User talk:Awkwafaba/Archive 2

May 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

 * May 2019&mdash;Issue 002


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

On 23 May, user created a talk page post, "Revamp of Wikiproject Biology--Who is In?". In the days since, WP:BIOL has been bustling with activity, with over a dozen editors weighing in on this discussion, as well as several others that have subsequently spawned. An undercurrent of thought is that WP:BIOL has too many subprojects, preventing editors from easily interacting and stopping a "critical mass" of collaboration and engagement. Many mergers and consolidations of subprojects have been tentatively listed, with a consolidation of WikiProjects Genetics + Molecular and Cell Biology + Computational Biology + Biophysics currently in discussion. Other ideas being aired include updating old participants lists, redesigning project pages to make them more user-friendly, and clearly identifying long- and short-term goals.
 * Fundamental changes being discussed at WikiProject Biology

Editors and  had a very fruitful month, collaborating to bring two dinosaur articles to GA and then nominating them both for FA. They graciously decided to answer some questions for the first ToL Editor Spotlight, giving insight to their successful collaborations, explaining why you should collaborate with them, and also sharing some tidbits about their lives off-Wikipedia.
 * Editor Spotlight: These editors want you to write about dinosaurs

1) Enwebb: How long have you two been collaborating on articles? 2) Enwebb: Why dinosaurs? 3) Enwebb: Why should other editors join you in writing articles related to paleontology? Are you looking to attract new editors, or draw in experienced editors from other areas of Wikipedia?
 * Jens Lallensack: I started in the German Wikipedia in 2005 but switched to the English Wikipedia because of its very active dinosaur project. My first major collaboration with FunkMonk was on Heterodontosaurus in 2015.
 * FunkMonk: Yeah, we had interacted already on talk pages and through reviewing each other's articles, and at some point I was thinking of expanding Heterodontosaurus, and realised Jens had already written the German Wikipedia version, so it seemed natural to work together on the English one. Our latest collaboration was Spinophorosaurus, where by another coincidence, I had wanted to work on that article for the WP:Four Award, and it turned out that Jens had a German book about the expedition that found the dinosaur, which I wouldn't have been able to utilise with my meagre German skills. Between those, we also worked on Brachiosaurus, a wider Dinosaur Project collaboration between several editors.
 * JL: Because of the huge public interest in them. But dinosaurs are also highly interesting from a scientific point of view: key evolutionary innovations emerged within this group, such as warm-bloodedness, gigantism, and flight. Dinosaur research is, together with the study of fossil human remains, the most active field in paleontology. New scientific techniques and approaches tend to get developed within this field. Dinosaur research became increasingly interdisciplinary, and now does not only rely on various fields of biology and geology, but also on chemistry and physics, among others. Dinosaurs are therefore ideal to convey scientific methodology to the general public.
 * FM: As outlined above, dinosaurs have been described as a "gateway to science"; if you learn about dinosaurs, you will most likely also learn about a lot of scientific fields you would not necessarily be exposed to otherwise. On a more personal level, having grown up with and being influenced by various dinosaur media, it feels pretty cool to help spread knowledge about these animals, closest we can get to keeping them alive.
 * JL: Because we are a small but active and helpful community. Our Dinosaur collaboration, one of the very few active open collaborations in Wikipedia, makes high-level writing on important articles easier and more fun. Our collaboration is especially open to editors without prior experience in high-level writing. But we do not only write articles: several WikiProject Dinosaur participants are artists who do a great job illustrating the articles, and maintain an extensive and very active image review system. In fact, a number of later authors started with contributing images.
 * FM: Anyone who is interested in palaeontology is welcome to try writing articles, and we would be more than willing to help. I find that the more people that work on articles simultaneously with me, the more motivation I get to write myself. I am also one of those editors who started out contributing dinosaur illustrations and making minor edits, and only began writing after some years. But when I got to it, it wasn't as intimidating as I had feared, and I've learned a lot in the process. For example anatomy; if you know dinosaur anatomy, you have a very good framework for understanding the anatomy of other tetrapod animals, including humans.

4) Enwebb: Between the two of you, you have over 300 GA reviews. FunkMonk, you have over 250 of those. What keeps you coming back to review more articles?
 * FM: One of the main reasons I review GANs is to learn more about subjects that seem interesting (or which I would perhaps not come across otherwise). There are of course also more practical reasons, such as helping an article on its way towards FAC, to reduce the GAN backlog, and to "pay back" when I have a nomination up myself. It feels like a win-win situation where I can be entertained by interesting info, while also helping other editors get their nominations in shape, and we'll end up with an article that hopefully serves to educate a lot of people (the greater good).
 * JL: Because I enjoy reading Wikipedia articles and like to learn new things. In addition, reviews give me the opportunity to have direct contact with the authors, and help them to make their articles even better. This is quite rewarding for me personally. But I also review because I consider our GA and FA system to be of fundamental importance for Wikipedia. When I started editing Wikipedia (the German version), the article promotion reviews motivated me and improved my writing skills a lot. Submitting an article for review requires one to get serious and take additional steps to bring the article to the best quality possible. GAs and FAs are also a good starting point for readers, and may motivate them to become authors themselves.

5) Enwebb: What are your editing preferences? Any scripts or gadgets you find invaluable? 6) Enwebb: What would surprise the ToL community to learn about your life off-wiki?
 * FM: One script that everyone should know about is the duplink highlight tool. It will show duplinks within the intro and body of a given article separately, and it seems a lot of people still don't know about it, though they are happy when introduced to it. I really liked the citationbot too (since citation consistency is a boring chore to me), but it seems to be blocked at the moment due to some technical issues.
 * JL: I often review using the Wikipedia Beta app on my smartphone, as it allows me to read without needing to sit in front of the PC. For writing, I find the reference management software Zotero invaluable, as it generates citation templates automatically, saving a lot of time.
 * Editor's note: I downloaded Zotero and tried it for the first time and think it is a very useful tool. More here.
 * FM: Perhaps that I have no background in natural history/science, but work with animation and games. But fascination with and knowledge of nature and animals is actually very helpful when designing and animating characters and creatures, so it isn't that far off, and I can actually use some of the things I learn while writing here for my work (when I wrote the Dromaeosauroides article, it was partially to learn more about the animal for a design-school project).
 * JL: That I am actually doing research on dinosaurs. Though I avoid writing about topics I publish research on, my Wikipedia work helps me to keep a good general overview over the field, and quite regularly I can use what I learned while writing for Wikipedia for my research.

Get in touch with these editors regarding collaboration at WikiProject Dinosaurs!
 * Marine life continues to dominate ToL DYKs

Discuss this issue

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Sent by DannyS712 (talk) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 03:44, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Teahouse Hosts
Hello. Over at the Teahouse we're having a bit of a 'spring clean' by removing old entries from the list of Hosts that new users see. As you don't appear to have been very active there for some time, your 'host profile' has been removed from the list. But please don't let that put you off contributing again in the future - either by signing back up as a Host to assist on a regular basis, or just dropping in whenever you fancy helping out - especially as it's great to have input from people with an interest in flora and fauna.

Thank you for all your past help and support for new users at the Teahouse. Hope to see you there again soon. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 00:15, 10 June 2019 (UTC) "

thanks
for your recent support of tagging Australian biota items - appreciated !! JarrahTree 04:57, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * no problem. It's much easier now that I have that Rater gadget.  Cheers.  --Nessie (talk) 14:44, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Braintree by Vox Telecom


Hello, NessieVL. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Braintree by Vox Telecom".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply and remove the, , or  code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. CptViraj (📧) 18:00, 17 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I did not create this article, did. --Nessie (talk) 18:33, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

If you like really like wikignoming....
Some subproject taskforce notes would be good for tracking - For instance, a takforce for each era in paloeontology (Cenozoic, Mesozoic, Paleozoic, and older...might be worth discussing on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Palaeontology Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:43, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:WikiProject Pteridophytes articles


A tag has been placed on Category:WikiProject Pteridophytes articles requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Liz Read! Talk! 20:54, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for June 23
An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Bacilloviridae, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Sulfolobus islandicus rod-shaped virus ([//dispenser.info.tm/~dispenser/cgi-bin/dablinks.py/Bacilloviridae check to confirm] | [//dispenser.info.tm/~dispenser/cgi-bin/dab_solver.py/Bacilloviridae?client=notify fix with Dab solver]).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 22:04, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Pteridophytes articles by quality


A tag has been placed on Category:Pteridophytes articles by quality requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Liz Read! Talk! 19:03, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Pteridophytes articles by importance


A tag has been placed on Category:Pteridophytes articles by importance requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Liz Read! Talk! 19:04, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for July 1
An automated process has detected that you recently added links to disambiguation pages.
 * India National PolioPlus ([//dispenser.info.tm/~dispenser/cgi-bin/dablinks.py/India_National_PolioPlus check to confirm] | [//dispenser.info.tm/~dispenser/cgi-bin/dab_solver.py/India_National_PolioPlus?client=notify fix with Dab solver])
 * added a link pointing to IEC
 * Mosaic virus ([//dispenser.info.tm/~dispenser/cgi-bin/dablinks.py/Mosaic_virus check to confirm] | [//dispenser.info.tm/~dispenser/cgi-bin/dab_solver.py/Mosaic_virus?client=notify fix with Dab solver])
 * added a link pointing to Single-stranded RNA virus

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 11:39, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Category:Taxobox articles possibly missing a taxonbar
This isn't really your fault, but when running the bot on large categories, could you do that at night/when most everyone is sleeping, at least until this is fixed/improved. Basically, the bot will need to process the ~1000 articles of that category before it can process anything else. Let's say it takes ~1 minute per article to process, that's ~16 hours without anyone else being able to use the bot! &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:51, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I hadn't realized. I'll restrain myself.  --Nessie (talk) 23:05, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
 * No worries. Like I said, not your fault. If anything this highlighted the problem, and will lead to improvements. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:23, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Whose night? Peter coxhead (talk) 18:49, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I assume the most activity on enwiki correlates with Eastern time, right?
 * It would make sense, but I've never seen any stats. Certainly my watchlist fills up more over my (UK) night than my day. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:40, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The editing community is centered somewhere around UTC+0. Could be UTC +1/+2 if it's more Europe/Africa, or UTC-1/-2 if it's more Americas. So the least traffic should occur somewhere around UTC Midnight, but you could also wait till Midnight on the American Westcoast if you want to clear the US lump.
 * There used to be hourly traffic stats somewhere, but I can't find them anymore. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:47, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Electric smoking system
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Electric smoking system. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

June 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

 * June 2019&mdash;Issue 003


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!


 * Spineless editors overwhelmed by stubs

Within the Tree of Life and its many subprojects, there is an abundance of stubs. Welcome to Wikipedia, what's new, right? However, based on all wikiprojects listed (just over two thousand), the Tree of Life project is worse off in average article quality than most. Based on the concept of relative WikiWork (the average number of "steps" needed to have a project consisting of all featured articles (FAs), where stub status → FA consists of six steps), only seven projects within the ToL have an average rating of "start class" or better. Many projects, particularly those involving invertebrates, hover at an average article quality slightly better than a stub. With relative WikiWorks of 5.98 each, WikiProject Lepidoptera and WikiProject Beetles have the highest relative WikiWork of any project. Given that invertebrates are incredibly speciose, it may not surprise you that many articles about them are lower quality. WikiProject Beetles, for example, has over 20 times more articles than WikiProject Cats. Wikipedia will always be incomplete, so we should take our relatively low WikiWork as motivation to write more articles that are also better in quality.

We're joined for this month's Editor Spotlight by, a long-time contributor who lists themselves as a member of WikiProject Fungus, WikiProject Algae, and WikiProject Cephalopods.
 * Editor Spotlight: Showing love to misfit taxa

1) Enwebb: How did you come to edit articles about organisms and taxonomic groups?
 * Nessie: The main force, then and now, driving me to create or edit articles is thinking "Why isn't there an article on that on Wikipedia?" Either I'll read about some rarely-sighted creature in the deep sea or find something new on iNaturalist and want to learn more.  First stop (surprise!) is Wikipedia, and many times there is just a stub or no page at all.  Sometimes I just add the source that got me to the article, not sometimes I go deep and try to get everything from the library or online journals and put it all in an article.  The nice thing about taxa is the strong precedent that all accepted extant taxa are notable, so one does not need to really worry about doing a ton of research and having the page get removed.  I was super worried about this as a new editor:  I still really dislike conflict so if I can avoid it I do.  Anyway, the most important part is stitching an article in to the rest of Wikipedia:  Linking all the jargon, taxonomers, pollinators, etc., adding categories, and putting in the correct WikiProjects.  Recently I have been doing more of the stitching-in stuff with extant articles.  The last deep-dive article I made was Karuka at the end of last year, which is a bit of a break for me.  I guess it's easier to do all the other stuff on my tablet while watching TV.

2) Enwebb: Many editors in the ToL are highly specialized on a group of taxa. A look at your recently created articles includes much diversity, though, with viruses, bacteria, algae, and cnidarians all represented&mdash;are there any commonalities for the articles you work on? Would you say you're particularly interested in certain groups?
 * Nessie: I was a nerd from a time when that would get you beat up, so I like odd things and underdogs. I also avoid butting heads, so not only do I find siphonophores and seaweeds fascinating I don't have to worry about stepping on anyone's toes.  I go down rabbitholes where I start writing an article like Mastocarpus papillatus because I found some growing on some rocks, then in my research I see it is parasitized by Pythium porphyrae, which has no article, and how can that be for an oomycete that oddly lives in the ocean and also attacks my tasty nori.  So then I wrote that article and that got me blowing off the dust on other Oomycota articles, encouraged by the pull of propagating automatic taxoboxes.  Once you've done the taxonomy template for the genus, well then you might as well do all the species now that the template is taken care of for them too. and so on until I get sucked in somewhere else. I think it's good to advocate for some of these 'oddball' taxa as it makes it easier for editors to expand their range from say plants to the pathogenic microorganisms of their favorite plant.


 * My favorite clades though, It's hard to pick for a dilettante like me. I like working on virus taxonomy, but I can't think of a specific virus species that I am awed by.  Maybe Tulip breaking virus  for teaching us economics or Variola virus for having so many, one of which was popularly sung about by Desi Arnaz and then inspired the name of a cartoon character who was then misremembered and then turned into a nickname for Howard Stern's producer Gary Dell'Abate.  Sorry, really had to share that  chain, but for a species that's not a staple food it probably has the most deities.  But anyway, for having the most species that wow me, I love a good fungus or algae, but that often is led by my stomach.  Also why I seem to research so many plant articles.  You can't eat siphonophores, at least I don't, but they are fascinating with their federalist colonies of zooids.  Bats are all amazing, but the task force seems to have done so much I feel the oomycetes and slime moulds need more love.  Same thing with dinosaurs (I'm team Therizinosaurus though).  But honestly, every species has that one moment in the research where you just go, wow, that's so interesting.  For instance, I loved discovering that the picture-winged fly (Delphinia picta) has a mating dance that involves blowing bubbles.  Now I keep expecting them to show me when they land on my arm, but no such luck yet.

3) Enwebb: I noticed that many of your recent edits utilize the script Rater, which aids in quickly reassessing the quality and importance of an article. Why is it important to update talk page assessments of articles? I also noticed that the quality rating you assign often aligns with ORES, a script that uses machine-learning to predict article quality. Coincidence?
 * Nessie: I initially started focusing on WikiProject talk page templates because they seem to be the key to data collecting and maintenance for articles, much more so than categories. This is where you note of an article needs an image, or audio, or a range map.  It's how the cleanup listing bot sorts articles, and how  does his automated taxobox usage stats.  The latter inspired me to look for [https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?language=en&project=wikipedia&ns%5B0%5D=1&ns%5B118%5D=1&templates_any=Virusbox%0D%0ATaxonbar%0D%0ATaxobox%0D%0ASubspeciesbox%0D%0ASpeciesbox%0D%0AParaphyletic%20group%0D%0AOobox%0D%0AMissing-taxobox%0D%0AInfraspeciesbox%0D%0AIchnobox%0D%0AHybridbox%2Flua%0D%0AHybridbox%0D%0ABiota%20infobox%0D%0AAutomatic%20taxobox&templates_no=rodents%0D%0Afishproject%0D%0AWikiProject%20Viruses%0D%0AWikiProject%20Turtles%0D%0AWikiProject%20Spiders%0D%0AWikiProject%20Sharks%0D%0AWikiProject%20Rodents%0D%0AWikiProject%20Reptiles%0D%0AWikiProject%20Primates%0D%0AWikiProject%20Poultry%0D%0AWikiProject%20Plants%0D%0AWikiProject%20Paleontology%0D%0AWikiProject%20Palaeontology%0D%0AWikiProject%20Microbiology%0D%0AWikiProject%20Micro%0D%0AWikiProject%20Marine%20life%0D%0AWikiProject%20Marine%20Life%0D%0AWikiProject%20Mantodea%0D%0AWikiProject%20Mammals%2FBats%20Task%20Force%0D%0AWikiProject%20Mammals%0D%0AWikiProject%20Lepidoptera%0D%0AWikiProject%20Insects%0D%0AWikiProject%20Hypericaceae%0D%0AWikiProject%20Gastropods%0D%0AWikiProject%20Fungi%0D%0AWikiProject%20Fishes%0D%0AWikiProject%20Equine%0D%0AWikiProject%20Dogs%0D%0AWikiProject%20Dinosaurs%0D%0AWikiProject%20Cetaceans%0D%0AWikiProject%20Cephalopods%0D%0AWikiProject%20Cats%0D%0AWikiProject%20Carnivorous%20plants%0D%0AWikiProject%20Bivalves%0D%0AWikiProject%20Birds%0D%0AWikiProject%20Beetles%0D%0AWikiProject%20Banksia%0D%0AWikiProject%20Arthropods%0D%0AWikiProject%20Animals%0D%0AWikiProject%20Amphibians%20and%20Reptiles%0D%0AWikiProject%20Algae%0D%0AWPSpiders%0D%0AWP%20Spiders%0D%0ASquirrels%0D%0ARodent%0D%0AMammal%0D%0ALepidopteraTalk%0D%0ABirdTalk%0D%0AAARTalk&templates_use_talk_no=on&search_max_results=500&sortby=title&sortorder=descending&add_image=on&interface_language=en&active_tab=tab_templates_n_links&doit= articles on organisms that are not assigned to any ToL WikiProjects] which initially was in the thousands.  I got it down to zero with just copypasta so you can imagine I was excited when I saw the rater tool.  Back then I rated everything stub/low because it was faster:  I couldn't check every article for the items on the B-class checklists.  Plus each project has their own nuances to rating scales and I thought the editors in the individual projects would take it from there.  I also thought all species were important, so how can I choose a favorite?  Now it is much easier with the rater tool and the apparent consensus with 's method of rating by the pageviews (0-9 views/day is low, 10-99 is med, 100-999 is high...).  For the quality I generally go by the ORES rating, you caught me.  It sometimes is thrown off by a long list of species or something, but it's generally good for stub to C: above that needs formal investigation and procedures I am still learning about.  It seems that in the ToL projects we don't focus so much on getting articles to GA/FA so it's been harder to pick up.  It was a little culture shock when I went on the Discord server and it seemed everyone was obsessed with getting articles up in quality.  I think ToL is focusing on all the missing taxa and (re)organizing it all, which when you already have articles on every anime series or whatever you can focus on bulking the articles up more.  In any event, on my growing to-do list is trying to get an article up to FA or GA and learn the process that way so I can better do the quality ratings and not just kick the can down the road.

4) Enwebb: What, if anything, can ToL and its subprojects do to better support collaboration and coordination among editors? How can we improve?
 * Nessie: I mentioned earlier that the projects are the main way maintenance is done. And it is good that we have a bunch of subprojects that let those tasks get broken up into manageable pieces.  Frankly I'm amazed anything gets done with WikiProject Plants with how huge its scope is.  Yet this not only parcels out the work but the discussion as well.  A few editors like  and  keep an eye on many of the subprojects and spread the word, but it's still easy for newer editors to get a little lost.  There should be balance between the lumping and splitting.  The newsletter helps by crossing over all the WikiProjects, and if the discord channel picked up that would help too.  Possibly the big Enwiki talk page changes will help as well.

5) Enwebb: What would surprise the ToL community to learn about your life off-Wikipedia?
 * Nessie: I'm not sure anything would be surprising. I focus on nature offline too, foraging for mushrooms or wild plants and trying to avoid ticks and mosquitos.  I have started going magnet fishing lately, more to help clean up the environment than in the hopes of finding anything valuable.  But it would be fun to find a weapon and help solve a cold case or something.


 * June DYKs

Discuss this issue

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sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:29, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar!

 * Oh jees, this is too much. Thank you though.  Just glad someone else is going to have fun cleaning up our waterways 🙂--Nessie (talk) 23:04, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Pseudoparenchymatous (July 17)
 Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Boothsift was:

The comment the reviewer left was:

Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.


 * If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Pseudoparenchymatous and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
 * If you now believe the draft cannot meet Wikipedia's standards or do not wish to progress it further, you may request deletion. Please go to Draft:Pseudoparenchymatous, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window, add "db-self" at the top of the draft text and click the blue "publish changes" button to save this edit.
 * If you do not make any further changes to your draft, in 6 months, it will be considered abandoned and may be deleted.
 * If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Help_desk&action=edit&section=new&nosummary=1&preload=Template:Afc_decline/HD_preload&preloadparams%5B%5D=Draft:Pseudoparenchymatous Articles for creation help desk], on the [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Boothsift&action=edit&section=new&nosummary=1&preload=Template:Afc_decline/HD_preload&preloadparams%5B%5D=Draft:Pseudoparenchymatous reviewer's talk page] or use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

BoothSift Talks  04:31, 17 July 2019 (UTC)


 * please read Village pump (proposals)/Archive 144, as was mentioned in the comment in the article markup, the edit history, and on the talk page. --Nessie (talk) 14:56, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Electric smoking system
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Electric smoking system. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Hemilyn Escudero Tamayo


Hello, NessieVL. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Hemilyn Escudero Tamayo".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply and remove the, , or  code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Lapablo (talk) 22:46, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for editing the myxomatosis article
Hi NessieVL! Thanks for italicizing Myxoma virus for me in the myxomatosis article, I did not realize that needed to be done. And also for adding in issue numbers in the footnotes. I was told however by another editor that the reference should include the specific page the foregoing information was on, not the pages of the entire article, so I changed those back. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Referencing_for_beginners, "If the repeatedly used reference is a book or a lengthy paper or article, it is very helpful to have separate page references for specific facts.". Best, Rabbit Vet (talk) 18:13, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Tree of Life Newsletter



 * July 2019&mdash;Issue 004


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Discuss this issue

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Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:59, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Ornithodoros
Dear NessieVL, with this edit, you have added the following etymology; "The Linnean name derives from ornithos (Greek: ὄρνιθος) and doros (Greek: Δωρόν), meaning "bird" and "gift," respectively."

But ὄρνις is actually the nominative singular and δῶρον would be Romanized as dōron and not as doros. Could you please check your source. I can not find one in the article. Thanks in advance, with kind regards, Wimpus (talk) 19:15, 9 August 2019 (UTC)


 * For the component "ornitho-", if we want to be nit-picking (which I don't but as usual Wimpus does), perhaps the best wording is as here, i.e. to say it's derived from ὄρνις, genitive ὄρνιθος, meaning 'bird'.
 * The component "-doros" could be directly derived from -δωρος, a common second component of masculine Greek personal names, meaning 'gift', as in Ἀπολλόδωρος, Apollodoros, gift of Apollo, but -δωρος is in turn derived from δωρόν, so the etymology is almost certainly correct, albeit condensed. However, it does need a source. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:04, 9 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I do actually disagree with Peter coxhead, as etymoline.com is not explaining the full compound. Without using a source for the full compound, other etymologies could be equally possible. I could similarly analyse ornithodoros as compound consisting of ὄρνις and δορά (=skin/hide), as several words exist in ancient Greek that end on -δορος (see here). Maybe, the animal has a skin resembling that of a bird. So, using sources, to describe the single parts of the compound, and not the full compound, seems like OR. It would be less innocuous, in case there would be no other possibility, but prima facie, my fabricated etymology is equally probable. Wimpus (talk) 14:37, 10 August 2019 (UTC)


 * And here I can find a third etymology, which explains the full compound as consisting of ornis and doros (Greek δορός = leather sack, is related to the same verbal root as δορά). I hope to make clear that it is actually necessary to use a source that explains the full compound, instead of creating your own etymology based on a source that only explains the separate parts. NessieVL, but maybe you used a reliable source that explained the full compound. So, I am still curious about the source you may have used. Wimpus (talk) 15:12, 10 August 2019 (UTC)


 * actually, I don't think we do disagree about Ornithodoros. Please note that I wrote "However, it does need a source." My remarks were based on the assumption that there is a source that says that the meaning is 'bird gift'. However, without such a source, I agree that the element -dor- is too ambiguous.
 * I do think that it is actually necessary to use a source that explains the full compound is not always true. You have to know the biology of the taxonomic group, what features are used to distinguish species, and what components of names are commonly used. In plants, for example, we know perfectly well what -florus and -phyllus mean (and can use Stearn as a source for the component). In spiders, we know perfectly well what -spinosus means. In mammals, we know perfectly well what -derma means. Scientific dictionaries that explain components of names are fine for the meaning of such words (although, as you have pointed out, they are not always reliable as to the precise form of lexeme normally used as the headword). Peter coxhead (talk) 05:53, 11 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the slow reply, I was away for a bit. Anyhow, that edit was from some time ago, so my memory is foggy.  I thought the source would be this but it is not.  So as that is the case, the best source would be to check the original description by Carl Ludwig Koch.  I cannot seem to find it though.    Best to remove the etymology for now, until it can be more clearly discerned. --Nessie (talk) 15:16, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Robert J. Anderson


Hello, NessieVL. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Robert J. Anderson".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply and remove the, , or  code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia! JMHamo (talk) 12:11, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * you need to fix your script. I did not create that article. --Nessie (talk) 12:58, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

New WikiProject
There's now a WikiProject Diptera. I don't know if it will get off the ground, but since you've been working on infrastructure for some other not-very active TOL subprojects, you might want to help get that diptera put together. Plantdrew (talk) 22:37, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * thanks for the heads-up. I was not aware.  I will Work on it along with the other WPs.  Starting with their misspelled talk template, WikiProject Dipetra.  --Nessie (talk) 23:14, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

August 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter



 * August 2019&mdash;Issue 005


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!



Discuss this issue

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Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 15:43, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Durio graveolens
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Durio graveolens you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Dunkleosteus77 -- Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 03:41, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

TheWikiWizard - September 2019
Hello, NessieVL! Here is the September 2019 issue of TheWikiWizard. We Hope you like this month's issue! If you'd like to discuss this issue, please go to this issue's talk page. Happy Reading! Thegooduser  Life Begins With a Smile :)  🍁 21:44, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
 * A big thank you! (TWW is now 1 years old!)
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Handling incertae sedis ranks within Realm Riboviria
Maybe it's me, but I find the taxobox at, e.g., Alphatetraviridae, odd. What I would expect to see is:

similar to, say, Adenoviridae. It's a bit fiddly to set this up, but possible. What do you think? Peter coxhead (talk) 14:55, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I thought the nested incertae sedis looked odd, personally :) The ICTV taxonomy page doesn't use incertae sedis, nor is the term used at all on the whole site.  I can't think of a taxobox outside of one used for a virus that has incertae sedis listed twice in a row.  But that's just my opinion.  I don't want to butt heads.  I'd be interested in why you think the box above is less odd, though. --Nessie (talk) 15:07, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I think it's odd not to say what rank is incertae sedis – given that it means "of uncertain placement", what does "(unranked): incertae sedis" mean? Literally something like "of uncertain unknown rank", which is a bit nonsensical to me. I do take your point about multiple occurrences of incertae sedis. An alternative is just to omit the uncertain/unknown ranks altogether, which is what the ICTV spreadsheet does, and have:
 * {| class="wikitable"


 * (unranked): || Virus
 * Realm: || Riboviria
 * Family: || Alphatetraviridae
 * }
 * Or perhaps have one level of incertae sedis:
 * {| class="wikitable"
 * }
 * Or perhaps have one level of incertae sedis:
 * {| class="wikitable"


 * (unranked): || Virus
 * Realm: || Riboviria
 * Order: || incertae sedis
 * Family: || Alphatetraviridae
 * }
 * I'd prefer either to "(unranked): incertae sedis". What do you think? Peter coxhead (talk) 15:55, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I see what you're saying now. I hadn't really been thinking of the rank.  I used that because I wasn't sure how to condense all the ranks inbetween.  I imagined a reader seeing a box like the lattermost and wondering: 'well, what class is it in then?'  Though of the two that looks better to me.  Also, the rank would need to be phylum to accommodate classes, orders, families, etc. unless we make one for each rank.  --Nessie (talk) 16:05, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * It seems more logical (to me anyway) if there's only one uncertain rank given to give either the rank immediately above the known rank, or the topmost uncertain rank. Maybe the topmost is better if there's only one?? If it were a manual taxobox, it could have something like "Phylum–Order: incertae sedis" but I'm very reluctant to try to get Virusbox to accept rank ranges! So this approach would give:
 * {| class="wikitable"
 * I'd prefer either to "(unranked): incertae sedis". What do you think? Peter coxhead (talk) 15:55, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I see what you're saying now. I hadn't really been thinking of the rank.  I used that because I wasn't sure how to condense all the ranks inbetween.  I imagined a reader seeing a box like the lattermost and wondering: 'well, what class is it in then?'  Though of the two that looks better to me.  Also, the rank would need to be phylum to accommodate classes, orders, families, etc. unless we make one for each rank.  --Nessie (talk) 16:05, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * It seems more logical (to me anyway) if there's only one uncertain rank given to give either the rank immediately above the known rank, or the topmost uncertain rank. Maybe the topmost is better if there's only one?? If it were a manual taxobox, it could have something like "Phylum–Order: incertae sedis" but I'm very reluctant to try to get Virusbox to accept rank ranges! So this approach would give:
 * {| class="wikitable"


 * (unranked): || Virus
 * Realm: || Riboviria
 * Phylum: || incertae sedis
 * Family: || Alphatetraviridae
 * }
 * Um... None of the solutions look very good. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:14, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Clade? I agree, there is no satisfying solution that I can see. --Nessie (talk) 16:26, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Displaying a single incertae sedis at the topmost uncertain rank has my vote. I usually omit displaying an incertae sedis, but then, in my activities, I'm usually encountering them for minor ranks (e.g., a grass genus with subtribal placement incertae sedis). If something is incertae sedis for major rank(s), that should probably be indicated in some manner. Plantdrew (talk) 17:02, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * well, that seems to be the least worst solution, so let's implement it. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:30, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * See Alphatetraviridae now. The listed genera in the taxobox need to be sorted. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:38, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Clade? I agree, there is no satisfying solution that I can see. --Nessie (talk) 16:26, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Displaying a single incertae sedis at the topmost uncertain rank has my vote. I usually omit displaying an incertae sedis, but then, in my activities, I'm usually encountering them for minor ranks (e.g., a grass genus with subtribal placement incertae sedis). If something is incertae sedis for major rank(s), that should probably be indicated in some manner. Plantdrew (talk) 17:02, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * well, that seems to be the least worst solution, so let's implement it. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:30, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * See Alphatetraviridae now. The listed genera in the taxobox need to be sorted. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:38, 16 September 2019 (UTC)


 * I assume you mean major rank, as the next highest rank under realm is subrealm, of which none exist. There is also kingdom and subkingdom which also have none defined.  The highest defined rank in Riboviria is phylum, which is the only virus phylum.  Does that sound ok for the incertae sedis rank?  There are also a large number of virus taxa outside of Riboviria (which is the only realm), would you think realm would be the best rank for incertae sedis there? --Nessie (talk) 17:38, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, I should have written "highest major rank" or perhaps "highest Linnaean rank". A reasonably knowledgeable reader could expect there to be an order, class or phylum, but not realm. I'm personally happy just to leave realm out. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:44, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Looks good enough for me. --Nessie (talk) 17:51, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Durio graveolens
The article Durio graveolens you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Durio graveolens for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Dunkleosteus77 -- Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 15:41, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Extraneous parameters in taxoboxes
In some of your conversion to automatic taxoboxes, you're adding a bunch of blank parameters that may not be appropriate. trend is not supported in taxoboxes, whether manual or automatic. I'm not sure where you're copying the parameters from but trend shouldn't be in any form of taxobox parameter documentation. Parameters for conservation status are very rarely appropriate in articles using Automatic taxobox (CITES is the only system that does status for ranks above species), so there isn't any point in adding blank parameters for status. It's fairly uncommon for species to have any subdivisions; routinely adding blank subdivision and subdivision_ranks to articles using Speciesbox seems pointless. Plantdrew (talk) 23:17, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how I got trend in there. I haven't really lookmed critically at my copypasta for a bit, so I'll update it for the future. --Nessie (talk) 23:22, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Spooky Species reminder!
Hi, you've signed up to participate in the Spooky Species contest. The first official day of the contest is today, so you can start claiming points for improving the designated articles (also feel free to add articles to the table). The contest runs through Oct 31! Thanks for signing up! Enwebb (talk) 17:08, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Class rating
There is no need to add Template to a WikiProject banner that is used on a Template talk: page, just as there is no need to add category to a WikiProject banner that is used on a Category talk: page. With very few exceptions (and I can't think of any right now), a WikiProject banner that is used outside of the Talk: namespace of articles will automatically detect the class. This code is built into, and has been there since created it back in 2009. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 07:21, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * What harm does it do? How does this impact anything negatively?--Nessie (talk) 13:24, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Some redirects could become articles one day. If that happens, an explicit "class=redirect" will need to be updated. The redirect turned article should get class/importance ratings anyway, so that doesn't really change the amount of editing needed, but "class=redirect" will be WRONG until fixed. That is a (minor) negative impact. Redrose64 is talking about other namespaces though, and while I don't think specifying class in other namespaces is harmful, I don't think it's particularly helpful either, and I let the automatic detection do it's job when I'm put Wikiproject banners in other namespaces. But I'm not using Rater, and automatic detection saves me some typing. If Rater makes it easier to specify class outside of Article/Talk namespace than to leave class undefined, perhaps Rater's behavior needs to change. Plantdrew (talk) 16:34, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * The automatic detection is not the same with all WPs and all classes. I think a higher priority is removing NA as that interferes with any automatic assessment, and there are plenty of those. --Nessie (talk) 17:28, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I certainly agree with removing NA. Plantdrew (talk) 19:01, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, removing NA is fine; in fact, it's beneficial since some WikiProject templates occasionally have the QUALITY_SCALE parameter altered in a manner that could move certain pages from NA-Class to Template-Class (or similar), and the presence of NA would prevent automatic reclassification. But to return to the original point, might I take your question of 13:24, 24 September 2019 (UTC) and turn it around: what good does it do to add Template? How does this impact anything positively? -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 22:47, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * It makes it explicit, and matches the format of other ratings like stub and so forth. Plus it clears up any foggy areas.  I know that Wiktionary redirect does not usually get classified as a redirect.  I'm not sure about Wikidata redirect.  Would the system file pages using Category redirect as 'Category' or 'Redirect'?  All these questions, that I'm sure many other editors, especially novices, won't know the answer to.  Easier to make it explicit and clear. --Nessie (talk) 00:57, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
 * What about ? The values  and   (also  ), case-insensitive, are treated exactly the same by, and always have been. This is apart from the fact that for the last four years (give or take a few days) redirects have also been  when there is no class set. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 19:48, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Duplicate parms in Templates
Hi Nessie. There's a duplicate TF_3_MAIN_CAT in Template:WikiProject Australia. Davemck (talk) 17:17, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that. Should be fixed now.  Cheers.

There's a duplicate NOTE_1_TEXT in Template:WikiProject Insects. Davemck (talk) 21:20, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
 * . Fooey.  Fixed it.  Thanks for the catch. --Nessie (talk) 01:23, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Brisbane articles by importance


A tag has been placed on Category:Brisbane articles by importance requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Liz Read! Talk! 02:37, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

brisbane
always seemed to be a task force with no assessment possible - in Perth westernorstrylia we have the situation where a smart alec reduced perth to a task force so when somehting is assessed as perth - the west oz stuff is the assessment part - very messy - trust the brisbane stuff sorts out... JarrahTree 04:23, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

what a very weird world we live in JarrahTree 04:27, 28 September 2019 (UTC)


 * yea, the talk page template wasn’t set up to use the assessments for Brisbane. I’m working on the ToL talk templates, which includes WP Australian Biota.  Learning quite a bit.  If there’s something else you see that needs doing on it, lmk.  --Nessie (talk) 12:52, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Looks like you've been very busy! I removed the CSD C1 tag from the Brisbane category as it is no longer empty. Liz Read! Talk! 21:39, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Durio graveolens
Hello! Your submission of Durio graveolens at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 23:33, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

September 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter



 * September 2019&mdash;Issue 006


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!



Discuss this issue

You are receiving this because you added your name to the subscribers list of the WikiProject Tree of Life. If you no longer wish to receive the newsletter, please remove your name.

Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 22:26, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

How to write virus and species names
Hello,

As Data Secretary of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), I want to thank you for your efforts updating virus records in Wikipedia. But I want to highlight an error that is common in the literature, and has now crept into many Wikipedia virus records. Virus names are distinct from species names. (See https://talk.ictvonline.org/information/w/faq/386/how-to-write-virus-and-species-names.) The ICTV does not ever get involved in the naming of viruses, nor does it change the name of viruses. The ICTV only deals with the creation and naming of virus taxa. Therefore, as an example, the name of the page, "Human orthopneumovirus" is incorrect since the page describes the properties of the virus, human respiratory syncytial virus, and is not strictly a page about the species, Human orthopneumovirus. This is true of many virus pages referring to viruses belonging to the families Pneumoviridae and Paramyxoviridae. The taxon (and its name) represents a human idea, a logical construct referring to a category used for the classification of viruses. The virus is the physical entity that exists, has various properties, and causes disease.

Our recommendation would be to follow the general outline used by most research papers publishing articles about viruses in scientific journals. The taxonomic designation of the virus under study is described near the beginning of the introduction section of the paper, and provides the formal taxonomic name under which the virus is classified. The rest of the paper describes the research studying the properties of the virus, and uses the name of the virus that is in common use.

Using these suggestions, the Wikipedia page (and other similar pages) would begin "Human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV), a member of the species Human orthopneumovirus, is a syncytial virus that causes respiratory tract infections. It is a major cause of lower respiratory tract infections and hospital visits during infancy and childhood." Then the complete taxonomic classification could be described under the "Taxonomy" section of the article (though this seems a bit redundant given the virus classification table to the upper right of the page).

Thank-you for providing us (the ICTV) with the opportunity to clarify the usage of virus taxonomic names and how they should be distinguished from virus names.

Best regards,

Elliot

_______________________________________________________________________

Elliot J. Lefkowitz, Ph.D. | Professor, Department of Microbiology

Data Secretary | International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses

https://ictv.global/

University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)

Email: elliotl@uab.edu


 * Thanks you for your note. Most of the Wikipedia articles on virus taxa were written by people who are not familiar with the orthography for virus taxa, typically coming from more of a medicine or a cellular life background.  I am slowly making my way through the thousands of articles that need updates.  The Human orthopneumovirus article is not a straightforward example, as the species name from 1995 to 2015 was Human respiratory syncytial virus, and it is my understanding that former species names are still species names, and should be italicized.  That is how they appear on your website.  This also makes it hard to differentiate between the virus name and the former species name, as they would the the same other than italics.  It can be hard to tell which an author meant when the orthography has not been consistently applied here.


 * Another factor is monotypy. The policy here is to only have a single article for monotypic taxa and their sole members.  It appears that Human orthopneumovirus has only a single member virus, known as human orthopneumovirus or human respiratory syncytial virus.  So the article applies to the species and the member virus, as they are just different aspects of the same thing.


 * I take your point that writing on the aspects of the member virus should be un-italicized and lower-case, i.e. human orthopneumoviruses and not Human orthopneumoviruses. Again, there is a lot of work to do here, and slowly it's coming around.


 * I appreciate you writing to me. Let me know if anything else comes up.  --Nessie (talk) 16:19, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * @Nessie, thanks for your response. I edited the first sentence of the page to better distinguish between the virus taxon name and the virus name. Hopefully this will help provide a better indication of preferred usage. -Elliot --Elliot Lefkowitz (talk) 16:34, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Dendrochytridium
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Dendrochytridium. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Refs at List of introduced species‎
Howdy, just noticed you did a refill run on (parts of?) that article. Looking at the results, I don't believe that was a good idea. The list is unusual in that almost all the "references" are external links - maybe that is something that should be changed, although it'd be one hell of a job with nearly 900 instances... but filling these in with text creates entries that are really hard to read. Just check the first few screens now - would you consider that an improved reading experience? It merely seems to have become harder to parse to me. I'd be tempted to undo that. Thoughts? -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:35, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * that does not look great. I was trying to go through this list.  I think the problem is that the references were not actually references but external links.  If the single brackets could be changed to ref tags, then a tool like citation bot could clean them up.--Nessie (talk) 17:45, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually, that might be just the thing - a lil' offline search-and-replace might work. I'll see what I can do. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 17:58, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Cool. lmk if you need a hand. --Nessie (talk) 18:04, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * OK, "just" needs to be ReFilled now, which I may have to do in batches in my sandbox - who would have thought the tool chokes when presented with 1k+ references :] I may already have overtaxed the backend with my first request, as it seems to have gone into hibernation now. Oops. Will keep whittling away at it. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:42, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Giving up for the time being. ReFill chokes on the entire article in one go; it can do it in batches, BUT that produces faulty concatenated refs - as in, each individual batch will have things named "auto1", "auto2" etc., which then are badly combined in the final sweep, which leads to three dozen spiders all pointing to one turtle ref... don't know how to get past that :| -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:39, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

TheWikiWizard - October 2019
Hello, NessieVL! Here is the September 2019 issue of TheWikiWizard. We hope you like this month's issue! If you'd like to discuss this issue, please go to this issue's talk page. Happy Reading! -- Thegooduser  Life Begins With a Smile :)  🍁 01:43, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
 * What's Hot! (Turkey Overload, Federal Election...)
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Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 02:05, 23 October 2019 (UTC) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk)

Flood of thrips
If you wanna do some WikiProject tagging of new articles, there's been a flood of thrips at User:AlexNewArtBot/ArthropodsSearchResult. I'm overwhelmed. Plantdrew (talk) 21:30, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Yea, I’ve been working through them. They been multiplying though.  O_o  --Nessie (talk) 01:15, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
 * No worries, folks. I took care of it. Sorry for the instant workload. Cheers! NielsenGW (talk) 12:06, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
 * That was fast! Thanks for all the hard work.  Nice to have someone working on thrips.  --Nessie (talk) 13:38, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

you might have thoughts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Plantdrew#we%20all%20have%20our%20moments I am stumped by these small dark corners - where or what the appropriate project might release them of their red tag for talk page... JarrahTree 01:08, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Durio graveolens
&mdash; Amakuru (talk) 01:31, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

What is an orphan anyway?
Hi NessieVL. Per your edit here, it seems like the community's feelings on what constitutes an "orphan" have shifted over the years. Rich Farmbrough sums it up nicely in the intro to this discussion from 2017. At some point, Orphan was changed to recommend removing the template if there just 1+ links to a page (rather than the more classical 3). I believe that now reflects common practice amongst the folks who regularly use that tag (both on the page patrolling side, and the backlog side). Folks' philosophical take on the purpose of the Orphan template may vary, but I feel that most ToL pages on little-studied species (and their parent taxa) are unlikely to be linked from any page besides their parent/child taxa any time soon. So with that in mind, I use the orphan tag to point me to pages where the parent taxa don't have pages and/or the taxoboxes haven't been updated to reflect current nomenclature. So when I see everything looks fine (in this particular case, 18 years after its original description, Babesia sp. 'North Carolina dog' remains unnamed and authors are still referring to it as "a large piroplasm found in North Carolina dogs"), I just remove the tag. Sorry this has become long-winded. But thought an explanation might be in order. Hope all is well! Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 02:49, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Longan witches broom-associated virus
Hello! Your submission of Longan witches broom-associated virus at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 10:14, 1 November 2019 (UTC)