User talk:Epipelagic/Archive 10

Hi
Hi, how come your talk is skewed 30 degrees? If it not an artistic endeavor, then please ignore this message. Otherwise, know this, I think it's really cool that you have but for reasons of HTML and of graphical limitations a rotated image won't display properly as the way you intended. You need more anti-aliasing and more algorithms to show an image that on an angle on a square pixel screen. Much respect, 108.65.249.149 (talk) 06:16, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

March Madness 2017
G'day all, please be advised that throughout March 2017 the Military history Wikiproject is running its March Madness drive. This is a backlog drive that is focused on several key areas:


 * tagging and assessing articles that fall within the project's scope
 * updating the project's currently listed A-class articles to ensure their ongoing compliance with the listed criteria
 * creating articles that are listed as "requested" on the project's various task force pages or other lists of missing articles.

As with past Milhist drives, there are points awarded for working on articles in the targeted areas, with barnstars being awarded at the end for different levels of achievement.

The drive is open to all Wikipedians, not just members of the Military history project, although only work on articles that fall (broadly) within the military history scope will be considered eligible. More information can be found here for those that are interested, and members can sign up as participants at that page also.

The drive starts at 00:01 UTC on 1 March and runs until 23:59 UTC on 31 March 2017, so please sign up now.

For the Milhist co-ordinators. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) & MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:24, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Needs some limelight
This concept of modified-extensive aquaculture (form of) needs some push for giving some sort of attention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.139.208.114 (talk) 07:17, 10 March 2017 (UTC)


 * (IP has also posted to my talk page - replying here), if you think the topic requires an article, or a larger part in an article on an overarching topic (fish farming did seem a suitable destination), then do feel free to add such material. However, it is crucial that you provide published, reliable sources for your additions - this is where your recent edits have failed so far. In my judgement, your addition to fish farming was fine (if in need of a little condensing and de-jargonizing), but you sourced it to a single, non-peer-reviewed, unpublished sources. This does not satisfy the requirements of the basic Wikipedia policy on verifiability. Once the paper in question has been a) peer-reviewed, b) published, and c) evaluated by the scientific community (which generally manifests in the form of citations of the paper), it qualifies as a suitable source. But is isn't there yet. We don't "create attention" for subjects or "put them in the limelight", we merely document what is already receiving attention. So if there are no other reliable sources you could use as references, the concept of modified-extensive aquaculture just isn't ready for Wikipedia yet. - As an aside, I recommend you register a user name, so that your edits aren't spread across a variety of different IP addresses; this makes it a lot easier to communicate. In any case, please sign entries on talk pages (but not in articles) with four tildes "~" to enable a timestamp and signature. Cheers -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:03, 10 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, to reinforce what Elmidae said, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia which reports on concepts already established in reliable sources. It does not promote new unproven concepts. The article you are trying to promote may well become acceptable in time, but at the moment it is not peer reviewed and has no citations. You can revisit the matter if that changes, and particularly if it is cited favourably in a reliably sourced review article. --Epipelagic (talk) 10:19, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 30
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Bogus Edits
Hello,

I am a Science teacher teaching 5th graders. Every time the subject of research comes up my students tell me that Wikipedia is not good a resource because anyone can edit it. I wanted to show them how fast editors like you correct mistakes. Wikipedia is a good resource in terms of accuracy, but it is often over a 5th graders head. Is there a better way for me to show them the process you guys use without committing acts of vandalism? Johnstanley1 (talk) 20:28, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
 * John, I am what is called a talk page stalker. If you are suggesting that you want to make bogus edits and see how long it takes for these to be changed, please do not do this.  It would be pre-conceived vandalism and could get you banned from Wikipedia -  perhaps even for life.  Another approach would be for you or your students to spot a mistake in an article, raise the concern on the article's Talk page and see how long it takes an editor to change the article. THis will vary considerably on how many people are watching the page. All the best. DrChrissy (talk) 22:20, 31 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, demonstrating acts of vandalism in front of 10 year-olds might not be a particularly helpful approach. Wikipedia has software "robots" which automatically detect and revert the more obvious forms of vandalism. There are also utilities which allow Wikipedia editors to manually patrol for less obvious vandalism, such as this "Recent pages" utility. By refreshing the page, your class can see how rapidly new edits are happening on Wikipedia. With experience, editors can usually spot which edits are more likely to be vandalism, and additionally can use further software which highlights likely vandal edits. There are also utilities which allow editors to revert vandalism they have identified and post an appropriate warning with just two clicks of the mouse.


 * You could also show them "Listen to Wikipedia". This will give your students a better idea of how much activity is occuring around the world on Wikipedia. Unfortunately "Listen to Wikipedia" lacks an option to highlight what appear to be the vandal edits. Hope this is of some value to you. --Epipelagic (talk) 05:57, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Cruelty to animals edit
The issue here is NOT right or wrong. It is that "cruelty to animals" is an inherently moral statement! There are some who believe (or at least claim to believe) that there is no such thing as cruelty to animals, and I acknowledge that in my edits. I am NOT condemning any wrongs-as you note, I did not SPECIFY what cruelty to animals is, because that is where the differing points of view are. But the fact remains that the word "cruelty" itself implies immorality. If Wikipedia doesn't want it defined such then it should just delete the article. I think it best to deal with this here before editing again.70.190.102.49 (talk) 16:06, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Fish migration
Yes my comment goes far beyond fish migration and instead states that we are terrestrial immigrants from the saline soup. Should anadromous migration as an evolutionary journey not somewhere fit into Wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:249:902:A140:D118:7A42:4D3:920 (talk) 21:36, 15 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Look, you clearly have a measure of awareness and could be an asset to the project instead of the trivial digression you are at the moment. Dissipating your abilities with joking is fine and funny for a little while – but jokes like that rapidly become stale and boring. I am very old, heard that sort of thing too many times to want to waste further time with it. Perhaps you are young. If you are not too cynical or insecure, you could reconsider your attitude – maybe even start a new account and reboot your approach to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is massively flawed with a thoroughly demented administrative system, but unless you field immense political or monetary power it remains your best chance to do something useful. --Epipelagic (talk) 02:06, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Getting it right
I'm not going to say you're completely wrong about this, but I wonder if you could help me figure out what the ideal recommendation would be, if the time were ripe, I were made queen for a day, etc.

(Please ping me; I've given up on my watchlist completely.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:46, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Well here's an attempt at perspective. The health industry is one of the great economic sectors, driven and distorted by huge commercial forces. The integrity of medical articles is also particularly at issue because lives could be at stake. This creates special needs for articles that touch on medical or health concerns, and these have to be accommodated somehow in any practical solution. Special needs include a tailored approach towards sourcing championed by Jytdog and the human centric approach championed by Doc James, since the reality is that most readers are focused on information about humans. The only way I see to properly address the issue is to separate medical from other concerns. The problem could have been partially addressed at the outset if the "Anatomy" project had been called the "Human anatomy" project. I tried to remedy this a few years back by creating the Animal anatomy project. But there was no fair hearing from the Anatomy project, and my attempts were too little to have much effect. The problem has since been aggravated with the creation of the "Physiology" project. This turns out to be the "Human physiology" project, again under the control of the medical project. Articles on animal physiology are not accommodated and their development on Wikipedia continue to be inhibited.


 * As a compromise solution, I would like to see anatomy articles organised in two parallel streams. One stream would be monitored by medical projects, and the other stream would be monitored separately by animal projects. In the medical stream, an article such as Mouth or Urinary bladder, would be about the human mouth and human urinary bladder. However, it would make it clear in the lead that the article was focused on humans. In line with how Doc James sees it, there would be a section, perhaps at the end of the article, called "Other animals". That section would include some summary information about other animals, particularly insofar as they throw light on the anatomy of humans. In addition, the other animals section would prominently display a link to the parallel article which deals with animals. The parallel articles in the animal stream would be structured around evolution. So we would have Evolution of the mouth and Evolution of the urinary bladder. This can allow comprehensive and organised coverage of the relevant animal anatomy, function and form, vertebrates, invertebrates perhaps at the phyllum level, including parallel evolution. There could perhaps be a small section at the end of these animal articles leading into the corresponding article about the human anatomy. --Epipelagic (talk) 23:00, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * postscript: I think issues in vertebrate anatomy relevant to veterinary medicine would fit well in the corresponding medical articles. More restricted animal anatomy material, such as the evolution of the urinary bladder which is largely confined to vertebrates, could be covered well as part of a more general article, such as "Evolution of the urinary system". I think an approach along these lines would fit the needs of both the medical and the scientific streams, and would put an end to these entirely unnecessary conflicts and demoralisation of science editors that goes with it. --Epipelagic (talk) 19:17, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm a die-hard mergist, so my knee-jerk reaction is that I don't really want to end up with two separate streams. But I can see the benefits.
 * What I want to know, though, is how you'd structure individual articles. Take an article like Tapetum lucidum.  Humans don't have this, so there's no potential medical issue.  Do you think that sections on "Classification, Mechanism, Uses, Pathology" is how an anatomy textbook would approach this?  I assume that at the very minimum, a textbook would mention its development.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:40, 1 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Well from my perspective, die-hard mergism will just perpetuate the problems. In your reply, you have selected for comment a topic that does not concern most medical projects, perhaps only veterinary medicine. This means the issues of how to deal with the different requirements of the medical and scientific projects does not arise. We are at cross purposes, since I thought these different requirements were the focus of this discussion. The control the medical projects currently have over the articles means they are satisfied with how things work at their end. So there is no motivation for medical editors to want to make the articles work at the animal science end. Animal editors who engage with medical editors seem to be meek, and are generally in trouble if they are not meek. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of animal editors to stand up as a group, but this has not happened and I see little sign of it happening.
 * Anyway, as far as Tapetum lucidum goes, I would structure the comparative biology around the evolution of the tapetum, starting with earlier known appearances among invertebrates, progressing to the present including relevant points about anatomy, physiology, parallel evolution. This paper reviews the evolution of the tapetum, but is not referenced in the article. Adding a table like the one on page 192 might also be useful. As far as section headings go, I don't like the "Uses" section which includes uses by both animals and humans. The section could be called "Human uses". Animal uses could be included in a section called "Function". However, I would avoid a rigid schema governing what headings should be used. --Epipelagic (talk) 05:27, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
 * A semi-rigid section heading scheme helps some editors write broader articles, and if we know what a good system is for organizing a 'simple' item of anatomy (i.e., one that doesn't introduce complications about human medicine), then we could probably figure out how to fit in the human-medicine bits into that system.
 * I assume that ==Uses== is ==Function==, and that someone (possibly me; it was a long time ago) has tried to make it easier to understand by choosing a shorter word.
 * I think it might make sense to include a description of 'what the (modern) thing is' (something like ==Form== or ==Structure==?) fairly early on. What do you think?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:38, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Talk page stalker I have been making some bold edits to Tapetum lucidum. Feel free to make comments m the Talk page over there. One change I made was to move a description of what purpose the Tapetum lucidum has to a new section Function and mechanism.  This was formerley in the Uses section - a word I dislike.  I also moved the ''Function and mechanism to be the first section as before that,, it was not mentioned until half-way through the article. DrChrissy (talk) 16:54, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

DS Alerts
--Kyohyi (talk) 17:11, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Shrimp
I removed the taxonomic box before you told me to remove it. I recognize that I made a mistake the minute after I putted that box.

Why is your table of contents curved? What sorcery is this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gyrkin (talk • contribs) 20:24, 11 June 2017 (UTC)


 * The sorcery is in the source code...
 *   
 * --Epipelagic (talk) 02:32, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Royal New Zealand Air Force

 * This comment does not belong here... I have transferred it to the relevant talk page. --Epipelagic (talk) 02:35, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Misleading edit summary? It’s pretty explicit on the Wikipedia:Image dos and don'ts: Don't overload articles with images & Don't use images for tables or charts. Further the source provided is current to 2017 as opposed to 2015, and there are un-sourced notes in the table defying WP:CBALL – cheers FOX 52 (talk) 21:35, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Postal codes
A message has been left for you at Talk:Volgograd. You are welcome to peruse it at your convenience before resuming your usual activities. (Seriously, thank you for the blog reference; it made my day)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 29, 2017 ; 21:04 (UTC)

Biological vocabulary question
Hello. I am French (and don't speak very well english) and I would like to add an article on wikipedia (French) dedicated to "subaquatic grasslands in fresh water". Can you help me by telling me what is the word or the English expression used for these subaquatic habitats. Thanks --Lamiot (talk) 08:49, 15 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm not clear what you mean by "subaquatic". In British English "subaquatic" can just mean "under water", relating to conditions, existence, or activities that are under water. If this what you mean, then the term is somewhat redundant, and you could perhaps just refer to "freshwater grasslands". Alternatively, "subaquatic" can mean somewhat aquatic, living or growing partly on land, partly in water, or along the littoral zone of shorelines, or in freshwater wetlands. According to your user page on meta.wikipedia, you have an interest in the exploration of "wetlands, underground streams, quarries, environments and canals, etc.", and in particular the "subaqueous landscapes" of "sections of canals without barges and where recently a rather clean water is coming back". You also refer to finding unexpected underwater species, including a "totally subaqueous mushroom". So I'm not sure the term "grassland" is really covering the scope of your article either. Maybe something like "freshwater plants of the littoral zone" or "fringing freshwater plants" (see here). But really I would need to see your article before I could offer a view on how you might characterise it in English. Perhaps you could send me a link when you publish it. --Epipelagic (talk) 12:49, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Warning new users
Hi Epipelagic. I just had this editor come in to the Wikipedia IRC help channel. I think you may have been a bit too harsh with your warnings. It appears to me that they're a good-faith editor who simply just doesn't know how Wikipedia works yet. I've left them a welcome message, and in the chat I pointed them to a couple of options for Wikipedia tutorials. I'd like to ask that you consider holding off on giving them further warnings or reporting them to AIV unless their behavior very obviously crosses over into vandalism. Howicus (Did I mess up?) 17:01, 31 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Okay, I've retracted the warning messages. The user edited five different articles in rapid succession. Every edit was highly inappropriate. Some edits, breaking templates for example, must have been obviously inappropriate even to this user. Still, they did not revert or try to repair the damage they had clearly done. Something was needed to stop the activity. The changes may have been made without malice, in which case they were highly incompetent at many levels. You have elected to champion the user, which is good so long as you walk the talk. The user will need mentoring if they are to continue, and their activities will need monitoring until they show a measure of competence. --Epipelagic (talk) 18:00, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Epipelagic. I understand your reasoning for the warnings; breaking things by accident is still breaking things. I'm going to keep the user on my radar. Howicus (Did I mess up?) 19:47, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Boris Worm
Hi there,

Thanks for your comment. I am not entirely sure how to cite the source material I am using. I am an employee/student of Dr. Worm and he asked me to update his Wikipedia page as it was out of date. Much of what I was working with in editing his biography was based on personal communications and curriculum vitae which he provided me.

Is there any way to reference those sorts of sources? I am pretty unfamiliar with working on Wikipedia but was asked to complete this for him.

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Izzy jubejube (talk • contribs) 17:41, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Harmful algal bloom
I saw that you were undoing some of my deletions on Harmful algal bloom. I am cool with that, but I thought that I would explain my perspective. A lot of the article's content is supported by newspaper citations. That would be fine if the article were about "HAB's in the news", but the article is hopefully, about what is an HAB. For a scientist (me) such references are not really admissible. Newspaper cites are fine for pop stuff, but my feeling is that the article probably should be more technical. Not for everyone, I realize. The article is also redundant. Those are my 2 cents. --Smokefoot (talk) 01:41, 20 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Discussions on article content belong better on the article talk page. You have what you perhaps feel is some sort of purist or superior position towards newspaper citations. But there's nothing wrong with these so long as they are based on reliable sources. I agree it is better to just directly cite the research that is referred to, and if I am working at improving an article I always replace newspaper citations with the sources they are based on (I usually additionally retain the newspaper citation as well if it explains things well in a manner a layman might understand). But I would never ever delete, as you have done, entirely valid and highly relevant information using the weak and invalid reason that it uses a newspaper citation instead of the research it is based on. In my perspective, that lazy approach diminishes the article and borders on vandalism. Nor did you delete this material in an upfront manner. You deleted it instead by stealth using an edit summary that did not acknowledge what you were doing. Nor should the article be more "technical". The real skill is to see if you are capable of expressing scientific nuance in an accurate and highly readable manner that can be understood by an intelligent layman. We are all laymen in all areas other than those places where we have particular expertise. That includes you. Wikipedia articles are not aimed at specialists. Specialists have other venues dedicated to their needs. You say the article is "redundant". Then explain why that is the case on the article talk page. As for your "scientist" comment, get over yourself. What makes you think you are the only scientist here. --Epipelagic (talk) 06:20, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

2017 Military history WikiProject Coordinator election
Greetings from the Military history WikiProject! Elections for the Military history WikiProject Coordinators are currently underway. As a member of the WikiProject you are cordially invited to take part by casting your vote(s) for the candidates on the election page. This year's election will conclude at 23:59 UTC 29 September. Thank you for your time. For the current tranche of Coordinators, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:39, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Tera is an SI prefix
While I understand your intent to keep things simple, I disagree with your revert. The article uses the ton in the metric system, which has a clear definition of units and prefixes. The T stands for Tera, not for trillion, and must be prounounced such. See also Tera-. In the American system (short scale), trillion and Tera are both 10^9, in other countries not (10^18, see Trillion, short/long system). The purpose of the SI system is to be unambigous. This is different from pendantic. I hope your can concur? thanks a lot for your contribution and discussion, I appreciate this. --Vigilius (talk) 23:45, 10 October 2017 (UTC)


 * The British traditionally used the long scale, but in 1974 that was formally changed to the short scale. As far as I know, all English speaking countries now use the short scale where trillion means 1012. This is the English Wikipedia, circa 2017, so don't see assuming the use of short scale in scientific articles as being inappropriate. It is true that in some non-English speaking countries the long scale is used, so trillion means 1018. But other countries use scales that are different yet again. I agree with you that the purpose of the SI system is to be unambiguous, and that this is different from being pedantic. But in the article, I think your introduction of the term "terraton" was pedantic because you introduced the term in what was intended to be an simple explanatory aside for a non-technical reader. A reader who wants a more technical explanation of TtC can click on the embedded link, but there is no need for a non-technical reader to be familiar with metric prefixes.
 * On the other hand, I guess the term "trillion" can have problems of its own. How about we just sidestep the whole issue, and rewrite the sentence so it says, "In comparison, the total mass of the biosphere has been estimated to be as much as 4 x 1012 tonnes of carbon"? --Epipelagic (talk) 01:12, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

"Evocative"
W.r.t. your edit summary here, please note that Wikipedia is not a collection of "evocative" images. If you wish to include an image showing analgesics or anaesthetics used in fish surgery, please provide an image that shows those exact things - do NOT use false image captions! This is not acceptable on Wikipedia. C.f. actual images of fish surgery. Thank you. Samsara 09:03, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
 * In case that you, for some reason, cannot access the file description, I will reproduce it here for you: A vet, giving a goldfish an injection because of an eye infection. An injection is not commonly regarded as "surgery". Samsara 09:12, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I suggest you moderate your language if you want collegial or productive encounters. --Epipelagic (talk) 09:19, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Constructal theory
Is this really a thing? A significant thing? I have come across a number of additions to various articles by WP:SPAs with no edits other than adding that concept and bigging up the person who coined the term "constructal law", including using predatory journals as a source. Our article on the concept is drawn entirely from primary sources, mostly by the same person. That raises some red flags for me, but I think you know a lot more about the subject area than I do. Guy (Help!) 17:06, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * No, I haven't come across this. I don't see how you could falsify it or use it to make quantifiable predictions. It is aligned in a quaint way more with Goethean science than hard physics. It has a certain quasi-poetic charm which may allow it to retain, for a while, a background presence in dubious fringes of scientific literature, but I don't see it developing in any useful way. --Epipelagic (talk) 21:04, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * But having said that, I came across this review ( by the originator ) in Journal of Applied Physics. --Epipelagic (talk) 21:33, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Crayfish
Thanks for moving it - I had moved it there initially, and then added content to the subsection North America so I moved it beside that paragraph hoping someone would have a better suggestion...maybe even move the new info down to where the image is now with another subsection that deals with the culture? Atsme 📞📧 18:45, 25 November 2017 (UTC)


 * The article is deeply flawed, and I see no point slapping band-aids on it. It needs proper rewritting from the ground up. All articles on Wikipedia related to lobsters/crayfish are in a similar mess. For 12 years crustacean articles have been under the control of an admin who allows no deviation from eccentric and incorrect ideas he promotes concerning the relationship of informal common terms, such as "lobster" and "crayfish", to formal taxonomy. A long time ago, I challenged him on the mess the shrimp/prawn articles had become, and eventually managed to write the main article from the ground up. It was an exhausting struggle with no support to counter the determined opposition, and I decided it wasn't worth trying to also clean up the lobster/crayfish articles. --Epipelagic (talk) 04:36, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

2017 Military Historian of the Year and Newcomer of the Year nominations and voting
As we approach the end of the year, the Military History project is looking to recognise editors who have made a real difference. Each year we do this by bestowing two awards: the Military Historian of the Year and the Military History Newcomer of the Year. The co-ordinators invite all project members to get involved by nominating any editor they feel merits recognition for their contributions to the project. Nominations for both awards are open between 00:01 on 2 December 2017 and 23:59 on 15 December 2017. After this, a 14-day voting period will follow commencing at 00:01 on 16 December 2017. Nominations and voting will take place on the main project talkpage: here and here. Thank you for your time. For the co-ordinators, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:35, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

User group for Military Historians
Greetings,

"Military history" is one of the most important subjects when speak of sum of all human knowledge. To support contributors interested in the area over various language Wikipedias, we intend to form a user group. It also provides a platform to share the best practices between military historians, and various military related projects on Wikipedias. An initial discussion was has been done between the coordinators and members of WikiProject Military History on English Wikipedia. Now this discussion has been taken to Meta-Wiki. Contributors intrested in the area of military history are requested to share their feedback and give suggestions at Talk:Discussion to incubate a user group for Wikipedia Military Historians.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:29, 21 December 2017 (UTC)