Wikispecies:Village Pump/Archive 6

Logo

Am I the only one who thinks that the non-3D logo would fit in better with the other logos? Compare:

	Meta-Wiki Coordination of all Wikimedia projects		Wikipedia The free encyclopedia		Commons Shared media repository		Wikibooks Free textbooks and manuals
	Wikiquote Collection of quotations		Wikispecies Free species directory		Wikisource Free source documents		Wikinews Free content news source

and

	Meta-Wiki Coordination of all Wikimedia projects		Wikipedia The free encyclopedia		Commons Shared media repository		Wikibooks Free textbooks and manuals
	Wikiquote Collection of quotations		Wikispecies Free species directory		Wikisource Free source documents		Wikinews Free content news source

What do you say? I think the non-3D one looks better... —Nightstallion (?) 19:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Non 3D looks better. Gerard Foley 12:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I've got nothing against the 3D logo; Wikipedia also has a 3D logo... (note: I have added a strike through the previous line, only because it's anonymous and not identifiable to someone, according to common vote/poll rules applies on all Wikipedia projects... Verdy p 15:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC) (Note: i use my own signature. An admin can verify that my current IP matches the one in the previous update).

My points is that the non-3D logo looks better, especially at a smaller size and when viewed together with other Wikimedia logos. (I've also unstruck the anonymous comment, I see no reason to strike it as this is not even a poll.) —Nightstallion (?) 18:42, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it depends on one's monitor. I think the 3D one is fine and actually prefer it.Open2universe 11:38, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

By themselves I have no preference, however the non-3D is better for consistency. -Dbmag9

So... what now? I really think the flat logo would be better, but up to now, there's been only one comment from a Wikispecies regular (*and* it was against, not in favour)... —Nightstallion (?) 07:47, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, the 3D one looks better by leaps and bounds. The non-3D one is just plain and boring. Jon Harald Søby 17:54, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

My two cents is that in small form it should be flat, full form 3D. -- Zanimum 19:35, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with that too. 70.188.188.82 14:17, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll wait until we've decided on new logos for Wikibooks, Wikimedia Incubator and Wiktionary, but if the Wikispecies still looks like the odd one out then, I'll continue campaigning for a change. ;) —Nightstallion (?) 13:31, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I prefer the 2d version, for consistency with the sister logos, and also for personal subjective aesthetics. -Quiddity 02:00, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm a wikispecies regular, and the 3d logo looks cool opposed to the drab 2d one.--//Mac Lover ^Talk 23:51, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, the (new) logos for Wikiversity, Wikibooks and Wiktionary will be decided on in the coming month(s); I'll raise the point again once it's done. —Nightstallion (?) 05:52, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the flat (2D) logo -- Wiz9999 16:44, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

inspired by this, i've gone further: Test_on_logos - Julian

I like the 3-dimensional logo. If Wikispecies becomes 2D, Wikipedia's logo will be the only odd- er... "ball." --Gray Porpoise 20:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

What? Wikipedia's logo is 3D, Wikisource is marginally 3D, and Wikibooks is 3D. I don't see how you can say the Wikispecies logo is the odd one out. Seems to me it's 4 and 4; even. Anyway it looks much better in 3D than in 2D. No reason for changing it. ~ Torgo 06:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify what I'm referring to, I don't mean the design per se -- I mean the shading, which really makes it the odd one out among all the Wikimedia logos. —Nightstallion (?) 13:46, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought people have already been complaining that the logos are too similar. Nightstallion, the flat logo that you suggested look too much like wikicommons's--Hillgentleman 09:27, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Leave it pseudo-3d as it is nicer so. --Purodha Blissenbach 23:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• The 3D logo evokes DNA, big or small. The flat logo is not evocative. I am not a regular here. --Hillgentleman 11:34, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• I question how fitting slightly better with other logos on a template is a sufficient reason for changing a logo. How frequent do people actually look at the sister-projects template? How does that compare to the frequency of a logo being seen by itself? How would the change improve access to wikispecies from sister-projects?--Hillgentleman 07:03, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Hm. You might have a point there. I don't know, let's wait what the final logos will look like. —Nightstallion (?) 14:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I made a few non-3d logos this summer: they are now at commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikispecies_006.svg

proposed logo

Per Erik Strandberg 17:59, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I like all of those, actually... —Nightstallion (?) 16:22, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I prefer 2D revision. It maintains consistency, and if I could, I would change the Pedia logo, because 2D looks better on a shirt (a legitimate reason for those who regularly support WM through the store). 69.228.3.200 05:18, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I am not a regular, but it seems to me that the current wikispecies logo is modeled after dna, and in the 2D logo, you can't really see that. It looks (to me at least) like a few ribbons criss-crossed over each other. DNA is three-dimensional, and hard to represent without perspective and shading. While I would prefer a 2D logo, simply flattening out the existing one doesn't work. 71.228.73.53 04:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

why doesn't wikispecies have it's own internet domain?

Simply, why? AshrafSS 08:15, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

The domain http://www.wikispecies.org points to a placeholder. But it is owned by the WMF. --Walter 21:05, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Placeholder in German? I don't get it. --203.55.231.107 07:38, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Because only projects with language subdomains need their own domain. Projects such as Commons or Incubator only have one version, so are in the wikimedia domain. Dbmag9 09:41, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

If it is owned by WMF, why isn't there a placeholder which at least directs people to the right link? The english wikipedia's page points to that page and one won't know if the website has been hacked or if the project has been disbanded or whatever!Shushruth 06:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The domain wikispecies.org is owned by the WMF.

• Options;
  • redirect wikispecies.org to here -> easy and logical
  • change the domain of this project and host wikispecies on the url www.wikispicies.org -> needs clear consensus of this community and lobbying to the developers. species.wikimedia.org can redirect to the new url. of articles and block the users.

--Walter 13:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it's fine as it is now, a subdomain of the foundation. If a 'move' is ever going to be planned (for a reason I can't imagine) I urge it to keep both domains over a very long time, to avoid dead links pointing to wikispecies --Kempm 14:44, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

For now, I have updated the links on the english wikipedia's pageShushruth 05:35, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Is there any objection that I attempt to get the domain wikispecies.org to redirect to this wiki? --Walter 10:30, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

If it is just that... I don't object :) --Kempm 10:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead Lycaon 12:27, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Bugzilla:7495 - and now it is waiting --Walter 10:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I think Wikispecies should at least be a redirect, because it is important to stay consistent this way. When I need a dictionary, I go to wiktionary. When I need an encyclopedia, I go to wikipedia. Etc. When I need information on animal species, I go to species.wikimedia.org ?

Disallow image uploading?

The Spanish-language Wikipedia has prohibited uploading on their wiki; they want to have everything go to Commons. I think it would also be a good idea for us to do so. We do not allow any licences that Commons does not allow. We do not have images that would not be fit for Commons. If we would do this, we would get rid of the need for monitoring our images. I do not, in fact, see any disadvantages for doing so. Or did I miss something? Ucucha (talk) 15:30, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

You've got my support. Lycaon 16:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I support this. – linnea (talk) 18:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. ~MDD4696 02:12, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

The only disadvantages are that fair-use images are not allowed (no problem) and people have to sign up to Commons also (only adds about 10 seconds). So fine. Dbmag9 09:40, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your support!

I don't think we do allow fair use even now. As far I know, there are no fair use images.

If this support continues, I'll ask the developers to turn off uploading on Wikispecies in a few days. Ucucha (talk) 10:01, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I support the idea also. Images should be in Commons. Kempm 12:19, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Having trouble waking up the lazy developers yet again Ucucha :) --Kempm 09:42, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

You have my support. Open2universe 12:37, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I support also this. ----Gyllenhali 19:36, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

This is now done. Images can not anymore be uploaded here. – linnea (talk) 18:36, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposal

I made a proposal to resolve, hopefully, some issues. Please read the content, and either comment, or sign an 'I agree' Thank you very much --Kempm 11:39, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Part 2 of the proposal is in progress, again please comment/place votes on User:Kempm/Request For Change II --Kempm 08:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Part 3 of the original proposal is in progress. I am going to start writing a Wikispecies usermanual. This is the part I really am not looking forward to, and I need everyone to criticise my work, as it progresses. (I know I make many mistakes, because I have a hard time placing myself in the shoes of someone new to Wikispecies). Further I will try to discuss some issues for which we didn't reach consensus, and also try to adress some ideas that have been raised in the past, in the Village Pump or elsewhere.

As for the taxonavigation vote: the community has chosen a straight list. Over the next days I think it would be fair that both taxonavigation options (the old system and the new one) are valid setups. If you already want to use the new system the content should look like:

==Taxonavigation==
 {{parent template}}
 childtaxon: [[child1]] - [[child2]] - etc

This will produce a bad looking:

Main Page

Regnum: Regnum
  ...
     parent: parent childtaxon: child1 - child2....

But the necessary <br/> will be added to the parent template. So it will be valid formatting. My next step after bringing in a Wikispecies manual, is go through the list of templates and remove all colons (':') and add <br/>'s --Kempm 07:47, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a draft of the help sections, which can be found at: Kempm/Help:Contents_rev1. I included 'POV' sections, as we did not have policy on certain topics. Provide me with feedback on the whole help:sections, and on the POV areas in particular. If we can reach consensus on those areas, we can include them, if not, I guess we leave them as POV for a while, and we do not add those things in the upcoming overhaul of wikispecies.

Once someone gives me a go, I'll move the sections from Kempm/ -space, and move them to the real Help:-area, removing the POV sections at the same time. --Kempm 09:15, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Templates have been updated, help sections moved into place Help:Contents. Further ideas on the transition have been posted on User:Kempm/Request_For_Change_II_followup. Please take a look, and shoot me :) --Kempm 15:16, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I created a Category:Showcases (link) to show a few suggested page layouts. --Kempm 14:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations to all

Thought I needed to post this:

There are 91,267 total pages in the database. This includes "talk" pages, pages about Wikispecies, minimal "stub" pages, redirects, and others that probably don't qualify as content pages. Excluding those, there are 75,000 pages that are probably legitimate content pages.

I believe we need another 25,000 for a party ;) but this is a nice milestone also. Well done. --Kempm 20:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

There have been a total of 0 page views, and 201,481 page edits since the wiki was setup. That comes to 2.08 average edits per page, and 0.00 views per edit. 200,000 page edits achieved around 21:00 UTC by ST47. --Kempm 21:45, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

---

The 4000th user registered today. And the lucky bird is: 18:30 (cur; last) . . Alex9891 (Talk | contribs | block) (New user) --Kempm 20:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

---

There are 99,404 total pages in the database. This includes "talk" pages, pages about Wikispecies, minimal "stub" pages, redirects, and others that probably don't qualify as content pages. Excluding those, there are 80,000 pages that are probably legitimate content pages. --Kempm 12:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

---

There are 100,000 total pages in the database. This includes "talk" pages, pages about Wikispecies, minimal "stub" pages, redirects, and others that probably don't qualify as content pages. Excluding those, there are 80,367 pages that are probably legitimate content pages. --Kempm 09:20, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Category:Taxon Authorities

Does anybody else think this should be moved to Category:Taxon authorities? Hesperian 07:12, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I have read a book Lord of the Rings, isn't this the same? Don't think it's worth changing. You'll get used to it :) --Kempm 08:15, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay then. On Wikipedia people would be all over this as a violation of Wikipedia:en:Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Lowercase_second_and_subsequent_words. But this is wikispecies. I'll get used to it :) Hesperian 11:56, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, if it really bothers you, try to win community consensus for a change. I'm completely neutral, or would vote to keep it as it is. --Kempm 12:27, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I haven't got you wrong, and it doesn't really bother me ;-) This village pump message is just that: an attempt "to win community consensus for a change." If Kempm is the only person who cares enough to respond, and he doesn't think it's worth changing, then there is no community consensus for a change, so I'll go find something else to do. Hesperian 12:39, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I suspect I was the one that gave it that name to begin with. It doesn't bother me if it gets changed, but it seems that there is enough change happening that I wouldn't want to deal with changing all the individual pages. Open2universe 13:21, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Pages for taxon sources?

Seeing as we have articles on taxon authors, ought we also to have articles on taxon sources? I don't see why we link "L.f." to an author page, but don't also link "Suppl. Pl." to a source page.

There are a few taxon sources that have articles on the English Wikipedia: Species Plantarum, Supplementum Plantarum, The Genus Banksia L.f.; the Latin Wikisource has the beginnings of a transcription of Supplementum Plantarum; and the English Wikisource has the beginnings of a transcription of Flora Australiensis. (Disclosure: I created a number of these)

I have created Supplementum Plantarum as an example of what I think a Wikispecies page might look like. What do you think? Is it worth keeping?

Hesperian 06:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

This is great. And vote to use this. I was working on something similar on Wikibooks: wikibooks:Nomenclatural_citations, but this is a collection, not one work. --Kempm 08:10, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

When Wikispecies is getting in good shape again, I wanna help you with building the mentioned books. --Kempm 08:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Great, I'm glad you like it. If this gets community approval, then some help with designing a standard page layout would be appreciated before we start to seriously roll it out.

I'll post my response re: our Wikisource efforts on your talk page as it is probably a bit off-topic for the village pump. Hesperian 11:55, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

One thing for this. Perhaps it is best to create a seperate namespace for books/magazines to avoid confusion if a possible transfer to Wikidata is ever going to happen. In that case I would suggest Sources:Supplementum Plantarum. --Kempm 18:19, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

If so then we should also have an Authority: namespace for our authorities. Hesperian 00:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it make sense to have a sources section. I have no problem putting the authorities in their own namespace. Open2universe 01:36, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Well in that case I will no longer be neutral to the Category:Taxon authorities question, and I guess we can add that minor change if we're gonna place Authors in their own namespace. I would suggest to wait a month or so to solve the 'real' issues we have now, and leave this question open till then (Others can address concerns about these changes here). A question that needs to be solved before the actual change (if applicable): how will we link from the species pages to the new Author pages and Sources pages? --Kempm 08:38, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Dichotomous key?

I'm wondering if there's any interest in creating a dichotomous key for all the species listed here. If Dynamic Page List is enabled on this project, a searchable key could easily be created using the category system... I'm thinking about doing this on wikibooks, but this project seems the better place for it. SB Johnny 16:51, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I tried to find out what Dynamic Page List is, but I still don't know. Can you clarify your question with an example maybe? There's one thing about adding content to Wikispecies. Are you familiar with the move to Wikidata? Because of that move we are a bit restricted to what is possible concerning formatting and content. --Kempm 17:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

DPL isn't enabled on all projects... it just lets you make a page that lists things that are in all of a set of categories, or even not in other categories. I've seen it done on the wikibooks cookbook somewhere, but for an example have a peek at b:User:SBJohnny/sandbox3 (open the edit window to see the wikicode... I'll try to make a more interesting variable set since I'm mostly one with that list).

OTOH, it doesn't look like it necessarily fits with the metadata aspect of wikispecies as it stands now, since this would work off descriptors (e.g., search for a plant with alternate leaves, with serrate margins, without stipules, etc.). SB Johnny 22:41, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm still not sure how useful DPL is. It's 'mumbo-jumbo' for me. Excuse my lack of technical know-how.

Let me summarize my picture of your idea. We add the Dichotomous key on Wikispecies, in the form of a book (perhaps the current form on Wikibooks is correct already, maybe some adjustment for DPL to be able to retrieve data?). Then we add some of that DPL-code to the standard wikispecies pages, and it retrieves automagically some keys from the Dichotomous book? If that is the correct idea, I personally wouldn't mind incorporating that. My only concern is that the move to Wikidata is not jeopardized because there's 'weird' data on the pages. --Kempm 08:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm just getting used to DPL myself... it's pretty fancy stuff. The only data that would be added in the way I'm thinking of it is categories, though there may be other ways of marking pages that I'm unaware of. One option might just be to have a simple interwiki link from the species page to the page in the wikibooks DK, though that has problems because it would presumably all be in English (though it could be interwikied further from there to other wikibooks projects).

I'll try building a partial DPL key on wikibooks for now to get a better illustration, but it will take a few weeks. SB Johnny 10:57, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

An example would make things crystal clear :) If I can help with my limited technical skills, then please let me know. BTW, I don't see a link as a problem for our pages. We do link to the Dichotomous book now using the {{dichotomouskey|{{{1}}} }}-template. (see:Animalia) --Kempm 11:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Protista/eukaryotes

Your classification is somewhat out of step with current ideas. Although the Whittaker 1968 /Margulis 1970 "five kingdom" classification has been around a long time and is taught in elementary school textbooks, it has not been generally accepted since at least 1990 in mainstream scientific literature and not since the 1970s in specialist literature (see papers by Leedale 1978; Patterson 1994; Patterson 1999 inter alia). It is generally accepted that animals, plants and fungi render the protists paraphyletic, that animals and fungi together fall into a larger group of eukaryotes known as the opisthokonts, that plants fall with red algae and glaucophytes into a different large group, etc etc..

The classification you adopt is also inconsistent with the reference you give (Patterson 1999). Also, the classifications of Tom Cavalier-Smith, while intriguing and insightful, are not generally accepted in the field because they are extremely unstable and do not make clear reference to apomorphies.

A far better (and much more generally acceptable) starting point for the whole classification of the eukaryotes would be the first chapter of Katz and Bhattacharya "Genomics and evolution of microbial eukaryotes" (Oxford University Press, September 2006): "Current perspectives on high-level groupings of protists" by Simpson and Patterson.

Thanks for pointing this out. It is a little bit one-sided though. The five kingdom system is not really outdated, just 'under heavy fire'. We do mention the classification from Cavalier-Smith here and there, but always as an alternative. Just as we do with a few other authors. I'm not aware of the fact that we give Patterson 1999 (?) as a reference for current taxonomy, though. Perhaps for a few pages/taxa. The current taxonomy is a mix of different scientific ideas, and it reflects collaboration of many contributors to this wiki, as with all wiki's. Wikispecies is not perfect, it probably never will be, not in the last place because the field of taxonomy can never be perfect.

We value your ideas, but what would be really great is a plan to make a change and back it up with references. This can be a rough draft, so other contributors can discuss it. --Kempm 19:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

A 'draft' to this concern has been placed on Talk:Protista. I hope we can get a discussion going about the taxonomy we use for the highest levels. Our taxonomy has probably been placed on Wikispecies in 2004, so a revision is well in place. Now is a good time to discuss new ideas to the trees anyway, since we are undergoing changes already. A few things I personally like to see, quite urgently, in a new structure are Anterokonta-Opisthokonta (The writer -French user: Verdy_p- of the article calls these Hyperkingdoms) and Superkingdom or Kingdom Chromista (which we don't really have). --Kempm 13:48, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

if life is found on other planets, will it get its own classification? 71.134.237.219 11:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Discussion about invalidly published names

I had a little discussion with I think a Chinese contributor at User talk:212.144.90.102. Maybe someone has a clear answer to the problem raised by this user? It's a fair concern (our goal is to attract researchers), how to deal with invalidly published names? --Kempm 13:06, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

This project has so far been about taxonomy rather than nomenclature. i.e. it exists to document taxa, not names of taxa. If we wanted to document names of taxa, then we would have to have a page for each published name, valid or otherwise, current or otherwise, including invalid descriptions with no taxonomic assignment. Instead we have a page for each current taxon, and the various published names merely get a section on the relevant taxon page. As such, we can't host invalid descriptions that haven't been assigned to a taxon, because we have no taxon page on which to put the information.

We could, if we wanted to, alter our brief to cover both nomenclature and taxonomy. One way to do so would be to open up a "Name:" or "Nomina:" namespace. The Name: namespace would play the role of a nomenclatural database; it would contain a page for each published name, irrespective of currency or validity, providing such information as (a) the name as published; (b) author (c) publication details (c) the status: nomina nuda, nomina dubia, nomina illegit, taxonomic synonym of Some current name, nomenclatural synonym of Some other name, etc; (d) other names that have been declared synonyms of it; (e) the current taxon to which it is attributable. The main namespace would continue to host only pages on current taxa. It would contain taxonavigation info, images, descriptions, distribution, habitat, but it would no longer attempt to cover nomenclatural matters.

This would be about the biggest, most significant change that I can imagine making to Wikispecies. One thing's for sure; it sure would differentiate us from Wikipedia!

Hesperian 12:12, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

This is coming close to my original idea when I started contributing to Wikispecies. I think all that information matters, and I have been trying to add as much nomenclatural details as I could. (For example my fungi contributions, I added all synonyms I could find, homotypic synonyms, (non)-competing synonyms, basionyms, and also published spelling errors). There is room for all this information on one page though, so the question is will we add pages for every name published? Currently we only make redirects for pages that have become a synonym (well sometimes). Putting invalid names (for whatever reason) in a seperate namespace could be a solution. It keeps the taxonomical-tree clean and we can decide on how to deal with those pages at every given moment, because they are seperated. So good idea for me.

BTW I have been stuggling with a totally new idea, which could also adress and incorporate your ideas. If we only add species pages, put those pages in Categories (Vulpes vulpes in cat: Vulpes; Panthera leo in cat: Panthera), we can use the Categories to build the trees. This also gives a rapid overview of how many children are in Genus Panthera, etc. This also does allow for a certain Genus to have more than one parent, which is sometimes necessary to reflect the flux of the scientific world. (Just brainstorming, and I hope the idea is clear). Before we get anywhere near something like this, I think all other problems need to be solved first. --Kempm 13:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Multilingual?

There is an experimental language localisation in meta, could it be used here in Wikispecies too? This would solve the problem that all people can't speak english. --Icepenguin 18:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

We really have no intention to do localisation. From Help:Contents: "Wikispecies is language independent as much as possible. Text is mostly limited to actual data, and when text is used it is mainly for formatting purposes. The scientific convention used in nomenclature and taxonomy is Latin. Wikispecies embraces this convention and uses the Linnean binomial nomenclature system. Latin is therefore used in taxonomy and nomenclature sections. For markup purposes and for data descriptional purposes the English language is used, by convention of the Wikispecies project."

Wikispecies will be scripted into a database (Wikidata). There will only be one database, and only the data that you find on our pages. Providing the same information is not necessary, since the data is equal for everyone on our planet.

Localization for non-content pages is discussable, but I really don't think there is much use for it. Someone requested a Finnish Village Pump about two months ago, but not a single letter has been posted on that page. Questions asked in other languages, usually already get answered in the same language. --Kempm 19:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I requested that finnish village pump, and it hasn't been a succes :( ... You're right that this project is language independent, but we already have main page in other languages too. So it would be great if non-content pages could have localization. --Icepenguin 06:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Like I said I have nothing against translation those pages, but ask yourself the question if it is useful? Your work is probably much more useful if you translate pages from the English wikipedia, to the Finnish wikipedia. Our public is not everyone surfing the Internet, but only taxonomists in the first place. People with above average education, and as such they are likely to know enough English. Though I must confess this is not always true. --Kempm 11:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

After my trial to translate to Dutch, I figured out it wasn't very usefull because scientific names are used. I guess developers can easily add a feature to translate the English headings automatically to a chosen language. But I do miss critical information about "why" the classification is the way it is proposed. Those sections will require translation. In meanwhile, i'll stop the useless translations. If necessary, an administrator can remove my current translation contributions. Inge Habex 04:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Beste Inge, aan uw verzoek werd voldaan en die nederlandstalige paginas werden verwijderd. Lycaon 07:01, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Translation template

I created a translation template. To use it in a page, you should

• create a specific template for the multilingual page using the name Template:Pagename/Translation.
  Leave out the prefix "Help:" if necessary.
• The content of this template should be

 {{Template:Translation|
 1={{{1|Other languages}}}|
 page=Pagename}}

• Translated pages should be named Pagename/Fr (existing pagename / Language)
• Add the template {{pagename/Translation}} on all translated pages

Can somebody add the translation template to Wikispecies:Templates ? Inge Habex 15:46, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Good work. Thanks Lycaon 15:58, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

DNA linguaggio lingua

Alessandro Manzoni nei "Promessi Sposi" scrive l'introduzione in italiano del seicento; dopo poche righe passa a scrivere in un italiano moderno, piu' agile e comprensibile. Quando sapremo leggere il DNA potremo scriverlo in maniera piu' elegante per avere forme di vita migliori, piu' facili da riparare e da programmare, tutte intelligenti e si potranno ottenere proteine per l'alimentazione, sfruttando singoli segmenti di DNA. Ecc. ecc. Franco Tadiotto Genova

Tree of Life

I don't know it this has already been discussed, but when I first heard about wikispecies I thought it was something to the effect of an online phylogenetic tree. Is this going to be an option for the direction of wikispecies? Something along the lines of each page stating where each specie fits in the tree and why scientist believe this.

Take a look at Help:General_Wikispecies. It explains why there is wikispecies, and more or less what we do. --Kempm 08:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid it doesn't explain WHY there is a Wikispecies at all!!! In fact Wikispecies seems to concentrate on getting international and interlinguistic non-phylogenic taxonomy standardized. I'm rather disappointed- although I guess this will remain a good resource for creationists who want to be involved in biology.

Wikispecies:About -that's better. I still think the project is not forward-thinking enough, compared to efforts like Tolweb.org

A new Specie?

Is this a new specie of a amphibian just found in Colombia?

www.eltiempo.com/nacion/caribe/2006-12-12/ARTICULO-WEB-NOTA_INTERIOR-3363094.html

How to help

I'm pretty new to editing Wikis, so I may ask some stupid questions or not use the right jargon. I'm interested in contributing, but I'm feeling kind of lost. The main page does mention that an upcoming help manual, so maybe this will be more user friendly.

What tools exist to automate preparing data? I can figure out how to modify a delimited text file to create a wiki marked-up set of genera level templates, generic articles, or specific articles. I did find an Excel file (can't remember who made it) that converts binomials to an appropriate format for pasting into a species list in a genus article. If other editors have developed data conversion tools, it'd help to have those available in a single place. For example, if it's already been done, I'd rather not spend the time making a tool to convert a file with (a minimum of) these fields: genus, species, authority, reference, into a set of appropriately formatted species articles.

To what extent can data entry be botted/scripted? I don't have the computer skills to do this myself. I realize that Wikipedia would have a problem with somebody automatically creating large numbers of templates or articles. It seems to me that Wikispecies is pretty crippled without this capability. I see in the Recent Changes that the most active editors were posting about 3 articles/minute. This suggests to me that they have to open something in the Wiki for editing, copy and paste data from another file, and then save the Wiki article. If I have a file with rows that are formatted as species articles, do I really have to copy and paste each row into a new article?

I'm not sure what the immediate goals and progress of the project are. I realize that Wikis are fairly anarchistic (perhaps on of their virtues). In Plantae, apparently genera are at least all mentioned in their next highest taxon. Should I work on making generic templates for use in species articles? Should I make generic or species articles? Obviously I can do whatever I want, but I don't see any discussion of what the next landmark should be. The PLANTS database has been used for some species level articles. If I pick a family to work down to species level using PLANTS data, how do I find out whether I'm duplicating somebody else's effort? Who's using PLANTS now, and what are they working on?

There are several other efforts out there to put together The Ultimate Species List. I used to work for one of them. My former employer was woefully understaffed, and certainly had it's share of critics in the taxonomic community. The ease of contributing to Wikispecies is very positive, and might be a way around the staffing problems other projects might face (and any Ultimate Species List is going face criticism from some taxonomists). However, as I understand it now, data entry for Wikispecies is very inefficient. Maybe that's inherent in the Wiki model. If I'm missing some resources to make it more efficient, let me know. Am I missing the point of Wikispecies? There's already plenty of duplicated effort constructing The Ultimate Species List. Is Wikispecies aiming for something different?

--70.249.209.212 08:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello anonymous. I'll first give you a few links that might answer a few questions. I see you already did research, so maybe you have read some of the articles already.

• Wikispecies:About (Why the need for wikispecies?)
• Wikispecies:Done and to do (Lists what has been done, and what needs to be done)
• Help:Contents (The new help-manual)
• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata (External link: The future of Wikispecies: Wikidata)

I believe the above links can answer some of the questions you asked. The goal of Wikispecies is in the first place to aide the wikipedia projects, in the taxonomical and nomenclatural field. The taxoboxes on Wikipedia are updated on each and every one of the language-wikipedia's, and in the near future, those boxes should be automatically updated from the data we are using here on wikispecies. The goal of the Wikimedia foundation, that runs all the projects, like Wikipedia, Wikispecies, Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikinews, is to give access to all data to anyone in any language. What this means for wikispecies is indeed to construct that 'Ultimate Species-list'. The original idea for Wikispecies wanted to take a few more steps though. The original idea was to provide sort of a central registrar for newly described species. Something like ICZN is trying to achieve. But we never formulated any policy on this matter, and I personally think a wiki wouldn't get the backup from the scientific world. It is still a goal, and ideas on how to achieve this would be very much appreciated.

Adding content to wikispecies: There are a few tools. User:Lycaon created an excel-template that converts data into wikispecies-format. From the excel-sheet it is indeed copying and pasting the data into wikispecies. Also robots have been created to fully access and alter wikimedia pages, based on certain rules. These bots mainly change certain things within a page though, and don't add new content. There is a pretty big developer community working on wikimedia, and one of the things that needs to be done, is perhaps alter the workings of a bot to put the data from an excel sheet into wikispecies automatically. Or even to create a bot that extracts the data from an external database, and put it into wikispecies. (Full automation). I myself, I am still adding pages to wikispecies manually, since I'm working from too many sources.

We don't keep track of what is being at this very moment. But the wikispecies-community is not very big (I think this will change when wikidata is operational), and I believe the chances two users will work on the same thing at the same time is very small. You can just find an area of your own interest and start there. Any help is very much appreciated. Not only by adding content, also checking content (is the information correct), or even setting policies for wikispecies. Too many things need to be done, and all help is needed, especially from people who have experience on projects like these.

I hope I have adressed most questions, so far. --Kempm 10:13, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Actual scope of wikispecies

Following a little discussion on prions, viroids, viruses, it's becoming evident the rule for content-allowance needs to be set. What exactly do we include on wikispecies. From the main page: "It (Wikispecies) is meant to become an open, free directory of species. This will cover Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Bacteria, Archaea, Protista and all other forms of life to the extent that our users allow us." So the key is: 'life'. How exactly do we determine life? We need to answer this question, before we can decide on what should be included on wikispecies.

I'll make a first attempt: Wikispecies considers an organisms to be living when .......

1. ) Living things need to take in energy
2. ) Living things get rid of waste
3. ) Living things grow and develop
4. ) Living things respond to their environment
5. ) Living things reproduce and pass their traits onto their offspring
6. ) Over time, living things evolve (change) in response to their environment

(Taken from http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/Life/life1.html) Does this include what we want? And exclude what we want? --Kempm 10:41, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest that it is an interesting and important question, but one best left to the professionals. If they describe it under the Linnaen system, give it a species, genus, order, kingdom, etc. classification, I'd say it's fair game.

Incertae sedis

Hi, I've been away for a while. I love the new simpler taxonavigation. I'm wondering though, how to do taxa that are incertae sedis at some level. One example, which hasn't been edited since the update, is Stereomyxidae. The family Stereomyxidae here is incertae sedis (unplaced in an order) within the class Variosea. How should the taxonavigation look in the updated system, both at this level and above and below it? --Jmb 16:23, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back, JMB! I have updated that area a little. I think alternatively one could choose to leave the rank Incertae sedis out of the tree at lower levels. --Kempm 17:46, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Need help for creating proper "template"

see http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pocillopora#Taxonavigation

I have at least 3 questions :

• Is there a tool bar to have the special " I " between brackets for

• How can create a special template for the genus Pocillopora  ?

• To go from one line to another does not seem easy to me.

Any light to evident but still confuse solutions ?

Thanks Gaiapolis 22:46, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

1. The | is the so-called pipe-character, that's it's name. As far as I know it's on all keyboards, though it may look as two little stripes above each other with a little opening in between.
2. Easiest to create is type the name {{Pocillopora}} and submit the page. If the template is non-existant it creates a red link, instead of filling in what ought to be there. Then simply clicking the red link let's you create the template page.
3. Not sure what you mean by going to another line? --Kempm 22:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

You see I have just gone to another line thanks to " : " and now again :

If you go to the Pocillopora eydouxi and pocillopora verrucosa, you 'll find I have gone to another line.

It sounds odd isn'it ?

Please, before I go further I need you to edit properly P. eydouxi for example and let P verucosa as I made it, so I can comparate and learn what to do exactly.

Are you OK ? gaiapolis 23:27, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Go and sleep. See you soon gaiapolis 23:29, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok here's the difference: http://species.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pocillopora_eydouxi&diff=248645&oldid=248642

Wikidata in action

A few weeks a new wiki has started that implements the features of Wikidata. This wiki is not directly related to wikimedia but run by a separate group of people, but I thought this is significant enough to mention it. http://www.omegawiki.org/DefinedMeaning. Scope of the wiki is a bit like Wiktionary, and the wikidata features can especially be seen when words in one language are connected to their synonyms in others. --Kempm 08:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Unreferenced template and Featured articles

I think we need something like en:Template:Unreferenced. It would be easy to add template to pages that don't have sources and have different data than in Wikipedia. I noticed that Onychophora and de:Stummelfüßer have very different kind taxonomia, but I think they are about same subject? I know taxonomia is changing everytime and scientist doesn't always agree each other, but that's why we need references. And another idea: I think we should start "featured page" -thing, too. :) – linnea (talk) 11:53, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Linnea. I don't think that unreferenced template has much use here. I really hope that we all will add references to every page that is added to wikispecies. It is very much needed. A rough estimate is that maybe 50% of the wikispecies pages has no reference, or, in fewer cases, incorrect references. Perhaps it is an idea to use such a reference, but for our pages it is probably just as easy to find a reference, as it is to add the template? But maybe we can make a template, or several templates, that will be added when a section is missing: i.e. no name section or no reference section. The real problem of the poor state of our wiki is lack of workforce I think. We are only with a few people trying to manage almost 90.000 pages. You are right though that something needs to be done.

Your example of the different taxonomy is not too different :) When you consider Animalia and Metazoa to be synonyms, and clade Bilateria is mentioned on wikispecies (Eumetazoa), just not treated as a seperate taxon. The only thing we're missing is that we didn't place Onychophora inside Ecdysozoa. Not too bad. I think you will find worse examples.

Good idea to make a featured page thing, wanna make it? --Kempm 16:35, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I make something, Wikispecies:Featured articles. If you have suggestions feel free to edit and add comments to the talk page. There is also example vote open. – linnea (talk) 13:28, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Voting on Panthera tigris is almost over. I would suggest making a block for 'Article of the Month' on the Main Page. Looking at the Main Page I would suggest to use the space that is now occupied by language-links for 'Article of the Month'. Containing picture, link to article, the golden star, maybe a few lines more. Then move the language block downwards aligned horizontally above the 'other wiki' block. --Kempm 16:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

It's good place for it. But I think the language block could be located top of the page with small font size and 100% width. – linnea (talk) 20:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

TOC for articles

I have noticed that we don't use TOC in article pages. Usually pages are short, but some kind TOC would although be nice. So I created this template: {{PageTOC}}

This goes top of the page, so you can just jump to the vernacular names is they are what you are looking for. What do you do think? It's similar than template:TOC and also I took something from HelpHeader -template. (It's holiday and I'm bored :) – linnea (talk) 18:01, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I see you are bored :), but much appreciated really. When we started the transition to our trees, I added notoc's to our top-level templates. I don't mind if this toc gets added, but we either have to use it on all pages or on none of them. I really want standards. I myself am only interested in the actual data on the pages, and don't really care what a page looks like, as long as all pages look the same. We are very far off from a standard look, and I welcome every attempt to make that happen! I placed a few links to current discussions we're having on User:Kempm/Request_For_Change_II_followup. The links leading mostly to help:talk-pages have discussions that try to discuss some of those standards. So if you're still bored, add to that discussion as well :) --Kempm 20:14, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

porifera

I was starting my own tree of life cladogram and I found wiki species very useful. I did end up getting a bit more extension to the branches built here on the first day (just animalia, eukarya, animalia, parazoa, porifera at http://www.vliz.be/vmdcdata/porifera/index.php.... I don't have the time and was a little frustrated by the way they list the same taxa in multiple places while leaving them as "acceped as"... This was only seen in wiki species for one species, but there was a lot more species, though sometimes less genera... in short use it if you want to develope the wiki red

Thank you. I hope someone has the time to pick this up. --Kempm 09:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Interwikis

Hello on this 2nd day it seems we have gotten a gift from Santa. Interwikis have been moved to the place where they should be. So now we need to think on how to adept to the new situation. Any ideas? --Kempm 11:23, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I think some kind of template which would show like: "English: tiger, Suomi: tiikeri", {{vernacular|en=tiger|fi=tiikeri}} .. so it has all languages, but shows only those with are called. – linnea (talk) 11:54, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

English: Village Pump
suomi: Kahvihuone

I made that template. It works now. It's now easy to change it's look from template. – linnea (talk) 14:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I think that is fantastic. Now we just need to decide whether names go across or one per line. Open2universe 14:09, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I made a version that list them one per line {{VN|en=tiger|fi=tiikeri}}

English: tiger
suomi: tiikeri

. What do folks think? Open2universe 03:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Any of the two, as long as we use it as standard :) --Kempm 04:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the in line type is more compact, the vernacular list before were pain to read. But on other hand, maybe it's easier to find some particular language? I still vote for inline but on per line is ok too. – linnea (talk) 09:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

This is wonderful! You people amaze me. By the way, I like the list (one per line) format. Another way to put it: format these links like the other side bar links. Excellent work linnea! Totipotent 21:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Can I add to this that before we start implementing this that we make decisions about other open discussions as well? I made a summary of the open discussions a while ago on User:Kempm/Request For Change II followup. It would be great if we could finally reach consensus for everything. Whatever the consensus is doesn't matter to me, as long as we have consensus :) If someone wants to give me tips on that... I'm listening. In the mean time, let me hear your voices, this includes the regular contributors who don't discuss much. --Kempm 11:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. Thanks for keeping us on track. Open2universe 02:01, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Linnea and User:HarrivBOT have experiment running a bot. Everything seems to work fine. So we can also think about how we can make use of this capacity. --Kempm 20:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

How does a person decided where to put "fi=tiikeri" because it both starts with "F" and "S" (Suomi)? Before, we would have put [[fi:tiikeri]] which made it go after "E"... Totipotent 21:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I think if we add interwikis fi should be placed as su(omi), as vernacular perhaps just sort under fi? --Kempm 22:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

That's problem always with Finish / Suomi. We can sort with suomi and keep the code "fi"? – linnea (talk) 13:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Every one should use now on {{VN}}, because it's better name. But we haven't still agreed which way it is showed. – linnea (talk) 13:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Difficult decision. Both have pro's and contra. I like the starred list optically, but when the list gets too long it's annoying, and one would prefer everything inline. Need to think a bit about it, before I place my vote!. --Kempm 14:11, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Wiktionary has dealt with this issue fairly extensively, and has opted for a two-column bulleted list; see for example wikt:en:squid#Translations. I don't know how applicable that approach would be here; even with two columns, the list of names for a widespread animal can get rather unwieldy. But maybe something to consider. Cheers, -- Visviva 17:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I have a small problem: VN not support Latvian lannguage. Code lv, isn't it?--Arachn0 07:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Added (code lv). Ucucha (talk) 16:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Beautiful Wikipedia links on the left! Could they be made to display the name they are linking to as well as the language? E.g. Afrikaans (Hond) Deutcsh (Hund) English (Dog) Or use hyphens, colons, spaces, anything, just so I don't have to look at the HTML link just to see what Wikipedia article it links to. It's right there in the code (e.g. [[af:Hond]] ). -24.218.111.82 18:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps

Poll

Star list (like VN)

•  Support Lycaon 17:01, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
•  Support Kevmin 20:08, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
•  Support Totipotent 07:24, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
•  Support Open2universe 14:30, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
•  Support Kempm 13:44, 1 January 2007 (UTC) (I believe there's a solution for the long list... hideable lists based on user's preferences. Linnea is looking into this, therefore the concern I had with the long lists is now gone).
•  Support --Arachn0 13:18, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Compact (like vernacular)

•  Support – linnea (talk) 13:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Lycaon 17:01, 30 December 2006 (UTC) Inline becomes very confusing for long lists

New bot in the block

Hi all. Linnea asked if there could be bot in Wikispecies and now there is, User:HarrivBOT. Because bot does a lot of work pretty fast, recent changes will get flooded unless the bot flag is granted. According to meta:Request for bot status local community should first approve the bot before status is granted, so please state your opinion here. --Harriv 21:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

If noone objects I can add your botbit. Have to wait a few days here, but don't think there's need you go through voting on meta.

 Support --Kempm 21:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

 Support – linnea (talk) 21:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

 Support – Totipotent 21:39, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

 Support – Open2universe 01:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

 Support – Lycaon 16:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

What will be done to remove all of the "Vernacular names", "Interwikis", "In Wikipedia" titles that no longer have a use?

There's no ready-made solution available, but I'm working on it. --Harriv 22:15, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The feature is now implemented. --Harriv 13:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

HarrivBOT has been given bot-status. --Kempm 02:36, 1 January 2007 (UTC)