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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 delisted by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 5:59, 25 July 2020 (UTC) [1].

Photon

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Notified: WillowW, Physics, article talk 2020-02-21

Review section

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This article obtained FA over thirteen years ago. Since then the standards for citations in Featured Articles have improved. The article is now found wanting in this regard. There are substantial sections that are not supported by citations and dated citations for others. There has been no response to a notice I place on the articles Talk Page. Graham Beards (talk) 12:47, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Had a quick look at the references. The photon is an elementary particle, it doesn't change over time, so naturally many references are about the initial discovery of things - they are decades old and perfectly fine. Similarly, many things can be found in text books, and several textbooks are used as references for whole sections. One could repeat the same reference for every paragraph but that wouldn't improve the article quality. Overall the article isn't controversial in any way, so a direct citation for every single statement shouldn't be necessary. In some cases it could be useful to give specific pages. --mfb (talk) 07:53, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Which sections aren't supported by citations? I see plenty of refs for everything. I also don't see what's outdated either. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:27, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have indicated where I think more citations are expected in a Featured Article, using the "[citation needed]" template. Graham Beards (talk) 20:13, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the vast majority of those. That stuff is common knowledge widely available in the further reading sections, or directly supported by the nearby references (same/previous sentence). I have left a few things that actually need citations. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:50, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's not enough to retain FA status. These days we expect most statements to be directly supported by reliable sources. At the very least, there should be a citation at the end of every paragraph. Graham Beards (talk) 20:57, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You'll have to convince a majority of people that "That process is the reverse of "annihilation to one photon [i.e. e+e−→γ]" allowed in the electric field of an atomic nucleus." is a thing that needs a citation to begin with, given that literally the sentence before you have a citation for pair production [i.e. γ→e+e−]. If I write James is a Canadian.[ref] That is James is a citizen from Canada., the second part doesn't need a ref. It's an explanation/contextualization of what you already cited. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:12, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So, the citation is in the wrong place. Graham Beards (talk) 15:10, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This complaint is a classic case of Wikipedia's Little blue number disease. Guidelines do not require that every sentence has an inline citation and there's no good reason that FA should require it either. For facts in scientific articles that are generally accepted and found in multiple undergraduate textbooks, then a general reference is just fine. Asking for more is useless makework; it won't improve the article one bit. SpinningSpark 09:59, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Prose problems. For example, editorializing: "correct", "correctly", "actually". Inconsistent spelling: flavour (B) (American: flavor), behavior (A) and behaviour (B), recognize/ization (A), but modelling (B) (American: modeling). Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Section headings, headings should not start with articles ('the', 'a(n)'). DrKay (talk) 09:46, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Correct/Correclty/Actually are hardly editorializing. Those concern the accuracy of scientific claim. Claiming the Earth is a cube is obviously incorrect. That's not editorializing. "It was believe X, when actually Y is the case" is likewise not editorializing when this reflects the reality/the sources. For the rest, it should be trivial enough to fix. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:53, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
British/AM variant fixed. See also recognize in BrEng. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:58, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Whew. (Disclaimer: I was a physics undergrad until the department chair went all sexist, and I switched to math.) Problems right off the bat here, from the first paragraph of the lead. There are MANY ways to describe a photon that are digestible to the average lay reader who is not a scientist, and this is not it. What we have in the first paragraph of the lead does not bode well for the rest of the article:

Then, Exhibit ... exhibit ... twice in first sentence of next para. Graham's citation concerns, adding to indigestible prose throughout the lead = not a good sign. The organization of the Table of contents is also bewildering.
"Recent research" section begins with "most research ... " ... cited to 2006, which is not very recent.
"Further reading" either needs pruning, or those sources need to be used.
"See also" link farm. FAs are supposed to be comprehensive, and in theory, links worked in to the article.

SO, all-in-all, work is needed here, and the article has been at FAR for three weeks, with only these edits. I wonder if ComplexRational could be enticed to weigh in (their Island of stability has a very digestible lead for a more complex topic). This is looking like a Move to FARC, unless someone takes it on. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:05, 5 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The lead should adhere to the guidance in WP:MTAU that we should write one level down (WP:ONEDOWN). Given that this is a topic in quantum field theory, which is typically physics graduate-level material, the lead does this quite well. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 18:34, 5 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We must also keep in mind that photons are described in more basic ways; they are even a common focus of books, documentaries, and presentations aimed at laypeople who have not necessarily studied physics in college. Since this is not exactly an obscure topic (unlike some other parts of quantum mechanics), I think writing for a secondary-school audience (barring the technical description and formulas if necessary) would be more appropriate. FWIW, I first encountered the term in a documentary when I was ~12 and only dabbling into algebra and basic astronomy, so at least parts of this article (perhaps an introduction to the subject, something I'd recommend in principle but will detail after I do a more thorough read-through) should take that into consideration. ComplexRational (talk) 19:11, 5 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@SandyGeorgia: Thanks for the ping, I'll take a look and post here what I can. At first glance, though, I see that I will need to wrap my head around some things. ComplexRational (talk) 19:06, 5 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Here's what I got. So far, I only examined a few paragraphs in a few sections, and I'm with SandyGeorgia that this isn't very reader-friendly and there is considerable room for improvement.
  • § Physical properties, ¶1: this is a lot to digest for a reader unfamiliar with physics jargon. The links are helpful, but I think we need at least two or three simpler, descriptive sentences for every sentence in the current paragraph.
    • and is a stable particle – make sure the simplest, correct definition is understood, namely that it cannot decay into simpler particles.
    • In vacuum, a photon has two possible polarization states. – now we're talking specifically about vacuums, and a layperson might think this is related to polarity in optics or chemistry, which it's not.
    • We now go into even more specifics, without fully explaining the most basic properties. And we assume that 4D vectors, light cones, and spin quantum numbers are understood. So I'd suggest detailing this in a separate paragraph, making sure that these very abstract concepts are digestible to at least someone with decent secondary-school education and/or amateur interest in the subject.
    • I'm all for wikilinks, but one's need to click on two each sentence to understand the terminology makes a read-through very difficult.
  • § Einstein's light quantum: seems undersourced, and cramming a lot of information into few sentences. The part on Stokes' law is not reader-friendly because we do not know who Stokes is, and the article on Stokes' law (which readers would naturally search) describes an apparently unrelated concept in fluid dynamics.
  • I'd propose an introduction briefly summarizing the standard model (mentioned at the bottom of a later section), basic quantum mechanics leading into wave-particle duality (fundamental when explaining wave mechanics in an article supposedly about a particle—building on § Wave–particle duality and uncertainty principles, which already is a bit more digestible but could be fleshed out), and momentum and spin-quantum number (more physics). Some of the material from Introduction to quantum mechanics#Photons: the quantization of light could be very useful here.
  • I'm open to ideas to write an introduction, somewhat mirroring Superheavy element/Short introduction (which we introduced in those articles to provide additional broad context), but this will need time. Maybe I could try, but I can't promise anything too big right now (especially if nobody else takes this on), so we might have to let this go through FARC; this problem doesn't seem contained to the examples I mentioned above. ComplexRational (talk) 19:42, 5 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section

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Issues raised in the review section include sourcing and prose. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:28, 11 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. Unsourced statements, some of which contain weasel words or superlatives. Prose and style problems remain unresolved, including words to watch, writing in the second person, inappropriate tone, redundancy, and borderline instructional language. DrKay (talk) 11:25, 18 April 2020 (UTC) Revised 19:49, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. Justified concerns have not been addressed. Graham Beards (talk) 11:45, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep prose and style issues have been addressed or are invalid. There is no 'second person writing' anywhere in the article. There remains 2-3 citation needed tags, but that's not enough to delist. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:31, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am more concerned about the statements (above) from ComplexRationale than I am with the missing citations; the article needs work, and no one has undertaken that work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:08, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, citations are often easy enough to find (for textbook material, the only difficulty lies in choosing one textbook out of many). A more serious concern is that the organization of the article seems below par. The section "Wave–particle duality and uncertainty principles" is trying to argue two or three different things and does none of them well. It's also just bad history. Heisenberg's thought experiment about the gamma-ray microscope does not illustrate the uncertainty principle, for example — the meaning of the and that are handwavily introduced there are not actually the uncertainties invoked in the famous principle. (Which, incidentally, was not first codified by Heisenberg, but by Kennard, Pauli and Weyl.) XOR'easter (talk) 23:10, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral for now. I can't honestly say that I'd want to show this article off as an example of the best Wikipedia can do, but getting rid of the worst of the accumulated cruft was easier than I anticipated. Exactly how much still needs fixing is hard for me to evaluate at the moment. I may have to step away for a day or two and approach it with fresher eyes in order to make further progress. XOR'easter (talk) 15:02, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The specific problems raised above seem to have been fixed. Some of the later sections (particularly "Quantum field theory") might benefit from condensation. XOR'easter (talk) 00:22, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I rechecked what the introduction looked like when the article was originally promoted to FA. The second paragraph was much shorter, with a more intro-appropriate level of detail, so I tried shortening it. I think I'm now fairly happy with how the article starts, at least. XOR'easter (talk) 14:29, 3 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
XOR'easter, many citations on a FAR page cause a transclusion limits problem; see this discussion. Would you mind either removing the citations from your copy of the lead, or even better, remove the whole copy of the old lead and trust us to click on the link to see the lead? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:41, 3 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@ComplexRational: Have the subsequent changes to the article addressed your concerns? @XOR'easter: Do you remain neutral? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:45, 4 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am going to have to say delist, reluctantly, but not for the reasons originally raised. The later sections of the article, starting with "Hadronic properties", are not very well organized, being a miscellany without a clear sense of why those topics are the important parts of the subject to survey. XOR'easter (talk) 22:11, 4 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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