Wikispecies:Village Pump/Archive 9

NinjaBot

I would like to request the bot flag for User:NinjaBot. He will do Interwiki Links. Ninjamask 20:02, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Granted -- Lycaon 21:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

IP vandal

Not sure where vandal reports go but a block on user:76.5.105.107 is probably worthwhile. I've reverted the "Nazi" vandalism but this is the 6th or 7th Wiki (& I've blocked on two!) cheers --Herbythyme 07:36, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the reverts. Lycaon 08:53, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

User vandal

It looks like Jimmy Donal Wales - contribs and J. Donal Wales - contribs are the same person given the similarity of the vandalism of both accounts. Any chance he can be blocked at his IP or IP range so he doesn't just create another account? I've reverted his most recent moves/edits. --Georgeryp 16:24, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, should I tag the "on Wheels" pages for speedy deletion, or can an admin just delete them directly? --Georgeryp 16:30, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. The problem is that he uses a name, so his IP is hidden. We need a checkuser admin to be able block him at IP level. It is a recurring problem here on wikispecies. I'll make some inquiries.

Tagging is not necessary. The pages on wheels are already gone. Lycaon 16:31, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. For the record, here are the contribs of a third username with the same vandal pattern: Special:Contributions/Jimbo Prince of Wales. He's hit WikiSpecies every day for the past 3 days. --Georgeryp 16:48, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of Life

Let us please have some prominent links to the Encyclopedia of Life: http://www.eol.org

• Scientists Develop Internet Catalog of All Earth's Species (Voice of America)

  Scientists have announced they have begun assembling an Internet catalog of every living thing on Earth. The organizers say the new website will become the single location where researchers can go to study the nearly 2 million known plant and animal species.

• Related articles via Google News.

  -- Benedict the Moor 03:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The Encyclopedia of Life is well funded and will certainly have quite an impact. We should be sure that Wikispecies has some involvement, and I think that a front page link to the EOL is a good start. -Kslays 18:21, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

There's also a website called Tree of Life: http://www.tolweb.org. 98.197.208.70 12:56, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

 Many Tree of Life (ToL) users and contributors have noted the extensive overlap in the goals of Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) and ToL, 
 and there has been some concern about the long-term survival of the ToL alongside a similar but much larger project, 
 funded at a scale orders of magnitude beyond the ToL's resources. In order to avoid duplication of effort, ToL and EOL have agreed 
 to closely coordinate future activities, sharing content, and software tools.
 Since the EOL's emphasis is on the development of species pages, the ToL will strengthen its focus on phylogenetic information 
 and the documentation of deeper branches in the tree of life. 

number of taxa

It would be very useful to be able to query wikispecies as to the number of species in a family, genus etc. Are there any tools out there for generating such statistics?

I do not believe there are any such tools or statistics beyond the page counts on the Main Page and Special:Statistics. When (or if?) WikiSpecies is imported into a more structured database (Wikidata?) such information would probably be easily discovered. --Georgeryp 13:56, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Vandal

Special:Contributions/Open2universe on Wheels. Please block this account. Thx. --Thogo 01:09, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Articles

I thought that the Wikispecies Charter stated that species wasn't going to host english based articles, maybe I'm wrong. And also, that Wikispecies wasn't going to be an english based project but rather language independent (or at least multilingual like Commons). If I'me getting the wrong message, can someone correct me? Since Open2universe is creating english articles and I got confused. 200.95.228.226 02:52, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The taxon authority pages created by Open2universe (and others) are very minimal (usually only 1 to 3 lines) and help link users to the full, language-specific articles outside of WikiSpecies (if available). Please see Help:Author Names for more information. --Georgeryp 16:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Nearly 100.000 articles!

Thanks to the new pages recently created by Open2universe, Lycaon, Dario and Mario, Ed Uebel,

Goalslevel, and many others, WikiSpecies is rapidly approaching 100.000 articles! At the current rate, this milestone may be reached by the end of this week. When Wikipedias reach article milestones, they display the number of articles on a special version of their logo (e.g. the Arabic Wikipedia now just over 30.000).

There is also a milestone list being compiled at meta:Milestones. I did some searching but does anyone know the best way to contact a contributor who is good with logos/graphics to see if a special milestone logo can be created for WikiSpecies? - maybe an author of one of these commons:Category:Wikipedia logo variants could be contacted, or the original creator of the WikiSpecies logo, Zephram Stark (based on the original concept by Jeremy Kemp)? --Georgeryp 16:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

My first attempt at the logo is here. It's hard to tell, but the 0's are actually this globe that Georgeryp recommended. If I make them any bigger the logo will be too big to fit in the spot. What do you think of it, and do you have any recommendations. (If you want to try seeing it place of the normal logo, copy my monobook)--Werdan7 01:24, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Werdan7 for trying my earth/globe idea. I agree with you about the size limits of the earths. I put some more visual recommendations / rough designs on a talk page where it might be better to continue this conversation rather than keep updating this huge Village Pump page - see: Image talk:100k-logo --Georgeryp 15:46, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Poll

Temporarily change the WikiSpecies logo for 100,000 page Milestone

(Someone on #wikipedia-en-help on IRC offered to make the logo if there is support for it)

•  Support --Georgeryp 22:13, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
•  Support --Open2universe 03:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
•  Support Good job, everyone! -- Kempm 09:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
•  Support-- So much done, so much to do Kevmin 01:28, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Voting has Ended - The final logo design has been selected. Thanks to all for their feedback and participation. The logo-variant will hopefully soon replace the standard logo temporarily. --Georgeryp 20:21, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Taxon are currency - a must-read article for all contributors.

Hail Linnaeus -- http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9191545 From The Economist print edition -- May 17th 2007

Block suggestion

Based on vandalism over a number of Wikis and uploading of inappropriate/attack material on Commons User:88.214.193.26 has been blocked for a minimum of 3 months on 4 other Wikis today. Lycaon can provide you with more information if you require it as they were instrumental in helping to deal with the vandal on Commons. This information is derived from a number of sources including block logs on other Wikis & CU information. Feel free to contact me if you require any further information. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:51, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

And another one!

User:87.98.218.203 - vandal account source & open proxy according to en Wikipedia, regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 14:39, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

so far so good

If Internet keep this pace and wikipedia and wikiothers their pace so it is reason enough for their existens. Like Linux and other free and gratis knowhow and useful things their existens is more than remakabel- it is a wonder. Thanks to you all. where ever you are. M.Helles. Sweden

Main page description = terrible

The description on the main page seems to be for a wiki with 100 articles, not 100K. I propose that this:

"Wikispecies is a project supported by the Wikimedia Foundation with a great potential. It 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 far we have 100,466 articles."

becomes this:

"Wikispecies is an open, free directory of species. It covers Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Bacteria, Archaea, Protista and all other forms of life. So far we have 100,466 articles."

- En:Ravedave

I agree. The current description is outdated with its future tense and "a great potential". --Georgeryp 22:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

IT appears to have been changed. Thanks User:Lycaon - En:Ravedave

However, the versions in all the other languages have not been adjusted accordingly. --EncycloPetey 10:39, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Nematodes

I was trying to aid in making Nematoda non superficial when i came upon an article which suggests the organisation of wikispecies' Nematoda classification is wrong/outdated? Was wondering if someone out there who knows more about nematodes than me could suggest how to proceed. Heres the link [1]

Thanks

Oryctes : 2 taxons have this name

Goodday. There are Oryctes in Solanaceae and in Oryctini. I ranames the first to Oryctes (plant) because it is more recent and less common. Strange to have 2 taxons with the same name, is it not ?

Tarap 19:40, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

It's not unheard of. Actually, this is exactly the issue the {{disambig}} template helps deal with. Take a look at these taxon pages that use said template. --Georgeryp 21:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Also see List of valid homonyms. In wikispecies, we have traditionally included the name of the family in the article name when there is a homonym, but I don't think that is written anywhere. Open2universe 23:55, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Vernacular Names

I noticed that on very many of the species pages there are no vernacular names listed. However, when i attempted to edit the pages, I found a wealth of languages and their names. I then realised that these names were written thus - [[en:Gyrfalcon]] and such like. The very few names that were visible were as follows - {{VN|en=Golden Eagle}} I have remedied this ste of affairs so that all the species listed in Aquila are in the vernacular. This triffling little errors in the syntax are hiding the meaning behind the useless latin names and I request the help of all Wikispeciesers to help me return this site to its rightful state of affairs.George Pinkerton 08:18, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

There is no syntax error. [[en:Gyrfalcon]] and {{VN|en=Gyrfalcon}} perform two different functions. The former creates a link (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrfalcon">English</a>) to the particular Wikipedia as specified by the language code (in this case, code "en" for the English Wikipedia). Many people here, including myself at first, think these are invisible because they don't happen to notice the "in wikipedia" language links in the margin/sidebar on the lower left - see Falco rusticolus. The second code, {{VN|en=Gyrfalcon}}, creates the Vernacular text in the main body of the article. This may seem redundant but what if a species has no common name or its article on the English Wikipedia is under its scientific name? I wasn't here when these two formats were being developed, but I believe there already was a discussion about where to put the interwikis, and the left margin was chosen. Unfortunately, the case of the "invisible" interwikis is a reoccurring problem. Solutions? 1) Make interwikis more prominent somehow or 2) On every page with an interwiki, put an HTML comment explaining that these aren't invisible and/or have the comment refer to an explanation that could be placed on Help:Vernacular names section? See Falco rusticolus for example. --Georgeryp 23:23, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

"...hiding the meaning ... I request the help of all Wikispeciesers to help me return this site to its rightful state of affairs." ' - It is possible to program an automated bot instead. It would create {{VN}} vernacular name entries on pages where interwikis exist and the interwiki is not a scientific name. How would a bot/computer program know that an interwiki is not a scientific name? It would assume the page title is the scientific name and if the interwiki text does not match that (or a portion of), it would create a VN entry. For example, on the Canis lupus page, if an interwiki matched "Canis lupus" or "Canis", no VN would be created. Note that this would fail in the case of the Latin interwiki ...but isn't that redundant anyway? My other concern is the case of names that appear to be closely based on the scientific name but are just converted into the characters of the specific language or altered slightly for pronunciation(?). In other words, they are still bionomial and look similar to the Latin... would it be acceptable to enter these as VN's? I'm not a professional taxonomist, nor a linguist, so I only half understand what I'm talking about here. I've formatted a lot of pages here and I'll see if I can find an example. (For example: Tamandua tetradactyla is Tamandua południowy in Polish and Tamanduá-mirim in Portugues) I'm willing to write the bot to do this if others (especially admins) approve of the idea. --Georgeryp 23:51, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank You for your comments. However, if the vernacular names only appear as a link to wikipedia, then this renders the Vernacular Names section of a species page usless. I propose that all names printed as interwiki links should also be listed on the page itself, thus reducing the need to swing wildly back and forth over the internet in search of names. If all the names were replicated and given the appropriate VN prefix, then the usefulness of wikispecies to the layman would be much increased, as well as having the names in the sidebar as links to articles. I agree with the notion to create a bot to do this menial but wholly necessary task.George Pinkerton 08:18, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. So, in a few days or maybe a week, after others in the community have had a chance to give their input, User:VNbot will start making some automated {{VN}} additions. --Georgeryp 20:11, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Just as background, the sidebar links are relatively new to wikispecies, so links were always visible. It is still possible to have links be visible by adding the : in front. That being said I think it will be good to have VNbot do what is being proposed. I have a concern about Taxon authority pages. Many of them have interwikis where the name is slightly different than the wikispecies article, but you wouldn't want a Vernacular names section. In fact I have been considering whether links should be visible on the author pages since their primary purpose is to redirect people to the appropriate wikipedia. Open2universe 12:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

So it is probably best to have VNbot ignore Taxon authority pages for now. Although both Taxon authority pages and Taxon pages themselves are in the same namespace, VNbot could distinguish between the two by looking for: "== Taxonavigation ==" (irregardless of spaces and capitalization). This may miss a few taxon pages but will hopefully avoid all authority pages. --Georgeryp 15:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I would like to request the bot flag for VNbot. Some examples of VNbot in action: Avahi, Lycopodiophyta, and Panthera leo europaea. --Georgeryp 18:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. Ucucha (talk) 19:34, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Microformat update

The draft Species microformat (per my post abve, dated 2 March 2007) has been applied to Wikipedia-EN's "taxobox". It uses WikiSpecies as its search target. Please see the taxobox talk page for details. Andy Mabbett 21:54, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Election Committee announces Wikimedia Election

On behalf of the Election Committee, I post the following announcement: Siebrand 08:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC) ______________________

Dear all,

We, the election committee, hereby announce the opening of a new election for members of the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees. At least three positions will be filled from this election, with the elected members serving a two year term.

It is important to note that election processes are slightly different this year than in previous years: all candidates should be certain to thoroughly read the FAQ at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/en

From today, June 10th, we're accepting candidates for the Board of Trustees. If you're interested, you must make a candidate statement and list yourself on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Candidates/en

We also need the help or translators for the elections, so if you're fluent in any language other than English, and willing to help, please list yourself here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Translations

If you have any questions, please first read the FAQ, then list your questions to the talk page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/FAQ/en

The official announcement is available on Meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/en

We are confident that this election will draw very qualified candidates, and we wish them the best of luck.

Regards,

Kizu Naoko (Aphaia) Newyorkbrad Philippe Beaudette Jon Harald Søby

Copyvio?

I don't know where to post that, so I do here... Homo erectus palaeojavanicus seems to be an exact c&p copy of the en.wp article (en:w:Homo erectus palaeojavanicus). --Thogo 19:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see, someone tagged the page. Thanks. --Thogo 19:25, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

i think tons of articles could be merged....

when clicking through the structure of wikispecies it is obvious that there are a lot of articles that do nothing but redirect to just one other article. often it happens two or three times in a row.

an example would be: parazoa. the articles parazoa and porifera could easily be merged, without loss of information. navigation through the tree-structures would be much faster then. the same goes for the corresponding articles in wikipedia: there it more or less says that parazoa is a kingdom that contains species that all have some common properties, and the kingdom only contain sponges (porifera). of course the common properties of parazoa and porifera are the same.

there are TONS of articles with the properties necessary for merging, and because it might also affect the corresponding wikipedia-articles in other languages the benefits in better and faster structure also would apply for wikipedia.

so wikispecies could get some major cleanup by merging articles without losing information, and this might even help to clean up and structurize related wikipedia-articles in all languages.

the only disadvantage i can think of is that the amount of articles might drop below 100.000 :(

what do you think about it?

- kurtilein

Merging may make sense for some articles on the Wikipedias, but Wikispecies' current structure mirrors each level in a taxonomic tree. I think you are proposing that branches with only one immediate "child branch" be merged into their parent branch (or vice vera). What if another child branch is described/discovered/agreed upon by taxonomists? Also, the name, reference, and vernacular name sections here are currently designed to document a single taxon/scientific name. How would those sections be modified to cover more than one level in the tree? What would the URL of the page be: Parazoa or Porifera? --Georgeryp 02:19, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

No merging. The idea of Wikispecies is have article of all taxons. If they only have one child there is still much info to tell. Reference, name, vernacular and so one. Also there might be child that have existed before. In Wikipedia in other hand, merging is good idea, since it gives you clearer image. But what we do here is just to offer information about taxon. Wikipedia and Wikispecies are different projects and thus they can have different rules. – linnea (talk) 04:59, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Etymologies of genus names

Hello all, I am trying to cooperate with wikispecies. I have been working for seven years translating the scientific names of plants and names, taken from languages as Latin, Old Greek, German, French, Celtic,...and so on. I have got more than 15.000 translatated genus names (Botanics and Zoology) I do not know where to insert the list with the meanings. I do not know wether this work has been done. Who can inform me about this issue. Thanks.

I am new here, so I may not be the right person to try to answer this, but etymologies seem to be within the scope of a sister-project; Wiktionary (e.g. see the Canis entry there), so you may also want to ask the same question over there too, if you haven't already. There appears to be cooperation between Wikispecies and Wiktionary at Wikispecies:Requested articles#Wiktionary. --Georgeryp 19:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Assuming the information is not entirely language-independent, it should go to Wiktionary (presumably to the English version), where it will be welcomed with open arms. We do try to be as language-independent as possible on Wikispecies, which is why you also won't find detailed information on the physical description, habitat, etc. of various taxa here. -- Visviva 05:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

On another matter, what would be the best way to link to Wiktionary? Or are we better off just not doing so (because many people might link to vernacular names rather than the entry for the scientific name)? -- Visviva 05:12, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Good question, especially since there are Wikitionaries available in more than one language. The standard interwiki syntax is [[wikt:Canis]] but what if you want to link to the French Wiktionary? [[wikt:fr:Canis]] works but the URL generated really links to the English Wiktionary and then redirects to fr.wiktionary.org (and the Canis page doesn't exist in this case) so I don't know what the preferred interwiki is. --Georgeryp 17:11, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

New VN format

I am not saying that I object to the new format, but I would like to see some discussion before making such a visual change. If we are going to keep it I would like to see the box go away or at least be a little wider. Thanks.--Open2universe 12:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Theres now little thing.. It doesn't anymore do columns. They don't work in all browsers but some can show them and they are more practical. – linnea (talk) 18:38, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with both Open2univers and linnea on all points. Also, the following language codes were in the old VN template but are unsupported by the currently one: qu, sm, ilo, and to ("qu" example: Anas cyanoptera). I prefer it without the box and the font size the same as the rest of the article. As linnea mentioned, Firefox (and other Gecko-based browsers) gave a nice, compact, multi-column layout with the previous VN template. --Georgeryp 21:05, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Can we change back to old versio or is there opposite it? I think this current one is too.. it gets too much attention and it's same looking as whole page. I admit that some improves can be made to old one. – linnea (talk) 14:01, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I'ld prefer the old one too. Several languages without a wikipedia were dropped during the change. Lycaon 23:54, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I have though this. But I can't make the change, because the page is protected. So I hope that some one who can edit it, will make revert. :) – linnea (talk) 10:06, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

"Ideal" Species Page

I saw on the templates section that the ideal species page is kind of obsolete. I have been trying to make species pages as complete as possible. After some minor corrections for format I think I have an example of the "ideal" page. Is is so?
Deania profundorum — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tambja (talk • contribs) 20:53, 22 June 2007.

That page looks good. It's a fairly full representation of the conventions used on Wikispecies, although an Internet reference, type locality, and type material are absent (see Help:Name section but those attributes may not apply/be available for that species?). Can anyone comment on the "Range" sections in general? I have seen some pages include it, although there is no documentation/guideline page for it in the "Help Contents". Should bullets/asterisks be used for each line instead of <br />'s or double spaced lines? More importantly, what are the conventions, if any, among taxonomists for such information? --Georgeryp 15:26, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I have qualms about including range information, since it is a) language-dependent (unless in graphic form), and b) difficult to summarize concisely. -- Visviva 15:49, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The range section is one that is not to be included in wikispecies, but rather the relevent wikipedia entry. This information is occasionally entered in by unknowing users who do not understand the purpose of wikispecies. When these sections are found they should be removed. --Kevmin 23:04, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, most species do not have a Wikipedia entry as of today. I knew that it wasn't included in the "rules" but I think it is useful to include on the species page. It is simplified enough as in everyone knows "Atlantic, Indian, or Pacific" and country names should be easy to recognize. If you are including "type locality", which contains range information, then I think range (or distribution) is a good addition.
I'm not trying to force my format on Wikispecies but I'd like to have a vote to whether range information should (or could) be added. I think it is useful information, especially for fishes, where distribution is often important for ID. As you can see in my contributions I have made lots of pages so I would not consider myself a "newbie" by any means! --Tambja 14:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any objections to this per se, although it would be best if we can have very clearly-defined restrictions on what sort of information goes into these sections (I would say anything below the ocean/subcontinent level is probably overkill). Perhaps the more serious issue is that such information isn't strictly taxonomic; the type locality is part of the taxonomic definition of a species, but range as such is not -- although perhaps fish are an exception to this rule, I don't know. And while non-taxonomic information is often very useful, it may be seen to overstep the very restricted bounds of this project. -- Visviva 05:03, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I understand... I will leave this information out from now on until we reach a consensus on what we want to add. Put me in for a "yes" vote though. I will have to check Fishbase to see if they provide type locality information.--Tambja 14:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

As Visviva Stated the scope of this project is restricted to the taxanomic information only and the only location information that should be included is the type locality info. While most of the genera/species do not have Wikipedia entries now they, hopefully, will in the future and the range data will be included on those pages. My vote is to stay with the scope that is currently used so No inclusion of range etc... -- Kevmin 16:40, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

The range of a species is also subject to change over time. If you really wanted to accurately present the range of an organism, you would have to present it both temporally and geographically. That is very difficult to do. If you only give the current range, you lose information when you present extinct or endangered taxa. --EncycloPetey 05:31, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

That's a nice sketch, by the way. We could really use a few more (tens of thousands of) images like that.  ;-) -- Visviva 05:03, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Species microformat

I would like to start work on adding the (currently draft) 'Species' microformat to Wikispecies; or at least planning how to do so. (If there's a better forum for this, please point me to it.)

This would require two things:

1. An outer wrapper with class="biota"
2. Wrapping each entry in an approriate class

The former might be as simple as an opening <div class="biota">; but the question is: how to close it?

To achieve the latter:

Superregnum: [[Eukaryota]] <br />

(for example) would become

Superregnum: <span class="superkingdom">[[Eukaryota]]</span> <br />

These would seem to be jobs for a bot.

Because the microformat is still draft, some of the class names might change, but I think it worth going ahead on a trial basis (as has Wikiepdia), and making any necessary tweaks afterwards.

Contributions to and comments on the draft microformat are welcome, either at the above external link (the microformats wiki pages) or on this wiki, and I'll act as a "go-between".

I'd be particularly interested in the arguments for using terms such as "superregnum" over the currently proposed "superkingdom".

I've created a page at Wikispecies:microformat to explain what the 'Species' microformat is, and how it might benefit Wikispecies' users and to facilitate further discussion. Andy Mabbett 08:13, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

To answer one of your questions: I definitely prefer "superregnum" over "superkingdom". Using the Latin forms of the taxon names makes the format less language-dependent and more international. It probably also reduces ambiguity somewhat (a biological "kingdom" is also called an "empire" in English). Ucucha (talk) 19:21, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Is there any interest in developing this? I'm prepared to do as much as I can, but will need an admin to modify protected templates. Further (any!) discussion, at Wikispecies_talk:Microformat would also be welcome. Andy Mabbett 10:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Incorporate Clade template and Cladogram section

I think that we could incorporate here the en:template:Clade and a new section of cladograms (under the taxonavigation section) that could be very interesting. Look en:Bilateria for an example of cladogram made with this tool. 88.25.161.130 09:27, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Nice... I would support such a section, after "Taxonavigation" and "Name" but before "References" and "Vernacular names." -- Visviva 14:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm agree. 88.19.142.115 07:36, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

An example that could be put in the Chordata page:

Chordata	Urochordata   Larvacea  Thaliacea  Ascidiacea  Cephalochordata  Craniata  Myxini  Vertebrata   Conodonta†  Cephalaspidomorphi†  Hyperoartia  Pteraspidomorphi†  Gnathostomata   Placodermi†  Chondrichthyes  Teleostomi   Acanthodii†  Osteichthyes   Actinopterygii  Sarcopterygii  void  Tetrapoda   Amphibia  Amniota   Synapsida†  void  Mammalia  Sauropsida  void  Aves

Cladograms are beyond the scope of Wikispecies. They won't port to the coming database structure. Lycaon 23:56, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Cladograms can be divided in templates that can be combinated for being represented in multiple pages with a minuim effort. The final format could be so structured as now. 88.6.244.107 12:56, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Why is "Synapsida" marked as extinct? If they were, then we wouldn't be having this discussion at all, since mammals (including humans) are in the Synapsida. --EncycloPetey 21:42, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

In Synapsida article they are marked as extinct. In en:Synapsid, they are marked as a paraphyly. 83.45.216.23 17:50, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

That article is using an outdated definition of the taxon, then. --EncycloPetey 02:41, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Ceck contributions of Leopardo_Planante_Leopardo

Hi, I'm an user on it. wiki and it.books' sysop, we had problems with that user who made a number of edit here, so I would warning you because he's a subtle vandal, create almost perfect pages with several invisible mistakes or falsities. Then when discovered he turns into a war machine using bot to clear pages and to change rapidly IP address so is unblockable. Don' t block him just control his edits and ignore him, he is 14 yo and ignoring makes him boring, then leaves. --The Doc 21:21, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

two little doubts

I am just starting here mainly on Conifers and Primates after collaborating in Wikipedia and Wiktionary. As my experience on scientific names is restricted to Botany, I know the binomial name format is approximately:

• Genus species (auctorBasionimi) auctorDescriptio annus ... ex ... non ... etc.

For animal species:

• Do we have to write a comma (",") between species and auctorD (see type species on Chlorocebus) or auctorD and annus or both (Allenopithecus nigroviridis)? What if there exists an auctorB? Is there posible only writing (auctorB) and not auctorD (Cercopithecus ascanius)?
• The same is for genus (Cercopithecus)?
• Do I suppose properly that the third name in trinomial is subspecies/varietas/forma and not marked as in Botany with ssp./var./form./cult[ivar]... (Panthera leo europaea)

Is not possible to use the same template or function for vernacular names and interwikis or, at least, be free of writing interwikis also as VN? Thanks a lot.--Sobreira 23:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe a comma is needed after species (see Help:Name section). Some of your other questions may be answered on Help:Taxonavigation section - notice how the table has different entries for Plantae and non-Plantae. If those Help pages don't provide good answers, don't hesitate to ask here for further clarification. For your last point about vernacular names versus interwikis, see the Vernacular Names subheading above starting with the second paragraph that begins: "There is no syntax error...". Interwikis and VN's both often overlap in function but there are enough exceptions to the rule that totally separating them seems to be the best solution thought up so far. If you don't want to bother creating both, you'd be OK just entering the interwikis and VNbot will make the corresponding {{VN}} templates (once I finally get VNbot rolling ;-) ...just leave a note on my talk page so I don't miss them. --Georgeryp 00:45, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Liverworts - a MAJOR revision

Greetings. For those who don't know me, I am a sysop at Wiktionary and primary contributor to the w:Marchantiophyta and w:Anthocerotophyta on the English Wikipedia (among other articles).

I've been holding off on revising the high-level liverwort taxonomy on Wikispecies because I didn't have access to a couple of my key references (such as the one that lists all the authorities for families and genera). I don't want to hold off any longer, though, because the liverwort classification here is abyssmally bad -- it follows no major system and the divisional name "Hepatophyta" is a typo for Hepaticophyta (albeit one that was published in a nomenclature article without anyone noticing the typo until it had proliferated in the literature). I've noticed this incorrect name now is being followed on several WP in several languages, and of course they all prohibit editing without the creation of an account, so I am frustrated at that end without lots of work. The easiest way to fix it all is to get Wikispecies fixed, so that all the WP articles that link here (especially to "Hepatophyta") will gradually notice the error and (hopefully) correct it.

The problem is not easy to fix because, as I say, it affects everything up to and including the rank of division, so all those pages and links and templates at every lower rank have to be corrected. What is the best way to go about this? Is there a bot that can help to at least get the division and class ranks corrected? It's going to require a lot of hand editing anyway because of odd intra-divisional and intra-class levels (which no one uses and may not have been published), which also appear on countless liverwort pages.

To get a small sense of what I mean, look at the Wikispecies page for Metzgeriineae and compare it side-by-side with the Wikipedia article w:Metzgeriales (no, not the same rank, but on purpose for this example). Compare the nice, simple, correct classification on Wikpedia with the mess of invalid and incorrect names we have on Wikispecies. Everything between kingdom and order is wrong on our page, even when considering conservative systems used over the past 30 years. There are a few new systems (still not matching ours in any way), but none of them is widely accepted yet, and given the rate at which new phylogenetic information is appearing, they are likely to undergo significant revision before settling down. None of the new systems matches current phylogenies at the highest levels. Therefore, I prefer to stick with the more widely accepted system in use since 1977 for now, since it's the one used in the majority of bryophyte literature.

Any ideas on how to start the enormous move/corrections? I'm not even sure how to start, because on the one hand our information is hopelessly wrong, but on the other hand the edit histories probably should be preserved somehow. In addition, there will be significant deletions involved, because of the bizarre intervening ranks. This process will require the help of an admin, preferably one well-informed on this situation and who can dedicate a few months of patient assistance (a bit at a time, not months of continuous help!) so that things don't get overlooked in the cleanup. The goal is to revise the liverworts and have all taxa down to the rank of genus included. --EncycloPetey 20:20, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Linking to Commons

If there is a category or page on Commons which corresponds to a taxon here, should it be linked? Using what syntax? For example, Commons has a category for the genus Riccardia, and I would like to link it from the Wikispecies Riccardia page.

Also, if Commons has both a category and a page for a given taxon, which link is preferred? --EncycloPetey 10:01, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

In Wikipedia but not Wikispecies

Hi, so, this is my first time posting. I am an avid user of both the pedia and the species. TOday, I found an entry on 'pedia that isn't on 'species. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physalis_peruviana) Is there a way to easily get one from the other? Or if one is entered on one, that it's automatically entered here too?

I have very little to no idea how this works, so please be gentle :) Am just trying to be helpful!

Nicole

Hi Nicole, I'm still learning the ropes here too, but will mention that it seems there isn't yet any coverage for the genus Physalis at all, so I think the first step is to start an entry here for the genus, then add a page for the species. While Wikipedia focuses on having an encyclopedic entry on the biology of organisms, Wikispecies contains primarily taxonomic and nomenclatorial information (at least right now). --EncycloPetey 17:00, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with EncycloPetey. The first step is to move up the taxonomic tree until you find an article that exists here. Solanaceae exists here, so you would build downwards from there. See the "Help" pages here - especially "Taxonavigation" and "Project Templates" to understand how to nest the templates inside each other and the other formatting conventions used here. If you don't have the time to for that, you can just put it on the "to do" list for others by adding the species to the Wikispecies:Requested articles list. (It's funny that there is a section for Wiktionary there but not for the Wikipedias.) Besides the interwikis that get added to the end of pages here, I've seen no automatic or manual channel of communication between the Wikipedias and Wikispecies. --Georgeryp 18:50, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

8 septembre : réunion Wikimédia France

Bonjour à tous,

L’association Wikimédia France organise une réunion publique ouverte à ses membres comme aux non membres le samedi 8 septembre de 14 h à 18 h. Lieux : Cité des sciences et de l'industrie de la Villette (Paris) – Salle : Carrefour numérique, salle de l’Agora.

Ordre du jour :

• Compte rendu de la Wikimania de Taiwan.
• Point sur les activités de Wikimédia France.
• Présentation du Premier colloque francophone sur Wikipédia à la Cité des Sciences les 19 et 20 octobre prochains.
• Point sur les autres projets.

En espérant vous voir nombreux.

Par ailleurs, sachez que la page d’inscription pour le colloque sur Wikipédia sera très prochainement mise en ligne. Bonne journée.--Valérie (pour m'écrire) 20 août 2007 à 11:24 (CEST)

Cororapithecus abyssinicus

What's the policy on adding newly discovered extinct species, like Cororapithecus abyssinicus ? Andy Mabbett 19:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, adding them. It's quite simple. It should probably be in Gorillini, but I'm not sure of that - you should ook at the classification in the Nature article. Ucucha (talk) 09:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Incompletely known species

Rafflesia has 4 incompletely known species (where described from flowers not yet in full bloom or even still buds), which might be separate species or synonyms for already described one. How add the fact that it is suspected to be a synonym into the page here? Or leave it like all real text for the Wikipedia article? Ahoerstemeier 16:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Please change my name

Can a bureaucrat please change my name from Edmundkh to EdmundEzekielMahmudIsa, and then leave me a message in the English Wikipedia? Thank you very much! --Edmundkh 15:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I need this service too. From Mister X to FollowTheMedia. See meta:Requests_for_username_changes#Mister_X_.40_.2A..2A for more info. -- Mister X 11:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)