Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Archive table of exoplanets

Just how notable are individual extrasolar planets these days?

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Been going through the extrasolar planet articles doing cleanup: almost all of them seem to contain one or more of made-up classification schemes, made-up radii (which are then combined with m sin(i) to generate density and gravity values!!!), and various claims of classification schemes which are unreferenced. The text in many of these articles is apparently written by an editor with a compulsive need to show that they can convert AU into gigametres and microparsecs, or days into megaseconds, etc. and is just a repetition of the infobox in prose form. Are these really notable enough to warrant separate articles, or should we just redirect them to either the articles on the parent star or the list of extrasolar planets?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Icalanise (talk • contribs)

I'd say an extrasolar article likely warrants a separate article if it has been the subject of multiple scientific journal articles, or if there is a wealth of detail available. Otherwise, in most cases short planet articles could just be merged, per WP:MERGE. Hopefully later on, as more information becomes available, the planet article can be split off again as size warrants it. The biggest issue with the merge, as I see it, is the resulting template bloat, which can create layout issues on narrower browsers.—RJH (talk) 17:06, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I strongly disagree on merging extrasolar planets. It's fun to have articles about extrasolar planets, even with only a limited information. I added speculations to a lot of extrasolar planet articles, but I won't do it again unless there is a reliable source about it. All extrasolar planets have categories extrasolar planets, exoplanets discovered by year, exoplanets detected by method, constellations about where planets are located, and important classes of exoplanets such as hot Jupiters and super-Earths. In planetboxes in extrasolar planet articles, there is more data than mass, period, semimajor axis, and eccentricity. There's also a datas about the parent star, argument of periastron, time of periastron, semi-amplitude, other angular properties such as inclination in some articles, physical properties other than mass in some articles such as transiting exoplanets and planets detected by direct imaging, and discovery information. I got an idea, we should expand those articles, including the info about how the planet was discovered, more about its orbit, including dynamics, mass, and planetary models. Many journals have access to PDF that contains lots of information about how the planet was discovered and their characteristics (in most cases talking about orbit and mass). BlueEarth (talk | contribs) 22:09, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

True, there is a certain amount of data available on each of the planets. However, per Wikipedia:Merging (3), "if a page is very short and is unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it with a page on a broader topic." Planets usually should be described in the context of the star that they orbit; hence, Wikipedia:Merging (2) and possibly (4) can also apply. Please understand that a merge is not a bad option; you're simply bringing together topics that are closely related, rather than requiring page hopping to get the full picture. A separate page is more appropriate in cases that satisfy Wikipedia:Splitting, which is usually around 40–60 Kb. The Epsilon Eridani page is a decent example of an article where separate planet articles are probably justified.—RJH (talk) 15:23, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Being that Epsilon Eridani is already a well developed B-class article with 54 references, I am not sure that it is a useful example of how or when it would be a good idea to start an exo-planet article separate from the star. Epsilon Eridani does not settle the discussion on whether and when there should be separate articles for lesser known exo-planets. -- Kheider (talk) 07:41, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry but your comment doesn't make sense. Perhaps you could provide an example of when it make sense to split stub- or start-class stellar system articles? Thanks.—RJH (talk) 16:04, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, I can not think of a stub or start-class stellar object that obviously needs a separate article on each planet. Even the pulsar PSR B1257+12 is listed as a B-class article even though it has only 4 inline references and 5 generic references. Perhaps the article PSR B1257+12 is overrated and should only have a C-class rating? I have not rated many star articles. -- Kheider (talk) 17:45, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the choices of the astronomers who discover extrasolar planets might be a good guide at this point. Ten years ago, any discovery got an article of its own. Now, only particularly interesting exoplanets get their own paper, and most are grouped in with a handful of others. Planets with their own discovery paper automatically meet notability, I think, while planets that are part of a list of discovered planets in a paper might belong in a list on wikipedia too, until the planet gets coverage of its own. James McBride (talk) 23:38, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

As more (likely hundreds) of exoplanets (or at least "candidates") are discovered using transit photometry, I'd agree that we need to limit which ones get their own articles. I'd argue that the deciding factor should be confirmation using radial velocity. Considering the amount of work and of limited and expensive resources that go into a radial velocity confirmation, any planet that's gone through that process ought to have it's own article. Whether such planets are reported in single or multiple papers, or whether each such planet gets its own paper, isn't really a relevant measure of notability, and is more a function of how the various research teams work, and the policies of the journals in which they publish. Moreover, it's unclear to me what the cost of having "too many" exoplanet article around is in the first place. And let's not waste the limited time of exoplanet contributors here arguing about deletion; let's spend it (following BlueEarth's example) improving and expanding the articles (so that their value is made clear). — Aldaron • T/C 01:08, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Note I am not considering deleting information, I am proposing use of redirects. And secondly we should not be thinking in terms of costs of hosting these articles, but in terms of benefits to the readers. Does having one article basically just saying "this is a star which hosts a planet", and another just saying "this is a planet that orbits this star" really help anyone? If there is so little information present, why force the reader to go to the effort of additional navigation? Icalanise (talk) 13:54, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Considering that exoplanet detections are exploding, I think we should treat them like the asteroids in the section at the top of the page. The first several are definitely independently notable, because of the great interest in the subject. But now, interest has wained in the general population, and if all that is known are its basic orbital characteristics and mass range, then it should be merged into the star article, and a planet list (well... it should already appear on the planet list, since that is frequently updated...) and then redirect to the star or the planet list. 65.94.253.16 (talk) 05:51, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the decision should basically boil down to "can I create an article that is more than a stub, given the information that is currently available?" I highlight the part about currently-available information because obviously there is always the possibility that some future set of observations will reveal a huge number of details, but that is irrelevant to the state of the article now. Rather than having lots of itty-bitty stubs, it might be better to have one stub and a bunch of redirects. Obviously if there is enough material to go make a decent article (and no, an infobox plus text saying "this planet orbits at X megafurlongs in a period of Y centifortnights" is not a decent article), then go ahead. Icalanise (talk) 12:45, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

This just sounds like the deletionism. Stubs serve as a useful scaffolding for potential future articles and for attracting future contributions, even when they take a long time to grow; and they serve to ensure consistent presentation and predictable navigation and organization. Creating a patchwork of merges, and collections, based on some (to most readers) invisible logic about significance or patterns of publication makes little sense, benefits no one (neither readers nor contributors) and solve a problem that doesn't exist. Every exoplanet confirmed using radial velocity should have its own article, period. — Aldaron • T/C 02:19, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

What have you of the asteroids at the top section of this talk page then? Circumstances are similar, lack of information, existing lists that would contain most if not all the information available in articles such as they are, redirects from the valid names for the objects to the list (or in this case, star) Should not the same remedy be used for both the asteroids and these planets? 65.94.253.16 (talk) 05:42, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

No this is not deletionism. You have confused not having an article with not covering the subject. Furthermore it is easy to talk about these stubs being encouragement for a full article to grow, but I have recently been through the majority of the hundreds of extrasolar planet articles systematically removing a whole bunch of made-up crap that seems to be all-too-common in the Wikipedia extrasolar planet articles. Most of these articles had been untouched at stub class for years, with the occasional bot passing through or an interwiki link. Evidence is that these stubs just stay as stubs. I don't get why the idea of merging to form a somewhat more substantial article that can provide context is so abhorrent. Redirects and merges are a perfectly well-accepted part of Wikipedia, we should use them. Icalanise (talk) 08:47, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

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I suggest that instead of merging planets into stars, we should merge stars into planets. Merging stars into planets means we can add info to extrasolar planet articles about their parent stars such as characteristics and lifecycle. There are lot more star articles than exoplanet articles. In planetboxes in exoplanet articles, there are info about the star, including position, magnitude, distance, spectral class, and physical characteristics in addition to all the info about the planet. BlueEarth (talk | contribs) 01:05, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

If merging is going to happen, that makes some sense. But In general I just don't see the case for merging in the first place. — Aldaron • T/C 02:19, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

The planets are generally named after the stars, and should stars have more than one planet, such a merging makes no sense. Were we to merge multiple planets into a star system article, why not do so for single planet systems? 65.94.253.16 (talk) 05:42, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

The stars are generally better studied simply because it is the stars Doppler spectroscopy and/or dimming that allows the discovery of the planet(s). So merging the dominant host star (and then re-directing the star article?) into what could easily become a multiple planet system would be weird. Once ~1,000 exo-planets are known, they like the asteroids will become "old news" and fewer and fewer exo-planets will even gets stubs. But just like with the asteroids/TNOs, we should not allow a bot to go around creating 100s of exo-planet stubs that never get updated (and thus never get maintained) by the bot. I have created quite a few TNO/Centaur articles, but I hand-pick the ones I can at least get up to a strong-stub/weak-start class category.-- Kheider (talk) 07:32, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

The benefit of a merge would be to have all the information on the system in one place, instead of having to flip back and forth. But infobox collisions and resulting layout problems could make the effort less than worthwhile. Having multitudes of stubby planet articles lying around is no worse than having thousands of unmaintained and essentially useless minor planet articles, but it may not much better either. Shrug.—RJH (talk) 18:53, 5 April 2010 (UTC)