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GA Review

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Reviewer: Corvus coronoides (talk · contribs) 13:22, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Review in progress. Corvus coronoides talk 13:22, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Article on hold

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You must be getting sick of me reviewing your nominations. ;) I'm just going down the WP:GAN#PHYS list, though. Here, strong article but I have concerns regarding coverage (being too broad and too detailed) and prose, which has a number of spelling inconsistencies/errors, and the prose tends to the clunky side. The entire article might benefit from a copyedit and condensing; there is a lot of detail here which I would look for an article about the history of particle physics, but not in a biography of Rossi. I think I could be persuaded that the inclusion of technical detail regarding Rossi's experiments is not out of scope, but the amount of detail about work performed by his colleagues certainly is. There is a lot of good technical content that should be moved to the technical articles if it is not already there.

I only have one more on the Physics queue. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:41, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the work that needs to be done here is significant, but I've recently reviewed two of the nominator's other nominations and issues have been addressed quickly, so I'll put the article on hold for 7 days (until 10 August 2013). Contact me with questions/concerns. Best, Corvus coronoides talk 15:07, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Minor issues

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  • Lead - "Bruno Benedetto Rossi (13 April 1905 – 21 November 1993) was a leading Italian experimental physicist." --> is it standard to call him an Italian physicist despite his being a US citizen for over half his life and having been in the US for longer? I'm thinking Italian-American might be more accurate but let me know if it's normal to say otherwise.
  • Lead - "...which meant that there was a larger influx of positive primary particles than of negative ones." --> I think this level of explanation is beyond what should be in a lead for accessibility per MOS:INTRO; this entire sentence in fact seems to be overemphasis of one of his earlier contributions.
  • Florence - "as assistant to the director of the Antonio Garbasso, who founded the University's Physics Institute in 1920." --> as this sentence stands it seems to be a typo and should read either "as assistant to the director Antonio Garbasso, who..." or "as assistant to the director of the Antonio Garbasso, an institution named after the founder of the...". Additionally, I removed the link to the Italian page for Antonio Garbasso, but it occurs to me that may have been hasty. I'm not actually positive what WP policy on linking to foreign wikis is, so if you disagree with me please reinstate it.

Ordinary interlanguage links are used primarily to link an existing English Wikipedia page to a corresponding page in another language Wikipedia. If it is desired to include, in some article, a link to a topic that is not covered by an article on the English Wikipedia but which does have a page in another language version of Wikipedia, then there are three possible approaches:

  1. Use a red link pointing to a possible future article on the English Wikipedia;
  2. Use an interlanguage link pointing to the existing article on the other Wikipedia, as described in the next section;
  3. Use {{ill}}, {{ill2}}, or {{ill-WD}} to show both a redlink and an interlanguage link (ill and ill-WD will both hide the interlanguage link should the redlink turn blue).
The advantage of the first approach is that the red link informs all readers that the page does not exist locally, thus inviting its creation, and avoiding directing readers to a page that many of them will not understand. The disadvantage is that it conceals the existence of the foreign-language page, which might in itself be of interest to many readers, and may also be valuable to anyone wishing to create a corresponding English Wikipedia article.
Personally, I an not bothered by a foreign language page, and, and a user, greatly prefer it to no page at all. But I know that American editors don't like it, and see it as anti-American. I could solve the problem by translating Antonio Garbasso into English. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:41, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well I don't see it as anti-American; it's more that it makes me think there's an English-language page and there isn't. If I could read Italian I personally would have no objections, but most English speakers can't. Translating it would be great if you have the time - it seems you have the knowledge. ;) Corvus coronoides talk 23:23, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The time is definitely the problem. For now I am still busy on the Manhattan Project articles. Removed, so the links are now red. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:32, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Florence - the quote "In Rossi's words it came like a flash of light revealing the existence of an unsuspected world, full of mysteries, which no one had yet begun to explore. It soon became my overwhelming ambition to participate in the exploration." --> a quote that is going to get its own paragraph needs to be stand-alone, I think. If they are part of the same clause they should be in the same paragraph.

Format a long quote (more than about 40 words or a few hundred characters, or consisting of more than one paragraph, regardless of length) as a block quotation

Well, in that case I would amend the suggestion to set it up as a stand-alone clause, but I'm not going to fuss about it if you want to leave it as is. Corvus coronoides talk 23:23, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Padua - "At this prestigious institution, the astronomer Nicholaus Copernicus studied medicine from 1501 to 1503, and Galileo Galilei taught from 1592 to 1610." --> this article isn't about the University of Padua. Suggest removing this sentence and combining the Padua section with the one below it.
  • East-West Effect - again, links to the aunts -- Gina Lombroso and Paola Lombroso Carrara,-- are to the Italian wiki. I'm thinking they ought to be removed.
  • The Age of Innocence - is there a more encyclopedic title for this section? AFAICT there isn't an accepted time period called that, and the link in the first sentence goes to Edith Wharton's novel. Intentional?
  • Cornell - "...became known among cosmic-ray researchers as "The Bible"" --> needs a cite.
  • Trinity diagnostic - "...who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1952." --> was Purcell awarded the prize for related work? It sort of sounds like he was, but I don't think that's what's meant.
  • MIT - "This era was foretold in a 1945 report, Science, The Endless Frontier,written by Vannevar Bush, an MIT graduate and influential head of the wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development." --> foretold? I see a cite, but foretelling isn't scientific or encyclopedic.
  • Elementary particles - 5th paragraph. I see Peyrou and Peyroux. Which is it?
  • Elementary particles - "in the group headed by ouis Leprince-Ringuet" --> I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the Frenchman is named Louis.
  • Volcano Ranch experiment - "Soon, he was joined by ivio Scarsi," --> he was joined by whom?
  • Agassiz/Aggasiz - is not consistent.

Coverage

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Coverage is perhaps both too broad and too detailed - there are a number of sections that go into excessive detail about work done by others only tangentially related to a biography of Bruno Rossi, and other sections that go into excessive detail about the work Rossi did. Many of these sections would probably fit well into the Cosmic ray article, particularly the Cosmic ray#History section:

  • Rossi curve - excessive technical detail re: experimental set-up
  • Manchester - section mostly discusses work performed by other scientists related to cosmic rays; belongs in an article about cosmic rays, not about Bruno Rossi. Refers frequently to "soft component" and "hard component", defined once above in the article, so it's okay, but not ideal for a reader interested in Bruno Rossi more than in the technical details.
  • Mesotron decay - a lot of detail about the scientific work; I would like to see this at least condensed to contain only Rossi's contributions rather than the detail regarding the knowledge generally known at the time.
  • Manhattan project - "The basic concept of implosion ... driven by explosive lenses." paragraph leads into next one, but is provides unnecessary detail on the history of spherical symmetric implosion. Could be resolved by editing the lead sentence of the next paragraph to "Rossi was enlisted to implement a spherically symmetric implosion method proposed on 1 November 1943 by Robert Serber..."
    • checkY Aaarghh no. That is completely wrong. Serber didn't come up with implosion, he prosed RaLa. Trimmed the section to highlight Rossi's part.
  • Manhattan project - "As compression progressed, the rapid increase of absorption was detected as a decrease of gamma ray intensity recorded outside of the assembly by four trays of fast ionisation chambers." --> excessive detail, uncited.
  • Elementary particles - excessive detail in the first two paragraphs leading up to a mention of one of Rossi's students - I would consider this tangentially related to the article.
  • Elementary particles - last paragraph. Needed? No mentions of Rossi.
  • Bagnères-de-Bigorre conference - excessive detail on the location, facilities, and reputation of the conference.
  • Bagnères-de-Bigorre conference - last paragraph: excessive detail concerning Yash Pal.
  • Agassiz experiment - "After Oda returned to Tokyo, he played a major role in Japan's Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science before he became director of RIKEN, and later of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Osaka. In 1974, he was awarded the Imperial Prize of the Japan Academy." --> outside scope of this article, I think.
  • Agassiz experiment - "As the Aggasiz experiment ... and Koichi Suga." seems outside scope as well.
  • Space Plasma Research - excessive technical detail for a biography.

Style/Prose

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I have a number of style concerns with this article. The prose is reasonably clear, but is clunky in many places, and this article tends to editorialize. I noticed a number of spelling/grammar issues throughout; noted some but not all. The article would benefit from a read-through. Some particular areas:

  • Lead - the prose is a little clunky and the lead's a little short considering the length of the article as a whole (probably because the article as a whole goes into such detail). Won't stop me from passing the GA, but it's a point for future work.
  • Rossi curve -- "These experiments showed that ground-level cosmic rays consist of two components: a "soft" component which is capable of prolific generation of multiple particle events (These were soon designated as "showers".), but is rapidly attenuated in lead and a "hard" component which is capable of traversing great thicknesses of lead and only occasionally giving rise to a shower." --> very clunky
  • The Age of Innocence -- "After a pleasant two months in Denmark, Rossi and Nora arrived in Manchester.[34]" - whether or not the months were pleasant, maybe not important for inclusion in an encyclopedia
  • Chicago - "Because of the racial laws, the Fermis had also left Italy, and after they arrived on 2 January 1939, Enrico began to work at Columbia University." --> would be smoother with fewer commas
  • Mesotron decay - "...Rossi and Compton began to plan a better experiment" - who says it's better?
  • Cornell - "...and is another contribution of Rossi to electronic techniques of experimental physics." --> another contribution of Rossi's, perhaps?
  • Cornell - "This work is notable, because ..." --> This is work is notable because...
  • Manhattan Project - " To respond, Oppenheimer..." --> In response, Oppenheimer...
  • Trinity diagnostic "...whose speed of response was adequate, because..." --> ...whose speed of response was adequate because...
  • MIT - "One part, the expansion of nuclear physics, was spearheaded by Jerrold R. Zacharias, who went to Los Alamos late in the war, where he recruited, as MIT professors, Viki Weisskopf and Rossi,[75] who left Los Alamos for Cambridge on 6 February 1946." --> can be better phrased with fewer commas, I think.
  • MIT - "To help, he recruited, as PhD candidates, four young scientists..." again, would read smoother with fewer commas.
  • MIT - "Similarly two who had been in the Radiation Laboratory..." --> Similarly, two who..
  • Volcano Ranch experiment - " is tantalizingly close to energies" --> WP:EDITORIAL
  • Volcano Ranch experiment - "...at altitude 1770 meters." --> at an altitude of...
  • Space Plasma Research - "Within a surprised American public, this event created a “wave of near-hysteria”." -- sentence is clunky.

GA Pass

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GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Impressive speed in addressing a number of issues and good work overall.

  1. Is it reasonably well written?
    A. Prose quality, no copyvios, spelling and grammar:
    B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:
  2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
    A. Has an appropriate reference section:
    B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:
    C. No original research:
  3. Is it broad in its coverage?
    A. Major aspects:
    B. Focused:
  4. Is it neutral?
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. Is it stable?
    No edit wars, etc:
  6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
    A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:
    Many public domain images, those that are copyrighted have fair use rationales
    B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
  7. Overall:
    Pass or Fail:
    Some thoughts to improving the article going forward: Lead could use expanding; it's quite a lengthy article and more of its points could appear in the lead, even if the lead does touch on all main points. Article would still benefit from a copy-edit (maybe I'll come back to it at some point) for phrasing issues that pop up here and there. Good work. Corvus coronoides talk 03:49, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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