Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fast inverse square root/archive1

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 archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 23:52, 30 November 2016 [1].

Fast inverse square root[edit]

Nominator(s): — Esquivalience (talk) 01:32, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This article focuses on the fast inverse square root, an algorithm that estimates the reciprocal of the square root of a rational number, used to scale vectors to unit length. Although on the short side at 1,800 words, this article nonetheless gives complete coverage of the algorithm and gives useful context, while maintaining excellent prose and with good images. Note that this is a drive-by nomination, although I'm willing to resolve all concerns raised. — Esquivalience (talk) 01:32, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Personally, I'm concerned by the fact that this nomination was a "drive-by nom", as you put it. Also with you only editing the article five times. Had to let the original editor who brought the article to GA status back in 2009 know about this nomination at least. Anyway, this article has two dead links in it. Not at all acquainted with root-finding algorithms so I'll it at that. GamerPro64 15:06, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"Excellent prose" ... well, I see a few little errors. Wasn't it worth combing through it? Tony (talk) 09:21, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've glanced at parts of the article and I'm spotting issues as early as the second sentence. Here's a couple of problems:

The algorithm was probably developed at Silicon Graphics in the early 1990s — I don't think it's a good idea to open the article with a statement that shows clear uncertainty and only provide one citation.

Silicon Graphics is mentioned twice in the lead, however nowhere else in the article. 3dfx Interactive is also mentioned in the lead and nowhere else. The lead should introduce and summarise the article's contents, but here it contains information that is not found elsewhere.

The article mentions Quake III on multiple occasions, but never explains what Quake III even is. At the very least the reader should be told that Quake III is a computer game that makes use of 3D graphics so they better understand why fast inverse square root was implemented in it.

Who are John Carmack, Terje Mathisen, Gary Tarolli and the other people name dropped in the article? The article assumes that the reader knows them all, their professions and significance to the article topic. It's never even made clear that Carmack worked on Quake III which I assume is the link between him and fast inverse square root.

The explanation of a normalized vector in the Motivation section is bad. Why isn't

{\boldsymbol {v}}

defined as being the vector

(v_{1},v_{2},v_{3})

before stating the Euclidean norm of it?

-- The1337gamer (talk) 21:34, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support Nice article. I have corrected the problems with the references and links. I note that the other points raised above have been addressed. Newton-Raphson is a tool we often reach for when we need a function approximated, as we learn about it in high school. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:56, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Intro needs to explain how does the algorithm work, perhaps with a simple example. Nergaal (talk) 08:57, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It says that it is an implementation of Newton's method. A worked example is in the article, but too long for the lead. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:10, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked at this a few times both before and after the nom and see a number of issues. I won't be able to go in depth, but hopefully can shine some light. First, we need an in-depth check of the math, especially since it occupies most of the article. Second, there are many paragraphs without any sourcing at all... Third, perhaps the biggest issue, is the lack of a "legacy" section or something that deals with the cultural impact. My understanding, particularly with the FPS genre, was that this calculation led to graphics breakthroughs—but if it did, or if I wanted to know its impact on the genre, there's nothing on it. Fourth, and perhaps most pertinent for FA, is that the article is filled with jargon. This is somewhat to be expected due to the niche material, but we are still a generalist encyclopedia and this article still shows its roots (and the roots of early Wikipedia) in that it focuses more on the calculation's math than its surrounding history. If written for a general audience as an encyclopedia article (with "brilliant prose"), I would expect a more generous tone tailored for an audience with a New York Times reading level, and much more weight on the analysis and cultural impact of the calculation than included as present. czar 21:48, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The math is really basic, and should be comprehensible to anyone with a high school education. Since Newton-Raphson is on the high school syllabus! Which is why people tend to reach for it when they have a problem, and this is a good example of how that is done. As far as I can tell, the article is fully referenced by the standards of a mathematical article, my understanding being that calculations do not require referencing; so can we be more specific about what additional referencing we want, so that it can be added? Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:08, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Calculus is not required as part of a high school math education. Source work in FAC has always been on the nom, unless someone is reporting that there is no analysis of the cultural impact of the calculation czar 16:12, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Your point about the cultural impact (if any) is taken. But I am not willing to accept that mathematical articles are barred from FAC. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:58, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am not willing to accept that mathematical articles are barred from FAC.

Yeah, didn't imply anything even close to that czar 19:25, 16 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I think Czar's critique is right on the money. I'd love to see more math and computer science FAs, and I'll be happy to help copyedit and proofread them. In part because we almost never see math FAs on the Main Page these days, I'd be embarrassed to see this one, and I don't want our readers to get the wrong idea. We can do better; we often do better. - Dank (push to talk) 20:53, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment -- I've seen no edits to the article or this nom by the nominator for well over a month, so will be archiving shortly. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:51, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 23:52, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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