Template talk:Cleanup taxon

More info

Can this template include more specific reasons for its use? I.e synonymy or nomen dubium? And if WoRMS is the source, can it be cited/linked by the template? --Nessie (talk) 17:01, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

NessieVL the concern parameter can be used for this purpose. — Ganeshk (talk) 23:25, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Invalid vs. unaccepted or incorrect or ?

I just added a first attempt at documentation, please fix as needed. As I mentioned at WP Gastropods, I would recommend we use a more generally applicable word than valid or invalid, as it has different meanings for plants/fungi/algae/bacteria vs. animals.

The template should read instead something like "This taxon/name may be unaccepted" or "incorrect" and the category, "Category:Taxa that may be unaccepted", or "incorrect", or ?? instead. Folks like @Dyanega, Peter coxhead, Obsidian Soul, and Sminthopsis84: might have better ideas on the wording. —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 18:02, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't think that "accepted"/"unaccepted" is right; acceptance of a taxon is a purely subjective matter, as the word is normally used, and some sources may accept a taxon when others don't. We don't flag that up by a category, but rather discuss usage in all sources. "Incorrect" – maybe. The botanical term that I would expect this category to be used for is "illegitimate", I think. However, I can't recall the category being used for plants, so maybe keep it for zoological taxa? Peter coxhead (talk) 18:07, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Don't know really... Glossary of scientific naming#Latin descriptions of names or taxa are all pretty specific as to what is problematic with the name. And like Peter coxhead said, whether a taxon is accepted or not is usually dealt in text, i.e. "Some authors consider Bla bla to be a subspecies of Bla bloop", etc. So I'm struggling to think of a situation where this template is useful. A joke taxon would of course, just be deleted outright, misspellings would just be corrected, unequivocal junior synonyms would just be redirected, and so on. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 18:38, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

The utility is in systematically highlighting articles for potential clean-up through a category, i.e. these 1,311 articles tagged by a Ganeshbot: Category:Taxa that may be invalid which need to be checked and moved to the accepted/valid name if appropriate. example —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 18:43, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

There are, in zoology, only a few actual classes of names, but various reasons for a name to be in a given class. The primary division is "available" versus "unavailable". The latter class can never be used as an actual scientific name, regardless of taxonomic opinion, and there are lots of sub-classes (e.g., nomina nuda, homonyms, misspellings, etc.). The former class can be subdivided into "valid" names and "invalid" names. The former is a name that is actually being used for a known taxon, the latter is any name for a known taxon that is NOT being used, usually because of taxonomic opinion (e.g., synonyms). Sort of the odd one out are nomina dubia, which are names applied to unknown organisms. They are theoretically available and theoretically valid, but impossible to match up to anything. Realistically, neither Wikipedia nor Wikispecies should have articles for anything that is either unavailable or a nomen dubium. Dyanega (talk) 20:32, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

It was my understanding that this category is for taxa that may be junior synonyms, obsolete taxa, etc. (all the reasons Obsidian Soul mentioned) so that they can be cleaned up. The same way adding {{missing-taxobox}} is used: It highlights a problem that someone found and cannot solve either for lack of expertise or lack of time. Is that not what this template and category are for? Because that's how I have been using the template.--Nessie (talk) 20:53, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

How about play it safe with something like "This taxon needs to be verified for accuracy"? We can't use dubious, invalid, incorrect, erroneous, rejected, uncertain, illegitimate, since those refer to specific problems with the name.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 04:27, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

That sounds good. The only other thing i can think of is the super basic 'needs attention.' I also want to page @JoJan: since they seem to be the only one removing articles from the category. --Nessie (talk) 13:32, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

"Needs attention" would work for me...and then just be more explicit in the "concern" area. "This taxon needs attention (concern=)" and Category:Taxa that need attention, e.g.

• "This taxon needs attention (unaccepted in World Register of Marine Species)"
• "This taxon needs attention (nomen dubium in MolluscaBase)"
• "This taxon needs attention (synonym in Plants of the World Online)"
• This taxon needs attention (not listed in The Reptile Database)"

etc. There is some overlap here with the WikiProject TOL talk template code attention=yes, but having it on the article rather than the talk page, as well as not being restricted to taxa that have WikiProjects, is more helpful from a sorting perspective. —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 15:24, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

""This taxon needs to be verified for accuracy or ""This taxon needs attention (reason)" sounds good to me. I'm working in the WikiProject gastropods and rely on WoRMS for accurate taxonomy. The word "invalid" does not cover the true reason the species or genus is being mentioned in the list by Ganeshbot. WoRMS actually uses in these cases the word "unaccepted" for synonyms or" for anything that is not accepted". Some of these are "alternate representations", others have become a synonym but very few are really "invalid". The database WoRMS (with already more than 1,300,000 articles) is growing at a phenomenal rate: last year alone 8,770 marine spp. were added (1,963 validly published in 2018) and there were 129,980 taxonomic edits/additions (not all, but many of these concerned gastropods). Understandably the few contributors in this project cannot follow such a fast range of changes. One would need a whole army of volunteers. Many of these changes in WoRMS concerned articles already present in Wikipedia. These articles have to be updated, with relevant changes in the list of genera of the old name of the species and the new name (in case of synonyms) and sometimes creating an article for a genus or even a family. But the work doesn't stop there. The Commons, Wikispecies and wikipedias in other languages all have to be checked also. The "category:Taxa that may be invalid" may/should be renamed, but it has certainly a good reason to exist. JoJan (talk) 15:47, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Subcategory

Should we add a parameter to sort the taxa into subcategories, gastropods, reptiles? — Ganeshk (talk) 18:10, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

No, this can already be done by searching for overlapping taxon categories in Petscan: Cerithiidae taxon articles that may need attention —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 22:07, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Ok, that works. — Ganeshk (talk) 23:26, 19 January 2019 (UTC)