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Wikipedia:Featured article review/Supernova/archive1

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

The article was kept by DrKay via FACBot (talk) 6:31, 2 June 2023 (UTC) [1].

Supernova

Notified: Lithopsian, Headbomb, RJHall, WikiProject Astronomy, WikiProject Physics, WikiProject Solar System, talk page notice 2022-02-06

Review section

Like what Hog Farm said. Just like Planet, this article also contains a lot of unsourced statements and is outdated. Nearly everything needs to be rewritten/expanded on other sections. BloatedBun (talk) 10:58, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. There are some instances of "a press release happened" (e.g., On 1 June 2020, astronomers reported...), and some paragraphs are uncited, but it looks in much better shape than Planet is or Solar System and Mars were. The uncited material looks like standard all-the-books-said-this stuff; it should be fairly easy to source and to update where necessary.
Unfortunately, with FARs of Solar System, Mars, 90377 Sedna, and Planet all ongoing already, our astronomy community is going to get spread pretty thin. Can't be helped, I suppose. XOR'easter (talk) 16:31, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, the first step for a FAR is to raise the issues on the talk page at first. I don't see where that was done here. I'm not a FAR expert, but this seems like a premature FAR listing. I also agree with XOR'easter's caution about overwhelming the astronomy community. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 17:02, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Talk:Supernova#WP:URFA/2020. I thought I'd replied that I would try to find citations if the problem areas were pointed out, but nothing there. Maybe I'm thinking of a different article. Lithopsian (talk) 18:31, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. With the cryptic title "WP:URFA/2020", I missed that section. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 18:48, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
URFA... Ultimate Robot Fighting Association? :-)
My current thinking on the citation front is to aim for the DYK standard of at least ~1 per paragraph, for convenience. A mix of textbooks and review articles would probably be adequate to cover the contents of an article like this, which is mostly about providing the kind of background knowledge that everybody in the field learns early on. XOR'easter (talk) 19:08, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@FAR coordinators: and @BloatedBun, Lithopsian, XOR'easter, and Mark viking: - Given the concerns about overwhelming the astronomy project and the fact that this is the 5th (!) FAR on this subject matter area, would it be best to place this FAR on hold, and then re-open in a month or two once some of the others have (hopefully) been closed? Hog Farm Talk 19:28, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I forgot to mention that there was also talk of bring Hubble Space Telescope to FAR, though we put in some work since then and the conversation seems to have fallen off. XOR'easter (talk) 19:39, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the suggestion. Putting this FAR on hold until some of the other astronomical FARs have concluded is a good option. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 20:10, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not fussed either way. If I see working being done at an FAR, we often leave the review open for months. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:18, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Others and Hog Farm. Since XOR has retired, I seriously doubt this one will be improved, including Planet. BloatedBun (talk) 12:43, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Let's see if someone else would be able to pick it up before just slinging this one to be delisted; it's not going to be me since I know nothing of the topic and am at the verge of burnout myself. Hog Farm Talk 13:30, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So I've made a second start with adding more references. I think every section except "Current models" is OK, with every paragraph except for a few introductions having at least one reference and usually several. Shame Current models is about half the article! Lithopsian (talk) 15:33, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Could we get an update on status here? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:32, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm willing to volunteer to improve this article. The talk page criticsms are so vague that I can't make out what improvements are needed. Please detail the specific references or statements that need to be corrected and there are contributors willing to work through them. --mikeu talk 05:26, 31 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not vague enough thou. There are too many unsourced statements and some short paragraohs should be formatted. That's all. BloatedBun (talk) 22:05, 31 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
mikeu: there are a couple uncited paragraphs in "Type II", one in "Type Ib and Ic", one in "Light curves", six in "Energy output", and three in "Progenitor". Nothing leaps out at me as inaccurate — the people who wrote the text in the first place probably knew what they were doing! — but I'm not a specialist and may have overlooked something. XOR'easter (talk) 00:06, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@XOR'easter: Yes, it does look like someone knowledgeable wrote this. Those notes you left are very helpuful. I've started working through the list.[2][3][4] --mikeu talk 23:05, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! XOR'easter (talk) 23:38, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the duplicated links with a view to replacing some when the article is close to being FA standard again. Amitchell125 (talk) 20:38, 31 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Praemonitus:

  • The "Observation history" section of the Supernova article discusses supernovae types before they have been covered by the "Classification" section. For this reason I think the "Observation history" section should be moved down below "Classification". It could possibly go before the "Current models" section. Praemonitus (talk) 13:13, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure why "Observation history" and "Discovery" are separate sections; they read like one big section that should be organized chronologically. XOR'easter (talk) 15:44, 2 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
They even point to the same main article. Lithopsian (talk) 17:12, 7 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I took a crack at merging the two sections, performing some re-organization in the process. Praemonitus (talk) 01:18, 8 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good; thanks. XOR'easter (talk) 21:19, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think drop the 1979 and 2014 entries. That leaves a fairly comprehensive list up to 1680, plus S Andromedae in 1885 and SN1987A. Maybe drop one or two of the uncertain old ones? The 386 event doesn't have an article and it is uncertain if it was even a supernova. Lithopsian (talk) 17:12, 7 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, for now I just constrained it to the Local Group. Praemonitus (talk) 01:22, 8 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "Observation history" section discusses the supernovae type of "SN 2016gkg" before types have been explained. I'm not clear that the last three paragraphs of the section are even needed here. They are more like "Recent findings" of a mildly significant nature. Praemonitus (talk) 15:42, 7 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
People do like to tack on the latest piece of "exciting" news they read. Usually it isn't something of longterm of hirtorical importance. I agree it could be pruned. Or even better, expanded but with the emphasis on discoveries of more lasting significance, probably mainly older ones. Lithopsian (talk) 17:12, 7 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I took the action of trimming back the last, rather bloated paragraph. Praemonitus (talk) 13:08, 8 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Good move. Thanks. XOR'easter (talk) 14:55, 8 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "Non-standard Type Ia" section appears to need some work. It could use a proper introduction, not just a series of cases. Clarification is lacking in many paragraphs. For example, the sentence that begins "Abnormally bright type Ia supernovae occur" is a muddle. Praemonitus (talk) 16:16, 7 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Could be my fault. I don't really know a lot about Type Ias and even less about the peculiar ones, so that is a pretty weak area. Unfortunately type Ia supernova isn't much help. Lithopsian (talk) 17:12, 7 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I rewrote that particularly muddled sentence, but the subsection is still choppy. XOR'easter (talk) 21:17, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A reference that may be useful: Gal-Yam, Avishay (2017). "Observational and Physical Classification of Supernovae". Handbook of Supernovae. Springer. pp. 195–237. arXiv:1611.09353. Bibcode:2017hsn..book..195G. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-21846-5_35. ISBN 978-3-319-21845-8. OCLC 1016955731. Section 2.2 is about "Peculiar Type Ia Supernovae". XOR'easter (talk) 23:41, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not seeing a common definition of the "Non-Standard Type Ia" supernovae. The double white dwarf model just appears to be the standard second model. Hence I changed the section name. Praemonitus (talk) 15:21, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nice image, but there are lots of other nice, and real, images. Type IIb supernova in M81, so a little unusual, mentioned in the text, but the image doesn't really add anything. SN 1993J has an article, so I wikilinked the caption, but it is wikilinked in the text and the image is in the linked article. Lithopsian (talk) 11:54, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • The statement, "Extremely luminous stars at near solar metallicity will lose all their hydrogen before they reach core collapse and so will not form a type II supernova" is then followed by the "Type Ib and Ic" where a supernova forms that has lost its hydrogen. This is ambiguous. Is the statement just saying it can't be a type II? Or that it can't form a supernova period? This and the following sentence are unsourced, it appears. Praemonitus (talk) 19:26, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Just that any supernova won't be type II. The reference after the first sentence of the paragraph can confirm this. Also, it is something of an unsolved problem whether stars higher than the cutoff mass for producing a type II supernova will produce any supernova at all. Some or all of them may produce a type Ib or Ic, or neither. The referenced paper is dedicated to this problem. Lithopsian (talk) 20:13, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I rewrote it slightly so that is clear. Praemonitus (talk) 15:55, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Although the energy that disrupts each type of supernovae is delivered promptly, the light curves are dominated by subsequent radioactive heating of the rapidly expanding ejecta." Huh? The word "disrupts" doesn't quite make sense. Praemonitus (talk) 16:06, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is referring to the initial implosion/explosion. That is a *very* rapid event, with gravitational potential energy causing heating and photodisintegration followed by enormous neutrino generation and (somehow) the conversion of the initial inward collapse into an outward explosion all within seconds, but the material that is ejected into space then radiates for various reasons for months or years. Radioactivity from isotopes created during supernova nucleosynthesis in that very rapid implosion/explosion is one of the dominant sources of that electromagnetic radiation. Lithopsian (talk) 19:39, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I modified it slightly for clarify. Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 22:04, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The intensely radioactive nature of the ejecta gases, which is now known to be correct for most supernovae, was first calculated on sound nucleosynthesis grounds in the late 1960s." What does 'correct' mean here? Praemonitus (talk) 16:07, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Correct" would presumably mean that it has been verified, observed, and become consensus understanding. It was none of these things in the 1960s. Lithopsian (talk) 19:39, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I re-ordered the sentence for clarity. Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 22:04, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So just based on that very cursory look, this FAR should not be closed. I'm sympathetic to the problem of nominators who don't participate in the FARs they nom, but at the end of the day, we are sometime going to have to deal with dozens of non-compliant planet FAs in a WikiProject that has declined and become inactive, and I'd not like to start a precedent that we're going to accept deficient planetary FAs because of those circumstances.
Move to FARC, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:15, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The "not well studied" applies as much now as it did when the line was written, because it's referring to a category of stars that are generally not well studied. I've tweaked the phrasing elsewhere in that paragraph. XOR'easter (talk) 17:38, 8 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by a455bc9:

Two of them now have in-caption attribution, and the third looks fixable but will need a little work. XOR'easter (talk) 17:10, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I've just added the references to Commons as well (see File:SNIacurva.png and File:SNIIcurva.svg). a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 19:00, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the third one, some curves are already on Commons and sourced, such as: File:SN 2002cx Lightcurve.svg, File:SAndLightCurve.png, File:SN1987ALightCurve.png, File:Sn2006gy light curve.jpg, and File:Supernovae lightcurves.svg. We could use one of those and/or "merge them" into one graph. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 19:03, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I thought about swapping out the image with the last one you mentioned, but I think I was able to find adequate sources for the plot the article currently uses. XOR'easter (talk) 20:39, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section

Moving this as it appears to have stalled. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:46, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have attempted to help here, but I simply do not have time to try to edit around ridiculously long strings containing up to 100 first and last name parameters in a citation.

As much as I would like to help, the crazy referencing standard here is off-putting. (In medical content, we use vauthors and shorten to three authors et al). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:11, 19 February 2023 (UTC) [reply]

Sample citation

 | title=The superluminous transient ASASSN-15lh as a tidal disruption event from a Kerr black hole
 | last1=Leloudas | first1=G. | last2=Fraser | first2=M.
 | last3=Stone | first3=N. C. | last4=van Velzen | first4=S.
 | last5=Jonker | first5=P. G. | last6=Arcavi | first6=I.
 | last7=Fremling | first7=C. | last8=Maund | first8=J. R.
 | last9=Smartt | first9=S. J. | last10=Krìhler | first10=T.
 | last11=Miller-Jones | first11=J. C. A. | last12=Vreeswijk | first12=P. M.
 | last13=Gal-Yam | first13=A. | last14=Mazzali | first14=P. A.
 | last15=De Cia | first15=A. | last16=Howell | first16=D. A.
 | last17=Inserra | first17=C. | last18=Patat | first18=F.
 | last19=de Ugarte Postigo | first19=A. | last20=Yaron | first20=O.
 | last21=Ashall | first21=C. | last22=Bar | first22=I.
 | last23=Campbell | first23=H. | last24=Chen | first24=T. -W.
 | last25=Childress | first25=M. | last26=Elias-Rosa | first26=N.
 | last27=Harmanen | first27=J. | last28=Hosseinzadeh | first28=G.
 | last29=Johansson | first29=J. | last30=Kangas | first30=T.
 | last31=Kankare | first31=E. | last32=Kim | first32=S.
 | last33=Kuncarayakti | first33=H. | last34=Lyman | first34=J.
 | last35=Magee | first35=M. R. | last36=Maguire | first36=K.
 | last37=Malesani | first37=D. | last38=Mattila | first38=S.
 | last39=McCully | first39=C. V. | last40=Nicholl | first40=M.
 | last41=Prentice | first41=S. | last42=Romero-Cañizales | first42=C.
 | last43=Schulze | first43=S. | last44=Smith | first44=K. W.
 | last45=Sollerman | first45=J. | last46=Sullivan | first46=M.
 | last47=Tucker | first47=B. E. | last48=Valenti | first48=S.
 | last49=Wheeler | first49=J. C. | last50=Young | first50=D. R.
 | journal=Nature Astronomy | year=2016
 | volume=1 | issue=2 | page=0002
 | arxiv=1609.02927 | bibcode=2016NatAs...1E...2L
 | doi=10.1038/s41550-016-0002 | s2cid=73645264

When I'm in edit mode, I want to be able to easily see the year of the citation for evaluating text next to the source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:15, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've just revisited the article, and I agree with the original FAR statement from May of last year. There are too few inline cites. I checked one of the sources - an in depth scientific paper, that info had been summarised in a less than encyclopaedic manner. The summary involved interpretation of data i.e. WP:OR. So we have both OR and WP:V problems. This article needs someone to comb through the sources and given the amount of time this has been here I don't think that is going to happen. My delist stands. Desertarun (talk) 13:13, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Which source did you check? I haven't noticed anything I'd call OR or V problems. Every paragraph is cited, apart from a couple short ones that just summarize the sections that follow, and with 229 citations (some of them used as many as 8 times each) the overall density of them does not seem very low. Without more specifics, no one can do anything. My "inclined to keep" stands. XOR'easter (talk) 05:13, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This^. As described several times, any weaknesses in referencing which have been pointed out have been addressed fairly promptly. If anyone thinks there are still problems with the references, these should be pointed out in some detail and they can either be discussed or fixed. Just making a sweeping claim that the article fails WP:OR or WP:V doesn't help anyone and doesn't improve the article. Lithopsian (talk) 13:12, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This^. If you see bundled refs or long paragraphs with just one reference - rewrite with inline cites. Desertarun (talk) 15:34, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's not nearly specific enough to be actionable. Citations at the end of a paragraph are inline. So are bundled references. Per WP:CITEDENSE, Wikipedia does not have a "one inline citation per sentence" or "one citation per paragraph" rule, even for featured articles. Wikipedia requires inline citations based on the content, not on the grammar and composition elements. Some articles (e.g., articles about controversial people) will require inline citations after nearly every sentence. Some sections (e.g., dense technical subjects) may even require more than one inline citation per sentence. Others may not require any inline citations at all. This is a technical article, but one with a fairly broad scope. Some parts will naturally have rapid-fire footnotes because they contain more details, while other parts will be more sweeping because they are more introductory/overview in nature. XOR'easter (talk) 17:05, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've tagged the section in which I found OR. Desertarun (talk) 18:06, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What claim was actually "original"? XOR'easter (talk) 18:11, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've added more tags. I have a degree in physics. Sadly a big chunk of the article is in poor shape. Desertarun (talk) 19:24, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Every tag you've put on looks either really easily fixable (e.g., the basic naming convention is widely documented) or misplaced. XOR'easter (talk) 19:35, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, i've finished tagging for today, i'll continue from thermal runaway tomorrow. You do realise the prose in this is kind of terrible in places don't you? Its an enormous ask to fix this article. Desertarun (talk) 19:51, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Which places? What stands out as particularly bad in relation to, well, most scientific writing? (What, for example, is unclear about A small number of type Ia supernovae exhibit unusual features, such as non-standard luminosity or broadened light curves, and these are typically classified by referring to the earliest example showing similar features?) Identify them and we can fix them. XOR'easter (talk) 20:00, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A full stop after the word "curves" would make it easier to read. Desertarun (talk) 20:11, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's down to a matter of taste. To me, splitting that line in two would make it more choppy. Maybe Lithopsian can make the call. XOR'easter (talk) 21:05, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've made no change, but someone else might attempt to make it better. Possibly splitting the first sentence at "curves", but then merging the split section with the following sentence to which it is very closely tied. Lithopsian (talk) 17:05, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that sentence. I think. Desertarun, since more specificity on your concerns is needed, it might be helpful to explore details in a section all your own at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/Supernova/archive1, and then summarize back to here when all is resolved. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:14, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On number of authors, this can easily be limited. The "default" as applied, for example, by Citation Bot, is 29 which is quite a lot! Pick a number, if everyone agrees, I'll apply it. Just for the record, three isn't the number I'd pick, but if that's what people want then so be it. Lithopsian (talk) 13:15, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not talking about a display-author limit which impacts output; I mean, leave them out all together so the aren't so hard to edit around when in edit mode. In medical articles I edit, the rule I use is one that was established by the Diberri format eons ago ... if there are more than five authors, truncate to three plus et al. Some people prefer to truncate to six; I fail to see why we need more than three authors. It's editing around those gynormous strings that is awful. Another way to avoid having to edit around them is to move to an sfn style. See dementia with Lewy bodies. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:16, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
PS, mine is not an actionable objection relative to FA status; it's just a frustration that I can't evaluate content in edit mode relative to publication date when the content is so chunked up with unnecessary citation info. Others may have other ways of looking at content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:25, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Continued on talk, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:46, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've finished a run through and added some tags. I'm going to assume these will be fixed and on that basis i'm switching my delist comment to neutral and unwatching the article and FAR (The topic area just isn't of much interest to me.) I'm generally not happy about dense science articles being summarised by WP editors but its not a barrier to FA articles. Desertarun (talk) 11:13, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've filled in all the {{citation needed}}s. I left a {{when}} and a {{clarify}}, because neither of them look ambiguous or unclear to me, but maybe someone else has a different opinion. Also, I still don't know what reads as "original" in the section tagged as possibly containing such. XOR'easter (talk) 13:15, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • I removed the 'OR' tag from the Milky Way Candidates section as it was unexplained and the content appears to be reasonable and properly cited. The 'when' tag is questionable, so I modified the text instead to try and clarify the meaning. The 'clarify' sentence seemed clear, but I changed 'classified' to 'categorized'. Praemonitus (talk) 15:00, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I got curious and checked the page views and other such statistics today. Turns out that xtools is crediting me with the authorship of exactly 20,000 characters! Now I'm almost afraid to edit the page again.... XOR'easter (talk) 15:39, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Mostly rewritten. "little-studied" is still in there since that is supported by the referenced paper, but maybe there is something more recent that can be said about this. Lithopsian (talk) 16:23, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.