User talk:William Avery/Archive 12

Please comment on Talk:Apple Maggot Quarantine Area
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Apple Maggot Quarantine Area. Legobot (talk) 04:35, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Why warn me?
And who are you? And he (MarnetteD did he email you?) has reverted me without going to talk page. Would you like to tell me how he talked to you? Or are you he? 75.161.53.1 (talk) 21:47, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The warning itself explains why it was issued. Please engage at Talk:Oscar_Wilde to explain the reasoning behind your edit. William Avery (talk) 21:53, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
 * So just how did that other guy get you to take time from moth articles and pick on me? Not saying sock puppetry (now that you have taught me the term) just exactly how??????75.161.53.1 (talk) 22:22, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The page is on my watchlist. William Avery (talk) 22:34, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Zygaenidae family or family Zygaenidae
William, I've seen you make changes like this one, while making other changes, and I've wondered why. "The Zygaenidae family" sounds better to my ear, but my ear is not scientifically trained. Persuade me that your way is right and I'll join you in your quest to set the "tone". Also, I saw another place where you said that a genus had been "erected" instead of "described". I've seen it both ways (also "created"); is erected better in some way? Thank you. SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨  20:49, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, restrictive appositives, such as "the number five", "the planet Venus", "the author Charles Dickens","the newspaper Isvestia", "the element iron", "the protein haemoglobin", "the philosopher Diogenes", etc. Google Ngram confirms my suspicion that this form is in overwhelming preponderance in reliable sources when referring to technical names of taxa. See this comparison for a couple of families sometimes mentioned outside academic literature. Even more pronounced for a couple of lepidoptera families, that are probably found only in technical sources. I think to myself "Zygaenidae family"? I've never seen the like!, and Ngram agrees. This only applies to the actual Latin family names: the family Myrtidae is called 'the myrtle family' by gardeners, and good luck to them. I'm pretty sure I've seen WolfmanSF make changes on these lines, too. I'll ping you when I've had a think about the other things. William Avery (talk) 22:22, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep in mind that "family Myrtidae" is not a compound noun (it means the same as "Myrtidae"), while "myrtle family" is a compound noun (it means something different than either "myrtle" or "family"). I think that is why the word order normally seen in formal prose differs between the two. Similarly, we say "planet Mars" but "Mars rover", and "enzyme telomerase" but "telomerase gene". Note that Polbot generated about 70,000 species article stubs with the syntax initially backwards. WolfmanSF (talk) 22:59, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I see what you mean: restrictive appositive constructions don't create compound nouns. Unfortunately, Polbot has been imitated by some highly industrious human editors. William Avery (talk) 13:07, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Complex grammar makes my head spin, but I played with the ngrams and you are clearly right. I'll add that to the list of things I do while I'm doing other things. I think my gut feeling comes from phrases like "The family Smith", which sounds like people putting on airs in contrast to the down-to-earth "Smith family". Thank you. SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨   01:17, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
 * A point that has arisen in several past discussions on this subject is that there is a contrast between usage of zoological and botanical Linnaean terms. Usage in zoology seems to be much more consistent. This can be illustrated by the following comparison: usage of Hominidae and usage of Rosaceae. My interpretation is that due to the very widespread nature of the practice of horticulture, the average level of education and scientific literacy is lower among the larger population that is using the botanical terms, and that this has corrupted usage of the latter. WolfmanSF (talk) 07:34, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anime and manga
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Thanks
Thank you for all of your category editing on gastropods. You were a great help to me. Because of you and me, every gastropod now has its year of description as a category. Scorpions13256 (talk) 05:01, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Chloe Kim
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Your BRFA
Your BRFA (Bots/Requests for approval/William Avery Bot) has been approved for trial. — xaosflux  Talk 02:16, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
 * And now approved entirely. Please hold off on making edits until your bot receives the bot flag. ~ Rob 13 Talk 15:36, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Many thanks. I will await the flag. William Avery (talk) 15:40, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:The Great Courses
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William Avery Bot flagged
Following the successful BRFA, I've flagged your bot, so you can start the run whenever you're ready. Warofdreams talk 15:47, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you. William Avery (talk) 15:53, 9 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Are you intending to create the "Gastropods described in DECADE" categories? Compare the category hierarchies of Category:Gastropods described in 1914 and Category:Animals described in 1914. The 'standard' for these categories is the hierarchy "... described in YEAR" – "... described in DECADE" – "... described in CENTURY". One reason this matters can be seen by looking at Category:Gastropods described in 1900. If you follow the category hierarchy upwards in different ways you arrive at Category:Gastropods described in the 19th century but Category:Animals described in the 20th century. It's a well known (at least I thought it was well known) anomaly in these "year of description" categories that since the decades are described as "10s" .. "90s", the centuries cause problems.
 * It's also very useful to add the Category in year navigation template to "... described in YEAR" categories as per the "Animals described in YEAR" categories. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:59, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I based the gastropods hierarchy on Category:Birds by century of formal description, and I wasn't intending to do any grouping by decades. I'm aware of the discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 36 and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 36, but I couldn't divine any consensus. I find myself in something of a bind here, in being very concerned about the consistency of the taxonomic groupings used across these categories (and being willing to do some of the 'heavy lifting' to make them consistent), but being completely uninterested in chronological groupings of years. It would be very agreeable if the whole thing could be solved in MediaWiki, with the year categories being grouped under something like "Years in gastropod taxonomy", and the page having options to view as a flat list of years, or grouped by decade, century, etc. I might look at writing a front-end API-based gadget of some sort to do that, if it hasn't already been done.


 * I will add the navigation template to pages. William Avery (talk) 13:27, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes, I too am much more concerned about the consistency of the taxonomic groupings than how the years are grouped. (I've just been working on getting rid of a random set of "deuterostome" categories that appeared.) There's a logic to removing the DECADE categories altogether, which solves the issue of using "century" in a non-standard way, but a front end that allowed variable ways of viewing the data would be better. In the meantime, for gastropods you've been copying the way it works for birds and for spiders I've been copying the way it works for plants. Um... Peter coxhead (talk) 15:48, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Sigh... William Avery (talk) 18:49, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Well, I've been working on some of the nonsense ones; haven't got to Ecdysozoa yet. Should we try an RfC on some principles to be used in creating these categories? Peter coxhead (talk) 11:40, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I think a general discussion would definitely be better than isolated deletion proposals. William Avery (talk) 18:42, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Existentialism Is a Humanism
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New changes review
Be careful whenever you are reviewing new edits. Why you accepted this problematic edit when it was already reverted by an editor, mentioning that the IP is a sock? Not to point out that content in question is also very poor. My Lord (talk) 04:26, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Central Bank Digital Currency
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Bristol meetup
You have previously attended or expressed an interest in attending a meetup in Bristol. I am organising one for this summer - provisionally Saturday 1 September 2018. For details see Meetup/Bristol/3 to join the discussion, including expressing preferences about dates and venues, see the talk page at m:Talk:Meetup/Bristol/3. Thryduulf (talk) 18:31, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Environmental inequality in Europe
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Request for Ban
Hello, can you please ban unknown user 92.238.193.204 for repeated vandalism and disruptive editing on the article Victor H. Krulak? He is still changing the Marine Corps Parachutists Badge for Army Parachutists badge, even if I placed link with correct badge. He was banned some time ago by yourself for the same behaviour. Thank you AntonyZ (talk) 18:53, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Not banned, or even blocked, just reverted, I think. William Avery (talk) 11:53, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Sorry!
I intended to block following your report to WP:AIV but accidentally blocked you instead. Needless to say, I immediately unblocked you and have made clear in the log that it was my error, for which you have my sincere apologies! WJBscribe (talk) 12:54, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Thaks for the apology, which leaves me slightly less irked. :-) William Avery (talk) 12:56, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on deleted T.S. Eliot "Jacob Epstein" sub-section
I have seen that you have made edits to the T.S. Eliot article before. I am interested in your comments on a recent change. A recent sub-section about the sculptor Jacob Epstein was made to the T.S. Eliot article. I deleted the addition and explained my reasons on the talk page.

Here is what was removed: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=T._S._Eliot&action=historysubmit&type=revision&diff=877562978&oldid=877549994

Some have mentioned on the talk page that the Epstein material should be put back. Would you please look at the changes and make your opinion known on the Eliot talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:T._S._Eliot#Jacob_Epstein

WikiParker (talk) 22:01, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Pandorus sphinx moth, listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Pandorus sphinx moth,. Since you had some involvement with the Pandorus sphinx moth, redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨  23:47, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Bulbophyllum species authorities
I appreciate the work you've been doing converting orchids to Speciesboxes. I was wondering whether you were planning to go back through and add taxonomic authorities for the many Bulbophyllum species missing them. You're one of the most conscientious editors with regards to linking taxon authorities, so I'm guessing you may well be planning to revisit the Bulbophyllum lacking authorities. If you're not planning to do so, I'll tackle them myself, but I'm perfectly happy to leave it to you. Plantdrew (talk) 01:02, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I did notice that authorities are sadly lacking in many cases :-( I will take a look at the possibility of 'harvesting' them en masse from somewhere (Perhaps the Bulbophylum checklist). William Avery (talk) 09:18, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:List of Electronic Arts games
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Please comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard
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The Honourable Kate Osamor MP
Kate's mother, Martha Osamor, was recently created Baroness Osamor. This gives her children the style of "The Honourable". For other examples, see Jacob Rees-Mogg, son of The Lord Rees-Mogg; Ian Paisley Jr, son of The Lord Bannside or Mark and Carol Thatcher, children of The Baroness Thatcher. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 12:25, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Abuse of your rollback rights
Hello.

I noticed that you used your rollback rights in the Bayonetta: Bloody Fate article to revert a change with which you disagree. This is a direct violation of WP:ROLLBACK, which says:

"Use of standard rollback for any other purposes – such as reverting good-faith changes which you happen to disagree with – is likely to be considered misuse of the tool. When in doubt, use another method of reversion and supply an edit summary to explain your reasoning."

I have no reason to believe that 5.75.114.70 has been editing in bad faith. The comment about the quality of translation seemed something that might or might not be okay, but the reminder of the contribution seems to have been fine. Please assume good faith and don't bite the newcomers.

Cheers.

Extremecia (talk) 16:43, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Plain violation of NPOV in my book. William Avery (talk) 16:59, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Shenphen Rinpoche
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Category:Vertebrates described in 1771 has been nominated for discussion
Category:Vertebrates described in 1771, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 11:52, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Fountain (Duchamp)
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Please comment on Talk:List of IMAX DMR films
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Please comment on Talk:Graham Linehan
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chiropterans
Any interest? cygnis insignis 12:04, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

May 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

 * May 2019&mdash;Issue 002


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

On 23 May, user created a talk page post, "Revamp of Wikiproject Biology--Who is In?". In the days since, WP:BIOL has been bustling with activity, with over a dozen editors weighing in on this discussion, as well as several others that have subsequently spawned. An undercurrent of thought is that WP:BIOL has too many subprojects, preventing editors from easily interacting and stopping a "critical mass" of collaboration and engagement. Many mergers and consolidations of subprojects have been tentatively listed, with a consolidation of WikiProjects Genetics + Molecular and Cell Biology + Computational Biology + Biophysics currently in discussion. Other ideas being aired include updating old participants lists, redesigning project pages to make them more user-friendly, and clearly identifying long- and short-term goals.
 * Fundamental changes being discussed at WikiProject Biology

Editors and  had a very fruitful month, collaborating to bring two dinosaur articles to GA and then nominating them both for FA. They graciously decided to answer some questions for the first ToL Editor Spotlight, giving insight to their successful collaborations, explaining why you should collaborate with them, and also sharing some tidbits about their lives off-Wikipedia.
 * Editor Spotlight: These editors want you to write about dinosaurs

1) Enwebb: How long have you two been collaborating on articles? 2) Enwebb: Why dinosaurs? 3) Enwebb: Why should other editors join you in writing articles related to paleontology? Are you looking to attract new editors, or draw in experienced editors from other areas of Wikipedia?
 * Jens Lallensack: I started in the German Wikipedia in 2005 but switched to the English Wikipedia because of its very active dinosaur project. My first major collaboration with FunkMonk was on Heterodontosaurus in 2015.
 * FunkMonk: Yeah, we had interacted already on talk pages and through reviewing each other's articles, and at some point I was thinking of expanding Heterodontosaurus, and realised Jens had already written the German Wikipedia version, so it seemed natural to work together on the English one. Our latest collaboration was Spinophorosaurus, where by another coincidence, I had wanted to work on that article for the WP:Four Award, and it turned out that Jens had a German book about the expedition that found the dinosaur, which I wouldn't have been able to utilise with my meagre German skills. Between those, we also worked on Brachiosaurus, a wider Dinosaur Project collaboration between several editors.
 * JL: Because of the huge public interest in them. But dinosaurs are also highly interesting from a scientific point of view: key evolutionary innovations emerged within this group, such as warm-bloodedness, gigantism, and flight. Dinosaur research is, together with the study of fossil human remains, the most active field in paleontology. New scientific techniques and approaches tend to get developed within this field. Dinosaur research became increasingly interdisciplinary, and now does not only rely on various fields of biology and geology, but also on chemistry and physics, among others. Dinosaurs are therefore ideal to convey scientific methodology to the general public.
 * FM: As outlined above, dinosaurs have been described as a "gateway to science"; if you learn about dinosaurs, you will most likely also learn about a lot of scientific fields you would not necessarily be exposed to otherwise. On a more personal level, having grown up with and being influenced by various dinosaur media, it feels pretty cool to help spread knowledge about these animals, closest we can get to keeping them alive.
 * JL: Because we are a small but active and helpful community. Our Dinosaur collaboration, one of the very few active open collaborations in Wikipedia, makes high-level writing on important articles easier and more fun. Our collaboration is especially open to editors without prior experience in high-level writing. But we do not only write articles: several WikiProject Dinosaur participants are artists who do a great job illustrating the articles, and maintain an extensive and very active image review system. In fact, a number of later authors started with contributing images.
 * FM: Anyone who is interested in palaeontology is welcome to try writing articles, and we would be more than willing to help. I find that the more people that work on articles simultaneously with me, the more motivation I get to write myself. I am also one of those editors who started out contributing dinosaur illustrations and making minor edits, and only began writing after some years. But when I got to it, it wasn't as intimidating as I had feared, and I've learned a lot in the process. For example anatomy; if you know dinosaur anatomy, you have a very good framework for understanding the anatomy of other tetrapod animals, including humans.

4) Enwebb: Between the two of you, you have over 300 GA reviews. FunkMonk, you have over 250 of those. What keeps you coming back to review more articles?
 * FM: One of the main reasons I review GANs is to learn more about subjects that seem interesting (or which I would perhaps not come across otherwise). There are of course also more practical reasons, such as helping an article on its way towards FAC, to reduce the GAN backlog, and to "pay back" when I have a nomination up myself. It feels like a win-win situation where I can be entertained by interesting info, while also helping other editors get their nominations in shape, and we'll end up with an article that hopefully serves to educate a lot of people (the greater good).
 * JL: Because I enjoy reading Wikipedia articles and like to learn new things. In addition, reviews give me the opportunity to have direct contact with the authors, and help them to make their articles even better. This is quite rewarding for me personally. But I also review because I consider our GA and FA system to be of fundamental importance for Wikipedia. When I started editing Wikipedia (the German version), the article promotion reviews motivated me and improved my writing skills a lot. Submitting an article for review requires one to get serious and take additional steps to bring the article to the best quality possible. GAs and FAs are also a good starting point for readers, and may motivate them to become authors themselves.

5) Enwebb: What are your editing preferences? Any scripts or gadgets you find invaluable? 6) Enwebb: What would surprise the ToL community to learn about your life off-wiki?
 * FM: One script that everyone should know about is the duplink highlight tool. It will show duplinks within the intro and body of a given article separately, and it seems a lot of people still don't know about it, though they are happy when introduced to it. I really liked the citationbot too (since citation consistency is a boring chore to me), but it seems to be blocked at the moment due to some technical issues.
 * JL: I often review using the Wikipedia Beta app on my smartphone, as it allows me to read without needing to sit in front of the PC. For writing, I find the reference management software Zotero invaluable, as it generates citation templates automatically, saving a lot of time.
 * Editor's note: I downloaded Zotero and tried it for the first time and think it is a very useful tool. More here.
 * FM: Perhaps that I have no background in natural history/science, but work with animation and games. But fascination with and knowledge of nature and animals is actually very helpful when designing and animating characters and creatures, so it isn't that far off, and I can actually use some of the things I learn while writing here for my work (when I wrote the Dromaeosauroides article, it was partially to learn more about the animal for a design-school project).
 * JL: That I am actually doing research on dinosaurs. Though I avoid writing about topics I publish research on, my Wikipedia work helps me to keep a good general overview over the field, and quite regularly I can use what I learned while writing for Wikipedia for my research.

Get in touch with these editors regarding collaboration at WikiProject Dinosaurs!
 * Marine life continues to dominate ToL DYKs

Discuss this issue

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Sent by DannyS712 (talk) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 03:44, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Notability
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June 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

 * June 2019&mdash;Issue 003


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!


 * Spineless editors overwhelmed by stubs

Within the Tree of Life and its many subprojects, there is an abundance of stubs. Welcome to Wikipedia, what's new, right? However, based on all wikiprojects listed (just over two thousand), the Tree of Life project is worse off in average article quality than most. Based on the concept of relative WikiWork (the average number of "steps" needed to have a project consisting of all featured articles (FAs), where stub status → FA consists of six steps), only seven projects within the ToL have an average rating of "start class" or better. Many projects, particularly those involving invertebrates, hover at an average article quality slightly better than a stub. With relative WikiWorks of 5.98 each, WikiProject Lepidoptera and WikiProject Beetles have the highest relative WikiWork of any project. Given that invertebrates are incredibly speciose, it may not surprise you that many articles about them are lower quality. WikiProject Beetles, for example, has over 20 times more articles than WikiProject Cats. Wikipedia will always be incomplete, so we should take our relatively low WikiWork as motivation to write more articles that are also better in quality.

We're joined for this month's Editor Spotlight by, a long-time contributor who lists themselves as a member of WikiProject Fungus, WikiProject Algae, and WikiProject Cephalopods.
 * Editor Spotlight: Showing love to misfit taxa

1) Enwebb: How did you come to edit articles about organisms and taxonomic groups?
 * Nessie: The main force, then and now, driving me to create or edit articles is thinking "Why isn't there an article on that on Wikipedia?" Either I'll read about some rarely-sighted creature in the deep sea or find something new on iNaturalist and want to learn more.  First stop (surprise!) is Wikipedia, and many times there is just a stub or no page at all.  Sometimes I just add the source that got me to the article, not sometimes I go deep and try to get everything from the library or online journals and put it all in an article.  The nice thing about taxa is the strong precedent that all accepted extant taxa are notable, so one does not need to really worry about doing a ton of research and having the page get removed.  I was super worried about this as a new editor:  I still really dislike conflict so if I can avoid it I do.  Anyway, the most important part is stitching an article in to the rest of Wikipedia:  Linking all the jargon, taxonomers, pollinators, etc., adding categories, and putting in the correct WikiProjects.  Recently I have been doing more of the stitching-in stuff with extant articles.  The last deep-dive article I made was Karuka at the end of last year, which is a bit of a break for me.  I guess it's easier to do all the other stuff on my tablet while watching TV.

2) Enwebb: Many editors in the ToL are highly specialized on a group of taxa. A look at your recently created articles includes much diversity, though, with viruses, bacteria, algae, and cnidarians all represented&mdash;are there any commonalities for the articles you work on? Would you say you're particularly interested in certain groups?
 * Nessie: I was a nerd from a time when that would get you beat up, so I like odd things and underdogs. I also avoid butting heads, so not only do I find siphonophores and seaweeds fascinating I don't have to worry about stepping on anyone's toes.  I go down rabbitholes where I start writing an article like Mastocarpus papillatus because I found some growing on some rocks, then in my research I see it is parasitized by Pythium porphyrae, which has no article, and how can that be for an oomycete that oddly lives in the ocean and also attacks my tasty nori.  So then I wrote that article and that got me blowing off the dust on other Oomycota articles, encouraged by the pull of propagating automatic taxoboxes.  Once you've done the taxonomy template for the genus, well then you might as well do all the species now that the template is taken care of for them too. and so on until I get sucked in somewhere else. I think it's good to advocate for some of these 'oddball' taxa as it makes it easier for editors to expand their range from say plants to the pathogenic microorganisms of their favorite plant.


 * My favorite clades though, It's hard to pick for a dilettante like me. I like working on virus taxonomy, but I can't think of a specific virus species that I am awed by.  Maybe Tulip breaking virus  for teaching us economics or Variola virus for having so many, one of which was popularly sung about by Desi Arnaz and then inspired the name of a cartoon character who was then misremembered and then turned into a nickname for Howard Stern's producer Gary Dell'Abate.  Sorry, really had to share that  chain, but for a species that's not a staple food it probably has the most deities.  But anyway, for having the most species that wow me, I love a good fungus or algae, but that often is led by my stomach.  Also why I seem to research so many plant articles.  You can't eat siphonophores, at least I don't, but they are fascinating with their federalist colonies of zooids.  Bats are all amazing, but the task force seems to have done so much I feel the oomycetes and slime moulds need more love.  Same thing with dinosaurs (I'm team Therizinosaurus though).  But honestly, every species has that one moment in the research where you just go, wow, that's so interesting.  For instance, I loved discovering that the picture-winged fly (Delphinia picta) has a mating dance that involves blowing bubbles.  Now I keep expecting them to show me when they land on my arm, but no such luck yet.

3) Enwebb: I noticed that many of your recent edits utilize the script Rater, which aids in quickly reassessing the quality and importance of an article. Why is it important to update talk page assessments of articles? I also noticed that the quality rating you assign often aligns with ORES, a script that uses machine-learning to predict article quality. Coincidence?
 * Nessie: I initially started focusing on WikiProject talk page templates because they seem to be the key to data collecting and maintenance for articles, much more so than categories. This is where you note of an article needs an image, or audio, or a range map.  It's how the cleanup listing bot sorts articles, and how  does his automated taxobox usage stats.  The latter inspired me to look for [https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?language=en&project=wikipedia&ns%5B0%5D=1&ns%5B118%5D=1&templates_any=Virusbox%0D%0ATaxonbar%0D%0ATaxobox%0D%0ASubspeciesbox%0D%0ASpeciesbox%0D%0AParaphyletic%20group%0D%0AOobox%0D%0AMissing-taxobox%0D%0AInfraspeciesbox%0D%0AIchnobox%0D%0AHybridbox%2Flua%0D%0AHybridbox%0D%0ABiota%20infobox%0D%0AAutomatic%20taxobox&templates_no=rodents%0D%0Afishproject%0D%0AWikiProject%20Viruses%0D%0AWikiProject%20Turtles%0D%0AWikiProject%20Spiders%0D%0AWikiProject%20Sharks%0D%0AWikiProject%20Rodents%0D%0AWikiProject%20Reptiles%0D%0AWikiProject%20Primates%0D%0AWikiProject%20Poultry%0D%0AWikiProject%20Plants%0D%0AWikiProject%20Paleontology%0D%0AWikiProject%20Palaeontology%0D%0AWikiProject%20Microbiology%0D%0AWikiProject%20Micro%0D%0AWikiProject%20Marine%20life%0D%0AWikiProject%20Marine%20Life%0D%0AWikiProject%20Mantodea%0D%0AWikiProject%20Mammals%2FBats%20Task%20Force%0D%0AWikiProject%20Mammals%0D%0AWikiProject%20Lepidoptera%0D%0AWikiProject%20Insects%0D%0AWikiProject%20Hypericaceae%0D%0AWikiProject%20Gastropods%0D%0AWikiProject%20Fungi%0D%0AWikiProject%20Fishes%0D%0AWikiProject%20Equine%0D%0AWikiProject%20Dogs%0D%0AWikiProject%20Dinosaurs%0D%0AWikiProject%20Cetaceans%0D%0AWikiProject%20Cephalopods%0D%0AWikiProject%20Cats%0D%0AWikiProject%20Carnivorous%20plants%0D%0AWikiProject%20Bivalves%0D%0AWikiProject%20Birds%0D%0AWikiProject%20Beetles%0D%0AWikiProject%20Banksia%0D%0AWikiProject%20Arthropods%0D%0AWikiProject%20Animals%0D%0AWikiProject%20Amphibians%20and%20Reptiles%0D%0AWikiProject%20Algae%0D%0AWPSpiders%0D%0AWP%20Spiders%0D%0ASquirrels%0D%0ARodent%0D%0AMammal%0D%0ALepidopteraTalk%0D%0ABirdTalk%0D%0AAARTalk&templates_use_talk_no=on&search_max_results=500&sortby=title&sortorder=descending&add_image=on&interface_language=en&active_tab=tab_templates_n_links&doit= articles on organisms that are not assigned to any ToL WikiProjects] which initially was in the thousands.  I got it down to zero with just copypasta so you can imagine I was excited when I saw the rater tool.  Back then I rated everything stub/low because it was faster:  I couldn't check every article for the items on the B-class checklists.  Plus each project has their own nuances to rating scales and I thought the editors in the individual projects would take it from there.  I also thought all species were important, so how can I choose a favorite?  Now it is much easier with the rater tool and the apparent consensus with 's method of rating by the pageviews (0-9 views/day is low, 10-99 is med, 100-999 is high...).  For the quality I generally go by the ORES rating, you caught me.  It sometimes is thrown off by a long list of species or something, but it's generally good for stub to C: above that needs formal investigation and procedures I am still learning about.  It seems that in the ToL projects we don't focus so much on getting articles to GA/FA so it's been harder to pick up.  It was a little culture shock when I went on the Discord server and it seemed everyone was obsessed with getting articles up in quality.  I think ToL is focusing on all the missing taxa and (re)organizing it all, which when you already have articles on every anime series or whatever you can focus on bulking the articles up more.  In any event, on my growing to-do list is trying to get an article up to FA or GA and learn the process that way so I can better do the quality ratings and not just kick the can down the road.

4) Enwebb: What, if anything, can ToL and its subprojects do to better support collaboration and coordination among editors? How can we improve?
 * Nessie: I mentioned earlier that the projects are the main way maintenance is done. And it is good that we have a bunch of subprojects that let those tasks get broken up into manageable pieces.  Frankly I'm amazed anything gets done with WikiProject Plants with how huge its scope is.  Yet this not only parcels out the work but the discussion as well.  A few editors like  and  keep an eye on many of the subprojects and spread the word, but it's still easy for newer editors to get a little lost.  There should be balance between the lumping and splitting.  The newsletter helps by crossing over all the WikiProjects, and if the discord channel picked up that would help too.  Possibly the big Enwiki talk page changes will help as well.

5) Enwebb: What would surprise the ToL community to learn about your life off-Wikipedia?
 * Nessie: I'm not sure anything would be surprising. I focus on nature offline too, foraging for mushrooms or wild plants and trying to avoid ticks and mosquitos.  I have started going magnet fishing lately, more to help clean up the environment than in the hopes of finding anything valuable.  But it would be fun to find a weapon and help solve a cold case or something.


 * June DYKs

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sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:29, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:People's Party (Spain)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:People's Party (Spain). Legobot (talk) 04:37, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Plant or plants
Like you, I think that "species of plant" or "genus of plant" is more natural English. I find that such usages are often 'corrected', particularly by editors who seem to be from the US. I've been wondering if there might be an ENGVAR difference. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:17, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm quite surprised that, whereas "a species of moths" and "a species of beetles" are virtually non-existent usages(see Google NGRAM), "a species of plants" seems to at least be a form found in the corpus.(See Google NGRAM). When I click the links at the bottom of the NGRAM page, to display examples, it seems to be very short of actual examples. Not sure why. "A species of flies" was something of a Caftaric tic. William Avery (talk) 14:46, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, "a species of plants" seems to be at a frequency of about 0.00000010, or 1 in 1,000,000, since 1940, so there won't be many examples... Straight Google searches for the exact phrases give me about 6 million hits for "a species of plant" and about 5.5 million for "a species of plants", which surprises me. Looking at the top entries for each search suggests to me that the former is more common in scientific writing, the latter in less formal writing (with more ".com" domains, I think). Peter coxhead (talk) 19:14, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Tree of Life Newsletter



 * July 2019&mdash;Issue 004


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

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Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:59, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Goop (company)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Goop (company). Legobot (talk) 04:30, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

October 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter



 * October 2019&mdash;Issue 007


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

{| role="presentation" class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%; background:#b6ecd0;" By request from another editor, this month I wrote an overview of ways that content is featured on Wikipedia. Below I have outlined some of the processes for getting content featured:
 * Alphabet Soup: Explaining DYK, GA, FA, and More

Did You Know (DYK)
What is it: A way for articles to appear on the main page of Wikipedia. A short hook in the format of "Did you know...that ___" presents unusual and interesting facts to the reader, hopefully making the reader want to click through to the article

How it works: The DYK process has fairly low barriers for participation. The eligibility criteria are few and relatively easy to meet. Some important guidelines: The process for creating the nomination is somewhat tedious. Instructions can be found here (official instructions) and here ("quick and nice" guide to DYK). Experience is the best teacher here, so don't be afraid to try and fail a few times. The last few DYK nominations I've done, however, have been with the help of SD0001's DYK-helper script, which makes the process a bit more streamlined (you create the template from a popup box on the article; created template is automatically transcluded to nominations page and article talk page)
 * To be eligible, article is either new (newly created or moved to mainspace), a 5x expansion, or passed a GA review. Its creation, expansion, or promotion to GA must have been in the past 7 days.
 * Article must be long enough, with more than 1,500 characters of prose (this doesn't include embedded lists)
 * I find Shubinator's DYKcheck script useful in determining whether an article is eligible for nomination.

Once your nomination is created and transcluded, it will need to be reviewed. The reviewer will check that the article meets the eligibility criteria, that the hook is short enough, cited, and interesting, and that other requirements are met, such as for images. If you've been credited with more than 5 DYKs, the reviewer will also check that you've reviewed someone else's nomination for each article that you nominate. This is called QPQ (quid pro quo). You can check how many credited DYKs you've had here to see if QPQ is required for you to nominate an article for DYK.

Good Article (GA)
What it is: A peer review process to determine that an article meets a set of criteria. This adds a symbol to the top of the article. About 1 in 200 articles on Wikipedia is a GA.

How it works: You follow the instructions to nominate an article, placing a template on its talk page. Anyone can nominate an article&mdash;you don't have to be a major contributor, though it is considered polite to inform the major contributors that you are nominating the article. The article is added to a queue to await a review. In the ToL, it seems that reviews happen pretty quickly, thanks to our dedicated members. Once the review begins, the reviewer will offer suggestions to help the article meet the 6 GA criteria. Upon addressing all concerns, the reviewer will pass the article, and voilà! Good Article!

Advice to a first-time nominator: Look at other Good Articles in related areas before nominating. If you're unsure about nominating, consider posting to the talk page of your project to see what other editors think. You can also have a more experienced editor co-nominate the article with you.

Featured Article (FA)
What it is: An exhaustive peer review to determine that an articles meets the criteria. This adds a to the top of the article. About 1 in 1,000 articles on Wikipedia is a FA.

How it works: You follow the instructions to nominate an article, placing a template on its talk page. Nominated articles are usually GAs already. Uninvolved editors can nominate, though the article's regular editors should be consulted first. Several editors will come by offering feedback, eventually supporting or opposing promotion to FA. A coordinator will determine if there is consensus to promote the article to FA. For an editor's first FA, spot checks to verify that the sources support the text are conducted.

Advice to a first-time nominator: The Featured Article Candidate (FAC) process is a bit intimidating, but several steps can make your first one easier (speaking as someone who has exactly one). If you also did the GA nomination of the article, you can ask the reviewer for "extra" feedback beyond the GA criteria. You can also formally request a peer review and/or a copy edit from the Guild of Copy Editors to check for content and mechanics. First-time nominators are encouraged to seek the help of a mentor for a higher likelihood of passing their first FAC.

Good and Featured Topics (GT and FT)
What it is: It took me a while to realize we even had GT and FT on Wikipedia, as they are not very common relative to GA and FA. Both GT and FT are collections of related articles of high quality (all articles at GA or FA, all lists at Featured List). GT/FT have to be at least 3 articles with no obvious gaps in coverage of the topic, along with other criteria. For GT, all articles have to be GA quality and all lists must be FL. For FT, at least half the articles must be FA or FL, with the remaining articles at GA.

How it works: Follow the nomination procedures for creating a new topic or adding an article to an existing topic. Other editors weigh in to support or oppose the proposal. Coordinators determine if there is consensus to promote to GT/FT.

Advice to a first-time nominator: There are very few GT/FT in Tree of Life (5 GT and 11 FT). Most of the legwork appears to be improving a cohesive set of articles to GA/FA.
 * }

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Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 03:34, 3 November 2019 (UTC) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk)

Sources needed for Days of the Year pages
I see you recently accepted a pending change to February 4 that did not include a direct source.

You're probably not aware of this change, but Days of the Year pages are no longer exempt from WP:V and direct sources are required for additions. For details see the content guideline and the WikiProject Days of the Year style guide. I've gone ahead and un-accepted this edit and backed it out.

All the pages in the Days of the Year project have had pending changes protection turned on to prevent vandalism and further addition of entries without direct sources. As a pending changes patroller, please do not accept additions to day of year pages where no direct source has been provided on that day of year page. The burden to provide sources for additions to these pages is on the editor who adds or restores material to these pages. Thank you and please keep up your good work! Toddst1 (talk) 18:48, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. Legobot (talk) 04:35, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:21 Savage
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:21 Savage. Legobot (talk) 04:35, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Palestine-Israel articles 4 arbitration case commencing
In August 2019, the Arbitration Committee resolved to open the Palestine-Israel articles 4 arbitration case as a suspended case due to workload considerations. The Committee is now un-suspending and commencing the case. For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin ( aka L235 · t · c) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:09, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The primary scope of the case is: Evaluating the clarity and effectiveness of current remedies in the ARBPIA area. More information can be found here.
 * Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage at Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 4/Evidence. The evidence phase will be open until 18 October 2019 (subject to change).
 * You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage at Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 4/Workshop. The workshop phase will be open until 25 October 2019 (subject to change).
 * For a guide to the arbitration process, see Arbitration/Guide to arbitration.
 * If you do not wish to receive case updates, please remove your name from the notification list.

September 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter



 * September 2019&mdash;Issue 006


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!



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Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 22:26, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Kate Dover
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Kate Dover. Legobot (talk) 04:39, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Palestine-Israel articles 4: workshop extended
The workshop phase of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 arbitration case will be extended to November 1, 2019. All interested editors are invited to submit comments and workshop proposals regarding and arising from the clarity and effectiveness of current remedies in the ARBPIA area. To unsubscribe from future case updates, please remove your name from the notification list. For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin ( aka L235 · t · c) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:40, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

August 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter



 * August 2019&mdash;Issue 005


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!



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Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 15:43, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Notice of Neutral point of view noticeboard discussion
There is currently a discussion at Neutral point of view/Noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Keith Johnston (talk • contribs) 16:17, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Der Ring in Minden
... finally appeared today, - thank you for participating in finding the best hook, "... to listen to the music at the end" which would be a good motto ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:24, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

William Avery, I don't know where exactly to write, but there should be like a reminder like use British English or American English for stuff. So people should set those reminders so I don't do this. And I don't know what is related to England or not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tanakorn Srichaisuphakit (talk • contribs) 00:16, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Lyric poetry
✅ GiantSnowman 13:11, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Happy New Year William Avery!
Happy New Year! Hello William Avery: Thanks for all of your contributions to improve the encyclopedia for Wikipedia's readers, and have a happy and enjoyable New Year! Cheers, Donner60 (talk) 00:29, 28 December 2019 (UTC) Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks (static)}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.

April 2020 Tree of Life Newsletter
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:40, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

May 2020 Tree of Life Newsletter
Enwebb (talk) 19:40, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

June/July 2020 Tree of Life Newsletter
Delivered on behalf of Enwebb (talk) 16:33, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

August 2020 Tree of Life Newsletter
Delivered on behalf of Enwebb (talk) 17:10, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

August 2020 Tree of Life Newsletter
Delivered on behalf of Enwebb (talk) 22:52, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject Tree of Life Newsletter – 018



 * February 2022&mdash;Issue 018


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:45, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

WikiProject Tree of Life/Newsletter/019



 * March 2022&mdash;Issue 019


 * Tree of Life


 * Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:46, 1 April 2022 (UTC)