Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Redshift

Redshift

Please see 2 previous failed nominations in the archives.

Renomination of this good, peer-reviewed article. I believe that it is of higher quality than most of the articles that are currently FA. We worked through and provided citations as per a new project at a physics project collaboration and now I am confident that all of the major stylistic objections of the previous FACs are satisfied. After much work, I think the article currently is as high if not higher quality than most featured articles. We need more featured science articles too. --ScienceApologist 19:27, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes fixed to agree with WP:FN, where to place ref tags, with Gimmetrow's ref fixer. Sandy 19:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Sandy. --ScienceApologist 19:42, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

• Support Clearly written, comprehensive overview (to the best of my knowledge) with thorough referencing. Anville 19:44, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

• Decline. Since the article is partly used in evidence in a Request for Arbitration, I think it would be prudent to wait for the outcome. I declare that as I started the RfArb, that I may have a conflict of interest. --Iantresman 19:49, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

  As pointed out in the first FAC, inclusion of an article as evidence in RfArb is not an actionable reason for objecting to the FAC. --ScienceApologist 19:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment There should be no use of ibid in the footnotes. If a new footnote is added then ibid will no longer refer to the right footnote. --Peter Andersen 20:13, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

  There are now no more ibids in the article. --ScienceApologist 20:31, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

• Support This is a very good article, probably one of the best science (physics) articles I've come across on WP.O. Prytz 21:23, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support I have been watching this article since the last FAC and I must say that I am happy with the way it has improved. The references match the best science articles (as they should!) and overall everyone has done a great job. InvictaHOG 01:32, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support with a few nitpicks on the writing:

• "the phenomenon should apply to all wave-phenomena..." is redundant.
• "These observations were eventually considered strong evidence for an expanding universe" - past tense gives the wrong implication that this is no longer the case.
• There's a reference to the Einstein effect but no explanation - an appositive description would be useful.
• "will experience deviations from the above formula due to the time dilation of special relativity by introducing the Lorentz factor γ" - minor complaint, but this says the deviations arise from the Lorentz factor, when it is more precise to say the factor corrects for the deviations.
• "measuring redshifts is the most important spectroscopic measurements made in astronomy" - verbs is not conjugated correctly.

Opabinia regalis 01:56, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

• All now fixed. --ScienceApologist 11:23, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

• Object Article has active and ongoing disputes reguarding its content, partially exhibited by that RfAr. This would be against 1e in my opinion. The fact that there is no resolution yet means that the article could easily become unstable at any given time due to the content conflicts. Kevin_b_er 18:01, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

What content dispute are you referring to? The RfArb is over a global dispute regarding NPOV and other WIkipedia policies for which former content disputes regarding redshift are only tangentially related by means of proposed evidence. There are currently no active content disputes at redshift. The article is about as stable as I've ever seen an article. As such, I find this objection to be based on innuendo and not on evidence or actionable issues. Please elaborate what the content dispute you are describing if you really do have evidence. --ScienceApologist 18:41, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

The examples I gave in the RfArb specifically refer to the content of the article. It seems better to go through Arbitration, than to continue to edit war with you. See my Example 2 in the Request for Arbitration. for details. --Iantresman 19:10, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

• Took a strong look at the dates for disputes. All way in the past except for the concern (in the RfAr) raised by editors recently about the coverage of viewpoints. Does it cover all viewpoints that are important? Global NPOV concerns are still NPOV concerns for the article. Kevin_b_er 21:38, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

• It depends who you ask about the viewpoints. ScienceApologist rightly points out that there are those who say these viewpoints are not important to them (eg. some astronomers). I suggest that perhaps those people in optics who investigate the Wolf effect, which they describe as a new laboratory-demonstrated Doppler-like redshift mechanism, would say it was important to them. And there are others scientists (eg. see www.cosmologystatement.org] who also feel htat some alternative viewpoints are important to them. I think the reader should decide, and those who consider the viewpoints to be unimportant can just skip over them. --Iantresman 21:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

• Object—Needs a copy-edit. To start with, why no deictic for "redshift"? I see "this redshift" in the third para, so why not "a redshift" at the start?
  • "In physics and astronomy, redshift occurs when the visible light from an object is shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. Redshift is therefore an observed increase in the wavelength, which corresponds to a decrease in the frequency of electromagnetic radiation, received by a detector compared to that emitted by the source. The corresponding shift to shorter wavelengths is called blueshift."
• Surely it exists whether observed or not, and whether "received by a detector" or not. Compared with for contrasts. Stubby paras. Tony 01:41, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  • These comments are ignorant of how "redshift" is actually discussed in literature and elsewhere. There is "redshift phenomenon" and particular "redshift observations". "A redshift" refers to a particular measurement.
  • Furthermore, no, it isn't true that redshift exists whether observed or not -- it's an observer dependent phenomenon. One can, in theory, get rid of all redshifts simply by having a detector move in the appropriate way per measurement.
  • As such, these suggestions are all editorially unsound. --ScienceApologist 12:49, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Changed two instances of "compared to" to "compared with".
  • Stubby paragraphs are par for the course in grand summary style generalized topic treatments. I please ask the criticizing Wikipedian to respond. --ScienceApologist 15:51, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

• Calling me "ignorant" and my comments "editorially unsound", and pestering me on my user page, won't earn you goodwill. I could refer to your knowledge of English as "ignorant" and "unsound", but I'd never do that. All you had to do was to explain the issues briefly, in a neutral fashion. Read WP:CIVIL.
  • It's significantly overlinked. In a topic as technical as this one, high-value links are important. So why, oh why, do you link common words such as "distance" and "emission"? And gee, the link to "nineteenth century" is really valuable, both to non-specialists and specialists. Wow, I'm so glad I hit that link. Please weed out every link that is not technically useful—then it won't be such a blue-black mess. Then the readers will be more likely to hit the good ones, like "projection" (which is piped to a focused, relevant topic).
  • "Between 2 objects"—no, spell it out if less than 10.
  • "Despite there being a distinction between"—Awkward and, strictly speaking, ungrammatical.
  • Audit the punctuation throughout. "Doppler redshift is bound by special relativity so v > c is impossible ..." would be better as "Doppler redshift is bound by special relativity; thus, v > c is impossible ...". The sentence "The effect is very small but measurable on Earth using the Mossbauer effect and was first observed in ..." has no commas, yet the subsequent sentence does.
  • "In the theory of general relativity, there is also time dilation within a gravitational well"—Every sentence is also. Do we really need the word here? The same for "It is also the dominant cause of large angular-scale temperature fluctuations" and others.

Still work to be done. Tony 02:47, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I have fixed the relevant issues you listed above. One note: I don't believe that I was being uncivil. You have to understand I've been through this ringer three times now. I didn't call you "ignorant", I called your comments "ignorant" which they were because they criticized very common phrasing in the field. I still have the opinion that your comments were not well-researched and editorially unsound, but this is a community and we are free to disagree with each other. Obviously you have a different opinion than I do. It doesn't bother me, but it seems to bother you. Furthermore, writing I could refer to your knowledge of English as "ignorant" and "unsound", but I'd never do that. All you had to do was to explain the issues briefly, in a neutral fashion. Read WP:CIVIL. is a bit hypocritical and disingenous, don't you think? Many of your valuable comments are painted with generous helpings of curt sarcasm. I'm fine with banter and back-and-forth, but I'm getting very mixed messages from you to the tune of a double-standard (okay for you to give sarcastic critique, not okay for me to criticize it). You don't like me describing my opinions of your objections and "pestering" you, but you seem to think that you have some higher ground to make very broad objections (c.f. "Stubby paras.") and then not respond to the attempts I made to fix the actionable things you object to.

I do not share the opinion that this article is overlinked. I agree that it was inappropriate to link to the nineteenth century. However, distance and emission should be linked because they are important subjects to the article. In particular, a good understanding of distance is required to understand some of the more amazing implications of the subject.

The comma standard used may be slightly different from Strunk and White: independent clauses, parentheticals, and compound sentences get the commas, everything else doesn't. I looked at the sentences you cited and didn't see a problem. However, unlike you, I am not a copy editor, and editorial standardization is not my cup-of-tea. Currently there is no service on Wikipedia for people who want to request a copy edit for an article. I would ask you to help in this regard.

In view of this, could you consider actually editting the article rather than writing your criticisms down?

No. Tony 15:08, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I can't believe that it is easier to write: "Doppler redshift is bound by special relativity so v > c is impossible ..." would be better as "Doppler redshift is bound by special relativity; thus, v > c is impossible ..." than to simply go in and make the change.

--ScienceApologist 13:36, 15 October 2006 (UTC)