Wikipedia:Peer review/Coal ball/archive3

Coal ball

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
The previous peer review had no comments, and after a long absence from editing Wikipedia I would like to know how to proceed.

Thanks, →Σ σ ς. (Sigma) 23:03, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Are you trying to get this past an A class review, or up to a featured article standard? One way to generate interest would be to put a note on the projects' talk pagea, particularly palaeontology and ask for help. A class assessment would belong to projects.

My first comment would be use of the term "permineralised" in the opening sentence. This should be explained in that sentence, as I expect that 99.9% of our readers (including me) do not know what it means.
Some sentences are poorly worded, and should be reordered for clarity.
The caption for the image under "content" has no clear connection with the image, what is in the picture?
The distribution section could have more details as to location rather than just countries.
There should be more detail on what X-ray powder diffraction has found rather than just generalizations.
Are there current examples of the formation of this material? Can it be made artificially? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:53, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the advice. My goal is to bring this to FA or FAC by Christmas (as a gift to my ego, as well). I will work on these issues soon. With this in mind, brutal criticism is appreciated.

I expected to be completely out of the loop after being effectively inactive for 2 years, but it's still a pretty jarring feeling... →Σ σ ς. (Sigma) 02:03, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

The first section, "Introduction to the scientific world, and formation", seems a bit unstructured: it starts with the late 1800s and early 1900s, in past tense, then uses present tense and 1970s references in the "There are two theories...", then goes back to to pre 1950s references and past-tense, so its a bit unclear as to when the debates arose and what their modern (2000's) standings are.
It might be an improvement to break up the first section into history of discovery, then theories on formation, to improve logical flow and organization and shorten the rather cumbersome title.
Regarding references: Of the 34 references I count only 9 dated references that are from 1985 or later. This suggests the potential for outdated information. More recent articles and/or sources that place historic theories in context are preferred.
Although coal balls are usually about the size of a man's fist,[24] their sizes vary greatly, ranging from that of a walnut up to 3 feet (1 m) in diameter.[25] Coal balls have been found that were smaller than a thimble.[19] - This seems unnecessarily indirect and imprecise: why not simply define the sizes in standard units rather than requiring the reader to look up or imagine the size of a walnut or thimble?
The body mentioned that coal balls are not made of coal, yet the wiktionary link to coalification defines coalification as the formation of coal: it would be best to clearly define this in text (I suppose coalification could refer to "prehistoric peats" mentioned earlier, in either case it is unclear to which "their" refers to).
In Distribution, the nations should probably be grouped by continent or other region, as England is a lot closer to Belgium than Australia.
Some links in references appear to be dead: the UCSB "Materials Research Lab – Introduction to X-ray Diffraction"; and the "Paleobotany". Cleveland Museum of Natural History.,
The Further reading section might benefit from some pruning: if there is substantial content that is not in the article, it should be added and properly referenced. If the sources are largely redundant, or superseded by more recent sources, they should be eliminated (why direct the reader to an 1873 encyclopedia article when they just read a 2014 encyclopedia article on Wikipedia?). There is no need to create a directory of articles that mention coal balls. --Animalparty-- (talk) 21:44, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the Coal ball from southern illinois image might be moved higher up in the article, e.g. in formation or contents, as it provides good visual context that the thin sections don't provide. Going from macroscopic to microscopic might aid in comprehension. I second the comments above regarding the image in Contents: Where in the image is Calcite and microdolomite located? --Animalparty-- (talk) 21:53, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think I'll work on sorting out outdated sources first. I am currently scouring the entire internet for papers that I haven't read before. Your comments are always appreciated. →Σ σ ς. (Sigma) 08:12, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

On a related note, I think this person would be enormously beneficial for the development of the article. I've been trying to establish first contact with him since a few weeks ago, but he hasn't returned my emails. Any idea on how to proceed next? →Σ σ ς. (Sigma) 07:32, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would refrain from any additional attempts to contact the above professor - a retired professor who is possibly still active in research may simply have better things to do than volunteer their time and efforts to wikipedia, and repeated requests may be perceived as a nuisance. Better places for resources and assistance would be the Geology WikiProject as well as books and journals that may not be freely available online- public libraries and universities may allow access to such offline materials.--Animalparty-- (talk) 18:51, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]