40d Talk:Olivine

What makes olivine special enough to warrant an article? Sure, it spawns platinum, but olivine only shows up in gabbro, which already contains platinum, making that point moot. VengefulDonut 07:11, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

It spawns platinum, but it's hardly the only source. VengefulDonut 00:31, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

There has been no response from anyone, including the page's author, so I assume this page is not supported. Tagging for deletion. VengefulDonut 00:26, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I had responded to you the same day you posted that first comment, but not here (actually, I thought on your talk page, VD - can't find it now, maybe it got lost.) It certainly seems that your 2nd post is responding to a response from somewhere. I'll try to recreate my position:

Olivine is not nearly as notable as many other stones, but the very points you make at the top of the page are what makes it stand out from truly generic and useless stones like, say, microcline. Your remarks are what makes it "remarkable", if only in a literal sense. The purpose of a wiki page is to summarize information - anyone who knows the various stones knows that if you hit microcline, that tells you absolutely nothing. That is truly unremarkable. If a newbie strikes olivine and looks it up, they should be able to find out that 1) it may contain platinum, one of only a few sources, and 2) that it also represents an existing, larger gabbro layer - which is valuable to know in and of itself due to the ores that are found only in that stone. That olivine is not just another microcline.

How else is a newbie supposed to know the very facts you toss out? Surf the entire wiki at random? Intuitively say "I've hit something called Olivine - I should look up platinum and gabbro!"? Inter-connectivity and reflexive flow of information is what makes a wiki useful, linking lesser (but not insignificant) items with larger.

There are many stones that give zero information, that are, truly, pointless and unremarkable. Olivine is not one of them.--Albedo 01:37, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

By this reasoning, chromite should also be remarkable, no? Maybe serpentine, too. And cryolite. All of these spawn in only one place, as do many more. We have to draw the line, somewhere. Originally, the line was drawn at "has a special use or forms a layer". Later, someone added an exception for kimberlite since it is the only source of diamonds.

It seems you have decided that "lets you know which layer you're digging into" makes a stone significant. By this criteria, over half of the stones which have no use would deserve their own page. In my opinion, this makes it a bad criteria to use; especially since that particular information is already contained on the stone page. Unless you want to instate this type of policy, (2) should not even have been mentioned in this discussion.

As for (1), the issue here is more of a "what good does it do?" problem. From the perspective of a person who is interested in platinum and gets lead to olivine as a spawn location, there are two scenarios:

• a) the olivine link leads to a redirect that sends them to a table which contains all the information they didn't know about olivine.
• b) the olivine link sends them to the olivine page, which tells them olivine spawns in gabbro (they didnt know) and that olivine contains platinum (they did know).

Why am I talking about such a specific example? Because there are no links to olivine except in pages that talk about native platinum and there is no reason any should appear. Chromite is in the same boat.

Rather than deciding arbitrarily deciding you want a page on some rock, decide objectively on the criteria you want to use to determine which rocks deserve pages and follow through all the way. Keep in mind that there are a lot of rocks. VengefulDonut 03:14, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll address these one point at a time...

"chromite should also be remarkable, no?"

It's a matter of degree, depending on where that purely arbitrary line is drawn. None of your examples have any direct relation to anything of value, so I'd say "no", because of degrees of separation (and also, practically speaking, if you find a vein of chromite you'll also probably be aware of the olivine immediately adjacent to it). Serpentine and cryolite - small clusters compared to a large cluster? Even to a newb those would be obvious - the odds of driving a shaft into nothing but olivine is quantums greater than finding those without the olivine.

The sole parallel example would be Talc, which is also found in large clusters and implies a dolomite (a flux) layer bounds it. No other stone both appears in such large areas and has a 1:1 relationship to other stones that people would care about.

the line was drawn at "has a special use or forms a layer". Later, someone added an exception...

"It seems you have decided that..."

I was unaware of this line - it's certainly not in the Guidelines. And your assumptions as to my own criteria do not do you justice. If I "decided" anything, it was in that vacuum, and from the perspective that something (appeared to) need to be decided. Maybe it's time to reconsider that line. The stance I was taking is closer to "Is this stone of any notable significance to game play? Does finding this stone matter in some tangible way? Does it have serious implications that are not self-evident?" None of your examples would fall under that slightly broader umbrella, but kimberlite and bauxite clearly do. As would olivine, and talc at the extreme edge of the definition. (And I'm not including "means a x-type of layer" in that definition - to me, that is too far removed. Distinctly different from "signifies the presence the only stone where these two important ores can be found" - a point your position ignores.)

Let's take the status-quo position in the other direction - how does a layer stone like Andesite, Rhyolite or Diorite deserve their own page? Simply because they're a layer stone??? There, that's said - and is clearly stated on the "stone" page, so why repeat it? I recently went thru and added that statement ("these are layer stones") to all of those articles, because there is nothing more to be said about them and they were absolutely blank. And yet they deserve their own pages? They have ores - ores in common with many others. So what? Well, they're a layer, and it was decided that's important enough. Okay, if it's an arbitrary line, let's move it slightly. Olivine has platinum, something only 2 stones* can claim - I think that's important enough by itself. Adding the gabbro connection to the mix only strengthens the position.

(* I'm ignoring stones that themselves are found only in Olivine. What difference whether it's in one or the other - who can really tell, or cares?)

"From the perspective of a person who is interested in platinum and gets lead to olivine as a spawn location, there are two scenarios..."

Either of which is also (more) applicable to many of "layer stone" articles.

"to the olivine page, which tells them olivine spawns in gabbro (they didnt know) and that olivine contains platinum (they did know)."

And Armok forbid that both those details appear on one page somewhere, and the poor newbie doesn't have to embark on a virtual paper chase to find out something that they don't even know they're ignorant of.

"Because there are no links to olivine except in pages that talk about native platinum..."

Exactly. You can get from native platinum to olivine, but it's much harder to get from olivine to native platinum - and that's the problem in a nutshell. Why do you have to jump thru hoops to find out about the potential presence of platinum?! You currently land on the "stone" page, and immediately olivine is lost with scores of other generic stones - from which it should stand out. Not as much as granite, not as much as many others, but certainly more than some layer stones. Leagues above microcline or orpiment, which are it's immediate neighbors. And we both know this every time we get the announcement "You have struck Rhyolite!" vs. "You have struck Olivine" - one promises something, and the other promises nothing.

And that simple knowledge should be available on a single page, under the only obvious key word. Imo.--Albedo 04:48, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Random additional thought: Why NOT have a comprehensive database of stones? The work appears to have been done already. I should, with only a few links, be able to find where any given ore can be found, and find what ores can be found in any given stone or layer. That is a good thing for the ONLY available reference. Rather than cut Olivine, we should make Alunite not just redirect to "It's a stone". Decius 07:36, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it may be worth it to bite the bullet and put together a page for everything. The main downside would be that special features of things like graphite may get lost among all the seemingly equally important pages. VengefulDonut 14:49, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Come to think of it, that's not really an issue as long as we don't try to cram too much into template:rocks. VengefulDonut 15:04, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Seems like it's getting a bit heated in here. I call for a three day recess from edits for you two, to take the time to re-read and further understand each other's position on this. I see the merits of both, and neither is particularly more important than the other, from an overall viewpoint. Being that no one else has contributed as much, I think the drawing of this new line should be handled between you two, but with a bit of time to let it sit and collect a tad bit of dust, and perhaps further outside opinions. -Edward 12:59, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

No personal attacks are cropping up, Ed. So far it seems we are all acting like adults :) VengefulDonut 14:51, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

When you look up a stone, or anything for that matter, you want to be presented with all directly relevant information, and links to further relevant information. The stone page does not provide this for every stone at this time. I agree that the information about what olivine may contain is not very interesting, but it should be readily accessable. An Olivine page is the obvious, if not neccessarily practical, solution to the problem of finding all information (or links thereto) on olivine in one place. It is indeed a general problem on this wiki. You can look up something to see where it is found, but generally not to see what it may contain. It is the same with gypsum. You must use your browser's search function to find all the different stones that it may contain. Olivine takes the problem further, as it contains not only other stones, but also an ore. To see this you must use your browser's search function on the Ore page. And again on the Gem page to see if it may contain gems. Note that kaolinite, another stone of little interest, may contain turquoise.

I do not know what the best solution for this problem is. Rather than "one page per layer stone" I would suggest expanding the X Layer pages with subsecions for each of the stones that contain something the others do not (such as malachite in limestone and talc in dolomite), possibly with own-page-exeptions (can't think of any, but obsidian might be a candidate, with all its indirectly relevant information on farming it and whatnot). I suggest we either keep the Olivine page, rewrite it, and make sure the Stone page links to it, or have it redirect to an olivine subsection on the Stone page. I do find the latter less "clean". --Nahno 14:11, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this is "heated" - I think both VD and I are adamant in our individual viewpoints, and Respect to him for that. But I agree that we need more input from diff users, and not just let "us two" hammer it out. Something needs to be expanded/changed/improved, imo. A page for any large cluster? Can we group similar types of truly generic stones under one (sub)article that can cover all of them? A separate article/chart for small clusters? Maybe simply expand the info on that universal chart on the stone page, or break it into different charts to be more useful. I also agree (and mentioned) that this may be an opportunity to re-examine the larger question of (written or unwritten) policy on "what deserves its own page", and in so doing what function this wiki fulfills for both the vet and newb user. Okay, out for now, have stated position (and then some, ahem, sorry), will watch quietly.--Albedo 14:28, 16 May 2009 (UTC)