Draft talk:Orbital population count

Release notes

A population count needs a location. That is what I found out while working on this article for over six months. Counting the number of humans “in the universe” would be a very foggy undertaking with multiple undefined issues. But what would mean “in space”? Are humans who are on the moon “in space” – indeed using space suits against almost pure vacuum – while there actually walking on the ground? Will humans on Mars be considered to be “in space”? Or will they themselves instead at some point consider humans on Earth to be “in space”? So, space really isn't a location.

For now I have chosen the “geocentric orbit” as the location. This is not a so called original research, but rather a quite common point of view, as the numerous references show.

The second part of this article, the counting table, does not list single astronauts but instead their flights into orbit. Please enjoy this overview, which I could not find anywhere else on Wikipedia.

I am releasing the article now before Yuri's Night, to date 61 years after the first human flight into orbit (which happened in the year 61!).

Waladavia (talk) 16:59, 12 April 2022 (UTC) – edited by Waladavia (talk) 20:46, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Answer to reviewer comment (July 2022)

Regarding the comment by Artem.G – thank you for these substantial questions! – I would like to give the following answers:
What is this article all about?
This article gives the current number of humans in space (while “space” is being specified as “geocentric orbit”), which is shown through the upper blue frame. However, this needs referencing, and not at each occasion there will be a newspaper article giving the total sum of people in orbit, e.g. that article writing about the ISS, the Chinese, and about Inspiration4 all at once. So, the lower table is needed for referencing what is shown in the upper blue frame.
Why does the lower table only show values for 2021 and 2022?
The making of this article started in September 2021. That is also where the timeline starts. The article is not in the first place “intended to be a historical table of human presence on orbit”. The lower table (to which Artem's question refers) is for referencing the numbers in the upper blue frame. The first table row is to come to the same numbers that are shown in the upper blue frame. The next rows sum and subtract until their number can be proven through an external reference. Further rows are a nice feature though, and should be kept, and even more should be added at some point (by me and many other Wikipedians after the article is reviewed). But again, that will be feature. And even without that feature this article is no stub. And even if it would be a stub, it could be released as such. There is no Wikipedia policy prohibiting stubs. Indeed, that is one way how some good articles began.
Are those astronauts a “population” or are they just “visitors”?
It does not really matter, how they are being called, either way this article answers an important question that some users of this encyclopedia will have: How many people are in space right now? If the majority of proliferant authors feels that the title/lemma would sound more encyclopedic when being named “Orbital visitors count”, I would also be o.k. with that. However, the term population has three meanings (see end of that page): (1) a group of local people with quite similar characteristics (e.g. the Population of an Amish county), (2) a simple counting of currently present humans (e.g. the Population of Antarctica, and (3) the counting of any number of any objects (e.g. the sum of all broken and fractured satellites). In the English language, even spreadsheets are being populated, so lets keep the word as it is being used.
What does ‘keep it simple’ mean?
“Simple” is meant as a positive term. If a table can be understood at a glance, then its construction was – from my point of view – simple. Anyway, I already changed the wording to ask for simplicity below the table in the article.
So, is the article complete as it is?
Yes. A more encyclopedic lemma might be “Population of geocentric orbit”, but beside that, yes, it is, and it was so since 12 April, the day when I released it. Waladavia (talk) 21:45, 15 July 2022 (UTC)