Talk:Species

01/23/2025 edit/reversion

Hello - just raising the question of my edit and the reversion by @Chiswick Chap earlier today.

Regarding WP:V, addition contains no content likely to be challenged and is immediately verifiable by any source on avian taxonomy. I do not see the need for a specific citation for any of the stated facts any more than I see the need for a specific citation that "cat" can mean Felidae.

Regarding "not an essay" and existing examples, I added the example because it illustrates a distinct issue with common names not covered by the existing cases. Current examples are "cat" referring both to a species and its higher taxons, and the same name referring to different species by regional dialect. In particular, it separates from the former case by noting how common names are not merely overly general, as "cat" referring to Felis cattus vs Felidae, but can also be shared in ways that suggest groupings that are scientifically inaccurate (as any set of solely the magpie genera and Australian magpie).

If someone would prefer an alternative example, I'm sure one exists, but I felt this was a reasonably straightforward addition to address the issue. Fishsicles (talk) 19:33, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for discussing. A few points: This part of the article has been stable for many years, so the article's thousands of readers must have found it helpful. The article is not a list; it does not need multiple examples in any section. On your intention to add uncited materials, you should note that that is deprecated throughout Wikipedia, and has been since around 2004. This article has in addition been through formal review and has GA status; that would immediately be threatened by the inclusion of any uncited materials. In any case, my strong opinion is that further examples are simply unnecessary, and worse, that they would loosen and weaken the article's structure. It is a tightly-constructed and fully-cited argument: it makes each point exactly once, and illustrates each point with the minimum of examples. Interpolated materials just decrease the article's quality; if they are uncited to boot, that decrease is abrupt and serious, to the point of being destructive. I do hope this is clear: much the same would apply to any properly-constructed article. I am actually quite shocked that an editor would imagine that uncited additions would ever be a good idea: they aren't. WP:V is fundamental to the reliability and quality of Wikipedia; WP:OR is the essence of bad and damaging writing. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:52, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

I am not suggesting that the article is not helpful, or that it requires multiple examples for specific cases, but just making an addition that I feel would be useful for a specific case.

Nor am I advocating for "uncited additions" as a general principle. To quote WP:OR,

For example, the statement "the capital of France is Paris" does not require a source to be cited, nor is it original research, because it's not something you thought up and it is easily verifiable; therefore, no one is likely to object to it and we know that sources exist for it even if they are not cited. The statement is verifiable, even if not verified.

Fishsicles (talk) 20:27, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Once again, thank you for stating your opinion so clearly. I don't agree that this is anything like the proverbial "Sky is Blue" uncited statement, which never cuts any ice on Wikipedia. At GAN, reviewers rightly insist that every claim is reliably sourced. Why? Because if editors are allowed to add uncited materials, they can add whatever they like, and Wikipedia's reliability would speedily collapse. The encyclopedia is trusted by hundreds of millions of readers because the articles are demonstrably and visibly sourced, and readers can check the sources for themselves whenever they wish. Anyway, this article is, as I've said above, definitely not a place where experiments in uncited addition are going to work. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:38, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Would it help to insert a template in the "Common and scientific names" section such as "main|Common name" to direct readers there for a more thorough discussion? I agree with Chiswick Chap that it doesn't really need to be expanded in the "Species" article here, and there are already a lot of good and properly-cited examples in the Common name article. The only reason I hesitate to simply make this change is that this section refers to TWO concepts - common names and scientific names, each of which has their own main article. Dyanega (talk) 21:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Even per WP:GAC, "Facts that can be trivially verified in widely accessible sources, especially when mentioned in passing" are not listed as requiring citation. I do not consider the entry an "experiment in uncited addition", and have no philosophical objection to adding one. It just did not strike me as necessary to do, because the information is uncontroversial and readily verified, which is my understanding of written WP policy on the matter. I've already populated a citation template for all the pertinent claims, if that's the primary cause for reversion, using one of the main public sources on bird taxa: Clements, J. F.; Rasmussen, P. C.; Schulenberg, T. S.; Iliff, M. J.; Fredericks, T. A.; Gerbracht, J. A.; Lepage, D.; Billerman, S. M.; Sullivan, B. L.; Smith, M.,; Wood, C. L. (2024). "The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2024". Clements Checklist.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

My greater concern is the presentation of the addition itself as unnecessary or weakening to the article. This is not a question of "making each point exactly once", but adding a third distinct point which is not addressed in that section. In a passage discussing the distinction between common and scientific names, which already includes sections for

• common names applying to both a species and to a broader monophyletic taxon containing that species
• common names referring to different species in different linguistic contexts

I believe that the third case,

• common names, in a single linguistic context, which are shared across a polyphyletic group of species

also warrants inclusion when discussing the importance of formal scientific names. From there, I simply selected an example I was personally familiar with.

Having a reference to more detailed pages is definitely worth doing, especially if the goal is to keep things concise here, but I think that this point should be addressed at least somewhat in this article. Fishsicles (talk) 21:37, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

I really don't agree, and I am quite sure that the addition would be damaging. I am glad to see that Dyanega agrees with me here; this is what the article does not need. It's already in a good state, unlike tens of thousands of other articles. There's no shortage of work to be done out there, with sources needed, rewrites, illustrations, decent diagrams, tables, the lot. This is one place that doesn't need all that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:54, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

What exactly is so surely "damaging" about the addition? I'm aware of the zero-one-infinity problem with listing every possible confusion that can arise from common names, but I believe the current examples are narrow - the "cat" case because it demonstrates only a lack of specificity, and the "panther" case because the confusion is dialectal. The magpie example shows how confusion can arise between disjoint taxa - a larger mistake than simply vagueness within a taxon - even within one language and dialect. Fishsicles (talk) 22:14, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

I think this point has now been laboured more than enough really. However since you insist, here's one last go at conveying the point: two examples are half as good as one, and they begin a list, attracting listcruft and -Pow!- we have a flabby article with an inexplicable pile of pointless horse***t in its midst, randomly cited to whatever or nothing. It's the wrong direction. Saint-Exupéry said that perfection is attained not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. The ambiguity thing you are imagining is a small aspect of the article, and you would turn it into a serious and distracting rabbit-hole: the article not only doesn't need it, it needs not to have it. Good night. Chiswick Chap (talk) 22:21, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

If the governing principle is minimising examples, should we not then remove all listed examples and relocate all discussion of the limitations to the common name article? Even then, if there is to be only a single example, I would argue that the possibility of confusing unrelated species in a single linguistic context would be a more significant error than the examples already given.

Certainly, listing examples can lead to the pileup of irrelevant or meandering information, but surely that's an issue for those editors making those edits? I believe I've stated my reasoning on why this specific edit is not "pointless horse***t" clearly enough. I am not going to put myself into a position where I need to defend every possible addition that every future editor might make. Trying to WP:AGF but from where I sit your argument seems to be opposed to any addition as necessarily pointless, rather than addressing anything specific on why my example is unnecessary in light of what's already present? Saint-Exupéry's definition of perfection hinges on nothing being taken away that results in a meaningful loss, and I feel that the edit contributes to the section's discussion of the topic.

Rest well, I'll check in again later if anyone else has thoughts. Fishsicles (talk) 22:46, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Well, in a way, if that's your argument, then you could hardly have picked a more obscure example. If you really felt a need to highlight an example where unrelated taxa have the same common name, then you should have considered genuinely well-known examples like "grampus" or "daddy longlegs", which are discussed in the literature. The example you gave is not discussed in the literature as far as I can see; it appears to be something you extracted yourself and chose to comment on as something you personally found confusing, not something that any ornithologists have chosen to comment on in print as being a source of confusion, where you are citing their comments on the topic. I'm fairly sure that's what Chiswick Chap was referring to as being uncited: the claim that people are confused by different lineages of birds being called magpies - a claim for which there are no citations. At least for "daddy longlegs", the confusion created by the shared name is well-documented. There are multiple wasp lineages referred to by the common name "cicada killer", for example, but I'd have a very hard time demonstrating that anyone gets them mixed up with one another. Dyanega (talk) 23:20, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Ah, a citation for the confusion rather than the dispute itself - that's a good point. It's not even an example I personally found confusing, it's just an example I personally knew where dramatically different species share a common name - I'm part Australian and the Australian magpie's taxonomy is the sort of thing I'll raise at the dinner table. The daddy longlegs example is definitely a better one - I wasn't even aware of it, and it's cross-order rather than cross-family. I'd definitely support adding that as an example. Fishsicles (talk) 23:30, 23 January 2025 (UTC)