Talk:HM Sagittae

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I don't think we're going to get any more comments on this topic. Hence, I'm going to apply what appears to be the closest we're going to get to a consensus, which is to re-apply the edits of Lithopsian to the article. For further discussion, please start a new section. Praemonitus (talk) 08:13, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

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Edits reverted

I reverted this edit by an anonymous editor because the information is supported by a reliable source. It effectively constitutes subtle vandalism by removing valid information that is relevant to the topic. I had to repeat this action when my revert was reverted and modified, with the vague comment "it certainly was". This change needs to be properly defended. Praemonitus (talk) 18:47, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Your edit summary said "not an improvement"; mine said "it certainly was". That is not vague at all. My edit was not vandalism of any kind, and unless you retract that personal attack, no good faith discussion is possible. 46.208.131.95 (talk) 19:02, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Your edits removed relevant information from reliable sources, which appears to be subtle vandalism. I see no other interpretation. The event was intensively studied, it is a D-type symbiotic nova, and the discovered is mentioned by multiple sources. Why would you remove these if not for the goal of vandalism? Praemonitus (talk) 19:10, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

If you will not retract your personal attack, we cannot have any kind of discussion. 46.208.131.95 (talk) 19:18, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Fine, I will withhold judgment on vandalism pending your explanation. What is clear though is that your revert while engaging in discussion constitutes disruptive editing. To show good faith, that revert should be reversed pending a consensus. Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 19:20, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

"withhold" is not good enough; retract your personal attack. 46.208.131.95 (talk) 19:26, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Evidently, the user is not willing to retract their personal attack. Should anyone else ask me why I made the edits I did, I would be more than happy to explain my rationale to them. 46.208.131.95 (talk) 20:12, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

OK, I would be interested in hearing your rationale. Why did you make those edits?PopePompus (talk) 00:57, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

1. I made this edit because
   1. "intensively-studied" is meaningless. There are hundreds of objects which have been more studied than this one. Any object worth an article in Wikipedia has probably been studied intensively. The reader learns absolutely nothing from this or any similar statement. No other article about an astronomical object that I've seen on Wikipedia contains any similar statement, so I think most editors already realise this common-sense point.
   2. "D-type" is technical jargon. This is an encyclopaedia for general readers. Most actual astronomers would not even know what "D-type" means here.
   3. "increased in brightness by six magnitudes" is technical jargon that means nothing to non-astronomers.
   4. "...by 1977 is detected in the radio band" is nonsensical.
2. I made this edit because Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. So what if Dokucheva and colleagues discovered it? They are not notable astronomers. Their names tell us nothing about the object. 46.208.131.95 (talk) 03:42, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

   Well, I disagree with you on this point. In fact, I think a case could be made that the less famous the discover is, the more interesting it is to include the details of the discovery. Throughout the 20th century, many novae were discovered by amateur astronomers who happened to know the sky well, and at least to me, that's interesting. For example CP Puppis was discovered during World War II by a 19-year-old Japanese student, who glanced at the sky after mending her socks. In my opinion, including some details about the discovery of any unpredictable transient astronomical object or event is relevant to the article about it. What's the harm of including discovery info in the HM Sagittae article? The whole article is only three paragraphs long. My complaint about the article, before your edit, would have been that it should have included more information about the object's discovery. For example, I would have included the fact that the discovery was made with an objective-prism telescope. Many readers might not have ever heard of such a thing, and a link to slitless spectroscopy could have taught them something new. PopePompus (talk) 04:42, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

If the discovery was in some way unusual or distinctive, then describing it would be useful. Just adding a name that nobody has ever heard of is not informative. 46.208.131.95 (talk) 05:25, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you PopePompus. The circumstances of the discovery are almost always of interest for notable objects such as this. Likewise, the discoverer doesn't need to be notable in the Wikipedia sense for them to rate mention. This just appears to be a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. As it stands, there is no consensus for the removal of this fact. As for the others: D-type is an appropriate specific classification; the proper action is to clarify the term, not remove it. Magnitude is a standard unit that is widely used in astronomy, and trying to avoid its usage through unsourced conversions doesn't make sense. I don't even understand the statement about radio band detection.

In all then I can conclude this edit probably wasn't vandalism, although it does appear unhelpful. Praemonitus (talk) 15:01, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Praemonitus. There are literately hundreds of Wikipedia articles in which brightness changes are expressed in terms of magnitude. The first mention of magnitude in an article can have a Wikilink to Magnitude (astronomy) to clarify the term. It seems to violate the style of science-related Wikipedia articles to scrub them clean of specialist vocabulary. Go to an article like American robin, and you'll find specialist jargon like "intergrade", "culmen", "supercilia" and "altricial" used. The article on water mentions "Raman-active fundamental vibrations" - I'll bet not many people looking up "water" have ever heard of Raman spectroscopy, but there's a Wikilink in the article to clarify it. The article on iron mentions "coordination compounds", etc. The convention seems to be to use specialist jargon freely, but provide Wikilinks to articles which define the jargon terms for those who may be unfamiliar with them. PopePompus (talk) 15:43, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

It appears that the IP address 46.208.131.95 has been blocked for a month. Praemonitus (talk) 12:59, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

From what I have been able to determine, Dr. Olga D. Dokuchaeva of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute is listed as a member of the IAU Commission #34 (Interstellar Matter) and is an author or co-author of over 100 papers, with most published in Russia between 1958 and 1994. Many of her papers are on the topic of astrophotometry, nebulae, and stellar astronomy. One has to suspect that she would be found suitably notable to have her own page, given translated access to reliable Russian sources. Praemonitus (talk) 19:18, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Cases

• "intensively-studied" is supported by Corradi et al 1999, and by a large body of work as shown in the references. This was removed without explanation.
  • "HM Sge is a symbiotic nova, which has been studied intensively in every accessible spectral band after the outburst of 1975 (Dokuchaeva 1976), in which the star brightened by about 6 magnitudes in the visual.", Corradi et al (1999)
  • "HM Sge has been extensively studied at radio wavelengths.", Schild et al (2001)
  • "HM Sge is one of the best studied symbiotic Miras", Jurkić and Kotnik-Karuza (1996)

  The point here is not that it has been well studied per se, but that such extensive study of a visually faint object provides a sense of its notability to astronomy. Praemonitus (talk) 14:36, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

• "D-type" is supported by multiple sources and is discussed on the Symbiotic nova article. This was removed without explanation.
  • "Both V1016 Cyg and HM Sge are D-type symbiotic stars,...", Lee and Kang (2007)
  • "HM Sge is a D-type (dust forming) symbiotic system that erupted as a symbiotic nova in 1975 (Dokuchaeva, 1976),...", Sacuto et al. (2007)
  • "HM Sge is a D-type symbiotic...", Schild et al. (2001)
  • "... D(usty)-type symbiotic stars ...", Richards et al. (1999)
  • "HM Sge is a D–type symbiotic star...", Eyres et al. (2001)
  • "HM Sge is a D type symbiotic nova...", Sanad and Abdel-Sabour (2020)

  I'm okay with it saying "dusty-type" instead, but this should have been the initial revision rather than removing this critical point. Praemonitus (talk) 14:39, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

• "discovered by O. D. Dokuchaeva and colleagues in 1975" is supported by multiple sources. This was removed with the statement "name not relevant here, not a notable person". Clearly this group is relevant since it is mentioned in multiple papers.
  • "Since its discovery by Dokuchaeva (1976), following an optical outburst,...", Eyres et al. (1995)
  • "The object known as HM Sge was originally reported by Dokuchaeva (1976)...", Puetter et al. (1978)
  • "In late 1976, O. D. Dokuchaeva and her colleagues announced the discovery of a new optical emission object...", Feldman (1977)

  &c. Their paper has been cited 48 times, so clearly it is of note to the astronomical community. But apparently it is not worth even a brief mention to an anonymous editor. On Wikipedia. Praemonitus (talk) 14:31, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

• "brightness by six magnitudes" was changed to "brightened by a factor of about 250"; the source information gives the value in magnitudes, so normally in a case like this it is appropriate to list both values.
  • "The symbiotic nova HM Sge underwent its nova-like outburst in 1975 when it brightened from mpg ∼ 17.6 to mpg = 11.1 mag in August 1975 (Belyakina et al., 1988).", Chochol et al. (2004)
  • "... 1975 (Dokuchaeva, 1976), evolving from a 17th to a 11th magnitude star...", Sacuto and Chesneau (2009)
  • "They reported that the object had brightened by approximately 6m during 1975,...", Feldman (1977)
  • "The object known as HM Sge was originally reported by Dokuchaeva (1976) to have undergone a remarkable brightening from 16 mag to 12 mag in less than 6 months." Puetter et al. (1978)
  • "In 1975, HM Sge changed in optical magnitude from 17 to 11 (Dokuchaeva 1976).", Sanad and Abdel-Sabour (2020)

  All values are in magnitude change; none in luminosity increase. Magnitude is a standard dimension in nearly all astronomy articles on observable objects, so removing it makes no sense to me. Praemonitus (talk) 15:13, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I stand by my comment that these specific revisions did not constitute an improvement to the article. Praemonitus (talk) 15:14, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Personal issues

I made a good faith effort to start a discussion, but it looks like I'll have to wait a few days for things to cool down. Praemonitus (talk) 20:16, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

No, you made a personal attack that you refuse to withdraw. That is not a good faith effort to do anything. 46.208.131.95 (talk) 20:21, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

To me, your mysterious removals of relevant and cited information resemble vandalism, but I'm quite open to seeing a different perspective. Please enlighten me. Thank you. Praemonitus (talk) 21:00, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

No. Should someone else ask me in good faith, I will be glad to talk to them. You have proved beyond any doubt that you are acting in bad faith. 46.208.131.95 (talk) 21:09, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Then we are at an impasse. My opinion hasn't been shifted. Praemonitus (talk) 21:12, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

There is no impasse. You are merely acting in bad faith. Withdraw your disgusting bad faith personal attack. 46.208.131.95 (talk) 21:17, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Ah. Well that's sad. I have no diplomacy skills to speak off, so I'm not one to salve a damaged ego. I'll just stick with my opinion. It's not intended as an insult or an attack, just a possibility based on the evidence. If you find it disgusting, well that's unfortunate. I just see a lot of posturing to avoid an explanation. Praemonitus (talk) 21:58, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.