User talk:Hike395/Archive 1

Hello and welcome! I'm glad to see that you decided to stay and create a user account. 395 is for California State Route 395, no? I love that route!. --mav

Exactly! -- hike395 --

Yep - moving the article and then turning the redirect to a more general article would be best. --mav 05:57 25 May 2003 (UTC)

Wow! I thought for sure that was a state highway. I'm not the only to think this so the best thing to do is just redirect those pages to the correct title. --mav 22:44 25 May 2003 (UTC)

By the way, I'm guessing you don't know this based on your apparent typo correction on Mav's talk page, you can sign your name by using three tildes " " for just your name ("John Owens"), or four " ~ " for your name plus date and time ("John Owens 10:09 26 May 2003 (UTC)"). You can change the name displayed on Special:Preferences, where it says "Your nickname (for signatures):". -- John Owens 10:09 26 May 2003 (UTC)

Hey, thanks!!! hike395 14:43 26 May 2003 (UTC)

- Hi, I just happened to see your message to mav about page vandalism. See How to revert a page to an earlier version for information about how to fix this sort of vandalism. :-) Evercat 18:56 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks!! -- hike395

The problem is, I've been cleaning up after this person for quite a while. When does a newbie stop being a newbie and become a pest? RickK 03:24, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * I have been cleaning up after him/her, also. Lots of typos and grammatical errors. I honestly don't know when to draw the line of pest-dom. But, they have been very productive (lots of articles). I wish they would read their talk page. Maybe if one of us does an edit (cleaning up after the person), we should leave a note on the page we're editing, to point them at the Talk page? -- hike395 04:19, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

-

Hey seriously the Sierra Nevada don't go through Nevada at all. Part of the north, south, and all of the eastern side of Lake Tahoe are part of the Carson Range which is a spur off of the Sierra Nevada. The Carson Range was officially recognized as a separate range of mountains in 1939.

http://dmla.clan.lib.nv.us/docs/nsla/archives/myth/myth14.htm

-- Sdp 04:09, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * Ouch! I used that exact same article in an argument with User:Zoe back in May or June. (And, I just ran around and stomped on the "Sierra Nevada Mountains" usage throughout Wikipedia). Although, please note that the article says that both the Nevada State archivist and "most people" agree that the Carson Range is a spur of the Sierra Nevada. So, I would suggest sticking with common usage, rather than a more obscure definition. By any chance, are you (Sdp) from Carson City? I would defer to local custom, here.


 * Let me see if I can find other supporting or contradicting evidence. You can too, if you like. -- hike395 05:27, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * Just visited Sdp's home page. He is from Reno, which is near Carson City. So, Sam, do most people in Reno think of the Carson Range as part of the Sierra? -- hike395


 * I think that most people locally here (from Reno to Carson Valley) would think that it is the Sierra Nevada. But IMO the purpose of an Encyclopedia is for accuracy (even when people are wrong :) ) which is why I initially removed Carson City and Douglas County from the article.  The Carson Range is a spur of the Sierra Nevada, I won't argue otherwise (and should probably be noted in the article someday.)


 * If you really think that the Nevada counties should remain on that criteria then that's fine with me. But in that case then we should really also include Washoe County, Nevada since the Carson Range also passes through it. -- Sdp 05:44, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * OK. I believe you are correct (from your argument, above, and from googling around). I went back and fixed the article (putting in mention of the Carson Range). Thank you for pointing out the error. I'm sorry I did the revert.


 * I'm looking forward to your further contributions! If you like, feel free to write a Carson Range article. --- hike395 05:52, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * Yes I plan on working on many things here. Thanks a lot! -- Sdp 06:02, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Concerning the centenarian article, why didn't you place Leopold Vietoris in the Scientists/Mathematicians section? 213.73.161.245 15:20, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * I thought it was ambiguous, and I was trying to do the sort according to your criterion. That is, Dr. Vietoris seemed to be famous for being the oldest mathematician, rather than famous for his own work (at least, judging from his article). If you think he belongs in the Scientists/Mathematicians section, please feel free to move him. Or, we can list him in both places, if you prefer. -- hike395 03:22, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

-- Answer on my talk page. --mav 23:13, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Excellent Pacific Crest Trail picture! Sdp 11:43, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * Thanks! It's one of my favorite photos. -- hike395

Hi, I picked up your query on User:Big iron's page. The simple answer is that you can write an article at any level you like. In the case of birds and some other groups such as cetaceans, there is more structure. All bird orders and nearly all families have articles, so the taxonomic structure is there, and it is a matter of filling in species accounts. Some groups, such as the South American endemic families, will take a long time to get beyond family level, but many common European birds have articles, and Bigiron in particular is filling in North American species. I'm sure that the basic structure is there for mammals and trees, so again it's a matter of writing articles for individual species or groups of species. Hope this helps, jimfbleak 14:22, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

jimfbleak seems to have covered it off. I personally feel that white pine (for instance) does deserve its own article. I enjoy Dark-eyed Juncos also. Big Iron 17:49, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

- Answer on my talk page. --mav 05:53, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

dab = disambiguate (quick to type with one hand) RedWolf 04:39, Dec 31, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the praise. I've taken your sugestion to heart, and have started working on the california history article at History of California/Temp. Any help would be appriciated, as I'm a bit shakey pre gold rush and post 1900. Gentgeen 09:58, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)\

--- Why are you replacing cropped images? They were cropped for a reason. --mav 06:07, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm replacing cropped images? I thought that they were just downsampled! It looked like the new pic code was the new standard, so I was trying to make the volcanoes & mountains of California conform to the new standard. Which ones were cropped in addition to being downsampled? -- hike395 06:15, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I crop many of the photos I add. Compare the photo at Mount Whitney with the one in the history. The old one is a crop of the larger one. I don't know what to do about that - it seems to be a shortcomming with the new code. --mav


 * Groan. I'm sorry. In my enthusiasm to conform to a standard, I'm erasing information. I guess I have to revert all of my changes & wait until the pix code is made to be better. -- hike395


 * It's OK - no need to revert. This was mainly an FYI for the future. --mav


 * Oops, too late. I just went back and reverted. Let's just leave stuff in its reverted state, and we'll wait until the new pix code is better. -- hike395

Hullo from Adrian. Please have a look at my comments on Talk:Giant sequoia Adrian Pingstone 09:21, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi! Yes. its fine to delete Giant Sequoia, the subject has been thoroughly dealt with. It was thoughtful of you to check with me. Best Wishes, Adrian Pingstone 09:18, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi Hike, thanks for your friendly and thoughtful note. You raise good points, and the last thing I should want to do is preserve forever a settled dispute between two fine contributors. I hadn't realised that you were one of the participants and that you had already discussed this with Adrian, and I'd barely paid any attention to the ... how shall I put this? ... to the argument part of the discussion, if I can put it that way. What I did see in the discussion, and still do, is some fine points made by both of you that have relevance to many more articles than just this one.

How should we illustrate fauna and flora articles? What is the most important?


 * (a) That the plant or animal is shown in its most representative natural environment.
 * (b) That the picture itself be eye-catching and aesthetically pleasing.
 * (c) That the picture illustrate the most important and distinctive features of the plant or animal.

If (a), then what is a "natural environment"? One might argue that, since the majority of House Sparrows are not found in the English countryside, that an "in its native habitat" shot of a House Sparrow ought to show it hopping around a shopping centre in Melbourne or inspecting a rubbish bin for tasty morsels in Boston. Similarly, most of the world's wild-living rabbits are probably in outback Australia. And so on.

If (b), how much weight do we give to this as opposed to the other factors?

If (c), which features?

Reading through your discussion with Adrian, these were the sort of questions that I kept pondering, and both of you raised matters that, I thought, were important and worthy of preserving. Not, I suspect, with the goal of developing a formal set of Wikipedia guidelines&#8212;we probably have too many rules and guidelines already&#8212;but simply as matters that those of us who contribute illustrations to the 'pedia ought to think about.

Anyway, what I'm thinking of is, with your permission and, of course, Adrian's too, is to copy that discusion to some more suitable place, take out the personal stuff and the stuff that is relavant only to the sequoia entry, add some of my own thoughts into the mix, and try to rough out a sort of a discusion paper about the broader issues that your discussion raised.

(PS: Just for the record, on the matter of that picture, I liked Adrian's shot. Not surprisingly&#8212;for Adrian is an excellent all-round photographer&#8212;his shot is much the better of the two. On the other hand, I'm with you all the way in believing "that photos of specimens in their own native habitat are the best". In short, I followed the argument with interest, but to this day am uncertain of my own opinion. And that, I think, is why I found the discussion valuable enough to want to preserve it for other editors.)

(PPS: Bar a handful of very early ones I contributed some time ago, all of my own many nature photographs (birds, mostly, but other things too) have been shot in the wild. Since deciding almost a year ago that the 'pedia needed more nature illustrations, I've spent a ridiculous amount of money and driven many thousands of kilometres to get pictures of creatures in their natural environment. It has, in fact, become my ruling passion. What began as a wish to find some pictures for the 'pedia, has gone way beyond that now: these days, I squeeze 'pedia contributions ino the minutes I can spare from bird photography, not the other way around. Oh, and those tedious details like eating, sleeping, and earning a quid, of course.)

Best, Tannin 10:52, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi! Yes, I entirely approve of your summary on Talk:Giant sequoia, Best Wishes, Adrian Pingstone 19:04, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)