Talk:Agriculture in Mesoamerica

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Mesoamerica, a WikiProject interested in improving the encyclopaedic coverage and content of articles relating to pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, its civilizations, history, accomplishments and other topics. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project's talk page.
Resources and guidelines for editing Mesoamerica-related articles:
NB: Assessment ratings and other indicators given below are used by the Project in prioritising and managing its workload.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the Project's quality scale.
High This article has been rated as High-importance on the Project's importance scale.
WikiProject Mesoamerica priority open tasks: (click "show" to expand)


Food Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Food and drink, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of food and drink articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Start This article has been rated as Start-class on the quality scale.
Low This article has been rated as low-importance on the importance scale.
Mexico Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mexico, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Mexico on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the Project's quality scale.
(If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

[edit] Merge proposal (Mayan food-->Agriculture in Mesoamerica)

Discussion
  • Oppose. I know the Mayan food article is in pretty poor shape (and this one needs a substantial overhaul, but I think the topics if not their present contents are suitable to stand as separate entries. The 'agriculture' article has a very large potential scope and one could easily write reams on the topic; there'd be sufficient material on Maya dietary practices to also justify its own article. They are related but not interchangeable topics - Mesoamerican agriculture was not only for the production of comestibles, and of course covers many more cultures; while the Maya and other cultures also consumed non-domesticated foods. If and when this agriculture article gets a thorough revision, then mention of Maya (and other) diets can be summarised in some appropriate subsection, with links to the relevant subarticle(s).--cjllw | TALK 01:18, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I would also oppose this merge as well. Like you said, Cjll, the Mayan food article is in really poor shape, but given the proper attention, it could an important and valued contribution. I would, however, like to suggest changing the article's title, to "Maya diet" or something along those lines. That way, reliance on domesticated crops, collected plant resources, and the exploitation of various types of faunal resources (e.g., hunting, shellfish collection, etc.) could be discussed - the inclusion of the last two in-and-of-themselves make it generally inappropriate to merge the diet article with Agriculture in Mesoamerica (as you mentioned). Also, and following this line, other cultural "diet" articles could be written as well (at least, for those we have good information for) - if doesn't exist already, I imagine an "Aztec diet" article could be fairly easy to write for those familiar in the subject. -- Oaxaca dan 01:48, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Gidday dan, wholeheartedly agree re the rename proposal. I'd previously thought of something like Dietary practices of the Maya, Maya dietary practices or some such, since it's not so much the things consumed but how it all fits in with the cultures and resources that would make the interesting topic. But probably Maya diet is a more succinct title; my only concern with this one is that it could possibly be confused for some modern fad diet -ie 'diet' in the weight-loss sense ("follow the Maya diet and watch those kilos fall away!"  ;-). I dunno, happy to hear any other suggestions you or anyone else may have, I guess 'Maya diet' could well be fine.
And yes, it would be cool to have other 'diet per culture' articles as well, and maybe even an overall Mesoamerican diet one as a survey...eventually!--cjllw | TALK 02:23, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Ha! The "Maya Diet!" "Drink your Pozole and lose that wieght!"
No, but seriously, I hear you on the title issue - I like something along the lines of Maya dietary practices, but how about something like Maya subsistence or Maya subsistence practices?. Either way, we can create a redirect from "Maya diet" to it, since I would imagine that people looking for info on the topic would search for something like that to begin with. -- Oaxaca dan 02:41, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Subsistence - I like it. What about Maya diet and subsistence, just to make it clear; there even appear to have been a conference or two entitled exactly that. I'll rename it to that v soon unless there are any objections - also set up the title variant redirects per your suggestion.--cjllw | TALK 04:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that is perfect! -- Oaxaca dan 04:40, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, 'tis done, now moved to Maya diet and subsistence, with redirects under other alternative titles. Now comes the hard part- salvaging the content- I almost think it would be better to start again from scratch. A concisely-written stub would at least not be as misleading.--cjllw | TALK 06:44, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Hey, thanks for the rewrite dan, it is a great improvement. I've removed / closed the merge proposal, I don't think anyone really is gonna promote that cause.--cjllw | TALK 23:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)