Talk:Destruction of the Moon

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by reviewer, closed by AirshipJungleman29 talk 18:32, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that the destruction of the Moon would require almost 600 billions of the most powerful atomic bomb ever built? Source: https://gizmodo.com/what-would-happen-if-we-blew-up-the-moon-1796725643
  • ALT1: ... that the destruction of the Moon could alter the Earth's inclination? Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/03/02/7-ways-earth-would-change-if-our-moon-were-destroyed/
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Kaneiolouma Complex
  • Comment: Open to alternative hooks, of course.

Created by Cyclopia (talk). Self-nominated at 11:42, 18 March 2024 (UTC).

Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 5 past nominations.

Post-promotion hook changes will be logged on the talk page; consider watching the nomination until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• I will review this. TompaDompa (talk) 18:56, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing: - See below.
• Neutral: - See below.
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing: - See below.

Hook eligibility:

• Cited: - See below.
• Interesting:
• Other problems: - See below.

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Article created on 18 March, and meets the length requirement. All sources are, as far as I can tell, reliable enough for the material they are cited for. Earwig reveals no copyvio and I didn't spot any instances of unacceptably WP:Close paraphrasing. Both hooks are interesting. ALT0 has an extraneous "s" in "billions" and is not properly cited in the article as the article does not mention that the Tsar Bomba was the most powerful nuclear device of all time. ALT1 is properly sourced but I don't think most people know what "inclination" means in this context—"axial tilt" would likely be better. QPQ has been done. Some comments about the content:

• In general, this needs a thorough copyediting for grammar and whatnot.
• See MOS:BOLDLINKAVOID.
• The WP:Fair use rationale for the image doesn't hold up to scrutiny. A free image of the concept (though not this particular example) of a destroyed Moon could certainly replace this WP:Non-free image.
• 12*10²⁸ – nonstandard, see MOS:SCIENTIFICNOTATION. Don't use an asterisk for multiplication, and pick either scientific notation or engineering notation—this is neither.
• a comparable asteroid – should probably clarify that this means an asteroid of the same size as an individual piece of hypothetical Moon debris (as opposed to the total amount of Moon debris, for instance).
• substantial atmospheric heating due to friction – the sources don't say friction, nor should they. See e.g. Meteor air burst#Explanation.
• oscillate chaotically beyond 45° – this needs to be rephrased, for a few reasons. Oscillations are always between to values rather than beyond one, for one thing. For another, "chaotically" here is presumably in the mathematical sense but sounds like it means "violently"... except the sentence then goes on to say that it would be fairly slow.
• beyond 45° on the scale of tens of thousands of years, possibly reaching 85° – the source that mentions the latter also gives a much longer timeframe.
• Apart from being practically unfeasible – it certainly is, but the sources don't say so.
• Abian claims have no scientific basis - destroying the moon would actually cause natural disasters. – I don't doubt that the general consensus is that Abian's a crank, but a statement like this really needs stronger sourcing than it currently has. Make sure to make this compliant with WP:YESPOV.
• The capture of Triton by Neptune possibly destroyed the previous moons of Neptune. – the impression I get from the cited source is that those moons are believed to have been ejected, not destroyed.
• I might mention that Phobos is expected to be destroyed in the future.
• The "In fiction" section lacks proper sourcing. WP:Primary sources are not sufficient here, the content needs to come from secondary or tertiary sources. See e.g. MOS:POPCULT or WP:IPCV. Do sources on the overarching topic—Destruction of the Moon—discuss fictional depictions? If not, this section should be removed per WP:PROPORTION: An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. ("on the subject" is key here). I took a quick look at the relevant entries in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia, and they don't seem to mention this aspect.
  • I'll clarify a bit here: I see that you have added sources to the individual entries. Those are however sources on the works of fiction themselves rather than sources on the overarching topic—destruction of the Moon. That's not sufficient. You have also added a general source on the subject of fictional depictions of the destruction of the Moon. That's much more like it, though this particular source is a bit questionable; while Gizmodo is generally reliable for technology, popular culture, and entertainment per WP:RSP, this is a listicle and those are typically unsuitable for establishing WP:WEIGHT (or WP:NOTABILITY, for that matter), and furthermore it explicitly says that it was Compiled with the aid of TV Tropes, an unreliable source (see WP:RSPTVTROPES).
    The issue here is that fictional depictions of the destruction of the Moon need to be covered in the article no more extensively than in WP:PROPORTION to the coverage of that aspect in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. If sources that deal specifically with the overarching topic of this article—destruction of the Moon—only mention fictional depictions briefly or in passing, the article must likewise keep it brief. A plain "The destruction of the Moon has appeared in some works of fiction such as X, Y, and Z." might be all that we can justify based on the balance of the sources. I would also strongly recommend against presenting this in a list format; it in general invites the addition of poorly sourced material, and in this specific case the additional visual prominence really serves to over-emphasize this WP:ASPECT in violation of WP:NPOV. TompaDompa (talk) 09:08, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Ping Cyclopia. TompaDompa (talk) 22:05, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

@TompaDompa Thanks for your detailed review, I'll try to address your comments ASAP! -cyclopia^speak! 09:39, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

@Cyclopia: Have you addressed the concerns above? Z1720 (talk) 02:18, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

despite two pings, the nominator has not responded or addressed the issues. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:05, 15 April 2024 (UTC)