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List of minor planets: removal of subpages

The first 200 pages of the List of minor planets#Main index are comprised of subpages, which are disallowed:

I plan the merger to take place sometime next month, along with a layout revision, renaming pages (changing "/" to ":"), and deleting the obsolete subpages. After the merger is done, all currently 456 pages will then be consistent in their structure. If you have any questions, concerns or objections, pls let me know. Thx. Rfassbind – talk 23:32, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

  • STRONG OPPOSE That is highly wrong the "/" format is disallowed, because those are subpages, and disallowed. The current format are not subpages. If you read the very top of that page you're quoting, WP:SUBPAGE it says clearly subpages are pages separated with a "/" (a slash) from their 'parent' page. which is exactly what you're proposing to do, in violation of WP:SUBPAGE (all the sublists use ":", any page using "/" is a redirect, and not located at the subpage location). Using the colon may be improper, but they are not subpages, and do not cause the problems that subpage type names cause on MediaWiki and the internet in general. Further it is a very bad idea to merge the lists since WP:SIZE makes accessibility poor, and makes loading excessively long, and will crash some people's browsers/phones/OSes for being too big. -- 70.51.46.39 (talk) 04:26, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Per the IP, oppose. I'm not sure the OP understood what he was talking about. I would suggest renaming the ": *" version to the "(*)" version, but MediaWiki's WP:Pipe trick works the same way regardless of the two methods. OP should start a WP:RM if he really thinks any renamings should go forward. --Izno (talk) 11:11, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Neutral: Assuming it's done properly, my position hasn't changed from here, but I'll repeat it for ease. Condensing the "100s" pages <= 200000 (or splitting up the "1000s" pages > 200000) seems like a lot of work for minimal effect (it may even fall under WP:If it ain't broke don't fix it, judging from the above comments). I have no preference either way, since both accomplish the same task, and since no one seems to have a problem anymore (at least at Talk:List of minor planets) with the page size of each 1000s page, which is ~700 KB after they've been fully loaded. If there still is a problem with the 1000s page size, then we should work towards more 100s pages.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:30, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Support: Given my comments below.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:34, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose: The OP appears to be making an invalid assertion. Subpages are defined by having a '/' character to separate them from their main article. The referenced pages use a semi-colon – they are normal list articles.
What I think should be done though is to add an explanation to the top of each of the list pages. For example, suppose a random visitor found List of minor planets: 79001–80000: what is {s}he supposed to make of it? How would a lay reader know what is meant by "Minor Planet". Is it a fictional planet populated by children? A small extrasolar world? There's no way to tell. Praemonitus (talk) 15:05, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be useful to create a template with a brief explanatory paragraph that could be added to the top of each page? — Huntster (t @ c) 16:46, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
I think the pages are being regenerated weekly by a batch process, so perhaps a summary header can be included that way. Praemonitus (talk) 19:51, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Huntster, Praemonitus, and everyone else ~ I made the intro template ({{List of minor planets/intro}} that is meant to display a note above {{TOC001}}, and turned on {{List of minor planets/header1}}'s note, which displays below {{TOC001}}. Both can be seen on List of minor planets: 1001–2000, for comparison. My template's note is based on List of minor planets: 1–1000's note, in place since June 2009.
Please let me know which position is preferred and I will modify the 1000s pages accordingly (wording of each can be changed independently of, and much more easily than, position).   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:32, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
My personal preference is to put the intro at the top, ahead of the ToC, since that is what most visitors are used to seeing. It looks fine to me. Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 17:49, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Praemonitus, above the ToC looks much better. — Huntster (t @ c) 03:52, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Support, as there is obviously a misunderstanding of what WP:SUB is trying to say. While literal subpages (those using /) are absolutely not permitted, colons in page titles are technically fine. I see no problem with their use here, and think the titles look much better than if they used parentheses. — Huntster (t @ c) 16:46, 22 March 2016 (UTC) now that the issue has been clarified below, I fully support the changes, as well as merging the 100s into 1000s articles. The resulting article sizes will not really be anomalous compared to existing articles. — Huntster (t @ c) 01:59, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Apologies for my misleading first post (I changed that part now). This is not what I meant to say, nor is it relevant to the merging of pages.

  • First, forget about the "rename comment". I erroneously wrote it the other way around. The ":" syntax in the title is fine and consistent throughout the whole series. (I wanted to change the names from "/" to ":" as done here, but that task has long been completed).
  • However, in case you are not aware of the fact that there are indeed subpages in use here. I'm not refering to the 1000s-lists, but to the included pages with 100 items. They are all subpages of List of minor planets. For example:
  • List of minor planets: 1–1000 includes 10 subpages. These are:
  1. List of minor planets/1–100
  2. List of minor planets/101–200
  3. List of minor planets/201–300
  4. List of minor planets/301–400
  5. List of minor planets/401–500
  6. List of minor planets/501–600
  7. List of minor planets/601–700
  8. List of minor planets/701–800
  9. List of minor planets/801–900
  10. List of minor planets/901–1000

There are another 1990 of these subpages currently used up to #200,000 (also see Category:Lists of minor planets by number). Rfassbind – talk 18:01, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

  • Support: Now it makes sense. Thanks for the clarification. Yes a merge of the already transcluded pages seems like a good idea. Praemonitus (talk) 19:12, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Conditional Support: 70.51.46.39 brought up the point about WP:SIZE that should be considered, or at least acknowledged and OK'd by others here, before doing this, since it was an issue several years ago at Talk:List of minor planets, but died down without a clear consensus (similar to what's happening here, if 70.51.46.39's comment were to be ignored).
Each 1000s page is ~700 KB fully loaded. I have no problems loading them on my smartphone using WiFi or 4G (in fact, I prefer those > 200,000, since they display groups of 100 more appealingly (to me) than the 1000s pages <= 200,000, but that's not the issue). All MP #Redirects point to the 1000s pages, so if there is a real problem (not an assumed problem) with preferring 1000s pages over 100s pages, we should hold off until it's resolved/consensus is reached, since we would have to re-work a lot. (My assertion is that it used to be a problem, but, with better technology, i[t] got better.)   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  18:18, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Size is still an issue with respect to the global South as well as those persons with <4G. (I have no personal opinion on 100 vice 1000.) --Izno (talk) 19:05, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
The relevant portions of WP:SIZE#Technical issues (only 2 paragraphs long) are vague (probably on purpose), and contradictorily (or open-endedly) say:
  1. 1000s pages are too big: Articles of more than 200kB (~30 pages) exist for topics that require depth and detail, but it's typical that articles of such size get split into two or more sub-articles., and
  2. 1000s pages are fine: The maximum limit for Wikipedia is set by the MediaWiki software default article size limit, 2048 kilobytes (specifically, 2,098,175 bytes). (~3x larger than the 1000s page size).
We should pick one.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:49, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
I think the second point is more a "FYI". Assume that the 200 kb guidance holds true in this case. --Izno (talk) 11:39, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
We obviously need to abide by #2, but #1 isn't so strict. Focusing on "it's typical" (which sounds WP:WEASELly unreferenced): what were the specific articles that were split? Are our MP list articles "typical" or "atypical" to these? It would be useful to see, specifically, which articles were and were not split > 200 KB (and list them somewhere in WP:SIZE), and see which group our MP articles most closely resemble. I'll run a DB scan for large articles (it won't find our MP lists b/c the scan doesn't perform transclusions), but I don't know how to easily find previously-split articles. If someone knows how to do that, or has some examples, that'd be very useful.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:54, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Here's the # distribution for articles >= 200 kB (excludes heavily transcluded pages):

  • >= 200 kB: 1071
  • >= 225 kB: 677
  • >= 250 kB: 416
  • >= 275 kB: 267
  • >= 300 kB: 166
  • >= 325 kB: 106
  • >= 350 kB: 74
  • >= 375 kB: 51
  • >= 400 kB: 39
  • >= 425 kB: 33
  • >= 450 kB: 25
  • >= 475 kB: 17
  • >= 500 kB: 13
  • >= 525 kB: 11
  • >= 550 kB: 9
  • >= 575 kB: 7
  • >= 600 kB: 5

The 5 articles >= 600 kB are (with 6 List of minor planets 1000s-articles for comparision):

Article name Size List? # of entries [Traffic]
([Hits/day, 90 day avg]) 		Size × Hits/Day
= MB/Day
List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States 802 kB Yes ~2051 672 538.94
List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach 702 kB Yes ~1862 684 480.17
List of United States counties and county equivalents 672 kB Yes ~3143 320 215.04
Opinion polling for the 2015 United Kingdom general election 653 kB Yes ~2595 140 91.42
1918 Birthday Honours 610 kB Yes ~7862 21 12.81
List of minor planets: 1–1000 732 kB Yes 1000 61 44.65
List of minor planets: 5001–6000 783 kB Yes 1000 20 15.66
List of minor planets: 10001–11000 749 kB Yes 1000 26 19.47
List of minor planets: 200001–201000 616 kB Yes 1000 2 1.23
List of minor planets: 205001–206000 606 kB Yes 1000 1 0.61
List of minor planets: 210001–211000 621 kB Yes 1000 1 0.62

My thoughts on this:

  1. Without knowing how many articles > 200 kB were split, it's hard to definitively say how accurate "it's typical that articles of such size get split" actually is, but with over 1000 articles > 200 kB, "typical" is probably not the right word to use and is probably misleading.
  2. MP list articles are in the same size-range as the top 5.
  3. MP list articles have between 54% and 13% of the # of entries of the top 5.
  4. MP list articles receive many fewer hits/day and similarly fewer MB/day traffic than the top 4 (1918 Birthday Honours excluded).

Given all these properties, I don't see the MP list articles as an anomaly nor a problem when it comes to size, # of entries, nor traffic (if anything, they're anomalous in the smaller direction). Therefore, I see no clear reason why we should split 1000s pages (# > 200 000) into 100s, nor prohibit the merging of 100s pages into 1000s. Merging the 100s pages into 1000s makes maintenance easier and the MP-list family of pages consistent, so I've changed my Neutral & Comment to Support & Conditional Support accordingly.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  21:00, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Thx Tom for that detailed analysis. So the page-size of the 1000s-lists is not really an issue, and the recently added "MPC-column" is just fine. Its worth mentioning, that the size-neutral merging of subpages will also reduce the serverload and/or get rid of the annoying sever cache issues.
Here's an example preview of a merged MP list. Constructive and informed feedback from anybody is very much appreciated. Rfassbind – talk 00:30, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

The merger of the 2000 subpages has been completed. Instead of deleting them, they have been redirected by Tom, which has the advantage of preserving their revision history. Thx for all the co-operation and feedback. Rfassbind – talk 11:04, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Scientific notation with {{Convert}}

Do you think that template:convert should support an option that forces output to use scientific notation ? I've noticed there no such option at template talk:Convert. -- 70.51.45.100 (talk) 05:32, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I think you have to enter the data using e-notation. Praemonitus (talk) 17:50, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
You can apparently just pass output through {{scinote}} to get it in scientific notation. If you want input instead, use the FORMATNUM magic word. Modest Genius talk 17:01, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Template:ESIScore and Template:HabPlanetScore nominated for deletion.

I would just like some more people to comment on these TfD's here. Davidbuddy9 Talk  21:32, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Problem going on at List of potentially habitable moons

The admin made a statement on the AfD that I think everyone caught up in the "ESI" debate should read, and I completely agree with the admins points that the admin stated "While it is nice to have academic sources for this subject, our WP:N does not absolutely require this, rather it is the WP:RS that needs to be demonstrated. None of the arguments demonstrated how this fails our notability guideline, or how the existing sources are not considered to be reliable by WP:RS standards, hence I cannot see the consensus to delete." Unfortunately all of these sources and even the article itself has been removed and been replaced by an anti-ESI "propaganda" (I dare say) page with no citations. I am afraid that another AfD will be opened up with this "deeply wounded" version of the article and not create a fair consensus. I am OK with removing all of the Hypothetical moons but not the entire content of the article and creating one that does not fit WP:NPOV. Davidbuddy9 Talk  01:52, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Io is considered possibly inhabitable? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 02:01, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
I suspect it's just saying Io has some physical similarities with Earth. I.e. volcanism due to tidal heating. Praemonitus (talk) 03:07, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
The closer considered the arguments during the AFD to have been too superficial, but they now agree that the article should have ended up deleted.[1] They are apparently disinclined to revise their close to that effect. Apparently we're supposed to re-AFD it. Alsee (talk) 04:07, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
Problem solved redirected to a table on Habitability of natural satellites. Davidbuddy9 Talk  01:11, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

MfD nomination of draft templates

Please see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Template:convert, an MFD nomination of some templates in draft namespace, which may be relevant to the interests of this project. 103.6.159.74 (talk) 16:48, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

These are under construction templates that convert redshift to lightyears and vice versa, and decimal degrees to HMS and vice versa. It also converts redshiftspace values to parsecs and lightyears, and converts comoving distance to redshift and vice versa -- 70.51.45.100 (talk) 06:59, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Unconfirmed planets

I have started deletion discussions for two planets that are unconfirmed and attested to a by a single source, it seems:

jps (talk) 18:35, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

List of nearby terrestrial exoplanets

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of nearest terrestrial exoplanet candidates

I don't think we can justify keeping this list for the reasons I outline.

jps (talk) 20:17, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Kepler candidates list

A more-or-less arbitrary list of Kepler candidates is being hosted at Wikipedia. I suggest it be deleted.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Kepler exoplanet candidates by ESI.

jps (talk) 16:42, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

The article has a new name and presumably new inclusion criteria which is clearly in violation of Wikipedia policies on WP:LISTN. Let the discussion play out. jps (talk) 23:13, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Update to inner margins of Infobox planet

There is a discussion at WT:ASTRO#Infobox planet's inner margins on making {{Infobox planet}} more compact via setting a new default (but adjustable) maximum width to the parameter-name column. Your input & vote are requested.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:09, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Bibcode validation in citation

You may have feedback here: Help_talk:Citation_Style_1#Check_for_valid_bibcode.3D_parameter. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:32, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Finishing up the Listification of nearby star navboxes?

These are not done yet, it appears that we need to add more specific stellar classes and maybe some revising, although the bare bones seem complete. It would be a shame to see these deleted. Davidbuddy9 Talk  00:55, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Reform(ing) needed for List of potentially habitable exoplanets?

I was going to post this but no one seems to check its talk page too much anymore so might as well post this here, and plus is this quite an notable issue. PHL (some people call it by the project name HEC), once agian has reformated their listings of Habitable exoplanets, They have split the list into a "Conservative" and "Optimistic" lists which was well needed indeed. The formatting of PHL's lists is drastically different and included values that List of potentially habitable exoplanets doesn't list, and List of potentially habitable exoplanets lists values like SPH, HZC, and HZA which are no where to be found on the PHL's page (Some older archived lists from PHL used the HZD (like this one), but generally it has been replaced with Stellar flux Denoted as SE, S⊕ or Seff(<- See table 1 in that link) (But generally in Scientific papers Seff appears to be most commonly used) to critique planatary habitability (Just look at that link I just posted)). Not to mention so many KOI's that aren't on PHL's KOI List which we do have a better orginized list than this one that acctually has the ones that are there, plus some other ones that are backed by Nasa's Exoplanet Archive. I'm thinking we should just redo the whole list from PHL's data as since there is no explanatory citation for any of the other units presented it must of all came from thin air. Another question that we have to answer is if we want a two separate tables (on the same page) for exoplanets in the "Conservative" HZ and "Optimistic" HZ or continue on with lumping all of them into one table or have all 3 tables on the same page or a sort of compromise which would be a single table, with some sort of sorter that would allow us to sort out "Optimistic" HZ planets and "Conservative" HZ planets. For the format of the table I nominate the PHL style format which can be seen in use here. Davidbuddy9 Talk  01:10, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

The solution is simple - if you can't easily find a reference to either corroborate or correct what's on the page, boldly remove that information. It's been tagged since August 2015 as lacking sources and out of date, so that's good enough warning in my opinion.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:39, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Seeing no opposition to the change, I'd just go ahead with it. Literature may use other statistics and varied ones at that. However, if this is what the source uses in terms of a list without other source lists (assuming no other sources are commenting that this change has some disagreement in the scientific community beyond just preference), then that's the one to use in this case. Kingofaces43 (talk) 06:02, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

New proposed table for List of potentially habitable exoplanets

I have worked on a new table for List of potentially habitable exoplanets which follows the new PHL/HEC format in tables sense. You can check it out here to help with the transition (I will really appreciate it!). So far I have implemented all of the "Conservative" exoplanets from the PHL/HEC list, I'm still not sure about the colouration of the Flux column... I have not worked on implementing the "Optimistic" set but I will get around to it eventually. Once this is finished and everyone is ok with it then we can implemented into the main page. Davidbuddy9 Talk  01:55, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Progress

NOTE: Since implementation, the format has changed agian. Davidbuddy9 Talk  03:54, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Template:2019 in space Nominated for deletion

You are invited to discuss the nomination of Template:2019 in space here. Davidbuddy9 Talk  04:45, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Summary of star fusion

This might be more suited to Wikiproject Cosmology; feel free to move it there if so

Although there is detailed information on the various fuel burning processes in Wikipedia, there isn't an overview of the assorted processes, their duration, and the star's mass needed to enter each process (or a least that I could find). I'm thinking of a table like this (numbers made up for the process of illustration, I'm sure you will know the real numbers). I imagine the numbers would actually be ranges.

Star fusion summary
Proton–proton chain reaction Triple alpha process CNO process Carbon-burning process Neon-burning process Oxygen-burning process Silicon-burning process
Initial mass (suns) Duration (years) Initial mass (suns) Duration (years) Initial mass (suns) Duration (years) Initial mass (suns) Duration (years) Initial mass (suns) Duration (years) Initial mass (suns) Duration (years) Initial mass (suns) Duration (years)
1 10¹⁰
1.3 10¹⁰ 1 10¹⁰
2 10¹⁰ 1.5 10¹⁰ 1.3 10⁹

This might be better as prose, which would allow a more detailed summary of each step to be listed, including the core temperature, and the star's type. LongHairedFop (talk) 12:26, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Depending on the initial mass, some of those fusion processes will overlap. Or do you just mean at the core? Also, it might work better as an illustration. Praemonitus (talk) 18:13, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
There is an overview article on stellar evolution and a number of articles about individual phases of evolution or the evolution of particular types of star: eg. supergiant or horizontal branch. Ot isn't great right now, with a lot of overlap and it can be hard to get a good overview. I think there are a lot of words and not a lot of hard detail, but hard detail is hard to tie down when different models vary by huge margins even for exactly the same initial conditions. You might be trying to make things too simplistic though: pp and CNO are not mutually exclusive; triple-alpha and CNO/p-p happen at the same time in some cases; and there are long periods with no core fusion. Take a look at red giant branch and subgiant for some small tables I recently added specific to those phases of evolution. Lithopsian (talk) 23:10, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Intractable problem at WR 31a

Intractable for me anyway. There is a disagreement about some edits I made to the article. Perhaps someone else could take a look at it, short of going to a more formal dispute resolution. Lithopsian (talk) 11:39, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

@Lithopsian: This is not the way to go about an editing dispute, and avoids the process that should be conducted on the Talk:WR 31a. So far absolutely no attempt has been made to discuss and resolve these issues properly. I.e. Not comment by you has been me made on the contentious or disputed issues, for example. Whilst requesting assistance is perfectly fine, you should really done so from WP:NPOV, and by saying "There is a disagreement about some edits I made to the article" fails to disclose that you had some disagreement with another's edits too (otherwise you would not have reverted them as you did in the first place.) As such it also could be construed under WP:DISRUPTSIGNS.
You also should also have kindly informed me of discussion request here, so that these problems can be openly rectified and solved by WP:CONSENSUS. As it says under WP:3O#How to list a dispute; "Before making a request here, be sure that the issue has been thoroughly discussed on the article talk page."
Finally, you should specify the dispute problems specifically to questions at hand and not some undefined quasi-issue as you have done here.
Specific Example WR stars and Supernovae
My original edit (with actual cite) stated "Mass of the central star is estimated to be at least 20 times that of the Sun, and it will likely become a supernova type II event in the future".[2]", but you only removed this without any explanation from thisarticle here[3] Yet, when I questioned you on the WR 31a talk page, I explained the edit here [4] (Point 4). You still said nothing, till your last revert[5], it was still not restored by you. (Your last edit even had The VII Catalogue quoted as article Reference No.4, but it seems likely you just haven't read it.)
I have since further added that quote from VII Catalogue of Wolf-Rayet Stars (2001) [6] (pdf) pg.136, where it says in black and white (Pont 5); "It is important to discover and monitor WR stars,... a tracer of star formation in spiral arms, and a representative of the one but final phase in the evolution of massive stars, to be followed, probably, by a Type Ib / Ic supernova explosion." There are NINE different sources supporting this in the catalog!!
I still count more than a dozen other errors, misquotes, misunderstandings.
The most problematic are;
1) "On this basis it has been classified as Ofpe/WN9, a slash star." What's a slash star please? (It's not referenced.) and
2) "The same type of spectrum is also known as WN11, an extension of the traditional nitrogen sequence to cooler temperatures." All WN and WC stars are based on the strengths of their spectral lines NOT temperature NOR luminosity; mostly because the thick atmosphere conceals their photospheres. Classification is different than OBAFGKMS sequences, which ARE temperature related.
3) You say "It is a hydrogen-rich star,...", but the fact is it shows weak hydrogen lines, which is concealed by the Ref 6 by Crowther even say so as does the VII Catalogue. I.e. The VII Cat This says in black and white (pg.136); "A classification system based on such emission lines will therefore not be closely coupled to the stellar parameters of effective temperature and luminosity." (I even asked Lithopsian did he known what the 'h' stood for (no response.) It stands for hydrogen, actually, absent or present. Not richness. Note: Odd too, the majority of all stars we see are hydrogen rich, including the Sun.)
4) You say "It is more commonly referred to as Hen 3-519,...", which is quite silly, because the article labelled WR 31a!!
After all this, somehow I'm now apparently "being difficult"[7], and now you have deemed this somehow your intractable problem.
Yet what is very much worse, I already fixed most of these problems before and you reverted them, then later claimed "Undo: if there are mistakes fix them." here [8]
Frankly, I have been watching the large numbers of edits and reference cites that you are doing each day, especially with the minutia across many pages related to astronomy. Clearly you are an effective and significant contributor which has to be openly acknowledged. There are not enough editor fixing article on astronomy. Like you, I know a lot about astronomy and astrophysics, but I don't know everything, and I know I can never learn it all. Each of us has different skills and abilities, and the hardest thing to do is mostly focus on the strengths and avoid the weaknesses. I.e. I know a lot about Wolf-Rayets, planetary nebulae, astronomical history, but am much weaker on cosmology and the mathematical side of astrophysics. Just some positive thoughts... Arianewiki1 (talk) 03:57, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Requested move of Red giant branch

It has been proposed that the article Red giant branch be renamed to Red-giant branch. See discussion on the talk page. Lithopsian (talk) 13:49, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Request to split List of comets by type

Going on at Talk:List of comets by type#Page length.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:19, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Is BG Geminorum notable?

The article exists, but the text is almost entirely plagiarised from Kenyon 2002. I added a starbox a few months back without noticing the copyvio problem. Or maybe it is OK? A few words have been substituted from the original so it isn't 100% cut'n'paste, unfortunately mangling the meaning in one case. The article could be saved, reworded easily enough, but I don't know if it is worth it. Starting from scratch, I can't imagine that it would be considered notable. It is a 13th magnitude eclipsing variable with a couple of papers specific to it, plus a few catalogue entries. It could probably be speedily deleted because of the copyright issues. Lithopsian (talk) 18:07, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

The system itself appears to be quite notable, as I could find at least 11 scholarly papers published on the topic. The fact that the article is plagiarized though suggests that the text should start over from a clean slate. Praemonitus (talk) 17:31, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
Yes, maybe. Simbad only showed me 5 papers total, only two specific to this star, but I've found more now. I've chopped out the didgy text and written an innocuous stub. That's probably as far as I go. I was only looking at it because it was originally tagged as a possible RV Tauri variable. Lithopsian (talk) 19:27, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
This page suggests it's significant for having the largest known orbital period for a (potential) black hole binary, as well as the only known candidate eclipsing black hole binary in the galaxy. It's probably worth an article. Praemonitus (talk) 20:55, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
"the only known candidate eclipsing black hole binary in the galaxy." In that case, yes it is worth an article. Davidbuddy9 Talk  03:55, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

SN 1006AD : Request to Review Source Data

I've just added a template to the article SN 1006 and made a comment about this article that needs to be addressed under 1006AD : Review / Source Data).[9] The linked Stevenson's article has all the historical background that should likely remove some of the misconceptions and some out of date references. (I'm reluctant to edit this as it may influence the needed WP:NPOV.

Thanks. Arianewiki1 (talk) 14:38, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Is Citing PHL/HEC in violation of WP:SELFPUB?

PHL/HEC can be used as a reference as is not a violation of WP:SELFPUB Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:00, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion 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.

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please continue the discussion below this notice. Davidbuddy9 Talk  20:51, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Some editors feel that citing PHL/HEC is WP:OR and WP:SELFPUB I admit that I initially acted a bit hostile to this debate but I'm simply wondering what everyone else thinks about this (NOTE: I will be opening a second RfC for the use of the ESI Davidbuddy9 Talk  06:10, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

  • I have no problem, for example, including things that are found both at exoplanets.org and the website in question. My fundamental objection is the use of this page as the sole source for certain content. If it is not found anywhere else, I question whether it should be included at Wikipedia. jps (talk) 19:52, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I still fail to understand how a sub-website of a website that's run by an accredited academic institution can be claimed to be under the exclusive authority of a single person running that sub-website, which is the claim that I9Q79oL78KiL0QTFHgyc makes. If the academic institution decided that the content is not appropriate for publishing, they could very conceivably pull the plug or exercise more editorial control. What makes this setup "self-published" for Wikipedia's purposes? LjL (talk) 22:25, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
NO. As a professional research scientist (non-astronomer), I think citing PHL/HEC is completely fine. People cite this resource in peer-reviewed journals, e.g. [10] [11]. Science News uses it [12]. This is not some vanity press, it is a data product from a world-class research institution. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:45, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but you are just wrong in your evaluation. The citations you provide are marginal and not considered first-rate in my field (astronomy). In fact, one is to MDPI which is a predatory open access journal (https://scholarlyoa.com/2015/06/11/guest-editing-a-special-issue-with-mdpi-evidences-of-questionable-actions-by-the-publisher/]). More than that this, the website is essentially a self-published website with no external control. It is the opinion of the person who maintains the page. Nothing more. jps (talk) 22:57, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Wrong question. It looks like it is being used as a WP:PRIMARY source for ESI. While primary sources are sometimes acceptable, they are subject to significant additional constraints on where and how they should be used. It looks like ESI is an arbitrary calculated value with apparently negligible significance(?) within the scientific community, much less for a general-public reader. It looks like WP:UNDUE WEIGHT (bordering on promotionalism) to start putting ESI in general exoplanet articles, unless perhaps it has become a significant point of discussion in secondary sources. Furthermore I note any existing refs to habitable-exoplanets-catalog have exactly zero weight to support notability for exoplanet articles. Wikipedia:Notability#cite_note-5: Moreover, not all coverage in reliable sources constitutes evidence of notability for the purposes of article creation; for example, directories and databases... [are] examples of coverage that may not actually support notability when examined, despite their existence as reliable sources. Alsee (talk) 16:52, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
The bit about notability is irrelevant to the present discussion. That can be raised on any given exoplanet's talk page, or AfD if you choose. And please don't be intentionally inflammatory. You don't have to like this ESI, but it certainly is not "arbitrary". SemanticMantis (talk) 18:40, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Actually, ESI is 100% arbitrary. That's why where it has been noticed by astronomers (as in the MNRAS paper) it has basically been criticized. jps (talk) 22:57, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, you keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means. Read the link again. You seem to be pushing your own WP:POV here, and seek to eliminate much of our content, based on your own hard-line skeptical interpretation of things. I'm not sure why. Sure, the ESI could have been defined differently. But it has plenty of usage in real peer-reviewed articles. Do you know what "index" means in this case? Compare Index_(economics). Most, if not all, of these indices have some degree subjectiveness in their design. The whole point is that they are assimilating many other quantities, and outputting one number, and we have several ways of doing that, and they have varying degrees of usefulness. The fact that astronomers debate as to which one is best in which circumstance does not mean ESI is bullshit nonsense. Compare also diversity index. There are dozens, and professional researchers debate their relative merits, but that doesn't mean we can't include information on them in our articles. But this isn't even relevant to the question the RfC poses, so I'm collapsing. Please try to keep your comments related to the question posed, and discuss ESI where it is asked about below. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:19, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
The usage of the word "arbitrary" is correct. The ESI is an arbitrary index that is not used by astronomers because it has no utility. jps (talk) 18:39, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment: Given the proliferation of references to PHL, I agree with Alsee in that I would like to see some consensus formed on whether or not values from PHL adhere to or fail WP:PRIMARY, since cases can be made for and against. For example, is simply listing an object's ESI in violation, even though no interpretation of that information is being done? I think not. What does everyone else here think, particularly those that haven't already commented?   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:04, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
    • If the ESI is mentioned by anyone else other than the website, I think mentioning it is fair. If it's just mentioned by the website, it seems strange since the ESI requires data that often isn't known for a planet. The website maintainer himself argued that the ESI number itself is not very relevant to any individual planet at Talk:Earth Similarity Index. Why should Wikipedia proliferate these numbers on the basis of a single website? If a press outlet declared the number or another third-party noticed it, by all means, I think that's a fair inclusion (with attibution, probably). But on the basis of a single website? Seems highly WP:UNDUE. jps (talk) 20:22, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
  • No source provided by User:SemanticMantis shows this has been peer reviewed. Again this is not a sign that this is a correct measurement of habitability, but merely a notable method which may be incorrect. Valoem talk contrib 21:00, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
Well since you summoned me: I never said the PHL itself was peer reviewed. I said it had been cited in peer-reviewed publications, and that Science News cited it, and those are still both true statements :) Cheers, SemanticMantis (talk) 22:42, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Executive Summary

This discussions have been going on for quite some time and there are a few things clear to me:

  1. ESI/PHL are relied on too much in Wikipedia
  2. There are a small number of external cites to ESI that confer upon it notability enough for an article.

Beyond this, it seems to me that to rely on a single webpage to source speculative claims is very poor practice. Speculation as to how similar a planet with only two observed characteristics may or may not be to Earth should be done on the basis of more than a single source. Currently we have a lot of "information" on Wikipedia which is only sourced to PHL. This is problematic as a lot of the information is speculative. For example, on List of potentially habitable exoplanets, there are reports of masses and radii for every single exoplanet listed. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of how this science proceeds knows that unless there is both a radial velocity and transit measurement done for the planet, one of those numbers is entirely speculation. The sole source for this information is PHL. This is a terrible status quo. As it is, I am essentially serially reverted when I try to remove this speculation from Wikipedia.

All I ask for people who want to include things sourced to PHL is for a second source that confirms the information. That's all. I think that's more than fair.

jps (talk) 21:05, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

  • Comment: It seems to me that the ESI has not ben embraced by the scientific community, but the mass media likes the catchy and misleading "Earth-like" wording. The term is so unscientific and misleading that NASA had to make a public statement to that regard: Statement from the Kepler Science Council (NASA). I have no problem with the ESI article, but I do not favor SPAMING this "proposed index" (because that is what it was) in every exoplanet article in Wikipedia, as if it was a very simple and universally accepted mathematical calculation. It is not. And I am not convinced at all that this misleading "index" serves Wikipedia's objectives. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 23:46, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Shouldn't spam uncorroborated values, but lists are ok. In the absence of any real discussion on WP:PRIMARY, I believe we should be "careful" (as the guideline states) with using as-yet-uncorroborated values from the PHA, since ESI is used sparingly by the scientific community; it is by no means embraced. However, I've seen papers use and reference ESI, and describe ways with which to improve it, and haven't seen anyone bring up papers which categorically dismiss it, so I'm ok with ESI as long as it remains a minority theory, as opposed to a disrespected fringe theory. By "careful", I agree with BatteryIncluded in that spamming uncorroborated ESI values in every exoplanet article is not a good idea, and is not being "careful" in my view, but I'm ok with corroborated and uncorroborated ESIs in list articles, since there are not many of them (list articles), as long as the pitfalls of uncorroborated ESIs are described in the list article (i.e. doing so for each exoplanet article is prohibitive, and unwise given its current scientific stature (minority)).   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:05, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
    • Hard to figure out what you mean here. Wikipedia does not have a WP:Minority theory page. It has a WP:FRINGE page which applies here, but that's quite beside the point. Here's a categorical rejection of the ESI, in case you want one: [13]. jps (talk) 18:57, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
      • You keep linking the same links over and over again. Also note that Elizabeth Tasker notes that the ESI is not the measurement of habitability which is not the question in this RfC, which is whether or not PHL/HEC is a reliable source. Davidbuddy9 Talk  20:56, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
        • I was responding to Tom's comment which claimed that there were no "papers" which categorically dismiss ESI. Not sure whether papers should be the only referent, but this article clearly dismisses ESI categorically. jps (talk) 21:56, 6 May 2016 (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.

Closing the RfC's?

Should we do a second run of Is Citing PHL/HEC in violation of WP:SELFPUB? and Is the use of the ESI Score Unencyclopedic? or close them with {{archivetop}}? The RfC's time is up (according to Legobot). Davidbuddy9 Talk  03:46, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

I closed the first as it is quite clear. No need for a second run of that. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:01, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Problem behaviour/edits by User:L.Iorio, Dr., Ph.D.

You may want to comment on there. This concerns, at least in part, the famous and ongoing frame-dragging dispute between Lorenzo Iorio and Ignazio Ciufolini. It'll be a mess, but one that will need the eyes of the community at large, especially WP:PHYS and WP:AST. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:11, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

He's back again?! I've commented on the ANI thread. Modest Genius talk 15:13, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

New Infobox planet parameter, physical_ref

More votes are needed at WT:ASTRO#Please vote on the new {{Infobox planet}} parameter, physical_ref before I can make a protected template edit request. (I'm going to request TE permission eventually, after I meet most of the requirements, to make non-controversial changes more easily) Thank you!   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:17, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Idea/Proposal: Newsletters for WikiProject Astronomy???

I've seen other WikiProjects do this and I feel that we could have one too, talking about what has been going on in our WikiProject for the last Quarter or so and also mention major astronomical discoveries that happened within the quarterly timeframe. I've made a draft of what we can possibly see from a newsletter from WikiProject Astronomy however I do not know how to (or run a bot) to mass message it if the idea of having a WikiProject Newsletter went through (But wouldn't we use the MediaWiki Mass message bot?), however I would be happy to help out (or even run) the newsletter, as it's always nice to have a quarterly blurb summarizing all the stuff that happened in the last little while. :) Thoughts? Davidbuddy9 Talk  23:11, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Support It can be useful for editors that have been away for some time to catch up on WikiProject activity they might have missed, instead of combing through the latest WT:AST archive. In the statistics section I'd like to see the 2nd sentence of the WikiProject Astronomy cleanup listing, that is Of the 41406 articles in this project 3116 or 8% are marked for cleanup, with 4569 issues in total. for the last relevant time period (quarterly, while the cleanup listing is produced weekly). Right now we're at the lowest levels (%-wise, but not #-wise) since we started keeping track in late 2010 (history), so it's good to know where we are with respect to that.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:10, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
 Done in this revision. Davidbuddy9 Talk  20:12, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
Sure/why not? status is a good thing. Some more article reviewers at FAC or GAN would be good too...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:25, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
Oppose: A waste of time better spent editing astronomy articles. Praemonitus (talk) 19:38, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
Oppose; this project is not active enough for a newsletter. Praemonitus also has it spot-on (if I had time to edit articles regularly, I would be). StringTheory11 (t • c) 21:54, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Who's volunteering to write the newsletter? You could just start with a quarterly summary, next month here in Talk. When there's enough material to make one every month, then worry about the formalities of bot etc. Jim.henderson (talk) 15:15, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

@Davidbuddy9: even though I like the idea and your enthusiasm (particularly if it promotes a "to-do" list), I do in part agree with @Praemonitus: and @StringTheory11: above as Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Antlia/archive1 has been lying fallow for a few days now with no comments....Cas Liber (talk · contribs)
@Casliber:, those arguments by @StringTheory11: and @Praemonitus: saying it's not worth it and it's just a waste of time I don't really agree with. I mean even with a newsletter astronomy articles are still going to edited and improved it's not like we're all going to stop contributing just to write a quarterly newsletter, at least that is my impression with these comments. Davidbuddy9 Talk  22:13, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
Well, no offense, but I suspect arguing with you would be a waste of time. Clearly you are going to proceed regardless, so good luck with that. :-) Praemonitus (talk) 23:53, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
I don't have any objection to a newsletter on this page if someone want to write one. The fact that there are other tasks outstanding doesn't force editors to work on them - all positive contributions should be welcomed. It's not entirely obvious to me what content would be in it, but I see no harm in a trial run. Modest Genius talk 13:16, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

List of satellites

Input from astronomers is requested at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 May 22#List of satellites. Thank you, Oiyarbepsy (talk) 18:18, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Is the use of the ESI Score Unencyclopedic?

This RfC is about a general proposition regarding ESI Score. That proposition could be expressed as 'ESI Score is insufficiently established within the scientific community, that a default position should be to not include it in articles'. A clear majority of comments accept that proposition, or have serious doubts about ESI at this stage. Therefore, as a general rule, ESI information should not be included ie it has not yet established a 'right' to be included, simply because it exists. Editors should decide on a case-by-case basis whether, normal inclusion criteria are met. Editors are then judging specific content and sourcing, rather than general propositions. Non-admin close Pincrete (talk) 19:13, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion 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.

Some editors feel that the use of the ESI score is unencyclopedic because it has no peer reviewed papers and is which has never been cited in any serious WP:MAINSTREAM literature. Relisted by Davidbuddy9 Talk  21:05, 6 May 2016 (UTC); opened by Davidbuddy9 Talk  06:13, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

To be clear, the question here is no whether the ESI should be mentioned at all in the encyclopedia, but rather whether it should be mentioned on articles other than Earth Similarity Index. See WP:ONEWAY for my rationale for why it shouldn't be used on articles on exoplanets or lists of such. jps (talk) 09:47, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
The assertions that ESI isn't used in peer-reviewed, nor in mainstream journals are incorrect. See Astrobiology 2011 (paywall), and MNRAS 2016, both referencing Schulze-Makuch et al. 2011. Therefore, it can, and should, be mentioned in any articles which warrant its reference.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:10, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
I agree that the ESI is used in those instances. However the way in which it is being used in many articles at Wikipedia (especially the ones based on Méndez's website) is essentially a reproduction of unpublished calculations and claims that, as far as I can tell, are unique to the webpage operated by Méndez. I have no objection to having an article about Earth Similarity Index. I don't even object to referring to Earth Similarity Indices when such have been mentioned by third-party independent sources. I have a big problem using a singular self-published website as the main citation for so many different exoplanet articles and lists. jps (talk) 14:47, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment - I just took a look at the multiple AfDs that were recently opened by jps and went here to drop a note to notify the project in case the subject was not mentioned already.
May I respectfully suggest that the RfC be amended? "Unencyclopedic" is not extremely clear; it seems to me that the core issue is rather "Is the ESI a reliable source for astronomic information?" If that was the question, I would answer "no". Being cited in the peer-reviewed literature is not as good as being part of it (unless there are zillions of cites). Tigraan (talk) 11:56, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Agree it should be amended, no idea to what. Asking "Is the ESI a RS" isn't even well formed. It's like asking "Is the refractive index a RS?" - it doesn't even make sense. It also doesn't make much sense to ask "Is the refractive index encyclopedic?". I think what's really going on is that someone doesn't think there is sufficient scientific support for the usefulness of ESI as a valid index for anything, and thus should not be reported anywhere other than it's own article. On that matter, I have no opinion at present, but rewording the RfC will be a good start. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:51, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
I meant obviously something like "is this (and associated pages) considered RS", which at least makes sense, but even then it is not well-formed. I guess the precise sources to take into consideration could be defined precisely, but the scope (all science? astronomy? exoplanets?) is unclear (reliability depends on the context). Tigraan (talk) 15:44, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
The refractive index of a material is a well defined measurable quantity that is not arbitrarily determined. ESI is not that. jps (talk) 22:58, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
The ESI page has a precise formula, so it is just as "well-defined" as the refractive index. I agree that the definition though was chosen arbitrarily. Not that any of this matters anyways, anyone can invent any index for anything and publish the formula, it does not make it relevant. Tigraan (talk) 08:48, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
Yes, the page has a precise formula, but it is different from the one that was originally proposed and others have been proposed as well. Which one should Wikipedia choose and why? Refractive index is a standard measurement. ESI is made up depending on what particular weights the person who is promoting the ESI wants to include. jps (talk) 12:43, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
What are the differences between the published equation and the one on the website? (I can't get through the paywall at the moment)
The relation to refraction index is an ok one (I like the Drake equation comparison better). We are at the point in our understanding of exoplanets where we do not yet precisely know all the parameters which comprise their "refraction indices", nor how they are all mathematically related to each other. It's common to use a weighting fudge-factor somewhere at that point.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:37, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
The differences are enough so that, as a function of planet radius, only Earth shares the same ESI between the two different weightings. To compare ESI to refraction indices is highly misleading. A refraction index is a physical property of a material. ESI is essentially not much better than WP:MADEUP. It's an embarrassment that Wikipedia promulgates this arbitrary calculation. jps (talk) 14:37, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
Different weights ≠ different equations. The general form 1⋅x=y doesn't change for different x.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:47, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
So what? Since the weights are made up out of thin air, it's very relevant that they keep getting adjusted. jps (talk) 14:51, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
That is a different, much less damning argument. In fact, it shows the scientific foresight of its inventors and gives them more credence than you let on.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:56, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
No it doesn't. Science requires reproducibility. If you keep changing the weights, this is not possible. jps (talk) 18:43, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
You're going to have to start citing something rather than repeating the same criticisms over and over. We talk about all kinds of indices on WP. Consider diversity index as a rough analog. All of them have some merit, some promoters and some detractors. All of them have different methods od taking many inputs and formulating a single output. The fact that none of them is perfect or unanimously agreed to be best doesn't mean we can't talk about them on WP, and your insistence that this is just "made up" indicates you don't know much about how science works.
The ESI was considered worthy of publishing here [14] in Astrobiology, which is a completely respectable peer-reviewed journal, not some vanity press rag full of "made up" methods. It is also used and discussed in many other peer-reviewed articles, as well as tons arXiv preprints. Even if you are some expert in exoplanet research, that doesn't hold water here. Plenty of experts in the field do consider it worthwhile, and therefore so can we. Please to be constructive, and support your claims with references. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:21, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
The publication being referred to is not very good. Astrobiology is a journal of varying standards and the paper you are referencing is pretty poor and can only be considered a primary source per Wikipedia standards. If the ESI was actually used by third parties, that'd be another thing. But where it is used by those who aren't affiliated with Méndez, it is criticized. jps (talk) 18:43, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
  • It looks like WP:UNDUE WEIGHT (bordering on promotionalism) to start putting ESI in general exoplanet articles. From what I've seen it looks like ESI is an arbitrary calculated value with apparently negligible significance(?) within the scientific community, much less for a general-public reader. We can revisit inclusion of ESI if and when it becomes a more prominently used statistic. Alsee (talk) 17:09, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Your claims are not supported. I see plenty of usage and discussion in the scientific community. Just search google scholar for many examples in both pee-reviewed journals as well as the arXiv preprint sever. Also consider reading our article on "arbitrary". Nobody is arguing this ESI is a fundamental physical concept, some universal law, or anything like that. Of course there is some subjectivity to its design. Again, compare index_(economics) and diversity index. But calling ESI "arbitrary" is just wrong, dismissive, and borderline rude/inflammatory. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:31, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
No, it's not rude to identify the ESI with the definition provided by arbitrary. It follows exactly. In fact, the ESI is essentially WP:MADEUP. It does not enjoy wide use and the attempt to claim otherwise is pretty much not informed as to what best practices in this field are. jps (talk) 18:45, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
You just keep repeating the same thing, and that doesn't make it any truer. Your repeated insistence and argument by repetition are eroding any value your original arguments and objections may have had. Have fun with that. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:13, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
It's a pretty simple concept. The index is being promoted by essentially one person and has not been used in the astronomy for serious scientific research. It's hard to make this point any clearer. If you would like to try to understand why it is arbitrary, compare the references that use diversity index to those which use this one. There is no comparison. ESI is simply not a WP:MAINSTREAM concept. The problems are many. No validation of the index has been attempted (unlike the diversity index which is closely related to the Shannon entropy), no utility has been demonstrated (quite the opposite, the one MNRAS paper which references the claim explicitly identifies the ESI as being not useful), and it has not been adopted by experts in the field. Exoplanets as a subfield has dozens of papers every day coming out. There are literally tens of thousands of papers. This concept has about 11 citations after 5 years in the hopper, most of which are to second- and third-rate journals that are questionable at best and predatory at worst. The index is simply not used by the people who are experts. jps (talk) 19:23, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I would say WP:ONEWAY does not apply as it is not "fringe." However, the authors in the paper where it was published described it as a "proposal" and in the 5 years since it was published it has not been cited many times. Google Scholar returns 39 results and several of those are the authors of the original paper citing it again. Also, many of the cites are from astrobiology papers, not astronomy papers. It seems like referring to ESI regularly for articles about exoplanets and similar subjects would be WP:UNDUE WEIGHT. It would leave readers with the false impression that ESI was something regularly used in the study of exoplanets and the dearth of articles citing it proves that is not true. Klaun (talk) 15:36, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment: Only here for RFC; I am out of my field here and lack the time to get up to speed. As far as I can see the essence of the problem is NOT whether the ESI is substantially established as a sound measure, but whether it is true that "... any articles ... warrant its reference." That is not a matter that depends on RS etc, but on its use in each case. Arguing about it as a generalisation is pointless. FAIK, the statement that "However the way in which it is being used in many articles at Wikipedia (especially the ones based on Méndez's website) is essentially a reproduction of unpublished calculations and claims that, as far as I can tell, are unique to the webpage operated by Méndez" might be quite correct, but if so,it is relevant to those particular articles in their particular contexts, and no more. The very fact that an objecting editor has "... no objection to having an article about Earth Similarity Index ... even ... to referring to Earth Similarity Indices when such have been mentioned by third-party independent sources..." implies that it IS possible for the parameter to appear in suitable contexts. The fact that the data upon which the concept is based still are tenuous and subject to change OTOH means that the contexts and texts need to be critically evaluated in each case. That sort of thing is no novelty and should present little difficulty, because the usage in each context can be evaluated according to routine criteria. Justifying blanket prohibition however, is not easy if it is to be done in good faith. My instinct is to stick to case-by-case evaluation and avoid generalisation till further notice or developments. JonRichfield (talk) 07:51, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I commented before about undue weight for a metric with little acceptance, but on further examination the situation is even worse. ESI requires accurate values for surface temperature, mass, and radius. EVERY use thus far, outside the local solar system, has been based on purely speculative values. I'm not sure if there are any exoplanets where temperature is actually known. The source being cite is calculating temperature based on wild guesses for albedo and atmosphere - with substantial error margin. For most exoplanets either mass or radius is unknown, and the source is filling in estimates for the other value - with a substantial error margin. The usage of ESI at all is dubious because it doesn't have much mainstream usage, but it should absolutely not be included here when a single un-peer-reviewed primary source is filling guesstimates. Alsee (talk) 06:26, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
Also note that this is just three random papers I clicked on there are much much more. Davidbuddy9 Talk  21:21, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
Davidbuddy9 cease deceptively disrupting RFC's and AFD's on ESI unless you're looking for re-block or a topic ban. You've researched ESI enough to know dang well that your list of "46 hits" is completely bogus. Your claim to have shown "three random papers I clicked" is not remotely credible. Given that exactly 3 of the 46 search results were on ESI, and you provided links to the only 3 such papers, there is only a 1 in 15180 chance of randomly clicking those three. Thank you for providing more evidence on why ESI shouldn't be used in other articles - because there were only 3 papers mentioning it on all of arxiv. Alsee (talk) 11:20, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
And of those three, one has not been peer-reviewed, one has but uses ESI as a rough scoping measure rather than any sort of precise value, and the third is from a journal that may not even exist. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 11:37, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Comments. I have already expressed my concerns on the article's talk page, here and here. The ESI article does not explain the values from which the index is calculated (though it could). More seriously, the index is designed in a way which does not warrant its being taken seriously – though what should matter to Wikipedia is whether it is taken seriously by real astronomers. Do we have any evidence that it is? Maproom (talk) 07:46, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment: It seems to me that the ESI has not ben embraced by the scientific community, but the mass media likes the catchy and misleading "Earth-like" wording. The term is so unscientific and misleading that NASA had to make a public statement to that regard: Statement from the Kepler Science Council (NASA). I have no problem with the ESI article, but I do not favor using this "proposed index" (because that is what it was) in every exoplanet article in Wikipedia, as if it was a very simple and universally accepted mathematical calculation. It is not. And I am not convinced at all that this misleading "index" serves Wikipedia's objectives. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 15:12, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I see several issues here. One is that, while the ESI may have been used in some small way in the peer-reviewed literature, it does not seem to be in broad use by reliable secondary sources. This urges caution in light of giving appropriate WP:WEIGHT. Secondly, it seems like we are not relying on reliable secondary sources when employing the index on Wikipedia, but instead are chiefly using a primary source where the ESI is tabulated. Therefore, as a general rule, I do not think the ESI should be used in encyclopedia articles, except in those articles where the ESI is discussed in secondary sources. Some of these sources may be among the list of ArXiV papers mentioned above, although they should be referenced only if they are also published in peer-reviewed journals. In those probably substantially fewer cases, I do not see a problem in citing the primary source, along with the secondary source, to corroborate the ESI score. A third issue is that we have entire articles like list of potentially habitable exoplanets whose very existence seems to be based on making a synthetic claim out of the ESI primary source, in effect using the ESI as an index for "potential habitability" (which is patently ridiculous when you look at the articles of even the most supposedly "habitable" worlds on the list). Finally, media reports are not generally reliable for scientific information. That seems to be especially true here, and I do not think it is unreasonable to expect sources used in astronomy articles to be based on reliable scientific secondary sources such as peer-reviewed scientific literature and official press releases of scientific bodies such as NASA. Sławomir
    Biały     10:44, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please continue the discussion below this notice. Davidbuddy9 Talk  21:05, 6 May 2016 (UTC))
  • I'm inclined to think the ESI shouldn't be included in articles on individual planets, since the "Earth Similarity Index" is not a single index, but a family of related indices, based on which specific factors you choose to include and which weightings you apply to them. There is no universal consensus in the field of astronomy as to how precisely to define the ESI, i.e. which set of weights to use. (If, for example, the IAU were to officially adopt a specific definition of the ESI, it would be a different story; but that hasn't happened as yet, and who knows if it ever will.) SJK (talk) 07:13, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Shouldn't spam uncorroborated values, but lists are ok. Agree with SJK, and myself (above, towards the bottom of #Is Citing PHL/HEC in violation of WP:SELFPUB?).   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:56, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
  • ESI is not widely used in scholarly literature, and therefore should not be widely used on WP. The relevant question is whether ESI is in widespread use in reliable secondary sources. I have searched the scholarly literature, and my findings strongly suggest that ESI is rarely mentioned.
Using NASA's ADS database, I did a full-text search for the exact phrase "Earth Similarity Index" and found just ten results. For anyone wishing to double-check this, my exact search query was full:("Earth Similarity Index"). Moreover, the original Schulze-Makuch et al. paper which proposed ESI has been cited just 11 times (see http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AsBio..11.1041S). I also did a full-text search for "Earth Similarity Index" on arxiv.org, but it yielded just 7 hits (see http://search.arxiv.org:8081/?query=%22Earth%20Similarity%20Index%22&in=). Note that whenever I searched for ESI, I searched for the exact phase "Earth Similarity Index" under the assumption that any paper which mentions ESI will at some point say what ESI stands for. I think that this is a reasonable assumption, but I am open to the possibility that my search terms were flawed in some way.
To place these numbers into some context, I did a full-text search on ADS for articles mentioning "habitable zone," as I think that the HZ is a widely agreed-upon example of a mainstream concept in exoplanet research. I limited my search to articles published since 2011, the year in which the Schulze-Makuch paper was published, and found 2,569 hits (exact query was full:("habitable zone") AND year:2011-2016). To get a very rough idea of the total number of exoplanet papers in that same time period, I performed a full-text search for articles containing the word "exoplanet," and the ADS returned 12,288 results (exact query was full:("exoplanet") AND year:2011-2016).
These results persuade me that ESI is not commonly used in mainstream exoplanet research. The ADS is the dominant research database in astronomy (see some of the sourced claims in NASA ADS), and if a concept isn't in widespread usage in the scholarly literature indexed in the ADS, then there should be a strong presumption that that concept isn't in widespread usage in the astronomical community, either. Obviously, I'm presuming that my search queries were sound; I invite others to scrutinize them and to try to improve upon them.
I certainly don't object to one article about the ESI itself, or to an exoplanet article mentioning the exoplanet's ESI if a refereed paper has done so. However, the widespread inclusion of ESI in multiple WP articles would place undue weight on a statistic which has not yet received significant acceptance in reliable, secondary sources.
Best Regards, Astro4686 (talk) 04:37, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
  • No (as in yes it is encyclopedic) ESI has been subject to peer review and has been covered in multiple secondary sources. I am not saying ESI is correct or uncontroversial, but it is controversial and very possibly incorrect as a measurement, however a concept does not need to be widely accepted to be encyclopedic, and things can certainly be wrong, but still encyclopedic. Valoem talk contrib 12:44, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Don't include on articles of individual planets unless there is coverage of the ESI in a peer-reviewed paper. This hasn't been sufficiently adopted by mainstream scientific sources to warrant inclusion. WP:UNDUE applies. ~ RobTalk 22:51, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
Rob you may want to clarify what your position is for articles other than just "articles of individual planets". There is also List of Kepler exoplanet candidates by ESI under deletion review and which may be restored, the articles List of nearest terrestrial exoplanet candidates and List of potentially habitable exoplanets used to be built around ESI (currently edited out), and I think there are or were other articles. Alsee (talk) 14:47, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
Mentions of the ESI of individual planets should only be made when covered in a peer-reviewed paper. An obvious exception is an article that primarily discusses ESI, such as the first list you linked to, which requires ESI to be intelligible. In other words, ESI's of specific planets should be included in articles primarily dealing with ESI, but nowhere else without a peer-reviewed reference. ~ RobTalk 14:54, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
@Alsee: List of nearest terrestrial exoplanet candidates does not use the ESI in any way. Davidbuddy9 Talk  21:01, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
Davidbuddy9, right. You must have overlooked where I wrote used to be built around ESI (currently edited out). Alsee (talk) 13:46, 17 May 2016 (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.

"12 Planets"

Should the redirect "12 planets" redirect to IAU definition of a planet First draft proposal or Twelfth planet (disambiguation)? Input needed from other editors about this here. Davidbuddy9 Talk  05:39, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

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