This page 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. |
I've requested a scientific peer review of this article. The discussion is here, and all comments are greatly appreciated. Firsfron of Ronchester 06:58, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
I have been working on some distribution maps for some species of birds and have been generating spot maps that are based on a number of sources (not all of them qualifying as equally reliable, but traceable and verifiable). I would just like to know if compilation of a map using data from multiple sources to generate a distribution map could in any way be construed as WP:OR (original research by synthesis). Thanks Shyamal 08:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Can we archive please? The page is getting a bit long. Werothegreat 16:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
I have listed infraspecies and infrasubspecies at WP:RFD as confusing redirects. Editors from this wikiproject are invited to comment at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2007 June 30. Thanks. Chick Bowen 22:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
so i'm new here and i've started cleaning
slime mould pages. i.e. the pages for
Myxogastria: plasmodial or syncytial slime moulds,
Protostelia: smaller plasmodial slime moulds,
Dictyosteliida: cellular slime moulds,
Acrasidae: similar life style to Dictyostelids, but of uncertain taxonomy
in particular. and the contradictory pages of higher level taxa they have been put in.
it's a tangled mess. so is there any consensus about this stuff? for instance there is: Dictyosteliida and dictyosteliomycota. there is slime mould and there is myxomycota. in each case one member of the pair sucks.
can someone sum up the discussion on these topics for me or do i have to read 20 archive files?
here's my ramblings on this tangle: User talk:Wikiskimmer/eukaryotic taxonomy, it's very confusing. i need a printer.
i cleaned up the slime mould page a fair bit. Wikiskimmer 21:38, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Just to keep everything in perspective, I have written the following with our many excellent TOL editors in mind: User:Marskell/Think of the Children. Marskell 13:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Hello. Would anybody in this WP be willing to help writing a lead section for this list? Thanks! Abbott75 ☺ 01:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Posting contents of a mail below. Would hope that there is something Wikipedia related there. Shyamal 09:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
TDWG Annual Conference (http://www.tdwg.org/conference2007) Bratislava, Slovakia, 16-22 September 2007 Call for Abstracts ** I will be away from my mail after 19 July. If you intend to respond to this call please contact me before then ** Symposium: Discovery, Integration and Use of Biodiversity Data Session: Building biodiversity data content (Friday 21 September) The idea of the session is to get away from the technical aspects of managing biodiversity data and to ask the wider community to tell us: 1) what is needed in terms of: - non-technical standards (standard lists, authorities, etc.) - on-line services - collection/specimen documentation standards - other data content standards - tools to help populate biodiversity, observational, ecological and conservation databases 2) what has already achieved (or is being worked on) towards these aims 3) how you can contribute The schedule for the 2007 Conference is very busy and we have space for only five or six verbal presentations. We do have ample space for poster presentations and computer demonstrations. My task is to ask the community for proposed presentations on the session theme, to integrate key verbal presentations into an interesting and thought-provoking session, and to encourage the submission of posters and computer demonstrations. If you think you have something to contribute, please contact me at A.Rissone@nhm.ac.uk with Subject line "TDWG 2007: Building biodiversity data content", indicating whether you are proposing a verbal presentation (remember these are very limited), a poster or a computer demonstration.
I've been working on infanticide (zoology) for two or three days, and it will probably be coming up for did you know soon. I'd appreciate anyone looking over it or adding more themselves. It's clearly not complete yet, but a few more examples should do it (particularly of parents killing their own young). Richard001 08:41, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Can someone PLEASE (who knows what they're talking about) detail the various shapes that cristae take (discoid, flat, etc.), describing their differences, and possibly the purposes for different shaped cristae, either in the eukaryote, mitochondria, or cristae articles, or even create a new one. I would have done this by now, except the whole subject confuses me, and I don't have any sources that clearly explain them. Werothegreat 14:53, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Ciliophora is one of the more important protistan phyla, and its article has no subsections. It contains a bunch of stuff about ciliates, a taxobox, and then a seperate section detailing classes and subclasses. And a bunch of thumbnails. I'm gonna need some help on this one. Werothegreat 16:07, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Should the Taxoboxes section include how to use conservation status? I would appreciate some guidelines, and don't feel qualified to add it to the instructions myself. -- Donald Albury 13:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
At least, I think it's a question about templates. I'm hoping someone here will either know the answer, or know where to find someone who can help.
I've been busy with a series of articles on vipers, many of which use a template (?) that makes it easy to create external links to entries in a particular online database. An example would be the first link in
this external links section, the markup language for which looks like this:
These links used to be for records at the Reptile database at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). At one point late last year, the EMBL stopped hosting this database, upon which the man responsible for it, Dr. Peter Uetz, went looking for a new home for it. In the mean time, the code behind this template at Wikipedia was changed to work with the Species2000 database, even though that's only a subset of the original EMBL Reptile Database. Finally, about two months ago, Dr. Uetz's database went online again
here, but it seems that the folks at Wikipedia who maintain the EMBL template have not yet discovered this.
My question for you is therefore, how can I find out who maintains this template, or where can I find someone who can change it to query the Reptile database at its new location? Thanks! --
Jwinius 22:04, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
A new template, Template:Needtaxobox, is available for the purpose of tagging articles that do not yet have a taxobox. The "What links here" function can be used to comb through articles needing a taxobox. Badagnani 19:00, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Most high-level chromalveolate articles and many lower-level articles have had their taxoboxes changed to read Kingdom: Chromalveolata rather than (unranked): Chromalveolata. There have so far been no objections, and these changes have been standing for a while. I would like to take this one step further. I would like a unique taxobox color be chosen to represent the Chromalveolate kingdom, as Metazoa has pink, Plantae has Green, and Fungi has lightblue. Now, the last time I was bold and started changing taxobox colors right and left, there was an uproar and accusations of vandalism. I would like to avoid conflict this time by putting it to a poll. Post what color you feel it should be, and after a decent amount of time, say a week or two, or after we have sufficient nominations, we put it to a vote. Since this would take a lot of space, we could do this on the talk page of the chromalveolate article after we get started. Please remember, the following colors have been taken: pink, lightgreen, lightblue, khaki, brown (#e0d0b0), violet, lightgray, and darkgrey. Werothegreat 15:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
It's got a similar hue and saturation to the existing colours, but is easily discriminated. It's also less garish than the current option (which is my main argument against sticking with what we've got). Verisimilus T 16:46, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Here are the results of using Colour Contrast Analyser for Web Pages. According to the program, "Text or diagrams and their background must have a luminosity contrast ratio of at least 5:1 for level 2 conformance to guideline 1.4,and text or diagrams and their background must have a luminosity contrast ratio of at least 10:1 for level 3 conformance to guideline 1.4." I've added the contrast ratios to each of the color combinations used in ca:Wikipedia, with the standard blue link color (left column) and the redlink color (right column). Note that every combination except the last fails with redlinks. -- Curtis Clark 00:26, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
Blue link color | Red link color | ||
Animalia | pink | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 6.93) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.65) |
---|---|---|---|
Archaeplastida | lightgreen | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 7.50) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.95) |
Fungi | lightblue | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 6.98) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.68) |
Chromalveolata | #FA7B62 | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.08) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 2.15) |
Eukaryotae | #e0d0b0 | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 7.02) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.70) |
Bacteria | lightgrey | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 7.13) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.76) |
Archaea | darkgray | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.57) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 2.41) |
Virus | violet | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.60) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 2.42) |
Viroides | darkorange | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.56) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 2.41) |
Satèl·lits | #FFA000 | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 5.22) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 2.75) |
Inespecífic | lightyellow | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 10.38) | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 5.47) |
Here's the new table with contrasts added. The program also tests contrasts for the three types of color blindness; we should check that as well on any candidate combinations.-- Curtis Clark 16:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
Animalia | pink | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 13.79) |
---|---|---|
Animalia | pink | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 6.93) |
Animalia | pink | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 5.87) |
Archaeplastida | lightgreen | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 14.91) |
Archaeplastida | lightgreen | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 7.50) |
Archaeplastida | lightgreen | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 6.35) |
Fungi | lightblue | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 13.89) |
Fungi | lightblue | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 6.98) |
Fungi | lightblue | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 5.91) |
Chromalveolata | #FA7B62 | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 8.12) |
Chromalveolata | #FA7B62 | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.08) |
Chromalveolata | #FA7B62 | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.46) |
Eukaryotae | #e0d0b0 | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 13.97) |
Eukaryotae | #e0d0b0 | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 7.02) |
Eukaryotae | #e0d0b0 | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 5.95) |
Bacteria | lightgrey | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 14.18) |
Bacteria | lightgrey | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 7.13) |
Bacteria | lightgrey | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 6.04) |
Archaea | darkgray | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 9.09) |
Archaea | darkgray | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.57) |
Archaea | darkgray | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.87) |
Virus | violet | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 9.14) |
Virus | violet | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.60) |
Virus | violet | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.89) |
Viroids | darkorange | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 9.08) |
Viroids | darkorange | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.56) |
Viroids | darkorange | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.86) |
Satèl·lits | #FFA000 | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 10.38) |
Satèl·lits | #FFA000 | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 5.22) |
Satèl·lits | #FFA000 | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.42) |
Inespecífic | lightyellow | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 20.64) |
Inespecífic | lightyellow | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 10.38) |
Inespecífic | lightyellow | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 8.78) |
New color | #F0b070 | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 11.28) |
New color | #F0b070 | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 5.67) |
New color | #F0b070 | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.80) |
Chromalveolata | GreenYellow |
---|---|
Archaea | #F3E0E0 |
Inasmuch as there will always be the possibility of visited links in the colored-background parts of a taxobox, we also need new colors for Virus and Viroid. There are all kinds of pastels in the RGB color space, so if we were inventing this from whole bits, it wouldn't be all that difficult. If we want to preserve colors already in use, we might check out taxoboxen in some of the other Wikipediae for colors with an adequate ratio. I guess what I'd like to know next is the consensus: Are we bound by existing colors, or do we want to go for optima?-- Curtis Clark 03:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Most of the wikipedias use pink/lightgreen/lightblue/khaki. The only real exception is the french wikipedia, which uses the khaki exclusively for alveolates for some reason, and uses teal for the rest. My assumption is that if we change our taxobox colors, the rest will most likely soon follow. Werothegreat 12:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
It's swings and roundabouts... These guys seem to think that Protista is a kingdom. How do we avoid POV in our Taxobox colours? Verisimilus T 12:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, I suppose it's become clear that there's little or no consensus in the scientific literature, on what to call the kingdoms, or even on what the kingdoms should be. Given the struggle one must go through to find consensus on anything in this place, it doesn't look like we stand much chance there. So: what do we do? The easiest way to avoid POV is to follow the Germans, and make everything the same unpleasant shade of wikipedia-blue. But I'm quite attached to the splashes of colour in articles, from a purely aesthetic perspective - and because I've nearly finished coding a bot to install my {{taxobox colour}} automater!
Emotional involvement aside, what do we aim to achieve with the colours? They're not adding information to an article, and in the vast majority of cases people don't need telling that something's a plant or an animal. In the event that it's not obvious, it often seems to be the case that the scientific jury is out.
So, much as it pains me, here's a suggestion for you to shoot down: Let's disable the colour parameter and make everything navbox-blue.
Verisimilus T 20:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't see what all the fuss is about. Unless we're going to take down the kingdom information from all infoboxes, what difference does colour make? Richard001 23:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Let's follow Verisimilus's suggestion and make everything navbox-blue for now. We can change it when the taxonomy gets sorted out, hopefully soon though I think much of the current system will get scrapped. Calibas 03:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm meant to be reading a lot of other things at the moment, but if someone could post details of a couple of the more relevant references here, I'd be interested to cast my eye over them and see what I make of them! Cheers, Verisimilus T 08:34, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I love NCBI. This recent paper (from July!) gives further evidence for the monophyly of Rhizaria, Retaria (a clade within Rhizaria including the Radiolaria [sensus stricto] and Foraminifera), and Excavata. Also, the Nucleariids are found to be sisters to Fungi, so could be included in an expanded eumycetal kingdom, and all other choanozoa are sisters to Animals, which could be included in an expanded metazoan kingdom. Centrohelids (here called Heliozoa) and Apusozoa are still not including in one of the six supergroups, but Apusozoa are thought to be at the bottom of the bikont tree. < http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17174576&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVBrief> Werothegreat 22:11, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
< http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17488740&ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum> < http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17726520&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum> These papers, published within the last seven days, together suggest that Chromavleolata is a sister group to Rhizaria. This blows the whole corticata/cabozoa dichotomy of bikonts (if this is even a valid clade anymore) out of the water. Wow. This is much better science than that four-kingdom crap. Werothegreat 22:25, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Werothegreat 22:29, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Don't everyone comment at once... has this conversation sadly died? Werothegreat 20:18, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
OK, not to be a topic necromancer, but we really can't just let this discussion die. This is an issue that needs to be settled. Werothegreat 20:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay, so there seems to be ample evidence for many of the higher-level groups, eg. Rhizaria. But, this still begs the question, where do we go from here? If we do decide that colours are useful, keeping fungi separate from animals seems to make a lot of sense for most readers. The bacteria and archaea groups don't appear too contraversial, either. I suppose the debate must be what we include in "plants" - if we're keeping animals and fungi seperate, perhaps restricting it to algae + land plants would be best. What other groups would we need - would Chromalveolata suffice? Verisimilus T 13:48, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Well? The Archaea color change would have to be approved by the archaea group, so someone would have to post on the archaea wikigroup (if there is one, if not the archaea article) talkpage. As for amoebozoa and rhizaria, nobody really cares about them, so a vote here to change their colors would suffice. So, who's for changing amoebozoa to #FFC8A0 and rhizaria to lavender? Or against, if you like.
Werothegreat 20:51, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
So... shall we start? With the changing of the colors? Werothegreat ( talk) 01:28, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Don't they usually take a while to respond anyway? Werothegreat 02:28, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Okay. In lieu of a bot, I'm going to start changing colors of higher level taxoboxes, in the hope that people will follow the trend and help out. Werothegreat ( talk) 02:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Ummm... the whole don't-give-a-color-and-it'll-give-the-right-one thing is working for chromalveolates, but not for rhizaria, amoebozoa, or excavata. Can this be fixed? Werothegreat ( talk) 15:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I created several wanted categories this morning, some of which duplicate existing names such as Elepids and Bovids. The duplicates should be merged, and one should become a redirect to the other, but which is better? Your input is requested... -- Prove It (talk) 22:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Greetings. Polbot is a bot that reads information from the IUCN and creates new stubs on plant and animal species. There is currently a request for opinions here regarding the linking of biologists' names. Any comments on that page would be welcome. – Quadell ( talk) ( random) 17:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Despite having some very specific animal projects, we have no central one to tie them together and allow for animal specific guidelines, discussions and assessments. Many animal related articles have to be assessed under the tree of life or even biology assessment scheme, despite being specific to animals. There are also other projects that could emerge from it in the future, such as one on animal behavior for example. With the project the pathway to improving zoology related articles is much clearer. If you are interested in creating this project please register your support and ideas here. All projects that come under the potential parentage of this one have been contacted. Richard001 09:13, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I've started working on a draft at User:Richard001/Animals draft. Feel free to work on it - it's extremely skeletal at the moment and needs a lot of development. Richard001 01:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I think this is an excellent idea, so I've added the proposal to the WikiProject Council. If there is enough interest to handle a project of this size, I will start the skeleton and we can get working on it. J. Hall • ( Talk) 18:10, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
This page 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. |
I've requested a scientific peer review of this article. The discussion is here, and all comments are greatly appreciated. Firsfron of Ronchester 06:58, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
I have been working on some distribution maps for some species of birds and have been generating spot maps that are based on a number of sources (not all of them qualifying as equally reliable, but traceable and verifiable). I would just like to know if compilation of a map using data from multiple sources to generate a distribution map could in any way be construed as WP:OR (original research by synthesis). Thanks Shyamal 08:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Can we archive please? The page is getting a bit long. Werothegreat 16:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
I have listed infraspecies and infrasubspecies at WP:RFD as confusing redirects. Editors from this wikiproject are invited to comment at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2007 June 30. Thanks. Chick Bowen 22:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
so i'm new here and i've started cleaning
slime mould pages. i.e. the pages for
Myxogastria: plasmodial or syncytial slime moulds,
Protostelia: smaller plasmodial slime moulds,
Dictyosteliida: cellular slime moulds,
Acrasidae: similar life style to Dictyostelids, but of uncertain taxonomy
in particular. and the contradictory pages of higher level taxa they have been put in.
it's a tangled mess. so is there any consensus about this stuff? for instance there is: Dictyosteliida and dictyosteliomycota. there is slime mould and there is myxomycota. in each case one member of the pair sucks.
can someone sum up the discussion on these topics for me or do i have to read 20 archive files?
here's my ramblings on this tangle: User talk:Wikiskimmer/eukaryotic taxonomy, it's very confusing. i need a printer.
i cleaned up the slime mould page a fair bit. Wikiskimmer 21:38, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Just to keep everything in perspective, I have written the following with our many excellent TOL editors in mind: User:Marskell/Think of the Children. Marskell 13:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Hello. Would anybody in this WP be willing to help writing a lead section for this list? Thanks! Abbott75 ☺ 01:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Posting contents of a mail below. Would hope that there is something Wikipedia related there. Shyamal 09:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
TDWG Annual Conference (http://www.tdwg.org/conference2007) Bratislava, Slovakia, 16-22 September 2007 Call for Abstracts ** I will be away from my mail after 19 July. If you intend to respond to this call please contact me before then ** Symposium: Discovery, Integration and Use of Biodiversity Data Session: Building biodiversity data content (Friday 21 September) The idea of the session is to get away from the technical aspects of managing biodiversity data and to ask the wider community to tell us: 1) what is needed in terms of: - non-technical standards (standard lists, authorities, etc.) - on-line services - collection/specimen documentation standards - other data content standards - tools to help populate biodiversity, observational, ecological and conservation databases 2) what has already achieved (or is being worked on) towards these aims 3) how you can contribute The schedule for the 2007 Conference is very busy and we have space for only five or six verbal presentations. We do have ample space for poster presentations and computer demonstrations. My task is to ask the community for proposed presentations on the session theme, to integrate key verbal presentations into an interesting and thought-provoking session, and to encourage the submission of posters and computer demonstrations. If you think you have something to contribute, please contact me at A.Rissone@nhm.ac.uk with Subject line "TDWG 2007: Building biodiversity data content", indicating whether you are proposing a verbal presentation (remember these are very limited), a poster or a computer demonstration.
I've been working on infanticide (zoology) for two or three days, and it will probably be coming up for did you know soon. I'd appreciate anyone looking over it or adding more themselves. It's clearly not complete yet, but a few more examples should do it (particularly of parents killing their own young). Richard001 08:41, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Can someone PLEASE (who knows what they're talking about) detail the various shapes that cristae take (discoid, flat, etc.), describing their differences, and possibly the purposes for different shaped cristae, either in the eukaryote, mitochondria, or cristae articles, or even create a new one. I would have done this by now, except the whole subject confuses me, and I don't have any sources that clearly explain them. Werothegreat 14:53, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Ciliophora is one of the more important protistan phyla, and its article has no subsections. It contains a bunch of stuff about ciliates, a taxobox, and then a seperate section detailing classes and subclasses. And a bunch of thumbnails. I'm gonna need some help on this one. Werothegreat 16:07, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Should the Taxoboxes section include how to use conservation status? I would appreciate some guidelines, and don't feel qualified to add it to the instructions myself. -- Donald Albury 13:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
At least, I think it's a question about templates. I'm hoping someone here will either know the answer, or know where to find someone who can help.
I've been busy with a series of articles on vipers, many of which use a template (?) that makes it easy to create external links to entries in a particular online database. An example would be the first link in
this external links section, the markup language for which looks like this:
These links used to be for records at the Reptile database at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). At one point late last year, the EMBL stopped hosting this database, upon which the man responsible for it, Dr. Peter Uetz, went looking for a new home for it. In the mean time, the code behind this template at Wikipedia was changed to work with the Species2000 database, even though that's only a subset of the original EMBL Reptile Database. Finally, about two months ago, Dr. Uetz's database went online again
here, but it seems that the folks at Wikipedia who maintain the EMBL template have not yet discovered this.
My question for you is therefore, how can I find out who maintains this template, or where can I find someone who can change it to query the Reptile database at its new location? Thanks! --
Jwinius 22:04, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
A new template, Template:Needtaxobox, is available for the purpose of tagging articles that do not yet have a taxobox. The "What links here" function can be used to comb through articles needing a taxobox. Badagnani 19:00, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Most high-level chromalveolate articles and many lower-level articles have had their taxoboxes changed to read Kingdom: Chromalveolata rather than (unranked): Chromalveolata. There have so far been no objections, and these changes have been standing for a while. I would like to take this one step further. I would like a unique taxobox color be chosen to represent the Chromalveolate kingdom, as Metazoa has pink, Plantae has Green, and Fungi has lightblue. Now, the last time I was bold and started changing taxobox colors right and left, there was an uproar and accusations of vandalism. I would like to avoid conflict this time by putting it to a poll. Post what color you feel it should be, and after a decent amount of time, say a week or two, or after we have sufficient nominations, we put it to a vote. Since this would take a lot of space, we could do this on the talk page of the chromalveolate article after we get started. Please remember, the following colors have been taken: pink, lightgreen, lightblue, khaki, brown (#e0d0b0), violet, lightgray, and darkgrey. Werothegreat 15:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
It's got a similar hue and saturation to the existing colours, but is easily discriminated. It's also less garish than the current option (which is my main argument against sticking with what we've got). Verisimilus T 16:46, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Here are the results of using Colour Contrast Analyser for Web Pages. According to the program, "Text or diagrams and their background must have a luminosity contrast ratio of at least 5:1 for level 2 conformance to guideline 1.4,and text or diagrams and their background must have a luminosity contrast ratio of at least 10:1 for level 3 conformance to guideline 1.4." I've added the contrast ratios to each of the color combinations used in ca:Wikipedia, with the standard blue link color (left column) and the redlink color (right column). Note that every combination except the last fails with redlinks. -- Curtis Clark 00:26, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
Blue link color | Red link color | ||
Animalia | pink | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 6.93) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.65) |
---|---|---|---|
Archaeplastida | lightgreen | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 7.50) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.95) |
Fungi | lightblue | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 6.98) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.68) |
Chromalveolata | #FA7B62 | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.08) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 2.15) |
Eukaryotae | #e0d0b0 | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 7.02) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.70) |
Bacteria | lightgrey | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 7.13) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.76) |
Archaea | darkgray | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.57) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 2.41) |
Virus | violet | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.60) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 2.42) |
Viroides | darkorange | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.56) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 2.41) |
Satèl·lits | #FFA000 | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 5.22) | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 2.75) |
Inespecífic | lightyellow | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 10.38) | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 5.47) |
Here's the new table with contrasts added. The program also tests contrasts for the three types of color blindness; we should check that as well on any candidate combinations.-- Curtis Clark 16:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
Animalia | pink | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 13.79) |
---|---|---|
Animalia | pink | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 6.93) |
Animalia | pink | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 5.87) |
Archaeplastida | lightgreen | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 14.91) |
Archaeplastida | lightgreen | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 7.50) |
Archaeplastida | lightgreen | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 6.35) |
Fungi | lightblue | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 13.89) |
Fungi | lightblue | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 6.98) |
Fungi | lightblue | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 5.91) |
Chromalveolata | #FA7B62 | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 8.12) |
Chromalveolata | #FA7B62 | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.08) |
Chromalveolata | #FA7B62 | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.46) |
Eukaryotae | #e0d0b0 | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 13.97) |
Eukaryotae | #e0d0b0 | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 7.02) |
Eukaryotae | #e0d0b0 | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 5.95) |
Bacteria | lightgrey | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 14.18) |
Bacteria | lightgrey | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 7.13) |
Bacteria | lightgrey | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 6.04) |
Archaea | darkgray | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 9.09) |
Archaea | darkgray | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.57) |
Archaea | darkgray | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.87) |
Virus | violet | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 9.14) |
Virus | violet | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.60) |
Virus | violet | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.89) |
Viroids | darkorange | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 9.08) |
Viroids | darkorange | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.56) |
Viroids | darkorange | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 3.86) |
Satèl·lits | #FFA000 | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 10.38) |
Satèl·lits | #FFA000 | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 5.22) |
Satèl·lits | #FFA000 | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.42) |
Inespecífic | lightyellow | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 20.64) |
Inespecífic | lightyellow | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 10.38) |
Inespecífic | lightyellow | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 8.78) |
New color | #F0b070 | Passed at Level 3 (The contrast ratio is: 11.28) |
New color | #F0b070 | Passed at Level 2 (The contrast ratio is: 5.67) |
New color | #F0b070 | Fail (The contrast ratio is: 4.80) |
Chromalveolata | GreenYellow |
---|---|
Archaea | #F3E0E0 |
Inasmuch as there will always be the possibility of visited links in the colored-background parts of a taxobox, we also need new colors for Virus and Viroid. There are all kinds of pastels in the RGB color space, so if we were inventing this from whole bits, it wouldn't be all that difficult. If we want to preserve colors already in use, we might check out taxoboxen in some of the other Wikipediae for colors with an adequate ratio. I guess what I'd like to know next is the consensus: Are we bound by existing colors, or do we want to go for optima?-- Curtis Clark 03:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Most of the wikipedias use pink/lightgreen/lightblue/khaki. The only real exception is the french wikipedia, which uses the khaki exclusively for alveolates for some reason, and uses teal for the rest. My assumption is that if we change our taxobox colors, the rest will most likely soon follow. Werothegreat 12:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
It's swings and roundabouts... These guys seem to think that Protista is a kingdom. How do we avoid POV in our Taxobox colours? Verisimilus T 12:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, I suppose it's become clear that there's little or no consensus in the scientific literature, on what to call the kingdoms, or even on what the kingdoms should be. Given the struggle one must go through to find consensus on anything in this place, it doesn't look like we stand much chance there. So: what do we do? The easiest way to avoid POV is to follow the Germans, and make everything the same unpleasant shade of wikipedia-blue. But I'm quite attached to the splashes of colour in articles, from a purely aesthetic perspective - and because I've nearly finished coding a bot to install my {{taxobox colour}} automater!
Emotional involvement aside, what do we aim to achieve with the colours? They're not adding information to an article, and in the vast majority of cases people don't need telling that something's a plant or an animal. In the event that it's not obvious, it often seems to be the case that the scientific jury is out.
So, much as it pains me, here's a suggestion for you to shoot down: Let's disable the colour parameter and make everything navbox-blue.
Verisimilus T 20:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't see what all the fuss is about. Unless we're going to take down the kingdom information from all infoboxes, what difference does colour make? Richard001 23:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Let's follow Verisimilus's suggestion and make everything navbox-blue for now. We can change it when the taxonomy gets sorted out, hopefully soon though I think much of the current system will get scrapped. Calibas 03:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm meant to be reading a lot of other things at the moment, but if someone could post details of a couple of the more relevant references here, I'd be interested to cast my eye over them and see what I make of them! Cheers, Verisimilus T 08:34, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I love NCBI. This recent paper (from July!) gives further evidence for the monophyly of Rhizaria, Retaria (a clade within Rhizaria including the Radiolaria [sensus stricto] and Foraminifera), and Excavata. Also, the Nucleariids are found to be sisters to Fungi, so could be included in an expanded eumycetal kingdom, and all other choanozoa are sisters to Animals, which could be included in an expanded metazoan kingdom. Centrohelids (here called Heliozoa) and Apusozoa are still not including in one of the six supergroups, but Apusozoa are thought to be at the bottom of the bikont tree. < http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17174576&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVBrief> Werothegreat 22:11, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
< http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17488740&ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum> < http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17726520&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum> These papers, published within the last seven days, together suggest that Chromavleolata is a sister group to Rhizaria. This blows the whole corticata/cabozoa dichotomy of bikonts (if this is even a valid clade anymore) out of the water. Wow. This is much better science than that four-kingdom crap. Werothegreat 22:25, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Werothegreat 22:29, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Don't everyone comment at once... has this conversation sadly died? Werothegreat 20:18, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
OK, not to be a topic necromancer, but we really can't just let this discussion die. This is an issue that needs to be settled. Werothegreat 20:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay, so there seems to be ample evidence for many of the higher-level groups, eg. Rhizaria. But, this still begs the question, where do we go from here? If we do decide that colours are useful, keeping fungi separate from animals seems to make a lot of sense for most readers. The bacteria and archaea groups don't appear too contraversial, either. I suppose the debate must be what we include in "plants" - if we're keeping animals and fungi seperate, perhaps restricting it to algae + land plants would be best. What other groups would we need - would Chromalveolata suffice? Verisimilus T 13:48, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Well? The Archaea color change would have to be approved by the archaea group, so someone would have to post on the archaea wikigroup (if there is one, if not the archaea article) talkpage. As for amoebozoa and rhizaria, nobody really cares about them, so a vote here to change their colors would suffice. So, who's for changing amoebozoa to #FFC8A0 and rhizaria to lavender? Or against, if you like.
Werothegreat 20:51, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
So... shall we start? With the changing of the colors? Werothegreat ( talk) 01:28, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Don't they usually take a while to respond anyway? Werothegreat 02:28, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Okay. In lieu of a bot, I'm going to start changing colors of higher level taxoboxes, in the hope that people will follow the trend and help out. Werothegreat ( talk) 02:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Ummm... the whole don't-give-a-color-and-it'll-give-the-right-one thing is working for chromalveolates, but not for rhizaria, amoebozoa, or excavata. Can this be fixed? Werothegreat ( talk) 15:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I created several wanted categories this morning, some of which duplicate existing names such as Elepids and Bovids. The duplicates should be merged, and one should become a redirect to the other, but which is better? Your input is requested... -- Prove It (talk) 22:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Greetings. Polbot is a bot that reads information from the IUCN and creates new stubs on plant and animal species. There is currently a request for opinions here regarding the linking of biologists' names. Any comments on that page would be welcome. – Quadell ( talk) ( random) 17:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Despite having some very specific animal projects, we have no central one to tie them together and allow for animal specific guidelines, discussions and assessments. Many animal related articles have to be assessed under the tree of life or even biology assessment scheme, despite being specific to animals. There are also other projects that could emerge from it in the future, such as one on animal behavior for example. With the project the pathway to improving zoology related articles is much clearer. If you are interested in creating this project please register your support and ideas here. All projects that come under the potential parentage of this one have been contacted. Richard001 09:13, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I've started working on a draft at User:Richard001/Animals draft. Feel free to work on it - it's extremely skeletal at the moment and needs a lot of development. Richard001 01:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I think this is an excellent idea, so I've added the proposal to the WikiProject Council. If there is enough interest to handle a project of this size, I will start the skeleton and we can get working on it. J. Hall • ( Talk) 18:10, 27 September 2007 (UTC)