Talk:Silver/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Jclemens (talk · contribs) 02:42, 27 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Fine
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Fine
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	A few comments, but citations appear appropriate.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	Things are looking good, no dead links, but a few references appear to be bare links which could use better citations.
	2c. it contains no original research.	None noted
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	All three things identified by Earwig's tool appear to be mirrors.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	Sufficiently broad
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	Appropriately focused
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	No neutrality issues noted.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	No edit war seen. Vandalism level seems par for an article of this prominence.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	All freely licensed.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Good, appropriate assortment of images.
	7. Overall assessment.	~~Really good, really close, just needs a ... wait for it... bit of polish. Then you're golden. Or should I say sterling?~~ Passed per improvements.

Jclemens' Good Article Review expectations for Vital Articles.

This is a vital article. As such, it requires an appropriate amount of scrutiny, because being wrong is just that much worse, so being right is just that much more important.
This is a collaborative process. I offer suggestions, which editors are free to implement, ignore, reject, or propose counter-suggestions. If there's simply no meeting of the minds, there will be no GA pass from me, but please feel free to tell me to take a flying leap if I propose something stupid or counterproductive.
I do not quick fail vital article GA reviews. In general, even if there is no clear path to meet all the GA criteria, working with conscientious editors is almost always going to improve the article and benefit our readers--just not to the extent all of us had hoped.
This is not a quick process. Estimate a month, depending on my availability and the responsiveness of the nominator and other editors collaborating on the process.
I am not a content expert. I generally have a reasonable background in the topic under consideration, often at the college undergraduate/survey level, or else I wouldn't have volunteered to review it. Thus, I depend on the content experts to help focus the article appropriately.
The more the merrier. While many unimportant GA articles can be adequately reviewed by a single nominator and a single reviewer, Vital Article GA's can use more eyes, based on their increased importance. I always welcome other editors to jump in with suggestions and constructive criticisms.

Initial read-through

Lead

"Silver metal is used in many premodern monetary systems" is? was? It's surely still used in coinage somewhere, but I wouldn't call those pre-modern systems.
- Pure silver metal, to my knowledge, is basically a premodern thing outside special bullion coins; I would agree that silver alloys shouldn't be called a "premodern" use because they were in use till quite recently, though I don't think there are any left now. Anyway I think this is probably too much detail for the lede, so I've cut it to just say that Ag is used in bullion coins (it's one of those four metals to have a currency code, along with Au, Pt, and Pd). Double sharp (talk) 15:26, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"Silver is used in numerous applications other than currency, such as solar panels, water filtration, jewellery, ornaments, high-value tableware and utensils (hence the term silverware), and as an investment medium (coins and bullion)." Of all of these, water filtration is not a specific item, while everything else in this list is. That may be OK, but do you want to tighten that up? Jclemens (talk) 05:43, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Characteristics

No comments. Jclemens (talk) 05:43, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Chemistry

"Silver artifacts undergo three forms of deterioration" Specify them more explicitly? Note that in the "Silver does not react with air" paragraph, above, Silver Sulfide tarnish is already mentioned. Do we need to mention it in two places? Jclemens (talk) 05:43, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Hopefully improved now, just giving it a cursory mention as tarnishing. Double sharp (talk) 15:30, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Compounds

Everything seems to parse fine, but the chemistry is such that I would be unable to spot a non-glaring error. Jclemens (talk) 02:37, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, as long as the average interested reader can get something out of it, I think it's as much of a success as we can expect! ^_^ I wrote this section a while before the rest of the article (since the previous chemistry section which it replaced was not really up to snuff), so I could go give my sources another quick read-through to see if I've messed up anything in the paraphrasing and summarisation of important information. Double sharp (talk) 15:57, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology

Does this need to be its own section? Jclemens (talk) 02:37, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm not sure if having it be its own section is a good idea either, but I'm not sure if it fits particularly well in any of the existing ones; do you have a suggestion for it? Double sharp (talk) 13:59, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

History

Again, with a secular article do you prefer BC/AD or BCE/CE? It's consistent now, so not an issue, just a question.
- I personally prefer BC/AD as being more easily distinguishable, and it tends to draw less attention to itself for me. Double sharp (talk) 14:29, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"The origins of silver production in India, China, and Japan was almost certainly equally ancient," Was? Were?
- Done Double sharp (talk) 14:29, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The New World technology doesn't appear to be chronological. Should it be?
Is 'plundering' NPOV?
"and Argentina:;" Pick a punctuation. Either works, probably, but not both... Jclemens (talk) 02:37, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Done Double sharp (talk) 14:29, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Symbolic Role

Dunno that Greek really needs to be wikilinked.
- Done Double sharp (talk) 14:31, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think 'religious' leaders is unnecessarily 'safe': the allegation is that Judas Iscariot, a Jew, was paid 30 pieces of silver by Jewish leaders to betray Jesus of Nazareth, another Jew.
- Done Double sharp (talk) 14:31, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I am fine with the Hebrew scripture quotations. Be prepared for someone to come along and object for no good reason whatsoever, though. Jclemens (talk) 02:55, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- When I put them in (since Weeks includes them) I was mentally preparing myself for another Fe situation. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 14:31, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Occurrence and production

How do the first sentences of the first and third paragraphs related to each other? They seen redundant, describing silver's combination with sulfur in nature.
Compared to what Iron had, there doesn't appear to be a lot about the process of production. Jclemens (talk) 02:55, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- What I was going for here is that the first paragraph describes minerals containing primarily Ag; but these are too sparse now to serve as useful sources, so the rest of the section describes instead the current sources, which have Ag as a secondary constituent. Because true silver ores are not really exploited today (too little of that) there is naturally not as much about production as there is for Fe. Most of the Ag produced from ores of base metals like Cu, Pb, and Zn follows the production of those metals until the electrolytic steps covered in the article (which uses Cu as the example), so the stuff before that isn't really focused on Ag and varies quite widely depending on which metal is being followed. I will try to tighten this to make it clearer, hopefully by tomorrow. Double sharp (talk) 15:10, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Applications

Earliest, or earliest known coin? There's also the 'western world' qualifier, but nothing about Eastern coinage is included in the subsection. Also, shouldn't western be capitalized?
Do we have any numbers on the ratio of jewellery to coinage in silver usage?
How does silver polish work chemically? Does it just remove the surface layer?
For the urinary catheter and VAP references, I'd recommend putting them with their specific clauses, rather than together at the end of the paragraph, even though it's quite clear by title which refers to which.
Is anyone actually still making vacuum tubes? The tense implies so.
- Yes, but mostly for restoration of vintage equipment. Since this is essentially a historical application now I've changed the tense for it. Double sharp (talk) 15:32, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nanoparticles has a clause on the inability of bacteria to develop resistance to silver that is likely more interesting to and appropriately placed with the medical uses section. Jclemens (talk) 02:16, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- I've moved the clause. Double sharp (talk) 15:50, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Precautions

The explosive notes seem redundant to the discussion in 'other inorganic particles'. Having it in two places won't necessarily be bad, of course... Jclemens (talk) 02:16, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Yeah, I wondered about that for a while. The trouble I find is that both sections feel slightly incomplete without the explosive notes: like it or not, explosion is kind of the signature reaction of these compounds (the silver azide article has the hilarious line "In its most characteristic reaction, the solid decomposes explosively"), and it is quite evidently something that one needs to be wary of. For that reason I rather like the near-duplication, since the first mention focuses on the chemistry of what happens, and the mention in "Precautions" focuses on how to stop it from happening in the first place. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 15:47, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Second Look

None of the outstanding issues/ideas/comments are sufficient to deny a GA for this article at this point. Congratulations! Jclemens (talk) 19:04, 5 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, though I shall still go through the remaining ones to get it even better! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 01:45, 6 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]