User talk:Macdonald-ross/Archive 4

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New article

Hi, I saw you created a new article - you are currently still editing it, so I'm suggesting a small change here to avoid any edit conflicts. You could change The term was coined by Adolf Seilacher to Adolf S coined the term... (changing the passive to active). Have a good day, Yottie ^=talk= 16:14, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Previous warning

The last time I "Changed my ways" here was when I stepped down as Bureaucrat, admin, CU (one of the first) and most productive editor (2 yrs gone and still #2) on this wiki due to the constant bickering and whining on the petty crap versus getting the job done. Im not about to pause in my editing to add a "Added cat X and edited an issue that the regular editors missed for the last year" to each change which is clearly obvious to any logged in user with decent popups that show the change. If you have issues with this, feel free to contact Eptalon, Chen, or any other admin and request I be blocked due to violating the policy on edit summaries. 70.184.168.201 (talk) 06:47, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I had asked this user to fill in his edit summaries, making the point that it was helpful to other editors. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:31, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Using the edit summary is encouraged, but it is not mandatory - this is a per-user decision. Current MediaWiki configuration does not allow anonymous editors to mark a change as minor. Chenzw  Talk  07:53, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Geography Barnstar
		Thanks for taking part in the Capital City Weekend which greatly improved the quality of articles. And thanks for suggesting the topic. Peterdownunder (talk) 09:55, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks; it was fun. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:34, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Whats Up?!

What's with certain Wikipedia editors deciding to erase our 2013 Atlantic hurricane season article?! We put that there because given the times of very active hurricane season cycles we're in and given that there are more storms on the orders of Andrew or Allison next to each year, we felt that article has very strong importance. The University of Northern Iowa class at school IP 166.216.194.44 (talk) 16:04, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Volcanic winter

Hello Macdonald-ross, I have written a short article on Volcanic winters, which is probably much too short, and the part that explains (and does not give examples) has few sources. I wonder whether you could take a look, when you have the time. Oh, I also put up a rather general statement about volcanic eruptions on DYk which references the article. Please have a look when you get the time. --Eptalon (talk) 16:50, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Toba catastrophe

FYI, the reason I removed Category:Disasters from this article is that it's already in Category:Volcanoes, which is underneath Category:Natural disasters (via Category:Volcanology). I was thinking, though, maybe the category under Category:Natural disasters should be something like "Volcanic eruptions". Most of the stuff under "Volcanoes" isn't about specific eruptions, and the disasters have to do specifically with eruptions. What do you think? --Auntof6 (talk) 09:41, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think you're right; we should have a category 'Volcanic eruptions'. However, we will still need Natural disasters, because not all eruptions are disasters. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:43, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Good point, then the category name should reflect "volcano" and disaster. "Disastrous volcanic eruptions"? "Volcanic eruption disasters"? For now, maybe I'll just put the disastrous ones individually under "Natural disasters". --Auntof6 (talk) 21:34, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

It isn't a problem to use two categories, if by having one the categories get too fine-grained. There's no consensus here to move towards extra-fine-grained categories, and some are definitely against it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:46, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I think it would make sense ot have a category "volcanic activity", possibly with a subcategory "volcanic eruptions". The two are different: Certain volcanoes "erupt" once in a while, and show little activity otherwise, while others are "active" over longer periods of time. As an example. Mount Etna in Siciliy is more or less constantly active, while mount Vesuvius (near Naples, Italy) shows "eruptions". Pliny the Younger described the largest documented eruption of Vesuvius which destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum in the year 79. The last eruption of Vesuvius was in 1944.--Eptalon (talk) 10:20, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Curiosity

I just hit a couple articles you created and got curious as to a certain part of them. For example, in Café de la Régence is the addition of:

• Painting by Faven.

• 268 page booklet available on-line.

I was wondering the purpose of them. As I have no clue what they have to do with the article, I thought it best to ask before doing anything with them as I apparently am missing something here. 70.184.171.16 (talk) 10:54, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I've made it clearer. They were a bit obscure. Macdonald-ross (talk) 22:08, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Taxonomy

Just wondering why we are grouping every known phylum except 1 into a category. Chordates and hence vertibrates is a defined phylum and hence gets its own group but putting everything else in a category would be akin to separating category:people into Redheads and Not redheads. Invertebrates is not a classification but a definition and 7% far to wide to be a category (97% of all animals fall unto it).

Also, you may want to create a category for animal taxonomy if you are planning on adding all taxo names for the individual groups (as done with the unranked superphylum Radiata) as by including the names there, every article about any step from Animalia to C Lupis Dingo is of the same requirements as Radiata to be there. It was already done with plants (although a disaster area and in need of hunting down all the missing ones). Also the intro to the cat needs to be changed to reflect that it is not just for articles about how things are classified but what they are classified as. 70.184.171.16 (talk) 03:11, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, you raise various issues. First, the distinction between invertebrates and vertebrates runs right through zoology for the good reason that it's extremely useful. Of course, the two categories are at different levels, but that doesn't alter the fact that the teaching of zoology is organised that way. Lectures, textbooks, journals all use this distinction.

One problem which affects all of biology is the present flux in classifications resulting from genome analysis. The general discussions on how to interpret data for classification is taxonomic discussion; the actual classifications are the proposals resulting from the discussions. In many, probably all, higher groups we have several competing classifications on the table at present. It's driving them mad on enWP. I have rarely noted these struggles on our wiki, but where I have the category taxonomy was added. In my opinion, the classifications we use will not stabilise in the near future. I have edged our taxoboxes towards what we know about the course of evolution, and away from some of the old Linnaean terms, without doing anything too drastic. That is the way enWP has gone, too, but there editors tend to specialise in a few groups, so there is inconsistncy.

One simple way to improve our categories is to create a category 'Animal phyla' under Zoology. The main problem is to handle groups which are phyla in some classifications, but not in others. Arthropods are a phylum to some, but a super-phylum to others. And where do we put groups of phyla which different authors have differently put together? We might treat the category 'Animal phyla' broadly, at least in the first place. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:25, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Big Airport Weekend - January 20-23

We want to invite you to participate in the Big Airport Weekend on Jan 20-23. (See: WP:Big Weekend) The purpose of this weekend is to improve SEWP's coverage of airports and airport related articles. A few tasks and guidelines:

1. Add {{Infobox airport}} to all airport articles
2. To improve existing articles and stubs in the Category:Airports including subcategories.
3. To add new articles on airports. (Any airport with regular commercial service or where a historic event happened is notable enough for an article.)
4. Airports can be civilian, military, and anywhere in the world.
5. Add BAW (for Big Airport Weekend) to the edit summaries to help keep track of the changes.
6. Please use the {{inuse}} template to avoid edit conflicts with other BAW participants.

Barnstars will be liberally rewarded for your airport efforts. Let me know if you have any questions. Please join us to have fun and to improve SEWP. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 19:17, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks for your airport work this weekend. To help the bean counting and to raise the visibility of the project, please start each edit summary with "BAW."

Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 00:10, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

SOPA

Hi Macdonald-ross. Your reasoning against a blackout on Simple talk seems to indicate you mightn't necessarily be against the banners only option. Could you please confirm whether you would support this as a compromise? Osiris (talk) 12:41, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I didn't answer this, but I did think about it! It was a reasonable suggestion. The whole discussion was rather rushed, and eventually I ran out of free time and had to turn to something else. Macdonald-ross (talk) 22:37, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Aviation barnstar

	Congratulations!
	Thanks for all the work you did in making the Big Airport Weekend a success! Please accept this Aviation Barnstar. Your work is much appreciated. – Racepacket (talk) 05:19, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Please return to Wikipedia talk:Big Weekend to comment on a Bridge proposal, Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 12:15, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Big Weekend

IMO, your comments at Wikipedia talk:Big Weekend can be characterized as helping to build an Epistemic community. --Horeki (talk) 19:56, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Hugh Allison

Hey Macdonald-ross. When you have time, can you review Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2012/Hugh Allison again? The author has worked on it a bit, so I'm wondering if your opinion has changed. Osiris (talk) 06:26, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Re:Battle of Marathon

Oop's, I'm sorry! I'll leave you for a moment... Wagino 20100516 (talk) 13:18, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Re:Simplify

Thanks for the instructions, I will try a lot to learn from you. I was also amazed with so many of you who have been writing articles here. Sincerely. Wagino 20100516 (talk) 15:27, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed big weekends

Hi Macdonald-ross, I have been reading the comments on the Big Weekend talk page, and have suggested a proposed timetable. I would like you to coordinate a Big weekend in April on World Heritage Sites and National Parks. Can you have a look at the page, with the role of coordinator, and let me know if you can help? --Peterdownunder (talk) 00:49, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

How about Mons Meg

Hi Macdonald-ross. While writing about bombards for the BArW there was a reference to the great Scottish bombard, Mons Meg. Here is an article waiting for you! And also I read but don't know if its true, that James II of Scotland was killed by an exploding bombard. Look forward to seeing something about these two gems soon.--Peterdownunder (talk) 08:13, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Teamwork Barnstar
		Thanks for taking part in the Big Artillery Weekend in February 2012. Seven editors created 38 new articles and made 319 edits to artillery related articles. Peterdownunder (talk) 00:39, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Tabula rasa

Just pointing out that while the translation of the title is more easy to understand, the proper name of the theory is much more widely recognized. So much so that every language with an article on the subject and a similar alphabet to English uses tabula rasa as the correct term. (even languages not so similar ie. Greek and some Cyrillic languages.) --Creol(talk) 09:03, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I think it depends where one is coming from. People versed in classical philosophy use tabula rasa, but many more run across the concept in psychology courses as 'blank slate'. Where there is such a choice, I think we should prefer the English term (a direct translation of the latin term). I have increased the links on the half-dozen pages which bear on this concept so that readers can see it from more than one point of view.

There is a more subtle point, which I might return to. The behaviourists held views so close to Locke but expressed it so differently that the connection is not immediately obvious. Skinner's term 'operant conditioning' (though linguistically obscure) is an advance on 'sense data' because it spreads the idea from the senses to include an explanation of behavioural action. 'Blank slate', because it is not pinned so completely to Locke, is a more flexible term, and helps these connections to be made. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:21, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Cultigen

Hello, Macdonald-ross, I created Cultigen which is the current translation of the week. In this process I noticed that we are lacking certain annex articles, such as gene flow and type species. Could you have a quick look at cultigen, and perhaps rephrase or create the annex articles? - Since this is a totw, it will likely get more hits in the next week... Thanks. --Eptalon (talk) 15:21, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Big Bridge Weekend

		Working together barnstar
		Thanks for your contributions during the "Big Bridge Weekend" in March 2012. Acknowledging your work as one of six contributors who created 20 new articles and 13 new categories in a context of 309 changes in bridge-related articles. --Horeki (talk) 05:58, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, thanks, but I didn't do much. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:44, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Original Barnstar
		For your great article work! -Orashmatash (talk) 14:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Kamikaze

Hello Macdonald-ross, I've listed Kamikaze at WP:PAD. If you could summarize the concerns I've listed at the talk page, like you did with Charles Spurgeon, that would be appreciated. Albacore (talk · changes) 15:29, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Tables

Please look at this diff here. The captions provide World Heritage numbers. This format choice mirrors en:World Heritage Site.

What do you think?

The table at List of World Heritage Sites in Japan mirrors en:List of World Heritage Sites in Japan. In one of the columns, the World Heritage numbers link to the UNESCO webpage for each location.

Do the numbers provide a useful simplification? Please share your best guesses about these tables. Each includes the UNESCO numbering system:

• List of World Heritage Sites in Japan?
  • be:Спіс аб'ектаў Сусветнай спадчыны ЮНЕСКА ў Японіі?
  • fa:فهرست میراث جهانی یونسکو در ژاپن?
  • ka:იუნესკოს მსოფლიო მემკვიდრეობის ძეგლები იაპონიაში?
  • ru:Список объектов Всемирного наследия ЮНЕСКО в Японии?
  • uk:Світова спадщина ЮНЕСКО в Японії?

• List of World Heritage Sites of the United Kingdom?
  • fi:Luettelo Yhdistyneessä kuningaskunnassa sijaitsevista maailmanperintökohteista?

What format should be preferred in our simple context?

Please compare

• List of World Heritage Sites in the United States?

In my opinion, tables are better in this kind of article. What is your view? --Horeki (talk) 04:03, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Thoughts

Personally, I bring over very few enWP tables. Most of them have too much detail, and too many red links which are almost never worked on by our small staff. In regard to your examples:

Japan WHS table

I would cut the last column entirely, or change it to a column which tells the type of site (natural, cultural &c)

References

I don't object to the references being specific. However, for me, it is the pages on individual sites which have preference. It is these pages which make sense of the lists. and they do need proper referencing.

Should we standardise?

Perhaps this is the real question you are asking. Personally, I hope editors will concentrate on putting new pages in, rather than standardising existing pages. I see nothing wrong with the USA list. It shows what sites are listed, and where to find the information about them.

Your opinion is as good as mine

On this BWH weekend editors should do whatever they think is best. On this particular topic I don't think tables do much, but there are topics where tables do a remarkable job. See en:List of most expensive paintings

Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:52, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

The tables are now very much simplified. IMO, the new US table is a small step up from the list. IMO, the images justify the use of a table format.

I am guessing that the empty cells in The cells in the "notes" column are a kind of invitation? The open-ended format may encourage a potential contributor to add something? We'll see. --Horeki (talk) 20:56, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the US table is good, and could be a model for other similar lists. Well done! Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:54, 20 April 2012 (UTC)