Wikipedia:Peer review/Island of stability/archive1

Island of stability

I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to continue to make improvements and bring it to FA standard. In particular, I would like specific feedback on comprehensiveness, coherence, and anything MOS-related (as this will be my first attempt at an FA), but feel free to nitpick anything and everything.

Thanks, ComplexRational (talk) 22:02, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Top image

• c:File:Island of Stability derived from Zagrebaev.png

Minor thing, but if you know who made the plot at the top of the article, it would be good to increase the font of the legend so it can be read easily - there's plenty of space to do so. The first plot in the "Predicted decay properties" section is a good example of what it should look like (the axes are easily readable, though the legend is not!). Other than that I don't have any negative comments. The article is easy to read considering its technical nature and is well-sourced (has plenty of citations and doesn't rely on one group of authors) throughout. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 18:46, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

@Absolutelypuremilk: Thank you for commenting. I could try to contact the last uploader of the file (it is not easy to make such a change myself - but there may be a way). Might it also be a possibility to include a legend in the image caption, presented similarly to {{Periodic table (transuranium element)}}? That aside, are there any other areas for improvement or things to consider before I contemplate FAC? ComplexRational (talk) 01:32, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Sure, I realise it's not simple to fix. That's the only thing I spotted!Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 08:08, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

That's File:Island of Stability derived from Zagrebaev.png. ComplexRational Would it be OK if I make this edit in the image? -DePiep (talk) 12:06, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

@DePiep: Sure, go ahead and do it. You may want to also move the enlarged legend to the top-left corner where there is a lot of empty space. Thank you. ComplexRational (talk) 14:42, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

First move done. Added axis info. More suggestions? -DePiep (talk) 15:40, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Now that I see the effect: will make the legen larger, tomorrow. -DePiep (talk) 15:55, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

The new version looks pretty good to me; the legend is definitely more visible now. I have two minor suggestions, though. Can the beta-stability line in the legend be shrunk slightly and then aligned with the half-life legend (right now it is larger and sticks out slightly), and can the line at N = 180 be shortened so that it only crosses over nuclei marked in light green (< 1 s per the legend) similarly to N = 170? ComplexRational (talk) 16:02, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

 Done. One might consider to wikilink/describe the "beta-stability line" somewhere. Being a prominent feature in this graph it should be in the legend IMO (and also because it is not the N=Z line). -DePiep (talk) 09:53, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Used in a dozen enwiki articles (list). At a gance, I saw no big issues wrt this change. Next time, we might add the border/nonborder meaning. -DePiep (talk) 10:00, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the updates. Beta-stability line is linked at its first occurrence in the text (Predicted Decay Properties), and of course it should be included in the legend as it is – my only concern was its size and exact rendering. Now it looks better. ComplexRational (talk) 14:14, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

R8R review

I am sorry to leave you waiting for so long. I just read the article and my first impression is that this is a very well-written article: no major omissions, not too much detail, the language was pleasing to read, and the article served the information densely and it really had my focus but was not too demanding, either, and was still very enjoyable. I will later give it a closer look, but for now, I am outright impressed.--R8R (talk) 17:57, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Here are the promised details:

• First of all, I think it is great that there is an Introduction section, really. Overall, I will try not to point out too many comments about things that I do like (my impression by the article that I stated on Monday was genuine) and will try to focus on what needs improvement to get to that level. But yes, it is great that you have an introduction section for this concept.

That section actually was RockMagnetist’s idea; I expanded and added details as I discovered new sources. ComplexRational (talk) 08:48, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

• "252 nuclides are thought to be stable (having never been observed to decay)" -- I'd recommend adding a footnote here saying that many of those isotopes never observed to decay are actually thought to decay anyway, even if at very slow rates; IIRC the largest atomic number thought to be truly stable by some model is 40 (you may want to ask Double sharp for more details since I, unfortunately, don't happen to remember them). Maybe it could also mention Ta-180m, which is observationally stable despite being a meta state

I discussed this with Double sharp a few months ago. For starters, we could not verify the claimed instability towards fission of nuclides heavier than ⁹²Zr, and alpha decay for nuclides with A > 164 is neither explicitly nor consistently predicted. There are a few explicit predictions that may be usable, though I wouldn't consider a positive Q_α or other calculated energy release sufficient as the decay itself is not predicted. Maybe I can write a note that briefly mentions the possibility of observationally stable nuclides decaying, but more than that is likely OR. R8R, how does this sound? ComplexRational (talk) 13:28, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

At first glance, sounds reasonable. I did myself only recommend saying they are thought to decay, not that they actually do, and to me, this inevitably implies questions like "thought by whom", "on what is this based", "are they certain" and the like. Probably I'll need to look into this a tad more closely to be sure.--R8R (talk) 20:34, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

"there are thought to be 252 stable nuclides" -- good statement, but it seems rather off. This is where you normally use hyphens for clarity

I'm not really sure how to reword this, or how hyphens (or did you mean em dashes?) come into play. It doesn't look very off to me, and a few alternative wordings I explored seem even more awkward because the rest of the paragraph (how N increases faster than Z and that Pb is the last stable element) follows from that sentence. ComplexRational (talk) 20:48, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

I was merely referring to hyphens that would change the phrase to "there are thought-to-be 252 stable nuclides." "Thought" is a both the past indefinite form of the verb think and the past participle, so it's easy to confuse the two, and on my first reading I assumed that it was the former and this made the sentence confusing, and the hyphens would help here. Or do the hyphens here seem really off to you? I know that in general, AmE uses fewer hyphens in situations like these than BrE, so it could be the case. One peculiarity of American English (I think the same must be true for BrE as well, but I'm not 100% sure) is that there is no ultimate authority to refer to for reference; I read somewhere there were three sources of particular significance: Merriam-Webster in New York City, a newspaper in Chicago, and something in Los Angeles or elsewhere in California. To add to that, English rules are fuzzy on this sort of stuff, so I don't think there's right or wrong on this one at all; but regardless, the current wording seems confusing for a few seconds to me. Maybe you can change the exact wording if the hyphens don't seem natural to you here.--R8R (talk) 07:48, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

I've never seen hyphens used in this way before. I slightly changed the wording, though; is it any clearer now? A more substantial rewrite of this looks rather difficult, but I'm willing to discuss it further if the rewritten sentence still is unclear. ComplexRational (talk) 15:17, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

I've tried to reword this myself; please see if the logic is okay with you. Feel free to adjust the wordings however you like. I'm very curious about your comment about hyphens, thank you for saying this, I'll take note of it.--R8R (talk) 11:30, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Looks good at a first glance. I'll take a deeper look tomorrow – today was very busy. ComplexRational (talk) 01:50, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• "The last element in the periodic table that has a stable isotope is lead (Z = 82), with stability generally decreasing in heavier elements" -- I'd recommend a note here, too, saying that lead is only observationally stable and that the last observationally stable element was once bismuth until they made an experiment to demonstrate that it wasn't stable.

 Done ComplexRational (talk) 14:09, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

The note is very good.--R8R (talk) 18:21, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

• "If a nucleus can be split into two parts that have a lower total energy (a consequence of the mass defect resulting from greater binding energy), it is unstable. The nucleus can hold together for a finite time because there is a potential barrier opposing the split, but this barrier can be crossed by quantum tunnelling." -- really, it's simple informative sentences like these that made me like the article so much

• "it then seemed that element 108 might be the limit." -- I also recall that 103 or 104 was once deemed as the limit

 Done It was already mentioned in a later section, but I added it there as the predictions were made around the same time. ComplexRational (talk) 08:48, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

• "Some Russian physicists" -- up to this point, every person was introduced by their name, so I think the suit should be followed. Also, as a general rule of thumb, I recommend introducing every person in a text by their nationality and profession (i.e., "German physicist Richard Swinne"), because some people, when encountering an unfamiliar name, react to it by wondering, "who?", in their heads, and it is generally to be avoided in an encyclopedia to have a text that raises questions that it does not answer, and consistency is a good idea in general even once you've established the theme that the people here are physicists

It turns out that proponents of Z = 114 were not all Russian, but the same groups who worked on the nuclear shell model. I changed the wording and structure of that paragraph to relfect this. Are further clarifications needed anywhere? I'm not sure about those who are introduced as co-authors for a specific development that is explained. ComplexRational (talk) 13:42, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I think we're good on the original point. There still needs to be some thinking on the introductions bit before I say anything.--R8R (talk) 18:21, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Maybe I can finish this today! So, the important bit here is that we need consistency with names. Right now, we have both "German physicist Richard Swinne" and just "John Archibald Wheeler." You should puck either style and have all names in the article follow it. My recommendation is to pick the former, because bare names sort of come out of nowhere and a reader is left wondering for a short while who that is.--R8R (talk) 20:01, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

I'd agree with having introductions as it eliminates awkward introductions that you describe. What should be done, though, with statements such as William Myers and Wladyslaw Swiatecki or Sven Nilsson et al., in which more than one person is referenced? It's not as clear if or how an introduction can be made. ComplexRational (talk) 20:57, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

As for the former, I'd simply go with "English physicist William Myers and Polish physicist Wladyslaw Swiatecki" (I'm entirely guessing their nationalities; maybe they're both, say, Americans, in which case they would be "American physicists William Myers and Wladyslaw Swiatecki"); as for the latter, I'd go with something like 'team led by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Söderberg," which I used in history of aluminium.--R8R (talk) 21:18, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll see what I can do about these tomorrow or Wednesday. I'll have to double check a few names, though. ComplexRational (talk) 01:50, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• "indicating that such experiments may have been insufficiently sensitive if cross sections were low, or that any nuclei reachable via such fusion-evaporation reactions would be too short-lived for detection. More recent experiments reveal that this indeed may be the case." -- what does "this" in the second sentence refer to exactly?

 Done I hope it’s clearer now. ComplexRational (talk) 08:48, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Not really. I suggest you try "the former" instead of the second "this," also mentioning that the nuclei that have eventually been produced are not too short-lived for detection.

I rewrote this sentence, and added another note (one I originally wrote for unbihexium) that explains the detection limit. ComplexRational (talk) 20:48, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

• "on the order of seconds" -- I don't feel credible enough to insist on this one, but it appears to me I'd say, "in the order of seconds." I'd love to hear from you whether the current wording is indeed correct

I double checked this; it seems that the current wording, on the order of, is correct to denote approximately. ComplexRational (talk) 06:12, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Okay, thank you very much :) The more you know--R8R (talk) 19:16, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

• "decay chain characteristic of the island of stability" -- would you clarify why is it that this chain is so characteristic? Later, you mention that "consequence of shell effects for deformed nuclei; thus, such superheavy nuclei would only undergo alpha decay," and this point would really be better off explained out, as this is such a key idea for the discussion of the island of stability

I tried a rewrite and more thorough explanation of "characteristic". Is this clearer, or did I still miss something important? ComplexRational (talk) 13:28, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Much better now.--R8R (talk) 19:16, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

• "A shell is considered stable when it is in a spherical form." -- pretty sure this is not the definition of nuclear stability

 Done Removed. ComplexRational (talk) 08:48, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

• "both regions are instead linked through a peninsula of relatively stable deformed nuclei." -- a peninsula does not link two landmasses; it rather is linked to a one larger landmass and otherwise surrounded by the sea. Florida and Kamchatka are two prominent examples of peninsulas. The word you're looking for here is isthmus.

 Done Thank you for pointing this out. I also found and added a source that calls the link an isthmus. ComplexRational (talk) 08:48, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

more to come later--R8R (talk) 12:37, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

@R8R: Thank you for working on this review. I anticipate working through these relatively slowly, one at a time, but I will certainly check all the details and further replies will trickle in. ComplexRational (talk) 06:12, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

I took on a few easier ones for now. There is more research to do for some of the others; I will work more on that later. ComplexRational (talk) 08:48, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi, I just wanted to drop a quick apology for not continuing the review just yet. If you happen to watch my talk page, you might know I got sick a while ago; it's gotten even worse since then and I'm currently in a hospital, so I don't really have neither the strength nor the opportunity to go on just now. But I'll try to get back to this review when I'm at home and healthy enough. Let's see if the next week has any good news in that respect.--R8R (talk) 18:12, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

@R8R: Thank you for the note; I did read your talk page. Best wishes in recovery, that comes first :) ComplexRational (talk) 19:17, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! Things are absolutely certain to get back to normal sometime soon enough. It's only a matter of when, and I do have my hopes that the next week bit might actually be an accurate prediction.--R8R (talk) 06:35, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

part 2 (section break)

I'll try to continue the review on Sunday.--R8R (talk) 19:16, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks; don't feel rushed if you need a few more days, though. ComplexRational (talk) 20:39, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Let's continue. Probably not much is going to be written now, but maybe I'll find time for a bit more in the evening.

"the doubly magic nucleus ²⁹⁸Fl" -- this is a rather questionable assertion given that you have previously said, "Subsequently, estimates of the proton magic number have ranged from 114 to 126, and there is still no consensus."

 Done Sources are inconsistent, but for the most part they say ²⁹⁸Fl or a nearby nucleus (e.g. ²⁹⁶Cn), so I'll just say "in the vicinity of ²⁹⁸Fl". ComplexRational (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

• "this is much longer than the 2.5 ms half-life of the known neutron-deficient isotope ²⁸⁴Fl (with N = 170) believed to demarcate the limit of stabilizing effects." -- first of all, I needed to re-read the sentence to get it, so I think a rewording would be welcome. Am I correct in assuming that the sentence is trying to say that ²⁸⁴Fl is where the stabilizing effects are at first visible? This is presumably just for flerovium, though, I'd mention that. But it wouldn't be surprising that the center of the island is much more stable than its shores, so the "much longer" bit seems either redundant or you need to emphasize that point more clearly (I'd probably recommend the latter).

 Done I added more context, it was actually intended to mean an outer limit beyond which stability drops off (i.e. the shore, looking out to sea). ComplexRational (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

This sentence still sounds rather strange. I'd try reversing the order of the narration with something like "for instance, for flerovium the lightest isotope at which the stabilizing effects are expected to show is 284Fl, where the half-life increases to 2.5 ms, and 298Fl is going to be far more stable than that still." The wordings, of course, are to be polished, but the story itself sounds more concise this way.

It took a more substantial rewrite, but I managed to roughly reverse the order along these lines—how does it look now? ComplexRational (talk) 20:48, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

• "Some undiscovered isotopes are predicted to undergo fission with still shorter half-lives, limiting the existence and possible observation of superheavy nuclei beyond the island of stability (namely for Z > 120 and N > 184;^[42] these nuclei may undergo alpha decay or spontaneous fission in microseconds or less)." -- the "limiting the existence" part is eyebrow-raising. Why would shorter half-lives threaten existence as such? I'd get it if we were talking about half-lives so short that it wouldn't be right to call a nucleus a nucleus, but the unit of time mentioned here is the microsecond, which is quite a few orders of magnitude away from questioning the existence.

 Done These are two distinct thresholds, the first around 1 µs (characterization) and the second around 10⁻¹⁴ seconds (existence according to IUPAC's definition). I tried to make this distinction, with a footnote giving the IUPAC definition. Is it clearer now? ComplexRational (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

It's actually interesting that a microsecond is the threshold for characterization, I didn't know that. What characterization are we talking about, though? Also, I'd love to see this in the text, this should be both interesting and relevant, just as is the part on the 10^-14 s for existence (that bit is good).--R8R (talk) 18:21, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

I added the explanation for characterization as the same footnote I mentioned above; does it work well in both places, or is it better placed only in one? Does this answer your question? ComplexRational (talk) 20:48, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

• In general, this is a long and information-dense paragraph. Could you split it into parts? This would make reading easier.

 Done Now two paragraphs. I'm not sure if it splits naturally anywhere else, but feel free to suggest alternatives. ComplexRational (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Fine by me as it is now.--R8R (talk) 18:21, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

I'll continue responding to your responses from here on.--R8R (talk) 18:21, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

• "It is thought that" -- who thinks that exactly?

Still working on this. There are a few other occurrences that I may also need to check. ComplexRational (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

 Done Purged four occurrences; two were fairly trivial to attribute but the other two are a reflection of varying predictions by many independent authors. ComplexRational (talk) 14:57, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

• Also, this paragraph, while absolutely relevant to the topic of the island of stability, doesn't really fit under the heading "Predicted title properties" as it discusses possible occurrence. I'd recommend a separate section heading

 Done I made a new section about this, the 2013 experiment, and a bit of content I added from hassium and unbibium. It's not clear to me what the best title is, or if it's in the optimal location in the article, but I feel this all belongs together. ComplexRational (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

• "stronger decay mode" -- "stronger" seems jargon-ish here

 Done ComplexRational (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

• "was shown to be cluster decay by Dorin N. Poenaru, R.A. Gherghescu, and Walter Greiner." -- first of all, I'd avoid "shown": they didn't demonstrate anything, they theorized something instead. Did these three people theorize that independently or were they all in the same team? Depending on that, I may refer you to my previous suggestion of introducing names

 Done Clarified that it is a theory. In this case, as can also be seen in the source, these were three co-authors, unlike many of the other cited independent studies whose authors were introduced along the lines of your earlier suggestions. ComplexRational (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

• If I recall correctly, JINR in Dubna is planning to build a "superheavy element factory" to get to the island. The plan is, again, if I recall that correctly, to bombard actinides with whole multitude of neutrons, somewhat like in the r-process. This is how they plan to increase their yield of SHEs by quite a few orders of magnitude. This should be of interest to the Synthesis problems section

I read a few papers about the SHE factory, though most described dedicated beam time and larger quantities of target material. I'll take a deeper look into this and re-evaluate some of what I've read (hopefully tomorrow); this neutron capture reaction would be quite interesting to read about. Do you still have (or remember) where you read this? After this bit of reading, I can probably craft a few sentences for this section. ComplexRational (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

 Done I added a short paragraph that summarizes the possibilities opened up by the SHE factory. The main focal points addressed in official publications were increased beam intensity and accessibility of lower cross-section reactions. If I find anything else, I'll still add it. ComplexRational (talk) 13:52, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I read more about it. Turns out I was wrong about Dubna, no r-process is in sight. We don't need this then. But I did learn that the first plan is to repeat the known reaction for moscovium to test it out, and then go for 119 (berkelium is to be both from the U.S. and from Russia), and then for 120.--R8R (talk) 20:01, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

That means that if I didn't read about the possibility of r-process-like superheavy synthesis from Dubna plans, then it still must be from at least the theoretical plans. Double sharp, do you not happen to know where one could read about it? I think the article would benefit from addition of this.--R8R (talk) 20:50, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

@R8R: Isn't it from Zagrebaev's presentation where we got the island of stability graph from, IIRC? Double sharp (talk) 22:14, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

(stalker here): I recently improved that graph, the article-top one. I used two sources, both are now footnoted in the caption (a presentation and a print, say). Both sources have the same early/original DUBNA graph, with the greys-only colors. Coloring and my axis edits were added later, without changing the data (see image history). In the future, we'd want to have a singe data source, having all isotope cells colored corectly (I think {{NUBASE2016}}). Anyway, sources for the top image are there. -DePiep (talk) 22:40, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

@Double sharp: Thank you very much! That's precisely it. ComplexRational, please see article's ref 1, it is there. The article will benefit from addition of that idea. You may also find a couple of other interesting things there, particularly, the narrow pathway towards the island.--R8R (talk) 23:58, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

@R8R: Thank you! I only glossed this over at first because it was very similar to some of the articles cited, but a series of explosions mimicking the r-process could be worth mentioning—most likely under synthesis problems. In regards to the narrow pathway, I'm a bit undecided: it is described in many of the specific SHE articles (and for that alone probably deserves a mention), though as this article describes, the decay properties of A = 291 isobars and the center around ²⁹¹Cn are not universal. Any ideas how to mention its significance but not imply that is the most commonly accepted prediction? I think the ref can be included in predicted decay properties and the possible synthesis pathway can be mentioned in synthesis problems (it might work – we haven't tried yet!). ComplexRational (talk) 01:50, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• "the main island of stability around Z = 114, N = 184" -- again, this contradicts the earlier notion that there is no consensus on where the island is

 Done Per above, "in the vicinity of" ComplexRational (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

• "consisting of a hypothetical phase of stable quark matter with only up and down quarks may exist" -- for purposes of delivering the context, I'd mention that protons and neutrons themselves are composed of u and d quarks. Also, the lead sentence of continent of stability mentions this: "freely flowing up quarks and down quarks rather than up and down quarks bound into protons and neutron." It'd be great to say something of this kind here as well

 Done I actually only stumbled upon the article continent of stability after I had already written this section. This seems to be the most natural wording. ComplexRational (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

• Why is note i merely listing references? Why not simply put them into the body of text?

 Done ComplexRational (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Comments on the lead section and pictures are yet to follow.--R8R (talk) 12:51, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

@R8R: I was able to review most of the above comments. Several changes were rather significant (particularly that about possible occurrence) and could use a bit more attention. Of the two not marked done, I will almost certainly address the first ("it is thought that...") tomorrow morning, and I have to do some research about the SHE factory before fully answering the second. Thanks for this second round of feedback. ComplexRational (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

@R8R: I've gone over everything now and added a short paragraph about the SHE factory. It looks ready for a fresh review, especially since some of these changes led to significant restructuring. ComplexRational (talk) 13:52, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Great. My plan was to finish this first go and then check everything anew one more time. I will revise the text your actions and continue the review (will also try to look for where I saw what I saw on the SHE factory), but I'm not sure when. It could be that I'll do it tomorrow; if not then, then the task is very likely to shift to the next week.--R8R (talk) 18:47, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

(I have in my mind that I have yet to look for the SHE factory info. As of now, what is written in the article does not seem all that important for inclusion. I did say I could be wrong so if I am, I think it's best we forget I said anything. I will also need to check more closely your replies to all of the above points.)

If it's not important or deviates too much within that section, feel free to remove it from this article. I feel, though, that this short mention presents a possible solution to some of the challenges discussed in the preceding paragraph. ComplexRational (talk) 01:48, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

• "In nuclear physics, the island of stability is the prediction that a set of superheavy nuclides with magic numbers of protons and neutrons will temporarily reverse the trend of decreasing stability in elements heavier than uranium." -- I think this sentence is a subject to improvement. First of all, it's important to get things right. The island of stability is not, nominally, a prediction; it is a predicted region or set or whatever word you think is best here of nuclides of enhanced stability. Second, we're not just talking about nuclides with those magic numbers, but also about a few ones around them. Third, "temporarily" implies going from low Z and N to high; that is not very good for our encyclopedic purposes and the neutral language that we seek. Fourth, I'd add to this short paragraph that the name "island" comes from the nuclides chart. I'd also recommend using this picture as the illustration for the lead section because the "island" bit is more obvious here.

I also wasn't really satisfied with the original. With all these points in mind, I rewrote the entire first paragraph, though I still feel it could be improved.

Regarding the image, I'm not sure if it really would be better here, because it is not consistent with the majority of predictions despite its illustrative function. Most sources do not predict any stabilizing effects around Z = 105, N = 180 as shown in the image, and nuclides such as ²⁹⁶Cn and ²⁹⁸Fl are entirely omitted from the island, again inconsistent with the N = 184 prediction. Maybe, though, there is another freely licensed or public domain image illustrating the notion of an island; this one, for now, I think should remain where it is. ComplexRational (talk) 01:48, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

• "it is generally thought to center near copernicium and flerovium isotopes (such as ²⁹¹Cn, ²⁹³Cn, and ²⁹⁸Fl) approaching the predicted closed shell at neutron number N = 184." -- Has that point been maid in the body? I don't think so, but I suspect it would be great if you did so.

 Done Removed, mainly because there is no particular reason to emphasize these predictions over the others. They are mentioned later in the article, though alongside other predictions as well. ComplexRational (talk) 01:48, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

• "up to oganesson in recent years demonstrates a slight stabilizing effect around elements 110–114" -- I think that either mentioning that oganesson is 118 or the names of 110 or 114 (probably the former) will make reading better

 Done ComplexRational (talk) 01:48, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

• "A diagram depicting predicted decay modes" -- I'd recommend here adding authorship ("diagram by A. Abcdefgh et al.")

 Done ComplexRational (talk) 01:48, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

This concludes my first round of review, save for responses to your responses.--R8R (talk) 20:26, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

@R8R: I made these adjustments to the lead and will await your further responses. Shortly after that, I'll take another look from top to bottom and hopefully get it to FAC. Thanks for helping out, I appreciate it as always. ComplexRational (talk) 01:48, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

• The pictures seem rather unevenly distributed. The more, the better, of course, but at least with my screen resolution (1920x1080) it looks like most of the article is tightly stocked with images whereas the last sections have none. I advise you to spread them a little bit, even if that move the pictures from the precise location of the phrase they're illustrating (surely you've seen that in books). Also, I'd like to suggest the left-right alternation: this is because when there are too many pictures on one side of the text, they look like a wall of pictures that people tend to ignore altogether, which is the opposite from their original goal. Alternation makes the text look livelier, so to speak, try it.--R8R (talk) 20:44, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

I've been wondering how to make this work – I have the same screen resolution and also thought about clustering toward the top, but I did not consider placing images in locations very far away from the text they reference. Mixing across left and right, and a bit more scattering, are definitely good ideas, so I rearranged a few. Unfortunately, I can't find many other suitable images; a few decent ones from journal articles have copyright issues, though I don't think any image is terribly lacking here. ComplexRational (talk) 00:17, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

@R8R: I did some more work integrating images over the past week or so. Do you have any other comments or replies before we conclude this review? ComplexRational (talk) 18:29, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I'd like to finish striking off my comments. I'm sorry I'm making you wait but I'd love to leave you with the article I'd be happy to see you immediately go to the FAC with. I'll try to write tomorrow about it if my solution to the big university task I've been trying to send is finally accepted, maybe I'll even manage today.--R8R (talk) 18:48, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Looks like I will be able to write a word or two tomorrow. I have realigned some pictures in the meantime, feel free to undo if you don't like it (though I'd say it looks a bit better now).--R8R (talk) 21:56, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

I definitely believe that left/right altering of more images is better. I made one small fix to avoid one line of text wrapping and rendering awkwardly, though. ComplexRational (talk) 23:48, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

As of now, there are only two problems to be solved: introduction of people of first mention and the Dubna SHE factory. The problem with the latter is that the fascinating thing about it would be the similarity between what it planned to do and the r-process, but this, unfortunately, only relies on that I remember their intentions correctly, which is not a given. If they didn't have those ambitious plans, then it should not be mentioned, at least not in the section it currently is now. Today was more eventful for me than I anticipated, and I can't write as much as I thought I would, but again, there's a good chance I'll write something tomorrow. We are very close to conclusion of this review and the FAC, so I'd hate to keep you waiting for too long now.--R8R (talk) 18:58, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

@R8R: Introductions should all be complete and consistent now as we discussed. As for the r-process bit, I added that the possibility of using controlled nuclear explosions to bypass short-lived fissioning nuclei and reach the island of stability has been considered; I also tried to clarify the bit about a "narrow pathway" toward the center of the island. I relocated the broader content about the SHE factory to Joint Institute of Nuclear Research for now, as it isn't as specific to the island of stability. If you think a mention of it is still warranted somewhere, let me know. ComplexRational (talk) 19:07, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Checklinks

Did run Wikipedia:CHECKLINKS (external links check) [1]. Three remaining, minor issues. -DePiep (talk) 13:26, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

I did this a few times myself and modified a few links weeks ago. The three links highlighted seem to work fine, and I am not aware of any "better" URLS or ways to report false positives (e.g. one says subscription required but the text is freely available on the website). Ideas? ComplexRational (talk) 14:14, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

No ideas left here with me. Indeed, those issues remaining did gave the same effect with me: for example it is free, etc. And ayway, there are not red/orange (blocking) issues. -DePiep (talk) 22:02, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

engvar

Not to spoil the party, but IMO an WP:ENGVAR id better be established. -DePiep (talk) 21:10, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

• Basics, 1st research:

1. No template is present (not on Talk, not on article). Category:Wikipedia articles written in a national variety of English (21)
2. Earliest non-stub version: don't know. 21:23, 23 February 2006 looks stable already (not a stub, plenty sources)

In there, telling "ise" or "ize"? - none. "our" / "or" (honour/honor): none.

3. - Later more. -DePiep (talk) 21:31, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

@DePiep: I'm pretty sure that en-US is the consistent, established variety. Having rewritten many sections (in en-US, my native variety) starting ten months ago, and checked for the most common differences between en-US, en-GB, and some of the others, this usage appears consistent.

Feel free to give it another check. If the current version is indeed consistently en-US, there's no need to change it or meticulously analyze old revisions. ComplexRational (talk) 21:36, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Sure, great, fine. I do not intend any struggle, I only want to establish an engvar factually by version history. Formally, the first non-stub version decides ;-) ;-) — is what I tried to check.

Would be great if we could find an early version that has "ize" not "ise", and "honor" not "honour". Would nail it. DePiep (talk) 21:41, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Not exactly early, but [2] is one of the first versions that clearly uses any variety – and it is en-US (hypothesize). I did not find any earlier versions using en-GB, so the use of en-US seems clearer now. ComplexRational (talk) 22:02, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

OK, great. Pls take the honour to Americanize it by tagging the article/talk with something like {{Use American English}}. -DePiep (talk) 22:39, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

 Done Tagged both article and talk page. ComplexRational (talk) 23:48, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

References

I like the article as it is today very much. My concerns have all been resolved. The FAC must be a great success.

What our FAC may hint at is that we might need to once again check the references. During our FAC, we were (reasonably) asked to narrow page ranges down so that a reader could track down the info in the source more easily. So I suggest you take a look at that. I'll try to add some input on that over the working week myself if you want me to.--R8R (talk) 21:24, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for all the prose feedback, it was very helpful indeed. I'll definitely take a more thorough look at the references – does this mean also citing specific pages of journal articles (if possible)? I'd appreciate some additional input, so feel free to scrutinize everything. ComplexRational (talk) 21:32, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm glad that I was able to help :) yes, we were asked to do that. This came as a surprise to me but if you think about it, someone will want to find that in the source, so they should be given the opportunity; it is the highest award that we're going for, so this is reasonable if tiresome.

I will do my best to specify; already I tackled a few "easier" ones. There are two tricky scenarios, though. Some articles do not give a clear page range at all (especially those not available open access), and some very important points are dispersed throughout the article and are cited multiple times, making identifying a narrow range somewhat more difficult (e.g. ref 30). Over the next few days, I'll investigate further, though I would appreciate any suggestions you have for these. ComplexRational (talk) 01:14, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

I think it’s fine to have longer page ranges when they are not easy to condense further. For instance, to reference the existence of Ir(IX), we used in hassium the entire page range of the article that first announced its discovery. This is also valid who cases when you make aggregations of information that is sprinkled over multiple pages one bit at a time. It’s just that you should be able to confirm longer ranges are used only in such cases.—R8R (talk) 06:47, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

This works well in most cases, but it is still tricky for those journals that use 5- or 6-digit article identifiers. Especially for those that do not have the journal PDF, the page range is not clear (e.g. ref 52: is 044603 enough by itself, or need I find how many pages are within this range?) or inconsistent (e.g. compare ref 52 (044603) with ref 68 (024315–1–024315–8): which format is preferable for consistency?). It also may not be possible to specify in arXiv preprints, for those page ranges may not yet be finalized. ComplexRational (talk) 21:14, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

I can only offer my common sense on this. I would generally continue to use the same logic: I would use a range if I could establish one and I would merely use the article number if the whole article is indeed to be used. You should also be cautious with preprints because these are technically not published sources and as such could raise questions, so be sure to word statements supported by them correctly (“in 2019, researchers announced...”)—-R8R (talk) 21:12, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Some general points (which you can be pointed at):

• First names should be either consistently initialized or consistently spelled out (I recommend the former simply because it's much easier; Blatt, John M. would become Blatt, J. M.). If you initialize them, then keep in mind that there should be a space between initials if there is more than one (Thompson, S.G. would become Thompson, S. G.; a very pedantic reviewer could ask you to use a non-breaking space for the purpose but this is unlikely) and that sometimes you may need to keep two letters in the initial due to peculiarities of the origin language of the person (Yuri Tsolakovich Oganessian would become Oganessian, Yu. Ts. because both initials only use one letter in his mother language. This is not simple if you don't know these languages but this is usually done correctly in the source; see ref 7 and follow the link in it for an example).
• Dates should be preferably consistently year-only. Somebody may argue otherwise, but it's a consistency, it looks good, and it's easy to maintain.
• Preferably only display 3 authors if there are at least 5 of them in total; this is done via the |display-authors=3 parameter. Make it 3 where it is one unless this is specifically made so in the source (a very rare occurrence).

As a general rule of thumb, shorter ranges should be preferable whenever possible.

I hope this will do for now.--R8R (talk) 20:08, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

@R8R: Thanks for these pointers. Over the past few days, I made some substantial fixes to the refs along these lines and tried to make them as consistent as possible. I also searched for specific ranges when possible, though there still are some instances where the range cannot be narrowed or the whole article must be referenced to support an idea.

Could you give them one final check to ensure that I didn't miss anything too important? If they're all polished, and there are no other things needing attention, I can launch the FAC this weekend (I anticipate that this week will be rather busy IRL). ComplexRational (talk) 00:43, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I'll try, I really will, but unfortunately, I can make no promises about anything during this working week: this one is going to be particularly intense. I suppose I should be able to do it during this weekend (at least I think so more than not).--R8R (talk) 20:04, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Also, glad to hear my advice has been useful :) You're welcome--R8R (talk) 20:06, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry it's taking me so long. Here's what I see that is yet to be worked on:

• My advice on year-only publishing dates still stands. A quick way to help yourself is to run a Ctrl+F (Command+F if you use a Mac) search for "January", "February", etc. in the "Edit source" mode;
• And so does the advice on |displayauthors=3. 3 in particular because the Citation Style 2 does this as default (for bibliography links, for example). A quick way to help yourself is to run a Ctrl+F search for "author5" and "last5" in the "Edit source" mode (5 rather than 4 because four is to stay four, it is five onward that is to be cut down to three);
• The NUBASE citation is visually different (the comma that stands after the date, rather than the period I'm used to, caught my eye). As I understand from the template code, it is in Wikipedia's Citation Style 1 ({{citation}}) rather than the usual Citation Style 2 ({{cite book}}, {{cite journal}}, etc.). I advice against pre-completed citation templates ({{NUBASE2016}}, {{Greenwood&Earnshaw2nd}}, etc.) because they are harder to align with the rest of the citations.
• There needs to be a consistency with editions: currently, there are "(8th ed.)", "(2 ed.)", and "(Third ed.)".
• I also advise to get rid of all publisher locations for books; again, there needs to be a consistency, again, this one is easier to maintain.
• It's a subtle point, but I was once recommended to have my ISBNs hyphenated, and also to change them into the 13 digits format (that, I see, is already done). It's not something you can easily to do on your own, actually, even if one is to think otherwise, because hyphenation can differ across ISBNs, and it even sometimes changes the last digit, if I recall that correctly. There is an online tool at your service.

I think that will be it from me.--R8R (talk) 19:22, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I found and corrected every instance of these – everything should be consistent now. Thanks for these additional pointers. If that's all, can we formally close this review and then can I launch the FAC? ComplexRational (talk) 23:36, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Please go ahead. Good luck at the FAC!--R8R (talk) 05:07, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

One final comment

An important consideration: please, do not begin the FAC until the current FAC for hassium has concluded. The two articles are on very close topics, and it would be for shame to have either drag attention from the other. I think we would even normally queue our FACs at WP:ELEM in this manner, but here, it is especially important we do it.--R8R (talk) 11:36, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Hopefully Hs will already be an FA by the time this is ready, but yes, I won't start this FAC before then. ComplexRational (talk) 01:50, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Image detail

Re File:Isotopes and half-life.svg: text "Z = N" (the 45° line, say) sould have italics: "Z = N". These are international symbols (for a quantity), so all wikis will be ok. btw, serifs or not (font type) doesn't matter here. (Is on my own todo list). -DePiep (talk) 21:29, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Working on this. -DePiep (talk) 07:52, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

 Done "Z = N" now. Other changes are problematic to change because of current language, font and path usage in the scv. -DePiep (talk) 07:34, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, DePiep, the italicized sans-serif looks better and fits the definition. (The chart itself will need to be remade sometime in the future to include new discoveries, but that's a later project not important for the FAC.) ComplexRational (talk) 14:31, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, data is from "2012". Texts are entered as path not font (in uk=Ukrainian) somehow, cannot change those easily (eg "yr" into "y"). Anyway, italics now.-DePiep (talk) 15:28, 29 October 2019 (UTC)