User talk:Stemonitis/Archive40

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This archive page covers approximately the dates between June 14, 2012 and September 21, 2012.

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Taxoboxes

Thank you for your mostly useful edits on this protozoal taxoboxes. IMHO these now look much better and more consistent with the rest of the taxoboxes on WP after our work on them. Some help with the species listing in these genera would be much appreciated. These pages seem to attract few editors and most could badly use considerable work. A proper species listing would be a start. Concerning numbers of species: this is complex issue. As you no doubt are aware several editors feel that there should be NO species in a taxobox and insist on placing species listings in the body text. Your own comment conflicts with the examples given in the page you provided a link to as there is only one species listed in the example taxoboxes given there. The currently used taxoboxes are probably insufficient to cope with the complexity of some genera: Taxonomy of Anopheles is probably a reasonable example of this problem. There was a huge row over the classification of group of birds between a number of editors.IMHO there is no easy solution acceptable to the existing diversity of opinion on these matters. DrMicro (talk) 10:13, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Struthio

I have been off of Wikipedia for a bit, as I got sick and spent time in hospital, so I am trying to catch up with what has happened sincew I left. Is this a general position on automatic taxoboxes or specific and why. One aother prolific editor has expressed distaste for them. Please help me to understand what is happening with them, in particular with Wikiproject Birds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Speednat (talk • contribs) 19:05, 14 June 2012‎

As it happens, I do dislike automatic taxoboxes, and I think there are good reasons for avoiding them. That wasn't what motivated my edit, however. After the conversion to {{automatic taxobox}}, the taxobox was not displaying properly: the family was linked rather than bolded, and the child taxa weren't appearing at all. In those circumstances, it seemed best to use the normal template, simply to ensure that the taxobox appeared properly. I don't know what position WP:BIRDS has taken, if any, on the use of automatic taxoboxes. I believe they're probably acceptable, but not specifically mandated. Changing between types of taxobox for no further reason is not likely to be seen by everyone as a constructive edit. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:21, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

(TPS) Just for information, the reason the family was linked rather than bolded when using the automatic taxobox was because Template:Taxonomy/Struthionidae was not set up correctly – for a monogeneric family, the link in the taxonomy template must be set to the genus. The display would be correct in this respect if an automatic taxobox were used now. (Attempting to display the child taxa automatically is, in my view, always a mistake. It doesn't work at all unless there has been an appropriate prior toolserver run, which seems not to work sometimes, and anyway depends on a single user continuing to maintain the tool.) Peter coxhead (talk) 09:01, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

List of Rubiaceae genera

I see that you have unlinked all synonyms. I am not against that per se because most of them are redirects anyway, but some of these 'old' genera do have content. If you now also start unlinking them on the page of the accepted genus, there will be no more link to the article in question. How should we fix this? Orbicule (talk) 14:13, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I suppose it would be acceptable to link any synonyms with content, but I can see very few circumstances in which it would make sense to keep articles on outmoded taxonomic concepts. Certainly, all the botanical details should be in the articles on the accepted genera. Can you provide some examples? --Stemonitis (talk) 14:15, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I sometimes find it useful to know who described the genus for the first time, which species it contained, where it occurred, and who made it into a synonym. This information is interesting if you make a revision of the (accepted) genus. An example is Scyphochlamys. But I agree, it is not always desirable. Orbicule (talk) 14:32, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I think in the case of Scyphochlamys, the content should be at either Pyrostria or Pyrostria revoluta (or both). Information that is only useful to practising taxonomists should be at Wikispecies (e.g. here), rather than Wikipedia, which is intended to be a generalist encyclopaedia. Certainly, the article on P. revoluta can explain that it used to be placed in the monotypic geus Scyphochlamys, and Scyphochlamys can redirect there, but we shouldn't generally have a separate article on a disused taxon. I would recommend moving Scyphochlamys, and recasting it as a species article, under the modern circumscription. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:40, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

About Earle Gorton Linsley

Hi Stemonitis.
I recently started the article Earle Gorton Linsley. It includes as list of critters he described, from an apparently reliably source. Not a single one of them shows up in an ITIS search. The family Pleocomidae has an article, as "Rain beetle". The genus Pleocoma redirects to Rain beetle. My question is: erm, I don't get it, either these beetles exist or they don't, yeah? I dunno.
xxx from --Shirt58 (talk) 11:22, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

There is a simple solution. ITIS is woefully incomplete. The taxa it does contain are usually pretty reliable, but there are huge numbers of species missing, particularly for invertebrates (and even more so for non-American taxa). You may rest assured that there are around 26 species in the genus Pleocoma in North America (according to a reliable source). This list claims to be comprehensive, and suggests a few small errors with the list at Earle Gorton Linsley (and one entirely missing species – P. nitida – perhaps a synoynm?). --Stemonitis (talk) 11:31, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for June 28

Hi. When you recently edited Coenobita scaevola, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Respiration (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 15:21, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

 Done --Stemonitis (talk) 15:24, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Inline

I undo your reverts on Jasus and Majoidea because they fit into the description of WP:ELMAYBE #6. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 07:08, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I think that's a mistake. WP:ELMAYBE means that they can be considered, not that they should be included. In this case, they add nothing to the articles, and should be excluded under the basic provisions of WP:ELNO (1. "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article"). At the moment, there is no information on Wikispecies about these animals that is not already presented here. As an aside, I also strongly suspect that the editor in question is User:Stho002 evading his indefinite block – there is a strong pattern of concerted editing between Stho002 on Wikispecies and User:Carcinologist2 here (a new account that appeared shortly after Stho002's block). So far, the edits haven't been at all disruptive, so it hasn't been a problem, in my opinion; other people may take block evasion more seriously. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:17, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

You're using straw man to defend your argument. ELMAYBE #6's wording couldn't get more clear. The exact phrase says: "Links to Wikimedia sister projects with relevant material." Is there a link? Yes. Is it a Wikimedia sister project? Yes. Is there relevant material presented in the link? Yes. There's no gray area for disputes or wikilawyering. But since you want to use straw man in your argument and introduced ELNO #1, I will counter your rebuttal. You used ELNO #1 to revert Jasus page yet a glance in the Wikispecies page showed unique resources that are not present in the Wikipedia article. Let's be honest here, this article's very unlikely to reach featured status even if you give it 10 years, and there's no guarantee that all reference links will be included or used in the future featured article. I understand that you perceived Wikispecies as a fork. It is not. (Or at least that's what we're aiming for. But with Wikidata delayed for over 7 years and the completion date is nowhere in sight, we just have to keep going in the meantime.) And getting more traffic like this is one of many ways to promote unique contents being added to the page. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 08:08, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and all of that is under the "MAYBE" heading, so you're right that the link could maybe be included ("to be considered"). If under one criterion something may or may not be included, and under another it should not, the overall outcome is that it should not. I don't think it's a big issue, however, and I'm not going to undo what you've done, but I still think the most logical interpretation of WP:EL is that it should not be included. I don't think we should treat Wikispecies any differently from other external resources (and yes, I consider it external). Certainly, in an ideal world, we shouldn't have to. If the only additional content is made up of links to other external sites, then one should link to them directly from the Wikipedia article, without going through Wikispecies. Wikispecies can provide a valuable resource, but that doesn't mean that every Wikispecies page is already a valuable resource to be added to every Wikipedia article. Wikipedia's content should be determined by its own criteria, and should not be tailored to further Wikispecies' ends. When both benefit, then that's fine, but we should not introduce links merely to drive traffic to Wikispecies, if it isn't helpful to the reader. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:21, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Stem, I am one of an informal group of biologists (Stho002 is a member of our group, but we work independently) who want to fully explore the potential of biology related information on Wikimedia projects. Wikipedia and Wikispecies should be working together, with WS providing the taxonomic backbone, and acting as a references library, and Wikipedia using these resources to put a bit more "meat in the sandwich". WS handles a limited number of biology related aspects compared to Wikipedia, but it handles them better than Wikipedia. The "two sites" are really two parts of one overall site, so why not start seeing where such a joint approach can lead? It is likely to be mutually beneficial ... Carcinologist2 (talk) 08:45, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely – when the two work in each others' interests, that's very much desirable, and they will be in each others' interests when both pages are reasonably well worked on. (I'm not sure I agree with Wikispecies as the "backbone" – perhaps I have misunderstood what you meant.) I'm very much in favour of Wikispecies links generally, but not in cases where Wikispecies contains a subset of the information already on Wikipedia. I like taxonomy, and my articles contain a lot of it – probably more than the average reader really wants – so I value the additional taxonomic and nomenclatural depth that Wikispecies can accommodate and which Wikipedia really can't. I just think that there needs to be a clear potential benefit to including any external link, and I don't think other Wikimedia projects should be treated differently in terms of choosing whether or not to link to them. We don't link to the Commons if all the images it contains are already present in an article, for instance. As nice as it would be to have both projects run for our benefit, they are intended for a readership, and their interests have to come first. They will be frustrated at clicking on a link and finding the same information repeated, and that's something we can avoid. There should not be an assumption that just because a Wikispecies page exists, it must be linked from Wikipedia. If it is good, it should be linked, and often Wikispecies pages are. But not always. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:04, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, many Wikispecies editors whom I know rather well do link to the corresponding Wikipedia page, whether it *currently* adds new information or not. For one thing, because wiki articles *change*, we don't want to have to constantly monitor every article for change, so we just link and be done with it. Actually, readers will be more frustrated to find WP and WS articles telling them different (contradictory) things about the same taxa, and this will reflect badly on both sites! One way to prevent that is to work more closely together, instead of working entirely independently ... Carcinologist2 (talk) 23:25, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

PS: it really is just a little bit naughty of you to be claiming that WS articles just have the same content as WP articles, when one reason for that is edits of yours like this one http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murunducaris&diff=499861317&oldid=427935626 where you added the "further reading" just a little later on the same day that Stho002 added that very reference to WS! See: http://species.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murunducaris&diff=1504371&oldid=1504370 Carcinologist2 (talk) 08:51, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

But why should readers have to go to Wikispecies for "Further reading"? If there's a useful paper, why wouldn't we tell them about it here? It's not naughty – it's helpful! --Stemonitis (talk) 09:04, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps I wasn't clear? What *is* naughty is claiming that WS articles have no information over and above the corresponding WP article, when some of your edits suggest that you are busy trying to "make this so" by copying over anything that WS does have that WP doesn't have! It's just not a good look for you, you know what I'm saying?? It probably doesn't contravene any policy or anything though - it is at most just ethically "dodgy" ... Carcinologist2 (talk) 23:25, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

It's not even "dodgy". If I become aware of some source that might contain useful background information for the readers of an article, then it is helpful to them if I can list it and link to it. It doesn't matter where that information comes from. It would be ludicrous to suggest that anything I learn about through Wikispecies has to be omitted from Wikipedia. You must believe me that it wasn't done as part of an effort, as you seem to believe, to make the Wikispecies link less useful. It was done to improve the Wikipedia article. All edits to Wikipedia articles must be to improve the articles for Wikipedia's readers. That has been my point here all along. In order for a Wikispecies link to be appropriate, the Wikispecies page has to include some information that is not already present in the Wikipedia article. If you follow that principle, there will never be a problem. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:51, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

There're numerous inline templates (1 for each sister project, see Template:Commons-inline#See also). In fact, Stemonitis, I used to share the same view as yours back in 2008 and I nominated those inline templates for deletion. But according to that TfD, people shouldn't be using box template if external links section is empty. Instead, they will use the inline template. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:47, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I think you must have misunderstood my position quite seriously. I don't think the templates should be deleted, and I use the inline versions very frequently. My problem wasn't with external links being of the wrong form; the problem was the presence of links which were not helpful to the reader, because they didn't provide anything beyond what the article already held. I am struggling to understand where this misapprehension may have come from. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:47, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

You haven't replied to a crucial comment I made above, so here it is again: Well, many Wikispecies editors whom I know rather well do link to the corresponding Wikipedia page, whether it *currently* adds new information or not. For one thing, because wiki articles *change*, we don't want to have to constantly monitor every article for change, so we just link and be done with it. Actually, readers will be more frustrated to find WP and WS articles telling them different (contradictory) things about the same taxa, and this will reflect badly on both sites! One way to prevent that is to work more closely together, instead of working entirely independently ... Carcinologist2 (talk) 06:51, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Things are rather different in that direction, and Wikispecies will have its own policies for external links which may differ from those here. Scientific names can be very daunting and opaque, especially to the lay reader. If I, as a biologist, see a Wikispecies article listing some species under Osteichthyes, Actinopterygii, then I will know what kind of animal it is, but for the lay reader, the mere text "is a fish" will be invaluable. So I don't think the analogy really works very well. It certainly isn't enough to overrule Wikipedia's policy on external links, however laudable the aims may be. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:05, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

So, we can count on you, then, can we, to constantly monitor all Wikispecies articles for useful additions of information which will allow you to link to WS from the corresponding WP article??? What really gets me is that many (not all, but many) WP articles are just lists of subtaxa (which is exactly what WS was created to take care of), with little or no actual useful information ... Carcinologist2 (talk) 07:16, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

[Sorry about the last attempt – must have copied and pasted the wrong paragraph after the edit conflict caused by the message below.] I check articles every so often from this side, as I'm sure your colleagues on Wikispecies do, if they're conscientious. Articles only improve when edited by a person, so there's always someone who knows when something has changed. Yes, the list articles are poor, but that doesn't mean they pose a threat to Wikispecies. No-one is advocating usurping Wikispecies' content, so you have nothing to fear on that front. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:38, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Non-functional link

Why did you "remove misplaced, non-functional external link", when it is only intermittently non-functional but will be back up and running again at any time? Sites go down for short times, and we can't go removing the links every time that happens ... Carcinologist2 (talk) 07:24, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, that not how we link to external sites. Secondly, it doesn't work. It's OK for links to go down occasionally, but they need to be active at some point. You have just added a link that doesn't work. Maybe it will never work again; maybe it will work in five minutes; but it has to be working when you add it. More importantly, though, is that it seems you might have, or have seen, the list of species included. That's probably the most important thing to get down. It's useful for the reader to be able to access the original data, but much more important for up-to-date facts to be presented. We can happily cite things that are only available in print, so the online site is a luxury rather than a necessity. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:29, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Here's a good question for you

Hi again. This is an interesting one :-)

• A tomato is taxonomically a fruit, but gastronomically a vegetable.
  
• Pyura chilensis isn't taxonomically a "shellfish". It's not even an invertebrate. Is it gastronomically a shellfish?

--Shirt58 (talk) 11:01, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Hmmp. Would you settle for "seafood"? Anyway, why should a "shellfish" have to be invertebrate? There were no end of Devonian fishes swimming around with with vertebrae and shells. Unfortunately their flavours didn't fossilise well, I understand, so it is hard to know how they would have rated as seafood... And how would you rate sea slugs as shellfish? Or octopuses? JonRichfield (talk) 19:27, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Another question

I am currently writing an article on a starfish, Anasterias rupicola. My main source mentions the limpet "Nacella delesserti" as its chief prey species and I wanted to write an article on that as well. Another article also mentions both starfish and limpet. The trouble is that WoRMS does not recognize the name of the limpet. I deduce from this page that the currently accepted name might be Nacella (Patinigera) macquariensis but I am not confident enough to use that name (without the (Patinigera)) for the new article without some confirmation. How should I proceed? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:09, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Good question. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 13:57, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Dropping in here as a total non-expert in biology, I'd suggest you write the article while you're in the mood, put it at one of the plausible titles, make redirects from everything else plausible, perhaps make a note on the talk page about what you've written above, and let it be MOVEd as necessary if someone confirms that it should be elsewhere. Tip: if you create a redirect and don't include one of the {{R... }} templates which classifies redirects (perhaps {{R from alternative name}} here), then a bot or expert will probably come and edit it to add one. That means that you can't then simply move the article to the title which was the redirect, without using {{WP:RM}}, because the redirect has an edit history. So it's useful to label the redirect as you create it, to increase the chance of it being a redirect-with-no-edit-history when someone comes to want to move the article there. A list of these redirect message templates is at Wikipedia:Template_messages/Redirect_pages. Hope that's useful! PamD 15:58, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I will do as you suggest. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:18, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Lamia move

Hello, you engaged in a discussion a few years ago regarding moving Lamia to Lamia (disambiguation) and Lamia (mythology) to Lamia. The discussion has been restarted under WP:RM. For further information go to the Talk page. 170.110.235.42 (talk) 15:48, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Category:Marine life

Hi Stemonitis. I see you have put the the category for Marine Life up for deletion. This category is the root category for the Marine Life Project. If it is removed, it breaks the project. I can't find any notification to the project that you had this in mind. Nor can I find the deletion discussion. Would you please point me to it. --Epipelagic (talk) 08:59, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Um, that was six years ago, when the Project was just an empty shell. I can't really remember the intention after so long. I do think that the category is a bad choice, however (too broad to be useful), and I can't see a reason why a project shouldn't have a different title for its root category. Project scope and cateogrisation are quite unrelated. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:12, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Update: The discussion, such as it was, is visible here. I don't think the category's absence can be causing much harm, as it has not been used for so long. The project uses the admin category Category:WikiProject Marine life as its root. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:27, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Editor's Barnstar
	Thanks for cleaning up my Ligia contributions. I'll try to emulate your style in future additions. MatthewMMcM (talk) 14:17, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Thalassina

WP:ENGVAR is about national varieties. Rôle is infrequently used in all modern varieties of English. Even the BBC consistently uses role. However, if you want the old-fashioned version, I'll leave it. I am pleased that you explained the reasoning behind your actions in the second revert, though we both could have saved an edit if you had done it in the first revert. Undoubtedly I sometimes forget it, but when reverting I always try to provide an explanation unless it's obvious vandalism (WP:REVEXP). RN1970 (talk) 00:14, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

The principle behind ENGVAR (and a number of other policies and guidelines) is that one should not change articles between two acceptable styles. A lot of people forget this, either because they think their preferred style is better, or because they're unaware that there are different styles of English. The accented version may be rarer, but it is not wrong. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:20, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

DYK for Vicia orobus

Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:02, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Enhancing images

Hello there. I cropped some Gnathia marleyi images from this to use in the article. I brightened one version and increased the sharpness and contrast a bit. I figured that a different microscope or camera would may do the same, and still be true to the subject. I didn't touch the colour. Is that okay? It's just so much clearer now that the grey background is gone. Best wishes and thanks for any guidance you can give.

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:29, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Image processing is a complex art, and different people will have different opinions about what is best. Enhancements are perfectly acceptable, but as long as they're not intended to mislead (which yours obviously aren't). Your edit does make a lot of the animal clearer, but I wonder if the tail and some of the leg segments are starting to get burnt out. I'd be equally happy with either image, so if you have a preference, please act on it. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:37, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. I will try another version, this time not so bright. Many thanks for the quick reply. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:40, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

How about that? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:50, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Looks good to me. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:00, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Gladstone Rock

Hi Stemonitis, I was just having a look at your Snowdon map (following PIG/PYG discussion elsewhere) and I note that the Gladstone Rock is marked as being on the right of the Watkin Path. Certainly the wording "Gladstone Rock" is on the right on the OS map, but the stone itself (not marked as such on OS map) is in fact on the left. Not totally trusting my memory, I've just checked a number of walk books, and this is indeed the case. Sorry to cause you extra work. Hogyn Lleol ★ ^(chat) 14:36, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's definitely right. There's even a photograph in the article showing it (just)! I must have just picked the nearest rocky outcrop on the OS map and unthinkingly marked it as the Gladstone Rock. I'll fix that this evening. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:31, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

 Done. That should now be fixed. Do let me know if you spot anything else. (The map shouldn't tally perfectly with the OS map, because that would be plagiarism, but it should show the same trends.) --Stemonitis (talk) 16:23, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Some fun

Hi Stemonitis,
See this cartoon by one "Tom the Dancing Bug". Of course, being an human editorial cartoonist, he is obviously not of the "true bugs", ordo Hemiptera, despite his protestations otherwise.
--Shirt58 (talk) 11:03, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Stagmomantis carolina

Hello. Why did you take out all of the pictures in the page Carolina mantis? Were many of the pictures too similar? Is it alright to put pictures that are very different from each other on there? Thanks. :D
Happy1892 (talk) 15:31, 22 August 2012 (UTC)Happy1892Happy1892 (talk) 15:31, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

In my edit summary, I referred to WP:IG. That should contain all the answers you seek. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:14, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Alright, thank you. I looked at it and know. I was not sure so I asked (hard for me to understand).
Happy1892 (talk) 13:56, 4 September 2012 (UTC)Happy1892Happy1892 (talk) 13:56, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Reorganisation

I presume it's now okay to proceed with the reorganisation, so I've started the article on Shrimp and prawn. It would be good if you collaborate on this, particularly on finer points of taxonomy and referencing. Then we can maybe settle remaining points of difference between us, and nominate the article for a joint DYK. Regards --Epipelagic (talk) 22:45, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay; my break lasted rather longer than expected, and I've only just seen your message. We should definitely press ahead (it's unfortunate that my break came when it did), and I'll do what I can to assist. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:12, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Back with us again!

Jolly good, for one awful moment there I thought we'd lost you ... it just wouldn't be the same! Entomologist2 (talk) 04:12, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

He was just in the process of transitioning from one host to another.--Mr Fink (talk) 04:42, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Like some sort of host switching parasite, you mean?? :) ... Entomologist2 (talk) 05:59, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Better to change hosts than identities ... --Stemonitis (talk) 06:05, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean! Entomologist2 (talk) 06:14, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Neither do I! Carcinologist2 (talk) 06:15, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Isn't someone missing? --Stemonitis (talk) 06:24, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it was just an unfortunate combination of external factors (holidays, moving house, workload, etc.) I'm still quite busy in real life, but I should be able to find a little time for Wikipedia from now on. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:19, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Prawn/Shrimp

I'm sorry. I am probably not helping your argument with this article. It just seems to me these two animals should have their own pages despite colloquial terms. Hope all is well. --Jsderwin (talk) 19:43, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

No, don't apologise. You're entitled to your opinions. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:11, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Oregonia bifurca

Are we back to this again? Why must you always pick fights over the smallest of fucking things? You can change the article any way you want once I'm finished writing it, but stop edit-conflicting me.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 08:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, it looked like you'd finished. I waited a good while after your initial edits before fixing it up. Once an article is in the main namespace it is fair game, and the edits needed making. After your latest edits, for instance, there is still a link to the Commons, even though there are no additional media for a reader to encounter (being shown the same picture at lower resolution is hardly enlightening). If you want to work on articles before they go live, you can make a subpage in your userspace, or in the Talk namespace. I'm not picking fights; I'm just correcting mistakes and making improvements. You shouldn't see it as a fight, either. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:25, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm hoping I can still find other free images I can upload while I work through the refs I've gathered. And I'm not a noob. I'm currently writing a longer article on Oregonia gracilis in a subpage. This is a tangential topic I want to fill in first quickly, hence why I didn't bother with the subpage. And I do clean up my articles once I've finished writing all of it. It's simply that it's quite infuriating to be edit-conflicted every time you save it and having to undo and reload all the pages, especially with my very slow internet. This has happened before which made me explode as well, if you remember. So please just wait, I really don't want to fight over trivial matters like taxoboxes or pictures again when time could be better spent elsewhere.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 08:38, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, it seems to me like you're doing things in the wrong order a bit, but I'll let you get on with it. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:57, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Brock's Yellow-eared Bat

I am still watching that entry, but the information I want is a technical, Wikipedia methodology one. How is Brock's name shown as part of the Binomial name in the entry for Brock's Yellow-eared Bat? I remember seeing a standard method (maybe a template?) in some other animal or plant entry, but I don't know the details. --DThomsen8 (talk) 12:22, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Ah, in that case I'm no longer sure I understand the question. The person that a species is named after would not normally be included in the taxobox. The person who named the species after Brock is listed, as the species' authority, but not Brock himself. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:42, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

The question is how Stan Brock (philanthropist) is given credit for identifying the bat in the text of the article, or in a separate template, not the infobox already there. I believe there is a standard way to do that. Perhaps I am wrong. I have posted the question on the talk:Brock's Yellow-eared Bat page. --DThomsen8 (talk) 13:04, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I think the answer then is that he would not be credited in the infobox, but only in the prose. It is similar to the article I wrote on Myotis vivesi, except that in that case no-one knows who Vives might have been! --Stemonitis (talk) 13:30, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Pulaski (tool)

Seeing that tool on your user page, I thought I would mention the Pulaski (tool) that my neighbor told me about recently, used for forest fire fighting, especially in the western U.S.--DThomsen8 (talk) 12:26, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you! (2)

	The Barnstar of Diplomacy
	I wanted to formally recognise the work you and Epipelagic have done in working together to improve Wikipedia's coverage of aquatic crustaceans. I know it hasn't always been easy but you have stuck with it. Well done, and keep up the good work. John (talk) 09:01, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, John, and thanks for your input on the talk page, but I fear the barnstar was premature. Epipelagic is recalcitrant, and although I would dearly love to see the article improve and I can see how to do that, he is making any attempt to do so into a vast waste of my time. God knows I've tried. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:05, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Having got to know you both a little I have enormous faith that the situation can be resolved positively.--John (talk) 05:47, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I hope so, too, but it's all gone awfully quiet... --Stemonitis (talk)

Fauna Europaea again

Hi Stemonitis, you were the only one commented previously Archive_2#Mistake_transcribing_from_distribution_tables_of_Fauna_Europaea (see here). I've asked for comment again at the Wikiproject Insects page. I would appreciate if you could give your opinion as to whether I'm still on a "campaign to remove British Isles from Wikipedia" or if I'm fixing transcription errors as per the previous time we discussed this. Thanks. --HighKing (talk) 11:14, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. There's one point that requires clarification. On the one hand, we've substub articles that are simply a list of Fauna Europaea regions. I've listed them, but more have since been created.

In the instance where nobody translates the list to a prose description, I can fix the transcription error. And that the best wikilink is to link to "Great Britain". Agreed?

You've said that "British Isles" is a good link for "Great Britain", "Northern Ireland", "Republic of Ireland" and "Channel Islands". I totally agree. But are you saying that it's a good idea (without rewriting the list in "prose") to use "British Isles" within the list?

I think we either need to write prose, or keep the list (with the FE reference). Thoughts? --HighKing (talk) 19:07, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Stemonitis, I get it if this isn't hitting your priority list. But my editing 3 insect articles has drawn down the wrath of another editor who is accusing me of being on a campaign of deleting "British Isles" from articles. Since my Topic Ban ended last June, I think I've edited a total of 4 articles that touch the topic, 3 of which are the insect articles. I'd appreciate if you could provide a viewpoint on whether my edits to fix the wikilink, as we discussed previously, are OK. And what's your opinion on re-inserting British Isles into the list as transcribed from F.E. (but not changed to a prose as discussed). Thanks. --HighKing (talk) 23:23, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

As I have said before, I see your proposed solution as fixing the wrong problem. Given that attempting to do so may cause ill-feeling without producing any significant benefits, I think it may be best if your efforts were concentrated elsewhere. I'm sure everyone understands that the articles in question are far from perfect. If I find time, I might PROD "Britain I."; I can't see that such a topic is notable. --Stemonitis (talk) 04:56, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Species format

I noticed that on Franklin's bumblebee you put the scientific name in bold and separated by commas. I think that's a good format. Is there a guideline to that effect anywhere? Thanks. ENeville (talk) 19:24, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

The guidelines and common practice seem to be at odds here. On the one hand, alternative titles (terms which would redirect to the article) should be in boldface according to MOS:BOLDTITLE, but on the other hand, many editors (and even some WikiProjects, WP:BIRDS among them) prefer to have the scientific name in brackets, and not in bold. I can't see any justification for that, and as far as I can see, it is contrary to the Manual of Style, but then the guidelines are supposed to reflect common practice rather than prescribe it. So you see, it's all a bit confused. I think putting the scientific name in boldface is sensible, so that's what I tend to do. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:59, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, WP:BIRDS is all into capitalization, too, contrary to WP norms, so I'm not sure what all they're thinking over there. I think a unified MOS is good, otherwise the learning WP editor (and aren't we all?) finds an unnecessarily byzantine set of rules to navigate. I think synonyms, including binomials, are about the second highest priority set of data on the whole page, behind only the definition, and having them consistently in bold for easy locating is similarly high in priority as a consequence. ENeville (talk) 22:11, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Paralithodes

Ha! :)

Yes, you read it right. I dared revert you. Long live Queen Anna. Hahhahaha.

Seriously, it seems to comply with the guidelines. Plus, there are only 5 species in the genus, so this really shows the whole thing. Luckily we have pics for all 5, and so this really conveys a lot of info about the genus. And, it will encourage others to start the articles.

Dare you revert Queen Anna? At your peril! My henchmen will chop off your keyboard wire. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:21, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I don't think it did comply, really, but there are other ways. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:18, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I think it was better before. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:13, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Areca gurita

Morning Stemonitis. Following your edit summary, the authority does list the species as: 'Endangered (EN B2ab). This species is known from only four localities in the wild, at least one of which may have been destroyed...' (Heatubun, 2011). While I'd prefer inclusion, I don't intend to partially revert your alterations. Best, Mephistophelian (talk) 06:02, 13 September 2012 (UTC).

I'm always wary of conservation assessments performed using IUCN criteria, but outside the IUCN. It's perfectly fine to discuss it in the text, of course, but the taxobox has to be told the system under which a status is assigned, and I think it's reasonable for a reader to expect that a species assessed under "IUCN3.1" would be listed in the IUCN database online. Until that's the case, I think it's best to leave it out of the taxobox. I seem to recall that this issue was discussed once, but I can't find the discussion now, and I can't remember the outcome. You can certainly state in the article that according to the author's assessment, the species would qualify as an endangered species under the IUCN criteria, and discuss the reasons for that. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:58, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. Thanks, Mephistophelian (talk) 07:14, 13 September 2012 (UTC).

American mink

Why did you erase what I wrote on the "American Mink" page under the mink as pets section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joemink (talk • contribs) 18:34, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

See WP:V. All content at Wikipedia must be verifiable, by citations to external sources. This means that, even if you know something to be true, it cannot be added unless you have a reference that backs up that assertion. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:38, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

That's only really true of biographies of living persons. For other articles, you should only delete if you have good reason to believe that it can't be verified, not that it hasn't. Ego White Tray (talk) 18:34, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Stemonitis, please re-read your message above regarding verification. This also applies to you and the current dispute we are having on Pain in invertebrates regarding your changing of text without verification.--DrChrissy (talk) 17:21, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not trying to change any information (which must indeedbe verifiable), just using the correct names (which doesn't need inline citation). That's a very important difference. The information is already verifiable through the inline refs, so, no, your complaints don't actually apply in this case. You have yet to give me a good reason for your constant reversion. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:26, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Removing sourced conservation status

Stemonitis - Why did you remove the well-sourced conservation status for Lesula? Ego White Tray (talk) 18:33, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

See the thread on Areca gurita two above this. In short, I think it is best to use status_system = iucn3.1 only for those taxa listed by the IUCN, rather than simply recommendations made to the IUCN. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:38, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

This seems kind of silly to me. Lesula was identified as a species only a week ago, so of course it's not on the IUCN list. Seems ridiculous to leave that blank just because it's a new discovery. Is there a way to note the status as unofficial or something? Also, the documentation for taxobox doesn't explicitly insist on the status being IUCN - should it say so? Ego White Tray (talk) 16:40, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Merge discussion for Lobster

An article that you have been involved in editing, Lobster , has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. PeterWesco (talk) 05:29, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

About Coccinella magnifica

Hi again, Stemonitis,
Coccinella spp. typically eat aphids, and some Formica spp. farm aphids. Could you possibly have a little look into this? Thank you!
--Shirt58 (talk) 13:06, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, it's not entirely clear what you want from me. Is this an article I've been involved in? Or are you just looking for advice? I'm happy to help, but I don't know how! --Stemonitis (talk) 13:21, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Forgot to take my anti-silly pills today. Will be more sensible tomorrow. Maybe.--Shirt58 (talk) 13:56, 21 September 2012 (UTC)