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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Circeus (talk | contribs) at 22:20, 1 March 2006 (→Which takes precidence: official common name or actual common name?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Archives for WT:TOL edit
1 2002-07 – 2003-12 Article names
2 2003-11 – 2004-02 Taxoboxes
3 2004-02 Taxoboxes
4 2004-02 – 2004-08 Bold taxa; taxonomy
5 2004-03 – 2004-04 Taxonomy; photos; range maps
6 2005-04 – 2004-06 Capitalization; authorities; mammals
7 2004-06 – 2004-08 Creationism; parens; common names
8 2004-05 – 2004-08 Templates; †extinct; common names
9 2004-05 – 2004-08 Categories; taxoboxes
10 2004-08 – 2004-12 Categories; authorities; domains; Wikispecies; ranks; G. species; capitalization; Common Names
11 2004-11 – 2005-05 Capitalization; common names; categories; L.; authorities; algae; cultivars
12 2005-03 – 2005-05 Ranks; common names
13 2005-05 – 2005-06 Hybrids; taxobox format; cultivars
14 2005-06 – 2005-07 Categories; food plants; identification; Capitalization
15 2005-07 – 2005-09 Synonyms; types; authorities; status; identification
16 2005-09 – 2005-12 Paleontological ranges; Rosopsida; Taxobox redesign; identification
17 2005-12 – 2006-04 Taxobox redesign; identification; APG; common names; capitalization
18 2006-04 – 2006-10 Categorization; include in references; snakes; range maps; seasonality graph; common names; bioregions; brya;
19 2006-10 – 2007-03 various
20 2007-03 – 2007-06 various
21 2007-06 (Next 64 Kb) various
22 (Next 64 Kb) various
23 (Next 64 Kb) various
24 (Next 64 Kb) various

Taxobox and AUM

Netoholic has changed Template:Taxobox so that it does not rely on conditional templates. However, the results as they stand are somewhat more brittle, and generally change the appearance somewhat. I would request any participants here to take a look, and give their thoughts. Josh

What gets on my nerves is that Netoholic is the most rabid about the "dangers" of these templates, yet he is one who makes more changes to them than almost anyone! And as we know, it is changes to the template that is somewhat problematic (although it seems to me that the fact they are recursive is not much more of a problem than the same template being used on lots of pages - which is exactly what we had before the conditional templates came in)! Not sure what we can do as now that Netoholic has discovered this template, he is not the sort to give up easily :-). Pcb21 Pete 09:08, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder if this is the cause of the difference in display of the author names created using the new and old taxoboxes(using taxobox binomial_authority versus use of Template:Taxobox_section_binomial_parens). Hope these can be made identical. Thanks. Shyamal 11:37, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, but the AUM-compliant version simply does not work properly. As such, until an appropriate substitute for conditional templates can be found, we're going to have to go back to the multi-template version. I've made note of this on the how-to pages; my apologies to everyone who put work into the single template system. Josh

With Khoikhoi's help I've been making various updates to fix problems with the single {{taxobox}} template. It will still list unused segments in non-CSS compliant browsers, but I think most of the other concerns have been addressed. It now handles multi-line subdivision lists, displays image captions again, and has a new 'image_description' parameter for the pop-up text. Unfortunately, all of the old pop-up text from multi-line templates was not copied over into the single template and would need to be re-added. If we can get a list of other problems with the template I think we should be able to sort most of them out. This template is still being used on a ton of pages and it would be a shame to convert them all back to the old format calls... and then need to change them again when/if conditionals are implemented in the MediaWiki software. There's a way to fix the non-CSS browser problem (WeebleCode), but it requires setting a blank ('|weeble =') parameter in every call to the template... for which we'd presumably need a bot. --CBD ☎ ✉ 12:54, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unidentified Pictures

Hi!
Yes you guessed it, it's me (Fir0002) here again!

Thank you very much for your time! --Fir0002 05:13, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Notes in italics by MPF 15:36, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Concrete capitalisation rule

I think it is about time that we have concrete capitalisation rules for the common names of species. One problem that seems to be associated with this, is the difference of opinion between contributors of different areas (e.g. birds and mammals). What we could do, is ask each daughter wikiproject of Tree of Life to do a vote for their preference (if they have one), and then do a vote in ToL for the universal rule. Then we will have a rule for the less popular groups which do not have a wikiproject, and then the exceptions for the wikiprojects which requested it. Once that is done, the rules could be published onto the ToL page (including the exceptions), and the wikiprojects with exceptions could also publish their exception.

You will find that in any encyclopaedia, they have a preference and stick to it. Why should there be an exception in this encyclopaedia? --liquidGhoul 06:19, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Because this encyclopaedia doesn't have a set of overall Senior Editors to enforce a common policy! If you look through the archives (top of this page), you'll find it has been discussed (fought over, argued, harangued, ...) on several occasions, never with any firm consensus reached. What usually happens is that a majority of those who spend a lot of time working on species articles prefer caps (often vehemently, and with detailed logical reasons for doing so), but a majority of 'other wikipedians' (those who don't work regularly on species articles but look in occasionally) prefer lower case (also often vehemently, but usually appealing only to 'by-the-book rules'). This of course doesn't help forming a consensus, as the regular writers (fairly reasonably) take little notice of what is seen as "dictats from outsiders". - MPF 22:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
These points are exactly right. Ornithologists would not prepare an article without exercising their agreed to (among all ornithologists) right to cap common names. It would be quite simply wrong to follow any other "universal" rule. Therefore, it is the non-ornithologists that need to decide if they want to follow suit or not. - Marshman 01:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, I'm one of those strongly in favour of caps for species common names. But even more so (having seen much confusion and many acrimonious disputes over common names), I'm getting more and more in favour of using scientific name titles for plant pages at least. That has the side benefit of making capitalisation disputes disappear as well. Common names would become redirects (from both caps and lower case) or disambig pages (see e.g. Toadflax for a current example). - MPF 22:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Good point, with which I also concur; although I'm one that tends not to use caps for common names of plants, I would not object to so doing. - Marshman
My new proposal here (based on how the RHS Dictionary of Gardening deals this question) would be to have all plants except for major food crops at scientific name titles; major food crops would have two entries, one a long page at the common name dealing with cultivation and uses etc., the other a short botanical page at the scientific name (as done already for e.g. Coffee / Coffea). Many of the major food crop plants already have such long pages that they would benefit from a page split to be rid of the "This page is XX kilobytes long. This may be longer than is preferable; see article size" tag - MPF 22:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Although somewhat by-passing the original question of caps for common plant names, I see this suggestion as a positive one. I think one difficulty people are having is that (I believe) only common names that match a species are capitalized. Correct me if I am wrong, but even an ornithologist would write "An unidentified wren landed at the feeding station", not "An unidentified Wren...." Ornithologists have the advantage of having an "official" common name for every known species of bird. Inasmuch as there are some 40 species of Coffea, and only two provide most of the beans for preparing coffee, the common name "coffee" is not very specific, whereas Arabian coffee (or Arabian Coffee) is Coffea arabica - Marshman
Yep, correct! - MPF 02:47, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
One of the countertrends I've noticed when studying local desert plants is that at-risk species seem to pick up "common names" as part of the publicization process - it's been Arctomecon californica forever, but due to appearing in the local newspaper frequently it's now the "Las Vegas bearpoppy". I'm still dubious about a *general* encyclopedia using only Latin - even if all the writers are scientists, they're still expected to write for a nonscientific audience. Stan 22:28, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In my area of interest (ichthyology) it's unusual to capitalize common names. As a professor of mine once put it, "only ornithologists do that for fear that their subject of study will disappear due to taxonomic inadequacy". I like the idea of articles being at scientific names, but it doesn't solve the problem as the common name or variations will undoubtedly be used in articles. Anyway, I'm sure there are house styles and some places where people capitalize the common names of fish, but in my experience it's not general. Demi T/C 19:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It may not be common, but it is certainly done by some books; my parents' old copies of The Observer's Book of Freshwater Fishes (1941, reprint 1961) and The Observer's Book of Sea Fishes (1958, reprint 1960) both capitalise all fish common names fully and consistently (so do other books in the series, e.g. The Observer's Book of Trees). - MPF 20:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'll be in favor of capitalizing fish species names when our leading source (FishBase) does. :-) Stan 22:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would be very wary of making a general rule for all those groups that no-one's spoken up for yet. In those cases, once an editor appears who knows the group (and the traditions of naming it), he/she can make the decision. It would seem unfair to foist a general opinion on a group just because none of us knows it well, particularly since this topic has been controversial in the past. I do, however, think that a group-by-group approach may prove to be fruitful, since some real differences seem to exist between them (even excluding the ornithologists). The next question is what groups to choose: is it enough to make a decision concerning arthropods, or do we need individual decisions for crustaceans, insects, myriapods, arachnids, etc.? Similarly, can all plants be discussed at once, or must cryptogams follow their own rules? Existing WikiProjects make the task easier, but many groups are not covered by WikiProjects. Is there a reasonably simple way to work out who are the major contributors in each taxonomic area, so that we can ask their opinions and perhaps end this stalemate? --Stemonitis 16:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Only a stalemate if you insist there must be a consistancy rule. Ornithologists will always use caps, and for that group the issue is settled. To set up a different rule for different groups is really no different—in the end and day to day—than having no rule. Many articles could exist that include species common names from several "groups". So the only option (IMHO) is to either insist on caps for all (perhaps taking into account that the rule applies only to species common names) or let everyone do as they please and move on to more pressing matters. In plant articles, I usually do not use caps, but do not revert where someone else does. - Marshman 18:04, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've already stated my opinion that capitalization should be discussed on the main discussion page for the Wikipedia manual of style. Others have decided that they don't want to submit to the general consensus, or even find out what it is. I've accepted that I can't do a thing about it. (Wiki-12-step-program). Mackerm 19:13, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To dwell on the subject of ornithology's cap rules, here's how it works in a nutshell:

  • Caps for specific taxa
  • No caps for a group of taxa not identified to species (Marshman's "wren" example is correct)
  • Caps-no caps for hyphenated species vernaculars
  • Caps-Caps for hyphenated genus/species group vernaculars.

Example of the latter two rules: Henicorhina leucophrys bears the vernacular name Gray-breasted Wood-Wren. When talking about the genus Henicorhina, one would write "wood-wrens".

I have to admit that I do not always manage to stick to the rule - Wikipedia may be scientifically accurate in content, but it is not necessarily so in style, not being written for a scientific audience foremost - thus using the cap rules will sometimes look weird.

At any rate, I do adhere to the rules in page names. In the long run, however, it would be best to convert to scientific names, although this would mean a lot of detail work: the number of vernacular names is often very large, but the scientific name only occurs once per regnum. For birds, however, using vernaculars is not that much of a problem, as there already is a standard set of unambiguous English (and French, Spanisch and German) vernaculars.

But that is indeed not for the bird gang to decide. Avian taxonomy is pretty straightforward, at least as far as these things go.

Taxobox template

I created a new version of {{Taxobox}} which utilizes a method devised by User:MrWeeble to do old style conditionals without meta-templates or CSS. Please take a look and let me know if it solves the subdivision problems. Note, I left the CSS stuff in place for everything except the subdivision section. --CBD ☎ ✉ 20:34, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Taxo-categorization of category:birds complete!!

there are now no bird, bird genus, families etc. articles in category:birds and all non-species articles have been moved from its children to category:Birds by classification. It will be necessary to occasionally check through to spot badly or un-categorized articles, but most of the work has been done. Many subgroups still have to be created, but lack at themoment, articles for it to be required.

Maybe at some point I'll work up the energy to get started on category:plants, but right now, I want to do something new, so that'll have to wait. Circeus 06:43, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well done! I just had a look at category:plants, there's not too many there, but category:flowers does badly need emptying of genus and species etc pages, I'll try to tackle them over the next few days - MPF 23:57, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
a very naive question i am sure but is there some kind of system that automatically checks if the category matches or mismatches with the family given in a taxobox ? Shyamal 10:30, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes - it's called "we check it all when we visit a page". *grins* - UtherSRG (talk) 12:38, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I asked for a bot, but it would not be able to determine when it is appropriate to use the scientific or the usual names, among other things. Circeus 16:13, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Improvement Drive

Frog has been nominated to be improved by WP:IDRIVE. Help us improve it and support Frog with your vote on WP:IDRIVE. --Fenice 07:53, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hoverfly

Are these photos of a hoverfly? --Fir0002 10:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. SB Johnny 11:23, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And damn fine pictures they are! Circeus 22:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why Ectoprocta and not Bryozoa?

Why do we use Ectoprocta in our tree of life and not Bryozoa? I know that ITIS says that Bryozoa is a junior synonym, but I believe that in zoology there is no rule of strict priority for ranks above superfamily. Bryozoa is much more common, and it wins the scholar.google.com test.

I can see an argument that "Bryozoa" refers to Ectoprocta + Entoprocta + Cycliophora and therefore can't be used as a synonym for Ectoprocta alone — but in fact that's exactly how it's used by tolweb.org, in Valentine's On the origin of phyla.

An anonymous editor at Talk:Ectoprocta comments:

The use of "Ectoprocta" as a phylum name in place of the more common "Bryozoa" is a non-standard usage which seems to be pushed by biologists from the USA who are not specialists in this group. (For example, in Brusca and Brusca). The accepted usage "Bryozoa" - as in the "International Bryozoology Association". is preferred by all the experts in the field. It has long-established and wide usage. For the sake of stability, there is little reason to change. The argument that a former phylum has now been split into two "new" phyla fails to take into account the enormous difference in significance of the Ectoprocta and Entoprocta. What has happened, in fact, is the separation of a small group from the main group - which happens all the time in taxonomy, and generally does not require renaming the major group

As usual, this comes down the question: which classification system we are using here? Gdr 02:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As the one who wrote the original list on Animalia, I used the name Ectoprocta because it appeared in most zoology references I'd seen, including Brusca & Brusca. I suspect it was originally a subgroup of the Bryozoa that was promoted to its own phylum, rather than an invented name change as he suggests, and has the advantage of being unambiguous. But if experts prefer Bryozoa, feel free to change it. Josh

I'd say "non-standard usage" is far from a correct characterization; it is true that at the time when the groups (ectoprocts and entoprocts) were split, bryozoa fell into dis-use, at least in the US. If it is now the case that Phylum Bryozoa is generally preferred over Phylum Ectoprocta (and I'm not clear that such is the case), then Wikipedia should reflect that - Marshman 19:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here are results of searches on scholar.google.com which show some evidence that the name Bryozoa is more commonly used by researchers, and that this is still true in recently published work:

Period Bryozoa only Ectoprocta only Both
All articles 3,340 248 287
2000–2005 only 879 69 105

Gdr 20:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I've been bold and switched our taxoboxes to use Bryozoa. Gdr 17:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Red-eyed Tree frog

The current article for the Red-eyed Tree Frog, is the South American frog: Agalychnis callidryas . However, I have recently created the article for the Australian Red-eyed tree frog (under its binomial name at the moment, Litoria chloris). What happens in a situation like this for naming of the aritcle? --liquidGhoul 04:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep the article names as they are and add a disambiguation note at the top of the Red-eyed Tree Frog article linking to your article. This should cover everything. Richard Barlow 07:57, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(I have done this now.) Richard Barlow 08:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New Project: Horticulture and Gardening

After wading through the pages in the related categories, it seems pretty clear that a project would come in handy. If anyone is experienced in setting up project pages, your help would be most appreciated. Part of a gardening project relates to plants, insects (etc.), fungi, bacteria, and so on. I hope some folks from ToL might be interested in enriching the "practical" side of such articles. I started the project this morning... Wikipedia:WikiProject_Horticulture_and_Gardening. I'll be bringing in some expert help from web forums related to horticulture and gardening. SB Johnny 14:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Treefrog or Tree Frog

I have just finished writing all the species of the Litoria genus into the article, along with the common names. The problem I found was that I got the common names from here [1]. As there are a lot of frogs which are not commonly named, only one book seems to name the lesser known frogs: Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World, : 59. The problem is, that the book that names the majority of frogs, uses "Treefrog" instead of "Tree Frog". There are a few things of which I don't like about this:

  1. It is not a word
  2. The Wikipedia article of Tree frog has the word seperated, Litoria is a genus in that family (Hylidae).
  3. Harold Cogger (who worked in Australia Museum for 40 years or something in herpetology) and Michael Tyler (writen 8 books, and over 200 scientific papers on frogs) both use "Tree Frog". I consider these two the experts in the field, it is just that their identification books do not cover all frogs. The book used by the website just gives names of all amphibians (I think).

I have seperated all "treefrog"s into "tree frog", but I was wondering if that was alright. --liquidGhoul 13:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think the best thing to do is check the common names from another source and the create redirects for the species that have sometimes been listed as xyz Treefrog to the right Tree Frog page. You can double check common names here. --nixie 00:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unidentified pictures #2

More photos!

Thanks! --Fir0002 23:23, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say that the last picture looks a lot like this. They might be the same species but I could be wrong because I'm not an expert. --Khoikhoi 02:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As to the third picture, the closest resemblance I can find is Harestail Grass (Lagurus ovatus), photo [2] and [3] JoJan 19:40, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User template

I've made a first attempt of a user template that can be put on the user page of participants in the WikiProject Tree of Life : see User:JoJan/sandbox.

This user contributes to the
Tree of Life Wikiproject

As to the image, I used a cute photo of a koala. But suggestions for a better image are of course very welcome. As to the (temporary) background color, would it be appropriate to have a uniform color for the whole Tree of Life, or would the colors used in the taxoboxes be appropriate if one wants to distinguish the participants working on different groups, such as plants, animals etc... Any thoughts ? JoJan 15:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

File:Leopard2.jpg Member of WikiProject Tree of Life

I have used this as mine if you are interested--βjweþþ (talk) 18:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Although the koala is cute, doesn't it slightly carry the implication that ToL editors are a bit sedentary. An alternative, might be a crop on the tree in Image:Tree hadrian's wall.jpg. Or if that is too monochrome, hows about a tree frog. -- Solipsist 13:00, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a very scientific method of finding a suitable picture. Any of the millions of known species of living things could be in that box. How about this: the kingdom with the most species is Animalia; the phylum within Animalia with the most species is Arthropoda; the most diverse class within the Arthropoda is Insecta; the most diverse order of Insecta is Coleoptera; the most diverse family of Coleoptera is Curculionidae; unfortunately I don't know what the genus in Curculionidae has the most species, but Anthonomus is a large one. So may I suggest something like this:
This user contributes to the
Tree of Life Wikiproject
Eugene van der Pijll 17:22, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Or, to better display the full wondrous diversity of life, allow different users to use different pictures. I would envisage something like {{User WikiProject TOL|Boll weevil.jpg}} producing the Anthonomus box, and {{User WikiProject TOL|Australia Cairns Koala.jpg}} producing the koala box. This would also allow members to display their specialisation within the project. --Stemonitis 08:47, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Best suggestion yet, make it so :). Pcb21 Pete 12:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is so: {{User WikiProject TOL}}. If anyone wants to change colours, etc., then feel free. To see it in action: my user page features said template with a pretty circular crab. --Stemonitis 12:56, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Expanded infobox?

It seems to me that the current taxobox could be expanded to give some structured information. For example, for animals at least, maximum lifespan and dimension, habitat and diet summary, and a standardized world map showing range might be nice. The taxobox also takes up a lot of real estate for the taxonomic hierarchy. Perhaps it would be desirable to tighten it up? Demi T/C 19:26, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unidentified bird

Hi! I was hoping that you could identify a bird which has been visiting my verandah recently. I live in East Gippsland, Australia. Here are some photos: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fir0002/Unidentified_bird And a video in case you need the bird call: http://peter.flagstaffotos.com/unidentified_bird.wmv

Thanks! --Fir0002 23:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is the Striated Pardalote (Pardalotus stratus). There are six subspecies, I think that this one is Pardalotus striatus ornatus. --liquidGhoul 11:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What type of fly?

Hey guys,

I don't have an insect reference books, and cannot identify this fly. Can anyone help?

Unidentified fly

Looks like a Greenbottle (Lucilia), a genus of blowflies, but there's probably 1,001 other similar genera (or, more realistically, 10,001 others!) - MPF 14:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]


New taxobox template: everyone happy?

Is everyone happy with the new {{taxobox}} template? I am thinking about converting multi-template taxoboxes to use the new template. However, I noticed that User:MPF had changed Seemannia from a single- to a multi-template taxobox [4]. So is there a problem? I looked at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/taxobox usage and Template talk:Taxobox and it appears that all objections have been addressed, or at least are not currently being argued. Comments? Gdr 15:37, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I did so was so that I could add a picture and/or an author citation - the instructions page for using the new taxoboxes (at least the last time I looked at it, which I'll admit is a while ago) doesn't have any clear instructions about how to add in extra lines, whereas I'm very familiar with using the older ones.
There's also a few of the new ones where I've added an author citation at the end of the species line; the only way I could get this to format correctly was to add </b> after the species name, otherwise the author also appeared in bold text (the usual wiki formatting of three ' didn't work).
I also find the necessity to remove "Image:" from image file names is very confusing, I think that should be made so that inserting a pic is just a matter of copying the file name out of commons and pasting it in without having to delete part of it - MPF 16:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see: you have problems with the usability and inflexibility of the new scheme. I was worried that it rendered incorrectly. Gdr 16:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thanks; tho' even more, I'd say clearer instructions, and some copy-n-pasteable templates with all the lines in (so that excess lines can be deleted, or <!-- -->'ed for future reinstatement, rather than have to be added), preferably a template for each kingdom style/colour - MPF 17:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give the changeover a go and I'll see if I can improve the documentation. Gdr 22:21, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Now there's more examples of the new taxobox in use, I'll be able to make a template from one of them - MPF 10:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I added some cut-and-paste examples to Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/taxobox usage and tried to improve the documentation. Let me know if it's unclear or unhelpful and I'll see what I can do.

Thanks; they're still missing the image lines - it's a lot easier to delete lines one isn't using, than to know what extra lines to add, where to add them, and then to type them! (or, even better, rather than delete them, to put <!-- --> tags round lines not being used, so that they're still there for future editors to use when a pic becomes available). Also worth adding the name endings and format reminders (ophyta, opsida, ales, aceae, ''[[G]]'', '''''G. s''''', etc; compare the old-style templates I've got on my talk page [scroll down 2 screenheights]) - MPF 01:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can I encourage you not to use tricks to squeeze the authority in next to the binomial? It makes it hard for programs to figure out what you've done. If it's imporant to place the authority next to the binomial when the authority is very short we can add a key to the template like "binomial_authority_nobreak" specially to handle this case. Gdr 11:53, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No problem! I mainly did so because it was easier to enter (never having fully got the hang of templates!); no, I guess it isn't important for short ones to be on the same line even tho' I do think it looks a bit nicer - MPF 01:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A separate issue: I notice a couple of pages use the rank "branch", for the Bilateria (e.g., Bilateria itself, and Symbion), which currently doesn't show up in the taxoboxes. Can this rank be added, or should the pages be altered to use only more standard ranks? --Stemonitis 08:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For the moment Bilateria can be restored to the taxobox without a rank. Gdr 11:59, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Peculiar formatting / rendering problem

I've noticed where a species and its varieties are listed in a taxobox, the space between the italicised species name and "var." disappears, so the name appears as Genus speciesvar. thingy, instead of Genus species var. thingy. The space is there in the edit box, but disappears in the on-screen version - MPF 01:22, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bugzilla:4830 Gdr 11:50, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Converted multi-template taxoboxes

I converted about 15,000 multi-template taxoboxes to use {{Taxobox}}. There are a few tricky cases that I didn't convert: there's a list at User:Gdr/Nomialbot/Report 2006-02-01. There are three common cases:

  • Article about two genera. We should add parameters genus2 and genus2_authority to support this.
  • Article uses cladistic taxonomy and this can't easily be made to fit in the Linnaean straightjacket of the taxobox.
  • Article about a virus. We should either make the taxobox support viruses or else make a new taxobox specially for viruses.

There may be some more that I missed. Gdr 21:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks hugely for doing all this!! Didn't realize I had so many ToL articles on my watchlist... :-) Stan 15:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Common names

As a new Wikipedian I have become increasingly bemused by the usage of common names for plants, the choice of one (sometimes obscure) "common" name as the accepted one, and the redirects of all other common names, as well as the scientific name, to this "accepted" common name. For example, I was checking out MPF's articles and edits in Parthenocissus and the various Parthenocissus species articles. Redirecting to a particular common name (which may or may not be "common", depending on who you talk to) makes little sense and represents a POV. I have already weighed in on Albizia julibrissin, known almost universally in the U.S.A. as "mimosa" but is known by various other names in other English-speaking countries (I am always amused when people insist that "silk tree" is the proper "common name", even as we all agree that Albizia julibrissin is the correct name). I'm probably opening an old can of worms but I would strongly suggest that the scientific name be the title of the main article, with all common names redirecting to the scientific name. One example is Parthenocissus tricuspidata or "Boston ivy", both of which now redirect to "Japanese creeper" even though this species is almost universally known as "Boston Ivy" in the U.S.A. In fact I have never once heard of the name "Japanese creeper" (and why "Japanese" when this species is also native to China and Korea???). My point is not that one "common name" is more accurate than another, it is that many species have multiple common names, any or all of which have varying degrees of "accuracy", and which vary greatly from one English-speaking country to the next. By their very nature, standardization of common names is a lost cause. MrDarwin 18:57, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree that all plants would be better at scientific names (see my comments higher up this page under 'Concrete capitalisation rule'), but this is widely disliked in some quarters (being cited as 'against wikipedia rules'); pages I've moved to sci names in the past regularly get moved back to common names by other users. Of the particular case cited, I'd be happy to move the page(s) to scientific names, but we should be consistent in this across all members of its category (i.e., everything indexed at Category:Vitales), otherwise trying to find anything in the index becomes nonsensical. The only reason I kept these pages at common names was because that was already the established use in at least that genus. Of Parthenocissus tricuspidata common names, Japanese Creeper (its standard common name here) is better and much less POV in (a) indicating a major part of its native origin, and (b) sharing a group name with related species (i.e. Virginia Creeper), whereas "Boston Ivy" is very confusing, indicating neither its native area nor its relationship, but rather suggesting it to be a North American species of Hedera. - MPF 19:22, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
At the very least, I would suggest that species that have multiple common names, particularly misleading common names (like the various "ivies") or common names that differ significantly from one region or country to the next, have their articles under the scientific name with the various common names being redirected to it. MrDarwin 19:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with MrDarwin, and also cite the cases of common names being used like genus in articles, example: nettle is a genus! No, Urtica is a genus! This is an error.Berton 22:18, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is the case that most plants (other than rather rare ones) do have multiple common names for the reason that "common name" is what somewthing is called locally and plants are distributed widely (especially if involved in horticulture). Usually, the common name used at Wikipedia is a British or US East Coast common name and for tropical plants, anything goes (even Spanish). Unless common names are reduced to not being common to their location (what ornithologists did), there can not be agreement on what is the "real" common name - Marshman 23:33, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've moved the Parthenocissus species to sci names now (will edit the pages for style tomorrow) - MPF 23:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that makes sense to me and I hope it makes sense to others as well! MrDarwin 14:15, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As one of the "common name advocates" I suppose :-) , I'll give away a hint as to how to more easily justify the use of a scientific name - identify multiple species/genera that a common name is used for, and document them at the common name, making it into a sort of disambiguator. That way less-technical readers get to decide what they're looking for, before having to decipher an article written in science-ese. FishBase is a great example, in that it has a whole table of common names (in various languages) vs species, no doubt a great help to the ichthyologist trying to talk to Brazilian fishermen about what they're catching. I don't suppose botany has anything similar? Stan 17:00, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Of course that is a good approach. In general, when an article name is changed to a scientific name, the old name becomes a redirect. But I like your idea of expanding that to include many common names to either the same species or same common to many species (the disambig. page part). Could include other languages to the extent that an organism is known by its "foreign" language name in English-speaking countries. - Marshman 18:38, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cleaned up Category:Frogs

In the last 3 days, I have cleaned up Category:Frogs. All of the families, genera and species of frog have been moved into Category:Frogs by classification. In frogs by classification, the large families have thier own category (e.g. Category:Tree frogs), and if there are enough species within a genus, the genus has its own category(e.g. Category:Litoria). I had to use my judgment as to whether to create categories for some families, which had very few articles, but the potenital to have lots because there was a large list of species (e.g. Category:Poison dart frogs). I hope this is alright. The families with no genus or species artices have stayed in Frogs by classification.

I have also started a category Category:Frogs by country, which only includes Category:Frogs of Australia, as that is the only I have created thus far. --liquidGhoul 03:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now have Category:Frogs of India. --liquidGhoul 05:25, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikispecies?

Just wondering... are all the species pages going to be moving to this? (http://species.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) ... I'd never noticed it before, but found it through wikibooks. If not, what's it for? SB Johnny 13:25, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See meta:Wikispecies FAQ Gdr 14:30, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I saw that, but wasn't clear on how it relates to the wp articles and the TOL project here. Is it just a taxonomy tree? Most of the pages seem to be along those lines now.SB Johnny 15:29, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Like any other wiki, wikispecies is what its editors choose to make it, but yes, its focus is on taxonomy.
There's no likelihood of articles being moved from en: to species:, but since en: is freely licenced, editors are free to copy articles in either direction.
For the original proposal, see the wikipedia-l thread starting here (there's more here following its creation). Gdr 16:33, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Botanical terms

While looking over the article on daylily, I noticed that the term scape was wiki-linked, but led to a page about something else entirely. There also seems to be no page for crown (mentioned on that page, but it's a red link and refers to trees specifically, not plants generally). I think it's good to have the term "scape" leading somewhere, because it's not obvious, but should it be a WP article, or a Wiktionary definition (there just doesn't seem to be all that much to say about scapes). If the latter is better, how does one link a wiktionary definition from an article? I've gotten used to the wikibook shortcuts, but can't seem to track them down here. (Sorry to be so full of questions lately.) SB Johnny 20:45, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Most technical terms will support an article; not only do you have to define the term, but you want to describe variability, show some pictures, relate to similar terms, discuss function, etc. See petal, inflorescence, and raceme for some good examples of articles that go beyond the dicdef. Stan 00:43, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Although it is clearly difficult to generalize here, I would disagree. Most technical terms in Botany/Biology are just definitions and Wikipedia is not a collection of definitions (belongs in Wiktionary where "variability, show some pictures, relate to similar terms" are perfectly appropriate accompaniments). Most technical terms belong to a family of closely related terms (functionally or morphologically) that together would merit an article such as you describe. I spend a lot of time making redirects of pages for terms that people made a definition page for, but have little chance of becoming a real article by themselves and which are treated already in articles. In the example given (scape) the term is one ripe for a disambig page and the proper redirect for the botanical definition under flower or some such; or direct to a definition at Wikitionary - Marshman 03:49, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think for now I'll move the current page to "Scape (software)", and start a stub article. There are several other plant articles already linked to that page (That page also has bad url links, BTW). Problem with the wiktionary definition is that there are 4 meanings: (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scape), so that's not an ideal solution either. I'm still wondering about what the general rule should be. SB Johnny 10:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
An excellent example of the point I am trying to make is the article bract which at one time was headed for Wiktionary, but had potential for expansion and subsequently was. Note that many technical terms are defined within it, providing a place to link those terms to, as well as solid context for all the related definitions given. An encyclopedic approach. - Marshman 18:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's easy enough to create links in articles without checking exactly what they link to--I've done it myself, and that is clearly what happened here. But rather than linking to a simple definition of "scape" why not have "scape" (in the botanical sense) link to an article on inflorescences that discusses the terminology surrounding scapes, peduncles, bracts, racemes, and various other terms? Such an article would be informative rather than simply definitional. MrDarwin 13:44, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Is Wiktionary accepting multiple pages of descriptive content now? They didn't formerly. Stan 13:21, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure what you mean? - Marshman 18:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You said '(belongs in Wiktionary where "variability, show some pictures, relate to similar terms" are perfectly appropriate accompaniments)', which suggested to me that you thought more extended content was appropriate there. In general, dictionaries confine themselves to one-sentence definitions - even my 20-volume OED can rarely be induced to use a second sentence, even for a complicated concept, and explanatory paragraphs are only used to discuss tricky etymologies and the like. To take "scape" as an example, if there's anything to say about evolutionary advantage, remarkable growth rates, composition compared to regular stems, etc, I would expect to see that in an article here, not in Wiktionary. If there is no such additional info, then yeah, redir or transwiki (in the case of "scape" redir to either inflorescence or plant stem seems most sensible). Stan 20:16, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Photos for identification

Hi!
Back with more pix...

Uh... That third one looks like a rose. The leaves are hard to see, but they also look like a rose. --liquidGhoul 04:45, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The leaves look roseate to me; seems like a doubled gardener's variety. --Mgreenbe 14:55, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it is obviously a cultivated variety, you do not get flower form like that from a wild rose.--liquidGhoul 21:10, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The caterpillar is a hawk moth larva, recognizable by the horn on its hind end. There are some good Australian Lepidoptera sites and I will try to identify it specifically for you and let you know. Richard Barlow 12:09, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Got it! Its a Vine Hawk Moth (Hippotion celerio) - see [5]. No article for it yet, but I will write one when I get a chance and include your pics. Richard Barlow 12:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Open tasks list

Please help to keep the Biology portal's Open tasks list up to date. This is one of our main communication methods to help get newcomers more involved in editing articles. It contains a list of articles that need improving, articles that need creating, articles that need cleanup, etc. And of course, if you have the time, please help and work on some of the tasks on that list! --Cyde Weys 05:20, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Which takes precidence: official common name or actual common name?

"In cases where there is a formal common name (e.g. birds), or when common names are well-known and reasonably unique, they should be used for article titles."

What happens when a species has a "formal" common name that is different from its actual common name? For example, the formal common name for Caenolestes fuliginosus is "Dusky Caenolestid", but its actual common name is "Silky Shrew Opossum". Which one should be used as the article title? This is going to be a hot topic soon as it seems the 3rd edition of Mammal Species of the World (which was just recently published) has decided to make up more scientific-sounding common names for the mammals of the world. (I wonder if they renamed the Lion, "Tawny Panther"!) Kaldari 06:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the common names in MSW3 are more "common" and less scientific. Different sections of MSW3 are compiled by different authors, and some were better at others in using more natural names thn others. When I recently editted the Paucituberculata articles, I noted that MSW3 called all of the shrew opossums caenolestids. I felt free to ignore "caenolestid" and kept the "shrew opposum" part of the name. However, C. fuliginosus is called the Dusky Caenolestid (Shrew Opossum) in MSW3 and not the Silky Caenolestid (Shrew Opossum). Was I wrong to use "shrew opossum" instead of "ceanolestid"? Was I wrong to use "dusky" instead of "silky"? (Have no feaar... Panthera leo is still "Lion".)
MSW3 notes about its use of common names:

Unlike previous editions, we have provided a common name for each recognized species. The starting point for these names is Wilson and Cole (2000), but each author was encouraged to examine those names and to provide a different one if there was a good reason to do so. Thus, this list can be viewed as a second edition of Wilson and Cole (2000) There are no urles governing vernacular names, but Wilson and Cole (2000) outlined several reasons for adopting a single name for each species of mammal.

On a side note, MSW3 capitalizes common names much like is promoted here via WP:BIRD (and WP:PRIM, WP:CETA, WP:CEPH), but MSW3 capitalizes after a hyphen while we do not. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:21, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict-reply to Kaldari) I would argue that Duff and Lawson (2004), Wilson and Cole (200?), or even Nowak (1997) have as much claim to the "official" common name as MSW3. There are no official committees that oversee that sort of thing for mammals (unlike birds). Many of the common names in MSW3 appear to have the goal of educating by modifying existing common names so that they no longer infer incorrect relationships. Thus shrew-opossums have become caenolestids because they are not true opossums, tree shrews have become treeshrews because they are not shrews, and mouse-like hamsters have become calomysci (calomyscuses?) because they are neither mice nor hamsters. I'm a bit surprised that flying squirrels aren't gliding squirrels. --Aranae 07:23, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I know next to nothing about the ins and outs of mammalogy, but I would say that a real common name (as really used commonly by real common people) would always have precedence over a committee decision. If there's real discord, then go for the scientific name. A recently-invented "common name" is pointless, because we have the scientific name for referring unambiguously to a taxon. --Stemonitis 08:30, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And, of course, common name is a slippery concept, as in Puma, which has some 40 common names in English alone. I live where the common name for Puma concolor (previously Felis concolor) is panther (see Florida Panther) (or painter, in many older accounts). Pick one, note all of the sourceable alternatives in the article and use redirects. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 12:54, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is no such thing as an "official" common name (which by their very nature vary from one area to another). There are various authorities who have tried to standardize particular names but these may or may not be in actual usage by the people who actually observe and talk about the critters (and plants) (e.g., "ladybug" vs. "ladybird beetle"). This whole discussion illustrates why (in my opinion) all species should have articles under their "scientific" name, with all common names redirecting to that. MrDarwin 14:18, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of us agree on exactly that point. Ornithology has made great strides in developing "official" common names, but that always seemed sort of "what part of 'common' do you not understand". Common names are common to the geography, and certainly one reason scientific notation was invented and based on Latin in the first place. I suppose the wide dispersion of many birds (migants) and a fairly tight professional and amature community have promoted their efforts at standardizing, a hopeless task here to apply to the full range of biota on earth (where most species do not have any common name). - Marshman 22:08, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is an international fully official list for French names,so I don'tsee what,s keeping English ornithologist tocomeup wth something. Circeus 22:20, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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