Talk:Comet/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 18:17, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I will be pleased to review this article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:17, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

GA Table

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Prose: good; copyright: seems ok; spelling: ok; grammar: ok
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Lead: see comments; layout: ok; weasel: ok; fiction: n/a; lists: Spacecraft targets is not too long to stay, could be hived off as a list article. Probably needs citations.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	ok
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	See comments.
	2c. it contains no original research.	ok
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	See comments.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	ok
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	No sign of POV.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	No problem.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	All from Commons.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Ok, possibly somewhat many.
	7. Overall assessment.	A well-rounded, informative and well-sourced article.

Comments

• Some claims are uncited and most likely need to be. I'll mark up the ones that need attention. It may be these can be handled just by copying one of the earlier refs to indicate which one is the source.

• There are however refs in the lead; if any claims are made there which are not in the body of the article, they should be moved there. The lead itself should summarize the article, most likely roughly reflecting the structure its main sections.

• Who says something is an 'unusual comet'? Section may need to be clarified, with a source for the claim. If 'unusual' is actually a rag-bag for different things - orbital shape, or being seen to break up, or striking a planet - then it might be better to talk about those things separately?

• And phrases like "very unusual" are probably WP:POV; if from a RS, provide quote and ref, otherwise remove.

• 'Early observations and thought' names nobody before Brahe. Ian Ridpath names Pliny, Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Seneca all of whom had something interesting to say about comets. It might be worth quoting (and wikilinking) these authorities, or at least explaining what they thought on the subject (and perhaps mentioning how influential they were, right through to the middle ages).

There is indeed a great deal of fascinating stuff - I would commend Sagan & Druyan - but because of how much there is, I created Observational history of comets with what I removed from the article. I could just merge it back, but I think that because comets have such a fascinating social history, almost completely separate from their scientific aspects, there is scope for a second article. James^x12345 19:37, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

There should be a brief 'summary style' account of the early observations and thought, collapsing the classical authorities - Aristotle, Pliny especially - into one or two sentences. Actually the other article doesn't mention Pliny either (and it should). Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:02, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

• 'slammed into Jupiter's atmosphere' - 'impacted' (or similar word) would be more neutral, less comic-strip.

Will fix.

• Not critical for GA, but why are new refs being added in Harvard style when many old ones are not in that style? Generally one shouldn't change ref style, nor mix.

If there are two or more references to a book, I tend to use harvnb, as that makes it shorter, but when a book is used just once I simply cite it as I would a journal. It looks better when more than one book is cited more than once.

Mm. Doesn't matter here but would likely cause a tangle at FA.

• "Flyby" in table entries does not seem to add any information. Perhaps remove.