User talk:Orenburg1/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about User:Orenburg1. 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.

Archive 1

I have been on the ride Starship 3000 where you get stuck to the wall due to the force of the spinning of the ride. Is this the best example tthat of how someone can experience Hypergravity?Luwychocki13 (talk) 13:18, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Welcome

Thank you for your contibution in mprotect of India Education Program. Feel free to write Pranav Manghat (talk) 06:55, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Orenburg1! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. You may benefit from following some of the links below, which will help you get the most out of Wikipedia. If you have any questions you can 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 by typing four tildes "~~~~"; this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you are already loving Wikipedia you might want to consider being "adopted" by a more experienced editor or joining a WikiProject to collaborate with others in creating and improving articles of your interest. Click here for a directory of all the WikiProjects. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Happy editing! M^ask? 11:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Listen Just Stop Deleting My Content!!

Listen I edited the Kadugodi Wiki Page, Just go at the beginning in the history, just checkout, how much I had improved it, There was no columns, weather report, almost every shit on that wiki page, I had written it from the starch, I was born here, so I know more than you do!! Without knowing anything just don't undo. Many peoples are stupidly contributing there!

Starch? Really?

June 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

June 2019—Issue 003

Tree of Life

Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content
Masked booby by Casliber and Aa77zz, reviewed by Jens Lallensack Rook (bird) by Cwmhiraeth, reviewed by J Milburn Vernonopterus by Ichthyovenator, reviewed by Super Dromaeosaurus Campylocephalus by Ichthyovenator, reviewed by Super Dromaeosaurus Unionopterus by Super Dromaeosaurus, reviewed by Ashorocetus Big Cat, Little Cat by Barkeep49, reviewed by J Milburn Félicette by Kees08, reviewed by Nova Crystallis

Newly nominated content
Masked booby by Casliber Adelophthalmidae Plains zebra by LittleJerry Letter-winged kite by Casliber

Relative WikiWork
Project name	Relative WikiWork
Cats	4.79
Fisheries and fishing	4.9
Dogs	4.91
Viruses	4.91
ToL	4.94
Cetaceans	4.97
Primates	4.98
Sharks	5.04
All wikiprojects average	5.05
Dinosaurs	5.12
Equine	5.15
Bats	5.25
Mammals	5.32
Aquarium fishes	5.35
Hypericaceae	5.38
Turtles	5.4
Birds	5.46
Australian biota	5.5
Marine life	5.54
Animals	5.56
Paleontology	5.57
Rodents	5.58
Amphibians and Reptiles	5.64
Fungi	5.65
Bivalves	5.66
Plants	5.67
Algae	5.68
Arthropods	5.69
Hymenoptera	5.72
Microbiology	5.72
Cephalopods	5.74
Fishes	5.76
Ants	5.79
Gastropods	5.8
Spiders	5.86
Insects	5.9
Beetles	5.98
Lepidoptera	5.98

Spineless editors overwhelmed by stubs

Within the Tree of Life and its many subprojects, there is an abundance of stubs. Welcome to Wikipedia, what's new, right? However, based on all wikiprojects listed (just over two thousand), the Tree of Life project is worse off in average article quality than most. Based on the concept of relative WikiWork (the average number of "steps" needed to have a project consisting of all featured articles (FAs), where stub status → FA consists of six steps), only seven projects within the ToL have an average rating of "start class" or better. Many projects, particularly those involving invertebrates, hover at an average article quality slightly better than a stub. With relative WikiWorks of 5.98 each, WikiProject Lepidoptera and WikiProject Beetles have the highest relative WikiWork of any project. Given that invertebrates are incredibly speciose, it may not surprise you that many articles about them are lower quality. WikiProject Beetles, for example, has over 20 times more articles than WikiProject Cats. Wikipedia will always be incomplete, so we should take our relatively low WikiWork as motivation to write more articles that are also better in quality.

Editor Spotlight: Showing love to misfit taxa

We're joined for this month's Editor Spotlight by NessieVL, a long-time contributor who lists themselves as a member of WikiProject Fungus, WikiProject Algae, and WikiProject Cephalopods.

1) Enwebb: How did you come to edit articles about organisms and taxonomic groups?

Nessie: The main force, then and now, driving me to create or edit articles is thinking "Why isn't there an article on that on Wikipedia?" Either I'll read about some rarely-sighted creature in the deep sea or find something new on iNaturalist and want to learn more. First stop (surprise!) is Wikipedia, and many times there is just a stub or no page at all. Sometimes I just add the source that got me to the article, not sometimes I go deep and try to get everything from the library or online journals and put it all in an article. The nice thing about taxa is the strong precedent that all accepted extant taxa are notable, so one does not need to really worry about doing a ton of research and having the page get removed. I was super worried about this as a new editor: I still really dislike conflict so if I can avoid it I do. Anyway, the most important part is stitching an article in to the rest of Wikipedia: Linking all the jargon, taxonomers, pollinators, etc., adding categories, and putting in the correct WikiProjects. Recently I have been doing more of the stitching-in stuff with extant articles. The last deep-dive article I made was Karuka at the end of last year, which is a bit of a break for me. I guess it's easier to do all the other stuff on my tablet while watching TV.

2) Enwebb: Many editors in the ToL are highly specialized on a group of taxa. A look at your recently created articles includes much diversity, though, with viruses, bacteria, algae, and cnidarians all represented—are there any commonalities for the articles you work on? Would you say you're particularly interested in certain groups?

Nessie: I was a nerd from a time when that would get you beat up, so I like odd things and underdogs. I also avoid butting heads, so not only do I find siphonophores and seaweeds fascinating I don't have to worry about stepping on anyone's toes. I go down rabbitholes where I start writing an article like Mastocarpus papillatus because I found some growing on some rocks, then in my research I see it is parasitized by Pythium porphyrae, which has no article, and how can that be for an oomycete that oddly lives in the ocean and also attacks my tasty nori. So then I wrote that article and that got me blowing off the dust on other Oomycota articles, encouraged by the pull of propagating automatic taxoboxes. Once you've done the taxonomy template for the genus, well then you might as well do all the species now that the template is taken care of for them too. and so on until I get sucked in somewhere else. I think it's good to advocate for some of these 'oddball' taxa as it makes it easier for editors to expand their range from say plants to the pathogenic microorganisms of their favorite plant.

My favorite clades though, It's hard to pick for a dilettante like me. I like working on virus taxonomy, but I can't think of a specific virus species that I am awed by. Maybe Tulip breaking virus for teaching us economics or Variola virus for having so many smallpox deities, one of which was popularly sung about by Desi Arnaz and then inspired the name of a cartoon character who was then misremembered and then turned into a nickname for Howard Stern's producer Gary Dell'Abate. Sorry, really had to share that chain, but for a species that's not a staple food it probably has the most deities. But anyway, for having the most species that wow me, I love a good fungus or algae, but that often is led by my stomach. Also why I seem to research so many plant articles. You can't eat siphonophores, at least I don't, but they are fascinating with their federalist colonies of zooids. Bats are all amazing, but the task force seems to have done so much I feel the oomycetes and slime moulds need more love. Same thing with dinosaurs (I'm team Therizinosaurus though). But honestly, every species has that one moment in the research where you just go, wow, that's so interesting. For instance, I loved discovering that the picture-winged fly (Delphinia picta) has a mating dance that involves blowing bubbles. Now I keep expecting them to show me when they land on my arm, but no such luck yet.

3) Enwebb: I noticed that many of your recent edits utilize the script Rater, which aids in quickly reassessing the quality and importance of an article. Why is it important to update talk page assessments of articles? I also noticed that the quality rating you assign often aligns with ORES, a script that uses machine-learning to predict article quality. Coincidence?

Nessie: I initially started focusing on WikiProject talk page templates because they seem to be the key to data collecting and maintenance for articles, much more so than categories. This is where you note of an article needs an image, or audio, or a range map. It's how the cleanup listing bot sorts articles, and how Plantdrew does his automated taxobox usage stats. The latter inspired me to look for articles on organisms that are not assigned to any ToL WikiProjects which initially was in the thousands. I got it down to zero with just copypasta so you can imagine I was excited when I saw the rater tool. Back then I rated everything stub/low because it was faster: I couldn't check every article for the items on the B-class checklists. Plus each project has their own nuances to rating scales and I thought the editors in the individual projects would take it from there. I also thought all species were important, so how can I choose a favorite? Now it is much easier with the rater tool and the apparent consensus with Abductive's method of rating by the pageviews (0-9 views/day is low, 10-99 is med, 100-999 is high...). For the quality I generally go by the ORES rating, you caught me. It sometimes is thrown off by a long list of species or something, but it's generally good for stub to C: above that needs formal investigation and procedures I am still learning about. It seems that in the ToL projects we don't focus so much on getting articles to GA/FA so it's been harder to pick up. It was a little culture shock when I went on the Discord server and it seemed everyone was obsessed with getting articles up in quality. I think ToL is focusing on all the missing taxa and (re)organizing it all, which when you already have articles on every anime series or whatever you can focus on bulking the articles up more. In any event, on my growing to-do list is trying to get an article up to FA or GA and learn the process that way so I can better do the quality ratings and not just kick the can down the road.

4) Enwebb: What, if anything, can ToL and its subprojects do to better support collaboration and coordination among editors? How can we improve?

Nessie: I mentioned earlier that the projects are the main way maintenance is done. And it is good that we have a bunch of subprojects that let those tasks get broken up into manageable pieces. Frankly I'm amazed anything gets done with WikiProject Plants with how huge its scope is. Yet this not only parcels out the work but the discussion as well. A few editors like Peter coxhead and Plantdrew keep an eye on many of the subprojects and spread the word, but it's still easy for newer editors to get a little lost. There should be balance between the lumping and splitting. The newsletter helps by crossing over all the WikiProjects, and if the discord channel picked up that would help too. Possibly the big Enwiki talk page changes will help as well.

5) Enwebb: What would surprise the ToL community to learn about your life off-Wikipedia?

Nessie: I'm not sure anything would be surprising. I focus on nature offline too, foraging for mushrooms or wild plants and trying to avoid ticks and mosquitos. I have started going magnet fishing lately, more to help clean up the environment than in the hopes of finding anything valuable. But it would be fun to find a weapon and help solve a cold case or something.

June DYKs

June DYKs

... that the deep-sea coral species Gersemia juliepackardae was named for Julie Packard, executive director of Monterey Bay Aquarium, for her work as an ocean conservationist? (1 June)
... that despite a genus name referring to its dull leaves, Astilbe chinensis was celebrated as the most important new hardy perennial by the Royal Horticultural Society in 1902? (2 June)
... that the pea crab Tunicotheres moseri lives inside the water-filled chamber of a sea squirt? (4 June)
... that the primrose family and the evening primrose family are not closely related? (5 June)
... that Calma glaucoides has such a rich diet of eggs that it does not need an anus? (6 June)
... that the pea crab Calyptraeotheres garthi effectively castrates its slipper limpet host, but breeding resumes if the crab is removed? (11 June)
... that if the disc coral Cycloseris cyclolites gets buried in sediment, it can "float" itself free? (16 June)
... that the sea cucumber Leptopentacta elongata has a U-shaped or S-shaped body and occupies a burrow in the seabed? (17 June)
... that Al Hoceima National Park is one of the few locations where the ribbed Mediterranean limpet survives? (18 June)
... that the marine worm Themiste pyroides is unusual in that it forms swarms when breeding? (20 June)
... that cut branches of the small tree Erythrina berteroana are used to make living fence posts? (26 June)
... that the ripe seed pods of Brachystegia eurycoma burst explosively and throw out the large disc-shaped seeds? (28 June)
... that Swedish entomologist Carl H. Lindroth suggested that more than 40 species of North American ground beetle were inadvertently transported from Europe in ship's ballast? (29 June)
... that the sea hedgehog is a cannibal? (29 June)

Discuss this issue

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sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:29, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Books & Bytes Issue 34, May – June 2019

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 34, May – June 2019

Partnerships
#1Lib1Ref
Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
Global branches update
Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available on meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:21, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

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Welcome

Welcome on Wikipedia, Orenburg1! Thank you for your contributions on squirrels. You may be interested in joining the Wikiproject on rodents to help improve Wikipedia's information on rodents. I hope you'll have a lot of pleasure editing Wikipedia in the future. Kind regards, Ucucha 15:53, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I replied on my own talk page. Ucucha 14:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Your recent edits to Planet Earth (TV series)

Hi Orenburg1 and welcome to wikipedia. I hope that you have a good time here and enjoy editing. In regard of your recent edits to the article Planet Earth, you changed "summer" to "spring" in several sections and "6 months" to "4 months" in the case of Penguins in the Antarctic. Would you be able to explain the rationale for your edits please? Sincerely, Antarctic-adventurer (talk) 12:39, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I should have put a note. I reverted edits by IP's 70.239.11.123 & 76.205.81.217 made on 8th and 11th November 2010. It seems that there is a person out there who persistently changes "spring" to "summer" on various pages and also likes to mess with dates. From the pattern of edits I suspect that they are also using IP's 76.205.88.228, 76.205.90.138, 76.205.82.239 and 70.239.10.245 which are all in the same geolocation and possibly some others.

OK, Thanks for your reverts. This kind of vandalism is hard to spot so well done for finding it! Without going back and listening to the original narration I can't remember which one was correct. Antarctic-adventurer (talk) 18:02, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

FYI

I undid your edit to Diamond Star. I can not understand why you made it. Would you care to explain it to me? I'll keep your talkpage watched. Debresser (talk) 21:43, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I was just doing some general copyediting and typo correction. I deleted the repeated words. It read "Diamond Star, Diamond-Star..." While I am looking at the page doesnt the entry for BPM 37093 which says in part "...estimated to be a 10 billion trillion trillion trillion carat diamond." go a little further than the article actually says?

Now I see. You deleted the first instance without the "-" and left the second instance with the "-".

Ah yes. I'll remove that. Some joke, probably. Debresser (talk) 22:25, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Orenburg1. You have new messages at Talk:Hungarian Revolution of 1848.
Message added 07:57, 9 July 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thanks for your copy-editing there. Also perhaps help to get these Harvnb references quite right. Si Trew (talk) 07:57, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Simon - I answered on the article talkpage.

Talkback

Hello, Orenburg1. You have new messages at Kgorman-ucb's talk page.
Message added 23:28, 18 July 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Kevin (talk) 23:28, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Saniwa

Hi Orenburg1, I've reverted your edit to Saniwa as I couldn't see an explanation for why you reverted the article back 4 days. All the information seemed to me to be referenced, reliable and well-written so I was wondering why you removed it? I was made aware of it as some of the information you removed is currently referenced on the Main Page in the DYK section. If you have any questions, please leave them on my talk page. Regards, Woody (talk) 12:08, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I thought something like that might have happened given your first edit to the article. Saving old enough versions is easy enough to do, I'm sure I remember doing it at least once! No harm done, all is back as it should be now. Thanks, Woody (talk) 14:19, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Copy edit tagging

Hi Orenburg1, I just wanted to let you know that there is a discussion regarding your tagging at the GOCE. The tagging comes at a time when the Guild is holding a drive, and has resulted in a huge dent in the Guild's efforts. Cheers. --SMasters (talk) 01:14, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Thankyou for correction.

Very glad that your typo hunt spotted the error "altough" in Queen's Logic. Thanks. Tigerboy1966 (talk) 13:50, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you

For your copyedit of the History of the Republic of Ireland page. Much appreciated.

Jdorney (talk) 15:01, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Spelling

Hi! As my English teacher says "we all need an editor". So I thought I'd point out that on your user page, you've misspelled "prejudice". Bramble claw x 19:58, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Come Help Edit!

I'd be happy if you'd contribute more to the Lego Ninjago: The Series article. Your original help was great, thanks. I posted some suggestions on the discussion page as well.

If you want you can watch more episodes of the series on youtube. I believe a user named XmasToys has several uploaded.

Mike44456 (talk) 04:21, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

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Fixed.Orenburg1 (talk) 10:54, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Your invitation to participate in a Wikimedia-approved survey in online behavior.

Hello, my name is Michael Tsikerdekis [1][2], currently involved as a student in full time academic research at Masaryk University. I am writing to you to kindly invite you to participate in an online survey about interface and online collaboration on Wikipedia. The survey has been reviewed and approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Research Committee.

I am contacting you because you were randomly selected from a list of active editors. The survey should take about 7 to 10 minutes to complete, and it is very straightforward.

Wikipedia is an open project by nature. Let’s create new knowledge for everyone! :-)

To take part in the survey please follow the link: tsikerdekis.wuwcorp.com/pr/survey/?user=73565893 (HTTPS).

Best Regards, Michael Tsikerdekis (talk) 08:50, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

PS: The results from the research will become available online for everyone and will be published in an open access journal.

UPDATE: This is the second and final notification for participating in this study. Your help is essential for having concrete results and knowledge that we all can share. I would like to thank you for your time and as always for any questions, comments or ideas do not hesitate to contact me. PS: As a thank you for your efforts and participation in Wikipedia Research you will receive a Research Participation Barnstar after the end of the study. --Michael Tsikerdekis (talk) 08:00, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Zinfandel

I see you reverted Praetorian3005 (talk · contribs) at this article. He is/was a sock of the then blocked Imperator1974 (talk · contribs) who has edited/created a number of articles with similar content. Dougweller (talk) 10:02, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah, you may know that, I see you've reverted their other edits. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 10:06, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes I noticed and reverted some edits because they were unreferenced and badly written. I suspect that with some mentoring (not a skill that I have) he could become a good editor but the use of socks and abusive responses does not help.Orenburg1 (talk) 10:15, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Copyeditor's Barnstar
	Thank you for your work fixing up spelling, especially on those Warriors articles! Bramble claw x 19:52, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

2(,)000 Guineas

Comma or no comma. Thanks for highlighting this: it seems that opinion is divided on the matter. I'll try to get a consensus at the Project page. Tigerboy1966 14:55, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias

You must have a keen eye to have spotted it, but I really appreciate your help on improving the article. Thank you very much! Kind regards, --Lecen (talk) 10:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

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Anoter Barstar for yu, or mabe not

Thanks for clearing up my mistakes, which I have to point out are mainly due to a terribly old, sticky keyboard rather than ignorance. I was going to give you the Copyeditor's Barnstar, but I see you already have one of those, so I'll just say thanks for all your hard work and patience. Tigerboy1966 20:45, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank yuo. Orenburg1 (talk) 15:52, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

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A FP for your collection

Hi there. Well done with all the spelling corrections. Sad to say, this is a false positive - almost incredibly, the source URL is spelt wrongly. I've left a note with an archive link on the talk page and will try to sort it out if I get a chance. For now, I've reverted it to the right-wrong (old) spelling. Hope this helps. Best wishes DBaK (talk) 17:05, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

FYI

When you undid the vandalism at Richardson's ground squirrel, you reverted to another, also-vandalized version. --I dream of horses If you reply here, please leave me a {{Talkback}} message on my talk page. @ 20:22, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Damn-meant to get that one as well-must have been getting tired. Good on you for fixing it.

Undoing edits to Metropolitan Library

Hi: I removed those lines about Steve Kern & Mick Cornett from the Metropolitan Library System (Oklahoma) entry simply because I don't think they contribute to the entry. My intentions weren't to dismiss these issues or to censor them but I don't think that they add anything helpful/informative to this article. I think there are venues online in which this content can be shared, but I don't think a Wikipedia article about Metropolitan Library is the best one for this information. I look forward to hearing your feedback. Tspindle (talk) 14:22, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello Tspindle. I reverted your edit because there was no reason given for the deletion of these rather controversial issues. I think that it is important that controversies such as this are not airbrushed out of Wikipedia. However reading it carefully I would agree that it adds nothing to the article and would be better confined to the entries of the individuals concerned, something I will leave to someone else as I have no ax to grind here. I will unrevert; the fact that the controversy existed remains but it probably could do with copy editing to be more concise. This discussion should probably also be copied to the article talk page. Appreciate your bringing it here rather than just reverting again.

Thanks for understanding & for the tip on how I can be a better editor in the future. Tspindle (talk) 19:56, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Revert

Can you tell me why you removed the orphan tag from Udokan mine when there is still no articles that link to it?--Zayeem ^(talk) 18:25, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Apologies - my mistake. I have corrected my edit

Okay no problem, but I would suggest, instead of reverting you should remove the tags manually if necessary. It's quite annoying for the user to see his edits getting reverted. Cheers.--Zayeem ^(talk) 21:05, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Why did you delete in the 1848 Hungarian revolution article?

It was a lot of work to translate it from Hungarian wiki page, and search many references n English language books of academic historians, it contained a lot of basic informations (such as goverments ). It is close to vandalism with very hypocritical insufficient grounds (like sockpuppet stubes etc....)--Tumbsder (talk) 18:36, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I see you are a new editor who has made only 4 edits, all to this one article. Your edits have been adding back material previously added by Stubes99 and subsequently removed by other editors. They are generally badly written, inaccurate in many cases and not neutral in presentation. I would normally welcome a new editor but I believe that you may be a sockpuppet of Stubes99. If I am mistaken I sincerely apologize.

Orenburg1 (talk) 18:52, 15 March 2015 (UTC) Can you point out concrete way, which parts are not neutral? Exactly? You can found them in the books of the references. We can edit it, if they differ from the references. I'm curious. Thank you!--Tumbsder (talk) 19:02, 15 March 2015 (UTC) If you don't like the grammar, you can correct it. --Tumbsder (talk) 21:53, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I note that you do not deny being a sockpupppet of Stubes99. I do not intend to debate with a sockpuppet.Orenburg1 (talk) 08:07, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for "extention" fix

(No idea what i was thinking ... did i fixate on "extenT"??
--Jerzy•t 21:55, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

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Ube delicious Enterprise

Please fix this article for just a reason .. because at writing out this article it was unfinished drafting information which i'm emphasized to gathered or make an additional scope for that mentioned article. i am requesting you to refix this article urgently — Preceding unsigned comment added by Patrick F. Matre (talk • contribs) 11:13, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Aircraft

Many apologies. I thought I had undone my edit before it was even made, but it appears that I inadvertently pushed the button. Sorry! -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:09, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Please

Please don't delete please ignore my page issues Bollywood Hunter (talk) 08:45, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Recreating previously deleted pages and removing speedy deletion tags without good reason are generally not good ideas - they are likely to get you blocked from editing. Nobody wants to discourage new editors but I think you need to learn more about what Wikipedia is and how it works. Please see the notes left on your talk page. Regards Orenburg1 (talk) 09:13, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

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Books & Bytes - Issue 17

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Books & Bytes
Issue 17, April-May 2016
by The Interior, Ocaasi, UY Scuti, Sadads, and Nikkimaria

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Nomination of Faiz Syed for deletion

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Books & Bytes - Issue 18

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Books & Bytes
Issue 18, June–July 2016
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi, Samwalton9, UY Scuti, and Sadads

New donations - Edinburgh University Press, American Psychological Association, Nomos (a German-language database), and more!
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Books and Bytes - Issue 19

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Books & Bytes
Issue 19, September–October 2016
by Nikkimaria, Sadads and UY Scuti

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References needed for Cumulonimbus and aviation

Hi,

you added a tag asking for more sources in the article Cumulonimbus and aviation. There are already 54 references and in our opinion the contentious points of the article are duly referenced. Would you mind to be more specific which points need to have extra references. It would help. For now, I am in the dark. Thanks. Malosse (talk) 15:55, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film#"Lists" vs. prose about lists

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film#"Lists" vs. prose about lists. Pyxis Solitary (talk) 11:11, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
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Books and Bytes - Issue 20

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Books & Bytes
Issue 20, November-December 2016
by Nikkimaria (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), UY Scuti (talk · contribs), Samwalton9 (talk · contribs)

Partner resource expansions
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Thanks!

for correcting my speling erors on Proximity Ligation Assay. I ain't no Inglish mayjor! DennisPietras (talk) 02:25, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

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Fixed.

Books and Bytes - Issue 21

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Books & Bytes
Issue 21, January-March 2017
by Nikkimaria (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), UY Scuti (talk · contribs), Samwalton9 (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

#1lib1ref 2017
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Thanks for noticing !

Thanks for noticing the new book article I wrote, Think Big and Kick Ass ! What do you think of the article? Sagecandor (talk) 14:28, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Following your note I took another look at it (and made a couple of minor copyedits). I have not read the book so can not really comment (and do not want to) on the content except to say that approaching it as a casual reader it seems reasonably balanced. The quoted refs seem to say that not as much money was given to charity as the book implies but the article does not make that point - a minor comment from me. Good articles are more difficult to write than it seems at first and I hope you carry on. Regards Orenburg1 (talk) 18:03, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 22

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Issue 22, April-May 2017

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A cup of coffee for you!

Thanks for copyediting Wikipedia.

I have doubts about the appropriateness of your adding "Sic" to instances of the word "glamorous / glamourous" when it is spelled with a "u".

[3]
[4]

You seem to have done this many times. I am not sure that the "glamourous" spelling is inappropriate. Is it not a common spelling? Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:05, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, and also for your measured question rather than just reverting the edits, which is appreciated. The Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster say "glamorous" is correct in both British and American English (as does Wiktionary). The OED website says "Note that although glamor is an American spelling of glamour, glamorous is not an American form. This word is spelled the same way in both British and American English, and glamourous is regarded as an error".

Regards. Orenburg1 (talk) 16:12, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

That seems like a fair explanation. I will not disagree, but I will lightly challenge it. Merriam Webster says that "glamorous" is a less common variation. Also, these two examples above were Indian English. There is a little evidence that this is an acceptable variant and also we have no evidence about Indian English. I am not sure either way. Wiktionary seems like a fair place to sort this but I am not sure how that works. Thanks for the chat. I support what you are doing if you want to continue. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:33, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Fair point, shame that MW is not as emphatic as the OED. I shall give third party spellings of glamourous from American sources the benefit of the doubt. Indian English spelling normally follows British English, I am not aware of an exception here, but I have never come across an Indian English dictionary; if you know of one please let me know. Regards Orenburg1 (talk) 07:53, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Black September

There are three aircrafts. Why "aircraft"? Makeandtoss (talk) 16:13, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

The singular and plural forms in English are the same. See Nouns with identical singular and plural. Regards Orenburg1 (talk) 08:11, 11 August 2017 (UTC).

This is an archive of past discussions about User:Orenburg1. 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.

Archive 1

Books and Bytes - Issue 23

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Books & Bytes
Issue 23, June-July 2017

Library card
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Books and Bytes - Issue 24

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Books & Bytes
Issue 24, August-September 2017

User Group update
Global branches update
- Star Coordinator Award - last quarter's star coordinator: User:Csisc
Wikimania Birds of a Feather session roundup
Spotlight: Wiki Loves Archives
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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:53, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

On punctuation

I'll get back to you... Wikidalien (talk) 20:10, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Random punctuation

On my, according to two people here, *random* use of punctuation in my article edits:

There has been a general decline, particularly in American culture, since, shortly after the advent of the Internet (that word, by the way, is ALWAYS capitalized), and particularly, the 'World-Wide Web', in what used to be considered, 'good' English grammar. But a trend towards degeneration has been firmly set in place - mainly due to ignorance of the rules of the language, and, sheer laziness of attitude and that, mainly in punctuation, spelling, syntax, grammar, etc. This, I well remember, was predicted early on by veteran computer users, and, in particular, those who were writers. This trend, of course, is due to the influx and influence of the general populace, which, seemingly all at once, introduced a 'lowest-common-denominator' policy on textual communication, by people who, typically, were not at all familiar with keyboards, namely typewriters, as used in textual communication of any kind. This has affect the comprehension and interpretation of said communications, to such a degree, that, more than 80% of all Internet-originated, textual communications sent by, even close family members, are misunderstood by the receiver, and another 80%, of any given message's content, is not correctly interpreted.

Punctuation, is the 'flavor' of a statement, or clause, as it relates to the previous, and the following statement or clause. As the eye perceives any good artwork, you are being guided - sensibly, and rationally through it, by way of proper punctuation. See how easy, and conversational that was to read? Now, try this:

"There has been a general decline particularly in america since shortly after the advent of the internet which by the way is always capitalized and particularly the world wide web in what used to be considered good english grammar a trend towards degeneration has been firmly set in place mainly due to ignorance of the rules of the english language mainly in punctuation spelling syntax grammar and etc." No, I wouldn't want to have to read it again, either.

There is, also, probably something else to consider. That is, your personal familiarity or unfamiliarity, with the language and how you learned to speak it, and, how you read it. If you're under about the age of 30, then you, and those before you, are speaking it differently. Your 'discontinued use' of - what used to be required adeptness in - the intricacies of English grammar, doesn't make my memory, and my retention of it, wrong. Good writing should resemble, even mimic, oral conversation. Punctuation gives a string of ideas, or a clause - or a string, or a progression of clauses - clarity, and sensibility. See that? If you didn't quite catch it, read it again.

According to Strunk and White, a certain amount of 'literary freedom', is granted to the writer, who may wish to use it as a literary 'device', or, in such a way as to emphasize something, which, may not present itself, readily, to the reader. Punctuation should present, properly, the idea proposed, in a way that fits, and suits, the desired, chosen way of expression of the writer. The way it is written and punctuated, depends on the content, dialect, phraseology (British, or American) emphasis of content or idea, and, even local colloquialism.

DO NOT criticize, or otherwise reprimand me, for my application of something, that is going to assist you, in the understanding, and readability, of each idea, as it occurs, and is presented, in a way that, in the end, makes your reading experience, one, of better, overall comprehension. Now, read that rather lengthy sentence again - this time, with no punctuation. Have fun. DO NOT try to minimalize my level of continued, and, continuing education, unless, you are quite well-prepared to assert comparisons. If, at this point, you didn't quite catch what I just said, read it again. If all else fails - I'll do the writing; you, do the reading. Wikidalien (talk) 00:42, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Oh dear, what a bad-tempered rant. Rather silly as well. Orenburg1 (talk) 18:10, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

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Books and Bytes - Issue 25

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Books & Bytes
Issue 25, October – November 2017

OAWiki & #1Lib1Ref
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Heimat episodes

Hello, I saw you added there were no sources/references on the article which details the episodes and plot. I wondered if you could elaberate on this, in hope I can find what is nessesary to improve the article. Regards Heimatchen (talk) 23:23, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi Heimatchen - I cleaned up some English and typos and tagged the article as it had no references at all. Wikipedia requires verifiability; see Wikipedia:Verifiability. Reading Help:Referencing for beginners may be useful. Hope this helps.

Regards. Orenburg1 (talk) 09:09, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi there, thanks for that. I will have a read.

Regarding the plots, which is purpose of episodes page, they are direct from the episodes/films themselves. I thought plots do not require references? If it is about the title names, run times, etc, I'm sure I'll be able to find somewhere.

Also, there for Heimat 1, there is a Blu-Ray being released in a few months, which I'll be getting. Any helpful information from interviews or the booklet or documentary, I will gladly add. Regards. Heimatchen (talk) 09:43, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

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Fixed. Orenburg1 (talk) 10:34, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for January 25

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Kindly fixed by Onel5969. Orenburg1 (talk) 10:00, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 26

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Books & Bytes
Issue 26, December – January 2018

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Disambiguation link notification for February 10

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Fixed Orenburg1 (talk) 09:59, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Westphal Neighbourhood and Westphal Community

Hi Orenburg1, Wikipedia only has one page for a Westphal article, while there are actually two Westphal's with one being a neighbourhood located in Dartmouth, NS and the other being a separate community outside Dartmouth, NS. I was wondering if you could help me gather sources so we could get the Westphal community up on Wikipedia and have it show on Google Maps. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Its all be cleared

Books & Bytes - Issue 27

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Books & Bytes
Issue 27, February – March 2018

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New collections
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- Cambridge University Press (expansion)
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squirrel

Hi. I removed the squirrel image because it was wrongly described - as my edit note said. I didn't intend to delete anything else, so have removed the image again keeping that other data. Thanks for spotting my editing error. Charlesjsharp (talk) 20:58, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Charlesjsharp. Maybe I should have just reversed the IUCN bit - I just looked at the photo again and think it is probably not X. princeps. Difficult to tell from the photo. Orenburg1 (talk) 07:33, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Maureen Wroblewitz

Hello. Help add image the article Maureen Wroblewitz. Thanks you very much.116.102.56.175 (talk) 08:02, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Ferdinand Feichtner

Hi Orenburg1, How are you? I don't think we have spoken before. Yip is thr short answer. When Feichtner was captured after the war, he had to write some homework they called it, by TICOM, which is essentially all the stuff he did while he was working as a Luftwaffe officer. As part of the Germany surrendering unconditionally, German soldiers had to offer all the information they had to whoever in the allies wanted it. TICOM and a British outfit CSDIC sent teams in to capture and interrogate important Germans who were involved in the intelligence side of things. Feichtner was one of those captured. So it is his homework you are reading. He was very busy Luftwaffe officer. I have other homework examples, e.g. Otto Buggisch who was also captured and Hans Rohrbach who was a brilliant mathematican and crypanalyst, one of their best and did important work after the war. He wrote a 98 page homework document on a solving the O2 strip cipher, which is dense mathematical treatise and too long for Wikipedia really, which is unfortunate. All these documents are in the public domain and have been cleared for use by Wikipedia, and Diaanna. regards. scope_creep (talk) 10:03, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for May 3

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Books & Bytes – Issue 28

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Books & Bytes
Issue 28, April – May 2018

#1Bib1Ref
New partners
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- Wikipedia Library global coordinators' meeting
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Aeroflot Flight 1661

Hi Orenburg1, Thank you for your edits to Aeroflot Flight 1661. Spelling and Grammar are unfortunately my weak area. I concur with your edits in this article. Thank you. - Samf4u (talk) 01:13, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

No probs. Nice set of articles by the way. Orenburg1 (talk) 10:10, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 29

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Books & Bytes
Issue 29, June – July 2018

New partners
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Books & Bytes, Issue 30

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Books & Bytes
Issue 30, August – Septmeber 2018

Library Card translation
Spotlight: 1Lib1Ref spreads to the Southern Hemisphere and beyond
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French version of Books & Bytes is now available in meta!
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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:43, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you

		The Copyeditor's Barnstar
		For your diligence in identifying, and promptly correcting, spelling errors and typographical errors. Thank you and well done! Headhitter (talk) 16:26, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

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Fixed.

Creating article title "CB Edit"

Hi, i got your ref. from Article Thomas Frey. I`m trying to creat a new article title "CB Edit". i have just one source https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-CB-edit-and-tell-us-how-we-edit-photo-in-picart. I have tried to creat article but it removed. i can`t understand how to creat this one so will you please help me to creat this article ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mayur Bhatt Shiv (talk • contribs) 11:42, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Books & Bytes, Issue 31

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Books & Bytes
Issue 31, October – Novemeber 2018

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:34, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Arturo Alfonso Schomburg

Thank you for your contributions to the article on Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. It has been among the favorite articles which I have written because it tells that Puerto Ricans have made positive contributions to the United States. The fact is that Schomburg was born in Puerto Rico when Puerto Rico was still a Spanish Colony and therefore he was not an American citizen.

As a matter of fact Puerto Rican citizenship was first legislated by the United States Congress in Article 7 of the Foraker Act of 1900. When Puerto Ricans were granted a limited citizenship in 1917, by the Jones Act, they didn't have to give their Puerto Rican Citizenship. On November 18, 1997, the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, through its ruling in Miriam J. Ramirez de Ferrer v. Juan Mari Brás, reaffirmed the standing existence of the Puerto Rican citizenship. The CIA World Fact Book, states that the nationality of Puerto Ricans is not "American" but, in fact, "Puerto Rican."

Not only that, he was proud of being a Puerto Rican and referred to himself as an "Afroborinqueño" which means "Afro-Puerto Rican". He became a member of the "Revolutionary Committee of Puerto Rico" and became an active advocate of Puerto Rico's and Cuba's independence from Spain.

Let's go by the true facts, this being an encyclopedia. We can not re-write history to our liking. Now, thank you once more for your good-faith editing. Tony the Marine (talk) 02:18, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I think you are berating the wrong person here. I merely corrected the grammar from "...a American..." to "...an American..."; I have no opinion on his nationality. If you wish to harangue someone for altering his nationality then you need to talk to 2601:cd:c101:5870:41e2:bb45:f4c4:5363.

Regards Orenburg1 (talk) 08:31, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia

Iam public figure..i need wikipedia..please create for me آرمان عفیفه (talk) 19:41, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Books & Bytes, Issue 32

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Books & Bytes
Issue 32, January – February 2019

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:29, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Minor barnstar
	For your tireless efforts correcting spelling mistakes/typos. Your hard work does not go unnoticed. Keep it up! - LouisAragon (talk) 00:52, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for this kindness.Orenburg1 (talk) 09:12, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Always welcome! :-) - LouisAragon (talk) 19:30, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Matthew Gordon Banks

Thank you for correcting my poor typing on the above. I see Watermillock came straight back. He has played around not usually flatteringly with this biog for some years under Watermillock and other usernames.Charlbury4 (talk) 23:44, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

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WikiProject Tree of Life Newsletter

April 2019—Issue 001

Tree of Life

Welcome to the inaugural issue of the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content
Sturgeon nominated by Atsme, reviewed by Chiswick Chap Eastern brown snake nominated by Casliber, reviewed by Opabinia regalis Cactus wren nominated by CaptainEek, reviewed by Sainsf Bidni nominated by PolluxWorld, reviewed by DepressedPer Crinoid nominated by Cwmhiraeth, reviewed by Chiswick Chap

Newly nominated FAs
Cretoxyrhina nominated by Macrophyseter Eastern brown snake nominated by Casliber

WikiCup heating up

Tree of Life editors are making a respectable showing in this year's WikiCup, with three regular editors advancing to the third round. Overall winner from 2016, Casliber, topped the scoreboard in points for round 2, getting a nice bonus for bringing Black mamba to FA. Enwebb continues to favor things remotely related to bats, bringing Stellaluna to GA. Plants editor Guettarda also advanced to round 3 with several plant-related DYKs.

Wikipedia page views track animal migrations, flowers blooming

A March 2019 paper in PLOS Biology found that Wikipedia page views vary seasonally for species. With a dataset of 31,751 articles about species, the authors found that roughly a quarter of all articles had significant seasonal variations in page views on at least one language version of Wikipedia. They examined 245 language versions. Page views also peaked with cultural events, such as views of the Great white shark article during Shark Week or Turkey during Thanksgiving.

Seasonal variation in page views among nine bird species

Did you know ... that Tree of Life editors bring content to the front page nearly every day?

April DYKs

* ... that Dippy is the most famous dinosaur skeleton in the world? (1 April)

... that Coccothrinax jimenezii, a palm tree native to the island of Hispaniola, was listed as a critically endangered species within two years of its formal description? (5 April)
... that Hubbard's angel insects groom themselves and each other, perhaps in order to avoid the fungal diseases that kill many zorapterans? (6 April)
... that the polychaete worm Poecilochaetus serpens digs a burrow with its head and lines it with particles of clay or mud cemented with mucus? (8 April)
... that Promachocrinus is unusual among crinoids in having ten pairs of arms? (9 April)
... that while the fan palm Coccothrinax jamaicensis is the only Coccothrinax species native to Jamaica, the neighbouring island of Cuba has 39 native species? (10 April)
... that Sternaspis scutata swallows mud? (11 April)
... that the critically endangered Chinese alligator may have helped inspire the mythology of the Chinese dragon? (11 April)
... that the Indian Creek mushroom can be distinguished from chanterelles by its staining dark purple when cut or bruised? (12 April)
... that the mottled piculet likes to drum on bamboo? (13 April)
... that some leaves of the South African plant Romulea tortuosa are shaped like corkscrews? (15 April)
... that the colour and texture of the transparent lamellaria may vary according to the species of sea squirt on which it is living? (15 April)
... that the royal vole has larder chambers in its burrow but not latrines? (16 April)
... that the scientific name of the Chatham shag commemorates a former governor of New Zealand? (17 April)
... that the weevil species Sicoderus bautistai, described as resembling "black, shiny ants", is named after professional baseball player José Bautista? (18 April)
... that the dire whelk sometimes shares the prey of the ochre sea star while it is eating? (19 April)
... that in the 1970s, spoon worms helped promote biodiversity around the effluent outlets from the Los Angeles sewage system? (21 April)
... that some insect populations have declined dramatically? (22 April)
... that among the threats facing the "critically endangered" freshwater crayfish Euastacus dalagarbe are domestic livestock and cane toads? (23 April)
... that digger's speedwell is so named because it was thought to indicate the presence of gold? (24 April)
... that the yeast Candida blankii, first described from mink organs, is now known to infect humans? (25 April)
... that the young of the striking sea star are nourished in a manner described as "cannibalistic ectoparasitism"? (27 April)
... that the Bonin white-eye can evidently learn about new food sources by watching warbling white-eyes feed? (28 April)
... that the crinoid Aporometra wilsoni broods its young in cavities in the feathery pinnules on its arms? (30 April)

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:24, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Books & Bytes, Issue 33

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 33, March – April 2019

#1Lib1Ref
Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
Global branches update
Bytes in brief

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:41, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

May 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

May 2019—Issue 002

Tree of Life

Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content
Cretoxyrhina by Macrophyseter Bramble Cay melomys by The lorax/Vanamonde93, reviewed by Jens Lallensack Chimpanzee by LittleJerry/Chiswick Chap, reviewed by Tim riley Spinophorosaurus by FunkMonk/Jens Lallensack, reviewed by Enwebb Trachodon mummy by Jens Lallensack, reviewed by Gog the Mild Megabat by Enwebb, reviewed by Jens Lallensack

Newly nominated FAs
Spinophorosaurus by FunkMonk/Jens Lallensack Trachodon mummy by Jens Lallensack

Fundamental changes being discussed at WikiProject Biology

On 23 May, user Prometheus720 created a talk page post, "Revamp of Wikiproject Biology--Who is In?". In the days since, WP:BIOL has been bustling with activity, with over a dozen editors weighing in on this discussion, as well as several others that have subsequently spawned. An undercurrent of thought is that WP:BIOL has too many subprojects, preventing editors from easily interacting and stopping a "critical mass" of collaboration and engagement. Many mergers and consolidations of subprojects have been tentatively listed, with a consolidation of WikiProjects Genetics + Molecular and Cell Biology + Computational Biology + Biophysics currently in discussion. Other ideas being aired include updating old participants lists, redesigning project pages to make them more user-friendly, and clearly identifying long- and short-term goals.

Editor Spotlight: These editors want you to write about dinosaurs

Editors FunkMonk and Jens Lallensack had a very fruitful month, collaborating to bring two dinosaur articles to GA and then nominating them both for FA. They graciously decided to answer some questions for the first ToL Editor Spotlight, giving insight to their successful collaborations, explaining why you should collaborate with them, and also sharing some tidbits about their lives off-Wikipedia.

1) Enwebb: How long have you two been collaborating on articles?

Jens Lallensack: I started in the German Wikipedia in 2005 but switched to the English Wikipedia because of its very active dinosaur project. My first major collaboration with FunkMonk was on Heterodontosaurus in 2015.
FunkMonk: Yeah, we had interacted already on talk pages and through reviewing each other's articles, and at some point I was thinking of expanding Heterodontosaurus, and realised Jens had already written the German Wikipedia version, so it seemed natural to work together on the English one. Our latest collaboration was Spinophorosaurus, where by another coincidence, I had wanted to work on that article for the WP:Four Award, and it turned out that Jens had a German book about the expedition that found the dinosaur, which I wouldn't have been able to utilise with my meagre German skills. Between those, we also worked on Brachiosaurus, a wider Dinosaur Project collaboration between several editors.

2) Enwebb: Why dinosaurs?

JL: Because of the huge public interest in them. But dinosaurs are also highly interesting from a scientific point of view: key evolutionary innovations emerged within this group, such as warm-bloodedness, gigantism, and flight. Dinosaur research is, together with the study of fossil human remains, the most active field in paleontology. New scientific techniques and approaches tend to get developed within this field. Dinosaur research became increasingly interdisciplinary, and now does not only rely on various fields of biology and geology, but also on chemistry and physics, among others. Dinosaurs are therefore ideal to convey scientific methodology to the general public.
FM: As outlined above, dinosaurs have been described as a "gateway to science"; if you learn about dinosaurs, you will most likely also learn about a lot of scientific fields you would not necessarily be exposed to otherwise. On a more personal level, having grown up with and being influenced by various dinosaur media, it feels pretty cool to help spread knowledge about these animals, closest we can get to keeping them alive.

3) Enwebb: Why should other editors join you in writing articles related to paleontology? Are you looking to attract new editors, or draw in experienced editors from other areas of Wikipedia?

JL: Because we are a small but active and helpful community. Our Dinosaur collaboration, one of the very few active open collaborations in Wikipedia, makes high-level writing on important articles easier and more fun. Our collaboration is especially open to editors without prior experience in high-level writing. But we do not only write articles: several WikiProject Dinosaur participants are artists who do a great job illustrating the articles, and maintain an extensive and very active image review system. In fact, a number of later authors started with contributing images.
FM: Anyone who is interested in palaeontology is welcome to try writing articles, and we would be more than willing to help. I find that the more people that work on articles simultaneously with me, the more motivation I get to write myself. I am also one of those editors who started out contributing dinosaur illustrations and making minor edits, and only began writing after some years. But when I got to it, it wasn't as intimidating as I had feared, and I've learned a lot in the process. For example anatomy; if you know dinosaur anatomy, you have a very good framework for understanding the anatomy of other tetrapod animals, including humans.

4) Enwebb: Between the two of you, you have over 300 GA reviews. FunkMonk, you have over 250 of those. What keeps you coming back to review more articles?

FM: One of the main reasons I review GANs is to learn more about subjects that seem interesting (or which I would perhaps not come across otherwise). There are of course also more practical reasons, such as helping an article on its way towards FAC, to reduce the GAN backlog, and to "pay back" when I have a nomination up myself. It feels like a win-win situation where I can be entertained by interesting info, while also helping other editors get their nominations in shape, and we'll end up with an article that hopefully serves to educate a lot of people (the greater good).
JL: Because I enjoy reading Wikipedia articles and like to learn new things. In addition, reviews give me the opportunity to have direct contact with the authors, and help them to make their articles even better. This is quite rewarding for me personally. But I also review because I consider our GA and FA system to be of fundamental importance for Wikipedia. When I started editing Wikipedia (the German version), the article promotion reviews motivated me and improved my writing skills a lot. Submitting an article for review requires one to get serious and take additional steps to bring the article to the best quality possible. GAs and FAs are also a good starting point for readers, and may motivate them to become authors themselves.

5) Enwebb: What are your editing preferences? Any scripts or gadgets you find invaluable?

FM: One script that everyone should know about is the duplink highlight tool. It will show duplinks within the intro and body of a given article separately, and it seems a lot of people still don't know about it, though they are happy when introduced to it. I really liked the citationbot too (since citation consistency is a boring chore to me), but it seems to be blocked at the moment due to some technical issues.
JL: I often review using the Wikipedia Beta app on my smartphone, as it allows me to read without needing to sit in front of the PC. For writing, I find the reference management software Zotero invaluable, as it generates citation templates automatically, saving a lot of time.
- Editor's note: I downloaded Zotero and tried it for the first time and think it is a very useful tool. More here.

6) Enwebb: What would surprise the ToL community to learn about your life off-wiki?

FM: Perhaps that I have no background in natural history/science, but work with animation and games. But fascination with and knowledge of nature and animals is actually very helpful when designing and animating characters and creatures, so it isn't that far off, and I can actually use some of the things I learn while writing here for my work (when I wrote the Dromaeosauroides article, it was partially to learn more about the animal for a design-school project).
JL: That I am actually doing research on dinosaurs. Though I avoid writing about topics I publish research on, my Wikipedia work helps me to keep a good general overview over the field, and quite regularly I can use what I learned while writing for Wikipedia for my research.

Get in touch with these editors regarding collaboration at WikiProject Dinosaurs!

Marine life continues to dominate ToL DYKs

May DYKs

... that the Pacific baza has been rumoured to imitate the calls of tree frogs when hunting, inducing them to return the call? (1 May)
... that 'Dumelow's Seedling' is known by more than 50 alternative names? (2 May)
... that staghorn hydrocoral grows on a mollusc shell occupied by a hermit crab? (3 May)
... that the burrow of the spoon worm Maxmuelleria lankesteri is sometimes modified by fish and crustaceans that take up occupancy there? (4 May)
... that the hairy sea squirt is preyed on by the Oregon hairy triton? (5 May)
... that the splendid hermit crab almost exclusively chooses to inhabit a shell on which a colonial hydroid is living? (8 May)
... that crinoids are closely related to sea urchins and starfish? (14 May)
... that El Drago Milenario, located in Parque del Drago, Tenerife, is the largest and oldest known specimen of Dracaena draco? (16 May)
... that the deepwater crinoid Notocrinus virilis broods its young in pouches on its arms? (17 May)
... that some ancient trees of the olive cultivar 'Bidni' have been recognised as "national monuments" in Malta? (18 May)
... that sturgeons are ancient fishes, widely sought after for caviar and more critically endangered than any other group of animal species? (19 May)
... that when several of the small bivalve molluscs Lasaea rubra occupy the same rock crevice, they are likely to be clones? (21 May)
... that the small crustacean Pseudamphithoides incurvaria builds itself a home out of forded sea tumbleweed, a brown seaweed that is distasteful to fish? (23 May)
... that while a red Irish lord can change color, it is not a yellow Irish lord? (24 May)
... that the whiteknee hermit crab is benefitted by the presence of the hedgehog hydroid but harmed by the barnacle Clistosaccus? (25 May)

Discuss this issue

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Tree of Life Newsletter

Shortcut

WP:TOLN

July 2019—Issue 004

Tree of Life

Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content
List of felids by PresN Masked booby by Casliber Letter-winged kite by Casliber, reviewed by Jens Lallensack Plains zebra by LittleJerry, reviewed by starsandwhales Ornithogalum umbellatum by Michael Goodyear, reviewed by Jens Lallensack

Newly nominated content
Letter-winged kite by Casliber Megabat by Enwebb Onychopterella by Super Dromaeosaurus Dvulikiaspis by Super Dromaeosaurus Kosmoceratops by FunkMonk Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee by Hunter Kahn Giant golden-crowned flying fox by Enwebb Myxomatosis by Rabbit Vet

Two Tree of Life editors in WikiCup round of 16

The WikiCup, an annual editing competition, is now in its fourth round. Casliber, consistent participant since 2010 and winner in 2016, is currently dominating Group A with 601 points. Largely responsible is the successful Featured Article nomination of Masked booby. The other remaining Tree of Life participant, Enwebb, is participating in her first ever WikiCup. In this round, she has a grand total of...5 points. But with the recent Featured Article nomination of Megabat, she stands to gain 600 points if successful. As it stands, though, it appears that at least one ToL editor is headed to the fifth and final round of 8 contestants, which begins September 1.

Thus far, all participants in the WikiCup have generated 17 Featured Articles, 116 Good Articles, 16 Featured Lists, and 57 Featured Pictures. The Good Article Nominations backlog has been reduced as well, with 286 Good Article Reviews.

Editor spotlight: Photographing the tree of life

For this month's editor spotlight we're joined by Charlesjsharp, a longtime contributor to Wikimedia Commons with a plethora of featured pictures on English Wikipedia.

1) Starsandwhales: How long have you been editing Wikipedia, and how did you get interested? How did you begin your journey of photographing wildlife?

Charlesjsharp: I uploaded my first pictures to Wikipedia twelve years ago for fun, to show my kids how it works. The pictures of my daughter (static trapeze), my son (Revell), my dog (Border Terrier) and my parents’ home (Tealing) are all still in the articles! I then started to upload wildlife images.

I’d got my first camera aged eight and went on my first safari in the Kruger Park, South Africa in 1970. I was hooked. I switched to digital in 2004, but didn’t buy any high-end lenses till 2014. Such a shame that hundreds of great photos I took before then look so dreadful by today’s quality standards. My 100-400mm lens transformed mammal and bird photography opportunities and when I got my 100mm macro lens in 2016, the whole new world of insects was open for business.

Pied kingfisher eating a chick, photographed by Charlesjsharp

2) S&W: Over the years, you've taken photos of many different organisms from birds to insects to big cats; you have an extensive list of favorite images. Which animals have been the most exciting for you to photograph?

Charlesjsharp: The trophy animals the hunters used to shoot are the ones I like to shoot too: it was lion, elephant and baboon in 1970. More recently, hunting for tiger by jeep in Kanha National Park in India was exciting and so was searching for jaguar by boat in the rivers of the Pantanal in Brazil. Our encounters with the mountain gorillas in Rwanda and Uganda was amazing, but the actual photography was no challenge.

But photographing animal behaviour is the most exciting and challenging. There’s usually movement and it all happens so fast, like when a bird captures its prey. Every now and then you snap something really unusual – like the cannibal kingfisher

3) S&W: Many articles under ToL have requests for people to add images that can go unanswered. What can the community do to improve the coverage of different organisms on Wikipedia, especially when it comes to images?

Charlesjsharp: It’s a very time consuming process because the Wikipedia code is cumbersome (*see below). It take an age to upload to Commons: to describe, categorize, geocode. Many of the categories don’t exist so have to be created. If the image is of a subspecies, then all the images have to be checked before you can nominate an image for VI. It’s also takes ages to nominate images for VI and QI on Commons. May be some users use sophisticated tools to lighten the load, but I don’t know if they exist. In other words, Wikipedia is OK, but Commons is a nightmare. Hundreds of really poor quality photos clog up the system and some users are too lazy to filter and edit their nominations.

Recently, some thoughtless editor added a ‘caption’ box to Commons. A waste of time. The image title should act as the caption.

I applied for a grant to attend Wikimania, but was unsuccessful. Not much can happen without some funding to kickstart and then drive improvements forward.
Here was my response to the question: "How can we increase the quality and diversity of images being uploaded and, in particular, improve the Featured Picture, Quality Image and Valued Image projects?"

Panther chameleon male, photographed by Charlesjsharp

1. Work together on pre-defined projects to develop a team spirit that will help us develop a set of shared values

2. Through brainstorming, Identify what we need to do to improve the quality and diversity of images being uploaded and, in particular, identify what we need to do to improve the credibility of the Featured Picture, Quality Image and Valued Image projects

3. By sharing our photographic skills, find ways to share skills with the community. Knowledge transfer is time-consuming and we need to set limited objectives and realistic time frames. This will require compromise as individuals have to listen and find ways to agree. This is going to be much easier through face-to-face meetings

3. Identify what we need to do to improve the quality and diversity of images being uploaded (diversity of contributor and diversity in subject) and, in particular, identify what we need to do to improve the credibility of the Featured Picture, Quality Image and Valued Image projects

4. Spend more time talking about values and knowledge transfer than sharing photography tips amongst delegates, then getting all delegates to agree to DO SOMETHING WHEN THEY GET HOME to take things forward.

4) S&W: What advice would you give to people new to photographing wildlife?

Charlesjsharp: An impossible question unless you know what someone’s objective is. So you’re on your first safari? Borrow or rent a decent camera and a quality 300mm lens. Then read a few of the dozens of free advice pages on the internet. Then when you’re out and about, take the lens cap off and set the camera to fully automatic sports mode. Be ready. If you’ve time, get in the right place (sunlight/background). Watch the animal’s behaviour. Point and shoot. Glance at the screen. If OK, repeat. Only then start playing with the settings to optimise shutter speed, F number and ISO.

5) S&W: What would the Tree of Life community be surprised to learn about your life off-wiki?

Charlesjsharp: I used to be a high-end stamp collector (early USA). My photography is a sort of collecting. And I’m a keen bridge player.

* An example of cumbersome code: getting the layout of my responses to your questions. So dated, and no online spellchecker.

July DYKs

... that the wildlife of Senegal includes a critically endangered subspecies of the giant eland and the common Senegal one-striped grass mouse? (July 1)

Cycloseris distorta

Tiny the Wonder, killing rats
at the Blue Anchor Tavern

Episcia cupreata flower

... that the free-living, solitary coral Cycloseris distorta (pictured) can subdivide its stony skeleton and form two new individuals? (July 4)
... that the wildlife of Nigeria includes 940 species of bird and all eight known species of West African mangrove? (July 6)
... that Hypericum olympicum , an Award of Garden Merit winner, is toxic to dogs, cats, and horses? (July 10)
... that flyways used by migrating wetland birds have traditional staging points where they can rebuild their energy reserves? (July 12)
... that in two species of megabat, males have been observed to produce milk? (July 13)
... that the cave-nesting rockwarbler has also been called the "hanging dick" because of its nest? (July 15)
... that Strombosia pustulata is one of over two hundred species of tree growing in the Omo Forest Reserve? (July 16)
... that Tiny the Wonder (pictured) could kill 200 rats per hour in London's rat-baiting pits? (July 17)
... that the clingfish Diplecogaster bimaculata has been photographed cleaning a moray eel? (July 17)
... that in South Africa, the mosquito Anopheles funestus used to breed in fast-moving streams but now prefers swamps? (July 18)
... that while the leaf shape varies among hybrids of Episcia cupreata (pictured), the flowers always have the same form? (July 19)
... that Sommen charrs are a relict population that has survived because of Lake Sommen's great depth, and its cold and oxygen-rich waters? (July 20)
... that the extinction of the Bramble Cay melomys was described as the first for a mammal species due to anthropogenic climate change? (July 21)
... that Félicette, the first cat in space, was subjected to 9.5 g of acceleration and five minutes of weightlessness? (July 22)
... that the fly Phytobia betulae is just 5 mm (0.2 in) long but the tunnel made by its larva inside a birch tree may reach 17 m (56 ft)? (July 23)
... that rooks are intelligent birds and can rival or even beat chimpanzees in puzzle-solving tests? (July 24)
... that the Guinean striped mojarra is one of the fish caught in the less polluted part of the Ébrié Lagoon (July 27)
... that a new disease which is deadly to corals is spreading from the Florida Keys to other parts of the Caribbean? (July 28)
... that the yellow-footed honeyguide probably includes beeswax in its diet? (July 30)

Discuss this issue

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August 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

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WP:TOLN

August 2019—Issue 005

Tree of Life

Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content
Letter-winged kite by Casliber Megabat by Enwebb Rock parrot by Casliber Adelophthalmidae by Super Dromaeosaurus Giant golden-crowned flying fox by Enwebb, reviewed by Starsandwhales Myxomatosis by Rabbit Vet, reviewed by Chiswick Chap Tylopterella by Super Dromaeosaurus, reviewed by Starsandwhales and Enwebb Kosmoceratops by FunkMonk, reviewed by Jens Lallensack Slender glass lizard by SL93, reviewed by Casliber Guano by Enwebb, reviewed by Chiswick Chap Dvulikiaspis by Super Dromaeosaurus, reviewed by Casliber Rock parrot by Casliber, reviewed by The Rambling Man Leptospirosis by Cerevisae, reviewed by Ajpolino Hepatitis E by Ozzie10aaaa, reviewed by Casliber Cardabiodon by Macrophyseter, reviewed by FunkMonk Clostridium tetani by Ajpolino, reviewed by Chiswick Chap

Newly nominated content
Kosmoceratops by FunkMonk Western yellow robin by Casliber Pekarangan by Dhio270599 Hibbertopterus by Ichthyovenator

What's the relevance of WikiJournals to WP:TOL?

*WikiJournal of Science* is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal

Guest column by Thomas Shafee (Evolution and evolvability), Editor in Chief of WikiJournal of Science

The Tree of Life WikiProject and its sprawling phylogeny of daughter projects is one of the largest and most active communities in Wikipedia. It encompasses approximately 570 Featured Articles and well over a thousand Good Articles (second only to military history). The WikiJournal of Science (one of three current journals in the user group) has a few aims that may closely align with the interests of the ToL community.

Review of existing articles

Firstly, WikiJSci can be a complementary system for FA review (getting external review, input, and validity). When an Wikipedia article is nominated (via WP:JAN), journal editors go out to non-Wikipedian academics and researchers who have published on the subject on the last five years and invite them to give feedback comments (e.g. Peripatric speciation and Baryonyx). The resulting changes can then be integrated back into the Wikipedia article.

Attracting new articles and contributors

Getting more editors involved in Wikipedia is always a high priority. WikiJSci can also be a way to encourage new people to contribute articles (especially on missing/stub/start topics). An example of an article that was written from scratch by a group of non-Wikipedians is Teladorsagia circumcincta. This not only resulted in a new Wikipedia page on an underdeveloped topic, but introduced the idea of Wikimedia contribution to a group of people who had previously never considered it.

Images, videos, sound and galleries

The journal can be a way to get multimedia content reviewed or encourage contribution. The same approach could be easily adapted to sounds (e.g. frog mating calls) or videos (e.g. starfish feet motion). It also allows for tracking of those images in new articles via Altmetric (this example has >200, which is bananas). There aren't any biology examples in WikiJSci yet, but the sister medical journal has published a few summary diagrams, photography, and image galleries. Examples include this gallery by Blausen Medical or the diagram of cell disassembly during apoptosis.

Other projects

For those interested in other Wikimedia sister projects, there's also broad scope for interactions with the WikiJournals. Perhaps peer reviewed teaching resources could be useful to sit alongside sets of Wikipedia articles and be integrated into Wikiversity courses (like this or this)? Can sections of Wikidata & Wikispecies be peer reviewed? What are the potential avenues for integration with WikiCite, WikiFactMine, Scholia, etc.? Currently, WikiJSci is aiming to be very flexible and try out different formats so long as they can be externally peer reviewed.

For more info, see the 2019-06-30 Signpost article and the current sister project proposal.

Editor spotlight: Cwmhiraeth

1) Enwebb: You're very prolific with DYKs, with over 2,000 nominations credited (in fact, I'll highlight which DYK nominations this month were yours below). What made you become so involved in this part of Wikipedia? Why should Tree of Life editors nominate articles for DYK?

Cwmhiraeth: I became aware of the WikiCup in 2012 and entered the contest. The scoring structure seemed to me to favour DYKs, and I went to considerable trouble to identify short stubs that could be expanded into qualifying start class articles with multiple bonus points. Casliber introduced me to preparing articles for FAC and Sasata helped me with my first solo FA. I won the WikiCup that year, and repeated that success the following year, after which the Cup got a bit more competitive. By that time, nominating articles for DYK was an ingrained habit, and I have continued doing so ever since, but at a rather slower rate. I do more work behind the scenes at DYK now, reviewing other people's nominations in excess of my QPQ requirement, and building prep sets ready to go on the main page, and I retired from competing in the WikiCup and became a judge instead. I would encourage ToL editors to nominate suitable articles for DYK because it gives great satisfaction to know that hundreds or even thousands of people have appreciated your work, and it provides a foil for the biographies and historical articles that predominate there.

2) Enwebb: I noticed that your DYK nominations reflect a diverse array of flora and fauna, from trees, marine invertebrates, birds, fishes, and mammals. How do you decide what to work on?

Cwmhiraeth: As I look around different articles I keep a note of things I might work on, red links, stub articles that need expanding or places in articles where I would like to add a wikilink but no suitable target page exists. So I have this list, but more often than not I choose a new article to work on based on a Google book that I have been using in a previous article. I like Google books; some of them are really useful for species articles, the main annoyance being when certain pages are permanently unavailable, although I am quite good at tricking the books into revealing pages that they were trying to prevent me from viewing. Eventually I get bored with African rodents, or whatever my present topic is, and move on. I am particularly interested in organisms living in extreme habitats, endangered species, invasive species, pest species, parasites or creatures with interesting behavioural traits.

3) Enwebb: Which of your Wikipedia accomplishments are you most proud of?

Cwmhiraeth: Well, Sea really. Again that was inspired by the WikiCup, and working in collaboration with Chiswick Chap, we took it from virtually nothing, little more than a list of seas, through DYK and GA, culminating in a really tough FA. That was very satisfying (as were the 1000 odd points it gained me at the WikiCup). In complete contrast was the article Tree. I completely rewrote it in a sandbox as an entry for the "Core contest". The previous version had been quite short with a section on "Record breaking trees" which I hived off into a separate article. My new version was immediately challenged and an edit war would have erupted had I not decided to retire from the fray. My version had some serious flaws, I had never studied botany and I had used a book source which misled me. However, after corrections, my version largely remained in place and I later joined Chiswick Chap in bringing the article to GA status.

4) Enwebb: What motivates you to keep contributing? What's your 10,000 ft view (pardon the non-SI) of the community and Tree of Life?

Cwmhiraeth: I think Wikipedia is a really great project. The idea of Wikipedia as a pool of knowledge contributed to by thousands of individuals in hundreds of countries is inspiring. It would be nice if we had no vandalism and everyone co-operated with everyone else in an amicable spirit, but as we are all human, it does not quite work out like that. I like to think of my efforts as a legacy that will continue in existence after I am gone.

6) Enwebb: How did you first become interested in natural history?

Cwmhiraeth: When I was young I had an elderly aunt who used to come to stay and who would take me for walks in the countryside, during which we would watch birds and identify wild flowers. She would take me out at weekends from my girls-only boarding school and we would search for orchids on the Wiltshire Downs. My school was not geared up for science, we just did general science for O-levels, and when it came to A-levels, I was the only pupil in my year to do zoology and chemistry, and one of only two to do physics, for which we had to cycle off to the grammar school on the other side of town. I wanted to be a vet, but was discouraged by my father, obtained a BSc in biochemistry and ended up in an unrelated job. If I were to live my life again, things might work out differently, but then I dare say we could all say that!

August DYKs

Weebill

Nanhaipotamon macau

P. lutzii (yeast phase)

Cannonball mangrove

Ruspolia nitidula male

Female kob and calf

... that falguera, a plant known from only one valley in Spain, is threatened by rock climbers and by road maintenance? (1 August)
... that Dioscorea chouardii is known from a single crag in the Pyrenees and has been monitored using scaffolding and telescopes? (3 August)
... that the tree Humbertia madagascariensis, whose durable timber is used in heavy construction, is a member of the morning glory family? (4 August)
... that the new pine knot-horn is a serious pest of maritime pine plantations? (5 August)
... that William Pope created "the first comprehensive, well executed pictorial record of Canadian birds"? (7 August)
... that fronds of the seaweed Halimeda tuna each consist of a single cell? (8 August)
... that Elongatoolithus, Macroolithus, and Nanhsiungoolithus were the first types of fossil eggs to be given names in the modern classification system? (9 August)
... that the maple Acer beckianum was described from a piece of petrified wood found near Vantage, Washington, in 1954? (10 August)
... that the queen parrotfish feeds on the algae it scrapes from corals and other surfaces, resulting in bioerosion? (11 August)
... that the weebill (pictured), measuring 8 to 9 cm (3.1 to 3.5 in) long, is Australia's smallest bird? (12 August)
... that sheep infected with the parasitic nematode Teladorsagia circumcincta may suffer from protein deficiency? (12 August)
... that the Sahel bush sparrow, found in the Oti Valley Faunal Reserve, is one of 676 species of bird recorded in Togo? (13 August)
... that the Ethiopian white-footed mouse and the Ethiopian forest brush-furred rat are two of the most abundant rodents in the montane forests of Ethiopia? (13 August)
... that Dardanus deformis is one of at least 24 species of hermit crab that transfer sea anemones to a new shell? (14 August)
... that the ornate rainbowfish can survive in water as acidic as orange juice? (14 August)
... that the African giant shrew was first described from a mummified specimen found in an ancient Egyptian tomb? (15 August)
... that the brown-cheeked hornbill is among the eleven species of hornbill native to Ivory Coast? (15 August)
... that among the many uses of Erythrophleum ivorense and Lannea welwitschii, trees growing in Assagny National Park, are rope-making, canoe-building and to poison fish? (16 August)
... that the densely-populated territory of Macau is home to a recently discovered, endemic species of freshwater crab of the genus Nanhaipotamon (pictured)? (17 August)
... that the crimson seedcracker has two morphs, large-billed and small-billed, but this trait is not related to sex, age, body size, or location? (18 August)
... that the large leaves of Marantochloa purpurea are used for wrapping cola nuts to prevent them from becoming desiccated? (18 August)
... that the sea anemone Anemonia sulcata is known as ortiguilla in southern Spain, where it is a popular seafood? (19 August)
... that the Sorana bean is grown in such small quantities and is in such demand that it commands prices six to ten times higher than those of other cannellini beans? (19 August)
... that antelope grass can recover quickly after wildfires even in the middle of the dry season? (19 August)
... that the Namib brush-tailed gerbil uses ultrasonic whistles and foot drumming to communicate? (20 August)
... that deforestation in Brazil could be linked to higher rates of the severe fungal infection caused by P. lutzii (pictured), a neglected tropical disease?
... that in Cameroon, edible caterpillars are cultivated on dwarf red ironwood leaves? (20 August)
... that the lesser seedcracker enjoys rice and the large, hard seeds of carrycillo? (21 August)
... that despite their names, the greater Egyptian gerbil and the lesser Egyptian gerbil are found across much of North Africa? (21 August)
... that it is not known whether larvae of Deretaphrus beetles spin their cocoons from their mouths or anal glands? (22 August)
... that the toxic bark of a Madagascan tree species has been used as a poison in trials by ordeal? (23 August)
... that the cannonball (pictured) and white-flowered black mangroves are among the ten species of mangrove listed as occurring in Mozambique? (24 August)
... that strips of bark from the West African copal are used to make beehives, while the flowers are attractive to bees? (24 August)
... that the swamp musk shrew scrambles around among aquatic vegetation in the dark? (25 August)
... that the rock parrot often nests in the old burrows of seabirds? (26 August)
... that the bush cricket Ruspolia nitidula (pictured) is commonly eaten in Uganda, where the price per unit weight is periodically higher than that of beef? (26 August)
... that despite its reported disappearance from Britain and other European countries, the fountain spleenwort is still considered to have a stable population trend? (27 August)
... that the African hut tampan can transmit relapsing fever in humans and African swine fever in pigs? (28 August)
... that in 1946, entomologists E. B. Pinniger and Cynthia Longfield were the first to identify the dainty damselfly in Britain? (28 August)
... that the Argus tortoise beetle is named after the mythical Greek giant Argus Panoptes? (28 August)
... that Pollichia campestris was first described in 1789 by the Scottish botanist William Aiton in the publication Hortus Kewensis, a catalogue of all the plants then being cultivated at Kew Gardens? (30 August)
... that the wildlife of Uganda includes the Ugandan kob (pictured), the Uganda mangabey, and the Ugandan musk shrew? (30 August)
... that the blue korhaan favours habitats with short grass, dwarf shrubs, and termite mounds, but few trees? (31 August)
... that forests in the Guineo-Congolian region of Africa include patches dominated by a single species of tree, such as Brachystegia laurentii, Julbernardia seretii, Michelsonia microphylla, or Gilbertiodendron dewevrei? (31 August)
Highlighted DYKs were submitted by this month's spotlighted editor, Cwmhiraeth

Discuss this issue

You are receiving this because you added your name to the subscribers list of the WikiProject Tree of Life. If you no longer wish to receive the newsletter, please remove your name.

Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 15:43, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
		This is for your valuable efforts for countering Vandalism and protecting Wikipedia from it's threats. I appreciate your effort. You are a defender of Wikipedia. Thank you. PATH SLOPU 09:54, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for this kindness.Orenburg1 (talk) 17:03, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 35, July – August 2019

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 35, July – August 2019

Wikimania
We're building something great, but..
Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
A Wikibrarian's story
Bytes in brief

Read the full newsletter

On behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:58, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

September 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

Shortcut

WP:TOLN

September 2019—Issue 006

Tree of Life

Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content
Kosmoceratops by FunkMonk Onychopterella by Super Dromaeosaurus Western yellow robin by Casliber Western yellow robin by Casliber, reviewed by Josh Milburn Apororhynchus by Mattximus, reviewed by Chiswick Chap Pekarangan by Dhio-270599, reviewed by Cerebellum Fritillaria by Michael Goodyear, reviewed by Chiswick Chap Embioptera by Chiswick Chap and Cwmhiraeth, reviewed by Vanamonde93 Durio graveolens by NessieVL, reviewed by Dunkleosteus77 Big brown bat by Enwebb and Gen. Quon, reviewed by Dunkleosteus77 King brown snake by Casliber, reviewed by Dunkleosteus77 Staffordshire Bull Terrier by Atsme, reviewed by FunkMonk Ambush predator by Chiswick Chap, reviewed by Enwebb Belemnitida by Dunkleosteus77, reviewed by Chiswick Chap

Newly nominated content
Apororhynchus by Mattximus Meinhard Michael Moser by J Milburn St. Croix macaw by FunkMonk Paleocene by Dunkleosteus77 Orcinus meyeri by Dunkleosteus77 Snakefly by Chiswick Chap and Cwmhiraeth Tricolored bat by Enwebb Halloween darter by Enwebb

News at a Glance

An end in sight for the WikiCup

The 2019 WikiCup is in its fifth and final round, with two of the eight remaining contestants from the ToL community. The 2016 winner Casliber is in first place as of 1 October, and Enwebbb is in seventh place.

Getting spooky for Halloween

It's the most wonderful time of the year...Halloween, that is. With articles on skeleton frogs, ghost bats, and Satanic nightjars, Wikipedia has more spooky taxa than a graveyard has ghosts. In the new Spooky Species Contest, Tree of Life editors are turning Wikipedia into Spookypedia, working from a crowd-sourced list of taxa. There's still time to sign up! How can you let an article like Draculoides bramstokeri pass you by?

The never-ending article title

September saw the creation of (takes deep inhalation) Cneoridium dumosum (Nuttall) Hooker F. Collected March 26, 1960, at an Elevation of about 1450 Meters on Cerro Quemazón, 15 Miles South of Bahía de Los Angeles, Baja California, México, Apparently for a Southeastward Range Extension of Some 140 Miles. Just two characters shy of Wikipedia's limit on article title length, Cneoridium dumosum...140 Miles now has the longest article title of any on English Wikipedia. In contrast to its verbose title, the journal article that is the subject of the article is only five words long.

Welcoming WikiProject Diptera and Project Creation Trends

5

10

15

20

'02

'04

'06

'08

'10

'12

'14

'16

'18

Active
Others

Tree of Life subprojects and task forces by start year and whether currently considered active or not

This month saw a vanishingly rare occurrence for the Tree of Life: a new WikiProject joined the fold. WikiProject Diptera, however, is also unusual in being a classroom project. Whether or not this project will stay active once the semester ends remains to be seen. It does not bode well, however, that WP:WikiProject Vespidae—a creation from the same instructor at St. Louis University—faded to obscurity shortly after the fall semester concluded in 2014. WikiProject Vespidae is defunct and now redirects to the Hymenoptera task force of WikiProject Insects.

Since 2014, the Tree of Life has seen a string of years where one or zero projects or task forces were created. The only projects and task forces created since then are WikiProject Animal anatomy (2014), Hymenoptera task force (2016), Bats task force (2017), WikiProject Hypericaceae (2018), and now WikiProject Diptera (2019). The year 2006 saw the greatest creation of WikiProjects and task forces, with fourteen still active and the remaining six as "semiactive", "inactive", or "defunct".

September DYKs

Enischnomyia fossil in Dominican amber

Lebombo wattle in the sand forest

Betula leopoldae leaf fossil

Pholiota squarrosoides

Lady Burton's rope squirrel

A child picks chili peppers in an Indonesian home garden.

... that the Natal cycad and the dune false currant are among the 1,900 endemic plant species found in the Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Hotspot? (1 September)
... that the Ethiopian epauletted fruit bat uses its hind feet to comb its fur and its tongue to wash its face, wing membranes, and genital region? (3 September)
... that the scaly ground roller mostly eats earthworms and centipedes, but has been known to also eat frogs, lizards, and shrews? (4 September)
... that Kihaule's mouse shrew is named after the medical-entomological technician who collected the type specimen from the Udzungwa Mountains in Tanzania? (5 September)
... that the bat fly Enischnomyia (pictured) was first described from a specimen fossilized with Vetufebrus malaria in its gut? (5 September)
... that Duthie's golden mole and the long-tailed forest shrew are among the wildlife of South Africa that are both endemic and "vulnerable"? (7 September)
... that the Lebombo wattle (pictured), the water ironplum, and the Zulu coshwood grow in the Southern African Sand Forest, where they are often swathed in pinhead orchids and other epiphytes? (8 September)
... that Zenker's fruit bat often forages in areas of forest where Haumania liebrechtsiana grows, a plant favoured by gorillas and chimpanzees? (8 September)
... that the hard seeds of the Guinea plum are dispersed by elephants, and crushed and eaten by Sanje mangabeys? (9 September)
... that the extinct birch Betula leopoldae (leaf fossil pictured) is named after conservationist Estella Leopold? (10 September)
... that the Namib day gecko can sprint at 2.5 m/s (8 ft/s) in bright light? (10 September)
... that there are believed to be fewer than 100 mature specimens of Dacrydium guillauminii, which is considered critically endangered? (11 September)
... that the parasite Enteromyxum scophthalmi causes a severe illness in farmed turbot for which no cure is known? (13 September)
... that the nymphs of the mayfly Ephemera simulans are able to burrow? (14 September)
... that the Asian garden dormouse can enter torpor, a state in which it may remain for several days? (14 September)
... that Alexander's bush squirrel is named after Lieutenant Boyd Alexander, a British Army officer, explorer, and ornithologist? (15 September)
... that the mushroom Pholiota squarrosoides (pictured) has decayed logs of the trees Acer saccharum and Tilia glabra in the Great Lakes region of the US? (15 September)
... that a dark form of the Angolan slender mongoose is found to the south of the Cunene River and a pale form to the north? (16 September)
... that clover grass used to grow in the Pacific Ocean, but has not been seen there since a severe storm in 1996? (16 September)
... that despite the Zulu serotine bat having a widespread distribution in Africa, it is not known where it roosts during the day? (17 September)
... that Lady Burton's rope squirrel (pictured) was named in honour of Isabel Burton, wife of British explorer Sir Richard Burton? (17 September)
... that there is a myth that the pieces of the broken tail of the slender glass lizard can grow into new lizards? (18 September)
... that Thomas's rope squirrel can communicate with other squirrels vocally or by stamping? (18 September)
... that the cut flesh of the bitter tooth mushroom smells of watermelon? (19 September)
... that although honeynut squash originated about forty years ago, it has only been in markets for four years? (19 September)
... that the phloem sap of Phyllanthus balgooyi contains up to 16.9 per cent nickel by weight, giving it a bright green color? (20 September)
... that although Schreber's yellow bat is believed to be an insectivore, the related white-bellied yellow bat has been observed to eat dead bats in captivity? (20 September)
... that nests of the black-tailed tree rat resemble those of the red-billed buffalo weaver? (21 September)
... that jackfruits and chili peppers (pictured) are among the many crops planted in Indonesian home gardens? (22 September)
... that the African tropical tree Pouteria adolfi-friedericii was named after a German explorer? (23 September)
... that the Celebes warty pig has been domesticated and introduced into other Indonesian islands? (23 September)
... that the metabolic rate of Rhoptropus bradfieldi is about a quarter of that of other desert lizards? (24 September)
... that the dune hairy-footed gerbil locates its burrows close to plants, where the roots stabilise the shifting sand? (28 September)

Discuss this issue

You are receiving this because you added your name to the subscribers list of the WikiProject Tree of Life. If you no longer wish to receive the newsletter, please remove your name.

Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 22:26, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
	My article is not vandalism. I award you this in advance so that you may please stop reverting my edits. DrapalDragon (talk) 16:04, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for this award. I shall cherish it and polish it daily.Orenburg1 (talk) 08:41, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

DD has been warned against inserting original research (the over-complication version) and against edit warring. David notMD (talk) 21:09, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

David notMD : thanks for letting me know.Orenburg1 (talk) 08:39, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Im sorry everyone, im new to wikipedia, I didnt know that was edit warring. I wont do it again.DrapalDragon (talk) 07:26, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

October 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

Shortcut

WP:TOLN

October 2019—Issue 007

Tree of Life

Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content
Meinhard Michael Moser‎ by J Milburn Paleocene by Dunkleosteus77, reviewed by Casliber Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee by Hunter Kahn, reviewed by Valereee Halloween darter by Enwebb and Cwmhiraeth, reviewed by J Milburn Deathwatch beetle by Cwmhiraeth, reviewed by Enwebb

Newly nominated content
King brown snake by Casliber Paleocene by Dunkleosteus77 Megarachne by Ichthyovenator List of canids by PresN Devils Hole pupfish by Enwebb Dryomyza anilis by AnuBalasubramanian Plasmodium knowlesi by Ajpolino Black coral by Aven13

News at a Glance

The first Spooky Species Contest wrapped up this week. Two articles were promoted to Good Article as a result (Halloween darter and Deathwatch beetle) and three Did You Know hooks on Halloween were related to the contest (Halloween darter, skeleton frog, and Coffin Cave mold beetle. Two new articles were created, including Longan witches broom-associated virus and Boophis popi, the skeleton frog species that appeared at DYK.
The 2020 Community Wishlist Survey is live (focusing on non-Wikipedia content projects), with two proposals so far for WikiSpecies. The Wikimedia Foundation will prioritize the top 5 proposals across all sister projects.
The 2019 WikiCup has finally concluded, with Casliber taking home the bronze. The bulk of their points this round came from two Featured Articles: rock parrot and western yellow robin.

Alphabet Soup: Explaining DYK, GA, FA, and More

By request from another editor, this month I wrote an overview of ways that content is featured on Wikipedia. Below I have outlined some of the processes for getting content featured:

Did You Know (DYK)

What is it: A way for articles to appear on the main page of Wikipedia. A short hook in the format of "Did you know...that ___" presents unusual and interesting facts to the reader, hopefully making the reader want to click through to the article

How it works: The DYK process has fairly low barriers for participation. The eligibility criteria are few and relatively easy to meet. Some important guidelines:

To be eligible, article is either new (newly created or moved to mainspace), a 5x expansion, or passed a GA review. Its creation, expansion, or promotion to GA must have been in the past 7 days.
Article must be long enough, with more than 1,500 characters of prose (this doesn't include embedded lists)
- I find Shubinator's DYKcheck script useful in determining whether an article is eligible for nomination.

The process for creating the nomination is somewhat tedious. Instructions can be found here (official instructions) and here ("quick and nice" guide to DYK). Experience is the best teacher here, so don't be afraid to try and fail a few times. The last few DYK nominations I've done, however, have been with the help of SD0001's DYK-helper script, which makes the process a bit more streamlined (you create the template from a popup box on the article; created template is automatically transcluded to nominations page and article talk page)

Once your nomination is created and transcluded, it will need to be reviewed. The reviewer will check that the article meets the eligibility criteria, that the hook is short enough, cited, and interesting, and that other requirements are met, such as for images. If you've been credited with more than 5 DYKs, the reviewer will also check that you've reviewed someone else's nomination for each article that you nominate. This is called QPQ (quid pro quo). You can check how many credited DYKs you've had here to see if QPQ is required for you to nominate an article for DYK.

Good Article (GA)

What it is: A peer review process to determine that an article meets a set of criteria. This adds a symbol to the top of the article. About 1 in 200 articles on Wikipedia is a GA.

How it works: You follow the instructions to nominate an article, placing a template on its talk page. Anyone can nominate an article—you don't have to be a major contributor, though it is considered polite to inform the major contributors that you are nominating the article. The article is added to a queue to await a review. In the ToL, it seems that reviews happen pretty quickly, thanks to our dedicated members. Once the review begins, the reviewer will offer suggestions to help the article meet the 6 GA criteria. Upon addressing all concerns, the reviewer will pass the article, and voilà! Good Article!

Advice to a first-time nominator: Look at other Good Articles in related areas before nominating. If you're unsure about nominating, consider posting to the talk page of your project to see what other editors think. You can also have a more experienced editor co-nominate the article with you.

Featured Article (FA)

What it is: An exhaustive peer review to determine that an articles meets the criteria. This adds a to the top of the article. About 1 in 1,000 articles on Wikipedia is a FA.

How it works: You follow the instructions to nominate an article, placing a template on its talk page. Nominated articles are usually GAs already. Uninvolved editors can nominate, though the article's regular editors should be consulted first. Several editors will come by offering feedback, eventually supporting or opposing promotion to FA. A coordinator will determine if there is consensus to promote the article to FA. For an editor's first FA, spot checks to verify that the sources support the text are conducted.

Advice to a first-time nominator: The Featured Article Candidate (FAC) process is a bit intimidating, but several steps can make your first one easier (speaking as someone who has exactly one). If you also did the GA nomination of the article, you can ask the reviewer for "extra" feedback beyond the GA criteria. You can also formally request a peer review and/or a copy edit from the Guild of Copy Editors to check for content and mechanics. First-time nominators are encouraged to seek the help of a mentor for a higher likelihood of passing their first FAC.

Good and Featured Topics (GT and FT)

What it is: It took me a while to realize we even had GT and FT on Wikipedia, as they are not very common relative to GA and FA. Both GT and FT are collections of related articles of high quality (all articles at GA or FA, all lists at Featured List). GT/FT have to be at least 3 articles with no obvious gaps in coverage of the topic, along with other criteria. For GT, all articles have to be GA quality and all lists must be FL. For FT, at least half the articles must be FA or FL, with the remaining articles at GA.

How it works: Follow the nomination procedures for creating a new topic or adding an article to an existing topic. Other editors weigh in to support or oppose the proposal. Coordinators determine if there is consensus to promote to GT/FT.

Advice to a first-time nominator: There are very few GT/FT in Tree of Life (5 GT and 11 FT). Most of the legwork appears to be improving a cohesive set of articles to GA/FA.

October DYKs

Female apple maggot

... that the silk made by webspinners is produced from glands on their forelegs? (1 October)
... that falguera, a plant known from only one valley in Spain, is threatened by rock climbers and by road maintenance? (1 October)
... that the nudibranch Tritoniella belli is avoided by several predatory starfishes but is inefficiently preyed on by the sea anemone Isotealia antarctica? (5 October)
... that larvae of the drain fly can be found in trickling filter systems used to process sewage? (6 October)
... that the correct spelling of "liliifolia" in the name of the orchid Liparis liliifolia has been debated for decades? (7 October)
... that Polish entomologist Sergiusz Toll amassed a collection of about 8,000 bird eggs and 12,000 butterflies and moths while in Bydgoszcz? (10 October)
... that the female garden symphylan stores sperm in its mouth? (11 October)
... that adult apple maggot flies (example pictured) use their wing patterns defensively to mimic spiders? (15 October)
... that Hildegarde had a bat, a mouse and a shrew named in her honour? (16 October)
... that the naked-rumped tomb bat is among a number of species of bat that roost in different parts of the Karnak Temple Complex in Egypt? (17 October)
... that the cause of the decline in hornleaf riverweed, a foundation species in swift-flowing rivers in North America, is unclear? (18 October)
... that botanist Betty Flint continued research in a voluntary capacity at Lincoln University and Landcare Research until she was 100 years old? (23 October)
... that the gut bacteria of Drosophila subobscura can influence its mating behavior? (23 October)
... that the warehouse beetle usually develops within about two months, but may enter an active diapause and take two years? (24 October)
... that the nectar-rich flowers of the African locust-bean are visited by bats, dormice, and pottos? (25 October)
... that populations of the russet rice rat have been shown to have a monogamous mating system? (30 October)
... that infestations of the common plaster beetle have caused hygiene problems in a hospital? (31 October)
... that a tree at least 700 years old, reputedly planted by Robert the Bruce, was destroyed by an arson attack in 2004?
... that structural biologist Erica Ollmann Saphire traveled to Africa to observe rodents in the field in order to study how viruses like Ebola are spread? (31 October)
... that the Coffin Cave mold beetle may not actually be found in Coffin Cave? (31 October)
... that the skeleton frog Boophis popi can be identified by its bright red irises? (31 October)
... that the common name of the Halloween darter refers to the orange and black coloration that individuals develop during the breeding season? (31 October)

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Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 03:34, 3 November 2019 (UTC) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk)

An award for you!

	The Orthographer's Badge
	Even while travelling you managed to catch me! Although, taking a look at your massive list of commonly misspelled words it seems only a matter of time before we're all caught at least once. Thank you for (independent)ly tidying up Wikipedia. Pabsoluterince (talk) 01:39, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Pabsoluterince Thank you for these kind words. Orenburg1 (talk) 09:49, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

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Fixed

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Books & Bytes – Issue 36

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 36, September – October 2019

#1Lib1Ref January 2020
#1Lib1Ref 2019 stories and learnings

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:21, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Pre-existence of Christ, section "In art"

Good morning Orenburg1, with regard to oldid 927812825 rollback, I wish to suggest to end the section titled " In art", with the following statement:

In some Early Christian sarcophagi, the Logos is distinguished with a beard, "which allows him to appear ancient, even preexistent. In the Catacombs of Domitilla, located near Rome and dated to the fifth century, the Holy Spirit God is depicted as a stylized Christian dove with a branch of olive tree.

It recalls Genesis 8:11–13, the announcement of peace after the human martyrdom of a Saint son of God like Domitilla, or of the enemies of Noah.

Logos is identified with Jesus Christ God and therefore would be appropriate to mention the Holy Spirit God'presence in the Early Christian art and architecture. The latter WP article sources that this historical period extends from the 2nd century to 550 at the latest. Hence, it concerns the Catacombs of Domitilla, which is dated to the fifth century CE.

I ask uniquely to add the sentences highlighted in the Italic font, but -in my modest and argumented opinion- it is highly possible that early Christian martyrs understood and believed all what I am going to summarize. This is an additional reason to mention the "Holy Spirit God as a dove" in Pre-existence of Christ#In art.

While we have God the Father and God the Son depicted with a human-divine male body (both of them), the Holy Spirit God is depicted as one or more holy animals, whose feminine or masculine sex is not specified. it's a very relevant difference. With the artistical and unusual choice of depicting a Divine Person with a common animal and not with a human and sexuated body, we note that early Christians thought the Holy Spirit to be God, but also something of radically different than the other two Divine Persons, who are represented as humans. This artistical choice for a holy place -like a burial- is uniquely possible because of the existence of multiple biblical references to this transubstantiaton of the Holy Spirit into an animal form, e.g. in the Pentecost narration. Differently from Indians in respect of cattles, we don't know early Christians worshiped any dove as being God, even if they had a respectful behavior for animals. So we can suppose they didn't think a dove was the "animal body" of the Holy Spirit God (an aniamal substance), nor that any dove was the corporeal house of an Holy Spirit (like Indians did), but that the Holy Spirit chose to "use" a common dove to appear to humans or that god the Creator gave life to a single animal specifically for that purpose.

Angels, which are created invisible and incorporeal (and therefore without sexuation), are created at image and similitude of the Holy Spirit God, which is the same divinity, but of a different substance than God the Father and God the Son.

Any comment is courtesy appreciated, Micheledisaveriosp (talk) 11:04, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Micheledisaveriosp Thank you for your comments on my deletion of your edit to the Pre-existence of Christ article which are both :comprehensive and polite. I shall try to respond in the same vein.

I make extensive, mostly small edits to Wikipedia, mainly to orthography. I am constantly amazed at the amount of unsourced material I :come across and perhaps have a tendency to delete what I perceive as unsourced edits rather readily, which is why I removed your :addition. I was somewhat surprised that an experienced editor made such an addition without a reference.

I think that you can find support for your proposed change in the reference that already occurs in that section - see pages 34 on, and later in the same book. I am not an expert in this field. I think however wider conclusions could be drawn than you are suggesting.

Regards.Orenburg1 (talk) 16:47, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, I will open a more concise topic on the discussion page of the article.:Regards.Micheledisaveriosp (talk) 21:15, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

November 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

Shortcut

WP:TOLN

November 2019—Issue 008

Tree of Life

Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content
King brown snake by Casliber List of canids by PresN Tricolored bat by Enwebb, reviewed by Cwmhiraeth Alopias palatasi by Macrophyseter, reviewed by Dunkleosteus77 Deep biosphere by RockMagnetist (DCO visiting scholar), reviewed by Jens Lallensack

Newly nominated content
Eastern green mamba by Casliber A History of the Birds of Europe by Jimfbleak Anastrepha ludens by OstapKukhar Castorocauda by Dunkleosteus77 Aedes taeniorhynchus by XuLily Drosophila silvestris by Mmhua Dryopithecus by Dunkleosteus77 Christmas Island flying fox by Dunkleosteus77 Christmas imperial pigeon by Dunkleosteus77 Drosophila subobscura by Andrewoh29 Ceratitis capitata by Nikhilaggarwal123 Woolly rhinoceros by Thylacinus cynocephalus Ooedigera by Dunkleosteus77

News at a Glance

The Wiki Science Competition has begun on Wikimedia Commons. Several flora and fauna images have already been uploaded (the image at left is my current favorite).

Several copepod species
Red deer
Teucrium polium
Ants cross chasm via body bridge
Sarus crane duet

NessieVL created a Decemberween contest to improve taxa related to winter holidays. Loopy30 is out to an early lead, but with the bonus system for page views, there's still time for GA writers to hit a couple of home runs on some of the bigger articles like reindeer and mistletoe.
Though it didn't make it onto the main page in time for Halloween, Satanic nightjar made a splash nevertheless, cracking the list of non-lead DYK hooks with at least 15,000 views. The article was viewed nearly 17,000 times while on the main page (a typical day for the article is 10-15 views).

Class is in Session in the Tree of Life

In an interesting turn of events, this month's guest column is by my alter-ego, Elysia (Wiki Ed):

*Puts on Wiki Education hat* Hi everyone, I'm Elysia and I work for Wiki Education. You may know me as Enwebb. I got a request last month to let you know how Wiki Education is intersecting with the Tree of Life subprojects. As one of Wiki Education's major goals is to improve topics related to the sciences, leading to our Communicating Science initiative, we end up supporting quite a few in the biological sciences. Here are the TOL-related courses active this term:

What is the impact of student editors in Tree of Life?

A Wiki Education resource for students editing species articles

Altogether, these 16 courses have 347 student participants. As the end of the semester hasn't come yet, these numbers are still growing, but these students have:

created 50 new articles
edited 516 articles in total
made over 11.3k total edits
added over 470,000 words
added 5.9k references

Some of our best student work this semester (of any kind, not just biodiversity) has come from Agelaia's Behavioural Ecology course—you may remember this as the course that created WikiProject Diptera. The students have several Good Article nominations, including Dryomyza anilis, Anastrepha ludens, Aedes taeniorhynchus, Drosophila silvestris, Drosophila subobscura, and Ceratitis capitata.

And while long-term participation from students is low, there's always the chance that we'll discover a Wikipedian. I had never edited before my Wikipedia assignment in 2017 and I'm still here nearly 20,000 edits later! After I poked around in the beginning of the semester, I had the realization that not many people write Wikipedia, and very few of those have a special interest in bats. If I didn't stick around to write the content, there was no guarantee that it would ever get done.

Why are species articles suitable for students?

Writing about taxonomic groups is a great fit for students, as it keeps them away from areas where new editors traditionally struggle. The notability policy is generous towards taxa, and there is little danger of a student's work getting removed for lack of notability; this is to be expected when students write biographies. Students may struggle with encyclopedic tone for biographies and stray towards promotional writing, but this is much less common when writing about a shrew or algae!

Additionally, we're never going to run out of species to write about. Students have a bounty of stubs and redlinks to pick from. Creating a new article or expanding an existing one also takes a fairly predictable structure, with plenty of articles that students can model after.

Don't students just create messes for volunteers to clean up?

Our sincere hope is that, no, they don't, and we take several steps to try to minimize the burden on volunteer labor. With automatic plagiarism detection, alerts when students edit a Good or Featured Article, and notifications when students edit an article subject to discretionary sanctions, we try to stay ahead of problems as much as possible. We also review all student work at the end of each term. Ian, Shalor, and I are always happy to receive pings alerting us to student issues that need to be addressed.

November DYKs

Brants's whistling rat

Female black-capped tanager

... that Brants's whistling rat (illustration shown) seldom ventures more than 30 cm (12 in) from one of the many entrances to its burrow? (4 November)
... that the assassin bug Rhynocoris longifrons will feed on moth larvae in preference to sap-sucking pests? (5 November)
... that poison devil's-pepper has been used both as rat poison and as a traditional medicine for humans? (6 November)
... that the lamenting grasshopper seems to be expanding its range northwards in Italy, possibly as a result of climate change? (10 November)
... that each Xyloterinus politus larva has its own individual cradle? (12 November)
... that the assassin bug Rhynocoris marginatus injects venomous saliva into its prey to paralyse it? (13 November)
... that botanist George R. Proctor collected more than 55,000 specimens, had 31 species named after him, and was convicted of a conspiracy to murder his wife? (14 November)
... that the bark of Guibourtia tessmannii is much esteemed in traditional medicine and is often removed from living trees? (15 November)
... that the female black-capped tanager (pictured) moulds her nest by vibrating in it? (18 November)
... that the Satanic nightjar can make a growling noise when disturbed? (21 November)
... that infestations of Leptoconops torrens biting flies have halted construction and farming projects in California? (22 November)
... that the male of the hoverfly species Syritta pipiens darts sharply in flight to facilitate mating? (23 November)
... that the tree Drypetes gerrardii was named after William Gerrard, who collected plants in southern Africa in the 1860s? (25 November)
... that in Nova Scotia, the tricolored bat roosts exclusively in the dangling fronds of bony beard lichen? (26 November)
... that the southern black korhaan, native to South Africa, is becoming rarer due to loss of its natural habitat to agriculture? (27 November)
... that the green spruce aphid often continues breeding throughout the winter, but the nymphs become dormant in the summer? (28 November)
... that the ambrosia beetle Euplatypus parallelus cultivates fungi in the galleries it creates for its larvae (29 November)
... that the parasitic wasp Lathrolestes luteolator has adopted the amber-marked birch leaf miner as a new host? (30 November)

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December 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

Shortcut

WP:TOLN

December 2019—Issue 009

Tree of Life

Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content
Apororhynchus by Mattximus Eastern green mamba by Casliber Christmas Island flying fox by Dunkleosteus77, reviewed by Enwebb Devils Hole pupfish by Enwebb, reviewed by Jens Lallensack Castorocauda by Dunkleosteus77, reviewed by SUM1 Ocelot by Sainsf, reviewed by Dunkleosteus77 Snakefly by Chiswick Chap and Cwmhiraeth, reviewed by Sainsf

Newly nominated content
Cactus wren by CaptainEek Drosophila mettleri by Jillian Shah Boring Billion by Dunkleosteus77 Calliphora vomitoria by Y.shiuan Pubal by Samotny Wędrowiec Poinsettia by Enwebb Steller's sea ape by Dunkleosteus77 Christmas darter by Enwebb and Cwmhiraeth Egyptian fruit bat by Enwebb and Asanc445 Paranthropus by Dunkleosteus77 Segnosaurus by FunkMonk Argentinosaurus Slate Weasel

News at a Glance

On December 10th, the IUCN updated 8,225 species assessments, including 6,722 that were added to the list for the first time. All eucalypt species have officially been evaluated by the IUCN with this update. Several birds were newly declared extinct (poʻouli, cryptic treehunter, Alagoas foliage-gleaner) and one declared extinct in the wild (Spix's macaw). The official press release is here.
Sign-ups are open for the 2020 WikiCup, a months-long competition where editors score points by improving articles. Sign-ups are open through 31 January.
The Winter Holidays Contest is wrapping up. Christmas Island flying fox was promoted to GA, and there are several pending GANs (Christmas darter, poinsettia, and Christmas imperial pigeon). Images were added to 36 articles that were previously lacking them, and 125 articles were converted from taxoboxes to speciesboxes.
The Tree of Life was featured in The Signpost as a WikiProject report, eight years after it was last featured. This marked the return of the WikiProject report after a year hiatus.

Editor Spotlight: Plantdrew

We're joined this month by long-time editor Plantdrew, who's currently engaged in streamlining the taxonomic structure of Wikipedia articles via the automated taxobox system.

How did you become a Wikipedian? What are your particular interests (besides the obvious of "plants")?

My first job out of school in was working for ITIS; entering new species, mostly fish. At that time, ITIS was the single largest taxonomic database, and I was enthusiastic about the prospects for the eventual completion of a comprehensive global taxonomic resource. I moved on to other things, and fews years later I became aware of Wikipedia and eventually Wikispecies. At that time (~2007), It seemed to me that Wikispecies might be the best prospect for a comprehensive global taxonomic resource. ITIS had a team of 5 data developers when I worked there, while Wikispecies had a substantially larger editor base and was growing faster than ITIS (although still smaller than ITIS). I did a little bit of editing at Wikispecies at that point, but stopped after being frustrated that a project that easily could have been a structured database had little consensus for any particular standards or structures.

As Wikipedia grew, I found myself using it more and more as a reference. Eventually I started making occasional editing as an IP to fix errors I noticed. I finally registered an account when I needed to create an article; there was an article purportedly about an insect genus, but all the information pertained to a particular species, so I created an article for the species and moved information there. I started finding more cases where Wikipedia was conflating different topics; plant product derived from multiple species with a taxobox for one species, the common name for a fairly well known fruit needing disambiguation against an obscure French town. At that point I was hooked and started making more substantial contributions. It also was apparent that while the English Wikipedia might not outpace Wikispecies in article count, it had better representation of organisms that more people were interested in, and was attracting far more readers. For the first few years I was active, I focused on adding redirects for (unambigous)) vernacular names, and resolving ambiguous vernacular names.

Aside from plants, I'm interested in slime molds, fungi, and various sessile and slow-moving animals (I like things that can be observed without them running away). I've had some short term work experience with fishes (ITIS), mammals, birds and insects.

What projects are keeping you busy around the 'pedia at present?

Well, I'm not much of a content creator. I mostly do gnomish edits.

Every day, I try to look through the all the new articles for the ToL subprojects that have new article reports set up (which reminds me, we should really get a ToL-wide new article report going). Many new articles are created by experienced ToL editors whose names I recognize, and I don't do much to check their work. For unfamiliar editors, I tag articles for the appropriate WikiProject, and check for formatting, grammar, etc. A couple years ago, I was just about the only person checking new ToL articles, but recently other ToL editors have stepped up.

Since early 2017, my main project has been converting manual taxoboxes to automatic taxoboxes. That has me going through articles systematically, and since I'm editing them anyway there are a bunch of other changes I make as necessary. Checking that classification is up-to-date, standardizing formatting, adding inline citations, refining categories, adding images if any are available on Commons, adding additional IDs to taxonbars in cases of monotypy, creating/categorizing redirects. I've slowly been working through plant articles, with occasional forays into other groups of organisms. Some of these tasks weren't part of my work flow when I first started, and there are some tasks that I could be doing, but haven't bothered with (short descriptions, certain types of categories). I expect it'll take about another year for me to finish up with plant automatic taxoboxes, and then I'm sure I'll have to find something else to do.

What's your favorite plant?

I couldn't pick just one. Pseudotsuga is the dominant tree where I grew up, and it always makes me happy to be back in a Douglas fir forest. Asimina triloba is my favorite wild edible plant that grows where I live now. I studied Berberis thunbergii as an invasive species in grad school, and have a love/hate relationship with it now (mostly hate, but it remains interesting). Belgian endive is my favorite vegetable without a Wikipedia article. I'm fond of Lamiaceae in general, and while many species are used as herbs, I'm particularly interested in mints with other uses; Salvia hispanica as a pseudo-cereal, Plectranthus rotundifolius as a root crop, and Salvia divinorum as psychoactive plant with mysterious origins (is it a cultigen?).

What's your background like? How did you come to have a special interest in biology?

I grew up in a rural area and spent a lot of time playing in the woods and working in the garden, so I interacted a lot with plants as a child. My mother's parents were (insect) taxonomists (and a great-grandparent had a keen interest in natural history). My mother was pretty comfortable with scientific names, and after my parents settled in a part of the country with many plants they hadn't been familiar with, she learned the new plants by scientific names. I knew a bunch of plants by scientific names from an early age long before I realized that other people had different names for them. When I was a little older I became interested in edible wild plants. I remained interested in plants in general, and when I was in college and discovered the discipline of ethnobotany, which really tied together the general botany side of my interests with the edible plant side.

What's something that would surprised TOL editors about your life off-wiki?

Birders have life lists of species they've seen. I have a life list of plant species I've eaten. I enjoy shopping at international grocery stores, looking for new plants to try (or different preparations of unusual plants I've already tried). I've made two trips to a city 5 hours away just to shop at a store that I'm pretty sure is the largest international grocery store in the United States. My best Christmas gift this year was a box with little sample packs of 14 different species of dried fruits and herbs from Australia. I'd prefer to try the fruits fresh, but without making a trip to Australia, this is my best opportunity to try some of the major bushfoods.

Anything else you'd like us to know?

Editing Wikipedia has been a rewarding hobby for me, and although I haven't done a lot of direct collaboration with other editors, the ToL community seems pretty friendly and relatively conflict free. ToL is a good bunch of people.

December DYKs

Member of genus Chrysomya

Mekong Bobtail

... that the tapping sound of the deathwatch beetle has long been considered an omen of an impending death? (1 December)
... that Chinese virologist George F. Gao led a test laboratory in Sierra Leone during the peak of the 2014 Ebola outbreak? (1 December)
... that the chirps of the snowy tree cricket can be used to estimate the temperature? (2 December)
... that research on pain in fish by Victoria Braithwaite resulted in new rules in the UK, Europe, and Canada to make fisheries more humane? (2 December)
... that plant physiologist Hu Dujing cultivated Eucommia ulmoides to produce a substitute for rubber? (3 December)
... that Rhagoletis juglandis is a species of fly that infests walnuts? (3 December)
... that the granulate ambrosia beetle is native to Asia but has spread as an invasive species to Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Oceania? (5 December)
... that the Peleng tarsier, a small carnivorous primate, can rotate its head nearly 180 degrees in either direction? (7 December)
... that Chrysomya putoria (genus member pictured) and other flies that feed on decomposing flesh are used as important tools in forensic entomology to establish the post-mortem interval? (9 December)
... that a moth is being used in biological pest control of the sugarcane planthopper? (12 December)
... that because photomicrographs of Longan witches broom-associated virus were not published, the virus was not initially accepted as the cause of the eponymous disease? (13 December)
... that infestations of the cotton jassid can be reduced by growing a cotton cultivar with hairy leaves? (14 December)
... that Coelopa pilipes fly populations can live at temperatures of 40 °C (104 °F) within piles of kelp, even in areas covered with snow and ice? (18 December)
... that Hirtodrosophila mycetophaga mate on bracket fungi, selectively choosing those with a lighter surface to enhance the visibility of their courtship displays? (19 December)
... that Appasus japonicus (pictured), a species of giant water bug, provides an example of insect paternal care? (20 December)
... that the banana weevil is considered the most serious insect pest of bananas? (21 December)
... that the Christmas Island flying fox matures more slowly than nearly all other bats? (26 December)
... that in the absence of males in North America, the female woolly alder sawfly reproduces through parthenogenesis? (26 December)
... that the Christmas darter is considered a priority species by the state of South Carolina, but of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature? (28 December)
... that after laying its eggs on a leaf, the female mango leaf-cutting weevil severs the leaf near its base and lets it fall to the ground? (30 December)
... that Mekong Bobtails (example pictured) were among 200 royal cats given to Nicholas II of Russia by King Chulalongkorn of Siam in the 19th century? (31 December)

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List of fugitives from justice who disappeared

Hi, I am going to be making a major change to the List of fugitives from justice who disappeared that will mostly likely be good for it. Can you help me with this? If so I will let you know what help I will need. Davidgoodheart (talk) 01:33, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Davidgoodheart I don't know much about the subject but I can copyedit if that helps. Regards Orenburg1 (talk) 09:55, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi! Thanks for cleaning up after me. :-) Robby.is.on (talk) 09:09, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Revision of my edit of Pat Hingle

Hi I am new to adding info to Wikipedia. I see that you removed my edit and stated it was inappropriate. The info that I added is 100% correct. When you use the term inappropriate are you saying that it is because I have put something in the wrong place? I don’t know how to add he info in it’s correct section, and tried for many hours to do so. I added it at the top of the page so hopefully some kind soul would either show me how to do it, or add it for me. I saw no option to assist in doing this. In this sense the use of the word “inappropriate isn’t really the case. Unfortunately the meaning of this word these days implies that there has been some wrong doing on someone’s part. I assume that you do not think that I have done something or behaved in some way inappropriately. Perhaps you can clarify this. Also I have some info to add to the Walter Koenig filmography. I don’t want to make the same mistake again, perhaps you would be good enough to help me. If you do respond to this message, I must confess I don’t know how to look up to see the reply. It is only by chance that I saw that my post had been removed. As I said I am a complete newbie to trying to edit. Please remember that at some point in time it was everyone’s first attempt.

Respectfully

Tramp Bigmal666 (talk) 00:28, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Sic

I'm sorry for my revert on Maxim Dlugy. Although your initial edit was clear, I didn't see the simple point. Quale (talk) 09:10, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Quale thank you for your good natured response.

Request for feedback

Given that you've edited the page on collective intelligence, I'm reaching out to request that you provide feedback on the draft of a new page for "General Collective Intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:General_Collective_Intelligence CognitiveMMA (talk) 14:52, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

A toast sandwich for you!

Thanks for the spell correction on the page I've been watching, Tea in the United Kingdom. ~~ SyrOrange88 (talk) 11:22, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Pronomial vs. Pronominal

Hello, I have noticed you "correcting" the spelling of pronomial to pronominal, however the former is not incorrect, they are just two similarly spelled words that mean the same thing. (Although until now I had never heard of the latter word.) I don't see any benefits from these changes. But perhaps you do, so I just wanted to give you the opportunity to explain why pronominal is preferable over pronomial. AquitaneHungerForce (talk) 09:06, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi AquitaneHungerForce I am working my way thru the WP lists of misspellings and have reached P which lists pronomial as a misspelling of pronominal. Considering their size the lists have relatively few errors although I have come across a couple. An online search of the OED and Merriam-Webster gives only pronominal with no apparent results for pronomial. My papercopy of the shorter OED has only pronominal. This of course is not necessarily conclusive. Regards Orenburg1 (talk) 07:35, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

sorry

Sorry sir I don't know alibaba marjinaa article edit suckpuppet. I very sorry please don't block me please I have a promise next time I not editing suckpuppet please I very very sorry ध्रुविल९०१२ (talk) 08:19, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2021!

Hello Orenburg1, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2021.
Happy editing,
RAJIVVASUDEV (talk) 14:54, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

May God shower you with all the goodness in the world. May you be blessed with all that you have dreamt about. Merry Christmas.RAJIVVASUDEV (talk) 14:54, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for January 12

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited List of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir characters, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page French.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:31, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for May 30

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Medicine Hat, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Independent.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:01, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Fixed.

Suggestions

Hello there! Can I suggest if I can change the sentence of Virgin Atlantic fleet

"Virgin Atlantic operates an all widebody aircraft from Airbus and Boeing, composed of Airbus A330-200, Airbus A330-300, Airbus A350-1000 and Boeing 787-9. The airline also has Airbus A330-900 on order."

Hope you're okay with this. Thanks in advance! Cornerstone2.0 (talk) 05:50, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi Cornerstone2.0. The sentence does not make a lot of sense without the word fleet'.

I originally reverted your previous edit to change aircrafts to aircraft as the singular and plural of aircraft are the same in English, but see that I reverted to a version that was still confusing.

I suggest that the opening sentence should simply read:

"Virgin Atlantic operates a fleet of all widebody aircraft from both Airbus and Boeing."

This makes the opening sentence simple to read and the details of the fleet and its development can then be dealt with in detail in the following sections which probably is easier in the long run as these change relatively frequently. I see that you have done a pretty good job on these sections by the way.

I have changed the intro accordingly.

Regards.

Orenburg1 (talk) 07:17, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

@Orenburg1:, okay then.. thanks for your response! :)) Cornerstone2.0 (talk) 07:48, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Siegfried Verbeke

If you have a moment, could you revert the IP's edit to this article? I can't seem to make them understand that they cannot add unsourced "soon to be published" information to Wikipedia articles, and they just keep restoring it. I've filed an edit warring report. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:40, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Actually, I withdrew the AN3 report because I miscounted and I'm over 3 reverts myself. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:43, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken:, I did not have internet access yesterday as I was travelling but I see Black Hawk has reverted it. Regards Orenburg1 (talk) 06:43, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Undo

Ah, sorry I missed that there was a mistake in the title. Terasail ^[✉️] 15:58, 16 June 2021 (UTC) @Terasail: No probs. Regards. Orenburg1 (talk) 16:03, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

A Stupid Question?

What does CE mean in the edit summaries? Just brushing up on my abbreviations knowledge is all?!. --Vaati the Wind Demon (talk) 15:48, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

@Vaati the Wind Demon: Not so stupid. I am using ce as an abbreviation for copyedit. See WP:CE. Regards. Orenburg1 (talk) 07:20, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Vaati the Wind Demon: And I really meant to refer to Wikipedia:Edit summary legend#Copy edit. Orenburg1 (talk) 07:39, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

thanks for catching the spelling errors

For some reason my browser will not spell check edits to Wikipedia, but will on other sites. *shrug* 174.86.237.161 (talk) 08:24, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Mafia

Hi my name is Blaze im known as Blazey im a retired mob boss in west virginia i controlled a crime ring inside the schools which led to us stealing over $8000,i would like to share my story with you 2001:5B0:45C8:19D8:8BE:D932:ADF6:C9D0 (talk) 00:09, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Some bubble tea for you!

Thank you to edit Rajpura article! ਰਵੀ ਸਹਿਗਲ (talk) 11:23, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

You made me look up chthonian

Thanks for the fixes of "fourty" to "forty" at List of US Navy ships sunk or damaged in action during World War II. I thought you might want to know, since the quotes on your user page are so good (and I thought you might appreciate a pedantic note), that Wikipedia style is to have no quote marks for quotes in boxes. Keep up the good work. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 17:19, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

@SchreiberBike: Thank you for your kind words.

I was unaware of the Wikipedia convention regarding quotation marks but I have now corrected this egregious and regrettable error. Regards. Orenburg1 (talk) 20:21, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

May all your errors be so small and easy to correct! SchreiberBike | ⌨ 21:20, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

Season's greetings and Merry Christmas to you and your family. Have a wonderful holiday season. Cheers! RV (talk) 11:38, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 17

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