Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Archive table of asteroids 2

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

List of well-studied minor planets

Because of the proliferation of minor planet pages and the extensive list by which they are categorized, I've been thinking that it may make sense to build a shorter list of just those bodies that have been more extensively studied. In particular, a compact summary table showing some key parameters in a common format. Here is an example:

The following list of well-studied minor planets consists of asteroids that have been the target of extended astronomical studies, allowing their orbital elements and physical properties to be well established. The mean dimensions, rotation period, geometric albedo and spectral type are all known for these objects. A few of these bodies have been observed in more detail by unmanned spacecraft.

Designation	Year Found	Orbital Elements				Rotation Period (hours)	Maximum Size	Albedo (geometric)	Spectral Type	Notes
Designation	Year Found	a (AU)	e	i (Ecliptic)	P (years)	Rotation Period (hours)	Maximum Size	Albedo (geometric)	Spectral Type	Notes
2 Pallas	1802	2.772	0.231	34.838°	4.62	7.81	544 km	0.159	B
3 Juno	1804	2.672	0.256	12.968°	4.37	7.21	320 km	0.238	S
4 Vesta	1807	2.361	0.089	7.135°	3.63	5.34	529 km	0.423	V
5 Astraea	1845	2.573	0.193	5.369°	4.13	16.80	167 km	0.227	S
243 Ida	1884	2.862	0.045	1.138°	4.84	4.63	53.6 km	0.238	S
253 Mathilde	1885	2.647	0.266	6.738°	4.31	417.74	52.8 km	0.044	Cb
433 Eros	1898	1.458	0.223	10.829°	1.76	5.27	34.4 km	0.25	S

Would this make sense? Does this violate any of the WP principles for what articles should be kept? Is there a better name?

Thanks. Regards, RJH (talk) 18:38, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

What classifies as "Well studied"? E.g, to what level of accuracy must parameters be known to be considered "well-studied"? Do sources define such a thing? To me it seems a bit of a fuzzy definition for an article, and that often leads to disputes and disruption.

Also, what happened to 21 Lutetia, 25143 Itokawa, 951 Gaspra etc? ChiZeroOne (talk) 20:14, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Bleargh what's the point, we'd just end up with people quoting WP:PAPER and going on about how everything has intrinsic notability and who are we to judge anyway... Icalanise (talk) 21:48, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

The introduction defines "well-studied" by the requirement that it supply all of the requisite data. We can always add some type of accuracy criteria to further cull the list, or the requirement that the object have X number of published scholarly papers. We could also use the limiting criteria that the asteroids have been radar detected. Perhaps: List of radar-detected asteroids?

Note that this table is just an example, so it doesn't include everything. (I.e. I didn't want to fill it out more fully only to have it get deleted.) RJH (talk) 14:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

"well-studied" sounds odd. Why not "List of minor planets by size" ? Is more likely to be kept as there are similar list articles already. e.g. List_of_Solar_System_objects_by_size. MakeSense64 (talk) 18:16, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I was going to go with "List of radar-detected asteroids", because the list is well defined, limited, and includes many well-studied asteroids. However, perhaps surprisingly, the resulting list would not include 243 Ida. But I don't want to go with size either because that would not justify the orbital elements. Hmm, perhaps "List of instrument-resolved minor planets" then. RJH (talk) 20:44, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Naming it "List of minor planets by size" doesn't mean you cannot set additional criteria for inclusion on the list. So besides a minimum size, the lede can state "orbital elements being well-studied and established" as a requirement to make the list. Then you pretty much get what you propose here, which I think is a good idea because the list of all minor planets runs in the thousands.

Using a common name just means your list article is more likely to go unchallenged. It doesn't limit you in the possible choices of criteria for the list. You could for example include a 2nd list in the same article that lists the minor planets that were observed by unmanned spacecraft. Check out WP:STANDALONE. MakeSense64 (talk) 05:00, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

At this point I think I'm finding enough reference material to make at least a decently notable article on the topic of image resolution of minor planets. It's useful, for example, in the search for asteroid companions. Hence, I think I'm going to go with that theme for now. In the worst case, I can always rename it to match your suggestion. Thank you for your useful feedback. Regards, RJH (talk) 20:00, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Straw poll: Automated stub redirection

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Straw poll closed as "no consensus". "2 support plus 2 weak support" is probably not enough to make a case to the bot approval group for something that redirects 10k+ pages and makes occasional mistakes while doing so. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 19:28, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Per the discussion in the WT:ASTRO#Phase three pilot can start thread, The pages in Category:Main Belt asteroid stubs are being used as a trial for applying the WP:NASTRO guidelines. The vast majority of these seem to be bot-generated stubs that do not presently meet the notability guidelines, and that describe objects that are unlikely to meet the notability guidelines in the near future.

As things presently stand, we have a list of about 19,000 stubs tabulated in pages indexed at WP:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Stub processing. Manually sifting through these is a huge task.

What I am proposing, and seeking yes/no indications on, is writing a bot that goes through the autogenerated list, makes note of stubs that were flagged as having at most 1 reference or external link and being "short", and automatically redirecting these back to one of the appropriate asteroid-list pages.

Plus side: This would get rid of about 90% of the stubs, leaving a number small enough to process by hand in a reasonable length of time.

Minus side: Some stubs may be redirected that shouldn't be, either because the statistics script missed a few references or because the object in question is actually notable.

The rationale for automated processing is that even if we have to un-redirect a few stubs, that's still far less work than manually going through 19k stubs by hand.

That said, WP:BOT indicates that this sort of automated processing should only happen if there's clear community consensus for doing so. What do the WP:AST and WP:ASTRO crews think about this proposal? Worth it/not worth it? --Christopher Thomas (talk) 09:30, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Will redirected stubs get an edit note saying that the article can always be reinstated if redirection was a mistake? I think this is, in principle, a good way to handle these stubs, but I'm still a little wary. I would like to see the bot go through some "field testing" first. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 12:40, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Support – the Pareto principle seems to apply based on the gathered data. Hence, I think it's a good approach. The brevity of the listed pages will make them easy to individually re-create (or to roll back the redirect) in the event that an editor wants to expand on a particular entry. The only minor drawback to this approach may be that the redirect will only be linked to the matching list page, rather than the specific entry in the list. Implementing the latter would require more coding and testing, which may not be worth the effort. Regards, RJH (talk) 15:39, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
- Interesting. I thought perhaps this step might be more controversial than it is proving to be. In one sense it's unfortunate that we're doing this; it seems almost needlessly destructive. But in another sense it may focus more interest on a smaller number of minor planet articles that are in need of improvement. Regards, RJH (talk) 23:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
  - Actually, I'm planning to close this as "no consensus", if nobody else comments after a week. Two responses means that discussion isn't actually happening about it (odd, since I'd thought there were more currently-active members of WP:AST and WP:ASTRO, but that happens). In order to get a bot approved, especially since its actions won't be perfect (just an improvement), I'd have to demonstrate (on the application) that the overwhelming majority of affected editors think this is a good idea. Right now, that's far from clear. I'll take another look on Monday. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 23:59, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
    - Okay. Thank you. RJH (talk) 06:40, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
(Weak) Support. But I still have mixed feelings about it. I often think the first ~2,000 numbered asteroids should be grand fathered in at this point. -- Kheider (talk) 07:46, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Are any of those objects actually in the list of stubs, above? How many would actually be affected by the proposed selection criteria (i.e. how many did the script flag as short and having too few references)? --Christopher Thomas (talk) 09:10, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
  - Yes, there are some objects below 2,000. The lowest I found in the first five lists was 36 Atalante, which has three references and seems like a reasonable article to keep. ~~The stub processing page shows it as having zero references, so Christopher might want to figure out why before proceeding.~~ It looks like Kheider recently added some content. Asteroid 2000 Herschel was discovered in 1960, which is relatively recent in the history of astronomy. But I think that Kheider's suggestion would still allow the removal of most of the sub-stub articles. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:10, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
    - In that case, I can manually remove anything with a number of 2000 or lower from the "to redirect" list when/if the redirect script gets the go-ahead. That said, the optimal approach would be to un-stub those articles instead :). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 16:27, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Weak support, but suggest a trial run of say 500 articles first. Run the bot, wait two weeks, and see how many of those 500 get reverted / recreated in that time. If it's less than 10, go ahead and do the full list. Modest Genius ^talk 14:45, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

There will certainly be at least one trial run, where it spits out a list of changes it would have made without actually doing redirection, and we all comb through the output. That's actually one of the requirements for passing the bot appprovals process (having at least one "supervised" test run). With regards to running on a subset and seeing how much gets undone, that's certainly doable, but bear in mind that the people undoing the bot's edits will probably be us. Problems of that sort would hopefully be caught sooner (either right now by examining the stub list by hand, or during the dry run described a few sentences ago). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 16:27, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

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

Un-closed

You have quite a bit of support here. Please address the concerns of the weak supporters and to persuade those whose concerns you have addressed to strengthen their support. In this context, it is unrealistic to expect all who are concerned and likely aware of this proposal and who have not weighed in to do so. It seems clear to me that they must simply prefer to obstain for complicated but not very hard to understand reasons. This should not be interpreted as opposition. Also, few people care about this issue, so anything but a small number of people will be interested enough to comment. If you really need more support, you may have to take it to the general notablity community, but that doesn't seem necessary and I seem to understand that you all would rather keep this "in house" as it were, but if you want I'm confident I could find people concerned with notablity in general as opposed to simply astro notablity to support this. But again, you're very close to sufficient consensus already, please don't give up just yet. Chrisrus (talk) 17:58, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Four people is not "quite a bit of support". As a fraction of the number of _active_ people on WP:AST and WP:ASTRO it's small. As a fraction of the _total_ membership, it's miniscule. That is not anywhere close to enough support to make the case that this bot should be allowed to break the usual bot guidelines.

The guidelines at WP:BOT clearly spell out an expectation that a bot should make no mistakes - and this is borne out by the bot approvals page, where people are picking apart one or two errors made in trial runs of a hundred edits, for bots in trial periods. My bot would not work that way - it'd have a false positive rate on the order of 1% (at a guestimate), with the premise being that it's easier to clean up _that_ mess, than to manually fix the much _larger_ mess that presently exists (tens of thousands of bot-generated stubs). That will be hard to get permission for, and there's no way to automate it (or at least, I'm not going to; it'd take more work to make an ironclad bot, or to stand over the bot's shoulder during redirects, than it would just to redirect everything by hand).

Do you understand why I closed this, now? We're asking for a bot that will have (a small amount of) collateral damage, and we have to be able to demonstrate beyond any doubt that a large number of people support this move. We have nowhere close to the support needed to show that, in this thread. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 18:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm satisfied with your reasons for closing this, Christopher. Thanks for your efforts. Regards, RJH (talk) 18:44, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

With regard to the first part (Four people...guidelines."), if four supports is not enough, please state how many more you will need.

With regard to the guidelines at WP:BOT, please point out where it "clearly spells out" that expectation. Chrisrus (talk) 15:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

It's in WP:Bot policy; first occurrence is point number one at WP:Bot policy#Bot requirements, and it's elaborated on in the text. To see that they do take that seriously, go to WP:Bots/Requests for approval and read the applications yourself. I already told you that they nit-pick any mistaken edits the bot makes, out of trials of 50+ edits. Any bot doing automated redirecting on the above criteria would make mistakes, that they'd object to.

For number required for consensus, go to WP:WikiProject Astronomy/Members and WP:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Members and count. There are on the order of 160/100 members, respectively. Many are inactive, but I'd want at least 10% to speak up. This is consistent with my previous statements to User:Modest Genius that I'd want at least a dozen people supporting, with no substantial objection, before going over to WP:BRFA with application in hand saying "the wikiprojects involved endorse this bot, even with the collateral damage".

I'm closing the voting portion of the thread again, as two people other than you have accepted my rationale. If you want to make a bot, do it yourself, and start a new thread for it, because arguing with you got tiresome weeks ago. I'll make one if and only if overwhelming consensus is demonstrated for doing so (in this context, a poll with at least a dozen people responding and at least 90% endorsing the creation of such a bot).

Am I making my position sufficiently clear? --Christopher Thomas (talk) 19:28, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I think so. You have given this a good faith try but it's just not going to work. Thank you for trying. But please, one last thing, may we show the work you'd done, just as far as you'd gotten, to the WP:BOTREQ people? It may help when me do as you suggest. Chrisrus (talk) 20:01, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I did not file a bot application. I looked at several existing applications, at the link given above, and determined that an application that I could file would not be likely to pass. If you want to make your own pitch, carefully read all relevant pages (starting from WP:BOT, and look at present and past bot requests. That should give you enough information to make your attempt. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 21:32, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I know you didn't file one, but I seem to remember you'd done some work toward that end. Ok, I think I found the script you'd been writing, here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Stub processing. Is all of it? Chrisrus (talk) 22:29, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

No. That is a completely different script. As described above, that one spiders a category's pages and compiles statistics (which I put in the tables, also given above). That script does not count as a bot, because it makes no changes at all to the Wiki.

A script that performs redirection would be written from scratch. My version was going to take a manually-supplied list of pages to redirect. More advanced scripts could be written that combined the functions of both (spidering a category and then automatically redirecting anything sub-like that it found), but I wasn't going to bother with that for my version.

If you want sample code for actual bots, read the entire page set linked from WP:BOT. There are many libraries listed, many sample bots listed, and several other useful resources.

Please understand that the fact that you have to keep asking about this sort of thing, does not inspire confidence in me of your ability to implement any of it. Good luck. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 23:51, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Don't worry. I'm not doing it myself. Chrisrus (talk) 00:07, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Feedback requested for Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 50

Hey there ASTRO people. There is a request to redirect a bunch of asteroid stubs (see list), so some extra eyes would be need on this. In a nutshell, when an asteroid has...

No references found in the Astrophysics Data System, and
No references found in the JPL Small-Body Database

the article would be converted to a redirect to the relevant list of minor planets per WP:NASTRO. However, since this concerns a large quantity of article, some additional things need to be addressed, and I want to make sure I'm not overlooking anything before approving this request.

It would be a good idea if people were to agree on a comment message similar to those found on isotope redirects, something that mentions WP:NASTRO and the need of significant coverage.
What happens to categories, do you want them removed as they would serve little purpose, or kept for sake of comprehensiveness?

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:08, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

There should definitely be a "edit note saying that the article can always be reinstated if redirection was a mistake". It should also note that the bot re-directs were a result of thousands of asteroid stubs appearing to fail WP:NASTRO but searches for references explaining notability for individual asteroids were not conducted. -- Kheider (talk) 15:02, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I still suggest asteroids numbered below ~2000 should just be left alone since on average they are much larger than asteroids discovered after them. -- Kheider (talk) 15:32, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Putting a cut-off at 2000 means not-redirecting the following

After browsing a few of these articles, I really don't see any that meet WP:NASTRO. And they were all (or nearly all) created by Cluebot II.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:42, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I really don't have objections to the list Wikipedia:WikiProject_Astronomy/Candidates_for_redirection_new (listing 4862 objects), but since the purpose of many of these hit lists is to remove articles from Wikipedia, there should be some kind of selection bias since most of these objects will not be on peoples watch lists. There are other lists far more aggressive. User:Anomie/Asteroid list includes a 126 km Jupiter trojan (1173 Anchises) at the top of the numbered asteroids. -- Kheider (talk) 16:05, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I have been bold and removed the large (100+km Jupiter Trojans): 1173 Anchises, 1208 Troilus, 1867 Deiphobus, 2241 Alcathous, 4063 Euforbo from User:Anomie/Asteroid list. -- Kheider (talk) 00:47, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

The woo-woo Earth impact by Jupiter Trojan 1143 Odysseus is probably MY biggest concern with too many asteroids having an article. -- Kheider (talk) 15:52, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Ay-yi-yi. Well hopefully nobody is basing their retirement plans on Wikipedia information.

Regards, RJH (talk) 16:48, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I made a number of random checks against the above list using Google Scholar. I didn't find any particularly useful references. Some of them do have a reference for their physical parameters in the JPL SBDb. (Example: 1776 Kuiper and 1993 Guacolda.) But I doubt those would satisfy WP:NASTRO. I also did a compare against the 456 Radar-Detected Asteroids and Comets, but those all appear to be excluded from the above. Regards, RJH (talk) 19:41, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:NASTRO#Dealing_with_minor_planets states, "(IF) a good-faith search has been done to locate supporting references, then it is appropriate to redirect the stub to the appropriate List of... article." Since this deletion lists contain thousands of asteroids, obviously a good-faith search will not be done for each one. So technically it is a violation of the written policy. Having said that, I suspect most of the notable ones will be the larger better studied objects (ie, the lower numbered objects). -- Kheider (talk) 19:58, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, a manual check of all the minor planet articles just isn't practical. Regards, RJH (talk) 20:23, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree, but this is also why I think some of the them (those below ~2000) should just be grand fathered in for at least 6 months. -- Kheider (talk) 20:36, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

That would take the retained discovery list up through about mid 1960. Regards, RJH (talk) 20:45, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I wonder a little about 1247 Memoria. That has multiple IRAS observations with albedo and diameter estimates. It has also been the subject of an occultation study.[1] Still, the case is weak. Regards, RJH (talk) 20:56, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Many of the asteroids numbered below 2000 have IRAS and occultation data. -- Kheider (talk) 00:47, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

For the sake of cleanup efficiency, Kheider's suggestion seems reasonable. Just postpone cleanup of those under number 2000 for a later date. 70.24.244.198 (talk) 03:20, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that seems good enough for now. I'm not sure it will help the above pages if they come up for AfD, but it does simplify the screening process. Thanks. Regards, RJH (talk) 01:54, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

It would be a good idea if people were to agree on a comment message similar to those found on isotope redirects, something that mentions WP:NASTRO and the need of significant coverage.

Here's my put:

<!--
 Before converting the XXXXX redirect into an article, please
 check whether the content will satisfy the guidelines for
 astronomical object notability on WP:NASTRO. In particular,
 the object must have significant coverage from independent,
 reliable sources. Just because an object is listed in a
 database (like the JPL Small-Body Database) does not mean it
 is notable.
-->

What happens to categories, do you want them removed as they would serve little purpose, or kept for sake of comprehensiveness?

Headbomb – can you clarify what categories you mean? Regards, RJH (talk) 16:14, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I mean, assuming 1649 Fabre is redirected, what should happen to the categories (Category:Main Belt asteroids, Category:Asteroids named for people, Category:Discoveries by Louis Boyer (astronomer), Category:Astronomical objects discovered in 1951, etc...)? Should some be kept? Others removed? Compare with e.g. Iron-52, categorized in Category:Isotopes of iron. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:30, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah, you mean the categories in the redirect, rather than the categories themselves. I'd be tempted to say we should remove the general categories and keep the specialized ones. But it may be cleaner just to remove them all. Redirects in category lists can be a little misleading/confusing. Regards, RJH (talk) 21:41, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

However, perhaps it would make sense to put them in a separate category for minor planet redirects, per WP:RCAT? (See Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects#Categories just for redirects.) That way we have a standing list of objects that have been converted. Regards, RJH (talk) 21:12, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Ok I have done 5 test conversions:

‎* 4990 Trombka

They are all in

‎* Category:Minor planet redirects

Let me know if there are any issues. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

No references found in the JPL Small-Body Database

Why is asteroid 2025 Nortia inluded on this re-direct list when it has a JPL Small-Body Database entry that includes an IRAS reference? Your lists details entered by Chrisrus may be a little misleading as to what selection process was used. -- Kheider (talk) 17:08, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

The JPL search was looking for papers, as such IRAS data was not included. Rich Farmbrough, 23:38, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

Notable objects

I have opened a thread on notability for Earth-crossing asteroids at Wikipedia talk:Notability (astronomical objects)#NEOs. Spinning Spark 16:20, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

4706 Dennisreuter

Another minor planet up for AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/4706 Dennisreuter. Some discussion is occurring regarding automated deletes. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:17, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

For reference, past discussions about automated redirection:

--Christopher Thomas (talk) 20:49, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Note to whoever has some spare time (or an appropriate bot): After redirecting, now-circular wikilinks on the list of minor planets pages should be removed (as I already did with Chernyakhovsky above, but there seem to be many more). Also, most red-linked named asteroids on that list should probably be removed, since being named does not imply notability. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 21:24, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear, they should be delinked rather than removed. I hope that is what you meant. Regards. RJH (talk) 21:27, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is; thanks for clarifying. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 18:17, 18 July 2012 (UTC)