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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

Helpful Pixie Bot

Earlier there was a request (Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 50) for a bot to apply this guideline by changing various articles so that they redirect to a list. The request was denied, not because the idea was rejected, but just because of some larger dispute about the behaviour of the operator of the Helpful Pixie Bot. Is anything being done to find another way to make the changes? JonH (talk) 15:50, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Rich Farnborough has been banned by Arbcom from running bots on Wikipedia and consequently Helpful Pixie Bot has been permanently blocked. There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard#Rich Farmbrough's bots about other bots taking on Pixie's tasks. I suggest you ask there. SpinningSpark 16:40, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
They don't seem to be talking about this there. This is the only place I'm aware of: User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough#Astrobots. Chrisrus (talk) 18:49, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Please read and comment on User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough#Astrobots. Is it agreed, then, that Rich was right when he said "I wouldn't worry about the orbitbox data, it's all available from JPL etc., and if it is wanted it would be better to re-generate it en-bloc." The idea was to save it in case sci-fi future bots wanted to take the orbits, each of which is not notable enough on its own enough to pass NASTRO, and make a 4D model of them of the coherent masses of them such as the Main Belt or the other groups, which obviously do pass NASTRO, and use such grouping models to either improve the articles about the Main Belt and such, or for some other wikiproject. Rich is referring to the reply to this suggestion that doing so wouldn't be helpful to such futurebots because it'd be easier for the futrebots to just get the info directly from the same JPL list that we got it from instead of getting it from us.
The only possible retort I can think of that is this: at some point in the future, JPL might not be available anymore for some strange reason, so we could serve as a sort of mirror site if that's the term I'm looking for: a place incase something goes wrong with JPL we'd still have it here and serve as maybe the only other place on the internet that has that info. A little far-fetched, I suppose, but we're trying to be extra careful.
Also, please note that we have no idea how many of the articles slated for redirection even have orbitinfoboxes. A brief glance at a few random articles indicated to me that the percentage might be quite small, feel free to sample a few and let us know if you get the same impression or not. So before entering into any discussion about the orbitbox data, we could put in a botreq to count how many on the list even have orbitboxes and therefore whether there is even anything to discuss.
Finally, please also note that there is no requirement in NASTRO as it stands that any information be preserved from articles that fail NASTRO, so it seems we could just go ahead and redirect them all right now and be in full compliance with these guidelines, without any further consideration of the information they contain. However, could some of this info be used to improve List of minor planets? We could also write a botreq for that job before redirection.
That's all I can think of that might be done before going ahead and redirecting the list. Chrisrus (talk) 20:42, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Those who discussed this would expect that the content be merged to the list, not just redirected, so unless a bot could do a valid merger, then it should not just turn it into a redirect. The idea is to make Wikipedia better, not worse. Whether information can be extracted from another web site is not so important to our readers who expect to see the information here. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:25, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Ok. The problem is, List of minor planets seems to have only five columns: "Name", "Provisional designation", "Discovery date", "Discovery site", and "Discoverer(s)". There's no place to put all the orbitinfobox data. As such, alterations would obviously have to be made to the LOMP before it could accept the information. Is that the next step? Again, we don't even know how many if any have orbitboxes. Should we determine that first? And also, apart from orbit info and the info for the five existing columns, we could also have a column there to accept the grouping name: "minor planet" such as "Main Belt" or whatever, that the object is a member of. We could create a column for that. Chrisrus (talk) 22:04, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Oh by the way, if that's really what you all had in mind, please do be WP:BOLD and go through these guidelines and replace the word "redirct" with the word "merge to" or whatever you have to do, where appropriate, to clarify that is what is meant. Chrisrus (talk) 22:19, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Graeme, since the information is sparse, it makes more sense to have a reference to the JPL data, than to have a table with thousands of rows rows, and 30 columns (albeit spread across many pages) with most of the cells empty. Generating such tables, fully populated, ab initio from the latest JPL (or similar) data makes more sense. Preserving the redirects means that "our" information remains in history, should some disaster occur to the JPL and other sites in the interim. Rich Farmbrough, 22:30, 4 June 2012 (UTC).

Additional column for LOMP

I'm sorry I don't want to distract this thread but if I may, should we get something cooking on the back burner as it were? I want to put in a botreq to add the the minor planet grouping, ie whether it's main belt or whatever, to add it as an additional column on List of minor planets. Later, we'll put in another to take the datum where each one says "X is a (main belt asteroid, whatever), or maybe better yet the wikicategory, take that datum and add it to the LOMP, but first we need a place to put it. What do we call it? Is "main belt" considered an astroid's "group" or what's the proper word?

We could get the friendly folks at WP:BOTREQ working on that while we decide what to do with the orbitinfo, above, but as I see it it's a separate issue. Surely if it's assumed that LOMP is to have value, it should tell you whether the thing is a main belt asteroid or whatever it is, and getting it to do so might take a week and it would seem best merged into LOMP before the list is converted into redirects. Chrisrus (talk) 23:20, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

And another back burner

We could also go ahead at this point and put in a botreq to find out how many of the list even have orbitboxes. Chrisrus (talk) 23:20, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Subst

Seems like it should be possible to cook up a WP:SUBST template that will write an appropriate statement that redirects to the proper sub-entry on the list of minor planets tree. E.g. placing {{subst|redirect_minor_planet}} on, say, 3374 Namur, would insert:

"#redirect [[List of minor planets: 3001–4000#301]]"

Naturally, it would need to be able to parse the various naming conventions. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:40, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


How close to the Sun does a star need to be to be notable?

Should "High proper-motion Stars" be notable? See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GJ 1062. -- Kheider (talk) 12:01, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Only if they satisfy WP:GNG. We can probably say the top 10 or so members likely will satisfy it, but at 25th this star doesn't seem to have much written about it. Regards, RJH (talk) 14:14, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/(90376) 2003 VL

What to do with it? I am guessing the discoverer created the page. -- Kheider (talk) 15:56, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Regardless of who created it, if the JPL SBDB is the only source, it ain't notable. Stuff like being discovered right before Sedna is irrelevant. The submitter should be encouraged to familiarize themselves with WP:NASTRO and its guidance. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:43, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
90376 Kossuth now exists and clearly violates WP:NASTRO. -- Kheider (talk) 21:20, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Tagged as {{Notability|Astro|date=August 2012}}. -- Kheider (talk) 15:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

PHAs

PHAs 2002 LT38 and 2002 OD20 have been AfD'd. I wonder if we should list a basic criteria for when such an object is likely to receive significant coverage? E.g. it will make a pass through cislunar space (<0.0024 AU) within the next 50 years, or it has a rating of 2 or higher on the Torino Scale. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:00, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Notable Potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) would have to be a function of how how well determined the orbit is, is it (or was it) on the Sentry Risk Table, cosmophobia, size, and radar observations. Obviously a 3 meter asteroid passing 1000 kilometers from Earth is less notable than a 300 meter asteroid passing at a distance slightly further than the moon. -- Kheider (talk) 21:12, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Should be using the Palermo scale instead? Regards, RJH (talk) 02:05, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Both scales are important, but requiring either scale would exclude almost all PHAs from having a stand alone article simply because almost all PHAs have ZERO chance of hitting Earth for the next several hundred years. The Sentry list is quite short past and present. -- Kheider (talk) 12:50, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm not seeing that as a problem. Probably very few of these objects are going to satisfy the WP:GNG. If your long-term goal is to create an in-depth record of objects that don't satisfy WP:GNG, then what I'm finding is a useful alternative is to build up a book on the Wikibooks site and use interMediawiki links to connect to the appropriate pages there. Regards, RJH (talk) 14:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
You have claimed objects observed by radar are notable, and I agree. 2002 OD20 is notable enough since Goldstone radar observations are planned for May 2013. -- Kheider (talk) 14:53, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm only claiming that objects resolved by radar are notable because they typically have some in-depth coverage. Yes, I agree that some of these objects may become notable in the future. But I'd be careful about using that argument in the AfD since it goes against WP:CRYSTAL. Regards, RJH (talk) 14:58, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
I think it is important that any potential 1st draft guide avoid a delestionist mentality. The list of radar observed NEOs (and currently planned observations) is only about 350. At this time, I do not see a reason for PHAs (which is a subset of NEOs) with a diameter close to 1km and studied by radar to be needlessly deleted. As of August 2012, 848 near-Earth asteroids larger than 1km have been discovered but only 154 are potentially hazardous asteroids larger than 1km. -- Kheider (talk) 15:17, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, well there's a difference between a "deletionist" mentality and providing useful guidelines on what types of articles are likely to survive an AfD challenge. If the guidelines are all-inclusive, then they become useless. Hence they need to exercise some type of exclusivity, with it being incumbent upon the article authors to justify the exceptions. In the absence of such guidelines then I am just going to follow WP:GNG. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:05, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

My suggestions are far from all-inclusive. I do not see a need for 2002 LT38 because it is somewhat small, does not make a notable close-approach soon, and is not scheduled for radar observations. -- Kheider (talk) 17:50, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Okay. I guess I was being a little conservative in my suggested criteria. My thinking was that the objects with the highest threat factors would be those most likely to be covered by the independent press. But that may not be the case. Maybe we need to randomly select a set of four objects using a given criteria and see how well those hold up to the Wikipedia notability requirements? Regards, RJH (talk) 18:05, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
I created 2011 AG5 in Oct 2011 long before the general press wrote about it in Feb 2012. -- Kheider (talk) 18:13, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
You're always free to userfy an article that fails AfD and then re-create it when it satisfies WP:GNG. Regards, RJH (talk) 18:29, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

"Multiple non-trivial published works"

We really should think about rewording this guideline; both parts of it are very subjective. "Multiple" could refer from anywhere from 10 to 100 depending on the person, and "non-trivial" is just vague wording. Does anyone have any suggestions for improving it? StringTheory11 (t • c) 23:49, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

From the original discussion, and related later discussions, it was determined that "trivial" was just a listing in a data dump, or an entry on a table, or a mention in passing, without further examination, IIRC. And "multiple" was determined to be 3 or more, IIRC. (discussions were at either WT:AST or WT:ASTRO) -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 23:14, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't think "non-trivial" is too vague. Trivial is a passing mention, or listing the name of an object along with 1000 others, for example. Multiple doesn't have to be a minimum of 10. To me, it just means more than 1, though 3 is a good starting point. As stated in the above comment, these phrases were discussed in the RFC for the guideline, and in the discussion surrounding its development. However, if you have a very good replacement for the phrases, I think anybody interested here would be willing to consider it. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 01:24, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Brown dwarfs

There is a discussion going on at Talk:WISEPC_J150649.97+702736.0#Notability about the notability of brown dwarfs within 20 light-years of the Sun. Some editors want to merge all of Category:WISE objects and Category:2MASS objects into a simple list article. We only know of ~22 brown dwarfs within 20ly of the Sun (~8 WISE objects + 5 2MASS objects + 9 non-WISE/2MASS at List of nearest stars). Given that List of nearest stars covers objects out to 5.00 parsecs (16.3 light-years) and there is a segment of our society that suffers for cosmophobia, I propose that we create a section 5.x "Dealing with nearby stars, brown dwarfs, and exoplanets" that states, "Space is big and empty. Stars, brown dwarfs, and exoplanets within 20 light-years of the Sun are notable as part of the stellar neighbor." -- Kheider (talk) 15:44, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Archive 23#Megamerge. Andrewa (talk) 14:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WISEPC J234841.10-102844.4 seems to go against the consensus established in January 2013. -- Kheider (talk) 20:55, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WISEPC J222623.05+044003.9 also goes against the consensus to merge these articles into a list. -- Kheider (talk) 01:15, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

My thoughts

The following passage is not adequate:

However, unlike Earth-based geographic features, arbitrary astronomical objects are unlikely to be visited or run across by a general reader of Wikipedia. Therefore, unless an astronomical object has significant coverage in the media or published sources, the likelihood that a general reader would choose to search Wikipedia for an arbitrary astronomical object is quite low. This is not a matter of dubious predictions; it is just common sense.

The assertion that a typical reader of Wikipedia is not interested in all astronomical objects is not common sense at all and ought to be supported by statistical evidence that unequivocally proves that that is actually the case or removed. James500 (talk) 03:57, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

The passage does not say that "a typical reader of Wikipedia is not interested in all astronomical objects". It says that a general reader is unlikely to search for an arbitrary object unless they were compelled to do so by reading about it in a publication or hearing about it in the media. I don't think you need a statistical study of the WP readers to show that they probably don't sit down and type "12345 Silly" in search box without any reason to do so. AstroCog (talk) 04:16, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
One could perhaps speculate that the concept works like a search engine page rank. The greater the demonstrated connectedness to a topic, the higher the topic ranking assigned. Topics that have received attention by media coverage gain greater connectedness, thereby being a preferred search result. Media attention increases the probability of a knowledge search by a user, thereby making it a preferred topic for Wikipedia. Regards, RJH (talk) 05:00, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

That sort of claim would not last five minutes in the article space. I don't see why it should be allowed in a guideline. James500 (talk) 04:52, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Well possibly because a consensus by the wikipedia editors does not require cited scholarly research. Regards, RJH (talk) 05:02, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

That passage is not making a claim about consensus. It is making a claim to powers of telepathy and clairvoyance. James500 (talk) 04:27, 10 December 2011 (UTC) Other policies and guidelines, where they make factual claims, cite sources to support them. James500 (talk) 04:42, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the assumptions or the conclusion are in any sense unreasonable. It's logical to assume that the more obscure and inaccessible a topic is, the lower the probability that it will be sought by a random investigator. Merely possessing the knowledge needed to seek the information requires having another published source. The difficulty in attaining this source will significantly lower the likelihood of searching for the object. It is knowledge that is generally only of interest to specialists... or possibly trivia seekers. Coming up with actual probabilities in this case would be a major task; I think we just need to rely on common sense. Regards, RJH (talk) 04:57, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

There might be very large numbers of very determined "trivia seekers" as you describe them. I still think that this assertion requires actual proof. James500 (talk) 15:39, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Exoplanets

FYI, a new guideline has been proposed, WP:Notability (extrasolar planets), see the RfC on the matter at WT:Notability (extrasolar planets) -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 06:16, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:PRODed star articles

Many of these star articles which have been in wikipedia for some time are currently being WP:PRODed with the reason given that they do not fit WP:NASTRO.

I do occasional proposal for deletion patrolling and saved this article which can serve as a typical example:

Gliese 146

It is one of 155 K type stars within 50 light years. I thought that was interesting enough to include.

Also many pages linked to it and the article has existed since 2011: Special:WhatLinksHere/Gliese_146.

The original article didn't give much information but it is easy to find plenty enough information about nearby stars on SIMBAD and ARICNS to make a small article like this one. I stopped mid edit of the starbox. There is much more that could be added.

What is the WP:PROD policy on these star articles?

To start the conversation, I suggest that any star close enough to have extensive information available about it in the online databases should not be WP:PRODed.

I realise this would add huge numbers of stars to wikipedia, if all the stars were added, but in practise nobody is going to add the entire star catalogue to wikipedia. So, presumably they added it because it was interesting and a useful star for other pages in wikipedia to link to. It reflects my own inclination that since wikipedia has no printed encyclopedia limit, then if the information is verifiable and useful, why not keep it?

The advantage is that it is a simple rule to apply. Only for WP:PROD, not for AfD of course. The suggestion is to add a guideline that these articles should not be WP:PRODed. So long as there is enough information available in SIMBAD (say), they need to go through AfD before they are deleted.

What do you all think? Robert Walker (talk) 20:09, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Well since a prod is so easy to remove, we can easily take it off if aware it has happened. If you cant any back that got deleted you can ask at WP:REFUND or I will restore them for you. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:58, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
So based on this I have restored HD 154577. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:02, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
Okay I see that all the PRODed stars have now been removed from Category Proposed Deletion] (I only removed one of them myself, the one mentioned in this article). So assuming everyone is agreed, we just need to patrol it from time to time to remove the tags. And perhaps direct anyone who consistently PRODs the stars to this discussion?
Graeme, I don't think many have been lost recently, as most were done by an obviously well intentioned editor who recently WP:PRODed many of them. I have gone back through his contributions a few months though and some of the earlier articles he WP:PRODed were removed such as HD_23356. I know nothing about this star but it might be worthwhile to restore the ones that were only WP:PRODed based on my experience of Gliese 146 which would probably have been deleted today without my intervention.
Others went through AfD and so presumably those did need to be deleted.
See user contributions with several deleted WP:PRODed stars. I am just a WP:PROD patroller, and came across them that way, don't know who created the articles or anything else about them. Thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 22:39, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
Hi, as the one who PRODed them, I feel obliged to comment here. For all the HD articles, it was IMO quite obvious that they failed to meet any of the criteria listed here; they were (at least nearly) all articles that were simply no more than a list of the facts about the star in a rather similar format for all the articles. Anyways, we see that these stars were neither: ever visible to the naked eye, listed in a catalogue of importance (in stars' case this is the Bayer of Flamsteed catalogues), did not have any works that focused on them (I had checked both SIMBAD and Google Scholar), nor were discovered before 1850 as far as I could figure out. Of course, there are exceptions to the rules, but these articles did not meet any exceptions, such as being within about 20 ly of earth such as Ross 248, or having some notable property such as R136a1. It's a similar story for all the other articles I PRODed, but I don't object to them being restored if there's consensus to do so. StringTheory11 (t • c) 02:34, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Just to say, if the decision is made to restore them, there is a list here of stars, many in red and if you click through they are WP:PRODed. So this might be a useful way to locate some of them and to restore them. list of Stars#HD.2FHDE. I don't have anything else to add. Except, that I think the particular one I restored was probably notable enough to keep as one of 155 K type stars within 50 light years of Earth. These stars are of especial interest as habitability targets for extraterrestrial life, see Habitability of orange dwarf systems. Robert Walker (talk) 08:18, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Heh, I'm the one who created that list (I moved it there 3 days ago, in fact). It clearly says at the top that it is not finished yet, and part of the process is to remove the redlinks. StringTheory11 (t • c) 15:42, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Habitability of orange dwarf systems does not mean that we need every orange dwarf article restored. However if you make a definite request to restore all the proded articles on that list of stars I will restore. Otherwise just leave them lie. My own opinion is that if they don't satisfy the notability criteria, and there was worthwhile content, then we should merge to a list article on the class of object and make it a redirect. Perhaps we need to create more list or group type articles. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:46, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes could be. I agree that more list type articles would be useful. My own view is that if anyone wanted to go to the bother of writing them, it wouldn't do any harm to have, for instance, 155 articles on the orange dwarf stars within 50 ly of Earth, plus a list type article listing them all. The SIMBAD entries are harder to read and technical, and the wikipedia entries are easier to read. Especially with the starbox, you can get a good overview of all the technical data. You could have criteria for different types of stars e.g. how close from Earth an orange dwarf star needs to be to include it, in that case, 50 ly seems a reasonable limit to me. Not to make wikipedia into another star catalogue, that would be absurd. But to include detailed entries on some of the nearby and more notable types of star, and to go beyond naked eye visibility on those, seems a good idea to me.
On suggestion to restore the WP:PRODed articles, why not notify some of the wikipedians who created them and ask for comments here? I'll mention this discussion to the original author of the Gleise 146 article, who has just thanked me for my edits to his article. Robert Walker (talk) 09:37, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
The user that proded many star articles tagged these:GJ 1279

HD 139691 HD 195034 1RXS J210034.1-044442 SAO 49986 SAO 49921 SAO 49991 SAO 49936 SAO 50004 SAO 73748 SAO 49910 SAO 49951 SAO 73770 SAO 49997 SAO 73747 SAO 73756 HD 142093 HD 138573 HD 171384 HD 133600 HD 197488 HD 219447 HD 179930 HD 222410 Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:52, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Have just crossed out the ones labelled as "don't restore" below to help keep track.
Have also underlined the ones restored or labelled as "restore" - pending more discussion if nec.
This is just to help keep track so I don't check the same star twice. Robert Walker (talk) 10:29, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
So far is roughly 50/50 restore and don't restore. So - too small sample to say too much but with 6 out of 12 seems we have to go through them all. Seems is a real issue but that there has been a tendency so far to WP:PROD roughly as many notable as non notable stars (not too unusual amongst WP:PRODers in my exp :) ). Robert Walker (talk) 10:33, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Found that all except one of the remaining ones in your list were Serpentine objects and given that all the ones so far just seemed to be random selections from a star catalogue, and they had no internal links, just looked at one to check, and didn't bother to look at the rest. Robert Walker (talk) 18:39, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Okay, as there are quite a few now, will label them with suggestions:
  • Restore HD 139691 and it is a six star system, and has been subject of a couple of research papers: articles on HD 139691. Also has several pages that link to it, now with broken links. Perhaps most significant, one of only four listed sextuple systems in the article on star systems here: Star_system#Sextuple. It is also listed under Corona_Borealis Special:WhatLinksHere/HD_139691. I would suggest to restore it.
  • Restore HD 195034, HD_138573, HD_142093 and HD_133600 are solar twins - age within a billion years, Temperature within 50 K, similar metallicity and solitary. Solar analog#Solar twin. I'd say those are worth restoring.
    • Where does it say that solar twins are notable simply for being solar twins? Considering how many there are in the sky...I don't believe that these should be restored simply for this fact. StringTheory11 (t • c) 16:08, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
      • It explains in the intro of the article: "Observations of these stars are important for understanding better the properties of the Sun in relation to other stars and the habitability of planets" - and only ten stars are given in the list there. I think it's quite hard to find solar twins, and the thing is we have studied our sun extensively because it is so close. So you can study solar twins and see how closely they resemble our sun. E.g. one thing I remember reading, our sun almost never has major flares, and large enough flares could be devastating to life on Earth, and last time I read about it, I don't think the reason was fully understood. Is this just chance or are all suns like ours similarly quiet? There is quite a lot of research on solar twins. For instance search for "HD+195034"+solar+twin "HD 195034" solar twin turns a lot of interesting looking pages e.g. one of the stars discussed in this paper and the amazon scraped page HD 195034 has some interesting looking refs in it as well. For a star like that it might be more likely to be studied as a group along with other similar stars e.g. along with the other nine in the list rather than to be studied as a single star. Searches for "solar twin" turns up a lot of material and it is clearly a notable topic which I already knew independently.
Just did a SIMBAD search on first in the list, turns up 34 refs. I'm sure the others would be similar as a notable category much studied. Robert Walker (talk) 23:31, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
OK, I'm getting tired of your not listening to me. I've said multiple times that having large numbers of refs means nothing if they don't actually study the article in question! Look at the title of the refs, look at the snippet that's shown in GS, and you can almost always get a good idea of whether the paper studies the object. Don't assume that the number of refs is an indication of notability, because it isn't. StringTheory11 (t •&nbspc) 00:08, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Sorry about that. I am listening to you. I thought 34 refs plus them a small class of stars and because I already know solar twins are notable, was enough. But seems you don't think so, so that's okay, I thought you would think so too but obviously not. The titles are all about solar twins, and there are few solar twin stars to study so seems likely that they study them in some detail. That was my reasoning. The name of the star obviously doesn't have to be in the title of the paper. But I've seen detailed studies of these stars turn up in the google search results before when checking notability, can't remember which one probably was first in the list.
Okay so I'll go through them individually and find articles for each one that studies them as more than just a list, going into some detail about the individual stars. I don't think that would be hard to do, just takes longer that's all. Will do that at the end of this list. Also if you have many studies that all study a small class of say 10 stars, I think that is enough for notability.
BTW one thing is clear from the objects saved so far, you didn't do a thorough notability search for the objects before the WP:PROD. I found some notable with just a few minutes search e.g. the six star system. That is very common, and natural, not blaming you for it, just a comment. As an occasional WP:PROD patroller I often find WP:PRODed articles that have citations that are often easy to find and I think some WP:PRODer's take an adversorial role like they want to prove the article is not notable, rather than to attempt to prove notability. Because the original author may not be there but it may be a notable article by an inexperienced editor, that is very common in WP:PROD. And if you then delete a notable article, you lose all that work that they put into it, if non notable of course no problem, but if notable, it is a shame. So, in my view, just a suggestion, it is worth a bit of effort to try to establish notability first before adding the WP:PROD. And in case of these star articles I'd contact the author first if available and the linked to article author if part of a list, but already said that. I agree you had good reason as there does seem to be a bit of a problem of non notable star articles, but they do no harm, are factual and accurate and it's worth a bit of effort to deal with them unless obvious high volume "star spam" by a single user.Robert Walker (talk) 06:20, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Haven't found anything special about either yet and no other main space pages link to them. Have just posted to the talk page of the user who added them, to invite him or her to join this discussion though. Robert Walker (talk) 15:04, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
User is still active but edits wikipedia only a few times a year. Users like that probably don't check their talk pages though may notice the new red icon that shows if you have a message. Probably won't hear from them for some time. Robert Walker (talk) 22:22, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I found AZ Cancri on one of the pages for SpacePotato who has collected lists of many of the star articles in wikipedia, quite a few are red as here User:Spacepotato/Other_stars, but whether or how many are worth restoring I don't know. Robert Walker (talk) 15:44, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

      • Restored, however this article will need work from us to address the "coatrack" and "padding" problems mentioned in the prod. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:16, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
        • Thanks, yes, I wonder if that is something to do with the original off wiki research project, whatever it was, I thought it would need more work.
  • Comment
One tip that you can do is to search on Google Scholar and SIMBAD to see the papers published which mention these stars. If there is one that specifically studies the star in question, then it is notable. If not, then we can't count notability based on study by astronomers. StringTheory11 (t • c) 16:08, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Can do - but - that still could miss interesting stars that some could say are worth keeping, because the category is interesting, as in the case of the solar twins. Or the 155 K type stars close to Earth, targets of special interest for future studies for life and planets. With the two you said keep deleted, that is my opinion too, but the original author may have had a reason for adding them which neither of us know.
I think search for papers is a sufficient reason for restoring. Also if there are links from other pages in wikipedia and the star is e.g. a member of a list of stars as in the case of solar twins and the six fold star system, then I say they should be kept in that case too. Even if you don't know why the list is notable, yet the author of the list probably has a good reason for compiling it and mightn't have explained it well on the page. That page on solar twins is really bare and "stub class" and it is surely worth going into a lot more detail into why the twins are of interest and it is no surprise that reading it you couldn't see the point in them, but in fact I believe they are of high interest to astronomers.
If neither of those, I still wouldn't PROD them myself FWIW. In spirit of discussion. I'd leave a note on the talk page of the user who added them, politely asking if they had any reason for adding the star. Wait for say a month (because some users may check wikipedia only rarely or have commitments for that long). After that, if I get no reply, say, if the user is no longer active, I personally would do an AfD but would understand a WP:PROD. Though if the user is active on wikipedia and doesn't reply to the message then why not WP:PROD as seems they don't care about it. The problem with WP:PROD is that it expires so quickly. ou can WP:PROD a star and though easy to remove, it is also easy for the user to not even notice until it is deleted, many users don't use wikipedia often or don't bother to check their talk pages. Especially if it is done years after the article was created.
After all it's not like spamming or self promotion. It's a bit of work to add these articles and some took a lot of work, the author must have had some reason. Does anyone just add articles about stars for no reason at all, just choose a random star from a catalogue and add it? With the two "I don't know"s it looked as if that is what happened but seems to me, why would anyone do that? Most likely surely the author had some reason for it which we don't know. Unless it is a known issue that some users spam Wikipedia with random low importance stars for no reason at all.
For ones already removed, I don't know if we should just restore them all. That's the simplest solution. But if not, I am happy to go through the lists to find candidates to restore, as time permits, and post here. But it might take a fair while, like on going project because of the number of deleted stars. We could see what the proportions are, like if 90% are restores, simplest to just restore all the ones left and start again. Robert Walker (talk) 21:15, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Have just labelled this as a comment so easy to keep track of whatis what like in a RfC
Quite bluntly, this should not be restored. Papers must study the star itself, not simply mention it in passing. I noted this above and the guidelines note it too; studies must have comprehensive coverage of the star for it to be considered notable, which this does not. StringTheory11 (t • c) 21:50, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Okay. For me only possibly notable. One way to check that is to see how many SIMBAD objects are in each ref. The one with fewest objects for that star is this one: only 20 SIMBAD objects in it. A bipolar planetary nebula observed near pole-on. To find out if that is a passing reference or a detailed study of those 20 objects you would need to read the paper which is quite long and I can't seem to search it. I've changed my suggestion to "don't know" but if I can search the paper will take another look. Robert Walker (talk) 21:38, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
I suggest a simple solution might be to go through those stars and restore any that are linked to from elsewhere in wikipedia, do a quick SIMBAD search and see if it turns up a ref with fewer than some particular number of simbad objects, and if not, not bother about the rest for now. Because this seems to be a user who had a tendency to add stars of minor interest, and is no longer available for comment.
It will be a long process to check them all if one needs to research each star in detail but that could be enough for a quick restore decision. Also if it is a problem, users who add lots of minor stars, enough of a problem to need use of WP:PROD, well one quick way to test is to see who created the page. If created by a user who added many notable stars chances are it is also notable and you don't know why. If active ask them, otherwise, needs a fair amount of research and an AfD might be a better approach.
If created by a user who added many other non notable stars, then if you see no reason for notability then could be reasonable to assume non notable. Robert Walker (talk) 22:10, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
But I'd also test for internal links using "what links here" and if it has an internal link from a main space article, would keep it unless the link is obviously "spammy" such as adding a non notable star to the list of stars in a constellation far fainter than any of the other listed stars with no reason given. For WP:PROD that is. Also it would be I think a good idea to try a discussion on the talk page for the article it is linked for. E.g. for solar twins, if you can't see why they are notable can post to the talk page for that article and to the talk page of the creator of the star entry and see if it is notable. Though in that particular case I feel myself those ten stars are clearly notable as said above. Robert Walker (talk) 22:15, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Ugh, I'm getting tired of repeating myself, but you're not getting the point. Stars are not notable just because WP has internal links to them or you like them! We have to make sure that the stars actually have reliable references that actually show that the star is notable. Remember WP:BURDEN states that the burden of proof is on you to provide references that show the star is indeed notable. You have not done that yet with any stars other than the 2 that have been restored above. And if the stars aren't notable, the internal links should be removed; I would be happy to do this after the conclusion of this discussion. StringTheory11 (t • c) 22:24, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Oh, not for the solar twins, those are highly notable. I only added one paper that mentioned them, took one of the stars at random and easily found a paper describing it. Along with other nearby solar twins yes. But it is a collection of stars that has many studies studying them, and a small group of stars at that. And wouldn't be surprised if some studies turn up of them individually as well.
It would be a lot of work to go through showing that they are all notable but am sure they would be. For the reason that there is a lot of interest in solar twins because they are similar to the sun and can help us understand the sun better, e.g. solar cycles and so forth. And not as common as you'd think, hard to find nearby solar twins. Robert Walker (talk) 22:29, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
I suggest the internal link test because otherwise it would be a long process to check all the stars in the list. Would be a quick way to go through and restore the ones most likely to be of interest. Then if any of them need to be deleted, I suggest an AfD because the internal link suggests the user had what they thought was a good reason to add the star. Unless the internal link is obviously spammy, I found one internal link like that, minor star added to a constellation for no reason except that the star is in the constellation as far as I know.
I agree that there does seem to be a bit of a problem with some users spamming wikipedia, for whatever reason, with uninteresting stars. But it is not an easy quick matter to decide if a particular star is a spam or a good addition, takes too much time to research for a quick test. But internal link + test to see if is from an apparently spammy user could be a way to do a quick test and if it fails both of those, and no obviously interesting link on simbad, could be reasonable to do a WP:PROD, not sure if you should do one otherwise though, if an internal link or interesting ref on SIMBAD I suggest discussion with the user who created it first and discussion on the talk page of the article first. Robert Walker (talk)
Also if the user is still active I think it is good to ask them on their talk page first and give them more than the 7 days of the WP:PROD to answer because it is easy to miss a WP:PROD. Many users edit wikipedia only a few times a year and especially if the entry was created some year back won't expect it to be deleted. One week is such a short time period that only the most active wikipedians will notice in time. Robert Walker (talk) 22:47, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
The article should be labelled as stub class needs expanding, doesn't even say it is one of the largest red dwarfs, and surely must be more to say about it with all those studies in SIMBAD. Scrape: HD 179930 (Amazon) Robert Walker (talk) 23:09, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Don't restore unless user explains HD 197488 This is another of Serpentine's stars but looks interesting. High proper motion star and 18 citations discuss it in SIMBAD.
    • Ok, being an inclusionist is fine, but really? 18 references is barely anything, and none of them actually study the star in question. High proper motion is shared by like 10000 stars. StringTheory11 (t • c) 00:11, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
      • Actually after sleeping on it came to same conclusion. It would depends on what type of reference it is not just the number. E.g. a high proper motion star is going to end up getting selected for many studies. And being a Serpentine star based on quality of his other offerings prejudices me against him (unless of course he appears and tells us the reason for adding them) as all the others were low interest and not internally linked.
Personally I'd tend to include them all being an inclusivist by nature, like, so long as it is valid information, what's the harm in having a page about it? Even if wikipedia becomes an alternative star archive, it won't get in the way of other searches would it? I think e.g. phrase searching would tend to bring up the more popular articles, seems t do so in practise so chances is your average user won't find any of these unless they actually search wikipedia for the star identifier itself, or by clicking on the star identifier link in a list of stars on one of the pages, either way clearly they want to know more about it.
But we are talking about the established policy here, not personal preference, and this is not notable enough to include by those, I believe. Robert Walker (talk) 05:51, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
        • I've labelled it Don't restore unless user explains which is what I meant also by the "Don't knows" above too will relabel those
  • Don't restore unless user explains HD 171384. Another Serpentine star. HD 171384 (Amazon) 12 refs but doesn't look especially interesting as an individual star from what I can see at a quick glance anyway. So following same reasoning as previous star, don't restore. Robert Walker (talk) 05:51, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment Based on my experience of Serpentine's stars so far I think not bother to restore any of those unless user explains or they are linked to from pages that explain their notability or obviously notable for some reason. From now on will just briefly look at them in Simbad, if not obviously notable and no internal link will say Don't restore. Robert Walker (talk) 05:55, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Here it is listed as one only three stars in the title of a paper High-Dispersion Spectroscopic Study of Solar Twins: HIP 56948, HIP 79672, and HIP 100963. It is very detailed, I think enough to establish notability of HIP 100963. This was just one of the top results in google search, easy to find, though seems tend to use the HIP number, I expect it has had many such studies. In my view undoubtedly notable. Robert Walker (talk) 08:27, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment (just added a comment header here so easy to pick out what is comment and what is discussion of particular candidates)
Well Serpentinite's star list is pretty boring. Most articles are the equivalent of a Sinbad database entry. There is no claim of anything special. The most I see is that of magnitude 7, almost bright enough to see. However perhaps we should be concentrating on writing on stars that are actually notable. For example I came across HD 172189 with at least 4 writings on the topic. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:05, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes that suggests an idea. Why not start a list somewhere, maybe a separate page, of "suggested star articles" of stars it would be good to have entries on. Then these user who like making star articles perhaps might do those ones instead if there is suggestion list? I suggest rather than just a bare list, say a bit about each one so the reader knows why it was added.
I suggest the Red dwarf spectral standard stars would be worth making entries for. Just came across them while checking some of the entries, thought they seemed notable enough, and many are red: Red_dwarf#Spectral_standard_stars. So, my entry on the page would go something like this:

GJ 270, GJ 229A, GJ 752A, GJ 402, GJ 51, LHS 2924 - Red_dwarf#Spectral_standard_stars

Rather than spammers they may just be Creator Elfs who like creating star pages and need a direction for their efforts. Seems unlikely someone would want to "spam" wikipedia with star articles, can't imagine any motivation for it. Robert Walker (talk) 09:32, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Also there are various lists of notable stars, with red entries, could direct the Creator Elfs to these, not sure need to add them in individually, just list the pages. So would be

Any remaining red entries in: List of stars in Cancer

Similarly any of the red entries in Template:Stars_of_Cancer

Actually rather than list all the constellations - just need to direct them to one of them and by navigating using the list of templates for "Stars in constellations" they can find plenty of red entries to add. Presumably all of those are worth adding if the authors of the templates thought they were notable enough to add to the constellation template.
Expect some of the Creator Elves will have more interest in particular types of stars so some might really like filling out the constellation templates, while others might like to do "interesting systems" of one type or another etc. Robert Walker (talk) 09:47, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Restore GJ 1279 HD 218511, HIP 114361. It's a K Dwarf within 50 light years one of only 155. I think those are worth including because of interest for habitability, possible planetary systems etc. 20 refs in SIMBAD. Solstation list of K stars within 100 light years. Simbad refs. I think this category of star is interesting enough to have a list somewhere and links to all the individual entries from the list. Also the user who added it is not a star "spammer", some of his other stars have survived AfD for instance and this seems to be the only one that got deleted. Robert Walker (talk) 11:12, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment That's the list done now, not bothering with the remaining Serpentine ones as not yet found a definite Restore amongst any of the ones so far and no internal links for any of them.
  • Comment More potential stars to restore here Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy/Article alerts history. Rather a lot to go through but I could go through and look for ones with many internal links from main pages in wikipedia, could do that quite quickly, and check to see if any of those seem to be worth restoring. However I've gone through a few just now, general impression most of the earlier ones to be WP:PRODed were not notable. Some for instance seem to have been added by a user who did a project of going through one of the catalogues in numerical order from 1 onwards adding stars, e.g. HD 1, HD 2, HD 4, ... Can have another go some time and see if I spot anything obviously notable from the pages that link to it but not sure it is worth going through them individually and would take a while. Robert Walker (talk) 18:39, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion for update of the notability criteria to include nearby stars

Many nearby faint star articles have been nominated for deletion with deletion discussions underway, and some may be merged with other articles, because they fail the current notability criteria under WP:NASTRO. Science articles for deletion - many star articles included

For many of these stars, the nomination to delete them is correct under the current notability criteria. However, I believe these criteria need to be updated. This suggestion arises because of the enormous recent interest in nearby stars, due to the searches underway for stars with planetary systems, and the discovery that nearly all stars probably do have planets.

I suggest an extra criterion

5. Objects outside the solar system and within 50 light years of the sun

The distance limit to be used in this suggestion is of course a matter of debate.

Reason for this suggestion

The reason is, that there are 1400 known star systems within 50 light years, of which, only 133 are visible. Map of stars within 50 light years.

By comparision, there are about 9000 naked eye stars in the Bright Star Catalogue which are automatically included according to the notability criterion

1. The object is, or has been, visible to the naked eye. For ordinary stars, this includes any object with an HR catalogue identifier.

If naked eye stars deserve a separate article, then nearby ones do too in my view.

For modern astronomy, due to the interest in possible planets around nearby stars, and because it is easier to observe nearby stars for planets, stars within 50 light years are as interesting as faint naked eye stars.

In particular the most numerous nearby stars, the orange and red dwarfs are of interest because of the potential habitability of planets in their star systems, see Habitability of orange dwarf systems, and Habitability of red dwarf systems. They figure in many searches for planets and debris disks, and it is now thought that nearly all of these stars have planets. Of course G type stars are of similar interest.

Although the ones without any planets discovered yet don't tend to have single star articles about them, and so fail the current notability criteria, they tend to have many articles on SIMBAD, a bibliography of 100 or more refs is not unusual for a star within 50 light years, and more than 40 refs is common. These articles typically will cover them in groups of say 100 to 300 stars.

The current discussions sometimes end with a merge decision to put the star into the list of stars for a particular constellation. But I'd say they are much better categorized according to the distance and type of star. They can also be listed in the constellation as well, but deserve a separate article in my view.

I am personally involved in this proposal as, when I get the time, I plan to do a list of all the 155 known orange dwarf stars within 50 light years of the sun, with or without planets. Some such as Gliese 146 have been recently proposed for deletion.

These articles are accurate, and they don't show up in search results unless you search for the particular star. I don't see any problem with including them all.

I make this suggesetion under the criterion that Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia "Other than verifiability and the other points presented on this page, there is no practical limit to the number of topics Wikipedia can cover or the total amount of content". Robert Walker (talk) 09:08, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

If they have 100s of refs in SIMBAD, surely it will be easy finding stuff that will fall under WP:NASTRO#C3. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:21, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
Ah but that's the problem, usually those references are to lists, lots of different lists. For instance, this is an article that mentions Gliese 146 as one of five other stars (is the same as HD 22496) [Radial velocities of 5 southern proper motion stars. In this case there are 48 references to go through, and it is quite a long job to go through them to try to find the ones that give most mention of your star, especially since your star also has several different ids that could be used to identify it, and e.g. for my 155 nearby orange dwarfs I'd need to do that for every star. Most would perhaps have enough coverage to pass the test if you put enough work into finding the refs, a few might fail the criteria just because by chance they haven't had the right kind of coverage, but I'd say they are all easily as notable as the faintest naked eye stars. Many of the articles might get deleted simply because no-one had the time to go through 50 or 100 references to find one that mentions it in enough detail. If we had a distance limit criterion it saves everyone a lot of work, and don't see how it causes problems for anyone.
Just so you understand the idea. And the distance for notability up for debate, I suggest that there is some distance that is close enough so that celestial objects are notable simply because they are sufficiently close to the sun, just as some are notable simply because thye are naked eye visible. Robert Walker (talk) 13:21, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Another suggested criterion. objects in a small category of special scientific interest

I also suggest adding

6. The object belongs to a category of special scientific interest with fewer than (say) 200 objects in it, and has enough information available about it to make a short article.

The number of objects for the criterion could be a matter of debate. But for instance, Solar analog stars are of especial interest, and the number of stars involved is small, so that would fall into this category. In my view, all those stars deserve individual articles. Most of them do have separate articles, and in my view, these existing individual articles should be kept due to the interest of the category and the small number of stars involved, even though most articles will discuss them as one of say a dozen or so stars. Robert Walker (talk) 09:08, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

comment: I personally think nearby stars are interesting, and a great many individual ones are quite notable. However, much of the above goes against the spirit of the guideline, which begins with the consensus that notability is not inhereted. A class of objects may be notable, such as solar twins, but unless there's significant and independent coverage of the individual object in question, it should just be part of a list. The guideline was written very carefully to explain all of this, and what significant coverage looks like, but I'll briefly say this: a source should have specific commentary on the object. If the source is an article describing the properties of dozens of objects, and the object in question is just part of a table, then it doesn't constitute significant coverage. Yes, they may have measured the intensity of the Ca II absorption line of that particular solar twin star, but if that's all ya got, it ain't an article.
If the object that belongs to a category with fewer than 200 objects in it, but there isn't significant coverage for most of the individual objects, then start with a list. When these objects of special scientific interest have enough information to build an article, then do it - one. at. a. time. You'll note that the 4 criteria encompass categories of objects that will already have abundant refs and sources. It would be an abuse of this guideline to modify the criteria to include categories for objects that wouldn't pass WP:GNG. If the refs are there, the refs are there. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 12:59, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
Okay to say a bit more, actually most of the nearby stars have enough information for a reasonable short article if anyone wants to take the time to do it. You can start by filling out a star box. You can say a bit about the category of stars it belongs to, e.g. for all the nearby orange dwarfs, have a short section about its habitability. You can say if it belongs to a star grouping. Say what constellation it belongs to. Say something about its speed relative to the sun and its galactic orbit. It is amazing how much information is actually available nowadays. See for instance my entry about Gliese 146. That information was easy to find, and as far as the star box is concerned, I just gave up half way through completing it as I realised there is so much information available it would take quite a while to complete it all. If anyone wanted to you could write a lot more about it, and it would be easier to read than the rather bare and technical summary you get via SIMBAD. Robert Walker (talk) 13:29, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
I agree if it is a category of objects that has been measured, with only one or two measurements of each one, then it's not worth including them all even if the number of objects is small, and that notability is not inherited, so you are right would need to be more than just the small number, or the scientific interest. Perhaps also add, that there should be enough information available about each object to make a short article about it worthwhile? So it is not going against the existing guidelines. But is clarifying them.
Is saying that a celestial object that is too faint to be seen with the naked eye, and also hasn't got any articles about it individually as a star, only studied alongside other objects - but with a lot of information about it enough to make an article, and if part of a small collection of say less than 200 objects, deserves an article of its own. Nothing in the guidelines goes against this as far as I can see, it is more like a grey area. Same for the suggestion that nearby celestial object within 50 light years are notable enough to have separate articles, any object as close as that is bound to have enough information to make a small informative article, and is also likely to have a fair amount written about it in the literature though possibly not as an individual object. Robert Walker (talk) 13:41, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
Again this is just so you understand the idea. I've added "and has enough information available about it to make a short article" E.g. a mention of the intensity of the Ca II absorption line wouldn't be enough. The solar twins actually typically have enough for a quite substantial article, e.g. just picking out the last in the list: HIP 56948 Robert Walker (talk) 14:05, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
HIP 56948 is a an example of an object with just enough coverage to stretch its article beyond a stub. I can't say the same for Gliese 146. I'm surprised that you don't see that for Gliese 146, its article is just the "Ca II line intensity" issue - multiplied severalfold. There's no specific interest in the object that I can tell and this glut of information you point out is just bare technical specs from big surveys, such as 2MASS and HIPPARCOS. The star wasn't singled out in any of the studies I saw. In fact, the first reference on that star's page is from an artist's website, who just rehashes the technical bits from SIMBAD.
If an object is "bound to have enough information to make a small informative article", then it will easily meet criteria #3, there is no need to modify the guideline and criteria, and our discussion here is done.
I don't mean to sound condescending (I really don't), but you might benefit from another careful read of the guideline, which I think already covers the issues you are taking about. As well, on this talk page, and the talk pages of Wikiproject Astronomical Objects, we've discussed a distance criteria for notability several times. Each time the result was there is no interest in adding an arbitrary distance criteria. The criteria are few, general, and simple for a reason: to make it easy to apply in questionable situations. The more complications and special cases that are added, the harder it becomes to manage these objects, and the less user-friendly the project becomes. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 12:39, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
Oh okay, I didn't know that the idea of a distance criterion has been discussed many times before. I understand why there wasn't exactly an enthusiastic response to my suggestion now. I chose Gliese 146 deliberately as an undistinguished star which is borderline by the current guidelines.
The idea was that if it was visible then the guidelines would say that it can have an article - but why should naked eye visible stars be singled out in that way - especially with the discoveries of exoplanets and renewed interest in nearby stars that are potentially habitable? And with so much information now available about nearby stars?
Yes I know it is all information from larger surveys, but a lot of information from many surveys.
At magnitude 8.57 it is just beyond the limiting magnitude of naked eye stars. Many faint naked eye stars would be further away and less interesting.
It's not like a passionately held view though. Just feel, why shouldn't they have articles, same as the naked eye stars?
Anyway long term especially once we have space telescopes able to directly image planets around nearby stars, I imagine that probably most of the nearby 100+ orange dwarfs will eventually turn out to have planets or at the least debris disks, and get articles written about them individually, I suspect that it is only a matter of time before all the orange dwarfs within 50 light years do get included in wikipedia according to the other guidelines. Those are the ones I'm especially interested in including. The red dwarfs too probably. Robert Walker (talk) 08:06, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
A star with a magnitude of 8.57 is about ten times fainter than one of 6.0, the usually quoted threshold of visibility without optical aid under reasonably dark skies, not “just beyond“ IMO. And the vast majority of visible stars are much more than 43 LY from here. (A little factoid for perspective: the Sun is intrinsically brighter than about 95% of all stars, including those in its immediate neighbourhood, but about 95% of naked-eye stars are brighter than the Sun. Now size & luminosity aren‘t necessarily the principal criteria of notability, but they must count for something.)—Odysseus1479 08:57, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
Yes, actually the criterion says any star with an HR number so that's a limit of 6.5, but near enough. By "just beyond" meant in comparison with the majority of stars in the big catalogues that are much fainter. Of course there are many stars that are "just beyond" to this extent, tens of thousands of them, not at all suggesting the naked eye visibility limit be increased.
But as you point out, the naked eye visibility limit gives prominence to distant bright stars, rather than nearby faint stars, that's just exactly what I was saying too. I agree that if a star is visible to naked eye that does count for something and is a good criterion for notability, and wasn't suggesting that nearby stars be used in place of it or that faint naked eye stars be removed from wikipedia.
Just suggesting that faint nearby stars be added if within say 50 light years. This would add fewer new stars than the naked eye stars if all the stars were added, and I think would assist anyone who wants to find out more about these nearby stars`, only 155 orange dwarfs within 50 light years for instance and if their articles were all included in wikipedia, instead of just the ones that have planets, well why not? Easier to read than a technical SIMBAD entry for the same star. Interested to know if anyone else thinks the same way I do, or is it just me? Robert Walker (talk) 16:16, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Red and brown dwarfs and such are still being discovered at that kind of range, and might provide little basis for an article for some time until detailed investigations follow up on the surveys. I should think solar analogues, though, to be of particular interest whatever their distance.—Odysseus1479 00:55, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Well what I think is that the members of the small category of special scientific interest could make up a combined article. Then the star article would be redirects to that article. I have been proposing a near K class stars article. But the recent AFDs have mostly gone redirect to the constellation, which I think is less useful. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:21, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
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