User talk:HJ Mitchell

Hello and welcome to my talk page! If you have a question, ask me. If I know the answer, I'll tell you; if I don't, I'll find out (or one of my talk-page stalkers might know!), then we'll both have learnt something!

Admins: If one of my admin actions is clearly a mistake or is actively harming the encyclopaedia, please reverse it. Don't wait for me if I'm not around or the case is obvious.

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IP socks

Hi, it is regarding unsourced edits by possible IP-socks of this IP that you blocked yesterday. They have been making similar edits like the blocked one, including the change of census figures [1] [2] [3]. I'd like to request page protection [4]. Thanks. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:22, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) I put a month of semiprotection on Diphu. EdJohnston (talk) 17:49, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A kitten for you!

Your passion for history and learning is inspiring!

LukeEverhardt (talk) 20:56, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bbb23

Could you template as r from acronym or similar JayCubby Talk 19:57, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@JayCubby I'm not convinced that's useful or necessary, but done. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:31, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

	The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
	I have seen you have been reverting vandalism very well. I reward you with this barnstar. Well done. OneTrueKingLives (talk) 09:31, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Bugle: Issue 223, November 2024

Your Military History Newsletter

Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results
Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content
Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at battles of Operation Veritable in 1945

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 12:13, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Athari "creed" promotion

This person is blocked from uploading pictures [5] but should also be blocked from making edits because he keeps adding Atharism to every page. Drew Stanley (talk) 20:49, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Friend from the Philippines again

Hi again, HJ. I'm sorry to put this on you; I'm only doing it because you're already informed of the situation. Our blocked friend from the Philippines is back to disruptively edit king crab articles again, this time on IP 143.44.169.99. It's so weird, because it seems like they actually want to improve these articles, and they're at least somewhat familiar with the project (e.g. they know what Wikispecies is). But they seem almost incapable of cooperation or civility, and their edits are a mix of nonsense, half-truths, statements which are recognizably derived from a factual source but feel like they've been put through a telephone game, and broken English. I say they must want to improve them because 1) it's just extreme persistence for these very niche articles, 2) it approximates something constructive, and 3) one time when I properly implemented something they were trying to do, they didn't touch the article again IIRC. This is so bizarre; my head hurts. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 03:19, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@TheTechnician27 there are some obvious formatting and grammar issues at Paralomis. Are there issues with the content itself? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 10:49, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

From their latest edit:

The etymology is true enough but incorrectly cited. It isn't pages 41–48 of that NIWA memoir, nor is it in that citation at all. This is actually in its original description White (1856): "It is a small species, evidently very distinct from Lithodes and more allied to Lomis—it may be called Paralomis granulosa".
The range contains major omissions. Paralomis lives in every major ocean except the Arctic. They also say they live on "rocky bottoms", but the only mention of the word "rocky" in the cited memoir is p. 48 for Lithodes macquariae. (Ahyong says nothing about this in his general description of Paralomis either.)
The 'Description' section is almost entirely untrue: 1) Paralomis aren't tiny like Cryptolithodes, but they don't get as big as some of the Neolithodes and Lithodes, and on average they're smaller. 2) There are Paralomis whose dorsal carapace is covered in spines, but a lot of them are also covered in granules. Paralomis' high speciosity makes it hard to make sweeping statements like this. 3) This description is cited to a 404 GBIF link.
I don't entirely know that Paralomis dawsoni is the biggest Paralomis, although that would check out. Nonetheless, it's cited to Ahyong, who doesn't mention P. dawsoni even once. They're correct that P. bouvieri found to date are very small and have an appropriate citation for that, but Ahyong (cited) doesn't state what they say, which is that they're the smallest species of Paralomis (those caught to date may just be juvenile specimens).
"Paralomis grew small (emphasis not mine) as the size comparison to humans hand." Cited source says nothing about this, but it's not technically wrong. In general too, when there's a genus description, we should be citing 2010 instead of 1988, since many more species have been discovered since which may alter sweeping, absolute statements made about the genus.
They completely removed the table listing Paralomis species, orphaning most of the articles. Instead, they link to a Google search of a list of Paralomis species.

To be clear, this is something I can fix, should fix, have been meaning to fix, and which I would normally be happy someone else is trying to fix. It's just that anytime they contribute, I basically have to upend whatever I'm doing to put out a fire, researching everything they've said and effectively rewriting it because they're going to keep pushing through disruptive edits until there's something there. The only time it's productive is when it gives me a kick in the pants to fix up and expand a stub under threat of the article being a mess. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 14:47, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Voting is now open for the WikiProject Military History newcomer of the year and military historian of the year awards

Voting is now open for the WikiProject Military History newcomer of the year and military historian of the year awards for 2024! The top editors will be awarded the coveted Gold Wiki. Cast your votes here and here respectively. Voting closes at 23:59 on 30 December 2024. On behalf of the coordinators, wishing you the very best for the festive season and the new year. MediaWiki message delivery via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:59, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]