Wikispecies:Village pump/Archive 26

Consolida regalis bacomes Delphinium consolida

Hello, It seems that the genus Consolida is now included into Delphinium. Please, have a look on this paper : Jabbour F. , Renner S., 2011. Consolida and Aconitella are an annual clade of Delphinium (Ranunculaceae) that diversified in the Mediterranean basin and the Irano-Turanian region. Taxon 60 (4): 1029–1040. Gtaf (talk) 21:12, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Not yet. Note the comment in the abstract (my emphasis): "To achieve a classification of mutually monophyletic genera in Delphinieae may require transferring the species of Aconitella and Consolida into Delphinium". The new combinations needed are yet to be formally made. So one to put on hold for wikispecies. - MPF (talk) 00:42, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Hibiscus hispidissimus

See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants#File:Hibiscus_hispidissimus_at_Kadavoor.jpg. Jkadavoor (talk) 09:40, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Removed the redirect by Shyamal now. Thanks. Jkadavoor (talk) 09:42, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Redirect of Merremia vitifolia also seems wrong. Jkadavoor (talk) 09:44, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

The Plant List

This resource, which is used by many contributors has recently been updated to version 1.1. Is it possible for an admin to write a bot that can automatically update pages that already cite it? For example, using Berberidaceae, the old URL link is http://www.theplantlist.org/browse/A/Berberidaceae/ Berberidaceae and the new would simply be http://www.theplantlist.org/1.1/browse/A/Berberidaceae/ Berberidaceae. Mind you the reference ought to be a simple template - The Plant List (2010) Version 1.1 Berberidaceae. Published on the Internet. Accessed 9 Sept 2013. is a bit chunky! Thanks Andyboorman (talk) 19:36, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
Feel free to use the TPLF template it gives a full citation do not forget to use the date and add the plant name at the end for more complex pages, e.g. Camellia page. Andyboorman (talk) 15:13, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Template:nomen

Does the template:nomen really work? If I expand the button, I only get to see a {{{1}}}. Example on Cottus schitsuumsh.--Haps (talk) 15:45, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I am astonished that there is now a Category:New species 2014 established by Stho002. When in 2012 I established a Category:New species-group name 2012 it was immediately eliminated with its contents by Stho002. Kempf EK (talk) 18:33, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I only see you creating 5 categories in 2012. There're more categories like Category:New taxa for Ostracoda in 2012 that are created by you but they are from 2013. From what I can see, you only have 6 deleted contributions. They are all article pages and created in 2011. Am I missing something here? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:34, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

New to wikispecies

Hi I am a biologist turned teacher who has wandered into the world of wiki editing. I have taxonomy in my blood and a little red-legged spider named after me (Neoramia margaretae) so would like to join here and maybe even be allowed to edit... I really like the layout but think a 1 para description of each major group would be really helpful... very concise and accurate information about the defining features of that group of organisms. I know i have to serve an apprenticeship first but that is ok by me... if someone could just write back about the process please :) I would be most grateful. Reefswaggie (talk) 11:40, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Hello Margaret and welcome. The first thing is to read the page called Templates which gives you an idea about how editing can be made effective and approximately standard. Then look at existing pages that are in your area of principal taxonomic concern and see how they have developed and been laid out. A lot of the wiki-formatting is obscure until you click on the 'edit' button at the top of the page and then you can inspect the raw code to see where italicisation or boldening or Small Capitals for authors have been used. I've put ''[[]]'' around your patronym above to italicise it and make it a hyperlink see if there as already a page for it on the system (there is). If the name had been in red, then it would still await creation. As well a pages for taxa, we also have pages for authors and Templates for references, so that they can be universally updated from a single point. Once you have done a little background reading, then I suggest you just test out a few things in an area of taxonomic interest (mine is primarily Oriental Lycaenidae). Lastly, always click on the [Show Preview] button before the [Save Page] button - a bit like checking your shoes are laced up before leaving the house. As a pastime, it can become quite addictive, as there is always more work to do and like all taxonomy it will never be finished. Contributing works for me though, as it acts as a repository of things I think I have understood and that are hard to remember. I hope you grow to like it too. Alan Accassidy (talk) 21:35, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I forgot about your other question. The main point of Species Wiki is that it is primarily independent of language and opinion. So adding even "concise and accurate" information is not really the point. However, each taxonomic page is backed by a discussion page, and this might well be a good place to put description or indeed any other language based material that may be of help to others. Alan Accassidy (talk) 21:40, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

It would seem possible to integrate Wikidata with Commons and Wikipedia, for Wikidata to contain the taxonomic information... maybe? Gryllida (talk) 02:00, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Welcome! At this project and its sisters, anyone can edit. It's the core philosophy of the projects. Gryllida (talk) 20:44, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

mw:Requests for comment/UploadWizard: scale to sister projects

Hi all.

I had observed apparent need of items wizards - upload wizards, article wizards - in interactivity everyone can edit. Gadgets seem too unsafe, were everybody given access to edit ones which are on by default; however ones only available for you, like a user script, are useless for a non-tech-savvy newcomer.

I have opened a request for comment for the Wmf engineering people to put some of their work on Common's upload wizard into extracting the useful bits and perhaps isolating them in something sister projects can safely reuse and edit.

Yes or no? How? Thoughts? Feedback? Please participate in the discussion and help me spread it to other sister projects.

Gryllida (talk) 11:54, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

New Zealand categories (continued)

Reopening this, as it was archived before any conclusion was reached, due to a regrettable descent into personal animosities. At the end of that discussion, Stho002's comment was (my emphasis):

Managing my work in progress is not the issue here. What I want to be able to do is to browse Wikispecies for a particular country rather than just globally, and N.Z. is my first priority country. I would be very happy to see others do the same for other countries. References for a species in a particular country are not important enough to put on the global taxon pages, but obviously are important on the country pages, which link back to the global pages if you want info. on nomenclature or global distribution. Stho002 (talk) 23:19, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Recently, while doing other work on Equisetum, I took out the erroneous New Zealand category (the taxon is noted for its destribution "Cosmopolitan except for Australia and New Zealand": [1]); Stho002 added it again, despite the genus' absence from the New Zealand native flora. As a trial experiment, I tried Stho's suggestion welcoming the addition of categories for other countries; the result (here; scroll to end of page) was not a success in terms of Wikispecies formatting, so I undid the trial. But it leads me to conclude that distributional categories, particularly using nations, are not an appropriate format to use in Wikispecies. First, the data is cumbersome, particularly for widely-distributed taxa; second, nations (human political entities) are not appropriate for dealing with taxon distributions, given the huge disparities in unit size (nearly 40 million-fold, from the Vatican City's 44 hectares up to 17,098,242 km2 for Russia) and their lack of coincidence with biological regions; and third, because incomplete categorisation is misleading to users, but (if they were to be used) would require a vast additional editorial input to reach any form of completion — input which we don't have, and could better spend on adding taxa with no wikispecies pages. I therefore propose a formal vote on the subject; everyone please add your votes / opinions. Thanks! - MPF (talk) 17:53, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

The addition of categories also works in Equisetum, but in a different way. It should not be done under the genus name, but on the different species pages where you need information on the type locality. Have a look at Equisetum bogotense.

Kempf EK (talk) 02:10, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

There is no need to change it. It is perfectly fine as I have been doing it. I would put [[Category:Equisetum bogotense (Colombia)]] on the Equisetum bogotense page, and then [[Category:Equisetum (Colombia)]] on the [[Category:Equisetum bogotense (Colombia)]] page. Any references relating specifically to the species in Colombia would then be listed on the [[Category:Equisetum bogotense (Colombia)]] page rather than on the Equisetum bogotense page, which is reserved for global context references (including nomenclature and descriptions of the species, so there may be a little bit of relevance overlap). One would have to be an idiot to assume that [[Category:Equisetum bogotense (Colombia)]] somehow implies that the species is endemic to Colombia (though it might be). Stho002 (talk) 02:22, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Distributional categories should not be admitted in Wikispecies

1. MPF (talk) 17:53, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Distributional categories should be permitted in Wikispecies

1. The Wikispecies database is a very powerful system which has the potential to support researchers in their work, provided that Wikispecies pages are based on those publications with the original description. The Wikispecies system, I think, is too powerful than to end up just with a list of species, like some other online databases that are of no use to scientists.

Categories within Wikispecies can be a very helpful tool for arranging species in different groups. The need or the advantage of categories may be different in the many organism groups of Wikispecies. I am mainly contributing to the field of Ostracoda which are Crustacea living world-wide in freshwater of any kind, but also in the marine realm from the intertidal zone down to abyssal depths. In addition, they have an extremely long fossil record of about 500 million years.

I established quite a number of categories. For living freshwater ostracods I established categories for the ecozones, from where the species originally had been described, for instance: Palaearctic Ostracoda, Neotropic Ostracoda, Australasian Ostracoda. For living marine ostracods I established categories like: North Atlantic Ocean Ostracoda, Indian Ocean Ostracoda, South Pacific Ostracoda. For fossil Ostracoda there are categories like: Cenozoic Ostracoda, Mesozoic Ostracoda, Palaeozoic Ostracoda and their subdivisions.

I see some problems with categories for single countries. In those cases it should be made clear that it is not a matter of endemic species, but just a listing of species that have ever been found in that country, native or as an exotic element.

Kempf EK (talk) 18:24, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

2. I am with Kempf. Wikispecies is becoming a powerful tool for scientists and the more links with other sources the better. I have not created categories, but can see their uses. Of course we need to make sure the genera and species get added, but a minimal list adds nothing new. Andyboorman (talk) 20:16, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

3. As for MPF's comment "and could better spend on adding taxa with no wikispecies pages", I draw your attention to Category:New_species_2014, where I have created articles for well over 1000 new species described so far in 2014, and MPF has contributed nothing, so I don't think he is in any position to pontificate about where "input" is better spent! Stho002 (talk) 20:23, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

---

Inconsistency between Cathartes page and Cathartes aura page?

I'm not an expert on taxonomies, but I use wikispecies regularly to help me add keywords to my wildlife photographs (thanks for an incredibly useful web site), and I noticed that there appears to be an inconsistency between Cathartes and Cathartes aura. While the former page includes "C. aura" in the list of species and links to the latter page, the former page says Cathartes is classified under Ciconiiformes/Ciconiidae/Cathartinae, the latter page says Cathartes is classified under Accipitriformes/Cathartidae. I assume one of the pages must be in error, but I'm not sure which one. FWIW, one of my other references is the University of Michigan's "Animal Diversity Web", and [2] shows something different than either those pages, namely that Cathartes is classified under Falconiformes/Cathartidae.

Sorted; Accipitriformes/Cathartidae is correct (ref). The genus page had a hangover from an outdated classification that held temporary sway in the late 1990s. Thanks for spotting it! - MPF (talk) 09:58, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Visible links from Wikispecies pages to Wikipedia pages - wanted or not wanted?

When contributing to the Wikispecies page Equisetum bogotense I found two invisible or spurious links to Wikipedia pages:

en:Equisetum bogotense
es:Equisetum bogotense

I corrected those links as mentioned above (Note: If you insert links to Wikipedia pages in your comments, don't forget the leading colon (:) before the wiki language code) so that they became visible and clickable on the Wikispecies page:

en:Equisetum bogotense
es:Equisetum bogotense

However, Stho002 immediately changed those links back to

en:Equisetum bogotense
es:Equisetum bogotense

so that they became invisible or spurious again.

Are links from Wikispecies to Wikipedia not wanted?

Kempf EK (talk) 13:32, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

The format [[en:Equisetum bogotense]] is actually correct, that's the standard interwiki format; look at the bottom of the left-hand column and you'll see "In other languages", and below that, links to en and es wikis on the Equisetum bogotense page. Obviously, for better-known species (e.g. Panthera leo), the interwiki list is far longer. - MPF (talk) 17:33, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Added a couple more interwikis, for Arabic and Runa Simi - MPF (talk) 17:42, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry! But thanks for the information. I had been concentrating on the Wikispecies page and neglected the sidebar.

Kempf EK (talk) 00:01, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Revert the edit

some body please revert the edit i have made just now. I was not comfortable with this interface.--ଶିତିକଣ୍ଠ ଦାଶ (talk) 01:39, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

 Done Stho002 (talk) 04:35, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

thanks. --ଶିତିକଣ୍ଠ ଦାଶ (talk) 17:48, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata

Is there any plans to implement wikidata for the language links? Dan Koehl (talk) 10:13, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

It is on the development plan, but no exact dates yet.--Micru (talk) 19:20, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Bureaucratship nomination

I would like to draw all of your attention that there is a current bureaucratship nomination. It is scheduled to end in about 4 days. Please participate in the process. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:46, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

IMPORTANT: Admin activity review

Hello. A new policy regarding the removal of "advanced rights" (administrator, bureaucrat, etc) was recently adopted by global community consensus (your community received a notice about the discussion). According to this policy, the stewards are reviewing administrators' activity on smaller wikis. To the best of our knowledge, your wiki does not have a formal process for removing "advanced rights" from inactive accounts. This means that the stewards will take care of this according to the new admin activity review here.

We have determined that the following users meet the inactivity criteria (no edits and no log actions for more than 2 years):

1. Benedikt (administrator)
2. Brion VIBBER (administrator, bureaucrat)
3. Kempm (administrator, bureaucrat)
4. Lightdarkness (administrator, bureaucrat)
5. MaximBot (administrator)
6. MonoBot (administrator)
7. Monobi (administrator, bureaucrat)
8. Mário e Dário (administrator, bureaucrat)
9. Totipotent (administrator)
10. UtherSRG (administrator, bureaucrat)

These users will receive a notification soon, asking them to start a community discussion if they want to retain some or all of their rights. If the users do not respond, then their advanced rights will be removed by the stewards.

However, if you as a community would like to create your own activity review process superseding the global one, want to make another decision about these inactive rights holders, or already have a policy that we missed, then please notify the stewards on Meta-Wiki so that we know not to proceed with the rights review on your wiki. Thanks, Rschen7754 23:55, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Three comments. First, I think Benedikt should be kept with his admin status (and perhaps assign him the "founder" flag that English Wikipedia use for Jimbo Wales). Benedikt was the founder of this project so out of courtesy his rights should be kept. Second, Brion VIBBER is a unique case because he's the most prominent MediaWiki developer that wrote most of this wiki interface. I don't oppose him keeping his rights if he wish to. As for the 2 bots (MaximBot and MonoBot), just take away their rights since they are inactive anyways. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:42, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you, just a note reg Brion VIBBER, as a developer he can make himself admin, bureaucrat, etc whenever he wants or need to. Dan Koehl (talk) 07:26, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Agree with OhanaUnited. Accassidy (talk) 10:15, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

We cannot grant anyone the founder flag like it is on en.wikipedia, because that allows them to change all userrights on this wiki. That would include CheckUser and oversight, which would be a violation of global policies. Brion VIBBER is a System administrator, so removing flags would not have an effect on his capabilities. --Rschen7754 22:42, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your clarification. In this case, I suggest making a single exception to Benedikt while removing the rights of others. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:23, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Now that one issue is solved, I want to bring up another one. What should we do when they return in the future and request for them back? In my opinion, I would just give it back to them since going through another round of vote is just unnecessary bureaucracy. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:24, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

That might not always be a good idea. Remember Lycaon? I think a quick vote to reinstate them could be a good idea! Stho002 (talk) 02:45, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

They left due to inactivity (2 years), quite different from leaving due to controversy (or being a drama magnet). Waiting for a vote that lasts 7 days when the outcome was clear from the beginning makes it a rather redundant and somewhat time-wasting process. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:55, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Firstly: hello, I am back ;) and thanks to Dan to notify me of this discussion. Secondly, it is very flattering to consider me "founder" of WikiSpecies, but I feel it is too munch honour - I had the idea of creating a wiki-based, GFDLed species directory and mobilised a few people, and wrote some of the first articles with my user name as well as through an alias, but I am a mere initiator and many other people have done more than me for WikiSpecies than me in the almost 10 years since its creation. Thirdly, about my status - I keep checking Wikispecies for new entries about every three to four weeks and have done so ever since 2004, but due to largely work-related committments, I am not actively editing. Now there would be an easy way to avoid the loss of my status by simply making some edits here and there once in a while (I will do so now), but essentially I will not be able to become as active as I may have been back in 2004/5 and whatever the community decides on my status, I would ask you to take all of these points into consideration. Fourthly, regarding Brion Vibber, I second OhanaUnited; fifthly, UtherSRG was one of the key people at the time of starting WikiSpecies and I would suggest to try contacting him. Finally, I will keep coming to WikiSpecies and am looking foward to celebrating its 10th anniversary this summer. --Benedikt (talk) 07:46, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Hallooo! I ditto a bunch of what Benedikt said. I've been busy with other things as of late, but I do get some questions on Wikipedia bout WikiSpecies from time to time, since my user page here points to my page over there. But wow! 10 years! Where has the time gone?? - user:UtherSRG (talk) 12:54, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Welcome back. Seems like this policy discussion draws the return of 2 experienced admins (and crossing off 2 names from the list above). I checked all remaining names on that list and they all appear to be inactive in other projects. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 22:53, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Howdy Everybody! Unfortunately, I neglected this project after having children and being hired as a medical entomologist. If supported, I will return to contribute. I understand the desire to have admins for different languages. I would also submit that it is also important to have admins for different taxonomic groups. Stho002 seems to be the only admin active on the Araneomorphae and Culicomorpha. These are the groups I aim to contribute to. This way Stho002 can focus on other arthropod groups. Totipotent (talk) 08:30, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

10th anniversary

Benedikt mentioned above the 10th anniversary, which I believe is in September 2014. It sure is something so celebrate, since there was initially some scepticism within the wikimedia society against the project.

Would it make sense to make up some strategy plans for this celebration? Im referring to some sort of marketing campaign, which would make Wikispecies more known, and may attract more persons with interest and competence, who will contribute, and develop the project further? Dan Koehl (talk) 12:05, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Definitely. Its birthday is September 14. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 22:54, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I recall correspondence with Jimbo Wales in early summer 2014; it was Angela Beesly and Brion Vibber who helped with setting it up. I suggest considering the date of the first page as the official birthday, as this can be easily determined. Although you could also take the date when I first registered wikispecies.org, as I uploaded the first pages immediately thereafter even before the wiki was set up; or the date when the domain was transferred from me to the Wikimedia Foundation.--Benedikt (talk) 12:36, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Your first edit was on September 14, which presumably is how people determine the official start date. I don't know if other dates can be as easily determined as this. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 21:47, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Its now five days to the 10th anniversary! Dan Koehl (talk) 06:01, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Edit request

Mediawiki:Wikimedia-copyright: Could a local sysop please update the license title to Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. It is currently like this: "Attribution/Share-Alike". See the official website here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ . Also see m:MediaWiki talk:Wikimedia-copyright. Thanks, Glaisher (talk) 05:02, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Done. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 06:00, 17 April 2014 (UTC).

More admins?

In short time we now have three more admins, and are better prepared for the forthcoming removal of some of the inactive ones. I have no intention to make new suggestions, I guess its good it if other members come up with suggestions. Which need is there for more? I guess it doesn't hurt to a couple of more admins, who are presently active, but what I see as an urgent need are admins who speak other languages than english. What opinions do you other have? Dan Koehl (talk) 19:13, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Trematoda

Is anyone doing Trematodes? I was at LSU Library today, which has very large zoology periodical section, including Soviet. I happened to trip over a large group of works on Trematoda, including about 20 volumes of Трематоды животных и человека (Trematodes of Animals and Humans), which does have taxonomic articles. Neferkheperre (talk) 23:20, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia vs. Wikispecies

Hi all, Over the years, I've added quite a few species pages to Wikipedia, but I'm new to Wikispecies. Can someone explain to me the difference between Wikispecies and Wikimedia? It seems like there's a lot of redundancy given that both efforts stem from the same foundation. Srloarie2 (talk) 27, May 2014 (UTC)

Well, Wikispecies has a much better data structure than WP for some kinds of information (better referencing, using templates, etc.) Both sites have their strengths and their weaknesses, but Wikispecies is on track to complete the global species catalogue long before Wikipedia ever will. Stho002 (talk) 22:00, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Move request

Pterocnemia pennata to Rhea pennata - taxonomic update (ref [scroll to near end of page]). Needs an admin as the destination page has a history that needs deleting first. Thanks! - MPF (talk) 11:43, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Still waiting for this to be done. Pretty shocking to have to wait over 4 months for a simple admin request to be done :-(( MPF (talk) 17:07, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I will look into it, but your ref link is dead Stho002 (talk) 21:31, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I see insufficient evidence to sink Pterocnemia as a synonym of Rhea at present Stho002 (talk) 21:57, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Here's the updated reference. The official ornithological authorities concerned (IOC and SACC) have merged the two genera, so it is incumbent on us to follow their lead, rather than make your own differing decision. - MPF (talk) 22:10, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Here is the actual discussion. Taxonomy doesn't work by democratic vote! We do not need to follow the outcome of that vote. Crucially, they only took into account extant species, and did not consider fossils. Stho002 (talk) 22:35, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

You personally might not want to follow the outcome of that vote, but I do, as do most other ornithologists elsewhere. If you have superior knowledge that contradicts their conclusions, I suggest you take it up with SACC and get them to reverse their decision. Wikispecies is not the place for original research. - MPF (talk) 22:54, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Choice of sources to follow is not OR! I have noted both options on the relevant taxon pages, and created redirects, so it is a "non-issue" Stho002 (talk) 23:19, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

"I have noted both options on the relevant taxon pages" No you have not, you have deleted all mention of the name Rhea pennata on the species page even as a synonym, and deleted the link from the genus page. Though it is nice to see that the reference you cited contradicts your opinion by accepting it as Rhea pennata. MPF (talk) 00:08, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Rhea pennata redirects to Pterocnemia pennata. It is not really a synonym, just an alternative combination, which is why it isn't listed under Synonyms Stho002 (talk) 00:17, 29 May 2014 (UTC) PS: The Delsuc ref. I cited is just evidence for the generic synonymy, but not conclusive evidence, as intergeneric hybrids are known Stho002 (talk) 00:19, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet At Wikimania 2014

As per this notice, I have submitted one to raise our project's awareness. If you have any suggested changes, please leave your comments here. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 01:05, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

• I would suggest to add in the "Short Description": It covers living and fossil representatives of Animalia, Plantae,... And in the "Longer description": to reflect the Recent and fossil diversity of life on our planet Earth. Kempf EK (talk) 01:47, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
• I would suggest that one of the main aims of Wikispecies is to create a browsable, taxonomically classified library of links to publications for all living and fossil species on Earth. Stho002 (talk) 02:04, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Added both suggestions. Please double check (purge the page if necessary) to see the changes made. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:48, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
  • OK. Many thanks. Kempf EK (talk) 01:09, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Here is the leaflet version (scroll down slightly to see it). Note: The leaflet is designed by someone else. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 23:03, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

400,000 articles reached

Yes we crossed another milestone (but there is still a lot of work to do). The 400,000th article, according to Special:NewPages, is Junellia spathulata, written by User:Ironlion. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 21:55, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Editing Fungi-->Basidiomycota-->Agaricomycetes-->Agaricomycetidae-->Agaricales-->Agaricaceae

While doing some research on Genera & Species within Agaricaceae (in both Wikipedia & Wikispecies) I came across a fair amount of information that I feel needs to be updated. Given that the majority of the "last edited" dates in Wikispecies are 2006, this is not surprising. Since I use these Wikis extensively, I am willing to do the editing and page creations/moves/deletions that are necessary. I did some playing in the sandbox earlier today, and have an Excel spreadsheet that shows the various changes I want to make. Most of my information came from Species Fungorum and I already have permission to use their data as long as it gets referenced (see sandbox).

Rlschultz (talk) 06:42, 21 June 2014 (UTC)Rlschultz

By sandbox you meant Wikispecies:Sandbox? I talked to a public health prof back in January and he also mentioned that the fungi taxonomy at Wikispecies was out of date. Otherwise, there could be student editors coming here and help create some pages. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:12, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Thrinax

Thrinax and related pages need some attention. In Animalia, the insect genus has priority, and is apparently a synonym of Strongylogaster. The shark genus is a junior homonym, and was replaced by Proteothrinax Pfeil, 2012. I've no idea how synonymy and homonymy should be addressed on a disambiguation page at Wikispecies, let alone how this project is currently formatting synonym sections (which presumably should be added to Strongylogaster and Proteothrinax). Plantdrew (talk) 20:21, 20 June 2014 (UTC)  Done See: Thrinax ... Stho002 (talk) 02:58, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Hungarian translation

Can anybody deal with Hungarian? I am having serious trouble dealing with this reference: Kolosvary, 1941. It took 3 days to find good idea on the periodical title - A. Tenger. I finally got a full title and translation from Google Books, but that is about all. Article title is completely opaque, as my translation engines won't deal with Hungarian well. user:Sphenodon helped once with another reference, but he does not have talk page enabled. I have almost no hope of ISSN or web link, but anything to make it look better will be appreciated. Neferkheperre (talk) 22:32, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi, I've found this one, but this is just a reference for the article: [3]. "Kolosváry, G. & Wagner, J. (1940): Tengerbiológiai tanulmány a kacslábúak, puhatestűek és korallok társulásáról. – A Tenger. p. 3–16. Budapest. – Dombóvár." I try to find something else too. --Sphenodon (talk) 23:18, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Huh, maybe there is problem: two article with the same title. Maybe there is a two-part article, maybe it is a misspelling.

• KOLOSVÁRY, G. & WAGNER, J. (1940): Tengerbiológiai tanulmány a kacslábúak, puhatestűek és korallok társulásáról. – A Tenger. p. 3–16. Budapest. – Dombóvár.
• KOLOSVÁRY, G. (1941): Tengerbiológiai tanulmány a kacslábúak, puhatestűek és korallok társulásáról. – Tenger, 31: 1–15. Budapest.

This periodical doesn't exist now, it was published between 1911 and 1944. The periodical name is "A Tenger", in English "The Sea". I'm searching, but there is a few of information. --Sphenodon (talk) 23:39, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Here, in the e-catalog of Hungarian National Library, you can see some of information about "A tenger", but there is no ISSN. --Sphenodon (talk) 23:53, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

I got ahold of Hungarian National Library by email about ISSN number of „A tenger”. They informed me, that this peridoical hasn't had an ISSN number, so its citation doesn't need ISSN number. I need some time yet to control the article's bibliographical data in library, after this I could be able to correct them. --Sphenodon (talk) 09:24, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi, I was in library and I could see the article, so the correct form is:

• KOLOSVÁRY, GÁBOR & WAGNER, JÁNOS (1941): Tengerbiológiai tanulmány a kacslábúak, puhatestűek és korallok társulásáról. – A Tenger: tudományos és tengerészeti ismeretterjesztő folyóirat, a Magyar Adria Egyesület közlönye., XXXI. évfolyam, I–III. szám, pp. 1–15. Budapest.

What shall we do?: the article was written by two, not just Kolosváry. I'm not at home in that, so I can correct only other parts of reference in Kolosvary, 1941. --Sphenodon (talk) 14:42, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

And I think, A Tenger hadn't been a monthly magazine in the 1940s, but maybe this remains in the template on the base of the e-catalog of Hungarian National Library. And I think, Magyar Adria Egyesület is better as Hungarian Adria Association in English (see this form in http://www.worldcat.org/title/pamphlets-on-territorial-questions-in-the-adriatic/oclc/62120389). --Sphenodon (talk) 15:05, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Judging from the fact that nobody has replied, I think we don't have a Hungarian speaker here to understand and deal with the issue. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 00:06, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Using {{Taxobox}}?

I came across User:Kheller and he seems to be converting all pages into using taxobox template (see [4] as example). So are switching formats now? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 20:06, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

I am not using taxobox, but staying with the standard page format with headings etc. The end result seems to be very similar as far as how the page looks when viewed normally. The Taxobox underpinning only becomes apparent when you try to edit the page. With a little bit of thought it is possible to edit in either format. Perhaps someone might care to explain why they use taxobox and what its advantages ore thought to be. Accassidy (talk) 21:32, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

For the necessary growing of Wikispecies we need much more contributors which will only be attracted, if we keep the creating and editing of Wikispecies pages as simple as possible. Too many templates, however, are complicating the system and discouraging new contributors. Kempf EK (talk) 23:13, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

User:PeterR also raised this issue. I guess all of us here didn't really like the idea of using taxobox template. Should something be done? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:20, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Probably nothing we can reasonably do in the short term, as who would want to spend time re-formatting pages when there is still so much original work to do. All we can do is encourage people to follow a more standard procedure, but I would rather we had the data in a non-standard format than not at all. Accassidy (talk) 07:27, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree that we should encourage users to utilise a straightforward approach to editing, without too many templates. That said, we might also want to point out that some templates are actually very much appreciated, such as taxon formatting templates (e.g. {{Sp}}, {{Ssp}} and their equivalent {{xlast}} templates). Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 15:47, 25 June 2014 (UTC).

Sorry, I was offline for a while and could not answer earlier. Some time ago I raised the topic [5] without any negative response and so I continued editing. I am glad, that after passing by species of different groups I have now alerted more contributors. The main advantage of using templates, as pointed out in my original post, is in my opinion, that it is easier to keep the appearance of the pages more consistent. Lepidoptera pages look slightly different than those for Coleoptera and for fishes. When I started on Wikispecies, even templates for references were still unwanted. This attitude has changed fortunately meanwhile and I am still optimisitc with my proposal. Of course further development and a better documentation are needed. But if it is consensus, that the taxobox concept is the wrong way, I will of course accept such a democratic decision. Kheller (talk) 15:54, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikispecies:Wantedpages -- where are New Guinea, Philippines, Java, and India?

This is a slightly edited version of a question I posted to Wikispecies bureaucrat OhanaUnited here.

"(I checked Wikispecies:Wantedpages and saw) some of the top entries are New Guinea, Philippines, Java, India, etc. My guess is those articles are not actually wanted here, but that they are listed automatically because Wikispecies articles link to them. So my question is, what would be wanted here? Those articles created, the links removed, the links changed to go to Wikipedia, or what? Thanks for your help.

OhanaUnited responded, "Good question. I honestly don't know what we should create for these geographical location entries." He suggested I post my question here. So what do people think about this? Alden Loveshade (talk) 03:34, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

• Within Wikispecies either categories for the species of those countries or for the respective Ecozone should be created. Examples: Category:New Zealand Ostracoda, Category:Indomalayan Ostracoda, Category:Australasian Ostracoda Kempf EK (talk) 10:50, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I have checked for the Philippines and found that indications of type location included country links. I propose simply removing these links. Creating country articles is not the business of wikispecies. Creating some country categories in my opinion also does not make sense at the moment. A species with type location on e.g. Luzon (Philippines) might be wide-spread in tropical Asia or endemic on the island. Without additional investigation, choice of appropriate category/categories would not be possible. Moreover, as far as I know, a scheme of geographical categories does not exist until now. Has there been any discussion before on this topic? What about adding information on species distribution to the pages? I am thinking about something similar to Kew Checklist, e.g. [6], using the TDWG scheme - see [7]. However, maybe this already would be beyond the scope of wikispecies? Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:26, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

You ought to look at the pages for Orchidaceae. Orchi has made a good job of adding location details. Andyboorman (talk) 13:02, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

OK, I was not aware of this. That's good work, but seems to be time consuming. Anyway, also there are no regional categories and that's good for me. --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:40, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

It has always seemed to me that WikiSpecies is intended to be a depository for taxonomic information, rather than biogeographic data. When I started editing some years ago, distribution lists were thought un-necessary and in any case prone to unreliability. I have no problem with those who want to add Categories that link to national faunas or floras, but this is not strictly taxonomy, which is generally blind to political notions of state. Accassidy (talk) 14:39, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

ZooBank

What happened to ZooBank? They have been totally down 24 hours now. Neferkheperre (talk) 16:04, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Back up again. Must have been servicing, but usually they are not down more than 6-8 hours. Neferkheperre (talk) 21:41, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Holotype category

A couple of months ago, I picked up on the holotype| utility, where repository acronyms can be highlighted to indicate the museums. I like this concept, but I find accessing repository information is not entirely satisfactory. When I click on of the links, I have to wade through entire list, which is at least alphabetized. At times, I cannot locate that particular acronym, even if it is highlighted blue. What is possibility of organizing repository acronyms as we do with Category ISSN? Thus, seekers would click link, and directly find the page with full name of repository institution, location, etc. And, as museums come and go, with collections being transferred, this can be indicated as well. Some repositories subdivide their collections numbers with additional prefixes for vertebrate/invertebrate departments, etc. These can be indicated on repository pages. Neferkheperre (talk) 22:18, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

I had the same idea years ago, but I've abandoned it because of the work & time needed, and since so many many pages point to the holotype template. Yet it would be nice if little by little we create pages for individual museums, and link to them. Mariusm (talk) 05:49, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

If I could get some sort of pointer as to create such pages while not destroying present holotype template, for now. We could all chip in, as we deal with our species pages. I deal with many of these. However, present holotype template is not really useful, as much time must be spent wading through multitudinous entries. We are eventually going to have to do this, formidable as it is, to make this best quality taxonomic website on world. As at now, several other taxonomic entities harvest from us.

Just for pure cussedness, I entered AARRGH, and came up shifting to holotype template, even though obviously there is no museum named AARRGH. Better control is definitely needed. Neferkheperre (talk) 02:25, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Only valid names in Taxonavigation section?

Hi. In the Taxonavigation section for a particular genus, should only valid species names be listed, or should all available names be listed? I'm new to Wikispecies, but I've encountered a couple cases where junior synonyms are included in the list of species. Once the synonymy has been listed on the valid species page, should the junior synonym be removed from the Taxonavigation list? Dryophthoridae (talk) 20:59, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned only valid and accepted names should appear in the Taxonavigation list. Synonyms need to appear in their own separate list, whether hom, hot or het. The difficulty with plants, particularly, is that many families are still under review and there often are many unresolved species names. These names may be either Synonyms or Accepted, but the jury is still out! Personally I do not incorporate them in the species lists that I edit, nor do I provide a separate list of Unresolved names. The only exception is where an unresolved species is well known, which fortunately is very rare. In these cases I add a hopefully helpful Note. Another issue is that the majority of plant species lists do not tell us that a species name is Unresolved and this needs teasing out! The Plant List does note Accepted, Synonyms and Unresolved, but it is about 2/3 years out of date. The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families only notes Accepted and Synonyms, Unresolved names have been discarded. It is the most up to date, but sometimes contains annoying errors and only deals with those families that have been reviewed. The International Plant Name Index just gives details of validly published names and nothing else as does Tropicos, but this site is changing slowly. Then there are specialist sites like eMonocot! Often it is a process of triangulation. Hope this helps Andyboorman (talk) 12:08, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

In Cirripedia, I am encountering similar problem. I do my basic species pulls from WoRMS, which is very WoRMY. Mis-spellings are not infrequent, and have given rise to many page moves. In addition, copyists in various scriptoria make many errors, which repeat through time. Thus, what I am doing is finding original species descriptions, on Internet, or at LSU Library, for actual spellings, author citations, etc. I am about 90% successful. I make correction notations where necessary.

Format I have been using is to put only valid species in Taxonavigation section, and in species pages. Where junior synonyms, homonyms, pre-occupied names exist, they go into Syn| template box, with explanations. I use (Swingline staple)Template:blahblah format to link to those references, with ZooBank Acts included. References section includes original reference, any references reflecting supra-specific changes, with particular appropriate citations included. Ultimate goal is for every nomenclatural act to be accounted for, in some way, and put into its current proper place. Needs to be done in such fashion that any taxonomic changes to any of these nomenclatural acts can be easily dealt with and re-oriented.

Of paramount importance is to use only previously published and referenced work. Unpubllished taxononomic acts can and will create problems in precedence. Neferkheperre (talk) 03:14, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

The best way in my opinion is to group the known species-name synonyms and leave them on the genus page; just put them under the valid names in a different section (see for example the Laena page). This is the clearest way to show that a certain species-name was nor omitted, but is in fact a synonym. Mariusm (talk) 05:45, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I used to think it was a good idea to put synonyms on a genus page, but IT ISN'T! We can't create combinations that haven't been used, which means we would need to know, for each and every synonym, which combinations have been used, or else list them all in their original combinations, which would be messy, as it wouldn't correspond to the genus that the synonyms are currently placed in. So, please don't do it! Stho002 (talk) 06:21, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

As far as I understand, this is not about creating new combinations, but about listing names where a combination in that genus already exists. So, a visitor e.g. does not need to know that now Laena hongyuanica has to be searched in another genus, i.e. Hypolaenopsis. Of course, they could make use of the search function or simple enter the name into the browser and wait to be redirected, but would they know this? --Franz Xaver (talk) 08:20, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

The issue is far more complicated. For a start, Mariusm's proposal only seems to include synonyms, not species that were described in the genus but subsequently transferred out. This is another complication. Even for synonyms, Mariusm only seems to be considering those which were described originally in the genus in which they are currently placed. If they weren't, then we run into potential problems with unpublished combinations. Not a good idea! Stho002 (talk) 20:56, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Let's than leave the word "synonym" out, and group all the synonyms and all the transferred taxa under the heading "invalid". This will prevent the confusion. On the other hand this will help users who aren't sure whether a name they encountered is a species which was omitted on purpose or just forgotten. Mariusm (talk) 04:14, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem is still with synonyms originally described in other genera, but which have never been published in combination with the genus that they are currently placed in. I got roasted by a pissed off taxonomist for doing this on Wikispecies, for a genus he recently described! Stho002 (talk) 05:20, 6 August 2014 (UTC) PS: You haven't faced this problem in Laena, but it is a common general problem Stho002 (talk) 05:22, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

You are right Stho002 (talk), but I believe these names are still considered as Unresolved and therefore I ignore them on the Taxonavigation section of the pages I edit. In addition, just because a name is validly published, for example, in the definitive International Plant Names Index, does not mean that it is accepted, as acceptance comes from consensus. I also agree with the view that over-concentrating on Unresolved and Invalid names clutters and confuses the pages. Accepted synonyms are a different matter and deserve their own section and there are usually plenty of sources for getting hold of these. Generally where a species or indeed genus has been transferred out then its original nomenclature position(s) will appear on its Synonym section, surely? Taxonomy is continuously evolving and WS is at best a mirror to what is and not a prediction. Andyboorman (talk) 16:57, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Botant is different to zoology in this regard. Zoological nomenclature is messier. Stho002 (talk) 20:58, 6 August 2014 (UTC). Not sure it is messier for zoology compared to botany, as there are many more proposed changes for plants. Not all of which go on to be accepted by the wider community of experts. Andyboorman (talk) 13:27, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

There are definitive and accessible lists of accepted and synonymous plant names, such as the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, GrassWorld and eMonocot. However, these are always open to modification. The publication of a proposed name change or modification occurs through a range of peer reviewed journals, but this is only a proposal until consensus is achieved. Ultimately a ruling on these changes should reach the ICN for algae, fungi and plants for a decision and definitive publication, but this is not always the case. My suggestion is that species lists under the taxonavigation and synonym sections uses these lists, wherever possible and the sources acknowledged in the reference section. However, beware, not all lists are definitive, for example USDA, ARS, Germplasm Resources Information Network can be rather poor missing numerous Old World species and the Plant List is better, but certainly not definitive!
When it comes to proposed name changes, for example a re-resurrection of a genus, perhaps we should create a new page referenced only with the journal in which they appear, but make it clear through a note and link backs that the changes are currently only proposals until full acceptance. I offer my treatment of Tainia and Ania recently flagged up by User:Stho002 as an example. Andyboorman (talk) 13:27, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Formatting references

There are a number of referencing styles used on WS. (2014), (2014)., 2014: and 2014. being the most common. Does it matter that there is no house style? Should WS follow the original publication or source (this does not really happen at the moment)? This is easy for journal articles and web sources, but not for books, as there is no house style. Does it matter that reference lists use a mix of styles? How about templates? It can look messy, but that is just my opinion. Andyboorman (talk) 15:35, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

There are ICZN conventions for using brackets when citing authorship after a taxon name. I am ignorant of the equivalent conventions for plants. In zoology, the citation would normally be:

• Genus species Name, Initial., yyyy: page, plate, figure.

If the taxon is now attributed to a genus different from the original description, this author/year element is put in round brackets, thus:

• Genus species (Name, Initial., yyyy): page, plate, figure.

If the actual date of publication needs more specific definition - for example the December 1899 issue of a journal might actually have been published in 1900, the square brackets are used around the actual publiacation date, thus:

• Genus species Name, Initial., [1900]: page, plate, figure.

or for a taxon outside the original genus:

• Genus species (Name, Initial., [yyyy]): page, plate, figure.

The initial after the surname is optional and is often left out, unless the author has a very common surname in which case the initial(s) can be of assistance.

for example Linnaeus, yyyy:... or Smith, J. T., yyyy:...

If we are just talking about the References listed in the References Section, not in the Name or Synonymy sections, then only the square brackets around the actual publication date are appropriate

Does this help or just confuse further? Accassidy (talk) 16:57, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks it sort of helps. I think I will have to accept that contributors use the style that they are most used to and WS does not have a house style. So be it! Andyboorman (talk) 15:35, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Style is less important than content. As long as pages hold extensive and valid content, they will help others, even if styles vary slightly. Accassidy (talk) 17:52, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Authority control

I've made a start on {{Authority control}} (imported from Wikidata; see also en.Wikipedia version), but it relies in the class hlist. Can somebody copy that cross please?

It will be useful for both pages on authors; and user pages. Andy Mabbett (talk) 12:58, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Other than the CSS tweak (which would improve the display, but isn't a show-stopper), the template is now ready for use; see, for example, Charles Robert Darwin; and my user page. Eventually it should be possible to populate it from Wikidata, rather than by repeating the values in this project. Andy Mabbett (talk) 14:52, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata links

Pending proper integration between this project and Wikidata, I've created {{Wikidata}}, for links to the equivalent pages on that project. You can see it on use on Andricus aries.

What do people think? We could change the styling, or position, or have a separate sub-header.

(Note that, for author pages, the Authority Control template now includes a |Wikdiata= parameter.)

If this template is liked, a bot could be used to apply & populate it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:50, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

A desperate call for help.

Hi, I’m Mariusm, an experienced editor here at Wikispecies, and an administrator. I ran into a difficulty which makes editing here for me a nightmare: The user Stho002 is continuously harassing and disturbing me. Every edit which he thinks disagrees with his standards, he immediately proceeds to alter it, causing me confusion and annoyance. Not that my edits are scientifically incorrect. Not that they disagree with the formatting rules. No. Stho002 just wants to enforce his own-devised rules upon everyone else. I mean, is it acceptable that one person will impose his standards upon all the other users? Does it stand in accordance with the spirit of the Wiki project? The standard, basic rules are specified here in the help section, and they radically disagree with what Stho002 is forcefully imposing upon us.

Let’s suppose his rules are “better” than those specified in the help section (which I think they are not). Isn’t it required of him to ask us for approval? Isn’t it required of him to write them down and post them? Isn’t it required of him to conduct a vote before he applies his rules? His rules which are nowhere specified, which are cumbersome and difficult to grasp, especially for a novice, are deterring many users from editing here. I know of at least 10 users who left as a consequence of his harassment and his constant modification of their edits. This kind of conduct would be unthinkable in the English Wikipedia, yet here, a site of low-volume where users are reluctant to “start a fight”, this outrageous behavior is going on unimpeded.

I’m asking everyone who agrees with me that this situation can’t be allowed to continue, to sign their name here. Mariusm (talk) 05:15, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Call for names I'd recommend against a call for names as such because that can quickly devolve into a witch-hunt or a mob. Have you and he spoken directly? Do you know what the "rules" are that he has in mind? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:19, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

With all due respect Justin, I must point out that you haven't done enough editing around here to experience the feeling when you have barely posted an edit and a person rushes in, unnecessarily changing your work seconds after being posted, with no appropriate reason except that he does't "like" the way you do things, and that he is keen on enforcing his own way - so my only desire is not to fight or argue, but to be left alone to proceed with my work, provided of course that I do it properly. Mariusm (talk) 04:35, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

@Mariusm: Far be it from me to trivialize your experience. My point is that there are some things which are universal or common to conversations and conflict and wikis. If you don't want my help, then I'll bow out. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:11, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Justin, I do want your help. My conflict with Stho002 goes on for years, so I though you might not be entirely aware of all the implications of Stho002's conduct. I tried in the past for many times to speak reason with him to no avail. He won't budge an inch from his convictions. I would really like you to persuade him not to enforce his way of doing things upon all the rest of the Wikispecies community. I'm not speaking of instances of flawed data, but of formatting (templates, categories, etc.). Mariusm (talk) 05:36, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

@Mariusm: How do you respond to Stho's point below? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:57, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

(1) There is a big difference between a "good advice" and to enforce one's opinion upon a fellow user. What Stho is doing is to forcefully changing my pages without warning, without a chance of appeal, just like that.

(2) If he thinks his method is so good, why doesn't he put it for the community vote? Two years ago he tried to do just that, yet he failed to get a majority approval. Since then he resorts to just making his awn rules, and enforcing them upon everyone else.

(3) I don't have my "own made up formatting standards". I try to adhere as much as possible to the standards which are specified in the help section. I try to make my pages as simple and as clear and as accurate as possible.

(4) Stho's conduct confuses many contributors because his system isn't simple, isn't easy to grasp, especially for newcomers, isn't written down anywhere, and needs much extra work - forming complicated templates and links. How can a newcomer possibly know what exactly Stho expects from her? His habit of changing immediately all the edits which are not up to his standards chases away almost all newcomers - I've witnessed this recurring for many times.

(5) Using templates for references as he advises is not always the best practice. This is not the place to specify all my reservations. Suffice it to say that for papers describing only one or two species, the work of creating reference-templates doesn't justify future reduction in effort should the respective reference need to be modified.

(6) Many components of his "system" aren't really a matter of reducing "hard writing" as he proclaims. They are just a matter of appearance and formatting. I would say they are a matter of taste alone, so why should he enforce his taste upon the entire community?

(7) @Koavf:, all I'm asking is that a Wikispecies user will not be unnecessarily harassed. I can testify for myself that Stho's behavior vexed me so much that I've abandoned this site for many months. I ultimately resolved not to give up and to claim my right not to be dictated. Thanks for trying to resolve this issue. Mariusm (talk) 12:02, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

@Mariusm: I'd recommend you frame this in terms of style issues and maybe RsfC related to them. It may be the case that Stho is inflexible and rude (I honestly don't know) and if he's a problem user then he may need to amend his behavior or be blocked. But it may also be the case that you two just have different preferences and there are strengths and weaknesses in both approaches. If the community talks about that rather than a specific user's behavior as such then we can just avoid conflict or blocks or anything punitive. Does that make sense? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:39, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

@Koavf: what you say sounds very reasonable to me. I only wish the community will be more active in this discussion, especially as I know for certain that other members suffer from the same harassment that I do. If the majority decides to go for his "system", then I will happily comply. Another important point to clarify the situation we are dealing with: Stho is active on WS eight hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year (I respect his perseverance), so he practically overwhelms other users in this low-volume wiki. I would say he pretty much transformed WS to become his "kingdom": dictating the rules and eradicating anything which displeases him. Are we going to encourage such a situation? Is this a healthy situation? I would say it isn't.

I urge the community to participate in the following vote. Sign your choice by 4 tildes. Please feel free to add any comment or clarification: (Mariusm (talk) 05:23, 11 September 2014 (UTC))

---

---

*** VOTE ***

Are you in favor of changing the official WS page-format to the one practiced by Stho002? (See for a typical Stho page example: Sagola spiniventris; as opposed to a generic example - endorsed in the help pages Hymenochirus boettgeri.)

• Yes, I am in favor of Stho's format
  • Stho002 (talk) 05:27, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

---

• No, I'm against it
  • The collapsing boxes are over elaborate, but Reference Templates are very useful. Spend less time changing other people's pages and more creating new ones. Accassidy (talk) 08:36, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Then should not your vote be in the category below? By the way, I am not actually "in favor of changing the official WS page-format to the one practiced by [me]". My argument has always been that a range of formats should be acceptable, from simple to elaborate, and if someone improves a page by reformatting to more elaborate, then that is good. If the only allowed format is simple, then the project cannot become as good as it can be ("dragged down by the lowest common denominator"). If the only allowed format is elaborate, then we risk alienating new users and established users who can't get their heads around the more elaborate formats ... Stho002 (talk) 21:35, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
    • I considered that, but I don't want to make "modifications" exactly, so neither response was particularly accurate. I just want to see valid data with good referencing to original material and relaible revisions. Accassidy (talk) 22:02, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
      • I fully concur with your last statement, and I do wish Mariusm wouldn't try to divert our energy into pointless disputes! Stho002 (talk) 22:08, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Collapsible boxes for synonyms are poor. Synonyms are essential information that should not be hidden in a box suggesting to a visitor that it most likely contained unimportant information. "Simplification" of templates, e.g. Template:IPNI, that does not conform to the citing recommendations of that institutions are disrespectful against these institutions. --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:13, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

---

• Some parts of it all right, but it needs modifications
  • Mariusm (talk) 05:23, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Tommy Kronkvist (talk) 20:18, 14 September 2014 (UTC). I too consider the collapsing boxes with the {{Nomen}} and {{Syn}} templates somewhat over elaborate: they look good, but can probably seem somewhat complicated to new users. The Reference Templates are good though, and helps a lot when creating (or correcting) references that are used on several different pages, for several different taxa. For instance the reference template {{Cuvier,Valenciennes;1846}} is used on as many as ten other pages. It is a lot more convenient to only change the reference template once—should the reference need to be updated—rather than to make corrections to every single one of those other ten pages. I realize that new users might face an even more arduous task trying to comprehend the Reference Templates (in comparison to the collapsing boxes) but I find the Ref Templates to be such a good improvement that we should consider using them anyway.
  • And.Martire I hate dictators. I agree with Mariusm — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.224.72.254 (talk) 15:22, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

---

---

Note: Not participating in this vote will prevent us from adopting an agreed-on format resulting in chaos, and in aggressive users enforcing their way upon this entire community. This site has practically became a one-person dictatorship. Do you wish this situation to go on? Do you want your work to be deleted or altered beyond recognition? If not, please do vote!

---

---

Note that I am not forcing others to follow "my format" (I'm not forcing others to do anything). They can use whatever format they wish, but as soon as they click on 'save', the page becomes fair game for others to modify ... Stho002 (talk) 05:28, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

This statement is equivalent to saying: <<I will tolerate no format but mine. No matter what you do or say, no matter what the rules are, your work will not be respected; it will be very soon modified according to my standards.>> Mariusm (talk) 07:17, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

If this was a recommended format I may agree with it with some reservations, but I can not agree with it being the 'official' format. For example, somebody will be deleting the location information already on Orchidaceae and other sites. Where is the type of synonym, vernacular information and interwiki links? I do not like YYYY: as (YYYY) is far clearer. Finally it is template heavy which will likely put off less experienced contributors. Anyway we need to concentrate our energies into getting blank and partially completed pages filled with high quality information. To prioritize a format wars is a waste of time and energy in my opinion. Having said that it is a neat and tidy layout. Andyboorman (talk) 08:46, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

It effectively is a recommended format (=a best practice format, not compulsory or "official"), so you may wish to reconsider your vote? Stho002 (talk) 21:01, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I have withdrawn my vote, as long as only the broad generic and simple format found on Help remains as the one recommended to new users, I am happy. I would suggest any admin/contributor who wishes to make major changes do so with care. I for one welcome content updates, as long as they are referenced or minor (eg VN interwiki links), tidying up of (my) inevitable mistakes, better pics, format suggestions/help etc.. Please no impositions without bureaucrat backing, do not get rid of content without first contacting the contributor(s) and be very very wary about driving people off WS. Enough said guys and maybe seek arbitration. Andyboorman (talk) 18:01, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

The quote: "It effectively is a recommended format" can be o.k. Orchi (talk) 19:38, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Agree with Orchi, but no format impositions. You guys both do good work here, as do most of us. Agree to disagree. Energies into quality content, surely? Andyboorman (talk) 22:15, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

---

The problem here Mariusm, is that you are deliberately ignoring my good advice (see this diff), just to spite me. You are also charging ahead with your own made up formatting standards (again just to spite me), as anyone can see if they review your recent edits. Stho002 (talk) 05:21, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

The latest contribution by Mariusm (Nazeris wuyiensis) illustrates his refusal to listen to reason. He is hard writing the information on to the page (instead of using templates), so any correction (or addition of a new link to the reference, for example) will need to be made separately on every single page! This is not a good approach! Stho002 (talk) 05:13, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• I will not vote in this argument as I'm not sure what it's all about... really. I also think Stho002 made some strange things in the past and he follow his own "the page becomes fair game" a little too zealously. It's not hunting we're doing here but a collaboration to build something together. Uleli (talk) 15:12, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

---

• Sth002 was my primary mentor when I joined Wikispecies, so I learned a system heavily oriented to templates. I found at first they were difficult to manipulate, but now that I am familiar with them, I am seeing their great flexibility and convenience. Reference templates are excellent, and when studied, should contain lists of nomenclatural acts. I spent some time on Wikipedia before concentrating here, and templates are not as well supported. References there must be hard entered. I like ISSN and Taxon Authority templates. Someone above had questioned wisdom of templating references without nomenclatural acts. But there are revisions with very few or no nomenclatural acts which I have transcluded up to 50 times.
• I am in the process of informing other cirriped workers (all 16 of us) of what I am doing, and am getting very good reception. I have been receiving helpful suggestions. So we are onto something very good. Just providing good clear reference links is excellent. Older references are hard to find, many bibliographies just pass along old abbreviations which are now hard to understand. Templates should provide full names, online links where possible, and ISSNs. In my own work, I am examining original descriptions wherever I can, identifying typos, discrepancies in citations, and occasional pre-occupied names. These should be indicated.
• One size fits all format is impossible anyway, as botanists do things very differently from zoologists, and within zoology, vertebrate people consider themselves apart from invertebrate people. Certain citation and taxonomic formats are peculiar to each. For aesthetic criteria, both template-heavy and hard written formats look good. But I feel that templating and linking give easy access to further information for researchers. Casual searchers might want a little more information on something they saw on their beach or back yard. Large blasts of technical information might put them off. Collapsible boxes have merit here. I feel we should provide as much concise information as we can for researchers in one place, while keeping in mind needs of curious non-specialists. Building species synonymy can be simplified by us. That is my aim here. I have spent many hours digging in libraries to build a synonymy for a paper. As time goes on, it can only build up more.
• I do have two suggestions right now to improve this project. First one is rather minor: Publications of so-and-so pages, so-and-so being Taxon Authority, I find as redundancy. This list can and should be placed on that individual's TA page. I have been somewhat lax in that particular in my little fief, but will catch up. The other is more formidable. That is type repository pages. Holotype category I find to be unsatisfactory. Links dump investigator into entire list, which must be waded through. Not all repositories are adequately listed. Anything placed to right of pipe glyph puts one into the repository page. I submit development of category similar in format to Category ISSN. That works beautifully, at least for me. Neferkheperre (talk) 02:56, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

---

I would like to thank everyone for their responses. I have a few comments to make:

• To those admins seeking to be only left in peace and quiet, and who don't want to get involved in any debate I would say: so why did you choose to become administrators? One of the tasks of an administrator is to act as a policeman and to stand guard against anyone breaking the laws. I'm sure you wouldn't want the police officers in your community to seek peace and quiet instead of pursuing the villains, would you?
• We need to be more friendly toward each other and especially towards newcomers. This means not to change or delete one's work without warning or explanation; to increase our tolerance and patience is mandatory.
• Some aspects of Stho's system are welcome, and should become a standard, while others such as unnecessary collapse boxes should be arguably abandoned.
• We need to compose new help pages to reflect our new attitude. @Neferkheperre: your suggestions sound very reasonable to me. Would you like to take on this task? We need firstly a draft, which will be posted to be revised by others, and later to be used as our platform and guide.
  • I shall start on this soon. Neferkheperre (talk) 20:37, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
• I hope the community sees this debate, not as an unnecessary skirmish, but as a way of progressing towards a better WS. Mariusm (talk) 04:56, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
  • "Collapse boxes" are vital. The last thing a new user wants to be faced with is a load of highly technical nomenclatural and/or synonymic detail, but this is what sophisticated users will be most interested in. However, I have abandoned nested "collapse boxes" in favour of giving synonyms a page of their own, which makes a great deal of sense (but I won't explain now) ... Stho002 (talk) 05:09, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Another reason for "collapse boxes" would relate to page appearance. With these boxes in place, taxon pages are more likely viewable without scrolling overmuch. I have been doing some nesting of synonym boxes for further information, and I shall be proposing some ideas on treating synonyms in the near future. Neferkheperre (talk) 20:37, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Stho, I think you are wrong. On the contrary - a new/casual user may be deterred by the meager amount of information presented on the page. The page is so minimal that it almost isn't presenting any information at all. See for example pages of similar wikis like this and this. I would like to incorporate more details such as distribution, maps, description etc. rather then hiding out the minimal details we do have. Mariusm (talk) 08:07, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
    
    • I have of late been giving more study to other taxonomic wikis. Most high-information sites are highly specialized towards taxonomic groups (like AntWiki), or geographical areas (such as BiotaTaiwanica). Most generalists, like ITIS, GBIF, WoRMS, provide very little besides listing currently accepted name and original author. They are of minimal use to researchers seeking to build taxonomic synonymy sections. We should avoid redundancy with either concept. If we are doing exactly same as some other site, one of us is unnecessary. We are set up to handle all species, as are generalists, and to provide specialized information, but not too extremely detailed. Greater use of external links to specialized sites would solve problems of redundancy. Neferkheperre (talk) 20:37, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
  • In botany easy access to synonyms is vital, both for new/casual and sophisticated users. Therefore, I am not with happy with collapse boxes for synonymy and will not use them and may remove them, if they interfere with the clarity of the page, as I see it. The main, but not only reason, is the considerable number of changes in nomenclature up and down taxa over the last ten years or so. These are ongoing and not always immediately accepted by all authorities or experts complicating the picture, but we can deal with this situation, as long as contributors do not go off on their own individually preferred route or format. The way I see it, is that an important reason for a visit is to answer the questions "what is the currently accepted name?", "what is the level of acceptance?" and "why have the changes been made?". Also casual users particularly may be searching using a synonym and so redirects, or notes and links on pages, are also needed, but that is another discussion. Andyboorman (talk) 09:30, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
    • In brief: In reply to Mariusm, I say that I have incorporated more details than was initially envisaged for the project, but at the end of the day, we do not want to become merely a copy of Wikipedia, so we have to focus on our strengths. Our main strength, as I see it, is referencing. We do not have to copy snippets of information from the references. Rather we choose good references, link to them, and indicate briefly what sort of useful information is in them (e.g. distributions, redescriptions, keys, etc.) Useful content is then just a mouse click away. In reply to Andyboorman, you are conflating a couple of different issues! I agree that the synonymy is vital (and I want to give each synonym a page of its own!) The "collapse boxes" do not interfere with clarity, they add to it! They simply give you a brief overall look at the page (overview) and what information is there, and if you want to see synonyms then you just click on the synonyms box! What's so "unclear" about that??? Stho002 (talk) 22:02, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
      
      • I am full editor on en.Wikipedia, and have created many species pages there. I have already commented on my issues with their formatting. They also complain I am too technical. I could be convinced to forgo Nomen boxes, but not synonym boxes. Neferkheperre (talk) 20:37, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Stephen I totally agree with your point vis-a-vis referencing etc. However, I think we must agree to disagree with respect to whether or not collapsing boxes add or detract from clarity when it comes to synonyms and nomenclature as opposed to taxonavigation. I am not conflating issues but prefer a more in your face approach - the older layout. Hopefully I am not forced to adopt collapse boxes I feel are not needed. Andyboorman (talk) 12:18, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
      • Nobody is "forcing" anyone to do anything. You can use whatever format you like, as far as I am concerned, but nobody owns pages that they create/edit, so their format can be changed by others ... Stho002 (talk) 23:37, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
        
      • I can not disagree with what you say above, but then why do you sometimes high-handedly invoke 'edit wars' when original contributors (or others) revert your edits or change what you have added if you do not like those contributions? Fair enough, if references are provided, but this is not always the case, so it can seem to others that its "all in a whim". May be leading to the above. Goose and gander? Andyboorman (talk) 07:35, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
        • Examples? It all hinges on "improvement" of the page. Format changes without improvement are unjustified ... Stho002 (talk) 07:39, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
          
        • Example - Tainia/Ania. The main contributor and myself thought your attitude was euphemistically "uncalled for". Particularly given the immense amount of work that has been put into the whole family and the impressive results! Of course the paper by Li et al (2014) was important, but their proposal has not met universal acceptance by academic orchid experts, as far as I read it. WS can not take sides surely? Anyway we must always treat each other with respect and diplomacy. Anybody can "improve" my pages and I promise to not revert without justification and evidence.....Andyboorman (talk) 18:36, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
          • My level of diplomacy might have been better, but my point still stands. When you consider WS as a whole, as I do, there is no such thing as "general acceptance" (How long do we wait? Who do we look to for the answer? Isn't that "taking sides"??) Precisely because WS cannot take sides, we must by default accept all peer reviewed and published research that is currently uncontested in the peer reviewed literature. Otherwise, the project as a whole falls apart. Stho002 (talk) 22:07, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
            
          • I agree 100% with all your points above! In this incidence, I read the paper in detail and realised that an alternative conclusion can be reached from the data. Lumping Tainia/Ania and Collabium will also seem to achieve monophyly. Hence my edits/improvements, but without the personal conclusion regarding Collabium as this is not the job of WS, as I see it. I also think that is why Li's conclusions have not achieved rapid acceptance in the wider academic orchid community, as this inclines to "lump" not "split". Time will tell. But, like you, I normally implement non-controversial changes based upon peer reviewed journals without comment or note just references. Andyboorman (talk) 09:08, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
            • Try pulling that stunt on English Wikipedia!! Stho002 (talk) 22:15, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Echo and watchlist

Special:Notifications & Special:Watchlist substantially overlap in functionality, except the former also contains extra (some non-public) events and doesn't provide with passive usage options (means to turn off web-nagging or email-nagging and to just keep visiting the page whenever I'm free), while the latter doesn't provide with options of active web-nagging notifications (but already provides email interface). Partly, in my personal view, the Echo/Notifications project was driven by low usability of watchlist; [8] comes to mind. It's also perhaps worth noting that Echo users aren't exposed to Special:Notifications unless thy have JavaScript disabled — in which case it's their only means of reading the notifications.

I'd like to get this done:

1. Merge these two pages into one.
2. To remedy large inflow of information, introduce multiple levels of importance of the web-nagging notifications (red for mentions, orange for thanks, blue for new watchlist items, etc and configurable in your settings).

Thoughts on both, please? --Gryllida (talk) 02:28, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

10 year anniversary

In August 2004, Benedikt Mandl (User:Benedikt) gathered people and launched Wikispecies. 10 years ago, on September 14, 2004, the project merged to become a sister project under Wikimedia Foundation. Today, this wiki has over 405,000 article pages, 2 million page edits since inception, and viewed by 22,000 individuals per hour. Let's keep this project going for years to come. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:48, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

What We Want to Convey

• In our recent discussion, talk and suggestions were made on what scope of information we want to put into our entries and how we want to format it. We seem to have good agreement on Taxonavigation and Name section. We seem to have come to some level of agreement on reference templates. Other contents need work.
• We have long since selected our scope to include all life, taxonomically organized. This makes us the largest biological site online with the capability to provide detailed information or links thereto. Many similar sites are mere listings of currently valid species with author, and little else. Others specialize in particular taxa, or geographical areas. These present highly detailed information, much more than we really should present here, but all the above are more information endpoints, without links to other sources. Here is where we can and should excel. Provide good basic information on site, with external links to specialized sites.
• One purpose I have aimed for is to support taxonomic researchers and reviewers. I personally know how much time it takes to build a good synonymy with type data, and full information. We can save multitudinous hours of time for researchers. Particularly with older references, this can take time, and older references are hard to find.
• After the name section, we have been providing type locality and repository information, and for some of us, geographical range. I have been putting in geological range for extinct species, and host data for symbionts. This is what user:Stho002 and I have been putting in collapsible Nomen boxes. If we do decide to use taxon descriptions, these would go here, as well. Use of Nomen boxes is as yet undecided, but might be best decided on quantity of information contained. I am all for including geographic range, symbiosis data, invasive species data, and short note on environmental preference.
• On descriptions: Really rather than full descriptions, we should provide diagnosis which shows how this taxon differs from others. These are found as separate entries in more recent literature, with original descriptions or taxon revisions. In some cases, we might have to improvise, but we should avoid that. By now, we might want that Nomen box.
• Synonyms: I see some past discussion on where to put synonyms. I feel it much less confusing to put synonyms and homonyms in the taxon page they affect. I really do support concept of collapsible Syn box for this category. I think synonyms should be templated as are valid species, but with more limited information, and re-directed. Reason: Future reviewers may re-validate synonyms, and in case valid name is found to be invalid, next available synonym becomes new valid name. In addition, some names are not considered synonyms by all specialists. Reason for synonymy should be noted. Generic re-assignments do not belong here, but in references section (see below). If synonyms are re-validated, then re-direct pages are easily re-configured. I have not been putting synonym references in with Selected references.
• Selected references: Original description citation, generic re-assignments, major reviewers belong here. Our scope does not include most non-taxonomic references, but a citation providing an exhaustive list can be included. We need to think about DNA taxonomy references.
• External links: Since we have discussed sites like Antwiki and BiotaTaiwanica, links can be place here as applicable. I personally think maps and photos can be linked here as well, instead of taking up much megabytes. DNA information is becoming more important, and is better linked to external specialty sites. Neferkheperre (talk) 02:09, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

No, we really should not go anywhere near descriptions! We just cite good references with descriptions in them. Nomen boxes are for nomenclatural details only, and Syn boxes are for synonymy ... Stho002 (talk) 02:27, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

@Neferkheperre: I firstly want to thank you for your work trying to put some form and frame to WS. I agree with most of your suggestions, yet as Stho says, descriptions will put an immense overload on our still very incomplete species basic data and detract us from adding as many species as we should. Can you please compose and post an example species page which will incorporate your vision so we have something concrete over which to debate and comment? Many thanks, Mariusm (talk) 04:31, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

In my opinion, WS is not the place to add descriptions of taxa. This kind of information should be reserved for the different wikipedias. However, the references should include links to the respective papers, if they are available online, either in Biodiversity Heritage Library or somewhere else. This will provide a lot of links to descriptions at one place. I suppose, this also will help wikipedias, when some author intends to write an article on a certain taxon. I also oppose the idea of adding "diagnosis which shows how this taxon differs from others". I larger genera this would mean to work on a diagnostic key, which certainly is beyond our capacity.

Synonyms are essential and they should not be hidden in a collapsible box. I regard this as an unfriendly act to casual visitors: When they enter a synonym into the search field they are redirected to the respective accepted taxon and there do not easily find the name they were searching for. However, synonyms concern a general question: What is the scope of WS? Is it on names? Or is it on taxa? If it is on names, we should consider to change our design to a solution similar to Tropicos or World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (Kew Checklist), where there exists an own page for each name. However, as I understand, WS is on taxa. This means to have one article for each accepted taxon and synonyms redirected to this. As far as I see, such design is more suitable to deal with misapplied names/pseudonyms. In this case I simply may add such a pseuonym at the end of the heterotypic synonym list, as e.g. in Ouratea crassinervia. Actually, in Flora of Panama they had used the name O. curvata for the taxon now treated as O. crassinervia in the Flora Mesoamericana draft. According to this, the true O. curvata is restricted to Brazil. It is rather confusing when Tropicos in the O. crassinervia page links to O. curvata under "Accepted Names" based on some outdates references. You will realise that O. crassinervia actually is a currently accepted taxon only when you find links to recent "References" or if you proceed to the Flora Mesoamericana draft.

The only point, where I consider to add pages for names currently not accepted, concerns unresolved names, as e.g. Brackenridgea elegantissma. Kanis (1972) writes this name is based on a sterile plant, which is either conspecific with Brackenridgea hookeri or Brackenridgea palustris. Moreover, Brackenridgea elegantissima is an older name than both. So, maybe sometimes I will create a page for B. elegantissima including a note that reports the point made by Kanis. However, most of the names marked in TPL as "Unresolved" actually are not unresolved. They simply have not yet evaluated all of the relevant papers. An example: If you go to the original paper, you easily see - if you understand German - that Ochna rigida Kuntze is based on Ouratea rigida Engl. and actually has to be cited as Ochna rigida (Engl.) Kuntze. TPL provides a link to IPNI where a link to the Kuntze protologue is included, but nobody has checked the protologue. So, this can be seen as the advantage of WS that we may solve such easy cases of "Unresolved" names from TPL. --Franz Xaver (talk) 15:25, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I am with Franz Xaver on descriptions, synonyms and more importantly WS is mainly about taxonomy. Distribution and images make a valuable contribution by adding interest to users, but descriptions belong elsewhere e.g. Wikipedia and there is provision to link there. However, I must admit I have not had Franz's luck when it comes to unresolved species. More often than not I seem to end up in a digital dead end! I also place the tribe, genera or species lists etc. at the top of the page making the taxonomy explicit and user friendly, but that is not as important as content and references of course. Andyboorman (talk) 19:16, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

So ... can someone volunteer and present us with an example species-page which reflects his wishes on how a WS page should look like? We need this as a starting point for agreeing on a standardized format for WS. Mariusm (talk) 04:24, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

So ... here is an example GENUS page (just make sure that the last edit is mine, or it may not convey what I intended!) Stho002 (talk) 05:11, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

This is another example of Stho002 rude behavior. I started editing Calybe, when Stho002 immediately stepped in, without giving me a chance to finish it, changed it, thereby interfering with my work, and now he proclaims it's an example. Please ignore his post on this discussion above! Mariusm (talk) 05:46, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

......why no difference between "synonym" and "homonym".Orchi (talk) 10:40, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

---

• Sorry for my delay. My stepfather passed recently, and it was necessary to secure his possessions and mineral collection, see to his 12 cats, and get his succession under way. In spare moments, I have rebuilt species page Megabalanus tintinnabulum, including completed reference and taxon authority pages to show about what I had in mind. It is the regular species page, and can be readily changed.
• Really, I do not favor descriptions or diagnoses either in this wiki. Others have mentioned this ever several months, so I brought it up for discussion. That would be a huge can of worms, as definitions of terms would be brought in as well. I didn't do anything with repository, as that is the next subject. I favor sticking with taxonomic and nomenclatural information, with rich linkage to external sources for expanded study. Neferkheperre (talk) 17:32, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
  

---

Neferkheperre and Franz Xaver have, in my opinion, both produced excellent pages Megabalanus tintinnabulum and Brackenridgea hookeri respectively. OK they differ in format, but it must be a down to preference or fitness for purpose not "house style", which one is followed. They both have strengths and weaknesses. Also they both have used the scientific names for the species and good references - brilliant. I also think that for another contributor or admin to move onto somebodies work imposing their own version of format is, to put it euphemistically, undiplomatic. Even if it is within the rules it counters the spirit of the project. Fine if the page is ridiculous, but how common is that? I also commend Orchi for the work on Orchidaceae, which is "What We Want to Convey" surely? Andyboorman (talk) 19:16, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

There is enough work left to do for everybody. So, it is not necessary to make people busy by changing one acceptable format into another acceptable format. Cheers --Franz Xaver (talk) 19:55, 29 September 2014 (UTC). Well put! Andyboorman (talk) 20:00, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I fully agree, but I have not done that. The only pages I have edited have been to add new content and/or make corrections. On the other hand, Mariusm deliberately chooses to take my formatting style and change it in a way that adds nothing. Anyway, the most important features of a good Wikispecies page are as follows:

1. Justification of species (or genus etc.) checklists, so the reader knows where the information came from;
2. Good selection of informative references; and
3. Links to the references on BHL, or doi, or links to PDFs; and
4. Use of templates to minimize the workload associated with making changes (e.g. if an online source for a reference becomes available, we just add it once to the template, and not to every page that the ref. is cited on).

Stho002 (talk) 21:15, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Differences between these two pages is mainly due to approaches to taxonomy which have evolved separately over years with botany and zoology. Zoology format such as in Megabalanus tintinnabulum would not work in botany, and Brackenridgea hookeri would not do for zoological synonymies. Other kingdoms have their own unique parameters, as well. Neferkheperre (talk) 00:28, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

---

@Neferkheperre:, can you please explain in what way Megabalanus tintinnabulum format is better than User:Mariusm/Megabalanus tintinnabulum? You adopted there the format devised by Stho002, which includes collapsible boxes that the majority here think unnecessary. See also the vote above, where none of the admins endorsed these boxes. Mariusm (talk) 04:28, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, try page now. I removed boxes for open format. I use "Spage" template normally, so that re-formatted slightly the nomenclatural/ecologic information. I do prefer to keep "Original genus", for clarity. Selected references is preferable usage simply because it is impractical to list all references. Stho002 is who originally guided me when joining Wikispecies. How about using Syn box for lengthy synonym/homonym lists? Neferkheperre (talk) 13:42, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

The difference between your and Stho002 use of Selected References compared to References is one of culture and linguistics I feel. Many of us use Bibliography for a comprehensive list of literature and esources relevant to a topic. We then use References for those that have been specifically used to construct a WS page, paper, essay etc. I for one will continue to use References not Selected References for that reason. Like wise my use of brackets around dates - its a northern hemisphere thing, maybe. Syn boxes could be considered, but often the "lengthy" list is germane to the page taxo information, so I am inclined to not to use them, but they do look good. The length of the page is not as important as its quality of content. Andyboorman (talk) 13:09, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, for me Megabalanus tintinnabulum looks much better now. I don't worry as much about long pages as I worry about too short ones. Too short pages with too many collapsible boxes look very ugly and are very cumbersome to use. The best way is to grasp all the available information in a single sweep. I apologize for bringing up again the subject of Stho002 stubbornness, but when we do decide on an accepted format, it would be a very difficult task to persuade him to comply. Neither do I agree that the format isn't important, and that each user should use his own proprietary style. The integrity and the reputation of WP much depend on a uniform style. I do encourage other users to comment or post their preferred versions. Mariusm (talk) 11:19, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

@Andyboorman: and @Neferkheperre: Neferkheperre, thanks for you efforts. I appreciate the fact that you came forward and tried to devise a model species, but there is a reluctance here at WS to adopt a standard style, (or shall I say an indifference) even if standardization would have brought great advantages for us. When we consider ease of use and clarity on the editorial side as well as on the reader side, it would make sense to adhere to the simplest format possible, and this would mean discarding collapsible boxes. I'm disappointed, yet what can I do? The admins aren't involved enough, hard feelings accumulate and we start stepping on each other's toes, having unfruitful format-wars. A lot of energy and confusion would have been reduced had a certain standardization been adopted, but the majority spoke its word, so let's keep on the existing state of affairs. Mariusm (talk) 16:34, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

How to add custom button on this project ?

Hi, I had got a custom vector.js to add custom button but it seems to be obsolete now (don't know why. So by any chance maybe some of yours have a usable custom .js page which allow to create custom button. Like that i'll be able to copy-paste it and create mines. Thanks.V!v£ l@ Rosière ^{/Murmurer…/} 09:31, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Limnophila (genus) is Plantaginaceae or Scrophulariaceae family  ?

I found for that genus this both family. But which choose then ?

Scrophulariaceae :

• Riehl, R. & Baensch, H.A. 2001. Atlas de l’aquarium. 14th edition, volume 1, p. 88. ISBN 3-88244-049-X. Reference page. 
• eFloras.org
• USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service
• Jstor

Plantaginaceae  :

• The plant List
• USDA, Agricultural Research Service, GRIN (they switched it [9] "Limnophila sessiliflora (Vahl) Blume FORMERLY: Scrophulariaceae; CHANGE TO: Plantaginaceae")
• ITIS

So what should we do in this case ? V!v£ l@ Rosière ^{/Murmurer…/} 11:00, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
As far as we are concerned our treatment here Limnophila is currently correct. Jstor refers to the herbaria entries so uses the original classification. For some reason the USDA (NRCS) and eflora sources do not always follow APGIII, which we (and most other botanists) do. The book is out of date. But see the authorities below;

• Borsch, T., Müller, K. & Fischer, E. (2005) The Linderniaceae and Gratiolaceae are further lineages distinct from the Scrophulariaceae (Lamiales), Plant Biology (Stuttgart), 7(1): 1–12. Available on line [10]. Accessed 2014 June 7.
• Olmstead et al (2010) Lamiales – Synoptical classification vers. 2.2 (in prog.) Available on line [11]. Accessed 14 Feb. 2014. As Gratiolieae.
• Albach, D.C., Meudt, H.M. & Oxelman, B. (2005) Piecing together the “new” Plantaginaceae, American Journal of Botany, 92(2): 297-315. Available on line [12]. Accessed 2014 May 15.
  

Have a browse on the Lamiales section on the APGIII website [http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/APweb/.
OK we need to tidy up the Plantaginaceae pages on WS! Hope this helps Andyboorman (talk) 11:54, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much, that'll help for sure ;-) . V!v£ l@ Rosière ^{/Murmurer…/} 17:14, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

The case of Limnophila is and will remain not the only case where an assignment to different families occurs. Within the Regnum Plantae I am confronted with the case of Azolla. For many decades within the Salviniales the genus Azolla was assigned to the family Azollaceae and the genus Salvinia was assigned to the family Salviniaceae. Since a few years both genera are assigned by some authors to the Salviniaceae based upon very few molecular studies. This is, however, not generally accepted. There are still authors who are in favour of a separate family Azollaceae.

I myself have studied many megaspores and microsporangia of Salvinia and Azolla with the aid of transmission and scanning electron microscopes. The differences in the organisation and in the morphological characteristics of the spores are that great that I am also in favour of a separate family Azollaceae. But in Wikispecies both genera are presented under Salviniaceae, as that proposal was taken for the Taxonavigation. Time will tell the truth...

In general, species and genera are the building stones of the taxonomic system. They represent the upward taxonomy. But there is also a downward taxonomy, often using theoretical assumptions. And these two kinds of taxonomic work are clashing in the range of families, subfamilies, or tribus.

Kempf EK (talk) 17:16, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Stho002 disregards wiki's fair play

Reading my lamentations is sure to be tiresome to you by now, but I must relate what happened lately between Stho002 and me:

I started innocently enough to edit the genus page Calybe by creating for it a template Template:Calybe, then I proceeded to gather taxonomic data, which took several minutes. When I was ready to post my work, I realized to my dismay that Stho acted faster then me - he already managed to step in and post his initial version. You can imagine my frustration and anger: not only he took possession of my ongoing edit, but he made my work of twenty minutes superfluous. He had at his disposal millions of species and genera to choose from, yet he chose instead to interfere with my present pick. Since his first edit was preliminary and incomplete, I decided to nevertheless put on the page my more comprehensive version. You can imagine what kind of "war" ensued, where Stho immediately reverting everything I was posting on this page, regardless whether it added more content or not, whether it was more accurate or not. You can see for yourselves the page history. To add insult to injury, he started proclaiming that Calybe is his model genus page - see here.

Would you regard this type of conduct legitimate? Would you call it a fair play, especially when done by an admin? What am I supposed to be doing now? Wouldn't it be appropriate to expect some kind of protection from the admins here? Am I supposed to fight or succumb and remain quiet?

In a normal wiki the conduct mentioned above would have been handled firmly, yet here it is ignored completely. Be it enough to say that Stho was blocked from editing in the English Wikipedia for a much lesser offence. Mariusm (talk) 15:46, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I must say that such a quick interventions after the creation of a Template for a genus that had remained untouched for some time does seem much more than a coincidence. Personally, I would not take such action after seeing the Genus Template on the "Recent changes" list, and it does strike me as being a very rude interaction by Stho002. To then continue an edit war for two days is juvenile behavior without discussion on your two user pages about how you see things differently. Swapping backwards and forwards between Reference Template and Author formats seems also to be a waste of time for both editors. I do feel that Marius has a sound reason for complaint. Accassidy (talk) 17:43, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Nevertheless, Mariusm is removing content when he repeatedly undoes my formatting on that page, and for that reason, I consider it to be vandalism and revert Stho002 (talk) 19:43, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Furthermore, Mariusm's claim to have started editing the page "innocently enough" is deliberately misleading. I have been watching his edits for some time (I also watch the edits of anyone else who I suspect may be problematic). He has been deliberately using his own, rather hastily thought through, variations on the formatting that I have developed, i.e. not standard formatting and not my formatting, but a deliberate attempt to go against my formatting. I don't care so much about species pages, but I jumped in quickly to tidy up the genus page Calybe for this reason Stho002 (talk) 19:49, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm willing to complay with any agreed-on format, while you wouldn't budge an inch from your proprietary-devised format to accommodate other views. Mariusm (talk) 08:48, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

@Mariusm: my passive support is with you. It's a pity that the admin staff here is not strong enough to do something with this long "usurpation of the power". Kuzia (talk) 21:47, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Now seeing the very long story of Stho002's blockage in enwiki, I must ask an obvious question: is it not enough to dismiss his adminship here if the "internal" evidence is not sufficiently strong? Kuzia (talk) 22:19, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

@Stho002:, I want to pose you a simple question: Are you willing to promise not to touch a fellow's edit for 2 hours after the edit has been posted (provided it's not a vandalism) YES OR NO? I would like to get a straight answer to that question, because if the answer would be negative, it would be a compelling proof that you are willing to go on harassing contributors. Mariusm (talk) 07:51, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Patience is not one of my many virtues :) But, yes, I agree, but for a logged in editors only (not for an anon. IP), and bearing in mind that removal of useful content is vandalism Stho002 (talk) 22:29, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, let's shake our virtual hands, and concentrate on improving WS. Mariusm (talk) 06:59, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I suggest only that we do not get into editing wars over something as inconsequential as formatting detail. I would not reformat another's work just for the sake of the layout. If there is a clash over authorship or taxonomy, then please try to sort out differences of opinion by correspondence, rather than just through mutual deletions. Content is the key issue and if the content is correct then please let all of us move on to providing more content on more pages, rather than wasting time reformatting the work of others. Surely this is a more mature, adult approach. Accassidy (talk) 15:00, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

@Accassidy: Firstly, I would like to thank you for being the sole admin who seems to care and who is willing to get involved around here. Since Stho promised to exercise more patience and not to rush in upon an ongoing edit, let's see this case as closed for now. Mariusm (talk) 06:59, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Type repositories

• At an earlier point, I had mentioned building viable repository database, as holotype| is wholly inadequate, based on standards we want, and ease of access of information. I propose building something similar to our ISSN database. I have been trying to salvage holotype, but can't seem to get anyplace. Since type numbers begin with repository acronym, this acronym should be the link to an individual information page for that repository. These pages will also be housed in a category erected for this purpose. Information contained to include at least the following:
  • 1. Full name of repository, location, years of operation. If repository is no longer operating, state where collections were transferred. Acronyms and numbers will be preserved in case of transfers.
  • 2. Website, if any.
  • 3. Many larger repositories subdivide their type collections into broad taxonomic categories, such as crustaceans, corals, etc. Here should be listed appropriate prefixes.
  • 4. Miscellaneous relevant information.
  • 5. Reference templates for type and figured specimen catalogs and inventories. I have created an entire 2 of these yesterday, and created Category:Type Number Inventories for them. These catalogs will be of invaluable use to all of us, because many older taxonomic works omit type numbers, even if assigned at that time, and such catalogs update condition and availability of type specimens.
• I am suggesting Category:Repositories for housing these pages, and Type:(acronym) in square brackets for repository pages.
• If we get some broad agreement on labels, and concept, I have information gathered for a sample page, which can easily be made official. Neferkheperre (talk) 20:07, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

This seems an attractive idea to me, a feature which will add interest to WS. We can add as well a category for each museum, so we could see in one click all the species resident in a specific location. Can you please post your sample institute page, so we can comment on it? Mariusm (talk) 04:10, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Here is my sample page: SMBL. Is entered as Type:acronym(pipe)acronym. SMBL does not use secondary prefixes. This was a simple, yet representative sample of repository. It preserves preferred format in publications of acronyms when citing type specimens. Explanation of acronyms is usually placed elsewhere in publications. Your idea of category for each museum is interesting, I added one. I used Category:acronym, to make it simple for use, and easy to remember. Neferkheperre (talk) 02:58, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

It looks nice, but why can't we name the page simply "SMBL" instead of "type:SMBL". This will make things simpler and easier. Mariusm (talk) 07:43, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Agree with Mariusm suggestion. This would also make it easier changing from current [[Holotype|SMBL]] format by just deleting 'Holotype|'. Accassidy (talk) 09:19, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

• I agree. I did realize Mariusm's suggestion only after I made my sample page and posted it. I only made that one, and did not implement it, so easily moved. And Accassidy makes perfect sense for transitioning. Neferkheperre (talk) 13:29, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I made 2 repository pages: MZUSP and MZUEL, and I'll try to continue making them. Mariusm (talk) 13:59, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Accepted/Invalid status feature

What is your opinion of adding a STATUS feature for genus/species, by using the templates "Accepted" & "Invalid"?

Accepted

• Status:   invalid  

Mariusm (talk) 07:12, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

In terms of the ICN, "invalid" (see nom. inval.) is not the contrary of "accepted". At least in botany, it is no found too rare that a taxon is accepted by some authors and synonymized by others - see en:Lumpers and splitters#Biology. So, in these cases such a feature will not be helpful without adding a note - by whom it is accepted an by whom not. --Franz Xaver (talk) 08:14, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I have to agree with Franz Xaver the "invalid" feature would usually need qualifying for plants and is covered by nom. inval. and its variants, which can appear in a list of synonyms and should provide more information. Why would "iinvalid" appear in the Taxonavigation and Name sections? In general pages should concentrate on "accepted" names where ever possible. I also know there is a big debate to be had about acceptance, but I feel this can be put aside for the immediate future. There just too many blanks to fill in and also existing pages lacking basic information. Andyboorman (talk) 09:37, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I thought that instead of just creating a redirect, which is very common in botany, it would be better to create a page with "invalid" status, author and reference, see for example a page I modified to this effect: Cereus poselgeri. Maybe such templates will better suited for zoology. Mariusm (talk) 10:21, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

That works and looks good. I have added a link on Echinocereus poselgeri HOT section just to complete the redirect, if that is OK. I will consider using this a the genus level, which is my main focus of work at the moment. Thanks Andyboorman (talk) 10:59, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

@Mariusm: No, in my opinion this is not a good solution. The name Cereus poselgeri is not "invalid" in terms of the Melbourne Code (ICN). Please compare the status definitions in Art. 6 of the Code. It's dangerous to use the same word for different things within the same context. Of course, you use the word "invalid" in a general meaning as in en.wiktionary. But in botanical nomenclature the meaning of the term "invalid name" is defined by the code in a different way. So, this "invalid" feature will only contribute to confusion. According to the code, a homotypic synonym anyway is a valid name. (And easily can become an accepted name, e.g. if circumscription of genera is changed.) If you want to stick to this idea of status templates, the appropriate dichotomy is "accepted name" versus "synonym". Anyway, often it will be necessary to add some specifications, if acceptance is only by part of the relevant literature. Remains the general question I had put somewhere above, whether wikispecies is on taxa or on names. The page Cereus poselgeri is in line with the names approach. Instead of splitting a taxon into separate pages on synonyms, I would prefer to add more references to the Echinocereus poselgeri page, e.g. FNA or Tropicos. The Coulter reference easily could have been added to the Echinocereus poselgeri page, whereas the Britton & Rose reference obviously belongs to Wilcoxia poselgeri. (When the basionym is Echinocereus poselgeri Lem., what nomenclatural act would have been done by Britton & Rose?). Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 20:09, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: we can easily add another template "Sy":

{{Sy}}

to straighten up the invalid ambiguity.

I think that a user seeking for a nomenclature which makes a synonym, and ends in being redirected, it apt to get confused. On the other hand, seeing clearly on the page that it is a syn., and having the relevant info on that particular syn. makes things much clearer and easier to grasp. I for one, searching sometimes for a synonymized name and being redirected, I didn't grasp initially that I've been redirected, and thought the page I reached is carrying the name I've searched for. Mariusm (talk) 04:37, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

We have categories to deal with this sort of thing. Having big colorful banners that appeal to Mariusm is unnecessary and I will oppose their implementation to the bitter end, thanks Stho002 (talk) 06:28, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

My own preference is to create REDIRECTs from pages titled with the combination of a taxon that is now subsumed under another. The page for the "valid" name will contain the "invalid" name in its section titled Synonymy or Synonyms, showing where the original synonymy was published when it is known. This redirect leads the enquirer to the appropriate "valid" taxon, shows how and when the synonym was created. Look, for example, at Neopithecops horsfieldi. This would be readily understood by anyone studying Lepidoptera. If people search for a binomial name that does not have its own page or redirect, then they will see a search lead to any page which contains the combination as a synonym. I think this is clear enough and I don't think enlarging the data on the junior synonym page is a good use of time. Accassidy (talk) 17:39, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Accassidy a sensible exemplar page for both content and format - fit for purpose. Disregard my earlier comment. I will continue to attempt to modify this advice for my own work in botany. Please no more format wars these really are a waste of time. Andyboorman (talk) 20:04, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Commons alert

Somebody has been dumping Wiki Commons logo links for no useful reason - just to let you know! Andyboorman (talk) 21:08, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

User:Matsievsky's activity was fine up until last 2 edits. I think he/she may have clicked something by accident. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 23:12, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Stho002's harassment forces me to stop editing

I regretfully must stop editing here, at Wikispecies. What caused my decision is the ongoing harassment by Stho002, who is targeting almost every edit of mine either deleting or reverting them. A recent example to his doings, which indeed was the straw that broke the camel's back is Template:Zt3860.6.3; originally it was:

• Scherz, M.D. et al. 2014: A new microhylid frog, genus Rhombophryne, from northeastern Madagascar, and a re-description of R. serratopalpebrosa using micro-computed tomography. Zootaxa 3860(6): 547–560. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3860.6.3  
  • find all Wikispecies pages which cite this reference

I than changed it to:

• Scherz, M.D.; Ruthensteiner, B.; Vences, M.; Glaw, F., 2014: A new microhylid frog, genus Rhombophryne, from northeastern Madagascar, and a re-description of R. serratopalpebrosa using micro-computed tomography. Zootaxa 3860(6): 547–560. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3860.6.3  
  • find all Wikispecies pages which cite this reference

Which Stho reverted to this:

As you can see, I added all the four authors of this publication, and made links to them. Moreover, I added this publication to all those four author's pages. By reverting my edit, he removed this important content, and undone my work.

This is not an isolated case, but a systematic behavior, by which he made many users leave this site. Among them I can count Kuzia, Haps (see here) and PeterR.

This leaves me no other choice but to quit. As I've said before, this sort of harassment was met in the English Wikipedia with blockage, yet here I'm receiving no support from the WS' admins, who seem indifferent to Stho's misconduct. Stho is doing as he pleases, makes his own rules and enforces them, and generally acts as a dictator and as an owner of this site. So I'm forced to say goodbye. Mariusm (talk) 06:52, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Why did you make this revert Stho002? It does,on the face of it, seem petty and harassing. Andyboorman (talk) 08:05, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Firstly note that I try to keep up with all the thousands of Zootaxa articles, which is a herculean task. I initially created that ref. template. I put et al. on any reference that has more than 3 authors, because it saves time, and since we can easily link Zootaxa refs to their online abstracts, there is no need to waste time copying long author lists. So, unless Mariusm wants to quickly add all authors to all 3873 issues of Zootaxa, it is best to be consistent. Secondly, Mariusm hasn't tried to talk to me about any of this. Had he, I would have tried to explain that he can still add categories of the form [[Category:Publications of AUTHOR]] to the reference template, which can then be used to link the reference to the publication lists of all authors, even if they are not listed on the ref. template itself. So nothing is lost, and much time is gained. Perhaps Mariusm would like to take over Zootaxa articles from me and try to keep them up-to-date?? I would be very happy to let him do so ... Stho002 (talk) 20:03, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Your points above do sound fair enough, but as you mentioned to me once placed on WS we are open to edits, but templates can be protected am I right?. It is good to talk as well. Perhaps Mariusm and yourself could exchange emails and have a discussion off WS. Thanks Andyboorman (talk) 20:17, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

No, there is no justification in general to protect templates. Also, note that I didn't revert Mariusm's edit back to how it was originally, as the first author wasn't linked originally. As I said, the main issue here is consistency, particularly in view of the vast number of Zootaxa articles, which are a huge challenge to keep on top of. Stho002 (talk) 20:25, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

If Mariusm was genuine, he would be at least trying to talk to me, but instead he makes edits which seem designed to provoke a response from me, and then runs to the Village Pump to whinge and whine! Call me paranoid, but ... Stho002 (talk) 20:59, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, to me it seems better to include more author detail than less. There is no agreement here on any kind of standardisation on the number of authors before something becomes "et al" and I find the lengthier version more helpful. So my sympathy is with Mariusm and I have taken it on myself to revert the page back to the last edit of his. My challenge to Stho002 is to leave this well alone and get on with something more constructive. I doubt anybody is trying to be provocative, so please both of you keep doing good work and stop treading on each others toes. I have myself got a reference published recently with 5 authors and I would not appreciate that being reduced in a similar way. Accassidy (talk) 22:29, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

• Rawlins, A., Cassidy, A., Müller, C., Schröder, S. & Tennent, W. J. 2014. An Illustrated and annotated checklist of Jamides Hübner, 1819, taxa occurring in the Indonesian Provinces of North Maluku and Maluku (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae). Nachrichten des Entomologischen Vereins Apollo N.F. 35(1/2): 5-39. web Reference page. 

Sorry Alan, I have asked you to undo that revert, now I am going to do it myself. There is no sense in having full authorship for that one reference if we can't do it for all the thousands of others (and Zootaxa articles will keep coming at nearly 10 per day, and I am the only one who can be bothered trying to keep them up-to-date, which is impossible with full authorship). If you want to take over adding Zootaxa, and adding full authorship to all the backlog, then you are welcome to do so, but singling one article out makes no sense. Thanks, Stho002 (talk) 22:34, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

With the same logic, nobody would start wikispecies, as there would be no sense in creating some species pages, if it can't be done for all the thousands of other species. Since 2013-01-01, 2425 records have been added to The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) only for Orchidaceae, most of them new taxa and new combinations, 1322 for Asteraceae, 808 for Fabaceae, 405 for Poaceae, etc..... So, with our restricted personal capacity it seems to be nearly impossible to keep pace with taxa that are published currently from day to day. OK, wikispecies exists nevertheless. Therefore I think it cannot be accepted as a valid argument, that something is not feasible to be done for all. OK, consistency is a good point, but adding more information is another valid point. Anyway, if someone is suffering from a lack of time, why does he waste time with reverting edits that don't cause any damage? Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 15:22, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. Every species page which is created is useful and worthwhile in and of itself. Complete coverage of all species would be great, of course, but not vital. In the present case, Mariusm is taking time away from adding more new pages, by IMHO wasting time adding full author lists, which aren't really very useful (and it can be done in a better way using categories). We should be prioritising, and what Mariusm wants to do is last priority. The highest priorities should be adding new taxon articles, justifying them, and adding links to full texts of references (where available) Stho002 (talk) 20:39, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, OK. And you think, consistency in the number of authors listed in the reference templates is vital? In a project based on the input of volunteers, everyone can set only his own priorities. I cannot imagine, that somewhere down the road the community will accept a boss telling what are the priorities (and the rules, etc.). Of course, people can come to common decisions and rules. If you think, that the edits of Mariusm should not have priority, this is not a sufficient reason to revert his edits. Did his edits violate any rules made obligatory by the community? Anyway, if you ignore the edits of Mariusm, he might take away his own time, but not yours. --Franz Xaver (talk) 21:43, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I think Mariusm could show a bit more cooperation and thought. He hasn't tried to talk to me about anything. Someone who has experience and well thought through ideas should not necessarily be seen as "the boss" and rebelled against ... Stho002 (talk) 21:54, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

---

Here are a couple of examples where Stho002 himself created reference-templates with more than 3 authors, and where he didn't use "et. al" (and there are many more):

• Leschen, R.A.B., Lawrence, J.F., Kuschel, G. & Thorpe, S. & Wang, Q. 2003. Coleoptera genera of New Zealand. New Zealand Entomologist 26(1): 15–28. DOI: 10.1080/00779962.2003.9722105 PDF (Archive) PDF (cerambycoidea)Reference page. 

Template:Zt2204.37 Mariusm (talk) 06:46, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing these out. I have fixed them now. Please alert me to any others that you find. BTW, these were created by me a long time ago, while I was still experimenting with optimal formats. Stho002 (talk) 20:34, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

---

On a second thought, I decided not to surrender and to keep-on editing here. I'm going to open a special page named Stho002 unjustified edits, where I'll list all the cases where Stho harasses me or other WS members. I'll scrutinize every edit he makes on my recently-edited pages, and if I'll find it unjustified, I'll add it there. I encourage any user who feels his edits are unjustly being targeted to add their cases to this page too. With the accumulated data, I'm going to appeal to the Wikimadia Stewards, and ask then to look into this matter. Excluding Accassidy, whom I commend, no admin or bureaucrat seem to take interest in Stho's ongoing bullying and harassment. It is not a matter of format-wars anymore, nor it is a fight between equals. Out of an average of 350 edits per day made on WS, 200 are done by Stho. By this he overwhelms anyone who is trying to stand his ground.

I openly challenge the following admins/bureaucrats: Ark, Benedikt, Brion, Dan Koehl, EncycloPetey, EVula, Geni, Keith, Koumz, Maxim, MKOliver, Monobi, Neferkheperre, OhanaUnited, Open2universe, Rocket000, Tommy Kronkvist, Totipotent, Ucucha, Uleli, UtherSRG, why do you remain silent? Why don't you exercise your duty to prevent bullying and harassment? Why do you give Stho a free hand to chase out newcomers and users who don't accept his own-made rules? Rules which are rejected by everyone else. Please, I want to get answers to those questions!

Obviously, many users here are at the end of their rope, yet are too civilized and too scientifically-inclined to deal with such a conduct as exercised by Stho, so I'm going to appeal to Wikimedia Stewards, and see what they are going to say on this issue. Mariusm (talk) 05:20, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

@Mariusm: If you do decide to keep a public log of edits which you find objectionable, that would be deleted. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:59, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Mariusm, I don't know why you considered me to have done nothing. You approached me in July and I said I would try. Clearly things didn't work out between both of you. Then in a series of topics beginning in September, you said "Stho002 is continuously harassing and disturbing me" yet I see it more as content or format dispute. Unfortunately you escalated to name-calling with loaded section titles twice on this month. User:Koavf was right. Making attack pages aren't tolerated and this type of conduct will definitely be discounted if you present it to the stewards (not to mention that stewards will not intervene since there is sufficient editors on the project to make a decision). I have been watching all discussions happening on this page and I believed, at that time, I would not contribute much to the format discussion and would otherwise add fuel to the heated discussion. In hindsight, I should not have condoned with your name-calling approach on your first try. Moreover, I don't understand the logic of why you specifically want admins/bureaucrats to respond to your post. This is village pump, not admin noticeboard. Decisions with or without the input of admins/bureaucrats will be implemented as long as consensus is reached. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:17, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

@Mariusm:, I am silent becuase I too have quit Wikispecies. I long ago had enough of Stho002's beligerent harassment. In my case, I did try to talk to him about it, but he refused every argument I made. He is unwilling to concede that he does not know what he is talking about, and acts unilaterally as an unrestrained autocrat. His blockage on Wikipedia for using sock puppet accounts to back himself up in the face of opposition is direct evidence of his refusal to accept any consensus opinion that does not match his. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:11, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Translation in Hindi language

Hi. Can you please tell me how can I translate wiki-species in Hindi language. I am an active sysop on hiwiki but I don't know how can I translate it in Hindi. I tried to create मुखपृष्ठ but it already exists in Marathi language. Please guide me.☆★Sanjeev Kumar (talk) 11:20, 17 October 2014 (UTC) (Moved from User talk:Tommy Kronkvist by Tommy Kronkvist (talk) at 17:57, 17 October 2014 (UTC).

Hello. That's a tricky question, since "मुखपृष्ठ" is the equivalent of "Main Page" in both Hindi and Marathi. I've moved your question from my Talk page to the Village pump in order to start a broader discussion regarding the matter.
Best regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 17:57, 17 October 2014 (UTC).

@संजीव कुमार: @Tommy Kronkvist: Use language codes. E.g. on the multi-lingual Commons, there is c:Forsíða/fo for Faroese and c:Forsíða/is for Icelandic. c:Forsíða is a disambiguation page. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:02, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Moved. I moved it and added a request to Template_talk:Languages. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:07, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 18:11, 17 October 2014 (UTC).

Special thanks to Tommy Kronkvist and also thanks to other who helped.☆★Sanjeev Kumar (talk) 14:48, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Help

The Mr. Stho002 has information in hundreds of pages damaged with the deleting of the template: moty (monotypic taxon). I request to restore this template. Orchi (talk) 09:43, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that it still works, at least in part. For example, the "Name" section of the page Acoraceae still lists that particular taxon as monotypic. (Also, see Pages that link to "Template:Moty" for a full list of pages that includes the {{Moty}} template.) In either case, I agree with Stho002's reason for deleting the template (i.e. "serves no useful purpose") since monotypy of a particular taxon should already be apparent in the taxonavigation of each page. (Again, for example see Acoraceae, which lists Acorus as its only daughter taxon.) –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 11:23, 18 October 2014 (UTC).

This template was a really silly idea. Not only does it serve no useful purpose, but it is potentially counterproductive, i.e., if a second species gets described, then we have to remember to remove the template from all affected pages! Why single out the number 1? A monotypic taxon just has 1 included species. So why not have a template for bitypic taxa, tritypic taxa, etc., etc. This is clearly nonsense, and I just cannot understand the rationale for having the monotypic template (a category would have been slightly better, but still serve no useful purpose). We really do need to purge Wikispecies of these pointless quirks and get our priorities right Stho002 (talk) 20:50, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Holy crap! This is worse than I thought! The moty template has been added to hundreds of pages! What a sad waste of time and effort. There is no way to delete the template from each and every page, so I have recreated the template with null content. So, although the template is still on hundreds of pages, it doesn't show as anything. This seems to be the best damage limitation solution for now. Stho002 (talk) 21:04, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

I have no words to such a person. Orchi (talk) 21:33, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

It is a sad waste of time deleting a relatively harmless template that can have a use in education, nomenclature, systematics and taxonomy. Surely it should be up to the mature judgement of the page creator and editor with their knowledge and enthusiasm whether or not to use it? In am with Orchi on this, WS is full of redundancies that have been added by editors, for example, why use Genera (2): on a page with two genera? I have used moty, unless by mistake, where it is unlikely that a new taxon will over turn the monotypic status e.g. Amborella. At least moty was linked to an explanation - if education is not part of WS then get rid of nom. cons. etc!. Andyboorman (talk) 22:16, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

At the very least, it should have been a category, not a template! Surely, "mature judgement" would lead an editor to use their limited editing time to make the biggest possible improvement to Wikispecies? We have hundreds of thousands of missing species pages, with no information at all to educate anybody! How about adding some missing species pages, and referencing properly with links to BHL, etc., so that people can get further "education" by reading the actual original publications. It seems to me that some editors around here have fallen into a lazy routine of editing which really isn't helping the project. If I look at a WS page, the first thing I ask is where did they get their information from and please point me to the relevant references. This is a basic Wikimedia principle which we seem to have forgotten about here. Stho002 (talk) 22:30, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

If I look at a WS page, the first thing I ask is where did they get their information from and please point me to the relevant references. This is a basic Wikimedia principle which we seem to have forgotten about here Not by me, Orchi or Franz Xaver, please..Andyboorman (talk) 23:57, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

@Andyboorman: These Wikipedias devote the term "monotypic": [13]. More essential comes later. Orchi (talk) 22:39, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what that is supposed to prove, but enWP has a policy (which we do not) of not having separate articles for a monotypic genus and its sole species. This is the only reason why they keep track of monotypic taxa, i.e. an internal policy reason. Stho002 (talk) 22:44, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

I do not think that this template is very useful. But in my mind, it is very bad style to delete without any discussion about pros and cons a template that is used in that many pages. I mean, in such cases there should be a discussion before deleting, not after. --Franz Xaver (Orchi) 22:50, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

As you can see from my comments above, I did not notice how extensively the template had been used until after I deleted it. I note that there was no discussion here before it was created and implemented Stho002 (talk) 22:55, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

So, at least I miss carefulness which I expect when admins make use of their buttons. It would have been easy to check how much the template was used. --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:07, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Considering the arguments from Stho002, Tommy Kronkvist, Orchi and Franz Xaver. My gentle advice is to revert deletions and then create a category to replace moty and then discuss this as a comparison. Thanks Andyboorman (talk) 23:57, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Have you any idea how much time would be wasted replacing the template with a category on all those pages? Tagging monotypic taxa was never discussed in the first place. Just forget about it - it is a pointless waste of all our valuable time. Technically, the template contravenes standard formatting, so I am fully justified in having deleted it. A category would not so contravene. Just let it go - we don't need it, and we need other things more ... Stho002 (talk) 00:02, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

But you are now replacing the tysp template - another waste of time surely? Andyboorman (talk) 00:08, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Another nonstandard template which was never discussed or agreed to. You used it at least once when you should have used type genus. I am only replacing it as part of a general cleanup and adding reference templates, justifications, etc. - I am not specifically targetting it. You would be very well advised to keep your edits simple and concentrate on adding missing content. It is entirely up to you, of course, but you will, I suggest, find it best in the long run Stho002 (talk) 00:12, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

I am not perfect so a clean up is a good idea and adding references even better. The problem is that as part of this exercise you are imposing your own ideas of standard structure and content (particularly selected references, nomen and syn drop downs, etc), which the majority of contributors decided were unhelpful and not required. What next? Andyboorman (talk) 09:55, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

I guess a bot would be able to replace the template with a category quite easily. The template is present on some 950–1000 pages, which is a small task for a bot. Then again, someone would of course first have to write the bot, and then also manage it. Personally I might have the time to do it, but unfortunately I lack the necessary skills. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 01:00, 19 October 2014 (UTC).

I have not been that busy! Andyboorman (talk) 09:55, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Actually, there is a much simpler technical solution, but I have no intention of mentioning it as we don't need the template or the category. Neither one serves any useful purpose. Stho002 (talk) 01:24, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

What are standard templates? Who has set these standards? And where can I find it? --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:09, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

I meant templates that result in nonstandard formatting on pages. Categories are different, because they just display in a simple way at the bottom of pages, and there are no formal constraints on their use. Having said that, I would still oppose even a category for monotypic taxa. Stho002 (talk) 20:19, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

That's not a full answer of my questions. Who has set these standards (on format and whatever)? And where can I find an overview of existing standards? --Franz Xaver (talk) 22:47, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

All I am saying is that "nonstandard formatting" has always been a standard reason in the menu for deleting pages. I can't see how it would apply to categories, but I can see how it would apply to templates. Stho002 (talk) 23:20, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

It seems, it will stay a secret, where users can get informed about "standard formatting". Or do you mean your private ideas about standards? --Franz Xaver (talk) 00:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Clearly, formatting issues are a "hot potato" just now, so I am saying as little as possible. However, you cannot go wrong if you just keep things simple, and remember that the two most important considerations are (1) verifiability/justification (i.e. where did you get the information from); and (2) providing doi or BHL links to full articles. Stho002 (talk) 00:28, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

As far as I can gather the only standard templates are those on the links to the left. The rest are created by editors or admins and distributed here or through networks of contributors. For example TG and tysp have been around for years and used by many if it an't broke.... Andyboorman (talk) 09:55, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Unblock request

Hello. I won't pretend to be an active user on this wiki, since I am not. I do have some interest in taxonomy, but I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, an expert in the life sciences. I would like to request that local admins review the block of Eurodyne. This user was blocked based on a previous English Wikipedia block which has since been removed. Additionally, the user has requested deletion of a Wikispecies page on Meta-Wiki. Another user and I already asked the blocking admin to reconsider, but the request was declined (see my talk page for reason). The user tried to contact the blocking admin by pinging him/her on his talk page, but claims to have received no response. I think Eurodyne can be trusted not to deceive the Wikimedia community again, and deserves one more chance. I am leaving this message in part because Eurodyne's attempt at appealing the block have been met with no response, and some stewards recommended that another user request the unblock. I hope the uninvolved admins will at least consider this request, even if they decide to keep the block in place. It is my opinion that the unblock on enwiki indicates that the user can be trusted. PiRSquared17 (talk) 05:02, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited, GZWDer, Rschen7754, Stho002, Tommy Kronkvist, and Uleli: Pinging some admins and other interested parties. I would also like to add that I would prefer to avoid any possible drama, so you can get back to creating and improving the content here. PiRSquared17 (talk) 05:08, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

This is an issue for a 'crat, not me ... Stho002 (talk) 05:10, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Please note that Eurodyne's access to e-mail and his/her talkpage is now restored by OhanaUnited. While still blocked, Eurodyne will be able to use the talk page to present (preferably informed and substantiated) reasons for unblocking. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 10:02, 19 October 2014 (UTC).

For those who want to know why I blocked this individual, it's because he created multiple false identities to get various permissions across different projects (en.wp, outreach, education) then continuously change username to cover his tracks. My in-depth documentation of his deception can be found at English ANI (note: Eurodyne was previously called Akifumii and Xermano). As this project is scientifically based, users are held to the broadly accepted standards of the scientific community. Scientists don't use multiple identities for publication (especially with the intent for deception). It is a breach of expected ethics and morals for scientists, down to the same level as falsifying data in studies. While he may be able to sweet talk some admins into unblocking him at other projects, we expect integrity from people who contribute to our project. Good faith has long left the moment he created the first account and claiming to be someone else. So for all these reasons, I issued the block in the first place. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:10, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

See his reply. PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:16, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

The information on the English Wikipedia (enWP) Admin's noticeboard was enlightening, along with Eurodyne a.k.a. Akifumii a.k.a. Xermano's user contributions to enWP. I currently find no good reason to unblock the user on Wikispecies, considering it's less than two months ago since she/he made his/her latest contra-productive and very deceptive edits to enWP. (Also, both the Akifumii and Xermano accounts are blocked indefinitely on enWP. Furthermore, two underlying IP addresses are blocked as well. The Eurodyne account there was blocked too, but got unblocked about two weeks ago.) Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 23:16, 19 October 2014 (UTC).

Another reply: here. Maybe you should reply there too, since I don't want to continue posting links to replies. PiRSquared17 (talk) 03:39, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I'll post my replies here since this venue has more visits than his user talk. Eurodyne may have forgotten some accounts because he changed usernames several times. His previous account (Xermano) was blocked on Outreach (and by someone other than myself) for doing translation work on a language that he doesn't even speak. Honestly, he can't even keep track of his own accounts to see which one is blocked and which one isn't LOL. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:33, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

(obviously speaking on behalf of myself and not on behalf of the stewards) Well, when Eurodyne was blocked on this project, he had made zero edits. On those grounds, we might as well block him from every project or globally lock him, but no steward has done so because that's not what we do for any other user in this category. This isn't Poetlister here. Now of course Wikispecies is free to do whatever they want in this regard, but this makes you guys look harsher than en.wikipedia... --Rschen7754 05:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Tell ya wot, Rschen7754, I'll unblock your guy if you unblock me at en.wikipedia! Have a nice day Stho002 (talk) 05:27, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Considering that the local community would likely remove your adminship for going against consensus, that would be a poor choice for you. --Rschen7754 01:38, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Oh, so glad you warned me just in time, I was just about to unblock your guy! Stho002 (talk) 01:40, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

• @Stho002, Tommy Kronkvist, and OhanaUnited: I see the community here seems unwilling to forgive Eurodyne's past deceptions, which are definitely valid concerns. However, I think the unblock on enwiki shows that he can be trusted, and he is unlikely to do anything like that again. He also gave some valid reasons to unblock on his talk page. Is the conclusion that there is no consensus to unblock Eurodyne at this time? PiRSquared17 (talk) 01:31, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Farewell guys!

More information can be found here. --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:19, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
All the best, sorry to see you go and it is a shame to lose your expertise. You did great work. Andyboorman (talk) 13:43, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

yes, it is a shame to lose your expertise, though "hotheadedness", and the inability to listen to reason, will not be missed Stho002 (talk) 19:59, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

To all admins: @Accassidy: @Ark: @Benedikt: @Dan Koehl: @EncycloPetey: @EVula: @Geni: @Keith Edkins: @Mariusm: @Maxim: @MKOliver: @Neferkheperre: @OhanaUnited: @Open2universe: @Rocket000: @Stho002: @Tommy Kronkvist: @Totipotent: @Ucucha: @Uleli: @UtherSRG: Finally, this uncommented revert by "the big boss" destroying the work of one full day has convinced me, that editing in WS is really a waste of time. My attempts to provide my reasons on this matter have proved to be useless, as these arguments simple have been ignored - see also here. By the way, the sentence above rather has to be read as "... unwillingness to obey orders ..." Maybe I overlooked something, but I did not find any reasons. However, I found false claims, insults and abuse of admin power. Someone might be also interested in the following statements: [14], [15]. After this, you may consider to rename Wikispecies to "Wikithorpea" or "Thorpispecies". Have fun! --Franz Xaver (talk) 14:09, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

My reversion of his latest edits was completely justified by reason of non-standard taxon formatting. Stho002 (talk) 19:55, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I trust the "non-standard taxon formatting" referred to above was in the placement of the Overview of Species plus additional lists after the Name section? However, this is not unique see Boraginoideae, without additional lists of course. It does seem that Ouratea was emerging into a strange 'beast', but for what purpose we can only speculate, as unfortunately Franz Xaver has encountered his final straw. However, I am sure that whatever was going on with his part finished project was not an act of vandalism. Andyboorman (talk) 21:44, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Incertae sedis

I would like to give you a chance to have your say on the taxon category incertae sedis. I recently created a page Incertae sedis(Grevilleoideae) to replace the previously existing Unassigned Grevilleoideae, which had been up for some time (see edit history for Grevilleoideae). Both pages were promptly deleted by User:Stho002 on the seemingly reasonable grounds that incertae sedis was not a taxon and therefore could not have a taxonpage. I assume he means a formal Linnean taxon, notated as Name, Author, Publication (Year). However, on looking through WS I find that there are thousands of these pages created by a variety of users at many taxon levels and for a wide variety of organisms, including his specialism insects. I would like to offer an opportunity for you to give your opinions. I will plead for their defense. Incertae sedis may not be a legitimate formal taxon rank, but like Cladi can be very useful for taxonomy and classification. Secondly, creating a page for multiple instances (say Incertae sedis(Grevilleoideae)) is convenient and efficacious allowing a single informative link in the corresponding subtribe, tribe, family, whatever. In addition, it is a practice that is now common on WS and unilaterally banning it at this time is futile. Finally, who is going to go through and delete pre-existing pages with the inevitable cross taxa tidy ups? It is now up to you! Regards Andyboorman (talk) 18:02, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

The fact that we have used incertae sedis "taxon pages" in the past doesn't mean that we are obliged to continue the practice. WS needs to evolve and improve, not get stuck in a lazy and complacent rut ... Stho002 (talk) 19:57, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I have just deleted another one of Andyboorman's incertae sedis pages. The version I deleted is copied below. It has his notes added on the main page, expressing his own limited understanding of things:

Having had some well reasoned constructive comment about this rag tag category, I would like to withdraw this discussion in favour of exploring other options, perhaps involving an optional section following the Name and Synonyms sections, which could cover other detail as well. You are right incertae sedis does not really belong at the higher taxonav level and convenience should not dictate what I do. Thanks for your time. Andyboorman (talk) 09:11, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Everybody is going to have incertae sedis taxa to deal with. Normally, these are valid taxa which cannot be fit comfortably at some higher taxonomic level. Incertae sedis is not any sort of formal name, so it cannot receive named page or taxon template under that name. Here is how I have handled them: Sessilia or Balaninae. Thus, any taxon thus listed is easy to transfer after it is re-investigated. Neferkheperre (talk) 21:02, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks seems a good solution, but I do not know whether or not you could get this past Stho002 particularly as you have introduced a comment on the main page not the discussion. Andyboorman (talk) 21:11, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Taxonavigation

Familia: Orobanchaceae
Tribus: incertae sedis
Basal Genera: Brandisia – Rehmannia – Triaenophora

These three genera are basal lineages and so are sister to all others in the family. They have no tribal affiliation and so are here awaiting further developments (McNeal et al., 2013).

This is not my opinion it is that of McNeal, J.R., Bennett, J.R., Wolfe, A.D., & Mathews, S. (2013) and so my note should read as above. It is an explanation of the incertae sedis. Apologies for not pointing this out earlier. But what is worse Admin abuse or forgetting a couple of words? Apologies for not signing. I am not perfect. Andyboorman (talk) 14:08, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Makes no differendce (oops) Stho002 (talk) 02:38, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Name

Orobanchaceae incertae sedis

References

• Bennett, J.R., & Mathews, S. (2006) Phylogeny of the parasitic plant family Orobanchaceae inferred from Phytochrome A, American Journal of Botany, 93: 1039-1051. Available online [16]. Accessed Feb. 4 2014.
• McNeal, J.R., Bennett, J.R., Wolfe, A.D., & Mathews, S. (2013) Phylogeny and origins of holoparasitism in Orobanchaceae, American Journal of Botany, 100: 971-983. Available on line [17]. Accessed Feb. 4 2014.
• Stevens, P.F. (2001 onwards) Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 12, July 2012 [and more or less continuously updated since]. [18]. Species list on [19].

A reminder of why we are here and what we aim for

A lot has been going on lately in the community. I won't be mentioning any names because all sides have done solid work and volunteered their time to believe in and contribute to a worthy cause.

While our projects have covered a lot of ground, we still have a lot more to go. Why are here to contribute? Our goal is to record all lifeforms on earth. Formatting debates can wait long after the articles are created. Articles are always a "work in progress". There cannot and will never be a "locked in version" of any pages because future studies will require amendment Who here thinks that EoL has got the right taxon or formatting perfectly correct across all domains? Of course not. This is always a challenge for databases that cover all domains. Unlike EoL, which has all the $ to throw around and hire experts to maintain their database, our biggest asset are editors who add and update contents (we are not as big as Wikipedia, and until we reach their size and popularity, our biggest asset will remain to be volunteers). Every one of us contributed for the betterment of this project. Each voice gives a different perspective on how to make this project more successful. We are only strong if we are unified and work together.

So who is with me on this? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:38, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited: I agree. I think a lot of the interpersonal conflict could be avoided if we had more straightforward formatting guidelines. Claims that certain changes are not worth the time fall on deaf ears with semi-automated editors like w:AWB and getting into editing wars about them is even more of a waste of time. I also don't have an interest in choosing sides in any of the conflicts mentioned above and elsewhere but I will say that it's better to have many users who are adding what they can and helping a few hours here and there over few users who are insistent and persistent. Driving away anyone or making the place unwelcoming in the first place will ensure that we never get close to cataloging all life. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:53, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited:@Koavf: The reality is that we will never get that close to complete coverage anyway. I can no longer keep up with Zootaxa, and every day we fall further and further behind. I remind you that when I started here in 2008, there were only about 60,000 articles, and I'm sure that my >500,000 edits have contributed most of the post-2008 new articles, but we are still very far indeed from complete coverage. My >500,000 edits does at least give me more relevant experience at judging the merits of various editing approaches than any other editor. It therefore pisses me off to see some other editors deliberately rebelling against my editing suggestions just to assert their own right to have a different opinion (and one which isn't based on careful thought or experience). There is also no point in having editors creating articles of poor quality. Some have been doing so. Being persistent is a good thing. Being insistent is not optimal, but sometimes necessary in the face of opposition by habitual contrarians. I'm not driving off anyone. Some editors are spitting the dummy and threatening to leave when they can't get their own way. Good riddance to them .. Stho002 (talk) 04:08, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

PS: Just look at the article by Andyboorman that I quoted above. No way is this acceptable. He is incerting comments like 'These three genera are basal lineages and so are sister to all others in the family. They have no tribal affiliation and so are here awaiting further developments'. This comment doesn't even make sense! Stho002 (talk) 04:10, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

@Stho002: Edit quality and quantity aside, your demeanor in the above post is not acceptable and especially not for an admin. No one is calling into question the quality or quantity of your edits in large part (obviously, there are concerns about some style issues but those are altogether trivial). The problem is your engagement with others. If Species was your own personal wiki, you would have amassed an impressive string of edits to make a substantial taxonomy. Since it's not and is by definition a collaborative effort, losing editors (and potential editors!) is crucial. This is especially so since—as you pointed out—we are not even close to cataloging all life. This is an achievable goal with a combination of a critical mass of editors and tools which will allow us to pollinate the site with data. This will be an impossible one if we have other editors turned off to helping here because of the attitudes of others. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:49, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Nice try, but you have missed or perhaps deliberately avoided the true root of the problem, which is that the project can only work if everyone cooperates in good faith. This is clearly not the case, as there are several (I won't name them, but you can easily guess) editors here who are habitual contrarians, constantly asserting their own right to hold a different opinion in the face of overwhelming rational grounds in favour of most of my suggestions. They simply refuse to even consider the suggestions. This makes "consensus" a sham, and undermines the whole project. If my tone is a bit confrontational now, it is through sheer frustration with these habitual contrarians, who refuse to budge an inch, and will not cooperate or discuss matters rationally. And, no, the goal isn't achievable, as there are probably 2 million named species and more published every day than we can possibly keep up with. Stho002 (talk) 05:10, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

@Stho002: Statements like, "Nice try, but you have missed or perhaps deliberately avoided the true root of the problem, which is that the project can only work if everyone cooperates in good faith." assume bad faith on my part. If you will read above, I suggested that most of these conflicts could be avoided if there were simply style guidelines. To choose an example from above, if we as a community decided (e.g.) that in the case of author templates with four or more entries, they shall all read, "Lastname, Firstname, et al." then we can all go about our business and if someone comes along and expands the template to read each individual name, you can refer him to that policy rather than personal preference and edit wars. Your dozens and dozens of reverts to a single page are wildly inappropriate and time-wasting. To use the example of Wikipedia, the English edition of that project has over 4 million articles (and even a short article has significantly more content than a taxonomic entry here) and it was only possible because there was a critical mass of editors. Imagine if we had just five editors as dedicated as you. It's really not that unreasonable. If we had 2.5 million edits from them over the past 10 years in addition to your 500,000, we would actually be pretty close to a comprehensive directory. Similarly, as technology advances in scraping databases and old journals which get digitized, the pace could well accelerate. But that can only happen in an environment where others want to contribute. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:22, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

@Koavf: No, I'm not assuming bad faith on your part. Only in as much as you don't appear to want to have to grapple with the root cause of the problems, i.e. habitual contrarians. You say "if we as acommunity decided ..." Have we ever decided anything as a community? Could we ever? With habitual contrarians among us, any decision, even if made, would not be a rational one, but rather a "no" vote before the question was even asked! One thing is clear: for whatever reason (I don't really understand), there is nobody else in the world as dedicated as me to making reliable biodiversity information freely available. That's just the reality. It probably makes me an idiot rather than a saint, but that's just the reality Stho002 (talk) 05:32, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

E.g. To expand on the above, what is even the point of this edit? If the user is actually gone for good and will never read this project page again, then you're talking to no one. And if he does look at it, you're just making a petty and cruel jab at someone. It honestly serves no purpose other than being petulant and rude. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:26, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

My comment is true, and someone needs to tell him in case he doesn't see it in himself. Telling someone in no uncertain terms how unreasonable they are being is not "a petty and cruel jab" Stho002 (talk) 05:34, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Read this from Franz Xaver. No, I am not back, I only have given you an online tutorial here and there on this example. It is an excellent method for teasing out plant species to be placed on WS when there is a high level of uncertainty. It is also elegantly and reasonably argued. Stho002 is not always right, I just wish he would admit this fact. In addition, his arrogance and inability to be consensual has become insufferable. I DO make mistakes and AM willing to learn, but NOT slavishly follow the Stho002 party line. WS should be a democracy not North Korea. I am with OhanaUnited in principle. Unfortunately Stho002 would rather I and others like me were gone. Andyboorman (talk) 08:07, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Do I understand right, that Stho002 has protected pages in which he was involved in a conflict [20]? If this is so, Stho002 can you please give a motivation for this, and why it should not be viewed as abuse of admin powers? Normally, this is considered an abuse of admin powers, as far as I know. Dan Koehl (talk) 00:15, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

What is "consensus"?

Just a general comment for future reference. If we ever do manage to hold a vote for a proposal, it is not a vote about whether you do or do not want to accept the proposal. It is a vote about whether or not you agree that the reasons in favour of the proposal outweigh the reasons against it, and, if not, why not. This should make it harder for contrarians to prevent improvement of the project. Consensus must be rationally based if it is to be anything more than a mere sham. Stho002 (talk) 20:49, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

@Stho002: There is ample literature on consensus. To see how en.wp understands it, see w:WP:CONSENSUS. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:00, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

All well and good, but we need to ensure that everyone here understands that consensus is more than just asserting an opinion Stho002 (talk) 04:20, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

@Stho002: Okay. I didn't realize that was in dispute. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:53, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Then you haven't understood what I have been saying about some editors here being contrarian. A contrarian, in the sense in which I am using it, is someone who automatically gives a "no" vote, without due consideration of reasons for or against. They simply assert their right to hold a different opinion, but rationality doesn't enter into it. Stho002 (talk) 05:11, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

@Stho002: You're right: I don't understand. It seems like you're having a conversation with yourself. This community should have guidelines in place to make sure that conflicts like all of the above don't happen (or are far less likely to happen) but those guidelines don't exist yet. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:13, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

For example, User:Andyboorman appears determined to continue with incertae sedis, and nothing that I can say appears to be able to make him understand that it is no longer necessary, and overly complicates WS. If we held a vote right now proposing to stop using it, he would, I suggest, vote "no", without due consideration of the overwhelmingly good reasons to stop using it. How do you deal with such people? Orchi and some others would likely back him up. They could probably bring back some disgruntled editors who left us, and all these people would make "no" votes! I'm not sure that "guidelines" will help? Stho002 (talk) 05:26, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Stho002 The above statement is untrue, clearly you have not bothered to read my last statement in the incertae sedis section. Why did you bring Orchi into this? This is getting far too personal. Why? Andyboorman (talk) 09:46, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

@Stho002: Then have a guideline about that. Consensus is not vote-taking (which makes me wonder if you're familiar with how it operates on en.wp). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:28, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Oh, believe me, I know how things work on en.wp! Stho002 (talk) 05:31, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

The community might be interested to read also these statements. It is not easy to figure out, how in the opinion of Stho002 a voting procedure should be. Does he think that the votes of "contrarians" should not be counted? Would these "contrarians" first have to prove that they have rationale reasons? Anyway, in my unimportant (probably contrarian) opinion, there would not be any vote without discussing the matter. --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:38, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

My first statement in this section answers your question. Participants in a decision making process must give reasons to back up their opinions. If those reasons are obviously weak/bogus, then their opinion should not be counted. Stho002 (talk) 21:22, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

How to Cite Us

Has WS got a policy or census about using or not using the "How to cite us" details provided by some of the valuable sources we use? As an example, I believe the nomenclature database ZooBank does not, whereas I know IPNI does. I appreciate in a relaxed academic environment such as WS, it may not be a necessary requirement to provide full citation details, except for academic papers, of course. However, I was wondering how the community feels about routinely ignoring "How to cite us". I must add that at this time I have no strong opinions one way or another, just interested in others' views and rational for these views. Regards Andyboorman (talk) 18:20, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, IPNI gives a recommendation how they wish to be cited. In may opinion, we should respect this by all means. IPNI among others is one of the really valuable sources. The Template:IPNI as it can be found now, certainly does not conform to this recommendation. Moreover, I believe it to be important that also the date of accession should be made freely visible again. I mean the date, when we took over data from IPIN or when last time conformity was checked. In case of an update by IPNI there would be a mismatch between IPNI and WS. When here the date is missing, it can be difficult to tell if the cause was a mistake by a WS editor or an update in the external site. This could be the reason for false allegations. We should avoid this. The IPNI records very carefully show the update history - see e.g. Campylospermum baronii. Just click "View Record history". Anyway, even for an experienced WS editor it might be cumbersome to find the respective edit in our page histories, but for a casual visitor it probably will be unexplicable, and they most likely will rate it as an error by WS. --Franz Xaver (talk) 19:55, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Citation recommendations on sites like IPNI are probably aimed more at formal citations in academic publications. On websites like WS, we are free to choose whatever citation style suits us the best. IPNI may be an exception, but most similar sites (e.g. WoRMS) do not make public the full history of their pages, and they tend to "quietly" fix their own mistakes without leaving any trace of them. Therefore, overall, there is little or no benefit in us specifying the "date of accession". The reader still won't be able to attribute a mistake to the correct source (them or us). Stho002 (talk) 21:09, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

You may claim it's not necessary to follow this recommendation and somebody else may claim different. (They most likely will not sue WS anyway.) Do you really know they don't want us to cite them this way, when they actually put this recommendation? It's just about changing one template. So, it is really no big effort to show respect for their recommendation. --Franz Xaver (talk) 21:45, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

IPNI and WCSP are housed at the same institution, i.e. Kew Gardens. When WCSP in their recommendations explicitly give a suggestion for Wikispecies, I cannot imagine that IPNI does not aim at being cited in internet. --Franz Xaver (talk) 22:23, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Again, it is a suggestion only. Since most source sites don't preserve their history (and yet also suggest citing the date!), I don't see the point overall in doing so. Unless you can call back the version of the source database that was cited on that date, there is no point. Can you do that with IPNI? I haven't looked yet. If you can, then I suggest linking directly to that dated version. Stho002 (talk) 22:28, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

IPNI gives a log list what they have changed at a certain date. Have a look there. Above I have provided a link to an example. --Franz Xaver (talk) 22:46, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Too complicated for anyone to bother with. WoRMS does the same thing, but it is misleading. I have pointed out a few errors to WoRMS which they have fixed, but leaving no trace in the log! We can't rely on these sites to do things properly and transparently, so we actually risk looking as though we copied the site wrongly, when in fact they did have an error but fixed it without logging it. Citing the date does nothing to protect us from this. Stho002 (talk) 22:53, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

If only these other sites followed the Wikimedia example, then we could link directly to dated versions Stho002 (talk) 22:54, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

We could certainly have a page showing others how they might cite this project so that it may be inspected by others. A simple web link such as "WikiSpecies#" would be sufficient as no date or author would be required. For those who wished to see further back, we could offer the citation "See history on WikiSpecies#" as an example. Would this not be adequate to meet an enquiring mind? Accassidy (talk) 18:46, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Why would they want to cite us when we do not bother to cite them? Andyboorman (talk) 14:04, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Pointless to guess why "they" would do anything, but the idea is just to give people a guide on how if they do actually want to. Accassidy (talk) 18:10, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry petulant remark borne out of frustration after reviewing the discussion above. Why would WS not enthusiastically advocate citing others and of course accept others citing it (supporting you on that suggestion)? Andyboorman (talk) 18:54, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

WS does enthusiastically advocate citing others, though more so actual publications rather than other secondary websites. The only issue here is the precise form of the citation. Stho002 (talk) 20:35, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Glad to hear it. I would have thought that the usual, common sense and courteous approach is to use the secondary site's suggestion, surely? Hey but what do I know? Andyboorman (talk) 11:32, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Looking to the sidebar on Wikispecies pages, you will find under "Tools" a blue link to "Cite this page". There are several possibilities given of how to cite a Wikispecies page. Kempf EK (talk) 19:49, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Now that is a very full list of suggestions and help provided by a secondary source! Well done WS. Andyboorman (talk) 11:32, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Nice find. I never noticed that button was there. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 20:48, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

'Catalog of Fishes' URLs have changed

Apologies if this is old news (I've been lying a bit low recently, nonplussed by the format wars). All links to the indispensable Catalog of Fishes changed some time ago (months?). The current basic URL is:
http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp
Links previously added to Wikispecies have used
http://research.calacademy.org/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp for the base page, URLs of the form
http://research.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatget.asp&tbl=genus&genid=4345 to link to a genus page, and URLs like
http://research.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatget.asp&tbl=species&genus=Haplochromis to link to the list of species in a genus (including synonyms). All such links are now redirecting to
http://www.calacademy.org/scientists. I haven't succeeded in discovering how to link to genus pages and species-in-a-genus pages in the new URL structure. Once a workable format is found, a lot of WS links are going to have to be updated -- somehow. MKOliver (talk) 00:56, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Link updating This is easily done with w:WP:AWB. I'll take a peek at it now. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:29, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

@MKOliver: I see no links to anything at calacademy.org on Wikispecies. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:33, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

-Thanks for your interest @Koavf:. The links can be found if you search https://species.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinkSearch&target=research.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/ (caution: several different types of URLs with this base part) but, as already noted, I don't know what the new links would be. (I have now emailed Bill Eschmeyer, who curates the Catalog of Fishes, asking for the appropriate link structures.)

@MKOliver: Well, it's actually an easy fix minus the part where the reference numbers have evidently disappeared. We should convert all of these links into a template. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:31, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

-@Koavf: Every one of those 2800+ links is different. How does a template manage that trick? A general link to the main page of CoF, instead of to a specific page, would be pretty useless. MKOliver (talk) 01:53, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

@MKOliver: If you have a template like {{COF|4345}} then it can expand to http://research.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatget.asp&tbl=genus&genid=4345 and when the website changes its directories or subdomain structure, one change to the template can make it go to http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatget.asp&tbl=genus&genid=4345 or whatever else. A similar situation happened on en.wp when AllMusic changed their file structure somehow but retained a database that had certain numbers assigned to albums/artists/songs/etc. You keep the database entry number the same but change other parts of the URI so that it works properly. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:02, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

@Koavf: Not all of these fish links are used in multiple places; not sure the effort of creating thousands of templates will be rewarded. I do have an answer from the Catalog of Fishes folks on how to modify the old links so they work with their new URL structure. In every link, (1) the former http://research.calacademy.org/ part must become http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/, and (2) the first '&' (immediately before 'tbl') must become a '?'. Thus, the links to genus will take the form
http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatget.asp?tbl=genus&genid=4345 and the links to species in a genus will take the form
http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatget.asp?tbl=species&genus=Haplochromis.
The full instructions are at http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatget.asp

@MKOliver: I'm not sure that I'm making myself clear: we make one template so that we can use it thousands of times. That way, if the URIs change again, we can make one change and fix thousands of transclusions. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:21, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

@Koavf: Okay, so if the unique part at the end of each URL isn't part of the template, but can be tacked on after the pipe |, I guess I see. So there would need to be two templates. One for the genus URLs like http://research.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatget.asp&tbl=genus&genid=4345 which could be referenced by something like {{COF|4345}}; and the other for table-of-species-in-a-genus URLs like http://research.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatget.asp&tbl=species&genus=Haplochromis which could be referenced by something like {{COFG|Haplochromis}}. If I understand correctly. MKOliver (talk) 04:21, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

@MKOliver: Precisely! A similar situation happened at en.wp with the website AllMusic--it lists thousands and thousands of album reviews and many of them are linked at en.wp. When the site changed its directory structure, tens of thousands of links were broken but there was still a unique identifier in the new URIs so we can keep that number and change everything else with a few keystrokes. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:43, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I spotted this problem a few days ago, and it would of course be great to find a solution. Similarly to the "?tbl=genus&genid=nn" string to link to a genus page, we can use "?spid=nn" to link to a species page. For instance http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/Ichthyology/catalog/fishcatget.asp?spid=20922 in order to link to the Haplochromis obliquidens page, type species of Haplochromis.

The number used for each species and/or genus link can be easily found using FishBase: it's the number in the "gen." and "sp." links after the text phrase "Catalog of Fishes" on all species pages at FishBase. See for instance http://www.fishbase.org/summary/Haplochromis-obliquidens.html in the "Classification/Names" headline. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 11:01, 3 November 2014 (UTC).

@MKOliver:: I went to make that template just now and @Koumz: already did. Thanks. I can start working on transcluding now. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:21, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Clarity needed

Can Admins and Bureaucrats please fully explain this statement "non-standard taxon formatting"? It is also crucial if we could have discipline specific examples of "standard taxon formatting". It seemed as if pages like; Ochna, Ochna serrulata, Campylospermum and Campylospermum obtusifolium are botanic exemplars acceptable and meaningful to plant scientists, but clearly this is incorrect according to WS. Thanks Andyboorman (talk) 20:27, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

In my opinion, it should be listed per Help:General Wikispecies. But in practice, and like I mentioned earlier, the one-size-fits-all model wouldn't work. In the past, I have made suggestion of developing a standard but that proposal didn't go anywhere. Is it time to forego the one-size-fits-all formats and replace it with one for each field. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:43, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

@Andyboorman: If there is no actual standard written, there is no standard formatting--there are just individual's aesthetic preferences. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:46, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Big departures from what we all really do understand as "standard taxon formatting" have always justified revertions. The one size can fit all. At any rate, we can't all have it the way we might prefer. Stho002 (talk) 05:26, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

@Stho002: There is no standard formatting without a standard. Sheer force of will does not a standard make. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:37, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Having a taxonavigation section followed by a name section followed by a references section is standard Stho002 (talk) 06:20, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Indeed I guess that's the de facto standard at Wikispecies. Also, that sort order (followed by vernacular names) complies with Help:General Wikispecies, as Andrew suggested above. Perhaps it is a good idea to "upgrade" that (or similar) guideline to a Wikispecies' policy instead, in order to make it a more formal standard? –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 06:42, 4 November 2014 (UTC).

Thank you all for your contributions, I for one have a greater clarity and I am also pleased to note that by generally following Help:General Wikispecies we have been correct. It also seems that we have not committed gross errors by following discipline standards or those used on third party sources and authoritative sites. Am I right in thinking that the imposition of 'formats' such as collapse boxes and rewrites of commonly used templates without community consensus or at least by agreement between the concerned contributors is to be avoided? Andyboorman (talk) 21:17, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Request for review of adminship status

Stho002 (talk • contribs • block log • all projects)

Referring to the policy that "misusing the administrative tools is considered a serious issue", that "may result in sanction or even their removal", and "misuse, and its consequences, are defined and decided by consensus of the Wikispecies community", I put here a request for review of the adminship status of User:Stho002. That means, in case that my request here is successful, he would be given some time to submit a renewed request for adminship status.
Some of the more active editors in WS may have noticed that Stho002 and me were involved in a conflict concerning inter alia Ouratea. In our first dispute on this page, Stho002 used his admin tools by protecting that page, which I consider to be a misuse of his admin power. By User:Dan Koehl, he was given a possiblity to explain this action at his talk page, which he did not utilise in a fully satisfiying way, as far as I understand.
I will not present my POV concerning this issue here, as everyone should get an idea of this by own observation and thought. The full record of contact between Stho002 and myself can be found, when you check both of our talk pages, the talk page of OhanaUnited, and here Village pump. As my history of contributing to WS is rather short, to a notable extent only starting in July 2014, it will not take too much time to study these posts. --Franz Xaver (talk) 20:34, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Support

1. As policy tells that administrative tools are provided to trusted users by a consensus amongst users, in my opinion a review of adminship would be necessary, as soon as serious doubt is raised on compliance with the respective rules by the admin in question. --Franz Xaver (talk) 20:34, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
2. As there is certainly the need for cooling time, and bearing in mind that original contributions are still welcome. Accassidy (talk) 21:08, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
3. Since this user started to work under this account on the project in november 2008, he was made a sysop within a week. Since then he has protected pages from edits by fellow project members at least five times, beginning already during his first week as admin, 27 November 2008, why he was blocked the first time already 28 november and lost his admin rights. Since then he was blocked in dec 2008, accused of being rude in january, later given back his admin powers, but again protecting pages in June and again in July 2009, explaining for fellow users that they should follow his (private) rules in April 2012, and then as admin blocking other users on Wikispecies in November 2012, protecting pages against other users again in Jan 2013, Blocking other members and calling them vandals in Jan 2013, resulting in himself being blocked again. In July 2013 protecting pages from fellow project members again, and acting as owner of pages in Jan 2014. He was threatening an edit war in October 2014, and accused of harassing other 3 named members and making them leave the project. All this can be confirmed from his talk page. Dan Koehl (talk) 05:47, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
4. For all the reasons expressed above. However, it appears as if this person also wished to resign as an administrator. Andyboorman (talk) 11:10, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
5. I felt very hurt by the rude behavior of Stho002. A review of adminship is appropriate. Orchi (talk) 12:09, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
6. Stho002 has repeatedly harassed me and unjustly reverted or deleted my work. In fact, resulting his behavior, I completely stopped editing here a month ago. I know of many more users whom he chased out of WS. Mariusm (talk) 15:54, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

1. In retrospect, my very temporary protection of a page so that I could attempt to discuss an issue with a totally uncooperative user (Franz Xaver) was a mistake, which I promptly reversed myself, but simple mistakes do not count as (deliberate) misuse of admin tools. Xaver has only given one side of the story, and fails to mention that this started when he removed (without prior discussion) a source which I added to a long list of then mostly red-linked species on the Ouratea page (see this diff). This was tantamount to vandalism on his part. Stho002 (talk) 21:22, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Unfortunatelly, I could not find a guideline, how the policy cited above would result in a procedure. Anyway, being bold I make a suggestion hereby. --Franz Xaver (talk) 20:34, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Resignation of admin status

• Although I oppose the above review of my admin status, being based clearly on a witch hunt, I actually don't want admin status any longer (I never really did want it). So, please somebody remove my admin status asap. Don't want it, don't need it. Stho002 (talk) 06:13, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I have never seen someone collapse a discussion on a Village pump, especially a discussion which is less than a week old, and concearns something which is defined as very serious. Why was this discussion collapsed? Dan Koehl (talk) 23:49, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Because it is now irrelevant to review my admin status. I am no longer an admin, due to my own voluntary resignation. Stho002 (talk) 23:53, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry I dont understand Stho002, can you please give a link, where its is explained that what you personally regard as relevant or not, is some sort of rule for the entire community?

Yeah, you really don't understand, do you? I didn't collapse the discussion. I am just giving a rational (do you know that word?) opinion why OhanaUnited may have collapsed it, i.e. it was calling for a review of something (i.e. my admin status) which I no longer have. Seems pretty irrelevant to me, don't ya think? Not trying to impose any rule on any community. Just assuming some understanding of broadly rational principles of what "relevancy" means, that's all! Stho002 (talk) 00:38, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

The thing you obviously may forget, is that this discussion is not about what you think, or your opinion, Mr Thorpe. Its is what all others, not being Mr Thorpe, thinks. That is a large difference. Dan Koehl (talk) 01:16, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

It would be nice if you actually read what I wrote properly before replying to it! You asked a question (i.e. Why was this discussion collapsed?), and I very kindly took the time to offer you an answer, based on my opinion, but surely you don't think that my opinion counts for less than anyone else's, do you? That would be very strange! This is a complete witch hunt/kangaroo court, in which anything I may say is twisted to fit your obvious agenda Stho002 (talk) 01:37, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Dating back to 2004, many submitted comments on the Village pump may be regarded as irrelevant, but they are not collapsed. Like I wrote, I never saw a collapsed discussion on a Village pump anywhere. To be honest, in my eyes, it looked like User:OhanaUnited was for some reason sort of hiding this discussion, especially when using the term "drama", as well as its over. Maybe the topic is not "over" for everyone else? The comment "collapsing the discussion to stop the drama now that it's over" and the action to collapsea discussion, as far as I know, a totally new concept for discussions regarding admins aventual abuse of their powers. It COULD be viewed as very manipulative, 1. When the community are voting regarding their opinion in a subject which concearn the eventual abuse of power an admin has performed, the accused choose to resign as admin, and all of a sudden, the eventual "crime" is removed and should be forgotten? 2. Secondly, contrary to every single discussion on the Village pump, the discussion gets collapsed, and visually hidden, by the same admin that has defended this admin repeatedly, when other members of the community has accused him for either abuse of admin powers, bullying, etc. It looks very odd in my eyes, but I may be alone with my personal point of view. Dan Koehl (talk) 00:14, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

You are sounding a bit like a conspiracy theorist Dan. User:OhanaUnited has vastly more experience as a crat here than you have, and yet you are now trying to challenge his judgement too! Is nobody safe?? The discussion which has now been collapsed is no longer relevant and kind of looks bad for the project (being very clearly nothing more than a witch hunt and power play), so why do you want to keep it visible when it can only do WS's reputation harm? Do you have trouble letting things go, Dan? Anger issues, perhaps? Do you distrust everyone?? Stho002 (talk) 00:27, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, Mr Thorpe. As admin you have been accused, not only for abusing your admin powers, but also for other things, and regardless of your wish, a voting was active. As far as I understand, its still going on, wether in your taste, or not. Meanwhile, a totally strange concept for a Village pump, collapsing a discussion reg admin abuse, only two days after it started, by someone, who, according to your talk page, has a history of being the only one repeatedly defending you, collapse the discussion. When I ask why, YOU the accused, explains that its not relevant anymore, as if you are a representative for, or leader of, the community, instead of being the accused?? In which human society has the accused right to explain to the public that their accusations are not relevant for the public? Meanwhile, you defend the act of collapsing the discussion based on the time User:OhanaUnited has served as if this is relevant, although everyone can read your talk page, and count how many times the same person (and noone else) has defended you. Its positive that you care about Wikispecies reputation, but then I must highlight, that when any of Wikimedias different projects deal with possible harm against the projects, performed by a single user,its in general not considered as a source of bad reputation, contrary, it gives people a sense of stability, that the various projects are not totally free, theres also rules to follow. meanwhile, I would insist on, that a single user scaring away upto 4 other project members, does not improve that projects reputation. Finally, I did not challenge User:OhanaUnited´s judgement (I slowly see how manupilative words can get) I made a remark that he did it, which is unique on this Village pump, 2 days after voting began, and it has not ended, and he is the one repeatedly defending you, when you have been accused for different things, by other communiy members on your talk page. For sure, this looks strange in my eyes, although this is my personal opinion, I do not, like you express myself as if my opinion is the only thruth, or a rule on this project. Other members may have other opinions. I still claim that it looks strange, and I do hope, that I will never be asked to do something similair on any Wikimedia project. I would of course refuse to do such an act. I never saw this concept ever, in an equal situation on other projects. But User:OhanaUnited may be able to show a link, to an identical situation, on another Wikimedia project, where a voting regarding an admins eventual abuse of powers, get collapsed 2 days after voting began, and before the voting was closed? Finally, I have read this type of manipulative comments, when you attack members on this project before. Regardless what you insinuate, regarding my intelligence, psychological status etc, they will primarly serve as an archived evidence, as to how you communicate with other members, rather then making me upset. A person, permanently banned from Wikipedia, with 2 different accounts, with a talk page on Wikispecies that speaks its own words, where almost ten people repeat the same message, you being rude, undiplomatic, etc, and on several occasions being accused of abusing your admin powers, and even scaring people away from this project, you have been blocked several times, and when finally the community gets a possibility to vote reg your actions, You still continue with different attacks on different members in the project. According to Wikispecies and Wikipedia "Misusing the administrative tools is considered a serious issue.", not a "small mistake" which you claim. I see no reason to collaps this discussion, why I now remove the collapse. The opinion of the accused is not a valid reason to hide the discussion, in a totally unique way. Dan Koehl (talk) 01:16, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Yep, certainly anger issues and conspiracy theory going on! Let me be clear that I did not ask or encourage User:OhanaUnited to hide the discussion, and, other than looking bad for WS, I don't care if it is hidden or not. I don't expect that User:OhanaUnited is inclined to do me any favours right now, since one of my last acts as admin was to unblock User:Eurodyne, who User:OhanaUnited expressly asked me not to unblock. I unblocked him because (1) my last acts as admin might as well be an act of kindness to someone; and (2) he was, in my opinion, being used by User:OhanaUnited as a pawn in User:OhanaUnited's own power games with en:WP crats, and I generally frown on that sort of thing, exactly as I am now frowning at you Dan. So, please feel free to continue your discussion above about whether to remove from me something that I don't have any longer, or want. Good to see you spending your time here in such a constructive way ... Stho002 (talk) 01:32, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Dan said: [quote] Finally, I did not challenge User:OhanaUnited´s judgement ... [unquote]

Yes you did. User:OhanaUnited collapsed the discussion, and you questioned why he did that, as if it were in some way improper of him to do so. Stho002 (talk) 01:42, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Dan said: [quote] you defend the act of collapsing the discussion based on the time User:OhanaUnited has served as if this is relevant, [unquote]

But it is relevant Dan. Relevant experience is always relevant (almost a tautology). You have been here for such a short length of time that you simply don't have User:OhanaUnited's years of experience as a crat here. You seem to think that experience counts for nothing! My editing experience here also counts a lot when it comes to making judgements about editing here. I don't think you have got any significant understanding of the subject matter on this site, and you appear to be here merely to throw your weight around. IMHO, this makes you highly unsuitable as a crat or even as an admin. Stho002 (talk) 01:47, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Furthermore, I am alarmed by your apparent way of thinking here, whereby if someone is against me, then that's fine, but if you think someone (e.g. User:OhanaUnited) might be on my side, then you start trying to discredit their views as being some kind of dodgy conspiracy with me! Total witch hunt stuff! 02:16, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

For the record, I did not discuss, any opinion reg if a member is "on anyone´s side", and I have not tried to discredit anyones views, so this is apparently NOT my way of thinking here I have reacted against making a single collapse at a 2 days old discussion, the first collapse in the Village pump I have seen, and the first collapse in any Village pump, since I created the first Village pump ever on the Swedish Wikipedia, in November 2002, 14 years ago. So,my experience about how a Village pump normally looks is over 14 years, which I believe is enough, to judge if collapsing only one , single vote/discussion reg an admins abuse of adminship 2 days after it started, is normal or not. Especially, since it is a voting and discussion regarding claims of a members abuse of adminship, and the community have all right to be able to read about this. If ever any single other discussion had been collapsed, anywhere on wikimedia projects, or at Wikispecies since its start 2004, I may have had more understanding. But when User:OhanaUnited collapsed only this single vote/discussion, 2 days after it opened, it looked indeed very odd. Anyhow, now its easy to read for the community again. Dan Koehl (talk) 03:49, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure that your experience on Swedish WP is relevant here. We are a different site and a different community with different aims and goals, and you have only been here for a very short time indeed. This site is not based on "precedents", in the sense of law, as you seem to think, so it is irrelevant if discussions have or have not been collapsed before. BTW: Your own words (above) [quote]it looked like User:OhanaUnited was for some reason sort of hiding this discussion[unquote] Stho002 (talk) 03:57, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

User:Dan Koehl, I'm sad to see that you exhibited blatant bad faith about my recent bureaucratic action. You said you didn't challenge my judgement, yet your action to un-close spoke volumes even if you claim otherwise. For background info, you and I are the only active bureaucrats around to make the decision. Since you were highly involved in this discussion, you should refrain from in closing/un-closing the dicussion. You should know better than that as a bureaucrat. That leaves only myself as the uninvolved bureaucrat. I was trying to be fair to all parties, whether or not some think the other party is guilty as charged. You went out of your way to get even on Stho002. And in the process, I started to see that you have transcended to his level of bickering. Since my impartiality was questioned, I have to step in to clarify Dan's misconceptions about myself. Point #1: Just a few days ago, you commented that Stho002 was using his tools while involved in this dispute. So what about you taking part in this un-closing action for which you are an involved party? I find this to be extremely ironic. Point #2: You claim that hatting was unconventional to closing settled disputes. Help yourself to countlessexamples of hatting across multiple projects (don't want to be accused of cherry-picking, so everyone feel free to pick their own cherry). Furthermore, anything hatted are only collapsed into a box that anyone (logged in, not logged in, mobile users) can one-click to expand the entire discussion. There is no such thing as "removing" the evidence (and please provide evidence to back up your claims that the evidence was "removed"). The contents remain accessible by table of contents or the search engine. You seem to be really stretching it by arguing that hatting removes the discussion from view when it didn't even leave this page. Point #3: The title of this section is "Request for review of adminship status". The scope of the discussion, as clearly defined by User:Franz Xaver, says "put here a request for review of the adminship status of User:Stho002. That means, in case that my request here is successful, he would be given some time to submit a renewed request for adminship status." Dan, since you voted yes on this proposal, I would assume that you agree with the scope of this discussion. When Stho002 resigned, the outcome of this discussion is already done deal. Keeping it open amounts to beating a dead horse and only fuels more drama. Would you keep a new request for adminship open from some random editor and let it run for full 7 days if the editor withdrew the application after one or two days? Point #4: You said "the discussion gets collapsed, and visually hidden, by the same admin that has defended this admin repeatedly" but as recent as 2 days ago, you keep emailing me to discuss on this topic. What are you playing at? Point #5: This is not a court and nobody broke any laws. Please don't use words like "crime" or "accused" in the discussion as it amounts to wikilawyering. Point #6: You made quite a lot of speculations about my actions yet I have yet to see evidences (or diffs) to back up what you say. I certainly backed up my case with dffs. It's time to see yours. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:35, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that the only conceivable reason to want to keep this "vote" active, supported by Koehl's statement above that this is far from over, is to try to morph it into a vote to have me blocked completely from WS. One might even speculate that Dan Koehl came here to WS for that very purpose, though I try not to be paranoid. Nevertheless, the only way to disprove my speculation is for Dan Koehl to show willingness to cooperate with me so as to try to improve the current situation (and improve WS), giving my opinions (especially relating to content) due weight in any dispute resolution processes with other editors here. That's all I want, i.e. consensus based on rational reasoning rather than fist banging to affirm personal preferences. Stho002 (talk) 05:45, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited:UPDATE: Copied from my talk page, Dan Koehl says [quote] I believe that your prime worry should be that you dont get permanently blocked here [unquote]. Given that I had just agreed to cooperate, I consider this statement to be nothing more than a threat, and a statement of clear intent Stho002 (talk) 06:02, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

1 answer to Stephen: Then maybe you can accept my experience with Wikispecies Village pump, where I made my first comment 12 June 2005? And where I never saw any discussion collapsed before. You may kindly point me to any single discussion that was collapsed on this Village pump before today. If you cant, this was the first time. And yes, collapsing the vote/discussion definitely doesnt make it easier to find and read the text above, rather the contrary, the entire purpose with a collapse is to hide text, until the reader clicks on the "uncollapse" link. But you are right, User:OhanaUnited may have had entirely other intentions with this, with no connection to the fact that he was the only admin on the english Wikipedia that ever unblocked you, during your time there, according to your Wikipedia talk page and Wikipedia Block log. Dan Koehl (talk) 06:24, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

I note that you did not deny my suggestion that the above quoted statement by you was a threat, and a statement of clear intent! Stho002 (talk) 02:09, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

2 answer to OhanaUnited: Im not letting myself being dragged into any kind of conflict. I never saw anything like such a collapse before, and I doubt that the community would agree that in this particulair case, it was the best solution. I really think that you can see yourself, on Stephens talk page, when another contributor is angry with him, you more than one time have gone in and "defended" him, used a lot of words which removes the focus from the contributors accusation etc. But above that, you were the only admin on english Wikipedia that unblocked Stephen, while other admins repeatedly ignored his wish to be unblocked. In the end he became permanently unblocked anyway. The reason why your name comes up when Stephen is criticized on his talk page, and why you chose to collapse this vote and discussion, only you knows. Reg the "dead horse", well the horse is not dead? The rest of this Village pump is only Stephens personal issues with different people here. Even after resigning as admin, he is more or less taking over this project on the Village pump, instead of trying to dicuss on the articles discussion pages, or directly with the specific person, on their talk pages.

Please, OhanaUnited, do not assist anyone in destructive behaviour, unless you are very sure that this is the wish of the community, and this is the best for the future of Wikispecies. Since you (and only you, admin?) seem to have supported Stephen since 8 August 2011 I doubt that you can be regarded as an uninvolved bureaucrat. collapsing the discussion above, was a very strange thing to do. Deciding for the community that the drama is over, was also strange. Please assist me now in trying to convince Stephen that he must stick to Wikispecies rules, and not breaking them ever more.

Dan Koehl (talk) 06:24, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

This section was about request for adminship review. You got your wish and you won! Are you gravedancing to remind us that your "opponent" didn't "win"? Who's the one shifting the focus from adminship review into editor review? You are. Who was the one that specifically participated in this specific discussion and used their bureaucratic action to get involve in the decision process? You are. Who was the one that, through his action, accidentally or intentionally kept this drama going? You are. Who was the one that broke the rule by unilaterally amending a policy page without any discussion when it's absolutely clear who you're targetting? You are. Please don't tell me that changing the policy page and the above discussion that you participated in was just a coincidence. Who's digging up dirt from 3 years ago (and 3 years is a long time online)? You are. Who claims that I'm the only one that supports Stho002? You are. (FYI: These comments from this year and from his talk page alone suggests that not everyone agrees with your personal view of Stho002 "being rude, undiplomatic" 12345) I don't deny that Stho002 broke some rules alone the way. Yet if you want to convince someone to follow the rules, you should be setting an example yourself. Otherwise it just undermines your credibility. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 07:12, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

What did I won? What opponent? What "this drama"? I must remind you that the issue here was that Stho002 was accused a year ago of abusing his admin powers. Now he was accused for this again. We can all see with our eyes wether Stho002 did this or not. This is, within the Wikimedia projects, not "a small mistake". I voted for the removal of his admin rights, which I have right to do. Which I should do, as admin, and Burocrat. You and me, as Burocrats, are supposed to keep a project clean from people not following rules, and admins abusing their powers. We are not supposed to attack people when they object on someone being rude, undiplomatic, and breaking the policy rules. You asked me to come up with diffs, and when I do, you accuse me of digging up dirt? This is our job as Burocrats. And defending the Wikispecies project, and any Wikimedia project, against abusive users, not following policy rules, developed through consensus. Finally you tried to hide that Stho002 was accused of abusing his adminship, by making a totally unique collapse, only in this specific issue, you never did it before, and I hope you will never do it again. Instead of trying to find out if, and why he commited such an error, which is considered very serious all over Wikimedia, you now focus on attacking me personally. Now you are accusing me of breaking the rules, if I understand you right? May I ask, which rules have I broken? Dan Koehl (talk) 08:23, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

• @Dan Koehl: No, where you are covertly sliding the "bullshit factor" into this reasoning is by making the dogmatic claim that my temporary protection of a page after Franz Xaver had told me [Quote] I will revert your edits [unquote] was not "a small mistake". There is no objective quantifiable measure of the size of such mistakes, which gives you more than enough wiggle room to blow them up out of all proportion to fit your own agenda. I say that it was a small mistake, and that, in the context of over half a million edits here, the number of such small mistakes that I am guilty of is actually very small (as a proportion of total edits). The onus is on you to prove otherwise, not just bang your fist and claim otherwise. Thanks Stho002 (talk) 23:08, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

When I in mail to you, 5th of November, gave you the link to the policy rules https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikispecies:Policy you replied: Good lord, I have totally forgotten that page since nobody touched it for over 5 years.- And that was all you had to say reg the rules, the policy for this project. The rest of the mail was defence of Stephen. The biggest question is how to calculate if Steven is a net-positive or net-negative contributor. He is without a doubt upset a number of editors but at the same time, none of us have as much spare time contributing to the project comparing to him., and you summarize that Stephen makes 131 edits per day. So what? If he doesnt follow the rules on Wikispecies, should you, as Burocrat, not focus on that? If he harrass and hurt other members of the community, is your only activity to go in and defend him, when they debate his behaviour on his user page? While you are refering to the voting above as a "Drama", and tries to make an admins abuse of his admin tools as a small problem, you now chose to attack me, and try to make this a conflict between us? Why? What is your goal? What was the goal of unblocking an abusive and unrespectful troll on the english Wiki, already three years ago, when all other admins refused? And here, you did it repeatedly again, after other admins blocked him? And when he, for the second time, is accused for absusive behaviour, and this is already known on Steward level, why do you choose to defend him, instead of the Wikispecies community? Why dont you join me in defending Wikispecies policy rules, instead of attacking me? I have taken my resposnsibility as admin and burocrat, please dont try to make that to some sort "gravedancer" and hater of australian biologists, because this is not the case. There are rules here, Stephen have broken against them, you seem to try do marginalize this, and even hide the voting and accusations against him. If we accept how Stephen is behaving, we dont need the rules, because if you 131 edits per day you can behave like an ashole, and the Burocrat will protect you when the community reacts? Is this a Wikispecies you want to see in the future? Dan Koehl (talk) 08:23, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

As far as I can see, this discusson is developing into something strange. In my understanding, it would have been appropriate first to formally close the vote on the request before collapsing the discussion. It was a vote in order to start a review. So, in my understanding, even friends of Stho002 might have voted "support", as in any case, when doubt is raised on the actions of an admin, the only possibility for the community to get certainty, if this admin still is a trusted user, is given by such a vote. Anyway, it would strengthen his position, if he successfully gets engough support again. (You know, in many parliaments, when the government has problems to bring their projects through the parliament, a "motion of confidence" is proposed by the government.) I cannot judge, if it is appropriate or not to collapse such a request. Anyway, if it is collaped, in my opinion, the sub-heading, showing whom it does concern, should have been outside of the collapsible section.

@OhanaUnited: When in this posting under Point #1 you refer to Dan Koehl as being an involved party, having commented "that Stho002 was using ...", this is to some extent misrepresenting what Dan Koehl actually was writing - see diff. As I understand, he had noticed that Stho002 had been accused of a serious infringement of rules and simply asked, if this really had been meant before. That's exactly what can be expected from a bureaucrat in such a situation. (The only point you may claim against DanKoehl is, that he put this question in another section.) On the other hand, did you yourself - as Dan Koehl obviously - also receive this ping at that place? In my post there you will find this particular claim that Stho002 had abused admin power. I was wondering, why not a single admin, except the accused one, had reacted there. That's not a point against you, OhanaUnited, as I know from this posting that you are very busy with other matters that are much more urgent. Fortunatelly, it seems that now again you found time to involve. Good for you. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 10:47, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Franz Xaver, he became involved the moment he voted support in your proposal. I think everyone agrees on this. Dan, so you're justifying your own rule breaking because the other party has also broken the rules? (Or in other words, the ends justify the means?) I see that you have been avoiding and skirting around this inconvenient truth. P.S. Stho002 is from New Zealand, not Australia. It is clearly stated on his userpage. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:09, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, New Zealand. Where and how should I, according to you, have broken any rules? I can not find it from the diff you submitted. Where am I supposed to have "avoiding and skirting around this inconvenient truth"? Dan Koehl (talk) 17:22, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

You shouldn't be amending policy pages without first seeking community support for the change. I thought that would be obvious to you but apparently it's not. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:29, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Can I request that you all stop this potentially eternal exchange. None of you is getting anywhere with it. Now that Stho002 has resigned, surely we can all drop this conversation and get on with constructive editing. Accassidy (talk) 17:34, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

@Accassidy: @OhanaUnited: Regrettably, Alan, Koehl and his puppet master Xaver never had any intention of stopping this witch hunt after mere removal of admin status. Their agenda is to have me blocked permanently. As this diff and this, [quote] I believe that your prime worry should be that you dont get permanently blocked here [unquote], from Koehl, clearly demonstrate. Clearly Koehl intends to go over the heads of his fellow crats direct to stewards, and discredits any lack of consensus from his fellow crats on this matter as a conspiracy rather than as proper impartiality/objectivity. Clearly Koehl is even less suitable to be a crat here than I was to be an admin. Stho002 (talk) 20:48, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Now now, Dan was promoted in March 2014. He is still relatively "green" on the job so cut him some slack. He hadn't had the chance to practice on judging consensus since there wasn't anything that is considered to be close-call (and the admin review about you was quite clear which way it was heading to). It was only the procedural matter that bothered me. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:42, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

OK, I will not say anything more about him unless he makes another move/bad call. However, being "green", as you correctly state, he should have had the good sense not to jump so deeply into all this so hastily. I would think that having good sense should be a prerequisite for suitability as a crat. Stho002 (talk) 04:47, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Inappropriate use of templates

Now that other editors think that I am on the way out, some of them are busy trying to create and use all sorts of inappropriate templates in an out of control fashion. For example, User:Orchi is using Template:Nadi, which I have now nullified, but which created a whole new and complex Distribution section on main taxon pages. There was no discussion about this. I trust that the remaining admins and crats will monitor this situation closely, and only allow small nonstandard changes after discussion, and with everyone in full knowledge of the existence of such templates and how to use them. Thanks, Stho002 (talk) 00:47, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

PS: These are all the pages he has put the template on without us knowing. Stho002 (talk) 00:51, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

However, you are still imposing "non standard taxon formats" that were discussed here and rejected by most i.e. by consensus. However, does the above action to nullify Template:Nadi amount to vandalism, as you could have started a discussion on the pump rather than acting unilaterally using perhaps abusing your Admin powers? Andyboorman (talk) 01:09, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh change the record, for God's sake! I didn't use admin powers to nullify the template. Whatever I am doing is irrelevant to what User:Orchi is doing. Besides, my proposed changes are carefully designed to simplify pages for the sake of the reader, not make them a whole lot more complicated. So, please pull your neck in and start thinking in terms of what is best for the project, rather than just yourself Stho002 (talk) 01:15, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I got muddled and actually did delete the template by mistake! I should have just edited in into a null template. Oh well, even more reason for someone to PLEASE RELIEVE ME OF MY ADMIN POWERS, as they are far more trouble than they are worth, especially when people are on a witch hunt, as in this case. It is just too easy to get in a muddle and make a mistake Stho002 (talk) 01:42, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

@Andyboorman: Please explain!

Please explain this diff. You reduced the species to 5 and added a source, but the source lists the same 23 species as were there before you changed the page! I just don't understand your edits, sometimes! Stho002 (talk) 06:30, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I see what you have done now. You cited the wrong source. You also didn't provide redirects from the old names to the new names, and, worst of all, you left the synonym list untouched even though you removed most of the species! We don't know what the type species are of those synonyms! This is very sloppy editing, so perhaps you should be a bit less critical of others like myself and just concentrate on trying to improve the quality of your work? Stho002 (talk) 06:42, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I never did say that I was perfect and at least I am big enough to admit that! Are you really just concentrating on denigrating those who disagree with you? I will not go down to your level. Andyboorman (talk) 09:37, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

However, in the spirit of collaboration and subsequent to reviews of your edits on Briza I would like to submit the following points of information and fact:

1. A few years ago I contacted GrassBase with respect to the differences between their circumscriptions in Poaceae and others, for example, WCSP and Grass World. They informed me that Grass World is now developing into the on line site for Poaceae taxonomy (and much else) and they would be helping out there. They also stated that they were not in a rush to update the nomenclature and taxonomy on Grass Base, but they did maintain that the descriptions and much other data was still valid. They cautioned using GrassBase for taxonomy. See also APW for confirmation of this point of information.
2. You deleted my link to Grass World perhaps you wish to re-consider this?
3. I originally used Essi et al (2011), Grass World and WCSP not TPL for the species list, but WCSP have updated their HET synonymy since my original edit-apologies for not updating - sloppy work I admit, but you may want to incorporate this update?.
4. Actually TPL refers their lists to WCSP, but WCSP has changed and excluded all South American species from Briza in line with Essi et al. (2011). So, TPL obviously is outdated.
5. GrassBase lists Briza altimontana and B. latifolia with a reference to Essi et al. (2011), but these authors have described these species as Chascolytrum altimontanum and C. latifolium respectively- see BHL. Clearly this is an oversight and an instance where Clayton et al. have not corrected GrassBase.
6. See Chascolytrum on WS, which you must have done as you edited the Reference section..
7. In addition, I have checked Briza altimontana and B. latifolia with IPNI and there is no entry and I am sure that you will find they have not been validly published. In addition, they are neither in WCSP nor TPL as accepted, synonym or unresolved.
8. Using these combinations in GrassBase and Wikispecies unfortunately does not conform with the conditions for validly published names according to ICN and as you pointed out in the Pump WS should not intentionally or unintentionally create new combinations.
9. So it would seem that my original 5 species circumscription sensu (Simon et al (2013) maybe more robust than the current entry, but I am open to discussion on a species by species basis.

In relation to sloppiness, I am not sure whether I am a kettle or .....! Anyway that is my WS time more than taken up for the day. Regards Andyboorman (talk) 17:33, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

In all that bluster of meaningless rhetoric, you have completely missed the point! You end by saying" [quote] So it would seem that my original 5 species circumscription sensu (Simon et al (2013) maybe more robust than the current entry, but I am open to discussion on a species by species basis. [unquote] My point was that there never was a 5 species circumscription sensu Simon et al (2013)! The correct source for that taxonomic opinion is Essi et al (2011). So yet again you cannot seem to get your sources right. The purpose of WS is not to set out what we personally think is the correct taxonomic viewpoint, but rather to set out what taxonomists have claimed is the correct taxonomic viewpoint. If they make a mistake, then we must set out (and preferably flag in some suitable way) their mistake. But the key point is that it must be made clear what we are doing and where our information is coming from. This you failed to do. And yes, I know very well that you are not and don't claim to be a perfect editor, and you will from time to time make mistakes, as indeed will I. In fact I was not and never claimed to be a perfect admin either, and I made a minor administrative mistake from time to time. Yet, you and some others here are now trying to crucify me for those mistakes! What does that make you? Stho002 (talk) 21:42, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh dear another personal attack User talk:Stho002! However, we are collaborating and seem to be getting somewhere with Briza. I have added types species to the synonyms. although this is a very strong preference not an absolute necessity for a first run. Perhaps you would like to do the same for "Chascolytrum", if it is important to you. I have also added Briza marcowiczii (from Turkey) back to the species list with the justification that it is recognised by WCSP, Tropicos and importantly by IPNI. OK Essi et al. did not cover it in their analyses, possibly as they assumed it was its synonym Briza media f. caucasica Marcow. ex Kneuck, Allg. Bot. Z. Syst. 8: 97 (1902) (see WCSP and Tropicos). So we are back to Briza sensu Simon et al.! Now as to Briza poimorpha (J.Presl) Henrard, Meded. Rijks-Herb. 40: 73 (1921). This is probably a spelling mistake by WCSP - no they are not perfect either! It is not recorded by IPNI. Therefore, I assume WCSP actually meant to use the name Briza poomorpha (J. Presl) Henrard , Meded. Rijks-Herb. 40: 73 (1921), which is accepted as a synonym of Chascolytrum poomorphum (J. Presl) Essi, Longhi-Wagner & Souza-Chies, (2011). The species is from Argentenia (ah Template Nadi?). I am happy to email WCSP and ask for clarification. The above is also an illustration to all why it is crucial in botany to use the full scientific name not just Nomen, Author (YYYY). Hope this helps, but by the way your collapse boxes are not always a helpful non standard taxon format (IMO), although they do allow you to add notes to the pages. Andyboorman (talk) 21:29, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Briza marcowiczii is also an accepted species in Flora of Turkey. Its original description is from Northwestern Caucasus. The case of Briza poomorpha is quite obvious, if someone knows the Code and the taxonomic history of this species. It was described as Panicum poaemorphum J.Presl - see [21]. However, according to ICN, Art. 60.8, this epithet has to be corrected to poomorpha or poomorphum respectively. Some authors have corrected it to poimorpha, assuming that Poa would be of Latin origin. But it actually is of Greek origin, and so the appropriate connecting vowel is o. Full synonymy of this species can be found in Essi et al. (2011) which can be downloaded here: PDF. --Franz Xaver (talk) 08:16, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Actually, Andyboorman does not claim his edit had been perfect. However, you are making some false claims: (1) The source he gave is Simon (2013) (=GrassWorld) which actually is listing exactly these five species. Obviously you have confused this with GrassBase whicht lists 23 species. (2) You claim that Andy left the synonym list untouched, but your diff shows that he had removed two generic synonyms. (As far as I see, there are more that should have been removed.) That's at least sloppy criticising from your side.

Anyway, your first bunch of edits contained mistakes that were even worse. Before editing you really should have checked botanical facts. Relying on unreliable sources (TPL, GrassBase) is not sufficient. As far as I see, you had noticed that there existed differences of taxonomic circumscription between some of the sources. So, it would have been appropriate first to read the respective papers. Instead of this, you started an attack against Andyboorman at first instance. And later you had to recognise that GrassBase follows an outdated classification and, moreover, lists names that never had been published, referring them (see [22]), as it seems, to Essi et al. (2011), a paper that does not even mention these species and anyway is in line with Briza in the narrow sense. It's funny that at the end you had to do a series of revisions that came close to the version of Andyboorman. OK, some references changed or removed, some synonyms removed. The result certainly is an improvement. So, why didn't you try to improve the article in a co-oparative way, first discussing the problems you have seen? Instead, first you started with an attack and changed the page in a way that was untenable. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 18:51, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

By the way, please explaind, why did you create redirects pointing to non-existing pages? I mean e.g. Briza parodiana. I suppose, that's non-standard, isn't it? --Franz Xaver (talk) 19:50, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

My point in this section was that it was extremely difficult to verify Andyboorman's edits due to the fact that he was editing way out of his depth, and was not making it clear which information was coming from where. I have already stated that nobody is perfect, either as an editor, or as an admin, and mistakes will be made. My attempts to unravel Briza are ongoing. In this section I was merely pointing out to Boorman the apparent hypocrisy in claiming that his mistakes as editor are forgiveable, while my mistakes as admin are used against me in an agenda fuelled feeding frenzy by disgruntled editors like Boorman who are pissed at not being able to have everything their own way any longer Stho002 (talk) 20:56, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver:: Doing only half the job

With reference to this diff, it is not particularly helpful to remove a useful reference altogether from WS, just because it was in the wrong place, without also finishing the job and putting it in the right place. I am sure you would want to maximise the benefit to WS of your editing, so doing only half the job isn't really demonstrating the right attitude. Stho002 (talk) 22:12, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi, certainly I am not obligated to create a species page, just because I made a correction in another species page. I simply removed a reference from a place where it has been misplaced by a different editor. I am not willing to create taxon pages based on an unsound source. Feel free to go ahead if you have better information on Australian Euphrasia. TPL claims that Euphrasia arguta R.Br. is a synonym of Euphrasia scabra var. arguta (R.Br.) Benth. They base their record on Tropicos where, however, Euphrasia scabra var. arguta is only mentioned as another combination for this basionym. So, obviously Tropicos does not give a statement which of both is the correct name. I conclude, that TPL is misrepresenting Tropicos and at all the status of this taxon is not resolved. Too weak for me. But I see you in the meantime have created a page. The respective volume of Flora of Australia actually would be a sufficient source, however this has not been published yet.

I am wondering why you place this posting here at Village Pump. The adequate place for this is supposed to be at my talk page. It seems, it is important for you that everyone would know you found something to critisise. That's OK for me. Certainly you don't mind, that the community learns the person who actually made the mistake was you. You placed a paper on a rare Australian Euphrasia into a page treating an unrelated European species, just because a homonymous name is listed there. It would have been easy for you to find out that this is the wrong place. Even TPL lists both Euphrasia arguta R.Br. and Euphrasia arguta A.Kern. If you had some knowlegde on history of botany, you would know that Robert Brown worked on the Australian flora and Anton Kerner von Marilaun worked on vegetation and flora of Central Europe. However, it seems you don't have a clue and you obviously did not check the facts before editing. Another case of sloppy editing, unfortunatelly. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 16:26, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Is User:Dan Koehl suitable as a crat or admin here?

I ask this question because I am having difficulty finding the proper first step to the present conflict between myself and him, whereby he comes to me and politely states his concerns, and requests my cooperation to try to improve the situation. Even if he thought it would be futile (which, of course it wouldn't be), it nevertheless would be the proper first step, but I cannot find it in the history. Perhaps he can help me to find it? If there is none, then this demonstrates, IMHO, poor judgement on his part, no doubt resulting from inadequate experience here to be a crat. Given that he contributes nothing in terms of content here, I have to question why he is here at all, and if it is a good idea. I will not call for a "vote" or even call for comments, it is simply an observation. Stho002 (talk) 03:22, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Copied from my talk page:

-If you follow those rules, Stephen, and if you can combine your high producation, with a positive cooperation, I believe that you will be a valued and respected contributor to Wikispecies. If you don't, I believe the risk of becoming blocked again, is high, and maybe even permanent. Therefore I ask you kindly to respect Wikispecies policy rules, and collaborate, because this is a project of collaboration.

Dan Koehl (talk) 05:09, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl:Well finally! Thank you for the final paragraph, which is the very first time that you have kindly asked me to do anything at all. Of course I am more than happy to collaborate, cooperate, and indeed even compromise. My only worry is that some other editors here are doing poor quality work, which is excusable in itself, but, what is not excusable, is that they are protecting their work from correction/improvement by me by way of "kicking up a fuss" and generally refusing to discuss, and twisting things to make me appear to be the villain. My other worry is that you are not in a position to judge matters of content as you seem to lack any significant knowledge relating to WS content. We really need admins and crats who know a bit about biodiversity, nomenclature, etc., in order for them to be in a position to see problems with other editors work (which the editors themselves will never admit to). However, I am happy to refer all such matters to you and the other crats here for resolution, without getting into any disputes with the relevant editors myself. My only wish is that consensus be based on rational reasoning, rather than the mere banging of fists to affirm personal preferences. enWP is a hotbed of such fist banging and power play by admins/crats. That's the reason I am permanently blocked there. So, are you willing to cooperate with me or not? Stho002 (talk) 05:36, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict x 2) I think it's premature to have this discussion when the previous discussion about you (and that Dan is now involved) is still ongoing. Please wait until the dust settles and all parties calmed down so that we can have a more rational discussion. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:37, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited: I think your unconditional backing of Stho has done much harm to WS. I can't understand how you can live with such a conduct as Stho's or why you always support him. This only gave him the confidence to escalate his behavior and to become an acute treat to WS. As a bureaucrat you have the obligation to be objective, and I do expect you not to keep any "friendships" or "alliances".

@Dan Koehl: I really appreciate your firm resolve to look into this difficult matter and to apply all necessary means to make WS a better environment for editors. Mariusm (talk) 08:35, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

If I was unconditionally backing Stho002, why would I post the admin removal request on Meta? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:32, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

NOTE! The comment below by Accassidy does not concearn OhanaUnited directly mentioned above, even if it may look like that after editing. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:30, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes. It appears to me that his involvement in this current situation has been measured and appropriate to his authority as a bureaucrat. Accassidy (talk) 10:32, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

I fully agree, Dan Koehl is a good crat. It anyway it not easy to stay calm when being in a dispute with Stho002. It is not easy to be confronted with false claims and misrepresentation of facts. However, meanwhile I am quite convinced that Stho002 really believes that it's correct what he is writing here and there. Yes, I assume good faith, but then obviously he does not have a clue what he is doing here. --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:18, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

I think you will find that @Accassidy: was referring to OhanaUnited, not to Dan Koehl! :) Stho002 (talk) 21:10, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

@Stho002: As far as I can see, the "first step" you were asking for actually has been this one. When it seems, that now Dan Koehl has come into a conflict with you, this can easily be explained by a lack of co-operation on this issue from your side. Your sentence "This is the last I have to say on this issue, so please either have me desysoped or get on with doing something more constructive, as this is becoming a waste of time." (diff) alone speaks volumes. By this you tried to bring his investigation concerning a serious issue to a premature end. You suggested to him to choose between either abusing his power as a bureaucrat or neglecting his duty as a bureaucrat. This alone, I suppose, is a serious infringement of the rules. --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:07, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Dan Koehl has my unconditional support as an upholder of rules, consensus, collaborative ethics and his resolve to make WS a better place for all contributors. Andyboorman (talk) 20:22, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you would admit to giving Dan Koehl your unconditional support. Do you even know what that means? It means you will support him whether he is right or wrong! You give unconditional support to loved ones, but not to WS crats!! Stho002 (talk) 02:01, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Being involved, as you are, in this dispute, do you really think your comment above has any credibility? No, that was not the first step I alluded to. The first step should have been to come to me with the intention of trying to resolve any problems. The diff you point to merely illustrates Koehl "politely" demanding from me an explanation for a specific incident. I gave a reasonable explanation in which I admitted having made a small error of judgement, which Koehl completely disregarded, thereby demonstrating that he already wasn't prepared to accept any explanation, and just wanted a "confession" to give him a mandate to act against me. Stho002 (talk) 21:02, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

You may claim your protection of a page might have been a "small error of judgement", when this had been the first and only incident of this kind. However, as it seems, there is a considerable history of similar incidents. In my (unimportant?) opinion, that's the point where it gets serious. Even since then you have first deleted Template:Nadi, before starting Wikispecies:Village Pump#Inappropriate use of templates. (As far as I see, it is pointless to start a discussion on a template that is not visible any more. Its intention obviously was not to discuss, but it is a rant.) When Andyboorman mentioned that you again might have abused admin power, you restored the template, but blanking it. See also the log. OK, you claim you "got muddled". Anyway, an admin should not get muddled that easily. --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:14, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Not really, talk. You didnt ask my question, so I had to repeat it again and again. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:23, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

URGENT Template Nadi Request to Crats

@Benedikt: @Dan Koehl: @EVula: @Keith Edkins: @Maxim: @OhanaUnited: @Open2universe: @Ucucha: @UtherSRG:. Is it possible to revert the destruction of Template:Nadi and place it back onto the pages from where is was removed? This is important as its nullification can in retrospect be seen as a personal attack on Orchi. A contributor who has put a lot of effort into very good work on Orchidaceae. If it is possible to reverse then you would also be doing a favour to the spirit of WS and it would enable us to debate, as a community, the template's value. We then can come to consensus, rather than having to live with a poor rash decision by a single individual.Andyboorman (talk) 22:22, 8 November 2014 (UTC) (apologies once again)

Good luck with that! Stho002 (talk) 20:57, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Not following what you were saying. Did you mean un-deleting the edit that was moved to the template talk page? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 21:01, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

They mean restoring the template to how it was before I killed it. If you do what they want, it will put a huge nonstandard and overly complex distribution template right in the midst of the main taxon page for a large number of orchid species. I don't see how they can possibly justify that? Stho002 (talk) 21:05, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited: BTW: I just said "Good luck with that!", the unsigned drivel above that is not from me! Stho002 (talk) 21:15, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

There's me being sloppy again I just keep giving User talk:Stho002 ammunition! Can it be done? If so I would prefer a Crat to do it and then we, as a community, can have a debate pros and cons. The collapse box distribution details were down the bottom of page below References in the same vain as Vernacular Names, Wikimedia Links etc. not slap bang in the middle of the page. We know User talk:Stho002's opinion , but others? Mine? Increasingly re-evaluations of sub-familial taxa are showing a link between them and distributions of their species. Does this have value on WS? Perhaps we need a debate? I, of course will go along with the consensus. Andyboorman (talk) 22:22, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Ammunition? Do you see this as a war, Andy?? I certainly don't. I just see it as trying to maintain some semblance of order on WS, without having everyone shooting off on a tangent doing things the way that suits them, without regard for others. The Nadi template is a good example of what I am talking about. Big changes to main taxon pages require consensus before they are started. The rest of what you say lacks defined meaning Stho002 (talk) 22:32, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Of course I do not see it as a war. But you do persist in personal comments - see all those categories above with my name on them! I guess I should be strong enough to leave them just to hang. Would you if the positions were reversed? Fair enough you asked for consensus for the changes you wish to see with collapse boxes, I seem to read the consensus as reject and you carry on, is that a hanging offense? Not IMO. OK you became aware of Nadi ex post, presumably when it was used on the much debated Ouratea, but possibly the most appropriate course of action was to bring it a wider audience for debate via the Pump, rather than an Admin delete. Surely you must see that just using a few key strokes to get rid of all the work put in by User talk:Orchi, a valued and hard working Orchidist contributor, who has expressed concerns about your behaviour, can only be seen in a negative light? Andyboorman (talk) 23:04, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

If you don't see it as a war, then please refrain from using war related metaphors, like "ammunition". Using language appropriately is a skill that I don't really have either, and which makes both of us unsuitable to be an admin or a crat here, which is why, in part, I oppose your "very recent" nomination for admin by ... who was it again ... oh, yes! None other than our friend Dan Koehl! You seem to not know the difference between "personal attacks" and fair criticism, and/or seem to think that you are immune from the latter. That may have been the case when you were a school teacher, immune from criticism by your students, but not here. Being "hardworking" does not give any contributor a free pass to do what they like (i.e. Orchi and Nadi template). I rejected the "consensus" against the collapsible Nomen and Syn boxes simply because consensus should be based on rational reasoning, and not merely on banging of fists on tables to affirm personal preferences. Nobody entered into a rational discussion with me on the proposals. Stho002 (talk) 23:18, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

I'll leave this one to others since it's becoming a powder keg. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:48, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh the irony!

How ironic that User:Andyboorman has finally made the first edit (on Briza) which is pretty close to how I have been trying to encourage editors here to do things all along! I can follow the reasoning for the edit, as it has been explicitly justified! If he had started doing that earlier, we could have avoided an incredible waste of time and effort on dramatics! Stho002 (talk) 21:21, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

The current version of Briza by User talk:Stho002 collaborating with myself and with help from User talk:Franz Xaver is pretty close to my original sloppy work. Oh the irony indeed! This is getting distinctly surreal. Andyboorman (talk) 22:34, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

The fact that you fail to see the important difference speaks volumes. The list of species may be the same, but the sourcing is now explicit and correct and can be followed and understood. This is pretty fundamental stuff for Wikimedia sites, i.e., good sourcing and verifiability. Stho002 (talk) 22:41, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

And how exactly did Franz Xaver "help"??? He may have helped you to understand what I have been trying to explain to you, but the edit history shows no contribution from him Stho002 (talk) 22:43, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Please, I need a beer its Saturday night over here! Re Franz Xaver read the contributions to the debate. Sensu Simon et al. was explicit to Grass World in the list of References and contained 5 species available on one click. Essi et al. is explicit in the list of Selected References to only four species and so needs modification through your collapse box and needs a full read through if you can get hold of the full text. Both are good sources in their own way, of course. Peer reviewed was lacking a species Grass World was not. Pragmatism OK? Andyboorman (talk) 23:22, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

That may make sense to you, but it is devoid of any defined meaning as far as I can tell. Is it even written in English?? "Peer reviewed was lacking a species Grass World was not" ???? Stho002 (talk) 23:37, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Where are the other crats?

@Benedikt:@EVula:@Keith Edkins:@Maxim:@Open2universe:@Ucucha:@UtherSRG: All of you are listed as being WS crats, but where are you when you are needed? We only have 2 active crats at the moment, User:OhanaUnited and user:Dan Koehl. I believe that the latter (user:Dan Koehl) is out of control, and is effectively a rogue crat. He is trying to undermine the integrity of User:OhanaUnited by way of assuming bad faith, and threatens to go over the head of User:OhanaUnited to stewards on issues that divide them. Clearly, we need the involvement of more than 2 opposing crats in order for the system to work! So, please can you get involved and support whichever of the two crats that you think is acting properly. Thanks. Stho002 (talk) 21:47, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Adding more rules?

I believe one way of protecting this project and its users against any undesired behaviour from abusive users, is to define rules and policies more exact, as well as increase the written rules and recommendations. But I may be alone with those thoughts. Do we need more rules?

I have made one example of change at Adding more rules?, please take a look.

Other relevant questions may be, when, and at which point should an abusive user be blocked, if he or she is being rude, insensitive or petty, makes people upset and stops Wikispecies from working well. Is a voting needed by the community?

Which other parts of rules may be missing, and which needs to be further developed? Can any rules be imported from Wikipedia, or its for any reason important to make specific rules for only this project?

LOADED QUESTION!Stho002 (talk) 00:21, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I would be interested to ask the community about this, and get your opinions. Especially on the page where I raised a question at Adding more rules?.

Dan Koehl (talk) 00:09, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I am not against adding more rules, provided that they are written as result of a proper consensus (i.e. one that takes everyone's opinion into proper account in an objective and impartial way, based on rational principles, e.g. that opinions on X carry more weight with greater experience in X).

>Other relevant questions may be, when, and at which point should an abusive user be blocked, if he or she is being rude, insensitive or petty, makes people upset and stops Wikispecies from working well. Is a voting needed by the community?<

This sounds suspiciously like your next move to have me blocked. Not all, but a big part of WS "working well" is the number of (content relevant) edits that are done to populate our pages with useful information. Without my input, this would drop dramatically. Get real, sometimes people get upset when they are in the wrong and are challenged about it. I think you need to define your loaded terms like "abusive". To my mind, one can be both abusive and polite at the same time, and you seem to be the master of that, as I do feel "abused" by you.

Stho002 (talk) 00:21, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Also, since your proposal comes tainted by a dispute in which you are involved, any consensus cannot take into account the views of anyone involved in the dispute. What you really need is consensus at the crat level, but the only other active crat here is OhanaUnited. So, unless you can wake up the other crats and convince them to back you, I really don't think that you are on to a winner here Stho002 (talk) 00:30, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't be commenting on the timing of this proposal. I have explained no less than 2 times (once through email, once through user talk) and provided example of why it's always a bad idea to directly adopt another project's policy as own. It would also mean that we hand over our project's jurisdiction and policy making to elsewhere that they aren't required to consult with us before making changes. Plus it's unprecedented. Can anyone show me any major WMF projects that actually borrows rules from another project? And why is there a parallel discussion happening on another separate pages? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:49, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

This illustrates just how hasty and poorly thought through Dan Koehl's proposals are. This is no doubt a result of his lack of experience here as a crat. Stho002 (talk) 03:59, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Stephen, please see my comment OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:44, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

OK, but your comment seems to say the same as my comment, just more politely! Stho002 (talk) 04:49, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Let me clearify; Theres suggestions on two places, since one suggestion is specified to abuse of admin powers, and the other suggestion covers Wikispecies in general. If you read through, what I write once more, this should be clear. secondly, even if OhanaUnited wrote me twice, giving me his opinion, I saw a potential possibility, that his opinion may not be representing the opinion of the entire Wikispecies community. Other members may have other opinions, even if only yours (OhanaUnited and Stho002) are represented above. I saw incresing rules as one possibility to protect the project against violation, and simply wanted to hear the opnion of others. Regarding admin abuse of powers, I made a specific suggestion, which also, for some reason, only covers the opinion of you two. (OhanaUnited and Stho002) My intention was to get the opinon from the community, and I see nothing wrong with this. Dan Koehl (talk) 15:32, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: Be aware that such matters are not decided by "opinion", per se, but by consensus, and this is clearly defined at Meta as being based on the evaluation of reasons. It is not a ballot. Therefore the "opinions" of the community, per se, are not necessarily relevant, which is just as well or else we would have "wolf packs" running the show. Stho002 (talk) 20:31, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Timing

I wish to add that, IMHO, Dan Koehl credibility is undermined by his timing. His "Adding more rules" proposal comes hot on the heels of "winning" (or losing, depending how you look at it) a request to have my admin status reviewed. Since I have resigned as admin, that is a done deal (though more by my own hand than by his). Above I have already "speculated" that it was just the first step in an agenda to have me banned permanently from WS. Subsequently, Koehl tried to discredit the opinion of his fellow crat, OhanaUnited, by attempting to twist their impartiality/fairness/measured response into some sort of dodgy conspiracy with me. And now, Koehl proposes new rules, some of which have a disturbingly retrospective angle, i.e. [quote]Other relevant questions may be, when, and at which point should an abusive user be blocked, if he or she is being rude, insensitive or petty, makes people upset and stops Wikispecies from working well. Is a voting needed by the community?[unquote]. Tayloring rules to fit an agenda is not fair play, so again I must question Koehl's suitability as a crat or even an admin here. Stho002 (talk) 00:46, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

As anyone can read, the rules are directly taken from Wikipedia, not taylored by me, I even made links to the relevant places on Wikipedia, where they are written. The reason for "timing" is obvious, the project has recently been violated, by an admin breaking the rules. Meanwhile, the rules doesnt define what abusing adminships exactly means. Therefore, for the future, I found it a good idea to suggest for the community, to clearify those specific rules even more. I didnt taylor anything, I just copied those rules from Wikipedia. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:53, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

What should we do next?

Obviously, WS is deep in a major crisis resulting from the constant bullying of Stho002. The combination of Stho002's behavior with OhanaUnited giving him a free hand and backing him up has become very destructive indeed. My proposal is to involve the stewards in this issue. OhanaUnited and Dan Koehl are the only active bureaucrats remaining, where OhanaUnited is not impartial, being biased towards Stho002. In this sad gridlock we desperately need help from the outside to quite things down, and restore some order and sanity over here. Mariusm (talk) 06:10, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Look, if you think I'm not impartial, as Dan likes to put it as "have supported Stephen since 8 August 2011", why did you ask me to step in on two occasions, once in November 2013 and again in July 2014? Regardless, I am going to take User:Accassidy's advice and hand it off to the stewards. I don't mind stewards to step in and assess the entire process (from previous complaints on Village Pump to the review of adminship status to the hatting and unhatting to the subsequent fallout). OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:42, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited: I'm not going to start arguing with you about past issues. Obviously something went very wrong so that we ended where we are positioned now. If you are planning to request the stewards to step in, then it would be a right step in the process of curing our ills. Mariusm (talk) 07:59, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I advise the community members not to engage in arguments with Stho002, however hard it may be to forbear and not to refute his accusations. Please, let us refrain from engaging ourselves in futile and humiliating conversations with him. He is seeking to infuriate and disorient us, so lets just ignore him. Mariusm (talk) 11:24, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

It can do no harm to seek an opinion, and if necessary some action, from a Steward. Accassidy (talk) 12:15, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree with asking for support from Stewards. From that level, I had ta message which is including "It would be best if you could try and resolve the issues locally", why I suggest we put as much energy as possible, into reaching a consensus, in how to deal with the present situation. The more unified we can get, the easier it will be to move to next step. Dan Koehl (talk) 15:12, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

"Next step" to what exactly? For as long as the active crats here are 1:1 on this, you cannot push through anything that can be seen to be tainted by dispute. It would have to be impeccable, squeaky clean, and policy compliant to the utmost of pedantry, and, quite frankly, I don't think you are up to that ...Stho002 (talk) 21:04, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I guess the stewards aren't very eager to jump in on unfamiliar ground. They prefer that we solve our problems locally (like some judges are happy to have an out-of-court settlement, I suppose). But how? When 60% of the listed admins are not participating. When a rough individual can dictate our agenda. When measures are reluctantly taken. When a crat stands by the bad guys. So what are you suggesting, Dan? What do you think we should do now? Mariusm (talk) 16:27, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

hard luck User:Mariusm, but there is nothing User:Dan Koehl can do for as long as User:OhanaUnited maintains his current level of proper impartiality/fairness/professionalism. Ohana's greater experience and superior understanding of policy, combined with the inevitable vagueness/ambiguity of policy, will give him more than enough wiggle room to reverse anything improper than Koehl attempts to push through, and policy will be on Ohana's side. So, your "trojan horse" is looking more like a donkey! :) Stho002 (talk) 20:57, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Not commenting about the rest of the situation, but I suggested resolving the situation locally if possible for two reasons: 1) Unfortunately, as you can see from the two-year-old RFCs at m:RFC, Meta really tends to drop the ball at resolving other wiki's disputes. And 2) while stewards are always available to provide informal advice, we are not a global Arbitration Committee, and it is difficult for us to take actions unilaterally. (See m:Stewards). --Rschen7754 17:30, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: As I have already tried to explain to them, I am more than willing to negotiate a compromise solution, based on rational reasoning, but this does not mean that everyone can do things their preferred way. That can never work on a Wikimedia site. Some contributors here have been quietly inventing completely pointless and/or hugely complex new templates and applying them to hundreds or even thousands of main taxon pages (e.g. Moty, and NADI). These contibutors are among the most vocal against me. Nobody has tried to negotiate with me, they have just gone straight into "attack mode". Besides, the current situation makes no sense at all. It started with a request for a review of my admin status. I resigned, so they effectively got what they wanted. So, what's the problem now???? For some very strange reason we have newbie crat User:Dan Koehl saying that "this is far from over" and trying to undermine the integrity/impartiality of his fellow crat User:OhanaUnited. It is looking rather like a "lynch mob" who will not be satisfied until they can drag my carcass through the streets of "Wikiville". Surely, this sort of behaviour cannot be proper?? Stho002 (talk) 20:19, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Given that it's very unlikely to resolve this dispute through meta's RfC in an expedited manner, I'm going to take a break for a week (or more) and see if things improve here. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 22:23, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Integrity of crats

@Rschen7754:Copied from the talk page of User:OhanaUnited:

[Quote] OhanaUnited, I suggest that we officially declare that we are not in conflict, and furthermore cooperate as bureaucrats, which is our responsibility to do. And when a contributor abuses the project again, as described above, and breaking the policy rules again, this demands our attention and reaction. I have already written a warning on the users page, asking him to accept and follow the policy rules for Wikispecies. I have also informed him, that in case he doesn't follow the community rules, he may get blocked. I now ask you for the cooperation as bureaucrat, to do the same, so that we act together, and show the community, that we as bureaucrats don't accept anyone repeatedly breaking the policy rules. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:59, 9 November 2014 (UTC) [Unquote]

I consider this to be highly unethical on the part of User:Dan Koehl. He is asking User:OhanaUnited to sacrifice their integrity/fairness/objectivity for the sake of solidarity! It is particularly hard to make sense of given that User:OhanaUnited certainly doesn't accept anyone repeatedly breaking the policy rules, and never has done. User:Dan Koehl also admits to putting an official warning on my user's page as a preemptive move to "encourage me" to follow the policy rules! This is an improper use of formal warnings, and therefore an abuse of his powers. My argument is simple. Either (1) I have repeatedly broken policy rules, in which case a measured penalty is already justified, or (2) I haven't, and therefore no penalty is justified. Somehow, User:Dan Koehl seems to be attempting to rewrite policy post hoc in order to make me somehow retrospectively guilty of repeatedly having broken policy rules! This would also seem to be highly improper on his part. Stho002 (talk) 01:13, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

PS: Note the covert slide in the quote above from "when a contributor abuses the project again" to "I have already written a warning on the users page, asking him" ! Stho002 (talk) 01:19, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

My only reply is, maybe the Wikispecies community rather wants to be ruled by you, rather then our own policy rules, who knows? But thats still upto the community to decide, not you, until Wikispecies users have chosen you as leader of the project, and chosen your rules. Until then, I will never excuse myself because I tried to make you follow the rules. Any normal person accept rules on Internet. Only a Troll will not accept rules. Please read more about Internet Trolls.

After being asked on my talk page, by another admin to contribute to a period of quiet reflection, while everyone calms down a bit, I will do so. If you read any accusations against my person, and you dont see me defending myself, or going in debate, during the next days, its not because I accept those accusations as valid, but its because I, like OhanaUnited, is going to be silent and step back for some time, unless a request by the community ask me to act differently.

Dan Koehl (talk) 03:03, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: Nicely skirted around the comments I made above! What you wrote wasn't really a reply, just another rant. How many times must I state that I am not trying to force anybody to accept "my rules". That is entirely a fiction born of misunderstanding. Anybody can edit any page however they wish, with any format and any content. What they can't do is to then protect that page from improvement by me or anyone else (i.e., By saving changes, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL.) The protection that I speak of is not overtly by way of administrative protection, but covertly by way of spitting the dummy, crying foul, and twisting things to make me look like some kind of dictator/villain. You do not appear to be trying to improve the situation in a positive/cooperative manner. Rather you think that the problem is solved by getting rid of me. That one act would be the biggest single blow to the productivity of this project in it's entire history, but you don't care, you just want blood, you don't want to work any problems out rationally as far as I can see. Stho002 (talk) 03:15, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

>unless a request by the community ask me to act differently< As a member of this community, I ask you to address and reply to the issues that I raised at the beginning of this section. Thanks, Stho002 (talk) 03:18, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

---

@Rschen7754: I would like to point out some bottom-line facts to you:

1. Our best contributors have left, or are considering of leaving this site in consequence of Stho002's harassment.
2. I myself (I'm an admin here) abandoned this site 3 times during the last couple of years due to constant harassment by Stho002. This harassment included unjustified and unexplained deletes and reverts of my edits, sometimes seconds after I posted them, without even giving me the chance to complete them. Work on which I invested hours upon hours was deleted without warning, without explaining, just like that.
3. Stho002 devises his "rules" single-handedly without consulting other members, and then proceeds to enforce them upon the entire community.
4. He does't respect the majority votes.
5. Stho002 benefited the all-encompassing protective umbrella of the only active bureaucrat - OhanaUnited for the last couple of years because he is "the most prolific contributor".
6. Stho002's own-devised system of templates and links isn't backed anywhere by help files and is very difficult for newcomers, so they are being chased away by his unreasonable demands.
7. The language and rhetoric Stho002 uses (as you can see above) deters and humiliates anyone who's having to deal with him.
8. This site has effectively become a dictatorship of one person. I personally feel as if I'm entering a battlefield whenever I edit here, always on the defensive, always being under attack. I'm really sick and tired of constantly having to argue and fight and not being able to edit peacefully.
9. The combination of a rough contributor with a supportive bureaucrat proved to be a destructive combination for WS, which you may have the power to entangle.

Thanks for sparing your time to help us, Mariusm (talk) 06:00, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

The above is mere conspiracy theory mixed with paranoid delusions. It also shows fundamental misunderstandings on his part, e.g. he says "He does't respect the majority votes", but, as you know, consensus is not a ballot. He says "Our best contributors have left, or are considering of leaving this site", but that is POV and unverifiable. There are several excellent contributors here who have not left, nor, to my knowledge are considering leaving, like, for example MKOliver, ACassidy, Nerferkhepere, etc. He says "without even giving me the chance to complete them", but is it my fault if he is slow? He says "Work on which I invested hours upon hours was deleted without warning, without explaining, just like that", but that cannot happen on a Wikimedia site, as you know. What he really means is that his work was subsequently modified in a manner that he doesn't like. He says "This site has effectively become a dictatorship of one person", but I am not dictating what anyone should do. Once they click "save", they agree to "By saving changes, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL...", which means that their work does not belong to them, but can be reused and/or modified by others. There is nothing to suggest that User:OhanaUnited's behaviour has been anything short of exemplary. User:Mariusm illustrates just the sort of difficult individual that I have had to try to deal with. Stho002 (talk) 06:13, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

It is generally best to try and discuss the matter first. However, if the community feels that it is necessary, it can have a formal discussion for the removal of any user right, or a formal discussion for a ban of a user. --Rschen7754 14:46, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: you must realize that the above issues are not new. They are lingering for years, and are casting a serious shadow over WS. They were already discussed endlessly to no avail. The difficulty arises as a result of a conflict we have: Stho002 is a prolific contributor who spends many hours every day editing here and we want to preserve this; on the other hand he keeps disrupting the community, acting roughly and disrespectfully, and abusing his admin rights. My personal feeling is to try and avoid drastic measures, yet to issue a stiff warning to Stho002 to improve his conduct. We are also in need of a more balanced and objective bureaucrat, so I think you should have a discussion with OhanaUnited to try and convince him to be more measured and more responsive to the community's needs. If these measures are exercised by you, they'll have a stronger effect on the parties than the community can possibly achieve by itself. I must add that I'm not representing the community, so other views are very welcome. Thank you again, Mariusm (talk) 15:33, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: Again I must object to the outrageous and unsubstantiated accusations of wrongdoing from User:Mariusm, aimed both at our only impartial/objective crat (User:OhanaUnited), and at myself! As you know, I unblocked User:Eurodyne, expressly against the wishes of User:OhanaUnited, and yet User:OhanaUnited still subsequently tried to maintain impartiality/objectivity in the current dispute. You will not ever find a better crat than User:OhanaUnited. Of course it suits my present purposes to say that, but then it suits User:Mariusm and his cronies to say otherwise, and without a shred of evidence! Therefore, it is clear that the actions of User:OhanaUnited have no relevance or bearing on the present dispute. They are simply trying to discredit and undermine anyone who does not unconditionally support them against me! Stho002 (talk) 20:05, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

It also makes no sense for User:Mariusm to keep mentioning my alleged "abusing his admin rights", when that alleged problem is now definitively solved, i.e., I am not an admin, ergo I cannot abuse admin rights! Stho002 (talk) 20:07, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Finally, I appear to be the only one in this dispute who is actually prepared to negotiate a compromise solution. I bear no grudges (unlike some), and can put this dispute behind me at any moment and work with any or all of the disputants to try to improve/resolve the situation. Stho002 (talk) 20:10, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, here's one thing I feel the need to comment on: bureaucrats do not have any formal standing in the community and do not have authority to make unilateral decisions. Their opinion does not count in a discussion more than any other editor's. Their only role is to add and remove user rights based on community consensus. If the community loses trust in a bureaucrat, the community can have the bureaucrat's rights removed at any time. --Rschen7754 04:07, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: Please point to a policy justification for that! It seems that you have a strange agenda of your own, not directly related to me! Stho002 (talk) 04:14, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

That is how all Wikimedia sites work. And my agenda is promoting collaboration and cooperation on Wikimedia. --Rschen7754 04:40, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: No, that's not good enough - prove it by citing policy. Where does it specify that a crat can be demoted by a vote of no confidence, without independent evaluation of reasons? And my agenda is the same as your (stated) agenda. Stho002 (talk) 04:48, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

I cite the dozens of crats that stewards have desysopped already after communities have requested that we do so. --Rschen7754 05:33, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: You are making this up, where is the list? Talk is cheap. Prove it Stho002 (talk) 05:41, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Seems like I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. If I do something, someone will view me as "involved". If I don't do something, then I'm viewed as "not responsive". Someone appeared to have forgotten that out of 9 bureaucrats, 5 of them made 0 edits in 2014 and 2 more didn't edit past April 2014. I can't believe I'm on the firing line for "not responsive". Clearly the truce that User:Accassidy proposed lasted just a day (or less). Perhaps it's time for me to retire. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:27, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Clearly we have a "wolf pack" here, who will claim to have "lost trust" in any crat who does not unconditionally support them, hypocritically accusing said crat of unconditionally supporting the opposing side in the dispute! This is bollocks! Fight them Andrew, don't give up! You are right, they are wrong. Stho002 (talk) 04:38, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

The irony of the present situation is that it is entirely unclear what Koehl, Mariusm, Xaver, Andyboorman etc. actually want! Haven't they already got what they wanted when I resigned as admin? Where is the problem now? We appear to be dealing with irrational thugs, who just keep lunging at us with knives like the walking dead! There is nothing rational here whatsoever as far as I can tell. Stho002 (talk) 04:45, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

I tried to uphold a truce, Andrew, but the outrageous and unsubstantiated accusations spewing from Mariusm were more than I could take Stho002 (talk) 05:12, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

---

@Rschen7754: as you can see, there is no point in arguing with Stho002. With this kind of rhetoric mingled with accusations, you have no chance of winning an argument even if you're definitively right. The whole community is suffering from a single rough individual, who happens to be also a prolific contributor. This strange combination was't envisioned, I suppose when the Wiki rules were set out: you either have a rough user whose edits are worthless, or a good contributor who acts in colaboration with the community. But what do you do when you have a combination of these two specimens. How do you deal with such a situation? That's why we need your help. Recently, when Stho002 has been escalating his behavior, the scales went tipping definitively to one side, namely that he causes more damage then he's benefiting WS. So unless you can convince him to stop harassing and bullying, this community is doomed, and I can't see any serious member remaining here in this kind of atmosphere. As to OhanaUnited, he can't play both ways: if he's present and active, then he must be impartial and helpful to the entire community, and not biased towards a single individual. Mariusm (talk) 05:51, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: User:OhanaUnited is impartial, which is why he isn't unconditionally on their side in this dispute. Mariusm is effectively saying that OhanaUnited should be biased towards the majority view, be it right or wrong! Mariusm seems to "think" that the majority viewpoint is by definition the correct viewpoint! A bit like Nixon saying that it isn't illegal if the president does it! It is incorrect and at very least POV for Mariusm to state that I now cause more damage than benefit to WS. How many constructive edits has he made over the last few days?? As I have stated several times now, I am perfectly willing to cooperate and compromise with anyone here (but that does not mean giving in to all their demands). Anyway, User:Mariusm, you are missing the point that User:Rschen7754 has his own knives out for User:OhanaUnited. Why do you think he has been dropping you all these "hints", or maybe you just didn't understand ... Stho002 (talk) 06:03, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm done here. I can't stand all the hypocrisy and wilfully turning a blind eye to the truth because two editors are in the same camp and has a common enemy. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 01:31, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

"Democracy/consensus will bring the extinction of mankind..." Stho002 (talk) 01:59, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Any crat could be removed by a vote, not just OhanaUnited as you seem to assume. --Rschen7754 03:31, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: Are you talking to me? Why would you think I assumed that?? You persist in making unsupported statements. Stho002 (talk) 03:51, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

A big thank you to User:OhanaUnited, on behalf of WS, for years of service

I was kind of hoping someone else would do this (since I am supposed to be biased), but, on behalf of WS, I would like to thank User:OhanaUnited for his years of service to this project, especially because he has been far and away the most active single bureaucrat over that time. I'm not sure where the others were when he needed them. It doesn't matter if he made some mistakes or not, he made the effort, weighed up the pros and cons of every issue, and did what he thought was right every time. His departure is a big blow to WS, and is unfortunately a self-inflicted big blow to WS. Think on it ... Stho002 (talk) 02:59, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I think a bit more needs to be said, actually: IMHO, this community has let User:OhanaUnited down badly, by turning against him when they couldn't get their own way (or, in the case of others here, by doing or even saying absolutely nothing about it: guilty by omission). In some ways, I may have let him down as well, but he was trying to build this project up into something worthwhile, and I did at least contribute over 500K edits to that end. Truth is, Andrew's understanding of WS, as expressed on his user page now as [quote]but particularly Wikispecies because it's written by scientists for other scientists[unquote], is unfortunately rather far from the reality, though it is in some sense "nice" that he thought that, and it was something that we could aspire towards. Having said that, science is itself riddled with petty power struggles and interpersonal conflicts. Ironically, this is probably the only thing that WS does have in common with the scientific community. I don't know to what extent Andrew is upset about all this personally, but I hope he isn't, because this online community stuff really isn't important at the end of the day, so I wouldn't like to see anyone investing too much of their person into it. I do it simply because I like acquiring and organising knowledge, but it wouldn't worry me if the plug was pulled, I have fingers in several other pies. Stho002 (talk) 03:48, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

If I'm forced to dodge bullets and sidestep snares all day long, the crat faces the risk of a bullet or two shot at his direction too. Mariusm (talk) 05:30, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

@Mariusm: So are you suggesting that I deserve to have a few shots aimed at my direction? You were hurt so you decided to inflict hurt onto others? Even though I'm a bureaucrat, I'm a volunteer too. I'm not paid to participate in this project and I don't deserve to be abused by anyone in the community either. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 07:30, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited: I'm sorry that my intentions were misunderstood. In the past years I had to abandon several times editing here at WS due to repeated harassment, yet you consistently ignored Stho's abuses, and didn't supplied me with the protection I needed. Yes, you don't owe me nothing, but you did comment in those mentioned occasions always reproaching me, the victim, never uttering a single word to restrain Stho; by this causing his behavior to escalate. All I expect from you is to be objective, but you failed to be impartial and consistently sided silently or otherwise with Stho. This made Stho what he became today: an aggressive user who continues until this very moment to follow at my heels like a shadow targeting and defacing almost every edit I make. I apologize if you were hurt by my comment, and I readily retract it. It was written in the heat of the moment, and does't really reflect my feelings towards you. I will be glad to see you here again, contributing your expertise to WS. Mariusm (talk) 08:26, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Global AbuseFilter

Hello,

AbuseFilter is a MediaWiki extension used to detect likely abusive behavior patterns, like pattern vandalism and spam. In 2013, Global AbuseFilters were enabled on a limited set of wikis including Meta-Wiki, MediaWiki.org, Wikispecies and (in early 2014) all the "small wikis". Recently, global abuse filters were enabled on "medium sized wikis" as well. These filters are currently managed by stewards on Meta-Wiki and have shown to be very effective in preventing mass spam attacks across Wikimedia projects. However, there is currently no policy on how the global AbuseFilters will be managed although there are proposals. There is an ongoing request for comment on policy governing the use of the global AbuseFilters. In the meantime, specific wikis can opt out of using the global AbuseFilter. These wikis can simply add a request to this list on Meta-Wiki. More details can be found on this page at Meta-Wiki. If you have any questions, feel free to ask on m:Talk:Global AbuseFilter.

Thanks,

PiRSquared17, Glaisher

— 17:34, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Back to normal

I think, as the bad weather has calmed down, we should consider all affairs as settled, and return to business as usual. I hope that everyone would be more composed and considerate in the future.

I wish to express special thanks to:

• Dan Koehl who handled the situation firmly and responsibly.
• Rschen7754 who didn't resort to drastic measures, but let the dispute cool down by his thoughtful remarks, and non-intrusive conduct.
• Stho002 who realized the best way to settle disagreements is by cooperation.
• ‎Accassidy who worked relentlessly to resolve the disputes.

Congratulations to Andyboorman‎ for his admin nomination. I'm sure he'll act responsibly for the benefit of WS.

I hope no bad blood will linger among us. Mariusm (talk) 05:51, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

User Creation Log

I notice from User creation log that very large numbers of User accounts are being "created automatically" on this Wiki. This seems a bit odd. Can anyone who understands this system explain to me how this automatic creation works, and how it helps us? Accassidy (talk) 15:28, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

This has got to be very suspicious! There are thousands of them, if this carries on it could flood the servers surely. I cannot help with the technical details, but I suggest an urgent report to stewards is in order. Andyboorman (talk) 16:24, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

@PiRSquared17: I wonder if you can shed any light on this situation. Thanks. Accassidy (talk) 16:53, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

I looked at other Wikis e.g. Wikivoyage & Wikisource, and they too have these lists. (see [23] [24]). I think there's a bot which automatically updates all wiki users on all the wikies, so every user is globally recognized everywhere. Mariusm (talk) 05:27, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

@Accassidy: Sorry for the delay, must've missed this. This is indeed a result of SUL/CentralAuth (as Tommy Kronkvist mentioned below). It's nothing to worry about. If you visit a wiki you've never visited before, it will be logged the same way there. (Try it: example) PiRSquared17 (talk) 01:39, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

@PiRSquared17: OK, thanks. Accassidy (talk) 08:16, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Log out, please, from Wikispecies. Then a "Log out page" tells you that "You are now logged out" ..... from Wikipedia and 14 other Wikimedia wikis. If you log in, without information you will be logged in to all those again. Kempf EK (talk) 20:19, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I believe this is a result of the unified login ("SUL") system used by Wikimedia's servers, hence perfectly normal and in most cases beneficial. For more information please see Meta-Wiki: Unified login.
–Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 23:20, 17 November 2014 (UTC).

It is. --Rschen7754 04:50, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

I have to sort of wonder about this, though. About 1500 Wikitime yesterday, I checked out new user page and estimated over 2000 new users for that part of just yesterday. Is Wiki Empire getting that big? Also, not one user was in blue highlight. All red. ???? Neferkheperre (talk) 22:54, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Most new users sign up in different language versions of Wikipedia or Commons, rather than Wikispecies. They might have created a user page on that sister site, but most of them have not created any user page on Wikispecies, nor have they made any other edits to Wikispecies; hence their links are red. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 07:39, 24 November 2014 (UTC).

I originally signed up on English, Russian and German sites, and Wikispecies later. Wikipedia happily took it upon themselves to add Bislami, Nahuatl and some language written in Russian Cyrillic, but not Russian or Ukrainian. Every now and then, it adds another project. Neferkheperre (talk) 22:54, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Abusive behaviour from User:Mariusm

@Accassidy:@Dan Koehl: Copied from my talk page:

Warning: Edit conflicts

WARNING!!!, you are again working simultaneously on my edits. I consider this as vandalism, which can result in punitive measures under the wiki rules. Mariusm (talk) 05:48, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea what he is talking about! I did not touch "his edits". Compare: Special:Contributions/Mariusm with Special:Contributions/Stho002. I edited only pages that I had created and which he has never edited! This is getting silly. What is Mariusm thinking???? What is he talking about???? Why is he threatening me for something I didn't do???? Stho002 (talk) 06:06, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

---

@Stho002: you know very well what I mean: You were editing the template I was using at the very moment, namely Zt3881.1.6. I edited my page (Limnonectes utara) at 05:25 and you edited the template which this page was using also at 05:25. You use this practice routinely despite my many requests to stop it, whereby disrupting my editing and causing editing conflicts. This behavior is considered as harassment. Mariusm (talk) 06:30, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps there is a simpler explanation, Mariusm. Yes, I edited that template at that time, but I created that template, and you have never edited it. If you understood the wiki, you would know that it is not an edit conflict as these are independent pages! The reason I edited it was that I saw from recent changes that you were editing Limnonectes utara, and this reminded me that I hadn't completed everything on the template page for the reference of that species. I had every right to finish what I started, particularly in view of the fact that it does not affect your editing of the Limnonectes utara page. You do not have any right to put abusive threatening messages on my user page. Please desist, or I will take it all the way to WMF if you persist. Thanks ... Stho002 (talk) 06:37, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

This tone you're using of shouting and of baseless accusations is symptomatic to your disrupting way of conducting a dialogue and of communicating and interacting with other users. I remind you that you were removed from adminship due to repeated violations and abuses. You persist in maintaining this conduct as demonstrated above. Mariusm (talk) 06:54, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Mariusm, you might like to look up the word 'hypocrisy' in the dictionary - you will find it under the letter 'H'. I was not "removed from adminship" at all! I resigned. I was not "shouting", I was highlighting. So, please do tell us, Mariusm, what "baseless allegations"??? On the other hand, you alleged that I was "working simultaneously on my[your] edits", which I was not. Stho002 (talk) 19:55, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

@Stho002: No demagogy will mask the fact that you're following me like a shadow, targeting almost every edit I make. The vocal approach you use above only proves my point and showcases your bad conduct. Mariusm (talk) 08:34, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Policy on citing papers with multiple authors

There has been discussion, and potential misunderstanding, in some contributions recently over the best method for citing and referencing papers which have multiple authors. Opinions have ranged from always using all authors names in all situations, to using just the first author followed by et al [Latin = "and others"] once a list gets above a certain number of authors. It would be good to gain consensus on a policy which can stand as a target for consistent WikiSpecies pages. Initially, I propose the following convention:

• In Reference Templates we always list all authors of a document as they are listed in the paper itself.
• In the "Name" and "Synonym" sections of taxon pages, we cite just the first of 3 or more authors followed by "et al".

This ensures that all authors can be see on the page under references, but that names and synonymies do not get over-complicated. Here are some examples:

Name
Genus species Eliot & Kawazoé, 1983.
Genus species Barlow et al, 1971.
Genus species Rawlins et al, 2014.
References

• Barlow, H. S., Banks, H.J. and Holloway, J.D., 1971. A collection of Rhopalocera (Lepidoptera) from Mt. Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. Oriental Insects 5: 269–296, 1 map. Reference page. 
• Eliot, J. N. & Kawazoé, A. 1983. Blue butterflies of the Lycaenopsis group. British Museum (Natural History), London. ISBN 0-565-00860-9. Reference page. 
• Rawlins, A., Cassidy, A., Müller, C., Schröder, S. & Tennent, W. J. 2014. An Illustrated and annotated checklist of Jamides Hübner, 1819, taxa occurring in the Indonesian Provinces of North Maluku and Maluku (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae). Nachrichten des Entomologischen Vereins Apollo N.F. 35(1/2): 5-39. web Reference page. 

Please say what you think below. For example, you may think it better to use et al only for 4 authors and above. Accassidy (talk) 23:12, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

So it seems that a change at 3 authors is too early and six is too many. So we should change at 4 or 5. This could be treated variably, on a case by case basis. The point on which we seem to agree is that all names up to 6, should be included in the Reference or Reference Template. These author names in the reference can also link to the author pages, perhaps taking the load of the author list in the Name section. Again, please comment below, but please confine yourself to giving your views on the problem, not your views on other contributions. Accassidy (talk) 16:35, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Agree

• Where ever it is possible and effective we should follow the author list on the original paper. It is just common courtesy and also accepted practice. I can understand in those instances there are maybe just too many authors, however, this is rare. Agree full abbreviated citations for Name and Synonyms, but please not just nomen. However, if there is no agreed policy then editors should respect the page or template creators intent and preferred format. Andyboorman (talk) 08:46, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

For "follow", you mean "copy", i.e. unnecessarily duplicate information which is already linked to. What a waste of time! Stho002 (talk) 21:06, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

• I would like that all the authors would be mentioned also in the name section - not only the three first ones. Firstly it isn't a standard format and isn't used anywhere. Secondly I would like to be able to link to every author's page. I hope that Stho will comply with our vote, and allow me to modify the templates he created to this effect. Mariusm (talk) 08:16, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

I do not understand why Mariusm has put his comment under "Agree", when he is clearly disagreeing (and making a counter-proposal)? But no matter. I would ask that this issue be decided by evaluation of reasons, preferably detached from who has pointed out those reasons, as otherwise the issue becomes tainted by interpersonal conflicts, and WS will be the loser if a bad decision is made. Looking at the reasons offered by Mariusm, the first one makes no sense to me. Surely we need to find a format that is tailored to our needs here at WS, regardless of whether it is used elsewhere or not? Furthermore, the et al. format is standard and is used elsewhere. The second reason is misconceived because Mariusm still can link to every author's page, using [[Category:Publications of AUTHOR]]. This has the advantage of letting us link to selected author's pages only, in cases where there are a truly ridiculous number of authors for a single paper. Also, we do not have pages for all authors, only those who are taxon authorities. Finally, having long lists of authors adds unnecessarily to complexity, and detracts what what is really important. Mariusm refers to a "vote", but consensus (as defined at Meta) is not a ballot, but is based on the evaluation of reasons. The reasons that I have offered are not just my opinion. You can forget that I am the person offering the reasons and just focus on evaluation of the reasons themselves. Stho002 (talk) 00:34, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Stho exaggerates here as to the difficulty of listing and as to the usual number of authors (when this number exceeds three). I can assure Stho that in 95% of the cases this number doesn't exceed five. We can make a provision that when the author-number is over six then "et al" can be used. What Stho effectively says above is: "I won't comply with your decision no matter what. " Mariusm (talk) 05:20, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I will comply fully with any consensus which has been conducted properly (i.e. with input from enough of the community to be representative of what the overall community actually thinks, and which evaluates reasons rather than mere grunts of disapproval, and keeps personal issues out of it). It seems to me that Mariusm is the one who refuses to comply, no matter what Stho002 (talk) 20:26, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Also, I take very seriously our responsibility to present clear and concise information to users. The site is not just for the entertainment/amusement of editors. What Marium wants is simply for his own gratification, and has no wider benefit to anyone else Stho002 (talk) 20:31, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

• The most ridiculous author list I have found is 15 page article with 21 authors. My observations are that references with more than 4 authors tend to be inter-disciplinary in nature, and 1-2, not necessarily primary authors, do any nomenclatural and taxonomic acts. For our purposes, where any such is indicated, would be X IN Blah-Blah et al., 19-- in Name section. For associated template, if link is provided, for 6 or more authors, make note in template "See for full author list". Up to 5 or 6 authors, I see no problem with listing all authors in the template. I have, in one case with more than six authors, used et al., then listed all authors in noinclude portion of that template. That could solve problems for authors from #5 onwards. Neferkheperre (talk) 20:32, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

@Neferkheperre: Actually, we now have a far more elegant and powerful alternative to X IN Blah-Blah et al., YYYY. It is [[Template:Blah-Blah et al., YYYY|X, YYYY]]. What this does is link directly to the reference template and the link only displays the nomenclaturally relevant author. Stho002 (talk)

What we really want to avoid is bibliographic nonsense like on this GBIF page (scroll down a bit). Stho002 (talk) 21:15, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Disagree (and make counter-proposal)

• We cannot always list all authors in reference templates, as there are occasionally a ridiculous number of authors for a single paper (I have seen up to 100 or more!) I have extensively (thousands of templates) used the convention that if there are more than 3 authors, then I cite only the first author et al. Stho002 (talk) 23:16, 20 November 2014 (UTC) PS: I agree with the second part of your proposal. The main consideration should be that if we can link a reference to an external citation, that will have all the authors listed, so it would be a complete waste of time and effort to copy it all Stho002 (talk) 23:19, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
  
• I would prefer all authors to be used on the Name and Synonym sections, but the abbreviated form of the name is acceptable. I also try not to just use Author(s) Date preferring the scientific name, as it is more authoritative - please see International Index of Plant Names. Andyboorman (talk) 20:25, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

This misses the important point that we can hyperlink author/date directly to the relevant publication (and often to the exact page in that publication). Technology has moved on, but Andyboorman has not ... Stho002 (talk) 20:28, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

---

It is sad that most WS users either don't care or don't visit the PUMP. We would never accumulate more then 4-5 users participating in such votes as this one. This makes WS more chaotic and more vulnerable to the whims of an aggressive user. I'll try anyway to include all the authors in my edits, and will regard the deletion of them as a reduction of content, and therefore as a vandalism. @Stho002: I expect you to refrain from starting a war over this and not to delete authors from my edits. Mariusm (talk) 15:11, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

So, you are going to disregard the above discussion/reasons, and do what you want anyway? And you are going to redefine "vandalism" to suit your own agenda! Stho002 (talk) 19:52, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

@Stho002: as you can see above, the majority is on my side. What I was referring to was that due to low user participation, no conclusive result can be attained. And another important thing: try to be less quarrelsome and argumentative and be more collaborative and accommodating. I'm sure this will benefit your cause more than your current attitude. Mariusm (talk) 05:17, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

@Stho002: I have to echo Mariusm above. In this conversation, the only person who is even marginally on your side is Andyboorman and then you write something like, "Technology has moved on, but Andyboorman has not". Why? Why do you have to be so rude? It's not clever and it makes others dislike interacting with you. Do you even care if statements like this bother or hurt someone else? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:20, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor coming to this wiki as a Beta Feature

Hello. Please excuse the English. I would be grateful if you translated this message!

VisualEditor, a rich-text editor for MediaWiki, will soon be available on this wiki as a Beta Feature. The estimated date of activation is Wednesday, 26 November.

To access it, you will need to visit the Beta features page after the deployment and tick the box next to "⧼Visualeditor-preference-core-label⧽". (If you have enabled the "Automatically enable most beta features" option, VisualEditor will be automatically available for you.) There will also be a "⧼Visualeditor-preference-language-label⧽" that you can enable if you need it.

Then, you just have to click on "Edit" to start VisualEditor, or on "Edit source" to edit using wikitext markup. You can even begin to edit pages with VisualEditor and then switch to the wikitext editor simply by clicking on its tab at any point, and you can keep your changes when doing so.

A guide was just published at mediawiki.org so that you can learn how to support your community with this transition: please read and translate it if you can! You will find all the information about the next steps there. Please report any suggestions or issues at the main feedback page. You will also receive the next issues of the multilingual monthly newsletter here on this page: if you want it delivered elsewhere, for example at your personal talk page, please add the relevant page here.

Thanks for your attention and happy editing, Elitre (WMF) 18:12, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor coming to this wiki as a Beta Feature (errata)

Please notice the correct direct link to access Beta features is this one. Thanks for your understanding! Elitre (WMF) 18:35, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Stho002 taxes my patience

Stho002 is again at my heels, changing and marring everything I edit, just moments after I post my data. I feel as if I'm driving at 70 mph and Stho002 is following me only one yard behind, honking his horn.

Today, at 06:01 I was editing the genus Tropimenelytron‎, and was assembling a few species to add to it.

At 06:11 up until 06:52 (for 40 minutes!!!) he joined me and started editing the same genus and the same species I was engaged in. By this he disoriented me completely, set me off my track and made me finally abandon my edits.

I ask the community: can you tolerate such a conduct? Can't Stho002 find another genus among the millions available that he had to pick the very same one I was editing in the very same moment? Can his reasons be other then to harass and angry me? This is not something new - it is occurring repeatedly for about 6 months now. Throughout this period he didn't let me edit peacefully, even for a single day. I asked him time and again to stop his outrageous behavior and to let me breath quietly for a little while - to no avail. Hence I ask this community to try and persuade Stho002 to release his strangling grip on me and to stop bullying me. Mariusm (talk) 15:39, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Please note that I created the page Tropimenelytron‎, and it was on my watch list. Mariusm was given an opportunity by Dan Koehl to use some sort of "editing in progress" template for a 2 hour window, but declined. Perhaps Mariusm is taxing all our patience with his constant bleating about nothing? Stho002 (talk) 19:53, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Sthoner have the same grip on me. Alan Accassidy advice me how to make author templates and other things, but Sthoner change it every time (not the same way contribution by Alan). If I change it back he block me. He change it how he like it, but that is not an official way. See Acronicta PeterR (talk) 16:04, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Somehow (I have no idea how), PeterR is creating reference templates which do not link correctly. They require fixing Stho002 (talk) 19:55, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Also, regarding PeterR, please see User_talk:Accassidy#Double_pages ... Stho002 (talk) 20:20, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

See advice Alan Accassidy Template:Hacker,Gyulai, 2013 should work ok Andyboorman (talk) 20:36, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Um??? Stho002 (talk) 20:28, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Proves my point! Click on any page that uses this template, then click on "reference page" after the citation and it doesn't link back to the template page! PeterR is somehow doing this with almost all the ref. templates he creates! Stho002 (talk) 20:40, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Fixed it. A missing comma. I think the template was one of Alan's not PeterR's looking at the edit history. Andyboorman (talk) 20:50, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but PeterR has somehow been propagating the problem to all his templates! Stho002 (talk) 20:52, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

A copy/paste phenomenon? A kind word pointing out the problem may help and also set him off correcting his own templates. Just a thought. Andyboorman (talk) 20:59, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

@Andyboorman: I resent the condescending implication that I wouldn't have thought of that. PeterR barely understands English. It is virtually impossible to communicate anything bar the most simple concepts to him. He should not be copy/pasting to create templates. He should be using {{subst:reftemp}}. Better still, he should refrain from creating templates, and leave it to others to do it for him. Stho002 (talk) 21:17, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

I have found the mistake and I shall fix it by all my templates. It was a missing comma. I'm not a programmer so I need advice from others like Alan Accassidy. He makes an example so I can copy this example. PeterR (talk) 09:50, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

On 11-11-2004 I wrote to Alan Accassidy:

I have made the Template:Lvovsky, 1985. But something is wrong. Please can you look to this template and tell me what I did wrong or forget? PeterR (talk) 20:04, 11 November 2014 (UTC) The answer from sthoner was:

Nothing appears to be wrong. Stho002 (talk) 20:11, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Now he blame me to do something wrong?

I have no answers on my questions of the changes from Sthoner.

Are these official?

• 1. nomenclature [Expand]
• 2. synonyms [Expand]
• 3. Template:ZT3887.3.3. No links to author(s).
• 4. authors under name
• 5. Is it obligatory to add an ISNN number in the authortemplate?

See Stigmella purpurimaculae

┌─────────────────────────┘ @Stho002: User:PeterR's English could certainly improve but he can understand these messages just fine: if you tell him to insert a comma, he can probably figure out what you mean. Frankly, the only condescension I saw here was from you. This is a multi-lingual site and it's not required that anyone know English to contribute. Similarly, it's not required that anyone's edits are flawless: if there's a problem, anyone can fix it. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:36, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

@Koavf: >if there's a problem, anyone can fix it< Really, well that appears to be the whole moot point behind all of this endless argument. As far as I am concerned, anybody (i.e. including me) can "fix" or otherwise add content to any page at any time. Please tell that to Mariusm! Stho002 (talk) 06:03, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

@Stho002: please treat PeterR with more respect because he's a valued and appreciated editor here. Mariusm (talk) 05:49, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Just saying it as it is ... Stho002 (talk) 06:03, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

<quote>Mariusm was given an opportunity by Dan Koehl to use some sort of "editing in progress" template for a 2 hour window, but declined. <unquote> This is simply not true. I asked Stho002 time and again to let me have a 2 hours window to complete my edits in peace, which he consented to follow after an arduous persuasion, but which ultimately he refuses to fulfill. He just pays a lip service to the "rules" while wreaking havoc with many editors' work. He also elbows his way through the discussions by demagogy, so that everyone is intimidated to deal with him and ultimately he's given a free hand to pursue his bad demeanor. Mariusm (talk) 05:45, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, who are you describing Mariusm? Me or you? Stho002 (talk) 06:04, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Use of the Village pump

The Village pump has lately become a forum for major disputes between users here. Although there's a need to discuss, I feel that the organizing such issues like they are in english wikipedia, please see en:Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment could be a better option? Presently, the Village pump is not a very positive marketing of Wikispecies, and I have read that some users doesn't read Village pump anymore, because of the conflicts. Opinions? Dan Koehl (talk) 07:33, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

As I see the situation, the PUMP readership amounts to no more than 10 persons, out of which about 6-7 bother to comment or to participate in the discussions and votes. If we parcel the discussions into specialized topics, the readership will fall accordingly to 1 or 2 max. The reason I see for the PUMP's low impact is that none of the votes/discussions bore fruit due to lack of majority-opinion enforcement. Every recent vote amounted finally to nothing. We should firstly devise a technique by which we can enforce the vote-results on everyone and not let aggressive users set the rules or the agenda. Any community without an effective system of reward and punishment is doomed for failure and this is what we see right here. The present level of argumentation is only a symptom of abused users who can't find another outlet for their frustration. Mariusm (talk) 08:22, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

>We should firstly devise a technique by which we can enforce the vote-results on everyone< Consensus is not a ballot. It is based on the evaluation of reasons, not preferences. Stho002 (talk) 19:57, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

@Stho002:, actually, I didnt specifically suggest a place to vote etc, more a concept where users can announce different issues, and a way of standardizing such issues. As for now, its the "temperature" and how much a user is upset, that gives less or more impact to a dispute here on Village pump. I believe it would be better for everyone that those issues follow a standardised concept, and that others users can give their input without becoming involved in a conflict. It is my hope that conflicts can be reduced, and and I think that developing structured and standardised routines for this, may be one step in such a direction. Dan Koehl (talk) 23:58, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: Actually, I was replying to Mariusm's comments, which clearly indicate, once again, his misunderstanding of consensus as a mere "vote" to affirm personal preferences. Stho002 (talk) 01:59, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Dan Koehl that the pump has become a poor advert for WS. I have been guilty of responding to personal comments, so I am not entirely blameless! The use of Stho002's {{subst:reftemp}} is an example that has recently come up - I would really like to find out how it is best used in reference templates and what it does. Surely that is what the Village Pump ought to do? The suggestion of re-directing to en:Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment has merit, but how to manage this? Andyboorman (talk) 09:59, 26 November 2014 (UTC). By the way I worked out how to use {{subst:reftemp}} myself. Andyboorman (talk) 19:41, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

If the community supports usage of Requests_for_comment, a page could be created here on Wikispecies. I believe that issues could maybe easier be solved, it would give a better structure when users have a dispute, and I think it could contribute to a better working environment.Dan Koehl (talk) 10:56, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

I would like to endorse Dan's idea above. Andyboorman (talk) 20:54, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Same names

I have problems with authors with the same names. Example Hiroshi Inoue. You have a Bryologist and an Entomologist with this name. The first you find under Inoue and the second I have make the authorname Inoue. Is this good or have someone an other proposal. PeterR (talk) 08:46, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

To be consistent you may want to try Inoue (bry.) and Inoue (ent.). Just a suggestion Andyboorman (talk) 09:45, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Is it possible to make a choice page between Hiroshi Inoue (bryologist) and Hiroshi Inoue (entomologist)? if people push on one of these two they can see how to add the author? PeterR (talk) 12:12, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

I think that some contributors deliberately use disambiguation for this purpose. I cannot really help you with choice pages or if these are possible. Andyboorman (talk) 19:39, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

I added a number to the name:

• Müller, F Fritz Müller 1 (1821–1897) [see Johann Friedrich Theodor Müller]
• Müller, F Fritz Müller (1834-1895) [see Friedrich Müller]

Kempf EK (talk) 14:52, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Author templates

To try and go back to what the Pump should be used for. I have noticed that there are four common templates and/or links used to highlight authors, these being; most commonly [[Author]], the next common being {{aut|Author}}, then {{a|Author}} and finally, and most recently {{auth|Author}}. Could we discuss the best use of these alternatives and whether advice should to be posted on the Templates pages. Thanks Andyboorman (talk) 09:21, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

[[Author]] is Taxon Authority page, where full name, affiliation, biography, and list of publications should go. See Kolosvary or Pilsbry for two I have done which are fairly complete.

{{aut|Author}} simply renders author's name in small caps font Kolosvary, G.. It is possible to link to Taxon Authority page within it formatting as {{aut|[[Kolosvary|Kolosvary, G.]]}}. This reads out as Kolosvary, G..

{{auth|Author}} uses standard author citation to create link to author page, format as {{auth|V.A.|Zullo|r}}. Name is rendered in smallcaps font, and will read as Template:Auth.

I have not used {{a|Author}} template. Somebody else will have to fill in. Neferkheperre (talk) 01:23, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

The template {{a|Author}} works in the exact same way as {{aut|Author}}, except it automatically adds a wiki link to the author name, without the need for brackets.

Example: {{aut|Pilsbry}} renders as Pilsbry, while {{a|Pilsbry}} renders as Pilsbry, with a link.

–Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 11:04, 28 November 2014 (UTC).

It ought to be pointed out that {{a|Author}} and {{auth|Author}} will only link, if in the event that their contents match the title of the author page, or if a redirect has been created. It also seems that a lot of standard name abbreviation redirects have been created for {{a|Author}}, for example Hemsl.. This is useful for Name and Synonym sections. However, as you can see, using {{auth|W.B.|Hemsley|r}}, Template:Auth gives a red link until the redirect is created, as the actual page name is William Botting Hemsley. Andyboorman (talk) 15:27, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

What I do is look to see first if there is an author page and then in this ca

when I started with species.wikipedia we had official templates. Under Help sections you find Reference section. You can see that the official term is {{aut|}}. For me those templates are still apply, because there are no new templates. PeterR (talk) 16:45, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

You can use whichever version you like. It makes no difference to how the page appears. The important thing is to link the author to the author page. Stho002 (talk) 04:52, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

According to Help:Name section#Author templates, it is recommended to use {{A}} (with link) first, and {{Aut}} for subsequent uses. The reference section help only mentions {{Aut}}, however. PiRSquared17 (talk) 18:10, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Offline

Screenshot of Kiwix with the Wikispecies ZIM files on GNU/Linux

Hi. I have released a dump of Wikispecies which allows to read all the articles offline, without Internet. This dump is available in one (ZIM) file which is directly readable on a PC or an Android phone using Kiwix. I plan to release one time a month a new up2date version which will be (and is) available at this URL. There is also a portable version, which means a version already packaged with the Kiwix software (most people with a PC should download this version) and this is available here. I hope this might help to spread your work and also help scientists with a lack of access to Internet]. Regards. Kelson (talk) 20:45, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

@Kelson: Thanks a lot for this! —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:57, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Indeed @Kelson:, thank you for this initiative! Dan Koehl (talk) 00:57, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Classification of Bustard

Please read the history of wikipedia article Bustard and the discussion on my wikipedia talkpage regarding the listings of Bustard, family Otididae where there seem to be a doubt on where they belong presently. According to en:User:Owlphant Bustards belong to order Otidiformes and not to order Gruiformes, and Owlphant argue that In addition the French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch and Swedish wikipedia articles have otidiformes as its own order. Owlphant claim the source as the research article Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds. My opinion is that a bird family should belong to the same identical order throughout the Wikipedia project, regardless of language, and that a change of order must be officially publized by taxonomists. An article that suggest a change on valid grounds, is still not an official decision maker? What is your input in this issue, and similair cases on Wikipedia. Dan Koehl (talk) 09:52, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Bustards (Otididae), and the family Otididae are put in their own order Otidiformes by ITIS.

They are likevise treated as their own order by the International Ornithologists Union/Committee

Dan Koehl (talk) 14:42, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Dan, I am not an ornithologist, but this recent paper appears to me authoritative. You can see that a great number of scientists have put their name to it. I agree that various Wiki projects carry more influence if they agree with each other. You would seem to be justified in creating a new page Otidiformes under Neognathae and then placing Otididae subordinate to it. Perhaps some other avian editors will also agree with this suggestion. Accassidy (talk) 17:00, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments @Accassidy:, yes, it seems that Otidiformes is valid and should be created on Wikispecies, but I will wait a little bit, and await at least a couple of users, who support for this change on Village pump. But my revert on Wikipedia seems to be questionable, and I will support User:Owlphant to once again change the order on Wikipedia. Dan Koehl (talk) 18:07, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

There are no "official decision makers" in taxonomy, and there are many thousands of uncertain/controversial placements. The important thing is to alert the reader to the uncertainty/controversy. The actual choice is best made on pragmatic grounds, or even arbitrarily in some cases. Generally though, it is best to assume that peer reviewed publications are more or less "correct", and represent an advance on knowledge, though the reality is somewhat more complex. In the present case, the most important thing is to list the reference (i.e., Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds) on the Otididae page. Stho002 (talk) 20:03, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: Then you appear to me to have a very reasonable plan. Accassidy (talk) 22:39, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: - agree with placing Otididae in Otidiformes; IOC accept it, and they are the major peer-review group in ornithology. - MPF (talk) 09:32, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, @Accassidy:, @Stho002: and @MPF:, I regard support from three wikispecies users, and so far noone that object, as a supported consensus for the move of family Otididae from order Gruiformes to the uncreated order of Otidiformes. I still hope that en:User:Owlphant will feel inspiration to join Wikispecies and create the article about the order Otidiformes, why I politely ask the comunity to wait a couple of days to create the article even if it is a red link, assuming that each and every new competent user that join Wikispecies is important for the future of the project. Dan Koehl (talk) 13:49, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

en:User:Owlphant never answered my comments on his talk page, so I created Order Otidiformes and transfered Otididae there, according to consensus above. Dan Koehl (talk) 06:49, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

One for admins to monitor

Keep an eyes on the editor of Carl Neuberg, as I'm not sure that his edits have much relevance to our project Stho002 (talk) 00:42, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Deleted together with Category:German biochemists and Category:Biochemists, which were created by the same user (User:Medium69) and only contained the Carl Neuberg article. Feel free to check the Deletion log for more information. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 03:44, 15 December 2014 (UTC).

Spam only account needs blocking

Can an admin please block User talk:Glenn9877js. They have spammed again after my final warning. Stho002 (talk) 02:18, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

 Done. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 16:03, 22 December 2014 (UTC).

VisualEditor News #10—2014

Did you know?

Basic table editing is now available in VisualEditor. You can add and remove rows and columns from tables at the click of a button.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on table editing and performance. Their weekly status reports are posted on mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

VisualEditor was deployed to several hundred remaining wikis as an opt-in beta feature at the end of November, except for most Wiktionaries (which depend heavily upon templates) and all Wikisources (which await integration with ProofreadPage).

Recent improvements

Basic support for editing tables is now available. You can add and delete tables, add and remove rows and columns, set or remove a caption for a table, and merge cells together. To change the contents of a cell, double-click inside it. More features will be added in the coming months. In addition, VisualEditor now ignores broken, invalid rowspan and colspan elements, instead of trying to repair them.

You can now use find and replace in VisualEditor, reachable through the tool menu or by pressing ^ Ctrl+F or ⌘ Cmd+F.

You can now create and edit simple <blockquote> paragraphs for quoting and indenting content. This changes a "Paragraph" into a "Block quote".

Some new keyboard sequences can be used to format content. At the start of the line, typing "* " will make the line a bullet list; "1." or "#" will make it a numbered list; "==" will make it a section heading; ": " will make it a blockquote. If you didn't mean to use these tools, you can press undo to undo the formatting change.

There are also two other keyboard sequences: "[[" for opening the link tool, and "{{" for opening the template tool, to help experienced editors. The existing standard keyboard shortcuts, like ^ Ctrl+K to open the link editor, still work.

If you add a category that has been redirected, then VisualEditor now adds its target. Categories without description pages show up as red.

You can again create and edit galleries as wikitext code.

Looking ahead

The current VisualEditor design will be replaced with a new theme designed by the User Experience group. The new theme will be visible for desktop systems at mediawiki.org in late December and on other sites in early January. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" theme and the new "MediaWiki" one which will replace it.)

The Editing team plans to add auto-fill features for citations in January.

Planned changes to the media search dialog will make choosing between possible images easier.

Let's work together

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• Translations of the user guide for most languages are outdated. Only Ukrainian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Dutch translations are nearly current. Please help complete the current translations for users who speak your language.
• Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Wednesday, 7 January 2015 at 22:00 UTC.
• File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.
• The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
• If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta. Thank you!

— Elitre (WMF)

18:59, 26 December 2014 (UTC)