User talk:Rkitko/Archive24

New Source

Hi Ryan, the worlds of plants, birds and fish seem to have well accepted the huge role of hybridisation in the formation of new types (species). The publication by Eugene McCarthy proposes that all speciation events are hybridisation driven rather than by the gradual accumulation of random genetic changes http://www.macroevolution.net/support-files/forms_of_life.pdf for reference.

How do you feel this will influence the form of The Tree of Life?

DerekSmith (talk) 14:29, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Derek, may I kindly ask that you stop flogging this particular publication? I made my feelings on it clear at Wikipedia talk:TOL in the discussion you started. The ideas McCarthy presented are nothing new and it's far from a complete discussion, so it, as a publication, will have little or no influence on the Tree of Life, as you say. I found it to be a poor publication that could have used a good deal of editing to rid it of so many block quotes. Further, he didn't even mention incomplete lineage sorting as a source of homoplasy. Further, it was identified as a self-published source and the author come to the previous discussion to defend himself, but at first anonymously in the third person, a clear conflict of interest. I see you haven't made many other edits recently than to push this publication. Your efforts as such are being wasted, especially since Wikipedia is not a soapbox and is not for promotion, which is essentially what you're doing here. Please stop it. Thank you, Rkitko ^(talk) 15:05, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Ryan, thank you for your courtesy. While I agree that the anonymous contribution was embarrassing, the document is nonetheless an important source of critical new thinking, and as such, I feel it is a source which should be widely referenced. At this stage of exposure to radical new views, the steps are going to be small ones, but they are steps which must be taken in order to develop the full implications of this work (we should not forget that Darwin's work was also self published).

In your rely you stated "Further, he didn't even mention incomplete lineage sorting as a source of homoplasy". I wonder, could I please impose upon you to expand on how you feel this refutes McCarthy's hypothesis?

Thank you for your patience. DerekSmith (talk) 15:44, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Derek, I disagree that McCarthy's publication is "an important source of critical new thinking." The ideas are not all that new and they certainly miss some very key points. Overall, my assessment of it is that it lacks a coherent argument and isn't backed up very well with data. By pointing out his omission of lineage sorting, I was noting an incomplete argument when I pointed out that he didn't mention incomplete lineage sorting. As others pointed out in the other discussion, much of what McCarthy identifies is not ignored by systematists when dealing with their data. If McCarthy were presenting a full argument of his idea, you'd think he'd want to mention all sources of confusion in the Tree of Life, including lateral gene transfer, incomplete lineage sorting, and yes, hybridization. However, he ignores the first two and places much more importance on the last one without much reason. It's clear to me from reading this that McCarthy doesn't have a firm grasp on the methods of building phylogenetic trees, including character weighting. And that's ok! He's a geneticist, not a systematist.

Anyway, consensus among editors at WP:TOL was generally that the publication was not suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia as a reliable source and that it wasn't really anything new, different, or all that rigorous. By continuing to shop the pdf link around to people (just on my talk page so far in July since the discussion at TOL), you're wasting your time and violating WP:NOTSOAPBOX. So, friendly advice? Cut it out. If you want to discuss McCarthy's ideas further, do so elsewhere on forums or in a biology department symposium. I feel like I'm wasting my time by saying this again, but Wikipedia is not the place to decide which ideas are worth further study or whether they will "influence the form of the Tree of Life." That's what forums, posters and talks at meetings, other academic papers refuting or concurring with the original publication are for, not a Wikipedia talk page. Wikipedia talk pages are specifically to be used for building the encyclopedia - and since we can't use McCarthy's publication, there's no point to this discussion. Reply if you want, but I'll say no more on McCarthy or his work as I think it's all been said. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 20:45, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Ryan for explaining your viewpoint. Yes, I would like to discuss my understanding of MaCarthys work further, especially with your good self, but I respectfully acknowledge your decision not to do it here. Could we perhaps converse through some other medium? Thank you for your patience thus far. DerekSmith (talk) 09:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate your enthusiasm to discuss the topics and I'm sure it would be a decent discussion, but my focus is already split and I don't have the time to devote to it. Perhaps another time. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 13:23, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

OK, I understand. Cheers DerekSmith (talk) 14:07, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Change added in the light of the addition since I posted: I was agreeing with Rkitko, not DS! Hear hear! The proposition (to dignify it with such a clear term) seems to be embarrassingly simplistic for anyone with pretensions to being a trained biologist, and even if it had merit, it needed decent independent support without bad-faith misrepresentation of sources. JonRichfield (talk) 15:33, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Jon. Appreciate your thoughts. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 20:45, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Nepenthes IPA

Hey Ryan, any thoughts on the query I raised on Nepenthes IPA on my wall (talk) with Mgiganteus (talk)? Would rather field some opinions. The pronunciation was originally what we are considering reverting to, but was unilaterally changed by Kwami ages ago. Even so, Kwami did capitulate that that the original character (schwa) used made more of a difference to non-American speakers of English, but never got around to changing it back. Thoughts, further discussion? Cheers! Attenboroughii (talk) 01:40, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Slow Aging

Hi Ryan, I would like to create a new article with all new content that makes more sense. Could you please provide the link to the deleted article or deleted article archive page so I can obtain a copy of what I had originally. Do you have any suggestions regarding this? TIA. Pilot03 (talk) 13:29, 17 August 2012 (UTC)Pilot03

I could move the deleted page to a subpage of your username so that you could work on it there, but I would encourage you to start from scratch. The source that worked from (and received OTRS permission for) would need so much work it would be much better, in my opinion, to start over and ignore that first source. Identify reliable sources (read that guideline) that focus on the topic. Scholarly journals or books published by reputable publishers (not self-published), news articles sometimes make the cut if in widely read papers. Write objectively with a neutral point of view and an encyclopedic tone. Describe the concept, but say nothing more than what your reliable sources say because you want to avoid original research. Think of the kind of article on the topic that you would expect to find when opening a printed encyclopedia like Britannica and emulate that. And again, work on the article first in your userspace, perhaps at User:Pilot03/Slow aging. Then when you're ready, you could move the article into the main article space. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 16:06, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Please move to the subpage under my username. Thanks a ton for explaining in detail. This is great information and very helpful.Pilot03 (talk) 02:12, 19 August 2012 (UTC)Pilot03

Taxobox taxonomies

Well, obviously I should use APG III for fam. nov. in APG III; thanks for the corrections. When I look at the taxobox for a taxon, though, I find archaic, mixed, novel, and variable taxonomies for the same taxon in different articles. I have read some info on taxoboxes, but it is dense and often designed to answer questions set to only two types of users, absolute beginners and programmers. Should I change taxoboxes to be consistent across the taxon, all Caryophyllales APG III (I just created these articles copying and pasting the boxes from other families in the order)? Should I leave existing ones as is and create new ones according to taxonomic system? Is there a stiandard for plants? Algae? I appreciate help in this matter; biology on Wikipedia is confusing, in spite of a large number of excellent organism articles in plants, animals, and microbes. Eau (talk) 00:54, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Happy to help, and no worries. Several editors at WP:PLANTS (if you're interested in plants, many botanists are gathered there and discuss issues frequently at WT:PLANTS, so it might be worth putting on your watchlist) recently endeavored over several years to change taxoboxes to the APG III system. It's still a work in progress. I got deep into Rosales and then life happened, so I don't have much time to continue, but I thought I had captured all of the Caryophyllales articles. I may have missed a few,i new articles could have cropped up with the older Cronquist classification, or as I've seen a few times anon. editors will change an APG III taxobox back to the apparently more familiar but now inconsistent Cronquist system. I can't monitor all the changes, so yes, I'd say wherever you see an angiosperm taxobox sporting anything but APG III, be bold and change it, explaining why in the edit summary (I usually just say something like "Updating taxobox classification to APG III system" and rarely get reverted).

Yes, there was consensus to shift to APG III among WP:PLANTS members. We've gotten very little comment on the switch, so it appears that all is well. I'd like to see us eventually switch to the {{Automatic taxobox}} which has the advantage of hosting the classification on a common back end. If a genus changes families or a family is broken into subfamilies, all that's needed are relatively few edits to the taxonomy templates instead of hundreds or thousands of edits on individual taxoboxen. It's still a bit controversial, though, and hard to get used to.

I must confess my ignorance of algae, fern, and bryophyte taxonomy. User:EncycloPetey isagood one to ask for advice on the latter two, I believe. I'm not sure who to ask abut algae, but someone at WP:PLANTS might know. Let me know if I can help in any other way. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 01:10, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

I can do some algae (mostly Phaeophyceae), but there isn't anyone here who I know is both active and familiar with current algal taxonomy for other groups. The greens, reds, and diatoms have all undergone major revisions in recent years, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to know which changes have been accepted by the phycological community, and I was never any good with reds to begin with. So, browns I can do, and for other algae I might be able to assist in a few select circumstances. For what it's worth, I've done most of the updates and revisions on Wikispecies for algae, but I have to rely heavily on AlgaeBase and they're not always up-to-date. Their quality depends upon the review of specialists, so some taxa are well done while others are in poor state. I discovered quite a few problems in their Klebsormidiaceae, for example, and Eau has already brought up the issue of the Oocystales. So, not all the Wikispecies algae pages have been updated.

Otherwise, yes, bryophytes and pteridophytes I can do, and Peter coxhead can help greatly with fossil plant taxa. There has also been a recent overhaul of the cycads, although I didn't get a copy of the article at the time I first noticed it. It may be the Hilton & Batemann (2007) article listed here at Wikispecies, but I'm not certain of that. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:29, 19 August 2012 (UTC

I am capable of doing higher level taxonomies on algae groups/clades including the green algae, red algae, glaucophytes, cyanobacteria, diatoms, coccolithophores, and the chromalveolata, sensu Cavalier-Smith, including non photosynthetic clades. I suspect I will spend more time discussing things we agree upon than actually editing, though. The issue I raise here is that these groups have mixed taxonomies, some deprecated decades ago in the same taxobox with taxonomies tied to single papers, superceded by later works by the same authors, mixing clades, with morpho and eco groups in articles describing a clade only vaguely related to the taxonomy in the box. My suggestion is to use the basics of the four or five latest textbooks on phycology and sort these out top down. I do get it that you disagree with me. But I disagree that the solution is to use a single pre higher level taxonomies of the eukaryotes textbook, and I am so tired of discussing instead of correcting errors. So, what I was asking User: Rkitko is what taxonomy to use for the algae on Wikipedia. I am also fine with non-conifer gymnosperms and some ferns, but not bryophytes (all in the broadest sense), and for these I know which taxonomies to use where. I know this for the algae also, but I am trying to find some agreement, not a battle. Eau (talk) 06:22, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

That's how Wikipedia works. You can be bold with your edits, but if someone disagrees with you and reverts, that's part of the bold, revert, discuss cycle. And especially with getting consensus on which classifications to use in the taxobox, you'll find that you will need to engage in discussions (not an argument or battle). I understand that the situation with algae is rather ugly - many of the articles were created automatically with imported data from AlgaeBase, I think. It took many editors a long time to clean up to the point we are at with angiosperms and there's still work to be done! Occasionally I still come across a taxobox that uses Tracheophyta as a phylum! Anyway, ask around with other editors who might know more about algae. Try seeing if some of the users listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Algae are still active. Best of luck, Rkitko ^(talk) 13:35, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

It doe not really seem to work, you know. I got into a battle with Petey about sourcing an existing statement. He disagreed with my adding the statement, which was already there, based on information he thought was in a 25 year old textbook, while I was trying to source it from more up-to-date textbooks, but this was a minor issue compared to my major concerns which became lost over this pseudoexchange of nothing. Wikipedia seems to function in this Twilight Zone rather than working, leaving editing in weird states--edit all the algae, but leave the browns alone, so that at least 95% of the articles have correct taxonomies? But it seems to me, from reading other talk pages, that this is how much of it came to be, editors corrected parts to avoid stepping on toes, then disengaged from discussions to avoid these odd battles. Thanks for the input. I will APG III angiosperms and avoid brown algae and the main article. I will also look over higher level taxonomies in the gymnosperms and count myself successful that at least I got some flowering gymnosperms out of the tree article this week; maybe I will get them out of the algae next year. Eau (talk) 13:51, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

I would just say that I wouldn't be so quick to give up on discussions. I have come to value EncycloPetey's contributions and if there was a disagreement on content or sourcing you could have asked for a third opinion in the conflict resolution setting. Sometimes discussions do get a bit heavy, but they never have to. You seem to have some fair criticisms of Wikipedia, but don't forget that disengagement could be for many reasons. And finally, I would just like to say that if you approach every discussion as if it's going to be a battle, you'll probably get one. Discussions are useful and so are disagreements. Every discussion I've been in I've learned something from it and I think the article has gotten better for it - and that's the goal, really. If you think that's getting lost or the focus is becoming drowned in details that you felt weren't exactly important, raise that point and bring the discussion back to the wider issues. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 14:08, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Vandalism

Hi. As Heins9100 has been repeatedly vandalizing your user page from various IP addresses, I've taken the liberty of protecting it. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:15, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Not sure I've done anything to provoke that user and I must say that I find the comparison to Rowan Atkinson a little amusing. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 13:40, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes - it's not exactly the worst insult in the world ;-) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:16, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

move request

If you also deem it to be uncontroversial (which it is, based on searches), could you move the Button cactus article to the generic name, Epithelantha? Moving it is impossible for those of us without an accepted name. thanks, First Light (talk) 22:28, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Looked uncontroversial to me. Happy to help anytime. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 23:41, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, First Light (talk) 00:10, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Online Ambassador

Hi! Here's the page that describes the basics of the Online Ambassador role. If that sounds like something you'd like to do, you'll find instructions for applying on that page; it's a pretty lightweight approval process, which I expect you'll have no trouble with.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 17:38, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Protection for Cactus again?

Cactus was protected at one time. This dif suggests it might be worth protecting it again for a while to save a lot of time reverting vandalism and nonsense. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:23, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, it had been protected for the very specific reason of a dynamic IP constantly ignoring WP:ENGVAR and protection being the only way to block the unconstructive edits. It's been really quiet at the article since your big effort to improve it. Just two vandal edits today (and really minor ones) probably don't warrant protection. I'll keep an eye on it, though, and re-protect if the vandal volume increases. Rkitko ^(talk) 16:37, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Fine, I bow to your judgement. I just thought that 26 edits with one net change (as the dif above shows) suggested quite a bit of vandalism and hence time-wasting. But it is over a long period. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:41, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

How about this dif? 10 revisions by 7 users over little more than 24 hours to get back to the beginning? Peter coxhead (talk) 22:03, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your action on this one! Peter coxhead (talk) 15:03, 16 November 2012 (UTC)