Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cygnus X-1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 04:59, 11 May 2008.

Cygnus X-1
I'm nominating this article for featured article because I believe it meets the FA criteria and it is on an important astronomical topic. The article has undergone a PR and is now a GA. Hopefully it is reasonably accessible to people who are unfamiliar with astronomy, but it is necessarily technical in scope. I'll try to address any issues that arise. Thank you.&mdash;RJH (talk) 19:39, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment At first glance, this article seems ready for FA. I don't have too much time right now, since I'm working on my own FAC, but I might come back later and give a deeper analysis. But for now, the article seems to be in really good shape. --haha169 (talk) 23:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay.&mdash;RJH (talk)


 * Comments Support


 * Ok, the article now seems to satisfy FA criteria and I support it. Ruslik (talk) 17:14, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you.&mdash;RJH (talk) 15:44, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Comments


 * All other links checked out okay. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks.&mdash;RJH (talk) 16:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Comments - Some notes as I go through. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:47, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Support then, I think we are 'out of the red', so to speak - no deal-breakers left for mine...Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:14, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you.&mdash;RJH (talk) 15:44, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Comments on the lead from a lay-person's perspective: (feel free to ignore if you disagree.)
 * "most reliably identified as containing a black hole" This kind of threw me. To me, "most reliably identified as containing..." connotes that the data is the most reliable and confirms that it does indeed contain a black hole. But the rest of lead implies only that this is "most likely to contain black hole" Or perhaps this a standard scientific phrase with which I'm familiar?
 * I tried to re-word it so the meaning is clearer.&mdash;RJH (talk)
 * "was discovered in 1964 using suborbital rocket launches from" Bit of a stretch for "using". Better would be something like "was discovered in 1964 by sub-orbital X-ray instruments launched from" and tweaking the next sentence accordingly.
 * Fixed.&mdash;RJH (talk)
 * "a progenitor star" Link?
 * Done.&mdash;RJH (talk)
 * Got through the lead all right, and I think it's reasonably accessible to lay-persons such as myself. :) Budding Journalist 21:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your review. I appreciate that you took the time to look it over.&mdash;RJH (talk)


 * Comments I really like this article, especially the detection section which I think has a lot of really great narrative -- articles tend to be dry without it, IMHO. However, I have to say that two minor things bug me. For one, I think the introduction is far too long, and rather disorganized. I believe that it could be cut down by well over 2/3rds, and would be happy to give it a go myself if that's kosher. For another, and this is minor, the references are highly unordered. The very first ref is on the name (why?!) and it's numbered 11. Some editing here might be in order? Other than that it's a great article, and when I saw that it did manage to note Bolton I was convinced it was comprehensive. Maury (talk) 20:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the discussion of the lead could be moved to article talk? Sandy Georgia (Talk) 19:01, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry.&mdash;RJH (talk) 19:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Support: lead much improved. Maury (talk) 19:39, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you.&mdash;RJH (talk) 19:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Support, very good article. I did not really notice any prose issues.  Some minor issues follow, though they are not deal-breakers:
 * I was wondering why the first citation is numbered "11" and then I looked in the infobox. Are all those citations a WikiProject standard?  The infobox should not contain anything that's not written in the prose, where it can be properly sourced.  I think the citations in the infobox are superfluous.
 * Required per FA criteria. I disagree; the infobox is not superfluous and is normally requested if it is not present.&mdash;RJH (talk) 15:40, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I didn't say the infobox is superfluous, I said the citations. Yes, citations are required by FA.  However, as is the case with the lead, citations are not normally needed in the infobox if the same information is cited in the text.  That's why I asked about it.  If there is a reasonable explanation, I'll consider the matter dropped. I hope that is more clear. -- Laser brain   (talk)  15:43, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, well there is information in the infobox that is not duplicated in the text, and I don't think it would add anything to do so. Also, it has been my experience there are those who do want the references in the lead section to be accessible without having to hunt through the article body, even if it results in duplicate citations. I think that logic also applies to the infobox. So I think I'm fairly satisfied with the current citations. Sorry.&mdash;RJH (talk) 15:51, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * "The Uhuru satellite was launched in 1970..." Make active voice and specify who launched. -- Laser brain  (talk)  05:36, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Thank you.&mdash;RJH (talk)

Support. This is amazingly accessible to non-astronomy buffs like me. Minor issues: Karanacs (talk) 15:36, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Generally, articles should have standard units as well as metric (mi in addition to km)
 * It is a scientific article, so the appropriate criteria of the MoS applies. "In scientific articles, use the units employed in the current scientific literature on that topic." That's also my personal preference. Sorry.&mdash;RJH (talk) 15:43, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I wasn't sure about that, as I don't review many scientific articles. Thanks for clarifying. Karanacs (talk) 19:57, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Quotes should have a citation immediately following - "to the outrage of Kip's liberated wife")
 * The entire paragraph is cited. Duplicate citations would just get consolidated back into one. Or at least that has been my experience. =)&mdash;RJH (talk) 15:43, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Consolidating citations is the norm except for quotations, which should always have one. This is in Citing_sources. Karanacs (talk) 19:57, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, it's cited. Thanks.&mdash;RJH (talk)


 * Recurring theme, once again, a planetary FAC with formatting issues in the citations. Please, as I've said before, you can ask User:Brighterorange to run his script which will correct the endashes, and this one also has faulty emdashes.  Because someone else will do this work for you all in a second, I'm not understanding why the planet FACs keep appearing here with faulty dashes.  Please ask Orange to run his script, but because some of the citations also contain faulty emdashes, and some of the page ranges include letters, his script will miss some that will need manual intervention.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 23:58, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Support I did the GA review for this one, it was a great article then, its an even better article now. I can find no reasons not to support. Acer (talk) 23:59, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.