Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mu Canis Majoris

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. WP:SNOW The Bushranger _{One ping only} 02:00, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mu Canis Majoris

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Non notable enough star to held an article for itself. Not much information found to support a standalone article. Hahc21 ^{[TALK][CONTRIBS]} 06:24, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as non-notable star. Disclaimer: I tagged this article for notability some time ago as part of the New Page Patrol. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:51, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 07:26, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I refer you to here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(astronomical_objects). It explicitly states:
- "1. The object is, or has been, visible to the naked eye. For ordinary stars, this includes any object with an HR catalogue identifier." Ergo, it meets the notability guidelines and should be kept.Benkenobi18 (talk) 08:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment French and Italian wikipedias have the star. It has a Bayer designation, and also appeared in Ptolemy's catalogues. I don't see why if it's on French and Italian wikipedias why it shouldn't have an English article. Benkenobi18 (talk) 08:13, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Each language Wikipedia sets up its own requirements for content inclusion. That French and Italian Wikipedias include this star is irrelevant. What is relevant is if it meets the notability requirements of the English Wikipedia, and of that I make no comment. LadyofShalott 00:17, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

- The sentences you quote are conditional on the sentence If an astronomical object meets any of the following criteria, supported through independent reliable sources. Which this is not true in this case. I also suggest that repeating the same arguement on my talk page is unnecessary. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:02, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment Notability guidelines require multiple attestations in reliable secondary sources. For Messier objects, we look at the New General Catalogue. For stars, it's the Bright Star Catalogue. Just making the cut off is sufficiently notable to warrant an article. Benkenobi18 (talk) 09:40, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep- HR designation supported by this entry from SIMBAD & Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg, an independent reliable source. Dru of Id (talk) 09:20, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've notified WikiProject Astronomy of this AfD. Dru of Id (talk) 10:26, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep -- Appears to meet notability requirements based on the above provided references. JoelWhy? talk 21:25, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Naked-eye visible means it satisfies WP:NASTRO. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 14:34, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep/(was dubious): Why is HR 2593 located at 06 56 06.646 -14 02 36.35 while HD 51241 is located at 06 57 17.493 +19 29 55.52 (in Gemini)? Something looks wrong. Update: The wrong name was used. The correct name is HD 51251 -- Kheider (talk) 14:36, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- The creator confused HD 51241 with HD 51251, considering the original state of the article, it's not surprising there are such errors. 70.24.251.208 (talk) 15:26, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thanks for catching the typo!Benkenobi18 (talk) 18:39, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - Isn't Mu Canis Majoris (HD 56847 @ 07 18 09.638 -15 37 41.98) a different star than HD 51250 (06 56 06.646 -14 02 36.35)? -- Kheider (talk) 22:26, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      - Seems to be... MU CMa (HD 56847)... which is listed as "V* MU CMa", variable star MU CMa, so "MU" is the variable star designation (double latin-letter). So it would be MU Canis Majoris, part of cluster NGC 2360 -- 70.24.251.208 (talk) 07:31, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Per the five pillars, Wikipedia is more than just an encyclopaedia. It's also an almanac and, particularly relevant to this discussion, Wikipedia's a gazetteer. Although this content wouldn't strictly speaking belong in an encyclopaedia, it belongs on Wikipedia because of our gazetteer function.
The way this translates into notability terns, I've always understood, is that stars are like geographical locations for the purposes of notability. What this means is that you can use maps as reliable sources (provided the map has a reputation for reliability—so if a location appears on an Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 map, for example, it would automatically be notable). Specifically for astronomical objects, star charts count, and it's usually trivial to find objects from the Bright Star Catalogue on a star chart.
Generally, this bit of the five pillars that defines Wikipedia as a gazetteer and almanac makes it extremely difficult to delete material that's about a real (non-fictional) place, date or time.—S Marshall T/C 15:46, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

At apparent magnitude 5, Mu Canis Majoris (18 CMa) is a naked eye star and thus passes Wikipedia:Notability (astronomical objects). -- Kheider (talk) 15:54, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I understand that. I was trying to help the nominator understand why our notability criteria for astronomical objects work in this way.—S Marshall T/C 16:02, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info. I was a little unaware of the guidelines for astronomical objects. --Hahc21 ^{[TALK][CONTRIBS]} 16:38, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NASTRO does not say that star charts can be used as reliable sources. It says that if an object is listed in a major catalog of interest to amateur astronomers, then it is probably notable. NASTRO was specifically written so that the "geographic location"-argument is not applicable to astronomical objects. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 20:42, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This recalls our conversation on Wikipedia talk:Notability (astronomical objects) about six months ago when you wanted to promote your essay to a guideline. There is no reason to prevent star charts being used as reliable sources for notability purposes.—S Marshall T/C 12:32, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - as a naked eye object, this star is clearly notable, per the relevant notability guideline. AstroCog (talk) 20:43, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Borderline keep because it satisfied WP:NASTRO. But I don't hold much hope of this article expanding significantly. The statement about it being a "quadruple star system" is suspect. Eggleton and Tokovinin (2008) list it as a binary star; SIMBAD lists it as a double star. Regards, RJH (talk) 21:12, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It apparent notability is reasonably clear from the article as it now stands, but this was one of a swathe of stubs created with really minimal infomation. Since pretty much all the information appears to come from SIMBAD and that information looks machine readable, could future stub creation be done in a way that includes a reasonable amount of information about the object? Two sentences explaining the object in terms a 10-year-old will understand would also go a great way to supporting the educational purposes of wikipedia. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:50, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- That's an interesting idea. It should be possible, in theory. A potential problem is that not all SIMBAD lookups are successful with the naming convention used on Wikipedia. But perhaps it could be limited to lookups based on the HD number or other standard catalogues. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:56, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - It should be based on the HR number (Bright Star Catalogue) to keep it to the naked eye stars. But do you want a bot creating 9,500 naked eye star articles? Just as with main-belt asteroids, it is best if a human decides what is a notable naked eye star or at least limit any potential bot to stars brighter than vmag 4. -- Kheider (talk) 17:12, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - If they're created right, I see no problem with a bot creating 9,500 naked eye star articles. By right I mean (a) natural language text paragraphs explaining the implications of some of these numbers (this can be templated relatively simply) (b) properly formatted infobox and references (c) all the observation data and numbers formatted as their respective communities expect to see them formatted (I'll defer to the communities on what that might be) and (d) structured so that the information can be harvested by others, i.e. DBpedia. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:38, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment, If there's specific information regarding a particular star that you would like added, request it on the talk page. I'm working on filling the holes right now in an area where English Wikipedia has poor coverage that is actually superceded by some of the other wikipedias. It's much easier to expand a stub, once the stubs are in place. I'm always happy to improve the articles - but I can't read minds. If there's something you'd like to see, request it! Benkenobi18 (talk) 04:26, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.