Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Newsletter/002

Interview questions

1) How long have you two been collaborating on articles?

I started in the German Wikipedia in 2005 but switched to the English Wikipedia because of its very active dinosaur project. My first major collaboration with FunkMonk was on Heterodontosaurus in 2015. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:49, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, we had interacted already on talk pages and through reviewing each other's articles, and at some point I was thinking of expanding Heterodontosaurus, and realised Jens had already written the German Wikipedia version, so it seemed natural to work together on the English one. Our latest collaboration was Spinophorosaurus, where by another coincidence, I had wanted to work on that article for the WP:Four Award, and it turned out that Jens had a German book about the expedition that found the dinosaur, which I wouldn't have been able to utilise with my meagre German skills. Between those, we also worked on Brachiosaurus, a wider Dinosaur Project collaboration between several editors. FunkMonk (talk) 22:51, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2) Why dinosaurs?

Because of the huge public interest in them. But dinosaurs are also highly interesting from a scientific point of view: key evolutionary innovations emerged within this group, such as warm-bloodedness, gigantism, and flight. Dinosaur research is, together with the study of fossil human remains, the most active field in paleontology. New scientific techniques and approaches tend to get developed within this field. Dinosaur research became increasingly interdisciplinary, and now does not only rely on various fields of biology and geology, but also on chemistry and physics, among others. Dinosaurs are therefore ideal to convey scientific methodology to the general public. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:49, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As outlined above, dinosaurs have been described as a "gateway to science"; if you learn about dinosaurs, you will most likely also learn about a lot of scientific fields you would not necessarily be exposed to otherwise. On a more personal level, having grown up with and being influenced by various dinosaur media, it feels pretty cool to help spread knowledge about these animals, closest we can get to keeping them alive. FunkMonk (talk) 22:51, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

3) Why should other editors join you in writing articles related to paleontology? Are you looking to attract new editors, or draw in experienced editors from other areas of Wikipedia?

Because we are a small but active and helpful community. Our Dinosaur collaboration, one of the very few active open collaborations in Wikipedia, makes high-level writing on important articles easier and more fun. Our collaboration is especially open to editors without prior experience in high level writing. But we do not only write articles: several WikiProject Dinosaur participants are artists who do a great job illustrating the articles, and maintain an extensive and very active image review system. In fact, a number of later authors started with contributing images. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:49, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone who is interested in palaeontology are welcome to try writing articles, and we would be more than willing to help. I find that the more people that work on articles simultaneously with me, the more motivation I get to write myself. I am also one of those editors who started out contributing dinosaur illustrations and making minor edits, and only began writing after some years. But when I got to it, it wasn't as intimidating as I had feared, and I've learned a lot in the process. For example anatomy; if you know dinosaur anatomy, you have a very good framework for understanding the anatomy of other tetrapod animals, including humans. FunkMonk (talk) 22:51, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

4) Between the two of you, you have over 300 GA reviews. FunkMonk, you have over 250 of those. What keeps you coming back to review more articles?

One of the main reasons I review GANs is to learn more about subjects that seem interesting (or which I would perhaps not come across otherwise). There are of course also more practical reasons, such as helping an article on its way towards FAC, to reduce the GAN backlog, and to "pay back" when I have a nomination up myself. It feels like a win win situation where I can be entertained by interesting info, while also helping other editors get their nominations in shape, and we'll end up with an article that hopefully serves to educate a lot of people (the greater good). FunkMonk (talk) 16:00, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Because I enjoy reading Wikipedia articles and like to learn new things. In addition, reviews give me the opportunity to have direct contact with the authors, and help them to make their articles even better. This is quite rewarding for me personally. But I also review because I consider our GA and FA system to be of fundamental importance for Wikipedia. When I started editing Wikipedia (the German version), the article promotion reviews motivated me and improved my writing skills a lot. Submitting an article for review requires one to get serious and take additional steps to bring the article to the best quality possible. GAs and FAs are also a good starting point for readers, and may motivate them to become authors themselves. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:12, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

5) What are your editing preferences? Any scripts or gadgets you find invaluable?

One script that everyone should know about is the duplink highlight tool:[1] It will show duplinks within the intro and body of a given article separately, and it seems a lot of people still don't know about it, though they are happy when introduced to it. I really liked the citationbot too (since citation consistency is a boring chore to me), but it seems to be blocked at the moment due to some technical issues. FunkMonk (talk) 16:04, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I often review using the Wikipedia Beta app on my smartphone, as it allows me to read without needing to sit in front of the PC. For writing, I find the reference management software Zotero invaluable, as it generates citation templates automatically, saving a lot of time. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:12, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

6) What would surprise the TOL community to learn about your life off-wiki?

Perhaps that I have no background in natural history/science, but work with animation and games. But fascination with and knowledge of nature and animals is actually very helpful when designing and animating characters and creatures, so it isn't that far off, and I can actually use some of the things I learn while writing here for my work (when I wrote the Dromaeosauroides article, it was partially to learn more about the animal for a design school project). FunkMonk (talk) 16:00, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That I am actually doing research on dinosaurs. Though I avoid writing about topics I did publish research on, my Wikipedia work helps me to keep a good general overview over the field, and quite regularly I can use what I learned while writing for Wikipedia for my research. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:12, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Copy edit suggestions

@Enwebb, FunkMonk, and Jens Lallensack: Since this is an editor and two authors writing in their own voice, I want to suggest rather than make copy edits.

"TOL" to "ToL"?
It might help some readers if we link "GAN" to Wikipedia:Good article nominations and "FAC" to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates?
"Anyone who is interested in palaeontology are welcome" to "is welcome"
"win win situation" to "win-win situation"
"high level writing" to "high-level writing"?
"design school project" to "design-school project"?
the duplink highlight tool:[2] to "the duplink highlight tool."?
"I avoid writing about topics I did publish research on" to "I avoid writing about topics I publish research on"?

Would it be ok to take out the time and date from the signatures? e.g. "(talk) 5:51 pm, 1 June 2019, last Saturday (2 days ago) (UTC−5)" Also, only link them in the first answer or perhaps in an introduction?
Do you think each response should be set off with a bullet?

Could also format like:

1) Enwebb: How long have you two been collaborating on articles?

Jens Lallensack: I started in the German Wikipedia in 2005 but switched to the English Wikipedia because of its very active dinosaur project. My first major collaboration with FunkMonk was on Heterodontosaurus in 2015.
FunkMonk: Yeah, we had interacted already on talk pages and through reviewing each other's articles, and at some point I was thinking of expanding Heterodontosaurus, and realised Jens had already written the German Wikipedia version, so it seemed natural to work together on the English one. Our latest collaboration was Spinophorosaurus, where by another coincidence, I had wanted to work on that article for the WP:Four Award, and it turned out that Jens had a German book about the expedition that found the dinosaur, which I wouldn't have been able to utilise with my meagre German skills. Between those, we also worked on Brachiosaurus, a wider Dinosaur Project collaboration between several editors.

After the first response, some publications then would start each response with JL and FM.

Thanks, SchreiberBike | ⌨ 02:30, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The suggestions seem fine to me. FunkMonk (talk) 02:42, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

SchreiberBike, many thanks for your thoughtful suggestions. I have revised the draft accordingly. Enwebb (talk) 03:22, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Update on Citation bot, general comments, and info for next newsletter

Don't know if you care but it was mentioned in the newsletter. here is a link to that discussion.

As for the newsletter, it looks pretty darn good to me! I would ask, though, are there any groups of statistics or changes which could be tracked between newsletters? Perhaps changes in your stat table and so on? GA/FA are very important, but combined with the lower level work that shows a full representation of what happens each period. It's also nice to see numbers going up, almost like there is some kind of running ticker/counter each period. That makes people feel good. Maybe new articles? I'm not sure.

Also, TOL is likely to see the most direct change out of the WP:BIOL merger discussions in the arena of WP:Plants and its subprojects. I think that there is likely to be an active discussion about upmerging some of those. I don't remember if Marine Life is under TOL purview or not, but it has been mentioned a few times as well. Finally, people have poked at a merge of WP:Viruses and WP:Microbiology a few times. It seems to have only support so far, but not very much said about it yet. As time goes on I think that those discussions will prove more directly interesting to your readers than the ones at WP:BIOL--although I am very grateful that you mentioned us!