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Project-independent quality assessments[edit]

Moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy § Project-independent quality assessments

Moons of Saturn and WP:NASTRO[edit]

User:FilipinoGuy0995 has created a raft of articles about recently-discovered moons of Saturn. ([1]) I don't think these pass NASTRO, but I thought I'd best ask here first before making a fool of myself at XfD (as I am prone to do). Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 14:44, 11 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

When people create these stubs, I wish they could say something unique about the object other than just listing time-sensitive orbital elements. Mention an orbital resonance, the potential for an impact with another moon, etc.-- Kheider (talk) 15:21, 11 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The reason there's nothing else on such stub pages is because there's no other published information available. I agree with the lack of NASTRO: I'd support rapid deletion for all of them. - Parejkoj (talk) 19:21, 11 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Is there some tool to multi-nominate pages for AfD? Because there are about fifty of these. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 20:08, 11 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'd condense them all into a single page and redirect. Saves an AFD while still allowing or searchability. But no, there is no easy way to mass-nominate pages other than with manually tagging via something like AWB. Primefac (talk) 08:56, 14 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Lists of minor planets[edit]

From 2012 to 2022, Rfassbind has made many thousands of edits to keep the various lists of minor solar system planets, discoveries and observers in order. They have stopped editing in October 2022 (maybe taking a long break, maybe leaving entirely). Rfassbind certainly deserves the break. However, maintenance of those lists has stopped almost entirely since they've left, and that maintenance is our responsibility now. Affected are the lists linked from List of named minor planets (alphabetical) and List of minor planets.

About 1,100 new asteroid names have been announced since then. I have started to put those into a table on my sandbox (here), but I don't know how to finish that table (provisional designations are missing), and how to add them to the existing Meanings of minor-planet names in an efficient way. Rfassbind probably used a script to do so, but I can't find one published on their user page. Can anyone help, or are we giving up on those lists? To my knowledge, since the death of Lutz Schmadel, Wikipedia has been the only place that has kept track of these lists, and it would be a shame to lose that.

I am tagging Nrco0e, who have communicated with Rfassbind about those lists before (like here). Renerpho (talk) 08:45, 4 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Well that is the elephant in the room with these pseudo-trivia lists: who is going to keep maintaining and updating them? The only list that really matters is: List of minor planets: 1–1000. After that, the objects of interest are going to grow increasingly rare. The List of minor planets: 99001–100000 page has just three linked articles out of a thousand. We have many articles of greater interest that need more TLC. Praemonitus (talk) 14:16, 7 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Moons of saturn... again.[edit]

See the above section for context. Okay, so I AfD'd S/2005 S 4 (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/S/2005 S 4) and the result was to merge to Inuit Group. Working from that as precedent, I boldly BLAR'd the other 50-or-so related articles citing that discussion as precedent. Recently, a new user Florida sfs (talk · contribs) has re-added the same content to several of these redirects, including S/2005 S 4. These have been their only edits so far. Hoping to follow the "bold, revert, discuss" cycle, I'm inviting them (and of course the participants of this project) to discuss these articles as a whole before things get out of hand. I did revert their edit to S/2005, as the existing consensus was to merge. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 20:19, 12 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'd like to bring up that we had a whole discussion on which irregular moon articles to keep at Talk:Moons_of_Jupiter/Archive_2#Should_we_stop_creating_articles_for_newly-discovered_irregular_moons?, but it turned into a whole debacle where User:Double sharp and I boldly made redirects that got people opposing our actions, so we ultimately didn't get rid of anything. It looks like we'll have to revisit that debate once more now with Saturn's 63 new irregular moons. Nrco0e (talk) 00:31, 18 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Authority control on minor planets?[edit]

What do we think of adding JPL Small-Body Database SPK-ID (P716), Minor Planet Center body ID (P5736), and other relevant identifiers to the ((Authority control)) template, in either the existing AC section "Other", or in a new section called "Scientific"?

((JPL small body)), ((NeoDys)), and other templates exist, but they each require separate placement on each page, while ((Authority control)) would be able to capture all current and future database inclusions, and automatically display them compactly at the bottom of the page. I'm not suggesting ((Authority control)) replace ((JPL small body)), etc., since they provide much more info, but that ((Authority control)) be used regardless.

Courtesy ping to Rfassbind ~ I hope he is well and chooses to return to editing.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:33, 24 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Posted @ WT:AST#Authority control on minor planets?. Please only reply there.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  18:48, 1 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Starbox[edit]

We know that many stars are so far away that, by the time their light reaches us, the stars themselves are long since gone. So, too, are the wikitext markup of templates, which echo out through the decades... anyway, what's the deal with Template:Starboxes? I guess there are a lot of infoboxes that are composed of individual templates. Is anyone interested in converting this to a module? I've never done this before but I would be willing to help. jp×g 02:50, 22 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Well no, most stars last for millions to billions of years, and their light normally reaches us in up to just a few thousand years. The starbox templates work okay as they are; no star system requires the use of every starbox template, so this level of flexibility is needed. Praemonitus (talk) 06:19, 22 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Possibly Template:Starbox observe 2s and Template:Starbox observe 3s can be merged with Template:Starbox observe into a single template that admits multiple sets of parameters. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 10:42, 22 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Porting all that template code correctly into Lua, and then correctly updating the wikicode for all ~5,300 pages that use those templates seems like a royal pain in the ***.
I ported the various segments of ((Navseasoncats)) template code piecemeal into Lua, if only to not break the existing functionality. Because the scope of that template increased dramatically after doing do, I wish I had rewritten the Lua code from scratch. I don't see the same "issue" with the Starbox templates though, so subsuming the templates into Lua one at a time over time is probably the best way to do it.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:15, 22 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Folks at WP:TFD can use bots for merging uses over. Of course, it depends on exactly what is being merged into what. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 06:28, 23 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Replace 'Brocchi's Cluster' with 'Double Cluster'[edit]

On the level 5 VA talk page, I'm suggesting replacing Brocchi's Cluster with Double Cluster. Please comment on that suggestion. Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 15:11, 28 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

"Hottest planet" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

The redirect Hottest planet has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 November 6 § Hottest planet until a consensus is reached. Thryduulf (talk) 14:23, 6 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

List of minor planets: 624001–625000 nominated for deletion[edit]

@ Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of minor planets: 624001–625000, the scope of which affects many of these list pages.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:12, 20 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

& @ Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Meanings of minor planet names: 623001–624000.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  23:52, 21 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion on redesign of the Starbox[edit]

...is underway at Template talk:Starbox begin#Broader redesign of apparent-magnitude and color-index entries. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:20, 5 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Splitting proposal[edit]

I propose we split articles on comets such as Halley's Comet or Comet Hale-Bopp into separate articles such as 1986 approach of Halley's Comet and 1997 approach of Comet Hale-Bopp. There are articles on the 2004 transit of Venus and the 2012 transit of Venus. That is why I think they should be split. DementiaGaming (talk) 23:22, 26 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Halley's Comet § 1986 is six paragraphs long. I do not see a need to have a six-paragraph stub, nor do I think the existing article (at 100k) is so large that it needs to be split. Hale–Bopp's article is half that size and doesn't really have an "approach" section, making even less of a need to split. Primefac (talk) 11:34, 30 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
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