Wikispecies:Village Pump/Archive 49

This is an archive of closed discussions. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this archive.

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Chaetonotus (no subgenus)

A variation of the "incertae sedis" problem. Delete or keep? --Succu (talk) 20:45, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

"unknown" goes to "no subgenus" and so, perhaps charitably, it is a tidy up, but all in all it is just nonsense, unlike incertae sedis. Andyboorman (talk) 21:14, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

News from Commons and request about fossil collection

Dear Wikispecians,

The Museum of Natural History of Neuchâtel has requested Wikimedia CH's help to upload the photographs of their collection of fossil fish, most of which are part of a collection that was established by . I made a broad category to put them all in Commons under Media contributed by Muséum d'histoire naturelle de Neuchâtel, but I think the collection might be more exploitable if there were smaller categories inside, such as for the Cheirolepis trailli, or the Psephodus magnus pertaining to the collection.

Would anyone be interested in helping out?

Thanks in advance.--Flor WMCH (talk) 14:38, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Fabaceae a discussion

Hello botanists and taxonomists. In 2017 the Legume Phylogeny Working Group (LPWG) came up with a recircumscription of Fabaceae based upon comprehensive analyses. The paper summarising this is on the taxon page Legume - Phylogeny Working Group 2017. A new subfamily classification of the Leguminosae based on a taxonomically comprehensive phylogeny. Taxon 66(1): 44–77 and a PDF is available. I have partially implemented their findings, but as yet have not placed Mimosoideae combinations into Caesalpinioideae s.l.. The main reason is their use of the working term "mimosoid clade" for these combinations, as opposed to a formal rank. Ideally I would like to use this clade name for the page, but have held off due to the Linnean nature of WS. A second solution would be just to transfer the three existing tribes from Mimosoideae into Caesalpinioideae s.l. until subsequent changes have been formally published. I am asking for comments from fellow editors before making changes. Best regards Andyboorman (talk) 20:26, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Technically from a nomenclatural POV it is clear, that the name Mimosoideae now is a synonym of Caesalpinioideae in its new circumscription. Thus, the three mimosoid tribes have to be included within Caesalpinioideae. Anyway, you may intercalate between the subfamily and these tribes a page for the "mimosoid clade", comparable to pages as Core eudicots. In my opinion, this clade can be equated in WD to de:Mimosengewächse and others. --Franz Xaver (talk) 21:21, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

The tribe Caesalpinieae is non-monophyletic either. We will have to wait for a new tribal classification for the re-circumscribed Caesalpinioideae. Anyway, I am expecting, that the old "mimosoids" never will receive more than a clade name. Theoretically, this clade could be ranked to a tribe and the former mimosoid tribes then would be subtribes. However, I don't think this would be the final solution. --Franz Xaver (talk) 21:33, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Also the tribes Ingeae, Mimoseae and Acacieae need to be united or re-circumscribed. --Franz Xaver (talk) 21:39, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Would it then be best to make Mimosoideae a synonym of Caesalpinioideae, redirect the old page and finally to dispense with tribes under Caesalpinioideae all together? Andyboorman (talk) 09:19, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

The name Mimosoideae already is synonymised at the taxon page of Caesalpinioideae. That's OK as it is. The Mimosoideae taxon page should be renamed "mimosoid clade". (However, the redirect page should point to Caesalpinioideae.) Some changes will be necessary in the clade page. Of course, a clade does not have a ICN name, nomenclatural type etc. The tribes in their present circumscription are not tenable any more. --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:59, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, if they use a nonlinnean term while list Linnean synonyms under it... then you have a clade with a Linnean name you can use on Wikispecies (As long as there is a corresponding Linnean name, of course. Sometimes there isn't, as discussed in Unplaced Senecioneae). In Solanum the "Dulcamaroid" clade is really an expanded circumscription of Solanum sect. Dulcamara (with synonymy and all being listed in the linked paper), and so I have treated it as such when editing. Circeus (talk) 11:38, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

If no rank clearly can be attributed to a clade, names as ruled by ICN cannot be used, though the circumscription of the clade may include some of these ranked taxa, so that their names are listed in "synonymy" in some papers. By the way, I am not happy, when ranked taxa above genus rank are called "Linnean", as Linnné himself did not know these. You may call such names Jussieuan, as Jussieu was the first to publish a "natural system". (However, he used the term "ordo" for what later would be families.) --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:25, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

How about transferring all genera of both groups onto the Caesalpinioideae page, as well as removing the tribes? The list of genera could be split into two, the first labelled "Caesalpinioideae s.s:" and the second "The mimosoid clade:". The genera will have all tribal links replaced with just Caesalpinioideae. The existing Mimosoideae and tribal pages could then be blanked after transferring their references etc. to the subfamily, where appropriate, but with redirects to Caesalpinioideae. Do the tribes then appear in the synonymy? Andyboorman (talk) 14:59, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Are you sure that Mimosoideae is a synonym of Caesalpinioideae, rather than Caesalpinioideae a synonym of Mimosoideae? Both are from the same publication, but Mimosoideae has page precedence over Caesalpinioideae, and is the more familiar (and also the easier to remember, and spell!) name. Has any publication definitely selected one or the other for priority? - MPF (talk) 23:25, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

The answer to that one is yes - see LPWG (2017) for their reasoning. Andyboorman (talk) 23:30, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! - MPF (talk) 23:37, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Two similar entries

Hello, just for info Edward Lloyd Bousfield is the same than Edward L. Bousfield. Regards, Christian Ferrer (talk) 17:57, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

@Christian Ferrer: Thank you for the information. All data related to Bousfield are now redirected or merged into the main page Edward Lloyd Bousfield. Best regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 19:02, 25 February 2019 (UTC).

Default image size

When the older format [[File:Picturename.jpg]] is used, the default (no dimension specified) is 400 pixels wide. When the format {{Image|Picturename.jpg}} is used, it is just 250 pixels wide, which I find too small to look good. Any objections to my changing the latter to 400 pixels? - MPF (talk) 21:12, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

400px is far too wide for what should be a thumbnail. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:01, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

My error, actually - the format [[File:Picturename.jpg]] can be specified in user preferences; I happen to have chosen 400 px. The default is 220 px. Apologies for the error! But it does raise the point, that the {{Image|Picturename.jpg}} format can't be set in one's preferences, it is rigidly defined by its template. Would it be possible to make it adaptable to preferences? - MPF (talk) 11:58, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

The template {{Image|Picturename.jpg}} is open for changing the format in the edition, default is 250px, but you can use, for example {{Image|Picturename.jpg|280px}}. I am not in favour of opening the format that "free".--Hector Bottai (talk) 14:11, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I know that; the problem is if I put {{Image|Picturename.jpg|400px}} (what I would like to see), it forces this on everyone, including those who don't want it. What would be good is if the {{Image|Picturename.jpg}} could be made to respond to user preferences in the same way that [[File:Picturename.jpg]] does. - MPF (talk) 17:52, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Looking at the tempalte's code, There are certainly no technical reasons that this shouldn't be possible. Even a novice such as I should be able to achieve it after some trial and error. Circeus (talk) 10:27, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

That's what I was hoping; unfortunately I'm even less technically able with template editing! Can someone else give it a go, please? - MPF (talk) 15:54, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Alright, this should work. I've added a note that the size cannot be changed if an image has not been explicitly defined. Circeus (talk) 13:22, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Perfect, thanks! - MPF (talk) 23:19, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────┘ Does any of this have a negative impact on the screen-rendering on smaller screen sizes, e.g. on mobile phones and tablets? Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 23:51, 25 February 2019 (UTC).

It means that users can select the size they like - so if using a mobile, it means you can now set image size to 10 pixels (or whatever!) wide, instead of being forced to have the 250 pixels previously mandated by the Image template. Head to Preferences, there to Appearance, and scroll down to Files, Thumbnail size. - MPF (talk) 00:55, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, but I've always been fairly well informed about all of the user prefs settings, except perhaps for a few of the often quirky gadgets and/or beta features that used to be available there some time ago. Personally I only use mobile devices for WS work when I'm on the road, and then only to check up on "Recent changes" to fight off the trolls... For common page editing or for creating templates and such I always use a gorgeous 27″ screen with 5K resolution instead, and have my user preferences set accordingly. However until today I haven't really studied the details of the actual wiki code within the {{Image}} template – which strikes me as odd, realizing that I often use the template more than 50 times a day... Anyway, I took a quick peek at Circeus' edits to the template just a few minutes ago. It takes a while to get one's head around how the code is supposed to work (almost 20% of the approximately 1,500 characters are different types of brackets...) but as far as I can tell it should work fine.

Good job @Circeus: and thanks @MPF: for bringing up the issue in the first place! Regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 04:46, 26 February 2019 (UTC).

I think it should be possible to make the resizing work even without a set image, but I'm not sure it's possible without breaking previous uses (and I'm not that good at using ParserFunctions). Circeus (talk) 12:42, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Nothofagaceae

There are now two different preferences/opinions regarding the circumscription of Nothofagaceae and Nothofagus. New Zealand is most definitely going with segregation of Nothofagus, but in Australia and elsewhere, the preference is for Nothofagus s.l. and a monogeneric family for extant species. For combinations under Nothofagus this breaks the one taxon one name rule/guideline. I have not completed the pages and there is more work to be done on the blue links. However, before going on further I would peoples opinions on my approach to date. It is worth mentioning that both circumscriptions are compliant with the evidence available to date. Incidentally there is even more of a problem in Scilloideae, but that will have to wait for another time! Thanks Andyboorman (talk) 11:55, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Even in its tradional wide circumscription, Nothofagus is a genus of only modest size. Moreover, the genus is monophyletic anyway. The splitting option with four genera, from a phylogenetic POV, is no more informative than the classification with four subgenera. However, splitting is against nomenclatural stability. Most probably, even in New Zealand, all the guys from the "applied" fields of activity will be unhappy with this splitting. --Franz Xaver (talk) 17:12, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

In cases like these, in my database I generally try to follow Plants of the World Online http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org, if they have got round to treating the genus in question; wikispecies may like to do the same (or not...). I believe they favour the "no splitting" option, see http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:330346-2 . They appear to base their opinion on World Checklist of Selected Plant Families 2019. Regards - Tony Tony 1212 (talk) 21:01, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Of course, POWO may itself contain errors or out-of-date content too, however I have found R. Govaerts a helpful correspondent whenever I have queried something in POWO that looks wrong - sometimes that is because it is (and he has then fixed it), sometimes it is awaiting update, and sometimes there was something else I was unaware of. Ah, the joys of taxonomic database curation. Cheers - Tony Tony 1212 (talk) 21:13, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Was just going to add a new comment (after seeing the mention under Dracaena below), but saw this section here - I too am in favour of retention of the traditional broad single genus, as it isn't that large. Unless there's any objections, I'll merge and redirect duplicate pages fairly soon - MPF (talk) 01:03, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Full name of S. Shaw

Does anyone know the full name of entomologist S. Shaw, Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society and the author of Eucolaspis antennata and Eucolaspis hudsoni, among other taxa? (These two species were both described in Shaw, S. 1957. A revision of the New Zealand genera Eucolaspis Sharp and Atrichatus Sharp (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) with descriptions of two new species. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (12), 10(117): 641–655. DOI: 10.1080/00222935708656008.) Apart from the above I don't know much, but guess that the author is male since I don't think that the Royal Entomological Society allowed women FRES at the time.

More information about him would be most welcome! –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 03:11, 8 March 2019 (UTC).

Stanley Shaw, citation on that page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:10, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Andy! As a result, I've changed all links on all pages referring to the oddly named "Stho002"-template {{Urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:73E6DADC-7D19-4CFD-9007-D1BFE0C1D295}} into the properly named {{Shaw, 1957}} recently created by you. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 04:59, 9 March 2019 (UTC).

On the name of the cited journal, we surely don't need to give the full subtitles and Uncle Tom Cobley and all - rather than Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Including Zoology, Botany and Geology, Being a Continuation of the 'Magazine of Botany and Zoology', and of Louden and Charlesworth's 'Magazine of Natural History' , just Annals and Magazine of Natural History. - MPF (talk) 11:49, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Repository TARI

The abbreviation TARI is here occupied by Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute. But TARI is also needed as the current abbreviation of the herbarium of Research Institute of Forests and Rangelands in Tehran, Iran, see Index Herbariorum. I noticed a small headnote linking to TARI (IH), but how to be sure, that repository links are set correctly?. What should be done, perhaps move TARI to TARI (Taiwan)? --Thiotrix (talk) 18:37, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

While there are some pages which do refer to the Taiwanese TARI, none of them links to that page: all the pages that do are plant species. Since the Herbarium name is standardized, I think the meanings should be swapped and a new, separate "TARI (Taiwan)" category created.

Alternatively, we could just use a different acronym ("TARIT"?) for the Taiwanese institution instead of a disambiguation and manually correct the acronym in the relevant species, since the acronym are just a convenient referential system in the first place, as long as they link to the correct institution, there's really no obligation for us to entertain inconveniently clashing systems where only only one is actually formalized. Circeus (talk) 16:45, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

That may be a handy sollution and the functionality is already built in to the template, e.g. {{Repository link|TARIT|TARI}} will link to "TARIT" but is rendered as "TARI" on screen. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 19:47, 10 March 2019 (UTC).

Repositories MFP and MNHNCU

Please have a look at the two discussions at User talk:GabrielaMolinaHdez#Phyllophaga taxon names and User talk:Andyboorman#Repository oddities about the different MFP and MNHNCU repository links. What's what, and what's right? Today MFP is automatically redirected to MNHNCU, but if they're in fact two separate repositories then MFP should of course have a page of its own. The present pages were both created by @Burmeister: do you perhaps have any more and/or updated data on the subject? –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 05:37, 9 March 2019 (UTC).

Were pre-1959 collections actually moved to MNHNCU? In any case, it is clear that MFP ought to be a separate page if the institutions exist independent of each others, regardless of their past connection. Circeus (talk) 16:36, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

I do not know whether the actual collections were moved but yes, today the MFP and MNHNCU indeed seems to be two different and independently sovereign repositories. Unfortunately I have very little up-to-date data about them in terms of current addresses, what they (primarily) keep in their repositories, which researchers are connected to the museums, etc. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 19:38, 10 March 2019 (UTC).-

Maps

Hello,

Is there a map of species? I have several plants in the local area, which have been here for many years, whose species name I do not know. I think that a freely licensed map of such information, perhaps using OpenStreetMap for the map of surrounding houses and roads etc, could be quite helpful. Please tell me if this already exists somewhere, or if not, then what technology and what effort would be desired to make it happen.

--Gryllida (talk) 00:55, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Hello @Gryllida: No, currently there's no such map – at least not in Wikispecies. I agree that a map with taxon names might be both helpful and interesting but from a strictly nomenclatural and taxonomical viewpoint (i.e. the scope of Wikispecies) I think that the value would be limited. Also, as far as I know Wikidata currently doesn't list any information about the geographical distribution of species. Otherwise it would be fairly easy: simply query the database for a bunch of taxon names and their respective geo-data, and present the result on a map. For this to happen we must first add the geo-data to the respective species items in the Wikidata database. However as of this writing there are about half a million taxon pages in Wikispecies, and adding geo-data for them all will likely take some time... It's not a bad idea though! –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 20:13, 10 March 2019 (UTC).

Seeking biographic confirmation re: Betty Thompson and F. Christian Thompson.

Back in 2011, User:Stho002 added a note stating Betty J. Thompson is the wife of F. Christian Thompson. This was shortly reflected in F. Christian Thompson's Wikispecies page (diff). While the two share the same last name, and have certainly co-authored multiple papers, I haven't yet found a reliable source confirming they are in fact spouses, and not merely colleagues with the same name. Can anyone confirm this? Cheers, -Animalparty (talk) 19:29, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

The author credits on [1] are "Betty J. & F. Christian Thompson" and later "Betty & Christian Thompson". Colleagues' names would not be listed like that, unless married. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:29, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

That's not the most direct evidence, but I've since found an acknowledgement (here) thanking "F. Christian Thompson... and his wife Betty". Still not ideal or air-tight, and I don't have serious doubts, but it would be nice to have a concrete source that unambiguously says in essence "this authority named Betty J. Thompson is married to F. Christian Thompson." Animalparty (talk) 01:45, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Templates

I see someone make templates for species. But you make only a species template if there are subspecies. The last time I see a lot of mes, make by robot PeterR (talk) 09:51, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

@PeterR: Who is "someone", and can you please give an example of such a template? In that case I can contact the user/bot operator. Thank you. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 10:47, 9 March 2019 (UTC).

I'm sorry, but I can't find it back. The example was 08 March 2019. PeterR (talk) 09:59, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Okay, thanks anyway. I'll try to find it. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 16:01, 11 March 2019 (UTC).

Dracaena and Sansevieria

I intend subsuming Chrysodracon and Sansevieria under Dracaena, as recommended by 2/3 of the references on the Dracaena page. Christenhusz, M.J.M., Fay, M.F. & Byng, J.W. (eds). 2018. The Global Flora, Vol. 4: Special Edition, GLOVAP Nomenclature Part 1. Plant Gateway Ltd., Bradford is particularly informative and definitive - see pages 2 and 64-67. This circumscription is supported by WCSP (2019) and the necessary comb. nov. have been made. It will be a bit of work, but I will not start until discussion has been completed, however, I would also urge fellow editors not to work on these three taxa until then. Best regards Andyboorman (talk) 10:19, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Dear Andy, it all depends on who to follow. for me Sansevieria is nicely clustered so why not keep it as a genus. A classification accepting only monophyletic groups is logically unnatural, nature doesn't work that way. There has been a lot of criticism in the taxonomic world about the work of Christenhusz et. al. who I hope stop hunting the monophyletic ghosts!

About Chrysodracon, according to "Sansevieria (Asparagaceae, Nolinoideae) is a herbaceous clade within Dracaena: inference from non-coding plastid and nuclear DNA sequence data November 2018 Phytotaxa 376(6):254 DOI:10.11646/phytotaxa.376.6.2" Chrysodracon (not accepted by WCSP is nested in Dracaena) (Dracaenaworldwide (talk) 17:02, 6 March 2019 (UTC))

@Dracaenaworldwide: I tend to agree with those who feel that subsuming Sansevieria into Dracaena is a step too far for now and will require a greater level of consensus than its acceptance by the well respected WCSP.

Monophyly has a number of very useful functions and will not be abandoned, IMHO. Importantly it reminds us not to lose sight of the woods for the trees. However, monophyly can be achieved by both lumping and splitting, but whatever emerges it requires a re-examination of existing and new data, which is highly beneficial. Given that, specialists in a group of taxa often tend to "over split" using minor morphological features. However, plants can be very labile with features appearing and disappearing under evolutionary pressures, therefore the selection of morphological synapomorphies can be a real challenge and a combined molecular/morphological approach is required. Therefore consensus regarding acceptance is essential, unfortunately occasionally this does not emerge and leads to taxonomic opinions breaking the rule one taxon one name "rule", see Nothofagus as a recent example. Best regards Andyboorman (talk) 09:07, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

@Andyboorman and Dracaenaworldwide: Ad monophyletic vs. paraphyletic taxa: From a logical point of view, Brummitt was correct, that a system with ranked taxa is impossible without accepting paraphyletic taxa. His last stand, as far as I see: DOI: 10.3417/2012089. --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:35, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

@Andyboorman and Franz Xaver: Thanks to both of you :) — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dracaenaworldwide (talk • contribs) 12:57, 7 March 2019‎.

┌─────────────────────────┘ @Dracaenaworldwide and Franz Xaver: I will not go through with my proposal above for now, but given that the page needs still needs reworking and updating. However, from my knowledge of the genera and reading of the evidence, the synonymy is reasonable. Monophyletic vs. paraphyletic is an interesting, if forlorn debate, after all we are debating constructs. A pragmatic multi-evidential approach leading to acceptance by the greatest number (consensus) is about the best that can be achieved for 95% of taxa. However, that brings me on to Salvia another holdout on WS? Andyboorman (talk) 20:05, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

@Andyboorman, Dracaenaworldwide, and Franz Xaver: - given the comment "Dracaena L., Syst. Nat. ed. 12, 2: 229. (1767) Often cited with the authorship "Vand. ex L." but Vandelli called the Dragontree Draco and put Dracaena in synonymy" - I'd think the page should be moved from Dracaena (Vand. ex L.) to Dracaena (L.)? As an aside, I've changed the lead pic to a pic of the type species; that future-proofs the page against any potential splits that might get agreed on. - MPF (talk) 15:05, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

@MPF, Dracaenaworldwide, and Franz Xaver: Both excellent suggestions. If the page move has not been made later, I will complete and also try to add the sp. nov. excepting Sansevieria. Andyboorman (talk) 15:24, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

@Andyboorman, MPF, and Dracaenaworldwide: Why not move the page to Dracaena (Asparagaceae)? The authorship of the name Dracaena is disputable at all. The first place of publication seems to be in Mant. Pl.: 9, published by Linnaeus in October 1767 as an appendix to Systema naturae, Tomus II, but here Vandelli clearly is indicated as author. So the author citation rather would be "Vand. in L." or "Vand.", not "Vand. ex L." The dissertation of Vandelli, where he used both Draco and Dracaena, appeared in 1768, even referring to Systema Naturae here, so is irrelevant to our problem. The place cited in the present version of the Dracaena taxon page, i.e. Syst. Nat., ed. 12, 2: 229, 246 by Linnaeus himself, appeared together with Mant. Pl., the latter as appendix of the first, and thus has equal priority. The shortening from the version of Mantissa Plantarum to that in Systema Naturae probably was done by Linné, but does this give him the right of authorship of the taxon name? Anyway, both places have equal priority, one suggests "Vand. in L." or "Vand.", the other "Vand. ex L." or "L.". --Franz Xaver (talk) 20:40, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver, MPF, and Dracaenaworldwide: well reasoned Franz, the solution also fits comfortably with the WD praxis. Agreed. Andyboorman (talk) 20:51, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver, Andyboorman, and Dracaenaworldwide: - sensible, so long as the genus is placed in Asparagaceae (also with a long history of dispute!!). The other option is perhaps 'Dracaena (Plantae)', since the other Dracaena is an animal. - MPF (talk) 21:03, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

@Andyboorman, MPF, and Franz Xaver: Thanks Franz you beat me to it, I agree fully with you, we (me and the editor of the Flore du Gabon) had the same discussion about the author citation of Dracaena and we came to the same conclusion. We did ask Tropicos to remove the annotation that leads to a confusion [2] "Annotation: Often cited with the autorship "Vand. ex L." but Vandelli called the Dragontree Draco and put Dracaena in synonymy (see Boss, 1984: 16)". Bit they didn't do it yet.19:29, 9 March 2019 (UTC)Dracaenaworldwide (talk) 19:30, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

@Andyboorman, Franz Xaver, and Dracaenaworldwide: - sorry to have to mention; the change has been done wrongly, by cut-n-paste, rather than using the 'Move' tag, thus breaking the page history. Should the change be re-done, or is it not sufficiently important? - MPF (talk) 16:32, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Missing pages, with inbound links

Our most-linked missing pages are currenlty:

• Dyscolus‏‎ (447 links)
• Neocollyris‏‎ (259 links)
• Obereopsis‏‎ (191 links)
• Caelostomus‏‎ (166 links)
• Pseudanophthalmus‏‎ (144 links)
• Xestagonum‏‎ (140 links)
• Cacia‏‎ (126 links)
• Carenum‏‎ (123 links)
• Diadelia‏‎ (117 links)
• Pseudotaphoxenus‏‎ (115 links)
• Merionoeda‏‎ (114 links)
• Pogonostoma‏‎ (114 links)
• Orthotrichus‏‎ (104 links)
• Lepturges‏‎ (100 links)

Most of these seem to be for a genus, where the species pages have been created. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:49, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Seems like a bot created mess generated from COL. Andyboorman (talk) 09:00, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Semantic Scholar

Semantic Scholar is a free, non-profit search engine for peer-reviewed research, with over 42 million papers indexed and analysed. (See also en:Semantic Scholar.) I have found it useful when tracking down taxonomic papers and their authors.

I have just added Semantic Scholar author IDs (Semantic Scholar author ID (P4012)) to {{Authority control}} (see, for example, Ulrich Ehlers, for whom we have no other UID). Wikidata also has Semantic Scholar paper ID (p4011), and yesterday I made a proposal for a property for their topic IDs. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:23, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

You may now become 'Wikispecies — A Wikipedia project'

According to this discussion at Meta, Wikimedia Foundation is considering rebranding. This means for you, that rather than Wikispecies being a Wikimedia project, it would become a Wikipedia project.

The proposed changes also include

• Providing clearer connections to the sister projects from Wikipedia to drive increased awareness, usage and contributions to all movement projects.

While raising such awareness in my opinion is a good thing, do you think classifying you as a 'Wikipedia' project would cause confusion? Do you think newcomers would have a high risk of erroneously applying some of Wikipedia principles and policies here which do not apply? If so, what confusion? Could you please detail this. I have raised a query about that HERE in general, but I am looking for specific feedback.

Please translate this message to other languages. --Gryllida (talk) 23:02, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Hugo Gross, cosmopolitan?

The author Hugo Gross is currently listed as a French botanist here at Wikispecies. The same is true on the Spanish Wikipedia, however the German Wikipedia lists him as German. Both esWP and deWP claims he was born 1888 in Tuniszki, Poland (back then very near the German-Polish border) and that he died in Bamberg, Germany. However deWP (and IPNI) states he died in 1968 but esWP say 1951. To add to the confusion Wikidata states Gross was a citizen of both Germany and the Kingdom of Prussia. Can anyone please help shed some light on this Gross issue? ;-) Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 20:25, 9 March 2019 (UTC).

On my mother's side, I am Slavic-Prussian, and from that very area since before 1300. Tuniszki is deep into Prussian territory (18th-19th Centuries, Kingdom of Prussia, Östpreußen from then till 1945), presently Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship of Poland. Gross is very good German word and name. His education and employment seem to be more German. Possibly there are two, with the other in Spain. After 1945, Comrade Stalin's ethnic cleansing would have forced him out. Neferkheperre (talk) 01:47, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi Neferkheperre, and thank you for your input! I'm fairly fluent in German and know that Gross/Groß (i.e. 'great', large, 'big') is a perfectly good and valid German word as well as a not too uncommon sur- and even given name. Then again I think there were a lot of people moving between the Prussian/German-, Dutch-, Spanish-, Hungarian- and French- (e.g. Perreault?) speaking states back then so having a German name like "Gross" doesn't necessarily equal a German or Prussian nationality.

Also, as you say there may of course have been two Hugo Gross'es – one German and one Spanish and both independent of each other – however two homonymous, well renowned botanists born the same year (and both in Europe) seems like an unlikely coincidence. I'm inclined to believe he's German, but I guess the jury is still out... Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 16:00, 11 March 2019 (UTC).

If I understand the first posting here, it's about French versus German. Spain is only involved, because esWP gives some information on this botanist. OK, the combination of given name and family name is not that extraordinary, that there cannot be two of them. If there ever existed a French Hugo Gross, he or his family most likely would have had his origin from Alsace - but who knows?. Anyway, the botanist we are talking about published on Polygonaceae and the respective paper is telling, that he is from "Königsberg i. Pr. [in Prussia]". According to IPNI, information on death year was provided by J.L.Reveal, who also has published quite a lot on Polygonaceae. So, probably we can trust him. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 17:29, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Who is able to read German, may also have a look into this obituary. --Franz Xaver (talk) 17:39, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

I'll be happy to read it but it must wait until tomorrow. Thanks for the link! –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 15:08, 14 March 2019 (UTC).

Use int

What is the benefit for using int:? PeterR (talk) 09:51, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

@PeterR: It will automatically translate the text into any of the languages listed in Wikispecies:Localization, depending on each user's different languages settings set in their user preferences. So Chinese speaking users will automatically get the text in Chinese, Spanish speaking users will automatically see the text in Spanish, etc. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 15:19, 14 March 2019 (UTC).

@Tommy Kronkvist:. I see only all the text in English, not in Dutch. PeterR (talk) 14:27, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

@PeterR: Sorry for my very late response. The reason most of the words are still in English rather than Dutch are that most of them simply aren't translated yet. I personally always use the English version when editing Wikispecies, but in order to make a comparison I checked the Dutch version with the Swedish version (i.e. my mother tongue) a few weeks ago. You can see the differences in the following JPEG screenshots ("schermafbeeldingen"):

• Asprocottus herzensteini (Dutch version)
• Asprocottus herzensteini (Swedish version)
• Asprocottus herzensteini (English version, for reference)

As you can see, in the Swedish version almost all of the English "original" words are translated, whereas in the Dutch version only a very few words are translated. The reason for this can be found here: Wikispecies:Localization. If you check those tables you find that most of the Dutch ("nl") links are red = not yet created. Adding them is easy: simply click a red "nl" link, enter the Dutch translation (always start with a Capital letter), and save. See for example MediaWiki:Original combination/nl and MediaWiki:Synonyms/nl were the English phrases "Original combination" and "Synonyms" have been translated to the Dutch equivalents "Originele naam" and "Synoniemen". Please note that the Dutch pages should only include the translation: no wiki code, no templates, no categories, etc.

I would be glad to add all the translations myself, but unfortunately I can't speak a very good Dutch. Also, the big tables at Wikispecies:Localization mentioned above includes translations for a lot of different languages, and I understand that some admins may therefore hesitate to edit them. In order to help out I've created this page: User:Tommy Kronkvist/Localization/Nederlands. It is a bit more user friendly since it's only intended for Dutch translations, no other languages. If you want to you can replace the "—" in the "Nederlands" column on that page with the proper Dutch translations. Please also check the already added translations for any errors. I can then copy any new or corrected translations to their proper position in the "offficial" Localization database/list.

Best regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 10:25, 10 April 2019 (UTC).

Unpatrolled changes

We have ~2,300. The typical reason why is that one user (e.g. User:Monster Iestyn) makes a lot of very small, very fine edits (e.g.) in a short period. I recommend admins/bureaucrats take a look at the queue and give appropriate autopatroller rights to users making good edits to weed out what are good editors who may make a mistake but don't need oversight versus individual edits that genuinely need patrolling. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:40, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree with that @Koavf:, and while it is important to evaluate newcomers edits before making them autopatrolled, maybe we should be a little faster in giving autopatrolled rights? Dan Koehl (talk) 11:33, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl and Koavf: I partly agree... Recently about a handful of new users have become very active, and the vast majority of their edits are excellent. This is of course very welcome, however in some cases the quality of their edits differ between namespaces. For example some of the users create good pages in the Template namespace but uphold a somewhat lesser standard in the Main- and/or Category namespaces. This should be up for discussion with each respective user before granting them autopatroller rights. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 15:38, 14 March 2019 (UTC).

Maybe a polite suggestion to study the instructions closer, combined with a proposal of granting autopatrol rights, if they confirm to follow instructions, would make those users to take a step in a wished directon? Dan Koehl (talk) 15:44, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Sure but if no one is reviewing their edits anyway, there is no reason to leave them unpatrolled. This way, we can focus on the new users whose edits are generally poor rather than the overall good editors who are struggling in some specific area. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:51, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

One of the problems is that there are too few active patrollers. I've reviewed more than 700 edits the past week, but the workload most certainly is too big for one single user. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 17:53, 14 March 2019 (UTC).

Sorry I did not realise this had got out of hand again. I have been extra-ordinarily busy the last 12 months working on an entire museum collection, some 18000 specimens. Anyway I will try to do some patrolling over the next week to do my share. Although I agree with some points above that maybe we should look into when people get the autopatrol rights, we also do have to be wary of issues. It should never be given blindly just based on number of edits or time editing, the quality must be assessed to. But perhaps we can speed it up a little. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 18:10, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────┘ @Dan Koehl, Faendalimas, and Koavf: Not counting translations (which can sometimes be difficult to mark as patrolled due to technical limitations) we're now down to approximately 400 unpatrolled edits. Still quite a few of course, but a lot better than 2,300. Some edits are difficult for me to check, simply because I haven't got the proper literature or references. For example please have a look at the two last edits of Agra vation [sic] and the most recent version of Plectranthus amboinicus. Any help is much appreciated. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 01:03, 19 March 2019 (UTC).

Thanks a lot. I'm gated by 1.) lack of knowledge of the subject matter and 2.) not knowing certain languages. Some of the Chinese translations I looked at seemed good enough but I was hesitant to mark them patrolled. :/ —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:25, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Understandable. Cross-references via the external links at the Wikidata "taxon pages" and/or zhWP helps a lot, but it takes time. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 03:53, 19 March 2019 (UTC).

In case of Plectranthus amboinicus, the diff by the IP was a subtle vandalism, changing basionym and heterotypic synonym. I have corrected this page. --Thiotrix (talk) 17:07, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

It may not be vandalism as some botanist do not accept Coleus being sunk into Plectranthus - see Hassler c.f. WCSP. Andyboorman (talk) 22:00, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Some of those unpatrolled edits were actually Japanese, not Chinese. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 19:38, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Biographies with no UIDs

The page I have just at Wikispecies:Biographies with no identifiers contains a Wikidata query which returns a list of people with a Wikispecies biography, but with no UIDs (VIAF, ISNI, ORCID, IPNI, Zoobank, etc) on Wikidata - in other words, if {{Authority control}} is used on their biography, it will have no content.

There are currently 21,347 people in the list! Some of them, such as A. Murdoch, have an ID (Zoobank, in this case) in the Wikispecies article text; but many have none there, either. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:42, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Customizing link color of redirects

Hello, for information it is possible to change the colors of redirect links by editing the CSS at your skin subpage (for all skins: common.css; for vector: vector.css; for monobook: monobook.css).

To show redirects as green links, you can add the following code (Example here):

a.mw-redirect {color:#398131}
a.mw-redirect:visited {color:#71C567}

For more info, see w:Help:Link color. You can also choose the color of your choice, see w:Web colors and https://htmlcolors.com/ for color codes. Korg (talk) 10:24, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the information! Here's another hint to all users. I've always disliked the extra dotted line under parts of taxon names in the Taxonavigation section. The dotted "lines" are automatically added by formatting templates such as {{Sp}} and {{Sgsps}} that we use for listing taxon names, however technically speaking they actually aren't lines at all, but the lower part of a border attribute to the HTML "abbreviation" element. Thus, getting rid of them is easy. Simply add the following line to you CSS file:

.mw-body-content abbr {border:none}

Then save your edit and refresh your browser, and all the dots go poof... :-) Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 00:54, 25 March 2019 (UTC).

Removing synonym genera in family pages?

In several family pages, for example Asteraceae, Ericaceae or Primulaceae, several synonym genera are listed.

For example in Primulaceae, Steironema and Trientalis redirect to Lysimachia. Is it ok to remove them off the list, provided they are listed as synonyms in Lysimachia, or should we keep them? Korg (talk) 10:27, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

I would prefer to keep those names in synonymy on the family page, but list them separately, like in Amaranthaceae (chapter Overview of genera).--Thiotrix (talk) 12:20, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

I would prefer to remove them from the family list and keep this for currently accepted genera. My reasoning is that the family page will become incredibly cluttered and opaque.Amaranthaceae is bad enough with two competing and legitimate classifications and a long list of family synonyms, without all those genera in synonymy that just redirect to the accepted genus. I can not see the point myself. I tend to remove the synonyms once I have updated a family, subfamily or tribe page and really do not have any intention of re-editing those. Andyboorman (talk) 14:35, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

I prefer the solution, as is implemented in the Amaranthaceae page. There exist always some recently synonymised names, which are still in the minds of visitors, who expect to find these names somewhere on the taxon page. OK, you could use the search and hope you would be redirected, but doing this you will have to leave the family taxon page.

In my opionion, the Amaranthaceae page is informative, not cluttered. Anyway, it is well structured. --Franz Xaver (talk) 16:26, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Franz Xaver, but only when a "Genera overview" or "Accepted genera" section is provided (or a "Genera" section when no Subfamiliae exist). Then a "Genera names in synonymy" section is perfectly in place at the familia level. BUT in the cases which Korg provides, e.g. in Primulaceae — Steironema and Trientalis MUST be removed from the main genera list and placed in a DIFFERENT subsection. Mariusm (talk) 16:38, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

I am happy to go with the consensus, but I am unlikely to go through old edits resurrecting familial generic synonyms, whilst there are so many red links. Andyboorman (talk) 16:49, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

I've removed/ not included synonymized genera for most fungi, except when there are species which have not been transferred, or when there seems to be ongoing discussion. Personally I think not having all genera listed is one of the benefits of WS. It can be rather confusing looking at other databases which list 20 genera in a family to then realize that only 2 are accepted. Voganaa (talk) 17:50, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

1. Recently synonymized names may be still in use in literature, as Franz Xaver notes above. 2. Moleculargenetic investigations may cause the need to split a genus, and it may be helpful for a scientific reader to know about the existence of validly published old names in that family, before creating new (superfluous) genus names. 3. Some of those names in synonymy have priority against younger homonyms. So in my opinion, they should not be omitted from Wikispecies. --Thiotrix (talk) 20:00, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

New server for ZooBank

Please note that ZooBank was recently moved to a new server. All should be fine by now, but during a short transitional period oddities may arise... Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 23:32, 24 March 2019 (UTC).

Hoax taxa

How should we deal with cases like Ctenophthalmus nepalensis, a fake taxon, published as a hoax - not least to prevent good-faith from someone unaware of this fact? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:27, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

I think case by case. Many taxonomists have a sense of humour, and name taxa which can sound like hoaxes. I have verified some of these myself. However, C. nepalensis does not register to me as possible hoax. Neferkheperre (talk) 01:10, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

It was rather a test than a hoax – see de:Ctenophthalmus nepalensis (in German). The background seems to have been a controversy over the introduction of a peer review for the respective journal. --Franz Xaver (talk) 11:23, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Natural history collections on Wikispecies and Wikidata

I was hoping to gauge the interest Wikispecies contributors may have in contributing to a global list of natural history collections in Wikidata. As sketched in Where is the damned collection? Wikidata, GrBio, and a global list of all natural history collections I'm interested in using Wikidata as a global database of collections or at least, the institutions that house collections, and many of these institutions already have Wikidata entries. The Wikispecies pages Repositories (A–M) and Repositories (N–Z) list numerous collections by their acronym, many of these have their own pages in Wikispecies, and these pages in turn often have equivalent pages in Wikidata. In some cases these are not linked to the Wikidata page for the institution, in other cases the Wikispecies-derived page may be the only entry for that institution. Clearly Wikispecies is an important source for this project.

There are two Wikidata properties that are relevant here, one is Index Herbariorum code P5858 the other is Biodiversity Repository ID P4090. What I would like to see is every repository having a Wikidata entry that includes one or both of these properties, so that we can have a list of all acronyms applied to collections from the repository.

To get a better sense of what is in Wikidata I built a little tool Where is the damned collection? that takes an acronym and tries to find the corresponding page in Wikidata. For example, try NHMUK or SING.

I am exploring Wikidata using this tool (among others) and adding properties and data where possible. It seems to me that there are a couple of approaches that can be used, one is to add Index Herbariorum codes and/or Biodiversity Repository IDs to existing Wikidata entries for museums, botanic gardens, universities, etc. Many Wikispecies-derived records are little more than stubs, but can be regarded as entries for a specific collection (e.g, a herbarium) rather than the parent institution that houses that collection (e.g., a university or botanic garden). In these cases one can either (a) merge the Wikispecies-based record with the record for the parent institution (adding appropriate identifiers such as the Index Herbariorum code, or link the two records together using a property such as part of P361.

Let me know whether you think this project would be useful to Wikispecies contributors. --Rdmpage (talk) 14:29, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

See: Repositories/Wikidata (this does not yet include repositories with neither P4090 nor P5858). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:28, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Andy, I hope to see this list grow in the coming weeks. --Rdmpage (talk) 19:41, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

It certainly looks as though it will. I have concerns about granularity. For example, we show FLAS as "Florida Museum of Natural History"; but should that be "herbarium at Florida Museum of Natural History", with a separate Wikidata item? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:41, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I think this will evolve naturally. As a rule of thumb, if a collection has its own web domain (or subdomain), or Facebook page, or Twitter or Instagram stream, then it probably merits its own item. Likewise, if people want to add facts about a collection (e.g., its size, or that a scientific article is about that collection) then having a separate item makes sense. If all we have is a collection code, then assigning that to the least inclusive entity that contains the collection seems the obvious strategy (i.e., if a collection is housed at a university then, in the absence of an existing item for that collection we could assign the collection code to the university). — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rdmpage (talk • contribs) 14:45, 14 April 2019‎.

I've added a "county" column, and am busy populating it via Wikidata; everyone is welcome to join in! Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:01, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Ditto a "website" column. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:00, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Read-only mode for up to 30 minutes on April 11

Because of a hardware problem, users will not be able to edit most Wikimedia wikis for up to 30 minutes on 11 April 05:00 UTC. You can still read all the wikis: only editing will be limited. This will affect Wikispecies as well as 889 other wikis. Sorry for the short notice, but after all this is an emergency... In any case the database master failover procedure shouldn't take longer than half an hour, perhaps even less. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 08:45, 10 April 2019 (UTC).

I think that this discussion is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, don't hesitate to replace this template with your comment. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:02, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Should Wikispecies contain invalid taxon names in lists of taxa?

Since the taxon name Candida auris is invalid (see the taxon page for references) I recently removed it from the list of species in the Candida page. My edit was promptly reverted by the user @Voganaa together with an edit summary saying that the species name is "Useful to have represented due to media coverage". In a way I can understand that. The species is one of few fungi that may cause the fungal infection candidiasis in humans and therefore is indeed frequently discussed in media – however should that really matter to us? The prime scope and focus of Wikispecies is to maintain a correct database of the taxonomy, biological systematics and nomenclature of organisms. In my opinion media coverage etc. shouldn't change that fact. Surely we shouldn't include incorrect and/or misleading data simply because the press sometimes enjoys a few shortcuts? "Tabloid Wikispecies..." No thank you!

I understand and fully respects Voganaa's viewpoint here, but feel we need to discuss the matter at the Village Pump so that we can find a way to perhaps include this kind of data without compromising the objectivity and verifiability of the information presented. And, as always, we need to do it while remembering what Wikispecies is not (for example we're not Wikipedia).

Thoughts and ideas about all this, anyone? Cheers, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 17:18, 11 April 2019 (UTC).

Invalid names can be accommodated on the accepted taxon pages and so do not require their own page nor deserve one under any circumstances. It is that simple. Andyboorman (talk) 18:16, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

There are 3,486 invalid taxon pages. This devalues WS, IMO. (talk) 17:31, 11 April 2019 (UTC) Andyboorman (talk) 18:16, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

It should at least be a redirect to the valid name. We might consider adding a "hat note" to the latter page, and to the genus page, in such cases, as done on, for example, en.Wikipedia. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:36, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Invalid names are mostly mention in the synonymy of the valid names. They still in the museum and made a lectotype etc. as original combination. If the species become an other name then I place it in the synonymy with a link.See Echemoides penicillatus PeterR (talk) 18:03, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Candida auris has received some lurid press coverage in last 36 hours as allegedly almost totally immune to antibiotics. How much factual basis was behind this I do not know. Names become invalid for several reasons, as junior synonyms, junior homonyms, generic re-assignments, etc. One author's invalidation is not invariably accepted by all, and many get resurrected. Homonyms and junior synonyms should always be re-directed to accepted names, and listed there under Synonyms. On my Cirripedia pages, I have been putting original authorship/citation, where first synonymized, and any known type and locality data. This can save time in case validity is restored. Neferkheperre (talk) 19:07, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

As far as I know Candida auris is the basionym and not in synonymy. If my data is correct the taxon name is nomen invalidum simply because the authors didn't include information about in which repository the type specimen is conserved (i.e. per Chapter V, Section 2, Article 40.7 in the ICN Melbourne Code). Hence for this particular taxon there are no other taxon names that take precedence over Candida auris, but it's invalid due to a mere technicality. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 05:11, 12 April 2019 (UTC).

What Tommy points out happens a lot in fungi unfortunately. The name Candida auris is used in all publications to refer to the same organism and is a "real" species, in the sense that everyone knows what you're talking about when you call it that. At some point I expect a taxonomist to properly publish the name to code, and it's unlikely to change names due to it's common use. Generally, I don't think invalid names should be represented in WS, but I think we can make exceptions when warranted. As a side note, Candida auris is naturally resistant to many antifungals and is a rapidly growing concern in clincs. Voganaa (talk) 08:25, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Heterotypic invalid names deserve to have a page of their own. The full data for them can't be properly accommodated in the accepted-names pages. As long as these pages are properly marked with {{Invalid}}, {{Invalid genus}} etc., I endorse them. On the other hand homotypic synonyms can rather be accouned for in the accepted-names pages. Mariusm (talk) 13:08, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

A reminder that "Invalid names" has a very different meaning in zoology and botany. When I hear "invalid name" I'm thinking "not validly published, technically has no effect in the nomenclature of that taxon". In Zoology, "invalid name" is what we call in botany "incorrect", it's just not the name that the rules mandate for the organism, and encompasses things such as both taxonomic and nomenclatural synonyms as well as homonyms and suppressed names. (the zoologival equivalent of botany's invalid name is "unavailable").

In both case, my rule of thumb is: invalid names should be listed (including e.g. where the name is nomenclaturally valid, but taxonomically improper because a new name in the correct genus still has to be published) if and only if there is no valid/correct/available name for the taxon. Especially if the taxon is already known by its improper name. And everything that would apply to that name were it proper (i.e. the "permission" to be listed on the genus page) apply to it. Circeus (talk) 22:45, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

In my remark above I meant "valid name" in zoological terms, "correct name" being the botanical equivalent. I should have used the term "synonym". Mariusm (talk) 07:28, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Adding gadgets to this wiki

I'd like to use the Navigation popups gadget, as available on several of our sister wikis. Who can add it here? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:37, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I now have "Interface admin" status, so have done this myself; details below. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:09, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that this discussion is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, don't hesitate to replace this template with your comment. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:09, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

IPNI standard form template

To replace prose like:

Standard IPNI form: Santana Mich.

I have created {{IPNI standard form}} ({{Isf}} is available as a redirect).

It will call the value from Wikidata's P428, where there is no local value.

Please make use of it, and can someone mark it up for translation? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:16, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Request for Interface adminship

Please see my Requests for Interface adminship. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:18, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Please could a bureaucrat action this request, which has support? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:02, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

 Done OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 22:08, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:08, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that this discussion is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, don't hesitate to replace this template with your comment. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:08, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Names in reference templates

I've been changing links like:

{{aut|Santana Mich.}}

to:

{{a|Francisco Javier Santana Michel|Santana Mich.}}

and another editor has now changed to:

{{Santana Mich.}}

I'm not saying one is right and the other wrong, but can we agree to standardise on one, so we don't all waste each other's and our own time? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:43, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

The first two forms are not in accordance with the standard format given in Help:Reference section, the second should be {{a|Francisco Javier Santana Michel|Santana Michel, F.J.}}. The third form is a template producing the correct second form. In the Name Section, the scientific names should be in italics, and nothing else. Reference templates should give complete references with article title, full page range and if available a doi and/or a link to the full text. -RLJ (talk) 20:43, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Even with {{a|Francisco Javier Santana Michel|Santana Michel, F.J.}} in the mix, we have three different forms of template in use: {{Aut}}, {{A}} and (in this case) {{Santana Mich.}}. That's not helpful. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:47, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

{{aut|Santana Mich.}} and {{a|Francisco Javier Santana Michel|Santana Mich.}} are incorrect formats for use in the Reference Section but OK for the Name or Synonym sections, as IPNI standard format is expected. RLJ is correct for the Reference Section where the authorship should look like this. Andyboorman (talk) 21:09, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Again, my question is not what the text should look like, but which of the three available types of template we should be using. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:34, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

{{aut|Santana Mich.}} and {{a|Francisco Javier Santana Michel|Santana Mich.}} (resulting in Santana Mich.) should be used in the name section, {{a|Francisco Javier Santana Michel|Santana Michel, F.J.}} (resulting in Santana Michel, F.J.) or an author template containing this form should be used in the reference section. --RLJ (talk) 23:24, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

You've restated the issue. I'm looking for a solution. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:53, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

• (1) "Santana Mich." is a an author botanical abbreviation standard, which is designed for citation with the botanical names.
• (2) "Santana Michel, F.J." is author-name standard used at WS and elsewhere for publications.
• (3) "Francisco Javier Santana Michel" is the author's full name used only in the author page.
• Both (1) and (2) are imperative to the correct rendition of a botanical taxon and should be both used.
• The usage of one form out of (1) and (2) depends on section (Name/Synonym or Publications) where the name is used.
• (3) is used to direct to the correct author-page link, but is not displayed on the taxon page.
• There's no solution to @Pigsonthewing:'s "problem" because there is no problem. Mariusm (talk) 16:14, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
  • As you fail to recognise the issue; allow me to explain: The problem is that we have multiple templates (and I note that not one of your several bullet points refers to templates, at all) for the same purpose, and we have editors changing from one to another, and then to another again. This is wasteful of effort, confusing to newcomers and more established editors alike and hinders our ability to write clear, simple, documentation, and works against automation, page-parsing and bot tasks. That's why I asked, above, "which of the three available types of template we should be using" I trust that is now clear. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:18, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
    • The template {{a|author}} and {{aut|author}} do the same thing with one difference as I know your aware. The first will create the name as a link the second will not and just do the formatting. The {{a|author}} is the preferred usage on this site, however, to avoid multiple links on one page to the same author page we go to the {{aut|author}} for subsequent usages on the same page. The other reason for not using {{a|author}} is to avoid a red link if no page exists for the author and for some reason it has been deemed unnecessary to create one. In general though {{a|author}} is preferred with the above exceptions. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 19:37, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
      • And what about single-author templates like {{Santana Mich.}}? Also, {{Aut}} can produce a link, thus: {{aut|[[Francisco Javier Santana Michel|Santana Mich.]]}} which gives Santana Mich.. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:46, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
        • The single author templates have not come up in previous discussions to my memory. If people wish to make them I would say they can at present I do not believe we have restrictions on this method. Yes these template can be modified for output with various parameters. Since they are available they can be used. Why is this actually an issue? Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 19:51, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
          • For the various reasons I outlined just above. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:06, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
            • Templates {{a|Standard Author Abbrev.}} and {{aut|Standard Author Abbrev.}} automatically generate typographic tweaks which, by consensus is preferred only for Name and Synonyms, as you know. As Scott said single author templates may or may not produce these tweaks depending on design. As Tommy has pointed out it maybe necessary to use a use a redirect where two authors have the same abbreviation - not possible for botany. However, I agree with Andy, template proliferation is always a danger here as editors get into coding! My advice is KISS. Andyboorman (talk) 09:11, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing:: The standard for WS is as follows:

1. For botanical taxon: {{a|Francisco Javier Santana Michel|Santana Mich.}} to be used in the Name and Synonym sections.
2. For zoological taxon: {{a|Francisco Javier Santana Michel|Santana Michel}} to be used in the Name and Synonym sections.
3. {{a|Francisco Javier Santana Michel|Santana Michel, F.J.}} to be used in publication templates and in Publications section.
4. All other forms, abraviation templates and {{Aut}} template are undesirable.
5. I hope this settles your questions. Mariusm (talk) 15:12, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. My question was "can we agree to standardise on one", so no, it does not settle that, unless we can persuade our colleagues - including those who have commented to the contrary, above - to adopt what you claim is the (de jure) standard, in place of current (de facto) practice. Do you have any suggestions for how to do that? Perhaps you can point to a record of past consensus, by which they should abide? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:00, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Set the options up and go for a vote. Andyboorman (talk) 16:33, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

A vote is really not needed in this case: the displayed names are common taxonomic standard both in botanical and zoological nomenclature. The publication templates format is recommended in the help section. The linking to the full author-name is a sound wiki common practice. Therefore there are no other options to choose between save the ones I mentioned above. Mariusm (talk) 14:53, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I fully agree with the proposed "standard", and also think there is no need for vote. Very useful matter, I, for example, was using the {{Aut}} for synonyms, just following others practices.--Hector Bottai (talk) 15:38, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I disagree with the blanket assertion that "{{Aut}} [is] undesirable". It is NOT desirable for every single scientific author in the reference section to have a separate page. Authors of names, yes, but not all authors, especially given that there is a sizeable body of templated publications on Wikispecies already that have no nomenclatural acts at all. Circeus (talk) 21:44, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

By "{{Aut}} [is] undesirable" I meant that we should strive to link every author mentioned to the author's page. This isn't imperative of course, and for obscure, one-time, difficult-to-locate or no-nomenclatural-acts authors, {{Aut}} serves pretty well. Mariusm (talk) 09:19, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Moving forward

In the light of the above discussion, I have added a |nolink= parameter to {{A}}. Using that parameter with any non-empty value (I suggest y is preferred) will suppress the link; e.g {{a|Linnaeus|nolink=y}} will produce Linnaeus. There are more examples in the template documentation. This facilitates rapidly switching links, on, or off, without having to add or remove the target page parameter.

Additionally, I have made {{Aut}} a wrapper for that template, with |nolink=y set.

We should now consider whether {{Aut}} should be deprecated, replaced by substitution, and eventually deleted.

This just leaves the issue of {{A}} vs. individual author templates (such as {{Santana Mich.}}) to be resolved. I have yet to see any argument for their existence. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:13, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

In my opinion, this |nolink= parameter is undesirable. Having to add "|nolink=y" at the end, makes handling much more tedious, compared to the difference of only two letters between {{A}} and {{Aut}}. Anyway, I wished these individual author templates would not be created at all. Such templates have minimal positive effects, but have the potential to swamp the project with a need of unproductive edits. --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:46, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: I agree with the first part of your comment, but I'm confused by the second. Do you wish to discard both {{A}} and {{Aut}} and use instead something like [[Malcolm Cameron|Cameron]]? Mariusm (talk) 13:44, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

The discussion came to a confusion now. Keep it simple! {{A}} for all nomenclatural authors in the page, and {{Aut}} for non. And, there is another case for using {{Aut}}: when the same author os repeated in the page, we should not repeat the link (except when in some template).--Hector Bottai (talk) 14:25, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Mariusm: No, I didn't mean, what seemingly you have understood. I am supporting both {{A}} and {{Aut}}, but I would like to get rid of "individual author templates" – as I wrote – like {{Santana Mich.}}. --Franz Xaver (talk) 15:44, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Oh, I see. I also wish them gone. Mariusm (talk) 15:58, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Indeed. They are not using full-name format we presently favor. Neither do any seem to contain any information not found in title. Neferkheperre (talk)

I am good with whats being discussed here. I have no issue with depreciating {{Aut}} if the parameter |nolink= is added to {{A}}as this would effectively mean that the preferred option now does the job of both templates. I also agree with the idea of getting rid of individual author templates. These are unnecessary and will often have minimal usage. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 20:03, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Number of {{Aut}} templates in use is astounding, as is {{A}}. Catching up with proposed change will be enormous. Neferkheperre (talk) 22:20, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Category:Author templates has 4,768 members. Some (I wonder how many?) like {{Johannes Michael Friedrich Adams}} have only one transclusion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:12, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Edita Brestenska/Brestenská

It seems highly likely that Edita Brestenska is cs:Edita Brestenská. Does anyone wish to opine, before I merge the respective Wikidata items? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:56, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes. The thing is that people create pages on Wikispecies and are too restricted in characterizing what the authority studies. Far as I can tell she's a specialist of fossil microfauna in general, certainly not restricted to Ostracoda. Circeus (talk) 04:44, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikidata items merged and our page moved to Edita Brestenská. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:56, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Taxonomic Changes to Chelidae

Hi everyone, I have put in some major taxonomic changes that came about from a recent paper. I acknowledge I am an author.:

• Kehlmaier, C., Zhang, X., Georges, A., Campbell, P.D., Thomson, S., & Fritz, U. 2019. Mitogenomics of historical type specimens of Australasian turtles: clarification of taxonomic confusion and old mitochondrial introgression. Scientific Reports (2019) 9:5841 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-42310-x Reference page. 
  

Please check my recent changes due to this as I need to be clear on NPoV and OR. The paper is above it is published. Diffs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, moves, deletion. 6, 7

• edit: also in this paper the name Chelodina oblonga was declared nomen dubium and is no longer used. I have made it a redirect to Chelodina rugosa at present as it was used for this species however I am open to suggestions on where to store information on it.

Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 16:59, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Template:Publications

It has been drawn to my attention that the documentation of {{Publications}} includes the line "Please note that this template contains incompatibilities and should not be used.". There is nothing to say what those "incompatibilities " are, and the talk page is a red link

What are they, and is anyone working to fix them? If not, should the template be removed from 2500+ pages that use it, and deleted?

Or is it OK for use, in which case can we remove the quoted text?

As in the case of author name templates, above, it would be good to agree to standardise on one model or the other (the "other being:

=={{int:Publications}}==

{{Inc}}

) rather than having editors changing from one to the other, and back again. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:47, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Ping @Tommy Kronkvist: who added that text in September 2016. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:53, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I discovered somewhat later the problem with {{Publications}}. It automatically created the {{Inc}} template, but when I clicked on the edit link to add new references, it failed. That was the incompatibility. Wherever I see it, I change to "other" model. I believe attempts to fix failed, and it was deprecated. Neferkheperre (talk) 13:12, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Due to a Wiki bug, the {{Publications}} template disables individual editing of all sections and subsection in the page it appears on. Therefore, all {{Publications}} should be replaced with:
=={{int:Publications}}==
{{Inc}}

If I get the OK I can perform this automatically using my bot. Mariusm (talk)

Are you sure? On Johann Hermann, for example, I can edit each of the year sections without problem (Hermann&oldid=3257779 diff). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:06, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

The {{Publications}} template contained originally ==Publications== which caused the problem I mentioned above. Subsequently this was changed to <h2>{{int:Publications}}</h2> which isn't a section start as desired but a continuation of the previous section. Mariusm (talk) 15:04, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Rather like {{Taxa authored 2}}, which is widely used. And it's not clear how that equates to "disables individual editing of all sections and subsection in the page". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:14, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Incorrect. I said "The {{Publications}} template contained originally". If you use both {{Taxa authored 2}} and {{Publications}}, there would actually be no sections, but only year subsections. {{Taxa authored 2}} is not needed to be a section contrary to Publication which needs to. Mariusm (talk) 16:03, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

You said "The {{Publications}} template [...] was changed to <h2>{{int:Publications}}</h2>"; {{Taxa authored 2}}, uses <h2> {{TranslateThis | anchor = [...] }} </h2>. In what way is my comparison of the two templates' use of <h2> as "rather like" each other "Incorrect"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:05, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Please lets not argue on semantics. If you feel being wronged, than I apologize. The fact is that neither {{Publications}} nor {{Taxa authored 2}} include "==xxx==" so neither is a proper section. We need Publications to be a section, but if you include "==xxx==" in a template a wiki bug disables individual section editing. This brings the conclusion that a template for Publications isn't adequate and that {{Publications}} isn't up for the task. Mariusm (talk) 09:10, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

If you dismiss my valid arguments as "incorrect", then I think it's reasonable for me to defend them, whether or not you then dismiss me doing so as "arguing on semantics". Just like it was reasonable of me to point out that your dismissal that my concern over author name templates as "no problem" was false. I don't accept other people's apologies for (their perception of) my feelings, but I would be grateful if you would stop behaving in such a manner. As to the point at hand, you're saying that {{Publications}} is inadequate, and should be deprecated, for a reason that also applies to {{Taxa authored 2}}, which is not deprecated; and is in fact widely used. This argument is incongruent. As with the author templates, we as a community need to agree one standard, and to stick to it; for all the reasons I explained in that discussion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:45, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: I lack the capability to enforce my apology upon you on a par to lacking the competency to fathom your feelings. Contrary to {{Taxa authored 2}} which contains merely a link to a list, the {{Publications}} is an header to a hefty list of author's publications. Therefore I consider {{Taxa authored 2}} not being a section, reasonably accepted, while for {{Publications}} to be a substantial drawback. Mariusm (talk) 13:04, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Official URL template

I have imported {{Official URL}} (from en.Wikipedia). It can be used for authors, journals and repositories.

It pulls values from Wikidata; but if no value is found there, it does not display. Thus, it can be added to pages when we have no URL, and, when someone subsequently adds the URL in Wikidata, will magically start to show on the page.

For example:

• SEV (no URL at present; diff)
• ZT (URL now in Wikidata; diff)

{{Official website}} is also available, and displays the link text "Official website", instead of the raw URL, and displays an error if no value is found. Both templates can take a local value, to override the Wikidata value, if desired. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:46, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Template:Herbarium

Would anyone object to replacing and deleting {{Herbarium}}, which has fewer than 50 transclusions? It was created on 10 June 2018‎ by User:Fagus. We can use {{Repository}} instead, which already has over 250 transclusions, and also suits other types. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:43, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Mammalia

Cloud forest (talk) 10:55, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you

Cloud forest (talk) 07:19, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

@Cloud forest: Why have you posted this here? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:29, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

I rollebacked some of the edits because they aren't clear what this user is trying to convey. We might need to temporarily block this individual until we figure out what's going on. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:05, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. I have made an indefinite block, with an explanation at User talk:Cloud forest#Blocked. Any admin should feel free to unblock User:Cloud forest as soon as, but only if, the conditions there are met. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:39, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Agree with block, whilst we seek explanation. I also do not get what the user is trying to accomplish. This is nothing but a list of names, I am not sure where they come from, ie the ref source, or what is being proposed with them. I did not check how different they are from current arrangements here. I would like to see explanations of where this is going from the user prior to any changes. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 18:00, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

LUCA

Is there a solution? Thank you. Cloud forest (talk) 16:41, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

To what? Andyboorman (talk) 19:44, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

New gadget: Links count

I have installed the gadget "Links count". This "counts total number of pages linked to a specific page on Special:WhatLinksHere (and transclusion, for templates)". Once activated, under "Preferences - gadgets", a "count" link is added in the "What links here" pane at the top of the Special:WhatLinksHere page. Just click that link to see the total. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:06, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Navigation popups

Now that I have "Interface admin" status, I have imported the "Navigation popups" gadget to this wiki; you can now enable it in your preferences. It is documented on en.Wikipedia, at en:Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups. I find it enhances my productivity on other projects greatly, and I'm confident it will do so here, too.

It doesn't look quite so pretty here; I'll work on tweaking the CSS, later. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:08, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I love the popups. I've been using them on Wikispecies for years, but I really, really wish there was a convenient way for it to skip ahead to the name section, because the preview function for it is incredibly useless on taxa pages. Circeus (talk) 01:02, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Synonyms

Have to be Synonymy after agreements.PeterR (talk) 12:11, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

But the edit tools still show int:Synonyms, of course. Andyboorman (talk) 20:07, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Adansonia, the (triple) journal

Right now, Adansonia the journal is only connected to ISSN 1280-8571. However, the IPNI data for that journal is... a bit of a mess that covers three, maybe four (!!!) distinct ISSNs. I have reformatted the current entry at ISSN 1280-8571 in a somewhat temporary fashion, but I suspect a proper Adansonia (journal) disambiguation page will have to be linked from Adansonia instead of a specific ISSN... Circeus (talk) 05:32, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Indian Lepidoptera types

This new work may be of interest:

• Sheela, S., Das, D., Shah, S.K. and Chandra, K. 2019. The Type Specimens in the National Zoological Collection:LEPIDOPTERA : 1–342, (Director, Zool. Surv. India, Kolkata). ISBN 978-81-8171-519-7. PDF Reference page. 

Help confirming the identity of the two "missing" authors (one also named as Suresh Kr. Shah,) would be appreciated, please. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:09, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Shah is probably Suresh Kumar Shah ([3]). Sheela is more complicated. The S. initial is most likely a patronymic (Sheela is a female given name), the long form of which is often hard to dig up. Circeus (talk) 11:25, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Could Sheela be the Saroj Sheela of AntWiki? Circeus (talk) 11:32, 2 May 2019 (UTC) I see you arrived at the same conclusion. I didn't even think of checking against her publications even though I'd opened that file at the ZSI site XD. Circeus (talk) 11:33, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. All resolved, now. *mutters darkly about ORCID iDs* Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:48, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Which Taylor?

Does anyone know the full name of "F.H. Taylor", author of Cydistomyia and other Horse-flies? None of the authors currently listed on the Taylor disambiguation page seems to fit. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 18:46, 2 May 2019 (UTC).

Taylor, Frank Henry (1886-1945)? See [4], [5] (different date of death), and Q55073137. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:27, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 21:32, 2 May 2019 (UTC).

Most contemporaneous newspapers and scientific journals states December 20, 1945 as the date of his death. See the newly created Frank Henry Taylor page for references. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 22:41, 2 May 2019 (UTC).

Help from outside

I've been in contact with an editor at PLAZI and I received today the following mail from him:

Dear Marius

Just to inform you that we are back on the extraction of Zootaxa, and other journals too. The goal is that we extract all the information you need, including type locality and the type.

In fact we export this information to speciesID https://species-id.net/wiki/Forcepia_microlabis and we could discuss how we could import this automatically into wikispecies?

Another issue is whether you have a list of journals that you use to extract data. If so, do you have a ranking of which are the most important in regards of the number of new species?

All the best, etc.

Any suggestions?? Mariusm (talk) 18:13, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

It would be very nice to be able to automatically import data from PLAZI into WS. Since speciesID is a wiki constructed similarly to WS, and since PLAZI editers know how to export data to it, there's no reason it can't be done similarly with WS. For example, today PLAZI published 976 species from Zootaxa. These same species can theoretically be also imported into WS in the appropriate WS structure. This will be an enormous boon for WS.

As for the most important journals in regards of the number of new species I think the list at http://www.organismnames.com/metrics.htm?page=tsj is adequete, Can anyone add to this list? Mariusm (talk) 15:20, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

This data (not least speciesID identifiers, which seem to be taxon names, and for which a new property would be needed) should be added to Wikidata, from where it can be transcluded into Wikispecies. Note the existence of P1992, "Plazi ID", which facilitates this. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:05, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────┘

Here are further exchanges with the PLAZI editor:

My mail:

Thanks for your willingness to help. There are a couple of issues to consider:

(1) WS is relatively strict on the format and content of its species pages. Can your bot produce a format similar to https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Platyola_brasiliensis? For example no "Description" or "Discussion" sections are allowed.

(2) You must be granted a bot permission from the WS community by a user poll. This necessitates a procedure involving communicating with the users and explaining the background and the scope of the bot. I'm willing to help with this, but the WS community will be expecting to communicate directly with the bot producer/operator, otherwise the bot acceptance is unlikely. I know this sounds tedious, but this is a communal site and a bot must pass an approval procedure. Please see https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikispecies:Bot.

His mail:

Dear Marius

We can deal with 1. With 2 we won't be able an[d] need your input. We either spend our time liberating data or in distribution. At the moment we focus on the former and assure that at least all the data is in GBIF.
Why isn't your community acting on 2?

Best regards

Well, is it a dead end? Mariusm (talk) 13:58, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

No. See my reply to your first post in this section, above. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:20, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

See This for PLAZI-bot contributions to species-id. Mariusm (talk) 18:08, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

@Mariusm: Would it be possible for them to post a dozen pages here? Korg (talk) 19:00, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

@Korg: Thanks for your interest. I can ask, but I need some sort of a consensus to do that. I see here a total lack of enthusiasm to proceed with this any further, although I think this is a great opportunity to make WS grow and prosper. Mariusm (talk) 07:54, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

"...a total lack of enthusiasm to proceed..." Not so. Please refer to my reply to your first post in this section (to which you have not yet replied). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:51, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

@Mariusm: I understand, but in the meantime I think it would be interesting to have some concrete examples so people could form an opinion. Maybe with several examples we could generate some enthusiasm, and then go further. Korg (talk) 19:10, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

@Korg: For examples just look here. Species-id is wiki identical to WS and it uses the same software. The Plazi people are not permitted to run bots on WS, and asking them to modify their bot just for experimenting, will certainly be rejected. Mariusm (talk) 07:27, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

@Mariusm: Thanks. But how we could go further? Korg (talk) 21:49, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Common names (pages)

Is Wikispecies going to create pages for the common names, or is it Wikipedias matter?93.242.241.111 20:15, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

No WS will not make separate pages for common names, as it is a site for taxonomy and classification only. However, there is a vernacular name section on the taxon pages, if required. Andyboorman (talk) 20:30, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, to hear that.93.242.241.111 11:45, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Merge of double authority pages

While sorting the authority pages for their surname during the last days, I found many double pages for the same authority. I have put the pages concerning zoologists into Category:Pages to merge. Any help with checking and merging is appreciated. Kind regards, --Thiotrix (talk) 07:43, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

After merging, please remember to merge the related Wikidata items (see d:Help:Merge), or at least let someone here know that that needs doing Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:49, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Template:Author

{{Author}} (created by our no-longer-active colleague User:AryamanA in 2015) has just 290 transclusions; and simply applies the author category to taxon pages; it seems it can simply be subst: like this.

Applying the category in a template in this manner makes it invisible to HotCat, so it cannot be easily changed if the category is renamed or a duplicate category merged.

Could someone run a bot to subst: all instances, so the template can then be deleted? Would anyone object to this? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:26, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Reference template

We have an agreement how to create a reference template. I see now persons who making reference template not after the agreements. See Template:Andrews,RC, 1908 PeterR (talk) 12:11, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Peter, this kind of public callout is entirely unwarranted when it's quite obviously a copy-paste error when creating the template. Circeus (talk) 15:26, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Circeus. I hope that this copy-paste error is over now PeterR (talk) 07:50, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

On archaea

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01496-w —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:55, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

BibForm

{{BibForm}} is marked as "long since deprecated", yet has 868 transclusions. Are there any plans to remove it? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:14, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

It's less than that: it's only directly transcluded on reference pages.

For context (since I assume very few people have used it), this template is mostly a roundabout way to auto-create the {{Aut}} formatting and the link to the template page. It has a companion {{BibForm1}} that can generate the "find all Wikispecies pages which cite this reference" link. Circeus (talk) 15:17, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

{{BibForm}} is currently used by a total of 145 reference templates and {{BibForm1}} by 148. In my opinion using the two templates together is counterintuitive, and also quite often the backlinks created by them are malformed or otherwise rendered in a non-standard way. Give me a few days and I will have emptied them both, replacing them with the standard Wikispecies format. Simply using {{subst:Reftemp}} directly in every reference template is a lot easier and more convenient, since it creates all backlinks and automatically adds them to Category:Reference templates.

–Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 13:21, 17 May 2019 (UTC).

Alyssum

I have been updating the above genus and below is lift from the Discussion Page.

The traditional sectional circumscription (Dudley, 1964) is not supported by either morphological or molecular evidence and should be removed pending further research Li et al. (2015) & Sˇpaniel et al. (2015). This is particularly important due to the many new nomenclatural combinations, mainly in the re-established Odontarrhena (77), but also Meniocus (6) and the monotypic Resetnikia gen. nov.. Andyboorman (talk) 09:05, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

In addition, Rešetnik et al. (2013) has found that although there are some morphological synapomorphies distinguishing A. sect. Alyssum, A. sect. Gamosepalum and A. sect. Psilonema, none of the sections are monophyletic. The sections are of minor importance in understanding lineages, relationships and taxonomy within Alyssum s.str. and will be removed unless there are reasoned arguments for their retention.

Comments before I go ahead with my proposal. Andyboorman (talk) 15:15, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Talk pages consultation: Phase 2

The Wikimedia Foundation is currently conducting a global consultation about communication. The goal is to bring Wikimedians and wiki-minded people together to improve tools for communication.

Phase 1 of the consultation is over – thank you to everyone who participated! – and we've published the Phase 1 report. The report summarizes what people have said and what we've learned, proposes a direction for the project, and asks specific questions to explore in Phase 2.

Very briefly, the proposed direction is that wikitext talk pages should be improved, and not replaced. We propose building a new design on top of talk pages that changes the page's default appearance, and offers key tools like replying, indenting and signing posts. To keep consistency with existing tools, the new design will be a default experience that existing users can opt out of. We also propose building features that experienced contributors want, including the ability to watchlist a single discussion, and the ability to move, archive and search for threads. Building these features may require some loss of flexibility, or small-to-medium changes in wikitext conventions. The goal is to only make changes that directly enable functionality that users really want.

You can see more information and discussion about the proposed direction in the Phase 1 report, including the results of new user tests and some of the quotations from Phase 1 discussions that led to this proposal.

Now it's time to start Phase 2!

We have six questions to discuss in Phase 2, asking for reactions to the proposed direction, and pros and cons for specific changes that we could make.

You can help by hosting a discussion at your wiki. Here's what to do:

1. First, sign up your group here.
2. Next, create a page (or a section on a Village pump, or an e-mail thread – whatever is natural for your group) to collect information from other people in your group.
3. Then start the conversation with the six questions listed in the Questions for Phase 2 section of the report.
4. When the conversation is concluded, the host should write a summary of the discussion on the Phase 2 community discussion summaries page, and report what you learned from your group. Please include links if the discussion is available to the public.

You can read more about the overall process on MediaWiki.org. If you have questions or ideas, you can leave feedback about the consultation process in the language you prefer.

Thank you! We're looking forward to talking with you. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 17:51, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Eugen Karl Kempf

I just found out Tuesday that our ostracod editor Eugen Karl Kempf passed away in 2017, one day after his 85th birthday. Wikidata did not have this information, I have updated his author page. Neferkheperre (talk) 22:36, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. Professor Kempf started editing Wikispecies in May 2011, and soon became a very experienced user. In total he contributed with well over 8,000 edits. More than 2,400 of those were new pages, and he created his last Wikispecies page only one month before he sadly passed away. Best regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 18:18, 2 May 2019 (UTC).

Sad news. As we have no relevant policy, I've taken a leaf from that at Wikipedia: en:Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians/Guidelines and protected his user page (and semi-protected his talk page); and applied {{Deceased Wikispecies editor}}. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:22, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Category:New genus-group name 2014

A few years ago we have desided to cancel Category:new genus-group name etc. I see a lot of these categories on the pages. When is these transaction finished? PeterR (talk) 08:33, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

A list of these can be seen at Category:Names. I can depopulate and delete them if there is consensus to do so. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:33, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Andy. there a lot more Categories: new genus; new species etc. All these can be delete. PeterR (talk) 15:12, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

@PeterR: No, there are no categories named Categories:New genus or Categories:New species etc. Which others have you found, except for the ones that are listed in Category:Names?

@Pigsonthewing: Andy, I agree with PeterR. All of those Category:New genus-group name 1817 (...1827, 1837, 1916, etc...) categories should be deleted, as we decided several years ago.

–Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 02:39, 21 May 2019 (UTC).

I've emptied and deleted all those that were in Category:Names, but found a bunch more under Category:New genus group names. I'll work my way through them when I have time. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:43, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Please give link to conversation where this was decided years ago. Neferkheperre (talk) 14:43, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

I found one, but no consensus reached. Burmeister (talk) 14:53, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Oh yes, I remember that now. looks like most people were either neutral or hinging in favor at the time (I know I wasn't strongly opposed, my main concern was that the two codes work priority in very different ways). Most of the debate was focused on what structure to give the category tree. Circeus (talk) 15:24, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Other superfluous categories

I'm spotting a bunch of unneeded stuff, much of it leftover from Stephen's unilateral work. I remember trying to do work on the higher categories years ago, buuuuuuuut getting talk about this stuff is almost impossible and I was not confident enough to just boldly berserk my way through it until people started complaining.

• In need of emptying and deletion: category:Original combination/Subsequent combination, category:Primary types (duplicates of the othe set of type categories), category:Synonyms (this one is already empty!)
• In need of renaming: category:Subspecies and subcategories (if we keep the year categories, these clearly should be New species(-)group name XXXX). one of "genus group" or "family-group" will have to agree to the other's form, too, before we rename subspecies to species groups/species-group.
  • Speaking of, a some stuff in Category:Species duplicates what's in category:names
• TBD: Category:Name status categories/category:Nomenclatural problems (what exactly into these categories, and whether all the subcategories are appropriate, especially Category:Uncorrected gender mismatch and Category:Gender mismatch...), category:Incorrect original spelling/category:Incorrect subsequent spelling‎ (where do those go?)

Circeus (talk) 15:24, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

category:Original combination/Subsequent combination may be of some use to botanists; category:Primary types exactly duplicates information in our Repository categories, and primary type information, including catalog numbers where known, should be listed in Name section of taxon pages. Yes, any subspecies categories should be merged into species-group categories, to make consistent with genus-group and family group categories.

Valid names categories are nothing more than lists of taxon pages, and of little use. Invalid names categories sound of more use to botanists. I can see some use for some of the name status categories for special purposes, such as Conserved Names, nomen nuda. Gender mismatches are not much issue at all, and incorrect spellings are usually typos, and are sufficiently noted attached to reference citations. Neferkheperre (talk) 20:26, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Except even without having looked at them I'm 80% sure the "invalid names" are all really in the ICZN sense, i.e. just synonyms that shouldn't even have pages. Circeus (talk) 02:46, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

category:Original combination/Subsequent combination is not useful to botanists, as it uses the wrong terminology. "Basionym" is the correct botanical term for "original combination". --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:16, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Procedures

Since only thing which seems to be agreed upon so far is that no definite agreement was ever reached, think maybe we can stop removing entries until we do reach one? If we do agree to keep them, we will have to put them all back. Seems kind of unilateral. Neferkheperre (talk) 12:42, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Not sure you have got that one right. There seems to be agreement here and in the past that most, if not all, of these categories are not required, superfluous and so on ...Their removal will certainly not produce a Wikispecies Lite, I feel. Andyboorman (talk) 17:58, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Don't delete please

Some users here are all too zealous to go ahead and delete categories en masse. I suggest cooling down a little before starting to delete. Especially please don't delete the following categories:

• Category: Accepted species name
• Category: Controversially accepted species name
• Category: Invalid species name
• Category: Extant species
• Category: Extinct or fossil species

I gave the reasons for their existence several times in detail and I'm tired of repeating my claims again and again. Just be more considerate and wait to reach a consensus before starting any harsh action. Mariusm (talk) 17:50, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

"Some users here are all too zealous to go ahead and delete categories en masse. I suggest cooling down a little before starting to delete." Really, Mariusm? I acted in good faith on a request made by an editor in good standing, who reported that consensus had already been reached, only after waiting three days to see whether there were any ojections (as can be seen above, there were none in that time), and for another editor in good standing, whoa also reported prior consensus, to second the request. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:11, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Mariusm, all the times you "gave the reasons for their existence" that I can locate are you arguing alone vs. everyone else involved in the conversation and the only reason people haven't done anything is that literally tens of thousands of pages are involved and they preferred to add content. Believe me, I would have felt no remorse whatsoever rampaging through it all with AWB, but I'm lazy. Circeus (talk) 19:47, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

I am with the rampagers here. This should be a site of taxonomy not category. Andyboorman (talk) 00:37, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

I can see the value in the accepted and controversial name categories but why would we categorize species by being extinct or extant? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:41, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

As far as fossil taxa are concerned, some subdivision as to Eocene, Oligocene, etc. is very useful for those trying to track down identifications, etc. This rampaging periodically takes on appearance of unilateral behaviour. Discussion @Burmeister: linked did not reach any real consensus as to publication year categories, although some alternatives and formats were presented. None were voted on. This type of result seems to be normal here. Lively discussion followed by dwindling. Is interesting that sudden desire to just start up mass deletions happens two years after last discussion. Why this delay?

If people are bored, then please help link pages to Wikidata (to do list). Apparently almost nobody is doing this when they create pages here. I go on the todo list and link up 30-40 per day, in addition to my own page creations. In spite of this, list grows by up to 50 per day, and is now above 3300. Help would be nice. Lots and lots of entries in Uncategorized Templates and Wanted Categories to solve. Neferkheperre (talk) 01:31, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

"This type of result seems to be normal here. Lively discussion followed by dwindling. Is interesting that sudden desire to just start up mass deletions happens two years after last discussion. Why this delay?" because except for the occasional timely case, getting any kind oc actual consensus on issues that don't directly impact how a page looks is FAR harder than herding cat. I also tried to ge a handle on the multiplying institution abbreviations years ago, remember? I was basically screaming into the void about it. Circeus (talk) 15:15, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

@Circeus: don't be so eager to remove the hard work of others. Unfortunately the automatic tools are providing you with the means to easily do so while the indifference of the others helps this transpire. @Pigsonthewing: I wish you quell your ire with boxing or judo and not on WS. You're sure to oppose everything I say just for the sake of opposing. Mariusm (talk) 15:21, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

I'd be quite happy not to respond to you at all; just as soon as you cease continually denigrating me, what I say, and the work I do. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:31, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

@Mariusm: Your comments to @Pigsonthewing: and others are unworthy of you. It would be best if you pause and reflect before further contributing here. Andyboorman (talk) 17:48, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

"Unfortunately the automatic tools are providing you with the means to easily do so while the indifference of the others helps this transpire." I would argue those circumstances are what gave rise to this situation to begin with. What goes around comes around.

As it is, I am trying to avoid throwing Wikispecies into drama (there's no need for another Stephen crisis), but I certainly would not safeguard these just because one user supports them. A consensus has no requirement to be universal. Circeus (talk) 19:25, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Author templates

Is it now consensus to remove and then delete author templates, such as Gaertner, J.? Andyboorman (talk) 09:39, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Your example is actually literally termed "Template:Gaertn.". It performs as redirect page leading to Joseph Gaertner author page in our present format. Sometimes as two-stage redirect. Bit cumbersome in our present programming style. All I have looked at seem to be superfluous in our present system.

Another apparent function is in numerous transclusions to taxon pages, where they are used to build non-templated reference citations.

Simple mass deletion will lead to confusion, as no disambiguation of similar names will result. Would have to be handled manually, case-by-case, without bots. Neferkheperre (talk) 13:02, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

This all goes to show that these sorts of side projects can lead to confusion and unwanted complications. My advice is that editors come to the pump to discuss and justify. If accepted by consensus then the procedures can go up onto the Help Section. Not that this is likely to happen, of course! Cynical me. Andyboorman (talk) 13:32, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

I just did some wider sampling, and have learned more. Most are quite old, up to 15 years. However, some are still being created, as recently as last month. All appear to be botanists. I see very many of these templates are named using IPNI code. As a whole, they belong to an older style generation. I run across these older styles frequently, as we have been creating new shortcuts and styles. There are still vast numbers of non-templated reference citations using at least three forms of software. Neferkheperre (talk) 14:47, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Well as a botanist all I can say is desist, PLEASE. Create no more. See previous discussion as well. Good luck with the cleans ups and updates! Andyboorman (talk) 15:19, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Previous discussion was archived to Wikispecies:Village Pump/Archive 49#Names in reference templates. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:20, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Andy Boorman and would strongly advise against creating new templates like these. I always change "shorthand" author templates such as e.g. {{Gaertn.}} into the complete and standard form {(a|Joseph Gaertner|Gaertner, J.}} when I come across them. On top of that many of the present "shorthand templates" use unrecommended (and most often also malformed) HTML and CSS code instead of wiki code, and I always "wikify" the ones I find (example). I would urge all users to to the same, and then perhaps one day, when no longer used, we can delete them all. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 16:24, 3 June 2019 (UTC).

Eponyms

I have created {{Eponyms}} and {{Eponyms by person}}, and am using them as I migrate categories from "Patronyms of..." to "Eponyms of...".

For example, see of Philip Lutley Sclater&oldid=3689414 this category page and Lutley Sclater&oldid=5285978 this author page.

Feel free to join in. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:33, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Good idea. Using "patronyms" creates linguistic conflict with East and South Slavs. In those cultures, patronymic refers to one's middle name and means 'son of' or 'daughter of'. It is referred to as such on Russian passports. Eponym will remove confusion.Neferkheperre (talk) 22:53, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

@Neferkheperre: I agree. Also, "patronym" (and of course "matronym") are gender specific terms, whereas "eponym" isn't. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 03:42, 16 May 2019 (UTC).

Very well done. From there I also learnt to use the gadget cat-a-lot. Thanks.--Hector Bottai (talk) 22:09, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Good initiative Andy! I went ahead and created the {{Eponymy}} sister template which works in the same way as {{Eponyms}}, except for the wording. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 03:42, 16 May 2019 (UTC).

Why? How does having two templates for the same purpose help us? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:35, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

While some people may prefer one wording, I agree there is no justification for using two different section titles, and even less for using two different templates! Circeus (talk) 19:47, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

My reason for creating it was the one mentioned by Circeus: some people prefer using "eponymy" instead of "eponyms", just as they may prefer "synonymy" over "synonyms". Then I realised that since we don't have a {{Synonymy}} template to accommodate that user preference, we might as well skip the {{Eponymy}} one as well. Hence it's now deleted. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 13:57, 17 May 2019 (UTC).

If we can't have variant citation styles, then we sure as hell aren't going to have this sort of pointless variation. Circeus (talk) 20:26, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────┘ In my opinion, moving a list of eponyms to a (likely incomplete) category is foolish. It's almost like we WANT to obscure and lose information: a category only includes taxon name, thus we lose the data of authority and year. Why not leave as a list (including red-links that would encourage page creation). Why even have publications on Author pages when we can endlessly file away publications under Category:Publications by John Q. Taxonomist? Animalparty (talk) 23:04, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

A proposal for WikiJournals to become a new sister project

Over the last few years, the WikiJournal User Group has been building and testing a set of peer reviewed academic journals on a mediawiki platform. The main types of articles are:

• Existing Wikipedia articles submitted for external review and feedback (example)
• From-scratch articles that, after review, are imported to Wikipedia (example)
• Original research articles that are not imported to Wikipedia (example)

Proposal: WikiJournals as a new sister project

From a Wikipedian point of view, this is a complementary system to Featured article review, but bridging the gap with external experts, implementing established scholarly practices, and generating citable, doi-linked publications.

Please take a look and support/oppose/comment! Evolution and evolvability (talk) 04:18, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Looks good. Dan Koehl (talk) 23:24, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

This has the potential to become the next Zootaxa (but fully open access) if enough papers are submitted to warrant spinning off into its own WikiJournal. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 19:18, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

No issue with the idea of the sister project idea. However I have concerns about it as a journal per se. I do think its a good idea. But it has a couple of problems to overcome with regards to what we do here. That is nomenclature. Under the code electronic jounals must meet certain requirements to be ble to publish nomenclatural acts, one of these is they must be fully archived, hence all electronic journals list in each issue the archiving agency for the edition of the the journal. Second they must declare this information (in the case of animals) with Zoobank. I have not been able to determine if this journal is aware of this. Another issue is that to be considered a pubnlication for the purpose of nomenclature the final published product must be unaltered from then on. This issue I note was brought up on the Wiki Science journal page in a discussion here.

Of course the journal could get around this by refusing to publish any articles that contain nomenclatural acts, this would make the code irrelevant to them. No problem. But I do not see any evidence that this is a recognised issue. Just some thoughts from me. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 15:41, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

CMNC & CMNO

Hi guys, @PeterR:! Are CMNC and CMNO the same institution?--Roy17 (talk) 09:36, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Hello @Roy17: Please note that PeterR hasn't logged in for almost two weeks. In the meantime, the Canadian Museum of Nature's webpage doesn't give any obvious information on the CMNC$\not \equiv$CMNO question but perhaps their Research & Collections page is good place to start further investigation. Kind regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 12:23, 15 June 2019 (UTC).

I'm about 98% sure they are the same. There sure aren't two institutions with that name in Ottawa! I've also seen it referred as just CMN. Peter, asfar as I know, doesn't usually bother to attempt any sort of normalizing of abbreviations. Circeus (talk) 16:46, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes it's the same institution. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:09, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Then they should be merged into one, and the left-over page changed to a redirect page. Which of the two pages should have preference over the other? –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 14:06, 18 June 2019 (UTC).

ISSN pages

Do we really need pages such as ISSN 1055-7903/127? This one at least is duplicate of reference template. There are many more similar. Neferkheperre (talk) 19:21, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

In my opinion another side project and I cannot find a use for such pages. Perhaps @Hector Bottai: can enlighten us. Andyboorman (talk) 08:09, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

I can't. I am posting every new publication template that I create of Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution just because the classification by edition number was there previously. If the edition number is not there, I create it. Useful or not? I don't know. For me there is no difference in having just one publication in the list or 100, like this ISSN 1175-5326/2014.1, it may only mean that editors are not using. The question is: is there any value in having all the publications of certain journal edition, year or quarter in one place?--Hector Bottai (talk) 12:00, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

In my opinion such pages aren't useful. They are bound to be incomplete, and are diverting our efforts to unproductive chores. Mariusm (talk) 16:19, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Agree with Mariusm. Do mass delete do any damage to the fundamentals of WS? Just asking. Andyboorman (talk) 20:38, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Also agreed: the /subpages don't do much unless we turn them into something, like a table of contents with links to PDFs. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:16, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────┘ The first few hundreds of these ISSN sub-pages where created by User:Stho002. The majority of them consists of an endless amount of links to templates using an unrecommended naming scheme, e.g. ISSN 1175-5326/2012.2 which lists a total of no less than 925 {{Zt}}-templates (plus 21 links to templates with "normal" names which in most cases started out with "Zt"-names but has since been renamed/moved to standard names, mainly by Mariusm and me). I've been wanting to get rid of these ISSN sub-pages for years, just haven't got around to bringing it up here at the Pump yet. As a side note, please be aware that any type of mass-renaming of the "Zt"-templates can be tricky since quite of few of them contain inline references to other (incorrectly as well as correctly named) reference templates. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 14:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC).

Also, none of these Zt templates are in proper format. No author links, and all authors past #3 are not treated at all. Much work to do. Really, these ISSN subpages are one handy way to see all of the Zt templates in order. Neferkheperre (talk) 23:08, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

subst question

Does anyone have a clue why {{subst:BASEPAGENAME}} doesn't work when typed in a reference template, yet it works when {{Reftemp}} is used (in the form of {{subst:Reftemp}})? Mariusm (talk) 09:25, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Specifically, {{subst:BASEPAGENAME}} doesn't work when it's preceded by <includeonly>Mariusm (talk) 13:59, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Probably because (theorizing here) the subst: is, y'know, literally not processed if it's not actually being included on the page you're substituting on? Have you checked out m:Help:Substitution and ( somewhat more accessible) en:Help:Substitution? Circeus (talk) 01:52, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

@Mariusm and Circeus: The main reason is probably that substitution is primarily intended for templates. Regardless of its format {{BASEPAGENAME}} isn't a template, it's a magic word in the same way as for example {{DEFAULTSORT}}. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 14:26, 18 June 2019 (UTC).

True. While variables can be substituted, it seems likely that the rules aren't quite the same. Circeus (talk) 02:18, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Link formatting in reference templates

Is there any reason that links in reference templates (for example {{Nonveiller, 1996}}) are marked up as:

[http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Nonveiller,_1996 reference page]

[http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:{{BASEPAGENAMEE}} find all Wikispecies pages which cite this reference]

which renders as:

reference page

find all Wikispecies pages which cite this reference

and not as:

[[Template:Nonveiller, 1996|reference page]]

[[Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:{{BASEPAGENAMEE}}|find all Wikispecies pages which cite this reference]]

which renders as:

reference page

find all Wikispecies pages which cite this reference

The former including the "external link" icon, the latter not? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:09, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Because {{subst:reftemp}} appears to be programmed that way. Neferkheperre (talk) 15:34, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you; I understand the mechanics fully, but want to know why the decision was made for them to be this way. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:54, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

This goes way back to the very first edit of the template when {{Reftemp}} was first created by Stho002 in early May 2012. I don't know why he decided to format the template using full URLs instead of pure wiki code. I propose that we now change it using Andy's latter example since it's cleaner, shorter, and more legible. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 14:28, 23 May 2019 (UTC).

Can this be done with a simple edit to {{subst:reftemp}}? Andyboorman (talk) 17:50, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes; we'd also need to consider getting a bot to work through existing instances (as the template is usually subst'd, changing it won't change them). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:19, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────┘ @Andyboorman, Neferkheperre, and Pigsonthewing: Please note that rather than as in the example above, the best format probably is:

[[Template:Nonveiller, 1996|Reference page.]]

[[Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:{{BASEPAGENAMEE}}|Find all Wikispecies pages which cite this reference.]]

which renders as:

Reference page.

Find all Wikispecies pages which cite this reference.

i.e. with leading caps and ending with full stop. This is also how the text is formatted by {{Reftemp}} today, since 2016. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 19:45, 24 May 2019 (UTC).

Looks OK. One tiny thing, which I have seen brought up before: "Find all wikispecies pages ..." is also accessed by "What links here" on sidebar. I myself go for "Find all" instead of sidebar when searching in Reference templates. Neferkheperre (talk) 20:04, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────┘ Agreed about the caps (that's my error in manually recreating the links), but the stops should be outside the links, thus:

Reference page.

Find all Wikispecies pages which cite this reference.

so that there are non-linking characters bewteen these and any adjacent links, for reasons of accessibility. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:13, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes Andy, you're of course right – so my error this time. :-) I usually format wiki links in the manner you describe, also when considering other characters than full stops. For instance I prefer ''[[ISSN 0045-8511|Copeia]]'' over [[ISSN 0045-8511|''Copeia'']] since I think the links should contain as little extra wiki code as possible within their brackets. Trying to keep the code clean also reduces the risk of improperly nesting different code elements and attributes. Do you remember those

[[Template:Arriaga-Varela & Tomaszewska, 1976|{{aut|Arriaga-Varela}} & {{aut|Tomaszewska}}, 1976]]

constructions that you-know-who used to create some years ago? And all of that code only results in one wiki link! Even though the syntax itself is correct I'm sure code strings like that must look daunting to our much needed Wikispecies' newbies. Anyway: sorry for digressing. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 00:58, 25 May 2019 (UTC).

@Andyboorman, Neferkheperre, and Pigsonthewing: The {{Reftemp}} template is now mended and should work as per Andy's example. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 18:47, 3 June 2019 (UTC).

ReftempZt

By the way, the same is true for the {{ReftempZt}} sister template. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 02:53, 4 June 2019 (UTC).

I just tried out {{ReftempZt}} twice this evening. I see it has been updated for int: translation format, and it does install headings for all of the nomenclatural data. This is good. One or two issues:

1. Date of publication invariable is 19 January 2015.

2. ZooBank link is in old outmoded format, and when touched, leads to dead end.

3. For new names, only brackets are provided. No biggie, it does provide installation point.

Minor tweaking shall make it quite useful. Next is to explore if it can be used on any reference template. Much time can be saved. Neferkheperre (talk) 02:37, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

@Neferkheperre: Thanks for the information. I missed those details altogether, simply because my main focus was to change the same stuff as in the {{Reftemp}} template i.e. the format of the "What Links Here" links as described above. Personally I use the {{Reftemp}} template several times a day but sofar never actually used the {{ReftempZt}} template even once, so I didn't really bother to check anything else than the wiki link format and localization tags. Since I haven't yet studied the ZooBank API in detail I may very well be wrong but as far as I can tell, ZooBank doesn't always present data in exactly the same way or form on all its different nomenclatural acts-, author- or reference pages. Therefore I think that it will be impossible for the {{ReftempZt}} template to always fetch publication dates, list of new taxon names or even ZooBank ID:s directly from ZooBank in the correct way – let alone automatically presenting all that data in the correct way on Wikispecies. For this to work we would probably need several different templates for (Zootaxa articles presented by) ZooBank, depending on which specific types of data we're after. Partly like the original idea behind the different {{ZooBankAct}}, {{ZooBankAut}} and {{ZooBankRef}} templates we used earlier, for non-Zootaxa articles. (Of course nowadays all of that has been simplified and we need only use the standard {{ZooBank}} template for non-Zootaxa articles – but we still need to add the ZooBank ID manually, by hand, as in for example {{ZooBank|E99C6B0B-68FB-4962-906E-47404A3CFED9}}= ZooBank: E99C6B0B-68FB-4962-906E-47404A3CFED9.)

As for now, I've removed the hard-coded date and year from the template. It was first added by Stho002 back in May 2014 and then updated by him a bunch of times up until late January 2015, but no one have bothered to touch it since. The correct date still isn't automatically added, but I figure it's better to not add any date at all, rather than an incorrect one... I also changed the inline ZooBank template to the preferred format but again: the actual ZooBank ID isn't added automatically, and leaving it alone will render an empty/dead link. I have a lot of non-Wiki related IRL stuff to deal with the next couple of weeks, and probably wont have much time to study the ZooBank API in order to try and fix this. As you said Neferkheperre, much time could be saved if we can get this to work, and of course the sooner the better. Unless another user (hopefully... :) beats me to it, I will look in to it when time allows for it within a fortnight or so. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 05:52, 5 June 2019 (UTC).

Cleanup by bot

Do we have anyone with a bot, able and willing to clean up past substitutions of {{Reftemp}}? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:50, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing and Tommy Kronkvist: Please take a look at Template:Adams & Schwarzbach, 2012a‎ and at Template:Adamowicz, 1857 which I've modified using my MariusBot to comply to the above new format. If they're right I'll set my bot loose on the other templates. Mariusm (talk) 09:50, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

@Mariusm: Thank you. In the former, [[Template:Adams_%26_Schwarzbach,_2012a|Reference page]] should probably be changed to [[Template:Adams & Schwarzbach, 2012a|Reference page]] (no underscores; unencoded ampersand) and similarly for other encoded characters. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:05, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Well, this isn't really connected to the issues discussed in this section. If we're going to modify underscores & encoded characters, it probably requires further discussion and agreement upon beforehand. Mariusm (talk) 13:27, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────┘ It is entirely connected to the issues discussed in this section; in my original post I gave the example of {{Nonveiller, 1996}} noting that it was, in part, marked up as:

[http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Nonveiller,_1996 reference page]

and not as:

[[Template:Nonveiller, 1996|reference page]]

Note the there is an underscore preceding the year in the former, but not the latter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:14, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing and Tommy Kronkvist: I venture to suggest there's some misunderstanding: The current {{subst:reftemp}}, modified to include the above revision still includes in its code {{subst:BASEPAGENAMEE}} which produces the underscores & encoded characters (see the recently produced Template:Manuel et al., 2018). Mariusm (talk) 08:17, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

@Mariusm: Thank you for your note about the {{BASEPAGENAMEE}} magic word – I totally missed that one. When Stho002 first created the template he obviously opted for the standard www-type web addresses rather than Wikimedia-type URLs. When dealing with standard web addresses it is often necessary to use underscore rather than blank space, and to encode ampersands etc. Otherwise the addresses wont work, and that's why Stho002 had to use {{BASEPAGENAMEE}}. That particular magic word automatically replaces spaces with underscores, and some characters are automatically escaped using numeric character encoding (e.g. & → %26).

As said, this is necessary when using full web addresses such as http://www.wikidata... etc. However this is not the standard nor the proper way of linking to wiki pages, when linking from within the wiki itself. In those cases we should use blank spaces, ampersands and number signs (#) and such, since all of the necessary conversions are automatically taken care of by the MediaWiki server software. The solution is very straightforward: we simply replace {{BASEPAGENAMEE}} in the template with {{BASEPAGENAME}} and everything should work just fine. The {{BASEPAGENAME}} magic word works in the exact same way as the other, except without the underscore/escaping stuff. In other words it will produce standard wiki addresses, not "www"-type addresses. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 19:31, 9 June 2019 (UTC).

@Tommy Kronkvist: So (1) why don't you modify Template:Reftemp to reflect this ? (2) What exactly is the purpose of the code <{{subst:Ino}}>[[Template:{{subst:BASEPAGENAMEE}}|Reference page]].</{{subst:Ino}}>Mariusm (talk) 16:19, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

@Mariusm: (1): As all others I only have a limited time I can dedicate to Wikispecies, but now it's done. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 16:14, 11 June 2019 (UTC).

@Pigsonthewing and Tommy Kronkvist: Please take a look at the last 15 changes made by MariusBot. I'm waiting for your approval to apply the bot on all templates. Mariusm (talk) 14:00, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

@Mariusm: A very good start, but in some (and only some!) cases your AWB code cuts off one of the leading brackets for adding the category at the very last part of the pages. Instead of producing

… Find all Wikispecies pages which cite this reference]].[[Category:Reference templates]]</noinclude> (example)

it produces

… Find all Wikispecies pages which cite this reference]].[Category:Reference templates]]</noinclude> (example)

which of course breaks the category call. Other than that I think it looks good. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 14:47, 15 June 2019 (UTC).

@Mariusm: Here, could it replace the code & with &? Korg (talk) 15:00, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

@Korg: It's a quirk of {{BASEPAGENAME}} which I can't temper with. HTML-wise it's perfectly legal. @Tommy Kronkvist: what's your opinion on this? As for the missing square bracket, I'll look into it. Mariusm (talk) 15:20, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing and Tommy Kronkvist: This turns out to be a difficult chore! So many variants on the ref template theme! Please look again at the last 20 MariusBot changes.Mariusm (talk) 16:18, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing, Tommy Kronkvist, and Korg: I've made 100 edits using an improved algorithm. Please check the last 100 edits made by MariusBot. I suspend further edits until I'm getting a green light. Mariusm (talk) 16:10, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

LGTM; thank you. If we can't resolve the encoded ampersand issue (in which case, maybe another bot run, later?), I think we should go ahead. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:10, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Looks a good plan. Great discussion way beyond my head, however, its the results that count. Thanks Andyboorman (talk) 20:25, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: The encoded ampersand is also produced in the newly made "official" reference-templates, done with the aid of {{subst:reftemp}}, so we have no choice but to consider "&" legal. Mariusm (talk) 10:13, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Standardize the reference templates please!

I still see that some editors aren't using {{subst:reftemp}} in their reference templates. They still are painstakingly entering all the data manually and not according to standards we strive for. See for example PeterR's Template:Deuve, 2001a. Would you please make use of {{Reftemp}} in your ref templates ?? Mariusm (talk) 16:20, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the advise. I confesse had no idea of the existence of this tool. Please supply one example of the utilization, including the Nomenclatural acts section.--Hector Bottai (talk) 00:00, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

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@Hector Bottai and PeterR: and others: the reference template composition procedure is simple:

1. Compose the reference template without any additions. Example:
* {{a|John Richard Abbott|Abbott, J.R.}} 2011. Notes on the disintegration of ''Polygala'' (Polygalaceae) with four new genera for the flora of North America. ''[[ISSN 1934-5259|Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas]]'' 5: 125–137. [http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/50442687 BHL]

Which dispays as:

• Abbott, J.R. 2011. Notes on the disintegration of Polygala (Polygalaceae) with four new genera for the flora of North America. Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas 5: 125–137. BHL

2. add at the end of the reference: {{subst:reftemp}} without any spaces.

For the above example it will be:
* {{a|John Richard Abbott|Abbott, J.R.}} 2011. Notes on the disintegration of ''Polygala'' (Polygalaceae) with four new genera for the flora of North America. ''[[ISSN 1934-5259|Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas]]'' 5: 125–137. [http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/50442687 BHL]{{subst:reftemp}}

3. Publish the template. The result would be:
* {{a|John Richard Abbott|Abbott, J.R.}} 2011. Notes on the disintegration of ''Polygala'' (Polygalaceae) with four new genera for the flora of North America. ''[[ISSN 1934-5259|Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas]]'' 5: 125–137. [http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/50442687 BHL] <includeonly>[[Template:Abbott, 2011|Reference page]].</includeonly> <noinclude> ** [[Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:{{BASEPAGENAME}}|Find all Wikispecies pages which cite this reference]].[[Category:Reference templates]]</noinclude>

Which will display as:

• Abbott, J.R. 2011. Notes on the disintegration of Polygala (Polygalaceae) with four new genera for the flora of North America. Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas 5(1): 125–137. BHL JSTOR Reference page. 

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Thanks for complying with the above procedure. Mariusm (talk) 15:11, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

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@Mariusm: Many thanks, understood, applied succesfully.--Hector Bottai (talk) 02:49, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

@Hector Bottai: Please note that if you want to include "Nomenclatural acts" in your ref template, you should type {{subst:ReftempZt}} instead of {{subst:reftemp}}. In this case you need to proceed in two stages: (1) Save the template with the ReftempZt subst but without the Nomenclatural acts. (2) Reedit the template and add the data for the "Nomenclatural acts" section. Mariusm (talk) 10:34, 20 June 2019 (UTC).

There is not an agreement to use Nomanclatural acts in the reference template or Category:Reference templates.PeterR (talk) 17:14, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this archive.