Talk:North Pacific right whale

message: Gamera1123 wrote "Like Bowhead Whales, largest Right Whales may reach up to over 20 m." No citation was provided.
The biggest NP right whale that I could find a record of was an 18.3m female and a 17.4m male (Klumov, 1962). My understanding is that  Bowead Whales' size ranges from 14-17m (males) and 16-18 (females). The Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals says that some bowhead may be larger "perhaps as much as 20m". Bowheads certainly produced more whale oil/whale, but I understand this being a function of the thickness of their blubber and greater girth compared to right whales, rather than greater length.
I edited this section deleting the reference to 20m, and adding the more specific length info. Any thoughts?  NPRW4ever (talk) 21:53, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly cite trumps no cite. If another cite turns up it can be evaluated then. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:07, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  From my reading of logbooks and journals, as well as secondary sources, it appears as though right whales of the northwest coast yielded as much as bowhead whales in the Western Arctic. Although they yielded less baleen, so I changed it to bowheads yield more baleen, but not necessarily oil. For example, both right and bowheads in the two above named regions averaged about 125-150 barrels of oil (during the early years when there were plenty of mature animals), with some yielding as much as 250 barrels. I believe the largest bowhead were somewhat larger though than the largest Northwest coast right whales, but I don't have my notes or books with me at the moment, so I'll have to check on that later. Jonas Poole (talk) 23:29, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Size of NP Right Whales compared to Bowheads & other right whales 

message: I am new to Wikipedia, so I'm here seeking guidance. When I initially drafted material for the article, I relied on two types of sources: (1) articles or books devoted to this species and of widespread interest and (2) articles/books that support a point in the text, but of marginal interest to someone wanting more info about this species. I included both types of sources in the footnotes for citation purposes, and had these citations appear under the heading "Notes".  The articles and books that provide a broad amount of information about the species that readers might want to follow up with, I included in addition in a section titled "References".  I understood that this style was consistent with Wikipedia style guidelines, and indeed seemed to be the format that Wikipedia used in its own page on how to do citations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources).  Subsequently, others have edited my initial effort to include all of the citations under notes, renamed the section on notes to "References" and eliminated the prior section on general references. Is this a preferred style for cetacean articles? Personally I think it does a bit of a disservice to the reader in not distinguishing between the widely-varying relative value of different sources to the general reader, and accordingly, if possible I would prefer to go back to the style layout I had originally used.
NPRW4ever (talk) 13:59, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia has moved massively to inline citations in the past two years, so that strictly every reference should refer to a particular statement. Having a general reference at the bottom not linked to any statement leaves open the use of reliable or authoritative references at the bottom of an article where dubious statements have crept in. What I do, you can see on major depressive disorder, where there are about half a dozen references (books) which have multiple pages used. Thus, books etc. where different pages can go there. It doesn't really matter what you call the two headings - I called them 'references' and 'cited texts', others change it to 'footnotes' and 'references'. Any important text which is not sepficially referenced for some reason can go it 'further reading' or 'external links'. I'll have a look at the diffs. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:27, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

text: PS: The article is looking pretty good and well on the way to FAC. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:27, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

text: PPS: Let me know if the footnotes of major depressive disorder makes sense or not, also Willie Wagtail is another recent one I have been involved with. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:29, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

text: The cited texts is not necessarily entire books, with some subjects, a book may have several pages or references but only cover the subject tangentially - the major depressive disorder has a diverse range of books whose subjects often only intersect (although broadly) with the material. I can see what you are getting at and am not sure how to prioritise references except that you may want to mention in the body of the text about, say, one significant author/sicentists contribution (eg like Jane Gooddall and the chimps or somesuch) and write it asa paragraph. Otherwise I am not sure WP is technical enough to promote certain studies in footnotes, actually (lightbulb above head goes on) - if you look in the cite format there is often a section called 'quote=' and I guess you can mention as a comment whether one is akey study that way. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:19, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notes, References, both?  

message: I have included in the article a bunch of citations to the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations. Is there a recommended style for making those citations?  Specifically, (1) should those cites appear in the text? in the notes/references only/ or in both? (I thought I put them in notes, but now some at least are in the text.) (2) How are these sighted?  Is the Code of Federal Regulations "CFR", "C.F.R.", "Code Fed Reg."?  Is the Federal Register "FR", "FedReg" "Federal Register"?
Then, are citations to the regulations included with the text of the article? Can they/should they just be put into notes/references? 
NPRW4ever (talk) 02:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  How Does One Cite Federal Regulations? 

message: I think this needs a rewrite, or the opening line at least. Seems to be personal rather than unbiased and neutral.--86.26.110.119 (talk) 23:22, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Illegal Soviet whaling in the 1960s

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Bowhead Whale which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RM bot 02:00, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Move discussion in progress

message: Hi. I don't understand the following additions to the above section. Several times "(later described)" is inserted into the text. Did the contributer mean "(see below)"? Or were they going to add something later? Very confused on that point. And this little section perplexes me: "Records in this area in 2011 are later described." Perhaps this was part of something accidently deleted in the editing process? I'll have to go search the edit history. I'd be very thankful if anyone could help. SaberToothedWhale (talk) 04:34, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Western North Pacific edits 

message: "Over the short term the hybrid offspring from these Arctic animal matings will likely be strong and healthy, because unlike inbreeding, which magnifies deleterious genes, so-called outbreeding can mask these genes...But over time, as the hybrids mate randomly, those harmful genes will come out of hiding and make the offspring less fit and less capable of surviving."[130][131]"
After checking the references: I could not see 131 because it is from nature.com and not available for free (however, the comments below the article are accessible), 130 is from livescience.com; both seem somewhat more of an entertaining magazine than hardcore science. The text i cited from the wiki article is not clear enough for me, especially how the conclusion (harmful genes will come out and make the offspring less capable) is correctly coming from what is said in the previous sentece. Also less capable than WHAT? (Than the offspring of a non-hybridized mating, or than both offspring from hybrid and non-hybrid matings that do not have a pair of the recessive alleles that carry the unfavorable genes? What is compared to what in this livescience-article that is cited here? I belive the source is not a good quality source to be used as reference, but rather a unbacked speculation from the mouth of a scientist, who is speaking to the general public in a (perhaps over-) simplified way.
I do understand however that, a low number of the NPR whales makes them vulnerable to the hybridization, as any hybrid-mating replaces a potential non-hybrid mating, thus effectively pushing the original NPR whale "race" toverds extinction as such, however, this hybridization does offer more preservation to their gene-pool, than no mating at all, so the hybridization driven extinction is more of an evolving into something, or merging into a larger existing gene pool, than mere disappearence from the biosphere. This point however is not made in the cited text.
94.64.40.237 (talk) 12:55, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: hybridization with bowhead whale

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thread_title:  External links modified