User talk:GetAgrippa/Archive 1

Adding content
With respect to your edit of Talk:Natural selection, can you please not break up other peoples' comments unless strictly necessary, and sign your own comments by inserting ~ after your post?

With respect to your edit of Natural selection, can you please provide sources? Thanks.

You may also want to similarly provide sources for your contributions to other articles, such as cancer and nitric oxide. Thanks again.

User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Re:Your Question
Hi, GetAgrippa! I appreciate you taking the time to figure out everything on Wikipedia before editing. Usually, an article has a section called "References" or "Sources" at the bottom. When you add some information (like here), specifically to science articles, you usually need to cite a source from a book or the internet. Although I think using a book source is the best reference, an internet source is used most predominantly. Please let me know what are these science articles that you're referring to. Also, read WP:Citing sources, which can help you when you're trying to add material to an article page. Remember not to copy word for word, but to paraphrase or re-write the information using the general ideas of the source. I personally can't answer your copyright issues question, but read WP:COPYRIGHT to get an idea about your problem's solution.

Okay, to answer your second question, I just want to tell you that you should always discuss on the talk page. If you feel that the article is not up to par, then you should post messages on the article's talk page telling what you personally think is the problem and what should be done. When doing this, make a new section heading like " ==Problem with article== " and then address your problem with the article and then sign the article with  ~ , which automatically puts down your signature and time of edit. If you feel an article is lacking information, I suggest you use sources (like the internet or a book) and then add the information to the page and then add a reference so people will know where that information you added came from.

On a talk page, you post all new topic comments on the bottom of the page, not at the top or middle (as you did here). Feel free to speak your mind and honestly tell other users what your issue is. People will always be willing to listen and discuss with you.

Also, there usually is a orange message box at the top of your screen that says "you have a new message" any time someone posts a message on your user talk page. Be sure to read the message and reply back (if needed) as soon as possible.

Heh, I totally understand how the fact that anyone can edit Wikipedia is pretty scary. But, you have to deal with it. That's why there are lot of people, like myself, who spend their time fighting vandals on Wikipedia, by reverting their edits and to make Wikipedia safe from people who just want to ruin this trusted and top-notch Internet encyclopedia.

Okay, well I hope I answered your questions. If you are confused about anything I said above or have more questions, feel free to contact me on my user talk page.

Also, whenever your posting on a user talk page or an article talk page, sign your comment with ~. You don't have to manually type out your name every time you edit.

Happy editing!

-- Nish kid 64 21:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Re:Problem with citing sources
Okay, to show you an example of how to use references, see the article I made called Gardasil. Right here you can see a reference:

Gardasil also may be used in preventing HPV 16/18-caused anal cancer.[1]

If you click that subscript 1, that will link down to References and if you click 1 on References you will get the source of the previous text. Now you may ask how I did that reference. Here:

The ref name can be whatever you really want to title it (has to make a bit of sense though). Then you add the URL and then space and add the title of the article which will carry down over to the Reference section of the article. You then add "]," and add authors and website. Then you add the date it was created, and then date it was accessed. Then you close the reference by doing.

Then at the bottom of an article, if a reference section has not already been made, you just add ==Reference== and under that you write.

That's how I do URL. There's an easier way to do it, in which you don't have to worry about all this reference stuff. After the section of information you added, just add [link of article], and then you're set. This is probably much easier, but I just wanted to tell you because some articles have lots of lots of sources in the reference form, and it's usually best to follow that format.

An example of another way to reference (just like I showed from Gardasil above) can be seen here: A billion articles is a thousand million articles.

For your science journal articles, take a look here: Citing_sources/example_style and Citing_sources/example_style.

Hopefully, that can clear up your concerns regarding citing sources. -- Nish kid 64 14:45, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey
You're doing some brilliant molecular biology/embryology work, as well as helping with cancer. Given that these fields are notoriously fragmented, your help is immensely appreciated. Would you consider joining WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology? You will find some like-minded souls who will also assist you with technical issues (e.g. how to populate some information boxes, how to draw and upload images). You will find it rewarding. JFW | T@lk  21:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Best of luck with the personal issues you mentioned. As I said, we're always open for experts wishing to contribute in their field. If you have any colleauges who might be happy to work on an open-source "sum of all human knowledge", please send them our way. JFW | T@lk  10:33, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

welcome
I want to join in the praise and thanks for your raising the level of discourse. I know our policies can seem oblique especially to someone with clear expertise but I hope you quickly learn how to work with them. When you have time, I also hope you will consider working on Evolutionary developmental biology and embryology.Slrubenstein  |  Talk 21:42, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

embryology et. al.
The burdon of proof is on the editor. here is my advice: any non-controversial claim that ANY embryologist (from any sub-field, any training) would agree to, just put in the article. Even then, announce on the talk page that you are preparing a list of general references (and make that a priority). For anything else, however, wait until you have verifiable sources. If you are eager (and if you want to solicit collaboration from others) my advice is to lay out what you plan to do, or think ought to be done, on the talk page, and explain that you will do it to the article as you work out the appropriate citations, and solicit feedback from others in the meantime. Does this make sense? If you go to the Evo Devo article, you will see on the talk page a "to do" banner, and also a section (currently second from the end) in which I rephrase someone else´s proposals - you might want to go over the these and the talk page and pitch whatever ideas you have to the few who have been active there before making any major change to the article. of course, if you feel very confident about your proposed changes and have verifiable sources and understand NPOV, just go ahead and do them! Slrubenstein  |  Talk 23:06, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

P.S this is just general advice. An alternative is to plow ahead exactly as you want to, but put a notice on the talk page explaining what you are doing and how long you think it will take you to find all the citations. The bigger issue is complying with NPOV which sometimes is a matter of word choice and other times is making it clear when there are divergent points of view, who is diverging over what and why. Usually this is where new editors get into trouble, but I am confident you can figure out how to handle it. Never hesitate to ask for help or advice or feedback or just confirmation on the talk page. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 23:18, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome! You will find many helpful and encouraging people here. I hope you get to know (Wikipedia-wise) Guettarda and Rikerzhen well, you can always count on them for good editing advice - but there are many many other active editors in the life sciences who are very smart and very experienced editors. Also, feel completely free to use very recent publications, as long as they come from peer-reviewed scholarly journals. And if they are controversial (even Science and Nature publish highly controversial even eventually reputed articles), just say so (i.e. don´t leave them out, just explain the controversy or doubts). Good luck, Slrubenstein  |  Talk 15:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey
Thanks for telling us more about yourself on your talk page. You will find we are an odd mix of people - some with solid academic credentialis, others with hard-earned expertise in specific areas, other with a lot of editorial skill but little substantive knowledge ... and, trolls and POV pushers.

You are an expert editor and some people (honestly, a very samll number) will be wary of your violating Vanity guidelines as some -really a small number - of experts do. I have zero concerns about you with this regard, but do know that some will be wary. I wouldn´t worry too much about it. As an expert editor more people will be wary to make sure you do not violate Wikpedia:Neutral point of view by suggesting you know "the truth," or No original research by speaking ex cathedra as it were. All you need to do is understand these policies and comply with them vigilantly and you will be safe, beyond reproach.

Get two know these two policies well, along with Verifiability, and you will be well-armed to contain any rogue editor who is threatening the quality of an article. These three policies are essentially responsible for quality control and we need experienced editors who can use these policies to police Wikipedia and deal with (all too easy and common) abuses. If whatever you do is well-grounded in policy, you will find many backing you up.

Given that we have zero quality control Wikipedia articles vary tremendously in quality. I am convinced however that when editors collaborate, follow our core policies, and write well, their work will endure. Until some vandal comes in an deletes your article and writes "randi rocks" or something like that - but we are getting better at dealing with such vandals quickly.

My advice is to pick one or two articles that you really care, are professionally passionate, about and work on them until you are proud of them - knowing all along that thoushands of high school and college students will turn to your work as their first step in learning something (and many adults from other fields too). Remember you are writing for a large, heterogeneous, and in many cases poorly-educated audience. This is the power of Wikipedia, to educate them.

My advice is also for you to pick a few articles as "hobbies," topics that have nothing to do with medicine or biology, just topics that interest you. I suspect you will find researching them and working on them educational, therepeutic, and fun.

This is what I did: I came here because there were a few topics I passionately care about and they were clearly being misrepresnted in grave ways on the web. I wanted to fix that. Then I saw that there were some other topics of central iportance in my field that were ill-covered and I thought, they deserve serious attention. And then I just picked a couple to work on in part to blow off steam when not doing my own research, and as an excuse to do some research on topics not relevant to my work. It really was fun.

Just don´t get lost in the project, it can become addictive!

I hope you will work on genomics (functional and comparative, especially, they have their own stubs), embryology and evo-devo!! Slrubenstein  |  Talk 03:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Helpme
What were you looking for help with? --pgk 13:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC) (As an aside it's usually better to put the template at the bottom of the page.)

Thanks for responding. I am editing the truncus arteriosus or better persistent truncus arteriosus article. In cross referencing I have stumbled on a problem of referencing to truncus arteriosus(embryology) and truncus arteriosus. It would be better to call the developmental or embryological structure the truncus arteriosus and the congenital defect Persistent Truncus arteriosus, how can I change the title or can I change the title?GetAgrippa 13:58, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, that is achieve via the "Move" tab at the top of the page, it enables you to move the page and talk page to a new title. If it's an uncontentious change be bold and just move it, it can always be undone. If you think it might be contentious try and discuss it on the articles talk page first. The move feature only becomes available for accounts of a certain age (can't remember how old now, not that old), so you might not be able to do it yet. --pgk 14:02, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much. I'll give it a try. Something needs to be done to address the confusion, so I'll post it on talk too.GetAgrippa 14:06, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Persistent truncus arteriosus
I'm not completely sure what your problem was, but I get the impression my pal Wouterstomp has done the relevant maintenance. Let me know if there are further issues. When leaving messages it generally helps to include Wikilinks to the relevant articles.

There doesn't seem to be an embryology WikiProject. However, Portal:Biology mentions a few WikiProjects you may try to get some soundings on an embryology WikiProject. It's generally unwise to implement "grandiose schemes" without some consensus from vested contributors. (I know, I've been there.)

Wikiland has its scary moments, but getting to the heart of contentious issues can be very helpful. I used to get into WikiFights much more often, but have now decided that fighting is boring and generally withdraw from big edit wars when all people are doing is repeating the same arguments at a progressively higher volume. My last bête noire was a crazy Brit who claimed to be a biochemist specialised in Parkinson's disease and simply could not collaborate, despite being taken by the hand by several experienced editors (including myself). Wasted a number of hours on trying to contain him and the damage he was doing on unrelated articles to push his point.

But for a professional Wikipedia is a great tool in remaining up to date with the field, as well as writing for a lay audience. I have already had positive responses to my Wikipedia work in job interviews. JFW | T@lk  21:23, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

evodevo
You have made thresets of commetns on the talk page,and I think everyone thinks they are good ideas! I hope you will Be bold! and make all the edits to the articlethat you mention on the talk page!! Slrubenstein  |  Talk 18:04, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

my user page
Thanks for the compliment! I don´t think there is any need for you to compy anything from my user page, or fear being duplicate of me - you have already demonstrted to many many people here what you have to offer, and you have brought your own wisdom too. Keep up the good work, Slrubenstein  |  Talk 20:00, 8 September 2006 (UTC) PS there is humor here, it just appears very strategically. When you have been around here long enough sooner or later you will see it. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 22:43, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

A request for some wisdom
I trust from your description of yourself that you are what we here would call an "expert editor" who has published original research. For that reason, I think you could offer valuable views to debates concerning our No original research policy. Pproctor has argued that the policy in its current formulation (specifically, this section: ) is anti-expert editors. If you want, the discussion is here. My personal advice is to skip it unless the policy in its current form really does strike you as being anti-expert-editor (I advise this because Pproctor is a nut and the "discussion" is going nowhere).

I think the core of the policy is the rules governing the use of primary and secondary sources. If you agree with me as to the importance of this section, then I direct your attention to is a heated discussion concerning three proposed changes I have made, and if you have time to review this material I would appreciate your weighing in here, here , and here. Some, perhaps even you, may think you have not been around here long enough to justify weighing in on a debate concerning policy. But you have a clear record of making valuable contributions to articles that do not violate this policy, and I think that is more than enough to qualify you as someone who can make valuable contributions to discussions of the policy. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 20:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)