User talk:WolfmanSF/Archive1

Welcome

Welcome to Wikipedia! I see that you have already made many useful contributions to astrophysics-related articles. A couple of things that you may wish to consider:

• Checking out Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics. This is an informal association of editors who maintain physics-related articles. Articles at which problematic edits have occurred or which need improvement or vetting are usually listed on the project's talk page.
• Creating a user page. This will tell other editors something about yourself (as much or as little as you like), and will prevent your name from showing up as a broken link in edit histories.

Happy editing! --Christopher Thomas 06:57, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Reactions

Quark matter

In the Quark matter article you added the statement that a star made mostly of quark matter is a quark star. I'm not entirely happy with the word "mostly" here: a hybrid star with 80% quark matter and 20% nuclear matter around it would still be a hybrid star, not a quark star. Many of the efforts to discover quark stars are based on their having a different kind or surface, not consisting of nuclear matter. I think it has to be 100% quark matter to be a quark star. Dark Formal 00:45, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Re: Quark Matter

I see your point, but I have some problems with your argument. I don't know the equation of state for quark matter, but it is not clear to me that there is much likelihood that a star could be 100.00...% quark matter. By way of analogy, no one believes that the surface of a neutron star is composed of neutron-degenerate matter; the pressure does not rise high enough to eliminate normal nuclear degenerate matter until you get some distance below the surface. Even if "the efforts to discover quark stars are based on their having a different kind or surface, not consisting of nuclear matter", that might well be based on practical considerations (i.e. that being that easiest way to adduce evidence for the existence of quark stars) rather than the belief that this is the way quark stars must be. Also, I haven't seen any references to or discussion of hybrid quark-degenerate matter/neutron-degenerate matter stars as a separate class of object (please correct me if I've missed something). If quark stars were real objects of observational study, splitting the category of all stars containing quark-degenerate matter into pure quark stars and various types of hybrid stars might be a very useful thing to do. At present, however, with quark stars being purely theoretical, it is not clear to me that such subdividing has much utility. I would be happy to defer to anyone with expertise in this area.

There is plenty of literature on strange stars or quark stars. Take a look at nucl-th/0507055 for example, and some of the papers it cites. The definition of a quark star is a star that is quark matter from core to surface. This only occurs if strange matter is more stable than nuclear matter at all pressures, including zero pressure, i.e. at the surface. This may be unlikely, but that's what people mean, according to the scientific literature on this topic.

I'm happy to continue the discussion, but we should probably move to the talk page for quark matter. Dark Formal 23:52, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Re: "The Strange Star Surface: A Crust With Nuggets"

Thanks for referring me to this article. Reading it, I find that the authors' model does indeed have strange quark matter going right to the very surface. However, they also cite a "conventional view" (ref. 10, which I don't have online access to) of a tiny nuclear crust at the surface of the star. I suppose it would be OK to say that the star is essentially 100% quark matter in either case, as long as the possibility of that tiny nuclear crust is mentioned. Alternatively, one could say that the nuclear crust is separate from the quark star (if that is indeed the convention in the astrophysics community). What I wanted was a definition of a quark star inclusive enough to cover different models such as these. If you want to re-edit my changes, please go ahead. WolfmanSF (talk) 02:05, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Re: Re: "The Strange Star Surface: A Crust With Nuggets"

OK, I have added a qualifying sentence after the offending revision. Please feel free to re-edit. WolfmanSF 17:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)WolfmanSF

I agree with what you wrote. If I decide to add more content on this issue then I may re-edit it slightly. Dark Formal 23:25, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Central dogma

That may have happened in the revert storm when we were dealing with about one vandal edit per minute. Your change is in the current version of the article. TimVickers 19:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed that edit and thought I'd reincorporated it. TimVickers 21:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Capitalization

Please read the logic for the capitalization on WP:BIRD. I'm not asking you to agree with it, but to leave it be. - UtherSRG (talk) 02:45, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Europa

Most of the material you removed was from this source, so I'd appreciate it if you read it to see if I misunderstood anything. Serendi^podous 06:44, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you understood it perfectly, I just think it is so wildly speculative (and in particular, speculation of the hand-waving sort that glosses over all the difficult details) that it isn't worth citing. Europa has one very obvious and fairly well-understood energy source, tidal flexing, that provides an internal heat source that is clearly driving the geological activity there. It makes sense to speculate that it could also be an energy source for biology, since something somewhat similar happens on Earth (although in our case the heat isn't tidal in origin). It doesn't make sense to take this "anything is possible" attitude and apply it specifically to Europa, when no examples of organisms deriving their metabolic energy from these other energy sources are known. WolfmanSF (talk) 07:30, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Image at Density wave theory

Hi WolfmanSF. I have long appreciated your efforts to add images to the articles concerning Saturn's rings. I wanted to point out, though, that the image you added here does not actually highlight the correct phenomenon. Those are "wakes" that arise from a single encounter between ring particles and Pan, not density waves that arise from a resonance condition. Density waves in Saturn's rings are so tightly wound that you can't actually see them as spirals (any image with good-enough resolution to see them has too narrow a field of view). Here are some good images that do feature density waves: [1][2][3][4]. I don't know if any of them are already uploaded to WP. The first one might be particularly good, as it includes a bending wave (vertical corrugation) as well as a density wave (basically a compression wave), but all are nice. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 02:43, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Are you sure that the other prominent, more tightly-wound bands in the photo do not actually represent the resonance-induced spiral density waves you are referring to? And a question about semantics: are the Pan-induced wakes, as you call them, something other than density waves? If so, what kind of waves are they? I'll go ahead and edit the photo caption in the rings article and replace the image in the density waves article. Regarding the latter, I think a definition of "epicyclic frequency" would be helpful. WolfmanSF (talk) 03:26, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, those are spiral density waves, but as they're not the most prominent feature in the image, it's not the best for the density waves article. The one you chose to replace it is very nice. In the rings article, I edited the caption for a neighboring image, which has SDWs without other effects that might distract, but it would not be wrong to mention them in the wakes image also.

Wakes are a purely kinematic effect as different ring-particle streamlines are affected differently by Pan (due to their different distances), and the streamlines line up in a kind of Moiré pattern. That is, different parts of a wake do not affect each other. Spiral density waves, on the other hand, are traveling waves.

I see your point on epicyclic frequency. I have not edited the galactic part of the article, but I do know what is meant by the term, and will work on making that more clear. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 13:59, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Lineae

Hi, Serendipodous. I don't want to get into an edit war with you over the placement of the Europa images, but to be honest I disagree with both of your recent assertions. "Image:PIA01092 - Evidence of Internal Activity on Europa.jpg" actually shows a much more detailed view of lineae, and gives a much better idea of their structure and mechanism of formation than does "Image:europa g1 true.jpg". The latter shows lineae primarily as albedo features, whereas the former at full size reveals their 'triple-band' structure, and shows that their formation is often associated with transverse faulting. Thus, from my perspective, the latter is at least as appropriate as the former for an illustration in the "lineae" section. The reverse order also has the advantage I pointed out earlier of maintaining a sequence of images showing progressively greater resolution. The captions for some of these images are longer than normal, but there is no harm in this; the information in them is specific to the images, and if it was moved to the text the impact would be lost. Regards, WolfmanSF (talk) 16:44, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not assessing this article on scientific merit. It's already been assessed for that. I'm assessing this article on whether someone who has never heard of Europa, or lineae, or planetary science will gain anything from it. That grey picture doesn't explain what the lineae are. You'd have to already know what lineae are before you could discern anything from it. The other picture shows the lineae as they would appear to someone who was not familiar with Europa, as the moon's primary visible feature. My guiding principle as a Wikipedist is to be as clear and explanatory as possible, and I don't think that grey picture is either. Good for technical details, but someone seeing Europa for the first time may be confused. Serendi^podous 19:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

"The other picture shows the lineae as they would appear to someone who was not familiar with Europa, as the moon's primary visible feature." I agree; that's why I think it wouldn't hurt to put that one first. Whether its actually in the lineae section seems less important to me. However, its not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things. WolfmanSF (talk) 20:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Rhean rings

Hi Wolfman,

Can you access the Science article to check if it's the source of the radii? Those were added anonymously.

Thanks, — kwami (talk) 02:55, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

(I responded by email - WolfmanSF)

Windsor, Ontario fire of 1871

Hello Wolfman - thanks for your contribution to Windsor, Ontario, but can you provide a reference for it? There should be a source, especially for the date and the number of buildings that were affected. I grew up in Windsor and don't recall hearing about such a big fire, but then again I wasn't heavily concerned about the city's history at the time! Cheers, PKT (talk) 13:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that references are desirable for this historical episode. Here's a few. None of them all that suitable for Wikipedia, which is why I didn't list them.

http://www.walkerville.com/postcards/postcard-sample.pdf see p. 24

http://209.202.75.197/digi/chi/timeline.asp?Lang=english

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9803E2DF1439E43BBC4B52DFB667838A669FDE&oref=slogin (mentioned in the headline only; note that the Windsor fire occurred 4 days after the start of the fires in Chicago, Peshtigo, Wisconsin, Holland, Michigan, Manistee, Michigan, and Port Huron, Michigan.

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1524.htm (one sentence, paragraph 8)

http://www.windsorpubliclibrary.com/branches/museum/exhibits.php (I'll bet if you contact the museum they could give you a suitable reference.)

http://www.jewishwindsor.org/page.html?ArticleID=30899 (see 3rd paragraph)

http://travel.canoe.ca/Travel/Canada/Ontario/2005/09/11/1220389-sun.html (2nd paragraph) WolfmanSF (talk) 16:20, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Below is a reply I got from the Windsor Museum regarding sources for the subject. WolfmanSF (talk) 08:54, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I am not aware of any sources in regards to the Great Fire of Windsor 1871 that are available on line. There are a few articles/references to the fire that have been written in local history texts that would be available at libraries (as well as here) and of course the best source is the original newspapers of the time. (Newspapers are on Microfilm at Windsor Public Library central branch.) We have done a small exhibit in the past on this subject and so have a record of what was displayed, that you are welcome to look at here.

If you wish to do research here at the museum, it is best to make an appointment to do so.

Heather Colautti

Registrar

Windsor's Community Museum

Email: hcolautti@city.windsor.on

Peshtigo Fire

I am curious -- why did you make several revisions to the Peshtigo Fire page, eliminating the comet references? Because -- the problem is that while it is true that small meteorites may be cold to the touch when they impact, the alternative hypothesis was about comet fragments. Now while it is probably the case that the fire was not caused by fragments from 3D/Biela, that was listed as an alternative hypothesis -- because it is considered (by a minority) as a hypothesis. As an encyclopedia article, referencing a minority hypothesis that has multiple references is valid, in fact it is necessary. You have deleted this -- but worse, you deleted the references to this alternate hypothesis. Please respond on my discussion page -- unfortunately it may be necessary to revert your changes. SunSw0rd (talk) 14:58, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

The references I eliminated had nothing to do with the Peshtigo Fire; they were related to a fringe theory that a comet impact was behind the Pleistocene extinctions in North America, something that took place roughly 12,000 years ago. This would have been a massive, catastrophic event (if it happened). I consider the comet theory of the origin of the Peshtigo and other simultaneous fires a "crackpot" explanation, something that only deserves to be cited for historical reasons. Small, grain-of-sand-size pieces of a comet produce what are commonly known as shooting stars when they enter the earth's atmosphere. They burn up completely high in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. If a larger, meteorite-size piece of a comet managed to reach the ground, it would act like a meteorite and lose any surface heat in its passage through the atmosphere. However, it is most unlikely that a piece of a comet a few feet across would ever reach the ground, because comets have a loose, ice/dust composition. Moreover, the passage of a significantly larger fragment of a comet through the atmosphere would produce a fireball that would be visible during the day, and thus could not have escaped notice. What makes the comet theory even more ridiculous is that fact that there were numerous fires already burning in the Peshtigo area, due to the land-clearing practices of the time, as a reference I added points out (http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200211/27_hemphills_peshtigofire/); did you read this? The point is, there is absolutely no need to explain the source of ignition of the Peshtigo Fire, which is already known. Given this, and the tinder-dry condition of the forests at that time, all that was needed to create the forest fire was a stiff wind, which a cold front provided. WolfmanSF (talk) 16:46, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Right. But you are missing the point here. The point is not that the comet theory is, in your opinion, a "fringe theory." The point is that, as an encyclopedia article, the article should identify the fact that there are a number of sources that have asserted that the Peshtigo fire was in fact caused by a comet. It does not matter whether or not these sources are correct. What matters is that they exist. Deleting a reference to articles asserting that in the past comets have caused fires (whether or not in your opinion those references are themselves "fringe") -- is not OK. The simple fact is -- there are people that believe this and there are references to comets causing fires. The reference to meteorites is itself less valid than references to comets -- the theory, fringe or not, is that a comet, not a meteorite, caused the Peshtigo fire. Please understand -- it doesn't matter whether or not your scientific background leads you to believe that of course the comet theory is hokum. That is really not relevant. What is relevant is that people for more than 100 years have asserted 3D/Biela as the source. Deleting supporting references to "clean up the science" is in fact not OK -- regardless of the truth of that theory or not. SunSw0rd (talk) 17:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

It appears to me that one person suggested that the fire could have been started by a comet, and this fact is not being suppressed by me or anyone else. No one ever asserted that the fire actually was started by a comet - there was never any evidence for that. While the comet theory indeed deserves mention for historical reasons, its shortcomings also need to be pointed out. That is all I have done. Did you actually read and understand the references I deleted? They are not about comets starting fires - they are about a comet impact throwing dust up into the atmosphere that caused climatic cooling around the world. They are irrelevant to the Peshtigo Fire article. WolfmanSF (talk) 18:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

OK cool down. I didn't say anything about "suppressing" anything. But it is more than one person. (1) Ignatius Donnelly referenced this in 1883. (2) Mel Waskin in 1985 published "Mrs. O'Leary's Comet" suggesting this. (3) Robert Wood (retired physicist) had a piece on the Discovery Channel suggesting this.

As for the references you deleted -- they were in fact regarding the "Comet Wiped Out Early North American Culture" story. Which itself may be "fringe" BUT -- relevant in the sense that they assert that a comet can be hot. As the articles assert that this comet melted the North American ice cap. Really, I don't object to those references being deleted but -- then we should delete the references to meteorites being cold since -- they are not relevant.

It would probably be better to have an expanded section on the comet theory, providing background, discussion, and then the evidence debunking it. What do you think of that? SunSw0rd (talk) 19:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Personally I'm not in favor of an expanded section on the "comet theory" because I don't think its credible. You and others can do as you see fit; I'll edit if I think it's appropriate. Now, about those references I deleted, which seems to be the main thing you are objecting to... I have rechecked both of them and neither says anything about comets starting fires. Even if they did mention something about comets starting fires, it would not be relevant because this is in the context of a major impact event, not a meteor shower of the sort proposed (without good evidence) to be associated with the 1871 fires. WolfmanSF (talk) 19:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Use of the Dagger

I am curious as the "enthusiastic" use of the Dagger symbol in taxoboxes. I would think that a Dagger at the taxon level which is extinct , be it Species, family, order, what have you, would be enough to show that all taxa below that level are extinct. It seems rather redundant to have daggers all the way down from an order to the species. Is there a wikipolicy I should refer to regarding the dagger use?--Kevmin (talk) 00:28, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Logically, you are correct. I don't know of any wikipolicy - if you come across one, please let me know of it. My view is that "enthusiastic use" does no harm - if you feel differently, feel free to revert. I suppose the one advantage "enthusiastic use" could have is that if the dagger is used only once for a high-level taxon, it could be overlooked by casual readers.WolfmanSF (talk) 00:53, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, WolfmanSF. Noticing your recent additions of daggers, I was wondering if perhaps you would be better served requesting that a bot do it (given that I'm watching approximately 3000 articles at this time, almost all of which are fossil reptiles and would require at least one, to say nothing of all of the other fossil organisms). Perhaps a bot could be set up with a search string of certain high-order groups that are extinct, and once it finds them in a taxobox, it would add the dagger to all taxa below it? It wouldn't get everything, but it would clear out something like ammonites or mosasaurs, known extinct groups, quickly. J. Spencer (talk) 15:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, J. Spencer, thanks for you comments, and sorry for my delay in getting back to you. I'm not familiar with the capabilities of bots, and how one goes about requesting that one be set up. Where would I look to bone up on this? If it worked well, I would imagine it could be quite useful, but it seems to me that it would inevitably do a partial job in some situations, so one would want it to tag articles it has worked on to alert people to that fact (the tag could be removed from an article after someone checked the distribution of daggers and made corrections if necessary). WolfmanSF (talk) 06:30, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a bot person either, but for the basics on bots, there's WP:BOT (for what they do) and WP:BOTREQ (for requesting one). I'd talk it over with people involved in biology wikiprojects first, since adding daggers to a number of pages would be a visible change on a lot of articles. My guess as to how a bot would work in this case would be that it would search out taxoboxes for known extinct groups (say, subclassis=Ammonoidea), and once it found them, it would add daggers to that element and every taxonomic level below. If this could be done, it would work quite well for large groups of known extinct organisms, but less well for groups with a mix, which would have to be done by hand at some point. Alternately, a bot could search for all articles with a |fossil_range or |status=fossil or extinct in the taxobox, and make a list, which could then be used. J. Spencer (talk) 17:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for Mars Phoenix image

Much appreciated. Flex Flint (talk) 15:23, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Mars Images

Why did you shift all of the pictures to the right of the page and re-align them? Some pictures were best left on the left, and others on the right. It looked better and flowed better with the article. Thanks, and maybe you could look into fixing that. Thanks.Ssmercedes18 (talk) 00:01, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

This was done by Wnt, not by me. I tend to agree with you. WolfmanSF (talk) 00:49, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for correction regarding kinetic vs potential energy

When I made this edit including the word kinetic, I had indeed forgotten that it is the sum of potential and kinetic energy that are being converted into heat, not the kinetic energy alone. Good catch! CosineKitty (talk) 22:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. There are definitely subtleties to this situation that take a while to appreciate. WolfmanSF (talk) 22:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Scattered disc

Do you want to get this article up to FA? I'd be willing to help. Serendi^podous 10:42, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

(I responded by email - WolfmanSF)

I just responded back Serendi^podous 14:15, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Rings of Uranus

Thanks for copy-edits. Do you think the article is ready for FAC? And do you want to be a conominator? Ruslik (talk) 10:03, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I see the article is already a candidate. Does conomination help at this point? If so, how do I conominate? WolfmanSF (talk) 19:08, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

In that that definition τ means apparent (observable) optical depth, not normal optical depth. To obtain normal depth they multiplied it by sinB—the angle between the ring plane and the Uranus-Earth line. And than they multiplied it by the width of the ring. The better way is to integrate, because τ is not necessary constant. See refs 8, 15, 21. dePater article has other inaccuracies— their formular (4) (and procedure described there) is wrong. Ruslik (talk) 09:46, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Edits to trogon

Thank you for your contributions to trogon. I've been working on it on and off for a while and another set of eyes is very welcome. I notice that you changed one of my citations to use the cite template. Could I draw your attention to WP:CITE's mention of citation templates, which suggests that "editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus." In bold no less. I personally abhor the cite templates and would prefer the article not to change, or to use both. If you think the article should be changed please start a discussion on the talk page rather than changing any more. You may find a number of editors willing to go along with it (I usually get outvoted in WP:BIRD colabs) but if I am going to be the only one working on it in the future I'd rather it stayed like it is. Thanks! Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:52, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Please accept my apology for my failure to recognize that the article has a distinctive citation format. WolfmanSF (talk) 04:43, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

No need for apologises, and my continued thanks for your contributions. It was also nice to see the trogons mentioned on the Great American Interchange article and also see the interesting method used to separate citations and notes used on that page. It had never occurred to me to do it that way. I'll have to remember it. Sabine's Sunbird talk 04:56, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for citing the interesting article on the role of the GAI on trogon biogeography. As for the separation of notes and citations, I simply copied that from the Rings of Uranus article. WolfmanSF (talk) 17:13, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Rings of Saturn

Add them, if you think that they are necessary. In my opinion, however, it is better to expand the text first. Ruslik (talk) 05:21, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Lowercase animal names

Thank you for converting the American crocodile article to all-lowercase common names. There is a lot of work to try and fix this common error, and it is great to see someone helping out in the name of grammar! StevePrutz (talk) 15:49, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Central America

Hi Supaman89,

The reason that (in my view) Mexico should be included in the list of Central American countries is the fact that the Mexican states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo are by geographic definition in Central America. Of course this doesn't mean the whole country is Central American. But this listing is not just used for political purposes.

From the standpoint of biology, it is very useful to view Central America separately from the rest of North America. Central America is a tropical region that shows a strong South American influence; it is part of the Neotropic ecozone. The rest of North America is subtropical or temperate, and is only weakly influenced by South America; it is in the Nearctic ecozone. For example, in the United States only three mammals (the Virginia Opossum, the Nine-banded Armadillo and the North American Porcupine) originated in South America, while dozens of species of Central American monkeys, cavimorph rodents, anteaters, sloths, armadillos and opossums are descended from South American immigrants. Since the above-mentioned Mexican states are part of this tropical region, their species show similar patterns and they should be included in listings of Central American species. It makes no sense to me to leave them out.

Do you disagree with this reasoning?. If so, could you explain why? WolfmanSF (talk) 04:30, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I can see how in your view Mexico is in Central America, after all a lot of people associate North America with English-speaking, fully-developed countries such as Canada and the States; but North America is barely a geographical region in which Mexico is indeed located (it's not like it can be moved, right?). Because of this differences with Canada and the U.S. some people try put Mexico in Central America even though it's not, going to extremes like taking that 12% as a fact (which was promoted by some geographers) and further more give it extra emphasis just to "achieve" it. I personally don't care about the location, Mexico could be in Asia, but what is a bit tiring is to see people constantly trying to put Mexico in a region where it just isn't located just because it is different from its 2 neighbours (people don't seem to realize that Anglo America and North America are not the same). I think it would be like saying that Egypt is located in Asia even though 95% of it is located in Africa just because it is different from Nigeria. I hope you understand my points and see that despites cultural differences, geographical location just isn’t something that can be chosen, cheers. Supaman89 (talk) 19:00, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the situation is that you are viewing this issue from a political-cultural standpoint when from the perspective of myself and others it is just a question of geography. Actually, Egypt is listed as both an African country and an Asian country, because the Sinai is in Asia. Similarly, Turkey is listed as both an Asian country and a European country, because it includes part of Thrace which is in Europe. From my perspective, the fact that part of Mexico is in Central America makes it a more diverse and interesting country. It was not my intent to offend anyone by pointing that out. WolfmanSF (talk) 20:44, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad to see that you edits weren't pretentious (cuz a lot of people are), and don't worry you're not offending anyone (why would you be?) is just it's a bit tiring (for a lot of us) that some people keep pushing Mexico into Central America even though it's not, just because if is different from Canada and the States. Anyways Mexico seems to bring much more attention that the other countries, and I think it is mostly motivated because of cultural reasons rather than geographical ones (I mean maps speak for themselves) but still some people just won't accept Mexico as "North American enough", so again, I'm glad you're not one of them. Supaman89 (talk) 22:29, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Your FP

Hey,the image you uploaded has been nominated for FP status at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Rhea Just thought you'd like to know!

--Fireaxe888 (talk) 16:34, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization in mammal articles

Just an FYI in case you're wondering why your various otter edits were reverted: changing caps in mammal articles is a much argued debate and a huge can o' worms. It was headed to arbitration at one point but fizzled out. Just a head's up that you've walked into a hornet's nest. If you feel it is worthwhile to pursue, see Talk:List of bats#Taxonomy and the use of capital letters in common names for the latest background. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 12:14, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm well aware of that. I've participated in some of the debates, and encountered some of the opposing pro-upper case zealots before. Still, I think it would be nice to have Wikipedia articles that don't look like they've been written by schoolchildren who think they can capitalize anything they want, which is the current situation. One can always dream.

Part of the problem is actually the way Wikipedia is currently set up, with links to articles that have more than an initial cap in the title being redirected or in some cases broken unless the caps are reproduced. That has encouraged many to believe that it is appropriate to capitalize article titles throughout an article, and to capitalize links in general. WolfmanSF (talk)

Well, if you're willing to take the lead and initiate arbitration, maybe this can be put to rest once and for all! Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 11:55, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

It is WP:PRIM's directive to use capitals for species common names. - UtherSRG (talk) 02:37, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Appreciation for "Great American Interchange" article

Hi WolfmanSF, just wanted to express my appreciation for your article on the Great American Interchange. It is very well-written, flows well and is very thorough and informative -- an exemplary Wikipedia article.

JamesHAndrews (talk) 03:54, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I find the subject fascinating. But it's an article which could still use a lot more work (mainly for non-mammalian taxa). WolfmanSF (talk) 04:09, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for corrections to Dismals Canyon

WolfmanSF, thanks for correcting the mistake in the Dismals Canyon article. That went unnoticed for at least six months, and I'm glad somebody knowledgeable passed by and noticed it. There might still be errors in the Arachnocampa page, as it lists Orfelia as a species of Arachnocampa. Jo7hs2 (talk) 12:38, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it did - good catch. WolfmanSF (talk) 17:01, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the corrections at Nestoridae

Thank you for your copyediting at Nestoridae, very much appreciated. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:18, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

spokes

Don't know if it's displaying for you, but my browser (FF) says the img cannot be displayed because it contains errors. kwami (talk) 08:01, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, the file is a bit large and loads too slowly anyway. It looked OK on Safari, though. WolfmanSF (talk) 08:03, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

It also doesn't work on Camino, but seems to work on Opera, iCab and OmniWeb. WolfmanSF (talk) 08:44, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I just added a smaller, shorter version which seems to work on all the browsers. WolfmanSF (talk) 10:30, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Media:Horseevolution.png

Shouldn't the caption read "modern horse" instead of "modern house"? Cheers, —Ruud 23:17, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

You just might have a point there. Thanks. WolfmanSF (talk) 01:54, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Horse

Hi! Evolution of the horse and some other articles (Equidae, Equus (genus), etc.) are getting some much needed attention. Care to join us? --Una Smith (talk) 05:26, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to contribute to the limited extent that I have time for. WolfmanSF (talk) 07:55, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Every edit helps. --Una Smith (talk) 20:50, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I like where you put the daggers on Equidae; could you do the same for Equus (genus)? --Una Smith (talk) 16:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah, a clever ploy to get me to look at the article again. Well, I fell for it. WolfmanSF (talk) 01:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

That article is shaping up nicely. Thanks! --Una Smith (talk) 03:58, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Younger Dryas impact event article

Thank you for the interesting ideas you put forward in the Younger Dryas impact, but I wonder if you could please add a citation from a suitable source to substantiate them. Thanks for your continuing contributions, I know you understand why it is important to stay on top of these things in 'scientific' articles. cheers Deconstructhis (talk) 05:38, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I will add suitable references (which are available by following the links I provided). WolfmanSF (talk) 05:41, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the fixing problems with commons:File:Neptunian_rings_scheme.png. I completely forgot about it. Ruslik (talk) 13:33, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

No problem. I see you've been busy lately. WolfmanSF (talk) 17:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

CA talk page

I'm sorry I was not able to post a response in the CA talk page, I was kinda busy. This "discussion" is just another one of the several that "anonymous" user has opened in the past. He is in fact not an anonymous user, but a sockpuppet of User:Corticopia, if you want more info just check my talk page. He is the only user in the whole Wikipedia and that through the years has tried to impose a false POV that Mexico is considered part of CA. The truth is that neither Mexicans, Latin Americans nor Central Americans consider Mexico a CA country.

However, that template is about CA topics, and Mexico is clearly not a CA country.

AlexCovarrubias ^{( Talk? )} 19:48, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

It is ironic that this commentator is commenting on your talk page, as the originator of the template who opted to add Mexico for legitimate reasons, and who also tries to continue to conflate their viewpoint by discrediting someone else instead of through persuasion. Clearly, I am not the only editor who supports including Mexico with qualification in the template, and the body of references and literature support that. Central America is little different than the concept of Central Europe or any other arbitrary region, and the commentator fails to grasp that it's not simply about how residents of a region self-identify but how they are identified by others. In addition, I dare the commentator to confirm that I am a sockpuppet of this 'Corticopia': I am not required to register a user name, nor will I do so given this. That is all. 69.158.150.169 (talk) 16:44, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Blood Fall: For your information

File:Blood Falls 01 Medium Res photolibrary.usap.gov.jpg

The main photograph image of Blood Falls has been added on 16:44, 20 April 2009 (UTC) on the Wikipedia:Picture peer review page to be proposed as a candidate for Wikipedia:Featured Pictures. See Wikipedia:Picture peer review/BloodFalls to give a comment or to support the proposal. Thanks — Shinkolobwe (talk) 19:21, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

you can help!

yeah, this is random and stalkerish, but trust me when I have a reason for asking: where do you edit from? (City and country would be nice, but whatever you feel comfortable telling is fine.) You can just shoot me an email or reply here. It's for a project I have to do involving wikipedia articles and editing patterns, nothing special, but I'll let you see it when I'm finished :) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 14:10, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

(I responded by email. WolfmanSF (talk) 16:09, 27 April 2009 (UTC))

Missing mammal species

Hey, thought you might be interested in the missing mammal species page as you have recently created quite a few of the missing species (if you didn't already know about it). It's not a guideline but generally mammal species common names are capitalised unless the word is following a hyphen, e.g. White-headed Capuchin. Some editors choose to ignore these rules and due to lack of consensus they are within their rights to do so. Another quick point, if you add the WP:MAM banner ({{Mammal|class=|importance=}}) to each of the pages you create it helps other editors find/assess/work on the newly created pages. Cheers, Jack (talk) 08:34, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I was unaware of the banner. I was aware of the missing mammal species page. I've been adding species to the lists of Central and South American mammals, which is a project that probably can never be completed, due to the constant changes in classification. It should be noted that there are a lot of missing mammal species that aren't listed on the page, but are listed on the pages of various mammal genera (particularly rodent and bat genera).

I'm not sure I would agree with your statement about use of upper case in mammal species common names. Most authoritative sources do not capitalize mammal species common names, and according to the formal rules regarding capitalization in English prose, they should not be capitalized (since they are not proper nouns). I would be willing to go along with breaking the rules if there was a major advantage to doing so, but I'm not aware of one. There is a widespread tendency towards erroneous use of upper case in Wikipedia generally, and I am of the opinion that this tendency should be resisted. Also, there is no Wikipedia policy that says capitalized mammal common names are preferred. I have no idea why there is a policy for primates that goes against the policy for mammals as whole, but there seems to be. My impression is that most of the more knowledgeable editors favor lower case common names. WolfmanSF (talk) 07:17, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah there does seem to be a large split. I generally work on primate-related articles so it just seems, from my perspective, that most are capitalised! Both WP:PRIM and WP:CETA follow the same capitalisation policy, though it would obviously be best to become consistent throughout the WP:MAM WikiProject. One of the reasons for the capitalisation is MSW3 which capitalises all the common names but not genera and above. IUCN also capitalises, but taxonomy-wise I'm not sure they're a great reference. Anyway, keep up the good work. Cheers, Jack (talk) 08:59, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can see, IUCN does not capitalize within prose (see for example, the white-tailed deer article), and MSW3 does not use common names within prose. So, it appears that neither of the examples you cited actually supports your position. Also, it appears that the WP:CETA policy, and possibly also the WP:PRIM policy, were created by fiat and not as a result of discussion or reference to the literature. Thus I tend to question their legitimacy. WolfmanSF (talk) 19:45, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Long-tailed rhipidomys

Hi, hasn't written Polish article on this rodent yet :) But this can spur me to do so - so please, keep interwiki. Lukasz Lukomski (talk) 00:08, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you should check out the entire List of South American mammals. Cheers, —WolfmanSF (talk) 00:17, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Cut and paste move

Hi Wolfman, I really appreciate your edits, but I wanted to point out that moving an article involves moving an article using the move tab at the top and not copying and pasting. Moving preserves the revision history. (Re: Anderson's rice rat). --Aranae (talk) 22:01, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I was unaware of that. WolfmanSF (talk) 00:04, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

You might also be interested in this: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals/Rodents --Aranae (talk) 02:21, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:Rodents

Hi Wolfman. I have been watching your edits with much appreciation. WP:Rodents is now active. Right now, our numbers are a bit small and about half the participants are interested in rodents as pets. It would be great to have you join, neither Ucucha nor I are editing as frequently as we used to and it wold be nice if folks knew who to go to for expertise. If your knowledge is mostly Neotropical feel free to indicate that. --Aranae (talk) 22:50, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to participate, although I'm not a rodent expert by any stretch of the imagination. I do at least have a background in biology. WolfmanSF (talk) 02:46, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

...for your help with the moles and relatives. Chrisrus (talk) 00:11, 4 September 2009 (UTC)