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"List of mammal species" article

List of mammal species was just created. Could I ask project members to note their opinion on whether we a) need this, and b) if yes, what form it should take? In its current incarnation, I find it both ugly and undesirable. I suppose the most frequent problems with vast list articles - vague inclusion criteria, impossible to curate, open-ended and arbitrary selection - don't apply here; still I don't feel that this is the way to present a navigational article for mammals. We already have fine taxonomic navigation, and who the heck is going to look them up by alphabet? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:53, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

I hate to be one to style-shame, but that's pretty hard to wade through, @Cloud forest:. I do appreciate the effort, and think the article should be allowed to exist, after some sprucing up. I agree that a taxonomic listing is better than alphabetical. If the latter is still desired, a sortable table could be used. --Nessie (talk) 16:00, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Unless you wanna follow List of dinosaurs and keep the alphabetical order   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:42, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

I suppose - if a desirable list, then that would be a good format. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:13, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

A lot of work will be needed to turn the redlinks blue: every entry is linked by specific epithet alone. I'm working on the bluelinks to DAB pages. Narky Blert (talk) 14:25, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I'd favor we WP:TNT the article and start over with a taxonomic listing instead of alphabetical. Enwebb (talk) 14:29, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

There is already a List of mammal genera.   Jts1882 | talk  14:38, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I'd say just redirect there instead at a minimum if not TNT. The article isn't needed at all. I've gone ahead and PRODded it for now. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:17, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Deprodded by one of the usual suspects - was worth a try though. I'll try to make the time tomorrow to summarize this discussion and put it up at AfD. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:19, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm out of time for a bit to craft an AfD, otherwise I would have done that in response. I'll be back to revisit in a day or two though. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:37, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

If there's an AFD, I'll see it and contribute. I've made 32 edits to the page over 3 days, and I haven't finished with the bad links starting 'a-' yet. Narky Blert (talk) 17:13, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm unclear on why this page has been created and, in its current form it is not much use. Most of the species names are redlinked or link to inappropriate targets (disambiguation pages, place names, asteroids, plants, insects, etc) and it seems that it will take a lot of work to fix it. A sortable table might have some utility. Someone might be curious about how many species where named after a person (e.g. temmincki after Temminck) or place (sinensis). There would also have to be some indication of why the putative species included (i.e. sources). If someone made the effort to fix it, I would support its continued existence. Alphabetic listings are fairly common in encyclopedias, even though Wikipedia has other more convenient means of navigating. But in the current form it seems more appropriate in user or draft space.   Jts1882 | talk  14:36, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

The best place to find out about taxa named for or by Temminck, either by a common name or by a specific epithet, is in Coenraad Jacob Temminck. It isn't a difficult article to find. There are similar arguments for all other authorities and epithets. Narky Blert (talk) 00:03, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

As to why and where from: it's a straight copy from Wikiversity [1] where someone is having fun compiling huge taxo lists. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:00, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Ah, the same editor. There was a discussion about the purpose and need to make proper citations on the [users talk page and it didn't seem to be make much progress.   Jts1882 | talk  15:30, 25 September 2018 (UTC)#

This sort of pointless list, of enormous size and basically no encyclopedic purpose, and of course no citations, is exactly what Wikipedia does not need. If the creator can't take the hint from other editors then they'll need to take a more direct suggestion from an admin. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:43, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Chiswick Chap.....Pvmoutside (talk) 17:10, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Putting any misgivings of layout style and potential utility aside, I think Jts1882 is correct in identifying that the already existing article (List of mammal genera) is a better place to add any new contributions on this subject. Loopy30 (talk) 20:56, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I like List of mammal genera, which is organised by orders and families. I do not like this article. If you know enough to search for a species by the generic part of its binomial name, it's redundant. Narky Blert (talk) 23:47, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I am in general agreement with others on this. There is no constructive form to the list. I was not aware of these lists I also looked at the Reptilia one, not complete, and wonder where its going. They are so cluttered with text, effectively, with no structure it rendors them unusable. I wonder why Wikiversity is permitting this honestly. But not my decision. I do hope there are not plans to use this here. Link to better structured lists, wikispecies and wikidata for this type of info I think. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 00:35, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Well, the PROD has been removed, so AfD is the next step, if anyone feels like drafting a statement of the reasons for deleting it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:11, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Isn't it redundant? - youall already have List of placental mammals and List of monotremes and marsupials. Lavateraguy (talk) 08:08, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:23, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it is redundant as the organisation is different. Many people are not familiar with the taxonomy and might prefer an alphabetical listing. I personally don't find much utility in such lists as Wikipedia has better methods of searching for information, but if other editors are prepared to put in the work on such lists, I accept that others will find them useful. A more useful list might be one big sortable table with subclass, orders and families, but such a large table (>6000) entries probably wouldn't work well and is better suited to a database or spreadsheet that can be got from MSW3 or the ASM mammal diversity sites.   Jts1882 | talk  09:18, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

It's a historical accident that there wasn't already a list of mammal species, rather than the topic being divided between two articles. In theory you could merge those two articles, but there might be problems doing it cleanly. The list of mammal genera doesn't link neatly to the lists of species. (I've added See Alsos, but there may be a better solution.) I also note that list of mammal genera changes format halfway through, as if it's a work in progress. Lavateraguy (talk) 21:34, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

• I started an AfD discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of mammal species. Please feel free to comment as needed. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:04, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 16 – 30 September 2018

Facto Post – Issue 16 – 30 September 2018 The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page. To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer. Back numbers are here. The science publishing landscape In an ideal world ... no, bear with your editor for just a minute ... there would be a format for scientific publishing online that was as much a standard as SI units are for the content. Likewise cataloguing publications would not be onerous, because part of the process would be to generate uniform metadata. Without claiming it could be the mythical free lunch, it might be reasonably be argued that sandwiches can be packaged much alike and have barcodes, whatever the fillings. The best on offer, to stretch the metaphor, is the meal kit option, in the form of XML. Where scientific papers are delivered as XML downloads, you get all the ingredients ready to cook. But have to prepare the actual meal of slow food yourself. See Scholarly HTML for a recent pass at heading off XML with HTML, in other words in the native language of the Web. The argument from real life is a traditional mixture of frictional forces, vested interests, and the classic irony of the principle of unripe time. On the other hand, discoverability actually diminishes with the prolific progress of science publishing. No, it really doesn't scale. Wikimedia as movement can do something in such cases. We know from open access, we grok the Web, we have our own horse in the HTML race, we have Wikidata and WikiJournal, and we have the chops to act. Links ImageGrid SPARQL query for the Art+Feminism focus list on Wikidata. Run and then scroll ... The TABernacle tool for Wikidata editing, by Magnus Manske, has been upgraded. Demo with the ScienceSource focus list and main subjects: with a WiDar login you can edit directly in the table cells. Enslaved: People of the Historic Slave Trade, Michigan State University project for a linked open data platform. Quote: "Disambiguating and merging individuals across multiple datasets is nearly impossible given their current, siloed nature." As the Linked Data for Production (LD4P) project finishes its initial two-year cycle and moves into LD4P2, a list of its BIBFRAME and other RDF tools. Machine Learning with and for Semantic Web Knowledge Graphs, detailed slide pack by Heiko Paulheim, University of Mannheim. In Europe, Scientists Need to Share Their Research for Free if They Want Government Funding, Futurism, by Kristin House, 5 September 2018. If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:57, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Animals 'described in' decadal categories submitted to CfD

@ Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 October 3#Category:Animals described in the 1750s, per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comment: categorizing by year of formal description.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:05, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

'Vertebrates described in YYYY' categories submitted to CfD

@ Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 October 5#Category:Vertebrates described in 1771, per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comment: categorizing by year of formal description.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:57, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Bacteria 'described in' decadal categories submitted to CfD

@ Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 October 8#Category:Bacteria described in the 1780s, per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comment: categorizing by year of formal description.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:57, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

'Lepidoptera described in YYYY' categories submitted to CfD

@ Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 October 12#Category:Lepidoptera described in 1758, per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comment: categorizing by year of formal description & Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Insects#'Insects described in' category tree mostly ok?.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  21:28, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Fungi 'described in' decadal categories submitted to CfD

@ Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 October 13#Category:Fungi described in the 1750s, per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comment: categorizing by year of formal description.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:02, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Any desire to eliminate 'X described in the YYth century' type container categories?

Since removing the 'middlemen' decadal categories (e.g. Category:Plants described in the 2010s) is generally uncontroversial, I'm wondering what the opinions are about the century categories (e.g. Category:Fish described in the 20th century). The century categories' contents are limited, by definition, to 1 category page, since they'll always contain less than 200 entries. The resulting Category:Crustaceans by year of formal description-type categories would need up to 2 category pages, since they will have at most ~265 subcats, and it would take at least another ~35 years for them to spill over onto a 3rd category page. Is this enough of a barrier to want to keep the century cats, or is there another reason to keep them, or is there a desire to remove them?   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:20, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

The 'ideal' size of a category is a matter of opinion, but although I'm very much in favour of the removal of the decadal categories, I think it's worth keeping the century categories as per WP:DIFFUSE. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:17, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Category:Insects by year of formal description is the only tree I've seen so far that doesn't use century cats. They do exist, but are instead under Category:Insects by century of formal description, so there's a bit of duplication there, but this seems desired, as it looks well-organized. Just putting this here for reference. I started a project-specific discussion at WT:INSECTS#'Insects described in' category tree mostly ok?.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:01, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Struck: WT:TREE is a better venue than WT:INSECTS for what's being discussed here.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:46, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Category:Insects by year of formal description (which I worked on - I think it was incompletely realised in the scattergun approach of NotWith/Caftaric eg I created Category:Insects described in 1757) did have both centuries and decades. I modified it in 2017 to include all years to satisfy some comment at cfd, the details of which I forget. I also think it is worth keeping the centuries ones and also keeping or creating such as Category:Insects by century of formal description. Oculi (talk) 15:50, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

And that is the crux of the matter originally raised here. If Category:Birds by century of formal description is used (it's currently a dormant #R to Category:Birds by year of formal description), then all ~257 year-cats would go under Category:Birds by year of formal description, directly, with no intermediate century-cats. Otherwise, there would be a mismatch between cat name (year/century) vs. contents - in other words, "if it's important enough to distinguish 'year' and 'century' as their own cats, then they should only include years and centuries, respectively". Currently, with non-insect cats, the situation is more lax, probably due to the smaller deepest-category sizes, with century-of-formal-description cats residing under year-of-formal-description cats.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:30, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

@Tom.Reding: I don't see what's wrong with the category hierarchy:

Xs by year of formal description

Xs described in the Yth century

Xs described in YEAR

The intermediate level is just a way of making access to the large number of year categories easier. "Xs described in the Yth century" is a short-hand for "Xs described in the years of the Yth century". The alternative makes navigation more confused by replacing a tree by a net with no single starting place:

Xs by year of formal description     Xs by century of formal description
                       |                               |
                       |              Xs described in the Yth century
                       |               |
                      Xs described in YEAR

Peter coxhead (talk) 09:29, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: I think that is why Category:Species by period of description was created, to house both years and centuries, but that doesn't really help. Then there is a single starting point, but it splits in 2, and arrives at the same destination twice, by 1 longer and 1 shorter path.

I agree, a single starting point and less unnecessary duplication is better. I would also prefer that both insects and non-insects used the same general structure.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:08, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

@Tom.Reding:When I drew the category hierarchy for plants in 2013 (at Old revision of WP:WikiProject Plants/Description in year categories#Category hierarchy) it was based on both the consensus at WP:PLANTS and what seemed to be the situation for most other groups (I seem to recall the involvement of editors, like Stemonitis, who worked on plants and animal groups). Then NotWith/Caftaric/etc. began to muddle the system. Because there is still a pretty active bunch of editors at WP:PLANTS, we managed to keep 'our' system organized, but for many animal groups, the muddlers had a pretty free rein. I'd like to see the even simpler 3-level system (i.e. without decades) becoming universal. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:50, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

(Diagram now updated at WP:WikiProject Plants/Description in year categories#Category hierarchy. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:01, 8 October 2018 (UTC))

The current state of Category:Animals by century of formal description kind of says it all. *sharpens axe*   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:38, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Another argument in favor of the year-century-year structure, and pertaining to my 'crux' post above in response to Occuli, is that categories deeper in the tree be adequately described by all higher categories. If Xs by century of formal description grandparent cats were used, then grandchild Xs described in YEAR cats wouldn't really fit, because by-year is explicitly not by-century. However, Xs described in the Yth century is simply a narrowing of Xs by year of formal description, which then, as advertised, leads to a Xs described in YEAR.

Historical speculation: I could see Xs by century of formal description being used, if and only if Xs described in the Yth century was not a container cat, i.e. if Xs described in YEAR did not exist. This may have been the case historically,^{[citation needed]} (I would love it if someone could check, or knows, that, either way) and when those Xs described in the Yth century started to become too large, Xs described in YEAR were created, sparingly at first/as needed. Now we are at the point where all we use are year cats, making Xs by century of formal description obsolete.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:17, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

@Tom.Reding: I suspect it's different for different groups of organisms/different WikiProjects, but for WP:PLANTS, the "Plants described in YEAR" categories were started by Rkitko in March 2009‎, well after the "Plants described in CENTURY" categories he started in August 2008‎. A key point is that his categories were accepted by WP:PLANTS editors and documented at the WikiProject (the current documentation is an update by me based on what was present earlier), whereas Caftaric et al.'s categories were without consensus and, even more importantly, undocumented.

On the last point, when the current valuable round of tidying is over, I do think it's important to get some documentation/guidelines in place at WP:TOL. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:20, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Taxa described in

I've been trying to follow this discussion and have been browsing the category trees. Is Category:Taxa_described_in_the_18th_century correct or should Eucalyptus be in Category:Taxa described in 1789. And as the category doesn't exist, should it be manually created or is this automated in some way?   Jts1882 | talk  16:35, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

@Jts1882: the "Taxa described in" categories are a typical Caftaric creation: no discussion, no consensus, and woefully incomplete. Those that exist should be deleted, and as soon as possible. Plant genera aren't placed in any "described by" category; species, including the type species, are placed in the appropriate "Plants described in YEAR" category. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:00, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: I do see a benefit to the "Taxa described in" categories - that they serve as a container for "Fossil taxa described in" and "Species described in" categories. Whether or not this is enough to keep them, or if there's a better alternative, I don't know. Might notify WP:PALEO.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  00:18, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

@Tom.Reding: the real issue, as you have rightly raised elsewhere, is the "Fossil taxa described in" categories. They have all kinds of problems, such as including ranks not covered by the nomenclature codes, like orders, where priority doesn't exist, so it's not clear what "described in" means, and including extinct species that are too young to be fossils. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:44, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment - Lion subpages

Please see/contribute to discussion at Talk:Lion#Request_for_comment:_How_many_subpages?. Posting here mainly for those with an interest in how we cover or handle complex taxa. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:39, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

extinct daggers added to move extant species

I was updating some snake genera today, and noticed extinct daggers being automtically added to species from moves to another genus.......something off? see Stokes's sea snake, Jerdon's sea snake, Hydrophis peronii.

I had a similar problem with Apus species, solved thus. I have removed the 'extinct' parameter on Hydrophis, thus, which seems to have done the trick. I'm pretty sure complete removal of the parameter shouldn't be required. William Avery (talk) 12:38, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

@Pvmoutside and William Avery: apologies; that was caused by my oversight when trying to allow |extinct=no in taxonomy templates – see #Mangrove horseshoe crab above. I think it's fixed now. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:44, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Archaea/Species/Fossil taxa/Taxa 'described in' decadal categories submitted to CfD

@ Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 October 18#Category:Archaea described in the 1920s, per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comment: categorizing by year of formal description.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:01, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Mangrove horseshoe crab

Can someone figure out why this displays with the "extinct" dagger in the box although the template does not specify so? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 06:47, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes and no. Yes, because the reason is that genus template ({{Taxonomy/Carcinoscorpius}}) had the extinct parameter set to no (|extinct=no) rather than left unset (|extinct=). No, because this is not what I would have expected. It is according to the instructions which say "delete the extinct parameter or leave it blank" but it's not surprising people set it to no.   Jts1882 | talk  07:50, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

That's not supposed to happen. I'll look into it. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:36, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

I think it is a quirk of speciesbox from the way it passes the name to the core with an if conditional:

| species = {{#if:{{{extinct|}}}|†|{{Taxon info|{{#if:{{{parent|}}}|{{{parent}}}|{{#if:{{{genus|}}}|{{{genus}}}|{{first word|{{#if:{{{taxon|}}}|{{{taxon}}}|<includeonly>{{PAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>Acacia</noinclude>}}}}}}}}|dagger}} }}<!--
-->'''''{{str left|{{{genus|{{{taxon|<includeonly>{{PAGENAME}}</includeonly><noinclude>Acacia</noinclude>}}}}}}|1}}. {{{species|{{remove first word|{{{taxon|<includeonly>{{PAGENAMEBASE}}</includeonly><noinclude>Acacia aemula</noinclude>}}}}}}}}'''''

It needs something like {{#ifeq:{{{extinct|}}}|yes|....   Jts1882 | talk  15:30, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

@Jts1882: it's not so simple, alas. Part of the problem is that the original design of taxoboxes, implemented prior to taxonomy templates and automated taxoboxes, uses the extinct parameter supplied in the taxobox to hold the date of extinction for recently extinct species as well as to mean "is extinct". Look at the taxobox at Dodo, for example, which has |extinct=1662. Further, {{Taxon info|...|dagger}}, used to see if the genus is extinct if it's not specified that the species is, returns † if the taxonomy template has |extinct=no, because it too just tests for a nonblank value in the taxonomy template. There are likely to be more places that would need fixing.

So I was wrong to say above it's not supposed to happen; it's how the system was designed. But ideally I think it should be changed. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:23, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

I think the required logic in {{Speciesbox}} is:

IF extinct is not specified in the taxobox THEN
   set extinct to the value in the genus taxonomy template
ENDIF
CASE extinct OF
  no, false, blank: output nothing;
  any other nonblank (including yes, true, date string): output a dagger;
ENDCASE

It needs some thought and testing before changing such a well used template. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:56, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Your logic looks good to me, Peter. MeegsC (talk) 08:54, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

@MeegsC: thanks. I'm starting fixes with {{Don't edit this line dagger}}, which is ultimately where the information in a taxonomy template is queried to decide whether to output a dagger or not. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:11, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

As with everything to do with the automated taxobox system, it seems, it's turning out to be more complicated. (For those interested, the complication is with variant taxonomy templates; these use |same_as= to pick up information from another taxonomy template, but allow it to be over-ridden. The two templates could have different values for extinct, such as |extinct=no in one and |extinct=yes in the other, which has to be handled in Module:Autotaxobox.) Peter coxhead (talk) 13:13, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

I assumed there was an extra issue. I've notice that the Gambian mongoose has gone extinct since this morning when I first noticed the change to IUCN urls.   Jts1882 | talk  13:28, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

@Jts1882: it's back from extinction now! I'll let this change settle in and look out for any more errors being reported before moving on to the next step.

When I re-wrote the recursive traverse of taxonomy templates in the automated taxobox system in Lua, I deliberately changed as little of the rest of the code as possible. Some of it is very convoluted and hard to understand, partly because it was written by different people with different underlying assumptions as to how it should work, and partly because of multiple bug fixes and updates obscuring the original logic. In an ideal world, the whole system would be moved to Lua, but it's a large task and, as can be seen today, the slightest error can affect thousands or even hundreds of thousands of taxoboxes.

Peter coxhead (talk) 13:53, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I appreciate that. When I wrote the module for the clade template I dutifully followed the wikitext template to the letter (including the bugs in the table structure). It's only later that I could remove these. Incidentally, I wrote a module for the paraphyletic group template and have extended it to simulate the manual and automatic taxoboxes. It's far from a finished item, but could be something to build on long-term. See here.   Jts1882 | talk  14:47, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Update

I've fixed the use of |extinct=no in taxonomy templates – although it's still not recommended to use this parameter value, it does produce the expected behaviour.

I don't want to change the behaviour of |extinct=no supplied as a separate parameter to {{Speciesbox}}. The reason is that in addition to causing the addition of † to the species name when the genus isn't extinct, it's passed to {{Taxobox/core}}, which is shared by manual taxoboxes (a total of 390,000 transclusions), and used in the display of conservation status. So allowing |extinct=no in Speciesbox to mean "not extinct" involves changing several templates and potentially altering the behaviour of all taxoboxes, for no real benefit, I think, since I doubt anyone is tempted to add |extinct=no to a Speciesbox when the species isn't extinct. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:18, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Marking species as extinct when Speciesbox is used

Checking up on the changes I made earlier today (see #Mangrove horseshoe crab above), I found a very high proportion of articles that use {{Speciesbox}} where the species is extinct but the genus is not lacking † in the taxobox.

So I thought I'd point out that in such cases you need to add |extinct=yes to {{Speciesbox}} to show that the species is extinct by including † in the species row in the taxobox. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:34, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Looking at extinct felids I find the same. Few were marked extinct. One question, should the binomial/trinomial also have a dagger to indicate extinction. It's redundant but more consistent.   Jts1882 | talk  07:58, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

The general issue of the separate binomial/trinomial box has been discussed at some considerable length before; the main discussion was at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 35#Redundancies in the taxoboxes, I think. There was unanimous agreement to put the † in both places, BUT there was also unanimous agreement in that discussion to get rid of the separate binomial/trinomial box altogether. However, when I proposed alternatives, which I was prepared to try to implement, no decision was made on which to adopt, and the discussion petered out, so the status quo remains. Given that the separate box is still present, adding the † is probably the right thing to do. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:01, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

@Jts1882: the sandbox version of {{Speciesbox}} now adds † to the binomial box as well; see Template:Speciesbox/testcases. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:46, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

New Mammal database in place of MSW3??

Hi, this is picking up issues previously discussed above (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Two_issues) regarding the potential successor to MSW3 (2005 I think) for mammals, now significantly out-of-date. It seems there is some traction behind the new online Mammal Diversity Database (MDD) as an updated version of MSW3, see Burgin et al., 2018 https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/article-abstract/99/1/1/4834091, From the article abstract:

"Starting from the baseline of the 3rd edition of MSW (MSW3), we performed a review of taxonomic changes published since 2004 and digitally linked species names to their original descriptions and subsequent revisionary articles in an interactive, hierarchical database. We found 6,495 species of currently recognized mammals (96 recently extinct, 6,399 extant), compared to 5,416 in MSW3 (75 extinct, 5,341 extant)—an increase of 1,079 species in about 13 years, including 11 species newly described as having gone extinct in the last 500 years. We tabulate 1,251 new species recognitions, at least 172 unions, and multiple major, higher-level changes, including an additional 88 genera (1,314 now, compared to 1,226 in MSW3) and 14 newly recognized families (167 compared to 153)."

The database is online at https://mammaldiversity.org/ . It is published by the American Society of Mammalogists (not sure of any implications regarding their views as compared with any others). (By the way, I do not have access to the full paper in Journal of Mammalogy, and sci-hub cannot retrieve it at the moment...). In case of interest - Regards Tony Tony 1212 (talk) 00:06, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I've being watching this database for the last year. The ASM committee that oversees the database is the successor to the committee that used to oversee MSW. It's good in that the taxonomy is up to date and has nice options for searching via an API (described here), but progress has been slow since the beta version.   Jts1882 | talk  06:39, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

This database seems to be substantially more up-to-date (and promises to remain so), AND is easier to navigate. Those are big pros. The downside is that it seems to lack all information beyond the taxonomic bare bones, plus a distribution map. No details on taxonomic history, type locality, or even synonyms. So it may be a better source to document a species' taxonomic status quo, but provides little beyond that. If that's all that is wanted from this source - i.e., all other detail to be referenced to other sources anyway - then I'd say it would be useful. - NB, if anyone wants the paper and cannot get to it, drop me a mail. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 06:59, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Progress has been extremely disappointing. When I first saw the beta I thought this would be the MSW3 successor (and MSW4 is overdue with no signs of a publishing date) but now I'm dubious. The forum on the website is full of spam, which suggests little is happening.   Jts1882 | talk  15:12, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Question concerning extinction dagger placement

Please see Template talk:Speciesbox#Extinct dagger in binomial box for a discussion concerning the placement of † when {{Speciesbox}} is used for an extinct species. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:31, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Etymologies and derivations problem

Does anyone have suggestions on how to work on the issues that are being posted across numerous taxonomy articles by @Wimpus: (eg Talk:Cyrtopone, Talk:Iridomyrmex gumnos, and Talk:Petrocardium)? I asked the user not to change the etymologies in several articles where the source author was cited (and noted that taxa named with out an etymology explanation really shouldn't get one on WP per WP:OR) and now the user is actively finding any and all article where they feel the describing author has made a translation or sourcing error in the name and leaving talk page posts that should be addressed somehow. @FunkMonk: @Elmidae:@Lusotitan:@Plantdrew:@Peter coxhead:@Dyanega:--Kevmin § 19:18, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Well, it is very clear that OR is not allowed, so it should just be reverted on sight. FunkMonk (talk) 19:38, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

I disagree. It's not OR to give a sourced explanation of the meaning of a scientific name, regardless of whether the author did or not, especially if the source is one that is devoted to explaining scientific names, provided of course that the explanation isn't incorrectly attributed to the taxon author. See also my comment at Talk:Iridomyrmex gumnos. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:18, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

If the original description states a specific meaning (whether "correct" or not), we have to explain this was the intended name. We can not "correct" this, at most we can state afterwards that the given word can also be translated in another way. It is not up to us to judge whether something is incorrect or not. FunkMonk (talk) 20:26, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly my view. We state, with the ref, what the author said. We state, with a ref, what a reliable source on the meaning of scientific Latin says. It's then left to the reader. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:36, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

I tend to agree with FunkMonk on this, unless there are specific secondary references that discuss a names etymology, WP:Original Research would expressly prohibit making commentary on the "correctness" of a name or its roots. Right now the edits that are being made range from productive notes on slight inaccuracy with type description reporting, to full on complaining that the authors are not using the correct words (something that is not controllable by wiki). Giving a sourced explanation of a name, with no indication from the original describing author regarding said name, is fully original research.--Kevmin § 20:41, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

@Kevmin, Here you stated (without providing any additional source) that electrum is Latin, while the original author (Schultz, 2007) did not provide any language designation, only: "ETYMOLOGY: The species name indicates that this is a species of the pilosum group, and probably of the pilosum complex, in amber (electrum)." Similarly, in another case, you wrote, without providing any additional reference: "The specific epithet electra was coined by the authors from the Latin for "amber" ...", while the original authors stated about the epithet electra: "The specific epithet refers to amber." and did not mention at all whether they used the Latin word electrum or the original Greek word ἤλεκτρον (ēlektron) (or even another word). In the same Wiki article you wrote: "The generic name Protomycena is derived from a combination of the Latin proto meaning "first", and "Mycena"", while the original authors (Hibbett et al., 1997) wrote: "The generic epithet means ‘‘first Mycena.’’", without providing the word "proto" nor telling us from which language they derived this "proto-" part, that is actually not a full word nor it is Latin, but actually Greek, i.e. πρῶτος (prōtos). In those three cases, the first one, could be admissible, as the form "electrum", as provided by the authors, is clearly Latin. The second case, is however troublesome, as Greek ἤλεκτρον (ēlektron) could be equally valid. In the third case, information is added (clearly with the purpose to make the description of the original authors more intelligible) that is clearly incorrect and this lapsus could be prevented when an actual Latin or Greek dictionary was consulted. So, your quite strict on what "original research" might entail, but these three cases, might be sensu stricto, also examples of original research, but with different degrees of collateral damage. So, it seems that in case an original description is lacking some vital information (Greek or Latin? The actual word?), in some cases, you felt the necessity to complete the etymological description. Others, that might spot all kind of etymological inconsistencies in some articles, might equally feel the need to complete the etymological description. Wimpus (talk) 22:22, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

My original remarks can be read here. My question was whether it was sufficient to use/refer to a general Greek (or Latin) dictionary, in case the original authors' etymological explanation was incorrect, or that I had to use other sources, that would specifically deal with the incorrect derivations of the original authors. The latter would be the best solution, but I doubt there are enough sources that discuss individually these etymological slips of the pen. Wimpus (talk) 20:45, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

My two cents. Is it really such a fine line between OR and fixing an obvious error? If the describing author says a word is Greek and it's actually Latin, I don't see how pointing out the error constitutes a significant violation of OR policy, given that the discovery of the error is trivially accomplished, and trivially corroborated. Cases where an author misspells a scientific name are cited in numerous articles, as well, and those are not removed as being OR. A common class of such cases involves gender agreement: the ICZN mandates that all adjectival species names in zoology MUST match the gender of the genus at all times; since such corrections are mandatory and automatic (i.e., a correction is not given authorship, and cannot be cited), an editor correcting such a spelling error in a Wikipedia article is not violating OR by doing so. I would say that the same basic principle and logic can be applied here - so long as the edit is citing the original etymology, and pointing out an obvious and easily corroborated error involving that etymology, then this should be a non-controversial procedure. I agree that providing an etymology for a name where the original author did not is a different situation, and should probably be avoided, but goodness only knows how many such cases are actually already established in Wikipedia at this point! I'd be willing to bet that most of the species described by Linnaeus and Fabricius did not have formal published etymologies, and yet many of those taxon articles have etymologies (e.g. Papilio machaon and Papilio polyxenes). It's not ideal, and probably violates OR in the strictest possible sense, but it's also not harmful or misleading. I'd be inclined to accept it, done prudently.Dyanega (talk) 20:58, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

See for a related discussion on "31.2 Agreement in gender". By the way, my suggestion was not change the name of the Wiki article, but I was curious whether the name was valid (as I am not that familiar with ICZN). Wimpus (talk) 21:10, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Giving etymologies for component words in scientific names that were not explained in the original descriptions is "allowed", the problem is just when we try to make alternate translations from what the actual descriptions say. FunkMonk (talk) 21:28, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

This has little to do with validity as the etymology though desirable is not compulsory. There are examples of names where no one actually knows where the name came from and may even have been totally made up, eg Morelia. The etymology of the name should be what the authors considered it as meaning in their original paper. If the authors come along and correct this it is as Dyanega said quite trivial. I do not think this is an OR issue. Can be left as is. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 22:41, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

@Dyanega: you state that its automatic for gender fixes to happen. BUT wikipedia policy its ONLY to report what is already stated in sources, and never to make new synthesis or original research, this is where the problem occurs. An example is Merrifieldia oligocenicus which Wimpus notes is has a mismatch to the gender, but no source since the species was transferred has ever used matching gender for the species epithet. We here can NOT make that correction, as it absolutely violates wiki policy. and anything stating that its in violation would be walking a very fine line on WP:synth. The lack of enforcement on WP:OR and WP:SYNTH shouldnt actually be used as arguments for the numerous cases that are in wiki articles at the moment to continue, and they are a result of them being in areas that don't get as much outside review from editors that are familiar with policy. How many of those instances are core level articles or featured article reviewed, and how many are C, B, or A, rated species articles that have never been looked at from a broad point of review?--Kevmin § 23:48, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

You happen to be absolutely wrong about this point, there's no other way to say it. Your statement is exactly the opposite of how the ICZN works, as I explained in some detail on the Merrifieldia page.Dyanega (talk) 00:05, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

No actually i dont think I am, and I think your argument at Merrifieldia is seriously flawed, with you being unable to see the conflict between you as a ICZN commissioner and you as a wiki editor. WIKI will never be the first printed/written source for a new spelling, even though you say it should be. Wiki only ever reflects what is already written, and NO source uses Merrifieldia oligocenica, thus there is no grounds for wiki to make the change.--Kevmin § 00:31, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

The Wikipedia policies WP:original research and WP:original synthesis should cover this. Also see WP:righting great wrongs and WP:verifiability not truth. FunkMonk (talk) 00:37, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

There's a fine line here. I don't know about the ICZN, but the ICNafp is clear, for example, that incorrect gender agreements in species names are always to be corrected: "23.5. The specific epithet, when adjectival in form and not used as a noun, agrees with the gender of the generic name... Epithets not conforming to this rule are to be corrected [my emphasis] ... to the proper form of the termination (Latin or transcribed Greek)". So for botanical names, it's not only desirable but required in the case of error that we say something like: "ORIGINAL-AUTHOR first described the species under the name X yus. As X is feminine in gender,^{REF(e.g. Stearn's Botanical Latin)} the specific epithet should be ya.^{REF(e.g. Stearn); REF(ICNafp 23.5)}" This is perfectly in line with Wiki only ever reflects what is already written as shown by the use of references. In practice, for botanical names, I've found that when there's an obvious agreement error, it's very easy to get the IPNI to change their entry, which then provides an indisputably definitive source. Then you can write ""ORIGINAL-AUTHOR first described the species under the name X yus. The IPNI corrects this to X ya.^IPNI". The problem for zoological names is that there's no single equivalent to the IPNI. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:15, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Peter hits upon two of the primary points of relevance. (1) The ICZN also mandates that errors in gender MUST be corrected, just as in botany, but worded slightly differently: "31.2. Agreement in gender. A species-group name, if it is or ends in a Latin or latinized adjective or participle in the nominative singular, must agree in gender with the generic name with which it is at any time combined [emphasis mine]." (2) As Peter noted, there is no central authority for spellings of zoological names, and in a sense it's even worse than that, and I can explain the core problem briefly: since gender agreement is mandatory and automatic, no one EVER publishes papers with the sole intent to fix gender-matching errors. In plain fact, if someone were to submit a manuscript to a peer-reviewed taxonomic journal whose SOLE purpose was to correct a gender-matching error (where there is no ambiguity regarding the gender of the genus, and no ambiguity whether the species epithet was adjectival), no competent editor would send it out for review, and no competent peer-reviewer would recommend accepting it for print. I cannot in fact think of a single such paper in the history of zoological taxonomy, and if you're saying that WP won't budge until such a paper is published for a name like Merrifieldia oligocenica, then this is a serious and very damaging impasse. I have to go at the moment, but maybe if this needs to be discussed further, we need a new thread for it? Dyanega (talk) 18:36, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

The original author of the "coinage" Merrifieldia oligcenicus (Sohn, 2012) acknowledged in his dissertation (p. 320, p. 397) some "gender" violations in his previous work), but does not mention oligocenicus in relation to Merrifieldia. Maybe, I am a bit naïve, but shouldn't such violations be spotted by an attentive editor of a journal or book series? Wimpus (talk) 19:28, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

One problem that has occurred is that Latin tree names ending in -us are feminine (Euonymus, IIRC, however is a Latin borrowing from Greek, and is masculine), but high school Latin teaches that nouns ending in -us are masculine. This resulted in a lot of names being published with the epithet having the wrong gender. The ICNafp also has had to specifically state that compounds of certain Greek stems have a particular gender. Expertise in Latin hasn't been wide enough for such errors to be reliably caught for centuries - errors in epithetal gender are not a new phenomenon. (It can also be difficult to distinguish between an adjective and a noun in apposition.)

A further point is that Botanical Latin is not the same language as Classical Latin (it's a form of New Latin), so it is not clear to me that reference to Classical Latin dictionaries is sufficient in all circumstances. Lavateraguy (talk) 09:31, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Words in classical Latin (nominative singular) on -us can even have three genders: hortus (2nd. decl. m.), ficus (2nd decl., f.), virus (2nd decl., n.), words in classical Latin on -os can also have three genders: bromos (2nd decl., m. <βρόμος), diametros (2nd decl., f. <διάμετρος), ethos (3rd decl., n.,<ἦθος), words on -a can also have three genders: collega (1st decl. m), stria (1st decl., f.), aroma (3rd decl., n. <ἄρωμα), words on -um seem to be merely neuters: malum (2nd decl., n.), words on -on can also have three genders: horizon (3rd decl., m. <ὁρίζων), aedon (3rd decl., f. <ἀηδών), ganglion (2nd decl., n. <γάγγλιον). So, you have to be really careful, but you would expect that some editors are aware of these variations. Wimpus (talk) 12:28, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I'll agree that references to a dictionary of Classical Latin or Ancient Greek is not sufficient in each single case. Actually, I have Hentschel and Wagner's Zoologisches Wörterbuch and Stearn's Botanical dictionary just on the left side of my chair. So, in some cases, I double check, whether they differ from classical usage/orthography. But in using such dictionaries, you have to be knowledgable as well, as Hentschel and Wagner's Zoologisches Wörterbuch transliterate ου as u and it seems that Stearn's Botanical Latin writes κ as c, but if you pay attention, you would notice that in many instances it refers to Greek word elements, not Greek words as such. So, using an additional dictionary that would take into account modern usage/orthography would increase reliability. Wimpus (talk) 11:48, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I would have thought that WP:IAR plausibly applies to correcting epithet genders. There are cases where strict adherence to WP:SYNTH seems unreasonable - for example it would forbid putting together North American ranges of plant species by combining data from USDA (Angloamerica) and CONABIO (Mexico). Lavateraguy (talk) 09:39, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I think the stated etymology should be included, even if it's incorrect -- it should just be said in a way which doesn't make it seem like a fact. "[Author] chose [specific epithet] because he claimed "[Greek word] is Latin for [whatever]" is fine, but the wording should not presuppose a false statement, e.g., "[Author] named [specific epithet] after the Latin word [Greek Word], meaning [whatever]." Like, have the author's intention for the etymology, but don't word it in such a way that the article has incorrect information. Hopefully most of these examples have other taxonomic sources discussing the (incorrect) etymology -- I wouldn't rely on just a Latin/Greek dictionary to explicitly say the stated etymology is wrong, but it might be useful to add more information about the etymon referencing a dictionary. Umimmak (talk) 12:49, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 17 – 29 October 2018

Facto Post – Issue 17 – 29 October 2018 The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page. To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer. Back numbers are here. Wikidata imaged Around 2.7 million Wikidata items have an illustrative image. These files, you might say, are Wikimedia's stock images, and if the number is large, it is still only 5% or so of items that have one. All such images are taken from Wikimedia Commons, which has 50 million media files. One key issue is how to expand the stock. Indeed, there is a tool. WD-FIST exploits the fact that each Wikipedia is differently illustrated, mostly with images from Commons but also with fair use images. An item that has sitelinks but no illustrative image can be tested to see if the linked wikis have a suitable one. This works well for a volunteer who wants to add images at a reasonable scale, and a small amount of SPARQL knowledge goes a long way in producing checklists. Gran Teatro, Cáceres, Spain, at night It should be noted, though, that there are currently 53 Wikidata properties that link to Commons, of which P18 for the basic image is just one. WD-FIST prompts the user to add signatures, plaques, pictures of graves and so on. There are a couple of hundred monograms, mostly of historical figures, and this query allows you to view all of them. commons:Category:Monograms and its subcategories provide rich scope for adding more. And so it is generally. The list of properties linking to Commons does contain a few that concern video and audio files, and rather more for maps. But it contains gems such as P3451 for "nighttime view". Over 1000 of those on Wikidata, but as for so much else, there could be yet more. Go on. Today is Wikidata's birthday. An illustrative image is always an acceptable gift, so why not add one? You can follow these easy steps: (i) log in at https://tools.wmflabs.org/widar/, (ii) paste the Petscan ID 6263583 into https://tools.wmflabs.org/fist/wdfist/ and click run, and (iii) just add cake. Birthday logo Links Now Wikidata is six, Signpost Special Report Find out how @TheContentMine are attempting to mine scientific and medical literature to improve the accuracy of Wikipedia., Wikimedia UK tweet and video ScienceSource and the Semantic Web sciencesource-pmc-licenses tool by Oravrattas to extract Creative Commons license information from PubMed Central pages, created at the Cambridge Wikidata Workshop Whizzy use of SPARQL to map the London Underground system, whizzed past on Twitter. Wikidata birthday events mapped by SPARQL, too d:Wikidata:Sixth Birthday/Message from dev team If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:01, 29 October 2018 (UTC) !

Chipmunk

Anyone out there good with mammal taxonomy? I was about to add the taxoboxes to the chipmunks, but the taxonomy seemed out of whack a bit. I see listed on the main chipmunk page 3 subspecies, but on the species pages with 3 different genera, along with the links for each of tbe species as the different genera. I did read along the way there is some flexibilty with tbis group as far as using eitber 1 genus (Tamias) for all or the tnree genera as we cite the individual species, but nowhere did I see any subgenera being used....any preferences?....Pvmoutside (talk) 16:51, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Mammal Species of the World and ITIS both show subgenera (with everything in Tamia). It looks like the species articles were started as Tamias (presumably following MSW) and changed to a three genus system by Innotata in 2010. The newish mammal database (https://mammaldiversity.org) follows a three genus system, citing this paper. Plantdrew (talk) 18:26, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

looks like the IUCN also does the 3 genus system. Would that be your preference Plantdrew, or would you like me to do something else....Pvmoutside (talk) 18:42, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm inclined to go with 3 genera. But that's not a strong preference and mammals aren't my area of expertise. It's going to be a bit of a mess either way. With a split, chipmunk loses the taxobox and we need an article on Tamias. No split, and the other two genera need to be moved to subgenus titles. I'm a little worried about Tamias aristus; do we have source for it subgeneric/generic placement? Geographically, it does seem likely to be Tamias s.s. Plantdrew (talk) 19:35, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

so I went with the 3 genera split. Youre right it is a bit of a mess, but I did the best I could with all the splitting. I'm also not a mammal expert. I created a new article for Tamias, and added the extinct species already listed, but also moved the extinct Tamias species from the Eutamias article to Tamias, although I'm not sure how old those European Tamias species red links are (they may be Eutamias?). I also moved chipmunk to the subfamily thinking that is a better fit now. I have not moved the western NA chipmunks yet to the new genus or added speciesboxes since there are 23 of them and you may want to make changes. Let me know when all the articles satisfy you, and I'll make the other changes.....Pvmoutside (talk) 01:32, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Category:Mites described in 1959 has been nominated for discussion

Category:Mites described in 1959, which is within the scope of this wikiproject, has been nominated for merger to Category:Animals described in 1959. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:01, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Category:<Animal>s described in <year> with very confined scope and small size submitted to CfD

This includes the following animal cats: Anemones, Ants, Aphids, Bees, Caddisflies, Centipedes, Cicadas, Damselflies, Dragonflies, Fleas, Flies, Lacewings, Mantises, Mites, Scale insects, Sea cucumbers, Stink bugs, Termites, Ticks, Urchins, & Wasps, @ Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 November 4#Category:<Animal>s described in <year> with very confined scope and small size.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  22:20, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Type species categories

NotWith/Caftaric made Category:Type species and a bunch of subcategories and did their usual job of barely populating them. I don't think these categories are very useful, and was clearing them out until I was questioned about it. If these categories are desired, we need to come up with some clear criteria regarding what goes in them. Basionym vs. current combination? Type species of infrageneric ranks? Discussion at Category talk:Eukaryote type species. Plantdrew (talk) 22:04, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment - Lion subpages

Please see/contribute to discussion at Talk:Lion#Request_for_comment:_How_many_subpages?. Placing this here as has implications for lowest level splits etc. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:06, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Proposed merger of Northern lion and Panthera leo leo

Okay, I have gone and proposed a merger of these two articles, discuss at Talk:Northern_lion#Merger_proposal Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:06, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

African lion nominated for deletion

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/African lion Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:06, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Proposed merger of Cape lion, East African lion and Southern African lion into Panthera leo melanochaita

I have also suggested Cape lion, East African lion and Southern African lion be merged into Panthera leo melanochaita - see Talk:Panthera_leo_melanochaita#Merger_proposal Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:06, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

List of crotaline species and subspecies, List of viperine species and subspecies merger proposal

Before I update these, is tbere any value in keeping tbem, or can we make these redirects of the subfamily pages?...Species can be found on the genus pages, and would prevent creating double work.....Pvmoutside (talk) 18:07, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Featured quality source review RFC

Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. --IznoRepeat (talk) 21:36, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

IUCN References

The IUCN have updated their website and its seems that none of the links are working, using {{IUCN}}) or {{cite journal}}. They've change the url from "details/13922/0" to "...species/13922/45199653", where the last number is the electronic page number. I assume this is new as the doi link also doesn't work either. The old website addresses can be used accessed at oldredlist.iucnredlist.or. Hopefully they will make further changes as otherwise there are a lot of references that need changing.   Jts1882 | talk  07:44, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Oh fun. "A lot of references" doesn't cover it. This may need a bot. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:39, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Sooo... currently we don't seem to have a single working IUCN species link on the site. That's I don't know how many tens of thousands (?) broken links, clicked not that infrequently, often acting as a major source for the article. I find that really worrying, and not something we can just sit on. Would the IUCN give us some information on what the intended final state is with the DOIs? (I suspect we are responsible for a fair number of their incoming visitors...) Does someone have contacts there? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 10:10, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

The other alternative would be to get a bot going, to concatenate the page number with the species ID following the new format (provided above). Which would presume they stick with that now... --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 10:13, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

The # of pages using "iucnredlist.org/details" is ~22k. 2770 of these are bare URLs which will probably have to be converted by hand, and ideally they could be converted to {{cite journal}}s during this process. Not all of the templated ~19k will be easily convertable, that's more of an upper limit. I'll post back here when I've got a stable version going for BRFA, but in the meantime if effort could be focused on those 2770 that would be most productive.

I started with the list of IUCN bare URLs and whittled it down to 2655, but the search returns (2805) are now higher than when I started. Loopy30 (talk) 02:34, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Number of search returns are still rising, and is now over 2900... Loopy30 (talk) 17:53, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

The main problem I see is that, if the link points to the most recent assessment, with no specific DOI, then the Wikipedia text that is being referenced needs be to confirmed with one of the available assessments (ideally updated to match the most recent assessment, then solidified via DOI in the URL). If there hasn't been as assessment for some time, then it's easier to assume than if there had been several.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:54, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

There are several parts to fixing this problem. The first two involve the {{IUCN}} and {{cite journal}} templates and then there is the doi deadlink.

1. There is no permanent fix for {{IUCN}} template without an electronic page number or doi. The template can be modified to use their oldredlist site, which at least would provide a temporary solution for the deadlinks. This can be done using the template modified by User:Markussep ({{IUCN/sandbox/lua}}), which continues to use the {{cite web}} template. Alternatively, my lua module version ({{IUCN/sandbox/lua}}) does the same thing using the {{cite journal}} template. I see no reason not to do this now, while permanent solutions are considered.
2. Then there are the references using the {{cite journal}} template directly. These have electronic page numbers so the url can be updated for the new redlist site. I have created a template ({{cite iucn}}) which is a wrapper for {{cite journal}}. If the reference is up to date, it just passes the parameters to {{cite journal}}. If it contains a url for the old site, it ignores this and passes a url generated using the numbers in the electronic page number. This change needs to be made manually by changing the reference from "cite journal" to "cite iucn". The url doesn't need to be edited (as it is ignored), although long-term it is preferable to change it or remove it (as redundant). Ths would need a bot.
3. The third issue is the doi. I assume the IUCN will work with the IDF to fix this, so there isn't much we can do now.
4. There is also the matter of all the older templates in the IUCN template family. These all have the same problem as {{tl:IUCN}} and have to use the old redlist site or the web archive.

User:Tom.Reding thinks there might be an issue using wrappers for the citation templates, but it seems to me that the wrapper is the appropriate approach. The current {{IUCN}} template is a wrapper to {{cite web}} so there was no objection when the template was created. And if when the switch to using {{cite journal}} as the preferred IUCN reference format a wrapper template had been used, the change to the new redlist website now could have been made simply by modifying the template. The wrapper template future-proofs against any later changes made by the IUCN.   Jts1882 | talk  08:48, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Jts1882, I've raised my questions/concerns at Help talk:Citation Style 1#Wrapper template as a solution to IUCN Red List URL changes, due to their scope.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:01, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Happily, the IUCN link in the taxonbar of each article still points to the old IUCN red list page, so that works. Loopy30 (talk) 23:51, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

{{taxonbar}} uses Wikidata and the formatter url of the redlist property has been updated to use the oldredlist.iucnredlist.org urls. This is the change I think we should make for the {{IUCN}} template, at least as a temporary solution to fix the thousands of deadlinks while a broader solution is determined.   Jts1882 | talk  07:00, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

{{IUCN}} updated to use oldredlist.iucnredlist.org.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:17, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that the example link to Passer domesticus on the Template:IUCN page no longer exists. Perhaps we could use a different example? Thanks, Pagliaccious (talk) 17:38, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I've changed the documentation example to the latest assessment for Passer domesticus.

How are we supposed to handle amended assessments? Should "(amended version of 2016 assessment)" be added to the title or is there a better way (which doesn't include the text in the linked title)? Any wrapper template for {{cite journal}} also needs to handle this.   Jts1882 | talk  06:54, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

iucn template hack

I have hacked {{IUCN/sandbox}} to use Module:Template wrapper/sandbox. The sandbox version of the module can associate {{IUCN}}-specific parameter names (|assessorn=, etc) with standard cs1|2 parameter names. The template sandbox extracts the ID from |doi= (if present) for use in constructing a value for |url=; when |doi= not present, the template uses |id=. Both of these rely on template code implemented by Editor Markussep. Examples here use the minimum of cs1|2 parameter names. First using |id=14144/4408913 to construct |url=:

{{IUCN/sandbox
| id = 14144/4408913
| taxon = ''Myotis ater''
| assessor = Wiles, G.
| assessment_year = 2008
| version = 2018-1
| downloaded = 26 October 2018
|new=y
}}

{{IUCN/sandbox
| id = 14144/4408913
| taxon = ''Myotis ater''
| assessor = Wiles, G.
| assessment_year = 2008
| version = 2018-1
| downloaded = 26 October 2018
|new=y
}}

and this one uses |doi=10.2305/IUCN.UK.2008.RLTS.T14144A4408913.en to construct |url=:

{{IUCN/sandbox
| taxon = ''Myotis ater''
| assessor = Wiles, G.
| assessment_year = 2008
| version = 2018-1
| access-date = 26 October 2018
|new=y
|doi=10.2305/IUCN.UK.2008.RLTS.T14144A4408913.en
}}

{{IUCN/sandbox
| taxon = ''Myotis ater''
| assessor = Wiles, G.
| assessment_year = 2008
| version = 2018-1
| access-date = 26 October 2018
|new=y
|doi=10.2305/IUCN.UK.2008.RLTS.T14144A4408913.en
}}

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:33, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk:. This is nice and potentially very useful for citing various biology resources. Is there a way of using the wrap() function in a module. I've tried setting frame.args['_template'] = "cite journal" but this doesn't get passed with the frame object when using wrapper = require("Module:Template wrapper/sandbox") and wrapper.wrap(frame). I know frame objects behave differently (using metatables?) which means I'm probably missing something important.   Jts1882 | talk  13:34, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Module:Template wrapper is a general purpose template utility, never intended to be called from within a module. It is not clear to me why one would want to call it from within a module. Care to explain the why behind your question?

Here is the output of mw.dumpObject (frame) from one of the example templates above. Along with the ubiquitous args table, you can see that it also holds several functions:

 ["args"] = table#2 {
   metatable = table#3
   ["_alias-map"] = "assessors : authors,\
              vassessors : vauthors,\
              assessor# : last#,\
              assessor#-link : author#-link,\
              assessor-link# : author-link#,\
              assessorlink# : authorlink#,\
              assessor#-mask : author#-mask, \
              assessor-mask# : author-mask#, \
              assessormask# : authormask#,\
              display-assessors : display-authors,\
              displayassessors : displayauthors,\
              last-assessor-amp : last-author-amp,\
              lastassessoramp : lastauthoramp,\
              assessment_year : year,\
              taxon : title,\
              downloaded : access-date",
   ["_exclude"] = "id, version, new, IUCN_Year, iucn_year, criteria-version",
   ["_template"] = "cite journal",
   ["publisher"] = "International Union for Conservation of Nature",
   ["ref"] = "harv",
   ["url"] = "https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/14144/4408913%22,
   ["work"] = "IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2018-1",
 },
 ["argumentPairs"] = function#1,
 ["callParserFunction"] = function#2,
 ["expandTemplate"] = function#3,
 ["extensionTag"] = function#4,
 ["getArgument"] = function#5,
 ["getParent"] = function#6,
 ["getTitle"] = function#7,
 ["newChild"] = function#8,
 ["newParserValue"] = function#9,
 ["newTemplateParserValue"] = function#10,
 ["preprocess"] = function#11,
}

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:05, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Update - old IUCN Red List links are now being redirected internally by IUCN to map to new Red List page. Problem solved. Loopy30 (talk) 04:23, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

That's excellent news. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:00, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Nice, good thing they finally got round to that. --Elmidae (talk · contribs)

A dog-related AfD

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Not sure if ToL cares about landraces and feral populations and alleged breeds, since they're sub-subspecific. This AfD is about evenly split and is just going to end in a "no consensus" if there's not further input: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Double-nosed Andean tiger hound.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:06, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps William Harris has something to say. FunkMonk (talk) 07:01, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Mac is correct, TOL has no interest below subspecies level. However, I will now cross to the AFD page. William Harris • (talk) • 08:36, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Wow! (?): A new kingdom or superkingdom - Hemimastigophora (e.g. Hemimastix) "outside of all established eukaryote supergroups ... instead comprise an independent supra-kingdom-level lineage"

Published: 14 November 2018

"Hemimastigophora is a novel supra-kingdom-level lineage of eukaryotes"

Gordon Lax, Yana Eglit, Laura Eme, Erin M. Bertrand, Andrew J. Roger & Alastair G. B. Simpson

Nature (2018)

"Here we report phylogenomic analyses based on high-coverage, cultivation-independent transcriptomics that place Hemimastigophora outside of all established eukaryote supergroups. They instead comprise an independent supra-kingdom-level lineage that most likely forms a sister clade to the ‘Diaphoretickes’ half of eukaryote diversity (that is, the ‘stramenopiles, alveolates and Rhizaria’ supergroup (Sar), Archaeplastida and Cryptista, as well as other major groups)."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0708-8.ris

- - - - -

"Rare microbes lead scientists to discover new branch on the tree of life"

CBC News · Posted: Nov 15, 2018

"Canadian researchers have discovered a new kind of organism that's so different from other living things that it doesn't fit into the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, or any other kingdom used to classify known organisms.

Two species of the microscopic organisms, called hemimastigotes, were found in dirt collected on a whim during a hike in Nova Scotia by Dalhousie University graduate student Yana Eglit.

A genetic analysis shows they're more different from other organisms than animals and fungi (which are in different kingdoms) are from each other, representing a completely new part of the tree of life ..."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/hemimastigotes-supra-kingdom-1.4715823

- 189.122.238.134 (talk) 15:20, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

• I think Hemimastigophora probably warrants a proper article based on that - rather than just being a redirect - any experts in the house? EdwardLane (talk) 12:24, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Little penguin messed up?

Can someone help clarify the situation at Little penguin and Eudyptula novaehollandiae?

• a) are we talking species or subspecies for E. novaehollandiae? Avibase and EoL still have it as E. minor novaehollandiae, so how accepted is the classification as separate species? Based on how this fundamental split has been shoehorned into Little penguin with one small "see also", I'm having my doubts here.
• b) if it IS a separate species, then the article Little penguin would be all kinds of messed up, since almost the entirety of material therein is about Australian populations (i.e., E. novaehollandiae rather than minor). In that case most of the content would have to be ported over to Eudyptula novaehollandiae, leaving only the NZ material.
• c) if we are still treating it as a subspecies, then Eudyptula novaehollandiae needs a rewrite (or rather, as FunkMonk notes, a merge)

Thoughts? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:18, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

If they are subspecies, they should be merged. FunkMonk (talk) 14:38, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

There is a proposal to elevate the Australian subspecies to species, included in the "Taxonomic recommendations" section of Grosser et al (2015). However a google search for "Eudyptula novaehollandiae" finds little beyond that paper and a few news reports about a new species. It's still a subspecies on the IOC list (version 8.1) and and the BirdLife International/IUCN lists. Boyd's World Bird list has it at species, though. It seems the new article is premature and there doesn't seem enough material to justify a subspecies article.   Jts1882 | talk  15:43, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Alright, I merged the material to Little penguin#Taxonomy for the time being. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:30, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Basal and primitive

I just noticed we have both an article called Primitive (phylogenetics) and Basal (phylogenetics). To my knowledge, the terms are just synonyms, with the former having gone out of favour in recent years. If that's the case, the two should be merged. FunkMonk (talk) 17:11, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

The first link out says the term is not preferred, and it seems a legacy of an outlook that predates genomics, maybe Darwin, so the parenthetical dab appears awkward. According to the boxified arrangement in the template:Phylogenetics, the article embraces Plesiomorphy and symplesiomorphy which in turn redirect to Plesiomorphy and symplesiomorphy, so I assume the primitive article content has places to go and that title can be widowed, immediately or eventually. cygnis insignis 18:31, 25 November 2018 (UTC)