Help:Author Names

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Contents · General Wikispecies · Taxonavigation section · Name section · Reference section · Vernacular names section
Image Guidelines · Author Names & Author Pages · Project Templates · Project sources · Translation

Author Names

The Name section of an article about a taxon should contain the sanctioning author of that taxon. This should be linked to the appropriate Author Name article. We maintain articles in Wikispecies with minimum information. Ensure that a corresponding Wikidata item exists.

For each of the coauthors there should be entered a separate category, and preferably on separate lines for sake of legibility. For 3 coauthors X, Y, Z, the way to do it would be:

[[Category:X taxa]]
[[Category:Y taxa]]
[[Category:Z taxa]]

For technical reasons there should be no spacing following the colon punctuation mark. Please note that these categories should only be included on taxon pages, and always at the very bottom of a page.

Format of an Authority page

Author pages should include the following subsections, in the same order as shown below. (It's okay to leave out a subsection if it would otherwise be left empty, for example if an author hasn't named any taxa, or has no eponymous taxon names coined after him.)

Heading information

First line should consist of the author's name (in bold), years of birth and, if deceased, death (within parenthesis; months or days may be given if needed for disambiguation), followed by the author's nationality and scientific disciplines (with specialities, if known).

Second line should list the author abbreviation (in bold), if known.

Third line can be a very brief description for clarification. There may sometimes be more clarifying information, especially if there is another author with a similar name (often the case with for example parents/children, siblings, or spouse within the same field of work). Adding these may help disambiguate between them when searching for an author of a specific taxon, hence those additional author names should preferably be linked to their respective Wikispecies pages. Lastly an address to place of work can be added, if available.

Named taxa

This section shows information automatically fetched from the [[Category:X taxa]] mentioned above. This is done by adding the {{Taxa authored}} template, in the following way:

{{Taxa authored}}

Nothing more, nothing less. The "Authored taxon names" section should not include an inline list of the taxa named by an author. The reason for this is that some authors have named hundreds or in some cases even several thousands of taxa. Listing them all directly on the author pages would clutter up the information and make the pages hard to read, as well as manage. Instead the above code will automatically add a link to the category, which in turn lists all of the taxon names by that particular author. Also, merging taxa pages together in author specific categories can help when searching.

List of eponyms

This section shows information automatically fetched from categories such as [[Category:Eponyms of X]] (though the letter "X" should be replaced by the name of the person after whom the taxon is named). This is done by adding the {{Eponyms}} template, in the following way:

{{Eponyms}}

Nothing more, nothing less. The "Eponyms" section should not include an inline list of taxa named after a person. Instead the above code will automatically add a link to the correct category, which in turn lists all of the eponyms of that particular person.

Taxonomic Works

It is helpful to include a bulleted list of the author's published taxonomic works under the sub-heading == {{int:Publications}} ==, followed by the {{Inc}} template. In this section the publications can be added as References or as Reference Templates. Thus, showing an example with one reference followed by a reference template:

== {{int:Publications}} ==
{{Inc}}
* {{a|Arthur Gardiner Butler|Butler, A.G.}} 1876. Revision of the heterocerous Lepidoptera of the family Sphingidae. ''Trans. zool. Soc. Lond.'' 9 [http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30865431 511–644.]
{{Stempffer, 1967}}

If a reference template exists, it should always be used in preference to repeating the text.

Reference Templates are much preferred if the reference contains many new taxa and is likely to be usable on a number of taxon pages.

Links

This section can include links to a biography or curriculum vitae, staff page at place of work, profile at ResearchGate, etc.

== {{int:References}} ==
=== {{int:Links}} ===
* [http://www.nybg.org/bsci/staf/buck.html CV at The New York Botanical Gardens]

Full example of an author page

{{image}}
'''Georges Cuvier''' (1769–1832), French naturalist and zoologist. Elder brother of [[Frédéric Cuvier]] (1773–1838), French zoologist and palaeontologist.

{{Author abbreviation|Zoological}}: '''J.Fabr.''' <!-- If you deal with a botanist/mycologist, use {{IPNI standard form}} instead. -->

{{Taxa authored}}

== {{int:Publications}} ==
{{Inc}}
* 1st publication
* 2nd publication
* etc...

== {{int:References}} ==
* {{aut|Faria, F.}} 2012. Georges Cuvier: do estudo dos fósseis à paleontologia. São Paulo: ''Scientiae Studia & Editora'' 34.

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuvier, Georges}}
[[Category:Taxon authorities]]
[[Category:Naturalists]]
[[Category:Zoologists]]

Adding entries to Catalog:Taxon Authorities

Catalog:Taxon Authorities should contain the list of all taxon authorities referenced by Wikispecies. Authors are added alphabetically by last name. If they have an "official" abbreviation, it is listed in bold in parentheses. We consider IPNI to be the official source of abbreviations for botanists.

Add the link to the article along with the years of birth and death.

References for Taxon Authors

There are a number of sources for information about Taxon Authors.

The French Wikipedia has a well developed science history portal: Portail sur l'histoire de la zoologie et de la botanique

Most Wikipedias have lists by author abbreviation:

There are also a number of Internet sources.

For botanists IPNI is considered the official source for abbreviations
For ornithologists zoonomen holds quite a bit of information.
For marine biologists Biographical Etymology of Marine Organism Names (BEMON) gives a lot of background information.

Authority Control

Include the {{Authority control}} template, as shown above. It will automatically import values from Wikidata. If no values are found, the template does not display.