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Biology

There are many, many species pages that do not meet the general notability guidelines, but they are still kept. See this as example. They are systematically created with very little effort and sometimes only have a few citations, but they do go through review. Is this allowed? 2003 LN6 18:05, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Editors hold varying opinions on whether it is allowed, but when these articles meet WP:V, the consensus reflected in WP:SPECIES is that they are often kept. There is also no community consensus that the WP:GNG should apply to all articles, and a major current of opinion, supported by the current text of WP:N, holds that the GNG does not apply to all arricles. Besides species, there are other types of articles, such as biographies of academics and legally recognized, inhibited places, where verifiably falling within the scope of a subject-specific notability guideline is typically enough to merit an article. And the fundamental rationale for including verifiable species (and populated places) is that these are topics of high relevance to an encyclopaedia. Also, bluelinks and the category system work best when articles treat their topics at a consistent level of detail, and work less well when verifiable content is "rolled up" to larger (and inconsistent), more aggregate entries. Newimpartial (talk) 19:01, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above has made me think about some possible improvements to WP:Glossary, particularly along the lines of:
Notable
Editors agree to have an article about this subject. Their decision is usually based on things like the availability of reliable sources about the subject, but what fundamentally differentiates a notable subject from a non-notable one is whether editors accept it.
Non-notable
Editors agree not to have an article about this subject. Their decision is usually based on things like not finding enough reliable sources to write a decent encyclopedia article, but it can also be based on things like a desire to present a small subject as part of a larger one.
Reliable source
Editors agree that the specific source is appropriate for supporting the specific statement in question. All sources are reliable for some statements (e.g., "His reply on Twitter contained four words") and no source is reliable for any or all types of statements (e.g., a 1997 biology textbook is not a reliable source for last year's Eurovision winner).
Note: This term is also used more vaguely, to indicate the kind of source that is likely to be acceptable for a variety of statements (e.g., "University textbooks are reliable sources" or "This history textbook is reliable for writing about history").
@2003 LN6, when I look at your question above, I mostly notice how irrelevant it is.
You wrote "They are systematically created with very little effort and sometimes only have a few citations", suggesting that these three qualities feel important to you when you are evaluating notability of the subject:
  • systematic vs haphazard creation
  • amount of effort put into the first version
  • number of citations in the article
AFAICT systematic creation has been encouraged since the project's earliest days, as having random gaps in coverage is never going to make sense. Imagine if someone decided to create articles about only some annual events, or about only some of a famous band's albums. People would not appreciate having an article about the 1980 Olympics but skipping the 1984 games.
Your second point is shared by the editors who recommend that we Wikipedia:Beef up that first revision, but since "Notability is a property of a subject and not of a Wikipedia article", whether the article looks like someone put no effort into it, or put an enormous amount of effort into it, makes no difference to the subject's notability at all. It is true that beefing up that first revision is a good defensive maneuver, but you're defending the subject against sloppy reviewers, of the sort who might think that if User:WhatamIdoing/Christmas candy has only two sentences and cites no sources, then there isn't anything else to say and there aren't any sources in the whole world talking about Christmas candy. Beefing up the article doesn't actually change the subject's notability (or lack thereof).
As for the number of citations in the article, the actual rule, at WP:NEXIST, is that notability is exclusively determined by how many sources exist in the real world (e.g., in libraries, in bookstores, in academic journals, in newspapers, on websites) and not at all by how many sources are cited in the current version of the article.
And that takes us to WP:NSPECIES: One of the things that is not widely known is that it's impossible to have a named moth species (such as Battalia pityrochroa) unless there has been an academic publication about it. This may be a peer-reviewed journal article or a book, but it must have been published. The original publication must give not only a name, but enough detailed information about the species that other biologists know (a) where to find it and (b) how to differentiate it from similar species. As a result, when you see someone citing a species database, that's more like a Wikipedia:Convenience link than an indication that the only possible source is a database. If you click through to the cited database entry, you will find two scientific papers listed (a 1981 paper in Priamus (journal) and a 1952 paper in Proceedings of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences). The notability of the moth species depends on those scientific papers, not on the database alone.
If you are curious about what can be done with "just" a species database, then I suggest that you look at User:WhatamIdoing/Database article. Every single fact on that page came from a single database entry about a fish species. I wrote it as a demonstration piece for an editor who saw how little most editors do with species articles and incorrectly assumed that all database entries were trivial sources with no significant content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:12, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
Interesting. Does this mean that the GNG does not apply to all articles? And which articles does it apply to? 2003 LN6 22:20, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
The right way to think about it is not which articles GNG does not apply to, but rather that all articles must meet at least one standalone notability guideline.
  1. GNG is always a valid standalone guideline unless explicitly excluded by an SNG. (For example, WP:NCORP disallows an article on a company based solely on local sources, but there is no such requirement in GNG. For WP:AUD to have any teeth, it must follow that GNG cannot be used for companies/organizations.)
  2. Some SNGs, like WP:NPROF, WP:NGEO, and WP:NSPECIES, are valid standalone guidelines which operate independently from GNG. Subjects in those fields may qualify for an article by meeting either the SNG or GNG.
  3. Some SNGs, like WP:NSPORTS, are subservient to the GNG and are not considered standalone guidelines.
King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:33, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
Thank you! 2003 LN6 23:11, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
Also: When a subject could be evaluated along multiple SNGs, or it's a question of GNG vs SNG, each editor at AFD gets to make their own choice about which guideline(s) to follow, not the creator of the article. So if I were to write about WhatamIdoing's Gas Station, and it were taken to AFD, I could write my own view that it ought to be evaluated under NGEO, because I think it's best understood as part of the geographical landscape than as a business, and all the others could say "Obviously NCORP applies, and therefore delete, delete, delete" or even "No such place, so speedy delete per WP:HOAX". WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:43, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
NSPECIES is NOT a valid standalone guideline, it is an essay. As such, species articles are explicitly under the purview of GNG unless and until a guideline is accepted through global consensus. JoelleJay (talk) 19:12, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
As part of COMMONOUTCOMES, it is true that NSPECIES isn't an SNG. However, as far as I know it is an accurate distillation of actual AfD results in this area. The cumulative result of AfD outcomes, where it is consistent in a domain, is as good an expression of global consensus as is WP:N - certianly a higher level of community consensus in terms of practical decision-making than WP:WHYN, which offers a post-hoc rationalization for other guidelines and, as far as I know, was never intended to be an "operable" guideline to provide rationales for deletion discussions. Newimpartial (talk) 19:53, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
AfD outcomes are not de facto an expression of global consensus as they are limited only to editors watching deletion discussions in that topic area or those watching individual pages, to the exclusion of the community at large. Essays are expressly discounted from N considerations: Editors are cautioned that these WikiProject notability guidance pages should be treated as essays and do not establish new notability standards, lacking the weight of broad consensus of the general and subject-specific notability guidelines in various discussions (such as at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion) precisely because they lack the requisite broad consensus. JoelleJay (talk) 20:47, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
I think AFD outcomes, considered in aggregate, are a good indicator of the community's consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:36, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
In aggregate maybe, but in a topic area it may just present a small group of editors enforcing a local consensus. It could still be that the larger community might not agree. Many AfDs may have been closed a certain way before the NSPORTS RFC that would have a different result now. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:44, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
Just a suggestion on the Glossary idea: I would prefer to refer explicitly to WP:NOT in any entry explaining "non-notable"; there are a number of good, encyclopaedic reasons not to have an article, besides sourcing concerns and a preference for converage at a higher level. The WP:NFILM prohibition of articles on films at early stages of developmemt, for example, can be understood as an application of NOT to certain topics that "meet GNG". Newimpartial (talk) 00:02, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
That's covered in the lead of this guideline, which says:
----
A topic is presumed to merit an article if:
  1. It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG); and
  2. It is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy.
This is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article.
----
I'm not sure how to make people even read it, much less believe that it applies to all subjects. Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions in the first place, and mostly people just believe whatever mix of facts and misinformation they're told by other editors. So if they're told, by confident and apparently trustworthy other editors, that the GNG applies to every page (certainly there are editors who would like this to be the official rule), or that articles must actually cite sources to be notable (even though NEXIST says the opposite), they're unlikely to learn anything different unless they settle down to the large and rather boring task of reading every single word in the guidelines. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:33, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Per policy, articles cannot be based on primary sources, and thus the original research papers describing a species and any directories merely curating them do not count towards notability. @2003LN6's questions are valid and reflect a longstanding issue many editors have with the proliferation of species articles. It might be time to revisit this rather than dismissing concerns as irrelevant and misrepresenting the status of NSPECIES as a valid guideline when it is emphatically NOT.
EDIT: In response to the reply below, which isn't signed and so can't be replied to: The examples of NPROF and NGEO are categorically distinct from NSPECIES as they are consensus guidelines explicitly discussed in our P&Gs as having certain SNG carve-outs, whereas NSPECIES is an essay and has no such P&G support. There is longstanding policy that articles are required to be based on secondary sources, and zero evidence of consensus that primary research papers are somehow automatically secondary sources if (but only if) they happen to describe a new species. Nor do I see consensus stating that species articles are permitted even when no secondary sources exist at all; rather, there is more a presumption that sufficient secondary sourcing exists to meet GNG for any species. JoelleJay (talk) 19:21, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
While this is a valid question to raise, I would point out that enwiki has, since its beginning, allowed certain verified topics that often lack fully independent, secondary sources (like biographies of academics) to warrant their own articles (Notability). WP:CONSENSUSCANCHANGE, certainly, but to date there are a number of domains - including species and officially-recognized, populated places among others - that are typically accepted as notable without GNG sourcing. The idea that articles on this topics are in some sense not valid does not express any current consnsensus that I can see, though of course future consensus may be different. Newimpartial (talk) 20:00, 26 May 2024‎ (UTC)
In re There is longstanding policy that articles are required to be based on secondary sources: It's true that PSTS begins with the statement that Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. That sentence began life in 2007 as part of the definition of secondary, and was written by an amazing editor who believed that an eyewitness news story was a secondary source. It took many years and many conversations to convince her that under Wikipedia's definitions, Wikipedia:Independent does not mean secondary, and I suspect that she still believed we were wrong. If you showed her the two journal articles about that moth the day after she wrote that, I'm convinced she would have told you that they were secondary sources. If pressed for an explanation, she would have told you that the fieldnotes were the primary source, and therefore the peer-reviewed papers had to be secondary sources. I'm not saying she's correct – a few years later, she and I went (at least) ten rounds on the definition of a secondary source – but I am telling you what she meant when she wrote that, and that in 2007, her belief wasn't a total outlier. Besides, every field has its own definition of secondary source anyway, and half of them are incompatible.
All of which is a lot of words to say: Don't get too hung up on the letter of the "law", because it will lead you astray. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
It's not just in the lead of PSTS. It is also laid out very explicitly in the numbered list of policies and referenced numerous times elsewhere. Presumably not all of this was written by Sarah. And somehow I think even back in 2007 policies and their interpretations were not decided by one editor. JoelleJay (talk) 01:59, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
What is "the numbered list of policies"? As far as I know, PSTS is the only content policy (i.e., Neutral point of view, No original research, Verifiability, Article titles, Biographies of living persons, Image use policy, What Wikipedia is not) that actually says that articles should be based on secondary sources. Do you have a couple of examples you'd like to share? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:25, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood that amazing editor. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:24, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, she had an enormous influence on the development of policies. Donald Albury 12:20, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
She did indeed, and I miss her. I particularly miss her in discussions like this one about COI rules.
But I don't think that I misunderstood her when she told me that "current newspapers are mostly secondary sources", because what she meant was exactly what she wrote. I also don't think I misunderstood her when she quoted from a source that said "Newspaper reports, having been subject to editing, are secondary sources for the events they record; the original reporter's notebook, if it had survived, would be a primary source". That source, BTW, defined secondary as "already published" (page 79). As I said, we had quite extensive conversations about this for several years. We both knew what each of us believed, and we both knew that there were very few reliable sources that supported her belief. In the end, Wikipedia's policies were written with "her" definition, but "my" definition is the dominant one in the community now. So I have posted this to warn you: When she wrote those rules, she was using "her" definition of secondary source, which began this way: "Secondary sources are secondhand accounts...". If you are accustomed to the scholarly definition, or to the modern Wikipedia definition, then you will not necessarily understand the original intent behind that old sentence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:09, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
Well, functionally its true, we do treat news (even sadly breaking news) as proto-secondary (otherwise current events could have no explanation or analysis, just bald facts of unknowable relevance), even though in history, one would treat news as primary. We would have just bald facts like, "Atty Cohen testified today" but not what was important about it or why it mattered. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:55, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
I agree. It's surprising to editors, especially if editors who are relatively new, to discover that we use the word secondary to mean two different things. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:27, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
About as confusing as saying we are NOT news. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:51, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Improving these one sentence species stub articles is my main passion on Wikipedia - I started editing specifically to improve taxonomy stubs/create new articles for overlooked taxa - so I hope you won't consider me too biased :P Policies on notability (and Wikipedia in general, to be honest) weren't really designed with taxonomy in mind, but I am of the opinion that, generally, (accepted) taxa are inherently notable and of encyclopedic value.
If a taxon is recognised by the International Code of Nomenclature or International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, it will inevitably attract further coverage in reliable sources. This includes coverage in high quality databases like Plants of the World Online or World Register of Marine Species, which are curated by experts and, in my opinion, can be considered reliable secondary sources that establish notability.
As WhatamIdoing points out, article content does not determine notability, and an article being shoddy does not necessarily mean it needs to be deleted. It is usually not very difficult to take a taxonomy article from a one sentence stub to at least Start/C class - compare the current state of Pilularia minuta (one of my works-in-progress) to how it looked when I started on it a few days ago. The problem is not that these stubs exist, but that we don't have enough editors to work on them - reliable sources are almost always out there, it's just a matter of getting someone to actually work on the article. Ethmostigmus (talk | contribs) 09:36, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
@2003 LN6 If you want to have something to do over the weekend, you can read this very long discussion (with its sub-sub-sections) that discusses that very topic. Cremastra (talk) 15:48, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
I believe BilledMammal had some kind of guideline draft being prepared at User:BilledMammal/NSPECIES. Cremastra (talk) 15:53, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
This entire thread seems like just slippery slope arguments Sock-the-guy (talk) 17:40, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

According to my grand unification theory :-) of how wp:notability actually works :-) ( Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works ) in the decision the community also weighs degree of enclyclopedicness and these are at the "extremely enclyclopedic" end of the spectrum tipping the decision towards that these are usually kept. Especially if they are created individually with at least some content where the editor has invested some real time in creating that individual article. And yes, IMO in reality the community does weigh these things when deciding "notability" even though they are not official notability criteria. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:19, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

In a similar vein, another factor that is typically considered is the possibility that keeping a given undersourced article could cause harm or be an attempt at commercial promotion. For species, while the risk isn't quite zero (particularly for intentionally-bred animals), it's definitely towards the minimal end of the spectrum. signed, Rosguill talk 15:39, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
Are they actually "encyclopedic"? I don't know any encyclopedia that even lists every single species, let alone allots each a standalone article. What makes each species more encyclopedic than each described astronomical object if they all have the same amount of primary descriptive data attached? Why don't we allow articles on chemical compounds sourced only to the 1850s papers first describing them? What makes them automatically more encyclopedic than any other new scientific discovery that hasn't been documented in secondary independent sources? Could it maybe be the fact that species databases are easily accessible, much more understandable to lay audiences than other scientific databases, and contain a standardized set of parameters that can be scraped into infoboxes with little effort, and thus appeal to editors who get their WP satisfaction from systematic article creation and/or completionism? Like, the same thing we see with sportspeople... JoelleJay (talk) 17:55, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
@JoelleJay: I'm with you in spirit, and "editors who get their WP satisfaction from systematic article creation and/or completionism?" is a real problem I see when NPP'ing. I guess that one difference is that those folks seem to be doing that a lot more with large amounts of individual articles on each bus station on each line or a separate stats-only article for each year's scores for each sports team and other sports areas than they do it with species articles. Plus arguably, a species article is more enclyclopedic than those.North8000 (talk) 20:21, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
I don't disagree that a species is more encyclopedic than transportation cruft, but that doesn't mean it should automatically have a standalone article. And the existence of tens of thousands of boilerplate species articles suggests they're being mass-created with no individual attention. JoelleJay (talk) 20:50, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
@JoelleJay: It's more that a large number of them were mass-created in the early days of the encyclopedia (including a couple problematic creation-by-bot efforts, as well as a number by editors who have since gotten themselves indef blocked and/or banned for a variety of reasons and therefore cannot be expected to help clean things up) and we're still playing catch-up to this day because the number of editors working on taxa is at best in the double digits. While new species articles do get created still, they tend to have more individual content (and actual sources) these days, occasional rare exception aside. The greater bulk of boilerplate "X is a [taxon rank] of [higher taxon]" + taxobox articles lacking any further content almost invariably are from the noughts or early tens. AddWittyNameHere 01:39, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
From our article on Encyclopedia of Life: "The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is a free, online encyclopedia intended to document all of the 1.9 million living species known to science", so apparently there is at least one encyclopedia that intends to at least list every single species. Their entry for that moth includes (on a subpage) a copy of the enwiki stub, among other things.
It's more common to see smaller subsets: The Plant List was an ambitious online plant encyclopedia for plants, which was promptly replaced by the World Flora Online (tulip example), and five years later, they tried again with Plants of the World Online (their tulip example). We call the first two encyclopedias and the last an online database, but the latter has a more encyclopedic-style result. On paper, Flora Europaea attempted to list every "wild or widely cultivated" plant species in Europe. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:51, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Five pillars begins with the statement that "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers". I do not think that I have ever seen a claim that "encyclopedias don't include ____", for any subject or any level of detail, end with an agreement that no encyclopedia has ever done that. It usually ends with someone saying something like "Well, a general encyclopedia like Encyclopædia Britannica might not include it, but my copy of Encyclopedia of Niche Subject has four entries for that in the first volume alone". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:55, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
5P is still an essay. And anyway, almost by definition, encyclopedias are not going to include a full secondary analysis entry for every single member of a group with millions of members. That's what standard databases and directories are for. JoelleJay (talk) 21:30, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
I think it should be clear I am talking about pre-WP encyclopedias, which are presumably the ones being referenced in policy, rather than the WP-inspired online "encyclopedias" developed after the policies were written. JoelleJay (talk) 21:19, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
Yes, like Flora Europaea, which was first published in 1964. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:40, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
...Which does not include individual full secondary analyses of each of millions of species -- only of most plants in Europe -- and importantly groups each species under its family and genus, where the common characters are given overviews, leaving discussion of each species limited to those characters that are distinctive, often with direct contextualization with its sister species, e.g.

Helobiae CLXX Alismataceae. [description of family's habitat, ranges in number of anatomical components (e.g. "Carpals 3–numerous, spirally arranged or whorled..."), etc.]...

1. Sagittaria. [description of genus's typical anatomical presentations, narrowed down from those introduced in the family section and with some details expanded on; includes single-sentence mentions of two species recently established in Europe, and presented in running text rather than individual entries]
1. S. sagittifolia [~6 sentence description, including some details on petal, filament, anther, fruitlet appearance]
2. S. trifolia [2 sentences, including "... widespread in Asia, has recently been reported from S.E. Russia ... It is like 1 [S. sagittifolia] but with the basal lobes of the aerial leaves longer..."]
Contrast this with the prescribed treatment on WP where we would instead repeat all the family-, genus-, and sister-species-level shared traits for each species, plus additional classes of info that never appear in the encyclopedia, and require readers to click through to other pages for direct context. JoelleJay (talk) 01:11, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Some species editors did seem quite committed to this using of primary sources, in the recent scientific guideline debate. They seemed to be suggesting, no one cared enough to write on "new" or recent species in secondary sources (and even that no one may mention these species again, or perhaps even see them again). One would guess the problem for Wikipedia is, it would still not want to represent the 'fantastical', as not fantastical.Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:34, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

That notes an issue that pops up in many cases (including POV wars) that secondary sources often don't cover boring highly-encyclopedic informative details.North8000 (talk) 16:07, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
But is it the case with these species that all you have is one source? Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:23, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
My post was about how the fuzzy wp:notability ecosystem operates, not to defend what it does. North8000 (talk) 20:05, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
If you want my personal opinion on that hypothetical example, if the editor took some time to put some useful content into the species article and isn't doing any sort of mass-creation, I'd weigh in as "keep" at an AFD. North8000 (talk) 20:25, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
It's probably a symptom of an inability to organize. And the other issue is always, how do you know it is good information (making up animals has a long, somewhat popular, and very rich history). Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:04, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
Were you referring to this discussion Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive_192#Upgrade SCIRS to a guideline? You may be interested in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 56#WP:NTAXON from about a year ago, which sheds some more light on the issue. A key point is that people have been asserting the notability, not of all species, but all species accepted by the relevant taxonomic community. When someone describes a new species, other experts consider the evidence presented, and either accept it as distinct, or consider it a synonym of some other species. However, this decision often takes the form of an entry in a checklist or database, which shows that the species was rejected or accepted. Taxonomists produce Monographs, when possible, which serve as secondary sources that comprehensively describe accepted species within a group. However, the production of monographs is very much limited by lack of resources, and taxonomists are used to understanding accepted species through the primary literature. Whether or not a species is covered by a monograph doesn't meaningfully distinguish between more or less "important" species, or whether a species is distinct, hence the reaction at the SCIRS discussion. Choess (talk) 03:37, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
So, others independent of the describer examine the evidence presented by the describer. and make their own determination based on that and then they write it in a checklist or database, and the checklist or database must be accepted by the relevant taxonomic community, and so you will have one source, the checklist or database, which is independent of the describer?
Do you consider the checklist or database primary?
Or do you consider the checklist or database is evidence that primary literature has been analysed?
Does the project write all that down somewhere and identify such databases and checklists?
-- Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:24, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
I would consider the work describing the species primary, and the checklist or database a secondary source. The checklist/database generally doesn't reiterate all the details in the primary source, although it might have some information like the geographic distribution of the species (not necessarily complete). As you say, the checklist/database is independent of the describer. This part of last year's discussion goes into some detail about these databases. I know the Plants project has a written list under "Resources"; I can't find one for Fungi, but I see some of them (MycoBank, Index Fungorum) discussed at the talk page.
For vascular plants the quality of the central databases is pretty good (as compared to the geographic database fiascos that have been discussed elsewhere). Off-Wikipedia, I help maintain taxonomic databases, so I have strong feelings about not propagating names that are not accepted, database entry errors, etc. For other groups, there is not always a strong central database, so it can be more difficult to decide if a species is "accepted". You might have to search through the literature for checklists covering a specific area where the species should be found and there would be more skepticism. In general, I think the active editors in these areas have a reasonable grasp of which databases are high and low-quality, but I agree that it would be good to be systematic about writing them down. Choess (talk) 16:01, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
I consider these databases secondary sources (though there are some lower quality databases that just copy entries from other databases with no real oversight, obviously these are pretty worthless for Wikipedia). WP:TOL has a list of such databases under the "Taxonomic Resources" tab. Ethmostigmus (talk | contribs) 13:18, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
So, in that case, for Wikipedia its not a matter of primary.
It's a matter of only one secondary source?
Whether it needs a separate article?
And whether Wikipedia is just repeating the database? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:56, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
I don't think there's only one "Wikipedia" view about species, but one view is that all species meeting WP:V should have an article. For one thing, the category system, lists and wikilinks work best this way, and it also offers the most straightforward path to expanding articles about species. Newimpartial (talk) 15:20, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
What do you mean specifically regarding V? It's in the acceptable databases, and that's what you are using as your source, is that what you mean? And above, its said that there is not now and perhaps never going to be anything to expand the article with, right? Also, is there some reason there can't be one Wikipedia view of a large class captured in policy and/or guideline? Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:14, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
What I assume they mean is that if the contents of a stub meet wp:ver then it doesn't get rejected on wp:notability grounds. If you add "not mass created" then I think that that is the most common defacto standard for species articles. Edge case mass-creation (e.g. the "editors who get their WP satisfaction from systematic article creation and/or completionism") folks don't seem to be doing species articles. And at NPP I don't see many new species articles so they either haven't discovered species articles or folks with autopatrol might be building walled gardens of species articles. However in a study I did in 2021 (User:North8000/Display#2021 Article study) 7.5% of all articles were species articles so Ii assume that there was more of this activity in the past. North8000 (talk) 17:31, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
N8K has pretty much described my answer to your question. I don't buy the premises that we can identify in advance what articles on species could never be expanded, or that there is no use to readers in standalone articles containing boilerplate information ("stubs"), when it comes to verifiable species information.
I also agree that mass creation of stub articles is the real pain point for community, rather than the existence or manual creation of verifiable stub articles. Newimpartial (talk) 17:46, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
There was a discussion of mass creation Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 194#Mass creation of pages on fish species about a year and a half ago. Unfortunately, while there's pretty good consensus that mass creation of sub-stubs is bad, the discussion broke down over how high a bar to set in terms of sourcing and depth of content. I agree that the mass creation of these 1–2 sentence stubs like the one that started this discussion ("X is a moth. It lives in New Guinea") is not at all desirable even though I think these articles essentially always have potential for expansion.
Completionist stub creation of this kind was definitely frequent in the past, under the now-discredited theory that it would stimulate article expansion. My general impression is that the editors doing this are not usually the ones highly active at the respective WikiProjects, though. User:AlexNewArtBot/SpeciesSearchResult should give some idea of the current state of affairs. I, personally, don't start a species article unless I can make some effort to convey a "diagnosis"; that is, someone reading the article would be able to discern what the species is like, if they saw it, and the features that make it distinctive, which I think dovetails pretty well with N8K's comment about AfD above. Usually, that's also the hardest part to write! If we could push a bit more towards that as a standard I think it would self-limit excessive species article creation. Choess (talk) 19:45, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
But neither of you addressed what I was trying to get at, what source satisfies V in particular to these species and can we agree on that? If we can get an agreement that these particular databases satisfy V and that they are secondary, can't we write that down somewhere so that we can move on from those issues, at least. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:31, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
To answer your question, I don't have a firm view on which sources are known to satisfy WP:V (which doesn't necessarily require a secondary source). I am still stuck at what I take to be the previous step: to have an article, does the community expect that a species needs to meet the GNG, or is clearly verifiable documentation sufficient? I hold the latter view, obviously, because I think verifiable species are of encyclopaedic relevance and because categories, lists and bluelinks work better in this area when verifiable information is made available at a consistent level of detail. Newimpartial (talk) 21:40, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
Why would that be the previous step, isn't it, what can I write that satisfies V (which means I have to identify the V satisfying source), followed by organization with respect to my sentence, or sentences. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:55, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
To answer your question, I take the question of this section to be, essentially, does the community support the retention of species articles that don't meet WP:GNG and if so, under what circumstances? If the answer is related to a lower threshold based on verifiability of content (as it is, for example, for populated places), then the first step is to describe the threshold and identifying which sources count as meeting the threshold would be the second step. At least, that's how I see it. Newimpartial (talk) 23:11, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
@Alanscottwalker, there definitely is not agreement that such databases are inherently secondary; NASTRO and NSPORT have long understood databases that simply host certain data -- even if curated independently -- to be primary when the data is not accompanied by direct, individualized secondary contextualization by a human. If we have a dozen primary species sources each containing info for 50 data parameters, and then a software program extracts the data from 10 of the parameters to make a "curated" database of the 12 species, the only change from the primary sources is that they are now all accessible from the same place and have only 10 parameters each. There has been no secondary interpretation of any data in the context of other data; while the independent group that developed the software program chose which parameters were most important to retain for the group, those parameters were not chosen specifically for any individual species and cannot constitute GNG's requisite covered directly criterion for secondary SIGCOV, nor can the selection criteria themselves constitute "substantial coverage". JoelleJay (talk) 21:55, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
But what someone represented above is that in these databases someone independent of the describer did analyze the describers evidence and decided whether that evidence demonstrates a species.in other words, not like those other databases. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:01, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
Someone analyzing the data without actually writing anything about it doesn't suddenly transform the data into a secondary source. If all that's happening is a committee decides data support something being designated a new species and therefore the parameters attached to its description can be entered into a species database, without publishing any additional non-trivial discussion of that data, then that's no different from what a journal editor does when deciding whether a submission should be desk rejected vs passed on to reviewers. JoelleJay (talk) 23:58, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia doesn't have the structure to acknowledge interaction of multiple guidelines which would be required to define the reality of this. Maybe the best we could do is a listing at "common outcomes". A new article that has a bit more info than a stub, meets wp:verifiability and is not mass produced or semi-mass produced is usually kept and and is usually required to have all of those things to be kept.North8000 (talk) 22:04, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
If the database merely repeats the primary data with no prose contextualization, how is that any different from the athlete databases that are universally considered primary sources? A database that just hosts certain data with no text actually added by independent people in their own words is still primary. JoelleJay (talk) 21:35, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
Not arguing on how it should be, but IMO here are two differences treated in practice:
  • Athlete database structured sources are typically stats-only, whereas I think that the species ones being discussed have more encyclopedic information in them. Sort of like GEO although GEO has its own SNG to confirm that.
  • A species per se is inherently more encyclopedic than an athlete per se.
Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:54, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
"Encyclopedic info" is meaningless if it hasn't been analyzed and discussed directly by independent sources. For WP it's either the straightforward statements of fact we can use from primary sources, or it's uncontextualized data prohibited by NOT/PSTS, and either way articles by policy cannot consist only or primarily of such content. JoelleJay (talk) 22:01, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
My "enclyclopedic" post above was about the topic not about the content. North8000 (talk) 22:06, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

As I said last year, we need an actual notability guideline for taxa. Currently, the only advice out there regarding notability of taxa is GNG and this little paragraph which basically says "by unspoken agreement, we don't really delete species articles." Technically, genus/family/order articles etc are up for grabs, but it seems that there is, once again, some kind of unspoken agreement that taxon articles have a lower bar for notability than GNG. Unfortunately, no-one knows what this is. I think it is time to move on from tacit agreements and draft an actual notability guideline for taxon articles, in place of "oh, we don't really delete those, well, most of time anyway" situation that is confusing and disorganized at best. Cheers, Cremastra (talk) 15:56, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately Wikipedia doesn't have the structure to acknowledge interaction of other factors in notability decisions particularly that an editor has does some real work on the article individually. Lacking that, any notability guideline which blesses the existing articles is going to greenlight articles on all of the 1.5 million - 8 million species that don't currently have articles. North8000 (talk) 16:15, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
We have a separate consensus against mass-creation of articles from databases, independent of their notability. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:32, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
I think we have de facto consensus that "sub-stubs" on taxa are bad and should not be created (as stated by Cremastra last year), but de jure the (general) mass creation RFC broke down in part over the ambiguity of the term "database" and the amount of information available for article writing from single entries in different databases.
If we're going to try breaking the deadlock, I'd suggest that we make the criterion for whether or not to accept new articles on species (besides being accepted as distinct by other scientists) the existence of a "diagnosis"—does the article attempt to describe the species in a way that differentiates it from other closely related species? That parallels disciplinary conventions for describing species, and because it's usually the most difficult part of the article to write, it would act as a practical brake on mass creation and weed out the people who are just mechanically turning redlinks blue. I think in practice, that criterion would do a pretty good job of embodying N8K's "has done some real work on the article individually". (In principle, people could game that—"This moth is brown and lives in New Guinea"—but the larger taxonomic checklists/databases generally don't say much, or anything, about diagnosis, and in my experience the people creating articles mechanically aren't willing to go to the level of effort that would be required to look those things up.)
In theory, these could greenlight the creation of $BIGNUM species articles, but in practice, that would only occur if we attracted a very large number of interested and knowledgeable editors, in which case we would also have enough volunteers to maintain them. I think that would be a great outcome, if unlikely on a practical timescale, but I realize some participants here would object to having $BIGNUM specialized articles even if they were all of high quality. Choess (talk) 17:30, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
"Differentiation" might work. It could fit in as form of wp:notability. What differentiates the species is key info about it. Just as the heavier-duty GNG standard requires coverage, this could require that coverage. And avoids the hypothetical argument of "sources probably exist". But we'd probably need to express the intent of applying this mostly to new articles. We probably have 100,000+ existing species articles that don't meet this standard. North8000 (talk) 20:51, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
Mmm... differentiation I like it! So, say, a distinct morphological characteristic, a fact about its ecology, or something about its life cycle or courtship (if any)? What about distribution? Does that count as "differentiation"? Cremastra (talk) 21:00, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
This is an interesting idea. While I don't really think it's worth deleting the existing stubs (partly because I don't think it's worth the effort, and partly because I enjoy fixing these stubs), it's 100% fair to deny new articles if the article creator can't provide any more information beyond "[x] is a species of [y] from [z]".
On the topic of distribution as a notable characteristic: having an unusual or restricted distribution is certainly a unique characteristic, but I'm not sure if more "normal" distributions should count as differentiation for this purpose. Simple "[x] is a species of [y] from [z]" descriptions are especially problematic when it comes to large countries like Australia, China, the US, etc. There needs to be a level of detail beyond just listing the country the taxon can be found in. For example, "[x] is a species of [y] native to the United States" is not good enough in my opinion, but "[x] is a species of [y] native to the United States, where it is widespread across the deserts of the southwest" is better. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 07:23, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
As a self-described curationist, I have no issue with $BIGNUM species articles, if they are all high quality; my concern is with boilerplate articles that tell the reader little and would be more convenient for the reader if presented in a different format. BilledMammal (talk) 06:38, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Note; this topic was the subject of WP:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale. Abductive (reasoning) 08:51, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Draft guideline re species

As mentioned by Cremastra, I was previously working on a draft guideline at User:BilledMammal/NSPECIES, and though I haven't had time to work on it lately the largest holdup was technical; how to implement taxonbars in list and table articles. The idea is:

  • We recognize that every species is encyclopedic
  • We recognize that while they are encyclopedic that doesn't mean there is sufficient information to warrant a standalone article. Instead, we include the information within an article on the genera.

My understanding is that such an approach is acceptable to the editors who focus on these articles, while providing a way to address the concerns about the mass creation of species articles and cleanup previous mass creation. BilledMammal (talk) 06:36, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I would support such a policy. It keeps the de facto status quo that species articles aren't deleted, but but ackgnowledges sometimes a separare article isn't best for the reader. One thing we don't need more of is stubs along the lines of A is a species of B described by C in D. It is found in E – that's just a duplication GBIF and isn't useful. I know of at least two users (and I won't name them here) who are still steadily creating such stubs, or at least something very similar. Cremastra (talk) 12:43, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
While I am broadly supportive of the approach described in User:BilledMammal/NSPECIES, I'm not sure where the "10 lines of prose" threshold came from or what level of support it has among those working in this area.
I would also point out that my support is acutely contingent on the current provisions in the draft for categorized redirects for species without articles. Without this provision I think any such up-shift in the level this information is presented would be a clear loss of encyclopaedic functionality and fitness for use. Newimpartial (talk) 12:56, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Having listened to the subsequent discussion, I am now no longer broadly supportive of the approach described in User:BilledMammal/NSPECIES. Editors working to create articles in this area have convinced me that the proposal erects new barriers in the way of creating and expanding articles in this area, and the only arguments for the approach seem to be (i) a one-size-fits-all approach to topic notability, which is not supported by WP:N or other P&Gs, and (ii) an aesthetic objection to short "stub" articles, which I do not share. Newimpartial (talk) 09:34, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
I oppose this in the strongest terms. A short article about a species only adds to the encyclopedia, and as someone who has written a few species articles, the existence of an existing short article means that as new articles get created and editors research interspecies relationships, the content can expand. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 13:15, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

The draft says they do not automatically warrant a standalone article. This is a huge change to our present guidelines and, judging by recent instances of changes to notability (to, say, Olympians) and the enthusiastic participation of the draftor in such deletions, smells like the precursor to another round of massive deletions. I would be strongly opposed to anything that opens the door to that. I don't want to encourage mass creation of stubs, but neither do I want to encourage mass deletion of the stubs we already have. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:46, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

All you have to do is make it going forward, and for the rest at most, it would likely never be deletion but tabular lists or up-merging if the AfD says so, which they well might not anyway, or there is subsequent agreements. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:03, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Up-merging to a line in a list of species in a genus article = deletion by another name. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:57, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
What? The same info on another page to which your directed by the name is nothing like deletion, it's an organization, and no, no history is deleted. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:01, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
A line of text in a list of species provides no scope for expansion, and likely does not provide even enough room for the material already in the species stubs in your mass-wiki-extinction cross-hairs. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:09, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
That second part seems unlikely, and that first part would lead to later article when you have more to source. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:12, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
It is telling that the draft starts by claiming that it provides guidance for when a full species article is appropriate, but its entire content is about how to avoid making a full species articles and instead providing an abbreviated mention of the species in some kind of list. There is nothing in the draft providing any hint of lead to later article. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:15, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps the drafter thought it was obvious when you can write detailed info on something with multiple sources, but come now, the articles being discussed above, have one source which is almost in table form as is, it is literally said to be in only a database source, and it's difficult to get an answer on which are the good databases even. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:22, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Now you're just grandstanding. "Look at those examples above! It's impossible for someone who doesn't even edit this subject to already know which sources to use! Obviously something must be done! Think of the children! Oh the humanity!" —David Eppstein (talk) 20:32, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
I don't know what you mean. The reason this is being discussed above was the quality (primary or secondary) and paucity of the source(s). Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:36, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
One sentence containing all the species-specific material that isn't already in the genus description is often going to be more than what exists in many of these articles as-is. What information is being deleted from upmerging an article like this? In fact we already have way more info on the genus page -- not only descriptions of shared biology in the genus, but also the apparent range of this species in particular. And that's not even an example of the tables we would be employing in the draft, which would allow more content. JoelleJay (talk) 01:57, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Likely merging rather than deletion. What we might end up with is more "table articles", like Microgramma (plant). Cremastra (talk) 19:05, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
So, more content which reads more like a pile of sports statistics and less like an encyclopedia? XOR'easter (talk) 19:35, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
What? seems like more content that gives context, just how wildly disparate are they. They a grouped together in taxonomy already as they inform about each other too. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:57, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
An encyclopedia is, first and foremost, a work of prose. This is Wiki-pedia, not Wiki-almanac. XOR'easter (talk) 20:04, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
That seems hardly relevant, when you are talking about very little prose, and tables have space for prose anyway. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:07, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Tables are the opposite of prose. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:08, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
No a sentence or two or three in a table is still in prose form. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:09, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Lengthy prose in table cells becomes ungainly fast... which reminds me of another concern I had: why are the six bits of information in User:BilledMammal/NSPECIES deemed the ones that can fit into a table, beyond which a "split into a species-specific article" becomes allowed? I don't see how any guideline of this sort could be useful to editors without more explanation of the principles behind it. A person who'd like to start contributing to taxonomy pages would just find it arbitrary. It looks like Wikipedian clubhouse behavior, rules for the sake of rules. XOR'easter (talk) 20:15, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
It's not arbitrary. There are a large number of articles (probably over 100k) that have no information beyond those 6 bits. 5 of the 6 bits are usually found in taxoboxes (range is not), and some of them (synonyms and taxonomic authority) frequently only appear in taxoboxes, not in prose. If an article has a single image, that's in the taxobox too. So basically those 6 bits are what's necessary to preserve the information in a taxobox if there is no stand alone article for a species (there are a few other taxobox parameters such as fossil range and distribution maps, but they are used in relatively few articles, and those that use them aren't usually sub-stubs).
3 of the bits (species name+authority, subspecies, synonyms) will be in any species database that Wikipedia might be using as a source, no matter how little information it contains. Range is the next bit of data that species databases include if they go beyond the minimum (although that might only be the location where the first specimen was collected, not it's entire range; that is the case for the example given at the top of this section). Species databases generally don't include conservation status or any images.
So those 6 bits are what's needed to preserve information taken from a minimalist species database, and what information may be found in taxoboxes. However, most species haven't been assessed for a conservation status, and that is even more true for species with sub-stub articles that might be considered for merging. Sub-stub species are unlikely to have images available that Wikipedia can use, are unlikely to have any recognized subspecies, and may not have any synonyms. So the table would have many empty cells. On the other hand, some species have hundreds of synonyms; this is a good indicator that it should be possible to write more than a stub for that species, but I don't know how the synonyms would fit in a table. Plantdrew (talk) 00:04, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
There are about ~350K pages in Category:Eukaryote stubs,[1] so I think the estimate of "probably over 100K" is likely accurate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:15, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
If we are to have a content guideline on this, it would need an explanation along those lines to back it up. A page that explains how to write a helpful taxonomic article and that leaves non-specialist readers more informed about how taxonomy works is drastically more useful than a stick to wield in AfD disputes.
Having many synonyms does sound like it would pose a problem for tabular formatting. It seems like the table approach invites having some grid cells overfilled while others are empty. XOR'easter (talk) 06:09, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
I think what would be helpful is to see some worked examples. Specifically, I'd like to see the proponents take some of the "unworthy" stubs (e.g., Category:Battalia (moth)) and work up a few sandbox articles. Then we could ask ourselves: Realistically, is the current version better or worse than the proposed version? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:21, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
There's User:BilledMammal/Abrotanella. The species that aren't linked in the table had no information that would be lost if they were merged as of 3 November 2022 (I checked each of the articles and ended up adding synonyms for two that were missing from BilledMammal's table). Abrotanella forsteroides, Abrotanella nivigena and Abrotanella scapigera have been expanded since then. The synonyms I added were present in the respective species articles at that time, and represent information that would have been lost if the species articles had been merged.
Looking at BilledMammal's table, I was inclined to consider that all relevant synonyms were listed, but I wanted to check that. Faced with a sub-stub article for a species that lists no synonyms, I would be inclined to consider that there may possibly be synonyms that aren't listed (along with pretty much any other useful information about any species with a sub-stub article). There's no column for conservation status in the Abrotanella table. All Abrotanella species from New Zealand (about half of the species in this genus are from New Zealand) have a NZTCS conservation status (but none of the articles mention it). OK, so NZTCS status isn't mentioned in some relevant articles (some of them sub-stubs, where I am not at all surprised that it isn't mentioned). Presumably NZTCS status should be mentioned where relevant. I don't work with tables on Wikipedia much, but I assume there's a tool that would help me add a new column to a table. Without knowing what that tool is, adding new columns to an existing table strikes me as a gigantic pain in the ass. I'd rather add NZTCS statuses to every relevant Abrotanella species article, than try to add a column to BilledMammal's table for conservation status. Should tables of species in genus articles even potentially mix different conservation status systems together (IUCN is the big status system)? I don't know.
The table at User:BilledMammal/Abrotanella looks authoritative in way that it really is not (synonyms, conservation status). When I'm faced with a species sub-stub, it is more obvious that is deficient than when I'm faced with sourced rows in a table.. I'm not in favor of creating sub-stub species articles, but I don't believe merging existing articles is a beneficial activity for editors. Plantdrew (talk) 02:12, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
@Plantdrew, you want to use the visual editor any time you need to add, remove, or rearrange table columns. I am concerned about wide tables on mobile, which is more than half of our traffic.
We're also losing the per-species taxon identifiers. For the first species, we're losing these links:
The readers who specifically want this may be few and far between, but I'm sure that they do exist.
More broadly, I share your concern about the Opportunity cost involved in merging these articles. There are two basic models for understanding how wiki-work gets done. One is that we have some ideas about what's important (e.g., BLP protection, anti-spam efforts), and we would like editors to focus their energies there. Is this important? I doubt it.
The other is that someone(s) sit down every day and cheerfully does the work because that's what they want to do. We see this, e.g., in FAs about obscure topics or articles about every single highway in a given country.
What we seem to have here is: A small group of editors wants something done (species articles expanded to a minimum length), nobody wants to do it, and so they think maybe we should achieve the desirable length through a merge. However, I think we'll get the same response: nobody wanted to clean up half a million "deficient" species articles, and there will be exactly the same nobody who wants to merge them into 300K genera articles.
I would feel differently about this if someone were saying "Ooo, pick me! I've got a vision for these articles, and I'd love to get started with expanding, merging, folding, and spindling them!" But what I hear instead sounds like "Somebody else needs to do what I say, while I sit over here and complain about how Those Other Editors made Wikipedia worse". WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:38, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
I've got a vision for these articles This started because I tried to merge these articles and got dragged to ANI over it. I still want to do it, in a manner that supports the aims of Wikiproject Tree of Life, although this guideline needs to move forward first and it can't until I create suitable templates to keep the taxon identifiers - and unfortunately, I haven't learned how to use Lua.
I would also be willing to create a tool to help create, maintain, and split these merged articles, which would include support for adding columns to existing tables. I would also be interested in exploring a way to help editors identifying deficient rows, although I'm not certain yet how that would work - I would need to discuss with Plantdrew and others. BilledMammal (talk) 06:45, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
For others looking for the context: see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1112#Undiscussed mass article merging and redirection by BilledMammal. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:42, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
@BilledMammal, you could add that information manually to User:BilledMammal/Abrotanella. Then people could have a more accurate idea of you're trying to accomplish. It's possible that they would hate having all of that "spam" in the body of the article.
You would also need to plan a defense against WP:NOELBODY complaints. (I suggest getting it added to the footnote in that item, as another example of 'rare exceptions'.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:47, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Your point about taxon identifiers really resonates with me. When I go to improve a stub, the taxon identifiers are typically where I begin my research. They certainly serve a purpose for readers, but they are invaluable to editors. Based on my personal experience, I believe that editors in this space are generally more likely to improve an existing article than to create an article out of whole cloth - it's just easier. In my opinion, having taxon identifiers be easily accessible within an existing article makes it more likely that an editor will come along and give that article the attention it deserves.
I worry that the focus in this thread is geared more towards simply reducing the number of low-quality taxon articles, and not on increasing the number of high-quality articles. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 07:35, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
To be clear, any proposal for a guideline that supports merging will also require that taxon identifiers be readily available - this requirement is the primary reason we haven't had an RfC on this proposal yet, as technical impediments are holding us up.
In addition, the intent is to increase the number of high quality articles, by merging lower quality ones to make them more useful for the reader. BilledMammal (talk) 08:55, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
The improvement of a genus article can be completely independent of the state of the articles for its subordinate taxa though, and leaving the species stub intact makes it more likely to be made into a high-quality article. By comparison, a redirect is unlikely to be expanded and improved, and it seems less likely that editors will create new articles than improve existing ones. If we want to have more high-quality articles in general, and not just fewer low-quality articles, I think it's best to leave these stubs as they are. There are some taxon stub articles that absolutely ought to be deleted/merged (some were created from database errors, or represent names that are now synonyms of other taxa), but (and correct me if I'm wrong) it seems like the majority of users here agree that taxa should be presumed notable until proven otherwise, and that any notability criteria we agree on here should apply only to the creation of new articles. None of us like the fact that all these stubs are just laying around, but I just don't think mass-merging of these stubs meaningfully helps build the encyclopedia - rather, I think it risks hindering that mission by putting up barriers to editors who could improve these stubs. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 09:18, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Yes, the presence of stubs is no indication of poor quality, even if the stubs are poor in appearance and citation. I agree that stubs of synonyms and database errors should be deleted; and that all the valid stubs should be left, to show future editors that they are already articles which can be expanded. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:24, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Instead of tables, such articles could be a prose list style article combining the barely-notable species into one place each having its own section and importantly these key database links. Notable species can have standalone but keeping the basics on this aggregate page page. One might still include a table for navigation purposes, but we can keep most of this data — Masem (t) 14:24, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Masem, what's the difference between a notable and a non/barely-notable species, in your opinion?
It sounds like the difference in User:BilledMammal/NSPECIES (I haven't reviewed it) is whether an editor has already written a long-ish article about the subject. This would suggest that Entomocorus benjamini was non-notable when it was created (one sentence), is possibly notable now (four sentences) and would definitely be notable if I replaced it with this example article (NB that wholesale replacement would be longer but not entirely an improvement). It would be the opposite of our rule that Wikipedia:Notability#Article content does not determine notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:44, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
You probably should review it before commenting on it; it would say both are notable. However, it recommends different formats, in line with WP:PAGEDECIDE, based on the content available. BilledMammal (talk) 08:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing:, I'm absolutely somebody who uses the taxon identifiers. Wikipedia's plant articles generally aren't developed enough to be very useful to me in my professional life as a botanist, but the taxon identifiers include all but one of the websites I regularly consult in my professional life. Even if the Wikipedia article itself isn't useful to me, I visit it because it's a one-stop hub for (almost) everything else that is useful. I could go to Wikidata instead, but Wikipedia comes up first in a Google search.
I am assuming that if species articles do get merged into tables in genus articles that the taxon identifiers would be included. That's been part of the discussion (e.g. at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 56#Necessity of including Taxonbar when standalone article does not exist). Plantdrew (talk) 16:33, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
I'm sympathetic to concerns that just because a topic is worth covering doesn't mean that the best way to do so is to give it a separate article. But here, I don't see why the presumption is against the separate article. Nor does it seem to me that the thresholds have been chosen in a way that was grounded in principle. Why ten species? Why ten lines of prose? Is there a ground for that judgment other than an aesthetic distaste for short pages? The people creating those pages seem to find the species level the natural scale of organization, or else they wouldn't be making new pages. As long as the material itself is solid, what makes them wrong? What is the advantage to a guideline that brings in more arbitrariness? XOR'easter (talk) 19:45, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Why ten lines of prose? Whose screen width will we use to determine the size of a line of prose? Your comment (not including the sig) is 132 words and 725 characters, but I can make it look like anything from five to 20 lines long. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:25, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
I think I meant ten sentences.
Ten species is a general suggestion for when to switch from a list article to a table article; it isn't written as a hard rule, and it is based on various discussions with editors from Wikiproject Tree of Life. BilledMammal (talk) 06:45, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

IMO species topics have two things especially going for them. They are highly enclyclopedic, and they are widely recognized by experts and being an entity and by that name (unlike what I call "derived topic" articles such as "orange coloring in African desert species"). And inherent in being an enclyclopedia is that it is presented as articles. IMO if an editor spends time on it and it has some real content (beyond just wordifying a sparse database listing) we should allow it when reviewing a new article. With the usual "yes/no" decision being "notability" perhaps we could word an SNG like this: "Species that are verifiably identified, accepted and named by the scientific community are presumed notable if it is demonstrated that content of at least several wp:verifiable sentences (beyond what is in simple database type listings) can be derived from source(s) supplied in the article."

For folks that argue that notability is about the topic, not the article, we can respond that this is just about the second SNG "way in" and there is still the standard GNG "way in" / definition. And of course "several" is not an exact number but that's how Wikipedia rolls. North8000 (talk) 22:08, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

To my mind the paranoia about someone coming along and churning out millions of bad sub-stubs (in defiance of de facto consensus about mass creation) is a behavioral issue and should be addressed by behavioral guidelines, not content guidelines. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:24, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
@North8000, I'm not quite sure what you mean, but how many "wp:verifiable sentences (beyond what is in simple database type listings)" are in User:WhatamIdoing/Database article?
And are you proposing that whether the subject is notable depends on whether the current version of the Wikipedia article contains those sentences, or merely that editors who look into it believe that it would be possible for those sentences to be written? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:42, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
It's hardly paranoia when there's the precedent of 100,000+ mostly low-quality species articles already existing and we never actually established a consensus on mass creation... JoelleJay (talk) 01:34, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for confirming that the intent is to initiate a mass deletion of existing species articles rather than merely prevent future mass creations. It's good for intentions to be clear, even when they are bad ideas. I note that you provide no evidence that any of these existing articles can be characterized as mass creations. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:37, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Where did I say anything about deletion, let alone voice any intent to do anything or state that any articles definitively were products of mass creation? And if we haven't had a consensus definition of "mass creation" then what's stopping you from dismissing e.g. 43 stub creations in 2.5 days as "not mass creation" -- an example I got just by clicking the author of the random stub I linked above and looking at what else they made in the preceding two weeks.
Moreover, repeatedly misrepresenting hosting the same content, just on a different page as "deletion" is intentionally disingenuous; and insinuating there's some illicit Deletionist Cabal whose secret intentions you've baselessly extrapolated from my comment is plainly assuming bad faith. Stop that. JoelleJay (talk) 02:25, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
I would just point out that hosting the same (verifiable, relevant) content, just on a different page is literally what deletion is supposed to mean according to our policies and guidlines, especially WP:PRESERVE. I know editors are motivated to pursue article deletion to remove content to which they object (see my earlier comment), but the question at AfD is always supposed to be, is this an appropriate place for (actually existing) sourced material about this topic, and not the question, should this sourced material be included in the encyclopaedia? Newimpartial (talk) 02:35, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
What? Editing policy says nothing about page deletion at all, let alone claims that sourced material on a topic that shouldn't have a standalone page is "supposed" to be hosted elsewhere. Deletion policy also does not suggest that "where we put sourced BALASP content" is a focus of AfD beyond including merging as one of the ATDs editors may consider. JoelleJay (talk) 17:52, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
WP:PRESERVE (part of our core editing policy) says Instead of removing content from an article...consider: ... Merging the entire article into another article with the original article turned into a redirect as described at performing a merge. Likewise, WP:FAILN (part of WP:N) says, consider merging the article's verifiable content into a broader article providing context. So, merging an article's verifiable content into another article (potentially with the original article turned into a redirect) - not an unusual outcome at AfD - is absolutely mandated by our editing policy and our notability guideline, where it is appropriate.
And to clarify, when I said the question at AfD is always supposed to be, is this an appropriate place for (actually existing) sourced material about this topic, I should perhaps have specified "sourced material that is compliant with policy". Our reasons for deletion 1-4 and 9-14 all deal in one way or another with material that is not compliant with policy (usually flagrantly so). Reasons 5-8, which is the bulk of what I've seen discussed at AfD, deal with content forks (5), material that is unverifiable (6-7), or topics that don't meet notability guidelines (8). So when notability is the only reason for deletion (setting aside content forks), decisions about non-notable topics should always include consideration of where the sourced, verifiable content represented in the article should be placed, and whether a redirect should be created. The idea that deletion based on notability can be a shortcut for deleting sourced, policy-compliant content an editor would like excluded from the encyclopaedia doesn't really reflect what AfD is supposed to be for. Newimpartial (talk) 18:56, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
So, merging an article's verifiable content into another article (potentially with the original article turned into a redirect) - not an unusual outcome at AfD - is absolutely mandated by our editing policy and our notability guideline, where it is appropriate.No. "Consider" merging content is suggested in PRESERVE, it is not remotely "mandated" that people seeking to delete sourced text must make sure it can't be merged elsewhere. Nor does it make any sense to contort a suggestion in editing policy, which doesn't mention article deletion once, to a requirement for article deletion. Deletion policy doesn't even "mandate" ATDs be assessed and rejected before deletion is allowed, it merely suggests that alternatives exist that can be considered. JoelleJay (talk) 20:04, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
I didn't say, or mean to suggest, that a merge and redirct was under any curcumstances a requirement for article deletion. What I said is that it is an outcome of AfD that is supported by policy.
My central point, which appears to have been lost in the back and forth, is that AfD is supposed to answer the question, "does this topic mandate a standalone article?" and not - except for WP:NOT violations - "should Wikipedia contain X content somewhere?" Notability considerations are not supposed to determine content in article space (with the exception of BLP protections for low-profile individuals, and even those are not directly deternined by WP:N).
This was in reaction to JoelleJay's claim that David Epstein was misrepresenting hosting the same content, just on a different page, as deletion when that is a perfectly valid outcome for a page when deleted. Newimpartial (talk) 21:56, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't see the purpose of this. There isn't any actual situation going on, such as mass creation, that would necessitate any form of change to species notability standards. And I fundamentally disagree with the claim that academic papers on a species count as primary. That makes no sense. It would make any coverage of a species (or a geographic location) be counted as primary, which is dumb. I see no reason why any change needs to be made to the long-standing recognized notability, per the fundamental nature of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia and WP:5P1, of species as inherently notable so long as they are an officially scientifically recognized species. SilverserenC 00:26, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Every species has by definition a reliable source, its scientific description. That paper defines the species, with a definitive account of what distinguishes it from its nearest relatives. A species is a type, not an individual: there may be untold billions of members of a species. A species with few members, like a flower endemic to a small island, is not less significant for that; on the contrary it is unique and precious for its rarity, its one-off adaptations and genome. Each species is a major entity in biology, its extinction a permanent disaster, for instance. We have rightly taken this as notable, and we should continue to do so. Chiswick Chap (talk) 01:03, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
I feel like the article I wrote on Iliamna remota' is a perfect example of that, since it's a species that exists only on a tiny island in Illinois. And yet there's so much that can be written about it (and I have done my best to do so). SilverserenC 01:09, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Just adding this. I written Pleodorina starrii. Sure I'll admit it's a pretty short article and remained a stub for a while. But, the species itself has provided scientific information that is clearly notable.
Are we really gonna make stricter rules on species articles because a few editors are too lazy to go beyond a single sentence.CycoMa1 (talk) 01:20, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
It's not "a few editors", it's the many editors and bots that created tens of thousands of single-sentence articles with little to no info beyond what is already in the scope of our articles on their genus or family. JoelleJay (talk) 01:30, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
If you fundamentally disagree with our policy--and the academic scholarship underlying it--that research articles are primary sources, that's something to propose a change to at VPP, not here. JoelleJay (talk) 01:22, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
I think we're getting a bit bogged down in the weeds here. Rules are meant to be broken, and primary sources are not necessarily bad. I don't believe it's beneficial to split hairs over taxonomic literature being primary sources - so long as there are no concerns about reliability (we don't want any taxonomic vandalism), these papers being primary sources doesn't really matter in the context of creating high-quality taxon articles. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 07:55, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
IAR is for considerations about individual pages, not for wholesale abandonment of policy for entire classes of articles with hundreds of thousands of members. And per policy, all articles are required to be based on secondary sources, and no articles should be sourced only to primary sources. This isn't just for reliability concerns: we need secondary sources discussing which aspects of a species are most relevant and contextualizing those facts so that we don't commit OR doing it ourselves, or, in an effort to avoid OR, violate NOT by simply reproducing the source database with no context at all (which is exactly what hundreds of thousands of species articles are doing). Why should species be exempt while every other scientific subject is expected to have coverage not only in secondary sources, but in sources completely independent of the authors who first described the subject? We regularly delete pages on novel techniques, models, phenomena, chemicals, drugs, astronomical bodies, etc. if we don't have sources demonstrating sustained discussion of the subject by people other than the initial researchers. And what is the rush in creating all these stubs containing no more info than what is already in the species' genus article? All that does is increase the number of pages to patrol, redirect readers away from the higher-taxa pages that have more context on the subject, and, in the case of more recent species, serve as a vehicle for self-promotion via self-citation. JoelleJay (talk) 17:35, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Re "Why should species be exempt while every other scientific subject is expected to have coverage not only in secondary sources, but in sources completely independent of the authors who first described the subject?": Because we have a different subject-specific notability guideline. Duh. Why should articles about astronomical bodies be exempt from our notability guidelines for politicians? Why should articles about politicians be exempt from our notability guidelines for astronomical bodies? Because they have different notability guidelines. As for "violate not by reproducing the database with no context": you are arguing on the basis that strict adherence to the rules we make for ourselves is somehow more important than content. How about making an argument that there is an actual problem in content with these short stubs on individual species that would somehow be fixed by merging them into even-more-database-like lists of related species, rather than an argument about rule-following. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:56, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Because we have a different subject-specific notability guideline. Duh.
No we do not! NSPECIES is not a guideline! WP:N states The currently accepted subject guidelines are listed in the box at the top of this page and at Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines. [...] Some WikiProjects have provided additional guidance on notability of topics within their field. Editors are cautioned that these WikiProject notability guidance pages should be treated as essays and do not establish new notability standards, lacking the weight of broad consensus of the general and subject-specific notability guidelines in various discussions (such as at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion).
Our policy states: Proposals for new guidelines and policies require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline or policy status.
We cannot ignore multiple P&Gs for potentially millions of articles just because the same small vocal subset of users has been insisting for two decades that their content is inherently encyclopedic and notable and cannot be covered anywhere besides a standalone article. A larger formalized discussion has to happen, with consensus justification for why our policies on primary sources and NOT should be suspended. JoelleJay (talk) 16:51, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
The fact that an article currently consists of only database-type information is not a valid rationale for deletion/merging/what-have-you on notability grounds. The majority of these articles, while currently subpar, can quite easily be improved and brought up to at least Start/C class. Article content does not determine notability, and the consensus here does seem to be that accepted taxa are notable until proven otherwise. I don't think that this dogmatism over the use of primary sources (which, in the field of taxonomy, often contain the best and most detailed information about a given taxon - it is unfortunately not common for later authors to fully revise descriptions of existing taxa) does anything to further our goal of growing the encyclopedia. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 09:05, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
Why does it have to be only "on notability grounds" in the first place? BilledMammal is making the point that these stubs should be merged based on NOPAGE and only spun out once there is a nontrivial amount of detail going beyond what the genus page has. primary sources (which, in the field of taxonomy, often contain the best and most detailed information about a given taxon - it is unfortunately not common for later authors to fully revise descriptions of existing taxa) The same could be said for new topics being described in any field. If the topic is so niche that secondary independent sources never discuss it in detail, we don't write standalone articles on it. Why should species have primary-sourced permastubs that just repeat info from another page, but not chemicals or astronomical objects etc.? JoelleJay (talk) 17:07, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
I don't really know nor care about other things - I dedicate most of my time on Wikipedia to working on these stubs, and I am giving my perspective in this thread on that basis. We're here because there is interest in determining a specific notability guideline for species, not chemicals or astronomical objects, and the consensus in this thread so far seems to be that they are notable until proven otherwise. I've repeatedly said that I believe the deletion of these stubs is a waste of time and effort that does more harm than good, which is my primary objection to any deletion or merging, and ultimately does not benefit our readers. I want to see all of these stubs improved, because I know almost all of them can be improved, and am (slowly) doing my part. You clearly do not like these stubs and want them gone, and you seem to be talking past me. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 05:32, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
This ("the deletion of these stubs is a waste of time and effort that does more harm than good, which is my primary objection to any deletion or merging, and ultimately does not benefit our readers") sounds like Wikipedia:If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:55, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
Why does it have to be only "on notability grounds" in the first place?
Because WP:NOPAGE is part of the Wikipedia:Notability guideline, so all arguments based on NOPAGE are arguments "on notability grounds". WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:54, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
What's pEdAnTrY? JoelleJay (talk) 21:14, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
WP:PEDANTRY is a section in Wikipedia:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue, of course. 😸 WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:02, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I know I haven't been involved in this discussion but I have a few things to say. I do agree that species articles that are only a single sentence long are a problem. But, I am of the view that all these species stub articles have the potential to be well formed articles and demonstrate that they are notable.(I have a bit more to say, just wanted to make my first reply to this short.)CycoMa1 (talk) 00:48, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

  • Comment: I don't know if User:Cremastra is referring to me when they said above that, "I know of at least two users (and I won't name them here) who are still steadily creating such stubs," but the plant stubs that I create always have more potential. Typically they are available for sale at garden centers, are rated as Least Concern, are horrendous invasives, have hundreds of Google Scholar results, have had their genome sequenced, and/or have hundreds of observations on iNaturalist. If you guys only knew how many species I pass on creating a stub for — these days it takes me way longer to find a species worthy of an article than it does to create the stub. Abductive (reasoning) 07:39, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Something to bring up: Hey I noticed something between different versions of Wikipedia articles.
To demonstrate this look at Anolis aequatorialis on the english wikipedia and look at its german version Anolis aequatorialis. The german version is clearly longer for some reason, yet it uses english sources.
Another example is Dryopteris aemula, a species native to western europe, turkey, and the Caucasus. The french version is clearly longer.
It doesn't stop there.
It is also with Silene colorata and its german version.
Must I go on.
Any way could it be possible that certain species are more known to non-english speakers than they are to english speakers? CycoMa1 (talk) 17:14, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Or maybe english wikipedia just has more lazy editors who don't wanna put in more work.CycoMa1 (talk) 17:19, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Probably just random luck. I mean, I'm sure enWP has its share of articles that are longer than the French or German equivalent. Cremastra (talk) 19:32, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Probably. There are english versions of certain species articles that are longer than non-english versions.
But still. I don't think stubs should be deleted or turned into redirects if their non-english equivalents have a lot to say and a lot of sources. Unless the non-english article is a hoax, copyrighted, or some other reason.CycoMa1 (talk) 19:38, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

With some questioning "why?" after my proposal... Based on looking at a lot of articles at NPP, I don't think that there is really a problem right now (unless you consider legacy stubs to be a problem) , mostly due to the stance towards mass creation of articles. The closest thing that we currently have to a mass creation problem is completionist type activity. E.G "I'm going to make an article on each bus stop on a line" or "I'm going to make a stat's-only article for each season of every sports team". And those folks aren't operating on species articles. Even at Ngeo where it ofically green-lights 1,000,000 - 2,000,000 yet-to-be-made settlement articles stubs, there is not really a problem, and species has no such official green light. My main motivation for making the proposal above was sort of "if y'all are going to do something, let's make it good." and secondarily, if we ever want to tidy up wp:notability we're going to need to start by acknowledging that in the fuzzy wp:notability ecosystem (which usually works) we'll need to acknowledge that "notability" decisions take into account some non-notability factors. And degree-of-enclyclopedicness is at the top of the list of those other factors. North8000 (talk) 14:16, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

  • Oppose any attempt to create redirects from species to genera. I would much rather see these one-line stubs with less than, say, 1 pageview a week deleted than redirected. New users will start thinking that it is okay to mass-create redirects from species to their genus, and this will cause article creation to fall off. Redlinks encourage article creation. A bluelink means that an article will basically never get created. Over at WP:Wikiproject Plants efforts are always being made to get older redirects deleted, and to prevent new redirects from being created. Abductive (reasoning) 18:21, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, it's a clear case where, surprisingly, redlinks are actually good. Linking back up to genera is just disastrous. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:38, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
    Species to genera redirects, when the genus article contains nothing more than the name and the authority, are very bad. See this precedent at RfD. Such redirects are a bane on the encyclopedia, and their creation should be forbidden and any such redirects deleted. Cremastra (talk) 19:34, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
    The requirement to create a redirect when the parent taxon contains information beyond the species name and taxonomic authority comes from discussions with WikiProject Tree of Life, based on what they would find most useful.
    If opinions differ by sub-project, I don't see an issue with creating different requirements; WikiProject Plants can say "delete the redirects", WikiProject Bugs can say "keep the redirects". Alternatively, when this is taken to RfC, we could offer two alternative options for the redirect section, and ask "If there is a consensus to make this a guideline, which redirect instructions do you prefer?"
    As a general note, to address concerns of editors like Ethmostigmus that it is harder to create an article that to expand a stub, we can use the function to create pages with preloaded text. This will allow us to both have red links that invite article creation, and to have a base for any editors wishing to create those articles.
    To do this, rather than using tables directly for the genus articles we would use templates (designed properly, this would likely also make it easier for editors like Plantdrew to add appropriate columns, even without user scripts). These templates would then populate red links with the relevant parameters, and an editor interested in creating the article would only need to click on it and they would be given a stub to build on. For example, Abrotanella linearifolia, using User:BilledMammal/PlantPreload as a base. This is only a simple proof of concept and will have issues that won't be present in any final implementation. BilledMammal (talk) 18:46, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
    Here is an instance of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Your scheme is uniformly opposed, and the more people who comment, the stronger the oppostion gets, so you pretend people are only talking about plants. Please desist with this entire effort. Abductive (reasoning) 19:50, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
    @Abductive I don't oppose BilledMammal's "scheme". I oppose unhelpful circular redirects, but redirects where there's actually useful info at the genus page are good. Cremastra (talk) 19:57, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
    Well, shiver me timbers, it sure looked like you said redirects to genera are bad. I also think you should respond to my question to you above. In any case, there is no consensus to change the current system, and BilledMammal should drop his bulldozing starting now. Abductive (reasoning) 20:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
    I said Species to genera redirects, when the genus article contains nothing more than the name and the authority, are very bad. I edited my comment to make that clear; my original comment was a little vague, so I apologize on that front. And no, I wasn't referring to you. Cremastra (talk) 20:23, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
    I see. Look, if there any users currently creating useless substubs on species right now, they need to be informed of discussions such as this one, since their behavior is causing consternation amongst editors. Abductive (reasoning) 20:54, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
    No. Clearly this comment is causing unneeded pain and confusion; I will retract it. Cremastra (talk) 21:07, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
    Sorry, I'm a little confused, can you walk me through the full process of what you're proposing? Here's my (simplified) interpretation of what you're thinking:
    1. merge species stubs to their parent genera articles
    2. revamp genus articles with a species list template that allows us to keep important information like taxon identifiers
    3. delete redirects to preserve redlinks (when called for by the relevant WikiProject)
    4. use this preloading feature (which I must admit I don't quite understand, I'm a bit of a caveman editor lol) to make it easier for editors to (re)create articles
    Hopefully I've understood correctly, but please let me know if there's something I've missed or misinterpreted - I will wait to share my thoughts until I know for sure what's actually being proposed.
    At risk of getting a bit off-topic from notability, I am definitely in support of the development of a template for creating high-quality species list tables, that sounds fantastic. The way I usually see species lists formatted is via simple bullet points (preferably with authority, common name where applicable, and brief distribution info) and while that works well enough, this is an area that would really benefit from standardisation.
    Finally, I would like to say thank you for putting in this time and effort to address my concerns, I really do appreciate it :) Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 05:01, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
    You mostly have the correct idea, although note that we differentiate between large genera and small genera.
    For large genera:
    1. Merge species sub-stubs to a table in their genera article. Species with articles larger than sub-stubs would continue being standalone articles; sub-stubs are defined as not containing information beyond:
      1. A depiction
      2. Species name and taxonomic authority
      3. Subspecies
      4. Synonyms
      5. Conservation status
      6. Range
    2. Create a species table template that would allow us to keep important information and make maintaining it easier. This template would:
      • Hide columns with no information
      • Use the preloading feature to make it easier to create/recreate articles
      • Contain some way to present the information currently in the taxobox
    For small genera (generally ten or fewer species, though no strictly perscribed size):
    1. Merge species stubs to a list in their genera article
    2. There are no plans to make templates for this list, although if that would be helpful we could?
    For all genera:
    1. Delete redirects to preserve redlinks, when called for by the applicable WikiProject
    2. Preserve redirects with categorization, to aid navigation, when called for by the applicable WikiProject
    Finally, I would like to say thank you for putting in this time and effort to address my concerns, I really do appreciate it :)
    I want this proposal to work, and addressing the concerns of editors active in the topic area is the least I can do; thank you and the other editors active in this topic area for being willing to discuss this and explain your concerns to me. BilledMammal (talk) 07:50, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
    I think what you describe as a "sub-stub " is just a stub, and potentially useful. The really bad ones – the "sub-stubs" in my book – are ones that give NOTHING more than a name, a taxonomic authority, and if you're really lucky a range. Cremastra (talk) 12:34, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
    That sounds like a reasonable categorization - although I do want to make it clear that only the most bare-bones stubs will be merged into table articles. BilledMammal (talk) 12:47, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
    Wikipedia:Substub was a 'thing' until 2005, when the community decided that it wasn't serving them. All sub-stubs have officially been ordinary stubs since then. The main definition was "Substubs are usually no longer than a dictionary definition, and usually contain information that anyone would know." (For reference, a typical dictionary definition contains less than 10 words.)
    There are examples (both made-up and real) on that page that contrast a decent stub against a bad sub-stub, which might prove informative. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:51, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
  • No, no, no, no — Wikipedia is not the final word, but a potential list of useful references; lose the (species) articles, then you lose the language links to other wikipedias, the taxonbar links, and the stub for expansion. Catastrophically bad suggestion, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 07:47, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
    The current design will preserve the taxonbar and the stub for expansion.
    It is also possible to preserve the interwiki links, but my concern is that it will add too much clutter. If I understand correctly, the primary purpose of such links is to help editors create and expand articles on the English Wikipedia by using content from other Wikis? I could easily create a tool that will add these links for editors using the tool, as well as a few other helpful features such as highlighting the ones which are likely to contain content useful in creating a more comprehensive article. BilledMammal (talk) 07:57, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
  • Opposed to this. Of all the subjects we treat as more-or-less automatically notable, I think species is probably the last category I could be convinced to prune. While I don't think I'd support this for absolutely anything else, I could sooner be convinced to support having a bot just mass create all of them than start upmerging. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:00, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
  • Seems like a good start. We need to get rid of any kind of idea of "inherent notability", which inevitably results in a flood of either bot-created permastubs, or things indistinguishable from bot-created permastubs. I don't think anyone would argue that we should not have information about a species on Wikipedia—even if all that's known about it is a few factoids, it's fine for us to have that; it's clearly an encyclopedic subject. The question is whether we should present those few factoids as an actual article, and the answer is "no". That's what lists and tables are for. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:47, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
  • Generally support this, but it's important not to get trigger-happy and merge species articles that shouldn't be merged. Editors should be required to perform a WP:BEFORE check to see if the article could be expanded with existing sources. Cremastra (talk) 12:18, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
    Good-faith BEFORE checks aren't necessarily successful at finding the sources. Compare, e.g., this weak stub against the current version. The editor who sent it to AFD made a perfectly reasonable effort to find sources. He just didn't happen to have the specialist knowledge to find good ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:08, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
    Checking the existing sources before upmerging sounds reasonable, and generally something I did when I first tried to do this in an attempt to better populate the table.
    If there is a consensus for this I intend to create a tool to support it; one thing that it could easily to is check database sources to determine whether information beyond what is currently in the article exists, and direct the editor to manually check non-database sources. BilledMammal (talk) 08:27, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
    Understanding species databases requires some specialized knowledge, so not every editor will be successful at this task. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:56, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I'd support the first point but not the second. It was already mentioned that this might be used as justification for undesirable mass deletion. It also create imho unnecessary bureaucracy, setting up disputes between authors, as you will have those wanting to create a (shorter) species articles and those who want it just included in a taxon higher up. So it will potentially and imho needlessly create a lot of frustrated authors and deteriorate editor retention. I'd rather go with only the first point maybe amended by some minimal content/quality criteria and a notice that mass creation by bots is not wanted.--Kmhkmh (talk) 06:55, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

  • Point 2 is going to be hard to distinguish from the many cases where there is enough information to make an article, it's simply that no editor has had time to craft an article from it (editor numbers are flatlining while species numbers keep increasing!). I wrote Cyrtodactylus santana just over a year ago. It was newly described, and the vast majority of what I feel is a decently informative article is from the original paper. I managed to find a couple of secondary sources covering the discovery, and they had a couple of tidbits of information not in the original paper (hence their use as references), but I would hesitate to call them sources independent of the paper. So there's one species article that may not meet GNG(?), but has a lot of information that might help the curious reader (daily average of 1!). As a reader, the one sentence stubs are worse than nothing, as they dominate the online search but leave me having to go back to the search and find IUCN or something. Due to this I'm not sold on the notability/amount of information being a helpful indicator, as it doesn't touch the actual problem of wasting reader time. Points have been made above noting that redirects may also cause issues, although to my knowledge they are less likely to populate google results. CMD (talk) 07:25, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I cannot get behind this. I regularly make gnomish edits to taxonomy articles, and it is clear to me that pretty much all species are notable. JoJan has done an excellent job expanding articles on gastropods that deletionists would have otherwise nominated for deletion. Ambrosia10 has demonstrated that all moths from New Zealand are notable enough for a stand-alone article. At some point in the future, I intend on creating an article for a species of snake found in Japan. I couldn't find sources through a simple Google search, but the Japanese Wikipedia had 20 sources that clearly meet WP:SIGCOV. Currently, deletionists are nominating articles for deletion without any substantial WP:BEFORE check, and I am getting sick of it. Scorpions1325 (talk) 16:20, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

and it is clear to me that pretty much all species are notable
I don't see how you or anyone can make this claim one way or the other. How do you know every species has been covered by multiple secondary sources that are independent of the original authors and are not merely database entries? We have estimates ranging between 107 and 1 trillion for the number of species of prokaryotes, virtually all so-far undiscovered; do you think it's reasonable to assume every single one of these should have a dedicated standalone page? Do you think the "random article" button would ever be usable if we did?
Currently, deletionists are nominating articles for deletion without any substantial WP:BEFORE check
Where is this happening? You've participated in 11 AfDs, none of them on species, so I don't see how you'd be "getting sick of it"? No one here is proposing any articles be deleted, only that the ones with little/no content beyond what is or can be in the genus article can just be merged into the genus article until someone who can actually expand content into a species standalone comes along. Hypothetical future expansion can happen either way, there just won't be a substub with zero non-database info hanging around at the top of Google search results beforehand in the current proposal. JoelleJay (talk) 22:02, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
Please note that "notable" does not equate to covered by multiple secondary sources that are independent of the original authors and are not merely database entries - that's a paraphrase of WP:GNG, not WP:N. "Notability", according to the guideline, is the overall test to determine whether a topic merits an article - in that test GNG sourcing, WP:SNGs and WP:NOT may each be relevant depending on the topic. Newimpartial (talk) 02:08, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
It does equate when GNG is the only actual guideline applicable to species and when N itself states a requirement for secondary independent RS. JoelleJay (talk) 06:44, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
Only if you believe that GNG's continued application to species is not merely an oversight and that the widespread consensus represented by WP:NSPECIES is somehow an aberration or mistake rather than, you know, consensus. Are guidelines made by us to codify what we believe, or are they given to us from on high on stone tablets as a demand that we change our beliefs to conform to them? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:04, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
JoelleJay This is not my first account. I have participated in a lot more than 11 AFDs, and rescued many articles on secondary schools for deletion. With both of my accounts, I have also edited the articles for over 100,000 species. Scorpions1325 (talk) 08:33, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Next steps re species

Based on this discussion, I intend to do the following:

  1. Create a template that will be used to create the table articles; even if there isn't a consensus for the proposed NSPECIES it would likely be useful for creating better genera articles. This template should:
    1. Create a table with columns for the following. Columns that have no content should not be displayed:
      • A depiction
      • Species name and taxonomic authority
      • Subspecies
      • Synonyms
        Synonyms should have some way to be collapsed for species with large numbers of synonyms
      • Conservation status
      • Range
        Should support either a map or a list
    2. Contain a link to a page for the species. When the species page does not exist, when clicked the link should pre-populate the page with basic content, including an infobox, taxonbar, and references. For example, Abrotanella linearifolia. This example is a proof of concept and contains issues that would not be present in a final implementation.
      • It should be possible to have this display as a redlink both when an article doesn't exist, and when a redirect does exist. Could implementing it in this manner balance the concerns of editors who want categorized redirects to aid in navigation, and the concerns of editors who want red links to encourage article creation?
      • If there isn't a consensus for NSPECIES this could be abused to mass-create species sub-stubs, but if that happens we can disable this functionality.
    3. Contain the information currently in the taxonbar
  2. Modify the draft guideline to require the editor checks the sources currently in the article to determine whether additional information exists prior to merging into a template. Perhaps worded It is best practice to check the sources currently in the article before up-merging into a table article. Editors engaged in large-scale mergers are required to do this.?
  3. Modify the draft guideline to better emphasise that a standalone article should be created when the standards for merging aren't met.
  4. Attempt to better understand when it is appropriate to create/leave a redirect.

Thoughts on these actions? Is there anything that I'm overlooking? BilledMammal (talk) 08:27, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

You appear to be overlooking the total lack of consensus for changing the current very simple notability outcome (all species warrant standalone articles) to something else. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:24, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
We'll work out whether there is a consensus when the RfC is held - but before we can hold the RfC all the issues with the draft guideline need to be worked out, which is what I am working towards here. BilledMammal (talk) 17:34, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
So in other words you intend to keep bulldozing through regardless of what others say. Got it. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:18, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
I intend to work with editors to try to address any concerns they may have with the proposal, including editors who disagree with the underlying notion but are willing to help improve it in case there is a consensus for it.
While it isn't clear that there will be a consensus for the proposal, it also isn't clear that there won't be - I think it is reasonable to keep working on it, and if you aren't interested in doing so then I would ask that you step back until the RfC is held so that editors who are interested can do so. BilledMammal (talk) 18:24, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
In other words: If you tell enough editors to go away and leave you to discuss your deletionist plans with only like-minded people, then it will start looking like you have a consensus because all people who might disagree have been driven away? No. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:23, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
I think what BilledMammal is saying is that if you don't want to help the process work for you (and instead accuse people of deletionist plans), then there's no point in you being here. Cremastra (talk) 19:38, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
So you're also in the camp of "either help us draft a new guideline that makes species not automatically notable or stop contributing to WT:Notability". Exclusionist attitude noted. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:43, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
If you want species to be automatically notable, say that. I'm more than happy to listen to you, but if instead of discussing, you want to attack other editors, than your presence here is a hindrance rather than a help. Personally, I think that BilledMammal's proposed definition of a sub-stub is way too broad (see above), but I somehow managed to say that without accusing them of a deletionist conspiracy. Cremastra (talk) 20:13, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
Ok, I'll say it more explicitly: I would be in favor of a proposal to promote WP:NSPECIES (automatic notability for all properly-recognized species) to guideline status. I would also be in favor of a proposal to prevent future automatic mass-creation of species stubs, as a behavioral rather than notability issue. I am not in favor of any weakening of NSPECIES. I think having simple clear rules like the current NSPECIES is a good thing, I think that short but informative and verifiable stubs are a good thing, and I think that having all species notable does more good for Wikipedia than any annoyance it may cause to people who get obsessive about wiping out stubs. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:35, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
I don't entirely disagree with you. I used to pretty ardently in favour of up-merging; now I'm on the fence. Cremastra (talk) 20:45, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
I would also support promoting WP:NSPECIES to guideline status. I could imagine myself supporting a behavioral guideline along the lines mentioned, depending on how it was phrased. XOR'easter (talk) 00:50, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
I agree with David if anything needs to change. - Enos733 (talk) 04:24, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
I agree with David Eppstein. WP:NSPECIES should become guideline status. I also agree that future automatic mass-creation of species stubs should be prevented and leave the existing stubs as they are. I've been working on many thousands of these stubs for the past 20 years - work that probably wouldn't have been done if these stubs hadn't existed. JoJan (talk) 08:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
I would be fine with just promoting WP:NSPECIES to SNG/guideline status. Note that the topic was just raised at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Species notability, where Clearfrienda, Silverseren, and Altenmann have commented and would appear to be in favour of this. Cremastra (talk) 13:30, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
I also agree and commented at VPP. Every species, upon description by nature of its description, has much more complexity than the overwhelming majority of non-notable astronomical objects or obscure chemicals. Upmerging species into lists in their genus would discourage people from expanding on the species themselves. Crossroads -talk- 00:51, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Promoting WP:NSPECIES to be a guideline seems reasonable, and I would also support it. It reflects long-established consensus practice in the Wikipedia community, and our guidelines and policies are meant to reflect our practice. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 21:44, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
Support for promoting NSPECIES to guideline status. While there are cases where coverage of species in a genus article may be more appropriate, this should be decided on a case-by-case bases and left to the wikiprojects responsible. Requiring independent sources for species does not make sense to me; in almost all cases, the species publication underwent peer review and is officially recognised by the responsible bodies. Additional mentions in other sources do rarely impact validity and are not a very useful criterion here. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:20, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
I agree with David both that NSPECIES should become a guideline and that we should prevent the mass-creation of species stubs that do not attempt to describe or diagnose the species. (e.g., I would be comfortable with Esculenta continuing to write large numbers of detailed lichen articles but not with the generation of the same number of single-sentence stubs). I do think it's a good idea to explicitly restrict the guideline to eukaryotic species (this is implicit based on the two nomenclatural codes it references but should be explicit), and also to limit it to correct/valid species "that are accepted by taxonomists" or some similar language. While I have never actually seen it done in practice, in theory the current language would let someone argue that species A, independently described but generally accepted as a synonym of species B, should receive a separate article by virtue of its description. I think it would be good to close this loophole. I know BilledMammal came up with a table I thought was good for summarizing morphological differences in a genus of arthropods, but I think that's the exception rather than the rule for eukaryotes. Breaking down the prose diagnoses of individual species into clean individual parameters of that kind is difficult, at least in the species I'm familiar with. I think the tabular format has a lot of promise for prokaryotes, though. Choess (talk) 23:55, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
Without rehashing arguments, I would support both - close the perennial weak spot of NSPECIES by promoting it to guideline, and preventing mass creation (except for limited, high-quality, content-rich projects like previous Qbugbot runs.) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:44, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I was previously an advocate of up-merging but now I've somewhat reversed myself. (this is a similar situation to the ~2 million settlements which pass NGEO but don't have an article). The individual entries would probably end up having redirects anyway, and/or the reader would need to understand the overall organizational structure/taxonomy in order to find/navigate (or depend on the search tool to find it within the article). And when the editors aren't knowledgeable on taxonomy, they will be creating a lot of errors. Finally, while the upmerged article is ostensibly about the larger category (e.g. genus) it will be common to have one that is only 5% complete (e.g. listing just one species) in which case the article isn't what it purports to be.

IMO the perfect setup would be something which combines 2-3 different guidances: 1. NSPECIES, but written out with guideline type wording. 2. For new articles, the creator has built at least a bit of content (maybe a couple sentences or an image) 3. No mass creation. #3 Exists elsewhere but (despite being structurally "out of place" in an SNG) maybe should be mentioned there for emphasis. #2 is a concept that is intuitive and common (I.e. letting the level of effort and content creation by the creator influence the result) but is homeless in Wikipedia guidelines. Maybe we could "break the mold" and put it into a SNG. Maybe we could put it in using notability type wording "has enough sourcing to have developed at least a few-sentence or image amount of content" Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:14, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think you could say that mass creation is banned, but it would be very easy to say something like "As with any other subject, high-volume article creation (e.g., creation of more than about 25 to 50 articles at a time, especially if the articles are short and very similar in content) requires prior approval through the WP:MASSCREATION process." WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose, I share the concerns outlined by Rhododendrites and add that the way some have been going about this strikes me as species based chauvenism... A level of humility is required when dealing with other species that is not required when dealing with out own species crap. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:29, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Guideline proposal based on existing practice

I think that something along these lines matches long-standing practice and would be workable in practice:

This guideline reflects consensus about the notability of species. In general, all species, extinct or extant, that are accepted by the relevant international body of taxonomists are presumed notable, and all remaining species (i.e., the vast majority) are notable only if they meet other guidelines, such as the general notability guideline.

This guideline uses the taxonomic acceptance of the species' name as a simple and practical indicator of the existence of published sources, because achieving a name accepted under the relevant nomenclature code requires, at minimum, a significant description to be published in a reputable academic publication. Therefore, by definition, the article about any accepted species could be sourced to at least one academic publication even if that source is not currently cited in the article. The key publications relied upon for taxonomic acceptance, and often many other sources, can be found in many species databases.

Eukaryotes

All eukaryotic species that are accepted by taxonomists are presumed notable. Acceptance by taxonomists is proven by the existence of a correct name for plants, fungi, and algae or a valid name for animals.

Prokaryotes

No prokaryotic species (e.g., bacteria) or virus is presumed notable merely because it has been identified as existing. Prokaryotic species are presumed notable only if they have a non-provisional correct name under the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes.

Non-accepted species, including operational taxonomic units, prokaryotic species with a provisional or candidatus name, and newly described species, should be considered under other notability rules. Editors should use their best judgment to determine whether Wikipedia is best served by having information about these non-accepted species in a separate article, in a stand-alone list, or merged into a larger subject.

Viruses and similar forms

A virus, viroid, or similar element is presumed notable only if it has been accepted by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. For non-accepted mobile genetic elements, editors should use their best judgment to determine whether Wikipedia is best served by a separate article, a stand-alone list, or merging content into an article about a broader subject (e.g., Plasmid).

Mass creation

Mass creation of articles (generally understood to be the creation of more than about 25 to 50 articles at a time), no matter what the subject is, requires editors to obtain permission in advance.

I can think of many other things to say, but they don't actually help people understand what the rule is. (They're more like 'why the rule is this way'). For example:

  • No, we are in no danger of having an article on every single species. We already have an article on most of the vertebrates (i.e., fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals), and we will probably manage to create the rest during our lifetimes. Plantdrew recently calculated that, at the present rate, it will take another century for us to have an article on each plant. I believe we have something like 300,000 species articles at the moment, which would represent about one out of every six accepted species.
  • No, this does not actually authorize zillions of articles. There might be zillions of viruses in the world, but that's individuals, not species. At the moment, the ICTV recognizes 14,690 virus species.[2] LPSN says there are currently 24,887 validly published prokaryote names.[3] The largest group is insects (about a million recognized species). If you are interested in the number of species, there is an accessible summary at https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-species-are-there If you just want the bottom line, then this might authorize as many as two million species in the current decade, and perhaps a few million more a century from now. The number actually created would likely be much less than that.

I can also think of ways to expand the practical utility, e.g., listing the main/professional databases whereby the acceptance can be confirmed or disconfirmed. But overall, I think this is enough. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:12, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

This looks good to me. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 22:14, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
This looks good to me and addressed my main concern, which was that there wouldn't actually be enough to say about species to fill a separate guideline.
In the last section there's a caveat that, although the title and shortcut of WP:MASSCREATION is "mass creation" (somewhat misleadingly in my opinion), it is part of the bot policy and therefore explicitly only applies to "large-scale automated or semi-automated content page creation". If someone can create fifty articles a day without any sort of automation, there's nothing stopping them. But there was recently a gigantic RfC that failed to find any consensus to restrict or require prior consensus for mass creation in general. It's a touchy subject so should be got right. – Joe (talk) 08:43, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
We could described it as generally understood to be the automated or semi-automated creation of more than about 25 to 50 articles at a time, if you'd prefer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:53, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
That'd address my concern but, given the lengthy spin-off discussions this has spawned here and at WT:BOTPOL, maybe the shortest path to getting a guideline up and running is to just drop the mass creation section for the time being? – Joe (talk) 08:36, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
Looks good. Cremastra (talk) 10:36, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
Can you clarify what you mean by at a time? BilledMammal (talk) 12:05, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
@BilledMammal, that's my own clarification of a quotation of something Xeno said 15 years ago, which has been quoted in WP:MASSCREATE since its inception. His original says "anything more than 25 or 50" with no timespan. However, the context is "rapid creation", "in a rapid manner", "clicking "save" every 5-10 seconds", and other editors in that discussion specify "25-50 articles per day", "25–50+ articles per day", "more than 50 articles in a short period", "more than 50 articles in a short amount of time" (the last one is from Johnuniq), and from context, it's obvious that this isn't a lifetime or long-term limit, or even a "per month" limit. I thought that "at a time" would be less likely to be interpreted as a strict 24-hour limit (like WP:3RR) and focus people on the principle, but we could justify "per day" or specifying "rapidly" if you would prefer.
BTW, since you have an interest in limiting mass creation, and that discussion is the source of the policy, you should familiarize yourself with it. For example, you'll notice that the discussion specifies "automated or semi-automated", so you should probably undo your recent edit to that policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:51, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
It also applies to bot-like creation, such as creating large numbers of near-identical articles populated from a database, but that’s a different discussion.
As for your proposal, I think you need far tighter restrictions - your wording is going to encourage the mass creation of tens or hundreds of thousands of sub-stubs. BilledMammal (talk) 17:15, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
  • The same rules apply to species as everything else.
  • These are the long-standing (15 years) existing rules. We have no reason to believe that doing exactly the same thing that we have always done is going to produce radically different results. In fact, I believe "doing the same thing but expecting different results" is given as a casual definition of insanity.
WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:23, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
You are proposing less restrictive rules than the ones at WP:MASSCREATE, and by creating an SNG you will remove the requirement that mass creations must include at least one non-database source. BilledMammal (talk) 22:33, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
I am not. I am noting in passing that MASSCREATE exists.
The text says "Mass creation of articles (brief description of what those words mean, just in case someone were thinking that it applied to a few as 5 articles – or that it didn't apply until you were creating more than 5,000), no matter what the subject is, requires editors to obtain permission in advance." This means the normal rules and normal procedure applies.
The text does not say "Mass creation of articles (let's invent some special exemptions for this subject), no matter what the subject is, requires editors to obtain permission in advance." WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:41, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps as a clarification, to assuage BilledMammal's concerns, the text could read:

Mass creation of articles (generally understood to be the creation of more than about 25 to 50 articles at a time), no matter what the subject is, requires editors to obtain permission in advance as always. Editors are reminded to follow to policy at WP:MASSCREATION.

That should spell it out enough to prevent confusion.
I would also suggest, to prevent creation of near-identical sub-stubs (like this one, this one, and this one which were all created by the same user on the same day), adding a reminder of WP:PAGEDECIDE, like this:

Editors are also reminded that a separate article is not always the best format for the information, and that short articles are not necessarily the most helpful option for the reader. If necessary, consider merging the content to higher taxon's article when appropriate per WP:PAGEDECIDE.

I know that 1) this is not going to fly with some people and 2) it isn't going to stop dedicated editors, but it should provide some guidance to over-eager new editors who are directed to this SNG. Cremastra (talk) 23:50, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
At a time would also need to be removed to fully align the proposal with the current guideline, but apart from that this would go a long way to addressing my concerns about mass creation - although I would prefer to see a guideline that preferences up-merging. BilledMammal (talk) 23:56, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
I think referring to automation or semi-automation, as WP:MASSCREATION does, should resolve any ambiguity that is currently unsatisfactorily resolved by "at a time". ꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:35, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
I think that would also cause issues, as MASSCREATE also applies to large scale WP:MEATBOT creations. I think Cremastra’s wording, with "at a time" removed, would most accurately reflect policy. BilledMammal (talk) 00:37, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
The wording you propose would imply that editors need permission to create 25–50+ species articles over their lifetimes, which is not what mass creation refers to. What about reference to “automated, semi-automated, or botlike” creation? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 01:29, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
Only those created using mass creation techniques (boilerplate text, LLMs, etc), and on a similar topics. It's based on the text currently at MASSCREATE, and nobody has ever been sanctioned for creating 100 articles on manually, but people will take "25 to 50 at a time" as permission to mass create articles so long as they stay below that (very high) daily limit. BilledMammal (talk) 01:32, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
Can you honestly look at the RFC comments that say things like "25-50 articles per day" and "25–50+ articles per day" convince yourself that the "(very high) daily limit" of "25 to 50 articles per day" is not what they meant? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:32, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
If manually creating 25–50 articles is allowed, then the policy should disambiguate that clearly. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 02:49, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
I think this is an adequate compromise; it leaves the door open for up-merging at editors' discretion on a case-by-case basis; it also doesn't mandate it in any way. So hopefully we don't get an ocean of sub-stubs or an ocean of up-merges, which seem to be the primary concerns here. Cremastra (talk) 00:48, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
When you said, after your proposal above, that "I know that 1) this is not going to fly with some people", I heard "I know that there isn't consensus for this proposal", and I think your instinct was correct. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:52, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
You and BilledMammal are going to have to compromise at some point on this one, because you can't both get what you want. Cremastra (talk) 01:02, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
If we edit it a little (along with the removal of "at a time") I would support the proposal - while I would prefer something closer to what I proposed above, it would be something I could accept.

Editors are also reminded that a separate article is not always the best format for the information, and that short articles are not necessarily the most helpful option for the reader. If necessary, consider merging When appropriate, merge the content to higher taxon's article when appropriate per WP:PAGEDECIDE.

Saying "if necessary", "consider", and "if appropriate" are all a bit repetitive, and downplay this option - if it’s necessary, for example, then we shouldn’t merely consider it. Simplifying it down to "when appropriate" addresses that, while leaving whether it is appropriate to individual discussions. BilledMammal (talk) 01:00, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
Or we could just leave it out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:32, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
Why? Compromise is sometimes necessary. Cremastra (talk) 05:17, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
But the title of this section is "Guideline proposal based on existing practice", and WAID has done a great job of limiting her proposal to current practice. This isn't describing current practice, it's introducing a new rule. Nothing in WP:NSPECIES refers to WP:PAGEDECIDE, and recent discussions of whether upmerging of species articles is desirable have failed to gain consensus. Maybe the new rule can gain consensus, but shoehorning in at this point, as a compromise between a handful of editors, is not appropriate. – Joe (talk) 08:34, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
There also wasn't a consensus against upmerging, which suggests that failing to compromise here will result in the proposal failing to receive consensus. BilledMammal (talk) 08:59, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
Guidelines summarise practices that have consensus, not practices that the community hasn't decisively rejected yet. – Joe (talk) 09:25, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
That argument applies in both directions. BilledMammal (talk) 09:29, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
Based on the comments above, I think there is no consensus to encourage upmerging.
It's true that a proposal preferring upmerging hasn't been officially rejected, but I think that is only because no such proposal has been put forward as a formal WP:PROPOSAL yet. I don't personally hate the upmerging idea represented in User:BilledMammal/NSPECIES myself, but, with my policy-writing hat on, I also don't have any realistic hope that the upmerging idea would be accepted. I think that if we did a full discussion at this time, we would find an actual consensus against the "upmerging preferred" proposal at User:BilledMammal/NSPECIES and no consensus for any "encouragement to consider upmerging" proposal.
Consequently, despite being a dyed-in-the-wool m:mergeist myself, I have not recommended mentioning this in any NSPECIES proposal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:57, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
Okay. I'm not going to split more hairs (or oppose the policy) over this. Cremastra (talk) 04:08, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
The interpretation that BilledMammal has regarding lifetime creation of articles with a specific format was previously discussed and did not achieve consensus support at the time. I appreciate it's possible that consensus has changed, but the lack of an existing consensus, to me, indicates that accommodating this viewpoint is not necessary in this initial proposal. isaacl (talk) 22:31, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
@Cremastra, do you think this shorter version covers the necessary points?

The WP:MASSCREATION policy requires editors to obtain permission before creating more than about 25 to 50 articles at a time, no matter what the subject is.

The Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines advice favors concision, but not if we're leaving out important information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:22, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
Yes, that's good. I think it's best to explicitly reference WP:MASSCREATION, to make clear we're saying: “you need to follow this policy; here's a gloss of the most important bits.” Cremastra (talk) 04:24, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
Strongly support this proposed guideline. I'm generally opposed to upmerging taxa articles, so perhaps I'm just biased, but I think the proposal's guidance on merging is adequate as it is. I believe that the value of merging/splitting non-accepted taxa should be determined on a case-by-case basis - while I believe merging will generally be preferable for non-accepted taxa, I expect that there will be cases where standalone articles are clearly warranted. I think the current wording does a good job of outlining the options available (stand-alone articles, stand-alone lists, and merging) and leaving it up to editors' best judgement, in the absence of consensus on this whole merging issue. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 03:58, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
We might be able to start a formal WP:PROPOSAL before long.
Does anyone have any other suggestions for adjusting the wording? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:23, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
I have copied this draft along with the wording Cremastra and I settled on to WP:Notability (species). This is not yet a formal WP:PROPOSAL, so it is not time to vote. If you see any errors, please post on the talk page.
Also, if you notify any pages (e.g., relevant WikiProjects), please document that at the top of the talk page. I also welcome suggestions about pages we should notify. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:19, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
My two cents, in context: I publish papers describing new species, I review papers describing new species, I manage taxonomic databases, and I am an ICZN Commissioner. The situation of a species being described and thereafter having nothing published about it in secondary sources probably is true for at least 90% of all described species, most of which are beetles. The highest profile online databases are mostly name aggregators, with no actual data curation or value-added content. I personally do not consider a source like GBIF, or ITIS, to be a reliable source because there is no scrutiny or quality assurance. Some sources, like BioLib, are curated by individuals with a personal agenda and not objective secondary sources, and I don't like treating those as reliable, either. The best and most reliable online sources are authority files like the Species File pages, which are intensely curated by experts in their target taxa. More to the point is that there are very few secondary sources that provide the sorts of information that everyone here seems to think are needed to build a good Wikipedia article, for which even the best authority files tend to fall short. I've read the discussion, and I am surprised that no one seems to have emphasized this appropriately. To be more explicit, it is VERY clear that for most species, the only sources that will ever be able to give the sort of information people want in Wikipedia for Species X, including things like their biology, distribution, life cycle, mating behavior, and "differentiation," are (1) the primary source where Species X was first described, and (2) the primary sources where other related species like Y and Z are described and compared to Species X. The expectation of secondary sources is nonsensical when viewed against the massive literature where species are described. If a species can't be "notable" until and unless there are facts about it that are discussed in non-primary sources, then practically the only species that will be notable are birds, honeybees, butterflies, sharks, flowers, trees, some mammals, and a few dinosaurs. Frankly, it should be entirely possible, and entirely acceptable, to compose a species article in Wikipedia using a single primary source and nothing else. If there are secondary sources that contain more information NOT in the primary source, then go ahead and add that in, but deleting an article, or refusing to allow its creation, because all that exists is one paper in which its identity and everything else known about it has been established, does a serious disservice to both the scientific community AND the lay community. Consider that an entry in Wikipedia is easier to find than an original scientific paper, so rejecting an article for "non-notabiity" would, in essence, be a self-fulfilling prophecy, denying the lay audience a chance to learn ANYTHING about the majority of species. To my mind, if a species article cites and uses content from the original publication in which it was described, then that criterion alone should mean it is worth keeping. A species article that ONLY cites data from a data aggregator or other non-curated secondary source, giving the typical "X is a species from Y, described in 19XX by Z" is probably not worth keeping, until and unless information is added from a primary source, or even an illustration or photograph or a list of taxonomic synonyms, that give some information that can't be found in a data aggregator. That, to me, is the fundamental principle behind that policy concept about Wikipedia not being intended as a mere mirror of online databases. If online databases don't give photos, or distributions, or lists of synonyms, and a Wikipedia article does, then that article is serving its purpose within the encyclopedia. Dyanega (talk) 23:40, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for this, @Dyanega.
Differentiating between the good databases and the pretenders is something that I assume will be an ongoing battle, as organizations and databases change over time. However, I assume that it will, at any given point in time, be possible to identify what is/isn't accepted by relevant taxonomic authorities.
Also, under Wikipedia's idea of a WP:SECONDARY source, although the paper "where other related species like Y and Z are described and compared to Species X" is a primary source in general, the actual compare-and-contrast parts would count as secondary material for "Species X". Many sources are WP:PRIMARYINPART but contain some secondary material. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:59, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
@Dyanega, regarding the lack of secondary sourcing, why do you think species articles should be exempt from the requirements we have for basically every other subject? What makes a single research paper describing a new species automatically sufficient for a standalone article when the same level of sourcing would generally not be acceptable for even mentioning a scientific discovery on another related page, let alone as the basis of an article? JoelleJay (talk) 23:04, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
That's a fair question, but it cuts both ways. I have to be honest, I'm not sure why Wikipedia policy would or should require EVERYTHING to have a secondary source. If that really is the policy, then there certainly should be exemptions. I see from the discussion that people have brought up things like place names, and that doesn't seem like a terrible analogy. It's hard to cite a map as a secondary source, but a lot of place names only appear on maps, or in gazetteers, or databases. Same for the umpteen entries in Wikipedia for highways and such, like Alberta Highway 35 and others like it. Now, if you argue that these cases are marginal, what makes them marginal? Are they verifiable? Yes. Can one find multiple sources that help verify them? Yes. The same is true for species. Even the most "trivial" species in Wikipedia can be linked to at least a half-dozen external sources like GBIF, IRMNG, iNat, and one or more authority files. Another thing that species have in common with things like towns and highways is that they have tangible existence; in the case of species, that comes in the form of a type specimen, without which no species name is treated as valid - and won't ever appear in Wikipedia. Just as I can confirm the existence of a town by going to that place and seeing it with my own eyes, I can confirm the existence of a species by examining its type specimen. So, clearly, your objection can't be that species are either hypothetical or not verifiable. If that's not the problem, then why is secondary sourcing a necessary requirement? The result of an experiment, or a clinical study, is not verifiable in the same way at all, because those require replication in order to be confirmed, and I absolutely see a need for secondary sourcing for a "discovery" like that, but that's not how things work for the naming of species, or genera - or towns, or highways. These things are named, registered, and published, and might not ever be the topic of a genuinely secondary source other than a catalog, database, checklist, any more than a place name might appear outside of a gazetteer, map, or database. I don't see why these sorts of entities should be summarily excluded from Wikipedia just because they don't adhere to the narrow concept of secondary sourcing. I have to wonder, to bring up another point made in the earlier discussion, if a person actively creates a record for a species, or a place, or a highway, as opposed to some bot bulk-creating pages based on a database, then why would you ever delete such a page as not being notable enough, or not having sufficient sourcing? It seems like a "one size fits all" mentality being applied to a situation where one size really does not fit all. Dyanega (talk) 00:46, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
Here's two cents: I think that a describing paper is a secondary source. The primary source would be an observation, a set of measurements, photographs, whatever. Perhaps a cute little beetle sitting in an entomologist's collection. The in-depth describing paper that explains it to the satisfaction of an authoritative body is the secondary source. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:49, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
That's not what policy says: a scientific paper documenting a new experiment conducted by the author is a primary source for the outcome of that experiment. The in-depth description and interpretation of observations, measurements, etc. as newly reported in a research article is always primary. JoelleJay (talk) 03:55, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
What about ethnographies? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 04:25, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
How is designation of a new species not the result of primary research? The claim that something is a "new species" is still a scientific assertion about its characters, its distinction from other species, and its taxonomic placement, none of which is an immutable fact the instant a type specimen is provided. How is a species any different from a new synthetic fluorophore whose properties are described in detail in a primary research article and which is made freely available in various official repositories? Or for an even more analogous example, new minerals officially approved by the IMA?
These things are named, registered, and published, and might not ever be the topic of a genuinely secondary source other than a catalog, database, checklist, any more than a place name might appear outside of a gazetteer, map, or database. I don't see why these sorts of entities should be summarily excluded from Wikipedia just because they don't adhere to the narrow concept of secondary sourcing.
If no one else has taken enough interest in something to publish on it in their own words, how can we say it is notable? The purpose of requiring secondary sources for science topics isn't just to protect against spreading unreplicated results; it's also a necessary component in identifying whether something has been discussed enough to be notable and for info about it to have been contextualized by others for NPOV purposes.
Further, if no one else ever investigates--or is even expected to investigate in the first place--any of the assertions made in a paper about a new species' characters, range, behavior, differentiation from other species, etc., then how is it any more scientifically valid than any other hypothesis put forth in a single paper? And what makes the publication standards for nomenclature acceptance by the ICZN, which apparently includes papers that would be rejected as non-RS on Wikipedia, so much more rigorous and prestigious than any other observation-based discipline, published in any other journal, that we can confidently assert anything about any species as a fact in wikivoice? What distinguishes a species from any other item that has many verifiable primary-published RS facts and is formally recorded in databases, and how does it meet our policy of NOTINDISCRIMINATE? Denying a species a standalone article is also definitely not the same as being "excluded from Wikipedia".
Highways are also not exempt from the expectation that secondary coverage exists, and if a place is demonstrably only covered by a single primary source it is deleted or upmerged... Merely appearing on a map is definitely not sufficient for something to meet N or even to gain the presumption of notability afforded by NGEO. Geographical features meeting Wikipedia's General notability guideline (GNG) are presumed, but not guaranteed, to be notable. Therefore, the notability of some geographical features (places, roadways, objects, etc.) may be called into question. JoelleJay (talk) 03:52, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
Whether something is primary or secondary depends on how you use it, not just what it is.[4] Also, different fields have different standards, and everyone believes their own is the One True™ Standard, so we expect editors to have different viewpoints. There really is a model in which original lab notebooks are primary sources. For example, this book says that lab notes are primary sources and that both "journal articles" and "monographs devoted entirely to the subject", among other things, are secondary sources.
It's okay for editors to decide that they prefer that model. Wikipedia mostly doesn't follow that model, but individual editors are entitled to their own opinions about whether we should in any given instance. This happens in multiple areas across Wikipedia, including claims that WP:PRIMARYNEWS sources are "really" secondary for events that we intuitively know to be notable. We shouldn't say that, but we do, because we don't want to just say "Sure, it's all breaking news right now, but frankly, you don't actually need a WP:CRYSTALBALL to figure out that an event of this magnitude will qualify for a Wikipedia:Separate, stand-alone article at the English Wikipedia. You only need a little bit of common sense and a willingness to follow the policy that prioritizes our general principles over the letter of the law".
This, however:
If no one else has taken enough interest in something to publish on it in their own words, how can we say it is notable?
suggests a fundamental misunderstanding. You can write a secondary source (using Wikipedia's main model) based on your own primary sources. For example: I can write several journal articles about clinical trials (which WP:MEDRS defines as primary sources); I can also publish a meta-analysis of my own journal articles (which MEDRS defines as a secondary source). This actually does happen; PMID 23642291 is a review article that was put forward in support of a medical claim recently, and the author cites only his own prior publications to "prove" it. It's still a secondary source. (I rejected that claim, because I believe this indicates it to be a very small minority viewpoint, and that in the context of this article, even mentioning it would be undue.)
"If no one else has taken enough interest in something to publish it" is a question about Wikipedia:Independent sources, not about primary/secondary/tertiary. That author wrote a secondary source, but he didn't write an independent one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:52, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Let's finalize a species proposal

Let's try to crystalize something before we run out of gas. I'll write something in shorthand and we can write it out in detail after discussion. It is:

Create a recognized subject-specific notability guideline for species which is per :WhatamIdoing's July 6th proposal above, minus the mass-creation portion

While I think that avoiding mass creation is essential, to the same extent as with any other area it is implicit and already covered. I think that trying to detail it here would plunge us into what has (here and elsewhere) proven to be an unsolvable discussion and thus be a poison pill for any proposal. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:59, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

  • As I stated above, this needs to take some amount of project autonomy into account. FunkMonk (talk) 18:18, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
    @FunkMonk, when you say "project autonomy", do you mean something approximately like "Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology should get to make its own rules about what is notable and not"? I'm asking because we have a formal guideline prohibiting this, and "WikiProject ____ gets to decide that the sitewide rules don't apply to 'their' articles" is the example given to define WP:LOCALCON. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:32, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
    No, it has nothing to do with notability as such, but about how to best cover subjects. If you read the guidelines there, it's about prehistoric species inherently not having as much info available about them as modern species, so that the long standing consensus, almost since the founding of Wikipedia, has been to treat most prehistoric species at the genus articles, apart from the rare cases where enough has actually been published for standalone articles to make sense. Suddenly overturning this after twenty years will not be an improvement, and just cause a giant backlog of extra work that there are not enough project members to solve. We barely manage as is. FunkMonk (talk) 19:40, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
    @FunkMonk, where does the "Suddenly overturning this after twenty years" bit come in? The goal with this proposal – the current draft of which is now at Wikipedia:Notability (species), and about which I'd very much like you to read and share your views on its talk page – is to write out exactly what the long-standing community practice actually is, and to see whether the community wishes to endorse its own long-standing practice as a formal WP:SNG. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:06, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
    What I'm suggesting is basically what you proposed here, which I only just saw:[6] So I'm not sure where we disagree. Our existing project guidelines attempt to be as non-arbitrary as possible by suggesting species articles be created when the genus article becomes too long.[7] It is very difficult to make up something else that is concrete and not arbitrary. Note the consequence of enforcing that we create all fossil species articles will swamp the paleo project with hundreds if not thousands of new stubs to maintain, which have until now been snugly covered at their respective genus articles. FunkMonk (talk) 22:07, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
    Seconding FunkMonk that, regardless of content, some sort of note within the guideline denoting differing standards for fossil species is necessary. Though there is disagreement within palaeo circles of Wikipedia as to when a separate species article becomes justified, almost nobody argues for the kind of universal standard of separation that is standard for extant taxa and enshrined in the proposal here. If the intent is to put existing standards onto paper, then that is currently being failed by the fact species-level articles are close to non-existent for any taxon older than the Pleistocene. Anyone proposing that standard should not be kept would have to argue for why it shouldn't be the case. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions)
@North8000, please see Wikipedia:Notability (species) and the discussions on that talk page. The draft is already over there, and we should centralize the discussions about it over there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:34, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
Cool North8000 (talk) 19:02, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Product catalog/discography/filmography of a publisher

Discussion about if a product catalog type contents that would not be appropriate under WP:NOTACATALOG #6 would be appropriate to be created as a separate standalone list at Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Creation_of_product_catalog_under_a_new_article Graywalls (talk) 04:55, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (species)

An RfC to adopt a subject-specific notability guideline regarding the notability of species has been opened at Wikipedia talk:Notability (species)#Proposal to adopt this guideline. C F A 💬 05:18, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Relation between Wikipedia:Notability (numbers) and GNG

Discussion of a related proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Numbers/Guidelines has led me to notice that Wikipedia:Notability (numbers) (an established notability guideline) does not say anything about its relation to WP:GNG. Other notability guidelines relate to GNG in different ways: most establish a presumption of notability that must be confirmed through GNG, but WP:NCORP (for instance) is more strict than GNG in what it allows to count as significant coverage, and WP:PROF (for instance) is explicit that it stands separately from GNG.

So what is the relation between Notability (numbers) and GNG? Should that relation, whatever it is, be stated explicitly in Notability (numbers)? —David Eppstein (talk) 23:03, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Keeping in mind that we do not have a hard defining relationship between the SNGs and the GNG, I don't think we need to force the numbers notability guideline to necessarily acknowledge the GNG. The guideline does infer notability of numbers comes from significant coverage of those numbers, but the type of sourcing or demonstration of that is highly tuned to the math and numerology fields. There probably should be a brief statement to say that wp considers a number notable for a standalone page as long as there is significant coverage of it, and the page narrowly describes how to determine that. So it should like to the purpose of WP:N but not necessarily to the GNG — Masem (t) 23:39, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
While WP:Notability (numbers) does not specifically mention GNG, it does repeatedly call for published material… and if there is published material then surely GNG is complied with. I don’t think it necessary to spell it out. Blueboar (talk) 00:06, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
I think it clearly falls into the NCORP camp of being more strict than GNG, since it limits the kind of significant coverage required to particular types of publications. I think the relationship should be stated because more clarity is always a good thing. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:30, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
I agree with voorts (and Masem) that NNUMBER, like NCORP, is more strict than GNG by establishing stricter sourcing requirements. It could also be understood as defining aspects of WP:NOT for its topic, the way NFILM also does. I'm not sure of the extent of advantage to be gained by defining this relationship within the guideline, though. Newimpartial (talk) 09:10, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
So that we don't get talk page discussions like this every few years when people have the same question. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:21, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

The opening line makes no gosh darn sense

The guideline currently begins as follows: On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article. No! Notability is not a test; it's the quality being tested for. Saying "notability is a test" is like saying "acidity is a test" or "sweetness is a test". This has irritated me every time I've looked at the guideline intro for years. I changed "test" to "concept" and was thanked twice but was reverted on the basis of a 2011 discussion. I don't think a thread from over a decade ago that breezes past the word choice in question can actually outweigh the point that "test for" makes no logical sense. But actually, the opening line is just not very informative. The "page in a nutshell" blurb is a better opening than the first paragraph of the intro itself. If I had to begin the way the guideline currently does, I'd do something like the following:

On Wikipedia, notability is roughly synonymous with "article-worthiness". We say that a topic is notable when the world at large has paid significant attention to it, in a way that we can document with trustworthy sources.

I'd even go a bit further and say that wedging the noun notability in before the adjective notable isn't obligatory. The current opening line seems to contort itself in order to drop the page title into the text. We don't do that for article titles: If the article's title does not lend itself to being used easily and naturally in the first sentence, the wording should not be distorted in an effort to include it. We could for example use an alternative like the following:

On Wikipedia, our articles cover notable topics, those to which the world at large has paid significant attention, in a way that we can document with trustworthy sources.

This is way, way down the list of problems that our planet faces, but dang it, it bothers me, and I think it makes explaining what we're on about more difficult than necessary. XOR'easter (talk) 01:06, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Part of the issue may be the wiki-definition of notability compared to the normal English definition. The last suggestion would run head-on into that problem, even though the sentence tries to defer to wiki-definition. But I agree that saying it is "a test" is wrong, we have tests to judge notability, which is usually what happens at AFD, WP:N and the SNGs are used to supply data for that test. "A concept" is a far better word. Masem (t) 01:18, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Yes, the difference between the wiki-definition and the vernacular should probably be addressed as quickly and clearly as possible. I don't think the current opening line does this very clearly. Perhaps we could say something like, "our articles cover notable topics, by which we mean...". XOR'easter (talk) 01:22, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
I support swapping “test” for “concept”, per User:XOR'easter and Masem. It is not a test, but a Wikipedia neologism. Calling it a “concept” is true, and better introduces it as a new concept.
It’s unfortunate that the following paragraph fails to explain Wikipedia-notability and how it differs from Wikt:notability.
And while here, there are problems with the nutshell. The nutshell is the wrong place to define the neologism “notable topics”, and the nutshell is wrong to state that WP:N covers WP:NOT. It is also too long, and “over a period of time” is patently wrong as current affairs get articles immediately. I suggest:
This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia articles are restricted to topics that have gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large. We consider evidence from reliable and independent sources to gauge this attention.
Move “The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic may have its own article.” to Wikipedia:Notability#Notability guidelines do not apply to content within articles or lists because the nutshell should not be bogged down in what the page is not about.
I would insert “best” in front of gauge to very slightly weaken it from a dogmatic tone.
- SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:01, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
That part about "notability guidelines does not determine content of articles" comes up far too much in contentious discussions around certain article topics and particularly around lists, and I don't think we can move it from the nutshell. Masem (t) 02:36, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
First, I will say that I think the blurb in the nutshell about the notability guideline not applying to article content is not a heavy burden in that location. The wording of the entire nutshell is short, easy to read, and good as quick reference. Also, if as Masem says this comes up too often in contentious AfD discussion then that is another reason for keeping this blurb in place.
Next, I have no problem if the wording for the opening sentence is changed. I can see saying "notability" is a concept. That's a good start. I agree that it is a quality that is being tested for. And good point that "notability" is actually a Wikipedia neologism because that is the way it is treated. To garner notability for your newly posted article there are criteria that must be satisfied. Saying that a given article passes notability is simply shorthand communication - which I haven't thought about until now. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 03:15, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
One more thing. Agree with Smokey Joe on this one. I think it would be possible and worthwhile to compose and add to this guideline — a short comment on "notability" that explicitly distinguishes between a Wiktionary (dictionary) definition and the Wikipedia concept that we seem to be striving for in this discussion. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 04:00, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
By bloating the nutshell, you make the nutshell less likely to be read.
There’s a whole section WP:NCC. Its title seems pretty good, but the paragraph is a garden path that fails to reinforce the title and sends the reader elsewhere. The bit in the nutshell is not actually working, is it? SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:13, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Myself, I don't think we need the line, but I've seen some editors in the past in other venues complain heavily about the importance of NCC (to a fault, to some extent) that we may have pushback if it is removed from the nutshell. That's my concern here. Masem (t) 12:24, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Naming Convention Comics (NCC), is that what you meant to link to? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:14, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
WP:NNC. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:37, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm more bothered by the word "notability" than anything else. Let's be rid of it. That way we don't have to explain, it is not what you think it means. (My latest is WP:STAND ALONE: 'that arcle STANDs', 'that article does not STAND', STAND ALONE is a concept, or a test'; but there are many others I'd be good with ) It also gets rid of that completely annoying use or confusion of so-called 'notability in article content', limiting 'the thing' to an attribute of whole articles. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:09, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

The “test” is actually notedness… ie whether the topic/subject been sufficiently noted by enough independent reliable sources to warrant WP having a stand-alone article about it. I often think we should have called this guideline “WP:Notedness”… but it’s a bit late to change things now. Blueboar (talk) 11:48, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Late to change, isn't wiki suppose to be change, or 'Insanity is . . .' :) Bold change, even. Time, here, has not dispelled confusion, it has fostered it. --Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:57, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Yes, the fact that "notability" in the Wikipedian sense has nothing to do with how much to say about a topic within a page is ... well, it's a bit odd. XOR'easter (talk) 15:46, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
It's why notability is not considered a content policy as V, NOR, and NPOV do. Meeting WP:N assures there's a good basis for the content policies to be met, such as from NOR such that we don't want an article excessively sourced to primary works. Masem (t) 15:55, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Alan that it would be good to rename this guideline to something that is descriptive in plain old English, like WP:Inclusion guideline or WP:Requirements for a separate, stand-alone article or something. That will have to be a separate discussion, but it would be better to get it done than to keep spending time and energy explaining this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:04, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

That said, "worthiness" is not something I think it is good to use here. 'Person, are you worthy! Place, are you worthy! It's too subjective and really off-putting in many ways. Concept for, test for 'article organization' might work there. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:11, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

This thread has gone in several different directions. Regarding the OP, besides being the main attribute which the guidelines attempt to define, "notability" is shorthand for the types of reviews that determine whether or not that criteria has been met. And if you want to deeper down the rabbit hole, in practice, there is a slight difference in scope. In practice the review process is primarily about reviewing for what's defined in the wp:notability guidelines, but also gives a tiny bit of consideration for other factors such as the degree of compliance with wp:not/ degree of enclyclopedicness and also real world notability/importance. And to go farther down the rabbit hole, the SNG's are one of the ways of injecting those later criteria. So IMO "notability" is both the attribute and the review process. North8000 (talk) 13:16, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't believe "The opening line makes no gosh darn sense" is compatible with WP:TALKHEADPOV, I do believe "test" in the opening line is compatible with the dictionary sense "a situation that shows how good something is" or "an act of using something to find out if it is working correctly or how effective it is". FT2 and Shooterwalker and Masem participated in the Intro and nutshell thread. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:15, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
I still agree with Masem. The opener could be better but it could also be a lot worse. In my long time on Wikipedia, my thinking on notability has reached two conclusions. First, notability is a technical term specific to Wikipedia that requires people to leave their personal definition at the door, and second, that this guideline should just be called something else (like "significant coverage" or "minimum coverage"). Despite that, it's functioned this way for a long time, and I'd rather keep it as is than risk breaking it. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:09, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
We shouldn't write the opening of a page that explains Wikipedia procedure in a way that presumes all readers already understand Wikipedia procedure. Relying on the reader to follow verbal shorthand, or the elliptical locutions of deletion debates, doesn't make for a clear introduction. XOR'easter (talk) 16:16, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Semantics. Test, Criteria, Examination, or whatever all (in context) means the same thing "how we determine if it is notable". Slatersteven (talk) 15:14, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
"Standard" is another acceptable word, but I agree this isn't that important. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:47, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
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