User talk:British Birder

regarding Birds of North America Online as a source
Hello, British Birder! Thanks for your contributions to the Common Merganser article, it is much improved. I am not sure, though, what is wrong with citing a subscription-only source? Birds of North America Online is listed on the WikiProject Birds page as a good source, and certainly there is nothing in the Wikipedia guideline on sources to suggest that only free, online sources may be used. My opinion is that if information was taken from a source for the article, then the source deserves to be cited, regardless of whether the information is also available from other sources that were also used. Besides, Birds of North America Online is available through some public libraries, so it is not completely inaccessible. Well, even though we might disagree on this small matter, I have no interest in getting into an edit war, so I will assume good faith on your part and leave the article as is. Thanks again for helping to improve Wikipedia!--Brambleshire (talk) 08:01, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the note! It was the restriction to 'Seattle Public Libraries' users only, that made me remove it (once I had found the same information was also published elsewhere). If there is a book edition of Birds of North America, or a free access online edition that anyone can see, do please add that as another reference. British Birder (talk) 15:51, 19 January 2010 (UTC) (note I am not on wikipedia too often so may not reply quickly to queries).


 * The Birds of North America was originally a printed encylcopedia, and now it is available online as a subscription-only service of Cornell University. Some Wikipedia articles cite the print version (Bewick's Wren, for example), but I don't feel comfortable citing it, since I have only used the online version.  The fact that my hyperlink was redirecting to the unhelpful Seattle Public Libraries proxy site was unfortunate.  I had copied the hyperlink as it appeared in Cornell's recommended citation, and I never checked it after logging out of the online site, which I should have done.  In the future, if I use this source, I will hyperlink to the Cornell welcome page: .--Brambleshire (talk) 16:16, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! It looks good. British Birder (talk) 11:10, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

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House Sparrow
Can you let me know which pages in The Oxford Book of British Bird Names mention the House Sparrow's names in British dialects? Thanks, &mdash;innotata 16:38, 13 July 2010 (UTC)