Wikipedia:Peer review/List of mesons/archive1

List of mesons

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for November 2008.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because…

• I don't know how to improve it anymore.
• I'm planning to submit it to FLC soon.

Thanks, Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 11:01, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: Looks pretty good overall, but here are some suggestions for improvement.

• The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article. Nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself, but the leptons are only in the lead and the information on baryons also seems to be here only. I think the overview might be clearer if it started out with a sentence or two on baryons, leptons, mesons and quarks.

I rewrote the lead. If you have some feedback on it, don't be shy in sharing.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 22:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

• My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way, but there is no mention of the two groups of mesons (pseudoscalar and vector) in the lead. Please see WP:LEAD

I've tried to incorporate them as best I could. I tried giving an overview of what sort of properties mesons had, rather than list everyone of them. Things like pseudoscalar/vector are mentionned, but implicitely rather than explicitely. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 22:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

• There should be an image in the upper right corner of the lead too - do mesons leave tracks in cloud chambers? Perhaps an image of a particle accelerator used to investigate them?

Unfortunately there are no such images in the commons. I placed a kaon decay Feynman diagram instead.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 22:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

• Article needs more references, for example only two of the four paragraphs in the Spin, orbital angular momentum, and total angular momentum section have refs (and one has a {{fact}} tag). Or both bullet points in the Note need refs. My rule of thumb is that every quote, every statistic, every extraordinary claim and every paragraph needs a ref.

Yeah I know, I'm ref hunting. I found some stuff for the parity and various symmetries so I've included them.

• I would avoid external links in the table (decay modes) - is there any reason these cannot be converted to inline citations? As direct ELs, they are iternet refs that need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. {{cite web}} and other cite templates may be helpful. See WP:CITE and WP:V.

The ref is C.Amsler et al. 2008, a 1340 page document (which is included and cited using {{cite journal}}). Sections are linked in the "Harvard style" section, but those in the tables are meant to quickly link to the decays rather than have readers click to 3-4 times. See List of baryons for a similarly formated table. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 22:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

• Is there any way to make clearer in the tables which particles are still theorectical?

Well there are big "Unknown" or values in red indicating what is known or unknown. The only meson in those list not yet observed is the vector charmed B meson, indicated by a dagger.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 22:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

• Not sure how to make this more accessible, but it is a pretty dense read. Can more context be provided for the reader? How are these mesons important? See WP:PCR

Well it's a pretty technical subject, condensing a lot of information. I gave some context in the lead for why mesons are studied, why they are important, etc.... Each sections links to "main articles" so readers can get more info on a particular thing like C-parity. Maybe it could be better, I'm editing with the idea that this is a list, but one whose parameters cannot be simply thrown out there, like in List of Battlestar Galactica episodes Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 22:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:57, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. This is a rather complicated subject to write about, so if you have any other comments I'd be glad to take them. I'll review some articles in the next weeks.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 22:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)