Talk:Electricity

GA Reassessment

Electricity

The following discussion 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.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found

Result: Kept as GA after work by Femke and XOR. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 02:00, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

There's some uncited information being

• Faraday's disc was inefficient and of no use as a practical generator, but it showed the possibility of generating electric power using magnetism, a possibility that would be taken up by those that followed on from his work.
• The Electrochemistry section
• The Electronics section
• Thus, the work of many researchers enabled the use of electronics to convert signals into high frequency oscillating currents, and via suitably shaped conductors, electricity permits the transmission and reception of these signals via radio waves over very long distances.

And that's it. Should be relatively easy to fix unless other problems are noticed. Onegreatjoke (talk) 00:15, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

• There are seven general references listed in this article. WP:V accepts general references as a valid means of verifying an aticle except for certain specific categories of information. The GA criteria do not impose any additional constraints. Despite the attitude of many reviewers that inline cites are always wanted, this has never been a requirement. Thus, lack of inline citations does not equate to uncited and is not a valid reason, in itself, for failing a GA. The OP states that this "should be relatively easy to fix." If the OP is not challenging the material, one has to wonder why they have not just attempted to fix it themselves rather than bring it to review. I note that most of this material was not in the article at the time of promotion, so worst case, it could just be removed again to bring it back to GA condition. The bullet point that was in the article is on the Faraday disc, which is not only an extremely well known fact, but as the OP said, is very easily cited [1][2][3]. SpinningSpark 13:42, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

  Ok, but general references should at least be shown in the section it's sourcing in my opinion. The entirety of the Electrochemistry and Electronics section look unsourced. Where is the general reference for them? It's not in the section at all so i have to assume. Plus, when i say "should be relatively easy to fix." I say that because I mention that someone with enough knowledge can fix this. I can't because I'm not knowledgeable with energy related topics nor at finding sources for them. That's why i've opened this review, someone can help save the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 17:39, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

  WP:GENREF, which are indeed perfectly acceptable, are almost always listed at the end of an article. When reviewing GAs, especially at GAR which can be demoralising to people, it's really important not to impose your own standards. Inline cites are better, but not required for a GA. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:49, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

  I'm willing to tackle the generation section, which needs a bit of an update. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:58, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

  "...general references should at least be shown in the section it's sourcing in my opinion". GA should be judged on the criteria, not on your opinion, which is ridiculous. If the reference was shown in the section, it would be an inline ref, not a general ref by definition. The question is not whwere is the general ref for those sections, but what part of them is it required to have an inline cite according to WP:V. SpinningSpark 18:09, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

  Ok, I admit my fault. But regardless, you can't just say that there's a general reference that verifies the claims and not say what. I can't determine if there's a general reference that cites the electrochemistry and electronic sections if a general reference isn't pointed out. Onegreatjoke (talk) 18:49, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

  "you can't just say that there's a general reference that verifies the claims and not say what". Yes, you can. You'll need to assume good faith on the person adding it. The onus is on the GAR nominator to show that the general references are unlikely to cover the material at hand. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:18, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

  I kind of disagree on that a bit, I personally am not finding what references would at least generally support the two uncited sections. I know I need to assume good faith but I'm not seeing what general references he's mentioning. There may be those references but I don't what they are. Plus, he himself admits that "I note that most of this material was not in the article at the time of promotion, so worst case, it could just be removed again to bring it back to GA condition." so the idea of those specific areas not containing general references since they weren't there from the original GA isn't completely far-fetched either. Onegreatjoke (talk) 22:32, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

  Hughes has a chapter on electrolysis, a chapter on semiconductors, and a chapter on electronic systems. Those cover at least the majority of the sections you identified as problematic. SpinningSpark 18:24, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

• My issue with the way that general references are used in this article is that as a reader I cannot verify what source each piece of article content comes from. The article doesn't make it sufficiently clear. I think general references can work quite well in short articles but longer ones need some way of being able to match content with the source. Additionally, a check with WhoWroteIt reveals that content has been added by editors who didn't add sources nor did they say in the edit summary which source was used. It is possible that existing article references would support the added content, but is this really reasonable to assume, given the frequency with which well meaning editors add unsourced content to articles? And there are other issues such as needs update tags. (t · c) buidhe 18:14, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

  I placed the tags as a to-do list for me. Will work on this in next two weeks —Femke 🐦 (talk) 09:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Chidgk1: why did you replace a high-quality source I just added with a think tank source that did not verify all the information? It only talks about climate change as environmental concern. These news articles are not ideal sources, as statements like "Demand increase is being met by renewable sources" will be untrue in a few years time. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 14:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Femke Ah sorry did not notice you had just added that source. However I have cited Ember before in other articles and it seems to be high quality and reliable. I think "Demand increase is being met by renewable sources" will remain true for decades to come. As for your point about not verifying all the info I will go back and check that if you and others are happy with Ember generally Chidgk1 (talk) 15:15, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  While I see no reason to think Ember is unreliable, it is a campaign organisation and should therefore be used with caution. Of course, we're writing a GA here, not an FA, so it's not an immediately problem.

  The sentence "Demand increase is being met by renewables" implied that renewables are not replacing existing demand. This is likely going to be false soon. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:53, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  Furthermore, the source you cited for storage does not contain any information about pumped hydro as a long-term storage, nor a mention of capacitors. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:00, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  And if you cite a 150-page report, please provide a page number.. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:01, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  Was having a slight technical problem searching or maybe I got the different reports mixed up while I was looking for the page - now using a much shorter cite which covers batteries and condensers. Will find another cite to add later this evening to cover the rest - if I forget fell free to tag/ping me Chidgk1 (talk) 15:25, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

NOTE: very sadly, Spinningspark has just passed away. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:09, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know. Sad to see such a good editor pass away.

I'll work on this next weekend again. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 12:19, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately , real life is too busy I am going to have to let this go. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:05, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

@Femke: Just to make sure, you are calling for a delist? Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 01:37, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

I put in some work on the referencing. I think the page looks fairly decent at this point, but I don't know how other people feel it falls with regard to the GA criteria. XOR'easter (talk) 14:50, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Not having done a deep dive in terms of source-text integrity, I think the article is will be at GA level after the work on referencing in done. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:03, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

• All the {{citation needed}} tags have been addressed now. XOR'easter (talk) 12:59, 25 March 2023 (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.

Electricity Synopsis

This is a synopsis of this page. It should describe some basic information about the page and give an idea about the content a user will find out the rest of the page. Geraldine Cuison (talk) 16:17, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Cultural perception

It would be relevant to observe in the topic Cultural perception. Note: A heart which is in asystole (flatline) cannot be restarted by a defibrillator; it would be treated only by cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and medication, and then by cardioversion or defibrillation if it converts into a shockable rhythm. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defibrillation 189.28.128.242 (talk) 14:42, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Baghdad Battery nonsense

"According to a controversial theory, the Parthians may have had knowledge of electroplating, based on the 1936 discovery of the Baghdad Battery, which resembles a galvanic cell, though it is uncertain whether the artifact was electrical in nature."

According to a controversial theory the Great Pyramid of Giza was built by aliens, but we don't mention that. A large portion of the page on the Baghdad Battery is dedicated to explaining why the theory is disagreed with, because basically every modern archaeologist agrees that it's not a battery. It's a theory from the 1930s that even at the time stood on relatively tentative evidence but which today is pretty confidently agreed to be wrong.

So describing it as "a controversial theory" here is misleading, it implies there's at least a degree of mainstream scientific support for the theory still, which there is not. A better phrasing would be "a now discredited theory", or even to just omit the sentence (it's in truth not really relevant to a brief overview of the history of electricity). 2A02:C7C:C4CD:A500:FC26:956F:AE45:BBF8 (talk) 19:33, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 April 2024

The second sentence of the Electricity article's History section claims that Ancient Egyptian texts refer to electric fish as "Thunderer of the Nile" in a (fair) misinterpretation of the text being cited, under cite note 2 of the article. The text from the citation states:

Long before the true nature of electricity was known, ancient Egyptians (2750 BC) revered the "thunderer of the Nile," the electric catfish Malapterurus electricus, as the protector of fish.

The cited text does not claim that Ancient Egyptian texts themselves refer to electric fish as "Thunderer of the Nile," rather suggesting that the term was being used by the author as a synonym for the fish. To support this, the claim that ancient Egyptian texts used this name erroneously suggests that ancient Egyptians knew of a link between the electric fish and thunder, long before the nature of lightning was ever known to be caused by the same forces as the electric fish.

Please change:

Ancient Egyptian texts dating from 2750 BCE referred to these fish as the "Thunderer of the Nile", and described them as the "protectors" of all other fish.

to:

Ancient Egyptian texts dating from 2750 BCE referred to these fish as the protector of other fish.

Response

I don't see the term "Thunderer of the Nile" as originating in the referenced document. For one thing, I find the same term describing the electric catfish Malapterurus, in an 1892 article of the The Eclectic Magazine written by John Gray McKendrick, its wording suggesting that the term is much older in origin. —BillC ^talk 08:52, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

The wording for this request may not have been clear enough. The term was being used by the author as a synonym for the fish, and this usage does not suggest that the synonym originated from ancient Egyptian texts. The current Electricity article outright claims that the ancient Egyptian texts refer to these fish as the "Thunderer of the Nile," and the cited source makes no such claim. 2605:8600:560:AB14:B5CE:3B7A:38D7:1F94 (talk) 17:54, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

 Done. The source does not say the Ancient Egyptians called it that. I removed "Thunderer" completely because the nickname seems unnecessary. HansVonStuttgart (talk) 12:43, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

References