Talk:Chronological dating

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 June 2020 and 3 August 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mij52. Peer reviewers: NotPaulDirac.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:04, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Dating methodologies in archaeology

I'm not sure why Kintaro didn't simply move the existing article to Dating methodologies in archaeology to Chronological dating given the substantial overlap in content (I agree this is a much better, more inclusive title), but we don't need separate articles on dating and dating in archaeology. Archaeological dating methods aren't particularly unique. There's already a huge amount of duplication in this topic area (relative dating, absolute dating, radiometric dating, radiocarbon dating, and so on), so let's avoid forking it any further. Joe Roe (talk) 23:06, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Joe Roe, and thank you for your valuable contribution to this matter. Indeed, "Dating methodologies in archaeology" seems to me to be a practical application of "Chronological dating". So, the one dealing with archaeological dating could be a section within that latter. Once the section created, "Dating methodologies in archaeology" could redirect to "Chronological dating", specifically to the appropriate section, so, in my opinion, no merge is needed... is it ? Kintaro (talk) 06:40, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm confused, what you've just described is a merge. Joe Roe (talk) 10:30, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I thought that by merging you also meant the history merge. As I see, it is not the case, and thus we agree about how to proceed. If you are ok, I'll very soon suggest a possible merge in my sandbox. It will be done today... Kintaro (talk) 11:25, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I think in principle the merge is a good idea. I would worry a little that the merge would produce an unbalanced article heavily weighted toward arch. methods. An alternative approach would be to merge all the content in common to the two articles into Chronological dating and keep the archaeology-specific methods in the methodologies article. But I do not have strong feelings about this and am happy to go with whatever the final consensus becomes. --Mark viking (talk) 15:26, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't think there are that many methods unique to archaeology, and they should be more or less balanced out by the long list of radiometric dating methods that are useless on a human timescale. The over-long section on stratigraphy could be merged to Stratigraphy (archaeology) instead, which would help. Joe Roe (talk) 17:19, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I had the stratigraphy section in mind when I was considering balance. Merging the stratigraphy section to Stratigraphy (archaeology), and merging everything else to Chronological dating looks like a good solution to the balance problem and one I would support. Thanks, --Mark viking (talk) 17:50, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Ok, Mark and Joe, thank you both for your messages. This is the resulting merge that I suggest for now. Nothing was yet decided, I know, so don't worry, we are just talking. If I'm right, my resulting merge expurgates duplications and presents a general article about dating (first) and then a more or less developed section about its application in archaeology. After expurgating duplications there weren't oversights from the original article "Dating methodologies in archaeology" and I think that the whole original text and data were kept... but of course, possible mistakes or omissions can be pointed out at any moment, by both of you, or by anybody else coming to this discussion. To balance the article new sections could be created, about parallel areas of archaeology. After the section "Dating methods in archaeology", as I say, new sections could be created like "Dating methods in geology", "Dating methods in paleontology", "Dating methods in astronomy" and "Dating methods in criminalistics". "Parallel areas"... this excludes, for example, palynology, as being too restricted to own its own section in the article (it is mentioned anyway). But this is only an opinion... so please, feel free to edit my sandbox as if it was the article itself. Kintaro (talk) 18:29, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Looks great to me. I think we should just go ahead with the merge. Joe Roe (talk) 18:48, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Looks good to me at well. Expanding beyond just lists in other areas would help address imbalance, too. I support the bold merge. -Mark viking (talk) 19:32, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Done, thank you guys. Edit and expand the article as you wish. Kintaro (talk) 20:08, 18 August 2016 (UTC)