User talk:Samsara/Archive02

NatSel archive
I archived the NatSel page, just because it became so increadibly long, no other reasons. Please assume good faith here. If you had dropped a single line to me, I would have put it back immediatly. Or if you had done so yourself, I would have not protested at all. I will put it back now. KimvdLinde 03:54, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Good luck
Hey Man, best of luck with the thesis, really liked the advice you stuck on bottom of your userpage. I thought of another one: "Remember: you can always improve Wikipedia, but you can never fix it".

Hope to see you back here someday. The same problems will still need fixing, but so will some other smaller ones that aren't so Sisyphean.

Best regards, Pete.Hurd 04:24, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Request for Arbitration
I have filed a request for Arbitration with regard to Marcosantezana here.KimvdLinde 06:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you
For your help with the footnotes. :) psch  e  mp  |  talk  19:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm really not wikistalking you. psch  e  mp  |  talk  19:30, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Marcosantezana
Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Requests for arbitration/Marcosantezana. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Requests for arbitration/Marcosantezana/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Requests for arbitration/Marcosantezana/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, --Tony Sidaway 18:08, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Unit of selection
I've reverted a large & confusing Marcosantezana edit on Unit of selection, and tried to expland the article on my own. However, I don't know so much about it really, and I just saw you admit to being a biologist, so I thought I'd invite you to fix it. JeffBurdges 19:11, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Samsara, thanks for your recent edits at Unit of selection. I tried to reorganize things and simplify, making a concession to Marco's "edition," although immediately afterward he went and added more convoluted stuff. I don't think the right thing to do is neccessarily jump back to Jeff's (better as a final edit) simplified version. Then again, I'm fairly new to wikipedia. I certainly don't want to get into an edit war. There is tons of work that needs to be done on this article, and Marco does know something about the subject, however convoluted his writing and difficult he is to "collaborate" with. This is an encyclopedia, not a contest of who knows more about a subject. Safay 19:07, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Darwins Rottwelier
Responed to your request to supply refs for this label of Richard Dawkins. Google returned about 85,500 results. I refed the first three. Hope this helps --KaptKos 13:05, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Turns out this was already referenced in the article, missed it due to inadequate scan --KaptKos 13:58, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

A KISS Rfa Thanks
Thank you, I've been promoted. psch e  mp  |  talk  01:36, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Kin selection
The Kin selection article really needs someone with a good background to make sure its somewhat accurate. I have been trying to make it readable and informative, but I am not a biologist. Could you please take a look? Thanks -Ravedave 02:01, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles
Hey Samsara,

I'm not quite sure whether you are back or not, but it seems that you are active again? Anyway, a new WikiProject has been created which is dedicated to Amphibians and Reptiles. I though that you would be interested, and could sign up. Hope to see you there. :) --liquidGhoul 12:01, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Litefantastic

 * Thank you for removing me, but I still stand by my point. There's nothing that can stop you from contacting anyone you want in the hope's they'll participate, but I was hoping you'd leave me out as a courtesy. If the other people on your list don't mind, then who am I to say they shouldn't be getting these messages. My personal stance as an average John W. Pedian is that people don't like getting random calls to do things. That's just me, though; you probably shouldn't worry too much unless you get other complaints. -Litefantastic 23:32, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * And I'm sorry if I failed to measure up to whatever you were scoring me as. Really. I was going for "annoyed but polite;" I've explained my stance and I'm not challenging your authority. What did I miss? -Litefantastic 23:36, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Featured Wikipedian - edit counter
I noticed you removed the Featured Wikipedian section, stating in the edit summary that the edit counter was broken. It seems to be working now. Brian Jason Drake 04:05, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Advice
Hello. I have been a new member to Wikipedia for a few months and haven't found one area where I could make a significant impact. However, I am extremely interested in Biology and I believe that I can become more immersed into Wikipedia by focusing on a certain theme of pages. Since I noticed that on most Biology related pages, you are regarded as an authority for the subject, I wanted to come to you and ask how which Wikiprojects you would recommend I join within the large subject of Biology. So far I have only been monitoring the Evolution article and casually viewing the genetics, darwinism, abiogenesis, and similarly themed pages. I hope to hear from you soon. Thank you.--Jonthecheet 05:14, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the advice, but I'm still getting my feet wet in Biology. I currently dont have that much experience in the subject so I expect to be just a generalist that does minor edits, at least for now. What I did notice was that the Biology side sites about Ammonia and the Nitrogen Waste are weak or non-existant. For example, the Urea_cycle, Nitrogen_Cycle, and its sub-pages could use some attention. Also I wasn't sure if there were any articles making reference to the differences between Urea, Uric Acid, and Ammonia and why some animals favor production of one substance over another.--Jonthecheet 08:59, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Biobarnstar
Hi Samsara, you wrote regarding the biobarnstar suggestion "Oppose until the design is shown to be biologically meaningful. All I see is randomly selected patterns. Biologists deserve better." Please allow me to say that if you had spent 3 hours designing a 1st draft, you would have liked a kinder comment. But it shows me that the design is not sufficiently clear. So, I tried to explain the design on the proposal page. Please make some suggestion, so I can make a better 2nd draft for the biocommunity. What you would like to see? I hope I can win your approval for a new draft & incorporate your suggestions. All the best, Jasu 13:56, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi again, thanks for the reply on my talk pages. You have a point. It's more a molecular biology barnstar. I like your idea with the 5 kingdoms. Let's see how the discussion goes on at the Barnstar page. Ciao, Jasu 16:36, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

In reference to Bio-barnstar proposal: What is the next move?
There was much talk lately about the bio-barnstar proposal, but these past 5 days there hasn't been more said. What is next? What is there to be done? Can we move this foward...? It is the first time I involve myself in a barnstar proposal and I do not know what is the procedure. I seem to read there is quite a support for a bio-barnstar and a considerable preference for the second proposal... Please, could someone tell me what next? Thanks.--Francisco Valverde 17:40, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Flamingo
Sorry, but I don't know how I was meant to get the "facts". You FPC description was worded like you were trying to find a quality bird photo worthy of FP into the article. It is not up to you to put that photo up for FP, you can replace the taxobox image with the original, and if that contributor pipes up and complains, you have a very good argument that it is a FP, and the other is not. Then, it is up to the contributor to put it up for FPC. --liquidGhoul 23:19, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

natSel new page
We (User:Gleng and me) have been writing a new Natural selection page to replace the relative bad one that is currently around. The new version, for which we are inviting comments to improve it, can be found here: User:KimvdLinde/Natural_selection. I would appreciate if you can have a look at it and let me know what you think. Kim van der Linde at venus 23:03, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the comments. Feel free to add references (one of the major things that need to be done) and clarify stuff directly in the article. Kim van der Linde at venus 16:05, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Cane Toad
Could you please have a look over the Cane Toad article. I have pretty much finished content wise (just need to find out the reasoning for calling it: marinus), and am on the refining sides of things. So could you please advise on anything you think is missing and any gramatical/flow problems you see, I would really appreciate it. Ignore the intro, it is crap at the moment (I hate them), unless of course you want to fix it :). Thanks. --liquidGhoul 14:49, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
 * It is now up for peer review if there is anything you would to discuss about it. Thanks for the contribution. --liquidGhoul 06:43, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Lol, don't worry. I didn't realise what you meant, but it made me look up the spelling of it, and realise it was wrong. So it was all good in the end. If someone changes it, someone will revert. --liquidGhoul 22:15, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks
Really kind of you, many thanks. Yes I'm at E but on WP I'm just a prole and happy that way.Gleng 20:29, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I had already replied to this at my page, but I should do it here as well. Thanks! Kim van der Linde at venus 17:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Gone live!
I just copied the newly developed version of the natural selection page to the main space after it was clear that most editors supported the new version over the current version. Kim van der Linde at venus 20:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the nomination.Kim van der Linde at venus 17:55, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject History of Biology
I got frustrated with Monera (the wikipedia article) and worried about Ernst Haeckel (the article), and started WikiProject History of Biology. Now I'm trying to alert WikiProject History of Science participants who lean this way to help me focus on these problems. --arkuat (talk) 02:55, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for signing up. --arkuat (talk) 01:57, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank for attention to Citation Tool
Your changes to the project page are way groovy. Feel free to touch it up as you feel is useful. Maybe I can find some time to add some more capabilities soon. LotLE × talk 17:40, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Dual inheritance theory

 * Hi. I don't know if you're aware of it, but there's an article on dual inheritance theory which, in part, applies population genetics (primarily from the work of Luca Cavalli-Sforza and Marcus Feldman) to cultural evolution. I thought you might want to check it out. EPM 21:39, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the barnstar
Hi Samsara ! Thanks a lot for that lovely looking barnstar. Shyamal 02:49, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Kim's RfA
Thanks for your comments on the page for KimvdLinde's RfA. It is true that Marcos was way out of line. However, Pete Hurd and I were able to work with editing Heritability without having to go to arbitration. Maybe it was because there weren't so many editors. Possibly, it was because we were better able to understand was Marcos was trying to say and treated it as a criticism of the current way. That meant we could change the wording to improve the clarity, without so much acrimony.

I actually had some constructive conversations with Kim early on, but was turned off by three events: The first was when everyone else had worked on the first paragraph (including me) and had pretty much decided it was OK. She said it was worse than Marcos' version. The second was her trying to frame the argument as modern (her definition) vs Darwinian. In this case, I thought she used Darwinian as a perjorative statement. The last was a brief interaction with her on the Quantitative genetics page (by then, I was fed up, so I gave up quickly). Making the disambiguation page was totally out of line, whoever came up with the idea. Disambiguation pages are designed to direct readers to different articles with the same name. I viewed this as part of her efforts to marginalize those who do not believe exactly as she does.

What is even more depressing about the entire thing is that, for the most part, I agree with her. Her views of quantitative traits are unusual, but it wasn't a big deal -- I simply added my material to the heritability page rather than the quantitative genetics page.

We will see how well things go in the next month or so as editors work on her version of natural selection. I'll probably contribute, as the figure is not annotated very well.

Cheers. Ted 17:32, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Re: Template USD
It is times like going through all those template references when I wish I were a robot. Thank you for your heartening comment. Of course, if I were a robot then, despite my efficiency, I would not be heartened by it. So there is some good and bad. - Centrx 18:33, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

FARC - DNA Repair
Hi! Your criticism of DNA repair (lack of references/footnotes) has been addressed by another user; perhaps you'd like to have another look at your nomination and see if there's anything further to criticize? Thanks! User:The Disco King (not signed in) 204.40.1.129 19:50, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Saffron
Whatever that markup problem was, it seems to have gone away. Perhaps Vibber or someone else was testing something. Thanks. Saravask 18:09, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * See this. Saravask 18:47, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Hey thanks, that really made my day. :-) But you should note that I didn't help create Harvard citation and friends &mdash; I was just one among many others who used it in articles (just look at this). User:COGDEN deserves all the credit. Thanks all the same, though. Saravask 20:17, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Natural selection
I have foolishly tried to start a discussion on Talk:Natural selection concerning the definition of natural selection. If you have time, I'd like you to contribute -- or to tell me I'm a complete whack-o. Thanks. Ted 17:47, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I only brought it up since it seems that we are starting to go back into the name-calling again. ( or ). It may be too early, and it is probably futile. I see the alternative as continual edit reversions as editors grow weary of the process. Look at all the qualified editors who no longer visit this site because of the problems.

But, then again, I'm an idealistic ivory tower sort of guy, I suppose. If it goes nowhere, then I guess it goes nowhere. Ted 18:16, 30 May 2006 (UTC)