Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/International Space Station/archive2


 * 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 not promoted by SandyGeorgia 17:39, 10 March 2009.

International Space Station

 * Nominator(s): Colds7ream (talk)

I would like to nominate this article for Featured Article status as I believe it details an important topic in a very interesting and complete manner, meeting all of the FA requirements. Since the last FAC we have dealt with all of the issues raised within it, conducted an A-class review and had two copyedits from members of the Guild of Copyeditors. I believe that, thanks to that, this article is ready for FA. Colds7ream (talk) 08:21, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Oppose Oppose - agree with Ealdgyth that it is too thinly referenced for challengeable material. -- Der Wohltempierte Fuchs ( talk ) 14:53, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Large chunks unreferenced, including statements of opinion such as "This provides experience in maintaining, repairing, and replacing systems on-orbit, which will be essential in operating spacecraft further from Earth, reducing mission risks and advancing the capabilities of interplanetary spacecraft." or "The 2005 NASA Authorization Act designated the US segment of the International Space Station as a national laboratory with a goal to increase the utilisation of the ISS by other Federal entities and the private sector.""The station had sufficient operating power to carry out its near-term programme with only modest impacts on operations, so to prevent further damage, the joint was locked in place." These are just examples. Numerous unsourced statements throughout, including paragraphs. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:48, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I made some changes to the article to mark some of these statements. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 17:05, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Support - well written article, I'd say that referencing is acceptable for FAC, although there is a small amount of room for improvement. My only concern is over the potentially dated statements, but I don't think this is serious enough to warrant throwing out the FAC, so I am inclined to support. -- G W … 18:54, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Right, I've started work on obtaining citations. Please bear with me whilst I do so. Colds7ream (talk) 19:05, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

This article would benefit from a Peer review; I'm very surprised to see that a WikiProject just passed it as A-class. It has an external link farm, MoS issues throughout, citation issues, and listy prose. I suggest withdrawing and getting an independent peer review, outside of the Project which just passed it A-class, utilizing the tips at WP:FCDW/March 17, 2008. While FAC is backlogged it cannot serve well in place of a solid peer review. (Please review WP:DASH as well, to understand the difference between hyphens, WP:ENDASHes and WP:EMDASHes. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 20:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Sandy, the article just had a peer review: Peer review/International Space Station/archive3. It is formatted as an ACR in the article history. -MBK004 20:35, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * As I said, I'm surprised to see it passed as A-class; that Project needs to improve peer reviews, and while FAC is backlogged, it should not be used as peer review. In the absence of editor reviews, I seem to have no choice but to begin pointing this out myself.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 20:40, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I took this as a hint and undid the A classification. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 02:30, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * External link farm taken care of, dashes taken care of. I'm wondering about the "listy prose", do you have specific sections that you feel are not up to standard ? It would help a lot of we see elements named I think --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 02:35, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

'''Tech. review from '''
 * Dabs and external links (toolbox) and ref formatting (WP:REFTOOLS) are found up to speed.-- ₮ RU  C Ө   00:18, 7 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose until you can fix factual errors. Distance traveled relative to what? Actual distance traveled should be 0. You can't just say c.2,000,000,000 km and expect someone to know what you are talking about. TeH nOmInAtOr (talk) 00:31, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Have you found any other errors? The distance travelled parameter is standard across all spacecraft infoboxes. However, it's a little gratuitous and I don't think many would miss it if it were removed from this article. Apollo 8, for example, does not include the parameter even though its infobox supports it. Wronkiew (talk) 01:31, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I was thinking the same thing. It's mostly there for the schoolkids (they tend to ask such questions) and it is hardly proper information. I was also wondering why we bother with some of the more technical data. It's too inaccurate to be technically correct, constantly out of date and hard to grasp for laymen. I suggest to scrap: "orbit periode" (technical term, also covered by "orbits per day"), distance travelled (inaccurate, incorrect term, not properly supported by data of NASA), perigee, apogee and orbit inclination (incomplete orbit information unless all 6 orbital elements are specified, too technical, and constantly out of date). I also have little love for atmospheric pressure, since it is specified elsewhere in the article I believe. Then we could simply keep the link to NSSCD and add a link to the NASA orbital data page to the infobox. Seems much simpler and more accurate. People are directed to the proper information, while we still keep useful data for the laymen (average height, orbits per day, orbits since launch) --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 01:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Right, I think that's all the unreferenced sections dealt with. Colds7ream (talk) 10:24, 7 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose The article is not of FA quality yet. I will list some problems that I noted:
 * The station offers an advantage over spacecraft such as NASA's Space Shuttle because it is a long-term platform in the space environment. The station allows long-term studies to be performed, both on specific experiments and on the human crews that operate them. Redundant sentences. In addition, the second sentence duplicates the first.
 * Scientific results from station research, in fields from basic science to exploration research, are being published every month. Another redundent sentence. Do readers really need to know that the results are published every month?
 * I actually came to a conclusion that the 'Overview' section is not necessary. The overview is supposed to be provided by the lead, and the current section is full of vague sentences (see examples above). I suggest removing it, and moving some information to the lead.
 * The reviews so far suggested that the lead was too long and that an Overview/Purpose section should be added. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 20:55, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Scientists have several plans to study biology on the ISS. Another redundant sentence.
 * I do not like 'Areas of research' subsection very much. It is essentially based on just one NASA source, which it closely follows. I think more sources should be found. Many statements are too vague. For instance, Also, because fluids can be combined nearly completely in space regardless of their relative weights, they are interested in investigating the combination of fluids that would not mix well on Earth. It does not say anything specific about planned experiments. I think it will be good to provided examples of fluids that need investigation.
 * Wouldn't that make the article much too technical ? Because I doubt we have articles on such fluids. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 20:58, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * One of the problems of the article as a whole and 'Areas of research' subsection in particular is overuse of 'also'.
 * As a multinational collaborative project, the legal and financial aspects of the ISS are detailed and complex—governing ownership of modules, crewing and utilisation of the station, and responsibilities for station resupply. Redundant sentence.
 * In the same section the second paragraph (and the assignment of time) is unreferenced.
 * The last sentence in this section: Giving a precise cost estimate for the ISS is not straightforward, as it is difficult to determine which costs should actually be contributed to the ISS programme, or how the Russian contribution should be measured. is redundant as well.
 * But isn't that important ? The fact that something is close to immeasurable ? --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 20:55, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin says ... actually former NASA administrator.
 * good point (Griffin handed over administration effectively half of February officially January 20).
 * The section 'Future of the ISS' is too heavly focused on US. Do other partners have opnions about the future of ISS?
 * Good point. I guess it should be clarified that without US operations, the station basically cannot continue operating. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 20:55, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * You should clarify that without Russian operations, the station cannot continue operating. Wronkiew (talk) 05:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Multi faceted here of course. With the american shuttle retiring, russian services are critical for continued operations of human presence on board the station. Without NASA however, the station (as a piece of technology) can not "fly", because NASA controls the critical elements of the station; power supply, flight control/stabilization, cooling, electronics, communication services (called TDRS). In theory, Zarya/Zvezda can be decoupled, but that section could only survive for 6 months or so. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 17:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * In the 'Space station' section: Nine of these components are already in orbit, with ... However in 'Assembly and structure' subsection I read As of July 2008[update], the station consisted of ten pressurised modules Which number is correct nine or ten?
 * Corrected --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 20:55, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * This high-voltage distribution line allows for smaller power lines I do not know what "smaller power lines" mean. Actually it should be "wires with smaller diameter".
 * Please, check that all abbreviations like CSA are spelled out.
 * I think one of the problem of the article is lack of a section devoted to the detailed description of pressurized modules. The current 'Scientific modules' subsection fulfills this role only partially. I think it would be beneficial to have 'Modules' section containing a subsection for each module. The 'Scientific modules' can be merged with it.
 * One of the problems here would be however that sections don't have dedicated functions. Their role changes over time, There used to be a section describing them, but they were moved, then we had a table, but that basically contained a lot of information that was duplicate with other statements in the article. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 20:55, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the article would benefit from a table where all modules are listed (with launch dates, mass, volume and other information).
 * Table restored. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 20:55, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The article is mainly based on NASA/ESA/RKA sources and newspapers. Can publications in peer reviewed journals (or in other reliable third party sources) be cited where appropriate? (especially in sections that deal with science).
 * I doubt wether much science results are publicized yet (can take up to 10 years). Perhaps there are science journals on the proposals that were submitted to NASA/ESA/RKA. --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 20:55, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The above list of problems is not exhaustive. The article actually needs much work before it becomes featured. Ruslik (talk) 18:59, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose This article ignores the books published on the space station and relies exclusively on web-based research and thus does not "accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge", as required by the FA critiera. This Google Books search shows that there are plenty of books available. I would also expect that there are scientific papers available elsewhere. Where there are books, there are papers, since papers come first. Awadewit (talk) 16:41, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * As a matter of fact there are some books cited in the article, the reason for there not being more is the fact that most of them are out-of-date, having been published before or during the post-Columbia assembly halt. Colds7ream (talk) 16:48, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.