User talk:Stemonitis/Archive30

DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.

This archive page covers approximately the dates between November 15, 2010 and January 26, 2011.

Post replies to the main talk page, copying or summarising the section you are replying to if necessary.

Template:Royal Tunbridge Wells

As this issue affects a number of templates, where would be a good place to discuss the issue so that it gets a wide imput of opinion? I'm not saying that either of us is wrong here. If you know of previous discussion on this issue, then please point me towards it. Mjroots (talk) 12:43, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I see no precedent for adding navboxes to articles which aren't mentioned in the navbox. I appreciate that that's something of a side-issue here. I'm not sure where would be a good place for discussion. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:34, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Colpophyllia natans taxonomy help?

Hiya Stemonitis, would you be willing to help me with a couple of questions on the taxonomy of Colpophyllia natans? As far as I've been able to ascertain, Houttuyn described the species under Madrepora natans (see [1] and a few others I added as refs) (appears to be given in the actual text as Madrepora meandrites natans). In the article, I've described this "transfer" to Colpophyllia as "subsumed under", but I don't know the correct terminology or quite how to describe it. Could you make a better suggestion? Also, I've given Milne-Edwards & Haime and Lamarck in brackets—is that acceptable or should they be fleshed out? I'm just starting on the article, so I've made a mess of it at the moment! Thanks, Maedin\^talk 13:03, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Parentheses have a quite specific meaning in citing taxonomic authorities (which I don't recall being obvious in any of our articles about the subject; I must look into that). If the authority of a species is in brackets, that means that the species has been moved between genera since the original description, and correspondingly, an authority without brackets means that the species has not moved genus in the meanwhile. In this case, if the species was originally described as Madrepora natans by Houttuyn in 1772, then the name Colpophyllia natans (asumming it's ultimately based on Houttuyn's description, which I'm sure it is in this case) is attributed to "(Houttuyn, 1772)". By similar reasoning, it seems that Meandrina was the original genus in which Lamarck described Meandrina gyrosa, which is therefore attributable to "Lamarck, 1816", without parentheses.

"Subsumed" rather makes it sound like one genus was "sunk" into the other (i.e. placed in synonymy with it). It seems more likely in this case, and most others, that a new genus was split off the existing one. ITIS gives the authority for Colpophyllia as "Milne-Edwards & Haime, 1848", which is indeed after the description of Madrepora natans (by the Principle of Priority, the older genus is very unlikely to be subsumed into the younger one). I can't think of any circumstance in which a genus would have an authority in parentheses.

To summarise, these are the names you need, with their proper authorities:

• Madrepora natans Houttuyn, 1772
• Colpophyllia natans (Houttuyn, 1772)
• Meandrina gyrosa Lamarck, 1816
• Colpophyllia Milne-Edwards & Haime, 1848

I hope this helps; nomenclature can be a real beast to understand. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:33, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I see the relevant explanation is in the article Author citation (zoology), although it could do with being made a bit clearer, I think. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:24, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining so clearly! I knew I had read of the proper forms before, but couldn't remember where I'd seen it and a quick search didn't help. It wouldn't have been as helpful as you, anyway. I've made alterations to the text based on your corrections and hopefully it's okay now. (Though feel free to edit if you spot something that still needs to be changed.) I appreciate your help and time. Maedin\^talk 18:53, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

May I bug you again? Why would a scientific paper ([2]) be giving Colpophyllia natans Muller, 1775? A Gsearch reveals that several others do, too, but I can't find the original material or an explanation for the discrepancy. Any ideas? Is it the age of the material? The "floating corals" article is 1962 and I notice others citing Muller are from a few decades ago. Maedin\^talk 21:48, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

It's probably a mistake. Errors can quite easily get propagated, because people don't generally check back to the original publication of the basionym if the paper they're writing is not focussed on nomenclature. In this case, it would appear that someone cited the wrong author once – possibly confusing C. natans with Colpophyllia amaranthus (O. F. Müller, 1775) – and presumably that was subsequently copied by others. (The lack of parentheses, at least, has to be a mistake, because the genus Colpophyllia wasn't erected until 1848, so Müller's species cannot have been described in that genus.) Sometimes older names only come to light after a while and usurp the previously used name or authority, but this looks more like a mistake to me. I see no sign of a basionym authored by Müller, and even if both authors had attempted to describe the species under the same name, the older one would be valid. There could be any number of complications that I haven't thought of, but since all the recent, reliable sources are unanimous in ascribing C. natans to "(Houttuyn, 1772)", I think it's safe enough. --Stemonitis (talk) 22:32, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I wondered human error and nearly ignored the mistake, but was concerned that there may have been some taxonomy history I was missing. Your reasoning is reassuring, thank you (again) for responding so helpfully. Maedin\^talk 08:24, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Plasmodium

A quick note on my undo of your last edit of Plasmodium. The subgenus listing is very helpful to students of this genus. It is unfortuately incomplete - a problem I am still working on. It is presumed that species within a subgenus are likely to be more closely related that those in another subgenus. This is a testable hypothesis and one that has to be done for most of the species in this genus.

Also knowing that a species belongs to a particular subgenus gives to an idea of the host range and the morphology of the species.

This list probably should be on a seperate page with a link to the main one like a lot of pages this article has spawned already but given its incompleteness I am currently relucant to do this. DrMicro (talk) 12:44, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I think User:Smartse has already made my point in response. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:50, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I opened up a discussion on the article talk page. --Kleopatra (talk) 06:58, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Concerning Primicaris

How come we want to replace Primicaris with a redirect?--Mr Fink (talk) 13:40, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Think of it as a two-step process. First, I removed all the material that was not supported by a citation to a reliable source. Since nothing remained other than the assertion that it was part of the Chenjiang biota, I redirected it to the list of Chenjiang biota. Of course, I did this in a single step, which may have made the justification less apparent. If you wish to replace the redirect with a well referenced article on what is no doubt a fascinating and worthy subject, then please do so. If you need help getting hold of papers, I have access to most journals through my institution, and I would be happy to help provide what you need. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:55, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I was just concerned: and yes, access to papers would be very nice, like "Reconsideration of the supposed naraoiid larva from the Early Cambrian Chengjiang Lagerstätte, South China" [3]

Also, if you don't mind, do you happen to know anything about the presence of Pseudonaraoia in the Chengjiang? Aside from the mention of a species, all the information I've found about Pseudonaraoia is about the Ordovician species from the Czech Republic.--Mr Fink (talk) 14:17, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, send me a Wikipedia email, to give me your email address, and I'll send you that paper. I haven't been able to find out much about Chinese Pseudonaraoia, but according to Li et al., 2007 (doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2007.03.017), it is now considered a junior synonym of Naraoia, so you may need to search under that name instead. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:58, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Aciculopoda

The DYK project (nominate) 06:03, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

AWB

Thanks for your note. I was using the AutoWikiBrowser, which lacks a preview feature. I don't understand why there was a colon there to begin with, or why AWB moved it. I do know that colons before templates can have unexpected results. I'll post a note about this to the AWB developer page, and watch out for it happening again. Thanks for catching my error.   Will Beback  talk  08:52, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I've done some tests and I'm stymied. Anyway, I'll watch out for it in the future. Thanks again.   Will Beback  talk  09:25, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I figured out how to reproduce the problem, reported it, and the developer has already put it on the list of repairs for the next version.[4]   Will Beback  talk  21:58, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. Many thanks for taking the time to investigate. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:58, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Atlantic horseshoe crab

Thanks for letting me know about my erroronous edit on Atlantic horseshoe crab. I am checking all the wikis that was changed due to this and reverting back the changes. I appreciate your patience. --Sreejith K (talk) 10:00, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for message

Thanks for your message on my talk page but I should apologise for my rudeness, both because I should have split it some time back so that is a good thing (plus the links linking to the section on articles are better as they link to an article nor a paragraph, which is can change) and because your article-wide clean-up edit has improved the page (I wish I could write clearly!), so you are clearly not one of those deletionist who go around getting a power-kick by overly enforcing the rulebook. Keep up the good work and see you around! --Squidonius (talk) 20:34, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Concerning Chengjiang Cambrioerniids

You think these [5] would be useful for the Chengjiang Fauna articles? Or should I work on them some more?--Mr Fink (talk) 05:37, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Feedback

I started editing with Wikipedia in October and I am still in learning mode. I have been enlarging and creating articles on a number of species. You can see which ones here. It would be helpful if you could give me some feedback. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 14:43, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Crayfish

Try getting some consensus before rehashing this edit war. Until then, your changing a verbatim quote in order to fit some non-existent policy will be treated as edit warring. Please read the policy. Even one reversion can be considered edit warring.μηδείς (talk) 16:42, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

{{uw-3rr}}

This is wrong on so many levels. You claimed to have "nothing more to say", but here you continue, and apparently with no sense of irony. Don't template the regulars, and don't claim to have the weight of consensus behind you when you haven't shown an interest in the article before and don't therefore know its history. (Most of the edits to crayfish are mine, and I've been editing it since 2005. That "original editor" you spoke of is more than likely me, so you can hardly claim to have their support.) You are a relatively new editor, and you seem to still have a few things to learn. Go and read the WP:MOS and try to understand why it says what it says. Go and read the "five pillars". WP:BRD, which I mentioned in our discussions, means that if your changes are reverted (which they were), you should then engage in discussion rather than simply making them again. Bear that in mind. You might try reading WP:MASTODON, too. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:56, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Babies and bathwater of fleas

The first paragraph of fleas implies that birds are mammals. I fixed it and added more links (I feel that more links is better than fewer incase the reader wants more information). This is judgement-call. When you reverted for overlinking, you made the first paragraph read as birds being mammals. ¿Would not have it been better to drain the water be delinking, rather than reverting to an incorrect version like thus?:

“Flea is the common name for insects of the order Siphonaptera which are wingless insects with mouthparts adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood. Fleas are external parasites, living by hematophagy off the blood of animals with hair or feathers which happen to be warm-blooded (homeothermic) (including bats and humans) and birds.”

Unless you have objections, I shall repair the paragraph again tomorrow with fewer links. I truly believe that it is a better policy to drain bathwater than throw it out with the baby still in it.

71.138.130.209 (talk) 14:49, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

No, the text ran "living by hematophagy off the blood of mammals (including bats and humans) and birds". This in no way implies that birds are mammals. That would be implied by "living by hematophagy off the blood of mammals (including bats, humans and birds)", which is quite different. Your text also suffered from overlinking (including linking to "Siphonaptera", which inevitably redirects back to flea), introduced a spelling error, and was more ambiguous than the text it replaced. "Fleas are external parasites, living by hematophagy off the blood of animalss with hair or feathers which happen to be warm-blooded (homeothermic) (including bats and humans) and birds" could conceivably be understood to mean that the hairs or feathers are warm-blooded, which is not the intended meaning. Also, mammals and birds don't just "happen to be" warm-blooded; there are of course longstanding selective advantages to that physiology. I didn't have room to explain all this in the edit summary, but for all these reasons, I thought the previous text was better than your replacement. Bear in mind that more detailed explanations of everything in the lead will be given in later sections. Writing the lead is basically making a précis of the existing information, so I would suggest you work on the main text of the article; it certainly needs it. The section on life cycle and habitat, for instance, is almost entirely unreferenced. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:04, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Thousands separator is not a comma in SI.

Check this out [6]. You can use "& thinsp;" as a 1000s separator but no separator is needed from numbers between 1000 and 9999. Dger (talk) 03:32, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

That link states "Spaces may be used as a thousands separator (1000000) in contrast to commas or periods (1,000,000 or 1.000.000) in order to reduce confusion resulting from the variation between these forms in different countries." Here, there was no confusion. (It's also not an SI issue, because the figure involved had no units, but that's just a pedantic tangent.) That aside, we both know that the real purpose of your edit was to insert your image, and that was the reason it was reverted. The image is not perfectly focussed and shows nothing that is not already evident from the taxobox image. It serves no encyclopaedic purpose, and was therefore removed. As I'm sure you know, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of images, but rather an illustrated encyclopaedia, and your image does not illustrate anything additional. When I rewrote the article, I chose what I considered the best way of illustrating it at the time, and I see no way in which that has changed. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:02, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe the image adds something to the article. For one thing it is actually in "leaf litter" while the taxobox image is not. Regarding focus, the image I added has as good or better focus than the taxbox image. As I said when adding the image, this 2700 strong order has only 1 representative image. You can't even get another image in the commons unless to click down through several layers. Two images are hardly excessive as you have asserted. I have seen your edits in other articles where the image gallery had grown excessive. They were reasonable removals. This was not IMHO.

Regarding the 1000s issue. Wikipedia has adopted the SI system and I don't believe that means there are two systems for reporting numbers one with commas and one without. That would seem rather strange but you may be right that only numbers without quantities can have commas. If so, that would mean this is the year 2,010. Or do we use another rule for dates? I am not trying to be troublesome but that is probably why this special rule was enacted by the SI people.

By the way, I do admire your work on these less traveled areas of Wikipedia. We both know that trying to get concensus on a millipede site might not happen for many months perhaps years. Few people ever look there. I only looked because I had this good picture of a very interesting looking creature and was able to identify it and determined it is a common one from the area. Dger (talk) 03:49, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't see that the number of species affects the appropriate number of images. A five-page article on one species could be expected to have several images, while a one-paragraph job on a speciose order would not. We can include links to the Commons to let people see further images. If the Commons category structure is complicated, then it would always be possible to create a page for the order and link to that, rather than requiring the reader to click through the category hierarchy.

I think we do indeed use two systems of numbers – one for figures with units (including those which fall outside the SI, like miles, minutes, etc.), and one for counts. Years have no units, and have never taken commas; I think they are best considered names of years, which just happen to contain only digits (unless you count the optional "A.D." or "C.E."). They certainly don't determine how we treat numbers in other contexts. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:16, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

This may be true but according to the Canadian Metric Practice Guide's "Rules for Writing Numbers" the only exception is for monetary values. It explicitly states "A space is not necessary with a four-digit group except wen required for consistency, eg, when it is in a column with other numbers having five or more digits.

Regarding the image issue, you may have gathered I am amateur nature photographer with over 700 pictures on Wikipedia, many of which have subsequently been used on websites all over the internet. Your contributions appear to be of the textual nature. The old adage that "a picture is worth a thousand words" isn't far from the truth in my humble opinion. You, correct me if I am wrong, do not value pictures this much. This is not the first picture of mine you have deleted so maybe I am a bit sensititve to this delete. I could suggest that it is you that should have gotten consensus before the deleting rather than me for my reversion. At any rate I still do not agree, in this case, with your actions. I would have created an article on the Nyssodesmus python (Python Millipede) excepting it would have been an orphan, many taxonomic levels deep. It seemed to me that someone trying to identfy this interesting creature would have at least found its name by including its picture in this order.

Finally, I think you should be more sensitive and reflective when you delete pictures. Wikipedia would be just one more boring encylopedia without all the photographs, illustrations, and other media peppered throughout its pages. What makes text more encyclopedic than a unique picture? (I could find no other pictures of this species in the commons.) Furthermore, consider the hours and expenses associated with capturing photographic images. I took this picture while walking a trail in the cloud forest of Costa Rica. It often takes many hours of walking and scanning trails and trees to spot interesting fauna and obtain an acceptable image. It is not as easy as paraphrasing published text. Cheers. Dger (talk) 09:40, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I think an article on the species would be great. I look forward to seeing it. Orphanhood can always be solved, so I wouldn't let that put you off. Contrary to your assumptions, I fully appreciate the value of images in illustrating the encyclopaedia, and I include them wherever appropriate. I do so, however, in an appropriate quantity. It is easy for enthusiastic photographers to overestimate the value of their own images to an encyclopaedic article. I'd explain further, but I'm running late. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:56, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree. My view is that there is one image in the body of the article. Taxobox image(s) shouldn't count. The image that was removed was "evidence" that these creatures live in the "leaf litter" the other image was not evidence of such behaviour. Cheers. Dger (talk) 18:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Arachnid#Opiliones

Hi Stemonitis. I don't understand this edit. As I read Wikipedia:SUMMARY#References, it seems to say that inline citations are required in summary-style sub-article. What have I overlooked? Best, Stfg (talk) 12:34, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes. I would appear to have been doing it wrong for a while, in that case. Sadly, it will take quite a bit of work to scan through the main article to find the facts mentioned in the lead in order to re-use their citations elsewhere. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:37, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I've restored {Unrefenced section} for now. Happy Christmas :) --Stfg (talk) 12:59, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Norway lobster

Hi, there was a move discussion about this article recently (I think you even commented in it); anyway, the result was no consensus to move (from Norway lobster), so would you mind moving it back there pending a new consensus? Thanks,--Kotniski (talk) 17:13, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

There was no consensus to move to langoustine, which was indeed a very bad idea. The proponent of that move explicitly approved a move to the scientific name, and it also seems the best title to me. I was therefore bold enough to go ahead and make that move. Do you have any reason to believe it is not the best title? "Norway lobster" is the most authoritative "common name" for the species, and there were doubts in some quarters as to whether it was good enough. In such circumstances, the scientific name really is the only alternative. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:16, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, I don't object particularly strongly if no-one else does, it just seems bad form to unilaterally overrule the explicit result of a community discussion (I wouldn't have expected an admin to behave like that, so I thought you must have forgotten the discussion; it also looks a bit odd that you chose to edit the redirect to stop anyone reversing your bold move - which they should be free to do under the BRD principle - anyway, I'll assume good faith and that you know what you're doing.)--Kotniski (talk) 17:30, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I interpret it as two quite separate questions. First, is it right to move the article to "langoustine"? There was no consensus in favour of that. Secondly, is it right to move the article to "Nephrops norvegicus"? This was mentioned although not discussed, and there was no expressed dissent. Incidentally, I was asked during a GA review to move "European lobster" to Homarus gammarus, and that seems a much less clear-cut case to me. (My plan is also to take this article down that route soon.) I think the scientific name really is the best title, and I haven't heard any strong opinions against that, and it's too long ago for me to remember why I created the article at the previous title. Still, I'm glad you're taking this in good faith, which truly is how it was intended. I'm not trying to override consensus; I just prefer to get on and do things when I can. As to the redirect, I did realise that classifying it would prevent quick reverts, although that wasn't of course the purpose of doing so. I think all redirects should be classified, and I reckoned that if I didn't do it straight away, it would probably get forgotten about. Anyway, thanks for taking an interest in an often overlooked part of Wikipedia. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:39, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Natal River Crab

Hello - was just wondering why you removed some of my Natal River Crab pics - were they too graphic? I have more pictures of Natal River Crabs and other crabs, shrimps and prawns - I need help identifying some of them. One picture is of a recently deceased female Natal River Crab with eggs under her tail. I am keeping an eye out for live specimens with eggs or babies. Let me know if and how you would like to see the pictures, and if you can help identify. Thanks Michaelwild (talk) 17:05, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Animals/Draft capitalization guidelines

User:ZooPro has suggested that I request your feedback and/or modifications to this proposal. If you think that it has worth, I would like to post an RfC, notify relevant groups, then announce it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Manual of Style. If this is unlikely to be helpful or achieve anything, please be frank. I won't be offended.

Quick links:

• Original discussion
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)#Capitalisation of common names of species
• Wikipedia:PROPOSAL#proposal
• Discussion between ZooPro and Anna Frodesiak at Anna's talk
• Discussion between ZooPro and Anna Frodesiak at ZooPro's talk

This message has been sent to:

1. User:Anthony Appleyard
2. User:Donlammers
3. User:Innotata
4. User:Intelligentsium
5. User:Materialscientist
6. User:Mokele
7. User:Rlendog
8. User:Ucucha
9. User:UtherSRG
10. User:Visionholder
11. User:ZooPro
12. User:Stemonitis
13. User:Shyamal

Many thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:52, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Posting in Encyclopedia

Hi Stemonitis,

I'm new in Wikipedia. I have thousands of good pictures in animals and plants. I have started to post a few of them in proper categories and adding about 60 in proper page of the English Encyclopedia, taking care - in my opinion - to avoid any duplication with the already existing ones. Now I have noted that about the half ot my posts in Encyclopedia have been corrected/deleted, mainly by yourself or by a kind of "robot".

May you kindly furnish me some help, just to avoid in future any mistakes?

Thanks a lot. Ettore — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ettore Balocchi (talk • contribs) 14:08, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

The trouble is that most of your edits (e.g., this one) simply add images without adding any value. The images you added illustrate nothing that was not already clear from the images already present in the article (typically in the taxobox). Wikipedia is not a repository of images, and any images included in an article must illustrate the text of the article. Adding multiple views of the same side of a butterfly does not improve the article. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:23, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for zapping the vandalism from my talk. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 18:14, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Not a problem; I do such things gladly. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:18, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Hypsibius dujardini

I don't quite understand this. Please advise. Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 21:24, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

It seems like a straightforward merger to me (too little content to warrant retaining separate articles), but you'd best check with User:Smith609 if you want to know the details. --Stemonitis (talk) 21:32, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I know it wasn't you. It is just the first time I've seen a species article redirected back to a genus article that lists many species simply because of lack of substantial content. It was sourced, is a notable species considering it is used in research, and could be expanded over time. Have you seen this sort of redirect before? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 21:38, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it seems perfectly reasonable to me. I have carried out similar mergers in the past, and they are sometimes contentious (which may be why I jumped to conclusions this time). As long as all the information, including references, has been replicated at the broader article, and that article isn't overwhelmed by it all, I can't see a problem. It looks like that is more or less the case here (the reference for the species authority hasn't been carried across, but then the whole species list is unsourced, and fixing that problem would probably provide a reference for the authority). I can't see any reason not to put the main image from your article in the taxobox at Hypsibius, and it's a shame that Martin didn't explicitly note in his edit summaries that the text came from your article (which our licensing requires), but beyond that it seems fine to me. --Stemonitis (talk) 21:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, well. I'm not sure I agree with the whole idea, but no big deal. I will fix the taxobox and add the image when I get a chance. Thanks for the good info. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:10, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Euprenolepis procera

The DYK project (nominate) 12:02, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Polydesmida/Megalodacne

Why are you so dead-set against adding more pictures to arthropod articles? Acquiring pictures of arthropods is hard enough already when I can't even get Wikiproject: Insects to help identify pics even if only down to the order/family level (in contrast to say, people at Wikiproject: Plants). They help point out the diversity especially of higher taxa. Readers can mistake the picture on the taxobox as the specific morphology of the group when it could very well be far more varied. I'm not a member of Wikiproject: Arthropods or any of its subprojects (though I'm thinking about it) but you guys should consider some way of showing representative species of subtaxa.

Wikicommons also has a lot of images on arthropods that are poorly categorized. Relying on the wikicommons link is leading readers to a place with mostly nonexistent navigation, different taxonomical hierarchy, and very strict criteria for classification. Those things make it worse for browsing as a link to commons:Paradoxosomatidea for example leads to a nonexistent page when in truth there are actually six pictures representative of the suborder.

Relying on the link to Wikispecies is also quite questionable. species:Polydesmida in Wikispecies only lists one suborder, and it's one from Rowland Shelley's classification system, and not the one used in the en.wiki Polydesmida article.

re:Polydesmida - the picture of Apheloria virginiensis on the taxobox do not point out where the paranota are. I will not contest it further though, as it does break the page layout a bit when viewing on widescreen monitors.

re:Megalodacne - the article is long enough to accommodate one more pic. I will restore one (the one that least resembles the one on the taxobox and shows the beetle from a different angle), but will leave out the gallery. --Obsidi♠n^Soul 08:54, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Addendum, also note that in the case of Megalodacne, more pictures would actually be helpful as members of this genus resemble species from a different family altogether very closely. The sap-feeding beetles of the Family Nitidulidae, specifically Glischrochilus.--Obsidi♠n^Soul 09:04, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

The question is not (only) whether the article is long enough to accommodate another image, but whether that image brings value to the article – whether it illustrates some aspect of the text that is not already clear from the images present. Your second image of Megalodacne adds no information and its retention cannot be justified. If Commons is disorganised or Wikispecies is incomplete, then the solution is to improve them – they're wikis, after all. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:08, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

So what? Wait for Commons to catch up? The people there are mostly photographers and artists not researchers. The attitude of passing the buck on so common in wikipedia does not help (and yes, I take the time to painfully research and categorize all my uploads in commons. If possible, identify the exact species).

And again re:Megalodacne, see: [7] and see why having picture of the dorsal side of the beetle, as well as a picture of it showing it's notable difference (it's a fungivore) with most other families within its immediate superfamily is important. You aren't exactly encouraging new people to contribute to arthropod articles with that kind of obstinacy. I agree that the rest of those pics were unnecessary (I'm new and not familiar with WP:IG), but you could at least consider why I am opposing part of your actions.--Obsidi♠n^Soul 09:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Three points to consider:

• The second Megalodacne picture showed nothing that isn't visible on the first. If it was a picture of a different species, or showed a different aspect (both pictures were basically dorsal, despite your edit summary), then you might have a stronger argument. The fungivory is apparent in the image in the taxobox, as is the dorsal side of the beetle. The second image does not make it any clearer.
• I hope I am not discouraging people from working on arthropod articles (or any others), but I have a fair understanding of how an encyclopaedia article should be. The text has to come first. If you want to demonstrate the diversity of a taxon, then write how many species there are, how their sizes vary, what different ecologies they all have, and so on. All images in Wikipedia must be there to illustrate the text. My point about the Commons was that if you know that there are six images of Paradoxosomatidea, then you could easily create that page (or, better, a category) pretty quickly and easily, and it would solve that problem. Commons is designed and intended to be a showcase of images and other media. Wikipedia is designed and intended to be an encyclopaedia. That distinction is important.
• It can be hard to be impartial when dealing with photographs you have taken yourself. In such cases, it is probably best to allow others to decide which images are most illustrative.

--Stemonitis (talk) 09:54, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

My own arguments

• Eh? The taxobox picture is from the side. The second Megalodacne picture shows the posterior of the beetle at a better angle. Did you know that one of the easiest way to tell the difference between Megalodacne from Glischrochilus (aside from diet) is that the elytra of Megalodacne extends over the abdomen while that of Glischrochilus does not? Their similarity extends to the genus level (including several other genera) and thus can't be mentioned in species articles. The relative size and shape of the head is also important, both of which are not easily visible in the taxobox pic. Yet the pic in the taxobox is also important as it complements the description of it being a fungivore. Hence why I insist on keeping two.
• I completely understand and agree on why you removed the gallery pics. But two of those pics, in my opinion, do add value to the article. I disagree on two of the removals for valid reasons. One I choose not to contest. It does seem to me that you choose to stick to a one picture per article rule or something for lord knows what reason (it's certainly not WP:IG, and it was you who first used the article length argument). Yes I have read one of the revert comments on Polydesmida, as well as looked at your talk page. Why exactly? 2 or 3 pics is not a violation of WP:IG. Is that your understanding of an encyclopedic article? Some encyclopedia even have galleries of representative species, especially of higher taxa. You are picking fights where there are none, fixing what isn't broken, and yes, discouraging new editors.
  • Furthermore, you know finding citable text is not as easy as finding pictures. I could have expanded with entire paragraphs on some subjects that I am familiar with, but I can't because their only references are in forums or somesuch uncitable sources. Pictures when available are still information. They are not inferior nor superior to text.
  • And yes, I already do that by simply categorizing them correctly. It's apparent to me, however, that you are unaware that wikicommons editors routinely decategorize higher categories in favor of more specific ones. So if the middle category does not exist, lower categories are orphaned. Paradoxosomatidea is a perfect example of that, and despite what I do already, I am unwilling to exhaustively research and fill in all the higher taxa just so a species-identified picture will show up when the higher taxa is accessed from wikipedia. Especially as I lack the tools or the rights to make that task easier and do not desire to acquire them. I'm content being a drone. Not to mention that I am not as familiar with commons guidelines, especially for category creation.
• Yes those are my pictures, but I only chose them because of their quality over (or the absence of) existing pics of the same subject (see example of the Asiomorpha pic in Paradoxosomatidea and compare other pics belonging to that suborder). My main account is in Wikipedia, most of my work is in creating and expanding articles, Wikicommons is secondary to me. I neither spend my time nitpicking over policy or flaunting my pictures, and I have no interest in playing the politics and seniority game already so prevalent in Wikipedia, I fix what I can fix and contribute what I can, that is all, and forcing me into these arguments over something so trivial is discouraging. I do not use my pictures when there are better ones already existing (an example of which are majority of identified plant pictures that I've uploaded). I actually spend hours hunting down appropriately licensed pics and uploading them to commons (with correct attribution and all) just so I could add pictures to articles I did not even start. So accusing me of only doing it to show off my pics is unfair. In the case of Megalodacne, I took the pic, researched what it was, then made the article. The fact that they were my own pics is purely a result of that process.
• And lastly, I dislike these random arguments. If it was over something actually important, I would not be this insistent about it. But it's so trivial it's actually funny if I didn't just spend days of research on them. I am willing to come to a consensus as evidenced already by my acceptance of majority of your edits, despite my misgivings, are you? --Obsidi♠n^Soul 11:05, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

You came here to ask for an explanation of my edits, and I have given them. If you consider that a waste of time, then I am not to blame. The consensus you seek is already in place across Wikipedia. There are policy and guidelines on what images to use when, when to use galleries and the like (chiefly, Wikipedia:Image use policy). I would respond to your other points, but you seem unwilling to continue this discussion. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:06, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

You think I just wrote that wall of text because I'm not interested in reaching one? That's exactly why I'm having this discussion specifically over that pic instead of the dozens of others I had also added which had clearly violated Wikipedia:Image use policy. Because you think this pic violates that while I think it doesn't. Neither of us represents wikipedia as a whole, and policy extents are still the decisions of individual editors, and this, specifically, is a gray area. You may be senior in terms of number of edits, but we're still just editors. I'm not exactly hesitant of voicing out my opinion when I really believe them, and I do accept my mistakes (I already acknowledged that re:galleries didn't I?). This is also clearly not the first time someone has challenged you for your "one-article-one-picture policy" either. You do it often enough that it seems like it's your personal crusade. So yes, I am very interested in hearing your reasons and not just push WP:IG as if that explains everything. If there was an article already existing of Glischrochilus I would have added more text describing how to tell it from a Megalodacne. As I did with the Asiomorpha vs. Harpaphe image which you deleted TWICE already despite perfectly fitting Wikipedia:Image use policy of having a descriptive text and having encyclopedic value. Because when you think of it, a second or third picture in an article does have encyclopedic value in terms of identification, especially in stub articles where the text do not adequately cover morphological descriptions. Even if they do, a picture or two complements it and this still abides by WP:IG

Just to prove that I'm not just disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing and I actually walk the talk, I am willing to expand that article with more text just so I can explain how it is similar to Nitidulids and how to tell the two apart. Maybe then you'd be more amenable to retaining that pic. I will also create the article on Glischrochilus as Wikicommons actually has pictures on them. Fair enough for you? I can not do that immediately of course, but I will set time aside for that in the next few days--Obsidi♠n^Soul 12:41, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Addendum, maybe instead of constantly whipping editors over adding another pic to an article you could instead encourage them to create new articles for the vast number of species-identified pictures in commons with no WP articles.--Obsidi♠n^Soul 12:50, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Please calm down; whether you intended it or not, your text comes across as needlessly aggressive and annoyed. I do not have a "one-article-one-picture policy". I do not "push WP:IG as if that explains everything". This is all rather a misrepresentation.

Please do add text explaining the differences between Glisrochilus and Megalodacne (I have expanded the latter article a little, but I'm sure there's plenty more to be added; possible references don't seem too thin on the ground). With a good citation, that would be a very valuable addition to the article. Wikipedia isn't meant to be a field guide, but information on how a taxon differs from others, either close relatives or taxa easily confused with it, is generally welcome. To answer your question ("Did you know that one of the easiest way to tell the difference between Megalodacne from Glischrochilus (aside from diet) is that the elytra of Megalodacne extends over the abdomen while that of Glischrochilus does not?"), no, I did not. That fact wasn't present in the article, so I had no way of knowing. This helps focus the point I was trying to make before. The images should illustrate the article, so if the article says that the form of the elytra distinguishes the genus from others, then an additional image showing the posterior part of the elytra is indeed illustrative (assuming, as in this case, that it wasn't already visible from previous pictures). Without such text, the reader cannot know that that's a reliable character. I have yet to see a good reason for including the picture, but equally, I'm not going to spend a lot of effort trying to convince everyone that it should be removed. You will notice that I left it there while I expanded the article. It doesn't yet illustrate anything in the article's text that isn't already shown by the first image, but I have every confidence that you will be able to expand the article to include text that makes that image's presence invaluable. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:56, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok sorry. I am though, honestly. Annoyed that is. Partly because this isn't the first time I've been pulled into relatively minor policy arguments with senior editors (which all ended with them clamming up and pretending I didn't just write four paragraphs on their talk pages, the reason why I've decided never to be an admin), but mostly because it's way past my bedtime. Heh

Anyway, acknowledged that I should have added that info in the first place in the text, but I still have a relatively long list of articles to make for Musa and its cultivars (which have previously been grossly misclassified, with wrong SN's from ancient Linnean classifications, cultivars being treated like species, etc.) for Wikiproject Plants, as well as real life work, so I opted for a stub instead with intent to go back to it at a later time. I guess... I expected readers to have been aware already that it resembles several other beetle genera/species. My fault. I actually originally intended to create an article for the species Megalodacne philippinarum, but absence of substantial citable references made me settle for the genus instead. And I will, give me a week or so to fill it in, as well as create the Glischrochilus article. Thanks, sorry for the belligerence again.--Obsidi♠n^Soul 13:18, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Hey again Stemonitis. I've finished both the addition to Megalodacne and created the article Glischrochilus. Please assess/correct if you can. Thanks.--Obsidi♠n^Soul 17:33, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Excellent work. I've tweaked various little things, but both articles were basically fine. The one concern I have is with the species lists. These can be very difficult to find and reference well. There are several online sources which include names indiscriminately, including names that aren't valid for any number of reasons. It's difficult to ascertain which are valid and which are not, and it's equally hard to find lists which are comprehensive. Your articles explain that the lists may be flawed, so that's probably OK. I fear, however, that you may have been adding parentheses to the authorities even where the sources did not include them. It is not widely appreciated that the parentheses carry a lot of meaning, and are never optional. I have removed a few where I was sure they did not belong, but it would be worthwhile going over the remainder to see which other species should have brackets and which shouldn't (any species described before the genus was described will require parentheses; those described later may or may not; genera never – I think – have authorities in brackets). This is the pain of zoological nomenclature, and other than that fairly obscure complaint, the articles look in fine form. They are long enough and well enough referenced to appear at WP:DYK, which would be a good forum for getting your work (including potentially a photo or two) noticed. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:40, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree, something involving Glischrochilus and beer would make a good hook. SmartSE (talk) 20:01, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Gotcha. Thanks for the tips and corrections. :) As for the list, most of the comprehensive lists are either region-specific (N. America, Russia, and museum inventories being the lists that had the most number of species listed) or wiki-like and incomplete (examples are lists from zipcode zoo, the encyclopedia of life, and our very own wikispecies, heh). Re: Parentheses, heh didn't know that. The references were also inconsistent with it though. Some having years of first description, others not, some adding parentheses to all of them, some only separating the species and describer with a comma again for all of the species. I have removed some. I'll go over the lists again and take a look.

Also I bet some those species are likely to be synonymous to some of the others, probably more likely with the earlier described species, but until each species is examined and synonyms noted I doubt that can be fixed. The others though, seem to be documented well enough. A lot of these species have pictures where you can compare, as Glischrochilus seem to be popular to collectors for their coloration. However I am not sure how zoological nomenclature handles synonyms. Do you just mention it? Or do you list it like with botanical accepted names? Ips for example included both Glischrochilus (G. fasciatus and G. sanguinolentus nee Ips fasciatus and Ips sanguinolentus being two examples) and Megalodacne, as well as bark beetles. I am not sure if it is still used or discarded altogether.

As for the beer thing, haha, found a forum post where some guy was complaining about how thousands of the beetles were swarming over his beer. They seem to have a reputation for ruining picnics as well. I also saw someone hint about chemical attraction being the explanation, but didn't follow it further. I should note that some of the beetles (particularly the named American ones) have enough material on them to start their own articles as well.--Obsidi♠n^Soul 23:58, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I went ahead and nominated it for DYK, you can see the hook I chose here: T:TDYK#Glischrochilus but feel free to suggest a different one. SmartSE (talk) 01:04, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Heh, here's a bit more descriptive article about their behavior: http://www.drbug.ca/insects/sap_beetles.php I quite fancy the imagery evoked by 'divebomb', LOL --Obsidi♠n^Soul 01:27, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

The scourge of the backyard barbeque and happy hour on the deck are insects commonly called ‘beer bugs’ or sometimes ‘picnic bugs’. These pests seem to love beer and other beverages and happily dive bomb into waiting glasses.

GAN review request

Hi Stemonitis,

External morphology of Lepidoptera has not been able to find a GA reviewer for more than two months. My message on Project talk page has also brought forth no volunteer. I request you to please review the article. Since you are a minority contributor to it (3 edits only), imho there would be no conflict of interest. From your edits, I am quite sure your review would be exacting and correct in every way. It would help our WikiProject and I could then go on after this review to improving Lepidoptera to GA as my next big project.

AshLin (talk) 05:53, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, I'll have a look. I was holding back before because, as you spotted, I had contributed to the article myself, both directly, and through advice. It may take me a few days before I get round to it, but I guess you're used to waiting by now. Two months is too much, really. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:40, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

No problem, take your time. Am still recovering from the Tenth WP Anniversary hangover at Pune. :-) AshLin (talk) 17:45, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Ichnotaxa

I'll have those taxonomies done by the weekend. Abyssal (talk) 17:29, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Always display

Just a note that before you the |always_display= from taxonomies (such as Template:Taxonomy/Panarthropoda), you should check that it will still display on pages such as Radiodonta, where the editor feels that the presence of the taxon is important in taxoboxes. I don't know of any situation where Panarthropoda shouldn't be in taxoboxes (it's an equivalent rank to the phylum arthropoda, or another way of saying "stem-group arthropoda"; many panarthropods now lack anything to connect them to the arthropods at all), so I've undone that edit. I'll let you check the others that you made. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 21:57, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps your motivation had been to keep the label out of onychophoran boxes. Would parenting Lobopoda to Template:Taxonomy/Arthropoda/stem-group keep both of us happy? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:00, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

[edit conflict] I was shocked to discover how many taxonomy templates were using the always_display parameter, and how few of them should have been. Fewer than half (even counting the test templates) were legitimate uses. Most of them were unproblematic, in that they were forcing taxa to display which would have displayed anyway (i.e. major ranks; althogh they still clutter up the category, reducing its functionality), but many of the remainder were taxa that should not always be displayed. Panarthropoda includes all arthropods, and there is no way that all arthropod species should display Panarthropoda in their taxoboxes. There should probably be some more strongly-worded advice somewhere to advise people not to use always_display unless it's genuinely necessary. I remember asking for such a category some time back, so thank you for implementing it. Having seen the misuse of the facility, I now feel entirely vindicated in that desire. --Stemonitis (talk) 22:04, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Okie dokie; thanks for all your cleanup; I've switched Lobopodia to point to Arthropoda/stem-group, and un-alwaysDisplayed Panarthropoda again. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:20, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Online Ambassadors

I saw you have been really active lately and I clicked on over to your user page and was pretty impressed. Would you be interested in helping with the WP:Online_Ambassadors program? It's really a great opportunity to help university students become Wikipedia contributers. I hope you apply to become an ambassador, Sadads (talk) 23:57, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll look into the programme, and consider joining. I've got quite a lot on my plate at the moment, so I can't promise anything. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:34, 26 January 2011 (UTC)