User talk:Madeleine Price Ball

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March 21, 2007 – current

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[edit] Current talk

Go ahead, say something. -Madeleine

[edit] Post-transcriptional regulation

The AfD on this article has already been closed. I disagree with making it a redirect, the subject is too important not to have its own article. As a stub it is on stub lists, plus I listed it on a couple of Wikipedia projects to get attention. As a redirect to a different article, it won't be listed as a stub, and it won't be recognized for a major topic in desperate need of attention. --Blechnic (talk) 04:44, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, if it's too obscure for the main article, it doesn't belong there. If it's so important it merits its own article it usually gets one. Consider it for a moment, too obscure doesn't merit its own article. And too major to be only part of another article, as with this topic, is the case. --Blechnic (talk) 04:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Quantification of nucleic acids

Excellent article but if I'm not mistaken there is an inconsistancy between your extinction coefficient and your example:

extinction coefficient for double-stranded DNA is ~50 (ug/ml)-1 cm-1,

Thus, an optical density (or "OD")

of 1 corresponds to a concentration of 50 \ug/ml for double-stranded DNA.

an extinction coefficient of 50 (ug/ml)-1 cm-1 implies that an optical density of 50 corresponds to 1 ug/ml (but the sample would have to be diluted for an accurate reading); or an optical density of 1 corresponds to 1/50 ug/ml or 20 ng/ml

From your links I take it the example is correct, in which case the extinction coefficient is (1/50 = 0.02 OD per (ug/ml). that would be 20 per g/l. assuming Nmp MW ~350 a solution 1 mM in bases would be 350 mg/l = 350 ug/ml and would absorb 7 OD, for a molar extinction coeff of 7x10^3 which seems pretty reasonable.

(Of course I may be completely confused!) Ed Berry Eaberry (talk) 10:35, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sex

Is it just me or did you replace the entire article with a new version? Do you realize how many people have contributed to such an article? It seems to me that you've shown very little respect for their efforts, and neglected to try to keep anything of value. I think just about the only contribution I made was to add a see also link to sexual conflict, an important topic which I note you didn't bother to mention even in a see also section. I guess I'll add it again myself, and wait for the next person to rewrite it. Richard001 (talk) 07:51, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I do realize a lot of people made contributions to the article when I approached it. This is why I made a lot of effort to get other opinions on the rewrite and what the article should cover. See Talk:Sex#Rewrite of article, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sexology and sexuality#Sex, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology#Sex, and Wikipedia talk:Version_1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics#Sex. No secret has been made of this rewrite—you can see how difficult it has been to get feedback. This article obviously had no "steward", as you so aptly describe on your userpage. I chose to become that steward when I proposed and made the rewrite. I would eventually like to take this core article to FA and it's been difficult to get any feedback.
As you know, the "see also" section is deprecated, material should be covered within the body of the article. I'm sorry your link got removed; I thought I had covered everything in the article. As I noted on the talk page, I think the article should have a top level section on evolution and I think this link could eventually go in there.
I like you. I'm surprised, hurt, and disappointed that you're so quick to be angry with me. In my past experience (and up to now with the Sex article), I've been too hesitant to throw away old material and too slow to rewrite. Because I got no response to my proposal, and because the article was so poorly written, I went ahead and did it. Wikipedia encourages us to be bold. Alastair Haines, who works on Gender, seemed happy with it. -- Madeleine ✉ ✍ 11:09, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, that was quite an overreaction. It looks like you've made a great job of rewriting it, which is surely an improvement regardless of whether you may have discarded some things that were of value or not. I also haven't exactly looked closely at your changes, so it may well have been just one tiny thing you overlooked. I am too easily annoyed when I make what I see as an improvement to an article and then someone comes along and undoes that work, and often I'm too quick to tell the person responsible off without thinking carefully about what I say. I certainly didn't mean the article would need any further rewriting, that was more a reflection on cases where I've re-added something and then someone else again has come along and messed things up yet again.
I disagree about see also sections. They are useful for links that should be in the article but aren't currently there (and you don't have time to rewrite sections of the article to include them). And lately I'm also inclined to think that there is a place for other relevant links that don't quite make it into the article (perhaps because of size) but are still of potential interest, though this vary from article to article.
Anyway, sexual conflict is an often overlooked area relating to sex and should definitely be incorporated into the article somehow. The problem is that article is itself so poor. With my obsessive bottom up approach I would probably work on improving that first, but then I would be forced to work on poor quality articles summarized there as well, and so on ad infinitum...
Again, I apologize for both what I said and the way I said it. I look forward to working with you at the genetics project. Take care. Richard001 (talk) 02:27, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Genetic project

Thank you for setting up the page. Of course, I'm interested. Let's create a comprehensive genetic project. NCurse work 08:12, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] PCR

Dear Madeleine, it's past my bedtime, (UK), there's no need for a simplified version of PCR ; it will just confuse folk. I didn't like the way the links to PCR were substituted for a v. poor version. Please do what you can WRT the debate. Best wishes. Graham. GrahamColmTalk 23:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Done! I hadn't realized links were systematically substituted like that, I think that's pretty unacceptable. Madeleine ✉ ✍ 00:14, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Genetics newsletter

Hi Madeleine. I created a template newsletter at Wikipedia:WikiProject Genetics/Newsletter. Please revise as necessary as I copied it from here and the information really does not apply. The newsletter may be delivered by bot request (hopefully) to Wikipedians interested in genetics as a way of recruiting more WikiProject Genetics participants. GregManninLB (talk) 03:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help! This is great! Probably a while before I'd be able to make a newsletter but we'll see. Madeleine ✉ ✍ 04:18, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Genetics Outreach

Wikipedia:Bot requests is willing to post a notice on the talk pages of Wikipedians interested in genetics to let them know about the new WikiProject Genetics. However, they need someone to specify the message so that a bot owner doesn't have to guess at it. If you have the time, would you compose the notification message and post a request at Wikipedia:Bot requests. Thanks. GregManninLB (talk) 06:02, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Genetics article tagging

Would you please review my request at Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Category:Genetics_tagging to confirm that all the articles in Category:Genetics should be tagged with the WikiProject Genetics banner. Thanks. GregManninLB (talk) 06:12, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm waiting for your approval also. CWii(Talk|Contribs) 14:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Intro to genetics

Hi there Madeleine, is there any other topics that you think this article should introduce? Tim Vickers (talk) 22:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow, this is really good!! Great work! I'm so happy someone took the plunge and made this, it's far better than I imagined it could be. :-))
But, looking at it critically... I think each article with an Intro to genetics hatnote link should have a section within this article ... eg. you could split off that paragraph on mutation and label it "mutation". Otherwise someone coming to this article from there will be very confused. If you can't see an appropriate section (eg chromosome) it might be best to remove the link? (maybe we should have an intro to cell biology?) Not sure what to do about DNA... but you get the idea, the browsing reader is going to be confused if they don't immediately see how the topic they came from is covered in this article.
Thinking of reader oriented topics... they're probably a couple genetic technologies they'll want to know about: paternity testing / genetic fingerprinting, genetically modified organisms, and maybe genetic testing. I think the article is great as it is, but if you're brainstorming for another thing to cover you might try these. :-)
some little comments on little things:
  • for "Traits are often inherited, for example tall and thin people tend to have tall and thin children. However, many traits come from the interaction between inherited features and the environment. For example a person might inherit the tendency to be fat, but if there is very little food where they live, they will still be thin." I think these examples should match more (either tall parents/children + poor nutrition causes tall -> short, or fat parents/children + poor nutrition fat -> thin)... fat is a loaded example and I'd be inclined to avoid arguments about its heritability by sticking to the tall/short example.
  • My computer programmer friend got confused when reading Genetics because I used the word "copies" to refer to diploid (I think I tried to remove it in response, but it's difficult). You also use the word "identical". In his mind that meant the alleles had to be the same because if they were different they wouldn't be "copies" or "identical". Honestly, I don't know what the best way to address this is, I can't think of a good other word to use but I thought I should mention it. He's probably not a good example of an average reader, but he was impressively uneducated about genetics (eg. "are all four bases on one strand, or two on each?").
  • Gene notation: I don't think "Bg" is typical notation, I think usually people use the same letter for both alleles. (see [1]) You could avoid confusion by using a blue/brown example?
  • might want to mention albinos also have white skin. this is the most noticeable feature for the majority of humanity.
Thank you for all your work on this, it looks roughly a billion times improved! -- Madeleine ✉ ✍ 22:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments, I'll work on them over the next few days. One thing you mention I changed deliberately, since I had blue/brown eyes originally, but changed this to make it clearer for blind people using screen readers (I'm partially sighted myself so this is often something on my mind). Anyway, thanks for the excellent suggestions! Tim Vickers (talk) 01:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Does braille not have case? That's a tough call, I leave it up to you. It's good to pay attention to these things. Madeleine ✉ ✍ 01:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking about screen reader applications that convert text to speech, something we also do with our spoken articles. A simple solution to the linked article problem (I don't think I can do enough subsections) is to have each link as a term defined in the glossary at the start. This also shows which terms are most important to define. Skimming your list, genetic engineering and GMOs seem like good things to add, since these are often in the news. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:48, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Please don't use edit summaries like this, even if you are feeling annoyed. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, it was out of line. Madeleine ✉ ✍ 19:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] If you are still watching Genetic Code

There is a new image on the bottom of the discussion page. Doug youvan (talk) 16:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I would appreciate some feedback ...

on the genetic code talk page before the figure being discussed is inserted. Doug youvan (talk) 02:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Apologies, I've been really too busy for Wikipedia (you'll see I haven't been making edits). I don't have the time it would take to examine this stuff in depth. I was able to make a brief comment regarding SVGs. Sorry. Madeleine ✉ ✍ 02:37, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for bearing with me through that last edit. My questions are now answered and closed. Someone more experienced than me should archive the discussion page. Doug youvan (talk) 06:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
The page is not too big to load (and if it were, the archive should take the oldest sections), and the discussion resulted in changes to the article. I'm pretty sure this sort of thing should not be archived. These things are useful to people who may come along in six months and wonder where the diagram came from... Madeleine ✉ ✍ 15:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)