Talk:Toba catastrophe theory

Criticism

This article is interesting, and fairly well done; I commend all of you that have worked on it. But it has some very serious shortcomings. I would like to offer some critical comments towards improving the article, and towards improvement of editorial skills. I hope no one will take offense. I point to past failings not to embarrass anyone, but to correct matters, and to avoid future embarrassment.

One glaring shortcoming is several instances of gross inattention to detail. Like copying in names of authors by cut-and-paste, without going back to remove the extraneous superscripts. Everyone: please don't be in such a hurry whip up yet another article that you fail to do elementary copy editing! Put new material in a 'sandbox', then go over it several times before you add it to an article. Also, dig out the details! Pretty nearly every scientific journal has abstracts of their articles on-line, with all the bibliographic details. And in the last decade the use of DOI's has become near universal. Failure to include this kind of simple stuff suggests that the editor was in too much of a hurry — or perhaps too lazy? — to bother, and reflects poorly on the work.

Another shortcoming is mixing bibliographic details (in 'cite' or 'citation' templates) of source references in the text. (Building partial bibliographies in the notes is especially bad practice.) This just tangles up both references and text, and makes both hard to work with. Put the references in a separate section ("References"), and use 'Harv' templates to link specific citations with the reference. I have just done this to the article (comments above), and if you look at the markup you can see it is now much more readable it is now.

A major problem in this article is the citing of news stories about research, and not the research itself, and in heavy reliance on web sites. Such sources may be useful in explaining the significance of research, or documenting controversies, or just providing a less technical overview. But these are not research, and not as reliable as actual research. Don't use them as substitutes. And where you do use them, don't just point to where some statement exists on the Web — identify who said it, and when.

There are also some missing references (click through the links in the notes to find them) and a few other problems. Hopefully each of you will give the article a close read and correct any problems. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:49, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

In some of your remarks you are right. In some others IMO you are not. For instance, although I have worked on quite a few FAs, I have never used the "Harv" templates. The fact that you like them does not mean that they are the best choice; there are other alternatives as well. Not having a separate "References" section has also been acceptable is some good Wikipedia scientific articles, including FAs. It is not something I prefer, but it often works fine. In this particular article, when I did some editing, I felt that we had first to fix and improve what we have, and then decide about how the references – citations are going to be structured. It seems that you adopted a different approach. As regards the "news" citations, I agree that they cannot substitute the researches themselves, but, when I have no access to the researches (e.g. when I have to pay amounts of money I do not want to), I'll use news sources, especially when they adequately summarize the research itself; and in this case, at least IMO, such sources are fine, in terms of verifiability and comprehensiveness.--Yannismarou (talk) 09:53, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I do not say that Harv is absolutely the best way in all cases. I do say that there is strong case in favor of Harv, and my prior effort here was to demonstrate some of the benefits. A principal benefit is disentangling text and bibliographic details, so they don't confuse each, and errors and problems with each made clearer.

In your second point I am not clear on what you mean by "first to fix and improve what we have". It suggests the very discreditable "write first (based on what one already knows), then find sources to support it." But hopefully this is not what you meant. In any event, I would say that "structure" or style or method of citation is something that should be decided right at the start. Else there is all sorts of rework required, often when the details needed are no longer at hand. And the expectation that people will come back and do the rework is, sadly, naive, as can be seen by all the rework done on this article.

Your last point, about sources behind paywalls, can be a definite problem. Of course, that is mostly primary research, and we are supposed to use secondary sources. And "news" stories from many sources (Science, Nature, the N.Y. Times science writers) are generally quite reliable. But not perfect, and editors should not take any source as holy writ. Fortunately, I have found that many for-pay articles have been downloaded and posted somewhere; it just takes a lot of patience (and good search terms) to dig them out. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:09, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Two remarks and a conclusion:

• Yes, I partly mean what you do not like; I basically support the approach: "write first; decide later on the stylistic issues". Right or wrong (both subjective notions), this is what I believe, and this is how I have worked in Wikipedia with not so bad results I could say.
• I know that some of these articles can be found free sometimes in other sites. And, believe me, once upon a time I spent nights and nights searching such sites using every possible combination of search terms you can imagine; and I may have many deficiencies as an editor, but I do know that "digging" is one of the things I am good at. But, unfortunately, you cannot always find what you search for, even if you "dig" for hours and even if you concentrate in your efforts all the patience of the world.

Summarizing my experience from this article: I was fascinated by its topic after watching a documentary in the tv, and I decided to work on it, in order to upgrade it, and, why not, some time in the future see it FA or GA. I dedicated hours and hours of my precious everyday life; I digged and googled using all my imagination; I even spent money, when digging was hopeless. But, as much as I tried, and as much as I may be still fascinated by this article, at one point I came to a dead end. Why? Simply, because I am not a geologist, neither a specialist of any other related science. I did what I could up to a certain level, but to go higher from this level I needed the help (more accurately: the article needs the help) of a specialist. When your abilities are not enough, you must admit it and go on. However, I am certain that, putting on a balance the pros and cons of my edits, I believe that my rewritting overall benefited the article. Now, If there is such a willing specialized person willing to seriously work on this article, and if he/she decided that he/she needs my assistance (if such an assistance may be of any use for him/her), then I can wholeheartedly offer it, and he/she can count on me.--Yannismarou (talk) 15:47, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

  Yes, it is a fascinating topic. But credibility suffers if sourcing is screwed up.

  I agree that sometimes papers just can't be found in the Internet for free. (And I do spend hours on searches.) If I feel I really need them I look for paper copies. Sometimes interlibrary loan works, other times I go over to the school and photocopy. But if the article isn't really necessary, I just say the hell with it. And fantasize that the authors feel the sting of my disdain.  :-)

  I am pretty strongly against the "write first" approach. Possibly we could have good discussion on it, but for the most part this is probably not the proper place. [Woops! Belated signing.]   - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:09, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

  On thinking about this overnight, I am wondering if you might have taken some of my criticisms to heart. That was not my intent! I did point out some things that were done pretty sloppily. If any of that was your work, well, clean them up (much simpler than finding obscure articles), be more careful in the future, and it's all just a minor learning experience. Indeed, anyone that wants to improve the article should consider straightening out some of those details. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

What on earth have I done?

I have just made (what I had believed to be) a very small change at the end of one paragraph - what appeared to be an editing error from earlier this year. However, going back and checking this using "differences" seems to indicate that I have made extensive changes to the whole article. Help! Please, someone, advise!! Quartic (talk) 21:49, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, interesting. Someone else will have to explain what happened, but undoing it is easy. Go to the article, click on "View history", and you will see a list of every edit, including yours. Note the (undo) link at the end of the line — just click on that. (If you get a message that it can't be undone, undo the the edit at the top of the list first, then yours.) If you totally screw it up, don't panic, it can all be recovered. Good luck. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:44, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I know I'm late to the party, but the error Quartic made was to edit an old version of the page instead of the current one (which was reverted by another editor). Also, the typo Quartic was trying to remove was still in the article today, which I have now taken out. SpinningSpark 10:04, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Tuff?

I know what tuff is, but why "Youngest Toba Tuff?" Why tuff, younger than what, etc.? --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 20:38, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

"The Toba eruption was the latest of the three major eruptions which occurred at Toba in the last 1 million years." Each eruption leaves a ash layer. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 01:41, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Further work

For anyone interested in extending/improving this article: There's a good review of of topic (as of 2010) in Science ("Of Two Minds About Toba's Impact", 5 March 2010, p. 1187). It also mentions articles in American Journal of Genetics (Richards, June 2009) and Science (9 October 2009).

Also, some of the current references are wretchedly formatted, and really should be revised. (The initial seem uninterested, so feel free to jump right in.) - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:09, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

---

There is an error of omission under "Genetic bottleneck theory", at paragraph twelve ["It has been suggested that nearby hominid populations, such as Homo erectus soloensis on Java, and Homo floresiensis on Flores, survived because they were upwind of Toba."];

and under "Migration after Toba" at paragraph three ["A 2009 study by Martin A.J. Williams's team challenges Petraglia's findings. Williams analysed pollen from a marine core in the Bay of Bengal with stratified Toba ash, and argued that the eruption caused prolonged deforestation in South Asia. Ambrose, who is a co-author of the study, calls the evidence "unambiguous", and further argues that YTT may have forced our ancestors to adopt new survival strategies, which permitted them to replace Neanderthals and "other archaic human species". However, both Neanderthals in Europe and the small-brained Homo floresiensis in Southeastern Asia survived YTT by 50,000 and 60,000 years respectively."].

This is the Denisova hominin.

Under Wikipedia's "Homo" entry it reads: "All species of the genus except Homo sapiens (modern humans) are extinct. Homo neanderthalensis, traditionally considered the last surviving relative, died out about 24,000 years ago, while a recent discovery suggests that another species, Homo floresiensis, discovered in 2003, may have lived as recently as 12,000 years ago. The Denisova hominin, whose discovery was announced in March 2010, may be yet another past species in the genus." Under the Wikipedia entry for Denisova hominin it is stated more definitively: "The Denisova hominin is the remains (a finger bone, toe bone and tooth) of a member of the genus Homo that may belong to a previously unknown species based on an analysis of their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)". The Wikipedia entry also states "This history of interaction suggests that Denisovans once ranged widely over eastern Asia."

I suggest that the Denisova hominin should at least be included in both paragraph three and twelve, and that if Wikipedia changes the entry title from Denisovan hominin to Homo Denisovan in the future to then use that naming reference (it seems likely to me that the change in nomenclature is bound to occur, it is only that the discovery has been recent). If Java man can be referred to then Denisovan man should be too, especially as it is alleged to have lived in the area of strongest ashfall of the Toba event. Star A Star (talk) 14:49, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Migration section

The last paragraph (footnote 60 as of today's date) cites a vague claim by George Weber in his magnum opus at www.andaman.org regarding survival of species "upwind" who were also "protected by being in the southern hemisphere". However, Toba is not that far from Java and Flores (only about 10 degrees of latitute) and all lie in the equatorial region where the wind pattern is Doldrums -- calm and unpredictable. To declare that a mega explosion like Toba would have effects only downwind is even more strange, so I think we should cut or modify the final paragraph. Martindo (talk) 05:13, 24 January 2012 (UTC)