Wikispecies:Village Pump/Archive 14

Participation in a workshop

Greetings,

Don't mean to intrude, but I'd be very interested in having an active member of this community participate in a discussion about social technology and biodiversity. This is an all day workshop at University of Maryland on May 30. Details are at http://www.leptree.net/social_technology_for_biodiversity_workshop

You can contact me if you are interested or have questions, at csparr --at-- umd.edu.

Thanks!

Thanks for letting us know. However, I don't think we have a member near Maryland so it's near-impossible for any of our member to attend. Sorry. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:30, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, well I will try to look around this forum and get insights that may contribute to the discussion. I may post some of the discussion questions that I'll direct at the participants and see if I can represent your point(s) of view. (Signing this time) --Csparr 22:58, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have been to the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) and look up fish, birds, trees, etc. and they are easy to find. I search for colossal squid, for instance, and get 233 hits (see Encyclopedia of Life: http://www.eol.org/index ). Where do I search for colossal squid in Wikispecies? I find it in Wikipedia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Squid), but not Wikispecies. I cannot find anything in Wikispecies from the homepage. Can you help? I am lost.

You must be looking for Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni. In Wikispecies, every page about species are in their latin species name. Since colossal squid's species name is Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, the corresponding page name in Wikispecies is Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 19:52, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Generally, each species' vernacular name (what they're usually called by) can be searched by, and the appropriate article located. For example, for a search for "great white shark",[1] the result is Carcharodon carcharias. Similarly, if a Spanish-speaking user were to look for "Gran tiburón blanco"[2], they'd be directed to the same article. It's not a perfect system, and is largely dependent upon the article having the proper name in the {{VN}} table, but it works in most cases; it didn't in yours because the article didn't have the English name in its "Vernacular names" section, only the Japanese name. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Species which undergo metamorphosis

For species which undergo metamorphosis, which image should we use? The adult form or the larva/nymph form? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 21:47, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adult seems appropriate. Lycaon 00:11, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The form that they spend the majority of their life as would be the best choice. For most, that form is as an adult. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:36, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would have thought a simple diagram showing the life cycle stages for the creature, would be appropriate. Or just a picture of the larva/nymph/etcetera and then the fully grown adult. And only after looking at the date I realise this is a very late reply... Snoito 13:26, 18 June 2008 (GMT)

The genus template and disambiguation

In the Droseraceae article one of the genera is disambiguated. Is it still possible to use the genus template? As it is now, I left that genus’ formatting as it was. /Kess 09:08, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it still works the same way. Take a look of Enterobacteriaceae and find genus Yersinia OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 22:58, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks! --Kess 08:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Spam and placeholders

Noticed the newly added Euophryum rufum and Orthetrum silvarum articles by the IP 209.62.94.50. What could/should I as an ordinary user do? Blank the article, notice someone of it, something else? The best approach, I guess, would be for me to fix them, but I really don’t know enough about animal taxonomy to do that. --Kess 10:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Add {{delete}} to the article and it will be put the article in a category for deletion and an admin will take care of it. Thanks for asking. --Open2universe | Talk 11:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We received quite a lot of vandalism for past few days. God knows why... OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New Templates for Old References

If the example reference format: "Carolus Linnaeus: Systema Naturae 3: 25" is really a standard here (as given on the page Help:Reference section), I'd like to propose a new template, Template:SPP, so that all the Species Plantarum citations can easily be made consistent now and in the future (see the two example pages that use {{SPP}}: Solanum lycopersicum and Thymus serpyllum). Google now shows most Species Plantarum entries don't follow the standard since only about 49 results in Google have both "Species Plantarum" and "Linnaeus" on the same page, while over 1500 pages have "Species Plantarum" but not "Linnaeus". What does everyone think about the {{SPP}} template? If we reach a consensus about it, or I get little to no feedback after a few weeks, then I'll propose a bot to do the updates. (We could do the same for Systema Naturae by improving Template:SN). --Georgeryp 23:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good suggestion. Send it to bot approval when it's ready. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 01:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With all respect to Carolus Linnaeus he's just one out of hundreds if not thousands of authors! We do need a good template to handle a general author & a general citation. One possibility is this:

will produce:

Author Name: Book or Magazine volume: page

Mariusm 05:07, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As someone who has been bad about formatting references, I agree that a template would be good. The english wikipedia has a number of citation templates that we could base it on. E.g. en:Template:Cite journal --Open2universe | Talk 13:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why not have both? - a general "author" template and also some shorter, simpler ones for works by authors with hundreds to thousands of species to their names? Ok, so "...[Linnaeus is] just one out of hundreds if not thousands of authors!"

However:

How many single authors are on thousands of pages?
It's embarrassing to see such an early, major figure misspelled or at least referenced inconsistently: see at least "Linneaus" and "Linné" on this site.
We can always have the more specific templates depend on the more general template so a change to the general template automatically effects all the specific ones (kind of like the nested taxonavigation templates here).
Finally, my proposal is not for the "Linnaeus template" (author-centric), it's for the "Species Plantarum template" and "Systema Naturae template" (reference work-centric) in much the same way we've already created "ITIS" and "FishBase" templates instead of just one general "Taxon Reference" template.

Do those reasons help justify Template:SPP and Template:SN? --Georgeryp 00:43, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that Species Plantarum and Systema Naturae are special enough to warrant their own template --Open2unverse | Talk 00:56, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I second that sentiment. Lycaon 05:31, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Carolus Linnaeus usually authored the most obvious and prominent species, so I suppose the majority of his contributions are already present in Wikispecies.
The most recurring mistake regarding citations in Wikispecies is to leave-out the author's name and to put in only the book or magazine name. This includes Species Plantarum and Systema Naturae. It would be nice to run a bot to correct this.
The citation's year of publication sould be mandatory and not optional; also it must be inserted just after the author's name. So the correct format is "Carolus Linnaeus, 1753: Systema Naturae 3: 25"
The usual practice by professionals is to write only the abbreviations of the common books & magazines in the citation. So Syst. Nat. stands for Systema Naturae and Sp. Pl. stands for Species Plantarum (Look in google and see how many are using them!) I think it is a good practice to make use of it here too.

Mariusm 06:22, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki markup:

hi,

I beleive the wikimarkup editing help-line has a minor mistake in it.

Namely: Synonyms has three equations signs on each sides while it should only have two!!

Wiki markup: {{}} {{{}}} | [] [[]] [[Category:]] #REDIRECT [[]]

Wikispecies tools: † ==Taxonavigation== ==Name== ''{{subst:BASEPAGENAME}}'' ===Synonyms=== ==References== ==Vernacular names==

PeterPodgoršek 06:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The "Synonyms" title is correct as it is - with the three equation marks. It is not a separate section heading but serves as a subsection heading to the "Name" section.

Mariusm 09:05, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps something could be done to make ==Vernacular names== one link (instead of two)? --kess 18:55, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not too sure if that can be done, since there is a space in between. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 20:12, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some bad news

According to the Zoological Society of London, wildlife populations (of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) are decreasing yearly by 1%. Since 1970 about 30% of wildlife have been wiped out. [3] This is frightening news, especially for us at this community. This also makes the task of documenting more important and pressing. Can we here do something to increase the public awareness to this decline?

Mariusm 08:53, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

African Leaf Hoppers

Cicadellidae type. I am looking for information on Africian Insects. It is a leaf hopper type. It is called Short Head. I found it in an animal encyclopedia book. With no info on it. KaseyRanch

I can't find anything more than the type so far. If anyone knows anything about Africa and African insects. Please let me know.

Wikimedia Commons announces launch of new Valued images project

The official VI seal

The project goes live for nominations on 1 June, 2008 at 0:00 UTC

This Commons Valued images project sets out to identify and encourage users' efforts in providing valuable images of high diversity and usability, and to build up a resource for editors from other Wikimedia projects seeking such images for use online. The project also provides recognition to contributors who have made an effort to contribute images of difficult subjects which are very hard or impossible to obtain in featured picture or quality image technical quality. The project will run alongside the existing Commons Featured pictures and Quality images projects.

Please visit Valued images candidates to nominate an image, or to help review the nominations. Anyone with an account on Commons is welcome to nominate images, and also to take part in the open review process. --MichaelMaggs 20:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)--[reply]

Protecting main page in various languages

First, I don't think there will be major changes to the main page of different languages. And second, my bot can't tell the difference between articles and these main page. I don't want it to cause damage like this [4]. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 01:22, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm oppose of sysop/sysop (edit/move) protection. Please re-protect on editconfirmed/sysop. At least cs version. I'm checking species about once a day, which is good enough for reverting possible vandalism (which by the way usually comes from anons).
— Danny B. 15:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't a lot of reasons to edit the main page anyways (with the exception of few languages which have a plain main page design). And please provide the cs version of the main page name. I cannot identify which main page corresponds to cs if I don't know that language in the first place. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hlavní strana.
— Danny B. 15:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unprotected. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to make a minor changes to Cifapad. Could you please unprotect it? Malafaya 16:49, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Using the picture resource of Google Images

It is very useful and handy to be able to link immediately to a species' picture. Wikimedia has only a minor fraction of species images, which is very frustrating. But Google Images has a vast resource of pictures collected from all over the net. I built a template named GPIC which links immediately to this resource.

For example suppose you have a spacies named Neofelis nebulosa. You just add the line:

* {{GPIC|Neofelis|nebulosa}}

at the reference section and get this:

Google Images of Neofelis nebulosa: Neofelis nebulosa

Press on the link and voila! you get all the pictures you want and some more!

Comments?

Mariusm 07:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a fan:

It is outlinking
It often yields unrelated species (a picture which was close to where the target species was mentioned in text e.g.)

So for me rather not.Lycaon 08:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sitenotice

There's no longer early registration, only regular now. Please remove that word, thanks.
— Danny B. 11:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling error, please move

Terribly sorry Ana Safya needs to be moved to Ana Sayfa. Sorry. Koavf 04:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Expansion depth limit exceeded?

Take a look at Hesperiinae and other pages below it, apparently there is something that we never thought of. Can anyone explain why it says "Expansion depth limit exceeded"? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 00:41, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very strange. At first I thought it may be we have too many levels, but look at the children of Papilioniformes. Nymphalidae, Pieridae, Riodinidae say ""Expansion depth limit exceeded" but Lycaenidae and Papilionidae do not. I do not see what the differences are. --Open2universe | Talk 01:24, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On my computer, Papilioniformes doesn't say "expansion depth limit exceeded", but the rest of your examples are correct. Strange, very strange. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 01:35, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strangely enough, by just pressing "Edit" and then "Save Page" without making any modifications, makes this problem disapear! I think these pages were saved with some subtle error, or some hidden charachter which the system doesn't recognize.

Mariusm 06:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Will Neelen: I had the same problem after upgrading to MediaWiki version 1.13. Editing and saving the pages did not solve the problem. In my case the error was triggered somehow by Wikia FCK-editor. After disabeling the Wikia FCK-editor extension, the error disppeared. Of course I will try to make MediaWiki v1.13 work with the Wikia FCK-editor extension.
OK, I found it http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FCKeditor_%28by_FCKeditor_and_Wikia%29#Manual_modifications_.28only_for_1.13_users.29
I should read the upgrade manual for v.1.13, that states that some plugins need to be upgraded as wel. Now it works fine.

Hesperiinae

The tribus of Hesperiinae are false. The most tribus are link with Nymphalidae, Nymphalinae. This have to be link with Hesperiidae, Hesperiinae. If I have time I shall repair this. About 6 month I started with the Nymphalidae, Papilionidae, Lycaenidae, Riodinidae. I'm now doing the Tortricidae after World Catologue of Insects 5. I allready finished the Olethreutinae after M.Horak 2006.

Regards,

PeterR 07:44, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

m:Global sysops

Since this proposal is likely to pass... what guidelines/policies/etc should we set up for Global sysops? Do we have have it handled as far as vandalism goes, or should we take on board the extra eyes? I personally think that we have it under control, with most admins in different timezones, but what do you think? Mønobi (talk) 21:29, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We have it under control, and it's unfair to the sysops that have went through RfA. Maxim_(talk) 21:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. We should probably draft a policy page that is linked to the global sysop page at meta, to make the policy more obvious. Mønobi (talk) 21:38, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikispecies:Global rights usage from en.wiki with some modifications... improve further :-) . Mønobi (talk) 21:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for interrupting. The rights stewards and global sysops have may be used only so far I know when there is a shortage of assistance in people who can do what is needed (mostly on small wikis) or with a speedy need of assistance (like mass vandalism with no sysop around). So if there is no need for help, they aren't here doing something. So a policy specific for this wiki seems to me overreacting and blocking/ignoring the purpose of these rights. (Otherwise, I do not think a global sysop/steward will know this page if it is got into action.) Greetings - Romaine 22:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Monobi for drafting the page. I agree with the conditions listed on the page. Although we don't have as much admins as en.wp, our admins are pretty active and cover the project round the clock. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 01:56, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The policy at the moment is that stewards/global sysops are only allowed to come into action with the tools if there are no local sysops or haven't been active recently. So if the mods are active, the global sysops/stewards aren't doing anything. It sounds strange if a wiki develops their own policy for something that already has been organized for all wikis. Greetings - Romaine 13:34, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unless we're disobeying foundation policy, we are not obligated to follow the policies of other projects. These projects are independent. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 14:53, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's a policy on meta, which is supposed to be a policy applicable to all Wikimedia projects. I'm not sure if it's exactly true to call it a foundation policy, but it comes close. Ucucha (talk) 20:52, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update: This proposal currently has no chance of passing, with about 60% of people opposing and only 40% supporting at its poll, due to end in 2 days. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 16:41, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia España

Hello, has been proposed to create a Spanish Chapter of Wikimedia, regards:

Buenos días, un grupo de gente interesada está intentando constituir el capítulo o sección española de la Fundación Wikimedia. Hasta el momento hay trasiego de emails, borradores de estatutos y parece que empujón, por lo que aprovecho para difundir la iniciativa por todos los proyectos que pudieran estar interesados. Como ya he dicho, está en fase de elaborar los estatutos. Si queréis participar, podéis pararos por aquí, inscribiros (no es obligatorio) y suscribiros a la lista de correo. Un saludo --Jatrobat 20:43, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Translation: Hello, a group of users are interested in creating a Wikimedia Spain Chapter. At the moment we have sent emails and drafted bylaws and their seems to be an interest, so I have taken the initiative to assemble all users who might be interested. As I said we are in the process of creating bylaws. If you want to participate, stop here, register (not required), and SUBSCRIBE to the mailing list. Thanks. — translated by Monobi 01:33, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Intercae cedis

Can anyone help on giving me an example of an intercae cedis article??????Pvmoutside 10:50, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First, it will be easier to find an incertae sedis article. You may find lots of them at Special:Prefixindex/Incertae sedis. Ucucha (talk) 20:16, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]