Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Earth

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 03:52, 21 April 2007.

[edit] Earth

archive1, archive2

This summary-style article has undergone significant revisions since the prior FAC go-arounds, and I believe it's FA-worthy. Opinions will vary, of course, so I'll try to address specific concerns. The page underwent a PR in March. Thanks! — RJH (talk) 17:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comments please check all sources vis-a-vis WP:RS, and fill in publisher information. For example, this looks like the personal, self-published website of a student. Miles, Hilma (October 27, 2003). The Theory of Plate Tectonics. Retrieved on March 2, 2007. An article about such a well-covered topic should be able to rely on superior sources. Non-technical readers might not recognize about/approximately here (and throughout)—might be better to spell it out: (~12,600 km or ~7,800 mi) The final image (red Supergiant) isn't loading on my browser ? Per WP:GTL, see also templates belong at the tops of sections (several are at the bottom). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
  • It's too bad you didn't like the web site; that was about the best summary of plate velocities I've been able to dig up. There are plenty of scientific references for relative velocities of individual plates, but few that cover the topic as a whole. I'll see what else I can dig up. I think I've addressed your other concerns. — RJH (talk) 15:28, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
    • It was only a comment; if you find a more reliable source, you could always add that to External links. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - While not grounds to oppose in itself this artilce renders very poorly at full screen on any sort of decent resolution in both IE7 and Mozilla. Tables cascading with images to leave gaps in the text are the biggest problem but I think the overall placment and arrangment of tables and images coudl use some work as well. This is non-trival to do using wiki-markup (and even using some raw HTML) for an article as rich in auxillary info, so that it renders acceptably at many resolutions and sizes. However, I think someone shoudl give it a go. I have a little expirence with this and may have event reid to sort this article out last year I can't remember but I am sure someone else is better at this than I. Dalf | Talk 02:13, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The page has already undergone a lot of massaging to try and avoid this, but it appears unavoidable. Either there are collisions—which people complain about—or there are long stretches of blank page—which other people complain about. The only fix, it appears, is to chop out half the images. — RJH (talk) 14:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
    • There are only two places wher eI ahve any problems and I have had some luck in the past with getting the text to flow around images and tables. Though it is much easier when they are al the same width so you can put them inside a table. If I can get somethign that looks decent on both browsers I have avalible I will make the change then check back here and on the talk page. As I said probably not a good enough reason for an oppose but I think the formatting and visual orginazation of complex articles is one area where wikipedia is lagging behind the professional refrence works and this one seems like it could really look nice if we could jsut figure it out. Dalf | Talk 19:57, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Well I've done what I could with it, but I only have so much control over the layout. I'm always going to expect that professional reference works have a better format; that's not a problem I'm going to be able to solve. Sorry. — RJH (talk) 15:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: looks pretty good, I'd be very glad to support once some minor things have been taken care of. The things I can remark right now is that there is only one real photograph of Earth in the article (the Blue Marble, showing only one continent) and that some subsections are a bit short. There's also some casual wording here and there. I'd be happy to help, but right now I'm a bit busy since I just nominated Moon (another one in the Solar System series). Nick Mks 16:33, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • It's up to 88Kb, so the article is summary style. Perhaps you want some consolidation of sections? I count 7 images of the Earth, as well as various data plots. Some images have had to be pulled to reduce the layout problems mentioned above. Anyway it looks like this article won't be getting the support it needs; so be it. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 22:32, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Oh I don't know I think I will probably support it in another day or so. I just havent had the time to give the article a proper look yet. Hopefully there are a few more people also waiting who may vote soon. Dalf | Talk 10:52, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Yeah, I'm just commenting. I'd support too eventually. Nick Mks 19:28, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I peer-reviewed this article back in March and it has improved since then, but I still have some tiny concerns. I think that the article can reach FA, but there are a few small issues that need to be addressed. I will add more comments later when I have time to give the article a second reading.

• The lead seems a little technical to me. I would think that this page would receive a lot of hits from non-experts and the lead, in particular, should be accessible to them. Along those same lines, I would suggest briefly explaining some of the concepts you have wikilinked; no one wants to click endlessly. I think that the Pluto page does this well.

Could you clarify? For example, the Pluto lead uses barycenter, eccentric orbit, trans-Neptunian object and AU without further explanation. I'm not clear what you consider too technical. Note that there is a "simple english" version of the Earth article.

I will give details on the lead below and some examples from the article. My overall impression from the Pluto article was that although they used technical terms at times, I understood the information they were trying to communicate and I believe that other people would as well.

Quick question: who do you think should be able to read the lead and the rest of the article? Who is your audience here?

I suppose I had thought the target audience was people who wanted to learn a thing or two about the Earth, rather than people who just wanted a reiteration of the facts they already knew. So that might involve some new terminology for a few readers. Is that unreasonable? I mean I understood all of the terminology in the lead section early in high school, if not before, and I expect many others did as well. But then I was quite into astronomy. *shrug* — RJH (talk) 16:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like you are assuming a casual reader, not a careful reader (which means that "difficult" or "new" concepts must often be explained thoroughly - often a single sentence will not do). You also seem to be assuming a reader who does not already have a grasp of astronomy. I would assume that as well (although I think that you must have been an advanced high school student to know all of the terms in the lead since most of my freshmen certainly wouldn't know them). If the reader doesn't have a grasp of astronomy, it is probably best to introduce "new" terms slowly throughout the article, don't you think? Awadewit 16:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

No I'm not assuming the reader has a specific knowledge of astronomy. — RJH (talk) 18:25, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Quick suggestion: Have you read the NSF scientific literacy study? It surveys American scientific literacy every two years or so. Yes, it is biased towards Americans who probably have a lower scientific literacy than other English speakers, but it is something to start with. A significant number of the respondants could not produce the information that the earth went around the sun once every year. Obviously you don't want to shoot for the lowest common denominator with your article, but it's a good idea to know what it is so that you guage everything accordingly.

• I would take out "sidereal year" and leave that for the article.
• I would leave the actual tilt measurement out of the lead.
• I would say what tectonic plates are in the lead.
• I would replace "geologic time spans" with an approximate figure in the lead.
• I would replace the word "convecting" with something more familiar in the lead.
• For clarity's sake, I would replace "the space environment" with "space" in the lead.
• In the "History" section, why can't you give a few words of description of the "solar nebula" that are then linked to it?
• The development of photosynthesis allowed the sun's energy to be harvested directly by life forms; the resultant oxygen accumulated in the atmosphere and gave rise to the ozone layer. The incorporation of smaller cells within larger ones resulted in the development of complex cells called eukaryotes.[6] True multicellular organisms formed as cells within colonies became increasingly specialized. Aided by the absorption of harmful ultraviolet radiation by the ozone layer, life colonized the surface of Earth. - explaining the ozone layer might be helpful; I'm not sure why you don't define eukaryotes more specifically here
• The axial tilt of the Earth causes the seasons. By astronomical convention, the four seasons are determined by the solstices—the point in the orbit of maximum axial tilt toward or away from the Sun—and the equinoxes, when the tilt is minimized. Winter solstice occurs on about 21 December, summer solstice is near 21 June, spring equinox is around 20 March and autumnal equinox is about 23 September. In an inertial reference frame, the Earth's axis undergoes a slow precession with a period of some 25,800 years, as well as a nutation with a main period of 18.6 years. These motions are caused by the differential attraction of Sun and Moon on the Earth's equatorial bulge because of its oblateness. In a reference frame attached to the solid body of the Earth, its rotation is also slightly irregular from polar motion. The polar motion is quasi-periodic, containing an annual component and a component with a 14-month period called the Chandler wobble. In addition, the rotational velocity varies, in a phenomenon known as length of day variation. - not explicitly clear how the tilt causes the seasons (I'm imagining my freshmen going, "huh?"); what is "precession" and "nutation"? what does "quasi-periodic" mean? please explain the "Chandler wobble" briefly. Awadewit 00:18, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I attempted to address these concerns. Thank you. — RJH (talk) 20:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

• You might want to go through a quick copyedit. I saw a few grammatical mistakes and fixed them myself, but I didn't comb through very carefully. Also, I saw some mixing of American English and British English. Pick a dialect.

Sorry, it gets difficult to clearly spot such issues after I've been munging on a page for a while. If by mixing of American English and British English you mean specifically the spelling of units in the SI, I believe that metre is the international standard. — RJH (talk) 20:38, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I thought I saw some other BE/AE issues besides "metre" (I did not know that metre was the standard), but I still think that the article should be copyedited. There are some typos, comma issues, etc. Awadewit 00:18, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I just looked at the SI page - it does mention "metre" as the international standard as well as "meter" as the American spelling, so I thought that the page would follow the American standard. Also, the National Institute of Standards and Technology uses "meter" as opposed to "metre". See [1] claiming that they are conforming to American English. It doesn't really matter to me which way it goes, I just thought the whole thing was interesting (ah, the politics of units) - there is even a little paragraph in the document I linked to explaining their rationale for the spelling. Awadewit 22:44, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately the SI seems to be a religious issue to some people; I usually just try to stay out of the debate by sticking to the standard. — RJH (talk) 16:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Best not to get involved in those wars. Awadewit 16:18, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

• The footnotes should all be formatted the same way. Why do some "unauthored" texts say "anonymous" and some do not? Why do some begin with the author's last name and some with the first name? Easy to fix. Awadewit 03:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I think I have the citations cleaned up; I decided to use "Staff" rather than "Anonymous" in the cases of institutions. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 20:22, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

What about 61 and 90? Awadewit 00:18, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay fixed. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 16:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Support This article is well-written, well-sourced and appears to me, anyway, to be comprehensive (but I'm no expert). I am happy to see that we will finally have an excellent article on our own planet! Awadewit 04:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support now. Looks fine after all, a lot of work has been done. Maybe the references could be cleaned out a bit more though (currently, there are only a few refs and almost a hundred notes. I think it's the other way around...) Nick Mks 16:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support good enough, covers everything possible, almost 100 references... considering how "easy" is to find info on this, it's about time to become a FA. igordebraga ≠ 23:57, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Weak support, although it looks a little cluttered in the sections Earth#Observation and Earth#Moon. (Just nitpicking though.) — Pious7_Talk^Contribs 04:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I did what I could to address this, but I think there will always be formatting issues when a page like this has many table and images, and when different people are using different browser geometries. Sorry. — RJH (talk) 16:09, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Support. I could find more completely minor flaws, but I don't want to delay this by finding unimportant imperfections. (It would be cool if Earth would be the Main page article for April 22.) — Pious7_Talk^Contribs 22:11, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
      • If you could point out the minor flaws I'll try and address them. Thank you. — RJH (talk) 17:55, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Per WP:LEAD articles should have a maximum of four paragraphs in the lead. M3tal H3ad 05:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  • That's a thoroughly impressive level of nit-picking. ;-) I suppose the length of the lead is proportionate to the length of the article, and appropriate paragraph breaks were necessary. But the first and second paragraphs could be merged, if needed. — RJH (talk) 15:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment why are the retrieval dates in the notes section in different styles? --Kinggimble 11:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Oh probably because somebody has been futzing around with the cite templates. I just confirmed that the accessdate fields are completely consistent across this article. — RJH (talk) 15:35, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support I think it’s a worthy featured article. Kinggimble 16:32, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Very Strong Support I read this entire article and compared it to the one in the World Book Encyclopedia, year 2000 edition. In many cases, the article seemed to be more professionally written than the one in the paper encyclopedia. I did note these problems and tried to remedy them.

1. I did find on case of weird text wrapping, so I fixed it.
2. As for complaints of an overly long and technical intro, I think someone fixed the technical aspect.
   1. I don't really like the length, but I do not know how to change it so it gives enough info and doesn't leave too much out. Because this article is so long, it may not be a bad thing to have an intro that kind of presents the article in a nutshell.

This article is written very clearly, is close to as concise as is feasible for an article of its scope, and, quite frankly, was an enjoyable read. I cannot say enough in favor of this article. The writers did a phenomonal job and I honestly have not come across an article on Wikipedia that is more well-written than this one.J.delanoy 15:51, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• • Thanks J.delanoy, I'm glad you enjoyed everybody's work. To be fair, though, the World Book version was probably targeted at a different, somewhat younger audience. That could account for their writing style. — RJH (talk) 14:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
• Minor object. There are still unreferenced sentences .-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  12:59, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Could you possibly be slightly more specific? Otherwise all I can do is shrug at your statement, rather than trying to address it. — RJH (talk) 14:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I concur with RJHall - there is no requirement that every article in the sentence be cited, so saying "There are uncited sentences" isn't very helpful. Raul654 20:32, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Such a huge topic this seems to do a pretty good job with summary style to get everything covered. It is overall a visually appealing artcle and well written. Dalf | Talk 23:53, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.