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Next issue ---> | Tip Line SYMBIOSIS: The lichen task force newsletter — September 2022 A look at what we've accomplished, working together
Welcome to the first-ever issue of SYMBIOSIS, the newsletter of the new lichen task force. As a subset of WP:FUNGI, the task force is working to improve coverage of the world's lichens – unique organisms composed of one or more fungal partners with one or more photosynthetic partners. They're found around the world, from frigid polar areas to the steamy equator, from the edges of lapping seas to the highest mountains, and from city walls to the most remote wilderness areas. They may be major players in the creation of soil from rock, and they produce substances which may prove beneficial in our fight against pathogenic organisms. Want to learn more? Join us!	Articles of note New GA article: Phacopsis – a genus of lichenicolous fungi New project members Esculenta MeegsC Kazamzam J Milburn Dr vulpes MerielGJones
Project news It's been a busy first month for the task force. Among the accomplishments thus far: Project pages were created, and various reports and alerts signed up for. More than 3,100 articles, templates and categories were tagged as being under the purview of the task force. Group members selected the ten articles thought to be of top importance to the project. (Two don't yet exist except as drafts or redirects.) The project's cleanup listing backlog was whittled from 220 issues on 194 articles when the project was first established to 145 issues on 124 articles by the end of August. Given that the oldest issues on articles still to fix date back to 2009, there is still much work to do here! An outline of lichens was created to provide a one-stop index to existing and needed lichen articles. Work was begun on a glossary of lichen terminology. Work was begun on converting all articles still using old "taxobox" templates to the newer automatic taxobox and speciesbox templates. More than 100 taxonomy templates have been created so far. Dozens of new genus and species articles were created.
Lichen news A new study shows that the secondary metabolites produced by a lichen are dependent upon the substrate on which it grows. If necessary, lichens can produce metabolites which, for example, give them a higher resistance to acidity, protect against high concentrations of heavy metals, or allow them to survive drought. Atranorin, which lichens use to filter out excess solar radiation, was the most common secondary metabolite found in the studied species.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!

Virus species are now supposed to be named with binomials. This is a big change. I started a thread about at it at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Viruses#Big change to nomenclatural code. Plantdrew (talk) 16:29, 19 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There is an [edit request] that may interest editors. Feel free to issue an opinion. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^put'r there 05:19, 3 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How do you disambiguate a subgenus article name for animals? Case in point: Aedes (Kompia) a mosquito subgenus. Kompia was preoccupied by a redirect to Kompyang (which seems correct). The author therefore created it under "Kompias" (gah) which I moved to Kompia (mosquito), with a disambiguation for this and Kompyang at Kompia. Now the author has moved the subgenus page to Aedes (Kompia).

I can't tell whether that is better or worse, since I can't figure out a) what is the usual form for non-plant subgenus pages (with or without a qualifier?) and how that interacts with in-title disambiguation requirements... --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:28, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if this is typical but for Mus there is Mus (subgenus) and Nannomys, with Mus (Nannomys) as redirect. So Kompia (subgenus) might be clearest. It seems strange for the bolded name in the lede to be only part of the title. There is also the issue of the italics. —  Jts1882 | talk  12:08, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I concur. "Name (subgenus)" as the primary placement was what I was going to suggest, with appropriate redirects as needed. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:18, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How to handle ICZN subgenus names that need disambiguation should follow on from how to handle ICZN subgenus names generally. But this latter seems to be an issue on which there isn't agreement. There are several areas in which it arises:

1. The title of the article (where there is no need for disambiguation): should it be "Subgenus" or "Genus (Subgenus)"? If you look at Category:Animal subgenera and its subcategory Category:Insect subgenera, there are examples of both styles.
2. The opening of the article: articles whose title is just "Subgenus" often open with "Genus (Subgenus) is ..." as Canalilyria does.
3. What is shown against "Subgenus:" in the taxobox – examples of all three possible styles can be found: the full "Genus (Subgenus)", the abbreviated "G. (Subgenus)" and just "Subgenus".

Article 6.1 of the ICZN is clear that when a species or subspecies name (binomen or trinomen) includes a subgenus it must be interpolated in parentheses. However, there seems to be no provision for how a subgenus name by itself should be presented. So we do, I think, need to come up with more consensus guidance. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:07, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Cool We have some fun discussions ahead of us then. Consensus to be reached on article placement, article opening line, and taxobox display. I think we can work all three in parallel. I don't think we have any problems with regards to bi- and trinomen usage, at least not that I've seen. I don't think the opening line is as important to have a consistent style, but should allow the editors to have flexibility as long as the distinction between Genus and Subgenus is clear in the text. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:34, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A fourth consideration is the names of taxonomy templates. It looks like there are 691 taxonomy templates for subgenera. Taxonomy templates for animal subgenera are overwhelming named "Genus (Subgenus)"; there are a few "Subgenus", and just 12 with "Subgenus (subgenus)". Taxonomy templates also relate to Peter's 3rd point, as taxonomy templates increasingly produce what is display in the Subgenus line of a taxobox.Plantdrew (talk) 18:57, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Those templates need to match the article placement, right? So whatever decision is made on article placement will affect the taxotemplates. So that should be something we take into account, but I don't think we have to make a separate consideration for. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:09, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There is no technical requirement that the templates match article titles. The templates could use completely arbitrary names (e.g. numbers). As a matter of usability it is highly advantageous to have the template match the article title. But there are exceptions; in cases where the article title is disambiguated against a non-taxonomic meaning, and there is only one taxonomic meaning, the template is not disambiguated. Plantdrew (talk) 20:15, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've attempted to fill out Category:Animal subgenera and its subcategories with relevant pages (articles and redirects). I looked at all of the subgenus taxonomy templates uncovered in my search above (excluding plants), and categorized every existing page for a subgenus found in the process (using the format for the name given in the taxonomy template); I also checked for subgenus redirects when the taxonomy template linked to a species (i.e., because the subgenus is monotypic). I searched articles with manual taxoboxes for |subgenus_authority= and bold markup in |subgenus=. I'm sure I missed some subgenera with manual taxoboxes that didn't have the expected authority or bolding, and there are surely some subgenus redirects (and red-links) that are only linked from manual taxoboxes. When the forms "Subgenus" and "Genus (Subgenus)" both existed as redirects, I didn't attempt to categorize both, differing to whichever was (more) linked (disclaimer; a substantial number of "Genus (Subgenus)" redirects are my creations which I had linked and categorized prior to this discussion). Plantdrew (talk) 02:39, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's fantastic! Good work. Looks like a good mix of "Y", "X (Y)", and "Y (subgenus)". I eyeball-estimate about an even split between "Y" and "X (Y)", and a handful of "Y (subgenus)". Certrainly no preponderance of one vice the other. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:31, 9 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Subgenus MOS

1. For subgenus names covered by the ICZN, preferred article title is the subgenus name on its own, with a redirect from the "expanded" form. When the preferred title is already occupied, the subgenus name should be disambiguated with "(subgenus)", with a redirect from the "expanded" form.
   1. "Aedes (Kompia)" redirects to "Kompia"
   2. "Aedes (Kompia)" redirects to "Kompia (subgenus)"
2. Article lead can follow any format so long as the usage of the subgenus term is distinct from the genus term. If the genus and subgenus names are spelled out separately, only the subgenus gets bolded. If using the "expanded" form, the whole name gets bolded.
   1. Kompia is a subgenus of the mosquito genus Aedes.
   2. Within the genus Aedes, the subgenus Kompia are the mosquitoes that ...
   3. Aedes (Kompia) is the subgenus of mosquitoes that ...
3. Taxobox listing on the Subgenus line should be the bare subgenus name. This will help to maintain a slim look to the taxobox. The species line should abbreviate the Genus and leave out the Subgenus.

Discussion

I like it, 'cos I proposed it. *grins* I think this provides enough freedom for the editors to do their good work, while maintaining clarity and consistency. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:34, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Genus names must be unique within each code; subgenus names don't have to be. They are often formed from a previous genus sunk to a subgenus, which means that they are often unique, but not always. Also, the nominate subgenus will always need disambiguating against the genus if the bare subgenus name is used. Sharply reducing the need for disambiguation is an argument in favour of using "Genus (Subgenus)" as the standard form of the article title and the taxonomy template title. Also, ICNafp infrageneric names always require the genus and a connecting term (i.e. "Genus subg. Subgenus"), so using "Genus (Subgenus)" for ICZN names makes for greater visual consistency. However, it's not something I have a strong opinion about. The main need is for consistency. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:43, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Peter coxhead "subgenus names don't have to be [unique within each code]": wait, hold on, is this actually true? As far as I understood it was not true at least under ICZN, where genera and subgenera are referred together as "genus group" taxa (see Article 42). According to Article 56, the Principle of Homonymy applies to all genus group names. (If I was misreading you on this point, apologies) Monster Iestyn (talk) 21:57, 8 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Monster Iestyn: you're quite right; carelessness on my part. The issue within the ICZN is only the need to handle the nominotypical subgenus. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:36, 9 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree with the formatting advice in point #2. Also agree with #3, although species lines in automatic taxoboxes already leave out the subgenus, and most taxonomy templates are set up to only show the bare subgenus name. I'm not sold on the titling advice in point #1. I'll note that most subgenera mentioned on Wikipedia don't have articles, and a substantial number of subgenera that do have articles were originally created as articles for genera, and then changed to be about subgenera as the taxonomy changed.

• Advantages to Genus (Subgenus) format for titles:

1. It is clear from the title what the rank is the (rank is usually apparent from standardized endings for families and higher taxa and multiple words for species/subspecies)
2. Avoids the need for (subgenus) as a disambiguator for nominate subgenera
3. Better meets the WP:AT criterion of PRECISION

• Advantages to Subgenus format for titles:

1. It isn't necessary to move the page if taxonomic changes sink a genus to a subgenus or elevate a subgenus to genus
2. Genus (Subgenus) is rather odd; usually a parenthetical term is a less important component of a name, not the more important component
3. Better meets the WP:AT criterion of CONCISENESS Plantdrew (talk) 16:39, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What should be done with the taxonomy templates for taxa that are now redirected? Arctomiales is an example; it is now redirected to Baeomycetales. Should we keep the no-longer-used taxonomy template? Or should it be deleted? MeegsC (talk) 13:46, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete is my view. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:54, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. At one point I was inclined to keep them, on the grounds that synonym status isn't necessarily permanent. Then I learned about Wikipedia:WikiProject Templates/Unused Templates Task Force; since there's a team of Wikipedians devoted to clearing out unused templates, I don't think taxonomy templates for synonyms need to stick around indefinitely; it's easy to recreate them if they become needed again (unused taxonomy templates account for more than half the entries in this list). MeegsC, if you're not already aware, the process to delete taxonomy templates is to blank the existing code and add Category:Unnecessary taxonomy templates. Plantdrew (talk) 16:11, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Plantdrew and Peter coxhead, do you have any idea how long cached transclusions remain? It's still showing 9 transcluded links to the now-defunct order, even though I've changed the affected taxonomy templates. MeegsC (talk) 10:28, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It varies a lot. Usually its hours or a few days, but occasionally it can last weeks or even months. If you want to clear them make a null edit on the relevant pages. —  Jts1882 | talk  10:41, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Jts1882. MeegsC (talk) 13:01, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@MeegsC: the length of time seems to have increased recently in my experience; also you sometimes need to purge as well as make a null edit. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:38, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale; the primary issue of concern is editors creating large numbers of stubs. Articles on species are repeatedly brought up as examples. "Large numbers" is not defined, but from the positions taken by some commenters an editor who regularly creates one article a day might be considered to be engaged in article creation at scale. Plantdrew (talk) 17:09, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What is the correct spelling of this taxon? Wikipedia currently uses Trigonalidae, and states that "Trigonalyidae" is incorrect. According to Order Hymenoptera. In: Zhang, Z.-Q. (Ed.) Animal Biodiversity: An Outline of Higher-level Classification and Survey of Taxonomic Richness (Addenda 2013) This name has been spelled in two ways: Trigonalidae and Trigonalyidae. The family was proposed as Trigonalidae by Cresson (1887) and is based on the genus Trigonalys Westwood (1835). Westwood did not provide the derivation of his genus-group name, but it must be assumed that Trigonalys is to be treated as a noun in the nominative singular. It is presumably a compound word. If Latin, the first part of the name “trigonium” is a noun meaning triangle but the second part is ambiguous; it might come from the Greek “alys” or it might be an arbitrary combination of letters. Only in the latter case does ICZN Article 29.3.3 apply and the stem adopted by Cresson, who establishes the new family-group taxon, must be accepted as the correct spelling, namely Trigonalidae, however, a later 2020 paper, which includes some of the same authors, [1] favours Trigonalyidae as the correct spelling. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:25, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Since we are descriptive and not prescriptive, "correct" doesn't matter as much as as what is used in the literature. From what you posted, it seems like the literature is starting to come around to using the "yi" spelling, but it's probably not swung far enough for us to consider changing the name of the article. Probably safe enough to include some of the discussion of the spelling discrepancy in the article though. Those crazy ICZN cats... ;) - UtherSRG (talk) 00:03, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can't access the 2020 paper, but Lelej (2003; researchgate) says The stem of Trigonalys for the family-group name is trigonaly-os, which would make Trigonalyidae, Trigonalyinae or Trigonalyini the correct spelling (I.M. Kerzhner, personal communication). For last fifty years Trigonalidae and Trigonalyidae have been used approximately equal even former more often. According to the article 35.4.1 of International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (1999) Trigonalyidae Cresson, 1887, Trigonalyinae Cresson, 1887 and Trigonalyini Cresson, 1887 must be used.. So it seems the correct Greek (?) would be Trigonalyidae and that the code allows/requires the correction. However, as we need to follow sources we probably should leave the name as is and add "alternatively Trigonalyidae" and remove the "unjustified emendation" from the taxobox. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:23, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can't access the 2020 paper either. I'm not sure if Lelej has been consistent. Here is a claim that Lelej favored Trigonalidae in a 2013 paper. But there were a bunch of a coauthors, and maybe Lelej just didn't want to raise a stink about the spelling.

@Dyanega: created the Trigonalidae article in 2006 (with a mention of the spelling issue), has edited it extensively since, and fairly recently created the Trigonalyidae redirect. I'm inclined to defer to his judgement; there aren't any other Wikipedia editors who surpass Dyanega in knowledge of the zoological code. Plantdrew (talk) 15:18, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This argument keeps resurfacing, and it needs to be killed, permanently. ICZN Article 29.5 is what puts the nail in its coffin, and these people talking about Article 35.4 are ignoring the rest of the Code. To wit: "29.5. Maintenance of current spellings. If a spelling of a family-group name was not formed in accordance with Article 29.3 but is in prevailing usage, that spelling is to be maintained, whether or not it is the original spelling and whether or not its derivation from the name of the type genus is in accordance with the grammatical procedures in Articles 29.3.1 and 29.3.2. (emphasis mine) The point is that the 1999 Code was written specifically to prevent pedantic scholars from changing accepted names after January 1, 2000, because they thought they were better grammatical scholars than the original authors, and/or felt a need to show just how scholarly they were by changing names all over the place. Article 29.5 was intended to put a stop to that sort of revisionary and very destabilizing nonsense once and for all, but evidently there are still people who don't know how to read the rules. As of January 1, 2000, there is ONE spelling for this family, and it is Trigonalidae. "Trigonalyidae" is incorrect, and its usage is in direct violation of the Code. Usages of "Trigonalyidae" after 1999 DO NOT COUNT when assessing prevailing usage. That would constitute "gaming the system" if all you needed to do to establish a different spelling for a name was to out-publish the correct name. Dyanega (talk) 15:40, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. However, that is about what is correct or not correct. Our job isn't to judge what is correct or not, but to report what is published. If there is a significant amount of literature using the "yi" spelling instead of the "i" spelling, it is not our job to say they are wrong, but to say that there is some controversy. Saying "alternatively Trigonalyidae" instead of "sometimes incorrectly spelled Trigonalyidae" is more of a WP:NPOV on the matter. And like I said above Probably safe enough to include some of the discussion of the spelling discrepancy in the article though. UtherSRG (talk) 12:47, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that baldly saying correct or not correct is problematic; however, we can (and should) say what is correct or not correct according to the ICZN with a reference to support this. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:43, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I concur. @Dyanega: Since you are our code expert, can you get this done? - UtherSRG (talk) 17:58, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The problem that arises is that now we have articles such as Coleopsidae where wiki-voice is being used to make fact assertions that are not actually present in any citable literature. We have to stay within the bounds of what published information provides, and not start actively making spelling/validity assertions that are definable as OR Synth. EG what primary or database source are we citing that actively makes the statement that Coleopsidae is correct and Coleopseidae is invalid? We CANT just state "29.4. wording is such, so we at wiki are making the defacto decision ahead of any citable reference".--Kevmin § 16:42, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That might be partly my fault, this discussion made me think of Coleopsidae vs Coleopseidae and I brought it up to Dyanega to confirm what the correct spelling should be under the ICZN. I agree too that this unfortunately veers towards OR at least on Wikipedia ...unfortunately by just the actual sources the spelling usage seems to be split about half-half right now as far as I can tell: the original article establishing the name as well as the supplemental material of the recent Cai et al. (2022) use "Coleopsidae", while Kirejtshuk (2020) and Schädel et al. (2022) use "Coleopseidae"; Fossilworks currently uses "Coleopseidae" after Kirejtshuk (2020), while Paleobiology Database currently uses "Coleopsidae" after Cai et al. (2022). Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:36, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Kevmin here. We need to cite sources demonstrating the controversy, not just baldly staying that a position is "wrong", without citing any sources to that effect. Why was the Coleopsidae article made at family level anyway, given that the family is monotypic? Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:04, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I get the point being made by Kevmin, but 29.3 is what it is and whether you use incorrect or wrong, whatever, the code can be cited as a reference to the correct formation of names. You may have to explain it a little. I do not think it represents a WP:NPOV issue as the writer is citing the codes point of view not theirs. As Dyanega said those that stick to these grammar hound issues in nomenclature are really just trying to get an extra pub out. Their works are not code compliant and should be treated as such. Last paper out is not necessarily the correct one. If your writing about life you need to be making some decisions on these things. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 17:49, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As for why I created it at family rank, the reasoning is simple: if we suppose someone adds a new genus, then they would need to create a new article for the family (since it can no longer be a redirect). That is a bit more tedious than editing an existing article. I prefer to avoid making articles for the lowest-ranking members of monotypic groups, for exactly this reason; they may not remain monotypic indefinitely. Dyanega (talk) 17:53, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As for why I think this skirts but does not cross the "original research" boundary, I've said it before but I will reiterate it here: The ICZN Code has certain provisions which are both automatic and mandatory, and literally do not have to be published or cited in order to take effect. The most common such thing is gender agreement, and I often get comments from people who don't understand that you don't need someone to publish a statement that gives a new spelling to establish that a genus is one gender or another, or a species name is spelled one way or another if it has to do with gender agreement - you simply use the correct spelling on your own initiative, because that's what the rules tell you to do. Remember, the Code was written long before e-mail or the web, and was designed to give free agency to taxonomists, so they could act independently as much as possible. The easiest and most obvious way to distinguish between those parts of the Code that are automatic and mandatory and those that are not is to look for the word "must"; if says that, then this means that no one is required to publish it or provide a source. It's assumed that all taxonomists will independently take the same course of action. For matters of opinion, that are subject to debate or dispute, the Code spells out the steps to take, and usually says "should" (rather than "must"), and/or refers to the need for a Commission ruling. The Commission does not need to rule on gender agreement, nor does it need to rule on prevailing usage, nor does it need to rule on other mandatory provisions like Article 29.4. Those of us on the Commission would go nuts if we had to rule on every minor point of law, and authors would go nuts if they had to publish on every minor point of law. I do honestly think that all that should be necessary is to cite the rule in question, and state it as fact. Dyanega (talk) 18:11, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A further point that is probably worth making: in cases where a certain action is mandated by the Code, but the "reigning authority" either is unaware of the rule or personally rejects the rule, then it can be years or even decades before someone else publishes anything that contradicts that authority, and even then it will typically not involve any formal statement, but simply using the Code-mandated spelling. This is the same basic argument I've had to raise with cataloguers and checklist maintainers who wanted to see a gender variant in print, or a gender published for a genus name, before they would change the names in their catalog or checklist. All that delaying does is give incorrect spellings more time to persist and propagate, which is exactly what the Code tries to prevent. Dyanega (talk) 18:39, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I dig it. It's got a good rhythm and I can dance to it. However, it would be good if the code mentioned non-scientific writings (cataloges, checklists, encyclopedias) so that those catalogers and checklist editors and wikipedians would have an easier time saying "Oh, I can do this myself? Neat!" (Or if it does have some such mention, where is it?) - UtherSRG (talk) 18:56, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(Not to say that what we are doing isn't scientific... but we're reporting on science, not creating science...) - UtherSRG (talk) 18:57, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Except wikipedia...doesnt...GET...to.."do it ourselves".

I feel it is rather important at this juncture to remind everyone that Wikipedia is at no point ever beholden to follow any ICZN or ICBN or other scientific bodies rules. Wikipedia only ever reports what has been stated somewhere else. Thus we will use ICZN rules "as used in the sources" we are never allowed to make any proactive action on a subject "Because the ICZN". Im going to be honest and state that Dyanegas rational above is pretty close to a taxtbook example of a wp:OR/synth violation. The timeframe it could take for a correction to happen is irrelevant to this situation, as are the actual ICZN rules. Wiki is not a primary source outlet for ICZN corrections or opinions. Unless a primary/secondary/teriary source actually says "name A is invalid per the ICZN", wikipedia can not make the definitive proactive statement.--Kevmin § 19:33, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

synth is taking A from one article and B from another and concluding C. Not really what I am saying. This is having A and B and choosing one based on the ICZN code. I can see your point that this is borderline wp:OR, but if you want to include articles about living species your going to have to be willing to push this. However, in saying that I would recommend these changes to articles are done through consensus, you may want to in difficult cases refer to what we have for the taxon on Wikispecies, where we do not have these policies as its not what we are trying to do there. All Encyclopedias have had to do this and those policies are written for human constructs, they do not translate well to describing the living world as it just does not obey any human made rules. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 20:03, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In a very real way, rejecting a standing authoritative source is akin to giving undue weight to minority opinions, which is also something we have policies against in Wikipedia. A single taxonomist's opinion does not establish the spelling of a name: theirs is a minority opinion, and the Code establishes - by explicit consensus of the entire taxonomic community - what that majority opinion is. In principle, the only significant difference is that the majority opinion, as embodied by the Code, rarely cites individual examples but instead gives general cases. For example, I can't see why, if a mollusc taxonomist published a paper today using the name "Haliotididae", one could justify rejecting this in an edit in Wikipedia by citing the specific example in the Code (under Art. 29.3.1.1. where it says "The family-group names HALIOTIDAE and HALIOTOIDEA are not changed to HALIOTIDIDAE and HALIOTIDOIDEA, even though the stem of Haliotis is Haliotid-, as the latter spellings are not in prevailing usage."), but would not be allowed to edit any other case that falls under this exact same Code Article. All such names should be treated the same, even if the individual name in question is not cited in the Code. You appear to be saying that if the name Trigonalidae had appeared as an example in the Code under Article 29.5, we would not be having this discussion at all, and there would be no controversy. To me, there is no controversy at all in the first place, and such a narrowly-defined policy comes across as a double standard that - again - gives undue weight to the opinions of taxonomists who violate the Code. By analogy, if someone proposes an alternative definition for a word that is completely at odds with what it says in the dictionary, I don't think we are compelled to lend that alternative definition credence in Wikipedia - it does not make sense to force editors to wait until a secondary source comes out and says "This person's definition does not correspond to what is in the dictionary". Dyanega (talk) 20:39, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's important to distinguish, as we do in other cases, between (1) article titles and taxoboxes, and (2) the text of articles. We have to make a single choice for the article title and the taxobox. This choice has to be consistent, to make articles and taxoboxes fit together, so cannot always be the majority usage in current sources for a given taxon. The text of articles, on the other hand, must reflect all reliable sources. I'm more familiar with debates over the ICNafp, where have been (and still are) many cases where sources disagree (e.g. our article is currently at Opuntia triacantha, while IPNI says it should be Opuntia triacanthos). My view is that we should follow the Codes as closely as possible for article titles and taxoboxes, while fully respecting alternative sources in the text. I don't accept that this is WP:SYNTH. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:13, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I remember seeing a categorized list of these some time ago, but can't find it here or on the obvious suspects' user pages. Hint please? Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:45, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You can run a petscan report (http://petscan.wmflabs.org), entering the appropriate categories and templates in the appropriate spots. For instance, I've been updating lichen articles by sticking "lichen genera" in as the category and "taxobox" in as the template to get my list. MeegsC (talk) 11:49, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Elmidae:, every six months I make a post with stats on manual taxoboxes by WikiProject. The most recent version is at Wikipedia talk:Automated taxobox system (with older versions in the archives). I have notes on manual taxoboxes for animal phyla and fish and insect orders (based on a Petscan search in the appropriate category) at User:Plantdrew/Animal automatic taxobox progress, and plant families at User:Plantdrew/Plant automatic taxobox progress. There are some groups where a single editor is slowly working on updating the higher classification, and others that have never had an internally consistent higher classification. If you find a group you'd like to work on, I may be able to provide some advice about potential inconsistencies in the classification to watch for. Petscan searches for WikiProject banners haven't been working correctly for me for several weeks now; I've found a work-around, but I don't understand why it works. Plantdrew (talk) 19:03, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes, that's the bunny. Thank you! I shall have a look at these and let you know :) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:50, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oh goody! My next obsession. XD - UtherSRG (talk) 20:01, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I originally come from the Spanish wikipedia in which the taxoboxes display the taxon authorities in this fancy font that I can't seem to find how to create myself. In English wikipedia I have come across the Template:Btname which uses the same font, but it only works when you want the taxon to be in italics (aka species or genera). Does anyone here know how this could be applied to higher taxa? Thanks in advance. Snoteleks (talk) 15:43, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Given how infrequently Btname is used on English Wikipedia [2] I don't see why its use needs to be further propagated. The current De Facto standard is fine imo. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:10, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Hemiauchenia that's also a question I've had for a while. What exactly is the de facto standard? Colon between name and date, or no colon? Date between parentheses, or without them? Snoteleks (talk) 16:20, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Snoteleks:, the standard differs between the botanical and zoological codes (protists have traditionally been covered by one of the codes depending on whether they are more plant-like or animal-like, but there are a few protists that have been variously treated under either code). Parentheses have meaning (they indicate that a species is now placed in a different genus than the one in which it was originally described); follow sources in including parentheses. The botanical code includes the name of the author of the current combination following a parenthetical author; the zoological code does not. The zoological includes the year, the botanical code does not. The zoological code doesn't explicitly address commas between name and date, but the examples within the code itself have commas, as do most sources. Wikipedia should standardize on having commas between authority and year in my view. Except for the commas, you won't be going wrong if you just format the authority exactly as it appears in your source(s).

@Snoteleks: Template:Smallcaps has more or less the same effect btw —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 18:02, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just use the standard {{au}}? It has the advantage that it annotates the meaning of the text (i.e. that it's a taxon author) and the specifics of how it formats that can be controlled in one place at the level of the template. – Uanfala (talk) 18:14, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Small caps are the fancy font used for authorities on en.wiki. There are several ways to display them. {{Au}} is one. HTML tags <small> </small> are another. There are templates that automatically format a list of taxa with italics and small caps for authorities, such as {{Species list}}. {{Format species list}} makes it very easy to copy-paste a list of taxa from a source and have the formatting automatically applied ({{Species list}} requires entering a bunch of pipe characters). Snoteleks, do you have some specific examples of articles where you want to put authorities in small caps? The best way to do that varies somewhat from case to case. Plantdrew (talk) 19:36, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Plantdrew Thank you for the info! As for your question, I don't really have specific examples, but I was thinking of putting authorities in small caps in Taxonomy of Protista which is the article I'm currently working on the most. Other than that, articles familiar to me that already feature small taxonomies such as Eurotiomycetes or Cryptodifflugia is probably where I would start putting it, as well as all taxoboxes I come across (but I noticed that the Spanish taxobox template automatically places small caps in authority, unlike the English taxobox template, which would make the change here very tiresome and time-consuming; I don't know how they've made it possible in the Spanish template but it would be great to be able to do it automatically in the English one as well). Snoteleks (talk) 20:05, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't follow what you mean when saying the English taxobox template does not put the authority in small caps. I see small caps authorities in the taxoboxes of the two examples you gave: Eurotiomycetes or Cryptodifflugia. Have you an example? —  Jts1882 | talk  09:28, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Jts1882 those aren't small caps. They're small letters, but most of those letters are lower case – i.e not small capitals. See https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struthio this for an example of true "small caps". MeegsC (talk) 11:35, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I now I see the difference. The English Wikipedia uses the <small> tag, which applies CSS style font-size:85%. The Spanish one uses CSS style font-variant:small-caps. In the taxoboxes it's set by a template so could be changed if there was consensus. However, at some point this project decided to use the small tag and this convention is usually also used in taxon/species lists and other places where the authority is used. I think we should try and use a common style across the project rather than choose our personal preferences. —  Jts1882 | talk  11:53, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, we should reach a consensus before making this big of a change; even personal preferences can vary along time. But also, how could we reach that? Is there some kind of voting system that can be applied here? Also I think it's very worth mentioning that Wikispecies uses Smallcaps for all authorities already by default. Snoteleks (talk) 13:11, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A new consensus can be reached following discussion on an appropriate talk page. In this case, which is quite far reaching in the changes that will need to be made, it might be appropriate to use a formal process known as a RfC (request for comment, see WP:RfC). Someone starts a discussion on an appropriate talk page with a proposal and requests comments. Notification should be given to relevant projects. People make comments for and against the proposal and after a suitable time a neutral editor closes the discussion with a decision. The decision is made on Wikipedia policies rather than a vote count.

Given the effort involved in an RfC, it might be best to start a discussion on this talk page to get an idea of whether the proposal has support. Just start a section, something like "Formatting of taxon authorities: proposal to use smallcaps instead of small font", and give your reasons for the change. —  Jts1882 | talk  14:28, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Snoteleks: in general, small caps are quite strongly deprecated in the English Wikipedia (see MOS:SMALLCAPS). I would expect there to have to be a very strong consensus to change from our existing use of a smaller font. Personally, I would be very opposed to any such change. One point of using a smaller font is to diminish the importance of the authority for the ordinary reader; small caps, like any use of all caps, has the reverse effect. Authorities are for taxonomists. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:29, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, after knowing the situation I see no reason to even propose such a change. It's already tiresome enough to do smallcaps outside of taxoboxes, and even though I'm a taxonomy enthusiast I struggle to see a reason why smallcaps could be significantly preferable over just small letters. Smallcaps does look a bit less cluttery to my eyes, but that's all there is to it. It's too subjective. Even though I wouldn't oppose it, I will not go as far as to propose this change. Snoteleks (talk) 15:52, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Many works use small caps for this, others use small letter, but even more just use a standard font, on Wikispecies we have templates for it which automatically uses small caps which makes capitol letters bigger than the as entered lowercase lettering. However, my own view is this is not important enough to worry about. Wikispecies was using small caps via templates 16 years ago when I started editing, so I followed with it, personally I am not a fan but its also a whatever thing, more important to have the references than worry about fonts. To me its more important to follow the relevant codes for the entering of authorities and to actually have them there, so when to use parentheses etc for a name, than anything about what font to use. Just do not use italics. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 17:27, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What exactly are the requirements for a species to have more than one common name (i.e. european marten, iranian leopard)? Does it require sources and scientific articles using such names, or does it not require any sources? Firekong1 (talk) 19:25, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Many species have multiple common names and this is particularly the case when you take multiple languages and wide ranging species into account. With the exception for birds, mammals and some plant groups scientific articles are more likely to use the scientific name rather than any vernacular one. They are local names formed by habit and of little value to the species. If you find one I am sure other will find more. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 20:05, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Common names should be sourced (often sources aren't provided, but they should be). The source doesn't need to be a scientific article; a dictionary should generally be fine. Wikipedia doesn't need to exhaustively document every obscure common name, or minor variants of a common name. In the case of European pine marten, I'm skeptical that "baum marten" needs to be mentioned; it is sourced to a dictionary, which claims it is a name in American English for a European animal. "Baum marten" does get more reported Google hits than "European marten", but "baum marten" appears to be a name that is mostly used in the fur industry. Plantdrew (talk) 20:07, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I see. From my understanding, I assumed that as long as some common names aren't too different from their most used common name. But since science is a subject that is always changing, there will be those who might use the common names in such articles. Personally, I don't think sourcing alternate common names matter as long as the common name does not diverge much in any way, but I understand the requirements. I just do not see it as a significant issue to add such names. And of course wikipedia does not need to document every name, but some common names would make more sense than others, especially over time.

Firekong1 (talk) 20:16, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello everyone!

There's a recent proposal for a new project and I am trying to get more people on board. This new project's scope would be focused exclusively on high eukaryote evolution and on protists, which are basically orphaned by the existing WikiProjects for organisms (fungi, animals, viruses, animals...).

As most of you may know, protists account for a huge slice of Earth's biodiversity, and their study is growing rapidly these past decades in many areas of biology, yet they are severely underrepresented in Wikipedia. They're an enormous untouched source of information just waiting to be passed onto wiki articles. This Project would take care of organizing such an effort.

If you're interested in supporting it or participating in it, please add your username in the Support section of this page: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals/Protista.

Thank you!

Snoteleks (talk) 19:13, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Be aware that a user called BilledMammal has, apparently, unilaterally decided that all species articles in the entirety of Wikipedia should be merged with, and thereby changed to redirects to, their respective genus pages, claiming that they "duplicate content". In the last 24 hours they have wiped out almost 1000 species-level articles, and deleted the links to those articles from their respective genus articles.

See [3]

I would suggest that all of this user's edits from October 27 onwards need to be reverted, and this user blocked, ASAP. I'm not sure what the usual procedure would be to make this happen. Dyanega (talk) 17:22, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' noticeboard? YorkshireExpat (talk) 17:26, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have just noticed that. Rolling back the lot. Then will leave a message. I kind of HOPE this goes to ANI, should be an eye opener. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 17:30, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Dyanega (talk) 17:33, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@BilledMammal: you really shouldn't have done this without discussing with other users beforehand. I disagree with the merger of genera up to tribal level, but we have way too fucking many insect species stubs with almost no content that essentially almost nobody reads. There are way too many insect species to cover them all individually, and ideally most insect species should be covered at the genus level, rather than having a massive number of almost entirely unread insect species stubs with no content. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:35, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I could agree with part of what Hemiauchenia has to say, in that lots of stubs have been created that serve very little purpose; that aside, however, once an article exists, stub or not, it should not be arbitrarily deleted. Dyanega (talk) 17:42, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Now at ANI, see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Undiscussed_mass_article_merging_and_redirection_by_BilledMammal. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:53, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, while I can see the reasoning behind the restructuring of genus-level articles into tabular form showing the constituent species, there are several very important things that exist on species-rank articles that would be completely lost if this approach were adopted, and among these are the following: (1) not all species in a genus fall under the same categories - they can be from different countries, different continents, different geological periods, and have been published by different authors, and in different years. There are MANY common types of categories that would be almost completely depopulated if we banned species-level articles. (2) synonymies appear in the taxoboxes of species-level articles, and those lists of synonyms would also be lost entirely. Likewise, when synonyms exist as redirects, having a species-level synonym redirecting to a genus-level page will make it impossible to determine which species that name is a synonym OF. It might look good to have a table of species, but frankly it's a terrible idea. Dyanega (talk) 18:06, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This user is now bypassing TOL by calling for AfDs, without even attempting to address to TOL community. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bothriospila, [[4]]. I'm going offline now, but expect there to be dozens more similar requests issued in the near future. Dyanega (talk) 23:59, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]