I notice that you have created a number of new galaxy articles. While this is good and while most of what you're doing is very nice, I noticed a couple of things that that you could improve in the articles:
The "type" in the infoboxes specifies the morphological type or
Hubble type of the galaxies. In the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) entries, this is given as a line labeled "classification". For NGC 5398
, for example, the type is "SB(rs)dm". If you see "Sy" followed by a number, "LINER", "HII", "Sburst", or similar stuff at the end of the classification entry in NED, ignore it.
After writing an article, check to ensure that all the links were created correctly and that footnotes were added to all of the relevant information. (You seem a little prone to typos.)
Avoid using any distances to galaxies reported anywhere (including the distances from the Hubble Space Telescope public website and NED) except those distances that are given in scientific journals articles. Most distance measurements are just wildly inaccurate guesses. (Ask me about
NGC 4594
and the review of the journal article that I wrote on the galaxy.) It is usually better just to leave the entry blank.
One thing that you do very well is add references (although you occasionally miss one or two). Please continue to do so.
It's also good that you are finding public domain images for the astronomy articles in Wikipedia. They can generally be hard to come by. If you have any questions, please contact me. Thank you, Dr. Submillimeter 19:15, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
More comments on new galaxy articles
I see that you cleaned up most of the new articles that you had created. Thank you. They are looking better.
A few more comments:
The apparent magnitude given by the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) is generally only accurate to one decimal place. Therefore, it is only useful to write "11.4" instead of "11.46". (NED writes numbers to too many decimal places.) Also, do not transcribe the "g" after the apparent magnitudes.
Please add wikilinks to the constellation page in the infobox. For example, use Virgo instead of just plain Virgo.
You may want to use Template:PD-Hubble for HST images. It even adds a category to each image page.
The articles are looking better. Keep up the good work. Dr. Submillimeter 18:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wave band
When adding non-visible light images to articles, I like to add the wave band information (
near-infrared for 2MASS, ultraviolet for GALEX) to the captions. At the very least, it indicates that the objects may not look the same in visible light. (Adding "visible light" to HST images would be OK, too.) I hope you agree with this. Dr. Submillimeter 18:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
]
On this topic, please be alert to images which are composites of different wavelengths. For example, image for NGC 2535 and 2536 was captioned as infrared. While the image does contain infrared, it also contains other wavelengths, for now, I've just labeled it a composite image. Thanks. WilliamKF 20:22, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Image request for source link
Thanks for your astro contributions and images. I have a request on these images: please provide the source link from whence the images originated on the newly created image page. Thanks again for your work. WilliamKF 20:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hubble type comment
A note on the Hubble type taken from NED:
If you see S0-, S00, and S0+ on the NED pages please add the trailing +, -, or 0 as a superscript (i.e. S0<sup>-</sup>). NED does not do this because of limitations with that website.
In general, do not format the references like the references for the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED). The website references should generally give the title of the actual webpage. See the edits I made at NGC 1409 and NGC 1410, for example. The references for the NED website are different only because the webpage is a search engine. Thank you, Dr. Submillimeter 10:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Seyfert's Sextet
I do not know that the picture that you found at the HST website may correctly identify the members of Seyfert's Sextet. Try NED to make sure that the identifications match. Dr. Submillimeter 16:56, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I checked. The labels in that picture do not correspond to the locations of the galaxies in Seyfert's Sextet. I will remove it from all pages where it was added. (Please slow down and be more careful with your editing.) Dr. Submillimeter 17:01, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See, for example, this picture from NED. NED uses these designations. The SIMBAD Database uses the same designations. However, the paper based on the data used in the NASA press release (see this page) uses a different identification scheme, which is what was incorporated into the press release. I suggest using the older scheme used by NED and SIMBAD rather than the newer scheme used by the people who wrote the NASA press release.
(Also, for your information, I have a Ph.D. in astronomy and I am actively involved in research.) Dr. Submillimeter 17:45, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Messier 74 Group. The move was therefore unnecessary. I moved the page back to its original name. (The article on Messier 74 is not named "M74" because M74 may have multiple meanings. See M74
. This is why the articles on most Messier objects begin with "Messier" rather than just "M".)
One of the things that has bothered me about the list of NGC objects is that the format is rather lousy. If the lists were converted into tables, it would look much better. Would you be interested in attempting this? I can show you the table layout that I previously suggested. Dr. Submillimeter 14:11, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The key would be to limit the table to information that can easily be found using a utility like SIMBAD. I envision a table that only includes the NGC number, common names, the object type, and the right ascension and declination. I will try to write something up in a sandbox page. Dr. Submillimeter 14:07, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That is a good question about the object type. Yes, the object type should be given in simple terms (e.g. "spiral galaxy") rather than complex term (e.g. "SAB(rs)bc"). Dr. Submillimeter
I made a few alterations to your prototype at User:Dr. Submillimeter/Sandbox. (I also changed the entries.) Here are my recommendations regarding the entries in the tables:
Use the SIMBAD website as the reference for everything in the tables. (It will vary a little from NED, but SIMBAD will contain better data on clusters and nebulae than NED.) Additionally, I explicitly state that SIMBAD was used as the reference at the beginning of the table. Do not use the Wikipedia articles as references, even if they are well-referenced; this list needs its own references.
Just use minimal descriptions for the galaxies (e.g. skip the terms "barred", "unbarred", "dwarf", "intermediate", "Seyfert", etc.).
Until we find one good source for identifying the constellations for all of the objects in the NGC catalog (not just the ones in NASA press releases and amateur astronomy books), we should probably leave the constellations out of the table.
The "other names" section should probably just be used for "common" names (e.g. "Antennae Galaxies") or Messier numbers. The UGC numbers seem like overkill.
I also made some stylistic and coding changes (note the 'class="wikitable"' line at the beginning of the table). Let me know what you think of these suggestions and modifications. Dr. Submillimeter 14:13, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have not received any response from you. Did you look at my sample table? Do you have any comments on it? Dr. Submillimeter 12:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I saw your response. I am open to suggestions on improving the table. One comment: The table does not need to include every NGC object, although it should leave open the possibility that it will be used for every NGC object. Does this alleviate some of your concerns? Dr. Submillimeter 08:05, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some responses to your comments:
I really do not see a major problem with spelling out "NGC Number" and "Apparent Magnitude" in the top of the table. Chnaging "NGC Number" to "NGC" would probably be OK, but I worry that an abbreviation for "Apparent Magnitude" may be unclear. Note that <br/> could be used between "Apparent" and "Magnitude".
Another option with the NGC Numbers may be to list them in the "NGC Number" column, although I actually do not see much of a problem with listing lots of blank entries.
The technical boundaries for constellations are given at [1]. Alternatively, the catalogs may be found at VizieR from a search on "Davenhall". VizieR will also allow for plotting the constellations in Aladin. (In fact,using Aladin, it is possible to plot the NGC catalog over the official boundaries.) Maybe this is a way to formally identify the constellations of objects?
Do a search at VizieR for "Sinnott". This leads to a catalog that identifies NGC and IC objects by constellation. This will probably be useful for the NGC table. I recommend writing the reference so that it names Sinnott as the source of the information but so that it identifies VizieR as the website from which the data were taken. Dr. Submillimeter 07:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I added a reference to Sinnott's book at
NGC 4594. This will probably be sufficient for any other reference that uses his catalog. Let me know what you think. Dr. Submillimeter 08:04, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
]
OK, take a look at User:Dr. Submillimeter/Sandbox. I added the constellations to the table. I think everything else can be left alone. This looks like a really good format for the NGC tables, and I think it would be great to put it into place soon. Please let me know what you think.
One other comment: I would guess that the "other names" column of the table would actually be more complete than you think. For example, many nearby galaxies have nicknames (such as the Mice Galaxies) or alternate designations (such as Centaurus A). Dr. Submillimeter 12:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Duplicate images uploaded
Thanks for uploading
speedy deletion
since it is redundant. If this sounds okay to you, there is no need for you to take any action.
This is an automated message- you have not upset or annoyed anyone. In the future, you may save yourself some confusion if you supply a meaningful file name and remember exactly which name you chose (file names are
case sensitive, including the extension) so that you won't lose track of your uploads. For tips on good file naming, see Wikipedia's image use policy. If you have any questions about this notice, or feel that the deletion is inappropriate, please contact User:Staecker, who operates the robot account. Staeckerbot 13:47, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
]
SEDS website
Just to let you know, we generally consider the SEDS website to be an unreliable reference. Much of their information is unreferenced or out-of-date, and some of their material contradicts what has been published recently in the scientific literature. Only a couple of their webpages are exceptions to this. (This is just in case you ever think about using their information.) Dr. Submillimeter 07:28, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
At this point, I would like to attempt to convert the list of NGC objects to the table format shown at User:Dr. Submillimeter/Sandbox. This seemed to meet most of your major concerns about information in the table. Unless you object strongly, I will start working on this on Monday 30 Apr. Please contact me if you think this table needs major changes; I am still open to feedback. Dr. Submillimeter 12:51, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I might be able to partially automate the creation of the tables for the list of NGC objects. I will let you know how it works out. Dr. Submillimeter 17:11, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Significant figures
You should probably round RA to the nearest 0.1 seconds and declination to the nearest seconds. (SIMBAD and NED both sometimes give too many significant figures. The numbers are not that precise.) Dr. Submillimeter 17:16, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Partial automation of NGC table creation (and other comments)
I have partially automated the creation of the tables for NGC objects. I will be able to go through this list fairly quickly now.
I have proposed splitting the pages into 1000s on the talk pages of
List of NGC objects (4000-7999)
. I will wait until Friday before doing this.
I have also decided to use NED instead of SIMBAD for identifying galaxy types. The galaxy types given by SIMBAD were unclear and confusing. Dr. Submillimeter 11:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed that you put merge tags on Banana and Bananadine, but didn't start anything on the talk pages. I took the liberty of starting the discussion, but my vote was to oppose it. It'd be good to have a balanced discussion, so if you could hop over there and provide your rationale, that'd be great. Thanks, AndyBQ 19:59, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed that you changed the categorization for Category:NGC objects, mainly improving it. One small point needs to be fixed: Messier objects need to be listed under "Messier ###" in Category:NGC objects. For example, the category for Messier 65 should be written as [[Category:NGC objects|Messier 065]]. Could you please fix this? (I'll try fixing some of the articles, too.) Dr. Submillimeter 07:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I see you already did this. Never mind. Dr. Submillimeter 07:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there Clh288, just a quick query - I see you've signed up to the WikiProject Human Spaceflight participants list, and I thought you may be interested if those on the list were to get together for a live chat sometime (maybe over MSN or IRC) in order to set out what we're hoping to do with the project and get it started properly. I think it'd make a lot of difference to the work we're trying to do with it.
If you are interested, and the other folks on the list are too, we can hopefully get together sometime soon at a date and time suitable for everyone on both sides of the Atlantic! :-)
I'm writing to inform you that we are now forming the first local Wikimedia Chapter in the United States: Wikimedia Pennsylvania. Our goals are to perform outreach and fundraising activities on behalf of the various Wikimedia projects. If you're interested in being a part of the chapter, or just want to know more, you can:
Thanks and I hope you join up!
Cbrown1023talk 02:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Iapetus and Hyperion color mosaics
Hey,
I have a question about the said two mosaics which I made and uploaded to wiki. It states they were made by NASA and in one sense it's true, the original raw data was taken by the Cassini spacecraft built and operated by JPL/ESA/NASA. The color mosaics are, however, my own work based on calibrated PDS data and are not official NASA releases. I did not simply upload a finished product. My question touches the point of the license you changed - I agree the images are in public domain, they should be, but the wording on the new (generic) NASA license implies I had nothing to do whatsoever with the images. I've seen it in some of the comments as well. Now, I'm not all too clear on the point of licenses (I'm not even sure what the license I originally put implied), but isn't this slightly unfair? I did write the "NASA / JPL / SSI / Gordan Ugarkovic" credit tag at the bottom of each mosaic description as an attempt to include all to whom credit is due.
I guess what I'm asking is if you could clarify to me what kind of license is suitable for what kind of image product - say someone worked on Hubble raw image data, is the final product credited only to those that run the telescope? How is this handled?
Cheers, Gordan a.k.a. Ugo 19:27, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is a wiki, if you feel some of the information is incorrect on the image description page, then feel free to make the additions and corrections. Just make sure you add your reasons to the edit summary so others know why they were made. Chris H 01:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't exactly as helpful an answer as I hoped. Since you changed both licenses, I was assuming you understand the implications of those licenses and could explain them to me in a little more depth. Did you change them on the assumption the mosaics are official NASA products or is that the standard licence for any derived work as well? As I said, I don't fully understand what exactly the previous license tag meant and would not want to restore it if it implied the whole credit is mine and mine alone since that is obviously incorrect. You say I should specify the reasons for page changes, but I'm not seeing your reasons for changing the license either apart from "fixed license". Does it mean the previous licence was broken in some regard? Ugo 12:23, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry but I have uploaded 1000s of NASA photos and made more edits then I can count, so knowing exactly what your talking about is somewhat difficult and I am not really an active editor right now because I am taking over 20 college credits and just don't have the time right now.Chris H 01:53, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Martial BACQUET 20:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply
]
Reverting tip
Looking through your user contributions, I see that you have an interest in reverting vandalism on Wikipedia. Here's a tip: when reverting multiple cases of vandalism, instead of using the Undo link multiple times, open the last good revision and click the edit button, and write your own edit summary. This means less work for the Wikipedia server, and it also is easier to track. Alternatively, you can set up
Twinkle on your account, which makes the process of reverting vandalism several times faster. — Insanity Incarnate 20:26, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply
]
Integrated Guided Missile Development Program (India
)
Hi Dude
I have read this article in details today and it contains overwhleming amount of very dubvious claims with minimal amount of reliable resources.
Being a knowledgable person in this area, could you please have a look this - as in my opinion such articles seriously undermine Wikipedia's reliability as an encyclopedic resource.
Many thanks -- Ash sul 18:24, 5 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi havent had much time with school I will take a look after finals, thanks. Chris H 02:22, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Carina Nebula
Hello, on the article Carina Nebula, I changed that link because I don't think that such an informal term should be used. Please use a summary to explain why you prefer the other. ALTON.ıl 05:45, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ammended seeing as you are a member of two of the projects. You must've changed your username at some point, as they are listed differently. --GW_Simulations
Thanks for uploading Image:NGC_2903_I_FUV_g2006.jpg. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, then you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, then a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a restatement of that website's terms of use of its content, is usually sufficient information. However, if the copyright holder is different from the website's publisher, then their copyright should also be acknowledged.
As well as adding the source, please add a proper copyright licensing tag if the file doesn't have one already. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the {{
Wikipedia:Image copyright tags
for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.
If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on
48 hours after 16:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC). If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. MECU≈talk 16:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply
Thanks for uploading Image:NGC_4603_I_WFPC2_hga2005.jpg. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, then you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, then a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a restatement of that website's terms of use of its content, is usually sufficient information. However, if the copyright holder is different from the website's publisher, then their copyright should also be acknowledged.
As well as adding the source, please add a proper copyright licensing tag if the file doesn't have one already. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the {{
Wikipedia:Image copyright tags
for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.
If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on
48 hours after 16:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC). If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. MECU≈talk 16:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply
Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the image's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the image description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Icalanise (talk) 19:02, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply
Delivered from Distraction, but we regretfully cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from either web sites or printed material. This article appears to be a copy from http://www.additudemag.com/web/article/print/1028.html, and therefore a copyright violation. The copyrighted text has been or will soon be deleted. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with our copyright policy. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators are liable to be blocked
from editing.
If you believe that the article is not a copyright violation, or if you have permission from the copyright holder to release the content freely under license allowed by Wikipedia, then you should do one of the following:
If you have permission from the author to release the text under the
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (CC-BY-SA), leave a message explaining the details at Talk:Delivered from Distraction and send an email with confirmation of permission to "permissions-en (at) wikimedia (dot) org". Make sure you quote the exact page name, Delivered from Distraction, in your email. See Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission
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If a note on the original website states that re-use is permitted "under the
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (CC-BY-SA), version 3.0, or that the material is released into the public domain leave a note at Talk:Delivered from Distraction
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If you own the copyright to the material: send an e-mail from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en(at)wikimedia(dot)org or a postal message to the
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Welcome to The Downlink · Reorganisation of Space WikiProjects · User Activity Checks
Welcome to The Downlink
Welcome to The Downlink, a new monthly newsletter intended to inform members of WikiProject Spaceflight about the latest developments in the project and its articles. Future issues will contain information on issues under discussion, newly featured content, and articles written by members of the project to appear in the newsletter. All members of WikiProject Spaceflight are invited to contribute any content that they would like to see in the newsletter. If you were not aware of being a member of WikiProject Spaceflight, membership of the former Human spaceflight, Unmanned spaceflight, Timeline of spaceflight and Space colonization WikiProjects was merged into WikiProject spaceflight during the reorganisation of the spaceflight projects, for more details, please see below.
Reorganisation of Space WikiProjects
The ongoing discussion of the future of Space WikiProjects has been making progress. WikiProject Space was abolished on 5 December 2010, with the Spaceflight, Astronomy and Solar System projects becoming independent of each other. On the same day, an assessment banner, {{WikiProject Spaceflight}} was created for WikiProject Spaceflight to replace the generic space one which had been used previously. On 9 December, WikiProject Space Colonization was abolished, with its tasks being subsumed into WikiProject Spaceflight. On 12 December, the Human spaceflight and Unmanned spaceflight WikiProjects became task forces of WikiProject Spaceflight, whilst WikiProject Timeline of spaceflight became a working group.
A number of issues are still under discussion:
Introducing better defined assessment criteria and an A-class review process
Setting clearer importance criteria for assessing articles
Establishing a joint task force with the Astronomy and Solar System projects to cover space telescopes and planetary probes
Defining the roles of projects, taskforces and working groups, and processes for establishing new ones
A series of checks are underway to establish the numbers of users who are still active within WikiProject Spaceflight, its task forces and working group. All usernames on the members lists were struck out, and members were asked to unstrike their own names if they were still an active member of the project. If you wish to do so, and have not already, please unstrike your name from the master list, plus the lists on any applicable task forces or working groups
Welcome to The Downlink·Project News·News from Orbit·Article News·Space Stations and the Push for Featured Topics·Salyut 2
Welcome to The Downlink
Welcome to the first full issue of The Downlink, a new monthly newsletter intended to inform members of WikiProject Spaceflight about the latest developments in the project and its articles. Below you will find information about happenings within the project, our recognised content, spaceflight in the news and events needing to be covered in articles. You will also find an editorial about the first concerted effort to develop featured topics related to spaceflight, and an article in need of your help and improvements.
Project News will provide details of discussions about and changes in the organisation and structure of the project, newly recognised content, and changes in membership. News from Orbit will summarise spaceflight news and upcoming events, and list suggestions for articles in need of updating as a result. Article News will give details of requests for assistance within articles, and discussions regarding content.
All members of WikiProject Spaceflight are invited to contribute any content that they would like to see in the newsletter, and we would particularly welcome the submission of editorials, or an article about an area of spaceflight which you are working on, or particularly interested in. Please see The Downlink page for more details.
Discussion within the project is still dominated by the reorganisation proposals. A discussion over the formation and roles of working groups and task forces has led to some clarification regarding working groups, however the roles of the task forces remain vague, and several proposals to abolish them have surfaced. The Human Spaceflight to-do list has been merged into the main project to-do list, with the combined list currently located on the Tasks page of the Spaceflight portal.
New assessment criteria for importance and quality have been implemented, and refinements continue to be made to the importance scale. The scope of the project was redefined to exclude astronomical objects explicitly. Although A-class criteria have been defined, a review process is yet to be discussed or implemented.
Colds7ream conducted an analysis of open tasks related to the reorganisation which four major issues remain unresolved: Discussion concerning the existence and roles of task forces within the project; recruitment of new editors; updating guidelines and whether the project or the task forces should be responsible for maintaining them; and the continued existence of the Human spaceflight portal
six weeks after consensus was reached to abolish it.
Discussion about the structure of the project is ongoing, with several proposals currently on the table. One proposal calls for the abolition of task forces in favour of increased emphasis on working groups, whilst another calls for the task forces to become a list of topics. The idea of a formal collaboration system has been suggested, however opposition has been raised.
One of the main open tasks at the moment is replacing the older {{
is doing a very good job replacing them, but as of the morning of 31 December, there are still 1,424 left to be converted. Additionally, the implementation of a new B-class checklist built into the template has necessitated the reassessment of former B-class articles, which the template has automatically classified as C-class.
News from Orbit
On 3 December,
Akatsuki spacecraft failed to enter orbit around Venus in the evening of 6 December. The Proton launch was the maiden flight of the Blok DM-03
. There is currently no article for this satellite.
17 December saw
Briz-M upper stage successfully launched KA-SAT on 26 December. Barring any suborbital launches at the end of the month which have not yet been announced (a NASA Black Brant was scheduled for December but does not appear to have flown), 2010 in spaceflight concluded on 29 December when an Ariane 5ECA launched the Hispasat-1E and Koreasat 6
spacecraft. These do not currently have articles.
Four launches are currently scheduled to occur in January 2011. A
Improved Crystal electro-optical imaging spacecraft. Two launches are planned for 20 January, with Kounotori 2, the second H-II Transfer Vehicle, being launched by an H-IIB, and the Zenit-3F making its maiden flight to deploy Elektro-L No.1, the first Russian geostationary weather satellite to be launched since 1994. On 28 January Progress M-09M will be launched by a Soyuz-U. 28 January will also be the twenty-fifth anniversary of the loss of the Space ShuttleChallenger on mission STS-51-L
be created, to cover laws of the United States concerning spaceflight.
Articles related to methods of taking-off and landing were discussed. The term
HTHL
do not. It was suggested that the existing article should be merged, and each term be covered by the article for the equivalent aviation term, however some distinction between use in the fields of aviation and spaceflight should remain.
Concern was raised that a large scale deletion request could cause many images to be lost from articles, help was requested to investigate whether any of the images were not subject to copyright, or if they were then whether they could be uploaded to the English Wikipedia under a claim of fair use.
Concerns were raised about a large amount of content in the newly-created article deorbit of Mir duplicating existing content in existing Good Article Progress M1-5. A proposal to merge deorbit of Mir into Progress M1-5 was made, however objections were raised, and discussion has since stalled without reaching a consensus. It has also been requested that the article Mir be copyedited.
The existence of separate categories for "spaceflight" and "space exploration" has been questioned, with a suggestion that some of the exploration categories, including Category:Space exploration iteslf, should be merged into their spaceflight counterparts.
Editorial – Space Stations and the Push for Featured Topics
There has recently been much talk about trying to increase the activity of the project. To this end, a major reorganisation effort has been undertaken, which has seen the space WikiProjects separated into the Astronomy, Solar System and Spaceflight groups, with WikiProject Space being abolished. We have also seen the child projects of WikiProject Spaceflight being abolished, with Timeline of Spaceflight becoming a working group, and the Unmanned and Human Spaceflight projects becoming task forces for now, with some suggestions that they should be abolished outright. The problem with the previous structure was that there were too many different groups of editors, and nobody was sure which projects were supposed to be doing what. Now there is only one project, this is somewhat clearer, but spaceflight is still a huge topic.
Another way to improve the activity of the project is to attract more editors. Spaceflight is a topic which many people have at least a very casual interest in, and therefore it is strange that there are only about four or five people regularly participating in discussions on the project talk page. Evidently action is needed to raise the profile of the project.
One way in which the project's profile can be raised is to have a major success associated with it. The creation of a featured topic could be one such success, and would also be hugely beneficial to articles in the area that it relates to. Space Stations are one of the most high-profile and notable areas of spaceflight, and are therefore a logical choice to spearhead such an initiative.
To this end, in late December a working group was established to concentrate and coordinate efforts to establish featured topics related to space stations. An initial proposal calls for topics on
Salyut, Mir and the International Space Station, as well as one on space stations in general. There is currently an effort to get Mir
promoted to Good Article status; the article currently requires a copyedit, after which it will be sent for peer review and then to GAN.
This is by no means a short-term project. There are many articles, particularly for the larger space stations such as the ISS and Mir, which are currently nowhere near becoming recognised content. Skylab is the smallest of the proposed featured topics, but it still requires that three C-class articles, two Start-class articles and a redirect all reach at least Good Article status, with at least three becoming Featured Articles. The ISS topic is so large that it may have to be subdivided.
I don't expect that we will have any featured topics by the end of the year, but I believe that a Good Topic, which requires all articles reach at least GA status, but does not require any featured articles, may be possible. I also believe that several articles on the subject can easily be improved to Good Article status, and some articles may be at featured level by the end of the year. In the long term, having featured topics will benefit the project and its content.
Selected Article – Salyut 2
Salyut and Almaz programmes. It malfunctioned two days after launch, and consequently was never visited by a manned Soyuz
mission.
The Salyut 2 article describes the station:
“
Salyut 2 (OPS-1)(
Proton rocket
upper stage that had placed it in orbit later exploded nearby. On April 11, 1973, 11 days after launch, an unexplainable accident caused the two large solar panels to be torn loose from the space station cutting off all power to the space station. Salyut 2 re-entered on May 28, 1973.
”
The article is currently assessed as start class, and is in need of attention. It consists of the above paragraph, along with a list of specifications and an infobox. The article needs to be rewritten in a more encyclopaedic style, and with more information about the space station. It has not yet been determined whether Salyut 2 would have to be included in a featured topic about the Salyut programme, or whether since it was never manned it is less integral to the topic, however if its inclusion were necessary then in its current form it would be a major impediment to this. Downlink readers are encouraged to improve this article, with a view to getting it to B-class and possibly a viable Good Article candidate by the end of the month.
Project News·News from Orbit·Article News·The Charts·Yuri Gagarin
Project News
A report on popular pages from December 2010 revealed surprising trends in readers' interests. Boeing X-37 was the most popular article within the project's scope, with SpaceX Dragon in second with Global Positioning System in third place. The top seven articles were all assessed as C-class, with the remainder of the top ten being Good Articles. It was noted with some concern that moon landing conspiracy theories was more popular than moon landing.
A discussion regarding whether missiles warranted inclusion within the project scope was conducted, and resulted in the continued inclusion of missiles.
The last remaining articles tagged with the banner of the former Human Spaceflight WikiProject were re-tagged with the WikiProject Spaceflight banner. The last banner was removed on 8 January, and the template has since been deleted. The project is thankful to ChiZeroOne for his work in this field.
Concerns were raised that the new article reporting system was not working correctly, however it was noted that there is sometimes a delay before articles appear on the list.
Discussion regarding the existence of the separate spaceflight and space exploration category structures led to a mass CfD being filed on 10 January to abolish the space exploration categories, merging them into their counterparts in the spaceflight category structure. This was successful, and the exploration categories have been removed. Several other categorisation issues remain unresolved.
A proposal was made to standardise some of the infoboxes used by the project, the future of Template:Infobox spacecraft(edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) was discussed, and design work began on a replacement. Template:Rocket specifications-all(edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) was nominated for deletion and subsequently kept due to extant substitutions, however it was noted that the template had been deprecated by WikiProject Rocketry. Concerns were also raised that the existing infoboxes were not well-equipped to handle spacecraft which operated in more than one orbit, or whose orbits changed over the course of their missions (which in practise is most of them).
Five members of the project gave interviews for the Wikipedia Signpost, and a report on the project, authored by SMasters (talk·contribs), is expected to be published in the 7 February edition of the Signpost. It is hoped that this will raise interest in and awareness of the project.
News from orbit
Four orbital launches were conducted in January, beginning on 20 January with the launch of Elektro-L No.1 on the first Zenit-3F rocket. This was followed later the same day by the launch of a Delta IV Heavy with the USA-224 reconnaissance satellite. The articles for USA-224 and the Zenit-3F rocket could use some expansion, whilst the Elektro-L No.1 satellite needs its own article.
On 22 January, an H-IIB launched the second H-II Transfer Vehicle, Kounotori 2, to resupply the International Space Station. It arrived at the station on 27 January. Less than a day after its arrival, another cargo mission was launched to the station; Progress M-09M departed Baikonur early in the morning of 28 January, docking on 30 January. In addition to payloads to resupply the station, the Progress spacecraft is carrying a small subsatellite, Kedr, which will be deployed in February. Kedr does not currently have an article. Progress M-08M departed on 24 January to make the Pirs module available for Progress M-09M, and has since reentered the atmosphere. Its article needs to be updated to reflect the successful completion of its mission.
The NanoSail-D2 satellite, which failed to deploy from FASTSAT in December, unexpectedly separated from its parent craft and began operations on 18 January, with its solar sail deploying on 21 January.
Nine orbital launches are scheduled to occur in February, beginning with the launch of the first
Briz-KM
, on the first day of the month. Articles need to be written for the Geo-IK-2 series of satellites, as well as for Geo-IK-2 No.11 itself, and the Briz-KM upper stage that will be used to insert it into orbit.
A
NRO L-66, a classified payload for the US National Reconnaissance Office, on 5 February. The payload has not yet been identified, however once more details are known, it will need an article. Iran is expected to launch the Rasad 1 and Fajr 1 satellites in February, with 14 February the reported launch date. The satellites will fly aboard a single rocket; either the first Simorgh or the third Safir
. Once this launch occurs, the satellites will need articles, and the article on their carrier rocket will require updating.
The second
Explorer-1 [PRIME]
. KySat and Hermes require articles, whilst the article on Explorer-1 [PRIME] needs to be updated.
On 24 February, a
External Tank
.
At some point in February, a
Compass navigation system. The date of this launch is currently unknown. Both satellites will require articles once more information is available. A PSLV launch, carrying the Resourcesat-2, X-Sat and YouthSat spacecraft, is expected to launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre
towards the end of the month, probably between 20 and 23 February.
Stop press: The Rokot launch was conducted at 14:00 UTC on 1 February, and at the time of writing it appears to have ended in failure, due to a suspected upper stage malfunction. The spacecraft is in orbit, it is not clear at the time of writing whether it will be salvageable.
. A user requested feedback on major changes which had been made to the article, however at the time of writing no responses have been offered.
Following up on the issues covered in the last issue, the requested move of
Missile Range Instrumentation Ship to Tracking ship was successful, with the article being renamed. The discussion concerning types of launch and landing resulted in a proposal to merge VTVL into VTOL, however this has been met with some opposition. Several other options have been suggested on Talk:VTVL
. The large scale deletion of mis-tagged Soviet images on Commons went ahead, with most of the useful ones having already been backed-up locally under fair use criteria.
Discussion was held regarding the naming of spaceflight-related articles. Concerns were raised regarding inconsistency in article titles and disambiguators. A project guideline was adopted to standardise titles, with the parenthesised disambiguators "(satellite)" and "(spacecraft)" being adopted as standards for spacecraft, and the exclusion of manufacturers' names from article titles was recommended. Issues regarding Japanese spacecraft with two names, the correct names for early Apollo missions, and dealing with acronyms and abbreviated names remain unresolved.
A large number of articles were moved to conform to the standard disambiguation pattern. In addition, several Requested Moves were debated. A proposal to move
Experimental Assembly of Structures in EVA and Assembly Concept for Construction of Erectable Space Structures was nominated for Good Article reassessment due to concerns over the article's quality. Doubts were also expressed over the thoroughness of the original review conducted upon its nomination for GA status. It was also suggested that the article's title may not be the most common name for the experiment, and that it might be necessary to move the page. Concerns were also raised regarding whether Space Interferometry Mission was up-to-date, however these are being addressed. Mission: Earth, Voyage to the Home Planet
looks likely to be promoted to GA status.
Help was requested for adding citations to List of Mir spacewalks. A request was made that STS-88 be reviewed against the B class criteria, and suggestions for improvements made. Another user requested improvements to the article Yuri Gagarin, with a view to having the article promoted to featured status in time for the fiftieth anniversary of his Vostok 1 mission. As a result of this request, Yuri Gagarin is this month's selected article.
Questions were raised as to whether an article or category should be created to cover derelict satellites. The categorisation of spacecraft by the type of rocket used to place them into orbit was also suggested. In another categorisation issue, it was questioned whether Space law should fall under space or spaceflight.
There is no editorial this month as no content was submitted for one. Instead, we present the "top ten" most popular articles within the project, based on the number of page views in January. Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was the most popular article of the last month, up fourteen places from 15th in December. Space Shuttle Challenger was the highest climber in the top 40, up 42 places from 50th. December's most popular article. Boeing X-37, dropped 57 places to 58th. On a happier note further down the chart, moon landing is now ahead of moon landing conspiracy theories.
Yuri Gagarin was the first man to fly in space, aboard Vostok 1 in April 1961. He was subsequently awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, and was training for a second flight at the time of his death in 1968.
His article describes him and his spaceflight experience:
“
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (
cosmonaut who on 12 April 1961 became the first human to journey into outer space
.
On 12 April 1961, Gagarin became the first man to travel into
Yevgeniy Dolmatovsky
.
”
The article is currently assessed as C class, and had been assessed as B class prior to the criteria being redefined. Although a full reassessment has not yet been made, it seems close to the B class criteria, however details on his spaceflight experiences are somewhat lacking. It has been requested that the article be developed to Featured status by April, in time for the fiftieth anniversary of his mission.
There have been very few discussions relating to the administration of the project in the last month, as things start to settle down after the merger.
An
WP:MILHIST
, or to develop one specifically for the requirements of this project.
User:ChiZeroOne has set up a collaboration page in his userspace, initially focussing on articles related to Skylab. Collaboration pages were at one point proposed as part of the structure of the Spaceflight project itself, however no consensus was achieved on the issue. If this collaboration is successful, it could open the door to a reevaluation of that situation.
News from orbit
Five orbital launches were conducted in February, out of nine planned. The first, that of the
Briz-KM ended in failure after the upper stage malfunctioned. The Rokot has since been grounded pending a full investigation; the satellite is in orbit, but has been determined to be unusable for its intended mission. A replacement is expected to launch within the year. A general article on Geo-IK-2
satellites is needed, to supplement those on the individual satellites.
A Minotaur I rocket launched
Glonass-K1 No.11, on 26 February. It is currently unclear as to whether the satellite has received a Kosmos
designation or not.
Seven launches are expected to occur in March. On 4 March, the
. KySat and Hermes require articles, whilst the article on Explorer-1 [PRIME] needs to be updated. This launch was originally scheduled for February, but following a scrubbed launch attempt, it was delayed.
Briz-M launch will carry the SES-3 and Kazsat-2 spacecraft into orbit, in the first dual-launch of commercial communications satellites on a Proton. Several other launches may occur in March, however their status is unclear. Last month, a Long March 3B rocket was expected to launch two navigation satellites; Compass-M2 and Compass-M3, however this launch did not take place. It is unclear if it has been delayed to March, or further. The launch of the Tianlian 2 communications satellite on a Long March 3C may also be conducted in March, or possibly April. Both the Compass and Tianlian launches would occur from the same launch pad, which requires a turnaround of almost a month between launches, so it is unlikely that both will happen in March. A Safir
launch, which had been expected in February, now appears to have been delayed to April, but given the secrecy of the Iranian space programme, this is unclear.
Article news
Discussion regarding the merger of articles on launch and landing modes seems to have stagnated, with no consensus being reached on any existing proposal. A discussion regarding changes in the sizes of Soviet and American rockets during the 1950s and early 1960s was conducted, with claims that rockets became smaller in that period being dismissed, however it was noted that smaller rockets were developed with equivalent capacity to older ones were developed, as well as much larger ones with increased capacities.
Category:Derelict satellites orbiting Earth was created as a result of discussion surrounding the categorisation of derelict satellites. Concerns have also been raised that satellites are being listed as no longer being in orbit whilst still in orbit and derelict, and a discussion was held on how their status could be verified. An effort to categorise spacecraft by the type of rocket used to launch them is underway, however the categorisation of satellites by country of launch was rejected.
, and a redirect was created at the title proposed by the anonymous user.
Concerns were raised regarding the quality of the article
Japan's space development. Editors noted that the article appeared to be a poorly-translated copy of an article from the Japanese Wikipedia, although there have been some signs of improvement. Discussion regarding moving the article to Japanese space program
is ongoing, however a move request has not yet been filed.
A particular concern was raised regarding false claims in the article Van Allen radiation belt. In one case a scientist to whom one of the claims had been attributed was contacted, and clarified that he had made a remark to that effect as a joke in the 1960s, but was not entirely sure how or why it had been included in the article. Other concerns were raised before the discussion moved to WikiProject Astronomy.
A question was raised regarding the copyright status of images credited to both NASA and ESA, particularly with regard to images of the launch of the Johannes Kepler ATV. The discussion reached no general conclusions, however it was found that the specific images that were suggested for inclusion in the article could be used, since they were explicitly declared to be in the public domain.
A template, Template:Spaceflight landmarks(edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), was created to cover landmarks in the United States that are related to spaceflight. Several sources of public-domain NASA images were also discussed, and it was noted that almost all NASA images are public domain, however there are some exceptions.
It has been proposed that
Permanent Multipurpose Module since the two cover separate uses of the same spacecraft. A review of the article STS-88
has also been requested.
Three new Good Articles have been listed:
Reaction Engines Skylon have been nominated for Good Article status and are awaiting review, whilst List of Mir spacewalks
is undergoing a peer review with a view to it becoming a featured list.
Editorial: Direction of the Project
Well folks, its now been more than three months since the
User:GW Simulations
has begun this excellent monthly newsletter for us. However, there are a few areas of the project that seem to be passing by the wayside, specifically the areas dedicated to fostering collaboration on articles and article sets between the project members, so here I present a call for more collaboration on the project.
Presumably, the lack of collaboration is due to folks not being aware of what's going on, so here's a quick rundown of some of the ways you get involved in the group effort. Firstly, and most importantly, it'd be fantastic if more members got involved in the discussions ongoing at the project's main talk page, found at
WT:SPACEFLIGHT
. There are several discussions ongoing there, such as the relaunch of the spacecraft template, requests for assistance with various assessment and copyright queries, and conversations regarding category organisations, which affect many more articles, and thus editors, than are currently represented in the signatures so far.
Secondly, it was established earlier on in the project's formation that a great way to attract more editors would be to develop some good or featured topics. There are a couple of efforts ongoing to try to see this idea to fruition, such as the
Space stations working group and ChiZeroOne's own collaboration page, currently focussed on Skylab-related articles. These pages, however, have been notably lacking in activity lately, which is a shame, as their aims, given enough editor input, would really see the project furthering itself. Similarly, there are a number of requests for assessment for articles to be promoted to GA class, among other things, on the Open tasks page, which lists all of the activities needing input from members. If everyone could add this page to their watchlists and swing by it regularly, we could power through the good topics in extremely short order! Other things that could do with being added to people's watchlists include Portal:Spaceflight/Next launch, the many templates at Template:Launching/Wrappers and the task list at Portal:Spaceflight/Tasks
.
Finally, I'd like to try and get people involved in finally settling the organisational problem we have with reference to the task forces and working groups. Whilst the
) in particular are currently dead in the water. I'm unsure as to whether or not this is because people are unaware of their existence, they clash too much with one another and the rest of the project or because people don't see a need for them, but if interested parties could make themselves known and others voice suggestions for getting rid of them, we can decide either if they're worth keeping and get them running again, or do away with a layer of bureaucracy and close them down. Any thoughts on the matter would be much appreciated.
In summary, then, we've got a great project going here, with a nice set of articles, a good editor base and lots of ways of getting involved. Thus, a plea goes out to everyone to get involved, get editing with the other project members, and hopefully we'll see ourselves take off in a manner not dissimilar to the trajectory dear old Discovery took last week. Many thanks for everyone's hard work so far, and poyekhali! :-)
The Charts
Since it is useful to keep track of the most viewed pages within the project's scope, it seems like a good idea to continue this feature, which was originally included in last month's issue as a one-off.
Europa was a rocket developed by a multinational European programme in the 1960s. Consisting of British, French and German stages, it was intended to provide a European alternative to the US rockets used for the launch of most Western satellites to that date. Although the British Blue Streak first stage performed well on all flights, problems with the French and German stages, as well as the Italian-built payload fairing, resulted in the failure of all multistage test flights and orbital launch attempts. The programme was abandoned after the failure of the Europa II's maiden flight in 1971. The article Europa (rocket), describes it:
Blue Streak missile), France would build the second and Germany
the third stage.
The Europa programme was divided into 4 successive projects :
Europa 1: 4 unsuccessful launches
Europa 2: 1 unsuccessful launch
Europa 3: Cancelled before any launch occurred
Europa 4: Study only, later cancelled
The project was marred by technical problems. Although the first stage (the British Blue Streak) launched successfully on each occasion, it was the second or third stage that failed.
”
The article is currently assessed as start-class, and is missing a lot of information. It also lacks some basic features such as inline citations. Since Europa was a fairly major programme, enough information should be available to produce a much higher quality article, and it could probably be brought up to GA status with enough effort.
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If you have uploaded other non-free media, consider checking that you have specified the non-free rationale on those pages too. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free media lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the file is already gone, you can still make a request for undeletion and ask for a chance to fix the problem. If you have any questions, please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 12:56, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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ArbCom elections are now open!
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I'm starting to expand your article on NGC 2366 which contains Markarian 71 and NGC 2363. Excuse me if I change things some, as it's in a good cause! Nomenclature of the various objects is confusing, but I hope to add more clarity. Markarian 71 is a remarkable object, worthy of some study.Richard Nowell (talk) 11:52, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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