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I notice that there are several people editing astronomy related topics. I think that before there is too much material, some planning should take place. An example of what I am talking about is the entries for the planets: there is no consistency from one to the other (except for the ones I typed in yesterday: Venus, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Here are some proposals for proceeding.

Before proceeding to cover topics in depth (other than pet topics that people cannot be stopped from covering immediately) let's make certain that all basic terms are covered. I am aware that "Wikipedia is not a dictionary", but I think that many basic concepts (e.g. precession?, [obliquity of the ecliptic]?) to give two right off the top of my head) need to be present in order for the work to stand on its own. Maybe we can make a list on this page of requested articles.

Lists of things: We need to set up some formats, for instance, each planet will have its radius, density etc. in a common format, and will have a description of its composition, and then cover unique features of the planet.

Big, long tables of objects: Do we want big long tables? I am not sure this is useful, should there be big long tables in an encyclopedia (Look at the entry for Star)? I am not sure how valuable this is. If I want to look up Bellatrix?, am I going to look up Star and then click on Bellatrix?? If I look up Star, do I want to see a long list of names, with no additional information?

Jmccann



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Last edited July 29, 2001 1:25 am (diff)
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