User talk:John D. Croft

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Welcome!

Hello John D. Croft, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!  --Hurricane111 05:16, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Hello, John. I am interested in the two articles you have started: Proto-Euphratean (talk · history · watch) and Proto-Afro-Asiatic (talk · history · watch). You are obviously writing from a pro-Nostratic point of view. However, Wikipedia is a community-built encyclopaedia in which many points of view are presented. Overall, we strive for a neutral point of view (please read), and try to back up our writing with sources, the corollary of which is no original research (please read). You may also want to read the manual of style, as this suggests how best to format articles. Some of your work so far has been labelled as problematic in one of these ways. This is quite common for newcomers: these labels are as much for the community as for you. Make use of the talk pages associated with each article to engage in discussion on the topic. Doing this often helps editors work together to improve articles. Feel free to ask me a question on my talk page. --Gareth Hughes 17:11, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Noongar

Hi John,

Thanks for your comments and contributions at Yagan, Noongar classification, Perth, Western Australia and Talk:Swan River Colony. Certainly you are right that there is a systemic bias towards the white colonial perspective of Western Australian history. I'm sure no-one intends to present a racist history, but that's what ends up happening because so few contributors understand indigenous culture and social structure.

I'm a pretty good example of this problem; when I was writing Yagan I tried to present a balanced view, and I tried to provide important cultural information such as Yagan's tribe and classification, but I simply don't understand it all well enough to write about it properly. Hence the second rate attempt at Noongar classification, and hence [edits like this].

Drew (Snottygobble) | Talk 11:59, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Dear Drew

I am a very recent Wikipedia entrant and my skills are still fairly elementary. Looking at your excallent Yagan article shows me that your skills are of a high order. I still don't understand the nature of Wikipedia's policies regarding images, nor the technique for incorporating images into the text, and would appreciate any help on this I can get.

I would also appreciate help on the articles of Whadjuk and Pindjarup that I have recently written and uploaded.

Regards John D. Croft 22:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline of evolution

You have recently added information regarding ice ages to the timeline of evolution article. Could you please provide a reference for that information? If your source is a book, could you also provide a brief quote from the book, to confirm the information (as per the other references on that page)? Thank you. -- Ec5618 10:12, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I tried adding the references but failed, as I am only a starter and don't understand the referencing format you have used.
They are
  • John, Brian (Ed)(1979) "The Winters of the World: Earth under the Ice Ages" Jacaranda Press ISBN 047026844-1 presents the evidence for the Huronian Ice Age.
  • Walker, Gabrielle, (2003) "Snowball Earth: The Story of the Great Global Catastrophe that Spawned Life as we know it" Bloomsbury ISBN 0747654337, presents the evidence for the "Runaway Ice House theory.
Could you insert them for me
Many thanks
John D. Croft 11:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the references. Could you please provide a quote from each book? Ideally, I'd like to include a quote from "The Winters of the World" in which the Huronian Ice Age is concluded to be real (along the lines of "from all this, we can conclude that some 2500MYa, the Earth was in the middle of an Ice age"), and a quote from "Snowball Earth" in which the concept of Ice house effect is summarised (possibly from the back cover, along the lines of "The ice house effect was the result of rampant oxygen production, which destroyed most of the methane in the atmosphere, and caused the global temperature to drop dramatically"). Again, thank you. -- Ec5618 11:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I am currently at work and under a fair bit of pressure (and don't have access to my reference library here) so I am unable to comply with your request at the moment. Thank you again for your help.
John D. Croft 03:45, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
No problem. We have time. Thanks. -- Ec5618 08:42, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Galaxy

Hi John, A lot of your edits to the Galaxy article look good, but it's really hard to follow when you make dozens of edits each day. Please try to make just a few major edits so that others who have the article on their watchlists can keep track of what's going on.

Also, I'm concerned about the non-scientific tone of some of the edits. Particularly, I don't think it's appropriate to have a section on "life in galaxies". Life lives on planets, which happen to be in galaxies, but I don't see a strong connection between the two. -- Xerxes 15:46, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yaw (god)

Greetings, John!

Great recent edits here. I hope more able editors like you will contribute to this article. I just now added a short phrase identifying Yaw with Chaos (mythology) further down (in paragraph two). Also, I think that Yam and Nahar should be specified as "bynames", a fact made clear in the excerpts from the Baal Cycle. What do you think?

  - C. dentata 20:21, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Great Castanea dentata, I like your edits. What about an earlier section though. Giovanni Pettinato at Ebla identified an earlier Yah phase appearance at Ebla associated with the reign of Ebrum there (see my post on the discussion page). Bottero and others have identified this with the extension of Akkadian Ea into northern Iraq and Syria under Sargon of Akkad. I would like to include this on your discussion of Levantine Yaw. What are your thoughts.
John D. Croft 00:23, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I enthusiastically agree. I think this will call for a new section. To do that, though, we will need to gather some reputable sources. You are welcome to start. I hope to run down to the uni. library at some point when I have time...  - C. dentata 01:56, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bias

Hi John,

I'm all for countering the systemic bias in Wikipedia by providing better coverage of Aboriginal culture and history, so I think your knowledge and appreciation of these issues could be of enormous benefit to Wikipedia. But I must say some of your edits are unencyclopaedic in their bias. If you're going to write obviously POV statements like "Stirling's vindictive vengeful policies", it would be better if you didn't edit the articles at all. Can we try to keep it neutral and verifiable please? Snottygobble 22:13, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Gathering facts to support your position is original research, which does not belong on Wikipedia, even if you are right. The only appropriate way to support your position on Wikipedia is to gather references. Your statement that Stirling had vindictive vengeful policies is only verifiable if the majority of reputable sources clearly agree that Stirling had vindictive vengeful policies. A very brief look at my biography of Stirling by Statham indicates that Statham, for one, would not agree with your position. You need to refactor your statements to neutrally communicate all points of view, rather than propounding your own. Snottygobble 07:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:NCG250collision.jpg

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This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. If you have questions about copyright tagging of images, post on Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags or User talk:Carnildo/images. 18:19, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your post regarding Copywrite on the image of Galaxies colliding. I am still a newbie Wikipedia contributer and so have some difficulties in creating pages. The image, I believe was from a public domain site but for the life of me I cannot remember were I got it from. Can you help?
Warm regards
John D. Croft 06:51, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
As far as I can tell the original source of the image was this press release it is available in super high resolution here. I can't find anything stating what the copyrigth of the image is. Maybe you could contact Gill Ormrod who's email is on the press release and ask about the copyright status. Failing that it is probably OK to use the fair use boilerplate {{Promophoto}} on it. --Martyman-(talk) 07:53, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
this site is in the image page as being the source, and it mentions credit to Gemini, if that helps. - cohesion★talk 07:57, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lahm

Lahm has been proposed for deletion. Is there any information that can be added to this article? If not, it makes more sense to simply include this information in a related article and make Lahm a redirect to that article. If there's more to be said about Lahm, please add some information to the article or explain your plans on the talk page. Also, definitely include some sources to comply with WP:V. If you feel you've made your case for keeping the article, go ahead and remove the "prod" notice to stop the deletion process. NickelShoe 06:37, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Western Australia

Hello John. I reverted your added statement in the Western Australia article claiming that Perth is nearer to Singapore than to Sydney. As I checked in Great Circle Mapper, Perth-Singapore is 2420 miles, while Perth-Sydney is 2041 miles. Clearly then, Sydney is still nearer to Perth. I did reword the sentence so the idea that Perth is quite isolated in that respect is still there. Elektrik Blue 82 00:51, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Image196.gif

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[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Ngc520collision.jpg

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[edit] Pythia and Delphi

Hey, I'd like to thank you for your work on these articles, which is greatly improving their quality.

I hope this does not seem impertinent, but I wonder if I could ask you to give more complete citations in your edits. For instance, when you're quoting ancient sources, it would be very helpful to give the author, the work, and the location of the passage (book/line numbers for poetry, book/paragraph numbers for prose, or other standard reference system). Similarly, when you mention facts derived from modern scholarship, please cite author, work, page number. For instance, you've brought Lisa Maurizio's work into the article, which is a great thing, but it would be even better to have specific page numbers to look at to verify the information.

Again, I hope that my comment does not seem rude or offensive, because your edits are taking the articles in a much better direction. --Akhilleus (talk) 06:13, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] License tagging for Image:Uruk.jpeg

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[edit] Sustainability

Hi John, I noticed your contribution of the emergy table to the sustainability page. Because emergy has not yet gained universal acceptance some view the method and nomenclature with suspiscion. Because of this it is important to include as much referencing to published literature as possible. If you could provide references to the formulas and the table in the sustainability article that would be terrific. On another matter, have you performed any emergy audits to evaluate the sustainability of a region or entity? I'd be interested to have further contact with you on this. Please let me know. Cheers, Sholto Maud 10:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello, John... As a result of noticing the work you've done on the Sustainability page, and then scanning through your User page, I thought I'd leave a message.
I recently left a message at the Talk:Fishery page concerning the inadequacy of the current Fishery article as regards any detail concerning the degradation of the ocean fisheries of the world. (Unfortunately, I realized, I had not logged in when I left my recent message requesting more information be added concerning impacts on "the noble fishes" (large, choice species such as cod, halibut, tuna, salmon).
It isn't that I think this (fisheries) is a special focus of yours or a special interest of yours, but I thought you might be in touch with some persons who may know something about this topic and might be willing to expand the Fishery article. Please pass this request on, if you would, to someone who can help out, if you know anyone. Thanks. Joel Russ
John, you wrote on my "Talk" page: "Hi Joel. Regarding sustainable fisheries, there are few good examples in the world to point to and industrial fishing, with sein purse nets and long-lines are particularly damaging to the environment. The Australian government has been particularly concerned with the poaching of Patagonian tooth fish (see article at http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=11981) and also with the taking of sharks fins, trochus shells and beche la mer (Sea cucumbers) by Indonesian craft, operating for Chinese syndicates in the north."
Like myself, I believe you are very concerned to put positive sustainability ideas 'out there'... however, with respect to fisheries the news at present is mostly bad. But, still, the fact is not conveyed well (that is, in any detail whatsoever) in the Fishery article - which is why I wrote to you. Do you think we can find someone who can add a bit of useful detail? Afterall, Wikipedia is much used by secondary-school and college/university students as a first resource on many topics; they are the future, so they should be learning something about this vital dimension of the fisheries topic.
Best, Joel

[edit] License tagging for Image:Sumer1.jpg

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[edit] Community studies

Hi John. I appreciated your edits on Community development and other contributions. Image:Vavilov Zones1.jpg would be useful if you could give it a licence and a bit of backing. The Neolithic revolution article is quite interesting. We could use some help on other community-related articles espesially Community studies. I know of the Gaia Movement from Wikia:Ecovillage (where you can do original research). • CQ • WP:CBTF • 15:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image tagging for Image:Enki.jpg

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[edit] Ophanbot Enki.jpg

Hi. I am not the owner of OrphanBot, Carnildo is. However, if OrphanBot tagged an image, it will soon be deleted anyway. --Chodorkovskiy (talk) 10:00, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Whadjuk

Hi John, I noticed you spent a lot of time with this article. We've run into a problem with the Mount Eliza, Western Australia and the Kings Park, Western Australia articles both of these have differing Names to each other ad to the Whadjuk article. Would know of a source that we can quote to clear this up as our sources all differ. Gnangarra 00:22, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] r/K selection theory

Hi there. I've just been looking at your recent edits to the r/K selection theory article. I'm afraid that I'm not convinced that they help articulate the general theory. It seems to me that the concepts of r/K are used in Adaptive Capacity analogously to how they are used in ecology. Certainly the current reference to adaptive capacity is unclear and confusing (it also needs copyediting). It might be better to move the adaptive capacity material to a "See also" point. Not least because explaining the relevance of r/K for adaptive capacity might be best done there (I notice that it's not at the moment). Cheers, --Plumbago 16:01, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

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