User talk:Obsidian Soul/Archive 4

Ordovican

Hi again! I just wanted to let you know that I've moved a little upwards on the List of Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points. I've created and looked over the first two Ordovician stages. I don't know if you still have time but the Tremadocian stage would need an article about the conodont Iapetognathus fluctivagus and the Floian stage an article about the graptolite Tetragraptus approximatus. Thank you again for pulling the weight on the Cambrian index fossils. --Tobias1984 (talk) 23:11, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Getting into the rather more obscure fossils by now so it's a bit harder finding the sources. No worries though, I'm still on them. BTW, should I prioritize those with definite GSSPs? -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 03:32, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I think it is probably easier to find sources for index fossils with definite GSSPs. I guess it would be a good idea to prioritize them. In the case of Cambrian Stage 10 I think that Eoconodontus notchpeakensis will probably be adapted. All the sources that I could find were leaning towards it. --Tobias1984 (talk) 09:14, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

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Index fossils

Thank you for adding the index fossil category to the Olenellus-lemma. Index fossils are characterised by a temporally strictly limited occurence and a wide spatial distribution (preferable global). Furthermore, the usefullness of fossils to define the age of strata improves with their abundance. This implies that not all fossils can be used as index fossils though. I fear an unmanageable surge of edits will occur adding this caterory to any fossil-lemma. In this light I would like to note that indeed some Olenellus species are useful as local index fossils. I also note that the page on Index fossils has a very limited list that only includes the species relevant for the US. What is your view on this issue.

Reading through the Index fossil lemma, I also conclude it is not consistent in its definition of this concept. Particularly the sentence "The best index fossils are not common, hard-to-identify at species level, and have a small distribution—otherwise the likelihood of finding and recognizing one in the two sediments is minor." is at best unclear, but I'm inclined to say it is incorrect. Kind regards, Dwergenpaartje (talk) 11:54, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi Dwergenpaartje. I'm basing the list of index fossils from the List of Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points that User:Tobias1984 is working on. So it's assuredly international, though a few of them are also used in local trilobite zones.

However, the inclusion of Olenellus in the category and the exact species that will be used for the Cambrian Stage 4 GSSP is still to be decided. They'll probably choose the species with the most cosmopolitan distribution for the GSSP, or they may not use Olenellus at all and instead go with a Redlichia species or Arthricocephalus chauveaui. If ever that happens, we either make an article on the actual species, or we remove them from the category.

If you also have the time, maybe you can help out Tobias1984 as well in creating articles for the trilobite species mentioned in the GSSP article, since trilobites are your expertise. Just pick a red link from there that interests you. I've been unexpectedly busy in real life and haven't been able to do any Wikipedia work in the last few days. And yes, the Index fossil and Trilobite zone articles need a lot of work.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 17:00, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Obsidian Soul, I've had a look at the List of Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points. I'll keep it under surveillance as I will try to work my way through the Agnostida, but there was no species there that I know has good sources available right now. The article did however made me think of a four page table in the Treatise, part O, revised, that correlates trilobite zones across paleocontinents. I could try to create an image that reflects the Treatise table's content, but since it is real big, I would need some guidance concerning its placement in an existing or new lemma, and concerning avoiding copyright infringement. Does User:Tobias1984 watch your TP? Regards, Dwergenpaartje (talk) 12:42, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi Dwergenpaartje! Indeed I'm watching this page. It would be tremendous of you to help with the Agnostida. ObsidianSoul and me already agreed, that we would deal with the index fossils of the formally defined GSSPs first. You can recognize them in the List of Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points by the little golden nail symbol. Usually these stages have better sources than the stages that still have candidate status. --Tobias1984 (talk) 13:24, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh yes, and another thing, I had another look at the Index fossil article and concluded this sentence and a few others had been targeted by a new vandal. I reverted his changes and left a level 1 warning on User talk:Dragonofst. Never did this before, so I hope I did the right thing. Regards, Dwergenpaartje (talk) 12:52, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

All of the Ordovician stages are done now. I hope that all the information is up to date now. --Tobias1984 (talk) 21:12, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I think it is a great asset for an article to include illustrations of the fossil in question. I had a look which of the index fossils mentioned on the List of Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points would be available to buy and make photos of. I found a mere three: Ancyrodella rotundiloba, Leioceras opalinum and Spirograptus turriculatus (which I suspect is synonymous to Monograptus turricatus). The conondont of cause is so small, my camera could not make a useful picture, so I will try to find out if the University would be willing to help me out. For the agnostids, it seems that I will have to make linedrawings. My first priority would be to make a identification key, and the line drawings will come in handy there as well. I'll keep you posted on my progress, but all of this will be quite a job, probably taking several months, so please don't be hasty... Dwergenpaartje (talk) 23:25, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

That would be awesome if you can help with the conodonts and graptolites as well. And yes, I try to find pictures of them when possible. I've found a few from USGS papers (public domain) and very old papers, but the new ones (those described from 1927 onwards, especially those described very recently) are more difficult to find freely available pictures of.

Buying would be out of the question probably, as even if bought, the pictures retain copyright. I also have a tablet so I'll see if I can help with line drawings as well, they have relatively simple bodies so it shouldn't be that hard. That said, I'm still too busy in real life at the moment with the holidays and all, so my contributions will be patchy for the next few weeks. And yeah, it will take a while to fill them all in, so I'm not hurrying either. ;)

P.S. Good catch on the vandal on index fossil.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 06:13, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking of writing the Geologic Timescale Foundation. They might be interested in donating some pictures to Wikipedia. --Tobias1984 (talk) 09:46, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Good idea. I've had some luck asking for pictures directly from researchers before.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 10:26, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. There will be no copyright issue as I will not buy the pictures but the fossils themselves, and make my own pictures. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 12:23, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

User:Tobias1984, in the table row on the Ediacaran it says: Isotopic: Beginning of a distinctive pattern of secular changes in carbon isotopes. I find that statement quite hard to understand. I'm not a native speaker, but many people reading the article won't be either. Looking around for a minute, I found the following statement: at the Ediacaran–Cambrian boundary the onset of a dramatic fall in Δ13C values [occurs] (e.g., Amthor et al., 2003; Geology 31:431–434). Perhaps with this, you could clarify the text here.Dwergenpaartje (talk) 13:43, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Tsunyidiscidae

Dear Obsidian Soul, I would appreciate to hear your opinion on the following two issues.

• I recently created a page on Eodiscina. The Eodiscina have but one superfamily (the Eodiscioidea). Except for pre-existing species-level articles, that I sometimes convert to/combine with genus-level articles, I have never redirected pages to higher taxonomic levels. Probably I should rather have made a page on Eodiscioidea and redirect the Eodiscina page to it, but I did not, so here we are. Perhaps there is some existing practice on such issues? How should I deal with this?
• I recently created a page on Tsunyidiscus. Tsunyidiscus is the only genus in the Tsunyidiscidae. The authority for this family is different from that of the genus, but it is the only additional information for such a page. Should a redirect-page be created, and if so, how do we convey the authority of the family? If not, what should I do? Dwergenpaartje (talk) 13:03, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I made some changes to the articles. Yes, monotypic taxa should always be redirected to the article where they are included. Their ranks should also be bolded in both the taxobox and the lead, and the taxobox should also contain the authorities for both of them (even if they are the same). Just do the same practices as with monotypic genera really. I have done these for both articles.

As for Eodiscina, I think Eodiscina is a more familiar name than Eodiscoidea, so I think it's better, IMO. And yes, there are apparently no conventions for higher monotypic taxa, so I tend to just rely on common sense with them. The only guideline I know of is the one that says monotypic genera should be written at the genus name (or common name, if available) rather than the species name.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 17:41, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

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Welcome back

I'm very sorry about the destruction in your homeland. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:25, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean the typhoon? Honestly it was just a few days of heavy rains, no internet/TV/cellphone signals, and intermittent blackouts. Most casualties of typhoons like Bopha are the result of fallen trees, flash floods, or mudslides, and I'm thankfully nowhere near any of that. So no worries.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 21:03, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh good. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 02:00, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

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Table of differences between Musa acuminata and M. balbisiana

I've posted here rather than at Talk:Banana, because it concerns only your edits. Actually, I tend think that you were right in the first place to put the table of differences in the two species articles, and that when you removed it (e.g. here) it was perhaps not the right thing to do. Differentiating between the species rather than the cultivars surely belongs at the species articles? I do understand though that this is a very difficult set of articles to manage. The totality of information available is very impressive. I'm sure that most of the banana-related articles can be got to GA status. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:18, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Hm. The reason I removed it is because the table is not really for diagnoses of the species, it is actually a scoring system. Bananas get a number of points according to which characteristic they display most prominently (a scale of 1 to 5 for each characteristic), whether they will be identified as mostly M. acuminata or M. balbisiana-derived will depend the total; such that AAA and AA cultivars (i.e. purely or mostly polyploids of M. acuminata) will get a score of about 15 and BBB or BB cultivars (i.e. purely or mostly polyploids of M. balbisiana) will get a score of 75. Needless to say, this is only useful for the cultivars, not the species. This page in the Promusa site might explain it better. At most, the table just needs a better accompanying caption perhaps. It might be too detailed yeah, but it's certainly relevant more to the cultivars.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 04:50, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

In that case I wonder if the table is actually better at List of banana cultivars? The explanation you have above (which I think should be in Wikipedia) naturally belongs there, where the groups are defined and listed. There is actually a more general issue here. There are quite a few cases where there is a combination of a plant "main" article and a "list of" article. Often the taxonomy/rationale for the arrangement of the entities (species, cultivars) in the "list of" article is only explained in detail in the "main" article. This used to be the case in the Cactus and Classification of the Cactaceae pair. I decided it was better to have an overview of the classification at Cactus and more detail at Classification of the Cactaceae, which can then be given as the "main article" at the top of the section in Cactus. In the same way there could be the current introduction to the naming of the cultivar groups at Banana and more detail, including the table, in an introductory section at List of banana cultivars. What do you think about this arrangement? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:08, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like the best way, I guess. If I wasn't clear before, I have no objections to it being removed or placed elsewhere whatsoever. :P Let me know if I can help with anything in taking it to GA. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 00:45, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I'll move it. As for the GA process, I thought I was encouraging you to proceed with that! :-) I'm happy to help if I can, though topic is far from any of my areas of expertise. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:40, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Augh, naw! LOL. Banana is a massive, massive topic and I'm way too busy these days with some non-Wikipedia stuff. :P -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 01:51, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, first I'd like to express my appreciation of the work you've done in this area so far. I only got involved because of your post re "Banana edit war" at WT:PLANTS, and then found the subject quite interesting. However, I can see that it's a nightmare! The sources are confused and contradict one another: even the main cultivar groups aren't always clear (e.g. some sources equate the Cavendish Group to the AAA Group, others make it a subgroup of the AAA Group); it's not clear what are cultivars and what are a set of related cultivars (e.g. Constantine writes " 'Dwarf Cavendish' cultivars 'Basrai' and 'Srimanti' " but this doesn't make sense – cultivars can't be part of other cultivars); the names don't follow the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants, partly I guess because the genome group system was invented before the ICNCP came into force; the names of cultivars vary from source to source and there are obviously a huge number of synonyms. Still, I've got into it now and I'll do a bit more tidying. If you do have any time, I would welcome any comments you may have, as you've obviously worked on this topic for a long time, but I'll understand if you don't. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:33, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Very much a nightmare. Which is why I got exasperated with the edit warring spilling over from the Tree article confusing it even further. It's a difficult enough topic as it is taxonomically, without deliberately confusing it further with pedantry on what its common name actually means. Not helped by Mark Marathon's sarcastic parroting of my edit summaries. Anyway that's all been dealt with.

I think with the modern classification the Cavendish Group is properly an AAA subgroup. 'Basrai' and 'Srimanti' seem to be either actual laboratory-derived cultivars from 'Dwarf Cavendish' or synonyms adopted purely for legal or commercial reasons. They're all clones of clones, if you ask me, :P but treating them as proper cultivars would be what I'd do, I guess.

And yes, a lot of the naming follows outdated conventions, some dating back to Linnaean taxonomy which is why I stressed that Musa sapientum and M. paradisiaca, both of which are still widely used especially in the more isolated third-world scientific literature, are no longer correct.

I'm not sure on how widely the name Musa ×paradisiaca is used. I suspect it dates back to when Cheesman, Simmonds, et al. started discovering that the banana "species" were actually hybrids and is now incorrect. The Promusa article (under section "Previous nomenclature system") I gave earlier mentions this. Almost all literature I found using it use it to describe "French plantains" exclusively (whatever that cultivar actually is), and it seems to be rarely used in actual banana-specialized literature. IMO, it's best to stick to actually describing the hybrid parentage as most sources do. Also, Is the requirement for congeneric hybrid names to have a genus on the second parent a new ICN rule or something, or was I just daft? Haha. I've encountered three most common ways to write it: Musa acuminata × Musa balbisiana, and Musa acuminata × M. balbisiana, and Musa acuminata × balbisiana, so no problems on that I guess.

Anyway I'll try. I'm obviously not exactly an expert as well, so take my opinions with a grain of salt, heh. I think my involvement in the topic started out because I wanted to make articles on some cultivars uncommon in other countries but economically and culturally important here.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 00:41, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

What the ICN says and what botanists do is rarely the same! AFAIK, the IC[B]N has consistently frowned on formats like M. acuminata × balbisiana, because the × here should connect two species names, and by itself balbisiana isn't a name. But lots of sources do use this format. As for M. × paradisiaca as a name for M. acuminata × M. balbisiana, I agree it's confusing, because the consequence is that M. × paradisiaca L. does not refer to the same set of plants as M. paradisiaca L. However, this is a general problem; the ICN regulates names not circumscriptions. However, it seems that the most reliable sources now accept that the correct name for the set of plants represented by the formula M. acuminata × M. balbisiana is M. × paradisiaca. But I would only use it where it's already been explained clearly what it now means.

Thinking about the article List of banana cultivars, which I've been expanding a bit, I wonder if this is the right name. The reality is that we are never going to have anything like a complete list, given that sources estimate that there are might be as many as 1,000 cultivars (and there are certainly 1,000 names!!). Maybe it would be better as just "Banana cultivars", with more description of the groups and subgroups, accepting that only a sample of cultivars can ever be listed? I'm not sure about this. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:46, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. M. × paradisiaca would also apply to what was Musa sapientum, instead of simply plantains as Linnaeus originally used it for. I see you pointed it out in the discussion in the Banana talk page. Anyway, I like what you've done with the taxonomy section so far. Definitely much more succinct.

As for the List of banana cultivars article, sure, Banana cultivars definitely sounds better. And perhaps the accompanying list itself should also be headed with a standard disclaimer on only including notable cultivars, etc.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 18:10, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Cephalopyge

Dear Obsidian Soul, When preparing to make an article on Cephalopyge, I more frequently ended up with a nudibranche than a trilobite. Therefore I created a page Cephalopyge (trilobite). I have send an email to the author of the trilobite genus. This is his answer:

"Dear colleague,

You are absolutely correct in your assumption that Cephalopyge Geyer, 1988 is a junior synonym of Cephalopyge Hanel. I discovered this in 1999 and wanted to do a small paper on additional material and with suggesting a new name. For different reasons, this article has been delayed. Unfortunately, a colleague dashed into the situation and, if I may say this, in a sort of nomenclatural piracy suggested the new name Marocconus to replaces the Cephalopyge as a name for the trilobite genus. In case you are interested, I am attaching a PDF of the relevant article."

However, it is as if the name Marocconus is boycotted, I cannot find it anywhere else than in the PDF I received. Could you please advise me? Thanks again, Dwergenpaartje (talk) 22:44, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm... don't really know honestly. Personally, I'd continue using the Cephalopyge name given that Marocconus doesn't seem to have gained consensus. However, I'd mention that one author suggested it be renamed Marocconus in the taxonomy section.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 00:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

On second thought, I found this 2011 paper of his which uses Marocconus, (p.483) albeit with a note detailing his misgivings on the new name:

• Geyer, G.; Peel, J. S. (2011). "The Henson Gletscher Formation, North Greenland, and its bearing on the global Cambrian Series 2–Series 3 boundary". Bulletin of Geosciences: 465. doi:10.3140/bull.geosci.1252.

So it might be alright to place the article at Marocconus instead, with a short description of the name change, a redirect from Cephalopyge (trilobite), and a disambiguation hatnote on the nudibranch genus page.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 03:03, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Help?

Given I constantly checked the page you wrote for Trogloraptor (great job, BTW) while writing Predatoroonops, can you take a look at it and check the prose? Thanks. igordebraga ≠ 16:46, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, and interesting article. :) Ok, I tried rewording it a bit along with a few minor fixes. Revert it if I made it worse, heh, as I'm not a native English speaker, I do not have access to the original paper, and it's 3 AM. :P I'm puzzled on why you originally put six scientists, though. There seems to be only five authors involved all in all. I also think the phrase "first fully revised endemic Brazilian genus of spiders" needs clarification as I'm not even exactly sure what it really means. :/ -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 19:27, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Is image really 'Karat' banana?

Hi, the image you uploaded to Commons, File:Karat bananas.jpg, appears in several places on the web as being of a cultivar of the Fe'i group, including here. However, I've been reading up about Fe'i bananas (see the article I've started at Fe'i banana) and I'm now wondering if this is correct. Fe'i bananas are said in several sources to have deep ridges on their skins, making them squarish in cross-section. You can see that shape if you look closely at File:Hillsman_carrying_feis_to_Papeete,_by_Coulon.jpg – almost like a star fruit in cross section. But the image of the "Karat banana" is quite different: it's smooth-skinned and rounded. Ploetz et al. (here, p. 14) say "In Pohnpei (FSM) bananas .. exist also such as 'Peleu' and 'Karat en Iap' (unrelated to the more common 'Karat' bananas, which are Fe'i)". They are AAA group, Maoli-Pōpō'ulu subgroup, and should be "sausage-shaped fruit with blunt ends". So the shape in the image, given the location in Pohnpei, suggests to me that 'Karat en Iap' has been mistaken for 'Karat', or else 'Karat' is the local name, given that it just means "carrot". So this is not an image of a Fe'i banana but an AAA banana. Furthermore, the infant in the picture here appears to be eating the banana raw, which is fine for an AAA cultivar, but Fe'i types are supposed to be plantain-like and need cooking.

However, I don't know how this can be sorted out one way or the other. Any thoughts? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:28, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Nope. It definitely is fe'i 'Karat'. See "Pohnpei Bananas: A Photo Collection: Carotenoid-rich varieties" (Englberger & Lorens, 2004). Note that it's the source referenced by Ploetz et al. in their paper. There's a picture of both bananas in that pdf, and they do look quite different, with 'Karat en Iap' and 'Peleu' both elongated and blunt-ended ("sausage-shaped"). The pictures of 'Karat' there also show that it's quite distinctively ridged, the apparent absence of it in the picture I uploaded is likely just the result of the angle of the shot.

I also found this article in the Infomusa journal by the same author: "Carotenoid-rich bananas in Micronesia" (Englberger, 2003). She mentions that both 'Karat' and 'Uht en yap' (='Utin Iap', another "true" fe'i banana different from the yellow-fleshed 'Karat en Iap') can both be eaten raw if allowed to ripen. Both might help in the Fe'i article.

It introduces another problem though. The bananas in the picture of the hillsman look more like 'Dukuru', 'Ipali', or 'Inahsio'; which Englberger identifies as ABB Ney Mannan, AAB, and ABB Bluggoe respectively.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 12:25, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Hm, further reading all seem to say that fruit sizes and shapes do tend to differ. So that picture of bananas from Tahiti probably is fe'i. I also found what seems to be Englberger's last paper (she died in 2011), also of fe'i bananas but this time from Makira of the Solomon Islands.

Englberger, L.; Lyons, G.; Foley, W.; Daniells, J.; Aalbersberg, B.; Dolodolotawake, U.; Watoto, C.; Iramu, E.; Taki, B.; Wehi, F.; Warito, P.; Taylor, M. (2010). "Carotenoid and riboflavin content of banana cultivars from Makira, Solomon Islands". Journal of Food Composition and Analysis. 23 (6): 624. doi:10.1016/j.jfca.2010.03.002.

Can't access the text but it has pictures, and you can see the range in size and shape, from ones which resemble the Micronesian 'Karat' to ones which resemble the bananas the Tahitian hillsman is carrying. I also found this INIBAP article from 2000 of fe'i bananas in Tahiti. It mentions that fe'i bananas can be distinguished from other bananas by "erect bunches, bright orange colour of the mature fruit and the color of the sap, which ranges from dark violet to pink" as well as the bright shiny green bracts of the inflorescence and a 2n of 20. Promusa says the same thing, with the addition of frilly petiole bases and the cross-corrugations in the leaf venation as distinguishing characteristics. None seem to mention fruit shape.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 14:42, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Ah, excellent research! You seem to have "sorted this out". It's a pity that we can't use any of these photos, as far as I can tell, because they don't have the right copyright. The one you uploaded seems to be the only permissible one showing Fe'i group bananas. It may be that the angles don't show on it because the resolution is so low. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:54, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Invisible figure caption

Dear Obsidian Soul, I'm trying to work my way across the Agnostida. In several Peronopsid articles, I added a graph depicting relationships, such as in Peronopsidae. I did not use "thumb", because the information would be unreadable. However, the explanation of what is in the graph does not show itself somehow. Could you please have a look and advise me in this? Thank you in advance, Dwergenpaartje (talk) 12:52, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) - You need to use 'thumb' to get the caption to appear. Because you have specified the width of the diagram, the thumbnail is that size, rather than the standard (~200px). I've added it and it still looks ok to me. Can I suggest that you make diagrams like this in inkscape in the future? Then you can save them as svg files which scale better. Failing that, save them as png rather than jpg as jpg should only really be used for photographs. SmartSE (talk) 13:37, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. Don't have inkshape (I use GIMP), but I will reload my graphs as png, now that I know it is better. Cheers, Dwergenpaartje (talk) 14:02, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Waptia

Waptia needs to go to the Gallery. I want you to create a more Burgess Shale book fossils of the Burgess Shale art. User:98.177.220.111 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.177.220.111 (talk) 23:32, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Please look at my Wiki Commons talkpage and/or that of Wiki Commons Category:Trilobita

Hi Obsidian Soul, I tried to clean up the taxonomy on top of the Wiki Commons Category:Trilobita. Liné1 however, prefers to stick to the taxonomy as provided by PBDB, and to add my correction as an alternative. I note the PBDB taxonomy is inconsistent with that of the trilobite template used in the english Wikipedia. I find having both taxonomies actually quite messy. I do not want to make a fuss if other users think it is fine like it is right now. Could you please have a look? Thanks in advance -- Dwergenpaartje (talk) 12:33, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

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Textbooks & education in the Philippines

You mentioned this in the "Malay or Austronesians?" discussion. I nearly followed that up there, but decided to let it go by this time without largely uninformed criticism of the RP DOE from me. However, less publicly here, I'll mention this edit to another article and the textbook cited there. I did look at what the online previewable copy of that textbook has to say about models of migration to the Philippines, and I couldn't figure out what it was trying to say. Cheers, Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:53, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Well most criticism would be justified anyway. It's corrupt like most everything else here. DOE is notorious for republishing textbooks with only very minor changes to the content. Forcing parents to buy expensive "new" editions every time for their children. So for all we know, most of what is written in current school textbooks might still be the original American Commonwealth-era content, albeit slightly reworded. The period of intense ultra-nationalism during the "Bagong Lipunan" era of Marcos also didn't help. It introduced a lot of "facts" into textbooks that were really anti-colonial propaganda. And I don't think there ever was any effort done on rooting them out.

To its credit, the book does mention that the Code of Kalantiaw has been debunked as a hoax and that Beyer's theories have largely been abandoneded by modern historians and anthropologists. It mentions the anthropologist F. Landa Jocano who believes in a version of the "Out of Sundaland" model of migration, but it doesn't mention anything about Bellwood's "Out of Taiwan" hypothesis, which is currently the most widely accepted theory. And it still has errors like repeating the Marcos-era propaganda that the Maharlika were the nobility class among Prehispanic Filipinos.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 01:13, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Fern questions and photo

Hi, can you check on this ref-desk question [1]? I have tried to answer, and in the process, found that a photo that appears to be yours is also used in a review article by Weber & Keeler. They do give an attribution, but I'm not sure if one or both attributions might be in error. I also thought you might know something about extrafloral nectaries in ferns, and so might be able to help with the question. Thanks for any input, and hope to see you around the ref desk more often! SemanticMantis (talk) 20:18, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Yep, the attribution is correct, and the authors did ask for permission to use it. I replied to the thread. Sorry for not responding sooner, really busy these days.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 06:00, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
	Your trilobite template is really effin cool! Abyssal (talk) 14:20, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Heh, thanks. :) -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 06:02, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

DYK-Good Article Request for Comment

Hi, would you care to elaborate your !vote? :) --Gilderien Talk|List of good deeds 23:17, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Trying to. Kept getting edit conflicted, LOL. And done. Cheers. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 23:30, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Jack mackerel distribution map

Hi there, I was wondering what's the source for the distribution area in this image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trachurus_murphyi_range_map.jpg I mean, the information to set the boundaries, not the image itself. Thank you in advance for your answer. --Ricardo Oliveros Ramos (talk) 16:59, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi. :) This was created from a request by User:Epipelagic last year. Based on a preexisting coastal range map from fishbase.org and a pelagic one from this 2009 paper on T. murphyi by the South Pacific Regional Fishery Management Organisation (distribution map and text is on pages 5 and 6).-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 17:48, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Tiktaalik restoration

Hey, any news on this guy? Was looking good! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Palaeontology/Paleoart_review/Archive_~4#Tiktaalik FunkMonk (talk) 14:16, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh yeah. I had a major disillusionment period recently, :/ art juju got way low and I couldn't get myself to pick up anything 3d. I haven't modeled anything for a few months now. Anyway, I'll dig up the files and see if I can force myself to finish it. :P -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 23:27, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Heheh, I know how it feels. But I think the work you did around here was some of the best we have, and it certainly helps the "greater good"... FunkMonk (talk) 16:52, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your wikibot images on Commons

I just wanted to let you know that I'm using your excellent 3d models of wiki bots on my new wiki about wikibots. Thanks for your effort and for releasing them to the Public Domain. AugurNZ ✐⌕ 11:10, 28 August 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by AugurNZ (talk • contribs)

You're welcome. :) -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 21:47, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Ping

Hi Obsidian,

I'm looking for a Cebuano speaker, and your name is in the very short list. The devs are looking at setting up WP:VisualEditor for all users at the Cebuano Wikipedia towards the end of September. Would you be interested in helping with support and translation efforts? (Go here to see what the translation system looks like for documentation; you can login with your Wikipedia username/password.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:32, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I'll try to translate what I can (I'll put them in parentheses after the phrases). Some words might remain in English, since true spoken Cebuano uses a number of English words frequently, especially for more technical terms. I'm also not that knowledgeable about the "deeper" vocabulary which are used extremely rarely in modern Cebuano.

Other users active might be able to help as well. Try looking at Category:User ceb for other active editors who are native Cebuano speakers.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 21:52, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Ok scratch the parentheses thing. Seems like the software does it automatically. Anyway, I have problems translating computing and web terms (e.g. "tab", "shortcut", "bold", "link", etc.). I'm not sure what the "standard" words are for those, so I mostly retained the English terms for them. May I recommend trying to contact the administrators in the Cebuano Wikipedia? They may have more experience with these. WP:Tambayan Philippines might also be a good source of other active Filipino editors who may speak Cebuano.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 23:22, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for getting it started! You've already done a lot of work there. I'll suggest the WikiProject to User:PEarley (WMF). He's also looking for ways to get this group moving forward, and knows a lot more about translation than I do. Thanks again, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:55, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Hey Obsidian Soul, long time no talk (thanks again for the map!). I will talk to some of the Ceb admins this week. The tech terms are an issue, for Tagalog as well. It might be wise to just use english terms for the really difficult ones for now (or would there be more crossover with Spanish for Ceb speakers?). Anyways, thanks for getting things started. Would you be able to translate a message for me into Cebuano? It's an update to let editors know we about VisualEditor, and the possible rollout on the 24th. Best to you, glad to see you editing (I seem to remember a wiki-break back there somewhere), PEarley (WMF) (talk) 19:34, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Hey, The Interior :) Sorry for the late reply. Yes, there's a large Spanish-derived vocabulary in Cebuano (larger than Tagalog even, since the Visayas islands were colonized much earlier than Luzon). So some [Latin-derived] English words can actually be at first Hispanized then rendered in the native spelling (e.g. "reference" -> referencia -> reperensya), but not many. What would really help though are probably the administrators of the Cebuano Wikipedia. I do not know if they're active in enwiki though (or if they're even still active at all), but given their work, they must have come across this problem as well. I've actually based some of the words I used from those used in cebwiki (e.g. I used native panid instead of the Spanish-derived pahina for "page", based on what they used). At least those I can immediately ascertain.

Anyway, I'll try to finish the rest of the translations later (and retain the English, as you recommended, for the harder terms). And yes for the message thing, just post it here and I'll translate it for you.- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 23:21, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

• Very interesting on some of the Cebuano etymology. I have yet to talk to any of the Ceb admins, maybe tomorrow. No giant hurry with the translations, it would be nice to get at least the User Guide moved over into ceb.wiki before the 24th. Thanks so much for doing the message for me (it's a bit long, sorry!). Don't worry about perfection here, just a rough enough version to get the point across. Good to hear from you. PEarley (WMF) (talk) 23:44, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

MESSAGE

Greetings from the Wikimedia Foundation, Cebuano Wikipedia editors. I am posting to let you know about the VisualEditor (VE) editing interface. It is a new, visual way to edit Wikipedia. We would like to deploy VisualEditor on this Wikipedia soon, and we would like to get editors' opinions on the new platform.

To test VisualEditor, you can enable it by going to (I'll figure this part out, PE). After doing this, you will see two options for editing an article. We welcome your feedback, and would like to know about any problems or "bugs" experienced on ceb.wiki. It is also important that VisualEditor's buttons and labels are translated into Cebuano, along with several important help documents. If you have English skills, you can help out at Translatewiki.net and VisualEditor's TranslationCentral on mediawiki.org. You must have an account on Translatewiki.net to translate.

We expect to enable VisualEditor here on Tuesday, 24 September unless there any critical bugs with your particular Wikipedia that you find during testing. Enabling VisualEditor here for everyone will help the software to be developed and improved to meet the needs of all users. After the rollout the new editor will be displayed side-by-side with the button to edit using wikitext. Once VisualEditor is enabled you will have the option to disable it in your preferences so that you will no longer see it while it is in beta testing. We hope that you do not chose to do that because it would limit the opportunities to find out how we can make VisualEditor better for the Cebuano Wikipedia. The option to edit using wikitext will not be going away. Thank you for your comments, and happy editing,

MESSAGE ENDS

Maayong pagtimbaya gikan sa Wikimedia Foundation, mga gumagamit sa Cebuano Wikipedia. Nagapahibalo ko karon kaninyo sa VisualEditor (VE) editor interace. Bag-o ni na matamata na pamaagi sa pag-usab sa Wikipedia. Hinaot namo na ipakatag ang VisualEditor sa niining Wikipedia sa dili madugay na panahon, ug gusto namo na makuha ang mga opinyon sa mga gumagamit mahitungod niini.

Puwede ninyong sulayan ang VisualEditor dinhi sa (INSERTLINKHERE). Paghuman ninyo ani, makakita mo ug duha ka pagpilian para sa pag-usab sa usa ka artikulo. Gusto namo na madawat ang inyong mga panghuna-huna sa pag-gamit, apil na ang mga problema o mga "bugs" na inyong nasinatian sa ceb.wiki. Importante pud na ma-translate sa Cebuano ang mga butones ug mga pangtimaan sa VisualEditor, pati na ang pipila ka mga importante na dokumentasyon sa panabang. Kung naa kay kahanas sa Ingles, puwede kang mutabang sa Translatewiki.net ug sa TranslationCentral sa VisualEditor sa mediawiki.org. Para maka-translate, kinahanglan na naa kay account sa Translatewiki.net.

Among gidahom na ma-implementar ang VisualEditor dinhi sa Martes, 24 sa Septembre, kung walay makit-an na seryoso na problema sa ni-aning Wikipedia sa inyong pagsulay. Ang pag-implementar sa VisualEditor dinhi para sa tanan kay makatabang na paglambo ug pagusbaw sa software niini para maabot ang mga panginahanglan sa tanan na gumagamit. Pagkahuman sa implementasyon, ang bag-o na editor kay makit-an tapad sa butones sa pagusab gamit ang wikitext. Puwede ninyo ning i-disable sa inyong mga preperensiya para dili na ninyo ni makita samtang naa pa kini sa beta testing. Among hinaot na dili ninyo ni pili-on, kay makalimitar ni sa oportunidad sa pagpangita ug mga pamaagi na mapaayo pa ang VisualEditor sa XX Wikipedia. Dili na mawala ang opsiyon sa pag-gamit sa wikitext kung gusto ninyo. Salamat daan sa inyong mga komentaryo ug malipayong pag-edit!

END

Ok, that's it. I paraphrased some sentences, since they couldn't be directly translated, but kept the translation as close to the original as possible. Cheers. :) -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 01:07, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

P.S. It's "Cebuano", never "Cebuan", heh.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 01:09, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Erk, sorry about that. Blaming lack of sleep. Thanks so much for this, Obsidian Soul, and so quick!. I've posted this at the "Tubaan" - is there any other discussion spots on ceb where this might get read? PEarley (WMF) (talk) 16:14, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome. And no idea, sorry. I've honestly never used the Cebuano Wikipedia ever. Like most Filipinos, I prefer English when it comes to written communication. The lack of standardization when it comes to technical terms makes our native languages far too difficult to be used in that regard. :/ -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 23:40, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I've finished them all by my lonesome, since no other Cebuanos stepped up to help :[ and it's already the 24th (here in our futureworld anyway, LOL).

I've reworked some of the phrasing where they're impossible to translate word-for-word, and retained the English in most of them (either because they don't have Cebuano equivalents, or if they do, they're so obscure and/or ambiguous that even native speakers wouldn't understand them). I referenced the full English User Guide to gain a better idea of the context though, so I'm pretty confident they still mean what they were supposed to mean.

The file name translations can be safely ignored I guess, as there's no translated UI yet (AFAIK).-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 16:00, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm sorry to hear that you didn't get more help, but I really appreciate your hard work. {{ping|PEarly (WMF)]], do you know what page names these should be copied to at ceb:? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:52, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, it did ask me to translate the page name - mw:Help:VisualEditor/User guide. :P The direct translation (and using ceb wiki's namespace convention for Help pages "Tabang:") is ceb:Tabang:VisualEditor/Giya sa paggamit. But you'll probably have to ask PEarley (WMF) to confirm that. And you're welcome. :) -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 17:05, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Once again, Obsidian Soul knocks it out of the park! So glad you are here to help with this. I'm going to start moving translations over this week, I'll look at the page naming conventions on Ceb before doing so. Might ping you for advice if I'm unsure. Using the "Help" prefix is logical, and corresponds to how MediaWiki has help docs. . The filenames for the screenshots can be fixed when we've got a translated UI and we upload some Ceb versions. All in good time. We could use the english versions for now, but that would be confusing for unilingual users ... Anyways, in related news, the VE rollout for Cebuano has been pushed back a week, to the 30th. Communication breakdown between us and the developer team. So a bit more time to get things ready, which is fine by me. PEarley (WMF) (talk) 22:35, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

		The Rosetta Barnstar
		For yeoman work translating help documents for the Cebuano Wikipedia, Obsidian Soul deserves ten of these barnstars. (but he's only getting one) PEarley (WMF) (talk) 22:35, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

But I needed nine more to complete the Ritual of the Ten Arms of Shub-Niggurath. D: Thanks and no problem. Once a translated UI is available, you'd probably need to update the documentation anyway. As it still contains English from the UI itself (e.g. "Apply changes"). I wouldn't worry about unilingual users though. In a country with two official languages and dozens more in individual islands, you'd be hard-pressed to find one. I still recommend you keep trying to reach the cebwiki admins though (especially for the UI translations). It's their wiki after all. Though I speak the language, I'm just as clueless as most enwiki users when it comes to the inner workings there. :P Anyway, cheers.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 12:43, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I guess it was an accident?

Before I reinstate my edit, I noticed you reverted an edit I did and wanted your input. On the bigfin reef squid someone uploaded a resampled small video of the original HD video. Mediawiki automatically resamples the video these days, so there is no reason to have a low sample on the page, right? Cheers, Nesnad (talk) 01:18, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

It is actually automatically resampled on uploading (IIRC). The smaller sizes are an option for people who do not have fast internet connections. Not everyone can stream everything in HD. Do not revert it.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 01:29, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I will revert, you seem to not understand how Mediawiki works? It automatically creates a low resolution version for slow net users. So there is no need to link to a low resolution video. It's redundant and unfairly makes it a hassle for users with faster internet. Nesnad (talk) 12:13, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I upload videos very rarely, so yes I'm not exactly an expert on them. But I kinda doubt that it would just "autodetect" someone with dial-up then resize accordingly. Even YouTube needs to play a full-res version first before deciding if you're having problems playing it or not. And you do realize how nonsensical a sentence like "unfairly makes it a hassle for users with faster internet" sounds like, right? Can you explain how it inconveniences you? Because seeing a link to another resolution is annoying or something? Nonetheless, this isn't really something to fight a war on, so go ahead.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 21:59, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

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Ancyronyx

Hi! I do appreciate your work on Ancyronyx. I was not aware of your draft, and I absolutely concur to your version. Chhandama (talk)

Tatuidris

Hello Obsidian Soul! Thank you for your review of Template:Did you know nominations/Tatuidris. I changed the section heading to 'Taxonomy' and wikilinked more terms per your suggestions. It's good enough for DYK as it is, even with all the technical terms. I'd love to bring the article to GA status, but I'll need help. Any advice or assistance would be appreciated.

Here are my initial thoughts:

• Some technical terms, e.g. pilosity pattern and Winkler trap, needs to be explained, or at least wikilinked. There are currently no articles on pilosity pattern or Winkler trap, but an entry for Winkler trap can be created.

• I'm not that worried about the technical language in the 'Castes' section as this section is not very interesting to the casual reader (I'm not even sure it is interesting to myrmecologists, heh :)), and the section cannot easily be "dumbed down" without losing accuracy, but I'll try to add more wikilinks and add explaining parentheses where needed.

• The content in the 'Taxonomy' section related to Agroecomyrmecinae should be moved to that article (there will be some unavoidable duplication in this section as some of the content belongs in both articles).

• The article is fairly complete content-wise; I've crawled the interwebz for articles about this poorly understood genus and there's not much that can be added.

• A distribution map would be nice. AntWeb's data and AntWiki might prove useful here.

• A photo of the species' habitat would also be nice, but little is known about their habitat. A photo of a leaf litter in an unnamed Neotropical forest could be used, bearing the caption "The type specimen was found in a leaf-litter sample, suggesting that the species nests in some microhabitats of the leaf-litter or more or less deeply in the soil. (Lacau et al. 2012)".

Thought? jonkerz ♠talk 08:22, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi. First off, I am not an expert on GA reviews. LOL. I've only gone through it a few times. I have only six GAs. Only two (three?) of them were self-nominated, the rest were actually nominated by someone else who thought it could pass and/or done in collaboration with another editor. I find them too stressful to pursue regularly. I've also never reviewed an article for GA, ever.

That said, I do run across a lot of the same problems since I almost exclusively only write taxon articles. So I can give you some thoughts on how I usually deal with them:

• Re: Pilosity, the way I deal with technical terms which do not have articles (that applies to virtually all of them) is that I simply present them in layman's language first if possible and then enclose the technical term for it in parentheses afterwards. You can see examples of this in the Description section of my most recently expanded article Waldo (bivalve), e.g. the bolded parts in the sentence below:

The mantle covers most of the outer shell surface and possesses small rounded protuberances (papillae).

• Regarding completeness and technical terms, in my experience, GA reviewers will tell you to tone down content only interesting to specialists. In this case, the individual diagnoses of the castes might actually be too detailed. But that depends on the reviewer I guess. So you could probably leave them up unless the reviewer asks you to simplify them.

• Re: Agroecomymecinae, I would agree. More than half of the contents of that section can be moved to the subfamily article. A summary should be left there, however, since it's the only extant species in the group. A {{See also}} hatnote can be added at the top of the section. Also now that you've renamed Taxonomy summary to Taxonomy, you should actually merge the other two top sections (Etymology and Classification) into it.

• Regarding a distribution map, you can actually freely use the map from Antwiki. It's released under a CC-BY-SA license, which is acceptable for Wikipedia. So it's only a matter of reuploading it to Commons.

• I would recommend against a tangential photo like that, unless the photo is actually of the type locality. It would be too misleading.

Additionally, the genus is monotypic. Thus it's best to refer to it consistently and remember that you're discussing a single species. For example, rather than treating Tatuidris as distinct from T. tatusia, you should simply use Tatuidris throughout and it would be understood to refer to the same thing. In another instance, "Tatuidris is a rare but broadly distributed genus" can be amended to "Tatuidris is rare, but broadly distributed".

If this is your first GA, I would also strongly recommend that you go through examples of taxon articles promoted to GA status in Wikipedia:Good articles. Take a look at how their sections are structured, their wording, etc. And don't forget to look at the GA criteria. As they will be the same things the reviewers will measure your article against. They also contain good advice for writing articles in general.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 10:43, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

P.S. A "Type species" section is unnecessary in the taxobox and should be removed. Because it's monotypic, its single species is already understood to be the type species.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 11:16, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this is my first GA attempt; I've done my best to improve the article and I think it's almost ready. I've implemented all your suggestions but kept the etymology in its own section. More work is needed on toning down the technical language, I'll look into that next week. Again, thanks :) jonkerz ♠talk 01:00, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Glad I could help :) and good luck.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 01:20, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

DYK for Waldo (bivalve)

The DYK project (nominate) 20:05, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

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DYK for Progradungula otwayensis

Gatoclass (talk) 17:07, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Loved this article, I was in cape otway in March. Wish I had read this before, I'd have kept an eye out for one. 78.143.209.170 (talk) 18:56, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. :) -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 03:30, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Apology

About that Hari in horse back file , sorry if i make un-relevant images its only artistic depiction ok i will make a images /collages in only the limits of informative form and not will over than it was .. ,

DYK for Ancyronyx

The DYK project (nominate) 16:01, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Deletion of my text in the Pnamanian Golden Frog article

Obsidian Soul, I am the user who added roughly a paragraph to the Behavior section of this article which you deleted. This is for a university project where I need to make corrections and additions to a Wikipedia article, in this case the article concerning the Panamanian Golden Frog. Why did you delete my text and what could I do to improve whatever you deemed unfit for the page? Were there too many spelling errors or were the errors fact based? The project is due on Friday 10/25 so please get back to me at your earliest convenience. Even a short response would be helpful to me so I can get a better version of my content up!

Thank You!20A Extinction2013 (talk) 01:24, 22 October 2013 (UTC)20A_Extinction2013

Hi. I have replied in your talk page. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 06:02, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

The project is just to add information of take away incorrect information to any article having to do with the topic of extinction or endangered animals because the course focuses on the causes and effects of extinction. Thank you for the advice. I'll edit more carefully next time. I didn't realize that what I was saving was published instantaneously! Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 20A Extinction2013 (talk • contribs) 00:22, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

DYK for Zospeum tholussum

The DYK project (nominate) 16:02, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Zospeum tholussum

Hi Obsidian Soul! Nice work on the Zospeum tholussum article and DYK. I need to say, It has what it takes to be listed as GA. Are you willing to submit it to the review process? If you're not, I might as well do it myself. Best wishes! --Daniel Cavallari (talk) 19:20, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Sure, I'll help out with the issues the reviewer finds. I think it's best if you nominate it though and also help with the corrections, heh, since you have the expertise on the subject. :) -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 03:57, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Whats the matter??

Whats wrong for being a patriotic? and about the "stock Puppets" May pinsan akong gumagamit ng pc at sya ay isa ring wikipedian ok?"

So dont tell im a problematic . . .. Kasalana ko ba kung wala siyang Pc para dun mag edit ng mga article?" . .at about sa Star , ikaw na po ang nag sabi, its not important its just a sign of appreciation, i have been apricieate by my cousins so whats the matter?

About banning i will appeal to this men. ..

so dont tell about a hammer ban .. ok ..*sigh* — Preceding unsigned comment added by Philipandrew (talk • contribs) 11:41, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Ugh. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 22:04, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

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Hominin

Ok thanks, The text originally said "homin", so I spell checked it and "hominine" came up as a possible recommendation so I clicked it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tyrannical95 (talk • contribs) 21:44, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

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DYK for Golden ghost crab

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

ANI

Hey man. Although I understand your frustration, edits like this are sometimes a bit not constructive. I am completely supportive of your position, but it's best not to make it personal sometimes. Wikipedia is a a better place when you ignore all of that BS. Happy evening! — ΛΧΣ²¹ 00:52, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh I'm sure it's alright. After all an administrator thought it was constructive to dehumanize us too.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 01:05, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I admit I don't really care what anybody here things about my sexuality, and you shouldn't care either. Of course, be sure that I don't like any of those homophobics around Wikipedia, and I would sanction them for their disruptiveness if I could, but it's not worth all the trouble. What they say does not affect my life, and so their comments are worthless. Cheers. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 01:28, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't normally care either. Except that in this case, an administrator is openly defending him by misusing his power because he seemingly shares his views. No sign of sanctions or even just a slap on the wrist. How is that not alarming?-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 01:34, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I don't know. I mean, I appreciate Nyttend and I am still waiting for him to give us a very good explanation as to why he unilaterally unblocked the IP, and I don't want to draw any conclusions before he does. George's block was warranted, and it should have been discussed before being reversed, rather than after. I usually try to stay away from this kind of disputes, but if Nyttend does not hand a very good reason for his action, I am sure that he won't be left unslapped. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 01:39, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Consider what can actually be done here. The admin's behavior has been documented and discussed. Further blocks of the IPs at this point won't achieve anything and your edit summary and comments are ringing alarm bells. John Reaves 03:05, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Right. So we just go sit on our hands and act like we're all at a nice tea party. Nyttend's behavior and his flimsy excuses are deemed acceptable and he gets a medal. IP is celebrated for his courage in showing everyone the evil truth about them gays. And we all get cake.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 03:23, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

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Response to your talk page message

Thanks for the advice. The tables are from, "The Elements of the Nature and Properties of Soils (3rd edition)" [by Nyle C. Brady, Ray R. Weil]. I've never cited a book before, but i think I can quickly figure it out. Is it a requirement that i cite the specific page as well? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jwratner1 (talk • contribs) 22:53, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Your response on my talk page

See Wikipedia:No personal attacks, which is completely unacceptable.--Balthazarduju (talk) 12:46, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Some stroopwafels for you!

Hope you're doing well. Cheers :) — ΛΧΣ21 16:37, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Haha, thanks. I needed that. Getting a bit more cynical with Wikipedia lately. :) -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 03:23, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Encephalartos senticosus

Hello, just a quick heads up (and congratulations) regarding Encephalartos senticosus - this article that you substantially expanded has been nominated at DYK, and I've reviewed and passed it. Should be on the mainpage soon! :) Acather96 (click here to contact me) 19:03, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Though it honestly was just rushed work. Like Stemonitis, it seems we'd rather have something in it other than a redlink, heh. Cheers. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 03:30, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

• Template:Did you know nominations/Toona sureni is approved as well. -- Jreferee (talk) 14:15, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Heh, it seems Rcej has been busy. Thank you for the review. :) -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 14:22, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

DYK for Encephalartos senticosus

Orlady (talk) 04:32, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

DYK for Toona sureni

Orlady (talk) 04:32, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for December 16

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Toon

Hi, FYI:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Toona_ciliata#Toon — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.176.211.137 (talk) 02:27, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

My greetings. I added my opinion in the Village pump because I already have expressed in two other places and I did not want to canvass.

Magioladitis (talk) 13:06, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Heh, cheers. I would honestly also have preferred that the discussion remained open longer. And happy holidays! -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 13:51, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Bushmen#Requested_move_12_January_2014

FYI I have re-requested the move you requested in 2012. Please participate in the move discussion. HelenOnline 10:55, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Zospeum tholussum for GA

Hello,

I came here to say exactly what Daniel Cavallari has already said: a fine article in which the only thing that is missing is the GA star. As a member of WP Croatia this is something I'd like to see fixed. :) I've made some minor tweaks and I'm willing to assist in the GAN process if necessary. GregorB (talk) 16:19, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

GregorB, the only major issue is the intro, which needs an expansion (not mutch, but I believe there are a few things to include). Nevertheless, I'm willing to help with the review process =). --Daniel Cavallari (talk) 21:22, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree, the intro currently does not summarize the entire article, although it is quite close. GregorB (talk) 11:34, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks guys. Sorry for the late reply, I'm very busy with real life at the moment (and will be for the next few months as well), so unfortunately I can't help with a GA process if you nominate it. I appreciate the corrections and adjustments you have made to the article though. And do feel free to go ahead nevertheless if you like. :) Cheers. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 08:42, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Chilean Jack Mackerel range map

Hi Obsidian Soul,

I'm currently working in the framework of a European project which aim to study Trachurus murphyi (Chilean Jack Mackerel) distribution in South Pacific. So I'm interested in the way you built the estimated range map ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trachurus_murphyi_range_map.jpg

What are your data ? Which method / model do you apply to these data ?

134.246.159.67 (talk) 08:24, 20 February 2014 (UTC)Jeremie

Hi. This question has been asked by User:Ricardo Oliveros Ramos before so I'll just copy-paste my reply.

The map was created from a request by User:Epipelagic in 2012. Based on a preexisting coastal range map from fishbase.org and a pelagic one from this 2009 paper on T. murphyi by the South Pacific Regional Fishery Management Organisation (distribution map and text is on pages 5 and 6). Both of these sources were specifically provided by User:Epipelagic.

Other than that, I do not know anything else about it unfortunately. I suggest you instead talk with User:Epipelagic for the details. Cheers.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 08:33, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank You

I am not a contributor to Wikipedia but I am an avid user. I don't feel confident enough to contribute as of yet, but perhaps in the future. The reason that I wanted to thank you is because I am a gay male that was, in the past, unaware of homosexual phenomenon in ancient history such as the Sacred Band of Thebes. The lack of male role models for young gay boys, teens, and even men, made the discovery even more exciting and welcome as the very notion of an honored fighting force of male lovers helps to disprove the very illogical yet pervading stereotype that homosexuality and masculinity are antithetical to one another. I saw you vehemently call out an "editor" that seemed to take it as the mission of his online life to downplay or stigmatize all mentions of homosexuality in the articles regarding ancient Greece. I believe one of his handles was Sir Gawain. I believe that he is continuing the unfortunate tradition of the many scholars and historians of yesteryear of censoring, omitting, downplaying, or vilifying historical mentions of homosexuality based on his own prejudices. I would never have learned of so many of these instances had it not been for Wikipedia, so it truly bothers me that people like Sir Gawain are so tireless in their efforts. I recently noticed that the article for Harmodius and Aristogeiton is suffering from the same "whitewashing" that Sir Gawain employed. At first, someone in the Talk section complained that their same-sex relationship was a central theme when it shouldn't be. To my dismay, the final note in the Talk section was that someone else had come along and removed almost all evidence of their relationship. I found this to be unfortunately accurate as I combed over the article and found only one reference alluding to the relationship and this was because I knew what to look for. If not for people like you who oppose the "whitewashing" of history on the basis of personal prejudice, people like myself would never know much of the history of our own sexuality. I don't believe in placing anyone on illogical pedestals to worship, but it's nice to have a few heroes and role models to look up to when we already have so few. And it saddens me that people are so adamant in tearing down the few that we do have. It's also unfortunate to note that these articles almost have to be "policed" because it seems that as soon as the collective "back" is turned, these same people are converging on these articles like it's a pile of stool and they're the King of Flies, just so that they may censor out all homosexuality. (Let me specify that I only participate in or support consenting adult relationships. I feel when I talk about this that I have to make sure no one thinks that I support pederasty.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luxitos (talk • contribs) 04:43, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, you're welcome. :) I don't usually delve into such topics and stick to biology-related articles, but yeah, I guess I was frustrated at how badly the article was being "whitewashed", as you called it. It's still not finished and is missing quite a large chunk of the history during the Theban Hegemony, but I honestly probably will never work on that again. Especially since the rewrite was started on a not-so-pleasant basis. I'm proud of what I've already done, but I'll leave someone else to fill that gap in the future. Thank you. :) And sorry for the very late reply. I contribute to Wikipedia sporadically nowadays. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 09:41, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Drawing of Kim Jong-un

Do you draw well? If so, we could really use your skills. Please see this. Many thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:58, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Kinda. But only as a base skill. I'm horrible at drawing real people, unfortunately, since I'm a 3d artist primarily. So that's a no for this particular case. Sorry. :( -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 01:14, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

A nice mess now

http://www.contributionstozoology.nl/cgi/t/text/get-pdf?c=ctz%3Bidno%3D8304a04 Shyamal (talk) 05:59, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Nice. :Thank you :) I'll start updating the Hylarana articles when I get the time. I'm out of town at the moment.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 22:26, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Hmk. I think I updated all that needed updating, the Hylarana article itself, Hylarana aurantiaca and Hylarana temporalis. Not sure about the actual number of valid species now, so I just counted the list LOL. The paper says 84, but it does not clarify if this includes the new 7 species it also describes. But I guess that's good enough for now.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 03:01, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I've dealt with the images in Commons as well. It seems we have no images of Hylarana temporalis at all. All of the images previously used were from the Western Ghats, which definitely excludes them from H. temporalis.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 05:07, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

The identity of the images left is still tricky - now that several new species are established. S D Biju edits occassionally (cannot recollect the user id though) hope he can fix some. Shyamal (talk) 06:33, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Yep, I figured. Since some of them look nothing like the rest. For the meantime, I grouped them all under the Commons:Category:Hylarana aurantiaca. If he does come along or you remember his username, tell him to look there. Cheers.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 11:44, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:SathyabhamaDasBiju Shyamal (talk) 07:41, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for November 25

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Flower urchin

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DYK nomination of Trimma nasa

Hello! Your submission of Trimma nasa at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Nikthestunned 17:04, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Ugh, sorry about the template, figured it'd be shorter. Also, I've not been around DYK for a while so feel free to tell me why I'd an idiot . Nikthestunned 17:05, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Same here, LOL. No need to template me or anything. :P Anyway my mistake. I apparently linked the wrong paper in the cite. The title and everything is correct. It's just the url that's wrong (since I copy paste the ref templates from a temporary working area). Correct paper is here. Cheers, and thanks for the review. :) -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 20:10, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Proposed move

Hi Obsidian! I just proposed that Lumpers and splitters be moved to Lumping and splitting. If you have a minute, I'd love to get your opinion on my proposal. Thanks! – voidxor ^{(talk | contrib)} 01:03, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Trimma nasa

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:03, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the snail genus article Pollicaria!

Dear Obsidian Soul, I wanted to thank you for the nice new article on the land snail genus Pollicaria. It was a pleasant surprise to find it in the list of new gastropod articles. Invertzoo (talk) 22:06, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

A Gastropod Barnstar This beautiful Gastropod Barnstar is awarded to you, Obsidian Soul, in recognition of your pleasantly surprising the gastropod project with a very nice new land snail article, which you created without being asked!

Thank you. And thanks for going over it. ^^ -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 02:32, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

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Trimma caudomaculatum

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DYK for Flower urchin

The DYK project (nominate) 02:06, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

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Ref desk

Hi, I saw you've popped back in to the ref desks a few times recently. Thanks for you help! As you may have seen on the talk page, there are a few people grumbling that we aren't doing a good job. So, recalling that you've given good, serious and referenced answers in the past, I was happy to see you participating recently. I look forward to your future contributions! SemanticMantis (talk) 15:50, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. :) I probably still won't regularly join in though. But if it's something I know about, I'll try. Cheers. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 18:26, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Trimma tevegae

Mike V • Talk 06:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Padil

Hi OS. I should have said g'day ages ago, because I come across your Aussie work quite frequently, so thanks! What brought me here today was this. According to the source page linked from that image, the images in Padil are cc-by-3.0-au. Can you fix any related uploads (or let me know what I missed)? Thanks. [BTW great to have those images on wiki!] --99of9 (talk) 04:50, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks and will do. There's only a handful of them I think. Cheers. :) -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 12:49, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

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Ludwig Heinrich Philipp Döderlein

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DYK for Austracantha minax

Harrias ^talk 12:02, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Spanish language in the Philippines

Re this edit -- my error; thanks. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 06:43, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Ah, cool. I was worried it was by one of the anons and there might be other undetected errors in the text, hence the edit summary. Cheers.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 19:20, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Cebuano language

You are a gifted and well-intentioned editor, but Wikipedia is not a Berlitz Academy. Quis separabit? 20:00, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm guessing you mean that in the sense that you think language articles should be restricted to a single paragraph, with the exception of those you consider important enough perhaps? English maybe? I'm sorry but no. That is NOT a valid reason nor a policy. If you meant WP:NOT#DICTIONARY, you better re-read that then, because it doesn't say what you think it does. Have a look around at the better language articles (e.g. Nahuatl, Mongolian language, Navajo language) and compare the topic coverage. I don't even actually understand your Berlitz comparison. As far as I can tell, it isn't actually teaching you how to speak it (that would take a book at least). The article is currently overdetailed, yes, as has been tagged. But not to the extent that you apparently think. Find an actual reason or just help in fixing it (when I get the free time in a couple of weeks maybe, I'll be doing that myself, as I seem to be doing more and more these days. FML). -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 23:09, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

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Thank you

...for creating article: Legend of the Christmas Spider!  —Just wondering, were you prompted to do this by my post: Talk:Cultural_depictions_of_spiders#Ukrainian_Christmas_spider ?  ~Eric F:71.20.250.51 (talk) 08:11, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi. I actually decided to write a quick article so I could disambiguate between it and another article I had just finished: Austracantha minax (which are also called "Christmas spiders"). But yes, I did see your post and used the sources you found. :) Cheers -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 10:07, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

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PhilWiki Community User Group

May we invite you to join the Community. Please sign up if you would like to be part of this new User Group. Thank you. --Filipinayzd (talk) 03:29, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not really very active these days, so I'd have to decline. If you need help from a Bisaya though, just ask.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 02:54, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Not a problem. Most of those who have signed up are from Bicol. We are group of individuals who are also active offline in promoting Wikipedia. Where are you based? --Filipinayzd (talk) 02:54, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Mindanao. :) -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 13:34, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

File:Gros Michel Bananas.jpg listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Gros Michel Bananas.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Peripitus (Talk) 12:04, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Tiktaalik Reference Images

Hi, first and foremost I wanted to congratulate you on your fantastic contributions to the wiki. I hope you find the inspiration to continue being active on the wiki for many years.

That said, I was wondering if you have by any chance any reference images you could provide of your Tiktaalik sculpt. I've been looking for an orthographic views (non-posed top, bottom, side, front, etc... views) of this species to no avail and yours is the best model out there. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.39.245.237 (talk) 16:36, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi. Apologies for the very late reply. I was out of town. It's been a while since I worked on that model (and I never finished it, someone else just kindly retouched it to remove the background). I've found some of my old reference pictures and WIP images (some of them orthos) when I was working on it, but I've forgotten where I took them from (one is from a journal article I think). I uploaded them here: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Please note that a several of these images are not mine. So don't incorporate them into any of your final images. Just use them as references. And lastly, do note that the fossil is incomplete. We don't really know how the tail looks like (including the pelvic fins), hence why few reconstructions show it. I just based mine on the closest relatives of Tiktaalik, as well as fish from similar habitats. Good luck, and thank you for the kind words. :) -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 02:39, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Image Request

Dear Sir,

Hope you are doing well.

I am writing from Dorling Kindersley's office in Delhi. We are a part of Penguin Random House group.

One of the projects that we are currently working on is a book entitled "Rocks and Gem".

We wish to use images of "Palaeochiropteryx" on one of our spreads and we were wondering if we could use pictures of it from your collection.

We have really liked an image on the following link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaeochiropteryx#/media/File:Palaeochiropteryx_Paleoart.jpg and we are really keen on using the image in our book.

By supplying the image you grant us the right to use the image in all editions in all forms of the work (including digital products based on the work) in all languages throughout the world.

We would want print quality high resolution image at 300dpi.

Many thanks for your time and attention.

Thanks and Regards, Sumedha Chopra Senior picture reseracher — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sumedha.chopra (talk • contribs) 07:11, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Gros Michel Bananas.jpg

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Gros Michel Bananas.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. – czar 23:03, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Ah. Good work on finding a replacement. Thanks.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 23:09, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for September 11

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Mandel potato listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Mandel potato. Since you had some involvement with the Mandel potato redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. -- Sam Sailor ^Talk! 12:55, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I like cookies

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Quis separabit? 14:22, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Re: AN/I

Whether they are doing it intentionally or not doesn't matter. Even generally, it doesn't really matter. It can be considered a form of refactoring, which is against guidelines per WP:TPO. I recommend a self-revert and, again, just indenting for them. Thanks. Amaury (talk) 00:05, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

No it is not. WP:TALKNEW#fixformat and WP:TALKNEW#fixlayout. I refuse to do the work for him when he's doing it precisely so I would be forced to. I'm already close to boiling point as it is. Feel free to do so if you wish, and thank you in advance.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 00:10, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It might be worth taking a break from that, then. No need to make yourself unnecessarily frustrated. Amaury (talk) 00:15, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Yeah. I need one. Thank you for the reminder.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 00:20, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Aiko Climaco

Hi. How are you? No hard feelings, I hope. Just reviewing the Climaco AFD, and noticed an interesting anomaly -- your keep vote crediting @RioHondo's rationale. Funny thing is @RioHondo did not participate in that AFD (see [2], [3]); it's a puzzlement. Quis separabit? 11:14, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

This is just... sad. Go ahead reopen a third stalking accusation. I'd actually welcome it if you do by this point. I obviously misread User:Bearian's name and assumed it was still User:RioHondo as I was going down the Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Philippines list. I similarly misread User:MelanieN's name as "Michelle" in another AfD I also participated in at around the same time. One which you aren't involved in, I might add. I have astigmatism and don't always wear my glasses. Now go away please. I don't like liars. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 17:27, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

"To err is human, to forgive divine." Bearian (talk) 20:51, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Quis separabit? 19:42, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

ANI Notificaion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Paco Arespacochaga and Aleck Bovick AFDs. Thank you. Blackmane (talk) 23:18, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Article upgrade assistance request (Pre-translation stage)

Seasons Greetings,

This is in reference to a relatively new umbrella article on en-wikipedia named Ceremonial pole. Ceremonial pole is a human tradition since ancient times; either existed in past at some point of time, or still exists in some cultures across global continents from north to south & from east to west. Ceremonial poles are used to symbolize a variety of concepts in several different world cultures.

Through article Ceremonial pole we intend to take encyclopedic note of cultural aspects and festive celebrations around Ceremonial pole as an umbrella article and want to have historical, mythological, anthropological aspects, reverence or worships wherever concerned as a small part.

While Ceremonial poles have a long past and strong presence but usually less discussed subject. Even before we seek translation of this article in global languages, we need to have more encyclopedic information/input about Ceremonial poles from all global cultures and languages. And we seek your assistance in the same.

Since other contributors to the article are insisting for reliable sources and Standard native english; If your contributions get deleted (for some reason like linguistics or may be your information is reliable but unfortunately dosent match expectations of other editors) , please do list the same on Talk:Ceremonial pole page so that other wikipedians may help improve by interlanguage collaborations, and/or some other language wikipedias may be interested in giving more importance to reliablity of information over other factors on their respective wikipedia.

This particular request is being made to you since your user name is listed in Wikipedia:Translators available list.

Thanking you with warm regards Mahitgar (talk) 05:19, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Mahitgar (talk · contribs), Hi, sorry for the very late reply. I was taking a bit of a wikibreak. Anyway, I'm not exactly sure what you're asking for. I'm guessing it was for help in finding RS for ceremonial poles used in my particular culture. However AFAIK, there is none in the Philippines. The closest I can think of are the carved wooden anito. But like the Polynesian tiki, they originated from apotropaic carved houseposts in Proto-Austronesian cultures, IIRC, and thus aren't exactly "poles".-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 14:14, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:09, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Merry Christmas and happy new year

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Merry Christmas and happy new year. (:

--Pine^✉

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