9+ Errors in Today's Featured Article Options

[John Limey]

In keeping with my assertion that featured articles on Wikipedia are not half of what they're made out to be, I've identified 9 errors in Today's Featured Article over at On Wikipedia. I made the post a couple hours ago, and it's been viewed a few dozen times, but so far Wikipedia's response to it has been... nothing, despite the fact that two of the errors I noted are currently in the article summary on the main page. Now, something tells me that Wikipedia wouldn't let two grammar errors slide onto the main page at once, but two factual errors, why not?

[Milton Roe]

In keeping with my assertion that featured articles on Wikipedia are not half of what they're made out to be, I've identified 9 errors in Today's Featured Article over at On Wikipedia. I made the post a couple hours ago, and it's been viewed a few dozen times, but so far Wikipedia's response to it has been... nothing, despite the fact that two of the errors I noted are currently in the article summary on the main page. Now, something tells me that Wikipedia wouldn't let two grammar errors slide onto the main page at once, but two factual errors, why not?

Limey, you still own me some physics errors in the phys/chem articles. (You scored points on the history part).

[thekohser]

Might want to fix "a great of time".

[John Limey]

In keeping with my assertion that featured articles on Wikipedia are not half of what they're made out to be, I've identified 9 errors in Today's Featured Article over at On Wikipedia. I made the post a couple hours ago, and it's been viewed a few dozen times, but so far Wikipedia's response to it has been... nothing, despite the fact that two of the errors I noted are currently in the article summary on the main page. Now, something tells me that Wikipedia wouldn't let two grammar errors slide onto the main page at once, but two factual errors, why not?

Limey, you still own me some physics errors in the phys/chem articles. (You scored points on the history part).

Well I did come up with these. They weren't as bad as the history ones I found, I must admit, but they still seemed like decent errors to me.

Might want to fix "a great of time".

Eek. Thanks Greg. I should proofread more carefully, particularly when critiquing the writing of others.

This post has been edited by Limey:

[everyking]

In fact, the article didn't change at all while it was on the main page: here's the comparison. The only change was the removal of a reference--and while it was probably not a very good reference, it should've been replaced with something and not deleted.

Years ago, I was involved in a discussion about whether or not main page FAs should be protected. My position was (and is) that an FA ought to be essentially perfect before it goes on the main page, in which case there's little use in inviting contributions to it, and in any case the higher risk of vandalism vastly outweighs the reduced possibility of reward in the form of constructive contribution. FA Director Raul has, on the other hand, always claimed that the FAs routinely improve significantly during their main page visits and therefore they shouldn't be protected. His claim has never really held up under inspection, but Raul's the boss and won't allow the articles to be protected.

While the constructive edits that do occur are usually insignificant, the absence of any constructive edit at all in this case is surprising, especially when you've already pointed out several errors. A few of those errors seem like arguable points, but others are quite clear and need to be corrected if this is going to remain an FA. In any case, it's absurd for anyone to argue that these main page FAs should not be protected when they are continuously vandalized and errors are not being corrected, even when someone goes to all the trouble to identify the errors.

[RDH(Ghost In The Machine)]

In keeping with my assertion that featured articles on Wikipedia are not half of what they're made out to be, I've identified 9 errors in Today's Featured Article over at On Wikipedia. I made the post a couple hours ago, and it's been viewed a few dozen times, but so far Wikipedia's response to it has been... nothing, despite the fact that two of the errors I noted are currently in the article summary on the main page. Now, something tells me that Wikipedia wouldn't let two grammar errors slide onto the main page at once, but two factual errors, why not?

This is why filling up FAs with hundreds of citations from dozens of sources creates an illusion rather than a reality of reliability. With so many cites and sources, who is going to bother to check them all? It is a tedious, time consuming task and no one is getting paid or graded. Moreover, proper paper sources can be difficult or costly to obtain just to check one or two facts. And electronic ones, while usually easy to check and free, are generally regarded as less reliable.

What this means, ultimately, is that factually flawed and poorly written FAs such as the one you take to task above, get promoted and are most likely to remain so until the end of time or the Wikpocalypse, whichever comes first. While older, accurate, well-written ones get demoted because they lack enough notez0rz to satisfy the pedantic pinheads.

Oh and I just commented on this over on your Blog as well.
(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

This post has been edited by RDH(Ghost In The Machine):

[Juliancolton]

Why not fix them? I'm fairly sure that more people would appreciate your corrections on the article itself rather than on this forum.

[Malleus]

Why not fix them? I'm fairly sure that more people would appreciate your corrections on the article itself rather than on this forum.

Let's not assume that they're all errors just because Limey says so. Some may simply be due to discrepancies in the sources used, and who's to say which is right?

[Cedric]

Why not fix them? I'm fairly sure that more people would appreciate your corrections on the article itself rather than on this forum.

Spoken like a true Jimbojugend.

[Malleus]

Why not fix them? I'm fairly sure that more people would appreciate your corrections on the article itself rather than on this forum.

Spoken like a true Jimbojugend.

There's an inconsistency in your position though. Either it doesn't matter that there may be errors in this article, or it does. If it does, then the responsible thing to do is to fix them. If it doesn't. then who cares?

[John Limey]

Why not fix them? I'm fairly sure that more people would appreciate your corrections on the article itself rather than on this forum.

Let's not assume that they're all errors just because Limey says so. Some may simply be due to discrepancies in the sources used, and who's to say which is right?

Well, let's see. I used as my sources two university press books written about Solomon Sharp and published within the last five years. Wikipedia uses primarily short entries in very general works (which is some cases are over a century old) and the most recent of which is 8 years old. Its primary source is an article in the Filson Club Quarterly, which doesn't even seem to be peer reviewed (although I might be wrong on that). Do we really need to have a debate on which of these is more reliable?

And yes, perhaps I just made this all up, but you can go get the books yourself and check. As a matter of fact, they're both available as fairly extensive limited previews on Google book search - feel free to check my work.

Finally, Julian, why don't you fix them? Like I said, anyone in the world can see the majority of the books I've referenced on Google Book Search, including most of the relevant portions.

In response to Julian's SOFIXIT, my interest is not in fixing articles one by one. It takes a fair amount of hard work to even check a section much less a whole article (I only even checked about half the Sharp article). I imagine that thoroughly checking a featured article would, on average, take me 6 hours. There are 2,739 featured articles, so even if I didn't eat, sleep, or take a break for the next year, I wouldn't be able to check them all. My goal is to point out the problems in the process, so that hopefully Wikipedia will be motivated to fix the processes. With this as my goal, it's much more effective to point out the errors so that others can see the problems as well.

Finally, as the tagline at On Wikipedia states, we hope to present "an independent, thoughtful look at Wikipedia". Even if this is a quaint thought in the age of Fox News, I think that editing Wikipedia rather than just chronicling it threatens that independence, and thus my own objectivity.

This post has been edited by Limey:

[Malleus]

Finally, as the tagline at On Wikipedia states, we hope to present "an independent, thoughtful look at Wikipedia". Even if this is a quaint thought in the age of Fox News, I think that editing Wikipedia rather than just chronicling it threatens that independence, and thus my own objectivity.

That's a reasonable point of view, simply one I don't share.

And yes, perhaps I just made this all up, but you can go get the books yourself and check. As a matter of fact, they're both available as fairly extensive limited previews on Google book search - feel free to check my work.

For the record, I don't dispute the accuracy of your work, and as my interest in Solomon Sharp is as close to zero as makes no difference I'm quite prepared to take you at your word.

[Juliancolton]

Why not fix them? I'm fairly sure that more people would appreciate your corrections on the article itself rather than on this forum.

Spoken like a true Jimbojugend.

No, spoken like a responsible adult.

[Malleus]

Why not fix them? I'm fairly sure that more people would appreciate your corrections on the article itself rather than on this forum.

Spoken like a true Jimbojugend.

No, spoken like a responsible adult.

I'm wondering whether the always eloquent Cedric is calling you a "jugend", i,e. a jug at the end of a row of books, for instance, or a jugend, some kind of Hitler youth.

[Emperor]

Alright Limey, your blog has made the big time.

[John Limey]

Alright Limey, your blog has made the big time.

Well thank you kindly. I should point out that I'm not the only author, I also have a collaborator, "Fact Man", but I should note that on average so far my posts get twice as many views as his, so as a matter of fact if you want to leave your article the way it is, that's fine with me.

[Milton Roe]

Well I did come up with these. They weren't as bad as the history ones I found, I must admit, but they still seemed like decent errors to me.

Okay, move on to the physics and chem! Please!

[What follows is an addendum where Limey does this, which I’d missed. My answers follow]

"However, the hydrogen-1 atom has no neutrons and a positive hydrogen ion has no electrons." If you're going to open the can of worms about the positive hydrogen ion, it seems that it would be appropriate to also mention things like alpha particles, but I'm not sure I would count this a "significant" omission.

Answer. The quote from the article reads:

"Though the word atom originally denoted a particle that cannot be cut into smaller particles, in modern scientific usage the atom is composed of various subatomic particles. The constituent particles of an atom are the electron, the proton and the neutron. However, the hydrogen-1 atom has no neutrons and a positive hydrogen ion has no electrons."

I think it’s a good sentence, as the only nuclide which needs to be qualified under this definition is hydrogen-1, which has no neutrons. If an atom requires at least one electron, then the hydrogen ion is not an atom. In that case, it’s the only singly ionized atom which isn’t an atom. This could be more clear, or (even better) the clause about hydrogen should be left out.

"with a negative electrical charge and a size that is too small to be measured using available techniques." Untrue, and misleading. In Demelt, Hans "A Single Atomic Particle Forever Floating at Rest in Free Space: New Value for Electron Radius" (1988), for example, the electron's radius was measured through indirect techniques as less than 10^-20 cm. That was 20 years ago, and is actually mentioned, in a somehwat misleading way, in the Wikipedia article on the electron.”

Answer: this is not “untrue”. It’s still fair to say the electron has a size too small to be measured by available techniques. A size of LESS than 10^-20 cm (10^-22 m) means just that: we have the upper bound, but not the lower one. It might be zero for all we know. But though we know it’s less than 10^-20 cm, it’s too small for us to say what it is, if anything. Whatever the size actually IS (if it is anything), it’s too small to measure with available techniques. How much more clear does one have to be?

BTW my guess is that electrons are not points. A point would have more than the mass of a galaxy, of the universe, of infinity. I doubt that infinities exist in nature

There is also an omission here in that the concept of the classical electron radius is not mentioned. The whole issue of electron size, a basic literature review reveals, is a challenging one, and it should either not be mentioned or it should be discussed in enough depth to do the issue justice.

Well, that’s probably the reason the classical radius isn’t mentioned. It opens a can of worms and it ultimately is not a useful concept, anyway. This much is explained in the article on [[electron]] but it’s too detailed for the article on [[atom]]. What isn’t even in the electron article is that even the Penning trap results may be too much detail, for it gets into concepts from QED and how g results place (lower) bounds on the bare mass of the electron (just as very high energy scattering results do), which in turn corresponds to limits on its bare radius, and so on. http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/29724. A point electron of course has infinite bare mass and radius, but again we have no idea if electrons are points, strings, whatever. For all we know, the bare electron mass is the mass of a large automobile, and thus still has a radius, albeit smaller than we can (ever) measure.

" Neutrons and protons have comparable dimensions—on the order of 2.5 × 10^−15 m—although the 'surface' of these particles is not sharply defined." Is downright meaningless in that is entirely unclear what it is referring to. What is on the order of 2.5*10^-15? It's generally accepted that the diameter of a proton is about 10^-15 (see, e.g., http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/YelenaMeskina.shtml ) but also that protons/neutrons do not have a radius as such (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/YelenaMeskina.shtml). The wording here makes it impossible to know just what is being claimed, but I feel confident in labeling this an error.

Well, first, if you found a text which says the diameter is on the order of something, then you can’t at the same time claim that these things don’t have radius as such. The radius is obviously just half the diameter (this is all Euclidean, with no GR problems), and if one measure is meaningful the other is just as meaningful! Can’t have it both ways. Yes, the text should have said whether it was diameter or radius.

Proton radius is almost universally defined as root mean square (rms) radius, calculated from the radially dependent charge density, which in turn is integral (rho*r^2)dr/integral (rho)dr, where the integrals are definite with r running from 0 to infinity, and rho, the charge density, is a function of r, determined experimentally, ala Robert Hofstadter’s Nobel prize-winning work in high energy electron scattering off protons. Why the rms value is used rather than some other, is a matter of convenience, and is mostly due to the fact that <r^2> is available as a value which comes out of the Mott scattering equation’s “form factor” term, so it’s easily extracted and fitted. You can google “proton radius” and this measure is about all you find for protons. Hofstadter thought r(rms) was 0.8 fm, and I can find various values from 0.79 all the way up to 0.89 fm.

However, explaining all this is a bit much for an article this general. Even explaining rms takes some calculus, and is distracting. Graphs of proton radial charge density are available, and aside from a small central depression, are mostly exponential. The concept of a “radius” does make more sense for larger nuclei, which have a region of semi-uniform density before you reach an outer skin. Still protons are not point particles anymore than hydrogen atoms are, and somehow this needs to be communicated. The electron density of a neutral H atom is exponential, too. Same for helium. Do they have radii? For that matter, what about the radius of our Sun? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) Does it have one? What about Jupiter?

Truth and clarity are conjugate variables, you know.

"The radius of a nucleus is approximately equal to [1.07*A^1/3] fm, where A is the total number of nucleons." is very wrong. The conventional formula is Rsub0 * A^1/3 (if anyone knows how to make subscripts and superscripts, please tell me), but the constant conventionally used is not 1.07, instead it decreases from around 1.3 for light nuclei to around 1.2 for heavier nuclei ("Improved Z^1/3 Law of Nuclear Charge Radius", see http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0253-6102/51/1/23) . Older studies put the value at 1.2 to 1.5, but have since been dismissed. I've managed to find a few references to a constant of 1.07 but they're quite old. More recent scholarship has also departed from the A^1/3 law (which is a weak estimate at best even after the constant is varied). Lei, Zhang, and Zeng find that the Z^1/3 law is substantially superior to the A^1/3 law. Either way, there is a fairly substantial error here.

If you use google for “1.07 nucleus radius half-density” you get hundreds of results, the latest I see offhand is a 2005 text by Hooshyar on nuclear fission (Google [Hooshyar proton “half-density radius”] to see the intro)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=proto...h&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Most of this is whose experimental data you believe. The article on [[atomic nuclei]] actually does have a charge half-density radius formula with a constant of 1.25 fm*A^1/3, and a note that this isn’t constant. The formula in the article on atom was added by another person. They disagree as does the literature. I’ll agree that the formula in [[atom]] needs qualification, with the various definitions (as well as assumption of 2-plus parameter Fermi charge distribution for larger nuclei, which neither protons nor alphas have) discussed. It should be added in a subarticle that half-charge radii tend to be a little smaller than inelastic hadron/hadron scattering radii, which probe strong force interactions, and make nuclei bounce off each other a bit farther out than what you calculate from a number that is half-way through the “charge density” outer skin.

So again, qualification needed, but at another level of complexity, and can’t put easily put in the primary article.

"This is much smaller than the radius of the atom, which is on the order of 10^5 fm" Atomic radius varies by element. For smaller atoms, it is on the order of 10^4 fm, for larger ones it is on the order of 10^5 fm. Clearly, this is in error, and it would be easy enough to correct.

Well, it’s 31,000 to 298,000 fm from He to Cs (the largest I can find): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_radius There are only four elements (He, O, F, Ne) under 50,000 fm, which are thus closer to 10^4 than 10^5 fm in radius. So for a “generic atom”-- almost all the elements-- it’s true. That’s a quibble, since the nature of the statement is a broad generality. “With a few exceptions” could be added as a qualifier.

Anyway, I haven't the time nor the inclination to make my way through the whole article, but having reviewed the first four paragraphs, there are two clear errors (in the nuclear radius formula and with regard to the radius of the atom) as well as a problematic statement almost certainly in error, but rather ambiguous (with regard to the dimensions of protons and neutrons) and another seriously problematic statement with elements of both error and omission (with regard to the size of an electron). Finally, there's the omission when discussing hydrogen ions, but I'm willing to say that's more of a taste issue. On the whole, I'd say that the science isn't nearly as a bad as the history, but it's still full of flaws.

Meh, the nuclear radius formula is close enough and is supported by some literature (it needs regularizing) and the atomic radius comment is correct for >95% of the elements and makes the point it intends to. The omission and commission errors are matters of taste and as you see from the above discussion, would thoroughly confuse any intended high school reader of [[atom]]. The most we can see is we need some qualification language and more in the sub-articles. I think the worst error you found is the proton/neutron “dimension” statement of 2.65 fm, which even if intended to refer to diameter, would suggest a radius of 1.325 fm, which is (still) pretty far outside the reported radii for these particles from any choice of measurement I know if. So that number needs fixing.

On the whole I don’t think you’ve found too many ZOMG problems. If you reviewed Britannica with that amount of vigor I’d be interested in the result. Though the Britannica article on atoms is probably written much more vaguely, making it less susceptible to quantitative criticism (but on the other hand, a lot less informative.)

Care to keep going? Feel free to skip the dicey stuff and nail just the “clear slap your head wrong” errors.

Milton

[Cedric]

Why not fix them? I'm fairly sure that more people would appreciate your corrections on the article itself rather than on this forum.

Spoken like a true Jimbojugend.

No, spoken like a responsible adult.

I'm wondering whether the always eloquent Cedric is calling you a "jugend", i,e. a jug at the end of a row of books, for instance, or a jugend, some kind of Hitler youth.

Clue:

(IMG:http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/cc358/WRCedric/DieJimboJugendFlagge.jpg)

[Malleus]

Why not fix them? I'm fairly sure that more people would appreciate your corrections on the article itself rather than on this forum.

Spoken like a true Jimbojugend.

No, spoken like a responsible adult.

I'm wondering whether the always eloquent Cedric is calling you a "jugend", i,e. a jug at the end of a row of books, for instance, or a jugend, some kind of Hitler youth.

Clue:

(IMG:http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/cc358/WRCedric/DieJimboJugendFlagge.jpg)

Isn't it the usual rule that the first one to mention the Nazis loses the argument?

[Milton Roe]

Why not fix them? I'm fairly sure that more people would appreciate your corrections on the article itself rather than on this forum.

Spoken like a true Jimbojugend.

No, spoken like a responsible adult.

I'm wondering whether the always eloquent Cedric is calling you a "jugend", i,e. a jug at the end of a row of books, for instance, or a jugend, some kind of Hitler youth.

Clue:

(IMG:http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/cc358/WRCedric/DieJimboJugendFlagge.jpg)

Isn't it the usual rule that the first one to mention the Nazis loses the argument?

Not if you say the magic blocking word ''Godwin,'' first.

I missed the flag clue-- wasn't the Nazi one solid red? Whence the stripe?

And BTW, die Jugend is just "youth." It doesn't have to be Hitler-Youth.