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So long, and thanks for all the fish

Well, I was coming back after a period of burnout and real life stuff, and it seems I missed a victory by the grammar authoritarians. Ho hum. So, first off, sorry I wasn't here to help. I mean, I always knew they were going to win eventually, Misplaced Pages has been heading in the direction of minimum tolerance and maximum conformity for a while. But anyway, perhaps it could have been held off longer.

Second, that's all folks. I've had a a great time here over the years and have really enjoyed working here on the project. We've turned out some great articles and done a lot of stellar work. But the shift from the goal of this place being getting as much info out there as possible and the goal of making it all consistent to some arbitrary standard has been coming a long time, and this was the line in the sand I drew that represented as far as I was going. Maybe Misplaced Pages will again one day respect those that know, write and cite as much as it loves the minutiae of its rules. I really hope it does. But for the moment it will have to do so without me.

I owe a lot to Misplaced Pages and in particular this project. I realise this is a rather drama-ish exit, but then Misplaced Pages was always about the drama as much as the writing. And I really wanted to say goodbye to those of you I've been working with on this project for the last decade (you can always reach me by email!). Goodbye, and best of luck. Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:46, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, good luck - go and do some Original Research.. ;) Cas Liber (talk · contribs)

Good luck from me too. I've taken the less drastic step of chopping hundreds of pages off my bird watchlist to concentrate on species pages I've significantly contributed to, and those that are on the British list — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimfbleak (talk • contribs)

Sad to see but good luck. We have also lost User:MeegsC thanks to the increasingly rough editing environment. Shyamal (talk) 10:22, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Another keen editor alienated by the WP elite and they neither notice nor care. Sorry to see you go. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 11:24, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Tall poppy syndrome - the bird project has been too successful. It attracted the attention of those that felt threatened, a common organisational dynamic. Maias (talk) 13:44, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree that this was a terribly bad decision, but really, does it invalidate everything else we've achieved, as a project and as an encyclopedia? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:10, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm no, but the comments by various people at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_156#Bird_common_name_decapitalisation against anyone that supported capitalisation were pretty demeaning. And were I suspect the last nail in the coffin for the enthusiasm of some editors. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:54, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Even funnier, the editor that started the whole issue this time round was a sock of a blocked user Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:57, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I noticed one IP popping up from time to time with rather pointy edits on the crowed crane DAB, but I can not prove anything. Snowman (talk) 08:27, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I opposed the change and thought I could live with it. But when everything turning up on my watchlist is the down-casing of bird names, it just feels wrong. I'm not a big contributor so I won't be missed. But good luck to anyone left. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 08:12, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that, Chuunen Baka and Sabine's Sunbird. Sad losses, both. I too left, fed up with the hassle from a few people (you know who you are) who make it their business to piss off as many people as possible for no other reason than that they can. After cooling off, though, I've decided that I'm not going to let the bullies win, so I'll continue to contribute content — which, after all, is the most important part of the encyclopedia. And I'll just ignore and avoid those who make my blood pressure go up. Soldier on, everybody. Let's get back to what's really important here, which is building a great resource! MeegsC (talk) 15:06, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

I also opposed the decision, but has it actually been implemented in full? Maybe, I don't know. It is really very sad to see the impact on some really solid editors. Johnbod/ Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 22:04, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

It amuses me that those who have decided it is so important to change the capitalisation are spending so many hours doing it all manually, I assume they haven't actually got any content to contribute, or simply prefer form over substance. Perhaps we should request that they get a bot-bit for their accounts so that we can at least ignore their automaton-like edits which overwhelm watchlists. --Tony Wills (talk) 12:35, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't care about capitalisation at all actually, I'm merely saving others from burning out on such a massive task. Do keep casting aspersions though. —Xezbeth (talk) 17:14, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

I suspect that you are right, the people executing these changes have no great interest in or understanding of what they are part of - very sad. I'm not a member of this project, but have watched the way this change was bulldozed through, and now are apparently watching dis-interested parties participating in this destructive, pointless excercise. It is destructive of the community of people who are dedicated to maintaining the pages covered by this project because it dismisses their opinions and standards in the name of conforming to some other standard. I expect this project will carry on more or less as usual, but now with a little less enthusiasm, feeling their input is a little less valued. --Tony Wills (talk) 21:33, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Lets not get all maudlin about this, it's the content that is important not the style. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:52, 23 June 2014 (UTC).

Try telling MoS that. And we now have inconsistency because even the fanatics aren't prepared to downcase the big lists like list of hummingbirds and list of birds of Canada and the United States Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:07, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Jim, most of the loudest voices at MOS couldn't give a toss about those inconsistencies. They're now off harassing the horse people about their article titles, because everyone knows that the use of capital letters for animal names is the main reason most experts don't think Misplaced Pages is a reliable reference. Despite what you might have thought, the belief that Misplaced Pages might not be reliable has nothing to do with some articles possessing such gems as "Eric eats poop" or various snippets of patently incorrect information. It was all about those danged capital letters! *Rolls eyes*. MeegsC (talk) 03:09, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

And yet here I've been told that the fact that we have Aeshna cyanea (binomial), small tortoiseshell (lc English) and Red Underwing (capped English) isn't a matter for MoS! Predictably, they did the easy articles, and then moved on to persecute other content creators rather than tackle more time consuming stuff. On a more positive note, having 2000 less bird articles on my watch list makes life easier. Perhaps I should go the whole hog and just dot "i"s and cross "t"s, since that's more important than content? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I understand why having lower-case names imposed on the WP Bird project is the last straw for many. Being a armature in ornithology myself, I will miss the expertise of those who are leaving particularly in the "Birds for identification" series. I anticipate that I will find and upload more photographs that need identification probably in the late Autumn (September or August), when the weather starts to get wintery here in the UK. I hope that some of you will help me to identify birds for the fun of it and for the birds. For any of you that do return, I hope that we can make this project be a happy project again. I thought about leaving over the capitalization issue, but writing about parrots and illustrating bird pages has higher priority than capitalization for me. I am not promising anything. Snowman (talk) 08:27, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I note that the people who are changing to lower-case are sometimes just changing the page name without changing the capitalization in the body of the article. I have not seen anyone change the capitalization in lists of birds yet. I think that the people who want to deliver lower-case capitalization to about 16,000 bird pages do not have the machinery to do it properly. I think that we should complain about the inconsistent mess that this is causing. Does anyone want to go into battle (metaphorically speaking) over this saying that the change over to lower-case is not going well and that the upper-case tradition here should be kept? I am not promising anything. Snowman (talk) 08:13, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

On the positive side, I have heard (see below) that a kind professional photographer has donated about 300 good-quality videos of birds, some of them with sound, to Commons. Upper-case bird names are used on Commons. I am planning to process them all with a script to write in the English names, binomial names, and the taxonomy categories on Commons. I hope to see as many bird editors back here in the Autumn of the Western Hemisphere (August to September) to see if we can put every informative video in an improved bird species page. I am not promising anything. Snowman (talk) 08:13, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I feel bad now. I've only recently developed an interest in some of the bird articles, after the decapitalisation was already decided. So I've been merrily lowercasing names as I make other edits. Personally, I prefer uppercase (for me a "bald eagle" is a bird with a skin condition causing feather loss on its head, whereas Bald Eagle is something specific). But I thought I was doing the right thing by "following the rules". Sorry that you're leaving, Sunbird. Pelagic (talk) 23:50, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Noticing this discussion I just took on List of birds of Canada and the United States. It was a lot of work to do right. I never felt very strongly either way on the underlying issue of whether these moves should be done, but I have been involved in page moves (closing RMs and the like) for a long time and I think it's outrageous that people would move all these articles without attempting to address the content, as represented above. I'm wondering if they took on other necessary cleanup tasks attend on moves (noted at WP:RM/CI).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:34, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Southern boobook (Ninox boobook)

The Ninox page lists the southern boobook as a separate species (Ninox boobook), but our page just redirects to morepork. According to it is distinct, and indicates that they were formerly classified together, but are now considered distinct. There's more info about the taxonomical history here. Is this taxonomy generally accepted? If so, we should create a proper page for the southern boobook and link to it from morepork. Pburka (talk) 20:32, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

We take the IOC world list as our standard. The IOC owl list gives Southern as a separate species, so it should have its own article Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:46, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I was looking into this - there is some dispute going on, but am inclined to agree. There is a key paper I will have to get via library to clarify it. Just about all the info in the article is on the NZ taxon, so I think the correct thing is to rename it morepork and move it to preserve edit history and then back-create southern boobook. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:10, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Good to know that you give authority to the IOC list, Jim; do you also follow them for Latin names? (E.g. when there is difference of opinion about which genus a species belongs to?) Pelagic (talk) 00:51, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Good question. I suppose that I tend to do so except for species where I have to look closely at the taxonomy, for example at FAC. I would then discuss the options and the evidence for them. I have very little knowledge of these southern owls, and I would take the IOC on trust simply through ignorance Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:56, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Pburka, was N. boobook previously a subspecies of N. novaseelandiae, or vice versa? I can't access Christidis & Boles on Google Scholar (have already exceeded page allowance), and I don't have access to a paper copy. For what it's worth, I do have a copy of Simpson & Day (Field Guide to the Birds of Australia, 7ed., p. 156) on loan from the library: Simpson is sitting on the fence by listing Southern Boobook as "Ninox boobook (novaseelandiae)". That book is big on documenting races/subspecies: it lists 5 Australian races: boobook, ocellata, leucopsis, halmaturina, lurida. Pelagic (talk) 00:51, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Neither as such - the name N. novaseelandiae was used for the combined species as it is older that N. boobook - once split they are split along the lines of which subpsecies the specimens were types of. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:22, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

There are still some authorities which treat it as subspecies, e.g. Clements (2012). König & Weick (2008) treat it as species, HBW 5 (1999) too. According to Howard & Moore - Non passerines (2013) I can say more when I have this book in a few weeks. --Melly42 (talk) 06:28, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, there is by no means consensus on this one - and I need to read a paper I can't get online to get my head around it - issues with incomplete genetic sampling and one paper apparently misreading another etc. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:11, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I think, if the majority of authorities considered it as full species there is nothing said against an own Misplaced Pages article (and if you take a look in König & Weick and/or HBW 5 (resp. HBW alive) there is even enough stuff about this species --Melly42 (talk) 07:18, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

In H&M (2013) we have Ninox boobook with 10 subspecies and Ninox novaeseelandiae with 3 subspecies --Melly42 (talk) 17:02, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Videos of birds

A Dutch editor has arranged the donation of 500+ high-quality, uncut videos of birds like this. The announcement is on Commons, along with suggestions about how to link the files. Please consider looking at these to see whether any would improve our articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:11, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Nice, seems they all need English descriptions and species categorisation, though. Quite a task! FunkMonk (talk) 16:07, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I only know English. The videos seem to be labelled with common name of birds in Dutch. I do not see any binomial names. If I had a list of Dutch bird names alongside the binomial names (or the English names), then I think that I could do the lot with a script (but not until the Autumn in the UK). Nevertheless, it would be handy to have a Dutch and English speaking bilingual person to help. I am not promising anything. Snowman (talk) 08:50, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

One method could be cross-checking names with the Dutch Misplaced Pages. For example, in this file, the name is "Blauwe kiekendief". Searching that on the Dutch Wiki gives me this, and thus a link back to the English article. Furthermore, binomials are shown under notes in some files, including that one. FunkMonk (talk) 09:39, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

That looks like it would work. There are many ways of doing this that will work. I would be looking for the simplest way. I could get the binomial from the Dutch page and then convert that to the English name or more simply use a list of Dutch names with the binomial names. I have already written scrips for other tasks that do nearly this sort of thing, so I could use blocks of these scripts to get something to work for this task. I have got efficient blocks of scrip that interchange binomials and English names. Snowman (talk) 10:49, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

In all the files I looked at the binomial names were in the notes tag words section, the only other two-word tag was generally the dutch common name --Tony Wills (talk) 11:27, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I see; the binomial name is in the notes section entirely in lower case. The script will not need to look at the Dutch Wiki, because I could write a script to make use of the binomial name in the "notes" field. Snowman (talk) 14:29, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Of course, this sort of work to images is done on Commons, where upper-case bird common names apply. Actually, the writing of the script is beginning to look reasonably easy, but I will need an hour or two of protected time to concentrate and marshall an organized approach, a task for me in the Autumn (August or September in the UK). I would think that it would be a good idea for WP Bird editors to enhance the text of the en Wiki pages for these images to show our appreciation to the generous photographer who donated the video collection to Commons. I am not promising anything. Snowman (talk) 07:58, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet for Wikiproject Birds at Wikimania 2014 (updated version)

please note: This is an updated version of a previous post that I made.

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

The deadline for submissions is 1st July 2014

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to:

Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 09:00, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I note that one group of people are trying to recruit WP Bird editors with leaflets. Another group of people have imposed lower-case capitalization on WP Birds, which has had the effect of causing many bird editors to feel belittled. How ironic is this? Snowman (talk) 08:13, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

An egg question

Could someone please help with this question: User_talk:Anna_Frodesiak#Bird's eggs. Many thanks, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:01, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I have replied over there with a brief explanation, and I trust that this will enable the person who is asking these questions to be able to amend the article appropriately. Note that many bird page editors are not now editing bird pages following the impositions of lower-case capitalization imposed on bird names by Wiki MoS enthusiasts. Snowman (talk) 07:53, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

House finch

Could someone help answer the question I posted at User_talk:Rothorpe#House_finch? CorinneSD (talk) 00:31, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I've responded to this one here. MeegsC (talk) 01:52, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Rusty Blackbird

I have a question about the article on the Rusty Blackbird. It is in the "Habitat" section. The first few sentences read:

"Their breeding habitat is wet temperate coniferous forests and muskeg across Canada and Alaska. The cup nest is located in a tree or dense shrub, usually over water. Birds often nest at the edge of ponds/wetland complexes and travel large distances to feed at the water's edge."

I don't understand why rusty blackbirds "travel large distances to feed at the water's edge" when

• Their nest "is located...usually over water", and

• they "often nest at the edge of ponds/wetland complexes".

Perhaps the word "sometimes" (or "often", if necessary), should be added before "travel large distances". I'm not a bird expert, so I'm posting this here. CorinneSD (talk) 22:00, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Also, since the article says that males have an iridescent green head, it would be nice to have a photo showing that. The large photo that is there is nice, but it doesn't show the iridescent green head. CorinneSD (talk) 22:08, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

My reference books show that the nest is indeed often placed over water. They say nothing about the birds traveling long distances to feed, so I wonder if someone misunderstood something they read. Personally, I'd remove the sentence that begins "Birds often nest at the edge…" MeegsC (talk) 02:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I deleted the part about flying long distances to feed and re-arranged the sentence. I wanted to keep "Birds often nest at the edge" because that paints a clearer picture than the information in the previous sentence. I also reversed "often" and "usually". What do you think of it now? CorinneSD (talk) 18:33, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Red-winged blackbird

I'm reading the article on Red-winged blackbirds, and I have come across something that is unclear to me. It is in the second paragraph in the section "Taxonomy". The sentence reads:

"The taxonomy of this form is little understood, with the relationships between the two isolated bi-colored populations, and between these and red-winged, still unclear."

Maybe I missed something, but I don't know what "the two isolated bi-colored populations" refers to. The word "isolated" to describe red-winged blackbirds was used in the lead to refer to several populations in Central American countries, but it didn't seem like two.

The two bicolored populations mentioned are those of A. p. gubernator in California and central Mexico; they're discussed two sentences previous to the sentence you've pasted above. These two populations are discrete (the birds in California are separated by hundreds of miles from the ones in central Mexico) and both populations are distinct from other Red-winged Blackbirds. There are some ornithologists who feel these represent a distinct species—the Bicolored Blackbird. MeegsC (talk) 02:40, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Please note that I added a hyphen to "bicolored" because it appears in Edit Mode with a red line under it as misspelled. Also, I believe it should have a hyphen. If I am correct, then the caption that contains the same word needs to have the hyphen added, too. CorinneSD (talk) 23:01, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

For what it's worth, "bicolored" is in the Oxford dictionary, and the Merriam-Webster dictionary without the hyphen. It's also listed without a hyphen in the dictionary on my Apple. MeegsC (talk) 01:57, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

O.K. Thank you. I'll remove the hyphen. But what about my other question in this comment, above? CorinneSD (talk) 18:34, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I have another question. This may seem like a silly question, but why is the red-winged blackbird called a "bicolored" bird, or species? I just looked at the photo in the article and the bird is black with a stripe of red and yellow-orange on its wings. Red and yellow-orange are two colors, and if black is counted, that's three. Is black not considered a color? Or is the red and yellow-orange stripe counted as only one color? CorinneSD (talk) 18:40, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The black is ignored, it's to distinguish the (sub)species from the tricolored blackbird, which has white as well as red in its wing stripe Jimfbleak - talk to me? 18:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Jim. I just wonder, though, why the tricolored blackbird is named with "tri-". In the picture there is only a red and white stripe. Where's the third color? Maybe in the red-winged blackbird, the red and yellow-orange is considered one color, so that plus black makes two, and in the tricolored blackbird, the red and white are considered two, so those two plus black makes three. CorinneSD (talk) 20:19, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@MeegsC: Did you see my reply to your answer, above, re the spelling of "bicolored"? CorinneSD (talk) 20:19, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@CorinneSD: Yep; my answer to your first question is right underneath your question!  :) MeegsC (talk) 21:07, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I am so sorry, @MeegsC:. I just didn't see it. Maybe I assumed you would respond to both questions after my comment.

I've copied most of the paragraph here to make it easier to refer to:

"There are a number of subspecies, some of doubtful status, which are mostly quite similar in appearance, but the bicolored blackbird A. p. gubernator of California and central Mexico is distinctive. The male lacks the yellow wing patch of the nominate race, and the female is much darker than the female nominate. The taxonomy of this form is little understood, with the relationships between the two isolated bicolored populations, and between these and red-winged, still unclear."

I hear what you're saying, but the fact that those two bicolored blackbird groups in central Mexico and California are the isolated groups referred to two sentences later is not clear. I'm going to make a minor edit to make this clearer.

Also, I still don't understand why those two species are called bicolored. It says that the male of the species in central Mexico and the species in California "lacks the yellow wing patch of the nominate race". That means it has red, but not yellow, on its wing. So it is called bicolored because its colors are yellow and black -- two colors. That means black is counted as a color (see @Jimfbleak:'s comment, above, and my reply to him). Then the red-winged blackbird has three colors: red, yellow, and black, so is really tricolored. (In my comment, above, I asked why the tricolored blackbird was called tricolored if it had only red and white, if black was not counted as a color.) (Also see the section Talk:Red-winged blackbird#Bicoloured Blackbird. CorinneSD (talk) 21:48, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Those two populations (not species, as the two are populations of the same subspecies) are called "Bicolored" because the males only have two colors: red and black; they lack the gold bar on the epaulet. Most Red-winged Blackbird subspecies have black, red and gold — three colors, as you've mentioned. I'm not sure why Jim said the black didn't count as a color — you'd have to ask him! ;) MeegsC (talk) 22:01, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

So the regular red-winged blackbird is not a bicolored blackbird. CorinneSD (talk) 22:09, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Correct. The "regular" Red-winged Blackbird has three colors. MeegsC (talk) 23:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm out

I waited a while to cool down, but my thoughts have not changed. I'm done with Misplaced Pages. Fundamentalist dogma of those who have no knowledge of specifics topics has overridden long-established norms. But that's not why I'm posting.

I think we like-minded folks should devote our time an resources to a different wiki that will actually respect our decades (centuries?) of combined knowledge instead of calling us stupid. Is there not an online bird encyclopedia somewhere that we could all flock to? Surely, it could be better than anything here. Natureguy1980 (talk) 03:33, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

That would be a catastrophe - we want to appeal to (and spread knowledge to) general readers as well as bird enthusiasts - if folks set up a birdpedia, only a small fraction of people would read the articles there as wikipedia would trump it on google searches. Then we'd have worse wikipedia articles which lots of people would see, and birdpedia articles which only a few people would see. A loss all round. One of the benefits of this place is the sheer number of editors, we commonly benefit from copyediting and queries from other editors - that would all be lost if folks left. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:09, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is only at the top because there are no credible alternatives. Once there is a credible alternative for birds, and enough specialists are linking to it instead of Misplaced Pages, those pages will start showing up at the top of the top of search engines. The bigger issue is who is going to pay for the hosting and who is willing to write the governance articles so that the new Bird Wiki does not get overrun by the non-experts with too much time to harass the experts. Expert retention is abysmal at Misplaced Pages, and any wiki that can do a better job at that will be able to concur the top spots in search engines purely because of the improved quality of pages. 74.248.53.244 (talk) 16:56, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

If you are interested in being the subject of an exit interview for Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost, then I am willing to mention that fact at Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions. I am particularly interested in knowing what advice you have for new editors. You can contribute to Avibase - The World Bird Database.

Sure. My contact information is listed at http://www.aba.org/birdersguide/editor.html 98.223.105.116 (talk) 22:17, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

—Wavelength (talk) 04:53, 1 July 2014 (UTC) and 04:58, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

@Wavelength:, I think it would be a good idea to give exit interviews to several people who've left not just this project but Misplaced Pages altogether thanks to the attitude of some MOS folks. Given that the encyclopedia is hemorrhaging editors, it should be a real concern that lack of civility by some of the main MOS players is one of the major reasons these editors are leaving. Perhaps the article could be about more productive ways of disagreeing with other editors without alienating them. MeegsC (talk) 16:39, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry to see you go, but understandable given not only the jackboot approach to volunteer contributors and the entirely predictable wreckage left behind with, with hundreds of article either not downcased at all or, worse only partially downcased because the fanatics turned out not to be fanatical enough to do the hard graft required. Easier to move on and bully someone else Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:37, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

• Someone should make a notice of the damage this decision has done. I'm still puzzled why many domestic breed titles are all caps, and why many plant articles do not use common names in the titles. Seems this project was rather arbitrarily chosen for standardisation enforcement. FunkMonk (talk) 10:22, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Michael, I was going to leave for the same reasons—and with the same thought. But I came around the thinking about the effect our mass exodus would have on Misplaced Pages's readers, who — as Cas rightly pointed out — are not likely to follow us to some Birdpedia, unfortunately. So I'm gritting my teeth and putting up with the few jerks who are ruining the place for many of us (and who've now moved on to make the horse project's articles their battleground). And you're absolutely right, Jim. Only one or two of the MOS folks are actually changing the article text as well as the titles. The rest just tripped merrily along downcasing article names for a day or two (if they bothered to do that much), and then got bored with the lack of drama and went elsewhere. Predictable, really. MeegsC (talk) 14:03, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

If I may suggest, if you 1) focus on articles of specialized topics that have few people who can know the subject matter; and/or 2) focus on articles belonging to a WikiProject that projects a positive attitude, you might have better traction. (Or perhaps I should reserve this comment as a response to the published exit interview.) -- kosboot (talk) 00:08, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I am very sorry to see this happen too. The exit interview idea is definitely a good idea. I think some of the most zealous style-over-substance supporters may well be long-term detractors of Misplaced Pages whose main aim is perhaps to destroy the long-term editor-base. There is a rational basis but there is also tradition involved and it is unfortunate that some otherwise valuable contributors have taken the side of the rational basis for down-casing without noticing that some of the main detractors are opposed to the fact that specialists contribute to Misplaced Pages. Apparently there is now a brigade that is up against all those, mainly the substantial authors of shipping related articles, who use "she" to refer to ships and want the style-guide to rule the use of "it". Northcote Parkinson, who was a maritime researcher himself, would surely have seen the reason for those walls of text - Parkinson's law of triviality Shyamal (talk) 02:14, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

For the record, I'm sure people have left for other than the downcasing issue.....Pvmoutside (talk) 15:35, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right Pvmoutside, but the fact remains that we've lost at least three solid editors (Sabine's Sunbird, Chuunen Baka and Natureguy1980) over this particular issue. And that's important. In too much of the Misplaced Pages universe, there is subtle (and not so subtle) harassment of content experts, most of whom have far more profitable (and far less stressful) things to do than edit Misplaced Pages! Push hard enough, and they will leave. And all of Misplaced Pages's many readers lose out as a result. MeegsC (talk) 18:47, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

What is the Atlantic gull?

Question as topic. I heard this name mentioned the other day. Anyone know? Is it another example of one of those subspecies that some consider to be a full species? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 13:32, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

From the Birdwatch Magazine website

Another potential good species from the Azores, and much publicised after claims of individuals in Britain and Ireland, is Atlantic Gull, the highly distinctive local form of Yellow-legged Gull. This insular taxon seems close to the ancestral ‘Yellow-leg’ and has diagnosable plumages at all ages, but particularly in its first-year and adult winter stages.

This larid exists in its strictest sense only on the Azores. However, forms intermediate in plumage detail appear to make up a stepped or clumped cline across the Canaries, Madeira, Morocco, Spain and Portugal, implying that a ‘clean’ split may be tricky. Regular or intermittent genetic introgression through hybridisation may also hinder true divergence in this form, and the DNA of the Portuguese lusitanicus appears to be intermediate between michahellis and atlantis.

Obvious features include dense head streaking in typical adult winter plumage, forming a discrete diffuse dark grey hood. Juveniles are closer to Lesser Black-backed Gull or even American Herring Gull in appearance, but all ages and plumages really need good images and notes describing a wide combination of features to clinch identification and exclude aberrant plumages of other large white-headed gull species. There have probably been at least 30 reports in Britain and Ireland so far, but none yet accepted.

A potential split, but not recognized yet. MeegsC (talk) 13:41, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. So this would be the subspecies Larus michahellis atlantis then? If so, I'll add a little bit about the Atlantic gull name to the Yellow-legged gull article... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 15:27, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Yep, that's the correct subspecies. MeegsC (talk) 18:50, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Cheers. Info added and redirect created. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 20:43, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Laughing chicken

I can't find any online sources for this bird, other than the one source already listed (which is far for reliable). Does this bird actually exist? Does anyone have any more reliable sources? Sotakeit (talk) 12:59, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

It might be worth asking User:DrChrissy. He's a chicken guy of some description, I think. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 15:53, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Some googling managed to work out this 'laughing chicken' is Ayam Ketawa. id:Ayam ketawa. The Indonesian language article seems to be much more detailed and would suggest it is real. I suggest using google translate to let you have some grasp of what the article says. There are also quite a few youtube videos of this breed floating around. JTdale 16:05, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Afraid I can not really help on this one. I have never heard of the Laughing chicken, but I am sure there are many breeds I have not heard of. I will chat with a poultry expert friend next time I see him.__DrChrissy (talk) 16:59, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Of interest

ANI of possible interest to members of this project: Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Undiscussed_page_moves_by_SMcCandlish. Montanabw 18:48, 10 July 2014 (UTC)