Wikipedia:Featured article review/Hydrogen/archive1

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

The article was kept 23:30, 20 April 2008.

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Hydrogen

Review commentary

Since this article was promoted to FA, a significant amount of material has gone uncited. I am unclear whether this was the case when it underwent FAC, but it now appears wholly inadequate. Some of the facts I haven't been able to confirm, and I'm tempted to start adding {{fact}} tags everywhere. But first I'd like to ask if others disagree and believe this article is still FA worthy. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 23:40, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi RJ. Do you mind notifying relevant WikiProjects and main contributors about the review? You can use the template: {{subst:FARMessage|Articlename}}. Marskell (talk) 16:34, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I added a message to the Elements and Chemistry wikiprojects. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 17:56, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

• I think the article is mixing American English and British English. This is a universal topic so I don't know which way to fix it. It doesn't matter to me which it is, as long as it's consistent. Jay32183 (talk) 00:13, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
  • The first version of the article used the American 'center' rather than British 'centre'. By tradition that makes it American English.—RJH (talk) 18:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Does anyone get first claim to hydrogen ;). Marskell (talk) 21:19, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
      • Lavoisier? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Samsara, who brought Hydrogen through FAC, has since left Wikipedia. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:49, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that fixing this article will be an issue. But I probably will not be able to start until the weekend. Others in WikiProject Elements will likely help as well. --mav (talk) 14:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I've got other projects going on, but I'll try to chip in a little. Given that most of the other Element bees are in the same position, revamping Hydrogen may take a while. However, it will certainly be done, so let's be sure not to jump to the voting process too soon. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I see that much progress has been made. I'd like to expand the history section before we decide to close this; it is missing some rather important points. --mav (talk) 02:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns is referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 19:21, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

This has seen some good work. Moving down to get further comments on status. Marskell (talk) 19:21, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Hold on! There may have been a lull in recent editing activity, but we're still working on it. I just got back from the library on a Zirconium/Hydrogen research session, and I'll add citations where possible tomorrow morning. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 20:59, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Alright, as far as I can tell, all material is now covered by an inline citation with the exceptions of sections of History and Organic Compounds. History should be fine since mav is working on it anyway, but someone with more knowledge of hydrocarbon formation should definitely take a look at the Organic Compounds. It just doesn't make any sense to me. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Wait I've been away doing other things. I'm back now and will finish up my part. But I think the article is already good enough to pass. --mav (talk) 02:35, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Keep I'm done with my bit and am now happy with the article and think it now follows current FA standards. --mav (talk) 01:29, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Keep. Meets FA criteria as far as I can see. If there are any specific statements that require sources, please point them out. --Itub (talk) 09:28, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

• LOTS of fixes needed, not ready to keep, there are problems throughout. In addition to a multitude of minor MoS problems (see my edit summaries for lots of little MoS fixes needed), there is extensive WP:OVERLINKing. Common words known to most English speakers (like fire and air) shouldn't be linked. See also needs serious pruning: see WP:GTL. Navigational templates go at the bottom. Please ask User:Brighterorange to run his script to fix all the faulty endashes (example, ... ed. (2005), "Hydrogen", Van Nostrand's Encyclopedia of Chemistry, New York: Wylie-Interscience, pp. 797-799, ... ) There are larger problems in the sourcing, with a lot of personal webpages, (example: http://www.mathpages.com/home/index.htm ). It's hard to understand that this article can't be sourced to journals and textbooks, and why personal webpages are being used. Also, a consistent citation style is not used (see WP:WIAFA, 2c); the article mixes citation templates with the cite template family. See WP:CITE#Citation syles, citation templates need to be converted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so I'll list your issues here and strike them out as I address them:

• Compliance with MoS
  • Endashes
  • NBSP
  • Navigational Templates
  • Captions
• Overlinking
• Pruning
• Consistent cite template

I can see why you would be a bit confused about the online sources, so allow me to provide a bit of the history here. I went back to the version of this article on the day it was featured to see what kind of sourcing it had. Other than a few inlines, the Further Reading section was the only attempt to cover the material in the article.

I assumed good faith in that Samsara, the main contributor, had actually taken the information from the books in the Further Reading section. Nevertheless, given the vastness and complexity of the article, I knew it was still important to find the sources for everything. So I set about it in my usual way: Internet first, library second. I made slow but substantial process using only internet sources, but my earlier assumption of good faith came back to bite me in the butt.

Samsara's Further Reading books, however interesting and comprehensive, did not cover any of the missing material. I admit I did not read each Hydrogen book cover to cover, but I did flip to each section that looked promising. Alas, nothing seemed to match up with the article. I grumbled at the time I had wasted, and set to work (again) trying to find internet sources.

As a high school student, I may not have access to the same journals and textbooks as would a college student (or professor). However, I firmly believe that Wikipedia's sources should be easily accessed by the general public, and my work on hydrogen reflects that. Every single citation really does cover the preceding information. So if you have access to these high-quality sources you so desire, be bold and add them. I've done what I can and I think my work is of sufficient quality for a lot of users.--Cryptic C62 · Talk 02:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Second look; sourcing and pruning See also (see WP:GTL on linking relevant terms in the text) remain. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:40, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm confused - when you say "pruning" are you referring to trimming down the article, or to removing unnecessary links? The two seemed distinct in your first paragraph, but now I can't tell what you mean. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:27, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry :-) There's a lengthy list of articles in See also. Per WP:GTL, most topics worthy of consideration should be worked into the article, and anything already in the article doesn't need to be re-listed in See also. The list of articles in See also should be pruned per WP:GTL. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:12, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The See Also section has been cut in half from 18 links to 9 links. That leaves only the issue of sourcing from webpages. I realize now that in all my huffing and puffing, I forgot about a valuable resource: online databases available at my school's library. I meant to peruse them earlier on the process, but because I had trouble accessing them at home, it slipped my mind entirely. On Monday, I'll spend my free period attempting to find suitable journals. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 03:53, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Success! I now have home access to several databases, including EBSCO and InfoTrac. Sandy (or anyone else), why don't you list the statements/sources you find questionable, and I'll do my best to find better sources. I'm quite busy this week, but I should be able to do some real work over the weekend and next week. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:38, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Anything that's a personal, self-published page should be replaced by peer reviewed sources; a topic like Hydrogen should offer up plenty of peer-reviewed literature. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm new on this page but taught Chemistry at MIT to undergraduates for 5 years. What needs to be done? I'll help. - Doug Youvan (talk) 17:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Welcome aboard! Glad to have you. We need better sources (preferably peer-reviewed or journals) on anything that is currently sourced to some individual person's personal webpage, even if a university webpage, unless that person is a recognized published (by secondary sources) expert in the field. See WP:SELFPUB. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• Keep, reluctantly; I'd like to see better attention to details, MoS, linking, and citations on these articles, but it's within criteria. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:16, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

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