User talk:Greebo cat

Welcome!

Hello, Greebo cat, 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:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! Firsfron of Ronchester 17:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Help!

I was wondering if you can help me with a minor issue i seem to have developed with my preferences?! I changed my skin option to the 'chick' setting and now, none of the links to the other option headings within my preferences page will work-they just don't do anything so i'm stuck with no way of getting back to my original settings! Is bugging me but is also probably something I've done wrong (that kinda thing usually is!). Would be grateful if you could help me-thanks!Greebo cat 21:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Greebo cat!

Are you using Internet Explorer? Apparently, the "Chick" skin doesn't work very well in Internet Explorer. Just as an experiment, I tried the skin in IE, and, like you, I couldn't change it back afterwards. Do you use Firefox, Greebo? The links are clickable in Firefox, and you can change the settings back. Plus, the latest version of Firefox has a spell-check function built right in. I will report this bug, for the record. Let me know if you still have problems. Best, Firsfron of Ronchester 23:04, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Firefox is free; you can download it for free at http://www.firefox.com . From what I can tell, the Chick skin problem was reported in 2005, so I'm not sure waiting for a fix is a good idea! Good luck! :) Firsfron of Ronchester 00:14, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Brachypodosaurus

Hey Greebo!

I'm glad you were able to get your settings fixed. That "Chick" skin is pretty annoying. Anyway, about Brachypodosaurus: I removed the bolding, since we only need that once, at the beginning of the article. I put the sentences in paragraph form, and changed the wording slightly. It still neds a fix at the beginning, though, because it's listed by its binomial name while still being listed as a genus. I'll try to think of a clever way to rework the opening so it's accurate.

Anyway, thanks for expanding the article. WikiProject Dinosaurs still has a hundred very short articles just like that. There are many more very short dinosaur articles listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs/shortest articles, so if you're interested, feel free to expand any of them.

Happy editing! :) Firsfron of Ronchester 17:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Boys and Dinosaurs

OK OK, no need to make a whole Talk section about it. "children" -> "young boys" just a whimsical change I made because I thought the sentence sounded better that way. I wasn't intending it to be standing for any important scientific fact or anything. Sorry. Haplolology 21:56, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, starting a new section on the talkpage was just the right thing to do; it's part of the Bold, Revert, Discuss cycle. Doc Tropics 05:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

General encouragement

Hi Greebo, I hadn't run into you since the time we had a couple of discussions at talk: Dinosaur. I had reviewed your Edit History, and was impressed by the overall quality I saw. Also, I always enjoy seeing your username, because anything that reminds me of Pratchett is worth a grin. I hope you'll have a chance to make more contributions in the future : ) Doc Tropics 05:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! What a great expansion. There's really nothing that I could add to the article right now, but there's one more thing that you could add: references. Wherever you got the info from, include some refs in the form of in-line cites (I can help if you haven't done it before). Otherwise, I think this is a huge improvement for the article. In fact, I'm pretty sure that this would be a good nom for the DYK section. How would you like to have your work featured on the Main Page as a DYK? Once you have the refs in place, I'd be happy to nom it for you. The only thing is, there is a five day time-limit for nomming new articles and recent expansions. That means it would need to be done by the end of the week. Think you can do it? Again, great work! Doc Tropics 23:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

LOL! I had thought that maybe 4 - 6 cites would be good. What did you put in...18? It's great to have lots of cites in any article, especially science-related. In general, though, I think it might look better to provide fewer refs, but focus on "scholarly" type citations. For example, Ref #1 links to a site that is very informative, but doesn't have a "recognizable" name, or do anything to establish its own credentials. That would be a good to have in "External Links" (where it is), but a cite from a scientific journal or museum would have more "weight" as a reference. I did go ahead and convert #1 to an inline ref and set up the proper section for it, because that style is favored in technical articles, so it seemed appropriate. I didn't finish reviewing the other refs yet, just wanted to let you know what I did so far. I seem to recall that the Chicago Museum of Natural History had some excellent info, so I'll see if I can dig something up there. Do you mind if I twiddle with the page a bit, or would you like me to just relay info to you, so you can insert and arrange it? Doc Tropics 02:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I just spent about an hour scouring for some academic-type refs. The good news is that if we need 15 different technical references about the Megazostrodon's dentition (with special focus on the upper molars), we can cover that, no problem. I was actually only able to come up with 2 good refs; almost everything else I found was on sites that require registration. I may look for more again tomorrow (my eyes are watering right now rom reading abstracts), but the article itself needs just a bit more polish and it will look real good. Doc Tropics 04:53, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From one geek to another: Oh, I'm so dumb sometimes! Of course printed books are a valid source; I can't believe I didn't mention that. It's always good to provide links to any material that is available online, but the more technical an article is, the less likely to find internet sources. It would be great fi you could cite a textbook or similar. The format should be something like this:

Boyce Lundstrom: Kiln Firing Glass. Vitreous Publications; Colton, Oregon 1983, pp. 13-21, ISBN 0-9612282-3-7

I just copy/pasted this from one of my first articles...someone else had to show me how to set up the refs, and now I get to pass it on. If I remember The Lion King correctly, that means the circle of life is complete, and soon I will be eaten by gazelles. I think that with 2 good online refs, 2 good textbook refs, and the "external links" it already has, this article would be solid. The one thing in particular that I would try to support is the "first mammal" assertion. Nothing else is controversial or likely to be challenged, but "first mammal" should be as well ref'd as possible. BTW - we're (almost) all amateurs here; true subject-matter experts are generally few and far between. Wikipedia is largely written by enthusiatic hobbysists rather than "professionals", so really, you're in good company. If you need any help formatting your textbook refs, just let me know. Doc Tropics 15:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you've never encountered Creationist trolling in a science article before, you might want to pop in over at talk:Dinosaur : ) Doc Tropics 03:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]