Talk:Herring/Archive 1

Kippers - a staple of the British diet??
Wikipedia defines a "staple food" as "a food that forms the basis of a traditional diet" - speaking as a typical Brit, I was unaware that my diet was based on Kippers - maybe that's where I've been going wrong all these years.

Rollmops
it's called "rollmops" as far as i know

Image
The image is hugely distracting - very jerky. Makes the article unreadable. Anyone mind if I put it on a separate page and link to it from here? Pcb21| Pete 12:04, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Not at all - a 1.8MB video should be linked to - people on dial-up are at a huge disadvantage - even on broadband it is slow. Greg Robson 20:41, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've just cut these images again, seven years later. Per Image_use_policy, we should not be forcing 1.5Mb animations on users accessing Wikipedia through dial-up or (now that we're in the future!) mobile devices. --McGeddon (talk) 11:20, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Rollmops image
A picture of rollmops and also Matjes herring should be put in there. In my opinion this would represent the way the ancient Europeans ate herring for thousands of years.

New Discovery
nachecha that herring and other fish communicate by releasing flatchulants. This is not a vandalism attempt. If anyone has anymore info, drop me a message.--Calvinsupergenius 15:43, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Is anyone going to respond to my post?!?
 * Please?

Shakespeare
I've just reverted the information that's been posted here a couple of times about Shakespeare having died by choking on a herring. If the individual who continues to post this information has some sort of reference to it, please post it. I've just now consulted 16 biographies of Shakespeare and I haven't been able to find that in any of them. Even the William Shakespeare page here on Wiki doesn't mention it. The vicar of Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare is buried, writing about 1660, said that Shakespeare "died of a fever … contracted after a night of drinking with Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton, friends and fellow writers." (ref: Encarta Online.) Most references say that the cause of death is unknown. After all, the man was 52 years old -- a good long life by any standards around the turn of the 17th century. If, in fact, he died by choking on a herring, the poster should be able to come up with credible reference to that effect... &mdash; Dave 03:13, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


 * maybe you could let it stay on this page and tell him to edit it to say it is a legend or whatever it may have been or tell him to give the source instead of rudely deleting it and telling him. I've experienced the same thing by posting the paragraph up there on the flachulants in the village pump and having it deleted because some people don't think it could be possible and calling it nonsense. Thought you might have wanted to know. --Calvinsupergenius 20:00, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

How Many Herring Species?
Article starts out by saying there are 15 species of herring then later says there are nearly 200 species.


 * There are 200 spp. in Clupeidae, the family. There are few species of "Clupea."  ITIS has many names listed, almost all of which it identifies as "invalid."  Many of the species listed in the articles are obscure.  Basically, there are two common species, esp. Clupea harengus when young, but also Clupea pallasi.  NaySay 18:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Rollmops derivation
I've just now consulted seven online dictionaries, most notably the Oxford English Dictionary. Of the seven, six of them give the derivation of Rollmops as coming from German. Now, I understand that German and Dutch are both languages from the same language family and that, perforce, they share many similarities. As someone who has not participated in any of the reversions to date, my hope is that we might avoid an escalating edit war by agreeing that the OED's etymology of the word will be controlling in this matter? &mdash; Dave 15:16, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the German Wikipedia, the etymology of the word is plausibly explained as being a reference to the similar shape of a Mops (Pug), some kind of dog. I can imagine the similarity with the wooden sticks representing legs, and the pickled cucumber showing at one end as the face. If the Dutch have a better explanation (they haven't currently) they can change it back. For now I am going to make it read "German", instead of "Dutch". --Lasse Hillerøe Petersen 06:15, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Where are herring found?
The first sentance makes it seem as though herring are only found in the Atlantic and Baltic, but I think there is also a rather large herring industry in Alaska.


 * I've been trying to figure this out. It seems that this article was originally started as an article on "Baltic Herring", and somehow the title was changed to simply "Herring".  If you make a link to Baltic Herring, you get directed to the Herring article.  I don't know how to fix this. The article is certainly very focused on Atlantic herring. Dkreisst 23:33, 2 January 2007 (UTC)


 * In both dutch and german mops means pug. So I think you stopped your search after looking in the german dictionary?

Rolmops (one L, in both languages rol means Roll) is made from herrings that are catched too late to sell as dutch new herring (Hollandse Nieuwe) and are therefore used as a traditional dutch snack. Maybe the germans eat it too.

Jeroen84 (talk) 19:41, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Size of a tarpon
I'd like to suggest removing the reference to the size of the tarpon from the article. It doesn't add any information about herrings, and even gives the impression that a tarpon is some kind of giant herring Kyllor 23:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Removed, along with some other stuff. Thanks for pointing this out. Feel free to edit further. Dkreisst 09:23, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Bots really messing up these articles
The language links of this article should really only lead to the Genus Clupea, not Clupea harengus or so on. In Arabic I don't understand, but it can be correct. In Japanese it probably goes to Clupea pallasi. I have been trying to correct these, but there is still lots of work. --Höyhens 15:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * At the moment the interwiki links seem to be in condition in Herring, Atlantic herring, Pacific herring and also Baltic herring, which as an independent article in fact occurs so far in Polish, Finnish Lithuanian versions, only. I have also checked te Arabic version, and they answered me politely that it is correctly linken in Herring, too. Now I should bring all other iw-links in Arabic, which is rather a peculiar trick, but I promise to try. --Höyhens 22:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Farting
Herrings comunicate by farting aparently dont want to add it to the main page as people will claim its vandalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.34.68.186 (talk)

Don't worry, here's a source. And here's another one. [And finally one more.] Enjoy! oh, and, um, edit. Totnesmartin 14:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

raw
its not mistaken that a herring is eaten raw; we just do. Its not cooked. It has been frozen for a day and has been salted to kill bacteria's, but thats it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeroen84 (talk • contribs) 19:51, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Canned Herring
The intro paragraph includes "Canned "sardines" (or pilchards) seen in supermarkets may actually be sprats or round herrings." I don't imagine pilchards (unless juvenile) would be confused with sprats etc, as Sardinops Sagax, aka Pilchard, aka Pacific Sardine, grows nearly the same size as Pacific Herring, Clupea pallasii.

In Canada (and perhaps elsewhere) domestic brands of canned sardines are actually juvenile Atlantic Herring (ref "The Canadian and U.S. sardine industry is based on the juvenile North Atlantic herring. The North Atlantic herring is a small saltwater fish that is also known by its scientific name Clupea harengus." at  ).

The section 4.1 Cuisine contains a reference to canned herring in the subsection 4.1.4 Raw. I suggest Canned Herring should be described in its own subsection - I'd be surprised if any canned herring is actually raw when it leaves the processing plant. The above-referenced Brunswick site, further along in their description of processing, makes it clear their "sardines" are cooked.

RCopple (talk) 17:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Etymology?
Just wondering; it looks/sounds like a Norwegian/Danish word but conceivably it could be Old English in origin too; piqued my curiosity when I was looked at List of English words of Norwegian origin and its sister articles, where it wasn't to be found.Skookum1 (talk) 23:51, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Other means
Is there *really* any need for thirteen citation requests in these two paragraphs? It's hardly controversial information. Angelstorm (talk) 11:38, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I have reverted this. Please add to this thread if you believe these cites to be required. Angelstorm (talk) 00:46, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Taxonomy? Physiology? Ecology?
This article could be "Economic and Dietary Importance of the Herring." There's nothing much about science aside from the Latin name. I'm not qualified to write anything, but surely more could be said. CarlFink (talk) 04:12, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Translation into Chinese Wikipedia
The 17:13, 12 January 2010 198.237.49.216 version of this article is translated into Chinese Wikipedia.--Wing (talk) 15:49, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Dutch new = soused herring?
Apparently not, since Dutch new is raw and soused herring is not. Could anyone create the webpage of Dutch new if needed? Another Wikipedian (talk) 22:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Giant Herring
So there apparently is a herring species that can grow to 3.5 meters long. reference is http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/TechandScience/Story/STIStory_525338.html

Can an expert add this to the main article?

74.61.22.12 (talk) 09:43, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Never mind, turns out this is a giant oarfish, AKA "King of Herrings", but is not a herring. http://www.csmonitor.com/From-the-news-wires/2010/0512/Enormous-12-foot-giant-herring-found-off-coast-of-Sweden 74.61.22.12 (talk) 16:09, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Flavors of herring
Hello! Ok, so it sounds like two editors are having an argument in the "Pickled herring" section, about the influence of "foreign-flavored" herring:

"In recent years also other flavors have been added due to foreign influences. However, the tradition is strong in Denmark, Sweden and Germany. Onion, sherry, mustard and dill are some of the traditional flavourings. Very small quantities of the exotic flavourings are sold. An overwhelming majority of Scandinavians prefer the traditional flavourings." Note the mismatched grammar and spelling of the first sentence compared to the following sentences. Also, the second sentence is worded a bit strangely: I would have said "However, the preference for traditional flavors is strong in Denmark, Sweden, and Germany" and then cited a reference.

I live in Denmark (and have lived in Skåne as well) and buy a lot of sild, and there are loads of weird flavors of sild at the grocery stores. In Denmark, curry is one of the more popular flavors alongside regular marinaded, dill, and sherry-krydderier. The groceries almost always have those four in stock. Also, whenever I have ordered the sild sampler at a restaurant, they give me three flavors, usually marinaded, curry, and either dill or krydderede. So I would contest the (unsourced) statements that only very small quantities of exotic flavorings are sold, and an overwhelming majority of Scandinavians prefer the traditional flavorings.

Also, I was even able to easily get the curry-flavored sild in Iceland. And I've been told by at least two Danish girls that the only kind of sild they like is the curry kind (maybe because it's sweeter and creamy, and less noticeably fishy?). So although the traditional flavors are still the most popular, real Danes do like the exotic flavors as well.

Minor flavors at the Danish grocery usually include some of the following: tomato, madiera, oriental, herb, onion, old-fashioned style, sugar free, mustard. In the Swedish grocery (like Coop and Willy's), there were even more diverse flavors such as anchovy, brännvin, caviar, chive-caviar, garlic, French onion, ginger, cranberry, balsamic-capers, apple-lumpfish caviar, etc. I mean the selection was insane.

So actually, about half or so of the minor flavors I've seen are foreign or exotic (madiera, curry, oriental, ginger, French onion, cranberry, and balsamic f.ex.); but many have flavors that Scandinavians traditionally enjoy (herbs, onions, mustard, brännvin, caviar, chives, apple, capers). So the statements pitting exotic/foreign flavorings against the overwhelming preference of Scandinavians is not accurate, because many of the silds that have flavors that appeal to a traditional Scandinavian palate are NOT popular; and the curry flavor (an exotic flavor" IS popular. cheers, Marcipangris (talk) 20:28, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

What is an "environmentally responsible fish"?
"Environmental Defense have suggested that Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) are one of the more environmentally responsible fish."

Now, at the very least, that should be "Environmental Defense has suggested that Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) is one of the more environmentally responsible fish."

But what is an "environmentally responsible fish"? Is this a fish that recycles its beer cans? Maybe it uses some sort of composting technique to recycle its shit?

Or maybe the person who wrote this needs to improve his or her English language skills?


 * LOL I was going to say something about recycling, too....Skookum1 (talk) 05:59, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * This sentence has been rephrased Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 00:21, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Economy - Historical and Literary aspects of the herring fishery
The economy section could benefit from expansion. As a child growing up in the UK we learnt all about the herring fishery and how hundreds of young women would follow the herring fleet south as it followed the seasonal migration of the herring from Scotland to the Thames estuary. These women would gut and pack the fish ready for the market. Although the humble herring may no longer be a staple of the UK diet it certainly was in the past and still is an important element of the diet in many countries bordering the North and Baltic seas. The article offers no overview of techniques and their evolution. Echo sounders were introduced as a fish-finding technique in the 50s. Prior to that herring fishers depended on experience and luck. They used drift nets and used a boat called a "drifter". Of more anecdotal interest is the fact that the exceptional herring catch of 1943 came as a blessing to the hungry Belgian population in the last full year of the German occupation. source Vlaams Instituut voor de zee http://www.vliz.be/cijfers_beleid/zeevisserij/pub_bijdrage.php In his book The Flounder the German writer Gunter Grass highlights the dietary importance of the herring, describing how Agnes always sprinkled ash on the herring she prepared on Ash Wednesdays. Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 00:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia bug? Missing links to other languages
As of April 23, 2012, the article shows no links to other languages. However, Herring is present in 26 languages: Afrikaans, العربية, Cymraeg, Deutsch, English, فارسی, Français, Gaeilge, Gàidhlig, עברית, 日本語, 한국어, Lietuvių, Plattdüütsch, Nedersaksisch, Occitan, Polski, Português, Runa Simi, Русский, Simple English, Svenska, Tagalog, Türkçe, Українська, 中文. Yes, english too. It's a strange case of a language link being non-reciprocal: if you click on the "English" link from the Herring article in any other language, it leads you to the English article - but then there's no link to go back. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.165.159.215 (talk) 15:35, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks like they were cut with the edit summary of "linked articles are specific with accurate taxoboxes, so not about general term herring", although another edit summary remarked that "There needs to be some discrimination about which links belong where, rather than just wholesale removal". --McGeddon (talk) 09:41, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Herring vs. Clupea interwiki
The first two of the following entries have been transferred from user talk pages...

@ Olaff: The recent reversion you made here was not appropriate. Most of the articles you removed are in fact about herrings in general, and not specifically about Clupea. It is true that many of them have a taxon box for Clupea, but they shouldn't have. The herring article on the English Wikipedia had a taxon box too, until recently when I removed it. You should examine each of the interwiki links, passing them through Google Translator. You will find most of them are actually articles about herrings (often based on the original English article), and should be linked from the herring article, and not the Clupea one. Also, please avoid the appearance of edit warring, and take matters like this to the talk page once you have been reverted. There are, sadly, people on Wikipedia, known as "administrators", who are allowed to circle over the editors who write the encyclopedia like hawks searching for carrion, looking for a chance to block them. "Edit warring" is one of their favorite excuses. Editors are particularly vulnerable in this area, because edit waring is not defined with any precision, so administrators can block you at whim. So I'm not going to revert you again, but I ask you to revert yourself, after checking just which links should be reverted. Thanks. --Epipelagic (talk) 04:26, 24 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi, thanks for your comments on herring iw-links here, and apologies for the possible confusion. The removal of links was however not a wholesale reversion, but based on the consideration of the contents of the articles, just as you recommend - which I also tried to indicate in the edit summary. My conclusion was and is different however: the foreign language articles we are discussing are specifically about the taxa Clupea or Clupea harengus, and they should indeed be specifically linked to from the corresponding English taxonomical entries Clupea or Atlantic herring, with the corresponding taxoboxes, not from herring. Only the Nedersaksisch article does not have taxobox, but evidently represents the same series and exclusively deals with Clupea. iw-links should be unique and reciprocal: we should not link to the same article from both Clupea and Herring (see below).


 * More generally (1) It is rather peculiar to the English Wikipedia to have broad biological articles on a word/concept with an incoherent or vague taxonomic definition, such as herring, in parallel with the actual taxonomical (“encyclopedic”) articles; such "non-standard" definitions necessarily lead to problems with iw-links also. ["Salmon" and "trout" seem to make exceptions to this though; notably the corresponding foreign articles mostly do not have taxoboxes, or have taxoboxes that clearly indicate the systematic incoherence]. (2) iw-links in general should be unambiguous, as far as possible (i.e., reciprocal, unique). Only then bots can maintain them (now the reciprocal links to English Clupea/Herring are mostly misdirected after your re-definitions of the terms, and should all be manually corrected: logically that should have been your task?) Scientific taxonomy (as described in the taxoboxes) is the very method of unambiguous matching the meaning of these concepts over language barriers in the world of biology, and we should use it for that purpose here. Olaff (talk) 17:27, 24 April 2012 (UTC)


 * As you say in your first paragraph, you have assigned all the interwiki links about herrings to the article on Clupea. Originally, the English Wikipedia had an article on herrings and no article on Clupea. The article on herrings confused itself with the genus Clupea, even to the extent of including a taxonomy box for Clupea. It seems that many other foreign language Wikipedias have modelled themselves on that mess. I removed the taxonomy box, which is not appropriate for a common name like herring which crosses many taxon. I then started a new article for Clupea, where the taxon box is appropriate. Here are the details relevant to those interwiki links:
 * {| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed"

! colspan="5"|  Herring/Clupea interwikis ! Interlink ! Wiki ! English translation ! Translated title ! Should be linked to
 * af:Haring
 * Afrikaans
 * 
 * Herrings
 * Herring
 * ar:رنجة
 * Thai
 * 
 * Herring
 * Herring
 * cy:Pennog
 * Welsh
 * 
 * Herring
 * Herring
 * de:Echte Heringe
 * German
 * 
 * True herrings
 * Clupea
 * es:Clupea
 * Indonesian
 * 
 * Clupea
 * Clupea
 * fa:شاه‌ماهی
 * Turkey
 * 
 * Shahmahy
 * fr:Clupea
 * French
 * 
 * Clupea
 * Clupea
 * ga:Scadán
 * Irish
 * 
 * Herring
 * Herring
 * gd:Sgadan
 * Irish?
 * he:מליח
 * Yiddish
 * 
 * Messiah
 * Clupea
 * ja:ニシン属
 * Japanese
 * 
 * Herring genus
 * Clupea
 * ko:청어
 * Korean
 * 
 * Herring
 * Herring
 * lt:Paprastosios silkės
 * Lithuanian
 * 
 * Herring
 * nds-nl:Heern (visk)
 * Dutch
 * 
 * Heern
 * Herring
 * oc:Arenc
 * Occitan
 * n/a
 * Herring
 * Clupea
 * pl:Clupea
 * Polish
 * 
 * Clupea
 * Clupea
 * pt:Arenque
 * Portuguese
 * 
 * Herring
 * Herring
 * qu:Arinki
 * Quechua
 * n/a
 * ru:Сельди
 * Russian
 * 
 * Herring
 * Herring
 * simple:Herring
 * English
 * 
 * Herring
 * Herring
 * tl:Tamban
 * Filipino
 * Herring
 * Herring
 * tr:Ringa
 * Turkish
 * 
 * Herring
 * Herring
 * uk:Оселедець
 * Serbian
 * 
 * Herring
 * Herring
 * zh:鲱属
 * Chinese
 * 
 * Herring genus
 * Clupea
 * }
 * Perhaps following the bad example of the English wikipedia, many foreign language Wikipedias have taxon boxes in their herring articles. Either those boxes should be removed, or the articles named for herrings should be renamed for Clupea. But as things stand, the articles named for herrings should be linked to the English article Herring, and not Clupea as you have done.
 * simple:Herring
 * English
 * 
 * Herring
 * Herring
 * tl:Tamban
 * Filipino
 * Herring
 * Herring
 * tr:Ringa
 * Turkish
 * 
 * Herring
 * Herring
 * uk:Оселедець
 * Serbian
 * 
 * Herring
 * Herring
 * zh:鲱属
 * Chinese
 * 
 * Herring genus
 * Clupea
 * }
 * Perhaps following the bad example of the English wikipedia, many foreign language Wikipedias have taxon boxes in their herring articles. Either those boxes should be removed, or the articles named for herrings should be renamed for Clupea. But as things stand, the articles named for herrings should be linked to the English article Herring, and not Clupea as you have done.
 * Chinese
 * 
 * Herring genus
 * Clupea
 * }
 * Perhaps following the bad example of the English wikipedia, many foreign language Wikipedias have taxon boxes in their herring articles. Either those boxes should be removed, or the articles named for herrings should be renamed for Clupea. But as things stand, the articles named for herrings should be linked to the English article Herring, and not Clupea as you have done.


 * In response to your second paragraph... I take it you do not object to having an article an Clupea. But are you really saying that the article on herring should be deleted, that it cannot be encyclopediac because it is not a taxonomical entity in biology? That would mean we would have to delete the articles on sprats, mackerel, tuna, lobsters, shellfish, seaweed... The fact is that terms like these long pre-dated the development of scientific taxonomy, and will outlive many changes and revisions in those taxonomies. These terms are not particularly scientific terms, but they are well entrenched in the common use of languages. They are terms that are used by fisherman, fishmongers, chefs, and ordinary consumers. To write an encyclopedic article about the use of these terms, this common usage needs to be faithfully mirrored by the article, and connected as usefully and naturally as possible to the background science. That is what I am attempting in the articles on herring, salmon and so on. I welcome your objections when these attempts are unsatisfactory, and I hope you hang in here until we end up with something we are both happy with. --Epipelagic (talk) 05:06, 25 April 2012 (UTC)


 * To the second point, I do not object there being separate articles for the strictly biological taxa (as e.g. Clupea = genus known as herring) and for broader cultural concepts, such as herring (= type of fish, which include Clupea), or salmon, shellfish, etc., as you suggest, And I appreciate your efforts here. Yet the biological articles are primary and necessary. They are also more or less unequivocally defined by the same rules of universal scientific culture in all languages, and a relatively universal practice to express this definition in taxoboxes has been adopted in different wikis. The interwiki links among them should be unequivocal (reciprocal, unique). Links among the cultural concepts may be more tricky, as by definition these concepts are not necessarily the same in different cultures; and we are in no position to tell other languages which kind of culture they should follow.
 * Thus, to the first point, of the iw-link table above, I still think you have it completely wrong: those should all be linked with Clupea. - Note that even in this wiki, articles on biological taxa can be either on the scientific names or common names, and there are rules or guidelines on which one to choose in any situation (see wikiproject Fishes). Each language version probably has its own naming conventions, and it is not our business to instruct or discuss them here, but within those wikis themselves. Anyway the identity of the article (and the relevant iw-links) are not about the name of the article, but of the definition of the article / concept. Olaff (talk) 21:29, 26 April 2012 (UTC)