User talk:Lb34

Welcome!

Hello, Lb34, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! --Jwinius 10:17, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My anonymous contributions: 70.22.96.29

Bothrops asper[edit]

Hi Lb34! I noticed your latest contribution to this article. However, do you have a reference for it? What we don't want is for somebody else to be able to come by and tack a "This article does not cite its references" tag onto it because of this sort of statement. --Jwinius 10:17, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I added that data to b. asper was that I read it in the excellent b. atrox article and I saw that there was no similar reference in b. asper, despite my own experiences in Costa Rica where I had seen firsthand the aftermath of a b. asper bite on a plantation worker and was told by numerous locals that b. asper was a significant problem on banana plantations. I guess that would qualify as original research though so I understand the need for citation. Here's what I've found so far on a brief foray around the Net: http://www.matabuey.com/AboutUs.htm and http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9311237, hopefully these are sufficient but if not I can continue looking.

I'm not all that adept at the technical aspect of inserting Wikipedia citations and I see that you have a certain format on that page so if it isn't too much of a problem and you want to insert a cite to either of those pages under the same format that you have used, that's fine with me. Like I said, I can also continue looking for sources, I have a book somewhere that may also discuss b. asper on banana plantations.

As far as my edits on the eastern diamondback page, I meant no offense, I was just thinking that there were some imperial measurements listed and I wanted to add a few more, I'm somewhat sensitive to this issue in that I hate having to convert weights or distances in my head on pages with only metric listings, but I realize that regardless of my feelings about the metric system, it is in fact the international standard, and I have no complaints about what is there now. Lb34 17:32, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the banana plantations, even though it's likely an accurate statement, I felt it necessary to remove it for two reasons. First, Wikipedia does not allow original research, and second, good articles require references for all factual data. Also, I couldn't find anything in my own books about B. asper appearing in specifically banana plantations, although within its range it is so numerous that you can probably find the species on just about any kind of plantation. Anyway, I too started out adding statements like yours, but after a while I realized that no one would have any reason to believe them. So I ended up buying a pile of books, I make sure that I only quote information contained in those books, and I always associate that data with those sources. It make look complicated at first, but it's not as hard as it seems: I simply use a text file full of references that I simply copy and paste into the articles as I research and write. Here's a small part of that text file:

<ref name="C&L04">Campbell JA, Lamar WW. 2004. The Venomous Reptiles of the Western Hemisphere. Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca and London. 870 pp. 1500 plates. ISBN 0-8014-4141-2.</ref>

<ref name="Spa04">Spawls S, Howell K, Drewes R, Ashe J. 2004. A Field Guide To The Reptiles Of East Africa. London: A & C Black Publishers Ltd. 543 pp. ISBN 0-7136-6817-2.</ref>

<ref name="Mal03">Mallow D, Ludwig D, Nilson G. 2003. True Vipers: Natural History and Toxinology of Old World Vipers. Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing Company. 359 pp. ISBN 0-89464-877-2.</ref>

<ref name="McD99">McDiarmid RW, Campbell JA, Touré T. 1999. Snake Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, vol. 1. Herpetologists' League. 511 pp. ISBN 1-893777-00-6 (series). ISBN 1-893777-01-4 (volume).</ref>

<ref name="Kla97">Klauber LM. 1997. Rattlesnakes: Their Habitats, Life Histories, and Influence on Mankind. Second Edition. First published in 1956, 1972. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 0-520-21056-5.</ref>

After I paste one of these block of text somewhere, it shows up at that place in the article as a little blue superscript number that's underlined and surrounded by angle brackets. More importantly, that entire reference, along with many others, shows up in full near the bottom of the article (in place of a special <references/> tag) after its matching reference number. This is called the footnote system. By the way, since these footnote tags have names, if I want to reuse them elsewhere in the text, all I have to do is add the first part of the tag with a forward slash ("/") near the end. Example: <ref name="McD99"/>

Regarding the imperial measurements, you sound like my dad! But, even though I grew up with the Imperial system as well and still often think of myself as a little over 6 foot 2 inches tall, the metric system has replaced it almost everywhere in the world (even in the UK). This also includes the scientific community, which is why just about every serious herpetological publication that has appeared during the last 50 years uses it. I guess that's why the tendency at Wikipedia is to mainly quote metric values, sometimes together with Imperial values, and relatively few with Imperial values alone. At least, that's my impression... and I may be biased. :-)

Anyway, you seem like an intelligent person, so I hope you stick around and help out, either with the viper articles, or with some other subject that is of more interest to you. Warning: editing Wikipedia can become a time-consuming habit! --Jwinius 23:17, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Plymouth, Massachusetts[edit]

Thank you very much for your recent removal of inappropriate content from the Plymouth, Massachusetts article. Most of the information about the "permanent settlement" status was written a while back, and I never actually delved deeper to discover if the references and sources were correct, assuming them as such. I am astounded at how blatantly incorrect it all turned out to be, and thank you very much for your correction of this major error. Raime 04:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]