Talk:Owl

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A fact from Owl appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 24 November, 2010. The text of the entry was as follows:

... that owls (pictured) can rotate their heads up to 270 degrees in both directions?

Wikipedia

This article contains a translation of Owl from en.wikipedia.

Untitled[change source]

What happened? I am a new contributor. This owl article was my fist article. This morning I spend hours putting in pictures. Now they have disappeared. Can you tell me why? Jimroberts (talk) 00:55, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Encyclopedias are not galleries of images. Particularly adding a huge image to the article doesn't improve it in anyway. Galleries are more suitable for our sister project, Commons. Majorly (talk) 00:57, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Although they are not encyclopedic, I happen to think that they provide an "alternate definition", so to speak...especially to the readers who might not totally understand the text, who will gain a better understanding from images...and more images never hurt anyone, did they? --Isis ♠(talk) 01:12, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article is much improved now. Before, while the text content was fine, the images made the page a mess. Majorly (talk) 01:38, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am in agreement with isis. The pics that Jim Roberts added were selected to convey info. He must have sorted through a heap of pics to find them. I believe that encyclopedias ought to be pictorial. The reason why an encyclopedia on paper often doesn't have many pics is because it is cost prohibitive. The internet is a perfect place to use pics.

Directing the person to put the pics in Commons doesn't help our ordinary reader. Our Simple English reader needs info conveyed simply, not a redirection to a place where there may by 500 pics of owls that you have to sort through to find out what an owl pellet looks like.

I've left a message on JimRoberts page about including info with the pics in a more meaningful way. Amandajm (talk) 01:57, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say pictures aren't allowed. I said that encyclopedias are not galleries. At one point in the history, there was a huge image on its own at the bottom, which is not how articles are written. Having them neatly as they are now is fine with me, but having one huge image at the bottom, and galleries throughout and headers in weird places makes the article worse than before. Yes, images are nice, but it's primarily a text encyclopedia. People read this for information, not just what they look like. Majorly (talk) 02:18, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your helpful comments and edits. It is very satisfying to have my work improved. I felt violated by the first edit. Your comments in both places are helpful and sensible, but I have questions about the placement of pictures. When I put that gallery of 4 owls after the first paragraph, I thought I was illustrating that there are many different kinds of owls in the world. It seems like appropriate introductory material. I even thought of expanding the gallery to 8 in order to illustrate that owls come from all over the world. The owl pellet pictures were in direct response to an English learner here who didn't understand the writing alone. In such cases, why not put the picture next to the information?Jimroberts (talk) 03:19, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia articles are written in a particular style. Having a large gallery in the middle of the text is not generally how articles are structured. The reader could be directed to the section of the article dedicated to the images, or for more information see the Commons article. Majorly (talk) 13:05, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

how far and why do owls spin there head[change source]

most people think owls can spin there head all the way around but that really isn't true. Owls can only spin there head 270 degrees. Owls can spin there head so they can see because they cant just move there eyes they have to move there whole head. Why do owls need to move there whole head is because they have tubular eyes rather than round eyes so they cant move them.