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! A little late, after 326 edit the last 30 days, good work! Dan Koehl (talk) 12:41, 24 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Some issues

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Hi, you are doing good work, but there are some issues. Firstly, it is widespread convention to omit a leading "The" in journal titles, e.g. Lichenologist, not The Lichenologist. Journals often refer to themselves using the "The", but we are not the journal, so we can and should use the wider convention. Secondly, please familiarise yourself with, and use, reference templates, if at all possible. Hard writing the same citation multiple times isn't helpful. Links to content may change, for example, but using a template we only need to change them once, not multiple times, and if you hard write citations, we cannot easily even find them to change them. Thanks Stho002 (talk) 03:34, 29 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Autopatrolled rights

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Dear Lichenes, You have been granted autopatrolled user rights, which may be granted to experienced Wikispecies users who have demonstrated an understanding of Wikispecies policies and guidelines. In addition to what registered users can do, autopatrollers can have one's own edits automatically marked as patrolled (autopatrol). The autopatrol user right is intended to reduce the workload of new page patrollers and causes pages created by autopatrolled users to be automatically marked as patrolled. For more information, read Wikispecies:Autopatrollers.

  This user has autopatrolled rights on Wikispecies. (verify)

You may as autopatroller use the autopatroller user box on your user page. Copy and paste the following code on your user page:

{{User Autopatroller}}

If you have a Meta-Wiki user page, you can put the Wikispecies autopatrolled user box for Meta on your Meta-Wiki user page.


Theres always a need of patrolling files edited by unregistered users, and if you think you have a good understanding of Wikispecies policies and guidelines and want to help out with patrolling, you can request patrol rights at Patroller.Dan Koehl (talk) 18:27, 8 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Join discussions

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At the water pump is presently discussed two topics;

1.) is to follow a previous consensus and change all [[BASEPAGENAME]] into [[susbt:BASEPAGENAME]], something which already has started.

2.) is what to do with the Category: <<taxon name>> (<<any country>>) files created by Stephen Thorpe. Some 5 000 have so far been moved together at Candidates for speedy deletion, but concearn has been objected, that some of those files may be useful, in all, or that parts should be transfered somewhere, before a major mass delete. Please join the discussion at pump and take part in shaping a consensus.

Best regards, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:48, 27 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Preferred format for citations and references

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Hello, and thank you for your very welcome contributions. One thing though: When adding publications to taxon and author pages please first see the Wikispecies Help:Reference section for a few hints on the preferred Wikispecies format. (By the way the same format should also be applied when creating new reference templates.) Best regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 16:01, 10 March 2017 (UTC).Reply

Hello again. I'm afraid your edits almost never comply with the format stated as preferred by Wikispecies consensus, policies, and guidelines. Please again read Help:Contents and its subsections – especially Help:Reference section – as noted above in December 2014 by Dan Koehl.
Examples:
  • You often use non-standard author abbreviations, instead of the internationally accepted IPNI standard. As an example you often use "S.Y. Kondr." (with spacing) instead of the correct "S.Y.Kondr." (without spacing), or "A. Thell" instead of the correct "A.Thell" (again, the IPNI standard does not use spacing). Small differences, I agree, but only one of them is correct and the standard is there for a reason. For comparison "Homo sapiens sapiens" is a valid taxon, while "Homo sapienssapiens" is not.
  • You almost always use "short-hand" author templates instead of the standard author templates. For example you use {{a|Müll. Arg.}} and {{a|A. Thell}} – and again with incorrect spacing! – instead of the correct {{a|Johannes Müller Argoviensis|Müll.Arg.}} and {{a|Arne Thell|A.Thell}}. Please see the template pages {{A}} and {{Aut}} for information on how to use them properly. There are two reasons why your system is unrecommended:
  1. the "short-hand" code does not make it clear exactly which author is intended, since the same author abbreviations can be shared between several botanists and zoologists (this is also one more reason to follow the IPNI standard abbreviations, when available)
  2. your links does not point directly to the author page, instead they are always routed via a redirect page. This forces the Wikimedia servers to handle two documents instead of just one, plus it clutters up the page (since it says "Redirected from NN." on the final page).
  • You frequently use non-breaking ("hard") spaces ("&nbsp;") in your author pages and references (example). This is unrecommended, since it can mess with how pages are rendered on different user devices. Personally I almost always use a nice 27 inch high-resolution computer screen where hard spaces are not a problem, but more and more of our users visit Wikispecies using their mobile phone or tablet, and on such small-screen devices non-breaking spaces can tamper with legibility.
Regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 03:16, 1 December 2017 (UTC).Reply
Thank you for your kind advice. In my knowledge, IPNI's author abbreviations are not always internationally accepted. For example, "S.Y.Kondr." (or "A.Thell") is used only in IPNI (and Wikispecies?). "S.Y. Kondr." (or "A. Thell") is always used in original papers. Space is required. In addition, "Asah." has been widely used for "Yasuhiko Asahina", but IPNI's abbreviation is "Asahina", which may cause confusion when searching. There are many such examples. However, if using IPNI's abbreviations (or IPNI-style abbreviations) is a rule in Wikispecies, I will follow it. --Lichenes (talk) 13:37, 1 December 2017 (UTC)Reply
I guess the author abbreviation format isn't exceptionally important, as long as the wiki links are correct. For example we occasionally need to change the same links on several Wikispecies pages at once; this happens when duplicate author- or taxon pages are merged, and other such instances. This is fairly easy to do semi-automatically with a bot, but can get complicated if there are a lot of redirects. We've had cases where page A is redirected to page B, which in turn is redirected to page C, which then again redirects back to page A... This is of course wrong, but fixable. However if for some reason page B is changed before the chain of links gets mended (perhaps page B is named after a synonym that is elevated to a species of its own, for example) then the whole chain of links between A→B→C→A will break. Hence in order to avoid broken redirects and double redirects it is always best not to link to a redirect page, but instead make sure to link to the proper one. As for linking to author pages we also have several hundred templates formatted and with a naming scheme like {{G.B.Ownbey}}. These were almost all created by one specific Wikispecies user, all points to a redirect page, all of them are malformed (using HTML and CSS instead of true wiki code), and as far as I know using them has never been recommended. Again, the easiest solution is simply not to use them but instead opt for the proper link, in this case {{a|Gerald Bruce Ownbey|G.B.Ownbey}}
When it comes to space, what do you mean by "space is required"? Of course it is, but using the standard space by use of the space bar key on the keyboard is almost always sufficient. As far as I can see there is no    reason for     adding several hard     spaces in the text (like I just did, as an example). That only lessens legibility, both of the code, and of the rendered text. If however you have a specific reason that I'm not aware of, please let me know and I'll look into it. Happy editing! –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 09:51, 2 December 2017 (UTC).Reply
I have started to remove redirects and &nbsp; from my own descriptions. When a wider space is needed, &nbsp; is necessary, but I will review how to use it. Thanks. --Lichenes (talk) 01:44, 3 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Cerasus

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Please note that the genus Cerasus is now accepted as a synonym of Prunus. Therefore your work on this genus and associated species is superfluous, in addition, your reversal of the redirect on its taxon page is not helpful. Finally the nothospecies you have added are more than likely to be artificial hybrids, which are outside the scope of WS. I would suggest that you use sources such as Catalogue of Life, Tropicos, WCSP and the Plant List then cross check a number of these before committing yourself to botanical edits. Hopefully this helps. Regards Andyboorman (talk) 12:14, 26 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

Template:Duby, 1830

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Hello Lichenes, please stop your edit war at this template, adding the link to "Recent literature on lichens" again! The link to Mattick Rec.# 33445 is inconvenient and irritating for other botanists, as this template is needed for organisms that are not lichens, too. Also, it is superfluous as a reference for this publication, because the BHL link is reference enough. What are your reasons for including it? Maybe it will suffice to have it after the "includeonly", so that it is seen displayed only on the reference page of the template? --Thiotrix (talk) 10:07, 31 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

ISSN

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Hello. You have been adding ISSN to journals. Sometimes this is not needed see Bulletin de la Société d'Histoire Naturelle de l'Afrique du Nord on Daucus virgatus. All the best Andyboorman (talk) 16:08, 8 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Acer palmatum

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Hello I have rolled back your edit on Acer palmatum. There are at least three accepted circumscriptions of this species, all of which are correct in their own way. WS can not pick and choose on personal preference. This is yet another case where "one taxon one name" breaks down under the weight of reasonable, but differing, taxonomic opinions! Given that all the variants of both Acer palmatum and the putative species Acer amoenum in the "wild" are doubtfully "natural", in the sense humankind has had a hand in their appearance,as the Japanese have been breeding and selecting over a couple of thousand years. However, given that we have a dilemma. The first to sort out is the status of Acer amoenum, which is only accepted by probably the majority of workers in Japan, elsewhere it is a variety or subspecies of A. palmatum. It is also worth remembering that Acer palmatum and the putative species Acer amoenum interbred producing often very fertile offspring. You have been kind enough to place the traditional Japanese references on A. amoeum, but a quick Google scholar search produces interesting, if inconclusive, results. My preferred solution is to create two referenced taxon pages in order to accommodate the dilemma and add notes explaining the problem. Otherwise we have a single editors opinions, which is a WS no no, as you know. What are your thoughts? Kind regards Andyboorman (talk) 16:17, 24 May 2019 (UTC)Reply

Peltigeraceae

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Hey, the changes I had made to Peltigeraceae were to reflect this paper "Kraichak E, Huang JP, Nelsen M, Leavitt SD, Lumbsch HT. A revised classification of orders and families in the two major subclasses of Lecanoromycetes (Ascomycota) based on a temporal approach. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. 2018 Sep 6;188(3):233-49." [1]. They synonymized Lobariaceae and Nephromataceae with Peltigeraceae along with a number of other taxonomic changes. I'm not an expert in lichen taxonomy, so I don't know whether the field agrees with these changes or not, but the current guidelines on WS suggest to go with the more recent publication. Voganaa (talk) 08:58, 7 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

ISSN Error

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Wow, good catch, thanks for fixing that. Circeus (talk) 16:58, 11 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

Community Insights Survey

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RMaung (WMF) 14:34, 9 September 2019 (UTC)Reply

Reminder: Community Insights Survey

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RMaung (WMF) 19:14, 20 September 2019 (UTC)Reply

Reminder: Community Insights Survey

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RMaung (WMF) 17:04, 4 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

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I believe these links, much like ZooBank links, are better placed in the non-transcluded portion of template pages. While they are not irrelevant, they provide very little (if any) additional information to the majority of users, and they additional are somewha misleading as they appear in a location where we usually put link to full-access versions of the reference. Circeus (talk) 22:47, 10 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

I'm sorry, but I can't agree with your idea. If you are a lichenologist or a lichen researcher, you know the importance of “Recent Literature on Lichens” (RLL). It provides useful information including links to full-access versions of the references. For example, ResearchGate covers mainly new literatures, but RLL covers more and more literatures. I think there is room for improvement in my previous way of describing RRL in the template page. --Lichenes (talk) 05:38, 11 October 2019 (UTC)Reply
We don't put zoobank links on templates (or at least not anymore), and they are far less invasive. So far, I have not found a single instance where the information that was in RLL made the link basically mandatory:
  • when a PDF is in RLL, it's always because the article is already open access or fully accessible via researchgate or BHL.
  • I have not yet come across an article that had an abstract in the RLL list (well, at least an abstract more than one sentence long)
  • lists of new taxon and nomenclatural acts can be placed on the template page (as was very recently discussed on the Village Pump, though in a very different context).
I am not arguing these links bear no interest, just that they are a much less than ideal fit for being in the reference template itself, and for much the same reason that we do not put similar database links such as those of Mycobank or Zoobank. Circeus (talk) 07:55, 11 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

Unused templates

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As I plough through Special:UnusedTemplates, I'm finding quite a few that are by you. I assume for whatever reason you forgot to add them to taxon pages, so as I find them I'll be leaving them in this section for your attention:

I have not forgotten these templates – these articles contain new species, new combinations, new names, or show new concepts about taxonomic groups. But I don't make money by editing Wikispecies. The time I can use to edit Wikispecies is limited. So it can take some time to create templates and use them. Sometimes it may take months of years. Please wait for those templates to be used. If you read those articles, you will understand their importance. --Lichenes (talk) 15:26, 20 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
I'm not deleting them, it just... I personally don't see the point of creating a template and just... waiting years to do anything at all (including putting it on the author page) with it. I create templates as I need/use them, otherwise, well... sorry but to me it's just mindless busywork to have references floating around referencing nothing. Circeus (talk) 00:12, 21 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
Actually, it looks like a LOT of them do not actually need new taxa pages, they just have not been applied to the relevant pages!
E.g. Ahti & DePriest is cited by ca. 15 pages. I am now updating (i.e. to move the RLL link out the reference as we spoke recently) and spreading them around as appropriate (thankfully, they are easier to deal with than the trash fires of Stephen). Circeus (talk) 02:45, 24 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Template:Motyka, 1995

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Just making sure: You are aware that this work (all four volumes of it) is a suppressed work, right? Proposal, Committee vote, General committee confirmation. Circeus (talk) 20:07, 28 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

Of course I know it. I always use Template:Motyka, 1995 with Template:Lumbsch et al., 1999 (Please see Oxneriaria dendroplaca etc.). The Motyka's scientific names (1995–96) has often been used as valid by some lichenologists. I want to make clear in Wikispecies that they are invalid. And, to be precise, Motyka's work on Lecanoraceae (1995–96) is invalid for genera and species, but valid for sections. I think we need to pay attention to that as well. --Lichenes (talk) 07:40, 29 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

Moving Genera

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Hey, I undid your edits on Conlariaceae‎ because Riomyces exists in Sordariomycetidae. When you add new genera please check to see if that genus is already present somewhere to avoid duplication. Thanks! Voganaa (talk) 16:06, 1 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

Ludwig von Sarnthein

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Hello Lichenes, about your second move of Ludwig von Sarnthein to Ludwig Grafen von Sarnthein: This name is incorrect, as "Graf" is not part of the name, but just an aristocratic title. IPNI and all Wikipedias use Ludwig von Sarnthein. We follow IPNI for author names at Wikispecies. In April 2019, I undid your first move and restored the correct name. But now you did the same again. Please undo it. Thanks, --Thiotrix (talk) 07:20, 25 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

I agree with Thiotrix. The name is also grammatically incorrect, as "Grafen" is dative ("von [dem] Grafen") in Flora der Gefürsteten Grafschaft Tirol. -RLJ (talk) 08:59, 25 August 2020 (UTC)Reply
That is why following IPNI is strongly advised as they avoid creating this sort of problem with honorifics. Andyboorman (talk) 09:13, 25 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Taxa authored 2

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Just so you know, {{Taxa authored 2}} is deprecated now, use {{Taxa authored}} instead. (See this Village Pump discussion from last August, which merged the two templates and made {{Taxa authored 2}} into a redirect) Monster Iestyn (talk) 15:46, 3 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Changing praxis in the Name Section

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Hello. Thanks for your edits, but a couple of points. Publications in plant names are not in italics and are just abbreviated. This is not just WS praxis by the way - see WCSP for examples. Changing a common praxis is not allowed without going to the pump, as it makes your edits a non-consensual personal project, which tends to annoy fellow edotors. Hope this helps. Andyboorman (talk) 08:22, 12 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

Cycadales etc

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I notice that you have made some recent edits on Cycadales and other non-angiospermous Orders and Divisions, using Yang et al. 2022. Did you manage to find any publication details for the subfamilies Diooideae, Zamioideae and other similar poorly detailed taxa? Also I am sure you have noticed that the circumscriptions at this level on WS are rather at odds with other systems. I would like to revisit this sometime. In the meantime, I am trying to compile a list of references and citations that are missing or incomplete in Yang et al. Any help appreciated. Best regards Andyboorman (talk) 20:49, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

I strongly dispute the changes made, based on that paper. The paper has "cladograms" that were created without explaining what data they used or how they used it. In fact, I could find no evidence of a phylogenetic analysis anywhere in the paper. Making major changes to the high-level Species classification, without consulting other participants, based on a single paper, which includes no data nor procedure, is a very poor choice. Based on what I've seen, you should revert the changes. --EncycloPetey (talk) 08:18, 19 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

As I work on this I am tending to agree with with @EncycloPetey:. I am not an expert, so would appreciate any advice. Feel free to revert my edits, by the way. I can not get IPNI to accept the infrafamilial taxa without a protologue, which is what I was trying to do. Andyboorman (talk) 08:39, 19 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

WCSP

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Hello. FYI WCSP has been superseded by POWO and our WCSP link goes automatically to POWO. In addition, I physically change the link when I come across it. Andyboorman (talk) 08:12, 5 March 2024 (UTC)Reply