User talk:Opabinia regalis/Archive 1

Creation

I clicked, and then there were words, and it was good.

Stem-loop illustration

Here you go:

Sakurambo 09:34, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey-hey, and good work!

Hi, Opabinia! That has to be the coolest creature ever -- five eyes?

Thanks for your nice message! It was kinda random of me to dash off those pages you wanted, but I was feeling like Glinda the Good Witch, particularly towards peripatetic pentomphaloids that perspicate proteins. ;D I hoped you wouldn't mind.

It's really, really nice to find someone else who wants to take Wiki-biochem under their wing. Do you know, is there much of a biochemistry community here in Wikispace? I'm a relative newbie here, just writing without exactly knowing what I'm doing. One nice structural biologist from Denmark wrote to me when I was just beginning.

I guess you're a newbie, too. Uhh -- welcome to Wikipedia? I like your edits/contributions and especially your taste in topics -- keep up the good work! WillowW 08:37, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - you got those pages up and content-ful a lot faster than I would have, I bet. I'd say you have good taste in topics. (Well, I don't know about the knitting. I'm a failure at that.)

As for fellow biochemists, there's the Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology, but they don't seem to be terribly active at the moment. I haven't really encountered too many more, but as you noticed, I only got unlazy and got an account a couple of weeks ago. If I ever look like I know what I'm doing, it's all a lie! :) I've made very occasional minor edits as an anon starting about a year ago, and I was an admin on another wiki for a while, which is convenient because I know where stuff is and inconvenient because we put stuff somewhere else.

Now if only I could get this pentomphaloid thing in real life.... Opabinia regalis 01:27, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I totally know what you mean; five eyes would be great, although sometimes I feel that I haven't learned to use the two that I have :(

Nice additions to the DEE, although your formula runs off my screen? Maybe we should define an intermediate variable for the pair energy, for brevity?

Anyway, let's keep plugging away at the biochem; there are plenty of cool topics and maybe other people will come out of the woodwork. I'll keep one of my five eyes on what you're up to. ::;) WillowW 18:45, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deletion

Regarding the article MagicMouth Productions, which you tagged for speedy deletion with the reason "it is an article about a person, group of people or organization that does not assert the importance or significance of the subject", I wanted you to know that I have removed the speedy deletion tag. This article does not qualify for speedy deletion because companies do not qualify for deletion under this criterion, and it does include an assertion of significance. If you still want the article to be deleted, please use the WP:PROD process. Thanks! Stifle (talk) 10:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I saw the school association and assumed they were a school club rather than a real company, but they do claim notability, and self-delusion is as good a claim as any. Opabinia regalis 10:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello Opabinia

About the Science Creative Quarterly

>(June 2) Hi Opabinia, (wasn't sure if this is the best way to reach you)

Thanks for the prompt. Just noticed it before putting up a few more (which I've sinced removed). Should I remove the links entirely, because I do have a bit of a bias (I'm one of the editors of the site)? I'm not sure if that constitutes a conflict of interest. I noted in one of the FAQs that writing specifically about something of your own (i.e. me writing an entry for the Science Creative Quarterly) is frowned upon, but wasn't sure how links work. I just notice that a lot of our educational pieces rank high on google because I think because they are specifically written to try and discuss relatively advanced concepts at a upper high school level - great for easing in a subject. I thought it would be useful generally for your readers to be directed to this resource. As well, we're also well known for offbeat ways to discuss a particular topic whilst still hopefully embedding an educational experience (i.e. graphics, humour, etc).

Anyway, let me know the scoop. Should I stop? If I honestly feel the pieces have merit should I continue (I run a teaching facility so am pretty good with evaluating the value of material)? And sorry if I messed up. I'll remove things accordingly if you think that is best, or whatever other suggestions you provide.

cheers Dave Ng [email protected]

Director, Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory Michael Smith Laboratories, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada http://bioteach.ubc.ca

>(June 2) Just also noticed some of the articles you're planning to write. Just wanted to let you know that all of the stuff on the Science Creative Quarterly is free for distribution (unless specifically noted at the bottom of the article). Our images in particular are pretty cool! (more also at http://bioteach.ubc.ca) . Also just created an account under Drdaveng

cheers dave

Thanks for responding about the SCQ links. Technically the guideline on external links recommends that those related to/involved with the creation of an external site propose their link on the relevant article's talk page and let other neutral parties determine whether it's a good thing to add. But many of these articles don't have active groups who read the talk pages often, and I'd think that's a little silly for every link, and the fact that's it's free for distribution is great. My suggestions (and keep in mind I'm just another user, no one especially important :) are:

1. Don't include " - a review from Science Creative Quarterly" after the links, just include the title or make the link text a brief description like "Introductory overview of the cell cycle" or somesuch, unless the other external links on the page also have descriptions (just don't make any one link in the list "stand out" unless it's clearly the most important/relevant).
2. Just include them on the pages where SCQ gives a significant amount of information and/or an overview that's hard to find elsewhere. (The Percy Schmeiser article is a good example where there isn't already a good summary included.) I originally noticed these links in the cell cycle article, which I'm planning on updating soon, and I think that one fits too.
3. Keep the links where you really think SCQ did an excellent job of presenting the material.
4. Toss anything with a "creative" tone, like the nude mouse link. Once people get to your site they can explore and find the more creative pieces.

Feel free to directly add content to the articles themselves too (especially ones that are kind of stubby but really shouldn't be, like cell cycle). It's great that you're interested in educating people about science and I hope you stick around! Opabinia regalis 04:41, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

(additional comment) I actually think a link text like "Science Creative Quarterly's overview of the cell cycle" would be better, especially since it's part of an academic educational program and not "some guys who write good science articles and post them on a website" (wait... isn't that what Wikipedia is? :) Also, your images are cool. Opabinia regalis 05:38, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Will go back through the edits over the weekend and remove the creative pieces along with the SCQ references where appropriate. Over the next few weeks, I'll also take a look at seeing whether any of our other 'textbook' type pieces are worth highlighting elsewhere as well. Since, the creative pieces will be removed, you should check out http://www.scq.ubc.ca/?p=45 and http://www.scq.ubc.ca/?p=187, since biochemistry seems to be your thing (I also have goofy stuff like http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2004/9/9ng.html all over the net)

Cool, glad we're getting these useful links. It's good to see someone who's interested in molecular biology and biochemistry education. (I liked your DNA replication article, btw.) I've never been good at that sort of thing, but I'm trying :) Hope you'll continue to contribute!

Oh, and a couple of useful wiki-markup hints: you can sign your comments by ending them with four tildes (~~~~) and indent by preceding the first word of a new paragraph with a colon. More than you ever wanted to know is at Help:Editing. Opabinia regalis 06:03, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

AfD

Hi, I completely re-wrote the article R4U which you sent to AfD. If you have time, could you review the new article and revisit your AfD? I am not going to message all the people that voted, but just thought I would let you know since you nominated. Aguerriero (talk) 17:22, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I have to say I'm sticking with the nomination despite your help, as the software still seems non-notable to me. But I'm far from an expert on Tamil word processors, so if there is evidence that this product is a standard, that would be a different matter. Opabinia regalis 19:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Just thought I should mention

Was patrolling for vandalism yesterday, ran across the Eclampsia article. You beat me to reverting it, but I got a kick out of your edit summaries. Not to mention you even made a serious edit while you were at it. I'm impressed, and for whatever reason it's moments like that when I get a bit proud of what we've all accomplished so far. Thanks. Luna Santin 11:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Haha, thanks. Amusing myself in the edit summaries makes fixing vandalism less depressing :) Also, nice list of favorites. Opabinia regalis 18:35, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Although no consensus was reached in the end, I still wanted to thank you for your vote in my recent RfA. Thank you very much. Fritz S. (Talk) 17:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Sequence profiling tool

Thank you very much for those neat edits. We may need some more academic peers and copy-editors to start shaping the article. I agree with you with that topic may be a bit tangent to the lay readership; yet I was tempted to nominate it since I was convinced about its importance in bioinformatics (and that I also happened to write the entire piece). Yes, it would be a good idea to work on sequence alignment and start shaping it up but the topic probably has a more focused perspective. Despite this, a collection of such pieces will go a long way in compiling information in Bioinformatics related fields. We may need to collect together a team of contributors and delegate some topics.

Thanks again for your input.

Nattu 18:45, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

(moved to bottom) I went through and did a bit more copyediting/organizing earlier tonight, and after doing so I'm more convinced that, while this is a great and useful article to add to the bioinformatics coverage here, it's just too narrow a subject to realistically be FA material. I removed some of your text that had a tone of enthusiasm that could be interpreted as plugging certain tools - I have my favorites too, and I doubt anyone will choose a particular piece of software based on a mention in Wikipedia, but WP:NPOV still frowns on such things. Opabinia regalis 05:20, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

You have grasped the essence of what I wanted to convey and I am very happy that you have shaped it up well. We need to add references and external links. Also we need to check on the images that are essentially screenshots and cite the source well. I agree there has been a tone of enthusiasm on some tools and I allowed myself the liberty of the same within bounds. I thought a sentence or two on the HPRD's unique way of manual annotation might be a good thing to add. Basically I wish the article to present a sample of conceptually different portals (a sentence or two about them). You may also add one or two of your tools. We may have to convince the WP:NPOV on the need to include them. Nattu 17:15, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll probably add a section on microarray analysis/gene lookup tools later this week when I have more time. It would be great if there was a review paper or two out describing and comparing the usefulness of some of these things; I'm not aware of any at the moment but haven't seriously looked yet.

I think you're right that HPRD does deserve a mention; I may have chopped too much :) Bioinformatics Harvester should also have at least a sentence in the text if the screenshot is going to stay, but I haven't used it myself and don't know how commonly it's used. If it's pretty widespread then feel free to add back that info. Opabinia regalis 04:48, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. I noted it later. I guess we ourselves have to take care of the scientific part allowing the others to review the copy edit and scientific part of it. The microarray part was nice. I might add a tool or two like the LOLA servers at George Washington University. May I have your email, I need to discuss more content matter. Please visit my homepage following my signature Nattu 09:49, 19 June 2006 (UTC) .

My wikipedia email is enabled, so this link should work. (I don't want to post it so I won't get bucketloads of spam.) Opabinia regalis 02:08, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Advomentary

"why are these cutesy portmanteau neologisms so popular anyway?"

you're so right. W guice 18:42, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

My RfA

Hello Opabinia regalis, and thanks for voting in my recent RfA, which passed with a tally of (68/19/3). I appreciated your comments, which I hope to take on board in order to gain your respect in my work as an administrator. Best of luck in your continued editing of the encyclopedia! Sam Vimes 17:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Sock Puppet

As far as I can tell it must be sour grapes over an article being deleted. Seems like a Personal attack--Crossmr 01:44, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

oh and if you want to add your voice to this you can, its childish what this user is doing to try and manipulate a deletion revision Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#User:CoolKatt_number_99999--Crossmr 01:54, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

AfD nominations

Hi. I would appreciate it if you could consistently state Wikipedia:Deletion policy specific reasons for AfD nominations that you make. You don't have to be legalistic or formulaic in the nomination, but people should be able to see from any nomination specifically what criteria the nomination claims cover the article. Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert 10:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Done, for the nomination you suggested, but.... I hope this is your desire for procedural purity rather than a concern that some people might be confused. I think we all know what criterion ads fail, the Icatch media production page manages to fail at least three additional criteria as well, and it's not like this is a controversial deletion. Opabinia regalis 17:17, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

This is a desire for ... well, not procedural purity, but a better, more consistent, following of the stated AfD procedures. Several people are starting work on Wikipedia:AfD Patrol to help improve the system's consistency and make it less of a popularity or unpopularity poll. I will for the record state no opinion on this AfD subject, for neutrality's sake, but I don't object to doing it. Just want it to be done right. Thanks for your cleanup. Georgewilliamherbert 21:10, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. I can't say I agree that not following procedures is a real problem at the moment, but good luck. Opabinia regalis 01:40, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Layout

My Firefox rendered the picture as overlaying the TOC - hardly a desirable result, although I do understand that this is not what you saw. I think this is one of the situations where no ideal layout is available (i.e. the rendering engine is poorly equipped to deal with them). Cheers, Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe a solution has now been found... check again! - Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

RfA thanks

Many thanks for your positive comments at my RfA.

Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

My RfA

Hi, I would like to express my gratitude for your participation at my recent RfA. The final vote was 68/21/3 and resulted in me becoming an admin!

For those of you who supported my RfA, I highly appreciate your kind words and your trust in me. For those who opposed - many of you expressed valid concerns regarding my activity here; I will make an effort in addressing them as time goes on while at the same time using my admin tools appropriately. So, salamat, gracias, merci, ありがとう, спасибо, धन्यवाद, 多謝, agyamanak unay, شكرًا, cảm ơn, 감사합니다, mahalo, ขอบคุณครับ, go raibh maith agat, dziękuję, ευχαριστώ, Danke, תודה, mulţumesc, გმადლობთ, etc.! If you need any help, feel free to contact me.

PS: I took the company car (pictured left) out for a spin, and well... it's not quite how I pictured it. --Chris S. 23:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Biology/Major topics

Hi Opabinia, I'm working on a new section for the biology portal, linked above, that is meant to give an overview of the main "topics" within biology. This is a custom for portals that I find somewhat difficult to comply with, having, as I'm sure we all do, a limited grasp of the subject. I believe that your expertise is somewhat more molecular than mine, and I therefore invite you to contribute to the template if you have time. Best, Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:47, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, this is a good idea. I've added some biochemistry and genetics topics, which may be a little overrepresented right now, but I'm rather ignorant when it comes to anything bigger than a cell. Opabinia regalis 05:08, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Just a note

I moved Shattered Faith (band) which you had speedied to AfD, where it survived... whether this has any meaning I can't say. Herostratus 13:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Philica Hits on Google?

Philica seems pretty big, but then again, how did you find out that it has less than 500 hits from google? And is that per month or per day? 500 unique hits a day is pretty notable. (Yosofun)

Sorry, I meant that googling "philica" got about 500 hits. A little oddly, philica without quotes gets about 500, and "philica" with quotes gets about 2000 - although Philica also appears to be a surname. In any case, the website is still in beta per its FAQ, so I suspect having an article on it is a little premature. If you'd rather get other opinions the article can be listed at Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion for discussion. Opabinia regalis 04:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

(Opabinia Sapientia, I'm copying my reply here in case your five eyes don't have my talk page on watch.) There's no minimum number of Google references required for notability, or at least, I'm not aware of any in the Criterias. Also, Philica has been publicized on Nature, which you might know as one of the most mainstream scientific journal, read or skimmed by practically all scientists. [1] Seems pretty notable to me... Yosofun 05:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

No minimum number, but low numbers of hits imply low notability. The mention in Nature was more in passing than an explicit discussion, and the fact that the site is in beta really made me doubt its inclusion. I still think it's marginal, but the concept is interesting (and we do have articles on distinctly less interesting and notable websites), so I'll deprod it. Opabinia regalis 06:11, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Sequence Alignment

Congratulations on this becoming a featured article, and thanks for all of your hard work! pschemp | talk 05:29, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! It was a fun set of articls to work on. I like having a "project" ongoing. Opabinia regalis 06:23, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Thought you might be interested

If you haven't been following it, CoolKatt's case was finally accepted for Arbcom [2] and is in the evidence stage. I again made note of the sockpuppet tags he slapped on our user pages.--Crossmr 15:33, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Rfa

You might want to sign your comments on Phaedriel's RFA. :) pschemp | talk 00:47, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Oops! Thanks, I got distracted by my kitten attacking my feet :) Opabinia regalis 00:59, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Understood. I often have that same issue. pschemp | talk 03:27, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Sign

You might want to sign your comments again on Artificial selection ;) pschemp | talk 05:25, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, this is just sad. I can't even blame the cat this time. Thanks, and sorry for living up to the absent-minded scientist stereotype. Opabinia regalis 05:28, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Lyndsey Jackson

You flagged Lyndsey Jackson for deletion. I agree with you, but I just wanted to suggest that whenever you encounter an actor biography that you are sceptical about, that you check how the actor is listed in the Internet Movie Database at http://www.imdb.com/ in case it is worthwhile adding any information from the IMDb and a link to the actor's page on the IMDb. Sometimes a new editor may neglect to provide enough information to establish notability, but information gained from an IMDb search and a quick Google search, once added to the article, will successfully establish notability. Not in this case, though. TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 21:24, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Apple II series review

Hello, I see you have peer reviewed articles now and then. I would most appreciate it if you could take a look a Apple II series, please leave comments at Wikipedia:Peer review/Apple II series/archive1. Thanks! — Wackymacs 20:20, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

DNA clamp

Great article start! Would be fabulous if you could expand it a little bit and put it up for DYK so it can be on the Main Page. Cheers -- Samir धर्म 03:35, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Wow, that was a quick reaction; thanks! I wouldn't have thought of DYK otherwise. Opabinia regalis 04:06, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

DYK

On 13 August, 2006, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article DNA clamp, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

Great job on DNA clamp. It's on the main page for DYK now. Cheers -- Samir धर्म 04:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey, that's pretty spiffy. Thanks! Opabinia regalis 05:21, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Congrat for your Clamp image! :) Anyway I was a bit upset regarding Khaj's voice and the manner of communication. Thank you for joining that talk about melanoma. I didn't have to get into the habit of making editwars, I've never had one. Doesn't matter, good work! NCurse _work 07:41, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I think the melanoma article is really pretty good, and the end result of the collaboration was a big improvement - it could use something along the lines of Khaj's proposed research section, which I didn't really even think of until after looking at his contributions, but he doesn't sound so inclined to work on it soon. Not being a previous contributor to the article, I figured it's only fair to help sort out any issues I contributed to without stirring up new ones :) Opabinia regalis 01:52, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Starving Jesus

Hi, just wanted to let you know.

I have updated the Starving Jesus page with refrences and an ISBN number. Derek Cormier 23:53, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi

Just a quick note to say thanks for the suggestions you left here. I'll set to work on it over the weekend. -- Funky Monkey  (talk)  18:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Best article title for deamidation rxn in proteins?

Hi, O, I need some perspective from someone knowledgeable. A new user, DanielBates, just took over all the text at Deamidation to make a new article, Isoaspartate. He seems to be under a misapprehension about the reaction presented in the figure. Being less general, the new page title doesn't seem like an improvement, although the old one had its problems, too. I proposed at Talk:Deamidation that we start a new article, Deamidation (protein) instead -- what do you think? Maybe deamidation (peptide) to be more general? Anyway, your input would be valuable — thanks! Willow 23:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Replied at Talk:Deamidation. Opabinia regalis 01:54, 16 August 2006 (UTC)