Talk:August 2016 Central Italy earthquake/Archive 1

Archive 1

Severity

The reference to a "6.2 magnitude" earthquake is meaningless, without referring to the scale used.125.236.202.112 (talk) 23:54, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

The infobox clarifies that it's Moment magnitude. Still, agree it makes sense to include it in the body of the text. Adjusted thusly. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 02:31, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Map

The file File:Shakemap Earthquake 24 Aug 2016 Italy.jpg should be added to category commons:Category:Maps of 2016 Central Italy earthquake, as the page is protected from editing. Thanks, -- MB298 (talk) 02:29, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Change of title to earthquakes

I think that this change was a little premature - that newspaper report is not really sufficient on its own to make the change. As of a few minutes ago the INGV list 7 aftershocks of over magnitude 4 and only one of over 5 - for comparison the USGS currently list 8. So far these all appear to be aftershocks and not separate earthquakes. It won't be a surprise if other mainshocks occur over the next few days/weeks, but they haven't yet. Mikenorton (talk) 12:23, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Agree, the rename was definitely premature and no other language uses the plural as far as I can see--DarTar (talk) 14:50, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Agree as well. Premature move, and would support moving it back to singular for now. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 02:18, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Agree to move back to singular, but proper titling requires "earthquake" be lowercase. An admin is needed to move it back to that title. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 06:44, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

@Crumpled Fire: So why did you move it to a plural title instead of requesting an administrative move if you knew what needed to be done? -- Veggies (talk) 07:54, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

I reverted it to the status quo per WP:NCCAPS until an admin can make the move to the proper name. I didn't make the request because I wasn't confident that there was necessarily enough consensus yet. If you feel there is enough consensus, feel free to do so. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 08:02, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Note that the system refused to accept a move back to "earthquake" when I tried and capitalizing was my only workaround.LE (talk) 13:05, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Right. If an article title already exists, Wikipedia won't allow basic users to move the pages back and forth. The solution isn't to try and force something against the manual of style but to request an administrator to move the page. -- Veggies (talk) 05:33, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Reactions

I've just removed a "reactions" section which contained nothing of substance; mostly just that some countries have, in the name of their heads of state, issued press releases expressing condolences. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:37, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

so based on opinion, you blanked an entire section? FriarTuck1981 (talk) 20:00, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Many articles about disasters, spree shootings, terror attacks etc. have Reactions sections. Is there a guideline/policy regarding whether they should be on articles? Jim Michael (talk) 08:04, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Victims' names

Even if the edit [1] were sourced (which it isn't) it is not appropriate to list all of the victims' names in the article. Meters (talk) 07:39, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Number of deaths

The the number of deaths is being 'updated' by editors, exclusively IPs recently. AGF, they may be correct, however the references are not being changed or updated in any way. It says "As of x...", but the source is dated days earlier. Example [2] and [3]. It's gone from 268 to 290, without a new or more recent source.
• This is actually fairly common, but on other pages I've also seen absurd figures sneaked in. :-( Needs watching. 220 of ^Borg 17:39, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Decimal point

Per WP:DECIMAL, A period/full point (.), never a comma, is used as the decimal point (6.57, not 6,57).""―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 13:17, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

This is something which although in the guidelines, is somewhat a politically incorrect demand of members of a worldwide encyclopedia. Most countries of Europe, including Italy, of which this article is about, use the Arabic numeral system, which includes a comma as a decimal separator. Honestly, both should be equally accepted and I will even make this argument on the guideline page.Grez868 (talk) 00:33, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Magnitude

Many media in the English speaking world are reporting a magnitude of 6.2 Mw from USGS. However, the competent seismological institute in Italy, which operates 350 monitoring stations close to the event, has produced a final analysis which reports 6.0 ± 0.3 Mw at a depth of 4 ± 1 km. The USGS has got 9 monitoring stations in Europe, of which none in Italy. Just like it wouldn't be wise to ask the Italian meteorological institute for the wind speed of a hurricane in Florida, it is not wise to use USGS data for an earthquake in Italy.--Japs 88 (talk) 08:19, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Seismic data is shared between national organisations such as INGV and USGS and the magnitude estimates (which is what they are) probably use pretty much the same input data, although the near surface velocity structure that INGV are using is likely to be more detailed than anything the USGS has, which particularly affects the depth estimate. Note that 6.2 lies within 6.0±0.3. I have no problem with using the 6.0 value from INGV for the above reaons, but there's nothing stupid about using a USGS magnitude estimate. When the scientific papers are written, both depth and magnitude estimates are likely to change again. Mikenorton (talk) 08:49, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree with what you say. What I do not agree with is to use the number of hits in Google News to determine the value of a scientific measurement. I included the uncertainties on magnitude and depth, in the hope of settling the dispute. Btw, I couldn't find the uncertainties on USGS data. If anyone can, it could be useful to add it where all the different values are quoted.--Japs 88 (talk) 08:57, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

That is the standard policy. Discrepancies are resolved by following the majority of reliable sources. But I don't mind the compromise value. Geogene (talk) 20:16, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I found the USGS uncertainties, for magnitude they claim 6.2 +/- 0.016 [4] based on 440 stations. Geogene (talk) 20:41, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, but they almost certainly used different stations and possibly different methodology - the USGS list five different versions of Mw: Mwp, Mwc, Mww, Mwb & Mwr. However, at least the USGS and EMSC values lie within the uncertainty range of the INGV magnitude. I don't think that there is a "right answer" here - we often end up with a range. Mikenorton (talk) 20:58, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Understood. I'm sure this probably comes up in every earthquake article. Geogene (talk) 21:34, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

For those who want to understand, INGV released a blog post about the measurements of magnitude that is worth reading, including the previous post linked at the bottom of the page.--Japs 88 (talk) 20:58, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Here is the same in English via Google Translate [5]. Essentially INGV's value overlaps with the USGS value, as Mikenorton pointed out above. I was probably hasty in reverting back to USGS numbers, and do not intend to re-revert that further, as long as we give all three numbers somewhere in the body (and that can be in a footnote). Regardless, it's likely that various drive-by editors and IPs will uselessly flip/flop that back and forth for the next several months. Geogene (talk) 21:19, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

New magnitude chart

I appreciate the initiative shown in creating the new chart. But is the current version the best way to visualize the data? The y-axis is linear, so the main shock looks like it's just floating there above a few hundred aftershocks. The expected exponential dropoff in aftershocks is plainly visible but a trend line would be neat. Geogene (talk) 23:26, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

I think this chart (created by User:Phoenix7777) could be improved by changing the colour of the dot representing the main earthquake (the only dot on the 6.0 line). Could the main shock's dot be changed to another colour that contrasts highly with the yellow dots of the aftershocks, and also could the main shock's dot be enlarged? I think these changes would help to make it easier for readers of this article to see the large main shock and the many smaller aftershocks. GeoWriter (talk) 11:11, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I see that User:Phoenix7777 has now changed the 6.0 main earthquake's dot on the chart. Thanks. GeoWriter (talk) 10:49, 31 August 2016 (UTC)