User talk:SP-KP/Talk page archive 2011 b

Supercilium

Hi SP-KP: Several years ago, you started the supercilium article. I added references and photos to it this weekend, and wonder if you might have references for a couple of things you put in the initial article. I can't find anything (other than experience) that says that the supercilium tends to be paler than the surrounding feather tracts. Do you have a ref for that? Also, I can't find anything that talks about the "supercilium drop". I'm guessing it's a British term. Have you got anything we can use as a ref for that too? Thanks, MeegsC | Talk 18:04, 3 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Melanie Phillips

Hi, thanks for your message. I reverted three attacks on her, I think I muddled yours with another one (prob. The New Statesman one) hence my edit comment when reverting yours was inappropriate, and I apologise for this. Regarding your refs, the first one says:

"Lovers of the unusual, rejoice! Within days Melanie Phillips will make a public apology. In July 2008, Mad Mel lifted and embellished a mistake from the neocon website, Harry's Place, regarding Mohammad Sawalha, a Palestinian-born British man whom Al Jazeera had mis-transcribed referring to "evil/ noxious" Jews at a rally" [1]

This is a cheap and nasty throwaway remark, it contains nothing of substance, and in fact is a pure ad hominem attack. So I'm not sure that under BLP guidelines it's appropriate at all.

The second one says:

"Indeed, within much of the liberal commentariat, she has long been dismissed as "Mad Mel", as someone who has lost her rational and moral compass".

Here, the writer is reporting unnamed third-party sources. This hardly seems a good source for what in effect amounts to a grievous BLP violation.

I have two other comments about the page:

• wouldn't it be much better to try and find sources which engage critically and rationally with her views, instead of regurgitating the above types of nastiness?
• there have been some quite vile instances of vandalism on the page recently and in addition there seems to be a general tendency/trend at the moment to denigrate her in some way, almost as though it's the only way of editing the article. As editors we should I suggest be careful not to be influenced by this, and to steer well clear of ad hominem-type slurs and focus on her views instead. Best wishes, Jprw (talk) 17:00, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again, I've done some Google searches, and it seems that the term Mad Mel is a nickname used to describe her either on blogs or in the comments sections of blogs within the context of really quite foul attacks on her "Mad Mel’s a raving fuckwad" etc etc. Yes these are sources, but extremely unreliable ones. It actually looks as though the two sources above may be the best, but there are still problems with those. I still think the term should be avoided as a clear ad hominem attack and a clear violation of BLP. I also think that the term is used by people who are made to feel uncomfortable by the challenging questions that she raises, and rather than engage her on those questions, they resort to cheap insults, but that is just my suspicion, and not entirely relevant here. Cheers, Jprw (talk) 05:50, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

stockamsel

Sure, but can it wait until tomorrow please, I'm about to go out for the day, thanks Jimfbleak - talk to me? 04:33, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason it didn't register that it was you added the info, or I would have consulted first. The Blackbird article is a FA, and to maintain that standard it needs to be kept up to the mark, so I routinely remove unsourced information from any FA that is on my watchlist. "Stockamsel" is a German term, coined by Naumann with no real currency in English. A Google search for "stockamsel blackbird" gives only a couple of hundred hits (ie effectively nothing), and what comes up falls well short of RS. I think this is only notable if it can be referenced to an English language RS source. If it can be reffed to BWP, that's fine (it's not in the concise version), otherwise it's difficult to see why it should be added. I won't revert if you add again, but if a reasonable time passes and it's still uncited, I think it should go Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:52, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fine with me, that's definitely an RS source Jimfbleak - talk to me? 18:35, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tristis

Hello SP-KP, I saw your note on the gastropods page. While I admire your enthusiasm and the amount of work you put into this disambig page, I strongly disagree with the principle of making disambiguation pages for specific epithets or including specific epithets on disambig pages. Specific epithets such as "tristis" are never used by themselves as a single word in biology. They are always used as part of a binomial name, like this one for the human species: Homo sapiens or H. sapiens (but the latter only if the full name has been spelled out previously in the same paper.)

Calling a species "Tristis" is like calling New York City just "New" or like calling Los Angeles, "Los". It doesn't make sense as an isolated word, it is intrinsically part of a name. A lesser but related point is that "tristis" would never be capitalized as "Tristis" even if somehow it found itself at the beginning of a sentence; instead you would have to say: "The specific epithet "tristis"". You may also want to ask User:JoJan about this. He is an admin and has deleted disambiguation pages that were lists of specific epithets previously.

Many thanks, Invertzoo (talk) 11:20, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The International Plant Name Index has 354 records for the epithet tristis, and more for triste. They do have a degree of duplication of names; the figure of 150-200 I gave is my estimate of the number remaining after weeding out duplicates, and the few that you gave. Lavateraguy (talk) 22:02, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tristis, discussion of

Hi. I've invited Wikiprojects Biology and Tree of life to comment on your article Tristis.

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biology#Please_give_your_opinion_about_disamb_pages_in_the_style_of_Tristis

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_life#Please_give_your_opinion_about_disamb_pages_in_the_style_of_Tristis

-- 189.122.29.43 (talk) 04:38, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

SSSIs in North Yorkshire

Hi - I notice you started the SSSIs in Cleveland table way back in 2006 which vastly improved the layout and increased the content of the information. I am currently working on the 241 SSSIs in North Yorkshire, with the same table design simply to improve the article, as it has no interesting "meaning" at present. I do not have any background knowledge or experience in the nature of SSSIs. I was wondering if you might be interested in simply verifying the information as I work on it over the next week or two - as you know, there are quite a lot. I am simply scan-reading the PDFs on Natural Earth to get the gist as to whether areas are considered of Biological of Geological importance, but there may be a chance I make slip ups. Would appreciate someone with a stronger interest to confirm the content, and if necessary to correct it. I am currently building the table up on my Sandbox (User:MarcusBritish/Sandbox#Sites) and will replace the current article list when it is complete. If you are interested, please let me know. Thanks. Ma®©usBritish (talk) 08:37, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I managed to find an old PDF report (1997) via Google on english-natures site, just this afternoon [2] which has a table in appendix 5.1 covering a lot of the SSSIs in NY, though not all, perhaps 100 or so. If you haven't seen this doc before, you might find it of personal interest, it has a lot of detailed content which overwhelms me. Seems I made a few mistakes in the table so far though. Have been going on the same principle you suggested, mention of rocks = Geo, species names = Bio, though they sometimes mention the type of rock, eg Jurassic, to discuss soil types and I have been mistaking that for Geo interest, when the real interest is Bio and the plant life which resulted. I'll try to work through them as best I can, if I run into any major areas where I'm very unsure I'll ask for your advice. Perhaps if you could give it a quick "proof read" when its done, just in case you spot anything amiss, that would be great - I'm sure it will develop over time, anyway. Thanks again. Ma®©usBritish (talk) 17:31, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, just to let you know I've just completed the SSSIs list and copied it over into the article [3] - I will leave the opening text to be edited by yourself or someone who can better explain the purpose of the table - only a 2 min job that though. I have linked the SSSI PDFs in an extra column on this table rather than just in the notes like the Cleveland SSSIs table. What with there being so many of them it was easier, and probably looks better than having 241 links at the bottom. Thanks again, hopefully this saves someone else the task and makes things a bit more uniform. Regards,

Ma®©usBritish (talk) 14:15, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of Tristis for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Tristis is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tristis until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Danger (talk) 22:18, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalisation of bird, insect & plant names on Kennet and Avon Canal

Could I ask another favour. Several editors are working together to try to get Kennet and Avon Canal up to FA standard & I've got so close to it I can't see the wood for the trees. There are several birds & other bits of ecology mentioned, mostly in the "canal today" section but also in the route sections. Could you take a look at the consistency of the naming of plants & animals (including latin etc)?— Rod ^talk 09:49, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all your work on this. As far as putting all ecology into one section this would give a problem. I specifically expanded each of the SSSIs & nature reserves it flows through so that there was enough text in each section to make it as long as the route diagram on the right. We've also been having conversations about making each section "self contained" because of the way it is presented on mobile devices.— Rod ^talk 10:22, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've found references for most of your citation needed tags, however the sentence "There are also many non-statutory nature reserves throughout the length of the canal" is giving me a problem as there are lots of references for each individual one, but I'm finding it difficult to find a specific source for this - the best I can find are documents for each county it passes through - any suggestions?— Rod ^talk 11:06, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Autopatroller

Hi SP-KP, just wanted to let you know that I have added the autopatrolled right to your account, as you have created numerous, valid articles. This feature should have little to no effect on your editing, and is simply intended to reduce the workload on new page patrollers. For more information on the patroller right, see Wikipedia:Autopatrolled. Feel free to leave me a message if you have any questions. Happy editing! Sadads (talk) 11:37, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]