Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 12:23, 7 November 2006

Blue Whale map

The existing map is very unconvincing, showing them present in numerous shallow inshore waters where (as far as I know) they don't occur other than as exceptional rarities, usually dead or close to death. I've posted an alternative map at Talk:Blue Whale, please take a look and see if you think it is better; and edit it as necessary to make it even better - MPF 00:21, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

WikiReader Cetacea

Hello there, I just started the page Misplaced Pages:WikiReader/Cetacea. I worked out a Reader at the german Misplaced Pages you can found at de:Misplaced Pages:WikiReader/Wale for download ( a newer version will be there in a few days) and I think we can make this with the english articles too (I translated some of them to german). The german Reader will be printed in some weeks and this is the goal for an english Reader too. So anybody who should be interested may join the WikiReader project, for discussion please contact me at my german Userpage. Greetings from Berlin, -- Achim Raschka 10:27, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Resource

Hi, I came across these fact sheets on sea mammals from the Australian Museum while researching for something unrealted, they're quite comprehensive and have heaps of additional references listed --nixie 12:44, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

False killer whales

If you're knowledgeable on False_Killer_Whales, or simply on dolphins and cetaceans in general, please see my questions on that article's talk page. Dayv 02:22, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I replied there. Pcb21| Pete 08:48, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks! Dayv 21:36, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Capitalization

Hello, cetacean lovers. I realize the issue of capitalization of common names has been discussed before, in different contexts. I find little evidence that common names of cetaceans are capitalized outside Misplaced Pages, and believe that we should use lowercase names as well. From your project page I gather that you have little interest in this issue, which is fine; I just wanted to let you know of my intentions to revisit this matter. — Knowledge Seeker দ 20:54, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I re-opened the discussion at Talk:Bottlenose Dolphin#Requested move. If you are interested, please offer your opinion or experience there. You may also wish to share any examples of capitalized names being used in formal literature outside Misplaced Pages. — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:40, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

If you are interested, please also see the discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (fauna). Thank you. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:11, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Nothern Bottlenose Whale in Central London

There is a young whale in the river Thames in london... the whale seems to be ill and unable to swim out to sea, what does everyone think? - Aled D 17:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Talk pages are not chat lines. They are for discussing the article. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Articles for the Misplaced Pages 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Misplaced Pages:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Misplaced Pages for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Shanel 20:20, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Blue Whale

This is a featured article that has had some issues listed on its talk page that may threaten its featured status. If you can help please see Talk:Blue Whale#FARC Proposed. --maclean25 06:57, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

We saved it. Pcb21 Pete 07:58, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Old Tom

Old Tom was a killer whale that helped whalers round up and kill baleen whales in return for thier lips and tounge. I made a stub but don't have any time to expand it. Anyone here interested? The bellman 07:23, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I've put it on my watchlist but not sure I know enough just yet. Pcb21 Pete 10:55, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

stub and cat

I was bold and created {{Cetacean-stub}} and category:Cetacean stubs. What do people think of the pic i chose? Too cutsey? I chose it cause it is easily recognisable and it had a transperent background. Hope nobody minds. If you do just edit/deleate it. peace out The bellman 08:42, 25 April 2006 (UTC) minor edits by UtherSRG (talk) 10:42, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm ambilvalent about the picture (stub messages are screened out via javascript for me). Stub templates are not very use at the best of times - if you want to see stubs just the general category and turn on a stub threshold in preferences. In particular for cetacean articles there are very few stubs, so the category is not very valuable? Pcb21 Pete 10:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Spy hopping

Do we not have a page about spy-hopping? or am I just not searching good enough? A interesting question was raised at Talk:Great_White_Shark#Spy-hopping.3F anyone have any comments? I would like to know the definition of spy-hopping, i.e, if the GWS is the only shark which lifts its head and the threasher shark actually jumps full body out of the water, can GWS be considered to be the only one that does spy-hopping? and why does animals do this, can they actually see in air? Stefan 00:29, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Now found breaching which also talks about spy hopping. Stefan 08:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The answer to the spyhopping question is: Many whales are known to spyhop, Belugas and Bottlenose dolphins are notable. I'm pretty sure bowhead whales do, too, but I'll have to check up on that. --Belugaperson 14:34, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Redesigning Portal Main Page

I have made a redesign of the portal main page which is accessible on my user page currently. What do you think about putting that one up instead of the current one?

I have made a few more pages to accomodate this layout, with a featured article and picture box. I was also thinking of adding a short taxonomic list of the major taxa as well.

What do you think? --chris_huh 15:16, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I have updated the main page now, hope you like it --chris_huh 13:49, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks good, much better now so i certainly think that the MfD should result in a keep. Death Eater Dan (Muahaha) 06:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Cetacean skeleton images?

Does anyone know of any free-use (or otherwise acceptable) images of a cetacean's full-body skeleton? Particularly one that shows the tiny vestigial leg-bones buried in the body? -Silence 15:50, 5 June 2006 (UTC) I have updated the main page now, hope you like it.

Trying to save the Portal

The cetaceans portal has been put up on the MfD page, i want to try and save it, particularly since i made a whole new layout for the portal about a week before it was put on MfD. You have probably noticed the drastic changes to the layout of the portal and the article list provided by Death Eater Dan. I have also made a template for the link to the portal page which can now be added to any cetacea related page by adding {{Cetaceaportal}} preferably at the top of the See Also heading, or under the taxobox maybe.

It looks like this: Template:Cetaceaportal

which links a nice image of a sperm whale fluke to the portal and having it as a template allows the image to be changed at just one location rather than to change it on every page.

Congratulations

Nice to see a Cetaceans article as the featured article on the main page, Right whale. Death Eater Dan (Muahaha) 11:14, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Right whale

Right whale is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 22:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Userbox

There ought to be a userbox for this project. --Gray Porpoise 12:54, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps, if a userbox is created, it should look like this:

--Gray Porpoise 13:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, per your request at Misplaced Pages talk:Userboxes/Ideas, I created a userbox for you at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Cetaceans/Userbox. The only thing I changed was to lighten up the link so it is easier to see. Enjoy! —Mira 05:49, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! --Gray Porpoise 15:58, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Joining the project

Is there a user list for joining the project? I've been wanting to join. I know quite a bit about marine mammals and have read many books and references about them. --Belugaperson 13:49, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

On the project page, there is a section entitled "Confessed contributors" where you can add your name. Thank you for wanting to contribute. --Gray Porpoise 15:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Award?

There's a Bio Barnstar for biology-related contributions, but I think there should also be some more specific WikiProject awards. In my opinion, WikiProject Cetaceans should have its own award, preferably a light blue star with "engravings" of dolphins on the points and a small image of a whale fluke within the center circle or something. (I'm a terrible graphics maker.) I'll list this on Misplaced Pages:Barnstar and award proposals if I can get some support (and a decent image). --Gray Porpoise 15:27, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I think that's a good idea. --Belugaperson 14:14, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Deleting outdated discussions

I see several discussions that are no longer active, for example, the Saving the Portal one seems to be unnecessary at this point. Is one allowed to delete such discussions? --Belugaperson 14:46, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

The talk page will be archived when it gets too long and has many inactive discussions. Let me know if you have any further questions. --Gray Porpoise 23:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Article Assessment

When, if at all, shall we start assessment of cetacean articles? --Gray Porpoise 00:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

• Thats a good point, maybe we could start going through some now, they don't all have to be done in one go. Maybe we should make a sub page for the assessments. --chris_huh 23:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • How about we have a sort of "sign up sheet", where members of the project can sign up to assess articles (maybe 5 per article)? That way, anyone who wants to help assess an article can do so. I would really like to get active in WikiProject Cetaceans. --Gray Porpoise 01:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
    • I have changed the project page a bit so that it has more focus on improving the articles. As for article assessment how do you think we should do it, over at the sharks portal they have a status table. We could design ours around that so that there are set headers that are required and then we could mention any extra stuff that is included, but maybe with a sentance or so on each header, rather than a tick. Or should we just work on choosing a grade or something for each article? I personally think the first idea may be better as then it would be less on personal preference and more on set criteria. --chris_huh 23:17, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
      • Hmm... I'm not sure. Something with set criteria but a little bit of room for debate sounds effective. Let's get comments from other WikiProject Cetaceans members. --Gray Porpoise 01:22, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
      • I like the idea of a chart of some sort; makes it easier to know where to start. --Graham 07:06, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

taxonomic trees

A question was posed at Talk:Porpoise about the Taxonomy section that some of the Cetacea articles have. Basically, they are confusing because they give too much information. Those sections at Porpoise and Delphinidae give the entire Cetacea tree; the one at River dolphin is more reasonable.

I personally would like to see one of the navigational footers to show the Cetacea, like this:

(This is a mockup from my sandbox; please don't use it!) If you think it's a good idea to replace those Taxonomy sections with this navigational footer, let me know and I'll put it into the template namespace. --Graham 07:04, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of having a footer box, and this one looks good. I agree that some of the pages have more information on than they need, i don't know why they have all of the other families and stuff when they are not needed.--chris_huh 10:51, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, sounds good. Should I keep the scientific names in the navigational footer? --Graham 08:22, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Having the scientific names i think is a good idea, the only question is that if they weren't there, would it be much smaller. If it was a bit smaller it might be better to have at the end of the articles.--chris_huh 12:38, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm opposed to replacing the taxonomy section, or the trees therein, with a nav footer. The two serve different purposes. The taxonomy tree shows where things lie in relationship to others, while the nav footer does not. I will modify the taxonomy sections pointed out above to be more informative. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:09, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, i didn't realise you meant to replace the taxonomy trees, they are vital, i think, even if at the moment they are not displaying just the required information. I thought that the plan was to have a footer as well, that could be a good idea as it does show you all of the related families, whereas the taxonomic trees are just for the closely related species. --chris_huh 13:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, I think that including a complete tree at the family level is a little clunky. I would put a list of porpoise species there and use a nav footer. As the Talk:Porpoise questioner pointed out, it was hard to tell why the Porpoise list included, say, Ziphiidae. --Graham 17:54, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Collaboration

Idea stolen borrowed from WikiProject Sharks. Previous joke stolen borrowed from some RfA questions. Maybe we could start a collaboration project for WikiProject Cetaceans. WikiProject Sharks has a Collaboration of the Fortnight, but since the Cetaceans project has fewer active users (Chris_huh seems to be doing much of the work), ours could be for the month or quarter. --Gray Porpoise 21:37, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I actually set up the COTF on Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Sharks and that's where i have been for a while, setting up the project to get it off it's feet. I had been thinking of doing a cetaceans one as well. Fortnight or month would be best i think. Probably month. I can set that up if you want. Also what i was thinking about was assessment of articles, have a look at the sharks one and that was what i was thinking, it is the official kinda one. With assessment it doesnt really matter how long it takes so i think that one should work ok too.--chris_huh 21:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The WikiProject Sharks collaboration project has an agreeable method. --Gray Porpoise 01:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Sharks

There is another WikiProject called Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Sharks, which, surprisingly, is about sharks. I thought i would mention it here to see if anyone would be interested in helping out.--chris_huh 21:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Good Article candidate

Dolphinarium has been nominated for Good Article status - It actually went up on 18 August, but i didn't notice chris_huh 13:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Welcome message

I have made a draft of a welcome message we could use at User:Gray Porpoise/WikiProject Cetaceans/Welcome Message. Please comment on it and edit it to your liking. --Gray Porpoise 23:48, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of having the todo list template in there, it makes sense i guess. Although do you think the blue may make it stand out too much, a bit striking, wouldn't it look better just with a white background, but maybe a blue or grey border around it perhaps. chris_huh 01:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I made an edit to your one, if you hadn't noticed. What do you think of that? chris_huh 23:56, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I like that! The original was just a rough idea, awaiting a good designer. --Gray Porpoise 00:59, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Should I move it to a subpage of WikiProject Cetaceans, or leave it in my userspace? --Gray Porpoise 16:29, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Might as well move it to Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Cetaceans/Welcome or something like that. chris_huh 17:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Size comparison diagrams

I have made a few diagrams for particular cetaceans which compares the size of them against an average human as i thought these would be useful images. I have uploaded 11 to commons so far called things like Sperm_whale_size.png and Blue_whale_size.png etc. What do you think about these (they are quite basic), and where should they go on the pages. It would be handy if they could go in the taxobox, maybe in the image2 parameter, so that then they are all in the same place on all pages, rather than having some in strange places. chris_huh 01:10, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea. --Gray Porpoise 01:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I have added the images to most of the cetacean articles. I haven't made ones for the porpoises or river and oceanic dolphins. I will ge tround to that soon. Some of themi don't have informaiton for so i will have to find them somewhere else chris_huh 15:54, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Very nice indeed. Every time I see one, I cant help but think the diver is about to get whacked! Istvan 22:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Collaboration of the Month

I have set up a collaboration. This is essentially a copy of the one i made on Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Sharks although, of course this one is about cetaceans! It is also a collaboration of the MONTH as there aren't too many of use, nor are there a great deal of articles. I have added links to it from the main project page. Any one got any good ideas for what the first one could be? chris_huh 23:48, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Beached whale is the new collaboration. It hasn't been edited this month, hopefully it will become more active. --Gray Porpoise 01:19, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Idea

Another idea of mine for a Cetaceans subproject: factual accuracy check. Members could sign up to read through articles and make sure, using outside sources, that there aren't inaccuracies. --Gray Porpoise 00:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Taxonomy and templates

I have reworked the way the taxonomy can be sorted for Cetaceans How it basically works now is that each genus has a template, which can be placed on the page for that genus ( as in Balaena). Then each family above that has a template which transcludes that genus template which can then be used on the family page (as in Balaenidae). This builds up to order level (Cetacea) going through genus, sub-family, family, super-family, sub-order (as long as they have them). The top level template is {{Cetacea_taxonomy}} (the rest follow this naming technique). This should allow us to both have a taxonomic listing on each relevant page (eg River dolphins) and to only need to update it the one time through the template.

So if anyone notices a good place to put one of these templates (as on a genera page or somethign) then add them and maybe put:

<!-- This taxonomy is created from several templates allowing it to be edited just once but provide global change. To edit a specific part please edit the relevent template.-->

above so that future editors can understand what is going on. I have used them so far on some pages including Mysticeti and Odontoceti.

I made the templates from information from the Odontoceti and Mysticeti pages before i realised that the information on the Cetacea page had further information. Is there anyone who knows a bit more about the taxonomy of cetaceans that could have a look at the templates and check is they might need something else on them. I left out Tropical dusky dolphin, i have no idea where this came from and i havent heard of one before, so i dont know if this is real or not.

chris_huh 23:21, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not certain this is a good idea. While it is similar to what is done on Wikispecies, that site has a much lower traffic profile and so the compounding of templates has little effect on the site. Misplaced Pages has such a high traffic profile that the compounding of templates in this manner puts an undue strain on the servers. This is one of the reasons that the taxoboxes were changed to be a single template instead of multiple and sometimes nested templates. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:32, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Seeking...

Moved from front page
Hi, I am enquiring about Indo Pacific Humpback Dolphins( Sousa Chinensis). Do you have any informantion or research on these estuarine dolphins. I am a Volunteer and a lay person in scientific terms, at the Dolphin Centre at Tin Can Bay, Qld ,Australia, where these Dolphins are found. I wish to put together an education programme for children, to teach them about Estuarine Dolphins & Dugongs in particular,as they relate to our area. Can you supply me with any sites or information . Thanks Norma Sanderson. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.69.158.96 (talk • contribs) .

Have you looked at humpback dolphin? - UtherSRG (talk) 11:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization rules continued

Hello, I was just about to undertake some copyediting of the Fin Whale article when I came across the capitalization of common names issue. This has obviously been discussed in this WikiProject in the past (see the "capitalization" section on this talk page), but would like some further clarification of the capitalization rules. For example, the first sentence of the current version of the article reads, "The Fin Whale (Balaenoptera physalus), also called the finback whale, is a mammal which belongs to the baleen whales suborder.". If the capitalization is to be standardized based upon this WikiProject's current preference for capitalized common names, should "finback whale" be changed to "Finback Whale"? Does the capitalization apply to common names of suborders? Should it be "Baleen Whales" instead of the current lower case? Since "whale" is a common name of a larger taxonomic group, then should every instance of the word "whale" be capitalized?

I have contributed to many articles in the WikiProject Fishes, where the standard is to use sentence case for all common names. To me, this seems much more logical and easier to read, and according to the discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (fauna), seems to agree with more of the scientific literature. Would there be any support for changing this project's capitalization standards? I'm not trying to jump in here and stir up a hornet's nest or anything. Neil916 (Talk) 21:38, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

You are correct about "Finback Whale", as it represents a species. For ranks above the species level, comon names should be in sentence case, such as "baleen whales". For details on the reasoning and logic, see the Bird Wikiproject. - UtherSRG (talk) 22:37, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 23:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Fin Whale up for FA

Just to let everyone know that Fin Whale is now a featured article candidate. See its nomination here. Chris_huh 12:23, 7 November 2006 (UTC)