Talk:Decline in insect populations

Removed further reading list

I've removed the further reading list, as it's not very useful. It would have to be continually curated to ensure it represents a worldwide and up to date view:

• "Insect Population". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Vol. 656. House of Commons (UK). 20 March 2019. col. 365WH–374WH.
• "Oral evidence: Planetary Health, HC 1803". Environmental Audit Select Committee, House of Commons (UK), 12 February 2019.
• "Zum Insektenbestand in Deutschland: Reaktionen von Fachpublikum und Verbänden auf eine neue Studie". Wissenschaftliche Dienste, Deutscher Bundestag (German parliament), 13 November 2017.
• Carrington, Damian (2021-01-11). "Insect populations suffering death by 1,000 cuts, say scientists". The Guardian. Retrieved 2021-01-12.
• Goulson, Dave (2021-07-25). "The insect apocalypse: 'Our world will grind to a halt without them'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2021-07-31.
• Milman, Oliver (2022). The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires that Run the World. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 9781324006602.
• Wagner, David L.; Grames, Eliza M.; Forister, Matthew L.; Berenbaum, May R.; Stopak, David (2021-01-12). "Insect decline in the Anthropocene: Death by a thousand cuts". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 118 (2). National Academy of Sciences: e2023989118. Bibcode:2021PNAS..11823989W. doi:10.1073/pnas.2023989118. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 7812858. PMID 33431573. EMsmile (talk) 13:25, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

In general, I dislike these "Further reading"/"Bibliography"/etc. as well, since they effectively place some sources ahead of others and thus often introduce WP:POV. On the other hand, I was already able to integrate the last reference into the article just now, and I am sure a lot more useful information can be extracted from both that study, and the other reference once we put our mind to it! InformationToKnowledge (talk) 11:28, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

OK, I am really surprised at the decision to remove several reliable and quite up-to-date references from the article due to being "unused" (although ideally some use should be found for them, sooner rather than later) and not even preserve them here!

I have found the use for one of them already, and will keep the rest here for the time being.

ref name=Braak2018>Braak, Nora; Neve, Rebecca; Jones, Andrew K.; Gibbs, Melanie; Breuker, Casper J. (November 2018), "The effects of insecticides on butterflies – A review", Environmental Pollution, 242 (A): 507–518, doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2018.06.100, PMID 30005263, S2CID 51625489.</ref>

ref name=Farah6March2019>Farah, Troy (6 March 2019), "Are Insects Going Extinct? The Debate Obscures the Real Dangers They Face", Discover.</ref>

ref name=Sauvion2017>Sauvion; Calatayud, Nicolas; Thiéry; Denis (2017). Insect-plant interactions in a crop protection perspective. London: Elsevier/AP. pp. 313–320. ISBN 978-0-12-803324-1.</ref>

ref name=Tscharntke2005>Tscharntke, Teja; Klein, Alexandra M.; Kruess, Andreas; Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf; Thies, Carsten (August 2005). "Landscape perspectives on agricultural intensification and biodiversity and ecosystem service management". Ecology Letters. 8 (8): 857–874. doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2005.00782.x. S2CID 54532666.</ref>

We'll see what can be made out of them.InformationToKnowledge (talk) 09:49, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

If any of those refs are good and useful then surely it's easy to use them in in-line citations, in which case they would come up in the reference list (perhaps even multiple times). If they are not in the reference list, then why should they be so important that they should be listed in "further reading"? Also who curates such a "further reading" list, makes sure it's up to date, relevant, global in scope, not Global North-centric etc. I think "further reading" lists are perhaps there for historic reasons only, when Wikipedia wasn't yet as strong on its referencing policies (lots of unsourced content in articles) or when Google and Google Scholar were not yet very good search tools. I see no purpose for them in "modern" Wikipedia articles and doubt that any or many of our WP:FA articles uses them. Can you imagine e.g. the main climate change article having a need for a "further reading" list? EMsmile (talk) 11:54, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

You misunderstand me. I do not disagree with removing those lists, and I have already said that. I do object to seeing such unused references removed completely. Keeping them on talk pages until we can figure out what to do with them is fine by me. You have done that for "Further reading", but not for those unused references, which is what I questioned, and sought to rectify by keeping them here for now. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:01, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, which "unused references" do you mean? I'm confused. Where they under "sources"? I did a lot of edits this week so I can't remember this particular edit. Please point me to the revision history then it'll be clearer. EMsmile (talk) 17:35, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

It's this edit, and the one right before it. I have already moved those references to this talk page, a couple of posts up. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 15:36, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

I had deleted those because I saw this error message below the ref list, so therefore I figured these references are no longer used so why should they be called up?:

• Cite error: A list-defined reference named "Braak2018" is not used in the content (see the help page).
• Cite error: A list-defined reference named "Farah6March2019" is not used in the content (see the help page).
• Cite error: A list-defined reference named "Komonen2019" is not used in the content (see the help page).
• Cite error: A list-defined reference named "Sauvion2017" is not used in the content (see the help page).
• Cite error: A list-defined reference named "Tscharntke2005" is not used in the content (see the help page).

After deleting them, this cite error was gone. But perhaps I had misunderstood why this cite error appeared on the page? I am not sure now. EMsmile (talk) 20:38, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Scope not clear in title or in lead - since when?

I think we need to make it clearer what time frame we are talking about. Decline in insects since when? Do we mean since the start of humanity (unlikely) or since 1850 / industrial revolution or anthropocene / 1950? I think this should come out, ideally in the title already but if not then at least in the first sentence of the lead. Or at least in the first paragraph of the lead. EMsmile (talk) 13:29, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

For the benefit of the other readers, here is my argument from a related discussion as to why this is unlikely to be a good idea. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 13:53, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

OK, leave the title as is, but please indicate the time frame in question as soon as feasibly possible in the first paragraph of the lead. Ideally already in the first sentence? And also in the short description that comes before the lead. EMsmile (talk) 14:39, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

OK, now that I have taken a closer look at the entirety of this article, I see what you mean. It really was quite unclear before! How about now? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 11:24, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

It's a lot better now but I find again that the first paragraph reads too much like a "story", building up the topic slowly, in several sentences. The topic should really be the subject of the first sentence. See MOS:FIRST. I'll change it around now and you can see what you think about this proposal? EMsmile (talk) 14:35, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I've changed the lead around now, putting it in the order of what I consider the most important: The causes are extremely important so I think they should be in the first paragraph. The fact that there are not so many specialist researchers is not that important so I have moved that to further down (it might not be needed in the lead at all, in fact; it's also written in a Europe-centric way (I mean this sentence In 2016, it was observed that while 30,000 insect species are known to inhabit Central Europe, there are practically no specialists in the region devoted to full-time monitoring.)). EMsmile (talk) 14:43, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@EMsmile: Personally, I find the current first sentence to be very clumsy and a poor attempt to WP:BEGIN explaining what the article is about, particularly the reported decline felt sudden to many observers, even though the problem had in fact been building for decades which seems way too opinionated. It would be better to start with something like In the 2010s, reports began to emerge that there is an ongoing 'decline in insect populations which began in xxx. Also, there is a subtle but important difference between reports emerged in the 2010s about the widespread decline (current wording) and when the reports of widespread declines in insect populations (previous wording) as the previous version implies that there is some doubt in the extent of the decline, whereas the current wording implies that it is definitely happening. SmartSE (talk) 16:11, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi SmartSE, I agree with you, the first sentence needs further work. It's better though than the previous first, second and third sentence, right? They were: Insects are the most numerous and widespread class in the animal kingdom, accounting for up to 90% of all animal species. Yet, there are fewer charismatic species of insects when compared to mammals, birds and other vertebrate, and there has historically been much less interest in studying them. In 2016, it had been observed that while 30,000 insect species are known to inhabit Central Europe, there are practically no specialists in the region devoted to full-time monitoring. In my opinion, the old lead was taking too long to get to the point, i.e. to get to the actual topic of this article. It was more "telling a story" with an intro, building up a case etc. EMsmile (talk) 17:35, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

If the intent was to avoid "telling a story", then surely starting the entire article with "When" is really counterproductive to that, no? I now rewrote the lead again, and I think it should be a lot better now. And as an aside, the statistic about Central Europe was something which a content expert felt important to mention when talking to Yale - an American publication - and it specifically highlights the point about research being highly insufficient even in Europe, and even less adequate globally. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 09:43, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

I quite like the first para of the lead now but I still question why this sentence is so important that it would be the very first sentence that our readers read: Insects are the most numerous and widespread class in the animal kingdom, accounting for up to 90% of all animal species.. Most people would just gloss over that. After all, they are here to learn about decline, not about the structure of the animal kingdom in general. And I don't understand why the information on "when" would be counterproductive as a first or second sentence in an encyclopedic article that is not doing "story telling"? Decline since when would be the first question on my mind. How much decline, since when, why, what are the impacts and what can we do about it. Those would be the facts that we need to present as succinctly in the lead as possible. EMsmile (talk) 11:58, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

British or American English?

I can't figure out if this is mainly British or American English as it's a wild mixture, see e.g. urbanization/urbanisation, fertilizer/fertiliser. Which language version should we settle on? See also WP:ENGVAR. EMsmile (talk) 21:14, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I started this article and did so using British English. For example, "analysed" rather than "analyzed". This was subsequently documented in the article source with a {{Use British English}} tag which remains.

But note that the s/z difference is not simple – see Oxford spelling. Both "urbanization" and "fertilizer" are traditional and acceptable when using this.

Andrew🐉(talk) 22:21, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi User:Andrew Davidson, firstly thank you for starting this article on this important topic! About the British English tag, I wasn't aware that it can be seen in source code editing on the article's page (I see it now). A more easily visible way is with that flag on the talk page. I would change everything to s to make it clearer. I didn't know that fertilizer was OK in the Oxford spelling, this is surprising me. Are both spelling types now converging? In any case, nothing speaks against changing fertilizer to fertiliser, right? EMsmile (talk) 08:09, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I am comfortable with either spelling of fertiliser/fertilizer (see ammonia pollution, which I also started). But the article is currently not consistent and so there are two of the s-form to one of the z. So, some copy-editing to align usage would be reasonable.

A bit more history may be helpful. I started the article and FeydHuxtable was a significant early contributor too. Another editor, SlimVirgin, then did quite a bit of work on the article including many copy-edits. She wrote several featured articles and was quite an influential contributor but is now deceased, alas. Other things being equal, the stylistic choices of such early experienced editors should be respected per the general guidance of WP:ENGVAR and WP:CITEVAR.

Andrew🐉(talk) 10:16, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping Colonel. How nice to see EMsmile & ITK have arrived to make improvements to the article. @EMsmile, to offer you yet more history, back in the day the article also benefited from input by an American editor, KOA, who is a professional entomologist. This might be the main reason for the discrepancy you noticed. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:35, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

How much weight to give to the climate change aspect as a cause?

I tried to tighten up the content about climate change in this article. We had mentioned it as a cause in passing here and there but without properly explaining the possible mechanisms. The paper by Sanchez that we had already cited a lot placed climate change last in the list of importance. So I think in the section on causes we need to give more weight to the other causes and make it clearer how climate change leads to more decline (explaining/listing the possible mechanisms) but that it's probably not the main driver (right?). This could also be clarified in the lead. For now, I have added an excerpt of the article extinction risk from climate change as it also had a section on insects there. EMsmile (talk) 21:33, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

There are a variety of putative causes but we don't seem to know enough to quantify the weights. The cause which seems to need more attention and weight in the article is light pollution. See Light pollution is key 'bringer of insect apocalypse', for example. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:45, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Interesting. We do mention light pollution in passing but it should get more content. Overall, that whole section on the causes is surprisingly weak so far. If someone has time it would be great if they could beef it up. EMsmile (talk) 11:16, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Insect Evolution

Insects populations adapt usually faster than animals to changing environments. It might be insects learned to avoid high ways or illuminated balconies over decades. If true, would not mean that there is no decline, but that the decline is less than measured.

Is there any study on this? 2A02:1210:2E1A:500:485D:EDDD:7CD3:B4D8 (talk) 13:34, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

This study describes artificial light at night (ALAN) as a "potent evolutionary trap".

Most anthropogenic disturbances have natural analogs: the climate has warmed before, habitats have fragmented, species have invaded new ranges, and new pesticides (also known as plant defenses) have been developed. Yet for all of evolutionary time, the daily cycle of light and dark, the lunar cycle, and the annual cycle of the seasons have all remained constant. Until now (Altermatt and Ebert, 2016), insects have had no cause to evolve any relevant adaptations to ALAN. ... ALAN can also interact with other anthropogenic disturbances such as climate change or noise pollution in complex ways (McMahon et al., 2017; Miller et al., 2017; Walker et al., 2019). For example, pollinator insects pushed from agricultural fields to road verges by pesticides will be more exposed to streetlights and vehicle headlights (Phillips et al., 2019).

Andrew🐉(talk) 18:17, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

EBML content

@Justin.m.crocker: you probably should not add research to wikipiedia in which you have participated in it, per WP:SELFCITE. As a result Smartse reverted your addition. I reverted that removal and partially added it back, as I found it to be too detailed. However, I dont have a problem with the overall inclusion of the content. Feel free to discuss here. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 14:44, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good, it was mainly a liftover from the German

site. I'm happy with the content.

Justin.m.crocker (talk) 14:49, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I took a look at the content outside of the SELFCITE issue. What remained though is pretty iffy for inclusion here for super WP:PRIMARY research. The study itself was just a laboratory study primarily on fruit flies. That's kind of equivalent to WP:MEDINVITRO for human medicine where those results rarely translate up to field-level. It's not actually showing anything about declines in insect populations that would place a citation here either. They did look at a mosquito and caterpillar pest too. The study wasn't looking at non-target insects though. Ultimately, the recent addition didn't address @Smartse's concerned about WP:WEIGHT.

Ultimately the study is a pretty standard bioassay study, so it's not clear why it would be included here even outside of the above issues in terms of WP:DUE. Researchers look at lethal and sublethal effects all the time in the literature both for target and non-target insects, and the literature is pretty vast if we were to start adding studies of this level and relatedness to the topic. If a review were saying, "Species X populations have declined due to a sublethal effect of pesticide Y. . ." then that could be reason for inclusion here (more likely just at the species article though). This study is many tiers of evidence below that level though. It's also a scope issue. this article is focused on population declines, and that isn't quite the same as how pesticides affect insects. KoA (talk) 16:47, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

We dont have MEDRS standards on this bio data, so your comparison to wikipedia standards for medical articles is false. Please explain why the content is undue without the excessive detail. Seems you are stating a study on pesticides and insects is unrelated to this article? That claim is absurd. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:48, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your thorough review, KoA. I respectfully disagree with the assessment that this study lacks relevance or due weight in relation to the topic of insect population declines. Although this research includes laboratory-based bioassays, the findings provide critical insights into how specific pesticides contribute to lethal and sublethal effects on insect species. Importantly, while focused on controlled environments, these results parallel documented field observations on pesticide impacts, which are directly relevant to population-level declines.

This study contributes to a body of work underscoring a mechanistic link between pesticide exposure and adverse effects on insect survival. As such, it aligns with the broader conversation on declines by helping to explain a pathway through which these declines may occur. Laboratory studies are a foundational aspect of ecological research, offering controlled insights that field studies later build upon or validate. Thus, excluding laboratory data dismisses a crucial aspect of scientific evidence.

In terms of WP

, I would argue that because the study offers novel, peer-reviewed findings in Science, a leading journal, it surpasses the threshold for notability and relevance. Including this research enriches the article by presenting new, reputable data that informs public understanding of factors contributing to insect population dynamics. 2003:C7:F746:9A00:21C0:5EA5:352:66D6 (talk) 18:52, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Entomologists do insecticide bioassays like you just described all the time. There's a whole sub-discipline centered around measuring lethal/sublethal effects and using ecologically relevant exposure rates. That is nothing new. How the source was used here though made it seem like it made a novel discovery about lethal/sublethal effects to the point of WP:PUFFERY. The papers main hook was instead more of a methods paper on high-throughput bioassays for performing multiple bioassays on a model organism, a malaria vector, and a crop pest. It's not a paper focused on insect declines. It tangentially mentions it as a justification for why entomologists would want improved bioassay methods, but that's about it.

For us at Wikipedia, this would be very early-stage WP:PRIMARY research here, at least in how it's relevant to an article like this. Instead, we generally try to rely on WP:SECONDARY sources to pick out what primary research is important or WP:DUE in cases like this, such as reviews. If the Wikipedia article were about general lethal and sublethal effects of pesticide on insects, that topic might have a better fit for bioassays like this, but I wouldn't have any reason as an editor to pick out this one study from the thousands of similar bioassay studies out there. That's where the secondary sources like reviews would come in. If we were writing for that type of article, maybe a secondary source would mention this paper as a recent example, but the fundamentals of how to do a bioassay and exploring sublethal effects are already in textbooks. This study wouldn't really change anything there or where the topic intersects in the subject of this article.

For the scope of this article though, I mentioned WP:MEDINVITRO as a parallel above. Drosophila melanogaster laboratory studies can be a bit of an equivalent of doing in-vitro studies in medicine. There are a lot of cautions involved applying that system to other insects, and it would be a huge additional jump to claim a basic bioassay is showing population declines. This paper otherwise only looked at two other species, a mosquito and a crop pest. It didn't even document population declines or tie them to pesticide exposure like other studies on the topic do. Instead, it's a pretty standard bioassay study in terms of what's reported. That's not saying it's bad in itself (far from it), but it's just a very different study than what would be used in this article to any significant degree. KoA (talk) 21:10, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

@KoA: MEDINVITRO doesnt apply to this article. Is paper is from European Molecular Biology Laboratory? Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 00:54, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the Crocker lab at European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) 2003:C7:F708:8B00:13A:EAD8:C7C4:575E (talk) 06:00, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: KoA has never said it applies - they've said it is a similar situation. Where the research was conducted and where the paper was published are completely irrelevant for judging whether it merits inclusion. WP:SCIRS definitely applies here and it states In general, scientific information in Wikipedia articles should be based on published, reliable secondary sources, or on widely cited tertiary and primary sources. which is the essence of what I mentioned in my edit summary (WP:SELFCITE was only part of it). Obviously the authors are going to think the research is important, but it is up to us as editors to determine that, not them, and as a rule of thumb, it is very rarely appropriate to cite primary research as soon as it has been published. SmartSE (talk) 09:13, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

A number of issues going on here. First we are not going to apply MEDRS to this SCI article, so these efforts to quote an unrelated policy are useless. Second, the document you provided states PRIMARY sources are ok (assuming your primary source clam is valid, and I am not clear on this). Regardless, see Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(science)#Respect_primary_sources. Note this what you are referring to as PRIMARY is coming from a notable organization. Certainly their findings are likely going to be DUE on this article. Often we include these type of claims even in the MEDRS genre, such as when the CDC makes a claim in their 'research.' Generally we give these notable govt organizations a pass on these issues. Do the two of you agree to add some form of this or prefer to have an RFC on the issue? Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 21:02, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

There can be no debate about it being a primary source and it's concerning that you are arguing for it's inclusion if you are not able to distinguish primary and secondary sources. The section of SCIRS you refer to says that primary sources can be included if they are shown to be pivotal. Given this paper was just published, that obviously cannot be the case. If you read the section above you will see If a primary source is cited by few or no reliable sources outside the originating lab, the primary source may be removed as not reporting an important result. - that is the exact situation we are in at the moment. Once again, who conducted the research is completely irrelevant. SmartSE (talk) 14:54, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

No, it doesnt say anything like what you are referring to as needing to be pivotal. I will take it that your response means you are opposed to its inclusion in any form (including properly attributing it to the notable source organization). Is my understanding of your position correct? Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 21:47, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

SmartSE just outright quoted the part of SCIRS they were referencing. Please be more mindful of WP:NPA when it comes to making extremely misleading comments about editors including your comments about me as well.

Adding a little to what SmartSE mentions above on primary sources and the guidance in SCIRS, WP:PSTS is policy and is pretty heavy-handed in care needed if using primary sources. If this article was instead about general sources of insect mortality, pesticides would obviously get mentioned and how those effects are measured. This isn't that article though. As I mentioned before, plenty of higher level sources would get used to describe basic info on bioassays well before the thousands of primary studies just like this one doing basic bioassay work (without the puffery issues).

At the end of the day though, it's ultimately a WP:SYNTH issue as mentioned earlier to the point the source was being misrepresented, especially in overstating the novelness in isolation and in the context of this page. That source is not focused on insect population declines, it's a high-throughput bioassay study for three model organisms, not natural populations. If you want to expand content related to pesticides and insect declines here, then use sources that actually focus on that. KoA (talk) 23:35, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

@KoA: In both the abstract and the editors summary, both refer to "insect populations". I am a bit confused how you two are stating this research is off topic (eg triggering SYNTH). "These results suggest that agrochemical exposure, even at sublethal levels, is affecting insect populations. —Sacha Vignieri". Is it your position that the summary from the editor at Science (journal) who is summarizing the findings Lautaro Gandara at European Molecular Biology Laboratory is undue? Maybe the way the earlier editor had added the content was SYNTH (I am not sure) but I would think a direct quote or maybe much more narrow summary would be quite due and non-controversial. Comments? Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 01:13, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I've already re-explained the issue multiple times now including the scope of the source and the scope this article, so please address that directly. At the end of the day, the paper itself is not looking at population declines. Like any research paper, it mentions context for why the work is important in the intro and it mentions potential applications in the conclusions. Those are the isolated cases where insect declines are rarely mentioned in the paper. This isn't the kind of source to spend more time on when secondary sources already give the same basics about pesticide exposure in more direct scope and more depth. KoA (talk) 17:02, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia is WP:NOT a place for us to get into the details of the paper. As you have mentioned there are other papers that you think are more in-depth. However the position of a notable organization is due in this article. Do you think that the position of EBML is undue? Please explain why. The whole thing about your ideas on bioassay is off topic. Please just explain why the position of EBML is undue as a primary source. Wikipedia doesnt have polices that exclude this type of content in this genre, despite editor's attempts here on this talk page to assert they do. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:50, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

The source does not even remotely discuss or reflect "the position" of EMBL regarding insect declines and I'm puzzled how you could think it does. And we do have policies - I have linked to and quoted from them already! SmartSE (talk) 19:18, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Wait, just to be sure, are you saying you haven't read the full primary source at all (not just the summary/abstract) that you're trying to cite? At least based on your comments at Justin Crocker's talk page, it seems like you haven't, so that is concerning. KoA (talk) 23:42, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

• @KoA: you stated in you edit summary in which you reverted my addition that article is subject of 1RR restriction. Are there GS/DS on this article? I dont see anything on the talk page that states that. If there is, it would be helpful if it could be added to the talk page. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:39, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

This talk page should have the pesticide-related notice now. Anything focused on pesticides is considered a Controversial Topic on Wikipedia, so there's some stricter expectations we're asked to follow in that area. Just for background besides 1RR, there are general expectations we hashed out back at that case like handling disputed content like this on the talk page (rather than someone else reinserting it or waiting 24 hours), not casting WP:ASPERSIONS, etc. KoA (talk) 19:18, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

When KoA previously tried a similar assertion at AE, it was ruled that this matter of insect decline was not necessarily in the scope of the GMO case. See archive, "The article edits in question do not fall within the scope of discretionary sanctions." There is therefore no blanket inclusion in the scope of that case. Andrew🐉(talk) 23:54, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Just to make sure it's clear for other editors reading this, that conflicts with ArbCom's actual guidance. The case centered on both GMOs and pesticides as two distinct topics. GMO is just the shorthand in the templates. ArbCom specifically gave the remedy All pages relating to genetically modified organisms, commercially produced agricultural chemicals and the companies that produce them, broadly construed, are designated as a contentious topic. to make sure topics where pesticides (or GMOs) came up were covered.

Obviously when we're directly discussing pesticides on this page like with this section, that area of the article falls under the contentious topic designation (and 1RR). That's what the talk page notice explains too with Parts of this article relate to. . .. You don't really even need the broadly construed designation in that case, though if someone wants more guidance on how "broadly construed" works for the pesticide topic, there's general guidance here. It's when you move into areas not directly discussing pesticides on this page, that it's murkier with pesticides being considered one of the overall causes of insect declines and would be a case-by-case basis. KoA (talk) 17:39, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Proposal 3

@KoA: what do you think about this proposal? Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 17:08, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

The content is irrelevant - it's the fact that it is a primary source that is the issue. This is now the 4th time I have tried to explain this to you. SmartSE (talk) 19:12, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

The content is certainly relevant. Next, the essay you cited above is neither a policy nor guideline. Do you have any policy or guidelines that can assist in this? Seems the exclude argument above is that since it is a primary source it may be removed. Its not so simple as that, it is a question of WP:WEIGHT. Given the notability of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory that is making the claim (aka in this case publishing the study), normally due weight would be applied, also given that the claims are not novel (as you or KOA have admitted above). Your argument that zero due weight is allowed is not supported by policy, thus me continuing to work with you two editors to include the content in some form. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 20:07, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

You can't dismiss WP:SCIRS because it is an essay and policies and guidelines are too broad to specify everything. And yes, it most definitely is a question of WEIGHT and at present the views presented in the source are not accepted because the research has not been evaluated by the scientific community and is thus undue to include. SmartSE (talk) 23:37, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

We dont use essays as a matter of policy or guidelines. So to clarify, it is your position that the EBML views are not accepted and thus do not qualify for inclusion? Essentially you do not want weight given to this POV correct? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 23:50, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Essays like SCIRS that have wide community acceptance explain specific policy and guideline issues related to sources like this. Normally the purpose of linking them is to avoid having to repeat the same discussion or create long talk pages when dealing with misunderstandings like how scientific sources work. Even you have been citing limited selections of SCIRS here (though out of context of other parts of it), but regardless of that, dismissing what's in it now as just an essay entirely misses the point of the underlying content issues.

At the end of the day, a litany of WP:PAG issues have been brought up in regards to trying to use the source, and they have not been addressed by you. As SmartSE mentioned, the issues have been presented to you multiple times now, and editors are not obligated to keep restating themselves either. There's been plenty of guidance given to you beyond just the source being primary, and slightly changing the edit while repeating the same problems is not going to get traction. We're really at the point you have all the information you need to understand why this source doesn't fit here. KoA (talk) 03:54, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. It was my obligation to fully flesh this out prior to RFC, and it seems that it comes down do you two thinking it is undue as you feel it is a primary source that doesn't go along with the current article POV. Your have provided an essay SCIRS to attempt to justify that. If I have missed something, please let me know. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 01:42, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

RFC on EBML content relating to agrichemicals

Include or Exclude (diff) this text:

In October 2024, researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory tested the influence of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and plant growth inhibitors in the laboratory against to larvae of the fruit fly, caterpillars of painted lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui) and in larvae of mosquitoes (Anopheles stephensi). Results suggested that agrochemical exposure, even at sublethal levels, affects insect populations.

Thanks for your comments! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 15:28, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Polling

• No, it should not be included. It is a primary source as it presents the findings of a singular lab study on the impacts of pesticides on a small number of insect species. There are secondary sources which should be cited instead for reasons given in WP:SCIRS and by editors in the prior discussion. Jtbobwaysf's argument - that as WP:SCIRS is not policy the arguments given within it should be dismissed - is irrelevant as it wasn't being mentioned as policy, but as a means to better communicate an argument for not including the text and source. Additionally, the proposed text of "Results suggested that agrochemical exposure, even at sublethal levels, affects insect populations" would better give the three insects that the study actually looked at, instead of mentioning 'insect populations'. Additionally, imo, To ensure that folks weren't making up the claim that secondary sources on the topic exist, I had a quick look and found:
  • Neonicotinoid insecticides negatively affect performance measures of non-target terrestrial arthropods: a meta-analysis (2018)[1]
  • The Impact of Pesticides on Flower-Visiting Insects: A Review with Regard to European Risk Assessment (2019)[2]
  • Meta-analysis and review of pesticide non-target effects on phytoseiids, key biological control agents (2021)[3] — Preceding unsigned comment added by FropFrop (talk • contribs) 07:22, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

• Note this has been discussed above on this talk page at Talk:Decline_in_insect_populations#EBML_content. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 15:28, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

References