Talk:Soviet Project K nuclear tests

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merge?[edit]

OK, I'll take a shot at merging "The K project" and "The Soviet Project K nuclear tests", as I'm the one who created that second just recently. I think the second title, if more wordy, is also more descriptive. SkoreKeep (talk) 09:37, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Done on 2013-12-30. SkoreKeep (talk) 16:44, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Good job. The original article's title violated WP:THE, so this is a better title for it. Kolbasz (talk) 16:35, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Locations in the table[edit]

The locations mention in words are the places from which the missiles were launched. The places with the lat/lon tags are the estimated places of the explosions. All five were launched from Kapustin Yar, a missile test launch area in the Astrakhan region of Russia, just west of the western Kazakhstan border. They were targeted on Sary Shagan, a missile and radar test area in eastern Kazakhstan just west of lake Balkhash. The tests were designed that the nukes were to go off in the air above Sary Shagan, which all but K3 did. K3 went off at the apex of it's ballistic, above central Kazakhstan west of Zhezkasgan.

I suppose I need to add to the Location footnote. *sigh*. SkoreKeep (talk) 09:08, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What had me confused was the words referring to the Kapustin Yar launch site, immediately followed by coordinates off in the middle of Kazakhstan. I think that anyone else would find this quite misleading. Also, readers should not have to look at the footnotes to understand that the words refer to the launch site and the coordinates refer to the detonation site. So I've added some clarification about this in the table itself. X5dna (talk) 10:44, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I've been contemplating what to do about the rocket thing. The example that came first to mind was Frigate Bird, which was launched and exploded in open waters, 1200 miles apart. For the moment all I can say is that the lat/lon tags are always the explosions. I guess I've got to rethink how exactly the "wordy" descriptions happen, and what to do to make them work consistently, at least among rocket launches. I really want to highlight both the locations.

I like what you did; I'll probably do something very similar to that.

Thanks for stirring up the bees here; I needed that!! SkoreKeep (talk) 11:45, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK, how's that?

BTW, there are 10 US high altitude shots, 22 for the Soviets, and 7 US space shots, 4 for the Soviets. That counts aborted and canceled shots; I'm liberal about counting everything.SkoreKeep (talk) 04:25, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Although the missiles of the K Project were all fired toward a point on the Saryshagan test range, it is inaccurate to call this "their ultimate destination" or its "goal" since the test would have been regarded as a disaster if it had impacted on the Saryshagan range, with the nuclear warhead debris making a mess on the prairie.

It would have been an even greater disaster if the warhead had detonated at the end of the missile trajectory on the Saryshagan range.

I'm not sure what is the best wording to use, but "ultimate destination" doesn't seem to be an accurate description of someplace you never intend to go. (I would use "end of the missile trajectory," but perhaps the average reader doesn't understand what a missile trajectory is.) For example, if I am going from New York to London, and I fly on a plane that is going from New York to Paris, with a stopover in London, then I can't say that Paris is my ultimate destination if I don't intend to go there. X5dna (talk) 11:00, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I'll agree with that. The Soviets were pretty cavalier about using Kazakhstan that way. However, it's pretty much imbedded in the language; Frigate Bird did it, even though the target was just an empty spot on the ocean. I fixed the comments to read "high above Sary Shagan"; they'll be changed on the page in due course. SkoreKeep (talk) 16:38, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The table on this page is generated by database[edit]

The table on this page and the contents of any nuclear tests infobox are generated from a database of nuclear testing which I have maintained and researched for a number of years. The table is automatically generated from that database by a Visual Basic script, and then has, periodically, been inserted into the page manually. I began doing this in October of 2013.

Recently a user complained (politely) to me about the practice. It seems to him that it removes control from all editors besides myself over the content. He believes it is tantamount to WP:OWNED of the pages affected. He also points out that there is no public mention of the fact anywhere on wikipedia, and that is true, through my own oversight, until now.

There was no intent that the pages affected should be owned by myself; in fact, one of my reasons for building these pages was to solicit (in the wikipedia way) criticism and corrections to the data, perhaps additional references that I had been unable to locate. I have regenerated the tables twice in the days since they were originally placed. Each time I did so, I performed a diff between the current version and the version that I put up in the previous cycle; all corrections were then either entered into the database or corrected in the programming, as appropriate. As may be guessed, the programming corrections were frequent to start out as suggestions about the table formatting were raised, and most incorporated. I have not made judgements on the "usefulness" of corrections; all have been incorporated, or I have communicated directly with the editor to settle the matter. In fact it was in pursuing such a correction that this matter came up.

I am posting this comment on the Talk page of every page containing content which is so generated. If you would like to comment on this matter, please go to the copy on Talk:List of nuclear tests so the discussion can be kept together. I will also be placing a maintained template on each Talk page (if anyone would like also to be named as a maintainer on one or all pages, you are welcome). I solicit all comments and suggestions.

SkoreKeep (talk) 03:38, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

17:05, 2 June 2023 (UTC) Incarnuim (talk) 17:06, 2 June 2023 (UTC) For the table (and the database) the K3-K5 tests are also known as R1-R3 in the high-altitude effects community[reply]