Talk:Bioinspiration

History information

 * Until 15:15, 27 September 2018‎, the current page Bioinspiration was at Bio-inspiration, and the current page Bioinspiration (version 2) was at Bioinspiration. At 11:46, 25 September 2018, page Bio-inspiration was started by copy-and-paste from page Bioinspiration. The history of the page now at Bioinspiration (version 2) should be examined to find the edit history of that text up to 1 February 2018‎. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 19:27, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

2017 comment
It is possible that this page is better as a section of the existing Biomimetics page, but there is an important distinction between Biomimetics and bioinspiration which has not been made. Vincesherman (talk) 20:30, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Bio-inspiration
New article moved from draft appears to have copied first section of existing article and added more content, but the non-hyphenated form used as original title is the one used in text and sources, so the content from the new article at hyphenated title should be added to the existing (non-hyphenated) article which has existed since Jan 2017 and been worked on by several different editors whose contributions must be credited. Pam D  16:26, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
 * User:PamD I left a discussion at the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biophysics proposing the merge the other way, as far as i understood the non-hyphenated form is less common in the technical milieu of the Ph.D. students who wrote the article. Please also consider Bio-inspired computing, Bio-inspired robotics. Also check on google, "bioinspired" 10500 results vs "bio-inspired" 23000 results. The newbies though that the title with hyphenation was better, unfortunately the person with them when they moved had no idea of this discussion and simply helped them move from the draft. The plan was to enlarge the article, than suggest a change of title.--Alexmar983 (talk) 21:11, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I did not see this comment, I have already merged but you can do the other way. it's just a title.--Alexmar983 (talk) 21:12, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Strange it looks now bionsipration is more common than bio-inspiration on google books, I though when I check this afternoon I saw the opposite results. Such a pity I simply was not there, when they decide to move it. It would have been so much simpler. In any case, merge it as you think it is more convenient.--Alexmar983 (talk) 21:21, 26 September 2018 (UTC)


 * (after edit conflict) The misguided newbies lost all the edit history of existing article and other people's work. The new content should be merged into the existing article. All sources cited use non-hyphenated version: no evidence for the hyphenated version which you assert is better title. I have reverted. I have commented at talk page of their instructor. Am on phone, can't easily get that link.  Pam  D  21:29, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I see you reverted. Do what you think it's appropiate based on the sources. But again "misguided" is a big word. As I said here They were followed quite carefully, simply for some reason someone who was not aware helped them to move while I was helping another group, but the original article is a 1-year old of 800-1000 kbytes whose history contains a lot of reverts and cosmetic edits. If some read you they might think they did this on a robust article. It was normal in that context that someone though it was a brand new article, because they saw them working thta same amount of time and effort. Since the sources I was shown seemed to show the hyphanted form as prevalent, i though of merging the other way. In any case don't worry, we would have found the right solution. it's just that i am not easily on line right in these hours, but I will in the week end full time again.--Alexmar983 (talk) 21:51, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Ok, first things first, I've requested for an admin to perform an edit history merge between Bio-inspiration and Bioinspiration. That way, any issues with copy-pasting will be fine. Given that the hyphenated and unhyphenated names are similarly used, I don't think it matters the final location, so I'll recommend the hyphenated one for now (a more in depth move discussion can occur later if there is particular disagreement). After that, I'll move over any of the links to the Bioinspiration article to point to Bio-inspiration instead. I think that overhauling the article was totally fine. The updated version has all the information contained in the previous stub as well as plenty of additional well-sourced content. T.Shafee(Evo &#38; Evo)talk 10:35, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * All the text in page Bioinspiration was also in page Bio-inspiration. History-merge as suggested hereinabove is impossible, because these 2 pages have become WP:Parallel histories. So I have moved Bioinspiration to Bioinspiration (version 2), and then Bio-inspiration to Bioinspiration. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 15:19, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * That does not seem fair to the original article creator, who is now not acknowledged anywhere - to the extent that I can't even find their name to mention them. Could you please do something which leaves the article history showing the first creation of the article? (As would have happened if the new article had been merged to the existing one, as I suggested when I first found this mess). And if possible all the history between original creation and this - several editors contributed constructively, even if at the minor level of tweaking and improving, and their work should not be swept aside just because some students were led to improve the article using a misguided technique of copying the original into a sandbox to edit it there, with the intention of replacing the original article. That's not the way to improve an existing article: they should have been told to make careful incremental edits to the original article in mainspace where it was.  Pam  D  15:54, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * User:PamD it wan't misguided. It was enlarged in the sandbox with the intention of later coopying and pasting in the very same article, and it would have looked as a one-step improvement. Otherwise, any other improvement of a text on existing aticle in a sandbox is "misguided" yet it is done even by expert users when they need to build up a quality result. Of course, expert users can handle more complexity so they don't need to do it often. This was in this case necessary, it was almost impossible not to do so: because of the minimal size of the article what they were doing was de facto a creation of a new article from the beginning. Their effort with or without the original text would have been the same. What a reader would have missed was their intermediate edits, which are not particular important if made by a newbie since they contain more mistakes. One thing is to ask a newbie to insert a small information here and there on an existing article (a fact which occurred), one thing is to rethink an article, a whole structured article and diluting step by step while learning. Yet if people create minimal stub of technical aspects it can be up to a newbie to improve them. Misguiding the user would have to force them to create a complex text step a step on an existing stub, that was a terrble idea. The mistake at the procedural level was not the choice of the sandbox, which was the most practical thing to do, it was the fact that someone unaware of it made them move it while I wasn't there. And it's not really a mistake, it's a decision based on a missing information, a mistake would have been moving it while knowing it. If (s)he had known the article existed this wouldn't have have happen on purpose--Alexmar983 (talk) 22:05, 27 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I have put a history information section in Talk:Bioinspiration. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 19:29, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that, and I've added a note at Talk:Bioinspiration (version 2) to ask people not to delete it, as it serves for the history. What a mess, caused by newby editors being "helped" by a more experienced editor who should have known better. I only got involved because it turned up as a stub to stub-sort. Pam  D  21:04, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * User:PamD I have explained to you what happened, and my suggestion of the sanbox was the most reasonble choice. Otherwise I could say that the mess is done by unexperienced editor that create (that probably unhelped) dictionary-level definition of concepts who actually should deserved more effort, leaving new users, the only one around with the experise of the subject and the time to edit the article probably, in the situation of providing this needed improvement while they also have to learn how to edit. Also, I am on travel and even if you weren't involved, i would have fixed all with more calm in the weekend. So far your main effort in this story is building up this image of misguided users which serves nothing, is unfair, has no impact in the future on my expertise, their expertise and even your expertise. Please think about that.--Alexmar983 (talk) 22:05, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think that's slightly clearer now, thanks, that the students were not intending to move their new article over the existing one, but to copy and paste it as a one-stage edit, which would have left the existing edit history intact. OK, that makes sense. It's a pity that someone complicated everything not only by moving the article into mainspace instead of pasting it, but by choosing a different title (with hyphen, not justified in text or sources) to move it to, creating the duplication and all this mess. Ah well, these things happen. I don't know whether the original editor will care anyway as they haven't edited anything since December 2017. Let's move on. Pam  D  22:33, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * User:PamD glad to hear. The different title was the aditional complication. Not only in that specific group one of the newbies had a limited spoken English, an occurance which reduced the chance of pointing out there were not told to do so, but they couldn't receive any warning during the moving because they also considered the best title to be different. Also, the original stub was in fact written by an unexperienced newbie too and an expert users would have provided the redirect in the beginning. The need of a redirect or the choice of a different title is not "unjustified", the more expert people and source in the field seem to prefer the hyphenation which in fact is used in the adjective. We discussed this problem the very first hour with the intention of digging further at the end, but this never occured since the page was moved. Their project used bio-inspired, bio-polymers and plant-inspired for example, I am quite sure that these students use only the hyphenated form for the noun.--Alexmar983 (talk) 06:03, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * On second thoughts, the intended system would still not have been satisfactory: there were two separate editors working on the article, and if their draft had been copied into the mainspace article by one of them it would have lost the history of which of them did what to the article. Again, not good practice. Pam  D  07:44, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * User:PamD the practice is the best possible one in this situation. Now that I am finally home I can rewrite this explanation. Basically, writing a good scientific article on wiki requires for very specific topic competences cloe to those necessary to write a real scientific article, let's say a review article. You need brainstorming, because unless you are a top expert in your field the result of one single student would usually be partial even in good faith. Putting just one undergraduate or a postgraduate students to draft a scientific wikipedia article or a review article about this type of topic is not a good strategy, IMHO. Once you consider that, and you see that you need two students for this (not for something more specific such as dewetting for example), you have to optimize the best strategy.
 * They can show different edits as if they are doing separate tasks, but their edits will be intrisically related to both of them, and a "artifical" history is not better than a single edit. two users editing together re not the same of two users far away. It's not a natural evolution of the chronology, something that has a great meaning to show and mix up with the rest. An arbitrary distinction of a series of two-brain edits is not useful. You can have a functional distinction, where one student or another one type in one moment, but most of the edits will be the work of both of them in any case. If it were up to me to be in front of the screen during the move of the drafted content, I would tell one user to link in the edit summary on the single edit to the sandbox where the history is. Again, this was not up to me in that moment and in any case, still in that case, in the very same history of the sandbox there are edits related to one users that are probably a product of mutual brainstorming. This is not the article of an hamlet, a football player or a model of car that can be put in a standardized model and therefore written in small steps, there's something more here, that's why a simple dictionary definition had probably so many troubles to grow further.
 * Now, we can focus only on the missing articles that can start from zero in a sandbox, or on the complex yet very specific articles that can grow thanks to just one student because it's a very specific and reasonable effort. But if you want to enlarge stub articles summarizing a multifacted topic you either find someone who is expert in that field and has experience of wiki, or you ask these newbies. And if so, I think that using a sandbox and adding a single edit (citing the sandbox in the summary) is what you should do.
 * If you have a better idea, let me know. Have a nice evening.--Alexmar983 (talk) 19:48, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Writing a Wikipedia article is not like writing a scientific paper. Each editor's individual contribution should be recognisable, that's how the whole structure of Wikipedia editing works. If the students need to work together on an existing article, then each ought to be contributing to the article in mainspace, so that their contributions can be recognised and they are each accountable for their own work. "Two-brain edits" are not provided for in Wikipedia's system of individual editor accountability, so please don't encourage your students to work in this way. Pam  D  17:24, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
 * User:PamD you are making a general statement of a specific one. We know they are different things but this type of topic and article is very similar to a scientific one, specifically to a review, or the introductory part of a scientific article. And I am not encouraging (there were single groups, which I preferred). Simply, if you want to do this type of multifaceted topic and teach wiki at the same time, you can't put just one student to write about that. You will be left at the edit-a-thon only with very generic articles skipping the one that are actually most needed. No big problem for me next time, I cite this discussion and I say to skip it and assign very specific topics, articles that are actually easier for me to gear. Of course, wikipedia can wait that someone enlarge an article the way you expect with calm in the next years. As long as I can prove I did my best, I am fine with the unbalanced development.
 * That being said, my solution in such cases is in accordance to pillars and good sense. I make both students work, I show this in the chronology of the sandbox and I link to it also for copyright. In the end an editor should be recognisable and that means that in the event a edit is a product of two people, which happens and will always happen, you show this fact. They are so close in time and physically in the same room, as stated by the project page, obviously they are interacting, but you see both of them in the history.
 * I would like to add something now showing how rigid attitudes encourage the appearance of order, not real order, and therefore how uneffective they are in the end. But we can do it another time.--Alexmar983 (talk) 18:53, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Rearrangement
My mouse slipped wihile I was saving and there is no edit summary in my last edit. In any case, I move the historical part at the beginning. I hope you agree with this choice.--Alexmar983 (talk) 15:34, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Bio inspiration assignment
Assignment 180.235.121.242 (talk) 03:38, 30 September 2022 (UTC)