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New WikiProject proposal: Biota of the UK and Ireland

I've proposed a new WikiProject named WikiProject Biota of the UK and Ireland which would encompass all species and conservation efforts within Britain, an extremely interesting area. The project would include vegetation classification, Category:Lists of British animals, Category:Conservation in the United Kingdom, Category:Ecology of the British Isles, Category:Forests and woodlands of the United Kingdom, Category:Fauna of the British Isles and anything else to do with the flora and fauna of Britain. If anyone is interested just leave your name on the proposal page. Cheers, Jack (talk) 17:04, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Category:Mammals of the Arctic and Wikipedia:WikiProject Arctic and Portal:Arctic

Would people here be able to help out with some work on Arctic mammals? I (and others) have been working on Category:Arctic and Wikipedia:WikiProject Arctic and Portal:Arctic, but we really need someone who knows about mammals and the Arctic to check out Category:Mammals of the Arctic and related areas. What we really want to do is identify the truly Arctic species and where the borderline areas are. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 02:36, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

What about starting a small task force here? Jack (talk) 12:22, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

RFC at Christian the lion

A user has opened a RFC on a page which is under this project's scope at Talk:Christian the lion#Viral video as its own section. Any input from this project's members would probably be appreciated. -Optigan13 (talk) 20:29, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Asian deer articles need help

Although I know almost nothing about deer taxonomy, according to MSW3 two new genuses, Rucervus and Rusa, have been split off of the genus Cervus. None of our articles on the affected species seem to have been updated to reflect this yet. A few are: Barasingha, Eld's Deer, Schomburgk's Deer, Visayan Spotted Deer, Philippine Deer, Sambar Deer, and maybe some others. Kaldari (talk) 23:47, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Yup... I mentioned this a few months ago when I was cleaning up the list of mammmal articles to be created. I'll see if I can do something in the coming week. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:04, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps it might be better to wait for some time on this. Some genetic evidence favors placing all of them in Cervus. Ucucha 14:07, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
How long? Or should we contact the author of the MSW3 section and get their opinion on how to proceed? Colin Groves has always been very helpful when I contact him about primate articles. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:23, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
That sounds like an excellent idea. Perhaps he can point us to some up-to-date research. Kaldari (talk) 15:34, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
You might better ask Peter Grubb, who wrote the section on artiodactyls, but I am not entirely sure if he is still alive.
My previous comment was a bit vague; I should have referenced Pitra et al. (2004) [1], of which Groves was a co-author. It doesn't really show much monophyly for either Axis, Cervus, or Rusa, and suggests to subsume Hyelaphus, Rusa, and Przewalskium into Cervus. I am not aware of any important papers on this subject that have been published afterwards, but Groves may know more than I do. Ucucha 16:21, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
Here's my email to Groves: "Prof. Groves, Much thanks on your previous help with my questions about primates for Wikipedia. We now have some about various Asian deer species. Could you give a disposition at the genus level of Axis, Cephalophus, Cervus, Hyelaphus, Philantomba, Przewalskium, Rucervus, and Rusa? " - UtherSRG (talk) 17:26, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
Alas, he's out of the office until September 1. So we have at least 2 weeks to wait before we make any changes. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:33, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
So you have two weeks to explain what those duikers are doing there among the deer. ;-) And poor Elaphurus also deserves a mention, I think - it falls somewhere well within the clade Pitra et al. call Cervus. Ucucha 17:40, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
I've just changed Blue Duiker (Philantomba monticola) and Maxwell's Duiker (Philantomba maxwellii) to reflect MSW3's new genus Philantomba which was split off from Cephalophus. Forgot about this post, hope I haven't acted too early. Jack (talk) 00:53, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Colin replied: "I regard Cervus, Rucervus, Panolia, Elaphurus, Axis and Dama as valid genera in the Cervini. Cervus, obviously, has most of the species. The problem is Elaphurus, which I think is derived from an ancient hybridisation event between Cervus and either Rucervus or Panolia." He was quiet on the other genera. I'll ask again what he thinks should be done with them. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:29, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Where would he then put the species of Rusa? Ucucha 13:49, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Bunnies & Burrows

Question... On 2007-11-08, User:John Carter added the WikiProject Mammals header to talk page of Bunnies & Burrows. I wanted to make sure your group was in agreement that this was appropriate, as it is a role-playing game and not sure that was intentional. Turlo Lomon (talk) 13:17, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that this is not the right thing to do. Only articles about species or real animals, like Knut (polar bear), should be under the scope of the WikiProject Mammals. Maybe a WikiProject Animals in culture would be a good addition to deal with such articles. --Novil Ariandis (talk) 13:56, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
You know, I still haven't added Knut or Flocke's article to this project; it just doesn't seem right. Perhaps you're right in that a taskforce for Mammals in Culture (which would include famous, cute and cuddly ones) might be in order? María (habla conmigo) 22:41, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Individual animals

Question: does this project cover articles dedicated to individual animals or is it solely for mammalian species? I've seen famous cat articles covered by WP:WPCAT (i.e., Mrs. Chippy), but what about other mammals? For example, would Knut (polar bear) (FA) and Flocke (GA) be included here? Famous/notable animals are not exactly heavily covered on Wikipedia, but as of now the only WikiProject they belong to is WP:GERMANY. Should I just bite the bullet and create the Fuzzy and Adorable Baby Animal WikiProject (WP:FUZZ) to house them and the future articles to come? María (habla conmigo) 17:59, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd say yes, this project should cover notable individual mammals. The WP:CETACEANS project includes individual whales and dolphins. Regarding WP:FUZZ, hey why not? Cheers! Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:08, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I'd agree, although it should be kept in mind that such articles are not really scientific ones like most of the others on the project. With tree of life projects, especially animal ones, there are non-scientific articles like animal welfare that are about the taxa a project handles yet aren't of the scientific nature that the project normally deals with. It's not exactly clear how those articles should be handled in terms of WikiProjects. Richard001 (talk) 10:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Pollino National Park: redlinked species

Pollino National Park lists two mammal species in redlink:
Hippopotamus major ("pre-historic", extinct): apparently not listed in Hippopotamus. H. major = Hippopotamus antiquus??
Driomys nitedula -- should read Dryomys nitedula, right?
-- 201.17.36.246 (talk) 21:53, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Videos

I have created Category:Mammal videos at Commons, which seems long overdue. There are 77 files there at the time of writing, and there are still some more in the parent category to be moved. Many important taxa still have no video representation though, and there are plenty of them out there if we can get permission to use them. Richard001 (talk) 10:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Mammal

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:32, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Long-term monogamy is mammals

Hi, can anyone please tell the names of the mammals who show long-term monogamy. Some examples I know are Peromyscus polionotus and Lutrogale perspicillata. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 06:21, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

- Gibbons (various genera) are frequently mentioned as "long-term monogamous".
- Canis lupus, depending on who you ask.
- Don't know if you want to count Heterocephalus glaber or not.
- Homo sapiens "shows" long-term monogamy, along with a wide range of other patterns. :-)
-- 201.17.36.246 (talk) 22:02, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
A whole article on mating/mating systems in mammals wouldn't be a bad idea. Richard001 (talk) 10:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
There have always been reports of red foxes which always mate with the same partner. However, since most foxes only live a few years, long-term is maybe not the right word. --Novil Ariandis (talk) 20:24, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Eutheria

I think I've done all I can with the article. The greatest remaining weakness is eutherian synapomorphies - most of the others are in jaws and teeth, but Ji, Luo, Yuan et al (2002) are not specific about these and I'm no paleo-dentist. Since Eutheria is fairly high on the list of [articles selected from this project it might be nice to improve its grade - I'm not sure there's time for A-class / GA, but B-class woud be a significant improvement.

The changes I've made mean that Eutheria now does not cover placental mammals. I also note that placental redirects to placenta, which is completely wrong. Give me a shout if you want me to produce an article on placental mammals - between the Eutheria re-write and Evolution of mammals, which I wrote, I think I have the material to do this in about 3 days. -- Philcha (talk) 21:54, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Merge Zanzibar Leopard to African Leopard

Please see the discussion at talk:Zanzibar Leopard. - UtherSRG (talk) 04:43, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Primate at FAC

Primate is currently at FAC, after a great amount of work was done to push for GA status it'd be great to get us featured! The review is here. Cheers, Jack (talk) 15:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Clean up needed

If anyone has some time to clean up an article, Galápagos Sea Lion is in need of attention. Back in March, a user dropped a bunch of info into the article but did not fully grasp the referencing technique. This is not an area I excel in; anyone willing to check and fix the refs, and check for copyvios? Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 08:58, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I removed the spam links and reformatted the others. —G716 <T·C> 05:23, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization: species names are not proper nouns

One of the justifications given for a policy of capitalizing common names of species is the claim that they are proper nouns. This is incorrect; species names refer to a category of individual organisms, and thus are common nouns. To quote from the Wikipedia article on nouns,

Proper nouns (also called proper names) are nouns representing unique entities (such as London, Universe or John), as distinguished from common nouns which describe a class of entities (such as city, planet or person).

Or to quote from Dictionary.com :

proper noun
Grammar. a noun that is not normally preceded by an article or other limiting modifier, as any or some, and that is arbitrarily used to denote a particular person, place, or thing without regard to any descriptive meaning the word or phrase may have, as Lincoln, Beth, Pittsburgh.

"Mammal" refers to a specific class of vertebrate animals; "cougar" refers to a specific species of vertebrate animals; both refer to a large population of individual organisms that falls into the category in question, so both are common nouns. Similarly, "electron" refers to a specific type of elementary particle, of which our universe has more than one example; "electron" is thus also a common noun. The limiting modifiers "any" or "some" could be applied to these common nouns (e.g. "some mammals are nocturnal", "some cougars are female", "some electrons are carbon atom constituents"), while they cannot be similarly applied to a proper noun (e.g. "some President Lincolns" is nonsensical). WolfmanSF (talk) 02:52, 9 November 2008

Oh, then "some marys" must be correct. Which you know it is not. - UtherSRG (talk) 06:06, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
If you had a roomful of people named Abraham Lincoln, you could probably get away with ignoring their middle names and referring to them in the plural as "Abraham Lincolns". This represents a rather unusual example of nonstandard use of a proper noun (a person's name) in a plural sense. English does not have special rules for capitalization in such unusual cases. My argument above refers to normal usage, not to such a special case. WolfmanSF (talk) 07:54, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
And, since a species can be talked about in the singular to denote the whole of the species. In this regard, it is a proper noun. - UtherSRG (talk) 06:22, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
You're claiming that a noun representing a category can be either a common noun or a proper noun, depending on context. Obviously, if true, the argument could be applied to a lot more than just species names; it could also be applied to names of higher taxa, like "mammal" or "chordate"; it could be applied to particles like electrons and protons; it could be applied to all sorts examples of what are presently considered common nouns. If such a rule was applied, people would have to stop and think about when to capitalize such terms, which would be awkward. Your position, while logical, does not correspond to the actual definition of a common noun, or to normal English usage. So, in my view, if you want to justify capitalizing common species names, you should rely on other arguments. WolfmanSF (talk) 07:56, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
If that were the case, ALL nouns would automatically be proper nouns. That's not how English works, and it's a shame we have people here who don't understand basic English rules. DreamGuy (talk) 17:46, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Surely this has been gone through enough times. The growing consensus in the scientific world is that species names are capitalised. Have a look at any book published this decade and you'll see what I mean. Frickeg (talk) 07:11, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
OK, I'll take you on up that challenge. I just grabbed the nearest book at hand, namely The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins, published in 2004. He doesn't capitalize common names of species. Perhaps he and his publisher are out of touch, but I doubt it. WolfmanSF (talk) 08:02, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps as an Australian it is different, but two of our most important books relating specifically to mammals and birds (Mammals of Australia (Australian Museum) and Reader's Digest's Complete Book of Australian Birds) changed to capitalisation about ten years ago. All field guides that I have seen published in the last ten years capitalise (including mammals). Colin Groves capitalises at Mammal Species of the World, our chief source for mammal taxonomy. However, I concur with Tombstone's comments below. Frickeg (talk) 21:17, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Your example of Mammal Species of the World is irrelevant to the discussion, because as far as I can see it merely lists species names rather than using them within prose. I would argue that field guides and Reader's Digest publications are not appropriate style models for Wikipedia. Being an encyclopedia, the appropriate style models are other encyclopedias intended for adults, scientific journals, or serious books and magazines. The real divide in this debate may be between those whose reading consists largely of formal English prose, and those whose reading consists more of field guides and similar less formal or dumbed-down writing. WolfmanSF (talk) 17:10, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Look, I agree that this debate probably shouldn't go any further, but I have to clarify one point. The Reader's Digest book, even though it is published by Reader's Digest, is considered one of the most important works in Australian ornithology, and is certainly the one most people have in their houses. It is written and edited by scientists from most of Australia's top scientific institutions. Thus I would strongly contest the suggestion that it is not "formal English prose" and am quite horrified to find it suggested that it is "less formal or dumbed-down writing". I just had to salvage the book's reputation; I know the connotations of Reader's Digest, but they are not appropriate in this case. Frickeg (talk) 22:04, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
OK< first off, you can't just declare what the consensus is in the scientific world without backing it up. Second off, this is a GENERAL encyclopedia, not one that follows the style of any individual group devoted to niche topics. Our rules need to be consistent with general usage. If the National Association of Gibbon Researchers decide that all gibbons should always have their animal names written in red ink every time they are mentioned, bully for them, but that's got nothing to do with how the world as a whole works. So even if it were scientific consensus to do something in scientific literature -- which you've not established and runs counter to most sources -- we still wouldn't follow it unless it was consensus in standard usage. DreamGuy (talk) 17:50, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
This is a big waste of time and will not result in a consensus. Here is a list I have tucked away for just these types of hopeless debates:
  1. Talk:Cheetah (5–10 February 2007,11 August–7 October 2007)
  2. Talk:Cougar (June–August 2007, 25 September–10 November 2007)
  3. Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style -- Discussion and consensus at WP:MOS about animal common names and the capitalization issue (July 2007 - August 2007)
  4. Talk:Canadian Lynx#Name (29 February 2008)
  5. Talk:Fishing Cat#Capital Common Name (29 February – 1 March 2008)
  6. Talk:Bobcat#Capitalization again (29 February – 1 March 2008)
  7. Talk:Iriomote Cat#Edit warring (2–4 March 2008)
  8. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#misapplication of WP:BIRD (declined as content dispute) (2–4 March 2008)
  9. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mammals/Archive 3#Capitalization re-visited (March 2008)
  10. Talk:Snow Leopard#Secondary and Tertiary Sources on Capitalization (June - July 2008)
  11. Talk:List_of_bats#Taxonomy and the use of capital letters in common names (October 2008)
As you can see from the debates, no one ever gets anywhere. This process of discussion for this topic has been utterly exhausted and is therefore futile. According to the Arbitrators at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution (#8 above, from their comments on the case), the next appropriate step should be RFC, then 3O, then mediation. Talk page discussions such as this are hopeless. Suggest taking formal steps listed at DR and then see if a new arbitration case can be opened. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 13:56, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
You may be right about the whole subject of capitalizing common names of species. However, my initial comment was not intended to open up the subject as a whole, but to address the specific claim made on the WikiProject Mammals page: "because species names are proper nouns there is also a strong argument in favour of capitalization." This statement is demonstrably false, as I have tried to show, and from my perspective getting that misinformation corrected would represent progress. WolfmanSF (talk) 04:43, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Eve if there's no consensus to stop capitalizing animal names, at the very least we need to remove any claim that the animal names are proper nouns as some sort of justification for it. That's just wrong, period. DreamGuy (talk) 17:51, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

mammal articles by size

I came across Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals/mammal articles by size by accident and think that some of the articles should be removed from the list: Jew, Albany, New York, The Women's Conference, Freedom in the World (report), etc. I have no idea how (or why) this page is generated, and I'm not a member of this project, but I'd just thought I'd point out a couple of oddities. None of my business, really. Regards—G716 <T·C> 04:32, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

actually, the page should just be deleted as it was maintained by User:Betacommandbot who is now indefinitely turned off. anyone obejct? -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 19:57, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Elephant classification

The page Elephant classification is in need of attention by an expert. It needs a true introduction to be written for the topic. As it is, it is nearly a list. The formatting also needs work. Thanks in advance to whoever might help. Johntex\talk 16:21, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Fancy rat

I was hoping someone could take a look at Fancy rat and fill out a GA review. Thanks! -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 19:59, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Addition of WikiProject templates to talk pages

I see that this process is still not complete. It would be good to have an accurate idea of how many articles the project covers, and I just find it annoying that some articles have the template while others don't. Is it possible to get a bot to add this where needed, at least on the taxon articles (species, genera etc). People can always review its additions from a list or something.

It would also be good if it could add 'needs-photo' to any that are imageless; I can't imagine what sort of mammal article wouldn't require an image, especially one on a taxon. The other problem is articles that have needs-photo when they don't need a photo at all; a bot could also help identify these, though some images are not photos but illustrations, and a photo is still needed in such cases. (An illustration is better than nothing, but is no substitute for a photo, especially black and white illustrations.) There are also cases where a photo is requested even though there is already one or more, e.g. a photo of a particular morph, sex, behaviour, anatomical feature etc. As long as there is some mention of what the request is these are okay too. Richard001 (talk) 01:29, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

User:Polbot is a bot run by User:Quadell that does quite a lot of work on biology articles. This sounds like something this bot might be able to do. You might want to drop Quadell a line. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 12:16, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
So is everyone is okay with doing these things? One other thing is higher level taxonomic articles that have no pictures but which have subtaxa articles that do. For example some genera include species whose articles have a photo, but the genus article doesn't have one itself. For small genera it's easy to check manually but for larger ones it's not so easy. Richard001 (talk) 20:58, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
"Unfortunately, Quadell has retired as a Wikipedia editor." That makes things a bit more difficult. I can never seem to find people to help with bot/programming tasks. We need to do these tasks for all of the animals projects. Richard001 (talk) 02:53, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Nooooo, Say it ain't so! Ah well, try posting a request at Wikipedia:Bot requests. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 13:12, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Flickr

I have been working on Category:Mammal articles needing photos a little and have found a few. A expect to start uploading soon. There is definitely much potential there, but it seems a bit harder to find photos of mammals there than it is for birds. Maybe I'll put some statistics together for it some time too. Richard001 (talk) 01:34, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Here is a sample: Smith's Bush Squirrel, African Giant Shrew and Agile Antechinus (got 3 for the last one). Richard001 (talk) 21:37, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Only problem being that the "African Giant Shrew" is a Rhynchocyon petersi. I've removed it from the two articles where it was featured, but it should presumably also be deleted from commons via the badname template (too late now, I'll leave that part for someone else). • Rabo³ • 04:15, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Raccoon is a FAC

No longer relevant. Just to let you know: The article about the raccoon is a featured article candidate. --Novil Ariandis (talk) 22:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Help with Kangaroo identification

Resolved

Hi,

I'm not too sure on the whether the below shots are of an Eastern or a Western grey? They were taken in Swifts Creek, Victoria which seems to suggest that it is an eastern grey but it's colour seems to suggest that it is a Western Grey? Thanks for any help!

Largen and Lavrenchenko

We seem to have multiple references to papers by M Largen and L. A. Lavrenchenko, both of whom have described new species (not to mention Largen's Clawed Frog}, but no article on either. Can anyone please help by starting such articles, or at least giving these zoologists' full names? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

North American River Otter

Resolved

Calling all Wikipedia editors and reviewers:

It is my ultimate goal to build up the North American River Otter article to Featured Article status. The current standing of this article is B Class. The next stop I am trying to get at is Good Article status. I am seeking the assistance of those who are interested in the refinement of this article's quality. Furthermore, this article is in dire need of a thorough copy-edit (refer to the article's talk page for additional correction needs). The services of anyone willing to assist will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you, --Wikitrevor (talk) 00:56, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

How are you for images, audio and video? I could perhaps help with this; leave a note on my talk page if you want some assistance. Richard001 (talk) 01:26, 5 December 2008 (UTC)


  • Question: What should the North American River Otter be classified as? According to the context, the river otter is technically neither a marine mammal nor a semi-aquatic mammal. The river otter's qualities negate both categories. Any suggestions or solutions?

Thank you,--Wikitrevor (talk) 20:29, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Requested move: Orca → Killer Whale

Please provide input at Talk:Orca#Requested_move regarding proposal to use MSW3 common name of "Killer Whale". Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 14:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

This is definitely going to be bad PR for the Orcas. Kaldari (talk) 22:50, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

EOL (Encyclopedia of Life) - Your opinion?

What is your opinion of the Encyclopedia of Life? I took a look at their article about the raccoon and was less than thrilled. They are using old and not the best sources and although I was not expecting novels, it is really not that hard to be a bit more specific than “They have been introduced to parts of Asia and Europe and are now widely distributed there as well.”

So, what do you think about the quality of other articles? Are there articles which are considerably better than ours? --Novil Ariandis (talk) 21:14, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I have been keeping an eye on this for a while and I suspect that the top-down funding - providing big funds to the maintainers and expecting free volunteer contributions from experts seems to be a recipe for failure. At least nobody makes big money on WP with everyone having the right to take stuff out and make money with it. It is however great that they are presumably pumping some money into the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Shyamal (talk) 06:58, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Lemming

I was just editing the page and found Lemming Vole and Predicrostonyx. I was unsure if they should be listed in the article (they are not currently) and if so wher do the fit. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 01:07, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

and add Dicrostonychini to the above. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 01:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
They might be included (except for the Lemming Vole, which can't be considered a lemming in any way), but in my view the problem with the article on lemmings is that it focuses on a common name that is used for a not completely natural group of arvicolines; I would much prefer it to focus instead on a real, taxonomically recognized group, specifically the tribe Lemmini. The collared lemmings, which belong to a different tribe (Dicrostonychini), would then be excluded from the article. Ucucha 08:24, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Unfortunately I don't know enough to be able to split the article up. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 14:41, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Predicrostonyx should redirect to the species. Jack (talk) 15:09, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Edits that need looking over

Hello to the members of this wikiproject. I think that you may want to take a look at the recent edits by User:Super cyclist as seen here [2]. The editor has gone through and changed the endangered status in the taxobox for numerous wikipages. No edit summaries are provided nor are any sources quoted to justify the changes. Now I have no expertise in this area and these edits may be entirely legit. They came to my attention on the Red panda page where I am fairly sure the creature is still endangered. Based on this I thought that those of you who know what is what had better check on these just in case. If they are okay my apologies to Super cyclist. Thank you in advance for taking the time to check on this. MarnetteD | Talk 22:14, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The new Red List does have it as Vulnerable rather than Endangered. He's included references to this (IUCN 3.1) in other pages. But I don't see why lesser panda as a vernacular name was removed. Lavateraguy (talk) 22:37, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for checking on this and my apologies for removing lesser panda. I thought that the anon IP had removed it and that I was putting it back in so I got things sdrawkcab. I've changed things back to the way that they should be. Cheers to the members of this wikiproject. MarnetteD | Talk 22:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Ack I thought that you meant that I had taken it out. Now that I have checked the page for the third time I have finally put it back in correctly. MarnetteD | Talk 23:04, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Choeroniscus minor

The article for Choeroniscus minor is at Minor Long-nosed Long-tongued Bat. This didn't ring true, so I had a look at Google. There are three names for the species - Minor Long-nosed Long-tongued Bat, Lesser Long-tongued Bat, and Lesser Long-tailed Bat. The last is the commonest, and is consistent with the names of other species of Choeroniscus, but the frequencies of all three are not that dissimilar, though a lot of instances of the first are copies of Wikipedia. Infonatura uses the first name for this species, which is presumably were Wikipedia took the name from, but also uses Great Long-nosed Long-tongued Bat for Choeroniscus periosus, which Wikipedia has not taken up. Does anyone think that this should be ″fixed"? Lavateraguy (talk) 17:07, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I realize that I'm not being especially constructive, but I'd like to say that "common names" for these kind of species don't really exist, except as entries in lists. The few people who care about the existence of C. minor - some biologists - will refer to it as Choeroniscus minor, not by either of the above three common names. I would personally prefer to use the scientific name on Wikipedia except when a well-established English common name exists (which I guess is true for only 25% or so of mammals, mainly the larger species), because arguably it is the most common name for the species in the English language, as Google Scholar also shows: Choeroniscus minor occurs much more often in scientific articles than any common name. Besides, these common names are rarely unique; "Lesser Long-tongued Bat", for example, is apparently also in use for Glossophaga soricina, Leptonycteris curasoae and Macroglossus minimus.
That said, I think current convention is that common names should establish Mammal Species of the World, 3rd ed., the authoritative taxonomic work on mammals. It uses "Lesser Long-tongued Bat" for C. minor (and "Greater Long-tongued Bat" for C. periosus and "Godman's Long-tongued Bat" for C. godmani). If a common name should be used, these might be the best choices. Ucucha 10:41, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Plesiorycteropus needs review

Plesiorycteropus: Interesting critter, but the article could use some cleanup. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 17:22, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Camel peer review

Hello, how are you? I was wondering if maybe someone could please review Camel, which I have just brought to peer review with the hope to get ideas to eventually give it a GA candidacy. Thank you. -- Fish-Bird (talk) 17:33, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Banker Horse

I was wondering if someone could take a look at Banker horse. It was recently promoted to GA and we're trying to get some more input before shooting for FA. --Yohmom (talk) 21:52, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Requested move: Bottlenose Dolphin → Bottlenose dolphin

Please provide input at Talk:Bottlenose Dolphin#Requested_move (2). Cheers, Jack (talk) 14:44, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Note: The article used to be about the individual species; it is now about the genus. Hence the move request. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 00:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Done. It now needs copy editting.... - UtherSRG (talk) 17:20, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Think I've caught all of the Bottlenose Dolphin → Bottlenose dolphin or bottlenose dolphin changes, except the hybrids which I left capitalised. Someone will need to go though and maybe change some "bottlenose dolphin" mentions to "Common Bottlenose Dolphin" to properly reflect the intention of the sentence. Cheers, Jack (talk) 17:24, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Long-nosed Bats

I've made a disambiguation page at Long-nosed Bat; would someone kindly check it for errors or omissions? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:28, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Taxonomic discussion on horses

FYI, anyone interested in chiming in on the taxonomy used for Equidae, see Talk:Equidae#Classification section. The Order Perissodactyla is one of the few remaining mammal orders that is not in line with MSW3. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 14:54, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

With respect to MSW3, the more appropriate venue for application would appear to be Equus (genus), which includes all extant species; Equidae is loaded with fossil taxa, outside the scope of MSW3. --Una Smith (talk) 15:59, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
As you all see above, we have a debate. The debate started at Talk:Equidae, the move of material from that article to Equus (genus) is part of what's generating controversy. I am neutral on the issue, I just don't want edit wars if there is a simple, easy answer. Montanabw(talk) 22:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
"Edit wars", "debate", "controversy"? More like a very minor discussion. I guess my point wasn't clear. It is simply this: as far as the classification of extant taxa is concerned, as of today the relevant page is Equus (genus), not Equidae. --Una Smith (talk) 23:42, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Template:Equidae could use some help right now. --Una Smith (talk) 00:33, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorraia, an article about a breed of feral horse, is in GA review now and has issues re inference from phylogenetic data. See Talk:Sorraia/GA1 --Una Smith (talk) 22:10, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Requested move: Wild horse → Equus ferus

Please provide input at Talk:Wild_horse#Requested_move regarding a proposal to move Wild horse over Equus ferus, a redirect, in line with most other equine articles and preparatory to making a disambiguation page at Wild horse. --Una Smith (talk) 21:32, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

This is a single editor who is engaging in WP:ASK and acting without consensus and without input. Please review each article with ALL involved editors prior to implementing such moves. Montanabw(talk) 00:18, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
This is not the place for voting, and as someone ALSO involved in the comment process there it can say it is most definitely NOT just a one person thing. Please at least attempt to be CIVIL. --Kevmin (talk) 00:41, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Kev, I'm being as civil as possible, considering the totality of the circumstances. There is a total and complete trainwreck happening across multiple articles, this isn't just a taxonomy discussion any more. Unfortunately. Montanabw(talk) 01:17, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
With all do respect, calling the current discussions regarding taxonomy a "Trainwreck" is NOT being civil. It is something with which you do not have much interest/interaction with, and the current influx of editors (me) requesting airtime for the taxonomy and NPOV adjustments to the articles to reflect the current state of Equine Taxonomy is something you are not comfortable with. But in multiple instances you have reacted more then has seemed warranted. I'm apologize if you are offended by this but this is what I have perceived in the interactions of the past couple of weeks.--Kevmin (talk) 01:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
I am not criticizing you, Kev. There is nothing wrong with getting the articles "right" on taxonomy, though some sympathy for individuals who are not scientists is good for a general interest encyclopedia. There are other issues here, and for that we can move discussion to your talk page. Montanabw(talk) 04:26, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Tarpan unilaterally moved without discussion

I just discovered that Tarpan was moved without any discussion to Equus ferus ferus, unilaterally by Una. I have requested the move to be discussed and undone if no consensus for the original move exists. See Talk:Equus_ferus_ferus#Requested_move -- Kim van der Linde at venus 02:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Abyssinian Hare photos (id)

I couldn't find any of this species on Flickr but asked someone who had uploaded a photo mentioning them. He has since uploaded several of what he believes to be the species, see [3] (the first four). Can anyone help with identification? In [4] he says "Anyone know the difference between Abyssinian Hares and Ethiopian Highland Hares?". Richard001 (talk) 01:39, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Lepus starcki. Locality combined with colour of back, ears and nape patch does the trick. • Rabo³ • 04:24, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
We don't have one of that species either, so at least it wasn't a waste of time asking him to upload them. He should change the copyright soon. Richard001 (talk) 03:25, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Homo floresiensis for a Featured article review

I have nominated Homo floresiensis for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Thank you. Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 20:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Pachyostosis

I just created an article for Pachyostosis, which is was a redlink in Dugong, Dinocephalia, and Anteosaurus. It is rather stubby right now and could use some beefing up and proper cats, but I do not know enough to provide this. Any help expanding and classifying would be appreciated. Thanks! --Kevmin (talk) 17:57, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Orphan tags on species stubs

Discussion and note here. --KP Botany (talk) 04:17, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 05:55, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Collaboaration inactive

FWIW I have marked the collaboration as inactive as there has been no interest for several months. Maybe one day....Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:39, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

What's interest? Discussions have been going on on this page for the past several months. --KP Botany (talk) 18:17, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
The last one was Primate and it achieved FA status, so collaboration has worked but just needs the effort. I think that collaboration should be on either high importance articles or articles with the highest traffic within the project. Jack (talk) 18:24, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Oh, thanks, I misread the above post. It's the collaboration that is marked as inactive. Heck, if it got FA status for something as controversial (not for science, though) as primate, the collaboration needs to keep going. How about Hippo? --KP Botany (talk) 18:38, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Primate was promoted to FA 3 months ago, so it seems like if collaboration is to be active we need to come up with a new article to collaborate on. I wouldn't recommend hippo, since that is already FA. Rlendog (talk) 20:13, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Yes, Hippo is a great article in my opinion. What about something else big and magnificent, such as zebra, giraffe, elephant, orangutan, hyena, mountain lion. Any of these are there way but not yet there? --KP Botany (talk) 01:33, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I meant on nominating collaobrations etc. If someone wants to lead the charge, I'd be extremely happy to remove the inactive tag (anyone else is welcome to as well :)). I was just housekeeping as such. Do we want to reactivate it now? Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:25, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I figured that out. Let's see if we can find a good article for a collaboration, then sweep the tag off. . --KP Botany (talk) 01:33, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Sounds good - I'd be grateful if someone was bold and took control to coordinate it.Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:08, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I love giraffes and would love to know more about them. How about giraffe? I know there's a process, probably a vote, but would other editors be interested in giraffe? I'm probably only good for editing from the taxonomic and biological point of view, not the general lay information, though. --KP Botany (talk) 02:18, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Among your suggestions, Mountain Lion is already FA, so probably not a good candidate. Elephant is a GA, so if a collaboration can get it up to FA that may be beneficial. The others all seem to be B-class. Zebra and giraffe seem to be the lightest on references, orangutan the strongest. Personally, as a member of WP:Primate my preference among these would be orangutan, or better yet, chimpanzee (which seems to have been improved already quite a bit recently), but since the last collaboration was Primate, it may be better to look to a non-primate article next. If we want to try to take a GA to FA, elephant seems to be a good choice. If we want to improve a decent article on a popular mammal that has room for significant improvement, giraffe seems like a good choice. Rlendog (talk) 02:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I nominated giraffe, but your arguments for elephant are sound, also. Besides, who doesn't love elephants? Have you seen the pictures from that guy who hang glides over Africa? I'm fine with whatever. Starting with one that is already a GA might create momentum that the hard work of adding references to an article would not. --KP Botany (talk) 02:37, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I actually thought it would be easier to expand, copyedit and add references to a decent article to get it at least to GA status than to get a complicated GA article up to FA status. But I guess it depends. If most Mammal participants are interested in content, it may be more rewarding to get giraffe to GA (and then perhaps build off that momentum to get to FA). It we are more interested in MOS, then going from GA to FA on elephant would be more rewarding. Personally, I am in the former camp (although if the two articles were starting from a similar state I would probably find elephant more interesting. One other complication with elephant is that it has a wider scope. Giraffe just covers a single species (at least I think it is currently considered one species). Elephant covers (at least) two extant species, plus extinct species. So given the lack of momentum currently, it may be more straightforward to go with giraffe. Rlendog (talk) 03:17, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Actually Giraffa currently encompasses about 6 extinct species from the Pleistocene and Pliocene. G. attica, G. gracilis, G. jumae, G. priscilla, G. punjabiensis, and G. sivalensis. There are very few modern taxa which don't have extinct relations.--Kevmin (talk) 15:16, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Although that leaves the question of where to address the extinct species. The article seems to be about the extant species Giraffa camelopardalis rather than the genus Giraffa, although Giraffa redirects there as well. So the extinct species can either be addressed as a section within this article, or a separate Giraffa article can be created to address the genus as a whole, including (actually primarily)the extinct species. Rlendog (talk) 17:58, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I reckon we should get stuck in and make giraffe the collaboration now, there's not much point waiting until March 7th when the enthusiasm is now (6 votes already!). Does anyone have any objections? Jack (talk) 13:54, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that we can safely close this in a day or so per WP:SNOW. Another thought I had for possible future collaborations are some of the popular cetaceans that are currently B-class, like Beluga (whale) or Gray Whale. But WP:Cetacea already has a number of FAs and GAs, while few ruminants are, so that's another point in favor of giraffe. Rlendog (talk) 18:59, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I've made the genus page Giraffa now to link to the extinct species. Jack (talk) 18:56, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Good job. That was probably overdue. Rlendog (talk) 19:01, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks article for the fix on Giraffa. I have never been comfortable with how the extinct species of Hippopotamus are treated as a short 3 paragraph (12 sentence) section. Currently there are aprox. 15!! species in the genus but the article is only about the living species. At some point we should look at revamping how they are dealt with possibly with a fix like that for Griraffa. Here are the species (all extinct save 1) which I was able to find in a quick search: H. aethiopicus, H. amphibius, H. antiquus, H. behemoth, H. creutzburgi, H. gorgops, H. kaisensis, H. laloumena, H. lemerlei, H. madagascariensis, H. major, H. melitensis, H. minor, H. pentlandi, and H. sirensis. --Kevmin (talk) 19:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I created a stub article for Hippopotamus (genus). The title actually already existed as a redirect. Rlendog (talk) 01:11, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I created an article for Giraffa jumae with the limited articles I could get a hold of.--Kevmin (talk) 22:05, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

OK - I just stuck March 7th as a voting period but it is pretty overwhelming. This would be a good case for ignoring rules, making it the collaboration and updating all the boxes etc. My plan (for dinos, birds and fungi, where I have tried to coordinate collabs before) is to set official collab time as one month, to give everyone a good go at throughly working a critter up. I can update everything this time and someone can watch my diffs and do it next time :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:13, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Update

On yer marks....get set...GO!!!!

But seriously, there has been some good work on the mammal collabs - Polar bear ended up in pretty good shape too, though was not nominated (I must ask Clayoquot about that...). Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:19, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

GAs that are questionable for WP:Mammal

Right now, under the Mammal Wikiproject assessment template, a few GAs are listed that seem a bit of a stretch for this project. Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins may be legitimately a mammal article, but I don't know about The Itchy & Scratchy Show (a cartoon) or Bunnies & Burrows, a role-playing game. Should we remove the Mammal templates from those articles? Rlendog (talk) 01:23, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

New article heads up

Can an expert from this project look at a new article and see if it is legitimate? The article is Petauroida. Thanks, tedder (talk) 17:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

it's misspelt - it should be Petauroidea (see Petauridae and Diprotodontia - and it's a superfamily, not a family. It also lists some groups that Diprotodontia places in Phalangeroidea, rather than Petauroidea. Lavateraguy (talk) 17:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll put in a CSD, unless you think it is worthwhile for a #redirect. tedder (talk) 17:26, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) This taxon doesn't exist, but it is apparently a fairly common misspelling for the superfamily Petauroidea, to which I just devoted an article. I think it should just be deleted; the article has no useful content. Ucucha 17:33, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
agreed Lavateraguy (talk) 17:36, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Tragelaphus heads up

It may be fine, but someone with more knowledge of this matter than I might want to check some of the recent taxonomical changes made to Tragelaphus and Bushbuck (which also are associated with the new article, Kéwel). They basically come down to usage of genus for the elands (even if the user only added a link to the disambiguation eland, apparently missing both that, and the fact that there are two species of elands) and the possible split of the Bushbuck into two species (and the associated changes of common names). 212.10.90.136 (talk) 08:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals/Popular pages has been created. This will be helpful in assessing the most important articles according to page views, maybe the next collaboration will be decided due to this list? Jack (talk) 14:28, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Interesting! Can the code be modified to include all articles in Wikiproject Cetaceans? Popular articles such as Whale are not appearing in the list. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I've asked for its, and the other WP:MAMM descendants, inclusion. If it is not possible, I've asked for popular page stats for both WP:CET and WP:PRIM. Jack (talk) 11:10, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Amalgamated stats aren't possible at the moment, but WP:CET and WP:PRIM have their own separate pages now. Jack (talk) 09:34, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Alabama Beach Mouse

Just letting your project know I've tagged this article. APK straight up now tell me 11:31, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Rodents

I've proposed a child project, WikiProject Rodents, over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Rodents. Feel free to comment or add your list to the list of potential participants! -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 00:19, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:Mammal

I have a proposition regarding the above template, and invite project members to comment. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 17:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure where to ask this question

Questions about the nomination of an article to be included in the scope of this WikiProject, and about the criteria on the inclusion of an article (e.g. extinct groups of mammals - WikiProject Mammals or not) - where can I ask these? DaMatriX (talk) 02:06, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

There are many extinct mammals included in this project. BlindEagletalk~contribs 11:56, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
You're welcome to just place the wikiproject template on the talk page. Yes I think extinct mammals should be in it, and large numbers are. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:58, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Beaver article name dispute

The dispute over the page name of the article about North American beavers is alive again. See Talk:American Beaver#Requested move. --Una Smith (talk) 02:25, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Large number of category changes

User RitigalaJayasena‎ (talk · contribs) has been going through several animal articles and changing the sortkey for the categories to read type of animal, X (e.g. Golden jackal's sortkey is now Jackal, Golden so it is listed under J after Jackal at Category:Mammals of Europe). While i understand this reasoning it is a departure from our accepted standard and wanted to know if we should adopt this new standard or ask Ritigala to kindly revert all their changes. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 00:13, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I oppose changing the sort key. If the animal's name is Golden jackal then that is how it should be listed and therefore sorted. If the adjective is not part of its name then it should just be removed. Would you sort Bald Eagle - Eagle, Bald? Just my opinion. BlindEagletalk~contribs 19:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

There are a few important changes to the popular pages system. A quick summary:

  • The "importance" ranking (for projects that use it) will be included in the lists along with assessment.
  • The default list size has been lowered to 500 entries (from 1000)
  • I've set up a project on the Toolserver for the popular pages - tools:~alexz/pop/.
    • This includes a page to view the results for projects, including the in-progress results from the current month. Currently this can only show the results from a single project in one month. Features to see multiple projects or multiple months may be added later.
    • This includes a new interface for making requests to add a new project to the list.
    • There is also a form to request a change to the configuration for a project. Currently the configurable options are the size of the on-wiki list and the project subpage used for the list.
  • The on-wiki list should be generated and posted in a more timely and consistent manner than before.
  • The data is now retained indefinitely.
  • The script used to generate the pages has changed. The output should be the same. Please report any apparent inconsistencies (see below).
  • Bugs and feature requests should be reported using the Toolserver's bug tracker for "alexz's tools" - [5]

-- Mr.Z-man 00:08, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Marco Polo sheep

 Chzz  ►  03:10, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

New speedy deletion criterion for animals

Hi everyone. As this week's Wikipedia Signpost reports, articles about "individual animals" are now candidates for speedy deletion if the article does not indicate why its subject is important or significant.. I have left comments here and I think input from other animal-related wikiproject participants would be helpful. Best regards, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 03:15, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of megafauna

Discussion here may require some input from knowledgeable editors. -- Mattinbgn\talk 02:05, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Capitalization

It would be nice if the WikiProject would decide on whether to capitalize common names of mammals (especially in the article title). Since the Manual of Style suggests to not capitalize them, I propose to do likewise on this page. --Conti|✉ 18:05, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this out. Could you provide some examples and what you think the article titles should be? Regards, BlindEagletalk~contribs 19:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Well, there have been some move requests at Wikipedia:Requested moves that sparked this. Red Fox has been moved to Red fox, Gray Fox to Gray fox and so on. Personally I don't care too much either way, but it would be nice if things would at least be consistent, and not capitalizing common names seems to be what's done in most other places. --Conti|✉ 19:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
This is, I am afraid, a big Pandora's box, as there have been numerous heated discussions about whether to use capitalized or non-capitalized common names for species (see Talk:Thylacoleonidae for one example). In principle, it would be a good idea to resolve this problem one way or the other, but I'm not sure it's worth the fuss it'll undoubtedly cause. Ucucha 19:13, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I know. I just don't see why we can't just follow the MoS when a consensus can't be reached. :) --Conti|✉ 19:27, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for posting some great examples of articles titles that seem to be following the MoS. Can you provide some mammal articles that are not following the MoS and the suggested article title? Regards, BlindEagletalk~contribs 19:59, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Practically all of them. Just have a look at Category:Mammals of Asia, for instance. --Conti|✉ 20:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
So, what you're saying is that Abyssinian Genet should be Abyssinian genet. Correct? BlindEagletalk~contribs 20:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Pretty much, yes. The MoS says that we should not capitalize common names unless there is a consensus on the local Wikiprojects to do so. I don't think that is the case in this case. And everything is better than the current method of "Do however you like it" that is prescribed at this page. --Conti|✉ 20:24, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I agree. We should follow the MoS. I noted the project page says to notify the original author of the redirect and respect the name of the article. However, I think that would imply ownership kind of 'asking permission' per se. I think if you can change the name, you should do so per WP:BOLD. BlindEagletalk~contribs 20:35, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Most of the project members, at least in the past, were happy to follow WP:BIRD and capitalise them. As such the initial comment about "decide on whether to capitalize common names" was decided, and the decision was to do so. Then one day one non-mammal (in an editorial sense, I am fairly sure they were themselves a mammal) editor noticed, sounded his grammar horn and lots of angry grammarians descended to tell the mammal editors that they were wrong. Unaccountably this annoyed the mammal editors (mammal-working editors) who tried to fight off the hordes of grammarians. A great deal of ink was spilt (or keys were punched) at the end of which no consensus could be established about whether there was consensus to change what the editors working on mammals had been doing with said mammals (in a capital way). The editors who hate capitals said there was plenty of people who hate capitals (no doubt true) the mammal project people responded that the editors who worked on mammal articles (instead of looking over their shoulders and snidely commenting on those editors) were happy as they were, thank you very much. Some pages have since been moved, some haven't, the issue is still a major sticking point, so I would caution against bold moving of pages until we can check to see what the consensus is now. In the meantime I suggest you trawl through the archives of talk pages to see some of the arguments pro and con. Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't dispute that summary, but this very page says that there is no consensus on the issue, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals#Capitalization. It does not say that there was a consensus that was questioned, which did not reach a consensus. --Conti|✉ 21:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for your input. I agree that past information should be reviewed before any mass changes should be done. BlindEagletalk~contribs 21:06, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Many of us here are tired of this discussion. My biggest issue is that any moving gets done properly (no cut and paste moves) and a respectful recognition that there are those who have strong opinions in opposition to yours (whatever that may be). I mildly favor capitalization because I do think that's what the long-term consensus is here. Here are prior discussions worth looking into:

--Aranae (talk) 21:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

It would be quite nice to see a consensus among the mammals; WikiProject Primates and WikiProject Cetacea capitalise common names of species but no higher (genera etc.). Jack (talk) 21:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Some consensus would certainly be much better than people moving lots of articles back and forth again, and again, and again. --Conti|✉ 21:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for the links. I just got done reviewing them. There seems to be a lot of discussion about what other projects do. However, doesn't the MOS trump all project naming conventions? BlindEagletalk~contribs 21:21, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
The questions regarding MOS is whether mammals have the same exemption that birds have under "For particular groups of organisms, there are particular rules of capitalization based on current and historic usage among those who study the organisms; for example, official common names of birds." I think that the answer to this question is that such usage is emergent. Capitalization of common names is not universally accepted among mammalogists, but is used in some of the more important works such as Mammal Species of the World 3. I think much of the the point behind capitalization is that common names in mammals are becoming standardized and that the common is (or is becoming) a unique identifier. If I read the argument correctly, as a unique, formal identifier it becomes a proper name and is basically comparable to an order, family, or unranked clade - capitalized. Again, I don't necessarily agree with it, but I think the reference to MOS is best resolved in determining whether mammals are valid exceptions like birds. --Aranae (talk) 21:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for your input. It sounds like the crux of this discussion really hinders and centrailized versus decentralized policy making in regards to naming conventions of articles. I've reviewed several FA-Class articles for mammals and agriculture and both seem to follow the WP:MOS convention. So, it appears that WP:MOS is followed once the article is promoted but below maybe FA-Class it is not. That last part is an assumption as I have not fully researched it. Where or who do we go to for direction on article naming in regards to individual project policy? BlindEagletalk~contribs 12:53, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
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