Talk:International Astronomical Union

message: I just added  to the page. I just now found a page that mentions this on the IAU page. But I don't think that self claiming greatness is a great source. Their list of national members is kinda what I'm looking for, but this doesn't actually show that these countries recognize the IAU in the area of astronomenclature. McKay 05:38, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: The number of members should be given a date, e.g. "as of 2005" - it's going to change over time, isn't it, and giving an (approximate seems reasonable enough: Don't need to bog it with details) date will suffice. Adam Cuerden talk 13:18, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggestion

message: Don't know why the introductory paragraph is in bold font -  but there is no discussion of it on this talk page, and it's completely unnecessary and against a number of wikipedia basic standards. I'll take care of that now. ~ GoldenGoose100 (talk) 07:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind. Looks like someone forgot to put the  on the opposite side of the International Astronomical Union phrase at the top. ~ GoldenGoose100 (talk) 07:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bold 

message: The IAU has several sponsored periodicals, particularly: 
* Two volumes of IAU Transactions (published for each General Assembly, Trans. A before and Trans. B afterwards)
* IAU Symposia
* IAU Colloquia and
* Highlights of Astronomy. The publisher, Cambridge University Press, follows Kluwer Academic Publishers (pre-1999) and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific ((1999-2004) as the IAU publisher.
Discussion in depth of these would be in scope for WP:WikiProject Academic Journals, but mention in passing would be appropriate in this article. User:LeadSongDog come howl 19:33, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Publications 

message: Pluto brought me here. I'm not looking to haggle over planet classification, but this is the backstory. Reading that article made me wonder just who these IAU professionals were. I noted two things about the map. ‘The IAU includes member organizations from 73 countries (so-called national members)’ caption being placed in parenthesis and italicized as such, would in US English grammar, be used to call special attention, if not outright sarcasm by combining the hyphenated ‘so-called’ thus amplifying the meaning of national members.  I don't think this was the intent.  I suggest a rewording to ‘The IAU includes member organizations from 73 countries (designated as National Members)’.  Throughout their web page, National Members is capitalized. I'm interested in what factors go into why a country would have no representative members. I don't want to broach Original research but will look for discussion elsewhere to learn more about WP:OR. 
Any thoughts?  --SlimJimTalk 12:44, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I reworded the caption as suggested above. It is definitely more appropriate this way. Thx, Rfassbind -talk  10:26, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Member map caption 

message: WGPSN and Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature  currently redirect to the lead of International Astronomical Union. The Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature merits its own section in the article, since this group formally approves names for planetary surface features and there are plenty of articles such as in :Category:Geography_of_Pluto, :Category:Geology of Mercury and :Category:Impact craters on Mars that will refer to (e.g. as IAU–WGPSN). Once the section exists, the mentioned redirects will then change to .
Here's some additional information: WGPSN does press releases: , , and has its own website . Rfassbind -talk  10:56, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  WGPSN Redirect proposed for deletion 

message: I have removed the whole segment in this IAU page on Pluto and the IAU decision to downgrade it to a dwarf planet. The text here is very likely politically motivated, especially in regards those who oppose and still oppose the change. This occurred nine years ago, and the conference referred to has had two since this time. The issue should appear on the Pluto page or Dwarf planets articles not here.
The article is supposed about the IAU, not one of their possible contentious decisions. The removed text is necessary because it places the IAU in a bad light (deliberately?) when articles should have a WP:NOPV and WP:IMPARTIAL. The removed text clearly finds that: "The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view." This is far from being neutral here. Arianewiki1 (talk) 13:06, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  IAU and Pluto 

message: The new releases list of the named stars was released today:
[]
Imho it would be woth to copy them all in an extra list for completeness.  --  89.245.43.143 (talk) 10:38, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: See List of proper names of stars. Cuddlyopedia (talk) 08:35, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of the named stars? 

message: The opening paragraph of this article states that, "[The IAU] acts as the internationally recognized authority for assigning designations and names to celestial bodies". I'd like to see a link added, linking to the treaty, or list of treaties, granting the IAU this authority. Such a listing would be especially relevant in the "definition of planet" variant of this article (which should link back to this one), since most people are neither astronomers, nor members themselves of the International Astronomical Union; thus, absent a treaty, adopted by the Senate and made thereby a part of federal law, it is expected that such nonmembers -- that's most of us -- would not be bound by the IAU's demotion ruling on Pluto. The Grand Rascal (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 16:43, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source(s) Of The IAU's Authority? 

message: I was reading this article and was surprised to read about the "Extraordinary IAU General Assembly" being decided by a "controversial decision of the then President of the IAU", without any link to support this affirmation. I have no idea if this is correct or not but appeared on one edit 12 years ago and googling it doesn't give much data. The french page which is a bit more developed doesn't say a word about it. If there is no support for this affirmation shouldn't a more neutral approach be used? Xbertou (talk) 22:14, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Doing a little digging, this history paper] discussed on pages 50-51 that the decision was in fact contentious. I've added the ref to the article. -- {Talk} 00:12, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  What a fantastic reading. Thanks! Not sure what the rules are here but I am more than satisfied with the answer and if it was up to me I'd close the topic and remove it from the Talk page. Xbertou (talk) 17:46, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for raising the issue--I enjoyed the paper, too! We have consensus that there is support for calling it a controversial decision, so that is all that needs doing. It's best to leave this topic in place for other editors wanting to understand the history of the article. -- {Talk} 00:48, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversial decision?