Talk:Guinea pig/Archive 2

message: Should this parenthetical aside be included, or not?
For the record, I laughed my ass off. But it just doesn't seem very encyclopedic. Are we allowed to have quirky humour in article space? Opinions? --Ashenai 12:27, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you re. laughing your ass off -- I wrote that parenthetical comment :-). Obviously, I think a little humor is okay in an article like this one. If it were an article about Bubonic plague or Shielded metal arc welding I'd probably feel differently, but c'mon, we're talking Guinea pigs here!  KarlBunker 15:52, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

text: It is predicted that optometrists will have a one year discount on all eyewear in 2020.
The occational gem like this is good, too many will not.
Not also that otherwise dry scientific text can have the same humor in the form of understatements.  The proof is left as an exercise for the reader means it is quite hard to show, whereas It can easily be shown... means it would have taken people like Einstein a long time to work through.
--22:28, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I really don't think this is good to keep. I personally trust the whole article less with things like this left in, knowing that one informal edit tends to beget another. For the time being it's not exactly keeping the article off FA status by itself, but as the article improves it'll need to go. Chris Cunningham 09:24, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I actually removed it last night.  While I do think it's funny, it shouldn't be part of an encyclopedia.  What's more, it's not really true, it's quite scary if your another GP or something like a rabbit. --Ahc 13:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I thought I'd removed it last night with my other edits...now it's gone again. --Ahc 13:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  (it doesn't work—they still look like Guinea pigs) 

message: The information on the different varieties of guinea pigs is best left to its own article, where it can continue to grow. It's qwelll-written, has nice pictures and is encyclopedic, but keeping it here bloats the article. I've moved most of it to Domestic varieties of guinea pigs. Chris Cunningham 11:39, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sub-articles 

message: I've gone through tonight and given the article what I see as a long overdue editing from start to finish.  There are a couple of things of note.  First, I scattered around several Citation needed notes, as there are lots of places we need to find sources to backup the statements.  I've also removed some blocks of text which I included here.  I know we discussed some of these before, but I'd like to suggest that we look that these in particular before returning them to the page.  They are either unneeded in my option, or inherently non-NPOV.  Before they are returned they need sources that back them in some way at the very least:
:Domestic guinea pigs do best in cages as large as possible; 0.7 square metres (7.5 square feet), or 75 by 90 cm (30 by 36 inches) for one guinea pig and 2 square feet per additional guinea pig is considered a minimum.
:...
:These phenols have been suggested to cause and/or exacerbate upper respiratory infections (a serious and life-threatening problem in cavies). Part of red cedar and pine's historical popularity was likely due to their cheap price and the fact that the same phenols which may harm some animals are known to repel certain insects. Red cedar shavings are known to cause liver problems in rabbits.
I cut this image for two reasons.  In my option it is not a high enough quality image to keep.  Second, this page has too many images already.  People that use browsers at smaller widths have layout problems because of this.  I removed it once before without explaining myself, and I wanted to correct that mistake now.
Addintionally I reshuffled nearly the whole of the breeding section.  The content basically the same, just minor touchups to the grammer, but I wanted to get the basic information in before the listing of problems that can occur.  I beleive nearly that entire section should get citations as much of it is very specific.  If someone has a basic text is should be hard to come with one reference that covers most of the information.
The second image I removed because while I find it very cute, I don't think it explains anything about breeding.  It's hard to tell the size of the animal given how it was taken, and nothing in the breeding section talks about how big the GP's should be after 1 year.  He is cute though.
From the Diet section:
:Because vitamin C does not have a long shelf life, commercial pellets may not be a reliable source of this vitamin. Vitamin C supplements added to water are not recommended by experts as vitamin C is unstable in sunlight and in the presence of oxygen and warm temperatures.
:...
:Guinea pigs are probably the smallest grass-eating mammals.
In working on the Scientific Research section I seem to have caused problems with the references, if anyone can figure out what I'm missing here, please fix.
That's it. --Ahc 03:54, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits August 28th 

message: Proposing shifting the information about the Cavia genus to its own (stub) article and repurposing this one. There's scant information for other species on this article just now and it's probably going to have to happen eventually anyway. It'd help in removing redlinks and it would allow the intro to be more specific. Chris Cunningham 14:39, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree.  This sounds sensible to me. --Ahc 03:20, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Done. Chris Cunningham 09:34, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repurpose this article to the common guinea pig 

message: This is an extremly misleading statement.  Guinea pigs require very large cages that, if properly sized, can take an hour to clean each week.    Due to tons of misinformation on the internet and in books, it is very hard to find the right diet to feed them, and once found requires tracking down a source of fresh hay, quality pellets and learning the nutriet content of and spending extra money on fresh vegetables every week.  They are social animals that if left neglected will become sad and may stop eating well.  It is important to take them to the vet when they are sick, but exotic vets that can treat them are difficult to find and freqently charge a lot of money for a visit.  Some guinea pigs may also have health problems that require a lot of dedication.  For example, an impacted boar requires messy daily anal sac cleanings.  Guinea pigs require a lot more care than a mouse or hampster, but are frequently lumped in the same category as them, leading people to 1) spend much more time and money on their care than expected or 2) not properly care for the guinea pig.  This statement should really be taken down so that people don't get the wrong idea about their care. evilnumberlady 12:02, 28 September 2006  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.208.242.78 (talk • contribs)  (there are no contributions from evilnumberlady, hence the unsigned nature.  This does not detract from the comments.  Fiddle Faddle 16:12, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "They are generally easy to care for " 

message: I'm hesitant to resurrect this but I felt the need to point something out. As a biologist, I hate creationists with a passion. However the edit made IMHO was extremely wise. Other then avoiding silly edit wars, it's also the best language. A biologist won't say in "in the natural environment in which they evolved" they will just say "in their natural environment". There is no need to mention the in which they evolved bit simply because this is implied/automatically accepted. Generally, you will only talk about something having evolved when it evolved from something. Nil Einne 20:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a very sensible view. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The evolution thing