Talk:Dick Walker (astronomer)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Hey man im josh talk 15:23, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that Dick Walker's discovery of Saturn's moon Epimetheus was only realized twelve years later?

• Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20161113105337/http://saturn-archive.jpl.nasa.gov/science/moons/epimetheus/

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Fedorenko v. United States

Created by Generalissima (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 55 past nominations.

Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 18:16, 15 June 2024 (UTC).

• Article was made today, so is new enough. At just over 3000 characters, it is long enough. The article reads neutrally and properly uses in-line citations. The copyvio detector finds nothing outside of names for places and things. The hook is interesting, short enough, and is cited inline. There is no photo to review and the QPQ is done. Looks good to go! Silverseren^C 20:13, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Dick Walker (astronomer)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Generalissima (talk · contribs) 16:24, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Sgubaldo (talk · contribs) 18:59, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to review this. I'll try to get this done fairly soon, so ping me if I haven't started by Wednesday. Sgubaldo (talk) 18:59, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Many apologies, but I lost the edit halfway through writing the review due to my laptop shutting down. It might take me until the end of the week to finish because of this. Sgubaldo (talk) 20:39, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

@Generalissima, a nicely written article. I have some pretty minor comments below. Sgubaldo (talk) 17:36, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

@User:Sgubaldo Okay! I think I'm all done there. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 09:19, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Nice work. Promoting. Sgubaldo (talk) 09:34, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

2. Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. 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):

   C. It contains no original research:

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Infobox

• Infobox says he obtained a BS while article says he obtained a BA. Ref. 1 says BA, so I think the infobox needs changing.
• Someone else added an image here and it's copyrighted; if kept, it needs both a caption and alt text.
  • It's fair-use, and fair use photos of deceased persons are good if limited to one per article. Added alt-text and caption though.

Biography

• Paragraph 1

• On March 9, 1938, Richard Lee Walker Jr. was born in Hampton, Iowa, to Mary and Richard L. Walker. ==> Richard Lee Walker Jr. was born in Hampton, Iowa on March 9, 1938, to Mary and Richard Lee Walker.

• • Fixed. - G

• He spent most of his childhood in Waterloo, Iowa, where he attended school. ==> Ref. 3 mentions his school was West High School, you could include it here.

• • Added! - G
• Paragraph 2

• "Unhappy with the work at the Time Service, he transferred to the USNO's Astrometry and Astrophysics Division the following year." ==> Ref. 1 and Ref. 2 are contradictory as to whether he decided to move himself or was assigned there. Ref. 2 is his own personal account, and transferred is already used in the next paragraph, so consider changing, maybe to something like "he took a position at the..."

• • Good idea! - G

• Could be worth mentioning the 12-inch and 26-inch refractors in Washington; feel free to disagree if you think it's unnecessary detail.

• • I feel it is due to his relatively short time spent doing observation work there. -G

• "he pursued some graduate training at the Georgetown Observatory" ==> Do you mean Georgetown University?

• • Ope, yep. - G
• Paragraph 3

• Wikilink reflectors to reflecting telescope.
• Wikilink refractor to refracting telescope; refractor also doesn't need to be capitalised.
• Ah, I see. - G

• Paragraph 4

• "However, by October 1978, astronomers Stephen M. Laerson and John W. Fountain identified..." ==> "However, in October 1978, astronomers Stephen M. Laerson and John W. Fountain identified..."

• • Fixed. - G
• Paragraph 5

• ...over an adjustable ramp, and described the 26.5° angle of the passage was optimal for sliding the rock downhill. ==> ...over an adjustable ramp, and theorised the 26.5° angle of the passage was adopted for structural reasons instead; Walker described the angle as optimal for sliding the rock downhill.

• • Good fix. - G
• Paragraph 6

• "long period of illness" reads a little weird; just "long illness" is fine.

• • Yeah - G
• General Comments

• Per Refs. 2 and 10, is it worth mentioning his membership in Sigma Xi?
• Refs. 1 and 3 mention a marriage in 1960 and one in 1987, as well as 3 children, which could be added (to the infobox too)

• • Added. - G

Sourcing

• Ref. 1 – In the sfn the pages cited are 3–4, but in the bibliography it's 1558–1559.
  • Fixed. - G
• Ref. 2

• Archive link and access date are missing.
• Add 'L.' to Richard Walker for consistency
• |publisher=American Institute of Physics is missing.
• You could also add either |place=Toronto (location of the interview) or |place=College Park, Maryland (location of Niels Bohr Library & Archives and they mention this in the 'preferred citation' part of the source), but it might be overkill.

• • Added. - G
• Ref. 3 – ok
• Ref. 4 – add a url to the article's pdf here
  • Fixed. -G
• Ref. 5 – either remove 'April' for the date or add the months of publication to the other journal articles.
  • Fixed. -G
• Ref. 6

• Archive link is missing
• Perhaps JPL should be a publisher rather than a website, like with Ref. 7

• • Fixed. - G
• Ref. 7 – ok
• Ref. 8

• Author (Ann Ewing) and access date are missing
• |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts is missing

• • Fixed; I've never seen locations used for newspaper sources. - G
• Ref. 9 – ok
• Ref. 10 – ok
• Ref. 11 – As the passage only spans pages AA1 and AA13, I think it should be pp. AA1, AA13 not pp. AA1–AA13; also the link only allows me to see page AA1.
  • It's not really possible to link multiple pages of Newspapers.com stuff in an accessible way; but good catch on the pages. - G
• Ref. 12 – ok

Earwig's tool produced a similarity of 11.5%, mostly due to the name of one journal. I have no concerns about OR, copyvio, or plagiarism in the article.

Images

Images are relevant to the text and the one in the body is in the public domain.

Lead

• "Walker continued his focus on double stars after transfer to the USNO Flagstaff Station in 1966, ultimately making 8,000 measurements of the stars over the course of his career." ==> You can probably remove 'of the stars' here.
• "He retired from the Naval Observatory in 1999, although continued to work as an astronomical consultant." ==> "He retired from the Naval Observatory in 1999, but continued to work as an astronomical consultant."
  • Fixed. -G

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.