Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/White dwarf

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 17:10, 24 September 2007.

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White dwarf

Self-nomination. Article on important astronomy topic. Currently stands at good article. Spacepotato 01:58, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support, great article, not sure if method of giving page numbers to references (e.g.<ref name="fate">[http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1997RvMP...69..337A A dying universe: the long-term fate and evolution of astrophysical objects], Fred C. Adams and Gregory Laughlin, ''Reviews of Modern Physics'' '''69''', #2 (April 1997), pp. 337–372.</ref>^, §IIIA.) is the best way of doing this, or or doing something more Harvard would be better (ie to give the full reference the first time, and <ref>Adams and Laughlin, 1997, §IIIA.</ref> the next time.)--Grahamec 07:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Compared to the scheme you mention, the <ref ... />^... method (also used by {{rp}}) has the advantages that (1) it does not require the reader to go to the work of looking up the author and date in a list (he can flip back and forth between the page number or section and the citation by going forward and back in his browser), (2) it's easier for the reader to find out how often and where a given reference is cited, and (3) rearranging article text does not require rewriting the references. A disadvantage is that, as with inline Harvard referencing, it makes the references more bulky. Spacepotato 16:36, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support Comments -hi, I'm just starting to wade through the article and the prose looks good. I do have an issue with the composition of the lead. As it stands, it goes straight into a discussion of energy and genesis in some detail. I'd figure before this there'd need to be a couple of sentences on basic description - eg WDs are small, dense white stars of spectral type...(can put masses and diameters here), then maybe the lines "They comprise roughly 6% of all known stars in the solar neighborhood" followed by "White dwarfs are thought to be the final state of over 97% of all stars in our galaxy.", which could start a para describing how they're an end-point of star lifespan etc. A one liner saying when they were discovered and by whom and who coined the term would be good too. This should be straightforward and I do think this article should be able to pass first time found. I'll go back to hunting now...cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Overall the prose is tight and deals with the technical stuff well. It would be good to blue- the redlinks (even just a couple of stubby stubs is fine) and with the lead reshuffled a bit as above it'll be over the line. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment. I have written brief articles on Arlo U. Landolt‎, the Blackett effect, Évry Schatzman, the General Catalogue of Variable Stars, the luminosity function in astronomy, and virtual black holes, and redirected other redlinks. Also, I have rewritten the lead with a new first paragraph as suggested. Spacepotato 22:00, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support Comment — This is an excellent article that is essentially FA-worthy. It is much improved over the content just a few months back. Good work by the editor(s)! There are just a few little details that I would like to see improved before lending support:
  • The fifth paragraph of "Composition and structure" (beginning "Such densities are possible...") seems a little jargon dense to me. Perhaps some of these terms could be clarified, per Wikipedia:Explain jargon?
  • The "Composition and structure" section should give a modern value for the Chandrasekhar limit. (There is, for example, a solid reference on the Type Ia supernova page for a modern value of 1.38.) At present the value is only listed in the lead and down in the supernova section.
  • The extensive use of "we" (and "one") is not encyclopedic. Please re-write wherever these are used.
  • I would like to see some order of magnitude information for the cooling rates in the "Radiation and cooling" section. How long does it take to cool down to 10,000 K or 5,000 K, for example?
  • The "Type Ia supernovae" section should also mention the rare case of white dwarf mergers.
  • For a consistent format, the citations should all use the appropriate {{cite}} templates. Note #3 looks correct, for example, while note #2 does not.
    • The citations appear to be using the Chicago MoS bibliographic style normally employed for fine arts, literature and history, or something close thereof. But I'll let others address that.

  Thank you. — RJH (talk) 16:06, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Taking your comments in order: (1) I have rewritten the paragraph in question; (2) The value of 1.4 solar masses for the Chandrasekhar limit is mentioned in the Composition and structure section; (3) we and one are used, as is customary in mathematics and physics, to lead the reader down the steps of a derivation. This is encyclopedic, as explicitly mentioned in WP:MoS#Avoid_first-person_pronouns_and_one; (4), (5) I have added information on cooling rates and the double-degenerate model for type Ia supernovae; (6) I have put all references into a consistent format. Spacepotato 19:39, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• Object - non-standard footnotes. If using footnotes, page numbers belong in the references, not inline. If a work is used more than once, multiple references may be necessary. See other featured articles for examples. Kaldari 19:29, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment. For the benefits of this scheme (also used by {{rp}}) see my reply to User:Grahamec above. Spacepotato 20:05, 21 September 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.