Talk:Thallium/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer: TFOWRpropaganda 11:05, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I've copied the following from Good article criteria - I'll add comments as I work through the GA review. TFOWRpropaganda 14:41, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

 :
 * (a) ; and
 * In general, spelling (U.S.) is correct and grammar looks good. A few additional comments:
 * Thallium: the half-life of 204Tl is stated twice - I'd suggest the second time is redundant.
 * Removed the one in the brackets.--Stone (talk) 19:22, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thallium: "Since 1975, this use in the United States and many other countries is prohibited due to safety concerns" - I'm not sure the comma is necessary, but this may be an WP:ENGVAR issue (I'm used to non-U.S. English). I'd like to see some inidication why 1975 is important - what happened in 1975? - or the year removed.
 * Nice catch! The President issued Executive Order 11643 regulated the use as as poison on the 8 February 1972 USGS Yearbook 1972. I will change it accordingly.--Stone (talk) 19:22, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ I don't regard the above comments as "show stoppers", and consider the GA criteria for "Well written (a)" has been passed.
 * (b).
 * Manual of Style (lead section) ✅
 * Manual of Style (layout) ✅
 * I'd like to see a periodic table footer (see, e.g., at Oxygen) but don't regard this as a problem.
 * ...and I also note that there is a periodic table in the infobox.
 * Manual of Style (words to watch) ✅
 * Manual of Style (embedded lists) ✅ (not applicable)
 * Manual of Style (writing about fiction) ✅ (not applicable)
 * ✅ "Well written (b)" has been passed.

:
 * (a) ;
 * ✅ Inline citations used extensively, with references listed in the "References" section.
 * (b) ; and
 * ✅ Footnotes are used exclusively (no parenthetical citations).
 * (c).
 * ✅ No evidence of WP:OR.

:
 * (a) ; and
 * ✅ I compared the topics covered by the article with topics at Mercury (element) and Lead. Coverage is similar, and very satisfactory.
 * (b).
 * ✅ Article stays focussed, and uses "Main article" and "See also" links where appropriate.

.
 * ✅ It's probably difficult to slip bias into an article about a chemical element! I considered the history section in some detail, and consider that it covered the discovery of thallium (by two separate scientists) fairly.
 * It is very common to have a problem with POV pushing in the right articles, for example germanium and its use as dietary supplement or the arsenic in Bangladesh groundwater or the selenium effect against cancer or the pollonium poisoning of Litvinenko or the super bicycles made of scandium alloy. So care has to be taken!--Stone (talk) 19:22, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The "Occurrence and production" section mentions the United States Geological Survey, and the "Thallium pollution" section mentions the US EPA. I'd like to see more international sources, but I wouldn't personally consider placing a Template:Globalize/North America tag on the article, nor do I feel that this (minor) concern affects the article.
 * As the US have limited resources and have been for a very long time the most resource hungry country they provide a fairly well global perspective on most raw materials by the USGS Yearbook and Commodity summary. For the pollution you only have a handful possibilities and most US organizations have a better web access and therefore I use them. The EU should have something on thallium to and the british Geological Survey also gives good numbers for the world wide concurrence.

.
 * ✅ Article history appears stable. Nothing on talk page to indicate any ongoing content disputes, etc.

:</li>
 * (a) ; and
 * ✅ Four images, all from commons. I'll defer to commons' editors here, except to note that the images have, by and large, either been on commons for several years or, in the case of the most recent been permitted and verified via OTRS.
 * (b).
 * ✅ Images are relevant to the topic. All have captions (except for the "Skull and crossbones", which is clearly used to indicate toxicity, hence no caption required).

</ol>

Response to Comments
Thanks for starting the review! I will try to adress all comments soon!--Stone (talk) 20:57, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * There are too many isotopes listed in the infobox. 18.111.7.117 (talk) 00:15, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't get it. For example with iron there are more instable ones (4) but also more stable ones (3) making overall 7 isotopes in the list . There are three in numbers 3 isotopes listed in the thallium article. This is neither to few nor too many, this is exactly the right number.  Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, ..... ;-) --Stone (talk) 20:58, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Not a chemist, so can't comment on the IP's "too many isotopes" comment - sorry! There's been enough rabbiting on from me, anyway... <b style="color:#000">TFOWR</b>idle vapourings 14:49, 10 June 2010 (UTC)