User talk:The Boy that time forgot
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Welcome!
Hello, The Boy that time forgot, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
- The five pillars of Wikipedia
- How to edit a page
- Help pages
- Tutorial
- How to write a great article
- Manual of Style
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 need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! - MPF 22:00, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
A bit overdue - looks like you're the Boy that time (or at least the Welcoming Committee) forgot! You up Kielder way? Welcome from the Toon! - MPF 22:00, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Contents |
[edit] link to British
Hello, when you want to link to the article about something British, please do not link to British, as that is a disambiguation page (which nothing should be linked to). Instead link to the one of the options found on that page such as United Kingdom, Great Britain or British English by writing out [[United Kingdom|British]] or [[Great Britain|British]]. Regards, Jeff3000 00:20, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Naming protocol
Hi TBTTF - this one has been hotly debated for ages . . . take a look through the archives of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life. No doubt you've guessed I (and several others) am in favour of caps for species common names; some others are not. My feeling is that it is a very useful practical format, e.g. wild cherry (any species of Prunus in its native environment) is not the same as Wild Cherry (the specific English name of Prunus avium). It also introduces consistency, uniformity of treatment (lists with names randomly capitalised and not capitalised look awful), and predictability. In many cases, how does one know if a name is derived from a proper noun or not? - surprisingly difficult to know in many cases. Is e.g. Pohutukawa a proper name? Or Kusamaki? I think it is unreasonable to have to expect people to delve into Maori, Japanese, etc., etymology to find out whether to use a capital or not. The idea of using caps for species is far from new; most field guides use them, and have done for decades (e.g. The Observer's Book of Trees, first published in 1937, does so). Others of course disagree, but I have yet to see anyone produce any reason for doing so other than 'going by the grammatical rule book' ("the bible says so, so therefore you must do so"; obedience to scripture, rather than reason). The net result though is that no consensus has been reached, and both styles are accepted on wikipedia; you will find many species pages with capitalised common names, many with lower case common names. So I guess it is up to you; one option when adding links is to use whichever form the relevant species page is at (e.g. White Spruce, chestnut oak), though that can of course make a page internally inconsistent. Hope this helps! - MPF 01:23, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Quick edits
After a while you get a little more used to it. I still, and often, make sloppy copyedits just because so many articles on Wikipedia need a serious copyedit. KP Botany 22:10, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
- Also, what the heck, I don't know everything. Do you? Wikipedia editors need to do a lot more neutral discussing, including, when someone asks you why you did something, you explain your reasoning, or see holes in it, and change text, in agreement, accordingly. Try not to get as frustrated with the lack of this as I do on Wikipedia. KP Botany 22:36, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Tuley tubes
Fine by me, just make sure a redirect points to the new name, and mention the alternative name somewhere near the start of the article. All the best. SP-KP 21:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
