User talk:Invertzoo/Archive 61

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ARCHIVE PAGE 61: January 2013

A happy new year to you - I hope you don't fall off this fiscal cliff that is monopolising our BBC news channels! And thank you for the undeserved barnstar.

I was planning to tell you that when one of my daughters asked what I would like for Christmas, I replied "Barnes Invertebrate Zoology". So now I am in possession of a nice 2004 edition, co-authored by Ruppert and Fox. It should prove very useful. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:42, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I replied to this nice note on Cwmhiraeth's talk page. Invertzoo (talk) 19:42, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the awesome Barnstar, it was my pleasure to help the project get started and fill in some of the early beginnings of the group :-) --Kevmin § 18:55, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

You were a great deal of help Kevmin, the project is quite respectable now thanks to help from people like you! Invertzoo (talk) 18:42, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

thank you so much for that barnstar! i haven't been doing as much work as before for the project. i'll see if that can change :) hope you're fine. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 20:36, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm good, FoCuS, I hope you are too! Invertzoo (talk) 18:41, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Susan! =) Let's hope we succeed in the FA review! Things are getting tougher...--Daniel Cavallari (talk) 20:49, 1 January 2013 (UTC) PS: Happy new year, by the way =D all the best wishes!--Daniel Cavallari (talk) 21:19, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Very best wishes for 2013 to you too Daniel. FA review has always been a very tough process to go through and I suppose standards are getting higher every year. I will try to help if I can, but I seem to be very busy recently. Invertzoo (talk) 18:40, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Susan, thanks for the barnstars. We had made good progress with the bot last year. I hope to get the rest of the stubs done by the end of 2013. Happy New Year to you and your family. — Ganeshk (talk) 21:54, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to you too Ganesh, Happy New Year 2013 to you and your family also! Invertzoo (talk) 18:38, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Invertzoo, thanks for the Bivalve Barnstar, it is really neat! Shellnut (talk) 23:26, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

And so are you, Shellnut! Invertzoo (talk) 18:38, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

You are invited to celebrate Wikipedia Day and the 12th anniversary (!) of the founding of the site at Wikipedia Day NYC on Saturday February 23, 2013 at New York University; sign up for Wikipedia Day NYC here, or at bit.ly/wikidaynyu. Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues!

We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience!--Pharos (talk) 02:18, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Hey-- noticed your edits on Laevistrombus canarium. Just wanted to make sure you know that: "When an English variety's consistent usage has been established in an article, it is maintained in the absence of consensus to the contrary" according to the manual of style (MOS:RETAIN). The MOS is a dreadfully long article, and I just learned about this part yesterday, so I thought I might share it with you. Thanks! --Joliv (talk) 21:03, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Joliv, thanks for your friendly note. Happy New Year! You are right about the fact that according to MoS, once an article's style has been established, a case can be made for sticking to the established style, but... in this case we are trying to get an article up to FA status. It is certainly true that this sea snail lives in areas where British English is the norm, not US English, so I feel the reviewer was right to suggest that we change over to British English. I have often suggested that kind of thing myself in similar situations, so it makes sense to me. Do you use British English by any chance? Is so would you check the article for me now to see if I missed anything? Thanks and best wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 21:23, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Happy New Year to you as well! I'm a pretty new user, so I'm trying to get up to speed with the rules, which there are LOTS of. They're also not all too concrete (WP:IAR) so it can be kind of confusing referencing them without much experience. Thanks, Joliv (talk) 21:33, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

You are right Joliv that there are a huge number of rules or guidelines on Wikipedia, but I think they are best learned more or less one by one as you go along. I should point out that you are welcome to ask me about anything you need to know when you come across something perplexing. If I don't know the answer, I probably do know where to look, or who to ask. :) Invertzoo (talk) 22:07, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the barnstar. I wish you a successful 2013. --Llez (talk) 11:55, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

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Hi Susan! Thank you for all the help you've provided to the L. canarium FAC so far. You're amazing as always! By the way, I was in one of my edition frenzies yesterday, and I noticed that we were lacking an article on Lobatus galeatus, so I wrote one. I also noticed some interesting facts about the species, thus I also did this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Did_you_know_nominations/Lobatus_galeatus

I hope you enjoy it! --Daniel Cavallari (talk) 14:12, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

WooHoo! Excellent work Daniel! Invertzoo (talk) 14:15, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Susan. How have you been way over here on this side of the project? It just occurred to me that you had a typhoon. Are you okay? My goodness! I hope you're alright and don't live at the beach.

I wanted to ask you about a snail problem I'm having. You see, this snail I know keeps beating me at ping pong.... sorry, kidding. Everyone knows that snails only play squash, (but usually lose). Seriously, one of my fish tanks is filled with these rather tiny and flat snails. I tried salt, hot sauce, bleach, laundry soap, nothing! Tough little guys. Actually, so are the plants. The fish all died though. So, what do snails really, really not like? Vinegar? Sugar? Plutonium? Lava? Please suggest something if you can. (Sorry if gastrocide is against your ethics.) Best wishes to you, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 15:40, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I had a pond snail problem on my tank recently (the eggs came with live plants). Few ways to solve it: 1. Reduce feeding; only drop enough food that the fish can consume within 2 minutes. 2. Drop a piece of lettuce in a bowl and leave it overnight. Snails will start munching up the lettuce. Pick up the bowl in the morning and dispose the snails. 3. (best option) Get a few Clown loaches. I got a couple of loaches for my 30 gallon tank and they did the job in a week. — Ganeshk (talk) 16:21, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Anna, nice to "see" you! Snail infestation is a very common problem in aquaria and most of the species that cause problems are not easy to eradicate. I was going to suggest picking the snails out individually and crushing them by hand, and also trying to remove egg clusters whenever you notice them. However, as Ganesh says, baiting for the snails every night at lights-out time, using a piece of carrot or squash or lettuce, and then scooping out the bait and snails next morning using a net, repeating every night until there are no more, is supposed to be pretty good method. But Ganesh's suggestion of introducing clown loaches sounds like the very best idea, assuming you can find them for sale where you are! Buy a couple of inch-long young clown loaches and let them gobble up all the snails. Invertzoo (talk) 16:38, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I am thinking that from now on I won't give out advice on extermination, as actually it does conflict with my personal ethics on non-violence in general. Invertzoo (talk) 16:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, thanks for asking, Anna. Although it shut the whole city down and did billions of dollars of damage, Hurricane Sandy was not really a serious problem to us on our little block, because we live 20 feet above sea level and a few miles up the rivers from the low-lying downtown end of the island of Manhattan. Our building did not even lose power, although the power supply "blinked" many times. Everyone stayed indoors so as not to be blown away. The wind was continuously roaring for a day or more, a sound I have never heard before. The highway a couple of blocks from us that runs along the East River was completely flooded, and so were the basements of buildings that adjoin that highway. Coastal areas were devastated. Our favorite beach town (Long Beach, New York) is on a barrier island that was very badly hit: flooded from the ocean and from the bayside, enormous amounts of sand pushed up into all the streets, all the houses flooded with 6 feet of filthy seawater mixed with sewage, and the long lovely wooden boardwalk very badly torn away. I love the coast, but now I am glad I don't live right on the water. Invertzoo (talk) 16:54, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Hello to both of you. Nice to be in touch again.
• Reducing feeding won't work. They are dining on my plants. Besides, I hardly ever fed the fish anyway. You know what they say: "A hungry fish is a healthy fish." Also, fish food contains yellow dye to force you to buy their other products to solve that problem.
• Bait and remove is a band-aid. I can't see that working.
• No clown loaches here. I will try other fish. I tried gouramies because literature said to do that, but they weren't interested in the snails. Then they died during the laundry soap phase. Sorry gouramies.
• Crushing?!?!?! I thought that sounded a bit contrary to your professional ethics. My my. :)
• I'm glad to hear the typhoon didn't get you. Poor folks on the beach.
• The first time I heard that serious wind, I was really shocked. Also, the way the clouds went over super fast.
• If other fish, or maybe eels don't work, I will probably just start fresh. I got the snails from a cup of water from a pond. I added that because there was an algae problem so I figured something was missing. The algae went, the snails came.
• Best wishes to you both.

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:46, 8 January 2013 (UTC)