Talk:Camouflage

Illustration

The foto of the young woman with the army skirt with the description A camouflage skirt as a fashion item, 2007 is not a serious contribution. Its focus is on showing very much skin of the young lade and posing as a erotic nude! For a encylopedia? - I think 100% no. What is your oppinion? Her name is on the site of the file visible, thats for me also a sign, thats not serious. Its public relasion for her. --194.230.159.102 (talk) 13:28, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks for your concern. The photograph has served for many years now as a clear illustration of the use of camouflage-patterned materials in fashion. Whatever the reason for which the original image, of which this is a cropped detail, may have been placed on Commons 13 years ago, the young woman is now 13 years older and by now either has or has not got her business going, and we're certainly not affecting that at this distance in time in any way. The article is quite serious and is amply cited to scholarly sources. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:14, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

I also don't see any problems with the image. "Her name is on the site of the file visible": this is sensible as she is the subject of the image. This certainly does not look like PR. BernardoSulzbach (talk) 12:57, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

And for the record Wikipedia is not censored. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:59, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Crypsis

I edited a section under crypsis which was reverted by User:Chiswick Chap. I posted on his User page but he has chosen to delete my post. I know he's read it as he has made a subsequent edit to this article. The huge flaw in the structure of this article is that all different sorts of camouflage are included in the section crypsis. Crypsis ONLY relates to animals, but User:Chiswick Chap doesn't understand this. Perhaps someone else can sort it out and explain to him that crypsis and cryptic are not the same. Charlesjsharp (talk) 17:04, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Charlesjsharp, you are misinformed, and you should not be making statements about a topic area on which you have little knowledge. For the record, I added a citation demonstrating that crypsis can apply to military as to any other applications of camouflage; I had only not put in such a thing as it is generally taken as read, but since it's been challenged I've provided proof that it's correct. I'll consider your edits to this very carefully-cited and fully-reviewed article in due course. All I'll say now is that you should not be edit-warring, either, given that you know your edits are already disagreed, per WP:BRD. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:14, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

You're also wrong, according to the cited text, about the behaviour of juvenile giraffes: the claim is cited to Mitchell 2003, a reliable source. Of course all scientific sources are subject to challenge by later scientists, but there's no evidence that anyone has proven Mitchell wrong. Until then, the claim appears to be valid. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:20, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

You are warring by reverting my edit. Mitchell is not a helpful reference. He relied on others and the conclusion drawn is unsafe: I quote: 'Langman showed however that giraffes can be regarded as a “hider” type of artiodactyl in which the cow hides her calf while she browses. Pratt & Anderson (1982) on the other hand, studying calf–cow relationships in Arusha National Park in Tanzania, found that “hiding” occurs infrequently'. You claim that I am 'making statements about a topic area on which you have little knowledge'. I am extensive first-hand experience of giraffe behaviour acroos Africa. Wikipedia should not spread the falsehood that giraffes hide their young during the day (though they will do for very young animals) and certainly not link the behaviour to camouflage.
You also make a claim about the bushbuck which does not appear to be justified by the cited references. Charlesjsharp (talk) 17:55, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, the juvenile giraffe claim concerns only the very young which are being fed milk; none of the authorities is asserting that hiding at any greater age is a factor affecting camouflage, whether it occurs or not (probably 'infrequently' as you say). Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:28, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Evolution

Stcrafton, thank you for adding a discussion of camouflage's evolutionary genetics and ecology. Clearly there is a place for such a discussion either here or in a subsidiary article. However there are several points to note for what was your first Wikipedia edit, an exceptionally bold one at over 13,000 bytes. 1) It'll make sense to have 'Fossil history' inside the 'Evolution' section, I'll move it now. 2) The article is fully-cited and has been formally reviewed, so we need to ensure that additions are up to the same quality. There are statements which are wholly uncited, and others which may well go beyond the written evidence. Some contain words like "presumably" and "lack of evidence" which suggest your own (editorial) input, something that isn't allowed. 3) The amount of coverage may well be undue for this, the top-level article on camouflage; there are some 40 articles on aspects of camouflage in zoology, and many more on the military side (look at the Camouflage navbox). It may be that the material would do best in a new subsidiary article Evolution of camouflage, with a "main" link and a one-paragraph summary here to match the level of coverage of other topics. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:17, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi! I'm really sorry I have NO idea how to use the talk feature on Wikipedia, so I hope you somehow get to see this and if not I'll try doing something else. Thank you so much for your revisions, comments and critique, this was a complete amateur effort of mine and I realize it probably wasn't up to Wikipedia standards. I'm taking an evolution course at Reed College one of our big assignments was to write an evolution-related Wikipedia page (or section of an existing Wikipedia page). So I apologize in advanced for any poor citations or stylistic choices that I made. Everything I wrote I believe can be found in the citations I added, but I completely apologize for the arrangement of it. I'll try and edit it a little more with your comments and revisions in mind. If you think it doesn't fit in the main article either I also completely understand.

Thanks so much for everything!Stcrafton (talk) 02:44, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

I guessed it was something of that sort. Yes, I've tweaked it a bit. Feel free to edit it some more. The key point is that nothing must come across as your editorial opinion; especially dangerous are any generalisations from individual cases, i.e. you need to cite a scholar saying that it's a general point, you are not allowed to infer from the cases that it is so. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:44, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Meaning of one phrase

The article says: "A third approach, motion dazzle, confuses the observer with a conspicuous pattern, making the object visible but momentarily harder to locate, as well as making general aiming easier." I would imagine that anything that made some object harder to locate would make aiming at it more difficult. Is the article trying to say that motion would, e.g., tell which quadrant (which general direction) to scan for a precise target? P0M (talk) 05:43, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. The lead summarizes the article body, in this case the 'Motion dazzle' section. The 'observer' might be a lion, the target a zebra... but yes, you've broadly grasped the implications, and so far nobody has used it militarily. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:12, 11 November 2023 (UTC)