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== RfC at Talk:Climate change denial == |
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There is a RfC at [[Talk:Climate change denial]]. Please contribute if you are interested. [[User:Biscuittin|Biscuittin]] ([[User talk:Biscuittin|talk]]) 00:19, 28 January 2016 (UTC) |
Revision as of 00:19, 28 January 2016
Articles for the WPCD project
WikiProject Soil needs to prepare an assessment of these articles. Furthermore, WikiProject Soil has the opportunity to identify additional articles of similar importance. -- Paleorthid 05:46, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
- Bog (picked up by Paleorthid 20:19, 10 June 2006 (UTC))
- Clay (picked up by Paleorthid 20:19, 10 June 2006 (UTC))
- Fertilizer
- Humus
- Nitrogen cycle
- Nitrogen fixation
- Nitrification
- Sand (picked up by Paleorthid 04:57, 22 June 2006 (UTC))
- Soil
- Soil moisture
- Soil salination
- Soil pH
- Soil profile
- Soils retrogression and degradation
- Soil science
- Soil structure
- For article assessment, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Soil/Worklist. -- Paleorthid 21:05, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Article cleanup
Most articles under WP Soil need some level of cleanup. It seems somewhat uselesswould be overwhelming to tag and list them to the project. This is a problem throughout WP. See Wikipedia:Cleanup process/Cleanup sorting proposal for perspective. We need to formulate a manageable approach for WP Soils, identifying key articles and article clusters that need cleanup. -- Paleorthid 03:41, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
- I have hit upon using a Wikipedia:Worklist approach, which I am trying out here, using the WPCD candidate articles. -- Paleorthid 17:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Cross-classification issues
Soil types
Conflicting particle size criteria needs to be resolved and affects the following articles:
- clay
- grain size
- sand
- silt
- soil classification
- soil texture
- soil texture classification
- soil type
- Unified Soil Classification System
This comes out strikingly in the soil texture classification but it gets worse - there not shown are differences within the countries depicted between agricultural/pedological sytems and engineering/geological systems.
Suggestions for in-article solutions are needed. These solutions should anticipate the addition of additional country/application specific criteria beyond the current content.
- Is there a world dominant soil textural classification system?
- Will WP need an article for each grain size classification system?
- Does it sort out better if engineering and ag/soil science systems are kept separate?
- Should disambiguation be considered as an alternative to in-article solutions?
-- Paleorthid 18:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC) revised -- Paleorthid 19:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- Is this project specific to soils or soil science? The name would imply the former, but the content implys the latter.
- In the US engineering world, there's two major classification systems: USCS is commonly used in geotech, AASHTO is common in highway engineering. The differences are:
- gravel/sand boundary: USCS puts it at the #4 (4.75 mm), while AASHTO puts it at the #10 (2 mm).
- silt/clay boundary:USCS puts it at PI = 0.73*(LL-20), while AASHTO puts it at PI = 10.
- AASHTO defines anything larger than 3" as a boulder. USCS calls things between 3" and 12" cobbles and greater than 12" is a boulder. Both use the #200 (0.075 mm) as the sand/fines boundary. AASHTO groups soils according to their quality as a subgrade, USCS groups them according to their composition.
- I don't know anything about non-US classification systems.
- Anyway, I think that there's not a lot of overlap in the ways that soil scientists and engineers view soils. There's not even much overlap in the way that geotechnical engineers and highway engineers look at soils. The former are mostly interested in response to long duration loading (years), the latter are mostly interested in response to short duration loading (milliseconds).
- As far as how boulders, cobbles, gravel, sand, silt etc. are defined I don't really care. These are fuzzy concepts, and while I've never come across the Wentworth Scale in professional practice it seems as good as anything for the purpose of wikipedia. If the definition is really important (e.g. to meet some construction specification), folks shouldn't be relying on wikipedia anyway. Toiyabe 21:29, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- I think Toiyabe's question needs to be answered before you get too excited about details of classification. Most articles will have a specific focus, either towards soil science, or towards geotechnical engineering, or towards geology, and the appropriate system to use will depend on that focus.
- Even within articles, it won't generally be necessary to stick to one standard - I've only used a standards-based soil classification once in the Geotechnical engineering article. The article on clay says " typically less than 2 μm", then goes on to define clay in ways which don't depend on classification systems used by engineers. Argyriou 00:41, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
- Thank you both for the observations. -- Paleorthid 01:12, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
- Argyriou, what classification system used by geotechnical engineers defines clay particles based on size? Toiyabe 14:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
- How can you write this article if you don't know what you're talking about? The difference between clay and silt is the structure of the material. It's easier to use sieve tests to define the particle size and use that as a reference for how much fine grained material there is in the soil. It appears that many of you have a shallow understanding. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.38.132.1 (talk) 22:40, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
- Even within articles, it won't generally be necessary to stick to one standard - I've only used a standards-based soil classification once in the Geotechnical engineering article. The article on clay says " typically less than 2 μm", then goes on to define clay in ways which don't depend on classification systems used by engineers. Argyriou 00:41, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Soil taxonomy
There is no soil taxonomy article, but it is directly addressed in the following five articles.
- 1938 USDA soil taxonomy
- FAO soil classification
- Soil classification
- USDA soil taxonomy
- World Reference Base for Soil Resources
Content coordination is haphazard. There are numerous articles on individual soil classes that add to or are affected by the resulting confusion. Examples:
- Spodosols redirects to Podsol
- Ferralsols redirects to Oxisols
Any objection to having separate articles for each class within each system? -- Paleorthid 18:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC) As far as soil orders go, they appear to have been taken care of quite nicely, however a few of them need to reference the fact that this is the US system of soil classification. Siltloam (talk) 20:39, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Standard layout w/ infobox needed
U.S. State Soils
Do we need a standard content structure and/or infobox for US state soils articles? -- Paleorthid 18:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Soil Taxonomic Classes
Do we need a standard content structure and/or infobox for soil taxonomic classes? -- Paleorthid 18:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Soil-stub
Any objections to requesting a soil-stub? See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Soil/Needed and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Soil/Stubs for candidate articles. -- Paleorthid 18:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- Related stub structure indicates that a discipline-oriented soil-science-stub is needed more than a resource-oriented soil-stub. Comment from Toiyabe pertaining to grain size classification amplifies this distinction. A list of candidate article stubs and article-specific rationale supporting a soil-science-stub is noted here. See here to discuss the active proposal for the soil-science-stub. -- Paleorthid 19:33, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
- The request for a soil science stub has completed a 7-day review period. I will move forward to set up the stub and supporting category: {{soil-science-stub}} & Category:Soil science stubs. -- Paleorthid 14:50, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
SI units
SI units are used in describing soil characteristics relevant to USDA soil taxonomy, 1938 USDA soil taxonomy, FAO soil classification, and the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB). This is per established covention for these systems, but if you have a different understanding, please give us a shout here. See brown earth for a recent example of the typical SI/non-SI revert dance that has been occurring. -- Paleorthid 04:34, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
- See this in the Manual of Style for supporting guidelines. -- Paleorthid 20:56, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
redirect soils retrogression and degradation to land degradation
Without the response I was hoping for to previously stated concerns, and with the new article on biorhexistasy now stable, soils retrogression and degradation should now be redirected to land degradation. Any objections to this approach? -- Paleorthid 19:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
- Merger avoided, see article talk. -- Paleorthid 15:32, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Definition of soil
I reverted the project's working definition of soil.
- The original:
- Soil as in the earthy material on surface of the land that is subjected to weathering and other soil forming factors.
- The revision I reverted:
- Soil as in the geological material on land surfaces that has become friable by weathering and subsequently modified by biological activity so as to contain discernable quantities of soil organic matter. The process is described as pedogenesis.
I appreciate the effort to help out, but still find the original to be a better definition, and one that has served the project well up to this point. Why do we need to change it? -- Paleorthid 04:11, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Consider links to the Seafriends soil section
I've spent much time researching soil and its various aspects in relation to its degradation and consequent ill effects on the sea. It has resulted in a large section on soil and all of its aspects, in a form suitable for teaching at school. It includes many diagrams and references too. It may be beneficial for the Wikipedia soil group to consider links to:
- Understanding soil dependence, geology, ecology, sustainability, erosion, conservation, glossary (155pp)
Suggested headings to place this link: soil, soils, soil_classification, soil_functions, soil_fauna, soil_degradation, soil_type, soil_biology, soil_ecology, soil_conservation and so on.
Seafriends is a non-profit charitable organization for saving the sea. Feedback appreciated. Floor Anthoni 01:21, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Project directory
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 00:09, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia Day Awards
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Shingle
Somebody needs to create an article, or a section of an article, about "shingle" as it is used for a soil type or landform or whatever it is in geology. There are dozens of articles which use that term, but nothing to link it to. There is nothing at the disambiguation page at Shingle. Maybe a shingle (geology) or shingle (soil) article with the appropriate disambiguation, or a redirect from that to a section in some other article, something short enough so that people can remember it to add it as a link. Gene Nygaard 14:05, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Scope of project - does it include life?
Hello all, it's a rather long story why I'm asking this, but I was wondering if WikiProject Soil would encompass the Earthworm article? I'm incredibly hesitant to make the decision on my own, as if I'm wrong it would be a rather slippery slope (including all soil-dwelling lifeforms).
If this isn't the case, would anyone happen to know of a project in which Earthworm fits? Yours is the most applicable one I've been able to find.
Thanks in advance! --Nemilar 05:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Pedotope
There is a stub article for pedotope which was created as part of a project on ecological land classification and its related terminology. I was surprised to find a project on soils. Can someone here please expand this stub article and make it worthy? BeeTea 00:22, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Soil article discussion
If anyone still watches this page, there is a discussion at Talk:Soil which is desiring additional participants. – Basar (talk · contribs) 22:53, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Notice of List articles
Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Wikipedia:Contents subpages (not by me).
This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 19:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Soil Directory Structure
Previous content from this section has been archived.
Wikipedia has needed a Soil directory to distance the project from the soil science for better accuracy, a more balanced presentation, and in a few cases, to maintain neutrality.
Category:Soil, new as of November, 2007, is a sub-cat of Category:Natural resources. Category:Soil science is also a sub-cat of Category:Soil. Accordingly, Category:Soil could have been placed under the Category:Soil science ala Commons:Category:Soil but was not sufficiently responsive to concerns for balanced treatment.
- Sub categories of Category:Soil:
- Category:Types of soils Note: Types of soil is also a sub-cat of Category:Categories by type
- Category:Soil texture types for types addressed under the USDA system
- Category:Soil material types for types addressed under engineering and geology systems like AASHTO Soil Classification System, and Unified Soil Classification System
- The distinction between the texture types and material types seems too forced. -- Paleorthid 18:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
- Category:Soil resource types, like List of vineyard soil types
- Category:Soil taxonomic classes with sub-cats for classes of 1938 USDA soil taxonomy, Australian Soil Classification, Canadian system of soil classification, FAO soil classification, USDA soil taxonomy, and the World Reference Base for Soil Resources.
- Category:U. S. and Canadian soil series (example of cross border soil series: Berkshire (soil))
- Category:U. S. state soils (ala Category:U.S._state_soil
- Category:Soil management for erosion control, drainage, salinity control, watertable control
- Category:Soil materials for dispersion (geology)
- Category:Soil resources for erosion, soil conservation, soil salination
- The distinction between management/materials/resources seems unclear. -- Paleorthid 18:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
- Category:Types of soils Note: Types of soil is also a sub-cat of Category:Categories by type
- We need a structure that will avoid looping: Category:Soil and Category:Soil science cannot be sub-cats of eachother
- A structure that uses multiple paths to get to an article is OK:
- Nature>Natural Resources>Soil>Types of soil>(specific soil type article: material, resource, or pedology class)
- Nature>Natural Sciences>Earth sciences>Soil Science>Pedology>(specific soil pedology class type article)
- Nature>Natural Sciences>Earth sciences>Physical geography>Pedology>(specific soil pedology classtype article)
Tillage articles
SoilMan2007 is a new user who is doing work on Tillage and related articles. (Here are his Contributions.) He is enthusiastic and informed, but new to Wikipedia. I have given him some guidance on Wikipedia house style and related matters but as with all of us, there is a learning curve. Could members of this project assist him, by watchlisting his talk page, where he now is posting questions from time to time? I will continue as well. Thank you. Kablammo (talk) 04:44, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Dead link patrol
Project articles can develop a fair number of dead links over time. These are unwanted, and should be fixed on a regular basis. You can either try to find the current location of the document using a Google inurl search, or use the {{dlw}} or {{dlw-inline}} templates to point to the Internet Archive version of the document, like this: {{dlw|dead URL|caption}}, e.g.: {{dlw|http://free.oszoo.org/|OS Zoo webpage}}. For dead links inside paragraphs, use {{dlw-inline|url=dead URL|title=caption}}, which will not disturb the flow of text as much. Please do not simply remove every dead link; they often contain valuable information. -- Paleorthid (talk) 02:41, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Philip Greenspun illustration project (PGIP)
Dear Wikimedians,
This is a (belated) announcement that requests are now being taken for illustrations to be created for the Philip Greenspun illustration project (PGIP).
The aim of the project is to create and improve illustrations on Wikimedia projects. You can help by identifying which important articles or concepts are missing illustrations (diagrams) that could make them a lot easier to understand. Requests should be made on this page: Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project/Requests
If there's a topic area you know a lot about or are involved with as a Wikiproject, why not conduct a review to see which illustrations are missing and needed for that topic? Existing content can be checked by using Mayflower to search Wikimedia Commons, or use the Free Image Search Tool to quickly check for images of a given topic in other-language projects.
The community suggestions will be used to shape the final list, which will be finalised to 50 specific requests for Round 1, due to start in January. People will be able to make suggestions for the duration of the project, not just in the lead-up to Round 1.
- General information about the project: m:Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project
- Potential illustrators and others interested in the project should join the mailing list: mail:greenspun-illustrations
thanks, pfctdayelise (talk) 12:55, 13 December 2007 (UTC) (Project coordinator)
Posted to WikiProject Science and WikiProject Biology, Relayed to WikiProject Soil by Paleorthid (talk) 16:19, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
- The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
- The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
- A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.
Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.
Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 20:51, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
First off, I just want to say how awesome it is that there is a Wikiproject Soil. Secondly, I found the above article, and tagged it for your project. I was wondering if it was named correctly though, as a ornithologist I would always call birds that feed in it foraging in leaf litter. Thoughts? Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:03, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
- An article on leaf litter predated the article on plant litter, which user:Daniel Collins created, possibly in order to apply the term to other-than-forested settings. user:Daniel Collins has left Wikipedia, so we will have to figure this out without his insight. We should have to go through the links to see how the distinction plays out in the individual articles, however, leaf litter would seem the more familiar term to hang an encyclopedia article on. Persuasive: (1) more articles link to leaf litter than are directly linked through plant litter. (2) Google scholar retrieves 4X the results on "leaf litter" vs "plant litter". -- Paleorthid (talk) 13:32, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
WP 0.7
Nine project articles are selected for inclusion in WP Version 0.7 DVD. Given the opportunity of a two month reprieve, now is the time for project participants to review and improve these articles. --Paleorthid (talk) 17:38, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Soil
Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.
We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.
A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.
We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
- Like I said...:) -- Paleorthid (talk) 23:28, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Effective microorganisms
There is a oddly phrased article at Effective microorganism that seems a bit unclear on whether it is NPOV or sourced correctly. Thought this project might like to be made aware of it.--ZayZayEM (talk) 06:39, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Request for help
- folks I had my students work on some soil science related wikipedia topics this year for my course. Would some of you be willing to take a look and make some constructive reviews. I'd ask you to tell these students what kinds of problems with notes rather than just changing things. I want them to learn from their mistakes.
- Soil Erosion and Crop Rotations - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_rotation
- Ammonia Volatilization from Urea - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GoBigBlue/sandbox
- Nitrogen Management on golf course turf - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golf_Course_Turf —Preceding unsigned comment added by SoilMan2007 (talk • contribs) 01:50, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
- Tillage and Soil Biology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mstreyn/sandbox
Best Regards, SoilMan2007 (talk)
Milestone Announcements
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I thought this WikiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 (t, c) 22:20, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Prof. Peter Bullock
Hi, hope this is the right place to come :-) I came across the article Peter Bullock (scientist) by chance, and found it to be largely copyvio of his Guardian obituary. I've reworded it to remove the worst of the copyvio but, as this is totally not my field, would appreciate someone knowledgeable having a look over it to clean up anything I've misunderstood or misrepresented or shouldn't have left out. Thanks, Struway2 (talk) 21:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Coordinators' working group
Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.
All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:35, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.
If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none
parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.
Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.
Thanks. — Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:41, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)
Citing verbatim use of public domain sources
The following was added to Natchez silt loam:
- ==Sources==
- This article utilizes text taken verbatim from Natchez Silt Loam- Mississippi State Soil, a public domain publication of the United States Department of Agriculture.
Many articles in the project would benefit from this approach to citation. --Paleorthid (talk) 18:14, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
I have created Index of soil-related articles. Please check for any omissions. The list is made from the contents of the relevant categories. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:30, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
Mire terminology
I started a discussion here about mire/bog/fen terminology.--Carnby (talk) 09:33, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Drainage
I saw that Drainage fell within the scope of this project. Has anyone seen anything related to the "crown" of a sports field? It is the slight slope created to allow fo drainage and I was hoping to wikilink to it if it is available as a subsection of an article somewhere.Cptnono (talk) 01:39, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
An editor has nominated List of universities with soil science curriculum, a Soil WikliProject article, for deletion. This editor does not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and has explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of universities with soil science curriculum. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. --Paleorthid (talk) 17:25, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
Soil articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release
Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.
We would like to ask you to review the Soil articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.
We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!
For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:37, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Recent changes were made to citations templates (such as {{citation}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}}...). In addition to what was previously supported (bibcode, doi, jstor, isbn, ...), templates now support arXiv, ASIN, JFM, LCCN, MR, OL, OSTI, RFC, SSRN and Zbl. Before, you needed to place |id=
(or worse {{arxiv|0123.4567}}
|url=http://arxiv.org/abs/0123.4567
), now you can simply use |arxiv=0123.4567
, likewise for |id=
and {{JSTOR|0123456789}}
|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/0123456789
→ |jstor=0123456789
.
The full list of supported identifiers is given here (with dummy values):
- {{cite journal |author=John Smith |year=2000 |title=How to Put Things into Other Things |journal=Journal of Foobar |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=3–4 |arxiv=0123456789 |asin=0123456789 |bibcode=0123456789 |doi=0123456789 |jfm=0123456789 |jstor=0123456789 |lccn=0123456789 |isbn=0123456789 |issn=0123456789 |mr=0123456789 |oclc=0123456789 |ol=0123456789 |osti=0123456789 |rfc=0123456789 |pmc=0123456789 |pmid=0123456789 |ssrn=0123456789 |zbl=0123456789 |id={{para|id|____}} }}
Obviously not all citations needs all parameters, but this streamlines the most popular ones and gives both better metadata and better appearances when printed. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:21, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
Rename this wikiproject?
I notice that User:Greenman-23 has removed "the earth material used in construction" from the definition of "soil" in the project's scope. If it is the case that WikiProject Soil is not interested in including articles related to geotechnical engineering, or to soil considered as anything other than a medium for plant growth, I suggest that the WikiProject rename itself to "WikiProject Soil Science". That way, people interested primarily in geotechnical engineering aspects of soil will know that this WikiProject doesn't have much for them, while people interested in soil for its biological properties will know that this WikiProject is what they're looking for. Argyriou (talk) 05:26, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:HighBeam
Wikipedia:HighBeam describes a limited opportunity for Wikipedia editors to have access to HighBeam Research.
—Wavelength (talk) 18:59, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
USDA soil types - singular or plural?
Most articles (e.g. Ultisols) have a plural title, but some are singular (e.g. Entisol). Any reason for this difference? Can it be made consistent? Should they all be singular, or all be plural? Colonies Chris (talk) 10:00, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
- I guess WP:SINGULAR applies. Dentren | Talk 01:38, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
- Most articles are written in the plural form, with the exception of Vertisol. Histosol starts off singular but continues plural (a histosol is a soil consisting primarily of organic materials. They are defined as having ...) Depends whether the name is thought of as the umbrella term for a group sharing certain characteristics, or as a common classification of a lot of individual soil types. Rather like the debate over "the police is ..." or "the police are ...", I suppose. Colonies Chris (talk) 13:19, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
We need some images over there. If you have a camera and a shovel, or one of those new camera-shovels, please help.
Many thanks, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 17:52, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
Wrong category name?
Please express your opinion here. --Daniele Pugliesi (talk) 02:24, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
Can anyone help with a question about "crust microorganisms which are active only when wet" at Talk:Biological_soil_crust? FloraWilde (talk) 01:45, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Can anyone help with a question about "crust microorganisms which are active only when wet" at Talk:Biological_soil_crust? FloraWilde (talk) 01:45, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Comment on the WikiProject X proposal
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
WikiProject X is live!
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/WikiProject_X_icon.svg/100px-WikiProject_X_icon.svg.png)
Hello everyone!
You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!
Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.
Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Impenetrable Science
Wikipedia's scientists, including those involved with WikiProject Soil, should read the Impenetrable Science article in the latest Signpost.
John Timmer, senior science editor at Ars Technica, editorializes about the state of science articles on Wikipedia, writing "Wikipedia fails as an encyclopedia, to science’s detriment": "Disturbingly, all of the worst entries I have ever read have been in the sciences. Wander off the big ideas in the sciences, and you're likely to run into entries that are excessively technical and provide almost no context, making them effectively incomprehensible."
We resemble that remark! -- Paleorthid (talk) 02:31, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 6
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/WikiProject_X_icon.svg/70px-WikiProject_X_icon.svg.png)
Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:
Some good news: the Wikimedia Foundation has renewed WikiProject X. This means we can continue focusing on making WikiProjects better.
During our first round of work, we created a prototype WikiProject based on two ideas: (1) WikiProjects should clearly present things for people to do, and (2) The content of WikiProjects should be automated as much as possible. We launched pilots, and for the most part it works. But this approach will not work for the long term. While it makes certain aspects of running a WikiProject easier, it makes the maintenance aspects harder.
We are working on a major overhaul that will address these issues. New features will include:
- Creating WikiProjects by simply filling out a form, choosing which reports you want to generate for your project. This will work with existing bots in addition to the Reports Bot reports. (Of course, you can also have sections curated by humans.)
- One-click button to join a WikiProject, with optional notifications.
- Be able to define your WikiProject's scope within the WikiProject itself by listing relevant pages and categories, eliminating the need to tag every talk page with a banner. (You will still be allowed to do that, of course. It just won't be required.)
The end goal is a collaboration tool that can be used by WikiProjects but also by any edit-a-thon or group of people that want to coordinate on improving articles. Though implemented as an extension, the underlying content will be wikitext, meaning that you can continue to use categories, templates, and other features as you normally would.
This will take a lot of work, and we are just getting started. What would you like to see? I invite you to discuss on our talk page.
Until next time,
RfC at Talk:Climate change denial
There is a RfC at Talk:Climate change denial. Please contribute if you are interested. Biscuittin (talk) 00:19, 28 January 2016 (UTC)