User talk:AlgisKuliukas

Ape theory

Your entry at March 5 about ape theory, while it may be notable has no support for the date being March 5 in the article. That is the primary reason it has been removed from the the list of events. -- Mufka ^(u) ^(t) ^(c) 12:48, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your recent edits

Hi, there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot 15:22, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome

Welcome!

Hello, AlgisKuliukas, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome!

COI

If you have a close connection to some of the people, places or things you have written about in the article Aquatic ape hypothesis, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred from the tone of the edit and the proximity of the editor to the subject, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:

editing articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with;
participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors;
linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam);
and you must always:
avoid breaching relevant policies and guidelines, especially neutral point of view, verifiability, and autobiography.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have conflict of interest, please see Wikipedia:Business' FAQ. For more details about what constitutes a conflict of interest, please see Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest. Adding links to your own website is usually not seen as a good thing. There is a slightly more in-depth reply for your comments on my talk page. WLU (talk) 14:20, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page guidelines

Hi,

Please read our talk page guidelines for communicating on talk pages - currently your comments tend to be difficult to distinguish from other editors on talk pages, which makes things harder to read. They are easy to follow, and it is a big help to other editors to have standardized comments. WLU (talk) 14:47, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Qualifications

Regards your citation of your qualifications, it's better to cite sources and edit neutrally than claim qualifications. Since it's the internet, anyone can claim any level of erudition, and I could claim to be Dick Cheney editing under an assumed name. This is why sources are more important than qualifications. A critical example of this can be found in the Essjay controversy. This is the controversey I was alluding to before, I just turned up the link (Thanks Ariel!). The discussion can be found here. Note that FQ is an admin, and from what I can tell a well-respected one. And she has excellent taste in socks. WLU (talk) 15:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No personal attacks

Note that your comment to Tat on Talk:Aquatic ape hypothesis was not, by any means, a vicious attack. But any comment about the contributor rather than contribution is not looked upon charitably and you're better off getting in the habit early. Please provide rebuttals in the form of citations to scholarly works rather than commenting on the other editor's understanding. WLU (talk) 15:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, UTC... I appreciate the help!

Thanks for the timely advice! AlgisKuliukas (talk) 02:05, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Who is UTC? UTC is normally a datestamp found at the end of signatures, unless you're talking about Mufka. WLU (talk) 02:35, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oops!! AlgisKuliukas (talk) 03:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:TALK

Please review WP:TALK - new comments should be posted at the bottom of the discussion, not intermixed with old comments. Pages should read from top to bottom, spaced uniquely for each edit chunk. WLU (talk) 03:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again. I'm getting on board slowly. AlgisKuliukas (talk) 03:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the civility, it's appreciated. You may want to try reading User:WLU/Generic sandbox, it's an essay I wrote for noobs to get them up to speed on wikipedia in a very broad form. You may also want to look into WP:ADOPT if you're interested in sharpening your learning curve further. WLU (talk) 12:03, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Gutted aquatic ape

Hi Algis,

I've gutted the AAH page. If you want to do the page and wikipedia a huge favour, could you re-populate the page with good, sourced and referenced information on the AAH, positive or negative? It was such a horrible mess that I didn't think it was worth trying to pick through the original research, syntheses and unsourced name-calling and 'common sense' to be worthwhile. I'm sure there's information that can be added, but it needs to come from good sources rather than being a back-and-forth between supporters and detractors. Thanks, WLU (talk) 17:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I actually agree that this was necessary and congratulat you for doing so. I'll try to add some content over the next few weeks. AlgisKuliukas (talk)!

Regarding [this] recent edit to Aquatic ape hypothesis, it would be best if you could provide references to support it. What you've written doesn't look particularly controversial, but maintaining WP:Verifiability is very important. Thanks, Jefffire (talk) 08:25, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page reply

I'm assuming you are the anon that posted on my talk page. Note my reply here. I am not going to be editing wikipedia for a couple weeks. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 14:54, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Three requests

Algis, I have three requests:

Be more civil. Your constant attacks on other editors isn't doing anyone any good. It's going to get you blocked, and that would be a shame. We need people like you who know something about the subject.
At Wikipedia your qualifications don't count. It is the sources you use that count. Your qualifications may get you some well-deserved respect, but your behavior here can ruin your reputation in the real world, so be careful.
Stop IP hopping. Always sign in so your IP doesn't show and expose your location. You can set up your PC to automatically log-in everytime you go to Wikipedia. IP hopping is considered sockpuppeting and can be a blockable offense. All the IPs you use and your registered account each count as separate accounts, and only under exceptional circumstances is one individual allowed to use multiple accounts, and never to edit the same subject matter. That's socking to carry on an edit war, and can be seen as an attempt to spread one's edit history and to evade the scrutiny of other editors. That is absolutely forbidden here. We work on openness. The basic rule (with some exceptions) is ONE real person, ONE account, and ONE edit history for ALL that person's edits.

-- Brangifer (talk) 16:31, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the advice. I will try harder. AlgisKuliukas (talk) 03:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

December, 2009

Please do not add commentary or your own personal analysis to Wikipedia articles, as you did to bipedalism. Doing so violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy and breaches the formal tone expected in an encyclopedia. Thank you. It is incumbent on you to demonstrate that the AAH or wading hypothesis is taken seriously.

I have done so on the discussion page there. Several university level texts report the wading hypothesis giving it as much weight and credence as other ideas listed on the page that do not carry any caveat about lack of "widespread support". AlgisKuliukas (talk) 03:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To do so, you must read and understand our policies on neutrality, as well as original research and reliable sources. Also of use would be understanding what wikipedia is not, in particular it is not a soapbox. I understand that it is frustrating that a theory you personally believe and work towards isn't treated kindly on wikipedia, but we are a website dedicated to discussing the mainstream and the AAH and variations are not. These are not easy policies to understand without a fair amount of experience, issues of weight and reliability are among the trickiest to manage, but you must justify your edits by these policies first, before even sources.

I've read and understand these policies, thanks. I think you are applying them very partially and inconsistently here. For example, why no caveat on Tanner's "phallic" idea or Dawkins' "fashion"? Why are no citations needed for the "savannah theory"? Tanner's phallic idea, Dawkins' fashion idea and even the savannah theory are not mainstream either, so shouldn't you tone those down too. I have no problem with the page emphasising ideas that are mainstream. In that regard, the carrying models, energy efficiency, postural feeding and some behavioural models should get primacy. Other models, such as the wading one, should be described as "not mainstream" too - fine. But it is a form of censorship to not tell the reader what it is or what evidence exists for it. Which of wikipedia's policies promotes the withdrawal of information to the public on these grounds?

I assure you, when support begins to build in the paleontological community, as the AAH becomes more accepted, wikipedia will change. But support must come from the scientists first, not the editors. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 20:58, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I repeat my point... define "support". Where's the "support" for Tanner's "phallic" idea or Dawkins' "fashion". All I'm arguing for is consistency.

Please review our policy on edit warring - stop reverting the page without consensus, and in particular you should read carefully, and address, the policies and guidelines that other editors are citing to support their decisions. If you can't support your edits in ways that comply with policies, you shouldn't be making them. These rules exist so wikipedia can be a reliable encyclopedia, that can't be used to push a specific viewpoint or advocate for a theory that most experts would consider fringe. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 02:42, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have supported my edits with citations from the peer reviewed literature according to wikipedia's policies WP:VERIFY. So far no-one has done the same for the "savannah theory" entry and you do not seem to be concerned by that. Your opinion about what "most experts" think is "fringe" is interesting but is seems to break with Wikipedia policy. WP:NOP.

I don't think trying to cite your own research in Wikipedia articles is appropriate; I don't think you can see past the COI involved. Why don't you try editing some articles unrelated to human evolution, to get a proper understanding for editing Wikipedia. At the moment you're a single-purpose account wholly focussed on pushing your point-of-view on the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, which isn't of much help to the project. Fences&Windows 22:16, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I accept the COI point. I'd be happy to drop my own citations from this but others have reverted them again, not just me. As regards your other point, I have spent ten years in academia studying bipedal origins so it is the topic I feel most qualified to comment on. I thought this was the way Wikipedia was supposed to work. Which topic do you recommend I try to edit? One on nuclear reactors, space travel or brain surgery? AlgisKuliukas (talk) 03:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying you should never use your own work, but focussing on adding your own work or other sources supportive of the AAH isn't the best approach. It'd be great if you used your knowledge of Bipedalism to find and include sources from all angles.

Why not edit those topics? One does not need to be an expert on a topic to be an effective Wikipedia editor! Having a science education is a transferable skill that lets me find and assess sources on any topic, so long as they're not too impenetrable to a generalist. Being close to a topic can mean one lacks the perspective to be able to write about it neutrally; I've seen plenty of expert scientists writing peer reviewed articles that make their work seem more important than it really is and downplay or outright ignore the work of others in their field. Another problem with being an expert is the temptation to write 'from experience', whereas on Wikipedia we always work directly from sources. I may consider myself an expert on certain topics in real life, but these are not my main focus on Wikipedia; on Wikipedia I am a Jack-of-all-trades. Fences&Windows 00:08, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, we're supposed to write based primarily on secondary sources - review articles, textbooks and the like, because they tend to summarize an entire field and cover controversies as well as unanswered questions in general. Citing primary sources (which on wikipedia covering scientific topics are things like journal articles exploring specific research questions and the like) can make a topic appear, for instance, like there is a controversy when there isn't (if a single author claims there is but no others do), as if a new discovery when it's really a hypothesis (like Paulo Zamboni's new "discovery" at Chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency), use of old information to justify edits (such as creationists citing research from the 70's and 80's as if it were relevant to information in the 21st century) or even a single instance of fraud (the cold fusion fiasco).

It's not sufficient to cite single studies - the important thing is to be able to demonstrate with recent reviews that there is a controversy. For instance, are there any recent reviews of literature on bipedal evolution? And if so, do they mention your ideas at all? To what degree? The same goes for recent textbooks. I've looked, and I've found only tangential mentions that seem to readily demonstrate the aquatic ape and wading hypotheses are neat ideas with minimal mainstream, ongoing research; these ideas can not be supported as a viable, living, important theory within paleoanthropology. We're not supposed to go into loving detail on every topic. We are supposed to discuss them in proportion to their importance. In other words, even though we can give a lengthy discussion of the ins and outs of the ether theory of light transmission, we don't because it is now a historical curiosity rather than a currently-viable theory. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Post on talk pages, not user pages

You have posted on my user page, not my talk page. When leaving messages for editors, please be sure to do so on the talk page as this gives them an alert when they sign in. The user page (called "user page" in the tabs at the top) is for editors to say something about themselves and their work. The talk page (the next tab to the right, called "discussion") is for communication and results in the orange box at the top of the page when signed in.

I'll look into your comments when I have the time. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Belated notification

Also note this sock puppet investigation. My apologies, I should have informed you earlier. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 02:33, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

October 2014

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Bipedalism may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

{{Clarify|date=January 2012}}]. Natasha switched to exclusive bipedalism after an illness, while Poko was discovered in
decades by [[Elaine Morgan (writer)|Elaine Morgan]], as part of the [aquatic ape hypothesis]], which also proposes that swimming, diving and aquatic food sources exerted a strong influence on

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 04:39, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]