User talk:OddBiologist

Your submission at Articles for creation: Haliclona submonilifera has been accepted
 Haliclona submonilifera, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.

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Thanks again, and happy editing! – Novem Linguae (talk) 09:32, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Phorbas (disambiguation)
Hello OddBiologist,

Welcome to Wikipedia! I edit here too, under the username Joseywales1961 and it's nice to meet you :-)

I wanted to let you know that I have tagged an article that you started, Phorbas (disambiguation) for deletion, because it is unnecessary per one of the criteria at WP:G14.

If you feel that the page shouldn't be deleted and want more time to work on it, you can remove the speedy deletion tag from the top. If the page is already deleted by the time you come across this message and you wish to retrieve the deleted material, please contact the.

For any further query, please leave a comment here and prepend it with. And, don't forget to sign your reply with. Thanks!

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JW 1961 Talk 11:59, 24 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Ooft. Was in the process of making the page I linked too and missed the message. Took longer than it should have due to internet issues... I will contact the person who deleted it.
 * ~ OddBiologist (talk) 12:43, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
 * , That's fine so, thanks for your contributions JW 1961 Talk 12:56, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I see no deletion tag at Phorbas (disambiguation), just a dab template. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 16:19, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
 * , Hi, It was deleted and then restored on request to be fixed, I added the dab template when it was restored. JW 1961 Talk 16:48, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Common name
Phorbas pustulosus, the baseball sponge, or Phorbas pustulosus (Carter, 1882), Baseball glove sponge? From the description, the latter seems more likely. Nice to see someone writing about sponges. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 16:07, 24 July 2021 (UTC)


 * @Pbsouthwood Yes, baseball glove sponge. Oops. No idea what happened there! Thanks for catching that. I have fixed it. And yeah, I'm just working through several field guides/species lists/etc to up the representation of particularly southern African species on here as they are seriously underrepresented. (and as are sponges! They're super cool but everyone overlooks them because of how "simple" they are)
 * ~ OddBiologist (talk) 19:43, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I think a big part of the problem is the difficulty of identifying them in the field and from photos. People like to know what they are looking at, and "sponge" is not very informative. Appearance can be quite variable, and the field guides are very limited, and often out of date. I have hundreds of unidentified photos of sponges, mostly from the Cape Peninsula and False Bay. I have also done some work on coverage of marine species of southern Africa, as I tend to see them on dives. Ping me any time for comments or help. I am not great on technical Wiki stuff, but have been around long enough to know who and where to ask when it gets complicated. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 06:31, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
 * @Pbsouthwood Thanks so much for the offer! Yeah, sponges definitely are a little tricky but I also think its a bit of a viscous cycle. People aren't interested because there is no information and because there is no interest no information is made available. Have run into your observations many times on iNaturalist so I've got some idea about your massive amount of unidentified sponges! Looking into getting a cheap(ish) underwater camera so that I can actually contribute some underwater photos myself
 * ~ OddBiologist (talk) 18:52, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I have no idea of your budget, but I, and everyone else I have discussed the matter with and have used them, have found the Olympus TG series with underwater housing to be good value and adequately versatile. Also they fit into a pocket.
 * I also think the information problem is more a matter of not enough taxonomic effort. These days a website can get wider and cheaper visibility than paper publications, but it does not appear to be happening for sponges. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 03:29, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Speciesbox
Hi. Just a tip on using speciesboxes. As you can see here you must either include the taxon field (full binomial) or genus field and taxon field together, but not both. If you don't, errors appear here. For example, see the fix I just did on Lobostemon belliformis. Cheers YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:25, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Rossella taxo template
Hello, and thanks for creating Template:Taxonomy/Rossella. At the moment it uses "link=Rossella", which links to a disambiguation page. I'm a novice with taxonomy templates, but I think that wants an update to "link=Rossella (sponge)"? Thanks again, 2A01:4C8:58:C7F5:D847:7BA5:279F:46FE (talk) 16:21, 18 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Indeed. Thanks for catching that. Have changed it OddBiologist (talk) 16:42, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

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Traditional medicine vs. WP:MEDRS
Some of your entries on traditional medicine could mislead users to believe these uses are accurate and effective for treating diseases. Few uses of African plants are science-based. If a solid source says a plant is used for traditional medicine, then stating that is enough without detailing the quackery of supposed uses. Apply MEDRS first for any medical claims. This is not a reliable MEDRS source for any nutrition or medical claims. Zefr (talk) 15:52, 16 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback. Will do so in the future OddBiologist (talk) 18:37, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Thanks so much :) OddBiologist (talk) 18:35, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

I have sent you a note about a page you started
Hello, OddBiologist. Thank you for your work on Senecio verbascifolius. User:Ppt91, while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with. Please remember to sign your reply with ~. (Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

Ppt91 (talk) 21:44, 13 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I had a look and there's a separate list of Senecio species linked in the page. It's a large genus. But it could be added to the list of selected species too if you think that's valuable OddBiologist (talk) 18:39, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

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