Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 2

message: I'm a newcomer here but have been doing some work on a few species of mammals and birds I know about.  I didn't find my way to the standard template until after I had started (I know, I know...) but I do have my doubts about it.
1. the page on the ToL project page badly needs re-writing to reflect current realities - the project seems to have evolved since the page was put together.  Who has the authority to do that?
2. I agree that we certainly don't want two types of pages, popular and scientific.  We should get the two sorts of information onto a single page, though we need to flag, at least implicitly, the level we're talking at - usually pretty clear from style and content
3. Partly because of (2), the rigid use of a template should be avoided.  Particularly with taxa where there's a dearth of scientific knowledge, it's going to lead to unattractive articles with sections like 
Diet: little known
etc etc.  Have a look at one I've just done on the Woolly Flying Squirrel - as it stands, it's a quick summary of what we know that you can read in seconds - if we templated it, it would stretch over 2 screens and look a mess.  (And it's likely to stand like that for some time unless we can track down P. Zahler and get him/her to fill in the details.)  On the other hand, a template is always a useful checklist, and where we know more should probably normally be used, if only to flag up gaps in the article that others with an interest should be able to fill.  
seglea at 0522utc on 031104
:I agree with you about the templates; there's no real reason to have standardised headings, in fact, this is the first time i've even noticed them. 
:It's good to have ideas for headings, if your article is long enough, but i don't think they make an article read like an encyclopedia. If we have headings and one-line responses it looks more like a information table than an article.
Who has the authority to do that?
:Everyone has the authority to do everything on wikipedia. :-) Tristanb 21:42, 4 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Templates or not? 

message: (Copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds):
Bah! I seriously dislike the wiki table markup. It is not readable in the slightest. The HTML tags, although sometimes cryptic, at least have some bearing on what they affect. When I see a 'table' tag, I know I'm dealing with a table, 'tr' a row in that table, 'th' a heading in the table, 'td' a piece of data in the table. Bah on wiki tables! - UtherSRG 16:01, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I find that I can't instinctively construct them from scratch - I need to copy and paste - but then again I do that with HTML tables too!. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 20:00, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki tables vs HTML tables

message: I have uploaded several pictures you people might be interested in  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plants_and_animals_of_Belize  Most are unidentified and any help along those lines would be appreciated I took all of them in Belize where I reside and will take request for anything that is native to Belize and will try to fill request in a timely manner.  Belizian 03:24, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pictures for you guys 

message: I was walking around Kenilworth Castle and spotted this tree, which I didn't recognise but thought perhaps rather uncommon (at least in the United Kingdom); is it (a) identifiable and (b) worthwhile for the Wikipedia? (The images on that site are licensed as public domain.)
James F. (talk) 14:09, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi WR, I've enough experience of both to tell at the small photo, but if you click on it to see the full size pic full size it's even more obvious, with the diagnostic cones readily visible (and the foliage, too). I'll go collect a Cryptomeria shoot and scan it in the next day or two for a pic (I've got a scanner but not a digi camera). - MPF 18:45, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Doh! (smacks forehead)  I never clicked to look at the fullsize picture.  Thanks.  WormRunner 18:53, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another flora picture (to identify, this time) 

message: I'm becoming strongly of the mind that we should have more children of this project. Birds and Cetaceans are a good start, but there are plenty of commonality and taxonomic discussions that really need to happen, but here is probably not the place. For instance, I've begun looking at the Primates and they are a mess! Regardless of how fractured the literature is, we should be consistent in our usages. If Catarrhini is a subfamily on the Primates page, it should be a subfamily throughout all of the other primate pages it is on. (Discussions like this would happen on the respective Project pages, instead of on the individual article talk pages.) I suppose, given the demoanarchy (my own neologism, from democracy and anarchy) here, I should just go ahead and make any Project I think needs to be made, but I wanted to get some discussion going about it first. (I'll very likely create Wikipedia:WikiProject Primates this evening regardless.) - UtherSRG 18:46, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: ToL Children Projects