Talk:Organic matter

message: This is related to the discussion in the two sections below, but in the interest of readibility I wanted to give this question its own section.  Right now the article defines organic matter based on its ability to decompose... and this seems quite strange.  This is neither the vitalism-derived notion of "organic" as "biotic" (i.e. "organismal"), nor the chemical-biological definition of "organic" based on atomic makeup.  As Pengo has pointed out below, this article should include the various meanings of its entry, but I am simply taken aback by a definition of organic as decomposable.  I'm wondering what others think about this idea and how it should be made a part of a revised version of this article.  Ventifact 01:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Decomposability? 

message: See the 3 sections above this one, especially Soil Science and "organic matter" and Major considerations for this article on problems in this article.  To summarize the current situation as it pertains to this move request, the question of what exactly an entry on "organic matter" should say has led me to try to figure out how the discipline of soil science defines organic matter.  It turns out it has a number of extremely differing definitions, but I discovered that the one thing that seemed most dependable in all the variability was that the term is properly "soil organic matter."  This is a relatively small deal, but I wouldn't mind input from a soil scientist before moving this article (the bigger question is what to do with the article's content, see below). Ventifact 04:43, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Support, again i'm no expert, but I'd agree "organic matter" would be a better term. But from this discussion i'm starting to wonder if "soil organic matter" might be a more appropriate title. :) But "organic matter" is good. —Pengo  talk · contribs 06:54, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I came to this article looking for information on matter that contains carbon. Why does Organic matter redirect to an article about soil? I don't care about soil. Perhaps I should check Encyclopedia Britannica instead. -- JHP 03:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 

message: There is consensus regarding the basic elements of som. Obviously there is a lack of consensus on what elements are included or excluded. What it boils down to is "pick one". Just say early in the section what you mean by by the term and use it consistently. KAM 15:59, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Soil organic matter

message: Mikkalai: 
Talk:Soil organic matter redirects to this page. I don't think that's what you intended when you moved Soil Organic Matter to Soil organic matter. I'll jump in to fix this if you don't get to it. -- Paleorthid (talk) 17:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  incomplete soil organic matter redirect 

message: This has come up, and been done, before.  Since the last merge of soil organic matter to organic matter, Totalnewbi started a forking new article, Soil Organic Matter which was moved to Soil organic matter which had redirected here. The quality of the information in Soil organic matter pretty much compels moving it to the higher quality content here. However, I see there have been advocates of having separate treatment for soil organic matter. Yet, I don't see development of the separate not-just-soil organic matter content that would allow separation. With those continuing concerns set aside, I'll proceed with the merger. --Paleorthid (talk) 18:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Per subsequent comments (Pengo, Mikka), I no longer support merging. -- Paleorthid (talk) 22:39, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Either or. I think "soil organic matter" probably deserves its own article, but it's equally well served within "organic matter" until more is written about it. Anyone have any stronger opinions? —Pengo 07:08, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Propose merge [[Soil organic matter]] into [[Organic matter]]