Wikipedia:Peer review/Enceladus (moon)/archive1

Enceladus (moon)

I have been working on improving this article beyond the relatively short articles that are the norm for most satellites of the outer solar system. Enceladus has been the subject of several encounters in the last year that have greatly enhanced our knowledge of this little moon, and the discoveries made there have warranted this expanded article. I make this request in the hope that this article can be further improved with additional eyes looking through it, improve it, and perhaps add a fresh persective to the entry. Volcanopele 22:28, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am in awe of this article, and I think it should be nominated for Featured Article status ASAP. There are only couple of minor improvements that I can think of.

First, the layman might require a few basic visual aids toward understanding the moon's size and location. A scale image would be helpful, comparing it to the Moon, say; after all, Enceladus's features are even more astonishing when one recognises how small it is. Also, a diagram of its orbit, showing where it lies in relation to Saturn, its rings, and the other satellites would be useful. Celestia might be a good tool with which to do this, I recently used it to create some nice diagrams for the article on Pluto.

Secondly, you might also want to look at Wikipedia:Footnotes to get some ideas about how to cite sources more directly (so that the reader jumps directly to the source, rather than simply to the top of the list).

But really, this article is superb, and it's great to see such professional work on Wikipedia. The Singing Badger 23:47, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is an excellent article. I have two suggestions. First, in the Exploration of Enceladus section, right align the table to save vertical space. Second, a lot of the prose sounds very wordy. For example, the word "very" is used 12 times, and it could be omitted 12 times. I think if this article had a copyedit, many of the unnecessary words could be removed. For example this sentence: Relatively little is known about the interior of Enceladus, whether it is differentiated into an icy lithosphere and rocky core or is an undifferentiated mixture of ice and rock. could be reworded to It's unknown if Enceladus' interior has an icy lithosphere and rocky core, or an undifferentiated mixture of ice and rock. That will remove 9 words from that sentence, and still say the same thing. If this is done throughout the whole article, it could easily be reduced to the recommended article size. Jtrost 15:57, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you both for responding. First to The Singing Badgers requests: perhaps something related to pre-Voyager knowledge (or basic knowledge) could be added that would incorporate information on size, orbit, and name. These would then include a graphic showing the orbital situation and the size compared to some standard objects like the moon. There is a NASA graphic from a few months ago comparing Enceladus to Great Britain, but it may be better to have a graphic comparing to another moon (like our moon, as suggested). Secondly, the citations used have concerned me a bit and that was to be my next action with this article. Currently, web-based links like news articles, websites, and press releases were treated as numbered links with full-listing in the external links section. Journal and conference citations were treated more-or-less as Harvard-style links. Having a more unified system may in fact be the better way to go.

To Jtrost, thank you for your comments. There are a few passages that are a bit wordy, I'll admit. I may have to just print this out and edit this more like I would a normal paper I would right, given the articles length. I'll remove the "very"s at least this evening.

Again, thank you both for your comments. I will work to implement you suggestions over the next week. In terms of FA nomination, I suggest that such effort wait until after a round of journal articles on Cassini Enceladus science comes out in the next month or so. After that point, the section on the south pole and cryovolcanism can be cleaned up further with more "finalized" information. After that point, Enceladus science should calm down enough that approval for featured article status should be easier (I note the failed nomination for Cassini-Huygens Mission as a cautionary tale). --Volcanopele 19:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, excellent article. A few thoughts:

If you haven't you should take a look at Venus our only Planet/satellite FA. There you'll note an orbital characteristics section before physical characteristics which I'd suggest adding here. It doesn't need to be long at all (see the very brief section on Europa (moon)).
This is indeed basically ready for an FAC but the first thing that will be noted is that notes in the text should link to the ref section. In terms of keeping primary and secondary seperate, see what's been done at Planetary habitability.
Yes, some wordiness. I'll try and give it a go myself soon. Cheers, Marskell 14:18, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Named surface features" needs expansion and improvement: What are examples of named features? What are the most prominent ones? First named? (although that might be partly covered by the previous sections) What is the naming scheme for them? The link to List of geological features on Enceladus should be made using a Main article template, too. Circeus 20:46, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was just thinking the same thing and did a quick edit to make a start. I think the prominent examples are already discussed in the previous sections. The Singing Badger 21:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely better, though you're right that most pertinent features have been mentionned elsewhere in the article. I'll add that I took the liberty of reformatting and moving the visits table so it has a more visually appealing appearance (I actuallyjust noticed it is reminiscent of the ) and actuallydisplays in the right section. Circeus 21:15, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]