Wikipedia:Featured article review/Galileo Galilei/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 16:13, 12 September 2007.

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Galileo Galilei

Review commentary

Notified the Biography, Physics, and Mathematics WikiProjects. Notified Philosophy, History of Science, Catholicism, Astrology, Italy, Astronomy, Kingturtle and Eloquence

Featured in 2003 and not since reviewed, this article would not even pass as a good article now. The lead is totally inadequate as a summary of the article, citation is inadequate, the article is unbalanced in its content, and needs to take better advantage of summary style and subarticles. Geometry guy 23:55, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

• Comment first glance is that is contains a lot of uncitated comments, that is well below what is expected for a FA. Michellecrisp 00:57, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
  • A list on the talk page of uncited statements which are "challenged or likely to be challenged" would be helpful. This is plainly writing out a single chief source (Finocchiaro, which I do not know); and many points presumably cite it by implication. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:17, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
• The article reads like a collection of essays on why Galileo is great and important, rather than a biography of Galileo. In addition to the sourcing issues, I think this would require a complete rewrite to meet current FA standards.--ragesoss 18:34, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
• The organization of the article into modern fields of science but especially dividing his work on astromony from the Galileo affair seems strange. — Laura Scudder ☎ 19:32, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually this is not unreasonable, given that the affair was largely political, and may have been based on his Epicurean views on chemistry (De Santillana's Crime of Galileo should be included). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:17, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - the article is quite good, in my opinion, but does need tightening up to be truly FA standard. I did remove the Italy flags which were added here back in February 2007. I think that is the first time I've shouted in an edit summary... Incidentially, if we wanted to illustrate what Italy was like in Galileo's time, would the 1796 map be good enough? Does anyone have a map of Italy in Galileo's time? Carcharoth 11:42, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I'd say the 1492 map is closer to how it was at his birth. It unfortunately doesn't show the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, but that wasn't created until 1569. Can't find anything that actually clearly shows how it was for most of his life. I could make one if needed, but my historical atlas skips right from a low-detail 1559 to a post-Peace of Westphalia, and I haven't found an old map that shows enough detail of Italy. — Laura Scudder ☎ 15:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are lead (2a), citations (1c), comprehensiveness and focus (1b and 4). Marskell 08:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Moved from User talk:SandyGeorgia

Footnote in article Galileo Galilei

In a recent edit to the article Galileo Galilei you deleted a footnote on the grounds that "Wikipedia is not a reliable source". But the deleted footnote was not in fact citing wikipedia as a source. It provided a link to a footnote in another article (Galileo affair), where the evidence for the assertion being supported was outlined, and highly reliable sources were cited. It is true that this would not have been clear unless one actually followed the link, so perhaps the wording of the deleted footnote left something to be desired. At any rate I have restored it with a more informative wording. David Wilson 12:13, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I still disagree with your claimed justification for the vc template you have now added to my footnote in the article Galileo Galilei.

• "Wikipedia is NOT a reliable source." I am well aware of that. Simple repetition of an undisputed claim in a louder voice is not something I find very helpful. As I pointed out above, the footnote you are disputing is not citing wikipedia as a source. If you disagree with that statement it would be more helpful if you could give some reasonable argument to justify your opinion.
• "If another Wikipedia article contains a cite to a reliable source for this text, ... " This wording seems to indicate that you did not actually follow the link to the source citations. If so, please do so now.
• "... then cite that source here, in this article." There are very good reasons why I have not done that

If you would care the check the footnote where the sources are cited you will find that it contains some explanatory text, together with Harvard citations to three printed references and links to three on-line references. Full details for the three Harvard citations are given in the references section of the Galileo affair article.

The claim for which this footnote cites sources is made in at least three four separate wikipedia articles, here, here, here and here. Copying both the footnote itself, together with the full references to the three printed sources to two three other articles (as well as to any others where the same claim might turn up) simply doesn't make any sense, in my opinion. For one thing, if some other editor wants to improve the footnote, or add, delete, or substitute references, he or she would need to do so in three four separate places (or more, if any further instances of the same claim come to light). And to do this, he or she would need to be aware that the other instances of the footnote even existed. Ensuring this would entail the addition of hidden comments to each instance, alerting editors to the occurrence of the others. Keeping all that properly coordinated would be a nightmare.

The alternative of having three four or more separate different sets of citations of possibly variable quality for the same claim also doesn't seem to me to make much sense either. It seems to me to make much better sense to cite the best currently known sources in a single place where they can be easily improved by anyone who chooses to do so.

One reasonable, but in my opinion, less desirable, alternative to the method of citation I have adopted is to cite the footnote with a direct link, like this: [1]. If you can offer any good reasons why this would be preferable, I would be happy to make the change. Alternatively, if you have any other reasonable suggestions for handling the citations for this claim, I would also be happy to implement them. However, as I have already made clear, I don't consider the suggestion of simply keeping multiple copies of the same citation in three four or more separate articles to be a reasonable suggestion. David Wilson 08:41, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

The text should be cited in the current article. I would move the citation myself, but it uses a format I'm not familiar with. Please move the citation information to this article. Another Wiki article can't be used to cite a featured article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

No, not until someone can give me an adequate reason for doing so. I simply don't consider it sensible to duplicate exactly the same text in a footnote of one article, when a simple crossreferencing link can serve essentially the same purpose more conveniently. If such a link disqualifies the article from being a featured article then so much the worse for the concept of featured article. David Wilson 16:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

A more than adequate reason for not doing this is that you would have to watchlist every article to which you link. If someone at Galileo affair edited that article to change the name of the reference, the link would no longer work. Even more of a problem is that there is no indication in the footnote at 'Galileo affair' that there is a link pointing at the footnote. Someone might rewrite the footnote at 'Galileo affair' to say something different, not realising that they are messing up the citation at Galileo. Citations need to be self-contained in the article they are in, which is merely an extension of the "articles should be nearly self-contained" dictum. There are exceptions, but they have to be set up very carefully. An example of distributed references is seen in the data references used for chemical elements. Have a look at Chemical elements data references which appears at the bottom of the infobox for every chemical element. Carcharoth 16:38, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, the reader reaching the footnote at Galileo affair may scroll up, or click the "return to text" link on the footnote, and find themselves in a different article to where they thought they were - very confusing. Only those pressing "back" on their browser would get back to the article they had come from. Carcharoth 16:41, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback. Unfortunately there are (at least) two main issues here which seem to have become confused. I must accept some of the responsibility for that, and I apologise for not being more careful. What I was asking for above were adequate reasons for copying the entire footnote and associated references from the Galileo affair article across to the Galileo Galilei article. What you have supplied are not adequate reasons for doing that, but rather arguments against relying on a cross-referencing link as an adequate method of citing references. These are not at all the same thing. I now agree that reliance on the cross-referencing link as the sole means of citing references was not a good idea, but I am still convinced that copying the entire footnote and associated references across was an even worse idea.

The whole point of having a separate Galileo affair article is to enable most of the details about it to be hived off into a separate article so that the corresponding section of the Galileo Galilei article could be reduced to a summary. If it were felt necessary that an assertion made in the Galileo Galilei article needed to be separately documented by a reliable reference (even though it is already copiously documented in the main article, Galileo affair), citation of a single good secondary reference should have been perfectly adequate. The footnote in the Galileo affair article contains much extra detail which, in my opinion, is entirely inappropriate for inclusion in the Galileo Galilei article (since it is supposed to contain only a summary account of the affair). The footnote also contains two secondary references for the assertion being documentated, as well as four of the primary references which those secondary references relied on as evidence. While this seems to me to be entirely appropriate for the main article on the Galileo affair, it also seems to be massive overkill for the Galileo Galilei article, where citation of a single good secondary reference would have done the required job much better. Since the reference list in that article already contained one of the cited secondary references (Galileo at Work) this could have been achieved by having the footnote in the Galileo Galilei article merely say "Drake (1978, p.367)", rather than duplicating the entire footnote from the Galileo affair article. In my opinion, reducing the footnote to that simple citation would be an improvement to the Galileo Galilei article as it now stands. As a disputant over these matters I am unwilling to make the change myself, but would be pleased to see someone else do so.

This deals more fully with the first of the two main issues I was referring to above--namely what constitutes appropriate or inappropriate citation of sources. The second issue is what constitutes appropriate methods of referring readers to other wikipedia articles for further details. First I note that this is already done by cross referencing links to main articles at the top of sections where summaries of those articles are given. For claims which might be disputed, it seems to me that referring readers of a summary section of one article to specific sections (or footnotes) of another main article for further details via a cross-referencing link provides them with a valuable service, and the most effective means of providing that service should be made use of. As long as at least one good secondary citation is given in the article where the link is made, I really don't see what the objections are to providing a link to part another article where the reader can obtain further details if he or she so desires. The arguments you have made against doing this don't seem to me to be all that strong. It is true that the issues you raise may result in some problems, but all of them can be mitigated (though not eliminated entirely) in various ways. Please have a look at the way I have now implemented this in the Two New Sciences and Galileo affair articles and let me know what you think.

David Wilson 06:08, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The way you have done it now looks good. The reader of Galileo affair that clicks on the footnote in that article will still be surprised to see the footnote start "return to Dialogue; Two New Sciences" at the beginning of the footnote. Possibly leave that until later, or say more explicitly that this note is intended for readers arriving from other articles, not for readers of the Galileo affair article? The footnotes in Two New Sciences and Dialogue look good. As for the Galileo article, please do change the footnote yourself. I don't want to do it for fear of misunderstandings, but you shouldn't feel you can't make the changes. A briefer, single citation for the summary section, compared to the main article, makes a great deal of sense. Carcharoth 11:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comments. Ceoil's at work on the prose and cleanup of the cruft, and there are a few areas that still need citation. If someone else understands that citation method used in Galileo affair, that cite can be brought over. The lead might be expanded; it's not currently a compelling, stand-alone summary. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I added the citation and removed those things that would have required to {{wikicite}} some of the books.--Rmky87 22:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment. I have just filled out the lead and I think it a decent summary now. With some work, this one is eminently saveable. Does anybody intend to have a go at the unreferenced sections? Marskell 14:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to help out here, Marskell, if I find the time. — SomeHuman 19 Aug2007 19:49 (UTC)

Having started to do a little searching, I could find sources about two 'citation needed' phrases. The first required rephrasing of the article text, as it suggested more than what sources (not just the one I put in) appear to confirm; another insufficiently notable source did not quite say that Galileo deemed his daughters unmarriageable because of their parents' status, but mentioned a dowry problem, though that might be unverifiable even if a notable source would claim such. The age of "around ten" at which the daughters entered the convent, appears at least for one to have been thirteen. The doublequoted Einstein quote is correct, but not a literal one (hence I removed the doublequotes, see also Talk:Galileo Galilei#Einstein and Hawking quotations). It appears to me that the article's statements should be verified with the references. Those may once have been accurate, but meanwhile 'improvements' by other contributors may have made the text deviate from the original. I assume this to be about details and not a very serious matter that forbids FA status, though. — SomeHuman 26 Aug2007 13:54 (UTC)

• Comment, I am not comfortable with that list of External links. I thought I'd sufficiently pruned it a couple of times already. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• If Sandy's concerns are met, I think this should be retained as an FA. Tony 02:37, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

• Remove - Even assuming that all uncited passages are implicitly from the main sources used to write the article, this article is badly organized and uses sub-par sources. Drake's landmark biography Galileo at Work is not used at all, nor is Biagioli's very important Galileo, Courtier (which explores important aspects of Galileo's life that don't get mentioned here at all). I'm sure an actual Galileo scholar would find far more extensive shortcomings in terms of adequate use of the rich body of Galileo scholarship. The "Life" aspects are underdeveloped, and in my view it still reads more like a collection of essays on why Galileo is great than a biography.--ragesoss 02:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Marskell has asked me to be more specific. Galileo, Courtier, mentioned above, discusses Galileo's extensive efforts a courtier, working to secure more prestigious and better-paying patronage and moving from place to place. It's a whole different interpretation of Galileo's life and certainly bears some discussion. Another issue (in my opinion, the fatal flaw of the article) is the organization: the separation of his work into our own modern categories. Galileo at Work makes it very clear that his work in each of these areas was interrelated, and in my view, the only treatment that would make sense is a chronological one. Calling his work "astronomy", "physics", "scientific method", and "technology" misses the point of what Galileo was trying to do; these all fall under natural philosophy, or at least they would by the generation after Galileo...thanks partly to Galileo's efforts to bring them together. Going back to the patronage issue, this is part of why he moved from patron to patron, and eventually away from the universities to the more prestigious political and religious patrons: he wanted recognition as a [natural] philosopher, not just an astronomer. (See the "origin and evolution of the term" section of natural philosophy; it's not great, but it gets the point across.) As I said before, my knowledge of the subject only scratches the surface of Galileo scholarship, so I can't say whether there are more serious omissions. The article has definitely seen considerable improvement during this review, but I think it has problems of missing content as well as a fundamental problem in composition, either of which would be enough for me to oppose if this was a new FA nominee. Because Galileo has had so much written about him, a truly FA-quality article (by our present standards) will be much harder to write than for a typical FA topic.--ragesoss 13:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the above are fatal, these are clear actionable points; I'm confident David can meet them, given time. Ceoil 21:47, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

As I said, the structure issue, if it were to be resolved, would basically require a rewrite of much of the text, as I see it. But I don't think others necessarily agree with my reasoning on this point; I recall someone saying they really liked the structure of the article. From my perspective (as an historian of science, but not an early-modernist) it seems like more the case of the framework of modern science and philosophy being imposed onto the article, which is perhaps why it's appealing. I would also expect a new FA to use more scholarly sources as the core references, rather than articles from various other encyclopedias and short biographies. No doubt most of the facts traced to these bios are right, but it can't represent the most reliable assessments of Galileo's work and significance without consulting and referring to a decent portion of modern Galileo scholarship (which has developed considerably even since the 1980s). But my FA sourcing standards don't represent the typical trends at FAC.--ragesoss 02:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Closing: This is certainly a tough one, but I find ragesoss informed and convincing. That it doesn't even mention he was a courtier does suggest weak coverage of his life. We also have large swathes of unsourced material. The review has helped—better LEAD, better sourcing despite the gaps but I don't think it's there. I asked David for a comment and he's since edited without saying anything. So, I think remove, after six weeks up here. Marskell 16:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.