Talk:Passer predomesticus

Do statements about simple resemblances absolutely require citations?
I made two edits referencing the bird's resemblance to living species of sparrow, but the author is notifying me that such edits are arbitrary as they do not have sources. However, I argued that they do not need sources due to the fact I simply mentioned obvious resemblances, and we have quite a few articles here regarding animals that list their resemblances to other animals, yet they have no need for a source. Yet Innotata claims that they are false information and should be taken down. I still do not understand why such edits need sources. I need this to be explained to me in layman's terms. Forgive me, Innotata, I simply don't understand why my edits are unhelpful. To clarify, I vow not to edit this page without notifying you, so you have my word. If you are thinking of locking it, there is no need to, I do not want to edit this article. It is not the point of my discussion. My point is that I simply want to understand my mistakes and learn from them, and grow as a wikipedian.

Articles regarding such animals mentioning obvious resemblances to other animals:
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikaia (Mentions eels and lancelets)
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waimanu (Mentions auks and loons)
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthracotheriidae (Mentions hippos)
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indohyus (Mentions deer and hippos)
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantopithecus (Mentions gorillas)

To be honest, I fear all of you will misunderstand this and I will be in serious trouble, with this getting me reported and losing my editing rights, but I feel I must bring this up anyway. Forgive me, for the misunderstanding and if my statements came off as rebellious. Firekong1 (talk) 02:58, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm not going to read through the whole message, but no, you aren't going to be banned or anything for complaining about any issues on Wikipedia, there's no need to be so overwrought about it. It might be good, though, to get more familiar with what citing and being true to sources means in general and on Wikipedia. Every statement on Wikipedia is supposed to represent what is stated in references. So here, Anderson specifically said something about how it is possible the species was associated with humans based on its location, not that it certainly was. None of the sources specifically say the species looked like its relatives, whatever that means. Even if this were written somewhere other than Wikipedia, I would be careful to phrase such a statement to make it clear that this does not mean the species, for example, had similar plumage (consider the existence of the Arabian golden sparrow).

As for those other articles, at least some of them cite sources that make those comparisons, look more closely?. It's likely some of those things shouldn't be there, but that isn't a justification for introducing uncited statements—much less those that don't match actually cited sources—into other articles. &mdash;innotata 15:31, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Alright, I understand. Thank you very much for your patience and understanding. I will continue to learn more about the rules/laws here. I hope we can work together and become mutual allies in the future! Firekong1 (talk) 15:33, 2 November 2021 (UTC)