Talk:Puget Sound faults

This article's purpose is to provide an integrated view of the principal seismogenic faults of the Puget Lowland (Washington), not just describing individual faults (which in some cases the material available barely suffices for a stub article) but also describing, without being repetitive, the general background, as well as the connections between them. It is not a geological review (such as the USGS fault and fold database), and though it is derived primarily from the scientific literature and tries to be accurate (although not necessarily complete), it is intended to be accessible and interesting for a general audience, at about the level of articles in Scientific American in the 1960's. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:12, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Too much information?[edit]

Given the length of the other articles on Wiki, is this one overly detailed and too long? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.9.96.213 (talk) 18:12, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:SIZERULE. This page is currently 60 kB or 10,116 words readable prose, which means it's not really too large, though it's possible it would be better if it were subdivided. Some lengthy material could be moved off to main articles like Seattle Fault, and other cleanup is possible, such as removing the numerous "see image at right" statements per WP:MOSIM, and deleting many unsourced pieces of speculation and opinion, like "...it it is not known if these are bounded by faults in the same manner as in the Puget Sound region" and "The OWL appears to be a deep-seated structure over which the shallower crust of the Puget Lowland is being pushed, but this remains speculative" etc. Removing any original research and weasel statements like "...other studies have also contributed to locating and understanding these faults" would also trim the fat quite a bit. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:26, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good points. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.147.88.35 (talk) 23:37, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly some "fat" could be trimmed, but I think that wouldn't make a great difference in the size. Moving material to other articles is a non-starter as all but the Seattle and Tacoma faults don't have articles. Breaking this article into a bunch of stubs would give us a bunch of rather incomplete stubs that lack all context, and providing some of the needed background for each would be redundant (one of my expressed reasons for taking a regional view), and harder to update in the light of new findings. (Also annoyingly repetitious if several sub-articles are read together.) One possible exception would the "Question of western termination" section under the Seattle fault. I considered whether that should be in the main SF article, but decided not, for two reasons. First, that material is more technical than is suitable for the level at which the main SF article is written. Second, that topic is complexly intricated with the adjacent faults (as shown in my latest updates): it cannot be treated as part of any single fault. Indeed, it illustrates an evolving view that faults cannot be considered individually, but have to be considered as regional networks. Which is precisely the approach I have taken here.

As to length relative to other articles: "too long" would be relative to the tens of thousands (?) of stub articles? I don't know that length as such should be a problem, unless it discourages reading. And I have tried to structure the article to encourage diving in and reading particular sections. If a particular section is interesting enough (one reason I point out some of the more interesting speculations) then the reader may be encouraged to read more. If that works, then length should be a minor consideration.

As a technical note: your measure of 10k "words readable prose" presumably does not include footnotes and references, right? As I am into heavy citation, notes and references are about half of the total article size. Hopefully that kind of information is not "too much". ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:48, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also, good points. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.147.88.35 (talk) 23:51, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Please remember to "sign" your edits by adding the "four tildes" (~~~~) at the end of your edit. It also good practice to indent your edits from the previous edit by prefixing a colon. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:59, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not added information as such, but an increase in connectivity: I have added an image map to make the lead map a clickable visual index to the various features. This is something that would not be useful for separate articles on each fault, but with a regional focus allows the reader to focus directly to specific faults while seeing them in the regional context. I have also been updating the material on the Dewatto fault and its relation with the Seattle and Tacoma faults, which shows how faults are not simply nearly random cracks in the crust, but reflect the interaction of crustal blocks. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:54, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Like so many wiki articles, this article cannot be read by a casual reader[edit]

This article has been very nicely overwikied to give wiki editors that special thrill up their leg when they have demonstrated their knowledge and remains inaccessible to mere peons. Like that old Microsoft joke

A helicopter was flying around above Seattle when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's electronic navigation and communications qquipment. Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter's position and course to fly to the airport. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew a handwritten sign, and held it in the helicopter's window. The pilot's sign said "WHERE AM I?" in large letters. People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign and held it in a building window. Their sign read: "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER." The pilot smiled, waved, looked at her map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely. After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" sign helped determine their position. The pilot responded "I knew that had to be the Microsoft building because, like their technical support, online help and product documentation, the response they gave me was technically correct, but completely useless."

So useless wiki editors, read this article and then tell me if it answers the question:

Are the SWIF, LRF, and SQF right lateral or left lateral strike slip faults? What about other faults in Puget Sound. What kinds of faults are they? How do they generally move?

If you know this, you can begin to understand why portions of the puget sound look as they do.

Of course, you my fine overwikiing wiki editors know this, so why make this clear to the casual reader?

208.53.122.13 (talk) 18:06, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree. I don't think we need to eliminate detail so much as organize it differently, so that the top level overview is more general and more accessible, and the more technical details are moved down into sub-sections, or sub-articles. Microsoft isn't so much into the tall buildings, by the way. They're more into the squat office parks spreading across many acres of land, which is why they're mostly out in Redmond and other suburbs, and not in Seattle. F5, maybe? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:08, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A simple solution would be to write an article on the Simple English Wikipedia. Sounder Bruce 21:28, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Uh oh, Dennis you need to see the new Bellevue skyline, Microsoft is in three towers there: City Center, Bravern, and Lincoln Center. Almost all the Bing development and operation is in one of them. Brianhe (talk) 22:07, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Given the context provided by your joke, are you trying to say that the information in this article is completely useless? Of course, that would depend on what kind of use was expected, and even implies that there must be some kind of "use", where knowledge for its own sake seems not to qualify. If you need directions to SeaTac you shouldn't be here in the first place. If you want know what "use" could be made of knowledge about these faults, well, the all time favorite justification for funding is "earthquake hazard", which is why it is covered in §1.1. As to your pop quizz, I don't understand the point of it. If you're saying the information presented is incomplete, that is somewhat the state of affairs: uncertain for the SWIF (as I recall), not known for the SQF, and the LRF (I presume you mean the Leech River Fault) is complicated, and covered in its own article.

As an aside: knowing what kind of faults these are and how they move provides little understanding of "why portions of the puget sound look as they do", other than as an insight into the broader tectonic processes that shaped the Sound. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:57, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]