Talk:Marine ice sheet instability

Article name

The two main studies cited here, use Marine Ice Sheet Instability, secondary sources seem to use this spelling and "marine ice sheet instability". I would think we would use the original records. prokaryotes (talk) 14:15, 30 August 2018 (UTC) I cannot find anything related in MOS, Proper noun, Article title format, or Capital letters. MISI is a terminology. prokaryotes (talk) 14:57, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Before starting this discussion Prokaryotes locked his prefered version in place by edit warring an undiscussed re-revert in a fit of WP:OWNERSHIP a few days after complaining that he's the #1 editor at SLR. He wants to depart from the MOS to use Initial Caps instead of sentence case for the title. I realize this is a lame thing to fight about, but OWNERSHIP tendencies are not. In his undiscussed re-revert here he makes the outrageous claim that it is always - ALWAYS - seen as initial caps in the literature. He said, "always used with upper case in the "literature", ScienceDaily is a news site". Now in this thread we see that ALWAYS actually means just two sources supposedly do this. Curious I did a GoogleScholar search on the phrase and looked at the hits in order they came up. Five minutes of looking on just the first page of hits comes up with sentence case in

• Nature
  • [1]
• Nature Climate Change
  • [2]
• Science Magazine
  • [3]
  • [https://science.sciencemag.org/content/344/6185/735
• Journal of Geophysical Research

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2008JF001170]

• Finally, I looked at IPCC AR5 WG1 Chapter 13 (Sea level rise) only to find both. An example of sentence case is when IPCC writes at pg 1177 "The concept of ‘marine ice-sheet instability’ is based on the idea that the outflow from an ice sheet resting on bedrock below sea level increases if ice at the grounding line is thicker and, therefore, faster flowing.".

I disagree with your premise, P, that we should do what the professional literature does. As I've mentioned before to you see (WP:NOTJOURNAL)/ But setting this aside, you can see for yourself that you're huffing ice-worm poop when you claim its ALWAYS all caps in the professional literature. This is a good time to follow the MOS before this article develops archives and lots of cross links so we can avoid redirects down the road. Please move it back to sentence case.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:02, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Capitalization

We are reading the same sources, so I don't understand that you say 'most sources use capitalization'. Here a random list of the first x papers/websites that don't.

• http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/ice-ocean-interactions/marine-ice-sheets/
• https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/cr/2016/06/22/marine-ice-sheet-instability-for-dummies-2/
• https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2094
• https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05003-z

Are you confused by the fact that a lot of scientific articles capitalize everything in their titles? Also scientific articles capitalize phrases to make clear which letters form the abbreviation. In a normal context it is not to be capitalized. Femkemilene (talk) 17:03, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Moved the page again. Yes, my thought was that abbreviation for clear terms are capital, unless you have something more general such as climate change or sea level rise. prokaryotes (talk) 17:26, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. If you haven't already at least skimmed the WP:Manual of style it would be worth your time. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:57, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

@Prokaryotes:: If by "abbreviation for clear terms are capital, unless you have something more general such as climate change or sea level rise", you mean that you think an acronym expansion into full wording should be capitalized to match the acronym letters that are capitalized, this is not an idea you'll find (except in the "don't do that" form) in any style guide, ever. Not for English, anyway. To address another angle on this sort of question: Just being technical jargon doesn't make it a proper name. Your operating system is probably stored on a solid-state drive or a hard drive; it's not an "Operating System" on a "Solid-State Drive" or "Hard Drive".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:12, 9 November 2018 (UTC); expanded: 21:59, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Okay. prokaryotes (talk) 13:16, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Please correct the definition

All other sources (and you've referenced them in this article, for instance: https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/cr/2016/06/22/marine-ice-sheet-instability-for-dummies-2/) are very clear in the definition of marine ice sheet instability. Please read them carefully and adjust this article. Femkemilene (talk) 16:49, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Edited it again, per the EGU source. A retrograde slope alone does not make an ice sheet less stable, unless the grounding line starts to retreat, hence why I think it is important to point out the other processes too . Conversely, it could start to grow again, as happened during the past deglaciation there. prokaryotes (talk) 18:05, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I've now completely rewritten the text so that it's about marine ice sheet instability, instead of about ice sheet instability in general. Other types of instability are only relevant to this article in how they interact with the marine ice sheet instability, so I've made that link more clear. Instabilities are usually symmetric, so if you want to can add that this facilitates growth as well. Femkemilene (talk) 11:14, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Femkemilene, would you mind adding a general section starting with the second sentence?`prokaryotes (talk) 11:27, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

I vaguely remember some guidelines that sections such as general and introduction should be avoided, but not sure which language wikipedia that was. Femkemilene (talk) 11:32, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't think this applies to the English Wikipedia. An extra section makes it more readable and leaves the main definition on top. prokaryotes (talk) 11:39, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

okay, feel free. Femkemilene (talk) 12:08, 31 August 2018 (UTC)