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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 by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 9:33, 25 January 2025 (UTC) [1].

White dwarf

[edit]
Notified: Spacepotato, Meli thev, WikiProject Physics, WikiProject Astronomy. Noticed: 2024-01-26

I am nominating this featured article for review because there are uncited passages in the article, including entire sections. There are also lots of sources listed in "Further reading", indicating that the article is not a complete comprehensive overview of all scholarly material, or that random potential sources have been added that are not necessary for the article. This should be evaluated. Z1720 (talk) 14:46, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment, I am a little confused by this nomination. When I quickly checked the article I saw 3 paragraphs which had no sources, which is not a lot. In addition I see absolutely nothing wrong with a large further reading section for this topic. White dwarfs have been extensively studied, so there are presumably many books (texts, monographs, PhD theses) which go into the details of the math etc (I am not an expert in this area). I don't think that level of detail is needed in a WP article, it is exactly what should be left for further reading. I note from the talk page that the FAR nomination was because the page had a few problems that needed fixing. Are they really that massive? I have seen pages with much, much worse issues.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ldm1954 (talk • contribs) 15:34, November 24, 2024 (UTC)
  • @Ldm1954: An sourced paragraphs means that every individual sentence in that paragraph is also unsourced. Sometimes this can be solved with a single citation, but other times multiple sources need to be searched and evaluated to verify the information. For the Further reading section: if those sources are good enough to recommend to our editors, why are they not used as sources in the article? Since new high-quality sources on this topic are constantly being printed, some of the older sources can be replaced by the newer ones. As for worse articles: if there are worse FA articles, I encourage you to notice them and bring them to FAR so that they can also be fixed up. Instructions are at WP:FAR. Z1720 (talk) 15:46, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Z1720, sorry, I strongly disagree about replacing older sources just because there are newer ones. The quality matters. There is already a massive issue with people not reading the literature, I think WP must be careful not to make this worse.
Also, context is everything and science WP is not that different from an academic article. While I have been called a physicist (as well as many other things, some but not all complimentary) I don't know this topic well enough to judge how good or bad the sourcing is. Yes, a few paras need sources, a little repair is appropriate.
I know of articles where sources are included which do not verify the information; one which I nominated and was recently removed for this is Heavy metals. However, that's a digression. Ldm1954 (talk) 20:07, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with not replacing older sources just because there are newer ones. It makes sense to replace older sources if and when new discoveries have made them obsolete, or if they are so old that they have become inaccessible, but novelty for novelty's sake isn't really a good way to cover science. Sometimes the best book is an old book that has stood the test of time. XOR'easter (talk) 20:58, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but I don't understand the issues being raised here. Is it expected that every sentence has a little blue clicky linky number, and is regarded as "uncited" otherwise? Is everything after a footnote in a paragraph presumed to be unsupported? Or has someone actually gone through and checked each of the 197 provided sources and found material in the article that is not supported by any of them? Likewise, where the "Further reading" section is concerned, that sounds like an argument that no FA can have a "Further reading" section at all. I don't see how the presence of a "Further reading" section necessarily indicates that an article fails to be comprehensive, particularly when (as in this case) the items are labeled by topic and the topics are things already discussed in the article, like "Variability" and "Magnetic field". Maybe it needs improvement, but that has to be decided on an item-by-item basis, rather than on broad strokes. XOR'easter (talk) 20:51, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@XOR'easter: A footnote is placed after the information it is verifying, and only verify information before it, up to the preceding footnote or the beginning of the paragraph. This means there should be a footnote at the end of every paragraph. A footnote can cover multiple sentences that preceded it. I have added cn tags to the article to the places I think need citations. I think some can be resolved by moving the footnote to the end of the sentence, but the source needs to be checked to ensure that it does verify the information. Z1720 (talk) 01:47, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As a minor point, duplicate sourcing means that you don't necessarily have to have a source at the end of every paragraph:
Per WP:PAIC, citations should be placed at the end of the text that they support. Material that is repeated multiple times in a paragraph does not require an inline citation for every mention. If you say an elephant is a mammal more than once, provide one only at the first instance. Avoid cluttering text with redundant citations like this...
I will repeat that I agree that some minor tweaking would be good, but I don't see this as coming close to requiring a FAR. Ldm1954 (talk) 02:14, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The end of the paragraph requirement has come from WP:GA, which requires a citation at the end of every paragraph. Since GAs are lower requirements than FAs, its requirement became a defacto requirement for featured articles. I would also be concerned if only one citation was used for multiple paragraphs when there are multiple sources available to verify the information, and multiple sources should be consulted to ensure that the article is comprehensive. Whether this article "should" have an FAR or not, let's bring the article to meet the FA criteria and we can make this a quick keep. Z1720 (talk) 02:50, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused. The GA criteria say, All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). That no later than leaves room for it to be earlier. I don't like GA requirements being "de facto" FA requirements; to my way of thinking, the FA criteria should be the FA criteria, and each additional page that has to be read in order to understand those criteria is a problem, all the more so when the "requirements" are based on an informal notion of precedence that the FA criteria don't even mention! So, what I'm seeing here is an interpretation I don't understand of a rule whose applicability seems ad hoc.
Going line by line, I'd probably agree that the current text is a little under-cited, but this whole approach sounds like the same prioritization of busywork that made me give up on GA reviews. 90% of the energy goes into marginal improvements, and the status of the article lives or dies based on changes that range from slight convenience benefits to cosmetic alterations. XOR'easter (talk) 20:56, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@XOR'easter: There can be a citation in the middle of a paragraph. A citation only verifies the prose that proceeds it. There needs to be a citation at the end of very paragraph to verify the information at the end of the paragraph: otherwise this information uncited. I have added cn tags to the article where citations are needed. Z1720 (talk) 22:35, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Where is it written that a citation only verifies the prose that immediately precedes it? That isn't a standard mandated by any other academic writing I am aware of, and Wikipedia's own documentation doesn't lay down a hard line about it. WP:PAIC is about spacing, not verifiability. Wikipedia:Citing_sources, which is where the FA criteria links in criterion 2(c), says The citation should be added close to the material it supports, offering text–source integrity. WP:CITEDENSE gives an example and then says, Everything in that paragraph deals with the same, single subject from the same source and can therefore be supported by a single inline citation. The inline citation could be placed at any sensible location, but the end of the paragraph is the most common choice (emphasis added). It seems like a common practice that is generally a reasonable idea is being elevated to an ironclad rule. XOR'easter (talk) 22:51, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway, I've gotten it down to 2 {{citation needed}} tags (and cleaned up various other small matters). One of those might be satisfied with this book. XOR'easter (talk) 05:11, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CONSECUTIVECITE: "Per WP:PAIC, citations should be placed at the end of the text that they support." WP:PAIC: "All reference tags should immediately follow the text to which the footnote applies, with no intervening space." Footnotes are created with ref tags. Z1720 (talk) 01:08, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at WP:PAIC because it was mentioned above. Like I said, it's talking about not putting space between a footnote and a punctuation mark, not about verifiability. Reading WP:PAIC in the latter way would make it inconsistent with WP:CITEDENSE, which says that any sensible location is good. It would also be inconsistent with what Wikipedia:Citing sources says a little further down the page: The distance between material and its source is a matter of editorial judgment. And it may be inconsistent with WP:CITEBUNDLE, which allows for moving a footnote further from the material it supports and spelling out which source supports which claim. So, if the strict rule that a citation only verifies the text that immediately precedes it is correct, Wikipedia's documentation is inconsistent about this and needs to be fixed. But I can't for the life of me imagine that the strict rule is one to which we need to adhere in all circumstances. Anyone reading deep down into an article about astrophysics will be capable of looking a few words backwards to find a blue clicky linky number. Suppose that a paragraph is structured like so: "There are three ways that a foobar can be initialized. First, ... Second, ... Third, ..." Does it make a substantial difference if the blue clicky linky number follows the first sentence or comes at the end of the paragraph? Frankly, that comes down to a matter of taste. In a mathematics article, a section or a subsection might start something like, "A non-Riemannian hypersquare can be defined using the axioms given by Smith." If a footnote to Smith's book follows immediately after that line instead of waiting until the end of the paragraph, there's no actual loss of verifiability. The placement is only cosmetic. And the notion that moving it to the end would prevent the text from going out of sync with the source in later edits is wishful thinking. It's been all of two days since I've seen a counterexample to that, and I haven't been watching many pages at all. XOR'easter (talk) 05:49, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have addressed all of the {{cn}} tags. XOR'easter (talk) 08:44, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CITEDENSE "is an information page. It is not...one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines" If it differs from PAIC or other guidelines, it is overridden as it has not achieved the same consensus of a policy or guideline. WP:CITEBUNDLE says "the sources can be placed at the end of the sentence...Or they can be bundled into one footnote at the end of the sentence or paragraph, like this". It does not say to put the citations before the information it is verifying. Z1720 (talk) 01:15, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The P in WP:PAIC stands for punctuation. The subsection heading is "Punctuation and footnotes". It's there to say that there shouldn't be a space in between a punctuation mark and a footnote. Invoking it for any other purpose just doesn't make sense. It's true that WP:CITEBUNDLE doesn't say to "put the citations before the information", but it does say that when each support a different portion of the preceding text, we can bundle them together and not have them immediately follow the text. So, if we read WP:PAIC in the way that you do, then it conflicts with WP:CITEBUNDLE, which is part of Wikipedia:Citing sources, a guideline. That reading of WP:PAIC also conflicts with the statement in the Wikipedia:Citing sources guideline that The distance between material and its source is a matter of editorial judgment. The only way WP:PAIC can be consistent with the actual guideline is if it pertains only to punctuation and spacing.
I mean, I'm fine with putting the footnotes after the text they support. It's seldom a bad idea, and if one absorbs Wikipedian house style by reading Wikipedia articles, it's the practice that one will follow. No problem there. I just think that elevating reasonable rules of thumb to rigid standards is poor form, and questions like "Is this article an example of the best our community has to offer?" shouldn't be answered on such grounds. XOR'easter (talk) 02:49, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, since no one is going to take the time to do that, either the whole section should be removed, the article should be delisted from FA, or this discussion should be closed with a keep-listed. XOR'easter (talk) 03:59, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Further refs are fixed now. Johnjbarton (talk) 19:59, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: I did none of the editing here, and just had a quick look. I see no indication of any substantive issues, so I think this review is overdue for closing as the original nominator has indicated that there is nothing major. I will disagree that we need a short "Further Reading" section -- why? This is not WP:REFBOMBING or similar, it is information and in reality it is not that long. Ldm1954 (talk) 16:52, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Ldm1954: A featured article is to be "a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature" (WP:FA? 1c). If the article has several sources listed in "Further reading" (FR), then I am doubtful it represents the relevant literature. Also, sources in FR might have additional information that may be added to the article, or be a higher-quality or more up-to-date source than one used as an inline citation. If they do not add additional information to the article, I think we should not list them and instead direct readers to read the sources used as inline citations. Z1720 (talk) 15:18, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Z1720, I think your argument about the relevant literature is fine for a limited topic. However, if I do a GS search of "white dwarf" it indicates about 122,000 hits. I will argue that there is no way that any WP article can or should cover all 122K. With a big topic like this I argue that this small FR is appropriate. Ldm1954 (talk) 15:51, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Ldm1954: I agree: this topic has too much academic literature to use every source as an inline citation. However, FR also cannot include every source, so which ones are editors picking for inclusion? Furthermore, in theory a featured article is using the best sources as inline citations, which in this case is probably the most recent peer reviewed academic literature. Therefore, the sources in "Further reading" would be of lower quality or older sources, and thus the article should not be guiding readers towards them and encourage the reader to read the sources used as inline citations. Thus, most sources in "Further reading" should be used as inline citations or removed. Z1720 (talk) 15:59, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I suggest you post a request to reduce the FR at WT:Physics to get concensus. Ldm1954 (talk) 16:01, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The two sources in White dwarf § Further reading are good choices. Kalawer's chapter give 91 pages of survey covering many topics not discussed in the article as too detailed. Shapiro and Teukolsky is highly cited and gives context by covering other compact stars. I don't think these are lower quality nor should be removed. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:12, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This seems to be an argument from generalities that has nothing to do with the specific sources in question or the specific scientific topic that the article covers. (Older sources are not necessarily worse, for example: established science is, well, established, and sometimes it's the older sources that go into more detail about how the conclusions were arrived at, while more modern ones just summarize.) It's basically an argument that "Thou shalt not have a Further Reading section" be added to the FA criteria. XOR'easter (talk) 17:57, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep listed since the citation issues have been addressed (and other improvements made during the process), and the "further reading" section has been trimmed of cruft, i.e., the evaluation suggested in the nomination has been made. XOR'easter (talk) 18:00, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Z1720 Please let us know what other issues you see. I think it is clear we would like to close the nomination as keep. Johnjbarton (talk) 19:52, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Citation concerns have been resolved. "Further reading" has been sorted, and I have no other concerns. Z1720 (talk) 23:49, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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