Talk:Solar eclipses

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Editing eclipses

Total solar eclipses come round every year or two. I therefore overhauled this page, and added a two-line description on those city pages where an upcoming totality was viewable. There has been kickback to this on separate city pages – it would be helpful to centralise those arguments here, as they apply to all future events. I therefore set out the rationale for what’s been done to date.

First and foremost why bother? - because a total solar eclipse is a significant travel topic. It only lasts a couple of minutes but involves lots of planning, expense and travel to be in the right spot at the right time. For the next eclipse in Exmouth WA in April 2023, it’s reckoned 50,000 will travel, and they will lock up facilities state-wide for days either side of the event. Everything books up early so one or two years ahead is a reasonable planning lead time. (I’ve just seen the first marketing for Eclipse 2027, in a non-specialist magazine.) WV is the only travel guide that brings together the astronomy, the getting there, the accommodation and amenities, and other things to see and do in the area. And for every one of those 50,000 in Exmouth, there will be several who opt not to go, but who may be pleased to stumble upon such a useful guide.

IMO the eclipse merits an entry for every totality viewing area for which a WV page exists – two lines suffice. (Exceptions might include district pages within a metropolis.) In some years it’s only a handful, in 2024 it’s rather a lot. So I plunged forward and added them, and obviously I commit to removing them promptly once the event is over.

There is a judgement on how far along the breadcrumb to take this, and the criterion applied is impact on travel. Thus 2023 will certainly impact on Exmouth > Gascoyne > Western Australia (imagine transiting Perth around then) but not the whole of Australia.

I’ve included places with low viewing prospects, eg across Newfoundland with only 20% - you wouldn’t travel any great distance for that, but you might jump in the car and drive a couple of hours. Whereas Papua gets no mention, it’s about 0%, you wouldn’t even venture out the house into the muddy rain-lashed street.

An eclipse feels more like See than Do, it deserves prominence, but beyond that its position is less relevant. It’s only a two-liner dammit. Many of the city pages it temporarily graces are in lamentable condition, so it would be good to make editorial improvements to those which will have benefit after the eclipse has been and gone. Grahamsands (talk) 08:48, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

I feel strongly that information about solar eclipses should not be included in wikivoyage destination articles at all. This is because:

• an eclipse is very temporal: it occurs once for a few minutes.
• it is of limited relevance: although there do exist astronomy fanatics who will travel to experience a period of total darkness, the audience is limited and is better served by discussions on astronomy websites.
• it creates a maintenance problem: will the guy who is gung-ho about adding this to wikivoyage be just as motivated to clean it up after the eclipse occurs?

Mrkstvns (talk) 16:34, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

The maintenance problem can be solved by using a template that places the affected articles in a maintenance category:

* {{solareclipse|2023-04-20}} {{see ... }}
* {{solareclipse|2023-04-20|{{see ... }}}}

With the latter, the template can hide the text a week after the eclipse (when traffic chaos is over and lodging again available; the bullet would be outside the template and thus visible until manually removed, as the template without a bullet would be confusing). If this is about a dozen or two of articles it is easy to remove the bullet and template of articles in the maintenance category for passed eclipses. If it's about a hundred, it will be annoying unless those interested in the eclipses take care of them. Still not a disaster (I assume the interested editors will handle it unless they left the site or got into an accident).

I agree with Grahamsands that the eclipse is significant for those planning to visit the place in the affected week(s) and for those that might be in the region at the eclipse time. The annoyance for people going a few months before and having the listing use precious screen real estate is insignificant in comparison.

The two problems that I see are the maintenance one, which can be handled, and the issue of articles where there are too many important attractions to list, and you'd leave out some important ones to keep the list or section manageable. Having the eclipse jump the queue might not be justified.

–LPfi (talk) 07:25, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

I think it's still worth adding, but as long as it's the very last thing mentioned and it should be in a maintenance template as LPfi suggests (otherwise, we'll end up with a bunch of out-of-date solar eclipse entries). I'm willing to create such a template if needed. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 07:33, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

It could be the last one, but I think it should create a cautionbox the days before for small cities and rural areas, because of the lodging issue. I think forgotten articles is really the issue here, which the template would handle. –LPfi (talk) 07:40, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

This is proposing a lot of extra work for scant benefit. The eclipse of 2024 is unusual in crossing a well-developed continent with lots of WV pages. If I'd realised at the outset quite how many, perhaps I wouldn't have plunged forward, but the work is complete and now it only remains for me to set aside 9 April 2024 to removing them all, never again to sully your gaze. No further eclipse until Nov 2031 involves similar numbers, so the maintenance task for the next nine years will be comparable to say a major sports tournament, worth mentioning for the dozen or so affected cities and no big task to add then remove. Grahamsands (talk) 08:36, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

OK. I don't think the template would mean a lot of work (I could do it as an exercise) and adding it together with the description is not much extra work (one paste, if you write them in the same session). I think at this stage, the biggest benefit would be to appease those afraid of forgotten notes – and given the outcry about 2024 it may well be worth it. –LPfi (talk) 09:17, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

To be helpful to travellers, each page needs to state the exact timing and duration of totality, and the probability of a clear sky to view it. This varies slightly from page to page, so transcribing the info into a format sounds even more tedious than plain text. And all the entries still need to be removed later - once it's over it's over, and my own target is within 24 hours. Each entry is blue-linked to Solar Eclipses, primarily to avoid repeating scientific explanation, but with the useful side-effect that all are indexed under "What links here". I reckon 10 min to clear away the 2023 locations and four hours for 2024. Grahamsands (talk) 11:57, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

It seems I wasn't clear about what I intended the template to do. The template should just handle the maintenance category, and optionally adding a cautionbox a week before and hiding the text afterwards. The text you'd write, including probabilities and timing, would be free text, optionally in a see template, either added as the second parameter of the template or just in the vicinity of the template (so that a search for the template in the wikitext would make finding the text easy). For Exmouth (Western Australia)#See it could look like this (text copied from there):

• {{solareclipse|2023-04-20|A total solar eclipse on 20 April 2023. This is the only point on the Australian mainland where it can be seen, as the track skims the Exmouth peninsula heading northeast towards Papua New Guinea. It's actually a hybrid eclipse, annular for part of its track, but here it will be total from 11:28AM local time. The town will see a minute of totality, head a few miles south to get the maximum extent of 1 min 16 sec. As well as land-based viewing, local boats will head out into the bay; cruisers will visit but won't approach shore.}}

–LPfi (talk) 12:12, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Exmouth (Western Australia)#See for reference. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 12:14, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Aargh! Corrected above. –LPfi (talk) 12:42, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

• For a place like Exmouth, which per the blurb above has a very unique geographic situation with regard to an upcoming eclipse, discussing it in the article makes sense. But that's not what folks are concerned to see here. I'm concerned to see that the upcoming eclipse has been indiscriminately added to 500+ articles across North America, places like Middlebury (Vermont). Folks who live in Middlebury will be interested to know that there's an eclipse there when it's a week away, but I doubt many people will be traveling there for it and I certainly don't think they need info years in advance. There seems to be a disconnect here between how much dedicated astronomy hobbyists think people care about eclipses and how much the general public cares about them. I agree with Mrkstvns that typical Wikivoyage articles should not have any mention of upcoming eclipses. They're of medium relevance as an upcoming event, the same way a visiting rock star or circus performance might be. But Wikivoyage is a travel guide built for the long-term, not an event listing. I propose that we revert the mass addition of these entries, and allow them to be restored on a case-by-case basis for only the gathering spots where there will be significant attendance, and only within a reasonable timeframe. Sdkb (talk) 20:49, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Sdkb's proposal makes a lot of sense. Ground Zero (talk) 21:35, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm neutral about Sdkb's proposal. On one hand, if Grahamsands is willing to remove all of the solar eclipses after, then we should leave it. Removing all listings right now only to readd it later on seems a bit counterintuitive at best (ask yourself, who's going to be removing 550+ solar eclipse mentions only to readd it later on). On the other hand, I strongly agree with removing mention of the solar eclipse on country and region articles like Mexico (1,964,000 km² (758,000 sq mi)) or Western Australia (2,646,000 km² (1,022,000 sq mi), both of which are very large and a solar eclipse is too fine-grained for such a mention. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 22:28, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

I took Exmouth as example only for how the template would work (I knew the eclipse would be mentioned there).

For a place like Middlebury (Vermont) I don't see what harm the listing did: it was one out of three listings and probably the most special event in that town in this century. For Mexico and Western Australia I was first unsure. But if I were to go to Mexico around those dates, I would certainly want to know about it. The chance that I would be able to travel somewhere to see it is quite big – and this is just one out of three paragraphs in See. For Western Australia, it is one sentence, in one out of four bullets in See. I don't think that's intrusive in any way.

There are places with big events all the time, and the eclipse might not be more important than a dozen of those. If the eclipse would be visible from New York City, mentioning it years in advance might not be warranted.

I think having entries for visiting rock stars would indeed serve traveller – I do add a listing when the Tall Ships' Races visit Turku, I did when Jukola was around, and I would mention stars at Ruisrock were I a regular of the audience – only that generally no one is keeping those updated, so one star's itinerary for the year could be added, but changes would not be followed up and the listings not removed. We don't have the resources. Now there is one person who does the work for eclipses (and the template would guarantee removal). Shouldn't that be applauded?

–LPfi (talk) 07:07, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Writing for the long term makes sense for Wikipedia – I still have encyclopedias from the 1980s in my bookshelf and I often find a 19th century one useful – but a Lonely Planet from the 1980s is little practical use. –LPfi (talk) 07:19, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I can't speak for the Mexico, but Exmouth is over 1,250 km (780 mi) from Perth, where most travellers start off their travels in Western Australia. That's about the distance from Helsinki to Murmansk or Calgary to Winnipeg. If anything, it should only be listed in Gascoyne. Likewise, for Mexico, I don't think a visitor to Cancun will be willing to travel to Baja California or Sonora to see the eclipse. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 07:22, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Oops, I edited my post somewhat while you were writing this. I agree that a visitor to Perth probably shouldn't go to Exmouth. Still, the listing in West Australia is very unintrusive. –LPfi (talk) 07:36, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

My machine has chosen this fine moment to malfunction, and I may have limited IT access until it's sorted. So I will try to continue to respond but if I appear to drop out, that's the simple reason.

Since I first lit on this topic, three total eclipses have come and gone, so this page and all location pages have gone through three complete update cycles. We are now heading towards another and I hope that this track record, plus the assurances given above, have resolved the concerns about maintenance. Elsewhere I have added (and later removed) other short-life material such as sports tournaments in what feels like industrial amounts, and no concerns were raised. Indeed other contributors have done much more, in creating entire tournament pages, and surely that is to be applauded not decried.

The point raised above is how far along the breadcrumb to mention the event, and the criterion is impact on travel. WA is an easy "yes!" because of the way transport is funnelled through Perth and along the coast highway. You try taking the bus between Dongara and Carnarvon, long miles from the action - sorry you can't because they're all booked out by visitors to the Exmouth eclipse. Mexico is a borderline example - I wavered over mentioning it at national level, but opted to include for two reasons. One, Mexican transport verges on chaos at the best of times, especially with the farce over the new MEX airport, it wouldn't take much to paralyse it. And two, the "See" section was lamentable and needed all the help it could get. There are now all of three "See" points for the entire country - three! - embarrassing isn't it? As things stand, on 9 April 2024 that will reduce to two. It could reduce much sooner if the counter-arguments prevail, but how then would the development of that page or travel guidance for Mexico be advanced? Grahamsands (talk) 10:06, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

"For a place like Middlebury (Vermont) I don't see what harm the listing did: it was one out of three listings and probably the most special event in that town in this century." Umm, @LPfi, this xkcd comes to mind. Bluntly, there seems to be an astronomical (pun intended) disconnect between what some editors here consider most important and what average travelers actually care about. Sdkb (talk) 00:06, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

 :-) Probably true. I know I could be one of those in the strip (although not concerning geology). Still, do you think anybody was bothered by that listing, other than out of principle? Do you think any non-editors would leave the site because such listings show we are a bunch of geeks? Would those be more numerous than those attracted to the site by the odd geeky listing? –LPfi (talk) 07:26, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Keeping the listings in city/park articles does no harm. I only have a problem with it in region and country articles for the reasons I've stated above. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 07:29, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Middlebury is a substantial town but its WV page is poor - just look at it. Right now someone is thinking "We owe a duty visit to Aunt Marion in Vermont, say why not visit around the eclipse . . . " So contributors please go ahead and make something of it, and all the other places along the track. That will be the legacy. Grahamsands (talk) 07:39, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the Aunt Marion rationale. You might not plan to visit any town where you actually could see the eclipse, but are going close enough for a side trip to view it. The regions where this is probable should have a mention, unless there are severe cons. For West Australia, Grahamsands made a good argument: you might want to avoid travel there around the overbooked weeks. You might plan for your visit in Australia well in advance, I think choosing weeks a year in advance could be typical if coming from Europe. For the USA, travel would not be overwhelmed other than on specific routes, but I might still choose to visit Aunt Marion a certain year, and I might well travel around much of the country when I for once cross the pond. OK, country articles should have many more important attractions (and United States of America does), so this may well be crowded out by them, unless it's a significant logistics problem. –LPfi (talk) 08:32, 24 October 2022 (UTC)