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Welcome!
Hello, MCEllis, and Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{Help me}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking if shown; this will automatically produce your username and the date. Also, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field with your edits. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! XLinkBot (talk) 00:00, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi MCEllis! Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia. Be our guest at the Teahouse! The Teahouse is a friendly space where new editors can ask questions about contributing to Wikipedia and get help from peers and experienced editors. I hope to see you there! Osarius (I'm a Teahouse host)
Welcome to Wikipedia, MCEllis, and thanks for your contributions. A couple of general editing suggestions for you to consider:
Please make a habit of providing an edit summary when you make a change to an article. Doing so makes it easier for your colleagues here to understand the intention of your edit.
Plus, it will be easier for you and your co-editors to collaborate on articles if, instead of making multiple consecutive edits in rapid succession on an article, you use the "Show preview" button to view your changes incrementally before finally saving the page once you're satisfied with your edits. This keeps the page history of the article less cluttered.
If you replace existing references to WCSP, then in accordance with WP:CITEVAR, you must maintain:
the CS1 or CS2 style used in the article
the date formats used in references, which may be different for archive and access dates.
Personally, I don't see the point of replacing perfectly good uses of cite or citation templates with a more specialized one, but if you insist on doing it, at least do it properly. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:23, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thanks, I'll be sure to follow WP:CITEVAR and make minimal changes to the format and access date of the citations.
Well, the first step is to stop using {{Kew list}} until it has been fixed. At present it produces very poorly formatted citations. Please look at the output produced by {{cite web}} or {{citation}} and fix {{Kew list}} accordingly. See my comments at Template talk:Kew list.
Its not a citation template. It is an external link template. External links do not need to follow the citation formats. I will consider switching to citation format but I will not stop using the template simply because its working as intended.--MCEllis (talk) 23:26, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
{{Kew list}} is now {{WCSP}} and it outputs in citation format. Let me know if there is anything more we can do to improve that functionality while preserving the external link functionality and the ability to maintain working links from the template side.--MCEllis (talk) 18:33, 13 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Indents
By the way, when you change the indent structure, like you did with my comment at WT:PLANTS, you mess up the flow of the responses. Now it looks like my comment was a response to your comment above it, when in fact it was intended as a response to the header. I don't mean this as a complaint, just a heads up. Guettarda (talk) 05:31, 17 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Your recent edits seem to have messed up this article a bit, notably by the red link for the template. Nothing fatal, IMHO. It looks like you have a lot of botanical knowledge, but maybe not so much Wikipedia editing knowledge. I am somewhat the reverse of that. If you are willing and able to work with other editors on articles, I'd be pleased to work with you on the Nyssa/Tupelo ones. I have an interest in them because I have a granddaughter named Tupelo, and I've worked quite a bit on them over the years. Lou Sander (talk) 10:25, 20 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Lou Sander: The template error was an honest mistake, I was missing a pipe in the template tag, I regret not checking the references section for errors. We have discussed this article in depth and changes that are needed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants. Thanks for the heads up. Let me know if there's anything more you feel needs to be fixed. I may not be as experienced in editing as some more advanced users, but I do know there is much improvement needed for the Nyssa articles and I was touching up some of the things that were incorrect such as the common names. You should know that WP:Plants wants to move the Tupelo article to Nyssa.
I also just posted some of this information to the Tupelo talk page, please see the WP:Plants discussion. Nyssa is one of my favorite tree genera and I do hope we can continue to improve the article with WP:Flora and other policies and guidelines in mind.--MCEllis (talk) 22:00, 20 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@MCEllis: I think you may need to take a deep breath and slow down. You assert that there were no references for the common names as they previously stood. Please look HERE and notice reference 3. It is not such a good thing to remove properly referenced claims. It is particularly not so good to deny that there are references when they are properly presented. It might be good to discuss your proposed edits on the article's talk page, and to get consensus on them before you make them. Some of us (among them, me) may not agree 100% that every one of them represents an improvement to the article. Also, please sign your posts to the talk page. Lou Sander (talk) 02:33, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Lou Sander: We have no access to that reference but have pulled up dozens of highly regarded botanical resources and online databases while trying to sort through the common names of the genus. None of us at WP:Plants were able to find credible sources that apply the name black gum, or pepperidge tree to the genus level. Both are common names for Nyssa sylvatica and should not be applied to Nyssa. I did not mean to offend you but is is important to respect Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora) and botanical nomenclature. --MCEllis (talk) 02:58, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In addition, @Lou Sander: If you search through the book cited, you will see that the book makes no description of the genus Nyssa and is only describing the species Nyssa sylvatica. It apples the name pepperidge only to the single species. This book would not be a credible source for describing Nyssa or any other Nyssa species other than Nyssa sylvatica alone. See links to excepts from various editions of the book below:
There is merit in much of what you say, but I don't see anything in it about the reference from Sunset Western Garden Book 1995:606-607, which is the one deleted and claimed not to exist. Some unknown editor put it in the article long ago, and it's not invalid just because we can't find it today. Much wisdom about matters like this is contained in Wikipedia:Ownership of content, the high points of which I just re-read. Lou Sander (talk) 16:02, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Lou Sander: That exact version of Sunset Western Garden Book 1995:606-607 is not freely accessible, and I believe you may be misunderstanding the entire point of a Common name. You can claim it is hidden in some hard to reach book all you want, but if the name itself is not actually commonly used at the genus level, how can anyone claim this as a common name? This is supposed to be a free encyclopedia of facts, not an encyclopedia of inaccuracies. Even Nyssa sylvatica states that the pepperidge name is only occasionally used in the Northeast. And I cannot emphasize this enough: the pepperidge name is only applied at the species level, in all editions of Sunset Western Garden Book we can get our hands on.--MCEllis (talk) 16:31, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have re-added the citation directly next to the pronunciation, as originally intended by the editor, User:Kwamikagami, who used Sunset Western Garden Book 1995:606-607 as a pronunciation guide for hundreds of pages, ex: his edit to Oak around the same time period also added the same reference, strictly as a pronunciation guide. It was not intended as a botanical reference of common names for plant genera.
I agree about the need for care. From my point of view, the need for care extends pretty seriously to care about removing cited material without good reason, especially when one rashly and incorrectly claims that there were no citations. That is what you seemed to have done initially, and that is what got me involved with you. IMHO it's to your great credit that you appear to have tracked this thing down. You found the original editor and inquired of him. IMHO, not many editors would do that. My hat is off to you, and If I have pissed you off in any way, I'm sorry.
Regarding bears and such, think about this: People come to the Tupelo article because they have some sort of interest in the word "tupelo." Part of their interest may extend to knowing about all the tree species that might have that name, or that name and some others, but many of them won't even know the difference between genus and species, let alone all the other aspects of plant taxonomy. Doesn't it make some sense to inform them, in the main article about Tupelo, of the many common names for trees (of various species) that might also be called Tupelo? I think it does. I think it is not such a good thing to put all those common names only in the articles about the various species -- they are articles most likely to be visited by botanists and others with specialized knowledge of trees. I have some solutions for these matters, and will be glad to discuss them on the Tupelo talk page, hopefully in a way that doesn't ruffle any feathers. Lou Sander (talk) 02:24, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Lou:, I am also glad we were able to get to the bottom of it and understand the original intent of the citation. I regret removing it and I apologize for doing so since it was an important citation as you say. Overall I'm glad you defended it. I still believe in the right to remove inaccuracies, but in this case the citation didn't apply to the material I was concerned about.
In terms of the Tupelo article, I agree it would add to the article to describe the well known species and their common names in the introduction because of the small size of the genus. We of course already have the Species section of the article to list all accepted species and their common names but they could be discussed. A paragraph regarding species usually would belong at the end of the introduction, and could possibly be incorporated with discussions of range. Good examples of small genus articles with species described in the introduction include Cornus_(genus), Robinia, and Amelanchier. (Actually Cornus_(genus) really is the best example. It's also a sister genus to Nyssa since they are in the same family.
What I really wish we had in the Tupelo article what a photo of a jar of Tupelo honey, but I haven't found one that looks good and has the proper Creative Commons license. If you ever buy a jar, take a photo of it and upload it to the article!
Stylized section headings
I thought I'd comment here, since it's not really a "plants" matter.
There is a way of having section headings like those WP:BIRDS use, which I think is more in line with WP policies. Since the HTML tags <h2>, <h3>, etc. can be used in wikitext, we could define a template like Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Section header, but which worked differently. It could have two parameters, one for the text and one for the level – then there could be a style for each level. As a very simple example, for a Level 2 heading it would use something like:
The problem is the "edit" link – this is inserted by the MediaWiki software, and I can't at present discover how to do this manually. I notice that WP:BIRDS doesn't have edit links for sections, which I think is a disadvantage. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:29, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Pvmoutside: Hi, sorry I never got back to you, I have not had much time to be on here much these days. I added eBird and the Internet Bird Collection ID to the new Module:Taxonbar code we are working on. See the demo at the bottom of Eastern Bluebird. Unfortunately there are not many folks contributing to the Wikidata info for bird species, so the vast majority of birds do not have an eBird taxon ID (P3444) in their respective Wikidata entries, a bot would most likely need to be setup to populate the Wikidata birds with eBird identifiers. You can request that a Birdlife Internatonal ID be added to Wikidata at d:Wikidata:Property_proposal/Natural_science#Biology.
I also encourage you to post on Template_talk:Taxonbar and find other bird enthusiasts to contribute to {{Taxonbar}} and the new Module:Taxonbar, which will hopefully be incorporated into {{Taxonbar}} when our Lua code becomes more functional. I suspect I will be very busy this year as well, Taxonbar could certainly use more help.--MCEllis (talk) 02:32, 23 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, MCEllis. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
Some of the #taxonbar calls you have added to articles are generting errors: Western honey bee and Honey bee for example. They should not be invoked that way anyway – all module invocations should be done by templates, so they can be properly documented, to centralise discussion, for ease of editing and for compatibility with visual editor and other tools.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds18:24, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Ahecht: was this caused by an edit you may have made to the Module:Taxonbar? I am on mobile and unable to check right now, but also don't know Lua. -MCEllis 22:33:56 UTC Thursday, May 25, 2017
I had a look at it and yes, the last edit had problems which I’ve hopefully fixed. Or at least I think I’ve made it work as intended, but I have no way of testing it (apart from confirming the error goes away) as it’s unclear when that code actually does anything.
And this is the reason why it’s a bad idea testing new modules in articles, especially pre-alpha ones like this which is undergoing a major overhaul. There are a few ways to test them that do not cause problems in articles. Set up a testcases page, or a test page, or as I did use template preview to see how the module/template looks in a live article. Only add it to articles when it has been thoroughly tested and when other editors agree it is ready to go live.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds23:15, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You are right @JohnBlackburne: thanks. I guess I jumped the gun putting it on a few articles before it was ready, however if we limit it to just those eleven articles, hopefully we will make sure it remains functional for thoes taxon. Otherwise, someone can replace with the stable {{Taxonbar}} if necessary. The only saving grace is that Taxonbar is at the absolute bottom of a page. I setup the eleven test cases directly on Module:Taxonbar/doc so we can try to make sure it doesn't break in the future. It certainly would have been better to keep everything on Template:Taxonbar/testcases2 originally. Lesson learned. --MCEllis (talk) 01:39, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In your unblock request, you said "I am simply a residential ISP customer". Were you using your home IP address at that time (04:34 UTC, today), and do you normally edit from home? Just wanting to get a better idea of what's going on, if you don't mind. If you do mind, please let me know and I'll not ask, of course. Nyttend (talk) 14:47, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a way to view the IP address that made that edit? The IP address I am on right now is through the actual en.wikipedia.org using my home address. I do not trust the IP addresses that the malicious links were posted from, it had setup some phishing proxy site, and convinced me to post the unblock request, but it may have been from their complex phishing mirror/proxy site.--MCEllis (talk) 15:04, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Since you made that edit while signed in, it's impossible without a checkuser. Since it's an issue of a possible compromise, and since knowing the IP might help with sanctions for the party causing problems, the CUs might be willing to go through with your request; see WP:SPI#Quick CheckUser requests. Our privacy policy is meant to protect your privacy, after all, and since you're willing to mention your IP address in the ongoing discussion, the CUs might see that you're not trying to protect your own privacy here. Nyttend (talk) 16:07, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Nyttend: I don't have the time to work on this any further, and I'm not sure I can be of much more help. 2604:A880:0:0:0:0:0:0/32 is not my IP, but rather the IP of the malicious site. My actual IP has never been blocked from editing Wikipedia, but the magic282 site was. I am not going to disclose my actual IP. --MCEllis (talk) 16:24, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, sorry for the mistake; I guess you wouldn't be able to edit here if you had an IP address in that range. In the near future, if you have time and inclination to work on it, you could contact a checkuser privately, e.g. by email. Nyttend (talk) 18:36, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You can use this user right to perform maintenance, answer edit requests, and make any other simple and generally uncontroversial edits to templates, modules, and edinotices. You can also use it to enact more complex or controversial edits, after those edits are first made to a test sandbox, and their technical reliability as well as their consensus among other informed editors has been established. If you are willing to process edit requests on templates and modules, keep in mind that you are taking responsibility to ensure the edits have consensus and are technically sound.
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Hello, MCEllis. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
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Hi MCEllis. After reviewing your request for "rollbacker", I have enabled rollback on your account. Keep in mind these things when going to use rollback:
Getting rollback is no more momentous than installing Twinkle.
If you no longer want rollback, contact me and I'll remove it. Also, for some more information on how to use rollback, see Wikipedia:Administrators' guide/Rollback (even though you're not an admin). I'm sure you'll do great with rollback, but feel free to leave me a message on my talk page if you run into troubles or have any questions about appropriate/inappropriate use of rollback. Thank you for helping to reduce vandalism. Happy editing! Malinaccier (talk)01:27, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Closing "nowiki" curly-brackets
FYI when you "nowiki-out" opening curly-brackets like <code><nowiki>{{</nowiki>...}}</code>, make sure you also nowiki-out the closing curly-brackets, or else it can cause massive problems on the page, as it did in my archive, hiding 113 discussions. I prefer to wrap everything like <code><nowiki>{{...}}</nowiki></code> to just keep it simple. Thanks! ~Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)11:20, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for catching this and letting me know, I think I have only made this mistake a few times, will be checking back through my contributions.--~ Mellis (talk) 13:06, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A barnstar for you!
The Technical Barnstar
Thanks a lot for your work on TaxonBar! I was part of the original struggle to get the TaxonIds template on Wikipedia, and it's great to the TaxonBar in widespread use now and WikiData as the data source. MichaK (talk) 14:05, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! I am proud that others have taken up maintenance and development of Taxonbar, as I haven't been able to contribute much lately. I appreciate your recognition of my initial efforts!--~ Mellis (talk) 23:58, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Upcoming changes to wikitext parsing
Hello,
There will be some changes to the way wikitext is parsed during the next few weeks. It will affect all namespaces. You can see a list of pages that may display incorrectly at Special:LintErrors. Since most of the easy problems have already been solved at the English Wikipedia, I am specifically contacting tech-savvy editors such as yourself with this one-time message, in the hope that you will be able to investigate the remaining high-priority pages during the next month.
There are approximately 10,000 articles (and many more non-article pages) with high-priority errors. The most important ones are the articles with misnested tags and table problems. Some of these involve templates, such as infoboxes, or the way the template is used in the article. In some cases, the "error" is a minor, unimportant difference in the visual appearance. In other cases, the results are undesirable. You can see a before-and-after comparison of any article by adding ?action=parsermigration-edit to the end of a link, like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Foss?action=parsermigration-edit (which shows a difference in how {{infobox ship}} is parsed).
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The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
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When pasting material from an LLM please be upfront (WP:LLMDISCLOSE). Pasting material from an LLM into deletion discussions and other talk pages will likely be seen as disruptive by nearly all editors (WP:LLMTALK). Regards, Rjjiii (talk) 03:28, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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