User talk:Quercus solaris

Hey, I like your new template, {{Depression scoring tools}}. Are you really going to write articles for all the items on there? --Eastlaw (talk) 02:25, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My idea was that I would do this much for now, and people could turn the black list items into bluelinks over time as articles are created. I realize that it would be ideal if I would create them all, but it is more than I have time to pursue. Quercus solaris (talk) 21:20, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(from Webster's 7th Collegiate): derive vt 4. to trace the derivation of. Elphion (talk) 23:21, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All that close attention I was paying to both Collegiate and Third at Unabridged.Merriam-Webster.com, and I didn't check that! Thanks for dropping some knowledge! Quercus solaris (talk) 03:40, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And thanks for taking the initiative on the Etymology section -- I've been eying it for a while now. Elphion (talk) 04:08, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This not appropriate "For example, cursory Google Ngram Viewer searches find attestations of this sense of "stroke" from the 1700s, and earlier ones can probably be found with more search term design and effort." as a reference as it is original research. See WP:NOR.

A guideline on referencing medical content can be seen here WP:MEDRS. Have moved the content in question to the history section were it fits much better. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 21:26, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Point taken—already understand (and don't disagree) re refs and OR as general principles—was just trying to fix a trivially falsifiable flaw in the coverage, but I was rushing through it slightly too much. I am satisfied with the end result that you helped to shape. Thanks, Quercus solaris (talk) 22:52, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct in stating that I was unable to add the N or M information. I was looking at it and thinking "At what point does copying this chart become plagarism?" So, I was trying to copy it all on there, but started thinking about the possible plagarism issue. I do agree that the chart in the reference is very detailed. Steel1943 (talk) 15:20, 12 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, I understand both viewpoint angles. I am with you on the desire to have WP be as complete as possible, and for the reader to find everything they need right here without leaving. However, there may be some kinds of information, especially on health and medicine topics, where we can give them the full big picture, but we may as well point them to a (good, noncommercial) reference for certain details, because we may not even be able to put all the details here without committing copyvio (as you mentioned). I think full cancer staging info may be one of those types of details. But it's OK, because WP still has the potential to be the single most valuable place to go first for info, even if readers eventually click out into the cited refs to learn more. Take care, Quercus solaris (talk) 15:52, 12 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! Drug pollution is a great idea for an article! Thanks for getting it started. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:40, 27 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Quercus solaris (talk) 18:25, 27 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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A tag has been placed on Life Technologies (India) requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), web content or organised event, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is important or significant: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such articles may be deleted at any time. Please read more about what is generally accepted as notable.

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Please do not remove sources, as you did at Jargon. You have been around long enough to know all the policies I would usually point out to newcommers about verifiability, original research, and reliable sources. Yet this edit removed a source in order to add your own suggestion that jargon can shift from shibboleth to widespread usage. While that may be true, it is not license to remove and replace verified information. Cnilep (talk) 01:52, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't replace anything, and I didn't remove a source in the way that is bad/provocative. The statement was that the words bit, byte, and hexadecimal are now (fairly) widely known although they once were not. That statement doesn't actually need a ref. Normally I would never have removed a ref since it was there already, but I removed it to take care of the concern that you pointed out (which was that it was no longer clear, after the further development of the content, which specific portion of the sentence the ref was supporting). The concern was fair, so I edited to avoid the problem. In terms of Wikipedia content development, the ways that argot, jargon, and shibboleths are sometimes connected to each other conceptually needs to be concisely mentioned and linked in their respective articles. This isn't my own suggestion, it's part of the ways language is used. That sentence does it concisely the way I edited it, without needing that particular ref. I can go see about doing it another concise way that preserves that ref, but it's not worth circumlocuting just to hold onto that particular ref for that particular clause (which doesn't need it). I'll see what can be done with it. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:13, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I thought we had resolved the issue but in this edit you are simply replaying the material that was discussed in February with no attempt to discuss it or provide any more support than you did before. Please either find verification from reliable sources for the assertion or stop trying to impose it in this way — this is becoming disruptive. Deltahedron (talk) 16:48, 4 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No—before the discussion was about what the expansion officially was or wasn't. That has been established now. What I was doing in the recent edit was simply pointing out that it's not emphasized in the branding. But, speaking of being disruptive, since you are so incredibly worried about not stating that even though it is obviously objectively true, I won't bother to add it again. I wouldn't have added it today (it's not a big deal) except that I didn't happen to think about the possibility that you might confuse the former for the latter (what it is vs whether it's emphasized) and have a fit about it. No worries—your version can stet, it's good enough. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:12, 4 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not be offensive. However, I am glad to hear that you are willing to abide by Wikipedia's core policy on verifiability. Deltahedron (talk) 17:32, 4 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And I'm glad to try to resist distortions of it, as well (per Wikipedia:Common knowledge > Acceptable examples of common knowledge at "Plain sight observations that can be made from public property"). Quercus solaris (talk) 18:11, 4 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If you seriously believe that requiring verification for the statement in question is a distortion of policy, then raise the question at an appropriate venue such as the Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard. Deltahedron (talk) 21:56, 4 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Which I see you have now done. I have responded there. It would have been courteous to mention to me the fact that you had done so, particularly since you choose to complain of my conduct there as well. Deltahedron (talk) 11:23, 6 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Based on the long felt gap for categorization and improvization of WP:MED articles relating to the field of physiology, the new WikiProject Physiology has been created. WikiProject Physiology is still in its infancy and needs your help. On behalf of a group of editors striving to improve the quality of physiology articles here on Wikipedia, I would like to invite you to come on board and participate in the betterment of physiology related articles. Help us to jumpstart this WikiProject.

• Feel free to leave us a message at any time on the WikiProkect Physiology talk page. If you are interested in joining the project yourself, there is a participant list where you can sign up. Please leave a message on the talk page if you have any problems, suggestions, would like review of an article, need suggestions for articles to edit, or would like some collaboration when editing!
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• You will make a big difference to the quality of information by adding reliable sources. Sourcing physiology articles is essential and makes a big difference to the quality of articles. And, while you're at it, why not use a book to source information, which can source multiple articles at once!
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Hoping for your cooperation! Diptanshu^Talk 13:04, 27 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Hi, I hesitate to raise this, but when I looked at this article its lead immediately struck me as an extreme example of the common problem with Wikipedia medical articles of being written purely in technical medical terminology. This is something that WP:MEDMOS very explicitly deprecates. I was surprised to find, on examining the page history, that the article had in fact been better until your edits of last October [1]. The page had previously had the non-technical word "cancer" right at the start - "Adenocarcinoma is a cancer of ...." and then later in the (very overlong) paragraph. Your edits removed both mentions, leaving for someone without a bit of medical training really no indication in the lead at all that the subject was anything to do with cancer. This article receives over 500,000 page views per year, btw; they won't all be medical students revising.

I am Wikipedian in Residence at Cancer Research UK and part of my role (funded by Wellcome Trust) is to improve our content on cancer-related topics. When the experts at CRUK look at Wikipedia medical content they are struck at least as much by the over-technical language, in something aimed at a general audience, as issues with accuracy. The problem is especially acute because, as here, the technical language is concentrated in the lead, and often in the opening sentences with the definition of the subject. Those who write and user-test web material professionally know that the great majority of web users simply will not continue with a page that starts this way - they'll go back to their browser search and find one of the other pages in the first page of results.

No doubt most of your edit was useful, though I doubt the very detailed stuff on the scope of the term belongs in a first paragraph, but as I am working, by myself and with other editors, to make our articles, and especially the leads, more suitable for the intended audience, it is concerning to find relatively recent edits by a regular medical editor that are going in the opposite direction.

I share your irritation with old unexplained clean-up tags, which you also removed in these edits, but sometimes they have a reason to be there. Here the 2nd section "Signs and symptoms" only describes those for one or two cancers, does it not? Actually, it doesn't seem to match very closely any set of cancer symptoms I can find on a quick look in a standard text. It should probably be removed entirely. Further down the lists of other sites were linked to eg esophagus not esophageal cancer, and so on.

I hope this doesn't cause offence, but with so few regular medical editors it is important that we are all pulling in the same direction. Thanks for all your valuable work on cancer-related topics. I hope you will take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject CRUK, where the project is coordinated. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 11:47, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi John. I'm afraid you didn't look carefully enough at my edits and at what they did or didn't do. To see what I mean, you can step through the diffs one at a time (not in popups—they don't show the diff properly—but as whole diff pages). I used numbers below to make the organization of my reply clear. (1) It is not at all true that I remove the linked word "cancer" from the first sentence. It was still there after my edits. (2) There is only one diff that has any substantial amount of "diff-age" (this one). If you look clearly at what I did there, it is quite simple (as follows). (3) I only changed the lede, and only in certain places. I didn't change it extensively (didn't rewrite it). (4) I edited to cover the ontology of "what the subject is, what it isn't, what it's related to, and how so"—which is why I added, for example, the sentences "Adenocarcinoma is the malignant counterpart to adenoma, which is the benign form of such tumors. Sometimes adenomas transform into adenocarcinomas, but most do not." I moved the sentence containing "VIPoma" (I didn't write it or add it), and the move was part of editing for the reason mentioned ("what the subject is, what it isn't, what it's related to, and how so"). (5) I did add the pronunciations and plural forms (here), but that info is standard for WP ledes to include. That's considered basic info for the general audience (not just for experts). (6) That's it—that's all I did. (7) From there, to talk about the bigger picture: I share your desire to make WP articles useful for a general audience. If you wanted to move pronunciations and plurals to a section (move down, out of the lede), I would not object. As for ontology ("what the subject is, what it isn't, what it's related to, and how so"), that's not technical mumbo-jumbo at heart—that's fundamental info. Some of it can, again, be moved down, out of the lede, if you want, as long as the lede doesn't distort via omission. Granted that a big part of pedagogy is "bite-size pieces"—a general reader can only handle so much at once. The article should still contain all relevant info, but nonetheless should also present it in drill-down format (so each reader can decide for him/herself how far to drill before stopping). I don't rewrite whole articles for reading level adjustment or pedagogical maximization—it's not what I have time to do at WP. A look at my contribs history shows that 95% of what I do at WP is info tidbit addition and ontologic fixing, both generally in small chunks (small edits, not rewrites). To sum up, I share the desire for both good info and good readability, and an analysis of my edits disproves the idea that I'm rewriting anything into an overly technical state (because I'm almost never rewriting and because my edits seldom are any more technical than what it takes to accurately say "what the subject is, what it isn't, what it's related to, and how so"). My advice is WP:BE BOLD—if you think the info should be rearranged into a different order of presentation (for example, moving some info down, out of the lede), go for it. If I see valid info being deleted entirely, I generally push back gently, working cooperatively to find a way where it is still covered but perhaps buried deeper in an article. I lack time to thoroughly analyze everything that appears on my watchlist, but I try to skim it and at least keep an eye out. Regards, Quercus solaris (talk) 19:18, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Abject apologies - indeed I didn't read the diff correctly. It was in fact this ISP's only edit which removed "cancer". Sorry to waste your time having to reply to this. I will be redoing the lead at some point, but on checking there were some serious downright errors lower down (fortunately not that common in our major cancer articles), which it was more important to correct. I'm no enemy of precision, but we need to find ways to combine that with accessibility. Thanks for you understanding! Wiki CRUK John (talk) 22:00, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Manuscripts)]]. The latest version of the latter is ''[[Citing Medicine]]'', per the ''References > Style and Format'' section of the ICMJE Recommendations.<ref name=icmje-recommendations>{{Citation 2013 edition of the ICMJE Recommendations, the relevant paragraph is IV.A.3.g.ii. (''References > Style and Format'').<ref name=icmje-recommendations/> and documentation -- Rules for the abbreviation of title words and titles of publications]]), and the [http://www.issn.org/services/online-services/access-to-the-ltwa/ ISSN.org List of Title

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[Please see Talk:Pathology—thread moved there.]

Hi, I left a question at Talk:Vancouver_system#Author-date_or_author-number.3F. Cheers, AxelBoldt (talk) 19:58, 28 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure anyone directly answered your questions, so I'll take a stab at it.

The entire theory that an SU-25 was involved in the shoot-down is based 100% on photographs of the wreckage. I believe this might be a single photograph, because that is all I ever find, this image.

Peter Haisenko claims that this picture indicates that the aircraft was hit by cannon fire, as evidenced by the holes in the fuselage. He then goes on to identify the SU-25 as that aircraft. This answers your question about the AA missile.

How he comes to this conclusion is beyond me. For instance, many of the holes in the image are much smaller than the cannon rounds on the SU-25. A missile explosion causes shrapnel of all shapes and sizes, whereas a cannon round is always going to leave a mark at least the width of the round (although it may be elongated into a eclipse or raindrop shape depending on striking angle). Further, one might convince yourself that there is a radiating pattern to the marks in the image, which suggests a single point of explosion a short distance away from the fuselage some distance in front of this fragment, as opposed to a number of objects hitting from a common point at a much greater distance.

The idea that a SU-25 was the aircraft in question appears to have been selected purely because one such aircraft was claimed to have been in the air hours before the event. Why that is important I don't know, but in any case, very simply the SU-25 could not possibly reach this airliner close enough to engage with its cannon. It doesn't make a difference if the aircraft can or cannot reach this altitude (everything I've seen says it cannot), doing so would require the aircraft to be flying at the extreme edge of its performance envelop. The fact that the aircraft is much slower than a 777 at that altitude makes the entire idea all the more ridiculous. I refer you to the desperate and failed measures that the Soviets had trying to intercept U-2's with MiG-19s, in almost identical relative terms.

For anyone even remotely aquatinted with doghouse plots the ridiculous nature of this claim is self-evident. Of course most people aren't familiar with them, and probably never heard of a SU-25 either. Haisenko has been attempting to rescue his credibility the instant someone pointed this out, and is now claiming we're at fault for his lack of basic military aircraft knowledge.

Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:48, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Maury. Sounds pretty flimsy—admittedly I am not knowledgeable enough about planes and weapons to independently assess, but it sounds like other conspiracy theories—fueled by a need to believe a particular story. The cannon vs missile, as you said, answers the thing I was wondering about. Thanks again. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:56, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No dregs in this beer: it's a clear pilsner. Also, no good deed goes unpunished. :) Drmies (talk) 01:03, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers! Quercus solaris (talk) 18:31, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You're out of your mind. That stupid quote? Thing is totally POV. Go ahead and revert again.Stealstrash (talk) 05:45, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• You're more than half wrong (about 80%). Here are the ways you are demonstrably wrong:
  • First, personal attack "out of mind" is incorrect.
  • Second, the quote to which you refer was already removed in my revision (it was not restored after your edit). Did you even look? Guess not, judging from your comment.
  • Third, it is demonstrably wrong that all of the section, as of my previous edit, could be called POV. The first two-thirds of it states observable facts. It is only the last third that was sharing with the reader a reasoned guideline followed by a group of professional editors. That last third could be presented in a way that is not POV (such as "group X follows guideline Y [reference citation Z])". But we do not publish our guidelines in a way that can be cited publicly. They are internal. So I will just remove that portion when restoring the facts that precede it. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:18, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The very first edit of 2015, congrats! Lgcsmasamiya (talk) 00:01, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just came here to say the same thing. Well done! Have a Happy New Year! - JuneGloom07 Talk 00:08, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Can you provide refs for Dental_caries#Usage_note Best Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:14, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please take a look at Talk:Systemic therapy (psychotherapy)#Redirect on 3 March 2015 for a discussion of the best way to deal with Systemic therapy, which you recently moved and redirected. Thanks for your help. Biogeographist (talk) 13:53, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm interested in this edit of yours. I'm trying to get the Ionic compound article into shape, and have been musing over the separation of definitions between Ionic compound and Salt (chemistry) for a while. Can you give a simple example of something that is clearly an ionic compound but cannot be thought of as a salt? Cheers. --99of9 (talk) 05:42, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is an interesting and valid question. What is the true ontologic relationship between ionic compounds and salts? Clearly they overlap substantially on a Venn diagram. Do they overlap 100%? Are they always synonymous? Is there any ionic compound that could not be called a salt? Is there any salt that could not be called an ionic compound? I'm not a chemist, so I'm not sure. I can definitely vouch for why I made that edit. It's because of this. There's no way a WP article on ionic compounds shouldn't mention the word "salt" even once, let alone not in its lede—but that's the state I found it in. So I popped the bubble, or knocked over the information silo, by broaching the topic of their relationship, with a link. I figured I could at least say that "salts are a major class of ionic compounds". The broad overlap of the Venn diagram then seemed duly addressed. Even chem 101 students know that sodium chloride is an ionic compound and is a salt, and that the same is true of potassium chloride, calcium fluoride, and dozens of others (at the least, any alkali metal or alkaline earth metal plus any halogen). But now that this talk thread got me thinking about it, though, as I ponder two statements, namely (1) "salts are a major class of ionic compounds" and (2) "ionic compounds are a major class of salts", they both fail logic, to the extent that I as a non-chemist can tell. Based on my current understandings of the accepted definitions of what ions, acids, bases, and salts each are, I deduce that (1) "all salts are ionic compounds" and (2) "all ionic compounds are salts". Guess it's time to poll some chemists. If the 100% Venn overlap is true, then the articles would ideally be merged (the second term redirecting to the first term) and sentences would exist making the ontology clear (for example, if the article title = salt (chemistry), then a sentence in the lede might say, "all salts are ionic compounds because they are compounds with ionic bonds." It would be interesting to get to the bottom of this and edit the articles accordingly. I don't have resources to invest in doing so (for example, finding time to interview a chemist or two), but maybe the existence of this talk thread will draw some chemists here who can answer. Cheers, Quercus solaris (talk) 22:58, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, it's helpful to know where you're coming from. I will certainly ensure that the articles are at least linked to one another if not merged (which I have also considered). I'm a chemist, but it's still not completely clear to me. I think it's possible that the Venn diagram is not identical, or even a subset relationship. If Salt="substance produced by interaction of equivalent quantities of acid and base" (Penguin Dictionary of Chemistry), some of these may not be ionic [even though wiki requires that as part of our current definition] as they may have significant covalent character. At the same time, there may be ionic compounds that cannot be produced via simple acid+base because the ions are not stable in water (perhaps a reaction with water). Anyway, I just wondered if you had a specific chemical exception in mind when making that edit. Cheers. --99of9 (talk) 00:49, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

...because the e-mail contact link that came with the wiki-notification turns up a page stating that you have not supplied a valid e-mail address. But you reversed my reversal of a redirect of 'Idiomatic' and my subsequent creation of a new page with that title--in good faith, I am sure--and I am too new at Wikipedia editing to know how best to deal with the consequences.

I removed the redirect and created that 'stub' because I used the term 'idiomatic' in a music biography of Francesco Barsanti, and I thought it would be important for some users to find a quick definition of that term as it is used in music. Now that you have reversed what I did, the 'blue link' to the new page won't work. What is the best way to handle this so that my original intention can be carried out?

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Recorder485 (talk • contribs) 01:12, 20 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I fixed it. By piping the link ([[instrumental idiom|idiomatic]]), it now points to the desired target. It turned out that there was already a Wikipedia article on the topic, under a related title. So I redirected idiomatic (music) to there. Regards, Quercus solaris (talk) 02:21, 20 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi--

I've been puzzling over your description in the first edit you made to this article on 22 January 2014, of monocyte nuclei as being "unilobar", when the image clearly shows the two cells' nuclei as being multilobar. Was "unilobar" correct there, and how so?
(I came to this from trying to figure out where the name "mononucleosis" came from, since nearly every cell in the body contains a single nucleus. The name doesn't seem to make much sense.) Milkunderwood (talk) 03:04, 27 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I'm pointing this Talk thread to the other Talk thread (Talk:Monocyte#Unilobar?). Will follow up there. Thanks. Quercus solaris (talk) 13:16, 27 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for posting your explanation at the Monocyte talkpage. I've added a note pointing there, to my original query at Talk:Infectious_mononucleosis#Meaning_of_name.3F. I'm sure that like myself, many more Wikipedia users come to the Mononucleosis page looking for information than to the more technical Monocyte article. If there's a fairly simple way to explain the origin of the name of this disease within the article, I think it would be a great help. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:12, 27 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I had thought to add a "See also" at the Mononucleosis article, pointing to Monocyte, but am not sure how to do it correctly. I think only a simple and brief explanation of the name would be needed at the disease article, with the fuller explanation at Monocyte. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:30, 27 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I tweaked the ledes of infectious mononucleosis and monocytosis to incorporate their connection via nomenclature and excessive monocyte count. Should take care of it. Thanks again. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:18, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I'm beating a dead horse here -- especially finding now that other editors have been arguing with your attempts to explain the name. I have no idea how to find how many hits the article on Mononucleosis gets (surely in any case this truncated name gets many more than the actual page name Infectious mononucleosis). But I assume that the great bulk of these hits are from lay people simply wanting to know about the disease, rather than from professionals checking to make sure the article reflects the current literature.

And maybe I'm the only one of these who wonders about an apparently nonsensical name, "mononucleosis", when any 8th-grader ought to have been taught that except in very special circumstances, every cell in the body contains a single nucleus -- that is, is "mononuclear". I must be one of the extremely few users curious enough to go to the Monocyte page hoping, in vain, to find an answer, only to find instead a new and unrelated nonsensical description of a mononuclear cell that is clearly illustrated as being multilobar but is described, nonsensically, as unilobar instead.

Can you see the dilemma? Whether or not it may be worth trying to explain in plain simple English why an obviously multilobar nucleus is called "unilobar", it still seems to me that explaining in plain simple English at the Infectious mononucleosis article how it got that apparently illogical name, would be helpful to Wikipedia users, even if it had not occurred to most of them that the name is in fact absurd.

No medical jargon: "Since nearly every cell in the body has a single nucleus--is "mononuclear"--it may seem strange that for historical reasons, the disease is called "mononucleosis". This is because ..."
Milkunderwood (talk) 23:24, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Amen—This is actually all a part of the very same problem that is being discussed in the talk thread below this one. Often when you try to explain stuff like that on Wikipedia, which (explaining) makes perfect sense from one angle (the angle of trying understand exactly what you were exploring above), you get someone else telling you "I shouldn't have to learn history (or linguistics, or whatever) here—this is a medical article, you're so silly for thinking it's got anything to do with words or history." The words we use in natural language to refer to things, the current era's medical/biological definition of what those things are and how they relate (or not) to each other—if you try to handle that on Wikipedia, you'll always find the people who come back reverting your edits (either when they are made or months or years later) because they assume that those things can always be mutually exclusive and have nothing to do with each other. You have to keep trying to thread the needle—explain, and don't fail to explain, but yet don't use any words that anyone may need to learn, even if you provide the link to learn them, and make your explanation short, but at the same time use circumlocutions because we don't want to use certain words that are shorter. And don't use a conversational tone (e.g., see "it may seem strange ... This is because" above), because Wikipedia isn't conversational, but also don't use any big words either, and write plainly not high-falutin'ly. Threading that needle from all directions simultaneously is not easy and trivial. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:41, 29 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

:) Thanks--and good luck. I see what you mean there; like trying to deal with a vipers' nest. To hell with non-experts just looking for information in an encyclopedia. A few years ago I found and copied onto my user page this wonderfully ironic motto for Wikipedia: "Remember, the reader is the enemy." Milkunderwood (talk) 02:11, 30 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ha ha. Yeah, it's tough, although I still maintain some hope. I still like, and work on, Wikipedia; it's just quite frustrating sometimes. Fortunately I think Wikipedia still ends up being pretty good, for what it is, or for what it's worth, although maybe a layperson looking for deeper understanding has to also turn to a place like Quora in order to get answers that Wikipedia doesn't (yet) supply adequately. Of course at Quora, just as at Wikipedia, one has to hope that someone who knows the answer will bother to write it up. But it's frustrating because Wikipedia could be closer to a whole solution if people (Wikipedians) would let it do everything it needs to do. Anyhow, thanks for the chat, see you around. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:22, 30 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've restored a number of your edits that lack any form of sourcing. Please do not add personal theories in articles. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 13:26, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

None of them are personal theories. They are all accurate. I just don't always take the time to dig up references to cite when building content that I know is accurate. I will keep in mind the idea of being stricter about that going forward. Quercus solaris (talk) 14:51, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Especially when it comes to anatomy and medicine-related articles we try to be very strict, and I don't mean to be rude in reverting you, but there is a lot of quackery, the best way to avoid it is to require proper sources. Dorlands medical dictionary doesn't really do it when it comes to WP:MEDRS. Also we try to keep linguistic terminology to a bare minimum when outside that article group. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 14:59, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hang on, I totally respect your effort to guard the quality on medical articles, but it's a serious problem, and one that won't stand up to follow-up discussion, to claim that Dorland's and other medical dictionaries aren't good sources. That's just inaccurate and not tenable. And there's a major, untenable problem with the second point. You can't write encyclopedia coverage without dealing with ontology (information science) in splitting coverage of the different senses of a word among appropriate articles. For example, that's why hat notes exist, in many cases. Quercus solaris (talk) 15:03, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Also, please be careful about assuming stuff, for your own part, that may not be accurate. The edit summary on this edit is an example. And please note that I did not create the nursing diagnosis article, I only added one (now referenced) sentence to improve its explanation. Quercus solaris (talk) 15:17, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi i reverted this edit also. THe problem with that one is that it was linked to the home page which provides no information about the topic. verifiability is a core of WIkipedia. i think if you source your content well you will have less issues. Without knowing the actual url or a page number we can not verify that something is true. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jadeslair (talk • contribs) 15:24, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

OK, point taken, I will seek to narrow the parameters in the citation to point to the headword itself. But your edit summary was misleading. It is just plain incorrect that "the source does not support the statement". It most certainly does, at the headword's definitions, which include both senses, numbered, in order. Nothing in any of my edits is "made up" or OR. Part of working in good faith on Wikipedia is to work toward improving another editor's valid content contribution, not just deleting it and making it sound like it's imaginary. Regards, Quercus solaris (talk) 16:13, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The point isn't that ontology or linguistics are irrelevant, just that most readers don't recognize what a word sense is without clicking the link. And since the articles aren't on linguistics the link doesn't belong. It's not difficult to rephrase using less technical terminology, and if you can't you should leave it out of the article entirely. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 22:29, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for discussing. Almost agree, but with an important objection. I totally get your desire to explain everything such that people don't even need to click a link to understand it—and yes, that's the grail we are always striving for, and the content development is never truly "done" until we reach that day—but there are limitations in reaching it, and in the meantime, before that day of pedagogic perfection, we don't want large inaccuracies on basic ontologic structure only because we're afraid of the need to click a link. There's an important chunk of ice under the surface, whereas that view of "such that people don't even need to click" sees only the supposedly trivial tip—but it isn't trivial, it just speciously appears that way. The problem is that "ontology or linguistics are [not] irrelevant" does not effortlessly coexist with "should leave it out of the article entirely"—not as effortlessly as one might assume. "It's not difficult to rephrase using less technical terminology" is sometimes way easier said than (successfully) done. Sometimes articles contain inaccuracies or misleading omissions—failure to explain—and mentioning things like word senses is actually the most direct way to fix it—the least wordy, in fact truly the simplest—even despite that laypeople would prefer not to bother to click on what a word sense is. As a practical example, which just happened in recent days (see the talk thread above this one): A layperson may well want to know why, if "mononucleosis" and "infectious mononucleosis" "mean the same thing" (air quotes), then why do both names exist? And why would anyone ever use the longer one? And if there's any other kind of mononucleosis besides infectious, then how do they relate, and why on Earth don't the Wikipedia articles already effortlessly show me, guiding me around between articles, laying it all out with such perfect pedagogy that I hardly even realize I'm being taught anything? Ah, it's all so apparently easy, but this is at the very heart of ontology and why it is not trivial. Just mentioning the simple, nontechnical fact that "words sometimes mean more than one thing" is only a basic beginning. Far from being linguistics PhD mumbo-jumbo, it's the simplest way to handle resolving the confusion. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:28, 29 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for editing arica nut 12 hours ago which helps me a lot in understanding the aricholine- a parasympathomimetic cholinergic alkaloid drug. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.160.68.67 (talk) 13:39, 2 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You're not supposed to delete a dubious tag. I explained why I thought your addition was dubious, and now we need to discuss it first before the tag can be deleted. As for the word immiscible being there all the time, it's not present in the version immediately before your change, nor have I been able to find it in the couple of other versions I checked. As for this being a basic fact, if that's the case I'm sure you can find a source that says so. WP:V, basic Wikipedia policy. With a little googling I found references that directly contradict this though, showing how easy it is to separate immiscible liquids. Martijn Meijering (talk) 18:23, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

• On the Calcifying odontogenic cyst page, your edit caused a PMC error (help). (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:18, 11 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Q s - just to say that you have introduced terms into the lead that are not mentioned in the body - do you want to incorporate these into the lead? Thanks --Iztwoz (talk) 11:06, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I see you're right that active transport and exocytosis are not mentioned in body. Will see about adding there. Quercus solaris (talk) 21:32, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There's also pinocytosis. There are other things in the lead pre-dating your edits that are also not mentioned further. Cheers --Iztwoz (talk) 22:22, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Read your concern on Village pump on link colors. Wanted to drop this link here cus I think your input would be valuable. MGalloway (WMF) (talk) 19:00, 10 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi I'm in orthodontic profession and I wanted to create an article about different analysis being used in Cephalometric. In this article I wanted to create the name of analysis and a table following it giving the information about angles, number etc being used. There is lot of analysis out there which are not readily available for reading. I think I can do a good job of putting everything together but I would need your help. You see me to be the only working on this article recently. If i create an article, would you help me better it? and possibly prevent bots from deleting it haha? Thanks

Hi. Sure, I would certainly try my best. I am not an expert on the topic, but I may be able to offer editing help of the type where "educated layperson can see what is meant and can help to express it clearly." On guarding against deletion, one defensive option is to develop the new content within the existing article first, and only spin it off to a new article if it becomes quite long. Regards, Quercus solaris (talk) 21:34, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for your reply. So within few days I will start adding to the current article details about different analysis, starting with the ones that are most commonly used. When you think the information is getting too much on that one page, we can shift the information to the new article then. Thank you! ur the best User:hgcool23

So I made some edits to the cephalometric analysis page. Would you be able to check to let me know what you think? Based on your input, I will go ahead and slowly add more information over the next few weeks. In addition, as I'm adding more information, you may want to consider making the subsection "Types of Analysis" a new wiki page. But that's a future discussion. User:hgcool23

As a frequent Wikipedia user, I must say how hugely I appreciate contributors/ editors like yourself. As I read the very informative entry on neurotransmitters, last edited by you, I note the section on neurotransmitter imbalance generally contradicts the reference on that section. I don't even know if you edited that section. If I can find time and figure out how to do so, I'll edit it myself. Thanks for what is clearly a great deal of devotion to this incredible resource. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Les Doc (talk • contribs) 03:06, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. We all do what we can! I'm sure you're probably right about the discrepancy you noticed. It is not uncommon that something turns up needing improvement. I am not an expert, so I may not be able to help with the content, but I encourage you to take a crack at it. I can help with editing syntax difficulties if needed. As for my editing of content, it comes a little bit at a time, as I learn about each topic and make edits to Wikipedia where I can tell they are needed. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:46, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your "Useless Tags" edit on Carbolic Soap. "Might" is exactly the right word, not weasel words in this instance. Teachers had a choice to use it or not, the tag was used in the wrong way not understanding the context of the word. - chrisf8657

Please don't remove sourced information from articles without a consensus to do so from discussion on the talk page. In particular, don't replace sourced information with unsourced information: if you believe the information is incorrect, find a better source which can be used to support your contention. BMK (talk) 22:57, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I did not remove any reference at all, or blow anything off. I added to the information already there. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:02, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, Quercus solaris, if you could be so kind, can you toss in a small edit summary when you edit? that would facilitate working through my watch list a lot. plus it's a simple form of WP:netiquette /paying respect to others.... FYI: i don't write this on someone's talk page, because i have nothing better to do. i mean it. its easy, so do it!--Wuerzele (talk) 02:35, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I write one when an effective one is straightforward without being a book. My edit history shows the ones that were worth it. There's a cost involved in writing them when one's edits are substantive (as opposed to mere copyediting). For the editing I do, sometimes composing a good one costs time and yet also wastes that time, because by the time it's crafted, it is superfluous for anyone who looked at the edit diff itself. Meanwhile, if you write an edit summary that is anything less than expertly crafted, it sometimes draws poorly thought out reverts from people who passed a hasty book-by-its-cover judgment based on the edit summary without due consideration of the before-and-after of the edit itself. Yes, that has happened to me multiple times. In the end analysis, my time is as scarce and valuable as other volunteers' time. Under Wikipedia:Assume good faith, for the edits where I don't write a summary, I am thereby telling other watchers to evaluate the edit itself on its merits, or else assume my good faith if time isn't available for that. Whole paragraphs of justification can be worked up at Talk if they are requested. The idea is not to waste time on that workup process unless requested. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:49, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:52, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! So I've been lately adding/creating articles about different subjects in Orthodontics, especially biographies of famous Orthodontists. Sometimes it takes the bot about 3 weeks to approve my edits. I tend to only move forward once bots have accepted my initial creations because if i create 10 articles and all 10 get rejected, then I get discouraged and don't spend as much time. Therefore, I tend to take it slowly and create articles very carefully and make sure they are fully sourced etc. Is there any way I can speed up this process where my pages can be approved much quicker? I would really appreciate it because I feel 3 weeks is a long time to wait for bots or other patrollers to approve my edits. Please advise! Thank you again like always

I might be able to patrol them myself. You could list one here when it is created (otherwise I would not be aware) and I could try to give it the "OK" and then mark as "done" here. My knowledge of (and interest in learning about) the bureaucratic aspect of page patrolling is limited, but there's a good chance that this plan may work without my having to become an expert on that topic. I believe I have patrolled at least one new page before. In my understanding, as long as I can tell that the page is not "bad" in any way (WP:COI, fictitious entry, or whatever), then I can give it the "OK" by clicking a button. Thanks. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:31, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all you have done this year :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:53, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto—thanks so much for working to build Wikipedia! Happy holidays! Quercus solaris (talk) 01:09, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(Thread moved to Talk:Sinoatrial node#Meaning of sinoatrial location and relationship to cardiac pacemaker.)

For content like this.

" Various types of malaria have been called by the names below:

Name	Pathogen	Notes
algid malaria	Plasmodium falciparum	severe malaria affecting the cardiovascular system and causing chills and circulatory shock
bilious malaria	Plasmodium falciparum	severe malaria affecting the liver and causing vomiting and jaundice
cerebral malaria	Plasmodium falciparum	severe malaria affecting the cerebrum
congenital malaria	various plasmodia	plasmodium introduced from the mother via the fetal circulation
falciparum malaria, Plasmodium falciparum malaria, pernicious malaria	Plasmodium falciparum
ovale malaria, Plasmodium ovale malaria	Plasmodium ovale
quartan malaria, malariae malaria, Plasmodium malariae malaria	Plasmodium malariae	paroxysms every fourth day (quartan), counting the day of occurrence as the first day
quotidian malaria	Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax	paroxysms daily (quotidian)
tertian malaria	Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium ovale, Plasmodium vivax	paroxysms every third day (tertian), counting the day of occurrence as the first
transfusion malaria	various plasmodia	plasmodium introduced by blood transfusion, needle sharing, or needlestick injury
vivax malaria, Plasmodium vivax malaria	Plasmodium vivax

"

Best Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:44, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are right. I added it. Thanks Quercus solaris (talk) 22:39, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Okay and books need page numbers and for this one what edition are you referring to? [2] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:12, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Online edition. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:41, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have amended your addition to the above article, as the content was copied directly from the copyright web page, http://www.entnet.org/content/about-us. — Diannaa (talk) 19:49, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I see only isolated phrases where what I put was modified by you. I certainly did not wholesale copyvio. I guess I failed to change the wording enough in only one or two particular sentences, which are so short and factual that one could hardly say them differently anyway. The fact that the revision diff has been hidden for my 2 edits and your edit summary said "copied" (as if I did some big ridiculous copyvio) was truly misrepresenting my contribution. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:55, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Quercus solaris, I want to tell you that the edit comment in your recent revert here was very explanative and polite. Do keep up your way of doing things. Cheers --Chris Howard (talk) 10:44, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I read your article it was good. Hope that u would write more on some interesting things!!!!! Swareaz (talk) 16:59, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please remember to add refs to the edit you made to heart. Best Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:13, 3 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, it is useful to give pronunciations of plant family names, but like all information in Wikipedia, there needs to be a source for each and every pronunciation. There are wide variations in how botanists pronounce New Latin names, partly caused by WP:ENGVAR, but also by different traditions. In my UK experience, the overwhelmingly most common pronunciation of the ending "-aceae" today is as "ace-ee", IPA "eɪ siː". But I can source several other pronunciations, including the more classical "ah-keh-eye", IPA "ɑː kɛ aɪ", which I almost never hear today, but once did regularly. (Also a comma is not used in WP's version of IPA transcriptions.) Peter coxhead (talk) 05:33, 25 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. The ones I've done so far reflect Merriam-Webster Unabridged, which is the only major dictionary out of the 8 available to me that even enters the family names as headwords and provides pronunciations. I will cite the ref. Wikipedia needs to provide prons for these economically important words, because the average person is left clueless by hundreds of books and websites that use the names without providing any clue about how they typically sound. Regarding comma, I disagree: the parameter is available in the IPAc-en template; if anyone thinks it should not be available, they would need to talk to the people who have already made it available. Quercus solaris (talk) 05:39, 25 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, that's fine; sourced pronunciations are useful. I think it should be made explicit that they are pronunciations in US English. I shouldn't have written flatly "a comma is not used", but instead "it seems uncommon to use a comma". Peter coxhead (talk) 05:44, 25 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding US: OK, will do. The US parameter of IPAc-en seems to work well. Regarding comma, it is used to list variants by just the syllable that is different rather than repeating the whole word. It is a common convention in many dictionaries. Quercus solaris (talk) 05:49, 25 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That seems very clear, now. Thanks. I've asked a question at WT:PLANTS, since I'm curious as to how widespread the different pronunciations are. There should perhaps be a short article on the pronunciation of scientific Latin. I'm not sure how easy it would be to source for animals, but there are plenty of sources for plants, starting with Stearn's Botanical Latin. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:24, 25 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there could be more done yet. Related coverage includes Traditional English pronunciation of Latin, Latin spelling and pronunciation#Latin spelling and pronunciation today, and New Latin#Pronunciation. The "today" coverage has a section on how ecclesiastical Latin differs from classical Latin, but so far it lacks a section for how scientific Latin is conventionally pronounced in English, which any physician or surgeon can attest is different from classical Latin (for example, venae cavae#Pronunciation). Quercus solaris (talk) 09:58, 25 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting that the only source I've found so far for -aceae prounced with a single /i/ at the end (the variant I mostly hear) is American: see the pronunciation section towards the end of this web page. As for vena cavae, I note the pronunciation isn't sourced in the article. I guess it's my age, but I would now tend to use the vowels of the classical pronunciation I learnt at school, but not the "w" for "v". Peter coxhead (talk) 13:50, 25 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please have a look at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants#Pronunciation of plant family names, if you haven't already. It seems that, as I thought, in spite of Merriam-Webster's view, botanists and horticulturalists rarely if ever use the "double ee" pronunciation. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:27, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was looking at this a few days ago. An anomaly is that cadmia is a zinc oxide. (In the early days elements were named from "earths", and as cadmium was discovered as an impurity in zinc ores it was named after a zinc earth; later the reverse etymology of naming oxides after elements was practiced.)

The rule is not -ium to -ia, but -um to -a - hence alumina. Alumina is the only one that is at all commonly used nowadays, but you'll find urania and plutonia in the literature on nuclear fuels, and rhenia, palladia, etc in the literature on transition metal catalysts. At a guess you can find attestations in Google's web corpus for most but not element with name ending in -um. Exceptions would include potassium and sodium, for which the corresponding terms, less precisely applied, as potash and soda. Lavateraguy (talk) 12:01, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the tip. Updated that page. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:25, 28 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Quercus solaris just noticed on Atibiotics sensitivity page your merge tag and on other page.....just using that format doesn't generate a place for discussion on the talk pages. If you use Twinkle and a tag from the menu, or write up the merge proposal yourself on the talk pages would help. cheers --Iztwoz (talk) 07:03, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the tip. In future will create a talk thread at same time as tag. Quercus solaris (talk) 14:50, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Quercus solaris,

Concerning wiktionary, my issue was with the phrasing "whose name". It does look a lot better now, thanks to you. soetermans. ^{↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK} 07:54, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Candida auris - nice job, your editing is admirable. Best Regards,

Barbara (WVS) (talk) 16:40, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Quercus solaris (talk) 23:39, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I saw you just added "Homologous proteins make up protein families and superfamilies, encoded by gene families." It feels to me that there must be some reason why this is significant, but it comes across as a bit of taxonomy without any obvious purpose or value to the reader (this is the lead section, after all). Perhaps the question that needs answering is, what does this show? Perhaps there's a missing sentence; or perhaps it isn't really lead material. I wonder. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:04, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Raison d'etre for the mention is its logical connection to the topic. I moved it down to the section on sequence homology, as I agree upon reflection that between the lede and that section, it is best in the latter. Thanks, Quercus solaris (talk) 20:14, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What is up with the missing edit summaries in some of your edits to articles? Are you special? It is not acceptable. Edit summaries must exist and be descriptive. --Acyclic (talk) 02:34, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is already explained herein at #plse use an edit summary. Also, what is up with your civility and level of AGF for an established good-faith editor? Are you special? Quercus solaris (talk) 22:46, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You were asked to do something, but you didn't do it, so you deserve to be reminded of it. It is not optional; it is practically a requirement for edits to articles, and is not up for debate or counterargument. If you ever publish code, do you skip commit messages too? --Acyclic (talk) 10:40, 5 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Meh, Wikipedian rules aren't meant to be tails that wag the dog. I'll try to do edit summaries more often. But speaking of what to do more often, maybe you should concentrate on building valid encyclopedia content as much as you concentrate on haranguing strangers about whether a high enough percentage of their edits have edit summaries. ;-. The right balance has not yet been struck in that regard. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:07, 21 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You added this to the lead of Microscope.

Please add sources and expand or participate in a lengthy ongoing discussion of a single word (see RFC on article talk page). --2600:387:6:80D:0:0:0:9D (talk) 00:38, 2 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, regarding this edit - the page is built by a bot which will remove or overwrite anything that it didn't put there itself, as it did with this edit (a similarly-misplaced post by 2601:648:8503:4467:DC06:E4F7:AC27:B7B9 was removed at the same time). There is no way to prevent such removals (other than by blocking the bot, which we won't do).

What you should do is follow the link at the top of the entry - in this case it's Talk:Microscope - which will take you to the RfC in the "Request for comment on ultramicroscope" section. There you will see comments by others - just use the edit link adjacent to the section heading and add your comments at the bottom. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:59, 3 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

	common sense award
	for your numerous common sense edits including your remarks on anthropocentricity on WP biology pages. Avanti! Common sense: - Gift- or curse? ....we´ll just have to deal with those we run into who don’t have it.... Wuerzele (talk) 11:33, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to you too! Quercus solaris (talk) 22:28, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wondering if you can add a ref for this[3]

Best Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:32, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Thanks Quercus solaris (talk) 21:58, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I'd just let you know that I loved your userpage puzzle. Rarely does someones userpage make me chuckle and nod in agreement at the same time. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 00:48, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to hear that you liked it! Happy editing, Quercus solaris (talk) 01:55, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really struggling to find a source that tells the exact difference between cytosol and ICF. The 2 articles that we currently have that touch on this, Cytosol and Fluid_compartments#Intracellular_compartment, only say that "most of ICF is cytosol". But none of the articles, and no reliable source that I've been able to find, says exactly what is in the ICF but not in the cytosol. So, are you aware of any reliable sources that say what else is in ICF apart from cytosol? Thanks! DrVogel (talk) 18:39, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. The intracellular fluid (ICF) is, precisely speaking, all fluid inside cells, considered as a fluid compartment. (Bearing in mind that the definition of a fluid compartment is an abstraction—a nominal/virtual space, comprising one or many actual spaces.) Therefore, the ICF by definition comprises both any fluid in the cytoplasm (that is, the cytosol) and any fluid in the nucleoplasm (which, to the extent that it exists in any given nucleus, may or may not be differentiated from nuclear sap/nuclear ground substance/nuclear matrix/nucleosol/karyolymph in the usage of whoever is mentioning it). But quantitatively, not much of total body water is inside the cell nuclei, so ICF and cytosol are casually synonymous, which is to say, when you are talking about one you are "practically" ("for practical purposes", "almost", or both) talking about the other. I am not aware of any book or journal that explains or explores this. Nonetheless, it is logically inescapable. I would be fine with Wikipedia saying "most of ICF is cytosol, because not much of the total body water is inside nucleoplasm." Quercus solaris (talk) 23:30, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thanks for the explanation. I agree that it's reasonable to assume that ICF must mean "fluid in the cytoplasm + fluid in the nucleoplasm". This follows logically from partition theory, as the inside of the cell is either inside or outside the nucleus, so ICF = fluid inside the cell = fluid inside the (nucleus + not nucleus) = fluid inside the nucleus + fluid inside the (not nucleus) = fluid in the nucleoplasm + fluid in the cytoplasm = fluid in the nucleoplasm + cytosol. However, I am annoyed that we can't find a single source that defines ICF properly!! DrVogel (talk) 01:14, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Great explanations, and thank you DrVogel for keeping me in the loop! If we really can't find a source with this explanation, perhaps we'll have to publish our interpretation in some bio journal and then cite that here :) Myoglobin (talk) 02:08, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Can you add references for the text you added to syphilis? Thanks Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:17, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Done. This is an interesting topic and these only scratch the surface of WP:RSs available, but it is a good start, pending better development at articles Syphilis and History of syphilis. Thanks. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:46, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If you think the template should be updated to support medline abbreviations, the place to raise the issue is at Template talk:Infobox journal, not trying to put the information in fields not designed to host it. You might want to cross post a note at WP:AJ and WP:MED if you start that discussion. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:31, 25 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Already did that a while ago (Template talk:Infobox journal). As with many things nowadays at WP, a good idea that is going nowhere for lack of sufficient interest. Maybe I'll do the cross posting, but if anyone cared, there'd probably be some reply by now. Probably the end result is that WP articles about scientific journals will simply fail to contain the Medline abbrev when different from ISO 4 because there's just enough attention paid to the topic to delete the useful information but not enough to solve the problem of lack of a best place to put it. I'm trying to train myself to stop caring and give up in similar fashion because it's less frustrating. As I already said at that talk page, regarding creating a parameter, I would just do it myself, but editing the programming of Lua modules is beyond my skill level so far. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:46, 26 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Never noticed the discussion. I replied there. I'd suggest advertising it at WT:MED/WT:AJ. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:58, 26 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Deuterogamy. Since you had some involvement with the Deuterogamy redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. PamD 09:12, 27 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for adding another pronunciation of Wits, and for cleaning up the IPA entries. It seems you have a lot more expertise in the area of the IPA than I do.

Just to clarify, the pronunciation I added initially (\vəts\) as pronounced here: https://itinerarium.github.io/phoneme-synthesis/ is in fact, the native South African English pronunciation of the word (being a first-language English speaker who grew up in Gauteng, this is the way I've heard it pronounced for decades). "/vʌts/", the second pronounciation you added sounds alien, presumably because you replaced the unstressed schwa with a stressed one. I'm going to replace the stressed schwa with the unstressed one in the second pronounciation Park3r (talk) 12:39, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for providing what I could not—namely, "the native South African English pronunciation of the word ([from] a first-language English speaker who grew up in Gauteng". To my knowledge, Wikipedia does not used the schwa symbol for any stressed vowel at all in its chosen transcription method for English (Help:IPA/English#Key)—which is to say, whatever the stressed vowel in this instance truly is, there should be some other symbol at Help:IPA/English#Key that accurately transcribes it (if not /ʌ/ then another). However, I am satisfied with whatever you decide to use, as to me the most important thing is get good information at Wikipedia (such as "the native South African English pronunciation of the word ([from] a first-language English speaker who grew up in Gauteng"), with the transcription choices being second to that. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:08, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

First, I feel the need to appreciate the nice touch of you acknowledging the described effect of "eccentric" notation, second, I also did not even considerate to edit-war over this, and third, I want to express that I do neither agree to standard English orthography not being eccentric, nor to this topic belonging to orthography at all. The first is obvious to any half-decent formally thinking being, and the letter for this belonging more to typesetting, an inherently "quirky" matter, even bound to rapidly changing fashion, not even commented on in the public.

I face the "rules" of WP, but I am sufficiently subversive to let my quirkyness flash up in a stubborn world of useful WP:MOS. BTW, did the unspaced emdash in my edit summary reach your attention? Most respectfully, Purgy (talk) 07:22, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. There are well-established norms both in orthographies and in professional typesetting and publishing, and although many of them are only strong conventions (not legally binding), they certainly can be grouped into mainstream versus unusual. The idea of "not even commented on in public" is not accurate, as when one reads any of many widely used reference works such as the Chicago Manual of Style (and dozens of others—style guides, usage guides, dictionaries), one certainly finds descriptions and recommendations on such matters. For example, the prevalent norms of em dash and en dash use and styling are touched on in Wikipedia's article on dashes, with reference citations to such reliable sources. There is a limited range of variability within those norms, but only to a point; some orthographic touches are eccentric whereas others are mainstream. I offer this comment not in an argumentative spirit but only to provide explanation and show where such norms are indeed discussed. Regards, Quercus solaris (talk) 16:22, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I was just curious as to who or what this edit & summary were in response to and, are you planning on adding a phonetic template to every article about an agency known by a initialism? Again, just curious. Thanks - ^theWOLFchild 23:14, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. No plans to be exhaustive about it—just to add it wherever it is useful. You know what got me started on it? I found out by coincidence that "MSHA" is pronounced "EM-shuh", not "em-ess-aitch-AY", by miners and by people well initiated in the occupational safety and health field, and I did a double-take and realized that in the past few decades I had read the name many times but never heard it in speech. I always just assumed it was "em-ess-aitch-AY". How would *I* know how it is pronounced? That got me thinking a bit. I've always known since childhood that OSHA is "OH-shuh", not "oh-ess-aitch-AY", but that's only because I grew up around adults who said the name in speech. I never stopped to think that if "OSHA" is "OH-shuh" then "MSHA" might be "EM-shuh", but you can't assume stuff like that anyway, because natural language "as she is actually spoke" is full of idiomatic things (such as particular pronunciations and particular syntax patterns) that could be (that is, could have been) analogous but aren't. That got me thinking a little more. How does any native speaker of English know that "CIA" is "see-eye-AY" not "SEE-uh" in English? What about that "DEA" is "dee-ee-AY" not "DEE-uh" or "DAY-uh" in English? They know only because they grew up hearing it in speech and/or on TV. Generally, you simply can't look up these pronunciations in dictionaries. Names like "MSHA" aren't even in most dictionaries at all, and "major" ones like "CIA" are in dictionaries but usually don't have pronunciation transcriptions. So how would anyone know, if they're not a native speaker? But even for native speakers, when was the last time you watched a TV show that mentions MSHA? When was the last time you heard its name in speech, if you don't live in a region with lots of mining? Now consider people across the world for whom English is a second language. How would they know that in English "CIA" is always "see-eye-AY" not "SEE-uh"? (In Spanish it is often the latter, but not in English.) The best answer is that if they google the name and read the Wikipedia article on the topic, they should be able to find out there what the name sounds like in idiomatic English, and it should be right there without their having to think to ask about it (just like countless other pronunciations are, in Wikipedia). The same is true for examples like "MSHA" even for native speakers, not just ESL speakers. It's not hard, it's not a big deal, and it doesn't hurt anything to provide it—it should simply be available for those users who can use it. Now it is, because I bothered to provide it. One last thought. A place like YouTube nowadays can provide audio of all of these names, so YouTube is a place to potentially find these answers. But who scours YouTube like a haystack to find a particular pronunciation like a needle therein? And regardless of whether that's possible, why not have a simple transcription in an encyclopedia like Wikipedia anyway, which after all provides them for countless other words as well. These words should not be special unhelpful exceptions to that general trend of usefulness. I'm aware of pronunciation sites like Forvo, but you know what? Who thinks to go look at Forvo to uncover the things that they didn't know that they didn't know? In contrast, lots of people read the ledes of Wikipedia. Et voilà, there we are. Regards, Quercus solaris (talk) 03:06, 13 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thought you might find this link useful. Cheers - ^theWOLFchild 23:14, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but I prefer keeping it unhidden. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:13, 13 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

QS, you understand that something that may be "WP:BLUESKY for farmers who make hay" still requires verifiability, hence the citation of reliable sources, in the encyclopedia? If only farmers who make hay used Wikipedia, the "Blue Sky" argument might make sense, but that is obviously not the case. May I suggest you wait until you "have time" ("These three refs are what I have time for today") to find and include reliable sources before you add content to the article? General Ization ^Talk 21:59, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:Dummy edit, edit summaries are not for full-on conversations. Stop it. And do stop making ludicrous claims about me. See WP:Personal attacks and WP:ASPERSIONS. Just like our run-in at the Anilingus article, you cannot accept when you are wrong and are not handling things appropriately. I am not interested in anything you have to state. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:57, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And I'm not interested in any hypocrisy you have to dish out. In my edit marked "biology correction", I calmly stated the reason for the edit without reference to you at all. Then in your edit summary, *you* broke out the "ludicrous claims" about *me* and made aspersions about my edit, with a clear corollary of personal attack on me as someone who supposedly was being "rambling" and writing without "flow", both of which were obvious hogwash. You're a poster child for someone who "cannot accept when you are wrong and are not handling things appropriately". Quercus solaris (talk) 02:43, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Last comment: I stated, "See the Intersex article. It is completely about humans, and we already address the hermaphrodite aspect above. That is why I changed your material." I also stated that your "text has no flow, is rambling with 'dichotomous' and is not necessary." My comment was a comment specifically about the text. WP:Personal attacks notes "Comment on content, not on the contributor." Yes, the edit summary for your first revert stated "biology correction—was accurate before tweak, inaccurate after; intersex is not limited to humans," as if stating that "humans may also be intersex" is incorrect, but you soon made it about me and attacked my character. You made it personal. So it shouldn't be a surprise that I responded the way that I did with that one dummy edit. Since you were offended by me stating that your text has no flow and was rambling with the "dichotomous" aspect, I should have chosen my words differently. I was somewhat offended by you making it seem as though I had made the article inaccurate by stating that "humans may also be intersex." I did think twice about what to state in my second edit summary in response to you; again, I should not have escalated the dispute in that way. I obviously disagree with your poster child comment, as would many editors I interact with. But I'm not going to sit here and keep debating you, especially on what we think of each other. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:22, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry to come across as prickly, because I'm usually not. I do promise not to edit again on explaining nonbinary (both intersex and intergender) unless I cite a reference. If it's important enough to get right then it's important enough to take the time to assemble the references. In retrospect a better addition could just be a sentence that "all sex-determining systems have occasional intersex variations due to aneuploidy, epigenetics, and other factors." I am certain that is true, but I recognize that I need to identify a reference if I want to add it. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:28, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The 2018 Cure Award

In 2018 you were one of the top ~250 medical editors across any language of Wikipedia. Thank you from Wiki Project Med Foundation for helping bring free, complete, accurate, up-to-date health information to the public. We really appreciate you and the vital work you do! Wiki Project Med Foundation is a user group whose mission is to improve our health content. Consider joining here, there are no associated costs.

Thanks again :-) -- Doc James along with the rest of the team at Wiki Project Med Foundation 17:41, 28 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya, I'm making some major changes to this article, and further want to split all the extraneous polemics about the evils factory farming into a new article (again, I know, see my proposals). I've been asked to corral in some comments about my proposals. And even if you last edited this article in 2016, your edits are apparently the last constructive work done at the article besides reverts of vandalism and little copy editing changes, besides what Dialectric did in 2018. Basically, the difference between extensive and intensive agriculture is a test quiz in first year agribusiness management at college, and reading this article will cause kids to fail. Apparently conventional agriculture does not inspire the passion that biodynamic agriculture does when it come to Wikipedia article editing. Think of the kids, and please comment. Regards, Leo Breman (talk) 20:39, 21 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:11, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hey there! I see we are having different opinions on what should be in the lede of Wail al-Shehri article. I won't revert you as I have no intention of edit-warring over the issue, but I strongly suggest that you revert your edit and ask for consensus on the article talk page per WP:BRD. As I'm not really too active on WP these days, I may come late to the party (though other editors with their opinions will definitely chime in); I only reverted your edit because reading today's FA didn't really sound like an encyclopedic entry, exactly at the spot where "mass-murderer" adjective was used. Thanks. byteflush _Talk 04:34, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I normally wouldn't even care about that article, except that it bugged me that (a) "why did the article on this asshole become Wikipedia's 'today's featured article' at all" (I didn't dig hard enough to find the rationale behind that, because I don't have time for it) and (b), relatedly, "why doesn't the article's text plainly state what he *was* (which is a mass murderer)"? I take issue with notions of the propriety or nicety of tone when it goes so far as to fail to state the obvious truth. Is Wikipedia supposed to avoid saying that John Wayne Gacy was a murderer because the word "murderer" breaks the "tone" of an encyclopedia? That's bullshit, and so is refusing to call a 9/11 hijacker a murderer. It's hiding from the plain truth for some sort of antiquated theatre of nicey-nice "tone" (like "we Victorians faint if we hear the word 'leg' used in public"). The fact that those assholes were murderers is factually, indisputably, objectively both WP:NPOV and WP:RS, yet Wikipedia is somehow "not allowed" to say that fact plainly? Again, bullshit. Anyway, I am trying to teach myself to stop even trying to fix such flaws in Wikipedia, because doing so is a Sisyphean task for a thousand people, not one, but sometimes I jump on an instance hastily before stopping myself. Wikipedia will have to remain a half-baked approximation of a first-rate resource, and that will have to be enough for me, because I don't have resources to stop that problem from existing. Quercus solaris (talk) 20:38, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:41, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

		The Medicine Barnstar
		Awarded for your continuous efforts in adding to articles on medical topics. Awarded by Cdjp1 on 25 August 2021

The article Life Technologies (India) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Fails WP:NCORP

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

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Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Nomadicghumakkad (talk) 02:20, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The page Life Technologies has been speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This was done under section G14 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it was an orphaned disambiguation page which either

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Since you have a good grasp of allophones and I don't, would you consider adding one to Freddie de Guingand for me? (His surname is pronounced "der gang gone".) Also (while I'm here), I have Rupert Downes up from review at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rupert Downes/archive2. Any comments would be appreciated; the FAC coordinators like to see reviews from beyond the usual suspects. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:09, 14 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Hawkeye7: I'm not super knowledgeable about phonetics and phonemics and IPA, but I do comprehend enough to enter valid pronunciation help into WP articles and Wiktionary entries. With Leahy, the allophony is as simple as that the name can be LAY-ee rather than LAY-Hee in the usual cadences of speech. I'll plan to help out at de Guingand. Sorry I probably lack time to do an FA review but I might try one for the heck of it if the spirit moves me to interrupt other stuff. Thanks, Quercus solaris (talk) 00:25, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmmm, have a feeling it is very interesting and have marked it for further reading. Never came by before, will be back to explore it at some point, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:52, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The junk DNA article links to several dozen other science articles on Wikipedia. None of them have hapnotes yet you insist on on inserting one into the junk DNA article. Why?

The problem with your edit is that you want readers to encounter the term "non-coding DNA" as soon as they open the article. Why is this a problem? It's because there's a lot of misinformation out there that confuses junk DNA with non-coding DNA and your edit strongly implies that there is some sort of connection between junk DNA and non-coding DNA. The article itself goes to great length to explain why this is not correct (i.e. it is misinformation).

I don't see any reason for you to insist on making this edit other than to perpetuate the confusion and misinformation? Am I correct? Are you one of those people who think that all non-coding DNA was once thought to be junk?

Let me give you an example of why I think that your hapnote is misleading. Here are some others that are just as valid according to your logic.

Compare non-centromere DNA. Compare non-regulatory DNA. Compare non-origin of replication DNA. Compare non-SARS DNA. Compare non-telomere DNA. Compare non-non-coding genes.

That would be silly, wouldn't it? So, of all the possible functional regions of DNA that are not junk, why do you single out coding regions for special attention?

Do you have any special expertise in this field? Genome42 (talk) 13:35, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, @Genome42: — thanks for your efforts, and believe it or not, I'm on the side that you're on, which is getting the public to stop confusing or conflating the two. I'm going to let you have the veto over this hatnote, but all I ask is that you read and appreciate my reasoning (below) before dismissing the hatnote. There's a good reason for (specifically) non-functional DNA and non-coding DNA (again, those two specifically, not the others that you mentioned) why it is pedagogically useful for WP to allow a hatnote telling WP users (the public, topic laypersons) not to confuse the two, which really means (less politely), "STOP conflating these two, and be warned before you even read any further that if you think you're about to read about the other one, you're not, because THEY'RE NOT THE SAME THING, even though many of you assume that they are." The reason so many people need this warning up front is because non-bio people often vaguely believe that "what DNA is, is the thing that encodes the proteins (the end, full stop). That's what DNA does." Starting from that misapprehension, they then assume (without even consciously thinking about it) that, "oh, non-functional DNA and non-coding DNA, that's just the same thing by another synonym." They live in a world full of (in other cases correct) expositions that start out with the theme of, "Thing A, also known as thing B, C, D, or (in some places) E or F, is a thing that does blah." They often misextrapolate this to the general idea that things that sound like they are or ought to be synonymous are usually either synonymous or overlapping or closely related. They also live in a world where for years some of them (showing my age here perhaps) were told that "the term junk DNA is junk (a misnomer) because there's no such thing as DNA that is junk to nature, merely DNA where as far as we understand to date does not do anything or have any effect on evolution." The reason I am motivated by this specific case of "Do not confuse X with Y" aka "STOP confusing X with Y" is that I was one of the people who was told years ago (in K-12 contexts) that "junk DNA" was a junk term that informed people avoid using. I eventually learned that that notion was incorrect, and now I am aiming to help other people by disabusing it up front with the up-front TLDR message first, whereas something that I am painfully long experienced in, is the fact that many and perhaps even most people don't read the things that you told them to read, not even when they lie and say that they did, and largely because even when they do read things they don't comprehend them very well, no matter how well they are written. They'll usually blame the writer to deflect from the true core problem ("if you knew how to write better, then your message wouldn't be missed"), but I'm onto that one weird excuse by now. There's a combination of poor reading capability, dishonesty, and laziness out there among humans (it's not new, not at all, I well realize), and WP hatnotes, such as "Do not confuse X with Y" and others, are a good pedagogical tools with good TLDR effectiveness for people who don't read well. It is helpful to such people to be told up front that as they begin to struggle their way (poorly) through reading the meat of the article, they're not reading about the thing that they mistakenly assumed they were reading about. It's useful for them to know that fact up front, before they read many sentences misbelieving that they're reading about the topic that they misapprehended they were reading about. Yes, it's that bad. Quercus solaris (talk) 14:25, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I see that your heart's in the right place but I think you are dead wrong about the pedagogical usefulness of inserting some other link right at the top of the article. In fact, I think it defeats the purpose of what you hope to achieve.

A reader who wants to learn about junk DNA will pop up the Wikipedia page and the first thing they see is a request to click on a link to another Wikipedia article on Non-coding DNA. That's tantamount to saying, "ATTENTION! Junk DNA has got something to do with non-coding DNA so you better go there first!"

What you want is something like, "STOP conflating these two, and be warned before you even read any further that if you think you're about to read about the other one, you're not, because THEY'RE NOT THE SAME THING, even though many of you assume that they are." But even that is NOT pedagogically useful because it assumes that all readers have been conflating junk DNA and non-coding DNA. If they haven't already fallen into that trap then you are, at the very least, telling them that there's a controversy and announcing that you have made a decision about which side is correct.

If they HAVE been conflating junk DNA and non-coding DNA, then maybe they're arrived at this page in order to find out whether it's true or not and the first thing they see, from their perspective, is that there is, indeed, a connection between junk DNA and non-coding DNA.

I want the article to explain the difference between junk DNA and non-coding DNA and why they should not be equated. I don't want to announce my/your conclusion right at the top of the page before they've read about the reasons for reaching this conclusion. Wikipedia editors are usually very sensitive about this sort of thing.

I'm not sure that you realize the magnitude of the problem. The internet is chock full of claims that all non-coding DNA was thought to be junk. It's rare to find anything in a Google search that casts doubt on that claim. Thus, the majority of people who find this page will be looking for confirmation of their belief and the phrase "Compare non-coding DNA" will have a very different meaning to them than what it means to you. If they click on the link to non-coding DNA then they will see that there's lot of functional elements in non-coding DNA and that just confirms their belief that junk DNA ( = non-coding DNA) has been refuted.

Up until last week, we had an entire section devoted to "Junk DNA and non-coding DNA" where we explained the origin of the misconception and why it is wrong. Peteruetz deleted that section for reasons that I don't understand (see Talk). I think he mostly objected to the style of writing but he also seems to be unaware of the importance of the controversy. I intend to restore that section. It was originally in the Non-coding DNA article but was transferred to Junk DNA when we re-created that article in March 2023. Genome42 (talk) 18:07, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Genome42: Ah, I see now how deep the mud goes with this one. I'm going to defer to you on this one, as I have bought into your reasonable pedagogical argument presented above. I still support the concept that hatnotes saying "Do not confuse this topic X with other topic Y" are still usually/generally the right pedagogical approach on WP, but I also accept that this one is probably a special case for an exception, for the reasons that you mentioned. Thanks. I will delete the hatnote for these reasons. Regards, Quercus solaris (talk) 18:44, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]