User talk:Lfstevens/2010 Archive

Walrus

Hi Lfstevens. I feel I might be echoing the discussion above, but, while most of your recent revisions to the Walrus have been beneficial or benign, some really DO erase important information, and many are hard to track. For example youchanged this sentence: "The walrus prefers shallow shelf regions and forages on the sea bottom." to "The walrus prefers forages on the sea bottom." This revision (aside from introducing a grammatical error) inexplicably erases the very important, fundamental fact that the walrus prefers shallow shelf regions. "Foraging on the sea bottom" in no way implies "shallow shelf regions" (the narwhal, for example, also feeds on the bottom of the sea, but it happens to be at up to 1800 m depths of Baffin Bay). It is the presence of ice on shallow shelf areas (no more than 100 m deep) that is vital to normal walrus foraging - and the increased recent retreat of the ice off of the shelf that is driving recently documented stresses and behavioral changes in the walrus populations. While your efforts are, again, largely beneficial, I would ask you to please be careful when copy editing and to stick to grammatical errors or truly unwieldy phrasing, and to be very respectful of content, especially in an established, well-referenced article like Walrus. Also, wholesale reorganizations of article sections are probably not advisable without discussion on the Talk page. Thanks,Eliezg (talk) 01:16, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to comment and for catching my typo. I plan to add the shallow water preference to a more appropriate section than one on feeding because of its broader import. About organization, you may have noticed a draft of an outline for animal pages. This came from my frustration with the widespread disorganization of many such pages. Is there an existing model to emulate (in the spirit that there is no such thing as a new problem?) If not, is there better/broader forum than an article talk page for such a discussion (and what do you think of the outline?) Organizational changes do have a broader impact than the more typical "add a fact" edits made by most contributors. But if the content survives, perhaps organization is less of an issue.Lfstevens (talk) 04:20, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Oops...the outline is on Lfstevens

Hawaii

Aloha, noticed your recent edits to the main Hawaii article. It certainly did need some "tightening" of the prose, since it tends to be a dumping ground for all sorts of random info instead of a well-written summary as it should be. However, as you might be aware, we had a long negotiated compromise to spell the state name consistently without the ʻokina but keep it for the island names. Otherwise it tends to attract purists who rewrite it "in English" by removing all diacritics everywhere. My thinking is that the majroity of English speakers probably know about the state "Hawaii", but most do not even know there is more than one island. The GNIS also uses "Hawaii" for the state name but "Hawaiʻi" for the Big Island. We will see how long they last this time. Have you read the Wikipedia:WikiProject Hawaii/Manual of Style page for example? It needs to be expanded. Someone also added the copyediting tag for some reason.

If you have the time for another project, many of the pages in Category:Royal Family of Hawaii contain text that was just copied from Victorian-era books and retains the florid prose. I work on some from tiem to time but there are many left. Thanks,W Nowicki (talk) 22:53, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Didn't know about that discussion or about the manual of style. Thanks for the heads-up. I guess all the other now okina-addled articles I've worked on are out of step, too. I'm kind of surprised nobody pinged me before this.Lfstevens(talk) 23:48, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Grey reef shark

Hi, I noticed your edits to this article; please note that the code for adding alt text uses a '|', not a '.' (the preview function will help in catching this), and also, I prefer using the {{convert}} with the abbr=on tag, so as to avoid favoring of American/British spelling. Also, in your edits to "Taxonomy", it's important to maintain the information on how C. wheeleriwas originally differentiated from C. amblyrhynchos, as that's pertinent taxonomic information. Thanks. -- Yzx(talk) 19:12, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for catching my typo. I hadn't realized you were working on this article. I'll go elsewhere until you're through. Cheers!Lfstevens (talk) 23:10, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: Niihau

Aloha. I'm planning to improve this article over the next month or so. If you want to collaborate and/or talk about strategy on the talk page, that would also be great. I'm not a fan of small paragraphs, and best practice (per MOS and other guidelines) is to merge standalone sentences into larger paragraphs rather than breaking them apart. Viriditas (talk) 03:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. You're certainly the author of record on this as on many other articles. As is obvious, I have little knowledge of Niihau, but always work on the text as I learn about a new subject. I tend to like my paragraphs to have a single main idea, but I take your point and will work on conforming better to the MOS, etc. Since you work on so many things Hawaii, you might want to scope out Amy Gilliom which I just drastically expanded and cited.Lfstevens (talk) 03:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I like your edits. I think the encyclopedic style is to use sections rather than paragraphs to contain the main idea. I agree that the paragraphs need to flow more easily and connect (or thread) back to the main idea, so obviously more work is required. I noticed, for example, that we have enough information (in the sources that is) to start a new section on shell leis. In fact, there is so much information on this subtopic, we could create a new page. There's a lot to do, but right now we desperately need geographic and geological information describing the formation of the island, its relationship to the main chain, the islets, and more about the demographics of the locals. Viriditas (talk) 03:37, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

List of marine aquarium fish species

Hi Lfstevens, I have undone your last edition in List of marine aquarium fish species to my last version, because I consider that, in a long list like that, some spacing is necessary in gaining clarity. --Flakinho (talk) 16:22, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Fishery

Hi. Your copyedits are much appreciated and welcome and I encourage you to continue. Please excuse me if I appear pedantic and revert this or that. I will try to explain carefully why, and you can always respond if you disagree. Sometimes when you "simplify" what seems unnecessary and roundabout ways of saying something, you are in fact obliterating carefully qualified distinctions. This has annoyed me in the past, and I probably have let too much slip by without challenging you. This has resulted in some detriment in the articles concerned, though you have improved them in other ways. You seem to be here for the long haul and your copyedits focused on the language are generally good and appropriate. So I would like to get on a good working relationship with you. But that means getting real about what does not work from my perspective. I am not happy with the conversions you added to fishery. Surely tonnes or metric tons are enough. I think the person responsible for that template should be shot. --Epipelagic (talk) 07:49, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Revert as you like, but I truly welcome your feedback. Per earlier feedback, I generally take small bites. On your "carefully qualified distinctions" point, I never intend to reduce content, but there's a thin line between distinctions and weaseling, not to mention that encyclopedia readers are likely to miss such subtleties without spotlights. I think conversions are useful, but WP needs a better means of presenting them. I'd much rather hover over a number to see alternative units (with appropriate links) than to see them embedded in the text, but fixing that is over my current pay grade. I add templates in the hope that someday they'll work better. It'll be a great day when Web 2.0 shows up in WP. Lfstevens (talk) 16:05, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Just a thanks

I just wanted to thank you for taking your time to copyedit the article. Magiciandude (talk) 23:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

My pleasure Lfstevens (talk) 14:14, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Business ecology / ecosystem

Noticed you've merged these two articles, thanks. Are you planning to do anything with Ecological model of competition which also looks like a candidate for merge? I have reinstated the merger proposal for this page. Cat4567nip (talk) 12:18, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I'll check it out. The substance/fluff ratio was pretty high low on the first two... Lfstevens (talk) 07:42, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Noticed you made a fairly substantive edit to this article, and went to look at it as I actually suspected it to be some unsourced conspiracy theory. Needless to say I was dead wrong. That issue hasn't been covered in U.S. media at all. My only suggestion is you may want to find some additional sources. Thanks for keeping the article up to date! N419BH 15:59, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Will look for another source, although this article has more sources than any I've yet seen.Lfstevens (talk) 16:09, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi! You did a great deal of much-needed reorganization in the article and included most of the information that I feel to be important. I was unhappy to see some of my edits go, but that is to be expected. As you can imagine, some of the editors for this article have tended to appear to be more partial to BP's point of view than others, which has made for an agreement to be careful to avoid drastic edits and explain edits fully. While I do feel that the way you arranged the clean-up into 3 sections works well, you have deleted the information about oil reaching any shorelines in that section and shoreline clean-up. Was that an oversight, or did you not feel it to be important? Gandydancer (talk) 12:25, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Wasn't trying to remove content. I moved stuff I thought belonged elsewhere. The article covers spill damage in great detail. I tried to focus the cleanup section on activities. Please feel free to put any shoreline cleanup info in/back in, and thanks for opening this discussion. Lfstevens (talk) 15:26, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Actually that was what I had planned to do, however when it came right down to it, it was not so easy at all! I looked at the history and found info regarding the spread that was gone after you had finished your edits (Spill area), however I do not know how to find the origional edit page. I am not an experienced editor and what may take editors familiar with editing only a few minutes can take me hours, and success is not at all assured at that. Then I was unsure about where to add it, even if I could find the references. Since you are the one who deleted it, perhaps you could find a way to put it back?Gandydancer (talk) 16:47, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh! An edit was just done and I realize that "Spill area" is not disappeared at all! Perhaps I missed it because it was moved up in the article. At any rate, I am embarrassed. Please accept my apology and continue with your good editing.Gandydancer (talk) 17:32, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Finish your editing of GPS

Alright, go ahead and finish your editing of the GPS article. I am taking a break from editing. Enjoy your work! RHB100 (talk) 00:13, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, Thank you for letting me know you are finished for now. But what is this "NAVSTAR" link you put in the Geometric Dilution of Precision Computation section. It seems to just link back to the GPS article? RHB100 (talk) 18:40, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

It was there before. Someone took it out and left a broken sentence. Lfstevens (talk) 22:03, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Breaking copyedits into discrete pieces

That's a great idea to split major copy edits into sections. It might be less dramatic, but it's much more collaborative than suddenly launching a new version of the article.Alistair Stevenson (talk) 23:47, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, someone suggested it to me, long ago. Lfstevens (talk) 23:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

List of fish of Hawaii

Hello. There was a reference error in one of the edits you made to the page. I have replaced the broken ref tag with {{cn}} and maybe you can go back and put in the right source. If you do, maybe you can check my cleanup of the Blue-Spotted Grouper entry on the same page. Thanks. 24.34.148.49 (talk) 12:41, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the catch. Lfstevens (talk) 13:51, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

No. 4 Commando

Thanks for the copy edit. I am always impressed by the quality of the copy editors guild and embarrassed by my poor efforts. --Jim Sweeney (talk) 09:26, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Glad to help. You do the hard work of research. Copy-editing's the easy part. Lfstevens (talk) 14:34, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Quick one

Nice copyedits on potential applications of carbon nanotubes. Need more of that style of treatment across Wikpedia. Cheers,Donama (talk) 01:11, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the encouragement. I need it! Lfstevens (talk) 01:26, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy

Hi,

You tagged BHRT with a copyedit tag a while back [1]; can you identify what the problems are? I substantially wrote most of it and am therefore a little blind to its faults. I wouldn't mind removing the tag, but only if the problems have been addressed. Thanks, WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 18:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I only got as far as the first sentence. It's

Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT), also known as bioidentical hormone therapy or natural hormone therapy is a generally ill-defined term that frequently refers to the use of hormones that are molecularly identical to endogenous hormones in hormone replacement therapy, but is also strongly associated with pharmacy compounding, blood or saliva testing, efforts to reach a targeted level of hormones in the body (as established through blood or saliva testing) and exaggerated, unfounded claims of safety and efficacy.

It should be something more like

Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) is a medical treatment that employs hormones which are molecularly identical to endogenous hormones.

The rest should come in later sentences and/or sections. Since this topic is not a hot one for me, I flagged it hoping that someone else from the Guild of copy editors would pick it up in the next drive. Lfstevens (talk) 00:27, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

But that's kinda the point - it's not a medical treatment; it's not just using identical hormones; it's not even defined. These are issues discussed at length in the body, it's a controversial intervention with no real medical meaning but a lot of marketing baggage and little science. It can't be simply defined as "a medical treatment" because that's plain old hormone replacement therapy. Nearly every single point made by people who promote BHRT has been criticized by the mainstream medical community for being disingenuous. It's not a simply defined or definable term since it has no medical meaning and its actual definition varies according to who is using the term. There's a series of overlapping definitions which combine to include aspects of treatment, but there's no "one definition" that can be used.

Also, is it good practice to tag a whole page for a single sentence? I'm asking out of ignorance, I'm not a member of the CEG or a frequent user of the template. Wouldn't {{copyedit|section}}, {{copyedit|lead}} or {{copyedit|first sentence}} be a better choice?

Do you have any other comments or suggestions about the rest of the article? WLU (t)(c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:28, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Whatever it is or isn't, it needs to be explained in simple language. I didn't make that attempt because I wasn't that interested. You're welcome to modify or remove the tag as you choose. I was just trying (a little) to help. Another approach is to add the article to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests page which typically receives prompt attention.Lfstevens (talk) 16:56, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

xxx of Hawaii cats

Hi. Please do not add categories as Category:Crustaceans of Hawaii to higher taxa that are not endemic to Hawaii. These organisms often occur worldwide and adding a Hawaii only cat would not be appropriate as one could not add every corner of the world. Thanks. Lycaon (talk) 10:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Not sure that makes sense. If the category were named "xxx endemic to Hawaii" it would, but it isn't. This way if you're trying to learn about Hawaii, the category is helpful to you. Is there another way to easily find the things that live there? Is your principle applied to analogous categories for other geographies? Lfstevens (talk) 16:07, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Haplogroup E1b1a

Thanks for the copyediting of the Haplogroup E1b1a article. Much appreciated. --Brout8 (talk) 12:31, 20 December 2010 (UTC)