Talk:Decline in insect populations/Archive 3

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Archive 2

Archive 3

Randecker Maar study

@Kingofaces43 and Jeschken: could we please get away from this teeter-totter of over-coverage vs complete erasure? The Randecker Maar results are important, a rare class of longitudinal study, and well covered in secondary sources. They absolutely belong in this article. On the other hand, there is no call for laying out the results in such excessive detail, nor for adding what really looks like an entire puffery paragraph to the "History" section. I'd suggest condensing this material to 3-4 sentences and then we are good. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:51, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I left a message for Jeschken trying to give them a little guidance on how Wikipedia works, so hopefully they join in here.

Right now, I'm not seeing any reason why it should be included (from a wiki perspective at least). I could talk about interesting things about the study with my entomologist hat on, but this isn't the place for anonymous editors to discuss opinions on the scientific merits of a primary study. As of right now, this article has no secondary coverage or citations in various literature databases. That's a red flag whether it's from a WP:RECENTISM perspective or WP:DUE. If we get some secondary coverage, I would definitely be on board with looking at what to include from what the secondary source distills for us to see what to include piece by piece.

Even if/when it would be included, there's also the issue of scope that was getting to ingrained in the edits I had to remove. It's a single location study mostly focusing on three families from what I've seen so far, so it can't really be placed next to the more meta-level commentary from secondary sources we already have. It's a bit more nuts and bolts type content rather than something that works well for a broad article like this. Time will help on this one, so there's no rush to include it at this time. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:56, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

• The study seems significant for the following reasons:

1. Its duration of 50 years
2. The interesting technique of monitoring a migration choke point
3. The dramatic result
4. Its political impact

I therefore agree that we should have an entry for it. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:18, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

"Dramatic" results are typically one of the main reasons why we avoid primary studies like this and look to secondary scientific sources. This is not a difficult subject to get such sources on, so no one should be jumping for very recent sources like this carte blanche. If any of those points actually come up in reliable sources to really establish WP:DUE, then that should be discussed instead of relying on personal editor interpretation of primary sources. That will also prevent things like embellishing the amount of data (the number of years were discontinuous and not 50 years of data). If there are impacts of the study, then that will be reflected in sources beyond standard press release things we often see in promotion of a study directly after publication. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:51, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

• Just a reminder that no one should be edit warring content related to this back in again and again. I had to clean up some blanket edit warring again. Please gain consensus for specific edits instead of blanket reversions at this point. I am also concerned by WP:SPA accounts related to this study. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:37, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

• We now have articles for the Randecker Maar and its observatory, corresponding to those in the German language Wikipedia. These relieve the need for detail in this article but we should have an entry for the findings. I'll be getting to this after completing work on such supporting articles. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:00, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

• FYI, it looks like all the original edits and reverts related to these were a product of sockpuppeting: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Phillip Mandeville Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:22, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

News article in PNAS

This is a high-quality news article that could be used as a source. It mentions various bits of research that I don't think we have covered here e.g. the most recent Rothamsted paper.

• McDermott, Amy (16 December 2020). "News Feature: To understand the plight of insects, entomologists look to the past". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 202018499. doi:10.1073/pnas.2018499117.

SmartSE (talk) 00:35, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

That one has some definite use for summary information. I'll see if I can take a crack at it later this week if no one has gotten around to it. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:51, 22 December 2020 (UTC)