Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Triangulum

Triangulum
This nomination predates the introduction in April 2014 of article-specific subpages for nominations and has been created from the edit history of Today's featured article/requests. 
 * This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page. 

The result was: scheduled for Today's featured article/April 12, 2014 by BencherliteTalk 19:38, 6 April 2014‎ (UTC)



Triangulum and Triangulum Australe are two small constellations named for the pattern of their brightest stars, located in the northern and far southern celestial hemispheres respectively. The latter was first depicted as Triangulus Antarcticus by Petrus Plancius in 1589. Its brightest star is Alpha Trianguli Australis, the 42nd brightest star in the night sky. At magnitude 1.91, it is an orange giant that is 5500 times more luminous than and 130 times as wide as our Sun. One star system in Triangulum Australe has a confirmed planets. Triangulum was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy. It contains several galaxies, the brightest and nearest of which is the Triangulum Galaxy (pictured)—a member of the Local Group, as well as the first quasar ever observed, 3C 48. At magnitude 3.00. the white giant star Beta Trianguli is the brightest star in Triangulum, and three stars have been found to have planets.

Two versions to randomly alternate? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:39, 2 April 2014 (UTC)



Triangulum Australe and Triangulum are two small constellations named for the pattern of their brightest stars, located in the far southern and northern celestial hemispheres respectively. The former was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy. It contains several galaxies, the brightest and nearest of which is the Triangulum Galaxy (pictured)—a member of the Local Group, as well as the first quasar ever observed, 3C 48. At magnitude 3.00. the white giant star Beta Trianguli is the brightest star in Triangulum, and three stars have been found to have planets. Triangulum Australe was first depicted as Triangulus Antarcticus by Petrus Plancius in 1589. Its brightest star is Alpha Trianguli Australis, the 42nd brightest star in the night sky. At magnitude 1.91, it is an orange giant that is 5500 times more luminous than and 130 times as wide as our Sun. One star system in Triangulum Australe has a confirmed planet.


 * Here I asked Bencherlite about this double of a northern and far southern hemisphere constellation (that are both triangles) - I thought it was worthwhile as a natural pairing for the mainpage. Bencherlite is open to it but thinks they'd be better separate - my take is they're both pretty small and work well as a pair. Not quite as well as, say, Corona Borealis and Corona Australis, however. Anyway, am throwing this out there to see what everyone thinks. i.e. if feasible or uninteresting. Cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:17, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I would never say "no" to a joint TFA, but I would prefer to recognize an article that earned their star on their own merits to get their special, separate day in the sun. Both are rather short articles on a rather minor constellation (woo hoo! triangles!) so the attention from a joint TFA probably would be beneficial given their size (hence a really too short blurb of 151 words, 936 characters with spaces). I defer to the consensus that emerges, and would support either a joint TFA as proposed and my preference for separate TFAs. They are both excellent articles.--ColonelHenry (talk) 17:41, 8 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Support. High quality pages, promoted in 2013 and 2012, respectively. Most educational of course, and encyclopedic. Also, SCIENCE !!! &mdash; Cirt (talk) 19:46, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Question,, since Casliber and Bencherlite seem to want us TFA commenters to provide counsel...any thoughts on whether to present these two articles separately or as a joint TFA?--ColonelHenry (talk) 19:57, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Seconded - and be honest. If folks think this is boring/just doesn't work as a twin nom then let me know. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:41, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok, I think they look great together as a combo. :) &mdash; Cirt (talk) 03:28, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I look at both articles to see whether it was feasible (esp. due to size) to give each a separate day, and think the joint TFA does work better. One caveat...I think we can clarify better which stars belong to which constellation in the process of adding a few more characters to the blurb...too many permutations of Triangulum, Trianguli, etc., caused a bit of uncertainty made me have to read the blurb and articles side by side a few times.--ColonelHenry (talk) 03:31, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Alright - given I know all the thingies, do you wanna have a go at tweaking the blurb? Or shall I? Happy either way. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:08, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
 * How about you take a first swipe, and I'll polish.--ColonelHenry (talk) 04:29, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Do you think separating them some, like this? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:06, 10 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Drive-by comment How about digging out the randomisation script used during the McCain/Obama double-header, and apply it to this, so the reader has an equal chance of seeing Triangulum and Triangulum Australe are two small constellations named for the pattern of their brightest stars, located in the northern and far southern celestial hemispheres respectively or Triangulum Australe and Triangulum are two small constellations named for the pattern of their brightest stars, located in the southern and northern celestial hemispheres respectively.? I can make a safe bet that as it stands, Wikipedia will get earnest complaints about "northern hemisphere bias"; I well recall a surreal conversation with some aggreived Aussie who wanted to complain—at interminable length—that Wikipedia's maps always had north at the top. It would also avoid the inevitable problem with double-headers, that readers used to Wikipedia conventions assume the first link in the blurb is the TFA and the subsequent ones just background bluelinks, so only click the first link. – iridescent  22:52, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah randomization script looks cool - I like it! Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:47, 19 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment I'm generally against having two articles run on the same day. Why not have one of them run, and then, perhaps many years later have the other run? There's a dearth of astronomy articles, and I would think it's a waste to use two of them on the same day --Harizotoh9 (talk) 22:42, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * hmm, we've started buffing alot of the constellations and plan on doing some stars, so there are quite a few coming. I just thought it looked good as a north/south thing. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:47, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Hence my reference to Casliber's statement that "quite a few" are forthcoming.
 * Support joint appearance. Firstly, it's important to consider that articles are promoted to "featured" status at an average rate exceeding one per day, so mathematically, many will never appear as TFA.  On that basis, it hardly seems unreasonable for two to share the spotlight.  Secondly, because such a pairing is rare, it stands out as special (and probably attracts more attention to each article than it would receive on its own).  Thirdly, given Casliber's explanation that "quite a few" astronomical FAs are in the pipeline, it seems that we needn't worry about burning though them too rapidly (and logical pairings might even enable more to make it onto the main page).  —David Levy 19:21, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * There's only 13 Astronomy and Physics related FA that have not been put on the main page currently. That's too precious a resource to squander. Also, if you check the statistics many months have far fewer than 30 FA additions, while some have more. It probably evens out (I'm too lazy right now to do the math for the last few years). February for instance only had 19 additions, and 4 demotions. And we can't predict the future. There very well could be a reduction in the number in the coming years. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 08:37, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't regard a joint appearance as "squandering" the articles involved. When targeting a general readership, constellation blurbs aren't among the most likely to grab attention (let alone stand out from each other). Pairing two serves as a hook. This might even help to attract more editors to the subject area, resulting in a larger pool of featured articles therein.

In the 12-month period from March 2013 to February 2014, there were 403 promotions and 28 demotions, for a net gain of 375 featured articles. And keep in mind that 1,325 existing featured articles have never been TFA. (It's likely that some no longer meet the criteria and should be demoted, but the number of eligible articles obviously is quite large.)

Indeed, the future is uncertain. We can only go by the present, in which we have a large surplus of featured articles and a reputable editor's assurance that many more astronomy-related articles will join them soon (a prediction based on actual evidence). —David Levy 15:59, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Support both: Lots of astronomy articles have been TFA when compared to some other topics; not concerned about running out of astronomy TFAs, appropirate concept.   Montanabw (talk) 03:40, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok - have created two versions to flip between - like that? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:39, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I like the two versions.--ColonelHenry (talk) 12:43, 5 April 2014 (UTC)