Unblock request (User:Spinosaurus)

Could you please unblock me as I am not a vandal. I am a good faith editor. I made the taxonomic changes because I felt they were better, not because I want to make it harder for people to browse the wiki or to troll or anything like hat. If you disagree with them, I promise not to make any more unless other editors approve. Wouldn't a topic ban be more appropriate than a block?

Also, I never saw any policy that said that said that the taxonomy pages should use groups that are not only non-monophyletic, but have never been used as taxa in actual, formal scientific taxonomy, such as fish and Ediacaran biota. In fact, the link on the left to Animalia says "By Taxonomy" suggesting that all groups used should be actual taxa, if not clades.

From ToyAnimalWiki:About:

Quote :

By Taxonomy: This will take you to a classification tree designed to roughly mirror current scientific classification schemes. The whole concept of how to classify the tree of life is in flux these days, with multiple interpretations and versions out there. We have included Wikipedia links whenever possible to help you.

My taxonomic changes seem to be more in line with what that page says. So if you're going to block me for making the taxonomy more in line with current scientific classification schemes, then maybe change that line.

Hello Spinosaurus, I'm glad to see you here and willing to continue helping our community to build a better Wiki.
Other editors will explain it better but the taxonomic section on TAW took years to be built and it is a tool to help collectors to find some figures through species identification and not a scientific tool. So, it is always better to discuss important changes with other editors especially when refering to more abrangent taxa or identification. If you want to add a new species, genus or something close to the tip of the branch, you don't need to open a discussion, but when you want to change something as abrangent as fish, reptile, bird, you must consider those are common words used by collectors even if they do not always correspond to an exact taxon. That's the reason why the word roughly is used in the wiki guide
These pages are also linked to many other pages so while renaming them, you will generate loads of broken links or useless redirects. .
I see you are confortable with editing code, I think we could all bennefict from your editing job but you have to think things in a more collective way. Instead of trying to build something extremely advanced scientifically, try to think what is really useful for collectors.
If you have figures to add and as long as you follow the existing layouts, I believe the founder will unlock your account. If you really think some changes are relevant on the base of the taxonomic tree, it is better that you discuss it on forum with us before performing any changes.

But the Ediacaran Biota group does not help anyone to find animals more easily on ToyAnimalWiki.

Cons of Edicaran Biota:
* Polyphyletic
* No image
* Not a taxon
* Based on a time period. They don't even look similar. Looking at an toy animal, how would you know the time period?
* How can it be a superdomain? If those Edicaran animals belong to superdomain Edicaran Biota, that implies that all animals do, since superdomain is above kingdom. In fact, since animals are classified in the domain Eukaryota, it implies that all eukaryotes belong to that superdomain. Shouldn't Edicaran be listed as a period instead?

Pros of Edicaran Biota:
* Three less items on the page Animal, other Life kingdoms and Legendary creatures.

But a much better group would be Synapsida, Reptiles, Amphibia, Fish, Cephalochordate and Tunicate; as they actually form a clade, phylum Chordata, which is recognised pretty much everywhere. iNaturalist has it, GBIF has it and almost all Wikipedia articles about chordates have Phylum Chordata in the taxobox. The exceptions are the ones that don't have a taxobox, such as Pachydermata. Adding Chordate and removing Edicaran Biota would result in two less items on the page Animal, other Life kingdoms and Legendary creatures.

I don't understand the insistence on not having the page Chordate. Is it because of the perception that people don't know what chordates are? That's why I used the description "Chordates (vertebrates and kin)". Everyone knows what vertebrates are. Also, anyone who has looked at chordate pages on Wikipedia has seen Phylum Chordata used. Or is it because since most toy animals are chordates, so it was considered better not to group them together.

Splitting chordates and lumping Edicaran biota seem to be on the same principle. Even groups. Very few figures on the wiki are of Edicaran biota, so they are lumped. And there are many chordates, so they are split.

Well most birds are passerines, and guess what. Ornithologists (and ToyAnimalWiki) group them together. Also, most animals are insects. Yet insects are still grouped into one class, rather than being split into many phyla. I know that insects are severely underrepresented on ToyAnimalWiki (as they are severely underrepresented in toy animals), but my point still stands. You shouldn't go out of your way to equalise groups.

Just from an outsider point of view, as someone who uses but doesn't edit the Wiki : I find it a lot easier to navigate when the main, familiar animal groups are listed on the first page. If I've got a small plastic mammal in my hand, I'd like it to be really easy to click on the Mammals section, not have to go off and google a string of latin terms to trace my way through to find which bit the mammals are in.

I've only got a very slight scientific education, a lowly National Diploma which covered much more anatomy and conservation and husbandry topics than university-level zoology or the intricacies of classification. So I like to think I'm at a reasonably 'normal' level of knowledge about animals, not far far below the average Toy Animal Wiki viewer, and I'd not heard of synapsids til the Wiki had them as a group and I looked up what it meant - I wouldn't have thought of looking for mammals in there til I couldn't find them anywhere else
Earlier today they were filed under Tetrapoda instead, which only seems obvious to the uneducated viewer if our target creature is visibly four-legged and we know enough languages to pick apart the latin term's literal meaning.

And if the Wiki's still supposed to be for the general public, not only those with a particular scientific interest and full understanding of classification, using words the average person would understand is as important as anything else - grouping into vertebrate/invertebrate as a first click division would be fine, that's something most of us know from school or nature programmes on tv, but not everyone's heard of the term Chordata. Synapsida and Tetrapoda are even more obscure to a layperson with a casual interest in animals, or wanting to identify a toy.

I understand that accuracy is incredibly important when actually classifying living animals, and studying it is a rewarding way to gain knowledge and focus on an interest. But not every animal fan has that interest. Clarity and an intuitive interface have to be just as important when setting out a website specifically aimed at helping people ID toy creatures, including those they might not know all that much about in advance. There's a balance to be found where the groupings are correct enough and logical enough, without being impenetrable to people without very specialist knowledge.

Having the sections for Mammals and relatives, Reptiles/Birds/Dinosaurs, Amphibians, and Fish right there, in your face, for the easiest of at-a-glance navigation without having to research terms, is just what this average collector, with a perfectly average level of familiarity with wild and/or domestic animals, finds helpful. I can't be the only one!

I just don't understand the rationale for my block. No one has given me a good explanation of why I should be blocked when I just wanted to improve the wiki. On most wikis, blocking is generally reserved for vandals. When good faith editors make bad changes, they are reverted, with explanations about why they are bad. In fact, even vandals tend to be warned rather than blocked at first. They generally do not block vandals unless they keep on vandalising even after warnings. I understand that some editors have disagreed with some of my taxonomic changes, but isn't the reasonable thing to do to discuss the changes with me and explain why they are not appropriate and ask why I made them? Not to jump straight to indefinite block without the ability to edit my own talk page.

You say that the terms "chordate" and "tetrapod" are unfamiliar to many people. Well, I described chordates as "Chordates (vertebrates and kin)", so if someone knows what a vertebrate is, they'd look for vertebrates there. As for tetrapods, I actually never added a tetrapod page. I actually put tetrapods on the Sarcopterygii page. The description was "Lobe-finned fishes and tetrapods". Even if someone doesn't know what a tetrapod is, most people know what fish and sharks are, so they would be able to reason out that reptiles/birds/mammals/amphibians are not:
* Ray-finned fishes
* Spiny sharks (who are marked as extinct)
* Sharks & allies (I suppose they could be under allies, but few people would expect tetrapods to be related to sharks)
* Armoured fishes
* Jawless fishes (everyone knows that mammals have jaws anyway)

So that leaves:
* Cephalochordate
* Tunicate
* Haikouella (which has been moved the jawless fish now)
* Lobe-finned fishes and tetrapods

Also, I used the reptile photo, File:Diapsida 1.jpg to represent Sarcopterygii. How could anyone see that image and not realise that dinosaurs are in Sarcopterygii? I chose it since dinosaurs are some of the most popular toy animals and people generally see birds as not reptiles, so if birds and (non-avian) reptiles are both in the group, most people would expect mammals to be in it too.

And many English speakers understand that "tetra" means "four" even if they don't know whether it's Latin or Greek. Also, many English speakers have heard of the term "tripod". If someone figures out that "tetrapod" means "four-footed", they would expect it to include four-footed animals, like mammals and non-theropod, non-serpentine reptiles. As for non-quadrupedal tetrapods, such as theropods, humans and snakes, people generally regard them as relatives of four-footed animals. Theropods are recognised as the kin of sauropods, humans as the kin of apes and snakes as the kin of lizards.

Hello Spinosaurus, I know that in Australia, you are at the beginning of the afternoon and in France it is almost 3 am, so I will take advantage of insomnia to answer you.
First I will answer your first question. Yes we blocked you and we didn't ban you. It's better, banning someone is a legal gesture, a gesture of punishment, blocking is a technical maneuver to solve a momentary problem.
We don't judge you.
We don't think you're a Troll and, a priori, we don't consider you a vandal.
We think you've jumped into Wiki editing wholeheartedly and wholeheartedly.
The thing is that you started to touch the very structure of TAW without discussing with anyone and without asking yourself why TAW is built the way it is.
We sent you a first message inviting you to chat with us and your response worried us. We have therefore decided to block you so that you can discuss with us before continuing to edit TAW.
We weren't sure that you would finally agree to chat, but I'm glad to see that you had the right teflex and that the conversation has already started.
So welcome to STS.

Hi, I put the block in place as a preemptive measure because you are a totally unknown person to us, and I was unable to judge from your email if you understand our concerns. Blocks can easily be lifted, and I felt it better to err on the side of caution.

I get the impression you have worked in one or more other wiki environment in the past, or currently. The group of collaborators who started the toy animal wiki did so from scratch, with none of us having worked on a wiki before. The format was chosen as a best fit for our needs. We are toy collectors first and wiki editors a distant second. Perhaps a dozen people have made large contributions over the last decade, but none have been initially skilled in a wiki environment. Your mention of talk pages for instance is something none of us have ever used, it simply wouldnt occur to us to use it or even to know what it is for. Discussions tend to take place here, or through personal email on specific projects. I have been oversensitive in my response perhaps, but keep in mind the very small number of editors we have, only 5 or 6 active editors in any given month. This is a very small project.

I am glad you have joined a discussion here as it will allow us to work through our concerns and welcome you back to editing status.

Over the last few years my own involvement has been fairly minor, with editor account creation and dealing with our hosting company being my main tasks. I otherwise only look in on the wiki a couple of times a month barring special projects or requests. My collection of vintage figures was added years ago and I rarely get animals these days that aren't already on the site.

I know that fish are a very well-known group, so it may be helpful to have a fish group. Unfortunately, fish are paraphyletic, as tetrapods evolved from them. Not only that, but fish have never been treated as a formal taxon. Not even by Linnaeus, who regarded non-avian reptiles as amphibians. His Pisces was Actinopterygii without anglerfish and sturgeons. It didn't include lampreys or cartilagenous fishes. Fish were always understood as a wastebasket group. As such, including fish as a group on ToyAnimalWiki goes against this guideline in the page ToyAnimalWiki:About:

Quote :

By Taxonomy: This will take you to a classification tree designed to roughly mirror current scientific classification schemes. The whole concept of how to classify the tree of life is in flux these days, with multiple interpretations and versions out there. We have included Wikipedia links whenever possible to help you.

If non-monophyletic (or worse, non-taxon) groups are used on this wiki, it makes the system a lot more confusing. If we use fish as a group, what other non-monophyletic groups are OK? It is a slippery slope. Imagine if someone had a group for all red animals. By sticking to monophyletic groups, this system is a lot more consistent. Otherwise, it's too arbitrary. How are you supposed to know which parts of the tree will use monophyletic groups and which ones will use non-monophyletic groups? It's pretty inconsistent to have a fish group when we don't have many other paraphyletic groups, like non-avialan reptiles, non-avialan dinosaurs, lizards (technically we have a Lizard page, but it functions as a Squamate page), monkeys and invertebrates. Other paraphyletic groups we have are protists and Agnatha (jawless fishes).

There is nothing legal (by which I mean law-related, not legally permitted) about topic banning on wikis. It's merely asking someone not to make edits about certain topics. If they violate their ban, they could be blocked. Blocking is the harsher way to deal with people, not topic banning. I agree that the terminology is kind of confusing. On wikis, blocking someone means they can't edit the wiki, no matter how defiant they are. Unless they commit sockpuppetry, that is. And what Wikipedia calls banning is actually just telling someone they can't edit otherwise they will be blocked. Unlike social media, in which preventing editing is called "banning" and preventing someone from communicating with you is called "blocking".

And I knew you were amateurs. I wondered why you were using tables rather than templates. But I thought that the lack of talk page use was due to a desire to save space on the wiki.

Kikimalou wrote:

We sent you a first message inviting you to chat with us and your response worried us. We have therefore decided to block you so that you can discuss with us before continuing to edit TAW.

What was wrong with my response? I didn't understand what taxonomic changes were being criticised. Also, there were no discussions about proposed changes on the forum.

Could you please unblock me? I promise not to reinstate major taxonomic changes (moving classes and higher-ranked groups to other groups or removing them) unless other people agree.

Could someone please make a list of all bad taxonomic changes I made and why they are bad?

Spinosaurus wrote:

Also, I never saw any policy that said that said that the taxonomy pages should use groups that are not only non-monophyletic, but have never been used as taxa in actual, formal scientific taxonomy, such as fish and Ediacaran biota. In fact, the link on the left to Animalia says "By Taxonomy" suggesting that all groups used should be actual taxa, if not clades.

From ToyAnimalWiki:About:

Quote :

By Taxonomy: This will take you to a classification tree designed to roughly mirror current scientific classification schemes. The whole concept of how to classify the tree of life is in flux these days, with multiple interpretations and versions out there. We have included Wikipedia links whenever possible to help you.

My taxonomic changes seem to be more in line with what that page says. So if you're going to block me for making the taxonomy more in line with current scientific classification schemes, then maybe change that line.

This will take you to a classification tree designed to roughly mirror current scientific classification schemes.

Yes roughly.

When we built TAW at its dawn we decided to make a Wiki useful for collectors and we tried to build it with a collector mind. The real world and the Animal toys world are very different.
In the real world there is far more ants than mammals, in our world there is far more lions than ants. There is also far more mammal or dino collectors than Tunicate collectors.
For TAW structures we decided then to use two ways: By companies and by "Roughly taxonomy". We could also have chosen to do it by time period or geographically (by continent for example).
We didn't do it so as not to alleviate the structure and also our work.

We have therefore designed TAW with a collector's mind: Like a showcase, some prefer to present their animals by brand, others by "rough taxonomy".
We therefore designed the taxonomic structure as a showcase.

You will be able to notice that in almost all the pages of this structure the species, the genus, are arranged in alphabetical order.
But not all of them, the page improperly called Animalia (you're right about that) was not arranged in alphabetical order. Why ? George summed it up very well, the logic of a collector, even a scientific collector, is different from scientific logic. We can deplore it or not, it is a fact.
We have put in front display the sections where there are the most toys and also the most collectors. The Mammal section is by far the most imposing of all.
We also chose a "Fish" section which is very very rough, I agree, because the majority of collectors think like that. When we discover a model, we wonder what is this fish and not what is this Sarcopterygii? Even collectors specializing in marine fauna, and who are generally very interested in the scientific aspect, define themselves as Fish collectors.
Now what about Ediacaran biota ? You are right, it is absolutely not taxonomic, even roughly. So why ? How many species in Ediacaran biota? Four ! Hown many models ? Six.
The "Animalia" page is already very crowded, we don't need to make it more crowded for 4 species and 6 models. The Ediacaran Biota is a very specific fauna, the Cambrian Biota too, these species have a strong link between them, not taxonomic but very strong.
By the way, have you seen I roughly haven't change your work on the "old world vultures" page. I say roughly because I needed to rearrange in alphabetical order the Accipitriformes page. I also had to remove all the dead links you had created. That's okay, but it's also a reason we've blocked you for now. Your initiatives give us too much work to either go back or finish what is started. Again, for now it's not a big deal but it would have been if you had changed hundreds of pages before chatting.
I'm going to explain to you why we ourselves hadn't already divided the "Old worlds vultures" page.
We always reason in the logic of the display, of the shelf. As long as a shelf is not saturated, we fill it. You only start dividing when the page is too full and becomes unreadable. Like a display, there's no point monopolizing a shelf for two little vultures when the top shelf is half empty.
I left your job because it makes sense, in recent years the classification of Accipitridae has changed a lot and the separation of "Old world vultures" was a good idea.

Here is a list of taxonomic changes I made and why they are good:
* Split Old World vultures into Aegypiinae and Gypaetinae. This is because Old World vultures are polyphyletic.
* Expanding the Other Kingdoms group to include animals. This is because non-animals are a paraphyletic group. It's only fair that Life be the root and Animal one of the groups under life, rather than the other way around. Non-animal organisms are not animals.
* Split Other Phyla. Seriously, an "Other" group has no place in a taxonomic scheme. The group is clearly non-monophyletic. I was pretty angry that Annelida, one of the biggest animal phyla, was under a wastebasket group like this. Come to think of it, most of those phyla (penis worms are the sole exception) could go under Spiralia (Molluscs, segmented worms and allies).
* Split Ediacaran Biota. This a polyphyletic non-taxon that doesn't even describe how organisms look like. Ediacaran biota aren't even necessarily animals, yet they were put under Animalia. While the four on this wiki are all animals, it's still technically incorrect to put Ediacaran Biota under Animalia. And why would they be treated as a superdomain? That would imply that all eukaryotes are Ediacaran biota. It also means Ediacaran Biota is above Animalia, contradicting the Animal page, which included it as a subgroup. Rather than using Ediacaran Biota as a taxon, Ediacaran should have been treated as a period/temporal range. Some Mesozoic dinosaur pages have a period or temporal range, such as "Late Jurassic".
* Removing the Vertebrate page. It was redundant, since there was already a Chordate page. And only two chordate groups that weren't vertebrates. If both Vertebrata and Chordata were used as taxa, then there would be only three chordate groups. What's wrong with having two invertebrate groups alongside the vertebrates? I know vertebrates are a well-known group, but not all well-known groups are necessary.
* Splitting Fish. It may be well-known, but it's also a paraphyletic non-taxon. It isn't necessary, especially when you have a Chordate page with only three groups containing organisms other than fish. And everyone who has heard of lobe-finned fish/coelacanths/lungfish would know that they are related to tetrapods.
* Putting tetrapods (Reptile, Synapsid and Amphibian) in Chordata, then in Sarcopterygii. As I split Other Phyla and Ediacaran Biota, there were too many groups under Animal. So I had to group some things together. I thought that chordates should be one group since they are a phylum. Putting different kinds of chordate like reptiles, synapsids and amphibians under Animal seems incredibly anthropocentric to me. I know that most people have a very anthropocentric perspective, but we shouldn't be encouraging that. Most toy animals are probably chordates, but that's no excuse not to group them together. Also, the exclusion of tetrapods from groups like chordates, fish and Sarcoptergyii was making those groups paraphyletic.
* Adding the West Indian Ocean coelacanth and Axelrodichthys to coelacanths. Axelrodichthys was a coelacanth and I saw that one of the coelacanths was described as a West Indian Ocean coelacanth.

Spinosaurus wrote:

But the Ediacaran Biota group does not help anyone to find animals more easily on ToyAnimalWiki.

Pros of Edicaran Biota:
* Three less items on the page Animal, other Life kingdoms and Legendary creatures.

But a much better group would be Synapsida, Reptiles, Amphibia, Fish, Cephalochordate and Tunicate; as they actually form a clade, phylum Chordata, which is recognised pretty much everywhere. iNaturalist has it, GBIF has it and almost all Wikipedia articles about chordates have Phylum Chordata in the taxobox. The exceptions are the ones that don't have a taxobox, such as Pachydermata. Adding Chordate and removing Edicaran Biota would result in two less items on the page Animal, other Life kingdoms and Legendary creatures.

Yes it help, it helps to let the Animal, other Life kingdoms and Legendary creatures page not two crowded for six toys.

Synapsida, Reptiles, Amphibia and Fishes are the biggest part of the Toys world and therefore on TAW, it is absolutely not helpful to put them in a single Chordate entry on the Animal, other Life kingdoms and Legendary creatures page. They need to be at the top of the page, very visible.

I have nothing to complaint about iNaturalist, GBIF and Wikipedia. If a colector or everyone else ask me where to find good scientific informations about animals I will ask him or her "Try iNaturalist, GBIF and Wikipedia".

If a colector or everyone else ask me where to find good ans exhaustive information about animal toys, I won't tell him or her "Try iNaturalist, GBIF and Wikipedia". In this case these websites are big nuts.

We aren't trying to build another great Scientific website using toys, there'salready enough Scientific website.

We have been building something unique for years, a site where all the manufactured animal toys from around the world and from all eras would be listed, classified and photographed.
It's not much and at the same time colossal and ambitious.
This is what we are building, keeping in mind that this site is built by collectors to help collectors and therefore with a collector's logic.

Spinosaurus wrote:

Well most birds are passerines, and guess what. Ornithologists (and ToyAnimalWiki) group them together. Also, most animals are insects. Yet insects are still grouped into one class, rather than being split into many phyla. I know that insects are severely underrepresented on ToyAnimalWiki (as they are severely underrepresented in toy animals), but my point still stands. You shouldn't go out of your way to equalise groups.

We're not going out of our way, maybe it's you who doesn't understand our way.

As Tiermann (Tim) told you, there are only a handful of us editing TAW.
On the other hand, there are many collectors who give us a hand, by providing photos, information on brands, by identifying species, in short by talking to each other about our passion and by sharing information and also good times. .
You say you want to improve TAW and I'm sure that's true. But I'm sorry, you don't realize it, but that's not what you did.
TAW has been a collective work for years and it's not even the editors who decide everything between them, most things are discussed on STS.
You arrived on November 7 full of good intentions and you started moving the furniture, changing the names of the rooms as if you were at home and without asking anyone. TAW is a collective work, not an individual company or the property of anyone.
Improving TAW is not that.
The job on TAW is to open new pages for new toys, display a copyright free photograph, list them both on the company pages and also on the roughly taxonomic pages. That's the biggest job and that's also the real "raison d'être" of TAW. Everything else is meaningless.
To use the metaphor of the house, the job is to fill the cupboards, not to move them without asking.
You have to understand it.

Spinosaurus wrote:

I know that fish are a very well-known group, so it may be helpful to have a fish group. Unfortunately, fish are paraphyletic, as tetrapods evolved from them. Not only that, but fish have never been treated as a formal taxon. Not even by Linnaeus, who regarded non-avian reptiles as amphibians. His Pisces was Actinopterygii without anglerfish and sturgeons. It didn't include lampreys or cartilagenous fishes. Fish were always understood as a wastebasket group. As such, including fish as a group on ToyAnimalWiki goes against this guideline in the page ToyAnimalWiki:About:

Quote :

By Taxonomy: This will take you to a classification tree designed to roughly mirror current scientific classification schemes. The whole concept of how to classify the tree of life is in flux these days, with multiple interpretations and versions out there. We have included Wikipedia links whenever possible to help you.

If non-monophyletic (or worse, non-taxon) groups are used on this wiki, it makes the system a lot more confusing. If we use fish as a group, what other non-monophyletic groups are OK? It is a slippery slope. Imagine if someone had a group for all red animals. By sticking to monophyletic groups, this system is a lot more consistent. Otherwise, it's too arbitrary. How are you supposed to know which parts of the tree will use monophyletic groups and which ones will use non-monophyletic groups? It's pretty inconsistent to have a fish group when we don't have many other paraphyletic groups, like non-avialan reptiles, non-avialan dinosaurs, lizards (technically we have a Lizard page, but it functions as a Squamate page), monkeys and invertebrates. Other paraphyletic groups we have are protists and Agnatha (jawless fishes).

No it's not a lot more confusing for collectors. If it was, members of STS would already told us that for years. You can believe me, collectors on STS are very talkative when a subject interests us or challenges us. When there is a problem on TAW, when it is necessary to make corrections, we have a discussion on STS and we take a decision accepted by all or by a large majority.
There is real Science professionnals on STS, and even them aren't compalining.
This is all the more crucial when it comes to moving furniture, we really need to discuss before upsetting habits
And what are you doing ? You bring, on your own, solutions to problems that no one poses and therefore you create a mess without realizing it.

Kikimalou wrote:

I also had to remove all the dead links you had created. That's okay, but it's also a reason we've blocked you for now. Your initiatives give us too much work to either go back or finish what is started. Again, for now it's not a big deal but it would have been if you had changed hundreds of pages before chatting.

I did not create any dead links. When I moved pages, the old page redirected to the new one. That is not a dead link. I didn't consider it to be a high priority to fix these links. They take you to the right page. You on the other hand, deleted the Avemetatarsalia page. That resulted in a dead link on both the Dinosaur and Pterosaur pages, as they say "Get back to Pan-Aves". I had moved Pan-Aves to Avemetatarsalia. I think you were right to remove the Avemetatarsalia page, but you probably should have either redirected it Reptile or fixed the links.

And it's not a good reason to block me either. Especially since those pages needed to be moved. If you think I should have fixed the links, you should have said so. I can fix the links. Blocking me actually hinders the effort to make sure links link directly to the correct page. If I wasn't blocked, I would fix the links if you told me to.

Spinosaurus wrote:

There is nothing legal (by which I mean law-related, not legally permitted) about topic banning on wikis. It's merely asking someone not to make edits about certain topics. If they violate their ban, they could be blocked. Blocking is the harsher way to deal with people, not topic banning. I agree that the terminology is kind of confusing. On wikis, blocking someone means they can't edit the wiki, no matter how defiant they are. Unless they commit sockpuppetry, that is. And what Wikipedia calls banning is actually just telling someone they can't edit otherwise they will be blocked. Unlike social media, in which preventing editing is called "banning" and preventing someone from communicating with you is called "blocking".

And I knew you were amateurs. I wondered why you were using tables rather than templates. But I thought that the lack of talk page use was due to a desire to save space on the wiki.

First, I find it funny that you explain to us how we should behave on a wiki while you were careful not to ask anyone how to behave on TAW.

If we blocked you, it's to prevent you from doing more damage before chatting with us, that's all. This is our way and you are the first to be ban or block or anything else, we didn't do it because you were on the wrong side of the law but just to avoid damage. We accepted that you join TAW, we did not accept that you disturb everything as you wish.

We are indeed amateurs about wiki subtilities and who cares.

We don't need talk pages on TAW because we don't discuss between editors but between collectors which is a lot bigger community.

Kikimalou wrote:

And what are you doing ? You bring, on your own, solutions to problems that no one poses and therefore you create a mess without realizing it.

Well I bring up those issues. There is a problem with using non-monophyletic groups in a supposedly taxonomic system. Especially if the taxonomic system is supposed to mirror current scientific classification schemes. If we are going to use non-monophyletic groups, there needs to be a good justification for it. Too much non-monophyly and it goes from "roughly mirroring current scientific classification schemes" to "barely mirroring current scientific classification schemes".

Non-monophyletic groups are misleading.

Kikimalou wrote:

If we blocked you, it's to prevent you from doing more damage before chatting with us, that's all. This is our way and you are the first to be ban or block or anything else, we didn't do it because you were on the wrong side of the law but just to avoid damage. We accepted that you join TAW, we did not accept that you disturb everything as you wish.

But I don't mean to do "damage". And I don't mean to disturb anything. I am trying to improve the wiki. You have acknowledged that I am not a vandal or a troll. Why treat me like one, then? Maybe add new rules about making major taxonomic changes or something. I will happily follow any rules that admins add to TAW.

Kikimalou wrote:

...solutions to problems that no one poses

Kikimalou wrote:

...we didn't do it because you were on the wrong side of the law

That's not what "pose" and "law" mean. Wiki rules are not laws and bringing up or raising problems is not posing them. If someone was posing a problem, that would mean that they are causing the problem, not bringing it up (for discussion).

Spinosaurus wrote:

Kikimalou wrote:

We sent you a first message inviting you to chat with us and your response worried us. We have therefore decided to block you so that you can discuss with us before continuing to edit TAW.

What was wrong with my response? I didn't understand what taxonomic changes were being criticised. Also, there were no discussions about proposed changes on the forum.

Indeed there are no discussions about the changes you made because nobody ask for these changes.

But there is a lot of discussions about TAW HERE, more precisely HERE and you can find discussions about animal toys species or brands HERE and THERE.

You began your work on november 7, we discover what you were doing on november 10, we discussed about what to do and decided to send you mail asking you to have a talk with us on STS.

Here is your answer on november 11 :

Spinosaurus wrote:

I haven't seen anyone say anything about my taxonomic changes (apart from you). And neither has anyone reverted them. Also, you didn't say which taxonomic changes. So I'm guessing that people emailed you about my changes.

But I did see people complaining about ToyAnimalWiki's certificate problem.
https://sts-forum.forumieren.de/t24168-cannot-load-the-wiki-anymore

And I complained about it on your talk page.

Yes we didn't say anything about your taxonomic changes which really begin on november 10. Since you were talking us thru a talk page we don't use even if we told you we have discussions about proposed changes at the STS forum and invite you to join us, since you answered that people were complaining about TAW on STS without even taking the time to read this topic which dated from June (Buddies was just complaining about not being able to access TAW and the problem was resolved), it seemed important to us to stop the machine and see if you were going to come and chat or not.
We all build TAW in our spare time and the prospect of spending that time re-editing pages behind you was unthinkable.

Kikimalou wrote:

...careful not to ask anyone how to behave on TAW

Surely you mean "not careful to ask anyone how to behave on TAW"? Of course I wasn't thinking, "I'd better not ask anyone how to behave". Rather, I was thinking, "if anyone disagrees with my changes, they can revert them and discuss them with me". I couldn't find any rules or guidelines against making major changes without asking other people. If there was, it would have to define "major change". You know, on Wikipedia, important pages are often protected or semi-protected. And most wikis use talk pages to discuss changes, not external forums. How was I supposed to know that changes were supposed to be discussed on STS forum?

Kikimalou wrote:

...without even taking the time to read this topic which dated from June (Buddies was just complaining about not being able to access TAW and the problem was resolved), it seemed important to us to stop the machine and see if you were going to come and chat or not.

But I did read it. And the problem was not resolved. I know that you can access the wiki by going to a subpage, but that's a workaround if you ask me. People should not be forced to resort to workarounds just to access a website. I expected to be able to access the wiki by just typing toyanimal.info. And I'm sure most people do too. From a usability perspective, I reckon that having toyanimal.info actually take you to the wiki is more important than having fish as a group and putting Synapsida, Reptilia and Amphibia directly under Animalia instead of requiring you to go through Chordata and Sarcopterygii, which are unambiguously labelled so there is no confusion. It's not like people can't use the search bar.

Spinosaurus wrote:

Here is a list of taxonomic changes I made and why they are good:
* Split Old World vultures into Aegypiinae and Gypaetinae. This is because Old World vultures are polyphyletic.
* Expanding the Other Kingdoms group to include animals. This is because non-animals are a paraphyletic group. It's only fair that Life be the root and Animal one of the groups under life, rather than the other way around. Non-animal organisms are not animals.
* Split Other Phyla. Seriously, an "Other" group has no place in a taxonomic scheme. The group is clearly non-monophyletic. I was pretty angry that Annelida, one of the biggest animal phyla, was under a wastebasket group like this. Come to think of it, most of those phyla (penis worms are the sole exception) could go under Spiralia (Molluscs, segmented worms and allies).
* Split Ediacaran Biota. This a polyphyletic non-taxon that doesn't even describe how organisms look like. Ediacaran biota aren't even necessarily animals, yet they were put under Animalia. While the four on this wiki are all animals, it's still technically incorrect to put Ediacaran Biota under Animalia. And why would they be treated as a superdomain? That would imply that all eukaryotes are Ediacaran biota. It also means Ediacaran Biota is above Animalia, contradicting the Animal page, which included it as a subgroup. Rather than using Ediacaran Biota as a taxon, Ediacaran should have been treated as a period/temporal range. Some Mesozoic dinosaur pages have a period or temporal range, such as "Late Jurassic".
* Removing the Vertebrate page. It was redundant, since there was already a Chordate page. And only two chordate groups that weren't vertebrates. If both Vertebrata and Chordata were used as taxa, then there would be only three chordate groups. What's wrong with having two invertebrate groups alongside the vertebrates? I know vertebrates are a well-known group, but not all well-known groups are necessary.
* Splitting Fish. It may be well-known, but it's also a paraphyletic non-taxon. It isn't necessary, especially when you have a Chordate page with only three groups containing organisms other than fish. And everyone who has heard of lobe-finned fish/coelacanths/lungfish would know that they are related to tetrapods.
* Putting tetrapods (Reptile, Synapsid and Amphibian) in Chordata, then in Sarcopterygii. As I split Other Phyla and Ediacaran Biota, there were too many groups under Animal. So I had to group some things together. I thought that chordates should be one group since they are a phylum. Putting different kinds of chordate like reptiles, synapsids and amphibians under Animal seems incredibly anthropocentric to me. I know that most people have a very anthropocentric perspective, but we shouldn't be encouraging that. Most toy animals are probably chordates, but that's no excuse not to group them together. Also, the exclusion of tetrapods from groups like chordates, fish and Sarcoptergyii was making those groups paraphyletic.
* Adding the West Indian Ocean coelacanth and Axelrodichthys to coelacanths. Axelrodichthys was a coelacanth and I saw that one of the coelacanths was described as a West Indian Ocean coelacanth.

And I explained you why they aren't good. How many collectors asked you to do these changes ? None !

How many years have you spend building TAW ? Do you ask yourself this kind of question ?

We invite you to discuss with the founders of TAW and with the community of STS Collectors and you come to explain us what we don't understand and tell us what to do. It's rather funny

One example: * Adding the West Indian Ocean coelacanth and Axelrodichthys to coelacanths. Axelrodichthys was a coelacanth and I saw that one of the coelacanths was described as a West Indian Ocean coelacanth.Mawsoniidae

Great And I had to change this again, thank you. Why ? Because we wanted to let all the West Indian Ocean coelacanths ( the blue ones) on the coelacanth page. Why ? Because there is no need to open one more page and to put all the blue Coelacanth on this new page and let the Coelacanth page empty, it is silly. So is there a chance we would open a West Indian Ocean coelacanth page ? Of course yes, as soon as a collector can provide us a pic of the Ikimon Indonesian coelacanth since it is the only Indonesian coelacanth toy known.
Why not adding Axelrodichthys to Coelacanth ? Because Axelrodichthys aren't Coelacanth, they are Coelacanthiformes from the Mawsoniidae family. Coelacanths are Coelacanthiformes from the Latimeriidae family. It's not because someone on Wikipedia stupidely decided to rename the Coelacanthiformes page "Coelacanth" that we have to follow him on this silly path.
You are explaining us that taxonomy is sacred and you agree to put a Mawsoniid on a Latimeriid page ?
So you decided to open the West Indian Ocean coelacanth page and put only one of them here because it was labelled like that ? Don't you know the main difference between Coelacanths is the colours ? West Indian Ocean coelacanths are blue with lighter bue spots and Indonesian coelacanth are brown.
All teh Coelacanths on the page were West Indian Ocean coelacanth toys. So you acted without thinking as a collector would do.
So you opened the West Indian Ocean coelacanth page and let it full of dead links. Why ? because you pasted the wikipedia first lines without removing the note and links of Wikipedia. Obviously you didn't even take the time to look at the page thus created, otherwise you would have seen a dozen very red dead links which made the page awful. I wasted time correcting all this.
I also put all the Blue coelacanths on thsi new page since they were all West Indian Ocean coelacanths. A few minutes later you decided to take the safari Ltd off the page on the pretext that it had placed it in its Prehistoric line and therefore it could not be a West Indian Ocean coelacanth. Really ? The West Indian Ocean coelacanths may not be extinct but they are animals that have been around since prehistoric times. There is no reason to think that Safari Ltd wanted to create an extinct Coelacanth and painted it blue because it was out of red paint. If Safari Ltd painted it blue with light blue dots it's because they want to sell toys and a West Indian Ocean coelacanth is more salable than a red coelacanth with green dots.

The more I read you and the more I ask myself a question, are you a collector? What exactly do you collect?