Wikipedia:Peer review/Stephen Hawking/archive2

Stephen Hawking
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because following a successful GA, and later PR it was nominated for FA. Unfortunately it wasn't considered ready for FA at the time so since then I've got some more books from the library, and adjusted the article quite a lot - chiefly in the career section, but also as part of a lot of tightening up, removal of trival, and rearrangment (with a whole bunch of editors who have very kindly cleared up after me when I'm overly keen). I'm looking for a peer review for general recommendations/review to find out if we're ready to go back to FA.
 * Previous peer review

Thanks, Fayedizard (talk) 21:51, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Comments by TR
The article is looking much better than it did a couple of months ago.

Some (relatively minor) comments and remarks:
 * The remark about the luftwaffe at the end of the first paragraph of the early life section may need some clarification. Although many reader will, not all will a) realize that 1942 is the time of WW2 b)know that the Luftwaffe is the German airforce. The sentence good by modified along these lines (At this stage of world war 2, London was the target of German air raids).
 * Have made a change that I think covers this.Fayedizard (talk) 22:12, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * That works.TR 07:42, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * In the aclaim section it might be worthwhile to mention the Stephen Hawking Centre at PI.
 * Good call! I didn't know about the Stephen Hawking Centre at Perimeter Institute and as a result of putting it in I've been able to clean up the text around it much more nicely. Fayedizard (talk) 22:12, 6 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Is the list under "awards and honors" complete or is it a selection of the most notable? (If it is the latter, I suggest mentioning this explicitly)
 * Changed to 'Major awards and…' to be safe. Fayedizard (talk) 11:39, 6 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The various facts mentioned in the opening paragraphs of the "personal life" section seem rather disjoint. You might want to double check if these are mentioned in the best possible place or if they need to mentioned at all. (For example, I am not sure that Hawking's stance on the Iraq war is that relevant. It also seems unlikely that this the only political subject on which he ever took a strong position, in which case if the Iraq war is mentioned so should other things. The part about his connection to St. Albans, may be better place as side note in the early life section, keeping it all in one location.)
 * I've moved the St Albans to early life, not sure about the Iraq war issue - I've got very few other mentions of direct political statement in the sources (I think he's be described as 'labour voting') how about I make the relgion and philosphy section 'relgion, philosphy, and politics' and pop the iraq war stuff down there with anything else I can dig up? Fayedizard (talk) 22:12, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it is also possibility to simply not mention it all. This is basically a case of WP:NOTNEWS.TR 07:42, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I've commented out the reference to see how it feels and to see if it gets missed, I can imagine it being part of a political section if one is ever required… Fayedizard (talk) 14:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The remark about how long it took Hawking to answer a question at a TED talk in the "Illness" section, seems rather anecdotal for an encyclopedia.
 * I'd definately like to discuss this a bit more - I think this is one of the best examples of an instance where the general public would be pretty surprised at how difficult the communication actually is. However we might already have that with the 'one word a minute' stuff - what do you think? Fayedizard (talk) 22:12, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I have the feeling that the one word a minute remark could be enough, but do not feel strongly either way.TR 07:42, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I've dropped it :) Fayedizard (talk) 14:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The in popular culture section, currently reads as a very dry summation of trivia. It could do with any introduction sentence. Also his appearance is various TV series can be phrased more compactly by combining them in a senctence. (Something like "Hawking appeared as himself in episodes of the TV series Red Dwarf, Star Trek, and The Big Bang Theory and dubbed his own voice for episodes of the Simpsons and Futurama").
 * Reduced and reformed - I suspect I could also lose the clock thing (although it is a very cool clock) and even lose the subheading and make these two paragraphs part of the personal life introduction… what do you think? Fayedizard (talk) 22:12, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Since the section serves as a WP:SUMMARY to Stephen Hawking in popular culture, I think it should stay as a separate section. A small point (which may be just me), but It seems odd to say that he appeared as himself in cartoons (simpsons/futurama), he dubbed a cartoon representation of himself. (not sure how else to phrase it though).TR 13:44, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It's a very difficult one in that case - it's not ideal as it is - but I think it's better that way than having to be really really careful about what is 'dubing' and what isn't in this case… Fayedizard (talk) 14:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The mention about the remark "primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare" seems more of a plug for George Washington University (probably added by somebody who attended the lecture). The remark itself is rather trivial and basically common lore, it is rather weird to credit it to Hawking specifically. (Hawking probably has also said that "the sky is blue", this does not make it noteworthy)
 * Dropped.Fayedizard (talk) 11:39, 6 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The relgious and philosophical view section can be merged to a single section preventing a single paragraph section. (Which are discouraged).
 * DoneFayedizard (talk) 11:39, 6 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The list of references needs a thorough look over for consistency of formatting (full names vs Initials, full dates vs. Just years), and completeness (At least some references are missing some required fields such as author for journal articles.)
 * It certainly does, and this is my big thing to check over - I'd like to look at if after much of the rest of the comments have been addressed though… it's one of those things that is a bit disheartening to keep going back to… Fayedizard (talk) 22:12, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I know, it is a pain. If I have time I'll try to help out on this.TR 13:44, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * That's very lovely of you - I'm actually about to ask some questions of people in the know about the best way to arrange the references for this article so there might be some major changes the article has to go though… Fayedizard (talk) 14:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I put my question over at User_talk:Nikkimaria and it was answered promptly - so I'll start pottering on with references.Fayedizard (talk) 22:38, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Made a bunch of changes today on the refs to bring them a bit up to scratch - let me know if I've missed much…

In all the article is looking in very good shape. Most of the physics seems fairly accurate (as accurate as you can get without talking mumbo jumbo).TR 14:16, 5 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Wonderfully - thank you so much for responding so promptly - I'm actaully going to be unavailible for the next 18/24 hours - but will get stuck in on my return - when I do, would you be happy with inline replies? Fayedizard (talk) 14:46, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with inline replies. (just make sure to copy the timestamp/signature to any location where the discussion is broken up.)TR 16:06, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

The article is looking good. I would say it is almost ready for FA. Just a couple of points:
 * The images in the article need alt texts as per WP:ALTTEXT. I know they are a pain to write, but they are important for accessibility. (And will hang a FAC if not present).TR 11:02, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * *Blush* - will get right on this (should have been obvious for me as well) Fayedizard (talk) 15:36, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I have passed through the references and cleaned them up where need. I think the only thing that needs to be settled is whether the reference use initials or full names. In general, I think giving initials is easier, because it is not always possible to find the full name of an author. But any choice (as long as it is made consistently) is fine.TR 11:02, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * So just to get a little context on this - I might have missed some - but I think the only places where some refrences use initials and some use full names are Hawking's own. He signs popular books with his full name, but he signs his scientific work 'S. W. Hawking' - even when other people on the paper get their full name (for example )  - I took this to User_talk:Nikkimaria, who I think is probably the person to go to for FA level sourcing querys and it came out as an okay thing (I should post to talk:hawking about it as well I think).  Does that sound reasonable? (also - I might just be missing something obvious with one of the other references, if so - then slap me with a wet trout… Fayedizard (talk) 15:36, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Minor Comments from Dcrjsr
This version seems very good - complete across a wide variety of aspects, and appealing both to the scientists and the laymen who are interested. I have only a couple of minor suggestions. One is just to delete the extra space between paragraphs in the Early Life section. The other is that I'd love to see one or two images that illustrate concepts from his work, to complement all the photos of him. That may not be easy, but presumably there are diagrams in his books that could be redrawn to give open-license images, if none are found in a web search. - Dcrjsr (talk) 16:39, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Dcrjsr, that's a great idea - although I think you're right that it might be a little tricky to find images, particularly because so many of the images that descibe stuff well to the layman annoy the scientists because of the level of simplification - I'll have a bit of a trawl though the physics articles and see if anything wonderful pops up - although I'm a bit consious of the possibility the article covering scientific topics that are already covered by well-established other wiki-articles (the other side of this, of course, is that it struggled at FAC last time partly because of a lack of scientific content… so certainly worth thinking about.) - I've sorted out the paragraph spacing issue as well :) Fayedizard (talk) 15:47, 17 June 2012 (UTC)