Talk:Rings of Uranus

older comments

The article really needs to have a section added to it about ring occultation studies and the discovery of the ring system by Eliot, Dunham, and Mink. I realize that this is in the main "Uranus" article, but it would be good to add it here for completeness. If I have time soon, I'll copy it over myself.

--The Astrogeek 19:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

merge

I agree. There isn't enough info to have separate articles for each ring. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kwamikagami (talk • contribs) 02:43, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

British or American English?

This article contains a mixture of British and American English. I was wondering which should be adopted as standard here. Serendi^podous 16:41, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I often neglect this distinction, but I think the British would be better. Ruslik (talk) 07:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've UKed it. Serendi^podous 14:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Ruslik (talk) 07:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

For the record, there was no "mixture" until this 15 Feb 2008 edit by User:Lightmouse improperly changing "micron" to "micrometre" contrary to existing usage. Gene Nygaard (talk) 05:52, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

• Gene is correct. The 4 June edits by Serendipodous, where he “UKed” the wording was entirely contrary to MOS guidelines. Further, his tactic of trying to fly under the radar with his series of edits by not adding a single edit summary, like “UKing text” or “dialect-warring”, or “changing to UK dialect ‘cause I think it reads better” was underhanded. The article had been stable in one dialect for years. This behaviour will not be rewarded. Just because Lightmouse added one instance of “micrometre” to the article is no reason to believe that the door is now open enough to change over the entire article to an author’s favourite dialect. The proper response should have been to fix Lightmouse’s contribution.

  And to pre-empt some garbage that the UK-crowd often tries to employ, the spelling “metre” is not the *official* BIPM spelling. The French spelling the BIPM uses is mètre. When they, like many Europeans, translate to English they translate to British/International English and it is spelled metre. In the US, it is not only practice to spell it “meter”, it officially is spelled meter. This is not an issue of *the proper SI spelling is metre*—it is strictly an issue of dialect. Arguments that it should be spelled metre are no more valid than suggesting that the *official* spelling is “realise” and “colour”.

  If you want to revert my edits, you must first show how the first major contributors had not used American-dialect English, and how there was a strong national tie between the planet Uranus and its exploration to the UK or Australia. Greg L (talk) 17:27, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't give a crap which dialect the article is written in. I just noticed that, partly due to my having edited it, the article had become partly British, partly American, and I thought it should be consistent. So I thought it should be regularised, and I asked on this page which dialect it should be converted to. Ruslik answered and said UK, so I converted it to UK. If he'd said US, I would have converted it to US. As for not leaving edit summaries, I admit I don't do that as often as I should, but to say it was part of some conspiratorial plot to UK the article a) is rather stupid, b) is rather offensive and c) gives me rather too much credit. Serendi^podous 18:00, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

• Very well Serendipodous. The lack of a single edit summary amongst all those edits was an error of omission. I take it back that it was an effort on your part to fly under the radar (I never suggested it was a “conspiracy”). I very much appreciate your candor. Greg L (talk) 18:42, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Is this not the US Wikipedia? It seems that UK English should be used on the UK Wikipedia. Mwahcysl (talk) 18:00, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

No, this is the English Wikipedia. For use by all English-speaking persons, be they American, British, Australian or from anywhere else in the world. Adacore (t·c) 20:39, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

No, it needs to be in American English. The domain is .org - The American domain where Jesus spoke English and God is American. I don't think we should haggle over where English speakers may come from, since Christ has told us in his books that America shall hold his people - the true people - until he returns. So, let's put the article in proper American English. Mwahcysl (talk) 21:46, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

• Ruslik0: What part of “If you want to revert my edits, you must first show how the first major contributors had not used American-dialect English, and how there was a strong national tie between the planet Uranus and its exploration to the UK or Australia.” don’t you understand? You seem quite content to skip discussion and go straight to editwarring. I clearly outlined my rationale and reasoning above on this talk page. I don’t care if you find this step to be *inconvenient*. The article had been stable in US dialect since its inception until a series of edits by Serendipodous. Then, with you egging him on, he finished the job. In case you didn’t notice, this is precisely what MOS does not want to occur on Wikipedia.

  Now, argue away the facts as I understand them or change MOS guidelines. But don’t ignore what I wrote above, avoid addressing the issues, insist upon flouting writing guidelines regarding dialect, and flout policies on editwarring as well. Greg L (talk) 19:29, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

  I perfectly understand what MOS says. The first non-stub version of the article used mainly British spelling, so according to MOS this spelling should be used unless there is a reason to change it. In the slightly later version British spelling clearly dominates (2 instances of 'meter' against 7 instances of 'colour'). Ruslik (talk) 20:02, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

• Fine Ruslik; we’re at least talking. Let’s agree upon some facts. Here is what WP:MOS says, in full:

If an article has evolved using predominantly one variety, the whole article should conform to that variety, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic. In the early stages of writing an article, the variety chosen by the first major contributor to the article should be used, unless there is reason to change it based on strong national ties to the topic. Where an article that is not a stub shows no signs of which variety it is written in, the first person to make an edit that disambiguates the variety is equivalent to the first major contributor.

Clearly, Uranus has no strong connections to the UK or Australia. If anything, it has close ties to the U.S., if only because the probe that visited it was from NASA. I would say that the principle is that Uranus is the common heritage of all mankind and just because NASA looked at it closely first shouldn’t factor into “strong ties” at all.

So another way of settling this is to look at whether the article evolved predominately using one dialect or another. What set off my *alert* flags was your above post where you wrote “Sorry, I often neglect this distinction, but I think the British would be better.” That hardly gives one confidence that MOS guidelines were being factored into the decision. My reading of the history of this article still makes it seem to me that the article evolved using the US variety of English.

But there is also a “first major contributor” element. So the question is, was one particular dialect of English dominant after the first major contributor was done?? It turns out, that contributor was you!

1. This is what the article looked like as late as 17:29, 3 January 2008. It was a stub just before your first edit a minute later and at this time, the article weighed in at 11,345 bytes.
2. And this is what it looked like eight days later after a flurry of contributions by you, at 10:23, 11 January 2008. It had ballooned to 36,896 bytes.

Go check the spelling in that latter version yourself. I’d like to hear an honest argument from you on this. If you honestly feel that the article was predominately British English when you were done, then go ahead and revert me. Since you are A) the first major contributor, and B) are currently shepherding the article, I am inclined to afford you great latitude on this if there is much grey area at all in the judgement call. Please post your findings and reasoning below. 21:59, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your recognition of my contribution to this article. I think that the MOS was written in this way simply to prevent edit warring over spelling. Since I could not edit-war with myself I felt I could change spelling in my own text. I actually can not remember why I decided back in June that the article should use British spelling. I probably wanted to diversify the Solar System related articles. However I think the article should remain in British variant of English by the following reasons: 1) it passed FA review while using British spelling and nobody raised this issue; 2) It was on the main page with British spelling. So I think now it is too late to change anything. Ruslik (talk) 10:01, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually Uranus as a planet has strong ties to UK, because it was discovered by William Herschel. Rings, of course, are another matter. Ruslik (talk) 10:06, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

• Very well. I will raise no objections. Greg L (talk) 18:48, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

• Sorry to reopen a discussion from over 11 years ago. The article has somehow made it from this discussion agreeing to British English, to (11 years on) being a Featured Article, still with a mixture of the two spellings! This early version has several "colour"s (and one "meter") so I was thinking it should probably be in British English until I came here and saw this discussion which agrees. How dis it get changed back into a mixture, and how on earth did it pass FAC in this state? Was there a later discussion that I cannot see? If not, I recommend adopting British English throughout, per this discussion. --The Huhsz (talk) 21:34, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Ok, it was a very modest edit, three spellings and a few overlinks. And now it is all in the same spelling dialect, as it should be. --The Huhsz (talk) 23:50, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Putting this on the main page... wow.

I mean, seriously, the rings of your anus; unfortunately this article is just asking for vandalism. How many childish vandalisms are we gonna get for this featured article?--J. F. Mam J. Jason Dee (talk) 00:58, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

This page could do with semi-protection at least, but I don't know how to request it. Hellbus (talk) 01:18, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

WP:RFPP. Oh, and nice job. – Toon^(talk) 01:30, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Today's featured article is seldom protected, for reasons explained at Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection. —dgies^t_c 01:31, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

The bathroom humor angle probably deserves a section. The Boston Globe had an unforgettable headline on the front-page story about the discovery: "Scientists find ring of debris around Uranus". In TV reporting, Robert MacNeil did very well keeping a straight face while pronouncing the name as Your-ann-us Monomoit (talk) 03:46, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

If it's spoken correctly, it sounds nothing like 'anus' by itself... but of course it is seldom spoken correctly! --Chasingsol^talk 05:48, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Spoken correctly? Hmm...the preference for the emphasis on the first sylable and an a as in apple is based on the Latin. Since it is the only plant named from Greek mythology the reference should, surely, be to that language?. I have no idea how they would say it though Dainamo (talk) 23:46, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

What is "exosphere—corona"?

What is "exosphere—corona"? If this is a technical term I would expect use of a hyphen or endash rather than an emdash. If this is just a sentence construction, it's ungrammatical in "The relative lack of dust in the ring system is due to aerodynamic drag from the extended Uranian exosphere—corona." 24.177.121.141 (talk) 14:45, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

• Planet's outer atmosphere, transparent for visible light.

Greek Letters

So... could somebody link the Greek letters used here (and likely a lot of other places) to the names of the letters? It's been a long time since I knew the entire Greek alphabet. I recognize most of them, but I'm sure there are people who might need help with some. 75.70.238.244 (talk) 00:09, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I linked them. Serendi^podous 00:53, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Slang meaning

Should there be a mention of the slang meaning of Rings of Your Anus or should it have its own article? Mwahcysl (talk) 20:01, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd have to say neither of those options. --Patteroast (talk) 21:39, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of which, I'm quite surprised that this article has received such a (comparatively) low level of vandalism. You'd think it'd be a prime target for vandals. Stonemason89 (talk) 17:59, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Society is, in the end, a really non-linear phenomenon. nihil (talk) 04:23, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Hershel's ring

Article on Hershel's discovery mentions the epsilon ring, not nu ring, as the one that matches his description. It's also the brightest and densest one, so if he saw anything, it was rather ε than ν. Even Voyager 2 didn't found that one.

List of properties

I am wondering about the question marks in the List of properties. Those they mean that science as of now does not know the answers, or does it mean that the author of this article has not searched for a source, i.e. that section are still a work in progress? Sincerely, Jopparn (talk) 09:55, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

They mean that we don't know. If we ever get a Uranus orbiter we'll be able to fill them in. — kwami (talk) 10:46, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Portia and the Nu Ring - is there a link?

I'm curious about this. It has been suggested elsewhere on Wikipedia, though strangely there is nothing on the Portia page itself. 8.40.151.110 (talk) 02:08, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

"The ν ring is positioned between Portia and Rosalind and does not contain any moons inside it." Why do you think that Nu ring is connected to Portia? Ruslik_Zero 19:30, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

My bad. Edited that part of the article on "Inner Moons" out. 8.40.151.110 (talk) 20:07, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)

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Research papers

Keeping it here for prosperity.

• Hedman, M. M.; Regan, I.; Becker, T.; Brooks, S. M.; Pater, I. de; Showalter, M. (2023-06-08). "Examining Uranus' ζ Ring in Voyager 2 Wide-angle Camera Observations: Quantifying the Ring's Structure in 1986 and Its Modifications Prior to the Year 2007". The Planetary Science Journal. 4 (6): 104. doi:10.3847/PSJ/acd53f. ISSN 2632-3338.

- CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 05:23, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

New papers on the Rings of Uranus

Anton Petrov has unearthed several new papers on Uranus. Don't have time to do the reasearch myself but here it is. Serendi^podous 14:27, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Discovery of the rings at Kavalur Observatory

The same day as Elliot et. al discovered the rings of Uranus, J C Bhattacharya and M K Vainu Bappu observed the rings at the Kavalur Observatory during the occulation of SAO 158687, which acted as a confirmation of the observation. This must be included under the discovery section.

BHATTACHARYYA, J., BAPPU, M. Saturn-like ring system around Uranus. Nature 270, 503–506 (1977). [1]https://doi.org/10.1038/270503a0 Thatweirdguy99 (talk) 11:27, 24 March 2024 (UTC)