Talk:Sambar deer

Changes made to references

Changes were made recently to two references, without any explanation as to why

• Ken Pearce (1992) Walking Them Up, Australian Deer Research Foundation, ISBN 0959343881 pp. xi–xv changed to Pearce, K. (1992). Walking Them Up: Stalking Sambar. Warragul: Australian Deer Research Foundation. ISBN 0959343881
• Arthur Bentley (1978) An Introduction to the Deer of Australia, Australian Deer Research Foundation, ISBN 0958573212 pp. 32–37 changed to Bentley, A. (1978). An Introduction to the Deer of Australia. Warragul: Australian Deer Research Foundation. ISBN 0958573212

The most profound change was the removal of the page numbers. Page numbers are useful. The point of having references is so that a reader, or editor, can go back to the source material and check for themselves that the information provided is correct. Providing page numbers makes this task easier, so that the relevant section can be found, instead of hunting through the entire book. I cannot think of any good reason that the page numbers were removed.

Other issues include

• the change of the first name to an initial only. Again I can't see any benefit of this. It is a loss of information that could potentially (though unlikely in this case) bring ambiguity and confusion. It appears to be an unhelpful alteration
• The title of the first book as change from Walking Them Up to Walking Them Up: Stalking Sambar. The official Australian cataloguing of this book has the original title - see http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1132356. Confusingly the ISBN is different however, but the only place I could find the original ISBN was here https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Walking_Them_Up.html?id=IaaLPQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y, which does have the fuller title. My preference would be for the title registered with the NLA.
• The updated location of publication for both is given as Warragul. I can only assume that this was derived from the current address of the Australian Deer Research Foundation. However the NLA has the location of publication as Melbourne for both books, which was also the location of the mailing address of the Australian Deer Research Foundation at the time as provided by the notes in both NLA entries (Croydon is a suburb of Melbourne).

I made changes to the references as noted above, and used the 'cite book' template. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 06:52, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

In looking to chase down the sources I found that there are other editions. The original references did not include the ISBNs - see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sambar_deer&oldid=469443953 These were put in later and are for the wrong edition. Thus the 1978 version of Bentley is required, with ISBN 0724116893 see http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1332129?lookfor=An%20Introduction%20to%20the%20Deer%20of%20Australia,&offset=3&max=1768255 and the ISBN for Pearce is 095934389X Jameel the Saluki (talk) 13:55, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Rusa (genus) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 00:50, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Removal of Commons link

On November 9, BhagyaMani removed the link to Commons from the External Links section. On December 24, I attempted to restore the link using {{Commons-inline}}. BhagyaMani reverted me with the edit summary "rem interwiki links listed already under Tools". BhagyaMani and I have been unable to agree on whether to include or exclude the link.

My argument for including the link is based on the external links guideline and common practice in Wikipedia:

• There is no guideline for excluding Commons links from articles. The guideline explicitly states that links to sister projects can be considered.
• There are more than 900,000 articles in Wikipedia that contain links to Commons. The Manual of Style states that we should put those links in the External Links section. Such links benefit our readers and downstream users, who may not be using the default Vector skin or using a common web browser to access the page. Because it's a common pattern, readers know to look at EL for links to Commons, even if they have it in the "Tools" menu.

The Commons link has been in place for 16 years. I think there should either be a article-specific reason to remove this stable link, or a WP-wide discussion to change WP:EL. I think we should restore the link.

BhagyaMani: do you wish to make a counter-argument? What do other editors think? I suspect that this article does not have many watchers, so I'll solicit a third opinion. (I'll wait for a bit for WP:3O, per instructions there) — hike395 (talk) 17:53, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

@UtherSRG and Plantdrew: Could we centralize the discussion here? Thanks! — hike395 (talk) 04:44, 26 December 2025 (UTC)

I use the Cologne Blue skin because it is most constant, both across time and between Wikimedia projects. (Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I like my browsing environment to remain constant and no-nonsense year after year after year.) Under Tools in the sidebar I have the following items (which I number here for ease of reference) on Article pages:

1. What links here
2. Related changes
3. Permanent link
4. Page information
5. Cite this page
6. Get shortened URL
7. Download QR code
8. Expand all

On a Talk page like this one I only have items 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7.

However I extremely rarely use this Tools menu. For a Commons category about the page I'm browsing, I look at the bottom of the article, where there is often, but by no means always, a small floating block, usually on the right side, with a link to Commons. Another similar block may exist above or below it with a link to the Wiktionary. — Tonymec (talk) 00:16, 26 December 2025 (UTC)

Plantdrew pointed out that the Tools menu is not available on mobile. That means removing the Commons link from the EL section removes it for 63% of all WP users. This is a serious detriment to our readers: let's restore this link (and any other Commons links that editors have been removing). — hike395 (talk) 06:25, 26 December 2025 (UTC)

Ultimately, I hope mobile view will show a link to Commons without needing a template in the article for the link. However, since that is not the case, I think Commons templates should be retained at present (provided a Commons page exists; I don't think links to nonexistent Commons pages are too frequent in taxon articles, but many sister project templates for Wikispecies on taxon pages don't lead to an existing Wikispecies page). Plantdrew (talk) 06:50, 26 December 2025 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: fyi: if you use {{Sister project links|auto=1}}, it will display only those sister projects that are linked via Wikidata. {{Sister bar|auto=1}} has the same behavior as a footer. I think the latter is actually what we should be using on this article. — hike395 (talk) 07:08, 26 December 2025 (UTC)