User talk:Smith609/Archive 2

DC++ Feedback
Thanks for your feedback about the article on DC++. It is appreciated, especially the specificity of the comments. The project (and the entire DC network) has been largely low-profile, with few news articles about it. I'll see what I can do without engaging in too much original research. As a side note, some of the DC++ offshoots have had their own project pages (ex: StrongDC, BCDC++), but were merged back in due to notability concerns. (I'm not sure if this is supposed to go on the peer review page, but I won't be able to give the article the attention it deserves for at least a couple of days, and acknowledging your review of it is paramount.) --GargoyleMT 14:14, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Llama peer review
Thank you for review the Llama article. Although I have added significantly to the article, I know many, many editors have as well. Consequently, I thought a third opinion with direct feedback to specific issues would be in order. I was right. You have really found some great areas to improve. As I add or subtract to the article, I will make sure to update the peer review page. Thanks again. -- Blind Eagle  talk ~ contribs  13:01, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Reworked lede per your suggestions and examples. Let me know if you think it's on the right track.  -- Blind  Eagle  talk ~ contribs  21:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Added intro para to computer culture sub. I'm not sure if I totally like it.  But, it's a start and gives the reader an idea of what's behind the blue link.  -- Blind  Eagle  talk ~ contribs  13:41, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * In the very first appearance of the llama article, this appears at the bottom.
 * Original text scanned in from the 9th (1880) edition of an encyclopedia published in Edinburgh.
 * The classification and characteristics pages are basically the same from way back when. Do you know where I may find that cite or ref for this? -- Blind  Eagle  talk ~ contribs  14:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Found the reference. But, it does not follow the normal citation guidelines.  See 1911 Template for exact view.  Here's what it looks like.
 * This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
 * Any ideas where it should be placed? Ref? See Also? Further Reading? -- Blind  Eagle  talk ~ contribs  17:17, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * This is a template called 1911. It has several arguments.  But, I just used the article argument as I could not find the original author in thier site.  According to the template it must go in the main part of the article.  I do not know if they mean literraly or figuratively.  I placed the template at the top, to be moved if necessary.  -- Blind  Eagle  talk ~ contribs  18:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

templates and cladograms
Hello;

I noticed that you have been working on a timeline template, different from EasyTimeline. I've worked with ET to see if it can be adapted to mate cladograms with location and stratigraphic information, and my best examples are here and here. Would your template make this easier (these took quite a bit of work)? At this point, I'm not sure if I want to pursue template timelines any further, due to arbitrary branching distances and not wanting to stray too close to Original Research with age assignments that are known to not occupy entire stages, but I'd like to know if this would make the clade part any simpler. As you can see in the second example, the vertical and horizontal connecting lines have scalability problems. J. Spencer 18:47, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Cite-o-matic for Wikipedia not found
Your link http://mycroft.mozdev.org/download.html?name=Cite-o-matic+for+Wikipedia finds nothing :-( Andy Mabbett 20:14, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Ediacaran Barnstar

 * Heh. Well, you did a good job, and none of the other barnstars seemed to suit... =P Adam Cuerden talk 18:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Operator
How did you get on with the Operator extension in Firefox? Andy Mabbett 18:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Can't say I've been overly impressed, I'm afraid - I've not noticed anything light up yet! But it looks like a good idea in principle, I suppose... Verisimilus  T  19:44, 28 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry to hear that. Have you tried looking at page with an infobox for building, with coordinates, or a biography infobox? And have you enabled the "species' microformat and looked at a page with a taxobox? (I'll see replies, here, BTW) Andy Mabbett 09:29, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Heinrich event
I think now it's OK. You can renominate it again. Ruslik 05:51, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

hey
If you want a page you made deleted and no one else edited, you can use the db-author tag to do so. Kwsn (Ni!) 17:18, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

July 2007 GAC backlog elimination drive
A new elimination drive of the backlog at Good article candidates  will take place from the month of July through August 12, 2007. There are currently about 130 articles that need to be reviewed right now. If you are interested in helping with the drive, then please visit Good article candidates backlog elimination drive and record the articles that you have reviewed. Awards will be given based on the number of reviews completed. Since the potential amount of reviewers may significantly increase, please make sure to add :GAReview underneath the article you are reviewing to ensure that only one person is reviewing each article. Additionally, the GA criteria may have been modified since your last review, so look over the criteria again to help you to determine if a candidate is GA-worthy. If you have any questions about this drive or the review process, leave a message on the drive's talk page. Please help to eradicate the backlog to cut down on the waiting time for articles to be reviewed.

You have received this message either due to your membership with WikiProject: Good Articles and/or your inclusion on the Good article candidates/List of reviewers. --Nehrams2020 03:40, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Cambrian explosion and Timeline of evolution
I'm willing to help with these articles - post a message on my Talk page if you're interested. I'd better warn you that I have a strong tendency to re-phrase existing content, as to many articles on science-related subjects suffer from logorrhoea, which I attribute to "academics envy"&copy; (guess the derivation of this phrase!). I strongly believe that the target audience for Wikipedia is non-specialists and the target level of Fog index should be under 12. You may want to know a bit about my activities as an editor, so: I wrote most of the content in Physiology of dinosaurs (now re-arranged by others, discussions on-going), most of Permian-Triassic extinction, a lot of Cretaceous extinction and of Archosaur, and all of Evolution of mammals; and I've extensively edited Extinction event.Philcha 18:59, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome
And so promptly!

Re "Wikipedia's geology articles are frequently in quite a shocking state": I'm more into paleontology than geology; but some of the paleontology articles have needed a lot of improvement - while is why I pitched into the ones I listed.

Re Cambrian explosion: (a) Why is your interest in FA status waning? (b) A quick look made me think the structure may need to be clarified, but I'll have to re-read it first. (b) Some of the writing does need to be clarified. (c) The section which discusses the differing interpretations (unique explosion of diversity vs evolution as usual but at a rather fast pace) needs refs, but that's easily fixed. I think I have enough grasp of the subject for a Wikipedia article (which is not supposed to be a PhD thesis) - I can spell and define coelomate, protostome, deuterostome, ecdysozoa, lophotrochozoa, lobopoda, halkeriid, wiwaxiid and onychophora.

Re "writing in simplistic language": I simplify the language but don't dumb down the logic; I aim re-check my edits for logic and coherence about 2 weeks later, so I see it with fresh eyes (but I'm a bit behind on that, especially on Permian extinction, because Evolution of mammals was a lot of work).

Re Timeline of evolution: (a) I'd appreciate a list of what you regard as inaccurate, out-dated or non-essential. (b) It's such a huge subject (3.8B or 4.6B years, depending on how you scope it) that my first impulse would probably be to rough out the target structure, on which I'd appreciate your input - possibly making it an overview / portal page which links to more detailed articles.

Re "my hypothetical ideal article would leave the complete newcomer understanding the subject by about 2/3rds of the way through, with the remaining article covering more demanding aspects of the subject - though of course in such a fashion that our newly educated newcomer should be able to follow their way through!" - I totally agree! That means that in the intro and in the early stages of each major section I simplify the writing, introducing technical terms as needed, but gradually increase the pace of exposition.

PS: congratulations on the Ediacaran Barnstar!Philcha 21:51, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Werothegreat's Superdomain Request
The point has been addressed, and code has been written for it, but the code has not been put into the template yet. Could someone do that please? Werothegreat 14:04, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Bot request
You had forgotten to list your bot request on WP:BRFA, so I've done that for you now. — M ETS 501 (talk) 20:27, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Titan
Hi, could you please discuss your move of the Titan page on the talk page, as it's caused an inconsistency with other natural satellite pages and was (I think) made on mistaken grounds. Cheers. Cop 663 01:00, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Chromalveolata is a kingdom
It has been decided on the WP:TOL talkpage to make Chromalveolata a kingdom, and to give it its own color. It is not a small, unsettled group. It has been recognized as a clade by several authorities (Adl et al, Cavalier-Smith, etc.), and is a large group, included the heterokonts, the ciliates, the dinoflagellates, and the apicomplexans. These are all large phyla, with great diversity. I am trying to get rid of the term protist as a scientific name on wikipedia, because it is enormously paraphyletic, and in some cases, polyphyletic. The trend toward monophyletic supergroups must be recognized on wikipedia. If the remaining three supergroups were recognized as kingdoms, then only two new taxobox colors would need to be used (leaving the protist khaki for one of them). Please check with WP:TOL if a large change (such as the changing of the taxobox colors of a large group of organsims) occurs, as it has probably been discussed there. Thank you. Werothegreat 14:02, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you can help
I see you are a template guy and also active today, so I chose you to ask for help. We are having a problem with this template for the Philately WikiProject. The issue is that when on is on a page that is contained in the template, if on clicks on the What links here, all the other entries from the template appear in the list. Is there a way to exclude those links showing as it makes the What links here results useless because it is overwhelmed by the template returns instead of the page's usual links. Please reply on the template talk page. Cheers TIA ww2censor 14:38, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks anyway. ww2censor 15:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Bryophyte
The reason there is no Taxobox on this page is that it is not a taxon. There is no taxobox on Marine mammal or Ediacaran biota or the List of poisonous plants, because none of these pages describes a taxon. Likewise, the bryophytes are not a taxon, but merely an assemblage of plants with similar life-cycles. The most narrowly inclusive taxon to which they all belong is the Embryophytes, and the Taxobox is on that page accordingly. --EncycloPetey 00:08, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Extinction events graphical timeline
This section has been moved to the template talk page.

images
Thanks for the barnstar! I am about to upload a drawing of Cloudina. I was inspired by your image request as the article was on my watchlist. Graeme Bartlett 12:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Cambrian explosion and plankton
Thanks for drawing my attention to Butterfield's article. Since I'm not familiar with this area (I've mostly read about macroscopic stuff) I'd be grateful if you could tell me whether you think I've understood it well enough. So here are the main points as I see them:
 * B apparently regards the Cambrian explosion as being about animals - for example he uses "the Cambrian explosion of large animals" repeatedly - an presents his ideas as an important contributory factor.
 * At the start of the Cambrian phytoplankton became significantly larger on average and many species developed spines.
 * He appears to suggest that this was part of an "arms race" against herbivorous zooplankton, which he thinks had become significant and larger only a short time before that. But he does not suggest why herbivorous zooplankton or this "arms race" should have started at the base of the Cambrian, after the "monotony" (his word, several times) of late Proterozoic planktonic ecosystems. And the direct evidence he cites for larger herbivorous zooplankton is late-early and late Cambrian rather than earliest Cambrian (Mount Cap and Orsten sediments).
 * While lagerstätten are much better than most fossil beds, they are far from perfect: they probably do not preserve the majority of types of soft-bodied animal; they are restricted to a narrow range of environments (where soft-bodied organisms can be buried very quickly by e.g. mudslides) and tell us nothing about other environments; and because they are rare, one must assume that they do not show the first occurrence of of any type of organism. In particular no lagerstätten have been found from the Vendian period, so one cannot tell whether soft-bodied precursors of the "Cambrian explosion" animals existed in the Vendian.
 * But geochemical evidence strongly indicates that plankton biomass has been similar to modern levels since early in the Proterozoic. And a shift in the carbon isotope ratio in the very early Cambrian can plausibly be interpreted as evidence for the rise of herbivorous mesoplankton at that time and not earlier.
 * B also argues that the Cambrian explosion itself is evidence that the early Cambrian planktonic ecosystem was similar to to-day's, because the evolution of complex, relatively large animals required an abundant and reliable food supply. Modern studies support this by showing that benthic ecosystems respond to phytoplankton booms in a matter of days.
 * Before the rise of herbivorous mesoplankton, planktonic and benthic ecosystems were probably isolated from each other, so plankton did not supply food for benthic organisms (unlike to-day).
 * The increased size of phytoplankton, herbivorous zooplankton and then predatory zooplankton increased the efficiency of the food web, because in plankton the relationship between "predator" size and "prey" size is sharply non-linear (1:1 to 8:1 for microplankton; 18:1 to 50:1 for mesoplankton). In particular it provided for the first time a food supply to nektonic and benthic animals - previously all plankton had been too small to sink before their remains were consumed by micro-scavengers and / or chemical processes.
 * Zooplankton became large enough to produce significant fecal pellets, which sank rapidly enough to be buried before they dissolved on the ocean. This removed a significant amount of carbon from the oceans and therefore increased the concentration of oxygen, which would have facilitated the evolution of larger nektonic and benthic animals.

Please let me know of any errors or omissions you find in this summary.Philcha 09:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Redirect of Template:Plaintext
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Your bot request
Hi Verisimilus I wanted to let you know that Bots/Requests for approval/Taxobot is labeled as needing your comment. Please visit the above link to reply to the requests. Thanks! --BAGBot Talk 21:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for your kind note. I read Gould years ago, and last year I visited the ROM and got to see some of the Burgess Shale in person. Very nice! Cheers, --Fire Star 火星 13:10, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Toolserveraccountrequest
Hello Verisimilus, I answered you at the meta-page. --DaB 14:25, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Decategorisation of images
Hi there,

You recently decategorised this image, possibly among others. Is this a temporary move? Is there a more appropriate way to categorise images? I personally find it very useful to be able to find images via categories, so would prefer that the tag stayed.

Thanks,

Verisimilus  T  13:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Hey Verisimilus!


 * Thank you very much for your note. I don't think it is a great idea to keep articles and images in the same category. WP:DINO has, in the past, kept them seperate. Since there are only five images, one solution might be to add them to the category page as images (like a gallery). Another might be to create an image category, as has been done for other dinosaur images: Category:Approved dinosaur images, Category:Approved dinosaur scale diagrams, Category:Approved dinosaur skeletals, Category:Historic dinosaur images, Category:Wikipedia featured pictures. We could create a Category:Dinosaur trace fossil images. Let's not mix articles and images in the same category, if possible.


 * BTW, you've got some impressive edits. Since you are interested in paleontology and geology, and are working in dinosaur articles/categories/images anyway, would you consider joining WikiProject Dinosaurs? You don't have to, obviously, but you've clearly done a lot of GA and FA work, and we could certainly use another serious editor. We mostly get folks who sign up and then do not work on articles. Firsfron of Ronchester  16:54, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks for your note. Since there were only the five images, I went ahead and moved them to Category:Dinosaur trace fossil images‎ so that they are still in an easily accessible category. Thanks so much for your patience with me, Verisimilus, and your kind words about WP:DINO. I don't have enough enthusiasm for echinoderms, the Ediacaran biota and the like to actually write about them, but it's clear you've done great work. I know how hard it is to try to get an article up to FA status by yourself (my only attempt was a miserable failure), and I have great respect for someone who can pull it off. Best, Firsfron of Ronchester  19:25, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Bot usurpation
Hi, just to let you know that User:Taxobot1 has been renamed to User:Taxobot by Secretlondon per your WP:USURP request. WjBscribe 01:38, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Fossil Range Template
Hi Verisimilus, figured I'd go right to the source with this issue, since it's a fairly big problem and you're the original designer of the template. I noticed pretty severe discrepencies in the highlighted range across different browsers. I'll use Tyrannosaurus as an example:
 * This version had erroneously listed 100-65.5 mya in the format. In Firefox, this shows up fine, covering the Late Cretaceous (though a wider portion than T. rex actually inhabited). In Safari, however, the same highlighted time span appears almost centered on the K/P boundary. Therefore, many Mac users will see an incorrect fossil range.
 * User Firsfron has since changed the range to the correct 68.5-65.5. Now the green 'box' highlight appears smaller, but still must be 'justified' right or something, because it's fully within the Paleogene box in Safari. In Firefox, the highlight is the same width, but again centered on the border between K/P. At them oment the template does not display correctly 100% of the time in any of my browsers. Is there any way to address this problem? Thanks for your help! Dinoguy2 08:33, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:Fossil range
What do you mean "hidden until Safari compatible"? I'm using Safari and it looks fine. Maybe I'm just not seeing what others are, but I can't tell while the template is hidden. --EncycloPetey 21:57, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:Ma/599.9
A template you created, Template:Ma/599.9, has been marked for deletion as a deprecated and orphaned template. If, after 14 days, there has been no objection, the template will be deleted. If you wish to object to its deletion, please list your objection here and feel free to remove the   tag from the template. If you feel the deletion is appropriate, no further action is necessary. Thanks for your attention. --MZMcBride 19:46, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Turtle excluder device
Thanks! :D Shrumster 10:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

No probs mate
Thanks, got any other work for me to do? Also can you help with the rewrite of the Fossil collecting article. Thankyou. Enlil Ninlil 20:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Thats ok, I was going to do the Ediacaran fauna when I get a chance, but can you please proof pead the article anyway as I will make grammatical and scientific mistakes. This is my opium and fun, but I aint much of a nerd though, ha. Thankyou Enlil Ninlil 00:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Cambrian explosion
You seem to have edited the article so that a lot of it is the same as Graham Budd's version. While GB is a genuine scientific authority, his version had several problems including: unintelligible to the general public (it read like a long abstract from a scientific journal, and abstracts are often harder understand than the actual papers); confusing structure, e.g. "Significance of the data" introduces a whole lot of new data; failure to explain the concepts; failure to describe the types of evidence in plain language, including their strengths and weaknesses; criticising "creationists with a poor grasp of science" before presenting any evidence / arguments that they do have poor grasp of the relevant science. I still believe we need an article which is intelligible to the general public. In addition to using simple language wherever possible and defining terms, I think that involves adopting a structure which is easy to follow: intro; history of the subject; review of types of evidence, including their strengths and weaknesses but without details of specific examples; definitions of key terms; survey of the evidence, in order of the times to which they are assigned; discussion of the significance and possible causes of the explosion (including refutation of creationist misinterpretations).Philcha 22:46, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Toolserveraccount
Hello Verisimilus, please send your real-name, your wikiname, your prefered login-name and the public part of your ssh-key to. We plan to create your account soon then. --DaB. 14:06, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Drepanophycus.gif
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Changes to Punctuated Equilibrium
Verisimilus, I like most of your changes to the intro to the article on Punctuated Equilibrium but I wanted you to reconsider one in particular. I am not a bilogist but more of a social scientist so I might be interpreting your changes incorrectly but when the original text described evolution as taking place "in rapid bursts, separated by long periods of stasis, in which little change occurs," I thought that it communicated very well the idea that change happens but not in a progressive way. On the other hand, your new text seems to imply, directly, that punctuated equilibrium states that no change happens, period. I am interpreting this correctly? Do we need to go back to the previous text? Jsarmi 15:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Brilliant! You did a great job. Sorry for posting the comment in the wrong place... I am still learning Jsarmi 18:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Taxoboxes
Please do not delete formatting information from Taxoboxes as you did to Psilophyton. --EncycloPetey 13:47, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Please read the comment above again. Take your time.  Please do not delete formatting information from Taxoboxes as you did to Psilophyton.  If you do not know which information formats the Taxobox, then you probably shouldn't be editing them at all. --EncycloPetey 15:29, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything relevant on the current ToL talk page. Do mean that it's somewhere in the archives?  I looked through some of that too and couldn't find anything either. --EncycloPetey 22:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)