User talk:Philcha/Archives/2011/July

A barnstar for you!

 * Thanks! I hope I can get a pic for the Taxobox. --Philcha (talk) 21:35, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Food web
Hi Philcha...I have made a great amount of progress on the food web article. If you have time, it would be great to have your thoughts, input, and time. Thanks!Thompsma (talk) 02:28, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Mammal(iform)s?
Hi, Philcha!

Since you do not seem to be completely inactive at the moment, may I remind you of the article Evolution of mammals, and its discussions about an appropriate definition of mammal? In 2007, you contributed substantially to that article, and inter alia wrote, that the majority seems to have adopted "the crown group of all living mammals" as definition of "mammal".

I noted that the article Multituberculata classifies these as mammals - without any mention of any deviating opinion. I've asked in the talk page; and got an answer implying that this is a markedly minority view, from User:Ucucha, who seems to be active in the field (not an "arm-chair paleontologist", like me). I think both views should be presented; but if one of them do be a clear-cut majority opinion, then this should be mentioned (with references).

Your comment at Talk:Multituberculata is appreciated!

Thanks in advance, JoergenB (talk) 14:23, 10 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi, JoergenB. Unfortunately I already have as much work at WP as I can handle. I've done nothing on this topic since 2007, and I'm sure others know more about it. Good luck. --Philcha (talk) 14:55, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Portia labiata
Hi Philcha, just to let you know I have reviewed your nomination of Portia labiata and I have a quick suggestion before I approve it. Could you please look at the nomination at T:TDYK and respond there? Thanks Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:38, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Portia labiata
Gatoclass (talk) 08:04, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

your style views, user page
Nice section! I agree that reading on the screen is more painful and inconvenient than paper (in general). But I think a lot of your comments (one idea per para, section headar usage) are pretty standard writing instruction. Strunk and White, Harbrace, even just technical writing guides all say the same. It's not just a computer thing.

I don't know how Wiki got stuck on the wall of text and super long paras. Maybe small font played a part (which is painful on its own, not just for leading to longer paras, and is also a "youth bias"), or wanting to look intelligent. In normal writing any time I get to the high single digits of sentences, I see if the idea could better be expressed with multiple paras. On Wiki, I often encounter 10+ sentence paras (and those sentences even tend to be pretty long ones, the multiclausers!)

TCO (reviews needed) 08:25, 15 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for William Strunk, Jr.'s The Elements of Style (1918!), I've added it. I note Strunk's "Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic". Do you have other free online guides? --Philcha (talk) 09:40, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that "Wiki got stuck on the wall of text and super long paras". I suspect this apes the style of academic books and journals, where space is often at a premium - and some academic articles are cryptic as a result. I also suspect that academic authors or their publishers' copyeditors sometimes try to write in a more "academic" style than competitors - and this type of competitiveness appears in WP, for example among reviewers who have little knowledge of the topic but pride themselves on their prose. --Philcha (talk) 09:40, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * During one review (? FAC) User:Fowler&fowler said that the priorities are clarity and conciseness, and "brilliant" prose is a bonus provide it does not obstruct. I'd add that WP should write for bright teenagers. --Philcha (talk) 09:40, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The big question is "How to improve the situation?" I wish I had a decent answer. Life's too short for the interminable discussions at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style etc. --Philcha (talk) 09:40, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

jumping spiders
Hi Philcha, nice job on the Portia articles. I did have one question though. A while back I removed the claim that jumping spiders can jump 50 times their body length from the jumping spider article, but I see that you have added it to some of the jumping spider articles that you have worked on. Although I don't have the same edition of Invertibrate Zoology as the one you cite for this statistic, I couldn't find any material validating this claim anywhere in the book. As far as I know, there are no reputable sources that make such a claim. Indeed, it seems rather far-fetched as most jumping spiders can't jump anywhere near that distance (10-20 times would be more plausible). Unless you know of a reputable source that is making this claim, I would discourage adding it to more articles, as whatever is written in Wikipedia has a way of getting copied into books, magazine, etc. and leading to popular misconceptions. Kaldari (talk) 21:30, 16 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi, Kaldari. I checked Portia fimbriata and Portia labiata, which don't have "50 times", and one in production (sandbox) which does. The one in production cites Ruppert, E.E., Fox, R.S., and Barnes, R.D. (2004) Invertebrate Zoology (7 ed.). I'm away from home, but IIRC the "50 times" is in the caption of a diagram. I'll Google for other reliable estimates. --Philcha (talk) 08:53, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I saw a video clip of a jumping spider making a continuous series of near-vertical leaps from leaf to leaf (what an athlete!), but forgot to save the URL (doh!). Any ideas? --Philcha (talk) 08:53, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I also saw a page that explains how precisely a jumping spider calculates the take-off power and angle to get a soft landing, and how to twist in flight to compensate for cross level - another doh! --Philcha (talk) 08:53, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Pro tem I reverted this by you and this by User talk:Korrawit, as I think we need to discuss - see Talk:Portia fimbriata. See you there. --Philcha (talk) 08:53, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Could you please double-check your copy of Invertebrate Zoology? The edition I have makes no such claim and neither do any other reliable sources (on the web or elsewhere) as far as I can tell. Kaldari (talk) 20:12, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I just looked through your Phaeacius article, which is mostly quite good, but there are a few problems which I have detailed at Talk:Phaeacius. Kaldari (talk) 21:38, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for reviewing Most recent common ancestor
Thank you for reviewing (and continuing to review) Most recent common ancestor. I've posted follow-ups to your questions on Talk:Most recent common ancestor/GA1. But I won't be able to do much surgery to this article during the week. Let's continue to exchange views, and hopefully I can spend the coming weekend on dramatically enhancing the article. Thanks again. Fred Hsu (talk) 02:03, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Corn Crake
many thanks  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  12:44, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Chelicerata revert
I don't understand your objection. The two versions of the article are identical. It's just a template syntax change to make infobox maintenance easier. Kaldari (talk) 21:20, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi, Kaldari. That may be what you intended but, for whatever reason, it was more than just a template syntax change. The change removed "regnum = Animalia", "phylum = Arthropoda", "subphylum = Chelicerata" and "subphylum_authority = Heymons, 1901". Instead, the reverted version had only "authority = Heymons, 1901", which is probably incorrect, in addition to removing the chain from Animalia down to Chelicerata. --Philcha (talk) 22:01, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Those parameters are not needed for the automatic taxobox, that's why it's called "automatic". The output of the template is still the same. It still shows links to Animalia, Arthropoda, etc. If you look at the two versions of the article, you'll see that they look identical. Kaldari (talk) 22:30, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I was confused, in which case I'm sorry. --Philcha (talk) 07:50, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * How does the automatic taxobox work? The documentation is nil. My concern is that the automatic taxobox may exclude sub- and super- taxa. You'll know that in jumping spiders subfamilies can be important, e.g. Spartaeinae, incl. Portia (genus), have functional middle secondary eyes. And at higher levels superphyla (e.g. Ecdysozoa and Lophotrochozoa) are important - and Bilateria, Protostomia and Deuterostomia are very important, although I'm not sure which sub- or super- level to use for these (Linnean taxonomy breaks down around here). How does the automatic taxobox handle these. --Philcha (talk) 07:50, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The documentation for the automatic taxobox can be found at Template:Automatic_taxobox/doc/about and the subpages linked from there. It is possible to get it to show the sub-level taxa, you just have to configure the underlying templates accordingly. Most of the spider taxonomy hasn't been built out in the system yet, but I'm hoping to work on it some more when I have the time. If you want to help, feel free to jump in :) Kaldari (talk) 09:17, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That seems a heck of a project. I'm over-loaded at present (partly poor planning!) but I'll look at it in a few weeks. At first glance, my concerns include: performance (WP's articles already load glacially); maintenance (both updating content and fighting vandals and "Randy in Boise"); usability for editors who know the subjects but not the procedures; verification (citations?). Subject to these, I may be able to contribute in a few areas - parts of jumping spiders and perhaps enough to connect these to Araneae, after which the chain up to Arthropoda is relatively easy; Lophotrochozoa (I have a cladogram, and got some members to GA); might be able to get into Ecdysozoa and Bilateria; etc. --Philcha (talk) 10:55, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking a look. Here are some replies to your concerns:
 * performance: Once the output for an individual template instance is generated, the output is cached. So the performance footprint should normally be the same as for a normal taxobox (since they are both represented by a single template in the article). The initial output generation is slower than for the normal taxobox, but this only has to be done once at the beginning, and then once each time the cache expires or someone purges it.
 * maintenance: The entire reason this system was created was to make taxonomy maintenance easier and our taxoboxes more up-to-date and consistent. With the new system, if Boise in Idaho wants to move Araneae from Arthropoda to Chordata he'll have to convince every editor of every spider article that he is correct, since the system standardizes the taxonomy for everyone, i.e. it is consensus-based.
 * usability: This is a legitimate concern and will hopefully be improved in the coming months.
 * verification: The new system supports both name authorities and references for every taxon.
 * Kaldari (talk) 17:02, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Portia fimbriata
According to Template:Cite book: "pages or page: These parameters are for listing the pages relevant to the citation, not the total number of pages in the book." Kaldari (talk) 18:20, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I saw it well down the page. Thanks. --Philcha (talk) 19:24, 30 July 2011 (UTC)