Hello. I am Wikitrevor, a student of AP Biology. I have been tasked with synthesizing or upgrading a biology-related stub that must have the caliber to obtain Good Article status, at a minimum. However, I am truly aspiring to create a piece of work that can reach Featured Article status.
I would be delighted to receive suggestions and assistance from "Wiki-pros" in order to make this a collaborative, successful effort. Thanks!--Wikitrevor (talk) 00:01, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Welcome to Wikipedia
Let me be the first to welcome you and commend you on your enthusiasm and ability to follow instructions. The Wikipedia mantra is BE BOLD. For me at least, just making an account took a great deal of courage. The next logical step in your Wikipedia indoctrination is to energize your home page. It will serve as an excellent place to learn some of the basic wiki-codes without dorking up an article. Editing skills will require some experimentation and self teaching. The easiest way to start is to visit others and “steal” some ideas. By that - I mean click the edit tab and see their html codes which you can copy and paste into yours. CAREFUL --- don’t edit their page…. COPY not cut!!!!! You can then adjust it to reflect your own personal style. Feel free to be creative. Try to provide some insight into who you are while still maintaining your Anonymity. Personally I like the community’s use of user boxes to provide some insight into your way of thinking. --JimmyButler (talk) 01:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Wikitrevor! 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 {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:47, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Welcome to Wikipedia. You will find a surprising amount of support for your class project. Don't worry too much about the details of Wikipedia...just add good reliable content...which is far harder to do than endless formatting! Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:47, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What about Introduction to microbiology? Then you could cover all the microorganisms and be a bit more complete. Otherwise we'd have to eventually do separate "Intro to" articles on archaea, bacteria and protists, which could become a bit redundant. I think intro to articles are most useful when they cover a wide area, which lets you give a broad overview and introduce several more specialised articles. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:48, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Wikitrevor, I'm Prom3th3an and I am a experienced editor and helper of wikipedia. I have recently discovered your class's wikiproject and would like to thankyou for taking the time to contribute to Wikipedia with (what I can tell) upmost enthusiasm. Your effort is greatly appreciated. I look forward to seeing the end result of your article mid next year and most likly drop in and offer advice to you along the way as I am freely available to answer any quires you may have. A final word of advice would be WP:BEBOLD. All the Best «l| Ψrom3th3ăn ™|l» (talk)11:56, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tip: If your making lots of small changes to a page, rather then clicking "Save page" for every change to see how it looks, Use "Show preview" between changes. When you have done editing a page for the time being, then you click "Save page". The reason for this is so you don’t make a save for every little thing you change, thus creating more revisions than necessary. For more information, ask your teacher or contact me on my talk page .
Tip: When you make a change to an article page, its good practice to fill out the Edit summary field. The edit summary field is a small text box above the Save Page button where you can briefly describe the changes you have made. The reason this is good practice is it tells other users what you changed without them having to view the revision. It also makes it easy to find a particuler edit in the page history should you wish to UNDO an edit or see the date of a change.
Hi Wikitrevor, I'm Duncan, a bird editor and scientist who hangs around at WP:BIRD. I am mentoring one of your fellow students who is also working on a bird article, and I have been writing an essay on how to write bird articles for all of you to use. So I'll provide you with a link and then you can ask me questions if you like. User:Sabine's Sunbird/Writing Bird Articles. Also drop by at WP:BIRD for help and suggestions. Sabine's Sunbirdtalk23:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, I believe I may need to select an alternative topic. I didn't realize it, but Toucan is a family. I found it rather difficult to gather information since Toucan is a Family, as opposed to a Species. It'd be easier to research a specific animal, rather than a group of animals that fall into one category. I went with the Northern River Otter as a solution.
River Otter PR
Hi there! I am contacting you because an IP address recently closed the peer review that you had initated for North American River Otter. I was about to revert their closing when I realized that they had also posted on a talk page as you. I would suggest making it obvious that you were the IP that had closed the PR, if in fact it was you and you wish to close the PR. However, if this was not you, then please feel free to revert the closing. I would suggest keeping the PR open, as you will get some beneficial comments from the review. I realize that nothing had happened so far, but someone always does comment, I promise! Drop me a note if you have any questions. Dana boomer (talk) 22:53, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Dana boomer.
Thank you for alerting me about this. I actually "de-nominated" the request for peer review earlier today, but I don't think I should have done that. I believe there may be adequate substance to work with. I was wondering if you could help me reinstate the nomination.
I've gone through and copyedited a bit, but the article's structure is somewhat choppy. I'll try and fix the general choppiness, but you may want to bring in one of the copy editors from the peer review. Best, —Ceran♦♦ (speak)20:21, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments From a Peer
Hey, Make sure that you refname some of your references because they show up three times in the reference section. By refnaming them the ref section will get shorter. In addition, try to link your citations outside of Wikipedia. As JimmyButler has told us numerous times Wikipedia is about accessibility. Also, you cannot have your article up for both GA review and PR at the same time. After a quick glance through your article I noticed that you have come along way, keep up the good work. Eulemur2008 (talk) 22:01, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
you can get around the multiple reference by starting the first occurrence with <ref name = ''insert name''> instead of just <ref>, and then subsequent references to the same source you just put <ref name = ''name''/>. refs should follow punctuation, and multiple ref in the same place should not have spaces between them and should be in numerical order. Make sure there is a space after the refs before the next word. jimfbleak (talk) 15:51, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, simple changes that you have to make, like image formatting, I'll just do, more extensive ones I'll leave a note on the article talk page so you can do the work (; . jimfbleak (talk) 07:30, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Distribution image
I'm probably not the best person for this; I haven't made any map images like this before. Maybe you could ask people who have made similar maps on other articles. Richard001 (talk) 03:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Show preview
I noticed that you were making many small edits to North American River Otter. I just wanted to remind you that you can show a preview of your changes before saving, and you can also make many changes in one edit rather than making one change in many edits. Thanks for your contributionas and happy editing! Reywas92Talk23:37, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reporting acknowledgement of message. Thank you for the suggestion.
Wikitrevor, I wish you and your family all the best this Christmas and that you also have a Happy and safe new year. Thankyou for all your contributions to Wikipedia this year and I look forward to seeing many more from you in the future. Your work around Wikipedia has not gone un-noticed, this notice is testimony to that Please feel free to drop by my talkpage any time to say Hi, as I will probably say Hi back :)
You cannot just use the iucn map, it is their copyright. You will have to make your own version. I'm no expert on maps, but User:Shyamal may be able to give you some guidance.
It's not correct that citations have to be linked to the web. If a web version exists, sometimes the case for journals, or if there is a Google Books page, (eg this) that's a bonus. For journals, you should give a doi number if one exists (if you use the cite journal template, the DOI Bot will do this for you.) However, references can be entirely to off-line books and journals.
The article title should not appear in image captions. Your images do not necessarily illustrate what the caption says, and a bit more variety would be better - a habitat picture at least should be easy, picture of an otter fur accessory etc.
The content is pretty good, but needs a good copy edit - I fixed three errors in the first sentence of "Reptiles and amphibians", and another four in the first section of "Birds" (Birds species should be fully capped incidentally). These include incorrect capitalisation/italics, and links like Rana (fixed now) which don't go where you want them to. Also the lead, although improved, does not conform to WP:LEAD. Mammals are rarely consumed by river otters and are not a major dietary staple. Mammals that are preyed upon by otters are characteristically small or are a type species found in riparian zones isn't technically wrong, but could be written as one sentence. Why is "Eastern Cottontail" fully capitalised, but not "Snowshoe hare"?
The taxonomy section is completely unreffed. Where did Screber publish his description? Who created the genus Lontra? A section with no refs at all is asking for trouble
Have made a map using the information given on the IUCN map. Map copyrights are complicated because the difference between creativity (copyrightable) and information (non-copyrightable) are blurred. However I have made you a map based on the original source and have added it to the article. Shyamal (talk) 02:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is tons of stuff about the river otter here:Google Books: River otter. I'm mining info from it and have referenced it as <ref name=wild/>. I've also found another good article full of info - Serge Lariviere and Lyle Walton."Lontra canadensis" Mammalian Species.American Society of Mammalogists. 1 June 1998. No. 587, pp.1-8 - and I have referenced it as <ref name=serge/> I'll try to add more text to the article too. Cheers, Wassupwestcoast (talk) 20:55, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've got a fairly decent book on otters out of the public library, so should be able to add more text soon. I've also asked the library to purchase the book listed under Further reading. Hopefully, they will. Also, I agree, I think the article is close to a GA. I won't be able to work on it again until Friday. Happy New Year. Cheers,Wassupwestcoast (talk) 18:37, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
River Otter
You are quite welcome, Wikitrevor! I've completely finished with the review and copyediting, so feel free to jump in and start making changes. Very nice work so far! Dana boomer (talk) 21:38, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, sorry I haven't been a more communicative mentor. I have been watching your talkpage though and you seemed to be doing great, so there didn't seem much for me to do! Tim Vickers (talk) 22:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Wikitrevor! You can use whichever one of those you want. I've never personally used the citation generator tool, but it looks like a nice one. The tool would probably be easier for you to use, but either option is fine with me. Dana boomer (talk) 21:18, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was entering the final grades and decided to take a quick look, just in case you squeezed under the deadline. The stars were in alignment on this day. I'm very proud! --JimmyButler (talk) 19:55, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Take a deep breath! Harsh criticism is part of the FA process. I'm thinking this one came from former colleagues with which I had shared our experiences and invited to the party. Perhaps I was crowing a little too loudly when I encouraged them to visit as well as offer feedback. The problem - other than a lack of tact --- is the critique is hard to dismiss. Lifting section (entire paragraphs) without proper citations (in this case quotations) could lead to a failing course grade or complete dismissal if this were in fact a college assignment. Once you get past the frustration; chalk it up as a learning experience. I for one know you are not academically lazy - if anything you are a tad bit too obsessive - thus one of my favorites! If it makes you feel any better, my first attempt lead to this: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Introduction to evolution (2nd nomination). We can discuss it further in class. --JimmyButler (talk) 23:03, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yo! I found this really awesome tool that gives readability stats on articles. I found it quite useful in keeping any over-the-top vocabulary off of the page. Getting that red dot on the line is almost impossible (especially because of all of the scientific names) so comparing the NARO to the Sea otter article would probably be a better guideline. --Yohmom (talk) 01:46, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
