Talk:1960 Agadir earthquake

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Details and sources

@Dave agadir: In regard of your recent edits, and discussion with Dawnseeker2000, please note my recent edit, where I adjusted the location (and other) parameters, but also adjusted the sources. Note that Wikipedia is all about citing sources for content. And (as DS was telling you) you can't just "fix" things willy-nilly. If you change some content, relying on a different source, you must change the source as well.

Also note that for the technical details of earthquakes the most authoritative, and preferred, sources are the major catalogs, such as the ISC and USGS-ANSS. So for location I relied on, and cited, the ISC. (I passed on using the ANSS location of "30.351 -9.69" because (1) I don't know that those extra decimal places are really significant, and (2) I can see that ANSS used an older ISC value.) For magnitude I cited the ANSS because they calculated a standardized Mw magnitude, whereas the ISC (even though they provide the same value) used an older magnitude of uncertain provenance. Similar considerations for depth: AISE is not authoritative, and it's an older value, whereas the ISC's EHB catalog has been recaculated using the most complete data available, an improved earth model, and improved algorithms.

You might also notice that we have some templates to make easier to cite the ISC and ANSS, and how in my second edit I moved some of the full citations out of the text and into the "Sources" area, replacing them with the shorter "short-cite" citations. Ask if you have any questions. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:56, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi

With regard to the epicentre of the Agadir earthquake, the data from seismographs was only able to give a very approximate location due to the lack of recording in the vicinity at the time. Accurate estimation of the epicentre was supplemented by morphological data (notably on the Kasbah fault) and the zone of maximum damage. The location given the in text of the article (about a km north of yachech) is about correct. The figure given in a number of important publications (such as http://www.israbat.ac.ma/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/05-Cherkaoui_BIS_ST34_45.pdf ) is 30.45N 9.62W, between the Ufella and Tildi hills (at approximately the location of the small dam visible on google earth with the national motto on it in Arabic; the dam was not there in 1960 but is just a useful reference point, the oued it lies on approximately follows the Kasbah fault at this point). The Wikipedia article originally had a location 10km further north, while your location is out at sea. Neither of those are consistent with the damage pattern. The data I quoted from [4] was the line "1960/02/29 23:40:14 30.4500 -9.6200 uk BCIS 1905515" which happens to give the location confirmed by local studies. (I forgot to log-in but this is dave_agadir). [ User:dave_agadir 16:33, 10 December 2018] [Copied from my Talk page. ~JJ]

Dave: You are cherry picking. The line you quoted (from the ISC event page) is only one of four records for this event. The "prime" (preferred) record as calculated by the ISC is the one at the bottom (Author=ISC). (Same data as replicated on Event Index and Bibliography pages.) That is the lat/lon (30.35, -9.69) reported by the ISC, and it is incorrect to cite the ICS but use the BCIS value. If you use the BCIS value you must cite the BCIS, and likewise for Cherkaoui and Hassani 2012.

However! While I will allow that it seems to me that Cherkaoui and Hassan have done some careful work, and their location may be more accurate, as encyclpedia editors we have no basis for preferring them (or the BCIS) over the ICS and ANSS. And there is a good basis for preferring the ICS and ANSS as authoritative: so that Wikipedia editors don't duel with differing authorities. At the best, their location (properly cited!) could be mentioned in the text ("Other authorities place the epicenter at....").

By the way, I see that C&H are not in the ISC's bibliography for this. If you mention this article to them I'm sure they would be pleased to add it. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:05, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi

I've just noticed that the USGS Shakemap, that has been on the wikipedia page for some time, also has the co-ordinates 30.45N 9.62W that I have been trying to correct the article to reflect. These are the coordinates that fit best when the seimographic, morphological and observed damage data are taken together.Dave agadir (talk) 13:34, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Dave, you're still cherry-picking your data/source. But before getting into that allow me to give you some pointers on WP good practices.

Before saving ("publishing") an edit ALWAYS (ALWAYS ALWAYS!) hit "Preview", and check your work. If you had done that for your previous edit here you might have seen that your last comment was jammed up against my last comment, making them hard to distinguish. A minor detail this time, but the habit of previewing can avoid a lot of grief.

A second tip: always drop your comment to the next line. Also, the usual practice is to successively indent comments, using colons (":"). (Though where there are only two sometimes one editor indents and the second does not.)

Third tip: as a brand-new editor you need to come up to speed on a number of things. I strongly recommend that you review the information at WP:TPG, and then WP:V, at your earliest convenience.

Your recent edit to the article has a number of deficiencies. First: notes ("footnotes", "endnotes") are collected and numbered automatically. So referring to "[4]" is pointless, as that is likely to change as notes are added, deleted, or simply rearranged. Second: "as given [...] in several academic papers" does not satisfy the requirement for citing sources, because you have not said which papers. Nor is "BCIS" anywhere close to adequate because (a) very few people outside of France would recognize it, and (b) you haven't specified where to find that data. (Even if you replaced "[4]" with a citation to the ISC event page you still have not cited the BCIS). Now the matter of proper citation gets deep quite quickly, so let's put that off for a future discussion.

As to your effort and purpose here "to correct the article to reflect" your preferred coordinates: sorry, that's the wrong approach. As a Wikipedia editor you are NOT allowed to write based on your own knowledge. That would be original research, which is forbidden. As encyclopediasts we write based on the sources. And our most authoritative sources say 30.35/-9.69, not 30.45/-9.62.

You claim the ShakeMap currently in the article reflects your preferred coordinates. Sure, but so what? That is an incidental notation on a map prepared back in 2005 (or perhaps 2008), and which is out of-date. You might notice it also says the magnitude was 6.3 (old value), and the depth at 5.0 km. If you check the currently posted ShakeMap you will see it has a different set of values. But again, those are incidental; the authoritative values are what are used in the article. For you to argue about those values is improper, and to show that the experts have argued about them requires citation. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:35, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

OK I'm going to give up trying to improve this article. The given epicentre location out at sea a few km beyond the mouth of the oeud Souss makes absolutely no sense in terms of the areas of maximum damage, as it places the epicentre closer to Quartier Industriel, Ben Sergaou, Inezgan and Ayt Melloul that were relatively unscathed and distant from the places that were badly hit. It places it so far South that it is no longer on Kasbah fault (it is even south of both the Tildi and Lahouar faults). It is so far South that it is off the bottom of the intensity map given here: http://mfd.agadir.free.fr/kasbah/tectonique/geologie-seisme.html. I have not seen a descriptive article that discusses the actual effects on the ground (as opposed to an abstract set of numbers produced by extrapolation) that would consider such an epicentre location remotely viable. I have given a number of sources that cite 30.45N 9.62W as the epicentre (and there are numerous others which cite the degrees and minutes of arc as 30° 27′N 9° 37′W which is equivalent). I accept that I am unfamiliar with Wikipedia systems, but a less hostile approach (cleaning up my citation of [4] rather than deleting the post), would make it feel worth inputting. I have lived in Agadir for a decade and spoken to elderly survivors. I have been to the sites concerned and know the local geography well. I have access to the archive information at the small memorial museum. However, I give up trying to make the article more useful.Dave agadir (talk) 16:58, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Even if your preferred coordinates are "better" in some sense (which is NOT established), simply popping them into the article is not an improvement.

You are not making much progress because (as you said) you are unfamiliar with WP process and standards. (And particularly with WP:OR and WP:V.) What I was trying to do is lead you to that familiarity. If you think you don't have to understand any of that, that all you have to do is imperially state your preferences and someone else will immediately do the grunt work of obliging you, then you are not going to have much joy here. And I am not going to waste any more of my time explaining any of this for you. Come back when you have studied up. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:19, 12 December 2018 (UTC)