Talk:Rising Star Cave/Archive 1

Absurd statements
"Despite a stated policy of 'open access' and sharing of data, those concerned are reluctant to provide details of the project, for example, the geometry of the cave, admitting only to 'tunnels, a climb and a chute'. Information on the progress of dating of the fragments has also not been forthcoming. Visual material on the cave and fossils remains under copyright."

Unless Paul venter want to provide the name (with cite) of a paleoanthropologist who has been denied access to the Rising Star materials, his claim that there is no open access is nothing short of a baseless accusation of lying. That is what Dr. Berger promised. They did not promise a press release on the exact location of the finds for sake of security of the fossils and outright said so. They will have to reveal exacting location of where the fossil was found when they publish the find which they suggested might be by the end of this year which is very fast by the field's standards. Many teams clearly would take a decade or more. No information about the progress of dating? Duh. Dating such caves is often extraordinarily difficult. That might very well be an object of research for years. They are still arguing how old Little Foot is that skeleton was discovered in the 1990s. Even if this was a easy place to date the work would probably not be done yet. Details about the bones, they said all along that they would not publicly speculate about it. The appropriate place to release that info is in the journals

Is this criticism original with Paul Venter? Wikipedia articles are not for original research or nor are they the place for personal rants. Unless a citation can be produced from an appropriate scientist, I feel no qualms for editing this stuff out. 68.97.5.247 (talk) 05:30, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Possible use of inside unsourced info
The second site, UW-102, has this sentence describing it "It has already yielded its own important fossil hominid remains." There is no citation for this. The only information, to my knowledge, released about UW-102 is the John Hawks article cited in the main article. Dr. Hawks does not describe the new site as "important" mere notes that hominin remains have been recovered from it and thus it will get attention in the future. The person who edited the sentence into Wikipedia is using the same username as is being used on Twitter by one of the "underground astronauts" who excavated UW-101 so it reasonable to assume they are the same. While she certainly is enough of the insider to think the sentence is true. As a fan of paleoanthropology that certainly makes me excited. But, Wikipedia is not supposed to be edited to add insider knowledge even if true. A statement put into Wikipedia should be justifiable using only information available to the general public. And something described at "important" should not be our personal opinion, but the general consensus though "Dr. WHOEVER said 'this is an important find.'" would be acceptable. I suppose UW-102's real importance is that it suggests that UW-101 is not a mere fluke, but that there might be quite a few hominin sites to be found in Rising Star. In any even, I put a "citation needed" into the main article. 68.97.5.247 (talk) 15:17, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Something that can be cited has come up.  Lee Berger wrote on Facebook: "I spent the morning conserving and assembling the skeleton of another new early hominin - the afternoon welcoming two new deserving associate professors into Wits in the selection process of our promotions committee - that is the definition of a good day."  He did so on March 5.  In a March 6 comment he said he was referring to the second site.   Link 68.97.5.247 (talk) 04:07, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Literature section - to have or not to have?
A "Literature" section has just been deleted. I would guess that I have a majority of librarians on my side, when I say that a Literature section for this article is warranted. Can a librarian or a lesser person please explain so I don't have to - why it would be a good idea to have a Literature section? --Here to sway (talk) 21:50, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * See Manual of Style/Layout. There is already a section for literature on the topic: it is here called "References". Some articles have an optional section called Further reading, which contains tastefully selected supplemental resources that haven't already been used as references or External links. Note that some articles with an exorbitant number of sources, or certain sources cited multiple times, may have short footnotes that link to general references (see for example Thomas Pennant), but in this case, with an article still in development, there seems little benefit. --Animalparty! (talk) 22:46, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think I understand your explanation for why it's not a good idea. Can anyone give any input on why perhaps it would be a good idea to have a Literature section? Here to sway (talk) 23:07, 28 September 2015 (UTC)