User talk:Stemonitis/Archive34

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

This archive page covers approximately the dates between August 8, 2011 and September 17, 2011.

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Neat page!
Just wanted to say that your work on the Spironema (disambiguation) page makes is a lot better! Nadiatalent (talk) 12:19, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I'm still a little anxious about some aspects of the nomenclature. It seems that all the botanical names are junior synonyms, which is fine, but it looks like there are least two zoological names that I haven't found synonyms for. Worse than that, the current redirect at Spironema is for the younger of the two. Something must be wrong. It's also complicated by the fact that they include names which may have switched between codes (there are special rules for when that happens). It may be that there is an unresolved homonymy there, in which case there's nothing we can do about it on-wiki, or it may be that I have overlooked something significant. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:29, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

(I just muddied the waters a bit by adding species epithets.) I just checked the 1997 edition of Mabberley's "The Plant Book" (old one at home) and there is no entry for Spironema, which is odd, but the legitimate plant name is due to Rafinesque so it would have been overlooked by the Kew school of nomenclature. Perhaps I've complicated the page too much, see what you think. Nadiatalent (talk) 13:19, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Partial title matches are usually excluded from disambiguation pages, and I would be tempted to do so here. A bigger problem, though is the first and fifth entries. I have just realised that the genus in the Spironemidae is not attributable to "Doflein, 1916", as stated on the disambiguation page, but to "Klebs, 1893". This is the same as Spironema Klebs, 1892, a genus of flagellates, which I have formatted as a botanical genus, but is now covered by the zoological code (the 1993 paper at includes the statement "The paper by Klebs was probably available one year earlier than indicated on the title page of the journal", which explains the difference in dates). Why then hasn't the replacement name from 1970 been used in these more recent publications? P. C. Silva is a very experienced nomenclaturist, and I can't see why his work would be ignored. The two entries must be combined, but how? Argh! --Stemonitis (talk) 13:34, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, after spotting another mistake that I had made on that page, I have made the edits I suggested above. I am still uneasy about the first line ("possibly a synonym of ..."), but without any good sources to guide me, I am unsure how to proceed. It seems that Spironematella has been simply ignored, even though Spironema Klebs, 1892/3 is apparently an invalid junior homonym of Spironema Meek, 1864 . I think the page helps readers navigate between pages well enough, but I still worry that there are nomenclatural aspects which I/we have overlooked. I might ask the gastropod project if they can suggest anything. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I hope that nobody removes the references because of MOS, because those are essential if we are every to sort this out (and defend it). Nadiatalent (talk) 16:39, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Carex pilulifera
Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:03, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Myrmica ruginodis
Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:03, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Ants of Kansas
I was wondering if you could fill out the project banner for Ants of Kansas. I'm guessing that it is most likely a stub or start class, but maybe a Wikiproject rating would make people interested in adding more content. Joe Chill (talk) 18:58, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I've classified it as list-class, because it is basically a list. It might be appropriate to rename it "List of ants of Kansas"; I can't remember the appropriate guidelines at the moment. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:00, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

User:Emmet Paul
It's got a severe tinge of coi-spam too. DMacks (talk) 20:28, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Only if you believe it. It looks more like idle fantasy to me. The simplicity of the edits suggests a teenager at most. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:32, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * True 'nuf. WP:NFT includes movies too:) DMacks (talk) 20:37, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Emerita analoga
Thank you for suggesting Emerita analoga for DYK recently. It actually received 11.3k views which far exceeded the number of views I would have thought any of the obscure invertebrate articles I have been writing would achieve. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:19, 10 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I was impressed, too. I think having a picture of an unfamiliar animal really helps. Did you realise that it was the fourth most-viewed DYK article so far this month (see WP:DYKSTATS)? --Stemonitis (talk) 12:24, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Template talk:Did you know/Ants of Kansas
A reviewer is saying that the article shouldn't be on DYK. Can you leave suggestions? Joe Chill (talk) 20:53, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, that reviewer's comments (although slightly unhelpful to begin with: "I'm allergic...") are probably fair. I too wondered what those harsher environments might be, and didn't ever find out. Not every new article can make it to Wikipedia's front page. --Stemonitis (talk) 21:04, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I would suggest "Ants of the subfamily Ecitoninae mostly go unnoticed in Kansas because they can not tolerate direct sunlight", but it will still probably be referred to as unacceptable. It says what ants mostly go unnoticed in Kansas and says why. More importantly, it makes more sense to the reader because it is easy to get to the conclusion that the ant can not tolerate direct sunlight and spends most of its time in darker areas. Joe Chill (talk) 21:11, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Making a new category
On the edit side of this page I can see the basic structure of a category page, with "Cat main|Priapulida" in double curly brackets. I would like to create a category "Phoronida". Am I permitted to use this structure and do this? It would not have many members, but I am about to write an article on Phoronis psammophila, synonym of Phoronis architecta, and it seems odd to use "Animal" as the main category. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:28, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Generally, small categories are discouraged, and their contents kept in the main category. However, I think there is a good case for ignoring that rule in cases such as this. The primary division of the kingdom is into phyla, and almost every other phylum has a category, including Category:Nematomorpha, which has only 3 members. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:43, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * OK. I'll go ahead. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 17:47, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Flustra foliacea
Thanks from the active members of the DYK project Victuallers (talk) 16:03, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Spironema
Hello Stemonitis. I was just thinking it would be nice to give the meaning of "Spironema". I think Spiro means spiral and Nema means thread or thread-like? I guess those are Ancient Greek roots? Invertzoo (talk) 20:11, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, it would be interesting, although presumably something for the individual articles rather than the disambiguation page. I can't immediately find any good source for the etymology, but "spiral" + "thread" seems to make sense. We should also be aware that the etymology may not be the same for all the different genera with that name. It would be most interesting if we knew why the name had been chosen in each case – what are the spiral threads in each case? --Stemonitis (talk) 07:45, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Your Elseya nadibajagu edits.
I am wondering why it matters where the link goes for Chelodininae since every other member of the family currently directs back to the family page where the two subfamilies are discussed. This being the only member of some 60 species that anyone seems to be insisting on being a dead link? This was discussed and accepted on the Turtle Portal, of which I am a member. Cheers. Faendalimas talk 09:31, 18 August 2011 (UTC)


 * If the subfamilies are discussed on the family page, then it makes sense to make Chelodininae a redirect to Chelidae:
 * #REDIRECT Chelidae
 * That way, if ever someone fancies writing a full article about the subfamily, they can write one there without having to fix all the existing links, but until they do, the existing links will take readers to the family page. Unexpected pipes are almost always the wrong solution. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:38, 18 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I can see the point, not sure there is really enough to discuss at the subfamily level for these two to justify sole articles, at some stage, hence we left it that way. I will think about making a redirect then. Cheers. Faendalimas  talk 09:44, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Automatic taxoboxes
I know nothing about automatic taxoboxes and would prefer to make my own. In the case of Corallinaceae, the subdivisions are stated to be subfamilies but two genera seem to have crept into their midst. I would have preferred to see them included in the text as "See also". Not very satisfactory, I would have thought. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:57, 18 August 2011 (UTC)


 * There is no obligation to use either method of producing a taxobox. If you find one simpler to use in your article, and produce the intended appearance, then use that one. I always use taxobox rather than automatic taxobox and its derivatives, because I prefer all the information presented on a page to be stored in that page, but that's a philosophical argument. For the same reasons, I also dislike the cite doi family of templates (other reasons include its tendency to mess up page ranges; Aguirre et al. (2010) should be given as pp. "519–533", for instance). I don't know exactly what you are asking me, but if you need to use Taxobox to improve the article, then you should do that without hesitation. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:12, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * On the whole I hesitate to change things other people have done because there may have been good reasons behind their actions that I do not appreciate. I'm imbued with the tradition of the ODP where one can't change anything without (exhaustive) prior discussion. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:25, 18 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The problem, in my view, is the use of the display_children parameter, which is always (or almost always a mistake), since there is no guarantee that the child taxonomy templates are at the right rank (what should be displayed upwards in a taxonomic hierarchy is often not what should be displayed downwards starting from a higher point). I suggest removing this parameter and inserting an explicit list of the subfamilies. Peter coxhead (talk) 03:01, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I have now replaced the unfathomable automatic taxobox for Corallinaceae with a manual one. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:16, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * (Sorry -- not meaning to take over Stemonitis's talk page.) I think that this:


 * which produces the same output, is quite "fathomable", but it's a matter of taste, I guess. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:48, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Herina
Please explain why you unilaterally "deleted" the Herina pages? these pages are the work of a number of editors. what gives you the 'right' to spoil their hard work. if you feel these pages should not belong then please discus this first pleading you point of view on the reverent pages talk pages as per wiki guild lines.

From a more personal perspective, these pages would not be so short if I could spend my very limited time adding to these paged rather than spending this time undoing your edits.


 * I have explained my actions before. Nothing has been deleted. The same information is now available, and in a much more convenient format for the reader. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:41, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Carpopenaeus
I saw that you deleted my daggers on the Carpopenaeus page. Can you elaborate as to why? They are all extinct taxa. Based on my interpretation of the Dagger article, I was not incorrect to place them there. Ushakaron (talk) 18:54, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The problem was only that it was applied inconsistently, such that the genus and family were not marked with obelisks, while the species were. That gave the impression, or might give the impression, that the genus or family were extant, although all the species are extinct. I think the article already makes it clear that the genus is extinct without using obelisks, although I would not be averse to their inclusion, provided they're used consistently. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:57, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Okay. I'll keep that in mind when I make edits.  Thanks.

Ushakaron (talk) 19:32, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

FA to GA?
Perhaps articles like Antarctic krill which could not meet the highest standards could be put forward for GA so that the article still enjoys a quality rating more in line with reality than just a normal article. AshLin (talk) 19:28, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I was looking at it with regard to that (I'm doing something similar to coconut crab, in collaboration with User:Sasata – join in by all means), and I concluded that it (and krill, another former FA) was far from GA quality. Standards have improved a lot over the last 6 or so years here, and what passed for FA status in 2005 does not do so now. The primary author of the krill articles admitted openly that much of the content was from his personal knowledge rather than printed sources, for instance. The articles that WP:ARTH has had demoted were mostly demoted for a lack of references, which is also a GA criterion, so, sadly, they will need considerable work before they can be promoted to either GA or FA. If you fancy taking one on, please do so, and I will assist where I can, but it won't be my first priority. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:35, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Should I italicize the title and the name in the first sentence?
I created the article Ehrlichia Wisconsin HM543746. I am not sure if the title and the name in the first sentence should be italicized. I find this confusing because this is an unnamed bacteria with Ehrlichia while the rest of it is just a code name to differentiate it from other bacteria in the genus. Joe Chill (talk) 14:17, 27 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The simple answer is: I don't know. Bacterial nomenclature is covered by the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria, which is not something I've ever had any dealings with, and I'm fairly sure they italicise things differently from the other (animal, plant) codes. You should probably look through Category:Bacteria and see if you can find any comparable cases, or ask at WikiProject Microbiology. I would suspect that at least the genus name must be italicised, but probably not the rest, although I can't guarantee it. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:21, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Luidia
I have created a page for the starfish genus Luidia. It is currently in my userspace here. I usually add such articles to Wikipedia by clicking on a red link and pasting my new article onto the blank page. In this case, clicking on Luidia I get a message about a previous version of the page being deleted and there is no option, that I can see, to substitute a new one. What should I do? I also planned to make a redirect page from "Luidiidae" to the page, because the family contains only one genus and making a separate page for it seems superfluous. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:19, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, that page is currently protected, so that only admins can create it. Let me know when your article is ready, and I'll happily move it across for you. Since the family is monotypic, it should be in boldface in the taxobox (which should also show the authority: "Sladen, 1889"), and on first mention in the article; you are right about the redirect. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:24, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you. The article is ready to move across now. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:44, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Done. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:23, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * So I see, and I have created the redirect page for "Luidiidae". If you look at the "history" of the new page Luidia, you get the history of my user page /Family, which I have been using over and over again for many purposes. Is it possible to get rid of this irrelevant history? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:43, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes. Give me a minute. I didn't realise your previous moves had been cut-and-paste jobs. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:44, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:21, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Ancient Roman Pottery
I am considering whether to revert your changes here en masse. You have changed the citation method without consultation, in clear breach of WP:CITE. Apart from anything else, this probably means that the main editor, a distinguished archaeologist but a nervous Wikipedian, will now feel unable to work further on the article. You have introduced the picture syntax that hardly anybody now uses, as it clashes with global thumbnail sizes set in preferences, sometimes grotesquely so. Personally I dislike & find unecessary the separation of notes and references, & the naming of those sections is now non-standard. I can't really see anything beneficial, but I thought I would ask first. Johnbod (talk) 00:55, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It was bold, I grant you, but reversion en masse would be a rash overreaction. The picture syntax was deeply non-standard, using manually set image widths, which is actually what overrides user preferences; by using the  parameter, I have allowed user preferences to be honoured. (I also disagree that it is "grotuesque"; when I found the article, the images were a strange mishmash of sizes; as a consequence of the image of the figurine of Aeneas being so large, for instance, it caused the following gallery to begin indented and run onto a second line.) I have made it easier for readers to find the references that cite particular sections, because they link to the work in question; the previous system effectively used ibid. referencing, which is strongly discouraged. In making the changes, it also became clear how many of the references were missing important information, and I added quite a few publishers, years of publication, ISBNs, etc. There are many that are still to be added, but now it is much clearer what they are. In short, the edit contained plenty of benefit, and no real harm. The notes could easily be recombined with the citations, although I wouldn't see any benefit to doing so. Similarly, if the choice of headings bothers you (although I don't see that it's at all non-standard), it is the work of moments to change. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. As well as the changes to citations, I marked the uses of foreign languages for the benefit of people using screen readers and others, I corrected hyphens to n-dashes for numerical ranges, and removed them from noun phrases. I even added in a few helpful hyperlinks. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:58, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh dear! You seem to be living in a bit of a time warp. Any system of setting image sizes of course "over-rides" a user-set preference, but as it is one can set a size preference fairly confident that only a few (and a declining number of) articles use the multiplier system, which can indeed have grotesque effects on thin vertical images. I don't think I have seen this format at FAC for a couple of years, when several candidates were pursuaded to remove it during the nom. You don't seem to recognize that changing the citation format without discussion is not "bold" but a clear breach of policy. Views on citation styles vary widely, but you arrogantly impose your own. Adding those titles only given in the notes to references, plus any details missing, would have solved any issues without breaching policy.  You seem to have missed out on the widespread emerging realization of how much complicated web-cite styles put off new editors, like the main editor here, and how little extra utility they add.  I suggest you don't make further changes for the moment, as I am still considering whether to revert, although I accept some minor improvements will be lost. Johnbod (talk) 14:51, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I looked through the last six promoted Featured Articles. Corn Crake and Alister Murdoch, both promoted in the last week, use  to keep the image thumbnails at suitable sizes. The issue didn't arise in several of the other recent promotions. Only one (Calgary Stampede) used explicit pixel widths. Admittedly, this is too small a sample size to say much either way, but I don't think   can be characterised as an outmoded method. If anything, it's the other way round. (All, incidentally, use cite book, cite journal and so on.) --Stemonitis (talk) 16:43, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Can you explain how, for instance, setting a portrait image to display the same size as landscape images by using  or   is grotesque? I don't see any problem. It incorporates the user-set preferences, but keeps the images a similar size despite differing aspect ratios. I see a far greater problem with manually applying image widths (in pixels) – and especially when a huge variety of sizes is used – since the user preference is then completely overridden. The distinction is quite profound. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * After investigation, I also don't buy the "delicate major contributor" argument. The person who has edited the article most (after yourself), User:AgTigress, hasn't touched the article since last September, and didn't appear to be using any system of inline references then. They appear to have been sorted out by yourself after AgTigress added in–text indications. All of this is fine, and good work on all counts, and I have no complaint with it, but it makes the argument that the major contributor will be put off seem quite nonsensical. Perhaps rather than worrying about possible problems that my edit might cause to some people, we can concentrate on the real advantages it introduced. They're not huge, but they are real. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:15, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Indeed, AgTigress, who wrote almost all the current text, expanding my earlier version, was not ready to handle simpler forms of ref, at least at the start, which by agreement I added from info left in the text. But I never touch web-cites, so it comes to the same thing. You really do know best about everything, don't you! Johnbod (talk) 15:39, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * "You really do know best about everything, don't you!" – I don't know what this is supposed to mean, but I think it must be straying from the topic, and possibly from civil conduct. I am happy to discuss my edits (within reason), and I don't insist that the changes I made be retained, but I have yet to hear a good reason to revert them.
 * What do you mean by "web-cites"? Do you mean any citation to the Internet, or specifically references using cite web? I don't recall altering the Internet citations much; most of what I changed was to do with references in print. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:58, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Any form of templated reference using squiggly brackets and taking a huge amount of space would be more accurate. Johnbod (talk) 16:11, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Curious – I always thought those templates were easier to use, or at least easier to use consistently, because you don't have to know what the preferred format is for each part of the output, and they're copiously documented. There are problems with them, I know (journal issues which are also released as standalone books crop up quite a lot in my edits), but not for the sort of thing currently cited in Ancient Roman pottery. I guess it all comes down to personal preference. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:29, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Cats for monotypic genera
Hi Stemonitis, I noticed you removing the year categories from the monotypic genera pages and instead adding them to the species redirects. Is there a precedent for doing it this way? I've been doing it the other way for a while now and want to make sure it is the correct way to cat these things so I can change my habits in the future. Also, do you have any objections to me changing Coconut crab to list-defined refs? I don't plan to change the citation formatting, but I think it's easier to edit the article and maintain the refs when they're all together at the end. Sasata (talk) 17:33, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I've been keeping the date categories on the binomina for some time, now. It's the only way that makes sense, I think, for a category hierarchy that is specifically for species (as evident in the parent categories). After all, a genus need not even be named in the same year as its sole species. I should think the vast majority of such cases are done that way, but it's hard to know for sure; I could be wrong.
 * I'm not keen on list-defined references, but I can't yet think of a good reason why not. It's probably just because I've never used them. Can you let me mull it over for a while? --Stemonitis (talk) 17:38, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem, there's plenty to keep me occupied :) Sasata (talk) 18:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * After consideration, I can't see any significant disadvantage to using list-defined references on an article like this, so if you want to switch to that system, you have my blessing. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:41, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Very good, I'll make the switch sometime this weekend. Cheers, Sasata (talk) 16:05, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Paella Article
You might be interested in reading this: Lechonero (talk) 11:46, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Calman and his Cumacea
Hi,

I find the same pictures in a work from Stebbing, who died in 1926 here. Are they allowable with that source? The originals are from Calman, but that is not mentioned in Stebbing's book. For the time being I remade the image with Sars-only drawings. Cheers. Lycaon (talk) 12:31, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * If Stebbing reproduces a figure by Calman, then by my understanding the copyright remains with Calman. Even if Stebbing had not indicated the ownership of the copyright, that would not change the copyright status (it would just make Stebbing guilty of a copyright infringment). In this case, it isn't clear to me if Stebbing is citing the authorship of the images or of the taxon (he may not have considered them as separate); you may well know if you have seen Calman's original. As far as I know, no work of Calman's, even in modified form, can be in the public domain, unless he or his executor has explicitly released it into the public domain. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:53, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks, then we keep it as is. Lycaon (talk) 14:23, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Restoring deleted article
CAn you have a look here and in particular the last edit to which I don't personally have an answer. Is this capability in the admin's tool-kit?  Velella  Velella Talk 19:21, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Admins can view and restore almost all deleted revisions, including those of deleted pages. Can you provide links to specific articles? --Stemonitis (talk) 19:31, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Diolch - I have provided information which should enable the job to be done. Asking for lists was a bit too much like offering to do the job!.  Velella  Velella Talk  19:57, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * There is talk of re-creating these artiles rather than rescuing them - can you or another admin help ? The articles are (apparently) Larry Obhof, Nan Baker, Jim Butler (Ohio politician), Sean O'Brien (Ohio), Bob Peterson (Ohio politician), Andy Thompson (Ohio politician), Brian Hill (politician), and Casey Kozlowski.  Velella  Velella Talk 13:33, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand. When you say "recreating rather than rescuing", do you mean a new article in each case, independent of the previous ones? I think the best course of action in that case would be for the user to create userspace drafts of the various articles, and then ask an admin to move them to the appropriate place in the article namespace (as well as having been deleted, the pages have been protected, so that non-admins cannot create articles under those titles). I am being wary because those pages have been deleted more than once, and there appears to be quite a lot of history that I haven't got the time to go into. If the new userspace articles are good (and particularly, free of copyright violations), then it should be very easy to get them moved over. I'm sure the user will understand that given recent on-wiki occurrences, we are going to be more cautious than usual. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:05, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I was the individual interested in getting these articles back. I first notices that a wiki article had been copyrighted a few days ago and have been working to delete a bunch of problems. But I think that these eight articles were deleted with some goo information. It would also be cool to have these back since they are the only politicos who hold office but are no longer on here. What is a userspace draft? FrittataOhio (talk) 16:12, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Create a subpage of your own userpage, such as User:FrittataOhio/Larry Obhof, and develop the article there. When it's good enough to be part of the encyclopaedia (which needn't mean that it's "finished" – Wikipedia articles never are), ask an admin to move it to the appropriate place in the main namespace. The couple I looked at had very little information, so it may be almost as easy to start again. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:05, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

After ALOT of trial and error, I pretty much used another page of a senator as a template and then wrote about the individual with the knowledge that i had, followed by references. I have a few questions. How do you make references look nice? I noticed how to do one that was referencing election results, because they were done that way on other articles. But how do you get that specific template for articles from papers etc. ? Mine are just basic links. Other than that, I'm pretty proud of the job I did, and there is 0 plagiarism on this one. :). --FrittataOhio (talk) 18:23, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Will you take a look at it when you get a chance and restore it is plausible and up to wikipedia standards? Thanks. --FrittataOhio (talk) 18:30, 8 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Would that other senator be perhaps Troy Balderson? (Make sure you change the name in the infobox! :-P)
 * There are various templates that can be used to format citations, and they're all pretty well documented. For the one in the Medina Post for instance, I would use cite news, like this:
 * which produces:
 * For the other one, I would use cite journal, like this:
 * which produces:
 * There are a few other issues with the page (this isn't meant at all as discouragement; what you've produced is already an awful lot better than what went before). The category should be Category:People from Medina County, Ohio, not Category:People from Medina, Ohio. The "Life and Career" section (should be "Life and career" – headings should always be in sentence case) has no references at all; remember, verifiability is of the utmost importance, especially for people who are still alive. Finally, it would be best if you created a subpage, or at least removed the initial "I'm FrittataOhio, more to come on this page" from the page. Otherwise, if the page were moved into the main namespace, that greeting would have to go with it. (It would be possible to copy and paste your text to the main namespace, but then the history showing that you wrote it would be broken, which is not only bad for self-esteem, but also contravenes the terms of the Wikipedia licences.) Sort out those issues, and the article will be ready for the main namespace. I doubt that I'll be available this weekend, so you may need to find someone else to help you at that point. Don't feel you have to hurry, though. There are no deadlines on Wikipedia, so give yourself the time to do good jobs on the articles in your userspace. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:51, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * which produces:
 * There are a few other issues with the page (this isn't meant at all as discouragement; what you've produced is already an awful lot better than what went before). The category should be Category:People from Medina County, Ohio, not Category:People from Medina, Ohio. The "Life and Career" section (should be "Life and career" – headings should always be in sentence case) has no references at all; remember, verifiability is of the utmost importance, especially for people who are still alive. Finally, it would be best if you created a subpage, or at least removed the initial "I'm FrittataOhio, more to come on this page" from the page. Otherwise, if the page were moved into the main namespace, that greeting would have to go with it. (It would be possible to copy and paste your text to the main namespace, but then the history showing that you wrote it would be broken, which is not only bad for self-esteem, but also contravenes the terms of the Wikipedia licences.) Sort out those issues, and the article will be ready for the main namespace. I doubt that I'll be available this weekend, so you may need to find someone else to help you at that point. Don't feel you have to hurry, though. There are no deadlines on Wikipedia, so give yourself the time to do good jobs on the articles in your userspace. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:51, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * There are a few other issues with the page (this isn't meant at all as discouragement; what you've produced is already an awful lot better than what went before). The category should be Category:People from Medina County, Ohio, not Category:People from Medina, Ohio. The "Life and Career" section (should be "Life and career" – headings should always be in sentence case) has no references at all; remember, verifiability is of the utmost importance, especially for people who are still alive. Finally, it would be best if you created a subpage, or at least removed the initial "I'm FrittataOhio, more to come on this page" from the page. Otherwise, if the page were moved into the main namespace, that greeting would have to go with it. (It would be possible to copy and paste your text to the main namespace, but then the history showing that you wrote it would be broken, which is not only bad for self-esteem, but also contravenes the terms of the Wikipedia licences.) Sort out those issues, and the article will be ready for the main namespace. I doubt that I'll be available this weekend, so you may need to find someone else to help you at that point. Don't feel you have to hurry, though. There are no deadlines on Wikipedia, so give yourself the time to do good jobs on the articles in your userspace. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:51, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * There are a few other issues with the page (this isn't meant at all as discouragement; what you've produced is already an awful lot better than what went before). The category should be Category:People from Medina County, Ohio, not Category:People from Medina, Ohio. The "Life and Career" section (should be "Life and career" – headings should always be in sentence case) has no references at all; remember, verifiability is of the utmost importance, especially for people who are still alive. Finally, it would be best if you created a subpage, or at least removed the initial "I'm FrittataOhio, more to come on this page" from the page. Otherwise, if the page were moved into the main namespace, that greeting would have to go with it. (It would be possible to copy and paste your text to the main namespace, but then the history showing that you wrote it would be broken, which is not only bad for self-esteem, but also contravenes the terms of the Wikipedia licences.) Sort out those issues, and the article will be ready for the main namespace. I doubt that I'll be available this weekend, so you may need to find someone else to help you at that point. Don't feel you have to hurry, though. There are no deadlines on Wikipedia, so give yourself the time to do good jobs on the articles in your userspace. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:51, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I've looked at your suggestions and have made specific changes, as well as added references... I think you may have gotten me hooked! There are a lot of Ohio politicians out there that I think I could approve upon. Let me know what you think of Larry Obhof and please feel free to put it in its namespace if it's ready to go. It would be a huge confidence booster if it is! Thanks --FrittataOhio (talk) 19:21, 8 September 2011 (UTC) Oh, one more thing- how do we get references to look pretty? I've noticed they are much more easy to decipher on other pages. Thanks --FrittataOhio (talk) 19:21, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh disregard that last question- I didn't read all the way down before. THanks! --FrittataOhio (talk) 19:23, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Hello again. I hope your weekend was good. I've been working pretty hard on cleaning up a lot of problems with some pages. I've also written an article on Nan Baker. It is on my user page. Could you look it over and see if it is worthy of being posted on the main page? Thanks. FrittataOhio (talk) 20:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Oh, you're very welcome. It really was a very minor contribution. I had seen the news story, but didn't get round to doing anything about it. The real work is the writing; anyone can mess around with the formatting! Keep up the good work. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:43, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Alexander Henry Haliday
Hello Stemonitis You are right of course. I will fix the inline references on this page. I have a book on Haliday about to go to press and the co-author has added some references that I had misplaced- he is more organised than I am. I'll add those from his Ms. Best regards and thanks for the reminder Notafly (talk) 19:32, 8 September 2011 (UTC) Started 9th Sept. -with the easy ones Notafly (talk) 13:22, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Gallery nonplus
You removed a gallery from the "Huntsman spider" article. I assume that your reason was that the pictures displayed were not a series developing a particular theme, such as successive frames in ecdysis? However, the article in question describes a family, Sparassidae, of which most genera do not have their own articles, and even if they did, comparative inspection within any largish family is hardly practical when it is necessary to hop from article to article genus by genus or species by species. In biology there is a big difference between displaying a specimen and illustrating the variable attributes of a higher taxon. To display a representative set of pictures of members of a family is thoroughly justified and useful to any biologist unfamiliar with the family or who wants to look up features frequent in or representative of the family even if he is familiar with it. Granted that in that gallery there were not enough members of the Sparassidae to be satisfactorily representative, that is something that can only be mended as more pictures become available. Removing the gallery is not a rational solution. This is a general principle in articles dealing with large taxa. Unless you can explain something that I have misunderstood, I shall be undoing the deletion sometime soon. Please do not re-delete it unless you can explain why such comparative functions are unjustified. Thank you. JonRichfield (talk) 13:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Take a look at WP:IG, as indicated in my edit summary. Galleries are discouraged in almost all cases. If the images are useful, we should either link to a Commons gallery, or work the images into the text. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:24, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I have taken a look. I did so before replying. Possibly I should have mentioned that in my reply, which however should be read in that light. Working the images into the text would be a major exercise for large taxa, though of course it would be the ideal for after both of us are dead. (Would you like to guestimate how long it would take for the Sparassidae for example, assuming we could find an arachnologist who has the time and is willing?) For now I would say that the gallery is a good stopgap. Most of WP as it stands is a stopgap. But OK, a commons gallery might have its points, but to be useful it would have to be very user-friendly to access; some sort of "Click for gallery" button. How do we go about it? Now, while on such subjects, I was looking at the picture of the ecdysis of the Sparassid and thinking that it was a good ecdysis picture, but of very limited use as a Sparassidae picture. So I went to Ecdysis, where I intend to refer to it, and perhaps expand the text to deal with spider ecdysis. Please go there and check the text. It speaks of apolysis, excretion and degradation. Surely you meant secretion? Cheers for now. JonRichfield (talk) 14:24, 9 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I can't answer for the contents of the ecdysis article – I didn't write it. Commons galleries can be easily linked to using the templates Commons, Commons category, Commons-inline and Commons category-inline. The gallery I removed illustrated some sparassids, but did not illustrate the article. Images must illustrate the article (which is probably another reason not to include the ecdysis image – or to add a discussion of ecdysis in Sparassidae if appropriate). --Stemonitis (talk) 14:27, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh. I must have misread the history. Oh. I see that you had incorporated material from another article. Sorry about that. I'll make the change off my own bat. Thanks for the templates. I'll read up on them. Mind you, if this is to become a general practice, there will be a lot of articles on particular taxa that need similar attention. I think it would be destructive to apply the rule too strictly or suddenly. It seems to me altogether reasonable to have a list of say, genera or species, each with its own sample illustration. As for the ecdysis, I'll not do anything about it as yet in the Sparassidae. Anyway, IMO it would be better to include a ref to Sparassidae in Ecdysis. I am preparing a section on spiders for it. The same source has a series of pictures in Wikimedia, and I'll include that set. Later, JonRichfield (talk) 16:08, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

OK, I have added text and pictures to the ecdysis article. Let me know if it strikes you as more suitable use of the material. JonRichfield (talk) 18:35, 9 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Waaaay too many pictures for the amount of text! --Stemonitis (talk) 20:38, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Come on Stim! You are joking surely? Just what titre of pictures to text meets the International Standards Committee's criteria? Are you talking about sense or aesthetics? And which aesthetic standards are you applying? I could extend the text in that section of the article with ease (it is a large subject, trust me!) but guess what would happen? I would probably have to add more pictures to illustrate the extra points in the text. I cannot imagine what you are on about. I went over the pictures after reading your comment, and you lose me utterly. Just tell me which of the points illustrated are of no value in context (or ftm, of too little value)? The pity is not that there are three pictures, but that there are not three dozen. And I speak as a non-arachnologist! Readers who do not take any interest in the material and don't feel constrained to read it or colour in the pictures have the option of going elsewhere; readers who do want to know about it cannot make up for missing info by not reading what isn't there. I will bear in mind that you think the text is too brief, and some time, some place I will see what I can do about that, but what leaves me breathless is the very idea that you think that there is some level at which you reckon there are too many pictures for a given number of words. I have seen instructional material of superb quality with more illustrations than words, and fine instructional material with no illustrations at all. Which was wrong? And if neither, then tell me specifically what was wrong with that section of the article? JonRichfield (talk) 06:52, 13 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I am very much not joking. That article in its current state needs at most one set of pictures showing the process, whether it be in the form of a single montage (the crab example), a series of separate pictures (the spider examples) or an animation (a couple of examples in the superfluous gallery; probably the worst of the three options). Adding all those alternatives adds nothing to the article, other than to confirm that the same things happen in crustaceans, insects and arachnids, which was never in dispute. What do we learn from seeing a spider moult that we didn't get from seeing a crab moult? What is added by seeing a cicada do the same? These additional images bring no encyclopaedic value to the article, but add an enormous amount of clutter. The text is now surrounded on three sides by images; have a look at some recent featured articles to get an idea of what normally passes for good image use. What ecdysis needs at the moment is not more pictures, but more references. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:11, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Palaemonetes antrorum
Hi, I'm not sure you're the right person to talk to, but you've made a lot of edits to crustacean articles, so here goes: Someone has replaced the text at Palaemonetes antrorum with a picture of a penis, and I can't revert it. It doesn't even look like a WP site, so I don't know what's going on, and I don't know who else to contact. Best, 93.83.35.141 (talk) 23:07, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I just checked it again, from the linkthrough in my above text, and now it's fine. What the heck was that? Sorry to bother you. 93.83.35.141 (talk) 23:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably the vandalism at Template:IUCN a couple of weeks ago, which must still be cached. This isn't the first report of that showing up long after the fact. Ucucha (talk) 23:12, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of nonsense
I have just noticed that you deleted some nonsense about camel spider monsters that seems to have slipped through one of my edits on Solifugae. This is very puzzling, because I seem to remember deleting that myself, emphatically not passing it on. Anyway, thanks for killing it, whatever the case. JonRichfield (talk) 11:56, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Not a problem. No-one can be expected to catch it all! --Stemonitis (talk) 13:00, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Crayfish
Hello, sorry for the mistake in the wrong links. Now if those 2 things (Astacoidea and Parastacoidea) mentioned are not superfamilies, can you rewrite the intro if you can? Thanks :) Yosef1987 (talk) 12:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Astacoidea and Parastacoidea are indeed superfamilies. Astacidae, however, is a family. While it would be possible to describe crayfish as "members of the superfamily Parastacoidea and the family Astacidae", it seems a much less elegant wording, and is no more correct than the current wording. It also makes the whole thing sound paraphyletic or polyphyletic when there is extensive evidence from a number of sources to show that freshwater crayfish form a monophyletic group. I see no need to change the existing text. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:14, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Capitalization of common names of animal species
Hello. Just letting you know that I've posted the following at a number of project talk pages:

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:44, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Lycophocyon
I mean that in "modern" paleontology only a few newly named taxa described in their own families to avoid uncertainties in the future. Lycophocyon was tested in phylogenetic analysis and found to be basal form (like a vast amout of other taxa). Therefore, I think we should not mark everything that lacks family as a incertae sedis. Rnnsh (talk) 12:41, 16 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Replied elsewhere --Stemonitis (talk) 12:47, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Another barnstar for you!

 * Why, thank you! I'm flattered. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:16, 17 September 2011 (UTC)