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Looking for fulltext redux redux...

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
thanks for all the help folks :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:10, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Sigh - my uni only has digital Taxon journal until 2007 - Can anyone get this one? cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:05, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

http://www.dowebsites.net/linv/images/papers_pdf/925_933_pandolfi_online.pdf Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 03:03, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

About a species of shore flies: may help me?

Hi, I'm an editor of articles about flies in it.wiki. I cannot verify the correct name of a shore fly species. This was descripted first from Cresson (1930) as Hecamedoides buccata, next moved to Hydrochasma buccatum. The BioSystematic Database of World Diptera ([1]) report this species with two different names, both as valid names (where's the mistake?): as Discocerina buccatum (Cresson, 1930) ([2]) and Hydrochasma buccatum (Cresson, 1930) ([3]). Hecamedoides buccata is reported as obsolete combination and the report cites Discocerina as valid name ([4]). Various catalogues use alternatively Hydrochasma or Discocerina.

So, Mathis & Zatwarnicki (2008) have given information about the position of this species in the Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington but I cannot access to this article because I have not an account. Who can help me? If there is anyone that access to this article, he must verify what name is reported as valid by Mathis & Zatwarnicki.

Ref: Mathis, W.N.; Zatwarnicki, T (2008). A Revision of the Nearctic Species of Hecamedoides Hendel (Diptera: Ephydridae). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 110(4):1012-1027

thanks --gian_d (talk) 08:56, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I thought I would be able to access this article from work, but I'm afraid it's one of the institutions we don't have a formal deal with. I guess the simplest thing is to e-mail the authors. Petter Bøckman (talk) 12:53, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
so I'll do it, greetings --gian_d (talk) 18:02, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Guidelines on categorization

Usually it's possible to work out how to do things on Wikipedia by following good existing examples. I haven't found this to be possible for categorizing articles on biological taxa, since practice is confused/confusing. To be specific, consider articles on a family, its genera and their species. I would have assumed there should be a category for the family and each of its genera (but NOT each species), with articles being categorized exactly as the taxonomic hierarchy. However, sometimes, but not always, I find that there's a category called by the family name AND one called "FAMILYNAME Genera" and also a category called by the genus name AND one called "GENUSNAME Species". (Very rarely there's a category called by the species name.) Articles on genera and species are then in practice categorized in any one variety of ways:

  • Species as any of: Category:GENUSNAME, Category:FAMILYNAME, Category:GENUSNAME Species . (In plants at least, also as Category:ORDERNAME.)
  • Genera as any of: Category:GENUSNAME, Category:FAMILYNAME, Category:FAMILYNAME Genera. (In plants at least, also as Category:ORDERNAME.)

So far I haven't found any clear guidelines/policy. I'm hoping someone can help! Peter coxhead (talk) 09:53, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

At WP:PRIMATE, we started using common names instead of scientific names (where available) and only created categories where there were sufficient articles to populate it. (See: Wikipedia:WikiProject Primates/Article format#Categories) In fact, we didn't even create family categories, such that the articles ring-tailed lemur, indri, and aye-aye sit in the Category:Lemurs, but commonly named groups, such as sifakas, woolly lemurs, mouse lemurs, etc. have their own categories. But otherwise, the major groups of primates (monkeys, apes, lemurs, etc.) have their own categories. The navigation templates found in nearly article make taxonomic categorization redundant. We were also trying to use everyday English rather than scientific names. – VisionHolder « talk » 13:51, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Interesting, but not of help to me, as I'm dealing with plants, where it's agreed that the norm is scientific names. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:10, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
I only did it once, and I didn't look into any MOS, just looked around for the best examples and followed it. I was recategorizing all turtle species which were still classified under Bataguridae and transferring them to Geoemydidae. Was more concerned with correcting the family though, so I did it like this:
  • For species articles, I categorized them under their respective genera (e.g. Category:Cyclemys)
  • For genus articles, I linked them to their category pages but did not categorize them under their own category (e.g. Category:Cyclemys)
  • For genus categories, I subcategorized them to their family category (e.g. Category:Geoemydidae)
That's about as far as I went. Since I also categorized the family article in the family category (Geoemydidae is categorized under both Category:Geoemydidae and Category:Cryptodira). I got the impression that higher taxa than genera were more generalized categories (since other family categories for example, included their own articles, subfamily articles, tribe articles, etc. in addition to their member genera), i.e. not a hierarchical progression of categories (like how the Automatic Taxobox does it or how Wikimedia Commons does it). And yep quite confusing. :/ Should we be categorizing things successively according to their ranks?--Obsidi♠nSoul 01:39, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
The categories should be structured the same as the commons category system from what I understand. The main problem is multiple users who are not familiar with the structuring system will add things where they first find places and not bother looking further to find the precedents or guidelines. I have reorganized the subcategories in Category:Geoemydidae to reflect how they should be handled.--Kevmin § 02:17, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
Fine. I'm sorry for having attempted to fix them being placed under Category:Bataguridae. Sheesh. I'm getting more and more hesitant to touch articles these days.--Obsidi♠nSoul 05:19, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
My apologies Obsidian Soul! I did not realize how sharp my comment ended up sounding and I was not in anyway directed as a reference to you. I hope you don't take my working to hart, I was hoping the reorganization I did would be useful as a guide, but it appears it looks muck more like a criticism.--Kevmin § 07:00, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, just a bit sensitive about it. I'm still learning my way around, more through osmosis than reading MOS, admittedly. If I find something that looks like it works and is used a lot, I adopt it. While I do make rather big mistakes at times (by virtue of not being an expert on anything biology-related), I do try. And I'd rather be told what I did incorrectly than be slapped around. LOL. Anyway apologies for reading it wrong.--Obsidi♠nSoul 07:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
I hope you don't become hesitant to touch articles: there are too few editors around. User:Kevmin's rather sharp comment seems to miss the point I started with. (1) The precedents for ToL articles are confused/confusing and so unhelpful. (2) Where are the guidelines? Peter coxhead (talk) 06:18, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
Peter I seriously doubt there actually are any guidelines in existence at this point. Categorization is often overlooked by article creators so it has been created slowly over the years with many editing styles and preferences. I would suggest that Obsidian Soul's suggestion of categorizing is the most reasonable method for most cases.--Kevmin § 07:00, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok, so assuming there are no guidelines, here are some thoughts.

  • Articles should only be categorized once in a hierarchy of categories, so there seem to be two consistent models, as shown in the diagram opposite, where the arrowed lines mean "is categorized as".
  • In Model 1, articles are categorized as the next higher category. Thus an article on species Y z is categorized as Category:Y (the genus); an article on genus Y is categorized as Category:X (the family). This makes biological sense, but means that if you start with a category you won't find the article about the topic of that category.
  • In Model 2, articles are categorized on the same level, except for species. Thus an article on species Y z is categorized as Category:Y (the genus); an article on genus Y is also categorized as Category:Y.

There is another model in use in which Category:Y is used for the genus Y and Category:Y_species is used for species such as Y z. I can't see any point in this model myself; it just produces more categories.
I think that Model 2 is the one being recommended by User:Obsidian Soul and User:Kevmin (except that I agree that in terms of WP guidelines on categorization this would be wrong: "Geoemydidae is categorized under both Category:Geoemydidae and Category:Cryptodira").
Views? Peter coxhead (talk) 09:29, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Nice job with the diagrams, heh. And not exactly Model 2. I was leaning towards Model 1 when I first started to recategorize geoemydids but moved to 2 when things got too confusing (mixed signals when looking at the other categories). I ended up combining the two haphazardly.
I wanted Model 1 though, just to clarify, simply because a vast majority of species only have one article each. Unlike Commons which has several files for each species. To avoid having a large number of categories populated by only one article each, species articles should be categorized under their genus. The obvious exceptions are notable subspecies/cultivars/etc. which can not be merged into the main article (like banana cultivars for example). In those cases, I think having a same-level Category:Species would do for the cultivars, but the species itself would still be under Category:Genus (i.e. only make Category:Species for subspecific articles that need it, but still place the main species article under Category:Genus). At least that's what I think.
So yeah... I think I like Model 1 better. It has the same benefits as Model 2 if you use {{Cat main}} templates on each of the category pages. That way category pages will still have links pointing to their main subject.
And yep, Geoemydidae classified under both Category:Cryptodira and Category:Geoemydidae would be wrong. I just simply stopped at that, moving beyond family would mean recategorizing thousands of articles, and I'm not sure I'm that bold nor interested, LOL.--Obsidi♠nSoul 10:00, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
Just realized both models categorize species under genus, LOL, also noticed the arrows linking each cats. Meh, scratch previous reasoning.
The real drawback of Model 2 is that it only contains 1 link (that to its main article, and that can be achieved with {{Cat main}}), and its utility is dependent on navigating the subcats listed under it (which somewhat lessens its usefulness, as opposed to model 1 in which you can directly go to the articles under that particular category without having to go to a subcat).--Obsidi♠nSoul 10:09, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
I'm wondering wether there's any use having categroies following strict taxonomy is usefull? Categories are navigational aids, right? Isn't taxonomic navigation what we have the taxobox for? I would think that categrories that sort organisms according to other criteria would be more usefull? Petter Bøckman (talk) 12:32, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
I agree; the taxobox provides navigation. However, if you create an article without a category, a bot complains, so it seems that like it or not, we have to categorize and for many species, there isn't any obvious way to do so other than via the taxonomic hierarchy. My concern was only that if it has to be done, it should be done consistently. Actually if one of the models above were followed strictly, you do get a list of species in Wikipedia for a genus, a list of genera in Wikipedia for a family, etc.; these are of some value. However, in reality, categorization is so inconsistent for many groups of organisms that I don't think the categories are actually very useful. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:37, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
Never really thought of it that way, and yeah good point. However, we can't just ignore taxonomy as well. It's like ready-made categories after all, and they can happily coexist with non-taxonomy based categorizations. Also, the thing about categories is that they are basically a list of two lists. One of pages, and another of subcategories. We could follow strict taxonomy on subcats and give more leeway to pages (or vice versa) perhaps?
And yeah, seems like everything we've been discussing is in Wikipedia:Categorization. There's even a term for Model 2 categorization proposed. It's tl;dr-ish tho which probably explains why it's all such a mess now. I don't really use categories for navigating ToL articles myself. Prefer the taxoboxes (though they do have huge blanks in some cases). If we had guidelines though, it would probably help.--Obsidi♠nSoul 13:52, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I'd read WP:EPON, amongst other gems. I think you're right that it's Model 2, but it's pretty incomprehensible, to be honest. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:29, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
It looks like the general opinion is leaning towards style two? I think with a liitle effort a lot of the mess could be cleaned relatively easily and a general section on the style used could be placed on the ToL page for easy reference?--Kevmin § 18:29, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
So any decisions on this yet? I came across one deleted genus category by Stemonitis where the component articles were recategorized to under family. Would that be a better alternative instead?-- Obsidi♠nSoul 02:28, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
The problem for me is that there has only been a few of us discussing this: does the absence of others mean indifference or agreement or what? As for categorizing under family, it depends on the size of the family in terms of number of species and how they are distributed among genera. I can see that with a very small family, there's no need for a genus level category. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:17, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
I prefer categories such as Category:Antennariidae as opposed to Category:Genera of Antennariidae, and honestly, I just use whatever categories exist, categorizing them as deeply as possible without creating new categories, as I've always assumed someone else is making those categories. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 01:33, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem for me is that I'm working down the article tree for the Asparagales converting the taxonomy for all genera and species for the 13 families which were demoted to subfamilies in APG III. This means that the existing categories are wrong, because they are for the original families. At first I thought I could just do a 1:1 change, but the categories in use are, frankly, a mess. So I thought I'd see if there are any guidelines for articles on biological taxa. I think those of us who have commented so far are in agreement. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:03, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Call it consensus and run, then. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:42, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
I was hoping to get a response from User:Hesperian, since he seems to have created many of the "Category:family genera" pages for plants, so I posted on his talk page. He's replied there; see User_talk:Hesperian#Categorization_of_plant_articles. I'm trying to understand why he thinks there should be both a category for the family and a category for the family's genera. No-one else who has responded so far seems to think this. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:01, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Weird, it looks like User:Hesperian has two different category trees going. One started for Genera of x taxon level (Category:Iridaceae genera -> Category:Asparagales genera -> Category:Monocot genera) and the regular Category tree that follows the taxonomy. I would be interested in finding out the reson for the genera one. --Kevmin § 00:17, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
See User:Hesperian's reply at User_talk:Hesperian#Categorization_of_plant_articles which does explicitly say that there should be parallel category trees. I'll ask him there if he'll explain here. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:44, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I've now explained the plants-specific categorization issues at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants#Categorization_of_plant_articles, hoping to gain enlightenment there... Peter coxhead (talk) 11:11, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

English grammar and scientific names of taxa

I was sure about this, until I was asked about it at work and now I am at home so cannot access scientific litterature and check. Basically, taxa above genus are Latin plurals. I was assuming they should be referred in the singular given that they are labels of groups in the same way the Alps is singular (despite the urge to write it in plural form). In the same manner I assumed as Alps, all higher ranks could have the definite article "the", while just like mount Blanc, genera and species cannot. Here on wikipedia, the Pseudomonadaceae is a family, while the Proteobacteria are a phylum and so forth. If one checks other proper plural-looking nouns one finds the Welsh Guards which is/are a regiment depending on the paragraph, the Boston Celtics are an NBA, The Glasgow Warriors are a rugby team, while Bath Rugby is a team and Agenda is a list. Something is mention about these in English plural, but it is not helpful. Help anyone?--Squidonius (talk) 06:41, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Well... hm. Bacteria and viruses have always been special though, and their conventions are a bit different from higher lifeforms. You probably should refer to them by their actual Latin number, though maybe you can change it if you used it as a common name (e.g. "Proteobacteria are" -> "a proteobacterium is"; "Streptococcus is" -> "the streptococci are") or used it as an adjective (e.g. "A Proteobacteria species is"). That said, I usually use singular, at least in the lead where I open with a scientific name, then switch to plural mostly for the rest of the article. I dunno if I've ever referred to a higher taxa in plural but when I do I probably used the 'pseudo-common name' thing or just the common name if it exists (e.g. "pholcids are" or "cellar spiders are" instead of "Pholcidae are"; or "tessaratomids are" instead of "Tessaratomidae are")-- Obsidi♠nSoul 07:49, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
Interesting very old discussion on the same thing: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (biology). I also found this for microbio and this for more general SNs.
Synopsis of latter:
Wrong: The Arachnida are found across the world.
Correct: Members of the Arachnida are found across the world.
Explanation: The Arachnida is a taxonomic group- one group - so you cannot talk about it as a plural.
-- Obsidi♠nSoul 08:33, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
It is ironic to say, but I am writing the article Bacterial taxonomy, in which I mention trivialised Latin names (psuedo-common names above and herein), hence I am making a spot of bother out of it. Psuedo-common names should be in roman type and in small case (unless birds, vide supra ☺) so "the Proteobacteria" is the scientific name, so the plural cannot be justified. The latter url by Obsidian is outstanding in that it succinctly summarises common mistakes — it also says common names should not be capitalised. I think this grammatical issue may be present throughout Wikipedia. (On a schadenfreude side of things: the Celtics' article has 7.5k daily views while the most studied prokaryotic phylum, the Proteobacteria has only 300.) --Squidonius (talk) 10:19, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
Somewhat off-topic, but Microsoft urges those writing technical documents to avoid referencing "mice" but to instead say "pointing devices". Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 00:45, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
Mechanomys acaudatus :D -- Obsidi♠nSoul 05:01, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
The ICBN, Article 16.1 says "The name of a taxon above the rank of family is treated as a noun in the plural and is written with an initial capital letter." So, for plants, I believe that, strictly, one should write "Asparagales are ..." and "Angiospermae are ..." but "Asparagaceae is ..." and "Asparagus is ...". This would apply to all groups covered by the ICBN. Don't know about the Zoological Code. When in doubt, the "members of ... are ..." approach seems best. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:16, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
That is very odd. They say: "The name Saccharomycetes (...) is regarded", but advice to say, for example, "The class Saccharomycetes are well known", I am pretty sure that this is badly phrased as most microbiology (formerly part of botany) papers I have looked at just now use it as a singular noun with great variation on the usage of the "the" article. I know that families (and I think orders too) were historically adjectives e.g. Plantae Bacteriaceae, could this be what they mean? "The Proteobacteria are a phylum and is a name meaning varied bacteria" is grammatically impossible. But that is what there seem to be officially written.--Squidonius (talk) 03:16, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
Agreement in number is always tricky in English with nouns which have a collective sense, such as "committee", where both the singular and the plural can be found. Usage changes, and what one English speaker finds acceptable, another does not. There are two different issues here I think.
  • The ICBN is written as though you would use in English the number that applies in Latin, which is a very purist and (to me) old-fashioned approach. For example, some people object to "The data shows ..." on the grounds that "data" is plural in Latin so it should be "The data show ...". But we aren't writing Latin, we're writing English, where words like "data" and "agenda" can be treated as collective nouns, and the same applies to taxon names used 'bare' (e.g. "Asparagales" as opposed to "order Asparagales". So I think that like "committee", English speakers choose singular or plural with bare taxon names depending on the sense: is it something true of the group as a group, when the singular is used, or is it something where the existence of individuals is part of the meaning, when the plural is used. So I might write "the Asparagales is characterized by the possession of phytomelan" but "the Asparagales are extremely diverse with few unifying characteristics".
  • When you use a combination of the rank and name, as in "the class Saccharomycetes" or "the Saccharomycetes class", then I think it's different. The head noun is the rank, which can almost always be treated as singular in modern English (we generally write "the order is" not "the order are"). So here I think the singular is always acceptable.
The core problem is that in modern English the limited uses of number (and gender) are mostly determined by meaning rather than by true grammatical agreement as in most other Indo-European languages. When in doubt, write "members of ... are" or "the taxon ... is" is my advice! Peter coxhead (talk) 10:10, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the interesting points. I am glad I am not the only one that finds this frustrating. Would inclusion of these useful key points in the project page be useful? (not sure where though) --Squidonius (talk) 10:54, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

For future refence

I am still finalising the code to make a nice list of Prokaryotic genera to copy-paste with some tweaks manually into each page (as mentioned above; here is an untweaked example: Acaricomes, will be looking for volunteers soon!). I was working with the etymology, which I hope to make look like this second example Cystobacter and I was hoping to link to wiktionary, but that is not a good idea. I thought I best mentioned my finding here in case someone ever decided in future to do so or someone has advise.

  • red-links to wikt are not red (but blue!)
  • translitterated Greek words are not accepted (and get deleted), but Perseus is good to get the orginal accents.
  • No new entries are allowed (so -monas and -bacter are in wikipedia)

--Squidonius (talk) 00:28, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

This kind of thing has been very problematic in the past (most obviously in the anybot fiasco but that wasn't the first). Every time someone proposes a new one I think "oh, this time maybe it is different this time" (and of course whether LPSN's classification is authoritative is an essential question) but that sentiment has always been wrong so far. Moving on to the style of the created stubs, they are too heavy on the taxonomic and etymological jargon. As for the etymologies, it is a copyright violation anyway in addition to a stylistic problem (see "The information on this page may not be reproduced, republished or mirrored on another webpage or website." on LPSN). As for the bit in parentheses in "namely[2], A. phytoseiuli ( Pukall et al. 2006, sp. nov. (Type species of the genus).; N.L. gen. masc. n. phytoseiuli, of Phytoseiulus, the nomenclatural genus name of the host mite.)" seems like it is redundant with the footnote and can be removed. Kingdon (talk) 13:01, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Some not entirely connected points:
  • I agree with Kingdon that the detail of the etymology is inappropriate for the context. Explaining the meaning of Greek and Latin words is good; stating their gender, etc. is too "heavy" in my view.
  • Another problem is the difference between classical Latin and at least botanical Latin (I don't know about zoological Latin). For example, Hyam & Pankhurst (1993), Plants and their names, a concise dictionary, OUP, claims to be based on usage and gives "major" as a indeclinable adjective meaning "greater" and "majus, -a, -um" with the same meaning. Classical Latin has "major" as masculine and feminine and "majus" as neuter. As an example of "major" being indeclinable, consider Aglaophyton major (classically should be majus); as an example of "majus" being an ordinary 1st declension adjective, consider Stilbonema majum (classically should be majus – νῆμα is neuter). So the comments at Cystobacter re Cystobacter minus being wrong may be true of classical Latin, but may not be true of regular usage of at least botanical Latin.
  • LPSN may say ""The information on this page may not be reproduced, republished or mirrored on another webpage or website" but information cannot be copyrighted only the actual wording. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:38, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. Microbiology in wikipedia is terrible as it is medical dominated and outdated (kingdom Bacteria and Gram stain based sub divisions), so it need a bigger effort than I am giving it (I used to write for WP:MCB, but the content there is much better). I know other sites are better (microbewiki etc) and wiki is dying in its bureaucracy, but wiki is centralised. In an ideal world, each taxon would be already on there, but we must start somewhere: genera have a taxobox which can be reduced up the ranks and expanded for species.
  • So my aim is to get a framework up, not have a complete set of articles.
  • Regarding the copyright I am hoping to wiggle my way out by expanding/paraphrasing the text, so that is not an issue.
  • Given the fact, that I studied back at school Greek and Latin, I quite like having the extra grammatical details (and having the Greek words actually written in Greek, which needs manual curation), but you are right there is too much relative to the quantity of text. So I'll strip it of all feminine gender, noun, adjective etc.
  • How much manual extra text would be needed to not be deleted? Starting this week, I have no free time so I want to get this task on its feet asap.
  • Once the output is okay, shall I move the list from my page to a subpage in this/microbiology Wikiproject?

--Squidonius (talk) 22:47, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Okay, the naysayers were right. I gave it my best shot, but it is too much tedious hard work, so I am giving up. As said before, if anyone wants to do any genus please do so (link to lists) and if anyone wants me to move the lists out of my namespace please say to where. --Squidonius (talk) 05:54, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Fishy numbering

While uploading old images of fishes from the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, I notice that the number of illustrations is often inverted. It is of course known that the lithographic process produces left-right mirroring but this up - down inversion of numbering looks rather odd. And there are even plates that seem to have gotten exchanged. Is there something that one must look out for ? I hope someone knowledgeable of fishes and hopefully with administrative rights on commons can fix these problems. Shyamal (talk) 02:27, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Shouldn't they simply be removed so as to leave only the illustration? Captions will do well enough if descriptions are needed, otherwise, lettering (particularly those referring to plate number, etc.) are unnecessary.-- Obsidi♠nSoul 13:55, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
Yes, can be removed once someone is sure the identifications are right. Shyamal (talk) 02:10, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
My guess would be that the plates were scanned onto the same page, probably in whatever sequence they fit on the page. I'd trust the numbers, though perhaps not the man who identified the specimen. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 06:25, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
the folks at http://www.biodiversitylibrar.org do a great job of scanning the pages as they are. Shyamal (talk) 10:45, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Taxa in disguise revisited

I have moved the article on "taxa in disguise" from "Paraphyletic taxa", making the latter a redirect to paraphyly. The groups in the "taxa in disguise" articles are not paraphyletic, it is their parent taxa who are. I have removed all animal references, as the expression seems to be an exclusive bacteriology expression. Petter Bøckman (talk) 16:42, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I have done some extensive copyediting on the article, it should be kosher now. Petter Bøckman (talk) 11:36, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Paleontology

I just noticed that the related wikiprojects didn't include wikiproject paleontology, it seems quite connected to the tree of life :) I was going to make a similar comment on the paleontology page, but I see that it already links here. EdwardLane (talk) 17:57, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Added, thanks. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 02:56, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

How many taxoboxes are there on the English wikipedia?

Because this article here from 2006 says 16,000. By now it must be many more than that. Anyone have an idea of a more upto date number? Antarctic-adventurer (talk) 10:17, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Category:Articles with 'species' microformats contains 185,992 articles; I think that should largely correspond with the number of articles with taxoboxes (or race horse infoboxes, apparently). Ucucha 10:40, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Ucucha. So basically, does this means that there are currently around 180,000 different species covered with their own article page on the English WP currently? Antarctic-adventurer (talk) 12:11, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, in that category there's an unknown (but probably fairly low) proportion of articles that don't have a taxobox, but a race horse infobox (and perhaps other infoboxes). Also, many articles with taxoboxes are not about species, but about taxa with higher or lower ranks. Still, I think the number of species is likely over 100,000. Ucucha 13:05, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
There are also nearly 100 articles known to not have taxoboxes, and we don't know how many others there are without. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 16:34, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
There's actually a tool for counting transclusions. {{Taxobox}} is transcluded 178,916 times and {{Automatic taxobox}} 2525 times. Those numbers will include some non-articles. Ucucha 16:01, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
Additionally, there are 640 {{speciesbox}}es, 127 {{ichnobox}}es, 34 {{oobox}}es, 7 {{subspeciesbox}}es, and 5 {{virusbox}}es. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 20:02, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Seeking a UK Wikipedian for a Summer placement

In the Summer of 2011, Wikimedia UK and ARKive are colloborating on a project to improve Wikipedia's coverage of threatened species. This will involve recruiting a fixed-period in-residence role that we are calling Wikipedia Outreach Ambassador. This will be a volunteer, with access to desk space at ARKive's offices in Bristol and with travel and subsistence supported by Wikimedia UK. Their role will require both on-wiki activity and involving the wider community through online and offline events. If you can attend meetings in Bristol, and are interested in both wildlife and free knowledge, please visit the project page for further details. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:39, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Binomial nomenclature

I have now finished the content of a major re-structure and re-write to Binomial nomenclature. I intend to add more inline references which it still needs. I would welcome any comments and assistance with referencing and further editing.

The aims were:

  • To improve its clarity and accuracy; the article was previously very 'bitty' and not always correct for both the zoological and botanical codes
  • To improve its adherence to an encyclopaedic style (i.e. not full of loosely connected bullet points)
  • To make it a general introduction, as far as possible independent of the different codes – there is a separate article for Specific name (zoology) and there will eventually be one for Specific name (botany)
  • To keep its focus on binomial nomenclature (interpreted here as "naming species") and not stray into the names of families, taxa below species, etc. except in a small section devoted to this.

Possible issues:

  • The article should use American spelling; I've tried to maintain this, but I'm British, so please correct any mistakes I've made in this respect.
  • My main interest now is botany, so I know more about botanical than zoological nomenclature. I've tried to make as much of the article as possible code-neutral, only differentiating where I had to. It would be good if zoologists could check I've got it right.
  • My background is in writing at university level. My style may be too technical for what this article should be – note that it's included in a CD aimed at schools.

I think the article is now better than C-class, but will leave this to someone else to alter if they agree. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:40, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Extended clade template

Some editors might be interested in {{Cladex}}, an eXtended version of {{Clade}}. This allows coloured brackets or bars to be drawn to the right of leaf nodes in a cladogram, thus allowing paraphyletic groups to be identified. Unfortunately I can't yet find a way of automatically labelling these brackets/bars, but as they can be of any colour, a key can be provided. An example is:

embryophytes

tracheophytes

hornworts

mosses

liverworts

where the green bracket marks the "bryophytes".

NOTE As with {{Clade}}, the display of the cladogram depends on how your browser lays out tables. Please report any bugs with particular browsers at Template_talk:Cladex. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:25, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


Thanks! I've put it to use in the articles Monkey and Prosimian. – VisionHolder « talk » 15:55, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Nice to see such immediate use! It offends my sense of aesthetics that the vertical bar is so far to the right in the Prosimian cladogram, but I can't see any way of fixing this. I've been messing around with a version in my user space for quite some time, but decided today to take the plunge and make it public. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:00, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Paraphyletic groups can also be highlighted another way using the standard {{Clade}} template, like so. mgiganteus1 (talk) 22:09, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
embryophytes

tracheophytes

hornworts

mosses

liverworts

bryophytes
Sure, and this is still a very useful method. (By the way, the caption to the arthropod cladogram should surely say "Possible phylogenetic ..." since there are other well-supported phylogenies, some more recent.) The real advantage of the bracket method is the possibility of labelling, which I've been working on. I realize that I should have written above "I can't yet find a way of automatically labelling these brackets/bars" (I've amended it now). Labelling can be done "by hand", as below, but I'd like to be able to automate it a bit more. It's important for access reasons not to rely entirely on colour to indicate groupings. Once you have more than one paraphyletic group, it's hard to find shadings which can be distinguished by the relatively high proportion of people with anomalous colour vision. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:40, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
I have nicked your bryophyte cladogram for the evolutionary grade and bryophytes articles. It looks good in Opera too. Petter Bøckman (talk) 08:57, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Labels: testing help needed I have an experimental template which seems to label groups which have been given brackets/bars. I've had trouble getting it to work reasonably well with different browsers/platforms. As a Mac user, I have limited access to Windows operating systems. If anyone has access to old versions of IE (IE6, IE7) or is using older versions of other browsers under Windows, could you please look at User:Peter_coxhead/Test/Clade#Tests_of_Barlabel and let me know whether the labels are displayed correctly, i.e. more-or-less vertically central to the groups with brackets/bars? Thanks. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:14, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the dumb question, by display incorrectly you mean like Chrome on windows or Safari in Mac or is it something else? --Squidonius (talk) 07:32, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
Not a dumb question; I wasn't as clear as I could have been about what I'm checking. I'm not talking about the difference between those browsers which put all the 'start lines' at the top, like Safari, and those which put the 'start lines' vertically centred, like Firefox. I want to know whether the text which is the same colour as the brackets/bars is lined up correctly. The first cladogram at User:Peter_coxhead/Test/Clade#Tests_of_Barlabel has some green text which says "This text should be more-or-less opposite A3"; is it in old browsers? Ditto is the purple text more-or-less opposite a point between G1 and G2? All the text which labels the brackets/bars should be vertically centred with respect to the bracket/bar, within about half a line or so, depending on the browser. If it's more out than this with e.g. IE7 or even IE6 then probably the template shouldn't be released for general use yet. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:06, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
I love it! However, I won't be at work (were we run IE6!) again until Wednesday, but I will try to remember and take a look then. As a reminder, could you please post something about it on my talk page on Wednesday morning? – VisionHolder « talk » 20:12, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
Ok, my morning (GMT + 1hr) or yours (don't know your time zone)? Btw, I do know in principle how to fix the difference between the two groups of browsers. The manually constructed cladogram at User:Peter_coxhead/Test/Clade#Manual_fix_for_browser_difference looks the same in Safari and Firefox on my Mac. It would be interesting to know how it looks in IE6 (which is still much more widely used than it should be). Unfortunately, I don't know how to make a template apply my fix automatically. I could write a version of {{cladex}} which used this method, but the person using the template would have to supply a count of the leaf nodes in each child subclade, which seems tedious. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:28, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, hopefully it works well. I'm on EST in the US (GMT - 4hr, I believe). – VisionHolder « talk » 21:56, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
This may be helpful, but only renders the top part of the screen, so some bare test pages may need to be created. Shyamal (talk) 08:49, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks!! Assuming it works accurately, which I guess it must do, that's a very useful site. Moving small examples to their own pages and trying them suggests that the template works in all the versions of IE (but it's still worth VisionHolder trying it on the real thing). Peter coxhead (talk) 10:15, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
On IE6, your test page displays just fine. I notice no significant differences between what I see here at work and what I see at home (on the latest version of Firefox). – VisionHolder « talk » 16:58, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, good to know this; it also confirms the accuracy of this site. Now if I could find a way of automatically rather than manually fixing the difference between the two groups of browsers exemplified by Firefox and Safari, the browser problem for cladograms would be licked. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:21, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I tried explaining the clade template here Help:Table#Cladograms as there didn't seem to be any documentation anywhere but an example was given (with no detail) in the manual of style for tables. I also tried using the clade template for tribal groups here and it seemed to work ok there. I managed to create this as a starting point.

The Borana
Samaalo
Walaabuu
Rayyaa

Karrayyuu

Walloo

Macca_Oromo

Sirba

Libaan

Jaawwii

Daal'ee

Jiddaa

subitem2

subitem3

subitem2

subitem3

Ormaa

subitem2

subitem3

But perhaps there is some documentation somewhere and if so can someone point at it ? Or can someone extend (and tidy up) the bit I wrote in the help section please. Possibly including the cladeX info too EdwardLane (talk) 12:22, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

There's full documentation at {{Clade}} and {{Cladex}}, so I don't quite understand your comment (although there's not as much on what to avoid as you have). Templates are always documented (or should be) at the "Template:name-of-template" page. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:33, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Peter - I didn't know where to look for the documentation, wikipedia is very simple if you know where to look, but sometimes finding the generic pattern of where to look is not really obvious. Thanks again EdwardLane (talk) 06:32, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
I agree that it's often very hard to find where to look! So where did you look for documentation on using the clade template? If you can remember, then put links/explanations there. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:04, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Looking for a source

I remember reading this in a journal last summer; a researcher kept a captive brown recluse for five seasons with no food. Unfortunately, I've graduated and no longer have access to the journal databases. Can someone track this down? Thanks! Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 17:17, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Any idea what journal that is? Ican have a look if you give mesome more to go on. Petter Bøckman (talk) 17:22, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
A Google scholar search turned up Lowrie, D. C. 1980. Starvation longevity of Loxosceles laeta (Nicolet) (Araneae). Entomol. News 91: 130–132. However, it doesn't seem to be online and it's quite old. When you say that you read it in a journal last summer, do you mean a newly published article? Peter coxhead (talk) 19:21, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
It was most likely hosted by JSTOR when I read it. Thanks! Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 02:54, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Text online: [5]. If you can't access it, I can download it and e-mail it to you. Petter Bøckman (talk) 06:52, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm, that's not the one, but thanks. The one I had read specifically mentioned "five seasons" and was about L. reclusa, though I'm not sure if there were any words in between those the words "five" and "seasons". But thanks for trying! Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:05, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Horner, N.V. & Stewart, K.W. (1967). "Life history of the brown spider, Loxosceles reclusa, Gertsch and Muliak". Texas Journal of Science. 19: 333.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:16, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to assist in adding donated content: GLAM/ARKive

Hi,

I am the Wikipedia Outreach Ambassador to ARKive, who have kindly agreed to donate an initial 200 article texts about endangered species from their project, to Wikipedia, under a CC-BY-SA license. Details are on the GLAM/ARKive project page. Your help, to merge the donated texts into articles, would be appreciated. Guidelines for doing so are also on the above page. Once articles have been expanded using the donated texts, we are also seeking assistance in having those articles translated into other languages. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns, on the project's talk page, or my own. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:51, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

GA review for Linnaeus

The GA review for Linnaeus has begun. If you can help, please "watch" the review page and assist as you can. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:32, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Maniraptorans are early birds, not reptiles!

Well, I have just noticed that, on all Maniraptoran articles, they are classified as REPTILES. Seriously? I mean, come on! Meanwhile, only Avialians are properly classified, as birds. However, in my opinion, the dividing line between Reptilia and Aves should be much earlier, at the split between the Maniraptora, and the Maniraptoriformes. ALL Maniraptorans should be in the class Aves! However, they are still dinosaurs. You see, I am not one of those idiots who believe that birds are not dinosaurs. Although I WON'T mention any names… *cough*Alan Feduccia*cough*

Instead, I believe that all birds are still dinosaurs, but Maniraptorans are also birds, because, in my opinion, they are much too similar too birds to warrant a classification in the Reptilia. You see, the thing here is, I subscribe to the Birds Came First (BCF) Hypothesis, which was originally proposed by George Olshevsky. However, I employ it in a slightly less radical sense of the word. I don't believe that ALL dinosaurs were descended from flying bird ancestors, but, instead, only the Maniraptorans.

Now, on the same topic, I would also like to discuss the classification of ALL dinosaurs, here, on Wikipedia. You see, I think that there should be three main amniotic classes: The Synapsida (mammals and their relatives), the Sauropsida (all other reptiles, both anapsid and synapsid, including all non-Maniraptoran dinosaurs), and the Aves (birds, which also includes all Maniraptorans). Aves, however, evolved from the Dinosauria, so they are still definitely considered dinosaurs. But, the thing is, they are also birds, too!

And, so, that is why I proposed this brand-new classification system, for the Dinosauria! So, what do you think of it? Cheers! :D! Mozzyepic24 (Talk). 11:35, 24 July, 2011. (UTC).

Wikipedia is not the place to propose new classifications. If you want your classification to be accepted, write a manuscript and send it to the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology or so. If it gets published, we talk again. Ucucha 16:39, 24 July 2011 (UTC)


Question regarding phylogenetic tree data

Hi, I'm an amateur who would like to access raw phylogenetic tree data for my own visualizations for educational purposes. While browsing these pages, I couldn't quite orientate myself regarding how I could get my hands on the raw "tree of life" data, as in including the main species, estimated time of branching off and of course with greater granularity down on the mammals. If anyone could point me in the right direction I'd appreciate a comment or an email to cj.sveningsson@gmail.com . Great thx! CarlJohanSveningsson (talk) 21:13, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I doubt such data have been compiled in a usable form. Ucucha 21:23, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
The other problem is that there isn't a single consensus tree of life. Look at the Eukaryote article, for example. There are some groups where there is a reasonable consensus (e.g. the phylogeny on which the APG III system is based), but others where it is still unclear. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:12, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

If you navigate by taxobox you will perceive the Tree of Life that already exists on Wikipedia. How do we draw it and make the model usable? Some kind of "drawbot" or something? It's like a sphere with branches leading to a central node. It's like the nodes and branches on models that network systems guys use. It shouldn't be too hard, the connections are all there already and there've got to be "drawbots" or some such out there already that can do this. It will be beautiful, awesome, and practically useful for navigating taxobox articles. Please help! Chrisrus (talk) 15:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

(Removed misplaced help template, you are already asking in the correct place)
You mean something like the image to the right?
Yes, they are images. That one was generated from the Interactive Tree of Life site. I think it uses javascript. It uses Adobe Flash, hence unusable for Wikipedia.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 16:20, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
I had started making something like this, here, but the WP API that I am using seems to be broken. I'm hoping to redo this when I get some time so it works better, but a fancy circular UI is probably not something I have time for. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:37, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
This gives the automatic taxobox intitiative an even bigger purpose! As anyone in the WP:TAXFORCE can tell you, the "monophyletic" tree is more complicated than it looks, but I think it's the best model we have for populating such a diagram. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 17:58, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand everything you've been saying because I'm not a techie or an expert, but there already is such a tree on wikipedia: you can perceive it when you navigate by taxobox. I feel myself going up and down branches and I say, let it take any shape it wants. Just start hooking them up one line at a time and the thing will draw itself. It seems like something a bot could do easily; it's just a "connect the dots". Then we can look at it and criticize it if we want and do whatever but it's really just taking something that already exists and has a shape and just making it visable. It will be greater than any of the other such "trees" at the other sites that are mentioned on the page this discussion page corresponds to, because none of those have nearly as many taxa or as much information about them as Wikipedia does. Chrisrus (talk) 20:36, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, I was also planning on a button you could press to generate a filled-out {{cladogram}}. Please take a look at my link above, and ignoring the error popups let me know if you have any other ideas! Thanks, ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:18, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Bob—yeah, I'm using the taxonomy templates for it. But the APIs I wrote to are pretty jacked up right now as far as I can tell, so it doesn't really work. My next plan is to store an offline database and keep it up to date by polling changes to anything under "Template:Taxonomy". ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:16, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Be clear that what is encoded in the taxoboxes is not a tree, but a much more complex network, since different and inconsistent taxonomies are in use all over the place (some may be errors but most are due to differences in sources). This is true of both the manual and the automated taxoboxes. So I suspect it's much more difficult to trace the links and then draw them than might be thought. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:55, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
But each taxonomy template has one parent. :) Wikipedia says "any connected graph without cycles is a tree." I don't think we have any cycles. If we do we should fix them, but I doubt we do. When I build my database I plan to check for things like this. To your point, though, one tricky thing is the "dummy" templates. Consider Template:Taxonomy/Cetacea/Mammalia and Template:Taxonomy/Cetacea. The tree viewer app will have to merge these intelligently, and I think this is generally possible/straightforward. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 22:27, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Each taxonomy template has one parent. But even within the automatic taxobox system each taxon does not have to have one parent. I can set up Template:X/variant1 and Template:X/variant2 and link them to totally different parents. Would this be legitimate? Yes if X is a high level taxon, because the consensus classification of different groups at these levels varies markedly at present between different disciplines: e.g. paleobotanists put the divisions (phyla) much higher up than do current taxoboxes for extant plants; the Lewis & McCourt (2004) classification of algae puts divisions (phyla) even higher; the bird/dinosaur issue is not completely settled; etc. So even if the hierarchy of clades is the same, the rank of the clades can be quite different, which if every taxobox is converted to the automatic system will require variants such as "X/phylum" whose parent is a kingdom, say Z, and "X/clade" whose parent is a phylum, say Y, which then has the same kingdom Z as its parent. So there's a cycle as both of these exist: X – Kingdom Z and X – Phylum Y – Kingdom Z.
So even without considering manual taxoboxes, there can legitimately be cycles. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:32, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
I tried to address some of that with my Cetacea example above. X and X/foo and X/bar will be squished into X, which will have all the children of all 3 X templates. And only one parent, presumably that of the X template. Does that make sense? I suspect I will have to either modify this algorithm or the taxonomy templates somewhat; we'll see how it goes. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 03:41, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
The question then is why you would choose one parent over another. It's not right to simply choose the X template, since this is just the first one set up – later ones necessarily have to have a "variant" attached to the name. So you might be choosing older, out-dated taxonomies over newer, more soundly-based ones. A 'automatic taxonomy' viewer has to show ALL the taxonomy embedded in the taxonomy templates, which means that it has to be able to show multiple parents, i.e. not just trees. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:22, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
We don't have "alternate" parents cleanly encoded in our taxonomy templates. In the Cetacea example, the shim with the alternate parent is there simply so two orders won't show up in dolphin taxoboxes. That's it. Simlilarly for Template:Taxonomy/Avialae/skip. So in those cases, I certainly want to squash and pick one. Note that in both cases the one without the "/something" should be picked. You're talking about a more high level concern; how to display the tree where its shape is disputed? My plan was to just "pick one". But I suppose if we had some consistent convention for showing alternate taxonomies, then you could expose those in a tree viewer. But again, I don't think we do have a consistent/unambiguous way of doing that. You say "So you might be choosing older, out-dated taxonomies over newer, more soundly-based ones"—but how can I tell from the templates which is sound and which is outdated? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 13:13, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

You can't. And of course both may be sound. It's not that the shape is "disputed", more that the consensus in some areas is inconsistent with the consensus in others. Which is why I say that your tool must be able to display both parents.

I agree that we don't have a consistent way of showing alternative taxonomies, nor of setting up the taxonomy templates when there are alternatives. As you note, sometimes the alternatives are just fudges, but other times they will represent genuine differences of view. There aren't many such cases in existence yet in areas of the ToL which I know about, because only a small minority of articles have been converted to the automated system, but there will certainly be more in future. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:05, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. Well, the information to do what you suggest is not in the templates right now, as far as I know. Right; there are only 8 or 9 thousand templates right now, as far as I can tell. Can you give me a concrete example where a tree viewer ought to show two parents? It might be worth figuring out how to annotate the templates to support this. Thanks, ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:47, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
Yes, it's good to look at specific example. Because of my interests this will be from plants, though I'm sure the same can be done elsewhere in the ToL.
Suppose I decide to automate the taxoboxes in all the articles about algae. The most accessible full classification for various groups of algae is at AlgaeBase; it's supported by references and is broadly in line with other published taxonomies, such as Lewis & McCourt 2004. So I implement its hierarchy for the algal order Charales (stoneworts). The hierarchy is Order Charales – Class Charophyceae – Infrakingdom Streptophyta – Subkingdom Viridiplantae (we seem to have preferred this spelling over Viridaeplantae which AlgaeBase uses) – Kingdom Plantae – Domain Eukaryota (AlgaeBase uses Empire but we've preferred Domain). So I set up the taxonomy templates accordingly and put an automatic taxobox in the Charales article. It will show the 'major' ranks, i.e. Order Charales – Class Charophyceae – Kingdom Plantae. Everything will look fine.
Now suppose I or someone else decides to automate the hierarchy in the taxobox of the Plantae article (which is also well sourced). The hierarchy is Kingdom Plantae – clade Archaeplastida – Domain Eukaryota.
So there will need to be two templates, e.g. "Template:Taxonomy/Plantae/v1" with parent Domain Eukaryota, and "Template:Taxonomy/Plantae/v2" with parent clade Archaeplastida.
The problem is caused by the facts that (1) the same taxon has different names and ranks – Subkingdom Viridiplantae in the first hierarchy has the same circumscription as Kingdom Plantae in the second, and Kingdom Plantae in the first hierarchy has the same circumscription as clade Archaeplastida in the second, and (2) a taxon with the same name and rank in the two hierarchies (Plantae) has different circumscriptions.
There seems no way round this problem. We could pick one name in each ambiguous case and use it in both hierarchies. For example, we could alter the AlgaeBase hierarchy to Order Charales – Class Charophyceae – Infrakingdom Streptophyta – Subkingdom Plantae – Kingdom Archaeplastida – Domain Eukaryota. But (a) this is WP:SYNTH – no source gives this hierarchy, and (b) you still need two taxonomy templates for Plantae, one for the Subkingdom and one for the Kingdom. We could choose one hierarchy over the other. But (a) both are perfectly well sourced (b) there's no consensus among editors.
So I can only say again that it seems to me that if we ever get round to automating all the taxoboxes, a taxonomy browser will have to be able to handle such cases. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:40, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
In this example, it will probably end up looking like viridiplantae->plantae(kingdom)->archaeplastida(?), but it sounds like that isn't fully correct. The state of things now appears to be totally jacked. (If I finish my tool, it will be easier to see.) ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:49, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
I suspect the length of my reply above not unreasonably led to "tldr" (an acronym I think I got from Bob). :-) "viridiplantae->plantae(kingdom)->archaeplastida(?)" is utterly wrong because two of the three meanings of "Plantae" are (1) Viridiplantae (2) Archaeplastida. This is ok: "viridiplantae->plantae(kingdom)" because then Plantae=Archaeplastida. This is ok: "plantae->archaeplastida(kingdom)" because then Plantae=Viridiplantae. But the combination isn't. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:35, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Right, that's why I said "it sounds like that isn't fully correct". But what should Viridiplantae's parent be on its taxobox? Plantae, right? (It isn't now.) And what should Plantae's be? Archaeplastida? If you wanted to make those taxoboxes, then it might be simplest to set the templates up how I said. But hopefully we would do something less completely wrong. In any case, right now, the templates here, if viewed as a tree, appear to be totally wrong in yet another way. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 04:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
On this specific issue, there's a discussion at Talk:Viridiplantae about merging with Plantae, so its taxobox may get resolved. Given that at present the two articles say that Viridiplantae = Plantae, they are synonyms and should have the same parent, i.e. clade Archaeplastida. This is another issue on Wikipedia: we sometimes have two (or more) articles for the same taxon under different names. Sigh... Peter coxhead (talk) 08:18, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

By the way, I hope it's clear that I'm very much in favour of a taxonomy viewer; I just want it to be able to handle the situation as it is and not as we might want it to be. I've just been sorting out the automatic taxoboxes for Rotifera, which were a complete mess – not only an out-of-date classification, but also taxa declared to be the wrong rank (e.g. orders above classes). It took me much longer than I expected. It would have been very helpful to have been able to see the complete network (not tree! :-)) as it was before I started and as it was afterwards. Without a viewer, it's like walking in the dark with a small flashlight: you can only see a short way ahead and behind, but you need to see further to find your way. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:18, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

What's TLDR? Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 21:44, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, Bob, clearly I didn't get it from you! Why not look it up in Wikipedia? Say at TLDR. :-) Peter coxhead (talk) 22:34, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
Eh, that's too long; didn't read. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 22:37, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

If there's something I or anyone can help you all with, please don't hesitate to ask

You speak of things seeming like a lot of work. I worry about that, and wish I could help, but think I probably can't. I'm just a user, but if there is some tedious repetative work that requires no particular background or skills let me know. Also, I could try finding you help in another way. Is there a place on wikipedia where this kind of project can be worked on publically? If not, there should be. I greatly appreciate what you all are doing and wish I could either help directly or help by finding you help from someone who can. In sum, please let me know if there's anything I can do, as an interactive map of the existing Wikipedian Tree of Life, perceptable now when I navigate up and down tree branches by taxobox, would not only be one of my personal favorite playthings but potentially very practically useful, even very important, not to mention beautiful. Chrisrus (talk) 17:26, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Making more taxonomy templates will make any such application more compelling! And there's testing. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:52, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Something I used to love doing was watching for new species to be described. I'd quickly rush to Wikipedia and make a stub with a taxobox and as much information as I could about that new species. Use an automatic taxobox on these stubs (if you need help, please don't hesitate to ask us!), and you'll be doing us a favor by helping build the database. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:34, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
It would be nice to say that you could help by converting existing manual taxoboxes to automatic ones, but there's no consensus for this (yet) and quite a few editors ready to object, so Bob's right: stick to new articles! Peter coxhead (talk) 19:44, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
It's obviously most helpful to create them for articles missing taxoboxes, but you can still create templates for taxa that do have taxoboxes. You can even test them; just don't "save page" on the article. If you do save, make sure it looks the same! This is probably most useful for higher-level taxa; then when someone does add an automatic taxobox for a lower-level taxon underneath, they won't have so much work to do. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:48, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Are there explicit instructions for doing this? Chrisrus (talk) 13:28, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, take a look at {{Automatic_taxobox}}; if anything is unclear please post a question at the relevant talk page there! Thanks, ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:52, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
Also, we've got a to-do list at WP:TAXFORCE you could help out with. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 21:46, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Views sought on browser variation in cladogram display

As is well-known, the current versions of {{clade}} (and {{cladex}}) display cladograms better in one group of browsers (Firefox/IE) than in another (Safari/Opera/Chrome). I thought I knew how to fix this manually, and have been spending quite a bit of time working on automating this.

However, yesterday I learnt that IE9 is different from IE6–IE7 (some 'quirks' in its handling of CSS have been fixed, but not all). So my manual solution doesn't work for IE9 (see the test cladograms here). A full fix seems likely to require requesting changes to MediaWiki:Common.js and/or MediaWiki:Common.css.

What I'd like to know is whether the work involved would be worthwhile. How many people are really bothered by the browser difference? Of course, we can't tell how many readers are affected, but I'd like to know editors' views before I decide whether to continue working on this. Please add your comments below; thanks. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:15, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if I'd be bothered by the browser differences or not. I personally use IE most often and Firefox the rest of the time. I have Safari and Crome and could use them if prompted. Like, if it said "If you are having trouble using this, switch to another browser", it'd be easy for me to do that. I think this is true of most people who use laptops and such, so I don't think it's worth too much trouble. On the other hand, what about people with the new I-Pads and other screen based computers, as well as smartphone app users? Is it as easy for them to swap browsers? When this computer reaches it's end, I was thinking of getting an I-pad, as it seems to be the way things are going, so maybe you should consider the trends and make the safer choice for the long term. I hope this helps! Chrisrus (talk) 17:26, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
The iPad is good point; I assume it has a version of Safari, on which the cladograms don't look so good. Um... If MediaWiki:Common.js and/or MediaWiki:Common.css need changing to fix it, there needs to be strong support to have a chance of getting the change accepted.
I use Aurora. (That's the alpha release of Firefox.) It looks great on Aurora. I occasionally use other browsers, but I don't expect them to render things the same anyway. Long as Aurora does it, I'm happy. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:31, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Being a safari user and a chrome user on a PC, I have fully got used to the wonky view and do not mind it. I am more glad there is the template clade that annoyed at the look: without it, it'd be svgs or bizarre graphs like the one here. Thanks for the template, it is great!--Squidonius (talk) 02:34, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Plagiarism...

I hate to be a snitch and I have no idea what the protocol is, but I though I'd notify anyway. I found a page, Dehalococcoidetes, edited by a recently prolific user which had a plagiarised paragraph (gen. nov. and sp. nov. giving it away) (link to old article before I reformatted it). --Squidonius (talk) 07:40, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

To have or not to have a taxobox?

I am sure it is written somewhere, so sorry for asking. Most obsolete taxa do not (i.e. the kindgom Monera or the genus Bacterium), so I take that to be the ruling. however, some disputed/unofficial taxa have a taxobox (i.e. Planctobacteria), while other do not (i.e. Terrabacteria). Should they all have taxoboxes? --Squidonius (talk) 22:35, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Good question. Also, articles such as porcupine shouldn't have taxoboxes. Chrisrus (talk) 22:51, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
An article should have an taxobox if and only if it is about a taxon. Hesperian 07:40, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes, and when a common name referent doesn't correspond to a taxon, as with porcupine, there shouldn't be a taxobox. Old World porcupine and New World porcupine have taxoboxes, but the page about the general concept of "pocupine" has been given a taxobox for the smallest taxon to which they both belong, which I just think is isn't good for other reasons but will also screw up the ToL diagram. Chrisrus (talk) 13:50, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Someone removed the taxobox from Pelycosauria because an article used the name in quotes (pelycosaurs being paraphyletic and all). It is however a perfectly valid taxon. Are there clear rules on this? Petter Bøckman (talk) 08:53, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Pelycosauria seems to be a former taxon. I know of no rules, but one could make a case for former taxa (e.g. Archonta) and tentative phylogenetic hypotheses (e.g. the competing ways of splitting up arthropods) not having taxoboxes. Lavateraguy (talk) 09:25, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
I'd say that generally, we remove taxoboxes from formerly recognized taxa. WP:PLANTS does this for taxa that are no longer recognized, e.g. Illiciales. There are also examples of where taxoboxes had been added to groups of species that share a common name but have no formal recognition as a taxon, e.g. Arran Whitebeams. I also once removed a taxobox from fancy rat, which clearly should never have had one. And if I remember correctly, there was debate on whether or not Homo floresiensis should have a taxobox. I would remove the taxobox from porcupine as a clear example of when a taxobox should not be used. Rkitko (talk) 15:54, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm sure we can all agree that taxoboxes are appropriate only for articles about taxa, whether under their scientific or common names. The problem comes with the "formerly recognized". WP:PLANTS has agreed to use the APG III system for angiosperms, so the decision about Illiciales is thereby rendered easy. In other areas, competing classifications are still in use, and deciding which is "former" is not so easy. I might well say that the use of Charophyta as a name for a paraphyletic group of green algae, as the article does, is obsolete – all sources after about 2003 that I can find use a monophyletic group, either called Charophyta or Streptophyta. However, the same sources don't accept any of the embryophyte divisions in the Plantae taxobox, so are these all "former"?
The reality, which many Wikipedia editors seem to want to deny, is that whole swathes of the tree of life have no agreed taxonomy. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:16, 6 August 2011 (UTC)


I've removed the taxobox from slug several times, but it kept reappearing until someone added the taxobox look-alike {{paraphyletic group}}. Hesperian 00:00, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Nice! Never seen that before - could be very useful...especially for a bunch of common name bio articles....Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:35, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
I wonder if it might be better if it was made more obvious that it's for a paraphyletic group. Just as an example, suppose there were a consensus to change Charophyta to the monophyletic group of Lewis & McCourt (2004). How would the new taxobox look different? It seems to me that the change wouldn't be noticed by most readers. Maybe that's a good idea? Any ideas or views on making the difference clearer? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:15, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
What if there were another template for former taxa, like paraphyletic group, that makes it clear it is a former taxa?
What about taxa proposed by a single author and not followed by anyone? For example, in Microbiology, Cavalier-Smith has coined umpteen dozen names: as they completely disagree with molecular phylogeny they are largely ignored — many of these name however have taxoboxes. That would be a ToL screw up in the root. --Squidonius (talk) 20:44, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
Taxa like those of Cavalier-Smith, which are rejected because they are non-monophyletic, are candidates for {{paraphyletic group}}. Taxa that are rejected despite being monophyletic:— I don't believe that ever happens. If such as taxon is "not followed", it is because the taxon is uninteresting, not because it is invalid. Therefore I see no need for a "former taxon" box. Hesperian 02:18, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Presumably those would then be redirects to the current taxon name and there would be a discussion (eg Brontosaurus --> Apatosaurus or some such. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:05, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Good point: {{paraphyletic group}} will do the trick. Just for the sake of curiosity (these are not an issue), the only monophyletic taxa that I can think of that are not accepted are those that have been increased/decreased in rank, these are:
  • class Mendocutes (Gibbons and Murray 1978) -> kingdom Archaeobacteria (Woese 1977)-> Domain Archaea (Woese 1990)
  • Planctobacteria is a Cavalier-Smith phylum, while PVC superphylum is the molecular phylogeny group (the child taxa are also ranked differently).
  • A few species to subspecies and viceversa (Salmonella thyphi >S. enterica subsp. thyphi, Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato > Pseudomonas sp. Tomato)
  • Blank... cannot think of anymore. --Squidonius (talk) 07:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
To split hairs, all of those taxa are accepted; some of their names are not, but that is a nomenclatural matter. Hesperian 07:33, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Going back to Hesperian's points, I agree that we don't need a "former taxon" box, for all kinds of reasons. But there are taxa over which there remain genuine disagreements, and it's not the case that these have been rejected because they are non-monophyletic or the taxon is "uninteresting". Not everyone rejects paraphyletic taxa. The rank to be assigned to higher plant groups remains highly contentious; the system currently employed in the majority of plant articles on Wikipedia is hard to support from recent sources. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:13, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
*cough*....Reptilia, for one... Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 19:21, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Not an example I would dare mention myself! But in the same area, consider this statement which opens the Theropoda article: "Theropods ... is [sic] both a suborder of bipedal saurischian dinosaurs, and a clade consisting of that suborder and its descendants (including modern birds)". See also the taxobox for the Aves article, which avoids showing any ranks/clades between Avialae and Chordata, and thereby looks very odd. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:54, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
A socio-historical lesson for those who came in late: until about 2008 there was no expectation that every article should have an infobox. Around 2007/08, there was a big push towards standardisation of infobox appearance. As an unexpected result of that, there was a sudden enthusiasm to roll them out all over the place, and we quickly reached the rather silly point where infoboxes became "an imprimatur of legitimacy"[1]—an article that didn't have one couldn't be taken seriously. This trend wasn't entirely unopposed; a substantial minority of editors subscribed to a position best summed up by Utgard Loki's famous rant:
A box promises to contain, and things that can't be neatly contained can't be put in boxes. A box suggests "this is the real deal," and if the real deal could be put in a box, then there would be no need for articles. A box says, "Here is your PowerPoint bullet point list, so you can find all the world reduced to a reductive summary; please do not strive to understand complexity, for that is for suckers." A box says, "Wikipedia is just like your primary school text book: full of colors and 'bites' of infotainment." A box says, "I, the box maker, have just pissed all over this article and written a counter-article, and it's short, so read it instead." A box may be found useful by some people, indeed. We call those people "non-readers."
To return to the point at hand, we must bear in mind that the obligation to present neutral, accurate information exceeds the obligation to find some way to plaster an infobox on every imaginable article. If the taxonomy of a taxon is disputed, and the two sides of that dispute cannot be summarised within a taxobox, then it is better not to have a taxobox at all. Hesperian 00:09, 10 August 2011 (UTC)



I just used {{paraphyletic group}} on Monera, but the parameter classification_status (which I was going to set to obsolete) is not supported: I do not know how to activate it though. Could someone template-savvy do this? Thanks --Squidonius (talk) 23:57, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

The problem is the way {{paraphyletic group}} is written. Other taxobox templates, such as {{Automatic taxobox}} or {{Speciesbox}} work by passing different sets of parameters to {{Taxobox/core}}. Hence there is a strong degree of commonality. {{Paraphyletic group}} creates a taxobox from the beginning, by using a table with class "infobox biota". If the template is to get significant usage in future, it needs to be completely re-written so that it works the same way as the other taxobox templates and can be kept in step in any future revisions.
So, unfortunately, it's not a case of "activating" the parameter classification_status (which is in {{Taxobox/core}}); this would be easy to do. Instead, the chunk of code in {{Taxobox/core}} which handles this parameter would need to be copied into {{paraphyletic group}}. I could do this, but I won't, because it's not the right way to do it. However, I don't have time at present to do it properly by re-writing {{paraphyletic group}} to use {{Taxobox/core}}; perhaps someone else does? Peter coxhead (talk) 09:10, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
Isn't the existing box with the provision for adding excluded groups a de facto paraphyletic group box? Petter Bøckman (talk) 07:18, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


A diff that may be of interest: [6]. Hesperian 00:34, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

disambig...

of Prepusa and the newly created Prepusa (plant). I'm thinking Prepusa should be a disambiguation page, but have no idea what to append to each page name-- I'm sure (plant) isn't quite correct either! Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. sonia♫ 05:40, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Using "(plant)" is pretty common and is clear, so this article's title is fine. I'd probably use "Prepusa (beetle)" for the other organism and just "Prepusa" for the disambiguation page. Don't forget to use {{Italic title}}, as I've added to Prepusa (plant); it automatically italicizes the genus name but not the bit in parentheses. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:47, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
Hmm. As opposed to moving the beetle to "Prepusa miranda"? Thanks for the italicizing- forgot that :) sonia♫ 05:59, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
I'd use Prepusa miranda for the beetle (unless the plant genus also happens to have a species called that), as discussed at WT:WikiProject Tree of life/Archive 28#Disambiguator for monotypic genera. Ucucha (talk) 12:16, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes, whoops, my mistake. I'm a "plants editor" and forgot that WP:PLANTS puts monotypic species under the genus, but "animals editors" put them at the species. Moral: ignore anything I say which isn't about plant articles... Peter coxhead (talk) 16:06, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
I don't think there's a difference between plants and animals here. Both put monotypic genera under the genus name, but there's no clear consensus on where to put monotypic genera when the genus name is ambiguous (as it is with Prepusa). In that case, I think it's better to use the species name, a name which people actually use, instead of a disambiguator, whether we're talking about plants, animals, or bacteria. Ucucha (talk) 16:11, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
Peter's correct about animals...we typically use the specific name. However, in paleobiology, we use the genus since the line between species is very fuzzy. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 19:26, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Done! Prepusa is now a dab page (the exact wording of which should probably be given the once-over by someone who actually understands biology!) Thanks all for your help. sonia♫ 04:32, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

The beetle looks good; I'll let a botanist check the plant entry. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:03, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

How to list unranked clades

I've started a discussion on standardizing how unranked clades are listed by the automatic taxobox here: Template talk:Automatic taxobox/Archive 8#clade vs. unranked - how to list unranked clades. Any input would be appreciated. I suppose we should standardize across all taxoboxes eventually. Kaldari (talk) 22:16, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

use of symbols

There is a discussion going on where people are unhappy with the biological use of the symbol † to denote extinction. Since this has the potential to affect quite a few of our articles it might be worth a look. Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:32, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I encourage everyone to go vote... be heard! Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 02:10, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Looking for fulltext of.........

Schot, A. M. 1994. A revision of Callerya Endl. (including Padbruggea and Whitfordiodendron) (Papilionaceae: Millettieae). Blumea 39: 1-40.

Can't get electronic access to Blumea - thx in advance...Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:31, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Assigning a taxonomy category issues

Is there any WikiProject out there that has taken to assigning taxonomy categories to all it's articles? I started to do this with WP:Turtles, but hit upon number of issues that I'd like to discuss if they have been dealt with before. One is whether to use the taxonomy name or common name, the next is whether to assign the taxonomy of an article or it's parent. The former may seem simpler and easier but due to WP:CAT idea of a category must have more then one item, and a large quality of turtle stubs means determining if there are others(especially extinct genus taxonomy) means the process is exceedingly time consuming and often problematic due to lack of data. At first I tended to ignore the WP:CAT, but it seems the categories are going to be deleted - which then means you have to know the history of each category before you can assign a new article. Talk about slowing the process to a halt. :( Looking to see an example WikiProject that has nicely done it's taxonomy categories. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 17:30, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

In my own work, working as a taxonomist on both living and fossil forms, I have found that making the fossils fit into the basic structure of the published taxonomies of the living species is best. However, this requires in depth knowledge of the living forms. I am happy to help you with this. Fossils will almost never have a common name, palaeontologists do not tend to use or believe in them. Chat to me and we shall see what we can do, also left a reply on WP:Turtles's for you. Cheers, Faendalimas talk 17:44, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
I understand palaeontologists and taxonomist want to use the taxonomy naming, the common name issue arises because the rest of the world does not so you have articles such as Mazunte, IOSEA, Caribbean Conservation Corporation, Tour de Turtles, Kazanlı and Turtle excluder device that are filed in Category:Sea turtles rather then taxonomic naming Category:Cheloniidae, this leads me to thinking that we may end up with both categories even when they are the same things. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 18:50, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
When I say 'end up with both categories', I mean have two categories available but use a category redirect to put them together. That is the type of thing I'd like to see being used elsewhere in a tree of life project to see how it works out in pracice. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 18:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
If you do this, note that a "soft redirect" via {{Category redirect}} should be used as per Help:Category#Moving_and_redirecting_category_pages. This causes a bot to move the page out of the redirected category – at least eventually. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:14, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
I have no issue with using both categories as you suggest. My comment above was only referring to how to deal with fossil taxa. As they do not have common names its hard to create one for them. Cheers, Faendalimas talk 19:42, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
I don't follow. "its hard to create one for them", it's hard to create a what for them? I can only assume you mean a common name, although why you would want a common name for a taxonomy category does not make sense to me. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 23:57, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


I meant the common name yes, and nope I wouldn't want a common name, but people seem attached to them, for some strange reason. However, I was meaning if there is no common name you have to justify making one up. But as your referring to cat names such as Sea Turtle vs Cheloniidae I think you could use some redirects to cover all bases here. But it is important to include the point that the term Sea Turtle refers to many species that do not belong to the Cheloniidae, eg Dermatemydae etc. I am just trying toss ideas for you, you can use them as you like according to wether or not they are helpful to what your trying to achieve. Cheers Faendalimas talk 00:36, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
My mistake, not Cheloniidae but Chelonioidea is equivalent to Sea turtles. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 01:44, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
What I would suggest is to use taxon names for categories covering the animals themselves, placing the article into the category for the taxon level above in general (for genera/species) and creating a category when there are more then two related in a higher cat. EG two genera in the same subfamily placed in a family level article, then create the subfamily cat. As for the non-taxon articles, they can be placed in Cat:Sea turtles with a note in the cat that it is not for taxa article categorization.--Kevmin § 01:07, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Hi Kevmin, thanks for your input. Your the guy that edits the prehistoric turtles. I like your suggested except the part that depends on knowing if there are "more then two related in a higher cat", my problem is that for many categories I simply don't know how many are in a category until it's created and even then it's likely the category is not fully populated but sat at a higher taxa level because the category didn't previously exist. Will label Cat:Sea turtles as you advise. Looked at WP:SHARKS, WP:CETA, WP:EQUINE and WP:PRIMATES, it appears none of these do taxa categorisation. It's a bit odd because over on WP:COMMONS images are attempted to be categories by taxa. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 01:44, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
As someone who has done the vast majority of prehistoric media categorization on commons I have to say I very much prefer the taxonomic name for taxa/vernacular name for other things categorization that is used there. What I most often do is group all the items Im looking at categorizing into a higher level category to start (eg suborder level maybe), then see which superfamilies have multiple representitives in a group and move them to the Superfamily level. I will repeat several times until I think the items are grouped at the correct levels. I will gladly help if you want. One thing to keep in mind about the wiki categories here is that they are one of the least maintained areas. Most editors either dont cat articles when they make them or they dont spend the time to place them more then hte minimum to avoid "cat this please" templates. :-( --Kevmin § 03:04, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Kevmin, that brings up a another approach, put it anywhere and move it later by repeatable checking categories. That seems a most inefficient way and one that suggests that complete taxa categorisation will never be done but maybe the one to use for now. I would very much like you to go through the prehistoric turtles and recategorise them as you feel fit. You'll find some in the root turtles category that for sure require moving, will be interested to know how you feel about creating Eucryptodira, Polycryptodira and Dermochelyinae categories. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 12:58, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
I tend to browse the categories when creating a stub, starting with a large category such as Category:Actinopterygii and drilling down until I find the most specific subcategory possible; I rarely create new categories for articles. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:08, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
  1. ^ Cygnis insignis
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