Talk:Echoes of Life

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Errm well, it is a book. But is it a notable book? William M. Connolley (talk) 09:12, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

This at BioScience is a decent sized review. At Astrobiology is okay. Science too. And apparently at Royal Society of Chemistry (but I don't have access). I'd say it passes WP:Notability (books) criteria 1. -Atmoz (talk) 17:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Atmoz on his interpretation of WP:Notability (books). Nsaa (talk) 20:30, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Are those really the criteria for notability? William M. Connolley (talk) 09:08, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

So you don`t think being reviewed by BioScience Astrobiology Science Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society Chemical and enginering news is notable? Or the fact that this book is also a research book for universities [1] ? Nor the fact that it gets cited from in scientific papers? [2] This is a highly notable book, i fail to see why you would think it is not mark nutley (talk) 17:24, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Also to be found at the The Library of Congress [3] which according to WP:Notability (books) is one of the threshold standards mark nutley (talk) 17:29, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

It would be really nice if you could actually *read* the policy pages you blithely quote, rather than just picking up the first nugget to catch your eye. As it says, However, these are exclusionary criteria rather than inclusionary; meeting these threshold standards does not imply that a book is notable William M. Connolley (talk) 17:34, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I already said that, my comment was that it already meets the minimum threshold standard. Along with all the reviews you appear to have missed above means the book is notable mark nutley (talk) 17:43, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Just read what it says. Meeting the threshold standard does not make it notable. Failing to meet the threshold makes it non-notable. If you don't understand that (and therefore, why your comments are irrelevant) ask Cla or someone to explain it to you in even more detail William M. Connolley (talk) 18:01, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Why not just ignore that and comment on the amount of reviews the book has which have been posted above mark nutley (talk) 18:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, so we're making progress: your comment is ignorable. Quite why you bothered making ignorable comments shall remain forever a mystery, but no matter.

I don't believe the reviews-implies-notability. If there was something notable about this book, the article would have some substance. But it has nothing. It is virtually empty. There must be something worth saying about this book William M. Connolley (talk) 18:13, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

It seems there is a consensus against you from the discussion above. Why not stop baiting your fellow editors and move on to something useful? --204.11.245.201 (talk) 18:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

• Being published by the OUP carries significant weight for notability "by virtue of the non-commercial nature of such presses, and the peer review process that must be passed". This combined with the large number of independent reviews in some heavyweight science publications makes it obviously notable. Thparkth (talk) 12:49, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Excess reviews

As with several other articles (HSI, most obvously) the "reception" section bloats mostrously because you can write it by just copying material from elsewhere. But it is useless, particularly for a non-controversial book. Having 80% of the article dedicated to review is ridiculous William M. Connolley (talk) 22:05, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The removal of well sourced content from this article is ridiculous and i shall have to revert it back in mark nutley (talk) 22:09, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Mark, I have to agree with WMC here. Of course the material is well-sourced and otherwise quite legitimate to include, but that doesn't make it interesting or useful to do so. The extra material reduces the readability and utility of the article, but doesn't really tell me anything new. Thparkth (talk) 22:18, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Stop removing sourced content. You're been warned. Minor4th 12:56, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

There is no requirement to leave sourced content in if removing it will improve the article. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:25, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

But it didn't. William was going from article to article reverting mark nutley [4] (no comment on talk page), [5] (no comment on talk page),[6], [7]. That was before he went back and re-reverted every one of those. Broaden your view a bit. Minor4th 18:11, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I can't speak for WMC, but I did remove some sourced content, which I believe improved the article, and you replied to me here with a warning. Thparkth (talk) 19:31, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

He reverted me without going to talk? Is`nt he on a sanction against that? mark nutley (talk) 18:19, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

No, that restriction expired two or three weeks ago, so now he's back to doing the same think with impunity. Minor4th 19:25, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Possibly you believe that reverting without a justifiction on talk is a bad thing? If so, can I interst you in a long string of MN edits that do just that? No? How odd William M. Connolley (talk) 20:03, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

So, let us return to the substance of the discussion: is it reasonable for 50+% of the article to consist of repetetive reviews, as M4th would like? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:11, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

The reviews have already been trimmed and several removed, there should be no further removal of content, we are meant to be building articles up, not gutting them mark nutley (talk) 15:07, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I won't revert my change (I believe in voluntary WP:1RR) but I want to make it clear why I made that edit. I feel that the two quotations I removed merely describe the book. They don't tell us if it's a good or bad book, and we don't need any additional general descriptions of the book because there is already one in the article. I don't feel that including these quotations adds any information to the article - they merely increase it's length. What is the point we're trying to make by including those reviews? Is it simply that the book was reviewed in those journals, to attest to it's notability? That's perfectly valid of course - but couldn't we do it simply by saying "the book was reviewed by journal X and journal Y" ? Thparkth (talk) 16:03, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Anyone would think this was a contentious book the way people have carried on, I fully intend to expand the synopsis and the reviews have already been cut down and a few removed. Enough already mark nutley (talk) 16:19, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't feel you've addressed the specific point I made. Thparkth (talk) 18:34, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I think i have, i believe enough has been trimmed already and i see no reason to remove more content mark nutley (talk) 18:39, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

It would be helpful to me if you could specifically state what value you see in those two quotations. What do they add to the article, other than length? It's quite possible I'm just not understanding something here. I have been known to be wrong :) But my general philosophy as a copy editor, both on- and off-wiki, is if you can shorten an article without losing any information or making it harder to read, you probably should - see User:Thparkth#Less_is_More.Thparkth (talk) 18:50, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The five reviews all talk about the book from a different perspective, this is needed for readers to get an idea of the books reception within academia. Different perspectives gives a better idea to our readers on what this book offers mark nutley (talk) 18:58, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't see that; they seem much of a muchness. But if you can find something to actually say about the book itself, that would be good William M. Connolley (talk) 20:02, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

William M. Connolley -- the content you continue to remove has been edited and trimmed, and you continue to remove it because you don't like it (or for some personal reason against mark nutley). Please do not remove reliably sourced content without clear consensus and a clear policy rationale. By the way, Thpakth, my warning the other day was not to you -- you did not wholesale remove the content. You trimmed it and were editing in a fairly collaborative manner. The warning was to William who is revert warring. Mark - you need to stop reverting too. I would suggest you ask another editor to look at it rather than revert yourself. I believe that William is taunting and baiting you, and you cannot afford to react to that behavior. Minor4th 22:07, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Chemistry/Geochemistry

I´m no expert, but the reference to early experiments in the 1930s seems to refer to the beginings of organic geochemistry as a discipline. The experiments wouldn't really have been "early" if the article means organic chemistry which is an older discipline, going back to the nineteenth century. I think there is some confusion in the article.--Alan (talk) 07:43, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Synopsis

MN has recently added to the synopsis [8] but I'm dubious. Firstly I don't think this is really a "synopsis". But secondly, it looks like a copyvio to me, from another review: [9]. Note that MN has been guilty of copyvios before; I forget the link but I'm sure it can be dredged up if necessary William M. Connolley (talk) 19:20, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

It is not a copyvio, note WMC had been guilty of copyvio`s before I know the link and can dredge it up if needed. mark nutley (talk) 19:23, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Which just goes to prove you don`t know what your talking about, that link you provided is actually a copy from the books preface. Paraphrasing from a book is not a copyvio, why not go play elsewere as you are not helping in improving this article mark nutley (talk) 20:33, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Quite why anyone else's copyvios impact on yours I don't know. If your sole defence is other-stuff, you have nothing. However, I've now found the diff, where you get blocked for a week for copyvio's [10]. Some of which were from this very article [11].

But let us look at the text:

Seventy years ago Alfred Triebs identified organic molecules, which he had extracted from rock and oil, as the fossilised remains of chlorophyl presumed to be from plants that had died millions of years in the past.

and

In 1936 a German chemist identified certain organic molecules that he had extracted from ancient rocks and oils as the fossil remains of chlorophyll--presumably from plants that had lived and died millions of years in the past.

Those certainly look very similar to me William M. Connolley (talk) 20:35, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I have better thins to do than argue with you, similar = not the same, go bother someone else, there is no drama here for you mark nutley (talk) 20:39, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

WMC: WP:SOFIXIT. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:57, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Look at whats there now, unlike some i am working on this article, which means actually adding content, there is no copyvio end of mark nutley (talk) 21:01, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Marknutley, changing a word here and there is not sufficient to avoid copyright violation. See WP:PARAPHRASE. If you don't want to take Wikipedia's word for it see academic resources here[12] and here and here. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:02, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I have done far more than change a word here and there, have you even looked at the article? Stop wasting my time mark nutley (talk) 21:04, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Marknutley, you really need to learn what it takes to avoid plagiarism and copyright violation. I think you're trying to do the right thing but you don't quite get it. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:41, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

@AQFK: I did indeed fix it. Alas MN chose to restore the copyvio. You've been pretty keen on policy elsewhere, but when it comes to supporting your "skeptics" it seems policy is of less interest than tribalism. Given the inevitable failure of discussion here to make MN think about the issue, as demonstrated above, I've notified the admin who previously blocked him for copyvio. See User_talk:Vsmith#MN_copyvio.3F William M. Connolley (talk) 21:58, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

The compared text above - and I've checked the source - is far too close, the few words changed do not make it a paraphrase. I see it as a copyvio, and coming from someone blocked previously for WP:Copyvio that is bad. The fact that the user has modified it further following the start of this thread does not matter. The simple fact that he re-inserted the problematic content after it was removed as a possible copyvio rather than discussing and fixing the problem is bad. I'm well aware of the tension between MN and WMC, but that doesn't excuse the re-insertion of a possible copyvio. I think a block is in order. Vsmith (talk) 22:34, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

There is no copyvio, i was working on it when will decided to create drama, and if as you say it is a possible then how is that a blockable offence? mark nutley (talk) 22:37, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

[[User:Marknutley]] blocked for WP:Copyvio. Vsmith (talk) 22:42, 23 September 2010 (UTC)