Welcome to Wikispecies!

Hello, and welcome to Wikispecies! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages you might like to see:

If you have named a taxon, then it is likely that there is (or will be) a Wikispecies page about you, and other pages about your published papers. Please see our advice and guidance for taxon authors.

If you have useful images to contribute to Wikispecies, please upload them at Wikimedia Commons. This is also true for video or audio files containing bird songs, whale vocalization, etc.

Please sign your comments on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username (if you're logged in) and the date. Please also read the Wikispecies policy What Wikispecies is not. If you need help, ask me on my talk page, or in the Village Pump. Again, welcome! OhanaUnitedTalk page 00:03, 3 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Corynoptera images edit

I saw that you're a taxon expert in Corynoptera. Are you interested in providing images for Wikispecies? OhanaUnitedTalk page 05:33, 11 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

Generally, we prefer the image of the whole organism as opposed to a close-up view of the organ that differentiate a species commonly required in a journal. Even if a paper is open access (e.g. Zootaxa), the journal *might* retain the copyright of these images used in papers submitted. Some journals such as ZooKeys are not only open access, but explicitly stated that their papers are licensed under Creative Commons license (a circle with "CC" in it) then all contents like text, images, and tables are reusable in Wikispecies or Wikipedia as long as attribution is provided. If you see the traditional "copyright logo" or "all rights reserved" in the journal paper, then it's safe to assume that you cannot use those images even it is from your own paper. Nonetheless, if you have images that are not used/submitted to a journal, you can upload them. Please let me know if you need help while uploading those images. OhanaUnitedTalk page 01:10, 12 May 2011 (UTC)Reply
How about both an overall photo and a photo that distinguishes the species? OhanaUnitedTalk page 05:36, 2 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

Synonyms edit

Hi, it makes far more sense to have pages for synonyms, not just because it makes it easier to shift pages, but also because:

  1. For most taxa, which are unrevised, we are effectively just dealing with names anyway
  2. we need to be able to enter a name from its primary reference, and worry about placement as synonym or otherwise later
  3. it is often good to add an image (or link to an image) of the holotype of a synonym, even if we already have another image more representative of the species
  4. having synonyms just listed on the one page makes it more complex to highlight primary references

it is not compulsory for you to follow this, but neither do I consider that there is anything to be gained from complaining about it, thanks ... Stho002 (talk) 21:57, 15 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

Subgenera edit

The way that subgenera have been treated on Wikispecies is not so good. We need to make it easy for external sites to link to species pages using http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Genus_species, but this doesn't work if a subgenus is part of the page name. So, we can still use subgenera, as before, except that they are not part of the page name Stho002 (talk) 22:54, 23 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I understand that you were not doing anything wrong by putting subgenera in page titles, but I am just advising you not to do so. We are in an experimental phase to see what works best. The "rules" are really just there to keep newbies from flying off on tangents of their own ... Stho002 (talk) 23:32, 23 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

Template:BHL edit

I am working on the problem and hopefully it will be fixed soon. Koumz (talk) 20:59, 26 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

I have solved this problem. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Koumz (talk) 21:07, 26 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

ZooBank reference templates edit

Although it may be a bit unwieldly, I prefer to use the "all citations" format that I have been using, as it needs to be obvious to the user, but they could easily overlook it on your format. Also, there is no real need to add Internet Archive links as well as BHL links. BHL is basically the same thing as IA, but taylored more for biology. Thanks, Stho002 (talk) 21:12, 26 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

Homonym page names edit

Doesn't it make more sense to use the author's name (which will not change) in the page name rather than the family name (which could change) for homonym pages? Koumz (talk) 21:23, 6 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

That´s what I thought at first. Then I noticed, that the standard discriminator for most other homonym genus names is the family name. For species disambiguations I observed, that the author name is used. I don´t have any preferences, but I like to have things treated consistently. A convention to use the author´s name would be ok for me. Well, in theory even author or family might also be the same. Kheller (talk) 22:37, 6 April 2012 (UTC)Reply
consistency is hard to get, and not necessarily a good thing anyway! Sometimes we need to diambiguate a genus name from an author name, sometimes a genus of plant from a genus of animal, sometimes two genera of animals, etc., etc. In the latter case, I recommend using author's name (possibly with date if there is still ambiguity) to disambiguate ... Stho002 (talk) 23:01, 6 April 2012 (UTC)Reply
The standard had been the family name, but then sometimes people were using subfamily or tribe names, etc. resulting in duplicate entries for the same taxon. I use only author names for these cases (for taxa family-level and below), because I think it is the most unambiguous way and the one least likely to change. Koumz (talk) 23:55, 6 April 2012 (UTC)Reply
Fine, then I will use author names as disambiguation in the following cases. But It is not worth while changing existing entries like Chorizomma unless there would be a bot doing that work. Kheller (talk) 09:53, 7 April 2012 (UTC)Reply
You are right that changing them over is a VERY low-priority project. I do it, but only a little at a time as part of other work. Koumz (talk) 12:37, 7 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

Template:Faunaeur edit

I've adjusted this template so that the name displayed in the link can be easily italicized (for genus and species names) by just using "i" as the second parameter. Koumz (talk) 13:00, 7 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

Works fine! Could the addition of "|i" be done automatically for genera and below? A manual correction would be very tedious. By the way, Why "Taxon Details" and not "Taxon details". English is not my first language, but I thought upper-case letters are mainly a German speciality. Kheller (talk) 13:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC)Reply
When you are talking about the addition of i, did you mean for pages that have already been created? If so, I can edit the "|i" onto all those pages quickly using AWB. For future pages, it is simpler to add the i manually, because otherwise I would have to add a parameter to the template to tell it whether the taxon is genus or lower, and typing that parameter would take just as long as typing the "|i" does or longer. In the case of "Taxon Details", you are right that if it was a full English sentence, it would definitely be "Taxon details". In this case, where it's just a short link name (a fragment) it's OK either way. Koumz (talk) 13:48, 7 April 2012 (UTC)Reply
Yes, I meant the existing entries. An automatic correction would be perfect. Kheller (talk) 14:07, 7 April 2012 (UTC)Reply
I am in process on that now. Koumz (talk) 14:18, 7 April 2012 (UTC)Reply
Corrections complete. Koumz (talk) 15:17, 7 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

Reference templates edit

Yes, this job can be automated fairly easily, and I think you could learn to do it yourself with a relatively small amount of effort. I use AWB (AutoWikiBrowser) for these kinds of jobs, since I don't yet have the programming skill to do a fully automated script for it. AWB's Find and Replace functions are rather easy to learn if you are familiar with the similar functions in word processors or spreadsheets (that's how I thought of getting into it in the first place). Beyond that, it's just a question of how to easily create a list of the pages that need the change, since one doesn't want to waste time searching all 300,000 pages. In the Tuomikoski 1960 case, I can make such a list by just using Wikispecies' search function and searching for the full name of that journal, since almost all pages relating to that journal contain the Tuomikoski 1960 reference. There are other tactics that can be used in other cases. Koumz (talk) 14:40, 11 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

By the way, thanks for fixing Template:BHL so that the direct primary reference links work again. Koumz (talk) 15:00, 11 May 2012 (UTC)Reply
You recently changed the Hubner, 1816 reference template by removing a BHL hyperlink and replacing it with a doi link that goes to the BHL document page but not to the Title Page of the article, so leaving more clicking needed. Also the doi link lost the information on the pages relevant to the reference, so losing some valuable data usually included in references in taxonomic publications. Can you please explain what you believe to be the benefits this change? Thanks Accassidy (talk) 20:01, 4 March 2014 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for the note. You are probably right, that I did not analyze the topic in detail. In my understanding the citation "Hübner 1816-1826" was meant to include the whole work. Therefore I used the doi template. Doi is a bit more official in my inderstanding. Your template (pages 7-115) probably only cited the 1816 part and should perhaps better be cited as Hübner, 1916. It is of course preferable to atomize the work ar least by years. I have not yet looked up the information about the various parts of the series. Your link was an archive.org link. Personally I prefer co link the publications to BHL instead of archive.org, but maybe it is only a matter of taste. Perhaps we will find a way to create one template for the work as a whole and subtemplates for each of the the various parts, with a direct link to the first page. Meanwhile you may undo my changes, if they were too precipitant. Kheller (talk) 20:34, 4 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hi edit

Hi! Why are You here articles in different languages together. --Адмирал Иванов (talk) 14:17, 29 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

Two authors in taxobox edit

Hi, I didn't understand, how to place two authors in taxobox. See: [1] . Can you help?--Haps (talk) 19:01, 13 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for testing the template. I just fixed the two author problem the way it was meant to be. Kheller (talk) 20:42, 13 January 2014 (UTC)Reply
Thanks also, but the Link for the first author only goes to "Smith" not to "M. L. Smith". Why? --Haps (talk) 22:21, 15 January 2014 (UTC)Reply
There was a typo in the field name "fullauthor" - I used instead the german word "Autor" Kheller (talk) 23:23, 15 January 2014 (UTC)Reply
Danke, dann is' recht ;-)--Haps (talk) 16:11, 18 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Graphium eurypylus edit

What are you doing with Graphium eurypus. The lay-out is not after the normal standard. The species is Graphium (Graphium) eurypus).

Regards,

PeterR (talk) 16:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

That same species had formerly two different entries, Graphium (Graphium) eurypylus and Graphium eurypylus (see history), which is not ok. I only eliminated one duplicate. It find it preferable to have the page name only as Genus Species, because it is easier to detect synonyms, but the way Genus (Subgenus) Species is also fine, if a redirect exists. The page layout is normal standard, but using a formatting template may still seem a bit unusual to you. I had put that topic under discussion here: [2]. If there is no consensus about it, we may reopen the discussion. Kheller (talk) 16:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

Morpho menelaus edit

This is a complete mist. No subspecies and no Synonyms and no after Lamas, 2004

Regards,

PeterR (talk) 16:30, 21 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

Well I am not an expert in butterflies and just editing the Linnean species. Please correct the entry and place Papilio nestor correctly. The italian Wikipedia for example has it as synonym of Morpho melenaus [3]. Gruß, Kai Kheller (talk) 16:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

Changes edit

Please don't change species or subspecies who are set up after good templates. We work with taxonavigation and not with taxobox PeterR (talk) 14:24, 28 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for your feedback. But please tell me, what are your concrete objections against using templates? They make the editing easier and the structure of the pages clearer and more standardized. Taxonavigation is an integral part of the taxobox template with the field "taxonav" as anchor. This is only a question of data management, not of contents. Kheller (talk) 09:31, 1 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

You create a mist with using other templates. I have seen this with nl.Wikipedia. I can't use their Taxonavigation. I have to use their Taxobox. I'm not a programmer. Please if you add species do it complete. PeterR (talk) 15:58, 13 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

I agree. Why are you converting pages into taxobox? OhanaUnitedTalk page 20:04, 22 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Anartia amathea edit

This species is not complete with subspecies and is not set-up after Gerardo Lamas, 2004; Atlas of Neotropical Lepidoptera; Checklist: Part 4A; Hesperioidea - Papilionoidea. PeterR (talk) 16:10, 13 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Trying to answer your different questions in one: I just added the subspecies of Anartia amathea after funet.fi. Are they complete? My current aim is to have all Linnean species with at least their actual placement, the original combination, a link to the original source and to Zoobank. Subspecies, images and other links are desirable, but not always presented. You may add more information if you find it necessary just as usually in Wikispecies. Editing templates is not more difficult, sometines easier than editing regular contents. There is no need to be a programmer. If you need assistance, I am willing to help and discuss. Fauna Europaea links are used quite normally in other groups of animals and are presented whenever species occur in Europe. As a contributor to Fauna Europaea I find these links very useful. Links to other faunistic databases would also be welcome. Greetings Kheller (talk) 16:43, 13 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Argynnis niobe edit

Why did you add niobe in Argynnis and not in Fabriciana? Pleaese mention the document.

PeterR (talk) 16:23, 31 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

The genus or subgenus Fabriciana does not exist yet on Wikispecies and Argynnis niobe was already linked in Argynnis. I did not change that page. Most Wikipedias have the species in Argynnis. Fauna Europaea and funet.fi use differing taxonomies. I am not able to decide the matter and was only wondering, that such a well known species was not present in WS. There is not problem to change the taxonomy, if there are good arguments such as a recent revision of the genus. Kheller (talk) 20:52, 31 March 2014 (UTC)Reply