Wikipedia talk:Notability (astronomical objects)/Archive 3

NASTRO possible failures
I see that there is an ongoing effort at deleting several articles about stars. While I agree an article containing just a star location and spectral type (for example) can be safely deleted, it seems that NASTRO allows failures like allowing for the deletion of objects like (for example) HD 142093 or Gliese 146. Both articles contain reasonably encyclopedic information about the object which is well sourced and unlikely to be controversial. Not all of this information cannot be brought to a suitable merge target, as far as I can see, thus failing somehow WP:PRESERVE.

The point is that it seems, judging from the above, that WP:NASTRO allows for deletions which are not in the interest of the readers or the encyclopedia. The articles there discussed are not mere catalogue entries: they contain encyclopedic,accurate and neutral information, and cannot be easily merged: there is no way therefore removing them actually helps readers, and it is clearly encyclopedic information. I am especially worried by this wording in the guideline:

This seems an exceptionally poor criterion for notability. The likelihood that I'll walk in the neighbourhood of Gliese 146 is zero: so is the one that I will pet a Velociraptor. It is actually a dubious prediction that I will not choose to search WP for some of these objects: for example I may want to parse categories of solar twins, or of fast-proper motion stars, to look around. This is not as far-fetched as someone apparently thinks. But even if such occurrence is very low, still is a disservice to the few readers that could be interested, and it carries no obvious contrasting benefit.

Again, just to be clear: I agree many articles about stars or other objects (e.g. minor planets) contain little information and can thus be merged in appropriate lists or linking to the appropriate catalogue. But some, even if they have never been the subject of a full paper, have enough information from academic literature to build a meaningful article. I think we should think about what to do with these articles, and possibly amend the guideline. -- cyclopia speak! 09:54, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that the two stars you mention plainly fail WP:GNG, particularly the significant coverage component of it. They are only interesting because they are in a class of objects (nearby late-type main sequence stars) that is interesting for habitable planet searches. Therefore, their content should either be deleted or merged to a list of stars in that class. Thus, I see no problem with the astronomical object notability guideline. —Alex (ASHill &#124; talk &#124; contribs) 10:47, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * My point is that instead of following guidelines robotically we should think about our readership, and how these actions help actually readers of the encyclopedia and/or the encyclopedia itself. The sources are enough to avoid WP:OR, there are not WP:NPOV concerns, so meaningful articles can be built. I fail to see the advantage in such deletions. -- cyclopia speak! 10:49, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * But WP:OR and WP:NPOV aren't in dispute here. This is about notability. Something has to be notable to merit its own Wikipedia article, and these stars aren't notable (as defined by the sensible Wikipedia policy). —Alex (ASHill &#124; talk &#124; contribs) 11:00, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Sensible wikipedia guideline, not policy. Which is prefaced by this text: it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.. As all guidelines, it makes sense to apply it, in general, iff it helps the encyclopedia and our readers. It usually does, for the reasons explained at WP:WHYN. The issue here is that basically all points covered by WP:WHYN are met by the articles above. Thus, a normally sensible guideline seems to fail for some edge cases -and it's fine, one cannot think of all possible cases when drafting a guideline. It seems thus that either WP:NASTRO needs amend, or some explanation must be had of what is the help to our readers and the encyclopedia in removing these articles.-- cyclopia speak! 11:05, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I am applying common sense. If there is no reliable source that focuses on an object, that object is not notable. I think that any other standard is unreasonable. I also see no reason to make an exception for the particular stars in question here. Please point to a reliable source that suggests notability. —Alex (ASHill &#124; talk &#124; contribs) 11:15, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Repeating "it's not notable" is not really an argument. Can you explain how removing these articles helps our readers? That's the point. -- cyclopia speak! 11:19, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that you're suggesting that topics which have no established notability should be included in Wikipedia; if so, that's a fairly radical change to practice which would require a much wider discussion. Having articles which essentially parrot SIMBAD for every nearby star fragments editor attention and makes useful information harder for readers to find.
 * I don't generally like slippery slope arguments, but one does apply here. If we make up a guideline that doesn't use reliable sources to establish notability, where does it stop? I think we all agree that we don't need an article for every star that's in a table in some paper, and I think both WP:ANOT and WP:GNG represent good thought and consensus about the kinds of topics that are useful to readers to have their own articles, and I think that logic applies well to the particular stars we're discussing here.
 * Again, I think merging the content into a single list of nearby stars would be useful, and there's no reason not to keep the star page as a redirect. —Alex (ASHill &#124; talk &#124; contribs) 11:46, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Sigh. I must have a weird curse that makes it impossible for me to explain myself clearly.
 * I stated above that,generally speaking, notability guidelines make sense for the reasons at WP:WHYN. I also stated very clearly in my first post that articles which just parrot catalogues are not worth of keeping. I am speaking of a different kind of beast, namely objects where one can build an informative article well beyond a simple catalogue entry, due to multiple studies, reported in reliable sources (peer-reviewed papers, for example) having determined things about them, and that fulfill the motivations behind our notability guidelines. What makes it hard to keep these articles is the fact that, in these specific cases, the guidelines seem to be at odds with their own stated goals, and the general goal of helping the encyclopedia. Is it clearer now? -- cyclopia speak! 12:24, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The two stars you mentioned (particularly Gliese 146) are lacking sources that allow building an article beyond a simple catalog entry. If sources existed, they would meet point 3 of the astronomical object notability criteria. So I remain unclear how the guideline fails. —Alex (ASHill &#124; talk &#124; contribs) 12:51, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It is obvious that this user is just arguing from religious devotion to inclusionism. They clearly haven't investigated the cited "sources" for Gliese 146, otherwise they would realize the sources are superficial websites that parrot each other and provide no substantial coverage. Gliese 146 wouldn't even pass WP:GNG, so complaining about the "failure" of NASTRO is not just beside the point, it's light years away from it. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 12:59, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Please remember to assume good faith, I have no religious devotion whatsoever, and while I happily call myself an inclusionist, my argument is no more "religious devotion" to it than yours is religious devotion to deletionism. If it were so, I would go around challenging every notability guideline. I don't.

Now, the issue is that for example, for Gliese 146, we are able to say this:

This is much more than a simple location-and-spectral type one-sentence kind of entry. It seems to me perfectly decent, good and reliable coverage. Even if no single source devotes itself to the star only, we can build a reasonable entry from lots of reliable, neutral sources. To meet conditions to do this is the purpose of notability guidelines, and this purpose is met, even if the technicality is not. Removing these articles seems to be of no help to either readers or the encyclopedia. That's why I call it a failure of NASTRO (or even of GNG, if you may wish so). -- cyclopia speak! 13:13, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I apologize for my unwarranted assumption. I do appreciate your passion for having useful information on Wikipedia. None of us would be here if we didn't share that passion. We spent many months debating WP:NASTRO and carefully writing it. The purpose of NASTRO as an accepted guideline is to provide a tool to evaluate articles for inclusion related to astronomical objects - I'll briefly summarize the main rationale for not including every object in Wikipedia: doing so doesn't increase the usefulness of the encyclopedia, it actually decreases it. Too many insubstantial stubs dilutes the overall useful information. Far more useful is to gather the trivial data and parameters for non- or marginally-notable objects into list articles, which WP:NASTRO clearly encourages instead of deleting the information. Everything in your quote box above could be placed into a table on a list article with greater utility than a stand-alone stub. A reader, either amateur or professional, would benefit more from having a table of data for grouped similar objects than from having to hunt around individual stubs. Many of these cases at AfD end in merging to lists, and not pure deletion. AfD is just the standard way of going about this process currently. I encourage you to carefully read WP:NASTRO, its adoption thread (from the talk page), and especially this page: arguments to avoid in deletion debates. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 13:34, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your answer. What you said makes a lot of sense in general, and I agree in general (I am also very well aware of WP:AADD, I participate in AfD since a long time). My issue is: some of that information doesn't appear to be easily mergeable in a list. If this is indeed possible and there are suitable merge targets, this is perfectly satisfying: I do not care so much about the individual article, but of having the information available somewhere. But in this case WP:AFD is not required: all the nominators should do is simply merge and redirect, which does not require deletion. And I would appreciate if possible merge targets are given explicitly. Does this make sense? -- cyclopia speak! 18:09, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I am agreeing with Astrocog to some extent, but with the variation that the merge may not just be to a list article, but may also be to a section in an article about a category of objects. Many of these stars may have a bit more to say than makes sense in a table.  A box in a table with a paragraph of text is not as good as just a paragraph of text. However I do agree with Cyclopia that too much content is just being deleted without being merged. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:30, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think merging to a list is probably the best idea in this scenario. As has been explained by ASHill and AstroCog above, these stars do not pass WP:GNG, much less WP:NASTRO (and if you look, you'll notice that I have withdrawn all my nominations of stars which have been demonstrated to meet the GNG). Anyways, I would support a list much in the style of the minor planet lists, such as "List of stars within 26–30 light-years of the solar system". However, I currently do not have the time to compile such a list due to real-life and other on-wiki commitments. If consensus goes that we should create these lists, I'd be happy to help in the writing as much as I can. However, for now, these stars do not pass either the GNG or NASTRO, and thus have to go. There's no reason to make an exception for these stars, anymore than there is for some random star that doesn't have an article yet. StringTheory11 (t • c) 21:14, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * We already have lists of stars by IAU constellation. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 04:47, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The merging suggestion in a list as the one above is excellent. However the current approach seems backwards: However, for now, these stars do not pass either the GNG or NASTRO, and thus have to go. There's no reason to make an exception for these stars. This "shooting first, merging later" approach makes it harder to recover the information for the list by deleting stuff and then having to painstakingly ask for userfying/sending copies of deleted articles to recreate the list. Would a 1-2 weeks moratorium of nominations until a list is set up be an idea? I am happy to collaborate in starting such lists as soon as possible, asking to relevant wikiprojects for help (even if I created/edited some astronomy articles, I'd prefer to have some expert input on this). At that point, I could also help in the cleanup by simply redirecting and merging, without even passing through AFD, I suppose (in case the star is notable, the redirect can easily be reverted). It seems this makes everyone happy: no more non-notable articles, all information happily preserved. -- cyclopia speak! 17:58, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't get too worried about making a new list after deletion, just remember the names of the articles and I will assist when anyone is ready. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:26, 28 August 2013 (UTC)


 * "Too many insubstantial stubs dilutes the overall useful information" This is exactly where I disagree. I mean not with what you say of course, but whether it applies here. In most areas of wikipedia yes, that would be true, but here, the only way that any reader is going to come across e.g. a separate article on Gliese 146 is because they are interested in that particular star.


 * Can you think of any way that extra individual star articles dilute the overall useful information in other articles in wikipedia for the readers?


 * The problem with merging is that you can't merge all the information about all the stars in your list. You can't do a star box for every star in the list for instance.


 * E.g. almost all the information about Gliese 146 would be left out in a merge - its exact spectral type, constellation, apparent magnitude, that it's a suspected variable star, that it belongs to the Hyades supercluster, its alternate names, details of its galactic orbit and motion relative to the sun, and so on.


 * It would completely overburden any list to put all the information from the individual star articles into one huge list of say 100 stars or whatever. Also the same star may appear in several different lists, and if you attempt to include this information in any lists that mention that star, that means a lot of repetition.


 * It is much more straightforward, to avoid burdening any long list with unnecessary information to have separate articles for each star - for ones that are near enough to have information about them available in dozens of different surveys. So e.g. for my idea of a list of all the nearby orange dwarfs within 50 light years, the list would just give its distance from the sun and its apparent magnitude perhaps, and say of each one whether it has planets detected yet, or debris disks, and then link to the stars individually for more information.


 * As Cyclopia said, deleting these individual star articles, as far as I can see doesn't benefit the reader of wikipedia in any way at all. They don't dilute the searches since you have to search specifically for the individual star to find its article. I think those are all great points. While at the same time totally agreeing that if someone adds an entry for an insignificant tenth magnitude star chosen at random from SIMBAD, then this serves no value at all in wikipedia, as we are not trying to build a star catalogue. There seem to be occasional users who do that, and their star articles are rightly deleted, but many of the star articles are contributed by users who have chosen the star for the article because they consider the star to be interesting, e.g. in an interesting class of nearby stars, even though it doesn't have a paper devoted to it. And that's not OR since it is simply collating together material from many different online sources to provide the star article.


 * In short, for nearby stars with a lot of information available about them, then to avoid overburdening the reader, I think putting that into separate star articles is a better way to organize the material than to attempt to put it all into one big article. It's not to do with an attempt to confer notability on the star. It is just to do with a better way to organize the material. Robert Walker (talk) 16:04, 29 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with the spirit of User:Robertinventor above, however for the sake of a compromise I think that a list-merge is fine iff there is a, say, "Notes" or "Features" entry where one can put all the published non-standard information about each object. -- cyclopia speak! 16:55, 29 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, User:Cyclopia but am not sure that compromise solution would work. Would you have a lot of sections with headers, like the individual star pages and edit each section just as at present people edit the individual star articles?


 * What about the references and external links, do you put them all at the end of the whole page - or put them at the end of each section? Makes more sense if the references are about that individual star to put the references at the end of the section for that star rather than have a list for the whole page, so end up with a page with lots of distinct reference lists in it. Same also for the external links, to have a list of all the relevant external links for all the stars on the page at the end of the page, can't see that working, so they also would be separate for each section in the merged list.


 * Also, if the same star is in several different lists, e.g. Gliese 146 would be in a list of the nearby K type stars (K stars between 40 and 50 light years, GL146 is in the list), but would also be in a list of the members of the Hyades supercluster, if someone decided to put a list like this one into wikipedia Hyades supercluster (Gliese 146 is the entry HD 22496]. A star might easily end up in two or more lists like this.


 * Also many of the stars in the lists may have separate star articles already, because someone has written a paper about them as individual stars, so presumably your notes page wouldn't duplicate that material and would only list the stars that don't have articles yet. Then as time goes on you would be continually moving stars off your list into separate star articles as papers are written about them, or as planets are discovered in the case of the nearby orange dwarfs. Many of them will probably eventually be found to have planets.


 * It just seems a bit unwieldy, and I don't see why it is better to do things this way. It is for simplicity really, seems simpler and a better way to organize the material to have separate articles for each star even though the individual articles would be rather short.


 * What do you think about these points? Does what I say here make sense? Robert Walker (talk) 19:47, 29 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Your points make sense -having an article would be easier and clearer indeed. Let's see what the others above think.-- cyclopia speak! 19:57, 29 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Merging to appropriate lists is the way to go, if preserving the information is wanted. It doesn't matter if there is more than one list, e.g. "List of nearby stars..." and "List of solar analogs..." that have the same objects on them. If you, or other editors, are so interested in these objects, then compile the lists the verifiable data that exists. I do not agree that creating new, or keeping existing, articles for non-notable objects is necessary. I am not particularly convinced all this data needs to be culled in lists, though. As well, an inconsequential stub doesn't help anybody - the random person who does happen to look for information on a non-notable star is likely a professional, or an advanced amateur astronomer - in that case they have other, better databases to consult. From NASTRO: "It is not the job of Wikipedia to needlessly duplicate content in these databases." I have seen no compelling case that stars such as Gliese 146 merit a pass by the general notability guideline. Arguing that stars with no substantial individual coverage merit individual articles, because they belong to an interesting class, or because they are within some arbitrary distance, goes against one of the foundational principles of NASTRO: notability is not inherited. Just because a few users like these stars, doesn't mean we should make a mockery of the community's notability guideline with arbitrary special cases. The "unwieldy" scenario in which individual articles are created as significant coverage is made of individual objects is exactly what should be happening. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 20:23, 29 August 2013 (UTC)


 * (Edit conflict) I agree with StringTheory11, Graeme Bartlett, et al that these should be deleted and merged into a list article (in case it wasn't clear above). As noted repeatedly, they plainly don't meet the notability criteria which are well established, project-wide, for good reason. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collector of information, and all the data about these stars that users note is important is better suited to true astronomical databases like SIMBAD, unless reliable sources indicate that there's something interesting about a particular star. We can't synthesise or determine importance ourselves when no reliable source does. —Alex (ASHill &#124; talk &#124; contribs) 20:36, 29 August 2013 (UTC)


 * There is a misunderstanding here. We're not arguing that the stars pass GNG or NASTRO in their current form. We are arguing that guidelines should be fixed so that they do. We're talking exactly of cases where there is more than mere database duplication, but where the information is fragmented among many studies and sources instead of having a single source full deep coverage. I agree we should not start from arguments of intrinsic notability (even if NASTRO explicitly allows it for many objects, e.g. naked-eye objects! so it's hardly a "foundational principle"). We should instead start from what is the real foundational principle of notability: Notability is a set of conditions that allow the topic to develop into an article (see WP:WHYN). In this case we have, given the particular nature of the topic, the capability to realize such articles even in cases that are accidentally excluded by the guidelines. Thus the guidelines need rethinking.
 * Also please don't make assumptions about readership as in As well, an inconsequential stub doesn't help anybody - the random person who does happen to look for information on a non-notable star is likely a professional, or an advanced amateur astronomer - in that case they have other, better databases to consult. - That a stub doesn't help us doesn't mean it doesn't help anybody -this is hardly a provable assumption. We do not have to care about who is likely to look for the article or not, and where they tend to hang around. Wikipedia is there to provide information, not to worry about who and how will look for it. The point is not that I like articles on stars, or that we have to serve the amateur astronomer community. The point is that these articles meet the spirit of under our concept of notability, are of service (at least potentially) to readers, and as such should be merged or kept. That guidelines disallow that means that guidelines have to be fixed, or that at least a solution to fully preserve the information has to be found. -- cyclopia speak! 20:43, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * There's no misunderstanding here. I see what is being proposed, and I don't agree with it. You referenced WP:WHYN to support your argument, but failed to see that every line of it is an argument against your proposal. Notability guidelines are not "a set of conditions that allow the topic to develop into an article". They are a set of minimum of conditions that provide for topics that can be developed into an article, and do not provide for topics that cannot. Your proposal to water down NASTRO so that it will include these inconsequential objects in individual articles goes against the consensus of many months of debate on NASTRO, and the subsequent debate on its adoption as a guideline. The community decided to explicitly exclude the creation, or maintenance, of individual articles for astronomical objects which cannot be developed beyond a stub. There's not many ways for editors to know which articles can be developed beyond a stub, but the best way is to judge the individual coverage in 3rd party sources. None of the objects we're discussing here have significant coverage. If they did, they would meet the common sense criteria of NASTRO. The objects at the heart of this current discussion don't meet the "spirit" of WP:WHYN, or WP:GNG, or NASTRO.


 * As an aside, I'll briefly defend NASTRO criteria #1, which was attacked above. Of the roughly 10,000 (my order of magnitude estimate) objects visible to the naked eye, probably a small fraction have individual articles. NASTRO grandfathers these objects in for article inclusion, because an article for an object that is visible to the naked eye (brighter than, say, 5 or 6 apparent magnitude) likely can be developed beyond a stub article. Criteria #1 is hardly an arbitrary cutoff - indeed, the set includes the objects most likely to have significant coverage in independent sources. If an object in that list doesn't have the necessary sourcing, we could have a common sense discussion on whether to create a stub for it (I would actually vote "no"). I would gladly revisit this criteria if it could be shown that a significant fraction of this set of objects doesn't meet the general notability guideline.


 * As a rhetorical device, let me ask a question from reducio ad absurdum: should Wikipedia eliminate or reduce the need for significant coverage of individual people to allow stub articles on any individual. A phone book lists names of people, along with their phone numbers. An internet search can even turn up an address in many cases. A search for the basic Facebook profile can yield even more information about an individual. This is bound to be useful for somebody out there - we cannot predict who it will be useful for. Surely if NASTRO is to be modified to allow astronomical object articles without the need for significant coverage, then we should do the same with the notability criteria for people, since there's only 7.1 billion people, but the number of astronomical objects is, well, astronomical. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 14:23, 30 August 2013 (UTC)


 * It would greatly depend on what information we deign to include on the suggested new list, since I would assume it would include the common name, position, magnitudes, distance, constellation, stellar classification. And that any merger would also merge the star to the lists of stars by constellation (ie. List of stars in Pyxis) -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 04:16, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Well I am not really proposing merge to a list, but merge to an article on the class of object. Which article names would depend on what reliable sources write topics on.  Such an article would no jsut be a table, but could ahve paragraphs on each of the non notable objects. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:28, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
 * This seems an interesting suggestion, however I am unsure of how it would look like. Any examples of similar types of articles, to have an idea? Also, an object can belong to several classes, depending on how it is classified: do we want a list/article by spectroscopy? By distance to Sun? Articles can be at the intersection of several categories; a merge target needs instead to choose one overarching feature to classify for. I'm not saying "no" to the proposal, only it raises some questions. -- cyclopia speak! 11:17, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The suggestions I have seen are by constellation (for which we have lists), by radial distance from the sun, and by type of object eg K class solar analogs or stars with debris disks. We could do intersections of these eg M type binaries in Capricorn but I suspect this does not follow reliable source usage. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:08, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Intersection articles do not look good, it seems a trivial intersection. Also, what of objects that belong to more than one class -this would require duplication of entries, which is nightmarish. It would also be difficult to justify a duplication with the current lists by constellations. If there were examples of articles that work in the same way (articles which contain a number of paragraphs about separate entries) this could help me understand.
 * Perhaps instead the constellation lists should be able to accomodate the information, as previously was (almost) agreed? If the "Notes" entry of the constellation lists allows that, it's a start -for objects like WASP-9, which are interesting for one thing only, seems a good compromise. For others, I'm less sure, but I'd like to hear more. -- cyclopia speak! 12:19, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
 * (By the way, WASP-9 is covered at List of unconfirmed extrasolar planets, even if it doesn't contain the full info that is at its own article. It seems a good example however).-- cyclopia speak! 12:24, 30 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I do not think merging to a class-object article is such a good idea, such lists grow rather large, and have to be split off anyways, so instead, should be listed by class-object-type, it should start as a list of those, and not as a section of the class-object article. We should only list the very significant examples in the class-article (such as the archetype, prototype, nearest, usual examples of the class) ; remember we already have a list of nearest stars -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 13:36, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply above, User:Astrocog. I answer here for the sake of other readers of this discussion. I feel, from your rhetorical device, that there is still some misunderstanding instead. Perhaps I can try three toy examples to show what I mean by "watering down" the guidelines.

Article one:

We all agree this is notable.

Article two:

Here we all agree that this star should not be in an article.

Issues appear with article three:

In this case, there is plenty of information about the object that makes it possible to create a substantial article, even if no study is specifically about the object. Collating of these sources requires no original research: it's simply a listing of independent facts. This is the kind of edge cases I am talking about. Is it clearer now? I don't want to open the floodgates to all sorts of random catalogue-like entries. When there is more than a blip on a database, and the star happens to be included in studies here and there, we go beyond that. The only issue is that no individual study tackled only that object.-- cyclopia speak! 14:51, 30 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Also: I have read the discussion that brought to NASTRO promotion as a guideline, and others. I agree that in general it makes lots of sense as a guideline. It is simply, in my opinion, that at the time such edge cases weren't taken into account, and quite reasonably so: one cannot hope to get everything right at the start. Also remember that consensus is not fixed in stone: guidelines are subject to change, and consensus can change. That's the point of the friendly discussion here. I understand you spent lots of energies and love into the guideline, but it doesn't mean it should now be regarded as immutable. -- cyclopia speak! 14:56, 30 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes I agree, all good points. I think one of the things that have changed in the last few years is the increasing interest in nearby stars that are not visible to naked eye. There's the increase in the amount of information available about just about every nearby star. Also there is the increased interest in nearby stars generally, because they could have detectable planets or debris disks, and so are targets to look at for that reason. So it is now easier to write a fair amount about a nearby star than it was a few years ago, and there is also more interest in these stars.


 * The requirement that there should be a separate article about that star seems a bit artificial nowadays, when there is enough information in all the catalogues and studies of types of stars to make an article about the star. The only difference really is that the information is spread out over maybe 50 or 100 papers, and in databases, rather than collected together in a single article. The total amount of information available in the literature for a nearby star, say, within 50 light years, is typically, I'd say, at least for the orange dwarfs, more than the amount of information you would have in a typical paper devoted to just that star. Robert Walker (talk) 15:34, 30 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Let me admit up-front I have strong exclusionist/deletionist tendencies, though I haven't made any RfD's myself: for example, my personal preference would be that naked-eye brightness is insufficient for a star to have its own article, in the absence of other interesting data; and I am a now-inactive-in-research astronomer. I am a little leery of Robert Walker's argument; deciding a star is notable because its collective data from 20 or more survey papers (each of which has hundreds or more stars' data, and none of which single out the star under discussion for specific mention) assembles to an interesting combination ... this is in fact a violation of WP:OR.  That is how some of my professional colleagues select individual stars for original research study; it is an act of individual research, correlating disparate data to identify something new.


 * Second, I believe that in the absence of other interest-piquing evidence, possessing extreme brightness, velocity, color, what have you ... does not make an object notable. There is a Fritz Zwicky anecdote (which is from my education rather than my reading, so I cannot provide a citation) where a student wanted to study a particular galaxy merely because it was the brightest galaxy in its cluster, and Zwicky's response was to the effect, some galaxy had to be the brightest in the cluster, why not that one?  The point is that an object which is an outlier among its fellows in one of its properties need not be an object worthy of study, i.e., that doesn't make it notable by itself.  Rutherford's infamous "All science is either physics or stamp collecting" comment goes in the same direction, though I am closer to the "stamp collectors" he was backhanding.  My deletionist tendencies stem from a belief that after the first few, the forest is what is notable, not the individual trees in it.  I would, by myself, delete Gliese 146.  Once one or more appropriate lists (e.g., List of members of the Hyades moving group, List of stars at 10 to 20 parsecs distance) are identified, I would include the star's name, whatever properties are decided to be included in the list itself, and a link to its SIMBAD page ... and nothing more, until some datum more demanding of individual attention arises about that particular star.  Umbrella articles about the moving group, or about the local star population, etc., should be used to provide the overview for the larger category (the forest, in the trees-vs-forest analogy).  In effect, I apply a "So what" argument to any astronomical object article I see, and if I can't find a reason that satisfies, I'd be willing to support a delete.


 * Cluttering up an encyclopedia with thousands (or more) of articles of not even trivial/stub-class interest on astronomical objects which are unremarkable is a disservice to an encyclopedia user: it wrongly suggests that there's something to that object that anyone other than a specialist might bother with. Similar to AstroCog above, I have made (and I stand by) the uncharitable comment that the extreme-inclusionist attitude naturally produces a very lengthy (ultimately, on the order of 1022) series of articles about stars that, prior to the creation of their articles, were notable only for their being the brightest star not to have its own dedicated WP article.


 * This may seem like a divergence from my personal activities, creating or expanding articles on obscure individual stars like HD 122563, HD 140283, SN 1972e, BD Camelopardalis, RR Telescopii. But each of those are, or were for some time, key example objects of particular classes (which makes them Mid-level importance under WP:AST's importance scheme).  I would heartily endorse keeping an article like the QWERTY 467 example above; it feels like the same level of notability as the real articles I've linked, a key individual case in a larger phenomenon.  Ideally its article should highlight those features of the star that are important for understanding the class it exemplifies.  Gliese 146, by contrast, does not and cannot do this, from the data which exists in the astronomical literature now, and for that reason I would support deleting it. BSVulturis (talk) 21:46, 18 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for sharing your view on the star articles. Most of it is a matter of what you think wikipedia is for, and though we have many guideline, still those have to be interpreted and as Cyclopedia said the main aim is to create an encyclopaedia useful to the reader. Guidelines like notability are not to be followed blindly for their own sake but to help improve the encyclopaedia. For these star articles particularly, I doubt if it can ever become an "open and shut case".


 * Just a couple of observations. First, where do you get your 1022 from? I make it that there are about 9000 naked eye stars. For stars within 50 light years so possible to have similar amounts of information about them as Gleise 146, there are 1400 of those. So if you added a blanket approval of all stars within 50 light years then that's only 1400 max new star articles, most of which would probably never be created just as for the naked star sky articles.


 * As for original research, if someone did a paper about a star then they would gather information in order to study it to find out more about it, and the OR would be whatever they add that is over and above what is already known. These articles don't do that and just collate already known information about the star. Also these articles don't confer notability on the object. There is no implication that a star deserves to be singled out for special study as a separate object of its own in an astronomical paper, just because someone took the care to collate some of the easily available data about it into a separate entry in wikipedia.


 * I still stand by my original view that since Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia and these star articles don't turn up in searches unless you search for the star itself by name, then they don't dilute or pollute wikipedia. They also make it easier to cross reference between lists, you can jump to the star article and then from the information there find out about other lists it belongs to (e.g. Gleise 146 belongs to at least three potential lists possibly more), and helps to avoid repetition in articles that refer to them. And unlike most AfD discussions, these articles add information to wikipedia that is uncontroversial, accurate, and backed up by citations, and they are more readable for the average reader than the SIMBAD database entry for the star, and can include details not in SIMBAD


 * Compare Simbad entry for Gliese 146 and Gliese 146. The wikipedia entry is easier to read for the average reader, and is also more informative, it has a few details not in the SIMBAD entry such as its galactic orbit, that it's a member of the Hyades moving cluster (which is mentioned elswehere in SIMBAD but for some reason not in its star article itself). Another benefit over the SIMBAD database entry is that it also has the cross links to other wikipedia articles on habitability of orange dwarf stars and to other nearby stars in the "See also" section. As new lists are made that include these nearby stars, then you can add cross links to those lists as well e.g. to a list of other nearby orange dwarf stars which I'd like to add some time. Robert Walker (talk) 08:36, 19 September 2013 (UTC)


 * BTW the AfD discussion for Gliese 146 is interesting, is not a consensus, and there are several Delete votes but also several Keep votes and clearly there are quite a few wikipedians who agree with me and Cyclopedia on the benefits of including these articles about nearby stars. The result of the discussion was "no consensus" Robert Walker (talk) 09:06, 19 September 2013 (UTC)


 * , in your argument you seem to conflate "notable" with "interesting", "remarkable", "exceptional" or something semantically in the same ballpark. That is not how WP notability works. Notability is, instead, roughly speaking, a measure of "do we have the conditions to write an article about this?" - The subject does not need to be exceptional at all. What it needs, summing it up very quickly, is enough reliable material published about it that we can assemble in an article. So, when you say that an article existence wrongly suggests that there's something to that object that anyone other than a specialist might bother with., you're getting it wrong. The existence of an article suggests nothing of the sort -we're not a collection of the exceptional, we're a collection of knowledge, in general. We have tons of articles on extremly specialistic stuff, in all disciplines, which is nonetheless notable by far and large according to our standards.
 * Also its collective data from 20 or more survey papers (each of which has hundreds or more stars' data, and none of which single out the star under discussion for specific mention) assembles to an interesting combination ... this is in fact a violation of WP:OR. - That's not how OR works. OR requires you to do your own research or to reach conclusions not stated in the sources. That's not what happens here. Collating facts from sources is exactly how every article is made. -- cyclopia <sup style="color:red;">speak! 11:40, 19 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the comments! First, to  ... my 1022 number is from Observable universe, subheading Extrapolation from number of stars.   raised the kind of argument I was trying to make, though not quite in the same way.  My number was exaggerating for emphasis; in principle that represents what I perceive as the logical conclusion of the inclusionist spirit, one article per star that has ever been cataloged in any way, and I feel that that is not what should come about, and the existing NASTRO correctly prevents.  To take a more concrete and possible case, it ought to be possible for someone to program a bot to populate WP from the entries in SDSS-I and SDSS-II, 930,000 galaxies and 120,000 quasars from their web page, one article per object, with the data from that survey, with only the data from SDSS with the rationale that other editors can fill in other things if they want.  I would consider that an act of vandalism.  It seems that others would feel otherwise.  Second, to, you have correctly represented my interpretation of "notable", and that interpretation will continue to govern what I choose to add and edit into WP, and by extension, what I think ought to be in general.  I recognize that is a much stricter policy than present consensus even under the existing NASTRO, but as long as I refrain from putting debatable things up for deletion and don't beat people up for acting otherwise, it governs only my own contributions and is of no further concern.  Happily, that is something I find easy.  Third, about my comments on WP:OR ... I see those comments were a product of my own interpretation of "notable" coupled with the act of choosing to create WP articles based on the results of correlating data in catalogs; the OR is not in the content of the articles themselves, but rather in the selection of what gets created.  I know from personal acquaintance with those who did it that correlating data from different surveys and looking for anomalies and outliers was in fact the first step in their research.  That is the way HD 122563 was originally selected for inclusion in a research program, as hinted at in the "Spectral Type" section of that article.  This is closest to, but not quite, the issues hinted at in WP:SYN.  That is probably not likely to become an issue here in WP:AST-land.  Fourth, I do see dilution of WP with one-line-plus-starbox articles of no interest as being an issue, in one concrete if trivial case.  As someone who sometimes kick starts his brain in the morning by browsing WP over his morning Cheerios by hitting the Random Article link, I find it annoying to have to do this repeatedly to get past the one-sentence stubs about English footballers, German railway stations, popular music artists, etc., and adding lots of nameless minor planets, stars and galaxies to that would only make it worse.  (Looking at the talk page, I see I may be able to filter out stub-class articles with a .js file, something I hadn't known until now, sigh.)  Fifth, Cyclopia mentioned consensus can change.  I perceive that's what is trying to be initiated here.  Like a couple of others have previously commented, and I am happy with the present NASTRO, and I do not see a need to alter it at this time. BSVulturis (talk) 17:59, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
 * the OR is not in the content of the articles themselves, but rather in the selection of what gets created. WP:OR is about the content, not about what one decides to create. There is no original research involved in deciding to create an article about a star (unless in the hypothetical circumstance one has discovered that star and publishes it first on WP).
 * I find it annoying to have to do this repeatedly to get past the one-sentence stubs about English footballers, German railway stations, popular music artists - That's a WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument -for example I perused articles about German railway stations a lot during my last stay in Germany, and obviously pop music artists are important to many people, even if maybe not us two. Your problem about kickstarting yourself is easy -just click again the random article link until you find something that you like. Much better than excluding content which can be informative for many just because it isn't what you want for your breakfast.-- cyclopia <sup style="color:red;">speak! 18:11, 19 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi BSVulturis Okay first about the random articles, there are currently  4,331,285	 articles in wikipedia with 198,285 added last year. So if all 1400 of the stars within 50 light years were added then your chance of coming across one of them in a random search would be about 1 in 3000. Probably only a few hundred of them will ever get articles, so that would be 1 in 15,000 chance or less of coming across those articles. The number of star articles sent for AfD recently is quite large of the order of dozens, but not hundreds and that includes a few that everyone agreed should be deleted.


 * I totally agree that it would be an act of vandalism to try to turn wikipedia into a star catalogue. One line entries + a star box - no problem deleting those - unless there is a good chance they will be expanded. For objects within 50 light years, then there is a good chance they could be expanded to make quite a substantial small article as there is so much material about them in the databases, also in articles studying various small classes of nearby stars. For more distant stars, would have to be a very interesting type of star. Still, if there happens to be lots of information about those types of stars, and not just a list of figures all in a single database but something worth collating into an article, then they could be worth inclding too.


 * In the recent spate of deletions there were a few stars like that, ones that were e.g. 14th magnitude distant stars hundreds of light years away, and just info copied over from the SIMBAD database. Everyone I think agrees those should be deleted. Robert Walker (talk) 00:12, 20 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with much of the above from Robertinventor. I'm not going to wade into the random article discussion, which I think is beside the point of this entire thread. Our notability guideline is perfectly capable of handling all the cases and examples that have been mentioned. The onus is always on the article creator/editors to establish notability in questionable or borderline cases. I have yet to see a compelling reason to modify the guideline. Either an astronomical object has the significant coverage to build an article, or it doesn't. However, I'll go a little beyond Robertinventor and say that even some articles that have more than one line of text are not suitable. Some of the recent examples that were debated are just multiple lines of terse fact-stating, essentially rehashing what's in the info box. I don't agree with the sentiment from other editors above that an encyclopedic article can be made by cobbling together little bits of physical parameters from large survey papers or bulletins. The spirit of NASTRO (and the General Notability Guideline) is to favor objects that have significant coverage. Coverage doesn't have to be singular in an article, but it should be substantial and not trivial (e.g. the object is listed with 1000 others, and its mass is stated). I also don't yet see a compelling reason to arbitrarily include stars within 50 light years (what's special about 50? Why not 60, 75, or 100?). Many of those will have coverage - but I think it's reasonable at this point to just expect the article creator/editor to include such evidence. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 14:05, 20 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't agree with the sentiment from other editors above that an encyclopedic article can be made by cobbling together little bits of physical parameters from large survey papers or bulletins. - Why? You keep rehashing what NASTRO currently is, but you don't explain why it is an advantage for the public, nor how does it advance WP goal of summing up knowledge. All articles are made by cobbling together stuff. The significant coverage criteria is usually necessary because it usually implies that otherwise there is little or no information about the subject available to build an article. That's the spirit of GNG, as explained in WP:WHYN. The point is that stars and other astronomical objects happen to be an exception: you can have plenty of information to build an article even without one source significantly covering it. If the spirit of NASTRO is to prevent perfectly fine, informative, encyclopedic articles, then then spirit of NASTRO is at odds with the project. -- cyclopia <sup style="color:red;">speak! 14:37, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
 * If all that can be stated is from a handful of survey data, what is wrong with summing up that knowledge in a list, or a table within a section of a larger article, where context is better provided and a general reader can compare to related objects. My assertion is that is more advantageous. There isn't any prohibition against summing up this knowledge on WP. I disagree that astronomical objects are an exception to the GNG, as have many other editors in the process of creating this guideline. I think stubby information is best served by lists. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 15:14, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
 * We've been through that. In principle I'd agree but the problem is: which list? See above discussion. -- cyclopia <sup style="color:red;">speak! 15:21, 20 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Whichever list is most appropriate for the object. If one doesn't exist, then an editor can be bold and create one. If a list exists, but without a column to house an important piece of information an editor wants to include, that editor can be bold and make a new column. The choice of list to merge stub information is more within the scope of the object or list's talk page, but if you have a reasonable proposal for a merging recipe that could be incorporated into the "Dealing with..." section of this guideline, then this is a good place to consider it. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 18:05, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll point out that most of my suggestions above are taken care of in the "Special cases" section: WP:NASTHELP. AstroCog (talk) 18:09, 20 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The problem with lists is that a star can belong to many lists. Plus the references are different e.g. take Gliese 146 again as example it can be in a list of K dwarfs within 50 light years, or a list of members of the Hyades supercluster, or list of objects between 40 and 50 light years, or the list of objects of interest for search for debris disks or in the Horologium constellation. If you try and put all the information from the article into a list type article it will leave most of the information out, or else will be almost unreadable and each entry in the list would have a separate set of bibliography entries, and "see also" sections. And the lists would have duplicate information.


 * It's like - the only reason for presenting this information in list form in a big long list or several lists is to comply with the notability criterion for the star as a separate object. It doesn't benefit the reader of wikipedia to do it this way. But the notability criteria are meant to be there to improve the encyclopedia for its readers, that's their purpose. So they seem to be failing in their purpose if when you apply them has the effect of making the information harder to read and organize. Robert Walker (talk) 14:52, 21 September 2013 (UTC) Robert Walker (talk) 14:52, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Comments by Modest Genius
Section break to save lots of scrolling, and because this section is too big and slow for my syntax highlighter!
 * I came here via a request on WT:ASTRO for comments from an uninvolved editor, started reading, and simply ran out of steam after the first few thousand words. Have you really written a dissertation-length discussion on (what appears to me) a straightforward issue? WP:DEADHORSE appears to apply.
 * For what it's worth, I don't see any problem. Gliese 146 has no demonstration of non-trivial coverage in reliable sources, has no particular claim to fame I can see, and simply consists of the SIMBAD entry turned into words, which violates WP:DIRECTORY. It should be deleted and redirected to a relevant list article, perhaps List of nearby stars or List of Gliese objects.
 * To address the counter-arguments presented by cyclopia: 'It is one of 500 stars...' is clearly neither notable nor relevant; 'Its speed relative to the sun is 38.1 km/s' simply repeats information available on SIMBAD (wrongly) and 'Its a suspected variable' does the same (again wrongly, it's a known variable). I could go on.
 * The other example given at the start, HD 142093, has already been deleted so I can't comment.
 * Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. As such, it is not its purpose to collate entries in catalogues or databases, simply to save someone a SIMBAD or VizieR search. This is enshrined in policy (WP:DIRECTORY) and WP:NASTRO simply reflects that. I think the way it does so is reasonable, consistent and useful.
 * Robert Walker raises a valid point about list-type articles, and the possibility of multiple redundant ones being created just because of NASTRO. I suggest this issue is considered separately, as it is important and not really related to the issues which started this thread.
 * Conclusion: I see no problem with NASTRO as currently written, at least in the arguments I read above (which wasn't all of them). There's no need to change it. Now can we all go back to applying it and writing articles? <b style="font-family:Times New Roman; color:maroon;">Modest Genius</b> talk 19:57, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * First, I appreciate your input especially as a professional astronomer. But interested to know, then, what is your solution to the lists issue? You say it should be considered separately, but I'm not sure the lists issue is separate from this question of notability of nearby stars. Keeping these separate articles seems the best solution for nearby stars likely to be in many lists - if you think about how best to present the information in a way that is easy for a reader to navigate. What other solution is there that works as well as that? Plus the separate article is easier to read than a Simbad entry for a non professional astronomer and if you really know your way around SIMBAD you can find e.g. that Gliese 146 is a member of the hyades supercluster, but is not obvious from its entry that it is, and once you are in Simbad you no longer have cross linking back to wikipedia while if you stay in wikipedia then go to Gliese 146 and you can then just click on the link to get to the entry on the Hyades supercluster or the entry on habitability of dwarft stars etc. The separate articles are not meant to confer notability on these stars as entities, certainly not saying they deserve an astronomical article, just make it easier to organise the content.


 * We all agreed that it is not the task of Wikipedia to become a new directory of stars, and that star articles that are little more than a brief database entry of distant stars should be deleted, this is just for eg. nearby stars with lots of information available, and is to do with helping to make wikipedia better for the average reader. There is a bit more to it I think than first meets the eye which is why it became such a long thread. And these star articles have been in wikipedia for years, is only recently that the issue came up when someone started PRODing them, is not a new policy direction in that sense. I am not sure you have resolved it though it is good to have a fresh eye on it. Robert Walker (talk) 15:40, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Chrisrus
I see Chrisrus is up to his I just don't like it using User:Anomie/Asteroid list. He made a wiki request for tagging. (See also: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Astronomical_objects/Archive_21 and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Archive 22.) He simply has an agenda to remove as many asteroid-stubs as he can. Asteroids numbered below ~2000 should not be aggressively targeted since they are fairly large and easily observed by amateurs with small telescopes. Make a honest guide and there will always be someone in the group that will try to take advantage of it. -- Kheider (talk) 08:37, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for keeping up with him. I think with any guideline, there will be those who abuse its recommendations, as you said. I think we'll just have to take Chrisrus on a case by case basis unless he does something extremely disruptive, in which case administrator help may be warranted. AstroCog (talk) 12:24, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It seems to be a fact of life on Wikipedia that there are a number of people performing fussy activities that aren't particularly beneficial for either the readers or the editors. I see that type of behavior almost every day; just witness all the recent fuss about astronomy category name changes. But one could argue that having so many minor planet articles makes consistent maintenance all but impossible. It is very easy for a vandal to make a modification to a stub page that may not be caught for years. In the overall scheme of things on Wikipedia, I've reached the perspective that it is better to focus on quality rather than quantity. Having 500 high quality asteroid pages is better than having 500,000 uninformative stubs. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:41, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Mass redirects
The primary list of the 4862 minor planets being considered for re-direction to generic Wikipedia lists is located at WikiProject_Astronomy/Candidates for redirection new and is currently being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Archive 22. -- Kheider (talk) 16:44, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

List of minor planets
Talk:List of minor planets Chrisrus is forum shopping. -- Kheider (talk) 16:23, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Page locked
Why is the NASTRO page locked? Or am I being singled out? Another step backwards for Wikipedia. -- Kheider (talk) 16:00, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
 * How about we discuss the changes you want? &#8213; Padenton &#124;&#9993;  17:17, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Is this not the change he is proposing? Looks like it locks for a week due to edit warring, fairly typical, not a beef against any one editor. I like the idea of not starting more than 10 AfDs in a day. That's a reasonable number, we are all volunteers here.--Milowent • <sup style="position:relative">has<span style="position:relative;bottom:-2.0ex;left:-3.2ex;*left:-5.5ex;">spoken 17:31, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I was going to start with something simple such as asteroid 182016 (1999 XF255) and changing "beyond its discovery in 1999." to say, "since it is a less than 5km in diameter main-belt asteroid of which hundreds of thousands of such small main-belt asteroids are known." I assume such a simple explanation for the casual editor is beneficial. Asteroid 9418 Mayumi was the first main-belt asteroid discovered that was similar in size. -- Kheider (talk) 17:44, 21 May 2015 (UTC)