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This is Archive 1 covering 2003 and earlier.
Geologically speaking, wouldn't the Earth have only six continents? Europe and Asia are actually one land mass; the are different 'continents' in a cultural sense only. - Stephen Gilbert
Geologically speaking, one might talk of the different tectonic plates the earth has. Geographically speaking, one might talk about continents. Thus, I would add "...geographically dividing it into five oceans and seven continents". -- Grant
If an entity from another system within the known universe (or any other universe for that matter) were to read (assuming that was possible) the Earth page, ya gotta wonder what said entity might think! -- Grant
The count of oceans is at least as arbitrary as that of continents; the Arctic Ocean is clearly distinct, but there's no obvious place to divide the Indian Ocean from the Pacific, or the Antarctic from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
Also, are imports and exports even meaningful concepts here? -- Vicki Rosenzweig
I think the exports and imports part has some interesting information ($5.6 trillion a year in production; shows who produces it and where it goes). Is there some easier and immediately understood way to phrase it? --KQ
At this point the wikipedia is a compendium of human knowlege if an alien were to read the wikipedia he/she/it mighe find that it did not reach an ideal NPOV, but who cares? I'd argue that we can't possibly do this without the input of the aliens themselvs, and anyway if aliens start reading and getting involved in the wikipedia, we'll have to change a lot of things anyway... MRC
Consistency or no, I'm not going to move most of Earth to Earth (planet) right now. From an astronomy point of view that would be logical, but I suspect its orbital parameters and suchlike aren't what people first think of when they think Earth. However, there is a slight ambiguity problem with Earth-as-our-world, Earth-as-a-planet, and earth-as-soil. Is this best left as-is, or is there a better way to handle it? -- April
Deleted the reference to "intelligent species, including humans, apes, dolphins and maybe a few others". Ranking other species as "intelligent" gets into a whole load of complex debates that it's really not worth getting into here - for instance, there's research currently claiming some extremely impressive cognitive abilities for parrots that I'd imagine others working in the area would dispute hotly. -- Robert Merkel
From the main article:
At this rate of ocean level drop, over the past five billion years the ocean level would have fallen approximately 9,500 miles. Does anyone know the real rate at which water is being lost? Bryan Derksen
---
I added in the obligatory Mostly Harmless to pay homage to Douglas Adams' "The Hithchiker's Guide to the Galaxy", where the description of Earth in the Guide is simply the two words, "Mostly Harmless." Trust me, people will understand.
---
A lot of this stuff is from the CIA World Factbook. Don't let that scare you, it's entirely unclassified info, but there may be some copyright issues. The factbook is available for browsing at www.odci.gov
---
I really feel it is remiss not to include the Mostly Harmless thing *somewhere* in the page. It's not a joke, it's something that deserves to be linked. How about at the "other names" area? Is that OK, or are you going to ban me again?
---
Well let me further my point, then I'll put it to rest. There will be two types of people looking at the Planet Earth article: people who want statistics about the planet and people who just want to see the entry "mostly harmless," just like in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This is already seen in everything2.com, hhg.com and a few other distributed encyclopedias like this one. What's the big deal? People expect it! I'm not the only one who has attempted that edit, according to your change history. With there being a demand and the likeliness that someone else will try it again, why not just put it in?--Anon
Whatever the CIA may think, it is false at present to speak of the Earth's economy as having imports and exports -- to say nothing of external debt! -- FOo
Describing Earth as the only planet known to be inhabited by living organisms is unacceptable and violates NPOV. There have been countless research teams claiming and disputing evidence from Mars meteorites and the Viking probes; some researchers still claim that the Viking probes successfully demonstrated the existence of life on Mars [1], [2]. To these researchers, the fact that there are microbes on Mars is "known", even if it is disputed by others. Referring to intelligent life lets us avoid the whole life on Mars controversy. -- Eloquence 21:52 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)
Now we agree more or less on the content but it doesn't look OK. I think something like this is better:
I think this is OK form the correctness of the information, NPOVness and the presentation. -- Looxix 02:30 May 11, 2003 (UTC)
As a casual reader, this article seems to be very uneven. It's missing sections on:
I am not suggesting the article should become much longer to fit these in. They should be brief summaries with lots of links, with a slight bias towards those subjects which don't fit easily into obviously named articles. (E.g. the History section should lean slightly more towards those phenomena, like war, which aren't conveniently confined to an article on one modern-day country).
In addition, there's a lot of stuff here which doesn't seem nearly important enough to be in an article of this size on Earth in general. Some examples:
Perhaps the items in the latter list could be moved to their own articles first, shrivelling the relevant sections in Earth as you go (and adding links if necessary), before any new sections are added. That would avoid the article getting too unwieldy.
-- mpt, May 1, 2003
Eloquence removed
Maybe it is too wordy, but I think it is beneficial to at least have links to creation stories written by contemporary writers. Mythological information is provided in the Earth article. So should popular fictitious references. Maybe we can find a compromise. Kingturtle 02:36 May 14, 2003 (UTC)
Kingturtle's quote of what Eloquence removed is incomplete. The opening sentence was, "There is a long-running joke relating to the treatment of the Earth in encyclopaedias." This is true, and arguably relevant to a treatment of the Earth in an encyclopaedia. I added the explanation which followed, just to explain what the joke was. It was not intended as "DNA fandom stuff". (The bit about Magrathea wasn't me...) As well as being arguably relevant, it would quite likely (as a minor bonus) stop random passers-by from adding the "Mostly harmless" phrase themselves, in a less encyclopaedic way, as they quite often do. -- Oliver P. 16:40 May 14, 2003 (UTC)
The following irrelevant material has been removed from the article. This entry is about the planet Earth. This article is not about all facts and information about the human race! This article also is not the Main Page of an encyclopedia. We do not just jam every topic in the world into one entry, because the entry is titled "Earth". Get a grip! RK
(Moved to Economy of Earth by Bryan)
I really think the discussion of human civiliation here is very overblown, amd totally of place. Everything we have here, including the data, should be summarized in a paragraph. And in all seriousness, it wouldn't hurt to mention the Douglas Adams bit, next to the link about the Earth in fiction. RK
Where should this go? David J. Stevenson, Professor of Planetary Science at Cornell University, has just published "A Modest Proposal: Mission to Earth's Core", a paper published in Nature (May 15, 2003) A Modest Proposal: A Mission to the Earth's Core
I removed this from the article, for now:
What do you mean by "some scientists"? To the best of my knowledge, this is not a mainstream idea anymore; my reading is that such ideas did exist in the 1960s and 1970s, but they are no longer considered viabl arguments. Are you claiming that some form of this argument has resurfaced in the mainstream? I would like to see some references on this point. It seems to me that much of this article was written as an argument to show that life can't possibily exist on any planet except Earth, and that life here is due to one random chance that can't be counted on to occur anyplace else. RK
RK, I don't agree with your removal of the Earth-related data. Think about it: You open up a page in the Encyclopedia Galactica for a populated planet -- what do you expect to find? Certainly more than just a summary of the planet's physical characteristics. We may have to reorganize this stuff, but the article Earth should certainly be an entry point to many related subjects. Removing all information about the global economy while retaining a link to Earth in fiction is also blatantly inconsistent. -- Eloquence 02:15 May 15, 2003 (UTC)
I second you on this one :-) -- Looxix 02:30 May 15, 2003 (UTC)
How about moving that material to a more specific article, for example Economy of Earth (in the same pattern as the CIA factbook pages for countries), and then linking to it in the same way that Earth in fiction is linked to? I agree with RK that there was a great deal of stuff in this article which didn't fit well here. Bryan
_____
I added a link to Chandler wobble - wasn't sure where else to put it! Planetary geology hasn't been done yet. - David Stewart 10:18 May 15, 2003 (UTC)
Please stop adding this to the earth article. It's getting really boring now and will just keep being removed. Secretlondon 12:10, Dec 3, 2003 (UTC)
"Nearly all humans live on the Earth." Indeed. Where do the rest live? Adam 10:47, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I hate to be pedantic (!), but one "lives" in one's home. A work assignment, even a prolonged one, is not where one lives. There are naval personnel atm who have spent a year on an aircraft carrier - do they live there? They do not, they live at their homes. Ask them. The line is just someone being clever, which I don't mind, but it isn't encyclopaedic. Adam 01:32, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Also: "Earth has one natural satellite, "the Moon", which revolves around the Earth." Is this not a rather geocentric view? In fact the Earth and the Moon revolve around each other, or rather around a point between them, closer to the Earth than to the Moon because of the Earth's greater mass. If we were living on the Moon, the Earth would appear to be revolving around us, no?
Adam 10:53, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)
In contrast to the degree by which Luna orbits Terra; Terra's "orbit" of Luna is negligible. Lirath Q. Pynnor
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
This is Archive 1 covering 2003 and earlier.
Geologically speaking, wouldn't the Earth have only six continents? Europe and Asia are actually one land mass; the are different 'continents' in a cultural sense only. - Stephen Gilbert
Geologically speaking, one might talk of the different tectonic plates the earth has. Geographically speaking, one might talk about continents. Thus, I would add "...geographically dividing it into five oceans and seven continents". -- Grant
If an entity from another system within the known universe (or any other universe for that matter) were to read (assuming that was possible) the Earth page, ya gotta wonder what said entity might think! -- Grant
The count of oceans is at least as arbitrary as that of continents; the Arctic Ocean is clearly distinct, but there's no obvious place to divide the Indian Ocean from the Pacific, or the Antarctic from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
Also, are imports and exports even meaningful concepts here? -- Vicki Rosenzweig
I think the exports and imports part has some interesting information ($5.6 trillion a year in production; shows who produces it and where it goes). Is there some easier and immediately understood way to phrase it? --KQ
At this point the wikipedia is a compendium of human knowlege if an alien were to read the wikipedia he/she/it mighe find that it did not reach an ideal NPOV, but who cares? I'd argue that we can't possibly do this without the input of the aliens themselvs, and anyway if aliens start reading and getting involved in the wikipedia, we'll have to change a lot of things anyway... MRC
Consistency or no, I'm not going to move most of Earth to Earth (planet) right now. From an astronomy point of view that would be logical, but I suspect its orbital parameters and suchlike aren't what people first think of when they think Earth. However, there is a slight ambiguity problem with Earth-as-our-world, Earth-as-a-planet, and earth-as-soil. Is this best left as-is, or is there a better way to handle it? -- April
Deleted the reference to "intelligent species, including humans, apes, dolphins and maybe a few others". Ranking other species as "intelligent" gets into a whole load of complex debates that it's really not worth getting into here - for instance, there's research currently claiming some extremely impressive cognitive abilities for parrots that I'd imagine others working in the area would dispute hotly. -- Robert Merkel
From the main article:
At this rate of ocean level drop, over the past five billion years the ocean level would have fallen approximately 9,500 miles. Does anyone know the real rate at which water is being lost? Bryan Derksen
---
I added in the obligatory Mostly Harmless to pay homage to Douglas Adams' "The Hithchiker's Guide to the Galaxy", where the description of Earth in the Guide is simply the two words, "Mostly Harmless." Trust me, people will understand.
---
A lot of this stuff is from the CIA World Factbook. Don't let that scare you, it's entirely unclassified info, but there may be some copyright issues. The factbook is available for browsing at www.odci.gov
---
I really feel it is remiss not to include the Mostly Harmless thing *somewhere* in the page. It's not a joke, it's something that deserves to be linked. How about at the "other names" area? Is that OK, or are you going to ban me again?
---
Well let me further my point, then I'll put it to rest. There will be two types of people looking at the Planet Earth article: people who want statistics about the planet and people who just want to see the entry "mostly harmless," just like in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This is already seen in everything2.com, hhg.com and a few other distributed encyclopedias like this one. What's the big deal? People expect it! I'm not the only one who has attempted that edit, according to your change history. With there being a demand and the likeliness that someone else will try it again, why not just put it in?--Anon
Whatever the CIA may think, it is false at present to speak of the Earth's economy as having imports and exports -- to say nothing of external debt! -- FOo
Describing Earth as the only planet known to be inhabited by living organisms is unacceptable and violates NPOV. There have been countless research teams claiming and disputing evidence from Mars meteorites and the Viking probes; some researchers still claim that the Viking probes successfully demonstrated the existence of life on Mars [1], [2]. To these researchers, the fact that there are microbes on Mars is "known", even if it is disputed by others. Referring to intelligent life lets us avoid the whole life on Mars controversy. -- Eloquence 21:52 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)
Now we agree more or less on the content but it doesn't look OK. I think something like this is better:
I think this is OK form the correctness of the information, NPOVness and the presentation. -- Looxix 02:30 May 11, 2003 (UTC)
As a casual reader, this article seems to be very uneven. It's missing sections on:
I am not suggesting the article should become much longer to fit these in. They should be brief summaries with lots of links, with a slight bias towards those subjects which don't fit easily into obviously named articles. (E.g. the History section should lean slightly more towards those phenomena, like war, which aren't conveniently confined to an article on one modern-day country).
In addition, there's a lot of stuff here which doesn't seem nearly important enough to be in an article of this size on Earth in general. Some examples:
Perhaps the items in the latter list could be moved to their own articles first, shrivelling the relevant sections in Earth as you go (and adding links if necessary), before any new sections are added. That would avoid the article getting too unwieldy.
-- mpt, May 1, 2003
Eloquence removed
Maybe it is too wordy, but I think it is beneficial to at least have links to creation stories written by contemporary writers. Mythological information is provided in the Earth article. So should popular fictitious references. Maybe we can find a compromise. Kingturtle 02:36 May 14, 2003 (UTC)
Kingturtle's quote of what Eloquence removed is incomplete. The opening sentence was, "There is a long-running joke relating to the treatment of the Earth in encyclopaedias." This is true, and arguably relevant to a treatment of the Earth in an encyclopaedia. I added the explanation which followed, just to explain what the joke was. It was not intended as "DNA fandom stuff". (The bit about Magrathea wasn't me...) As well as being arguably relevant, it would quite likely (as a minor bonus) stop random passers-by from adding the "Mostly harmless" phrase themselves, in a less encyclopaedic way, as they quite often do. -- Oliver P. 16:40 May 14, 2003 (UTC)
The following irrelevant material has been removed from the article. This entry is about the planet Earth. This article is not about all facts and information about the human race! This article also is not the Main Page of an encyclopedia. We do not just jam every topic in the world into one entry, because the entry is titled "Earth". Get a grip! RK
(Moved to Economy of Earth by Bryan)
I really think the discussion of human civiliation here is very overblown, amd totally of place. Everything we have here, including the data, should be summarized in a paragraph. And in all seriousness, it wouldn't hurt to mention the Douglas Adams bit, next to the link about the Earth in fiction. RK
Where should this go? David J. Stevenson, Professor of Planetary Science at Cornell University, has just published "A Modest Proposal: Mission to Earth's Core", a paper published in Nature (May 15, 2003) A Modest Proposal: A Mission to the Earth's Core
I removed this from the article, for now:
What do you mean by "some scientists"? To the best of my knowledge, this is not a mainstream idea anymore; my reading is that such ideas did exist in the 1960s and 1970s, but they are no longer considered viabl arguments. Are you claiming that some form of this argument has resurfaced in the mainstream? I would like to see some references on this point. It seems to me that much of this article was written as an argument to show that life can't possibily exist on any planet except Earth, and that life here is due to one random chance that can't be counted on to occur anyplace else. RK
RK, I don't agree with your removal of the Earth-related data. Think about it: You open up a page in the Encyclopedia Galactica for a populated planet -- what do you expect to find? Certainly more than just a summary of the planet's physical characteristics. We may have to reorganize this stuff, but the article Earth should certainly be an entry point to many related subjects. Removing all information about the global economy while retaining a link to Earth in fiction is also blatantly inconsistent. -- Eloquence 02:15 May 15, 2003 (UTC)
I second you on this one :-) -- Looxix 02:30 May 15, 2003 (UTC)
How about moving that material to a more specific article, for example Economy of Earth (in the same pattern as the CIA factbook pages for countries), and then linking to it in the same way that Earth in fiction is linked to? I agree with RK that there was a great deal of stuff in this article which didn't fit well here. Bryan
_____
I added a link to Chandler wobble - wasn't sure where else to put it! Planetary geology hasn't been done yet. - David Stewart 10:18 May 15, 2003 (UTC)
Please stop adding this to the earth article. It's getting really boring now and will just keep being removed. Secretlondon 12:10, Dec 3, 2003 (UTC)
"Nearly all humans live on the Earth." Indeed. Where do the rest live? Adam 10:47, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I hate to be pedantic (!), but one "lives" in one's home. A work assignment, even a prolonged one, is not where one lives. There are naval personnel atm who have spent a year on an aircraft carrier - do they live there? They do not, they live at their homes. Ask them. The line is just someone being clever, which I don't mind, but it isn't encyclopaedic. Adam 01:32, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Also: "Earth has one natural satellite, "the Moon", which revolves around the Earth." Is this not a rather geocentric view? In fact the Earth and the Moon revolve around each other, or rather around a point between them, closer to the Earth than to the Moon because of the Earth's greater mass. If we were living on the Moon, the Earth would appear to be revolving around us, no?
Adam 10:53, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)
In contrast to the degree by which Luna orbits Terra; Terra's "orbit" of Luna is negligible. Lirath Q. Pynnor