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Aurochs has an RFC

Aurochs, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has an RFC for cladogram layouts. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. 89.206.112.13 (talk) 08:51, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Template for TNC Status - Template:TNCStatus

Hi, over the last few months I've been working on adding the TNC conservation status to plant articles. At first I wanted to make a bot to update all the articles every month or so but at WP:BRFA, it was suggested that instead I should make a template. The template I made calls on Wikidata to get the information it needs to display the appropriate conservation status in the Speciesbox. I've been updating the entries on WIkidata with the proper conservation status from TNC and figured that I could check for changes every month or quarter with some R code to keep everything up to date. Maybe after some infrastructure is built up I could just have a bot do it. I was wondering if anyone could give me some feedback on the template and my workflow. It's 100% ok if it's negative or if I made a mistake, I want to hear it and I want to make things better/right. This is my first "big kid" template so I freely and openly admit that I may have made a mistake. Right now my workflow consists of calling the TNC API in R, cleaning and formatting the data, exporting a CSV file, updating Wikidata using the quickstatments tool, loading the CSV file into AWB, and finally update articles with the template. Looking forward to hearing back from everyone and I hope I can get some direction so I can help improve a lot of important articles. Dr vulpes (💬 • 📝) 06:27, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

You should provide a link in the species article to the specific wikidata so that editors can fix or update the information there after you get run over by a steamroller or some other-such life-altering event prevents you from performing the ongoing task that you are about to take up. Publish your (well documented, mind) code and work process somewhere so that someone else can take up where you leave off.
I wonder if it might be advisable for you to write another template, {{TNCStatus citation}} perhaps, that renders a proper and matching reference. As it is right now, the status that you update in |status= and the citation in |status_ref= are not synchronized and should (must?) be. The necessary data should be available in the API – I don't know I haven't tried to look. For example, for the reference at Ginkgo biloba (which has an abominable citation) {{TNCStatus citation}} might create a citation that looks like this:
{{cite web |last=Morse |first=L.E. |date=1999-05-28 |title=''Ginkgo biloba'': Maidenhair Tree |website=NatureServe Explorer 2.0 |url=https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.158473/Ginkgo_biloba |access-date=2023-05-09}}
Morse, L.E. (1999-05-28). "Ginkgo biloba: Maidenhair Tree". NatureServe Explorer 2.0. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
It should be possible for your API reader to collect the necessary reference data from the TNC API and add it to wikidata so that Module:Wd can create the {{cite web}} template.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:54, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
I have several commments on this proposal.
  • The first relates to the wisdom of using Wikidata for taxobox information, something that often comes up. Wikidata taxon items are not actually on the taxon but are on the taxon name. Sometimes there are several competing species concepts, with the same name applying to the lumped species or to one of more subdivisions of it. The Wikidata item may have a conservation status, but it is not clear which species concept it applies to, so any automatic taxobox retrieval couldn't determine if the conservation status applies to the species concept used by the Wikipedia article.
  • The second is on which conservation statuses to apply. There are more than 20 conservation systems handled by the taxobox system. Should the taxobox check all of them, in which case there would be need to be a hierarchy because the taxobox can only show two. Also when there are regional conservation statuses, the taxobox should only show them for endemic species.
  • Updating the statuses on Wikidata is valuable. There is probably a bot that does that for the IUCN status updates, but many of the others can lag behind or rely on manual entry. Some way of coordinating these updates with the Wikipedia projects would be useful, although for the reasons stated above I think the changes need to be made by an editor who can review the scope.
—  Jts1882 | talk  07:16, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
I strongly endorse the point that Jts1882 makes above about the use of Wikidata.
There are real issues about the taxon names that are used in IUCN lists, to take just one conservation assessment. The assessments, particularly the older ones, were usually made by regional botanists or organizations and frequently employed what are regarded as synonyms by taxonomists and taxonomic databases with a wider view. The 2019 paper at doi:10.1038/s41559-019-0906-2 shows that for extinct plants, the accuracy of the list is significantly affected by synonymy. So, as just one example, Ouratea quintasii is still listed as vulnerable by the IUCN and said to be restricted to one island. But other sources regard it as a synonym of the much more widely distributed Rhabdophyllum arnoldianum. Both of these names, and other synonyms of the same species, have their own Wikidata items, and the one for Ouratea quintasii (at QID 5461117) has an attached IUCN link. So what should be the status on all the Wikidata so-called "taxon" items that correspond to the one species?
Peter coxhead (talk) 09:12, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
Any time multiple sources are consulted, there is a possibility that the different sources are using different species concepts. Wikipedia has two articles with Giraffa camelopardalis bolded in the taxobox and with an IUCN status of VU. Wikidata has a single item for that name, but the identifiers on Wikidata go to databases with different species concepts (IUCN recognizes one species of Giraffa, EOL and NCBI recognize 4, GBIF has 15 (some fossil?)). And several of these databases maintain their own links to each other, in spite of using different species concepts. It is not a problem with Wikidata per se, and there is no guarantee that Wikipedia editors are going to get it "right" (in terms of consistently following a single species concept). Now, depending on how Wikipedia's articles about giraffes are structured, I could see getting the IUCN conservation status associated with the "wrong" article if the IUCN status were pulled from Wikidata, but I can't see how we would end up with same conservation status on two different articles via Wikidata; it took human editors on English Wikipedia to screw that up.
I don't see how Wikidata could possibly end up with a statement for the conservation status of Ouratea quintasii attached to Rhabdophyllum arnoldianum. Well, I guess I could see it; Wikidata has sourced statements about taxa from Wikipedia in the past (as far as I'm aware, just common names and images). And Wikipedia certainly has some cases where a taxon (name) with an IUCN status that is regarded as a synonym in e.g. POWO has had the status copied to the accepted name. But that specific problem originates on Wikipedia, not Wikidata.
I've had my eye on Juncus mexicanus for awhile (it's the only Juncaceae species with a manual taxobox). A TNC conservation status was added in December (TNC/NatureServe treats it as a species). POWO treats it as Juncus balticus subsp. mexicanus, but until a few weeks ago, the article on Juncus balticus gave it's distribution as only European (mexicanus is North American). FNA recognizes Juncus arcticus var. mexicanus. There are multiple species concept in play (J. mexicanus as a species, J. arcticus including mexicanus, J. balticus including mexicanus). Can the article only be written using a set of sources that agree on a species concept? Is it wrong for an editor to manually add a TNC status when TNC has a different species concept than POWO (which is presumably what we want to follow)? Juncus arcticus cites a study done in Colorado for it's habitat; according to POWO's species concept, J. arcticus doesn't occur in Colorado (although the given habitat is pretty typical of Juncus species in general).
Yes, giraffe is a mess. Reconciling different species concepts in Juncus looks messy. But that isn't a problem that Wikidata is creating. And if the only solution is not to write anything on Wikipedia that doesn't come from a single source (or a set of sources that can be verified to be using exactly the same species concept), I don't think much can be written. Plantdrew (talk) 21:55, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
Just to clarify (hopefully): the issue is with taxoboxes and article titles, not article content. Article content must reflect all reliable sources; that's a fundamental tenet of Wikipedia. Thus at Rhabdophyllum arnoldianum we should, and do, note that the 1998 IUCN assessment treats differently what our choice of taxonomy says is one of its synonyms.
However, we have always been clear that for each taxon we recognize there should be a single article and a single taxobox. For plants, it's convenient to use a large international database like PoWO, but it's certainly not infallible, and should not always be followed (we don't for ferns, for example, where PoWO clearly has an extreme lumping position).
It's impossible, as far as I can see, to automate retrieval of information about a taxon from Wikidata's taxon name items without analysis of whether these items represent synonyms according to the treatment in the English Wikipedia. (The same would apply to other language wikis, whether or not they recognize the same taxa.) Presently, there's no way of automating the recognition of synonymous Wikidata so-called "taxon" items; extensive discussions over there have failed to come up with a way of modelling taxa as opposed to taxon names. So use of information from Wikidata will continue to require editor involvement. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:40, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

new Reptile Database update

For those interested, annew update from Reptile Database has recently been published. I'm updating as I have time....Pvmoutside (talk) 15:14, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

What is Iguania?

Is Iguania an infraorder (according to the text) or a suborder (according to the taxobox)? Also, why is the title at Iguanomorpha when the subject is Iguania? —Lights and freedom (talk ~ contribs) 04:52, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

There are clearly some problems there.
  • Iirc, Iguania as a suborder is an older classification based on morpholoy where Iguania is a early branching squamate lineage. Now it is known to be a more derived group (in Toxicofera with snakes and anguimorphs). In other squamate groups the -morpha taxa are given rank infraorder (e.g. Scincomorpha in Hedges et al 2014, doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3765.4.2). Reptile Database uses superfamily Iguania in their higher classification. Most of the recent papers of squamate phylogeny avoid using ranks.
  • There is a single article covering Iguanomorpha and Iguania, with the latter a redirect. The article was moved from Iguania by a now banned user (see this edit] with no attempt to update the article accordingly was made. I assume the logic for the move is because Iguanomorpha is the more inclusive group (presumably including some extinct forms). Extinct forms are included in the phylogenetic tree but aren't discussion
I think that it would be better to use unranked or clade for Iguania (unless there is a more recent classification using ranks). Then there is the choice on whether to move the article back to Iguania (which will need someone with page mover rights) or modify it for the current scope. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:37, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

False positives?

I suspect that Category:Taxonbars on possible non-taxon pages may be populated by a number of false positive where the same article has separate Wikidata items for the taxonomic and common names. I've started a discussion at Template talk:Taxonbar and would appreciate input/help over there from anyone interested. – Scyrme (talk) 00:33, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Rank of Endopterygota

Note: This discussion was moved to this page to ask you to help with what appears to be a taxonomy challenge. Please feel free to contribute! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 08:48, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

There's a problem with the rank of Endopterygota, which you changed at Template:Taxonomy/Endopterygota. The article says it's a superorder, but it has two children, Hymenopterida and Panorpida, which are also said to be superorders. So I reverted the change to Template:Taxonomy/Endopterygota. However, the sources at Endopterygota seem to be more recent, so I wonder if Hymenopterida and Panorpida are no longer accepted? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:14, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks again, Peter! Well, Wikispecies still sees them, and both the Hymenopterida and Panorpida pages refer to them as superorders while referring to Endopterygota as a clade, so perhaps we should rank Endopterygota as a clade here on Wikipedia as well? P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 12:16, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
Clade. A nonspecific term meaning that you know that it's lower than a phylum but higher than a genus, but are otherwise unsure how it fits in. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:17, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes, hardly better than "unranked", and yet it is still pretty widely used. Even at Template:Taxonomy/Endopterygota there are several clades listed in the Ancestral taxa listing. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 17:11, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
"Clade" is more specific than "unranked", in that it explicitly claims that the group is monophyletic.
The reality seems to be that there is no consensus classification for insects above orders (or even above families). I suspect that it's probably better to treat Endopterygota as a superorder and the problematic children Hymenopterida and Panorpida as clades because Endopterygota is a vastly more widely used term than the other two. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:53, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
Peter, I respect that you know a lot more than I do about these subjects and will go with anything you say. If there seems to be no consensus among reliable taxonomy sources, then it's a tough call. Do you think it would help to have more eyes on this? such as other editors who watch the WT:WikiProject Tree of Life page? Maybe we should move this discussion there? P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 03:58, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
More eyes is definitely a good idea. Maybe WT:WikiProject Insects as well? Peter coxhead (talk) 06:39, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

To editors Peter coxhead, Redrose64 and ­jlwoodwa: this is just to let you know of this discussion move. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 09:14, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

I think superorder is the correct rank for Endopterygota. The traditional split of Neoptera, usually ranked as infraclass, was into Exopterygota and Endopterygota based on whether wings developed outside or inside the body, with the latter happening in a pupal stage. Exopterygota was found to be paraphyletic and while Endopterygota is monophyletic it is nearly always called Holometabola in recent studies. It's been on my todo list to propose the change and move the article. The move probably should have been made ten years ago. The template for Holometabola should be ranked as clade. —  Jts1882 | talk  10:04, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
Seems that would also mean a taxonomy template page move, {{Taxonomy/Endopterygota}} → {{Taxonomy/Holometabola}}, as well. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 10:26, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
Looking around online, Endopterygota is sometimes referred to as having rank cohort rather than superorder. (For instance, the NCBI identifier linked from the Wikipedia article's taxonbar.) Also, since Hymenopterida and Panorpida were already mentioned, don't forget about Neuropterida and Coleopterida: while their taxoboxes use clade rank, they refer to themselves as superorders (or sometimes superorders) in their leads. Monster Iestyn (talk) 12:54, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
I've also seen Division used for Exopterygota and Endopterygota. The Royal Entomology Society uses Endopterygota as one of five subclasses for the main lineages (along with Apterygota, Palaeoptera, Polyneoptera, and Paraneoptera). There are lots of studies on insect phylogeny, with numerous names for various clades, but I haven't seen a recent paper proposing a revised taxonomy for the whole insect class. —  Jts1882 | talk  10:40, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
Agree with the proposed move to the much more common Holometabola, which circumvents the issue. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:51, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
Moving the article with a redirect is fine if that's what is agreed, but redirected taxonomy templates don't provide all the internal functionality of the automated taxobox system, so it's better to set up a new one. Using |same_as= is the best way to link taxonomy templates if thought appropriate. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:24, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
As Jts1882 says above, another possible rank for Endopterygota/Holometabola is subclass. To quote the Royal Entomological Society from here "It is clear that these supra-ordinal groupings need more rigorous examination and definition before they can be adopted as formal taxa." Peter coxhead (talk) 11:09, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

question regarding taxonomic categories; is there a policy?

A fairly prolific and generally competent editor recently changed the categories of a large number of genera from the existing category to a much higher-rank category (of which the existing category is a sub-sub-category). When asked why, they claimed that policy is to remove things from small taxonomic categories and move them preferentially to bigger categories, claiming that the policy is that a category should contain between 500 and 2500 pages. I find this puzzling, and am curious whether any such policy has ever been proposed or supported. In the context of taxonomy, in particular, I find this to be counterintuitive; while I can certainly see that there is no reason to have a category, for example, for the genera in a family that contains only two genera, I cannot see what is wrong with having a category for the genera in a family that contains 300 genera, simply because it is below some arbitrary limit of 500 articles. It would be helpful to know if there are any guidelines at all about this. It seems counterproductive to have an existing category with a few hundred entries getting "zeroed out" by someone replacing the existing category on one page at a time, with a category that is several steps UP the taxonomic (and category) hierarchy. I know that it can be a balancing act determining when categories are too broad or too narrow, but I had never before heard it suggested that there were arbitrary numerical guidelines that could be used to justify such large-scale changes. Dyanega (talk) 00:08, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Given how big Category:Living people is (1 million + members), I do not think that there is any policy on the size limit of categories. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:40, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
Sounds highly dubious. I'd be surprised if that were a guideline, let alone a policy. WP:CATSPECIFIC and WP:CATDD explicitly state that articles should go in the most specific category to which they are relevant. Templates like {{diffuse}} and {{catimprove}} also encourage being specific. If the more specific category exists, then the articles should not be moved to its parent.
It can be disputed whether the more specific category should exist. For that, see Wikipedia:Overcategorization. If the editor you mention thinks the more specific taxonomy-related categories shouldn't exist because of one of the reasons listed there, then they should nominate that category for discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion rather than moving articles into a parent category. (The criterion most likely to be relevant would be WP:SMALLCAT, but that doesn't provide an arbitrary size quota and the description of "small" is "a few members"; hundreds of pages isn't "a few". Even if it were a few, it also explicitly states "this criterion does not preclude all small categories".) – Scyrme (talk) 02:10, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
For plants, WP:WikiProject Plants/Categorization#Taxonomic categories says "categorize an article at the highest taxonomic rank which yields a 'sensible' set of category sizes (say 10-100 entries)". It seems to me to be good advice for all groups. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:37, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
I think I've come across guidance somewhere that suggested splitting categories when there is a logical way to do so and displaying the members takes multiple pages (i.e., 200+ members). I haven't seen guidance suggesting that 500 members is a minimum. Plantdrew (talk) 17:05, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
The advice at Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Categorization seems consistent with the guidelines. "Less than 10" is a reasonable interpretation of "a few", so it's essentially elaborating on WP:SMALLCAT. Presumeably, it would follow that categories that a too small to be "sensible" are liable to be nominated for deletion (or shouldn't be created in the first place).
Regarding large categories, WP:DIFFUSE states "there is no limit on the size of categories". I don't think there's a guideline about splitting categories that stretch over multiple pages (200+ articles), but there may a WikiProject page that advises doing so, idk. – Scyrme (talk) 18:12, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

The mess regarding "cockchafer"

I don't know the best forum for this, wikiproject arthropods and wikiproject insects are fairly inactive. For a long time, Wikipedia has had a single article dedicated to cockchafer beetles, a term which encompasses three related species of scarab beetle in the genus Melolontha, Melolontha melolontha, Melolontha hippocastani, and Melolontha pectoralis. Over the last few years, there has been mumurings to attempt to split the article. Recently, @Lightbolb: falsely stated they "split" the article, when what they actually did is delete any information about species other than Melolontha melolontha, and redefined the article to be about Melolontha melolontha exclusively, without bothering to attempt to create any articles for the other species. (I have since created a stub article for Melolontha hippocastani). I view this situation to be unsatisfactory for a number of reasons. I think all three species should probably have individual articles, but I am unconvinced that Melolontha melolontha is the exclusive primary topic for "cockchafer".

I see three main options on how to fix this:

  1. Make "cockchafer" a disambiguation page that links to the three species articles.
  2. Restore "cockchafer" as a general article that discusses all three species collectively. (While having individual articles for each species)
  3. Redirect "cockchafer" to Melolontha and place general information about cockchafers at that article.

Interested in hearing others thoughts about the matter. Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:23, 8 June 2023 (UTC) (I numbered the options to make responding easier.)

I favour option 1. I don't think we ever have articles like option 2; there would be a lot of repeated/redundant information, I think. I haven't seen a source that refers to all members of the genus as cockchafers. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:00, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
Definitely option 1. It's still going to annoy the user who arbitrarily assigned the common name to a single species, but so long as there are reliable sources using "cockchafer" for the other two species, they simply cannot win this argument. Dyanega (talk) 21:54, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
I also support option 1. It doesn't make sense to clump information regarding different species together just because they have the same common name and are related (opt. 2), and since cockchafers represent only some of the species in Melolontha, it doesn't make sense to me to redirect cockchafer there. Move the content currently at cockchafer to Melolontha melolontha and disambiguate cockchafer. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 00:54, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
Much of the content at the current cockchafer article is frustratingly uncited. Thankfully, there is a decent dutch entry on Melolontha melolontha that can be translated if anyone is interested doing so: [1] Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:14, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
I also favor option 1, per the reasons given above. SilverTiger12 (talk) 01:04, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Question and comment. The Melolontha article gives a list of about 20 species, three of which have common names with cockchafer as a part. This can be interpreted as either only three of the species being cockchafers or as all being cockchafers but without common names for all the species. The disambiguation page is suitable if the former, but if the latter then cockchafer should redirect to the genus article. The article on Melolontha melolontha, currently at "cockchafer", should probably be a Common cockchafer. —  Jts1882 | talk  06:20, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
    Confusingly, it seems "cockchafer" is sometimes used to refer to other genera of phytophagous pest scarab beetles. I can find references to the name "Asian cockchafer" being used for species of the genus Holotrichia, such as H. parallela. [2] Hemiauchenia (talk) 06:49, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
    There is also the Australian Red-headed cockchafer. (Adoryphorus coulonii) Hemiauchenia (talk) 06:52, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
    As to your original question, Melothona is a genus with numerous species spanning across Eurasia, only a handful of which are regarded as pests. [3] The name "cockchafer" seems to really only apply as far as I can tell to the three aforementioned European species, which dominate the scientific literature about the genus. Hemiauchenia (talk) 07:17, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
    (edit conflict)
    Seems cockchafer used both specifically for Melolontha melolontha, which makes sense as it is the English common name for the species found in Britain, and more generally, as broadly as for the subfamily. The article on “cockchafer” at britannica.com uses it both ways:

    cockchafer, (Melolontha melolontha), also called common cockchafer, May bug, Maybug, or May beetle, a large European beetle that is destructive to foliage, flowers, and fruit as an adult and to plant roots as a larva. In the British Isles, the name “cockchafer” refers more broadly to any of the beetles in the subfamily Melolonthinae (family Scarabaeidae), which are known in North America as June beetles, June bugs, or May beetles.

    I suspect most people searching for "cockchafer" will be looking for the common cockchafer, so there is a case for primary topic. Are "European forest cockchafer" or European large cockchafer" common names in the wikipedia sense? —  Jts1882 | talk  07:27, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
    "Forest cockchafer" has over 450 uses on scholar [4] While "large cockchafer" appears to have almost no use. Hemiauchenia (talk) 07:41, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
    I can't see much evidence, if any, for Britannica's view that "cockchafer" is used for the subfamily. Cetonia aurata is most commonly called "rose chafer" (a term for which I get 153,000 Google hits) but by comparison extremely rarely "rose cockchafer" (85 hits).
    I think Jts1882 is right that most searches for "cockchafer" will be for Melolontha melolontha, but the term is not sufficiently clear in my view to be used as the article title for the species, but could be used as a redirect with a hatnote pointing to the other two species, if editors prefer this to a disambiguation page. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:05, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
    I can't find anything to support the britannica.org view that "cockchafer" is used for the subfamily (or the tribe or genus). I also can't non-Wikipedia support for the Melolontha pectoralis being called the European large cockchafer. In contrast, there is lots or support for Melolontha hippocastani as the forest cockchafer or European forest cockchafer, as well as the Northern cockchafer. With only two species a hatnote might be sufficient. —  Jts1882 | talk  15:18, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
    I still think there should be a disambiguation page to include all beetles that have been called cockchafers, even if that is at "Cockchafer (disambiguation)" rather than Cockchafer itself. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:28, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
    Done, see Cockchafer (disambiguation). Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:32, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
For an alternative view point in support of Option 2, that is what is happening at the Elephant page - basically a paraphyletic grouping that includes elephants but excludes mammoths. And each elephant species has its own page. Cougroyalty (talk) 17:45, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
As there seems to be a plurality in favour of making "Cockchafer" a disambiguation page, I will go around implementing this in the coming days. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:48, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Preferences of Reptile categories

A long term project, but I noticed some categories were different for New World and northern African reptiles. Most of the New World c as tegoies list Reptiles of (country) and Endemic fauna of (country) where in northern Africa those two categories are usually not listed, but sometimes you have a category of Endemic reptiles of (country). My preference is to stick with the New World model and create/modify the north African ones. Reactions?....Pvmoutside (talk) 21:15, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

If you've looked at it, I trust your judgement. Be bold! SchreiberBike | ⌨  21:18, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
The more I think of it, I'm thinking of keeping the few Category:Endemic reptiles of (country) and moving/creating new category pages for anyone who cares. I've stated going though Mexico, and created the United States.. Pvmoutside (talk) 15:23, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Crane flies - true, winter, primitive, and phantom.

The term "crane fly" can include primitive crane flies (Tanyderidae), winter crane flies (Trichoceridae), phantom crane flies (Ptychopteridae), and true crane flies (Tipuloidea). There's a good explanation in the first paragraph here.

The Tipuloidea Wikipedia article is titled "Crane fly" rather than "Tipuloidea" or "True crane fly". This can be confusing because it does not include primitive crane flies, phantom crane flies, or winter crane flies.

I suggest moving the current "Crane fly" article to "Tipuloidea", with a shorter "Crane fly" article that includes a description and links to primitive, phantom, winter, and true crane flies.

Does anybody have an opinion on this? I'll be glad to do it if people are in agreement.

A couple of notes that probably don't matter: (1) iNaturalist uses the common name "typical crane flies" instead of "true crane flies", although not many others do. (2) I recently updated the classification in the Crane fly article, moving the former family Tipulidae to the superfamily Tipuloidea. There was conflicting information in that article and its descendant articles. Bob Webster (talk) 17:56, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

I think it definitely makes sense for the reasons you give, but I'm a bit concerned about the absolutely massive number of "What links here" links that are connected to "Crane fly" and would stop pointing to the Tipuloidea article. Most of the pages referring to "crane flies" are not actually referring at all to any of the families outside of Tipuloidea. Having these all suddenly pointing to a page that explains that the name "crane fly" can be used for things that aren't crane flies is problematic. I do admit that in one sense this is a pretty nuanced objection - the amount of confusion it might cause is utterly negligible. What really worries me is simply how many links won't be taking readers directly to Tipuloidea when they should be (that is, they'll be taken to the "crane fly" article, and then have to click on another link to be sent to Tipuloidea). To alleviate this, you'd need to find as many as possible of those articles where the link is to the text string "crane fly" (or its variants) and where it's clear that it refers to just Tipuloidea, and change them so they point directly TO the Tipuloidea article. That looks like it could be a lot of work. Dyanega (talk) 18:41, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
I think that a "Cranefly (disambiguation)" page might be best, while retaining the Crane fly article for Tipuloidea. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:54, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
The incoming links will be a pain, but I think it's manageable. By the way, "What links here" for Crane fly includes quite a few pages that don't have an occurrence of "crane" or "tipuloidea", such as Hilarimorphidae, Bibionomorpha, and a number of Tachina species. (I may be doing something wrong.) Bob Webster (talk) 21:08, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
Evidently, someone had used "Crane fly" as the link for Tipulidae in the Diptera family template, and that was definitely not appropriate. I've fixed that, so a large number of those links should vanish once that template change propagates. Dyanega (talk) 21:29, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
I had changed the link at Template:Taxonomy/Tipuloidea to crane fly shortly before this discussion opened (previously crane fly was linked from Template:Taxonomy/Tipulidae). I'll change it back to Tipuloidea for now and we can see what impact that has on the incoming links. Plantdrew (talk) 21:39, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
This type of change to the taxonomy, elevating subfamilies to family status, needs to be reflected in a number of places.
  • The taxon articles themselves to remain consistent.
  • Any list articles.
  • The taxobox and taxonomy templates.
  • The taxonbar. This was changed.  Done
  • Any navigation boxes. {{Diptera families}} currently uses a different concept of Tipuloidea: Pediciidae + Tipulidae. Incidentally the navbox has Tanyderidae in Ptychopteromorpha, rather than Psychodomorpha as used in the automated taxoboxes. Not sure which is correct.
  • Wikidata links. The wikidata item Tipuloidea (Q1228564) linked to the redirect. I've changed it to crane fly.  Done
Have I missed any? —  Jts1882 | talk  07:40, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
I've updated {{Diptera families}} to list four families for Tipuloidea now, as well as making some unrelated updates to the other Nematocera subgroups. (I'm not sure what to do about Tanyderidae either so I've left that for now, nor for that matter Deuterophlebiidae and Nymphomyiidae which are sometimes placed in their own infraorders) Monster Iestyn (talk) 15:08, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
The inclusion of primitive crane flies (Tanyderidae) and phantom crane flies (Ptychopteridae) in Ptychopteromorpha seems to be the traditional classification (Hennig 1973, Wood & Borkent 1989), which was supported in the morphological analysis of the Flytree project, as covered in Evolution of the Flies (2005; googlebooks) and the project website. The family supertree can be found in an archived version. The family and suprafamiliar classification at Systema Dipterorum seems to largely follow the the flytree analysis.
The morphological tree was not supported by the molecular analyses of the Flytree project (Weisemann et al 2011). The taxonomy listed in the Animal Biodiversity classification (Pape et al 2011) seems to be based on this study, although confusingly it says both that it follows the classification of www.diptera.org and Weisemann et al 2011. It has a monotypic Ptychopteromorpha (for Ptychopteridae), places Tanyderidae in a narrowly circumscribed Psychodomorpha, and has monotypic infraorders Deuterophlebiomorpha, Nymphomyiomorpha and Perissommatomorpha. This is probably the best source to follow for the overall taxonomy, unless there is an appropriate update, e.g. for splitting Tipulidae. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:38, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
Given winter crane flies (Trichoceridae) are crane flies, wouldn't the crane fly article better be placed at Tipulomorpha? The text in the lede effectively treats it that way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jts1882 (talk • contribs)
Most sources looking at scholar seem to define "crane flies" as constituting Tipuloidea, like the NHM. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:20, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
The idea is for the Crane Fly article not to be for a specific taxon, but instead explain the four taxa with crane fly in the name. Each of them will also have an article titled with the taxon name. In fact, all do now except Tipuloidea, which is redirected to Crane Fly. Bob Webster (talk) 20:43, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
I tried to reverse the redirect from Tipuloidea to Crane Fly in order to place "true" crane flies in Tipuloidea and make an shorter Crane fly article that also links to other types of "crane flies".
This was denied a twice (once when I tried "Db-move" because it was deemed controversial, and once when I tried "subst:requested move" which is not allowed on a redirect.) If someone can reverse the redirect from Tipuloidea to Crane Fly or let me know how, I'll continue with this. Otherwise, I'll leave it as is for now. It's not a huge issue, but it might clarify some things that initially confused me. Bob Webster (talk) 21:06, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
I would vehemently oppose any proposal to turn "crane fly" into a short disambiguation page. When the term "crane fly" is used by the general public, members of Tipuloidea is what is overwhelmingly meant most of the time. There's nothing stopping us mentioning Ptychopteridae, Tanyderidae or Trichoceridae in the prose of the lead or the article body in order to provide disambiguation. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:16, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
Moving articles won't help anything. Tipuloidea and crane fly have extensive page history that would be lost if one were moved to the other. Tipulidae doesn't have much of a page history (because it was long the subject of/a redirect to "crane fly"). I suppose the history of crane fly could be merged to Tipulidae, but I think that wouldn't make the histories any less confusing. Plantdrew (talk) 21:43, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
No problem. I won't make the change. Bob Webster (talk) 23:23, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Pinus washoensis at AFD

There are a couple issues with the article which was created yesterday, notably that its likely a subspecies at best. However it has been taken to AFD Pinus washoensis prematurely and could use more eyes.--Kevmin § 14:57, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Definition of "Reptilia"

The Reptile article confidently asserts that: Reptiles, as most commonly defined, are the animals in the class Reptilia (/rɛpˈtɪliə/ rep-TIL-ee-ə); a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. The question is, is that really the "most commonly defined" definition of Reptilia? It cites this nearly 20 year old article "The Phylogenetic Definition of Reptilia", However, reading the paper, I see little evidence from the paper itself to support this assertion. (There's a more recent paper on the subject from 2021 from the perspective of a modern herpetologist in Spanish [5], which as far as I can tell doesn't support this statement either). Many papers seem to treat the two as synonymous (e.g. [6] Sauropsida (Reptilia or reptiles here). Given that both names are widely used, I think that this issue will be a thorny one to resolve, but I think the paraphyletic grouping statement should be removed unless better citations can be found supporting it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:27, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the issue. You want to remove the paraphyletic grouping statement because you want to include birds in Reptilia? Or because it equates sauropsids (minus birds) to Reptilia? If the latter, the paraphyly statement is surely inconsistent with having separate articles on reptiles and Sauropsida. There's certainly a lot out of whack between taxonomy templates and the cladogram at Sauropsida (which links Reptilia as a total group synonymous with Sauropsida, and also as a crown group synonymous with Sauria; and in between there is Eureptilia, which has a taxonomy template with Reptilia as a parent (the "eu" prefix surely has some bearing on what is being defined as a reptile). Plantdrew (talk) 22:09, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
My point is that the cited source does not support the statement that Reptilia, as most commonly defined, are "a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds". As far as I can tell, there is no consensus as to the precise definition of Reptilia. The 2004 paper barely mentions birds at all, and only mentions them in the original historical definition by Laurenti (1768), which does not indicate that this is the currently accepted "most commonly defined" consensus scope of the group. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:20, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Sheesh. You've been making edits to the article about this phrase. The source following the phrase (and ostensibly supporting it) was Gauthier 1994 prior to 8 June 2023, and in your edit on 28 May, you said you read the source (Gauthier) and the phrase wasn't supported by the source. Now you're posting in TOL that you read the source since 8 June (Modesto 2004) and it doesn't support the phrase. Since you've been involved with the article, I would have thought you'd been aware that the source had changed, and you could have brought that up without my having to figure that out myself. If I had the patience to do more digging into article history I'd try to figure out what wording the article lede had when the Gauthier source was first added. But changing the source to defend a disputed wording (not actually supported in either the old or new source) isn't good.
OK. For some time now, the reptile article has had a hidden note right at the beginning stating "We are not employing the cladistic definition in the common definition of reptile". Assuming that the hidden note is uncontroversial (and see Talk:Reptile#Is_this_article_about_the_clade_Reptilia,_or_about_the_paraphyletic_group_"Reptiles" where you were pinged but didn't contribute), paraphyly (a cladistic term) with respect to birds shouldn't be mentioned at all in the lede. "Reptiles as most commonly defined" is something that is better sourced to dictionaries than scientific articles by vertebrate palaeontologists if cladistics definitions are avoided. Dictionary.com's definition of reptile seems to me to be a reasonable "common definition". Plantdrew (talk) 03:01, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

That conversation was two years ago and I don't recall being pinged for it. I do admit to having been a long-term pariticipant to this debate. I don't see that a consensus that emerged in that discussion. Gauthier (1994) doesn't support any version of what has been in the lead, even the 2021 version where this source was cited: [7] To quote Gauthier (1994):

Strictly speaking, neither Mammalia nor Aves "evolved from reptiles." On the contrary, birds are a kind of reptile just as mammals are a kind of synapsid.

Amniotes are composed of two primary clades, mammals and reptiles.

The traditional nomenclature, in which amphibians" are said to have given rise to "reptiles," who then gave rise to birds and mammals, misrepresents the structure of our knowledge of amniote genealogical history, and should be avoided.

The cited dictionary sources is deeply imprecise, and I would rather we find another source that deals with the question more directly. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:40, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

We need to distinguish the definition ("traditional" taxonomy) for reptiles as class of extant/recent Reptiliomorpha/Amniota excluding birds and mammals, which is a paraphyletic group, and the cladistic definition for reptiles as a clade (i.e. monophyletic). The article mixes these two main approaches (compare the first sentence vs. section Taxonomy). The two main possible approaches should be clearly defined in the perex, and the approach applied should be mentioned in each section. The problems of the two main approaches could be also explained (e.g. the position of mesosaurs) in section Phylogenetics and modern definition.
I agree with the applicatin of the cladistic definion by Modesto and Anderson, 2004 mentioned in the last paragraph of section Phylogenetics and modern definition. (Btw, as the PhyloCode is mentioned in this paragraph, another posible alternative, not mentioned by Hemiauchenia in the beginning, could be the more recent cladistic definion from "Phylonyms. A Companion to the PhyloCode, 2020, ISBN 978-1-138-33293-5": Reptilia C. Linnaeus 1758 [M. Laurin and R. R. Reisz], converted clade name – The smallest crown clade containing Testudo graeca Linnaeus 1758 (Testudines), Iguana iguana Linnaeus 1758 (Lepidosauria), and Crocodylus (originally Lacerta) niloticus Laurenti 1768 (Archosauria); briefly: Reptilia ≈ Sauropsida Huxley 1864, but it has the weak point in position of parareptiles.)
IMO we should avoid other posibble approaches between the two main (the wikiuser could be confused), as Reptilia Laurenti 1768 ≈ Amniota E. Haeckel 1866 or many other (see Modesto and Anderson, 2004).
Sorry for my poor English; it is also the reason i will not edit the Reptile article. --Petr Karel (talk) 09:02, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
I think it worth noting that the article is at reptile, the common English vernacular name. This is nearly always used to the exclusion of birds, except when people are trying to be too clever (cf. QI). The taxon Reptilia can have a variety of meanings, including the paraphyletic one excluding birds and the the cladistic one where it includes birds. So the article should start with a vernacular/dictionary style definition of what a reptile is and what is included (something like the National Geographic page). The essence of what a reptile is doesn't involve cladistic definitions. Then explain the two alternative taxon circumscriptions (the older definitions can be left for the taxonomy section). —  Jts1882 | talk  11:29, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
I would be okay with this, depending on the specific wording used. Would anybody like to workshop some wording proposals? Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:21, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
I am not going to suggest which way to go here just point out some cuations on this topic. I was one of those who back in 1996 publicly ascerted that Class Aves should be sunk into Class reptilia, among other amendments. Based on the science. What I learned from that experience is that taxonomists have a bad habit of thinking their view of relationships is the be all and end all to the debate. I was at the time just as guilty, I thought like many taxonomists its our job to declare the relationships and the world should follow. Even modern phylocoders have said that to my facem, that they say how things are related, everyone else should follow without question. I learned the hard way that is actually not how the world works. Class Reptilia and Class Aves both need to stay because they are a bedrock to the understanding of peoples general knowledge of the classification of animals. So anything written, particularly in an encyclopedia needs to start from that premise, then you can use the opportunity in parts of the article to explain the problems with that premise. If you start out with the antithesis to the known premise without adequate explanation and lead in you loose readers you do not impart knowledge. So this is a caution, do not be too clever with this, it does more harm than good. 35 years of being a taxonomist has taught me that we taxonomists are a minority and have to work with all people interested in life not against them. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 17:48, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
As a non-biologist (although, I hope, a well-educated layman), my perception is that most people still understand vertebrates as belonging to grades ('classes'). Further confusion comes from the tendency to include pre-mammalian synapsids in the reptile grade. I think that the 'traditional' definition of 'reptile' includes snakes, lizards, turtles, crocodilians, dinosaurs, pelycosaurs, etc. (but not birds) for most readers, and I think that should be acknowledged while presenting the cladistic definition. - Donald Albury 20:42, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
I agree with the idea of replacing "commonly defined" with something like "colloquially defined" or "in common vernacular, defined" in the first sentence. The fundamental issue with these kinds of articles is that every taxonomic group has three distinct types of definitions: a cladistic definition, a neontological definition, and a "historical paleontological definition". The cladistic definition, while most useful for modern paleontological and genetic studies, is often overlooked by the general public and may be little more than a footnote from a functional perspective. Herpetology functions very differently than ornithology or mammalogy in most regards, even though "herps" has no real cladistic meaning. Similarly, the "historical paleontological definition" is also irrelevant to most readers and is not necessarily as monolithic as it appears in hindsight. Most paleontologists from 1900 may define Dimetrodon as a reptile, but I doubt that most people would nowadays (they'd call it a synapsid if they know better or a dinosaur if they don't). So we're left with the neontological definition: reptiles are "stuff like crocs, turtles, lizards, snakes, and the tuatara". Living air-breathing vertebrates which are (generally) four-limbed, (generally) ectothermic, and (generally) lay amniotic eggs. You know one if you see one, etc, etc. I think the article currently does a good job prioritizing this definition, so once we update the sources and phrasing there isn't much of a problem from my perspective. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 19:36, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
@Fanboyphilosopher: do you have any proposal for what this phrasing would look like? Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:23, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
Here's a suggestion, splitting the intro into two paragraphs:
  • "Reptiles, in common parlance, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic ('cold-blooded') metabolism and amniotic development. Living reptiles comprise four orders: Testudines (turtles), Crocodilia (crocodilians), Squamata (lizards and snakes), and Rhynchocephalia (the tuatara). As of May 2023, about 12,000 living species of reptiles are listed in the Reptile Database. The study of the traditional reptile orders, customarily in combination with the study of modern amphibians, is called herpetology.
  • Reptiles have been subject to several conflicting taxonomic definitions. In Linnaean taxonomy, reptiles are gathered together under the class Reptilia [insert pronunciation key]. Genetic and paleontological evidence has determined that birds (class Aves) are the living sister taxon to crocodilians, and are thus nested among reptiles from an evolutionary perspective. Modern cladistic taxonomy regards reptiles (as colloquially used) as a paraphyletic group. Some cladistic systems redefine Reptilia as a clade (monophyletic group) including birds. Others disregard any taxonomic usage of the term "reptile", in favor of the clade Sauropsida, which refers to all amniotes more closely related to modern reptiles than to mammals." Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 03:55, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Cyanobacteria / Cyanobacteriota

Some reclassification going on there, and it is unclear (to me) to which degree that should affect the system we follow. Please have a look at Talk:Cyanobacteria#Requested move 11 July 2023. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:28, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

IUCN giving inconsistent publication dates

This is an issue I've long ignored while writing about extinct birds of Rodrigues, but it has become too conspicuous now that I'm looking through some of the older ones not to do something about it. Alphonse Milne-Edwards published a monograph about extinct birds, which combined both new and old articles of his about the subject, and what appears to be one of the newer ones[8] of these describes and names various birds from Rodrigues. The problem is that both the years 1873 and 1874 are given by the IUCN as date of publication for different species described within the same article (such as 1873 for the Rodrigues night heron[9] and 1874 for the Rodrigues rail[10]). One unsourced note in one of the Wikipedia articles (which I've since removed[11]) states: "Note: Usually, the year of publication is given as 1874. However, although the volume was nominally of that year, it was already released in 1873." So how to deal with this? In some newer papers, Julian P. Hume cites Milne-Edwards as "Milne-Edwards, 1866–73 [1874]" and "Milne-Edwards, 1874 [1873]", which is also internally inconsistent. So far, I've just used whatever year the IUCN gives for each species, but that seems arbitrary, and there should probably be a single solution for them all. FunkMonk (talk) 18:09, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Page 22 of the Milne-Edwards monograph that you linked to above is the article "Mémoire sur un Psittacien fossile de l'île Rodrigues". This was previously published in Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Sciences. The reference is as C. R. Acad. Sci., 65, 1867, p. 1121-1125 which is here. Does this help? - Aa77zz (talk) 21:42, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
Ah, sorry, to make it extra confusing, that compilation includes both the naming of the species (the one you found, 1867) and genus (1873/74) of the Rodrigues parrot, here is the page I intended to link to (where the genus was named, as well as those other taxa mentioned earlier):[12] FunkMonk (talk) 02:36, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I've tried to determine the correct date for the Milne-Edwards article "Recherches sur la faune ancienne des Iles Mascareignes". Frustratingly I haven't found a discussion of the publication date but it seems very probable that the earlier 1873 is correct.

The article was published in Annales des Sciences Naturelles – Zoologie et Paléontologie Series 5, Volume 19 Article 3 pp 1-31
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/33089117

The journal volume has 1874 on the title page.

But it appears that an offprint of the 31 page article was published in 1873 before the publication of the actual journal article. The British Library catalogue here has two entries for 1873: one that gives the publisher as "Librairie de G. Masson" and the other "Paris.-École Pratique des Hautes Études. Bibliothèque ... Section des Sciences Naturelles. tom. 9. 1869, etc. 8º." The BHL has a scan of the offprint here https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/149924 Note the "Paris, Librairie de G. Masson, 1873 ". The article itself has "Ann. Sc. Nat. - XIX. Art. No. 3" at the bottom of the title page as does the actual journal article. Unfortunately the scan doesn't include the title page of the offprint.

I notice that Hume in his long 2007 and 2011 articles uses:
Milne-Edwards, A. (1874 [1873]) Recherches sur la faune ancienne des Iles Mascareignes. Annales des Sciences Naturelles – Zoologie et Paléontologie, (5) 19, Art. 3.

- Aa77zz (talk) 15:36, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

The article in Vol 9 of Bibliothèque de l'école des Hautes Études is here. The date on the overall title page is 1874 but the sections have individual title pages. For the "Researches sur la Faune Ancienne des Iles Mascareignes" the year is 1873. - Aa77zz (talk) 16:22, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
I would not be following IUCN for a recommended date. I do not know the article however I have had to deal with this issues in other papers of the time. There are several reasons for date discrepancies in 19th century papers. One of the most common is the first date is the date of presentation the second is the date of publication. That is the authors present their work as lectures to societies first then write them up for publication. Not done anymore obviously. In this case the second date is usually the correct date. The other issue is that the first date is the date of publication and the second is the date it is sent out. You often see this if a paper comes out in November but is sent out in January. To look current they would date the article with the following year as they knew no one would see it for several months due to Christmas etc. In this case the first date is the real date. You generally will not find an online discussion about this, usually some taxonomist has determined which date is correct in another published work, if you have two dates this is likely the case. These issues have to be tracked through the scientific literature and can unfortunately be quite time consuming. They matter in taxonomy due to Priority. I suggest look at any papers that synonymise or split this name for information. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 16:31, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
I certainly agree with not following the IUCN. I've added a taxonomy section to some of the bird articles and in so doing I've had to look at publication dates. A useful starting point is Dickinson et al. 2011 "Priority! The Dating of Scientific Names in Ornithology" which is available from ResearchGate. Some corrections are here.- Aa77zz (talk) 17:10, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, and while I agree we should simply follow the decisions of the subsequent literature, the problem in this case is that it's inconsistent, which one recent author, Hume, using both "Milne-Edwards, 1866–73 [1874]" and "Milne-Edwards, 1874 [1873]". But if we should go by when it was supposedly first accidentally published, 1873 would be correct, yes. FunkMonk (talk) 21:11, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Credibility bot

As this is a highly active WikiProject, I would like to introduce you to Credibility bot. This is a bot that makes it easier to track source usage across articles through automated reports and alerts. We piloted this approach at Wikipedia:Vaccine safety and we want to offer it to any subject area or domain. We need your support to demonstrate demand for this toolkit. If you have a desire for this functionality, or would like to leave other feedback, please endorse the tool or comment at WP:CREDBOT. Thanks! Harej (talk) 18:17, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Anon changes at "Taxonomic rank"

Various anons have been editing Taxonomic rank lately, making changes that look dubious in at least some cases.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:55, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

I've reverted. Plantdrew (talk) 21:33, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Naming of subgenera ?

I reviewed and accepted drafts on two subgenera of monitor lizards. They were submitted as Draft:Varanus (Polydaedalus) and Draft:Varanus (Varanus), so I accepted them as Varanus (Varanus) and Varanus (Polydaedalus). My question is whether this nomenclature for these subgenera is correct. I didn't think that I ought to delay the acceptance of the articles, because I didn't have any questions about the notability, and thought that any discussion of nomenclature would get more attention in article space. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:29, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon:, animal subgenera are inconsistently named (see Category:Animal subgenera); they either have the subgenus name in parentheses following the genus, or have the subgenus alone (when articles are titled with the subgenus alone, the nominotypical subgenus which has the same name as the genus is disambiguated with (subgenus)). While the naming of subgenera is inconsistent overall, the other subgenera of Varanus consistently have the subgenus name in parentheses following the genus. Plantdrew (talk) 20:25, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
User:Plantdrew - Thank you. In any case, I thought that it was better to accept the articles and let the naming be decided in article space. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:45, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Polydaedalus was described by Mertens in 1942 I believe and was later reviewed as valid by Schmitz et al 2000 and Bucklitch et al 2016 most of the subgenera in Varanus do form very clear taxonomic and zoogeographiuc groupings. So the names are well established. The article should at least under Varanus, have a taxonomy section explaining all the subgenera, their history of nomenclature and the development of the modern hypothesis of relationships. Otherwise its not giving any authority to these names. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 11:40, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Ichthyosporea has a new definition

In his 2021 publication,[1] Thomas Cavalier-Smith stated his support for the Teretosporea (Ichthyosporea+Pluriformea) hypothesis, instead of the (Filozoa+Pluriformea) hypothesis that is more prevalent in Wikipedia. However, he emended Ichthyosporea to include Pluriformea, which synonymised Ichthyosporea=Teretosporea. He also emended Corallochytrida to include Syssomonas, which means Corallochytrida=Pluriformea are synonyms too. This is how the classification looked before:

This is how the classification looks now:

I'm a bit weary of this change because it's one of those things that only this paper defends and no other researcher mentions elsewhere. Also, the opposing hypothesis is still a thing. Then again, it's only been 2 years so maybe that's the reason why no other researcher follows it. Does anyone here oppose the change? —Snoteleks 🦠 16:51, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I generally don't touch higher-level taxonomy with a ten-foot pole, but I would advise to note the new classification in relevant articles but wait a little longer for it to gain traction and be widely accepted in the literature before standardizing it for the WP classification. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 17:30, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
How much time would you say is ideal? —Snoteleks 🦠 18:05, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
Haven't the foggiest idea. I'd say it just seems wrong to leap on a taxonomic classification that hasn't been widely picked up. WP shouldn't have a front-line classification, it should just regurgitate what (here it comes, the most repeated phrase on enwiki) multiple, reliable, independent sources say. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 18:16, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
@Edward-Woodrow I agree in theory, but in practice I have noticed that many taxonomic changes in specific taxa are only conducted by few individuals in one single paper, especially when those individuals are the specialists on those taxa. And considering the high speed at which new taxonomic information is being unveiled for protists (even in Adl et al. (2019) this is mentioned), I would suggest this policy: for taxonomic changes regarding protist taxa, only if the changes are considered controversial, a period of 3-4 years is recommended between the publication of these changes and their implementation on Wikipedia. That is more than enough time for second and third papers to respond to controversial changes, considering that for example in Adl et al. (2019) changes made in 2018 are revised. If, after that period of time, the changes are rejected, we can then implement the rejection here too. Does this sound fair? —Snoteleks 🦠 16:07, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
Yes, that makes sense. Enough time for reactions to anything particularly controversial. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 19:34, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
I'm a bit confused on the sources of the before and after taxonomies above. The classification in Table 1 of CS-2022 has classes Choanoflagellatea, Filasterea and Ichthyosporea (inluding Corallochytrida, Ichthyophonida and Dermocystida) as part of paraphyletic subphylum Choanofila in phylum Choanozoa and kingdom Protozoa. I doubt this classification will gain wide acceptance, especially since its advocate is now dead. Table 2 has Holozoa with those three classes plus Animalia (as shown in the phylogeny figure), which is consistent with the after classification above. I'm not sure CS-2022 should be quoted for that classification as table 1 is the proposed classification and the article doesn't mention Filozoa. However, looking at Mesomycetozoea, which is where the article Ichthyosporea redirects to, the sources are unclear. The listed taxonomy and the phylogeny seem composites of several sources. Any revisions where the taxonomy and phylogeny are clearly following a stated source would be an improvement. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:23, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
Yes, his complete classification is never going to gain wide acceptance, mainly because of the numerous paraphyletic taxa. However, this is a change that 1) only affects small taxa, there is no need to and 2) all the taxa actually supported by phylogenetic analyses as being monophyletic. Wikipedia's taxonomy is already an agglomeration of multiple different taxonomies, so I see no problem in letting these new additions while also taking into account our preference for the cladistic classification presented in Adl et al. (2019). For example, in Cavalier-Smith 2021 he also added a new family Tetraheliidae and new genus Tetrahelia; are we supposed to also ignore it only because we don't follow his higher taxonomy? —Snoteleks 🦠 13:26, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
For reference, here his how the taxonomy templates for the automated taxobox system are set up:


—  Jts1882 | talk  08:33, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
Well, the state of the taxobox system is a mess here. Three things:
  1. Choanozoa Brunet & King, 2017 (the name accepted by the International Society of Protistologists for the Metazoa+Choanoflagellata clade, with preference over the informal synonym Apoikozoa) is not the same as Choanozoa Cavalier-Smith, 1996 (the paraphyletic phylum rejected by the ISP). The first one is the one present as a Wikipedia article. So why is Choanofila (the second one's subphylum) a template?
  2. Apoikozoa should not be a template because it is the synonym of Choanozoa.
  3. Why is incertae sedis Ichthyosporea a subclass if Ichthyosporea only contains orders?
—Snoteleks 🦠 12:44, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
@Snoteleks: the answer to your (1) is, I guess, because of the WoRMS entry. Similarly the answer to your (3) is because of the WoRMS entry. I've moved Template:Taxonomy/Apoikozoa to Category:Unnecessary taxonomy templates, which will lead to deletion at some point. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:08, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the move. Seems like WoRMS keeps being unreliable for non-animal groups. —Snoteleks 🦠 21:20, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Cavalier-Smith T (December 2021). "Ciliary transition zone evolution and the root of the eukaryote tree: implications for opisthokont origin and classification of kingdoms Protozoa, Plantae, and Fungi". Protoplasma. 259: 487–593. doi:10.1007/s00709-021-01665-7. PMC 9010356.

WP:NTAXON

Currently, the only advice out there regarding notability of taxa is GNG and this little paragraph which basically says "by unspoken agreement, we don't really delete species articles." Technically, genus/family/order articles etc are up for grabs, but it seems that there is, once again, some kind of unspoken agreement that taxon articles have a lower bar for notability than GNG. Unfortunately, no-one knows what this is. I think it is time to move on from tacit agreements and draft an actual notability guideline for taxon articles, in place of "oh, we don't really delete those, well, most of time anyway" situation that is confusing and disorganized at best.

  1. Is there support for drafting a notability guideline for taxon articles?
  2. If there is support, what would this guideline look like (I have some ideas, but I'll wait to see if #1 is shot down with heavy artillery before proceeding)

Cheers, Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 12:32, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm all for it. The current situation is, frankly, untenable - untold person-hours going into developing and maintaining a corpus that exists on tacit sufferance. I don't know how many of these are stubs, but it's probably at least 100k? Every so often some one has a go at taxon stubs, with greater or lesser enmity and/or goodwill, and it's always a thoroughly disagreeable event because we do not have a really solid basis for defending these. This needs to be sorted out. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:17, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Add, just a position statement up front: I am currently of the opinion that we want and need almost all of these stubs, since almost all of them can be expanded into start class articles just based on the fact that there is a formal description for the taxon. What I dislike is not having that encoded in a solid notability guideline. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:47, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Thank-you. The ones I feel most strongly about are genus articles that follow the "X is a genus of Y in the family Z, described by Brandt in 1855. Here is a list of unhelpful redlinks to unnotable species..." format. They're completely unhelpful to the reader – Wikipedia isn't a republishing of GBIF! Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 13:22, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Ugh yes exactly, I hate that there's so many of those hollow articles that just mimick a database like WoRMS or GBIF. We should do better. —Snoteleks 🦠 13:25, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
In my opinion, as someone with experience in creating taxon articles, the only taxa that do not have enough notability to become articles are:
  1. Synonyms of other taxa, for obvious reasons. For example: Cryptodifflugia and Difflugiella are one and the same, they should not be separate articles.
  2. Monotypic taxa, for example: Arachnomycetales, which only contains Arachnomycetaceae, which only contains Arachnomyces. They should not be separate articles.
Every taxon out there that doesn't fall into one of these two points exists with a sufficient amount of scientific papers, no matter how tiny or ignored (Prantlitina is a great example). All we have to do is avoid creating 1-phrase stubs and actually put effort into bringing to light the scientific information that surrounds them. They all deserve this much, at the very least to be start-level. —Snoteleks 🦠 13:24, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
For me, the bar is to be able say something about the subject apart from information you can find in any taxonomic database – if you can't say anything about the subject apart from accepted name, authority, synonyms, and distribution, it isn't notable. I'll take Rhysida as an example – besides containing basic information and that dreaded list of redlinks, it also contains a little bit of information on morphology and phylogeny, as well as distributions for each species. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 13:31, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Precisely. But as far as I know, every taxon has more information out there than the one from databases. We just have to implement it. —Snoteleks 🦠 13:57, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
@Snoteleks: you confuse me - aren't both of these non-issues? Synonyms are always redirected to the accepted name, and monotypic taxa are always channeled to the genus article using redirects - or at least they should be. Those that aren't really have only slipped through the net. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:53, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Oh I wasn't naming issues, I was just writing the criteria for which taxa should absolutely never be an independent page of their own. I think everything else can and should deserve a page. —Snoteleks 🦠 13:58, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I wouldn't say that every taxon deserves its own page, but usually the original description is enough to keep a species' head above water. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 14:03, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Oh - gotcha. Thinking more productively there than me. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:11, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
One big problem is articles on non-notable genera that contain links to notable species that can't really be mentioned elsewhere. These articles are vital for navigation – otherwise the species articles would be orphaned – but are unhelpful in and of themselves. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 13:33, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I haven't yet seen a genus article that is non-notable but that contains notable species. Could you please link examples? —Snoteleks 🦠 14:00, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
What about Limantis? Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 14:39, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
From a quick google scholar search:
  • [13] [14] [15] Ecological presence of Limnatis and other environmental informaton.
  • [16] [17] Morphology/structure of Limnatis.
There is always more to be found other than name, authors and year. —Snoteleks 🦠 15:27, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Given that you have stated a species description paper is enough to grant notability, Edward-Woodrow, I am confused and would like solid examples of extant* species that don't qualify. Being annoyed that polbot articles currently exist isn't rational to delete them and force someone in the future to resurrect them.(*WP:palaeontology guidelines on extinct are different, and nuanced).--Kevmin § 14:16, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't think a species description grants inherent notability; that would be silly. I'm saying that, in most cases, a description, or rediscription, or similar work, usually gives sufficient detail to indicate notability. If the description is unavailable, or very short, it is unhelpful. I reiterate my statement above: for me, the bar is to be able say something about the subject apart from information you can find in any taxonomic database – if you can't say anything about the subject apart from accepted name, authority, synonyms, and distribution, it isn't notable. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 14:32, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
But every species description contains a descriptive diagnosis (otherwise it isn't valid) which must be published and will thus be available. This type of "database-only taxon" simply does not exist, to my knowledge. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:39, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Well, sometimes original descriptions are hard to find. I agree that my comment was confusing (I've confused myself as well as everyone else), so I'll strike it. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 14:41, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
  • Note that at the WP:paleontology project it has long been tradition that prehistoric species are by default covered at the genus level, and should only have articles if the parent article grows too long. See guideline and rationale here:[18] FunkMonk (talk) 14:48, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Let's be fair: as far as the majority of arthropods go, there is almost never any source OTHER than Wikipedia that gives "accepted name, authority, synonyms, and distribution" for all the taxa. Those stubs are indispensable to people like me who do taxonomic research all the time, and especially valuable for two EXTREMELY "unique to Wikipedia" value-added features: (1) the taxobox hierarchy, which reflects CURRENT classification that old catalogues do not, and (2) most significantly, the taxonbars. Maybe other groups of organisms have big databases with lots of ancillary information, but the arthropods are the overwhelming majority of the exact type of "stub-class" article you're asking to render non-notable, and even the few arthropod groups that do have online resources NEVER have the cross-referencing to Wikidata, GBIF, Wikispecies, and all of the other things that appear in a taxonbar. From my perspective, a genus or species is frequently not notable UNTIL it has been added to Wikipedia. You're threatening to turn that completely around. Please reconsider. Dyanega (talk) 14:54, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
as far as the majority of arthropods go, there is almost never any source OTHER than Wikipedia that gives "accepted name, authority, synonyms, and distribution" for all the taxa. This sounds like a job for Wikispecies or Wikidata. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 15:01, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Besides, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a database. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 17:04, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Wikispecies has ZERO cross-referencing to other sources, and many fewer active editors, so it's very badly outdated and contain many MANY fewer taxa than Wikipedia contains. Many genera do not appear at all in Wikidata, but do appear in sources like GBIF or IRMNG. More to the point, only Wikipedia lets a reader navigate from an entry there to all of the resources like GBIF, Fauna Europaea, WoRMS, IRMNG, or any of those very important online sites. If you delete the articles for species and genera from Wikipedia, then there is nowhere left that can serve as a central resource to bring these scattered resources together in one place. In principle, could Wikidata do this? Maybe, but it doesn't and it never will. Surely that unique functionality has some significant value? You are looking only at the text of an article as being the content; I am saying that the content is a LOT more than what is in the text, and especially the content that comes via the taxonbar. You are saying "Well, you can find the accepted name, authority, synonyms, and distributions somewhere else", but the only way people can find all of the sources for all of those data is through the Wikipedia taxonbar, and it's MORE than just those basics. Consider that just GBIF alone gives direct links to actual individual specimen records. That goes far beyond the few parameters you list, and it doesn't seem appropriate to deny this. You say Wikipedia isn't intended or designed to do this, but the plain truth is that it's the ONLY resource that IS suited for doing this. Dyanega (talk) 18:07, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Wikispecies has more taxa than (English) Wikipedia. en.wiki has around 460,000 taxon articles. Wikispecies has a total of 845,000 articles, with 70,000 being about taxonomists, specimen repositories or publications, and 14,000 disambiguation pages (however, I'm sure there are some groups of organisms that are better represented on en.wiki than Wikispecies). Taxonbars are supported by Wikispecies, although relatively few articles have them currently. That said, Wikispecies is supposed to be multilingual, which precludes prose content. They only recently (2018) decided to include distributions. Wikispecies is not intended to be an encyclopedia (yes, en.wiki has thousands of substubs on taxa with no factual content beyond what Wikispecies could handle, but that doesn't mean WMF's coverage of taxa should be only handled by Wikispecies).
As far as I'm aware, Wikidata isn't engaged in any large scale efforts to proactively create items for taxa. Wikidata creates taxon items reactively, once a Wikipedia article has been created for the taxon. Wikidata has many more taxon items than en.wiki or Wikispecies due to the Lsjbot generated Wikipedias; Cebuano Wikipedia and Waray Wikipedia each have over 1.1 million taxon articles.
Encyclopedia of Life is supposed to be an encyclopedia with prose content that covers all taxa. However, I have never seen any EOL article for a taxon that didn't also have a Wikipedia article. In fact, for most EOL articles, the prose content is taken directly from Wikipedia. EOL expects Wikipedia to have this content, and is nowhere close to being a replacement for Wikipedia's coverage of taxa. Plantdrew (talk) 20:02, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Calm down. No one is proposing some kind of genus/species-level purge of Wikipedia articles, merely a notability guideline. Wikipedia isn't the solution for the problems you mention. It's an encyclopedia, not the Great Central Online Taxonomy Repository. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 18:16, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Notability subdiscussion

The central point that I feel most of us are making at that your starting premise (that there ARE non=notable taxa at all) is flawed, and the majority of us feel that WP:NTAXON should be codified to reflect the project long standing views that all taxa above species are notable.--Kevmin § 19:48, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Question (to all participants): is there such a thing as a non-notable taxon? Let's get this thing sorted out once and for all. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 19:54, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
@Edward-Woodrow No, as I see it there is no such thing as a non-notable taxon. Nobody gets to say what things are interesting over other things. Every single taxon that exists has enough information about it to suffice a start- or C-level article, regardless of its current popularity. The ONLY non-notable factor is whether or not the wikipedia editor puts effort into making it an actual article, instead of unreferenced stub-level nonsense. If it has been published and is recognized as real, there's things that have been said about it that are longer than 1 paragraph. So, sure, let's not allow the creation of new stub articles, because it's a negative thing; but that's only because stubs are bad, not taxa. —Snoteleks 🦠 22:08, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Pinging participants: Kevmin, Elmidae, Dyanega, Snoteleks, FunkMonk, Donald Albury.
In my opinion, NO there is not such a thing as a non-notable major taxon (species, genus, family, order, etc). Intermediate ranks are more of a gray area, but also NOT what this discussion is about, give the conversation has been explicitly focused at genera and species. To be considered a modernish (post 1800s) valid species, a species description and type specimens are required. These immediately make the taxa unique and notable. Let me ask the question in reverse. Base on literature and not wiki, why do you feel there ARE non-notable taxa?--Kevmin § 20:13, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't think there are non-notable taxa, nor that the bar is lower for taxa than GNG. Describing a taxon entails significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. That doesn't mean all taxa need stand-alone articles (as per GNG). Fossil species and monotypic taxa don't get stand-alone articles. There are sub-stub articles that don't have any prose content that couldn't easily be presented in a table (or a section) of an article on a higher taxon. There are articles that (essentially) nobody reads (many, but not all, of these are sub-stubs). I can pretty easily predict which articles go unread; they are about uncommon, small, difficult to identify taxa that don't occur in an English speaking country. Some poor quality, little read articles about taxa might be better handled as redirects to a higher taxon. I can't imagine any standard for (non)-notability that isn't just setting the factors that lead to an article going unread in stone. Yes, nobody is going to read an article about an uncommon moss from China. A few people will read an article about a common moss from England. A lot of people will read an article about a tree from England. Is the English moss notable, but not the Chinese one? Plantdrew (talk) 20:57, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I think that, due to insufficient research or information regarding a taxon, some taxa are unnotable. If Examplus examplar Overton, 1934 has been the subject of no significant research or further study since its original description, then it is non-notable, in my view. (I am aware that this is a contradiction of what I said regarding original descriptions above. I wrote that without thinking it through) "Significant research" means something more than "oh, by the way, we found this species hanging around again". There are some exceptions. Particularly remarkable species get a pass, in my view.
Take Heterosporium luci, for example. Not much you can say about it, is there? Wikipedia isn't an indiscriminate collection of information – it's an encyclopedia! Accepting all species as WP:DEFACTO notable will result in thousands of totally unhelpful stubs. There needs to a bar – not a particularly high one, but a bar nontheless – to keep the cruft out and maintain some standards of quality. Merging into genus level articles can help, as can Plantdrew's suggestion of tables. But thousands of sub-stubs help no-one. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 21:02, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
So to be clear, your definition here would mean ANY genus or species without a secondary mention in literature that you feel is sufficient is not notable. You do understand that you are essentially saying wikipedia should ONLY cover the large sexy common plants and animals, and anything else should be chucked as not notable. I highly disagree with that criterion.--Kevmin § 21:44, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
As to Heterosporium luci, lets look at mycobank & Index Fungorum, Its interesting you chose a species named in a non-english text from a time that is not well represented in digital copies (1956 Paris France). This tells us ONLY that the hard copy print edition of this journal and species description has not been digitalized as of yet. NOT ever a valid notability disqualifier. We have from mycobank & Index Fungorum the type locality and distribution information, "Senegal, Ivory Coast and Oubangui" (central African Republic), and what hosts it was identified on "branches of Manihot utilissima, Crotalaria retusa and Citrus", telling us additionally that its a plant pathogen and was specifically on the branches of those species. So it seems the only reason this WOULDNT be an article is the print only situation, which as I said is not a notability rational.--Kevmin § 22:13, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Sort of. This is just an idea, mind, and possibly a little too extreme. And the large sexy common plants and animals still includes a wide variety of taxa. Scolopendra dehaani, for example, would pass easily, as would Anthia sexmaculata and Neanthes arenaceodentata. I'm just trying to avoid articles like this (to pick one at random).
Helluobrochus is a wp:sofixit article, and in no way is NOT notable.--Kevmin § 22:13, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Notability, of course, regards whether or not topics necessitate separate articles, not whether information on the topic should be included at all. A non-notable taxon under this criterion would have a very short article, which could be easily upmerged. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 21:58, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
But the conversation is more nuanced then that isn't it, as biodiversity a complex topic, and you've already stated that you would rather 90% of life be upmerged.--Kevmin § 22:11, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
No, I'd like to keep information together. We should cover everything we already do and more, but not everything merits an independent article. I realize that this idea is a) extreme b) flawed and c) has consensus against it. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 22:18, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
@Kevmin: Consensus is clearly against me. Can we move on? Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 22:23, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
The only way you avoid articles like those is to make people actually write articles, gathering info about the subject, like in any other WikiProject. Instead of 1 phrase 1 reference and a bunch of redlinked species. —Snoteleks 🦠 22:10, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
@Kevmin This!! Exactly this. I also began searching Heterosporium luci and I found a way to order in an online bookstore for 10 euros the book itself, since it is only on print, and write what I read on it. And it surely will be more than a paragraph. After all, is there any rule that prevents editors from citing paper-only sources? This is definitely not a criterion. —Snoteleks 🦠 22:22, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
By the way (I just have to point it out because of my 2-point comment from before), it seems that Heterosporium is now a synonym of the preferential Cladosporium, as this seems to be pointing out: "A contribution to the systematics of Cladosporium : revision of the fungi previously referred to Heterosporium". —Snoteleks 🦠 22:41, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
@Snoteleks:, Heterosporium luci has an article now. One of the references is a 2012 revision of Cladosporium (more recent than reference you've given), where H. luci is listed in the section "UNCERTAIN AND DOUBTFUL SPECIES OF CLADOSPORIUM S. LAT". The authors suggest it might belong to the genus Passalora, but no combination in that genus has been published. Plantdrew (talk) 21:21, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
@Plantdrew Truly excellent work! And a solid proof that we should not assume any taxa would be a substub.—Snoteleks 🦠 14:20, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
Here's an example of what I mean: I'm about to expand Alboglossiphonia heteroclita because there are more sources out there. If there weren't, it wouldn't pass the bar of content outside of what WoRMS, GBIF, Chilobase, CoL, etc, provide. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 15:07, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Something similar here: I found this version of Floridobia ("silt snails") a couple of months ago. The seven species listed that do have articles are just as sparse. I was able to expand it to the current Floridobia, but it took me 16 edits over seven days to do so. I rarely work on species articles, and am not anxious to spend that much time and effort on similar articles on a regular basis. - Donald Albury 17:45, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I might add that since I finished working on it, that article has averaged one view every other day. That hardly seems worth the effort. - Donald Albury 17:55, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Donald AlburyNo one say you have to be the one that does it though, I will often add oddments to articles I come across as I work on western North American Ceonozoic fossil taxa, but its easier to add content then to generate a new article thats missing. Page views are NOT going to be high for ANY topic outside of the big names like Siberian Tiger, Columbian Mammoth Fruit bat, so that doesnt even come up as a rational for me.--Kevmin § 19:48, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I believe @BilledMammal: was putting something together at User:BilledMammal/NSPECIES, if they have anything to say here.
Re: article for every species, I would like to point out that Pachysentis handles multiple species just fine. I wish it was more done, too, summarizing multiple species in the genus article like that. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 20:23, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Pachysentis is a great model. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 20:41, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I have been; sorry, it's been rather slow going. When I have time I'm going to try and resolve the issues with taxonboxes for multi-species articles, and then we should be able to move forward. My main principle is that while every species is notable, not every species warrants a standalone article. BilledMammal (talk) 22:14, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
If its notable, per wikipedia notability, it qualifies for an article.--Kevmin § 22:17, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
See WP:PAGEDECIDE. What I would suggest for a NSPECIES notability guideline is to acknowledge that all species are notable, but also acknowledge that it is not in the best interests of the reader to give every species a standalone article. Instead, it is better for the reader for species that we have minimal content on to be included in a parent article. BilledMammal (talk) 22:40, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I agree that not every taxon merits its own article, as it can impair navigation. I also don't want 90% of life be upmerged. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 22:48, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I would hold up Pachysentis as an example where species should be merged into the genus article. Yes, I guess you could write them all as separate articles, but the single genus article is so much nicer and more comprehensive putting them side-by-side. And honestly many invertebrates probably fall into the same category.
While every species could be called notable and given its own article, we should really stop think: "Should we?" first. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 23:08, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Exactly. When creating genus-level articles, I try to contain some information on the better-researched species at that article (e.g., Nalepella, Paracrangon). That didn't go so well at Arthrorhabdus. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 23:11, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Let's pick an extreme example - in certain respects - and see what people think about the issues as they would apply. Consider Agrilus auroguttatus or Emerald ash borer. No one would disagree that these are notable species, and decent articles. Then look at the article for the genus: Agrilus. That article contains some 3000 species, virtually none of which are notable. Some have articles, some don't, and most of those articles are like this one: Agrilus pseudofallax. That stub has little going for it, except that it has a taxonbar linking it to Wikidata, Wikispecies, BugGuide, CoL, EoL, GBIF, iNaturalist, and ITIS. It turns out that there is actually a fair bit about this species, at least online, it just hasn't been put into the text. There is probably only a single print reference (other than a catalogue) that has ever mentioned this species since its description 100 years ago. Just because no one has published on it since it was described does not, to me, mean that this species is not notable. Because it has an article in Wikipedia, readers can locate a publication, photographs, and museum specimen records - and that's about all one will ever have for the 2,998 species of Agrilus that are NOT major economic pests. But we can't import the photos from iNaturalist, or the specimen data from GBIF - we can link to it in WP, though. We also can't convert the Agrilus genus page to a list or a table; 3000 entries in a list/table is far too large. If we are discussing practical guidelines, then we should decide when upmerging stubs into a genus is practical, and when it isn't. The REAL place I see we can excise "cruft" is the intermediate ranks of the taxonomic hierarchy, and this example provides exactly the sort of dismal articles that we can absolutely live without: the article for the subtribe Agrilina, the article for the tribe Agrilini, and the article for the subfamily Agrilinae. These articles are just lists of genus names; the first two are utterly redundant with the subfamily list, and could be deleted entirely (no upmerge needed, since they have no unique content). At least the subfamily article has unique content (i.e., information not available at all on the next article up in the hierarchy, which is Buprestidae). THIS is where I see that we could eliminate a massive amount of wasted space in Wikipedia. I think that genus-level articles should be as close to unrestricted as they get, by policy. A little more narrow with stubby species articles, and then serious restrictions on taxonomic articles above genus that are nothing but lists. For example, if a subfamily article has a list of genera that the family article does not have, then there should be no articles between the subfamily and the genus ranks. A tribe should only have its own article if the subfamily article only lists tribes and not genera, and so forth. That kind of policy would eliminate a lot of redundant "list-only" articles. Dyanega (talk) 23:38, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
....Whatever your point is would be much easier to understand if you didn't write massive walls of text. SilverTiger12 (talk) 23:42, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
But the taxonbars are generated from Wikidata. It is Wikidata here that's valuable. And Wikipedia is not a repository of external links, that is, once again, what Wikidata is for (external identifiers). Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 23:47, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Wikidata entries exist without context. A genus-rank entry there does not link to any of its children, and it only shows the next parent up in the hierarchy. The genus entry for Agrilus doesn't even indicate that it's a beetle, just an insect. No one use Wikidata directly to obtain or retrieve taxonomic information, or distributions, or photographs, or specimen records. The only interface that makes Wikidata useful to anyone is the taxonbar interface in Wikipedia. Dyanega (talk) 14:58, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
Agrilus is an exceptional example; standard techniques might not work for the genus having the largest number of species, but that doesn't mean they won't work for less exceptional examples. For these exceptional examples, we don't create one table; we create multiple. In some cases (and I think this may apply to Agrilus?), we can split them into sub-geneses. In other cases, where sufficient sub-geneses do not exist, we can split them like we split other excessively large list article; with a list of lists. For example, we have Agrilus (A to B), Agrilus (C to D), Agrilus (E to G), etc (exact naming format to be determined), and these are all linked from Agrilus.
It's not ideal, but it is far more useful for the reader than three thousand articles consisting each only include the species name and taxonomic authority, any subspecies, any synonyms, its conservation status, its range, and any external resources. BilledMammal (talk) 15:40, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

What are the minimum requirements on a taxon warranting a separate article?

Elmidae says full taxobox, authority & description date, distribution, taxonbar, two sources. I'll call that "base stub". generally present if available: synonyms, common name, and an image. Other views? Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 13:50, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Just a one-liner is invaluable, if there are links in the left-hand margin to other language wikipedias, wikispecies etc. I want to read about Cheirotonus jambar; it's a Japanese species, unsurprisingly ja-wiki has the most detailed coverage (here); how do I get there from Cheirotonus? A sub-stub would be invaluable, as it would help me get to and read the most detailed treatment on Wikipedia; Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 19:09, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Seems like a bit of a niche usage. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 19:18, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Seems quite fundamental to how Wikipedias are set up. —  Jts1882 | talk  19:23, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
What do you mean? Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 14:45, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
Besides, if you can read Japanese, then you can translate the article into English, and the problem is moot. If you can't read Japanese, then the link is unnecessary, and the problem is moot. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 19:35, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
The interlanguage links are for the readers not the editors, your suggestion here is distinctly editor-biased.--Kevmin § 19:59, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Fair point. Would a link to Wikidata work? Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 14:45, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
We can use Template:Ill in the genera article; for example, Cheirotonus jambar [jp]. BilledMammal (talk) 13:28, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
That makes sense. I was thinking What if there are lots of interlanguage links? That would be cumbersome? However, anything that doesn't warrant a separate English article probably doesn't have very many foreign-language articles either. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 13:39, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
And we don't need to link to every foreign-language article - just those with the most comprehensive coverage. BilledMammal (talk) 13:57, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
I've been following this conversation, and I am more in support of "sub-stub" articles, as you call them, for species articles. But I'm willing to say that the bare minimum for a species article should be: taxobox, authority & description date, distribution, and at least one source. (Sometimes, for new genera or species, there may initially only be one source, especially in paleontology.) Taxonbar should be preferred, but not required. It might be tricky to expect some editors to know how to do that, and sometimes I think bots take care of taxonbars anyways? Picture is definitely not a requirement, as it may not be available. Same for synonyms and common name.
But for the sake of argument, let me challenge one of your base assumptions: Really short ("sub-stub") articles on taxa are bad. Why are they bad? Sure, they are not necessarily good, but that does not make them bad. In my mind, they are just unhelpful, but harmless. (Very low view counts, so no big deal.) But they are also very useful placeholders for future expansion, as well as repositories for other data (e.g. taxonbar stuff), as well as just evidence of their existence. And we shouldn't understate the argument that they can be further expanded, because it does happen, and I do see it happen quite a bit here on wikipedia. (I, myself, don't really like creating new articles - it seems like a hassle. I tend to rather go in and expand upon what I find.) But also, here is a real-life example: I was out on a camping trip and found an interesting bug. I took a picture, uploaded it to iNaturalist, and some experts helped identify it. So then I google search it, go to the wikipedia link, and just find a "sub-stub" article on this bug. But then I am able to follow the uplinks, learn more about the genera, family, etc. This sub-stub page had a taxonbar, so then I go to some of the other sites, like GBIF, and learn a bit more about the bug. And then I expand the article myself with a bit more information, and upload and add my picture of the bug to the wikipedia page. Voila! Wikipedia working at its finest! This is how we want to engage with readers. Cougroyalty (talk) 21:24, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
My core concern about sub-stub taxon articles is in relation to WP:NOTDB and WP:NOTDIRECTORY. This is what iNaturalist or EOL are for (since they have their own taxonomy hierarchies but also transclude Wikipedia articles). They're not encyclopedic, in my view. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 21:32, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Ok, I took a closer reading of those policies you linked. In regards to WP:NOTDB, or WP:NOTDATABASE, the first sentence says: To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources. A "sub-stub" article (with at least a taxobox and one source) inherently provides some context already by stating that it is a species of such-and-such genera, which is linked and can be followed for more information and context. Furthermore, four specific instances under WP:NOTDB are provided, and I do not believe that species "sub-stub" articles fit under any of those four instances. Ok, now in regards to the second policy, WP:NOTDIRECTORY - it seems to more apply to lists than "sub-stub" species articles. But also, in reading the six provided examples, our situation does not seem to apply here, either. I guess I really just don't see the issue here, and I respectfully disagree with you about the encyclopedic value of stub species articles. Cougroyalty (talk) 21:51, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Consensus so far: the points we (mostly) agree on

  • Really short ("sub-stub") articles on taxa are bad.
  • All taxa are notable. (consensus is clearly against me here)

Did I miss something? Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 22:22, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

What do you mean by sub-stub? I would say stub-level is already bad enough. It means it doesn't even have reliable references or more than just one line of text. Other than this nitpicky thing, yes that's exactly it. —Snoteleks 🦠 22:26, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I think my definition of a "stub" is looser than yours. I would consider Sirsoe methanicola a stub – would you? Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 22:46, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I see how you think. For me, that is a start-level article: has at least one reliable reference, two paragraphs longer than 1 sentence each, and even contains images. So it seems our definitions are unsynchronized by one level. Yes, by your definition of stub, sub-stub is bad. —Snoteleks 🦠 23:04, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Mordellistena doherty is a substub. It reads "Mordellistena doherty is a beetle in the genus Mordellistena of the family Mordellidae. It was described in 1917 by Maurice Pic." There is no information in the prose that isn't in the taxobox, and all of that information can also be found in Mordellistena. Plantdrew (talk) 19:11, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
And no hits on Google Scholar ([19]). One on Google Books ([20]), but with no available preview. GBIF politely but firmly denies its existence. ([21]) IRMNG accepts it, but doesn't have much to say. ([22]). Unless sources can be found, the future of Mordellistena doherty looks grim. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 19:53, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
In fact, a lot of species-level Mordellistena articles are in this state. I know what my week-end project is. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 20:04, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
The problem with Mordellistena doherty stems from the fact that it's a misspelling of the species name, of a beetle that isn't in that genus. The name of the beetle is Tolidopalpus dohertyi (Pic, 1917), and it's from Malaysia [23]. Nothing is going to work properly if some careless editor inserts misspelled names into Wikipedia. Dyanega (talk) 20:25, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
To be fair, it was in Mordellistena, and GBIF, EOL and IRMNG had also picked up the misspelling, presumably from the source that was cited in the Wikipedia article. That source appears to just be a checklist of published names; the only listed synonyms are objective ones (original combinations and preoccupied replaced names).
One of the few deleted articles (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Syagrus atricolor) was also a beetle described by Pic that was also sourced to a checklist of names (with the disclaimer "this site is under construction and may contain unpublished data in relation to progress in my researches."). That site now gives a different generic placement for atricolor.
Editors should not be using checklists of published names to create taxon articles on Wikipedia. Sources that provide synonyms and accepted names are needed. Plantdrew (talk) 21:32, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
Can you explain why the taxonbar at the new Tolidopalpus dohertyi is not displaying at all? The Wikidata entry really does exist [24]. Is there some sort of weird time-lag when WP articles try to connect to Wikidata? Dyanega (talk) 23:46, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
@Dyanega: the Wikidata item has no external identifiers. I will try and add some. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 00:42, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
How about this for Wikipedia:Notability (taxa) ({{draft proposal}}):
Validly published Accepted taxa are inherently notable. Nevertheless, sub-stubs and permastubs are best avoided and unhelpful for the reader, so consider merging otherwise extremely short articles.
Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 23:21, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I think that would be WP:CREEP; it doesn't change anything, and may make it harder to create a guideline that does bring about desirable changes. I would encourage you to work on User:BilledMammal/NSPECIES with me; while it is slow going I believe the intent of that will result in a positive change to our coverage of species. BilledMammal (talk) 23:26, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Just looking at your NSPECIES's first paragraph, it sounds great. However, this does change things; see the concerns outlined by myself and Elmidae at the very top of this discussion. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 23:28, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
No, I don't think this wording gains us much. It still leaves too much to vague definitions and leaves the door open for editor A to merge a hundred species, only for editor B to undo that because they 'consider' otherwise. Assuming we are looking for a cut-off of "this is enough material to have a standalone article", I think what we need is clear statement on what exactly is required.
Currently the minimum acceptable species stub has the following information (from my experience)
  • full taxobox, authority & description date, distribution, taxonbar, two sources. I'll call that "base stub".
  • generally present if available: synonyms, common name, and an image
Now to me that is a viable stub (not sub-) and worthy of an article. However, assuming we want to raise the bar above that, the next step is the description - a species article with a physical description cannot reasonably be considered a duplication of database list entry. Anything beyond that is definitely on the way to start class - ecology, human interaction/use, taxonomic history... there are some facets that can be template-y and trivial, such as basic etymology or mere mention (without any details) of conservation status, and one could consider regarding these as insufficient on their own.
So, this is what I would like to arrive at: a list of things that need to be in the article if it is to be a standalone. I think a reasonable level would be base stub + description, although I personally would settle for base stub. And yes, the description should be available for every species. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 12:59, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
This makes sense. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 13:03, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
I think base stub + description is good. Otherwise we get more of the GBIF-reprinting style stubs that are unhelpful to the reader. And I agree that conservation status isn't enough on its own. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 13:35, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
In my opinion, it depends on the number of species in the genus, and the length of the description. If there are only three species in the genus, and the description of one of them is only a sentence long, then we don't need to split to a species article yet. If, however, there are 50 species (ie, we need a table, not a list), or if the description is a couple of paragraphs long, then it warrants splitting off, as it is at that point that splitting brings the most benefits to the reader. BilledMammal (talk) 15:18, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
About sub-stubs: I've created some warning templates (1). When can we start doling these out? Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 13:05, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

"Validly published" is a term from the botanical code and it is not equivalent the zoological code's concept of "valid". Synonyms and homonyms can be validly published. There aren't very many botanical names worth any taxonomic consideration that aren't considered validly published (those that are worth some consideration fall under some retroactively applied rules of the code; they can not be used (now) as the name for a species, but may be worth recording as synonyms that were formerly used). The equivalent term for zoology's "valid name" that appears in the glossary of the botanical code is "correct name". "Correct" is according to a particular circumscription and that circumscription might only be followed by a single taxonomist (I prefer to use the term "accepted" instead of "correct", and note who accepts it). What Wikipedia covers is taxa that are "valid"/"accepted" according to a broad consensus among experts. Plantdrew (talk) 20:26, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Just a comment here on notability, all taxa are important they are notable. But we do need to be realistic. Therearemany, many taxa with virtually no accessable information with which to form a decent article. I believe that attempting to do so and creating a point form stub does not do any good. If the species in a genus do not have readily accessible information then do an article on the genus, or family if necessary. Work to the level where this encyclopedia can produce something. This is nothing against any of these taxa, its just working with the available information. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 14:00, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
uggh I am on wrong device to correctly format and position my above reply feel free to fix it anyone. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 14:03, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Necessity of including Taxonbar when standalone article does not exist

How necessary is it to include the taxonbar when a standalone article does not exist? While it is useful to specialists, our purpose is not to write an encyclopedia for specialists but for the general reader, and thus I am wondering if it is not necessary? Being able to exclude it would greatly simplify efforts to create reader-focused articles by up-merging basic species sub-stubs. BilledMammal (talk) 15:20, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

How about a more minimalized version that is basically a link to Wikidata? This would work well in tables:
Scientific name Notes Conservation Status Wikidata ID
Examplus examplar Just a wikiidata sitelink. CR Scolopendra subspinipes (Q589378)
Examplus alterntiva Using {{Taxonbar/sandbox}}, see this discussion NT [a]
Examplus alterntiva taxonba Using {{Taxonbar/sandbox}} NT [taxonbar 1]
Examplus verticalis collapsus Using {{Taxonbar/sandbox}} NT
Taxon identifiers for Scolopendra subspinipes
Examplus horizontalis collapsus Using {{Taxonbar/sandbox}} NT
Scolopendra subspinipes
Examplus horizontalis perfecta Just a model. Could it be implemented? EW Taxonbar ►
Examplus testalus putting collapsible class elements on table cell (this uses a raw list output that could be used in various ways, e.g. to implement the proposed model)
Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 15:27, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
That is a very good idea; for lists we might be able to include the standard taxonbar, but a simple link to Wikidata should work for tables. BilledMammal (talk) 15:33, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
Is it possible to compress the taxonbar somehow? Full taxonbars in list articles could get somewhat bulky. Maybe something like this (hopefully with nicer colours:

E. examplar, which is critically endangered, is restricted to Atlantis. It is believed to be the closest relative of E. placeholderii.

Taxonbar



Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 15:52, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
@Edward-Woodrow: I've looked at the taxonbar module and made a few test options for the output: horizontal and vertical collapsed lists and a raw list output that can be used in collapsed element. The latter is used in the last row with the collapsible functionality added to the cell wikitext. I think these examples show that your model idea can implemented if that is the chosen solution. —  Jts1882 | talk  07:50, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
Wow, thanks. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 11:24, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
Taxonbars are very useful for editors and readers wanting more advanced information. Encyclopaedias can be useful for lay-people and experts alike. The taxonbars provide at a glance information on how widely the taxon is accepted and also differences between different authorities when there is more than one wikidata item in taxonbar. Having to go to Wikidata and look through a long list of statements is far more difficult and time consuming. While I agree that not all species need an article (in at least two situations) I don't think reducing stubs should come at the expense of utility. Taxonbars can contain a number of wikidata items (and collapse if more than 4) so the taxonbar could contain the genus and the species items. This wouldn't be useful for long lists of hundreds of species but I doubt the taxonbar would contain much information in those cases. Another alternative is to insert the taxonbar content in the species table (i.e. in place of the Wikidata cell in the example above). —  Jts1882 | talk  15:57, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
On a side note, Template:Taxonbar just says Lua error: too many expensive function calls... 16:02, 10 August 2023 (UTC) Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 16:02, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
I've made a quick fix, but the documentation needs trimming or splitting. —  Jts1882 | talk  16:44, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
I for one feel that is a very poor option, as you are ACTIVELY creating the impression that NO other information exists, and you have removed the redlinks that are proven drivers of article creation and expansion. You do not get to dictate that. Additionally conservation status is one of the LEAST implemented/used assessment for taxa, so the majority of every entry would be blank there, (again big sexy organism bias showing). Tables are also not shown on mobile view, as was pointed out multiple times at the village pump discussion on notability. Given the percentage of traffic though wiki is now from mobile devices your proposal is effectively deleting the content from the article for those viewers. In short tables are very bad options.--Kevmin § 01:20, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
I disagree with most of what you have said, but you are objectively incorrect on this point: Tables are also not shown on mobile view. Look at an article with tables on mobile view; you will be able to see the tables.
To address the rest; whether or not to include red links is debatable, and my proposal would neither forbid nor require it. A column for conservation status would only be included when the information is available (when available should contain the following information), and so will not result in long blank columns. As for including/excluding the external links, it seems we are leaning towards including them, although I would disagree that by not including certain links we are ACTIVELY creating the impression that NO other information exists. BilledMammal (talk) 02:28, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
I hadn't been thinking about mobile view. The tables above in this thread are displayed in mobile view (I'm not sure if that goes for all tables). Taxonbars are not currently displayed in mobile view (something I would really like to see changed). In mobile view, the first two examples in the first table (Examplus examplar and the first Examplus alterntiva) go to the Wikidata item (examplar), or display the taxonbar links (alterntiva). That is an improvement over taxonbars not being displayed at all in mobile view. The other two examples in the first table, and the second table aren't viewable in mobile. There is no reason to adopt an approach for taxonbars that won't display in mobile. In my professional life, the primary reason I "read" Wikipedia articles is for the taxonbar; it has provides links to almost every website I would want to consult on a regular basis. The taxonbar is a necessity for me, but I guess I could get used to prefixing searches with Wikidata or Wikispecies (assuming Wikispecies adds more taxonbars) if Wikipedia abandons stand-alone articles for taxa.
I assume conservation status was an arbitrary example for an additional column in the examples above. Most species don't have an assessed conservation status, and there is a some detailed information available online for the species that do have an assessed conservation status. There are Polbot created articles on IUCN assessed species that have not been expanded, but I would not consider any of them to be candidates for merging to higher taxa. The conservation assessment alone provides information that should take an article beyond substub status. Plantdrew (talk) 03:19, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
@Kevmin: It's unclear what comment this is in response to, but I assume you're referring to the table – that's just an example. I picked some stuff purely at random. I chose conservation status for fun. Same with the made-up latin names. Obviously tables in actual articles would be more realistic. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 11:36, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
And regarding removal of redlinks to species pages (I think that's what you're referring to): if the information is adequately covered in a table, then there's absolutely no need to have an independent species article. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 11:41, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Taxonbars can contain a number of wikidata items (and collapse if more than 4) so the taxonbar could contain the genus and the species items. So you are suggesting to just include all the taxonbars at the bottom of the article? That would be workable, and probably better than including it directly in the table; perhaps the best method would be to prescribe no set format for how the taxonbar is included, and instead just prescribe that it is included? BilledMammal (talk) 02:56, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
I was presenting that as an alternative to consider, although I'm not convinced. I think it would work well for a species that has recently been split into two or three species, where nearly all the historical work is on the single species. Then a table treating the species in the genus article would be better than trying to disentangle who was studying which species in previous work for individual species articles. In this case a taxonbar with the genus and the 2-3 species would work well. On the other hand,I wouldn't suggest it for a large genus with a 100 poorly studied species. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:20, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
I favor that approach. Save the space in the tables for what information can be scraped up about the species, and have all the taxonbars at the bottom. SilverTiger12 (talk) 20:57, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
Comment on mobile view. Normal tables are shown in mobile view, but Navbars are not (although there may be work on changing this). The current taxonbar outputs the identifier lists as a navbar, which is why it doesn't show on mobile. Collapsible elements don't work interactively on mobile, but in my experience the content is visible as an always expanded list without interactivity. The lists in the table above are hidden because the templates used for the sandbox taxonbar output (namely {{collapsible list}} and {{hidden}}) hide the content on mobile and for some reason the show/hide toggle isn't working. However, it should be possible to have a collapsible list on mobile, either using a different template or using div elements and appropriate classes in the taxonbar output. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:20, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
{{collapsible list}} does generally work on mobile, but not on this page. I'd guess there is some interaction with another collapsible element on this page. The table above works on a blank page (see User:Jts1882/blank). The mobile view is expanded and this is unavoidable until Wikimedia makes changes. This would be problematic for viewing such species tables in mobile view. —  Jts1882 | talk  10:35, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment: I've implemented a table-species list at Microgramma (plant), expanded from a basic list of redlinks. It still needs a bit of work, especially figuring out how to get the taxonbars to work, but I'm quite happy with the overall result. Thoughts? Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 20:07, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
    I'm not very comfortable citing information (i.e. distribution) to "And associated subpages". I know there are other articles for genera that have species lists with distributions that aren't sourced, but that doesn't make it a good practice. I don't see any way around including a citation for every row in a table when the table contains information that can only be verified by visting subpages (subpages could be cited as short footnotes rather than full citations, but the only advantage of that is making things slightly easier for editors). Plantdrew (talk) 22:10, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
    It's much more useful for the reader, and a significant improvement over the previous version. However, I do agree with Plantdrew that we should probably be citing the subpages directly.
    I created User:BilledMammal/Abrotanella last year, as an example of how such pages could look - it currently lacks taxonbars, though. BilledMammal (talk) 22:18, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
    The primary reference for the list, Checklist of Ferns and Lycophytes of the World, no longer exists. It needs to be converted to World Ferns, which recognises percussa as a species and nana as a variety of tecta. World Ferns has distributions so the subpage references aren't needed. Also POWO recognises more species than World Ferns, so the distributions of POWO species and World Ferns species might not correspond.—  Jts1882 | talk  06:54, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
     Fixed the redlink list relied on that source, and I forgot to remove the sentence. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 12:19, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Notelist for taxonbar

  1. ^ Scolopendra subspinipes:
  1. ^ Scolopendra subspinipes:

NSPECIES proposal

I've updated my proposal for an NSPECIES SNG. In particular, it prescribes that taxonbars, or the information contained within taxonbars, should be included somewhere, but it doesn't prescribe how that information should be included - I think that is best left to individual articles to determine the best way to fit that information within the structure of the article.

I'm linking it here so that other editors can review it and determine what aspects of the proposal need work before we take it to an RfC. BilledMammal (talk) 08:28, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Looks good. The "redirects" section is a bit vague. Redirects to where? The direct parent taxon? If yes, then I think a line something along the lines of the below should be added, to avoid redirects like this.
Redirects to the parent taxon should only be created if the parent taxon article actually contains practical information besides the name of the species, as these are unhelpful to the reader.
I know this is implied, but even if this does become a guideline, there will still be literally thousands of species-list genus articles, so that text will help seal off those unhelpful redirects (like Batillipes acaudatus). Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 14:51, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
I wouldn't be opposed to that, but my understanding is that it is desired that the redirects exist even in those cases, in order to support categorization. Plus, redirects are cheap. BilledMammal (talk) 14:55, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
True, but they're unhelpful.
  1. Reader finds genus article
  2. Reader clicks on species link
  3. Reader is redirected back to the same genus article.
  4. Reader is annoyed.
Or:
  1. Reader types in scientific name of species.
  2. Reader is redirected to genus article, which is a species list article that says nothing about the species Reader wants to know about.
Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 15:03, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
Agree with @Edward-Woodrow: much better to have the redlnk, as that does much more to encourage building the encyclopedia. UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:15, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
I've adjusted it slightly; I would prefer not to forbid the creation of redirects, as I suspect that would be a blocker to finding consensus for this proposal, but I've removed the requirement that redirects be created. Is the current wording acceptable, or would different wording be preferable - or, alternatively, would it be preferable for the entire section on redirects to be removed? BilledMammal (talk) 15:32, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
Not sure I see how this would be a blocker. Who benefits from redirects like that? No-one. If it does become a blocker, it can easily be propped up with the spirit of WP:REDYES. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 15:38, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
I think it would be a blocker because some editors don't like the idea of new restrictions on the creation of redirects; I believe a restriction like the one proposed here would be unprecedented. However, if there is broad support for such a restriction ("Redirects should only be created where information beyond the species name and taxonomic authority is available") in this discussion I won't stand against including it in the proposal. BilledMammal (talk) 15:46, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
To be honest, I think codifying inherent notability for species will be the most controversial. An RfC will not be a breeze. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 15:48, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
Speaking as one of the "curationists" who would normally object to efforts to expand SNG's, I suspect this one is a suitable compromise that will get past that barrier, although I will run it by a few other curationists first. BilledMammal (talk) 07:10, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
We shouldn't encourage the creation of redirects. The point of all this is to reduce the number of pages that may require maintenance by editors to be kept up to date, and to reduce suggestions to readers that we have useful content that we don't actually have, right? Names get synonymized. If a species is transferred to another genus than a new redirect for the current genus placement would need to be created, and the old redirect would need to be retargeted and have {{R avoided double redirect}} added. If there are no redirects, dealing with new synonymy just means updated a list of species in a genus article.
Batillipes acaudatus is one of more than 5000 species redirects to genus pages created by Galactikapedia. Many of them have since been turned into articles, but Galactikapedia didn't add any categories to the redirects they created (I've added categories to maybe a couple hundred of them). I would like to see Galactikapedia's redirects deleted (anybody who wants to turn one of them into a decent article should get credit as the page creator), but I'm not sure that a proposal to delete them would pass, and nominating that many redirects would be a huge pain.
If there are going to be many more species redirects (due to redirecting existing substubs), we probably should have something like {{NASTRO comment}} that adds multiple redirect categories. Relevant rcat templates for a redirected species page are {{R from merge}} (or {{R with history}}, {{R from species to genus}}, {{R with Wikidata item}}, {{R taxon with possibilities}} (if there are possibilities of a decent article), {{R printworthy}} {{R to anchor}} (will there be anchors?; or {{R to section}} for cases like Pachysentis).
If there is a list of species (separate from a genus article), or even multiple lists of species (such as Agrilus (A to B)), where do species redirects go? To the only page that mentions them (i.e., the list), or the genus article that should provide more context? RfD discussions like to point redirects to page where the term is mentioned (List of Carex species has a bunch of incoming redirects that were formerly substubs, but there's no useful context at that list). Would Agrilus (A to B) just copy the genus article for context? And {{R to list}} is another rcat template that becomes relevant if the target is a list. Plantdrew (talk) 20:14, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
5000 species redirects? We need this in writing. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 20:39, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
I've updated the proposal to match my understanding of this discussion; Plantdrew, does it match yours or is additional work required?
If there is a list of species (separate from a genus article), or even multiple lists of species (such as Agrilus (A to B)), where do species redirects go? Normally, it would go to the page that mentions the species. I suspect that the same approach would be used here, and we would leave what other information to include about the genus up to a local consensus - it is possible that we could transclude parts of the primary genus article. BilledMammal (talk) 07:10, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
I continue to think that most redirects from species names, other than from synonyms, are an abomination. They create the impression that an article exists. If they go to a bare list of species names that are themselves wikilinked they create circular lists, as well as telling the reader nothing useful. If there's no article, and won't be for some good policy reason, then don't create a redirect. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:37, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead Can we please implement this as a rule? There are many important taxon groups whose children taxa are almost always redirects to the parent taxa (such as Arcellinida, Lobosa, some Cercozoa subgroups). If the page does not exist yet, and it is not a synonym, it should never become a redirect of a parent taxon for all the reasons everyone else here has mentioned. We should not allow it. —Snoteleks 🦠 14:23, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
I've taken the Batillipes redirects to RfD (all 30 of them; lots of fun to do manually), which hopefully at least sets precedent if the RfC takes a long time (and I suspect it will, if we can spend 12K words arguing about a caption, then imagine what we can do with a notability guideline!) Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 14:35, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
all 30 of them; lots of fun to do manually Let me know if there are other groups you want to nominate; I can easily tag them all with autowiki browser. BilledMammal (talk) 14:39, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
Does this include redirects like the current one from Pachysentis ehrenbergi to Pachysentis? Personally, I think that redirect is appropriate; the genera article has substantial content about ehrenbergi and is useful for the reader. BilledMammal (talk) 14:36, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
I agree that that redirect is appropriate. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 14:38, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
I strongly disagree that the redirect is appropriate. What is its value? Redirects are useful if there is a chance that an editor will wikilink the redirect within an article; redirects between synonyms, for example, help to ensure that multiple articles don't get created for the same taxon. A redirect from a species to a genus is utterly unhelpful. It suggests that there is an article on the taxon, when there isn't. Sometimes people mention searches, but this is a red herring: if the species name exists within an article, a search will find it; there's no need whatsoever for a redirect for this purpose. I am with Snoteleks; such redirects should be banned, and if they already exist, nominated for deletion. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:12, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead: I agree that redirects redirecting to the parent taxon where there is no useful information at the parent taxon should be banned, deleted with prejudice, and vigorously jumped up and down upon. But Pachysentis has a section on P. ehrenbergi. This is a very clear {{r to section}}: anyone searching up Pachysentis ehrenbergi will not be disappointed. Looking through search results is a very unnecessary hassle when there's an entire section at the target. It also helps with inter-page linking. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 18:17, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
@Edward-Woodrow: well, we must agree to disagree. In my firm view, the right course of action is to split Pachysentis, creating separate articles for the species. Certainly this is what I would do if it were an area of the tree of life in which I edit (plants, spiders). Peter coxhead (talk) 18:23, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
Regardless of whether or not we agree, small taxon redirects almost always redirect to a big taxon page that contains exactly 0 information about the small taxon (see Arcellinida, Discosea, Metamonada, Jakobea, Excavata in general, they are plagued with these redirects). The reality is that redirects like Pachysentis ehrenbergi are a small exceptional minority (which could also just become a page of its own). Redirects like these should not be allowed, they hamper the reader experience and slow the creation of new proper articles. —Snoteleks 🦠 11:10, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
To back up a bit, on redirs: "Reader finds genus article. Reader clicks on species link. Reader is redirected back to the same genus article. Reader is annoyed." This is fixed by not using circular links within the same article. This is an "Editing 101" matter. "Reader types in scientific name of species. Reader is redirected to genus article, which is a species list article that says nothing about the species Reader wants to know about." This is fixed by adding the species to the list. Also really basic editing. Easily surmountable problems are an "argument to avoid".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:36, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Is there support here for taking BilledMammal's NSPECIES to an RfC, or hammering things out here a little longer? Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 16:20, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
It hasn't been a week yet since it was obvious there was a drafted proposal (at least by section header), so it's probably best to give it some additional time for others who have been commenting here to chime in. There is some copy editing that could be done too.
One thing I noticed is the lead says However, they do not automatically warrant a standalone article; this guideline defines when sufficient information is available for such an article to be warranted., but the body doesn't really spell that out, or at least it doesn't jump out. It seems a bit buried in the Table section. Maybe the simplest solution is just to add a header for something like "Stand-alone species articles" since that is probably what the main point of discussion would often be. There could be other ways of organizing that too. KoA (talk) 18:08, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
I would also agree this should all be spelled out better. I am a taxonomist and have described a number of species and genera. When first described there is often very little information on the new species, what does exist is often mixed up with the species it was split off from. Previous literature will be referring to the taxon by the wrong name. You need to give this some time to pan out. New species should only get a page of their own after the first review. That means another paper has discussed the new taxon and accepted it. This then starts the process of sorting out the literature. Thats just one thought of many here from me. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 18:14, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
The wording still needs some work. It's still got the jargony correct name (botany) and valid name (zoology) from WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES, along with "so long as they are not synonyms". Not having articles for synonyms is why correct/valid names are specified. If non-TOL editors are going to be commenting on it, it should give some context on the scale of synonymy to make it clear that correct/valid species are a selected subset of "species names that have been published" (World Flora Online has 383,054 accepted species and 1,565,481 names (that number includes genera, but is mostly species level synonyms)).
I think everybody who regularly edits TOL articles agrees with Faendalimas that another publication (subsequent to the original description) accepting a species is needed before it would qualify for a page. We do get (a few) articles created by editors who aren't TOL regulars for newly described species based on press releases that get picked up by major media outlets. Plantdrew (talk) 19:48, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
it would help alot I think if the terms valid and correct from the two main Codes were given a collective term that had an explanation. The term I would recommend is Treatment Name, as per a number of authors. This name is the currently applied name in its accepted scope to a taxon with a reference to not only the original author but who redefined it. So Aus bus OriginalAuth XXXX sec. TreatmentAuth XXXX. This works for both Botany and Zoology as it encompasses the definitions from both codes. However, it would need a page for Treatment Name (Biology) to explain it all as a reference point. Sec. stands for secundum which basically says according to. The more we can make these issues about Life rather than Plants, Animals and other organisms the simpler it will become at encyclopedic level. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 19:56, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
I think everybody who regularly edits TOL articles agrees with Faendalimas that another publication (subsequent to the original description) accepting a species is needed before it would qualify for a page. Yeah, I suggested that (or something similar) up above, Kevmin seemed quite opposed to it (So to be clear, your definition here would mean ANY genus or species without a secondary mention in literature that you feel is sufficient is not notable. You do understand that you are essentially saying wikipedia should ONLY cover the large sexy common plants and animals, and anything else should be chucked as not notable. I highly disagree with that criterion.). Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 20:03, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
I get what Kevmin is getting at here. There is a tendancy in many areas such as Wikis and Conservation to focus on the cute and cuddly vertebrates. We spent a whole discussion on this issue in our GSLWG discussions as only the big sexy vertebrates tend to have complete checklists. This is something we have to work against. All species have equal notability, we have to come from that premise. This does not mean all species need a page here. But I would definitely say at least some membersof every major grouping should have pages so their is some inclusivity across all taxonomic groups. That is difficult to do, and requires the interest of those editing these pages to seek out those poorly represented taxa and make some pages. The representation of a taxonomic group across Wikipedia should also be a criterior here, if some Family of spiders for example does not have a single species level page anywhere, well I think we should put together at least one page there. I specialise in turtles but working on GSLWG I am dealing with all life, I have to, I have to permit myself to see past the turtles. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 20:15, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
I agree that there is bias towards the cute and cuddly vertebrates – when it comes to writing articles, I mostly do centipedes, crsutaceans, and polychaetes; I do sympathize with this concern but that doesn't distract from the fact that not every species is deserving of an article. Maybe I do, as Kevmin said, want 90% of life be upmerged. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 20:19, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
I agree, as I said we should aim for some representation for each group, not every species its too much. Many can be listed in articles on genera, some even families. I understand what your trying to do here look at some criteria for this. To me two important critera are time from description to allow for the information to come out, and representation of groups. Aiming does not mean we have to get there, an aim keeps these issues in front of mind. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 20:25, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Quick edit, I am yet to see any valid argument for a page on a subspecies just to throw that in there. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 20:26, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Hmm... subspecies. I think I mentally apply the same criterion to subspecies as I do to species, although the bar should probably be a little higher. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 20:47, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
According to Sunda clouded leopard, though the insular Sunda clouded leopard is a distinct species, for a long time it was misunderstood, and treated as a subspecies of the mainland Clouded leopard. The role of the beast in the island culture may, or may not, have been major - the well-documented subject of oral epics etc. Would the population only have merited an article in its own right when mr scientist had his eureka moment? Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 20:58, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
How about the Ryukyu kingfisher, if one study finds it's a subspecies, does this extinct bird no longer merit an article; then the next finds its a separate species, suddenly it can be un-deleted? Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 21:08, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
At that point, it will probably be notable as a taxonomic oddity. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 21:12, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, yes; also, the Iriomote cat may not even be a subspecies, but there are so many related initiatives, and it attracts lots of interest in its own right..., Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 21:21, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Thoughts on Scolopendra subspinipes mutilans, then? I think it should probably be kept. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 21:22, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
What I meant was a taxonomic argument. There may be many other factors giving notoriety to a population than its taxonomy. If so make that argument and go for it. But if we have a page for one of several subspecies of a species, why not make a page on the species that discusses the notority of the one subspecies of importance and mention the others. At least then it covers the whole species and its complexity. But all these mammals and birds with pages on subspecies thats the meaning of cute and cuddly syndrome. It creates a disproportionate upscaling of the value of these subspecies. Its the species that is the basic unit of taxonomy. Subspecies are geographic variants. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 21:36, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
You wrote "notoriety"... did you mean "notability?" Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 21:39, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
oops yes sorry writing quickly lol. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 21:41, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
If the toxins Ssm6a and Ssm spooky toxin are notable, I would think the taxon that is the source of the toxins would also be notable. Plantdrew (talk) 21:48, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
The cases I had in mind of non-TOL editors creating articles for newly described species were vertebrates. Vertebrates will get some follow up mentions showing that newly described species are accepted. The general practice in Wikipedia with taxon articles has not to create articles based only on original descriptions, but to create articles following a secondary source that lists accepted species (and synonyms of accepted species), and possibly using the original description for the bulk of the article content.
There are certainly some species in non-sexy groups that may go a long time without a secondary source appearing that accepts them (or synonymizes them instead). Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Syagrus atricolor was one of those. Original description isn't available online (and is likely pretty minimal), the only internet source was some work-in-progress research notes (which were not intended to be a comprehensive list of accepted species and their synonyms, although then intended final product would be such a list). And after the Wkipedia article on S. atricolor was deleted, a paper was published that transfers it to a different genus and presumably has something more to say about it (it's paywalled). Heterosporium luci was brought up as an example of species that nothing could be said about. Now there's an article that says something about it.
There are species about which perhaps nothing could be said (e.g. Syagrus atricolor in 2016). But there are many species in non-sexy groups about which something could be said that lack articles, or have substubs that don't say what could be said. Plantdrew (talk) 21:46, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Yes among the vertebrates its not just that you have more taxonomists but large groups of interested people, many of whjom may be editors here. So they see a new species described and they want it on here immediately. Unfortunately that is not in the best interests of stability. The new species may be sunk 6 months later, then we have to delete or merge pages very inconvenient. Hence my view we should not be too quick to just accept all new names.
On the issue of review it works both ways, in smaller groups with less publications, if someone names a new species and it is not sunk in a paper within say 12 months then you can say its accepted. That may not mean it is notable but can be accepted as an actual entitiy if nothing else. One advantage to having pages for genera or families as well as species is new species can be listed appropriately on these pages as red links for now. If good information showing notability comes to hand over the next year or so a page can be considered. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 22:33, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Probably hammer things out a little longer. One thing I am considering is whether it would be better to include the primary proposal without the redirect section, and then have that section as a sub-proposal (with three options - redirects required, redirects forbidden, no position on redirects) as I suspect it will be more controversial. BilledMammal (talk) 11:12, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion about taxonomic databases/checklists

I think there are important differences between different groups of organisms. Some have well maintained, taxonomically sound databases – plants, for example, with IPNI, POWO, etc., or spiders with the World Spider Catalog. For these groups, we should not accept taxa here until they are accepted by a reliable taxonomic database. Other groups may be more problematic. Guidance can, and should, vary by WikiProject. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:18, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I think this is an interesting approach. We could make a list of all taxonomic databases and differentiate reliable (like the ones you mentioned, and I can think of Microtax as another good example) from unreliable databases (like WoRMs, AlgaeBase, etc that are not well maintained or updated, or sometimes are even just plain incorrect). This way we could delineate which WikiProjects can firmly rely on databases. I still think the authority shouldn't be databases but the scientific publications instead, however I understand that for some groups the amount of taxa is so huge that it would be much, much easier to manage them by following a reliable database. —Snoteleks 🦠 09:52, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
Ok some of this is from our current work on developing governance for checklists. Anyway you need to appreciate how good checklists work. They are an assimilation of all the available scientific literature on the group they cover. As such they act as reviewer and the evidence for prevailing usage. Our metrics are aimed at identifying which checklists do this well and which do not, we then adopt the better checklists into a global spacies list, this is currently underway. We have already examined a number of checklists that have demonstrated great skill in achieving their goals. We have an upcoming publication on the survey of some 1600 scientists and stakeholders we did about 18 months ago, at the time I believe I shared it here to give some the opportunity to partake. The names authority is a nomenclatural decision and this is always with the original author and the treatment author. The prevailing usage is evidenced through a complete history of the taxonomic usage and this will have many authors, best summarised by checklists. At present we are in discussions to convert CoL into the Global Checklist. To add a couple more I will add the TTWG Turtle Checklist for living turtles, TEWG Turtle Checklist for fossil turtles (Pleistocene on) and Reptile Database for reptiles in general. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 20:18, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
Looks like we may just end up codifying the (previously uncodified) status quo, albeit with some guidance on alternatives to stand-alone articles. Redirects rather than stand-alone articles are rare, but there cases of well-developed articles that cover more than one species (e.g. Bryde's whale), and cases of substubs that were turned into redirects that have remained redirects for years (e.g. Carex conica]]. Part of status quo has been following particular sources (mostly databases) or accepted/synonym status of species.
IPNI is a well maintained, taxonomically sound database, but it does not give accepted/synonym status. Aphia (WoRMS) is a platform with data for different groups of organisms maintained by independent groups of editors. It includes non-marine organisms, and some of the sub-databases can be accessed both via WoRMS and via a separate website (e.g. Global Compositae Database). At least one Apiha-based database can not be accessed via WoRMS (IRMNG). WoRMS/Aphia is good for some groups, but not for others (algae data is copied from Algaebase; there may not be a better resource for algae, but Algaebase has some problems (e.g. accepted genera with 0 accepted species)).
I'm going to list the databases I'm aware of that have been discussed at TOL subprojects, with consensus to follow that database for acceptance of species and synonyms (in some cases a different source is followed for higher classification). They may not be documented on the TOL page, or on the subproject page (several new editors have expressed surprise to learn that POWO is the standard for plants, we should get that documented).
  • Amphibians - Amphibian Species of the World
  • Birds - IOC World Bird List (not actually a database. doesn't list synonyms)
  • Fish - FishBase
  • Gastropods - WoRMS
  • Mammals - Mammal Diversity Database+IUCN Redlist (mammal species are accepted on Wikpedia when MDD+IUCN agree; previously mammals followed MSW3)
  • Reptiles - ITIS (consensus to follow ITIS is ancient; in practice reptile species acceptance follows The Reptile Database (except for turtles?))
  • Seed plants - Plants of the World Online (previously followed The Plant List)
  • Spiders - World Spider Catalog
Following ICTV for viruses and LPSN for prokaryotes seems pretty obvious, but hasn't been formally discussed. For fungi, Index Fungorum and Mycobank have been discussed, but they frequently disagree and there has been no consensus to follow one or the other. There are some databases for insects that are frequently followed, but I'm not aware of discussions arriving at any consensuses to follow them. The page for WikiProject Insects endorses LEPINDEX according to "general consensus amongst Indian aurelians" (is that some weird auto-correct for Wikipedians? It has been on the WikiProject page since its first edit). Plantdrew (talk) 21:01, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
I'm confused, I thought World Flora Online was the new The Plant List. It also includes mosses and ferns afaik, not just seed plants. —Snoteleks 🦠 21:21, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
World Flora Online is the successor to The Plant List, as a multi-institutional collaboration including Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden (and others). POWO is solely a Kew product. It took WFO awhile to launch, and I guess Kew got impatient and released POWO. And even after WFO launched it was pretty incomplete and development was delayed by the pandemic. I would prefer to have the multi-institutional effort as the standard once it is sufficiently mature. WFO is also supposed to be much more data rich (as a flora, it is intended to have description of all species). POWO includes ferns (but not bryophytes), but their fern classification differs significantly from the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification followed by Wikipedia. It has been awhile since I've really looked into WFO; maybe it is ready now. Plantdrew (talk) 21:54, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
By the way, about fungi, even though it's not an online database there is the "Outline Of Fungi and fungus-like taxa" publication (two of them, one in 2020 and one in 2022) which seems legit, published in Mycosphere. It has an online version and it contains all taxa down to genus level, including the number of species in each genus. Last year I actually began working on a possible wikipedia article for the taxonomic outline of Fungi that was basically a transcription from this work. —Snoteleks 🦠 22:09, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
I'd add Goffinet and Buck's Classification of extant moss genera for mosses. It's not a database, but a one page classification to genus level, based on their book with updates. A few years ago I went through the articles on higher classification of mosses and the taxonomy templates revised them to follow Goffinet down to family level (although many families don't have articles). I used WFO for species listings.
WoRMS uses a variety of source databases and is only as good as the databases and how frequently they are updated. Their sources are listed here. The gastropod and bivalve sections on WoRMS follow published classifications and are regularly updated by the author. Crustaceans also follow recent work. A number of other databases used by WoRMS seem reliable and probably have no alternatives. On the other hand, WoRMS uses Fishbase for fish, but it doesn't seem to have been updated for a while. I note that Fishbase and Algaebase are listed as "External Global Species Databases", while others like MolluscaBase, World Amphipoda Database and World Marine, Freshwater and Terrestrial Isopod Crustaceans database are listed as subregisters. In general I'd say WoRMS is reliable for marine invertebrates and hit and miss for terrestrial invertebrates (molluscs, a hit; insects, mainly misses).
Likewise CoL uses a variety of databases of different quality. Most are imports of other databases with their own sites, while some are only available through CoL (e.g. World Scarabaeidae Database). Carabcat (ground beetles) has its own unfriendly database access but recommends using CoL. Other parts of the tree rely on ancient ITIS imports. —  Jts1882 | talk  07:51, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
Within reptiles yes all world organisations essentially follow Reptile Database and we should here too. ITIS is very out of date with respect to reptiles and cannot be relied upon. Reptile Database follows the TTWG for its list hence the TTWG Checklist is the source database for Turtles and is followed by all organisations such as IUCN, CITES Governments etc. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 20:58, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
I believe Mammals follows the IUCN+MDD for changes to taxonomy, that is, splits, merges, genus moves. I'm not sure our policy on entirely new species (e.g. Leopardus narinensis), though that is admittedly rarer in mammals than for many other groups. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 15:05, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead @Jts1882 @SilverTiger12@Plantdrew (I can't ping Scott?) I have started elaborating a summary table in this page in accordance to what we have so far. I believe it would be better to move the discussion to that page's talk page. Feel free to start commenting and adding more! —Snoteleks 🦠 10:37, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
A summary of preferred sources for taxonomic databases is also already here on this (WP:TOL) project page. Loopy30 (talk) 23:10, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the link Snoteleks you can ping my user name {{u|Faendalimas}} I eventually had to start using my real name due to COI and NPoV issues as many of my publications are cited on TOL pages, so its just disclosure. You may find you will need to divide mammals more as the various IUCN SSC's for the mammal groups eg Primates and Cats, do their own lists that are followed worldwide and are more up to date than their singular list. Loopy30 that page you linked is a bit out of date I have serious issues with the update lag of ITIS these days particulaly in fast changing groups. For GSLWG we basically consider it unreliable. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 23:39, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
It is the most complete listing of taxonomic databases that we have and includes an assessment of the reliability for many of the entries. The entry for ITIS specifically notes that: ITIS cannot be considered a reliable source on its own. Loopy30 (talk) 23:57, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
This TOL project page is where this information should ultimately be. It is true that it is currently out of date, with many dead links, but perhaps this discussion can lead to it being updated. It should also point to the resource pages of various subprojects that keep their own lists. For those interested, I also keep a page of taxonomic resources at User:Jts1882/Phylogeny_and_taxonomy_resources that may be helpful for updating the list. —  Jts1882 | talk  05:50, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
Just a headsup for those interested in birds the 4 major Checklists of birds which disagree with each around 20% of the time are in a process of negotiating a consistent single checklist for birds. I know the Chair of that committee trying to accomplish that. I believe it will eventually all be under Birdlife and there will be a single authoritative checklist for birds. I will keepyou all appraised on this but eventually you will need to make some changes on birds. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 21:14, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Wikidata linking

Please see User talk:BilledMammal/NSPECIES#Wikidata linking which raises issues that arise when species don't have separate articles here but do in other language wikis. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:28, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Edward-Woodrow, Jts1882, and I have been discussing that above, at #What are the minimum requirements on a taxon warranting a separate article?. Template:Ill is the solution. BilledMammal (talk) 18:42, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
It isn't a solution. Because one user might prefer a medium-length French page to a full-length Japanese page, and populating the ill template with the best-at-point-of-writing entry would require one to look at each language version and would also not be dynamic. Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 20:28, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
More generally, what exactly are we trying to achieve here? Some kind of chilling effect? Is there a notability issue? Is it like Xenophanes saying that, if cows and horses had gods, they would look like cows and horses? If we are trying to forestall some putative readers not liking stubs and their links, would an alternative solution be to make the colour of the page link vary depending on the page rating, eg a stub gives a pink link? Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 20:28, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
  • would also not be dynamic. What do you mean?
  • what exactly are we trying to achieve here? A notability guideline for taxa.
  • Some kind of chilling effect? Again, what do you mean?
  • Is there a notability issue? Read the start of this discussion.
  • trying to forestall some putative readers not liking stubs and their links, would an alternative solution be to make the colour of the page link vary depending on the page rating, eg a stub gives a pink link? No. Again, read the start of the discussion.
​Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 20:36, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
Sealioning :)), Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 20:37, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
Hardly. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 20:39, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
@Maculosae tegmine lyncis, I apologize if my comment was interpreted negatively. My intent was not to be rude, but if it was perceived that way, I apologize for any harm done. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 22:18, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
  • would also not be dynamic. I'm pretty sure this means that the language with the best developed article now may not be the language with the best developed article in the future. A dynamic solution would automatically switch the link once the linked article in one language is surpassed (by byte count?) by the article in another language. Picking one language to link via {{Ill}}, when articles exist in several languages is easy if a subject has strong linguistic/national ties. I would expect articles about government agencies in France, or German authors would be best developed on fr and de Wikipedias. If a species is endemic to an area with a single common language, it might have the best developed article in that language (looking through Category:Endemic flora of Italy, many of the articles do have a more developed version in Italian, but some don't have any article whatsoever in Italian, and I wouldn't call any of the English ones substubs). However, overall, I don't think very many English substubs are going to have a well developed article in any other language.
Taking the time to Figure out which single language with the best developed article (which most English readers aren't going to be able to read) and displaying only that article via ill doesn't seem like a good idea. Link all the language editions (I doubt there are many English substubs that have articles in more than 5 other languages. Or (and?) link Wikispecies (Mordellistena irritans [species]). Wikispecies displays (by default) in English, and usually has no less information than an English substub. A problem with ill is that I'm not seeing a way to surpress the English links, which would lead to circular redirects. Plantdrew (talk) 21:38, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
@Plantdrew: this thread has got forked; see User talk:BilledMammal/NSPECIES#Wikidata linking where there's discussion of an "other wiki bar", similar to a taxonbar. This could easily suppress the English link. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:40, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
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