Talk:Seashell

Unnecessary page?

What purpose does this page serve that cannot be achieved by including {{sea shell topics}} on related pages, as as Mollusc shell? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:37, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Martin. How are you? Welcome! It's nice to have a serious paleontologist on board. I am not a paleontologist, but I have been volunteering in the Invertebrate Paleontology section at AMNH for the last 3 years, and there was an article of mine in the summer issue of American Paleontologist this year. I am a semi-professional malacologist, as well as a very keen amateur. This article may seem a bit lame, but Wikipedia articles, even on science topics, do not all have to be 100% hard-core science. Quite a number of people (complete amateurs) clearly do search for information on Wikipedia with the word "sea shell" or "seashell". In April of this year almost 400 people a day looked at the seashell article. I think if they knew to search instead for "exoskeleton" or "mollusk", they would not have gone to the seashell article. By the way, at least in the USA, "seashell" is not a slang phrase, but a legitimate (if popular) way of talking about marine mollusk shells and/or other shells that wash up on beaches. Here are the names of some standard references in the field of malacology.

• Abbott, R. Tucker, 1974. ‘’American Seashells’’. Second edition. Van Nostrand Rheinhold, New York, ISBN 0-442-20228-8.
• Keen, A. Myra, 1971. ‘’Sea shells of tropical west America’’, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California
• Rosenberg, Gary, 1992 ‘’The encyclopedia of seashells’’ Michael Friedman Publishing Group, New York
• Abbott, R. Tucker, 1986. ‘’Seashells of North America'’’, St. Martin's Press, New York
• Warmke, Germain L. & R. Tucker Abbott, 1961. Caribbean Seashells, A Guide to the Marine Mollusks of Puerto Rico and Other West Indian Islands, Bermuda and the Lower Florida Keys. Livingstone, Pennsylvania

I got one admin to weigh in on this question, and he is a retired professional malacologist. He is the person who started WikiProject Gastropods some years ago. He agreed that Seashell could serve a useful purpose, and that is why I asked him to reinstate it. I do know it can be somewhat annoying to have a major change you did switched back again, but I really feel this article is worth saving. I have cleaned it up some and intend to expand it some more over the next few weeks. Best wishes to you, Invertzoo (talk) 20:28, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, how about a disambiguation -style page, with a little context to each link? Is there anything that a reader would want that couldn't be covered by such a page? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:37, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes I did think about that possibility, but I did not think it was sufficient. I do feel that the Seashell page has a fair amount of content that the other pages don't have, and has a function that the other pages don't have. Personally I cannot see a downside in having the article. It is already being consulted quite a lot (400 visitors a day) and as it gets more complete I think it will be even more useful. Invertzoo (talk) 22:55, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to say that I like the way you're going with this article. Congratulations for persisting through my pessimism! I think your focus on the human interactions with shells, without going into any of the biology, is spot on. Keep it up! (-: Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 20:54, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, thank you Martin! I actually already did a lot of work on it today, moved a bunch of stuff over from conchology, where it did not seem to be very relevant, and put some items from here over into into mollusc (items that dealt with the soft parts of the mollusk rather than just the shell.) I put a lot more links in, to malacology and other relevant articles. This article still really needs a great deal of work, but at least I have some sense of what it should be/could be now. By the way, I had looked at this cluster of somewhat interrelated articles a few times over the last year, but many of them were such a horrible overlapping and uninviting morass that I did not want to even try to start with the process of cleaning them up. I actually took my inspiration from you on this, so thanks! It's not easy tackling these overview articles, but it is worthwhile. Thanks for your encouragement. Invertzoo (talk) 21:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Ugly tag

unless anyone wants to stop me i am going to remove that ugly tag. something about citations. who needs citations for seashells 65.0.168.199 (talk) 01:26, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

All Wikipedia articles require citations. Graham87 14:38, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Wondering if theres a variety of Fresh water Shells to discuss in article?

Know there are some(in Missippiii reiver near Muscatine ,Iowa there was a great pearl button industry from fresh water clam shells. Also, River perals and the shells today(the beds I understand owned by a Japanese company for Seed shell for cultured pearls in Japan!) Maybe a mention artyicle on Fresh water sheells too?Tyropearl (talk) 03:25, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there are a lot of freshwater mollusks that have interesting and economically important shells, and there are land snail shells too, but this article is on the subject of sea shells. The article on mollusk shells would be the place to mention those other kinds of shells if they are not already mentioned there. Invertzoo (talk) 19:51, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Gaps

What is with the huge gaps in the page? Text is spread out by major leaps and the images are everywhere! I suggest and vote for a quick cleanup. A. Z. Colvin • Talk 04:26, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

You are right that it looks unsightly with the gaps. The idea was that the article and many of its sections very much need a lot of expansion. We were hoping that other editors would step in and expand some of the sections, as well as adding references and inline citations. So far that has not been happening. At Project Gastropods we are too busy to work on this article currently, but we would very much welcome some well-referenced expansion. Best, Invertzoo (talk) 19:55, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Image overload

There are a lot of images on this page. Would it be useful to clear some out, or would it be better to create a gallery of images? I know seashells have many uses and there are lots of images needed to represent each use. I don’t want to just dump everything, but it is really piling up. Suggestions? A. Z. Colvin • Talk 05:17, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Shells on sand.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:06, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Gallery page?

There are a lot of images here that are Useless but I feel like maybe there should be a page for the images that are basically useless. Sikeovateas (talk) 20:42, 16 December 2021 (UTC)