Talk:Beach

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[edit] Please leave the photos of the FRESH WATER (Great Lakes) Beaches in the Gallery section; this is an intentional illustration of Beaches that are not ocean shores as not all beaches are located on saltwater bodies (and, the Great Lakes are considered to be examples of an inland sea by some people)- I would like to have a photo of a river beach- as there are many used for recreation- in the gallery as well. Please do not edit these out. Thank you.

I just wanted to let it be known that I greatly expanded the list from various online sources. I tried to sift through tourism sites that had a blatant conflict of interest in promoting certain beaches, but I may have failed. Also, some had ambiguous punctuation leading to uncertainty about what was a beach in which division of what island belong to which country. So some of all that may be wrong, and I won't be offended if it needs to be changed. Tokerboy 05:21 Dec 9, 2002 (UTC)

Would I sound too strict if I remarked that (a) the bit about getting changed is not really encyclopaedic and that (b) the photo, although it is beautiful, shows water rather than a beach? KF 13:41 20 May 2003 (UTC)

(a) could you be more specific about "not encyclopaedic"? You mean it is a taboo subject that one ought not to talk about? Are omissions in other encyclopedias a reason to avoid subjects? (b) I agree about the photo. A crowded beach with sand and sea would be nice. - Patrick 13:55 20 May 2003 (UTC)

(a) No no no, nothing of the sort. All I'm saying is that the article is about beaches, not beach towels. Well, you can use a towel for all kinds of things: You can use it to blow your nose, wipe the tears from your eyes, strangle someone, clean an apple you are about to eat, etc. etc. When I say this part is not encyclopaedic I mean that it is irrelevant in this context, not taboo.

Applications of towels that have nothing to do with beaches are in the Towel article (and there is some harmless overlap). The part about changing is also applicable for swimming in a canal, or a river or lake without a beach, I'll put a remark there. - Patrick 15:04 20 May 2003 (UTC)

I agree that it should be noted that, compared to many European countries, nudity seems to be a big issue in the US. I'd also mention The Beach Boys here. --KF 14:12 20 May 2003 (UTC)

[edit] this article needs a lot of work

Patrick, this article is rambling and badly written, and contains some silly information, such as the stuff in Beach Use. Are you going to bring the piece up to snuff yourself or are you going to let people like Marshman do it? If the latter, please don't revert his much-needed edits. – Viajero 11:19, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I would point out that the entire section on towels, except perhaps a link, belongs under the article on towels. There is nothing unique about the beach - towel connnection. Towels are more often seen at swimming pools! In Hawaii we prefer to use reed mats (oriental substitute for towel).Marshman 17:36, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Partly it is specifically about the beach - towel connnection; this could also be moved to the towel article. A part is about modesty and could also be moved there. - Patrick 20:27, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Marshman, the longer I look at the section on Beach Use, the more inane it seems, like it was written by a couple of school kids. I would scrap the whole section. Maybe someday someone can write something meaningful over the history of bathing habits, if that kind of social history is known, but in the meantime...  – Viajero 20:30, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

--- For Patrick: The most important lesson you can learn about writing is called economy of words. In any article, it is important to present the useful points in as few words as possible. I know this sounds crazy, given an open slate like Wikipedia, but the reason has to do with the reader, not us contributors. Reading takes time, and readers want to "get there" in the shortest way possible. Your text is what we call rambling. It incorporates links just to have links, and text in an attempt to cover everything. Everything remotely having to do with beaches cannot be included in the article on beaches. For example, there is no end (in this deletion instance) of the objects that can be formed of beach sand, so there is no point in listing some and linking to the articles on the real objects. Economy of words says we include only the basics to get the idea across – "sand castle" achieves that purpose, and provides a link to where beach play of the sand castle sort can be expanded as you or others see fit (still adhering to the principal of economy of words). It is inappropriate to take up lots of space discussing sand play in an article on beaches. The same goes for the presentation on towels. A single line with a link to towels will suffice. Under the towel article, more detail can be provided on this aspect with a link back to beach.-- Marshman 21:27, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Since you clearly enjoy writing, I would not want to discourage you one bit. But to become a good writer (and that is not easy) you need to learn by putting your stuff out there and then accepting the brutal edits of others as lessons. That is how I learned, from my professors putting lots of red ink on my efforts. And do not think that others here are not equally quick to knock out stuff I write. It is happening. My attitude is "whoa. There is a lesson for me" not "protect my contribution". - Marshman

Marshman, I thought your points above were very well stated. I believe learning to write good encyclopedia articles means developing a critical eye for what should be included and what not, to produce well-organized, well-written, balanced articles containing the right amount and right kind of information. I also learned an immense amount from people who red-lined my writing efforts in the past. There are some excellent editors here, and we all can learn from each other. – Viajero 15:23, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! Would it be worth putting something up in the instructions for new people? - Marshman

Well, the Wikipedia meta pages can be edited like all the other ones; have a go at it. Some are already quite good, but locating/navigating can be a problem; I usually start at Wikipedia:Utilities  – that seems to have links to most. That being said, I suspect that most people just jump in, learning as they go along, referring to the meta pages now and then  – Viajero 18:13, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I agree with both points: 1) the help pages are difficult to find and 2) most people do not utilize them until a problem or question arises. Nonetheless, the need to be there to answer the questions. - Marshman

Is it time to move the list to List of beaches? The page is getting very big! --Steinsky 14:32, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I would agree, it is getting hard to edit the article the list is so llong! Marshman 17:02, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think this is looking prettty good. Could someone add something on what sort of flora & fauna live on beaches? What about dunes? – Tarquin 20:47, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I was getting ready to include a paragraph on beach structure, which would include dunes, and a link to dunes – Marshman 22:51, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)

If nobody else gets there first, when I have some more time I'll get out old A level Biology and Geography notes on the subject and do so. I've already added what I remember off the top of my head to the Dunes page. --Steinsky 00:24, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I added the beach structure part. Of course there may be other terms in use that could be added, but those are the basics on beach structure. I am a biologist and studied beaches for a bit in the Pacific – Marshman 00:55, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] "beach use"

I've fixed the stuff on "beach use" by moving duplicated towel and sand castle content to where it's appropriate. I think it can be merged back in. Martin 15:39, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I agree. I think it is a valid entry in the article now - Marshman 17:25, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

And now people are adding it back again with the sentence on "beach furniture"! --Steinsky 19:08, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Haha! That was always there, part of the original compromise on what got kept in and what got moved. It was just recently moved from the back to the front of the paragraph—why you just noticed it - Marshman 19:14, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Sounds of the Beach

I had this sound file my brother created last Christmas when we were at a beach in South Carolina, so I posted it in a Sounds of the Beach section in this article. I figured it would go great somewhere on Wikipedia since making your own nature recording takes care of any copyright concerns.

The file is a little on the large side (1.00MB), but I feel that in it's present state, this .ogg really goes a long way towards making the listener think they're standing there on that beach, which fits in nicely with an article about beaches.

However, I wasn't really sure how to integrate it into this page. I knew I could make a "Sounds of the Beach" article, but I didn't feel like tryping something like that up. If someone wants to in the future, they're free to do it. I also didn't want a sort of "click here" thing sitting somewhere on the page, so I thought I'd just put the file in it's own little section in this article now.

-Anthropic42 July 2, 2004

[edit] Longest Beach

Longest beaches: there is a note in the article text that "longest beach" is claimed by several. Wikipedia has multiple suggestions on this. The Cox's Bazar page says that it (C's B) is. The Marina Beach page says that Marina Beach is the second-longest after Copacabana Beach. The Copacabana page doesn't mention the subject. I am a newcomer to Wikipedia (as you'll notice from the lack of links, and possibly – although I hope not – incorrect editing on this page) and don't know where to bring this subject up, since there are at least three conflicting pages. Should I create a note on each page, or will this one suffice? I certainly don't know the right "answer" for this, so I can't do the useful thing and go and edit the pages I think are wrong. --telsa except I don't seem to be logged in, sorry, 2004-12-27.

I'm unable to determine what your question is? Is it where to write this note? Looks ok here. With a little research, you could possibly settle the question as maps of each beach exist - Marshman 23:04, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

According to many tourist guides, Marina beach is the longest or second longest beach in the world. This just seems to be nonsense to me, there are so many beaches that are said to be longer. 12 km is not that long at all.

120 km long beach: http://en.wikipedia.org/description/CoxsBazar 90 km long beach: http://en.wikipedia.org/description/Beach 88 km long beach: http://en.wikipedia.org/description/Ninety_Mile_Beach%2C_New_Zealand 18 km long beach: http://en.wikipedia.org/description/Patara_Beach

etcetera. I'm sorry for the Chennaiites, but it's nonsense to refer to marina beach as the longest or second longest beach in the world.

[19th Sep 2007] Length of beach is different from length of coastline. Length of Marina beach is more than 0.5km. Marina beach is indeed the longest beach in the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.106.103.250 (talk) 21:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] snow covered beach

What do people think about this? And how would they propose using it?

It was taken about 6km from Riga on a snow covered beach in Febuary 2005. I think it might be useful but have little knowledge about beaches or this particular beach. Yellowmellow45 12:07, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

To start with I recommend uploading it to commons.wikimedia.org and adding it to the Category:Beaches. This way readers will be able to find the image by clicking on the "More media" link. With regards to using it in the article, I'm hesistant as there appears to be a large area in the centre of the image that has been overexposed and is plain white. Joe D (t) 16:31, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I see no value for use in the article Beach; maybe Snow? - Marshman 18:15, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Inappropriate additions

The sunset picture is gorgeous and may find usefulness somewhere. But this is an encyclopedia, not a place to promote travel destinations or your favorate snapshot. This is an article on beaches. The sunset picture shows a sunset, not a beach, and is therefore not approriate for this article. Also, addition of commercial links is generally considered poor form. Beaches of India may be valuable for an article on India? - Marshman 19:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dividing line beetween beaches

• I'm trying to write articles about the beaches in here, but there's no real dividing line between most of them, but they have different names, sometimes the same beach has two or three names, despite being the same beach with no rocks dividing even the waters. What are the possible divisions between beaches? rivulets? Rocks (throughout the beach or just in the boundary between the water and the sand? any idea?!--Pedro 14:26, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Consider links to the Seafriends pages on the beach-dune system

The beach-dune system is still poorly understood and often misunderstood, reason why we devoted a large chapter on it in our section on oceanography. See Dunes & Beaches

This chapter leads on to controversial discoveries about why we are losing our beaches. Although this part has not been confirmed by mainstream science, it nonetheless forms an important challenge to our (scientists') understanding, which is important for all. Disappearing Beaches

I suggest placing links to these chapters in related headings of Wikipedia.

Seafriends is a non-profit charitable organization for saving the sea (and beaches). Feedback appreciated. Floor Anthoni 01:38, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Strange comment

"Crabs are also often used to keep beaches free from trees."

If this is not just random vandalism, it needs an explanation. --Slashme 10:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)