User talk:Bob the Wikipedian/Archive/12

Automatic taxobox

I can't figure out what the parameter is for the taxon reference. Would of thought taxon_ref given the naming of status_ref and synonyms_ref, but taxon_ref doesn't work. It's also not documented as Template:Automatic_taxobox/doc/all_parameters. Please let me know what it's called. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 08:57, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

This is an interesting question – at least to me! There isn't a parameter for "taxon reference". Reference(s) for the taxon in question are supposed to be put in the "Taxonomy/TAXON" template under the "refs" parameter. See, as an example, Template:Taxonomy/Amaryllidoideae. This doesn't seem to be norm, and anyway, as I've written before, it's not clear exactly what reference(s) here are for: are they for the name of the taxon or for the circumscription of the parent taxon thus showing that the taxon has the given parent? Either way, this reference is not then shown by the automatic taxobox template, so you find editors putting normal 'ref' tags after the taxon name, which may or may not match a reference stored in the taxonomy template. I think it's a weak point in the system. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:02, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I think "refs" is what I usually use. My apologies for not being able to provide very complete answers these days; I've had relatively limited Internet access the past month or more and will continue to have such for an undeterminedly extended period of time. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:05, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Not going pretend I can provide an answer here but the referencing of taxa does need to be sorted. Every named level has a reference. That reference is supposed to be the citation of the paper that proposed it. For example the Family Chelidae is Cope (1864) then there is a reference for genus and for the species name. Then there is the issue of the authority. What exactly is this? Well in reality it is the citation that places the names in the current arrangement. For example the species Elseya lavarackorum (I am sorry to use anaimals I worked on but I know the literature better and can give real examples) was originally described as Emydura lavarackorum by White and Archer (1994) however after I examined the material I determined that it was actually an Elseya and was also still extant. Hence I published a new combination in 1997 (Thomson, White and Georges, 1997). The genus Elseya was described by Gray (1863). So the genus reference is Gray, the species reference is White and Archer, but the currently accepted combination or authority is Thomson, White and Georges. The current taxobox is very inadequate at dealing with these taxonomic issues. I get that some of this is beyond what the majority of readers are interested in, however the WP is an encyclopedia and hence should be accurate and useful to all. I think the taxobox can and should provide a quick reference useful to all, including scientists. Hence all references, types and type species as well as other taxonomic information will not only make the pages more useful but more respected as well. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 18:20, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

(Bob, I hope you don't mind us discussing this on your talk page! I did raise the issue before at Template_talk:Automatic_taxobox/Archive_8#References_in_Taxonomy_templates.) I think that, as I hinted above, you actually need at least two references for each taxon. One should ideally be the paper in which the name of the taxon was proposed, or if this is not accessible, some other paper that authenticates the name/authority combination. In addition there needs to be a reference for the placement of the taxon, i.e. what its parent is; this can be the same reference, but often isn't since circumscriptions change. I incline to agree that the automatic taxobox is inadequate. On the other hand, it's clear that many editors find taxoboxes, manual or automatic, very complicated and difficult, so there has been no enthusiasm for adding more fields/parameters.

Since editors have not been consistent in using |refs=, it's not at present sensible to pick up this value and show it in the taxobox. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:58, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

It's not in the template that it's required, but directly on the taxobox as is done with status_ref and synonyms_ref as I pointed out in my initial post. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 23:37, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Peter, I followed you above link here, your talking about a reference (or references) on the template information. I'm talking about a reference in the article. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 23:37, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with User:Faendalimas here, "referencing of taxa does need to be sorted", it's the fundamental building block of a taxobox that the taxonomic name is referenced, and without it Wikipedia:Verifiability fails and so the use of automatic taxobox in articles is best stopped until this issue is fully dealt with. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 23:37, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Peter, there's no particular reason to store this information in taxonomy templates, as far as I can tell; the refs can just go in the taxobox on the page like we have been doing them all along. Your ideas for improving taxoboxes sound really interesting, but I don't think there's any particular benefit to putting references in taxonomy templates. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 03:40, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Peter, if you create a new taxonomy template is reveal that it's for internal use only. You get the note: refs=<!--Shown on this page only; don't include <ref> tags -->. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 23:08, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Peter, "you find editors putting normal 'ref' tags after the taxon name" - can you provide an example of that? Going to look myself, but not seen that so far. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 23:11, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Reading the above it seems this discussion has been derailed into a different unrelated issue. Let me be clear:What is required is a reference that is passed from the article which is using an automatic taxobox and that passes a reference which is then shown after the taxon name - i.e only for that level. Thus only one reference is required and the ideal parameter name would be taxon_ref which is in keeping with status_ref and synonyms_ref. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 23:49, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I misunderstood the original question; my apologies! You're correct, "refs" is in a sense not used anymore following a complaint we had this past spring (northern hemisphere). The only reference which should not appear in the taxon template is the taxon authority (the person who described it first), and that goes in the actual taxobox itself. While it could be incorporated into the taxon template, we found this information simply wasn't practical to move into the taxon templates and out of the article space and chose not to include it in the taxon templates. Sorry for the confusion! (Oh, and of course you may post on my talk page freely!) Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:58, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Sun here, only one reference for a taxon is needed on each page. Reasons are that we use what is effectively aristotlean hierarchy for web pages and for WP, coincidently that is also used for linnean taxonomy. Hence using my turtle examples the page for Chelidae can have the Cope reference, the page for Elseya can have the Gray reference, then each species has the reference for this description.

On another note, Bob where exactly should we discuss the taxoboxes? I noticed in the page for the working group that the discussion page has not been created. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 01:10, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Template talk:Automatic taxobox. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:23, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

And really, the only reason the other references are on the taxon templates is so edits made to them are justifiable. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:35, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

My concern (as a computer scientist) is with the negative effects of redundancy. Redundancy in a database (which is what the taxonomy templates make up) is bad because it leads to inconsistency and problems with updating. Regardless of what references there should be, my view is that they should not be in two different places: in the taxoboxes and in the taxonomy templates. I don't have any particular view either way about where references should be stored, but I think they should be in parameter values, rather in ref tags in text, so that they can be picked up automatically.

To respond to Bob's point ("the only reason the other references are on the taxon templates is so edits made to them are justifiable"), the problem is that an editor may change the template, justifying this by changing the template's reference, which is then inconsistent with references in the taxobox. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:20, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

redundancy is a fair point, also as a scientist I see the issues with that. I am curious, as there are at least a number of very standard references in this, eg Linn, 1756, is it possible to database at least certain references such as Linnaeus and several others so they can be used, maybe as reference templates? I know this is a bit of a departure, sorry for that, just an idea I had. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 17:03, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, that's a nice idea there! I find it laborious to add an authority to a botanical article (or try to figure out who has been cited, even) simply because the abbreviated names are such a foreign thing to me. That could be done with a small handful of templates quite easily, in a manner similar to the {{period_start}} and {{next_period}} templates used in the {{geological range}}. And Peter, yes; that's one downfall to literature is that it isn't easy to fix all at once. Change one word here, and you have to restructure an entire paragraph there. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:52, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

(1) Database of standard authority references: this would be useful, although the absence of a requirement for a date in the Botanical Code makes it harder to be sure what the reference should be compared to the Zoological Code. As Bob notes, in this respect taxonomic references in botanical articles are more difficult to sort out than in zoological articles.

(2) Bob, yes, I agree about literature. But the automated taxobox system is not literature. I've raised again the issue of handling references at Template talk:Automatic taxobox (see Handling references). Peter coxhead (talk) 19:33, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to add to {{User:Bob the Wikipedian/BotAuth}} to get it to some point of general usefulness. It's a very simple template that will generate a link and abbreviation when an author is passed as a parameter. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:49, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Laccognathus

Hey, noticed you were also editing the same thing, heh. Apologies for any edit conflicts that arise.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 02:22, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Same here. :) Hope we can flesh out Laccognathus embryi enough. I'm already planning to make a 3d reconstruction of it to go with the article.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 02:28, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

LMAO, yep. It's what I'm going to be basing much of the things on. And it's far better than the picture on Yahoo which one commenter described as a 'plateful of brownies'. Hah. NGS also has a nice clear picture of the actual browni... er... fossil.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 02:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Hey again. Got hold of two papers which might be useful for expanding the Laccognathus articles. I can send you copies if you want. I'll be busy with the reconstruction as well so I won't touch the articles much until I'm done with it, no edit conflicts :P.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 03:02, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok sent! Cheers.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 03:18, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Heh, no problem, I'll try to make some sense out of it. :) -- Obsidi♠n Soul 22:32, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Number of parent for Amniota

I saw you just added increased the number of parents for Amniota, to include Anthracosauria, Batrachosauria and Cotylosauria. I would rather advise against it.

The main problem is that these three names have widely divergent meaning (traditional vs cladistic) and claditicaly uncertain content, reflecting our poor understanding of labyrinthodont phylogeny in general. Anthracosauria is either identical to Reptiliomorpha (trad) or tha basal grade of Reptiliomorphs (Benton). Time allowing I'll merge the two articles. Batracosauria is either identical to the amphibian grade Cotylosauria (trad) or the whole clade, but no-one quite knows what goes in there and what does not, and the unit sees very limited use, restricted to a few authors. Michel Laurin uses Anthracosauria with the same meaning. Cotylosauria is even worse, traditionally considdered the basal reptiles (i.e. the batracosaurians + the anapsid reptiles), and is now generally avoided as a unit (well, except for Laurin, who enjoys using old obscure names for newly minted clades) and only see extremely limited use as a provisionary taxon for the transitional fossils that seem to straddle the Amphibia-Reptilia divide.

At presently, the taxobox is cluttered with little used "clades" with uncertain content and of dubious value. I suggest redoing the taxonomy to anchor directly in Reptiliomorpha. Petter Bøckman (talk) 07:37, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I considered leaving a joke

Hi Bob,

I was just browsing through Wikipedia without anything special in mind when I found your page: "Please consider leaving a joke". Here we go:

Ein Österreicher unter hält sich mit einem Schweizer. Sagt der Österreicher: "Unsere Länder haben viel gemeinsam: die hohen Berge, den vielen Schnee, die schöne Landschaft. Sogar die Farben unserer Nationalflaggen sind gleich: rot und weiss. Darauf der Schweizer: "Das stimmt, aber wir haben ein "Plus" in der Flagge und ihr habt ein "Minus".

Greetings from Germany. Frankenmaddin (talk) 22:25, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

1st Class - MarcThomas Class

Everything went well, thought Anna was going to send out a "report" so to speak, but guess she hasn't gotten around to it. Part of the "hellos" was the classes 1st assignment, to send the ambassadors a note, what they wrote was completely up to them. As of right now class should do fine, need to nudge a few students towards more realistic articles to do work on - but otherwise all is well. Epistemophiliac (talk) 01:52, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Laccognathus embryi

Materialscientist (talk) 16:02, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Dude, we both had DKY go live on the same day! What are the chances? Daniel Simanek ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:13, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Research into the user pages of Wikipedians: Invitation to participate

Greetings,

My name is John-Paul and I am a student with the University of Alberta specializing in Communications and Technology.

I would like to include your Wikipedia user page in a study I am doing about how people present themselves online. I am interested in whether people see themselves in different ways, online and offline. One of the things I am looking at is how contributors to Wikipedia present themselves to each other through their user pages. Would you consider letting me include your user page in my study?

With your consent, I will read and analyze your user page, and ask you five short questions about it that will take about ten to fifteen minutes to answer. I am looking at about twenty user pages belonging to twenty different people. I will be looking at all user pages together, looking for common threads in the way people introduce themselves to other Wikipedians.

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Thank-you,

John-Paul Mcvea
University of Alberta
jmcvea@ualberta.ca

Johnpaulmcvea (talk) 21:34, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank-you for agreeing to participate in my study

Thank-you for agreeing to participate in my study, entitled “Online Self-presentation among Wikipedians.” I appreciate it.

As I indicated in my last message, here are five short questions about your user page that I would like you to answer. These will help me to understand your motivations for creating a user page such as yours. Please be as brief or as thorough as you like.

5 QUESTIONS

1. Are you a member of social networks such Facebook or MySpace?

2. In addition to maintaining a user page in Wikipedia, have you also written or edited articles? If so, about how many times?

3. What are the key messages about yourself that you hope to convey with your user page?

4. Have your Wikipedia contributions ever received feedback, such as being edited by others or commented on? Have you received a message from another Wikipedia user? If so, do you think your user page positively or negatively affected what other people said and how they said it?

5. Do you see your “online self” as being different from your “offline self?” Can you elaborate?

Please indicate your answers to these questions on your talk page, or on mine. Please respond by October 1st so that I have time to properly read your responses. If you like, you can email your answers to me instead (jmcvea@ualberta.ca).

Thank you again : )

Johnpaulmcvea (talk) 17:05, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

ADDITONAL INFORMATION

Background

• I am asking you to participate in a research project that is part of my MA degree.

• I am asking you because you have created a user page in Wikipedia that other people can use to learn about you.

Purpose

• My research is about how people present themselves online.

• I will look at how people present themselves when presenting themselves to the Wikipedia community.

Study Procedures

• With your consent, I will analyze the language of your user page and gather basic statistics such as the count of words, the frequency of words, the number of sections, and so on.

• I will also read the text of your user page, looking for elements in common with ads posted by other people. I will note whether you include a picture, or links to other content on the internet.

• I ask you to answer my five questions, above. This will take about ten to fifteen minutes to complete. I will ask you to answer the questions within a week, and send your answers to me.

• Throughout my research, I will adhere to the University of Alberta Standards for the Protection of Human Research Participants, which you can view at http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/gfcpolicymanual/policymanualsection66.cfm

Benefits

• There is no direct benefit to you for participating in this research. You may, however, find it interesting to read my perspective on how you present yourself online.

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• This research will be used to support a project that is part of my MA degree.

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• Data will be kept confidential. Only I will have access to the computer file containing the data. It will be password protected. It will not be sent by email or stored online.

• I will always handle my data in compliance with University of Alberta standards.

• If you would like to receive a copy of my final report, please ask.

Further Information

• If you have any further questions regarding this study, please do not hesitate to contact Dr. Stanley Varnhagen, my research advisor for this project. If you have concerns about this study, you may contact the University of Alberta Research Ethics Committee at 780-492-2615. This office has no affiliation with the study investigators.

INDICATING CONSENT

By answering these questions, you indicate your agreement with the following statements:

• That you understand that you have been asked to be in a research study.

• That you have read and received a copy of the Information Sheet, attached below (“Additional Information”).

• That you understand the benefits and risks involved in taking part in this research study.

• That you have had an opportunity to ask questions and discuss this study.

• That you understand that you are free to refuse to participate, or to withdraw from the study at any time, without consequence, and that your information will be withdrawn at your request.

• That the issue of confidentiality been explained to you and that you understand who will have access to your information (see “Additional Information”).

• That you agree to participate.

Thank-you again!

The horse with five legs

Why do you assume it was a joke edit? Count the legs on the horse. One, two, three, four, five. Even human soldiers have three arms... why do you think it's called a "short arm inspection"? (Yes, that is a real medical/military procedure). --173.206.160.183 (talk) 19:19, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Climatic Research Unit email controversy

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Template fixing needed

Wonder if you could take a look at Template_talk:Climate_chart#Scaling_related_issues when you can. No hurry absolutely, the problem has been around for a while. Shyamal (talk) 06:32, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Survey for new page patrollers

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Proposed deletion of Don Estoban

Hello, Bob the Wikipedian, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia!

I wanted to let you know that I’m proposing an article that you worked on, Don Estoban, for deletion because I don't think it meets our criteria for inclusion. If you don't want the article deleted:

1. edit the page
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WP:TCG

Our little project-thing seems to have died. Any interest in attempting to get it moving again? I haven't talked to you in a while; how have you been doing? :) I've decided that I'm going to try and become more active again, so we'll see what happens. ~~ Hi878 ^{(Come shout at me!)} 04:03, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

WP Tree of Life in the Signpost

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Environ Issues in Brazil - UM

I am working on a class project at the University of Michigan, see course page and page I would like to move this sandbox: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:United_States_Education_Program/Courses/Global_Enterprise_and_Sustainable_Development_(Ming_Xu)/Sandbox_Environ_Issues_in_Brazil&redirect=no

• we did try to move the page but accidently capitalized Issues and does not show up in search queary.

I would like to replace the Environmental issues in Brazil page. Please help up move this. Thank you. Gonzale (talk) 14:18, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Bob, we followed your recommendation and we merged the text into the existing article. Thank you for your help! Gonzale (talk) 18:04, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Barn star

I saw your note about wishing fora barnstar. I have emphasized that this something we should work on fast. In the mean time {{University Barnstar}} may be useful until we get you guys a star.Moxy (talk) 16:51, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

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U of M Class Project

Hi Rob,

I am doing a project for a class at the University of Michigan and I was hoping that you could help me move my sandbox to the Sustainable Cities wikipedia page. The link to the sandbox is : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:United_States_Education_Program/Courses/Global_Enterprise_and_Sustainable_Development_%28Ming_Xu%29/Sandbox_Sustainable_cities

Thank you! Lvanoss (talk) 22:35, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi,

What is the easiest way to merge the information? Is it just by editing the existing page by putting our information in where we think it should go or if we move the page will it merge automatically?

Thank you!

Lvanoss (talk) 17:16, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

University of Michigan Class Project

Hello Rob,

I am also doing a project for a class at the University of Michigan. I was wondering if you could help my team move our sandbox to the existing Environmental racism wikipedia page. Please find the link below: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:United_States_Education_Program/Courses/Global_Enterprise_and_Sustainable_Development_(Ming_Xu)/Sandbox_Environmental_racism

Also, I tried moving it but first used capital, however, the original page does not have a capital R in racism.

Thanks!

bergmant (talk) 10:15, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Bob,

In our Environmental racism page, we already merged the information. So the information in our Sandbox is a combination of existing text from the Environmental racism page and new text. We want to erase the existing page and "move" our sandbox there.

Bergmant (talk) 15:52, 9 December 2011 (UTC)bergmant

Hello,

I used the "undo" function to reverse what I did. I am a first time user to wikipedia and would like to add my page the proper way. Could you please point me in that direction and me me know how to properly merge.

Bergmant (talk) 20:34, 9 December 2011 (UTC)bergmant

The page looks great. Thank you for your help!

Bergmant (talk) 21:16, 9 December 2011 (UTC)bergmant