Archived at User_talk:Tannin/030301, User_talk:Tannin/030407, User_talk:Tannin/030430, User_talk:Tannin/030516

How do you get the IP & real address info etc you've put on vandal user pages lately? could we make a page to explain who this can be done & link it from the Vandalism in Progress page? -- Tarquin 16:16 17 May 2003 (UTC) (it certainly seems to put the wind up them...)

If you are soo keen on calling labor unions for unions, then who am I to question your judgement? -- Johan Magnus 23:08 17 May 2003 (UTC)

REAL COMPUTER??? I'll let you know I have a brilliant shiny white Mac!!! :-)) Actually they don't know what the problem is. But something is causing a problem and as it is under warrantee and I am away most of next week anyway at my sister's wedding I don't mind. (I'm more pre-occupied with dragging my hesitant brother along to pick up his morning suit. He is being so hesitant I am tempted to guy a top hat too so that he will have to wear one also. (The irony - here I am talking about morning suits while sitting here wearing bikers leathers!!!) lol FearÉÍREANN 04:38 18 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi, Tony. Just a simple question. Is it reasonable to put an MD-88 of Iberia pic in the Douglas DC-9 article? I don't have a DC-9 pic but I would like to illustrate the article. I need your opinion. Thanks, Adrian Pingstone 11:39 18 May 2003 (UTC)

I've taken offense at your reference to a paragraph I placed on anti-Psychiatry as "complete crap". I don't want to start an edit war or such nonsense over that. I knew it was non-encyclopedic when I placed it, and have chosen instead to remove the POV text which provoked my comments.

Thanks for the clarification of your remarks and the kind words for my editing of the anti-psychiatry page. Someone really butchered that paragraph of mine before someone else came along to remove it. I'm juggling so many Wiki-balls that I won't be indicting Nazi psychiatrists in the near future. Nuremburg indicted them plenty fine already. But I did put some citation on my user page. BobCMU76 03:30 19 May 2003 (UTC)

Hello Tannin: sorry to bother you, but maybe you could help me out. I am Andrew User:Vanderesch. I uploaded an image and got it to appear in my short article on Azadirachtin. I would like to have it of a smaller size and placed differently. You have any suggestions. Thanks

There's a 48 hour round trip on a large ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao, Spain which I've done a couple of times which is good for cetaceans so I've seen a few species, and I'll add what I can.

This trip can be good for seabirds, but the summer trips are best for whales etc, while the autumn trips are best for birds. In practice our July trips produced hundreds of Cory's Shearwaters. and few other birds.

I hope you didn't feel you were being stalked when I was following you around the bears a couple of days ago! jimfbleak 15:50 19 May 2003 (UTC)

I've had a look around now. I won't do much now, since I've had a lomg day today, but I'll probably line up Beluga and Sperm Whale as first victims. jimfbleak

re: List of animal names Actually, troop wasn't "wrong", but neither is mob. See the note at the top of the page about different versions and check the web link on the talk page. --Dante Alighieri 00:33 20 May 2003 (UTC)

On second thoughts, I'll leave Sperm Whale, and do Fin Whale, which I've at least seen a few times. It may be a little while since I can't find my cetacean books. Might have leant them to a friend who's done the alternative Plymouth/Santander ferry run a couple of times. jimfbleak

BTW, I couldn't quite ID this slightly blurred image

 jimfbleak 12:48 20 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi tannin, it seems that lately the vandalism attacks on Wikipedia has become more and more frequent and annoying (OK, this is a nice project but it is impossible to babyseat the Recent changes all day). I have found an easy solution to make monitoring vandalism almost transparent:

Making a "white list" of users I trust, and the abillity to filter the recent changes page for articles that have last been last altered by trusted users. So, for example, if the article about Adolf Hitler has been last edited by a non-trusted user, it will show up. but if since then the article was edited by a "trusted user" -- that is a user who is in the white list (Most probably a revert, if it has been vandalised), it will not show up.

Adding and removing a user to the white list should be easy, and done with a click of a mouse in the "Recent Changes" page.

This is better than the feature of sorting the Recent Changes by users (you can know if changes have been reverted), that is currently on SourceForge feature requests. (since july 2002, as it seems) -- Rotem Dan 15:24 20 May 2003 (UTC)

Well, If you decided to add user X to your white list, it doesn't mean that another user did also so (and so the opposite). This could make a list of some 200 suspicious changes (with the filter), for example, for a span of a whole day, that will be very easy to monitor. I didn't mean that it would be a replacement for the full recent changes, just an addition to spot some sneaky vandals (IP changes as well) or all sorts of newbie tests. This is by no means a replacement for peer-review! using your judgement is always useful-- Rotem Dan 15:43 20 May 2003 (UTC)

Some notes:

This is exactly the method successfully used for filtering Junk-Mail e.g. hotmail (In this case, the opposite, attempting to locate junk edits and entries)

It builds a form of trust between users, and as you noted, it is possible that one of the users will break this system of trust (irresponsible edits) but that is exactly the idea of the whole thing.

It encourages users to register because the username provides some sort of "certificate" or "credential", and also to stick to 1 name (though not necessarily)

A variant of this system is that a user will be able to give some rating (0..10) for other users, and to filter the recent changes accordingly (e.g. all changes by users <5). Anonymous users will always get 0. This is somewhat similar to Slashdot's method (though it is a personal choice), I am currently against this, cause I think it is too complicated and creates a sort of hierarchy (In the eyes of each user).

As the number of contributors is getting bigger and bigger, it is geting harder (and boring) to tediously look for the usual junk entries/edits/vandalism. (The same way it's annoying to find legitimate e-mail in the heaps of junk-mail often directed to our e-mail accounts), so a time-saving filter like this seems very useful to me.

If you think this is worth anything, can you please forward this whole thing above to the mailing list for me? (just copy and paste), I am avoiding posting there for a number of reasons. Thanks. --Rotem Dan 19:16 20 May 2003 (UTC)

Tannin, thanks for letting me know about Stupidmoron. He's ok, he knows what he's talking about, he just hasn't quite absorbed all the style issues yet. Cheers, AxelBoldt 15:56 20 May 2003 (UTC)

Tannin, you made a brief comment on the Talk page of the genetic drift article. I think it is about to shift from an edit war to a revert war, and I'd welcome your comments on the two most recent compeeting versions, Slrubenstein

Anglo-centrism indeed!. We can't help it if the rest of the world is out of step. And we're not as bad as the Americans. I derive a certain wicked pleasure from finding articles where it is just assumed that the country is America, and I can add a mordant comment. And our bath water empties the right way. jimfbleak

Thanks for getting back to me. I don't mean to be impatient, but 168 and I have mostly been reverting between two versions, and engaging in what I believe is the most tedious and meaningless debate -- I do not think he understands the basic science, nor does he know how to work with others. Of course, I am sure he sincerely believes the same of me. At this point, I think there will be no progress until other people intervene in some way. Well, I am sure I will appreciate any comment or edit you make, whenever you have the time (my version: http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Genetic_drift&oldid=947916 , Slrubenstein

Thanks for your support on the Michael issue. -- Zoe

No problems with storm-petrel, even I can see the logic of this. I didn't actually realise that Wilson's was southern hemisphere. Since they are a rare but regular visitor to the southwest approaches in our summer (you normally have to take a boat trip to see them) I'd always assumed they where the American equivalent of our storm petrel.

Hobbies are good value aren't they? Mind you, a needletail would be even better (it's a super-rarity here). We have another bird man: see Short-toed Eagle, but another Old-worlder. I've done a couple of American ducks, but only because they have virtually identical European equivalents. Could you look at mallard? As the most widespread of ducks, I wouldn't be surprised if they occurred in Oz (as an introduced pest species?), but I don't know. jimfbleak 05:50 22 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi - Glad to see your comments on my page re flautist, which really should be the term for a flute player - in my opinion! Perhaps we should try to put the word back in - though on previous occasions others have reformatted - redirected to make flutist the "correct" form! I don't see why we can't work out a way of having both, actually. -- David Martland 07:54 22 May 2003 (UTC)

Tannin, could you have a look at Dolphin, and see if you agree with my tentative ID of the imaged species? Thanks, jimfbleak

I've got a slim but very good cetacean guide called, surprisingly, "Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises" by Mark Carwardine, which is excellent for ID in particular (but doesn't have Pygmy Bryde's) It's surprising how difficult something as big as a whale can be be to identify in the field (not the most appropriate word). A huge back rising from the sea at two miles distance doesn't give you much chance before it disappears again.

I recently sold my wife and children into slavery to buy a Leica 77 Apovid, and it's brilliant (the telescope, not the sale). My old Kowa was like looking through bottle glass in comparison. Unfortunately, I know nothing about digiscoping, although many Brits use the Nikon Coolpix with an Eagle Eye adaptor.

I've never seen needletail. Although there are several swifts on the British list, only Common (common) and Alpine (a few each year) are other than extreme rarities. I didn't even see them in Goa, they had presumably left for Oz by January.

Interestingly the dreaded Mallard interbreeds with American Black Duck as well, so it and the two Black Ducks must be pretty closely related. jimfbleak 15:06 22 May 2003 (UTC)

Regarding Zen, it's all right. I just saw a comment you moved Zen to Zen Buddishm, so I just responded. Just go ahead. -- Taku 15:07 22 May 2003 (UTC)

BTW, enjoy your holiday when you go. I've been fairly busy recently, but work is running out now, so perhaps I'll get some birding in soon. jimfbleak 15:16 22 May 2003 (UTC)

You do realize that, from my POV, your bathwater does indeed go up, right? Now we have to find a NPOV for water drains. ;) -- John Owens 18:19 22 May 2003 (UTC)

I went to see a White-throated Sparrow, an American Emberizid, today. Inspired by our exchange of messages, I took my first ever digiscoped image (see bunting). As you can see, it falls someway short of perfect, but since I was just pointing my Fuji 4700 through the 'scope (hand held, no adapter), it at least shows the potential (and there is no public domain pic of this species). My other mistake was to do it on automatic-I think manual is recommended-but it was a last-minute thought, and I just grabbed the camera as I went out. I don't think I've got Uwe Kils worried yet (see albatross if you haven't done so). jimfbleak 16:25 23 May 2003 (UTC)

Kapesh, as in "Go wack Jonny the Snitch, Kapesh?" It may be Italian. It's used all the time in gangster files (like the God Father). It may be english slang. I dunno, maybe it's worht some research if you really care. MB 17:44 23 May 2003 (UTC)

sorry to give the wrong impression with my poorly worded citation. Best. Koyaanis Qatsi

you mentioned you were going to write a fresh article for Hawker Hunter. if you have time, great! if you don't have time, please delete hawker hunter Kingturtle 20:51 24 May 2003 (UTC)

I suggest you read the article List of French monarchs first before you revcert it to something that does not conform to Wikipedia policy that requires NPOV and facts. Jacques Delson 23:06 25 May 2003 (UTC)

Hm. The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that page titles should be case-insensitive by default and whatever case is used to link to an article is the case displayed as the H1 title of the article. So for example

Black-footed Ferret[edit]

Would be at the top of the article Black-footed Ferret whenever [[Black-footed Ferret]] is used to access that page. But,

Black-footed ferret[edit]

Would be the H1 title for the article whenever [[Black-footed ferret]] is used to access the page.

That way the specific capitalization rules that you follow are honored and the general rules of capitalization that everybody else follows are also honored. Everybody wins and nobody has to worry about creating redirects all the time. There would also be a "case sensitive" switch for every article (off by default).

BTW, I think it is a bit funny that I am a trained biologist yet I spend most of my time on history articles while you are a trained historian that spends most of your time on biology articles. Wikipedia is great that way. :) --mav

Hi, glad you enjoyed your break-it sounds good to me. I'm going birding soon, but I look forward to seeing your pics. I've had a little burst at a few of the 50-odd leaf warblers (easy-they're all the same), and made a start on Storm Petrel (oops-European Storm-Petrel).

After a rainy week, it's lovely today. The House Martins are busy at the nest under our eaves, but I'm not sure why there are 4 birds and only one nest. Maybe they have helpers like nuthatches?

jimfbleak 08:13 26 May 2003 (UTC)

I'm back - local birding pretty quiet, a few Buzzards and the odd Hobby. I'm impressed with your pictures, and particulary like the Brolga article. I was reassured to discover it was a crane, since the species name meant nothing to me.

BTW, I tried to move your spoonbill picture to the section it related to, but couldn't stop Roseate, which must come last, wrapping round. I suppose I could just use :[[image:xxx.jpg]], and similar for the larger image, but it seems a pity to wreck your table code.

I just interupted my writing to read an email from my elder daughter. She's doing a round-the-world backpack. Since early April she's done India (3 weeks), Singapore (briefly), Malayasia (mostly travelling through), and is now in Bangkok, Thailand. It's the really exotic places like Oz and NZ next. I wish I'd had the opportunity at her age.

BTW2, I was surprised to discover my "Warblers" book didn't include Oz, although in fairness it says on the cover "of Europe, Asia and Africa".

jimfbleak 10:23 26 May 2003 (UTC)

Thank's for the very kind offer, but, as it happens, Melbourne is the one place in Oz where we actually have relatives. I think her boyfriend is joining her in Thailand, and then they are going to Oz, initially together. They are going to take a camper van up North at some stage, and then he's going on to NZ while she returns somewhere south (he's got work commitments that mean he has to do the round the world bit in 6 weeks, so it's basically Thailand, Oz, NZ and a couple of the Pacific islands for him). Thanks again-it was a very generous gesture. jimfbleak 15:52 26 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi Tannin -- thanks for the help and support. How did you know who Triton was -- and which ex-user is he? Inquiring minds, you know! JHK

Hiya! If you get a chance, could you have a look at Republic of Ireland/temp? I think there may be an edit disagreement pending. One person wants to dump much of the info there in favour of empty links to non-existent articles; not that he shows any sign of actually writing the articles, mind. I guess like so many Irish articles, that would fall to muggins here!!! To be fair he did create one linked article, but it is soooo awful it defies description, with stuff clumsily cut and pasted out of context. I think I am becoming wikied out. For once, instead of thinking " oh goodly. Something else to write!" my reaction was "Ah shit! Well I'm not cleaning up the mess this time. Somebody else can do it for once!" Instead I am here thinking about a newspaper article I must write!

BTW I have heard nothing at all about the sysop nomination since. Curious, eh! Wikilove.

PS: I am in a strange mood. My eMac is playing Irish traditional music (not my normal forte!), I was listening to Mozart earlier, one of Bach's fugues, and a couple of minutes ago Guns n Roses! OK. Time to write that religious article. Or is it the one on gay rights? OK it is early Tuesday morning, it must be the religious one! (Oh God, now the eMac is playng some folk song about chickens in the garden! Aaagh! It is by the Wolfe Tones, Sinn Féin's musical wing! How did anything by that lot of provo-musicians get onto my computer? That's like Saddam Hussein finding he had a George W. Bush screensaver!!!)FearÉÍREANN 03:25 27 May 2003 (UTC)

My middle finger, which I would consider to be of about average size for such an appendage, is just about 9 cm long. Are you demanding an example of another bird, or would anything for scale do? -- John Owens 17:07 27 May 2003 (UTC)

Did you do a Google check? ;) The closest birds on the large side that come to mind would be the chickadee (black-capped variety is the one I'm familiar with) and common House Sparrow (which we usually call the English Sparrow around here), which both strike me as probably being larger. On the other hand, there are of course the hummingbirds, but the more common ones are too small. I'll let you know if I can think of anything between the two sizes, though. -- John Owens 00:33 28 May 2003 (UTC)

Excellent Photo[edit]

Image:Western-Grey-Kangaroo-with-joey.jpg is very clear, and so very cute! So close and big that it looks like you had a kangaroo encounter in your own backyard. --Menchi 14:40 28 May 2003 (UTC)

hallo Tannin!

thank you for your nice comment with the eel story - I would very much appreciate your help in editing, as I come from Germany and my English is lousy - you will like our project with LEO, judging on your background - we put up the project mainly for our cooperations with high schools, where the students build "eel ladders" for the baby eels to climb over dams into the US - that is really fun

best greetings

Uwe

Kils 17:16 28 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi, could you remind me of which page it was that you'd done considerable work on, that I later added a citation to that made it sound as if you hadn't worked on it much? mav came in and changed the citation to reflect more accurately what had happened. I'm asking because I've been chatting with Ram-Man about adding citations to all those pages I imported, but I'd prefer to have the better citation. Thanks, Koyaanis Qatsi 03:38 29 May 2003 (UTC)

History of Australia. --mav

Just seen your message. I took yesterday off to go birding with my wife, Meg. Best birds were Serin ( a small Canary) and Stone Curlew, both scarce breeders in the UK. A lovely day, what passes for a heatwave in these parts. Kingletss are 9-10cm, titmice about 10-12, both have representatives both sides of the pond. jimfbleak 05:55 29 May 2003 (UTC)

What idiot did the stork taxobox? It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't the Ciconiidae family! jimfbleak 06:00 30 May 2003 (UTC)

nice pictures, especially the pelicans. The albino Kookaburra(?) is certainly striking, especially a fully white bird. I've seen a fully albino Atlantic Puffin and Pied Oystercatcher before- the latter was particularly striking in a large roost. A couple of winters ago, a local partially albino pipit caused some fun. It was clearly either Rock Pipit or Water Pipit, but they are distinguished on plumage features .... Jim

I've had a look at bird. It's beginning to get a bit congested, and might benefit from pruning, but I'm not sure where to start. Migration is a separate article, evolution isn't, reproduction isn't, taxonomy is somewhere in between. Bird activities either needs expanding (behaviour?) or adsorbing. My preference would be to reduce this basically to what a bird is, and hive off associated topics as separate articles. What do you think? Jim

your comment is right, we all have the same rights, but sysops are more visible and give their name to the good cause, and it is our responsiblity to check on rules - if there would be one definite question we would anser it, but we can see none in all the ado, like bringing us up on village pump - keep up with the good work - best greetings from another sysop within the group of Viking 14:59 30 May 2003 (UTC)

Nightjar looks good- I didn't know anything about the sub-families, but then I didn't do the original species list any way Jim

I was hoping that since you have experience with User:Viking, that you could provide some help. Please have a look at User talk:Viking/ban, and provide input/action. I have never felt attcked by another user as I do now, so I would like to ask you what you think the best thing to do about User:Viking would be? If you need to bring others into this, please do, but I would like some resolution. MB 19:49 30 May 2003 (UTC)

wow! nice ibis image. nicely done. sorry i haven't been much help with the birds lately. i'll have more free time starting next week. take care. Kingturtle 05:24 31 May 2003 (UTC)

Re Flamingos: six of one.... depends what you read. I'll go with your preference. I've split Ibis, which has created several articles that I need to expand, and I'm going to have to move a couple of them to conform with HBW names. Jim

btw, have you read the last paragraph of reptilia? Jim

bird looks much better. I'll have a go at the text, maybe hive off some of it, but I'll leave it till tomorrow now.

Just wanted to thank you for all your help with User:Kils/User:Viking. It was certainly an unpleasant situation. MB 07:36 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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Hallo Tony!

thank you for the kind words. I lost, not one supported my case. Vikings just challenge each other all the time. But vikings are also good losers, so I will keep on supporting wikipedia, and I hope we will become good friends in the future - "sailor" - Kils 13:43 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

How about I do all the species' accounts for coliiformes, and you do all piciformes-there are only 411 species? Handbook of Birds of the World separates jacamars and puffbirds as Gabuliformes. Does this matter? Jim

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Sorry, Tony, I do not know that. I will work on it. Maybe in the meantime you can go to the database of a student who was once in our lab, now a big player: http://www.fishbase.org with info on 27 000 species so far. You can also become a cooperator there (I am no 350)

best greetings "sailor" Kils 15:26 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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--- Hallo Toni, you are right. Especially the glassels are fascinating. We are building with highschool children here in New Jersey "eel ladders", because they get stuck in front of weirs when the are immigrating. The kids hollow a tree and put an old fishernet inside. They climb up inside by the thousands - and we image it with an endocope. The class just won from 2000 entries prize 1 in a visit to our university. We had that all on the web, but the server got lost. Maybe I find the CD with a copy of a magazin article about our work with the children, the I will "wiki-message" it to you - in a hurry "sailor" Kils

Talking about eurocentric (no such thing), my paper this morning was having a bit of fun about a new Bible published in Strine ("Three wise guts turn up with prezzies and the jackaroos roll into town for a squiz at the ankle-biter" etc. the reason I mention this is, when talking about the justification for this version, that it went on..."It just wasn't playing in Ballarat..." Fame at last! Jim

The capitalization war is getting tiring. Perhaps if you tried to has it out with Eclecticology more could be accomplished. john 04:27 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

We discussed it at length on the mailing list, John, and arrived at a negotiated settlement with broad consensus support. He has gone on a unilaterial war of destruction on the work that I and others have put in. It is verging on outright vandalism. The sooner he stops this stupidity the better. I have real work to do. Tannin 04:33 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The Style Manual for Biological Journals as "Prepared by the Committee on Form and Style of the Conference of Biological Editors of the American Institute of Biological Sciences" states at page 68, "Generic names used as vernacular names are neither italicized nor capitalized"

Since an other authoritative source has indicated that capitalization is usually done among ornithologists (though it is not a rule) I will leave birds alone ... for now. ☮ Eclecticology 04:44 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

We thrashed this out long ago, and a compromise was reached that didn't please absolutely eveyone (I for one don't think it went nearly far enough) but has broad consensus support. You are breaking the terms of it. You will note that I have not done so. Now, I have work to do: the skunk enty is a terrible little stub and I want to fix it up. Will you get out of my hair and let me get on with it now? (You will find an ample number of citations to support the current policy in the discussion that took place at the time, by the way.) Tannin

When the debate was on previously, I did not have the above citation to back me up, and I had to seek it out. Now that that I am on firmer footings I can go ahead and make corrections. Since I recognize that the situation is more uncertain with regards to birds, I am leaving them alone unless and until I have more authoritative material. As I understand the agreement from the mailing list it was only that there would be redirects from the alternate popular form to the more correct one. So go ahead and work with the skunks; you are free to go on with that while I make my corrections to other articles. ☮ Eclecticology 05:33 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be best to try to discuss a new compromise on either an appropriate meta page or on the mailing list, rather than engaging in an edit war. john 05:36 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Did the consensus on capitalization of species names ever get written up in an MoS or WikiProject page? I just thumbed through the likely suspects and didn't see anything. FWIW, after wandering around various parts of the tree of life, it seems that fish capitalization is almost unheard of, and that for plants it's evenly split. At an intuitive level, capitalizing the species name everywhere in an article seems both pompous and German :-), so I can see why some people would be very resistant. Stan 05:58 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I tend to think that the species name should be capitalized in titles, and in lists. When speaking of an individual animal of the species, certainly it should not be capitalized. When speaking of the species in general, in the context of a sentence... I'm not sure. I'm all for more capitalization, though. john 06:05 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Chicago Manual of Style has a whole chapter on the subject, and prompted by debate elsewhere, I reread it recently. They basically discourage capitalization, do lots of hemming and hawing though, and touched on an interesting point - when writing about religion, authors would capitalize excessively, because at one time it was considered more reverent! In any case, Wikipedia already has a bunch of house style rules written down, partly to keep the peace on contentious issues like capitalization, so it seems odd for species naming/reference rules to be missing. Stan 06:44 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the good wishes, Tannin. I came back for one night. I've had the same kind of probels that you've had with the hopping-mouse article. Some infuriating indivuiduals tearing away at what you've written for some very silly reasons! So I am back for one night.

You'll probably want to check the latest edit at Koala, if it hasn't already been reverted by the time you read this, regarding the "drop-bear". Sounds like a myth told to tourists to me. -- John Owens 12:29 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the warning. Do we have the capitalisation policy for birds and mammals written in tablets of stone anywhere?

I missed my early morning stint today having succumbed to an offer of the last place in a car going overnight to Anglesey see Britain's first (and western Europe's second) Black Lark. Crazy idea, but at least we saw this stunning adult male, and it inspired me to do a species list for this group... need to sleep...zzzzzzz. Snap out of it.. jimfbleak 14:17 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hey, take a look at the Insectivore page. It's genuinely horrible. It confuses the order Insectivora (which seems to have ceased to exist in the current mammal classification scheme - sigh, so much changes in the ten years since I've been interested in taxonomy) with generalized things that eat animals, and then gives aardvarks and anteaters as examples! I didn't know what to do to fix it, beyond blanking it, which we're apparently not supposed to do, given that the usual Insectivore order doesn't seem to be recognized by wikipedia. (Also, why is it that some of the usual insectivore families are listed as orders on the main mammal page?) Anyway, you seem to be the animal person, so I thought I'd bring this to your attention. john 07:25 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I've made a feeble attempt to improve above Jim

I've done a species list for terns, but I haven't put it into the article because of taxonomy queries. HBW gives terns family status as Sternidae, which is fine, but puts six species of crested terns in Thalasseus, which I've never heard of, rather than Sterna, which all my books use. Caspian Tern similarly becomes Hydroprogne. It goes against the grain to put Sandwich Tern etc in a different group to Arctic and the other white terns, so unless you tell me that the revised arrangement is standard down-under, I'll keep them all in Sterna

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hallo tannin! fine article from the Southern World - congratulation - added link to fishbase, if you don't mind - Uwe Kils 12:56 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization) and brace yourself. Jim

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Hallo Jim!

thank you for the hint, will change the name to capitalization on our Krill page - friendly greeting - "Sailor" Uwe Kils 12:30 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I'm getting close to giving up on fauna articles. I spent most of today on the mailing list churning out the same arguments for the umpteenth time, instead of writing new articles. The basic problem is that the Americans contribute very little to the content of the fauna articles, (except Kingturtle who uses correct capitalisation), but care desperately about style.

Given their numerical superiority, the policy is likely to be reversed by people who won't actually write anything, and I don't think that I'm prepared to continue under that sort of imposed rule (even if it didn't make constructing species list ridulously time consuming, instead of just downloading them). It's crazy that articles like list of people named Fred or the ones on exotic sexual practices get a clear run, but serious fauna articles are driven out of production jimfbleak 14:43 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Funnily enough, Meg bought me a bottle of Cuban rum to try. We normally get West Indies' rum here, so in the spirit of scientific research...

re obscure duck, you've already done Freckled Duck

jimfbleak 15:32 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

In theory, I write articles for birds I have seen, (excluding N. American groups because there should be plenty of contributors who could do those.) I don't stick to this rule of course, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Maybe I should do a really boring pipit - or leave it to the morrow.

jimfbleak 16:54 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

BTW, will you have a look at the final Bronzewing Pigeon section of Dove, and change if you're not happy - I know nothing about this group beyond your article.

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hey Jim!

I saw your edit on our krill page in the species name - thank you very much for the help. I was under a wrong assumption, and of course will adjust to wiki rules. On a side note: We follow the email discussion and like your comments a lot. Don't give up, thats how life is if you grant power to the people. Lets have a good eye on the little (young) ones (of the editors) and help them with good suggestions for carving wikipedia into a great future -

here is one of our little vikings (in third generation) with two fine birds for you - print it out for your wife -

best greetings from "sailor" Kils 20:25 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Regarding the World War II article you go "grrrrr - COMMONWEALTH", is this correct? The Commonwealth followed the British Empire so, I believe, during WW2 the troops would have been Empire and Dominion not Commonwealth. India did not join the Commonwealth until 1947. ²¹² 12:40 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi again - thanks for comment about flutist -- grrr! I was trying to check whether those "other" guys really did get in there first with flutist - can't really tell. Stupid rule to have first in overriding the obvious! In the meantime I've extended the range of countries which use flautist to include countries which were (or perhaps still are) in what was called the Commonwealth - another possible source of controversy! Best wishes. -- David Martland 14:15 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Don't you guys down there sleep? I only just edited flute a few minutes ago, and you've already changed it! Well done! Also, do you realise that this page is now over 32kbytes, or so I'm told. It does seem to give problems in Mozilla - maybe there's just a lot of text, or maybe there are images. Just thought I'd mention it. Best wishes. -- David Martland 14:34 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)