Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hot companion (2nd nomination)

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. T. Canens (talk) 07:37, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hot companion[edit]

AfDs for this article:
Hot companion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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The concept "hot companion" is not a well defined astronomical concept. Rather, it's an adjective - noun pairing in the same way "massive companion" or "cold companion" is, and can be interpreted in several ways. Additionally, the source being relied upon to establish the definition does not actually define it. Instead, the source states that a "hot companion" was responsible for a set of observations. In the wikipedia page, those observations have been assumed to be the defining criteria of a hot companion, which they are not. Nstock (talk) 11:47, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Those by User:Colonel Warden, User:Edward321 (and User:Icalanise's concession to Ed's comment), and User:S Marshall. The discussion you mention appears to feature the same users who favored deletion at the first nom (User:Icalanise, User:RJHall and User:70.29.212.131) making the same arguments; they don't become more or less persuasive with a change of venue.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 17:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
User: S Marshall appears to advocate for a disambiguation page. More importantly, all three present comments that would apply equally well for wikipedia pages titled 'large galaxy' or 'dim star'. Nstock (talk) 20:11, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per the two previous discussions and per WT:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Archive 18#Hot Companion. The term is used in astronomy circles and is notable. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 04:47, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment the discussion at WT:ASTRO archive says that it is not a real term, it is a non-notable intersection of two words. 65.95.15.144 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:05, 3 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
    • Comment the term "red car" is used in motoring circles, therefore it is notable too? Icalanise (talk) 13:31, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, the article is referenced and is about an actual term used in astrophysics. Nergaal (talk) 22:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I strongly encourage you to follow the references and see the context in which the term is used (or in the case of the 4th reference, not used). You will not find 'hot companion' defined or treated as a unique term (presumably because the authors do not consider it a unique term). Indeed, after consulting several astronomy textbooks, papers and the Internet, I have been unable to find any definition that was not obtained from this wikipedia entry itself Nstock (talk) 05:38, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment it's a dictionary definition. 65.95.15.144 (talk) 06:45, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Article titles are not required to follow the jargon of any particular field. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:02, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Although it may not be a well-defined term in the professional astrophysics community, the term is used in published literature on the subject to describe a concept for a lay person. A non-astrophysicist wishing to find more information on the topic would find the article to be valuable introduction to the concept. As Colonel Warden points out, there is no requirement that the article follow the jargon of the field. Wikipedia is not intended to be used only by specialists in the subjects of its articles; in fact, quite the contrary. TJRC (talk) 21:19, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. As noted above, this argument would seem to equally justify pages titled 'large galaxy' or 'dim star'Nstock (talk) 22:11, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think so. The article asserts that the term denominates a star which is both hotter and smaller than its companion in a binary system. If that is correct, it's a term of art with implications not described within the term itself, quite dissimilar to your examples where an adjective simply modifies a noun.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 01:37, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • But that is exactly what it is. It is "hot" so it must be hotter than the other component. It is a "companion" so it must be the smaller star to the primary. It is hot+companion, and it is still a dictionary definition, and Wikipedia is not a Dictionary. 65.95.15.144 (talk) 06:13, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's non-responsive. Read what I actually wrote and respond to that. The article says there is a property of a so-called "hot companion" which is not obvious on the face of the term. If a "hot companion" is nothing but the hotter of two companion stars, you might be right (might), but the article asserts that the star so denominated is the hotter and smaller of two companions. If that assertion is true, it demolishes your dicdef argument. Accordingly, a threshold requirement for your prevailing here is to establish that the article is wrong on that point.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 19:16, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The term "companion" is often used in astronomy to denote the secondary star in a binary system, e.g. [1] where it is used in the title of the article as the antonym for "primary", or [2] where the abstract clearly uses the term "companion" and "secondary" interchangeably. Let's do that as a dictionary definition... "companion (n): in astronomy, used to denote the secondary star of a binary system". There is also the widespread usage of the term "cool companions" as well, guess what these are the cool companions to hotter stars, as opposed to hot companions which are the hot companions of cooler stars. Icalanise (talk) 20:07, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • If "companion" invariably means "smaller," then you're in a strong position. Our article Companion_star, however, says that "companion" denotes the less bright of two, not the smaller. "Often" probably doesn't cut it. The upshot is that if "companion" is ambiguous between "smaller" and "less bright," but "hot companion" always denotes the smaller, hotter companion, your dicdef argument doesn't work. On the other hand, if it's a close call—i.e. if "companion star" usually means smaller but can mean "less bright," I suggest writing a subsection of Companion_star to deal with hot and cold companions, merging any relevant info from Hot companion, and redirecting thence to the new section. That's not quite a D&R or M&R, but it might work as a compromise. - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 21:00, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wait a minute, why are you getting hung up on the use of "smaller"... I believe this is a mistake in the article (I have edited the Hot companion article to remove this). In addition, it is not the case that "companion" universally refers to the secondary (contrary to what is stated in the lead of the binary star article - which should probably be corrected). For example, this paper about the systems NN Serpentis and V664 Cassiopeiae is about systems where the hotter star is the primary of the system, and on the first page there is a sentence which reads: "This is a consequence of large temperature differences at the secondary's surface which are caused by the heating of its hemisphere by a hot companion." Icalanise (talk) 21:08, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • And just to clarify here: "primary" and "secondary" can have different definitions depending on how a binary system is observed: there are cases where the visual primary is the spectroscopic secondary, or cases where which star is brighter changes depending on which band you are observing in. In a discussion of a binary system, the secondary will often be referred to as the companion of the primary, but it is equally valid to describe the primary as the companion of the secondary (as the paper I linked in the previous comment demonstrates). Icalanise (talk) 21:13, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I have edited the page so that it is as factually accurate as possible. Nstock (talk) 22:04, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dictdef—Well, it is mentioned in an astronomy poem.[3] Otherwise, this stub article can be made into a dictionary definition. I don't see a list of examples as being particularly helpful here and there is little other useful content.—RJH (talk) 22:56, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - while the term "hot companion" is common in astrophysics, it does not represent a specific class of objects, and has no special meaning beyond that of its component terms "hot" and "companion", just as "red car" has no special meaning beyond that of "red" and "car" (and thus does not warrant its own article, despite the fact that "red car" is not an uncommon term). A quick search of the SAO/NASA ADS shows it has been used to describe a whole variety of objects, such as Wolf-Rayet stars [4], main sequence stars undergoing accretion [5], white dwarfs [6], main sequence stars [7], etc. which merely happen to be located in a binary system with a cooler component. Icalanise (talk) 13:05, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per its references. Fotaun (talk) 17:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Two things are pretty clear here. First, there are a few users who really really want this article gone. Second, there is neither consensus for doing so (Nstock, RJH, and Icalanise say delete, but Headbomb, Nergaal, Colonel Warden, TJRC, Fotaun, and myself all say no) nor a policy which controls the outcome (if there was, the closing admin in the first nom would have deleted the article on that basis). So deletion is off the table; see WP:DGFA; WP:CON. May I suggest that it would be a more productive use of everyone's time to close this debate and (as a modification of my proposal above) put merge tags on this article and Companion star? - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 21:29, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • What's your agenda for trying to close the discussion? Deletion is off the table? This hasn't been open for the full seven days yet! See WP:NotEarly. Icalanise (talk) 21:37, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • My agenda? Gee, you got me, I'm part of a secret cabal working for a loose conglomerate of powerful binary stars who fear their influence will wane if this article is deleted. *eyeroll* See WP:AOBF. My reason for proposing an early close—which is to say, urging User:Nstock to withdraw the nomination, something contemplated by WP:NotEarly which incorporates WP:SK by reference—is far less conspiratorial. I get there by four steps. (1) It seems to me that when one looks at the first nom and the talk page debates cited above, there are a few users who are very enthusiastic to delete the nominated article, and they have all already had their say here. (2) Meanwhile, editors who haven't been involved with the dispute before this nom seem to break clearly for keeping the article. Accordingly, (3) I think there is very little chance that the balance of debate will radically change in your favor (remember, there is a presumption against deletion which you must overcome by establishing clear consensus, see WP:DGFA#Deciding whether to delete no. 4) if the nomination is left open for another four days. By contrast, (4) given what we have seen in this nomination so far—and in the last one, and in the talk page debates—I think there is a very good chance that the proponents of deletion will contest, harangue, and hammer away at every single keep !vote tendered, regurgitating the same arguments they have already offered ad nauseum. Given these four points, it's obvious to me where we're heading, and since none of the faff-around between here and there is productive to the encyclopedia, we would be better off cutting to the end by closing the deletion process and starting the merge process. (Cf. WP:SNOW.)- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 22:11, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well you did vote "keep" before trying to propose early close of the discussion with "keep", so pardon me for seeing you as trying to circumvent the discussion timescale to get your desired result. The closing admin of the previous discussion did not provide any rationale for how they weighted the arguments that were made then. Contrary to your assertion that there is no policy that controls this, there is WP:NOTDICT, unfortunately we don't have the admin's rationale as to why they felt it did not apply. Note that vote counting is not the sole factor that should be considered in a deletion discussion. My apologies if you considered my attempts to provide additional evidence for the "dictionary term" viewpoint to be ad nauseam haranguing. Finally, if you regard WP:AfD as a "faff-around" that is not productive to the encyclopaedia, why do you participate in the process in the first place? Go do something you consider more productive! Icalanise (talk) 22:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've been thinking about this for a few days, and sadly it's probably too late to make a difference, but it concerns me that a lot of the discussion and most of the keep votes seem to be based on a misunderstanding about what a hot companion is, possibly stemming from the assumption that the information presented in the article itself is indisputable fact. As a result, it seems like people are arguing past one another. Nstock (talk) 00:16, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to Binary star. There are some specific phenomena (such as mass transfer) occurring in close binary systems, which could justify a separate article. But not all starts which may be denoted as "hot companions" are orbiting so closely. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 14:36, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Any of these: Keep; Merge and redirect to Binary star; or Merge and redirect to Astronomical jargon, Glossary of astronomical terms or List of terms used in astronomy (we need one I think); -84user (talk) 19:38, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lot of talk lately. I think unambiguous clarification is in order: from my research on the topic, "Hot Companion" means exactly what it says: a 'companion' that is 'hotter' than the primary star. Also, I think it is of paramount importance to NOT rely on what the wikipedia article says, because it is obviously not itself a reliable source. It seems as if the article is being assumed to be unarguably true: it is not, though I appreciate the corrections that are being made to make it more factual. Caveat 1: I have consulted Pearson's A Cosmic Perspective and Carroll and Ostlie's Introduction to Modern Astrophysics generally considered to be appropriate texts for non-major undergraduate students and 1st year graduate astronomy majors, respectively. Neither addresses the idea of 'hot companion' so a definition cannot be obtained from them. Instead, I have deduced the definition from various papers found on arxiv.org. However, none of these papers offer a definition of the term, and use it interchangeably with such phrases as 'hotter companion,' 'hot dense companion' and 'companion that is hotter.' If someone can find a genuine definition of this term in the literature, it would go a long way in moving this debate along. *Caveat 2: While the term appears to be nothing more than the sum of its parts, there are consequences to this definition. As background, 'companion' has nothing to do with size or mass of the objects in question, but the luminosity (essentially, how bright they are). Generally and approximately, the companion is the dimmer of the two stars as they appear in the visible spectrum. Any star that is both dimmer and hotter than the primary will be smaller. HOWEVER, not all stars that are smaller and hotter will be the companions, and not all stars that are smaller and companions will be hotter.Nstock (talk) 19:54, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Also, user User:Icalanise is correct that in some cases, 'companion' can be used to refer to the primary star, though I would argue in such cases the term is not being used in a scientific sense so much as a colloquial sense. Nstock (talk) 20:04, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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