Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Rana vs Lithobates

Resolved:

Successful

This mediation case is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this case page.

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Rana vs Lithobates

The filing party (the editor who opened this request) will add the basic details for this dispute below.

Editors involved in this dispute

1. Faendalimas (talk · contribs) – filing party
2. Ranapipiens (talk · contribs)
3. Micromesistius (talk · contribs)
4. HCA (talk · contribs)

Articles affected by this dispute

1. Rana (genus) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
2. American bullfrog (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Other attempts at resolving this dispute that you have attempted

• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Animals#Taxonomic_help_needed_on_Rana_vs_Lithobates
• User_talk:Ranapipiens#Rana_vs_Lithobates
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Amphibians_and_Reptiles#Rana_vs_Lithobates

Issues to be mediated

What is this dispute about? What sections, sentences, or issues in the article(s) can you not agree on? If you are the editor who opened this request, list these issues to be mediated under "Primary issues". If you did not open this request, you can add additional issues to be mediated under "Additional issues". The issues to be mediated would be properly agreed upon later, if this request for mediation is accepted.

Primary issues (added by the filing party)

1. There is a long running debate as to which is the correct name for several members of this genus, as can be seen by the links I have provided. I tried to come to sensible resolution but do not seem to be able to. The group of frogs in question are not my specialty as a taxonomist I user:Faendalimas work with turtles but I am a nomenclatural specialist. I will say at the outset that despite the long running dispute all parties have behaved well and kept the issue on the talk pages attempting to resolve it. user:Plantdrew also weighed in in an attempt to get a reasonable result.
2. It is in the best interests of Wikipedia to get this correct, and I note that Wikispecies (were I am an administrator) also seems to have these wrong in my view as a nomenclatural taxonomist. I have no plans to edit these pages, I work on turtles, to the best of my knowledge the three parties listed are the main editors of these pages.
3. I have listed the genus Rana and one species, the American Bullfrog, that are effected by this, there will be several other species in the genus Lithobates also if that is the chosen path.
4. I am happy to be involved in the mediation process if that is beneficial, though as can be seen I have responded to some of the discussion in an attempt to find resolution.

Additional issues (added by other parties)

1. The pages in question (and other pages for North American Rana) contained a confusing mix of use of different names for the same species, switching back and forth between Rana and Lithobates (both within as well as among pages). I (Ranapipiens (talk · contribs)) corrected these to make them consistent with the current literature, so that they use the name Rana consistently. The genus name Rana is the older name and has priority under ICZN rules. Hillis and Wilcox (2005) reviewed the genus Rana (in the traditional sense), and defined the subgenus Lithobates within Rana. Frost et al. (2006) proposed to use the name Lithobates for the majority of North American ranids, and treat it as a genus instead. Bossuyt et al. (2006) did a worldwide analysis of ranids, and rejected the proposal by Frost et al. in favor of the traditional use of the genus Rana, as used previously. Hillis (2007) proposed to use the genus Rana in the traditional sense, and noted that the group for which Lithobates had been proposed by Frost et al. (2006) was questionably monophyletic, and made the rest of Rana paraphyletic if treated as a separate genus. He recommended the use of several subgenera within Rana to recognize the major well-differentiated groups: Lithobates for the tropical true frogs, Pantherana for the leopard frogs, Aquarana for the North American water frogs, and Zeifelia for the Middle American Torrent frogs. Pauly et al. (2009) discussed this arrangement and argued in its favor; Frost et al. (2009) responded to Pauly et al. (2009) stating that they still favored using Lithobates as a genus. Since then, there have been several nomenclatural papers (e.g., Wiens et al., 2009; Feinberg et al., 2014; Fouquette and Dubois, 2014), and several reviews of usage in the literature (detailed in the next point), which have favored the continued recognition of Rana as the appropriate genus. However, the primary author of Frost et al. (2006) operates a web site (Amphibian Species of the World) that continues to use Lithobates as the genus for most North American ranids. The other main web sites for information about the species names of amphibians, AmphibiaWeb (2015) and WikiSpecies, follow the published literature in using Rana instead of Lithobates as the correct genus; AmphibiaWeb further recommends using Lithobates as a subgenus of the genus Rana. AmphibiaWeb explains (from the page of Rana catesbeiana): "This species is placed in the genus Lithobates by Frost et al. (2006). This has been a controversial action, because the connection of this well-known species with its enormous literature is lost if the name Lithobates catesbeianus is used, and Lithobates was proposed in a different sense (for a smaller group of species, as a subgenus) by Hillis and Wilcox (2005). Frost et al. (2006) applied Lithobates to a large group of species for which the name Lithobates has never been used. AmphibiaWeb recommends treating Lithobates as a subgenus of Rana (for members of the Rana palmipes species group), along with using other subgenera for the other major species groups of Rana. If subgenera are used, species names should be written as Rana (Lithobates) palmipes, or Rana (Aquarana) catesbeiana, for examples. This option preserves the maximal amount of phylogenetic information and as well as a long-standing and stable taxonomy." WikiSpecies is another online reference for amphibian names, and it also uses Rana rather than Lithobates as the correct genus. Other recent reviews of the taxonomy of worldwide or North American ranids also support this position. For example, Fouquette and Dubois (2015) recently wrote a book about the nomenclature of North American amphibians, and extensively discuss the history of this debate. They also support the use of Rana as a genus, and Lithobates as a subgenus of Rana (although they prefer a different use of the subgenus than proposed by others; this minor point about different usages of the subgenus Lithobates could easily be discussed under the page for the subgenus Lithobates). The most recent textbook of herpetology (Pough et al., 2015) also explicitly discuss the use of Rana versus Lithobates as the correct genus for North American ranids, and supports the use of Rana. There is an earlier textbook (Vitt and Caldwell, 2014) that uses Lithobates rather than Rana for the North American species without any comment or discussion, by following the Amphibian Species of the World website for their nomenclature.
2. In editing the pages to fix the confusion between Rana and Lithobates, I followed and cited the current published, peer-reviewed literature. However, I left all references, discussion, and links to the Amphibian Species of the World web site (which uses Lithobates as a genus), so that the controversy could easily be followed by readers of the relevant pages. Although I personally object to using a non-peer-reviewed website run by a single person as a "reference" (especially when, as in this case, the operator of the website, Frost, has a clear COI in the issue), I left these references that had been added by others in place, so I don't think there is any issue about that. I don't object to keeping these references and links in place, although that would not be my choice.
3. When I was contacted about these edits, I cited the various papers in the primary, published literature, and noted that there were also two published studies that track and compare the use of Rana versus Lithobates as a genus. Hillis (2007) compared the use of these names up to 2007, and showed that Rana is used overwhelmingly compared to Lithobates in the literature in the species names of the relevant taxa. In evaluating the use of the two genera, Fouquette and Dubois (2014) updated this analysis, and examined just the years 2007-2014. They also found overwhelmingly higher use of Rana compared to Lithobates. In discussion of this issue on my talk page, several people examined single journals, and found varying uses of the two names. However, none of those cursory analyses were comprehensive, and none of them are published analyses. So, the only two published analyses both support the far greater usage of Rana as the correct genus compared to Lithobates.
4. In recent years, there has been just one new species description of a North American ranid, by Feinberg et al., 2014. This new species, Rana kauffeldi, was described as a new species of the genus Rana, not as a species of Lithobates.
5. HCA (talk · contribs) contacted me about these edits, and reasonably asked for recent, published literature references that explicitly focused on the nomenclatural problem, discussed the alternatives, and favored the use of Rana over Lithobates. I provided several such references (as discussed above) from the past year, including the references to Fouquette and Dubois (2014) and Pough et al. (2015). HCA seemed to be satisfied with these references, so I did not think that there was a further problem with this issue.
6. Faendalimas (talk · contribs) then suggested (briefly) that ICZN rules favor the use of Lithobates over Rana. I pointed out that both names are available, both have been properly proposed, and that Rana has priority over Lithobates, so to the extent that ICZN rules are relevant, they favor Rana over Lithobates (by the rules of priority). I asked Faendalimas (talk · contribs) to please cite any Articles in the ICZN rules that support the use of Lithobates as a genus in preference to Rana. S/he then deleted that comment about the ICZN, which I take as agreement that ICZN rules are completely consistent with the use of Rana. So, as far as I know, there is not an issue with ICZN rules, either. If anyone does think that ICZN rules are relevant in this debate, they should cite the specific Article and explain why they think it applies.
7. After reviewing the above points, I am unclear as to why Faendalimas (talk · contribs) requested mediation of this issue. Clearly, we cannot ignore the past decade of published literature about this nomenclatural issue in order to follow one of several web listings. The Amphibian Species of the World website is indeed linked and referenced on the relevant pages, so its viewpoint is also represented. It is also not reasonable to use several different names for the same species on the same page, or across pages, of Wikipedia. Using Lithobates as a genus instead of Rana is unacceptable, for the following reasons: 1. Most recent analyses of the broad phylogenetics and nomenclature of the group favor the use of Rana as the correct genus. 2. All published studies of usage show that Rana has been and is used overwhelmingly compared to Lithobates. 3. The use of Lithobates as a genus creates problems with the monophyly of the remaining Rana, and there has been a long history of disagreement in the literature as to whether or not the group called Lithobates by Frost et al . (2006) is even monophyletic, as reviewed by Hillis (2007). 4. As noted by many authors, and summarized by the AmphibiaWeb (2015) quote above, the use of Lithobates in the sense of Frost et al. (2006) does not follow any published diagnosis or definition of the name, and it does not capture the primary, distinct clades of North American Rana (such as leopard frogs, water frogs, torrent frogs, etc.).
8. My proposal for resolution: Retain Rana as the genus name for the relevant species, with appropriate references cited in support. Also note that Amphibian Species of the World website uses a different nomenclature from the published sources, and prefers Lithobates as a genus, and provide a link to that website (as we do at present). Finally, discuss the various uses of the subgenus name Lithobates on the relevant page for that subgenus. That solution (1) follows the primary published literature for the group; (2) follows the dominant current usage, as supported by two published studies; (3) retains the widely used traditional species names; (4) follows two of the three primary web-based resources, and cites and links to the third as well; (5) follows the recent published nomenclatural reviews of the group, such as Fouquette and Dubois (2014); and (6) clarifies the different proposals for the subgenus Lithobates, with appropriate references.
9. At the request of Micromesistius (talk · contribs), I stopped making edits on the relevant pages, until consensus is reached. However, this left the pages unfinished, with several small problems. For example, some of the species are listed with an inappropriate reference for the species name. I'm waiting for a consensus to correct these other minor issues on the various species pages for species of the genus Rana.

References:

AmphibiaWeb. 2015. Information on amphibian biology and conservation. University of California, Berkeley (CA). Available from: http://amphibiaweb.org/. Accessed September 2015.

Bossuyt F., Brown R.M., Hillis D.M., Cannatella D.C., and Milinkovitch M.C. 2006. Phylogeny and biogeography of a cosmopolitan frog radiation: Late Cretaceous diversification resulted in continent-scale endemism in the family Ranidae. Syst. Biol. 55:579.

Feinberg JA, Newman CE, Watkins-Colwell GJ, Schlesinger MD, Zarate B, Curry BR, Shaffer HB, Burger J. 2014 Cryptic diversity in Metropolis: Confirmation of a new leopard frog species (Anura: Ranidae) from New York City and surrounding Atlantic Coast regions. PLoS One DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0108213

Fouquette, M. J., and Dubois A. 2014. A Checklist of North American Amphibians and Reptiles: The United States and Canada, 7th Ed. Volume 1—Amphibians. Xlibris Publ. ISBN 9781493170340.

Frost, D.R., Grant, T., Faivovich, J., Bain, R.H., Haas, A., Haddad, C.F.B., de Sá, R.O., Channing, A., Wilkinson, M., Donnellan, S.C., Raxworthy, C.J., Campbell, J.A., Blotto, B.L., Moler, P., Drewes, R.C., Nussbaum, R.A., Lynch, J.D., Green, D.M. & Wheeler, W.C. 2006. The Amphibian Tree of Life. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History no. 297: 1-370.

Frost D.R., McDiarmid R.W., and Mendelson, J. R. 2009. Response to the Point of View of Gregory B. Pauly, David M. Hillis, and David C. Cannatella, by the Anuran Subcommittee of the SSAR/HL/ASIH Scientific and Standard English Names List. Herpetologica 65(2), 136-153.

Hillis, D. M. 2007. Constraints in naming parts of the Tree of Life. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 42:331-338.

Hillis D.M. and Wilcox T.P. 2005. Phylogeny of the New World true frogs (Rana). Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 34:299–314.

Pauly G.B., Hillis D.M., and Cannatella D.C. 2009. Taxonomic freedom and the role of official lists of species names. Herpetologica 65:115–128.

Pough, F.H., Andrews, R.M., Crump, M.L., Savitzky, A.H., Well, K.D., and Brandley. M.C. 2015. Herpetology, 4th edition. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA. 591 pp.

Vitt, Laurie J.; Caldwell, Janalee P. (2014). Herpetology: An Introductory Biology of Amphibians and Reptiles (4th ed.). Academic Press.

Wiens J.J., Sukumaran J., Pyron R.A., and Brown R.M. 2009. Evolutionary and biogeographic origins of high tropical diversity in old world frogs (Ranidae). Evolution 63:1217–1231. Ranapipiens (talk) 15:20, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

• Additional issue 2

Since @Ranapipiens: decided to add at this stage I will address at least to what he has said of me. Its He to save that issue. I proposed this because this ongoing issue is unresolved and appears to be going in circles, its at a complete standstill. You may be clear on this but two others are not, myself and Plantdrew came in to offer assistance, we also disagreed with you. Next I did respond to your querie on ICZN rules, I did not delete it, and what I said was there is more to the Principal of Priority than you seem to realise. It only applies when the two names are applied to the same rank. Hillis' nomenclatural acts are dubious because he has used Phylocode and attempted to make it work with ICZN rules and in this case they cannot, as both Plantdrew and myself pointed out. He has also not declared the types and hence there is no way of determining which subset of species are encompassed by each name. Both Rana and Lithobates can be valid genera depending on which species are included in them. Lastly it would have been better to allow all parties to agree before adding a large amount of material that comes from the pages in the informational links for the Mediation Panel. That is the idea, the panel will go look at the discussions and then discuss the issues. So please let this run its course. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 16:40, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I apologize if I incorrectly characterised your point about ICZN rules. However, my point that no ICZN rules support the recognition of Lithobates over Rana remains valid. If you feel that there is a rule that does apply in this way, then please state the Article and the reason. As for Hillis and his application of the PhyloCode: it should be clear that NONE of the current disagreement in names has ANYTHING to do with the PhyloCode. All of my arguments, and all of the papers I have cited, follow the rules of the ICZN in supporting the use of the genus Rana. No one has brought PhyloCode into the discussion until now, so that is not a part of the debate. Secondly, you say "he has not declared the types and hence there is no way of determining which subset of species are encompassed by each name." I assume by "he" in this context you mean Hillis (2007). However, the types of Rana and Lithobates were established by Linnaeus (1758) as Rana temporaria, and by Fitzinger (1843) as Rana palmipes, respectively. Hillis did not declare any types for Rana or Lithobates because he did not coin those names. Instead, he clearly defined the scope of the subgenus Lithobates and included the type species within that scope, completely within the ICZN rules. Other authors I cited did exactly the same thing, including Frost et al. (2006) and Fouquette and Dubois (2014). None of these authors could legally designate a type species different from that of Fitzinger (1843) for Lithobates, or from that of Linnaeus (1758) for Rana, as these names were already established by these other authors. The other subgenera recommended by Hillis (2007) and Pauly et al. (2009) were names coined by Dubois (1992), who again did indeed establish type species, which are consistent with the application of those names. No one has argued that any of these names or type designations are in any way problematic or unavailable under ICZN rules...that is simply not part of the debate. As for listing the issues as a party to this mediation above, the rules on Mediation seem to indicate that as an interested party, it is up to me to add the points for discussion. I did so in good faith following what appears to be the instructions given to me.Ranapipiens (talk) 18:57, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

• Additional issue 3

Not sure of proper Wiki-formatting or procedure, so I'll just go here.

1. I'll start by saying that I do work on these frogs, but not in a taxonomic capacity, and my prior knowledge comes from using the Frost 2006 and Isaac 2012 phylogenies to construct a comparative study. I was therefore familiar with Frost's change from Rana to Lithobates, though ironically, I've published mostly using Rana because my adviser at the time did not feel that the physiological community would be sufficiently familiar with this change yet.
2. Upon noticing Ranapipiens edits, I asked about the status of this on the talk page, setting off the discussion. We have exchanged references back an forth, but, contrary to the above, I have never been convinced that Lithobates has been over-ridden, though I remain open to the possibility, both as a WP editor and a scientist. I read the references provided, sought out others, and generally found a confusing mess of contradictory uses and explanations. However, it should be noted that I did *not* find the sort of overwhelming consensus that Ranapipiens suggested - some authors use one, some use the other, and often without explicit reasoning as to why, other times with only short justifications (3-6 sentences). None contained the sort of taxonomic definitions I'm used to seeing, as Faendalimas (talk · contribs) noted elsewhere, which I was concerned by but couldn't nail down without Faendalimas (talk · contribs) providing expert help. None were really unambiguous or contained definitive, substantial discussions of the topic. Secondary sources by experts were no better, largely conforming to the author's publications on the topic, while secondary sources further from the topic are generally useless as they don't update often enough or consider data thoroughly enough. From what I've seen, the only post-2006 primary source that directly addresses Lithobates as a genus in a sustained, substantial (multi-page) treatment is Pauly et al 2009, which Ranapipiens seems to rely on heavily (though not exclusively).
3. I should specifically note, with regards to references:
   1. Bossuyt 2006 does not cite Frost 2006, nor even mention Lithobates. It discusses the validity of the family and subfamily (Ranidae and Raninae), but nothing at lower levels.
   2. Hillis 2007 and Pauly et al 2009 were both extensively addressed in Frost et al 2009. I found Frost et al 2009 more convincing, but I'm not a taxonomist. I would like, however, for these criticisms to at least be discussed, which Ranapipiens has so far refused to do (see below).
   3. Fouquette and Dubois (2015) and Pough et al 2015 both discuss this, but, IMHO, not in sufficient detail (i.e. not a full paper) and don't make any specific taxonomic acts, merely saying which they will recognize.
   4. Several other phylogenies use either Rana or Lithobates, but don't really go into detail beyond noting which is monophyletic or not, and don't really make specific recommendations for what to do about any non-monophyly that they find.
4. At this point, I reached out to a close collaborator of mine, who is an expert with decades of experience in anuran taxonomy, and, in the interest of COI, is an author on one of the referenced papers (not saying which because he has not given permission to disclose his identity). He informed me about some aspects of the debate, but, most importantly, directed me to the Frost et al 2009 rebuttal paper to the Pauly et al 2009 paper. During the preceding 9 days of discussion and requests for references by Micromesistius and myself, Ranapipiens did not disclose the existence of a rebuttal paper (Frost et al 2009) to his primary source (Pauly et al 2009). Once I had read it, I tried to engage Ranapipiens in a discussion of the points it raised, only to have my concerns dismissed because the paper is a rebuttal rather than a data paper (in spite of the fact that Pauly et al 2009 does not contain sufficient methods or information to allow replication of its 'data', which was directly pointed out in Frost et al 2009). While I do not want to cast aspersions, the omission of this paper from our requests for sources, as well as the refusal to directly engage with the substantiative criticisms it raised, left a bad taste in my mouth, and is part of why I so readily agreed to mediation.
5. At this point, I feared we were treading into WP:OR territory, and brought that up. Unfortunately, the general conclusion seems to be that most sources on the web are so far out of date as to be useless, and better sources are conflicted (see above). There was a lull for the better part of a month when Ranapipiens indicated two new sources, and I tried to get my university library to acquire them for myself. Finally, I gave up and simply asked Ranapipiens to copy the relevant text, which they did, but it was rather unsatisfactorily short, IMO. At this point, Micromesistius and myself asked for help on project pages, thereby bringing in Faendalimas (talk · contribs) and Plantdrew (talk · contribs), who are trained taxonomists. I will leave them to make their own comments.
6. The fundamental problem is that we're having a dispute about the very name of the animal, something we can't omit. If this was a discussion about, say, the extent of mesonephric vs metanephric kidney material in frogs, we could just make some weasel-worded statement and toss in references from both sides, or delete it entirely, and be done with it. But we need a taxonomic name, and we can't have two, putting us in a bind. I also think this might be useful to consider this a "test case", because these sorts of controversies will arise again and again. HCA (talk) 17:28, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I will simply note here (to keep the discussion short) that the taxonomic discussion in support of Rana as the correct genus in Hillis (2007), Pauly et al. (2009), and Fouquette and Dubois (2014) are EACH considerably longer and more detailed than the discussion that originally proposed Lithobates as a genus in Frost et al. (2006). Nonetheless, each one of these papers constitutes legal, appropriate nomenclatural acts under the ICZN rules. I can't fathom what you mean by saying that Fouquette and Dubois (2014) did not make any "taxonomic acts," as their entire book is entirely about specific nomenclatural acts related to the nomenclature of North American amphibians. Their nomenclatural coverage of Rana alone is 55 pages long. In my summary above, I did indeed cite the response by Frost et al. (2009), because I knew that it was important to you. I did not cite it in our first discussions because it was merely a response to another paper without any original analyses, and there were many other papers that were more relevant and recent. I agree that we need to pick a species name for each of these well-studied species, many of which are used as model organisms. I agree with your former adviser who argued in favor of using the well-known traditional species names (i.e., using Rana as the genus), and I can't see any sense in ignoring most of the recent nomenclatural papers on this group of frogs, plus major secondary sources such as AmphibiaWeb and WikiSpecies, that clearly use Rana as the appropriate genus. I agree that the non-taxonomic papers on these frogs are right now all over the place in terms of usage, which is a problem that can only be solved by establishing standards for sources like Wikipedia. Those standards should follow the published taxonomic literature for the group, which fortunately (in this case, at least) favors retaining the well-used species names (i.e., they use Rana as the correct genus).Ranapipiens (talk) 18:57, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

• Additional issue 4

1. Background: I am an active evolutionary biologist, though most my of my work falls within evolutionary ecology and none in systematics. I have interest in both amphibians and systematics, but this occupies me only during my leisure time. I have felt that the state of amphibians in Wikipedia is a disgrace in terms of contents (Polbotian articles in particular) and taxonomy, which has been and still partly is reflecting the state before the major changes that started in 2006. As the source of taxonomy, I have been using ASW, which is used by IUCN too and is more transparent than AmphibiaWeb that is often more like black box when it comes to taxonomic choices. The use of ASW is in agreement with the guidelines of this project, agreed prior to my involvement in the project.
2. I had noticed the inconsistency of Rana/Lithobates, but for a while I refrained from making any taxonomic changes because I saw that there had been an earlier, minor dispute (also at that time involving User:Ranapipiens), and I generally try to avoid conflicts. However, my interpretation of the usage of Rana vs. Lithobates was that the tide had clearly turned in favor of Lithobates, so earlier this year I actually started to make changes, adopting the ASW taxonomy for Lithobates. Going through all species was on my mental to-do list, but I tend spread my attention rather (too) widely, so when User:Ranapipiens started his editing spree in July, there was indeed inconsistency between the articles, and presumably within articles that I had not yet updated.
3. There are two issues here that are related but not the same: what is the "correct" name for these frogs, and what is the name that Wikipedia (for the time being) should use for them? Others here are more qualified to answer the first question. I am perhaps a bit more occupied with the idea that Wikipedia should follow the chosen source of taxonomy, given that we are fortunate to have a well regarded source that is up to date (this kind of dispute is taking awful lot of time that I could use more fruitfully elsewhere). ASW is perhaps sometimes changing even too fast, but we do not need to follow it blindly, i.e. lagging behind can sometimes be prudent. In any case, ASW and AmphibiaWeb are overwhelmingly in agreement, although this is of little consolation here.
4. Very early on, User:Ranapipiens mentioned an "in press" paper: "There is a large revision of Rana in press from a large international group of anuran systematists, including the Che at al. authors noted above, and it completely supports the most recent analyses of Rana, cited on the revised pages and by AmphibiaWeb, for sinking Lithobates as a subgenus (for the Rana palmipes group) within Rana." What is the status of this paper now?
5. User:Ranapipiens has a declared "expertise in the group" and an undeclared level of involvement in publications about ranid systematics, including in what position he knows the "in press" paper mentioned above. This could be in a way that does not involve WP:COI (as an editor/reviewer) or does (as an author or close collaborator). COI does not preclude from editing but should be declared. Engaging in controversial edits with COI should be avoided. WP:NPOV should always be observed.
6. I have an issue with the selective use of evidence by User:Ranapipiens. We hardly ever see evidence cited that runs counter to his position, instead we hear that all recent evidence support the message he is hammering on us. The Conlon et al. (2014) paper goes unmentioned. User:Ranapipiens used the Fouquette and Dubois book (2014) as a weighty argument in favor of his position, but only after I pointed that out the book actually does not support his definition of Lithobates, but a third, non-Frostian one, he concedes that.
7. I applaud User:Ranapipiens for being very consistent in changing Lithobates to Rana. That being said, some edits were destructive and violated normal WP practice: pages were moved by copy-pasting, or by restoring an old version and replacing newer and better article with a redirect. In this process, one start-class article was replaced with an old stub version. Of course, mistakes happen, and moving a page by copying might feel correct.
8. Stability of names is a weak argument. It would be nice but anyone working with anurans have had to get used to many changes over the last decade. Any scientist can deal with that. Micromesistius (talk) 21:10, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Parties' agreement to mediation

If you are a named party, please sign below and indicate whether you agree or refuse to participate in mediation. Remember that all editors are obliged to resolve disputes about content through discussion, mediation, or other similar means. If you do not wish to participate in mediation, you must arrange another form of dispute resolution. Comments and questions should be made underneath the numbered list below, to avoid confusion.

1. Agree. Faendalimas ^talk 10:16, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
2. Agree.Ranapipiens (talk) 13:10, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
3. Agree. HCA (talk) 14:02, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
4. Agree. Micromesistius (talk) 18:56, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Decision of the Mediation Committee

This section should only be edited by a mediator. The Mediation Committee's representative will indicate in due course whether the request is accepted (meaning a mediator will be assigned) or rejected (meaning you will have to try a different type of dispute resolution). If the mediator asks you a question in this section, you may edit here.

• Chairperson's note: Please do not respond to one another here. If you wish to list additional issues, feel free to do so, but do not reply to one another's issues at this point in time (and remember that statements made prior to the time the case is accepted or rejected for mediation are not privileged, though that does not seem to be much of an issue in this case). Feel free to continue discussion at the WikiProject page until a mediator accepts this for mediation. If the case is accepted for mediation, the mediator will sort through all the proposed issues to determine exactly what will be mediated. At this point we're waiting for the last party to respond, but the case will almost certainly be accepted. Once it is accepted (which will happen here on this page), I'll ask for a committee member to volunteer to take the case and two weeks will be allowed to see if we have a volunteer. If no one volunteers, then the acceptance with be withdrawn retroactively and the case rejected for lack of a mediator. For the Mediation Committee, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:21, 14 September 2015 (UTC) (Chairperson)
• Accept. This case is provisionally accepted for mediation. Please see my last posting, just above, starting with "Once it is accepted" to see what happens next. For the Mediation Committee, TransporterMan (TALK) 13:23, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

• I would be willing to mediate, but I am concerned about the length of the posts. I would ask participants to state the issues in 200 words or less. Clarity of thought and synthesis will be crucial. Sunray (talk) 17:09, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

• I am assigning Sunray as the mediator on this case conditioned on the parties' compliance with his requirement that they provide 200-word-maximum restatements of the issues. That should be done on the talk page of this request. If that should not occur, Sunray may close this case as a failed mediation, since any mediator may set reasonable rules and requirements for the mediations he or she accepts. For the Mediation Committee, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:55, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I have complied with this request, although I want to point out that I alone am representing one side of the argument, and three associates are representing the other. There are only two sides: Rana is the correct name, or Lithobates is the correct name. Faendalimas (talk · contribs) listed one person on one side, and three people on the other. In any normal formal discussion of two positions, each SIDE is given equal time. Thus, I request that the opposing argument be presented in a total of 200 words, among the three other participants, for fair balance. Otherwise, I should be allowed to present my argument in 600 words, so that the two sides have equal opportunity and space to state their case.Ranapipiens (talk) 01:59, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I am seriously concerned about the 200-word limit, regardless of implementation details. Even with clarity and synthesis, I'm not sure the truly central aspects of this discussion can be explained without wiki-linking every 3rd word and sending poor Sunray on an interesting but time-consuming odyssey of taxonomic education. Hell, I'm a PhD in organismal biology who's published (non-taxonomic works) on these frogs, and still I eventually had to call in trained taxonomists to sort it out (Faendalimas and Plantdrew). HCA (talk) 14:03, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm leaving the foregoing comments in place, but please refrain from making further comments on this page. At this point all comments by the participants should appear on the talk page, not here. — TransporterMan (TALK) 14:10, 18 September 2015 (UTC) (Chairperson)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.