On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:24:24 -0700, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
I find it hard to believe that the subjects of most of those articles were even remotely in the same ballpark of notability as a random episode from the TV show Scrubs, which is watched by millions and has a dedicated fan base. But articles about galaxies are Scholarly, so I don't expect anyone's going to purge that particular pile of minutiae any time soon. Better to go after the stuff that actually _distinguishes_ us from the Traditional and Scholarly encyclopedias.
But they're *galaxies*... they've got millions of stars in them, and maybe a few intelligent civilizations that have created a whole bunch of their equivalent of TV episodes. There may be plenty of reliable sources out there for all of this, it's just that they're all published in the other galaxy and we have no way of accessing them or even knowing they exist.
But they're *galaxies*... they've got millions of stars in them, and maybe a few intelligent civilizations that have created a whole bunch of their equivalent of TV episodes. There may be plenty of reliable sources out there for all of this, it's just that they're all published in the other galaxy and we have no way of accessing them or even knowing they exist.
If we have no way of knowing about it, it's irrelevant to the discussion. Let's stick to verifiable subjects, shall we? Our intended audience consists of humans, so the importance of a topic to humanity, rather than cosmic importance, is what's important.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
But they're *galaxies*... they've got millions of stars in them, and maybe a few intelligent civilizations that have created a whole bunch of their equivalent of TV episodes. There may be plenty of reliable sources out there for all of this, it's just that they're all published in the other galaxy and we have no way of accessing them or even knowing they exist.
If we have no way of knowing about it, it's irrelevant to the discussion. Let's stick to verifiable subjects, shall we? Our intended audience consists of humans, so the importance of a topic to humanity, rather than cosmic importance, is what's important.
I suspect Thomas' comments were intended to be ironic.
I certainly hope we never reach the point where there are serious votes of "Delete, NN intelligent alien civilization". Though considering how we've treated articles about the fictional ones, perhaps I shouldn't lay odds...
On 03/02/2008, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
But they're *galaxies*... they've got millions of stars in them, and maybe a few intelligent civilizations that have created a whole bunch of their equivalent of TV episodes. There may be plenty of reliable sources out there for all of this, it's just that they're all published in the other galaxy and we have no way of accessing them or even knowing they exist.
If we have no way of knowing about it, it's irrelevant to the discussion. Let's stick to verifiable subjects, shall we? Our intended audience consists of humans, so the importance of a topic to humanity, rather than cosmic importance, is what's important.
I suspect Thomas' comments were intended to be ironic.
I certainly hope we never reach the point where there are serious votes of "Delete, NN intelligent alien civilization". Though considering how we've treated articles about the fictional ones, perhaps I shouldn't lay odds...
My comments certainly weren't ironic. If the existence of an ETI is verifiable, then we should certainly have an article on it, but the hypothetical existence of one does not make a galaxy notable.
On Feb 3, 2008 7:53 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/02/2008, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
But they're *galaxies*... they've got millions of stars in them, and maybe a few intelligent civilizations that have created a whole bunch of their equivalent of TV episodes. There may be plenty of reliable sources out there for all of this, it's just that they're all published in the other galaxy and we have no way of accessing them or even knowing they exist.
If we have no way of knowing about it, it's irrelevant to the discussion. Let's stick to verifiable subjects, shall we? Our intended audience consists of humans, so the importance of a topic to humanity, rather than cosmic importance, is what's important.
I suspect Thomas' comments were intended to be ironic.
I certainly hope we never reach the point where there are serious votes of "Delete, NN intelligent alien civilization". Though considering how we've treated articles about the fictional ones, perhaps I shouldn't lay odds...
My comments certainly weren't ironic. If the existence of an ETI is verifiable, then we should certainly have an article on it, but the hypothetical existence of one does not make a galaxy notable.
What if the hypothetical existence of one is verifiable?
Aren't all galaxies inherently notable?
What if the hypothetical existence of one is verifiable?
If it's verifiable, it isn't hypothetical, is it?
Aren't all galaxies inherently notable?
Do you know how many galaxies there are? It's not practical to have articles on all of them, so I would say they are not inherently notable. Large ones, unusual ones, nearby ones, sure, but all of them? No chance.
On Feb 3, 2008 10:08 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
What if the hypothetical existence of one is verifiable?
If it's verifiable, it isn't hypothetical, is it?
The hypothesis can be verifiable.
Aren't all galaxies inherently notable?
Do you know how many galaxies there are?
Not exactly, no. I'm pretty sure it's a lot, though. Of course I'd only be referring to the ones we know about!
It's not practical to have articles on all of them, so I would say they are not inherently notable. Large ones, unusual ones, nearby ones, sure, but all of them? No chance.
Well, see above. In the case of galaxies that no one has ever written about, the question of "notability" is moot.
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/021127a.html
We estimate there are hundreds of billions. But only 3000 are "visible". I wonder what "visible" means, and I wonder how many are "observable".
On Feb 3, 2008 11:09 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Feb 3, 2008 10:08 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
What if the hypothetical existence of one is verifiable?
If it's verifiable, it isn't hypothetical, is it?
The hypothesis can be verifiable.
For example, [[Phaeton (hypothetical planet)]]
On 03/02/2008, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Feb 3, 2008 10:08 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
What if the hypothetical existence of one is verifiable?
If it's verifiable, it isn't hypothetical, is it?
The hypothesis can be verifiable.
In which case, we're talking about the notability of a hypothesis, not of a galaxy or an ETI. The hypothesis could have an article, but would a galaxy that's only claim to notability is being mentioned in this hypothesis warrant anything more than a redirect to the ariticle on the hypothesis?
Aren't all galaxies inherently notable?
Do you know how many galaxies there are?
Not exactly, no. I'm pretty sure it's a lot, though. Of course I'd only be referring to the ones we know about!
Well, we need to stick to the observable universe, certainly - anything outside the observable universe is causally disconnected from us, so is certainly not notable.
It's not practical to have articles on all of them, so I would say they are not inherently notable. Large ones, unusual ones, nearby ones, sure, but all of them? No chance.
Well, see above. In the case of galaxies that no one has ever written about, the question of "notability" is moot.
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/021127a.html
We estimate there are hundreds of billions. But only 3000 are "visible". I wonder what "visible" means, and I wonder how many are "observable".
I think that 3000 is how many there were in the tiny bit of sky they looked at. I think it's a reference to the Hubble deep field (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_deep_field). The total number of galaxies in the observable universe is in the billions, certainly.
On Feb 3, 2008 11:20 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/02/2008, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Feb 3, 2008 10:08 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
What if the hypothetical existence of one is verifiable?
If it's verifiable, it isn't hypothetical, is it?
The hypothesis can be verifiable.
In which case, we're talking about the notability of a hypothesis, not of a galaxy or an ETI. The hypothesis could have an article, but would a galaxy that's only claim to notability is being mentioned in this hypothesis warrant anything more than a redirect to the ariticle on the hypothesis?
I really don't see a difference between an article on a hypothesis of a galaxy and an article on the galaxy itself. Again, take [[Phaeton (hypothetical planet)]]. We don't call that [[hypothesis about a planet between Mars and Jupiter]].
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/021127a.html
We estimate there are hundreds of billions. But only 3000 are "visible". I wonder what "visible" means, and I wonder how many are "observable".
I think that 3000 is how many there were in the tiny bit of sky they looked at. I think it's a reference to the Hubble deep field (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_deep_field). The total number of galaxies in the observable universe is in the billions, certainly.
My bad. I made a poor use of terminology (I didn't really mean "within the observable universe"), and a terribly poor estimate of numbers anyway. You win, I lose.
I really don't see a difference between an article on a hypothesis of a galaxy and an article on the galaxy itself. Again, take [[Phaeton (hypothetical planet)]]. We don't call that [[hypothesis about a planet between Mars and Jupiter]].
I guess it's similar to people notable for a single event - we have an article on the event, not the person. The difference is rather subtle in many cases.
On Feb 3, 2008 11:39 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I really don't see a difference between an article on a hypothesis of a galaxy and an article on the galaxy itself. Again, take [[Phaeton (hypothetical planet)]]. We don't call that [[hypothesis about a planet between Mars and Jupiter]].
I guess it's similar to people notable for a single event - we have an article on the event, not the person.
This is actually done fairly sporadically and inconsistently. There's an article on Jérôme Kerviel and JonBenét Ramsey and Jesse Timmendequas and Jessica Lunsford and John Couey and Jean Charles de Menezes. The first person I could find that does redirect to the event was Megan Kanka, and that one seems like a mistake.
On Feb 3, 2008 11:20 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/02/2008, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Feb 3, 2008 10:08 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
What if the hypothetical existence of one is verifiable?
If it's verifiable, it isn't hypothetical, is it?
The hypothesis can be verifiable.
In which case, we're talking about the notability of a hypothesis, not of a galaxy or an ETI. The hypothesis could have an article, but would a galaxy that's only claim to notability is being mentioned in this hypothesis warrant anything more than a redirect to the ariticle on the hypothesis?
Aren't all galaxies inherently notable?
Do you know how many galaxies there are?
Not exactly, no. I'm pretty sure it's a lot, though. Of course I'd only be referring to the ones we know about!
Well, we need to stick to the observable universe, certainly - anything outside the observable universe is causally disconnected from us, so is certainly not notable.
It's not practical to have articles on all of them, so I would say they are not inherently notable. Large ones, unusual ones, nearby ones, sure, but all of them? No chance.
Well, see above. In the case of galaxies that no one has ever written about, the question of "notability" is moot.
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/021127a.html
We estimate there are hundreds of billions. But only 3000 are "visible". I wonder what "visible" means, and I wonder how many are "observable".
I think that 3000 is how many there were in the tiny bit of sky they looked at. I think it's a reference to the Hubble deep field (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_deep_field). The total number of galaxies in the observable universe is in the billions, certainly.
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Err, the number of galaxies in the observable universe is probably 10^10 - 10^13 or something ... the number of known galaxies? The number of known galaxies is probably a couple million, which is, I believe, the number in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. If someone really wanted to write the articles ....
But I do advocate [[WP:V|A third party source]] as a minimum inclusion criterion (Perhaps this is why I've been called "an inclusionist troll"), and only galaxies which've been catalogued in some publication should have articles - maybe 2 million tops. Which some such articles might not be of interested again for a while, they're certainly verifiable and encyclopaedic, and not doing any harm.
Cheers, WilyD
But I do advocate [[WP:V|A third party source]] as a minimum inclusion criterion (Perhaps this is why I've been called "an inclusionist troll"), and only galaxies which've been catalogued in some publication should have articles - maybe 2 million tops. Which some such articles might not be of interested again for a while, they're certainly verifiable and encyclopaedic, and not doing any harm.
If they haven't been mentioned in anything more than a catalogue, it's impossible to write more than a sentence about them (name, date of discovery and location is about it). I thought substubs were frowned opon.
On Feb 4, 2008 12:38 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
But I do advocate [[WP:V|A third party source]] as a minimum inclusion criterion (Perhaps this is why I've been called "an inclusionist troll"), and only galaxies which've been catalogued in some publication should have articles - maybe 2 million tops. Which some such articles might not be of interested again for a while, they're certainly verifiable and encyclopaedic, and not doing any harm.
If they haven't been mentioned in anything more than a catalogue, it's impossible to write more than a sentence about them (name, date of discovery and location is about it). I thought substubs were frowned opon.
Err, depends on how detailed the catalogue is - I've never looked at SDSS galaxy data, so I'm not sure, nor derivitive catalogues. Some "catalogy" datasets actually contain a reasonable amount of information with which to write a few sentences.
Substubs are probably a fiction anyhow - there'll be a backlash against "classification creep" before too long - the featured articles of 2004 are the B class articles of 2008.
But as for writing from catalogues - not five minutes ago I wrote http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9912_Donizetti from essentially two catalogue entries + a naming citation - while slightly more than a single catalogue entry, but the point still sticks - [[9912 Donizetti]] is clearly a stub, not a "substub" - it contains almost all the important bits of information on the body. I actually noticed now it has a type from an SDSS catalogue, which means the article, so three cataglogues + naming citation .. fine, the point remains. Useful, short, acadmic, written from catalogues + a naming citation. Three sentences, true, because most of the information is better presented in an infobox. Without that, it'd be two or three paragraphs. But almost all this information is available in a single catalogue from the Minor Planet Center, yet supports a reasonable article ... and certainly more informative catalogues exist to boot.
Cheers WilyD
On 04/02/2008, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
Err, depends on how detailed the catalogue is - I've never looked at SDSS galaxy data, so I'm not sure, nor derivitive catalogues. Some "catalogy" datasets actually contain a reasonable amount of information with which to write a few sentences.
Of course. I'm assuming there aren't 2 million galaxies mentioned in detailed catalogues. I could be wrong though, I haven't actually looked at them. The number of galaxies we can non-substub articles on is presumably much smaller than the number of catalogued galaxies.
On Feb 4, 2008 1:37 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/02/2008, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
Err, depends on how detailed the catalogue is - I've never looked at SDSS galaxy data, so I'm not sure, nor derivitive catalogues. Some "catalogy" datasets actually contain a reasonable amount of information with which to write a few sentences.
Of course. I'm assuming there aren't 2 million galaxies mentioned in detailed catalogues. I could be wrong though, I haven't actually looked at them. The number of galaxies we can non-substub articles on is presumably much smaller than the number of catalogued galaxies.
In the end, what's wrong with an article that contains the sum total of human knowledge on a subject, even if it's short, as long as it's verifiable and on a subject matter suitable for an encyclopaedia?
WilyD
On 2/3/08, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/02/2008, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
The hypothesis can be verifiable.
In which case, we're talking about the notability of a hypothesis, not of a galaxy or an ETI. The hypothesis could have an article, but would a galaxy that's only claim to notability is being mentioned in this hypothesis warrant anything more than a redirect to the ariticle on the hypothesis?
Rather than "notable" or "verifiable", which obviously don't apply to hypothetics, "attributable" is the word you gentlemen are looking for. If we have an article about a hypothetical galaxy, it is (a) garden-variety sci-fi, or (b) the pipe dream of a leading astrophysicist.
In neither case would said galaxy necessarily exist, nor would it be worth mentioning if not directly attributed to somebody who might know what the fuck they're talking about.
In no case should it be presented "in-universe" (haha, sorry) as an actual fact.
Well, we need to stick to the observable universe, certainly - anything outside the observable universe is causally disconnected from us, so is certainly not notable.
Well, that's a bloody arbitrary place to draw the line. ;D
The total number of galaxies in the observable universe is in the billions, certainly.
Carl Sagan would have gotten a right chuckle out of Wikipedia if only he'd lived to see it.
—C.W.