Talk:Celestia

"This article contains content that is written like an advertisement."
Specifically what, and how can it be improved? Don't just slap a template on the article without comment. SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 18:38, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

SevenSpheresCelestia, I should've been more specific from the get-go. Here's some of the language I see that seems to not be written in a neutral tone. Overall, there are many claims that are true, just could be worded differently to be in a neutral tone. Also, the large number of sections that are merely dedicated to explaining minute features of the program make it seem promotional.
 * "Numerous scripts are available."
 * "are in use worldwide"
 * "easy installation"
 * "Alone, the central distribution site Sourceforge.net counted between 2001 and May 2017 over 12 million downloads." (this one has a citation, but why use the word alone? Why say over 12 million and not just state the exact number?)
 * "detailed atmospheres" (a claim that is true, but why not just give some sort of statistic? This is stating an opinion as a fact)

These are just some examples from a read through of the article. There are likely other parts in the article that contain this kind of language. Let me know if you want me to provide more examples, or this is enough to get started with. Sam-2727 (talk) 20:12, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, I see what you mean. I made some small changes in an attempt to improve the wording.
 * "Numerous scripts are available." Seems neutral enough to me; any suggestions on what to change there?
 * "Why say over 12 million and not just state the exact number?" The exact number is 12,336,957, so I think "over 12 million" is fine.
 * I also wonder if the sentence "They can also be obtained on CD or DVD for installation on school servers, teacher computers, and home computers." should just be removed from the article, since this appears to no longer be the case (gregs-educational.info is no longer online). SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 20:30, 14 March 2020 (UTC)


 * To me, "numerous" is an opinionated term. Under who's judgement are there "numerous" scripts. Why not just list an amount? Where is this information coming from that "numerous" scripts are available? "Over 12 million" is something that would be written on a promotion. Writing "approximately 12 million" would do just fine. I agree, that is another example of a sentence that is overly promotional. Another phrase that you might consider deleting is "a popular program." Who's saying that this program is popular? This is another opinionated statement with no citation. I do think it would be worth the time to go through the entire article over again looking for these types of statements though. I don't have time now to do it, but I can do it in a couple of hours. Sam-2727 (talk) 00:21, 15 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I've tried to improve the wording a bit more, but maybe the article just needs to be re-written.
 * "Under who's judgement are there "numerous" scripts. Why not just list an amount?" Unfortunately that isn't easy to do, although counting the ones on this page could provide a lower limit.
 * Unrelated, this sentence isn't right and I'm not sure how to fix it: "A special educational version of the Celestia program can also provide sound effects and "cockpit" features to simulate flying in a "real" hyperdrive spacecraft." The "cockpit" feature is an addon, not built in to the educational version of Celestia. SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 20:37, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * "Character Timothy McGee explains what Celestia is and how an add-on can allow the user to store a diary within the program, as well." Probably not worth mentioning the actual implementation of this? SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 00:09, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

SevenSpheresCelestia, I went through and deleted a lot of the language I thought was promotional. Some might still exist, but I think it's to a point that merits the removal of the tag. There might be some grammatical mistakes as I did a lot of copy and paste as I shifted around parts of the article. As to your inquiries: "A special educational version of the Celestia program can also provide sound effects and "cockpit" features to simulate flying in a "real" hyperdrive spacecraft." This sentence seems fine to me as a grammatical sentence, but does seem promotional. As you say about the other quote you raise, the actual implementation probably isn't necessary. Wikipedia isn't an indiscriminate collection of information. Let me know if you have any other questions! Hopefully my edit will help you remove/identify any promotional language you see in the future. In my opinion, removing/tagging (at the very least, to warn readers of the potential exaggeration of articles) is one of the most important tasks on Wikipedia. Sam-2727 (talk) 03:31, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Sam-2727, your edits seem to have completely removed some information (e.g. the article now suggests that 1.7.0 is the current version, which is not the case - there are only the beta versions on Bintray).
 * My issue with the sentence: "A special educational version of the Celestia program can also provide sound effects and "cockpit" features to simulate flying in a "real" hyperdrive spacecraft." was not that it's promotional but that it's incorrect. Read my above comment again. Removing it was probably fine though. SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 17:01, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, it was a quick run through the article. Sometimes, I removed substance (i.e. useful information) that seemed promotional to me and I couldn't figure out how to modify it. It was unclear from going through the article that that was the case. To me, "multiple builds of version 1.7.0 are available" sounded like version 1.7.0 was the new standard version but perhaps this is not the case. Sorry, missed your follow on sentence. You could, if you wanted to keep it, change it to "A special educational version of the Celestia program can also provide sound effects. "Cockpit" features are also available as addons to simulate flying in a "real" hyperdrive spacecraft."" (or move the cockpit sentence to be with the introduction to the plugins) but I think that sounds even more promotional than before. I agree, removing that sentence is probably the best course of action. I would go through my edit and if I removed anything substantive add it back in in a less promotional tone. Sam-2727 (talk) 21:31, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Too much information?
Recently, TheLostProbe has been adding what seems like excessive information to this article, that would be better put on Wikibooks. Some of the edits may also have issues with promotional language, as discussed in the section above. SevenSpheres (talk) 19:07, 30 October 2022 (UTC)


 * i have taken note of some promotional language, im just not sure what to replace it with. also, whats wrong with having lots of information? TheLostProbe (talk) 00:47, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * made some changes, if you still think there is some promotional language in here then i will change it TheLostProbe (talk) 00:18, 11 November 2022 (UTC)