Jump to content

Talk:Introduction to viruses/Archive 1

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
< Talk:Introduction to viruses
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Anthony Appleyard (talk | contribs) at 10:01, 25 July 2009 (typo). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Archive 1

Richard

Dear Graham, This is already VERY similar to what I kind of envisioned! well done. (You may have noticed that I was working on a small draft when the article was deleted WHILE I WAS EDITING IT!) Wow they are quick here! Anyway all is well. Good work and I will start to edit this draft asap.--Read-write-services (talk) 22:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Dear Richard, we must be living in completely different time zones. I am so tired; it's past my bedtime, and you, I guess, have just got up or returned home, (maybe?). I saw the "deletion saga" this morning. Yes, they can be too quick. I'm receiving some doubtful comments about this project too. (See my talk page). But what harm can be done? It will be interesting to see what comes out of this. Lastly, we need to think about citations. I make much use of the medical literature, which might not be appropriate here. I will have to think about this. Sorry for any typos - a very tired --GrahamColmTalk 22:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Okay I have cleaned up a great deal of this, I think where transcription etc. is located it's too over the head for an intro-can you rewrite that bit to a little simpler and I think it will be better? There are almost direct copies of virus in some areas, making the article move slightly towards complexity. Also the lack of "a hydroxyl group", in what way stops a virus??? I have an idea, but a layperson would not understand WHY - Can you extrapolate on this bit? Otherwise, this is looking great and reasonably comprehensible! Good work.--Read-write-services (talk) 00:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Richard, a virus has to make proteins because a virus is made from proteins, (and DNA or RNA)! It is making copies of itself (babies)! It is making viral proteins, some of which are used to make more viruses (babies) and the others are used in the cell to help do this. All enzymes are proteins. I will take a look at this in my morning, probably your evening, and make it clearer. Nice to have you back. --GrahamColmTalk 22:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi Graham, I suppose it was a rhetorical question to include the info within the article (for others-I understand the reason, others may not) it was not clear in the intro--Read-write-services (talk) 22:58, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't this be "Introduction to Viruses" instead? Marlith T/C 01:16, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi Marlith, it was when I was working on the first (deleted-see above) draft. --Read-write-services (talk) 01:27, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, it has to be called Introduction to virus for the link template at the top of the two articles to work. If we rename this article, we would have to rename the main one.--GrahamColmTalk 05:30, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Graham, I think that perhaps naming virus to viruses and Introduction to viruses may be a good thing. Why would this be such an issue? One thing I was reading (can't remember where), that a virus is the common way of referring to the disease/s caused by viruses so if the article is about viral particles (viruses), then perhaps we should rename?? Cheers!--Read-write-services (talk) 21:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, just a thought, this article was meant to be as an introduction to the subject of viruses not the article "virus"? wasn't it? Maybe something got lost in the translation-still there is no reason why we cant still link the two-of course. also what I was referring to above was, that people say eg. "I have a virus", while the articles seem to relate to viral particles/viruses themselves-just wanted to clarify that point.--Read-write-services (talk) 21:53, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Richard, I have left a comment on Tim's user page.[1]. If he agrees, Tim will probably just do it for us. Best wishes, Graham --GrahamColmTalk 21:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Understood--Read-write-services (talk) 21:53, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Graham, any news from Tim Vickers? abouut renaming this article? also I think that the article needs a more generic virus particle rather than herpes zoster (as in more virus-like in appearance , such as influenza one with a polyhedral appearance perhaps) what do you think?--Read-write-services (talk) 01:38, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Hi Richard. The renaming was discussed on Tim's talk page. Virus was originaly chosen because people are more likely to do a Google search on Virus rather than Viruses, hence the singular for the main article. It might be possible to get the template tweaked so that it can link to a renamed article here, but you will have to discuss this on the template's discussion page. I'm very busy with Rotavirus at the moment, so I can't help. With regard to the Varicella zoster virus micrograph, I think it is perfect for this article because it is so typical of most viruses, ie. icosahedral particle surrounded by a lipid envelope. Influenza is not typical because of its pleiomorphism, (?spelling). Lastly, are you planning to respond to your peer review? Best wishes, Graham. --GrahamColmTalk 09:19, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Ok I see. for some reason I thought most people search for/understand polyhedral-shaped viruses, my mistake. I don't have much time lately to include the changes suggested by Una, frankly I think the article is reasonably well written, and positioned/directed to the correct demographic and written in the right tone, I think why rewrite/muck with it? Any way good to hear from you. Cheers, Richard.--Read-write-services (talk) 22:14, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

New picture

Graham, nice new picture! Although, I thought the case was closed?--Read-write-services (talk) 01:30, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Good article review

I'm putting it on hold for a while because there's just one very pressing issue that must be addressed. The article is very well-written. It fulfills its goal of being informational and accessible in a very great way. In fact, it would be very nice if this could be transferred to the Simple English Wikipedia. However, the most pressing issue is citations. The article is undercited. The most pressing citation issues are in the Structure, Life cycle, and Disease sections. In general, each paragraph should have at least one citation, and all statements that can be challenged should be cited. For example, it is asserted that a virus next to a flea would be like a human next to a mountain twice the size of Mount Everest. It looks a whole bunch like OR and should be cited or removed.

Generally, galleries are frowned upon, since images should be imbedded into the article, but this is a very special case of an article. The paragraphs are somewhat short. If they could be merged a little to make it less choppy, that would be great. I will wait a week and then check to see how the article is going. Please remind me if I have forgotten by the time. bibliomaniac15 23:40, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the GA business, However, I'm not sure if I get your drift, are you saying that it is not written in simple English? That was the whole intention of the article. I am presently unable to contribute for the next two weeks but I will try after then. Citations I am notoriously famous for NOT including-so you are definitely on the nail with that one! Maybe that's one for Graham?--Read-write-services (talk) 04:59, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I think the English is perfectly clear. I would just like to see more citations. bibliomaniac15 Midway upon life's journey... 05:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Microorganism

Not helpful? This article states that Viruses are microorganisms in the lead. The Virus article states that viruses are semi-living things, while the microorganism article states that Viruses are not microorganisms. "They do not include viruses and prions" --haha169 (talk) 15:41, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

In the Virus article I wrote a paragraph about the life-form debate which included the phrase "organisms at the edge of life". The argument that viruses are living is based on that they have genes, they mutate and evolve by natural selection, they reproduce and they even have sex. For these reason they are regarded as living, in other words "organisms". Since the are sub-microscopic in size, it is safe to call them microorganisms, and this is why decent textbooks on micobiology usually have a chapter, (or volume in the case of the source used in the article), on viruses. I deliberately kept this debate from this introductory article because I think it is best kept in the main one. As for that line in microorganism is it cited to a reliable source? If not it is about as reliable as the Wikitionary entry, which ironically defines viruses as mircoorganisms. Thank for bringing this up. GrahamColmTalk 16:07, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

This is confusing. I did a Google search, and some university sites categorize it as microorganisms, while others do not. Although the microorganism article does need a cite for that statement, there is currently no sub-topic concerning viruses, while protists, fungi, animal, plants, bacteria, and archaea are currently all listed. I'm not sure what should be done. --haha169 (talk) 17:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Have a look here, [2], this is the website of the official body that classifies viruses. You will see that they talk about orders, families, genera and species. All these terms refer to organisms. Graham. GrahamColmTalk 18:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Well then, the microorganism article needs fixing. --haha169 (talk) 20:43, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, sort of, I think it needs to take a more neutral point of view. It was nice to see that the {{fact}} template was replaced with the two citations that I put in the virus article, in which this subject was debated. Microorganism should have the "many/most scientists" wording changed to a less POV, I think. Thanks, for this, I have enjoyed the debate. Graham. 21:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
No problem. Sorry I didn't get time to review its FAC, mine's still going. I know that this is an "introduction" and all, but I think the virus article has really good prose, (at least in the lead), some of which could be copied over here. Its a minor issue, but something to think about instead of WP:BORED. --haha169 (talk) 20:43, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Name of page

Wouldn't "Introduction to viruses" be more grammatical? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 20:29, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it would be more grammatical, but the article is tied to Virus by a script, (see the discussion about this in the archive). For the template to work on the two articles, I had to keep "virus" singular. The result of many discussions was that more people would type "Virus" into Google, as opposed to "Viruses", and so the main article should be called Virus and so this introduction has to called "Introduction to virus". Graham. GrahamColmTalk 20:58, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
PS: I would prefer to call the main article Viruses, because we have Bacteria (plural) and Archaea (plural), I've discussed this with Tim in the past; perhaps it is time to revisit this discussion? We could have a re-direct? I'll leave a note on Tim's page.GrahamColmTalk 21:11, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Somewhere in our naming conventions guidelines, it says we name singular. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:23, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
The argument I've always used is to say that Bacteria and Archaea are named after the domains, not the organisms. Having a general overview of a large group of species under "bacterium" or "archaean" doesn't make much sense to me. Tim Vickers (talk) 00:17, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Somewhere, there is also a principle of naming articles so as to create the least surprise in the user. So, a reason I've often cited for the plural names Bacteria and Archaea is that most people don't know the singular form of these words. Since most people know the plural, but not the singular, these are cases where the plural article name makes more sense to use, as they create less surprise in the user. But Tim is correct, the scientific name for each domain is a Latin(ized) plural, which is why the article name is plural. The same applies to all plant articles named for an order (e.g. Pottiales) or family (e.g. Liliaceae), since -ales and -aceae are inherently plural endings in Latin. These arguments do not apply to Virus, since the plural is well known in the general population and the article is not named for a biological taxon. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
You seem to have created a nonsense title to accommodate a script. "Introduction to virus" sounds like the name of a new punk band, not the title of an article. If you have to give an article a meaningless title to tie it to another article, then the script is worthless. This article isn't an introduction "to virus," which with a switch of emphasis now sounds like an Indian deity, but an introduction to "viruses." I'm not sure why the conversation should hinge on naming conventions for bacteria or archaea, though. Again, if you have to use a title that is complete nonsense in order to accommodate a script, the script is without value, and should be eliminated rather than going forth with nonsense. Now it sounds like we speak English poorly and meant to write an article, "Introduction to viral pathogens," but used the noun instead of the adjective. --Blechnic (talk) 22:16, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
After reading the first paragraph I see why the discussion of taxa of living things may be relevant to this particular article if not relevant to viruses. This is not an accurate article. Writing simply should never be an invitation to get the facts wrong. --Blechnic (talk) 22:19, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
As I said above, I would prefer to use the plural for both articles. GrahamColmTalk 05:32, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I've renamed this article, I was never happy with the old title. The link from and to Virus still works, albeit via a redirect. GrahamColmTalk 13:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Good call, the new title is much better. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree. The other title sounded wrong. —Mattisse (Talk) 18:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Introduction_to_viruses/Archive_1&oldid=304097548"