Dark matter in fiction was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 11 December 2022 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Dark matter. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.
Dark matter was one of the Natural sciences good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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Hypothetical form of matter that interacts with gravity, ...
getting cut off. Remember, the short description doesn't need to have as much detail as a lead sentence and is mostly used to disambiguate. Most people see the SD in the search bar, where they've typed in something that is similarly-titled, not similarly-themed.
I believe "Hypothetical form of matter" would scan quickly, as guidelines suggest, and disambiguate well enough from the other articles that have "dark matter" in the name, which are mostly works of fiction. The closest that might cause confusion is Dark matter halo, which has SD "Theoretical cosmic structure". But since you are engaged on this topic I will leave it to your judgement. Wizmut (talk) 04:16, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it needs to say more than that, but a little more briefly, such as "Hypothetical form of matter that interacts with gravity, but not with the electromagnetic field" Bubba73You talkin' to me?05:01, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's not a short description, that's a long description. SD's are not load-bearing in the way a scoping statement is, they're purely to lubricate searches. Wizmut (talk) 05:05, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Hypothetical form of matter" would be ambiguous, there's a lot of hypothetical forms of matter around (Exotic matter). If we need a very short description, then make it "Concept in cosmology" or something. Banedon (talk) 06:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That works too. But the short description always appears alongside the title, and a user probably wouldn't be seeing the SD if they weren't already searching for something beginning with "Dark". Wizmut (talk) 06:54, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Most people see the short description when doing searches in the search bar. In a search for "Dark" something, they want to know if each result they see is the one they're looking for. Is it a film, a book, a concept, a politician.
Think of something to search for up top in the search bar, type in the first few letters, and see how long it takes to tell if each result is the one you're trying to find. If it takes too long or doesn't make sense, it's probably because the SDs aren't clear and concise enough. Wizmut (talk) 08:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But the next sentence says: "These descriptions appear in Wikipedia mobile and some desktop searches, and help users identify the desired article." They have no other purpose. They are invisible to normal readers. Johnjbarton (talk) 22:45, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It also says "Short descriptions provide: a very brief (emphasis mine) indication of the field covered by the article" and later "More than 80% of short descriptions use fewer than 40 characters (including spaces)."
It should convey the category or field, not be a definition. See WP:SDESC:
"Short descriptions provide:
a very brief indication of the field covered by the article
a short descriptive annotation
a disambiguation in searches, especially to distinguish the subject from similarly titled subjects in different fields" Wizmut (talk) 00:18, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The first three words of that are doing most of the work there - the reader can tell by that point if that's the article they want to click on. But 50 characters is an improvement over 100. Wizmut (talk) 00:25, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm for "concept in cosmology" then. "Hypothetical invisible matter", as the current short description is right now, is still not accurate since dark matter is potentially visible, just not with electromagnetic waves. Banedon (talk) 05:56, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think "visible" means "light" aka electromagnetic waves. However I also like "concept in cosmology", because the overall effect:
I will third that choice. Fits with guidelines suggesting that SDs can mention the field of the article topic. Wizmut (talk) 14:19, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In a recent edit @Paolosalucci added a section on M87. I don't understand how it fits in with the section "Observational evidence". Most or even all of the content in that section is about evidence for existence/ The added text ends with:
Remarkably, the dark matter halo shows a very large central region with an about constant density.
To me this is an analysis of the character of the dark matter halo, not observational evidence for existence. Similarly the cited reference is assumes dark matter from beginning to end. It seems to me that this content belongs in Dark matter halo. A bit more needs to be said about the significance of the 'remarkable' part. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:38, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed this section since the relevance is unclear. It's one of the many pieces of evidence that dark matter exists if GR/Newtonian mechanics is valid, but I don't see how this contributes evidence for dark matter that the Bullet Cluster doesn't already do (Bullet Cluster does it better too, since it is explicitly difficult for modified gravity theories to explain). Banedon (talk) 01:47, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Kelvin's and Poincare's "dark matter" has no apparent connection to our present idea of dark matter as different from ordinary matter. Kelvin's idea is plainly about dark stars, which he thought of as ordinary matter. I don't see how it belongs here. The real origin of the dark matter problem is in the study of galactic rotation. I suggest Kelvin and Poincare be deleted as irrelevant. Is there any reason to think they have any connection to the dark matter needed to explain gravitational behavior? If so, it should be in the history. Zaslav (talk) 21:01, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but the reliable sources clearly show the current version is fine.
Bertone, Gianfranco, and Dan Hooper. "History of dark matter." Reviews of Modern Physics 90.4 (2018): 045002.
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