Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rings of Neptune

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 19:41, 15 November 2008 [1].

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Rings of Neptune

Nominator(s): Ruslik (talk), Serendipodous (talk)

I'm nominating this article for featured article because it, my opinion, satisfies FA criteria and deserves to be in the list of the best Wiki works. The article had a peer review sometime ago and was extensively copy-edited. I hope that the nomination will find support from reviewers. Ruslik (talk) 15:56, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

• Support—I reviewed this article as part of the PR, and I think it is a fine piece of work. My only significant issue at this point are the large numbers, which aren't consistently one format or the other. (Examples: "57,200", and "63 930".) Thanks for the nice contribution to wikipedia.—RJH (talk) 18:28, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

  Thanks for the support. I changed the format of all numbers to conform to a single style. Ruslik (talk) 18:48, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

• Images are all free, all but one from NASA, the other an editor's own creation, and all marked appropriately. --MASEM 22:27, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
• Support - with nitpicks. Great work, guys, as usual:

• However, it did not appear as expected for a ring. - Have following the paragraph tightly, I'm barely understanding what this means. Is it supposed to mean that the dip didn't appear to be a ring?
• The innermost ring of Neptune is called the Galle ring after Johann Gottfried Galle, a discoverer of Neptune. - Could we change the end to, one of the discoverers of Neptune?
• The entire article is kind of choppy. Not really certain sections, but it's randomly spread out. Such as the first paragraph in the "Arcs" section. Ceran →(sing→see →scribe) 12:56, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

  The issues have been fixed. Thanks for the review. Ruslik (talk) 17:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

  Great way to fix them up. Ceran →(sing→see →scribe) 17:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Comments - sources look good, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:32, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

• Jargon and wikilinking review needed throughout by someone unfamiliar with the article and the topic. Here's one sample (notice the number of undefined, unlinked terms):

  They were studied by analysing results of optical imaging, ultraviolet and optical occultations. Voyager 2 observed the rings in different geometries relative to the sun, producing images of back-scattered, forward-scattered and side-scattered light. Analysis of these images allowed derivation of the phase function, geometrical and bond albedo of ring particles.

• A few of these terms are linked or defined earlier in the article, but most of them aren't. This suggests the entire article should be checked for jargon. Also, pls fix the dab links identified in the toolbox. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:23, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

  I fixed dab pages except moonlet. The latter contains a definition of moonlet and should stay in my opinion, because there is no alternative. I also added explanations to the last section, and Mattisse did some work on wikilinking the article. Ruslik (talk) 04:53, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

  Linking the reader to a dab leaves the reader confused about which definition is intended: I do hope you all will fix this over time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:09, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

  Fixed. I converted Moonlet into stub. Ruslik (talk) 19:22, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

• What is the citation format on author names? Most have last name first, but at least one uses an external template that has first name first. {{Source list/Smith1989}}. Also, pls review WP:MOSNUM: on a quick glance, I saw one issue, not sure if there's more. More jargon in the lead (haven't yet read further): what is an "inner shepherd moon". Also, this comes up on almost every astronomy FAC/FAR: is Voyager 2 italicized or not? The article sometimes italicizes it, sometimes doesn't. Pls decide and be consistent throughout articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:32, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

  Format of author names was my fault, sorry. I fixed this issue. I also italicized Voyager 2. Ruslik (talk) 07:19, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

• Support although it would be nice to have more consistency in the notes column of the table. Nergaal (talk) 20:50, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

  Thanks for the support, but what do you mean by consistency? Ruslik (talk) 09:01, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

  Entries 3&4 contain location information too; at least for 3 it seems completely redundant. Ah, and the LeVerrier radius error is surely ±20 and not 200? Nergaal (talk) 07:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

  I merged notes. ±20 is correct number taken from Miner, 2007. Ruslik (talk) 09:31, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

• Support - I am familiar with this interesting and concisely-written article, having been through it several times and done minor copy editing. —Mattisse (Talk) 21:31, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

  Thanks for the support and, especially, for the copy-edit. The text is now much better. Ruslik (talk) 09:01, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

• Support I cleaned up the lede a bit. The article's prose could be pruned and buffed a bit, but generally well-written, well-researched and well-structured. Eusebeus (talk) 18:34, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

  Thanks for the support. Ruslik (talk) 07:49, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

• Support. Good work. Kensplanet^Talk_{Contributions} 10:49, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

• Comments
  • The first two sentences need to be rewritten. It could be modeled on the other Rings articles, which are not constrained by having the title as the first words. I might say "The planet Neptune has a system of rings that was discovered in 1987 by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. They are tenuous, faint, and dusty and resemble the rings of Jupiter more closely than those of Saturn or Uranus. Neptune possesses five known rings,..." Also, I had to look up the word wikt:tenuous so I'd recommend not using it. "WP:As of 2008" should be removed; this is for items that may not be updated immediately, which this would be.
  • Liberté, Egalite, Fraternité can be linked to and an explanation is not necessary in the lead.fixed
  • "their age is probably less than that of the Solar System." I would hope everything in the solar system had an age younger than the SS itself. Should be rephased to bya or something more clear.
  • "As of 2008" should be removed from the Arcs section. This is for material that is dated and may not be updated when it should be. This article will be updates quickly if anything new is discovered so this phrase is unnecessary.fixed
  • What exactly is a ring arc? There should be a link or short explanation in the section.fixed
  • Question: If the rings weren't officially discovered until 1989, then how did we know the Arc measures of Adams in 1986? This should be clarified.

    The old observations were reanalyzed after the Voyager fly-by. After it the parameters ring system became known and it was possible to use old results to infer the properties of arcs at the time of occultations. I added a clarification in the Discovery section. Ruslik (talk)

  • I do not think "This table summarizes the properties of the planetary ring system of Neptune." is necessary in the Properties section. I find it quite self-explanatory. fixed' And Why are there so many question marks in the table? If they are yet unknown by astronomers, there should be a comment about that.

    I added a comment just after the table. Ruslik (talk) 05:05, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

  • Lastly, there could be a few more external links. Maybe someone doesn't want an article quite so scientific.
    • Sorry to be so critical, but I hope this is constructive criticism! The article is very informative and I learned a lot reading it. Thanks for your work and I hope this is promoted! Reywas92^Talk 23:19, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

      Some issues fixed. Personally, I prefer the lead as it is. I think it's more concise. I also don't think that the word "tenuous" is particularly obscure. Most of the objects in the Solar System formed at roughly the same time (give or take 50 million years), so the fact that something is younger than the age of the Solar System is relevant. The rings of Neptune are a fairly sciencey topic; most external links that I've looked at have been either very scientific or very short. Serendi^podous 23:37, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

      Thanks for the review. Ruslik (talk) 05:05, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.