Wikipedia talk:Minor planet articles that might fail NASTRO

Problems
Uh-oh. I noticed some problems. The second one, 2984 Chaucer, has two sentences. Also, there are some doubles and other multiples. For example, 1486 Marilyn appears five times. Chrisrus (talk) 05:27, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, it looks like the bot listed an article once for each category it appeared it&mdash;resulting in multiple listing for articles that appeared in multiple categories. This can be fixed by having the bot remove duplicates from the list, which I'll do now. As far as sentences go, I'm to blame as well. I had the bot split by number of lines, not by sentences (!?!..must have been up to late)...I'll fix that as well. Thanks for bearing with me.  Theopolisme ( talk )  05:35, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ in source code; now it's just a matter of waiting for the bot to finish processing all of the articles again.  Theopolisme ( talk )  05:40, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

There is a more severe conceptual problem in this bot thing, which generates lots of false positives. Most of these articles have references, only they're not formatted as such. Take 14024 Procol Harum or 16123_Jessiecheng, which have external links to the JPL database. 7004 Markthiemens has a media reference, but it is formatted as an external link. -- cyclopia  speak!  10:26, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * We will deal with external links after we get the first list right. As Theo says, "it's a matter of waiting for the bot to finish processing all of the articles again." Chrisrus (talk) 15:19, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The list has been updated and is now a much more reasonable length.  Theopolisme ( talk )  21:10, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Excellent! Do any of them have anything under "== External links ==" other than " *  "? Chrisrus (talk) 21:50, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I can write a script to check that. Should this be stored as a separate "phase"?  Theopolisme ( talk )  22:07, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, please. Chrisrus (talk) 22:29, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅  Theopolisme ( talk )  01:41, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Information Relevant this to project
Chrisrus (talk) 17:18, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * These articles may have come from here: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi
 * "sbdb", means "Small-Body Database" (browser).
 * ".jpl" refers to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, so it's WP:RS and authoritative; true information.
 * ".nasa.gov/" implies that, although housed at CIT, it belongs to NASA, the US government, so we suppose the info is free for us to use as we would.
 * As NASTRO explains, the JPL sbdb is insufficient sourcing to establish notablity.
 * WP:NASTRO implies the JPL sbdc is sufficient sourcing for a redirect to List of minor planets, where the info may be kept.

Other relevant information: Notability is not determined by the sourcing that is in the article already, but by the general availability of sources on the topic. -- cyclopia  speak!  17:22, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * You are right. We are working toward NASTRO's "good faith effort" to establish notability for articles that do not presently do that for themselves.  That's later.  Right now, we are collecting articles w/o internally established notability.  Those articles that have internally established notability don't need that good faith effort to establish notability because their notability has already been established. Chrisrus (talk) 18:08, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Phase II
Excellent. Thank you profusely for your help.

Let's have a look.

The first one that has been eliminated from Phase I to Phase II is (162173) 1999 JU3, showing that the Phase removed a very notable minor planet with plenty of references, (162173) 1999 JU3. Excellent. Let's just put this....ummm...here: Minor planet articles that might pass NASTRO.

The next three to have been dropped during Phase II are (21083) 1991 TH14, (39544) 1991 TN14, and (42493) 1991 TG14. A careful reading shows all three of these to be exactly the same, and that none of them shows any sign of internally established notability, so let's move them down by hand to the Phase II list because the point is to make a list to do the "Good faith effort to establish notability" thing that NASTO talks about. I'll do it now. brb.

Ok, let's look at the next one, (58295) 1994 JJ9. Now we see what needs to be done: All articles on Phase I that are exactly like (58295) 1994 JJ9 and the last three I just moved down by hand should be moved down by bot. When I say "exactly like (58295) 1994 JJ9", I mean consist of only one line, have no reference markes, and have this:

==Citation from the MPCs== No citation yet.

They may or may not, but probably will, have a "See Also" section with a bunch of links, probably all the same on each one, a couple navigators, an image taken from the Jet Propulsion Lab, and so on. None of that matters, however, because it doesn't establish notability. Then just like I moved those three down by hand, the bot should move them down as well so we know to check them for notability elsewhere later, as these articles definitely don't have internally established notability. Chrisrus (talk) 04:16, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Doing.  Theopolisme ( talk )  04:26, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I did this, but only those four articles matched the criteria, it seems.  Theopolisme ( talk )  04:36, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, that leaves, what, 76 articles dropped in this phase. Sorry, can we list the 76 that were subracted, what shall we call them, the subtrahend?  The subtracted ones?  We want to check them and it's hard to find them otherwise. Chrisrus (talk) 05:24, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Done at User:Theo's Little Bot/Minor planets2/diff; I added a link to the "diff" above the main list.  Theopolisme ( talk )  05:35, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok! If you don't mind I'll just paste them here so we can work on them:

Articles that were removed between phases one and two
Updated 05:28, 3 August 2013 (UTC) by Theo's Little Bot
 * 1) (162173) 1999 JU3
 * 2) 11685 Adamcurry
 * 3) 12323 Haeckel
 * 4) 12529 Reighard
 * 5) 13286 Adamchauvin
 * 6) 15559 Abigailhines
 * 7) 1652 Hergé
 * 8) 1729 Beryl
 * 9) 1746 Brouwer
 * 10) 1751 Herget
 * 11) 1763 Williams
 * 12) 1764 Cogshall
 * 13) 1765 Wrubel
 * 14) 1788 Kiess
 * 15) 1798 Watts
 * 16) 1809 Prometheus
 * 17) 18091 Iranmanesh
 * 18) 1824 Haworth
 * 19) 1827 Atkinson
 * 20) 19488 Abramcoley
 * 21) 1953 Rupertwildt
 * 22) 1971 Hagihara
 * 23) 1988 Delores
 * 24) 1994 Shane
 * 25) 2026 Cottrell
 * 26) 2070 Humason
 * 27) 2086 Newell
 * 28) 2138 Swissair
 * 29) 21411 Abifraeman
 * 30) 2182 Semirot
 * 31) 21850 Abshir
 * 32) 21933 Aaronrozon
 * 33) 2196 Ellicott
 * 34) 22638 Abdulla
 * 35) 23547 Tognelli
 * 36) 2521 Heidi
 * 37) 2722 Abalakin
 * 38) 2828 Iku-Turso
 * 39) 3301 Jansje
 * 40) 4225 Hobart
 * 41) 4262 DeVorkin
 * 42) 4288 Tokyotech
 * 43) 479 Caprera
 * 44) 482 Petrina
 * 45) 483 Seppina
 * 46) 486 Cremona
 * 47) 492 Gismonda
 * 48) 493 Griseldis
 * 49) 495 Eulalia
 * 50) 497 Iva
 * 51) 499 Venusia
 * 52) 500 Selinur
 * 53) 502 Sigune
 * 54) 504 Cora
 * 55) 507 Laodica
 * 56) 509 Iolanda
 * 57) 510 Mabella
 * 58) 514 Armida
 * 59) 515 Athalia
 * 60) 519 Sylvania
 * 61) 520 Franziska
 * 62) 523 Ada
 * 63) 5239 Reiki
 * 64) 528 Rezia
 * 65) 533 Sara
 * 66) 5383 Leavitt
 * 67) 542 Susanna
 * 68) 543 Charlotte
 * 69) 545 Messalina
 * 70) 548 Kressida
 * 71) 549 Jessonda
 * 72) 6146 Adamkrafft
 * 73) 65357 Antoniucci
 * 74) 6805 Abstracta
 * 75) 7472 Kumakiri
 * 76) 7672 Hawking
 * 77) 8299 Téaleoni
 * 78) 9423 Abt

I have carefully inspected each of these, and can confidently state that only one of them, the very first one, contains any proof of notability whatsoever. As a result:


 * 1) I have moved that article to WP:Minor planet articles that might pass NASTRO, although in this case I can confidently state that it absolutely does pass NASTO.  At this typing, it is the only article on that list, although I also added a link to List of notable minor planets there.
 * 2) All the rest of these should be returned to the List of Minor Planet Articles that might fail NASTRO with complete confidence.
 * 3) It seems something went wrong somewhere.  Chrisrus (talk) 19:47, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
 * What seems to be the problem?  Theopolisme ( talk )  19:55, 3 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry, never mind, scratch that. I've checked them all by hand.  Absolutely all of these articles are good to go, except (162173) 1999 JU3, which is the only one that passes NASTRO as it stands.  Now we just have to restore all of these articles as one big list, except [[(162173) 1999 JU3, in which we make a good faith effort to find out if they are notable or not by looking outside of Wikipedia, as per WP:NASTRO. Chrisrus (talk) 20:51, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I think I've gotten rather muddled by all of these different lists. To clarify, your change results in one cohesive list of articles that don't currently pass NASTRO (per your analysis), right?  Theopolisme ( talk )  00:09, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was getting confused too, so I checked all of the original list "by hand" and there was not internally established notability in any but that one, which I removed. The entire list fails NASTRO as they stand.
 * How many more minor planet articles are there? This is a small percentage of the total, I fear, and only a small percentage of the total are notable.  Chrisrus (talk) 00:27, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

After the hand-check
When, just above, I said something went wrong, I meant:
 * 1) One article with references had to be removed by hand. We should try to figure out how that happened.
 * 2) The list is still very small. There are still many more minor planet articles that have no references other than the database from which they apparently came and which have insufficient text to establish their own notability.  We should try to figure out how we can get a bigger bite next time.  Chrisrus (talk) 17:59, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Fact: None of these articles passes NASTRO as it stands.
I have gone ahead and carefully inspected every single article on all of these lists and can testify in good faith that only one of them, (162173) 1999 JU3, should be removed. Each and every last one of them contain as they stand at this typing no proof of notability whatsoever, as per WP:NASTRO, I hereby swear, so help me God. Actually, I'm an atheist, so "So Help Me WP:AGF". I confidently welcome anyone to check my work.

Therefore, all these articles should be re-combined into one big list of articles that may fail NASTRO, once (162173) 1999 JU3 is removed, and we should move on to the next phase, in which we make a good faith effort to find proof of notability for the referents of all these articles. Chrisrus (talk) 20:42, 3 August 2013 (UTC) ✅

Is a search for notability necessary?
I apologize if this is a stupid question, but since you seem to be looking to do (trivial) merges (into "list of minor planets") and not WP:AFD's, do you really need to bother performing a search for notable sources for each of these tiny little stubs?

Per WP:MERGE: "If a page is very short and is unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it with a page on a broader topic."

Per WP:PM: "mergers that are so obviously necessary and appropriate that no one is expected to object..." "...it is not necessary to propose a merger at all. You should boldly do the merger now, without formally proposing it. (In the event that someone unexpectedly objects, then the merger can be undone easily, and you can formally propose the merger for discussion at that time.)

Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:57, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Another thought that occurs to me is that, if you can get the co-operation of the owner of whichever bot created all these little stubs, you might be able to delete many of them without a manual notability check under "author requests deletion" WP:CSD. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 23:25, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your interest in this matter. Please check WP:NASTRO. There might be a conflict between those quotes you provide which would indicate that the searches are not necessary, and WP:NASTRO, which seems to state that they are. If you could fix that, that would help a lot.  We need a ruling on this one way or another, and the guidelines seem to conflict. Chrisrus (talk) 23:42, 1 November 2013 (UTC)


 * moving to WP:NASTRO then. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 01:26, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * What did you conclude? Chrisrus (talk) 20:43, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * You can read the discussion for yourself. If you still want to do it, I'd say announce you're starting a bulk cleanup on WP:Astronomical Objects, give people another week to object to be safe, and then just WP:BLANKANDREDIRECT as appropriate, starting with the main-belt asteroids you've identified on this page that are also above 5000. If the main-belt asteroids above 5000 go off without a hitch, bring up the remainder non-notable asteroids on WP:NASTRO if still desired. (If identifying which ones are main-belt or above 5000 is a hassle, we can bring up the issue right away instead.) I'm happy to help, though I'm not an astronomy expert. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 21:25, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

How many asteroid stubs are there?
Do we have a ballpark figure as to how many non-notable asteroid stubs exist? Would we want a bot, or should these be done by hand? I know there are hundreds of thousands of asteroids discovered, but about how many have stubs? Rolf H Nelson (talk) 21:46, 15 November 2013 (UTC)