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There is a move discussion in progress on
Talk:Crowned Crane about four articles related to birds species. The rationale is that there is no reason why bird names should be capitalised while Wikipedia recommends that all species names should not be written with capitals. Please participate
to the discussion.
Thank you!
Mama meta modal (
talk)
09:07, 15 March 2014 (UTC).
There is now also an ongoing request for comments on the same subject: Talk:Crowned Crane#Request for comments.
Do not hesitate to come and comment on this question. Mama meta modal ( talk) 08:52, 16 March 2014 (UTC).
The discussion was closed (and the pages moved) on 26 March 2014, see Talk:Crowned crane#Requested move for details.
Mama meta modal ( talk) 20:48, 26 March 2014 (UTC).
Given that they are clearly controversial, and were undiscussed, and are pushing a POV for which there is no consensus (they directly contradict MOS:LIFE), I've mostly reverted Shyamal's overly bold changes to the vernacular names material. I also partially reverted and partially manually corrected other attempts in a different section to push IOC names and style as a MOS-recognized "standard". [1] — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼ 01:08, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
The important discussion started on Talk:Crowned crane and Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2014 March#Black crowned crane now moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#A new proposal regarding bird article names.
Mama meta modal ( talk) 20:56, 9 April 2014 (UTC).
The "normally" weasel-wording in the "Common (vernacular) names" section, which directly contradicts MOS:LIFE, is proposed to be removed. This is under discussion along with the conforming change to NCCAPS (which has "generally" instead of "normally"), at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization)#Over-specificity and redundancy correction. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 09:02, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
WP:Naming conventions (fauna)#Monotypic taxa says "the article (if there is no common name) should go under the scientific name of lowest rank, but no lower than the monotypic genus". There are two problems with this:
Peter coxhead ( talk) 13:20, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Teeswater sheep#Requested move 25 August 2014, a mass request of a large number of moves, consisting of the commingling of about 7 different (even contradictory) types of renaming proposal. While it raises no issues with regard to species and subspecies, it could precedencially affect many (most?) breed articles and possibly also landrace articles. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 16:18, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
Someone's opened an RfC on using lower case for animal breeds except where they contain proper names, and this is followed by an alternative proposal based on breed standards. Both proposals would be a naming convention as well as style rule, so regulars here are liable to be interested in commenting. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 12:09, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
There seems to be disparity across animal articles when the genus is a disambiguation title and there is no common name, with most falling into one of three forms: Name (genus) (e.g. Larisa (genus)), Name (common name) (e.g. Adela (moth)) or Name (higher taxon) (I can't find examples currently). Rarer examples include non-taxonomic parentheticals such as Carnarvonia (fossil). Should we attempt to propose guidelines for standardizing? I would like to propose that the form Name (common name) be formally recommended over the other forms, with few exceptions. Name (genus) might technically be more accurate, but Adela (moth) seems much more informative for non-scientific readers than Adela (genus), easier to search for and recognize per WP:COMMONNAME, and aesthetically nicer. I'd recommend the common names be broad enough to be as inclusive and recognizable as possible ("fish" rather than "goby") to aid standardization, and it could be left to the various taxon WikiProjects to decide which common disambig terms to use (e.g. "spider", or "gastropod"). Notable exceptions would include titles such as Mantis (genus), or Boa (genus) where the (genus) descriptor is more informative than say Mantis (mantis) and provides clearer disambiguation than Boa (snake). Thoughts? My draft is below --Animalparty-- ( talk) 01:21, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
Draft of proposed guideline:
Genus titles with parenthetical disambiguation: When articles are titled after a genus with no common name, and that name requires a parenthetical disambiguation, the title should generally be in the form of Name (common name), where "common name" is a vernacular name in singular form broad enough to encompass many similar genera yet still convey clarity. For example, the gastropod genus Helix shares its name with a number of other topics, seen at Helix (disambiguation). Therefore, the preferred title is " Helix (gastropod)" rather than "Helix (animal)" (too broad), "Helix (snail)" ( snail is imprecise), or "Helix (genus)" (accurate, yet less recognizable). "Name (genus)" also fails to disambiguate in those cases where the same genus name exists under different nomenclature codes (e.g. Gordonia (genus) refers to three articles). Exceptions to this guideline include cases where a genus name and common are the same (hence " Mantis (genus)" rather than "Mantis (mantis)", or " Boa (genus)" rather than "Boa (snake)" as Boa refers to various groups of snakes).
"Name (genus)" also fails to disambiguate in those cases where the same genus name exists under both the zoological and botanical codes.Peter coxhead ( talk) 10:15, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
... under different nomenclature codes.Peter coxhead ( talk) 18:12, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Ambiguity of "(genus)" as a disambiguator should not be underestimated. The last time this came up for plants, I did some research. I looked at the first 60 (alphabetically) plant genera that had a parenthetical disambiguator of "(plant)" or "(genus)". 22 of 60 were already disambiguated against an animal genus on Wikipedia. Checking against GBIF and Worms, I found that 45 of the 60 plant genera had a corresponding animal genus published. Granted, that included some animal genera best treated as synonyms, but there were also recognized animal genera not yet on Wikipedia. At any rate, for the plants I looked at, "(genus)" is still too ambiguous in somewhere between 35%-75% of cases.
Are 35%+ of all plant genera ambiguous with animal genera? No. But many scientific names are constructed by slapping a Latinate suffix on non-Latin personal name (as in Gordonia, or by creating a Greco-Latinate compound that nobody would've recognized 2000 years ago (as in Actinopeltis). If these weird hybrid terms are ambiguous with anything it's almost always going to be another genus constructed using the same rules, and "(genus)" won't work to disambiguate. Then there are scientific names taken directly from a term that had meaning in classical Greek/Latin. Obviously, these are ambiguous from the start with the classical term, but "(genus)" might work to disambiguate these; at least as long as another biologist didn't also find the classical term evocative and appropriate it for another genus (as happened with Laelaps and Echidna (disambiguation)).
Going through WikiProject Arthropod tagged articles with [A-Za-z&quality=&importance=&score=&pagenameWC=on&limit=250&offset=1&sorta=Article+title&sortb=Quality this search], I found 132 articles that had a parenthetical disambiguatory term. 106 of these articles were on genera (the remainder being anatomical terms, biologists or taxa at ranks other than genus). 61 used "(genus)" as the dab term, and 45 used a different dab term (indeed, a horrifying mess of terms; a crab genus might be dabbed with "(crab)", "(arthropod)", "(crustacean)" or "(decapod)"). Of the 45 not using "(genus)", 31 can NOT use genus as there is already an article or redirect on Wikipedia for a different genus with the same name. Best case, if you try to standardize "(genus)" as the dab term for arthropods, you get 75 of 106 articles where it is sufficient to disambiguate. That doesn't strike me as especially consistent. If you go with "(animal)" it works in 99 of 106 cases; (animal) doesn't work for 2 articles where a genus is ambiguous with an anatomical feature in an animal, and 5 articles where there's an article or redirect for a homonymous animal genus (in two of these, there doesn't appear to be a replacement name yet for the junior homonym). If you go with "(arthropod)", it works in 101 of 106 cases (doesn't work for 1 genus/anatomy term ([[scutellum} and 4 homonymous genera that are arthropods in both uses ( Battus, Cyclopyge, Harpagomorpha and Zalmoxis).
No one dab term is going to work 100% of the time. If you want the fewest number of dab terms covering the largest number of cases, (animal) is going to work far better than (genus). But (animal) is currently hardly used at all on Wikipedia and implementing it would require many moves. The table below shows the current status quo by WikiProject with regards to using common name or genus as a dab term. Common name is the singular form of the WikiProject name unless otherwise noted (e.g. (bird) or (fish)).
Project | (genus) | common name | total |
---|---|---|---|
Animal | 10 | N/A | 86 |
Amphibians and reptiles | 37 | 4 (amphibian or reptile) | 99 |
Arthropods | 61 | 3 | 132 |
Birds | 56 | 97 | 532 |
Bivalves | 38 | 13 | 61 |
Fishes | 84 | 124 | 248 |
Gastropods | 13 | 289 | 381 |
Insects | 252 | 32 | 787 |
Lepidoptera | 134 | 1059 (moth or butterfly) | 1522 |
Mammals | 30 | 5 | 173 |
Spiders | 18 | 98 | 138 |
Dinosaurs | 1 | 25 | 43 |
Palaeontology | 47 | N/A | 168 |
Marine life | 16 | N/A | 61 |
Fungi | 6 | 133 | 200 |
Plants | 126 | 577 | 1492 |
Totals | 929 | 2459 | 6121 |
A couple notes. These figures are quick and dirty. "Total" for a project is ALL parenthetically dabbed articles (including anatomical terms and biologists). For most projects, genera account for almost all of the total, but for plants, mammals and birds, there are a large number of breed/cultivars and individual domestic animals with a dab term. And the figures in common name column may include article that aren't on genera (e.g. Operculum (fish). WikiProject Insects doesn't use (insect) very much, but does frequently use common names of orders (fly, beetle, etc.). Plantdrew ( talk) 00:40, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at the village pump about creating a noticeboard (similar to the RSN, ORN and NPOVN) for people with questions about how to implement Wikipedia's style policies. The proponents say that one centralized board would be easier for editors to find than many talk pages, and opponents say that it might be a venue for forum-shopping and drama. Participation is welcome. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 19:00, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
The proposed style noticeboard has fallen through. There is now a conversation under way at WT:MoS about endorsing and centralizing its longstanding Q&A function. This would include encouraging users to ask questions about style and copyediting either at WT:MoS or a subpage and not at other talk pages. The discussion is still very preliminary and participants from other pages that would be affected are very welcome. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 16:03, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
Join talk at Talk:Frill-necked_lizard#RFC:_article_title. Has implications as consensus looking not good. cheers, Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 12:03, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
There's an RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Wikipedia:Disambiguation and inherently ambiguous titles about the sentence in WP:Disambiguation that encompasses the long-standing practice at WP:RM of permitting natural disambiguation for precision-and-recognizability reasons even in the absence of an actual article title collision. This frequently arises with plant and animal breeds, cultivars, landraces, and other non-human populations the names of which may be confused with human ones (e.g. the move of Algerian Arab, now a disambiguation page, to Algerian Arab sheep, and of British White to British White cattle to ease confusion with the White British). The RfC is misleading and non-neutral due to failure to perform due diligence with regard to previous consensus discussions. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 17:14, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
In the case of genera which historically included more than one species, but have been reduced to a single species by subsequent taxonomic revision, it is sometimes felt useful to list the now-disused combinations as 'former species'. Such a list would seem out of place on a page for the sole remaining species, so is it legitimate in that case to have separate pages for the genus and single remaining species? The specific case I'm looking at is Archamia (genus). There was previously a page 'Archamia' redirecting to Archamia bleekeri. I had them swapped without noticing the existence of the Archamia (genus) page. It seems to me that, aside from the case of undoubtedly monotypic genera, for which only one binomial combination has ever been published, there is a continuum from genera that have generally been treated as monotypic for a long time, and those affected by recent changes. The same situation could found at other ranks. Perhaps add an additional paragraph:
If a taxon is now treated in Wikipedia as monotypic, but in historical or alternative treatments is not monotypic, separate pages may still be retained for both taxa, the one for the monotypic taxon explaining its former or alternative scope.
I have used 'may' because sometimes (perhaps because two species have been lumped) the explanation could legitimately go on the single page envisaged by WP:MONOTYPICFAUNA. William Avery ( talk) 10:28, 21 February 2017 (UTC) William Avery ( talk) 10:28, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
In principle, a two-page solution might sometimes be appropriate. In practice, I don't know of any cases where there's so much information about a former broader circumscription to justify separate articles. That's not to say that somebody might not write an article with a ton of information about a former broad circumscription of a currently monotypic taxon, just that, as far as I'm aware, no articles like this exist. However, see Category:Obsolete taxa for articles that are basically about former circumscriptions (although monotypy isn't involved). I think in the case of Archamia, the former species can be covered in a single article with the current species. Plantdrew ( talk) 17:11, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
A recent attempted edit suggested that boldface only be used for whichever name matched the title of an article; that is, if the title uses the common name, then the common name appears in boldface in the first paragraph, and the scientific name does not, while if the article uses the scientific name, then the common name is not boldfaced but the scientific name is. Myself, I would argue that both should be in boldface the first time they appear, and that subsidiary common names appearing in the introduction should be bold, as well. For most of the pages dealing with insects, at least, this is the default practice - e.g., Crane fly, Dobsonfly, and Coccinellidae. However, there are apparently occasional exceptions, e.g. Monarch butterfly. Perhaps discussion is needed to establish a uniform approach? Dyanega ( talk) 16:21, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
When what is the most common name in English, or the veracity of that most common name, is so disputed in reliable sources that it cannot be neutrally ascertained, prefer the common name most used (orthography aside) by international zoological nomenclature authorities over regional ones.
I have always gone with the scientific name in bold/italics, as I feel that "ascetics" is an exceptionally unimpressive rational to override MOS:BOLDFACE and that it actively downplays the scientific name as irrelevant. the discussion happened over a decade ago and should be revisited.-- Kev min § 15:27, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
I have opened an RfC on this question at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology#RfC on boldfacing of scientific names in articles about organisms. The further discussion should take place there, not here, in order to keep the discussion centralized. — BarrelProof ( talk) 01:42, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
See Talk:Yellow rattlesnake, Talk:Crotalus lutosus and Talk:Crotalus molossus Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 08:32, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
Hello all- In the third paragraph of the above-linked section, two of the example names given appear to be in contradiction to the guidance provided in that sentence. I do not believe that bottlenose or slime would be considered proper nouns. Eric talk 19:45, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Do we need a new example to replace the following:
The order Amphionidacea redirects to its single genus Amphionides, as does the sole species Amphionides reynaudii.
Amphionides now seems to be placed in Decapoda. Although the redirect is still in place, I think this example should be changed to something technically correct.
Thanks. YorkshireExpat ( talk) 18:36, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
Oh I have hundreds of examples. Axomonadida and Tetraheliidae redirect to Tetrahelia, Saccharomycomorphidae redirects to Saccharomycomorpha, Proleptomonadidae redirects to Proleptomonas, Thecomonadea and Apusomonadidae redirect to Apusomonadida, Actinosphaerina and Actinosphaeriidae redirect to Actinosphaerium, Chthonida and Yogsothothina and Yogsothothidae redirect to Yogsothoth (protist)... need more? —Snoteleks ( Talk) 22:03, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
A subset of such birds: 3 orders, 38 families and many, many genera, here: User:Kweetal nl/sandbox10 Kweetal nl ( talk) 02:05, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Looking at Category:Animal subgenera, I see a mixture of subgenus articles titled Genus (Subgenus) and of others simply titled Subgenus. Is one of the two preferred, and should the titles be standardized one way or the other? The former would avoid clumsy parenthetical disambiguations like Thunnus (subgenus) (that could instead be Thunnus (Thunnus) per WP:NATURAL), although I'm not sure if that is necessarily preferred. Chaotic Enby ( talk · contribs) 15:07, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
![]() | This project page does not require a rating on Wikipedia's
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There is a move discussion in progress on
Talk:Crowned Crane about four articles related to birds species. The rationale is that there is no reason why bird names should be capitalised while Wikipedia recommends that all species names should not be written with capitals. Please participate
to the discussion.
Thank you!
Mama meta modal (
talk)
09:07, 15 March 2014 (UTC).
There is now also an ongoing request for comments on the same subject: Talk:Crowned Crane#Request for comments.
Do not hesitate to come and comment on this question. Mama meta modal ( talk) 08:52, 16 March 2014 (UTC).
The discussion was closed (and the pages moved) on 26 March 2014, see Talk:Crowned crane#Requested move for details.
Mama meta modal ( talk) 20:48, 26 March 2014 (UTC).
Given that they are clearly controversial, and were undiscussed, and are pushing a POV for which there is no consensus (they directly contradict MOS:LIFE), I've mostly reverted Shyamal's overly bold changes to the vernacular names material. I also partially reverted and partially manually corrected other attempts in a different section to push IOC names and style as a MOS-recognized "standard". [1] — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼ 01:08, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
The important discussion started on Talk:Crowned crane and Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2014 March#Black crowned crane now moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#A new proposal regarding bird article names.
Mama meta modal ( talk) 20:56, 9 April 2014 (UTC).
The "normally" weasel-wording in the "Common (vernacular) names" section, which directly contradicts MOS:LIFE, is proposed to be removed. This is under discussion along with the conforming change to NCCAPS (which has "generally" instead of "normally"), at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization)#Over-specificity and redundancy correction. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 09:02, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
WP:Naming conventions (fauna)#Monotypic taxa says "the article (if there is no common name) should go under the scientific name of lowest rank, but no lower than the monotypic genus". There are two problems with this:
Peter coxhead ( talk) 13:20, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Teeswater sheep#Requested move 25 August 2014, a mass request of a large number of moves, consisting of the commingling of about 7 different (even contradictory) types of renaming proposal. While it raises no issues with regard to species and subspecies, it could precedencially affect many (most?) breed articles and possibly also landrace articles. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 16:18, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
Someone's opened an RfC on using lower case for animal breeds except where they contain proper names, and this is followed by an alternative proposal based on breed standards. Both proposals would be a naming convention as well as style rule, so regulars here are liable to be interested in commenting. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 12:09, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
There seems to be disparity across animal articles when the genus is a disambiguation title and there is no common name, with most falling into one of three forms: Name (genus) (e.g. Larisa (genus)), Name (common name) (e.g. Adela (moth)) or Name (higher taxon) (I can't find examples currently). Rarer examples include non-taxonomic parentheticals such as Carnarvonia (fossil). Should we attempt to propose guidelines for standardizing? I would like to propose that the form Name (common name) be formally recommended over the other forms, with few exceptions. Name (genus) might technically be more accurate, but Adela (moth) seems much more informative for non-scientific readers than Adela (genus), easier to search for and recognize per WP:COMMONNAME, and aesthetically nicer. I'd recommend the common names be broad enough to be as inclusive and recognizable as possible ("fish" rather than "goby") to aid standardization, and it could be left to the various taxon WikiProjects to decide which common disambig terms to use (e.g. "spider", or "gastropod"). Notable exceptions would include titles such as Mantis (genus), or Boa (genus) where the (genus) descriptor is more informative than say Mantis (mantis) and provides clearer disambiguation than Boa (snake). Thoughts? My draft is below --Animalparty-- ( talk) 01:21, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
Draft of proposed guideline:
Genus titles with parenthetical disambiguation: When articles are titled after a genus with no common name, and that name requires a parenthetical disambiguation, the title should generally be in the form of Name (common name), where "common name" is a vernacular name in singular form broad enough to encompass many similar genera yet still convey clarity. For example, the gastropod genus Helix shares its name with a number of other topics, seen at Helix (disambiguation). Therefore, the preferred title is " Helix (gastropod)" rather than "Helix (animal)" (too broad), "Helix (snail)" ( snail is imprecise), or "Helix (genus)" (accurate, yet less recognizable). "Name (genus)" also fails to disambiguate in those cases where the same genus name exists under different nomenclature codes (e.g. Gordonia (genus) refers to three articles). Exceptions to this guideline include cases where a genus name and common are the same (hence " Mantis (genus)" rather than "Mantis (mantis)", or " Boa (genus)" rather than "Boa (snake)" as Boa refers to various groups of snakes).
"Name (genus)" also fails to disambiguate in those cases where the same genus name exists under both the zoological and botanical codes.Peter coxhead ( talk) 10:15, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
... under different nomenclature codes.Peter coxhead ( talk) 18:12, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Ambiguity of "(genus)" as a disambiguator should not be underestimated. The last time this came up for plants, I did some research. I looked at the first 60 (alphabetically) plant genera that had a parenthetical disambiguator of "(plant)" or "(genus)". 22 of 60 were already disambiguated against an animal genus on Wikipedia. Checking against GBIF and Worms, I found that 45 of the 60 plant genera had a corresponding animal genus published. Granted, that included some animal genera best treated as synonyms, but there were also recognized animal genera not yet on Wikipedia. At any rate, for the plants I looked at, "(genus)" is still too ambiguous in somewhere between 35%-75% of cases.
Are 35%+ of all plant genera ambiguous with animal genera? No. But many scientific names are constructed by slapping a Latinate suffix on non-Latin personal name (as in Gordonia, or by creating a Greco-Latinate compound that nobody would've recognized 2000 years ago (as in Actinopeltis). If these weird hybrid terms are ambiguous with anything it's almost always going to be another genus constructed using the same rules, and "(genus)" won't work to disambiguate. Then there are scientific names taken directly from a term that had meaning in classical Greek/Latin. Obviously, these are ambiguous from the start with the classical term, but "(genus)" might work to disambiguate these; at least as long as another biologist didn't also find the classical term evocative and appropriate it for another genus (as happened with Laelaps and Echidna (disambiguation)).
Going through WikiProject Arthropod tagged articles with [A-Za-z&quality=&importance=&score=&pagenameWC=on&limit=250&offset=1&sorta=Article+title&sortb=Quality this search], I found 132 articles that had a parenthetical disambiguatory term. 106 of these articles were on genera (the remainder being anatomical terms, biologists or taxa at ranks other than genus). 61 used "(genus)" as the dab term, and 45 used a different dab term (indeed, a horrifying mess of terms; a crab genus might be dabbed with "(crab)", "(arthropod)", "(crustacean)" or "(decapod)"). Of the 45 not using "(genus)", 31 can NOT use genus as there is already an article or redirect on Wikipedia for a different genus with the same name. Best case, if you try to standardize "(genus)" as the dab term for arthropods, you get 75 of 106 articles where it is sufficient to disambiguate. That doesn't strike me as especially consistent. If you go with "(animal)" it works in 99 of 106 cases; (animal) doesn't work for 2 articles where a genus is ambiguous with an anatomical feature in an animal, and 5 articles where there's an article or redirect for a homonymous animal genus (in two of these, there doesn't appear to be a replacement name yet for the junior homonym). If you go with "(arthropod)", it works in 101 of 106 cases (doesn't work for 1 genus/anatomy term ([[scutellum} and 4 homonymous genera that are arthropods in both uses ( Battus, Cyclopyge, Harpagomorpha and Zalmoxis).
No one dab term is going to work 100% of the time. If you want the fewest number of dab terms covering the largest number of cases, (animal) is going to work far better than (genus). But (animal) is currently hardly used at all on Wikipedia and implementing it would require many moves. The table below shows the current status quo by WikiProject with regards to using common name or genus as a dab term. Common name is the singular form of the WikiProject name unless otherwise noted (e.g. (bird) or (fish)).
Project | (genus) | common name | total |
---|---|---|---|
Animal | 10 | N/A | 86 |
Amphibians and reptiles | 37 | 4 (amphibian or reptile) | 99 |
Arthropods | 61 | 3 | 132 |
Birds | 56 | 97 | 532 |
Bivalves | 38 | 13 | 61 |
Fishes | 84 | 124 | 248 |
Gastropods | 13 | 289 | 381 |
Insects | 252 | 32 | 787 |
Lepidoptera | 134 | 1059 (moth or butterfly) | 1522 |
Mammals | 30 | 5 | 173 |
Spiders | 18 | 98 | 138 |
Dinosaurs | 1 | 25 | 43 |
Palaeontology | 47 | N/A | 168 |
Marine life | 16 | N/A | 61 |
Fungi | 6 | 133 | 200 |
Plants | 126 | 577 | 1492 |
Totals | 929 | 2459 | 6121 |
A couple notes. These figures are quick and dirty. "Total" for a project is ALL parenthetically dabbed articles (including anatomical terms and biologists). For most projects, genera account for almost all of the total, but for plants, mammals and birds, there are a large number of breed/cultivars and individual domestic animals with a dab term. And the figures in common name column may include article that aren't on genera (e.g. Operculum (fish). WikiProject Insects doesn't use (insect) very much, but does frequently use common names of orders (fly, beetle, etc.). Plantdrew ( talk) 00:40, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at the village pump about creating a noticeboard (similar to the RSN, ORN and NPOVN) for people with questions about how to implement Wikipedia's style policies. The proponents say that one centralized board would be easier for editors to find than many talk pages, and opponents say that it might be a venue for forum-shopping and drama. Participation is welcome. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 19:00, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
The proposed style noticeboard has fallen through. There is now a conversation under way at WT:MoS about endorsing and centralizing its longstanding Q&A function. This would include encouraging users to ask questions about style and copyediting either at WT:MoS or a subpage and not at other talk pages. The discussion is still very preliminary and participants from other pages that would be affected are very welcome. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 16:03, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
Join talk at Talk:Frill-necked_lizard#RFC:_article_title. Has implications as consensus looking not good. cheers, Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 12:03, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
There's an RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Wikipedia:Disambiguation and inherently ambiguous titles about the sentence in WP:Disambiguation that encompasses the long-standing practice at WP:RM of permitting natural disambiguation for precision-and-recognizability reasons even in the absence of an actual article title collision. This frequently arises with plant and animal breeds, cultivars, landraces, and other non-human populations the names of which may be confused with human ones (e.g. the move of Algerian Arab, now a disambiguation page, to Algerian Arab sheep, and of British White to British White cattle to ease confusion with the White British). The RfC is misleading and non-neutral due to failure to perform due diligence with regard to previous consensus discussions. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 17:14, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
In the case of genera which historically included more than one species, but have been reduced to a single species by subsequent taxonomic revision, it is sometimes felt useful to list the now-disused combinations as 'former species'. Such a list would seem out of place on a page for the sole remaining species, so is it legitimate in that case to have separate pages for the genus and single remaining species? The specific case I'm looking at is Archamia (genus). There was previously a page 'Archamia' redirecting to Archamia bleekeri. I had them swapped without noticing the existence of the Archamia (genus) page. It seems to me that, aside from the case of undoubtedly monotypic genera, for which only one binomial combination has ever been published, there is a continuum from genera that have generally been treated as monotypic for a long time, and those affected by recent changes. The same situation could found at other ranks. Perhaps add an additional paragraph:
If a taxon is now treated in Wikipedia as monotypic, but in historical or alternative treatments is not monotypic, separate pages may still be retained for both taxa, the one for the monotypic taxon explaining its former or alternative scope.
I have used 'may' because sometimes (perhaps because two species have been lumped) the explanation could legitimately go on the single page envisaged by WP:MONOTYPICFAUNA. William Avery ( talk) 10:28, 21 February 2017 (UTC) William Avery ( talk) 10:28, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
In principle, a two-page solution might sometimes be appropriate. In practice, I don't know of any cases where there's so much information about a former broader circumscription to justify separate articles. That's not to say that somebody might not write an article with a ton of information about a former broad circumscription of a currently monotypic taxon, just that, as far as I'm aware, no articles like this exist. However, see Category:Obsolete taxa for articles that are basically about former circumscriptions (although monotypy isn't involved). I think in the case of Archamia, the former species can be covered in a single article with the current species. Plantdrew ( talk) 17:11, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
A recent attempted edit suggested that boldface only be used for whichever name matched the title of an article; that is, if the title uses the common name, then the common name appears in boldface in the first paragraph, and the scientific name does not, while if the article uses the scientific name, then the common name is not boldfaced but the scientific name is. Myself, I would argue that both should be in boldface the first time they appear, and that subsidiary common names appearing in the introduction should be bold, as well. For most of the pages dealing with insects, at least, this is the default practice - e.g., Crane fly, Dobsonfly, and Coccinellidae. However, there are apparently occasional exceptions, e.g. Monarch butterfly. Perhaps discussion is needed to establish a uniform approach? Dyanega ( talk) 16:21, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
When what is the most common name in English, or the veracity of that most common name, is so disputed in reliable sources that it cannot be neutrally ascertained, prefer the common name most used (orthography aside) by international zoological nomenclature authorities over regional ones.
I have always gone with the scientific name in bold/italics, as I feel that "ascetics" is an exceptionally unimpressive rational to override MOS:BOLDFACE and that it actively downplays the scientific name as irrelevant. the discussion happened over a decade ago and should be revisited.-- Kev min § 15:27, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
I have opened an RfC on this question at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology#RfC on boldfacing of scientific names in articles about organisms. The further discussion should take place there, not here, in order to keep the discussion centralized. — BarrelProof ( talk) 01:42, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
See Talk:Yellow rattlesnake, Talk:Crotalus lutosus and Talk:Crotalus molossus Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 08:32, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
Hello all- In the third paragraph of the above-linked section, two of the example names given appear to be in contradiction to the guidance provided in that sentence. I do not believe that bottlenose or slime would be considered proper nouns. Eric talk 19:45, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Do we need a new example to replace the following:
The order Amphionidacea redirects to its single genus Amphionides, as does the sole species Amphionides reynaudii.
Amphionides now seems to be placed in Decapoda. Although the redirect is still in place, I think this example should be changed to something technically correct.
Thanks. YorkshireExpat ( talk) 18:36, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
Oh I have hundreds of examples. Axomonadida and Tetraheliidae redirect to Tetrahelia, Saccharomycomorphidae redirects to Saccharomycomorpha, Proleptomonadidae redirects to Proleptomonas, Thecomonadea and Apusomonadidae redirect to Apusomonadida, Actinosphaerina and Actinosphaeriidae redirect to Actinosphaerium, Chthonida and Yogsothothina and Yogsothothidae redirect to Yogsothoth (protist)... need more? —Snoteleks ( Talk) 22:03, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
A subset of such birds: 3 orders, 38 families and many, many genera, here: User:Kweetal nl/sandbox10 Kweetal nl ( talk) 02:05, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Looking at Category:Animal subgenera, I see a mixture of subgenus articles titled Genus (Subgenus) and of others simply titled Subgenus. Is one of the two preferred, and should the titles be standardized one way or the other? The former would avoid clumsy parenthetical disambiguations like Thunnus (subgenus) (that could instead be Thunnus (Thunnus) per WP:NATURAL), although I'm not sure if that is necessarily preferred. Chaotic Enby ( talk · contribs) 15:07, 24 June 2024 (UTC)