User talk:UtherSRG

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		I, Hojimachong, hereby award UtherSRG A completely gratuitous zOMG barnstar, for being 110% awesome. Plus 1. --Hojimachongtalk

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Padshah UtherSRG 2024

You wrote "Since you can't explain in your own words, I see no reason to unblock you"

What own words? What do mean?

• What questions should I answer You just decline the unblock request.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Homo sapiens History (talk • contribs)

Removal of Describers

I would really appreciate it if you did not delete describers from the pages that I am creating.

Thanks Phil Fish (talk) 17:01, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Do you mean the red categories you had on Cnesterodon pirai? Red categories are strictly disallowed. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:08, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Humanzee illustration

But the fully scientific illustration is impossible by definition, while this example is based on a work by a professional bio-illustrator? Strecosaurus (talk) 19:04, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

There are plenty of images of life recreations (a technical term for art of non-living species) that don't place them unduly into a human setting. The art is fantastic, but I mean that in both in assessing the technical merits of the work and in the unrealism of the human setting. - UtherSRG (talk) 23:04, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

What difference does the background make, as long as it's neutral? (And even regular chimps are sometimes dressed like that for ads and stock images - I've even seen dogs "doing science" - what do you mean by unrealistic background?) Strecosaurus (talk) 00:48, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

So frankly I'm very confused as to why this image should be deleted (plus again it's as scientific as there ever will be short of an actual photo of a humanzee). Strecosaurus (talk) 00:54, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

African Wild Dog Conservancy

Hey. I saw that you reverted my edits on African Wild Dog Conservancy, which now again redirects to African wild dog. I understand the reasoning and apologise for not pronouncing my reasonign behind my edit. Background: "African Wild Dog Conservancy" is the registered name both of an NGO based in the United States, and of a gazetted conservation area in Namibia. While I can't say much on the US NGO (the available information on their current level of activity is a little sketchy), I do see relevance for a stand-alone article on the Namibian conservation area. In Namibia, African Wild Dog Conservancy is the legal name of a geographically demarcated conservation area of 3824 km2, inhabitated by approximately 5 000 people. Although it carries the name "African Wild Dog" the purpose of the conservation area is broader and not specifically targeted ad Wild Dogs. A simple redirect to African wild dog will not do it justice. I therefore do suggest that African Wild Dog Conservancy is turned into a page about the Namibian conservation area, while for the US NGO a referenced mention on African wild dog is sufficient. Calidumpluviam (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 15:51, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

You should take this to WP:DRV. Read the instructions there before making a request. I'm not the admin you need to ask, but the admin who deleted it via the AFD. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:54, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Calidumpluviam (talk) 09:05, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Deletion review for African Wild Dog Conservancy

An editor has asked for a deletion review of African Wild Dog Conservancy. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Calidumpluviam (talk) 09:32, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Carnivora

Hi, did you mean to roll back my edits at Carnivora? Nardog (talk) 23:30, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Your edits were not correct. car-nih-vor-ah.... not car-niv-or-ah. - UtherSRG (talk) 23:44, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Not correct how? What are you saying is the difference between kar-NIH-vər-ə and kar-NIV-ər-ə? Nardog (talk) 00:05, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

The "V" is in the third syllable, not the second. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:37, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

So the OED is wrong? Nardog (talk) 00:39, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I see they spell it that way, but I listen to their pronunciation and I hear it they way I say it, with the V in the third syllable. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:43, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster agrees with me. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:45, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

That's because there is no one universally agreed-upon method of syllabification for English, as explained in English phonology#Phonotactics. /ɪ/ is a checked vowel so English speakers find it difficult to produce it when it's not preceded by a consonant, as in nih. Respelling the following consonant together in the same syllable, as in niv, allows them to more intuitively identify what is meant by i. That's why we respell Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Libya, Himalayas, Mississippi, Cicero, Manila, Guinea, Anguilla, Brittany, Tbilisi, Barbiturate, Sikkim, Inuit, etc. with i and the following consonant in the same syllable, which Merriam-Webster does not do. If you think we should adopt M-W's syllabification, by all means suggest it on Help talk:Pronunciation respelling key, but you haven't made a case for why carnivora in particular should be exempt from this widely followed practice. Nardog (talk) 00:54, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I do not see anywhere in the help link that the change you made is in any way more or less in alignment with our MOS. Can you be more specific? Looking at Illinois, for example, I see that respell is at odds with IPA. This seems confusing. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:45, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

See the first and fifth notes in H:RESPELL. The syllabification in IPA and respelling need not match. ih is a compromise for when it would be misleading to syllabify the following consonant together. The implicit corollary is that there's no reason not to syllabify it together when doing so comes with no disadvantage (as in carnivora).

I'm still at a loss as to why you think kar-NIH-vər-ə is superior to kar-NIV-ər-ə. Do you think nih /nɪ/ is a more plausible word than niv /nɪv/? Nardog (talk) 01:54, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Looks like note 1 allows your spelling, but doesn't make it preferred or mandatory. It would seem that maintaining alignment with IPA would be preferrable when possible, reserving the misalignment for when doing so adds clarity. Note 5 doesn't say anything about where the V goes, only that ih is used to disambiguate the sound when needed. Neither nih nor niv are words. With nih being the accented syllable, the checked vowel is more dominant than the following consonant. If I were teaching a child how to pronounce via resepll, I would think nih would be more helpful in learning the correct pronunciation. - UtherSRG (talk) 02:19, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

In fact, note 1 only deals with when the checked vowel is followed by a stressed syllable. In carnivora, the checked vowel is the stressed syllable, so Note 1 doesn't apply. - UtherSRG (talk) 02:21, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

No word in the entire English language ends in a stressed /ɪ/. That's why most sources, including the OED, Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, American Heritage Dictionary, and Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, syllabify it and the following consonant together, placing M-W in the minority.

Note 1 is about how one should go against the usual syllabification in IPA to help readers precisely by syllabifying a checked vowel and the following consonant together. We wouldn't be prescribing it if we didn't think it was more helpful and intuitive to do so, stressed or not.

Of course the vowel is more dominant than the consonants in the syllable—that's the definition of a vowel—that it constitutes the syllable nucleus. If that's why you think kar-NIH-vər-ə is more helpful than kar-NIV-ər-ə, then isn't karn-IH-vər-ə even more so? If not, why not?

And do you think the respellings in Minnesota etc. I mentioned above should be changed? If not, what makes carnivora an exception? Nardog (talk) 03:21, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

No word ends in a stressed i, but syllables most certainly do. No, karn would be wrong. N is the first sound of the second syllable. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:04, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

You keep insisting with no reference what is or is not part of the syllable, while I've shown you there exist competing methods for syllabifying English words, and ignoring my repeated question about what makes this word in particular special. If you don't have an actual concrete argument, please keep your preference out of our articles. Again, if you think we should change how we respell syllables with checked vowels, bring it up on the key's talk page, but you have made no justification for why we should treat Carnivora differently from thousands of other articles in which we respell checked vowels and the following consonants together. Nardog (talk) 22:37, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikidata entries

Thanks for adding the Wikidata entries for all the sawfly species I added to Wikipedia. It was on my to-do list but now I can cross that off and add more sawflies!

Your hard work is not unnoticed. 😁

Epolk (talk) 00:09, 17 August 2024 (UTC)