User talk:UtherSRG/Arch10

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• Archive4: User talk:UtherSRG/Arch4
• Archive5: User talk:UtherSRG/Arch5
• Archive6: User talk:UtherSRG/Arch6
• Archive7: User talk:UtherSRG/Arch7
• Archive8: User talk:UtherSRG/Arch8
• Archive9: User talk:UtherSRG/Arch9

Thanx for welcoming me

Thank you I too am a Georger (I think that's where you found me) my Georg username is N8. Thanks also for the explaination of the signatures! --Nathan8225 20:40, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome. It is the first correspondence I have got from anyone on wikipedia. Rintrah 13:41, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome ^_^ I think you're the first to show any kind of friendliness since I've been on wikipedia and it's very appreciated ^_^ Aznph8playa 03:20, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Danke für das Willkommen. :) Kevs

I know that you already have a bunch of sections like this on the talk page, but I'm just stinking it on the bottom so you'll see it. Thanks for the welcome into the site! I'm familiar with Wikipedia rules, I've been on anonymously for a while. Steveo2

Moved into the appropriate section. *grins* - UtherSRG 17:50, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome! I'm really glad to know the tilde thing, I was manually typing it out each and every time! Talk about dedication. Guess I should read the FAQ more carefully next time, huh? Master Thief Garrett 00:57, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the welcome. --LeaMaimone 09:23, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Likewise as with all the previous posters -- thanks for the welcome. And I have an immediate question! If we see a section that could possibly have a subsection with numerous images, what do we do? I'm specifically discussing the Rabbit/European Rabbit section, as there are many breeds of domesticated rabbits these days. We are avid lagamorphologists (real word?) and would like to contribute. We also many other individuals that would do the same. Help? Metavurt 19:14, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

I want to say thank you for the warm welcome you have given me on Wikipedia! I have already added a few Wikipedia and Wiktionary entries and edited some others - do tell me if I'm doing anything wrong; any criticism is gratefully accepted. HenryAJ 18:00, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'll defer to your authority on the cuttlefish post. I am aware of the apocryphal nature of urbandictionary.com. The term most definately is in use, I assure you, if only as a regionalism.

You were wrong to revert my 107th Congress edit. Lisa Murkowski was appointed in December, 2002 to occupy the seat vacated by Frank Murkowski due to his 2002 election as Alaska Governor. Hence, in the 107th Congress, convening in 2001, Frank Murkowski should be represented as the Senator from Alaska.

Hi! Thanks for leaving me aa little welcome message!Frogprincess1312 06:20, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Well that's all I had to say :-D Laudaka 14:29, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the nice welcome - Drago9034 05:04, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)

Hi there! Thanks for the welcome! Mark Richards

Thank you for welcoming me to Wikipedia my goal is to do the best that I can to help improve wikipedia in all of the areas that I can. Daniel.

Thanks for the welcome note. Helped me understand the User talk thing, and was encouraging. I've been editing modestly for a while now. You set a nice tone for friendly welcoming which invites new users to feel at home. Kd4ttc 03:00, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for welcoming me. However I guess I stay on the German Wikipedia project and just add the inter wiki links here. -- MichaelHaeckel 19:18, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome. I really don't know anyone around here yet, and it was nice to know that somebody cared! Jeru 11:07, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Um, I'm not sure how to leave messages on this just yet, but you can always delete this, right? Thanks for the welcome message. Sorry about the inappropriate link. 「Jeshii 12:57, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)」

Thanks for your welcome. (I'm sure you welcome my thanks or do you want to say thanks for the thanks. Then I should say thanks for your thanks....ad infinitum.....) :) I still need to understand the copyright thing. I'd like to upload a rewrite or summary of the 'Waking the Tiger book' under a wikipedia article 'How to Heal Traumas' . Sorry to all wikipedians for the copyright infringements.(they were deleted) Best regards, Jondel 04:38, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This just one more thank you for one more kind welcome written by you. Hgfernan 08:45, 13 May 2004

Oh yes, it's taking me a while to find my way around talk pages and stuff, but I was very pleased with the welcome you gave me, too. Thanks, and keep up the good work. Tonusperegrinus 20:28, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, what they said :o] porge 02:45, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome! Sir Trollsalot 07:00, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Me too! Palnu 03:32, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

And thanks! David Sneek 06:36, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

A belated (over 2 months!) thanks for your kind welcome. Lacrimosus 07:23, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

For some strange and atypical reason I would have considered it 'bad luck' to un-redden my name by creating a user page before someone addresses me on my talk page. Thanks for the welcome, now I'm really 'part of it'! Femto 17:26, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Okay, read that "Curse you, now I'll never really get away from it. :)" — Easy enough to find here anyway, though can it be that you actually forgot to sign a message that contains an explanation how to sign a message? Femto 12:25, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for the welcome! I'd been around for some months doing minor edits, but never interacted with anyone in the comunity. - Waltervulej 19:06, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome! Stuff ign 16:24, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hey, thank you for welcoming me to wikipedia and backing up what i wrote on the article about chimpanzees. Irresponsible 14:17, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Woo, thanks, didn't know you did Wikipedia! I made one tiny change a while back, but this is still very new to me, but something I'm very fond of (I have become convinced that Wikipedia is the greatest treasure trove of information this world has). Somnior 02:06, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the welcome OmegaWikipedia 06:36, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for welcoming and four tildes advice =) -- Akaabc 07:16, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome. Bambaiah 12:06, May 21, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome and the advice! Mithrandir1986 16:41, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

That habit of seeing things needing fixing is not yours alone; typos speak to me. It is a huge relief that Wikipedia lets me fix them. :) KSmrq 16:46, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome! Hohokus 17:32, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Belated thanks for my welcome! It must have worked: see how long I've stayed here! Brequinda 14:19, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome too, you seem like a great guy to know around here Gregbains 18:38, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the warm welcome! :) Nice to know there are great people like you around. Foolish question removed, sorry, didn't read through your entire message. :p Valhallia 8 July 2005 15:22 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome. I am mostly just a random reader of articles. But I might fix a spelling error or ask a question in talk. And my only connection to bird watching is being acquainted with Chan Robbins. PerlKnitter 12:39, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I also appreciate your kind welcome. Is that your official Wikipedia job, or what? Adso de Fimnu 00:29, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Dear Stacey, I appreciate the welcome note, will read. Happy editing!! Sfawbush 07:48, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi, and yet another thanks for the welcome. I'm getting off to a slow start as a Wikipedian, as you can tell by the timestamp below, and the fact that you left your note on my user talk page back in June! We share an interest in Bookcrossing. Be well! BWatkins 21:38, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Primates

Primate Classification

Hello UtherSRG. I'm user Bradypus from the German Wikipedia and I just saw you translated the baboon articles. I also somtimes check the English Wikipedia and found out you use a very different kind of primate classification (for instance giving the Aotus-monkeys family status under the name Nyctipithecidae) than we do. We have a rather "traditional" classification. What is your source? Regards,--80.108.59.151 07:23, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC) Bradypus (I don't know how to do this Interwiki signatures)

Hello UtherSRG. I really thought you speak a little bit German, because those Babelfish-translations are not very exact. (This is a useful dictionary which I often use, maybe it helps). I looked at the 5 baboon specieses and the Cercopithecinae. Please check my addendums, for I'm not a native speaker and word order, spelling and such things can be wrong. --80.108.59.151 20:04, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)(Bradypus)

Tarsiers

Sorry, my mistake! I misread the hierarchy on the New World Monkeys page, thanks for putting me right (so quickly).--Bwmodular 17:39, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You wrote: "What is your interest in Primates?"

Purely platonic :) Just a fascination with them. I took the Tarsier image (Tarsier.jpg) in Sulawesi years ago, and made some edits to that page, but I'm not an expert on primates. I'm working on a primates image gallery at the moment (to be added to the other animal galleries Wikipedia:List_of_images/Nature/Animals) but I don't think I'm qualified to join the project. If there are any non-technical routine tasks (finding images for taxoboxes, etc) that can be done, I'll gladly help, but I can't contribute in any way that requires technical / scientific knowledge.--Bwmodular 09:38, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Tarsius spectrum

I'll try and find out for sure, but I think it is a Spectral Tarsier (Tarsius spectrum). I saw them in Tangkoko National Park, North Sulawsi - if I can find out for sure, I'll let you know.--Bwmodular 10:18, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Pretty sure it's a Spectral Tarsier now - I've looked at a few studies which took place in Tangkoko and they all refer to Tarsius spectrum. --Bwmodular 11:28, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Lemur

No, I'm afraid I could not recall the name of the animal itself; and had to put up a request on the Reference Desk to know what animal it is. :( Nichalp 17:59, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

Numbers of primate species

I really think 402 is closer to the true than 350. It's from my own lists (Mammal Taxonomy which are probably relatively correct (although the number of species might be affected by the fact that I include many extinct species.. I'll change that). What do you think of "at least 350" or so? Ucucha 14:34, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Groves (2001) lists 350, but there have been a few new species identified since. This list should be of extant species. If you included extinct species (of which we will never have a nearly complete list) in your edit, you should revert all of your changes to what was there before. - UtherSRG 14:44, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

No I should not, as that has not really contributed in the numbers of species. With or without extinct species, they were too low. In any case, my "extinct" species were only Holocene ones, of which the list may be relatively complete. Ucucha 15:42, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Gibbons

I've reverted your change to the classification list. All of the primate articles, via WP:PRIM, are following Groves' Primates section in Mammal Species of the World, 3rd ed, due to be published in a couple of months. Where did you get your listing from? - UtherSRG (talk) 21:06, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Hope it's okay to reply here (I'm still figuring out etiquette and such). Thanks for the welcome! I have several sources for the edits I've made. First off, I just finished a Master's on gibbon phylogenetics. Gibbon taxonomy is still very much under debate and changes frequently. My former adviser spoke with Colin Groves personally, who admitted that due to complications from other authors, the section on gibbons will be out of date before it is printed. My reclassification is based on one by Thomas Geissman, another prominent gibbon biologist. His changes have been reviewed by other researchers, such as R.A. Mittermeier, and have been incorporated into the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Estelahe 19:32, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Nomenclature

Just curious, but is there a reason you'd prefer species' common names to be capitalized? I've never seen that anywhere in the scientific literature that I recall, but then again it's not something that I obsessed over. - Estelahe 16:53, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I hate to be one of those people that harp on a subject, but I've one more point to make about capitalizing species' common names (I promise I'll stop after this!). I'm not certain that using the conventions of ornithologists is such a great idea, as only ornitohologists insist on capitalizing common names. Other taxonomists (botanists, entomologists, herpetologists, primatologists, you name it) don't do so, and even those who work on birds but aren't strict ornithologists (e.g. conservation geneticists, community ecologists) won't capitalize. There's some debate [pdf] even among strict ornithologists about this. As far as clarity goes, linking/bolding the whole common name should be clear enough. If every article in Wikipedia used the ornithology system, I wouldn't buck the trend, but I've found a bunch of articles that don't (For breadth, I viewed species that popped into my head: Rainbow trout, tree frog, dolphin, nematodes, octopus). If you don't agree or would rather not reformat everything, I'll bow to your seniority--though I'd prefer to know which reason! :) - Estelahe 04:41, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I know there's much debate in the scientific community. There's been much here as well, with topics ranging from article naming consistency to species being viewed as singlular or plural items. I find many of the ornithological arguments very strongly compelling, including the distinction of adjectives about an individual and adjectives as part of the common name. ("Wow, that's a red silver leaf monkey!" "The rare common chimpanzee in Fooistan...") vs ("Wow, that's a red Silver Leaf Monkey!" "The rare Common Chimpanzee in Fooistan...") - UtherSRG (talk) 10:59, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Birds

Hey there! We seem to have a lot of common interests in animals in general. I just put my name on the WikiBird project and saw your name there. I have done some massive work in categorizing the birds, and I was hoping you could review some of my edits and see if I am conforming to everything ya'll have agreed on. I have been categorizing the parrots recently and I am not sure what should be a parrot or not. Mostly I've just been putting general categories on things that have no cat. at all, trying to get them all corralled in so more precise work can be done on them.

Also, something happened with the columbiformes category (Category:Columbiformes). See the Category:Birds and see that somehow about a dozen of them got saved. I've no idea how that happened or how to fix it without going into each one (a pain with how slow wiki has been running lately.) Till later.--DanielCD 22:43, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, with WP being so slow, I'm having a hard time looking, so I'll give some general advice from what I see. First, I believe categories in general are still a little buggy... moving an article from one category to another will show it in both until something forces the cache to be flushed and reloaded from the database. Second, watch your capitalization. Since broad-tailed parrot is all lowercase, Category:broad-tailed parrots should also be lowercase. Finally, I consider myself a junior member of the bird project. Give a knock on the talk pages of a few of the more bird-active folks and see what kind of category schemas they may have kicking around their heads. - UtherSRG 02:12, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

NYC Subways

List of New York Subway stations

Thanks for the additions to the list, and sorry if you got an edit conflict. --SPUI 05:23, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

2 Seventh Avenue Express

Hi, sorry to tell you this after you went to so much extra work, but SPUI, I and a few others have been disambiguating between "Lines" (Sea Beach Line, Seventh Avenue Line) and "Services" (A, B, C, etc.) This way we have only one line name for a particular station. We have taken the line names from current official sources, and they are at User:SPUI/New York City Subway lines. The whole ball of wax is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Subway. Please join us there! The explanation of lines, services, etc. is at New York City Subway line, route and station nomenclature. Cheers! -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 07:44, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ah! So it would still be "Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line"? And that would mean that there are now a few redundant entries in List of New York City Subway stations because I just added 'em. Ok. I'll get them in the (real) morning. It's time for me to head off to sleep. I'll join the WikiProject in the morning, too. - UtherSRG 07:52, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

And it would also be (for the "2" service) "White Plains Road Line," "Lenox Avenue Line," "Eastern Parkway Line" and "Nostrand Avenue Line." I already made the changes on the 2 line. Have a good night's sleep! :) -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 08:06, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I fixed all the stations in the master list (and added the rest on those lines), so no worries there. I labeled the 4-5 part of Borough Hall as Joralemon Street Tunnel, since we don't know for sure what line that's on. --SPUI 08:25, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ok, so insomnia has hit me. I've done the 3 service, and I believe I did it correctly this time. *grins* Wikipedia:WikiProject_New_York_City_Subway/Line_templates is a big help! I'm moving onto 4 now, and I see there are many real links that will need to be moved. Fun! - UtherSRG 10:42, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

We're actually doing the station lists on the line pages, to avoid duplication across the service pages (and the inevitable duplication of changes when the MTA changes something). R (New York City Subway) is an example of a service page done this way; Queens Boulevard Line is an example of a line page. As for the templates, you want to use the stuff like {{NYCS Sixth}}, so a change of that template will propagate to all the lists. You should probably take a close look at the source for the QBL page. If you're unsure of a line name, check it against Image:NYC subway origins.png (the one thing to note is that we're using Broadway-BMT Line for the BMT Broadway, since it appears the MTA does that now). --SPUI 12:51, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ah dear oh dear. Ok. Well, I finished up 4 anyway for consistency. I'll see what I can attck next. - UtherSRG 01:35, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

New York Subway tables

I really appreciate your work on the New York subway tables, although I have a few concerns. I think it look smuch better if the word "free transer to" is not used, as it is fairly redundant as it is assumed. Further, please use "table align=center" to centre all of the tables, otherwise they look a bit odd being left-justified. Thanks! Páll 23:07, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I believe I'm done with what I had planned ot do. Be bold and make adjustments as you see fit. - UtherSRG 00:37, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Taxobot

I can assist you building your bot on the pywikipediabot framework. Leave me a message and tell me what you want to do, and I'll lead you through the steps in creating your bot. -- AllyUnion (talk) 05:00, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

---

1. Download the latest version from cvs
2. copy config.py to user-config.py.
3. Edit the first three variables
4. Delete any remaining unchanged variables
5. Save user-config.py file
6. Login by running python login.py
7. You must:

   import wikipedia, config

   The main library is wikipedia, the second library is config

8. Basics to know: read the comments in wikipedia.py
9. page = wikipedia.PageLink(site, pagename) - sets a page link to the variable page
10. page.get() - gets the text from that specified page
11. page.put(text, comment) - puts the new text with the comment
12. wikipedia.getSite() - gets site from config file.

-- AllyUnion (talk) 21:10, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wired article

Congratulations on your profile in Wired article on Wikipedia, and thanks for all the work you do! Jokestress 16:17, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

They seem to think that you are female though (they evidently didn't notice your middle name) ☺ — PhilHibbs | talk 17:05, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

They need to make Wired a wiki! ;) Jokestress 17:10, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

{sigh} I've been dealing with my gender-neutral first name all my life. I suppose I can suffer it some more for a good article.... even if Daneil didn't include my "hacker manifesto" quote. - UtherSRG 17:15, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

Congrats on your Wired mention: you've entered a whole new level of geekiness! :) FYI, they finally corrected that gender "oversight". – ClockworkSoul 01:21, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikispecies format

Hi, Uther. I notice you've been doing a lot of work creating wikispecies pages. I've been arguing that project should be structured in a way that allows for variation in classification systems, and have tried setting up an alternate standard on the protist pages. However, it hasn't received any real support. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on the matter, since it's something I think would be important for ancient hominids, and from experience your opinions are generally trustworthy. Thanks, Josh

It's a tough call. I don't think most casual users will want to know all the possible variations of classification, although they may be interested to know some of the more prominent schools of thought. On the other hand, users of a more professional caliber will want to be able to explore the variations. I think for navigation it will be easier for the readers and editors to pick a specific classification and stick to it until it gets superceeded. Variations and schools of thought can be described and discussed the the article text. Thinking of the various avian classification systems, though, it might well be better to use a dual navigation system, one for the standard used by Wikipedia, and one for the more current schools of thought. If this is the case, then I'm not sure the incrementally indented navigation system is a good one to use.

Come to think of it, I'm starting to not like it at all.species:User:Planetscape.de has started a push to use taxoboxes. That might be a realm of exploration we can use for showing alternate classifications, or it might prove to be more difficult than not. I like tree diagrams that show can show schools of thought on when taxa were thought to have divided as well, or at least show that a listing of taxa is actually a few groupings of taxa and that they are not all as closely related as a simple list would show.

In general, I run hot and cold about Wikispecies. I think the concept is good, but that it became open to the public too quickly. More work needed to be done on these kinds of decisions before users were invited to come and play. *shrugs* - UtherSRG 12:36, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

The programming for Wikidata has started. This will enable to have Wikispecies with all classification systems. GerardM 13:41, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Giant Squid

Please stop removing the link I placed on the Giant Squid aritcle. the link has good content, and it deserves to stay as a resource. If needed, contact me at my talk page. --Zeerus 20:53, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I noticed you changed some of my edits on the Giant_Squid page, and just wanted to ask about your sources (I was 24.205.80.49). The most questionable of these is that you put back the claim that giant squids cannot lift their arms out of water-- I find this extremely dubious, from what I know about cephalopods in general. Although Architeuthis is less muscular for its size than many more agressive squids, and so is believed to be a relatively passive ambush predator and slow swimmer, it is still a very muscular animal. Cephalopods in general are very strong, being composed almost entirely of muscle, so I would be shocked if Architeuthis is unable to move its arms out of water. I think it's a valid point that given its anatomy and what is believed about its lifestyle, it is unlikely to attack boats, but really, it is my understanding that only the very gelatinous deep-sea cephalopods are so weak that they would have trouble moving their arms out of water.

Also, it's possible that my parenthetical notes were too awkward, but you removed a comment that some experts believe that there is only one species of Architeuthis, A. Dux, and that the other species classifications were overzealous classification. I'm pretty sure that Steve O'Shea is of this belief-- he says " The genus Architeuthis contains the single cosmopolitan species A. dux and adults are found throughout the temperate oceans at depths of 400-600m." in http://www.tonmo.com/science/public/deepseacephs.php and I believe has advocated this view elsewhere (I don't have the refs, but he is a frequent participant in the forums on TONMO.com, so I can ask). The CephBase article linked at the bottom does seem to reflect the multiple species view, though, so perhaps this is a bit of a rogue viewpoint. However http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Architeuthis suggests that Clyde Roper gives credence to the notion that only 3 species are legitimately distinct.

Lastly, I noted that colossal squid eyes may be bigger than giant squid eyes-- the only full specimen caught appeared to be immature, so while its eyes were not present, and may not be bigger than the largest architeuthis eyes ever measured, there is some reason to believe that in a mature animal they would be. see discussion at http://zapatopi.net/cephnews/colossalsquidcaught.html

Anyway, mostly I had just wanted to change the gross errors in the bouyancy and statocyst information, since it's been bugging me that it was referenced many placees around the web, so all of what I'm asking about is fairly minor in comparison. Just thought I'd ask, though; I'm particularly interested in where the idea that Architeuthis would be too weak to lift its own arms out of the water came from, since I'm quite skeptical (but I'm not a teuthologist).

Oh, I'm also not sure how best to address a glaring error: if the "first real evidence" of the existance of giant squid was in 1873, how could it have been taxonomically typed in 1857? Presumably Steenstrup had a physical specimen-- isn't that a requirement before the name is officially date-stamped?

(you can email me at monty@gg.caltech.edu if you would like to discuss any of this...) (This is my first time editing wikipedia data, so I apologize if your "talk" forum is not the best place for this, or if it is bad etiquette to not register before editing, or something... at first, I tried to get one of the real teuthologists that frequent tonmo.com to fix up the page, but they were too busy or not interested) (I just made an account montyy0 on wikipedia, too.)

--Montyy0 19:17, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)--Montyy0 19:17, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

more on architeuthis

I have also read that the emerging consensus is that the eight species model is not supported by observation and that it is more likely that A. dux is really the only species. At any rate, I thought my edits made the article more neutral on a subject where the jury is definitely still out. Ben-w 1 July 2005 00:04 (UTC)

I read the document you provided -- thanks! I can certainly point you to books which support the lumper perspective over the splitter one, and it's my understanding that the multiple-species approach has very little to support it other than first-mover advantage -- all of those species were named specimen-by-specimen. If there is any indication whatever of any specific difference between a japonica and a kirkii, I certainly haven't heard it. There's certainly no proof of the viable-offspring test either way. WP:CEPH admits that the taxonomy is far from settled, and I think the article should simply accept these ancient taxonomies without even acknowledging that differences of opinion exist.

Please have a look at my latest effort on Giant squid! I've left the ITIS version as the "primay" explanation, added what I think is a cautious and NPOV mention of other views, and added that report as an external link. I also removed the redlinks to the various species and redirected "Atlantic giant squid". Even if there are eight different species, we're unlikely to ever know them well enough so they'll each merit an article .... Ben-w 8 July 2005 07:00 (UTC)

Well, I don't know why you keep taking out information, and adding redlinks that can never possibly go anywhere. Ben-w 8 July 2005 17:32 (UTC)

Humboldt squid

You removed a section quoted from elsewhere as "copyright violation". I'm not convinced quoting a section from a diver's account is in violation (I don't think it counts as a "substantial part") but hey, fair enough. Perhaps you'd like to add to the article seeing as you seem to know a bit about squid/nautilus/ammonite. It'd be better than taking stuff out of the article....

Uther_MOO?

Whoa! I had no idea you were on Wikipedia...and so prolific! I thought I had your e-mail address but when I tried to send something it bounced, so I figured I'd google your real name and this came up first. Anyway, Uther and Uther's_Lackey are about to be reaped on LambdaMOO. Drop me an e-mail (etoile at amanita dot net works) so I can ask you some things about the situation - whether you're coming back, and if not what you want done with the objects you own.

-Etoile 05:21, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikispecies

Hi Stacey. You are now an admin at Wikispecies. Talk page redirects no longer work, and as an admin at Wikispecies, it would be best if users could leave you messages there now. Angela. 10:25, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

Hello, so again: Welcome as admin! Silly question: do you know how to replace the grey logo by the colored version whilst the debate about the final logo is still going on? The file is wikispecies_logo.png. Thanks, Beneditk

Taxoboxes

Sorry about the taxoboxes. Someone pasted one in on the first article I wrote and I've just used it as a template. I've not really got involved in the tree of life project - if there's anything else I should be doing different please let me know! Richard Barlow 12:36, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll sort the rest out! Richard Barlow 12:57, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Taxobox

Hi UtherSRG,

The fact is that I don't like the current taxobox format very much. I tried to "modernize" the layout a bit, but it seems that you don't like it. I will not change it any more.

Regards, RexNL 12:45, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Nautilus

Hey, I added some pics at Nautilus, but they don't seem to fit. I thought I'd see what you think. If you think it's too sloppy, I can just revert it. I just thought the camouflage thing was neat. Thanks for your time. --DanielCD 19:41, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hey, did you think I'm wrong about the scar or did you think it just didn't fit well? It doesn't matter to me; I'm just glad you found a way to fit the pics in. I'm still learning the pic syntax. I guess you'd have to see the actual shell up close to really tell about the scar anyway. Thanks again for your help! --DanielCD 12:56, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Species of chimpanzees

Yes, I wondered whether I should put that in. Unfortunately, the source I found only had a mention of Pan troglodytes. I was planning to replace that with something more scholarly when time permitted. Do you know whether Goodman or others have published anything about Pan paniscus being also reclassified? Did he mention P. paniscus in the paper, do you know? Grace Note 01:14, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if he did, although I suspect he did. However, most news sources won't report on there being two species of chimpanzees, especially on an issue like this. It's too much reader education that would need to be done. The other possibility is that he's one of the holdouts that don't accept that there are two species only one.... - UtherSRG 02:59, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Edits

What's going on? Why are you backing out my corrections? Noisy | Talk 12:25, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

The capitalizations were correct. There was no need for you to "fix" them. - UtherSRG 12:33, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Well I know that my Hutchinson encyclopaedia and my Illustrated Encyclopedia of Animals aren't reference works, but they don't use capitalized names. I invite you to look at any of your own encylopaedias to see if they use capilized form for common animal names. However, having done a bit of research (e.g. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)) I see that this has been a fraught subject in the past, so I won't rerevert you. It might have been helpful if you had dropped me a note on my talk page to discuss this first. Noisy | Talk 13:19, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Ammonite

Hey there Uther. I did some major shifting at Ammonite and created some sections out of the mass of material that was floating around there. I was just hoping you might take a peek at it when you get a moment to see if I made any goofs or misplaced anything. I prolly still need to get in and change some wikilink locations. Any suggestions about improving the section divisions are quite welcome. Anyway, thanks for your time! --DanielCD 21:54, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Quick favor re: Matrixism vandalism

Hey, concerning the Matrixism vandal we've been dealing with, there's something I've been wondering about. Every so often, from time to time, some registered user emerges to run interference for the vandal. As soon as List of religions was protected, somebody registered an account and added original research to Jedi census phenomenon suggesting that it was a serious religious movement (there's no evidence of the kind). Of course, this claim is often used as rationalization by the Matrixist when he goes about, I've seen him use it on message boards when I googled it to confirm it wasn't for real.

Anyway, if you think it'd be useful, and if you can do it (or know someone who can do it), I'd like to run an IP check for sockpuppetry. The users are User:Nathyn, User:KickAir8P~, and User:MFNickster. It's probably nothing, but if you could see if any of those match the IP ranges that have been vandalizing I'd appreciate it. Thanks! — Phil Welch 05:50, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Wolf Subspecies

Hello Uther,

I was wondering why you deleted my 'wolf subspecies' edit (It was anonymous, I have only just registered). If you somehow feel that the older list was more complete, let me assure you that it was actually extremely inaccurate. Most of those 'subspecies' simply exist so that a biologist could get his name in the books for something. The newer system exists from extensive comparison of wolf anatomy and distribution. The reason why it is not very commonly seen on the net is because people assume it is an incomplete list, as they see others which contain more names (and as I'm sure you know, most websites on wolves are simply fan sites and not written by scientists). Here is a link to back up my claims- http://www.kerwoodwolf.com/BIOLOGY.htm

"In North America, 24 subspecies were originally recognized. The more modern view however, is that there are only five valid subspecies here: the Eastern Timber Wolf, the Northern Plains Wolf, the Mexican Wolf, the Mackenzie Valley Wolf, and, the Arctic Wolf. Classification is difficult because wolves, so similar to their subspecies in the first place, travel, cutting into the territories of other wolf subspecies, sometimes even interbreeding with the other race and creating pups that are even more difficult to classify. Although the situation is equally confusing in parts of Europe and Asia, scientists have recognized another eight wolf subspecies or races there."

Thanks, Joe

First, please sign "talk" comments with ~~~~.

The edit was because there are too many folks who think they know bio making such edits. You obviously do know what you are talking about, so please go back and restore your edits. However, please also put some annotation in the "talk" so that we know you're legit. Thanks, and sorry for the confusion. - UtherSRG 18:01, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

Arini

Thanks for the italics. Arini is my first post. Can I put the genera in alphabetical order or is that wrong? --66.15.81.103 01:10, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Wolf spider layout correct?

I was hoping you could check over my first attempt at adding/updating a taxobox on wikipedia, for wolf spiders. I would apprecate any feedback on little (or big!) things I may have missed before I set off updating other spider pages! Thanks! :) --Fxer 17:19, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

Cheirogaleus

Cheirogaleus should not be linked to Lesser Dwarf Lemur. The Cheirogaleus article should be about the genus, not one of the species in the genus. I've deleted the redirect. - UtherSRG 00:16, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

My original idea was to make a link from the genus if Wikipedia has a single article on a species in that genus. But you're right, it's wrong to do that unless the genus is monotypic. I will remove the other inappropriate redirects I made. Gdr 09:07, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

Hybrids in taxoboxes

As far as I can tell, there is no provision in taxoboxes for a hybrid. This can lead to an anomalous taxobox such as on the page Amanatsu. A template for hybrids is lacking. There should also be made a distinction between natural hybrids, manmade hybrids and intergeneric hybrids (such as in some orchids), grex, and polybrid. On the other hand, the taxobox could contain a general 'hybrid' template (with room for the parents of the hybrid), while the distinction could be made in the article. And then there is the problem of the cultivars. I don't think anyone has bothered yet describing a cultivar on a separate page. But whenever this should happen, a template should be at hand. JoJan 09:47, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

There's a well-known hybrid at Lemon. Gdr 11:10, 2005 May 20 (UTC)

I've editted Amanatsu to look like Lemon. I must admit that I'm not well versed in botany at all, so I'm not sure what to do about hybrids. What are all the possibilities? What would be a good format to distinguish a "regular" species from a hybrid, and different types of hybrids from each other? These questions and a discussion leading to their answers are probably better had on the WP:TOL or taxobox talk page. - UtherSRG 11:58, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

It is probably better that more participants of TOL give their opinion on this matter. Therefore I have moved this discussion to Wikipedia talk:Wikiproject_Tree of Life. JoJan 13:55, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Tall ships

Would you take a look at STS Mir and Mercator (ship). Some copyediting may be in order. Some pretty photos are also at hand at the Commons for the STS Mir and also for the Grand Turk (frigate). You'll probably enjoy it. JoJan 16:28, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Re: taxobot

What you are suppose to do is:

 $ cp config.py user-config.py
 $ vi user-config.py

Then edit out all the lines you don't need in user-config.py. Since I don't know what is in your user-config.py, I can't really help you any further. -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:58, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Inheritance (trilogy)

I wanted to quickly talk to you about the Inheritance Trilogy. Is there anyway that I can contact you via a messenger or email address? Please respond on my user talk, thanks.

-Aznph8playa 22:43, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• The setup of the Inheritance pages and maybe a large amount of rearrangement?

-Aznph8playa 22:52, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You can chat here or one the various Inheritance pages, as appropriate. In fact, it would be best there, since then other editors can participate in the dialogue. But I'm heading out for the night, so I'll participate later. - UtherSRG 22:59, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Ok well thanks for your help. I just wanted to talk to someone one on one if possible just so that I could clarify a few questions I had. Aznph8playa 01:38, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I posted my thoughts on Category talk:Inheritance races. DS1953 03:12, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Whether or not the Inheritance Races Category page is needed, there seems to be a consensus that the Inheritance (book 3) page is of a speculatory nature and therefor not fit for wikipedia. If you agree, since you did create the page, I would like to know what are the steps for the actual deletion. Again I am quite new wikipedia so any help would be very kind of you. Aznph8playa 18:21, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Deletion is handled by admins. Regular users do not have those privs. -UtherSRG 19:43, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

Gotcha! Thanks for the info. Uh just out of curiosity, how do you know who is an admin and about how long does it take on average for them to delete/notice something? And about the redirect pages, I just figured I'd follow your lead on those because I couldn't think of anything better =oP In the future though if there becomes an extravagent amount of information available about the races and possibly their languages (as in Tolkein's books) maybe we can reopen the category ^_^ Thanks again for your help. Aznph8playa 21:26, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Doubt on Nilgiri Langur classification

Hi, I saw that you have changed the scientific name of Nilgiri Langur and reclassified it in Old World monkey instead of Surli. I just wanted to know the reasoning since I read in an Indian book that their scientific name is Presbytis johni. If you can throw some light I'd be glad to know about it. --Idleguy 03:21, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

HI, yes I would like to have a copy of Groves' MSW contribution in a Word doc. my email id is idleguy@hotpop.com tx --Idleguy 17:43, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

User:142.32.208.234

Hey there,

It looks like we both blocked this guy, but I gave him an infinite block while you gave him a week. Seeing you were the one to block him first, what is your opinion on the situation? Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk 17:55, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

I try not to infinite block... I prefer to escalate the length of time a user is blocked for, although I admit to choosing my starting point capriciously. Note hte {{banned}} template I sue on the banned user's talk page, so I can track the time. - UtherSRG 18:39, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

I'm adding the link to the user's talk page for the sake of others, to take note of the usage of the {{banned}} template. I hope no one minds. :-) User_talk:142.32.208.234 Special:Contributions/142.32.208.234 --D. F. Schmidt (talk) 15:32, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

TV blocks

Hi there! I saw you nominated some TV blocks for deletion, stating that you would like to merge them. In general, you can be bold and merge them right away (see Wikipedia:Merge for details), this does not require a lengthy vote. we trust you. Hope that helps! Radiant_>|< 09:40, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

No. It doesn't help. I want the vote for precedent. I'm an admin and know plenty well how to do a merge and redirect. I want to show these kids that their articles are not encyclopedic and should be merged away. - UtherSRG 11:13, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't vandalising it! I was only trying to work out how to use it! Trial by error, and all that...

Apologies for any offence caused anyway. --195.93.21.3 16:57, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

---

...anyhows, i tried to put back what i shifted. apologies once again. well impressed by this, actually - massive respect for maintaining it(or whatever you do) - jaymc13@hotmail.com --195.93.21.3 17:02, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

:L

See that simbal (above)? That is someone sticking their tounge out at YOU! I don't know how else to put this, so I'm using a quote from another talk page (that I wrote this on):

"...as one of my friends (I'm looking at you, UstherSRG) often agravates me by putting his loyalty to order on this site over trying to aviod hurting my feelings by constantly reverting my edits and articals. Why I bet he's at my new artical right now, looking at the most painful way [to me] to revert the intire thing."

Now, I'm not saying that all you do all day is say to yourself: "Oh, look, Wack'd made another artical, I think I'll just delete the whole thing," but you do have a pretty painful way of changing my articals. For one thing, you never bother to tell me exactly what it is you've done, you just do it, tell me you just reverted my edits, never singling out exatly what it is you've done. And, you insult me by saying that I have absolutly no clue what I'm doing. Well, I do, so get over it! And to be put down by an adult - that's just insulting (you are an adult, aren't you?)! I mean, you have absolutly no feelings, you only want what's best for the site. WELL, WHAT KIND OF IRONIC FOOL CARES MORE ABOUT A WEBSITE THAN THE FEELINGS OF A CHILD? YOU DO! YOU'RE JUST THE KIND OF SELFISH PUNK WHO GETS WHAT THEY WANT AND ANYONE WHO GETS IN YOUR WAY GETS BULLDOZED! AND I'M COVERED IN BULLDOZER MARKS! SO THERE! --Wack'd About Wiki 23:58, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

For one thing, I never said it was my property, the reason I stated it like that because I started it, and it's easiest to rufur to them as mine. Another thing is, it's Wack'd, not Wack. I'm sort of picky about that. Sorry if I misunderstood; but in the furture, tell me exactly what it is you reverted, it worries me when you don't tell because I want to see exactly what it is you changed so I can improve myself on that note in the future. Sorry I yelled at you. --Wack'd About Wiki 19:00, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

PS: Thank you for complimenting me on being "11 going on 1." I'm prone to throwing tantrums like that (not at school, though) and even my parents don't understand that it's just...who I am.

JoJan nom

BTW - you somehow dated by did not sign your support vote. (one extra ~, I presume?) Guettarda 23:16, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Gah. Ok. Fixed. :)

Oddly, although you wrote and "kinda" signed the nom, the page history looks like I edited it first. Strange. Maybe it'll catch up soon. Guettarda 23:20, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Weirder still is that your vote is the only one listed on the main page - is there some way that there could be two subpages? Now I see - have a look at this -

• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/JoJan
• Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/User:JoJan

Guettarda 23:25, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No big deal - I voted on each one - "vote early and vote often" :) Guettarda 23:26, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Stacey, thanks for nominating me for the adminship. We've always had pleasant contacts. When I started in Wikipedia, about 14 months ago, you were one of the first to give me a helping hand. Now it pleases me that it is you nominating me. JoJan 19:27, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Theo RFA

Hi Stacey: Thank you for supporting my nomination. I am delighted by your unqualified support since I know that you have watched some of my interactions here.—Theo (Talk) 05:52, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

My RFA

Thank you for supporting my RFA. Guettarda 00:27, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Do You Know How...

...to create a sub-artical? --Wack'd About Wiki 23:39, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I swear, I went on to someone's userpage and they had a good 5-6 pages that were linked to his user-page, all relating to his life entirely and not in the contents section. He called them his "sub-articals" or something like that and I want to learn how to make some! --Wack'd About Wiki 11:19, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

List of snakes of Trinidad and Tobago

I have put this list up for Wikipedia:Peer review and I was wondering if you might want to provide some feedback on it. I realise you a primate person not a snake person, but as a plant person one vertebrate is pretty much the same an another :). Thanks. Guettarda 16:22, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Guettarda 17:19, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I put it up as a Featured List candidate, got some more feedback and made some more changes. I was wondering if you might be willing to have another look and cast a vote (Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of snakes of Trinidad and Tobago). Thanks - Guettarda 29 June 2005 04:28 (UTC)

oops

sorry. btw - why html rather than ''? Guettarda 01:31, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You mean the opposite, right? I just removed the HTML italics ad replaced them with wiki italics. - UtherSRG 01:33, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Well, that makes more sense. A tad dyslexic maybe? :) Guettarda 01:36, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Aye-aye

On WP:PR, I've seen that you're working on primate articles and I consider the Aye-aye quite an extraordinary animal. There's no rush or anything, but it's quite stubby. Could you perhaps consider bringing this one up to par? - Mgm|^(talk) 09:43, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Erik Hinds

I see you and I were looking at the same article today. You think that Erik Hinds belongs on Wikipedia? I was considering putting it up for deletion as it is quite a vanity article.

so

what was YOUR problem with my edits? just jumping on the bandwagon are we? Gabrielsimon 6 July 2005 23:45 (UTC)

User 67.81.241.25

Hey Uther, once again we are watching the same guy. Did you know about User:67.81.241.25 before he vandalized my user page? And I didnt' know you were an admin, either. Congrats. Mrendo 7 July 2005 02:23 (UTC)

Wrong Language

Uther, what would you do with Xavier Naidoo. If it's a real encyclopedic article, it obviously belongs in the German Wikipedia. Mrendo 7 July 2005 02:32 (UTC)

First time "Hi", "thanks" and "help".

Thanks for welcoming me in January. Stan Woods here. I'm only now starting to get up to speed - today I think I found out what a 'bot' is! I look forward to helping with WikiSpecies in particular; I will be a Wikipedian soon.

By way of introduction: HELP! I seem to have committed a misdomenour - from not putting 4 tildas at the end of a post, I went back in and put in "just 4 tildas": The result is the name/date stamp has appeared on the main page, not in the edits.

If, as seems likely, this is a dastardly act, would you please check the 3rd para in "ecology" in Wikipedia and extinguish the stamp.

I'll get back to you soon about total Classifications. First I'll start on my User Talk page. Stanskis 7 July 2005 10:33 (UTC) My tilda stamp is not converting on the preview page: so - Stanskis 7 July 2005 22:30

Neanderthal

What exactly is the problem with the Neanderthal article? It looks like there's some kind of reversion conflict. Is there any way I can help? Binadot 7 July 2005 13:02 (UTC)

& thanks again

Yes, thanks. (Now I won't panic as much next time.)

I've just looked at some of the primates project. A good flagship! A few queries, with a view to me finding where I might best help - - Is there a way, or intention, of posting a list of all primates, eg, Colin Groves 2001 Smithsonian list? - The Taxoboxes in Wikipedia look more tidy/functional than in WikiSpecies (cf Gorilla). Will one supersede the other? Stanskis 7 July 2005 22:26 (UTC)

DOable. I like it.

And with your taxonomy being months ahead of even the publishers!!!, I'll ask you to take my question a step further: how about a list of all Mammal species? It's a serious question - I've had a long, hard, cold look at this area - before finding Wikis.

Assume, on trust just for now, that updating such a list would be no great problem (even, problem solved), would any part of WikiMedia have a place for it?

If a long list of species can be maintained and scanned, it would have uses beyond what taxonomy offers today - a more open, user-friendly, relevant face. Yes?

As I get up to speed and do my user-page, I'll look forward to your questions. I've got lots of answers, but questions are much more important in giving direction to a flow of ideas - so you're in the driving seat!

Feel free to broaden the discussion in any way (and help me to not tramp on too many toes). Stanskis 8 July 2005 01:00 (UTC)

Yep. A long list.

Thanks for your quickfire responses. It's early afternoon here in New Zealand, so even if our lists get longer and longer, I can keep going for hours. For now, I'll just add a little more depth to my point - without pushing it.

I'm interested to know how your templets will keep control of lists and permit rapid updating. But first, could we think more about some of the key uses for taxonomic names, what they are for and who for?

What would WikiMedia hope to do to help someone in Pennsylvania who wanted to download a checklist of Mammals to help them do a field recording survey? How feasible would it be to maintain a complete set of (updateable) State lists of Mammals in WikiMedia? And would these always be 100 percent compatible taxonomically with the same world list and version? (Again, this is not a vane question.) Your Questions, please. 218.101.117.205 8 July 2005 02:33 (UTC)

And again

Please see my post on "Editing Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life". Please deal harshly with it - I will learn. I had hoped not to create highly poinionated pieces - but I need to get a few of these 'out of my system' before I calm down. The above 'provocations' were also OTT, but I'm finding it hard to break the ice. I didn't want to start with a discussion about a complete list of plants - I know that would be seen as utterly unreasonalble. But I have ideas and well worked examples to offer.

I've lost some text at the point of posting it, so I played safe in posting the ToL item. I'll deal with the lack of signage. Thanks for crediting me with the bits in "Ecology" - much appreciated.

MediaWiki is fabulous. I've not been as happy with anything else since I found Windows to be limiting at the same time as offering more power. But MediaWiki opens up great potential. I appreciate the beautiful design. Stanskis 12:12, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Direction?

I'm getting closer to the cutting edge of Wikipedia, on: the 'Frog' page (Frog Families), and two conservation pages as well as Ecology & ToL. But I'm still needing to find the 'best' ways forward. With 'Frog', would you recommend I retreat to a Project page, or begin to put some items into the main Article - and see what happens? Or what? Still appreciate ansewers from above queries. Stanskis 02:32, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism?

Stacey, can you take a look at Tom Petty and Mike Campbell? Someone changed some birthdates on about 4 or 5 musicians yesterday, including these two, and I changed them back. He got a slightly different IP address and then changes these two back last night. I'd like a second opinion on whether or not it was vandalism. Mrendo 12:00, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Wombat

In your recent edit to Wombat [1], you cut the authorities. Can you restore them, please? Gdr 15:01, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I restored them myself. Gdr 11:38, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Taxoboxes

Hi there. I know this is a lot to ask, but could you please help me create a taxobox-like template for character stats on my Wikicity, Sailor Moon Wiki? I would be eternally grateful. :) ♥purplefeltangel♥00:11, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Why revert my change on Simian?

It currently reads, "the 'higher primates' very common to most people: the monkeys and the apes, including humans."

You realize that that makes it sound like humans are included in the category of monkeys or apes. Replacing "including" with "and" shows we are among the higher primates, but we are not apes. It would also make sense to say "the 'higher primates' very common to most people, including humans, as well as monkeys and the apes." When you reverted me without an explanation, that makes me look like a vandal. I don't like that. CanadianCaesar 20:27, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Addressed on talk:Simian. - UtherSRG 20:50, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Really sorry. Misunderstandings galore. CanadianCaesar 22:10, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Reading spark plugs for racing

Mind having a look at Wikipedia:Votes_for_undeletion#Reading_spark_plugs_for_racing? Thanks.

Wikispecies vandalism

Are they using different IP ranges each time or would a range block help? Are they damaging the same pages or just random ones? If the same ones, perhaps temporarily protecting those would help? Angela. 20:20, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

I didn't realise you meant it was the ass puss vandal. This is a known issue across many wikis, especially meta, wikinews and wikibooks. There's nothing that can be done other than blocking the user and warning people on the other wikis that the user has attacked again so they can block him too. Angela. 22:10, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Subphylum

I see your point. Would you recommend I actively remove sub-taxos from species' pages or only if I notice them? Grika 21:16, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Hi!

Thanks for the welcome... Not much more to say than that i guess :p, but thanks. Wait, just thought of something. How do you know when someone just starts edit. - TonyJoe

owl

hi, in http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brown_Hawk_Owl&diff=next&oldid=12170003 you added a wrong picture. May I call that vandalsm? best regards --217.184.140.153 17:30, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

No, You can call it a mistake. And being that it's almost been a year since that edit, I can't say why I made that mistake. Most likely I copied in the updated taxobox format, with the image, and then neglected to remove to erroneous image. Vandalism is *intentional* errors or garbage edits. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:46, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

infobox standardisation

Hi, Uther. I would like to settle the infobox standardization dispute once and for all (through reasoned discussion). Given that infoboxes are ubiquitous, we cannot reach a global consensus (either for or against standardization) by having each WikiProject have a separate discussion with Ed. We went through this at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mountains, already.

So, I think that a unique global page for the discussion is good.

However, to make it truly a consensus, it has to involve all (or a large majority) of the stakeholders, including people who work with infoboxes day-to-day.. It's very important that people in Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life to know that this discussion is going on. I'm not sure how to get their attention. Could you either (1) notify the prolific ToL editors that this discussion is starting, or (2) tell me where I should post a notice inside of the WikiProject?

Thanks a lot! -- hike395 07:16, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

See Template_talk:Taxobox_begin. ed g2s • talk 08:19, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

As well as a few times on the talk for WP:TOL, where ed was either shot down or no concensus was reached to change the format from what it is. - UtherSRG (talk) 08:56, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

Infobox standardization support

You have voted for the suggestive title Infobox standardisation on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Infobox standardisation even though your comment indicates that you are actually against standardization creep or at least do not support it unconditionally. VfD for these cases offers the option to vote move to NPOV title. Comment on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Infobox standardisation if you want the page to be moved, for instance to Wikipedia:Should we have instructions to standardize infoboxes?. --Fenice 08:42, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Roger that. - UtherSRG (talk) 10:44, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Johannes Thiele

I have noticed that you have moved Johannes Thiele the taxonomist back to Johannes Thiele proper. The chemist Johannes Thiele is actually a notable figure (amonst other things he proposed the structure of benzene). Why not have a disambiguation page? Pilatus 20:25, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps. Since I've gone and done all this, I've put a note pointing to the chemist on the zoologist's page. - UtherSRG (talk) 20:36, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Cheers! Pilatus 20:41, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

"Cleaning" Talk:Pika

Could you explain your reasoning behind redacting Talk:Pika? I didn't know there was a restriction on the content of Talk pages. --Curtis Clark 14:22, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Talk pages are not chat areas. They are for discussing the article to improve it, not for commenting on how cute the subject is, etc. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:29, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Sectio

Template:Sectio has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Sectio. Thank you. ∞Who?¿? 09:59, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Bank vole

Why did you move this page to Bank Vole? I understand that some editors feel that all species names should be capitalised, but there is no consensus on this, and in everyday use, capitals are not used. Warofdreams 09:26, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Classification

Alright. As of 2003, "not all anthropologists and biologists have completely accepted the revised terminlogy". But it is now 2005. ---Decius 13:22, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Hominid as disambig still makes sense for two reasons however. First, to avoid confusion with Hominoid and second because hominid is still treated in everyday discourse (in Webster's for example[2]) as if it applies only to humans and related species. I have no problem if the disambig reads:

the correct meaning is...

you may hear it incorrectly as...

don't confuse it with...

Is this fair? Further, is the taxonomy settled for Orangs settled? as I'd thought not

Also, you're suggestion to "stop editing the primates" section is fair if I or Decius were vandalizing but is inappropriate otherwise. I will edit in good faith as I please. Marskell 13:42, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

To be clear, I was never suggesting that the great apes shouldn't be included in hominidae only that the term hominid is used in many often contrary ways. As my (now removed) comment at Decius stated, if chimps and humans are more closely related to each other than either is to other species than the old taxonomy really was senseless. It was, as far as I understand, the human-chimp relationship that really shook things up in the 80s. Where goes one, so goes the other. The main problem, of course, is how utterly over burdened the Latin hom- prefix is. At least linguistically, hominid seems a logical derivative of a super-family, a family, a sub-family and a genus. Further complicating it is the tendency for Discovery channel type info to pick morphological and behavioural characteristics as dividing points. "The hominid is the ape that can walk on two feet..." "It was tools that made us human..." etc.

Anyhow, I'll post the suggestion that hominid be left as a disambig on the talk page for the Primate group. Marskell 14:19, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the assistance

I'll do it! By the way, what's it like in the UUA?--HistoricalPisces 18:42, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Pongidae

Now then, you've pointed out not being hasty with changes so why unilaterally make Pongidae a redirect to hominid without discussion? This seems to underscore all of the debated issues. Fine (apparently) it's settled--Hominidae is all there is to it with us and the great apes--but does that mean we systematically eliminate older taxonoms people might still look up? I think Pongidae should be a page--really. Point out why it has become obsolete, but leave it on its own. Marskell 22:41, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Just to clarify this slightly--obviously I don't expect a stampede of people of people looking up Pongidae but Great Ape does redirect there and Great Ape requires clarification if only to point out that should be taken as including us. Maybe all of this can be solved by making Hominid the disambig. Marskell 07:23, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Then make the page afirst and then turn the bolding into a link. Don't do it in the reverse order... links that redirect ack to the article they link from are not good. - UtherSRG (talk) 10:03, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Ah hominids...

First, thanks for the quick edit on my user page.

Also, I made two notes on WP:PRIM, one regarding the final move to the hominid re-direct page and another about a-p-e-s and genocide. I don't want to privilege it by putting the two words together... It's stuck in my craw since I first noticed it and I was wondering what others thought. Marskell 22:12, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Your subpage 'watchlist' in categories

Hello. I'm a bit bemused why you have a subpage called watchlist that appears in category:monkeys... you seem a well-intentioned editor, so I wondered if it was accidental perhaps. Regards, --bodnotbod 19:37, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's nice to know someone has visited the category page. *grins* As for the watchlisting of it, yes, I should have linked without including. I'll fix. - UtherSRG (talk) 20:58, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I think you've accidentally included the same page on a number of other cats (I expect you'll have noticed when you made the fix). Regards, --bodnotbod 01:06, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

User categorization

You were listed on the Wikipedia:Wikipedians/New Jersey page as living in or being associated with New Jersey. As part of the Wikipedia:User categorisation project, these lists are being replaced with user categories. If you would like to add yourself to the category that is replacing the page, please visit Category:Wikipedians in New Jersey for instructions. Al 15:43, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/taxobox usage

Hi. You've reverted a slight change I made to Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/taxobox usage. As the point of the taxobox templates is to allow easy copying-and-pasting of taxonomic information between wikis, I strongly believe that it is the Latinate name for taxa that should be linked to. In w:en Plantae redirects to Plant, so the modifications is harmless, and it makes it easier for editors replicating taxoboxes in other wikies, where the common name may be different, as the scientific nomenclature does not vary. Please revert it back to my version. Thanks. 62.57.7.25 19:13, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

External link / links

Most pages list an "External links" section, as per WP:STYLE and WP:EL. However, WP:EL specifically allows for those authors who decide to use "External link" in those cases where the author prefers such.

What seems a little unusual is your edit to Ascomycota, where you altered an existing article from "External links" to "External link". Was there some specific reason that you did this? It just seems horribly error-prone (as future editors who add links are not likely to notice the unusual section name), and while the exemption in WP:EL allows for this non-standard usage, I'm not sure that it makes sense to go around editing every page that currently has only one link.

Thanks for your time. -Harmil 17:08, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Ugh! When did that kick in? We should be using ocrrect grammar - one link manes the section is "link", multiple links means the section is "links". But I didn't edit the page randomly. I'm editting on Wikispecies and was grabbing the interwiki links from there, and since I was down there I twiddled the section name to be gramattically correct. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:16, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

You're looking at "External links" as a section in a single page. Instead, it helps to think about it as an element of the Wikipedia look-and-feel. The same goes for "References", "See also", etc. I'm not saying that you edited the page "randomly", I'm saying that just twiddling the name of the section because you happen to be editing the other end of the page isn't really required, and it leads to problems in many cases (I'd rather have "External links" sections with one link than "External link" sections with a single link, wouldn't you?) -Harmil 03:07, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

No. I'd rather be grammatically correct. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:10, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

Decolorise conservative templates

I'm trying to look for the discussion that came up to the consensus that conservative templates (like {{StatusSecure}} should be decolorised. I saw that you decolorised at least one template. Why did you do that? I think that the colored ones are more beautiful. CG 21:07, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

The discussion you seek is here. - UtherSRG (talk) 21:20, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. CG 08:44, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

North Arlington

Hey, just noticed you made some edits to the North Arlington, NJ page some time back. Just wondering if you were from there. --Flaunted 20:23, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Firefly (Television Series) and Anime

I notice a slow deterioration of the quality of content on the Firefly article. Earlier you had identified and arrested a major breach with the extensive Outlaw Star comparison. You had even removed repeating and redundant references in the "See Also" section. But now a steady flow of minor, innocuous and ever increasingly irrelevant edits and additions are finding their way back onto the article. Not coincidentally they all seem related to Anime. I can only conclude that this is the work of a small but persistent group of Anime devotees who are also responsible for such fancruftian over exposure on Wikipedia. They seem determined to hijack the popularity of other unrelated but high visibility works by drawing vague and borderline comparisons in order to lend an unwarranted and disproportionate exposure to an extremely niche cartoon genre. The current media hype leading up to the 30 September 2005 release of a related film project makes Firefly a prime target for such deliberate and outrageously biased edits. What kind of system is in place to prevent such actions? - Concerned, 06:30, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Only the efforts of us volunteers. Please feel free to keep up the good work you think needs to be done. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:26, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

Cultivar changes

Hi Uther. I see you've reverted the edits that 83.117.23.63 made to Cultivar. Since 81.215.54.134 only added a language to the bottom of the page, it's actually my version that you've reverted to. Thanks for your support, but in fact, I think "83" was correct to make most of those changes! The only thing that I'd seriously argue with was their statement that "Usually a cultivar can be placed in a species but this is not required." That is rubbish, or at least seriously misleading. In popular genera (Rosa, for instance, or Dahlia, or Hosta or Hemerocallis) the ancestry of most cultivars is so complex that there is no hope (and no point) in ascribing it to a species. Also, I think if we are going to use "epithet" it should be linked, and probably explained briefly on this page as well. Not everyone who reads this will know what it means. SiGarb 17:51, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

the use of †

As a zoologist (and a non-christian and a non-native English speaker) I take offense at you changing the † symbol into an English word. I do a lot of effort researching and creating new contents for WikiSpecies, just to see a lot of my work changed in some non-standard, personal version. This has nothing whatsoever to do with religion (or do you oppose the use of the α and the Ω too, or the aleph in mathematics?). The dagger symbol denoting extinction is standard accepted (and used) in Biology (in casu taxonomy and paleontology). I read some of the comments on this topic on yhe Village Pump and in some archives, and you seem to be the only one to stumble over the use of some well established symbols. May I lastely quote the Encylopedia britannica? Lycaon 21:02, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

rollback

Hi, UtherSRG. I was wondering if could ask you to reserve use of rollback for clear-cut vandalism. For cases where you disagree with the edit, I think manual reversion is better, even for administrators, since you can leave a meaningful edit summary. User:Hurricane Devon, who is new to Wikipedia and is still learning how it works, added some images to Dire Wolf, which you reverted. He asked me why people were removing his images; I agree that the copyrighted images do not belong, but an edit summary along the lines of "removed copyrighted images" or "revert: unsourced images" might be more helpful in the future. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:35, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Mexican Wolf or Mexican wolf

Hello,

Is the standard Wikipedia style "Mexican Wolf" or "Mexican wolf"? I just lowercased (also for Dire wolf), because they were created by a user who has had capitalization issues on other pages (eg Iota Horologii, but then noticed you had renamed to Grey Wolf. -- Curps 17:29, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

This is a often disputed issue. I would prefer to have all species' common names capitalized at least when used in a biological context. The species articles are, at least in part, biological articles and so should be named with the capitalized versions. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:30, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Hoolock

Hi, Groves has named a new genus for the Hoolock Gibbon, very surprisingly named Hoolock. Hoolock hoolock isn't really related to Bunopithecus sericus, he thinks. He has sent me a PDF, maybe you can try too. By the way, I'm just writing nl:Hoelok. Ucucha (talk) 13:05, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

(Minor edit above.) Sweet! Please send me the PDF and I'll update the en: and species: articles. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:15, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

OK. Ucucha (talk) 13:20, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I just saw that H. leuconedys is also considered a separates species now. Ucucha (talk) 13:37, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Yup! I saw that, too. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:38, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I've got my first run of edits done to Hoolock gibbon. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:00, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I saw it. It was already a good article, though: most of nl:Hoeloks was translated :-). By the way, I've discovered that it will probably be possible to make "real" interwikis from Wikispecies (it's possible on Commons too, at least). I've proposed to ask the developers to do this in the Village Pump. Ucucha (talk) 14:12, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, and thanks for the small edit. Real interwiki links on species: will be so nice.... - UtherSRG (talk) 14:20, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Cuttlefish Discussion

Please stop reverting, thanks. 153.104.16.114 23:54, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Question about WikiPedia Signatures

How can you alter your signature? Do you have to manually add your signature each time if you want it to be customised, or is there a way to turn the --~~~~ into your own custom sig?--alfakim 23:23, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Interwiki links: Greenthread

Please see my comment on the Greenthread talk page. // Pathoschild 22:48, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Image Question

Hey, I was wondering if you could help me with an image question. I'd like to overlay some wiki text over an image I uploaded called Greenstripe.jpg, kind of making it into a userbox. Ultimately i'd like to make a set of userboxes for Taekwondo belts, and in Taekwondo, there are belts in between belts such as the Green Stripe. However, I had no idea how to make a stripe like that via hexadecimal. Karmafist 06:04, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

WP:CP

Hi, you've reported copyright infringements to WP:CP in the last week, a new measure was recently passed to allow the speedy deltion of new pages that are cut and paste copyvios. Please follow these instructions if you come across this type of copyvio. Thanks. --nixie 00:05, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Blatant copyright infringements may now be "speedied" If an article and all its revisions are unquestionably copied from the website of a commercial content provider and there is no assertion of permission, ownership or fair use and none seems likely, and the article is less than 48 hours old, it may be speedily deleted. See CSD A8 for full conditions. After notifying the uploading editor by using wording similar to: {{nothanks-sd|pg=page name|url=url of source}} -- ~~~~ Blank the page and replace the text with {{db-copyvio|url=url of source}} to the article in question, leaving the content visible. An administrator will examine the article and decide whether to speedily delete it or not.

umm...apes and primates

SlimVirgin is suddenly very angry with me over my edits on legal status on primates. I moved one paragraph to apes (because I think it belongs there, given that the "Great Ape Project" deals with apes) and left much of her info in. All in good faith, duplication avoided, sensible edits. I'm a little perplexed by her sharpness and I don't want to go 3rr or anything stupid. I was hoping when you're around for an interjection on what you feel. Marskell 00:06, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

To amend this: Slim has very clearly apologized for over-reacting to the edits and it could be the start of a useful collaboration in future. Anyhow, comments are always welcomed in any context. Ramadan Kareem! (and of to bed for me...) Marskell 02:24, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

In other news

I've awarded you a much deserved barnstar! If you'd rather it be on the Talk page feel free to move it and please if you ever need help on any animal category just let me know. Marskell 21:36, 7 October 2005 (UTC)