Talk:Special relativity/GA1

GA Reassessment

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I will do the GA Reassessment on this article as part of the GA Sweeps project. H1nkles (talk) 20:20, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

My primary concern with this article is the lack of references. I think it would be easier for me to list the sections that have in-line citations rather than to try and list the sections that do not. So here are the sections that have at least one in-line citation: Postulates, Causality and prohibition of motion faster than light, Composition of velocities, Relativistic mechanics (this has in-line citations in the intro portion of the section and only one in-line citation in the three subsections that follow-except for Application to cyclotrons). That's it, the rest of the sections have no in-line citations.

The article is beautiful, the formulas are large and well-placed, the diagrams are very topical. The stamp needs a caption, but that's not a big deal. I can't speak much to the content so I am reviewing for adherence to the GA Criteria and this article falls far short in the referencing area. I'm willing to put the article on hold and discuss this with editors who would like to weigh in. I'll hold the article for a week pending discussion and/or work. H1nkles (talk) 17:57, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry one more thing, link 29 in the references section is dead and will need to be repaired. H1nkles (talk) 17:59, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The current #29 (Sandin, In defence of relativistic mass) has two links. The first works for me (takes me to the abstract), the second is a doi link that malfunctions for me. But this seems irrelevant since the citation is to a journal article and the links are only for convenience. --Hans Adler 18:18, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Please read our guideline on scientific citation, which makes two relevant points:

• When there is a sourced subarticle, the main article is not expected to repeat the citations in its summaries, for the same reason leads don't generally have footnotes. This very article is one of the examples.
• An entire paragraph or section can often be sourced from the same one or two sources; in which case, the only footnotes required are one to those sources and another if anything happens to be added which isn't in them.

These would appear to cover most of the questions raised in this review between them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:01, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for this information, I did review the guidelines you linked to and noted the point regarding citing the main theories that are "common knowledge" to the scientific community with sources that would cover the entire paragraph. I do not see information regarding a sourced subarticle being sufficient to cover source requirements in this article though. If you can point this out to me I would very much like to read that guideline as I have never encountered that point of view in WP. I am going on vacation in a couple days but will gladly extend the hold so that further discussion can be made. Thank you to all the editors who have made fixes to this article. H1nkles (talk) 13:47, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:SCG#Summary_style; but it would do to search on special relativity. As it points out, "When adding material to a section in the summary style, however, it is important to ensure that the material is present in the sub-article with a reference. This also imposes additional burden in maintaining Wikipedia articles, as it is important to ensure that the broad article and its sub-articles remain consistent."

So there are still questions whether the subarticles are adequately sourced, which are properly within the grounds of a review. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:22, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent) I have been away for some time, obviously, and I am now returning to WP and would like to attempt to finalize this review. When last we left the discussion I had raised an issue with the referencing of the article. It was brought up that in scientific articles there is a guideline that allows for one source to cover entire paragraphs containing information that would be considered "common knowledge" to the scientific community. It was also asserted that a sourced subarticle within Wikipedia was sufficient to act as a source (via a wikilink or in-line citation) for the article. I asked for clarification on this point and Septentrionalis kindly provided a quote from the MOS specifically the,Wikipedia:SCG#Summary_style section. Septentrionalis then indicated that if we are to rely on this assertion then we should make sure the sub articles are adequately referenced. I agree with this point of view. My only concern though is that if the sub articles also rely on this quideline then we would need to go to sub sub articles and so on down the chain. At this point I would like to refer the article to a community reassessment. I don't feel as though I can adequately assertain the quality of the sourcing given the above discussion. I also have very little experience reviewing scientific articles and I don't want my own ignorance hinder the process. So I will nominate the article for a community reassessment in the hopes that other editors will be better capable of addressing the sourcing issues raised here. Thank you again for your input. H1nkles (talk) 15:59, 24 July 2009 (UTC)