User talk:Gdr/Archive 3

Archives 1 — 2004-04/2005-04 2 — 2005-04/2005-08 3 — 2005-08/2006-03 4 — 2006-03/2007-08

Authorities

I copied this from my discussion in case you don't check again:

For animals, it's conventional to include the date, for example Paratrea plebeja (Fabricius, 1777).. And you should only put the authority in parentheses if the species has been moved to different genus. For example, there are no parentheses in Sphinx asella Rothschild & Jordan, 1903. Gdr 18:54, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I understand that part, the link to Moths of North America had the authority in parentheses, so I followed. It's also why I didn't include the date. Do you know of a fast method to apply the correct authority? Your description of the change mentioned nominalbot.--Kugamazog 19:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Categories

Can we discuss the "categories" problem you mentioned on my talk page before you make lots of changes and undo a great deal of work on my part? It's too late at night to get this sorted out right now, and I am aware of the problem you mentioned, but there are some other issues involved. P0M 06:13, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Sure, what do you want to ask? Gdr 17:16:20, 2005-08-03 (UTC)

Taxoboxes

Many thanks for the advice on authorities - I will do this in future. Warofdreams 09:40, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Authority-bot

Hi Gdr,

I am trying to add authorities for all animals and plants on the Dutch Wikipedia. It would be great if I can use your script for Nomialbot to do this. Is that possible? I have bot flag at nl: (nl:Gebruiker:UcuchaBot). Thanks in advance, Ucucha|... 15:59, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm... it is not yet in a form for public use, and at the moment it can only handle animals. I am working on making it support plants, fungi and bacteria (virus nomenclature is somewhat harder work). When I've done that, I'll make a release for you. But I think it will still need some work on your part to make it work on the Dutch Wikipedia. How good are you at Python and writing wikipedia bots? Gdr 16:02:59, 2005-08-04 (UTC)

Thanks. I am only working on animals now, too, so it would already be great to have the animal bot. Do you need a long time to write the other kingdoms, you think?

I can't write it, but I can see some things in the file - if your bot makes links to "Scientific classification", I'll be able to change it into "Wetenschappelijke classificatie". I guess the main difference between nl: and en: (in this case) is that we don't use {{Taxobox section binomial}} at all, but always {{Taxobox section binomial parens}}. I guess you have somewhere in the code to change {{Taxobox section binomial simple}} into {{Taxobox section binomial}} or {{Taxobox section binomial parens}}. I think I'll be able to change that kind of things. Ucucha|... 16:15, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Taxoboxes

Thanks so much for the tip, I'll try to remember it! Pcb21| Pete 14:29, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

And thanks from me as well! I'll keep it in mind. Eugene van der Pijll 19:30, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Also - thanks from myself! As a matter of interest where did you find that 'Brot.' was the authority for Sheep's Fescue? Thanks again --AjAldous 15:20, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I used IPNI [1]. But I see that it ought to be Linnaeus since Species Plantarum (1753) precedes Felix Brotero's Flora Lusitanica (1804). I will fix. Gdr 15:27:12, 2005-08-10 (UTC)

Further thanks from myself re: your tip on taxoboxes (and finding the authority for Beech Marten). Valiantis 20:01, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks so much!

Thank you for the work and help on the Calabar Python article! As I am only an amatuer herpetologist, I found the taxonomy of that snake particularly difficult to grasp. I did own one for a couple years (had to sell when I moved) but it was a very nice snake to own. Of course it stayed burrowed in the sub-strate for 95% of the time. In fact the one I had ended up growing to a little over a metre in length. Perhaps you'd take a quick look at the article I wrote on the Woma Python as well. If I can ever be of any assistance to you on herp related articles, please let me know. Thanks again, kind stranger! Hamster Sandwich 14:13, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

• Hello again kind stranger! Thanks for the redirect to Boidae. I was following a redlink from another article that led me to create that article "Tropidophiidae". Unfortunately I lost track of that original article. If I find it again I'll add the link to theDwarf boa page. I might expand that article as well. See Ya! Hamster Sandwich 00:08, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Once again I offer my thanks for your help in cleaning up an article I wrote! You're not hiding out somewhere in my desk are you? As you can tell, I copied the taxobox from the Calabar Python article. I ask, do you think the title should be "Queen snake" as is, or "Queen Snake"? Thanks again Hamster Sandwich 22:14, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

May 31 vs. 31 May

I'm sorry, I don't see the difference, so you should link to the page that it actually exists on (which is May 31, not 31 May). Was this discussed elsewhere? I'm sorry, but I reverted your edit on Battle of Jutland because I was doing some major wikilink fixing, and I guess the date tags were collateral damage. I understand that Wikipedia can automatically format dates, so which is preferred? — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 20:48, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I noticed you reverted my second edit. Unfortunantely, you took a lot of good edits (besides the date stuff I think you're objecting to, correct me if I'm wrong) along with it. I'm going to restore the non date related edits, and then I'd like to know what's wrong with changing over the dates. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 20:53, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for restoring my edits! I should have checked the history before I started to remove the date changes. I've read Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers), and I'm going to make my case for favoring May 31 over 31 May on that talk page. Cheers. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 21:05, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

Nomialbot

Your "nomialbot" seems to be responsible for some edits that are style rather than content-related. Specifically, making images 250px wide is cleary a matter of style, and is often inappropriate. Such a wide box on a browser that in many cases might be only 600-800 pixels wide (including controls and winow dressing) is a massive use of screen real estate for little or no reason. What's more some pages (e.g. morel) have images which do not scale up well, and so a resolution is chosen based on the original image's size.

Please take these factors into account before using a bot to make style changes to so many pages in the futre. Thanks -Harmil 17:39, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. Gdr 17:45:54, 2005-08-12 (UTC)

Sciurognathi

About Sciurognathi, you asked "Can you comment?" Not intelligently, no. All my information comes from Rodent, so if it's wrong then so am I. (Taxonomies are difficult to nail down.) – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 18:25, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

I see, so you're following the MSW taxonomy. That's fine. I'll make a redirect from Sciuromorpha. Gdr 18:37:17, 2005-08-12 (UTC)

writing history on wikipedia

Hello,

I’m an historian working at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University (http://chnm.gmu.edu/) and we are very interested in digital, peer-produced works of history, including history articles in Wikipedia. We’d like to talk to people about their experiences working on articles in Wikipedia, in connection with a larger project on the history of the free and open source software movement. Would you be willing to talk with us about your involvement, either by phone, a/v chat, IM, or email? This could be as lengthy or brief a conversation as you wish.

Thanks for your consideration.

Olivia

oryan at gmu dot edu

authority.py bot

Thank you very much for the sharing of the file!

I've tried to run it, but I got an error before even using it :-(. The things I changed were deleting the <pre> and <nowiki> tags and changing 'en' into 'nl' in "site = wikipedia.Site('nl')".

A few other things should also be changed, I think, but I think that should produce an error different from this:

Microsoft Windows XP [versie 5.1.2600] (C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\toshiba>cd C:\bot\pywikipedia

C:\bot\pywikipedia>authority.py

 File "C:\bot\pywikipedia\authority.py", line 1
   Python 2.3.5 (#62, Feb  8 2005, 16:23:02) [MSC v.1200 32 bit (Intel)] on win

32

            ^

SyntaxError: invalid syntax

C:\bot\pywikipedia>

Ucucha|... 18:22, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't know much about Windows, so I may be unable to help you. But it looks like something is wrong with line 1, the Unix shebang. I suggest you try deleting it. Gdr 18:32:33, 2005-08-13 (UTC)

It starts to work :-). Thanks. I think I still have to change some things, but I'll have a look. Ucucha|... 18:42, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

I am trying to run it by:

authority.py "Grote kruisbek" Borkhausen 1793

for I am trying to add the authority for the nl:Grote kruisbek (Loxia pytyopsittacus Borkhausen 1793), but how should I type it in? I am not able to find it in the source, I fear... Ucucha|... 19:34, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

First argument is the taxon, second the authority. (I think the instructions at the top of the file are out of date, I will fix.) So you should try authority.py "Loxia pytyopsittacus" "Borkhausen, 1793". Gdr 19:38:43, 2005-08-13 (UTC)

It still doesn't work :-(. I get the following:

C:\bot\pywikipedia>authority.py "Loxia pytyopsittacus" "Borkhausen, 1793"
Checked for running processes. 1 processes currently running, including the curr
ent process.
Getting page [[Loxia_pytyopsittacus]]
DBG> Loxia_pytyopsittacus is redirect to Grote kruisbek
Getting page [[Grote_kruisbek]]
Trying http://www.ipni.org/ipni/authorsearch?find_abbreviation=Borkhausen&query_
type=by_query
Trying http://www.ipni.org/ipni/authorsearch?find_surname=Borkhausen&query_type=
by_query
Getting page [[Borkhausen]]
Expansion for Borkhausen? [aecq]

Ucucha|... 19:47, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Looks OK so far. The script has tried to find an expansion for Borkhausen, but has failed. So it's asking you what to do. The [aecq] prompt is a bit cryptic, but if you press return you'll get some help. The thing to do here is to enter "e", meaning "enter Expansion", and then enter Moritz Balthasar Borkhausen at the next prompt. Gdr 19:51:47, 2005-08-13 (UTC)

Note that on the English Wikipedia the script would know the expansion for Borkhausen because it's listed on List of zoologists by author abbreviation. You might want to take a copy of that page on the Dutch wikipedia and tell authority.py where to find it (see the wiki_abbrev_sources) variable, then use the --rebuild command-line option) or else tell authority.py to use the list on the English Wikipedia. Gdr 20:00:43, 2005-08-13 (UTC)

I've just made the nl:Lijst van biologen naar afkorting. Ucucha|... 20:04, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

[2]: the first is ready :-). I only have to learn him that he may not use {{Taxobox section binomial}}, but that won't be very difficult, I think. Thanks! Ucucha|... 20:04, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

See the function format_taxobox_authority on about line 510. Once you get it working and you're happy with it, send me a copy of your changed version so I can parameterize the original. Gdr 20:09:26, 2005-08-13 (UTC)

I'll do that. Ucucha|... 20:11, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't speak Dutch, but I think nl:Lijst van biologen naar afkorting may not be quite the right title. You see, zoologists and botanists have different conventions for abbreviation — compare List of zoologists by author abbreviation and List of botanists by author abbreviation. For example, Linnaeus is "Linnaeus" in zoology but "L." in botany. Gdr 20:09:26, 2005-08-13 (UTC)

It means "List of biologists by abbreviation". You're right, probably, but I am first having a look on how it works. Hopefully I can sophisticate it when I have some more experience. Ucucha|... 20:11, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

I can use the list now, even for authors like Vigors. I think I don't have to change the script any more, so I'll put it in on User:Gdr/authority.py/Dutch or so. Ucucha|... 20:27, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

authors

My version is here now. It generally runs well as yet. There seems to be some kind of bug here. This only occurs when the authority is looked up from Species 2000. Ucucha|... 07:38, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for putting up your version. You introduced the bug yourself, I'm afraid! Look at the changes you made to format_taxobox_authority.

There is a problem here. It looks to me as though all articles on the Dutch Wikipedia have parentheses around the authority. By doing that, you are losing a valuable distinction. Parentheses around an authority mean that the species has been moved to a different genus. Lack of parentheses means that the species is still in the genus in which it was originally placed.

For example Pan troglodytes (Blumenbach, 1775) indicates that Blumenbach did not place the Common Chimpanzee in the genus Pan. (He named it Simia troglodytes.) But Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758 indicates that the genus is unchanged.

See section 51 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature [3]. There are different naming rules in botany and microbiology, but parentheses have similar meaning.

authority.py does its best to get this right. So let me encourage you to get it right on the Dutch Wikipedia. It will obviously be better to make the change sooner rather than later! Gdr 11:01:02, 2005-08-14 (UTC)

I know. I even know they have a meaning. I understand the reason now, but I think we'll have to use something like {{Taxobox section binomial parens2}} or so in any case, since {{Taxobox section binomial}} is already used. I'm home for only two days now; I'll do more when I am back home. Ucucha|... 12:15, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Genus -> Species redirects

Hi, the redirects:

• Pseudibis → White-shouldered Ibis and
• Geronticus → Northern Bald Ibis

showed up on WP:RfD, with the complaint that a genus shouldn't redir to a species when the genus has more than one species in it (as these both apparently do). (I poked around on Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life to see if I could confirm this, but couldn't, and it does seem reasonable - I'd think we want them to be red links to encourage someone to write them.) Anyway, I happened to note that your Gdrbot created them both, so I thought I'd drop you a warning in case it has done more of these. Noel (talk) 04:34, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of redirects like these. Gdrbot created these redirects because the genus was (wrongly) marked as monotypic in a taxobox. There's no need to RfD these redirects, just delete them when you spot them. That's what I do. Gdr 10:24:52, 2005-08-15 (UTC)

HMS Canopus

I honestly have no idea. I took the information from French ship Franklin (1797), which refers to her as a second-rate; the initial third-rate was a typo, I think... Shimgray 15:42, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. There were a spate of other "French ship --" articles that day from the same user; you might want to glance over them and see if the same error's repeated. (I'd do it, but I'm not confident in being right...) Shimgray 11:55, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Improper genus redirects

I'll be occasionally dropping by here to signal these as I wade through bird articles to implement taxo-categorization. I figure it's the most appropriate place to point them out, since most of them will have been created by Nomialbot.

• Phoeniculus
• Cuculus (I don,t think this is nomialbot, but still inappropriate)
• Pipile mistake
• Callipepla
• Trochilus

Circeus 22:33, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

I won't delete Pipile because the Common Piping Guan article treats the genus as being monotypic, with the other species being reduced to subspecies. Is this the standard taxonomy as far as Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds is concerned? If not, please rewrite the Common Piping Guan accordingly. Gdr 16:55:40, 2005-08-16 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I only clicked one of four distinct species links from Cracidae, all linking to Common Piping Guan, thus the confusion. I have absolutely no idea what is the most recognized taxonomic status for these (all I do is taxo-categorizatioon and a few stubs for genera/families). In the meantime, I'll reduce to a single link in Cracidae. Circeus 17:10, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

• Grallina

JohnCastle 00:47, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

• Cormobates

JohnCastle 00:30, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Nummulite

Thanks for fixing up Nummulite. akaDruid 14:04, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Lesser Emperor

Now that you ask, I have to admit that I don't know which genus it belongs to. Although I bet its Anax. I got Aeshna from List of Dragonfly species recorded in Britain. ITIS doesn't have it in either genus, but both genera are incomplete on ITIS. Google gives 2 hits for "Aeshna parthenope", both from Wikipedia and 465 hits for "Anax parthenope", so I will go with Anax Dsmdgold 23:34, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

Slave bracelet

Thanks - you're right! Trollderella 19:50, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

snakeroot

The other day i made Rose of Jericho, and it was very quickly editted by you, so i assume you know your stuff when it comes to plants, which is why i am asking you this;

This webpage says about White Snakeroot; it is called "Ageratina altissima (L.) King & H.E. Robins [=Eupatorium rugosum Houtt.]". Does this mean it has 2 names; Ageratina altissima and Eupatorium rugosum? Encarta and brittanica both call it the later, but we appear to call it the former on Snakeroot.

thanks Martin - The non-blue non-moose 14:50, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

hominoid taxonomy images

Could you create a 7th image, either showing all four gibbon genera, or changing "Hylobates" to "4 genera", or some such? It'd be nice to "complete" the history of the hominoid changes since right below that section the classification shows all eight genera. Thanks! - UtherSRG (talk) 11:47, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

I'll do that. (However: the elevation of the four subgenera of Hylobates to genera was quite recent; within the last ten years, I think. So I'm confident that the diagrams are correct as shown, since the last diagram represents the state of the art c. 1990. Probably the text should talk about this in more detail, but I don't know quite when the elevation took place. Can you give me a reference?) Gdr 12:14:37, 2005-08-25 (UTC)

I'm trying. Groves lists the four as subgenera in 1997. In 2001 he said they should be elevated but thinks a naming is incorrect. I'm looking for the publication where he says an elevation shouldn't be held up for the reasons he had previous stated, and elevates them. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:11, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Ah! Found it in the obvious spot... he elevates it in MSW3, to be published later this year. See the Wikispecies comments at Hylobatidae and Bunopithecus. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:36, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

So I'm back to looking at this, and I'd still like the next image in the series. See the talk on my page in correspondance with User_talk:Estelahe#gibbon from a few months back confirming the split into 4 genera, and noting that Bunopithecus is only for the extinct fossil but Hoolock now contains the extant species formerly in Bunopithecus. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:49, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Good enough! Thanks muchly! - UtherSRG (talk) 18:58, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I gotta ask...

...if you're a bot, how come your capitalization differed in the two disambiguations you made in Sarracenia? Sorry, just struck me as curious :-) ~ Veledan • Talk ^{+ new} 01:48, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

NM, I found my answer on line 58x of the code!! ~ Veledan • Talk ^{+ new} 02:05, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Carl Alexander Clerck

If you don't agree with the changes I supposed please feel free to revert to the former version. Best regards.--Araneophilus that is here Anglo-Araneophilus 11:33, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Navyphotos

Hi,

I hope i'm not bothering you, but I'd like your advice. I'm not sure if this has already been done, but I e-mailed the maintainer of Navyphotos to inform him of the situation regarding Jimbo Wales' decree about copyrighted images. I asked him what he could do: whether he could release the images into the public domain or under a GFDL licence.

Reharding the copyright status, he said - and I quote: "Although I have given my permission to use any of the photos, I make no claim whatsoever to being the owner of any copyright of the majority of them ( some are mine and many have now been sent to me ) especially those that I had found dumped. In all conscience I cannot give a "Legal" permission to use something which is not mine in the eyes of the law, however I hope that does not stop their continued use on the wickipedia site."

He would like to get in touch with Jimbo Wales to explain the situation to him. So what can be done?

Again, hope i'm not bothering you. Keep up the great work!

SoLando 19:48, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Have you read Mr Newton's explanation of how the photos came into his possession? (See [4], especially the first paragraph.) There is clearly no way for us to determine the owners of these photographs or to get permission to use them. So we can only use them under some form of "fair use" argument. Gdr 20:27:14, 2005-09-05 (UTC)

Yes, I did read the explanation, but what about images that have recently been donated to his site? Can we still use them under fair use? I say that because it does appear to be limited looking at Wikipedia:Fair use. SoLando 15:44, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, this has now come up on Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems#Navy photos. Can we move the discussion to there. Thanks. Justinc 21:17, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Primates category rework

After some good discussion on the talk for WP:PRIM with User:Marskell, I've begun work on cleaning up category:Early hominids. Please come to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Primates/category rework to weigh in your opinion on what direction to take. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:12, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Couple o' bugs with the Gdrbot

The bot is creating some odd redirects. It created "many, see text" to refer to spiny lizard, and created "very many, see text" to refer to ants. Could you take a look at the bot please? I think it's gone cuckoo. --Bash 06:13, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Which articles are you referring to? Gdr 11:10, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

These are a couple: Many, see text (deleted already), Very many, see text (deleted already), See text., and 15, see text. --Bash 22:38, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Gdr 21:54, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Rana palustris moved to Pickerel frog

On Sept 10, you left this edit summary on Pickerel frog:

Rana palustris has been moved to Pickerel frog

Mind if I ask why? When I create pages for living organisms, I've been trying to create them under their scientific name with a redirect from the various common names of note. This gives us a uniform naming, even when the organism has no common name (including many bacteria, insects, etc.) -Harmil 00:03, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna). Gdr 16:40, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Úbeda

Hello, sorry for the long message.

In March 2005, there was a WP:RM request and vote (which you took part in) to move Úbeda to Ubeda, with a 6-3 result, see Talk:Ubeda#Requested_move:_.C3.9Abeda_.E2.86.92_Ubeda (or perhaps here if renamed).

However, beginning in April 2005 and lasting several months, there was a survey conducted at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)#Proposal and straw poll regarding place names with diacritical marks, with dozens of participants voting and discussing over an extended period of time. The purpose of the survey was to try to gather feedback for what the policy should be globally. Proponents of diacritics were in the majority, and in general, use of diacritics is widespread in actual practice on Wikipedia today (particularly since the Mediawiki upgrade to Unicode).

However, for Úbeda/Ubeda, Philip Baird Shearer is stating that the WP:RM vote takes precedence over the survey results, and a new WP:RM vote would be required to move it to Úbeda. My position is that there should be a global policy rather than case-by-case voting -- that was the whole purpose of the survey. In discussion with him, I wrote:

Just as we wouldn't have case-by-case voting on, say, capitalization issues for articles (eg, prepositions in movie and book titles should be lowercase, globally), we shouldn't have case-by-case voting on diacritic issues.

See the discussion at Talk:Ubeda#Talk_page_discussion_on_page_move (or perhaps here if renamed).

As a possible alternative to calling a new WP:RM vote which might set a precedent for case-by-case voting across thousands of articles, I am polling all the participants of the original WP:RM vote to ask:

• Regardless of how you voted in the WP:RM voting, which do you believe should take precedence: the earlier WP:RM vote on the specific article, or the subsequent survey?

Note, since Philip Baird Shearer was one of the participants in that vote, he will also be receiving this message and thus will have the opportunity to respond. -- Curps 05:55, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

For what it's worth, and for the information of all the voters in the March requested move vote, there's now a new requested move vote at Talk:Ubeda. -- Curps 01:34, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

1911 Taxonomy

Thank you for all the wonderful work you are doing on the 1911EB taxonomy. I was hoping that putting them together like that would generate some interest, and it looks like I was right. Some of those would have languished on the main lists for a long time. Anyway, I just wanted to offer my compliments. --DanielCD 00:45, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Dimorphous Flower

Just wanted to say that I like your reorganization of the short pages I put together. One slightly longer article with the redirects makes more sense. --CBDunkerson 19:42, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Maths: Asymptotic Series

(Anonymous homework question copied from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science deleted.)

Have you tried asking your teacher? Gdr 14:01, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

flags

Hi I noticed you reverted the flags I put at Air raids on Darwin, February 19, 1942.. is this because flags are used only for wars not for battles?? or is there another reason Astrokey44 13:15, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Flags are not used in battleboxes. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Battles. Gdr 13:26, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Image Tagging Image:Aleutian Islands map.png

Thanks for uploading Image:Aleutian Islands map.png. I notice the image page currently doesn't specify who created the image, so the copyright status is therefore unclear. If you have not created the image yourself then you need to argue that we have the right to use the image on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the image yourself then you should also specify where you found it, ie in most cases link to the website where you got it, and the terms of use for content from that page.

If the image also doesn't have a copyright tag then you must also add one. If you created/took the picture then you can use {{gfdl}} to release it under the GFDL. If you can claim fair use use {{fairuse}}.) See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other images, please check that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thanks so much. Thue | talk 20:53, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for all your help on American green tree frog; it is much appreciated. If you ever need help, feel free to ask me. Warmest regards --Neutrality^talk 21:22, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

HMS Affray

Can you help me wikify & merge the two HMS Affray articles & perhaps add to them? When you get a chance. Please. I actually spoke to Innes McCartney & got more information of him.(Khan 03:36, 9 November 2005 (UTC))

JP Mallory

A heads up: I am moving back J. P. Mallory to JP Mallory, as it is the form of the name given in all his publications. I see you were the one who made the move to J. P. Mallory; I'm letting you know in case there's a reason that I'm not aware of for the article being there, so that you can act appropriately. --Iceager 15:44, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Abraham's Collection

I see you've credited the Abraham's picture of Napes Needle as PD. Do you believe all the Abraham's climbing photos are in the public domain? - I'd like to reproduce the Abraham's one of O G Jones, which must be over 100 years old - but George Abraham only died in 1965 and copyright runs for 70 years from last creator's death in UK law, I read... Linuxlad 22:52, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Photo was taken before 1923, so in the public domain in the US (see Public domain#Expiration). Gdr 15:29, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

There is now a posted comment on the Naples Needle jpg, saying Abraham copyright was declared valid in 2005. Bob. aka linuxlad (sorry, I've never found where the tilde is remapped to on my wife's laptop :-()

Battle(s) of Ormoc

Last year, you changed Template:Campaignbox Philippines, 1944-45 to include "1st Ormoc Bay – 2nd Ormoc Bay". There was an amphibious landing on 7 Dec 1944, which presumably counts as one of the battles, but what's the other? The destroyer action on the night of 2–3 Dec, which 1st Ormoc Bay currently refers to?
—wwoods 22:40, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Colours on maps

Hi, Gdr. I went and changed colours on some of your maps, to make them more obvious, especially in thumbnails. I also added legends, both to image pages and thumbnails in articles. Hope you like it. Zocky 16:59, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Disagreements on styles of disambiguation pages

Dear Gdr, Regarding USS Merrimac/Merrimack disambiguation page(s), there have been several editors trying to streamline and clean them up, in accordance with MoS:DP, and then they have been reverted by you. I am willing to hear why they should not follow the MoS, but you should know that it is often as much work (or more) to trim them down as it is to add multiple lines of fine detail and multiple wikilinks. I felt that my version would quickly lead a reader to the appropriate ship, but you seem to feel that it should be more like an article and less like a disambiguation page. I must say that it is not satisfying to see one's work wiped out by a reversion. You yourself have made a similar complaint to Wangi, but remember that this is a two-way street. These reversions have reached the level where the phrase "edit wars" comes to mind. How can we settle this? If your view of the article is to prevail, there should at least be a non-displayable comment in the article so another editor does not waste his or her time cleaning it up yet again. I will watch this page, so you can reply here or on my talk page. Happy New Year! Chris the speller 03:38, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) for discussion. Gdr 12:25, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Same topic, HMS Active

I don't understand why you would blanket revert my changes to the dab page for HMS Active. I have read the whole talk page for Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) and the page for Wikiproject Ships, and neither seems to say that there's something wrong with avoiding the pipe trick in a dab page. I did not remove any information, to the contrary, I made the information more visible. I wish you'd at least have done the courtesy of using an edit summary to explain why you reverted my changes instead of treating me like a vandal. NickelShoe 00:47, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, the rollback feature doesn't have a comment box. Annoying, I know. (1) ship names should be in italics; (2) there's no need to repeat "HMS" when it's clear from context; (3) the year following the ship name in parentheses isn't part of its name. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) for the relevant guidelines. Gdr 01:01, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

DYK

Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Pentastomida, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

Characters entity vs. characters proper

On the surface, characters proper is better because the authors can read the text instead of some numerical values. However, I wonder if there is any hidden cost behind this.

I remember a few years ago, the wikipedia's text editor automatically turns all the cut-pasted text into the entity format because wikipedia used the Latin encoding back then. The only way to show foreign text in a Latin page was to have the character encoded in the Unicode entity format e.g. &#dddd; In the entity format, the web browser displays the Unicode characters the same way regardless of what the browser encoding is set to. i.e. character entity is "browser encoding insensitive" because it is always expressed explicitly in Unicode. A lot have changed over the years, now all the wikipedia pages are encoding in UTF-8. You can use character proper (i.e. UTF-8 characters) in the articles and hence some of the work your bot puts in. However, I notice there is a behavioral change on the pages. If you open any page with non-Latin text and then go to the MSIE web browser settings and change the encoding to anything other than UTF-8, you will notice all these characters proper turn into gibblish. That does not happen if you use characters entity. This indicates that, unlike character entity, character proper is vulnerable to corruption if the author's web browser screws up the encoding setting. I recently pointed out a character corruption problem in the Bruce Lee article. Though I don't know what actually happened, the corruption would be less likely if the character entity was used.

I am on the fence regarding which is better. Since you used a bot to convert all these encoded characters, what is you take on the pros and cons between the two and what do you think regarding the corruption problem mentioned above? Was there a thread of discussion regarding this kind of change?

Kowloonese 01:35, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

See this discussion. Gdr 01:39, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Re: Reference Desk

Voiloh! (Yoshi says hi that way.)

For future reference, linking directly to FAQs from GameFAQs doesn't work. The webmaster has some magic going on behind the scenes that kills the direct linking. I'd recommend, to work around this bit, that you link to the FAQ main page for the game, and then suggest the person asking the question visit the faq written by (author) titled (title) (x) number of FAQs down in the list. Also, I am aware that Sheik's outfit consists of 100% polygons. It almost looks like a skeleton suit from Metal Gear Solid, but I can't be sure. Ah, well. Your response brightened my day, and verily, I reward you with this:

Gdr has earned a Cernen's Plusbox for providing a response at the reference desk that made me smile.

George Carew (vice-admiral)

Dear Gdr,

I appreciate your advice to create a suitable name for a new article on Carew, rather than to just remove the link to the incorrect Carew. I want to explain that in this case I did a bit of web searching and came to the conclusion that the recently appointed Carew was only notable in his role on the Mary Rose and in the Battle of the Solent and that this role was adequately covered in those articles and did not merit a new short article.

Of course, you or the original editor may place a higher value on an article about Carew, and I am quite happy to defer on this. What I will do is to check in the ODNB at my next opportunity to see that confirms notability.

Op. Deo 19:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Ju Gosling

Your asked: Has Ju Gosling released the text of "The Significance of School Stories" under the GFDL? Gdr 18:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Skull_%27n%27_Femurs"

Why do you ask? I have not come accross (her?) name. I guess you are implying that I have overstepped copyright. All my stuff in the genre/Author's bios, etc., are a jumbble of cut-'n'-paste jobs - from several internet sources. I do not claim authorship - I've just edited stuff. If you think there is a copyright issue, then be less cryptic - please. Can you give me a link? Skull 'n' Femurs 18:37, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

See Talk:Margaret Biggs and Talk:Angela Brazil. Gdr 19:07, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I could quibble and dispute that 1. [5] was the prime source, (I'd never visited that page before the link was posted). 2. It was "with minor paraphrasing", but whatever - at least I did not simply cut 'n' paste without any changes as per Charles Matthews at school story... Skull 'n' Femurs 20:00, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Page move

Um, did you know that your recent move of Aubrey-Maturin series to Aubrey–Maturin series has created a bunch of double redirects? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:41, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

DYK

Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Seleucid era, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--Gurubrahma 11:50, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Flamsteed

Check your date for the unauthorized publication of his work, I don't think it was 1912! ;) --Etacar11 03:01, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Typo: 1712. Gdr 03:27, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Battle of Antioch

I don't find your edit summaries to be helpful to my understanding your point. Could you please explain your reasoning how those links are helpful on Talk:Battle of Antioch? Thank you. Tedernst | talk 22:33, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Great graf on the industrial production on the eastern front

Great graf it looks great

Deng Jan 14 2006 11.45 CET

Number of species of dik-dik

I am glad to see someone with better biology knowledge than myself working on the dik-dik article, but I am curious as to were you found your number (four) for the number of species of dik-diks. The African Wildlife Foundation states there are five, and a few days ago when I first found the dik-dik article it stated there were three species. It is distinctly possible that your source is better than the AWF, I am just interested what source you used. --Matthew 22:15, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I used ITIS (you'll see that I added the reference to the dik-dik article) but [6] and MSW [7] agree. The web page you refer to might be mistaken, or might be counting as separate species that are synonymized by others. Since it doesn't name the species, it's hard to tell. Gdr 22:22, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, I have no further doubt of your sources. --Matthew 22:26, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Taxobox based categorization

Would it be of any value if categories could be automatically assigned to an article via the taxobox : for instance from the family entry ? thanks Shyamal 06:41, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Centrarchidae

The table wasn't closing for some reason. Probably extraneous brackets somewhere in the source. I put a HTML tag into the article to close it for now and will try to track down the root cause. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 00:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Good catch. Yeah, there is some odd behaviour with the parameter conditionals. Sometimes it seems to need the 'center' tags to evaluate properly and apparently sometimes not. I hope they add the promised 'built-in' MediaWiki conditional logic some time soon because the current options are all kinda glitchy. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 00:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Eastern Grey Kangaroo

Twice, you've removed both pictures. Twice, I've had to revert the article to its previous version. This is an article on the Eastern Grey Kangaroo. What were you doing with the roo's classification?,,,,,,Ariele 02:23, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake. Now fixed, I think. Gdr 09:33, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Gdrbot

I have the utmost faith in you and your bot, but I don't mind doing a few by hand now and then as I land on them for other reasons. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:49, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Sure, I understand. Just wanted to save you some unnecessary effort! Gdr 13:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Image Tagging Image:How e-mail works.png

This media may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading Image:How e-mail works.png. I notice the 'image' page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is therefore unclear. If you have not created this media yourself then you need to argue that we have the right to use the media on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the media yourself then you should also specify where you found it, i.e., in most cases link to the website where you got it, and the terms of use for content from that page.

If the media also doesn't have a copyright tag then you must also add one. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then you can use {{GFDL}} to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media qualifies as fair use, please read fair use, and then use a tag such as {{Non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair_use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other media, please check that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. -- Longhair 01:41, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

RE upland/lowland (freshwater ecology)

If you want to merge the two - sure, feel free. I had entered them separately for greater clarity, but your examples of paired definitions also make sense.

So go ahead if you want to merge the two.

cheers

Codman 02:20, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

I award this Barnstar to Gdr for your efforts converting about 15,000 taxoboxes (KC)

JoJan 14:26, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Commons Muhammad Category

Though you have not been, to my knowledege, involved in this particular controversy, I'm writing you essentially because you're an active administrator on the Commons, where the Muhammad page is protected. While I certainly understand the need to protect it from vandalism, I feel that a semi-protect would be more appropriate, as it would allow the page to be edited by older wikipedians. For instance, there are many images in on http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Muhammad that cannot be added to the commons page dedicated to Muhammad. I am interested in uploading some old PD images of him, taken from this image archive in order to show that there appears to be a tradition of Muslims depicting the prophet. Thank you for your time. --Zantastik <font color=darkgreen size=1>talk</font> 07:18, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Eel

Re: what kind of eel; I really have no idea. I took that picture in Biscayane National Park in Flordia. I'm no biologist.

Hár

Greetings. Back on January 11, you created the title Hár; unfortunately, the content is "#REDIRECT Hár". (You'd be surprised how often this happens.) I can't figure out what you intended to redirect to; it could be Har, or Odin, or List of names of Odin, or Hár (crater), I suppose. Maybe you could recall what it was and fix it. --Russ Blau (talk) 14:01, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I think I meant Hár (crater) but now I think it's better to disambiguate. Gdr 14:23, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Taxoboxes for fictitious species

Hi. About the Rhinogradentia: as I said, I don't really want to insist on the taxobox (I had nothing to do with it)... but I wonder what is wrong with providing a taxobox for fictitious species. After all, the best part of the Rhinogradentia joke was the fairly good "scientific quality" of the report, with professional looking drawings, classifications, evolutionary histories, etc. (Have you seen the book?) A taxobox would just fit with the spirit of the article — and it is supported by references, too!

BTW, they *are* mammals (well, ok, in the same sense that Rudolf *is* a reindeer), all evolved from a single shrew-like species.

All the best, Jorge Stolfi 15:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Copyright images

Not to be rude or anything, but why not? It was part of a press realease, isn't that valid? JQF 15:55, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand what your trying to say. If you mean have a valid reason for being able to display it on wikipedia, I already noted that it is a press release photo from CNN, which is one of the valid reasons, is it not? JQF 16:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

It is a press released picture. Any picture used by the press has been released for public use. Thus press released picture. JQF 16:21, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I know it is a press released pic because I first found it on CNN.com (which is stated in the pic info, if you had looked). If that is not a press site, then I don't know what is. JQF 16:28, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Featured Picture

An image you uploaded, Image:Lowering the flag on Zuikaku.jpg, has just become a Featured Picture! Congratulations, and thanks for uploading it. Raven4x4x 05:34, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Removing Suborders etc

In this diff your bot removed a couple of taxobox parameters, while adding the authority. Was this deliberate? (I'm not a taxobox expert, and had simply copied the information from the genus taxobox) Bluap 11:59, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

See WP:TX#Classification: "Taxoboxes should include all major ranks above the taxon described in the article, plus minor ranks that are important to understanding the classification of the taxon described in the article, or which are discussed in the article. Other minor ranks should be omitted." In the case of Southern Birdwing the subfamily and tribe probably ought to go too, but the bot code is somewhat conservative. Gdr 12:10, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Bluap 12:32, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Mistake

The GdrBot made a mistake in the article Assa. It placed an authority for the genus as: Tyler, 1972 (which is correct), however linked to Ansel Augustus Tyler, who died in 1922. The actual Tyler, who you will find has classified a lot of Australian frogs, is Michael J. Tyler. --liquidGhoul 23:39, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll tell it to be more careful in future. Gdr 00:04, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Battle of Empress Augusta Bay

Hi Gdr,

The cruiser Birmingham was not part of Merrill task force during the night of Empress augusta bay (1-2 nov. 1943). This is why I deleted it. If You want to add Birmingham, You have to add all DuBose's task group that arrived on 7th november. It was detatched from 5th fleet, with Cruisers Santa fe', Mobile and Birmingham (CruDiv 13). The Birmingham CL-62 page of wikipedia is wrong as well. Probably the mistake is led by the DANFS history that says "At the Solomons, she took part in the action off Empress Augusta Bay (8-9 November), during which she destroyed the Japanese plane which hit her with two bombs and a torpedo.". This fits to what I know about that ship. I think that the above phrase means that she was involved in the support and protection of transport ships, or that supported the operation in general. If You look at the links, You'll see that none reports Birmingham. The US forces were 4 cruisers (CruDiv 12) and 8 Destroyers, all under Merrill's command. I suggest to fix both the Battle of Empress augusta and Birmingham (CL-62) pages.

Maxs75 10:58, 17 February 2006 (UTC)Maxs75

Yes, I was misled by DANFS. Please fix both articles. Gdr 11:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Rhynchonellida

Quote: Sorry, we can't use your Rhynchonellida because you copied the text from [8]. Gdr 12:06, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

The site clearly states that the text is "free to use" Lejean2000 12:13, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

"For non-commercial purposes". That's not compatible with the GFDL. Sorry. Gdr 12:21, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Broken What links here function

I would like to thank you for detecting my bullshit I was up to do. You are full correct that I had a false sense of security. Though I must say each admin would have been able to recreate Journal reference if we would have had deleted that in error. But it might well be that this would have caused some damage to articles as silent gnomers might already would have had rushed around and fixing the damage we would have caused. So again, well done and thanks for stopping me! --Adrian Buehlmann 07:45, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Ruppiaceae

Thanks for fixing the slip-up I made here. Clearly, I had copied the taxobox from another article, but hadn't noticed that I'd not amended all the fields. --BillC 00:03, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Image:HMCS Fennel (K194).jpg

Image:HMCS Fennel (K194).jpg currently has a tag that says it may be deleted. As a ww2 image, if it were taken by the RN, wouldn't it have fallen under the crown copyright? Wouldn't it now be in the public domain? -- 207.112.73.75 17:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

RE upland/lowland (freshwater ecology)

Hi, thanks for the suggestion regarding the upland and lowland (freshwater ecology) pages.

I have no objection to them being merged if you, as an experienced Wikipedian, believe that would enhance them.

Regarding the title, upland and lowland (freshwater ecology) would be fine.

There are however a lot of articles that I went to trouble of putting upland (freshwater ecology) and lowland (freshwater ecology) links into. Would such a change invalidate these links?

regards

Codman 05:53, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

No, those links can easily be redirected to a merged article, so nothing needs to be invalidated. Gdr 23:01, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. It looks good now. Will check the links work. Codman 00:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Nomialbot

May I ask you a copy of the code of your bot in order to adapt it to it.wikipedia. We are tryng to convert, as you have already succesfully done, our old taxobox to a new one? Thank you very much Esculapio 28.02.2006

See User:Gdr/taxoconvert.py. Gdr 23:00, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks! Esculapio 09:11, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Mustelus hacat

Very good on the Mustelus hacat. I'm not a biologist, but felt we should have this one. Eixo 02:24, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Liverwort thanks

Thanks for adding a nice diversity image to the Marchantiophyta page! It will help people understand that not all liverworts look thalloid. --EncycloPetey 05:58, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. User:Ragesoss has been scanning many beautiful plates from Haeckel's Artforms of Nature and I've been adding them to articles. Gdr 10:17, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Euryale ferox

Thank you (or your bot?) for the authority on Euryale ferox! Badagnani 19:43, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Taxobox conservation status syntax update

Hi Gdr,

Because you've done a lot of work on the taxobox and may need to parse it in bots, i'm just letting you know I've updated the way status works. Let me know if there's any prob.

Following is my post from the taxobox talk page:

I've updated the conversation status so it takes the two-letter IUCN codes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tiger&diff=42564299&oldid=42505372

The new way of using it and all the new codes are on the taxobox usage page.

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life/taxobox_usage#Conservation_status

If you don't like new things, you can use the old way still too. As for me, I find two letter codes easier than long-winded template names. I've made it as easy to use as possible, and stayed "backwards compatible". Enjoy!

Let me know if there's anything that acts oddly. I did do a bit of testing before I updated the template (there's quite a cache purge when you do), but let me know if anything's not right. It's moderately scary updating a template used by so many pages.

—Pengo 03:12, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Nomialbot and subphylum Crustacea

I notice that your Nomialbot recently added the authority for Mictyris, for which much thanks, but at the same time removed the subphylum Crustacea from the taxobox. Is this a bug, or was it deliberate? The group Crustacea is widely recognised outside scientific circles (much more than Malacostraca) and I think it would confuse lay readers if they did not see the word Crustacea in the classification. Fro that reason, I always put it in, even though I would not generally mention subphyla in a genus article. --Stemonitis 08:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The bot is programmed to cut minor ranks except where they immediately precede the rank described by the article; the idea being to cut monstrosities like Eastern tiger swallowtail down to size. Perhaps it is a bit overkeen to cut, and "subphylum: Crustacea" could be restored. (But I note that no-one seems to mind the fact that all the vertebrate taxoboxes say "phylum: Chordata", when "subphylum: Vertebrata" would be more familar to laypeople.) Gdr 10:42, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Taxobox for Zebra Pleco

At the time I didn't know there was a Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fishes - I was trying to add the taxobox to make the page look complete as the fellow who had added the fish pic was having problems getting his picture right. I assumed he would finish off the correction of the taxonomy. I will not do this again. (Arundhati Bakshi (talk • contribs)) 19:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Question

Please explain your comment on my page. I did not "make up any taxonomy". My information comes from a number of websites. Thank you! --Ghormax 08:39, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. All my information came from other websites after doing research. So I am grateful for you to correct it. As for myself, I should stick to topics that I know! --Ghormax 14:33, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Taxoboxes

Dear Gdr, i have a question for you. I'm working in the wiki-pt's equivalent of the Project:Tree Of Life. I often visit wiki-en for interwiking and sometimes i find articles here that lack a taxobox. Since i'm not familiar with the new template you're using, i ask: is there a template that i can use to signal an article that needs a taxobox? If not, it would be useful to create one. Thanks, muriel@pt 12:51, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there is such a template, sorry. I think the best thing to do is to post a note on WT:TOL saying, "can someone add a taxobox to this article, please?". Gdr 12:55, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I created one: {{missing-taxobox}}. Thanks, muriel@pt 13:34, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Renaming of article

First, thanks for your time & patience in "sweeping up" after me with my series of fish article. As a diver I've seen most of these fish which helps I think. Secondly, I wonder whether you would reconsider changing the title of the article on "Notoclinus fenestratus" to "New Zealand Topknot". I see that the latin name is used for other Topknots, but surely "New Zealand Topknot" is unique as are the other qualified names. Common names are used as headings for all of my other articles & I would be interested in understanding the reason. GrahamBould 14:00, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I moved it to the scientific name before I discovered that "New Zealand Topknot" was a unique common name for it. I'll move it for you. Gdr 14:04, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. Yes, there's a lot to do. As a Kiwi living in the UK I hanker for the outdoor life back home. My intention is to write articles for all New Zealand fish that haven't already been written, & when I return to NZ next year to get back into underwater photography to supply pictures for the articles (no copyright problems!!). GrahamBould 14:48, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Maomao

Brookie here - could you add a bit of intro to this disambig page - it meant nothing to me and I suspect I am not alone! Thanks Brookie :) - a will o' the wisp ! ^(Whisper...) 14:07, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I've taken care of this. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:13, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Kiva

My source was probably the Encyclopedia Mythica (pantheon.org). It sounds like it may be same thing -- the Maori are Polynesian, IIRC, so the source I used may have just not been more specific. Tuf-Kat 02:41, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation

I have accidentally messed up the Disambiguation page for "Mado". It did exist, now I can't find it, & entering "Mado" & Go now takes you to a specific page rather than a selection. Could you please fix it (& tell me where it was)? Thanks GrahamBould 11:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Watch

Article "New Zealand Sand Diver" has Watch turned on for me but doesn't appear on my Watch list. Can you see any reason for this? GrahamBould 15:09, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Category piping

I was wondering if you could explain where it is appropriate and where innapropriate to add piped name in category tagging. I had tagged Pinguicula moranensis with a few categories like this: [[category:category example|name of plant]]. When you edited the article you removed the piped names—I'm sure for a good reason— and I'd like to know why so I don't make this type of error in the future. --Fuhghettaboutit 17:43, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

The category sort key defaults to article title so there's no point in specifying one unless it's different. Gdr 17:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Got ya. Thanks. So only if you want the name to appear differently when it sorts, such as last name first in articles on people. --Fuhghettaboutit 18:28, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Duplicate Articles

Hi Gdr, Wish to add article called "Redfish" called from my new Disambig article which is splitting Nannygai. However there is already an article called "Redfish" which is Disambig Redfish. What do I call my new article? GrahamBould 21:34, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Duplicate Articles

Hi Gdr, Not sure how to handle the Cutthroat eels and the Parasitic eels. In my article on Cutthroat eels the Parasitic eel is treated as a Cutthroat, but in the general article on Eels they are separated. Perhaps you could guide me (maybe its OK as it is) GrahamBould 11:36, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Hello Gdr, I think I have come up against the same issue with my "Sawtooth Eel" article. Would you be able to have a look. (BTW I thought you might have answered my previous question with "Carefully"!) GrahamBould 12:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Hello Gdr, Yet again, problem with duplicate page names. I have created a Smelt Disambig page simply called Smelt. But there is already one called this - are you able to rename the existing as it will take all the hits on the word Smelt. Thanks GrahamBould 15:37, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Commons pictures

Hi Gdr, Tried to navigate through the Commons picture database, got down to Perciformes but then could not find Tripterygiidae. Also, instead of talking about Families, Orders, etc, they use the term Category at each level. Could you please tell me how the picture database is structured? Do you need to be a biologist to use it?Thanks GrahamBould 08:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Commons is intended for all Wikipedias to use as a resource, so its best if the category names use the scientific name instead of the English/German/Japanese/etc name. Gdr 18:54, 15 March 2006 (UTC) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:GrahamBould"

I agree entirely, but when drilling down each level is called a 'Category' but not what the category is, ie it doesn't say whether it's at eg Family level or Order level, much less giving the actual Family name or Order name. When I clicked on Perciforme I looked for Tripterygiidae but there was no mention. Does this simply mean that there are no Triplefin pictures? In Commons there is another group of pictures called 'Fish Drawings'. This seems to be a very useful collection, but seems to be unsorted & filed under short file names which seem to be in code, although the scientific names are there if the picture is clicked. Is there any way these scientific names can be searched? Many thanks for your help GrahamBould 07:59, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

orangutan

There is some controversy over the spelling indicated in the opening line of this article. Please come to talk:orangutan and weigh in if you please. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:33, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Snoek

snoek presently points to one species however, if I look at Fishbase there are three species. Do I create a disambiguation page which potentially gets two to three stubs or should I do one page and add three taxonomy boxes and internal anchors? I am kind of new to this. --jadepearl 15:31, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice moving the page. The next question is about the disambiguation, as you noted there are alot of Snoeks or snoek name variants. Should I provide the snoek variant names such as, Snoekoe, Canadese snoekbaars, Snoeks' Kivu haplo etc. A part of me wonders if there is a more effecient way of doing a draw against fishbase to auto-create articles and auto-populate the taxonomy pages. --jadepearl 15:54, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Scarab

hello, it seems to me that some ppl use the term to refer to the dung beetles, so i'm not sure if a simple redirect to the Scarabaeidae is good enough.:) --K.C. Tang 04:09, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Do they? In any case, dung beetle ought to be merged into scarabaeidae. Gdr 12:53, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

scarabs like Rhinoceros beetles and Hercules beetles have their own articles...if u check the pre-seperated version of scarabaeidae, u can see that a disproportionate amount of the article deals with the ancient-Eyptians stuff - but remember that the dung beetle is only one of the many members of the family...that's why i seperated the articles. --K.C. Tang 00:09, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Lots of scarabs are dung beetles. I think you may be a bit confused. Gdr 00:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

i claim no expert knowledge...but most of the dung beetles belong to the subfamilies Scarabaeinae and Aphodiinae of the family Scarabaeidae, and these are only two of the subfamilies... on the other hand, there are dung-feeding beetls which belong to families other than Scarabaeidae (consider Geotrupidae)...so i guess it's not correct to simply equal Scarabaeidae with dung beetles. --K.C. Tang 01:03, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Whale shark update

Hi!

Can you confirm if this edit is correct or 'vandalism'? I guess it is wrong, see ITIS which says Smith 1828, but I really have no clue what that means, I just do not want to revert a edit that might be correct. Stefan 12:36, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's vandalism. You should trust FishBase more than an anonymous Wikipedia editor! Gdr 12:40, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

It is not that I do not trust fishbase, it is that I do not know what the year means, the article states "first identified", which might not be the year that is stated in fishbase/ITIS. Nevermind, corrected now, thanks! Stefan 00:33, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Tuna link

Hello Gdr, There seems to be a problem with the "Northern Bluefin Tuna" link on the "Tuna" page. It goes to a defunct Redirect page which I set up to get around the problem but which now seems to have exacerbated it. Are you able to get in 'behind the scenes' & straighten it out please? Thanks GrahamBould 13:47, 20 March 2006 (UTC) [a little later] it seems to have fixed itself... so don't worry about this... Thanks GrahamBould 13:57, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Greeneyes

Hello Gdr, Trying to create article on Bathysauropsi gracilis but am having trouble in finding what Family, Order, etc, & what name to give it, etc. I think the names might have changed. I wonder whether you could advise please. Thanks GrahamBould 14:09, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Alabama cavefish taxobox

Thanks for the assistance. This was my first attempt at setting up a taxobox. I was using Watercress Darter as a guideline; that's where I had my authority incorrect.

Is there a way that I can flag or categorize stub articles to have someone add a taxobox with the correct authority later? I'm primarily working on National Wildlife Refuges in the US. Frequently, the refuge is setup to protect a single species of animal and I think a stub would be appropriate. However, I know virtually nothing about biology and it's probably best for me to not be dabbling in the taxobox arena. Thanks! ClarkBHM 14:31, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Changing plural names

Hi. Why are you changing plural names like bonnetmouths to bonnetmouth. According to itis.usda.gov the common english name for the family Inermiidae is bonnetmouths. Naming the article this way makes it possible to creat the article bonnetmouth for the species Emmelichthyops atlanticus. Isfisk 21:03, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (plurals). Gdr 21:09, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Year links in taxoboxes

Please weigh in on this subject here. - UtherSRG (talk)

Standard species layout

Hi Gdr, Could you please put me straight on the preferred standard for arranging species & common names in a Genus/species list. There seem to be 2 ways, one is for example: *Tetraodon cutcutia (Common pufferfish) The other is: * Common pufferfish (Tetraodon cutcutia), both with and without parenthesis. Both methods are used, & I would like to get it right. Thanks for guidance. GrahamBould 19:45, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Gulper shark edits

Thanks for adding the taxobox to the gulper shark. Not to be rude, but would you mind taking a look at your other changes to that article? The format that was there with distribution, physical characteristics, and such being seperate is a pretty standard layout for sharks. Most are set up that way and it follows similar styles with the biggest shark and fish databases such as fishbase and the FAO species catalogue by Compagno. Any chance if you agree on this style, you could revert it? Again thanks for any editing of and additions to the too little edited area of shark species.Mike 13:23, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• • Of course Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Point taken. Is it more important to have a standard format or for a short article to be more encyclopedic? I'm just wondering since gulper shark would be the only shark in the squaliformes to not be in the style. Also, gulper sharks will certainly have much more info added later so I set up the article to make future edits easier.Mike 13:36, 27 March 2006 (UTC)