User talk:Macdonald-ross/Archive 1

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You've been adding some good material to Thomas Henry Huxley. I want to encourage you strongly to provide inline citations to your sources with Footnotes, which will make your work much more valuable to the project.--ragesoss 18:29, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Huxley assessment
Hi! If I were to re-assess the T. H. Huxley article, it would probably still rate as "Start-class", for the simple reason of lack of citations. I've been keeping an eye on the good work you're doing, but I want to encourage you once again to add inline citations so that the information can be traced to its sources. This is a crucial consideration in the quality-assessment process.--ragesoss 17:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

A few changes
Just noted your substantial number of contributions to the above. I made a few changes and this is just to let you know. I removed some undue weight given to a ethnology paper and a rather callous poem. I am happy to discuss this or see parts reverted if refs are available. Please add a word or two to your userpage, this will stop it appearing as a red link. Keep up the contributions. Regards, ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍ contributions  13:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Quotes
Hello again. Thanks for the explanation of your edit and the politeness of your response. I rarely delete contributions and I considered this one for some time. It was not found in my brief search of the web or in the Oxford dictionary of quotations. I endorse your position on enlivening 19th century biographies and have been trying my hand at a couple - they are a 'interesting' crowd. I have not any THH, only a lot of Aldous, but what I know about them supports your view. The temptation to illuminate the subject with their own words is one that many editors must have experienced and I think this may be one reason why Wikiquote came to be (your quote is not there either). The guides and style manuals recommend using inline quotes and blockquotes only when crucial to the subjects discussion. Everything else is pushed on to wikiquote where it fulfils the purpose of giving a deeper insight, the link to it is at the bottom of the page. If it is citable I would support inclusion of the quote, for the reasons you have outlined on your (new) user page and in your message. Regards, ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍ contributions  05:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Prose
Your prose at THH is - um - brilliant! What a fine job you have done. I think your use of quotes is very good, if you would like too add footnote or reference templates I am familiar with a couple of the systems. The only thing I can suggest is to avoid 'editorial' comments on the page such as 'see below', etc. Let me know if I can help. Regards, ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍  contributions  15:10, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Mental Health
Hey, I didn't edit that section because I disagreed with, or was intolerant of it in some way, it was just certain comments like "and what of our hero?", or [more to come], seem abit out of place. Otherwise, fantastic work. ConfuciusOrnis 02:59, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, that's fine; it's a difficult section to write because the info is tucked away; at least half his biographers have completely hidden this issue. I'm heading towards a conclusion that THH had a moderate bi-polar disorder, and have at least two more episodes to describe. Macdonald-ross 10:59, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Huxley photo question
Thanks for your comments on the Huxley-related photo I added. I made the changes to the Huxley article this morning. I'm not sure how I got Golders Green in my mind, but it's been about 20 years since I visited the place. I also remember that Leopold Stokowski, the conductor, is buried near Huxley. -- I have the two volumes of Thomas Huxley letters by Leonard Huxley from 1901, and they have a number of good pictures. Do you think more are needed for the Wikipedia article? The one shown here is taken from the frontispiece of L. Huxley's first volume. -- Astrochemist 14:26, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

You may want to delete the photo shown here. - Astrochemist 16:32, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Graphics
I'm most grateful for the tombstone, and it's raised the need for some more, and better, portraits than the two existing ones. I'm debating flat-bed scanners versus photography as a method for capturing graphics. Any opinions? As to content, there's obviously a need for a 'Young Huxley' photo, and it has to be one of the two obvious candidates. Macdonald-ross 20:23, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Glad I could donate the tombstone. Concerning the comments you left on my own talk page, you're 100% correct.  Finding good photos and getting quality scans can take a lot of time.  I've tried to add some pictures to other pages for nineteenth-century scientists, but it's difficult to locate high-quality original prints, other than resorting to older books with plates or ordering from galleries and such.  I've only tried flat-bed scanning.  --  When I get a moment I'll check out "the hardback version of Desmond (2 vols)" you mentioned.  --  By the way, I seem to remember, from 20 years ago, that the Natural History Museum in South Kensington has a Huxley statue near the main entrance.  There may be others of him, I don't know.  --  Good luck in your Huxley work! - Astrochemist 04:12, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Alfred Gibbs Bourne
Hi, found your recent edits of considerable interest. Was wondering if you could find sources and expand on this statement in the Ray Lankester article. ...to lead biological science in the Indian Empire. Shyamal 11:49, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Later I found this in the Roy Soc archives, relating to his election as Fellow: Professor of Biology in the Presidency College, Madras. Fellow of University College, London. For many years engaged in teaching and in researches upon Comparative Anatomy and Embryology, especially of Invertebrata. Especially known to comparative anatomists for his discoveries in the structure of leeches, and as discoverer of the hydroid phase of Limnocodium, also of two remarkable new genera of Choetopod worms, described by him as Haplobranchus and Choetobranchus. Author of the following, as well as several other memoirs: - 'On the Structure of the Nephridia of the Medicinal Leech' (Quart Journ Micros Sci, 1880); 'Contributions to the Anatomy of the Hirudinea' (ibid, 1884); 'On the Hydroid Form of Limnocodium' (Proc Roy Soc, 1884); 'On the Supposed Communication of the Vascular Sustem with the Exterior in Pleurobranchus' (Quart Journ Micros Sci, 1885). Since he has been in India, Professor Bourne has sent home important researches on Indian Earthworms, on Choetobranchus (a new naidform worm), on a new Protoplasm, and some valuable experimental researches on the suicide of Scorpions. (Proc Roy Soc, 1889). Macdonald-ross

Henry W. Bates article
Hello, I noticed you signed this content page and several others. I've removed these myself, but please ensure you don't sign articles themselves, only talk pages are appropriate, in which case you should always sign your posts. Seeing a random link to your user page is rather confusing to the reader, who may not understand the connection. In any case, it is not appropriate for us to add any mention of ourselves on article pages regardless of how much work we do on them.


 * Anyhow, I have enjoyed reading your work on Bates and Fritz Muller, keep up the great work! Richard001 09:10, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, just a mistake. Macdonald-ross

Class
Thanks for your thoughts. I changed the class at the article, you might want to link to the present version. Best regards, ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍ contributions  19:13, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I should made the warning a little more clear. Through a strange wrinkle, GA articles require a consensus, but the higher rating does not - it is the first time I have been so bold. I did think of putting it straight to a feature article discussion, adding a statement that the articles style should remain intact. I like the way it is, or was, referenced. I think that once editors work out how to use the business, they want to implement it everywhere. I still see the numbered note system being used for your style of citation, full references being listed at the end. The article is very well done; I look forward to reading your work in the future. Best regards, ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍  contributions  04:04, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about that
That was me that went through and changed the referencing style. I honestly wasn't trying to step on your toes, I've been watching the article for a while, and it seemed like you where just about done, so I went through and cleaned up the references and wikilinked a few things, just a minor tidy up ( i thought ) in preparation for submitting it to GA or FA... As for the style of referenceing, to be honest with you, it's the only one I've seen here that uses harvard style, and I guess I just assumed that inline references were preferred.

In any case, all that aside, you've basically taken a scrappy stub of an article and turned it into one of the best bio's here, my hat sir, is off to you. ornis 01:31, 16 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Hey, well, with the inline refs you can click the number and it'll highlight the relevent ref, with a linked caret (^) that'll take you back to where you were. You don't actually have to number them, the software does that for you. In it's most basic form you can just surround a reference with reference tages:, then put a template at the bottom of the page, and the sfotware will do the rest. So for example:

Text Body

Some outrageous claim

References

Anyhoo, just use whatever you're comfortable with, and when you feel like you've finished let me know and I'll standardise the references. Really, before I actually read the article, my knowledge of THH, basically amounted to a) he was aldous' granddad b) he was darwins' bulldog, so of course I'll defer to you on any content, but if I can help you in anyway, just ask. ornis 16:18, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Images
Hello again, happy to help with the images upload. I found it a bit daunting when I first tried. As the big, colourful and scary messages state, copyright is a coonstant concern. As you said, that should not be a problem. Did you scan these images from, those peculiar antiques, books? They may already be available on the telecomputing-network fad we are currently immersed in. I will try to tidy up Thomas Henry Huxley and see what else I can find online. This one is a bit pedestrian: but I will upload it anyway. It might be easier if show you how to upload to 'commons' from your computer, it is pretty straight forward when you have done it once or twice. Otherwise, send me the plain jpg files if you can - the link is at the left of this page. Regards, ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍ contributions  18:52, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The Water-Babies ..! I had forgotten about this book, thank you for reminding me of it. The page that the above image was uploaded to says the engraving was by Noel Patton.  You should sign up to Commons and add your images there.


 * 1) Click "upload file" at the left. Click through on "It is from somewhere else".
 * 2) After all the blather about copyright, you will find a button which will upload the file from your hard disk - show it where. Give the file a name in the next field.
 * 3) Hopefully there will be a template in the edit box, the instructions are above it. Or add a public domain license. Yer done.
 * If you upload them here (the english wikipedia), I believe this is what you need to add: or  (public domain). Add more description if you want. I think the best tip I have received regarding code is: "copy others". Clicking edit, then cancel, allows you to see how a similar page is put together.
 * Sorry for the delay in responding. I'm looking forward to seeing the images, ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍ contributions  17:27, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Uploaded
Please check that I got these the right way round. I suspect 3 and 4 are wrong, but I thought I would check first. Our article, Woodburytype, had no example to compare with. Perhaps your scan could make an appearance there. Cheers, ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍ contributions  20:10, 23 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Did you say something about a water-babies image? The current one could be overwritten by yours. I also noticed that the 'early' image is a flipped (flopped?) version of another on this page. Yours would seem to be the correct version, based on his parting and the buttons on his jacket. Regards, ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍  contributions  20:40, 23 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Number 4 should now be the woodburytype. But I confused myself twice, instead of the lucky three times.  ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍  contributions  22:10, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Apologies
Very sorry about giving you the camelcase, I will fix that now. Check whether you saw the last version of the poem-quotation, I made a few botched saves. I will indent it further if that is what you mean.

I will add |180 px to the thumbnails. px is the width in pixels, if you want to increase them. What about captions? ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍ contributions  16:21, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps by some fluke, they were appearing as four lines for me. Do you want lines two and four to be indented? ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍ contributions  17:43, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * How does it look now, be sure to shift-reload your page. 18:10, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Have a think about the options I have shown and let me, or another editor, undo the damge I have done. Did you want the asterisks in the poem, by the way? Regards, ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍  contributions  18:22, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Bekannte Bonmots Huxleys

 * „Skeptik ist die höchste Verantwortung und blinder Glaube die eine, unvergebliche Sünde.“
 * I had a quick wander around the other language wikis, just in case they had something. They will have to come to this one instead. I think they may have trouble translating some of your phrasing though. Anyway, I hope the image sizes and captions are what you requested and the quote style is ok. I am sure others will fix things, in one sense or another. Off in a bit and back next week. ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍  contributions  19:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Image
The image, with the caption about "1890s", is described: Image:Huxley, Thomas Henry (1825 - 1895) by Daniel Downey (1829-1881) - 1863-9.jpg - the emboldened dates being my doing. Any more clues to dates or current location would be appreciated. If you want to change any captions, you can edit the text by finding it on the edit page; it will be somewhere after the image description, just mind the curls, {, and pipes, |. ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍ contributions  06:17, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

You might want to look away ...
I changed the commons description to reflect the previous attribution. I also altered the caption at THH, your attempt would have been complicated by the similarity of the caption and the image name. I will try to explain things with an amateur autopsy. Between these 'ribs',  open  &   close,  are the contents of our specimen - with annotations:

Image:Huxley%2C_Thomas_Henry_(1825_-_1895)_by_Daniel_Downey_(1829-1881)_-_1863-9.jpg The name at wikipedia or commons. |a pipe thumbThumbnail. Note the lower case. You might also use 'frame' or 'frameless'. | left of the page, or 'center' [note: spelling]. Default is right. | 210 px A size other than the users default. Bigger for landscape aspect. | Photographic portrait, circa 1888.Finally! The caption's text. End this note or reference.

The caption will be at the end, between |this and  ]] this. Sorry about the gory mess. ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍ contributions  16:34, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

excision
It is both in and out at the moment. An editor would discover your levity in changing the 'voice' of the article, in that we hear yours. However, I must be tedious and suggest that you find a way to present that fact for an encylopaedia ... and so on. It was a small nudge, prompting you to clear any (obviously) unconventional issues that may see your fine work demoted (or promoted), they may draw the attention of editors who are less, er, 'flexible' (More on this in a moment).

Regarding any 'hagiographic' tendencies, you might pay a visit to the articles that are POV battlefields, slumming it around 'start to B class', to see undue weight at work. The THH article skipped this process by an enormous expansion of content; the balance is outstanding, the differing views helping to keep the interest high. It is a superior model of POV presentation and neutrality. Is that is the quality that you are attempting to highlight? ;-)

I must apologise for cluttering up the article with images. It was partly done as example only - feel free to nominate any changes or deletions. My modest uploads are nestled into a gallery of images on Commons, people interested in the images can view them there.
 * But now, I fear, you will rue the day you met me ...

Having sullied your page with petty or obscure remarks, low-res images and unsolicited advice, I must now advise you of the rock and a hard-place you find yourself in. You must choose;
 * 1) The death of a thousand microedits of a Good Article review and tag,
 * 2) or perhaps the scrutiny of copyeditors, minutes of fame and a day on the main page is the destiny for poor Tom, the inevitable vandalism accompanying Feature Article status being our harsh reminder of the turgid waters it has briefly bobbed above. Bound and tossed into the 'cathedral', just as his opponents would have wished.

Your remarks have certainly added colour and erudition to my talk page. Cheers, ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍ contributions  14:33, 3 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I was looking for another vanity fair image, when I discovered the tiny drawings. I would be happy to upload any images that you convert, yours would probably be superior to any available. I find the occasional stub on photography and illustration, but the victorian-era would seem to be poorly covered. I will keep you posted. ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍  contributions  17:04, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

spake
I can put the saline memorial back to the way you had it, or anything for that matter. Looks good. ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍ contributions  19:34, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Simple is best, for reasons of differing browsers; including handheld and antique devices apparently. There are way of ordering the quotes and images, but I did not put a lot of effort into that until I saw what you thought about the addition of them. By the way, either you have picked up some of the syntax, or you have been humouring me with feigned ignorance :-) I'm looking forward to seeing the new images.  ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍  contributions  20:04, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I not sure I understood part of the problem. Perhaps this will iilluminate ...

An image is added to commons, another site. But a sister site as they say. We then add a string of code to an article. ... or perhaps it won't. I will try to see where these captions that you speak of are. ☻ Fred|☝ discussion |✍ contributions  18:11, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The start is the image name at commons thumb| 130 px | Here  ; the caption is whatever text you add at the end. It says "here" in this example.
 * The software 'gets' the image from Commons, creates an odd sort of page here (the english wikipedia), and then adds it to the article. The mysterious page will appear if an image is clicked in an article. It contains a link back to commons. Enough of that.
 * The caption, emboldened and italic in the code example above, can be anything you wish. It is independent of the above process. It can be different at various articles and may contain more links and formatting to the text that will appear.


 * Well that was an outstanding success or a dismal failure, dependent on your outlook. Would you care to try yourself?  Fred ☻  19:33, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Some encouragement
You have done a fantastic job with the article, and I hope that you will be nominating it for FA soon. Rusty Cashman 08:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

A barnstar! Possibly a record in the time taken to aquire one of these, a deserved and appropriate award for your efforts. Extremely valuable, but light as a feather. I hope I can write something half as good as your effort. I also hope you can continue to make these improvements. Fred ☻ 16:17, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the comments and edit. I like brief biographies, they are fun to do. I do give the reader a bumpy ride, unfinished thoughts that I plan to expand on - one day...! I always hope someone will come along and expand them into full articles. As for your work, I will have it quietly reviewed and find out more on the process. Less ambitious promoters than I, might go through the good article procedure first. I must carry that burden, if confronted by anyone thinking that was audacious! We might also find an outside source for an objective view. However, I believe it is traditional to present yourself at inquisitions. Best regards,  Fred ☻  20:24, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Eng.Bot. is need of a rewrite, I am still tossing facts together. Your edit was a helpful reminder, though. For a lighter moment, have a look at the posts and date at this page, Talk:James Sowerby. It will be an active topic one day!  Fred ☻  20:59, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Flowers
A good target for your skills. I am not sure you need the editing tag, the change halfway through is obvious.

It summarised the first aid knowledge needed by all soldiers to help the wounded before a surgeon was available could possibly be expanded. This was a pretty big deal, giving people the knowledge to preserve life. Many have died while others have tutted and sighed, waiting for a professional to arrive. Simple asphyxiation usually. The link to the website there is a undiscovered mine for me. I do some transcribing from time to time and I have been helping an editor to do one of Smith's works. Let me know if you want something different, I find it relaxing and it is sure to be useful. It is fun to puzzle out little problems that arise from it.

Congrats on the upload, your odd files have not made it as straightforward as I implied. Where was the scan done, by yourself or another? You can either go back to commons and ask on the noticeboard or return the files to your printer and see if they can fix them. It would be a shame to lose the one I tried, (Woodburytype) it would be good if you went to the corrupt file and re-uploaded it; this will overwrite the wonky one and save me having to delete it. I doubt the size is an issue, the bigger the better up to a point. I will find out what I can and let you get on with the hard stuff - writing. Remind me if I'm waylaid, I am all over the place as usual. A friend once translated a phrase to describe one of my moods, You look like your spoon fell into honey! Now how can one make this happen? I can add s p a c i ng              and use different formatting? Without a border? With this→   placed before the first line; the end is before this → Edit this page to have a look, then cancel. Note that the end 'tag' has a backslash. Regards Fred ☻  17:08, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

William Flower
Hi ! The C J Cornish biography of Sir W H Flower is online on the link I added to the article. It has several copyright free pictures. I just added another here Image:WilliamFlower.jpg. There is another of him in the uniform of the 63rd Regiment. It suggests another inspiration for his tirade against bad clothing :). Let me know if you need any of the images. I did not want to add the image just now and trouble you when you were editing. Cheers. Shyamal 14:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Polymorphism and geographic variation
Hi. I changed the reference to E. B. Ford that you added to Polymorphism (biology): it's now a footnote like the other references in the article. I've used the same method you used (Ford 1940), but this article had all footnotes.

Why did you add a note that polymorphism was not geographic variation? It seemed to be in the wrong place, as the preceding sentence was about sympatric speciation. Do you think your point needs to be emphasized elsewhere in the article? &mdash;JerryFriedman 21:53, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, thank you for the footnote. There's plenty of Wiki tricks I haven't mastered yet. I was trying to polish Ford up a bit, and shouldn't have touched polymorphism until I had time to do it properly. It's not adequate as is; to give one obvious example, neither blood typing nor electrophoresis is chemical in nature (the one immunological, the other physical). I'd like to come back to it in a few weeks; at present busy with evolutionary synthesis (which is how I got onto Ford). The definition of polymorphism needs work, and the examples. Macdonald-ross 15:14, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Bibby
Hey, in the quotes section of Huxley, there are a handful that are referenced as just Bibby and a page number. Are they from Bibby 1972, or 1959? ornis ( t ) 06:15, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 1959; i bought 1972 later when I realised it was a different book! Macdonald-ross 13:50, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Excellent, thanks, I'll go fix that. ornis ( t ) 13:52, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion
Comments (User:Orangemarlin) refactored. Fred ☻ 18:27, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Polymorphism again
I'm looking forward to your edits on polymorphism.

Above you asked another editor about edit summaries. When you add new stuff, it's helpful to say "New stuff on subject A and subject B" or "added subject C" or something like that. I admit I don't always do this, but I try to remember. &mdash;JerryFriedman 02:32, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Bit obsessed with the modern evolutionary synthesis at the moment, so I'll do that first, and perhaps amplify it on E.B. Ford page and Polymorphism page a bit later. I had in mind to briefly summarise the state of thought at 'synthesis-time' by using E.B. Ford's work as an example (1964 Ecological genetics and 1965 Genetic polymorphisms summarise work which started in the 1930s). I have them on order, but they haven't arrived yet. Pro-tem, I'll write a para based on Ford's essay 'Polymorphism & taxonomy in Evolution the new systematics (ed Hux); also Huxley treats it in Evolution the modern synthesis. Of course genetic polymorphism is one of the topics which has stood the test of time really well; and it is the type of polymorphism I'm interested in for these W-pages.


 * I've been dipping into Hamilton's Gene Lands to get a picture of what problems he found interesting, and how they relate to the synthesis. Very testing ideas! He's way out of sight the best theoretician since Fisher & Co. I found a nice quote saying he felt his work fitted well inside Darwinism; I'll put it in next time. Regards,Macdonald-ross 14:19, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I don't mean to nag. My paternal feelings about this article aren't your problem.  However, the things you mention above sound very interesting.  &mdash;JerryFriedman 01:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Confession
Removed comment by. Fred ☻ 05:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

reply
(reposting here incase you don't watch my talk page)That's alright. I added those cites to the lead, another editor tagged the phrase as being unreferenced, though personally I don't think it really needed them, it's often easier to just provide a ref than argue over it. Oh, and you should check out this tool when you're editing other articles. It generates inline citations automatically given an ISBN, URL, PubMedID etc.. I use it quite a lot. ornis ( t ) 11:26, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I've just learnt a trick, and moved the refs to the same topic under Vert Palaeo (Haldane once said 'If worms can learn, so can I'). On a long page like this, there's no need for the intro to carry refs on detail (so I think) because all topics are gone over in the sections, often in much greater detail. The intros are meant for people who just want a brief summary. Anyway it's good to have the bird refs, albeit lower down. Macdonald-ross 14:53, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you look at History of paleontology
I am going to nominate History of paleontology for FA, and as you probably know (or soon will know) the FAC process is kind of gruelling and the more stuff taken care of before it begins the better. So if you wanted to leave any suggestions on the article talk page they would be appreciated. Rusty Cashman 17:07, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

What happened on Modern evolutionary synthesis
I hope you understand that I did not care for the reversion that wiped out all of your hard work. It is going to be a long hard fight, but some of your better improvements are going to make it back into the article. It is partly my fault though. If I had been firmer with you about the reference formats and about some style issues it might not have happened this way. Format and style are not as important as content, but if you leave them an opening the trolls will use it against you. Of course I could understand if you were not to enthused about working on Wikipedia after this, but I hope that is not the case, as I think you have a lot to contribute. Rusty Cashman 01:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject History of Science newsletter : Issue III - September 2007
The September 2007 issue of the WikiProject History of Science newsletter has been published. You're receiving this because you are a participant in the History of Science WikiProject. You may read the newsletter or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Yours in discourse--ragesoss 01:12, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Aristotle
I was looking at the material on Aristotle you added to History of evolutionary thought. It is very good but some of it would be better on the Aristotle page. I looked at the Aristotle page and I noticed that the coverage of his contributions to biology is pitiful. Furthermore there is a complaint on the talk page about the coverage of his contributions to science in general. You might want to help out. Rusty Cashman 05:49, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

HMS Rattlesnake
Minor point but your addition of the surgeon's name "Busk" to the article was incorrect. The Rattlesnake's surgeon, and Huxley's immediate superior, was John Thomson, my great grandfather.

Another of his great grandsons, and my cousin, is also a MacDonald Ross, though without the hyphen. A clever chap but not someone who knows anything about Huxley et al....I think. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ospisdale (talk • contribs) 17:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, you're right, thanks! (more on your talk page) Macdonald-ross 12:53, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

History of evolutionary thought FAC
I have just nominated History of evolutionary thought for FA. Your participation in the processs would be very welcome. Rusty Cashman (talk) 06:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about edit collision on Charles Lyell
I started making an edit to the section on evolution in Charles Lyell before you saved an edit you were working on. As a result we ended up adding duplicate information on his views on Lamarck to different parts of the section (actually I am amazed it took my edit rather than declaring an edit conflict). I tried reconcile the 2 edits as best I could. Rusty Cashman (talk) 16:22, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

on ratings
I feel the same way. Even aside from the great jump it takes to go from Start to B and the silliness of having A between GA and FA, rating is fairly inconsistent and idiosyncratic, but hard to change on widespread level (since so many different people do it.) I just content myself with trying to improve articles, and occasionally participate in the GA and FA processes for the critical feedback they sometimes generate. My hope is that a revised ratings system will be integrated into the "Stable Versions" system, once the basics of that get implemented.--ragesoss 15:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

David Lack
Good to see the improvement on that article. The debate with Wynne-Edwards needs mention, unfortunately I do not have enough background information on that topic. There is a nice paper on the history of the Ibis journal which looks at Lack and his influence on ornithological research in the UK. I might add a few bits sometime on that one. Shyamal (talk) 08:45, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Chromosome
Hi there, have you finished editing this article? The formatting is now off-whack and I don't want to do cleanup if you are still making changes. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I read your changes and incorporated your point about chromosomes being more than DNA into the lead, but the comments on bacteria having naked DNA isn't really right. There reviews cover the subject pretty well. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)




 * Right, I'm with it now! Thank you for the info and corrections. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Wow, I had no idea about this, but apparently DNA in organelles is also structurally-organised into discrete regions in association with specific DNA-binding proteins. I've been calling it just the "mitochondrial genome" for ages but apparently this isn't the current understanding of "organelle nuclei". Looks like I'm going to have to do some reading! PS, I'll tell User:GrahamColm that you liked the article on viruses, he's put a lot of work into it recently and is wonderful resource on the topic. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:40, 12 December 2007 (UTC)



Not a problem, ever since the prokaryotic cytoskeleton was published I've been coming around to the view that our old idea that prokaryotes are "simple" cells was just a outcome of an inability to detect dynamic and non-membranous structures on such a small scale. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:11, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

props
I'm new to editing wikipedia (just got a profile) so I'm not sure if this is the place to comment, but I was just reading the article on polymorphisms (biology) and I wanted to mention that it's the most well-written article I've seen yet on wikipedia. You obviously know what you're talking about, and I loved the section on "what a polymorphism is not." Keep up the good work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zickx009 (talk • contribs) 04:41, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

British bridge players
Nice work! I've looked at the Marx and Harrison-Gray articles, and added some category information and the like. I wrote up Hugh Kelsey a year or more ago now, but never got around to the other eminent British players who lacked an article. Another thing that I've been meaning to do is write something on the Gold Cup, and if you are looking for other bridge-related articles to write that would be a good choice. JH (talk page) 20:16, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Update: I've now written a stub: Gold Cup (bridge). JH (talk page) 22:02, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm very happy to go along with what you suggest, namely yourself doing the dead British players and myself doing the living. I've amended my "to do" list to reflect that (but have left in the dead non-Brits on the assumption that you don't intend to do those - it's astonishing that nobody has yet done Lenz, Lightner or Stern). Best wishes. JH (talk page) 19:29, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

History of evolutionary thought
I am thinking of putting history of evolutionary thought through FAC for a 2nd time. I would like to know if you have any issues with the article that have not been addressed or if there are any other improvements you think need to be made. Your input would be very much valued and if you want to leave any comments on the article talk page or on mine they would be appreciated. Thanks. Rusty Cashman (talk) 17:02, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I am definately going to get started on the reorganization tonight. I am going to start by announcing the plan on the talk page so that big edits don't take anyone by surprise. I honestly don't think the current Islamic thoughts section is that much of a problem. After all many of the current claims are consistent with what John William Draper was saying in the 1870s. I admint I was made very unconfortable about the specific claims previously being made about natural selection and Al-Jahiz because I couldn't find a translation to directly support them and of course you were correct about the insufficient evidence for the unqualified claim of influence on Western science, but with those gone I don't see a big problem with what remains. If anyone has a concern about a particular statement I would be happy to try and dig into it. Rusty Cashman (talk) 19:55, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Raymond Brock
I've just learnt that Raymond Brock died on New Year's Day. There's a good obituary of him by Patrick Jourdain on the EBU's site:. Unless you were planning to write a Wiki article on him yourself, then I hope to do so. JH (talk page) 20:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The article on Raymond Brock is now up. Corrections and additions are of course welcome. JH (talk page) 19:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the suggestions. However I have other projects that I want to work on - largely related to cricket, though there are some more bridge articles that I would like to do as well (Flint, Forrester, Robson, Camrose Trophy among them). So I'm afraid that I don't intend to go any further with this. Incidentally, had you thought of perhaps doing Nico Gardener, noted as player, teacher and writer? JH (talk page) 17:35, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I've just updated my user page with a bridge "to do" list of articles that I would like to write, to add to the cricket list that was there already: User:Jhall1. Whether I ever get around to all - or even most - of those is another matter, of course. JH (talk page) 18:42, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Book titles
I was wondering what your objection was to the use of capital letters when giving book titles? Surely the title as used in a Wiki article should match the title that actually appeared on the book cover and title page in every respect, including capitalisation? I know that Wiki style is not to use capitals in article titles and section headers apart from the first word and proper nouns, but that's a different issue. JH (talk page) 18:19, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I think it's really the same issue: the short answer is that we're writing English, not German. Legibility is also an issue; lower case has more variation in letter shape and is more readable. If we were to reproduce exactly the format on printed titles we'd soon see that publishers are anything but consistent, and also that books from the 18th and 19th centuries often had titles that go on, and on and on... So I follow the simple plan of using capitals for initial words and all proper words. It's also easier to typewrite in lower case, which is a consideration as references take so much time to do. If I give a quotation or a title in German (which often occurs in the biology articles) then I do as they do. But of course, others have other opinions! I hadn't initially intended to do so much on Terence, but as it turned out I've expanded it quite a bit. And, yes, I have standardised the refs to my taste; standardisation within an article is a WP guideline.


 * In the WP system we have to live with many things that are not ideal, in order to get the benefit of many useful contributions. A ruthless 'house style' might well put contributors off rather than encourage them. If you compare the David Bird article, you'll see that it neither lists the full title every time, nor lists the co-authors. Its references are a mixture of upper and lower case, almost at random. It has far too little information about the person. But I'm not going to stick my oar in there; David's friends can look after him as they please! Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:56, 2 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that consistency is important, but your style for book titles is too e.e. cummings-ish for my taste. :) I won't change the capitalisation of the titles in the Reese article, but I think that it's almost inevitable that somebody will do so before long. JH (talk page) 19:09, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Jeremy Flint
I have nominated Jeremy Flint, an article you created, for deletion. I do not feel that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Articles for deletion/Jeremy Flint. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. Redmarkviolinist Drop me a line 16:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I've duly voted "Keep". Fortunately it seems that so has everyone else, recognising his notability. JH (talk page) 18:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Buenos Aires affair
I think there's a disproportionately large part of the Jeremy Flint article devoted to the Buenos Aires affair, given that Flint wasn't one of the main players. It currently accounts for getting on for half the text of the article if one ignore the list of books that he wrote. That degree of detail is fine in Reese's and Schapiro's articles, of course. It occurs to me that the affair would actually make a good article in its own right. I've had a look, and there doesn't seem to be one yet.

BTW, I'm intending to update Culbertson's article (which is woefully inadequate) with something on the two great challenge matches against Lenz's and Buller's teams. JH (talk page) 17:47, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I can edit the Flint section down a bit. And yes, a full account of the BA affair would make a good article. One angle is that our knowledge of the psychology of visual evidence suggests its rather modest reliability; and that all involved were self-interestd parties. Swimer was terribly bitter at having been left out, for instance, and was no friend of R&S in any event. Butler was a poor choice of official by the BBL; it would have been another story if someone tough-minded like Harold Franklin was our official at the event. I wonder, can one get a sight of the enquiry transcript? Presumably copies still exist.


 * Yes do give Ely a boost; I can't understand why the American contributors are so alack about their own players. Too busy playing, maybe! Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Anyone reading "Story of an Accusation" has to believe them innocent, whereas anyone reading Truscott's book has to believe them guilty. I've read both, which puts me in something of a quandary, but on balance I think they were innocent. If Reese and Schapiro had a cheating system, then why did Reese want to play with Flint? AFAIK, no-one has ever suggested that Reese/Flint cheated. Also Reese strikes me as the type whose motive for playing was to prove his mental superiority over his opponents. If he won by cheating, he would deny himself that feeling of superiority. Incidentally, "Trick 13" has a chapter is which a cheating pair are exposed, and it's pretty clear that the procedure for handling the affair thart is described there is the one that Reeese and Flint would recommend.


 * It's surprising that the bridge WP is almost moribund. It was livelier a year or so ago when I first joined. It's amazing that Lenz and Lightner don't have articles, something I hope to put right beforte long. I suppose part of the trouble is that most bridge players seem to have little knowledge of or interest in the game's history. The cricket WP, to which I also belong, is by contrast a hive of activity. JH (talk page) 19:00, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Ely Culbertson
I've now completed my expansion to include the great challenge matches. Please feel free to edit it further. (In particular, please feel free to add the Crockford's v. Culbertson match, which I wasn't aware of till just now when I spotted your article on Beasley.) Reese's "Bridge at the Top" was a good source for the 1933 and 1934 matches for the Scwab Cup, and exposed some errors in the British players' names as given in the Official Encyclopaedia, but unfortunately doesn't seem to cover the 1930 Culbertson-Buller match. Incidentally, what was it about army men that led them to apparently dominate the game in the early 1930s?! JH (talk page) 20:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The army thing: it's partly the huge numbers in WWI, and partly the habit of men retaining their military rank as an honorific pre-name. In the case of Beasley you wonder why he wasn't at least a full Colonel.
 * I enjoyed your additions, though there is, of course, way to go on Ely, as follows: 1. His stories in The Many Lives... of his pre-bridge life. 2. Matches v. 4 Aces and Sims 3. His revolutionary bidding ideas. 4. His books. 5. His peace ideas. 6. His divorce from Josephine 7. Final assessment of his worth in these various fields. 8. photos. It's interesting, isn't it, that in all these years since the thirties no-one has come anywhere close to him as a publicist for the game. Oh, in addition to the above, he made a fortune out of Kem cards, the sale of which should be in every business text in the world! Macdonald-ross (talk) 21:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately I lack the references to add much more, but it sounds as though you might be able to do so. I once read a history of the early days of bridge called "Walk of the Oysters" by Rex Mackay. It's a marvellously entertaining book and naturally has a lot on Culbertson. I'm wondering whether I should try to track down and buy a second-hand copy for myself. JH (talk page) 20:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * For Ely two refs are essential: 1. Ely's autobiography The strange lives of one man. 2. John Clay's Culbertson: the man who made contract bridge. You'll never regret owning these two books! Rex Mackay's Walk of the oysters is a wonderfully readable book, but it's famously full of errors, so not good for WP purposes. The best book on bridge history is: 3. David Daniels The golden age of contract bridge. It's got plenty on Lenz, you'll be glad to know.


 * The web can be trolled for second-hand books; and failing all else, the EBU has copies of almost everything, as several old-timers left it their bridge libraries. I use abebooks.com most often for out-of-print books. I've just bought a copy of Hasenson's Almanack, and, happily, it has plenty that ACBL does not. Pity about the dust jacket: typical of amateur self-publishing!   Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I didn't mind the dust jacket, but the rather chaotic organisation of the sections, combined with the lack of an index, sre annoying. BTW, re Adam Meredith, I think the point of the person who changed it is that in 1913, when Meredith was born, there was no such place as Northern Ireland. JH (talk page) 16:29, 9 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree about the Almanack; it's full of typos and lacks the kind of overall editing that a publisher would normally give it. And re Plum: if the person had meant that he would have used the term Ulster! And it would still have been part of the UK!


 * Thanks for your additions to Culbertson's article. BTW, you'll find that I already provided links to Buller and Beasley in the article's very first paragraph. JH (talk page) 17:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)


 * BTW, have you read the piece on page 26 of the Bridge Almanack entitled "Odyssey"? It's a strange piece to find in a work of reference, but I found it marvellously funny and it gives an interesting insight into the characters of Simon, Gray and Reese. JH (talk page) 20:44, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Paul Stern
I've just written an article on him. Additions or corrections welcomed. JH (talk page) 19:23, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm a little uneasy about claiming him as a British bridge player, since all his appearances at international level were I think when playing for Austria. If I was looking through categories to see if he already had a article, I don't think it would occur to be to look under "British bridge players". (Rixi Markus is a different case, of course, having appeared for Britain with great success.) JH (talk page) 21:23, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll have a think, but first impressions are: 1. Not necessary to have played an international to be British. 2. Is necessary to be British: he was naturalised, that makes him legally British. 3. Can be Austrian as well, obviously. 4. Therefore why not list him as Austrian player as well, as we do with religion? 5. Why not list 'em all as bridge players as well as specific countries? Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:46, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Happy with your number 5. As to number four, the snag is that there is no "Austrian bridge players" category, and I undersrtand that new categories have to be created through due process rather than ad hoc. JH (talk page) 17:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I've just created the "Austrian bridge players" category, which on checking Wiki's guidelines I found I was within my rights to do, so it no longer appears as a red link in the articles of the three players in question. JH (talk page) 21:29, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's resolved perfectly now. Thank you. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:05, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the photo. JH (talk page) 20:58, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

British Bridge Players
Yes, I was already thinking of doing Tony Priday next. Nico Gardener and Fritzi Gordon are good calls. Victor Mollo already has an article, but I'm sure it could be improved. JH (talk page) 19:28, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Nice work on Gordon and Gardener. By the way, someone has just nominated David Bird for deletion. I don't think that there's much danger, but you might want to vote. JH (talk page) 19:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Tony Priday
I've at last summoned up the energy to write Tony Priday's article. Improvement and expansion would of course be welcome. JH (talk page) 21:17, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I think a second reason why we've had less success in the Europeans over the last few decades may be that the overall standard has improved. Italy and France have always been strong, of course, but now there are many more teams capable of playing to a high standard. JH (talk page) 18:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)


 * However, I notice that we have only won one single European open teams title since 1963, which is well below par. Suggests either the quality of entrants coming into the sport has dropped, or that the methods of preparation are substandard. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It's notable in the 1040s and 1950s what a large contribution was made by immigrants from Eastern Europe. So WW2 - and the lead-up to it - may have had the effect of stregthening British bridge for a while. JH (talk page) 16:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, Markus and Gordon came to the UK because of the Anschluss. Without any doubt they made a huge difference. But the greatest male players (in terms of international achievements) were Konstam, Reese, Schapiro, Dodds, Harrison-Gray, Meredith, Simon. Even the two born abroad were educated in this country. Their reign was short, with the exception of Schapiro. Several died relatively young; Reese was knocked out by the Buenos Aires affair. After 1965 a completely different group took over; they simply did not do as well. I don't think anyone who played against them would put Gardener, Tarlos, Sharples, Rodrigues, Priday in the same league as the above half dozen. I would, however, accept Collings, Cansino, Hoffman, Forrester and Robson as being absolutely first class, and maybe Flint also; the tragedy was that, apart from Flint, they played so seldom in British teams, and never together as a team. Collings spent his best years in Switzerland; Cansino was almost destroyed by a brain tumour; Robson only played once in a British Open European team, and when he did we won it! Hoffman never played in it at all -- what a waste of talent. Contrast the tight organisation of the Italian teams, plus their stellar talent... Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that. Incidentally, if you are looking for any further dead British players to write about, then Dimmie Fleming might be a good choice. There's a very brief, but useful, potted biography here: JH (talk page) 20:51, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, Dimmie is a candidate, though it may be difficult to dig up enough biographical info apart from her bridge achievements (this is a problem with the slightly less well-known players). I had forgotten she played with Swinnerton-Dyer in 1953. He of course, like Macleod, eventually made good in the 'real world' and so already has an article. [Later: I find she had a useful biog in English Bridge, reprinted in the Almanack]


 * On the male side I am thinking of the Sharples and the Tarlos. The Sharples, I think, should be a single article: there's no essential difference in their biographies except for their dates of death. And what we know about them both will hardly fill more than a stub; but I do have a photo (undated, but in their younger days). Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:27, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, the Sharples would be a good choice, and I agree with a single article, with redirects from their individual names. I believe as a partnership they were reckoned to bid better than any other British pair, and IIRC eventually retired undefeated from the Bidding Chsllenge feature of Bridge Nagazine after a run of over a year. JH (talk page) 18:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Karyotype
Hi there, the major problem was that somebody had added an incorrectly-formatted reference with only a tag. This moves most of the test into the reference section. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Helen Sobel Smith
If she could cope with the Marx Brothers, I'm not surprised that she could handle male bridge players. :) JH (talk page) 19:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Excellent!! Worth putting on the page! Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:37, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

William Lawrence
Hi, thanks for your message. I must admit I know very little at all about him - I just stumbled across the articles while disambiguating links to "FRS". DuncanHill (talk) 00:52, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Henry Beasley
In the photograph of the 1933 practice match, could that be a very young Terence Reese on the right? I think that it looks a bit like him. JH (talk page) 10:09, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think so too; and the woman is probably Alice Evers. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:11, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Buenos Aires Revisited
I've just stumbled on Time Magazine's contemporary report on the affair:. It claims that Schapiro was a baccarat dealer, which sounds likely, and a former butcher, which doesn't! JH (talk page) 21:00, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Nicola Smith
I've created an article for her. In spite of the claims of Rixi Markus, Doris Rhodes and Sandra Landy, I think that she is the best female player that Britain has ever produced. JH (talk page) 10:56, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

FYI: Thomas Henry Huxley and agnosticism - proposed merger
As a major contributor to the Thomas Henry Huxley article, I thought I'd let you know about this proposal. See here. regards, ascidian  | talk-to-me  20:25, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject History of Science newsletter : Issue IV - May 2008
A new May 2008 issue of the WikiProject History of Science newsletter is hot off the virtual presses. Please feel free to make corrections or add news about any project-related content you've been working on. You're receiving this because you are a participant in the History of Science WikiProject. You may read the newsletter or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Yours in discourse--ragesoss (talk) 23:40, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Fritz Müller looks fine to me
I know Fritz, I must admit, mostly through David West's book. When Itajaí was declared a national park, I fought in vain to have Fritz's name remembered. Last I heard, Fiocruz (Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, in Rio de Janeiro) was going to publish the Portuguese translation of West's book. Keep up your good work. PS. How about getting the History of Biology wikiproject going again? --Wloveral (talk) 19:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Request to move article W. K. Parker incomplete
You recently filed a request at Wikipedia:Requested moves to move the page W. K. Parker to a different title - however your proposal is either incomplete or has been contested as being controversial. As a result, it has been moved to the incomplete and contested proposals section. Requests that remain incomplete after five days will be removed.

Please make sure you have completed all three of the following:


 * 1) Added    at the top of the talk page of the page you want moved, replacing "NewName" with the new name for the article.  This creates the required template for you there.
 * 2) Added  NewName  to the bottom of the talk page of the page you want to be moved, to automatically create a discussion section there.
 * 3) Added  PageName  to the top of today's section here.

If you need any further guidance, please leave a message at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves or contact me on my talk page. - JPG-GR (talk) 05:10, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Louis Tarlo
I see from Patrick Jourdain's obituary on page 39 of the latest issue of "English Bridge" that Louis Tarlo has just died. Shall I write his Wiki article, or would you like to do so? JH (talk page) 17:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

merge
I see Shyamal got to it first. Keep up the good work!--ragesoss (talk) 18:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Deletions from Thomas Huxley
You asked me to comment on the recent deletions from Thomas Henry Huxley and I have. In general I wanted to say that although there is a lot of great material in that article, I think the same thing has happened to it that happened to history of evolutionary thought when I was working on it. That is you have added so much good material that it has become difficult for someone without a strong background in the subject to pick out the most important facts quickly. In my opinion no Wikipedia article should be more than about 80K. Any longer than that and it becomes too hard to read in a single sitting. I think that if you go back and try pruning you will find lots of material that belongs either in child articles or in other already existing articles, and the result will be much easier to read and comprehend in one 10 minute sitting. I know this is kind of painful advice to receive, but I think it is appropriate in this case. Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:10, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

re: Lankester / Rutherford
Yes. The Oxford edition of "The Lost World", for a sample, says that Doyle identified "the original of Professor Challenger in Professor William Rutherford, holder of the Edinburgh Chair of Physiology from 1874" (pg. xxiii). One article on JSTOR about him is at http://www.jstor.org/pss/531688. He was born in 1839 and died in 1899. 69.229.238.191 (talk) 08:02, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Resizing images
Hi dude, just a quick note to explain why I removed those image sizes from most of the images in the Huxley article.

Wikipedia allows logged-in users to decide what size images are displayed at (by clicking the "Files" tab in my preferences). When you specify the size of an image in an article, you override users' own preferences. This is not usually recommended because, while Image:Rattlesnake2.jpg might look great on your screen when it's displayed at 190px, other users may have much bigger or smaller screens. Some people like big images and some people like small images, but when you specify an image size in an article you force everyone else who looks at the article to view the image the way you like it.

For this reason, the Manual of Style says: "if an image displays satisfactorily at the default size, it is recommended that no explicit size be specified". (As a counter-example, both common sense and the Manual of Style suggest that it's appropriate to override user preferences in the case of Image:Huxley - Mans Place in Nature.jpg because it probably needs to be displayed at at least 300px.)

By the same token, it's usually a bad idea to use the tag to force a line break in an image caption. This might look well on your screen, but other users may be using different font sizes than you, and forcing an extra line break can make the caption wrap in very strange ways.

If you have any questions or concerns about any of my edits, please feel free to contact me at my talk page or Talk:Thomas Henry Huxley. All the best, Polemarchus (talk) 01:52, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That's a fair point — the way you've been using line breaks hasn't led to any problems and I agree it looks pretty good. Sorry!  Polemarchus (talk) 12:12, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

cha-cha
The section in question has a reference. In your edit summary you wrote (name corrected: see talk page). There is nothing in talk page. What did you intend to write there? `'Míkka>t 18:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I checked the edit history and see that there may be a concern about the name: at my first scan I had an impression that the name was changed by an anonymous vandal, who frequent this page. And it seems that you were right after all. Sorry for confusion. I provided a good reference. `'Míkka>t 18:49, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Re:a repeat offender
If you believe a block is in order for that user, please go to Administrator intervention against vandalism and state your case. If this doesn't work out or you need more help, let me know. Thanks. D ARTH P ANDA talk 13:42, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

E.B. Ford and History of evolutionary thought
I just saw your note about the moder synth section of History of evolutionary thought. Huxley is mentioned briefly in the section already. However I will look to add something on E.B. Ford and polymorphism (biology). It will have to be brief though. Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:11, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I added something I think is appropriate.Rusty Cashman (talk) 17:13, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Abelardo Barroso
Thank you for creating Abelardo Barroso! Happy editing, Kingturtle (talk) 16:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject History of Science newsletter : Issue V - January 2009
It's here at long last! The January 2009 issue of the WikiProject History of Science newsletter is ready, with exciting news about Darwin Day 2009. Please feel free to make corrections or add news about any project-related content you've been working on. You're receiving this because you are a participant in the History of Science WikiProject. You may read the newsletter or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Yours in discourse --ragesoss (talk) 03:01, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Archiving
Hi, just noticed that you moved old messages to your archive, but had not edited the main talk page. Have tried to fix it and have added some code for auto-archival; it removes messages older than 21 days or if your talk page exceeds 64Kilobytes in size. Feel free to amend it. Shyamal (talk) 13:29, 11 January 2009 (UTC)