User talk:Ucucha/Archive6

Sorry

I appologize if adding to your archive was the wrong action; I am guessing you move your talk page to the archive rather than copying and pasting as others do. It was the first time I had seen this done, and I was a bit thrown off. Mrathel (talk) 17:24, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Ucucha. You have new messages at Coffee's talk page.
Message added 23:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Coffee // have a cup // ark // 23:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Ucucha. You have new messages at Coffee's talk page.
Message added 02:51, 10 December 2009 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Coffee // have a cup // ark // 02:51, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Coyote

realy i give a link to help people and u get rid of it why?

A link to the article the person was already on? Ucucha 00:48, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Oryzomyini

On December 10, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Oryzomyini, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 02:21, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Re Coffee and RfA

Hi!

Coffee made the following personal attack. You defended his remarks by saying - "Coffee obviously holds some strong opinions, as he is entitled to"-

Question: Why do you believe an Admin is "entitled" to make such remarks? - Ret.Prof (talk) 16:09, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

My main point was that there was little reason to continue discussing this at the main RfA page, as the matter was no longer directly related to his vote—sorry if that was not as clear as I should have made it. I assume you know the appropriate fora to do that (as I noticed on my watchlist, the matter has apparently already been brought to WP:WQA). I certainly wouldn't make comments like his and would encourage him not to make similar comments in the future, but it's also important to note there that at the time Coffee made his comment, he had already been branded as "an individual of great and unyielding spite" and a "dick"; I wouldn't consider him to be the only one at fault there.

Thank you for stepping up. I agree with the gist of most of your comments; as is probably clear, I've discovered during this RfA that there are quite a few things where I disagree with Coffee, and I am quite frankly surprised that someone who is so genuinely concerned about the real persons who may be harmed by their Wikipedia biographies is at the same time so blunt [1] towards other real persons who hold different views than he does. As I implied in my replies to questions 3 and 4, I believe it's always good to consider whether a contribution to a discussion serves to promote progress (i.e., resolution of what is in dispute) or merely to further what is already a protracted dispute. As they say where I am from, spreken is zilver, maar zwijgen is goud ("speaking is silver, but being silent is gold"). I hope that other Wikipedia editors will also head this course of action. Ucucha 17:06, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Great answer. Tonight, I will sleep like a rose - Ret.Prof (talk) 20:24, 10 December 2009 (UTC) PS or is that a tulip?

As long as it's a crimson rose... Ucucha 20:25, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Oecomys sydandersoni

On December 12, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Oecomys sydandersoni, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 11:21, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

• More rats? Ucucha, you should consider looking into invertebrates; mammal life is highly overrated. And I can say this cause I spawned one, which had the nerve to wake up the other one after I just got her to sleep. Put that in your pipe and smoke it! (But for your sake, I'm going to look at the page, and possibly double the page views.) ;) Drmies (talk) 20:40, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
  • It is surprising that there are in fact lots of people who look at my articles when they are at DYK. You'll probably have to refresh a thousand times or so to double the pageviews. No, no invertebrates for me--I already went down to lizards and that was bad enough. Ucucha 20:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
    • Say, considering your (professional?) fascination with the lengths of mammals' bodyparts, did you have your sock make this edit??? Also, look at the punctuation edits I made to that nice tree rice rat's article, and see what you think. Drmies (talk) 20:49, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
      • Of course not. The red flag is that this supposed "sockpuppet" misspelled a word. I would never do that. As for your edit, I actually introduced that convention in the next article I wrote. It is certainly clearer. Ucucha 20:51, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
        • BTW, not bad, 2597 views--almost as many as Bacon explosion. Have a look at Zeeuws spek, and consider writing about bacon and other pork products, and joining the bacon cabal! I wonder if there's enough material to fill up Kaantjes, for instance. Slavink, a short article, already exhausts the topic. Drmies (talk) 20:56, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
          • True, it doesn't come close to that, but 2597 is still substantial (and a lot more than some others get). You should note that every oryzomyine DYK I write causes at least a thousand people to fall under the spell of Oryzomyini--every bit helps.
          • No, no bacon, kaantjes, or slavinken for me. I once read about famous rodent specialist Jim Patton that he liked to eat the meat of all the nice mammals he caught in South American jungles. That's quite enough for me.
          • Two more notes: 1) No coercing admins to do things they shouldn't do. 2) You might be interested in reading certain parts of this page. Ucucha 21:06, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

<--Look in your shoe: there's a Sinterklaas present in it. Drmies (talk) 01:12, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Cyclura nubila

Your comments weren't harsh, I'm just having hardware and connection problems this weekend and typing things out 4 times before I get something to stick, ticks me off. I'm stuck on a 10-year-old laptop with dial-up for the next few days! Thanks for the help and the criticism, good or bad is always welcome!--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 17:08, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I made some significant changes the past few days, would you mind taking another look? Thanks!--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 22:59, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Cleomenean War

With the maps of the page, is it just the texts being too small that is the problem? Or are there some other issues on the map that you would like addressed? Kyriakos (talk) 23:51, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the message. I'd prefer to keep the conversation at the FAC for now, will respond there soon. Ucucha 23:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

DYK prep area

hi there - you pulled two hooks from prep 1, but i'm not sure why and not sure where you plan on them ending up. Can you explain what's happening? Ta. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:39, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I see (below) - thanks. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:48, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

My apologies for that (and also for missing your first post - you and Art edited nearly simultaneously and I didn't notice there was another new section). Ucucha 02:51, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Edit conflict

I agree with your change to my Jutland edit, but did you know you undid Hamiltonstone's edits? [2] For some reason the software doesn't stop edit conflicts on that page, and I've caused that problem myself. Art LaPella (talk) 02:40, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

No, I didn't, thanks for noting. I don't think I've had the problem with the prep areas before, though I recently noted the same thing happening at the main suggestions page (User talk:PFHLai#footer). Anyway, I reinstated H's edits. Ucucha 02:43, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you!

Hi Ucucha! Thank you so much for your correction of the references on E. (Mrs.) v. Eve. I'm still figuring out how reference citations work, so thank you for helping make the article a bit easier to read! Jhfortier (talk) 05:01, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, great to help you learn the intricacies of wiki syntax. Ucucha 12:46, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Apology

I apologize to you for my untoward reaction to your helpful comment on my talk page on December 8 regarding the 5x expansion rule for DYK. I was tired and frustrated by other matters, but that is no excuse for my response. Please forgive me. You are a great asset to DYK and having the admin tools will make you all the more so. Congratulations! Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 17:43, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you; apology accepted. In hindsight, I should perhaps have made more clear in my initial post that I do quite appreciate your DYK work. I hope you'll keep helping out on DYK in the future; just make sure you know even the more obscure rules. I'd recommend using WP:DYKcheck, which automatically checks for moves from userspace and various other things. Ucucha 17:53, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I do use DYKcheck. I don't know how I slipped up on that one. Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 21:09, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's odd. No problem though - it may happen. Ucucha 21:16, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for being kind and understanding. I am very appreciative. All the best, —mattisse (Talk) 23:47, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Barn Owl Trust

Hello - I'm new to Wikipedia, and rather puzzled - I wanted to add a link to the Barn Owl Trust website: http://www.barnowltrust.org.uk/index.html - from the page: Tytonidae. The Barn Owl trust website is a source of very reliable, detailed information about barn owls, from a well established non-profit UK charity. (There is no advertising or 'soapbox' approach on the site - just information which is widely used by educators, local authorities, planners, etc.) Can you tell me how I can offer this information to Wiki users, without breaking Wikipedia guidelines? Thanks ArtyNess (talk) 18:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt and thoughtful reply - I can see that you have to be careful. You're right that the Barn Owl Trust website is mainly about Barn Owls - but there are some useful pages about other owls too: http://www.barnowltrust.org.uk/infopage.html?Id=1 See what you think - I'll be guided by what you think is appropriate. Thanks for your time and patience! ArtyNess (talk) 18:55, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

OK - Thanks for the great job you are doing there. ArtyNess (talk) 19:10, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

My condolences

The community has overwhelmingly seen fit to condemn you to bottomless realms of endless drama, and it is with a heavy heart that I have carried out their decision. Be aware that while, if you are unsure, various guides exist, in some cases there may be no right decision. I wish you all the best. And more seriously, congrats. =) --Pakaran 05:14, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I have nothing but the deepest admiration for your selfless yet courageous decision.

And above all: thanks to the community--I was truly pleasantly surprised by the amount of support and I hope I'll live up to that trust. Ucucha 05:19, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I freely admit to being, at times, a cynic. I've been composing that message in my head for the past couple days, and actually had a version in mind that, while more Lovecraftian, wasn't actually false. -- Pakaran 05:24, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: Vernacular names

I saw your post at the veined octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus) talk page, and have a couple of comments. First, WP:NC does state "Articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name of the person or thing that is the subject of the article." I agree that we should give a little more leeway for vernacular vs. scientific names, which is the reason why my test requires the vernacular name to be used at least one-fifth as often as the scientific name (as measured by Google Books/Scholar hits in the absence of a better measure). I intend the test to capture (1) whether the proposed vernacular name is substantially in use at all; and (2) whether the name is in common use. If those two conditions are fulfilled, I think the vernacular name should be used as the article title.

For the rodents I have mainly applied the test to, it works well enough, since generally no one even cares to mention them outside the specialized literature. In the case of the octopus, though, the animal is also commonly mentioned in news articles, which complicates things. I added a note to that effect on the User:Ucucha/Titles page. As for your note on the use of Google hits, I noted that my test can never be an exact one, and as an approximation it works well enough. But if you have any suggestions for improvement, I'd be happy to hear them. Ucucha 18:00, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I understand what you're saying and, as I said before, I applaud the effort to establish a more uniform standard.

Using Google hits as an objective measure, though, can be a dangerous thing, IMHO. Google doesn't guarantee those results are exhaustive nor does it guarantee the results are even relevant. Google can produce thousands of hits on a name even though none of those hits actually contains the name. Sometimes if the words appear in the text in the order that you specified then it considers that a hit (seriously I have had frustrating arguments with editors who argue that they get thousands of hits on Google for something even though they cannot produce a single site that actually contains the name). I think Google evidence can be useful just as a first swag but ultimately one has to actually be willing to look at some references and make a judgement call (which, sadly, always has to be somewhat subjective).

In any event, I agree that if an animal is virtually unknown except in scientific circles and no vernacular name is known except among small circles then, yes, the scientific name is reasonable to use rather than trying to artificially inflate the importance of some other arbitrary name. My point is only to say that we should recognize that the Latin names are inherently painful for the average reader so we should be biased toward trying to find reasonable alternatives where reasonable alternatives actually exist.

--Mcorazao (talk) 19:04, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Thomasomys ucucha

On December 15, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Thomasomys ucucha, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Royalbroil 19:36, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Exams

Good luck, I'm sure you'll do well!--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 23:38, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations

Congratulations Ucucha! Well deserved. Calmer Waters 05:14, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Best wishes to you! Jusdafax 05:16, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to you both for your trust! Ucucha 05:19, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• Likewise, congrats, look forward to you doing lots of mopping. hamiltonstone (talk) 05:22, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Well done! If you need any help (which I doubt!), give me a shout! GedUK  09:59, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

There now...wasn't so hard, was it? :) cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:09, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you too. Yes, Cas, I certainly hadn't expected this 115-2-2 result. Ucucha 12:45, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Welcome aboard. your uniform has been issued. :-) Mjroots (talk) 12:57, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Great news and great job. It was looking like a sure thing for some time, but I resisted the urge to congratulate you early. --Aranae (talk) 14:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Crappy indeed Mjroots. Thanks! :-) Ucucha 14:39, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

And congratulations from me. :) Also I apologize if my question I asked on your RFA scared you. It was a bit of a big question, but it wasn't a particularly loaded one. (Personally, I asked feeling that you would answer satisfactory.) I didn't vote on your RFA, but if I did, I would at the very least have voted Neutral leaning towards support. That said, happy editing. :D -WarthogDemon 23:48, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I apologize for not answering your question. I simply missed it, I am afraid. You added in the middle of the big debate on Coffee's oppose that developed while I was happily asleep, and when I checked my watchlist the next morning I did not notice the question in the middle of all those comments.

It's a bit late, but to rectify the omission: with the incomplete information you gave me, I believe I would relist the article, because keeping it would not be in line with the compelling argument that it is not notable and deleting when there is so much opposition would not feel right either. In relisting, I would ask participants to explicitly address the arguments against notability. That said, the things I said at the RFA still apply--I have little experience with AFD, and don't intend to participate there in the future. Ucucha 23:58, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

No prob. Also I don't consider you a "poor editor" and I'm pretty sure MGM didn't either. Any your answer is pretty much what I answered when I was asked that, a bit of a better answer in my opinion. Cheers. :D -WarthogDemon 03:22, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Replied on WD's talk. Ucucha 03:29, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Cheers! But don't forget, Wikispecies needs you! OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:14, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I do check my watchlist over there fairly regularly, but there just isn't a lot of admin work to do. Fortunately, that will never be a problem around here. Ucucha 04:24, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations, Ucucha. Well deserved. Drmies (talk) 19:38, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Deer mice

Entirely up to you, just a note that it is not a scientific term and thus Google is a good indicator. Google gives significantly more hits for "deer mice" than "deermice", and "deermice" is not in my Oxford dictionary. Good luck with FA (lack of an image of that rodent, even speculative, is a minus there). Materialscientist (talk) 00:36, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the edit and the good wishes. It may be something of a split between the popular and scientific literature. Kays and Wilson's Mammals of North America and Wilson and Reeder's Mammal Species of the World use the "deermouse" version. I think they use that because deermice are not really "mice" in the sense that they are not very closely related to true mice like the house mouse (genus Mus). Making it one word emphasizes that they are not "mice" which have something to do with deer but just "deermice".

As for the image, Lundomys and Pseudoryzomys just got through with 19th-century images of the skull without any problems, so I'm hoping this won't be problematic either. In any case, there quite certainly are no free images. Ucucha 00:50, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:ERRORS

Hi there. First off, congrats on getting the mop. Then, I saw you fix an error reported on WP:ERRORS. Please remember to remove the error report as soon as you do so next time to save others time who think there is still something to fix. Regards SoWhy 12:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought it was usual there to delete the error reports after the hook set was gone, to alert people that something had already been considered, but I can see the point for deleting it immediately--especially when it is something that has unambiguously been fixed, like that image. Ucucha 12:44, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I think messages that are not fixed should be left there for those reasons, i.e. those were fixing is not needed or decided against but where others might report the same thing. If it has been taken care of, like with the image or a typo in a hook or something like that, it can be removed since then there is no error to report anymore. Regards SoWhy 12:54, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

That sounds sensible, yes, and I'll try to keep to that for the future. Ucucha 12:56, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Amphisbaena ridleyi

See if you can write a better hook at DYK. These really aren't my specialty, I thought the getting nectar during drought was interesting and a good example of evolutionary specialization as it can do that in relative safety...I might expand that more in the article...that's also why eat things other than snails. I'm really surprised the tegus and skinks don't eat these guys.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 23:50, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

An interesting aspect there is that the lizard, Trachylepis atlantica, also has an ecological relation with that tree. The paper I found uses another species name, though--not sure whether that's varying taxonomy or two species of Erythrina occurring on the island.

I'll see what I can do, though [3] gives quite a few interesting papers (but amphisbaenians aren't really my specialty either). Anyway, it would be good if you'd add a reference to the second paragraph of the description. Ucucha 23:55, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure about the etymology? I found a source saying one H. J. Ridley first collected it. No word on his background, though. Ucucha 00:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Yep, see this link as well: [4]--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 00:32, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, perhaps my source misspelled. An alternative may be that they were brothers and the one collected plants and the other reptiles or something. Ucucha 00:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Not sure, which source has the HJ?--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 00:39, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Pregill, G. 1984. Durophagous feedign adaptations in an amphisbaenid. Journal of Herpetology 18(2):186-191. Ucucha 00:41, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Interesting, I'd chalk that up as a typo.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 00:49, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Seems most likely, yes. I kept it at Henry Nicholas in the article. Ucucha 00:57, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

It looks like the article is pretty complete given how poorly known the animal apparently is. The 1963 paper has a lot of morphological detail that could be added, but I don't know much about all those scales and things. Ucucha 01:01, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Turned out better and more complete than I thought it would! Thanks! Heck, I never even heard of it until I saw the red link on the FAC page, but I figured how hard can it be! I know a bit, it's similar to scalation counts in snakes and lizards...but it might be too much information, to be honest I have not found an exact measurement on this one yet! Nice job on Trachylepis atlantica, BTW. Gray was the first one to describe Cyclura nubila, too. Next thing looks like an article on Hyperaulax ridleyi or were they Buliumlus ridleyi? :)--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 01:10, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the counts may go into a little bit too much detail. There's a couple of endemic snails there, but the last good account of them is apparently from 1890, which is not a good sign. There are also two introduced lizards, by the way: Tupinambis merianae and Hemidactylus mabouia. Thansk for the compliments! I might work on getting T. atlantica up to GA or FA; it's a pretty interesting animal and there are some good sources. Gray described quite a few things, by the way. Ucucha 01:19, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

FYI thought you might like this: [5]--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 04:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

"We're sorry, but we were not able to find the title that you requested. Please use the browsing options above to locate the title you want to view." Ucucha 12:12, 19 December 2009 (UTC)