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I'm missing something terribly obvious, but why does Category:Animals described in 2012 have both the parent cat Category:Animals described in the 2010s and Animals described in the 2010s' parent cat Category:Animals described in the 21st century?
Anna Frodesiak ( talk) 22:13, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
There are several templates for categorizing redirects relevant to Tree of Life. {{ R from scientific name}} {{ R to scientific name}} {{ R from monotypic taxon}} {{ R to monotypic taxon}} and {{ R from alternative scientific name}}. The categories used by these templates are pretty massive Category:Redirects from scientific names has 5310 articles, Category:Redirects to scientific names has 4400, Category:Redirects from monotypic taxa has 836, Category:Redirects to monotypic taxa has 1333 and Category:Redirects from alternative scientific names has 890. {{ R from synonym}} has previously pretty heavily used for alternative scientific names/taxonomic synonyms, and most of the 2445 articles in Category:Redirects from synonyms are related to organism names.
I think the categories might be more useful if they were smaller and subdivided along the lines of Tree of Life's subprojects (or at least the more active subprojects). Not much happens with ToL project itself, but there is a lot of active in the subprojects. Would it be worthwhile to add parameters to the redirect categorization templates (e.g. |plant=yes, |mammal=yes, etc) to put these redirects in subcategories (e.g. Category:Redirects from scientific names of plants)? Sorting out the redirects already using the categorization templates would probably require a bot. Plantdrew ( talk) 07:05, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
{{R from alternative scientific name|plant}}
as a test. See
Acidanthera murielae and the category linked there as an example. If this seems the right way to go, it can be extended to other groups of organisms and other templates. I don't know how finely animals should be broken up, but I guess this is up to the different WikiProjects.
Peter coxhead (
talk)
11:12, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Do we want a leaflet at wikimania? If so, we need a logo. Do we have a logo?
Lepidoptera ( talk) 17:47, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
Hi,
I am noticing that the missing taxa pages are somewhat disorganized. I think a great thing would be able to leave taxa specific pages in existence, but then to transclude their content onto a master list of all missing taxa. This way, you can view the entire list all at once on the WikiProject TOL page, or view the particular subtopic you're interested in on sub WikiProjects.
Are there any objections? This will involve significant shuffling around of pages so I wanted to give a head's up.
Lepidoptera ( talk) 05:31, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
I have started a discussion at
Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science#Biological taxonomy (history of) (version of
23:52, 8 July 2014).
—
Wavelength (
talk)
23:55, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
I have made a WP:RfC on the talk page of the article for Pectinidae which can be viewed here. Please consider visiting and offering your thoughts on how to split/ join/ redirect the articles on Scallop and Pectinidae. Everyone is welcome! KDS4444 Talk 07:47, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Those familiar with how we name articles (and why) on species only identified in the fossil record may be interested in this discussion: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds#English name vs. Scientific name, — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 00:25, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
As some editors may be creating redirects by copy pasting the item into the searchbox, I thought I'd present a faster way for those who do not know. (I do not mean to be a smarty pants.):
The junk to paste in for the few who don't know: #REDIRECT [[ARTICLENAME]] {{R from scientific name}} <!--for redirects from scientific names to English names--> #REDIRECT [[ARTICLENAME]] {{R to scientific name}} <!--for redirects from English names to scientific names--> #REDIRECT [[ARTICLENAME]] {{R from alternative scientific name}} <!--for redirects from one scientific name to another, e.g. synonym-->
I hope some have found this helpful. Best wishes, Anna Frodesiak ( talk) 03:14, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
Like. —
SMcCandlish ☺
☏
¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼
10:08, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
I'm looking for a page where new articles of organisms are listed, like in the GermanWiki the page de:Portal:Lebewesen/Neue Artikel. Thanks!-- Varanus kujawis ( talk) 13:21, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
Principle of the First Reviser into International Code of Zoological Nomenclature#Principle of the First Reviser. Discuss at Talk:International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature#Proposed_merge_with_Principle_of_the_First_Reviser Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 22:27, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej ( talk) 22:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Hello. I was wondering if there books that feature the descents of various popular and interesting organism. There are many that place animals in the ecosystem, for example. What about in their evolutionary relationships? Howunusual ( talk) 22:27, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
The FAC reviewer gave his support after reviewing the article, and suggested the following ...ask relevant WikiProjects on their talk pages to drop by the review. See it here: [1] Your time will be greatly appreciated. Atsme☯ Consult 15:58, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
Maybe this has been discussed before, but:
Can we have a bot that takes all synonyms listed in taxoboxes and makes them into redirects to the article? Anna F remote ( talk) 13:46, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Whoops, meant to post this at WikiProject Biolgy. I've moved the discussion there: Talk:WikiProject Biology#Notability for scientist biographies. --Animalparty-- ( talk) 23:24, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
The identifying graphic of this wikiproject (see the top of this page) is a high-detail diagram designed to be seen at a large size. Its usage as an icon here is ineffective, as it appears to be little more than a pale blue ring. I propose that someone, possibly I, create a clear, recognisable design. Thoughts? JamesDouch ( talk) 06:06, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
Here is a gallery of further possibilities...
Though it is archaic, I visually prefer the first one. -- Epipelagic ( talk) 20:08, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
I figured this might be the best place to ask to get the most interest, so here's a question on the oh so dreaded topic of common names. Common names are often defined by professional organizations at least for organisms that are of some interest to the general public. For instance bed bug is the distinct common name given to Cimex lectularius by the Entomological Society of America. However, bed-bugs, or bedbugs are also listed from a dictionary cited in the Wikipedia article itself. My question is should we just stick to a distinct common name given by an authority such as a professional organization such as this when available instead of listing all the possible spelling variations that have come about? In some cases (not this one) what the public uses as a common name could be incorrect and describing a different species common name, while in other cases like this one, you seem to get people just plunking together words that can eventually sneak into dictionaries to lead to this kind of word meltdown. I'm hoping this approach gives at least some sanity to the many issues that come from using common names.
If there's a relevant manual of style that informs this I'd be happy to know about it. I've seen MOS:ORGANISMS, but that's only in the proposal phase, so I'm not sure if that's the template people have been working from, or if there is another related manual of style for this. Kingofaces43 ( talk) 03:11, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
Hi, this is to let you know that we've launched WikiProject Wikidata for research in order to stimulate a closer interaction between Wikidata and research, both on a technical and a community level. As a first activity, we are drafting a research proposal on the matter (cf. blog post). Your thoughts on and contributions to that would be most welcome! Thanks, -- Daniel Mietchen ( talk) 02:15, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
Hello everyone!
You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!
Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.
Harej ( talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Please see Template talk:Taxobox, where I've proposed having {{ taxobox}} add a maintenance category to articles where a species' Red List status is not specified. Nyttend ( talk) 18:18, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
Hi! I'm working on Draft:Elassoma evergladei, but I'm having trouble with the fish's colors. The descriptions I'm getting from Google Books and the images online don't seem to match the colors on the draft's picture. Maybe the picture is misidentified? Thanks, Bananasoldier ( talk) 01:41, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
From here. [2] Extinction daggers are not applied consistently across articles, and there even seems to be disagreement over whether they should only be used for recently extinct taxa, and not prehistoric ones. The daggers also don't link to anything, and some readers seem to be confused by them, not knowing what they mean. Also, in the automatic taxoboxes, extinction daggers become part of the taxon name links for some reason (see for example Paraceratherium), which is not optimal. So how exactly are we going to use these things? FunkMonk ( talk) 16:10, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
extinct=yes
. Setting an arbitrary cut-off ("recent") for which extinctions are marked with a symbol and which are not cannot be tenable, and will certainly lead to even more confusion. It needs to be all or nothing; I argue for nothing and, having just scanned through a sample of palaeontological articles, the dagger is less widespread than I had thought, which is heartening. --
Stemonitis (
talk)
07:38, 24 November 2014 (UTC){{
extinct}}
when possible. I dunno about taxoboxes though. Personally I prefer them there, but acknowledge that it may be confusing since the daggers are not linked. No strong opinions either way.--
OBSIDIAN†
SOUL
00:59, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
We apparently need to create an article for Supergroup (biology).
Rhizaria says:
I wanted to understand the term "supergroup" better, but I don't find an article for it. The disamb page Supergroup doesn't seem to show a biology-related meaning.
Apparently we should create an article at Supergroup (biology) (per the format Family_(biology) and Order (biology)), and we should also add a link to Supergroup.
Thanks. - 189.122.195.17 ( talk) 15:18, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
There is an ongoing discussion at the Virus WikiProject about the notability of virus species and taxa. Members of this project are welcome to comment. ComfyKem ( talk) 17:21, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure about the best solution in the short term (ultimately, probably every extant species should have have an article, but an article with one sentence of text and a taxobox isn't very helpful). If there's consensus against one sentence+taxobox articles, fair enough, but I really don't want to see articles of this type created and then converted to redirects to a higher taxon. If there's nothing to say about a particular species, leave it as a red-link, don't create a blue-link that ends up going to the genus (or merge a species into a genus). Callosciurus has 5 taxoboxes; 1 for the genus, and 4 for species that redirect to the genus article. Better to have Callosciurus species as redlinks rather than confusing redirects. Plantdrew ( talk) 07:06, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
Template:Infraspeciesbox has been
nominated for deletion. Given that these templates are of interest to WikiProject Tree of Life, you are invited to comment on the discussion at
the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page.
Dirtlawyer1 (
talk)
23:25, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
While working on cleaning up some issues with bird categories, I came across Alca (bird). Am I correct in assuming this should be at Alca (genus), based on conventions agreed upon in earlier conversations here? There are no other organisms with this genus name. MeegsC ( talk) 21:25, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
(External uninvited view): I came here by an accident and didn't look into the "biological" detail, however let me bring your attention to the purpose of disambiguation: to quickly tell the user the specific area for the topic with the same name. Keeping this in mind, it occurs to me that the DAB qualifier '(bird)' or '(flinch)' is much more informative than '(genus)' for an average reader. Staszek Lem ( talk) 18:38, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
I think it's very important to recognize that Alca (bird) is currently not the primary title but a redirect to Razorbill, which is what readers see when reading about the monotypic genus. Unless there's some new plan to move every bird article to its scientific name (which I would oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and all the fracas over capitalization), then Alca (genus) would presumably also redirect to Razorbill (redirects are cheap). We can have both links, and neither are even needed on the dab page Alca. Where's the confusion? So in response to MeegsC's very first question, "Am I correct in assuming this should be at Alca (genus)", I would say probably not. --Animalparty-- ( talk) 19:03, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
A request for a taxobox change has been posted at Template_talk:Taxonomy/Angiosperms#Template-protected edit request on 4 April 2015. This is just a notification, I'll leave further actions to more experienced content and taxobox editors to discuss. Please describe needed changes as detailed and specific as possible. GermanJoe ( talk) 14:12, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
These animals are the most commonly found scientific names in Google books which we don't already have articles or redirects for. The list includes synonyms. For details of how I made this list see the notes here. I welcome you to create articles or redirects for these.
Each scientific name is found in at least 147 books or volumes published after 1950, and all are in the top 1% of most common scientific names.
(Correction: title should be "Missing chordates" rather than "Missing vertebrates". I didn't noticed some sea-squirts had made the list.)
Please feel free to edit this list to add notes. — Pengo 04:12, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
I have suggested a start of a new project on Wikispecies for those Wikispecies users who are interested in collaboration with WikiProject Tree of Life and to promote an intensified cooperation between Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life and Wikispecies. Please feel free to join the discussion on WS Village pump, and if the project gets support, participate! Dan Koehl ( talk) 13:59, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
There is a new essay, " Identifying primary and secondary sources for biology articles", you are invited to comment on.DrChrissy (talk) 12:08, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
Which template/tag should be used when redirecting from an alternative scientific name (for example a junior synonym) to an article located at the common name? R-from-alternative-scientific-name only provides for redirect-to-scientific name; R-from-scientific-name presumes the redirected page is the correct/current scientific name. AddWittyNameHere ( talk) 19:24, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
A new copy-paste detection bot is now in general use on English Wikipedia. Come check it out at the EranBot reporting page. This bot utilizes the Turnitin software (ithenticate), unlike User:CorenSearchBot that relies on a web search API from Yahoo. It checks individual edits rather than just new articles. Please take 15 seconds to visit the EranBot reporting page and check a few of the flagged concerns. Comments welcome regarding potential improvements. These possible copyright violations can be searched by WikiProject categories. Use "control-f" to jump to your area of interest (if such a copyvio is present).-- Lucas559 ( talk) 16:58, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Race (biology)#Proposal: Merge to Breed. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 07:32, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
This discussion may be of interest to this project: WT:Manual of Style/Lead section#Bold text for organisms. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 21:06, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
There are countless articles such as monkey that have imperfect taxon/clade overlap. Even though the human clade has no clear taxon, an independent article about the human clade should be split off from these other articles.
The article human used to say we were the last of the hominids: "the human clade", a branch of bipedal great apes.
Now it seems that there has developed imperfect semantic overlap between "hominid" and "the human clade".
The human clade doesn't have to have a taxon to be an article.
Taxa are indispensable, but clades are real referents at least as important as taxa.
The human clade is clearly one of the most important branches on the tree of life and would be well linked to from many articles elsewhere.
Just because something is a clade without a clear taxon doesn't mean that it isn't important enough to have an article about.
What do you all think about this idea?
Chrisrus ( talk) 23:02, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
My understanding, without referring back to sources, is that taxonomically the clade including humans and all things more closely related to humans than to chimpanzees is (the subtribe) Hominina. Anthropological classifications often disagree with this excluding chimpanzees from hominina. The article human should cover this and point to an article, possibly called "Early humans" which describes it in detail. SPACKlick ( talk) 14:36, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
I wouldn't say that. There is a group commonly talked about that is everything more closely related to you than to a chimpanzee. It's just that various disciplines refer to it in different ways making any name have the right scope be tricky. SPACKlick ( talk) 08:37, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
Sorry I missed this discussion until now. If it's not too late, I'd like to chime in, particularly since I've had to deal with situations like this (and worse) when writing about lemurs. (Yes, lemur taxonomy, and particularly that of strepsirrhines is worse.) "Semantic overlap" due to conflicting taxonomies is nothing new, and is notoriously difficult to deal with. The stance I have taken (after several discussions at WP:Primate with strepsirrhines) is that if paleoanthropology and primatology/anthropology conflict in their taxonomies, then the most inclusive (as in # of taxa considered) wins, regardless of usage. The reasoning is that Wiki articles about living primates will use different terminology than articles about extinct primates, causing confusion for readers. Therefore the need for consistent terminology takes precedence—which flies easier for less popular topics, like lemurs, versus more popular topics, like humans.
As for having an article for the "human clade", I think Homo (with Hominina redirecting to it is perfectly sufficient. However, I'm working off the taxonomy presented in Wood & Richmond, 2000 (page 21). They use:
Superfamily Hominoidea ('hominoids')
It appears that here on enWiki, we've favored having a clade name for orangutans over one for upright apes. The taxonomy we chose shifts the contents of Homininae to include gorillas and by putting Pan in a subtribe. Once again, I suggest considering what is most important for consistency on Wikipedia and base the taxonomy we use on that. (In other words, which is more important: having a clade name for orangutans or one for humans? In fact, these divergent focuses are probably the reasons for the two conflicting taxonomies.) No matter which way we go, writers for these articles will have to translate their sources, just as I have had to translate my sources when I write about strepsirrhines. Waiting for a clade name to emerge in the literature will be fruitless. Those who focus on human cladistics will refer to the clade as Hominina ("hominans"), while those who favor the other taxonomy (primatologists) will use various names for it. It sucks, but that's the curse dealing with Linnaean taxonomy in the age of phylogenetics. – Maky « talk » 07:17, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
I will also note that regardless of which taxonomy is used, all related articles need to include the competing taxonomies with citations, as I have done for the major lemur and strepsirrhine articles. This is not optional since it will lead to more informed discussions about issues like this. – Maky « talk » 07:23, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
I just want to make sure we're all talking about the same thing here (note: I've largely ignored the previous discussion about Panina, Homininae, etc.). Reliable sources seem to indicate that the "human clade" is indeed everything on the human side of the evolutionary tree since the CHLCA (which may or may not have knuckle-walked, see e.g. Sahelanthropus): Wood (2010) states "The fossil record of the human clade consists of fossil evidence for modern humans plus that of all extinct taxa to be more closely related to modern humans than to any other living taxon". [1] I think this is a more accurate, descriptive and less falsifiable description than simply a "bipedal branch of the great apes". Wood also mentions that some researchers use "Hominini" for Pan + human clade, with human clade in hominina, while others use "Hominini" for just the human clade. [1] Wood earlier took the latter view: "Hominini, and its 2 component subtribes, the Australopithecina and the Hominina" [2] Thus, if we want to write an article on "the human clade", expanding Hominina would seem the most appropriate place (see list of taxa in Homininae#Taxonomic_classification), to avoid conflict with Hominini (broad sense) which, as presently written on Wikipeia, includes Pan. The next best option would be to create an article that unites (the articles) Australopithecine and Homo --Animalparty! ( talk) 17:41, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
References
Due to some recent discussions about MOS:ACCESS and its requirements for WP:COLOR combinations compliant with the WCAG AAA standard for text accessibility, it occurred to me to check the taxobox color scheme. It appears to have a few issues. Please see this discussion for some proposed (mostly minor) changes. Thanks! Opabinia regalis ( talk) 03:47, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
See section here: [5] Both are tiny stubs, and cover the same subject. We don't have an "extinct taxon" article either. FunkMonk ( talk) 06:56, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Equus caballus africanus (including all 48 synonyms of horse). Please participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. -- Tavix ( talk) 17:14, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
Is there any kind of off-WP guidance/convention with regard to the use of the cross or dagger symbol for extinct taxa, as in "†Tryannosaurus rex"? Questions coming to mind about usage include:
†
, numeric character reference †
or †
. Not to be confused with Unicode ✝ "Latin Cross" U+271D
[7], HTML numeric character reference ✝
or ✝
. They may look very similar in some fonts, especially if the dagger does not have a pointed tip.)I'd probably think of others, but these are the main ones that come to mind.
It seems to me the ideal display would be superscripted in front of an italicized taxon, which leans away from the dagger (†Tryannosaurus rex) and superscripted and hair-spaced in front of a non-italicized taxon († Sauropodomorpha). If superscripting is not liked (†Tryannosaurus rex) then thin-spacing away from the non-italicized taxon would probably work († Sauropodomorpha). But this is probably worth looking at in different browsers and OSes; I haven't fired up my collection of virtual machines for this yet. Whatever the cases that turn out best, it could be handled with the template for this, e.g. {{extinct|Tryannosaurus rex|i=y}}
, {{extinct|Sauropodomorpha}}
. (The present {{
extinct}}
does nothing but generate the dagger character, and prevent it from being italicized or boldfaced, but I can easily recode it to handle the formatting requirements based on whether the taxon is italicized or not, without breaking the extant just-the-dagger usage.) —
SMcCandlish ☺
☏
¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼
05:50, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 30 | ← | Archive 32 | Archive 33 | Archive 34 | Archive 35 | Archive 36 | → | Archive 40 |
I'm missing something terribly obvious, but why does Category:Animals described in 2012 have both the parent cat Category:Animals described in the 2010s and Animals described in the 2010s' parent cat Category:Animals described in the 21st century?
Anna Frodesiak ( talk) 22:13, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
There are several templates for categorizing redirects relevant to Tree of Life. {{ R from scientific name}} {{ R to scientific name}} {{ R from monotypic taxon}} {{ R to monotypic taxon}} and {{ R from alternative scientific name}}. The categories used by these templates are pretty massive Category:Redirects from scientific names has 5310 articles, Category:Redirects to scientific names has 4400, Category:Redirects from monotypic taxa has 836, Category:Redirects to monotypic taxa has 1333 and Category:Redirects from alternative scientific names has 890. {{ R from synonym}} has previously pretty heavily used for alternative scientific names/taxonomic synonyms, and most of the 2445 articles in Category:Redirects from synonyms are related to organism names.
I think the categories might be more useful if they were smaller and subdivided along the lines of Tree of Life's subprojects (or at least the more active subprojects). Not much happens with ToL project itself, but there is a lot of active in the subprojects. Would it be worthwhile to add parameters to the redirect categorization templates (e.g. |plant=yes, |mammal=yes, etc) to put these redirects in subcategories (e.g. Category:Redirects from scientific names of plants)? Sorting out the redirects already using the categorization templates would probably require a bot. Plantdrew ( talk) 07:05, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
{{R from alternative scientific name|plant}}
as a test. See
Acidanthera murielae and the category linked there as an example. If this seems the right way to go, it can be extended to other groups of organisms and other templates. I don't know how finely animals should be broken up, but I guess this is up to the different WikiProjects.
Peter coxhead (
talk)
11:12, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Do we want a leaflet at wikimania? If so, we need a logo. Do we have a logo?
Lepidoptera ( talk) 17:47, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
Hi,
I am noticing that the missing taxa pages are somewhat disorganized. I think a great thing would be able to leave taxa specific pages in existence, but then to transclude their content onto a master list of all missing taxa. This way, you can view the entire list all at once on the WikiProject TOL page, or view the particular subtopic you're interested in on sub WikiProjects.
Are there any objections? This will involve significant shuffling around of pages so I wanted to give a head's up.
Lepidoptera ( talk) 05:31, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
I have started a discussion at
Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science#Biological taxonomy (history of) (version of
23:52, 8 July 2014).
—
Wavelength (
talk)
23:55, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
I have made a WP:RfC on the talk page of the article for Pectinidae which can be viewed here. Please consider visiting and offering your thoughts on how to split/ join/ redirect the articles on Scallop and Pectinidae. Everyone is welcome! KDS4444 Talk 07:47, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Those familiar with how we name articles (and why) on species only identified in the fossil record may be interested in this discussion: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds#English name vs. Scientific name, — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 00:25, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
As some editors may be creating redirects by copy pasting the item into the searchbox, I thought I'd present a faster way for those who do not know. (I do not mean to be a smarty pants.):
The junk to paste in for the few who don't know: #REDIRECT [[ARTICLENAME]] {{R from scientific name}} <!--for redirects from scientific names to English names--> #REDIRECT [[ARTICLENAME]] {{R to scientific name}} <!--for redirects from English names to scientific names--> #REDIRECT [[ARTICLENAME]] {{R from alternative scientific name}} <!--for redirects from one scientific name to another, e.g. synonym-->
I hope some have found this helpful. Best wishes, Anna Frodesiak ( talk) 03:14, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
Like. —
SMcCandlish ☺
☏
¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼
10:08, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
I'm looking for a page where new articles of organisms are listed, like in the GermanWiki the page de:Portal:Lebewesen/Neue Artikel. Thanks!-- Varanus kujawis ( talk) 13:21, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
Principle of the First Reviser into International Code of Zoological Nomenclature#Principle of the First Reviser. Discuss at Talk:International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature#Proposed_merge_with_Principle_of_the_First_Reviser Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 22:27, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej ( talk) 22:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Hello. I was wondering if there books that feature the descents of various popular and interesting organism. There are many that place animals in the ecosystem, for example. What about in their evolutionary relationships? Howunusual ( talk) 22:27, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
The FAC reviewer gave his support after reviewing the article, and suggested the following ...ask relevant WikiProjects on their talk pages to drop by the review. See it here: [1] Your time will be greatly appreciated. Atsme☯ Consult 15:58, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
Maybe this has been discussed before, but:
Can we have a bot that takes all synonyms listed in taxoboxes and makes them into redirects to the article? Anna F remote ( talk) 13:46, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Whoops, meant to post this at WikiProject Biolgy. I've moved the discussion there: Talk:WikiProject Biology#Notability for scientist biographies. --Animalparty-- ( talk) 23:24, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
The identifying graphic of this wikiproject (see the top of this page) is a high-detail diagram designed to be seen at a large size. Its usage as an icon here is ineffective, as it appears to be little more than a pale blue ring. I propose that someone, possibly I, create a clear, recognisable design. Thoughts? JamesDouch ( talk) 06:06, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
Here is a gallery of further possibilities...
Though it is archaic, I visually prefer the first one. -- Epipelagic ( talk) 20:08, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
I figured this might be the best place to ask to get the most interest, so here's a question on the oh so dreaded topic of common names. Common names are often defined by professional organizations at least for organisms that are of some interest to the general public. For instance bed bug is the distinct common name given to Cimex lectularius by the Entomological Society of America. However, bed-bugs, or bedbugs are also listed from a dictionary cited in the Wikipedia article itself. My question is should we just stick to a distinct common name given by an authority such as a professional organization such as this when available instead of listing all the possible spelling variations that have come about? In some cases (not this one) what the public uses as a common name could be incorrect and describing a different species common name, while in other cases like this one, you seem to get people just plunking together words that can eventually sneak into dictionaries to lead to this kind of word meltdown. I'm hoping this approach gives at least some sanity to the many issues that come from using common names.
If there's a relevant manual of style that informs this I'd be happy to know about it. I've seen MOS:ORGANISMS, but that's only in the proposal phase, so I'm not sure if that's the template people have been working from, or if there is another related manual of style for this. Kingofaces43 ( talk) 03:11, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
Hi, this is to let you know that we've launched WikiProject Wikidata for research in order to stimulate a closer interaction between Wikidata and research, both on a technical and a community level. As a first activity, we are drafting a research proposal on the matter (cf. blog post). Your thoughts on and contributions to that would be most welcome! Thanks, -- Daniel Mietchen ( talk) 02:15, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
Hello everyone!
You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!
Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.
Harej ( talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Please see Template talk:Taxobox, where I've proposed having {{ taxobox}} add a maintenance category to articles where a species' Red List status is not specified. Nyttend ( talk) 18:18, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
Hi! I'm working on Draft:Elassoma evergladei, but I'm having trouble with the fish's colors. The descriptions I'm getting from Google Books and the images online don't seem to match the colors on the draft's picture. Maybe the picture is misidentified? Thanks, Bananasoldier ( talk) 01:41, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
From here. [2] Extinction daggers are not applied consistently across articles, and there even seems to be disagreement over whether they should only be used for recently extinct taxa, and not prehistoric ones. The daggers also don't link to anything, and some readers seem to be confused by them, not knowing what they mean. Also, in the automatic taxoboxes, extinction daggers become part of the taxon name links for some reason (see for example Paraceratherium), which is not optimal. So how exactly are we going to use these things? FunkMonk ( talk) 16:10, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
extinct=yes
. Setting an arbitrary cut-off ("recent") for which extinctions are marked with a symbol and which are not cannot be tenable, and will certainly lead to even more confusion. It needs to be all or nothing; I argue for nothing and, having just scanned through a sample of palaeontological articles, the dagger is less widespread than I had thought, which is heartening. --
Stemonitis (
talk)
07:38, 24 November 2014 (UTC){{
extinct}}
when possible. I dunno about taxoboxes though. Personally I prefer them there, but acknowledge that it may be confusing since the daggers are not linked. No strong opinions either way.--
OBSIDIAN†
SOUL
00:59, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
We apparently need to create an article for Supergroup (biology).
Rhizaria says:
I wanted to understand the term "supergroup" better, but I don't find an article for it. The disamb page Supergroup doesn't seem to show a biology-related meaning.
Apparently we should create an article at Supergroup (biology) (per the format Family_(biology) and Order (biology)), and we should also add a link to Supergroup.
Thanks. - 189.122.195.17 ( talk) 15:18, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
There is an ongoing discussion at the Virus WikiProject about the notability of virus species and taxa. Members of this project are welcome to comment. ComfyKem ( talk) 17:21, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure about the best solution in the short term (ultimately, probably every extant species should have have an article, but an article with one sentence of text and a taxobox isn't very helpful). If there's consensus against one sentence+taxobox articles, fair enough, but I really don't want to see articles of this type created and then converted to redirects to a higher taxon. If there's nothing to say about a particular species, leave it as a red-link, don't create a blue-link that ends up going to the genus (or merge a species into a genus). Callosciurus has 5 taxoboxes; 1 for the genus, and 4 for species that redirect to the genus article. Better to have Callosciurus species as redlinks rather than confusing redirects. Plantdrew ( talk) 07:06, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
Template:Infraspeciesbox has been
nominated for deletion. Given that these templates are of interest to WikiProject Tree of Life, you are invited to comment on the discussion at
the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page.
Dirtlawyer1 (
talk)
23:25, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
While working on cleaning up some issues with bird categories, I came across Alca (bird). Am I correct in assuming this should be at Alca (genus), based on conventions agreed upon in earlier conversations here? There are no other organisms with this genus name. MeegsC ( talk) 21:25, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
(External uninvited view): I came here by an accident and didn't look into the "biological" detail, however let me bring your attention to the purpose of disambiguation: to quickly tell the user the specific area for the topic with the same name. Keeping this in mind, it occurs to me that the DAB qualifier '(bird)' or '(flinch)' is much more informative than '(genus)' for an average reader. Staszek Lem ( talk) 18:38, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
I think it's very important to recognize that Alca (bird) is currently not the primary title but a redirect to Razorbill, which is what readers see when reading about the monotypic genus. Unless there's some new plan to move every bird article to its scientific name (which I would oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and all the fracas over capitalization), then Alca (genus) would presumably also redirect to Razorbill (redirects are cheap). We can have both links, and neither are even needed on the dab page Alca. Where's the confusion? So in response to MeegsC's very first question, "Am I correct in assuming this should be at Alca (genus)", I would say probably not. --Animalparty-- ( talk) 19:03, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
A request for a taxobox change has been posted at Template_talk:Taxonomy/Angiosperms#Template-protected edit request on 4 April 2015. This is just a notification, I'll leave further actions to more experienced content and taxobox editors to discuss. Please describe needed changes as detailed and specific as possible. GermanJoe ( talk) 14:12, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
These animals are the most commonly found scientific names in Google books which we don't already have articles or redirects for. The list includes synonyms. For details of how I made this list see the notes here. I welcome you to create articles or redirects for these.
Each scientific name is found in at least 147 books or volumes published after 1950, and all are in the top 1% of most common scientific names.
(Correction: title should be "Missing chordates" rather than "Missing vertebrates". I didn't noticed some sea-squirts had made the list.)
Please feel free to edit this list to add notes. — Pengo 04:12, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
I have suggested a start of a new project on Wikispecies for those Wikispecies users who are interested in collaboration with WikiProject Tree of Life and to promote an intensified cooperation between Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life and Wikispecies. Please feel free to join the discussion on WS Village pump, and if the project gets support, participate! Dan Koehl ( talk) 13:59, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
There is a new essay, " Identifying primary and secondary sources for biology articles", you are invited to comment on.DrChrissy (talk) 12:08, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
Which template/tag should be used when redirecting from an alternative scientific name (for example a junior synonym) to an article located at the common name? R-from-alternative-scientific-name only provides for redirect-to-scientific name; R-from-scientific-name presumes the redirected page is the correct/current scientific name. AddWittyNameHere ( talk) 19:24, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
A new copy-paste detection bot is now in general use on English Wikipedia. Come check it out at the EranBot reporting page. This bot utilizes the Turnitin software (ithenticate), unlike User:CorenSearchBot that relies on a web search API from Yahoo. It checks individual edits rather than just new articles. Please take 15 seconds to visit the EranBot reporting page and check a few of the flagged concerns. Comments welcome regarding potential improvements. These possible copyright violations can be searched by WikiProject categories. Use "control-f" to jump to your area of interest (if such a copyvio is present).-- Lucas559 ( talk) 16:58, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Race (biology)#Proposal: Merge to Breed. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 07:32, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
This discussion may be of interest to this project: WT:Manual of Style/Lead section#Bold text for organisms. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 21:06, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
There are countless articles such as monkey that have imperfect taxon/clade overlap. Even though the human clade has no clear taxon, an independent article about the human clade should be split off from these other articles.
The article human used to say we were the last of the hominids: "the human clade", a branch of bipedal great apes.
Now it seems that there has developed imperfect semantic overlap between "hominid" and "the human clade".
The human clade doesn't have to have a taxon to be an article.
Taxa are indispensable, but clades are real referents at least as important as taxa.
The human clade is clearly one of the most important branches on the tree of life and would be well linked to from many articles elsewhere.
Just because something is a clade without a clear taxon doesn't mean that it isn't important enough to have an article about.
What do you all think about this idea?
Chrisrus ( talk) 23:02, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
My understanding, without referring back to sources, is that taxonomically the clade including humans and all things more closely related to humans than to chimpanzees is (the subtribe) Hominina. Anthropological classifications often disagree with this excluding chimpanzees from hominina. The article human should cover this and point to an article, possibly called "Early humans" which describes it in detail. SPACKlick ( talk) 14:36, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
I wouldn't say that. There is a group commonly talked about that is everything more closely related to you than to a chimpanzee. It's just that various disciplines refer to it in different ways making any name have the right scope be tricky. SPACKlick ( talk) 08:37, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
Sorry I missed this discussion until now. If it's not too late, I'd like to chime in, particularly since I've had to deal with situations like this (and worse) when writing about lemurs. (Yes, lemur taxonomy, and particularly that of strepsirrhines is worse.) "Semantic overlap" due to conflicting taxonomies is nothing new, and is notoriously difficult to deal with. The stance I have taken (after several discussions at WP:Primate with strepsirrhines) is that if paleoanthropology and primatology/anthropology conflict in their taxonomies, then the most inclusive (as in # of taxa considered) wins, regardless of usage. The reasoning is that Wiki articles about living primates will use different terminology than articles about extinct primates, causing confusion for readers. Therefore the need for consistent terminology takes precedence—which flies easier for less popular topics, like lemurs, versus more popular topics, like humans.
As for having an article for the "human clade", I think Homo (with Hominina redirecting to it is perfectly sufficient. However, I'm working off the taxonomy presented in Wood & Richmond, 2000 (page 21). They use:
Superfamily Hominoidea ('hominoids')
It appears that here on enWiki, we've favored having a clade name for orangutans over one for upright apes. The taxonomy we chose shifts the contents of Homininae to include gorillas and by putting Pan in a subtribe. Once again, I suggest considering what is most important for consistency on Wikipedia and base the taxonomy we use on that. (In other words, which is more important: having a clade name for orangutans or one for humans? In fact, these divergent focuses are probably the reasons for the two conflicting taxonomies.) No matter which way we go, writers for these articles will have to translate their sources, just as I have had to translate my sources when I write about strepsirrhines. Waiting for a clade name to emerge in the literature will be fruitless. Those who focus on human cladistics will refer to the clade as Hominina ("hominans"), while those who favor the other taxonomy (primatologists) will use various names for it. It sucks, but that's the curse dealing with Linnaean taxonomy in the age of phylogenetics. – Maky « talk » 07:17, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
I will also note that regardless of which taxonomy is used, all related articles need to include the competing taxonomies with citations, as I have done for the major lemur and strepsirrhine articles. This is not optional since it will lead to more informed discussions about issues like this. – Maky « talk » 07:23, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
I just want to make sure we're all talking about the same thing here (note: I've largely ignored the previous discussion about Panina, Homininae, etc.). Reliable sources seem to indicate that the "human clade" is indeed everything on the human side of the evolutionary tree since the CHLCA (which may or may not have knuckle-walked, see e.g. Sahelanthropus): Wood (2010) states "The fossil record of the human clade consists of fossil evidence for modern humans plus that of all extinct taxa to be more closely related to modern humans than to any other living taxon". [1] I think this is a more accurate, descriptive and less falsifiable description than simply a "bipedal branch of the great apes". Wood also mentions that some researchers use "Hominini" for Pan + human clade, with human clade in hominina, while others use "Hominini" for just the human clade. [1] Wood earlier took the latter view: "Hominini, and its 2 component subtribes, the Australopithecina and the Hominina" [2] Thus, if we want to write an article on "the human clade", expanding Hominina would seem the most appropriate place (see list of taxa in Homininae#Taxonomic_classification), to avoid conflict with Hominini (broad sense) which, as presently written on Wikipeia, includes Pan. The next best option would be to create an article that unites (the articles) Australopithecine and Homo --Animalparty! ( talk) 17:41, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
References
Due to some recent discussions about MOS:ACCESS and its requirements for WP:COLOR combinations compliant with the WCAG AAA standard for text accessibility, it occurred to me to check the taxobox color scheme. It appears to have a few issues. Please see this discussion for some proposed (mostly minor) changes. Thanks! Opabinia regalis ( talk) 03:47, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
See section here: [5] Both are tiny stubs, and cover the same subject. We don't have an "extinct taxon" article either. FunkMonk ( talk) 06:56, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Equus caballus africanus (including all 48 synonyms of horse). Please participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. -- Tavix ( talk) 17:14, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
Is there any kind of off-WP guidance/convention with regard to the use of the cross or dagger symbol for extinct taxa, as in "†Tryannosaurus rex"? Questions coming to mind about usage include:
†
, numeric character reference †
or †
. Not to be confused with Unicode ✝ "Latin Cross" U+271D
[7], HTML numeric character reference ✝
or ✝
. They may look very similar in some fonts, especially if the dagger does not have a pointed tip.)I'd probably think of others, but these are the main ones that come to mind.
It seems to me the ideal display would be superscripted in front of an italicized taxon, which leans away from the dagger (†Tryannosaurus rex) and superscripted and hair-spaced in front of a non-italicized taxon († Sauropodomorpha). If superscripting is not liked (†Tryannosaurus rex) then thin-spacing away from the non-italicized taxon would probably work († Sauropodomorpha). But this is probably worth looking at in different browsers and OSes; I haven't fired up my collection of virtual machines for this yet. Whatever the cases that turn out best, it could be handled with the template for this, e.g. {{extinct|Tryannosaurus rex|i=y}}
, {{extinct|Sauropodomorpha}}
. (The present {{
extinct}}
does nothing but generate the dagger character, and prevent it from being italicized or boldfaced, but I can easily recode it to handle the formatting requirements based on whether the taxon is italicized or not, without breaking the extant just-the-dagger usage.) —
SMcCandlish ☺
☏
¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼
05:50, 1 September 2015 (UTC)