Talk:Atlantic Ocean

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 * An event in this article is a January 7 selected anniversary

Unnecessary Info on the List of People to Cross the Atlantic
I just removed the first trans-Atlantic telephone call from the list. No one actually crossed the Atlantic when making the call, right? If you want to put it back on, talk about it here first. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Germpolice (talk • contribs) 16:58, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

This article is garbage
In my view, this article is a load of fluff. Frankly it has nothing to do with the actual ocean, only the way humans have interacted with it! For example, although the page purports to be about the ATLANTIC OCEAN, nowhere is there any basic information about how it is believed to have been formed, how old it is, the land it is sitting on top of, etc. etc. It is only about humans! How about retitleing this page, HUMAN INTERACTION WITH THE ATLANTIC OCEAN and starting over? Congrats Wikipedia, once again you have failed utterly at something which should be quite simple and straightforward. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2405:6582:8580:C00:7C81:49D9:4687:33C0 (talk) 04:33, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Drainage basin
The infobox links from "Basin countries" to List of countries and territories bordering the Atlantic Ocean. This is not correct, as it does not include countries included in the drainage basin but which do not border the ocean or the connected seas, notably Switzerland, Luxembourg, Hungary, Lichtenstein, Serbia, Northern Macedonia, Belarus, Mali, Central African Republic, Zambia, Tanzania, Lesotho, Niger, Sudan, Ethiopia, etc. etc.

You may think I'm proposing that we create a corrected, separate list. But no. Actually, the whole notion of listing the drainage basin of oceans by country seems silly. Even for the Mediterranean, it seems silly and pedantic. (And you can see that various editors on that article have been confused by this notion.) Why is this worth recording in the infobox of these large bodies of water? Countries are not meaningful geophysical units, and a list of scores of countries seems pretty much useless. (Should we also include a complete list of the countries in the Eastern Hemisphere?) It looks like the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean articles don't include this field in their infobox -- that seems much more sensible to me.

Even shorter lists of countries seem problematic. A small part of the drainage basin of the Mississippi is in Canada, and therefore the drainage basin of the Gulf of Mexico technically includes Canada. Is that actually useful to mention? The drainage map at File:Ocean drainage.png seems much more useful.

I'm pinging the editors who have been involved in this issue on the Mediterranean Sea article. I wonder where the best place to have the discussion is? --Macrakis (talk) 23:00, 12 July 2020 (UTC)


 * I see where you're coming from and yes I agree excessive lists and large bodies of water just don't make sense in an infobox. The infobox should be concise a snapshot on the facts important for the article. I think what needs to be considered is what does a potential reader find useful and really anything in the infobox should be in the body of the article as well. So fo the extended lists the body would be a reasonable place to list a more extensive list. Countries for one as part of the drainage basin would be important for anyone interested in the politics of managing the water of the body. Does this need to be in the infobox for large bodies, probably not and that should be discussed by the project(s) which intersects with the article and trying to keep with consistency of practice. While I agree drainage basins probably make more sense by basin name and those basins should be able to display the associated country or countries. As someone working to bring WP:LAKES into more consistent experience across articles I've largely ignored basin countries, but do see for these smaller bodies value. On an ocean though I don't think the parameter makes sense. Wolfgang8741 says: If not you, then who? (talk) 17:55, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

North and South Atlantic Oceans.
The article claims that "The Atlantic Ocean is divided in two parts, by the Equatorial Counter Current, with the North(ern) Atlantic Ocean and the South(ern) Atlantic Ocean split at about 8°N." However, according to International Hydrographic Organization the border lies at the equator. See: International Hydrographic Organization, [https://iho.int/uploads/user/pubs/standards/s-23/S-23_Ed3_1953_EN.pdf Limits of Oceans and Seas, 3rd ed. (1953)] (still valid), pages 4 and 13. - Episcophagus (talk) 15:03, 28 July 2023 (UTC)