Talk:United States Geological Survey
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[edit] Official earthquake information
See Talk:Earthquake#Official earthquake information. Brianjd 08:03, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)
[edit] Airbrushing
Around 2004, by order of the US Department of Homeland Security, the USGS digitally airbrushed the US Capitol, the White House, and the residence of the Vice President (The US Naval Observatory) because of security concern.
What did they airbrush it on (or from)? --NormalAsylum (t) 18:34, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
Please provide tails on air brushing. It is impossible to literally "airbrush" the physical U.S. Capitol, White House, and Vice President resASS HOLESidence. Perhaps a map or photograph was airbrushed. What was removed by the airbrushing? Dananderson 17:35, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
If TerraServer-USA would load, I'd link to the "urban areas" aerial layer, which shows those areas heavily pixelated. --SPUI (talk) 18:30, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] public domain?
Is it OK to overlay USGS maps and submit them to the Commons? I think that it would because they would be public domain, because they are created by the federal government. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. --Chris 19:16, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] A couple of wording tweaks if the person who wrote them is interested
"Be-all and end-all" means the prime cause, essential element, or totality [1], as in "Sex is (not) the be-all and end-all of marriage."
"Invigorating" means creating vigor: an invigorating swim makes you feel energetic. —JerryFriedman 21:30, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
renewable
CyanFOX 09:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC) this piece was cut because it is vandalism and uses inappropriate language...
InsertSLUTTY WHORES≤ non-formatted text here{| class="toccolours" border="1" cellpadding="4" style="float: right; margin: 0 0 1em 1em; width: 20em; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%; clear: right;" |+ United States Geological Survey |- |style= align="center" colspan="2"| [[Image:USGS logo.svg|150px|Official identifier of the United States Geological Survey]] [[Image:Usgs-headquarters.jpeg|150px|The USGS headquarters in [[Reston]], [[VA]]]] |-|Established:||March 3, 1879 |- |Director:|| Mark Myers |- |Budget:||$9546847+ 612 354sldkflsm,vlkszOGksLKGvoSFB 71 Billion (FY2006) |- |Employees:|| 10,000 (2004) |}
CyanFOX 09:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC) this above section was removed because it was vandalism and is inappropriate langauge
[edit] Publishing review, scientific integrity, and questions of censorship
The section is giving a specific POV of this, which the page notes changed three months before the section states it did. That's one item amiss. Absent is any reference point to show what part of the policy actually changed. The second paragraph is quoting some other text - not in the manual. The sentence beginning "The revision was claimed" is expressing a POV without giving the text it is discussing. This and other statements in the section should be referenced to verifiable text. (The use of the blog-style comments, other than demonstrating that some people are annoyed, lacks most of the features needed to make a reliable source). Tedickey (talk) 00:38, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
- This is the source in question. [2]. Sorry for any confusion. --Pgagnon999 (talk) 00:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
- That's an improvement (though some of the comments in that could lead to further investigation). It's not necessary or even good style to put the link to the wp-article each place it's cited. Pulling the link down to the bottom, and making footnotes that refer to it makes all of the source information easily available in the topic. Tedickey (talk) 00:59, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
The word "censorship" is used in exactly one place in the wp-article, by someone objecting to pre-publication review. There is no reliable source presented which point out (in the past year...) that USGS has censored any articles. Tedickey (talk) 01:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
here is some older commentary on peer review in government agencies including USGS dated 1999. Tedickey (talk) 01:08, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
The article doesn't state that censureship is actually taking place, it states that some scientists in the USGS fear it, as the WP article indicates. Please feel free to pull the link to the bottom; I agree with you about that. Most of the article isn't footnoted, but the inline refs are an improvement over none at all. The great tragedy is this: all the energy we've spent discussing the finer details of one section of this article could have been used in bringing the whole article up to near feature quality.--Pgagnon999 (talk) 01:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
- Here is some related commentary - including noting (what I recalled) that the wp-article isn't completely NPOV Tedickey (talk) 01:20, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
- Compare this with the wp-article. Note that neither gives a source; you have to ask which one is giving first-hand reporting Tedickey (talk) 01:26, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
You know, I'm usually more paranoid than most people about where information is coming from. So I understand that nearly all of our news sources are potentially suspect. And yet, there's certainly been enough reporting by a variety of sources on this issue to support the idea that the fear of censureship secondary to policy changes has certainly been an issue. That said, I have no problem citing the WP--a generally reliable source.--Pgagnon999 (talk) 01:33, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
WP and AP are citing the same person - with the context of an interview (odds are the WP article is cribbed from AP). That's one person and some blog comments. I'm not seeing a "variety of sources". Tedickey (talk) 01:56, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, we're getting nowhere. Let's see what other people think about it. I've just added three more: BBC, MSNBC, RMT. Spin the wheel, choose your source.--Pgagnon999 (talk) 05:11, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
- As I pointed out before, the WP editor used the AP article as a source without noting it (unless that odd similarity in names means they're the same person). The BBC article might fit in a more general topic, but it does not mention USGS, so I removed it. RMT - that's marginal, but I didn't remove it. Tedickey (talk) 15:07, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
You may try to fit the BBC ref. in where the article mentions that scientists in other goverment agencies also have had concerns about censorship. Looks like it supports that statement. Hey, good work. The article is really shaping up. --Pgagnon999 (talk) 17:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
