Talk:Message in a bottle

A fact from Message in a bottle appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 25 August 2005. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that in Elizabethan England anyone opening a message in a bottle without the approval of the Queen could face the death penalty?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2005/August.

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Telecommunications

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Promotional

Let's not forget the promotional side of messages in bottles. http://www.tortugarumcakes.com/site/press_article.cfm?id=message_in_bottle

I'm not sure how to place it in the article but I'm sure someone could do some research and get the pertinent info in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.95.11.190 (talk) 07:23, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Personal Experience

Growing up on the coast of Brittany in France, I found in July 1984 a bottle on the beach with a message inside. It was in English, I was only 7 years old and my parents didn't know English, so we asked some British tourists to help us understand. The message came from a small place in Ireland (county Sligo). It had been thrown to sea a little over 18 months sooner. A 9 year old kid wrote it. It said something like "if you find this message, please let me know by sending me a postcard! My name is Cian, I am 10 year old Irish boy from Sligo. Thank you very much. Greetings from Eire". Imagine that! Such an adventure for me! It made my summer vacation. The local newspaper even interviewed me. I sent the kid a postcard, and we remained penpals for quite a while. I don't remember why we quit corresponding. It was stupid, we should have continued. I guess what is cute and exciting when you're 7 becomes cheesy and corny when you're 14... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.72.92.4 (talk) 22:09, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Scientific Experiments?

"They are also used for scientific studies into ocean currents"

Source please. Surgo 20:05, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

At the Turks and Caicos Museum site, under the heading Research. Can't really find much other information outside of that site, pretty much everthing Google turns up is about the film or the song. the wub "?/!" 21:16, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

See also: Smithsonian magazine's July 2001 number --Cxarli 01:13, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Removed website from links. Advertisement. Rj3labs 01:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

History

Is the tidbit about shipwrecked people in 2005 really important to the history of messages in a bottle? And at the same time, is the possible myth of Christopher Columbus sending a message in a bottle during a storm worth keeping? Maybe there should be a "lore" section Mike409 (talk) 11:08, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dubious

MetaFilter user verstegan suggests that the thing about QEI employing an Uncorker is lifted from The Man Who Laughs. Seems like an open-and-shut case for removal to me, if true, but I guess one should go check the Kraske reference given. 4pq1injbok (talk) 20:52, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, that's exactly the thing I was reading before I added the dubious tag! I don't have the Kraske book to check what it says, but I have asked verstegan is there is somewhere citable for the debunking. That should be enough to remove it for the time being, and whoever added it originally can come back with quotes from Kraske if they wish. I will let you know if/when I get a answer. Emma May Smith (talk) 21:10, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have had a reply, and though there is no easily accessible source for debunking this myth, it may be debunked in Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Eric Scigliano, 'Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man's Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science' (HarperCollins, 2009), Appendix A ('Urban Legends of the Sea'). Does anybody have access to that book? Emma May Smith (talk) 15:57, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Roman use of pine cones to study water flow.

Apparently some famous Roman governor wanted to know where an above-ground river went when when it disappeared underground. He dumped pine cones in to the water with distinctive markings, and they were later found floating in the Mediterranean sea. I tried to find details of it online, but could not. Has anyone got details, and should this be included here. (or elsewhere)--Dmol (talk) 00:08, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Doesn't have a message in it, So I'm Not sure.Yutah Andrei Marzan Ogawa¹²³|UPage|_☺★ (talk) 06:51, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As-yet-unverified claim

Memorandum: CNN story (June 30 source: "Did Cuban migrants who climbed lighthouse send S.O.S. note?") reports a possible real, possibly faked, message in a bottle from migrants between Cuba and Florida. The story bears watching, to see if it is validated. —RCraig09 (talk) 14:34, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Confirmed according to CNN (July 21 source: "Cubans who climbed lighthouse allege inhumane treatment in U.S. custody"). Content has been added to article. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:28, 24 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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Construction Site Message in a bottle Source

Hi RCraig09!

Thanks for clarifying some of my additions to the Message in a Bottle article--I'm still learning Wikipedia conventions, so I especially appreciate the info on avoiding names of living senders and avoiding duplicating content between tables and text. In the case of the former, I just thought the maker of the table didn't know the names of the senders. My mistake!

Regarding the table entry for Carl Ott, the original source of the story is indeed the Message in a Bottle Hunter blog, as you can tell from the news article currently used as a citation, which in fact cites that blog. The current source is an article from "The Indy Channel," but it is based on and cites original research published at the Message in a Bottle Hunter blog, which was contacted by the finders for help in researching the bottle, according to the Indy Channel article. I'm just wondering why Wikipedia should cite a source that cites the original source when the original source is available? I'm sure I'm just missing something here but wanted to ask so I can learn.

Thanks, --Concher1 (talk) 21:14, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the explanations, User:Concher1. I first have to say that my actions were not hard-and-fast "rules" of Wikipedia, but were applications of Wikipedia principles, policies and guidelines, to an article of which I happen to be the main editor. That said, for the foreseeable future I would shy away from using MessageInaBottleHunter.com as a source since it's just an individual guy's blog (however earnest and individually honest), and not an established publication with a track record and editorial oversight. Presumably, a more established publication would have done some background investigation on any story, thus making the publication a more reliable source (click WP:RS) than the individual being interviewed. More discussion can be done at the article's talk page: Talk:Message_in_a_bottle. Happy New Year. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:33, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the explanation! That makes sense--I, too, would expect established, secondary sources to conduct their own research in verifying their stories. That does not seem to have happened with this particular Indy Channel article, as they merely summarize and quote from the blog that researched the bottle. But as a general point, your explanation makes perfect sense, and I appreciate you taking the time to write it and point me in the direction of some helpful WP resources for newbies like me. Reviewing this story made me wonder, too, if there should be a separate heading--or perhaps a separate page altogether--for "stationary" messages in bottles. They don't seem to fit Wikipedia's definition for "Time Capsules," and they don't float around...but I guess this is a conversation for the "Message in a Bottle" talk page. Anyway, thanks again, and Happy New Year to you, too!

--Concher1 (talk) 21:57, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(foregoing discussion copied from my user talk page. —RCraig09 (talk) 23:36, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Re "stationary" MiBs: Since the archetypical MiB is a bottle thrown into the ocean, almost all the article text is dedicated to that embodiment. But since things placed in (stationary) walls etc. are literally still "messages in bottles" I made a separate but small section for that ("Similar methods using other media"). That small section now references List of time capsules (whose definition literally encompasses bottles-in-walls). It's a question of ambiguous and overlapping definitions that we must live with, but I don't think that stationary MiBs warrant their own separate article--at least not separate from time capsules or list thereof. —RCraig09 (talk) 23:48, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Claim about Theophrastus

The article claims that Theophrastus has used messages in bottles, but the only source given is a magazine concerned with fashion and entertainment, which provides no sources and doesn’t look like a reliable source for historical data. At the same time there is an equal number of websites that provide the exactly opposite claim and of equivalent reputation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikimpan (talk • contribs) 06:36, 7 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Reliable" source added: (NatGeo). What are the "equal number" (i.e. one) "of websites that provide the exactly opposite claim"? --2606:A000:4C0C:E200:1D14:5B23:6FC6:8569 (talk) 07:10, 7 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

From Ebbesmeier and Sciliano at p. 229 (link):

"Theophrastus’s Bottles. For years, I cherished Gardner Soule’s Men Who Dared the Sea, which recounted how Aristotle’s protégé Theophrastus released bottles in the Strait of Gibraltar to see if a current flowed from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean. Soule included footnotes for many parts of his book, but none for his chapter on Theophrastus. Still I kept investigating; this experiment—which would have made Theophrastus the first by about two millennia to make scientific use of drifters—seemed in line with the way he conducted research. And the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica gave the same account. To confirm it, I contacted a group of scholars at Rutgers University, who were assembling all Theophrastus’s known writings. They graciously investigated but could not verify that he released drifters. And so I rate this beguiling tale a mere four."

The "four" refers to 4 of 10 on the scale of believability. However the Theophrastus story is clearly part of MiB lore, even if unproven, so I just modified the sentence to emphasis the story is "reputed" per Ebbesmeyer's investigation. RCraig09 (talk) 19:05, 7 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Like Wikimpan, I am unclear on why the Theophrastus story should remain here, described in a way that makes it seem true. The word "reputed" means that the story is "generally believed," but it is not "generally believed" by anyone who has investigated it, like Ebbesmeyer. Rather, it is merely repeated often by people who provide no source or, at best, credit the story to NatGeo, who in turn provide no source for the story, or Robert Kraske's children's book, which, again, provides no source for the story. Repeating a story often does not make it true--especially when no one has provided any evidence that it is true. Should this Wikipedia page be presenting lore and myth as if it is fact? Concher1 (talk) 16:01, 9 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I understand the concern, but with the word "reputed" we guarantee here that the content is not "presented as fact". Clearly there are numerous prima facie "reliable" sources that report it as truth (including NatGeo and the 1911 encyclopedia Ebbesmeyer mentions), and not being able to find a countervailing reliable source affirmatively proving the content is false, supports its inclusion. That's why I think it should be included—if contextualized. RCraig09 (talk) 16:47, 9 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I see what you mean, but the only appropriate "contextualizing" of the story I can imagine would be to describe it as a myth, or a legend, or at least an "apocryphal" story. Really, anything more than that is simply unsupportable. The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica is searchable online at JRank.org among other places. Entries on Theophrastus and Oceanography mention nothing about messages, bottles, drifters, tracking ocean currents, etc., so we cannot rely on the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (unless I've missed something there--totally possible, of course). The other source Ebbesmeyer mentions, Gardner Soule's book, is itself not regarded as a scholarly or trustworthy source (Soule's work is generally regarded as fanciful and certainly not scholarly). The National Geographic article does not give a source for the Theophrastus story, and it therefore cannot be confirmed or corroborated. I understand that the claim about Theophrastus appears in lots of places online, but this does not make it true, since none of them provides evidence. Saying that it is "reputed" to be true makes it sound true to the average reader, even though there is no credible evidence available to support the claim. Ebbesmeyer himself rates it 40% likely to be true--in other words, 60% likely to be untrue. I really don't mean to be a pain, but I'm having a hard time understanding the insistence that this unsupported, unsupportable story be presented as fact on this page. My understanding is that when a claim is made on Wikipedia, a reputable source must be provided to support the claim. I do not see a source among those listed above or on this page satisfies that requirement. And again, as for National Geographic--they have not met this requirement either. They have made a claim about Theophrastus, but provided no evidence. It seems to me that a Wikipedia article would want to avoid such a source since we cannot be sure of what research--if any--they did for the article.Concher1 (talk) 22:20, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Presently, that content is definitely not "presented as fact" and I wasn't "insisting" anything close to such. Stronger wording may solve the problem, but any new wording, too, should be supported by a reliable reference rather than our own interpretation(s). This is a tough problem. Generally speaking, Wikipedia simply "relies" on reliable sources (WP:RS) without those sources (e.g., NatGeo) themselves having to explicitly cite their own sources (that's the purpose of having reliable sources). We're now faced with a credible reference (Ebbesmeyer) that simply questions other references since he & Rutgers could not find the "ultimate" source, yet mentions a reference (encyclopedia) that presumptively did have an earlier source—which undercuts his own conclusion! My quick research just now yielded nothing conclusive. In any event our own research must defer to what reliable sources affirmatively state; hopefully we can find one that resolves the entire situation. A subtle wording change might be the solution. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:22, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Example: Searching scholar.google.com: (link) Check the 1985 Tolmazin reference's quote. (I couldn't find full text.) —RCraig09 (talk) 04:41, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Contradiction?

The article's text states that the longest term between a bottle's launching and its recovery is 131.6 years. The article's table says the longest term between a bottle's launching and its recovery is 151 years, with the text's "longest" being the item listed "2nd-longest" in the table. Am I just not reading something? If the 151 years is the longest, and the 131.6 years is just the longest according to Guinness, that needs to be sorted out.2604:2000:C682:2D00:D843:CE4A:4831:5319 (talk) 19:24, 10 March 2018 (UTC)Christopher L. Simpson[reply]

Good point. I've changed the text to now state the January 2018 find "eclipsed the previous corroborated record duration of 108 years" (corroborated by captain's meteorological log). The 151 year old find in 1935, higher in the table, was (as I recall from references) not corroborated though widely reported. RCraig09 (talk) 19:45, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

unclear sentence

RCraig09: You removed my request for clarification regarding the sentence: "Saying she initially felt violated by publication of her personal suffering, the mother told Liebreich on condition of continued anonymity, the details of her son's 1981 death in a bicycle accident, her decades of suffering afterwards, and the story surrounding release of her letter from an English Channel ferry."

That sentence is very unclear. It says "the mother told Liebreich on condition of continued anonymity" But, as you said in your revert, there was no "continued publication", which is why it doesn't make sense. What was she requesting continued anonymity about? The sentence needs to be reworded and clarified. The sentence seems incomplete. It doesn't say what she requested anonymity about. Vontheri (talk) 13:31, 3 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Vontheri Continued anonymity is about not publishing her her identity. —RCraig09 (talk) 13:34, 3 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

RCraig09 Huh? Then why not change it to say that? Usually people don't remove "clarification needed" tags until the issue has been actually clarified, by the way. Vontheri (talk) 13:37, 3 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Vontheri The basic definition of the word anonymity makes the sentence completely clear. Extra verbiage is not needed. —RCraig09 (talk) 13:40, 3 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

RCraig09 It really wasn't clear at all. I think I figured out what the writer was trying to say. I changed it to the following: "Saying she initially felt violated by publication of her personal suffering, the mother told Liebreich the details of her son's 1981 death in a bicycle accident, her decades of suffering afterwards, and the story surrounding release of her letter from an English Channel ferry after Leibrich agreed to protect her anonymity."

I know what the word "anonymity" means. That wasn't the issue. The way it was originally written it made it sound as though the sentence ended abruptly with something left off. It didn't clearly join that "the details of her son's 1981 death in a bicycle accident, her decades of suffering afterwards, and the story surrounding release of her letter from an English Channel ferry" was something being told in exchange for agreeing to keep her anonymous. It didn't seem clear what was being done in exchange for her anonymity. It sounded as though there was a request that she was making "on the condition of continued anonymity" Does that make sense?

I'm sure I wasn't the only one to be confused by the wording. Just because something didn't seem to you as though it needed clarification, doesn't mean that others won't find it in need of clarification. Any time someone adds a "clarification needed" tag to an article, there will almost certainly be someone else who doesn't think it needs clarifying. You obviously didn't see what I was saying needed clarification, as you apparently thought it was something about what "anonymity" meant. Please do not remove "clarification needed" tags in the future just because you personally understand what was being said without any added clarification, especially not if you are not clear about what is being asked to be clarified. The point of such tags is that someone who does understand it without added clarification can then add the clarification that is needed so other people can understand what is being said. Vontheri (talk) 13:50, 3 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

To better explain, when it said "The mother told Liebrich on condition of continued anonymity", it sounded as though it meant she was making a request, like "on condition of continued anonymity I will do x". It sounded as though it was the definition of "told" that is "order, instruct, or advise (someone) to do something.", instead of the definition that is "communicate information, facts, or news to someone in spoken or written words." That is why it wasn't clear and needed clarification. It was nothing to do with the word "anonymity". Vontheri (talk) 14:02, 3 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Vontheri Either sentence is crystal clear, though the new sentence first cites a result (the mother's telling X, Y and Z) before explaining a precondition/cause for the result (the mother requiring anonymity): a reversal of cause and effect not present in the original sentence. More generally, "A told B on condition of anonymity..." is practically a cliche, the last phrase even being in the dictionary! https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/on%20condition%20of%20anonymity. Also, Googling < < "told * on condition of anonymity"" > > yields 10.8 Million results. The original sentence was crystal clear and presented cause and effect, in logical and chronological order. But good day. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:12, 3 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

RCraig09, I changed it again, to change the order of precondition/cause, and to maintain the word usage "on condition of anonymity". The sentence now reads: "Saying she initially felt violated by publication of her personal suffering, on condition of continued anonymity she agreed to tell Liebreich the details of her son's 1981 death in a bicycle accident, her decades of suffering afterwards, and the story surrounding release of her letter from an English Channel ferry." Is that wording acceptable to you? I'd like to find something that we both think reads clearly and without any issues. This way it maintains the order and word usage you wanted, but arranges things in such a way that it is very clear what usage of "told/tell" is intended, by placing the order as stating that something was being told/then who told or was told/then what was told.

Again, just because it was crystal clear to you, does not mean that it is so to everyone else. The first time I read it, I kept thinking that it was going to get to what the mother "told" Liebrich that she was going to do in exchange for his protecting her anonymity. The word "told" has two meanings, "order, instruct, or advise (someone) to do something." and "communicate information, facts, or news to someone in spoken or written words." I had read it as the first meaning. After I read it several more times it became obvious what the intended meaning was, but to prevent someone else from the same confusion, I put the "citation needed" tag. Please be completely sure about what someone is asking to have clarified before removing those tags. If in doubt, ask the person who placed the tag, assuming whoever placed it can be reached. There can almost always be something reached that is agreeable to both and clear to both. One's own judgement of something being clear when someone else found it unclear is not a very good way of discerning if other people will find it unclear or not. Everything that has ever had a "citation needed" tag placed on it will have at least someone who doesn't find it unclear.

As for the google results. It looks like a large number of them have the thing which was told and then state that it was "told on condition of anonymity", rather than the other order. That seems less ambiguous, but as you said, there are other issues with it being in that order. As for those that don't have it in that order, the relevant sentence from the very first result yielded by the google search is "I was told on condition of anonymity by at least one of our mates today and another day someone saw you in a movie theatre". This has the order of "precondition/result", but the order is stating something was told on condition of anonymity/then who it was told by or to/then what was told, so it does not have any ambiguity.Vontheri (talk) 01:31, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What to include in External links section

On 29 May 2022, User:Stesmo removed the entire External links section, citing WP:EL. I think it should remain. I'm aware of WP:EL and included the listed documents, mainly because they contain "information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as ...amount of detail. @Stesmo: I'm requesting that you reconsider, especially for references 2, 3 and 5. Thanks. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:50, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hume, Mark (15 September 2013). "B.C. man unearths a message in a bottle dated to 1906". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on May 5, 2018. (unverified report of unopened 107-year-old find).
McKeon, Gina (April 29, 2014). "Message in a bottle: 10 famous floating note discoveries". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on January 26, 2016.
Murano, Grace (April 26, 2013). "8 Coolest Message In a Bottle Stories". oddee.com (Murano provides links to respective sources). Archived from the original on January 26, 2016. Updated October 30, 2013.
Wollan, Malia (March 27, 2015). "How to Find a Message in a Bottle". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 21, 2015. ("some 90 percent of marine debris washes up on less than 10 percent of the world's coastlines").
"Message in a Bottle", The Museum of Turks and Caicos (Message in a Bottle Project, launched in 2001; legends, lore, examples). Archived on February 18, 2019.

Hey, User:RCraig09. A list of citations doesn't belong in the EL section, especially when one (a paywalled site, which also doesn't belong in EL) is already used as cite. I reviewed the links and saw nothing that couldn't be included or wasn't already included in the article. If there's anything noteworthy, encyclopedic and should be included, add that content to the article and use the link as a citation.

Stesmo (talk)