Talk:Florida Museum of Natural History

Photos

This page is listed as needing photos. I can go any day and take photos, but what does it need photos of? The outside, the fossils, the building in general, the vivarium? I have a few pictures of the butterflies there, but they just look like regular butterflies; nothing specific to the museum. Anyway, suggestions, anyone? Garnet avi (talk) 23:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I think any and all pictures are a good idea. I am having a bit of a delay getting pictures a of right now. Bill 13:48, 28 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wtc69789 (talk • contribs)

I will be going to the museum on Monday with my camera and taking some nice pictures, so they are my own and upload them after I work on the size. Bill 01:24, 2 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wtc69789 (talk • contribs)

I have added pictures for Maguire and Powell. I will be going to the Dickinson Hall on Monday. I will be finished with this overhaul as soon as those pictures are uploaded. Bill 02:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wtc69789 (talk • contribs)

Edits

Okay, after reading this article more thoroughly, I discovered a very bad case of TMI and random sections with no info. I'm really to cut some unnecessary stuff out, but I don't understand the collections and I'm not really familiar with museum article formatting. I'm hoping that the editor is just planning on coming back later rather than leaving these categories hanging. To whoever: please don't add categories that don't have anything under them; it doesn't benefit the reader and is confusing as hell. Garnet avi (talk) 23:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I am going to finish it soon. I just got a bit bogged down. wtc69789

Good. Next time, just post that you're mid-revision. It's not a problem as long as possible editors know it's under construction. And please, if you need photos, tell what you need. As I said previously, I'm willing to help. Garnet avi (talk) 08:33, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I have begun my final push to complete this monster! I am securing photos and permissions from the museum photographers and descriptions of the collections from the collections managers. I have gotten descriptions from a few managers and have updated Vertebrate Paleontology. Bill 13:28, 28 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wtc69789 (talk • contribs)

Needs to be severely pruned

Looking at some of the previous comments here, it appears that a need to reduce the information in this article has been recognized, but I'm not sure what has been done since that time. I went through and removed all of the first-person and second-person pronoun references and removed some of the overlinking, but there is a rather disturbing (and obsessive) level of detail here. Additionally, some of the sections (especially the Herpetology section) veer off from a discussion of the museum into advocacy; I commented out an entire paragraph of what can only be described as an environmental scolding. The Botany section is filled with peacock words. — Horologium — continues after insertion below

I put the links in as in past articles I have edited I have been corrected in not putting enough, I suppose I am looking for a middle ground. Bill 13:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

As far as the peacock words goes, you may think them that, but most all of them are found on wikipedia already and anyone who knows about these subjects I believe would not see them as such, and as far as advocacy goes please let me know which paragraph that is, i will take care of that as well. Thank you very much. Bill 13:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wtc69789 (talk • contribs)

The list of Archaeological sites might be better served as a separate article, with the current introduction and a {{seealso}} link remaining here as an overview. The information contained there is useful and relevant, but there are too many subsections to comfortably incorporate into this article directly.

I thought about removing the empty Paleontology and Ethnography sections, but decided to address them on the discussion page first. I'd like to delete them if they contain no information, and reintroduce them when someone can put together a decent overview; are there any objections to that? Horologium (talk) 17:13, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Whoever is writing this article is probably heavily involved in the museum and know a lot about it. I think the best solution is to find a few good museum articles and compare the level of information. While the collection information is important to museum people, I think for this article a basic list will suffice, especially since most of those collections are not on display to the public (i.e. the ictheology collection). Anyone with more interest should go be able to link to the musuem's site for that. As it is, this article is rather confusing to the general reader. Garnet avi (talk) 23:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

It appears that huge chunks of this article were added by someone who works at the museum, mostly in this edit, but he hasn't edited since the end of February. It might be a good idea to take all of that data and set up a new article, Dickinson Hall (University of Florida), for all of the research collections. Since the collections in Dickinson Hall are not exhibited, it makes sense to segregate them. We should consider breaking the Dickinson Hall article in two, one for the Archaeological (and eventually the Anthropological) stuff, and another for the Natural History collections. Of course, if we apply some clue™ to the data, we might be able to shrink it into a single-article size package. Horologium (talk) 04:18, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not know how to do what you propose, and I am just now getting information from the proper departments. I am sure there is a better name than "Dickinson Hall" we can put that under. Perhaps collections for the Florida Museum, since in two years the museum plans to move out of Dickinson Hall. Also, you may wish to break the article into several, i.e. Museum, Public Exhibits, Biological Collections and Anthropological Collections. Just a thought from an insider. Bill 13:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

My suggestion for "Dickinson Hall" is certainly not set in stone, but there is precedent for using such a title; we have a few (Anderson Hall, Buckman Hall), and since all of the research-only collections are there, it might be a better target for the information in this article. When the museum moves, we can update the article. Horologium (talk) 17:47, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps... that was just a thought. Could we get seperate it into four sections, Powell, Dickinson, McGuire and Randall and then update accordingly that way. But I would like to make sure that they ended up either in the "UF portal" navigation guide at the bottom, or make one for the museum itself to assist in navigation. I do not know personally how to do this, but granted with the large amount of information that I could put up, it may behoove us to think about. Again I appreciate any help. Bill 18:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wtc69789 (talk • contribs)

You all might want to look to the main University of Florida article for guidance on formatting. You will see also that some topics have been spun off into separate articles. Look for leads such as Main Article, See also, etc. clariosophic (talk) 22:36, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Invite to Viva Florida 500

I'd like to invite fellow Wikipedians interested in Florida history to join in our new project page for celebrating our state's 500th anniversay at Viva_Florida_500. Please review and join in getting this project off the ground. It's more than just about Ponce de Leon and his landing it is also about other cultures and what new content we can bring into Wiki such as adding new information about the Native Cultures that were here when this period of discovery began.--Ourhistory153 (talk) 14:46, 2 October 2011 (UTC)