User talk:Stemonitis/Archive07

'''DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.'''

This archive page covers approximately the dates between November 2 2006 and December 1 2006.

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Nuttalls relative heights
Thanks for filling in the missing relative heights for all these Nuttalls. Out of interest, where did the data come from? I hadn't been able to find it anywhere. — ras52 14:05, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I looked at the maps! I've kept the numbers vague, rather than trying to second-guess the lie of the land between the contours, so "c." here means plus or minus 5 m, as is usual in British hill lists (in my experience at least). This might explain how things with a rel. ht. of c. 13 m can be on a list with a cut-off of 15 m. --Stemonitis 14:08, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, I'm happy with that, though when I've done this in the past, I've got into trouble over original research. Incidentally, I'm inclined change anything less than 15 m to c. 15 m — we can be fairly sure that the Nuttalls surveyed them to check they're at least 15 m. — ras52 14:19, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Deducing the relative height of a peak cannot count as original research. The summit height is marked on the map, and all the ring contours represent specific heights. It's all published already. Since the concept of relative height is also not new, there's no original research. We're not adding peaks to the list on the basis of our own investigations. Also, we're not removing anything (although it Lliwedd Bach is separated from the rest of Lliwedd by a col with a spot height of 807 m, but since the Nuttalls list it…). The only problem with changing all to "c. 15" is that the "c." then means different things in different places. Perhaps that's not a big problem, but I'd tend to leave it at is it. --Stemonitis 14:27, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * "Deducing the relative height of a peak cannot count as original research." — I agree with you; I'm just not sure everyone else will. But let's wait and see.  Regarding Lliwedd Bach, I assume the 807 m spot height isn't actually at the col.  As the Nuttalls actually surveyed the marginal cases, I assume they're more likely to be accurate.  With an example like Black Mountain south top (given as c. 12 m), from the OS we know it's 7–17 m (though the contours strongly suggest the upper end of this range); from the Nuttalls we know its 15 m+, so 15–17 m.  I'd choose the mid-point and put c. 16 m.  (Which reminds me, I really ought to go through adding c. where the TACit tables have it.  This seems to have got lost somewhere along the lines.)   — ras52 14:52, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Pinnotheres
Thanks for sorting that out, Stemonitis, good solution. Is there only one pea crab species in NZ? Is there a good online site about world crab taxonomy? Cheers GrahamBould 08:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


 * You're asking me about New Zealand crustaceans?!? Put succinctly, I don't know how many pea crabs live around New Zealand, although given that there's one called the "New Zealand pea crab", I would tend to assume only one. I'm not aware of a good site on crab taxonomy, at least not at the species level. There is one for crayfish, but there are rather more crabs than crayfish in the world. --Stemonitis 08:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Noted your comment about not having categories down to Family for Decapods. That's fine, but I would have thought the numbers of Decapods would be vast.  Fish, eg, have Family categories which are included in Order categories - the Order categories would get swamped otherwise as there aren't that many of them.  Just a thought, & thanks for picking me up when I get it wrong. Cheers GrahamBould 10:04, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It's less a question of the number of taxa, and more a question of the number of articles. If we got to the stage where we had an article for each of the 10,000 or so decapods, then we would definitely subdivide the category, probably in some cases down to the genus (I bet many of the mammals and birds are categorised down to genus already). So, it's not that you got it wrong; it was just a little premature. Category:Alpheidae, for instance, seems reasonable, whereas Cat:Porcellanidae would only have had 2 (?) articles in it. The category system is not meant to represent the entire hierarchical tree of life; for that, we've got Wikispecies, not that I've ever done anything there. --Stemonitis 10:38, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Local Terminology
Hello, I was just reading at your opening statements. Am I right in saying that you prefer to use "foreign vernacular" as they come to us from wherever and not bend these words to fit our own grammar and sentence structure. A recent example is Himalaya and here was yet another spat in the discussion on Himalaya. I provided many examples from literature from 1800s to 2005, also provided locla usage from Harish Kapadia and so forth. The problem being is that Wikipedia is useing Himalayas (notice the S) which dosn't exist in its country of origin. The reason I ask is that later on, if I get the time, I'll condense all the information, facts etc and write a page on it, however as you will see from the discussion board that no matter how correct we may be, the western slant seem to swamp what seems to be correct usage. So next time the discussion comes up I'll be looking for people to support the move on th basis of good information. If I have made no sense to you, just ask and I'll try a little harder. Thanks in advance. (Gowron 15:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC))


 * Yes, you've understood my basic sentiments correctly, although I reserve the right to take each case on its own merits. I did indeed vote in the recent move debate at Talk:Himalayas — it's a shame the move didn't go through. I'm not massively enamoured of the technique of repeatedly requesting a move until the desired outcome is reached, but in this case, it would be nice (in my opinion) if it could be put at "Himalaya". To be fair, though, I think you're going about it the right way (as also noted by the admin who closed the discussion): collecting evidence is the best way forward, and if the "Himalaya" side continues to do that while the "Himalayas" side do not, it'll only be a matter of time before the move is finally made. All the people I've met who were passionate about the Himalaya called it that, without the curious plural, so I tend to follow their example. --Stemonitis 16:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed, I hope the next vote doesn't come up too soon, if only to mass more evidence and get it written down prior to the next pole.  Trying to locate evidence on the fly is, in my case, a little inefficient.  Like yourself the people who I've met, you can see a bunch of them at the Pen-y-Gwryd article I knew most of them quite well and their passion was also backup up by research and writtings.  Well thanks for the reply, I'll look for you the next time around.  Cheers.  (Gowron 18:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)_

Hallstatt
Ciao, thanks for your fixes in Carnian! I admit I don't know the geography of Austria very much. However, I suppose the point with "Halstatt Limestone" is this: "Halstatt Limestone" is the name of a formation (i.e., a kind of stratigraphic unit or rock body), it takes the name from Hallstatt because that is the place where a type section exists, BUT outcrops of the same formation might be found everywhere else. Of course, it is aslo possible that my source (i.e., Gradstein et al., 2004) was wrong.

Kaapitone 09:00, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It's certainly possible that the same formation occurs in different areas. My knowledge of the geology of the Alps suggests that different formations would be present in the Northern Limestone Alps and the Southern Limestone Alps, but it's not necessarily so. I'm not a geologist, so I can't really comment; it just seemed a little unusual. There must be a logical explanation. --Stemonitis 09:51, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Please sign your posts
Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( &#126;&#126;&#126;&#126; ) at the end of your comment. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! Will (Talk - contribs) 05:10, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Please use "subst:" when warning users
When using certain template tags on talk pages, don't forget to substitute with text by adding subst: to the template tag. For example, use &#123;&#123;subst:test&#125;&#125; instead of &#123;{test}}. This reduces server load and prevents accidental blanking of the template. Will (Talk - contribs) 05:11, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Damn! I keep forgetting. Sorry. Thanks for the reminder. --Stemonitis 08:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Welsh pronunciation
Why is Tryfan pronounced but Yr Wyddfa pronounced ? --Blisco 20:26, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * That's a good question. It's definitely true, but I'm not sure why yet. Welsh language confirms that the pronunciation of "y" depends on the position in the word, but here both are in the penultimate (i.e. stressed) syllable; the best example for demonstrating this phenomenon, incidentally, is the word for mountain, mynydd, plural mynyddoedd ). I think it's because of the "W" in Wyddfa, which is seen as a vowel in Welsh. Something else that could be confusing is that there are at least two different sounds spelt "wy" in Welsh, a semivowel+vowel pair and a diphthong (as in "Llwyd"), but I can't think of any example of a sound in Welsh. Other examples beginning with "Wy" are also pronounced  e.g. Yr Wyddgrug, as is the verb gwylio (, to watch). It must be because of the "w", I think.--Stemonitis 08:37, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Schönlaterngasse
Thanks for your grammatical/capitalization help on Schönlaterngasse! -newkai t-c 15:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * One of your corrections sounds strange to me, however... You changed "which are particularly open in the evening and nighttime hours" to "which are particularly open in the evening night". I've never heard the phrase "evening night" before. Is it perhaps British? Or did you mean "evening and night"? -newkai t-c 16:02, 10 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I certainly did mean "evening and night". "In the evening and nighttime hours" sounded rather long-winded, but I really should have read it through again before saving it, it seems. So, no, it's not a British thing, it's inattention! Ah, you've already changed it. Good — I was about to do that otherwise. Nice article, by the way. --Stemonitis 09:41, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Height of hills etc
Saw your improvements to Place Fell. I keep seeing the '&nbsp', but haven't put it in because I've no idea what it means. Can you enlighten me?Bobble Hat 10:00, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The HTML code "&amp;nbsp;" represents a non-breaking space, which looks like a normal space, except that the words / numbers on either side will never be placed on separate lines. For our purposes, it serves to keep the number and the unit together, which they should always be. --Stemonitis 10:06, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Mountain Spiderwort and so forth
Well done, thats a lot better good work. (Gowron 12:52, 11 November 2006 (UTC))

Juglans californica
Thanks for taking time to make the catch on the link to Sierra Nevada (US) in this article. I know there are numerous Sierra Nevada's, but tend to work on the California articles when I'm deeply in California. There are a daunting lot of details to writing an encyclopedia. KP Botany 18:44, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


 * No problem. I was doing a sweep of the articles linking to Sierra Nevada anyway and the vast majority of them turned out to be about California. I don't know whether it's because the US Sierra Nevada are so much more notable than the others (I was in southern Spain this year, so I would tend to think otherwise), or whether it's just that the typical American is unaware of entities outside their own borders (present company excluded, of course). Anyway, glad to be of service. --Stemonitis 18:50, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Fractal broccoli
Thanks for formatting the new article --Energman 16:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, this must be a reference to Romanesco broccoli. No problem. I often do little bits of formatting when sorting stubs. It seems churlish not to. --Stemonitis 16:10, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

New Zealand
Hi Stemonitis, I wonder whether you could explain how the above works. Thanks GrahamBould 17:13, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Certainly. When adding an article (or category) to a category, you can choose where it will sort in the alphabetical listing. It doesn't change the article's title in that listing, but it does affect the order. This is useful for sorting people by their surname, for instance. For the article on Charles Darwin, instead of typing [ [Category:Carcinologists]] and having that article sort under "C" for "Charles", we can type [ [Category:Carcinologists|Darwin, Charles]], and he'll sort in the right place. Similarly, by adding the "|New Zealand" to [ [Category:Crustaceans]] in your Category:Crustaceans of New Zealand, we can make it sort under "N" for "New Zealand" rather than "C" for "Crustaceans of..." in Category:Crustaceans. Another time it's useful is when article titles contain accented letters. The MediaWiki software sorts things like é, ä and ß after the end of the alphabet, whereas they should sort under "e", "a" and "ss", respectively, so for Félix Édouard Guérin-Méneville, we type [ [Category:Carcinologists|Guerin-Meneville, Felix Edouard]], leaving out the accents. A further trick: by adding a colon before the category in the square brackets, you can make a link to the category, rather than have that page included in it. I hope this answers your question. --Stemonitis 17:22, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks Stemonitis, Wikipedia sure is comprehensive. GrahamBould 07:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons
When you reverted minor vandalism at Wikimedia Commons, you didn't notice that about three quarters of the article had been cut out by an earlier vandal. I think everything's back to normal now. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 21:23, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Really? I normally check. Ah well, it's good that you got it sorted. Thanks. --Stemonitis 09:55, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Hallin Fell
Somebody else has changed most of my '-' to 'ndash;'. So I've followed suit. But since you've changed this one I presume you don't agree. So is '—'(which I assume is the long dash on the 'insert:' line as distinct from '-' on the keyboard) correct? And why? All advice gratefully received - I hate doing things twice. Bobble Hat 22:03, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Some of this is up to personal taste. I have my own rules as to when I use a hyphen ("-"), when I use an n-dash ("–") and when I use an m-dash ("—"), which are not necessarily the same as anyone else's. I assume therefore that someone changed your hyphens to n-dashes, and, because there's no easy way of typing in an n-dash or an m-dash (I hadn't seen that they were on the insert line, and I bet others don't look there either), people often use the HTML entities instead. This is unnecessary, and one of the changes that AWB makes is to "Unicodify" these entities, i.e. replace "&amp;ndash;" with "–", and so on. So, in this case, although it took three edits or so to get it right, nobody really got it wrong. Hyphens are probably not the correct punctuation in sentences like "All advice gratefully received - I hate doing things twice"; dashes are better; unicodified dashes are even better. Overall, it's not a serious issue, and I wouldn't edit an article only to change the hyphens/dashes around. --Stemonitis 09:12, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * well at least I found out what unicodify means!Bobble Hat 21:27, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Animal stubs
Hi do you know whether there is a stub category that exists for conservation related articles or game reserves. Becasue I have started a number of game parks and conservation parks n South Africa and the label conservation-stub or reserve-stub doesn't exist so I have been incorrectly labelling it animal-stub. I am sure there are many parks which exist and are stubbed and need a category. If there isn't one could you create one the best I think would be conservation-stub as this would cover other areas of wildlife protection. Ernst Stavro Blofeld 21:40, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It would be good if you could come up with a rough idea of how many articles would be covered by the stub. If it's more than about 60, then it could be proposed at WP:WSS/P, and it'll probably be accepted. It certainly seems to me that it could be useful — I've been unsure which stub tags to use for such articles before. Maybe I've overlooked one that would be appropriate, but I don't think so. Conservation must be a big enough topic to warrant its own stub type. --Stemonitis 11:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

de-de-stubbing of Magic Pudding
Hi Stemonitis, I have reverted your de-stubbing of The Magic Pudding. This is because it is probably Australia's most famous childrens book and for a de-stubbing I think it would need to be approximately 2 times larger. Cheers, Grumpyyoungman01 21:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Fine. Stub-ness is largely subjective and definitely depends on the total amount that could be said on a subject. I would warn against confusing a need for expansion with stub-ness, but I'm sure you've thought it through. --Stemonitis 11:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Austria
Are you interested in joining WikiProject Austria? You can join here. Kingjeff 00:54, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Atlantic salmon
Hey, I liked your edits (or cleaning up my mistakes). Is there anything you think needs to be added that is very important? I'm in college and just did a presentation on the Atlantic Salmon and studied it pretty well in depth. I'm pondering trying to make it a featured article, since I have so many books checked out on the subject. I'm curious what I should add before it would get peer reviewed ect... Dark j e  di requiem  09:53, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I have to say, I wasn't really reading the article for its content, just checking for typos, incorrect capitalisation, and little things like that. I've been through it again now, and I would say that the language could probably be improved in several places. It's not that it's especially bad now, but it could be made snappier and clearer. In some sections, there is talk of "East" and "West Coast" and so on, without explicitly saying which West Coast, or the East of what (I assume North America, in this case). It might also be good to get a few different references, rather than relying on the same three or four for most of the statements. Other than that, I can't think of anything. I'm sure the good people at peer review will be able to give you a much better idea of what needs to be done — after all, that's what peer review is for. --Stemonitis 10:16, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm sure this sounds petty, but the Manual of Style says not to change dialects of pages. Since there was none when I added to it, I had none to follow. But, after my edits, it became American English and should have been followed thereafter. Dark j  e  di requiem  11:22, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It does indeed. Before your recent three edits, the article contained spellings like "odour", indicating Commonwealth English spelling, which should therefore be maintained. --Stemonitis 11:25, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I did not notice that, as odor can be spelled odour in America. But, the use of "odour" could have easily been Canadian English. Dark j  e  di requiem  11:48, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Canadian English is counted under Commonwealth English. --Stemonitis 11:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * "...both American and Commonwealth spellings are generally accepted, except in context-specific cases such as schooling and official documentation. Sometimes, the choice of spellings and wordings is up to the individual of preference." Dark j  e  di requiem  12:05, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, of course, either spelling could be appropriate for an article about an animal that occurs in both Commonwealth-English-speaking (UK, Ireland, Canada) and US-English-speaking (USA) countries, but the article must be consistent. To prevent edit wars, the accepted standard is to go with the first established spelling, which in this case is clearly with "-our" endings, thus "odour" and "behaviour". American and British English spelling differences doesn't mention "odour"/"odor" as an exception, and Merriam-Webster only gives "odour" as a "chiefly British variant" of "odor", which seems to suggest that usage in the US is overwhelmingly in favor [sic!] of the "-or" spelling, and that "odour" cannot be seen as an American usage. --Stemonitis 12:20, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * If it makes you feel any better, I'll admit I was probably wrong. I think with Wikipedia I've grow accustomed to things like odour [sic!!] and the strange pluralization of bands and so forth. AND I don't know how to combine references. Looks complicated. What bad latin jokes. Dark j  e  di requiem  17:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I noticed the coloration change on Atlantic Salmon, and almost changed it, but after realizing it to be out of character decided to see how long it would take for you to notice. Your speed did not let me down... Do you have it watched? :) Dark j  e  di requiem  05:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Not watched per se, but it is in the list of articles I created on my user page (usually hidden). I quite often check "Related changes" from there. I would be perfectly happy with "coloration", since that is an acceptable variant in British English, but as a tie-breaker, I went for the spelling that was already in use. I don't consider these to be particularly important changes, but I make them when I see them. I haven't really got much time at the moment for making worthwhile additions to articles, so I have to make do with quicker, smaller things like spelling. --Stemonitis 09:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Mac
I reverted your change on the Shane MacGowan website. FYI most names including Mac or Mc are spelt with the second part of the name capitalised. eg - McGrath not Mcgrath. Same as names with O (ie O'Brien not Obrien) --Gramscis cousin 16:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


 * As I tried to indicate in my edit summary, this is not a matter of spelling, but merely where the article will appear in category listings. The MediaWiki software does not follow alphabetical order, unfortunately, and puts all capital letters before lower case ones. Thus, left to its own devices, the software will put articles in the following order: "MacAlistair, MacGowan, MacMurphy, Macalistair, Macgowan, Macmurphy", which is clearly wrong. The average reader would expect MacAlistair and Macalistair to be together, and both to come before MacGowan and MacMurphy. Changing the text after the "|" in the category text allows us to override the software and put the articles in the correct alphabetical order. You will notice that nowhere have I changed any visible text to a lower-case G in "MacGowan", and nor would I; I am well aware of the spelling conventions. --Stemonitis 16:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that -- Gramscis cousin 21:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


 * No problem at all. You're not the first person to get confused about it. --Stemonitis 10:14, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Common yabby
Hi temonitis, Curious as to why this common species, most widespread of all yabbies, & widely used in aquaculture, could be Vulnerable. Not disagreeing, just curious. Maybe the answer could be added to the article. Cheers GrahamBould 12:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know. I'm a bit confused. The article used to say that it was found in New Zealand and New Guinea as well, which seems not to be the case, with casts some doubt on the other claims there. It's certainly possible for a widespread taxon to be rare throughout its range, or for a common species to be endangered. For details, it seems you might have to ask Keith Crandall, who made the assessment ; VU A1de means vulnerable due to "an observed, estimated, inferred or suspected reduction of at least 80% over the last 10 years or three generations, whichever is the longer", caused by "actual or potential levels of exploitation" and "the effects of introduced taxa, hybridisation, pathogens, pollutants, competitors or parasites", which isn't very specific, but should give you an idea — it looks like not all those yabbies in aquaculture were bred in captivity… --Stemonitis 12:54, 1 December 2006 (UTC)