Wikipedia:Peer review/Alkali metal/archive2

Alkali metal
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because now that it is a GA, I'd like further feedback on what more could be done to improve it even further past GA. I have addressed most of the comments in the previous peer review. There are still some "citation needed" tags.
 * Previous peer review

Thanks, Double sharp (talk) 16:01, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Throwing alkali metals in water should probably be covered in more detail. Double sharp (talk) 08:47, 14 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Links: (sodium and potassium only) and  (all the alkali metals except francium). Double sharp (talk) 08:58, 14 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The Brainiac faked explosions might be included. Double sharp (talk) 07:42, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: Thanks for your work on this important article. I think it needs a fair amount of work to get to FA (A class and FA are the only two levels above GA), so here are some suggestions for improvement. Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 20:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * A model article is useful for ideas and examples to follow - Noble gas is a FA and seems like it would be a good model for this. It is also an older FA and standards have gotten tighter since it was promoted. Caesium and Francium are alkali metals and FAs and so would be good models too.
 * There is one dab link that will need to be fixed (see toolbox on this PR page) and here
 * I do not think the first sentence of the lead follows WP:LEAD well enough - The article should begin with a declarative sentence telling the nonspecialist reader what (or who) the subject is - I would use the word group in the first sentence (as that has a specific meaning in the periodic table) and would also mention that these are all very reactive metals that readily form +1 cations (ions / cations are not even mentioned in the current lead that I can see)
 * There are a bunch of MOS issues that would be a problem at FAC - I will try to point them out before discussing other aspects of the article
 * Watch WP:OVERLINKing - Hydrogen is linked twice in just the lead
 * Headers need to follow WP:HEAD and not repeat the name of the of the article if at all possible - so "Concept of alkali metals" could be just "Concept", and "Discovery of the alkali metals" could just be "Discovery" (the reader already knows this is about the alkali metals)
 * Two headers with "This section is empty. You can help by adding to it." below - these need to be made into proper sections or else eliminated.
 * Lots of citation needed tags and even a [when?] tag that I saw - all of these would have to be cleaned up before it stood a chance at FAC
 * There are also some places that need citations (but are not marked). For example the first paragraph of Hydrogen has no refs and needs at least one. Or The alkali metals have the lowest first ionization energies in their respective periods of the periodic table because of their low effective nuclear charge and the ability to attain noble gas configuration by losing just one electron. The second ionization energy of all of the alkali metals is very high; thus, they almost always lose a single electron, forming cations. My rule of thumb is that every quote, every statistic, every extraordinary claim and every paragraph needs a ref. If one or more sentences follow a ref, but there is not a ref at the end of these, then they need a ref.
 * Captions should better explain the image's relevance to the article - for example Mendeleev's Periodic Table shows Tl as an alkali metal (could some sort of highlight color or box be added to the image to make this clearer?)
 * Or something like this "Petalite, the lithium mineral from which the element Li was first isolated"
 * Be consistent on spelling - Wikipedia uses "Caesium", but Cesium is also used 13 times here (its use in ref titles is OK)
 * Be consistent on how refs are formatted too - for example Mark WInters' Web Elements is cited in a t least three different ways Winter, Mark. "Geological information". Francium. The University of Sheffield. Retrieved 26 March 2007. versus Winter, Mark (2011). "WebElements Periodic Table of the Elements | Lithium | historical information". Retrieved 27 November 2011. versus Winter, Mark. "WebElements Periodic Table of the Elements | Potassium | Key Information". Webelements. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
 * There are any number of good books on the periodic table, but searching "periodic table" in the references I did not see any of them cited here. I would make sure the references used are from the best sources possible (and make sure to include print sources too)
 * The lead either needs no refs (since it is a summary of the article, which has the refs)(please note that direct quotes and extraordinary claims in the lead still need refs), or it is cited like the rest of the article.
 * Avoid needless repetition - the lead repeats the whole "H - Group 1, but not an alkali metal" spiel in two consecutive paragraphs, for example
 * Or the electrolysis of NaOH is explained in the same level of detail twice (under Discovery of Na and of K - K can be much briefer)
 * Or the fact that UUe has not yet been made does not really belong in Production since it was explained in some detail in the section on Uue just above it.
 * Bold font for Uue does not follow WP:ITALIC
 * OK, on to specifics on the chemistry / organization
 * There is a general tendency in the article to confuce the element with its compounds. Two examples:
 * Sodium is not the same as sodium chloride / sodium salts: Sodium has been known since ancient times; salt has been an important commodity in human activities, as testified by the English word salary, referring to salarium, the wafers of salt sometimes given to Roman soldiers along with their other wages.
 * Potassium is not used as a fertilizer - its salts are Potassium is often used as a fertilizer,[85] as it is an important element for plant nutrition. I note that the ref (in German) title refers to salts of potassium (Kalisalze). Also the ref is from 1868 - surely there is a more recent ref for the importance of K salts as fertilizers?
 * There is only one mention of the name Natrium (and no explanation) and no mention of the name Kalium, yet they give the symbols to Na and K
 * It seems very odd to say twice in the lead that Hydrogen is NOT an alkali metal (which I agree with) and then start the article with a section on ... Hydrogen. I would combine this with the section on "Substances sometimes considered alkali metals" and put it after the Characteristics section
 * If you mention "the notable exception that potassium is less dense than sodium" in the lead, the article should point this out in the body (and offer an explanation too)
 * I was surprised to see there is no mention of the overall formula of alklali metal halide salts (MX), and shocked that the alkali metal oxides are not mentioned at all - since they do not all follow the expected M2O formula, and instead there are oxides, peroxides, and superoxides, I would definitely include that in this article. Such systematic chemistry is useful to mention in this article, and makes more sense here than in the articles on the individual elements.
 * Since Occurrence describes ores and sources mentioned in Production, would it make sense to have Occurrence before Production?
 * For each element, I would discuss uses of the pure element (metal) first, then discuss the compounds (salts)
 * There was a bad case in Brazil several years ago where a radioactive Cs salt was sent to a dump and poor people who salvaged items from the dump found it and used it as a glowing body powder / decoration - lots of radioactive poisoning.
 * Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)