Template talk:Earthquake magnitude

More scales! And usage

Dawnseeker2000 I have added some more scales: M_R, M_I, and even M_uk. This was prompted on noticing that several scales I had reckoned as too obscure or obsolete are retained in several sources, and have made it into articles. I think nearly all (99.99%?) of cases are now covered. Let me know if you notice any problems. (There are several more scales I still reckon too obscure to bother with; we'll see.)

I had an instructive look at 1783 New Jersey earthquake. It caught my attention for being a pre-instrumental quake specifying M_L , well before there were instruments for measuring M_L . The source (New Jersey Geological Survey web page) did not specify a magnitude, but I noticed they did cite our friends Stover and Coffman. Checking there I found the scale specified, which is M_fa, a scale of estimated Local magnitude based on the reported felt-area. This kind of error, where the original editor assumed ML or Mw without checking, I suspect is fairly common, and something we should watch out for. Hopefully the template will encourage editors to be more careful. Of course, in the long-run we should have all magnitudes verified at the ISC, but for now it is probably enough of a task to get the scales right. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:29, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I've been aware of the misuse of magnitude scales for some time and have done quite a bit of work across the encyclopedia to root out some of these instances, some of which have been egregious. So first, I should say that the potential level of accuracy and detail that this template will be able to provide can't be understated. It's interesting to see this unfold at this stage in WP's development, so thanks for that. It was overdue and I think you were the right person to make it happen. I haven't yet begun to imagine the possibilities for improvement, though I have gone through and essentially reversed DePiep's changes by unifying the and simplifying the use of the template throughout the encyclopedia to a 0.0 {{m|w|link=y}} format rather than a {{M|w|0.0}} format. I would prefer that we use a standard style across the articles and that's fine if there needs to be a discussion about that, but it doesn't have to be right now.

Now that I've been able to sit down and actually start looking at this, I do appreciate the new options, especially M_uk and M_fa. Those are going to be really helpful in de-obfuscating some articles and lists. By the way, where do you think M_La fits in? Its use in WP is very limited, probably just on the California list. It's described on page 3 of Stover & Coffman's insightful 1993 publication. One other thing: Thanks for the idea of consolidating the magnitude and magnitude type columns. That solved the problem of having a column without a header and that should come in handy if I ever submit the California list for featured content, which should be possible after another block of text on tsunamis is added. Dawnseeker2000 19:19, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Oh, well now I have to admit that I hadn't actually looked at the template options all that closely yet. I'd asked about the use of M_la, but now I see that it's defined with the rest of the entries, and I just put it to use on the California list. It almost intimidating with so many options and definitions, most of which I have not heard of, but I'm telling you, I'm loving this; just haven't had the opportunity to really get going with it yet. There are many opportunities to unify the presentation across lots of articles. The articles that use the math tags are one place to start, but I'm certain there's many EQ articles that do not define magnitude as clearly as they could. Dawnseeker2000 00:30, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I've wondered if it could get too intimidating. I wasn't going to include so many obscure scales, but then I find them in some source someone is using, so I reckon there's a likely use. But adding them is not hard; the hard part is documenting them. Like, there's one the USGS web site says they use, but so far I can't find anyone that knows anything about it. And trying finish up the M_e  scale and its relation with M_w  led me to an interesting insight. You recall all those students who take geology because it has (essentially) no math? I know where the math went: seismology sucked it all up.

Anyway, yes, the benefit of having a decent tool is that it encourages use. Hopefully we can set a new standard for identifying magnitudes, and perhaps thereby encourage a little more rigor.

A point of ordering to resolve: is "0.0 M" or "M 0.0" to be preferred? You prefer the first, perhaps following Stover & Coffman. However (and I just spent two hours surveying the literature), the predominately preferred practice does seem to be the latter. I take that as a strong case. Do you have any particular argument for the former? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:34, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

@Dawnseeker2000: Any comments re the order? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:51, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't feel strongly about the order and I can help out with the work if we make the switch. So the number (#) field updates automagically? Dawnseeker2000 23:48, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

I take it you are referring to the "#" column in the table. Yes, the PAGESINCAT variable is automagical.

I think before any mass conversions we might raise the matter at, say, Talk:Earthquakes [see below] to see if anyone else has anything to say on it, and to get buy-in so no one complains of run-amok-editors. This could be the start of developing some general guidelines for lists of earthquakes, which I think we should be thinking about. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 07:56, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

P.S. Possible venues for discussing these kinds of matters:

• Talk:Earthquake
• Talk:List_of_earthquakes
• Talk:List_of_earthquakes_in_2017
• WP:WikiProject_Earthquakes

~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:04, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Big "S" and small "s" now distinguished

@Dawnseeker2000 and Mikenorton, and anyone else interested (possibly in the future): the template now distinguishes between big "S" and little "s" as used with "M_s" label for surface-wave magnitudes. This was not implemented initially because in the older sources there is a widespread indifference to the case of the "s". But newer sources are distinguishing between "M_s" and "M_S", using the latter as a synonym for Ms_BB. Therefore the distinction now is made. And I have added a comment in Category:M_S explaining the ambiguity. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:17, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

White space removed

Per a request at WP:VPT, I have removed some excess white space from this template after testing in the sandbox and on the testcases page. If I have removed too much of the white space, let me know. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:20, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

At first glance the diff of your edit appears to be adding whitespace. I had to see Jo-Jo's request to figure out what you did.

The way you did the comments is what people do to avoid outputting newlines. But that is what the outer "replace" takes care of. So I wonder: was the extra space coming from the extra line between comments (or something similar), and could a fix be applied that doesn't change the commenting style? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:37, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

If you revert my changes to the sandbox and look at the testcases or use Special:ExpandTemplates to expand "{M/sandbox|l|3} foo" (add your own braces), you'll see multiple extra space characters in the resulting wikicode and HTML. You can place some dummy text where the newlines are to see which part of the code is adding the spaces. The final nbsp was also redundant. If you can experiment in the sandbox and write the comments (or use the replace template) in a way that preserves the previous style, be my guest. I do not claim to be an expert in any of this; I just copy things that other people do that seem to work. I often see commenting in templates that starts on one line and ends on the next line in order to remove white space while keeping the code readable, so I attempted to implement that method. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:15, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, that might be interesting to look at. If I ever get 30 minutes to spare with nothing else more pressing. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:31, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 27 April 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved as proposed. {{M}} remains as a redirect to this template. (closed by non-admin page mover) feminist | wear a mask 17:43, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

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Template:M → Template:Earthquake magnitude – Clarify name * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 14:56, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• Support - per WP:TMPG: "Template function should be clear from the template name" which is not the case currently. I'd also support Template:Moment magnitude scale per moment magnitude scale, the name of the specific scale being used, which would allow a very natural shortcut redirect of Template:MMS to replace the single-letter shortcut (Template:M) currently used which may be a bit too obscure. -- Netoholic @ 18:04, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

  That name would be fine with me too. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:41, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

  See my comment below to understand why that is not a good idea. Mikenorton (talk) 14:33, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

*Support any rename. As has been noted in a recent CFD, the categorization system this template introduces is opaque and could use revision (although that may be a discussion for another venue). The template itself could do with greater clarity too. bibliomaniac15 19:44, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Striking my support per the response that J. Johnson brought. bibliomaniac15 21:34, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Template:M covers the huge range of different magnitude types that are reported by seismologists as shown in the table in the template documentation, such as M_s, M_w, M_L, mb to name but a few, it's used on over a 1000 pages. As to the use of "M", pretty much all earthquake magnitudes are reported using M. That doesn't mean that that template name can't be changed, but it is the reason it was used. Mikenorton (talk) 20:16, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment – I'd like to suggest that we get input from J. Johnson (talk · contribs). He has put a lot of high-level work into the earthquake space, especially templates. He re-purposed this template about four years ago from its previous use. The problem, as you can see, as that he is on an unscheduled vacation. I don't think there is a policy for this situation (or that anyone cares) but I thought it might be nice to allow for his input. @J. Johnson:, if you have something to say, maybe you could just post on your talk page? Thanks everyone, Dawnseeker2000 03:27, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
• I'll support any rename away from this single letter name. The full name should be something that follows WP:TMPG. --Gonnym (talk) 12:39, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I'll re-enforce my support after the template creator's response as it was full of WP:OWNERSHIP and of very narrow and limited consideration to the wider editorial community with disregards to the guideline and to the fact that anyone not in his small clique doesn't understand what this template is without diving into it. --Gonnym (talk) 17:23, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support per WP:CRITERIA, although this is a template it indeed should still define its topic and be recognizable to anyone who knows what it is which I wouldn't know unless I read further down. Crouch, Swale (talk) 07:18, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
• Comment. The template creator, J. Johnson, has issued a response regarding the proposed move. Please give it a look here. bibliomaniac15 21:23, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

  Responding to his comments, he seems be basing his case on the premise that it is acceptable for this template to lay exclusive claim to the symbol "M". M (disambiguation) lists several systems which use the symbol "M" - in particular as a stand-in for million, molar mass and molar concentration - and if one includes use of "m" (which due to technical limitations could also be assigned to this template's current name), then it could stand-in for mass, metre, mile, and others. I therefore strongly disagree that the earthquake scale (which as of this timestamp is not even included in M (disambiguation)) lay claim to this title as primary. I stand by my vote - this template must be renamed. I advise J. Johnson to provide an acceptable alternative name if he wants some input. -- Netoholic @ 03:19, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - Having read through JJ's response referred to above, I find his arguments persuasive for keeping the status quo. Mikenorton (talk) 17:17, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support renaming, while taking into account J. Johnson's comments about the inadequacy/inaccuracy of the proposed name. Even {{Magnitude}} would be a significant improvement. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:34, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
• Comment- despite my "Oppose" above, it looks likely that this discussion is going to close in favour of a name change. I do understand that it does not appear to meet the WP:TMPG guideline, although I'm less clear exactly why changing it would improve anything. Those folks that edit earthquake articles (call them a clique if you like) know what it means and is it going to be used for anything else? However, if it is to be changed I would suggest {{EQmag}} as an alternative that is hopefully more recognisable to the uninitiated. Finally, if it is renamed, will all instances of its use be updated to the new name? - I'm not clear how these things work for templates. Mikenorton (talk) 14:11, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
  • It usually depends on the move. Some pages move from one valid name to another valid name (like an official vs common name move) and both are accepted titles, so these links might not get updated, other times the move includes changing incoming links. To me, this is the scenario which requires changing the links, as my move vote was for the exact reason that "M" is ambiguous. As it is, I am specially against continuing using it as a redirect. You'll see that the first comment from Netoholic touched on this. --Gonnym (talk) 13:10, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
  • The future utility of the leftover post-move redirect at {{M}} is a consideration in this discussion, but not ultimately in scope of this RM. We have plenty of templates that follow WP:TMPG by having descriptive long names, but yet retain shortcuts for ease-of-use. The guideline I quoted in my response probably should have included the last pasrt "but redirects can be created to assist everyday use of very popular templates". Whether this redirect qualifies is a topic of a separate future discussion I think. -- Netoholic @ 20:20, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
    • If this does close as a "move", then I hope that we can retain {{M}} as shortcut. Mikenorton (talk) 16:20, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support – There is zero justification for not moving this template to a sensible, universally-understood title. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:09, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.