Talk:Spotted green pigeon

Cladogram error
It seems Didunculus should be placed basal to the entire clade, not close to Goura. , this could perhaps be a nice, short GA, by the way... FunkMonk (talk) 22:00, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, seems there are two different cladograms in the paper... FunkMonk (talk) 10:14, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Minor concerns following a GOCE copy-edit on 26 January 2016
1) In the lead and elsewhere, the word "upperparts" is used. Is that accepted spelling in the field of ornithology? I didn't know it had been accepted as one word. The same with "underparts", which I see later in the article.

2) The first sentence in the last paragraph of the section Spotted green pigeon is:


 * The flight abilities of the Kanaka pigeon do not seem to have been reduced, and its distribution indicates dispersal through island hopping.

For the non-expert reader, I think a bit of a connection needs to be made between the Kanaka pigeon and the Green spotted pigeon here. The Kanaka pigeon was mentioned in the previous paragraph, but even there the connection was tenuous. Here, you are starting a new paragraph but not connecting this thought to the Green spotted pigeon. Also for the non-expert, what does "The flight abilities...do not seem to have been reduced" mean? Also, it's not completely clear what "its" refers to.

3) In the section Spotted green pigeon, first paragraph, you have a sentence that begins:


 * The dark eyes and of the Nicobar pigeon are typical of species that forage on forest floors...

You can see that something is not right with the beginning of this sentence. I thought about simply deleting "and", so it would read, "The dark eyes of the Nicobar pigeon", but then I thought it would make sense if, in addition to the eyes, the feathers were also dark to help camouflage the bird on the forest floor. Can you check the source and see if it is also the feathers. If so, we can add "feathers" after "and". It would then read:


 * The dark eyes and feathers of the Nicobar pigeon...

4) In the section Spotted green pigeon there is a shaded box. Checkingfax has told me that such boxes are deprecated, meaning their use is not encouraged and they are not considered to be the best style. Before changing it, I wanted to ask Checkingfax what s/he thought about its use here. I never got a chance to ask why shaded boxes are deprecated; I think if they're not overused, they are a nice alternative to regular block quotes, but of course I will defer to Checkingfax's judgment and Wikipedia style recommendations.

Well, that's all. Overall, this is a well written article. Corinne (talk) 20:56, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for copy edit and comments, I'll respond here soon. FunkMonk (talk) 21:07, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

FunkMonk I just changed several instances of "nbsp;" to a no-break space template provided to me by Checkingfax. Checkingfax, I saw an edit summary recently accompanying a similar change in another article in which you said you changed the space to the template so that something would not "chew them up and spit them out", or something like that. Can you explain why it is not good to use the "nbsp;"? I've been using it for quite a while in many articles; no one said it wasn't good to use it. I've started using the template, but what about all the ones I've typed up to now? How could I ever find all of them to change them?

Funk Monk, I'm puzzled as to why you didn't use the conversion template for the measurements. You could specify the number of decimal points you want it to go to, from zero up. Corinne (talk) 21:13, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Heh, I've shied away from using them because I'm so bad with numbers that I fear I'll put in the numbers incorrectly, or do some other weird things with the parameters. Is there some guide and list of different templates? FunkMonk (talk) 21:16, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

So here go the comments:

1: Yep, "underparts" and "upperparts" are used this way in both of the most recent sources used. Would you expect "under-parts" and such?
 * Well, I would prefer two separate words: upper parts and under parts, but I guess ornithologists would like to see them together. Corinne (talk) 22:54, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

2: Though the articles appear to state these facts to make inferences about the spotted green pigeon, it is not stated explicitly. So though I think the info is important for this reason, I'm not sure whether stating it differently and making a direct connection to the spotted green pigeon would be "original synthesis" or not...

3: I noticed this mistake while you were copy editing, so didn't want to cause a potential edit-conflict, but now fixed.

4: I've used this style in quite few a FACs now. No one seems to have taken any issues with the boxes during FAC, and I think they break up the text nicely. They have only been drive-by removed once in a while by completely uninvolved editors. That indicates the only people who care about this are those who have little to do other than enforce arbitrary MOS guidelines as strict rules... FunkMonk (talk) 22:42, 26 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I don't know... Sometimes there may be good reasons we don't know about; in this case, I don't know; that's why I asked Checkingfax. I see you made an effort to clarify the sentence about the Kanaka pigeon in edit. To me, the phrase "this bird" is not clear. Which bird – the Kanaka pigeon or the Spotted green pigeon? Corinne (talk) 23:07, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, not taking a swipe at Checkingfax! It's just that I've seen other such guidelines be removed from the MOS once people realised they served little purpose, such as when images were not "allowed" to be left aligned after a title. Will take another look at the Kanaka pigeon sentence soon, I see I also forgot to change the reduction thing... FunkMonk (talk) 23:15, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Changed the sentence to "The flight abilities of the Kanaka pigeon do not seem to have been weakened, and the distribution of that bird indicates dispersal through island hopping." Is it clearer? FunkMonk (talk) 00:07, 27 January 2016 (UTC)


 * First, I can see no reason to mention the flight abilities of the Kanaka pigeon unless it is related somehow to the Spotted green pigeon. The question is, what exactly is that connection? The birds are related; probably developed from the same ancestor, right? How about this:


 * The fight abilities of the Spotted green pigeon do not show a weakening in comparison to those of the Kanaka pigeon.


 * I also am not quite clear on why these two things have to be joined into one sentence, because they are unrelated, but if you really want them to be in one sentence O.K. If you prefer your wording for the first part of the sentence, then I would write:


 * The flight abilities of the Kanaka pigeon do not seem to have weakened in the Spotted green pigeon.


 * In your last version, "that bird" could mean either bird. You need to say "the Kanaka pigeon" or "the Spotted green pigeon" or, "the latter" (if you mean the last pigeon mentioned) or "the former" (if you mean the first pigeon mentioned). Corinne (talk) 01:53, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi. If you put template:quote box in the Search box on any page it will take you to the template documentation page that describes its use and parameters. In a nutshell, quote box is for pull quotes —‌click on cquote link to read about pull quote template use in articles.

Can't yet again find the MoS or guideline on using shading in quote boxes.

I saw a JavaScript lately being used a lot by editors that removes the &amp;nbsp; HTML escape codes so I have been replacing them with templates as I see them so the script will leave them be. Also, if the use is &amp;nbsp;–&#32;         (non-breaking space/en dash/regular space)) I just nuke the whole thing and replace it with the template  which prevents a future editor from accidentally removing the trailing regular space. It is also easier to tell on sight that it is a space/en dash/space.

wikEd is good at finding and replacing things, but I go cautiously because templates can break image names, wikilinks, and references—‌so I don't do any autopilot replacements—‌I do them one by one, and it does not take long. Also, changing a hyphen to an en dash or vice versa within an image name can totally disable the file path name to the image. Have you ever used the wikEd find/replace feature? It even supports regex (regular expression) find/replace, something I am just getting up to speed on. Regex find/replace is very powerful.

What are the remaining issues with this article? Cheers! 03:38, 27 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Checkingfax I've added a lot of &amp; to articles over the last year and a half since I learned about it. That's a lot to change. If you ever have nothing to do, you can look at articles I've copy-edited over the last year and a half and replace the &amp;nbsp; with the template. I've used WikEd for quite a while but never saw the "Find and replace" feature. Where is it? Regarding this article, we're still working on a sentence. See my point #2 near the beginning of this section, then User:FunkMonk's reply, also numbered #2, and further discussion after that. We could use some help. Corinne (talk) 03:46, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * , I tried something new with the sentence, how about this? Now it is at least part of something more directly relevant, and shouldn't be too "synthetic"... As for the MOS about quote boxes, I'd like to see where this can be discussed... FunkMonk (talk) 20:31, 27 January 2016 (UTC)


 * FunkMonk Well, that's much clearer, and makes sense. Stylistically, it's just all right; it could be improved. Here it is now:


 * The distribution of the Nicobar pigeon and the Kanaka pigeon (which does not seem to have had weak flight abilities) suggests dispersal through island hopping, and that the spotted green pigeon originated from a location in Oceania or Southeast Asia.


 * Do you see the "and that..."? It follows, of course, "suggests". The two phrases that follow "suggests" ought to be parallel, that is, follow the same grammatical pattern. Here, you've got:


 * suggests


 * dispersal through island hopping (a noun phrase), and


 * that the spotted green pigeon originated from a location in Oceania or Southeast Asia (a noun clause)


 * If you want to make the sentence flow better, you've got to make the two parts after "suggests" parallel. That would mean either making the second one a noun phrase or making the first one a noun clause beginning with "that". I'll show you what I mean. Here are some possibilities:


 * two noun phrases:


 * dispersal through island hopping and


 * an origin in Oceania or Southeast Asia


 * two noun clauses, with both verbs in active voice:


 * that the spotted green pigeon dispersed through island hopping and


 * that the spotted green pigeon originated from a location in Oceania or Southeast Asia


 * – Corinne (talk) 23:08, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, what if I want the first part to refer to the group as a whole (add "suggests that the group/genus dispersed through..."?), and only the last to be specifically about the spotted pigeon? FunkMonk (talk) 00:45, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I saw the change that you made to the sentence. I think the first part of the sentence is an improvement, but you still have that noun clause just hanging there at the end, not connected well with the rest of the sentence. Let me ask you: why do you want the information about the origin (in Oceania or SE Asia) to apply only to the spotted green pigeon? Is that not true also of the Kanaka pigeon? If so, you could just add, "like the Kanaka pigeon": "that the spotted green pigeon, like the Kanaka pigeon,, originated from a location in Oceania or Southeast Asia". I just don't understand joining the two birds when referring to dispersal throughout the islands and not joining them when referring to their origin. Did they really originate in two very different places? Also, in this sentence, aren't you (that is, ornithologists) inferring some things (method of dispersal and origin) about an extinct bird from an extant bird (the Kanaka pigeon)? Corinne (talk) 02:10, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The Kanaka pigeon is extinct too, but its locality is known, so it is inferring things about an extinct bird known from a skin but with no locality data (spotted pigeon), from an extinct bird only known from fossils but with known distribution (Kanaka pigeon)... It is also important because it was formerly claimed that the spotted pigeon had short wings and therefore weak flight abilities. Here is the text from Heupink et al. 2014, which is CC licensed, so should be no problem to post it here: "The other species in the genus Caloenas, the extinct Kanaka Pigeon (C. canacorum) known from sub-fossil remains from New Caledonia and Tonga, shows no indications of a reduction in the ability to fly and its localities indicate an island hopping history [14,15]. This species is considered to be about 25% larger than the 40 cm Nicobar Pigeon and is thus unlikely to be conspecific with the 32 cm Spotted Green Pigeon. The Nicobar and Kanaka Pigeon may suggest a possible Oceanian or Southeast Asian origin for the Spotted Green Pigeon, the relation to the Raphinae however also opens up the possibility that the taxon originated from a location in the Indian Ocean." Van Grouw 2014 also makes a point of the Kanaka pigeon probably not having weak flight abilities, and since both papers discuss the flight ability of the spotted pigeon, it seems clear that they mention the Kanaka pigeon because they want to infer something about the spotted one. So the reason why I'm kind of tip-toeing around it in the text here is that if I make the connection more clear than the paper itself, it is in a way "interpreting" the source. FunkMonk (talk) 02:35, 28 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Oh. Pretty complicated. Thanks for explaining. I'm glad you're aware of the subtleties of using sources. I still think the structure of the sentences needs improvement. I suggest changing the last part (a noun clause) to a noun phrase:


 * The distribution of the Nicobar pigeon and the Kanaka pigeon (which does not seem appear to have had weak flight abilities) suggests dispersal through island hopping and an origin for the spotted green pigeon in Oceania or Southeast Asia.


 * How's that? Corinne (talk) 05:23, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I'll take it, thanks! FunkMonk (talk) 09:19, 28 January 2016 (UTC)