Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Microbiology/Archive 2

Telonemia
Telonemia was mentioned in my morning newspaper today, and much to my surprise, there was no further information on wikipedia. Minutes later, a stub was created, but it still needs quite a lot of attention from a knowledgable person. --Thorsen 06:05, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Immune system FAC
Immune system has also been nominated as a FAC, any comments or suggestions are welcome. Thank you. TimVickers 16:34, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Douglas Stirling
This article is up for deletion. I don't quite know enough about current research into the genetics of the mitotic spindle to understand either the author's main article, or its important in the field. Can someone more knowledgable make a call? Look particularly at this article, oh, and articles that cite it. Thanks. --KP Botany 02:46, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Cavalier-Smith does it again
If you go to this site, http://www.biology-direct.com/content/1/1/19, you will find a paper Mr C-S published in July of last year. I didn't understand most of it, but what I did understand really changed my views on a 3-domain system and the monophyletic-ness of Bacteria. Take a look. Werothegreat 17:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I haven't seen any attempt on the pages I've read regarding 'Candida' as to possible treatments. I suffered with candida for a while, resarching many web sites, health food stores, etc. and was horrified at what they all said was the only treatment they could tell me was 1) altering my diet for not just weeks but possibly years to litteraly 'starve' the candida out of my system along with 2) a long and expensive dosing of vitamins and such. It all seemed quite daunting. I kept looking. And finally found what I call the 'good ole home remedies' that I alway find to be the most effective, too, was simply drinking apple cider vinegar. A tablespoon in a glass of water once a day until it's gone. And then periodically to keep it at bay. Anyone who has had it knows the symtems and when it's about to rear it's ugly head and can administer accordingly. I can only hope to help someone with this information, that I had to go to great lengths to find out.

Article grading
In order to facilitate the categorization and grading of microbiology-related articles, I suggest that Project Micro consider using a more focused Importance scale in the template. Borrowing heavily from the Project MCB folks (their version is here), I propose that we use something like this:


 * Importance
 * Top — Subjects that are first closely examined by the average person in high school or earlier (Bacteria, Yeast), or that general public has at least a passing awareness of (Influenza), or a subject that has received significant media coverage (HIV, Smallpox).


 * High — Subjects that are mentioned at the high school level (E. coli, Virus, Agar) or covered in depth at the lower-division college level (Antibiotic resistance, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Gram staining).


 * Mid — Subjects that are suitable for upper-division or graduate level students (Plasmodium falciparum, Green fluorescent protein) or topics that are first closely examined at this level (Bacterial conjugation, Slime moulds).


 * Low — Narrow subjects that are chiefly known to researchers in a specific field (AB5 toxin, Tropheryma whipplei).


 * (All of the examples are, of course, simply my gut instincts and can be rearranged / replaced / etc.)


 * Comments? -- MarcoTolo 21:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The list of topics listed from the project page should be listed in order of importance, rather than quality. This might help focus readers on what needs to be done. TimVickers 21:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Excellent point. I was all fired-up to change the format of the WP 1.0 bot report.... then I realized that (a) it doesn't offer automagic formatting by importance; and (b) you've been maintaining the MCB importance tables by hand (ouch!). Before I charge off and ask the bot maintainer (Oleg Alexandrov) - have you already looked into the bot-driven sort-by-importance option? -- MarcoTolo 22:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I know nothing. Opabinia regalis and ClockworkSoul are the alpha-geeks in the MCB community. TimVickers 22:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Template modifications
Hi all,

I made a few modifications of the WikiProject Micro banner today, to allow people to note whether a page would benefit from a taxobox or more images. Please check it out and let me know what you think!

I'd also like to know your opinions about the importance rankings for the various microbiological taxa. I was about to use the ranking Top=(Domain, Kingdom, Phylum), High=(Class, Order, Family), Mid=(Genus, Species), and Low=(Form, Pathovar, etc.) with exceptions for notability (E. coli might be High, for instance). What do you all think? This scheme may over-inflate the importance of the taxa; there are hundreds of orders of bacteria!

BTW, I just joined today, and added Archaea-stub; I hope that's OK, too. Happy to be here, Willow 00:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Welcome Willow. TimVickers 04:37, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Need help proofreading taxonomic refs
Hi, a few of us are working on a system for generating the taxonomic references for arbitrary taxa, but we need help checking that the references produced are OK, i.e., proofreading them. It's described on my Talk page, if you have time to help out — thank you very much! :) Willow 13:46, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Bacteria
Hi there, are there any members of the project who would like to volunteer to be additional contacts for verification and sources of the bacteria article? In practice, you get a couple of e-mails a month and a bit more traffic on your talk page. TimVickers 23:11, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Sure. I will volunteer to help out. MetsFan76 11:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Protista=Kingdom
Hey everyone, I was wondering why there is no longer a single article that lists an organism's kingdom as protista. I understand there is some controversy about whether or not Protists can be considered a single kingdom, but I feel that since most biologists still list it as one, we should as well. Thoughts?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 05:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * All of these are listed as protista. MetsFan76 11:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Thats all the more reason to make sure there is some kind of standardization. Look at articles like Euglena, where protista is not listed at all.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 19:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok...so then feel free to add the kingdom Protista to the appropriate articles. MetsFan76 19:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

New article
Hi, I am new to Wikipedia. I just added this article Streptococcus oralis, I am not sure how to format it correctly. Could you please have a look at it. --Souad27 19:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Indicator bacteria
This article is pretty bad, but I'm wondering if perhaps it oughtn't be discarded in favor of merging with an as-yet-unwritten Indicator organism article. Any takers?

There are similarly-named articles Bioindicator (which includes indicator organisms as #3 in its list), Indicator species and the vaguely-related Indicator plant. Another article idea is Microbial challenge, to include Microbial challenge organism. OK, back to work. Tom e rtalk 15:44, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Nontuberculous mycobacteria
Hello. I am hoping that this is the right place to get help with this item.... Category:Nontuberculous mycobacteria is currently a red category with 72 contained pages. I would just create the category, but I don't have the subject matter knowledge to know if these articles are truly meant to go there and also I don't know what its parent cat should be. If someone here has the knowledge, can they please take a minute and check this out? --After Midnight 0001 17:00, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Bartonella rochalimae

 * ''Cross-posted to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Clinical medicine.

This has been making minor waves in the popular press, and our recently-created article seems to be in need of serious TLC. Relevant NEJM article if anyone has access. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:59, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

allowing unconverted metric units in scientific articles
I'm seeking consensus at MOSNUM talk for a change in the wording to allow contributors, by consensus only, to use unconverted metrics in scientific articles. Your opinions are invited. Tony 15:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Bacteria in the human body Page
I have outlined that this page should be renamed to "Normal Flora", as not all normal flora is bacterial. It has been sometime since anything has been done, how do I propose a name change to an article? Eedo Bee 08:20, 2 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Changed to "Human flora" Manning (talk) 15:15, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * We will need to add a section on archaea/fungi etc. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Added, needs expansion though, it's still rather bacteria-heavy!. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Organisms Wiki - a wikia on Organisms
Organisms Wiki was recently started as a wikia to educate on all types of organisms and their biological counterparts. This wiki will aim to provide free, excellence-quality and concise articles dealing with organisms and habitats. Organisms Wiki is a wikia, and is also very small and new, which is why I would like to leave a note here that we appreciate any helpful contributions.

I have had people criticizing the sense of making a wiki on this topic when indeed Wikipedia covers just about anything related to organisms. Sure, this may be true - but a major advantage of having Organisms Wiki hosted at wikia is to cover the topics in broader depth. Thank you. Organisms Wiki

Paul Davey 08:12, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Taxobox colour change
Hello,

After much discussion, it has been agreed that colour changes for taxoboxes are necessary; it's currently proposed that amoebozoa taxoboxes should become #FFC8A0 and rhizaria, lavender. These changes would be carried out automatically, determined by regnum/phylum/etc entries in the taxobox. Your comments and opinions would be gratefully received here!

Thanks,

Verisimilus  T  20:19, 18 November 2007 (UTC)