This is an archive of past discussions with User:Awkwafaba. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Change of importance rating of Mitigation for several projects
Hi Awkwafaba, Why did you change the importance ratings of Mitigation from mid and low to high for 6 projects without obvious discussion. Are you a member of all those projects? · · · Peter Southwood(talk): 07:51, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
@Pbsouthwood: there is no requirement, nor consensus, that one needs to be a member of a project to rate it. Also one can always Be Bold and make changes without discussing everything. The page has a huge amount of traffic, which is what many WPs use to inform the importance rating. If you feel the article should be rated differently, then change it. Unless you would prefer to have discussions at each wikiproject first. Cheers. --awkwafaba (📥) 13:00, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
I am fairly sure this is all explained somewhere, but I don't remember where at the moment. There is no requirement to be a member of any project to rate class/quality, that is a relatively objective assessment, with written criteria, and any competent person can apply those criteria and arrive at a quality assessment that is likely to be acceptable. Even an automated system can get it close enough much of the time. Importance rating to a project is relative to project goals, and has no necessary connection to importance to anyone else, and traffic is not usually relevant, and it is usual to not make startling changes to importance rating for projects in which you are not active, like a change from low to high. I have changed the importance ratings back. In the case of the projects in which I am active, because I think your ratings were inappropriate for those projects, and for the others because someone else rated them differently and I respect their good faith assessment of the article's importance to those projects. I suggest that in future you only re-rate importance for projects where you have sufficient familiarity with project goals and some personal experience. By all means suggest a change on the article talk page, or at the project talk page if you think the currently rated importance should be reconsidered. If you are the original rater for a project, then you have more leeway to be bold, as you would not be overruling the opinion of someone who has the experience to make a more appropriate choice, but it remains preferable to take project goals into account. If you feel that any user should be allowed to decide on importance for any project, regardless of familiarity with the goals of the project, or that traffic counts over a short period should overrule or decide the project goals, please open a RfC to test consensus. For projects where you are a member, go ahead and rate according to project guidelines. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood(talk): 14:38, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
@Pbsouthwood: Leaving importance as blank is the correct rating 0% of the time. Selecting an importance, even by chance, is correct 25%. If a member of the project needs to adjust later, they did not have to do any additional work. They either change it from a blank or change it from an incorrect value. I think, from my history, that I have more than a 25% chance of getting it right. The rule of thumb I have seen for traffic relating to importance for the majority of projects is 0-10 views per day is low, 10-100 is mid, and over 100 is high. There are exceptions, sure, but again it's a rough guideline. There are far more unrated pages than editors willing to check them. Pushing that pile down only helps. --awkwafaba (📥) 17:42, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Leaving it blank is also wrong 0% of the time. As I said, setting importance that has not already been set is a place you can be bold, preferably with discretion and some common sense. I would not have commented at all if you had merely set importance where none had been set before, except to discuss a possible change if I thought it should be different, even for a project of which I am a member. Also, and more importantly, the original point was that setting importance to something different when it has already been set, requires a greater level of competence, since it is reasonably likely to be right already, and changing it arbitrarily (without sufficient knowledge of the project's goals) is more likely to be wrong than right. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood(talk): 18:51, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
The majority of articles of interest to any given project are rated low importance by that project. I hesitate to claim an average or characteristic value, since the variation could be very large, so will use a familiar example. In WPSCUBA, there are 11 top importance, 82 high importance, 143 mid importance, 842 low importance, and 226 not applicable for a total of 1,304 articles. A bit of simple math will show that assessing as low importance has a better than 50% chance of being correct, while high importance has a less than 10% chance of being correct. Selecting at random should give an equal probability of any of the possible importance ratings, so a 1 in 5 chance of selecting low importance, and a 4 in 5 chance of selecting an option with a lower probability of correctness. This shows that it is better to arbitrarily select low importance than to rely on chance, even if you used a true random selection. · · · Peter Southwood(talk): 05:48, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
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WikiProject Birds gained a new task force. A discussion determined that WikiProject Poultry might be more successful as a task force, with the move completed 15 April.
Round 2 of the WikiCup wrapped up this month. Several editors moved on to Round 3 by scoring points in biodiversity-related areas, including Sainsf, Casliber, Dunkleosteus77, CaptainEek, Guettarda, and Enwebb. Dunkleosteus77 finished at the top of the Tree of Life pack with 608 points, finishing 9th overall in the round.
After a relatively quiet February and March, with only 11 total articles nominated for GA and none for FAC, April brought a shower of nominations. In total, 5 articles were nominated for FAC, 1 for FLC, and 11 for GA.
Tree of Life's growing featured content
Inspired by a March 2020 post at WikiProject Medicine detailing the growth of Featured Articles over time, we decided to reproduce that table here, adding a second table showing the growth of Good Articles. Tree of Life articles are placed in the "Biology" category for FAs, which has seen a growth of 381% since 2008. Only two other subjects had a greater growth than Biology: Business, economics, and finance; and Warfare.
Percentage Growth in FA Categories, 2008–2019, Legend: Considerably above average, Above average, AverageBelow average , Considerably below average, Poor
Note A: Total is off by one; not worth looking for the error.
Note B Three food biographies moved [1] per discussion at WT:FAC
Note: The very odd dates used in earlier years result from pulling old data from the talk page at WP:FAS.
Good Article Category as of
Feb 23, 2008
Sep 16, 2008
Sep 16, 2010
Dec 1, 2011
Jan 1, 2015
Jan 1, 2020
Pct chg Feb 2008 to 2011
Pct chg Feb 2008 to 2020
Agriculture, food and drink
27
34
37
55
113
226
104%
737%
Art and architecture
134
188
321
450
683
1022
236%
663%
Engineering and technology
256
396
882
1198
1828
2407
368%
840%
Geography and places
191
248
424
523
716
1052
174%
451%
History
261
312
651
825
1219
1894
216%
626%
Language and literature
173
215
377
462
686
982
167%
468%
Mathematics
19
22
27
30
36
67
58%
253%
Media and drama
403
658
1352
1300
3070
3961
223%
883%
Music
357
527
997
1437
2532
3892
303%
990%
Natural sciences
544
686
1275
1717
2404
3426
216%
530%
Philosophy and religion
134
174
244
294
365
557
119%
316%
Social sciences and society
468
549
790
998
1430
1854
113%
296%
Sports and recreation
384
546
1074
1402
2350
3802
265%
890%
Video games
168
220
373
443
684
1349
164%
703%
Warfare
155
241
989
1654
2544
3996
967%
2478%
Total
3674
5016
9813
12788
20660
30487
248%
730%
Organisms*
119
130
402
528
685
1017
344%
755%
*subset of natural sciences
Unsurprisingly, the number of GAs has increased more rapidly than the number of FAs. Organisms, which is a subcategory of Natural sciences, has seen a GA growth of 755% since 2008, besting the Natural sciences overall growth of 530%. While Warfare had far and away the most significant growth of GAs, it's a clear outlier relative to other categories.
... that although the alpine bartsia has a wide range in Europe and North America, it is known in the British Isles only from a few locations in northern England and the central Scottish Highlands? (19 April)
... that the orange-band surgeonfish(pictured) can change colour from dark to light almost instantaneously? (21 April)
Hi Awkwafaba,
Thank you so much for marking the "animal products in pharmaceuticals" page of interest to various Wikipedia projects. I am thinking of submitting this article soon as a stub. I saw from your user talk page that you have a lot of experience and was wondering if you had any tips?
Thanks,
Skubydoo (talk) 01:29, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
@Skubydoo: Happy to help. I'm glad you are writing the article. I know that there is, perhaps, not much on animal products in medication. The community tends to focus on food and other consumer products. Looking over the article now there are a few things you could work on.
You might want to create a section titled 'Specific ingredients' for the last three paragraphs. Also, check that the tone is encyclopedic throughout: Saying "This page discusses..." sounds more like a blog. As for content, are there any specific medicines that are animal-derived? You can also easily add information on eggs in vaccines and vitamin D3. And a picture is always nice to add.
Thanks so much for these suggestions and much needed encouragement. I've added a little about vaccines and a section on "specific ingredients" as per your suggestions. There is a separate page on biologics that focuses on animal-derived medicine, and I don't want this page to be collapsed with that one so I haven't included medicines where the active ingredients are animal-derived on this page. I haven't included animal-derived vitamins for the same reason, although I am very interested in adding information on that to the existing pages on food fortification or biologics. Let me know if you have any feedback on the updated page. Still thinking about how to edit out "This page discusses" while retaining clarity.
@Skubydoo: looking at Draft:Animal Products in Pharmaceuticals and biologics, I don’t see much overlap. The latter, which redirects to Biopharmaceutical does not differentiate between plant, bacterial, human, or non-human animal sources. It seems that article mainly concentrates on bacterial products. I don’t think you’d have to worry about conflicting with that article. Also, information can be on multiple articles. I write many articles on different organisms, and when i get a source that states X eats/pollinates/etc. Y, I put it on both the X page and the Y page. --awkwafaba (📥) 12:38, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Hi there-- Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I think you have a good point about the biologics so I've gone ahead and included it. I was hoping to submit this draft so that I am not spending my time working on something that may ultimately be rejected. Do you have any advice on how to move forward? --Skubydoo (talk) 23:18, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I think you're right that this article should go deeper into the scientific literature. Unfortunately, I don't have the background to do a good job incorporating this literature. Hopefully, after I submit someone else can come along and add this information. Thanks so much for your advice! Stay safe --Skubydoo (talk) 20:19, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Hi there, I just wanted to update you on the animal products in pharmaceuticals page. The page was declined because it mentions soap (a pharmaceutical according to the FDA) and fortification (that is a valid point and I deleted it.) I didn't realize that the page needs a stub tag in order to be considered a stub, so I added that after the page was declined. I think there's a lot of promise in this stub, but I am not sure if I need to resubmit the article for it to be considered a stub, or if there is another process. In any case, thank you so much for your help in getting it to where it is. Best wishes, Skubydoo (talk) 23:59, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
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Articles for Creation: List of reviewers by subject notice
Hi Awkwafaba, you are receiving this notice because you are listed as an active Articles for Creation reviewer.
Recently a list of reviewers by area of expertise was created. This notice is being sent out to alert you to the existence of that list, and to encourage you to add your name to it. If you or other reviewers come across articles in the queue where an acceptance/decline hinges on specialist knowledge, this list should serve to facilitate contact with a fellow reviewer.
To end on a positive note, the backlog has dropped below 1,500, so thanks for all of the hard work some of you have been putting into the AfC process!
An invention is a unique or noveldevice, method, composition or process, and the invention process is a process within an overall engineering and product development process.
This month saw two Tree of Life editors gain the mop: CaptainEek (WikiProjects Birds and Plants) and Cwmhiraeth (familiar name at DYK, WikiProjects Plants, Animals, and Insects)
The April – May GAN backlog drive finished up, clearing the queue from nearly 700 outstanding nominations to about 350.
Interview with Jts1882
This month we're joined by Jts1882, who is active in depicting evolutionary relationship of taxa via cladograms. Part of this includes responding to cladogram requests, where interested editors can have cladograms made without using the templates themselves.
How did you come to be interested in systematics? Are you interested in systematics broadly, or is there a particular group you're most fond of?
As long as I can remember I’ve been interested in nature, starting with the animals and plants in the garden, school grounds, and local wood, and then more general wildlife worldwide. An interest in how things are classified grew from this. I like things to be organised and understanding the relationships between things and systems (not just living things) is a big part of that. Biology was always my favourite subject in school and took up a disproportionate part of my time. My interest in systematics is broad as I’d like to comprehend the whole tree of life, but the cat family is my favourite group.
What's the background behind cladogram requests? I see that it isn't a very old part of the Tree of Life
Well I can’t take any credit for the cladogram requests page, although I help out there sometimes. It was created by IJReid and there are several people who have helped there more than me. I think the motivation is that creating cladograms requires a knowledge of the templates that is daunting for many editors. It was one way of helping people who want to focus on content creation.
My main contribution to the cladograms is converting the {{clade}} template to use a Lua module. The template code was extremely difficult to follow and had to be repetitive (I can only admire the efforts of those who got the thing to work in the first place). The conversion to Lua made it more efficient, allowed larger and deeper cladograms, plus facilitating the introduction of new features. The cladogram request page was recently the venue for discussion on making time calibrated cladograms, which is now possible, if not particularly user friendly.
What advice do you have for an editor who wants to learn how to make cladograms?
The same advice I would give to someone facing any computer problem, just try it out. Start by taking existing code for a cladogram and make changes yourself. The main advice would be to format it properly so indents match the brackets vertically. Of course, not everyone wants to learn and if someone prefers to focus on article content there is the cladogram request page.
Examples of cladograms Jts1882 has created, showing different proposed clades for Neoaves
Do you have any personal projects or goals you're working towards on Wikipedia?
As I said I like organisation and systems. So I find efforts like the automated taxobox system and {{taxonbar}} appealing. I would like to see more reuse of the major phylogenetic trees on Wikipedia with more use of consensus trees on the higher taxa. Too often they get edited based on one recent report and/or without proper citation. Animals and bilateria are examples where this is a problem.
Towards this I have been working on a system of phylogeny templates that can be reused flexibly. The {{Clade transclude}} template allows selective transclusion, so the phylogenetic trees on one page can be reused with modifications, i.e. can be pruned and grafted, used with or without images, with or without collapsible elements, etc. I have an example for the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification (see {{Phylogeny/APG IV}}) and one for squamates that also includes collapsible elements (see {{Phylogeny/Squamata}}).
A second project is to have a modular reference system for taxonomic resources. I have made some progress along this lines with the {{BioRef}} template. This started off simply as a way of hardlinking to Catalog of Fishes pages and I’ve gradually expanded it to cover other groups (e..g. FishBase, AmphibiaWeb and Amphibian Species of the World, Reptile Database, the Mammalian Diversity Database). The modular nature is still rudimentary and needs a rewrite before it is ready for wider use.
What would surprise your fellow editors to learn about your life off-Wikipedia?
I don’t think there is anything particularly surprising or interesting about my life. I’ve had an academic career as a research scientist but I don't think anyone could guess the area from my Wikipedia edits. I prefer to work on areas where I am learning at the same time. This why I spend more time with neglected topics (e.g. mosses at the moment). I start reading and then find that I’m not getting the information I want.
Anything else you'd like us to know?
My interest in the classification of things goes beyond biology. I am fascinated by mediaeval attempts to classify knowledge, such as Bacon in his The Advancement of Learning and Diderot and d’Alembert in their Encyclopédie. They were trying to come up with a universal scheme of knowledge just as the printing press was allowing greater dissemination of knowledge.
With the internet we are seeing a new revolution in knowledge dissemination. Just look at how we could read research papers on the COVID virus within weeks of its discovery. With an open internet, everyone has access, not just those with the luxury of books at home or good libraries. Sites like the Biodiversity Heritage Library allow you to read old scientific works without having to visit dusty university library stack rooms, while the taxonomic and checklist databases provide instant information on millions of living species. In principle, the whole world can now find out about anything, even if Douglas Adams warned we might be disinclined to do so.
This is why I like Wikipedia, with all its warts, it’s a means of organising the knowledge on the internet. In just two decades it’s become a first stop for knowledge and hopefully a gateway to more specialised sources. Perhaps developing this latter aspect, beyond providing good sources for what we say, is the next challenge for Wikipedia.
... that Tetraponera penzigi is one of several species of ant that protect whistling thorn trees in East Africa from grazing giraffes and rhinoceroses? (3 May)
... that the Vietnam mouse-deer, which had been feared to have gone extinct nearly 30 years ago, was sighted again in 2019? (4 May)
... that most branchiobdellids use crayfish as hosts, living on their heads, carapaces, or claws, but in some instances inside their gill cavities? (5 May)
... that the northern plains gray langur monkey (example pictured) is killed in India for food and to prevent crop raiding, despite being considered sacred by Hindus? (12 May)
... that the leech Limnatis nilotica can affect humans and livestock, entering hosts through the mouth, nose, or other orifices? (12 May)
... that the tree Barteria fistulosa is associated with Tetraponera aethiops, an aggressive species of ant that lives in its hollow branches and twigs? (15 May)
... that Miller's langur, one of the rarest primates in Borneo, was feared to be extinct until a 2012 study rediscovered it in an area where it was previously unknown? (16 May)
... that most of the known Gigantopithecus fossils are of teeth because the other bones are likely to have been eaten by porcupines? (17 May)
... that Tetraponera tessmanni, a very aggressive ant, is able to establish dominance over the whole of the liana in which it lives, which may be 50 m (164 ft) long? (17 May)
... that the Arizona dampwood termite exclusively colonizes dead parts of standing trees? (22 May)
... that Megaceroides algericus is one of only two deer species known to have been native to Africa, alongside the Barbary stag? (23 May)
... that besides eating ants and termites, the waved woodpecker feeds on fruits, berries, and seeds? (24 May)
... that populations of the Canada lynx(pictured) undergo cyclic rises and falls in line with those of the snowshoe hare? (25 May)
... that despite being known as the Mexican hydrangea, Clerodendrum bungei is neither from Mexico nor a species of hydrangea? (25 May)
... that meerkats(examples pictured) use alarm calls that can identify the type of predator posing the risk, the level of danger, and the caller itself? (27 May)
... that the frog Boophis fayi can be identified by its unusual green-and-turquoise eyes? (30 May)
... that members of the fly family Apystomyiidae(example depicted) have been found in Late Jurassic sediments in Kazakhstan? (30 May)
... that the sun bear(pictured) is the smallest of all bear species? (31 May)
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William Mariner was an Englishman who lived in Tonga from 29 November 1806 to (probably) 8 November 1810. He later published Tonga Islands, an account of his experiences that is now one of the major sources of information on Tonga before it was significantly influenced by European culture and Christianity. Pictured is Mariner in Tongan attire.
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I've just been looking through articles that have been in the draftspace for more than a year and I've seen quite a few when you have used CitationBot to make minor changes to articles right about at the 6 month point since the last edit, when they would otherwise be deleted under G13. I'm curious to know whether you are intentionally doing this to prevent G13 (I'm happy to assume that if this is the case you have a good reason) or whether this is inadvertant.
@Pi: I apologize for the slow response, I am rather bust IRL, and don’t have access to a desktop even. I had been running it on some stale drafts, in an attempt to give new editors more time, especially when they have only automated messages sent to them most of the time. It’s an experiment. Has it been wreaking havoc somewhere? --awkwafaba (📥) 15:38, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
The problem is, since they are bot, not human, edits, they don't actually extend the G13 deadline. And when you make more than 500 hundred over a space of a few days without any apparent consideration for the quality of the draft, it can be seen as disruptive. If you believe the G13 window should be longer than six months, the way to make that point is instead by opening a discussion on the talk page for the speedy deletion policy. UnitedStatesian (talk) 20:04, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
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The phrase "omakase" is most commonly used when dining at Japanese restaurants where the customer leaves it up to the chef to select and serve seasonal specialties. Pictured is omakase at a restaurant.
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