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

The article was promoted by Karanacs 21:27, 26 May 2009 [1].

Gamma-ray burst[edit]

Nominator(s): Cryptic C62, Jehochman, Daniel Perley
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This article has received attention from several dedicated editors: First in late 2006 by Daniel Perley, an astronomer at Berkeley, then by Jehochman starting in late 2007, then I jumped on when Jehochman asked for my help back in December 2008. Although I originally got involved for the sole purpose of peer reviewing for Jehochman. After the peer review, Jehochman asked me to help expand parts of the article. Suffice it to say that I got completely sucked in. After 3 months of research, I've expanded History of gamma-ray burst research, GRB 970508, and I now have 6 books on gamma-ray astronomy sitting on my desk. I'm sure you'll find issues with the article for Jehochman and I to resolve, but in terms of pure content, I think we're both satisfied (and exhausted). --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:19, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • There are no disambiguation links
    None are needed. Jehochman Talk 00:12, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    *headdesk* No dude, he's saying that there aren't any wikilinks in the article that need to be disambiguated. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 00:25, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, I get it: don't moon the reviewers. Jehochman Talk 00:28, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The following refs are duplicated and appear in the ref section more than once, a ref name should be used instead (found using [[WP:REFTOOLS)
  • [[#Piran92|Piran 1992]] [[#Sari99|Sari 1999]] [[#Piran97|Piran 1997]]
Alrighty, I've fixed your issues. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:10, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Back with a little more later. Bishonen | talk 06:24, 18 April 2009 (UTC).[reply]


  • This event was localized within 4 hours of its discovery, allowing research teams to begin making observations much sooner than any previous burst. By comparing photographs of the error box — a small area around the specific position to account for the error in the position — taken on May 8 and May 9 (the day of the event and the day after), one object was found to have increased in brightness. Between May 10 and May, Charles Steidel recorded the spectrum of the variable object from the W. M. Keck Observatory.
WP:MOSNUM issues (4 hours should be four hours), WP:EMDASHes are not spaced on wiki, and there is a typo (Between May 10 and May, ... what?) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:04, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed these particular issues, and any other wayward em dashes. More eyes are needed for proofing. I am bad at it. Jehochman Talk 01:33, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I scanned the article and changed one "10" to "ten", but there were some numerals I kept in place for comparison: "The time history of GRB 790305b, recorded by Venera 12, displayed 22 cycles of a period of 8 seconds, as well as quasi-periodic pulsations at roughly 23 ms. GRB 771029 also strongly exhibited periodicity with 6 cycles of a period of 4.2 seconds" --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:40, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image review: no problems here, all okay. Jappalang (talk) 06:54, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Notable GRBs: After putting some thought into it, I think the Notable GRBs section is totally useless, as it can only ever provide redundant information. If "notable" is taken to mean "notable enough to appear in this article," then they should have already appeared in the article (which is true in most cases). If "notable" is taken to mean "notable enough for inclusion on Wikipedia," then this section is already covered by Category:Gamma-ray bursts. My intuition is to delete it altogether. Any thoughts? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 14:28, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lemme read and I can add my 2c. I am inclined to agree and delete it. Surely the notable ones should be sprinkled through the text at relevant points in the discussion, highlighting why they are notable. Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:26, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The first two sentences should be swapped, as the first doesn't define but qualify or expand upon what is stated in the second sentence. Thus a better reading would be - "Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the name given to flashes of gamma rays emanating at random from distant galaxies; they are the most luminous electromagnetic events in the universe since the Big Bang." - thus the first sentence should say what they are.
Swapped 'em. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Since then, hundreds of theoretical models have been created in an attempt to explain these bursts - "hundreds?" really?? - also why not simply "Since then, hundreds of theories have been proposed to explain these bursts"
Yes, really. Hundreds. Shortened, but I kept "models". --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Many speculative theories were advanced to... - are not all theories speculative (hence why they are theories) and hence the adjective here is redundant?
Quite right. Dropped the adjective. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK I have read down to Galactic vs. extragalactic models - I can also see a cite needed tag. I really need to sleep now but will come back to it. This is doable, but the prose does need a bit of massaging. I feel we can make it flow more smoothly and reduce repetition without losing meaning. More tomorrow. Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:53, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. Another editor added some cool new information about the very recent GRB 090423. I've read over the material he's cited, and it seems to check out. We're just waiting for a more definitive article to back up the claim. That's why I added the citation needed tag. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have read the lead over and am mulling over whether para 3, which is more about what they might be, might be better inserted after para 1. I am pondering whether the lead is clear enough in stating what these things are. This is one of the trickier articles I have read in trying to balance plainer english with accuracy. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Now having read it, I can see the conflict on the notable section. I feel that this is better merged into a history section somehow. There can be a subarticle which is a list of GRBs linked from that section too. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:41, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(As I said, I'm quite willing to do my part in pursuing these things including providing extensive referencing from the academic literature, but I won't have the chance for at least a few days, so if someone else would like to take a crack at it (or disagrees with my suggestions and wants to air that before we actually do any major editing) please feel free to go ahead.)
Daniel Perley (talk) 23:31, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we're in a rush. Why don't you take a crack at it? It's good to see that you're still watching the article. Jehochman Talk 23:35, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it is the progenitor bit that needs some more emphasis somehow - i.e. what the things come from. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:56, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
OK - to start with I made some quick edits to the new table (much more needs to be done). Major work on the primary article will have to wait until next week when I get back from travel. Daniel Perley (talk) 08:13, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Cool beans. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:06, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Withdrawal

What does everyone think about withdrawing this article from FAC? It seems like what Dan wants to do will involve a major revamping of the article, and afterwards we might want to take it through Peer Review. We could then simply copy the relevant concerns to the talk page. Any thoughts? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:41, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Either way. I actually didn't think it was too far off. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:04, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should finish the review, and if he wants to edit it later, by all means, he is welcome to do so. The article is what it is. It may not be perfect, but I am not aware of any better introduction to this topic available on the web. Jehochman Talk 23:18, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, for what it's worth, I've now finished all the main work I was planning to do on the primary article. I don't plan to do anything else major to the text other than relatively small improvements to existing content and adding references (and maybe images). Admittedly there have been many changes since the previous revision, and I'm not sure how much this will affect the featured status consideration - a lot of checks may need to be redone (at the very least I'm quite sure I've introduced a fair number of typographical errors and not-optimally-worded sentences). At any rate, I'm now quite happy with the status of the page (whereas before I found quite a few things in error - see above), though obviously I'm perhaps not the most neutral observer anymore. But if it might help, I could ask some other researchers to take a look at the page. Daniel Perley (talk) 10:10, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Perspective from other researchers would be cool, but I don't think it's imperative. At least show it to Bloom, he's sure to give you an A at this point. ;). In any case, I'll read through the article and tweak what you've written, then the FAC will continue as normal, I suppose. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 15:14, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Josh hasn't got back to me yet, but I got some comments from another student in Germany who had several good comments, which I've been working in. Daniel Perley (talk) 08:38, 15 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Leaning towards support I'm unfamiliar with GRBs, so I'm here mostly to comment on the article's accessibility to interested, but ignorant readers like myself. Let me say first that I thought the "History" section did an excellent job of conveying the initial confusion over GRBs which is slowly being resolved. I also appreciated how later in the article, it was clearly explained what the different issues that need to be investigated are (for example, in the "Emissions mechanisms" section). I have just a few small things:

Thanks for writing such a clear, informative article. Awadewit (talk) 02:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support An excellent article, informative, well-written and well-referenced. A few minor suggestions:

This article was especially satisfying for me, because my very first research project was scanning old glass photographs at Harvard for GRBs. Thanks! Proteins (talk) 16:39, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Impressive, but needs fine-grained fixing. Disappointed to find more than fine-grained issues in the lead, actually (third bullet).

Then just at random:

A nit-picker is required—someone whose unfamiliar with the text thus far. It's not a long job. Tony (talk) 15:45, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed most of these. A few specific notes:
  • "Do you mean <for us to observe them, they must be extr. energetic>?" ---- Correct - this is not a cause-and-effect relationship but an observation-to-conclusion inferrence. I don't want to burden the lead by splitting off too many independent sentences, but to make this more clear I changed the operative word from "Because" to "implying".
  • "And why does distance from us suggest rarity over time? If the latter issue is to do somehow with the 'mass extinction' point, later, it's unclear." ---- The same number of events, if coming from a large volume, implies a lower physical rate. If all GRBs came from our galaxy that would imply a large per-galaxy rate of thousands per year, for example. If GRBs are observable anywhere in the universe that indicates that only a few hundred out of the billions and billions of galaxies manage to produce a GRB in a given year. This is explained more in the actual text (and it not vital for the reader to understand now, but the three statements in this sentence are related in this way). If you feel it is confusing enough that readers will become confused reading the lead then I suppose we could remove the inferrence line completely to not show the connections of the statements.
  • variationS ---- Maybe this is a difference between scientific and colloquial English, but the way this is phrased in the literature is always as variation, singular. I would be reluctant to change this.
  • Perhaps "emission" ---- In a similar vein, this is always "emission" singular in science when referring to radiation. "Emissions" plural refers to gaseous emissions. (As I understand it.)
Daniel Perley (talk) 00:37, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I have this page, and the article on my Watchlist.Graham Colm Talk 20:54, 24 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done with my copyedit. I happened to touch upon the phrase you highlighted; care to have another look? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:52, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support added. Thanks for a fascinating contribution. Graham Colm Talk 20:20, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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