User talk:Shellnut/Archive 1

 Hello Shellnut, and Welcome to Wikipedia!  Welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you enjoy the encyclopedia and want to stay. As a first step, you may wish to read the Introduction.

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 * If you would like to play around with your new Wiki skills the Sandbox is for you.

Shellnut, good luck, and have fun. --Invertzoo (talk) 13:15, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

A big welcome!
Hello Shellnut, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thanks for your messages on the Gastropod Project talk page; it is really great to have another mollusk person on board. If you look at my user page you will pretty much see who I am, including my real name. Like you I am a member of the San Diego Shell Club; I lived out there for over a year in 1970/71. (I currently volunteer behind the scenes at AMNH and am a member of the New York Shell Club, which is sadly almost defunct now.) Do you read the Festivus on a regular basis? If so you will have seen a lot of my papers, especially in the last year or two. By the way, whenever you need some help understanding how to do stuff on Wikipedia, please feel free to ask me on my talk page, I certainly don't mind explaining things, in fact I enjoy that. There's a lot to learn at first but it gets easier as you go along.

I would like to invite you to join WikiProject Gastropods, so here's the invitation:

All good wishes to you and again, welcome to you, Invertzoo (talk) 13:15, 1 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hello, and thank you for the big welcome! 8) How do I join the WikiProject Gastropods page/group?  I really need a little "idiot proof" help with the syntax/commands to do the comupter end of stuff here as it is my first time and all.  I am not computer illiterate (quite contrary, I was a computer geek in the 1970's to 1980's) but I have let it slip to avoid being more nerdy than I am already.  All comments and criticisms are welcome.  I look forward to your tutilidge.  Thank you!


 * P.S. - I read your page, but missed your real name in there somehow.


 * David P. Berschauer, aka Shellnut Shellnut (talk) 19:45, 1 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi again Shellnut. I am happy to try to explain the Wikipedia markup language to you bit by bit as you need it, so just ask me. Actually there are numerous help pages on Wikipedia, for example here, but it may possibly be easier to learn what to do by simply looking for a place where someone else has already done it, and then hitting "edit", examining the edit page, copying what they did, and then customizing it for what you want. That is how I learned the markup back in 2007. However, if you do want to look at help pages instead, in the Wikipedia search slot write "WP:" without the quote marks, and then add a word or two indicating what you want to find out about... (like "Wp:images" or "WP: tables"). That usually (but not always) will show you a choice of pages to go to. Oh, so my name is on my user page (not my talk page) and if you look at the table of contents under the pretty flag box you will see "7 Real life identity". Click on that. Do you read each issue of the Festivus? I have had 3 papers in it this year and another one is supposed to be coming out in the October issue. By the way, Nerds rule the world now, so don't be afraid to let your inner nerdiness blossom! Best wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 20:15, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello again and thank you. Yes I read The Festivus every month! I have also written a few articles over the years for The Festivus, Of Sea & Shore (formerly), and The Cone Collector. Back when I was a student I wrote and published a few abstracts and peer reviewed papers as well. Now I am a practicing attorney, shell nut and collector in my spare time. Proudly, I am a nerd. I just let the computer stuff sit on the shelf for a few decades - not too much as I wrote and modified a database program for organizing and maintaining a museum style collection!!! I was reading the "Help" pages when you wrote me back. I guess I need to figure out how to officially join the WikiProject Gastropods page/group, modify my talk page or user page to add a photo and some cool stuff (it is pretty dull right now). I am hoping to spark some debate on systematics with my comments. I have e-mailed Dr. Puillandre to try to get copies of his recent 2011 articles, as I no longer have access to a bio sci library and the journals charge an arm and a leg for on line access. Thanks for your friendship and help. I need a mentor!Shellnut (talk) 20:27, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Hey! You worked out how to join the gastropods project! Well done!

Donating and uploading new images that you made yourself is a whole big thing in itself, but if you can find an image that is already on Wikipedia, it's very easy to add it to your talk page (or any page actually) and I can tell you how if you tell me which image you would first like to add. Maybe a cone shell? Invertzoo (talk) 00:19, 2 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I had a couple of things in mind. First, I thought I'd add a photo to my User profile since I see a lot of others have done things with theirs and mine looks quite boring. Second, I have been taking some pretty good macro photos of shells that could be uploaded and donated.  Just something I am playing with right now and it could be used to spice up some of the gastropod species pages.  Is there anything in particular you would like me to edit in the gastropods or mollusc area in general? Shellnut (talk) 02:27, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Shell images
Hello again Shellnut. If you have shell images that you took yourself or are about to take yourself,and that you own the total copyright to, and that you would like to donate to the cause, that would be great! You need to bear in mind however that any content you donate, you are giving away, and it can be used by anyone, anywhere in the world, at any time, for any purpose, even commercially. If you don't like that idea, it's better not to give stuff. Of course the same thing is true of any writing you may do on an article.

I don't know how much you found out already about giving images, but this is a page that tells you basic stuff about uploading images. As you will see, you need to upload them to Wikimedia Commons, which is a huge library of free files of every kind including hundreds of thousands of images. The first thing I would do is to get yourself established (logged in) on Wikimedia Commons, using the same user name "Shellnut". For example, here is my user page on Wikimedia Commons. Actually you might like to log in on all of the Wikimedia overall projects using Unified log-in. Then your user name (Shellnut) will be yours and yours only on any project you fancy working on, including Wikipedia, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikinews, Wikispecies and so on.

So you can understand the context of all this, you may want to read a little bit about our "parent company" here.

So anyway, once you are logged in on Wikimedia Commons (often just referred to casually as "Commons") and you want to go ahead and upload the first of the images that you made yourself and completely own the copyright to, we have an upload "wizard" that makes it quite easy to do. Here is the upload wizard page. Once the image is uploaded to Commons I can tell you the markup to use to get it to appear on any page in Wikipedia.

Best wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 13:54, 2 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hello and thank you Invertzoo!!! I have successfully uploaded three photos to "WikiCommons", including a photo of Acanthotrophon sentis ... which I noted was on the list of species with no image, and a note that a photo is needed.  Also a Trochidae and a Calliostomatidae, both very unusual specimens in my book.  Now what?  Let's say I wanted to put a photo on a Wikipedia page, or on my User Page, say next to the Conus geographicus?  I assume it is a mere matter of syntax.  Also, once I am logged on to Wikipedia Commons, why can't I get my main User Page or Talk link back without logging out?  Thanks again for the mentoring!!!!  Shellnut (talk) 04:14, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Well done! I see you tried to get that first image to show on your user page. The way you set it up it should have been OK, but clearly it was not, because the link did not work. Usually when that happens it is because the title of the image is not spelled exactly the same way you spelled it on the Commons page. I found that image on Commons and I see that the name of the file has no dashes and also the species name is "sentus" not "sentis". Once I fixed those details, the image shows fine, as you can see.

As for your other question, I hope I understand what you are asking... Wikimedia Commons versus the English Wikipedia, are two separate projects. If you are logged in on Commons, your user page and talk page there show as links at the top of the window. Those links are not links to your Wikipedia user page and talk page. To have those show, you need to get back into Wikipedia. You don't need to actually log out of Commons to do that, but you need to get onto a Wikipedia page, either by simply backtracking on your browser, or by clicking on a bookmark (which you have may possibly already have set up) to your User Page on Wikipedia. Have I explained that well enough? Invertzoo (talk) 12:16, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I added an image to your user page
Hey Shellnut, I hope you don't mind, I took the liberty of adding an image of a cone snail to your user page. That way you can if you want to, look at the edit page of your user page and see the markup I used to get the image to appear there.

You can also click on the image itself and see its page on Wikipedia, and you can then click on the blue link on that page where it says... Information from its "description page" on Wikimedia Commons, and that link will take you to the page on Wikimedia Commons, where that image originates. This image as you will see "is in the public domain because it is a work of the US Federal Government". 15:30, 2 October 2011 Invertzoo (talk | contribs)

I also added a service badge. Feel free to delete either or add other images or whatever you like. Invertzoo (talk) 21:46, 2 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the service badge!!! I assume this is what allows me into Wikimedia Commons to upload photos, etc.  Shellnut (talk) 04:16, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Well actually the service badge is just for decoration, and to let people know how new you are or how experienced you are. It doesn't really have any other useful functions at all. What allows you to upload stuff to Commons is the fact that you are now a registered user there, a user with the user name Shellnut. Invertzoo (talk) 12:21, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Learning stuff
Well done. I am glad you worked out how to sign your name when leaving a message, and also that two equals signs at the beginning and end of words will create a heading. A subheading require three equals signs at both ends, a sub sub heading takes four and so on. Invertzoo (talk) 15:36, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit summaries please?
Hi, it's me again. I wanted to say one thing which is rather important. When you make an edit, before you hit the Save button, or even the Preview button, please try to remember to take the time to go down to the slot right below the editing window and put in an edit summary. Just a few words is all you need, like for example you could put, "new message" or "reply" or "copyediting", "adding an image", "typo"... you get the idea. When you do that, it enables other editors to see what you have done without having to check each edit individually. It's a small thing but an important one. it also shows that you know what you are doing, and gives a good impression. Thanks so much, Invertzoo (talk) 17:36, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Suggest you remove your email address
Hello again Shellnut. I would suggest you remove your email address from your user page, for privacy's sake and because there are spider bots that go all over the web searching for and collecting email addresses so that spam and phishing emails can be sent to them. It seems that you already set up your Wikipedia email link OK so you don't need to also list your actual email address. Best, Invertzoo (talk) 21:45, 2 October 2011 (UTC)


 * OK, DONE. Shellnut (talk) 04:17, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Good. Invertzoo (talk) 12:18, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

What to do in gastropods?
Hello Shellnut, You asked me what you might do in the gastropod articles. Other than uploading new images you have made, there are all kinds of other things I could suggest, but with Wikipedia it's important that an editor finds things that he or she can enjoy doing, or take pride or pleasure in. I suspect that a fair amount (but not all) of what needs doing might not be interesting enough for you right now, or might require more knowledge of the markup etc than you currently have. However it's always good to copyedit, and that does not require very advanced skills. Here for example is a table of the "most popular" articles in our project. "Most popular" means the articles that are most often consulted by the general public. So the article pearl gets over 2000 views a day, conch gets over 800 a day and so on. These are not necessarily what we think are the most important articles, but because they are consulted so often, it's important that they be in good shape. You could certainly look through some of them and see if you find anything that needs fixing. If you decide you want to add content it's supposed to have a citation, but copyediting is fine for anyone to do. The advantage of copyediting is that it gives you practice with the code and things like edit summaries, and is not too hard for a beginner. And you can always ask me something if you need to. With these articles it's good to read what's on the talk page too, because sometimes the more recent messages may give you an idea about what needs doing. Best, Invertzoo (talk) 22:41, 2 October 2011 (UTC)


 * OK, so I take it "have fun", "play nice", and "share" are all part of the basic rules. I would probably end up posting a lot of photos of shells in articles that are lacking decent photos.  I have recently gotten into macro photography and since I have a lot of species to play with it will be fun to share their photos - which incidentally I can use as a dual purpose benefit: (1) Add them to the Wikipedia photo gallery, and (2) put the photos in my database program as well to improve my own collection and records.  I will TRY to stay out of systematics debates (i.e. putting an opinion out there for the world to read), but do want to see that differences of opinion among professionals in the field are aired rather than making it look like there is no dispute (like the "theory" of gravity which has yet to be disproven).  I hope that my two article edits (on Conidae and Conoidea) were even handed and appropriate.  Please let me know if I made any edits therein that are too one sided or inappropriate.  That is the only "hot" topic I am aware of having taken a position on out there, i.e. at first I was firmly against jumping on the T&T bandwagon, but the recent molecular phylogenetic articles seemed to support it so I relented and finally changed the data in my shell collection database and printed new data tags.  I have yet to put the tags in the drawers or rearrange the shells though.  It will be A LOT of work.  Thank you!!! Shellnut (talk) 04:27, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes indeed, have fun, play nice and share are an important part of the culture on Wikipedia, except we have fancier names for those concepts! Just wanted to say that today I will be very busy with doctors' appointments so you may not hear back from me again untill tomorrow. I will look at your Conidae edits later if I get a chance. Invertzoo (talk) 12:40, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hello Invertzoo! I hope all is well.  I have had some run in the Calliostomatidae this evening, adding photos and articles on species not listed.  I hope that the format is correct as I tried to copy existing articles in the genus Calliostoma.  Please let me know if I got it right. Shellnut (talk) 06:00, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

The Acanthotrophon image
I went ahead and put your image into the Wikipedia article Acanthotrophon sentus. If you look at that page you will see that the image is inside what we call the "taxobox". I also gave it a caption. If you look on the edit page you will see that the syntax used to put the image into the taxobox is a little bit different from the code that you and I used to put the image of onto your user page. For practice, you may want to copy what I did in order to put the same image and caption into the genus article, Acanthotrophon.

By the way, I would recommend that you put a little something on your User page on Commons. For example I put on my Commons page, "Hi, I am Invertzoo. Most of my contributions are as an editor on English Wikipedia under the same name. If you want to, you can leave a message for me there at: XXX " If you like, I will put the link in for you as I think you don't yet know how to do that.

Best wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 12:35, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

With other images you make, if you have Photoshop or a similar program, maybe you can crop off a lot of the black background at the sides before you upload the image. It will look better that way. Best, Invertzoo (talk) 21:39, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you Invertzoo! I will check out the syntax on the image inserts and play with the Acanthotrophon genus article.  BTW, you are right ... I do not know how to do links, or reference footnotes, etc.  I am just learning the basics about navigating Wikipedia and how to edit, save, and a little bit of wordprocessing syntax.  I think I need to make a cheat sheet!!!  So, PLEASE continue to assist as you have been until either your patience runs out or my ability catches up!  Best of luck later today.  Shellnut (talk) 22:37, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hello Invertzoo! I hope that you are feeling alright after all those tests.  I have been playing with uploading photos I have taken, editing small articles, etc.  One basic question I have relates to how to place images on the screen side by side in a row rather than top down in a column?  I think I did a pretty good job with Acanthotrophon carduus the other day.  Thank you again. Shellnut (talk) 20:50, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi again Shellnut. Thanks for asking, actually I am more than a bit wiped out, but I should be feeling somewhat better by next week. Yes, creating a cheat sheet is a really great idea! I still have the cheat sheets I made for myself when I was new on here, and I still look things up them sometimes. (I made them as Microsoft Word documents.)

As for making images show as a row, that is called creating a "gallery". It's not difficult. Here is how you do it. (Take a look at the edit page to see the markup.)

I very much like what you did with the Acanthotrophon carduus article! Well done! Actually I am delighted you joined us here because for several years we have really needed someone (or ideally several people) like you, who have these interesting shells and can make images and upload them to the correct articles! And thanks for adding all the info in Description and Range! I can't believe you worked out how to do the inline citation by yourself! I am impressed!

And well done on remembering the edit summaries! And your links are good too! You are learning well and quite quickly too.

By the way, I made a very quick (not very good at all) "Stub" article for Clanculus stigmatarius, simply in order to have a place to put your image. Right now the extremely stubby article has no citations at all, which is not good, but I suppose it is better than having nothing on the species at all, and your image of course adds a lot to its value.


 * Thank you Invertzoo. Sorry to hear that you are "wiped out" from the doctors.  I hope all is well.


 * The gallery syntax is very helpful. Does it start on the left side?  Also, I went into Acanthotrophon and added images in the taxobox, but could not get both Acanthotrophon sentus and Acanthotrophon carduus to show up in the same taxobox.  Can that be done or did it have to be done as two separate taxoboxes?  I really want to feel comfortable navigating Wikipedia and making edits where I have information, photos and citations.  Also, how do you search for images in Wikimedia Commons?  I can barely navigate myself into that site and upload an image, and it tends to knock me out of Wikipedia when I go into and out of Wikimedia Commons unless I do it in a separate tab (this seems to work very well as a backup plan).  Do you have copies of those old "cheat sheets" that you could share?  Thanks again for all of your mentoring!!!  Shellnut (talk) 22:29, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Shellnut, I am a member of the Gastropods project. I help out with software expertise. I am glad you are adding images to stubs that were created using the bot. I have added the image just below the taxobox. Each page should only have one taxobox. — Ganeshk  ( talk ) 23:54, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi again Shellnut, Invertzoo here. Thanks for asking; I am still pretty exhausted.
 * Yes the gallery always starts on the left side.
 * A lot of people feel strongly that there should only be one image in a taxobox, however, because you asked me how to put two into a taxobox, I have done that so you can look at the edit page and see how I did it. Then I will change it back to the other way again so one of the images is below the taxobox. (Or you can do that if you can work out how.) Some of our "good articles" such as Lobatus gigas have 2 images in the taxobox, but the images show very different things. In a long article it might be worth for example having one image of the live animal and one of the shell. But these short little articles were created by Ganesh's bot (robotic software) and I think perhaps he wants to keep them standardized so he can work with them some more in the future using the bot. If you read this Ganesh, am I right?
 * Hi Invertzoo, Not really. I wasn't aware of the image2 parameter and so decided to place it under the taxobox. I did not have any standardization in mind. The way it looks now is really neat. — Ganeshk  ( talk ) 15:57, 8 October 2011 (UTC)


 * As for my old cheat sheets, I think they would not really be any use to you because in many cases I simply list pieces of code without explaining what they are. And they are haphazard lists too, not organized at all. Sorry about that.
 * As Ganesh mentioned, the book "Wikipedia the Missing Manual" is pretty good. A few years ago I bought the actual physical book for convenience, but it does exist here on Wikipedia too.
 * I will get back to you on your questions about Commons.

Thanks for all your hard work! Invertzoo (talk) 15:32, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit summaries
Another reminder: please fill in an edit summary before you hit the save button. Thanks, Invertzoo (talk) 13:05, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for remembering this every time now! Invertzoo (talk) 21:58, 5 October 2011 (UTC)


 * No problem! It just has to become a habit.  I finished playing with Clanculus stigmatarius and added some depth to the stub article.  I found some really neat citations on line.  It is truly amazing what has been scanned and is out there on the internet now-a-days.  Shellnut (talk) 23:33, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Re: Computer syntax and "how to's"
Hi Shellnut, great job with the new articles. I am not aware of any cheat sheets here. This book, Help: Wikipedia: The Missing Manual may be useful to you. — Ganeshk  ( talk ) 11:47, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Links to Author
Hi Shellnut, yes, there is a List of malacologists and I utilise the Wikispecies' List - more general too. Cheers. Berton (talk) 16:41, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Berton! This is a very useful reference.  I can see that a lot of the articles on prominent malacologists/conchologists are thin at best.  Clear room for Wiki Work!! Shellnut (talk) 04:02, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes the List of malacologists and almost all the individual articles on malacologists need a lot of work. If you ever feel so inclined that would be a great area for improvements! Invertzoo (talk) 17:54, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Benthastelena haliarchus
Just saw this article in the new pages queue; can I just say how fantastic it is? It's great to see new editors "getting" Wikipedia :). Keep up the good work, and I hope you stay around - if you need anything, drop me a line on my talkpage, although it looks like you've got things pretty much sorted already! Cheers, Ironholds (talk) 03:43, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello Ironholds. Thank you for the positive reinforcement! I have been working on adding pages and photos of lesser known species that I have in my personal collection. I joined the Project Gastropods section because, well ... I AM a shell nut!!! Any editorial pointers, syntax, hints, suggestions, etc. ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED. I hope to be able to contribute some positive information and photos as time goes on. So far I think I have added over a dozen articles and quite a few more photos. Let me know what you think I can do to improve quality. Shellnut (talk) 03:53, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
 * To be honest, you seem to be doing fine so far :). If it helps, I've got access to quite a few academic databases - possibly some info on shells in there as well, so if you find yourself lacking sources for something, give me a poke and I'll see what I can find. Ironholds (talk) 04:44, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the vote of confidence, although I still do not feel quite comfortable with the formating and syntax. Hints, tips, suggestions and mentoring are all appreciated! :) Shellnut (talk) 04:47, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Re sources; doesn't look like it, I'm afraid :(. If you give me a specific topic I can search for articles on that topic, but those two specific journals, no. Sorry! Ironholds (talk) 03:44, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Project tag
Hi Shellnut, I wanted to drop a note about adding project tags to new articles. It is done by adding WikiProject Gastropods to the discussion page of the article. For example, see Talk:Benthastelena haliarchus. More information at WikiProject Gastropods/Assessment. — Ganeshk  ( talk ) 04:06, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Please help me out here Ganeshk. I do not know what a "discussion page" is, and what does adding a project tag to an article do? I know that I am still "green" at this so I want to understand what I need to do and where to do it. These shells are species that I have in my collection and the stubs are either not there or have no photos, so I am trying to add content and info using my library and sources. Not all of these species have been added to WoRMS yet, and since I am not able to do so there all I can do is add them here in Wikipedia. Your mentoring is appreciated. Shellnut (talk) 04:11, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Every Wikipedia article has a discussion page (also called a talk page). It is used to discuss improvements to the article. The talk pages are additionally used to categorize articles under WikiProjects. The project tags help projects like Gastropods keep track of and maintain the articles in their scope. The project tags have quality and importance parameters that allow article assessment. They help create statistics like these:
 * It is okay if the species are not available on WoRMS as long as you are adding other references (which you are). — Ganeshk  ( talk ) 04:23, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It is okay if the species are not available on WoRMS as long as you are adding other references (which you are). — Ganeshk  ( talk ) 04:23, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * So it appears that most articles are a "stub" and I suppose that means that a genus or a single species page article would qualify a "stub" - which is what I am doing. I am trying to use the most up to date systematics, but many of these species only have older literature that can be cited and use WoRMS or other secondary sources to update them to genus of family.  Let me know where you feel I can improve what I am doing out there.  Thanks for your ideas and help. Shellnut (talk) 04:29, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, most Gastropod articles are stubs. That's okay since Wikipedia is a work in progress and is never finished. As you add more content to the article, the quality will improve to Start-Class, A-Class etc. See Lobatus gigas for an example of GA-Class. — Ganeshk  ( talk ) 04:43, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the help Ganeshk! Any hints, tips, suggestions or mentoring are greatly appreciated.  Shellnut (talk) 04:48, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Watchlists
Hi Shellnut, Are you watching your pages? It really helps to keep track of changes that others are making to the articles you had created or you are interested in. You can keep track of project pages as well. Let me know if you have any questions. — Ganeshk  ( talk ) 05:00, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Ganeshk, yes I just figured that out in the last day or so and found a few notes, comments, and learned about the discussion pages and the ratings. I have seen a few of my articles get rated as "stubs" and am adding more content to a few of the Calliostoma articles right now, with cites.  I initially set up the articles to showcase images.  Query, why do some "discussion pages" note that an image is needed when one is already posted?  Thanks again for all of your mentoring!! Shellnut (talk) 05:12, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The articles with expanded sections can be categorized as start-class. The image requests were added earlier when the article had no images. These can be removed once the requested images have been added. Here is an example. — Ganeshk  ( talk ) 23:10, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi again Shellnut. As Ganesh says, when you see a gastropod talk page that says the article "needs a photo", whereas in fact it has one, is just because someone at some point added an image and forgot to change the template to reflect that. Wherever you notice that, maybe you would be kind enough to change the template so it is correct? Thanks. And as Ganesh says, once there is some info in the various sections, the article can be rated "Start". I may have carelessly called some "stubs" when they are in fact Start class, so forgive me. By the way you are doing great and learning very fast! Best, Invertzoo (talk) 00:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello again
Thank you Shellnut for checking in with me... and what a nice surprise to get a barnstar from you! Many thanks! My health is basically OK thanks, but I did spend 24 hours in the hospital day before yesterday and that had nothing to do with the sports injury in my knee which currently has me on crutches. I had a migraine bad enough to mimic a stroke and they thought they had to test me for everything. I hope I have used up all my "bad health" points for the time being. Invertzoo (talk) 21:08, 15 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Invertzoo, glad to hear that you are well! Sports injuries happen, and they generally get better on a predictable schedule.  I personally do not know anything about migranes from my own experience, but my wife and daughter tell me how "lovely" they are - and I can tell from the change in their demeanors.  Hope it gets better soon! Shellnut (talk) 01:13, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Hopefully the knee will be a lot better by early December. It's a severe ACL tear. Invertzoo (talk) 21:06, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Ouch! I know that particular one ... and it hurts a lot!  Are your doctor's the "slice and dice" type, or are they trying therapy?  Best wishes!!!!Shellnut (talk) 02:51, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No surgery, they are using the conservative approach. Invertzoo (talk) 22:24, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank goodness! I hate the "slice and dice" approach.  When I tore my ACL and the medial menoscus in 1979 the success rate of surgical intervention was 80%, and the doctor was bragging about that.  I told him NO, and that was in the days before PT so I just made up my own exercise regeim ... ran track and field that spring and wrestled the next year at varsity level.  Twenty years later another orthopedic doctor told me that being a "dumb jock" was smarter than having the surgery.  I am glad to hear that your doctor is conservative.  Be nice to your knee, do your exercises and it will treat you well.Shellnut (talk) 22:29, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your kind note Shellnut, yes, I am doing my exercises religiously and making good progress. However I have more adhesions (scar tissue) within the knee that need to be broken up, and that is not the most pleasant of processes. But I need to be in good shape to go shelling, a strong motivation. Let me know one by one when you need to know specific how-to things for your Wikipedia work. Invertzoo (talk) 18:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Two small things
Hi again Shellnut, I just wanted to say two things: 1. When you are replying to a message it's clearer if you indent your reply by putting a colon at the very beginning of your reply sentence. As you can see if you look, I went through your messages indenting them in order to try to make your talk page clearer as to who is writing at any given point.

2. There is one more small idea I wanted to mention to you, but right now I can't think what it is, so let me get back to you on that.

Best wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 21:26, 15 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank's for the indent tip with the "colon" - I'll try to use it now. All tips are welcome additions to my small repitoire of syntax and skills with Wikipedia.  One thing I could use is access to on line journal librarys like bio lib or wiley, as I can't pull put the important recent articles on molecular phylogeny to read and cite in the Wikipedia articles.  Back in the day at UCI, WSU, or FSU I had daily access to "the stacks" and could pull journal articles at will.  Argh!  Any ideas? Shellnut (talk) 01:18, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi again. Yes almost all of us have this same problem. And online researching things we run into paywalls all the time. I don't really know what to suggest. Invertzoo (talk) 18:45, 19 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Other than asking the authors to e-mail a "reprint" or driving to a library, the "pay walls" as you put it leave us in the dark. So much for science spreading knowledge!  I do understand, however, journal publishers want to make money selling their journals.  The problem I see is that their per article usage fee is astronomical.  Maybe Wikipedia or some other large organization could negotiate a special contract rate and get a registered editor password?  Just a thought. Shellnut (talk) 18:59, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a nice idea, but I doubt the journals would go for it because then we would be posting the info here where anyone could look at it for free. Invertzoo (talk) 18:06, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Looking for academic journals?
I saw your comment here. I'm going to be at a university library tomorrow or the next day. What articles are you looking for. If I find them I'll email you a copy. Protonk (talk) 06:28, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you Protonk! I would like to get a digital copy of the following articles:
 * Bouchet & Rocroi (2010) Nomenclator of Bivalve Families, Malacology 52(2) 1-184
 * Taylor, Williams, Glover & Dyal (2007) A Molecular Phylogeny of Heterdont Bivalves, Zoologica Scripta 36(6) 587-606
 * Puillandre, Kantor, Sysoev, Couloux, Meyer, Rawlings, Todd & Bouchet (2011) The Dragon Tamed? A Molecular Phylogeny of the Conoidea, Journal of Molluscan Studies 77: 259-272
 * Thank you for the generous offer!Shellnut (talk) 19:46, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Great. I'll take a look tomorrow and email you if I have some success. Protonk (talk) 23:41, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Careful of Copyright law!
Hello again Shellnut. I finally got around to checking a description of yours against the Myra Keen book. I have to explain that on Wikipedia we are NOT allowed to copy text from most places you can think of, because in general the sentences and phrases are all protected under copyright. This is true of most shell books that are under 100 years old.

For example, your section: "This species resembles Calliostoma bonita except that it has a lower spire, reaches a larger size, has more subdued color markings, and the basal and peripheral carinations are not as strong. The peripheral carination is higher on the whorl than on C. bonita.  Height 24 mm, diameter 28 mm.  No intergradation is known and the species are .... distinct" is taken verbatim from Keen's description of C. palmeri.

And, "The tan shell is maculated with brown, sculptured with smooth spiral threads on which are scattered bright brown dots. The shoulder is concave, and there is one strong carination. The base has a bright purple channel bordering the inner lip." is taken verbatim from Keen's description of C. bonita. I am assuming that you did not know this is not allowed and that all of your descriptions so far are pretty much copied from one book or another.

What you really have to do is to read the relevant section of a book or website, make sure you understand it, and then rewrite it yourself entirely from scratch. A little bit of re-writing is not enough, it has to be from scratch. Sorry about this, it is quite a common mistake for beginners, even though it's quite a serious one. It's by no means easy to write your own technical description of shell morphology, but you have to either try to do it, maybe keep it very simple, or otherwise just leave it for someone else to do later. Invertzoo (talk) 15:31, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry Invertzoo about the misunderstanding there. I thought that my citing to the resource I had covered the copyright issue.  Now that I understand that a complete rewrite is called for I will be substantially more careful.  I only did a few species articles that way so that I got some practice and mentoring before getting too far afield.  Thank you for your constructive comments. Shellnut (talk) 19:14, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, I do understand. However I am obliged to remove the descriptions (or you can remove them if you would prefer to do it yourself). I can't leave them sitting around when they are copyright violations. Thanks, Invertzoo (talk) 21:06, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I will go back through and re-write them to the best of my abilities - from scratch, not just a tweak. Shellnut (talk) 03:28, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Invertzoo! I have gone back and done a complete rewrite of the descriptions and the distribution sections of both Calliostoma palmeri and Calliostoma bonita using my own words, changing the order of thoughts, but still using facts that are either obvious from looking a the shells or known scientific facts gleened from the Keen reference, and giving the citation to the source thereof.  I felt that I had to use certain vocabulary words to describe the shells but tried to mix it up by using different descriptive words.  Is this a sufficient job of writing an entirely new description?  I also places an article link to the sibling species Wikipedia article as clearly these two species (if indeed they are distinct species after mDNA testing) are sympatric species.  Thanks again in advance for your help. Shellnut (talk) 17:55, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * OK! Hi Shellnut. As you will see, I tweaked your work just a little bit, but basically you did well and have the right idea! Well done, because rewriting these things is not at all easy to do! If you can make your way through your other new articles doing similar fix-up work that would be terrific. I will give you a few days to do that before deleting any of the content in them, even though really I should delete it right away.


 * One small thing, try to remember always to put any genus name or binomial name in italics, wherever the names occur. A new piece of markup: you will see that when I wanted to have C. bonita be a live link (a blue link) on the edit page I put C. bonita and it comes out just showing the second part, after the "pipe" or vertical line. Invertzoo (talk) 20:32, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Distribution sections
These will have to go too as they are also verbatim. Invertzoo (talk) 21:10, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I will re-write the sentences, however the locations are factual and I do not know how else to have a distribution without a factual basis which can be cited to the literature.Shellnut (talk) 03:28, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * There is no problem with using the same facts, that's fine, facts cannot be copyrighted. It's just that the phrasing of the Distribution section cannot be so similar as to make one think it was copied from Keen. Invertzoo (talk) 18:20, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Invertzoo! I finally got around to fixing the descriptions and distribution sections on all the articles I have done so far.  These are either major rewrites / revisions, or complete rewrites.  I mapped out all of the articles I contributed to over time, made notes where I added photos, and sections for description and/or distribution, then went back and redid them looking at the shells with a fresh eye and the text book descriptions.  I also added links to similar species for comparisons.  I still have five articles that I need to write descriptions and distribution sections for - but at least all possible copyright issues have been handled now.  Thanks for your help, patience, and mentoring. Shellnut (talk) 06:52, 20 October 2011 (UTC)


 * You might want to make a list on your user page of all the new and expanded articles you have worked on. Apart from anything else, that would make it easier for me to check the articles you have expanded or created. I have looked at a couple of them but not all of them. Thanks, Invertzoo (talk) 23:02, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Great idea Invertzoo!! Done! I made a list off of the "my contributions" section and then typed it up, alpha style.  This will also help me to follow up easier.Shellnut (talk) 23:54, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Size of your shells
The second thing I meant to mention to you is that in your uploaded images, you can put in the description what the maximum diameter of the shell is in mm. That would be helpful to have. Do you have calipers? Invertzoo (talk) 16:26, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Invertzoo! Yes, I have a pair of calipers and can measure the height and/or diameter of my photographed shells.  I will do so from now on and put the size in the descriptions.  Per your earlier suggestion I have taken to cropping the photos to maximize the shell and minimize the background.  How are the images looking?  Do you have any suggestions about original or realy old resources for species descriptions?  Most of the newer shell books have gotten away from descriptions and focus on images with a short note on size or distribution.  I have located an on line source Biodiversity Heritage Library that has really old shell books by Sowerby, Reeve, Chenu and others, but their pages are medium to low resolution scans and are sometimes hard to read.  I can see why many of the species article pages out there have little to no content, as it is simply harder to find than it should be; any suggestions?  Thanks again for your mentoring!! Shellnut (talk) 19:22, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * That would be great! It is very easy also to add size info into the descriptions of the images that you have already uploaded. Or come to that, you can add any other info you might have about where or when the shell was found. Invertzoo (talk) 20:41, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course it is not necessary for species descriptions to be copied verbatim from very old sources, although, if the original publication naming the species is old enough to allow this (if the publication is now in the public domain) then it is very useful to be able to quote the description verbatim, which is the case in some of our species articles. Take a look at public domain. Invertzoo (talk) 18:55, 19 October 2011 (UTC)


 * A lot of those very old sources are in Latin, or sometimes French or German. Sigh!  I was never very good at languages. Shellnut (talk) 05:28, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * If it is in fact the original species description, it is fine if it is in Latin (or any other language) and we can and should quote it like that, in that language. Invertzoo (talk) 20:02, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well then, I guess Mr. Lovell Reeve and Mr(s) George Brettingham Sowerby (I, II, and III) may just be obliging enough to help out some, thanks to the Bioheritage Diversity Library which has scanned copies of their great works out there in the public domain. As an aside, has anyone ever tried reprinting those good oldies and marketing them as reprints of classical works?Shellnut (talk) 02:56, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, there are companies who make money printing various public domain online books and selling them. There are also companies who print out groups of Wikipedia articles and sell them as "books" on certain subjects without making it entirely clear that they are simply copied from this free resource. Invertzoo (talk) 22:56, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Cheat sheet
Perhaps no one has showed you this page yet? 

Is it useful to you?

Invertzoo (talk) 19:01, 19 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Now THAT'S a cheat sheet! Nice to see the formating and syntax in one place.  I will definitely print this out.  Thank you! Shellnut (talk) 19:04, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

And here is another similar set of info that is actually called a cheatsheet! Invertzoo (talk) 19:27, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

And here, perhaps even more useful, is a cheatsheet that can be downloaded as a pdf file. Hit where it says on the list * English: description (Download) Invertzoo (talk) 19:27, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I found this reference card as well. . — Ganeshk  ( talk ) 04:31, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Searching for images on Commons
I wanted to say that when you are on Wikimedia Commons, one way you can use the Commons search slot is this. The images are stored in categories, which you can think of as folders if you like. When you open a category the images within it are displayed in the form of one or more galleries (rows of images).

Generally I start by looking for a category of images that I think a useful image may be included in. I usually start with a large category: so for example I might do a search for Trochidae. On the search page I might see that within Trochidae there is a category Pseudostomatella. I might click on that and see what images are available within that genus. I see there are three images of Pseudostomatella elegans available here. Back in Wikipedia I would then do a search and see that whereas there is in fact a genus article for Pseudostomatella, there is currently no species article for Pseudostomatella elegans even though Commons has three views of the shell of this species. I might then create a stub for that species so we could use those three images in that stub.

The reason I start with a large category is that people have not yet created many of the smaller categories such as the genus or species categories. So if you try searching for a binomial name and get no results, try searching for the genus name and if you still get no results, try the family name. The largest category relevant to us would be Animalia, then Mollusca, then Gastropoda and so on down the line. You get the idea.

Best, Invertzoo (talk) 19:21, 19 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank's Invertzoo! So when we SAVE images to Wikimedia Commons how do we ensure that our saved images will be searchable in a category and not just get lost in the wide web?  I think I may have made some mistakes in uploading files if they need to be coded a certain way.  I know that I had a typo or two on names.  Can we fix our mistakes on uploaded files and re-save them? Shellnut (talk) 05:25, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Do you use the Upload Wizard to upload images to Commons? If so then I believe the Wizard asks you which category or categories you want your image to go into. If youo look at the Commons page for a gastropod image, such as this one, you will see that at the very bottom of the page there is a box that has two categories listed: Nembrotha kubaryana and Marine animals of East Timor. If you look on the edit page for that same Commons page you will see the two categories listed individually at the very end. Actually you will see that they are done the exact same way that you put the categories in on the Wikipedia page for Calliostoma palmeri. I mean it is the same idea exactly.

If you don't yet really understand how Categories are supposed to work, I suggest you go to the Calliostoma palmeri page and click where it says Category:Calliostoma, which is a blue link. That link will take you to a page that lists alphabetically the first 200 of all the Wikipedia articles that have been placed in the Category Calliostoma. Sometimes it is useful to look and see what other articles are in the same category as one you are working on. Invertzoo (talk) 21:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Explaining categories
I figured I should try to explain that categories are the way that ALL the articles in Wikipedia are organized into groupings. There are categories within categories within categories! It is somewhat like an old-fashioned file cabinet where similar articles are grouped within one file folder, and that file folder is nested with other related file folders, and that master file folder is grouped with other similar master folders and so on. The advantage of grouping data electronically however, is that the same article can be filed simultaneously within more than one very different category. For example, the article Buckingham Palace is grouped within the category "Royal residences in London". It is also grouped with "Historic house museums in London", and with "Buildings and structures in Westminster" and in many other categories. Each one of those different categories is part of a different category tree! Categories make it possible to search very easily for articles that are all on related subjects, no matter which perspective on a subject you are most interested in. You don't need to be a bot to search Wikipedia for articles on one particular topic, as a human being you can easily use the category system to find many articles that you may be interested in. I hope that makes it clearer. Best, Invertzoo (talk) 19:48, 27 October 2011 (UTC)