Wikipedia:Featured article review/Big Bang/archive1

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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 00:57, 31 May 2007.

[edit] Big Bang

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at User talk:ScienceApologist, Astronomy, Physics, and Science. LuciferMorgan 14:23, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

For a term in common use, this article makes no effort to engage with the layman, with a very technical lead (see WP:LEAD "should be written in a clear and accessible style so that the reader is encouraged to read the rest of the article."), as well as problems with WP:MOSDEF and Wikipedia:Technical terms and definitions. Vanished user talk 14:42, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Adam, can you be more specific about which parts of the lead you do not understand ? First sentence -In physical cosmology, the Big Bang is the scientific theory that the universe emerged from a tremendously dense and hot state about 13.7 billion years ag - seems concise and clear to me. I don't think anyone is going to take the time and effort to try to improve the article unless you are more specific in your comments. Gandalf61 15:00, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
"The theory is based on observations which indicate the expansion of space in accord with the Robertson-Walker model of general relativity, such as the the Hubble redshift of distant galaxies taken together with the cosmological principle." - I know what Hubble redshift is. The rest is rather technical physics that I'm not familiar with. And I'm probably the ideal layman in this case, having been reading scientific magazines and books since I was 8. "the prevailing cosmological paradigm explaining the origin and expansion of the universe, as well as the composition of primordial matter through nucleosynthesis as predicted by the Alpher-Bethe-Gamow theory." - This rapidly gets more and more difficult, and I doubt I'd understand anything in it I didn't know already. When we get to "From this model, George Gamow was able to predict in 1948 the existence of cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). The CMB was discovered in 1964 and corroborated the Big Bang theory, giving it more credence over its chief rival, the steady state theory." I'm lost.
Big Bang is a term in general use and with strong layman interest. Certainly, technical descriptions are appropriate, but without definition of terms and clear explanations, as well as keeping the most difficult, technical parts of the theory for last, this article is only suitable for physicists. The lead is the place to start, but, really, I do think a better job at explaining could be made in the rest of the article too.Vanished user talk 15:11, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
I think this may be a bit extreme. In your last example, do we really need to explain what the steady state theory is in the lead? It's clear from the sentence that it is a scientific theory and was the main alternative to the Big Bang Theory. That's enough to give the reader the big picture. Those who are curious about exactly what the steady state theory is can read that article. This is similar in my mind to the mention of George Gamow. We don't need to say who exactly who he is in the lead. The sentence tells the reader that Gamow predicted CMB, and those wishing to learn more about the man may read his article. Pagrashtak 16:01, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
That sentence isn't that bad out of context, aye, but it's increasing the importance of the previous very difficult to understand sentence by emphasising its importance. Anyway it's not that hard to say something like "the steady-state theory, which proposed the universe had always existed, constantly renewing itself." (which shows how the steady-state theory conflicts with the big bang theory). Of course, that might not be quite accurate, but, well, I'm a biologist. Vanished user talk 17:31, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
I have put a proposed re-write of the lead section on Talk:Big Bang and invited comments. Gandalf61 16:04, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
That is, in my opinion, really excellent work. Deals with most of the lead problems in one go. The rest of the article could probably be explained a bit better as well, but this article does seem to be in good hands. Vanished user talk 17:52, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. Feedback on the proposed re-write at Talk:Big Bang was very positive and constructive, so I have now modified the lead section in the article itself. Gandalf61 13:22, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The dark matter section seems poorly sourced, just one peer-reviewed article.--BMF81 00:22, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

It's very cursory in its overview and it may not lend itself to many articles. For some additional possibilities see Dark_matter#References

Comment I work in observational cosmology, so am a particularly harsh critic here. I have added a long list of (minor) errors and ambiguities to Talk:Big Bang. I'll leave it to other editors to decide how much of these they want to fix; some might require a lot more words in an already-long article. I also wouldn't like to pass judgement on whether these should be considered detrimental to FA status. PaddyLeahy 21:00, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Comments.
    • Fails to comply with WP:GTL; either it has a massive link farm, or some of those are actually incorrectly formatted references, or both. Separate References, format them correctly (see WP:CITE/ES), and minimize the Exernal link farm.
      • This should now be fixed. Mike Peel 22:28, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Footnotes also need to be correctly formatted — see WP:CITE/ES. Sources need publisher, author and date when available, and all websources need last access date. One footnote is just a blue link URL.
      • Now fixed. Mike Peel 15:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
    • There is incorrect use of dashes throughout; in fact, there are three different dash styles, and most don't conform to MOS.
      • Hopefully fixed, at least to my understanding of WP:DASH. If there are still issues with this, please could you edit the article to fix them? Thanks. Mike Peel 22:28, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Numerous sections are unnecessarily listy and could be converted to prose/paragraphs.
      • Two sections now contain lists; the introduction to theoretical underpinnings and the Speculative physics beyond the Big Bang section. The rest of the article should no longer be "listy"; if it is, then please say which sections. Mike Peel 19:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
    • The article is undercited.
      • This seems to be a problem with all of the cosmological articles at present. I've added a couple of references, and put in some citation needed flags, but this isn't an issue I'll be able to completely resolve quickly. Mike Peel 19:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
    • WP:MSH problems.
      • I've tweaked one header; if this is still an issue, then please could you be more specific? Mike Peel 01:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Lots of spit and polish needed here before the prose can be tuned up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:59, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I've read through the entire article, and tweaked the prose where I could see it being needed. Are there any points in the article where this is still a big issue? Mike Peel 19:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are LEAD (2a), ref formatting (1c), various MoS issues (2). Marskell 08:00, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

It appears that the lead issues have been resolved above. I plan on fixing the other issues in the next couple of days. Mike Peel 21:35, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Is anyone still working on this? Progress seems to have stopped, and there's much to be done still. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry; I got distracted by other things. I'll work on sorting out the remaining issues asap. Mike Peel 01:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm done for now. The article needs a fair few references adding to it, IMO, which will take me time to add (I'm currently contemplating running through the sub-articles one by one, getting them up to a decent standard including references, before adding the main references to this article - but that's a big job). Apart from that, are there any other issues with the article remaining? Mike Peel 19:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Are you able do that in reverse order, since this has been up a month, and the article is still uncited? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:41, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I've added in references where needed. These may not be the best references that could possibly be used in each case, but they do the job. I'll try to improve them in the future when I have more time.
Is anything else needed to bring this article back up to featured standard? Mike Peel 16:52, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I think we're good. Who chooses when to close the review? --ScienceApologist 21:10, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.