User talk:Gergyl

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[edit] Glaciers

You're obviously someone who knows what they are talking about...if you want to add your gif to the glacier retreat article, maybe right over or under Connelleys image and sized the same if possible...include a caption so we know what were are looking at and maybe comment that the gif is of a portion of the image Connelley uploaded.--MONGO 07:46, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Author ref

If it's an author ref, it should be "Gould, J.". I'm not sure that a colour plate has an author, however; it would seem more likely to be an "artist". I am not aware of the same convention for artists. Gould will indicate that there are several artists and several scientists with that surname, so you might as well use the full name. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 12:10, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

You would be right for some ordinary book, but this is one of the most famous works in Australian ornithology. Would you refer to, say, Gray's Anatomy as Gray, H., Anatomy? If the reader really hasn't heard of Gould (or Gray), they can just click the link and be enlightened.

You're correct that Gould didn't draw the plate - the guy really couldn't draw (see which is by him). But the book is by him. --User:Gergyl 00:09, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pale-headed Rosella

Hi. I've checked various world checklists, which are generally considered more appropriate than field guides for taxonomic decisions here. On what basis do Simpson & Day make their lump, any idea? SP-KP 00:08, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

HANZAB is the Wikiproject-nominated list for the region, which is why I reproduced it as the List of Australasian birds. But it is not all that current. I'll check S&D and some others tonight.

OK. I've just done a quick google search for research on the taxonomic status of these two forms and haven't come up with anything. Very interested to hear what S&D have to say. SP-KP 00:16, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Looked some more at this. Seems the lumping idea has been around for a long time. Slater (perhaps the best-regarded field guide) mentions it (2003 revised edition), but sticks with the split taxonomy. S&D mentioned it way back in the 1988 ed (footnote to entry), but kept the old taxonomy then. Of the current-edition field guides, 3 have the split taxonomy and only S&D go with the lumped. The Atlas (2003) has the split taxonomy. FWIW, I live near the range overlap and haven't seen much evidence of hybridisation - maybe just missing it. Leave it split for now...

And of course evidence of hybridisation is just a first piece of evidence needed to argue for conspecificity; I have hybridising Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls on the roof opposite my office window, but they are still separate species. SP-KP 16:19, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Greater Crested Tern

Hi Glen - thanks for the note; I didn't delete the second pic, it was something in the formatting just resulted in its not showing (which I'd not realised). I've corrected it now so it does show, and also added the Aus name - MPF 13:22, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Glaciers again

I was wondering if you minded moving the glacier gifs to Commons. The gifs are all here but will need to be uploaded individually...I think I can do this but would stillw ant your approval. The gifs can be uploaded with the same name and that way I can add them to the gallery of images on the commons page...[1].--MONGO 08:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah sure. I'm OS right now, mainly out of contact. Please go ahead yourself.--User:Gergyl 04:13, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. Rather painfull. --User:Gergyl 11:26, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Glen...now the whole wiki in all languages can easily find them and I'll check them out and see what's what...are you interested in joining the Wikipedia:WikiProject Glaciers. We have one glaciologist (Peltoms) and I myself have been distracted as of late from the project. I am, but an amateur on the subject, but find it interesting and I'm learning. Anyway, if you're so inclined, feel free to hop aboard.--MONGO 21:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Replacing images

Please replace any of my bird images with yours, if you have a better one. Some people don't like their images being "upgraded" to better ones, but I'm not one of them. Brett.donald 03:39, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. You mean Black-winged Stilt? That photo of yours is just spectacular. Ah, you mean the Double-barred Finch ... I'm thinking that multiple photo galleries can be useful here, provided the server space stays manageable. Different races / subspecies, different ages / sexes / plumage states, in flight vs perched, even just different viewing angles / conditions. It is one of the strengths of this medium, provided it doesn't get out of hand. See eg Australian Pelican - getting silly there now.--User:Gergyl 04:47, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, if all the images are of good quality. As for crappy photos, get rid of them. Brett.donald 00:27, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kakapo

Seems there were Kakapos on Anchor Island in Dusky Sound in March 06 [2] (pretty authoritative, second last paragraph). Apparently 30 of them (anecdotal). Maybe we aren't supposed to know?

[edit] The point?

Hello there. I am not really sure of the point of your "litter braindead" comment [3] about {{cn}} tags given that I requested citations for sources - verification is a non-negotiable requirement, right? [...] Merbabu 11:20, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Apologies for my grump. Guess I find endless (&undiscussed) {{cn}}-ing a bit tiresome - though it was maybe fair enough here. Sure, I'm all for referencing, but WP is not some scientific journal. We ought be able to state what is generally known and accepted by those familiar with the subject without slavishly referencing every single line. Better a more generalised list of sources, at least for minor articles.

This one would probably have been better handled with a cross-reference to Retreat of glaciers since 1850#Tropical glaciers, where the stuff comes from.

[edit] Photo galleries

I'm mystified as to why the developers put the ability, except that it is extremely useful over in Wikimedia Commons. And I rarely do anything 'willy nilly' on Wikipedia (though I love the word and thank you for using it). I have tended only to delete galleries prior to or during a period of expansion on an article, despite my desire to remove them all. If they serve a function it is that prior to an article being taken past 'start' stage it serves as a holding place for images that people add. But once an article is long enough (as in albatross, Procellariidae or bird, it is possible to space enough appropriate illustrations around the article without having a gallery. In a situation where there are no plans to expand the article and the gallery encompasses a range of useful and different images showing the range of useful things you describe I leave them well alone.

The problem with galleries is that they accumulate so many bad photos, or so many identical 'me also, oh! I took one!' photos, (Mallard), or numerous identical photos (Greenfinch, Kea before I cleaned it out ), or a family with inumerable photos of the most common species and unidentified members of the family (Gull) page or sometimes a single photo that could easily be incorporated into the text (check out Kagu).

Basically, photos are an aid to text, which is what an encyclopaedia is. Galleries are media, and huge galleries are the realm of the Commons, not the Encyclopaedia. As they say in WP:NOT#REPOSITORY If you are interested in presenting a picture, please provide an encyclopedic context, or consider adding it to Wikimedia Commons. I really do love illustrating Wikipedia with images, and waste hours combing through Flickr and other sources trying to find images of under-represented bird taxa, but I also try hard to make sure that the images are used to best effect and really tie into the text.

I hope that answers your questions. Sabine's Sunbird talk 06:50, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Well no, not really. What did you have to say about "It is rare that one or two photos of a species can adequately convey even basic appearance, let alone ..."? Sure, lets have encyclopedic context, but why should that have to be in the style of some ancient leather-bound book? I said I wanted a gallery of "meaningful, annotated thumbnails" - like eg Black Noddy (though I'll grant you one of those is rubbish), even maybe Great Egret. OTOH, Mallard is a little over the top (though with some context); and as I said in a response above, Australian Pelican is ridiculous. But where, exactly, is the harm?

BTW, that crappy Kagu photo is mine ... and yes, it was slack to just dump it in a <gallery> tag. But there is some context, I think, in the annotation - the only place the wild birds can readily be seen, though it requires a 6 hour walk. --Gergyl 00:15, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Calm down, I never said that the Kagu photo was crap, I said that as there was only one photo in the gallery and therefore that the photo could as easily be worked into the text rather than have its own section. (Its better than any photo I have of a Kagu, and I'm dead jealous that you have seen one and I haven't).

Truth be told I'm not seeing a great deal of great annotations in Great Egret (on a railing? come on, do me a favour.), and if Black Noddy was substancially expanded the colony picture and the chick picture could go into a breeding section and you'd just be left with two headshots whcih could go side by side in an expanded description/taxonomy section (although I'd probably replace them with a side-by shot I have of the two species).

What did you have to say about "It is rare that one or two photos of a species can adequately convey even basic appearance, let alone ..."? To which I agreed that multiple photos is good, but spaced around the text to give the context, break up miles of text, and make the whole thing look better and easier to read. Compare, if you will, the featured albatross with the unfeatured Albatross on my userpage to make a point. While the page I just created is an extreme parody of your position (rather than your actual position), I did it to make the point that the existing albatross article has a range of illustrations that convey the appearance, let... seasonal variations, sexual variations, sub-species, behavior etc etc. A long article does not need to have a gallery section because there is sufficient space to convey it all in amongst the text, with the bonus that as the reader is looking at the text a relevant image is right there! Better yet, images can be bigger in the thumbs in the text that they are in the galleries. Its about organising the avaliable info and resources to best effect. Throw in the fact that huge featured pages are simply to big to have text images and a gallery at the end, and the afformentioned WP:NOT#REPOSITORY, and I have to draw the conclusion that the best medium for presenting large numbers of images is not Wikipedia, it's the Commons,a nd the role of Wikipedia is to present images as a suplement to text in an article. Sabine's Sunbird talk 05:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks; our views differ. The point re Great Egret was that it is a widespread species with regional differences. Some of the pics illustrate some of those. Others doubtless deserve deletion, with their banal annotations. Your "extreme" example didn't trouble me enormously. Surely it is the lack of text photos there that is the glaring problem, rather than the pretty harmless gallery right at the end. Yes, good annotated text photos are best, but a simple gallery at the foot of a species account can often enhance a short article, with less author effort. And many species-level accounts (not just for birds) are short, and likely to remain so for a good while yet.

[BTWA - interesting how easy it is to be misunderstood in this medium. 'Twas I who said that the Kagu photo is crap (a word I rather like - for its ancience, and for its somewhat dubious connection with Thomas Crapper). Technically, the pic is poor at best. Good camera gear is heavy!]

Kay, well, like I said, I tend not to delete gelleries if I have no intention of expanding the article and incorporating the photos into the text (like I did in albatross). I'd also suggest that the differences in appearance in the (and all the differences seem to be between breeding and non-breeding plumages and bill colours, not regional), at which point there is no reason not to have them at the commons. But yeah, ultimately our views differ. Sabine's Sunbird talk 22:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Whistling Kites/Spotted Bowerbirds

Hi there! I noticed you removed one of the external links on the Whistling Kite article. It was a link to the study that mentioned Spotted Bowerbirds imitating Whistling Kites in their courtship displays. I've put it back, and explained the link a bit better... MeegsC | Talk 04:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Whoops sorry, obviously didn't get the relevance - look forward to hearing that one day. I moved the link to a stub for a Spotted Bowerbird article, which the new page mafia have since deleted, of course...

No worries! I hadn't made the reason for the link clear enough, obviously. Nice pics by the way. I particularly like the Brown Thornbill; it's tough to get such a clean shot of fast-moving little birds like that, but you sure did! MeegsC | Talk 15:55, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ratings

I can edit some of them as to class, but I don't think I could do importance ratings. Would it be usefull to add just class ratings to the articles or not? KP Botany 19:18, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I think so. A few have classes already. Most would be start or stub class, I guess. What I was really on about is actually the list. It needs some coding to show eg the article class against each species entry, so casual editors in the region can see immediately where work is required. There must be a way to assemble that automatically?--Gergyl 01:03, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see, you want the list annotated so that folks can at a glance see the status of the articles. That's a good idea, and, frankly, yes I think you could get a bot to do that. I don't know which bot, but try posting at ToL and find out, also someone may be able to tell you better than I can where to post this request. And, then the bot could do all your lists. KP Botany 01:06, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Short-eared Possum vs Mountain Brushtail Possum

Groves writes in Mammal Species of the World (3rd ed., 2005): "What were previously thought to be populations of [Short-eared Possum T. caninus] in Victoria have been shown to be a separate species, [Mountain Brushtail Possum] T. cunninghami (Lindemayer et al., 2002). [T. caninus] and T. cunninghami are together sometimes known as Bobuck; Lindemayer et al. (2002) suggested new vernacular names to distinguish them."

MSW3 is the leading authority on mammalian taxonomy and common names. I've reverted your changes and made the corrections needed to reflect MSW3, afte Polbot's unfortunate bland creation of so many species articles. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:35, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. MSW3 as authority on taxonomy, guess so. Common names, less sure. Common names, by definition, are the names people actually use. Have a look at the Mahogany Glider vs Ebony Glider discussion for example (here). So Lindemayer/Groves say the long-established "Mountain Brushtail" should be reserved for the split T. cunninghami, so they coin "Short-eared" for the old T. caninus? Seems rather at odds with precidence...--Gergyl 01:03, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Crested tern

Hi, I'm no expert on sea birds so you're welcome to come up with a different ID but we don't get the lesser tern in Victoria. I took this image at Wingan Inlet in the Croajingolong National Park. I was taking photos of a flock of mixed breeding and non-breeding plumage and some smaller common terns. The bird was hunched into the wind so that might be hiding it's crest a bit. Just out of interest, how can you tell if it's first year plumage?--Benjamint 10:11, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Right, unlikely a Lesser then. For some reason I thought you were in SW WA. Still a bit surprising. Cresteds usually have a slaty yellow bill, but I see S&D says "sometimes orange-yellow". Juvenile Cresteds have mottled wings, and the black of the crown extends in a narrow lobe or collar towards the throat, as on yours (S&D has a drawing and description). But your bird's not a full-on juvenile, hence my "first year". Maybe "immature" would be a better description.

[edit] Kagu

We don't include foreign translations, regardless of what the local name is, in the initial, bolded introduction, unless that name is commonly used in English. You're right that Kagu is originally Kannaky in origin, but like Kea, Kakapo, Kaka and Kokako (forgive the alliteration) it has been adopted into English and has become the English common word for the species. Thus Kagu is English, adopted from Kannaky. Cagou, however, is simply the French translation and while perhaps deserving a mention, doesn't belong where it is now (wikipedia not, in this case, being a dictionary). So it should be changed back (but I prefer talking about it first before reverting again) Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:00, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean to imply by the Royal we? Kea, Kakapo, Kaka and Kokako all come from a country whose primary language is English, where anglicised Maori names and spellings are extensively adopted. Kagu are restricted to a French speaking country. The equivalent Francophised name and spelling adopted there is "Cagou", so it's likely that is actually the more widely used form. It would be downright odd for it not to appear in the article. It belongs in the first para, I care not where.--Gergyl 05:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

We as in we, Wikipedians, don't generally have foreign words not actually used in English in the first line for animals (Example Andean Condor). But I realise that it was the format that was bothering me more (not it's inclusion) Kagu or Cagou made it sound like either was English, which is not really correct, though I see it very occasionally. So I have simply made the difference clear. Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Lists of birds by region

Too late..., I already spent one night to do that tables. (I think mine is a little more detailed...) --Kerry7374 03:17, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, 'tis never too late... A problem with your tables is that they run too long, making it hard to find things. The places template is better that way, but it doesn't always lump things suitably for birds (or mammals!), and it also seems to lack a few places - eg Antarctica. Your call.

[edit] Little Tern

You would expect an encyclopaedia to use formal language, that's why we don't have slang or elisions like "don't" in articles. It's not a big deal, and if you restore I'll let it go, but I suspect that sooner or later someone will formalise it again. Jimfbleak (talk) 08:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Odd. Last time I checked, "tiny" was an ordinary english word, hardly slang, nor a contracted form. It means "very small", which is accurate in the context. Me thinks this place may suffer an excess of self-appointed gatekeepers. --Gergyl (talk) 23:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Perhaps someone can explain"

It was a copyvio from [4]. Hesperian 05:49, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Ta, well spotted.--Gergyl (talk) 06:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Talk:List of birds of Australia

Special:Whatlinkshere/Talk:List of birds of Australia is empty. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:02, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

But Special:WhatLinksHere/List_of_birds_of_Australia certainly isn't. So, lets see, you're gonna delete every unlinked talk page on WP? Bizarre stuff...--Gergyl (talk) 07:28, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP:AWB

Approved. Use wisely, and enjoy! --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 23:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProjet Birds May 2008 Newsletter

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[edit] West Papua

Isn't the province already official by the government? Bornfury (talk) 23:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, no problem with that. My issue was with the move. I moved the page to "(Indonesian province)" for the reasons given in the edit note - consistency with another page name (Papua (Indonesian province)), and because the term Papua is also used in Papua New Guinea. You're correct that there's no actual "Papua" province there, but the southern half of the country has long been called Papua, and the western part of that is officially Western Province, sometimes Western Papua. Worth one extra word in the West Papua page name, I thought.

The other issue is with just blanking a page to move it. That leaves all the history behind. Better to use move, which you can't do if the target page already exists. So you need admin intervention, so best discuss and agree first.--Gergyl (talk) 00:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. I guess it was my fault, next time I'll discuss first. Bornfury (talk) 18:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Birds June 2008 Newsletter

The June 2008 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 13:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)