![]() | 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 40 | ← | Archive 44 | Archive 45 | Archive 46 | Archive 47 | Archive 48 | → | Archive 50 |
Currently there is what I see to be a problematic issue happening across taxonomy articles all over the project. Wimpus ( talk · contribs) is actively removing, without reference any etymology that they see as even remotely inaccurate or suspect, and refuses to follow WP:BRD when challenged. Its now to the point that even validly referenced etymologies are being removed. What are the options for finding a resolution to the situation?-- Kev min § 03:02, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
There is no point removing non-contentious etymologies that aren't wrong; it is not difficult to locate reliable sources for such things. The Wikipedia requirement is verifiability ( WP:VERIFY). When a reliable source for an etymology is given it is to verify why the authority named the organism the way he or she did, not to verify the correct use of Latin or Greek.
Wikipedia's content is determined by previously published information rather than by the personal beliefs or experiences of its editors( WP:VERIFYOR). When the naming was poorly based, it would be better if expertise was used to improve Wikipedia by ensuring that the exact phrasing was supported by the reference than removing it entirely. Jts1882 | talk 10:39, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
@
MWAK: yes, strictly speaking it's wrong to say from the Greek ornitho, 'bird'
(although it's commonly found in biology texts, where it's assumed that readers know what is meant even though it's not fully spelt out). The simple solution is to write "from the Greek-derived ornitho-, 'bird'" – with, as ever, a source given for this (something I don't always explicitly write, since I assume everyone accepts it as a requirement –
Wimpus, please note).
Peter coxhead (
talk)
06:20, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
highly deceptive), and I have never disagreed with changing such wording in a way that preserves the purpose of the text, i.e. telling readers what the scientific name means and identifying commonly used components in scientific names. Clarify, sure, but don't remove sourced information that is correct as to meaning.
The specific epithet (tenuifolia) is from Latin tenuifolius, meaning "slender-leaved".This was, in my words above, "somewhat misleading". The epithet is from the Botanical Latin tenuifolius; there's no source I'm aware of that says the tenuifolius is an adjective in Classical Latin. Peter coxhead ( talk) 07:52, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
I've made a start on a Lua module to handle the conservation status in taxoboxes. Ultimately it can replace {{ taxobox/species}} which is very difficult to navigate. I've added handling of a couple of regional systems using the module but all but a handful of taxoboxes will still use the existing template code (including all the IUCN statuses).
To find out what was used, I've analyzed the use of |status system=
in taxoboxes, which is summarised in the table below.
Conservation status system | Taxobox | Speciesbox | Subspeciesbox | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|
IUCN 3.1 | 8204 | 36303 | 310 | 44826 |
IUCN 2.3 | 3669 | 5211 | 40 | 8928 |
IUCN unspecified | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
IUCN (all) | 11875 | 41515 | 350 | 53757 (5 automatic taxobox) |
TNC (none use NatureServe parameter value) | 806 | 1271 | 2106 | |
CITES | 4 | 138 | 2 | 162 (18 automatic taxobox) |
ESA (USA) | 42 | 115 | 52 | 213 |
DECF (Western Australia, Australia) | 27 | 669 | 0 | 629 |
QLDNCA (Queensland, Australia) | 3 | 46 | 0 | 49 |
NZTCS (New Zealand) | 35 | 96 | 2 | 134 (1 automatic taxobox) |
COSEWIC (Canada) | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
EPBC (Australia) | 127 | 434 | 594 | |
Newly handled regional systems (by module) | ||||
CNCFlora (Brazil) | 1 | 1 | ||
TPWCA (Northern Territory, Australia) | 2 | 7 | 9 | |
Totals (including empty) | 18604 | 49379 | 550 | 68860 |
This post is mainly to notify people that I am making a few changes as a warning in case something wierd happens to the conservation status in the taxoboxes. I don't expect there to be anything, but just in case.
In addition, I noticed that there are a number of regional anglosphere conservation systems that are handled but not documented. Are there any others that people would like added? There is a large non-English speaking world out there, which is currently being ignored. Jts1882 | talk 12:48, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
|status_system2=
, but when two assessments are present, I've been making some effort to put IUCN/NatureServe under |status_system=
, and legal assessments under the second parameter.
Plantdrew (
talk)
15:04, 10 August 2019 (UTC)Dear WIKI colleagues, One area for improvement in WIKIPEDIA is in the consistent application of strict conventions in scientific nomenclature. On the one hand national languages OTHER THAN in ENGLISH are not consistent. For example, in Spanish proper names are not capitalized at all. On the other hand, names in Latin are absolutely strict, as well as are the complementary English names. In both there is no flexibility at all, and we specialists (e.g birders and scientists) can get quite confused dealing with complex subject matter in phylogeny when the lay-person offers up species with no clear names.
Speaking of the lay-person, it cannot be over-emphasized just how important proper names are. Today the entire areas of phylogeny, taxonomy and classifications are in complete upheaval, due to the synergistic effects of digital and chemical tecnology developments. All flora and fauna are under re-evaluation since these developments came into play about 20 years ago.
So, an example: The english name of Geotrygon frenata (And here the editor cannot allow me to apply the obligatory bold-face or italics for the Latin) is the White-fronted Quail-Dove. Notice that the hyphenated adjective has only the first word capitalized, while both words of the noun (A category) are capitalized. Please know that this is not some weirdo being picky. This is the convention. English species names are just that: specific, just like the Latin. One cannot change the way they are written because of personal preference, as is very frequently the case here on WIKIPEDIA.
Honestly, because I spend thousands of hours working with species of birds, trees, orchids, etc, I spend many of those here searching information and become quite confused in many cases because of this problem.
Please help us ameliorate this in some fashion. There must be algorithms that would address the problem.
Thank you, Douglas Knapp, biologist and conservationist.
(copied from my talk page - Douglas Knapp, please keep the discussion here.)
[...] Once again, WIKI recognizes the need for conventions with scientific names and handles them well. However, there is sort of a collective gap in management of common names. English common names are thrown together with all of the other modern languages. Therein lies the mistake. With birds (And maybe plants) there is very consistently applied convention.
So, one cannot say that "WIKI has their own style" in this context. Whatever you might think that is, it cannot override scientific convention. An example for clarification: Fulvous-bellied Whistling-Duck. The second word in the category is capitalized; in the adjective it is not. Universal convention. Also: Rose-throated Becard. You incorrectly write it as Rose-throated becard.
"SchreiberBike" and "Elmidae" are mistaken. I appreciate your work on bringing consistency to WIKI language, but scientific conventions are sacred!
This broad policy decision needs to be taken at some higher adminstrative level, but I don't yet understand my access...
Douglas Knapp
FYI: My history includes the publishing of several bird guides, one birdsound CD, association with several other field-guide authors, and collaboration with the most noted ornithologists in the Neo-tropics. (Hate to toot my own horn here, but feel the need since I am not getting the desired response!)
Douglas Knapp ( talk) 19:38, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
While some narrow-topic journals (e.g. most in ornithology, many in herpetology, some in especially British botany), prefer the capitalization, most reliable academic and scientific publications, including leading biology, ecology, and general science journals (even when publishing ornithological papers) do not permit this capitalization. The same holds true for the vast majority of general-audience publications, such as newspapers, dictionaries, other encyclopedias, UK- and US-English writing and style guides, etc.- Where there is no risk of introducing confusion, Wikipedia will choose to go with the most common usage. And I can't really buy into the notion that "rose-throated becard" instead of "Rose-throated Becard" is going to produce any substantial confusion whatsoever. -- Elmidae ( talk · contribs) 20:36, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
hyphens are used only to connect two names that are themselves bird species or families, e.g., "Eagle-Owl", "Wren-Babbler", or when the combined name would be difficult to read, e.g., "Silky-flycatcher". Is the latter correct? Jts1882 | talk 06:28, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
You're asking me, Jts? I think the authors would like us to write "Silky-flycatcher" in this case not because of the hyphenation rule you mention above, but in order to impose a phylogenetic nomenclatural structure on the vernacular English language, as (if I recall correctly) silky flycatchers are phylogenetically relatively unrelated to the flycatchers... Sigh. See below. Do I ping like this? @ Douglas Knapp:
(copied from my talk page)
Dear Mr. Bremen,
This situation with bird taxonomy, classification and nomenclature has reached the absurd. I hear "bollocks" and all sorts of other insulting and superior comments from LAYPERSONS IN MY AREA!
I am not voicing an opinion. Latin and English standards have been in place in ornithology for 200 years! WIKI overrides them quite incorrectly; amazing stuff to hear someone say I have no right to claim confusion because scientific conventions have been overriden and disrespected. Yes! I lose quite a bit of time wandering around because I have been misguided by bad language.
Bacteriologist cannot tell us how to use language in ornithology. Astronomists cannot tell us how to use language in ornithology. WIKI opinion has no say whatsoever in how we describe species! No right whatsoever to dictate OUR STANDARDS!
Almost all comments that have come in under the names "elmidae", "jts1882", and "Leo Bremmen" are uneducated. You may or may not be scientists but you are clearly not ornithologists. In fact, almost all references made by you three use EXACTLY the conventions I describe.
This is not opinion. This is existing convention sacred to our work since the time of Linneus. English names change quite precisely to corresponding changes in the Latin. If WIKI would just use English the same way it uses Latin there would be no problem. So, why not just do that? OTHER COMMON LANGUAGE DOES NOT OPERATE LIKE LATIN AND ENGLISH!
DK, a published ornithologist
P.S. Please remember I am still brand new to this talk format and cannot figure out how to respond directly to discussions. Douglas Knapp ( talk) 21:38, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
Hi there Douglas Knapp,
Ha! Please, I am sorry if you feel insulted, but it is MY opinion, being mainly a plant guy with an interest in linguistics and vernacular, that imposing phylogenetic structure on common tongue is BOLLOCKS! Imposing alternative orthographic rules on vernacular for certain disciplines is even worse: arrogant and stupid. The problem with nomenclature ambiguity in natural language was solved some 300 years ago by a guy named Linnaeus -so just use Latin if you are confused, and there is no problem. You may not like MY opinion, which I in no way would assume to be normative, but YOU will have to accept that your opinion is not universal. To paraphrase yourself, ornithologists and twitchers cannot tell us how to use language in English. "Existing convention sacred to our work since the time of Linneus"... Oh yeah? I am quite familiar with Linnaeus and am not aware he had any recommendations on how English should be used. Anyway, my opinion on the subject is moot, consensus on the use of the English language in this dictionary seems reached.
Also your statement: "English standards have been in place in ornithology for 200 years". You are mistaken, the book I mentioned above states that it is the first to attempt to standardise English vernacular bird names, and it was published in 2006, 13 years ago.
Please think about what you saying friend, if I got together with a bunch of agronomists and wrote a book which demanded that henceforth all vegetables be written in bold and in all-caps, would YOU be wrong in writing:
"The Rose-throated Becard ate an eggplant in the Sun."
...when according to us you should be writing: "The Rose-throated Becard ate an AUBERGINE in the sun."
What if those pesky astronomers come along and demand that all heavenly bodies be written in yet another alternative orthography?
"The Rose-throated Becard ate an AUBERGINE in the sun
."
Come on! Kids would need a couple of bible-sized manuals in order to write a sentence!
If I understand your points: You demand that the English language be used instead of Latin binomials for exactly the same reason we have Latin binomials, 1. standardized across all varieties of vernacular English, 2. subject to phylogenetic nomenclature and 3. with orthographic rules in the manner of Latin binomials.
Thus Shakespeare desperately needs correcting into the proper ornithological conventions... This is going to really screw up poetry... that is, if a few American ornithologists had the right to dictate these things, and poets would care!
I really hope you do not take this as insulting, I am trying to explain my position in a few ways. Regards, Leo. Leo Breman ( talk) 16:45, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
@ Douglas Knapp:, almost everybody watching this talk page is aware of the capitalization convention for birds promoted by organizations such as the IOC and AOU. This capitalization issue has been discussed many many times on Wikipedia. More people aren't commenting because we're either sick of this discussion, or recognize that Wikipedia has taken a stance against capitalization. That stance was established in a discussion at WP:BIRDCON. There is an incomplete catalog of some of the hundreds of discussion regarding capitalization of common names of organisms at User:SMcCandlish/Organism names on Wikipedia. Plantdrew ( talk) 18:14, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
So I won't copy & paste more stuff from Douglas Knapp on my talk page (and my ridiculously loquacious answer) here then -but the other way round. Do note however, Plantdrew, some of us haven't been around so long as the rest of you. Leo Breman ( talk) 23:23, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
I want to find info on how many/if species are kept/bred. ISIS, now rebranded as Species360, used to have a searchable database, didn't it? Is that still extant? The Species360 website looks more like a software marketing page, can't find anything. I like this: Ctenosaura bakeri. I was working on Bufo melanochlorus, and vaguely seem to remember owning a few back in the day and that they were reasonably cheap and common... was hoping ISIS would at least give some indication of the international pet trade/if they were once exported to Europe (perhaps misidentified?). I was also working on Ara ambiguus and want some idea of the captive population. There are pictures of the bird at dozens of zoos around the world on Wikimedia Commons alone, so it must be reasonably common and popular (and photogenic) as cage bird? Cheers, Leo 86.83.56.115 ( talk) 18:15, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
Hey all, Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I'm wondering if anyone wants to get in the spooky spirit with me. We could have a de-stubathon or GA drive or something relating to spooky taxa? Ideas
feel free to add species to the above list and chime in with ideas of what a good October event could be. Enwebb ( talk) 14:31, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
I have spent officially way too much of my life finding the spooky critters of Wikipedia. Allow me to report that there are MANY. Please sign up for my light-hearted contest here to improve these taxa (also who wants to collab on Halloween darter?) Enwebb ( talk) 20:16, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
The first day of the contest is today, so there is still time to sign up! For those already signed up, you can start improving articles on the table and claiming points! Thanks, Enwebb ( talk) 17:11, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
This came up today on Talk:Megabat, with another user asking why the article was written in AmE when the family that is the subject of the article does not occur in the US (I am in the US, though, and this is the only English variant I have experience writing in). What constitutes "strong ties" to a geographic area? In this case, Pteropodidae is a widespread family that would encompass several English dialects (Pakistani English, Indian English, Australian English, Nigerian English, Philippine English, South African English...), so if it needs to be rewritten, who would decide which English variation is the "right one"?
Basically is it fine that I write about taxonomic groups that aren't found in the US with AmE? I would think so per MOS:RETAIN, and wanted to check and see if this discussion has been had before. Enwebb ( talk) 17:28, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
The only indication of an English variant I can find before Enwebb started making substantial edits in 2019 is a link to straw-coloured fruit bat, which seems to be mostly a matter of linking to an article by it's title than any attempt to set an ENGVAR. Straw-coloured fruit bat was created by Polbot, so presumably that was primary vernacular name listed by IUCN in 2007. MSW and the present IUCN call it "African straw-colored fruit bat". There's nothing wrong with Enwebb's writing megabat in American English. Plantdrew ( talk) 20:36, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.
We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma ( talk) 04:25, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Requesting a wider discussion at Talk:Felidae#Classification table; recently List of felids was created (by me), and in response a large classification table was added to Felidae. Would like a wider discussion about whether the table is a good fit for that article or if a smaller section with a link to the list is better. --
WikiProject Pakistani biota, a taskforce of WikiProject Pakistan, is up for deletion as having been created by a sock. Discussion is at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Pakistan-related WikiProjects. -- Nessie ( talk) 19:54, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
We have a lot of distribution categories that seem to me to randomly intersect location with taxonomic classification. As just one example, look at Allococalodes cornutus. It's endemic to New Guinea, which is part of Oceania; it's a spider, which is an arthropod, part of the fauna. All you can predict in advance is that any combination of "Endemic" + "Spiders/Arthropods/Fauna" + "of New Guinea/of Oceania" might be the name of a category (for plants there could also be "of Papuasia"). The article has:
I'm not sure there's anything that can be done about this, so maybe this is just a moan. But I do think it's unhelpful to new editors, and also makes the categories of doubtful usefulness. Peter coxhead ( talk) 16:57, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
@ DexDor: it's not the number of categories that I object to (although I agree your example is awful), but the unpredictability and inconsistency of the categorization tree, as per AddWittyNameHere's comment above. How is an editor to know that a spider article might have to be categorized as "Spiders of X" or "Arthropods of X" or as "Fauna of X" depending randomly on what X is? Ideally, it would be made much harder to create new categories without prior consensus. Peter coxhead ( talk) 21:04, 22 November 2019 (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 40 | ← | Archive 44 | Archive 45 | Archive 46 | Archive 47 | Archive 48 | → | Archive 50 |
Currently there is what I see to be a problematic issue happening across taxonomy articles all over the project. Wimpus ( talk · contribs) is actively removing, without reference any etymology that they see as even remotely inaccurate or suspect, and refuses to follow WP:BRD when challenged. Its now to the point that even validly referenced etymologies are being removed. What are the options for finding a resolution to the situation?-- Kev min § 03:02, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
There is no point removing non-contentious etymologies that aren't wrong; it is not difficult to locate reliable sources for such things. The Wikipedia requirement is verifiability ( WP:VERIFY). When a reliable source for an etymology is given it is to verify why the authority named the organism the way he or she did, not to verify the correct use of Latin or Greek.
Wikipedia's content is determined by previously published information rather than by the personal beliefs or experiences of its editors( WP:VERIFYOR). When the naming was poorly based, it would be better if expertise was used to improve Wikipedia by ensuring that the exact phrasing was supported by the reference than removing it entirely. Jts1882 | talk 10:39, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
@
MWAK: yes, strictly speaking it's wrong to say from the Greek ornitho, 'bird'
(although it's commonly found in biology texts, where it's assumed that readers know what is meant even though it's not fully spelt out). The simple solution is to write "from the Greek-derived ornitho-, 'bird'" – with, as ever, a source given for this (something I don't always explicitly write, since I assume everyone accepts it as a requirement –
Wimpus, please note).
Peter coxhead (
talk)
06:20, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
highly deceptive), and I have never disagreed with changing such wording in a way that preserves the purpose of the text, i.e. telling readers what the scientific name means and identifying commonly used components in scientific names. Clarify, sure, but don't remove sourced information that is correct as to meaning.
The specific epithet (tenuifolia) is from Latin tenuifolius, meaning "slender-leaved".This was, in my words above, "somewhat misleading". The epithet is from the Botanical Latin tenuifolius; there's no source I'm aware of that says the tenuifolius is an adjective in Classical Latin. Peter coxhead ( talk) 07:52, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
I've made a start on a Lua module to handle the conservation status in taxoboxes. Ultimately it can replace {{ taxobox/species}} which is very difficult to navigate. I've added handling of a couple of regional systems using the module but all but a handful of taxoboxes will still use the existing template code (including all the IUCN statuses).
To find out what was used, I've analyzed the use of |status system=
in taxoboxes, which is summarised in the table below.
Conservation status system | Taxobox | Speciesbox | Subspeciesbox | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|
IUCN 3.1 | 8204 | 36303 | 310 | 44826 |
IUCN 2.3 | 3669 | 5211 | 40 | 8928 |
IUCN unspecified | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
IUCN (all) | 11875 | 41515 | 350 | 53757 (5 automatic taxobox) |
TNC (none use NatureServe parameter value) | 806 | 1271 | 2106 | |
CITES | 4 | 138 | 2 | 162 (18 automatic taxobox) |
ESA (USA) | 42 | 115 | 52 | 213 |
DECF (Western Australia, Australia) | 27 | 669 | 0 | 629 |
QLDNCA (Queensland, Australia) | 3 | 46 | 0 | 49 |
NZTCS (New Zealand) | 35 | 96 | 2 | 134 (1 automatic taxobox) |
COSEWIC (Canada) | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
EPBC (Australia) | 127 | 434 | 594 | |
Newly handled regional systems (by module) | ||||
CNCFlora (Brazil) | 1 | 1 | ||
TPWCA (Northern Territory, Australia) | 2 | 7 | 9 | |
Totals (including empty) | 18604 | 49379 | 550 | 68860 |
This post is mainly to notify people that I am making a few changes as a warning in case something wierd happens to the conservation status in the taxoboxes. I don't expect there to be anything, but just in case.
In addition, I noticed that there are a number of regional anglosphere conservation systems that are handled but not documented. Are there any others that people would like added? There is a large non-English speaking world out there, which is currently being ignored. Jts1882 | talk 12:48, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
|status_system2=
, but when two assessments are present, I've been making some effort to put IUCN/NatureServe under |status_system=
, and legal assessments under the second parameter.
Plantdrew (
talk)
15:04, 10 August 2019 (UTC)Dear WIKI colleagues, One area for improvement in WIKIPEDIA is in the consistent application of strict conventions in scientific nomenclature. On the one hand national languages OTHER THAN in ENGLISH are not consistent. For example, in Spanish proper names are not capitalized at all. On the other hand, names in Latin are absolutely strict, as well as are the complementary English names. In both there is no flexibility at all, and we specialists (e.g birders and scientists) can get quite confused dealing with complex subject matter in phylogeny when the lay-person offers up species with no clear names.
Speaking of the lay-person, it cannot be over-emphasized just how important proper names are. Today the entire areas of phylogeny, taxonomy and classifications are in complete upheaval, due to the synergistic effects of digital and chemical tecnology developments. All flora and fauna are under re-evaluation since these developments came into play about 20 years ago.
So, an example: The english name of Geotrygon frenata (And here the editor cannot allow me to apply the obligatory bold-face or italics for the Latin) is the White-fronted Quail-Dove. Notice that the hyphenated adjective has only the first word capitalized, while both words of the noun (A category) are capitalized. Please know that this is not some weirdo being picky. This is the convention. English species names are just that: specific, just like the Latin. One cannot change the way they are written because of personal preference, as is very frequently the case here on WIKIPEDIA.
Honestly, because I spend thousands of hours working with species of birds, trees, orchids, etc, I spend many of those here searching information and become quite confused in many cases because of this problem.
Please help us ameliorate this in some fashion. There must be algorithms that would address the problem.
Thank you, Douglas Knapp, biologist and conservationist.
(copied from my talk page - Douglas Knapp, please keep the discussion here.)
[...] Once again, WIKI recognizes the need for conventions with scientific names and handles them well. However, there is sort of a collective gap in management of common names. English common names are thrown together with all of the other modern languages. Therein lies the mistake. With birds (And maybe plants) there is very consistently applied convention.
So, one cannot say that "WIKI has their own style" in this context. Whatever you might think that is, it cannot override scientific convention. An example for clarification: Fulvous-bellied Whistling-Duck. The second word in the category is capitalized; in the adjective it is not. Universal convention. Also: Rose-throated Becard. You incorrectly write it as Rose-throated becard.
"SchreiberBike" and "Elmidae" are mistaken. I appreciate your work on bringing consistency to WIKI language, but scientific conventions are sacred!
This broad policy decision needs to be taken at some higher adminstrative level, but I don't yet understand my access...
Douglas Knapp
FYI: My history includes the publishing of several bird guides, one birdsound CD, association with several other field-guide authors, and collaboration with the most noted ornithologists in the Neo-tropics. (Hate to toot my own horn here, but feel the need since I am not getting the desired response!)
Douglas Knapp ( talk) 19:38, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
While some narrow-topic journals (e.g. most in ornithology, many in herpetology, some in especially British botany), prefer the capitalization, most reliable academic and scientific publications, including leading biology, ecology, and general science journals (even when publishing ornithological papers) do not permit this capitalization. The same holds true for the vast majority of general-audience publications, such as newspapers, dictionaries, other encyclopedias, UK- and US-English writing and style guides, etc.- Where there is no risk of introducing confusion, Wikipedia will choose to go with the most common usage. And I can't really buy into the notion that "rose-throated becard" instead of "Rose-throated Becard" is going to produce any substantial confusion whatsoever. -- Elmidae ( talk · contribs) 20:36, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
hyphens are used only to connect two names that are themselves bird species or families, e.g., "Eagle-Owl", "Wren-Babbler", or when the combined name would be difficult to read, e.g., "Silky-flycatcher". Is the latter correct? Jts1882 | talk 06:28, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
You're asking me, Jts? I think the authors would like us to write "Silky-flycatcher" in this case not because of the hyphenation rule you mention above, but in order to impose a phylogenetic nomenclatural structure on the vernacular English language, as (if I recall correctly) silky flycatchers are phylogenetically relatively unrelated to the flycatchers... Sigh. See below. Do I ping like this? @ Douglas Knapp:
(copied from my talk page)
Dear Mr. Bremen,
This situation with bird taxonomy, classification and nomenclature has reached the absurd. I hear "bollocks" and all sorts of other insulting and superior comments from LAYPERSONS IN MY AREA!
I am not voicing an opinion. Latin and English standards have been in place in ornithology for 200 years! WIKI overrides them quite incorrectly; amazing stuff to hear someone say I have no right to claim confusion because scientific conventions have been overriden and disrespected. Yes! I lose quite a bit of time wandering around because I have been misguided by bad language.
Bacteriologist cannot tell us how to use language in ornithology. Astronomists cannot tell us how to use language in ornithology. WIKI opinion has no say whatsoever in how we describe species! No right whatsoever to dictate OUR STANDARDS!
Almost all comments that have come in under the names "elmidae", "jts1882", and "Leo Bremmen" are uneducated. You may or may not be scientists but you are clearly not ornithologists. In fact, almost all references made by you three use EXACTLY the conventions I describe.
This is not opinion. This is existing convention sacred to our work since the time of Linneus. English names change quite precisely to corresponding changes in the Latin. If WIKI would just use English the same way it uses Latin there would be no problem. So, why not just do that? OTHER COMMON LANGUAGE DOES NOT OPERATE LIKE LATIN AND ENGLISH!
DK, a published ornithologist
P.S. Please remember I am still brand new to this talk format and cannot figure out how to respond directly to discussions. Douglas Knapp ( talk) 21:38, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
Hi there Douglas Knapp,
Ha! Please, I am sorry if you feel insulted, but it is MY opinion, being mainly a plant guy with an interest in linguistics and vernacular, that imposing phylogenetic structure on common tongue is BOLLOCKS! Imposing alternative orthographic rules on vernacular for certain disciplines is even worse: arrogant and stupid. The problem with nomenclature ambiguity in natural language was solved some 300 years ago by a guy named Linnaeus -so just use Latin if you are confused, and there is no problem. You may not like MY opinion, which I in no way would assume to be normative, but YOU will have to accept that your opinion is not universal. To paraphrase yourself, ornithologists and twitchers cannot tell us how to use language in English. "Existing convention sacred to our work since the time of Linneus"... Oh yeah? I am quite familiar with Linnaeus and am not aware he had any recommendations on how English should be used. Anyway, my opinion on the subject is moot, consensus on the use of the English language in this dictionary seems reached.
Also your statement: "English standards have been in place in ornithology for 200 years". You are mistaken, the book I mentioned above states that it is the first to attempt to standardise English vernacular bird names, and it was published in 2006, 13 years ago.
Please think about what you saying friend, if I got together with a bunch of agronomists and wrote a book which demanded that henceforth all vegetables be written in bold and in all-caps, would YOU be wrong in writing:
"The Rose-throated Becard ate an eggplant in the Sun."
...when according to us you should be writing: "The Rose-throated Becard ate an AUBERGINE in the sun."
What if those pesky astronomers come along and demand that all heavenly bodies be written in yet another alternative orthography?
"The Rose-throated Becard ate an AUBERGINE in the sun
."
Come on! Kids would need a couple of bible-sized manuals in order to write a sentence!
If I understand your points: You demand that the English language be used instead of Latin binomials for exactly the same reason we have Latin binomials, 1. standardized across all varieties of vernacular English, 2. subject to phylogenetic nomenclature and 3. with orthographic rules in the manner of Latin binomials.
Thus Shakespeare desperately needs correcting into the proper ornithological conventions... This is going to really screw up poetry... that is, if a few American ornithologists had the right to dictate these things, and poets would care!
I really hope you do not take this as insulting, I am trying to explain my position in a few ways. Regards, Leo. Leo Breman ( talk) 16:45, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
@ Douglas Knapp:, almost everybody watching this talk page is aware of the capitalization convention for birds promoted by organizations such as the IOC and AOU. This capitalization issue has been discussed many many times on Wikipedia. More people aren't commenting because we're either sick of this discussion, or recognize that Wikipedia has taken a stance against capitalization. That stance was established in a discussion at WP:BIRDCON. There is an incomplete catalog of some of the hundreds of discussion regarding capitalization of common names of organisms at User:SMcCandlish/Organism names on Wikipedia. Plantdrew ( talk) 18:14, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
So I won't copy & paste more stuff from Douglas Knapp on my talk page (and my ridiculously loquacious answer) here then -but the other way round. Do note however, Plantdrew, some of us haven't been around so long as the rest of you. Leo Breman ( talk) 23:23, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
I want to find info on how many/if species are kept/bred. ISIS, now rebranded as Species360, used to have a searchable database, didn't it? Is that still extant? The Species360 website looks more like a software marketing page, can't find anything. I like this: Ctenosaura bakeri. I was working on Bufo melanochlorus, and vaguely seem to remember owning a few back in the day and that they were reasonably cheap and common... was hoping ISIS would at least give some indication of the international pet trade/if they were once exported to Europe (perhaps misidentified?). I was also working on Ara ambiguus and want some idea of the captive population. There are pictures of the bird at dozens of zoos around the world on Wikimedia Commons alone, so it must be reasonably common and popular (and photogenic) as cage bird? Cheers, Leo 86.83.56.115 ( talk) 18:15, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
Hey all, Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I'm wondering if anyone wants to get in the spooky spirit with me. We could have a de-stubathon or GA drive or something relating to spooky taxa? Ideas
feel free to add species to the above list and chime in with ideas of what a good October event could be. Enwebb ( talk) 14:31, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
I have spent officially way too much of my life finding the spooky critters of Wikipedia. Allow me to report that there are MANY. Please sign up for my light-hearted contest here to improve these taxa (also who wants to collab on Halloween darter?) Enwebb ( talk) 20:16, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
The first day of the contest is today, so there is still time to sign up! For those already signed up, you can start improving articles on the table and claiming points! Thanks, Enwebb ( talk) 17:11, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
This came up today on Talk:Megabat, with another user asking why the article was written in AmE when the family that is the subject of the article does not occur in the US (I am in the US, though, and this is the only English variant I have experience writing in). What constitutes "strong ties" to a geographic area? In this case, Pteropodidae is a widespread family that would encompass several English dialects (Pakistani English, Indian English, Australian English, Nigerian English, Philippine English, South African English...), so if it needs to be rewritten, who would decide which English variation is the "right one"?
Basically is it fine that I write about taxonomic groups that aren't found in the US with AmE? I would think so per MOS:RETAIN, and wanted to check and see if this discussion has been had before. Enwebb ( talk) 17:28, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
The only indication of an English variant I can find before Enwebb started making substantial edits in 2019 is a link to straw-coloured fruit bat, which seems to be mostly a matter of linking to an article by it's title than any attempt to set an ENGVAR. Straw-coloured fruit bat was created by Polbot, so presumably that was primary vernacular name listed by IUCN in 2007. MSW and the present IUCN call it "African straw-colored fruit bat". There's nothing wrong with Enwebb's writing megabat in American English. Plantdrew ( talk) 20:36, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.
We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma ( talk) 04:25, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Requesting a wider discussion at Talk:Felidae#Classification table; recently List of felids was created (by me), and in response a large classification table was added to Felidae. Would like a wider discussion about whether the table is a good fit for that article or if a smaller section with a link to the list is better. --
WikiProject Pakistani biota, a taskforce of WikiProject Pakistan, is up for deletion as having been created by a sock. Discussion is at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Pakistan-related WikiProjects. -- Nessie ( talk) 19:54, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
We have a lot of distribution categories that seem to me to randomly intersect location with taxonomic classification. As just one example, look at Allococalodes cornutus. It's endemic to New Guinea, which is part of Oceania; it's a spider, which is an arthropod, part of the fauna. All you can predict in advance is that any combination of "Endemic" + "Spiders/Arthropods/Fauna" + "of New Guinea/of Oceania" might be the name of a category (for plants there could also be "of Papuasia"). The article has:
I'm not sure there's anything that can be done about this, so maybe this is just a moan. But I do think it's unhelpful to new editors, and also makes the categories of doubtful usefulness. Peter coxhead ( talk) 16:57, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
@ DexDor: it's not the number of categories that I object to (although I agree your example is awful), but the unpredictability and inconsistency of the categorization tree, as per AddWittyNameHere's comment above. How is an editor to know that a spider article might have to be categorized as "Spiders of X" or "Arthropods of X" or as "Fauna of X" depending randomly on what X is? Ideally, it would be made much harder to create new categories without prior consensus. Peter coxhead ( talk) 21:04, 22 November 2019 (UTC)