User talk:KarlM

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Please see my reply to your comments on the Moa-nalo. It's good to have more people around that know about birds, plants and all things interesting!

Again, welcome!  Sabine's Sunbird talk 07:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Action is undertaken!

Actually, there is action, the genera are already described, not yet published. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 06:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Really? When is that going to happen, and who is doing it? How is Idiomyia (or the others for that matter) going to be defined morphologically? KarlM 07:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I send you an e-mail, this is not yet for public viewing. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 13:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
It was your old university e-mail, could not find the new one. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 03:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 500+ species

I am curious, where are the descriptions of the 125 additional species, which I can not find, nor major scholars in the field, or is this figure the estimated number including the underscribed species? -- Kim van der Linde at venus 06:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes; I was just going back to clarify that when you wrote. It's a minimum, as there are at least 200 that have been collected but not described. I've gotten 20 myself in a relatively small area. There's an often-quoted figure that there are likely to be over 1000 total (including Scaptomyza), but I think that might be a little high. It's certainly not out of the realm of possibility though.
Also, there are quite a few species outside of Hawaii with patterned wings. Even immigrans has marks, albeit faint ones. I put one up on the page as an example. Unfortunately the better pictures are not mine to post, but if you'd like I can email them to you. When I get some better pictures scanned in (and get around to it) I'll do a separate page on the Hawaiian drosophilids. KarlM 07:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Ok, and here is the crux. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and as such, it publishes what is know, not what is speculated as it is not a cristal ball. I know, this can be frustratng, but there are slight different criteria for writing than in science. Anyway, the problem can be easily solved. Dr. Bachli keeps his database up to date, so the approximate number of actuall described species is pretty well know there, and a subsentence can indicate that the expected number is a magnitude larger. That makes it accurate in both ways.
I have actually a whole series of publisable images, but they are from wings only, but they can provide a nice example of the variation. This includes wings of within and outside the Hawaiians (Samoaia, elegans, immigrans, gutifera). I never came around of adding those because they are loose wings, but at an appropriate place, they can be donw. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 13:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lake Waiau

I just wanted to let you know that it was my fault for putting in those extra quotes. I didn't use VandalProof for that edit. I was stub sorting and I must've done something by accident to put that extra quote in. Sorry. --Tuspm Talk | Contribs | E-Mail Me 16:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Lono

I saw and appreciated what you were trying to do with the indented quotes in Lono, but I thought it looked a bit un-wiki - especially such a large indented quote - I can't recall seeing anything similar elsewhere on Wikipedia. I think you're right, it might be better to paraphrase it a bit more and integrate it better into the article. There might also be a case for making it a separate article (maybe/eventually) since it is slightly off topic - its not about Lono per se as a traditional Hawaiian god (about whom we need more verified information) but about the possible misidentification of Cook as Lono. Maybe if it was a standalone article, it could be linked by the Lono and the Cook articles. By the way, I am working my way gradually thru all the Polynesian mythology articles to source, verify and expand them, I'd prefer if someone from Hawaii did the Hawaiian articles, but I may be the only Polynesian willing to give it a go, and I do have a good book collection here at home. Kahuroa 10:20, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rafflesiaceae

Can you confirm that you have seen the actual paper in question? So far I have seen only the abstract and numerous news stories about it. I'm skeptical of all the edits being made based on secondary sources (news reports!) and particularly the attempts to edit the article to reflect a new classification of this group. Did the authors formally transfer Rafflesia and its relatives to Euphorbiaceae? Given the mess that is euphorb classification right now (even the family circumscription is problematic, with recent molecular work showing that Euphorbiaceae as traditionally circumscribed is polyphyletic or paraphyletic), I would be surprised if they had. MrDarwin 14:14, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I have; you can get a copy of it here[1] . They didn't make any changes to the classification; I'm actually a taxonomist (though for insects, not plants), so I know how the system works. If you look at the section I added it says "If these results are confirmed" and gives alternatives for fixing the situation. Granted, this doesn't address the other monophyly problems with Euphorbiaceae, but I think it's sufficient in the context of Rafflesiaceae. Also, the authors didn't mention what conception of Euphorbiaceae they were using; the tree I made is almost directly from the paper, and they didn't show any outgroups.
It's funny, because when I first say a news story about it, it had a picture of a Rafflesia flower and for some reason I thought as I was reading the intro, "I bet it turns out to be a euphorb", and that's what it was! Something about those petals reminds me of the fleshy, stubby "petals" on Euphorbia. KarlM 08:52, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. That pretty much confirms my suspicions and I've also now seen the online supporting material, which includes the phylogenetic tree showing that Rafflesiaceae is sister to the bulk of "higher" euphorbs but that a rather isolated and apparently monophyletic group of odd genera branched off before the Rafflesiaceae/Euphorbiaceae split. The authors may very well create a new family for this group, in order to retain Rafflesiaceae as a monophyletic family, but they will probably want to look at morphology and other non-molecular characters, as well as add more genera to the molecular studies, before making any changes to the classification. MrDarwin 16:09, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Avian malaria

Hi there. Thanks for your addition to malaria. Could you find a reference you can add to the article on this subject? Thanks. TimVickers 14:39, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

That's great! Thanks again. TimVickers 17:14, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Acacia koaia

Hi there. Thanks for your concern about the edit I made as I forgot to post my reference. Here's the link: http://www.ntbg.org/plants/plant_details.php Thricecube 07:46, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] re: Drosophila sperm

Funny you should ask! I saw that you reverted my addition (which in retrospect probably wasn't needed), so I was looking for refs. I'm just looking at a ref that shows that Drosophilae have the largest relative and absolute sperm sizes. I'm going to add it to the article. If you're interested it is PMID 17377954. Cheers, Flyguy649talkcontribs 05:39, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm almost done adding the above ref. Pitnick and another Joly paper are the original reports of the 6 cm thing. The above paper shows measurements of sperm from D. melanogaster and 10 repleta group species. I may move the ref to later in the para. And I'm not adding back the relative to size thing -- it's not necessary! Flyguy649talkcontribs 06:12, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Looks good! Flyguy649talkcontribs 13:21, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Diacritics

Thanks for the message. I'm aware of the discussion and the associated page moves that have been made recently (such as Talk:Iao Valley). Frankly, there are good arguments on both sides, for and against the use of diacritics on Wikipedia. I think the problem is that many of us are tired of these constant arguments (this particular argument has been going on for at least three years) and would prefer to work on improving and building Wikipedia instead of going around and around on the talk pages. There are editors who may wish to contribute to this discussion, like User:Gilgamesh and User:Ling.Nut. I would appreciate it greatly if you contact them; it may mean more coming from you. Thanks again. —Viriditas | Talk 11:56, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Heh, I know exactly what you mean and I could probably write an essay on the subject. Perhaps greater emphasis should be placed on WP:IAR? :-) —Viriditas | Talk 12:13, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Matipo

Why did you merge this back with Myrsine? Matipo only include a small part of Myrsine, and unless there is some strong reason why they don't deserve a separate page then they should be kept separate. It's especially misleading to include the list of New Zealand species as if that was the entire genus, when there are many more species in total. I think it would be much better if the genus page only included things that are applicable to the entire group, and things like species lists are left to separate articles on subgroups. I was planning to do this for the Hawaiian species soon. KarlM 14:05, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Subdivisions only merit articles if it's based on a taxonomic subdivision, otherwise they're only expanded disambiguation pages. If the common name "matipo" refers to all the species in that earlier list, then those should be listed in a disambiguation page at that name. I suspect this large of a genus does have subgenera and sections, perhaps, but I just don't have the resources handy to find out which species are in which division. Do you happen to have the most recent taxonomic monograph available? I have a hunch that what you were planning to do is fairly close to the taxonomy since geographic subdivisions are often represented in the taxonomy. But the titles should follow the taxonomy, such as Stylidium subg. Andersonia. --Rkitko (talk) 14:28, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, looks like we overlapped, I just saw your post on the Myrsine talk page. I see your point, but until there are actual articles for at least a large portion of the species (not just irritating stubs that people keep making, that only say "XXX is a species of tree. It lives in New Zealand"), it should stay as is. When those articles get done, then the thing to do would be to just remove the taxobox, leaving the article as a link to the species and descriptor for the New Zealand species in particular. I'm not a Myrsine expert so I don't know how applicable the descriptive characters are to the whole genus as opposed to only the New Zealand species, so I put them back with matipo. Hope this clears up my reasons for putting things back. KarlM 14:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Looks like we overlapped again! Though I wholly disagree. Unless we know the taxonomy, we should not be splitting genus articles into geographic subdivisions. There's no precedent for what you're proposing. Information like this is either placed in individual species articles, the genus article, or other taxonomic subdivisions like subgenera or sections. As an aside, I don't find those Polbot stubs irritating - I find them valuable. Some of those articles would have not gotten started for years if not for Polbot. Though I am following the path and cleaning up some problems left behind by Polbot. But I digress... I'm not a Myrsine expert either, nor can I locate any pertinent information on its taxonomy that's reliable. So I would suggest that until we knew that the divisions we were making are accurate to the taxonomy, we should maintain all the information in the genus article. Rkitko (talk) 14:45, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restoration of the Sistine Chapel frescoes

There is now, despite the fact that the article passed strenuous FA examination, an NPOV tag on it. I have answered the questions that you have raised. Would you please take a look at my responses.

People are treating this issue as if there are two perfectly balanced sides to it. There are not. Amandajm (talk) 09:08, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] tombola? tombolo?

Hallo, Is the article you created at Tombola (island) just a mis-spelled duplicate of Tombolo, or am I missing something? Oxford English Dictionary doesn't recognise Tombola as anything other than a sort of lottery, but I'm not a marine geographer, nor a speaker of US English! PamD (talk) 15:38, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hawaiʻi WikiProject Newsletter - Issue I - April 2008

Aloha. The April 2008 issue of the Hawaiʻi WikiProject newsletter has been published. To change your delivery options or unsubscribe, visit this link. Mahalo nui loa. WikiProject Hawaiʻi 15:22, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hawaiʻi WikiProject Newsletter - Issue II - May 2008

Aloha. The May 2008 issue of the Hawaiʻi WikiProject newsletter has been published. To change your delivery options or unsubscribe, visit this link. Mahalo nui loa. WikiProject Hawaiʻi 17:41, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hawaiʻi WikiProject Newsletter - Issue III - June 2008

Aloha. The June 2008 issue of the Hawaiʻi WikiProject newsletter has been published. To change your delivery options or unsubscribe, visit this link. Mahalo nui loa. WikiProject Hawaiʻi 04:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)