Template talk:Infobox planet/Archive 5

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Question about the order of the categories

Don't you think that "Physical Characteristics" should come first, instead of "Orbital elements"? Tetra quark (talk) 17:11, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

For many objects the orbital elements are about all that are known. But I can see ordering them in either direction. -- Kheider (talk) 17:41, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

The physical characteristics refer to the object itself (with important info, like its size, volume, temperature) while orbital elements are about how it interacts with some other body. In my opinion, physical characteristics really should go first. Tetra quark (talk) 18:10, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

For many minor planets the size, volume, and temperature are just best guesses where-as the orbital elements are generally much better constrained and tell you where the object is. -- Kheider (talk) 16:29, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for someone to change this. I don't see why not Tetra quark (talk) 16:09, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I have been waiting for someone else to chime in. I am somewhat neutral on it. -- Kheider (talk) 16:29, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Pretty neutral on this myself; however, I lean toward status quo in agreement with Kheider's "better-known-first" explanation above. It's a close enough call that, if switched, somebody will probably come along at some point and just switch them back. – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 18:06, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

The current ordering is helpful for two reasons. First, it puts the physical properties in context (i.e., inner planets are denser than outer planets, Venus is closer to the Sun than similarly-sized Earth, etc). Second, it is far easier to measure the orbital properties of newly discovered objects (e.g., trans-Neptunian objects, exoplanets) than their physical properties, so the physical properties are often undefined or poorly defined. The current ordering works well - I do not see a compelling reason to change it. JeanLucMargot (talk) 00:28, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Preferred abbreviation for Astronomical Unit

The preferred abbreviation for "Astronomical Unit" is now the lowercase "au" (Resolution B2, XXVIII General Assembly of International Astronomical Union, 2012). Should this be implemented in the infobox? JeanLucMargot (talk) 00:34, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I'd say not, because there has been no consensus to force one form in all of Wikipedia: Talk:Astronomical_unit#AU vs au vs ua. --JorisvS (talk) 13:22, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Adding NASA Exoplanet Archive as a Reference to the Planetbox template

Hello everyone! My name is Marcy and I work for the NASA Exoplanet Archive. The archive offers a good amount of data on confirmed planets and we would like Wikipedia to link to us as a reference where appropriate, specifically in the Planetbox template. Currently there are links to SIMBAD and Exoplanets.eu in that template, but it's not clear how we can add ourselves (or through which channels we have to work through to be added). The Reference "data" link in the Planetbox template would go to the planet's Overview page in the Exoplanet Archive, which is a summarized compilation of the confirmed planet's aliases, planetary and stellar parameters, and links to published literature.

For example:

1. Go to the Wikipedia article for Kepler-22 b.

2. On the right side of the screen there is an infobox. At the bottom of the info box is the References section listing SIMBAD and the Exoplanets.EU, each with a link to the respective archive's data on that object.

3. We would like to add an entry for NASA Exoplanet Archive with the data link going to the archive's overview page; in this example it would be http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/cgi-bin/DisplayOverview/nph-DisplayOverview?objname=Kepler-22+b.

Please let me know if you have any questions, and how we should proceed. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mharbut (talk • contribs) 00:52, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

 Done as a reasonable request, as the Exoplanet Archive is certainly a useful resource. — Huntster (t @ c) 06:36, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Fantastic! Thanks so much! unsigned comment added by Mharbut

Template-protected edit request on 21 January 2015

Wikilink "Minor planet category" to Minor planet#Populations or some appropriate category page, to be less ambiguous.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅contribs ⋅dgaf)  15:58, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

 Done The Category:Minor planets is populated by that page, so your suggested link fills the bill. – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 16:30, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata

Hallo everybody,

the Template:Infobox planet has a field "eccentricity". I would like to remove it and set it per default to {{#property:P1096}}. This would fetch the information - if it's possible - from Wikidata (see wikidata:property:P1096). I would mention that in the template documentation.

Why should we switch to Wikidata?

• The template gets simpler.
• The english Wikipedia would profit from contributions to other language Wikipedias (e.g. the German one) and vice versa.
• We would share the work to control changes between wikis
• The data format is consistant and can be formatted automatically (I'm not too sure about this...)
• Single data points can get references. By now, there are only a couple of references for the complete template. With Wikidata, you can add references to single data points. This means the references don't have to be on the page, but if people are interested they can still see it.

In order to test it, I have tried it for Mars (wikidata:Q111) and Venus (wikidata:Q313).

Best regards, --MartinThoma (talk) 10:42, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Makes sense, but how does it work? Where does it get its data? Can it get the data of all minor planets? --JorisvS (talk) 10:47, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

So I see this on Mars, eccentricity = {{#property:P1096}}. So that links to wikidata:property:P1096, but unclear how a property is transfered. It all seems very cryptic. Why doesn't it use names for things? Tom Ruen (talk) 10:56, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is all rather cryptic. This should be fixed. There should also be a link that leads editors to the Wikidata page. And it should be clear how and where it gets its values. --JorisvS (talk) 11:11, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Its aim is to "unify" the strucutred data (e.g. data within info boxes) to make it more accessible. The idea is that you probably have the number of citizens of the United States in a couple of articles and you don't want to update every single article if that number changes.

It works like this:

1. Wikidata structures its data by "Objects" (e.g. Mars or Venus), "Properties" (e.g. eccentricity, name, number of citizens) and the value of the property.

2. Wikidata connects objects with wikipedia pages - users have to make this connection on Wikidata (see wikidata:Q111#sitelinks-wikipedia)

3. You cannot add arbitrary properties to any object. The properties have to exists (there is a proposal request page, see Wikidata:Property_proposal). But when a property exists, you can add it to an object. Those properties have identifiers beginning with "P".

4. When I add {{#property:P1096}}, it means that of the current pages object it will take the value of the property P1096.

I thought you could also include the data on other pages with {{#property:P1096|of=Q111}} or {{#property:eccentricity|of=Q111}}, but that seems not to be the case (see wikidata:Wikidata:Notes/Inclusion_syntax and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata/Notes/Inclusion_syntax_v0.4)

For the problem that users might not know how to edit the value: We could add a link to a wikipage with detailed instructions.

--MartinThoma (talk) 11:46, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

By the way, {{#property:P1096}} and {{#property:orbital eccentricity}} are the same. --MartinThoma (talk) 11:51, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Having a name helps, but it seems rather expansive. Like lets say we have 10,000 asteroids with 20 orbital and physical properties each, all from a single spreadsheet, it seems like it should all but put into a single database file, rather than spread out over 10,000x20 files or whatever! It seems like you'd want a hierarchical database referenced by names, something like #Asteroid:Ceres.property.eccentricity. Tom Ruen (talk) 12:25, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Orbital values are worthless without a defined epoch to establish them! What epoch will these values use? How do I know the guy making the changes is not mixing different values from 1995, 2000, and 2015? -- Kheider (talk) 16:47, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

The goal of using Wikidata for this makes sense, but it will have to take the above remarks of Tom Ruen and Kheider into account for it to work properly. I'd like to point out that these values must also be easy to find, recognize, and edit for this change to become valuable. --JorisvS (talk) 20:47, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

And please don't feel as if any resistance on our part to this change is only or even mainly due to any lack of understanding of Wikidata. Many of us don't understand, though, so anything Wikidataians can do to help us understand would be dearly appreciated. – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 00:09, 25 January 2015 (UTC)