Archives for WT:TOL | ||
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1 | 2002-07 – 2003-12 | Article names |
2 | 2003-11 – 2004-02 | Taxoboxes |
3 | 2004-02 | Taxoboxes |
4 | 2004-02 – 2004-08 | Bold taxa; taxonomy |
5 | 2004-03 – 2004-04 | Taxonomy; photos; range maps |
6 | 2005-04 – 2004-06 | Capitalization; authorities; mammals |
7 | 2004-06 – 2004-08 | Creationism; parens; common names |
8 | 2004-05 – 2004-08 | Templates; †extinct; common names |
9 | 2004-05 – 2004-08 | Categories; taxoboxes |
10 | 2004-08 – 2004-12 | Categories; authorities; domains; Wikispecies; ranks; G. species; capitalization; Common Names |
11 | 2004-11 – 2005-05 | Capitalization; common names; categories; L.; authorities; algae; cultivars |
12 | 2005-03 – 2005-05 | Ranks; common names |
13 | 2005-05 – 2005-06 | Hybrids; taxobox format; cultivars |
14 | 2005-06 – 2005-07 | Categories; food plants; identification; Capitalization |
15 | 2005-07 – 2005-09 | Synonyms; types; authorities; status; identification |
16 | 2005-09 – 2005-12 | Paleontological ranges; Rosopsida; Taxobox redesign; identification |
17 | 2005-12 – 2006-04 | Taxobox redesign; identification; APG; common names; capitalization |
18 | 2006-04 – 2006-10 | Categorization; include in references; snakes; range maps; seasonality graph; common names; bioregions; brya; |
19 | 2006-10 – 2007-03 | various |
20 | 2007-03 – 2007-06 | various |
21 | 2007-06 (Next 64 Kb) | various |
22 | (Next 64 Kb) | various |
23 | (Next 64 Kb) | various |
24 | (Next 64 Kb) | various |
Should an article like this be at the title Oleaceae which is now a redirect. Some of the species seem pretty far from the common understanding of an olive. Rmhermen 14:10, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)
problem. :-) But we've signed up with the Latin names. (Might not hurt to have redirs tho, "soapberry family" garners several thousand matches, 600 of them not mentioning Sapindaceae at all.) Stan 17:03, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
When I come across a taxobox created with the table code rather than the new ToL template I update it. I'm not sure if people are of the opinion 'if it ain't broke -don't fix it', or if its better to update them to make any subsequent updates simpler. A list of entries with the 'old' template can be found here .-- nixie 02:48, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
(Posted by new User:Fledgeling on my user page - can anyone help out? I'll have a look in HBW, but I suspect that's not up-to-date enough) - MPF 09:51, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
There were tought to be three species and two sub-species untill 1995, when DNA tests on the different Kiwi populations proved otherwise. Today we know that the species formerly known as Brown Kiwi is actually three distinct species – Brown Kiwi, Rowi and Tokoeka. And the Tokoeka currently has two varieties - Haast Tokoeka and Southern Tokoeka. The Rowi was identified as a seperate species in 2003, the latest to be identified as a seperate species.--- http://www.kiwirecovery.org.nz/Kiwi/AboutTheBird/TheKiwiFamily/
I have noticed this page is sorely out of date, but since i only came yesterday i do not have the expertise, 'Wikification' knowlege, or guts to take on the task of editing such a large, prominent peice. Since you listed one of your interests as birds, i was hoping you might be interested in takling this project. You dont have to, of course, but i felt this topic should be brought up
P.S. Is there a better place to put this information?
Thanks 04:11, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Back in the spring I was working on some fish articles, and someone moved them all to title capitalization (the infamous one being Neon Tetra instead of Neon tetra). AFAICT this is not mandated anywhere in the ToL pages, and it violates Wikipedia standards about using normal English sentence capitalization for article titles. I was told back then that capitalizing everything was the new standard for ToL. However, from looking around, it doesn't seem like most articles follow this (undocumented) standard. Can anyone help me out? — Tkinias 18:30, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
(Reverting to no-indent...) Naturally, I agree with User:Knowledge Seeker. I note that, unfortunately, the Oxford Style Manual (a UK style manual) gives no guidance on the specific subject of capitalizing common names. OED, of course, does not capitalize them. ICBN/ICZN I don't think concern themselves at all (and from what I've seen avoid mentioning) common names. I note that ICZN docs on their Web site downcase anglicized versions of names of higher taxa -- therefore, "the Centrarchidae" but "this fish is a centrarchid". I've proposed a standard specifically for fish at Wikipedia:WikiProject Fishes, but there's not been much response. — Tkinias 03:47, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Addendum: Survey of several on-line taxonomic sources: NCBI Entrez, University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web, Tree of Life Project, and Integrated Taxonomic Information System all uniformly use lower-case common names for taxa of all levels. So do the journals Nature, American Journal of Botany, International Journal of Plant Sciences (just some for which I had easy on-line access). I could not readily determine if Science has a policy on this since I didn't find any unambiguous use in their on-line number. I found no use of capitalized common names in any on-line taxonomic sources I checked. The only use I have seen is in things like bird-watcher' books and aquarium hobbyists' works; apparently capitalization is a standard in specialist ornithological works, but I don't have access to any of that. (Maybe some of our ornithologists could provide journal names which use this standard?) — Tkinias 04:24, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Somewhere in the discussion archive I mentioned a link to some specialists' fish rag that included a column discussing this very same issue. My takeaway was that the issue is still being actively debated for fish. That wouldn't necessarily keep us from making a decision on house style, for instance FishBase made a choice for their own data, but if it turns out the debate is resolved and we chose the wrong side, that's a lot to fix (although not a disaster, mostly automatable). Amusingly, my Fish and Fisheries of Nevada (no, not the world's thinnest book, ha ha, it's 780 pages), originally published in 1962, uses capitalization throughout, but the mid-90s reprint has an additional section by a different author updating species status - and there the names are all downcase! Can anybody top that? :-) Stan 00:31, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Here's a provocative hypothesis; capitalization is preferred by those people who revere the species they're talking about - birdwatchers, treehuggers, field guide authors, and the like, while those who take a more utilitarian view - loggers, fisheries managers, insecticide researchers, etc, tend to prefer downcase. Capitalization has long been a mark of respect - for instance, Chicago specifically notes a habit of authors to "overcapitalize" terms relating to the major modern-day religions, but to do so much less for primitive or ancient religions. OK, now flame away. :-) Stan 04:31, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
There is something of an edit war starting with User:Mario and Dario on Anseriformes, Anatidae and the various whistling duck species' pages. I posted the following on their talk page:
Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life
Unfortunately, their only response has been to revert my changes, which I thought were a fair compromise. Any views? Should the relevant pages be protected pending resolution? jimfbleak 06:51, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I haven't found any guidelines on this in the project page or in the talk archives, but if it's there just point me in the right direction, please! *grin*
There seems not to be consistency regarding the anglicization of names for higher taxa. Since I'm working on fishes (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Fishes), I'm primarily concerned with them, where the family names are normally of the form Fooidae and the order names of the form Fooiformes, where both derive from the generic name Foous (or Fooa). It is common to anglicize the family name as "fooid", and (less so) the order name as "fooiform". Should articles and categories be using Fooidae/Fooiformes or fooid/fooiform? The Latin forms violate the singular and the English-language rules for article names, but in some cases the anglicized forms just look a bit odd. The plural angicized order names in particular look strange, because they look like misspellings of the Latin forms (Fooiforms for Fooiformes). In most cases, the anglicized systematic names are the only unambiguous English names available (how else, for example, to distinguish Perca, Percinae, Percidae, and Perciformes?). I'd like to do cleanup on this as I go through the taxa, but I'm not sure which to standardize on. What does the ToL community think about this?
One way to handle it might be to use (singular) anglicizations for article names and (plural) Latin forms for categories.
(On a related subject, can one anglicize a subfamily name of form Fooinae as "fooine"—e.g., can one refer to the "percine fishes" for fishes of subfamily Percinae?) — Tkinias 03:18, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to get a feeling for peoples like or dislkie for the 'always used common names' paradigm. I don't like is for a few reasons:
I think a better system would be to have redirects to the species or disambiguation pages where a common name applies to many species. Since wikipedia isn't paper an integrated system of cross referencing shouldn't be a problem, nor should updating if name changes occurs. Let me know what you think, and I'll decide if I should take this on to the Village Pump-- nixie 04:58, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Um, let's have some of the plant and bird folks weigh in on this one. - UtherSRG 12:46, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well perhaps there is no need to lobby for an offical policy change, but when a new page is made mabye the user should post a brief message on the talk page stating why they have used the botanical name and/or giving some indication of how common the common name is (so nooone moves pages to inappropraite names)? And some of the bad common names existing could be moved to their botanical name and a suitable disambig made. Any takers for such a proposal? -- nixie 02:28, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
What's with Category:Genera? It's almost unused... Was this an aborted idea? Should we have this, as well as Category:Families, Category:Orders, Category:Phyla, etc.? If not, why is the category still there? — Tkinias 00:24, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Expressions like "mallow family Malvaceae" (4,500 Google hits for that exact phrase) are so common that they seem almost like formulaic recitations. Perhaps an old horticultural habit dating back to the introduction of scientific farming in the 18th/19th centuries? Has to have been at least a century since "mallow family" carried any special explanatory value over "Malvaceae". Stan 07:00, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Was there ever consensus on using " L." for " Linnaeus, 1758"? — Tkinias 01:58, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Taxobox style discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Taxobox Usage#Style. - UtherSRG 22:18, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)
The current setup is that bush is a redirect to shrub, with all the various other meanings (including Australian bush (habitat) and the Bush family) detailed at bush (disambiguation). The latter has almost no pages pointing to it, while most of the pages pointing to bush are referring to one of the meanings other than shrub. I think it would make sense to move the contents of bush (disambiguation) to bush and then deleting bush (disambiguation) as an unnecessary duplication. Anyone any thoughts? (also posting this at Talk:Bush (disambiguation)) - MPF 12:19, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This page is a bit of a mess, perhaps it should become an actual disambiguation, and herb be broken into herb (culinary) and herb (botany) -- nixie 02:22, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Virus classification follows the same general lines as that of cellular organisms, and it is worth representing with taxoboxes. However, it isn't and can't be phylogenetic, because viruses probably don't have a single common origin separate from other groups. Since modern systems are generally phylogenetic, they leave viruses out, and I don't really think it's appropriate to add them back in.
In recognition of this, I'd like to suggest we adopt a slightly modified taxobox as a standard for viruses. Here's the idea:
{{taxobox_begin | color = violet | name = Siphoviridae}} |- | style="text-align:center;" | <br><small></small> |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="background: violet;" | '''[[Virus classification]]''' |- style="text-align:center;" | {| style="margin:0 auto; text-align:left; background:none;" cellpadding="2" |- |Group:||Group I <small>([[dsDNA virus|dsDNA]])</small> |- valign=top |Order:||''[[Caudovirales]]'' |- valign=top |Family:||'''''Siphoviridae''''' |} |- style="text-align:center; background:violet;" !'''[[Genus|Genera]]''' |- | style="padding: 0 .5em;" | ''Genus 1''<br> ''Genus 2'' {{taxobox_end}}
Siphoviridae | ||||||
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image here | ||||||
Virus classification | ||||||
| ||||||
Genera | ||||||
Genus 1 |
This differs from the table currently on Siphoviridae, which is typical of those that have been added - it doesn't recognize a kingdom Virus, and makes it clear the classification of viruses is separate, but should still make them easy to navigate. If people like the idea, I would add a few new macros to handle the changes. Does anyone have any opinion on this? Josh 07:04, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well, on-line lists and databases don't seem to give any formal taxa for the higher rank groups. In fact, sources like Virus Taxonomy say group rather than class - I've changed it in the table above - while most don't bother treating those categories as anything more than descriptions. So I suspect this reflects the current literature. Josh
Both descendant taxa and images are possibilities. Orders and families should be italicized - apparently the ICTV decided to diverge from the other taxonomic codes on this point. See for instance this letter. As for extra fields, hosts are a possibility, but I would let WP Viruses worry about that if and when there's sufficient interest. It's easy to add things; for now I'd just like to get a standard out. Josh
Then the Virus classification page needs to be updated by someone knowledgable. That letter [3], and the article it refers to [4] would be good references. 68.81.231.127 00:15, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Is there a way that we could give Wikipedia a true "tree of life" via something similar to the category system? What I mean is, could we find a way to tell Wikipedia, for example, that all primates are in class Mammalia, that all mammals are in phylum Chordata, and that all chordates are animals? A taxobox would then simply specify an organism's place in the tree, and Wikipedia could automatically fill in higher classifications. I attempted to implement this feature as a test in my userpage at User:Nighthawk4211/sandbox via the {{}} syntax, but couldn't get it to work reliably. If we could create such a feature, it would make the tree of life much easier to maintain. Nighthawk4211 16:17, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)
In most cases, intermediate groups aren't just omitted because they're likely to change, they're omitted because they tend not to be standard. Subkingdom Metazoa, for instance, appears on a number of pages but really isn't more common than kingdom Metazoa or subkingdom Bilateria - it tells you more about one particular system then about most groups.
This doesn't apply so much to the suborders of the Perciformes. However, many editors don't bother checking for alternate systems, so don't distinguish between the two cases. As such, it makes sense to have policies that err on the side of caution. I think the placement template idea is reasonable, if we're careful with it. In particular I would strongly urge limiting them to the major ranks. Then, we can still give intermediate ranks on pages that need them:
Perciformes template, including major ranks down to order
Suborder
Percoidei
Family Cichlidae
Without putting them on pages that don't really gain anything from them:
Cichlidae template, including major ranks down to family
Genus
Pterophyllum
Species P. scalare
There's one other caveat, though. For this to really work well, there needs to be some way to chain these together. Otherwise, I'm not sure copy-and-paste plus scripts aren't a better option. After all, a change in higher ranks still needs to be relected on all the lower rank templates. Has there been any development towards nesting templates? Josh
Ah, I missed that. Ok, then, I think that's an excellent system and I'd support adopting it for article-rich groups - although I don't really have much involvement with those. Thinking about it, I suppose restricting the templates to stable ranked taxa isn't so useful. What we'd want is for them to cover large, recognizable, and compositionally stable clades that may change position. So maybe templates for things like Percoidei is the way to go, although I'd still leave them out of the display. Josh
I don't think that sort of problem can be helped in general, but at least we'd be safe against lateral moves, and it isn't such an issue with larger groups. Further, despite the discussion above, I'd like to note that sometimes common names are the better option. Dicot is a safer bet than Magnoliopsida. Josh
It's been vaguely bothering me that the taxobox format has no place to put the author for genera, requiring that it go in the main article text. (I use: "Lepomis Rafinesque, 1819, is a genus of freshwater fish..." to start the articles.) I'm not sure exactly how it would be put into the taxobox, though... Ideas? Would it be good to have genera's authors in the taxoboxes? If so, how? — Tkinias 20:19, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think it would be a good idea. This is really something that applies to all higher taxa. I think saying things like Amoebozoa Lühe 1913 emend. Cavalier-Smith in mid-sentence is a little confusing to non-biologists, so I've been putting the attribution in a history section when I can, as on that page. But the taxobox would be a better place and, after all, we give authors for species.
{{Taxobox_begin | color=pink | name = Eared Sunfish}} |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="background: pink;" | '''[[Scientific classification]]''' |- style="text-align:center;" | {| style="margin:0 auto; text-align:left; background:none;" cellpadding="2" |- valign=top |Family:||[[Centrarchidae]] |- valign=top |Genus:||'''''Lepomis''''' </td></tr> |} <tr><th bgcolor=pink>'''Genus name'''</th></tr> <tr><td align=center>'''''Lepomis'''''<br> {{Taxobox_authority | author = [[Constantine Rafinesque|Rafinesque]] | date = [[1819]]}}</td></tr> |- style="text-align:center; background:pink;" !'''Species''' |- | style="padding: 0 .5em;" | ''L. macrochirus''<br> ''L. marginatus''<br> ''L. gibbosus''<br> etc. {{Taxobox_end}} |
{{Taxobox_begin | color=pink | name = Eared Sunfish}} |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="background: pink;" | '''[[Scientific classification]]''' |- style="text-align:center;" | {| style="margin:0 auto; text-align:left; background:none;" cellpadding="2" |- valign=top |Family:||[[Centrarchidae]] |- valign=top |Genus:||'''''Lepomis'''''<br>{{Taxobox_authority | author = [[Constantine Rafinesque|Rafinesque]] | date = [[1819]]}} </td></tr> |} |- style="text-align:center; background:pink;" !'''Species''' |- | style="padding: 0 .5em;" | ''L. macrochirus''<br> ''L. marginatus''<br> ''L. gibbosus''<br> etc. {{Taxobox_end}} |
{{Taxobox_begin | color=pink | name = ''Lepomis''}}<br>{{Taxobox_authority | author = [[Constantine Rafinesque|Rafinesque]] | date = [[1819]]}} |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="background: pink;" | '''[[Scientific classification]]''' |- style="text-align:center;" | {| style="margin:0 auto; text-align:left; background:none;" cellpadding="2" |- valign=top |Family:||[[Centrarchidae]] |- valign=top |Genus:||'''''Lepomis''''' </td></tr> |} |- style="text-align:center; background:pink;" !'''Species''' |- | style="padding: 0 .5em;" | ''L. macrochirus''<br> ''L. marginatus''<br> ''L. gibbosus''<br> etc. {{Taxobox_end}} |
Here are some options (incidentally, the taxoboxes have aligning funny ever since they were switched to wikitable format, so I think somebody with a script should change them back).
So those are my ideas. Like any of them? Josh
I see you've started using listing authorities on a number of pages. I've changed the entry templates for major ranks so they align better. However, I'm not sure what we have here is really ready to use. There's a lot of variation in how authorities are given. For some large groups it's important to note they've changed signficantly since the original authority, adding things like emend., stat. nov., etc. Multiply that by the different variations we need for the binomial section, and I think you get too many templates.
It would be much better to have a single template that takes a single argument, within which we can place the author, date, and any notes and brackets the circumstances might require. On the other hand, I think it might be worth creating new entry templates, like taxobox_genus_authority. The templates would be slightly harder to maintain, but it would make the articles simpler, since we wouldn't have to worry about newlines breaking spacing everywhere. What do you think? Josh
A while back, I posted a query at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fishes asking what taxa the project should encompass; nobody responded. What does the greater ToL gang think? Should Fishes be restricted to the Actinopterygii, or should it include other taxa that people think of as "fish"—like the Agnatha, for example? — Tkinias 23:35, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I don't see any reason the projects need to conform to the specific hierarchy. People interested in Actinopterygii and Chondrichthyes are going to overlap to a great extent, and I imagine many concerns would apply to both groups. So why not cover both? Josh
I'd like to decide what to do with these mostly duplicate pages. Please see Talk:Scientific classification. Josh
There is a page V. unguiculata which is a redirect to Cow bean. I recommended it for deletion ( Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion) but the only comment so far has been to keep. Perhaps some of you would like to add your comments. -- WormRunner | Talk 23:50, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
E. coli I've heard of. It's been in the news. They're in our gut. C. elegans I have a passing knowledge of - something to do with how their nerves cluster the way small world phenomena works. And I only know that because I've read (and poorly editted) that article. I've never heard of V. unguiculata, nor any of the other organisms you mention. I could attempt to spell out what the E. in E. coli stands for, but can't for the C. in C. elegans. While latin name usage has become more prevalent for plants due to the extreme variability in their common name usage, I wouldn't have known V. unguiculata was a plant if WormRunner hadn't spelled that out clearly. Even E. coli is spelled out when usage reasonable allows. Unless the organism is known most commonly by the abbreviated latin name outside of the sphere of interest of that organism, the abbreviation should not be used until after the spelled out form, so as to reasonably prevent ambiguity. - UtherSRG 07:40, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure how it ended up at cow bean (since noone as far as I can see uses that name), but the common name for the species is cowpea. Cowpea currently redirects to Vigna, I think that it'd be best if the species article had the correct name so I'm going to move it to cowpea.-- nixie 22:48, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Discussion moved from project page:
It's often very difficult to tell what images of a group are available. I think we should have a hierarchy of image categories, generally paralleling the hierarchy of article categories, but only splitting when there are enough images to make it worthwhile. Examples so far:
This would also solve the problem of cluttering articles with images simply because they have nowhere else to go. To work well, it means the images should have sensible, readable names, and the image page should contain a reasonable description with a link to the relevant taxon. I would like to makes these part of the ToL standard, if nobody has any suggestions or objections. Josh 18:40, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Ideally there should be Category:Cephalopod images, with subcategories for groups that have enough pictures to warrant it. Right now that probably means squids, but not octopuses. Incidentally, Reef2063.jpg is a terrible name for an image of an octopus, and we should move such things. Is there any way to do that without re-uploading? Josh
I am overhauling the algae taxonomy, mostly based on a series of publications in the October 2004 Issue of American Journal of Botany. Can someone take a look at my sandbox and tell me what they think? http://www.amjbot.org/content/vol91/issue10/ - AMJBot Onco p53 07:53, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity, would anyone have any objections to listing the red algae as part of the kingdom Plantae? Then they would include all organisms with primary chloroplasts. Now that phylogenetics supports the notion that these make up a clade, this definition seems to be increasingly common. Josh
I agree with JoJan, the issue of kingdoms is a little more elaborate than we want to deal with in taxoboxes. Just Plantae is better than listing Chlorobionta, Viridiplantae, Protista, and all the other possibilities. On a related note, I've created a draft of WikiProject Prokaryotes and Protists with the standards I've been trying to follow so far. Please let me know what you think. Josh
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Chlorobionta or Viridiaeplantae - both names are used - are a recognised clade, as the paper you cite discusses, but only somewhat common as a kingdom. Newer studies find the Viridiaeplantae, Rhodophyta, and Glaucophyta form a larger clade, which is called Plantae after the kingdom as defined by Cavalier-Smith. The other algae are still understood to be separate; I'm not advocating a return to the non-phylogenetic kingdoms of Whittacker, if that's what you're objecting to. Josh
Do you have a reference on Cavalier-Smith? Is this Cavalier-Smith 1998 Biological Reviews 73:203-266? (Just wondering what I have to read to avoid parading my ignorance around). I misread Table 2 in Lewis and McCourt - I thought they were proposing a distinct Kingdom for the Green Algae. On first read I got the impression that you were advocating lumping all non-animals into "plants" - as does the article on plant (it includes a section called Algae and Fungi). Ok, so I withdraw my disagreement. Guettarda 21:07, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Cavalier-Smith 1998 has a good treatment, and I think the most recent, although the original idea comes from Cavalier-Smith 1981 Biosystems 14:461-481. Baldauf et al. 2003 Science 300:1703-1706 is a quick overview of current ideas about how the eukaryotes fit together, and mentions his Plantae as one of the supergroups. Josh
Well I have implemented the tax boxes, sans the Chlorobionta kingdom. I guess we should stay with plantae until there is more of a consensus in the taxonomy world. Also I take what Cavalier-Smith has to say with a grain of salt, his work The neomuran origin of archaebacteria, the negibacterial root of the universal tree and bacterial megaclassification has not fully been accepted by bacterial taxonomists. Onco p53 03:07, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Cavalier-Smith is controversial on bacteria, but is a very prominent figure on the eukaryote side of things. I've treated his work with some skepticism, but most of it has been supported by subsequent studies, for instance groups like the Plantae s.l. and Rhizaria. For his bacterial phylogeny, though, I haven't managed to find a paper that refutes his position, or even argues that bacteria are monophyletic from grounds besides the rRNA tree. Josh
Just speaking generally, it would be judicious simply to drop that part of the taxobox and refer the reader to the text. Like categories, taxoboxes don't allow for much nuance, and so should only list those levels of classification for which there is a general consensus. A Kingdom entry that says see text, or links to an article that discusses the current status, will get the reader's attention, and avoid taxobox churn from different people editing to prefer one authority over another. Stan 18:11, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
If we wanted to do that, we wouldn't have any classification for any of the algae or protozoa, and not much for many other groups. I'm all for omitting things that don't exist (cp. centrohelid), but I think it's really ok to give a kingdom here without too much comment. Josh
You miss my point. It's not like you'd only have a missing line or two, you wouldn't have anything, because there is no consensus on almost any aspect of protist taxonomy. Comparable situations exist for some other groups. For instance, there are several different ways of treating birds - some cladists will demote Aves below class, and there are several common ways of dividing them into orders. But instead of omitting everything above family, we list a "best guess" taxonomy, and make notes about it in the text. The same is happening here. Dropping the kingdom as too variable would create the misleading impression the rest of the classification isn't, and encourage the myth of consensus systems. Josh
If it's that bad, then maybe those articles can't have taxoboxes then? There are always outliers among systematists :-) ; I've been studying Takhtajan lately for instance, never seen so many one-family plant orders in my life, but that doesn't mean there isn't general agreement on the APG system, including agreeing to disagree on some points. Ditto for birds; it's going to take a lot more than some argumentative cladists to move Aves from being a class, which seems like a pretty good definition of a consensus. Doing "best guess" taxoboxes just seems like asking for trouble - when someone takes exception to one of your guesses, what then? What if you're on vacation and someone starts whacking at some of the protist taxoboxes, how are we supposed to tell the difference between an alternate but valid "best guess" vs a totally wacko system (or more likely, the one from 1911 EB, it also being authoritative, once)? At the very least, I would need the published works being used as authorities for taxonomy, to compare the edits against - I don't think you want me to do any guessing! Stan 22:50, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Protist taxonomy is where plant taxonomy was when the APG was just developing - nobody quite agreed on what to do, but a general sense of what should happen was developing. New systems started looking more and more alike as the underlying knowledge solidified. I think the important thing is that we present something that reflects the underlying knowledge, referenced in papers where possible, and then it will at least be close to any other contemporary systems.
Thus centrohelids are of mostly unknown relationships, so don't get a real position, while actinophryids are now considered to be derived heterokont algae, so get the most accessible classification that indicates this (plus the class has a reference for it). It isn't really standard, but I don't think anyone familiar with protists would complain, so long as it isn't taken as perfectly authoritative. I agree that could be better indicated - the page used to say "possible classification", but since I'm the only one who did that I didn't make it a template.
There's many cases where best guesses are all we can work with, and others where it is difficult to tell how standard a system is. There are several contemporary systems of bird orders, all in common use, and if someone said we were using the wrong one I don't think it would be easy to answer them. On the other hand, the current system of plant orders is definitely the most common, but if someone said they weren't certain enough to take as given I don't think we could handle that, either.
I think starting with the assumption that there's a single system in most cases is a mistake. This isn't something unique to the protists, just that's more common there. In the past, I'd argued against taxoboxes because they don't allow variation in systems, but they're very convenient and I like having them. The thing is, taxonomy is extremely dynamic, so anything we give should be considered tentative. I know a lot of people don't, and that creates problems, but I don't know what to do with them.
I'm not sure how the protist listings would be maintained in my absence. From experience, though, it's less likely that people would complain about what's given than that they would add what isn't, without much regard to whether it's generally accepted or not. It's hard to maintain gaps in taxoboxes, or keep them off pages - too many people assume that there is a single authoritative taxonomy for that to work. I think listing a best guess, and making it clear it's only a best guess, is probably the most realistic option. Josh
Since this discussion seems to be a little old, I'll start with the basics again. Personally I think we should group algae in the protist kingdom. My reasons are:
1)(most important point) As far as I'm concerned, as long as we do have the kingdom "protista", we are NOT going by actual clades. Meaning that if we DO start going by clades instead of the general taxonomy, we really should break apart the kingdom protista into all REAL clades. My biology book says protists are not closely related enough to each other (like all animals are, or all plants, etc) to justify putting them in a single kindom. So either we go by clades (and this goes for ALL taxonomic groups) or we go by the usual way they're grouped. We really have to be consistant. As of right now, wikipedia is a mess. If you go around looking at relevant articles they don't agree with each other. Some say algae are protists while others say they're plants, etc. (actually I just noticed Josh fixed a bunch of them)
2) Most places you go to say algae are in the kindom protista. I think we should follow the general thinking, although we should make it crystal clear to people reading the articles that the classifications may not represent actual clades, but that we are going by the general classification system.
and
3) This kind of goes with number two... I'm pretty sure most schools teach that algae are protists. If we start calling them plants, it may cause confusion among students doing their homework, etc.
4)When in doubt, I think we should do the simplest thing. The simplest thing in this situation I think would be to group algae as protists. We already have a ton of articles under the kindom protista, and changing them all to their real clades would be a pain.-- TheAlphaWolf 17:21, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
I disagree - Protista seem to be an assemblage of unrelated groups all thrown together because some people are not sure what to do with them. Some seem mor animals, some plants. Make it simple: animals and Plants. Osborne 08:56, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Could someone identify this animal? It's an even toed ungulate, but I can't figure out much beyond that. Once I have it identified, I'll be deleting and reuploading. →Raul654 20:09, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
Should legumes and pulse (legume) be merged? -- nixie 04:45, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Agreed, don't merge legume and pulse (legume). But should legume be made a redirect to Fabaceae? - MPF 15:57, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
May cultivars be considered to be the same as subspecies'? If not, should I create a Template:Taxobox cultivar entry? -- Oldak Quill 20:31, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I encourage you all to help with maintaining the biology Wikiportal connected with this project! Ausir 23:03, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Is there a technical difference between fodder and forage? -- nixie 04:59, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Been getting no reply to this at Wikipedia talk:Image use policy - anyone here any ideas? or at least know where to ask to get an answer?
There's a huge collection of tree and forestry photos at http://www.forestryimages.org/. Most are taken by private individuals and copyrighted, with (usually) a non-commercial licence note attached; fair enough.
However, some are marked as taken by United States Forest Service personnel - these photos carry the same non-commercial license restrictions on the page (typical example: this one). Yet surely as US Government photos, these are in the public domain and free of copyright? Can I ignore the stated restrictions as being incorrect, and use these USFS photos with the tag {{PD-USGov-USDA-FS}}? - thanks, MPF 00:12, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Does anyone else think that these List of genera by name: B etc. are a bad idea? I tried to suggest to the creator of the lists that they would be unmanagable, probably never complete and really quite uninformative without a Kingdom type of breakdown.-- nixie 05:09, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I've created a new WikiProject, WikiProject Viruses that has been listed as a descendant of the tree of life. Yes, I know, viruses aren't living creatures, but I feel that articles on viruses could definitely benefit from what other articles (such as ones on mammals, birds, etc.) have. It is so similar to those projects that I decided to add it here. Since it was just created a couple minutes ago, it really needs some motivated people to help begin this task. Please feel free to list yourself as a participant, or offer your help to the WikiProject! Thank you. - Frazzydee| ✍ 22:15, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Archives for WT:TOL | ||
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1 | 2002-07 – 2003-12 | Article names |
2 | 2003-11 – 2004-02 | Taxoboxes |
3 | 2004-02 | Taxoboxes |
4 | 2004-02 – 2004-08 | Bold taxa; taxonomy |
5 | 2004-03 – 2004-04 | Taxonomy; photos; range maps |
6 | 2005-04 – 2004-06 | Capitalization; authorities; mammals |
7 | 2004-06 – 2004-08 | Creationism; parens; common names |
8 | 2004-05 – 2004-08 | Templates; †extinct; common names |
9 | 2004-05 – 2004-08 | Categories; taxoboxes |
10 | 2004-08 – 2004-12 | Categories; authorities; domains; Wikispecies; ranks; G. species; capitalization; Common Names |
11 | 2004-11 – 2005-05 | Capitalization; common names; categories; L.; authorities; algae; cultivars |
12 | 2005-03 – 2005-05 | Ranks; common names |
13 | 2005-05 – 2005-06 | Hybrids; taxobox format; cultivars |
14 | 2005-06 – 2005-07 | Categories; food plants; identification; Capitalization |
15 | 2005-07 – 2005-09 | Synonyms; types; authorities; status; identification |
16 | 2005-09 – 2005-12 | Paleontological ranges; Rosopsida; Taxobox redesign; identification |
17 | 2005-12 – 2006-04 | Taxobox redesign; identification; APG; common names; capitalization |
18 | 2006-04 – 2006-10 | Categorization; include in references; snakes; range maps; seasonality graph; common names; bioregions; brya; |
19 | 2006-10 – 2007-03 | various |
20 | 2007-03 – 2007-06 | various |
21 | 2007-06 (Next 64 Kb) | various |
22 | (Next 64 Kb) | various |
23 | (Next 64 Kb) | various |
24 | (Next 64 Kb) | various |
Should an article like this be at the title Oleaceae which is now a redirect. Some of the species seem pretty far from the common understanding of an olive. Rmhermen 14:10, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)
problem. :-) But we've signed up with the Latin names. (Might not hurt to have redirs tho, "soapberry family" garners several thousand matches, 600 of them not mentioning Sapindaceae at all.) Stan 17:03, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
When I come across a taxobox created with the table code rather than the new ToL template I update it. I'm not sure if people are of the opinion 'if it ain't broke -don't fix it', or if its better to update them to make any subsequent updates simpler. A list of entries with the 'old' template can be found here .-- nixie 02:48, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
(Posted by new User:Fledgeling on my user page - can anyone help out? I'll have a look in HBW, but I suspect that's not up-to-date enough) - MPF 09:51, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
There were tought to be three species and two sub-species untill 1995, when DNA tests on the different Kiwi populations proved otherwise. Today we know that the species formerly known as Brown Kiwi is actually three distinct species – Brown Kiwi, Rowi and Tokoeka. And the Tokoeka currently has two varieties - Haast Tokoeka and Southern Tokoeka. The Rowi was identified as a seperate species in 2003, the latest to be identified as a seperate species.--- http://www.kiwirecovery.org.nz/Kiwi/AboutTheBird/TheKiwiFamily/
I have noticed this page is sorely out of date, but since i only came yesterday i do not have the expertise, 'Wikification' knowlege, or guts to take on the task of editing such a large, prominent peice. Since you listed one of your interests as birds, i was hoping you might be interested in takling this project. You dont have to, of course, but i felt this topic should be brought up
P.S. Is there a better place to put this information?
Thanks 04:11, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Back in the spring I was working on some fish articles, and someone moved them all to title capitalization (the infamous one being Neon Tetra instead of Neon tetra). AFAICT this is not mandated anywhere in the ToL pages, and it violates Wikipedia standards about using normal English sentence capitalization for article titles. I was told back then that capitalizing everything was the new standard for ToL. However, from looking around, it doesn't seem like most articles follow this (undocumented) standard. Can anyone help me out? — Tkinias 18:30, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
(Reverting to no-indent...) Naturally, I agree with User:Knowledge Seeker. I note that, unfortunately, the Oxford Style Manual (a UK style manual) gives no guidance on the specific subject of capitalizing common names. OED, of course, does not capitalize them. ICBN/ICZN I don't think concern themselves at all (and from what I've seen avoid mentioning) common names. I note that ICZN docs on their Web site downcase anglicized versions of names of higher taxa -- therefore, "the Centrarchidae" but "this fish is a centrarchid". I've proposed a standard specifically for fish at Wikipedia:WikiProject Fishes, but there's not been much response. — Tkinias 03:47, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Addendum: Survey of several on-line taxonomic sources: NCBI Entrez, University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web, Tree of Life Project, and Integrated Taxonomic Information System all uniformly use lower-case common names for taxa of all levels. So do the journals Nature, American Journal of Botany, International Journal of Plant Sciences (just some for which I had easy on-line access). I could not readily determine if Science has a policy on this since I didn't find any unambiguous use in their on-line number. I found no use of capitalized common names in any on-line taxonomic sources I checked. The only use I have seen is in things like bird-watcher' books and aquarium hobbyists' works; apparently capitalization is a standard in specialist ornithological works, but I don't have access to any of that. (Maybe some of our ornithologists could provide journal names which use this standard?) — Tkinias 04:24, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Somewhere in the discussion archive I mentioned a link to some specialists' fish rag that included a column discussing this very same issue. My takeaway was that the issue is still being actively debated for fish. That wouldn't necessarily keep us from making a decision on house style, for instance FishBase made a choice for their own data, but if it turns out the debate is resolved and we chose the wrong side, that's a lot to fix (although not a disaster, mostly automatable). Amusingly, my Fish and Fisheries of Nevada (no, not the world's thinnest book, ha ha, it's 780 pages), originally published in 1962, uses capitalization throughout, but the mid-90s reprint has an additional section by a different author updating species status - and there the names are all downcase! Can anybody top that? :-) Stan 00:31, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Here's a provocative hypothesis; capitalization is preferred by those people who revere the species they're talking about - birdwatchers, treehuggers, field guide authors, and the like, while those who take a more utilitarian view - loggers, fisheries managers, insecticide researchers, etc, tend to prefer downcase. Capitalization has long been a mark of respect - for instance, Chicago specifically notes a habit of authors to "overcapitalize" terms relating to the major modern-day religions, but to do so much less for primitive or ancient religions. OK, now flame away. :-) Stan 04:31, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
There is something of an edit war starting with User:Mario and Dario on Anseriformes, Anatidae and the various whistling duck species' pages. I posted the following on their talk page:
Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life
Unfortunately, their only response has been to revert my changes, which I thought were a fair compromise. Any views? Should the relevant pages be protected pending resolution? jimfbleak 06:51, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I haven't found any guidelines on this in the project page or in the talk archives, but if it's there just point me in the right direction, please! *grin*
There seems not to be consistency regarding the anglicization of names for higher taxa. Since I'm working on fishes (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Fishes), I'm primarily concerned with them, where the family names are normally of the form Fooidae and the order names of the form Fooiformes, where both derive from the generic name Foous (or Fooa). It is common to anglicize the family name as "fooid", and (less so) the order name as "fooiform". Should articles and categories be using Fooidae/Fooiformes or fooid/fooiform? The Latin forms violate the singular and the English-language rules for article names, but in some cases the anglicized forms just look a bit odd. The plural angicized order names in particular look strange, because they look like misspellings of the Latin forms (Fooiforms for Fooiformes). In most cases, the anglicized systematic names are the only unambiguous English names available (how else, for example, to distinguish Perca, Percinae, Percidae, and Perciformes?). I'd like to do cleanup on this as I go through the taxa, but I'm not sure which to standardize on. What does the ToL community think about this?
One way to handle it might be to use (singular) anglicizations for article names and (plural) Latin forms for categories.
(On a related subject, can one anglicize a subfamily name of form Fooinae as "fooine"—e.g., can one refer to the "percine fishes" for fishes of subfamily Percinae?) — Tkinias 03:18, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to get a feeling for peoples like or dislkie for the 'always used common names' paradigm. I don't like is for a few reasons:
I think a better system would be to have redirects to the species or disambiguation pages where a common name applies to many species. Since wikipedia isn't paper an integrated system of cross referencing shouldn't be a problem, nor should updating if name changes occurs. Let me know what you think, and I'll decide if I should take this on to the Village Pump-- nixie 04:58, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Um, let's have some of the plant and bird folks weigh in on this one. - UtherSRG 12:46, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well perhaps there is no need to lobby for an offical policy change, but when a new page is made mabye the user should post a brief message on the talk page stating why they have used the botanical name and/or giving some indication of how common the common name is (so nooone moves pages to inappropraite names)? And some of the bad common names existing could be moved to their botanical name and a suitable disambig made. Any takers for such a proposal? -- nixie 02:28, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
What's with Category:Genera? It's almost unused... Was this an aborted idea? Should we have this, as well as Category:Families, Category:Orders, Category:Phyla, etc.? If not, why is the category still there? — Tkinias 00:24, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Expressions like "mallow family Malvaceae" (4,500 Google hits for that exact phrase) are so common that they seem almost like formulaic recitations. Perhaps an old horticultural habit dating back to the introduction of scientific farming in the 18th/19th centuries? Has to have been at least a century since "mallow family" carried any special explanatory value over "Malvaceae". Stan 07:00, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Was there ever consensus on using " L." for " Linnaeus, 1758"? — Tkinias 01:58, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Taxobox style discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Taxobox Usage#Style. - UtherSRG 22:18, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)
The current setup is that bush is a redirect to shrub, with all the various other meanings (including Australian bush (habitat) and the Bush family) detailed at bush (disambiguation). The latter has almost no pages pointing to it, while most of the pages pointing to bush are referring to one of the meanings other than shrub. I think it would make sense to move the contents of bush (disambiguation) to bush and then deleting bush (disambiguation) as an unnecessary duplication. Anyone any thoughts? (also posting this at Talk:Bush (disambiguation)) - MPF 12:19, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This page is a bit of a mess, perhaps it should become an actual disambiguation, and herb be broken into herb (culinary) and herb (botany) -- nixie 02:22, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Virus classification follows the same general lines as that of cellular organisms, and it is worth representing with taxoboxes. However, it isn't and can't be phylogenetic, because viruses probably don't have a single common origin separate from other groups. Since modern systems are generally phylogenetic, they leave viruses out, and I don't really think it's appropriate to add them back in.
In recognition of this, I'd like to suggest we adopt a slightly modified taxobox as a standard for viruses. Here's the idea:
{{taxobox_begin | color = violet | name = Siphoviridae}} |- | style="text-align:center;" | <br><small></small> |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="background: violet;" | '''[[Virus classification]]''' |- style="text-align:center;" | {| style="margin:0 auto; text-align:left; background:none;" cellpadding="2" |- |Group:||Group I <small>([[dsDNA virus|dsDNA]])</small> |- valign=top |Order:||''[[Caudovirales]]'' |- valign=top |Family:||'''''Siphoviridae''''' |} |- style="text-align:center; background:violet;" !'''[[Genus|Genera]]''' |- | style="padding: 0 .5em;" | ''Genus 1''<br> ''Genus 2'' {{taxobox_end}}
Siphoviridae | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
image here | ||||||
Virus classification | ||||||
| ||||||
Genera | ||||||
Genus 1 |
This differs from the table currently on Siphoviridae, which is typical of those that have been added - it doesn't recognize a kingdom Virus, and makes it clear the classification of viruses is separate, but should still make them easy to navigate. If people like the idea, I would add a few new macros to handle the changes. Does anyone have any opinion on this? Josh 07:04, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well, on-line lists and databases don't seem to give any formal taxa for the higher rank groups. In fact, sources like Virus Taxonomy say group rather than class - I've changed it in the table above - while most don't bother treating those categories as anything more than descriptions. So I suspect this reflects the current literature. Josh
Both descendant taxa and images are possibilities. Orders and families should be italicized - apparently the ICTV decided to diverge from the other taxonomic codes on this point. See for instance this letter. As for extra fields, hosts are a possibility, but I would let WP Viruses worry about that if and when there's sufficient interest. It's easy to add things; for now I'd just like to get a standard out. Josh
Then the Virus classification page needs to be updated by someone knowledgable. That letter [3], and the article it refers to [4] would be good references. 68.81.231.127 00:15, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Is there a way that we could give Wikipedia a true "tree of life" via something similar to the category system? What I mean is, could we find a way to tell Wikipedia, for example, that all primates are in class Mammalia, that all mammals are in phylum Chordata, and that all chordates are animals? A taxobox would then simply specify an organism's place in the tree, and Wikipedia could automatically fill in higher classifications. I attempted to implement this feature as a test in my userpage at User:Nighthawk4211/sandbox via the {{}} syntax, but couldn't get it to work reliably. If we could create such a feature, it would make the tree of life much easier to maintain. Nighthawk4211 16:17, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)
In most cases, intermediate groups aren't just omitted because they're likely to change, they're omitted because they tend not to be standard. Subkingdom Metazoa, for instance, appears on a number of pages but really isn't more common than kingdom Metazoa or subkingdom Bilateria - it tells you more about one particular system then about most groups.
This doesn't apply so much to the suborders of the Perciformes. However, many editors don't bother checking for alternate systems, so don't distinguish between the two cases. As such, it makes sense to have policies that err on the side of caution. I think the placement template idea is reasonable, if we're careful with it. In particular I would strongly urge limiting them to the major ranks. Then, we can still give intermediate ranks on pages that need them:
Perciformes template, including major ranks down to order
Suborder
Percoidei
Family Cichlidae
Without putting them on pages that don't really gain anything from them:
Cichlidae template, including major ranks down to family
Genus
Pterophyllum
Species P. scalare
There's one other caveat, though. For this to really work well, there needs to be some way to chain these together. Otherwise, I'm not sure copy-and-paste plus scripts aren't a better option. After all, a change in higher ranks still needs to be relected on all the lower rank templates. Has there been any development towards nesting templates? Josh
Ah, I missed that. Ok, then, I think that's an excellent system and I'd support adopting it for article-rich groups - although I don't really have much involvement with those. Thinking about it, I suppose restricting the templates to stable ranked taxa isn't so useful. What we'd want is for them to cover large, recognizable, and compositionally stable clades that may change position. So maybe templates for things like Percoidei is the way to go, although I'd still leave them out of the display. Josh
I don't think that sort of problem can be helped in general, but at least we'd be safe against lateral moves, and it isn't such an issue with larger groups. Further, despite the discussion above, I'd like to note that sometimes common names are the better option. Dicot is a safer bet than Magnoliopsida. Josh
It's been vaguely bothering me that the taxobox format has no place to put the author for genera, requiring that it go in the main article text. (I use: "Lepomis Rafinesque, 1819, is a genus of freshwater fish..." to start the articles.) I'm not sure exactly how it would be put into the taxobox, though... Ideas? Would it be good to have genera's authors in the taxoboxes? If so, how? — Tkinias 20:19, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think it would be a good idea. This is really something that applies to all higher taxa. I think saying things like Amoebozoa Lühe 1913 emend. Cavalier-Smith in mid-sentence is a little confusing to non-biologists, so I've been putting the attribution in a history section when I can, as on that page. But the taxobox would be a better place and, after all, we give authors for species.
{{Taxobox_begin | color=pink | name = Eared Sunfish}} |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="background: pink;" | '''[[Scientific classification]]''' |- style="text-align:center;" | {| style="margin:0 auto; text-align:left; background:none;" cellpadding="2" |- valign=top |Family:||[[Centrarchidae]] |- valign=top |Genus:||'''''Lepomis''''' </td></tr> |} <tr><th bgcolor=pink>'''Genus name'''</th></tr> <tr><td align=center>'''''Lepomis'''''<br> {{Taxobox_authority | author = [[Constantine Rafinesque|Rafinesque]] | date = [[1819]]}}</td></tr> |- style="text-align:center; background:pink;" !'''Species''' |- | style="padding: 0 .5em;" | ''L. macrochirus''<br> ''L. marginatus''<br> ''L. gibbosus''<br> etc. {{Taxobox_end}} |
{{Taxobox_begin | color=pink | name = Eared Sunfish}} |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="background: pink;" | '''[[Scientific classification]]''' |- style="text-align:center;" | {| style="margin:0 auto; text-align:left; background:none;" cellpadding="2" |- valign=top |Family:||[[Centrarchidae]] |- valign=top |Genus:||'''''Lepomis'''''<br>{{Taxobox_authority | author = [[Constantine Rafinesque|Rafinesque]] | date = [[1819]]}} </td></tr> |} |- style="text-align:center; background:pink;" !'''Species''' |- | style="padding: 0 .5em;" | ''L. macrochirus''<br> ''L. marginatus''<br> ''L. gibbosus''<br> etc. {{Taxobox_end}} |
{{Taxobox_begin | color=pink | name = ''Lepomis''}}<br>{{Taxobox_authority | author = [[Constantine Rafinesque|Rafinesque]] | date = [[1819]]}} |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="background: pink;" | '''[[Scientific classification]]''' |- style="text-align:center;" | {| style="margin:0 auto; text-align:left; background:none;" cellpadding="2" |- valign=top |Family:||[[Centrarchidae]] |- valign=top |Genus:||'''''Lepomis''''' </td></tr> |} |- style="text-align:center; background:pink;" !'''Species''' |- | style="padding: 0 .5em;" | ''L. macrochirus''<br> ''L. marginatus''<br> ''L. gibbosus''<br> etc. {{Taxobox_end}} |
Here are some options (incidentally, the taxoboxes have aligning funny ever since they were switched to wikitable format, so I think somebody with a script should change them back).
So those are my ideas. Like any of them? Josh
I see you've started using listing authorities on a number of pages. I've changed the entry templates for major ranks so they align better. However, I'm not sure what we have here is really ready to use. There's a lot of variation in how authorities are given. For some large groups it's important to note they've changed signficantly since the original authority, adding things like emend., stat. nov., etc. Multiply that by the different variations we need for the binomial section, and I think you get too many templates.
It would be much better to have a single template that takes a single argument, within which we can place the author, date, and any notes and brackets the circumstances might require. On the other hand, I think it might be worth creating new entry templates, like taxobox_genus_authority. The templates would be slightly harder to maintain, but it would make the articles simpler, since we wouldn't have to worry about newlines breaking spacing everywhere. What do you think? Josh
A while back, I posted a query at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fishes asking what taxa the project should encompass; nobody responded. What does the greater ToL gang think? Should Fishes be restricted to the Actinopterygii, or should it include other taxa that people think of as "fish"—like the Agnatha, for example? — Tkinias 23:35, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I don't see any reason the projects need to conform to the specific hierarchy. People interested in Actinopterygii and Chondrichthyes are going to overlap to a great extent, and I imagine many concerns would apply to both groups. So why not cover both? Josh
I'd like to decide what to do with these mostly duplicate pages. Please see Talk:Scientific classification. Josh
There is a page V. unguiculata which is a redirect to Cow bean. I recommended it for deletion ( Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion) but the only comment so far has been to keep. Perhaps some of you would like to add your comments. -- WormRunner | Talk 23:50, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
E. coli I've heard of. It's been in the news. They're in our gut. C. elegans I have a passing knowledge of - something to do with how their nerves cluster the way small world phenomena works. And I only know that because I've read (and poorly editted) that article. I've never heard of V. unguiculata, nor any of the other organisms you mention. I could attempt to spell out what the E. in E. coli stands for, but can't for the C. in C. elegans. While latin name usage has become more prevalent for plants due to the extreme variability in their common name usage, I wouldn't have known V. unguiculata was a plant if WormRunner hadn't spelled that out clearly. Even E. coli is spelled out when usage reasonable allows. Unless the organism is known most commonly by the abbreviated latin name outside of the sphere of interest of that organism, the abbreviation should not be used until after the spelled out form, so as to reasonably prevent ambiguity. - UtherSRG 07:40, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure how it ended up at cow bean (since noone as far as I can see uses that name), but the common name for the species is cowpea. Cowpea currently redirects to Vigna, I think that it'd be best if the species article had the correct name so I'm going to move it to cowpea.-- nixie 22:48, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Discussion moved from project page:
It's often very difficult to tell what images of a group are available. I think we should have a hierarchy of image categories, generally paralleling the hierarchy of article categories, but only splitting when there are enough images to make it worthwhile. Examples so far:
This would also solve the problem of cluttering articles with images simply because they have nowhere else to go. To work well, it means the images should have sensible, readable names, and the image page should contain a reasonable description with a link to the relevant taxon. I would like to makes these part of the ToL standard, if nobody has any suggestions or objections. Josh 18:40, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Ideally there should be Category:Cephalopod images, with subcategories for groups that have enough pictures to warrant it. Right now that probably means squids, but not octopuses. Incidentally, Reef2063.jpg is a terrible name for an image of an octopus, and we should move such things. Is there any way to do that without re-uploading? Josh
I am overhauling the algae taxonomy, mostly based on a series of publications in the October 2004 Issue of American Journal of Botany. Can someone take a look at my sandbox and tell me what they think? http://www.amjbot.org/content/vol91/issue10/ - AMJBot Onco p53 07:53, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity, would anyone have any objections to listing the red algae as part of the kingdom Plantae? Then they would include all organisms with primary chloroplasts. Now that phylogenetics supports the notion that these make up a clade, this definition seems to be increasingly common. Josh
I agree with JoJan, the issue of kingdoms is a little more elaborate than we want to deal with in taxoboxes. Just Plantae is better than listing Chlorobionta, Viridiplantae, Protista, and all the other possibilities. On a related note, I've created a draft of WikiProject Prokaryotes and Protists with the standards I've been trying to follow so far. Please let me know what you think. Josh
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Chlorobionta or Viridiaeplantae - both names are used - are a recognised clade, as the paper you cite discusses, but only somewhat common as a kingdom. Newer studies find the Viridiaeplantae, Rhodophyta, and Glaucophyta form a larger clade, which is called Plantae after the kingdom as defined by Cavalier-Smith. The other algae are still understood to be separate; I'm not advocating a return to the non-phylogenetic kingdoms of Whittacker, if that's what you're objecting to. Josh
Do you have a reference on Cavalier-Smith? Is this Cavalier-Smith 1998 Biological Reviews 73:203-266? (Just wondering what I have to read to avoid parading my ignorance around). I misread Table 2 in Lewis and McCourt - I thought they were proposing a distinct Kingdom for the Green Algae. On first read I got the impression that you were advocating lumping all non-animals into "plants" - as does the article on plant (it includes a section called Algae and Fungi). Ok, so I withdraw my disagreement. Guettarda 21:07, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Cavalier-Smith 1998 has a good treatment, and I think the most recent, although the original idea comes from Cavalier-Smith 1981 Biosystems 14:461-481. Baldauf et al. 2003 Science 300:1703-1706 is a quick overview of current ideas about how the eukaryotes fit together, and mentions his Plantae as one of the supergroups. Josh
Well I have implemented the tax boxes, sans the Chlorobionta kingdom. I guess we should stay with plantae until there is more of a consensus in the taxonomy world. Also I take what Cavalier-Smith has to say with a grain of salt, his work The neomuran origin of archaebacteria, the negibacterial root of the universal tree and bacterial megaclassification has not fully been accepted by bacterial taxonomists. Onco p53 03:07, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Cavalier-Smith is controversial on bacteria, but is a very prominent figure on the eukaryote side of things. I've treated his work with some skepticism, but most of it has been supported by subsequent studies, for instance groups like the Plantae s.l. and Rhizaria. For his bacterial phylogeny, though, I haven't managed to find a paper that refutes his position, or even argues that bacteria are monophyletic from grounds besides the rRNA tree. Josh
Just speaking generally, it would be judicious simply to drop that part of the taxobox and refer the reader to the text. Like categories, taxoboxes don't allow for much nuance, and so should only list those levels of classification for which there is a general consensus. A Kingdom entry that says see text, or links to an article that discusses the current status, will get the reader's attention, and avoid taxobox churn from different people editing to prefer one authority over another. Stan 18:11, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
If we wanted to do that, we wouldn't have any classification for any of the algae or protozoa, and not much for many other groups. I'm all for omitting things that don't exist (cp. centrohelid), but I think it's really ok to give a kingdom here without too much comment. Josh
You miss my point. It's not like you'd only have a missing line or two, you wouldn't have anything, because there is no consensus on almost any aspect of protist taxonomy. Comparable situations exist for some other groups. For instance, there are several different ways of treating birds - some cladists will demote Aves below class, and there are several common ways of dividing them into orders. But instead of omitting everything above family, we list a "best guess" taxonomy, and make notes about it in the text. The same is happening here. Dropping the kingdom as too variable would create the misleading impression the rest of the classification isn't, and encourage the myth of consensus systems. Josh
If it's that bad, then maybe those articles can't have taxoboxes then? There are always outliers among systematists :-) ; I've been studying Takhtajan lately for instance, never seen so many one-family plant orders in my life, but that doesn't mean there isn't general agreement on the APG system, including agreeing to disagree on some points. Ditto for birds; it's going to take a lot more than some argumentative cladists to move Aves from being a class, which seems like a pretty good definition of a consensus. Doing "best guess" taxoboxes just seems like asking for trouble - when someone takes exception to one of your guesses, what then? What if you're on vacation and someone starts whacking at some of the protist taxoboxes, how are we supposed to tell the difference between an alternate but valid "best guess" vs a totally wacko system (or more likely, the one from 1911 EB, it also being authoritative, once)? At the very least, I would need the published works being used as authorities for taxonomy, to compare the edits against - I don't think you want me to do any guessing! Stan 22:50, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Protist taxonomy is where plant taxonomy was when the APG was just developing - nobody quite agreed on what to do, but a general sense of what should happen was developing. New systems started looking more and more alike as the underlying knowledge solidified. I think the important thing is that we present something that reflects the underlying knowledge, referenced in papers where possible, and then it will at least be close to any other contemporary systems.
Thus centrohelids are of mostly unknown relationships, so don't get a real position, while actinophryids are now considered to be derived heterokont algae, so get the most accessible classification that indicates this (plus the class has a reference for it). It isn't really standard, but I don't think anyone familiar with protists would complain, so long as it isn't taken as perfectly authoritative. I agree that could be better indicated - the page used to say "possible classification", but since I'm the only one who did that I didn't make it a template.
There's many cases where best guesses are all we can work with, and others where it is difficult to tell how standard a system is. There are several contemporary systems of bird orders, all in common use, and if someone said we were using the wrong one I don't think it would be easy to answer them. On the other hand, the current system of plant orders is definitely the most common, but if someone said they weren't certain enough to take as given I don't think we could handle that, either.
I think starting with the assumption that there's a single system in most cases is a mistake. This isn't something unique to the protists, just that's more common there. In the past, I'd argued against taxoboxes because they don't allow variation in systems, but they're very convenient and I like having them. The thing is, taxonomy is extremely dynamic, so anything we give should be considered tentative. I know a lot of people don't, and that creates problems, but I don't know what to do with them.
I'm not sure how the protist listings would be maintained in my absence. From experience, though, it's less likely that people would complain about what's given than that they would add what isn't, without much regard to whether it's generally accepted or not. It's hard to maintain gaps in taxoboxes, or keep them off pages - too many people assume that there is a single authoritative taxonomy for that to work. I think listing a best guess, and making it clear it's only a best guess, is probably the most realistic option. Josh
Since this discussion seems to be a little old, I'll start with the basics again. Personally I think we should group algae in the protist kingdom. My reasons are:
1)(most important point) As far as I'm concerned, as long as we do have the kingdom "protista", we are NOT going by actual clades. Meaning that if we DO start going by clades instead of the general taxonomy, we really should break apart the kingdom protista into all REAL clades. My biology book says protists are not closely related enough to each other (like all animals are, or all plants, etc) to justify putting them in a single kindom. So either we go by clades (and this goes for ALL taxonomic groups) or we go by the usual way they're grouped. We really have to be consistant. As of right now, wikipedia is a mess. If you go around looking at relevant articles they don't agree with each other. Some say algae are protists while others say they're plants, etc. (actually I just noticed Josh fixed a bunch of them)
2) Most places you go to say algae are in the kindom protista. I think we should follow the general thinking, although we should make it crystal clear to people reading the articles that the classifications may not represent actual clades, but that we are going by the general classification system.
and
3) This kind of goes with number two... I'm pretty sure most schools teach that algae are protists. If we start calling them plants, it may cause confusion among students doing their homework, etc.
4)When in doubt, I think we should do the simplest thing. The simplest thing in this situation I think would be to group algae as protists. We already have a ton of articles under the kindom protista, and changing them all to their real clades would be a pain.-- TheAlphaWolf 17:21, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
I disagree - Protista seem to be an assemblage of unrelated groups all thrown together because some people are not sure what to do with them. Some seem mor animals, some plants. Make it simple: animals and Plants. Osborne 08:56, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Could someone identify this animal? It's an even toed ungulate, but I can't figure out much beyond that. Once I have it identified, I'll be deleting and reuploading. →Raul654 20:09, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
Should legumes and pulse (legume) be merged? -- nixie 04:45, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Agreed, don't merge legume and pulse (legume). But should legume be made a redirect to Fabaceae? - MPF 15:57, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
May cultivars be considered to be the same as subspecies'? If not, should I create a Template:Taxobox cultivar entry? -- Oldak Quill 20:31, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I encourage you all to help with maintaining the biology Wikiportal connected with this project! Ausir 23:03, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Is there a technical difference between fodder and forage? -- nixie 04:59, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Been getting no reply to this at Wikipedia talk:Image use policy - anyone here any ideas? or at least know where to ask to get an answer?
There's a huge collection of tree and forestry photos at http://www.forestryimages.org/. Most are taken by private individuals and copyrighted, with (usually) a non-commercial licence note attached; fair enough.
However, some are marked as taken by United States Forest Service personnel - these photos carry the same non-commercial license restrictions on the page (typical example: this one). Yet surely as US Government photos, these are in the public domain and free of copyright? Can I ignore the stated restrictions as being incorrect, and use these USFS photos with the tag {{PD-USGov-USDA-FS}}? - thanks, MPF 00:12, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Does anyone else think that these List of genera by name: B etc. are a bad idea? I tried to suggest to the creator of the lists that they would be unmanagable, probably never complete and really quite uninformative without a Kingdom type of breakdown.-- nixie 05:09, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I've created a new WikiProject, WikiProject Viruses that has been listed as a descendant of the tree of life. Yes, I know, viruses aren't living creatures, but I feel that articles on viruses could definitely benefit from what other articles (such as ones on mammals, birds, etc.) have. It is so similar to those projects that I decided to add it here. Since it was just created a couple minutes ago, it really needs some motivated people to help begin this task. Please feel free to list yourself as a participant, or offer your help to the WikiProject! Thank you. - Frazzydee| ✍ 22:15, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)