Template talk:Extraterrestrial life

Template history

 * Template started using the content of Extraterrestrial life and added to each article it references. If you feel strongly that it should not be on your article then take it off the article but kindly leave it on the template. -Arb. (talk) 13:55, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Added all likely (and missing) articles from Category:Extraterrestrial life -Arb. (talk) 11:24, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Ditto Category:Interstellar messages -Arb. (talk) 11:51, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Ditto Category:SETI -Arb. (talk) 12:44, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Ditto Category:Astrobiology. That's me done. -Arb. (talk) 14:26, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Appropriateness of articles in the template
Thank you for this nice template! There are some articles that I don't feel really belonging here. I will remove scientific skepticism as completely unrelated, for example, but I have doubts for example on Area 51): what do you think? Should we maybe find an inclusion criteria? -- Cycl o pia talk  14:58, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I had doubts about Area 51!--Michael C. Price talk 17:13, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Inclusion criteria sounds like a good idea. Any idea how to go about documenting it? I'd been planning to go through the related categories and add any likely looking candidates; inclusion criteria would guide that task. -Arb. (talk) 21:49, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I suggest we explicitly exclude fiction, for the reasons already cited.--Michael C. Price talk 22:24, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree. I have no clear-cut ideas on a criteria. I would include what has a direct relevance with extraterrestral life/intelligence speculation, but leaving out exoplanets (including them gives the idea that they are positively suspected to host life, which is misleading), ufology (which could have a template in itself) and fictional stuff. -- Cycl o pia talk  23:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, exclude exoplanets and UFOlogy. Not sure how we formalise that, though.--Michael C. Price talk 23:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Fiction
I've removed a fictional item, on the grounds that if we tried to include all fictional aliens we'd have to list virtually every SF story ever written. There's still a general link to fictional extraterrestial life.--Michael C. Price talk 21:18, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Removing articles
Help keep Wikipedia tidy: If you remove an article from the template, please also remove the template from the article. -Arb. (talk) 21:51, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Good point. Thanks. --Michael C. Price talk 22:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Upon reflection, there might be exceptions. For instance I've left the template in Fred Hoyle's rejection of chemical evolution, since it seems appropriate, even though I removed it from the template, since it seemed covered by panspermia. --Michael C. Price talk 22:23, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Ceres
An editor of Ceres (dwarf planet) has objected to the template and removed it. Should it be on the template? -Arb. (talk) 22:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Not unless we think it has life on it. --Michael C. Price talk 22:16, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I removed Ceres from that template because I don't think there's life in it. BlueEarth (talk | contribs) 23:25, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think it either, but is there significant speculation published in WP:RS on the subject? -- Cycl o pia talk  23:47, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Communication
The "Communication" section seems a bit of a mishmash. Would it be better separated into two: "Communication with" (or similar) and "Searches for"? There are sufficient articles to make both worthwhile but there is also the small issue of some overlap between the two. -Arb. (talk) 11:28, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal
The science dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life is called astrobiology; currently there are 2 templates on the same subject. I propose: 1) to merge all the information from the Astrobiology template into the Extraterrestrial life template.

2) rename (move) the destination template Astrobiology. BatteryIncluded (talk) 14:09, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Discussion moved to Templates for discussion/Log/2013 March 3. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:11, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Wow signal
The Wow! signal is of unknown cause or origin, we just have not even the slightest idea what it was, it could have been originated by humans, by nature, or by aliens playing games with us, but we don't know. So, it would be inappropriate to list it in the "misidentified signals" category of the template. To avoid problems, the category was renamed to just "Signals", following the style of the other categories that are named "objects", "bodies", "missions" etc. without attributing any spin. It's much better to keep the category named as "Signals". Sofia Koutsouveli (talk) 20:42, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Good change that to "signals". But, I thought it was an artificial satellite. Why is there doubt it was anything more than that? Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 22:59, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Narrow down missions
Can we please, narrow down missions to these there either took place or at a very least are actively developed and already have an allocated funding? There's several missions on a list that are just a proposals, and it's relatively difficult to pick an actual missions between spam of various ideas.

IMHO list should include only an actual missions (as opposite to proposals), with normal text marking completed missions, Italics indicates active missions, (small brackets) text used to indicated launch date of a planned missions currently under development, † sign marking failed missions. SkywalkerPL (talk) 09:23, 18 September 2015 (UTC)