Wikispecies talk:Project Cleanup

Project Cleanup was founded in order to discuss, find consensus and decide, regarding cleaning up a lot of pages with errors on Wikispecies.

Discussion of Issues

Bring up anything you are unsure of, weather to have it deleted, linked or otherwise dealt with. Wikispecies deals with taxonomy and nomenclature, it is by its nature a discipline that requires a lot of historical research.

Statistics box

Problem pages

• 1680 not patrolled edits (+5)

• 5,814 Stubs and short pages
• 0 Biologist-Stubs

• 62 Unverified pages (2015-03-29: 113 pages)

• 705 Disputed taxa (2015-03-29: 388 pages)

• 0 Validity disputed

• 260 Homonyms (2015-03-29: 144 pages)

• 158 Non-standard taxon formatting (2015-03-29: 0 pages)

I submitted the statistics box to the right, is there any files that you would consider irrelevant, or any more files should be in the box, or is it a poor idea with the box? (too much info etc) If you like what changes would you like to see? Dan Koehl (talk) 19:22, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for helping, those seem fine I shall expand out the explanatory sections so people can know what to do with each of those special pages, then work the box into the final product make it a nice professional look. Maybe make a couple of templates to make it all easy to use for peaple. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 19:36, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually can you add Orphans and Unpatrolled to it? I am not sure what happens if someone without patrol rights clicks on the unpatrolled link. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 19:39, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Creating a template with this may be a good idea, maybe more users would like to put in on their user pages. The template is ready to use:

{{Project Cleanup problem pages}}

I will add the pages you asked for.
Dan Koehl (talk) 19:48, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Usage of the Disputed Taxa Template

I noticed on the first page I clicked on with the {{disputed}} template in place it says to refer to the talk page for discussion. I think there does need to actually be a discussion on that talk page. If a taxon is disputed that's fine it happens but an explanation is needed, maybe a reference to where it is deemed disputed would also help. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 20:16, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Homonyms

Ok there are actually not that many of them but the ones that do exist eg Aaleniella I do not see that we can do much about them. The code will say the senior name is valid and the junior be rejected as a junior homonym, however WS is not a publication, cannot do this review, all we can do is follow primary sources. So until someone reviews the situation and publishes that review we have two options, leave it flagged as a Homonym, or ignore the issue. I would opt for flagging them with the template so they can be found with ease later, would appreciate thyoughts on this one. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 21:37, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

We must always address homonyms with disambiguate pages if we plan to make any progress. For many, others have already made replacement names, which can be researched. I try to inform authors of junior homonyms when they still live, and any other specialist otherwise. They can then solve that problem. Those of who are taxon authorities ourselves can publish new replacement names in our specialties. On this project we will be discovering many unnoticed homonyms. Neferkheperre (talk) 01:21, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Agree, maybe this issue could be the first where we can reach consensus, and submit the decision on the project page, as instruction on how to deal with homonyms. Dan Koehl (talk) 01:26, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes @Neferkheperre and Dan Koehl: I am in agreement, the main thing we can do is apply a template stating it is a homonym, and of course do the disambiguation page. I guess if we can figure out someone who could deal with it appropriately we can contact them. I think they will show up fairly readily as on creation the WS new page will inform you of the existing page. Might help if both the junior and senior homonym were flagged for future reference, then we leave it until the issue is resolved. I would move this is resolved and I will add relevant instruction on the guidelines, ok? Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 14:39, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Very good, I think we are near a consensus here. Is the template Template:Homonym OK? Dan Koehl (talk) 14:49, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I like it. My only addition is to use Template:Homonym for homonyms which have no replacement names, ones which do have published replacement names need only disambig pages. Neferkheperre (talk) 15:28, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok added guidlines to the page and closing this. Thank you for the input. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 17:28, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

AWB Criteria

(Moved here 30 March 2015) from User:Dan Koehl talk page)

What are criteria for "underlinked"? See Chamaesipho. That is one of Stho's pages, but it is in Cirripedia, thus in areas where I keep up closely.

Also see D.S. Jones. It got deadend tag, but has category links, also stub tag. I realize, and I think I mentioned, that we might have some slight problems with taxon author pages. Many are necessarily going to be short. Maybe we just have to go over many of these pages manually. At least with bots, our job gets very much easier. Neferkheperre (talk) 06:12, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Dont worry about this, I will explain later. Dan Koehl (talk) 07:17, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for my short answer the other day, I had a little stress. I think your viewpoints are important, what would you suggest as the first step? Using AWB I can almost work as fast as a bot. And I would be happy to syncronize with a time that suits you so we can double check what changes has to be dine before I start speed working. Dan Koehl (talk) 12:42, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't have any actual schedule, as I have to get up and do things on non-regular intervals and my sleep schedule is also not uniform. What I was mainly interested in was what makes pages "underlinked" or "deadends"? Knowing this, I can work to prevent it.

I have been rethinking stub criteria for taxon author pages. Keeping up with Zootaxa involves 50-60 edits and new pages daily. I have been creating and updating author pages as part of this. I have run across many pages which are woefully inadequate. Some have nothing but names, no categories or anything else. I upgrade these as I find them. So I think at minimum, author pages should contain full name, nationality and specialty, at least one publication, DEFAULTSORT, category links for Taxon authorities, and for specialty(ies). I have not been adding categories for author taxa, but can if desired. Quite simple. At first, I wondered why have taxa by author lists, when reference pages have taxa lists. Then I realized it would work like my construction of scientific expedition pages. There, reference templates contain lists of taxa as first proposed, then attached category lists presently accepted nomenclature. Works same way with author pages.

I have encountered many taxon pages which are undersourced, while doing Zootaxa entries. This past week, I have added "stub" to those myself. I have been removing superfluous categories as well. So we really are working together. Neferkheperre (talk) 21:21, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Since many (and preferably all) of the author pages are members of the category "Taxon Authorities", all the while none of the taxon pages are, wouldn't it the possible to exclude any pages in the "Taxon Authorities" category from AWB stub hunts? And while at it, also the "Reference templates" category. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 21:38, 29 March 2015 (UTC).

I am finding surprising numbers of author pages which are nothing but names, or very little else, and thus of almost no use. It would be good to run through them and identify undersourced pages. In fact, I have run across some author pages with no category links at all. Reference templates seem to be in much better shape, as someone making them has to take time to do it. Neferkheperre (talk) 23:39, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

What qualifies as a stub and what is not

I've seen you were adding the Stub template to pages such as Rhyzobius aurantii and Queenslandina, which have all the necessary sections, including a satisfactory reference. I really don't think they qualify as stubs, since there isn't much more that can be added to these pages. If we qualify them as stubs than more than 70% of the WS pages will qualify as stubs as well. Please add the stub template to only minimal pages without any reference. Mariusm (talk) 13:04, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm:, this follows an automatic function when using cleanup function with AWB. I agree with you, that at the moment, it looks odd, but the category is hidden, and it its easy later to go back and sort out which of the marked articles are real stubs or not. The AWB is really doing a good job, and using the automatic changes it does, is really a benefit. I think this can later be corrected in a swift, while if I unchecked the automatic changes, the stubmarking has to be made manually.

I really think this is an advantage, and I get the feeling that all articles and the entire Wikispecies can benefit a log from this.

But I also agree with you, that those articles should not forever be marked stubs. The alternative is that I don't use the automatic cleaning, and that we use an alternative way of marking stubs. OR there may be a configuration in AWB that I may have missed, that could solve the problem.

What do you say/think, is it OK I continue, provided that I go back and overlook the stubs?

Please reply ASAP, since I'm holding the AWB cleaning for now, until we clear this.

Dan Koehl (talk) 13:12, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

First of all the stub template isn't hidden since it's visible. I hold to my position that the articles I've pointed out shouldn't be marked as stubs. I would also suspend marking them as stubs until a proper discussion is held on the pump, and views of others are taken into account. Mariusm (talk) 13:27, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

OK, I will uncheck the automatic changes ( AutoWikiBrowser is frequently set to automatically remove stub tags from any article with more than 500 words), and I agree that its important that such changes are supported by consensus, after discussions. Will you care to start that discussion on on VP? Dan Koehl (talk) 13:35, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm checking if the configuration can be changed. What would you suggest as as criteria to define a stub? maybe i can simply change the config.Dan Koehl (talk) 13:43, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

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@Dan Koehl: As we discussed earlier, we better split author stubs from taxon stubs and assign a different category to each.

For Taxon stubs I think the criteria should be as follows:

• Any taxon with 110 bytes or less is to be considered a stub (there are thousands of those).

• Any taxon without author name or without year.

• Any Genus or a higher rank without a list of sub-taxa; e.g. Genus page without species list or Familia page without Genera list.

• A taxon without reference(s), even if it has links to external sites, has author name and date is a stub. (One must take into account that reference-templates can be very short, so pages with references can be short - but not shorter than 110 bytes.)

For author stubs:

• An author stab would be one one without publications and/or without described taxa. Mariusm (talk) 04:27, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I made a template for author-stubs (biologists-tubs) named Template: astub. Mariusm (talk) 12:09, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm:, there is already a Template:Biologist-Stub, and I have marked 21 pages with that stub, see Template:Biologist-Stub: what links here. Shall keep both, or shall we merge the two, or simply use your work and the content on Template: astub, move it to Template:Biologist-Stub, and delete Template: astub because it is redundant? Or, is there a minor difference between an author and an biologist, and it makes sense to use both? Dan Koehl (talk) 12:21, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: I merged in Template: astub the categories you've used in Template:Biologist-Stub, so I think we can use Template: astub, with a more clear indication to the user how he's expected to improve the page. Mariusm (talk) 12:30, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

OK @Mariusm:, I changed the template on the 21 files from Template:Biologist-Stub to Template: astub, so I guess we can delete Template:Biologist-Stub now, there's no links to the page, and I see no need for it. Dan Koehl (talk) 13:05, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

For minimum size of taxon author pages, see Yusuke Hibino. This is excellent example of what I have finally settled on as minimum. Size on properties tab says 384 bytes.This could be good figure to calculate from. Neferkheperre (talk) 22:14, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

@Neferkheperre: - On the Yusuke Hibino page you are using the heading "Described taxa". I would recommend the heading "Authored taxa" which is already in use on many good authority pages. The reason: It is not uncommon to describe a taxon without being the author of it. Kempf EK (talk) 00:52, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Good idea, @Kempf EK:. Thanks. Neferkheperre (talk) 01:02, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@Neferkheperre: Yusuke Hibino is an excellent example to the minimal requirements from a decent author page. Any page which displays less information must be considered a stub. Can you please find for us a species page which likewise stands on the border of being acceptable and being a stub ? Mariusm (talk) 04:31, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Afrocedus is an example of a "good" genus in terms of references, yet it has no species-list, nor an author & date; consequently it should be considered a stub. By the way, is the reference "Jordan 1894: Novit. Zool., 1, 626." satisfactory? There are a lot of such references, especially in botany. I don't think it's good enough. Compare it with the full ref:

Jordan, K., 1894: On Anthribidae in the museum of the Honourable Walter Rothschild. Novitates Zoologicae, 1: 591-651. BHL [see p. 626]      Mariusm (talk) 11:31, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Minyaspis amylaneae is what I have selected as minimal species page. Recently described with original description as only reference. Completely straightforward, there are no generic re-assignments, no synonyms, no homonyms, taxon template to genus level. Full information on types and type locality is provided, linked as much as possible. As this species is symbiotic, I do have one line providing that information. There are two external links, and category links. I will be adding author taxa categories. Size is 824 bytes. Neferkheperre (talk) 12:46, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@Neferkheperre: yes, good, but is this species marginal? If we took away from it some info, would it still qualify as a non-stub or would it enter a stub status? If we erased the type information for example, would it still qualify as a non-stub? Mariusm (talk) 05:54, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Probably we can escape stub status without type information. But we definitely need Taxonavigation, Name with original author/year, original genus, if transferred, and at least one reference citation, preferably original description. Less than that, it is basically useless, and deserves stub status. Synonyms, additional references, and type information are valuable assets for researchers, and flesh out taxon pages. Neferkheperre (talk) 12:48, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Agree, type information is certainly helpful, but missing type information in my opinion would not qualify for stub status. Until now, I have added this only to few pages, as the respective part of the help page can better be applied to zoological pages than to botany pages. I had a discussion on this with @Mariusm: some times ago. --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:12, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

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@Neferkheperre:, @Franz Xaver:, @Dan Koehl:, @Faendalimas: lets summarize and conclude on what we require from a page to qualify as a non-stub:

For a species:

• A name section carrying the author name and the year.
• A reference section with at least one ref which is not a link to an external site. Preferably but not mandatory the reference should be the original description.

For a genus and higher:

The same requirements above plus:

• A list of sub-taxa; e.g. Genus page must have a species list and Familia page must have a Genera list.

For an author page:

• A short biographical note; field of expertise and affiliated institute.
• A "Publications" section with at least 1 publication.
• An "Authored taxa" section.

Can we agree on that? Mariusm (talk) 14:14, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I think basically we are here. I have complete agreement with species and author. I must suggest that genus-group and higher include type species, type genus, whatever as appropriate. This is required by ICZN Code. Neferkheperre (talk) 18:27, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

The actual versions of both the zoological and botanical codes require type indication for all taxa, but at least in the older versions of the botanical code (ICBN) it was not required - see ICN Art. 40. Anyway, there still exist genera, where selection of a lectotype still is missing, e.g. for Campylospermum Tiegh.. As indication of type species is missing in many of the regional flora treatments, in most cases we would rely on the Index Nominum Genericorum (ING) database. However, e.g. the Gomphia entry does not show, that the old lectotypification by Kanis (1967) has been superseded already two times, in 1994 and in 2014. In my opinion, indication of type species should not be part of the minimum requirement. It would not be difficult to add this from the ING database, but probably it is better to leave more time studying the relevant literature, before adding type species. --Franz Xaver (talk) 19:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Quick question @Franz Xaver: I should probably become more familiar with the ICBN in zoology there has to be a reason to set a lectotype, ie syntypes prior to 1930 are fine unless there is an identified issue (eg 2 species in the type series) but setting one for the sake of it is not permitted. How does Botany deal with this? More on topic I can see the point that as long as all other information is there maybe missing type info is not reason to make it a stub. I guess I am always thinking of making this identifiable, easily, maybe they can be tagged with a category (eg Missing Type Data) could be a hidden cat if we like, so that pages requiring this can be easily searched for? Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 01:24, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree with @Faendalimas: and @Faendalimas: that missing type info isn't reason enough to make a stub. I estimate that applying the screening criteria I specified above will result in over 100,000 stubs, so it is better to relax somewhat our requirements. @Dan Koehl: do you think you can apply these criteria to find the majority of the stab pages and tag them? Mariusm (talk) 04:26, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Maybe, but once we have a decision what we would prefer, I suggest that someone contacts the AWB and ask them if they can apply our definitions locally. This is what decides (for everyone using AWB) the definitions, and once they configure that definition for use locally on Wikispecies, I or someone else don't have to think, the program simply decides what is a stump. Dan Koehl (talk) 05:06, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Faendalimas: According to ICN Art. 9.2 & 9.11, there are no restrictions. It is reason enough, that "no holotype was indicated at the time of publication". It has happened often enough, that some people performed some kind of automatic lectotypification, which later had to be superseded. "Automatic lectotypification" is e.g. selection of the first species from a list, without checking, if this one really fits to all parts of a genus description. See also Recommendation 9A.2. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 08:37, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Avoiding Orphaned Taxa

(Discussion moved here from the Village pump: Avoiding Orphaned Taxa)

Some users remove species [which they think are invalid] from the genus page and leave them without further treatment. These species become orphaned, i.e. have no link leading to them. As an example lets take Bothriochloa ambigua which was removed by @Andyboorman: from the genus page and left hanging in midair without any indication to its invalidity (see the diff where 35 species were removed and left orphaned) It would be a much better practice to leave them in the genus page under the title of Invalid species (see how I did it at Bothriochloa), or at the very least redirect these invalid species so that they wont be left orphaned (or delete them completely). Mariusm (talk) 11:17, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Bothriochloa yunnanensis is a published species see Bull. Bot. Res., Harbin 6(1): 99-100 (1986). Before you delete species you have to look if the species are invalid or valid. I see a lot of species without further information who are valid. If this is an action to cleanup species.wikipedia, we have to work all on the same way after agreements. The German don't like chaos they like discipline PeterR (talk) 11:50, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Bothriochloa yunnanensis is published but is a synonym of Pseudosorghum fasciculare (Roxb.) A.Camus, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. 26: 662 (1920) - a red link species, according to a range of sources. Most if not all of the orphans in this genus, which are now "unresolved species", are synonyms . I have yet to get round to correcting the situation. When I updated the genus many of the species re-circumscriptions had yet to be made, as far as I was aware. However, I am still concentrating on red link genera, poorly circumscribed orders and families and associated stubs! I also plead for never using validity in relation to plants and also be careful when using acceptance. This is where the reference section is key of course. If anybody would like to tackle Bothriochloa WCSP and Tropicos are good starting points with additional references to cross check. Andyboorman (talk) 19:03, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Special:LonelyPages shows we have more than 4000 orphaned pages. Mariusm (talk) 11:58, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I looked at orphans last week to see what was there and get an idea of it, many of them seem to be author pages, though not all of course.I think with the nature of what we are doing here, and how its being done will create alot of orphans, but we do need to go through them. For species pages where they have been deemed invalid I guess we need to make a decision on whether to delete (which will require speedy deletion unless its an admin) that page or keep redirects going to and from it. I am guessing authors or taxon authorities are being made but not used. The difficulty with authors is unless you know the taxonomic group you probly wont know what species they were involved with. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 12:34, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok I looked through it more carefully. Many plants in there, I know the Acacia and Eucalpts a bit. It seems the orphans in those two groups were all made by @Hesperian: (dont know if an active user) they seem to be species that have been omitted from the genus page in these two very large genera, this would account for nearly 100 pages just looking at it, no I did not count them. So those would be relatively easy to fix. There may be a number of others in the same situation. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 13:13, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: @PeterR: I am sorry, I have to repeat again: The concept of "invalid species" is used exclusively in zoology. Please, never use this term in botany. In the botanical code of nomenclature, there exists the concept of validly published names (see ICN Art. 6) and as a contrary nom. inval., which probably has about the same meaning as "unavailable name" in zoology.

In order to tackle problems as you found in Bothriochloa, I propose to use a solution similar to that in Ochna. I separated the list of names published in Ochna into (correct names of) "accepted species", "names in synonymy" and "unresolved names". If a name is not the correct name of an accepted species, it is either a synonym or an unresolved name. I am used to clearly separate the concepts of "species/taxon" and "name". Defining and delimitating taxa is independent from naming them. So, with a botanical background, "invalid species" sounds a bit odd to me: If something is not an accepted species, it is not a species, but only a name. However, I am aware, concepts in zoology are a bit different. --Franz Xaver (talk) 19:17, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes I have to agree with @Franz Xaver: here we do need to be careful whether a taxon is subject to the Botanical code or the Zoological code. I often wish the two codes agreed but they dont we have to live with that. In zoology (my area of expertise in this) available/ unavailable refers to publication, is the taxon deemed published or not ie does it meet art 8-9 and arts 10-20, art 8-9 refers to the publication, arts 10-20 refers to the information published to make it available, eg setting a holotype. If the name passes those tests it is available then it is subject to the Principal of Priority among others, if it is the oldest name it is the valid name if it is not it is an invalid name. In summary they are either available or unavailable, if available they are either valid or invalid. A name can be both available and invalid, hence should be in the synonymy. However, only available names should make it into a synonymy, as in zoology the synonymy is the List of Available names for a taxon. Please note I am only talking about zoology to clarify it. I hope someone with a better knowledge of plants will clarify the botanical code. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 19:31, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

In the Botanical Code, you can find the relevant status definitions in Art. 6. The first check is, if a name is validly published, which seems to follow the same criteria as for available/unavailabla in zoology. An "invalid name" (nomen invalidum) in botany, is a name that is not validly published, e.g. missing indication of a type (after 1.1.1958) or - in the period when this was required - missing a Latin diagnosis. The second check is, if a name is legitimate. E.g. homonyms or names, where the protologue definition includes the type specimens of existing names, are illegitimate. In Art. 11 the term used is "correct name". The meaning of this is about the same as a "valid name" in zoology. --Franz Xaver (talk) 19:57, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: ok, I changed the title in Bothriochloa form "Invalid species" to "Unresolved species", but the responsibility of anyone who removes a species from a genus page would be to take care of its subsequent placement. Either redirect it, delete it or assign it to "Unresolved species", but surely not leave it as orphaned. Mariusm (talk) 04:58, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: I agree. As you can see from the Ochna example, I am in favor of listing all names published in a genus at the genus page. --Franz Xaver (talk) 08:10, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm, Franz Xaver, and Faendalimas:I agree also, and if no one objects or have another point of view, I suggest we take a decision on this issue. Dan Koehl (talk) 10:54, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm, Franz Xaver, and Dan Koehl: I am in agreement, we have to follow the respective Code for the different groups, both I am sure have glossaries I know the Zoology Code does. We do need to get this orphan list reduced. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 14:48, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

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My recommendation on the orphaned pages issue is to never remove species from a genus page. All the species in doubt can be grouped under the heading Unresolved names to be tackled later more carefully. I also recommend not to remove names in synonymy, redirected names etc. from genus page. Just leave them under appropriate headings as User: Franz Xaver practices. Instead of one Species: heading, each genus page can have the following headings: "Accepted species"; "Names in synonymy" and "Unresolved names" (or "Invalid names" in zoology, which include synonyms and transferred species). Mariusm (talk) 04:15, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Would not junior synonyms be better off under their senior synonyms? I just would not like people to think these are valid/correct names for taxa. I agree with keeping them in and also with keeping them linked with explanations to avoid orphans, but on the genus page is (in zoology) the complete opposite of why they are not being used anyway. A junior synonym is junior to its taxonomic equivalent, this goes for any rank but sticking to species, the synonymy on a species page is the list of synonyms. This list does not belong on the genus page and for some genera, particularly vertebrates, you could end up with a genus of about 5 species listing 60 or more taxa. Yes many vertebrates have up to 20 or more synonyms. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 04:43, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, our first priority is to list junior synonyms under the synonymy section of their senior species, but at the genus level, it would be also nice to see which names are valid and which are not, in the case a person wants to check a name and see quickly what its status is. With so much name-shuffling, genus-transferring and synonymyzing going on, one can really get very easily name-confused. Mariusm (talk) 04:25, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Template to Close

Hi @Dan Koehl: quick request can we/ or do we have a template to close discussions. On WP admins and above can close discussions which will box them in green, ask that they not be edited etc. Also might be useful to have the Checkmark template, to show things have been done. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 14:51, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

@Faendalimas:, Now there's two templates for this purpose, Template:Discussion top, for the begin of a discussion, and Template:Discussion bottom to be placed at the end of the discussion. Dan Koehl (talk) 16:59, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: partly to try it out and because it was pretty much done I used them to close the Homonym discussion. I think it looks professional to others to see that we can take a discussion to resolution. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 17:31, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Unverified pages

Stho had made many of these tags for taxon pages. No reason was given for most, and none is evident. See Ceratopogonidae as one example. It appears to be well-referenced, with authorship, and list of subtaxa. For this page, I have new reference in today's Zootaxa. Thus, it is presently accepted by workers. What to do? Personally, I would remove tag using above conditions of outside acceptance. Neferkheperre (talk) 22:42, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree. When I have been going through a lot of pages, I was surprised to see some of them marked "Unverified", especially when they a good list of references. If that was just Stho002´s personal opinion, and the taxon is otherwise generally accepted, I agree that the "Unverified" should be removed. Dan Koehl (talk) 22:50, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Template:Disputed template

What's the reason, that Nuphar sect. Astyla and Solanum laciniatum show up in Category:Biologist-Stubs. It seems, that Template:Disputed template is causing this effect. Is this template really needed? --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:02, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: Moreover, please reconsider this edit. When a page is in Category:Botanists, I suppose there is no reason to add Category:Biologists, as first is a subcategory of the latter. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:07, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

You are correct @Franz Xaver:, I will look into that ASAP. Dan Koehl (talk) 13:23, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: May I remind you. This problem seems still to be unsolved. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:28, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver:, Im still not sure what created this, but I have removed the template from the pages and deleted it, as well as removing Category:Biologists from the page you mentioned. Dan Koehl (talk) 13:33, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Category:Pages where expansion depth is exceeded

Does anyone know, what is the reason for Category:Pages_where_expansion_depth_is_exceeded? --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:26, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Special page Orphaned Pages and Category Disambiguation pages

In this connection I have a few questions.

• 1) Who or what is responsible for the fact that a certain page is listed under Orphaned Pages?
• 2) Why are many, many pages that are clearly created as disambiguation pages for authorities with the same surname and correctly listed on the page Category Disambiguation pages also listed under Special page Orphaned Pages?
• 3) Why is the description on the page Category Disambiguation pages only mentioning the possibility of disambiguation of the names of taxa and not also of the names of authorities?

Kempf EK (talk) 11:51, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Common misspellings

I believe the following words should be regarded as misspellings, and be corrected as follows (please add more to this list): Dan Koehl (talk) 06:00, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

• Familliae -> Familiae
• Linneus -> Linnaeus
• Lineus -> Linnaeus (except for taxa which seems to be accepted as named like this: Lineus?)
• spacies -> species

It's maybe better not to correct automatically (by bot) the latter two. Die Word "lineus" can possibly be used as an epithet in a species name. It is a Latin adjective, derived from Linum. As an epithet it however should have a lower case initial. As far as it concerns "spacius", this also can be a misspelling of the word "spacious", which might be present, e.g. in descriptions of type localities. --Franz Xaver (talk) 08:49, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, (I myself misspelled spacies to spacius, now its correced above.) no don't worry, such corrections are better halfautomatic, wit close observation. But there's already completed lists, as an example what can be done, either use that list and expand with specific words used here, or make a completely new for Wikispecies. I just tried a couple of misspellings, and had hits at once, why I thought that later it could be a good idea to run a spell check. Dan Koehl (talk) 08:57, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Remember that in many documents, particularly reviews etc Linnaeus is often shortened as Linn., this is common practice and not incorrect, however, we may choose to expand it to the full name here. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 10:45, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Unverified

Something else I would like to get opinions on, is the different files labelled unverified (as well as verified), like this:

• {{unverified|[[User:Stho002|Stho002]] ([[User talk:Stho002|talk]]) 23:49, 28 September 2010 (UTC)}}.

Do they reflect a common opinion, or should they be removed? Dan Koehl (talk) 22:11, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I will be honest I have never been that clear what was meant by "unverified" in this context, however, I guess the main issue with it is that it provides a point to stho02's user and talk page, as such I see no value in keeping it at least in its current format. If someone can give me a reason for an "unverified" template fine I will run with that but at least remove the user and talk links. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 22:46, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Welwitschia mirabilis

Welwitschia mirabilis vs. Welwitschia, what's the difference? Both have a WD-item attached, but only one has any article in the wikiverse about it. In WD I would gave asked for a merger, I don't know anything about the customs here around, so I ask this here. Sänger (talk) 05:30, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Hello Sänger, Welwitschia is a genus, and Welwitschia mirabilis is a species in this genus (currently the only one accepted). As Wikispecies intends to have a page for every taxon, the pages for genus and (single) species are always separate. It's the same on Wikidata, where those pages are never merged. Kind regards, --Thiotrix (talk) 08:24, 19 February 2020 (UTC)