Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Planet Nine/archive2

I have some real concerns here. I've mostly just been looking at references and reference formatting. I usually bullet-point these, but I feel that would be extremely unwieldy right now, so I've opted to go over my concerns in prose. All reference numbers are as they appear in this revision of the article.

First, there are a TON of self-published sources here. Now, that policy permits the self-published sources of "established experts" in the appropriate field to be used as references, with certain restrictions. However, it also encourages editors to do so sparingly and with caution, preferring independent reliable sources where possible. And while it may not be precisely explicit, I'd argue that the policy's penumbra prefers non-independent reliable sources also (for example, citing an actual peer-reviewed paper rather than a blog post by the paper's authors discussing the paper's contents). The FA criteria mandate "high-quality" sources, so I think the replaceability of many of these sources is an issue for promotion. That's not to say that there can't be any of these; that expert exception exists for a reason, but... I think there are far too many for the 1c criterion. On an first-pass inspection, I could identify the following sources as "established expert" SPS: Batygin and Brown's joint blog (2, 28, 36, 45, 62, 66, 76, 77); Raymond's blog (11, 53); Brown's blog (21); Plait's blog (34); Brown's YouTube channel (35); Malhotra's TED Talk (105); Glister's blog (113 – although this was originally published in connection with the Tau Zero Foundation, at the point where the entry in question was written, this is just Glister's personal writings, and to be entirely honest, I'm not certain that Glister is a sufficient expert in this sub-field of astronomy to warrant the exception); and Brown's Twitter account (123). Additionally, reference 123 is to a YouTube channel that I didn't immediately associate with a published expert; I think this one might just be non-RS.

There are also a lot of references that have badly incomplete bibliographic information. Missing authors, dates, even publication names. These include, but probably aren't limited to: 9, 10 (missing the author), 94, 118, 128, 154, 155. I did not check all sources that lack a byline to see whether they were published with one. There are two further sources where I'm a bit confused about what's being cited. Both 24 and 145 look like they're referencing conference papers or presentations of some sort. For the former, I can't find the listed source at the linked location; the link for the latter source goes to the Batygin/Brown joint blog. Are either of these published in a proceeding or something? Reference formatting is also a significant problem, especially with the names of works and/or publishers. For 81, it's properly just Astronomy. In reference 136, Discover. Quite a few references conflate the url of a web resource with the title of that resource. For example, spacetelescope.org is the url of the Hubble Space Telescope site and scientificamerican.com is the url of Scientific American (but Space.com is correct in that regard). Whether or not a website name should be italicized (as a website) or not (as a publisher) is a matter of some art; general tradition has been that italics are reserved for sites which actually are (or, arguably, function as) a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical. So it's Scientific American, but Space.com. The best advice I have there is to see whether our article uses italics or not (needless to say, although this is something that would need fixed before promotion, it's not the most pressing issue here).

I didn't give a very thorough look at prose. But there are a lot of choppy, tiny paragraphs, especially in §History and §Reception. I also noticed that the first mention of Renu Malhotra gives her name only as "Malhotra"; then, on the second mention, her full name (and link) are provided. I suspect that this article went through some substantial revision and re-ordering prior to nomination, but was not properly proofed for this sort of thing afterward. The duplicate link detector provides quite a few hits also, for what that's worth.

For the most part, the SPS use here is a criterion standard issue, not a policy one, and I do think many of the SPS sources could be replaced with the equivalent academic papers, many (perhaps all?) of which are also already referenced. But it's not as simple as just changing the citations because care needs to be taken to ensure that the sources selected include the same claims. All of the references need to be audited to ensure that they're cited properly, given the amount of missing information. And the prose almost certainly needs examination by editors better at FA prose reviews than I am. Overall, the impression is that this article is just not ready to meet the FA standard, and my inclination is to lean oppose. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:48, 14 January 2019 (UTC)


 * What is a more reliable source than the website of the two primary authors of the hypothesis when we are writing about their hypothesis? Contemporary news is mostly garbage and often riddled with errors.  Let's just focus on that one issue because if we can come to an understanding about it, we can surely fix any formatting issues you might find.  For what it's worth I ran the article through the duplicate link checker a month ago and fixed every single one of them.  It took hours. Also, you've complained about 17 SPS out of 155 references.  That does not seem to be an excessive number. Bear in mind that these SPS sources are fairly accessible to the reader.  The same info can be found in all the cited papers (because we've literally cited every single one that's been published anywhere), but these papers will be fantastically difficult for the ordinary reader to understand.  Think of the reader.  Which reference will help the reader more in each situation?  I'm sure User:Agmartin could go through the article with his eyes closed and replace any citation you dislike, but would that make the article better, or worse?  Jehochman Talk 21:59, 14 January 2019 (UTC)


 * I'm surprised by the mention of the self-published sources that were often written by the authors of the technical papers in a way the layman could understand, I was just suggesting in the talk section of the article that less technical sources should be looked for to be cited where possible next to the technical ones so readers with less background could look there for more details. I'll look through the list to see which of the 'lower quality' sources don't have 'high quality' sources adjacent to them. Agmartin (talk) 22:34, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Doing a quick skim of the article, not just a list of the references, most of the less technical sources I spotted are backed up by technical sources, though sometimes in the following sentence, or discuss the least technical details like radius or the orbit of Planet Nine. I suspect if I followed the links most of the authors would be quoting Batygin or Brown. I'll look for the missing authors tomorrow. Agmartin (talk) 22:58, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Philosophically, at least, I do understand the argument that "less technical" sources may not necessarily be "lower quality" sources and may, in fact, serve readers as more approachable alternatives. However, my responsibility as a FAC reviewer is to evaluate articles with respect to policies, guidelines, and the FA criteria. At least currently, a challenging and highly-technical – but peer-reviewed – source is preferred to a self-published source by the same authors making effectively the same claims in more easily-read language, because the peer-reviewed source is considered both "higher quality" and preferred on policy grounds. And frequently, that's with good cause; this situation, where the same authors effectively self-publish "for public consumption" versions of their journal articles is relatively unusual. But it's not in my purview as a reviewer to determine that policy should be handled differently in this specific case (and, in the interests of full disclosure, I don't believe it should; I think that proper use of the technical articles is preferable to the SPS content if the same claim can be correctly cited to both). Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 23:02, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Generally the lower quality sources (SPS) came out first and the technical papers followed. We can run through the article and replace virtually all of the SPS sources if that's what it takes.  The ones we won't be able to replace perhaps are a few recent details where the academic paper is still pending publication.  We also know (from direct correspondence with the authors) what publications are in the pipeline and are not adding that info to the article until it comes out.  I get your point.  We will replace all SPS sources whenever there is a better source available.  When there isn't the SPS source will remain.


 * A question. Should we keep the SPS or more accessible sources as additional sources for the sake of the reader?  We could cite to two sources sometimes, one technical and the other targeted to a lay person. Jehochman Talk 23:07, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * My personal interpretation of current best practices would be: reference the article using the highest quality sources available for the relevant aspects (so, peer-reviewed sources when available, experts' SPS if they provide substantive information not otherwise present), do not provide duplicative citations, but do include The Search for Planet Nine blog in an External Links section (as perhaps the archetypal example of WP:ELMAYBE#4). Others may want to weigh in; not all aspects of this situation are precisely described by current policy. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 01:38, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * That seems like a reasonable plan. Let's start moving in that direction and see if anybody else has ideas.  Unfortunately this type of feedback only seems to come out when we get to FAC.  No other review process is as thorough.  Jehochman Talk 02:00, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Could the  cite template parameters be appropriate for this? I suppose it might be a problem if the "lay summary" isn't actually based on the technical reference. --Ørjan (talk) 04:19, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

we greatly reduced the number of SPS's used and filled in as many missing cite parameters as we could find. I also copy edited the short paragraphs and wikified the first instance of Malhotra instead of the second. diffs Could you take another look at the article, please? Jehochman Talk 20:21, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Comments by Squeamish Ossifrage (2)
I've collapsed my first-pass review with all the extended discussion of SPS policy. Let's take a fresh look at this article, shall we? Reference numbers are based on this revision. I have done absolutely no prose review, except as needed to determine how the remaining SPS are being used.

References
 * Can you explain how you decide what goes in a note vs. what is put in the references as a long quote? I'm not saying that what you've done is wrong, but I'm just trying to make sure there's a process.
 * We've followed the convention that a note is an footnote-type explanation of a detail that is more than just a direct quote, but not so important to warrant placing it in the prose. There was one direct quote that was in a note, and I converted it to be a reference with quote. Jehochman Talk 17:59, 18 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Article titles. Either title case or sentence case is considered acceptable here (and it's up to you per WP:CITEVAR). But you have to be consistent. You've got a lot of both.
 * Solved. Jehochman Talk 22:01, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Publication linking allows three options: never, always, or first appearance in the references. Authorlinks are essentially the same way. Currently, there doesn't seem to be any consistently applied rule.
 * Most are linked, so let's link all of them. Easiest way to be consistent. Done. Jehochman Talk 22:44, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * You need to set a consistent practice for website names regarding italics. It's come to my attention that our policies and documentation do not agree on best practice here. My personal standard has always been that the websites of periodicals are italicized (this should be done regardless of how you handle others), and most other websites are not. So, The Guardian, but Space.com and EarthSky. That matches what the MOS says about discussing those websites in text (and matches the styling of our article titles). The CS1 Help documentation suggests that, as Oprah might say, everyone gets italics! WP:CITEVAR means you largely get to decide here, but select a standard and apply it consistently.
 * Our standard is everyone gets italics. Less cognitive load that way.  Done.  Changed publisher= to website= and it italicises them. Jehochman Talk 22:44, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #9 gives an ISO publication date, when everything else looks to use DD MMM YYYY.
 * They're now all DD MMM YYYY. Jehochman Talk 22:45, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #12 lacks a publication date (it's 10 Jan 2017).
 * Done. Jehochman Talk 22:57, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #18: I think you have the publication date wrong here.
 * We really meant 1880. Jehochman Talk 22:57, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #31: I think I actually got this one wrong in the first pass. There have been a bunch of different versions of Phil Plait's astronomy blog, all with the same title. This one was the edition published by Slate, which needs to have that information included (because they had at least some on-paper measure of editorial control; this version is not a SPS).
 * For cases like ref 33 where you want to explicitly call out some location in the source (and you don't have page numbers to cite), use the |at parameter. Here, for example "|at=RA/Dec chart" for #33 or "|at=video" for #34.
 * Done. Jehochman Talk 15:15, 18 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #74: This should just be Astronomy.
 * Done. Jehochman Talk 23:05, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #86 consider using et al.?
 * Done. Jehochman Talk 23:05, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #87 is weird. It's basically an announcement of an article's availability on arXiv prior to publication. I suppose this is RS, but would it be possible to cite the actual published paper instead?
 * Done. Jehochman Talk 15:15, 18 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #96: Based on the BibCode information, I think you need to give the journal title here as ASP Conference Series. It looks like the Astronomical Society of the Pacific gives each volume of their published proceedings a title (here: Serendipities in the Solar System and Beyond) but that most citations to their volumes just sort of ignore that and treat it like everyone else's conference proceedings.
 * Done. Jehochman Talk 15:15, 18 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #102 needs the work it's part of included (as |work or |website, it's really the same). Here, that's MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive. I'm fairly sure you could cite a much better source for this, although this is RS and I won't oppose on this source selection.
 * Done formatting, but Agmartin, is there a better source? Jehochman Talk 23:05, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #108 cites a url as if it were a website name
 * Done. Jehochman Talk 23:05, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #110: It's just NPR, not npr.org.
 * Done. Jehochman Talk 23:05, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #114: Scientific American, not scientificamerican.com
 * Done. Jehochman Talk 23:05, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #117: Just Discover. See also 127.
 * Done. Jehochman Talk 23:05, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #120: Washington Post gets italics. Does this one have a publication date? The Post paywall is being cranky for me atm.
 * Done. Jehochman Talk 22:53, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #122: EarthSky doesn't use the url in its name.
 * Done. Jehochman Talk 22:53, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #124: Needs italics.
 * Done. Jehochman Talk 22:53, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #134. Right. This is specifically presented as supplemental material to a published paper, which makes me think that should be a component of the citation. I'm going to need to think about how I'd format the citation for this one. What you have at the moment feels markedly incomplete.
 * The truth is always a good enough explanation. Function over form.  Jehochman Talk 15:18, 18 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #145: Not that it's immediately obvious from the website, but CalTech styles their news site as Caltech. This article also has a 20 Jan 2016 publication date.
 * Done. Twice. Jehochman Talk 22:45, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #146 needs italics.
 * Done. Jehochman Talk 22:45, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

SPS use analysis


 * can you address these points in black (green ones are good already)? Jehochman Talk 15:21, 18 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #49. I'm a little surprised this model isn't discussed in one of the Planet Nine formation papers. If that's the case, this use is fine, but it needs to be attributed to Raymond in text since this is SPS.
 * I've replaced this with the journal article by Izidoro et al he was discussing. Agmartin (talk) 17:52, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
 * #49. I'm a little surprised this model isn't discussed in one of the Planet Nine formation papers. If that's the case, this use is fine, but it needs to be attributed to Raymond in text since this is SPS.
 * I've replaced this with the journal article by Izidoro et al he was discussing. Agmartin (talk) 17:52, 18 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #85, if retained, shouldn't use the url as the title. That aside, this is sourcing a pretty broad claim to Anderson's personal blog. Anderson's a fairly respected freelance science writer, but I'm not sure everything's copacetic with this use.
 * Changed text to reflect who and what was quoted rather than the broad claim. Agmartin (talk) 17:52, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Changed text to reflect who and what was quoted rather than the broad claim. Agmartin (talk) 17:52, 18 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #98 is probably okay. The previous reference is a published article that does the heavy lifting here, and this is just used to provide some additional clarity to Malhotra's point of view. That said, I think you're going to need to reformat this citation, because is producing a very different citation than your other templates.
 * Fixed citation. Agmartin (talk) 18:04, 18 January 2019 (UTC)


 * #105. It's not immediately clear to me how much of the preceeding three sentences is being sourced to reference 104 (an academic paper) and how much is being sourced to 105 (Paul Glister's blog). I don't think Glister can be used for claims without attribution, and I'm not actually all that sure that he's a sufficiently established expert in this subfield of astronomy to get the SPS exemption. Can you clarify exactly what Centauri Dreams is being used to cite here?
 * This was a duplicative reference, I've removed it. Agmartin (talk) 17:52, 18 January 2019 (UTC)



I'm firmly in the "Comment" phase of Support/Oppose at this point. There's a lot to clean up still, but most of the referencing issues are relatively minor and easily resolved. I'll try to get some time in the next few days for a prose review, although I'll happily admit that others are better judges of prose quality than I am! Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 16:04, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Thank you. We will go through these lists and insert an indented and short comment below each item when it's done.  let's just grab whatever each of us can handle most efficiently and mow through them. If you know anybody else who would help, please ping them. Jehochman Talk 19:21, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

we have fixed everything listed above. Please let us know about any lingering concerns. I appreciate very much your considerable investment of time. Jehochman Talk 18:21, 18 January 2019 (UTC)


 * I've notified Squeamish Ossifrage that the above comments have all been addressed. Jehochman Talk 19:54, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Blurb review
Any comments or changes for this suggested TFA blurb? - Dank (push to talk) 23:04, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Planet Nine is a hypothetical planet in the outer region of the Solar System. Its gravitational effects could explain the unlikely clustering of orbits for a group of extreme trans-Neptunian objects, bodies with average distances from the Sun that are more than 250 times that of Earth. These objects tend to make their closest approaches to the Sun in one sector, and their orbits are similarly tilted. These improbable alignments suggest that an undiscovered planet may be shepherding the orbits of the most distant known Solar System objects. Planet Nine would have a predicted mass five to ten times that of Earth, and an elongated orbit extending 400 to 800 times as far from the Sun as the Earth's. It may have been ejected from its original orbit by Jupiter during the genesis of the Solar System, wrested from another star, captured as a rogue planet, or pulled into an eccentric orbit by a passing star.


 * I need to revise this. Some of the facts have been updated quite recently. Give me a few hours. Jehochman Talk 00:15, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks ... I see now some changes have been made to the lead. - Dank (push to talk) 00:21, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I like your blurb. You can just copy there updates text. We don’t have a new diameter estimate yet, nor a new radius estimate. You can see how we wrote the lede. Jehochman Talk 00:23, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks kindly. Does that edit work? - Dank (push to talk) 00:37, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, it looks very good. What's the likely scheduling of this? Jehochman Talk 01:50, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I only do the blurbs, but the coords are running just about everything that shows up at WP:TFAR and WP:TFAP, if you want to add it. - Dank (push to talk) 02:26, 1 March 2019 (UTC)