Portal talk:Biology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This talk page is for the Portal about Biology. Ensure this portal's details are listed in the Portal directory.
For discussion about Portals generally, please see the WikiProject on Portals.
Featured article star The Biology Portal is a featured portal, which means it has been identified as one of the best portals on Wikipedia. If you see a way this portal can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, please feel free to contribute.
Maintained The following users are active in maintaining and improving this article. If you have questions regarding verification and sources, they may be able to help:
Cyde Weys, Samsara
Archive
Archives

Please do not edit archived pages. If you want to react to a statement made in a archived discussion, please make a new header on this page. Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Archives:
Proposed content

The purpose of proposed content is to encourage more regular updates and make them easier to carry out, and to give people a chance to decide the content of this portal. Follow the link to learn more:

/Proposed

Contents


[edit] Fauna and Flora nominations

I would like to inform you that the article Fauna (animals) is a candidate to Colaboration of the week WP:COTW. It is at the moment a small stub which has a great potential of improvement. Also, that the article Flora (plants) is a candidate to Article Improvement Drive WP:AID, it also has a great potential. I would like to invite you to vote, colaborate and improve both articles. They could be great Feature articles WP:FA. Thanks!!! --Francisco Valverde 07:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Arthropods?

Hello all, I was a wondering why there wasn't a WikiProject about insects or even Arthopods, considering there is one for Gastropods and Cephalopods (WikiProject Gastropods and WikiProject Cephalopods). Is it just because no one has created it yet, or is it because there is no need for one? I would be willing to help someone start such a WikiProject, or do it myself if necessary. Just thought I'd ask around for a bit of info first. Thanks, --IronChris 21:24, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree - i've wondered this for a while too seeing as they represent such a huge section of biodiversity. Count me in if one is started. Goldfinger820 21:35, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Me too SP-KP 21:52, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, as some people seem interested here, I initiated the WikiProject Arthropods on one of my user subpages : User:IronChris/Wikipedia:WikiProject Arthropods. You can also use the shortcut WP:ARTH. As soon as it is ready for release I will move it to its permanent location. Any help is welcome as I don't have much experience in creating templates and stuff. Thanks, --IronChris 00:04, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

The WikiProject Arthropods is now functional. If you like insects, arachnids, crustaceans or even pycnogonids, please feel free to join! --IronChris 16:13, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of publications in biology

List of publications in biology is currently up for deletion. --Salix alba (talk) 21:53, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal of the Bio-Barnstar

There has been talk recently in the Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals for a distinctly biology science barnstar, apart from The E=MC² Barnstar. I believe that the field of biology is so great that we could have a common biology barnstar. See the talk that has developt around this idea in Wikipedia:Barnstar_and_award_proposals#Nature-related_Barnstar. There is already a design by Jasu. I would like to know what do you think and if it would be possible such a barnstar. --Francisco Valverde 17:03, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

  • To date, the awrd has not gained great support ... --evrik 14:47, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Looking for help with Ctenophore

Ctenophore is a featured article on deWiki and I did a translation of it fairly recently. It needs some outside attention to check I haven't confused my cilia with my cnidaria, and maybe further down the line to convert the references to in-line form (which would of course require someone with access to the literature) and give my Germanic prose an overhaul. I put an {{expert}} tag on it and posted it on Wikipedia:WikiProject Marine life, but as the expert category contains hundreds of pages and the Marine life Wikiproject doesn't seem exactly overpopulated (the 'collaboration of the week' has been there for a month), I'm bringing it here in case someone either feels like taking a look at it or knows where someone else will.

Please consider looking at it, the pictures are really very pretty in my opinion :-) --Sam Blanning(talk) 17:08, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion over Cyanea

Cyanea redirects to Hawaiian lobelioids. There's also a genus of jellyfish by that name, but I can't find an article on it. At least two articles, namely Cyaneidae and Lion's mane jellyfish, link to Cyanea and thence to Hawaiian lobelioids, which is surely wrong. Currently Hawaiian lobelioids doesn't have a 'for the jellyfish, see Cyanea (jellyfish)' notice on it. Could someone clear this up?

At the least I'd like to know where the article should be. There's a wikilink to this hypothetical article in a translation I'm doing, and I'm not familiar with the naming conventions for disambiguated biology articles - whether it's going to be Cyanea (jellyfish) or Cyanea (Cyaneidae) or something else. --Sam Blanning(talk) 01:02, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I took a stab at this. Two articles is short for a dab, but I thought it the best way to go. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 12:27, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fauna is this week's Collaboration of the Week

Fauna is the new WP:COTW. Anyone can help to improve this article, this would be very much appretiated. It has been suggested to add Flora (plants) in tandem with Fauna to be improved. See both Wikipedia:Collaborations of the Week/Flora (plants) and Wikipedia:Collaborations of the Week/Fauna (animals)... --Francisco Valverde 02:11, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] False death cap

I translated False death cap from French article. But i know nothing about writing biological articles - where should one go to find out how to write an article on plants? --Thewayforward 13:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

As a start, take a look at Death cap. You will find other articles on fungi at Category:Fungi. If you would like some help in setting up a taxobox and/or citing references, let me known at ym talk page. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 15:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help

What's the name ín english of the dead-eating worms?

Use the help desk. Also, you will need to be more specific. --liquidGhoul 01:02, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More pictures: Sex and mollusks

If any of these haven't been featured, I think they'd be great.

Slightly gross, but great educational value!

Best,

Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:03, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NEW BIO-BARNSTAR

WikiProject Biology has now a new award in recognition of exceptional article contributions in the life sciences. It is the Bio-Barnstar. You can find it at Wikipedia:Other_awards#Awards_by_Wikiproject. Thanks to all who have been involved in this new barnstar. --Francisco Valverde 09:15, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intro on main portal page

OMG the second sentence is ridiculously confusing. Can it be made simpler? We could probably leave off: "a derivative of logos [literally, word, but coming to mean one who speaks (in a certain way)]". --M1ss1ontomars2k4 | T | C | @ 04:25, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and edited this sentence. i hope that is OK? David D. (Talk) 09:21, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
It had already been edited. I think indicating logos as the origin of -ology is okay. Have part-reverted to this effect. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 18:45, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
No problem just poking my nose in others business ;-) David D. (Talk) 19:04, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

Presently there are two red links in the categories, Computational biology and Category:Human Impact on the Enviroment/Human Impact on the Enviroment. Should these be removed or are they requests? If they are requests shouldn't they be in the request section at the bottom? David D. (Talk) 09:21, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured article revival

The featured articles haven't been updated for a while, and I doubt this is due to lack of suitable material in Wikipedia. I think it would be great to resume adding new articles to the list. A lot of (probably most) biology articles are too specialised or technical to ever reach Wikipedia FA status. This portal is a good place to display well written comprehensive articles on biology that don't fit the general FA criteria. I couldn't find how articles have nominated here in the past... I believe we need some sembalance of a formal nomination procedure as well. Peter Z.Talk 00:36, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

If it's not even being updated regularly the solution certainly isn't more overbearing bureaucracy. If (hypothetically) this portal becomes so popular that there is lots of arguing over which article should be displayed, then we can try out a formal process. --Cyde↔Weys 19:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Samsara (talk • contribs) 19:51, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I think the general idea is for people not to put up their own picture submissions or articles they have extensively worked on without discussion. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 19:29, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually i did update the articles and biography recently, as they were stagnant. I assumed it would not be a problem since there appeared to be no activity, and for your info, i had not worked on either article. On the other hand, I kind of knew i should not use my own picture on the front page. But i liked it so much i couldn't resist ;) Sorry about that. David D. (Talk) 19:52, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
We should probably have some kind of informal target of how often articles and pictures are meant to be updated. Also note there are previous threads on the talk page here that give lists of candidates, esp. for pics and bios. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 19:55, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I noticed those after my bold edits to update the content. At least I am more savvey to the process now. David D. (Talk) 20:02, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Which lizard is this?

?
Enlarge
?

I've already posted this question on Talk:Lizard but thought that there is a high probability of geting a quicker answer from here. I am interested in finding the exact type of this lizard so that it could be used on the relavent page with a proper caption. Thanks --Oblivious 10:42, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I replied where you first asked. Regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:54, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Genghis Khan's genes

Can anyone with genetic expertise have a look at the discussion here? I'm in a dispute there with another editor who claims to be a biology buff. Now I need help to figure out whether my doubts are justified or not. Thanks! --Latebird 12:07, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] hey can u give me information please

hello i am a 16 yr old biology student and im working on an assignement and i was wondering if u could help me with the pranesus ogilbyi (hardy head ) thanku —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 60.231.5.173 (talk • contribs) .

This is the wrong place to ask. May be the science reference desk? Or just google for a ton of information. David D. (Talk) 14:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Related portals

There is a new "related portals" section. I have not yet included the following portals, all of which are arguably related to biology: Portal:Chemistry, Portal:Food, Portal:Health, Portal:Sexuality. Any objections? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:52, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, no objections here as these topics are vast in content in themselves. --Siva1979Talk to me 19:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

If anyone can think of a good picture to go with sexuality, let me know! I've wracked my brain, but I can't come up with anything that will be good at a small resolution and illustrates the subject in a general way. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Ye olde classic
Enlarge
Ye olde classic

- How about something like this? This version looks like crap, (new version now) but you get the general idea. Its more of an icon than a picture, but I can't think of anything more generic. pschemp | talk 13:48, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree that the related portals section should be restricted to one column. Something as general as the portal links should be right at the bottom and be 100% of the width. My rationale is as follows. 1) The columns should be reserved for biology portal specific content. 2) linking to every biology related portal requires extra width to accomodate the number of links.

pschemp, i don't really understand your objections? Which pictures get messed up? What ugly white space? This could well be a browser specific issue since i did not see anything dramatically wrong. As the page is currently coded, the amount of white space will change depending on the content in each column. Consequently, at a later date, the white space problem will reappear regardless of whether the related portals section spans the entire width of the page or is restricted to a single column? Anyway, the white space issues can easily be solved by rearranging content in the column or recoding the page to be more robust to the variability of each sections size. David D. (Talk) 04:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

If you look at this diff, [1] you can see that changing the size made the pictures switch to be not above their labels and another user came along and had to fix them. For instance, the chemistry picture was above the Agropedia link. While whitespace will exist, there is no point having a large chunk of it between data. after data is fine. I know it will change, but there was nothing wrong with the original layout. pschemp | talk 04:20, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
OK, so I pasted things in incorrectly, I should have checked that more thoroughly and I apologise for being sloppy. Nevertheless, that edit is not specific to the portal layout. You did not address my two observations above with regard to why the related portals should be at the bottom and not in the portal columns. I respectfully disagree that there is nothing wrong with the layout. David D. (Talk) 04:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
David, the scrollbars really make for a horrible user interface. Design is not everything. I appeal for you to wait with further layouting suggestions until we've got all the material there that we need as per the FPC application responses. Otherwise my time will be spent reviewing your changes, and the job won't get done. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 18:45, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
If you look at the edit summary i think it was pretty obvious i was not trying to ram something through. However, since there seems to be very little discussion here I thought such a change would at least lay something on the table. White space seemed to be an issue and that was 'one option' available to solve the problem. Fine you don't like it. What are the other options? By the way, if the changes to the portal are a work in progress you should have that mentioned somewhere. David D. (Talk) 21:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
David, no problems, I just saw you making changes to several subpages and got concerned. There is a link to the ongoing peer review at the top of this talk page. I'm sorry that there is no date on the template to indicate its recency. The template, however, is not of my making. Best regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:42, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More finds

Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Major topics

A draft of the major topics section can now be found at Portal:Biology/Major topics. I need your help to complete this, as I do not have complete knowledge of all areas of biology. Once we reach consensus on content and structure, we can format the page as in Portal:History of science/Topics. Note that the point here is not to get it 100% right, but to make it good enough that people can find their way through the subject. Best regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:39, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Updated

Updated 2006-07-16. If anyone wants to update the "Did you know?"s, feel free! - Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:39, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Updated DYK 16-07-2006 (bloody American dates). --liquidGhoul 13:56, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Much appreciated. I've kind of got used to that date format because I append it to filenames in Unix - it's the only way the files can be sorted chronologically using the "ls" utility, should the time stamps have been tampered with (as often happens when moving files between different operating or file systems). Cheers. Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:21, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Even though I use Linux, you lost me about half way there :). Still a beginner. --liquidGhoul 15:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
07-16-2006 (bloody European dates). :) pschemp | talk 16:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

July 16th, anyone? David D. (Talk) 16:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I suppose we might as well switch back to that, given that the only reason for NCurse's sugesting the CURRENTYEAR-CURRENTWEEK format seems to have been that he felt we should have a weekly rotation. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:50, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Is there a requirement for featured portals to change the content on a weekly basis? What is the norm? If that is true it might be a good idea to have future content lined up so that anyone can come in and update without having to search for suitable material. Ont he other hand i quite like the fact we can add information articles that may be relevant to on going events. I put the stem cell article up since there was a lot of debate on stem cells in the press leading up to Bush's decision of not allowing federal funding for stem cells. This would not have been as easy with a more formalised selection process. David D. (Talk) 17:27, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
We have enough biographies listed on this very page for another nine months of so of updates, even if we do one a week. We also have pictures for another four weeks, I'm sure. We could go through and cross out the ones we've done already, I suppose. The selected/featured article doesn't have a list yet, and as far as I can see, the DYK will be done by hand for the foreseeable future (until these things start having tags like on flickr and elsewhere). So we could try to list selected article candidates. I don't see why current events shouldn't be taken into account. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 19:23, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think the current events is that important but if someone was in the news a biography of them on the page would not be out of place. If a topic is in the news why not have an article in the portal? Or am i missing the point of a portal?
Re: a list of appropriate articles, pictures and biographies, why don't we have a list at the top of the page and they can be removed as they are used? That would seem easier than scrolling through the conversations. David D. (Talk) 19:27, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Crossing out is better than removing. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:35, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. David D. (Talk) 23:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Decision needed: stick with FA or cast net wider?

We need to decide whether we're going to allow articles as selected articles that don't have FA status. I think this could make things more interesting and give some added value to the portal over the front page. In the past, we have stuck to this, but for images, we decided some time ago that we would use featured pictures, and we have also recently exclusively had FAs as selected articles. Comments? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:26, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd say go with the diversity angle. i don't know how nmany biologicaslly related FA there are but I don't see any sense in restricting it to FA articles. i have seen some pretty good article in wikipedia that are not FA or even good articles. I'm not sure we even need to restrict ourselves to featured pictures. I expect I am on the extreme end of the spectrum here. Although I am not so extreme that poorly written or factually incorrect content is featured. David D. (Talk) 23:15, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree, on the article front putting up non-featured articles but good articles might also help them get more edits and improve them in the end. As for pictures there are still a lot of good pictures which aren't featured, so i think just choosing some of the better articles and pictures, ignoring featured status (to an extant), would be best—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Chris huh (talk • contribs) 23:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I think good article quality and up could be used. I still think we should use FP though. When we decided on it, some pretty bad pictures were being featured. --liquidGhoul 23:45, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree on the FP. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Themed content?

The other question is whether we should try to match, say, the biography with the FP and the selected article for each week. So we could have a botany week followed by a parasite week, followed by a cell cycle week, etc. etc. This may be a preferred way for people to absorb information. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:35, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I like this idea and we do not have to hold ourselves too it. But, if there are two good related articles then it is definitely worthwhile. David D. (Talk) 23:15, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I like it. --liquidGhoul 23:46, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Anybody wanna think of a theme? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Carolus Linnaeus, and Image:Bufo bufo couple during migration(2005).jpg (we can accept commons FP can't we?), but I don't have an article. I was thinking of taxonomy, but it is too short. Any ideas? --liquidGhoul 13:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Cladistics is tangential. Molecular systematics looks good, but is under-referenced. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Molecular systematics is now a much shorter article, after removing a large section that was just regurgitating someone's paper on phylogeny of dogs in great detail. I have, however, made a merge suggestion that could help expand and reference the article to bring it closer to GA standard. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 10:56, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Could also have Charles Darwin or Alfred Russel Wallace or a number of biographies with evolution or natural selection, but again, I cannot think of a good FP. --liquidGhoul 13:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
It's not the most original idea, but Image:Peacock.detail.arp.750pix.jpg. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:49, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Theme: antioxidants/longevity

So here's a suggestion of a combination of articles and images:

The last two need to be put through GA before we can use them. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:27, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Why have I heard of Linus Pauling. Reading the intro, I can't think of what he did that I would know. --liquidGhoul 00:38, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
It's probably difficult not to have heard of him. Two individual Nobel Prizes and one of the last true polymaths. I think it is generally believed that if Watson and Crick had not found the structure of DNA, he would have done. Maybe you heard of him in that context. You are right, though, that he does not seem to have touched on either population genetics nor ecology in the least, the two areas that you and I would probably be most familiar with. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 10:11, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
It is either his work on structure of DNA or his work on hybrid orbitals. He may have been mentioned in chem lectures. --liquidGhoul 12:11, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Agreed queue, proposed themes

Both the agreed queue (which must be followed, any probs, shoot yourselves in the foot or something) and proposed themes can now be found in /Proposed. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 11:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Can we put dates on the change dates? --liquidGhoul 11:51, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Sure, if you think that helps. :) - Samsara (talk • contribs) 11:53, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unfeatured peacock

LiquidGhoul, someone neglected to update the official FP list (which is where I went looking for a suitable FP). I just fixed that. You can check the deletion history to see that it was featured previously. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 11:34, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I see that. Noone place the FP template on it either. --liquidGhoul 11:54, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiCAst: A Request.

Hi,

I was looking for the WikiProject Biology page but was directed here.

WikiCast is an attempt to do 'free' content radio with a focus on Wiki Content.

It was felt that your project, might be willing to assist, either by suggestign ideas or by making content.

Feedback would be very much appreciated ShakespeareFan00 22:00, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FA nomination for Enzyme

Hi there. I nominated Enzyme for Featured article a while ago. I would appreciate feedback on this nomination and any suggestions on how to improve the article further. Thanks! TimVickers 17:35, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portal "icon" changed

Changed the top image twice today. The second proposal a little more radical than the first. I think whatever it ends up being, it should be a featured picture. And I find butterflies boring. It's been speculated that most species may be nematodes because whichever species of animal you look at, even beetles, they have at least one nematode as parasite or commensal, often several. My other ambition was to have something with water to reinforce the "blue theme". 2/3 of earth covered in salt water might suggest a marine species as ideal... - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:48, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that although the nematode worm may most numerous, it isnt a particularly striking or interesting picture. I think having maybe a marine animal would interest more people, fish or a dolphin or something. chris_huh 22:10, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I've come up with an alternative that I'm willing to defend. :) - Samsara (talk • contribs) 23:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History

I've just changed the selected article and selected biography, can someone update the archives? Gotta run off for a bit, sorry! - Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:42, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Slightly off topic but seemed reasonable to bring up here.

Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines is a proposed guideline which currently has support from both the physics and math projects. Presumably people from other sciences such as bio may wish to comment. JoshuaZ 23:36, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review of bacteria

Hi there. I'd value people's input on this article. Thank you. TimVickers 05:35, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Simple Introduction

Some science articles are starting to produce introductory versions of themselves to make them more accessible to the average encyclopedia reader. You can see what has been done so far at special relativity, general relativity and evolution, all of which now have special introduction articles. These are intermediate between the very simple articles on Simple Wikipedia and the regular encyclopedia articles. They serve a valuable function in producing something that is useful for getting someone up to speed so that they can then tackle the real article. Those who want even simpler explanations can drop down to Simple Wikipedia. What do you think?--Filll 23:00, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Simple Wikipedia is about using simple English, rather than explicitly making things more understandable, although usually, this arises as a by-product. I'd personally like to see that articles on the simple Wikipedia improved to a higher level. It would be a great exercise in writing and understanding. :) Samsara (talk • contribs) 23:21, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I also work in Simple Wikipedia as well and would like to see them vastly improved. I have worked on 100-200 articles on Simple Wikipedia as well as regular and introductory articles here. I think that the introductory articles can be intermediate between the Simple articles and the full articles. So that we address all levels: roughly at the level of elementary school students (Simple articles), the general public (introductory articles) and advanced articles (regular articles). This of course is only reasonable for very technical subjects, like quantum mechanics, general relativity or evolution. --Filll 23:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I think you did a good job in the introductory evolution article. Evolution is a bit of an unmanageable monster without real focus. I wonder how the introductory articles will fare in the long term. Some people will feel that they are forks of a sort and should not exist. I think they have a place, as long as we can make sure that the logic is fully explained, i.e. no loopholes left for creationists et al. Evolution is a tough topic to write about, not least because so many people are watching that article, and expect various different things from it! Samsara (talk • contribs) 23:30, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I am not sure what will happen eventually. However this has been addressed repeatedly over the last few years. There are now 7 articles that use the seeintro tag and you can see the list at this page. The decision has always been made to keep the introductory articles. If you look around you can see many of the discussions that are archived (I can point you to some if you are interested) I do not think all articles should have them. But speaking as someone who has put huge effort into the Simple Wikipedia articles, to write something using only 850 words in English and make it reasonably accurate is very challenging. I think it is very worthwhile, but one definitely needs something between Simple Wikipedia and regular Wikipedia articles for very technical subjects. I want someone who has minimal background and might not have much competence in English to be able to read an article on Simple Wikipedia, then be able to read an introductory article and then a regular article, and climb all the way from a grade 3 level of understanding to a postdoctoral level. All of these need good introductions and good references and clear writing.--Filll 23:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I don't this that kind of ascent really works. In order to fully understand evolution, you have to have read not the simple version, but rather, some basic background in population genetics - hence the recent discussion about the term, "allele frequencies". Samsara (talk • contribs) 23:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. As it now stands, the Simple version of most articles is very sad. In desperate need of improvement. However, I believe if one has a good solid Simple article with good references, this could help the reader be able to read an Introductory article, especially if the person read and digested the references. If the person in turn was able to absorb the introductory article and its references, I would hope that they would have a much better chance to understand the regular article, at least if the links and references are used. This of course would not be trivial. And probably no one would ever do it. However, its value is that a reader who heard something on the radio, or a parent who has to answer a question from their child, or someone who wants more than a dictionary definition, can get a bit more content, at the right level, to help them. And the regular evolution article alone is written for someone with at least a bachelor's degree already in biology, or at least college-level training. But almost none of the intended readers of Wikipedia will have that. And so...--Filll 00:30, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../b/i/o/Portal_talk%7EBiology_6ac6.html"