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Archive 30 | ← | Archive 33 | Archive 34 | Archive 35 | Archive 36 | Archive 37 | → | Archive 40 |
Many articles are not categorized by year of description. I can't find the relevant information so I presume this is the right place to ask. Is it necessary to do so, and if yes, should all species (in theory) be categorized if they aren't? I'm using HotCat, so it should be relatively easy for me to work quickly. The Average Wikipedian ( talk) 13:20, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Hello WikiProject Tree of Life!
Based on the recommendation of Snow Rise, I am happy to announce that WikiProject X has selected this project as part of a round of pilot testing.
The goal of WikiProject X is to improve the WikiProject experience through research, design, and experimentation. On that basis, we've prepared a new WikiProject design template based around modules. These modules include features you are already familiar with, such as article alerts, but also new features such as automated work lists, a feed of discussions taking place on the 421 talk pages tagged by WikiProject Tree of Life, and a new member profile system. To see what this new setup looks like, you can browse the first round of pilot tests: WikiProject Cannabis, WikiProject Evolutionary biology, WikiProject Ghana, WikiProject Hampshire, WikiProject Women's Health.
If there is consensus among the participants of this WikiProject, I will proceed with implementing this interface based on the current contents of Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life. Please let me know if you have any questions or requests. Harej ( talk) 23:05, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
I was wondering if we, in addition to validly published junior synonyms and alternate combinations, are also "allowed" to include invalidly published names and pre-Linnean names? For example, the pre-Linnean binomial Cygnus cucullatus for the dodo, and the nomen nudum Munifelis (published in a newspaper) for Smilodon? FunkMonk ( talk) 19:20, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Back in December, prototheria was blanked and redirected to yinotheria. A Google search (and a much longer write up of the results - details on prototheria's talk page) makes it clear to this non-expert that reports of prototheria's demise have been exaggerated, so I restored the article. My knowledge of taxonomy is far from perfect, and would appreciate some more knowledgeable editors taking a look. It's probably a good idea to consolidate the discussion on the prototheria talk page. (See also the WP:Paleontology talk page).-- Wikimedes ( talk) 04:51, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
I just noticed that the extinction date listed in the taxoboxes of recently extinct animals, such as dodo, do not show anymore, though the text is still there (| extinct = c. 1662). Anyone know what's up? FunkMonk ( talk) 01:08, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
|extinct=
upwards, merely using the presence of a non-empty value to insert † by the species name. So the date would have disappeared from the dodo taxobox with
this edit, which replaced {{
Taxobox}} by {{
Speciesbox}}. I've now fixed {{
Speciesbox}}.|extinct=yes
meaning "extinct") and as a non-boolean (|extinct=c. 1662
meaning "extinct, c. 1662"). I suspect that this is what caused the creator of {{
Speciesbox}} to forget that the value needed to be passed upwards.
Peter coxhead (
talk)
09:11, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Having just found the home for the taxonomy geeks experts of Wikipedia, here at this project, via
Talk:List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names, I'd like to invite anyone with views on the question of species abbreviations in disambiguation pages to join the discussion, belatedly, at
Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Disambiguation#Species_abbreviations. It boils down to: should a reader be shown the way to the organism they're looking for if they search on species words such as
Fenestrata or
Japonica, and if so, how?
Pam
D
13:33, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
Hello all; I'm writing on behalf of the Wiki Education Foundation, which works with instructors who assign university students to write or edit Wikipedia articles in the United States and Canada. We're developing a print handbook for students who will write or expand articles on a brochure - found here - about editing species articles, including animals, plants and fungi. I'd appreciate any feedback on the draft! It is open for comment until November 5th; after that we will set it to print. Thanks so much! Eryk (Wiki Ed) ( talk) 23:10, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
I would draw your attention to the proposal at wikidata:Wikidata talk:WikiProject Taxonomy#Distinguishing between names and taxa. Your comments will be welcome there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:06, 29 October 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.
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. [ Notes | previous discussion ]
These are good candidates if anyone is looking to create new articles. There is also a list just of ants which has been very successful, with all of the top 100 missing articles now created. And a list of missing gastropods. 23:35, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
I'm reviewing the Life article for GA status, but I was told the nominator was "an editor with very weak English skills and very little Wikipedia experience". I'm asking for someone else to take over the nomination, preferably someone familiar with the article and Wikipedia. Dunkleosteus77 (push to talk) 19:07, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
A discussion of interest to this WikiProject is underway at Talk:Holocene extinction/Archive_3#RFC: Article name. -- Epipelagic ( talk) 03:48, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
A template {{ Taxon bar}} was recently created which pulls IDs for various taxonomic databases from WikiData and provides links to these databases on Wikipedia (similar to {{ TaxonIds}}, except that the database IDs don't need to be manually entered). The template creator is seeking comments at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants#Seeking_critique.2Freview_of_.7B.7BTaxonbar.7D.7D. Plantdrew ( talk) 17:37, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
NAC: No consensus. This RFC wasn't stated with a question lending itself to closure with a consensus. However, multiple editors have noted that there is no consensus among taxonomists as to which of various taxonomies to use for anthropoids. (In other words, some scientists say that chimps are hominins, and some say that they are not hominins. If a consensus is desired, a new RFC that asks a specific question would be useful.
Robert McClenon (
talk) 06:07, 18 June 2015 (UTC)}} [Striking closure of RFC whose originator was planning to close out.
Robert McClenon (
talk) 16:20, 18 June 2015 (UTC)] [I stand by the conclusion. It just isn't a closure because the RFC was not a well-formed RFC.
Robert McClenon (
talk)
16:22, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
I have noticed some contradictions on and across several pages relating to the taxonomic classification of Chimpanzees. In essence some pages use the system where Homininae split into Gorillini and Hominini and then Hominini divides into Hominina and Panina. Other pages use a system where Homininae trifurcates into Gorillini, Hominini and Panini. Several pages use both in different Parts. (Chimpanzee lists Chimpanzees as Hominini in the lede but Panini in the infobox). I can't find sources detailing a controversy or an overturn of the historic system. Which should be used and can I get some help making the pages consistent?
Affected Pages: Hominini, Sahelanthropus, Homininae, Chimpanzee-human last common ancestor, Ape, Hominidae, Homo, Chimpanzee, Primate, Homo Floresiensis#Bone structure, Timeline of human evolution, List of mammals of Burundi, List of primates, Human, Panini, Common Chimpanzee, Bonobo
Also may be affected Hominin and Panini (primates)
Apologies if this is in the wrong place SPACKlick ( talk) 16:34, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
I think you have a typo, should "system where Hominina trifurcates" read "system where Homininae trifurcates"?
i.e.:
vs.
Those are the two, correct? IOW, we could rephrase this whole debate as, "is Panini a group of animals, or is it just a sandwich?" Britannica kind of makes it sound like we shouldn't use Panini; see here. Hopefully someone knowledgeable will help us out here. Thanks! ErikHaugen ( talk | contribs) 17:02, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Let me start by saying that you're probably not going to like my answer. The more palatable short version is that the taxonomy is not universally decided, with some putting chimps in Hominini and others in Panini. (The bad news: there doesn't appear to be any consensus in the literature and that we have to decide so that we can be consistent across our articles.) I ran into the exact same problem within Strepsirrhini, particularly with handling of its infraorders.
From an outside view, taking in primatology and all of its related fields under one umbrella, the situation becomes a veritable mess, with a host of reasoned arguments scattered across the literature. However, if you look at things more closely, focusing on specific fields (paleoanthropology, primatology, molecular phylogenetics, etc.), you should see a clear trend... or at least I did with Strepsirrhini. Each of these fields is very narrowly focused, where primatologists (who primarily study *living* primates) generally don't care much about (or even know about) fossil primates, whereas paleoanthropologists have to accommodate a much wider diversity of primates. In your case, you are very, very lucky for two reasons: 1) Molecular phylogeneticists delve into the fossil history (or at least the recent stuff), so they're slightly more mindful of that diversity. (With Strepsirrhini, the infraorder split was an order of magnitude older, so molecular phylogeneticists can only sample—and hence focus on—living primates.) 2) There are many more paleoanthropologists studying human evolution than strepsirrhine evolution. This gives them a bigger voice, and the taxonomies they favor will stand out more in a Google search. The downside, of course, is that it prevents one taxonomy from rising to the top of the pile. (With Strepsirrhini, paleoanthropologists are a miniscule minority, yet to write about Eocene primates and not make overgeneralized statements about living strepsirrhines, you need to use the systematics they favor... despite being a minority of Google Scholar and other Google searches.)
In this situation, I advise using the most encompassing taxonomy so that we can be consistent between articles about living *and* extinct species. I'm primarily interested in strepsirrhines, so I don't know what to tell you. Doing some quick searches on Google Scholar, I found the following:
Note that my searches did not pull up any traditional "primatology" sources (focused solely on living great apes). This doesn't surprise me since there are very few living species, giving little reason to break things down between family Hominidae and the genera (Pan, Gorilla, and Homo)—see MSW3 for an example. For that reason, you may be luckier than I was. I didn't think about this when I started this long reply.
In summary, my advice is to follow the taxonomy in Table 1a in the article by Wood and Richmond (mentioned above) unless someone can make a stronger case. It seems to be the most flexible and generally accepted taxonomy. Once the matter is settled, I can help clean up the articles since I was slowly making my way through primate articles and switching everything to the {{ Automatic taxobox}}. – Maky « talk » 19:15, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Conventionally, taxonomists now refer to the great ape family (including humans) as hominids, while all members of the lineage leading to modern humans that arose after the split with the LCA are referred to as hominins. The older literature used the terms hominoids and hominids respectively [1]
I agree with CFCF sources should be 5 years or less-- Ozzie10aaaa ( talk) 11:04, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
Just two cents from a randomly summoned editor, but before today I had never even heard of Panini as a grouping, only
Panina. The trifurcation scheme is not one that I'd support. //
coldacid (
talk|
contrib) 01:24, 6 April 2015 (UTC) //
coldacid (
talk|
contrib)
01:24, 6 April 2015 (UTC) Summoned via
WP:FRS; please {{
Ping|coldacid}}
if you respond to my comment.
<>Thank you SPACKlick, and Maky, et al, for fronting this discussion. Robin Dunbar says that "Conventionally, taxonomists now ..." refer to the great ape family as hominids, and to the humans (and closely related) subtribe, after their split from chimpanzees, as hominins. These new meanings are, even now, replacing the older terminology. Dunbar is a reliable (and a very recent) source, and here we have an authoritative start-point to edit/correct the errant Wp articles, to wit:
<>I suggest we proceed as follows.
1) Go to a key article and section---e.g., Hominidae#Taxonomic history---and insert new narrative to (briefly) explain the unsettled state of taxonomy among the professionals re humans and chimps. Explain that taxonomists are now referring to the two primate groups with revised meanings from their historical taxons; cite Dunbar (here> [2]); also cite the Australian Museum, which provides an excellent narrative of the changing terminology, including this quote:
This new terminology is being used in many scientific journals already, and it is only a matter of time (but possibly many years) before everyone catches up to using the new term. - See more at: http://australianmuseum.net.au/hominid-and-hominin-whats-the-difference
2) Explain that Wp uses the current 'convention' described by Dunbar---that is, that hominids refer to members of the great ape family Hominidae (which includes all the branches orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, and humans, extant or extinct); and that hominins refer only to the subtribe Hominina, humans and their closest relatives after splitting from chimpanzees. 3) Edit/revise Hominidae for consistency with the 'current convention'. 4) Go to the next affected article and edit for consistency; repeat, etc.
<>Seems we have what we need to proceed now with clearing this problem: revise/write consistently with the growing 'convention' until the new 'taxonomy consensus' is published by the professionals. Please respond. Jbeans ( talk) 17:53, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
revise/write consistently with the growing 'convention'but this suggested to me that we should be adopting one convention rather than another. Peter coxhead ( talk) 21:58, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
the traditional terminology is being abandoned (in efffect) by the professionals- Some professionals have developed more specific terminologies within some fields.
in favor of that 'convention' that Dunbar reported)Not all those changing preferred style are moving towards Dunbar's style although undoubtedly some are.
I shan't argue for the points you object to; actually, my observations were derived from the general tenor of the opening discussion and the citations provided, plus the report by the Australian Museum [4]. (Btw, the quote by Dunbar (see above) seems to be more one of observing the scene rather than advocating a style; so now I must get a copy of that ref and read it for myself.) But, re solving the 'trifurcating homininae' or the 'existence of the tribe Panini', it seems we now have a paradox: if no amount of editing will help, then apparently 'we can't get there from here'.(?) Frankly, I admit I don't understand why those Wood and Richmond cites (that posit a trifurcation event without justifying same) are considered credible source(s) for a trichotomy taxonomy---but I'll not argue that either. But, maybe we could fix some plain errors; where are the other sources currently referenced on Wp pages that propose a trifurcation event or a 'tribe Panini'?
Indeed, re the lede on page Hominini, I note that one reference provided for 'the tribe Panini (chimpanzees)' [5] [6] (see Bradley), seems to report the opposite, i.e., it says, "support for a human–chimpanzee clade is now overwhelming". This would imply a taxonomy (subfamily Homininae, tribe Gorillini, tribe Hominini with subtribes Panina and Hominina) that is like that described in the lede of page Chimpanzee---not the taxobox, see below; and consistent with that detailed at Hominidae#Extant. Thus the Bradley citation seems to refute (rather than support) the hypothesis for an equal trichotomy (for humans, chimps, and gorillas) with a separate 'tribe Panini'. (The second of the two refs is Wood and Richmond.)
On that ( Chimpanzee) page, the Wp editor who supplied the 'tribe Panini' in the taxobox provided no source (see Anaxial's comment above). This edit created the (existing) on-page contradiction between the article's lede and taxobox, which even today presents inconsistent information to the reader. Can you agree to let's fix this---i.e., may I revert this Panini? Jbeans ( talk) 16:47, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
While editing the primate-related articles (see above work-list) this editor concentrated on the 'other' question, which, rhetorically, is: Why the confusing mess across the pages of Wp re using 'hominin' and 'hominid'? (Pls don't answer that---the why is indeed rhetorical). Instead, let's discuss fixing those pages so that, at minimum, (1) Wp is internally consistent in using the two words, and (2), the reader won't be confused by these two words when reading Wp. <>So what do editors say now: Are 'hominin' and 'hominid' used consistently across Wp pages now? (For convenience, the meanings used here are):
1) hominin: those species of genus Homo and closely related extinct species that rose after the split from the line of the chimpanzees; and as described here, Hominini (at top-o-th'-lede); and
2) hominid: the taxonomic family of primates known as the "great apes", including the four extant genera---the orangutans (Pongo); gorillas (Gorilla); chimpanzees (Pan); and the humans (Homo); and as described here, Hominidae, the lede---especially beginning at "Several revisions over time ...". (The former, or traditional, use of 'hominid' is essentially the same as that of the modern 'hominin', including that it also excluded chimpanzees from within the larger name for humans and species close-to-humans.)
Please note, the soothing simplicity of fixing (these two separate) terms across multiple Wp articles is complicated by: [1] As a very practical matter, only one meaning at a time can be used on these pages for (the same) word, 'hominin', IMO; ie, the position of one of the opposing camps must, of necessity, be used in order to write Wp articles; and then, only an acknowledgement of the other position, as a practical matter, can be applied---again IMO; what's your opinion? [2] Some instances of the traditional use of 'hominid' must be protected on a page, as when the term using the traditional meaning is noted in a report or quotation---as here, Omo remains (see at bottom of the lede); note that some formatting device on the local page can illuminate the traditional usage---probably italics will do most of the time. Jbeans ( talk) 05:48, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
@RES2: Pls familiarize yourself with the above sorting of the Wikipedia problem re> the industry problem over usages of "hominin" v "hominid". Then say your solution. Regards, Jbeans ( talk) 23:28, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
If I may be so bold, I'm concluding based on this discussion that we are moving forward on not using Panini as a taxon anywhere, and that Pan is a subset of Hominini. I'll try to fix up the taxonomy templates to reflect this change, at least. ErikHaugen ( talk | contribs) 20:54, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
The problem with this is, now that things have been re-sorted, there is no article that corresponds to an extremely important referent: the human clade. May we split one off from these articles? Chrisrus ( talk) 15:50, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
References
Please join the discussion here if you have an opinion. Thanks! Kaldari ( talk) 21:05, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
Sorry to bother you. After dealing with doubts specially interacting with itwiki users, I have asked at the village pump of wikidata a question about these genus and species items where basically there is only one species for the genus, and different language versions use different titles but often link to the same item. It is here. I hope it was not confusing for the other users as it was for me, but I link the discussion so I can be sure it is "universally accepted". This way next time a newbie ask me something I know that what I am saying is correct.-- Alexmar983 ( talk) 08:24, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
As you probably know, the dog is Canis lupus familiaris. We used to say this was Latin for "family dog", because all Wikipedia knows about that word, Familiaris says so.
However, the article dog used to say that it meant "familiar", or "ordinary" dog, because certain Wikipedians that seemed to know what they were talking about said that's how the word is used in taxonomy.
Is this true? Are there any other species called familiaris? Do you know? I tried but can't find another.
Is it a thing to use familiaris in taxonomy to refer to "familiar" or "common" species of a genus apart from simply the dog?
Thanks! Chrisrus ( talk) 23:44, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
The page Sooglossus sechellensis links to the common-name article Seychelles treefrog. So does Tachycnemis seychellensis. It's common for synonyms to link to the same article, but these are two different species. They even belong to different families of frog—Sooglossidae and Hyperoliidae respectively. The article they both link to only refers to one of these.
I've found 235 candidate "false synonyms", similar to this pair, listed here:
I generated the list based on data from the IUCN Red List. Some are true errors, like the frogs above, while others may highlight other issues, such as where the IUCN identifies a taxon as a species but Wikipedia considers it a subspecies. These cases are less problematic, but might highlight subspecies which could be considered for their own separate subspecies articles, or which may have outdated taxonomic information.
Is there anyone who can see value in this interested in joining the project to either help go through these individual entries or to help coordinate the effort? It's a relatively small list, but it's too much for me to go through individually.
The list is from February, but I didn't get it much attention at the time and most issues are probably still there. I had planned to split the list at least into plants and animals to make it easier to digest, but first I'd like to see if there's any interest in checking and fixing the items on the list. —— Pengo 05:12, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
By the way, I've fixed the example issue now. Tachycnemis seychellensis was redirecting to Seychelles treefrog instead of Seychelles frog. — Pengo 08:52, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 35 Temporal range:
Late Cretaceous,
| |
---|---|
Scientific classification
![]() | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Clade: | Dinosauria |
Clade: | Saurischia |
Clade: | Theropoda |
Family: | † Tyrannosauridae |
Genus: | †
Gorgosaurus Lambe, 1914 |
Species: | †G. libratus
|
Binomial name | |
†Gorgosaurus libratus Lambe, 1914
|
I tried bringing this up several times at the relevant template pages, but there is only one other active user who suggested I bring this up at here. See previous discussions here. [1] In short, the current taxobox formats (both for the manual taxobox, speciesbox, and automatic taxobox templates) contain multiple redundancies which need to be rectified. Currently, the "bottom segment" of these boxes ends with Species: x followed by no authority. There is then a header bar reading "Binomial name", an original coinage which is redundant and makes no grammatical sense (this should be changed to Scientific name, or simply Binomial, though the latter is more technical). Below that is the species name, listed a second time,with its authority. For some reason, this second instance of the binomial lacks the dagger for extinct species, but the first includes it. (See example). My suggestion is to either drop the first instance of Species and fix "Binomial name" to "Scientific name" or "Species" OR drop the "Binomial name" section and add an authority to the Species line. Any input? Dinoguy2 ( talk) 17:35, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
I've advertised this discussion at many of the descendant WikiProjects. Peter coxhead ( talk) 07:36, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
There are three issues raised above, which I suggest we separate, since the answer to two of them depends on the other.
I wasn't around here when the taxobox format was developed, but a possible line of development is as follows. Suppose that species had one-part names like higher ranks. Then the classification could look something like this:
Version 1 | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
... | ... |
Family: | Zingiberaceae |
Genus: | Roscoea |
Species: | alpina |
However, this isn't how Linnaean names work (especially for plants where the second part of a species name is just an epithet, not a name, and the botanical code requires the genus name or abbreviation). So how about:
Version 2 | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
... | ... |
Family: | Zingiberaceae |
Genus: | Roscoea |
Species: | Roscoea alpina |
But to a non-expert, the repetition of "Roscoea" might look odd. So then we try:
Version 3 | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
... | ... |
Family: | Zingiberaceae |
Genus: | Roscoea |
Species: | R. alpina |
But although now correct under the codes, this doesn't show the full name of the species. So finally we repeat it, but now in a special location to show the repetition isn't part of the hierarchy:
Version 4 | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
... | ... |
Family: | Zingiberaceae |
Genus: | Roscoea |
Species: | R. alpina |
Binomial name | |
Roscoea alpina |
So if we don't want the extra section, basically we have to use the pattern of Version 2 above, or, as has been suggested in the discussion, use a separate section for the last rank in every box, like:
Version 5 | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
... | ... |
Family: | Zingiberaceae |
Genus | |
Roscoea |
Version 5 | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
... | ... |
Family: | Zingiberaceae |
Genus: | Roscoea |
Species | |
Roscoea alpina |
When you include the authority, there is some merit in Version 5 over Version 3. Peter coxhead ( talk) 13:01, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
|type_species=
parameter results in a "bottom segment" that is sometimes redundant by having both the |genus_authority=
and |species_authority=
parameters in the taxobox. Also, when the dagger (†) is used, I consider it okay to use the [[Extinction|†]]
link for the first instance, and then use the {{
Extinct}} template or just the dagger alone for later instances.
Stick to sources!
Paine
11:09, 19 May 2016 (UTC)User:Dyanega points on my talk page that User:Caftaric's moves of articles like redirects Epistrophe (genus) to Epistrophe (fly) and earlier usages like Ferdinandea (hoverfly) may need discussion. It does not look like the earlier discussions on this topic have produced any consensus guideline on the project page. Shyamal ( talk) 02:26, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
Keep what we have been doing
– but what we have been doing? Practice has varied in different WikiProjects. Unfortunately, as far as I know, it's impossible to search for the exact occurrence of "(WORD)" in titles, because the search algorithm ignores the parentheses. However, if you search for insource:/\(WORD\)/
, where you replace WORD
by whatever is appropriate, you can find all occurrences in the source wikitext, most of which are likely to be disambiguated titles, although not always genus names. Here are some results I found:
So "(plant)" and "(moth)" alone outnumber "(genus)". Others with smaller counts include "(insect)", "(snail)", "(spider)", "(crab)", "(mammal)", etc. In total, the use of a single English word as a disambiguator far outnumbers the use of "genus". So I think we can say with confidence that this is the commonest method of disambiguating genus articles. Peter coxhead ( talk) 10:25, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
There don't have to be a lot of edits if we change anything. As long as "genus" isn't ambiguous, there are no further edits required if an article is moved from "genus" to another disambiguator; the redirect from "genus" will still exist. If "genus" is ambiguous, well, further edits are necessary anyway.
I'm seeing two misconceptions in support of "genus" as a default dab term for genera:
1st misconception) That "genus" actually is the default dab term. It's not. It is the single most commonly used dab term, but the most common way to disambiguate is with one of several common name terms for a larger group of organisms, as Peter's metrics show. I did a different search the last time this came up, and came up with a rough count of 929 articles using "genus" in the title and 2459 using another term. The are currently 874 articles with "moth" as the dab term alone, almost as many as use "genus (the difference between my count and Peter's is that Peter has occurrence of terms on pages (possibly needing edits) while I've got article title (possibly needing page moves and then edits).
2nd misconception) That "genus" will rarely require further disambiguation. We have 604 pages in Category:Genus disambiguation pages where "genus" has already proved to be inadequate to disambiguate. Most of the genus disambiguations cover two genus names falling under different nomenclatural codes, but there are some cases where we have articles on 2+ homonyms under a single code. Making some rough assumptions, let's say all of the 604 current genus dabs only cover two names under different codes. That's 1208 articles linked from the dab page where "genus" isn't sufficient to disambiguate. Another rough assumption, let's say the 929 articles with "genus" are indeed fully disambiguated, and the (2459-1208=)1251 articles using another dab term could be moved to "genus". Best case scenario for "genus" as a sufficient dab term is 2180 (1251+929) vs 1208 where "genus" isn't sufficient. 2180 vs. 1208 isn't exactly rare.
Alright, so the numbers I'm throwing around came from some searches I did a year and a half ago, and I haven't updated them, but here they are:
Extended content
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Ultimately, current practice for genus dab terms is correlated with WikiProjects. Dinosaurs, Fungi, Spiders, and Gastropods consistently the project name as a dab term (and WikiProject Gastropods explicitly suggests "gastropod" for their articles). Amphibians and Reptiles, Mammals and Arthropods usually use "genus". Insects and Lepidoptera usually use common names for orders ("fly", "moth", "butterfly", "beetle", etc.). WikiProject Arthropods is the strongest user of "genus". I looked into arthropods further in December 2014. At that time, they had 106 genera that needed disambiguation. For 75 of 106, "genus" was sufficient, but more than 25% needed further disambiguation. "animal" was sufficient for 99/106, and "arthropod" for 101/106.
Long story short, while "genus" might possibly be sufficient disambiguation more than 50% of the time, it's not sufficient at least 20% of them time, and "genus" is not currently the status quo for all cases where it's sufficient to disambiguate. In spite of repeated discussions, we've never had consensus that "genus" should always be used where it's sufficient, nor agreed at all on what to do in the frequent cases where "genus" is insufficient. Using the family as a dab term is reasonable when "genus" is insufficient, but essentially no articles are using family dab terms, so this route would be a massive upheaval in the status quo. The status quo is largely that dab terms are common names for vertebrate classes, or orders of insects, or the major groups under the botanical code. Plantdrew ( talk) 04:44, 5 June 2016 (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 33 | Archive 34 | Archive 35 | Archive 36 | Archive 37 | → | Archive 40 |
Many articles are not categorized by year of description. I can't find the relevant information so I presume this is the right place to ask. Is it necessary to do so, and if yes, should all species (in theory) be categorized if they aren't? I'm using HotCat, so it should be relatively easy for me to work quickly. The Average Wikipedian ( talk) 13:20, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Hello WikiProject Tree of Life!
Based on the recommendation of Snow Rise, I am happy to announce that WikiProject X has selected this project as part of a round of pilot testing.
The goal of WikiProject X is to improve the WikiProject experience through research, design, and experimentation. On that basis, we've prepared a new WikiProject design template based around modules. These modules include features you are already familiar with, such as article alerts, but also new features such as automated work lists, a feed of discussions taking place on the 421 talk pages tagged by WikiProject Tree of Life, and a new member profile system. To see what this new setup looks like, you can browse the first round of pilot tests: WikiProject Cannabis, WikiProject Evolutionary biology, WikiProject Ghana, WikiProject Hampshire, WikiProject Women's Health.
If there is consensus among the participants of this WikiProject, I will proceed with implementing this interface based on the current contents of Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life. Please let me know if you have any questions or requests. Harej ( talk) 23:05, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
I was wondering if we, in addition to validly published junior synonyms and alternate combinations, are also "allowed" to include invalidly published names and pre-Linnean names? For example, the pre-Linnean binomial Cygnus cucullatus for the dodo, and the nomen nudum Munifelis (published in a newspaper) for Smilodon? FunkMonk ( talk) 19:20, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Back in December, prototheria was blanked and redirected to yinotheria. A Google search (and a much longer write up of the results - details on prototheria's talk page) makes it clear to this non-expert that reports of prototheria's demise have been exaggerated, so I restored the article. My knowledge of taxonomy is far from perfect, and would appreciate some more knowledgeable editors taking a look. It's probably a good idea to consolidate the discussion on the prototheria talk page. (See also the WP:Paleontology talk page).-- Wikimedes ( talk) 04:51, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
I just noticed that the extinction date listed in the taxoboxes of recently extinct animals, such as dodo, do not show anymore, though the text is still there (| extinct = c. 1662). Anyone know what's up? FunkMonk ( talk) 01:08, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
|extinct=
upwards, merely using the presence of a non-empty value to insert † by the species name. So the date would have disappeared from the dodo taxobox with
this edit, which replaced {{
Taxobox}} by {{
Speciesbox}}. I've now fixed {{
Speciesbox}}.|extinct=yes
meaning "extinct") and as a non-boolean (|extinct=c. 1662
meaning "extinct, c. 1662"). I suspect that this is what caused the creator of {{
Speciesbox}} to forget that the value needed to be passed upwards.
Peter coxhead (
talk)
09:11, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Having just found the home for the taxonomy geeks experts of Wikipedia, here at this project, via
Talk:List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names, I'd like to invite anyone with views on the question of species abbreviations in disambiguation pages to join the discussion, belatedly, at
Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Disambiguation#Species_abbreviations. It boils down to: should a reader be shown the way to the organism they're looking for if they search on species words such as
Fenestrata or
Japonica, and if so, how?
Pam
D
13:33, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
Hello all; I'm writing on behalf of the Wiki Education Foundation, which works with instructors who assign university students to write or edit Wikipedia articles in the United States and Canada. We're developing a print handbook for students who will write or expand articles on a brochure - found here - about editing species articles, including animals, plants and fungi. I'd appreciate any feedback on the draft! It is open for comment until November 5th; after that we will set it to print. Thanks so much! Eryk (Wiki Ed) ( talk) 23:10, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
I would draw your attention to the proposal at wikidata:Wikidata talk:WikiProject Taxonomy#Distinguishing between names and taxa. Your comments will be welcome there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:06, 29 October 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.
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. [ Notes | previous discussion ]
These are good candidates if anyone is looking to create new articles. There is also a list just of ants which has been very successful, with all of the top 100 missing articles now created. And a list of missing gastropods. 23:35, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
I'm reviewing the Life article for GA status, but I was told the nominator was "an editor with very weak English skills and very little Wikipedia experience". I'm asking for someone else to take over the nomination, preferably someone familiar with the article and Wikipedia. Dunkleosteus77 (push to talk) 19:07, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
A discussion of interest to this WikiProject is underway at Talk:Holocene extinction/Archive_3#RFC: Article name. -- Epipelagic ( talk) 03:48, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
A template {{ Taxon bar}} was recently created which pulls IDs for various taxonomic databases from WikiData and provides links to these databases on Wikipedia (similar to {{ TaxonIds}}, except that the database IDs don't need to be manually entered). The template creator is seeking comments at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants#Seeking_critique.2Freview_of_.7B.7BTaxonbar.7D.7D. Plantdrew ( talk) 17:37, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
NAC: No consensus. This RFC wasn't stated with a question lending itself to closure with a consensus. However, multiple editors have noted that there is no consensus among taxonomists as to which of various taxonomies to use for anthropoids. (In other words, some scientists say that chimps are hominins, and some say that they are not hominins. If a consensus is desired, a new RFC that asks a specific question would be useful.
Robert McClenon (
talk) 06:07, 18 June 2015 (UTC)}} [Striking closure of RFC whose originator was planning to close out.
Robert McClenon (
talk) 16:20, 18 June 2015 (UTC)] [I stand by the conclusion. It just isn't a closure because the RFC was not a well-formed RFC.
Robert McClenon (
talk)
16:22, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
I have noticed some contradictions on and across several pages relating to the taxonomic classification of Chimpanzees. In essence some pages use the system where Homininae split into Gorillini and Hominini and then Hominini divides into Hominina and Panina. Other pages use a system where Homininae trifurcates into Gorillini, Hominini and Panini. Several pages use both in different Parts. (Chimpanzee lists Chimpanzees as Hominini in the lede but Panini in the infobox). I can't find sources detailing a controversy or an overturn of the historic system. Which should be used and can I get some help making the pages consistent?
Affected Pages: Hominini, Sahelanthropus, Homininae, Chimpanzee-human last common ancestor, Ape, Hominidae, Homo, Chimpanzee, Primate, Homo Floresiensis#Bone structure, Timeline of human evolution, List of mammals of Burundi, List of primates, Human, Panini, Common Chimpanzee, Bonobo
Also may be affected Hominin and Panini (primates)
Apologies if this is in the wrong place SPACKlick ( talk) 16:34, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
I think you have a typo, should "system where Hominina trifurcates" read "system where Homininae trifurcates"?
i.e.:
vs.
Those are the two, correct? IOW, we could rephrase this whole debate as, "is Panini a group of animals, or is it just a sandwich?" Britannica kind of makes it sound like we shouldn't use Panini; see here. Hopefully someone knowledgeable will help us out here. Thanks! ErikHaugen ( talk | contribs) 17:02, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Let me start by saying that you're probably not going to like my answer. The more palatable short version is that the taxonomy is not universally decided, with some putting chimps in Hominini and others in Panini. (The bad news: there doesn't appear to be any consensus in the literature and that we have to decide so that we can be consistent across our articles.) I ran into the exact same problem within Strepsirrhini, particularly with handling of its infraorders.
From an outside view, taking in primatology and all of its related fields under one umbrella, the situation becomes a veritable mess, with a host of reasoned arguments scattered across the literature. However, if you look at things more closely, focusing on specific fields (paleoanthropology, primatology, molecular phylogenetics, etc.), you should see a clear trend... or at least I did with Strepsirrhini. Each of these fields is very narrowly focused, where primatologists (who primarily study *living* primates) generally don't care much about (or even know about) fossil primates, whereas paleoanthropologists have to accommodate a much wider diversity of primates. In your case, you are very, very lucky for two reasons: 1) Molecular phylogeneticists delve into the fossil history (or at least the recent stuff), so they're slightly more mindful of that diversity. (With Strepsirrhini, the infraorder split was an order of magnitude older, so molecular phylogeneticists can only sample—and hence focus on—living primates.) 2) There are many more paleoanthropologists studying human evolution than strepsirrhine evolution. This gives them a bigger voice, and the taxonomies they favor will stand out more in a Google search. The downside, of course, is that it prevents one taxonomy from rising to the top of the pile. (With Strepsirrhini, paleoanthropologists are a miniscule minority, yet to write about Eocene primates and not make overgeneralized statements about living strepsirrhines, you need to use the systematics they favor... despite being a minority of Google Scholar and other Google searches.)
In this situation, I advise using the most encompassing taxonomy so that we can be consistent between articles about living *and* extinct species. I'm primarily interested in strepsirrhines, so I don't know what to tell you. Doing some quick searches on Google Scholar, I found the following:
Note that my searches did not pull up any traditional "primatology" sources (focused solely on living great apes). This doesn't surprise me since there are very few living species, giving little reason to break things down between family Hominidae and the genera (Pan, Gorilla, and Homo)—see MSW3 for an example. For that reason, you may be luckier than I was. I didn't think about this when I started this long reply.
In summary, my advice is to follow the taxonomy in Table 1a in the article by Wood and Richmond (mentioned above) unless someone can make a stronger case. It seems to be the most flexible and generally accepted taxonomy. Once the matter is settled, I can help clean up the articles since I was slowly making my way through primate articles and switching everything to the {{ Automatic taxobox}}. – Maky « talk » 19:15, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Conventionally, taxonomists now refer to the great ape family (including humans) as hominids, while all members of the lineage leading to modern humans that arose after the split with the LCA are referred to as hominins. The older literature used the terms hominoids and hominids respectively [1]
I agree with CFCF sources should be 5 years or less-- Ozzie10aaaa ( talk) 11:04, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
Just two cents from a randomly summoned editor, but before today I had never even heard of Panini as a grouping, only
Panina. The trifurcation scheme is not one that I'd support. //
coldacid (
talk|
contrib) 01:24, 6 April 2015 (UTC) //
coldacid (
talk|
contrib)
01:24, 6 April 2015 (UTC) Summoned via
WP:FRS; please {{
Ping|coldacid}}
if you respond to my comment.
<>Thank you SPACKlick, and Maky, et al, for fronting this discussion. Robin Dunbar says that "Conventionally, taxonomists now ..." refer to the great ape family as hominids, and to the humans (and closely related) subtribe, after their split from chimpanzees, as hominins. These new meanings are, even now, replacing the older terminology. Dunbar is a reliable (and a very recent) source, and here we have an authoritative start-point to edit/correct the errant Wp articles, to wit:
<>I suggest we proceed as follows.
1) Go to a key article and section---e.g., Hominidae#Taxonomic history---and insert new narrative to (briefly) explain the unsettled state of taxonomy among the professionals re humans and chimps. Explain that taxonomists are now referring to the two primate groups with revised meanings from their historical taxons; cite Dunbar (here> [2]); also cite the Australian Museum, which provides an excellent narrative of the changing terminology, including this quote:
This new terminology is being used in many scientific journals already, and it is only a matter of time (but possibly many years) before everyone catches up to using the new term. - See more at: http://australianmuseum.net.au/hominid-and-hominin-whats-the-difference
2) Explain that Wp uses the current 'convention' described by Dunbar---that is, that hominids refer to members of the great ape family Hominidae (which includes all the branches orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, and humans, extant or extinct); and that hominins refer only to the subtribe Hominina, humans and their closest relatives after splitting from chimpanzees. 3) Edit/revise Hominidae for consistency with the 'current convention'. 4) Go to the next affected article and edit for consistency; repeat, etc.
<>Seems we have what we need to proceed now with clearing this problem: revise/write consistently with the growing 'convention' until the new 'taxonomy consensus' is published by the professionals. Please respond. Jbeans ( talk) 17:53, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
revise/write consistently with the growing 'convention'but this suggested to me that we should be adopting one convention rather than another. Peter coxhead ( talk) 21:58, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
the traditional terminology is being abandoned (in efffect) by the professionals- Some professionals have developed more specific terminologies within some fields.
in favor of that 'convention' that Dunbar reported)Not all those changing preferred style are moving towards Dunbar's style although undoubtedly some are.
I shan't argue for the points you object to; actually, my observations were derived from the general tenor of the opening discussion and the citations provided, plus the report by the Australian Museum [4]. (Btw, the quote by Dunbar (see above) seems to be more one of observing the scene rather than advocating a style; so now I must get a copy of that ref and read it for myself.) But, re solving the 'trifurcating homininae' or the 'existence of the tribe Panini', it seems we now have a paradox: if no amount of editing will help, then apparently 'we can't get there from here'.(?) Frankly, I admit I don't understand why those Wood and Richmond cites (that posit a trifurcation event without justifying same) are considered credible source(s) for a trichotomy taxonomy---but I'll not argue that either. But, maybe we could fix some plain errors; where are the other sources currently referenced on Wp pages that propose a trifurcation event or a 'tribe Panini'?
Indeed, re the lede on page Hominini, I note that one reference provided for 'the tribe Panini (chimpanzees)' [5] [6] (see Bradley), seems to report the opposite, i.e., it says, "support for a human–chimpanzee clade is now overwhelming". This would imply a taxonomy (subfamily Homininae, tribe Gorillini, tribe Hominini with subtribes Panina and Hominina) that is like that described in the lede of page Chimpanzee---not the taxobox, see below; and consistent with that detailed at Hominidae#Extant. Thus the Bradley citation seems to refute (rather than support) the hypothesis for an equal trichotomy (for humans, chimps, and gorillas) with a separate 'tribe Panini'. (The second of the two refs is Wood and Richmond.)
On that ( Chimpanzee) page, the Wp editor who supplied the 'tribe Panini' in the taxobox provided no source (see Anaxial's comment above). This edit created the (existing) on-page contradiction between the article's lede and taxobox, which even today presents inconsistent information to the reader. Can you agree to let's fix this---i.e., may I revert this Panini? Jbeans ( talk) 16:47, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
While editing the primate-related articles (see above work-list) this editor concentrated on the 'other' question, which, rhetorically, is: Why the confusing mess across the pages of Wp re using 'hominin' and 'hominid'? (Pls don't answer that---the why is indeed rhetorical). Instead, let's discuss fixing those pages so that, at minimum, (1) Wp is internally consistent in using the two words, and (2), the reader won't be confused by these two words when reading Wp. <>So what do editors say now: Are 'hominin' and 'hominid' used consistently across Wp pages now? (For convenience, the meanings used here are):
1) hominin: those species of genus Homo and closely related extinct species that rose after the split from the line of the chimpanzees; and as described here, Hominini (at top-o-th'-lede); and
2) hominid: the taxonomic family of primates known as the "great apes", including the four extant genera---the orangutans (Pongo); gorillas (Gorilla); chimpanzees (Pan); and the humans (Homo); and as described here, Hominidae, the lede---especially beginning at "Several revisions over time ...". (The former, or traditional, use of 'hominid' is essentially the same as that of the modern 'hominin', including that it also excluded chimpanzees from within the larger name for humans and species close-to-humans.)
Please note, the soothing simplicity of fixing (these two separate) terms across multiple Wp articles is complicated by: [1] As a very practical matter, only one meaning at a time can be used on these pages for (the same) word, 'hominin', IMO; ie, the position of one of the opposing camps must, of necessity, be used in order to write Wp articles; and then, only an acknowledgement of the other position, as a practical matter, can be applied---again IMO; what's your opinion? [2] Some instances of the traditional use of 'hominid' must be protected on a page, as when the term using the traditional meaning is noted in a report or quotation---as here, Omo remains (see at bottom of the lede); note that some formatting device on the local page can illuminate the traditional usage---probably italics will do most of the time. Jbeans ( talk) 05:48, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
@RES2: Pls familiarize yourself with the above sorting of the Wikipedia problem re> the industry problem over usages of "hominin" v "hominid". Then say your solution. Regards, Jbeans ( talk) 23:28, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
If I may be so bold, I'm concluding based on this discussion that we are moving forward on not using Panini as a taxon anywhere, and that Pan is a subset of Hominini. I'll try to fix up the taxonomy templates to reflect this change, at least. ErikHaugen ( talk | contribs) 20:54, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
The problem with this is, now that things have been re-sorted, there is no article that corresponds to an extremely important referent: the human clade. May we split one off from these articles? Chrisrus ( talk) 15:50, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
References
Please join the discussion here if you have an opinion. Thanks! Kaldari ( talk) 21:05, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
Sorry to bother you. After dealing with doubts specially interacting with itwiki users, I have asked at the village pump of wikidata a question about these genus and species items where basically there is only one species for the genus, and different language versions use different titles but often link to the same item. It is here. I hope it was not confusing for the other users as it was for me, but I link the discussion so I can be sure it is "universally accepted". This way next time a newbie ask me something I know that what I am saying is correct.-- Alexmar983 ( talk) 08:24, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
As you probably know, the dog is Canis lupus familiaris. We used to say this was Latin for "family dog", because all Wikipedia knows about that word, Familiaris says so.
However, the article dog used to say that it meant "familiar", or "ordinary" dog, because certain Wikipedians that seemed to know what they were talking about said that's how the word is used in taxonomy.
Is this true? Are there any other species called familiaris? Do you know? I tried but can't find another.
Is it a thing to use familiaris in taxonomy to refer to "familiar" or "common" species of a genus apart from simply the dog?
Thanks! Chrisrus ( talk) 23:44, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
The page Sooglossus sechellensis links to the common-name article Seychelles treefrog. So does Tachycnemis seychellensis. It's common for synonyms to link to the same article, but these are two different species. They even belong to different families of frog—Sooglossidae and Hyperoliidae respectively. The article they both link to only refers to one of these.
I've found 235 candidate "false synonyms", similar to this pair, listed here:
I generated the list based on data from the IUCN Red List. Some are true errors, like the frogs above, while others may highlight other issues, such as where the IUCN identifies a taxon as a species but Wikipedia considers it a subspecies. These cases are less problematic, but might highlight subspecies which could be considered for their own separate subspecies articles, or which may have outdated taxonomic information.
Is there anyone who can see value in this interested in joining the project to either help go through these individual entries or to help coordinate the effort? It's a relatively small list, but it's too much for me to go through individually.
The list is from February, but I didn't get it much attention at the time and most issues are probably still there. I had planned to split the list at least into plants and animals to make it easier to digest, but first I'd like to see if there's any interest in checking and fixing the items on the list. —— Pengo 05:12, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
By the way, I've fixed the example issue now. Tachycnemis seychellensis was redirecting to Seychelles treefrog instead of Seychelles frog. — Pengo 08:52, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 35 Temporal range:
Late Cretaceous,
| |
---|---|
Scientific classification
![]() | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Clade: | Dinosauria |
Clade: | Saurischia |
Clade: | Theropoda |
Family: | † Tyrannosauridae |
Genus: | †
Gorgosaurus Lambe, 1914 |
Species: | †G. libratus
|
Binomial name | |
†Gorgosaurus libratus Lambe, 1914
|
I tried bringing this up several times at the relevant template pages, but there is only one other active user who suggested I bring this up at here. See previous discussions here. [1] In short, the current taxobox formats (both for the manual taxobox, speciesbox, and automatic taxobox templates) contain multiple redundancies which need to be rectified. Currently, the "bottom segment" of these boxes ends with Species: x followed by no authority. There is then a header bar reading "Binomial name", an original coinage which is redundant and makes no grammatical sense (this should be changed to Scientific name, or simply Binomial, though the latter is more technical). Below that is the species name, listed a second time,with its authority. For some reason, this second instance of the binomial lacks the dagger for extinct species, but the first includes it. (See example). My suggestion is to either drop the first instance of Species and fix "Binomial name" to "Scientific name" or "Species" OR drop the "Binomial name" section and add an authority to the Species line. Any input? Dinoguy2 ( talk) 17:35, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
I've advertised this discussion at many of the descendant WikiProjects. Peter coxhead ( talk) 07:36, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
There are three issues raised above, which I suggest we separate, since the answer to two of them depends on the other.
I wasn't around here when the taxobox format was developed, but a possible line of development is as follows. Suppose that species had one-part names like higher ranks. Then the classification could look something like this:
Version 1 | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
... | ... |
Family: | Zingiberaceae |
Genus: | Roscoea |
Species: | alpina |
However, this isn't how Linnaean names work (especially for plants where the second part of a species name is just an epithet, not a name, and the botanical code requires the genus name or abbreviation). So how about:
Version 2 | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
... | ... |
Family: | Zingiberaceae |
Genus: | Roscoea |
Species: | Roscoea alpina |
But to a non-expert, the repetition of "Roscoea" might look odd. So then we try:
Version 3 | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
... | ... |
Family: | Zingiberaceae |
Genus: | Roscoea |
Species: | R. alpina |
But although now correct under the codes, this doesn't show the full name of the species. So finally we repeat it, but now in a special location to show the repetition isn't part of the hierarchy:
Version 4 | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
... | ... |
Family: | Zingiberaceae |
Genus: | Roscoea |
Species: | R. alpina |
Binomial name | |
Roscoea alpina |
So if we don't want the extra section, basically we have to use the pattern of Version 2 above, or, as has been suggested in the discussion, use a separate section for the last rank in every box, like:
Version 5 | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
... | ... |
Family: | Zingiberaceae |
Genus | |
Roscoea |
Version 5 | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
... | ... |
Family: | Zingiberaceae |
Genus: | Roscoea |
Species | |
Roscoea alpina |
When you include the authority, there is some merit in Version 5 over Version 3. Peter coxhead ( talk) 13:01, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
|type_species=
parameter results in a "bottom segment" that is sometimes redundant by having both the |genus_authority=
and |species_authority=
parameters in the taxobox. Also, when the dagger (†) is used, I consider it okay to use the [[Extinction|†]]
link for the first instance, and then use the {{
Extinct}} template or just the dagger alone for later instances.
Stick to sources!
Paine
11:09, 19 May 2016 (UTC)User:Dyanega points on my talk page that User:Caftaric's moves of articles like redirects Epistrophe (genus) to Epistrophe (fly) and earlier usages like Ferdinandea (hoverfly) may need discussion. It does not look like the earlier discussions on this topic have produced any consensus guideline on the project page. Shyamal ( talk) 02:26, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
Keep what we have been doing
– but what we have been doing? Practice has varied in different WikiProjects. Unfortunately, as far as I know, it's impossible to search for the exact occurrence of "(WORD)" in titles, because the search algorithm ignores the parentheses. However, if you search for insource:/\(WORD\)/
, where you replace WORD
by whatever is appropriate, you can find all occurrences in the source wikitext, most of which are likely to be disambiguated titles, although not always genus names. Here are some results I found:
So "(plant)" and "(moth)" alone outnumber "(genus)". Others with smaller counts include "(insect)", "(snail)", "(spider)", "(crab)", "(mammal)", etc. In total, the use of a single English word as a disambiguator far outnumbers the use of "genus". So I think we can say with confidence that this is the commonest method of disambiguating genus articles. Peter coxhead ( talk) 10:25, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
There don't have to be a lot of edits if we change anything. As long as "genus" isn't ambiguous, there are no further edits required if an article is moved from "genus" to another disambiguator; the redirect from "genus" will still exist. If "genus" is ambiguous, well, further edits are necessary anyway.
I'm seeing two misconceptions in support of "genus" as a default dab term for genera:
1st misconception) That "genus" actually is the default dab term. It's not. It is the single most commonly used dab term, but the most common way to disambiguate is with one of several common name terms for a larger group of organisms, as Peter's metrics show. I did a different search the last time this came up, and came up with a rough count of 929 articles using "genus" in the title and 2459 using another term. The are currently 874 articles with "moth" as the dab term alone, almost as many as use "genus (the difference between my count and Peter's is that Peter has occurrence of terms on pages (possibly needing edits) while I've got article title (possibly needing page moves and then edits).
2nd misconception) That "genus" will rarely require further disambiguation. We have 604 pages in Category:Genus disambiguation pages where "genus" has already proved to be inadequate to disambiguate. Most of the genus disambiguations cover two genus names falling under different nomenclatural codes, but there are some cases where we have articles on 2+ homonyms under a single code. Making some rough assumptions, let's say all of the 604 current genus dabs only cover two names under different codes. That's 1208 articles linked from the dab page where "genus" isn't sufficient to disambiguate. Another rough assumption, let's say the 929 articles with "genus" are indeed fully disambiguated, and the (2459-1208=)1251 articles using another dab term could be moved to "genus". Best case scenario for "genus" as a sufficient dab term is 2180 (1251+929) vs 1208 where "genus" isn't sufficient. 2180 vs. 1208 isn't exactly rare.
Alright, so the numbers I'm throwing around came from some searches I did a year and a half ago, and I haven't updated them, but here they are:
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Ultimately, current practice for genus dab terms is correlated with WikiProjects. Dinosaurs, Fungi, Spiders, and Gastropods consistently the project name as a dab term (and WikiProject Gastropods explicitly suggests "gastropod" for their articles). Amphibians and Reptiles, Mammals and Arthropods usually use "genus". Insects and Lepidoptera usually use common names for orders ("fly", "moth", "butterfly", "beetle", etc.). WikiProject Arthropods is the strongest user of "genus". I looked into arthropods further in December 2014. At that time, they had 106 genera that needed disambiguation. For 75 of 106, "genus" was sufficient, but more than 25% needed further disambiguation. "animal" was sufficient for 99/106, and "arthropod" for 101/106.
Long story short, while "genus" might possibly be sufficient disambiguation more than 50% of the time, it's not sufficient at least 20% of them time, and "genus" is not currently the status quo for all cases where it's sufficient to disambiguate. In spite of repeated discussions, we've never had consensus that "genus" should always be used where it's sufficient, nor agreed at all on what to do in the frequent cases where "genus" is insufficient. Using the family as a dab term is reasonable when "genus" is insufficient, but essentially no articles are using family dab terms, so this route would be a massive upheaval in the status quo. The status quo is largely that dab terms are common names for vertebrate classes, or orders of insects, or the major groups under the botanical code. Plantdrew ( talk) 04:44, 5 June 2016 (UTC)