Talk:International Astronomical Union

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Source(s) Of The IAU's Authority?

The opening paragraph of this article states that, "[The IAU] acts as the internationally recognized authority for assigning designations and names to celestial bodies". I'd like to see a link added, linking to the treaty, or list of treaties, granting the IAU this authority. Such a listing would be especially relevant in the "definition of planet" variant of this article (which should link back to this one), since most people are neither astronomers, nor members themselves of the International Astronomical Union; thus, absent a treaty, adopted by the Senate and made thereby a part of federal law, it is expected that such nonmembers -- that's most of us -- would not be bound by the IAU's demotion ruling on Pluto. The Grand Rascal (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:43, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Controversial decision?

I was reading this article and was surprised to read about the "Extraordinary IAU General Assembly" being decided by a "controversial decision of the then President of the IAU", without any link to support this affirmation. I have no idea if this is correct or not but appeared on one edit 12 years ago and googling it doesn't give much data. The french page which is a bit more developed doesn't say a word about it. If there is no support for this affirmation shouldn't a more neutral approach be used? Xbertou (talk) 22:14, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Doing a little digging, this history paper] discussed on pages 50-51 that the decision was in fact contentious. I've added the ref to the article. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 00:12, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What a fantastic reading. Thanks! Not sure what the rules are here but I am more than satisfied with the answer and if it was up to me I'd close the topic and remove it from the Talk page. Xbertou (talk) 17:46, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for raising the issue--I enjoyed the paper, too! We have consensus that there is support for calling it a controversial decision, so that is all that needs doing. It's best to leave this topic in place for other editors wanting to understand the history of the article. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 00:48, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]