Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life

Raking Ranking

As I am a cladist at heart I'm a bit irked by the use of ranks above Family. Most of the time they're unnecessary clutter and just bring a number of terms that don't mean all that much. Perhaps I'm scaring up an issue that has been settled, but even so I'd like to give my oppinion.

Ranks, when they were first introduced, just stated similarities in form or uniting morphologies not evolutionary relationships. Of course with the acceptance of evolution the ranks grouped creatures with a similar evolutionary background. They often reflected the perceived importance of particular groups ecologically or culturally and not really their morphological diversity.

For example, dinosaurs are much more morphologically diverse than are birds (being the affirmation found in some books that bird orders could be easily collapsed into families a coroboration). In spite of that birds are a class because it has historically been so, and not for any other reason. It is certain that birds are a group with ecological importance nowadays and occupy most flying niches, but phylogeny and taxonomy should first reflect ascendent/descendent relations and not artificial classifications based on human "prejudices" brought about by the Holocene natural world.

So I think that as a good measure, and respecting the NPOV the Taxoboxes should present cladistic classification as presented in the [Dinosauricon Classification Pages] along with the Linnaean classification. Perhaps with Linnaean ranks in parentheses after the name of the clade. Any oppinions? - Dracontes 11:38, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What, you don't put "Class" or "Order" or whatever in front of a rank, but just float a word out there, adding new ones inbetween as opinion dictates and that is supposed to be an advancement in process? - Marshman 17:15, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

When Linnaean ranks do much the same, as in some papers on Liaoning dinosaur taxa in which the most abscondent example is Sinosauropterygiformes: Sinosauropterygidae: Sinosauropteryx prima when the animal by all accounts is a feathered compsognathid, that's not much of a reason. Not talking about that inordinate urge taxonomists had of erecting families for just one species. So no, not every node of the tree has to have a designation (only the most significative ones) though they do have to have definitions. Dracontes 13:01, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think presenting separate Linnaean and cladistic classifications is a bad idea. It creates the misleading impression that there are two types of taxonomy. Taxonomy is dynamic, there are many systems out there, and most of the new ones follow both Linnaean and cladistic principles to some extent. For instance, APGII uses orders and families but is purely clade-based; would we list the same thing twice?Josh

When thinking about it... Yes there are two types of classification: one that who knows how it works (Linnaean) as definitions are at best fuzzy. And a phylogenetic approach that leaves definitions of groupings much clearer, IMO (Y'know what? One doesn't even need names for groups now if definitions are available.)

No, Dracontes. I'll repeat what I said, most recent Linnaean taxonomy is based on phylogenetic principles. To pretend there are two separate methods leading to two separate systems completely ignores the reality for most groups.

Speaking about opposing Linnaean and cladistic systems applies mainly to the vertebrates. Here the traditional Linnaean system is still more common, and quite frankly more useful.Josh

I'd like it for you to put up evidence on how is it more useful (I'm not in any way suggesting its removal from Wikipedia). Do ellucidate as I've been hypeing on this newfangled cladistics for some years and may have been mislead. Dracontes 13:01, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The sequence of clades is a valid description of the phylogeny, but using it to organize information has proven difficult. The traditional classes make it easy to discuss many properties of the organisms in question, correspond well with most literature, and represent the phylogeny - using paraphyletic groups, but I've never seen that confuse anyone about true relationships. It might change, but at the moment they're more useful. Josh

The cladistic system is an important alternative, but there are many groups where there are several alternative classifications, and the taxobox simply isn't the place to list them. Listing the clades in the article body should be enough, in my opinion. Josh

Fair enough. And I think now that taxoboxes are as good as they get. I'll just ignore the ranks (when reading, I'll put them there while writing up an article). So being taxonomy dynamic (an I apologize if I may have given an otherwise impression) why not a clade page with a "consensus" tree and smaller versions for alternative views? But I do think a standard classification method should be used, it's supposed that communication of knowledge should be simple and not complicated. So I think it's hardly ever the point to discuss ranks when one should discuss nodes. Dracontes 13:01, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Also, I find the idea that any classification system is anything other than artificial is missing a point somewhere. Even at the level of species there is plenty that is artificial about our designations. And I do not think anyone really expects that say an "order" as applied by ichthyologists will correspond exactly in some natural way to an order as used by entomologists. Cladistics is a tool, not some kind of natural system of order in the biosphere; phylogeny does reflect descendent relationships (by definition, I think); and taxonomy is an "artificial classification based on human prejudices" hopefully subject always to improvement using tools like cladistics and genetics, improvement hopefully along phylogenetic lines. And there is not likely ever to be parity in understanding or completeness between the extant flora and fauna and that of times past, so however you arrive at your classification, it will be strongly biased to the Holocene - Marshman 21:06, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes indeed. Though the more artificial and human prejudice bias is left out the better.

Though by that same token why use orders or other ranks when they are diferently interpreted among scientists of different areas? I have to note that when one knows what the name of a clade means ranks seem nothing short of irrelevant as Elpistostegalia is more evocative than suborder. Dracontes 13:01, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ranks don't say anything about the composition of a group, but that doesn't mean they aren't useful. For instance, they tell you the relative sizes of taxa. When I tell you that Carassius is in family Cyprinidae and order Cypriniformes, it's clear how the groups relate. Not so when I tell you that Actinophrys is a heterokont, actinodine, and axodine. The tree is what matters, but the ranks can make its structure more obvious, and have proven to be a good way of organizing information.

Now when there is no consensus on the rank of a group at all, it doesn't help to give one, and we shouldn't. By the same token, when there is no idea how a group should be classified, we shouldn't give an authoritative list of subgroups. That doesn't change that these things are frequently useful. Josh

"For example, dinosaurs are much more morphologically diverse than are birds (being the affirmation found in some books that bird orders could be easily collapsed into families a coroboration)" - this is a bit misleading. While birds evolved from one family of dinosaurs, they have had 60 million years more to diversify and evolve from one family into numerous orders. And of course dinosaur classification itself over their far longer period has to reflect that taxa do not stay the same rank over time, with species becoming genera, families, orders, and so on. - MPF 22:47, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Erm... Population begets population and that's about it. As I see it there is no validity to that last phrase you wrote. Populations are what evolves, either clado or orthogenetically, and one can't forcibly think that a taxon rank changes into another by natural processes, only by human scrutiny does that happen.

Errr . . . Wikipedia is human scrutiny :-) . . . MPF 21:01, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ranks don't change by natural processes because they don't exist in nature. However, species routinely turn into groups of species, into larger groups of species.

Neornithes did diversify before the K-Pg. Earlier this year Vegavis iaai was discribed in Nature (20 January 2005) as a 67-million-year-old stem duck just as Presbyornis is. So galliformes and tinamiformes should already exist by that time.

In fact non-avian dinos had much more time to evolve than Neornitheans: 165 against 120 million years. Not mentioning that birds are quite conservative in body plan... Dracontes 13:01, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Scientific name page titles

Bringing this one up again (from Common names above) - I'd like to commence on at least a trial start with some plant families, moving pages from vernacular name titles to scientific name titles. It seemed a popular idea when discussed above, with only the size of the task dissuading action. If no-one objects strongly, I'll start with some of the conifers. - MPF 18:20, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes! Good plan. -- WormRunner | Talk 00:17, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree - Marshman 17:53, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Probably for plants it will work out better than for animals since there are so many common names for plants, and so few of the scientific names about species level will have conflicts. Animals have so many common names that are the same as the scientific names (above species level), that this would mean some significant juggling around of some articles, and making choices that are sometims less than obvious.... and then we'd still want to have articles about commonly named groups of animals that would not have a single scientific name grouping. I shudder to think of all the bird articles that would get moved...... - UtherSRG 01:29, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

Started with the Araucariaceae. I need admin help though to move Wollemi Pine to Wollemia, please. Thanks - MPF 16:30, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Got it. - UtherSRG 16:44, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

Super, thanks! - MPF 17:34, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I even merged the histories. And for anyone wondering, posting move requests of this nature instead of WP:RM is fine by me... these requests wouldn't need to be voted on since they are part of a shift in idealogy of a WikiProject. - UtherSRG 18:12, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

Excellent. On posting the move request here, that's what I'd guessed :-) Araucariaceae completed now; it's a slow task, but much of that is because of doing lots of other editing while I'm at it (like when I discovered there wasn't any info on what Wollemia looked like!). All in all, I think it's worthwhile though. - MPF 19:59, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

With the posting of move requests like that, it would be almost no additional burden to come up with some boilerplate statement to be put on the talk page of the affected article pointing out that such a request has been made. Gene Nygaard 02:54, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Uther - another move request please: Chinese Arborvitae to Platycladus - thanks, MPF 17:57, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Done! - UtherSRG 18:25, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! - MPF 18:43, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Kind of sad to think that something like Category:Cupressaceae will be rendered useless for non-experts - "Monterey Cypress" I can recognize in the category listing, "Cupressus macrocarpa" not. But in the apparent absence of readers, I guess it doesn't matter much either way. Stan 21:35, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Often wondered if anyone ever reads the stuff we put in here!

Nope.

In a case like this, could an argument be made for including categories on redirects? The "Monterey Cypress" would still show up in the Category. Guettarda 22:44, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Uther - another two please: Dawn Redwood to Metasequoia, and Coast Redwood to Sequoia - thanks, MPF 21:38, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Done! Ack! I finished the first and you've already added the second. Ok... Done! *grins* - UtherSRG 21:54, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! There'll prolly be more . . . :-) MPF 22:52, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The second move doesn't make much sense. Sequoia should be about the genus, and the Coast Redwood is only one of the species, according to Sequoia (disambiguation). Also, sorry for coming in so late, but are we really sure Sequoia semprovirens is a better name for the article than Coast Redwood? It's true we're too eager to use common names, many of which are less common than the scientific, but Stan's right. We can't assume no readers, and we want to keep things like pine and cypress. Josh

S. semprovirens is monotypic in the genus. There are two other trees called sequoias, but none of the three are in the same genus. One is in Metasequoia, the other in Sequoiadendron. - UtherSRG 22:46, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Sequoia is about the genus; being a monotypic genus, there isn't any need to have a separate Sequoia sempervirens page. I'll be adding a note at the top of Sequoia to point at the disambig page for the other two. I take your (Josh's) & Stan's point, but I think internal consistency within a family/category is probably even more important (Cupressaceae was a real mess of a mix of scientific and vernacular before!), and keeping vernacular names for all the family wasn't really a valid option in this family. As for cypress, that's already a disambig page; Pinaceae I haven't started to tackle yet. - MPF 22:52, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why would considerations of "internal consistency" override intelligibility to the whole reader population? The English language itself is not internally consistent, but we don't all switch to speaking Esperanto because of that. If nothing else, the dual system is a good indicator of commonly-known taxa, vs ones only recognized by specialists. Neither all-Latin nor all-English are ever going to be possible - you are simply never ever going to get agreement to rename lion to panthera leo, so you're guaranteed to have some English names no matter what. Let's think of a rule that will take that into account - a while back I mentioned my personal rule, which was "Latin if there is any doubt as to a single English name". Stan 04:22, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Aquaria contain both neon tetras and Plecostomus, and gardeners will plant sunflowers alongside Xeranthemum. Fossil collections may contain oysters as well as Phacodinida, and under the microscope I find roundworms more often than Volvocales. A mix of names isn't more confusing than one system or the other, if it's what people are used to. And the taxonomic hierarchy isn't the only way to group species - range, habitat, time period, and use are all important.

Why not follow the wikipedia standard: use the most common name? This shouldn't mean vernacular at all costs, and there are many pages that should be moved to the scientific name (including Sequoia, sorry for my mistake). But we don't have to be rigid, sometimes the vernacular can be better. And as I've mentioned before, there are cases where it is less ambiguous (dicot vs Magnoliopsida) and more stable (conifer vs Pinophyta). Josh

I prefer the use of the scientific name, especially for pages at the family and genus level, after considering the last discussion on common vs. scientific names if there is a common name with clear usage for a species I tend to use it.--nixie 08:45, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A lot of people here seem to be losing sight of the basic philosophy of Wikipedia:Naming conventions, Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

See my talk page for the nonsense about California redwood by MPF.

I agree with Gene. It is just confusing to have the tree most people know as the Redwood, or Costal Redwood, or California Redwood called Sequoia on Wikipedia. To most people, sequoia refers to the Giant Sequoia, another native tree of california. Bonus Onus 02:09, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

Somebody mentioned categories already, but let me go into that in more detail:

Go to Category:Crops (which is under Category:Agriculture) and imagine how useless this will be to most people as a finding device if the entries under it and its subcategories are things like:
Then do the same for Category:Livestock
Then do the same for Category:Pets

Has anybody even thought about what to do when a current article covers dozens of species?

How about when one species has several different articles?

Now let's factor in the difficulty of making the links. Sure, with redirects, we will still be able to make links to the common names.

However, there are a significant number of Wikipedia editors who like to avoid redirects at all costs. When they get their fingers on an article, it will become so cluttered up on the edit page that it will be much more difficult for future editors when they need to deal with those edit pages.

If you are not going to do a blanket policy for all of them, including human to Homo sapiens sapiens and barley to Hordeum vulgare and sheep to Ovis aries, then common courtesy requires that you give notice of any intended change on any page to be affected.

Some participants in this discussion have blathered naively about some vague, subjective dividing line between what is changed and what isn't changed. That simply isn't going to work. Any but the most obvious conformity with the general policy discussed above should be discussed on the talk pages of the articles in question, to give the people who have worked hard on that article some say in what happens to it. Gene Nygaard 12:37, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Answers to some of the above:

Most plant species simply don't have common names, or if they do, they're invented names without any real currency (like e.g. Johann's Pinyon). To cite a minuscule sample of crop plants is not very relevant, and can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis if necessary. To bring in livestock and pets is also wholly outside the boundary of this discussion about plants.
A huge number of plants have several common names; to bring in Sequoia sempervirens again, the most widely used is Coast Redwood, not california redwood (an ambiguous name also used for Sequoiadendron giganteum) where it has currently been moved to. Equally, many common names refer to completely different plants in different places; look at e.g. Sycamore; to use them results either in confusion or imposition of a regional POV. Scientific names don't have this problem.
"Has anybody even thought about what to do when a current article covers dozens of species?" - Of course. Take a look at any page about a genus or a family. Or if a common name covers several unrelated taxa, then a disambig page.
"How about when one species has several different articles?" - Not relevant, this doesn't happen, or if it does by accident (e.g. by different editors creating pages under different common names), they are merged.
"... to give the people who have worked hard on that article some say in what happens to it ..." - That is to a large extent the same people who have "blathered naively" here. I trust future contributions to this debate will avoid such intemperate language. Thank you.

MPF 14:15, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Some replies, by the numbers:

1. In those cases it is a moot point. The only time you have a decision to make is when they do have a common name.

To bring in livestock and pets is by no stretch of the imagination outside the boundary of this discussion, the "tree" in the title of this page includes them too. The same is proposed for them in the section above, from which this notion of a test run starting with a few plants was a spinoff.

2. Several common names is not much of a problem; that's what redirects are for. But people looking in the categories such as Category:Flowers or Category:Crops or whatever will more likely find them under one of the common names, than they would under one of the often several scientific names.

Disambiguation pages, or just a disambiguation line in other articles, takes care of the other problem. This is something still necessary, whether the disambiguation points to a scientific name or to a common name.

3. There are cases where one species, or group of related species, has several articles. Some are by design (Squash and pumpkin come to mind). Others are the type you describe. I don't deal with plant articles very often, but before I ever became involved in this discussion, I had run across one of them, and added merge template tags to them. They still haven't been changed, however.

4. Two points here:

there are a great many people who have contributed to the individual articles who never come here to this project page.
Those who have "blathered naively" here when talking in glittering generalities would probably also like it called to their attention in regards to individual articles, especially since no clear dividing line has been drawn here. Given a specific focal point, those who have blathered naively when talking in general terms so far might well come out of the experience with a better view of the issues involved. Gene Nygaard 02:54, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

One thing I wonder about is why so few people are paying attention to this. I count less than ten people talking about the issue, but the proposed rule change would affect articles like human which are probably watched by hundreds of editors, and who would be unimpressed by a "consensus" consisting of just five editors here. One could probably rename pine species all day without anybody noticing, but the proposal is not just for pines. What do we need to do to raise awareness? The pump is not so useful, it's so overloaded that I'm not sure that the relevant editors will notice. We could put notes on a random selection of pages Talk:human, Talk:lion, Talk:rose, etc - my guess is lots of resistance from animal people, not so much from plant people. In any case, the moving was billed as an experiment, so I guess that means Gene Nygaard's outburst is a data point. :-) Stan 14:33, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think anyone (certainly not me) has seriously suggested doing this for animals yet. I'd agree with your comment that it would be less popular for mammals & birds in particular (which generally have more fixed common names than plants) MPF 16:36, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, just to confirm, I would object in the strongest possible terms if this was suggested for mammals (for example) but at it stands I for one am happy to trust people who know about pines to do the right thing with pine articles. Pcb21| Pete 17:10, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Frog

This article contains all sorts of stuff either applicable to Ranidae (the true frogs) or other frogs (those anurans cuter than toads), which is incorrect of course. Now, aside from the factual inaccuracies still present in the article, how are para/polyphyletic groups accepted by laymen best handled on wikipedia? Keep toad and frog separated as it is now and refer to genera and families that are "accepted as frogs" (I only know something about European frogs, and they are slightly messy already). Or take the "bah, semantics" stance, be userunfriendly and only use Anura, further divided into Archaeobatrachia etc (with frog and toad redirecting). Phlebas 17:53, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And? Any opinions? Phlebas 13:09, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Articles should be named in a reasonable manner to cover the information presented. In this case, I think there should be an article called frog which covers all frogs, an article called toad which covers all toads, and various articles describing Anura as a whole and Ranidae, etc. as individual groupings. When two articles overlap entirely in this manner, then the article should be placed at the more common naming, with the less common redirecting to it. - UtherSRG 13:40, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

I'll devote myself to this section, being an amphibian enthusiast. I'll work on revamping it correctly. Julienlecomte 8:47, 14 Juil. 2005 (UTC)

Plants - latin vs english naming convention

Sorry to butt in, I'm a newbie with an interest in plants. I'm reposting a question I posed on the Talk Page for User:Circeus, a member of WikiProject Plants, who suggested I post it here.

Re-post of message: Coincidentally, the other day I was searching for plants, in preparation of making my 'To do' list, and noticed several moves (e.g. Ajuga to Bugle), which indicate a preference here at Wikipedia to use english rather than latin names. I find that rather confusing (perplexing), since when we talk about the larger picture (e.g. genus etc) we use latin. Since I plan to contribute articles/pics in the area of plants, I'd like to get clarification on the latin vs. english nomenclature for page titles. My user page has a list of articles/pics that I plan to contribute. I hope that fits in with what the rest of the team is doing. If I should have posted this on the team Discussion page, please let me know.

Since I wrote the above note, I've read the discussion here, as well as the guidelines related to 'always use common names'. I had planned to use latin names for articles, and would like to know if a final consensus on this topic was reached here at ToL. Mia Goff 18:41, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

Well, there's no always-right answer, but the general rule of thumb is a preference for the (English) common name, but to use the scientific name when the use of the common name would cause more confusion than it would prevent. Also, there are times when more than one article would be appropriate, such as when the common name crosses scientific boundaries, then there should probably be an article for the common name grouping and for the scientific name group. You mileage may vary. *grins* If you're really stymied, ask here or on WP:PLANTS, but be bold and write those articles, we can always move and tweak them afterwards. - UtherSRG 20:35, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

I'd use a latin name only if the species name are too wide-ranging to meet an acceptable plural for the genus. I usually write my article first at the scientific name, then move it to its vernacular, to simplify things (I don't have to create the redirect from scratch). I've already explained to you my basic understanding at yoour talk page. Note that obviously, if common and latin name are identical (bergenia, comes to mind)... Circeus 22:43, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

Note that parts of what I've written violates the above discussion #Scientific name page titles, a policy I actually do not agree with (especially considering there are, to a certain extent, normalized list of vernacular species name, at least in French)

Ok thanks for the clarification. I'll get writing/picture taking as soon as the weather turns bad here. Right now, my priority is work in the garden. Also, am trying to familiarize myself with the MoS. Mia Goff 19:54, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

Contradiction in text

"In cases where a group only contains a single subgroup, the two need not be kept separate. If
there is no common name, the article should go under the scientific name with the lowest rank, 
down to the level of genus. For instance, the division Ginkgophyta, class Ginkgoopsida, order 
Ginkgoales and family Ginkgoaceae only contain the single species Ginkgo biloba, so there is a 
single article for them at Ginkgo with the other pages redirecting to it. However, it may be 
noted that Ginkgophyta does have other extinct members, and so these groups may be separated 
out as pages on them are added.
(...)
A useful heuristic is to create articles in a "downwards" order, that is, family articles
first, then genus, then species. If you find that information is getting thin, or the
family/genus is really small, just leave the species info inline in the family or genus
article, don't try to force it down any further. An exception to this is monotypic families or
genera; create a species article then redirect family and genus names to it."

This seems to be a contradiction in the text. The first alinea says that one should create only the genus article when a genus is monotypic, while the third alinea says that one should create the species article, with the genus (and/or family) as redirects. Ucucha See Mammal Taxonomy 06:09, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So fix it. - UtherSRG 22:18, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

Gingko is perhaps not the best example, because it's just a coincidence that the common name is the same as the genus name, and the article is placed according to the "common name" rule. So no contradiction. But do we have another species that is monotypic at multiple levels, and has a common name different from systematic name? Stan 23:28, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We do indeed: Vampire Squid and Aye-aye. Obviously, we place those article at the common name, which is most often the preferred placement of the article. What we need is an article whose scientific name is more common than is "common" name, is a monotypic species and is placed at the genus level, and the genus is monotypic in a listed family or sub-family taxon. - UtherSRG 00:00, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

Lots of things are available, but the problem is we don't have an entirely consistent policy. Normally we use the name of lowest rank, I think. For monotypic genera, though, we often use the generic name since its part of the binomial. Compare the animals Trichoplax, Symbion, and Limnognathia, each with a single species and in its own phylum. Some pages go the other way - a random scan finds Kenyanthropus platyops.

Some other exceptions exist, too. For instance, conifers are currently listed as Pinophyta instead of Pinopsida. In this case, the former name is what tends to be used, although I think there is enough variability that conifer would be the best bet. Before we change the passage, maybe we should decide what the standard is. Josh

But what's the best? I think we should prefer the genus name. Ucucha See Mammal Taxonomy 05:26, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm having the exact same issue over at Sheathbill with Sabine's Sunbird. I'd appreciate a decision. Circeus 10:52, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

Issue is a strong word. I guess it's that in ornithology I'm used to thinking of birds in terms of species or family, not genus (except for a few awkward genera like Empidonax flycatchers or gadfly petrels). The construction that sheathbills were a genus seemed not wrong but irrelevant and inellegant. A shorebird biologist would tell you that the sheathbills were Antarctica's only endemic family of birds. The point is moot, however, as UtherSRG's edit is an improvement I can live with. Sabine's Sunbird 15:17, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Takes a bow* Thanks! - UtherSRG 15:29, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

The advantage of using the genus as the base unit for monotypic taxa is that it has the shortest, most familiar and most readily remembered title. Sciadopitys is easier to find for someone doing a search, than either Sciadopityaceae or Sciadopitys verticillata. - MPF 15:37, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, but less important for mammals and birds where common names are more, well, common, and therefore likley to be used. Sabine's Sunbird 03:04, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We should have general guidelines for other things. I'd propose

Use the vernacular when it is well-known and unambiguous.
Otherwise use the generic name, if applicable.
Otherwise use the name most often used to refer to the group when it is being discussed without rank, as in cladistics, if there is a clear preference. For instance, phylum names are usually preferable to class names.
Finally, names associated with the lowest rank are preferred - family over order, order over class, etc. Intermediate ranks such as suborder should be avoided if possible.

Does this sound reasonable to everyone? Would anyone object to stating it explicitly in the naming guidelines? Josh

It's good. Ucucha See Mammal Taxonomy 16:18, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. I've resolved the contradiction in favor of this standard, then. Josh

Collective Terms for Groups of Animals

Some of us may be groping for the exact term for a group of animals (ever heard of a sounder of wild boars ?). I made a Word document of those terms, sampled from the OED. It's 16 pages long (about 585 Kb). If anyone is interested, just send me an email to JoJan11@msn.com. I'll send you then this text as an appendix (with the extension .doc) to your email address. JoJan 13:31, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You should check with the lists at Collective noun Circeus 13:53, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

Taxobox errors

I am currently running a bot to make redirects from Latin names for taxa to the articles about those taxa, for example Cyclarhis gujanensis to Rufous-browed Peppershrike. I plan to do this for binomials, trinomials, and genera (when the genus is monotypic), using data from article taxboxes.

As a side-effect of this project, I've made a report on apparent errors in taxoboxes where the binomial appears to be missing, or fails to match the genus and species. See User:Gdr/Nomialbot/Report 2005-05-19. Gdr 22:37, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

Gosh, I forgot to point out this would have to take in account the normal boxes' species entry has the genus abbreviated. Also, the bot seems to threat higher groups (that do not even have a {{taxobox species entry}}) as if they were species... So 90% of these are cases were the bot should not have applied itself or couldn't cope correctly with the regular taxobox syntax. Circeus 23:19, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

I'm don't understand what you are getting at. Can you give some examples of the problems you are seeing? Gdr 23:37, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

These are all fixed now, except for a few awkward cases. Thank you to everyone who helped. Gdr 17:02, 2005 May 24 (UTC)

Automated taxobox update possibilities

Here are some things that could be done automatically or with automated assistance:

~~Where {{Taxobox section binomial}} has three words, change it to {{Taxobox section trinomial}}. (Example: Formosan Clouded Leopard)~~ (Done.)
~~Where a taxobox has {{Taxobox genus entry}} and {{Taxobox species entry}} but no {{Taxobox section binomial}} (or any of the variants), add the latter. (Example: American eel)~~ (Done, mostly.)
Where Wikipedia has articles on species in a genus, but no article on the genus, synthesize a stub article on the genus. (Example: we have Phoenicurus moussieri, Phoenicurus phoenicurus, and Phoenicurus ochruros but no Phoenicurus) I'm not going to do this; too much judgement required.

Are any of these good things to do? Gdr 09:27, 2005 May 20 (UTC)

All look like good ideas to me. Here's a few others:

~~Modify {{Taxobox authority}} to take a single parameter (authority) then~~ ({{Taxobox authority new}} created. Its contents should replace those of {{Taxobox authority}}.)
1. Fix usage of the old style to the new style
2. Replace {{taxobox section binomial}}, {{taxobox section binomial parens}}, and {{taxobox section binomial botany}} with {{taxobox section binomial simple}}‹br›{{taxobox authority}}

UtherSRG 14:42, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

Can you explain the reasoning behind this proposal? Is there a consensus that it is desirable? Gdr 17:37, 2005 May 24 (UTC)

It simplifies things. One binomial template is needed instead of 3? 4? One trinomial, too.
More flexibility. The single paramter can be formatte dhowever needed (botany vs. zoology, parens vs. no parens).
The original was my creation, and I was a fool to make it so rigid.
Having the separate authority template allows authority to be used within the taxobox instead of just at the end. (See Cheirogaleidae, for example.)
There have been no complaints about the ones that I have changed. It just needs to be done, and then have the usage page updated.

- UtherSRG 17:52, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

Hybrids in taxoboxes

(moved from User talk:UtherSRG)

As far as I can tell, there is no provision in taxoboxes for a hybrid. This can lead to an anomalous taxobox such as on the page Amanatsu. A template for hybrids is lacking. There should also be made a distinction between natural hybrids, manmade hybrids and intergeneric hybrids (such as in some orchids), grex, and polybrid. On the other hand, the taxobox could contain a general 'hybrid' template (with room for the parents of the hybrid), while the distinction could be made in the article. And then there is the problem of the cultivars. I don't think anyone has bothered yet describing a cultivar on a separate page. But whenever this should happen, a template should be at hand. JoJan 09:47, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There's a well-known hybrid at Lemon. Gdr 11:10, 2005 May 20 (UTC)

I've editted Amanatsu to look like Lemon. I must admit that I'm not well versed in botany at all, so I'm not sure what to do about hybrids. What are all the possibilities? What would be a good format to distinguish a "regular" species from a hybrid, and different types of hybrids from each other? These questions and a discussion leading to their answers are probably better had on the WP:TOL or taxobox talk page. - UtherSRG 11:58, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

A hybrid is NOT a species, but a cross between species of the same genus (interspecific hybrids or primary hybrids) or between different genera with compatible chromosomes (intergeneric hybrids), or between a species and a hybrid or even between two hybrids (complex hybrid). A grex refers to the group of progeny of a specific cross. Therefore the 'genus' template does not apply. See: hybrid.

Interspecific hybrids are written like this : Populus x canadensis = Populus deltoides x P. nigra (the x not in italics). They even can have cultivars such as : Populus x canadensis 'Marilandica'

Intergeneric hybrids start with an x : xAmmocalamagrostis is a hybrid grass genus (from the genera Ammophila and Calamagrostis)

Should there be a space after the x? - UtherSRG 21:03, May 21, 2005 (UTC)

Therefore I propose a new template for hybrids, replacing the genus template. The 'binomial name' template should then be replaced by a new template 'parents' JoJan 14:27, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. I think I get it. {{Taxobox hybrid entry}} would replace {{Taxobox genus entry}} for intergeneric hybrids. {{Taxobox section parentage}} would replace {{Taxobox section binomial}} and take two paremeters. Looks like we also need a cultivar entry and a parents section that includes a cultivar. - UtherSRG 14:50, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

(JoJan editted the above to say all hybrids instead of intergeneric).

I amend: {{Taxobox hybrid entry}} would replace {{Taxobox genus entry}} for intergeneric hybrids and would replaced {{Taxobox species entry}} for interspecies hybrids. Better? - UtherSRG 17:31, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

OK. But I would like some input from other TOL participants. JoJan 19:15, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's a nice idea, but what actual difference would there be in the visual handling? Circeus 19:29, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

Sounds generally good to me - I've been improvising with rose cultivars. We don't always know parentage, and other times it can be more complicated than will fit neatly in a taxobox (see Rosa 'Anne Harkness' for instance), so taxobox parentage should be optional. Stan 05:37, 21 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've started experimenting with th Lemon and 'Anne Harkness' taxoboxes on /hybrids. Visually, there's really not much different from the existing entry and binomial sections. If someone could point me to existing articles where what I've got won't work, or where additional templates will be needed, please do! :) -

Some other hybrid articles for you to experiment on:

Gdr 10:29, 2005 May 23 (UTC)

I've done the first two. The others will look identical to one of the previous samples. - UtherSRG 12:35, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

Some style points.

In technical literature, the multiplication symbol × is used; however, this isn't required, and an ordinary letter x is acceptable in most situations, which I would think would include wikipedia. Within a hybrid name (nothotaxon) the 'x' is usually italicised (e.g. Picea x lutzii); in a hybrid formula it is not (e.g. Picea sitchensis x Picea glauca). In interspecific hybrids within a genus, the x is lower case; in intergeneric hybrids the x is uppercase (e.g. X Asplenophyllitis confluens), and yes, with a space.
Of cultivars, they are not taxa, so should not have a taxobox; whatever cultibox is designed should look distinct and not be confusable with a taxobox. I'd suggest it could omit all the classification above the rank of genus.
MPF 18:07, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. Nix the cutivar. I've replaced "x" with × and corrected the italics. - UtherSRG 22:55, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

Old-style taxoboxes

I did a search for articles using old-style taxoboxes (using HTML tables or wiki markup tables instead of {{Taxobox begin}} and other templates) and found 2,552 such articles. These are listed at User:Gdr/Nomialbot/Report 2005-05-24. (This compares with 3,582 articles using new-style taxoboxes.)

I don't recommend anyone start working on this list! The chances are that most articles can be converted automatically, leaving a residue of awkward cases needing attention by hand. Gdr 17:29, 2005 May 24 (UTC)

Yay! You're my new hero! *grins* - UtherSRG 18:51, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

It looks from the first couple of hundred as though there will be about 10% of awkward cases. What I propose to do for these cases is to add the computed (but partly incorrect) taxobox in a comment at the top of the article, leaving the old taxobox in place. I'll list the articles where I've done this and then you or other editors can fix them by hand. Is that acceptable? Gdr 12:01, 2005 May 25 (UTC)

I'd rather edit 255 by hand than 2552 by hand... so yes, this is acceptable... it'll give me something to do while I'm at work. *grins* - UtherSRG 12:08, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

that will make my work in category:Birds a categorization (down to genera) one mostly, I guess. Circeus 18:07, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

Pachypodium

Something odd going on here! (and here and here and here and . . . ) - MPF 19:13, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Formatting of taxoboxes

When a taxobox has a binomial section, should the Species entry also be bold italic, or just ordinary italic? (When the article is about the species)? Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Taxobox Usage#Bold/italic markup says:

The final taxon is bold, due to it being the subject of the article.

This is ambiguous: the "final taxon" could mean the binomial section, or it could mean the final taxon in the "placement" section, that is, the species. The former interpretation gives rise to a taxobox looking like Yakushima White Pine; the latter interpretation gives rise to one like Black-chinned Hummingbird. (I note that the example taxobox in Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Taxobox Usage favours the latter interpretation.)

Which is right? (Or is it different for plant and animals, as suggested by the example code at the top of Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Taxobox Usage?) It would be nice to agree on this so as to avoid going round re-formatting each others' work! Gdr 14:53, 2005 May 25 (UTC)

Yakushima White Pine is incorrect. Black-chinned Hummingbird is correct. - UtherSRG 16:25, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

The consensus was that the final entry in the placement section should be bolded, since it only includes the organisms in question. I'll fix the samples to reflect this. Josh

Yes. Another way to look at it are that the species entry and the binomial "entry" are two different ways of naming the article (except that we don't use the G. speces form because of ambiguity), and all potential article names in the article should be bold someplace in the article. - UtherSRG 16:31, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Old-style taxoboxes needing conversion

My program Nomialbot completed work on 2,374 articles with HTML taxoboxes with templatized ranks. Of these, 2,216 were converted automatically (I hope without introducing too many mistakes — there were a lot of different formats of HTML taxobox out there). 158 were too awkward to be converted automatically (that's about 6.7%). These will have to be converted by hand (I added the partial conversion, commented out, to each of these articles to provide a start).

The list of articles needing work is at User:Gdr/Nomialbot/Report 2005-05-26.

There are several other sets of articles with old-style taxoboxes. There are 178 with wiki table markup and templatized ranks (example: White-eye) and an as yet unknown number that don't use templatized ranks (example: Pompeii worm). I'll get to these eventually... (There will of course be more awkward cases needing conversion by hand.) Gdr 23:48, 2005 May 25 (UTC)

Excellent!! - UtherSRG 01:02, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. But there were quite a few mistakes, as you can see from my talk page. I think I fixed the worst of them. Let me know if you spot other mistakes made by the bot and I'll fix those too. Gdr 10:13, 2005 May 26 (UTC)

Good work GDR. It was shocking checking my watchlist this morning and realizing just how many taxa are on it! Pcb21| Pete 15:53, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I went through 341 articles with HTML taxoboxes but without templatized ranks. I'm afraid I didn't do so well at converting them automatically: these articles are older than the ones with templatized ranks and have a wider range of formats. Of these, 239 were converted automatically, and 102 were too awkward (that's 30%). As with the first batch, I added the partial conversion, commented out, to each article, and added the articles to the list at User:Gdr/Nomialbot/Report 2005-05-26.

I went through a further 201 articles with wiki markup taxoboxes. All of the conversions from this and previous batches needing to be finished by hand have been done. Thank you to everyone who worked on them, especially User:DanielCD, User:Quadell, and User:UtherSRG.

This means that all the taxoboxes that I know how to find are now in the correct format! If you know of any I missed, or any way of finding them, let me know. Gdr 16:03, 2005 May 30 (UTC)

Lepidopteran taxoboxes

Among the HTML taxoboxes that weren't possible to convert automatically were a number of lepidopteran taxoboxes with some extra information that doesn't fit into the current taxobox scheme. Swallowtail Butterfly is a typical example, with "author", "type species" and "diversity" sections. The "author" section naturally turns into {{Taxobox authority}}; for the other two I propose the new templates {{Taxobox section type species}} and {{Taxobox section diversity}}. You can see an example of my proposed scheme at Geometer moth.

(These taxoboxes also go a bit overboard on ranks, but that's another issue entirely.)

Please comment; I won't convert any other lepidoptera unless there's a consensus about the format to use.

Is there a lepidoptera project or keen lepidopteran editors that we should contact? Gdr 10:32, 2005 May 26 (UTC)

As the prepetrator of these additional entries, your arrangement looks fine to me.--Keith Edkins 12:15, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thanks for asking for my input. Looking at the two proposed templates, the type species would only be applicable for family taxoboxes. Are taxoboxes formatted differently for different taxa? I have to admit I'm not an expert on taxobox formats, I only use them!

As for diversity, I guess this could be used in any article (apart from subspecies and I can't imagine there are many articles solely about subspecies). My only reservation is that this information (number of subtaxa) is not always readily available, especially global data, so this might be left blank in most cases. When I find out this kind of data, I usually incorporate it into the main text and I think this usually looks OK. I'd be happy to continue doing it this way but I have no strong objection to putting it in the taxobox (I have in fact put a list of genera into the taxobox in the Hepialidae article and I'm still trying to decide if it looks OK there or if it should go into the main text). Richard Barlow 12:49, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I should make it clear: this is not a proposal to add these templates to all taxoboxes! It's only a proposal for how taxoboxes that already had this information should look when converted to templates.

So not every article needs to use these templates: only when the information is available and an editor wants to add it to the box rather than (or as well as) mention it in the text. So you don't need to worry about lots of articles with blank boxes for "diversity"! (And you're right: the type species template is only appropriate for families and higher taxa.) Gdr 13:17, 2005 May 26 (UTC)

Oh goodie! More informaiton I can add to the primate taxoboxes. *grins* Um... genera and subgenera certainly have type species. Check out many of the more recent primate articles on Wikispecies]. - UtherSRG 17:11, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

We could go even further (gurk!! why am I adding this?!) and add details of the type specimens of individual species . . . MPF 22:18, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry! I misunderstood. Like I said I know very little about template formatting. I think the new templates look just fine. Richard Barlow 13:29, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Cultivars

Template:Cultivar begin Template:Cultivar image Template:Cultivar hybrid Template:Cultivar name Template:Cultivar origin Template:Cultivar end

Template:Cultivar begin Template:Cultivar image Template:Cultivar species Template:Cultivar name Template:Cultivar origin Template:Cultivar end

Template:Cultivar begin Template:Cultivar image Template:Cultivar hybrid Template:Cultivar name Template:Cultivar origin Template:Cultivar end

User:JoJan wrote above:

And then there is the problem of the cultivars. I don't think anyone has bothered yet describing a cultivar on a separate page. But whenever this should happen, a template should be at hand.

I can find four articles on cultivars:

All of these have taxoboxes that go wrong at the bottom in various ways, for example with the cultivar name appearing in place of the species. So I think it may be time to work out what kind of box a cultivar should have, if any, and what should go in it. Gdr 08:45, 2005 May 27 (UTC)

Generally, I'd reckon that cultivars, unless of exceptional significance and major commercial importance (such as apple cultivars like 'Golden Delicious') are not sufficiently notable to deserve pages to themselves. They should be covered at the page of the species or hybrid they are derived from, with any page created redirected there. Certainly none of the above four merit their own pages, they are not sufficiently notable and only exist because someone had uploaded a photo of them.

For major commercial cultivars (e.g. the 16 apple cultivars that already have pages), a completely separate cultibox (NOT a taxobox: a cultivar is not a taxon!) should be developed. This should perhaps include the following:
Cultivar name
The taxon it is derived from
Date of development
Person or company which selected it
Parentage from other cultivars, if known (it is, for many rose cvs, but not for most other cvs)
It should not include the rest of the higher ranks listed in taxoboxes (to help minimise confusion with taxoboxes); also a different colour to plant taxoboxes at least in part
MPF 10:01, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think rose breeders might disagree with you on whether their efforts are worthy of encyclopedic treatment! I just took another 1,500 pictures of rose cultivars this week in San Jose, a single article describing them all would be rather large. :-) I've been pondering a specialized "rosabox" that would summarize the most salient info - subtype, color(s), etc. Stan 05:50, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The very fact that you have 1,500 cultivars of the same thing in one place there almost by definition makes most of them not memorable! Think of them like individual people, go to a town and get a photo of every inhabitant, one or two of them will be notable people and deserve an article, the rest aren't, and don't. - MPF 10:20, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I was at the Heritage Rose Garden, notable for its collection of 3,200+ varieties, the largest in the western hemisphere they say. I would claim that the majority of its specimens represent notable cultivars - after all, that's why they set up the HRG in the first place, to serve as a reference collection. I think it's kind of narrow-minded to declare that cultivars which have been in development by hundreds of people for centuries, and are each grown by thousands more around the world, are somehow less important than, say, a species of pine that has only ever been observed by a dozen scientists. People have been very accepting of some of the completely obscure and specialized material that you've added, you should accord editors working in horticulture the same degree of respect. Stan 22:49, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Stan - agreed, to a degree; I think you'll find that most of those 3,200 cvs are not grown by thousands of people. Something like 95% of the commercial market is taken up by a handful of rose cultivars (the ones that Wal-Mart etc sell), with another 100-200 or so forming 4% (the ones available from a good range of specialist nurseries), and the remaining 3,000 less than 1% (sold for a few years by the breeder and perhaps a few friends, and then abandoned as a bad job). By all means do the major ones, but I really don't think that the 3,000 are significant. I suspect you'd find the breeders would agree, after most of their new cvs bombed on the market. Of course that still leaves 200 or so to do, plenty enough to give most people repetitive strain injury :-) MPF 21:48, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The ARS encyclopedia says it limits itself to "2,000 of the best rose species and cultivars", and it only has limited overlap with the HRG collection, which has more historical types. I suspect the actual limiting factor is likely to be info availability - we may know the name and general appearance of a 1817 Vibert cultivar, but that's not enough to support its own article. Stan 21:27, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think we all agree that there are going to be a lot of notable cultivars, even if we don't agree on exactly which ones are notable. So it would useful to design cultivar and hybrid infoboxes. I've made up a proposal: you can see four example of the proposal on the right.

Is there any other information we might want to put in the box? For registered cultivars, might we want to say which International Cultivar Registration Authority [1] they are registered with? Gdr 15:46, 2005 May 29 (UTC)

Of the boxes, of course not all cultivars are of hybrid origin, many are selections within a species, making the "Hybrid origin" line inaccurate. Maybe the current "species" line could be changed to "Species or hybrid origin", and the "Hybrid parentage" to just "Parentage"?

Also once it's up and running, it would be good if the {{Taxobox ... code could be changed to {{Cultivarbox ... to minimise mix-ups - MPF 21:48, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with both your points. (1) I changed the Erysimum example to show how a box might look when the cultivar is not a hybrid. (2) Yes, before we roll out an acceptable design, we should of course create an appropriate set of new templates. (Now done.) Gdr 22:27, 2005 May 29 (UTC)

Why not just make an article for a species and another article that cover's all the cultivars. Of course it would only be the most important ones. I like the 1a proposed taxobox. Also consider how easy it will be to get info, such as origin and hybrid parantage and authority. Many people who write plant articles may not know this information. But we could always put it in for them. I often get confused by hybrids and cultivars, but that's just me. I'd definitely like to see the species name though, because that gives me an orientation to what I'm looking at. --DanielCD 02:14, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Case in point: I "redid" the taxobox at Rhododendron 'President Roosevelt' a while back and didn't know what species to put. That line is still blank, so someone might want to take a look at that article. --DanielCD 02:17, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take your points in order: (1) if editors want to make articles about groups of cultivars, that's fine. The question we're asking here is not what cultivar articles to create, but what (if any) infobox the existing articles should have and what it should look like. (2) My proposal is not that every cultivar article must have information on parentage and origin. But this information is certainly interesting and encyclopedic, and the infobox format might encourage editors to do the research. And it will be OK to write "parentage unknown". (3) You'd like to see the species name. But not all cultivars have a species in the usual sense. That's one reason why it's inappropriate to have a taxobox in a cultivar article. For example, Brugmansia 'Feingold' given above is an intergeneric hybrid since B. 'Charles Grimaldi' is a hybrid of B. candida × Datura cubensis. Obviously the cultivar infobox would have the species when there is one, for example the Golden Delicious article would give the species Malus domestica. (4) It appears that the reason why you don't know what species to put in the Rhododendron 'President Roosevelt' article is that no-one knows its parentage! (In principle the parentage might be discoverable by genetic analysis.) Gdr 11:15, 2005 May 30 (UTC)

I made some templates and wrote an article explaining how to use my proposal. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Cultivar infobox. Please comment. Gdr 10:28, 2005 May 31 (UTC)

Template:Cultivar begin Template:Cultivar image Template:Cultivar species Template:Cultivar group Template:Cultivar origin Template:Cultivar group members Many; see text. Template:Cultivar end

Template:Cultivar begin Template:Cultivar image Template:Cultivar species Template:Cultivar group Template:Cultivar name Template:Cultivar origin Template:Cultivar end

Looks good; a few small points: (1, should've thought to mention this before!) we also need a format for Cultivar Groups (see e.g. Cauliflower; they are explained a bit at cultivar); (2) an emphasis that cvs are capitalised as well as not italicised; (3) we'll need to come up with a category system for them that doesn't confuse current categories which are in effect species indexes (my suggestion would be to set up all cultivars of an order, family or genus as a separate subcategory, e.g. [[Category:Cultivars in Xxxxxaceae]] which then appears as a subcat of [[Category:Xxxxxaceae]]); (4) a minor one - most orchard apple cultivars are not hybrids, they're derived from a single species. - MPF 12:37, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments. (1) I added some templates and examples for Cultivar Groups; see right. Let me know what you think. (2) I added this emphasis to the instructions. (3) I'll leave the categorization up to you and other editors. (4) According to our hybrid article, the word "hybrid" is used by plant breeders for intraspecific hybrids as well as interspecific hybrids. Is this terminology unsatisfatory? If so, please suggest an alternative. Gdr 10:44, 2005 Jun 1 (UTC)

Thanks; on #4, it is a bit unsatisfactory though difficult to know what to do (I've been wanting to edit the hybrid article on this for a while, but haven't thought of a good wording yet), as most botanists at least restrict 'hybrid' to interspecific, though horticulturalists tend to be looser. My suggestion would be 'cross' or (like animals) 'crossbred'. - MPF 21:09, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Redirects

Could I ask for some advice please. I have noticed Arctiidae redirects to Tiger moth (moth). I think this should be the other way round: I don't know the worldwide figures but of the 30 arctiids resident in the UK, only 6 are "tigers". The only thing is I'm not totally sure how to do this. I'm sure there is a tutorial somewhere but I can't find it! Can anyone help? Richard Barlow 09:10, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Convert the Arctiidae page into a family page, with an individual species link to the Tiger moth page - MPF 10:20, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

On second thoughts, it looks like a page move to Arctiidae would be better. Click on 'move', and follow the instructions there. If it says you need admin help to do so, then post a request here for an admin to do it. - MPF 11:31, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I've never dealt with doing redirects but I'll give it a go! Richard Barlow 11:35, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hey that was really easy, feel a bit silly for asking now! Richard Barlow 11:42, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mimosoideae species

I'm trying to put the genus Neptunia into the subfamily Mimosoideae page, but I'm not sure to which infrafamily it belongs. I put it in the Mimoseae for now. If anyone finds out it belongs elsewhere, please let me know. I'm finding the infrafamily thing more trouble than it's worth because If you know a genus goes with a family, but don't know the infrafamily, then where do you put it? Most sources don't list infrafamilies and there is no ref given on that page. --DanielCD 14:00, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Mimoseae is correct: [2] - MPF 17:53, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Category nomenclature

I suspect this may have been discussed here before, if so please point me to the discussion. If not ..... I was wondering if there has been any thought given to re-naming the taxonomic wikipedia categories to indicate what level they are. So categories like Category:Emberizidae would be something like Category:Family - Emberizidae or perhaps Category:Emberizidae (family). This would give people an idea of what taxonomic level they are looking at. Failing re-naming them perhaps we could come up with some conventions for how to describe the categories themselves on the category page. This way even if the name does not tell the user where they are reading the category description would (or we could do both). Dalf | Talk 01:36, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps a description or key somewhere telling people about what endings represent what level, such as -opyta (division), -opsida (class), -ales (order), aceae (family). Just my two cents worth. But yes, you are on to something. --DanielCD 02:06, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What you are describing would make a good template to put in each category. Nice and uniform. I still think it woudl be nice to rename them, but that would be a lot of work and unles there is built in stuff for renaming categories someone woudl ahve to write a bot to help. That is not that much work but things like this do have a lot of inertia. Dalf | Talk 05:18, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't see why making levels explicit on category pages is a good idea. It makes them more system-dependent when the levels vary between authors, and it makes things difficult when a single group has multiple levels. Since the taxonomy is already discussed in the articles, what does it help? Josh

Josh's suggestion should also avoid some of the PhyloCode clashes that will surely come. Guettarda 05:46, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The reason is that the categories are suppose to be navigation aids. The articles are not meant to help you navigate the categories but vice versa. Right now using the categories to find for example other animals in the same genus or to find other familys in the same genus of an animal's article that you are looking at is very hard. You have to pretty much already know the information you are looking for to make it work with the current category system.

I know this to be the case because I have been adding missing or filling out incomplete taxoboxes on animal pages and using the category system and related articles to do so is non-trivial. Granted with something as complex as taxonomy total uniformity is impossible but I think some degree of higher usability could be achieved. Dalf | Talk 01:00, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The level of taxonomy of the category could/should be described on the category page, it doesn't need to be in the category name.--nixie 06:02, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, for those of us who do a lot of work in the plants and animals, the categorizing by sci. classification is indespensible. You can have other categories along side of it. But I often want to refer to the Category:Mimosoideae or Category:Asparagales. I want to write an article on a type of Faboideae, I can go to the category and see what's been done there. Others may not need it, but they don't have to use it. It would be chaos without categorizing this way. But I don't see a problem with Category: Order Asparagales or Category:Family Asteraceae. That might really work. --DanielCD 01:19, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Larval food plants

As some of you may know I have been writing moth articles for a few months and including info on larval food plants for each species. I have also updated the plant articles with a link to the moth article. Some of the plant articles (eg Birch, Hawthorn) now have long, rather unwieldy lists of moths incorporated into the text. I think it may be a good idea to develop a "phagobox" which could be used to show this data in a neater way. It could also be used to differentiate between insects which use a plant as an exclusive food source and polyphagous species which feed on this plant among others.

Does anyone (especially "plant people") have any comments on whether this is a good idea and any suggestions on formatting/where on the page it should be placed, etc. Richard Barlow 11:14, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea, particularly the exclusive / polyphagous differentiation; it would also be useful to discriminate (if data is available) between those that cause only minor damage to the plant, and those than can cause serious damage or mortality. If lists get really long (e.g. when all the hundreds of insects that feed on oaks get pages!), maybe they could even go on a linked separate page "Insects (or 'things') that feed on Xxxx" - MPF 22:51, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is very much a first draft of how this might look:

Insects which use Plant1 as a food plant
Major pest species
Insect1 Insect2 …
Other species which feed exclusively on Plant1
Insect3 Insect4 …
Species which feed on Plant1 among others
Insect5 Insect6 …

A bit basic I know. Any comments on how it could be improved? Richard Barlow 13:19, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Can you make it four squares? - there's a fourth type not covered there, polyphagous major pests like gypsy moth. So e.g., top row major pests, lower row minor pests; left column exclusive feeders, right column polyphagous. I guess there's also an intermediate case of insects which will eat every species in a genus, but not other genera. - MPF 14:55, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have a horrible feeling "intermediate cases" will be very common indeed! If a moth larva feeds on rowan and whitebeam should it be listed as monophagous in Sorbus or polyphagous in Rowan and Whitebeam? I think strictly single species monophagy is actually quite uncommon. Foxglove Pug is an obvious example but I can't think of too many other common examples offhand. Richard Barlow 15:51, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is it certain that Foxglove Pug won't touch Digitalis grandiflora or D. lutea?!? Otherwise, I would guess, yes, the Sorbus example might be the best way to go, or alternatively mention the insect only on the plant genus page rather than the plant species page? (though this would leave pages like Oak with gigantic insect lists, much of it not relevant to species on other continents). Tricky! - MPF 18:14, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have just found a huge database (called HOSTS) on the Natural History Museum site dedicated to this info. If I use this there is going to be a big increase in insect/food plant links: I think a table is going to be required in both the insect and the plant page. It's all a bit daunting and I'm beginning to regret starting all this! (but not really, obviously). I'm going to give some more thought to the best way to do this. Input would still be appreciated! Richard Barlow 16:19, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Article sections for mammals

I've been working on a couple of animal articles and have noticed the lack of suggested animal artcile layout (I expected one from WikiProject Mammals). I have been applying the following sections consistenly to articles long enough to need sections,

taxonomy -sometimes taxonomy and evolution
physical description
reproduction
ecology and behaviour- including habitat, position in the food chain etc.
distribution- if it occurs in more than one place

Then I add whatever additional sections are relevant to the critter. Should we come up with some kind of semi-formal suggested outline for wikiproject mammals? --nixie 04:38, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

One thing I'd suggest that unless there's a very large amount of info to go on (as at e.g. Lion), then keep the number of headers to three or less, so that no TOC appears (as e.g. Fallow Deer). Pages with nearly as many headers as lines of text look awful. - MPF 18:25, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Move request

For Dogwood (plant) to be moved back to Dogwood; it needs admin assistance, please. Thanks - MPF 18:25, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ooops, it's already done, by Niteowlneils - MPF 18:30, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Move & merge request for an admin

For Meadow-grass to be moved to Poa: since all meadow-grasses are in Poa, but not all species of Poa are called "meadow-grass". Thanks - MPF 16:35, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Done. Josh

Thanks! - MPF 10:37, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Beetles...a project in the making

Hi all,

I'm a relatively new but already addicted wiki-bod. I've just got done re-writing the beetle page, which was a bit sad considering the number of species. Would be great if someone could cast a (nice) critical eye over it.

There is a list connected to that page of families within the order of beetles, and few of them are populated! - I'd really like to start banging through them but it would take some time, any one else out there a bit of a beetle nut who'd like to help me out, trade ideas, and maybe act as a wiki-style mentor??

Anyone out there with pictures of beetles, also somewhat lacking?

Thanks

John --John-Nash 06:46, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi John. Nice to see someone else tackling Wikipedia's insect drought. I'm more of a Lepidoptera person (I've mainly been adding British moths) and I'm relatively new myself but I'm willing to help you in any way I can (although looking at the Beetle article I don't think you need my help!). As for pictures, I have trouble finding decent images myself without getting caught up in a copyright maze. My only suggestion would be to create your articles with a link to a picture on the web until you can find something you can put in the article. Richard Barlow 28 June 2005 09:07 (UTC)

The article Subgroups of the order Coleoptera is the place to see how broad Wikipedia's coverage of beetles is. You can see that we have (stub) articles on all the suborders and infraorders, 11 out of 17 superfamilies, and 46 out of 168 families. (This article needs a reference indicating whose taxonomy this is and how recent, by the way.)

There are several lovely photos of beetles at http://www.sxc.hu/ that can be redistributed without restriction — see [3] and successive pages of search results. Some particularly good photos include:

[4] from New South Wales — ?
[5] from Poland — some kind of scarab beetle
[6] from Israel — Potosia cuprea, a scarab beetle
[7] from New South Wales — ?
[8] from South Africa — a toktokkie, Psammodes sp., a darkling beetle

Gdr 2005-06-30 10:39:31 (UTC)

I worked on beetles for a while, and got tired... :-) Generally you want to work topdown, which amounts to finishing out the families, and then push on to the more interesting genera. Complete lists of genera would be great but seem hard to come by; in some cases the "family is in need of revision" with the last complete list dating from the 1920s or something, and known by all the specialists to have no connection to reality. Incremental is good - it's fine to create a family article with taxobox and one paragraph summarizing what the family is all about, then go back later and do more details like morphology and such. The commons is accumulating a nice little stash of beetle pics that could have god articles written around them, see [9] and click around. Stan 30 June 2005 13:09 (UTC)

Flacourtiaceae

I need some assistance with Flacourtiaceae please, to get it up to the APG classification. Most of the genera are now in Salicaceae, but there's quite a few genera where I've not been able to hunt down where they've been moved to since the demise of Flacourtiaceae. Does anyone know where to sort them to? - Thanks, MPF 28 June 2005 17:17 (UTC) (PS I like Wiwaxia's description of Flacourtiaceae as Cronquist's trash can!)

Some guesses:

Aberia is a synonym for Dovyalis [10]

Berberidopsis in Berberidopsidaceae

Buchnerodendron in Achariaceae

Caloncoba in Achariaceae

Camptostylus in Achariaceae

Gossypiospermum may be in Buxaceae

You may find http://taxon.molgen.mpg.de/gettaxon useful. Gdr 2005-06-28 20:35:40 (UTC)

Thanks! - MPF 30 June 2005 10:00 (UTC)

Fern ident

Can anyone identify this fern pic uploaded by Fir0002 and now added at plant? It's from Nunniong in Gippsland, southeast Australia, I'm fairly sure it is a Blechnum species, but don't know which. It is a super photo, but for its taxobox position, it would be nice to have an accurate identification. - MPF 30 June 2005 10:00 (UTC)

A bit of rooting around on a google search Blechnum+Gippsland gives Blechnum nudum as very close and my best guess unless someone knows better - MPF 30 June 2005 10:28 (UTC)

Praying mantis

Can some people familiar with Taxobox articles take a look at Talk:Praying_mantis. Earlier in the month a user asked for input on merging Praying mantis with Mantidae which was previously a normal redirect. They may also have been getting confused with the order Mantodea, but having received no response, they have now gone ahead with a number of cut-n-paste moves and other changes.

It now needs someone familiar with standard taxo practice to untangle the related articles. -- Solipsist 30 June 2005 21:04 (UTC)

Took a look; I agree it's a mess. It also needs going over by someone familiar with mantises from a global perspective, as the pages all have a terrible US-POV as well, written as if nowhere exists outside of the USA (or at least, nowhere that matters). I'd agree with Stemonitis' note of 4 Mar 2005 on the naming of the pages. - MPF 30 June 2005 21:36 (UTC)

The article for Mantodea looks ok - I checked, and most information applies to the order as a whole. The article for Mantidae was mostly duplicated text, which I've removed. The species list was terribly incomplete for either - compare TOL - so I've pulled it as well. That should give a place to start. Someone else should decide exactly what praying mantis refers to; the Audubon Guide mentions it as a common name for Mantis religiosa. Incidentally, preying mantis is clearly a mistake, and I don't think we should mention it as an alternate name. Josh

Thanks a bunch for the help. When I started out praying mantis was the main article and Mantodea and Mantidae both redirected to that. Then it got ugly once I wanted to add the Chinese mantis, which is clearly different from religiosa. I tried to get input, but it looks like I simply wasn't asking in the right places. I've also been doing some big moves and re-arranging on Cockroach and Grasshopper which played similar tricks. Given that I now know about this page I'll hold off on doing more of those so that if it's wrong it's not too much work to undo. I've also been adding information (and sources) to a few of these as well. I'm very open to constructive criticism. Wikibofh 30 June 2005 22:39 (UTC)

Chillean identification

Instead of going straight to the reference desk, there was a suggestion that people here might be well placed for identifying photos of plants and animals. So here is one of each from a mountain top in the Atacama Desert. Any ideas? -- Solipsist 3 July 2005 11:06 (UTC)

Spiny cactus ball (unidentified)
Lizard (unidentified)

Here are my semi-educated guesses, based on about an hour's research:

- The cactus is probably a member of the genus Eriosyce (syn. Pyrrhocactus). While there are several genera of globose cacti, Eriosyce is the largest Chilean cactus genus, with ca. 27 endemic species and several(?) reported from the Atacama region. I can't pin down the species.
- The lizard is probably a member of the genus Liolaemus, as this is one of the dominant genera of Atacaman lizards. I think this specimen most resembles the "rough-scaled lizard", Liolaemus nitidus (compare here; the coloration seems to be variable, and may also be seasonal). This is the only Liolaemus species with spiny scales that I'm aware of. The scale morphology is a very close match. Some sources seem to treat L. nitidus as a species group, suggesting even the experts aren't sure. Note that the general form and scales make this species look like a spiny lizard (Sceloporus spp.), but AFAIK they don't occur in Chile.

I hope I've helped! -- Hadal 5 July 2005 11:03 (UTC)

The identification of the 'curtailed' lizard as Liolaemus nitidus looks very likely. -- Solipsist 5 July 2005 18:27 (UTC)

Capitalization

When should the title of an article about a species be capitalized? I see that birds and crocodiles are almost all capitalized, mammals are mostly capitalized, fish and frogs are about 50/50. Dragonflies are capitalized, Butterflies are about 50:50, but cockroaches are not. Pines are capitalized, but flowers are mostly not.

I confess to being unable to understand the principles behind this scheme. Is there an article somewhere explaining it? How should I know whether to capitalize the title or not? Gdr 4 July 2005 22:23 (UTC)

My ignorant opinion: Capitalize like most of the rest of the wikipedia. First word capitalized, all others not, except in proper nouns. So, since species is normally not cap'd it would not be. The first word in the wiki is case insensitive. (ie Butterfly and butterfly are the same) Wikibofh 4 July 2005 22:29 (UTC)
- There is some guidance at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna). But, curiously, nothing at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora). -- Solipsist 5 July 2005 00:09 (UTC)

This has been an ongoing discussion since the beginning of WikiProject Tree of Life, recorded in the archives ; see for instance : Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive11#Common name capitalization. And if you look deeper in the archives, you'll find more discussions. If I recall well, the naming convention for floral common names was to capitalize the common names. Unfortunately, some editors don't, creating confusion. JoJan 5 July 2005 07:54 (UTC)

And before that of course, there were the stonking great discussions on the mailing list, particularly about birds.

What all these discussions produced was that there is no truly compelling argument either way.

Since we can find worthy books that take each side, I am not sure there is correctness to worry about (i.e. both are in some sense correct).

I personally have a preference for the capped version, but fundamentally this for informal reasons ("black rat is ambigious, Black Rat isn't"-style arguments). However I think this preference is second to my preference that we are consistent to as large extent as possible. This discussion comes back again and again as newcomers think uppercase is wrong. I wonder if switching to lower case for all but Aves (where the birdwatcher vote, even in the literature outside of Wikipedia, which always capitalizes, is much stronger) but be a) acceptable and b) aid in reducing the noise. Pcb21| Pete 5 July 2005 08:38 (UTC)

Yes, I've read all those discussions. But what I don't see is any conclusion or style guideline. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna) says that capitalization is disputed. I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I would like to see something written down even if it's only a division of the higher taxa into "capitalize" and "lowercase". Gdr 5 July 2005 09:11 (UTC)

The project page (and I believe the naming convention page also) used to contain a distillation of the discussions that was quite pro-active (e.g. something like "Mammals are capitalized... Fish are not... For plants see... For the rest, writer's choice"). Another round of discussions watered that down to "no consensus". Another round watered that down to disputed. It is hard to avoid that really, because if one person disagrees with a fragile consensus, then they can slap a "disputed" clause on the relevant project page and the page ends up saying nothing at all. I too would like to see a strong statement either way. Maybe we need to slog it out with a fully-worked out choice of options and well-advertised vote (ala the Gdansk naming vote). After that we can legitimately say, sorry, unless your saying something new we've decided on this Pcb21| Pete 5 July 2005 09:29 (UTC) p.s. and now you say "but we did this already!" :-). Pcb21| Pete 5 July 2005 09:29 (UTC)

Yep, this one's been gone over many times! Each time there's been a vote, there's been a slender majority for full capitalisation, as Jo points out. But the anti-caps lobby is nearly as large as the pro, and both sides tend to continue as if their way is right . . . For the record, I'm in the pro-caps lobby (as is easy to see from the previous discussions).

While on the subject, I'd like to move all the oaks to full caps - a few already are, and all the other species in Fagales are, so the lower case oaks are a bit out of accord with the rest of the Fagales. And while I'm at it, I'd like to merge Category:Oaks into Category:Fagaceae; the latter has very few articles listed, and there's not really enough oaks to justify their own category either. So don't be surprised if you see a few oaks getting capitalised over the next few days!

The other option, for plants at least (as has also been discussed several times!), is to move all plant species to scientific names, thereby nullifying all the arguments over which (un)common name is the best one to use for the title. - MPF 5 July 2005 21:06 (UTC)

I'm also in the caps camp. One partial solution is to have a child project of ToL decide the issue for the articles that project would cover. This has been effective for at least the cetaceans, primates, and cephalopods, as well as the birds, of course. - UtherSRG July 5, 2005 21:56 (UTC)

To see a debate in process, check out the editorialization in [11], including the the familiar-sounding "We are aware of the polemics (and attendant emotion) that capitalization of common names invokes among some of the academic community [...]". While I personally prefer non-capitalization, I'm willing to go along with whatever the experts say to do - but in an area where there is ongoing debate and no consensus, I don't think that non-experts should presume to make a decision on their own authority. (It would be cool if someone were to create a WP article on this very subject, so that at least the facts of the situation are gathered in one place; perhaps this could become an opportunity to influence the discussion among specialists, who are not always fully aware of the situation outside of their own disciplines.) Stan 5 July 2005 22:23 (UTC)

Not sure about a seperate child project page - that's just one more page to forget to look at until too late (like the Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants which I never remember to look at!). I think it's better to keep to just one (this) page.

Interesting to note that even with Wikibofh's rules things still aren't consistent - all the Magnolia species pages are lower case (e.g. Southern magnolia) - poor Pierre Magnol must be turning in his grave at being decapitalised! - MPF 5 July 2005 22:46 (UTC)

Stan Shebs had an interesting comment a while back that people tend to ungrammatically capitalize things they feel are important. I mainly get peeved at people who go on a crusade, changing hundreds of existing articles to their personal capitalization preference. Mackerm 5 July 2005 23:21 (UTC)

I don't recall saying "ungrammatical", but the Chicago manual does have an interesting comment about writers often capitalizing excessively when writing about religous topics, apparently thinking that it's more pious. The fish-related editorial does have a revealing little comment near the end, suggesting that capitalization might result in species being treated with more respect. That's POV though, we can't use that as a reason. :-) Stan 6 July 2005 03:09 (UTC)

I've been studying the taxonomy of skateboarding tricks, and was shocked to find out that only some of the maneuvers are capitalized. How are we to know whether a "stalefish grab" is a recognized move, or just rude behavior? With "Gorilla Grab", there's no confusion. Mackerm 6 July 2005 04:03 (UTC)

How about the following policy as a compromise:

Official or standard common names are capitalized if they are capitalized by the body that standardizes them, lower case if not.
Common common names (not standardized by any official body) are always in lower case.

Gdr 6 July 2005 23:33 (UTC)

Interesting idea, though I'm not sure how well it would work, as I doubt official bodies agree any more than we do - MPF 7 July 2005 21:52 (UTC)

Seems plausible to me - since the official bodies that have actually standardized names seem to favor capitalization, use of lowercase would tend to suggest an unofficial status. Stan 7 July 2005 22:35 (UTC)

If we do this long enough, does it become a standard, and thus force us to change to number 1? Of course, I'm kidding. :) Wikibofh 7 July 2005 22:44 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, in what cases are there official common names? I know they exist for birds, but I haven't heard of any others. This page, incidentally, suggests that capitalization of species names is done almost exclusively by ornithologists, although it's fairly old. Josh

Though they also say "The use of lower case initial letters in English names in other disciplines seems to be a matter of traditionß but we encourage capitalization for English names of species not only in birds but in other groups as well" - a statement which I (of course!) would agree with strongly, for the reasons they give. The comment "the phrases "a White Tern" and "a white tern" have distinctly discrete meaning" are just as relevant repeated "the phrases "a White Oak" and "a white oak" have distinctly discrete meaning" (respectively, Quercus alba and Quercus sect. Quercus) - MPF 7 July 2005 23:17 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the arguments. I'm just pointing out that Gdr's proposal would probably amount to capitalizing birds and not capitalizing much else. Josh

The idea behind my proposal is the principle that Wikipedia should in general follow the experts in a field, not try to anticipate them. As to which taxa would be included, I'm not sure. But it wouldn't just be birds. I note that there appear to be official common names for:

Reptiles [12]
Fishes [13]
Insects [14]

Gdr 8 July 2005 07:49 (UTC)

Alternatively, you could just follow the standard in some other encyclopedia, which has the advantage of reconciling the use of non-standard capitalization in various academic fields, not just biology. Although I've been critical of the over-use of capitalization, it does have one advantage: it just looks amateurish. It's a red flag that an article isn't to be trusted. Mackerm 8 July 2005 08:27 (UTC)

Ouch! I've stayed out of this debate as views seem to be so entrenched but that hurt! I always use capitals, partly for disambiguation reasons (eg Ghost Moth indicates a species, ghost moth can mean any member of a family), partly because all the sources I use (some very erudite and scientific, some more populist, all "trustworthy" for my money) use caps as well. Richard Barlow 8 July 2005 09:58 (UTC)

What capitalization scheme do you use to indicate any member of a genus? "ghost Moth", perhaps? Mackerm 8 July 2005 15:09 (UTC)

Why does a capitalization scheme for common names need to cover the precision of all the scientific categories? Since we're talking about common names, they are already going to be inconsistent and informal and we can't change that. We're not talking about precision here, we're talking about consistency. It's a style debate. Wikibofh 8 July 2005 15:18 (UTC)

Your mouth to God's ear. Mackerm 8 July 2005 15:30 (UTC)

Amusingly enough, at least the insect link from above makes no mention of capitalization, although it uses all lowercase in it's examples. :) Wikibofh 8 July 2005 13:52 (UTC)

Given that Jimbo decreed that Wikipedia ToL was for trivia whilst real science was reserved Wikispecies, perhaps we should standardize on whatever the makers of Free Willy. Pcb21| Pete 8 July 2005 16:41 (UTC)

So far, wikispecies doesn't do list much that isn't better suited to TOL. Since the charter is for it not to overlap, I would consider it still in the experimental stage, and not worry about it. Josh

If we are to follow the standard authorities (sensible), then - for plants at least (and I suspect several other groups too) - we ditch common names completely and stick to scientific names. The authoritative plant books (e.g. the Kew checklists, or the APG publications) simply don't even mention common names at all. I'd have no problem following suit for page titles. This gets rid of all the capitalisation problems too, since Genus species capitalisation applies throughout. Beautifully simple and consistent. - MPF 8 July 2005 21:43 (UTC)

Get thee to Wikispecies! More seriously, it is a complete non sequitur to use a discussion about capitalisation to abandon common names. We've been through this issue before too and there is strong support for using common names as part of making our content widely accessible. Pcb21| Pete 8 July 2005 22:37 (UTC)

The problem with plants is that the the sommon names aren't necessarily common at all. I can think of a number of examples where there are several common names, even just within the United States.--nixie 05:34, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We shouldn't use those. The way I read our policy is to use the most common name, which can be either the scientific name or the vernacular. For instance we should use sunflower instead of Helianthus and wheat instead of Triticum, but Lithodora instead of grace ward. Josh

Just to illustrate the pitfalls, Helianthus can indicate sunflower or Jerusalem artichoke! All three have separate articles and that's probably how it should be. I agree with your point but what is the "most" common name should provoke "healthy" debate! Richard Barlow 10:00, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm hoping that this discussion is wider than just about Titles, so I'm goint to suggest what the key problem is with Common Names. But first, were problems with Common Names not solved during the great era of Taxonomy or in the century since? Or, are today's experts (mostly narrow group specialists) about to demonstrate some great new consensus? Or, are the cultural mores of the world's nations about to hand up the necessary new concepts? No signs; whatever it is, it's our problem. The good news? Most of the clues needed to solve it are already posted here!

The above discussion seems to lean towards a consensus (but do let's have a vote), yet the problem area remains static. Nobody moved it; nobody moved themselves. I guess this is because our focus is skewed. We seem to want to know,' "What should the standard Common Name' look like?".

It's our current social 'tradition' to be superficial. Why are we concerned about 'style' when there are more interesting aspects? Where, in the above discussion or in the works of the great academic institutions, is there interest in the uses and functions of Common Names? I don't see any, yet I've got a feeling that Common Sense says they are needed to help people deal with important information: for remembering and recall; as indispensable keys to unlock recorded information; and for communication of information for use in Conservation, etc. Useable Common Names are primarily needed in peoples' heads - everywhere that Conservation needs local help. Ie, they need to be in use at a local level, and therefore in all keyboard compatible languages (so that computers can cope later).

There is only one rule that I know of: 'Common Names should be linked to valid taxonomic names'. OK, this is a series of minefields - one for each Rank that is, or isn't, used. But this area is worth working hard at. Let's do it - unless we can be sure that others are already doing it better. Other points are about style, appearance or preferences and should be dealt with pragmatically, thinking only of the users in the field. Common sense and cooperation will cope without a fuss.

Do I need to hint at my Capitalization preference? The "black rat", as mentioned above, could be tan coloured with a pure white underbelly (photo available (thanks to "Meg" (our resident Canine Megafauna) when I learn how to post it). 11:17, 10 July 2005 (UTC) & Stanskis 21:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand anything you've written above. Please clarify. Gdr 14:06, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I will try, thanks. Thanks for starting this discusion It's a favourite of mine from the aspect that Common Names should have a function, and this should help with "the problems" that people find in "how to standaradise them". I don't want to preach or to lecture, so, above, I've tried to theorise. My best answer to you is the page User:Marshman which contains wisdom that I'm only beginning to pick up on in WikiWorld. One specific point; I see your proposal: "the principle that WIkiPedia should in general follow the experts...". Where to? Are we lost? Some experts would print "black rat", but who would dare to print "honda integra" or "toyota corolla"? Where are society's (conservation) values? Stanskis 21:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Identification of dragonflies

Hello there, it would be great, if you can help us identify some pictures of dragonflies from Ontario near Algonquin Provincial Park.

It is discussed in the german Wikipedia so it would be great if you may answer at de:Diskussion:Portal_Lebewesen#Libellen_2. Greetings from Berlin, Achim Raschka 6 July 2005 07:41 (UTC)

The first two look like female Libellula luctuosa, or possibly immature male. I don't immediately recognize any of the other six. --Eric Forste 8 July 2005 23:39 (UTC)

Thanks I took the pictures and would be very glad if anyone could identify the other ones. de:Dickbauch

Poultry

A dispute has arisen on the categorisation of several articles including Phasianidae, Anatidae, Dove, Wild Turkey, New World quail. I've moved it to Talk:Poultry to get other viewpoints on this. jimfbleak 05:25, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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