Talk:Earth bulge

Redundant topic

This article substantially duplicates the discussion at Radio horizon and it's a poor idea to have the same topic split into two parts; this is why redirects are useful. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:36, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I created four new articles since the beginning of merger discussion and repetitive mergers. I hate losing time in endless discussions. But hoping to end the fruitless discussion, I'll try to make it clear. Unless a vandalism or recreating is involved, I am always against mergers.

1. As a principle, in encyclopaedias (unlike textbooks) all concepts should be presented in separate articles. By using links, all related topics can be reached.
2. Besides this topic is not redundant. (Two days ago the contents of this article was copied to Radio Horizon. But copying one article onto other doesn't make it redundant). In fact, Radio horizon and Earth bulge are different concepts. Radio horizon is the distance EM reaches on the Earth and Earth bulge is the imaginary increase in Earth radius. They are of course related . But to merge them under a single heading is like merging Washington DC and the United States under a single heading because they are related.
3. All articles (not the copies) reflect a considerable time and energy spend by the contributors. By merging the articles, the contributions of some of the contributors are lost forever. This is unfair to the contributors. Besides the communication between the readers and some of the contributors are broken.
4. Since the articles are created by different contributors the composition and the design of the articles differ. By simply copying one onto the other the integrity of the article is destroyed. (Different logic, different terminology, unnecessary repetitions etc.) Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 09:08, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for discussing this. I think it's important to present a coherent overall disucussion of a topic in one place. Too many times on the Wikipedia we fragment a discussion into tinier and tinier pieces, and expect the reader to spend a lot of time and effort trying to build up a coherent picture of an elephant from the blind men's descriptions of the trunk, legs, and tail.

• As a further illustration of this particular problem, look at the recent discussion at Line-of-sight propagation where an editor insists that the curvature of the Earth is NOT the ultimate limiting factor in commercial broadcast range at VHF and UHF frequencies. If we had a single, unified, coherent, (well-written and cited) discussion under line-of-sight propagation, this sort of error could not happen.
• I agree that "earth bulge" and "radio horizon" are different concepts but in any logical presentation of this material they would be intimately related - you can't explain one with out the other. Until recently these didn't even have links between the two disparate articles.
• Every editor gets the "If you do not want your writing to be edited, used, and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here." message right under the "save page" button; no-one has a reasonable expectation that their words will live forever untouched on Wikipedia, and where the words can be usefully combined in one organized article, they are better off in merged articles than in tiny perfect fragments. The edit history of the redirect preserves all the credits - in fact, the actual versions of each editor are preserved - nothing is lost, even though nothing is expected to last forever. Wikipedia articles are perpetually in first draft form, no-one should expect to publish a first draft without further editing. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:09, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I still think this is redundant and I ask you reconsider - the fragemented presentation of the same material is not an effective way to present the topic. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:59, 18 February 2011 (UTC)