User talk:Fledgeling

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Welcome to Wikipedia!

If you are too timid to start a slash and burn campaign in you subject area of choice, then feel free to play around in the Wikipedia:Sandbox.

There are many things to learn here: if you want a few pointers then come and visit me at User: Noisy, or leave a message on my talk page. Otherwise, the only tips I give are

  • that you sign your name with three tildas (~~~), and leave name and timestamp with four tildas.
  • <nowiki> </nowiki> around text will stop it being interpreted.
  • Play around with your 'preferences' to change the way that your screen is displayed.
  • And finally ... I recommend that you use the 'Show preview' button as a matter of habit before saving your edits. Noisy | Talk 15:50, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] First contact

As I mention above, you can sign your name with three tildes (~), and leave name and date with four tildes.

I think that the Wikipedia:Help desk is the right place to have asked your question (and I have responded there, and told you how to get your first edits creditted to your new user name). Unfortunately, Wikipedia is growing so fast that things get more and more confusing, rather than simpler. Noisy | Talk 16:20, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ashe magnolia

Thanks for adding the page on it, I hope you won't mind that I've moved it to Bigleaf magnolia and used it as a base for starting a page on that species; the reason is that Ashe magnolia is now treated as just a subspecies of Bigleaf, not a distinct species in its own right (see the reference and external links posted at Magnolia) - MPF 23:37, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Also a tip, if you want to add the 'taxobox' (the box in the top right corner of most plant pages) to other new magnolia pages you start, just copy the box from Bigleaf magnolia and paste it into the new pages, and change the names as appropriate - MPF 23:41, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Kiwis

Hi Fledgeling, thanks for the note, I've re-posted it on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life where it'll get seen. Unfortunately I don't have anything very up-to-date on kiwis (1992 is my best) but I'd guess someone will - MPF 09:55, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] VfD

There's always Wikipedia:Votes for deletion though it's rather overused. You can also put a {{delete}} tag on a page... I wouldn't really say that Needham Community Theatre warrants deletion though, ie from [1] it appears to be a real thing, so the article's harmless, especially since nothing links to it... Evercat 01:01, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, note that the above is just my opinion - I'm not as Deletionist as some people... :-)

You can say that, but then .. if you don't want to include High Schools in Wikipedia, then I would call you a deletionist with respect to local stuff. Why don't you want to tell good stories about your school - it is the second most important thing to children IMHO?? And what's the problem with describing even the most unknown school in the universe, as long as someone cares? It's not because of the cost of storage, right? Or is it because you are afraid of all the links to these pages, chaos in the categories and the like? In my view the Wikipedia is able to contain almost anything as long as it is well ment and witout mean intentions. So - go ahead and tell the tale of YOUR high school and remember: It is your view, that counts, it is your one good experience that matters - to your followers ..--Hansjorn 12:45, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

As for Grutchin, it's probably OK too (in my opinion, again) but it needs to be put in a bit of context, which I've now done.

There are lots of quite silly articles in Wikipedia. Even I've created at least one, Miss Kitty Fantastico... Evercat 01:52, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Books

Don't worry about it! No book is perfect . . I'd not chuck it just because it has a few errors in. Most of what you've added is OK. The reason I've removed the book citation is that the 'references' is more intended for detailed scientific papers which are not widely known, rather than general books (e.g. take a look at the abstruse refs at Cupressus); most articles don't have refs at all, and links often only to show photos where there's no free license pics available. Otherwise, most of what I've been doing is re-ordering the wording to try and follow a more-or-less consistent style across lots of pages (roughly the order Name - where from - size of tree - leaves - flowers - fruit - uses/cultivation). For a good site packed with pretty reliable info, check out the Gymnosperm Database (tho' bear in mind the usual wiki note not to copy & paste copyrighted stuff). Anyway, new stubs prompt me to add more material to wikipedia, and that's always a good thing, so keep up the good work! And again, don't worry, I started at wikipedia with a steep learning curve too :-) - MPF 22:39, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

PS to add your sig, type four tildes (~~~~) at the end, then it appears automatically - MPF 22:39, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Spence school

Hi, thanks for your comment. What I meant to say was that Fvw did not really give a reason for deleting the page at all. He thinks it's enough to delete schools just because they are schools. I think it's enough to keep them! I think that if we have space for towns with one inhabitant, elves from Lord of the Rings, any and every byway of physics and chemistry, we can find space for institutions that are as important to all of us as schools. You don't have to apologise for your views. Sincere differences of opinion are not a problem for me, or I would hope anyone. I hope, though, that you might find time to read what I write about constructionism on my user page. I sincerely believe that we will make a better encyclopaedia by putting more effort into building than undoing. A few bad pages are not really hurtful because this is not Britannica, nothing is fixed, and the content is fluid and organic. BTW, don't forget to sign messages wherever you leave them, particularly on talk pages. Use the four tildes, as mentioned by MPF in the post above. You'll quickly find it becomes a habit. I'll bet I'm not the first idiot to sign their edits on article pages by mistake! Dr Zen 03:47, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't have an area of interest as such. I'm an editor, so I contribute by fixing pages. I like to random a few and fix what needs fixing. I wrote a couple of stubs on Cornish towns and I'm interested in popular music, so I suppose I will contribute there when I'm struck with inspiration. I think the editing many do is ultravaluable. I feel I upset you when I mentioned magnolia species and I'm sorry for that. The truth is I feel people throw the word "notable" around far too much. The world is too fascinating a place for us to be dismissing so much of it as just so much chaff. Dr Zen 08:02, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Kents Hill School

Hi Fledgeling. The article on Kents Hill School has been refactored and expanded, with additional work underway. I think that the fact it is one of the oldest co-ed schools in the nation sets a good case for notability. In any case, I was hoping you would revisit the issue and reconsider your vote. Thank you -- GRider\talk 19:58, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Plant cell

I noticed on your user page that you were intending to create an article on the plant cell. As you see from the title of this section - it already exists. You should note that on Wikipedia capitalization is only used for proper names in titles of articles or sections. Cheers, Noisy | Talk 17:55, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

  • thank you, i didnt know that Fledgeling 01:29, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Some minor questions

I have a few minor questions that id like to ask-

Great, I love answering questions, especially when people ask me questions that allow me to extol the virtues of my current finely-crafted wikipedia-editing and general computer setup.

How can i help with vandalism cleanup? Iv been tracking via the contributions page of a few pesky annons, but usually anothermember takes care of it first before i even notice

There are two main ways of seeking out vandalism, your watchlist and Recent Changes. If you turn on "Add pages you edit to your watchlist" in your preferences, you watchlist will grow pretty quickly and a lot of vandalism will reveal itsself just by turning up in your watchlist. If nothing interesting's turning up on your watchlist and you want to go vandal hunting, head over to WP:RC and look at random changes or changes to pages which you think are high-risk targets for vandalism. Also useful for this are Special:Contributions/newbies which lists all edits by newly registered users, and Special:Newpages which lists all newly created pages. See also: Wikipedia:How to spot vandalism.

that leads to my seccond queston, how can i be more time- efficent on wikipedia? i reserch and doublecheck my new pages that i start extensivly (not so with comments to other users) and avarage a sad 1 page a day when im online and 2 major edits a day - do you have any recomondations or advice for me so i can speed up the process because i have a huge backlog of stuff i want to edit that is impossible to fufill at my current speed. Thanks, Fledgeling 23:24, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Especially with the current server problems, tabbed browsing is essential. My personal browser of choice is Opera, but Firefox also has excellent tabbign support. Just open a lot of pages in parallel, work in one page and as soon as you find yourself waiting for the server, switch to a different tab. This takes a little getting used to as you have to remember what you were trying to do on all the different pages, but it's well worth the effort. Another method of speeding up your editing (and this really goes for any GUI use): Use the keyboard whenever possible, you can work much faster with the keyboard than the mouse.
Last but not least, for RC patrolling there's Live Recent Changes, which gives you a live scrolling list of recent changes; especially useful with the current server slowness. I'm not very fond of the javascript interface and am writing a small application that displays recent changes complete with automated risk-of-vandalism marking and such, but that's not release-ready by a long shot yet (development is very slow if every time you run the program to test a new feature or bugfix you get to see the list of recent changes and find all sorts of interesting edits you have to read and comment on). --fvw* 23:55, 2005 Jan 19 (UTC)

[edit] Cupressus macrocarpa

Hi Fledgeling - "Fossil pollen analysis suggests this species once had a more extensive range in the Untied States" - do you have a reference for this? The pollen is not distinguishable from the pollen of other Cupressus species ("Examination of the pollen of several cypresses has disclosed no differences which could be used for differentiation of species" - C B Wolf, The New World Cypresses), so I don't see how this could be claimed to an individual species, rather than the genus as a whole (which of course has a much larger range in the western US). - MPF 11:39, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] White Mulberry, taste of berries

I see you prefer the 'insipid' description for the taste of the berries, I am wondering why you think the previous anon author is incorrect. I own a weeping white mulberry and the fruit are sweet and not white. Is it possible I do not have a white mulberry? David D. 17:33, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Endangered or not . .

Hi Fledgeling - best to go for (a) whichever is the most recent, and (b) whichever deals with the species as a whole, rather than parts of its range (e.g. Lebanon Cedar is on the Red List for Lebanon, but as a whole, the species is Secure, as it is abundant in southern Turkey). Hope that helps! - MPF 22:46, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Cupressus - Hi Fledgeling - just to let you know why I removed the status tag from Cupressus dupreziana on the Cupressus page, is because the info is already on the species page; the ones that have the status listed are the ones (red-links) that don't have their own pages yet (must get round to writing them soon!!). There's a slight problem with having endangered or critical tags on a genus page, as the {{StatusEndangered)) and {{StatusCritical)) tags auto-list the page at Category:Endangered species, and genus pages don't really belong in that category! - MPF 10:31, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Request for review

Hi Fledgeling - thanks for the note! yep, that's fairly close, it's good to use a semi-standard formula ordered tree size - bark - shoots - leaves - flowers - fruit for descriptions so they're more or less the same across the board, with the items linked, and with the item before its characteristics (i.e., "the [[leaf|leaves]] are ovate-oblong ...", rather than "the ovate-oblong leaves ..."). I'm also using data from the two refs I've added as they both strike me as very reliable. One other thing I've not done, not sure what you think: the various pages should probably be moved either to caps (Xxx Magnolia, rather than Xxx magnolia, as the genus is named after a person so is capitalised under most rules of capitalisation); or else to the scientific names (see recent discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants#Plant article naming conventions). Do you have any thoughts or preferences? - MPF 12:28, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thankyou

hi, I just wanted to say thanks for working on lemon with me. You're helping a lot and i hope to make it a good article! --Bjwebb (talk) 18:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

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