User talk:Stemonitis/Archive43

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This archive page covers approximately the dates between July 7, 2013 and November 6, 2013.

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Cambarus cryptodytes

I have written an article for Cambarus cryptodytes, a crayfish. I had to replace a redirect to do so and when I look at the talk page of the new article, I see it has not been redirected and still refers to the genus. Your expertise is needed. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:17, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I saw that you had been elaborating on C. cryptodytes – good work! Talk pages often get out of sync with the article namespace; in this instance, it was easy enough to replace the redirect with the usual template. Happy to help; I trust this was what you wanted. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:24, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Thank you. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:16, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

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 Done. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:46, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Ceratolithus

Hi, I hope you had a nice holiday. I am in need of your advice. There is a stub-article on the trilobite genus Ceratolithus. The article List of Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points contains a link (that I created, in the list (Pliocene, Zanclean)) to an Haptophyte also called Ceratolithus. This must imply that although vascular plants and animals are more related to one another, haptofyts are treated in the nomenclature as if these are plants. I am trying to create the articles not yet in existence for all genera containing biological defining marker species from the GBSP article. Could you please provide guidance on the naming of such an article, given that (genus) does not work, (plant) would be rather misleading and (haptophyte) would be utterly puzzling for 99,99% of all visitors of such a page. Also, I would like to know if the trilobite's page must be renamed and whether an ambiguation page should be created? - Dwergenpaartje (talk) 13:47, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Homarus americanus

Stemonitis, you should remember that English language did exist before 1776 and even before 1492. Please, have a look at the etymology of "lobster", and understand that the latins and the saxons couldn't call "lobster" to the clawed lobster (Homarus americanus), simply because they didn't know that such animal existed.--2.137.5.85 (talk) 16:42, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Request to take part in a survey

Hi there. I would very much appreciate it if you could spend ~2 minutes and take a short survey - a project trying to understand why the most active Wikipedia contributors (such as yourself) may reduce their activity, or retire. I sent you an email with details, if you did not get it please send me a wikiemail, so that I can send you an email with the survey questions. I would very much appreciate your cooperation, as you are among the most active Wikipedia editors who show a pattern of reduced activity, and thus your response would be extremely valuable. Thanks! --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:30, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello, Stemonitis. Please check your email; you've got mail!
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List of whitefly species

You have made edits regarding redirecting articles of subfamilies, genera, and species of the whitefly to the article List of whitefly species. I undid one to find that there are Information for 186 redirects to that page. You didn't do all of them, but a lot; however, each taxon should have its own distinct page. Organizing every species of a family this big onto one page actually makes it more difficult to navigate. Though it may be fine to leave this page for now, the lower taxons shouldn't be redirected to it. And some of the redirects actually had an article of their own prior. Also in order for there to be room for all of the species to be fully described, they each require their own article. Before I break all of the redirects, I would like to hear what your thinking. Kittenono (talk) 02:24, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

The important consideration is that the previous "articles" actually contained no information at all about the taxa in question beyond that already listed in the list of whitefly species. It is thus far better to present all this information in one place than to distribute it over hundreds of near-worthless pages. A redirect can always be replaced with a substantive article, but restoring the one-liner sub-stubs would be massively counter-productive. No-one disputes that every taxon could be the subject of a deent article, but that does not mean that any article is necessarily worth preserving, particularly if it is as devoid of information as the ones I redirected were. Please do not recreate any such articles unless you can make them much more informative. I consider the mass creation of tiny articles to among the worst sorts of editing behaviour (blatant vandalism aside), as it creates a huge amount of cleanup and organisational work (typically for other users) for next to no benefit. Your re-instituted article on Trialeurodes, for instance, contains nothing that is not already contained in the main list (this is a less clear case than most only because of the large size of the genus). There is an awful lot more that could be said about it; it contains a number of widespread and well-studied species, particularly in terms of the viruses they carry, for instance. I would heartily welcome a relatively detailed article about the genus, but I see very little value in recreating repetitive stubs with no information beyond a list of species. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:37, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

July 2013

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Phosphaenus hemipterus may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "()"s. If you have, don't worry, just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• firefly '''or '''lesser glow worm''', '''''Phosphaenus hemipterus''''', is a beetle of the family ([[Lampyridae]]. It is found in the Mediterranean, in Central Europe, west to the Atlantic Ocean and

Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 09:56, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

 Done. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:20, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

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 Done. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:20, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Acta Zoologica: Morphology and Evolution

Hi, you moved this article from Acta Zoologica, but if I go to the journal's website, it's still just called "Acta Zoologica". Where did you get the fact that the name has changed? --Randykitty (talk) 12:24, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

• PS: I cannot even find any evidence for the claim in the article that "Morphology and Evolution" was added as a subtitle... Unless you have a reliable source about the name change, perhaps this should be moved back to "Acta Zoologica". --Randykitty (talk) 13:03, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

• Did you have time to look into this? Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 08:45, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Please look at a comment I made here. Regards, Dwergenpaartje (talk) 13:28, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Category speedy rename requests

Hi there. While looking at palaeontology categories, I came across two edits of yours where you suggested speedy renames of two of the categories: this edit and this edit (both on 5 August). I don't think you completed the speedy renaming nomination process. I think you needed to add details to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy. I have left a note here about this. Carcharoth (talk) 11:04, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Oxford Meetup 9

Hi, I've created m:Meetup/Oxford/9 with no date, would October 13 or October 20 be most convenient for you? There's a discussion page at m:Talk:Meetup/Oxford/9 so that a date may be agreed. Please comment there. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:22, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

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 Done --Stemonitis (talk) 13:36, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Oversized image in Illacme plenipes

Hi, I agree that oversized images should generally be avoided but I think this one has merit as such because only the large-sized image actually allows to see all the individual legs and thus to get a better feeling for this species, which is said to have the largest number of legs. So I suggest to put it back in. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 19:21, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

The article contains a reasonably prominent link to Wikimedia Commons, where that image, along with many other files, can be found. It's not even a brilliant photo, technically (blurry at full resolution), so I don't think it merits a placement that completely overwhelms the article layout; the whole article is only 180 words, so a huge image cannot comfortably be accommodated. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:10, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Your edits on Chelodina murrayi

Hi,

I saw you removed what you called excess taxonomy on the species Chelodina murrayi in turtles the groupings of Suborder and in this case Subgenus, have been considered important and previously discussed among the members of the Turtle Portal. We decided they should be in there as they define very important groups of turtles and are well known to those interested in turtles. Therefore I would like them put back in. I have not done this yet. All other members of the Turtles have Suborder and when relevant Subgenera mentioned as per the most kept up to date checklist we use, that of the IUCN Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 15:56, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not overly familiar with turtle taxonomy, but it's pretty clear to me that the subfamily is superfluous in the taxobox of a species; it belongs in the taxobox of its direct descendant – the genus – but not on all its constituent species. There may be case for including the suborder, but I'm not sure it's particularly strong; having read around a bit, Cryptodira and Pleurodira don't seem to be such very important taxa. One metric I tend to use is to look at the length of the article on each topic, and the article on Cryptodira is much shorter than the taxa on either side in the hierarchy – Testudines and Chelidae. A taxobox has to be a summary, and as such can only include the most important taxa. That "importance" is very hard to define, but, unless it represents a taxon widely known by a common name ("vertebrate", "crab", etc.), a taxon at a minor rank is unlikely to be sufficiently important. That's my thinking, anyway. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:16, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I am not really worried about about subfamily or subgenera for that matter. But the suborder is very important in turtles as it basically defines the side-necked and the hidden-necked turtles. Its important for zogeographic, evolutionary and phylogenetic reasons. Yes the articles on both need to be expanded better. There is much to add to them, and very few people with a good knowledge of turtles to do it. But for consistency it would be good if it was there. Many people know what a side-necked turtle is (Pleurodire) and like-wise a hidden-neck (Cryptodire) these are both informational search terms. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 16:32, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not saying they're not important topics, or even important taxa, just not important enough to warrant inclusion in the summary infobox of every descendant taxon. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:58, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

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 Done. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:27, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Festuca gauteri

I created a quick substitue for the copy vio here.--(AfadsBad (talk) 20:33, 3 October 2013 (UTC))

Good work. I'll move it into place. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:24, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. With a species a quick stub plus taxobox and references can be very helpful to a reader. --(AfadsBad (talk) 05:35, 4 October 2013 (UTC))

Caligus

Thanks for the cleanup. I didn't notice the faulty macro that messed up the authority names. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:09, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

New ant task force

Hello Stemonitis! I see you have edited a lot of ant-related articles, including the FA Ant and Crematogaster article. You may be interested in the recently created ant task force. Check out the task force's subpage and see if you're able to help out with any of the open tasks (or add new tasks). I've added links to three open access articles about Crematogaster to this list. I hope you find them or any of the other links useful, cheers, jonkerz ♠talk 21:53, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Geophilidae

Hello, Stemonitis, and thank you for your contributions!

An article you worked on Geophilidae, appears to be directly copied from http://zipcodezoo.com/Key/Animalia/Geophilidae_Family.asp. Please take a minute to make sure that the text is freely licensed and properly attributed as a reference, otherwise the article may be deleted.

It's entirely possible that this bot made a mistake, so please feel free to remove this notice and the tag it placed on Geophilidae if necessary. MadmanBot (talk) 19:38, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Not a copyvio; notice removed. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:41, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for October 10

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DYK for Plathymenia

Gatoclass (talk) 16:29, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

U.S. political leanings?

See here - there are four in this image; two in this one and in this one. Two here also; but sans axe-heads. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:39, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

The thanks log is at Special:Log/thanks. Looking through a screen or two of these, it's clear that you need to be logged in (no IP addresses are visible) but you don't need to be autoconfirmed - some of the contribs links are red, such as that for 18:01, 13 October 2013. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:18, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

About reverting action on Dardanus pedonculatus

Hi Stemonitis, I would like to know why you decide to revert my modifications? Did you read or check my changes before reverting? Have a nice day, Bastaco (talk) 08:53, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I didn't think the edit added anything. We don't use subtitles on en.wiki, and capitalising the first letter of a common name is ungrammatical. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:58, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

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 Done. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:58, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Clarification request

Hi, Stemonitis. I am confused by this. First you blanked the category page contents "pending deletion", but then when another user marked the category for deletion, you undid the edit. (And ditto for a couple of dozen other categories.) Why do you want the category deleted and not deleted at the same time? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:58, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I do want it deleted, and I will delete it. As I explained to the editor whose edits I undid, I did not want to leave instructions in place that said "If you know of pages which are appropriate for this category, please populate it and remove this notice", because that would undo everything I'd been working towards. Category:Euphorbiaceae was in an appalling state, largely as a result of Polbot's questionable ideas on categorisation; the main category contained nearly 300 pages and dozens of miniscule genus-specific categories. Now, it contains a much more manageable number of tribe-based categories, and fewer than 100 pages not categorised at a finer taxonomic level.

The CSD process is not contingent on tagging, and the tag in question – {{db-c1}} – could (probably wouldn't, but could) undermine that process. I would not be averse to the use of another tag that did not encourage editors to unwittingly re-fill a category that has already been replaced with something better. I have all the categories on my watchlist, and I will deal with them all on Saturday. Previously, I have occasionally invoked IAR to forego the 4-day wait, and I have never had any trouble as a result, but I think it's better to stick to the rules as far as possible. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:08, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Lysiana exocarpi

Hi Stemonitis,

I am a student at Charles Sturt University undertaking a unit which involves an 18 day field trip to Sturt National Park. As part of the assessment students are required to upload a wiki article on a species found in the National Park. I chose Lysiana exocarpi. The lecturer for this course has written the book on Mistletoes of Southern Australia. The specimen I featured in this article was collected by him and is in Charles Sturt University Herbarium. When I am on the field trip I will be taking photographs of L. exocarpi and intended to add them to the gallery I set up. The Gallery has gone. It contained the Olive Pink painting which is now the main photograph and it also contained a photo of the drawing of Behr's type specimen which I got at the National Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney.

Can you tell me what the rationale was for making these changes and others, eg. Harlequin Mistletoe I see has been deleted.

Lynda — Preceding unsigned comment added by Botanybay1788 (talk • contribs) 12:52, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Lynda,

First of all, well done for creating such a detailed article. I only really made a few minor changes, mostly to the italics. I did remove the image gallery, following our guidelines on galleries. I'm not sure what you mean when you say that "Harlequin Mistletoe ... has been deleted"; that common name is still mentioned (albeit in sentence case, in line with general practice for common names here and elsewhere), and I have just ensured that that title will now redirect to your article if anyone searches for it. The image that was previously in the taxobox does not appear to be usable, because we have no evidence that the copyright holder has given permission. If the copyright situation gets resolved, then the image could again be used, although it's at quite low resolution, so I think I would still recommend using the drawing instead.

Do let me know if I can be of any further help. Starting off on Wikipedia can be daunting, so don't be afraid to ask. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:25, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Lysiana exocarpi

Hi Stemonitis, I'd like to get the Behr image back. Have just been doing a quick check of the edit and came across a change to Schinus species which Paul had identified in his study of hosts. Plantnet, which is definitive for NSW has Schinus areira which is what Paul had. You changed it to Schinus molle http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Schinus~areira

Lynda — Preceding unsigned comment added by Botanybay1788 (talk • contribs) 13:33, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Lysiana exocarpi

Thanks for offering assistance, much appreciated. I noticed some talk back in early October about Australian Freshwater Turtles. John Cann who wrote the most comprehensive book on the subject lives down the road. cheers Lynda — Preceding unsigned comment added by Botanybay1788 (talk • contribs) 13:39, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Crocodylus novaeguinae

I wonder if you could help me by renaming the page Crocodylus novaeguinae to "Crocodylus novaeguineae", as it is currently mis-spelt. When I try to rename it I get a message stating that I don't have the authority, perhaps because I would be renaming it over a redirect. Thanking you in advance. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:36, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

 Done. I've fixed all the redirects, and updated the navbox, although it may take a few days for the database to catch up and give exactly the right report under "What links here". --Stemonitis (talk) 19:47, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:55, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry for causing work

Hi, I tried to clean-up the entries in Category:Trilobites. You pointed out that the head of an eponymous category, should also be listed in the parent category. Thanks for pointing this out, I'll apply this from now. - Dwergenpaartje (talk) 11:24, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I don't think you made too much work – just drew attention to how much work there is to do! The real work remains in the stubs: I reckon there must be at least 300 which are not included in the main taxonomic categories, and many (most?) of those seem to have incomplete taxoboxes, and are probably not tagged with {{WikiProject Arthropods}}. If there weren't so many, I'd probably get stuck in, but 300+ is a rather daunting prospect. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:54, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for October 25

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 Done. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:07, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

DYK for Ligusticum scoticum

The DYK project (nominate) 16:02, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation tags

Hi, Thanks for looking at Entomostracites, to which you added a disambiguation tag. This page is quite unlike most other disambiguation pages, that is why I was not sure if I should tag it, and left it to people more at home in these matters. You may also wish to review Battus (trilobite), which is comparable, but with two differences: it contains a section Etymology, and it was itself one of the elements disambiguated in the page Battus. It remains slightly unclear why Entomostracites is not a valid name, and I haven't been able to figure out the etymology, but these may be added some time in the future. Perhaps, you can reflect on these issues. Thanks and regards, Dwergenpaartje (talk) 12:37, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Nereites irregularis

Thanks for clarifying that. It seems he did misspell it.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 10:20, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Silaum silaus

Thanks very much for your extremely helpful edits to the article, I'm very new to writing biological articles on Wikipedia. One question - why did you remove the gallery? Thanks, Acather96 (click here to contact me) 14:46, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, first of all, let me congratulate you on the article. For a new editor, it was very good indeed. I certainly hope you will stick around and write a few more. The basic answer to your question can be found at WP:IG. In short, image galleries are generally advised against; images should be used to illustrate the text, and should be proportionate to the length of the prose. In this instance, the taxobox is quite long, which means that there is little room for inline images. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:31, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks - I've been around as an editor for a couple of years, but this is my first foray into content production for quite a while - but thanks for the belated welcome :D . I'm just no worried that Silaum silaus has no photograph of the plant itself, just a botanical illustration and a photograph of an egg on it in the ecology section - is there some way we can integrate at least one photograph into the article? A separate question as well - is it better to use a photograph or a botanical illustration for the image in the taxobox - my next project is Luzula sylvatica, and I'm not sure which picture in Commons would go best in the infobox. Thanks very much, Acather96 (click here to contact me) 16:25, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Choosing a good image can be tricky, particularly for a relatively short article such as this (that's not a criticism, by the way; brevity is good), where there isn't room for many pictures. As to whether a photo or an illustration is better, that will probably depend on the available images. I generally prefer a photograph as being more directly life-like, but sometimes the important characters are better visible on an illustration (they should be; that's the point of botanical illustrations). It's a judgement call in the end, and there's no right or wrong answer.

Luzula sylvatica is looking hugely better already; whichever image is chosen, I would suggest that it should probably include the inflorescence, but whether it's a photograph or an illustration, I will happily leave to your judgement. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:38, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Categorization of Onion

I'm currently trying to draft something on categorization for WP:PLANTS, so I was interested in your categorization at Onion. I'd be inclined to put the "described in" category on the scientific name redirect, not the common name article. Onions were described before then! Peter coxhead (talk) 11:27, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I've had a bit of think about it, and I've tried to work it out logically. (It is perhaps easy to be misled by the simplistic language of the category names; "described in ..." in this case means "given a validly/effectively published name under the relevant code in ...". There are an awful lot of taxa that have been "described" in the general sense before 1753, but that's not really relevant.) Some things, I think, are beyond question:

• The scientific name of the culinary onion is Allium cepa.
• Under the current IC(B)N, Allium cepa was first formally named in 1753.

Since either "onion" or "Allium cepa" would be a reasonable title for the article, both being alternative names for the same taxon, it makes sense to put the categories that cover the taxon in the main article, at whichever title that article might be. That is, I don't think it's wrong to apply a nomenclatural category to an article at a vernacular-name title. I think there may be a case for also including the category on the binomen, if the article is at a vernacular-name title. I generally include both scientific and common names in the taxonomic categories I work on most (see, for example, Category:Achelata, in which many of the taxa appear under both scientific and vernacular names), and I think this makes sense; category listing are – effectively – indices to the articles, so we should cross-reference them widely, just as a (good) index in a book would. I see categorising a redirect as being closely equivalent to printing something like "Allium cepa: see 'onion' " or "onion: see 'Allium cepa' " in a book's index.

Another issue has come up while adding the year of description categories: when a taxon was described under (something later revealed to be) a junior homonym, and is later given a nomen novum, which year should be considered the date of the description? I think I have concluded that the later year is the appropriate one, because until that point, the taxon hasn't got a properly published name. This isn't really relevant to your question, but I thought it might be useful to write my thoughts down in case it comes up again in future. In this specific case, there may a case for creating a separate page on "Allium cepa" to cover the wild species, and leave "onion" to cover the crop. Onion currently contains next to nothing about the wild species – the taxonomy (& taxobox) is about all that would apply. In general, though, I still think there's nothing wrong with adding scientific-name categories to vernacular-name article, and also nothing wrong with also categorising redirects as appropriate. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:13, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, that all turned out to be rather rambling. I hope it contains the sort of thing you were after. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:05, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Part of the problem, as you note, is that the category name is misleading.

Dealing with the last part of your response first, for plants, there are some instructions relating to which year applies at Wikipedia:PLANTS/Description in year categories. Although there isn't a specific example of a species being given a name afterwards revealed to be illegitimate because it was a later homonym, it is clear that for plants the year is meant to be when the species was "formally and validly described" according to the ICN. So your thoughts are in line with the guidelines for plants. Are there any for animals?

However, this (to me anyway) just makes categorizing an English name like "onion" odder. We agree the category really means "first given a valid scientific name under the appropriate code". Now where there is a clear, unambiguous relationship between the English name and the scientific name, as for, say, birds and most mammals, I can see that it may be justified. We can say when the European robin was first given a valid scientific name under the ICZN. I'm not really sure this is true for "onion" which is too vague a name. For example, I notice that Shallot isn't categorized in a "Plants described in ..." category. Where would you put it? Peter coxhead (talk) 23:42, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Conveniently, shallot doesn't correspond to a species, so that question doesn't arise. There are a few subspecies in the species-by-year-of-description hierarchy, and they probably shouldn't be, but I haven't thought it worthwhile to remove them.

Yes, after I wrote this I looked at Shallot again and realized that the taxobox was wrong (it was described as a species but given a varietal name).

I have looked through your Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Description in year categories, and the only part I might disagree with is the change of name necessary to avoid a tautonym, e.g. Anemone hepatica => Hepatica nobilis (although that article is, for some reason, under the Anemone title; our American colleagues must have a different view of the family from the European norm). I'm not sure we can justify treating that replacement name differently from a true nomen novum. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but it feels inconsistent at the moment.

(Not "my" Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Description in year categories, by the way, I mostly just rearranged what Rkitko had written.) The problem here is the difference between the two codes. If it were an animal which Linneaeus had named Anemone hepatica, then it's clear that the allowed change to Hepatica hepatica wouldn't change the date of first description/publication of a valid name. So why would the change to Hepatica nobilis, required only because the ICN doesn't allow tautonyms, make a difference? Anemone heptica was a valid name at the time of publication and remains so for any taxonomist who believes that Anemone is the correct genus.

Your discomfort seems to be based around the equivalency between "Allium cepa" and "onion", which is probably only due to the long history of cultivation. I assume you see no difference between (a) "European robin = Erithacus rubecula" and (b) "lesser celandine = Ficaria verna (or Ranunculus ficaria, if you prefer)". I don't see that there's any less of a "clear, unambiguous relationship" in the plant case than in that of the animal. People had described (s.l. !) the robin for hundreds of years before Linnaeus named it (albeit mostly under the name "redbreast"; the personal name "Robin" is a relatively late addition). The animals-by-year-of-description categories are full of titles under common names, and it doesn't seem to be a problem; it seems more unusual for plants because of WP:PLANTS' policy to almost always use scientific names. I don't think WP:PLANTS could insist on only categorising the scientific name without getting consensus (at WP:TOL), because Wikipedia would have to be consistent across kingdoms, and it would require a very large amount of work, most of it from zoologists, not botanists. I also think that the index would work less well for the average reader if, instead of being able to look for "Arctic fox", say, they had to know its scientific name to find it (turns out it's not in Alopex any more!). --Stemonitis (talk) 07:13, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

On further reflection, I think you are right: my unease/discomfort (which remains) is with the more general problem of cultivars and cultivar groups that were given scientific names in the past. I was wrong to think it was connected with English names for species. "Onion" isn't equivalent to Allium cepa but rather to a subset of cultivar groups within that species – at the very least it means "A. cepa minus those cultivars given other English names, such as 'shallots'". Onion should, I think, have a cultivar box rather than a taxobox, when the issue of a year of description would vanish.

I don't think that we have quite worked out how to handle long-established crop species which were given scientific names given before the true nature of the domesticated cultivars was understood. (Cucurbita and Musa are another two examples of where there remain real issues about how to name and divide up articles.) Anyway, thanks for the discussion; I'm clearer now as to the issues if not the solution. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:01, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Glad to be of help. One more issue that should be addressed if you're re-writing the categorisation guidelines is the taxa by rank categories. I have always been unsure of the merit of Category:Ranunculaceae genera‎ and the like. They could perhaps be used as an adjunct to the main categorisation, but must not (in my opinion) remove articles from the main taxonomic hierarchy. Every article in a Category:XXX genera or Category:XXX species should also be in the main categories. The primary division within a plant family is into tribes, subfamilies or genera, not into different taxonomic ranks. The taxon-by-rank categories appear to be largely the work of a single editor, and I'm not aware of any prior consensus to apply them. I would like to see them removed, but I would also be content with a system where they were seen as an addition to the main categorisation scheme, much the same way that stub categories are considered non-diffusing. This might be a good time to debate their usefulness. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:04, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I entirely agree that this system of categorization (as "Category:XXX taxa" where "taxa" includes orders, families and genera but not species) is a secondary addition to the main categorization according to the taxonomic hierarchy. When I first met them I too thought them odd and even pointless. They are very patchily distributed among the angiosperms.

They do have some value, I think, in listing only particular ranks. Consider Category:Liliaceae, as a random example. It contains a mixture of genus subcategories, genus articles and species articles, plus some other kinds of article. One reason for the mix is that categories are (or should be) only created when of a reasonable size (9-10+ seems the general rule). So if you want to know "which of the genera of Liliaceae do we have articles about?", Category:Liliaceae is not as useful as Category:Liliaceae genera. However, none of these categories are as useful as they might be since categorization is often woefully incomplete. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:49, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

The categorization under "Plants described in ..." for Melocactus caroli-linnaei is an interesting test case. The nomenclatural history is somewhat more complex than the brief account I wrote there. The species was undoubtedly described and validly named Cactus melocactus in 1753. We can't possibly say that Linnaeus' name wasn't valid in 1753. On the other hand, the ICBN later specifically abandoned Cactus as a genus name because of the confusion that had developed between the genus and the family. So at that point Cactus melocactus was no longer a valid name and the species needed transferring to another genus. If the choice had been other than Melocactus, you would presumably be happy with 1753, since the authority would be "(L.) ...".

Part of the problem seems to be the precise category name, particularly the omission of "first". "Plant species first named in 1753" or "Plant species first described in 1753" clearly includes Melocactus caroli-linnaei. The vaguer current title causes problems, given that neither the genus as such nor the epithet originate from 1753. (Although Melocactus was used by Linnaeus for an unranked but named division of Cactus.)

Would it be worth proposing a change to the category name? Peter coxhead (talk) 11:33, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I think the reason I have qualms is because there's no indication in the name itself that anything came before. The formal name for the taxon is Melocactus caroli-linnaei N.P.Taylor, with a specific name that dates from 1991 and no earlier. With a more typical change of genus – e.g. Anchusa arvensis (L.) M. Bieb. – you are left with a parenthetical author referring to the earlier publication, but where the name would be tautonymous, this is no longer the case. (I sometimes wonder whether botanists choose the old epithet as the new genus name just in order to be able to make up their own epithet for the species.) The reason I pounced so hastily on M. caroli-linnaeus is because it was in a category that is, effectively, only for taxa Linnaeus himself described in Species Plantarum, and it seemed very unlikely that Linnaeus would be so obvious in his arrogance as to spell out his full name; after all, he famously chose to name a very insignificant-looking plant after himself.

Unfortunately, I guess it comes down to whether its a heterotypic/taxonomic or homotypic/nomenclatural synonym, which is the sort of level of detail we will rarely get in Wikipedia articles. You would argue, I think, that the date of the earliest homotypic synonym is the relevant date. I can see that argument, but I'm still not convinced. Then again, I can't see a strong argument against it. It would be possible to categorise such taxa under both years, but would that be desirable? Probably not. I think you must be right, but I foresee a lot of non-nomenclaturists getting very confused about it (and probably some people with experience of botanical nomenclature, too, myself included). I have, as you may have noticed, been adding the date category to the species in Species Plantarum (more than half way through now), and I have omitted the very small number of cases that fell into this category, just because I was unsure about how to treat them. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:51, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I share your unease (if that's not clear). In this specific case, it's not obvious whether Melocactus caroli-linaei really is a homotypic synonym of Cactus melocactus, since Linnaeus's descriptions of cacti are vague and not based on specimens (a perennial problem with cacti which are hard to press!). However, I think that for consistency the current protocol in categorization should be followed, which is to treat re-naming to avoid tautonyms as maintaining priority, as it would in the zoological code. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:26, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Phacops

Hi, I'm not confortable with changing the "Species previously assigned" sections from piped links to the genus pages to the species links, for which we do not intend to create pages. I do not understand why linking to the genus page where all the information on the species as far as available is presented is an easter egg. I think presenting enormous lists of red links is extremely demotivating for the people that are looking for information, and it also sends the wrong signal to other users, which may be tempted to create species level articles. I propose we find some counselling on this issue, since I have experienced you never change your opinions, regardless of arguments brought forward. Oh, and I am disappointed you did not respond to my previous posting on your talk page. -Dwergenpaartje (talk) 01:40, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Such links are easter eggs because the text displayed refers to one thing, and the page arrived at by clicking on it is another. It's not like clicking on "Vulpes lagopus" and arriving at "Arctic fox", where the two are basically synonymous. A species is not the same thing as a genus. In the list of "species previously assigned to Phacops", for instance, clicking on "Eophacops handwerki" leads the reader to a page that never mentions that species. The supposed policy of not making species articles for fossil taxa is not only obviously flawed and contrary to site-wide policy (see WP:CONLIMITED), but it isn't followed in practice. The article at Phacops includes a list of links to species articles (!), at least two of which already exist. This is simply inconsistent in a way that should always be avoided. There is no reason to prevent people from writing articles about fossil species, even if efforts will be focused on writing at the genus level. As I tried to explain in my edit summary, if you want to deal with multiple species in a single genus-level article, then that's fine, but the species need to be linked through redirects. This has a large number of advantages and, as far as I can see, no disadvantages. It is much more honest and transparent to the reader; it allows us to better accommodate changes in generic circumscription; and so on. All you have to do is create the redirects, which is very simple indeed. I am not clear why you consider this to be a big problem, and I have seen no convincing argument presented in favour of using these misleading links. Can you justify them beyond the dogmatic "this is just how we do it" and the canard of species articles not being created (already dismissed above)? If so, I have yet to hear it. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:58, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

If you feel that article should be created for fossil species, make the suggestion at WikiProject Palaeontology. Current project guidelines are to, with rare exceptions, make articles down to genus for extinct genera, and address species in the genus article. Linking to a genus level article is not creating a easter egg in any of the ways easter eggs is concerned about. YOU may not like the structuring but the linking is not against policy or guidelines. It is not a canard, and it is not dogma. Your disapproval can be addressed at the appropriate wikiprojects.--Kevmin § 08:28, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

That's not what I'm saying. I did say that species articles are routinely created, and that that's fine, but that's not the main thrust of my argument. I am advocating linking to the displayed text and using redirects if subtopics are dealt with in articles of wider scope. This is exactly what happens throughout the rest of Wikipedia (see {{R from subtopic}}) and there's no reason not to apply it to palaeontological articles, too (WP:CONLIMITED may be relevant here). The fact that one project prefers to concentrate on the genus level does not mean that all incoming links need to be directed to genera and not species. WP:EASTEREGG states "keep piped links as intuitive as possible", and it is obviously more intuitive for "Eophacops handwerki" to link to Eophacops handwerki than to Eophacops. Even if the two lead to the same place, going through the redirect gives the reader an indication that they have been redirected, which can only be helpful. A WikiProject is not a local council making rules that apply within its limited aegis; it is just a group of people trying to work on a set of encyclopaedia articles. I would still be interested in hearing how the proper use of redirects is any worse than the easter-egg system you currently use; nothing has yet addressed that point. Here is the central question: Why should palaeontological articles (only) link species names to genera, rather than using redirects? --Stemonitis (talk) 08:43, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Anybody? --Stemonitis (talk) 21:38, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I would agree with this. While most fossil taxa can be discussed within a genus article, I still think a species page is better when the species themselves contain enough notable information that can not be discussed in an overaching genus page (for example, the number of species used as index fossils for the GSSP that Dwergenpaartje and I made articles on) or if the species itself is simply incertae sedis. A redirect rather than a piped link would be a better compromise in case a species page would be required for it. And it's better than having to go through the higher taxa pages again and relinking every mention of the species when this happens. It really doesn't matter that much considering that they result in the same thing in case they didn't necessitate a genus page. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 23:16, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree entirely that wikisource like [[Cooksonia|Cooksonia cambrensis]] is misleading to readers, and should be avoided. I'm not so sure that the redirect approach is the best one; I need to think about this a bit more. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:20, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

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 Done. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Thailand virus

Why don't you just rewrite the virology section rather than tagging it? Malke 2010 (talk) 10:07, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

If I could understand it, I would. The trouble is that I can't make head nor tail of it, and I don't have access to the sources to establish what it ought to say. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:09, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

The first "diverse" is probably meant simply to be "divergent": that would make sense. I assume the "most common ancestor" bit is meant to be something about a most recent common ancestor (MRCA), but that is unlikely to be another extant species, and there would need to be another daughter taxon involved. Perhaps Seoul virus and Thailand virus are sister taxa, but then what is the ancestor that is being referred to? They would in that case share a line of common ancestors, one of which would be the most recent, but so what? Unless we can say something about the MRCA, there's little point in bringing it up. The last sentence may be OK, but it is a little confusing. It claims that Thailand virus is distinct, but actually only separates it from Seoul virus, and that's because of the unusual characteristics of Seoul virus, not anything to do with Thailand virus itself. The degree of geographical clustering seems an unlikely characteristic for separating two taxa, anyway. The cited sources should clear all this up. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:20, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

(e/c)You could always find an article through Google to help you understand things. Perhaps then the section will say what you think it should say since you find it so incomprehensible. Also note that you have reverted my edit without first noticing that I did do copyediting on the section. [1]. If you can do a better job, do so, but tagging and writing rude edit summaries doesn't help the article. As an admin you should know that better than anyone. Malke 2010 (talk) 10:27, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I didn't see that alteration, but in the context, I think that that rather minor change is perhaps beside the point. Tagging flawed articles is a perfectly normal part of Wikipedia life, and is intended to bring about improvements to articles. If I found it incomprehensible, then it is likely that many other readers will, too. Removing well-meant tags without fixing the underlying problem, however, is not helpful behaviour, so if I was short with you, that may in part explain it. In my previous reply here, I gave you a fairly detailed analysis of what I thought the paragraph might have been meant to say, and I assume you have the cited sources in front of you. With the two together, it should be possible to fix the problem. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:37, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Since you have said you don't understand the section, then do find an article through Google using the terms in your analysis. I'm sure you'll come up with something. Then write the section as you believe it should read. Since you're the one who sees the problem, you're the one to best sort it. Malke 2010 (talk) 11:03, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Try this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17124002. Malke 2010 (talk) 11:07, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Are you saying that you don't see a problem with the current text? (Incidentally, the link you provided does not clarify the section in question, which is also entirely based on different references.) --Stemonitis (talk) 11:52, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

All the articles are available online. Google their titles. In fact, the very first cite in that section has a link right there in the References. Malke 2010 (talk) 17:19, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

The necessary articles are either unavailable or behind a paywall. You must have read them in order to cite their contents, and I have indicated fairly precisely what needs to be checked. I really cannot see why you are so unwilling to check this yourself, and why you insist on getting others to do it for you. Perhaps if you copied here the passages you were trying to paraphrase (verbatim), I, or someone else, might be able to suggest some improvements. Without access to the sources, though, it's not a very reasonable request. Which of the two references cited at the end of that paragraph, for instance, was the source for the claim that "Its most common ancestor is Seoul virus"? What exactly did that reference say? --Stemonitis (talk) 17:31, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

There are several admins with access to medical journals. It comes down to the question of which is the goal here, copyediting or just more of this: [2]? Malke 2010 (talk) 18:52, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I am trying to find a simple solution to a fairly straightforward problem. The simplest solution is for you to help me to fix it (or to fix it yourself). Is that so hard? --Stemonitis (talk) 18:56, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

November 2013

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 Done. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:10, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

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 Done --Stemonitis (talk) 09:53, 13 November 2013 (UTC)