Talk:Earth

Formation.

Wording "radius equal to the Sunand Earth" is ambiguous. 1.46.139.245 (talk) 13:24, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting this. I have changed the caption text for this image. GeoWriter (talk) 16:18, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Earth

Earth is only planet that has life in it. it's the third planet from the sun. It is also called as Blue planet thus it contains 71% water and only 29% of land mass. 122.174.157.215 (talk) 05:55, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello. Is this a suggestion to change the wording of the article? Femke (talk) 06:22, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Comment A better wording would be: Earth is the only planet in the observable universe known to possess life. It's the third planet from the Sun. It is also called the Blue Marble since it contains 70.8% water and only 29.2% dry land. 2001:8003:9008:1301:21D0:D945:43A0:166E (talk) 13:28, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Add archive links to non-dead refs

User:Dhtwiki reverted my IABot edits, saying "Adds to clutter, download and setup times; when links are live accomplishes nothing; when links are dead, it's a likely time to reevaluate or update references; linkrot policy doesn't support mass addition of these archive links." I don't really agree that it is just clutter, when a lot of the links are archived for the first time and it doesn't really hurt to have these links in. What do you guys think? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 00:19, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

That revert seems a rather single-minded opinion that prevents prolonged verifiability. I don't see how Dhtwiki can in good conscience revert a standard practice on WP like that—If they have an issue with it, bring it up in a community wide discussion. Until then, it is not an improvement to revert such an edit. Aza24 (talk) 02:54, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

How does it prevent prolonged verifiability? And how is it standard practice? IABot itself, when running by itself, only adds links when they're dead? There are a number of editors who think running this program, without any further checking or curation of the pages affected, think they're helping; but no one can offer much besides vague assertions that it somehow improves things. How exactly? The archive links are there to be linked to if the original dies; setting the archive links doesn't cause that to happen. I think it's a waste of time and resources, and when it adds tens of kilobytes to an article and many extra links is detrimental. Dhtwiki (talk) 05:07, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with some of the point, but I disagree with your premise. Yes, the default option of IABot is to add dead links only, but there's also a checkbox that allows you to add archive to all the links. A lot of the links are archived for the first time this way, so waiting until the links are dead before using IABot is not a great idea as we may lose the source forever and unable to verify the information. If you argue that it would clutter up the wikitext, then sorry, but our standard referencing practice has already make the wikitext a lot harder to read already. Stripping archive links doesn't help much with that. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 05:58, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Don't have an opinion here, but all links added to Wikipedia are automatically archived if I'm not mistaken. So these archive links can be added at a later point. Femke (talk) 07:39, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Right. See WP:PLRT, which is a section of Wikipedia:Link rot: "Links added by editors to the English Wikipedia mainspace are automatically saved to Wayback Machine within about 24 hours (nb. in practice not every link is getting saved for various reasons)." Adding the archive links isn't needed to ensure that the archives are created. Note the quoted expception ("in practice not every link is getting saved for various reasons"); but it isn't necessarily so that adding links to archive snapshots overcomes that. Dhtwiki (talk) 19:55, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, I changed my mind. I won't check the box when I archive the page links again, unless if the bot doesn't archive certain essential links for whatever the reason. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 11:50, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

"Colonization of Earth" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Colonization of Earth and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 9#Colonization of Earth until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. MB 13:59, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 August 2022 - Qualify statement about magnetic dipole decrease of 6%/century to avoid alarm

Change the line ending in: "at epoch 2000, decreasing nearly 6% per century.<ref name="dipole">" to instead end in: "at epoch 2000, decreasing nearly 6% per century over the last (although it still remains stronger than its long time average).<ref name="dipole">"

Purpose: When I read the line as it is stated now, I was immediately concerned for the Earth (and humanity) since I lacked perspective on how current values relate to historical ones, and how these values were expected to fluctuate over time. Reading the cited article I learned that this immediate alarm was unfounded, and that in fact we're still above the long time average value. CommanderPho (talk) 16:03, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

 Done I'm unsure whether or not this edit should be included but I don't know any policy that forbids it and we should be bold. I omitted "the last" because it isn't good for grammar. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:16, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Surface

Before copyediting the new additions, I'm wondering where we can find adequate sourcing. The content is quite straightforward (except the one claim I tagged), so we don't need top-tier sources per se, but we can do better than the National Geographic source for children. Furthermore, the placement of the sources does not make clear where what information is found: the last source of the paragraph does not talk about plains, for instance. Femke (talk) 20:03, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm trying to slowly catch up with the edits. @Nsae Comp, none of the three sources in the water world/ocean world sentence are high-quality reliable sources. Two are lay sources, and the third is a primary source. I don't see the sources making this distinction between water world and ocean world anyway. Only the kids source talks about water-world (with hyphen..) describing current earth.

Other sourcing is confusing too. Where did you find information about those landmasses? Why are there two identical mid-sentence sources with a quote about the Olympic flag? Mid-sentence sources make text less readable. Retrieved in 2012, did you copy this from another Wikipedia article (if so, see WP:CWW). Femke (talk) 18:19, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Could you please fix the WP:overcitation issue with the water world/ocean world sentence. None of the seven cites are high quality reliable sources. I've not looked at all sources, but the distinction between water world and ocean world you try to make is not present in sources sampled. Femke (alt) (talk) 09:14, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

I reduced refs and entered one which does discuss all the papers of the previous sources. Nsae Comp (talk) 19:37, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Overcitation reduced to five sources, three of which are of high enough quality. The two best sources contradict each other, which is difficult to work with..

• Voosen: water world is completely submerged
• Lunine: water world is a term only applicable to exoplanets. Ocean world does not need to be completely submerged.

Because Voosen doesn't say the Earth is not an ocean world, I think we could say something like:

This makes Earth an ocean world. In its early history, Earth may even have been completely submerged. The contradicting definitions of water world are then completely omitted, as it's not that important. We'd focus on the content, rather than definitions. What do you think>? Femke (talk) 07:21, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I guess thats a compromise. Though I must say that I saw the points you have mentioned and have realized the conflict between the terms and their different uses, but thats exactly why I couldnt omit any one of the two, for me it was more correct to use both words and leave it to the future scientists to provide more established and pronounced definitions. But I guess ocean world would be the one I would go for if I would have to choose one. Water world is the more ambivalent one, because it seems sometimes it is used for planets with a vibrant hydrosphere and sometimes it is trying to invoke the idea of the movie Waterworld. I personally understood water world more like the sources of less quality, as a vibrant hydrosphere world, but none of the qualified source give a distinction that would clarify the understandings and scenarios behind the terms. So as I said for me it was just a not finished issue, so mentioning both terms was the more complete picture. But okay this is not the article to hint towards definition issues. PS: thank you for the calm talk and compromise. Nsae Comp (talk) 18:06, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Images

@Nsae Comp: You're still going a bit too fast for me to keep up. If you make large-scale changes to a featured article, it's often wise to leave a note on the talk page detailing the changes to want to make and why. For instance, you've been increasing the difficulty of the images, a move I disagree with. Femke (talk) 06:48, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

About halfway through images now. Trying to preserve what you did when possible by changing other parts of the article. Please remember to take into account WP:ACCIM: don't WP:SANDWICH images (if you're on a small screen, you may need to zoom out to see if you're introducing problems), and give the size of the image using the uprigth parameter, rather than fixed pixel sizes. Femke (talk) 07:15, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

I disagree on some points, but thank you. I am good now, lots of time went into going through the commons. Nsae Comp (talk) 08:18, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

As somebody who spend loads of time finding images for this article, I sympathise. Please do keep in mind the broad audience for an article like this. Femke (alt) (talk) 09:16, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Caption Archean artist impression

Could you make the caption less technical? I have no idea what round stromatolites are, where they are on the picture, or where you got that information (it's not in the image description I don't think). It seems like the Moon is closer to Earth at that point in time, maybe we can find a source for that + focus caption on that? Femke (talk) 09:51, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, but I didnt add that image.Nsae Comp (talk) 12:10, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

You're right, @CactiStaccingCrane seems to have added this one in this edit. I prefer the simpler image that was there before (higher quality). CSC, could you have another look at it? Femke (talk) 12:56, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you. Feel free to swap the image. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:31, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

I didnt take the picture out, since I didnt find the other image more illustrating. So I did add a text to amplify what I think an image here can do to elaborate the chapter and the time described. Nsae Comp (talk) 16:58, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

The new caption is a bit too long (MOS:CAPSUCCINCT advises typically no more than 3 lines, we're at 8). microbialites is a word less than 1% of our readers will recognize (I certainly don't), and eon / Archean are already quite difficult to start with. Femke (talk) 06:24, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

As usual I dont agree with thinking of the reader as incapable tp cope with new terms, afterall thats the great thing about hyperlinks. But ok the text is long. Nsae Comp (talk) 17:12, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

The thing is, most people don't click more than one hyperlink. So it's really a last resort solution to writing articles for the appropriate audience. I left most technical terms in, especially those who can be semi-understood from context Femke (talk) 18:01, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I preferred the image that was in this section before. I'm not sure that the current image is that great at illustrating the Archaean, let alone geological history as a whole. The previous image at least showed some of the evidence relating to the formation and destruction of a supercontinent. We could also add that the rocks have most recently been uplifted during part of the Alpine orogeny. Mikenorton (talk) 22:49, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

I read this discussion as a rough consensus to include the old image. Current image is a bit fuzzy, the caption is too long, too difficult and supported by sources given. Femke (talk) 10:55, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Well the image is now in the origin of life sub-chapter therefore now even less in conflict with an image about the geological evidence of the Archaen. PS: That said, I would understand the sub-chapter title Geological history a bit of a misfit anyway since all chapters under Chronology deal with geological history. Maybe a better title is needed? Maybe something like Surface development? That would give also a rough nerrative Formation > Surface development > Life. Nsae Comp (talk) 23:25, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm leaving the discussion (too much on my plate). @Devonian Wombat is familiar with the FA criteria as well, and in contrast with me, does know about geology. Always difficult to rewrite text more simply if you have limited subject knowledge. Femke (talk) 16:12, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

I have to point out that I'm not any sort of geology expert, in fact I only know as much as the average person about it. However, my two cents would be that "Surface development" might not be the best section title, since the section in question also talks about Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field. Perhaps "Further geological development" might work? It's a tad clunky, but it solves the issue that Nsae Comp pointed out. Devonian Wombat (talk) 20:20, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

"Surface development" would not be an improvement in my view (as a geologist). I'm also unimpressed with the image added - the orange dot. If we want a single image to illustrate the geological history of Earth, then I would strongly prefer one that shows actual geology, rather than yet another artist's impression. Mikenorton (talk) 21:04, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

How about just calling the chapter "Post formation" or "After formation", that would then also be more inclusive for the issue of atmosphere (and the corresponding orange dot image)? Since the sub-chapter title is questioned Ill add "After formation" for now, until someone else comes up with something better. Nsae Comp (talk) 23:27, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

prebiotic second atmosphere

I have no idea what that would be, with a PhD in climate science. This really needs to be written for a waaaay broader audience. You may be interested in WP:ONEDOWN. Femke (talk) 20:03, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

@Nsae Comp: I've removed the jargon. You may be interested in WP:ACCIM#5: use the upright parameter rather than fixed pixel width to ensure user's preferences about image size are honoured. Femke (talk) 07:29, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Nsae Comp (talk) 08:43, 10 September 2022 (UTC)