Wikipedia:Featured article review/Mercury (planet)/archive1


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

The article was kept by User:Marskell 16:19, 6 June 2008.

Review commentary

 * WikiProject Astronomy, WikiProject Astronomical objects, WikiProject Solar System notified.

This article has undergone significant revision since it was promoted 2 years ago. The current version includes long stretches of facts with no citations to back them up, citations that are not properly formatted, and sections that have been called into question as being dubious. Although the poor state of the article has been recognized for several weeks, there are still many outstanding issues which will require some dedicated research to verify, cite, and if necessary, correct. Kaldari (talk) 21:26, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment: It seems to fit the featured article criteria still, a great article still. Don't see any significant problems.  Meldshal42 Hit me What I've Done 19:19, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Because there are significant tracts of unsourced material, it does not satisfy FA criteria 1c to be "factually accurate". There are also "dubious" and "citation needed" tags. Note 45 needs to be fixed to satisfy 2c. Some of the writing also needs polishing up.&mdash;RJH (talk) 15:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing and accuracy (1c). Marskell (talk) 19:12, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I cleaned up the Ancient astronomers section a bit (getting rid of the dubious claims), but it still needs someone with more expertise than I to flesh it out. Specifically, the section on Babylonian records is a bit sketchy and poorly cited, and someone needs to add info on Maya astronomers as well for it to be comprehensive. Kaldari (talk) 20:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm working on adding references, and have started from the bottom of the article with BepiColumbo, et al. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 14:09, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think this can be kept if I can find cites for everything, which shouldn't be an issue. Other than the Axial tilt item, are there any outstanding accuracy items that need work? I'm coming in late to the party, I know. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 16:24, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * We've cited the planet's Axial tilt, and copyedited the new figure to fit. Everything should be either sourced or tagged for sources; there are only half a dozen items or so still in need of citations, which I can do on Monday if they don't get done over the weekend. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 20:59, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep Remove. Aside from 1c there are other problems. In my pinion the article is not comprehensive (1b); it is skewed towards observations and orbital properties and does not provide enough information about physical properties. It should have a separate section about origin and evolution of Mercury and and a section about chemical composition of this planet and its surface. In addition there are problems with 1a and 2c: some section need clean up, formating of refs is not always consistent (ndash, order of the last and first names etc.), imperial units should also be removed.


 * If this article were in FAC now, it would not pass. Ruslik (talk) 18:29, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you're being a bit harsh, Rus. Neither Venus, Mars, Jupiter, nor Saturn have separate formation/evolution sections. Perhaps they should, but given that they are all currently featured articles that shouldn't be held against Mercury.  Serendi pod ous  18:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The article improved considerebly and I changed to Neutral. However it can be made better. At least temperatures should not be converted to °F in my opinoin. The use of °C should also be reconsidered&mdash;either all temperatures are converted or none. Ruslik (talk) 07:02, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Is there a particular MOS guideline or format I should look to for guidance? I'm not seeing a real uniform format across the other planet articles (FAs all), so any insight is helpful. Thanks again, UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 14:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The style should be consistent. You should convert everything or nothing. As to °F see Talk:Saturn. The same logic can be applied to the temperature units. °F are not used in science. Ruslik (talk) 18:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think we got everything switched to strictly Kelvin. I don't see any Miles or imperial units, though I might not be looking hard enough; do you see any other errant conversions? UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 02:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I changed to Keep. Ruslik (talk) 18:39, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Great! Thank you. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 19:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I will hold this a little longer per UltraExact's comments. Marskell (talk) 16:56, 25 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Much appreciated. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 18:55, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * All fact tags have been cleared; we're now running through the article and adding refs for uncited hard figures. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 13:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Hold. Still in process: definitely not yet a keep, but I see no reason why it cannot be saved with further work . --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 13:07, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Again, the extra time is appreciated. Two of the sections tagged for cleanup have been cleaned up or expanded; in the case of the geology and atmosphere sections, that resulted in a merge-back from Geology of Mercury and a re-alignment of sections. I have also begun to correct image problems (alignment, sandwiching, etc). UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 14:06, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep. Perhaps in a perfect world some of these shorter paragraphs and sections could be expanded, but the work that has been done on this article in the past few weeks has been extraordinary.  Another great example of the way that FAR should work.  Congratulations and kudos to all the participating editors. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Summary. I believe the article can be kept in its current form. The references have been greatly expanded (to over 100 as of this morning's count), and everything in the article (including hard figures) has been tagged to an inline citation. The article is now internally consistent, in that figures in the body match both the source and those in the infobox. The language has been cleaned in many areas, and we have expanded several sections (including, as noted, a partial merge-back from Geology of Mercury). We've added several images, and formatted the images to match other planet articles and the MOS. We're down to clarifying what "lobate" means, so I'm hopeful that all of the concerns about this article have been addressed, especially through the efforts of RJHall, Kaldari, Ruslik0, Serendipodous, Kheider, and others (I'm sure I'm forgetting someone). UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 13:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. This article has finally gotten the attention it deserves thanks to Ultraexactzz and the other editors he mentioned. It's been improved 100% and I think it is definitely up to FA standards now. Kaldari (talk) 15:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.