Talk:Cave

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Contents 1 records 2 stupid aquatic terms 3 Ice Caves 4 can I replace the photo 5 Secondary caves 6 Reversion of internal links 7 Inappropriate links?

[edit] records

Rls, I did, and I placed an external link at the page pitch (vertical space). Others can be found by a cursory google search... --Joy [shallot] 23:10, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Oh and I also mailed the author of that page that's wrong detailing its mistakes. --Joy [shallot]

Joy, the site you cite is out of date with its statistics, and seems less than thorough. I did of course do a "cursory google search" before reverting your edit and did not find an authoritative site that backed your changes. Bob Gulden's site is pretty well respected however and is generally kept up to date.

Incidentally, I would not consider a minor error (if it does indeed turn out to be one) to be a "blunder". And since when did reverts become minor changes? Rls 23:39, 2005 Feb 9 (UTC)

The very first google search result for Patkov Gust gives you the page of a branch of the Speleological Committee of the Croatian Mountaineering Association, that describes the location and discovery of this pit in a fairly detailed manner. I could find nothing on Google to indicated that Patkov Gust is in Slovenia, other than Bob's page that you cited, which in turn cites some anonymous person with a Slavic-looking name.

Furthermore, the first hit from a search for Vrtoglavica 643 603 also gives a fairly detailed article about that pit and its surroundings, corroborating information from showcaves.com.

I think it's plain old blunder to state that a pit on Velebit is in Slovenia when the mountain doesn't even reach the border of hr and si, it's at least 50 km to the south. It's primarily a blunder on the part of the people who published this originally, but it's not much better that we just copy it without checking.

BTW my revert is marked minor automatically because it was done with the "rollback" function. --Joy [shallot] 23:56, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I wrote the total depth of Vrtoglavica instead of its record pitch depth (which, to be fair isn't that different a value, and I corrected it when I did the revert), and it does seem that Patkov Gust is indeed in Croatia. I still don't think such minor errors amount to "A gross mistake; an error due to stupidity or carelessness" (OED), and labelling it as such is irritating and confrontational.

Oh, I just went by the WordNet definition of "an embarrassing mistake". Please don't take offence. --Joy [shallot]

Sorry, I was probably being overly touchy. Rls 19:58, 2005 Feb 10 (UTC)

You state that a Google search for Vrtoglavica corroborates information from showcaves.com; no it doesn't, showcaves.com doesn't even mention the cave, and I found several other errors and omissions with only casual browsing which is why I didn't trust it.

I also saw that omission, but that's probably due to being out of date or just uninformed. The deepest caves get explored practically constantly and a record that was up to date two years ago could well be wrong today. I used other sites to verify that Vrtoglavica does indeed have a 603m single drop, and kept that part of your edit. --Joy [shallot]

It's true that deep caves keep getting extended (the 2km mark was only passed a few months ago) but apparently Vrtoglavica was bottomed in 1996. Rls 19:58, 2005 Feb 10 (UTC)

What about Lukina Jama? A Google search for "Lukina jama" 516 didn't turn up anything in particular indicating a record pitch size, at least in English. I did find a sort of 3D survey, but as far as I can see there isn't a single pitch of 516 metres in the cave. Rls 02:05, 2005 Feb 10 (UTC)

On that Google search, when all languages are allowed, there are three hits from Croatian newspapers (novilist.hr, vecernji.net, slobodnadalmacija.com) which all consistently state that a section of vertical space within the Lukina jama is 516 meters. I remember seeing it in the news... that stuff from the speleologues should corroborate it, but indeed it doesn't seem to. I'll e-mail them asking for clarification, to see whether the press was wrong. --Joy [shallot] 10:19, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The definition of what exactly is a pitch isn't that well defined so there may be some room for interpretation. There's also the possibility that the cave was initially only approximately measured but then was accurately surveyed, showing smaller dimensions. Did you receive a reply from Bob Gulden? Rls 19:58, 2005 Feb 10 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Civility, "judgmental tone in edit comments" Rls 02:19, 2005 Feb 10 (UTC)

[edit] stupid aquatic terms

What is the difference between a stygobite (mentioned in this article) and a phreatobite (not yet mentioned)? --Chinasaur 21:26, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ice Caves

I made a small change clarifying the difference between an ice cave and a glacier cave.Ian mckenzie 03:25, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted it because this isn't true. Even if it was, we wouldn't want to list a cave containing ice as a special type of cave. Rls 14:10, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The terms "ice cave" and "glacier cave" that I proposed (corrected) are those in common usage amongst cavers/speleologists in Canada and, I believe, the rest of the world. See http://werple.net.au/~gnb/caving/glossary/I.html http://home.pacific.net.au/~gah/speleology/glossary.htm http://www.showcaves.com/english/explain/Speleology/Classification.html http://www.speleogenesis.info/glossary/pdf/glossary_02_I.pdf http://207.57.17.64/files/glossary.pdf and http://nsidc.org/glaciers/glossary/glacier_cave.html all of which which mirror my understanding. There are many more. You can find a few references which call caves in glaciers "ice caves" but these tend to be nontechnical names. For example, http://glaciercaves.com/html/glacie_12.HTM gives several examples of glacier caves that are called "So-And-So Ice Cave" but are still referred to as glacier caves, with the distinct (correct) definition of an "ice cave" following. I can understand your argument that a bedrock cave with permanent ice in it is not a morphologically distinct cave type in itself, but do not agree that it is not a "special type of cave" because in those countries that have them, it is. Perhaps a compromise would be to correct the definition of "glacier cave" and include within that definition "...not to be confused with <ice cave>, which is any cave in bedrock that contains permanent ice formations".Ian mckenzie

I don't agree that the (many) references to caves in glaciers as ice caves are "non-technical", whatever that means. However I've made a change to the article incorporating the two names -- see what you think. I'm beginning to think that this article should be split up into sub-articles for each major cave type. Rls 14:38, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Good change. My original change was perhaps a little too strict, based on right/wrong whereas yours recognizes common usage. I did make one further small wording change, tho, as I believe an important function of wiki is to correct misconceptions, and the term 'ice cave' is technically incorrect when refering to caves in glaciers. I hope the present wording satisfies all...Ian mckenzie

[edit] can I replace the photo

The photo headlining this page is pretty poor, not to mention a blatant advertisement for a show cave, plus, it is repeated on a page made for that show cave. As a professional cave photographer I have images I'd be willing to donate, however am not sure of the procedure or etiquette involved in replacing an image. In the help sections I only see how to place an image, not how to replace one. --Dave Bunnell 22:48, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I would say go ahead and replace it, as cave of the mounds is hardly a famous cave in the international world. I don't know how to replace photos though, but someone did it recently on the Batu Caves page,so maybe you could find out from there. Cavingliz--Cavingliz 02:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

In my defense, I would like to say that the picture of Cave of the Mounds is most definitely not an advertisement. I am not a professional photographer, just a tourist. I was a touring the cave, and took some photos. I felt the picture was worthy of inclusion in the cave article, as it shows some of the unique structures found in caves. But if Dave Bunnell has some pictures he is willing to share, please include them in the article. And, as Cavingliz said, it is not particularily famous in the international world, but I do think it is a good picture, otherwise I wouldn't have put it in the article. To add your pictures, simply follow this format: [[Image:Example.jpg|thumb|#px|caption]]. Consider leaving the Cave of the Mounds picture in the article, but putting it lower, perhaps. I still think it adds significantly to the article, and is a good demonstration of caves.--ClockFace 14:47, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

• • Considering the enormous number of outstanding cave photos in the world, I think this page could do with some replacements. The photos presently on it are good, but are not superb, and in some cases not particularly educational or representative. I should think that the first and last ones in particular could be replaced. BTW, don't take the deletion personally; Constant improvement is what wiki is all about, and Mr. Bunnell is amongst the best cave photographers in the world. Ian mckenzie 01:06, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• • Following Ian's suggestion I replaced a few photos and added several. Note that I've tried to put photos in a logical context by section, so we now have something to illustrate lava tubes, sea caves, cave dwellers, and cave archaeology. I would have replaced the one from Hall of the Mountain King with one of a deep pit, but it's a nice photo so decided not to mess with it. This took me most of an afternoon so I hope people leave it in place for awhile. I hope most will agree that these photos help better illustrate the concept of caves and the subtopics in the article.--Dave Bunnell 07:02, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Secondary caves

I reworded the limestone cave paragraphs in this section to better tie in with the theme of secondary caves. Have also removed the statement that faster solution would lead to fewer caves, which is confusing and possibly untrue - caves in the tropics form faster than in Canada, yet there is no evidence that there are fewer of them there. Also, I removed loess, ice and lava from the list of solutional bedrocks; two are not bedrock and none of the three owe their caves' existence to chemical solution, unless in the most exceptional circumstances. Ian mckenzie 20:26, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reversion of internal links

I reverted the edits made by 69.168.140.188 as one simply linked back to this same page and paragraph, and the other linked nowhere. Ian mckenzie 00:23, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inappropriate links?

It looks like the links to a number of long and deep cave links have been removed as inappropriate. I don't see a note here. Why were they considered inappropriate? (Bob Gulden's site is considered as one of the most reliable by many cavers, and his work on caves and cave records in the National Speleological Society speaks for itself.)Nahaj 19:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I see they've been replaced, removed & replaced again. I agree that they're quite appropriate & should remain. Looking forward to other opinions... Valerius Tygart 19:32, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Any external link could be appropriate if the context is not blatant commercialism. Sometimes the most appropriate links about a particular cave might only be sourced from a commercial tourist cave site as the National Park type sites might not mention it, or the National Park type of site might just as well be a commercial in itself anyway as they depend on revenue from cave visitors. Not all speleological groups have the commercial tourist caves listed anyway. There should not be a discrimination, however much that speleologists consider a tourist cave as 'not really a cave' because after all, even if it has been substantially altered from it's native state, it is still a 'cave'.petedavo 02:36, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that a lot of links have been removed by VSmith, he considers them to be spam, but in fact I would consider them to be genuine links to good sites. Cavingliz 07:59, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

However in the context of this article on caves any mention of how deep or long etc should refer to their respective main articles and the said references should be on those main articles, not on some snippet of those main articles within the cave article. Since there are main articles on longest caves, deepest caves etc, then the proper references should be to the main article. It might seem a bit hard for novices readers of wikipedia to navigate thru but it would seem to be more encyclopaedic.petedavo 11:35, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I simply used the caverbob links as refs for the longest and deepest caves and removed the series of section inline links to caverbob pages. Facts need to be referenced, but we don't need a list of external links within as article section. As to the comment by Cavingliz above, Wikipedia is not a list of links (please follow those links and read the guidelines there). Vsmith 13:14, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

"A cave is a stupid hole in the grounde... (run-on sentence)"??? Surely we can do better than this. I don't remember how to sign on but maybe someone else can think of a more appropriate way to begin this article. I don't even have time right now to read the whole article but I'll bet there are more problems. It actually looks like someone tried to deliberately write something silly. This is the kind of comment a child would make when they don't want to do something they are supposed to do. I think someone needs to look at this article and figure out if this is lazy editing or vandalism or technical malfunction. Then I would love to read the whole article. Keep up the good work everyone. I enjoy reading Wikipedia articles and if I can ever figure out how to sign on with my user name again I'll help out with the editing. WLE 68.46.248.8 (talk) 22:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)