Wikipedia:Featured article review/Definition of planet/archive1

Review commentary

 * Original nom User:Serendipodous. Message left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy. Sandy 20:01, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

This article has been fundamentally redrafted since the announcement on the 24th of August of a formal definition of "planet" by the IAU, and is very much a different article from when it was featured. Also, the controversy surrounding the formal definition has meant that this article has been accused of bias. Serendipodous 17:01, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree. After quick read through the article it no longer has the feel of a FA. It seems (Again after a quick read I will post more later) that it is about either B or GA class. Æon Insanity Now! EA!  17:40, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Without reading the article in depth, I would say that this article should not be featured because the subject material is still rapidly changing at the moment. The debate did not end with the last IAU meeting. Featured article status should be reserved for subjects that are not in a state of flux. George J. Bendo 20:58, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I strongly recommend that the article remains featured. It should not suffer under the overenthousiasm of some editors after IAU 2006, and I don't see how the recent changes have made the article as a whole (except the related sections, which could be rapidly cleaned up) any worse. Nick Mks 16:22, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment. There are numerous statements lacking inline citations.  I didn't tag them in the article, as there are many, but will give examples if someone is working on them.  Sandy 23:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * Suggested FA criteria concerns are stability (1e), POV (1d), and citations (1c). Marskell 11:01, 3 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment: I am definitely in the "there is no reason this can't still be an FA camp." If we disallow something because of a recent event, we're overturning one of Wiki's strengths. Beginning near the top, can references be tracked down for the history section? Marskell 10:38, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm in the middle of tracking down a PhD topic, so I'm not really in a position to do the research, but I think the best thing to do would be to find unabridged English translations of both Galileo's "The Starry Messenger" and Huygens's "Systema Saturnum" to determine if the Galiean moons and Titan are indeed referred to as "planets" (as I recall, Galileo called them stars.) As for locating that "terminological distinction", other than trolling through Ptolemy's Almagest or the works of Aristotle I'm not sure how we could cite it. I've cited and expanded the "semantics" paragraph, so that it no longer reads like someone's personal opinion. The first three paragraphs of the "minor planets" section are all cited by the same source [cite 2], so I've redrafted the citations to make sense of that. I've also provided what I think is a citation for an uncited bit of OR I did. As for "Hydrostatic equilibrium," I've attempted to contac the guy who wrote the material twice, but he hasn't got back to me. Serendipodous 10:44, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Remove. I want to add 1a to the concerns—it wouldn't pass FAC at the moment. Let's look at the ungainly, repetitive opening para:


 * The definition of "planet" has for some time been the subject of intense debate. Despite the term having existed for thousands of years, no definition of "planet" by an official body of scientists existed before the early 21st century. Until the beginning of the 1990s, there was little need for a definition, as astronomers had only a single sample within the solar system to work from, and the sample was small enough for its many irregularities to be dealt with individually.


 * The second sentence is ungrammatical. Try "Despite the existence of the term for thousands of years,...". Avoid "exists" again by saying: "... there was no need for a definition ...". This exposes the sameness of this sentence and the next one. The last clause better as: " because astronomers had only a single sample in the solar system, which was small enough for ...".


 * Then casting our eyes down to the second para, we see "discovery" three times, one of them "new discovery" ("old discovery"?).

I'll reconsider if the whole article is copy-edited. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talk • contribs) 02:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Remove.
 * Were all of those Secondary sources used as references in the article, or are some of them Further reading or External links?
 * There are two main articles under "Extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs": is that the correct usage of the main template?
 * History is not well cited.
 * Echo Tony's concerns about copy edit: I noticed "our Moon" in the lead, which doesn't seem encyclopedic (Earth's Moon?)  Sandy (Talk) 14:53, 28 October 2006 (UTC)