User talk:P'tit Pierre

Welcome to Wikipedia. A page you recently created, Chimpanzees and Gorillas ancestry, may not conform to some of Wikipedia's guidelines for new pages, so it will be removed shortly (if it hasn't been already). Please use the sandbox for any tests, and consider using the Article Wizard. For more information about creating articles, you may want to read Your first article. You may also want to read our introduction page to learn more about contributing. Thank you. Please consider contributing to our existing articles Chimpanzee and Gorilla instead. NawlinWiki (talk) 16:46, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Homininae images

Hi. The removal of the image has nothing directly to do with the image itself. It was removed simply because there were far too many images on the page in relation to the amount of text, which made the page rather cluttered (and so more difficult to read/navigate). Generally, a page either has a lead image or an infobox (which may have in image in it, as it does in this case). Vitruvian.jpg is fairly incidental to the text; it shows a human (which all readers will be familiar with… well, unless there are aliens reading it or something) and doesn't directly demonstrate anything, so that is the image I chose to remove. Ideally, the picture of the chimpanzee in the infobox would be replaced with one which shows humans, chips and gorillas in some kind of comparative way, especially if one showing specific Homininae features exists. I'm rather busy with other things at the moment (and will be for the next week or so), but I'd be happy to look through Wikimedia Commons for a suitable image. Alphathon /'æɫfə.θɒn/ ^(talk) 13:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I just did a quick search and found a pre-existing collage-type image which shows various members of Homininae, including (as far as I can tell) all extant species. It was already used on the equivalent page of other Wikipedias, as well as on Wikispecies. As such, I have replaced the existing chimp image with it. Alphathon /'æɫfə.θɒn/ ^(talk) 14:30, 21 October 2011 (UTC).

Many thanks! It is nicer with the figures this way. cheers! P'tit Pierre P'tit Pierre (talk) 14:53, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Bonobo

Hello again. I wonder is you could possibbly clear something up for me. In the Bonobo article it states: "According to A. Zihlman Bonobo body proportions closely resemble those of Australopithecus. Richard Dawkins, in his book The Ancestor's Tale, proposes that chimpanzees and bonobos are descended from Australopithecus Gracile type species (see Homininae); in other words, the ancestors of chimpanzees and bonobos would be some of the Australopithecus afarensis."

As you are likely aware I reworded some of this. Unfortunately, my knowledge of the terminology used is insufficient to properly copy edit it. My first issue is with the phrase "Australopithecus Gracile type species". I am unaware of what "gracile" means in this context, but I get the feeling it's something along the lines of a type species or a general description of the genus. The Australopithecus article seems to use the term "Gracile australopiths" in this way, so I suspect "… chimpanzees and bonobos are descended from Australopithecus Gracile type species (see Homininae)" could be reworded to "… chimpanzees and bonobos are descended from a Gracile australopith (see Homininae)", which would seem to be more grammatically sound.

"… the ancestors of chimpanzees and bonobos would be some of the Australopithecus afarensis." also confuses me slightly; I have not read Dawkins' book (although I plan to at some point), so cannot quite tell what it's supposed to mean. Is it supposed to be "… the ancestors of chimpanzees and bonobos would be the same as those of of the Australopithecus afarensis." or "… the ancestors of chimpanzees and bonobos would be (a group of) Australopithecus afarensis."?

Finally, is "Australopithecus" in "According to A. Zihlman Bonobo body proportions closely resemble those of Australopithecus" meaning the genus in general? If so, would "According to A. Zihlman Bonobo body proportions closely resemble those of australopiths" be accurate?

Thanks in advance.

Alphathon /'æɫfə.θɒn/ ^(talk) 15:37, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

P.S. You're welcome with regard to the image(s)/explanations.

Hello! I am not a big fan of terminology, but there's clearly a logic behind it: I have not seen Australopiths in the scientific literature. I guess it is Australopithecines, but this includes Paranthropus which, everybody agrees now, represent a separate branch, and in my opinion the evidence for their relation to Gorillas is overwhelming. When Dawkins says “gracile” Australopithecines he wants to exclude the Paranthropus which are "robust".I do not know exactly which fossil A. Zihlman has taken as reference for her Australopithecus, I would guess it is Lucy, the only quite complete known at the time (1978), now there is sediba who has a very similar morphology and it is interesting to compare its skull with the skull of a Bonobo (I have a nice picture but think it is not free). "A group of Australopithecus afarensis" might be better. Hope this helps . Cheers. Pierre http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/OurInnerApe/faq.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.52.127.109 (talk) 18:27, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You could also click on the signature button or located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your username or IP address and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you. --SineBot (talk) 16:20, 21 October 2011 (UTC) Allright, thank you! Pierre90.52.127.109 (talk) 11:43, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Race

Dear Petit Pierre. I have received your email but I would rather have this conversation here on wikipedia as it is of general relevance. I removed your editions because they were not about race, but about recent findings related to the dispersal of humans from Africa. As far as I know no publications have yet related the findings of Neanderthal and Denisovan admixture to questions of the concept of race. This means that by suggesting that these findings are relevant to the topic of race is in effect original research which is not permissible in wikipedia. When the admixture findings start being mentions in articles that explicitly relate them to the contemporar issue of race, then we can include that information in the article. You additions are appreciated, but be sure to always use sources that are directly related to the topic of the article - we cannot use sources that are about other topics, but which we personally think are relevant to the topic of the article. Also, thanks for your article on race and Africa. I've quickly skimmed it and it looks good. However there is no need to include it as it is by now completely standard knowledge that humans originated in Africa, this is also already mentioned. The information you included did not add anything to that knowledge except the findings on neanderthal/denisovan admixture which in a sense weakens rather than strengthens the recent out-of-africa model of human evolution. Also note that we do not allow authors to include references to their own writings in wikipedia. You should read our policy on synthesis and original research to understand the quite subtle issues of how sources can be used to support the inclusion of information. Best, ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:44, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Dear Magnus! I am quite new. I don't know how to answer on Wiki. I do not think race is mentioned in the original "Out of Africa" papers. My paper is entirely on what "Out of Africa" means for "race". Would you accept a citation for a french journal? As you know biologist no longer talk about "race"". But Svante Paabo, the senior author of the 3 papers I quoted, states in his seminars, as conclusions: "We are all Africans" that's for "Out of Africa" and "We always mixed" that's for Neanderthals and Denisovans. Actually, the simple fact that we were at least 3 main groups Cro-magnon Neanderthals and Denisovans, only 30.000 years ago, changes our view of mankind and racism. I could explain that, but i will need 2 or 3 more lines. If you look at the "Human race" page, the first citation is basically that "We are all Africans", but there is no reference.https://fr.wikiquote.org/wiki/Race_humaine Cheers P'tit Pierre

You answer simply by editing the section where I posted the comment, but for the sake of easy communication I'll answer here. It is true that race is not mentioned in the originbal out of africa papers, but it is frequently mentioned in textbooks on human evolution - which would be the best possible source for these kinds of claims. In principle there is nothing wrong with a citation of a french journal, but in this case it would seem unnecessary since there is an abundance of English language, high profile works on the topic. Any mention of the relevance of the neanderthal/denisovan evidence for concepts of race would have to be cited to works (preferably maintream secondary sources - rather than recent articles in specialized journals) that explicitly make that connection. Lectures by Pääbo will not do as sources of course as they are not verifiable. best, Magnus

Dear Magnus! Thanks for your answers. I do not think that many people realize that we have VERY RECENT african origin, that at the time of early egyptians many of us were still black. Then, if it is so obvious, why discussing the multiregional model with afriican ancestors dating back to 2 million years? I am afraid I will not convince you, Cheers anyway P'tit Pierre 90.52.127.109 (talk) 19:32, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Allright, if you want to say that race does not exist, it is fine with me. Cheers! P'tit Pierre — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.52.127.109 (talk) 18:03, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I hope I am saying something a little more nuanced than that.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:24, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Dear Maunus, before you delete my 2 lines, please read the title of the reference, it talks about “admixture and the first modern human dispersals into southeast Asia » it is in a human genetics journal, I have added a few word saying that 40.000 years ago there were 3 human subspecies and today there’s only one.. The addition is directly relevant to models of human evolution and the first sentence of this short section explains why this is important for « race ».The book by Jobling, Hurles and Tyler-Smith, 2004, is the major reference in human genetics and discusses race. Please remember that the page is about the classification of humans. P'titPierreP'tit Pierre (talk) 18:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I will read the book. However, being from 2004 it is impossible that this book discusses Neanderthal and Denisovan admixture since these findings are much more recent. You should remove that part of the paragraph you inserted since it is not supported by a source.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:24, 25 October 2011 (UTC).

That's why I have added the reference about "admixture and the first modern human dispersals into southeast Asia" I think it is important to mention Denisovans, it is fantastic to discover a new group of humans this way, we had no idea about them only 2 years ago. Cheers, P'tit PierreP'tit Pierre (talk) 18:34, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the denisovan admixture is a really important finding, but the papers about that do not discuss race to my knowledge. That means that any conclusions about the relevance of the denisovan findings to race are original research and therefore not permissible for inclusion.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:53, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The papers do not discuss race because they consider that races do not exist in humans, but there have been at least 3 sub-species. All the best! P'tit PierreP'tit Pierre (talk) 19:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)s

Evolutionary trees

Hello again. I've noticed that so far you have added three "tree" images to Homininae. Unfortunately there are a few issues with them. The first is format - images on Wikipedia are generally preferred in one of three formats, depending on the content: JPEGs for photos, PNGs for photos with transparency and for diagrams and SVGs for diagrams/maps where appropriate. PDFs are not ideal as they a) require a plugin to be read and b) are not easily edited. If possible it would be preferable if they were uploaded as either PNGs of SVGs. If you need help with this then I can provide it.

You may also want to look at these:

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images
• Wikipedia:Picture tutorial
• Wikipedia:Graphics tutorials

Second, is that Family trees can also be produced using a template. This allows the "members" of the tree to be linked etc. It also allows users to search pages for the text and allows them to be read by screen readers etc for blind/vision-impaired individuals. More info on that can be found at WP:Family trees; it deals primarily with actual families (such as royal families), but I see no reason why it can't also be used for evolutionary trees. Unfortunately, the syntax can be quite complex, so again if you want to do this but need help just ask.

Alphathon /'æɫfə.θɒn/ ^(talk) 13:58, 27 October 2011 (UTC).

Dear Alphathon, Thanks again for your help! I like tne way the tree is done at the beginning of the Human Evolution page (yellow, pink, blue and green colors, + links) but I really don't know how to do it.Also, some of the Boxed do not fit, so I would guess it is not very easy to product and/or correct. At least I have checked that if you open one of my figures on the page, you can then copt it to PowerPoint with good results. I am planning to add one more tree, I am not so good with computers, but if you can help me I will try to do it in a way that Wikipedia would like better. Cheers! P'tit PierreP'tit Pierre (talk) 14:59, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd be more than happy to lend a hand (although I don't have a lot of time on my hands at the moment; I should be clearer next week) . The one on the Human Evolution page is more of a timeline than an evolutionary tree, which do tend to be rather more complicated to edit. They are however rather diverse/flexible, and there are various examples around wikipedia (e.g. Xbox 360#Timeline of hardware models, Megadeth#Timeline). More info on those can be found at Wikipedia:Timeline and it's sub-pages. As I said though, I'm certainly willing to help set one up. Alphathon /'æɫfə.θɒn/ ^(talk) 15:17, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I've fixed the space for you; there was a {{clear}} at the end of the previous sentence, which forces everything after it to sit underneath any inline images, so in this case forced the last sentence underneath the "Evolution of Sexuality in Homlininae" image. It is there to prevent stacking of the images, but needs to be at the end of the section (otherwise things like that happen). Alphathon /'æɫfə.θɒn/ ^(talk) 12:52, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Evolution, migration and admixture of the genus Homo

Hi. I've just given Evolution, migration and admixture of the genus Homo a bit of a copyedit, but am not sure it really belongs in the Homininae article; would it not be better suited to Homo? It seems a bit out-of-scope as it is. In other words, Homininae is an overview article, so anything about a specific subset (in this case Homo) belongs in its article (Homo) instead.

Also, there are a few things that I thought I should mention:

1. In English, the comma (,) is used to separate multiples of 1000 (so 1 million = 1,000,000 not 1.000.000), while the full stop/period (.) is used as the decimal separator (so ½ = 0.5 not 0,5). I understand that this is different from many other languages (I know at least German and Japanese do it the other way around and I'm pretty sure other languages do as well) so it's an understandable mistake, just try to bear it in mind.
2. Try to avoid repeatedly linking the same articles. Generally articles are only linked once within an article/section. See WP:repeatlink for more info.
3. Wikipedia is written using a very formal and neutral tone, and is also written in the third person. As such, phrases such as "We are all Africans!" is inappropriate (it is both written in the first person and written in an informal way). Along the same lines try to avoid contractions (don't for do not, won't for will not etc). See WP:tone for more info.
4. Try to avoid typographic/"curly" quotation marks and apostrophes ( “” and ’ ); instead use typewriter/"straight" ones ( "" and ' ) - see MOS:PUNCT.
5. I notice you have included various images within your "family trees". That makes the trees themselves derivative works of those images, so the source of the image needs to be acknowledged. This is easiest to do when it is uploaded (just select derivative work and tell it which files it is derived from) but can also be done after the fact.
6. When you wish to pluralise something, you need not "pipe" it, just add an s or es on the end of the link; e.g. type [[derivative work]]s rather than [[derivative work|derivative works]]. This isn't so much a policy as a time saving measure, but it does also make it slightly easier to edit as well.

This is all pretty minor stuff really; I just thought I'd point it out sooner rather than later (prevention is better than a cure after all).

Alphathon /'æɫfə.θɒn/ ^(talk) 19:58, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

RE: "Matrix"

Quote: 1 - "We are all coming from the same source. We are all getting out of the same matrix. We are all Africans modified over time."

Quote: 2 - "We all come from the same source. We all get out of the same matrix. We are all Africans modified over time."

I would personally word it as: "We all come from the same source. We all come from the same matrix. We are all Africans, modified over time." However, I'm honestly not entirely sure what the second sentence is supposed to mean; I suspect something about it is lost in translation. Matrix isn't a word that is commonly used in English (at least not in general conversation, the movie notwithstanding). In this sense, does it mean womb? (That's one of the meanings listed on its Wiktionary page.) If so, womb would almost certainly be a better word to use, and I would word it like this: "We all come from the same source. We all came from the same womb. We are all Africans, modified over time." However, I don't think it really fits in a Wikipedia article. For one thing it has the afore mentioned issue of being in the first person, and it's a little too poetic for an encyclopædia. The purpose of anything written on here should really be to convey facts, so really only the final sentence has any place here (if re-written in the third person e.g. "(All) modern humans originated in Africa"). Alphathon /'æɫfə.θɒn/ ^(talk) 18:10, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Your editing

Pierre, I think you need to think more about how you are expanding articles. You're keen, but you're muddying articles like Evolutionary neuroscience and Homininae, not improving them. On Homininae, you've added material that is biased, e.g. supporting ancestry of Paranthropus to Gorillas, and added images that do not have consensus support for the evolutionary trees you depict. Please read WP:NPOV carefully. You need to ensure that you do not push your own point of view but instead carefully work from a range of up-to-date reliable sources to reflect what they say. On Evolutionary neuroscience, you added substantial material on the neurodevelopment of model organisms and the genetics of human mental retardation, but these sections have nothing to do with evolutionary neuroscience. Why did you add this material when it is irrelevant to the topic? You need to find sources that directly discuss the development and current state of the scientific field of evolutionary neuroscience if you want to improve the article. Fences&Windows 01:27, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

No, material on neurodevelopment of model organisms is not "obviously related" to Evolutionary neuroscience. Please read WP:Original research. You seem to have copied the material largely from Brain, which you must not do without attribution. See Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. If you use the words of others, even other Wikipedia editors, this must be noted in the edit summary or the discussion page of the article.

If you do want to write about the neurodevelopment of model organisms in relation to evolution neuroscience, you need to work from sources that actually connect the neurodevelopment of these model organisms to the scientific discipline of evolutionary neuroscience, a subset of Category:Subfields and areas of study related to evolutionary biology - that's what the article is about. You must not add material that is not about the topic to an article, or that you personally like. It is not progress to expand the article in the direction you proposed, and it is not "destructive" to keep the article on topic. See Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Stay on topic.

You seem to want to be working on Evolution of the brain, a recently written article that is very poor and does need work. It really should be a subset of Evolution of the nervous system, which would cover the whole of the evolution of nervous systems that we're entirely lacking, and much of the material probably belongs in Evolution of the human brain, which we also lack.

The material on the genetics underlying X-linked mental retardation in humans belongs in X-Linked mental retardation. The text was lifted from that page already. I've replaced the table that was in that page, with your text, and attributed the source in my edit summary.

If you actually want to expand our coverage of the field of Evolutionary neuroscience (read WP:NODEADLINE to see why it has sat for so long as a stub) then try Evolutionary Neuroscience by Jon H. Kaas, Academic Press, 2009, ISBN 0123750806.

On Homininae, you may have worked from some sources, but you need to reflect the consensus scientific opinion on extant and extinct species and their ancestry, not that you prefer. If you refer to a book like Dawkins', you should note where in the book he states this - and a popular science book is probably not the best source to work from. You also used an online biology dictionary - you should mainly work from scholarly literature on articles like this. That website is written by one geneticist who "became increasingly dissatisfied with the standard explanation of evolution."[1] Not a good source to rely on.

Also you wrote "Mainstream views on Australopithecines evolution can be found in the "human evolution" page...", please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid to see that we don't refer to other Wikipedia articles like this. And our articles should not present differing views, that is a point-of-view fork. Fences&Windows 12:20, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

A more general note - I'm not trying to discourage you from editing. It's good to see keen editors who want to improve articles that have sat neglected for years. However, you've plunged very quickly into making big changes to several articles. You might want to make smaller changes or work on starting new articles on lesser known topics. Always work from good sources (and that means the scholarly literature for science and medicine, e.g. see WP:MEDRS), and always try to avoid writing in favour of what you personally believe or support. You can also get help from Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology and Wikipedia:WikiProject Genetics. And do take time to read through our policies and guidelines to get an idea of the norms of Wikipedia editing. Fences&Windows 12:37, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

You might want to help improve Evolution of nervous systems, which I created out of Nervous system#Comparative anatomy and evolution. Fences&Windows 13:09, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

"Well it’s easy, you’ve trashed all my work and now you’re left with an almost blank page". I've explained in detail why that material you added to Evolutionary neuroscience was not relevant. You can ask for a second opinion at the WikiProjects I linked to, also Wikipedia:WikiProject Neuroscience. Please do this - collaborative editing is the key to success in Wikipedia.

I am not a vandal: please read WP:Assume good faith and Wikipedia:Vandalism#What is not vandalism. We can discuss how to expand the article, but the content needs to be directly relevant to the topic of the scientific field of evolutionary neuroscience. Please don't take this personally and please actually read what I've said. There's a dangerous way to edit called "I didn't hear that" - please don't go down that route. Fences&Windows 13:46, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Homininae "dispute"

"It is strange what you say about H. sapiens neanderthalensis, you know that I am not keen on names and I usually say neanderthal, but if you use something else it should be H. sapiens neanderthalensis, the genomic data has proved some admixture of modern humans (H. sapiens sapiens) with Neandertals and Denisovans. It is only 4% and 6% respectively at most, but it means thousands of genes and there can be no doubt about it. It means that neandertals and cro-magnon have mixed and had viable fertile children, which means that it is the same species by definition: H. sapiens, with 3 subspecies Cro-magnon (or modern humans), Neanderthals and Denisovans."

As I mentioned, I am not qualified to judge whether or not what you say is true/accurate. From what I understand, the classification of Neanderthals is not as cut-and-dry as that, that is, some scientists call them Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, while others call them Homo neanderthalensis. This is reflected in the Neanderthal article in the first paragraph, which reads: "Neanderthals are classified either as a subspecies of modern humans (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) or as a separate human species (Homo neanderthalensis)." Now, again, I am nothing more than a fairly well educated layman, so this may be out of date or something; I don't know. If it is out of date (i.e. consensus has since been reached) then labelling them H. sapiens neanderthalensis is probably fine, but if that is the case then the Neanderthal article needs to be changed to rectify this issue. If it is not out of date (i.e. some scientists in the field still call them H. neanderthalensis) then this needs to be reflected in what you write. From what I understand the definition of "species" is fairly loose, so maybe that is where any disagreement within the scientific community, if there is any, lies.

"Some advice on how to handle the "dispute"?"

First of all, don't consider it a conflict with one side vs. another. As far as I can tell, there is nothing at all wrong with any of the content that you have added, it is simply the manner in which it is presented and/or where it is presented (similar to how the migration/admixture bit belonged in Homo rather than Homininae). It also seems pretty clear to me that any policy violations you have committed were simply down to either not being aware of them or not understanding them properly, likely as a result of the language barrier.

Fences&Windows wants the same thing that you and I do - to present the best possible version of the article. Just discuss it and see where it takes us. It is possible that some of your additions may be removed altogether, but it is far more likely that they will simply be moved and/or refactored to comply with Wikipedia policy. Additionally, I would suggest discussing anything relating to it on the Homininae talk page rather than on individual users' talk pages, as it allows for a more open discussion, and allows other interested parties to offer up their opinions.

I hope this has been helpful. Alphathon /'æɫfə.θɒn/ ^(talk) 17:13, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

"The definition of a species is straightforward: if 2 individuals can mate and have fertile offsprings they belong to the same species, so showing that we have some genetic material coming from Neanderthal proves that our ancestors and Neanderthals were the same species."

I am familiar with this basic definition of species, but I was under the impression that it isn't quite robust enough to cover all scenarios (and thought this may be one of them). See: Species#Difficulty of defining "species" and identifying particular species and Species problem. Perhaps something like Subspecies#Doubtful cases may apply (i.e. labelling them as H. (sapiens) neanderthalensis). As I have said, I'm not an expert by any means, but I was under the impression that the "boundaries" of what is and isn't a species weren't particularly well defined. A good example of what I mean would be ring species (for which I believe there is currently no consensus regarding their definition as either one or several species). At what point is the distinction made between species and subspecies? If 10% of one group can interbreed successfully with 10% of another group are they all members of both groups part of the same species? What about 0.1%? What about a single individual of each group? This, I feel, is where the problem potentially lies.

As a layman, I cannot really comment, but since we have sources that use both, unless there is now some (provable) scientific consensus on the issue Wikipedia cannot take sides. Whether or not you can convince me (or any other user) that Neanderthals are a subspecies of H. sapiens is irrelevant; what matters is what the position of the scientific community is as a whole. You may wish to read WP:FRINGE. I am not for a moment suggesting that calling Neanderthals a subspecies of H. sapiens is a fringe theory, but the rules which apply are listed there. If there is no broad consensus between two opposing positions, both must be presented. If there is then it must be demonstrated. As I said in the last post, it is quite possible that the lack of consensus no longer exists (i.e. the Neanderthal article is "out of date"); if this is the case, it should be easy to demonstrate.

Regardless of that though, that was just one example and doesn't really have much bearing on the discussion of whether your additions are biassed, and how this may be rectified if they are.

"Now, if you look at the first discussions on the discussion page, it is all about names and it is boring."

I fail to see how that matters. Just because a previous discussion was boring doesn't mean that where it took place isn't appropriate for other (possibly less boring) discussions. On one occasion a lecture theatre may be used to give a talk about sewage, or train spotting or any number of things; that doesn't mean it cannot or should not be used to give talks about "more interesting"* subjects. The page is divided up into different sections so that individual discussions are kept separate, so previous discussions have little or no bearing on current ones. Where I am talking about specifically that it should specifically be discussed is Talk:Homininae#Rewrite has added personal bias.

*Whether something is interesting is pretty subjective, so to say something is more or less interesting than something else isn't entirely accurate as it is a personal opinion.

Wikipedia is a community project; if you aren't willing to discuss your additions with the community, however boring that discussion may be, then perhaps Wikipedia isn't for you. Discussing things user-to-user is sometimes appropriate, but when more than two users are discussing something, when the discussion is about the article in general or when a discussion is in the "public interest", it is a lot more productive to do so on the article's talk page than just between individual users. You have to remember that articles belong to everyone (or no-one, depending on how you look at it), not just the user(s) who wrote them, and as such everyone has a right to voice their opinions. Discussing article issues on user talk pages rather than on the talk page of the article in question stifles collaboration and is antithetical to Wikipedia's goals.

"Can you imagine what it means to sequence a genome? It is still a huge amount of work, not to mention the nightmare of working with ancient "dirty" DNA in small amounts. The Neanderthal genome is a fabulous achievement, like walking on the moon, so it deserves to be known."

I don't disagree that it is quite an achievement or that the general public should know about it. However, Wikipedia isn't here to "publicise" things, it is an encyclopædia. If content is biassed or isn't within the scope of an article then it should be (re)moved or re-worded, no matter how "important" it is. The migration/admixture of Homo is a great example - it is exclusively about Homo, and has no bearing on Pan or Gorilla, so didn't belong within Homininae. (Re)moving it has nothing to do with whether it is accurate or "important", it is simply because it is inappropriately placed. I assume the importance of it wouldn't mean you'd put info about it on an article about cars, or a country, or a famous actor, and the same applies here.

So, in a nut shell, all I'm saying is please discuss any issues that people bring up, and do so openly; it is in everybody's best interest if you do so. Don't take it personally if your edits are undone or altered - that's how Wikipedia works, and it does so by design. Also, remember there is no deadline - we don't have to add in missing information now. It is not detrimental if we take a few days to discuss content before it is incorporated into an article, and it is likely to improve the overall end product.

Alphathon /'æɫfə.θɒn/ ^(talk) 21:03, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Re: Evolution of human intelligence

There's a few outstanding issues with your edits to Evolution of human intelligence.[2] First, please remember that we generally don't link to subheadings in article space. Second, when we write "The paradox of Homo floresiensis", we use headings instead of sentences. Third, the content you added is unsourced. Viriditas (talk) 10:24, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

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