Talk:Domestication/Archive 1

message: Re: "Some researchers give credit to natural selection, where mutations outside of human control make some members of a species more compatible to human cultivation or companionship. Others have shown that carefully controlled selective breeding is responsible for many of the collective changes associated with domestication."  Mutations are not natural selection, they are the source if variation which makes selection (natural or otherwise) possible.  A mutation/variation that makes an animal more compatible to human cultivation is still, implicitly, selected by humans even if not as part of an organized breeding scheme.  The real distinction here is between conscious selective breeding by humans in the form of animal husbandry and unconscious selective breeding by humans in the form of favoritism toward animals that are more compatible.  In any case, "some researchers" and "others" need to be clarified with specific citation.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.15.37.6 (talk) 21:02, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: False Dichotomy

message: Having just found the model up on here I pasted it on this page. I am one of the autors of :fr:Domestication, that we turned into a featured article (I wrote feathered first, no, that's only for hens if I remember well). I took some pieces on this article on the beginning (still the part on plants (= espèces végétales) it a closed translation from the english article). If some of you are willing so, I would be glad to be help or to help in translating the article in french and, why not, get the star on the top right for it. It wouldn't mean to delete all the existing article of course, since it's allready quite developped. Any volonteers ? Salut ! Astirmays 21:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Translation

message: Most of the article says that dogs were domesticated around 15,000 BCE, but under the history chart, it says 
"Obviously, these are not dates that are set in stone. In fact, these dates are possibly far from being accurate due to scanty evidence. The earliest estimates, however, are that animals started to be domesticated approximately 10,000 years ago (8000 BCE)."  
Is this a mistake?
It isn't. It seems that dog were domesticated several milenium before this other species. There is clues that shows that it was even much earlier than 15,000 BC that the relationship between dog and man started. (since mitrochondrial DNA indicate that dog and wolf would have separate about 150 000 year ago). See Origin of the domestic dog. Or fr:domestication and other ones. Astirmays 22:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Dog domestication

message: Domestication is a distinct subject. This article contains lots that might belong (also?) at domesticated animal, but the examples serve to illuminate the question of demestication, so at least some of this should stay here. 
I'm opposed to the proposed merger on these grounds. Admustments are probably indicated, however.
Here is my take.  There is a separate List of domesticated animals that I plan to merged Domesticated animals with in accordance with the wikipedia naming conventions for lists.  The List of domesticated plants and List of domesticated animals are useful and should be maintained separately from this article on domestication, although they should all contain links to each other.--Jjhake 21:39, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: On proposed merger with domesticated animal

message: Hmm. Weird indeed. The criteria listed are only "According to evolutionary anthropologist Jared Diamond...", (ie, they are not universal), yet the rest of the article judges everything by this guy's criteria. not good -- Tarquin 20:40 Jan 10, 2003 (UTC)
You are right that chunks of the article are extracted from Diamond's bookGuns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond.  However that is because his arguments are pretty convincing and apparently well researched.  His book is well worth reading in full.  It gives a large number of references to his source material, and as far as I can establish his conclusions are largely his original work.  [He got the Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize, for whatever that's worth].  Anyone know of anyone else who has published anything else substantial in this area? Gliderman (talk) 22:07, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Pedigree of Diamond's Criteria?

message: Does anybody know what is the difference between domesticated plants mentioned here and all the nice pottery plants which are for sale and based on wild ancestors? This question arose at Dutch Wikipedia. Thanks Ellywa 11:07, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: potted plants -- domesticated?

message: Should the honey bee and the silkworm be mentioned?
Is there a term for parahuman animals (pests) like rats, city pigeons and gulls.
They are not tamed but depend (at least many of them) on humans.
-- Error 00:30, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Bees and rats

message: The article says two diferent things about the beginning of dog's domestication. In one place it says they were domesticated 10000 BCE, in another place - 11000 BCE.
212.235.99.134 04:41, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Adjusted table to match info we've got in the dog article. The next place in the article mentions both ends of the range. Elf | Talk 00:42, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dogs: 10000 BCE or 11000 BCE 

message: Sorry not to have included a summary with previous edits.  I am new at this.  All my changes were on the table of approximate dates.  I added Honeybee and Silkworm, expanded the date for Cats, and adjusted the spacing of cells.  I hope I have not caused any trouble.  Feel free to remove Honeybee or Silkworm if not appropriate.
Jjhake 22:49, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  recent editions to table 

message: I am wondering if the section called “Categories of domesticated organisms” should be moved into a separate master list that would be merged with the “List of domesticated animals,” the “List of domesticated plants” and the list of “Domesticated outsider taxa.”  There are so many organisms with complete lifecycles under the care and direction of humans that the list in this article is starting to look like a full taxonomical chart of all living things.  It is an interesting and valuable list, but I think that it should all be consolidated into one list that is organized into the three main categories of animals, plants, and outsider taxa.  I also think that there should be some standardized way of specifying the degree of domestication for a species or a simple explanation of why it should be included on the list.  The article on domestication should contain a clear link to this master list, but I think that the article and the master list should be separate projects.  What do others think? --Jjhake (talk) 21:24, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  A separate master list of all organisms being bred under human control 

message: Recently, this link was added to the article along with the statement that cows were first domesticated around 6000 BCE in Northern-Africa. While I don't know much about domestication, I'm sure that the link does not warrant this statement: it does not even contain the word 'cow' or 'ox'; it only speaks of 'cattle', which in African contexts easily could apply to goats or other non-cow kinds of cattle. As the link does not warrant the conclusion that it speaks about cows and cows only, it should not make the article say so. That is why I have removed it the first time and why I have moved it to Talk now. — mark ✎ 18:28, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough; I don't claim to know naything about African pastoralism, and was unaware that in this context "cow" and "cattle" aren't necessarily the same thing. I decided based on my understanding of "cattle", and that the link looks credible - hosted in a university professor's web space, apparently a supplement to a textbook - that the link could stay.  But I'm happy to leave it out. Thanks, mark, for your detailed explanation. CDC (talk) 20:11, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Still no cows. You know, there might have been, but I would just like to see a more solid and unambiguous source. — mark ✎ 20:47, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cows in the Sahara 

message: What do US domestic animals number have to do with domestication in general?--nixie 08:48, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Infobox

message: "While the process continues with plants (berryfruits, for example), it appears to have ceased with animals."
This is a wrong assertion especially if you consider aquaculture. Ericd 21:25, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Wrong

message: I am confused by this paragraph that seems to pit mutation and natural selection as alternate theories of domestication. This seems like a misunderstanding of how natural selection uses mutation. Random mutations cause new genes to appear, and natural selection causes the "better" genes to become widespread. I would guess that there are only two competing theories: natural selection and selective breeding.Happyharris 18:17, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, I made an effort to correct this confusion. --Jjhake 02:39, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Process of domestication: Mutation vs Natural Selection

message: I removed this text:
Reflecting human cultural proclivity to alter consciousness, plants with psychoactive properties were also domesticated early, such as the opium poppy, the cannabis plant and grapes for fermenting into wine.
It's inaccurate. Opium poppy is fairly early, Neolithic Italy, about 4000 years after wheat and barley domestication, anyhow, probably first domesticated for its oil. Date of hemp is uncertain, but again probably domesticated for oil; grapes are probably c. 5000 years ago, so 5000 years after wheat and barley. I think the writer of the original words is straying from a NPOV in trying to find evidence for early psychoactive use of plants. Mark Nesbitt 22:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Psychoactive plants

message: I see, that horse was domesticated in Ukraine 4000 years ago. But this is fake. There is no evidence that either Ukraine or Kievian Rus' existed at that time. (excuse my English) Dims 22:39, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The country name is being used as a geographical description, not a political one.Mark Nesbitt 12:50, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How did someone know, that domestication of horse occured on territory of Ukraine, while he don't know what historical country at this territory existed?! It is impossible! Dims 21:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

text:  Look! Every other domestication associated with large regions! And only horse associated with some sharpened country! It seems to me, that some ukrainian nationalist put this statement here. It should be replaced with "europe", or, if you wish, "eastern europe"! Dims 21:18, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think you're reading a little too far into this. Ukraine is just a more precise geographical description. -- bcasterline • talk 23:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ok, let's forget about my reasoning. Simple. Do you have some references, confirming, that domestication of horse occured on territory of Ukraine? Dims 10:53, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's the location most references give. See, for example, this page. -- bcasterline • talk 18:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ok. It seems to me, that this is not the location of domestication, this is location of most early dated finding. We can take every finding about domestication of every animal, for example, a dog. Look! It written there "multiple places". Let's take all these places, sort them by date, select first and -- voila -- we have extremely precise point of domestication of a dog! Nonsense? Nonsense! We should not only sort places by date, we should also prove, that this point caused all other points. Ok. My final suggestion is: let us make two colums for location. In first column we will say where domestication occured by overall study, and in second -- where most early finding located. So, we'll have approximate areas in first column, and precise points in second. There we can put even village Dereivka, where most old teeth found. Because otherwise table looks strange: large regions and Ukraine among them. What about Ukrainian globe? :) Dims 18:48, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is Ukraine at 2000BC? 

message: Since when has there been an effort to domesticate dolphins? Training wild animals, particularly ones as intelligent as Ceteceans or the great apes, or keeping wild animals captive, is not at all the same thing as domesticating them. This table needs some sources. Deirdre 02:14, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dolphins 

message: The article seems to be confused about bees, in that it says both "There is early evidence of beekeeping, in the form of rock paintings, dating to 13,000 BC." and (in the table) that bees were domesticated about 4,000 BC. So which is right? (if either; I see somebody earlier queried whether bees counted as domesticated at all). pm215 15:16, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Confusion about bees

message: 'reindeer' appears twice in the list of 'Approximate dates and locations of first domestication'; while in a different region, it seems silly to mention the same animal twice? - Weerlicht 13:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  duplicate reindeer listing 

message: I noticed in Domestication#Approximate_dates_and_locations_of_original_domestication, there is a second table labeled "second circle." How does this "circle" differ from the first table? --92.104.254.8 (talk) 23:30, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm also terribly confused about this.  Obviously, I can speculate, but I don't think we're alone in being confused.  The term shouldn't be used unless its explained. 131.107.0.72 (talk) 20:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  What does "second circle" mean? 

message: and other Reptil, even Ape ,monkey  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.166.215.231 (talk) 12:26, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: and Reindeer

message: -The definition stated of domestication in this article, I feel is inaccurate. It is limited to plants and animals as the controlled factors and humans as the controlling factors, whereas in truth, abstract, animate and inanimate objects, including many forms of life, processes can come to be considered domesticated and many species can be considered the domesticators, in my opinion. Take, for example, the process of forming diamonds or the idea of flight; they can be considered recently domesticated. For a more relevant example, take certain members of the ant species, who are known to frequently domesticate other insects and herd them for their ability to generate sugar-rich substances, able to sustain an entire colony. Because domestication is in deed slavery, take for a most extreme example, the domesticating of one human by another. The definition of domestication, therefore, should be reconsidered, and, in my opinion, stretched to include the endless possibilities and already current happenings that many of us humans deem inappropriate and preposterous based on the simple fact that we never witnessed it. The working of my opinion on this page may be wholly irrelevant, but it is your honorable duty as editors of an encyclopedia to acknowledge the possible truth, whether it be welcomed or not, and by doing so consider the words previously stated.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.64.189.211 (talk) 01:45, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your contribution. Your definition do not correspond to the normal understanding and usage of the term (which overwhelmingly implies human agency), and it is not reflected in the rest of the article. No one usually talks about "domestication" of diamonds, for instance, or also plants "domesticating" other plants or animals. To consider a "possible truth" without substantial backing is called "original research" in Wikipedia. Becauuse of the lack of support of secondary sources, I am reverting to the original definition. --75.37.19.116 (talk) 21:54, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition of domestication 

message: why is there a conservation status chart attached to this article? 207.237.198.152 (talk) 09:12, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It has been 10 days, I will remove it.207.237.198.152 (talk) 04:57, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  conservation status? 

message: Someone should check that sentence. I'd change it but I'm not sure what it's supposed to say.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.15.70.179 (talk) 00:52, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tasty Elephants? 

message: This article currently deals with the processes of domestication while never talking specifically about the history of domestication (aside from the limited "background" section).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.191.223.94 (talk) 13:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  No History 

message: As an other contributor said it above, this page is a great error. And the French page too (the Article de qualité of this page is not in favour of the reputation of Wikipedia). In this case Wikipedia is not very serious. It is impossible to  speak about domestication without speaking about religion, sacrifice and so on. According  great anthropologists (see below), there is a close relationship between sacrifice, religion and the origin of society and language. Theses matters  are not well-known but it is necessary to give a large place to these anthropological theories. Some people see a link between  domestication and slavery. It is also an interesting view. It is a pity  that this page is only written on a positivist point of view. I give sommepossiblesources (even in the en-Wp):
Dogs in ancient China  Arthur Maurice Hocart René Girard Henri Hubert Marcel Mauss fr.Luc de Heusch
Girard, René.  (1977) Violence et le Sacré (eng. Violence and the Sacred).  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
  Jeffrey Carter   search : domestication +  Sacrifice
 search : Girard and animals William Robertson Smith
 search:  domestication + Sacrifice
 
Jonathan Z. Smith
read the p. 151: "A theory of sacrifice must begin with the domesticated animal and with the sociocultural process of domestication"
Because of my bad English I don't think it is possible for me to first change the page. But we must improve a page written less or more on the model of a French page which is a bad page. José Fontaine (talk) 00:27, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  This page is a huge mistake 

message: Jerry Pournelle has stated on his blog that the domestication of dogs was symbiotic in that the villages of the cavemen who domesticated dogs survived longer than villages without dogs.  Would be great material for the article if anyone knows of a more reliable source.  Tempshill (talk) 23:03, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Utility of domesticating dogs 

message: Are these two words complete synonyms?  --Zara-arush (talk) 15:38, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Domestication and taming 

message: This article in general feels remarkably different to the majority of wikipedia articles... It seems to be substandard with some contradictory statements, very loose grammar, and very loose facts (a tiglon is domesticated?  really?)...  The article reads like a collection of high school reports mishmashed together with several different 'voices' to be heard, and the habit of occasionally rambling. However, I am no wiki expert. That said, I think I'd recommend this page for a rewrite... but have no idea how one would go about suggesting such a thing, or if my suggestion is valid. ColbyWolf (talk) 19:42, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Substandard?

message: In the backgrd section, the role of mutation in natural vs artificial selection seems confused.  Reference is made to debate about mutation vs artiticial selection (by humans).  However... as I understand it, mutation is key to both. Here is my understanding of the mechanism of evolution: 
* mutations occur naturally and randomly, normally very small incremental change -- simply the normal variability seen between different individuals of any species. 
* some selection mechanism then chooses which of those individuals produce offspring, thus passing on their genetic characteristics
* overtime, those selected characteristics come to dominate the norm in the species -- that is evolution
* as to the selection mechanism it can be either:
(1) natural -- this is natural selection, the natural competion for survival, in which the best adapted do best and produce the most offspring; or
(2) artificial -- as when humans pick characteristics they want and breed for it. 
Note that while the one is natural and the other artificial, both are based upon mutation to produce the actual (random) changes.
Have I got this right?  Any actual evolutionary biologists out there who can comment.
Wolseleydog (talk) 17:25, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  confused method of change? 

message: The first line equates domestication and taming, the next line distinguishes domestication as a heritable trait versus taming as an individual trait (as the rest of the article).
As an evolutionary biologist this coincides with my preferences/prejudices, but I know that the domestication concept is very much used as a cultural and non- or less-biological concept in STS research (a viewpoint totally lacking from the article).  So I don't dare to alter the article as I'm not enough of an expert to choose one way or the other; I'm just pointing out.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.173.5.197 (talk) 09:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: yeah I am pretty sure that is right. taming is where you catch an animal from the wild, and train it. there should be a separate article on taming. 98.206.155.53 (talk) 05:56, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  domestication != taming ? 

message: Came to this article wondering if there were any examples of domestication in nature. The initial description in the article suggests that domestication purely exists between humans and "Other species". Does anyone know if there are examples in nature or is this a pureley human trait?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.36.213.28 (talk) 21:00, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Domestication is a form of Mutualism.  For example, the process by which ants will "farm" aphids is considered mutualistic, not domestication, because domestication is by definition a human activity.  While you might be able to make an argument for whether or not they are "the same thing", that would be OR and certainly outside the scope of the article. AdamBellaire (talk) 17:52, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe ants are the only animals to have domesticated another species. in this case a fungus. 98.206.155.53 (talk) 05:56, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Domestication in other animals? 

message: What means second circle in the context of the domestication of animals? — Daniel FR (talk) 01:07, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Good question. There appears to be no sourcing to this as well. Whoever added appears to think that owning a specimen of a particular species is the same thing as having tamed it, and also that taming is the same thing as domestication. Myrkkyhammas (talk) 18:43, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I came here to ask the same question. GoEThe (talk) 10:02, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second circle? 

message: the article states that only 12 species have been "domesticated". I miss cats in the list (imnsho, cats aren't "domestic" anyway; but that's the point of the debate). perhaps the criteria to define "domestication" is too restrictive, or cat lovers perhaps are too lax. Comments? Lwyx (talk) 23:35, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  cats 

message: That's the impression I get from this article.
I have no problem with citing Jared Diamond as a source and putting "guns germs and steel" at the bottom with the other sources but constant off topic quibbling is an irritating distraction, something that should be minimized in wikipedia.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.200.124 (talk) 14:49, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  guns germs and steel guns germs and steel guns germs and steel ad nauseum 

message: Changed the introduction where it said "domestication or 'taming' is....
As an animal or plant is only classified as domesticated if human intervention has resulted in genetic change in the species.  (dogs from wolves, modern corn from the old barely edible stuff)
Wording might be awkward, and i probably made typos, so someone might want to clean it up.
For a citation see any basic anthropology text.  I just came here to check a date.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.91.165.14 (talk) 14:44, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  edit:  taming is not synonymous with domestication 

message: Why does "taming" redirect to "domestication"? Not only taming needs a separate article and has none, but this redirection prevents making one.
denis "spir" (talk) 11:57, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taming needs its own article 

message: I read in a newspaper yesterday (The Independent, 12 October 2012, page 9) that a pride of captive lions from the managerie of Haile Selassie of Ethiopia is now genetically distinct from other African lions.  They have been bred for darker manes and to be smaller and squatter.  These changes are presumably "...in order to accentuate traits that benefit humans" (aesthetics).  So, these are presumably 'Domesticated lions'! Should these be included in this article? __DrChrissy (talk) 17:50, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Domesticated lions?

message: An editor recently changed in the opening para. the word "common" to usual when relating to a dependency on humans and ability to live in the wild.  The editor was correct to make the change because the citation refers to the following definition "to tame (an animal), especially by generations of breeding, to live in close association with human beings as a pet or work animal and usually creating a dependency so that the animal loses its ability to live in the wild." But is this a case where the definition is incorrect.  Most of the domesticated species I can think of have feral populations somewhere, so they are not dependent.__DrChrissy (talk) 19:27, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is dependency "usual" or "common" or "occaisional" 

message: I removed the content below which was previously written under sub-heading "Plants", section "Background", as it's adapted from a lecture note: 
Domesticated plant species often differ from their wild relatives in predictable ways. These differences are called the domestication syndrome, and include: 
* Higher germination ratesMore predictable & synchronous germination
* Increased size of reproductive organs
* A tendency for ripe seeds to stay on the plant, rather than breaking off and falling to the ground
* Reduced physical and chemical defences
* Change in biomass allocation (more in fruits, roots, or stems, depending on human needs).
I replaced with a list of characteristic of domesticated plants taken from a more prominent publication on plant domestication and cultivation (Zeven, A. C., & de Wit, J. M. (1982). Dictionary of Cultivated Plants and Their Regions of Diversity, Excluding Most Ornamentals, Forest Trees and Lower Plants).  MKwek (talk) 04:16, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Replace content of domestication syndrome with a better reference 

message: I would like to propose a change to change Ox to Cattle. Cattle is the general term which describes both cows and bulls. Ox is specifically the male who is castrated and used as a draft or load animal. So it would be proper to talk of domestication of cattle or cow than Ox.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.189.128.12 (talk) 18:49, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change Ox to Cattle? 

message: What is the conclusive general statement for domestication? I believe this include domestication by human beings as the essence for its scientific definition. How about taming?  Tame? Tame in the dictionary means - to domesticate an animal but tame may have 2 persona in science- tame but without human intervention such as island animals and tame those with human intervention. The same thing with wild- wild which are really wild and wild which shows patterns of "domesticity" or "tameness" as in island animals. In Savillo's proposed domesticity scale for wild birds he stated- Domesticity is not slavery or indoctrination of wild birds- this is the observable natural behavior of  "wild" birds to humans in the surroundings per se (how "homely" to humans) which include tame birds (without human intervention/domestication) such as island birds- Galapagos.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.202.9.25 (talk) 03:37, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scientific definitions for domesticity and tame 

message: This article sorely needs some discussion of physiological and psychological neoteny, or pedomorphosis, defined as the retention, by adults, of traits previously seen only in the young, which is commonly encountered among domesticated animals, and is well documented in the human species, at least physiologically.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:AE82:3D49:5918:303F:AC1:C5F0 (talk) 07:24, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Neoteny]] 

message: Modern instances looks a little suspicious (i mean the list). Does any expert on the topic know about this?--Inayity (talk) 10:11, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modern instances Is this Reliable? 

message: Looks like somebody had some fun by adding the Canary Islands as domestication location for the Canary. I am not sure if this could be correct but I am pretty sure the islands were named after dogs, not birds. 122.108.247.204 (talk) 04:04, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canary (Islands) 

message: I have found that this article has developed a POV slanted toward the perception that domestication is exploitation of organisms by humans.  This is not nessarily true and should be better left out of the article or included in a 'controversy' section.  My opinion is that the information presented in this article is presented as an editorial.  We should at least agree on removing weasel and peacock terms.
:  Bfpage |leave a message  14:02, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: POV

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Domestication. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120626141546/http://hcs.osu.edu:80/hcs/TMI/HCS210/HortOrigins/BrDomestic.html to http://hcs.osu.edu/hcs/TMI/HCS210/HortOrigins/BrDomestic.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 20:16, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Given that "the zoomass of wild vertebrates is now vanishingly small compared to the biomass of domestic animals" and that the calculated biomass of domestic cattle alone is greater than that of all wild mammals (Valclav Smil, 2011, Harvesting the Biosphere:The Human Impact, Population and Development Review 37(4): 613–636, Table 2) I have raised the Importance rating of this article to High as "it covers a general area of knowledge". Regards, William Harris • WikiProject Mammals • talk •   05:57, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Importance rating - Wikiproject mammals 

message: We have a section called the Domestication of plants that says absolutely nothing about the domestication of plants. We have a timeline of some agricultural pursuits across time, and we have a paragraph on what the difference is between some wild species compared to their domesticated counterparts. Because plants have no behavioral change, all of the signs of domestication are phenotypic, and there is more research studies online regarding the difference between the genes responsible for domestication and the genes responsible for selected traits in plants than there is for animals. If anybody has an interest in providing content on the domestication process for plants, we would be pleased to hear from them. Regards, William Harris •  talk •   04:57, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Domestication of plants 

message: Someone might review this section for achieving a neutral point of view. For example, negative aspects includes: reduction in size, piebald color, shorter faces with smaller and fewer teeth, diminished horns, smaller brains, simplified behavior patterns. It remains unclear why these are negative traits. The elephant is reduced in size compared to the extinct mammoth - no domestication was necessary to achieve that, nature thought it was a good idea for a warming planet. What is the downside of piebald color, especially when humans are willing to spread the owners of these genes around the globe and mass-produce them, giving their genes a competitive advantage over their wild cousins. Smaller brains - which is usually accompanied by more folds in the brain - is indicated in recent studies for better memory and enhanced processing power. Based on cranial capacity, the human brain is smaller than the Neanderthal brain - nobody is arguing that this is a negative aspect. Shorter faces with fewer teeth; that would be a dog compared to the extant gray wolf, but not the dog compared to its probable ancestor, the megafaunal wolf, which did have a shorter, wider palate (like a large rottwheiler but with massive bone-crunching power). This section is largely based on a book written 50 years ago and experiments with rats; I question its relevance today, its single source, and the objectivity of the editor who placed it in the article. Regards, William Harris •  talk •   04:30, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed; see also previous #PoV problems with "Negative aspects" section thread.  I smell a strong whiff of the WP:FRINGE side of the animal-rights and don't-mess-with-nature camps here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:49, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Negative aspects section 

message: deleted this entire section, with an edit summary of "This entire section is nothing but POV. And is entirely unnecessary".  While I agree that the section has WP:NPOV issues, both of these statements appear to be hyperbole, and we don't nuke large swaths material, much of it reliably sourced, without consensus to do so.  We obviously need some information on criticism of domestication and observations of its "negative aspects" for present lack of a better term.  The purpose of this article is not to be a domestication fan page, and it needs to present a balanced view of the topic.  That said, such a section cannot be some kind of "domestication is the devil's work" rant, either.  I would suggest that DobeyDog (being the principal objector) outline a) the scope/tone/overall problems with the section, and b) any specific claims which appear to be unverifiable, either because they cannot be sourced, or because the cited sources are being misused in a WP:OR fashion, and indicate the nature of this misuse.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:51, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Generally agreed. I can definitely identify two kinds of advocacy/activism going on in this section. The first is the "down with designer breeds" viewpoint, which is often very confused.  "Designer breed" generally actually refers to inter-breed hybrids like the labradoodle, and this is process actually  genetic diversity (see Hybrid vigor). What the anti-"designer" people are really concerned about (when they're not commingling "don't you dare pollute my favorite breed" PoV with stuff that actually makes sense) is "puppy mill"-style  breeding that has little regard for genetic defects, such as the hip dysplasia that now plagues and may well doom several dog breeds.  The second form of PoV being subtly advanced in this section is the "humans should always leave nature alone" über-hippy treehugger nonsense, which almost always flows directly from the same mouths as anti-GMO, anti-vaccine, anti-pasteurization, and other WP:FRINGE stuff. The viewpoints exist in the real world and are notable enough that our articles have to account for them, but we cannot repeat their anti-humanist, basically spiritualist Gaia/Tao claims in WP's own voice. Forking this into separate sections on the science of domestication's consequences, and criticisms of domestication (which may or many not be scientific, depending on the specific criticism) would probably be the best first step toward cleaning up the material without engaging in wholesale deletionism.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:35, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  PoV problems with "Negative aspects" section 

message: Additionally, as for the ANIMALS section that has become a monument to Jared Diamond, this work was previously stated by Hale (1969) and  Price (1984) - the book titled Guns, Germs and Steel was not the original work. Some editor in the past has done much further work finding citations to support it. I suggest this be considered for some form of rectification as well. William Harris •  talk •   03:49, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, though we're supposed to cite secondary sources like Diamond, not rely entirely on primary source research papers.  The problem is mostly in depending on one secondary source, and a populist one, instead of multiple literature reviews.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:35, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me suggest that Diamond in this instance is a tertiary source; he has no real expertise in this field apart from what he has taken from the work of others. It is not that he is off-track, it is that it detracts from those who proposed these ideas first. We have 3 primary sources developing the same theme: Hale et al (1969), Price et al (1984) and Price et al (2002), all summarised as a lit search in Zeder 2012. Given that Zeder is backed by Greger Larson, I'm with these guys. We now have a domestication theory expert (Zeder) teamed up with the zooarcheology/ancient DNA crew (Larson & teams/associates). Haven't heard of Greger Larson? - http://www.palaeobarn.com/ and have a look at the publications. You have heard of his various teams' work if not his name: Where the domestic chicken came from. Where the domestic pig came from. Next stop: where the domestic dog came from! And this is why the Domestication article is so important right now, we now have the DNA technology to unravel ancient DNA and tell us what we once dreamed of knowing. This consortium is also looking at the very genes which differ between wild and domesticated species, and have forecast that within a decade they will have a full explanation of the domestication process. Regards, William Harris •  talk •   04:33, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: That's not how WP defines a tertiary source, though.  A tertiary source is another encyclopedia, a dictionary, database, directory, third-party abstract, or other pure or near-pure regurgitation of data without any WP:AIES work, but Diamond's book consists almost entirely of AEIS (perhaps more than is warranted from the sources he used).  It's also from a reputable non-fiction publisher, so that makes it presumptively a high-quality secondary source by default.  However, some of his conclusions have been broadly questioned, by both other secondary sources and by primary scholarly research, so it's probably a middling-quality SS, and his views should be attributed directly, not cited as if reliable facts.  I agree that citations of Diamond, and even of Zeder's literature review, should not be used to occlude the actual researchers, but WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:NOR really, really want us to cite SS like these, not just PS research papers. I have no issues with the folks you want to cite, of course.  There's also already been a lot of work on dogs; I forget who's been doing it exactly (I was looking at this ~6 mo. ago, and just a little), but I seem to recall that they've figured out that DNA-viable Ice Age wolf remains are directly related to modern dogs (I hope I'm remembering this correctly).  It's something I encountered in passing while looking for papers on ancient cat DNA. So: Generally thumbs up, but just want to be clear that we're not removing Diamond and other non-journal SS, but rather not allowing their misuse to sound more authoritative than they are or to mislead readers into thinking that theories he/they didn't come up with are his/theirs, which should be properly credited; and that we need to keep relying on secondary sources for any AIES claims, even if we also add citations to the original papers behind them.  To me it's  safe to do: General/summarized claim here.Secondary source(s) that synthesized its relation to other material.Original paper(s) behind the claim.  More specifically, a detail that's important, which the SS didn't really get into, and which doesn't constitute an independent AIES claim we have to have a SS for.Original paper also relied upon by the SS, for that sub-claim in particular. However according to... insert directly attributed, maybe directly quoted, recent PS counter-claim mentioned in at least one lit. rev.That paper here. Hope that helps, and sorry I'm not in a position right now to really dig into this with you.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:13, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, thanks. For what I have been preparing, I am using BOTH the primaries and the modern "domestication heavy-weight" Larson as the secondary. I won't be posting it until late January when the holiday period draws to a close. For the dogs, you are recalling Skoglund (2015) and his Taimir wolf nuclear DNA analysis - Taimir wolf/gray wolf/dogs diverged 40,000 YBP from a common ancestor. (It is all on "my" page at the Origin of the domestic dog - I carry all this stuff in my head; I really should find another hobby......) Regards, William Harris •  talk •   05:23, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding Diamond, under Behavioral Preadaption this is what he actually said, not what was previously depicted in the article. He never said that these were the 6 signs of domesticated animals, he said that the ancestors of a few wild large land-dwelling herbivores (i.e. cattle) must have exhibited these characteristics. This was then followed by a past editor counter-arguing with uncited original research against these "6 signs of domestication" using examples of carnivores etc. That was not what Diamond had said. Sadly, Diamond did not cite any primary research, however I am not concerned about this. I hope you approve of what I have done with Diamond. Regards, William Harris •  talk •   23:15, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems entirely reasonable. I agree it's OR (namely novel reinterpretation) to change Diamond's ideas about the likely characteristics of the ancestral population of something with some kind of "6 signs of domestication" after the fact.  If anything, it's an outright error, not just a questionable interpretation.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:03, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: "Animals" section

message: Hello All, WP:SUMMARY advises that within an article "a fuller treatment of any major subtopic should go in a separate article of its own. The original article should contain a section with a summary of the subtopic's article as well as a link to it." The article size is now 78kb. Therefore, it is my intention to WP:SPINOFF the chapter on "Domestication of animals" into its own article, appropriately linked to the "Domestication" page. Your comments on this proposal, please? William Harris • WikiProject Mammals • talk •   09:32, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Now actioned. Regards, William Harris • WikiProject Mammals • talk •  09:10, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The summary here of the spinoff article is too short; it should cover all the main points, and be several paragraphs, since effectively half of the whole topic.  WP:SUMMARYSTYLE covers this.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:32, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, I will get onto it next. The complicating factor is that the lead paras for Domestication are also lead for Domestication of animals. Regards, William Harris •  talk •   08:46, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Now amended, please advise if further work is recommended. Regards, William Harris •  talk •   10:51, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I'm sure the lead material from the one can be compressed in the other. It will iron out.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:05, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Domestication of animals - proposal to SPINOFF 

message: The article currently leaves the reader confused as to what domestication is.  The opening sentence is fine. But, later in the article in the "Definitions" section a new, rather complex, definition is introduced.  But, this second (apparently recent) definition is supported only by 2 primary sources and these are both by the same author.  Is it not possible to find secondary sources to support this as a mainstream view?DrChrissy (talk) 14:26, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Secondary source added. The first definition ("which is fine") is a cut-down version of the second - no new definition had been added. William Harris •  talk •   08:26, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the secondary source.   I still find the definitions confusing or conflicting.  The first is about the relationship to humans, thereby excluding some potential examples.  The second is about the relationship between organisms, thereby including these other potential examples.  I know definitions can be extremely hard to tie down.  Personally, I do not care which is used.  Both can be discussed, but I think the reader needs to be informed that different definitions exist. DrChrissy (talk) 18:38, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur that you are correct and there has been a shift from humans to organisms. However, that first sentence is easy to follow and is what search engines will deliver when people key in domestication. Nice and simple, children can follow it. People can get a good overview of the subject in the first few paragraphs. The second is the full definition for those who wish to delve deeper into the subject and the Sykes secondary citation gives its history. It is a compromise to bring together the many past definitions used by zoologists, botanists and etymologists - it covers animals, plants and insects. It also sets the scene very well for her now widely accepted 3-pathways theory of animal domestication from 2012, which she expanded to include plants in 2015. (I have not referred to it in the Domestication article because I believe that it needs some further work, yet I was surprised to learn that our plant friends have already reflect it in several secondary sources!) Regards, William Harris •  talk •   09:26, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: If the definition has changed, I think we should be alerting readers to this in the opening paragraph, rather than giving them one definition and then asking them to consider another one much later in the article.  By the way, do you not consider insects to be animals? DrChrissy (talk) 15:56, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, insects are from the phylum Arthropoda within the kingdom of Animalia; they may not be mammals but they certainly are not plants and we share a common ancestor (thanks for the reminder, I needed to add Beekeeping to the linked articles). I do not have a watch on this page as there are others more interested and more capable than I in its safe keeping, and I noticed your post while visiting here on another matter. I suggest that the other editors who frequent this page would be better placed than I to make a decision - how did you envisage the form of the alert in the opening paragraph? Regards, William Harris •  talk •   08:33, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, be careful on that one; I think some source classify them as semi-domesticated or even non-domesticate. But I've not looked into that in about 8 years, so I'm going by old reading.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:06, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing definitions 

message: Hello. I am an editor working on improving articles on beekeeping and bees in general (they're a disaster, especially beekeeping ones). There is some confusion as to whether bees are domesticated or not. There seems to be confusion here too. I have read through the archived talk sections to find that bees used to be included in this article but were later removed. I also saw that Apis mellifera is listed as domesticated on the list of domesticated animals, but apis cerana is only a semi domesticate.... is there consensus in the literature about bees or just more debate? I appreciate your help. Cliff (talk) 03:29, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bees, again... 

message: Cucurbita pepo should be included in the history of agriculture section. It appears this plant was domesticated in the Americas at the same time as the Asian grain domestications.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/276/5314/9322600:1700:6D90:79B0:B8E6:A730:2994:D8B2 (talk) 12:58, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cucurbita pepo 

message: the article opens with defining domestication as relationship between one group of organisms and another group of organisms. But then it entirely focuss on domestication by humans. I think considering the opening it should more thoroughly discuss domestication by other animals (fungus-growing termites etc.). I for one arrived at the "domestication" article from fungus growing termites, as I was curious what other non-human domestications have taken place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 51.6.169.12 (talk) 10:32, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  non human domestication 

message: I really like the opening of the article by defining the domestication and relating with the domestication on different species (animals, humans, microbes). The pictures seems relevant which makes the readers very clear to understand. I think it would be great if there could be separate and detailed section for individual topics. In general the article is very promising and easy to understand. Ctngirl (talk) 02:40, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments 

message: swan are tame not domesticeted Petstore (talk) 10:21, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  swan? 

message: It is standard practice to format ISBNs as printed in books. Wikipedia articles are for humans to read, so their formatting must be human-readable. It is certainly easier to read "978-1-85728-537-6" than "9781857285376"; humans find it hard to parse and recall long strings of numbers. It may be that not many readers find it necessary to copy out an ISBN or to read it out to someone else, but it is not for us to say that they should not be allowed to do that, and if so, their action must be facilitated by standard formatting. We should restore the ISBN formatting immediately. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:02, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: No one is human-reading these as if they were sentences. The hyphenless form offers far more utility, because you can copy-paste one into Google and search for isbn 9781857285376 and get immediate and extensive useful results. But this does not work with the version with hyphens in it, which often turns up nothing that's on-topic but the WP article you copy-pasted it from! A bare-numeric ISBN is by far the fastest way to look up a book by ISBN (offers more untility than clicking on it here and navigating through our own clumsy "service" for looking up books by ISBN). Furthermore, the hyphenated form is not standardized, and different venues that makes use of hyphens at all do so inconsistently (e.g. 978-1857285376, etc.) Even aside from these concerns, we would prefer the hyphenless version anyway as more concise, since the hyphens are extraneous and unnecessary.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:19, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  No. As stated, articles, including ISBNs, are formatted for people to read. Inconsistency is a fact of life in anything done by humans, and we have to live with that; the fact that a service is inconsistently delivered does not mean it is useless or should not be done at all. However, tools such as ISBN Tool allow us to format ISBNs systematically. It is, in addition, standard practice both on Wikipedia and in books to format ISBNs, and we should certainly not try to create a separate standard in this article. The status quo ante, both in the article and everywhere else, is for ISBNs to be formatted as best we can achieve. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:25, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Being emphatic with a bunch of "no" and just repeating yourself isn't making any argument. I've provided real and provable reasons to use the hyphenless format, and you've done nothing but make up a fake rule "to format ISBNs as printed in books" which is not to be found anywhere.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:57, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  There is no call whatsoever to become abusive, as I have made a series of solid and substantive arguments, which I'd have thought decisive in the mind of any objective observer. You appear however to be ignoring the basic point, which I am obliged to repeat since you have not addressed it: there is no call whatsoever to treat this one article differently from every other article on Wikipedia. You have boldly declared ISBN formatting pointless, ignoring that humans find it helpful, as demonstrated by the simple fact that they do it whenever books are published. ISBNs are normally formatted conventionally both on-Wiki and off it, and we should do the same here. I rebutted your point about inconsistency, since you made it; actually we can be quite consistent by using a tool such as the one linked above, so there is no justification for throwing away formatting. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:29, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone disagreeing with you and your argument-to-emotion style is in no way at all "abusing" you. There absolutely is not a "standard" on Wikipedia to format ISBNs the way you want to format them;; you just made that up out of nowhere. Their formatting is entirely random, sometimes mirroring the over-hyphenated form often (not consistently) found on book colophons, sometimes using the much less hyphenated form found on Amazon and various other book sites, and sometimes using no hyphens (a style also found frequently off of Wikipedia). Repeatedly asserting that it's a "standard" here does not make it one, and the idea is a fantasy. I've provided a provably true rationale for why the hyphenless form is better, and you've provided an opinion about "readability" that is of no consequence. The  reason we provide ISBNs, or any other particular detail, in a citation is to make it easier for readers to find sources and verify that the claims the WP article is making are backed by sources. That is the sole purpose of citations and their presence here, including all of their details. They are not encyclopedia content. To the extent you are injecting unnecessarily hyphen-strewn ISBNs, you are directly interfering with the usability of the citations and defeating, not helping, their purpose here. PS: You are not one to complain about "throwing away formatting", since you insist on forcibly suppressing the display of all authors after the third one, despite us having already coded all the authors. This serves no purpose whatsoever, and is basically "user-hateful" instead of "user-friendly" behavior, making it harder for readers to be certain they have found the correct source publication when they go looking. That's especially problematic in an article like this one in which several authors tend to dominate and are cited numerous times in various of their publications, often with many of the same co-authors.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:26, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  Far from "argument-to-emotion", I have clearly and sharply refuted your arguments, such as they are, one after another. Your "provably true rationale" is true neither of machine-reading - it is the work of an instant for any tool to discard hyphens if it is working without them - nor of humans, who invariably find long strings of unformatted numbers tricky. You are trying to do something new and exceptional against all custom. Your unsupported assertion "They are not encyclopedia content" is simply false: encyclopedias including Wikipedia and books of every kind regularly format their ISBNs, as you can verify by looking pretty much anywhere at anything that is printed. The off-topic, ad-hominem and irrelevant remarks about "You are not one to complain..." are abhorrent and of course forbidden throughout Wikipedia. As for using the display-authors parameter, your allegation is simply mistaken: the parameter does not "throw away" anything, as anyone (and indeed any robot machine-reading the page source text) is free to consult the long lists of authors, since all the author information remains in the citations. Use of adjectives like "user-hateful" does not contribute constructively to any sort of discussion. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:08, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Repeating youself stridently isn't a "refutation". There is nothing whatsoever new about normalizing ISBNs to a cleaner and much more  format. There is nothing remotely "forbidden" about pointing out that you are doing harm to the citations' utility. Look, I really do appreciate the amount of practical work you are putting into the  of this page, but you do not WP:OWN it, and your reasoning with regard to various aspects of citation formatting is badly faulty.  Being increasingly angry and huffy-puffy about it is not making your argument the faintest bit more cogent. And since you clearly just don't understand the harm you're doing to citations by suppressing authors, I'll lay it out for you in great detail. The author information you are suppressing does NOT remain in the citations, except at the code level, which virtually no reader is ever going to be able to figure out, or would even have any reason to guess is the case. You are  it from the article for all intents and purposes. I'll prove it to you: here is a copy-paste, directly out of the rendered article, of one of the citations in which you are pointlessly hiding half the authors:  Note the "et al." there. Note that it does not read "Jenny, Christophe; Horry, Jean-Pierre; Lebot, Vincent; Hippolyte, Isabelle" in place of that "et al." Note that the "et al." cannot be clicked on or hovered over to get the information that you are hiding for no defensible reason (please, go into the article and check for yourself). Even experienced editors who understand our citation system very, very well have no reason to suspect that the other authors elided with "et al." are actually in the code, because the exact same output can be produced with |last1=Perrier |first1=Xavier |last2=Bakry |first2=Frédéric |last3=Carreel |first3=Françoise |display-authors=et al., and this is what most editors would expect to be present, because going to all the trouble to input all the authors after no. 3 and then supressessing them makes no sense at all, and is not something anyone would normally do. We might do this in a case of a paper with 37 authors or something excessive like that, but not when there are 7. It's just weird and pointedly, pointlessly unhelpful to readers, on purpose, for no gain of any kind to anyone.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:52, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

text: "any tool [can] discard hyphens" - That sounds nice in theory, but it does not align with actual reality in practice, as I've already proven to you with the world's most-used search engine, as just one example. They are not encyclopedia content" is simply false'. Nope. WP explicitly defines our citations as not part of the encyclopedic content; see MOS:LAYOUT; it's considered appendix information, below the content. Whether ISBNs are frequently formatted by various publishers (and some of our own editors) with hyphens in them (inconsistently as to place and number, I'll remind you) has nothing to do with whether they are part of WP's encyclopedic content rather than categorically separate end-matter. And citations are not subject to all (just most) of the content and style guidelines (as just one example, it's permissible to use Vancouver-style citations [as long as there's a consensus for it at an article and it's done consistently], with names in the form "Smith JA", which would otherwise be against MOS:INITIALS.) If they were part of the encyclopedic content, that would not be possible. Adjectives? To quote you back to yourself: "sharply", "invariably", "off-topic", "ad-hominem", "irrelevant", "abhorrent", "forbidden", etc. Just from one post; lots more in the previous editions. But, yes, this is apt to simply turn circular and is better left to later input by other parties.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:51, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  There is also the  tool. My last word on the matter. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:00, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Which has no consensus to be forced on anyone. The idea that some external organization like Intl. ISBN Agency having a preference necessarily results in a requirement that Wikipedia comply with their idea, when the real world has clearly not adopted it as a standard, is patently false. I'm going to just RfC this at WP:VPPOL because we need to settle this in a site-wide manner, one way or the other, not have sporadic editwarring about it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:47, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  And no reason not to, either. But you're right about one thing, it's far better to get on with something useful. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:37, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Formatting ISBNs 

message: The effects of domestication on society section reads a bit weird and propagandistic to me? I also was under the impression that Guns Germs and Steel was not a good source for sociological information at large. The article on the book includes sources specifically criticizing the section of his book we are citing here.
the next section on diversity was also weird, not really talking about domestication specifically very much at all, though I think I've added some useful info & removed much of the most bad parts of the text.  Perhaps One Editor (talk) 00:47, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks; the diversity subsection still reads like student assignment accretion, and is way too long for this context, so I'll cut it down a bit. A section which factually describes multiple opposing viewpoints doesn't fit easily into any known definition of propaganda. Diamond is a reliably published source, but given that later editions indeed retract the claims (and domestication certainly doesn't equate to agriculture), we can lose his bit now, and lead in to say these are diverse views. I'll tweak the section heading, too. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:13, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Effects on society section