as new research is published - meaning it may not match the information it claims to support.  So, Simbad link good, Simbad as the only reference not-so-good.  Lithopsian (talk) 19:16, 25 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Nonetheless, the main point is that external links belong in "External links", and not an infobox. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk &middot;&#32;articles &middot;&#32;reviews) 21:06, 25 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Whatever you say. After all, it is your article.  Lithopsian (talk) 21:11, 25 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't own the article, I merely just want what's best for it, but sure. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk &middot;&#32;articles &middot;&#32;reviews) 21:12, 25 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I understand. You know best and everyone else is wrong.  Lithopsian (talk) 21:08, 26 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Is there a problem here? Why are you being hostile towards other editors like this? – PhilipTerryGraham (talk &middot;&#32;articles &middot;&#32;reviews) 21:54, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Discovery Section
Hi Philip, I am the lead author of the Apep paper (happy to prove this via Twitter, email, or any other appropiate means) and just have some comments in regards to the wording of some of the article. In particular, what a discovery means in astrophysics (a somewhat philosophical discussion). Currently, the article claims "was first discovered with the XMM-Newton telescope in August 2004,". This is incorrect. It was **observed** by XMM-Newton on that date... but the source had long been in other wide-field surveys (particularly, optical, infrared, and radio). It was certaintly not discovered on that date. I would say the discovery of this system did not occur until Callingham et al. (2018), since it is only this paper that presented our understanding on the nature of Apep.

Also, with removing the discovery section I wrote (which you wrote somewhat into the observation section), you have lost a lot of the nuance of the discovery. The system was first observed in various infrared, radio, X-ray and optical widefield surveys, but it was because of ground-based infrared studies of the system from 2016 to 2018 that Apep was identified as the first progenitor GRB candidate in the Milky Way. The way the observation section reads now, is more like an advertisement for the various institutes. With the "Disovery section" is was more complete but maybe such a section is non-standard?

Anyway, happy to discuss how best to improve the article.

PS in regards to the naming of the system, 2XMM J160050.7–514245 is disgarded after the first page of the manuscript. A more accurate title would be "2XMM J160050.7–514245 (Apep)" - is that possible? --Ajihood (talk) 20:53, 26 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Proof of credentials shouldn't be necessary (everything in the article needs independent verification anyway), although Wikipedia does have policies on conflict of interest. In the case of scientific rather than commercial subjects, these might best be thought of as having a close connection to the subject.  You are obviously not the primary editor of this article but it is always wise to declare close affiliations just in case someone gets antsy later on.  In theory a single-purpose account deemed to be "non-neutral" could lead to being blocked, so its good to be upfront.  I think your comments in this case make a lot of sense, but the main thing is that the article accurately reflects publicly-available sources for verification.  Discovery sections are neither standard nor non-standard, just a personal choice on how best to present information.  Lithopsian (talk) 21:30, 26 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Names and article titles are another funny area. The "most commonly-used" name would normally be the article title, but sometimes other titles are chosen for uniqueness or long-standing recognition.  In this case, the subject is so new that most commonly-used is difficult to determine.  2XMM J160050.7–514245 has been chosen as the article title as being unambiguous and in long-standing use through many (if obscure to the average WP reader) publications.  Apep has been used by exactly one peer-reviewed publication (which presents its own problems in Wikipedia-land, related to notability and primary sources) and a bunch of press releases and spawned news articles.  If people are still writing about Apep in a year or two's time then the article title will probably be changed (eg. to Apep (binary star) which currently redirects to this article), but until then it could be considered WP:TOOSOON or even confusing to refer to the object by a different name from the title.  On the other hand 2XMM J160050.7–514245 really is a mouthful.  Lithopsian (talk) 21:30, 26 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Hey there! I mostly merged the "Discovery" section into "Observation", because that section already discusses the system and its discovery and observational history. I had removed the "optical, infrared, radio, and X-ray surveys" passage because I had felt that it was a less precise description of what had already been cited, which was that it had been observed by specific telescopic missions before; there was no need to repeat it again. However, now that you mention this passage actually refers to observations before 2004, which was not specified in the original statement, we'll properly credit XMM's observation as just an observation, rather than a discovery, per your suggestion. I would recommend following 's advice for the most part for your future contributions to Wikipedia, and although I would prefer the more percise Apep (star system) article name, Lithopsian is also right to bring up concerns about timing, and I also have concerns about it not being the common name for the system in the media yet. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk &middot;&#32;articles &middot;&#32;reviews) 22:36, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Apologies for to remove references to XMM "discovering" the system. Believe it or not, I had forgot to save my edits as I was distracted by the landing of InSight earlier today! – PhilipTerryGraham (talk &middot;&#32;articles &middot;&#32;reviews) 06:13, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 3 February 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Moved per the discussion. (non-admin closure) –Ammarpad (talk) 13:54, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

2XMM J160050.7–514245 → Apep (star system) – The vast majority of sources cited in this article have opted to use the nickname "Apep" in place of the long-form 2XMM catalogue designation. This surely must be a common name case, especially when the alternative is a name like "2XMM J160050.7–514245". Wikipedia's guidelines on naming conventions for astronomical objects priorities commonly recognisable names over official names. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk &middot;&#32;articles &middot;&#32;reviews) 03:55, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:COMMONNAME, as per the above. I am usually not a friend of moving articles to nicknames without good reason. In this case, the current name is a mess. To cite the authors who proposed the nickname: "Since only cumbersome catalog names like 2XMM J160050.7-514245 are available for the system, we here adopt the moniker Apep after the sinuous form of this infrared plume." (Callingham et al., 2018) Renerpho (talk) 08:03, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Strong support: per WP:COMMONNAME. GN-z11  ☎  ★ 09:08, 8 February 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Notes for GA reviewer
To the person who reviews this article under the good article criteria, I'd like to state my preference that each point you make about the article be numbered and distinguished using coloured text, with templates such as xt or !xt. This way, I can reference which numbered points I am attending to in my edit summaries, and our replies to each point on the review can be distinguished from the topic/point itself. I believe this would make things much easier and better streamlined for the both of us! See Talk:Planetary Missions Program Office/GA1 and Talk:Music of Rocket League/GA1 for how this can be done! Thanks for understanding! :) – PhilipTerryGraham (talk &middot;&#32;articles &middot;&#32;reviews) 02:25, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry I didn't see this until after the review. That said, I didn't find any issues with the article and it passed, but if you'd like to make any replies, you can do so after the table. There's only two issues (neither prevented passing the article), so it shouldn't cause confusion. The image credit mentioned in the review is the subject of a section below "Image credit". AHeneen (talk) 01:07, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Image credit
For the image from the ESO, below the image on its page is the line "Credit: ESO/Callingham et al.". The line below that ("Usage of ESO Images, Videos, Web texts and Music") links to this page, which states that the content is licensed CC-BY-4.0 but specifies how attribution must be made:
 * "If you want to use our materials without having to pay, the full image or footage credit must be presented in a clear and readable manner to all users, with the wording unaltered (for example: "ESO/José Francisco (josefrancisco.org)". The credit should not be hidden or disassociated from the image footage. Links should be active if the credit is online. See the copyright Q&A section on this page for guidance."

I think the "links" in the second-to-last sentence means links included in the credit like the josefrancisco link, not that the image used in the article would need to link to the image page on the ESO website. The Q&A section of that page gives various examples of what is ok and what is not ok. They give the example that a credit in the description section of a YouTube page is not sufficient, because the credit can't be hidden, but the credit can be at the credit section at the end of a video (not overlayed on the image when it appears in the video) and an image used on the cover of a book can be given on a title page. So what that means is that the image credit appearing on the Commons page is not sufficient for the article page.

The CC-BY-4.0 license allows the author to specify how they want to be credited (§3.A.1.a.i): "[the Licensee] must retain the following if it is supplied by the Licensor with the Licensed Material: i. identification of the creator(s) of the Licensed Material and any others designated to receive attribution, in any reasonable manner requested by the Licensor (including by pseudonym if designated)".

The reason I bring all this up is that on Wikipedia we normally do not include credits in image captions and also do not like images with watermarks. I decided to add the credit to the caption, as it seemed like the easiest thing to do (along with a hidden note so it won't be deleted). An alternative would be to upload a separate image to Commons with the credit overlayed on the image (font would need to be large enough to be legible at the small size used in the infobox) and use this image in the article. I think the credit in the caption is a better way of handling the issue, but just thought I should explain why this unusual thing is necessary. AHeneen (talk) 01:07, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your input; I'll definitely make note of this the next time I use an ESO image in an article I write and design. I await your final conclusion in your GA review. :) – PhilipTerryGraham (talk &middot;&#32;articles &middot;&#32;reviews) 05:36, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I was confused but looked at the table and saw two sections displaying as "pending". I don't recall seeing that after finishing the review, but it was complete and apparently the "pending" was caused by equal signs in two URLs within the GA template (equal signs within templates are problematic except after parameter (ie. "[parameter]=[value]"). I fixed them and you can tell from the change the two sections that were not displaying what I had written. Sorry about that, but the review is complete and I updated this page's templates at the top and added it to the list of GA articles. Everything was complete. AHeneen (talk) 01:14, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Angle of tilt
Hi Philip - I don't want to be stuck in a revert war with you on the issue of axial tilt so changing to the Talk page here. I am an author on the discovery paper. The best fit angle of inclination *of the spiral* to our line of sight is about 30 deg with considerable uncertainty - but this is not necessarily the angle at which the rotation axis of the star is tilted. You changed it to say "the system" but we don't really care about the system's inclination from a GRB perspective, it only matters how the GRB progenitor star's axis is oriented. In fact we think it's not aligned with the spiral, because the truncation of the spiral is consistent with the stellar companion passing in and out of a thick slow equatorial wind. It's actually quite a fraught issue and to me at least remains pretty unclear based on current evidence. But the statement that the stellar (and therefore GRB) axis definitely points away from us is not at this stage supported, and should be removed.
 * Thanks for taking the time to reply! was simply "removing this citation to Plait, which is not actually supported by the paper; his reference appears to be to the nebula", so it left a lot to the imagination. I interpreted your edit summary to mean that the 30 degree value was referring to something else, not that the whole idea of the system being accurately measured to be pointing in any specific direction, and that Earth is in the clear, is wrong. This was when I re-read the paper and found the quote "the pole of the spiral is projected at 30° to the line of sight" on page 16 – the "spiral" was then simplified to "system" in the Wikipedia article. Now that you have clarified your issues with the claims made in this article, I've gone ahead and removed them. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk &middot;&#32;articles &middot;&#32;reviews) 02:49, 13 April 2019 (UTC)