Talk:Darian calendar/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Months

Do the "months" have any connection with the orbital periods of Martian moons?

No.

—

— Ŭalabio‽ 06:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Other planets

In 1998, Gangale adapted the Darian calendar for use on the four Galilean moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo in 1610: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. In 2003, he created a variant of the calendar for Titan. Why? Why would you need a calendar for those moons? They're too far away for the position of the sun to matter. Any colony established on those moons would be self-contained, and whether its day or night wouldn't matter much, and there'd be no importance to where in its orbit it is. Mars, at least, could conceivably be terraformed, in which case keeping track of seasons might be useful Nik42 01:23, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

As you'd know if you'd actually bothered to read the linked pages, the calendars for the Galilean satellites are based on their orbit around Jupiter, not around the sun. As for whether the time of day and season would be important there, we just can't know - to assert that it wouldn't is pure speculation. -- Tom Anderson 2008-02-09 (Gregorian) 1720 +0000 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.40.81.193 (talk) 17:20, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

No need to answer so rudely. The site talks about the solar day of those moons, so its still based on the position of the sun. And, the "days" are of slightly different lengths on each of the moons, and of a length that would probably be inconveniently short for humans. At any rate, it's no more "pure speculation" to assert that such a calendar is unnecessary than it is to assert that it is necessary - and far more logical to leave any calendar which might prove necessary to the actual colonists. They'd have a better idea of what was needed anyways. Nik42 (talk) 19:49, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Importance

What makes this particular Martian calendar notable? I've never heard of this calendar, and the article doesn't indicate why I should have. A Martian calendar per se isn't notable: anyone who knows the length of the Maritan solar day, and the Martian orbital period, and has a few hours to play around with the ratios could generate one. -- 99.231.58.54 (talk) 02:36, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we should add an extra clause about calendars named after some brighthead's son, such as a strong criterion for vanity, that should be deleted sadistically by ripping big holes in WP:s databases, putting a warning mark in those holes: "here resided the extra-vain-de-luxe article Darian Calendar, that nobody never used, keep your hands off, or you'll be sucked in into this destructive singularovanity". Said: Rursus (☻) 21:03, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I think that the article is important, as it gives the reader an idea how to construct a Martian calendar, and gives him links to articles to read. While a particular Martian calendar in itself isn't notable on its own, the discussion of earth-like timekeeping on Mars is. Mars as a planet in our Solar system is notable, it's comparison with Earth in relation to timekeeping, too, and a calendar is one of the most intuitive ways to describe a human being, and this makes it not only notable, but a mandatory for illustrating it. Yes, you could construct a Martian calendars when you know this, but doing so in an article for an illustriation would be considered original research, so we use the Darian calendar. A seperate article on a Martian calendar, however, isn't notable, so I would suggest that this article is renamed to "Martian calendars" or "Extraterrestrial calendars", or the content moved to another article, but it should be kept. The Darian calendar is notable enough to be included in another article. 93.180.79.19 (talk) 10:04, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't it then be in Wikiversity as a task tutorial? Regarding importance, an article on Wikipedia should meet Wikipedia's notability criteria, which among others implies that the topic of the article has been commented upon by some independent sources expressing some comments indicating for the reader the value and the importance of the said topic. If the article is about calendar construction, and it is deemed notable, then the article name might instead be calendar construction, or some such reflecting the most important aspect of it. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 13:56, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

About Notability and Name

"A Martian calendar per se isn't notable: anyone....could generate one." You can say that about every proposed calendar here on Earth. Anyone can think of some way to organize 365+1 days of the year (as a matter of fact, I have some ideas, to... :) ), so how notable or all those proposals? Their chance of being adopted isn't greater than for some Martian scheme. Wikipedia users have right to be informed about possible shape of time on Mars (or at least about some representative example).

"...a warning mark in those holes: "here resided the extra-vain-de-luxe article Darian Calendar,..." Gangale said: "Mine is just one of several dozen calendars that have been devised for Mars." ([1]). So, if you need a way to distinguish all those designs, you have to give them different names. His son's name is perfectly legitimate. Would that name stay on after eventual adoption is another matter. Calendar for Mars would probably ought to have word "Martian" or something like that in its name. Respectfully, sh:Wikipedia User. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.24.17.169 (talk) 21:13, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, regarding the name "Darian", it is a perfectly legitimate name, but still irritating and full of vanity. But the article needs notability, and all other calendar articles out there are either extensively used, or extensively referred to by independent sources. The great lack of this article is that all external links goes to http://pweb.jps.net/, just one source. According to wikipedia criteria for notability this article might fail to be notable, and might be deleted. Read the criteria for what should be here! I'll add a notability tag. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 14:09, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

And please read Wikipedia:Independent sources! ... said: Rursus (bork²) 14:19, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Googling for "Darian Calendar" (including leading and trailing ":s) there are a lot of hits indicating that the calendar in question is actually notable, since other sources treat it as a calendar for potential Mars settlers. So more sources, preferrably Planetary Society and such, algorithms and such, should be added, and then my notability tag can be removed. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 14:41, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

F.ex.:

... said: Rursus (bork²) 14:44, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't personally have a problem with notability, however I do think that the obvious pro-Darian content currently included in the Timekeeping on Mars entry needs to be addressed. For example:

"For similar reasons, if it is ever necessary to schedule and co-ordinate activities on a large scale across the surface of Mars it would be necessary to agree on a calendar."

Says who? NASA? I think not. Sanddef

I changed my mind: it's notable. Regarding the sentence that you pinpoint: it should be replaced by something neutral. To be a little bit nosy: I would say NASA would never use such a calendar if a calendar would indeed be necessary, as the sentence claims. They would much more probably use something based on MY (Mars years) and L_s (measured in degrees) like the astronomers use today. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 20:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Many of the comments violate the Talk Page Guidelines:

"Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views."

"Be positive: Article talk pages should be used to discuss ways to improve an article; not to criticize, pick apart, or vent...."

"Stay objective: Talk pages are not a forum for editors to argue their own different points of view...."

"Deal with facts."

Facts regarding notabilty: this topic has articles in German, Estonian, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, and Mandarin.

Facts regarding sources:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1986JBIS...39..282G

http://www.astrofilibresciani.it/Planetari/International_Pla_Society/Planetarian%201972-2006.pdf

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1989JBIS...42..337G

http://spot.colorado.edu/~marscase/cfm/cfmaas1.html

http://www.marssociety.org/portal/TMS_Library/MAR_98_095

http://www.marssociety.org/portal/TMS_Library/Gangale_2000

http://www.sae.org/technical/papers/2004-01-2533

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005P&SS...53.1483G

http://www.sae.org/servlets/productDetail?PROD_TYP=PAPER&PROD_CD=2006-01-2249

http://www.astrosociology.com/Library/PDF/Time%20on%20Mars.pdf

http://www.readersadvice.com/mmeade/scatwlds/sfbod.pdf

Tgangale (talk) 19:28, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Pastro the Astronomer (talk) 06:01, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Good Endeavour

All this is good work on the part of people endeavouring to see people colonise Mars, however the reality is that nobody will be satisfied to lose a day of the week once every five months and secondly the first settlers, who will most likely be of many nations and not one, will probably come up with their own month names to suit them. It will be, after all, their planet and not ours. Finally, an American deciding that the epoch should start at an American date while ignoring earlier dates from other nations and expecting other people to sit well with it is just nonsense. Again - let the real first martians decide. Their grandchildren wont consider themselves American, European, Russian or Chinese anyway. In fact for some of them their first generation of children wont either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.148.43.180 (talk) 18:08, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Irregular Weeks

The calendar does not preserve the cycle of the days of the week. This would be unacceptable for members of religions that include the seven-day week in their beliefs. It would also be inconvenient for businesses. Pay periods are generally either 1 or 2 weeks, a fixed number of days. This would require that, several times a year, you have a payperiod that is reduced by one day. In addition, this would require that several times a year you either reduce the workweek by one day, or take a day out of the weekend. Workers would not be thrilled about the second, and employers wouldn't be happy about the first. Nik42 01:23, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Pay periods are generally either 1 or 2 weeks: This is very American-centered. For example in South America the standard pay period is 1 month. --Againme (talk) 04:40, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that if people actually do colonize Mars, they would prefer to have every week be the same length, rather than ending years with a six-day week, even if (as is the case on Earth) every year starts with a different day of the week. I also think those Latin names for the sols of the Martian week would be replaced by the equivalent names of terrestial weekdays in whatever language the colonists speak. Timothy Horrigan (talk) 13:33, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Not in use

No Mars scientists, or as far as I know anybody else, use this calendar. I'm not sure in what way it's really a "calender" if none of the people who work with Mars operations on a day to day basis use it as a calendar. At a minimum, the fact that the calendar is not in use should be specifically and clearly noted in the lede. I can see that the proposal might make the bare edge of notability, as defined by Wikipedia, but I'd think that the article could be shortened considerably. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 17:22, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

@Geoffrey.landis - Thanks for clarifying the edit situation - I thought the statement might benefit from a citation - and reverted w/ a WP:BRD note for discussion - but perhaps - at least in this case - no citation would be needed after all - thanks again for your clarification - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 22:48, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

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Sols of the week

Isn't it a bit silly to call the third sol of the week Sol Martis? Wouldn't it be better suited as Sol Terrae? Gee Eight, 11 January 2006, 20:24 (UTC)

Or Monday and Tuesday could become Phoboi and Deimoi. —Tamfang (talk) 20:13, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Explain the intercalation formulas

This article tells us that there are certain intercalation formulas, one of which is this:

(Y − 1)\2 + Y\10 − Y\100 + Y\1000

Two obvious questions arise:

What does the backslash mean, and why doesn't the article tell us what it means?
What does the expression as a whole mean? It appears intended to be a number of days. But what number of days? The number of days in a year? Or what? And again, why doesn't the article attempt to tell us?

Michael Hardy (talk) 05:18, 16 December 2017 (UTC)