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Altogether, I feel, it would be clearer for the readers if we go back to the original list. Bernhard Zelazny ( talk) 10:17, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
Okay, I'll offer my two cents, but it's unlikely to make Bernhard happy. First, I've been following a number of discussions in various places in Wikipedia that relate very directly to taxonomy articles, and there appears to be a reasonably strong feeling (I wouldn't call it a consensus) that Wikipedia articles should not simply be data dumps from authority files and other online sources. This article, the way Bernhard is structuring it, looks very much like the exact thing that people are saying we want to avoid having in Wikipedia. It is vastly more detailed than nearly any other "List of XXX species" articles I've ever seen; it looks and feels like a database. As much as I appreciate the effort and scholarliness of having such finely atomized data, and I am very much a Wiki-pedant, this goes beyond what seems appropriate and healthy for Wikipedia. In this case, even more so than the average example one might pick, because this is a planthopper genus, and there are TWO very comprehensive online databases that contain all of the relevant information for all planthoppers; between this site and this site, you can get all of the information on type species, nomenclatural history, subgeneric placement, range, and so forth. Any motivated reader who wants all of that information needs only to be pointed to one or both of these sites; it doesn't all need to be in a Wiki-table here. Much as I hate to say it, I think a "List of XXX species" article really should just be that. See, for example, List of Megachile species (leafcutter bees), and List of Lasioglossum species (sweat bees). Those are extremely large genera with many subgenera, but the species lists are just the species and authors. Realistically, that's all that's necessary for Wikipedia. For smaller genera, it might be okay to subdivide into subgenera, as with List of bumblebee species, but for my tastes, even that is marginal; the bigger a genus gets, the more problematic it becomes to subdivide, for a few reasons: (1) finding a name you're interested in is easy when the list you're looking at is alphabetical, but it isn't so easy if you have multiple sub-lists and you have to scroll through each one. (2) the more subdivided your data, the more reshuffling you need to do every time a new revision is published. That means, for example, that the bumblebee list is much harder for editors to maintain and keep updated than the sweat bee list; it literally doesn't matter if someone moves a bunch of Lasioglossum species from one subgenus to another, or creates a new subgenus, or sinks two subgenera, the list of species doesn't need to be changed at all. Consider this, too: if your list of species contains a field for geographic distribution, then that field in your table is going to become outdated every time someone posts a new photo to iNaturalist, or publishes a new catalogue or checklist. No one is going to want to maintain the data in those geographic distribution fields here, in Wikipedia, when the same thing can be accomplished by simply providing a link to iNaturalist. Or, alternatively, by giving distribution only as biogeographic region or continent, and not atomized down to countries or provinces. Because Wikipedia is a group effort, with many editors, taking the impact on future editors into consideration is a factor in the discussion here. If you really feel it's important to give subgenera, then create subgenus articles, but consider that even the bumblebee subgenera don't all have their own articles, so I don't see much evidence that subgeneric placement is generally considered to be important information. That all being said, I'll point out a few other things more related to Uther's prompt: no one needs to explicitly recombine a species with its genus or subgenus name in print in order for it to be formally accepted. A statement such as "I have sunk the genus Peggiopsis Muir to a subgenus" is absolutely all that is needed to unambiguously place all Peggiopsis species into Zoraida. There should be no redlinks to Peggiopsis names here in this species list. Basionyms are not relevant in zoological nomenclature, and very much not needed anywhere except the article for a given species, where they are - by Wikipedia convention - listed as synonyms if (and only if) they differ from the present name. As a taxonomist, does it bother me that what Wikipedia calls "synonyms" includes basionyms and other combinations? Sure, but I got over that a long time ago. It's not Wikipedia's function to be a taxonomic or nomenclatural database. The fine-scale details belong, if anywhere, in well-sourced species articles. I also absolutely agree that a species article in Wikipedia should never include the subgenus in the title. Peace, Dyanega ( talk) 15:30, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
Can you three vote on whether this page should be developed further or should be deleted. I am happy to follow the majority opinion. If it should be deleted, somebody who is authorized and knows how to do it would need to take over. A few more comments on the discussion:
![]() | This article is rated List-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||
|
Altogether, I feel, it would be clearer for the readers if we go back to the original list. Bernhard Zelazny ( talk) 10:17, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
Okay, I'll offer my two cents, but it's unlikely to make Bernhard happy. First, I've been following a number of discussions in various places in Wikipedia that relate very directly to taxonomy articles, and there appears to be a reasonably strong feeling (I wouldn't call it a consensus) that Wikipedia articles should not simply be data dumps from authority files and other online sources. This article, the way Bernhard is structuring it, looks very much like the exact thing that people are saying we want to avoid having in Wikipedia. It is vastly more detailed than nearly any other "List of XXX species" articles I've ever seen; it looks and feels like a database. As much as I appreciate the effort and scholarliness of having such finely atomized data, and I am very much a Wiki-pedant, this goes beyond what seems appropriate and healthy for Wikipedia. In this case, even more so than the average example one might pick, because this is a planthopper genus, and there are TWO very comprehensive online databases that contain all of the relevant information for all planthoppers; between this site and this site, you can get all of the information on type species, nomenclatural history, subgeneric placement, range, and so forth. Any motivated reader who wants all of that information needs only to be pointed to one or both of these sites; it doesn't all need to be in a Wiki-table here. Much as I hate to say it, I think a "List of XXX species" article really should just be that. See, for example, List of Megachile species (leafcutter bees), and List of Lasioglossum species (sweat bees). Those are extremely large genera with many subgenera, but the species lists are just the species and authors. Realistically, that's all that's necessary for Wikipedia. For smaller genera, it might be okay to subdivide into subgenera, as with List of bumblebee species, but for my tastes, even that is marginal; the bigger a genus gets, the more problematic it becomes to subdivide, for a few reasons: (1) finding a name you're interested in is easy when the list you're looking at is alphabetical, but it isn't so easy if you have multiple sub-lists and you have to scroll through each one. (2) the more subdivided your data, the more reshuffling you need to do every time a new revision is published. That means, for example, that the bumblebee list is much harder for editors to maintain and keep updated than the sweat bee list; it literally doesn't matter if someone moves a bunch of Lasioglossum species from one subgenus to another, or creates a new subgenus, or sinks two subgenera, the list of species doesn't need to be changed at all. Consider this, too: if your list of species contains a field for geographic distribution, then that field in your table is going to become outdated every time someone posts a new photo to iNaturalist, or publishes a new catalogue or checklist. No one is going to want to maintain the data in those geographic distribution fields here, in Wikipedia, when the same thing can be accomplished by simply providing a link to iNaturalist. Or, alternatively, by giving distribution only as biogeographic region or continent, and not atomized down to countries or provinces. Because Wikipedia is a group effort, with many editors, taking the impact on future editors into consideration is a factor in the discussion here. If you really feel it's important to give subgenera, then create subgenus articles, but consider that even the bumblebee subgenera don't all have their own articles, so I don't see much evidence that subgeneric placement is generally considered to be important information. That all being said, I'll point out a few other things more related to Uther's prompt: no one needs to explicitly recombine a species with its genus or subgenus name in print in order for it to be formally accepted. A statement such as "I have sunk the genus Peggiopsis Muir to a subgenus" is absolutely all that is needed to unambiguously place all Peggiopsis species into Zoraida. There should be no redlinks to Peggiopsis names here in this species list. Basionyms are not relevant in zoological nomenclature, and very much not needed anywhere except the article for a given species, where they are - by Wikipedia convention - listed as synonyms if (and only if) they differ from the present name. As a taxonomist, does it bother me that what Wikipedia calls "synonyms" includes basionyms and other combinations? Sure, but I got over that a long time ago. It's not Wikipedia's function to be a taxonomic or nomenclatural database. The fine-scale details belong, if anywhere, in well-sourced species articles. I also absolutely agree that a species article in Wikipedia should never include the subgenus in the title. Peace, Dyanega ( talk) 15:30, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
Can you three vote on whether this page should be developed further or should be deleted. I am happy to follow the majority opinion. If it should be deleted, somebody who is authorized and knows how to do it would need to take over. A few more comments on the discussion: