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User talk:Nimur/Archive/2Away from WikipediaStarting 21 July 2007, I will be away from Wikipedia as I am on assignment in Alaska. Nimur 05:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
SavagingYou've given a pork conference as a reference for the definition of savaging, but the link doesn't even attempt to go into any broad definitions - it's entirely about pigs. If the definition, as given in the article, is not explicitly supported by the reference then it can't be used as one. We need to clarify the meaning of the term - I've rarely seen it used in biology journals; it seems to be almost entirely used for pigs, however this needs to be clarified and given a source before the article can take on any scope or even meaning. Richard001 01:25, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, where does it say 'by a mother animal toward her offspring'? It is only about pigs, so if savaging is a term that is specific to pigs and not other animals we need to say so instead of giving a broad definition that isn't backed up by anything. Richard001 06:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I was new to the term at the time and I saw it used to describe cannibalistic infanticide by a female rabbit, so I assumed it applied to all animals. But after searching a bit more I can only seem to find it in agricultural journals and only very occasionally in animal behavior journals, possibly in an informal way. I think it might be better just to go with pigs unless we can find a reference that answers this question. Richard001 01:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC) An important letterDear roads editor, You may have noticed some changes at WP:USRD lately. Some of them, like the cleanup templates and the stub templates, have been astounding and great. Unfortunately, others have been disturbing. This has become evidenced by the departure of a few prominent editors at USRD, a few RFC's, and much fighting among USRD editors. After the second RFC, many of us found the opportunity to take a step away from Wikipedia for a while--as a self-imposed wikibreak, or possibly on vacation. The result of such introspection was that many of us were placing ourselves in a "walled garden" and on a self-imposed pedestal of authority over the roads department. Also, we were being hostile to a few users who were not agreeing with us. In fact, IRC has been the main incarnation of this "walled garden." Decisions have been made there to conduct grudges and prejudices against a few valued USRD users with poor justification. For this, we have come to apologize. We have come to ask your forgiveness. In addition to this, we hope to work as one USRD team from now on and to encourage cooperation instead of the promotion of interests. All users are welcome to collaborate on IRC, the newsletter, or anywhere else at USRD. In the future, please feel free to approach us about any issues you may have. Regards,
Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 17:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC) USRD Newsletter - Issue 11
USRD Newsletter - Issue 12
Wikimania in Atlanta! Hi! I noticed your involvement on U.S. South-related articles, categories and WikiProjects, and I wanted to let you know about a bid we're formulating to get next year's Wikimania held in Atlanta! If you would like to help, be sure to sign your name to the "In Atlanta" section of the Southeast team portion of the bid if you're in town, or to the "Outside Atlanta" section if you still want to help but don't live in the city or the suburbs. If you would like to contribute more, please write on my talk page, the talk page of the bid, or join us at the #wikimania-atlanta IRC chat on freenode.org. Have a great day! P.S. While this is a template for maximum efficiency, I would appreciate a note on my talk page so I know you got the message, and what you think. This is time-sensitive, so your urgent cooperation is appreciated. :) Mike H. I did "That's hot" first! 22:47, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Rethis: Glad you like it :) Raul654 19:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
USRD Newsletter - Issue 13
USRD Inactivity check and news reportHello, Nimur. We had a few urgent matters to communicate to you:
Regards, Rschen7754 (T C) 23:27, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
ConverterDo you know if it can convert .swf files too?--130.126.67.144 04:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
USRD Newsletter - Issue 14
USRD Newsletter - Issue 15
USRD Newsletter - Issue 16
USRD Newsletter - Volume 1, Issue 17
Congrats!A photo uploaded by you has been featured at Portal:North Carolina. Keep up the great work! --Mr.crabby (Talk) 19:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
U.S. Roads Newsletter, Issue 1
USRD Newsletter - Issue 2
Nobody seems to acknowledge it, but you're right! ;-)Hi, Nimur. Ancient thread. To refresh your memory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:User_comma-splice Yes, you are 100% correct. In English, a subordinate clause should be set off from the main clause by a comma before the subordinating conjunction. I'm a noobie here--especially on the English sites. But this lowly being is very pleased to meet you. There are quite a number of intelligent users on the wiki sites. Those who are both intelligent and also very polite are rarer. :-) Snakesteuben (talk) 08:01, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
USRD Newsletter - Issue 3
California photo requests now by CountyI saw your name at Photo Matching Service. I just spent the past few days moving all the California photo requests into County categories to make it easier for photographers to locate requests in the locations where they take photos. If you haven't already done so, please consider monitoring and adding your name to the list at Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in San Francisco County, California. GregManninLB (talk) 00:01, 26 March 2008 (UTC) CommonsMany thanks for creating Binbirdirek Cistern. But please note that there was absolutely no need to upload the image here! The image had been on the Commons from the start so that it could be used by any wiki! The same goes for your own images: since you are licensing them under the GFDL, please upload them to the Commons. -- RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 00:46, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
TfD nomination of Template:ImageSummaryTemplate:ImageSummary has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Kelly hi! 23:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC) WikiProject North Carolina Newsletters  A newsletter has been planned for WikiProject North Carolina, a WikiProject where you are a member. As a member, you will automatically receive the newsletter on this talk page unless you choose to opt-out. If you wish to opt-out of the newsletter, then please leave a message on the project's talk page. If you would like to help write the newsletter, then please add your name at Wikipedia:WikiProject North Carolina/Newsroom. Thank you. Diligent Terrier Bot (talk) 17:34, 28 April 2008 (UTC) This message was delivered by Diligent Terrier Bot (talk · contribs), a bot operated by Diligent Terrier (talk · contribs). WikiProject North Carolina May 2008 Newsletter
The message above has been delivered by Diligent Terrier Bot, a bot operated by Diligent Terrier. USRD Newsletter, Issue 4Apologies for the late delivery; my internet connection went down halfway through the delivery process.
Animals and painThis discussion was initiated by User:Myles325a regarding this question at the Reference Desk. Nimur (talk) 23:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
One of the assumptions of behaviorist school of psychological thought is that the behaviors are inherently dispassionate. The notion of isolating a specific stimulus and a specific response is hardly a complete theory of psychology, for animal subjects or for humans. Our psychology article has a good section on the rise of behaviorist thought and some of the later ideas that it spawned. Maybe this will give you some context - there are definitely realms where the simplistic experimental view of single-stimulus, single-behavior, single-response mappings do not really hold well, and you have described exactly such a case. Nimur (talk) 16:17, 14 May 2008 (UTC) What does this sort of pychobabble mean, Nimur? If you are saying that animals feel no pain, then why bother with the animal cruelty laws? And as post-Darwin we all know that humans are animals as well, why should we get upset concerning human suffering? If someone forced your hand into a pot of boiling water and observed your sweating and screaming and face-pulling, would you approve of his dismissal of your extreme, albeit subjective, pain as an unscientific phenomenon? I would have thought this sort of uber-“scientific” rubbish had been thoroughly refuted by now. Here is a self-explanatory par I added to the talk page of Cetacean intelligence. As the page is transcluded now, I am posting both Nimur and OP Black Carrot this note on their talk pages. With ref to Michele Bini’s comment above, dolphins are NOT the only animals that engage in self-destructive behaviour when panic-stricken or in extreme pain. All the ‘higher mammals’ including horses, cats, dogs and apes can present with human-like symptoms of severe stress. Dogs which lose a much-loved master can show every sign of ‘nervous breakdown’ and clinical depression, both behaviorally and physically. Other mammals will go on rampages, chew their own fur and eat their own excrement, refuse food and howl incessantly. Apes will throw themselves against their cages. In a series of notorious but well-conducted experiments of the 1960s, researchers tormented dogs to the point where they not only had ‘breakdowns’ but showed every sign of having become permanently insane through terror and pain. These were ‘higher’ animals. I have no idea whether you can make a butterfly mad, or drive a snail to distraction. Myles325a (talk) 04:36, 20 February 2008 (UTC) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cetacean_intelligence" Myles325a (talk) 04:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi Nimur, thanks for your note re” “what you really meant”. Find below my response, which I am also posting to your Talk Page, and to OP Black Carrot. There are many things in life that make me want to get down on the ground and pull up carpet tacks with my teeth, and one of the main ones is people who write or say something that reads as muddled or dead wrong and then, after they are taken to task for it, aver that the critic has misunderstood what was intended. The ensuing “debate” takes up everyone’s time, and WP talk pages, and archives, and bandwidth, and patience, and produces much more heat than light. Your contributions, Nimur, are a copybook example of just such a skew-whiff dialogue. As WP is full of people waving hands and employing phrases that could mean any number of things, I will try to show you why writing clear English and saying EXACTLY what you mean in as concise and unambiguous way as you can, will render you far less misunderstood than you are at the moment. Before I continue might I ask you and others to re-read this and the preceding paragraph? You might not AGREE with the content, but is there anything at all there which you find less than crystal clear? Good. Then let's pass on to your recent offerings. I have put your words in bold type and my own comments in plain. One of the assumptions of behaviourist school of psychological thought is that the behaviours are inherently dispassionate. Now what significance does dispassionate take on here? Let's not beat around the bush. Does this mean that animals don't feel pain, or that behaviourists don't believe they do, or don't care if they do, or don't believe that pain exists, or don't believe that animals feel pain the way humans do, or consider the subject of subjective feelings of pain as a metaphysical hobbyhorse external to scientific research? And why would you opt for the murky term "dispassionate" rather than write "behaviours are inherently without emotion"? Dispassionate muddies the waters in this context because it can ALSO mean impartial, disinterested and the like. Are you using it as a "weasel word" because while it connotes "without emotion" it also tempers it with a soupcon of "impartial". Are the animal behaviours themselves "dispassionate" or are the scientists "dispassionate", or is it the methodology itself? And what is the force of "inherently" here? How is "behaviours are inherently dispassionate" different from the shorter "behaviours are dispassionate". The addition of inherently would suggest that while some external observers might perceive certain animal behaviour as "passionate", objectively, that is "inherently", they are not. If this is not the meaning you intended, perhaps you could explain what you DID intend. Now let us look at there are definitely realms where the simplistic experimental view of single-stimulus, single-behaviour, single-response mappings do not really hold well… Frankly, Nimur, there are NO interesting cases of animal, or human behaviour, which conform to the single-stimulus, single-response case. I spent a year of a University Psych course under a fanatical behaviourist learning about mice pushing levers for food. In the end, I ascertained that the good Professor preferred to record the highly circumscribed behaviour of mice because, as a scientist, he could not neatly explain what it is that HUMANS were doing, and as a border-line autistic, he was only dimly aware of the world of human experience, and cared even less for it. A mouse pushes a lever and gets a food pellet. Great! Now, Cindy likes going out and often says "Gee, swell! When do you want to pick me up?" when she gets an invite, uh, sorry, the stimulus of a speech segment over a phone to that effect. But today, Cindy got just such a stimulus and replied to the effect that she was doing her hair. Now, we airy-fairy metaphysical types might just say that's because Cindy did not think that the boy who phoned was a "real spunk rat" or a "hunk". But, and I quote my erstwhile teacher on this, scientifically it should be said that there were "intervening variables" between the stimulus and the response, which made Cindy behave differently. What an absolute laff riot!! Everything—but everything—interesting in this episode lies in these "intervening variables". And as for Cindy, so for all humans, and the great bulk of life. It is another example of weasel words for you to say that the single stimulus – single response model does not (in some cases) not really well. Apart from jumping up when you sit on a tack and the like, there is NOTHING in life which can be described by such a mechanism, and it is an absolute indictment of the entire psychological "profession" that it was not laughed out of business when it was first proposed. So, do tell us, Nimur, what does "does not hold really well" mean? Nimur, if you cannot quantify the stimulus – response model in life, can you at least quantify how often and in what circumstances human responses DO conform to such models? After all, if we are unable to record and quantify human responses, then we should be able to at least quantify the success to failure ratio of its predictions. My own estimate is that, after all those experiments, the success rate is close to zero. Millions of mice and pigeons pecked and pushed at levers and ran down mazes, and in the wash-up, decades later, I think it was B.F. Skinner himself who gave a description of how behaviourist theory can have some practical significance. Some college was having problems with student stragglers coming late for lunch and thus keeping kitchen staff waiting. Skinner suggested ringing a bell that would summon the students and then denying lunch to those who came more than 30 minutes later! Yes, we are indebted to Skinner and the behaviourists for this and many other such breakthroughs. You end your piece on another weasel note. After noting that you did not say that animals did not feel pain, you finish with I don't see in any way how this has anything to do with the capacity for the animal to feel pain, nor the ethics of animal testing While OP Black Carrot's original post does not directly deal with animal cruelty, it broaches the subject of highly stressful / painful experiments in which an animal is rewarded and punished randomly for the same behaviour, and links it directly will existential pain felt by humans who might be exposed to such treatment in a social setting. It is hard to credit that you really have no idea how any of that can impinge on the broader topic of animal cruelty. Moreover, I do not see why you simply do not declare yourself and say that what it is that you DO believe in this regard. Why duck the issue of animal (or indeed) human pain by sweeping it under the carpet of "complex behaviours"? And the question of animal pain is not a red herring. Descartes publicly propounded the theory that animals were no more than machines—a prototypically behaviourist notion—and that the noises they made when they were killed were no different in type to those of a creaking wheel. France, which still venerates Descartes has—for a European nation—a backward attitude toward animal suffering precisely for this reason. But to get back to the main thread. Nimur, if you said exactly what you INTENDED clearly and without ambiguous weasel-words, then you would find yourself misunderstood on fewer occasions. As it is, if I have misunderstood you, then the preceding will give you fair indication why. Myles325a (talk) 04:58, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
TfD nomination of Template:PD-Japan-oldphoto/jaTemplate:PD-Japan-oldphoto/ja has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. —Remember the dot (talk) 02:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC) Something that may interest you...I noticed your comment on Talk:Detritus, and I thought you might be interested in Talk:Organic matter#I propose a major reshuffle - what do you think? :) Anxietycello (talk) 00:18, 11 July 2008 (UTC) USRD Newsletter, Issue 5Apologies for the late delivery; here is the June edition of the newsletter.
USRD Newsletter, Issue 6 (FINAL ISSUE)
camel skeletonHi, I've seen the image of (old camel image) that you uploaded. Where can I find the same image with more quality? Do you have it? Thanks a lot - --79.2.192.113 (talk) 20:50, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
Re: AlaskaNoticed that you visited Alaska after stumbling across one of your Alaska Highway photos. Given your background, were you working at Poker Flat here in Fairbanks? JKBrooks85 (talk) 06:20, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
Reference desk regularsHello,
Re: Redskins RuleHi -- nice job with taking this article to what it is today. I'm a bit confused, though: you state that Gore winning the popular vote allows a modified version of the rule to continue being true -- but if the Redskins lost in 2000, no modification would be necessary, because the incumbant Democrats lost. A lose-lose fits nicely -- it doesn't need an explanation? DRosenbach (Talk | Contribs) 23:12, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks!
new WP:RDREG userbox
The box to the right is the newly created userbox for all RefDesk regulars. Since you are an RD regular, you are receiving this notice to remind you to put this box on your userpage! (but when you do, don't include the |no. Just say {{WP:RD regulars/box}} ) This adds you to Category:RD regulars, which is a must. So please, add it. Don't worry, no more spam after this - just check WP:RDREG for updates, news, etc. flaminglawyerc 21:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC)  Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of User:70.229.197.120, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of User:70.229.197.120 has been empty for at least four days, and its only content has been links to parent categories. (CSD C1).
Thanks!
My contribution was small... Nimur (talk) 22:35, 28 February 2009 (UTC) |
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