Windustsearch

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Hello, Windustsearch, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Murderbike (talk) 20:49, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Crotalus oreganus

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to make constructive contributions to Wikipedia, at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Crotalus oreganus, did not appear to be constructive and has been reverted. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and read the welcome page to learn more about contributing constructively to this encyclopedia. Thank you.. --Jwinius (talk) 00:01, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I may have been a bit quick to judge on this one. It's just that I wrote the paragraph in question and it comes from a very reliable source (see the reference tag for Campbell & Lamar, 2004, at the end of the paragraph). All too often, though, I've seen anonymous and new editors make significant (usually ridiculous) changes to such passages without quoting a source, which leaves the text inaccurate when compared to the original and only quoted reference. This is bad even if the information they added was actually correct, because afterwards the text simply looks unfaithful to the reference if checked.

The moral of the story is that you should always cite your references if you want your edits to be taken seriously. The best way is to add your information in a separate sentence of paragraph followed by an inline reference (see Wikipedia:Footnotes), but if you feel that you would rather make changes to text that is already referenced, make your changes to it and then add your own reference after the one that's already there. --Jwinius (talk) 03:35, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

By the way...

Your edits look good to my mind, but something that is really important, is citing reliable sources when changing or adding material, you know, so we can maintain an air of respectability;) Cheers, Murderbike (talk) 03:09, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

In almost every case my edits reflect the citations already provided.-Windustsearch

Which citations? Perhaps 4 or 5 of the 9 references given offer color pattern information. Surly Campbell JA, Lamar WW. 2004 was not your only source, because they don't mention green as being a ground color for C. o. oreganus. --Jwinius (talk) 21:50, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes they do, olive is green, you might want to re-read your Campbell and Lamar. Further, Stebbins, Earnst, Bartlett, and every other description I have ever read lists them as sometimes being green as well.--76.28.238.125 (talk) 05:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, I missed "olive-brown," which I've now added to the description. Wright & Wright (1957) mention "olive-buff," while Klauber (1997) states "[green], although it usually tends towards dull olive" (p.217). Therefore, I'm not sure anything more needs to be added to the current description, although we could if it would make you feel better. Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 08:19, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The comment was largely pointed towards editing archaeology pages. As for the northern pacific rattlesnake page, descriptions of snakes are largely common knowledge, that is why you don't see citations in Campbell and Lamar or other descriptions.--Windustsearch (talk) 02:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Campbell & Lamar didn't need to cite a reference for every other sentence because they're a pair of famous herpetologists, as well as the main authors of the book. On the other hand, this is Wikipedia, which can be full of BS. The only method that we have for telling the difference between fact and fiction is our ability to check up on the data using the given references. So, that's what we do. For this reason also, most regular editors regard unreferenced text -- no matter how good it looks -- as fit for replacement. In other words, your contributions won't live as long if they're not referenced, so you might as well add them. --Jwinius (talk) 03:14, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Being "famous herpetologists" has ZERO to do with what they cite and what they don't. They go by standard conventions like everybody else who writes scientific reports or publications. Look at other descriptions besides Campbell and Lamar.--Windustsearch (talk) 04:27, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

My point is that we all know that it's their book, so we can assume that they've at least read and agreed with everything that went into it. That's in stark contrast to Wikipedia where we don't know who wrote anything, in part because the identities of our contributors can't be verified, so none of our texts can be considered reliable unless they are accompanied by one or more references. This concept is even part of the description of the first of the Five pillars of Wikipedia (citing sources) in the welcome message at the top of this talk page. I suggest you read it.

FYI, always citing your sources is not nearly as difficult as you might think. First, take a look at Wikipedia:Footnotes. For myself, I've made this a simple task by maintaining a text file on my workstation that contains all of my references. These are a few of the entries:

• <ref name="C&L04">Campbell JA, Lamar WW. 2004. The Venomous Reptiles of the Western Hemisphere. 2 volumes. Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca and London. 870 pp. 1500 plates. ISBN 0-8014-4141-2.</ref>
• <ref name="Spa04">Spawls S, Howell K, Drewes R, Ashe J. 2004. A Field Guide To The Reptiles Of East Africa. London: A & C Black Publishers Ltd. 543 pp. ISBN 0-7136-6817-2.</ref>
• <ref name="Mal03">Mallow D, Ludwig D, Nilson G. 2003. True Vipers: Natural History and Toxinology of Old World Vipers. Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing Company. 359 pp. ISBN 0-89464-877-2.</ref>

This way, if I use information from one of these books for an article, all I have to do is copy and paste the matching reference to complete it. In addition, since these are named references, if I add information from the same book a second (or third, or forth) time, then it becomes even easier, because then all I have to add is e.g. <ref name="C&L04"/>. Hope this helps! --Jwinius (talk) 13:05, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

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