User talk:Jwinius/Archive02

References vs External links

You have been taking numerous listed references, which were used in writing articles, and lumping them under external links headers. I just wanteed to mention that there -is- a difference between something used as a reference and something that is merely an external link for further reading. Not all references need have a direct footnote attached for them to be a valid listing. -Dawson 16:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey there, Dawson! True, that's what I've been doing. However, I believe that all of the actual references used should somehow be associated with the relevant parts of the text. Otherwise, with so many authors contributing, how are we supposed to know what goes with what, or if the contributers have actually been doing their homework, so to speak? Besides, all of those references were also external links; otherwise I'd put it in Other references. Anyway, I'm not yet finished with those articles and, as I've done in the past, I'll try and figure out what bits of information go with which external links and turn them into cited references if possible. You're welcome to help out if you want. --Jwinius 17:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Haro, I've been out of the loop for a while. :) But anyway, generally speaking, the links to EMBL/ITIS could be cited for the taxobox reference, since that is pretty much all the information those sites provide. Still, a reference is a reference, even if you can't pin point it to a line of the article. An external link is an external link. -Dawson 18:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, you're correct: a reference is a reference, even if it's an external link not directly associated with any part of the text. However, I feel that's a rather vague way to create a reference; with just a little bit of extra effort, we could do so much better than that. Also, except for a few notable sites (ITIS, IUCN, MAVIN) and the odd scientific paper in PDF format, I don't normally like to use external links as references if I can help it. How do we know those people did their homework? --Jwinius 18:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Pit Viper pit organ sensitivity

Ah.. I see you have corrected my edits with regard to the sensitivity of the pit organs... obviously my source was one of the ones that mis-quoted your more original source ...... I guess thinking about it, 0.003 centigrade differential sensitivity would be rather over the top and produce too much 'noise' in the system to be useful to the snake. It would be interesting to compare the pit viper organs with those of the Boidae which I believe are along the jaw line. regards Doctorpete 08:37, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

The numbers quoted earlier didn't look right to me. What I found looks better, but I'm not entirely happy with that either -- it's just the best I can find for now. I've been meaning to completely rewrite the entire Crotalinae article for a while now (the same goes for Viperidae); hopefully, I'll get around to it this year. A number of boids have heat-sensitive pits between the upper and/or lower labial scales. However, it seems there are also boids without pits that are nevertheless able to sense heat; apparently, heavily enervated tissue just under the labial scales is responsible for passing this information on to the brain. --Jwinius 12:22, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Crotalus tortugensis

Yes, you did a fine job with Crotalus tortugensis. I like to see at least something under 'external links' so that a user has some other site to look at; besides, I wanted to show that a picture was available because none was on the Wikipedia page. Thanks,Stepp-Wulf 02:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC).

Well, I'll just reformat the link then, if you don't mind. --Jwinius 10:25, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Crotalus tigris

On 21 May, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Crotalus tigris, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Good work on these articles. I disagree with the styling, which in my opinion violates WP:MOS, but I will leave it. Good work. Aquarius • talk 01:19, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but as far as the styling is concerned, I offer an explanation here, on my home page and at the top of this page. As they say, Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible. --Jwinius 08:39, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Vipera berus

Thanks for taking the time to improve the flow of the disputed passage. I think you've done a very good job on the article so far, which is why I approved it as a good article. I don't want this dispute to turn sour. My view is given in full on the talk page, and in the absence of further independently verifiable evidence from reliable sources, will not change. Can we put this to rest? Regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, hey, no hard feelings. I'm very grateful for your recognition of my efforts, which does make this dispute somewhat awkward from my point of view, so I hope you don't get the wrong idea.

It's just that, in writing so many of these viper articles, I've often put considerable effort into painting a completely fair and accurate picture of the potential threat posed by these animals. On the one hand you have to make clear to enthusiast snake keepers not to underestimate the dangers involved, while on the other hand you have to make clear to the general public not to overestimate them. In order to satisfy both sides, you have to do your best to keep things objective and scientific. That's why I think including a reference to this particular German newspaper article can only serve to confuse matters: it's just not science. However, if you really feel that strongly about it, I suppose that the statement is currently formulated in such as way that we can let it stand. --Jwinius 14:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. See you around! Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:31, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Dilute Russell's viper venom time

Regarding your last edit to this particular article, it sounds like you and Jschowin may be more familiar with this subject than I am. However, what you claim to be the case is somewhat at odds with the cited reference. Nevertheless, I'd be more than willing to leave your edit uncontested as long as you supply a clear reference: a book, an article in a journal or even a web page. But, please don't leave it like it is now: so many Wikipedia article contain inaccuracies because people do not cite their sources. Besides, the way things stand now, it looks like we're saying the cited reference says something that is does not. --Jwinius 17:13, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I actually intended my last edit to be entirely consistent with the reference. The title of the reference article is "Antiphospholipid syndrome", which is a syndrome caused by the presence of antiphospholipid antibodies. The source is clear the dRVVT is a sensitive test for Lupus anticoagulant, a subset of antiphospholipid antibody syndromes which are defined by their ability to prolong phospholipid-sensitive clotting tests, like dRVVT. Both the previous text and your change are accurate - the test is directly sensitive to phospholipid levels, which is why it is ALSO sensitive to the presence of antiphospholipid antibodies (which bind phospholipid and prevent it from facilitating clotting). Read the full text of the reference again - if you still don't think it supports what I wrote, let me know and I will give it another try. -Rustavo^{Talk/Contribs} 18:14, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I am a pathologist working at Johns Hopkins Hospital and I interpret coagulation studies everyday, including dilute Russell viper venom tests, which is a sensitive screening test for the presence of antiphospholipid antibodies. Lupus anticoagulant is just another term for antiphospholipid antibodies, which is used when the occur in the setting of systemic lupus erythematosus (aka lupus). Perhaps editing of this field should be left to persons with medical degrees. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jschowin (talk • contribs) 04:11, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Antivenom

A little cheeky putting some dummy edits in the antivenom page, guess that will stop me from moving it back anytime soon. Its a tricky situation but most places are now using antivenom (might take a while for the dictionaries to catch up), even the Americans appear to be using it more and more now, i.e. you changed The Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Antivenom Bank to antivenin whereas its correct name is actually antivenom [1], Cheers Mr Bungle | talk 23:47, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The reason I come down on the other side of the argument is because I like to be conservative in these things; to err on the side of caution, so to speak. Having said that, I think it would be an excellent idea to include in the article an explanation of the alternative spelling, mentioning the WHO's POV etc., since It's clearly important for many people -- something that should not be ignored. However, I dislike seeing Wikipedia to be so progressive on these issues; who are we to decide for the public in such cases? I mean, even if the academic world is split on the matter, the dictionaries still don't recognize the term, so using it for the article's title is still too progressive, too controversial. Yes, I suppose it was somewhat disrespectful of me to add the dummy edits, but if I hadn't done that I was sure someone would change it back without giving the matter another thought. But, I'll tell you what: if my arguments have failed to convinced you, and you manage to persuade an administrator to rename the article for you, I'll be disappointed, but you'll get no more resistance from me as long as you include a fair and reasonable explanation in the article for the controversy that surrounds the terminology. --Jwinius 01:26, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Komodo dragon

Could you please help review the article for its FAC? Also, I'd also like help expanding the lead section, seeing that you are an active member in WP:AAR. bibliomaniac15 ^{BUY NOW!} 03:35, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

After browsing through this article, I noticed a few ways in which it could be improved:

• The content could be reorganized into more obvious sections, such as Description, Geographic range, Behavior, Feeding, Reproduction, etc.
• Any descriptions of general characteristics could be moved to articles for higher taxa, such as Varanus and perhaps even Autarchoglossa. It's a typical mistake among Wikipedia editors to not use the taxonomic hierarchy for this purpose, which leads to repetition and inconsistencies in the specific articles.
• Add missing parts of the taxobox: subphylum (Vertebrata), suborder (Autarchoglossa), and a list of synonyms. That last one may not be easy, though, as you'll need a checklist for lizards, which may require a visit to an academic library.
• Add missing references for the various common names.

Finally, I'm happy to see that just about everything in the article has a reference, except that I would caution you to not use too many web references: they're not always that accurate and they may also disappear, leaving you without a reference. One exception to that rule is that you might want to add a link to this page -- ""Varanus komodoensis". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. 19 June. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)" -- which will give you a reference for your taxonomy. Hope this helps! --Jwinius 10:07, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. I shall see what I can do to fix it up. bibliomaniac15 ^{BUY NOW!} 01:22, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Echis

Yeah, I have a reference. It's an article from a Mormon magazine. Here --> http://www.meridianmagazine.com/sci_rel/000609serpent.html As for the chest height thing, I swore I read that somewhere. Just remove it. I'll re-add it if I ever find a believable reference, which as you said is unlikely. Abyssal leviathin 21:04, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Re:Conservation status

Hi I used a Smithsonian Ins. Book my friends making up the citation when he gets a chance. I know you can't just go around putting w/e up. Im curently in school to become a zoologist. When its up ill send you a message.

Writing articles like these is all about being very careful about what you read and write, and then always adding a reference so that everyone can see where you got the information from. You have to be tough on yourself and not cut any corners. If you are, you'll not only be making positive contributions, but you'll learn the truth about what you're researching. If you're not, others will be tough on you, and maybe all your work will be for nothing. Understand this, and you'll be on you way to becoming a real scientist. Good luck with your studies! --Jwinius 23:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I understand and sorry if I sounded snappy at all. Rough day. Anyways, I was going back through the book, turns out that the book is WAY out dated and uses its own C.S. system that doesnt work with the IUCN's. Im going to back and fix up the stuff that hasn't yet. Thanks for the luck, its alot of stuff to stuff into one person. Thanks again and im on my way to fix it now. --IvanTortuga

Snake scales

The article has made it GA. I would like to thank you for your support right from its inception till its GA review. Thanks. Your contribution equals mine. Regards, AshLin 22:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations! You did the real work, though -- I only made some suggestions. Just don't ever let this kind of thing stop you from making continued improvements to the article as you learn more. --Jwinius 22:51, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The Amphibians and Reptiles Portal (P:AAR)

The Amphibians and Reptiles Portal I'm glad to announce that The Amphibians and reptiles portal (P:AAR) has been created and is ready for you to use. This portal covers any subjects related to amphibians, reptiles, herpetology, as well as WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles. Purposes of the portal to act as the "main page" for editors interested in amphibians and reptiles. The portal page should contain all the common and useful links to relevant articles, lists, categories, as well as the project tasklist. As this portal is your tool, please feel free to organize, modify, or expand the Topics, Categories, Lists, and Tasklist sections of the portal as you see fit. to lead potential AAR editors to WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles as well as to educate general readers. Feel free to add more items for the "Did you know..." section. Thank you for reading. If you have any questions, please leave them on the portal talk page or my user talk page. --Melanochromis

--Melanochromis 06:23, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Common Name of Trimeresurus gramineus

Hi Jaap,

This snake and I live in the same part of the world. We know it as the Bamboo Pit Viper. I can give you the oldest and newest references I have and they too list this name and no other:

• Khaire, Neelimkumar. A Guide to the Snakes of Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka.(2006) Indian Herpetological Society, Pune, India. (Rs 200/-) (A photographic guide with 61 spp). (Ref - pg 114-115)
• Smith, Malcolm A. The Fauna of British India, Ceylon and Burma (including the whole of the Indo-Chinese sub-region)Vol III - Serpentes. (1943).Taylor & Francis. London. (Includes 166 figures). (Ref - pg 515-517).

The same common name is used in Romulus Whitaker's Book and JC Daniel's books which are at my home in Pune. I have never heard of the common names mentioned here. I suggest that these may be removed and 'Bamboo Pit Viper' placed in lieu. Logically a common name should be in actual use to be mentioned and this particular spp of Trimeresurus is found only in peninsular India. So an international author quoting a supposed common name holds less water than the local lists and references.AshLin 05:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Ashlin! I'm sure that you're right about bamboo pit viper being the most popular common for T. gramineus. Before last night, I'd never heard of Indian tree viper either. That's why I'm glad that you've supplied a few references for bamboo pit viper, because the only reason I placed Indian tree viper before common bamboo viper, was because the latter has no references. (Beyond that, I feel that it's only important that the most popular common names get listed up top).

I found this new common name and many others in the back of a book that I've had for a while now (Mehrtens, 1987). It turns out that the index of common names near the end of the book lists more than just the names mentioned in the text. I found a whole bunch of them there that I had never heard of before, including for many subspecies for which we didn't yet have any common names. This kept me at it again for hours and hours... :-) --Jwinius 10:51, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

For acceding to my request for Bamboo Pit Viper to figure in the first line of the article ;-), I place this image at your disposal. Enjoy.AshLin 13:37, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

That's a nice picture. Thanks, AshLin! However, I do have some news for you on this topic. It seems that many recent publications now prefer to use the term "pitviper" as opposed to "pit viper." If this turns out to have become a trend within the herpetological community, then I guess we ought to follow suite or give priority to those names whenever possible, i.e. "bamboo pitviper" over "bamboo pit viper" (if we have references for both) and to use "pitviper" in the text instead of "pit viper." --Jwinius 14:53, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

No wlinks on synonyms

I noticed that on 8 July 2007 you removed the wlinks from the authors on the synonyms in the taxobox in the article Agkistrodon contortrix. What is the reasoning behind that? --Bejnar 17:12, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure you want to do that? I'd rather not set a precedent, since there are so many synonyms -- 635 for the true vipers category alone. Also, have you seen articles like Daboia and Vipera berus? That's not to say that I haven't thought about it, but also I always felt that wikilinking those names would give them more credit than they deserve. For example, notice how many nonsense names a certain Mr. Reuss contributed to the synonymy of Vipera berus. Finally, if you're going to start wlinking those names, are you actually going to finish the job, or are you just going to do a few and then leave it to somebody else to finish the job? --Jwinius 18:02, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I had comprehensively (throughout the English Wikipedia) linked Baird and Baird & Girard. I was in the process of comprehensively linking Seth Eugene Meek when I found that your were removing links. (Of course, care had to be taken with Meek because of the paleontologist Fielding Bradford Meek.) If you meant to comprehensively identify and link all zoologists, the answer is no, I do not intend to do that. Many main entries still lack linking for zoologists with Wikipedia articles. I intend to link those zoologists and botanists whose articles I do work on. As to your "give them more credit than they deserve", such links only work where there is an article on the person, and that should occur only when the person is notable. I do not intend to create redink links. --Bejnar 20:51, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

It's okay. I very much appreciate your help in linking the names of those zoologists/herpetologists in the viper articles -- just not the ones mentioned in the synonymies. If you know of any more links for the names that I'm missing, you're welcome to add them... just try to avoid making any redundant links. Dawson started a list of these names on his user page, which I've also been adding to. Thanks to you, I've added Seth Eugene Meek to it. --Jwinius 23:42, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Regarding use of Common Names

Hi Jaap,

Nothing at all. I just felt in the opening statement about a species, its common handle may be used for better presentability. This does not affect the fact that there are other common names. As per WP:MOS the opening para is supposed to summarise the article. So including the prominent common name in the first line is not something objectionable. In most articles, you would find the common name figuring in the opening line. So whats wrong with that here?

As far as giving equal treatment for all names is concerned, is there some kind of inequality here if we use the commoner one? I've informed you about the actual practice on ground in the country it occurs. I've also given you just two of possibly many references. I've never heard of the other names at all - so how can they be common? I agree that I may not have heard about them - I have not edited them out or taken any action at all towards them. They continue to figure in your common name list.

Is it your contention that all the common names deserve equal weightage? That would be true if we had no way to see the ground situation. Since I've given you a feedback (with references) about the situation in India about Indian snakes, surely there is some weightage to that! Well, Daboia russeli is found in other countries but I thought that Russell's Viper would be the common epithet in all countries.

If you feel so strongly, go ahead and revert the edits, but I do not see where I have gone wrong. BTW my main motive was to improve the readability, so even if some other english name is used, the aim is still achieved. However I believe that the common names I placed in the opening sentances for Daboia russeli and Trimeresurus gramineus represent in reality the commonest and most widely used names so I placed them in the opening sentance: in other words - it was a good faith edit to make the opening sentance better, which I felt I was entitled to as an editor. If you disagree please revert - I will not contest the point.

Well, as far as my overall work towards snakes is concerned, I would love to do more but I've got two killing projects on hand the 1000+ spp of Indian butterflies and 10,000+ spp of Indian moths - so I edit on snakes very occassionally mostly to place images I have - I sorrow over the state of Indian Cobra and many other articles, but I'm fully focussed on Lepidoptera at the moment.

In good faith, AshLin 17:59, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

See my reply on your talk page. --Jwinius 23:23, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages placed in Categories

Hi -- is there a reason for placing a disambiguation page in a Category? For instance you placed the Congo disambiguation page in Category:American pit vipers by common name. I thought a disambiguation page was supposed to hold no content and to just be a pointer to the content, which implies that such a page shouldn't be in a category. Wouldn't it be better to have an article called 'List of American pit vipers by common name' which has entries such as:

• Congo — Agkistrodon piscivorus

linking to the articles under the scientific name? I removed the category from the Congo disambig page thinking someone must have accidentally pasted the category into the wrong page, and then I thought, perhaps it was deliberate and I've upset an accepted practice I'm not aware of? Regards, Rexparry sydney 04:43, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Why, was it doing any harm? If I can't add the category link in question to the Congo disambiguation page, I'll be forced to make a Congo (snake) redirect with the same category link in order to achieve more or less the same result. That would seem like a unnecessary workaround to me. Besides, if, for example, you were to add an entry like "Baby rattle" to Rattler and add a category tag for "Baby toys" along with it, what reason would I have to complain? --Jwinius 11:11, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm relatively new to Wikipedia so I don't know if the issue has been debated before, but I can think of a couple of reasons to avoid doing it. One comes from the categorization and organization of information: a disambiguation page is not a member of the sets of which its linked articles are members, i.e. the Congo disambiguation page is not a category of American pit vipers. The second is practical: it creates unnecessary double or two-step links to information where a single link already exists, and if widely done would fill up categories with alternative names and duplications making it harder for neophytes to see what the distinct members of the category are. To use your 'Baby rattler' example, the category 'Baby toys' would contain the article 'Baby rattler' as well as 'Rattler' and someone clicking 'Rattler' thinking they are getting a different article will find that all they get is another page with lots of (to them) irrelevant material which just takes them back to 'Baby rattler'. I think that the alternative you mention, creating a Congo (snake) redirect with the same category link is preferable in one way because for the user it's still a single link, not a double link; however it does mean the article is in the category twice which I'd rather avoid and that's why I would go for a list article ('List of [all possible names of things in this category]') set up as the main article within a category. This can give all the names on one page and lets the user see what all the distinct members of the set are and what are their various and alternative names. But that's just me; I'm happy to see what others think. Regards, Rexparry sydney 04:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

On the other hand, you could say that a disambiguation page is a member of all of the categories to which it is linked; in this case I just happen to be the first person to add a category tag to it. Unnecessary two-step links? The whole point of a disambiguation page is that, if someone goes looking for an ambiguous term, it will give them a list of more specific choices (Rattle? What kind of rattle do you mean?). It may or may not be useful to add the 'Rattler' disambiguation page to the 'Baby toys' category; all I'm saying is, "Why should I care?" My only interest is that the 'Rattler' page also carries the 'Rattlesnakes by common name' category tag, which I believe is useful. Finally, in my opinion it's even preferable if people who, e.g. browse the 'Rattlesnakes by common name' category and click on 'Rattler' end up on a disambiguation page that shows them that 'Rattler' can mean many different snakes and things. --Jwinius 13:21, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Templates

Sorry, I don't know much about templates - they came on board after I became an administrator, and I haven't caught up. - DavidWBrooks 20:58, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Adder (disambiguation)

I don't agree with the step you took at adder of removing most of its content and merging it with adder (disambiguation). Now adder is a hybrid article/disambiguation page, which is out of keeping with the Manual of Style.

I would, however, agree with moving adder (disambiguation) to adder and what was at adder to adder (snake). Would you endorse that approach?--Father Goose 22:43, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Although I admit that Adder in its current state is not a typical disambiguation page, the only reason I can think of that supports your POV is the paragraph on etymology, which by itself is rather insignificant. Other than that, I removed the table of "adders" that I had been building up previously after I realized that it would probably not be complete until it included almost every existing viperid species. That's why I opted to replace it with an explanation instead, which I think does a pretty good job of explaining the situation. There are also examples of similarly complicated disambiguation pages, e.g. Congo. I understand what you mean regarding the Manual of Style, but I don't think that in this case rigorously following it is the best solution, since adder is a very common term that is not only used for snakes. If anything, Adder should remain a disambiguation page and the snake info should be moved to "Adder (snake)," but then we'd be left with two, even smaller articles. --Jwinius 23:09, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

The length of a disambiguation page shouldn't be a concern; I've seen ones that are two entries long. I'd recommend just making viper (snake), and since you're the snake expert, I leave you to decide what its content should be. But I still find the article more informative with an incomplete table than no table. Maybe you could just note that it's an incomplete list? This being a wiki, there's always a chance someone else will come along and finish it. Mark it as a stub.--Father Goose 01:06, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

In this case I do think that length is a concern (81 entries), but more importantly I fail to see why creating and maintaining such a list would have any merit. My point is that "adder", like "viper", is just too much of a general term -- something I should have realized earlier on. Actually, have you seen the Viper disambiguation page? That's pretty much the same situation, only with a little less explanatory text for the snakes. --Jwinius 12:08, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

If it makes you feel any better, I could move much of the text in "Adder" to Viperidae. That way we'd be left with a section that would look a lot more like Viper#In_animals. --Jwinius 14:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

That's acceptable. I performed the move, along with some copyediting. However, looking at those three paragraphs in Viperidae, I immediately felt, "this ought to be in Adder (snake)", so I created that page after all. I'd say that page has a purpose addressing the informal term "adder", without trying to be a fully-blown taxonomic entry. It may or may not be a good idea to link to it from Viperidae or Viperinae.--Father Goose 17:59, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

That's not entirely what I meant, but we'll leave it like this. --Jwinius 18:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for humoring me.--Father Goose 20:46, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Category:Elapids up for merge/delete

Hi Jaap,

Please look at [[2]]. Perhaps your inputs required here!

Regards, AshLin 03:55, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Category:Viperidae

How would you recommend reconciling Category:Vipers and Category:Viperidae? Yet another Polbot category ... -- Prove It ^(talk) 05:12, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, you just created that, but I see what you mean. Apparently, User:Quadell is not happy with the taxonomy being used for the main viper section and created a number of articles on 29 July. I'll have to discuss this with him. Thanks! --Jwinius 11:13, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

It seems Quadell and his bot have developed a reputation for large-scale and haphazard article creation. I'm against this sort of thing, because it means a lot of clean-up work for myself others who are trying to work systematically. --Jwinius 16:10, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Your revert on Crotalus polystictus

Regarding your revert, I would like to note that the formatting adds little of value to the reader and just clutters the appearance of the page. Furthermore, listing the common names in that floating space above the body of the article seems simply odd to me. I might also point out that it is marginally uncivil to revert a good faith edit without discussion. Please endeavour to exercise a greater collaborative spirit in the future. Chromaticity 16:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Chromaticity! Sorry, but you're not the first one to make those kind of changes to these articles. I know the formatting is a little weird, but it's intentional; it's something that I developed for this entire series (Viperidae) as a mechanism to deal with A.) the many common names that exist for many species, and B.) the fact that some people just can't seem to spot the common names quickly enough when they're part of the introduction. In my view, it's also a good way to clear the introduction of a lot of pointless babble. Furthermore, not mentioning the common names in the text is a good way to prevent repetition, as well as yet more petty squabbels regarding exactly which common names should be used over and over again in the text. For examples of what I hope the article will eventually look like, see Vipera berus or Crotalus adamanteus. There are many, many more. So, I'd be grateful if you could humor me and let things stand as they are. --Jwinius 16:39, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_August_11#Category:Cannomys

Thought you might be interested in this... -- Prove It ^(talk) 01:24, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Not surprised at all. Once again, the problem is with Polbot's input data. --Jwinius 01:59, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Lycodon extinct?

Hi, Lycodon jara, a pet of mine, has its genus missing from your List of snakes. Please post me details of the tragedy :-( . Regards, AshLin 17:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and I see that you've even worked on an article for it. Judging from your images and the fact that Lycodon is listed over at the New Reptile Database, this snake is obviously not extinct. However, it's not mentioned anywhere in the ITIS database either; not even as an invalid name. In such cases I'd normally turn to my copy of Snake Species of the World vol. 1 (SSotWv1) and look up the name to see if the ITIS people forgot anything, or (more importantly) to see if it's now listed as a synonym for something else. Unfortunately, the Colubridae are not listed in SSotWv1, and v2 is still a work in progress. In my view, it is likely that Dr. McDiarmid (the author of the book) and his colleagues have relegated Lycodon to the synonymy of another genus, but the question is: which one? This sort of thing happened with many species in SSotWv1, but since nobody has the synonymy for v2 except Dr. McDiarmid, I can't answer the question.

This does pose a problem. I've been trying to get everyone to use the ITIS taxonomy for snakes for a while now, but the truth is that it's not really complete and therefore has its limits. For the snake families that are not in SSotWv1, we could use the NRDB instead for the time being, but that taxonomy is full of inconsistencies, so I'd rather do that only as a last resort. It's kind of a Catch-22 situation.

Well, maybe not. The question is, how often can we expect this sort of thing to occur? You see, if it doesn't occur too often, I can compile a list of problem taxa and simply ask Dr. McDiarmid what to do with them. As you can imagine, he's a busy man, but so far he's always answered my questions (although it can take a while). I can also speed things up a little by using my PC to compare data from the ITIS and NRDB systems to find all the differences. Why don't I do that, you let me know if you find any more names like Lycodon, and I'll let you know you long this list gets? Keep watching this space. --Jwinius 20:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, we can forget that idea. According to ITIS there are currently 328 snake genera vs. 464 according to the NRDB, or a difference of 136. This difference is so significant, that I can only image it's because Dr. McDiarmid still has many genera to add to the ITIS database. In other words, until SSotWv2 is published, it doesn't look like we will have much choice but to use part of the taxonomy provided by the NRDB. Luckily, only a few families are missing from SSotWv1. This is how it looks if you compare the two online taxonomies by family and the numbers of genera that they include:

Family	SSotWv1	No. of ITIS genera	No. of NRDB genera
Acrochordidae	Y	1	1
Aniliidae	Y	1	1
Anomochilidae	Y	1	1
Atractaspididae	N	12	12
Boidae	Y	8	19
Bolyeriidae	Y	2	2
Colubridae	N	175	304
Cylindrophiidae	Y	1	1
Elapidae	N	61	60
Loxocemidae	Y	1	1
Pythonidae	Y	8	-
Tropidophiidae	Y	4	5
Uropeltidae	Y	8	8
Viperidae	Y	32	36
Xenopeltidae	Y	1	1
Anomalepididae	Y	2	4
Leptotyphlopidae	Y	4	2
Typhlopidae	Y	6	6
Total		328	464

(Note: the NRDB includes the Pythonidae as a subfamily of the Boidae: the Pythoninae.)

Judging from this overview, it would appear to be relatively safe for us to go ahead with ITIS for the families Atractaspididae and Elapidae, even without the synonymy, since in this respect the two probably do not differ that much. For the Colubridae, however, it looks like we have no choice but to use the NRDB as a taxonomic source until SSofWv2 arrives. So, I guess I'll soon be modifying List of snakes accordingly. --Jwinius 02:05, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll be watching to see how this issue develops. Don't you think these organisations should give some kind of disclaimer or work in progress message so that all of us know whats done and reliable and whats not. Regards, AshLin 03:08, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

In an ideal world, perhaps. But in reality, I guess they expect us -- as professional herpetologists specialized in snakes! -- to simply be aware of this sort of thing. Besides, who else could possibly be interested? --Jwinius 10:51, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Update: List of snakes has been expanded with data from the NRDB and Lycodon is now included. Please inform me if you find any more problems with it. --Jwinius 15:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

See Anal scale and Brille

Hi Jaap,

Check out the images. Whats the things under the anal scale visible in the rat snake image.

Regards, AshLin 13:58, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Check out that anal scale! Is that normal? If so, it looks to be the animal's most colorful attribute. I like the eyecap picture and caption too; very effective. Cheers! --Jwinius 14:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Cant say, only caught two till date. BTW got my second Lycodon jara, a feisty little biter yesterday. Regards, AshLin 14:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Doh! Upon closer inspection of the anal scale picture, I see that the colorful bit is simply the soft flesh under the anal scale, around the cloaca. I don't know why it's so red, though; it's not what I would expect. The actual anal scale is above/before it (to the left); it's the same color as the other ventral scales, although it's clearly divided. --Jwinius 16:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

British English required at Echis carinatus

Hi Jaap,

We're in commonwealth territory with Echis carinatus so British English spelling applies here. The spellings glare out at me for correction! As Wikipedia policies articles about things in British English regions should be in that form. Please comment. Regards, AshLin 15:03, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, okay: suit yourself. You may make the necessary corrections and I will submit to your country's tradition in this matter. :-) --Jwinius 15:23, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh yes, its viviparous. Do you have a new reference for this factoid. Regards, AshLin 15:05, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not factoid, but I understand your problem with it: I've wrestled with it myself. Many publications only state that certain species are "viviparous", even though this is imprecise. Perhaps it sounds better to them. However, the fact is that all snakes that give live birth are actually ovoviviparous, meaning that they still produce eggs, but that in these cases the eggs develop within the body of the female and are eventually born alive when it's time for them to hatch (to be sure, they break through a membrane instead of a shell). Remember also that there is no placenta involved. Anyway, the question is what to do about this situation. IMO, the best solution is simply to correct the publication's author by replacing "viviparous" with "ovoviviparous", but you may also choose to redirect to viviparous to ovoviviparous, although that may be confusing to the reader. Whatever, I figure it's only a small adjustment. --Jwinius 15:23, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

You know, the world of science for all of its exactness, faces exactly this problem. It has to do with velocity of transmitting change in ideas. Either ideas are so new, or so different that its much simpler to stick to an inexact older version than to even try an approximation of the truth. So we have the planetary model of the atom, the old theory of the evolution of the earth. No school child I have come across is even aware that the earth is theorised to collide with another world to create the moon, or that some of our water has an extraterrestrial cometary origin or that the extinction of dinosaurs was most likely caused by a meteor impact, or that the world had green oceans and red sky which thanks to the blue-algae became oxygen to breath and rust safely deposited as layers! Oops so sorry for the long datribe, but I had a regimental dining in today which involves drinking six fingers of neat rum at a time for as many times as required! So I dont quite have control of my senses, so as a good Bombay Sapper, I'll just wish you a very good night! AshLin 19:20, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

:-)) Not that I would advocate drinking quite so heavily, but it sounds like you're my kind of guy! --Jwinius 19:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Reptile scales or Lizard scales

Hi Jaap,

I've some material for lizard scales, but enough for a stub only. Crocodilians also would have some material forthcoming. Don't know about testudines. So should we have reptile scales or scales for each group?

Regards, AshLin 15:38, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Ashwin,    One thing that I've become convinced of is the value of the systematic approach. Thanks to you we now have a snake scales article, but even though you may not have enough information at the moment to produce articles on lizard and crocodile scales of a similar depth, it is a fact that all reptile scales are to a degree similar. Hence, to avoid repeating ourselves it would be more efficient to begin with a central article on reptile scales before anything else. Part of the snake scales article could be moved there, which would leave it with only information specific to snakes. The same philosophy would later be applied to articles on lizard scales, crocodile scales, turtle scales, etc. Eventually, each of those could have little satellite articles dedicated to the individual scale types, just as with the snakes scales article. Obviously, we're going to be busy here for many years to come.  :-)   --Jwinius 17:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Common names

(cont'd orig. conv. on Derek.cashman's talk page)

Congrats on the GA. No loss of information with the new lead. Shyamal 04:07, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The "new lead"? You don't really believe he was being serious about that, do you? I mean, who would notice the common names that way? IMO, it looks (looked) more like an invitation for me to rewrite all four lead sections, because he didn't feel like doing it himself. --Jwinius 12:24, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Hydrophis

Ok! Shrumster 15:20, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up! Familiarized myself with the current systematics of the Elapidae. Quite a refreshing read, actually. As a systematist, I'm not much of a snake guy. :P I fixed the other Hydrophis species articles as well! Shrumster 16:11, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Chrysopelea ornata

Hi, tried out your snakeskin here. Any suggestions? AshLin 19:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Mainly it's a very good effort: at first glance, it looks like one of my articles! :-) However, it's different from my usual layout in a number of ways:

• It starts off with more adjectives (rear-fanged, gliding) than I would use. I like to use the first sentence for taxonomy and distribution only. With me, the intro would probably end up like: "Chrysopelea ornata is a colubrid species found in South and Southeast Asia. This snake is unique in that it is capable of a type of gliding flight. It is also rear-fanged. Currently, 3 subspecies are recognized, including the typical form described here." This would be followed by a taxonomic reference (ITIS or NRDB) for the species.
• The order of the subsections is is a little different in my articles.
• "Footnotes" and "References"? Sounds like the same thing to me, even though I don't think that was intended. I use "Cited references" and "Other references", although I'm starting to think that may not always be the best choice either.
• The Description section starts out with the article title. Remember what I said about using common names in the text? Much the same goes for using the scientific name in the text: usually not necessary, since the article is monographic.
• A table for the subspecies with a column for geographic data would be good: readers will be interested in seeing where the different races can be found.
• A common name is used for the taxobox title, which kind of defeats the purpose of the snakeskin philosophy, since that selects one common name over the all others that were just listed (why?). For lack of anything better, I just repeat the article title here.

By the way, this new idea of indenting the initial list of common names like a dablink is something Tim Q. Wells came up with. It's okay, I guess. What do you think: is it an improvement? --Jwinius 21:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is anyway not the true first section of the lead. Indenting makes it resemble a centralised header, so it brings the names more to attention while allowing the first sentance to look like a first sentance. Also, might seem less objectionable to the 'purists'. AshLin 02:22, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: References

This is covered in wikipedia's guideline for citing sources (WP:CITE), which covers the general formatting for the individual citations, as well as where to put them and what to name that section. There's no real set rule, but most articles that I have found either put sources in a section called 'references' or 'notes' (for 'footnotes'), though I prefer simply calling them 'references', as it's the format that I've used in scientific papers that I've published in the past. In my experience, footnotes are used in some journals and publications to put short lists of references at the bottom of each printed page, and then the references would be listed in alphabetical order at the end of the article. This, IMHO, doesn't seem to apply to wikipedia, since it's not a printed page, but a single web page; individual printed pages are irrelevant, and a single list of citations at the end is sufficient. But I've noticed that there are some that like to hang on to their precious footnotes (usually, the wikipedians that tend to be in the english/"grammar nazi" crowd), so I generally don't complain at those that do. I've found articles to be split almost 50/50 between the 'references' and 'notes' formats.

Regarding making a large number of repetitive changes, I would recommend looking into using AutoWikiBrowser, which is a semi-automated wikipedia editor that makes a lot of these repetitive tasks a lot easier. Cheers! Dr. Cash 17:57, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Blood python articles

I'm afraid I disagree strongly with your decision to reclassify the three species of short-tailed python back to subspecies of Python curtus. I did check out the ITIS pages, but I have it on the authority of one David Barker (renowned herpetologist and blood python breeder) that they were elevated to full species status in 2001, and I have a reference for his article and I believe I added one or at least an external link for his and his wife's site. A growing number of professional and amateur herpetoculturists, myself included, also classify each snake as a full species. Also, yes, I'm absolutely sure the picture I submitted of a red blood python is a brongersmai rather than a red curtus. Curtus is black or very dark brown, hence the common name "black blood python." 68.119.40.31 20:25, 14 September 2007 (UTC)Inthesun

Sorry, but the taxonomy is the correct one. It may very well be true that somebody published an excellent paper in 2001 regarding the reclassification of the P. curtus subspecies, but we (I) don't want to be forced into make the decision about that sort of thing. The problem is, what happens when someone with a competing view shows up? There's nobody here who's qualified to make those decisions, but even if there was it wouldn't matter. That's why the Wikiproject Reptiles and Amphibians decided last year that it would be safest for us to follow an authoritative third party instead. ITIS was selected because it's the most complete and most authoritative taxonomy currently available for snakes. Any new taxonomic developments are mentioned in the Taxonomy sections of the various articles, after which the idea is to wait to see if they eventually make it into the ITIS database. If I notice any errors or obvious omissions, I notify ITIS and eventually things get corrected. Regarding the images, I'm not sure what the problem is. Right now, the image of the dark specimen is in P. c. curtus, while the red one is in P. c. brongersmai, so what's wrong? --Jwinius 23:57, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I wasn't aware of a standard upon which the Wikiproject had decided. Regarding the images, I'd just noticed in an edit where you questioned whether the image on the brongersmai page was in fact a brongersmai instead of a red curtus. It is a brongersmai, although I believe the image on the curtus page is a breitensteini. 68.119.40.31 02:47, 16 September 2007 (UTC)Inthesun

Thanks for understanding. Taxonomically speaking, there are plenty of things that I'd like to see changed as well, and eventually I think they will change change, but right now the coolest thing is that it all works (no conflicts!), and that's got to be worth something too. As for the images, we're always short of those and there are plenty more that I'm not too sure of either. Typically, people will donate image without saying exactly what they think they were looking at, or where they took the picture. And if my own library offers no help, I'm left to guess about what it is like everyone else. Perhaps you could help out with this, and maybe with some other python images as well. If so, I'd really appreciate it. --Jwinius 11:15, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Dablink formatting

Hi Jwinius,

I'm glad you like the formatting, and am impressed at the large amount of articles you formatted. I'm sorry I couldn't have helped more.

One way we could solve the disambiguation-link problem is similar to the way the article 307 it is formatted where it just adds more on the same line:

This article is about the year 307. For the aircraft, see Boeing 307. For other uses of this term, see 307 (disambiguation).

Only in your example Pythonidae it would look like this:

Pythonidae and python refer to the snake. For other uses see Python (disambiguation). Common names: pythons.

but that way the common names might not be noticed by some readers, even with the bold format.
We could place the common names first like this:

Common names: pythons. Pythonidae and python refer to ...

I have also seen situations where it takes more than two lines like this (slightly different from the one in the page history):

Pythonidae and python refer to the snake. For other uses see Python (disambiguation).

Common names: pythons.

although it still could look a little awkward. Also, I'm sorry about the delay in replying. I haven't had Internet access recently. Happy editing, Tim Q. Wells 05:03, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Tim! Good to hear you've got your Internet access back. I like your last example best, although I think we could probably get away with deleting the "Pythonidae and python refer to the snake" part, since with a clear image of a snake in the taxobox it's rather obvious what the article is about. The current situation seems stable, so I'm hoping we won't have to resort to this kind of thing for now, but it's good to have an alternative. Once again, thank's for your support! --Jwinius 10:36, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

RE: Common Names

I do like how you admit you violate official policy when you name articles. However, I don't like that you single-handedly decided to move several pre-existing articles to their scientific names, without so much as a post for a proper discussion.

If you want to affect WP Policy, do so through the proper channels. Making wide-spread changes, without discussion AND in violation of official policy is bullying your position, not arguing it. Jhall1468 03:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Greetings ball python fan! Judging from your contributions, I assume that you keep one or more of these little guys at home. I used to keep snakes too -- lots of them! -- but although I've always admired P. regius, I never did get around to keeping them. At the time (the 1980s) I was concentrating on king snakes and hog-nosed snakes. Eventually, I didn't have any room for anything else and even ended up selling many odd specimens, such as a really stunning Mexican king snake (L. alterna) simply because I didn't have a mate for her. I guess I was being systematic.

That's the issue here, too. It's nice that you feel attached to this one article, but I'm more concerned with the big picture. As opposed to many other Wikipedia topics, the main problems with the snake articles has been that most contributers focus on single articles and only seem to interact with other people when they fight about names. I've always wanted to change that, but it's difficult to get people to talk to you when they are not there, or hardly ever show up, and I don't have the patience of a saint either. Over the past 18 months, my answer has been to develop a common format and apply that to all snake articles: it started out using only pre-existing ideas, but, as you've noticed, it has obviously been modified somewhat. Yes, I know the naming conflicts with WP:TREE, but so does the entire botany section; they've mostly stopped using common name titles for exactly the same reasons. Sticking to scientific names has solved and continues to solve many taxonomic issues: I fixed more than a few in the python series alone.

If there are things you don't like about the changes I've made, we can talk. However, this format has already been applied to over 350 snake articles, so changing anything is always very time consuming. I'm sure improvements can be made, but there's uniformity is also important. --Jwinius 13:55, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Reverting good faith edits without discussion is poor form. I'm using a layout similar to that of the Cane Toad and other WP:AAR articles that have become featured articles. It may be frustrating to have to revert 350 snake articles, but the issue at hand isn't about ease of edits, but proper form. The article that you reverted was a good faith edit, and more importantly, removed your violations of WP:LEAD. Again, your enthusiasm is great, but you can't run around making controversial modifications to articles, often in violation of standing policies, and then revert them when someone brings them back into proper policy. Jhall1468 16:27, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

My apologies if I ruffled your feathers, but I mean no harm. I want only to improve Wikipedia's snake articles as a whole. You're right, I could have started discussions for each one of the python articles I recently revised, but chances are that would have taken a very long time, since almost all of the previous contributions to those articles are from IP addresses and accounts with very few edits. Also, with so many people interested only in only one or a few articles, it's likely that a consensus would never be reached. Yet, the articles still need to be improved.

Regarding the P. regius article, I've explained why I don't follow WP:TREE and WP:LEAD, but actually most of your recent changes to the article have nothing to do with conforming to those policies: the section layout, the taxobox image. You also removed the reference for the common names, which has left other references broken. There was nothing wrong with any of that. As for the formatting I use, despite the alternative lead section there are now four snake articles with this format that have GA status, so although I may have strong opinions it's not like I'm alone in this (the dablink style for the common names wasn't even my idea).

I'm always open to suggestions, but right now all I see is a voice of protest from an account with very few edits offering no new solutions. --Jwinius 18:34, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

How about this solution; always put a move template up on a page you want to move, say why you want to move it on the talk page (a longer version of the language you've been using as a move edit summary, including an explicit statement that you make the argument in detail on your user page would work), and wait a few days. If no-one replies in three or four days, or if you get those who reply to agree with you, THEN you move the page. You might even, slowly, page by page, convince enough editors that the amphibians and reptiles project policy becomes scientific names for article pages. But moving articles, against Tree of Life and Reptiles and Amphibians WikiProject suggestions, without even warning editors of the specific pages, is unlikely to convince people. Personally, I think that species specific articles are rarely the best way to go, and that we should work on family and genus articles, having redirects from species names unless the species is particularly important or well known (food, pet, and critically endangered species come to mind). Because, really, from an encyclopedic standpoint, much of the information is the same inside a genus. Enuja (talk) 22:00, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like good advice. Of course, I considered posting move notices before, but I didn't think that only a few days would be considered reasonable. I was thinking more in terms of weeks (!), which would have slowed me down way too much. On the other hand, I've totally revised (and often moved) so many snake articles in the past few months without receiving any protests, that I got used to thinking that people were happy with the results anyway (I still have no reason to believe otherwise). And let's face it: until recently, the python articles were an almost complete mess and I had no grounds at all to suspect that anyone felt a particular responsibility towards any of them -- just check the article histories. Most contributions seem to have come from IP addresses and accounts that rarely contribute to the snake articles. User:Jhall1468 is no exception: he still has less than 100 edits (the last was mid June), seems to have concentrated much on that one article, but has left very little to show for it. Nevertheless, he must feels like he owns it. You know, I can throw that "Good Faith" argument right back at him: my revision and new article format had been in place for almost two weeks before he decided to intervene. Within an hour, he had left various protests and given the article a completely new format (nothing like the old one) before I had had a chance to respond. My first reaction was to revert his act of vandalism, but he's proven rather difficult to deal with. As far as he's concerned, the reasons I've given for departing from the WP:TOL and WP:LEAD guidelines, which were good enough for four different GA reviewers, are simply not good enough for him, and I should undo about 10,000 edits and 18 months of work. Yeah, right. Looks like I'm just going to have to be patient on this one. --Jwinius 00:09, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I certainly think a few days for move notices is very reasonable. As soon as you start approaching a week, I get concerned that the notices are just sitting on top of the articles, making non-editing readers doubt the content for no reason whatsoever.

Please avoid labeling anything other than obvious vandalism as such, and I don't see any evidence that Jhall1468 is acting as if he owns the article. It appears to me that you and Jhall1468 simply have a good faith disagreement about the best way to organize snake articles.

I'm not suggesting that you go back and change again all of the articles that you've moved (that would, again, be editing without waiting to get consensus), nor am I suggesting that you start creating new articles at species' common names. I think the fact that no-one has complained about your recent moves just means that most of those articles have been essentially abandoned, not watched by anyone, open to vandalism without being reverted, and likely to stay that way. Which means that your improvement of the articles is really, really important. On your talk page and above here you make clear that you currently have a fairly lonely position. Simply edit in complete awareness of your lonely position, convincing others as you go (no more edit summaries blandly stating your opinion as a fact), and I think everyone will simply be very happy that you've done so much useful work.

On the naming issue explicitly, I suggest that being a very common pet species makes the naming issue different from other species that are not as often pets. Cat is at cat, not at Felis silvestris catus or Felis catus, and as there was, indeed, a recent edit war about the appropriate scientific name, I don't know if even you would want domestic cat at one of those names. When you look at fishes, the official common names are actually more stable than the scientific names (I believe I read this in Nelson's 2006 edition of "Fishes of the World", but it doesn't appear to be on my bookshelf any longer). For all groups of organisms, I think that common name is extraordinarily relevant for that handful of familiar species that are used as pets, food, and are charismatic endangered species. How about altering your policy to use scientific names for most species, which are those that aren't fantastically familiar to most people and will have mostly biological instead of mostly human use and social information on their article pages? In a way, it would actually be consistent with a certain interpretation of the existing policies, because it's only a few species that have really unique and really widespread common names. Enuja (talk) 00:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

You're very perceptive. Do I feel lonely sometimes? You bet. In situations like these, misunderstood and underappreciated too. But, one learns. Regarding the scientific name conflicts, that's an easy one to solve: agree to use a single taxonomy first (see this AAR discussion from last year). Without that decision, the situation can be pretty hopeless. We (I) selected the ITIS taxonomy for snakes and was backed up by a professional herpetologist (User:Dfcisneros). ITIS may be conservative, but it's the most authoritative taxonomic source for snakes there is (just right for WP). Now I can always defer to their authority and the arguments disappear (e.g. #Blood python articles). If I spot any obvious errors or omissions in the ITIS online database, I contact them about it and eventually things get fixed. Only then do I change the WP articles. Cheers! --Jwinius 02:07, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Typhlops trinitatus

You added: Known only from the type locality on the island of Trinidad, although it is known from many locations on the island of Tobago to the T. trinitatus article. This seems to contradict itself - either it is known only from the type locality, or it isn't. Guettarda 05:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps there may be a slightly better way to phrase that, but the statement is correct. What I was trying to say is that the snake is found mostly on the island of Tobago, even though it was first discovered on the island if Trinidad -- at the type locality -- but has never been found anywhere else on that island. Thanks for the notice. I'll try again. --Jwinius 08:43, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, now I see what you were saying...that in Trinidad it is only known from the type locality. Guettarda 12:35, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikiquette & a new WikiProject Snakes

Please be polite on talk pages and avoid criticizing users personally. It might be appropriate to take a short break from Python regius and let everyone's emotions settle down; this one article isn't worth this much grief.

You don't appear to be a big fan of WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles, so I have a suggestion. How about making a WikiProject Snakes as a daughter project to WP:AAR? I know this would be a lot of work, but I'm willing to help out. People do a lot of pointing at guidelines, so instead of saying on your talk page that you have your own way of doing things, it might be easier to simply create a project that has its own way of doing things. Personally, I'm pretty sure that very, very few snakes have one single English common name, so I'd be willing to agree that the snake species articles should all be at their scientific names. One reason I'm suggesting this is that the snake editors specifically seem to agree with you that scientific names are better, but, of course, this approach could backfire and lots of pro-common name editors could populate a WikiProject Snakes. Enuja (talk) 23:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Take a break from Python regius? You bet. WikiProject Snakes? That sounds like it could be an interesting idea. IIRC, this was suggested once before, but rejected in light of the then recent creation of WP:AAR. However, even back then we knew we were destined to ignore the other AAR subprojects based of our earlier differences of opinion regarding the WP:TOL guidelines. If WP:Snakes is created, the question is who would come crawling out of the woodwork? I'll think about it (watch this page). --Jwinius 23:53, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Help from your software & a reference

Hi Jaap,

Can I request some input from your software for drawing synonyms.

My requests are basically for snake articles I have illustrated, to which I proposed to add the snakeskin as I move along :-

• Amphiesma stolatum.
• Naja naja.
• Chrysopelea ornata.
• Lycodon jara.
• Eryx johnii.
• Xenochrophis piscator.
• Elaphe helena and E. hodgsonii.

I have recently got a copy of Whitaker & Captain, and my collection now stands as follows :-

• Whitaker,Romulus & Captain, Ashok. (2004) Snakes of India: The Field Guide. Draco Books, Chennai. (i to xiv, 479pp, 4 front- & rear-page plates). ISBN 81 901873 0 9
• Smith, M.A. 1943. The Fauna of British India, Ceylon and Burma, Including the Whole of the Indo-Chinese Sub-Region. Reptilia and Amphibia. Vol 3 (Serpentes). Taylor and Francis, London. 583 pp.
• Daniel, J.C. (2002). The Book of Indian Reptiles and Amphibians. Bombay Natural History Society and Oxford University Press. 238pp. ISBN 0-19-566099-4

Some great news. Malcom Smith, being pre-independence, has crown copyright rescinded to PD. User:Shyamal confirmed this by email from HMSO (I think). So I'll be able to add line-diagrams of the scale pattern of a large number of snakes. He's done a monumental work on snakes of India, Southeast Asia and China in that volume.

Oh, another request, would it be possible to get your hands on a PDF of Wüster's new genome based recharacterising of Naja naja into many distinct species?

Best wishes

Regaeds, AshLin 04:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Ash! I designed my little helper programs primarily to extract taxonomic information, along with authority names and years, from ITIS webpages, after which it constructs a skeleton article with snakeskin layout. Tropidophis would be a good example, but without the synonyms, common names (except those from ITIS), Description info, and Geographic range info: I have to fill all that in myself. The contents of the taxobox, lead section, various section headings, the contents of the subtaxon table (without geo. range info), See also, and External links (with the NRDB link) are all created by the program, which is a Perl script. I also have another program for creating pages like List of typhlopid species and subspecies from ITIS data (without the common names).

Regarding synonymy, I've always filled all that in manually from Dr. McDiarmid's famous 1999 checklist (SSotW1). I never bothered to extract much information from the NRDB pages, not only because they use a different taxonomy, but also because their HTML code is less predictable and therefore more difficult to parse. Perhaps extracting the synonymy from the NRDB pages might be a good idea anyway, since it can probably always save some work, but you have to be really careful with it. After all, the NRDB is mostly a reflection of Dr. Wolfgang Wüster's bleeding edge taxonomy, for which he and his colleagues are constantly punching out new species. I suspect that many of them will not make it into ITIS in their present form. So, it's one thing to extract NRDB synonymy and correct it with information from SSotW1 to reflect the ITIS taxonomy, but what about Elapidae, which is in ITIS but not in SSotW1, or most of Colubridae, which is in neither? Sooner of later, respectively, this can get us into trouble. I can imagine creating redirects for NRDB synonyms that turn out to be valid taxa according to ITIS. The same thing can happen with colubrid taxa as soon as more ITIS data for them is published. Of course, we won't have the complete picture until SSotW2 (and probably SSotW3) has been published.

As for your list of species, I could only help you with Eryx johnii (fun: compare that to the NRDB synonymy for it), since SSotW1 does not cover Atractaspididae, Colubridae, or Elapidae; we can expect those in the next volumes. I have no idea how long it's going to be before they will be published.

The books... cool! I should order all three myself. Wüster and Naja naja? What you're looking for is probably somewhere on his website (see above). Gotta go now. Cheers! --Jwinius 13:26, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the synonymy. I shall now build up Eryx johnii over the next few days.AshLin 17:06, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Python regius pagemove

Hi,
just thought I would let you know that the requested pagemove resulted in no consensus: Talk:Python_regius#Requested move. Tim Q. Wells 01:36, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that's good to hear. Cheers, --Jwinius 02:06, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Nice to know you are lurking around comrade Jaap, or should I say citizen ;-) AshLin 05:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's nice to know you're still in good spirits! Yeah, I've been lurking every now and then. And, I've not been entirely displeased with what I've seen, either. For instance, I noticed early on that some miscreant had deleted the entire subspecies table from the Agkistrodon piscivorus article, but after a while Red Cloud saw it and put it back. I also recall that an attentive editor removed some nonsense from the genus table in Pythonidae. Thanks! It took enormous discipline to not do any editing for over a month. However, lurking can be dangerous too, as it can easily lead to editing. Most of the time I've been busy with a server upgrade and a particularly difficult database migration; currently there's a bit of data somewhere that the new system chokes on -- ultimately a bug I should report to the application maintainers. After that, I still have to study for that next Linux exam (LPIC-2, exam#2/2). Suffice it to say that I will check in from time to time, but I won't be doing any serious editing here for the next three or four months. At least, that's my intention, so please don't get me started here again! Cheers, --Jwinius 23:01, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Leiopython

Hi there,

You really ought to be more communicative. Again, your latest edits lack proper references.

Ok, if you think so, then just delete thing I posted!

In particular, where did you get the names "white-lipped python" and "D'Albertis' python" from,...

These are standard common names that are used for ages now! Lots of things in the article are without proper references and actually nobody cared about it yet!

...and why is it false to refer to it as "D'Albert's water python"?

It's quite simple. The name was in honor of D'Albertis and not D'Alberts. The ICZN requires an additional "i" for latanisation of the name, and therefore the common name is also D'Albertis python and not D'Alberts python!

We have a reference for that name, so how can it be false?

Well, perhaps you think every reference is correct, it is not! Sometimes people, even scientists use wrong names or omit valid names and so on.

If the name is simply misleading, explain that in a new Common names section, kind of like in this article.

That's what I thought I did!

Furthermore, who says its occurrence on Normanby Island is dubious? McDiarmid et al. (1999) don't think so.

Roy McDiarmid and the other authors had lots to do with the book. They can not cross-check every reference for each species or synonym anyway. McDowell (1975) stated to assign Bara Bara to the Normanby Island, which is, in fact not true. It's a town on the mainland and the two references given support that as well (apart form Google earth)...

Or are these your own conclusions after reading Boulenger (1898) and Koopmans (1982)? --Jwinius 18:43, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

However, I get fed up with this now. By the way, I have a systematic revision of the genus passing the peer-review process, and there will be lots more to write about this genus and the species described in future...

Cheers, Wulf   --unsigned: Wuschl (talk) 21:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

---

For my original posts regarding this issue, see User talk:Wuschl#Leiopython --Jwinius (talk) 14:03, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

About your contributions to Wikipedia

		The Fauna Barnstar
		To recognise your unique contribution in creating a pocket of excellence in Wikipedia, specifically, wikis about Viperidae. Thank you for setting such high standards and quality of work. AshLin (talk) 13:38, 18 November 2007 (UTC) Seconded here. I had not seen the work on the Python cluster until I bumped into Rooij's Indo-Australian Reptiles - public domain scans available on http://www.archive.org and began adding illustrations out of it. Shyamal (talk) 14:43, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, guys. I had never attached much value to these barnstar things, but what makes all the difference is the people who give it to you. I am honored. --Jwinius (talk) 20:58, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

A wiki dashboard for wiki links!

Hi,

See User:EncycloPetey, he has a dashboard of plants on his user page with neat little buttons telling whether the article is stub/start etc. Thought it a very good idea. For info please!

AshLin (talk) 14:42, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. More than once I've thought of doing something like this, but in my case it would likely end up becoming rather long and require more effort to maintain than it's worth (to me, at least). --Jwinius (talk) 00:57, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Snake needs a taxonomy section

Hi Jaap,

We need a taxonomy section as a major step in rounding off this wiki. Could I request you to consider this task?

AshLin (talk) 12:52, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

You mean like this: Sea_snake#Taxonomy? However, I have major issues with Snake. First, it needs to be renamed Serpentes so that it can better fit in with the rest of the series and Snake can become a disambiguation page (this will likely make the article less attractive to vandals). After all, the article should start out as a description of the suborder and what defines these reptiles. This leads to my second issue, which is that the current version of this article is an incoherent mess with hardly any references -- it badly needs to be rewritten. I did this for Sea snake, but that was a major (10-day) effort. --Jwinius (talk) 14:29, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Pac. Sci.

Hi Dysmorodrepanis! I'm sure you mean well, but what is the purpose of the vague references to "PacificScience61:36" that you recently added to Vipera ammodytes, Trimeresurus and Bothrops atrox? It looks like a reference to a scientific journal; have you found some interesting articles in it? (PS -- Please answer here, as I've temporarily added your talk page to my watchlist). --Jwinius (talk) 11:33, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Ha! I totally forgot: we had a similar conversation regarding Crotalus atrox back in August. I think you're going to have to be a little more helpful with this one, though. I did manage to find this overview page that shows the contents of previous issues of the Pacific Science journal, but it shows nothing yet for volume 61. Will we have to wait for that until next year?

On a side note, I find it very irritating that these scientific journals charge people for access. For even if I managed found your article, it looks like I would not be able to read more than the abstract unless I were to buy a subscription. Now that we have the Internet, it seems to me like these commercial publishing houses are little more than bloodsucking parasites that form a barrier to scientific progress. Why do academics continue to put up with this nonsense? --Jwinius (talk) 14:05, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

This is a paper about introduced Small Indian Mongoose (Herpestes javanicus auropunctatus). These snakes are mentioned more briefly. It says:

In 1910, the small Indian mongoose was introduced to three Croatian islands to control the horned viper (Vipera ammodytes). In the same year, it was also introduced to Okinawa to control the habu pit viper (Trimeresurus flavoviridis). The effects of these two introductions on the local snake populations have not been studied.

The small Indian mongoose was introduced to Martinique and St. Lucia (dates of introduction unknown) to control the fer-de-lance (Bothrops atrox), a venomous species of pit viper (de Vos et al. 1956). Some authors blame (or credit) the mongoose with the extirpation of this snake on those islands (Barbour 1930, Nellis 1989), but it is uncertain whether mongooses actually attack these snakes in the wild. Hinton and Dunn (1967) stated that mongooses are commonly killed by the fer-delance in ‘‘fighting pit’’ shows, but Nellis and Everard (1983) believed that the mongoose usually wins.

References are:

• Barbour, T. 1930. Some faunistic changes in the Lesser Antilles. Proc. N. Engl. Zool. Club 9:73–85.
• de Vos, A., R. H. Manville, and R. G. van Gelder. 1956. Introduced animals and their influence on native biota. Zoologica 41:163–194.
• Hinton, H. E., and A. M. S. Dunn. 1967. Mongooses: Their natural history and behavior. Oliver and Boyd, Ltd., London.
• Nellis, D. W. 1989. Herpestes auropunctatus. Mamm. Species 342:1–6.
• Nellis, D. W., and C. O. R. Everard. 1983. The biology of the mongoose in the Caribbean. Stud. Fauna Curacao Other Caribb. Isl. 195:1–162

Pacific Science is available on BioOne 2. Some universities already have it and together with asking the authors there is a fair chance to get hold of one of these. They had a similar review on the Brown Tree Snake recently. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 20:12, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

The article in the journal Pacific Science that Dysmorodrepanis refers to is:

Hays WST, Conant Sheila. 2007. Biology and Impacts of Pacific Island Invasive Species. 1. A Worldwide Review of Effects of the Small Indian Mongoose, Herpestes javanicus (Carnivora: Herpestidae) Pacific Science - Volume 61, Number 1, pp. 3-16

--Jwinius (talk) 20:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

In birds, we had this one guy adding massive reflists to articles, none of which were actually used. These days, they are generally outcommented as annotations under the ref section, and used at leisure. Everybody wanting to do some significant editing can check these out and pick refs as needed. In other pages I have seen them dropped on the Talk page. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 20:55, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, by themselves I'm not sure your references -- Barbour, 1930, through Nellis & Everard, 1983 -- would be that relevant in these snake articles either. On the other hand, once we have those sections on predator species and can add info from Hayes & Conant (2007), adding these other references may make more sense. --Jwinius (talk) 21:17, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Superfluous redirects

I'm going to assume you know what you're doing (since my biological knowledge is minimal) when you've requested the deletion of a lot of redirects you yourself created. They seemed legitimate to me, but I'll give credit to your knowledge of your specialty and delete them for you. I'm just a little curious as to why, but no need to respond if you're busy. Accounting4Taste:talk 02:15, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

That's okay. Have you noticed the synonymy (list of synonyms) in the taxoboxes? To stay true to the original publications (a few of which can be over 250 years old), the checklist that I got all this information from capitalizes many of the specific names, e.g. "Cobra Clotho", so I followed suit. Nothing wrong with that. However, after I had also made redirects for all these names, I discovered that the capitalized ones sorted badly in our category overviews, and even the checklist does not include this capitalization in its index, possibly for the same reason. I therefore replaced them in the category overviews with lower-case versions, which left the upper case ones hanging around with nothing to do. It's rather like they're misspelled, but it wasn't until recently that I discovered how to have them deleted.

Upper case common names, such as "Bush Viper", are much the same story. I don't use those for the category overviews either, and if they're not in use as redirects, we might as well get rid of them. The current MOS guideline is also to use lower case for common names.

I've got a question for you, though. Do you think {{db-redirtypo}} is necessarily the best tag to apply in these situations? Cheers, --Jwinius 12:48, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree it's not necessarily the best tag to apply; I think the problem is that you'd have to make up your own, something like {{db|Superfluous redirect, deletion requested by creator}}. Once I worked out that what you wanted was to delete your own redirects, everything was fine. I've made a mental note to look out for your tags but if you leave me a note on my talk page and tell me you've created a bunch of requests for deletion of such things, I'll go and delete them for you. Always a pleasure to help a fellow taxonomist LOL. Accounting4Taste:talk 17:31, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much; I'll keep your offer in mind. I've some more of this work to do in the same series, but otherwise there won't be much more than the occasional delete request for upper case common name redirects and some actual typos. Cheers, --Jwinius 18:22, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

If you do a bunch at one go, I'll be happy to help out (even one by one, if that's the way you do it); just let me know what you want done. I'm always happy to help a taxonomist keep things tidied up; I regard it as one of the most valuable human arts. Accounting4Taste:talk 18:46, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

It's a slow process. It would have been easier if I had moved all of these erroneous redirects to a separate trash category earlier on, but now I just have to find them all over again, one by one. I have to to remember the kind of mistakes I made and then look for them. Luckily, the mistakes I'm cleaning up now were not made outside the Viperinae section. I'm grateful for your offer, but except by understanding what I'm up to and performing the actual deletions, I'm not sure that you can help me with this; it's my mess, so I have to clean it up. However, if you like my work and appreciate my motivations (see my [[User talk:Jwinius|user page), it would be great if I could count on your support the next time things come to a head. Cheers, --Jwinius 21:09, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy to help with respect to the message you left on my talk page; frankly, it will be a great pleasure to do something other than new page patrol, which constantly angers people. This is a nice repetitive task that will lower my blood pressure!!! Accounting4Taste:talk 04:09, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I think I understand what's wanted: as a test, I've done the first section (A) of moving the contents of Category:True vipers by taxonomic synonyms to Category:Viperinae by taxonomic synonyms. By hand, and I guess that's the only way it can be done that I know of. Do you want me to try to enlist the help of someone who can write a bot to do this? And have I gathered the nature of the task correctly? Please let me know before I do any more, so I don't make more work for you to undo. Accounting4Taste:talk 04:41, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

That's the right idea. Now there's just another 1,000 or so to go. :-) Of course, a bot would be an excellent solution to this problem, so if you know someone, please ask them. After all this is finished, there will still be the pitviper categories to do, but that's going to be just a little more complicated. The plan is to move most of those articles to Category:Crotalinae, but since that would be too big, we'll also create several subcategories for the larger genera: Bothrops, Crotalus and Trimeresurus. When it's finished, the viper categories will be consistent with the ones for the other snake families and work along the lines of the taxonomy. --Jwinius 14:15, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I went for advice on the renaming task...

Check out Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#I think I need some help from someone who can create a bot; I went and asked for help in automating the task you needed help with. I was referred to a tool found at WP:AWB; if you think this is the appropriate solution, I'll gladly place your name on the list for you to get access to the tool. If you don't think this is the appropriate solution, I'll move to WP:BOTREQ and work from there. I hope this helps; I do think there must be a better way than making these changes by hand!! Accounting4Taste:talk 06:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Good work! I'm for the BOTREQ. Not only because I don't use Windows, but because a bot ought to be a much faster way of doing this. In the mean time, I'm going to create the new pitviper categories and perform a few of the moves manually (not all of this work can be automated). Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 12:26, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Mapepire Balsain

I am baffled by your tag of the article as a CSD R3. See Talk:Mapepire_Balsain. Guettarda (talk) 19:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry. The title of this redirect is capitalized, which is contrary to the latest MOS guidelines. I've replaced it with the lower case Mapepire balsain. I'd don't know of any better way to delete these kinds of redirects. See also the conversation above: Superfluous redirects. --Jwinius (talk) 19:24, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

MOS guidelines? For redirects? What MOS guidelines for redirects? Guettarda (talk) 02:27, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The stuff you mentioned about has nothing to do with redirects - it has to do with the proper place for an article. Other spellings, odd capitalisations, spelling errors - anything that someone might type in either by mistake, or any alternate spelling/capitalisation is supposed to have a redirect. Guettarda (talk) 02:30, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

What I meant was this stuff. It's for names in general, so why not redirects? Besides, wouldn't it be silly to have upper and lower-case versions of every one of these names? Currently I'm trying to maintain thousands of names anyway, which can be a real pain, so at least this way the numbers are kept down and they remain consistent. --Jwinius 03:45, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Bot request handled

Hi there: I just checked and found that a user has offered to take care of the conversion. (I left him a thank-you note.) The only part that would remain after that is to delete the old categories through WP:CFD. I haven't ever done that, but I'm betting there's a way to have them deleted as a batch. Do you want to take care of it? I'd like to see how it's done for future reference, so I'll keep an eye on the process if you handle it, or take care of it for you. Accounting4Taste:talk 05:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to your efforts, it sounds like this little project is moving along nicely! Sure, I'll take care of the empty categories. What I usually do is first see to it that any articles pointing to them are directed elsewhere, and then just replace the contents with a {{db-catempty}} tag. This work will start with updating all the "See also" sections in the viper articles themselves. I suspect that's going to take another full day of work, but when it's finished these categories will be consistent with most of the other snake categories. Cheers, --Jwinius 13:41, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Mapepire Balsain

(Note the capitalization.) Could I trouble you to read the last note on my talk page, follow the two links to other talk pages, and tell me what to do? Whatever is going on here, it's beyond my knowledge of what is the appropriate capitalization for a taxonomic redirect. I have no idea if these individuals are working with you or against you, but I trust your judgment. Many thanks in advance for your kind attention to this. Cheers, Accounting4Taste:talk 17:16, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

This is a name used by certain indigenous people in Trinidad and Tobago to refer to the common lancehead, Bothrops atrox. It's an extremely obscure common name and in a foreign language, so I would not think it worth creating a redirect for, but this was somebody else's (Guettarda's) contribution (in early 2005), so normally I would leave it be. In this case, however, there is also this WP:MOS rule to consider, which says that common names like this one should normally not be capitalized. Does this apply to redirects? I think it does, because, as I'm sure you know, wikilinks are case-sensitive (except for the first letter), so capitalized redirects force people to link though capitalized names -- something we now want to discourage. At the time there were no articles using this redirect anyway, so I elected to give it a {{db-redirtypo}} tag and replaced it with the lower-case version, Mapepire balsain. This seemed like a fair solution to me, so why do some consider this situation unacceptable? Your guess is as good as mine. --Jwinius (talk) 20:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry this slipped my mind. I originally deleted the redirect after reading Talk:Mapepire Balsain and User talk:Jwinius#Superfluous_redirects, and, because if you use the search box then you get to the Bothrops atrox article. Guettarda then asked me about it and after some thought I realised that it should be there. The reason is that because if an editor is writing an article about Trinidad and Tobago and needs to use Mapepire Balsain and then links it, they are left with a red link at best, and at worst they follow up the red link and write a second Bothrops atrox article. An example of this is the Bitis gabonica article. There are several redirects including, Gaboon viper, butterfly adder, forest puff adder and swampjack but not Bitis Gabonica. We also have both Homo Sapiens, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens all of which redirect to human and of course the capitalised ones are incorrect but could well be used in an article. In the link provided above to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Animals, plants, and other organisms you are correct about the "...capital initial letter for the genus but no capital for the species..." but did you see the last line? It says "In any case, a redirect from an alternative capitalization should be created where it is used in an article title." Hope I'm making sense. Cheers. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 01:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Not really, but this is such a minor issue, if Guettarda feels so strongly about this redirect, let's just leave it like it is -- it's not worth wasting any more time on. --Jwinius (talk) 01:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I thank the two of you for coordinating on this situation, which is beyond my scientific knowledge. When you come up with a determination that suits both of you and may require my assistance, I'm at your service; just leave a note on my talk page. Accounting4Taste:talk 01:41, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Can't reply to your emails

Hi Jaap:

Nice of you to pop in like this. I emailed you (it was returned many times) to say your calendar was mailed. Do you have an alternate email address?

Oh..I have a few new species I have not photographed much yet if any at all.

Ovophis pictures:

Ovophis okinavensis, Ryukyu Island Pit Viper and male

> I also notice you added four Porthidium that I had not seen before. > Which species would that be, P. porrasi?

The last 4 are Porthidium lansbergii rozei. For some reason the others are Picado's Pit Viper (Atropoides picadoi) and are misfiled. Up until 1999 they were in Porthidium. And the last Crotalus pictures... C. m. pyrrhus? Yes

Cheers, 20 Jaap

Best regard,

Al Coritz AKA Vipekeeper —Preceding unsigned comment added by Viperkeeper (talk • contribs) 13:33, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Got it. Apparently, your ISP managed to get itself blacklisted by abuse.rfc-ignorant.org, so I've added your address to my server's whitelist. Thanks for the heads up! Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 13:59, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Errant bot

Hi there: Thanks for the note. If you could let me know exactly which changes still remain to be made, I would be happy to contact the bot guy directly. I'm going to be on vacation soon but will still be checking in about daily. Accounting4Taste:talk 07:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I did leave a note for the person with the bot who helped before; I haven't heard back from him. I'll keep an eye on this when I'm checked in over the Xmas season and see if I can move things along. Sorry for your extra trouble, but specifying exactly what you want done was a great thing, makes everything very easy, I think. Accounting4Taste:talk 05:06, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Morelia spilota spilota merge

Hi Jwinius,
There is also Morelia spilota cheynei and Morelia spilota metcalfei. Also, if the article is merged, it might be good to merge this too: [3]. Tim Q. Wells (talk) 22:17, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

No, that's okay. There are separate descriptions for those subspecies, so that's why they get their own articles. It's just the nominate subspecies that's different. In zoological taxonomy, whenever a new subspecies is added to a species that was previously monotypic (no subspecies), the nominate subspecies (in which the subspecific name repeats the specific name) is created automatically. It's simply a tool to help distinguish between the original description of the species and the descriptions of the new subspecies. --Jwinius (talk) 22:30, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense. Tim Q. Wells (talk) 22:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up! Haven't been wikiediting in months but I supported the merge anyway. :D Shrumster (talk) 23:26, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Jaap, I think you have got the nomenclature bit wrong. I was under the impression that you were merging mainly due to the tiny stubs, but if some geographic races of this species are being maintained as a separate article, it makes sense to be consistent and have a super article which gives the overview of all races/subspecies (and covers say hybrids) and the subspecies articles as separate ones. What Viridae says is correct and I am sorry that I did not see what the discussion in the past was about. So it is either merge all (lump) or leave the split alone which is valid and hope that the one line stubs grow in future to something more. Shyamal (talk) 11:58, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

How's that? So far, I've always believed in making separate articles for subspecies (see this conversation). It's just that in all cases I see the species and the nominate subspecies as being the same thing (see my answer to Tim's question above), so it's the one case in which no separate subspecies articles is necessary.

Viridae's problem seems to be that he's always thought of M. spilota as being more like the other subspecies than like M. s. spilota, which is why he wants information on the nominate to be split off into a separate article. But then, what's the M. spilota article supposed to be? A list of subspecies and maybe some general characteristics? I hope not. The species article should still describe a specific organism, in this case what was originally described as Coluber Arges by Linnaeus in 1758, and later automatically became the nominate after various new subspecies were proposed. My position is that only the descriptions added after 1758 that are now considered valid subspecies should have separate articles that describe how they differ from the original description (the nominate subspecies). --Jwinius (talk) 13:59, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

But then, what's the M. spilota article supposed to be? A list of subspecies and maybe some general characteristics? Yes, I am afraid that is how it should be if you want to maintain subspecies articles. The idea of trinomials is to designate sub-populations of a species. So in effect M. spilota is a superset with named subspecies just as the genus Morelia is a superset of the named species and thus the article deals with the general features of all the species concerned. This is the basis of the Linnean system. The species problem as you know is that every boundary is artificial and the concept of species is not about an organism but about populations and thus there is constant refinement based on distribution, nature of gene-flow, purpose of the species definition (eg: for phylogenetic / geographic trends, for conservation etc.). Shyamal (talk) 04:01, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I think I understand your point. When I started writing and organizing these articles and came to the question of subspecies, I obviously decided to make separate articles for them. Well, it may also have been because I was following the existing trend, but when it came to the question of what to do with the nominate subspecies, I opted to leave that information in the species articles for several reasons, most of them practical:

• When the first new subspecies is added to a species, the previous description of the species becomes the description of the nominate subspecies anyway, so why should this force us to make drastic changes to an existing article? It seemed a reasonable compromise to leave that mostly intact, mentioning the other subspecies where appropriate. The articles for the new subspecies were intended only to show how they differ from the original description of the species.
• Many natural history books also describe species in this manner. Typically, the description of the nominate subspecies is the first and most complete, followed by the descriptions of the other subspecies to show only how these differ from the nominate (in coloration, size, scale counts, etc.). The exception I've seen most often is for distribution, which usually starts with a description for the entire species, so I've been doing the same.
• Ideally, every species description should start with a holotype specimen (the organism I was referring to). When new subspecies are added, I don't believe that the original holotype for the species just goes away, becomes irrelevant, or is suddenly meant to represent only the nominate subspecies. So, why not leave the description associated with it in the species article?
• The synonymy and the many redirects for it work well this way. For example, people who look for Coluber Arges and Morelia spilota spilota both end up viewing the same article that describes a snake with the same characteristics. If we were to use separate articles for the nominate subspecies, how would people looking for Coluber Arges, who were redirected to the Morelia spilota article, know to look in the Morelia spilota spilota article for a description of this animal? On the other hand, if we were to redirect Coluber Arges directly to Morelia spilota spilota, to be consistent we'd either have to have no names in the synonymy for Morelia spilota, which would look strange, or mention these names in the species article but redirect to the article for the nominate anyway, which looking even more strange.

It's possible that the above could be taken as excellent reasons not to support subspecies articles in the first place, which, as you suggest, would be more in keeping with the spirit of the Linnean system. At the very least, this would serve to limit the total number of articles and somewhat simplify the synonymies. But I'm fairly certain it would also lead to many complications. For instance, it has been argued that separate subspecies articles should only be created in extremely special cases, but unless we can define extremely special, we will be opening up the door to endless arguments. Furthermore, this would make many articles longer and more complicated (more reasons here). --Jwinius (talk) 15:26, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The synonymies are merely guides to old descriptions - there is often never a 1 to 1 mapping of old names with new names. The circumscriptions can change dramatically. An old species can be determined to be an invalid name, broken into two new species or merged into another species and it is never really necessary to make the exact mapping. I would think that the treatment of a widespread species like the Peregrine Falcon in a single article should be the norm unless there is something substantial to add to the subspecies article. Old synonymies may never need to be mentioned in subspecies articles - since trinomials were introduced only in the early part of the 19th century. Shyamal (talk) 03:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Once again, I believe I understand your point. To a certain extent I already feel that changing everything to comply with your POV (and Shrumster's) would improve things (even though it would probably mean another six months of work). However, as I've tried to point out, within the WP environment I can think of more than a few practical advantages to the current approach, so in my view changing things would only create new problems. Not that it gives me as much satisfaction to say that anymore. --Jwinius (talk) 15:42, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry not to have gotten back to you sooner. I'm afraid it would not be of very much use for me to assert an opinion in this case because, frankly, I haven't got the faintest idea of how to make a decision based on my personal knowledge, which is nil (this issue is so far beyond my limited knowledge that I literally don't understand what you're talking about). I'm sorry not to be of more use with this particular question, although I'd be happy to shepherd the discussion into some sort of dispute resolution mechanism if it's unable to be resolved by the participants. I would recommend Wikipedia:Third opinion except that there seem to be more than two individuals expressing their desires. If there's something I can do to help that's within my abilities, please let me know. Accounting4Taste:talk 20:47, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I quite understand if you'd rather not enter into this debate. However, I would be happy if you were to keep an eye on the discussion and make the final results official once everyone has had their say. Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 21:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I will try to do that, but I may call in another admin if there seems to be something going on about which I am way, way over my head. And of course I know you will appreciate that I must call 'em as I see 'em regardless of our happy working relationship. I don't think that will be a problem, though, because I suspect this will be so incomprehensible to me that I'll call in a colleague... perhaps, due to the serendipity of the subject matter, User:GlassCobra. I do apologize for just not having the background to figure out what exactly is going on, but at least I'll try to mobilize whatever help is required. Accounting4Taste:talk 21:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

That sounds fine to me. Thanks for your help! Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 21:25, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Viper moves now complete

And I'm also sorry that you had to do the work of those merges yourself -- I did get in touch with the bot-master but I don't know why nothing happened. I will see if I can establish a working relationship with someone who commented on the bot page in the future, to see if I can be of more help; I still want to help you if I can. Accounting4Taste:talk 20:49, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

It's the holidays, so what can we expect? It may also be that programming that bot to do what was necessary was more work than we imagined. But, as I said on your page, I really am grateful that you did succeed in recruiting as much help as you did: those are the biggest categories that I wanted to move. Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 21:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Squamata

Could really use your help on this one.--Mike Searson (talk) 14:26, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

To do a proper job, I would have to make one or more trips to the local university library first, since my books don't cover this subject very well, and unfortunately I don't really have time for that now. What's important to remember, however, is that ultimately this article should do nothing more than fill the gap between the article above it (Reptilia) and the ones below it (for the suborders Amphisbaenia, Autarchoglossa, Gekkota, Iguania and Serpentes). In other words, it should repeat as little as possible of the information that can already (or should) be found in those other articles. Instead, what it should focus on is providing a description of what these groups all have in common -- the reason why they were all placed in this single taxonomic group in the first place, i.e. what defines them all as squamates. If I were to write the article, I suppose it would end up looking much like one of the snake articles I've been working on: a short introduction, a Description section followed by Geographic range, Habitat, Reproduction, a short table listing the various subordinate taxa with their respective geographic ranges, and finally (last but not least) a References section. As you can image, this article need not be long at all, and finding the right source material will be half the work. Regarding the taxonomy, I'd follow ITIS, since it's authoritative, modern and online, but you don't have to (I imagine there are alternatives). --Jwinius (talk) 16:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I am in total agreement with you, I feel the article should basically be about the taxonomy sub orders, and those other areas mentioned (diet, reproduction, habitat, endangered status, venom) just go further down the line at the genus or species level. That and I'm getting tired of the venom clade nonsense popping up where it does not belong. I think we should follow ITIS (even though I still disagree about Python molurus pimbura not being recognized) or unless really good documentation proves otherwise(Blue Iguana)--Mike Searson (talk) 17:04, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

If you think Squamata is a mess, do what I did with Sea snake: write a new version off-line and when you think it's good enough, use it to replace the existing article as a "complete revision." Regarding the venom clade, that must be the Toxicofera article. I corrected the venomous snake article earlier today after someone had changed it to make it look as if this was a generally accepted theory. To me the theory sounds a bit simplistic. After all, if you take a sample of human saliva and inject it subcutaneously, you'll also see some toxic effects, such as swelling and discoloration. Not surprising really, since saliva is a digestive fluid. Also, snake venom evolved from saliva (and venom glands from salivary glands), so where do you draw the line between the two? IMO you don't, because before long you'll probably be forced to include them all, since if you look hard enough, I'm sure you'll find that every reptile saliva has some toxic properties.

As for P. m. pimbura, if there's good reason to regard it as a valid taxon, I trust that Dr. McDiarmid will recognize it at some point, after which it will be included in the ITIS database. Has there been any serious support for pimbura since Deraniyagala described it in 1945? If not and e.g. it's just amateurs keeping this name alive because they figure it's a practical way to distinguish a distinctive morph from Sri Lanka, then I don't think anything is going to change. --Jwinius (talk) 18:17, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

On P.m. pimbura, I honestly, do not know. I had a breeding pair and they were very distinct from the Indian and Burmese...in appearance and temper, I bred the female to a male Burmese before I left the "hobby" for a few years. I regreted selling that pair when I did. I do not even know the status of the wild population in Sri Lanka (although I'd bet money that proper DNA studies would show enough distinction for subspecific status and more protection for the local population). Regarding toxicofera, it is extremely simplistic and I believe I addressed venom and saliva in the snake and possibly venomous snake articles; unfortunately shoddy journalism, academics who want to "overturn the system", and personalities looking to make the news... are causing people to believe that cornsnakes, green iguanas, and bearded dragons have neurotoxic venom. (I think I even pointed out that the only source in the bearded dragon article was a link to a junk science article!). Ah well, thanks for letting me vent!--Mike Searson (talk) 18:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, there's nothing like a good rant! Your hunch may yet prove to be correct regarding pimbura, but progress in snake taxonomy has always been slow and I fear it's now possible that many species will be extinct before the professionals can figure out all the relationships. But, as long as those snakes continue to exist in Sri Lanka there is hope. As for sensationalist journalism, that's bad enough, but what I really find offensive is cowboy taxonomy. Read this PDF. Now get this. Back in the 1980s, when I was an editor for what is now the European Snake Society, I met this Australian guy at a herpetological symposium in London. I knew my colleagues back in the Netherlands were looking for a speaker to fill a sudden vacancy on our annual Snake Day, and this fellow not only had a huge photo collection, but he was willing to help us out despite the short notice, so I arranged it. Later on, I did hear a few people muttering stuff about him having a controversial reputation, but at the time I no idea what that was about. Now I'm no longer 100% sure about who he was, but I fear that there's a good chance his initials were indeed R.H. Yup, sometimes the world can seem pretty small. Have a good one! Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 19:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)