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Category:Taxa by author diffusion

Are Category:Animal taxa by author (2,035) & Category:Botanical taxa by author (1,064) intended to be mutually exclusive from Category:Taxa by American author (533), etc.?

If so, it's unclear which is the preferred destination. Should an American animal taxa author go into Animal taxa by author or Taxa by American author?

If not, Animal & Botanical will need further diffusion into their own nationality layers, which seems overly redundant, complicated, and bloaty.

Both Category:Animal taxa by author (2,035) & Category:Botanical taxa by author (1,064) were created by now-blocked, problem-producing editors in taxonomy-space, so my guess is that they should be deleted in favor of the national categories. Also, I think that having nationality above group makes more sense than having multiple national layers below Animal/Botanical/etc., since nationality-above-group will naturally result in fewer overall categories. There's only 1 nationality category that might need diffusion in the foreseeable future, Category:Taxa by American author (533), which can be done by simply diffusing into whatever the most popular taxa group is for American authors (Animal, Botanical, etc.).

@Smasongarrison, Rlendog, Beland, Phil Fish, Micromesistius, Jengod, Shellwood, Liz, Prosperosity, Surtsicna, NotAGenious, Ethmostigmus, Esculenta, and Quetzal1964: pinging all recent category editors for input.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:37, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I am very not equipped to comment on taxonomy generally BUT I think it's weird to have plants vs animals bc we also need to then consider fungi and kelp and slime molds (whatever they even are) and the whole catalogue of cooties (viruses, bacteria, and all their little friends). So. My thought is just...taxa. Full stop. Don't subdivide by types of taxa. If you want to subdivide the NAMERs of the taxa by century or nationality or what have you, sure, whatever. Good luck and bye! :D jengod (talk) 20:49, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree that Animal vs Botanical should be deleted. Some of these namers addressed both plants and animals (and I am sure fungi too) so that split doesn't make sense. I am not convinced we need a nationality split either but that one is at least sensible. Rlendog (talk)

Absolutely - what happens if someone dares to identify both flora and fauna? --Prosperosity (talk) 21:01, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

A possible interpretation here is that the animal/botanical split refers not to the Kingdoms, but to the nomenclatural codes (in which case "fungi and kelp and slime molds" come under botanical). But there are also the bacterial and virological codes, and PhyloCode. (One might argue that PhyloCode isn't used widely enough for Category:PhyloCode taxa by author to be useful.) Lavateraguy (talk) 11:20, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not fully sold on the need for someone to look up taxa based on the citizenship of the author, but that's pretty standard for Wiki categories so it makes sense. --Prosperosity (talk) 21:01, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of the nationality categories before, and I don't think they've been previously discussed anywhere. Category:Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus is in both the the animal category and the botanical category, and I'm sure there are other taxonomists in both categories. The botanical category does specify that it covers "plant and cryptogam taxa (lower plants, fungi, lichens, algae)". I think the animal and botanical categories aren't particularly useful and could be eliminated. I don't think we really need to diffuse Category:Taxa by author at all, and the nationality categories could be eliminated as well. Plantdrew (talk) 21:19, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Someone being in both Animal & Botanical is ok. I just don't see the point of having (Animal|Botanical) and (nationality) at the same level...unless...(Animal|Botanical) is declared non-diffusing. I'd be ok with that.

There are ~5600 unique "Taxa named by <author>" categories, and always growing, which I think is worthy of diffusion.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  22:15, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

My intent of beefing up the taxa by nationality was to get those categories out of the FOOian people by nationality categories that they were showing up in. I personally don't find the animal vs botantical distinction to be very helpful, but I assumed that other people who know more about tax do. Mason (talk) 23:16, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Interesting discussion, thanks for the ping! Not very experienced with categories so hopefully I'm understanding everything correctly. I think the animal/botanical(/additional categories for other eukaryotes, prokaryotes, and virus taxa?) distinction can be valuable, but agree that it definitely should not be mutually exclusive with nationality categories. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 06:58, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Get rid of the nationality part. it's irrelevant. Two prolific authors I can think of, George Albert Boulenger and Albert Günther, were dual nationals, and there will be many more. I also don't think we need anything more than "Taxa named by", so agree with removing the references to animals and plants. Quetzal1964 (talk) 07:19, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Someone being in 2+ nationality cats is ok. Someone being in both Animal & Botanical is ok. Someone being in any of (American|Australian|...) AND any of (Animal|Botanical|...) is the main question here, and which of these 2 sets, if any, should exist.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  09:33, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

• When I first proposed these taxa by author categories back in the day, there were no suggestions to specify further than just author. So I wonder if nationality and field are even needed. FunkMonk (talk) 07:31, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

I do not see Animal & Botanical as being mutually exclusive with each other or with the nationality cats. Only having nationality category makes categories difficult to find, especially when one does not know the full name and identity of an author, or when there are spelling variations. Therefore I object to only having nationality-based categories, but I am OK with these otherwise. I see a need for diffusion but the Animal/Botanical split is quite sufficient. To me a bigger problem is propagation of categories with one or few articles, without much prospect of them becoming more populated. When does an author deserve a category? There is no good answer, and this was the reason I was initially quite sceptic to the "Taxa by author" system. Now I kind of like it because it highlights the people behind taxonomy, but the notability issue remains unresolved. Cheers, Micromesistius (talk) 11:55, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

I personally vote to get rid of the field categories. The animal/botanical split is archaic, unrealistic, and completely subjective, so it should not be considered. I have no issue with the nationality categories as it could be an interesting source of demographical data, but I also have no issue with removing them if that is the consensus (also, people can have more than one nationality, and some believe to be better represented by their ethnicity than by their national status). — Snoteleks (talk) 15:28, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

When you say get rid of the field categories, do you mean to do away with taxonomic categorisation for authors entirely, or replacing the animal/botanical author categories with something more comprehensive? I wouldn't consider the animal ("zoological" would be a better term IMO)/botanical split subjective - I interpreted it as referring to to taxa covered by the ICZN vs the ICNafp, and I think distinguishing between authors publishing on animals and authors publishing on plants/fungi/algae can be useful. These two categories obviously fail to address all the organisms outside of those groups, but I would prefer to see more comprehensive categorisation than do away with taxonomic distinctions entirely. Interested to get your thoughts on this given that I know your interests lie with organisms that fall outside of the existing categories. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 04:45, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

The ICZN and ICNafp overlap in many protozoan groups, that's my primary concern. Authors that study protists such as Labyrinthulomycetes, Bicosoecida, Euglenida, Katablepharida and Myzozoa could belong to either of those categories, as there is no consensus (and no desire for consensus) on which nomenclatural code has domain over them. In all of those, both zoological and botanical suffixes of taxon ranks have to be used because the codes refuse to collaborate with each other. Ideally we would be able to firmly separate one from the other, but the reality is that it's subjective in the sense that it depends entirely on the author's preference for these ambiregnal groups.

However, even assuming that we collectively decide to maintain these categories, we could not even firmly separate them ourselves in Wikipedia to avoid any overlap. There are groups which, by consensus, have botanical suffixes in some taxon ranks, but zoological suffixes in others. Perhaps it would be better to have "animal", "plant", "fungal", "protist" and "prokaryotic" categories instead. — Snoteleks (talk) 12:19, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

My two cents, as an ICZN Commissioner, is that the plant/animal categorization is definitely artificial, and definitely has a fair-sized "fuzzy area", which argue against the maintenance of those sub-categorizations. I have an even stronger objection to categorization according to nationality of authors, because "nationality" is even MORE artificial, and can also be pretty darn fuzzy; not just authors with multiple citizenships, but authors whose countries have changed (e.g., how does one categorize an author from the former Soviet Union, or pre-Soviet Russia?), or authors born in one country, but who lived and worked elsewhere without citizenship there? If I want to know where an author was born, or their citizenships, I can look up their linked biography. If they are not notable enough to have a linked biography, then I wouldn't care where they were from. Categorizing taxa by their author's name, by their year of description, and by their biogeographic region or continent are all fine, but I have trouble with sub-categories within these (including subdividing biogeographic regions or continents into countries, which are, as noted, artificial boundaries and subject to change). Dyanega (talk) 15:49, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly. — Snoteleks (talk) 12:46, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

---

So it looks like there's consensus to get rid of the nationality layer, as no one finds it useful. @Smasongarrison: is that ok with you?   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  18:24, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

As I said before my problem is that these categories keep showing up in FOOian people by nationality categories, where they're really don't belong. So they might not be directly useful for Taxony, but they're really useful for keeping them isolated from the rest of the people categories. I'd be fine with an alternative categorization that solved this problem or a policy that these categories don't belong in the rest of the tree. But, they serve a basic use of diffusion. ^SMason_Garrison 18:37, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

What's an example of one of the FOOian categories that these keep populating? I'm ok with the taxa by nationality cats if they're part of a larger structure.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:59, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Here's the example I tidied up today. Category:Taxa named by Carl Borivoj Presl was in Czech botanists, before I cleaned these kinds of categories. They were often placed in all the same categories as the person who named the taxa, such as FOOth-century botanists, FOOth-century Czech scientists etc. It's just really annoying because the contents of the taxa category never apply to these kinds of pages. ^SMason_Garrison 22:13, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Is the problem that Carl Borivoj Presl is placed in category Category:Taxa named by Carl Borivoj Presl, when of course he isn't a taxon named by himself? The other categories in Category:Taxa by Czech author don't include the author (at least the few I checked).  —  Jts1882 | talk  07:54, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Partially, but at the heart of it the entire category often gets treated like Carl Borivoj Presl, almost like it's an incorrectly named eponymous category. ^SMason_Garrison 12:20, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Arachnids by year of formal description

Kodiak Blackjack is creating an Arachnids by year of formal description category tree.

Given the 2018 RfC on limiting the number of branches & layers of the described-in tree, and that several arachnid-related cats were previously CfD'd (ticks & mites), and that I couldn't find any consensus to create an arachnid tree, do we want to crproposed cat deletion: eate an arachnid tree?   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:02, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Slightly off-topic: shouldn't those 1757 dates be 1758?

The zoological code (4th ed) says:

3.1. Works and names published in 1758. Two works are deemed to have been published on 1 January 1758:

- Linnaeus's Systema Naturae, 10th Edition;

- Clerck's Aranei Svecici.

(There's a 1757 beetle too...)
Kweetal nl (talk) 11:26, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

You're correct; there are no available names in zoology that were, formally, published before 1 January 1758. Regardless of the actual date of Clerck's work, it's considered to be dated 1758. If you want to be super-pedantic about it, the citation would appear "Clerck, 1758 ("1757")", following Rec. 22A of the ICZN. As for proliferation of categories, if these changes are being made without consultation or consensus, then there is a significant chance that some of the new categories are going to be extremely underpopulated. If there's only one species in, say, "Echinoderms described in 1795" then that may be oversplitting. Metrics on category constituencies might be persuasive one way or the other. Dyanega (talk) 14:47, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Have read through the RfC. Was unaware of it before (I did get a couple of notices that some of the categories I was recreating were previously deleted, but the reason given was WP:C1).

My thoughts on creating the arachnid tree: when looking through the categories previously, I saw that a lot of arachnids (mites, scorpions, and ticks especially) would be lumped into "Animals described in XXXX," while spiders got their own category. Which is probably justifiable given the amount of spider species, but having a category tree that encompassed all arachnids at the class level seemed to make more sense than skipping straight to orders.

Re: 1757/58, if we want to put all the 1757-dated species into 1758, I don't have any objections to that. With regards to the beetle, it appears to have been synonymized with Dorcadion crux (Billberg, 1817) judging by the article's reference, so that just limits it to those in Systema Naturae and those in Aranei Svecici. I feel like there should be some categorical distinction between those, but I don't know how we would or if we even should go about that.

Re: categories being underpopulated, this is inevitably going to be true for some years and some taxa. It is also a problem that will eventually solve itself as new articles are created and added to their respective year of description categories. I think that the benefits of having a framework in place for future articles (or poorly-categorized articles) outweigh the downsides of having some be underpopulated... to an extent. If categories at the class level are underpopulated, it doesn't make sense to split it further until there's an actual need for diffusion.

So I'm in favor of an arachnid tree (obviously), neutral on having a spider tree, opposed to anything further (ticks, mites, etc.) for the time being.

— Kodiak Blackjack (talk) • (contribs) 12:30, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

@Tom.Reding @Kweetal nl @Dyanega Apologies for the pings, everyone. It's been a little more than a week since the last reply, so I'd just like to keep the ball rolling towards some sort of consensus. Any thoughts on the above (and echinoderms/etc.)?

— Kodiak Blackjack (talk) • (contribs) 18:12, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

The default position should be to stop creating new categories, as described in the RfC that you've read.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:20, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Myself, I'm a little more ambivalent, and mostly concerned with the overall hierarchy of categories. For example, I agree with Kodiak that if the only echinoderm category is starfish, that this is bad. I would favor replacing the starfish category with a broader echinoderm category; this wouldn't increase the overall number of categories - it's a net zero - but it'd establish a more useful and logical piece within the hierarchy, and get more taxon articles into a more useful categorization. It's a balancing act, and I would think that so long as the end result is not a much greater total number of categories, that re-organization like this is desirable. Dyanega (talk) 16:05, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

(Previously uninvolved editor) I have to say I am with Kodiak and Dyanega here. Given we are talking about categorisation by year of description and therefore information aimed specifically at people interested in taxonomy, the current system which recognises a taxonomically-arbitrary set of groups (spiders but not other arachnids, starfish but not other echinoderms, etc.) seems bizarre. We should give some weight to the six-year-old RfC quoted above, but only about a dozen people commented. I think there should still be room to propose logical improvements to the system. YFB ¿ 17:35, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Category creation is fine as long as there's vocal consensus (i.e. not WP:SILENT) prior to creation.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  18:06, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Echinoderms by year of formal description

Same question for Category:Echinoderms by year of formal description.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:26, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Same reason for the arachnid tree. We had a few categories for starfish described in <x year>, made more sense to have categories encompassing all echinoderms instead of stranding cukes, crinoids, urchins, etc. in the animals tree.

I would be in favor of deleting the starfish categories for the time being, though - I don't think there's enough volume to justify it at this point.

— Kodiak Blackjack (talk) • (contribs) 12:34, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Etc. by year of formal description

See Category:Described in year with manual category (23) for more (includes some valid cats, like spiders).   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:11, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

There, I just screwed the pooch and manually added categories which I wasn't aware were automatically added by the Category described in year template. Mea culpa. Will clean up the mess there later today.

— Kodiak Blackjack (talk) • (contribs) 12:39, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Update: Have fixed all the echinoderm, spider, starfish, and arachnid categories in the maintenance category you mentioned, as well as sponges described in 1814. I didn't have a hand in creating all of the spider or starfish categories, but I fixed their manual category errors while I was going down the list for convenience's sake. Everything left, I had no involvement with.

The bee, bug, cockroach, damselfly, fly, grasshopper, sawfly, and wasp categories seem excessive - again, don't think there's enough volume at the moment to justify diffusing insects beyond the already-existing category trees for beetles, butterflies, and moths.

— Kodiak Blackjack (talk) • (contribs) 15:53, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Post-move cleanup for higher taxa

I moved Lithotelestidae to Aulopsammiidae because the taxonbar entries all said it was the accepted name, but I realized that I'm not sure how to carry out post-move cleanup for higher taxa. For one, should Template:Taxonomy/Lithotelestidae be moved, or should a new taxonomy template be created at Template:Taxonomy/Aulopsammiidae? jlwoodwa (talk) 05:11, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I've changed the taxonomy templates, updated the text in the article to reflect the move, added entities to the taxonbar, changed the category, and made changes on Wikidata (new entity for family, sitelinks, parents for affected genera). Not sure I have everything consistent everywhere. There are quite a few knock-on changes needed. Nanipora also needed a change of family, which I have done. However, with that move, Helioporidae is no longer monotypic and needs a stub article instead of the redirect.  —  Jts1882 | talk  10:26, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Template:Taxonomy of ...

I'm struggling to understand the rationale behind this template - both in terms of its intended purpose and its structure. At the moment it seems to include a pretty random selection of (manually compiled?) content with taxonomy pages of different ranks from kingdom down to individual species all grouped together, a 'mono-/polyphyletic' split given excessive prominence, multiple taxonomies of different vintage for the same taxon etc.

Can anyone shed any light on how this came to exist in its current form please? Assuming it's supposed to provide structured navigation to all 'taxonomy of' articles, is there a better implementation available? Pinging @Ypna as it looks like they were the original creator. YFB ¿ 23:57, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Its intended purpose is to facilitate reading across multiple articles of a similar nature. Its structure seems logical to me, but if you don't like it, feel free to edit it. Yes, the selection is manually compiled; I'm not aware of any automatic compiling tool. Please see the page history for an exact explanation of how it came to exist in its current form. Ypna (talk) 05:00, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Its intended purpose is to facilitate reading across multiple articles of a similar nature. But, there are very few links; a couple of species, some genera, some familes, a few higher taxons, and three articles about different proposals for the phylogeny of a particular taxon. As someone with slightly above average acquaintance with the topic of biology (I took a year of biology in college, read Scientific American and American Scientist faithfully for many years, and have edited some WP articles that fall under the area of biology), I don't understand why those articles were chosen, or how the template can help me. Donald Albury 13:52, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Ypna, thanks for replying and confirming the purpose. I've looked at the history of course, but what I was getting at with my question was why you chose to structure it this way - for example what motivated you to make mono/polyphyly the first degree of split? Was your intention that this should ultimately include all taxonomy-related articles? YFB ¿ 17:50, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Donald, those articles were chosen because they were all the articles I could find that were within the scope of the navbox. I thought some readers might like to browse articles related to specific taxonomies. YFB, it seemed to me logical not to lump polyphyletic taxonomies with monophyletic ones – the polyphyletic taxonomies defy placement into a structured system of taxonomies. Yes, it was my intention to include all articles related to taxonomies of particular groups of organisms. If you guys don't like it, feel free to overhaul it or delete it. Ypna (talk) 20:57, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Need for the "Species Latin name abbreviation disambiguation pages"

This series of disambiguation pages was created between 15-10 years ago Category:Species Latin name abbreviation disambiguation pages by now blocked editor Neelix, and I dont think anything has been done with it since. New species have article pages now, but are not represented in the disambigs, extant species with no article were included, but extinct species are missing, and no updates have happened as splits/synonymizations/depreciations have happened. I feel the whole lot is much more work then its intended benefit and should be deleted. Thoughts?--Kevmin § 17:07, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Wow. Somehow, in decades and tens of thousands of edits, I never came across these, or if I did, didn't realize how extensive the categorization was. These would be an absolute nightmare to keep updated and accurate, given how many taxa change generic placement, and it seems like most wouldn't have many articles that link TO them. The first one I picked at random, A. maxima, lists 12 names (one redlink), and has zero articles that link to it, not even the 11 names that have articles. Moreover, no one should be putting abbreviated scientific names directly into links. That really seems worthless. Dyanega (talk) 17:45, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I am quite fond of lists of interesting things, but I am unable to think what real benefit these categories dispose on Wikipedia. Donald Albury 18:11, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Also wow from me; I was aware of C. elegans (disambiguation) but didn't know so many of these had been made. I'm going to be contrary and suggest possible uses for these pages:

• disambiguation of common abbreviated binomials (see C. elegans above), a scientific literacy function since taxonomic abbreviations are extremely common in scientific literature
• historical research value – older scientific literature often uses abbreviated names, and these pages could help researchers tracking down species mentions in archival materials
• linguistic/etymology – shows which descriptive terms taxonomists frequently use (like "elegans", "vulgaris", "officinalis", "communis"), which gives insight into the historical practices of taxonomic naming
• educational value: helps students understand the meaning and patterns behind scientific naming conventions (e.g., why so many species are called "vulgaris" or "australis")

Maintenance is an issue, but I think a single purpose bot could be made to partly clean up the existing pages, and have a maintenance function to scan new species article titles for binomial names, extract abbreviated forms, and update relevant disambiguation pages (or produce a weekly report of potential changes that need to be made).

Instead of focusing on the state of the pages as they are now (incomplete and sometimes outdated), think of what else it could be used for if it were up-to-date, complete, and regularly maintained?

• research prioritization: could help taxonomists identify naming conflicts before assigning new names to species (hello hemihomonyms). If they see many species already share an abbreviated form, they might choose a different epithet to reduce potential confusion in the literature
• literature mining aid: could assist in developing better automated tools for extracting species mentions from scientific literature, by providing a comprehensive list of possible species for each abbreviated form
• historical trends analysis: with complete data including dates of species descriptions, could reveal patterns in naming conventions over time and across different taxonomic groups.

Esculenta (talk) 20:56, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

• Trends for whom though, Keeping in mind a portion of your suggestion leans very close to or falls into WP:OR.--Kevmin § 21:05, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

  What portion is that? I'm suggesting possible uses of a theoretical up-to-date, well-maintained system of abbreviation disambiguation pages. Esculenta (talk) 21:09, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

  Lets look at your points closer.

  "disambiguation of common abbreviated binomials" Its a poor source that doesn't give a full binomial at the first usage, and if it doesnt, is consulting a random disambiguation page here really what should be encouraged?

  Historical research value – see reply to the first point and note that its compounded by the high likelihood of generic placement changes.

  Point three we already have a list of the common specific names.

  For point four, see point three.

  Whom will be doing the updating and maintaining, which would include the addition of hundreds of thousands of abbreviations (see List of prehistoric cartilaginous fish genera for just the shark relatives that are missing) unicellular organisms (see the species list at Bacillus for one missing genus of bacteria) and all the outdated jr synonyms, homonyms, and rejected names in plants, fungi, prootists, and animals. I have enough problems keeping up with the numberous synonyms that paleobotany generates (see the synonym lists in the eudicot species entries at Paleobiota of the Green River Formation, European formations area even more convoluted).

  The next three points are all OR territoty though, and also WP:Crystalball that people would even use the pages that way. Everyone here has mentioned they knew of 1 of the random pages, but not that there are hundreds of them. Ive been on wiki for over 15 years and in the time since the disambiguation pages were created, I have rarely visited any of them. Additionally disambiguation pages do not get sorted upwards in google results so you will not see them unless you actively type "Pantera (disambiguation)". How are the hypothesized researchers and students finding these pages in the first place given the depreciated search status on search engines?--Kevmin § 23:27, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

  • ""disambiguation of common abbreviated binomials" Its a poor source that doesn't give a full binomial at the first usage, and if it doesnt, is consulting a random disambiguation page here really what should be encouraged?" What's "random" about going to Wikipedia and entering "A. maxima" if you read it in a poor source and want to find out what species it is? Where else is a layperson going to figure this out?
  • "Historical research value – see reply to the first point and note that its compounded by the high likelihood of generic placement changes." see my response to your point; in the hypothetical up-to-date, complete, and regularly maintained disambiguation paged Wikipedia I'm talking about the synonyms are listed on these pages.
  • "Point three we already have a list of the common specific names." Great! Too bad a reader can't tell get a full list of species with htese names, even even tell how often these "common" names have been used historically. And how was it decided what was common?
  • "For point four, see point three." ditto my response to point 3
  • "The next three points are all OR territory though" Of course they're OR, as I explained already, these were possible use cases. "Patterns and Evolution of Species Epithet Usage in Biological Nomenclature: A Cross-Taxa Analysis from 1758–2024" would be a lot easier to write in the alternate universe.
  • "Whom will be doing the updating and maintaining" as I said already, these kind of tasks are not difficult for a bot. Esculenta (talk) 00:22, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
  • "Additionally disambiguation pages do not get sorted upwards in google results so you will not see them unless you actively type "Pantera (disambiguation)"." Wrong. I went to Google, searched for "A. maxima", and the dab page was the second hit. Esculenta (talk) 00:22, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Honestly I was very skeptical about this but after reading through your points I really like this proposal. I am happy with maintaining these pages for those purposes. — Snoteleks (talk) 17:29, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

As someone who spends all day researching scientific names, I can vouch for such an index of abbreviations being something I would never use, and given that there are nearly 2 million valid published names (plus over 3 million more that are junior synonyms or unavailable), with approximately 100,000 unique species epithets, I would anticipate that making the system anywhere near complete would be one of the most monumental tasks in WP history. If people have that kind of time, then they should be spending it turning redlinked taxonomy articles into actual articles, not making a half-baked index. I can think right now of only three scientific names that are very commonly referenced only using the abbreviation of the genus: T. rex, E. coli, and C. elegans. If there are other taxa that have these same abbreviations, then yes, by all means, let's give them disambiguation pages. But no one, researcher or lay person, is going to come to Wikipedia trying to research "What is "A. maxima?". If they did, but can't already tell from context, then that's a problem that WP isn't actually going to solve. Dyanega (talk) 23:52, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Making Wikipedia anywhere near complete will be one of the most monumental tasks in WP history; creatinga script to update and maintain a set of index files would not be. Esculenta (talk) 00:34, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I do think there is at least some value in creating disambiguation lists for common abbreviations, and my only real gripe with them is in relation to issues with maintenance and quality control, so I'm very interested in your idea to develop a script to manage these lists. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 01:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Esculenta that there is some potential use. If someone sees the name (say reading a newspaper or website) and puts it into Wikipedia search they get a result. They may not be complete, but maintenance is not a problem. If a species gets moved, redirects should handle that. Someone looking for A. maxima that is now known as B. maxima would end at relevant article. I wouldn't advocate creating such a system from scratch (a lot of work for limited use), but the pages already exist (no work needed for the limited use). I see no benefit from deleting them. One of the benefits of Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia is its massive capacity and ability to host information that is of use to few.  —  Jts1882 | talk  07:01, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with User:Dyanega on the futility of this. Search engines would anyway pick up the "A. maxima" via the taxobox text as pointed out by User:Esculenta. Would suggest that we ignore and add a guideline to avoid any further addition. Shyamal (talk) 07:17, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree that "If someone sees the name (say reading a newspaper or website)" then that abbreviated name could be considered in common use and would definitely warrant a disambiguation page to avoid any potential confusion to the reader. However, this practice should be limited only to those species that are actually referred to by an abbreviated name (such as T. rex, E. coli, and C. elegans) in external sources.

Unless a source does not actually first spell out the full genus name or complete binomial before referring to the species, then we should not be the first to do so. Let us not forget that the only reason to abbreviate the genus name at all was to save time for the manual typesetters, an archaic practice rendered moot by modern word processing and printing technologies. Loopy30 (talk) 13:40, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikidata has abbreviations for most (all?) species. If somebody wants to do some kind of data-mining (as opposed to reading an encyclopedia article), they can go to Wikidata.

Aside from T. rex, E. coli and C. elegans, which do often appear in written works without ever being written out in full, I can imagine situations where somebody might encounter an abbreviated without the full genus. Maybe they have a single page torn out of a physical book, or have a limited view of pages in an digital book (as is often the case with Google Books). But if their context is limited, are they even going to be able to figure out which species on a disambiguation page is the one they are looking for? Maybe their source mentions that C. elegans is a copepod; there are 7 C. elegans copepods on the dab page, and they'll need to know the order as well to find a particular one (and if the source says "small crustacean" instead of "copepod", they're never going to find it). Disambiguation pages are supposed to be navigational aids, helping readers of an encyclopedia find the topic they are interested. I think there is very little demand for navigating from species abbreviation to species article, and whatever demand there might be is poorly served by this set of disambiguation pages. I don't think it is really possible to better serve people looking for the full name of a species if they have limited context; what context they have could be any number of things: family/order/class, marine/freshwater/terrestrial, parasitic/free-living, a continent where it occurs, etc. And we're not going to list all of that possible context for every species on a dab page. We can't even be sure that the species somebody is searching for has a Wikipedia article at all. Now, the pages don't have to be dab pages; they could be "list of species that can be abbreviated as C. elegans", but I don't think such a list would be encyclopedic.

However, the problem isn't really the species abbreviation dab pages. I dislike them, but I've made a couple myself by converting redirects to an obscure species to dabs that list less-obscure species with the same abbreviation. The species abbreviation redirects are the real problem. They were created haphazardly, with no concern for whether other species shared an abbreviation, nor whether the abbreviation redirect pointed to the least-obscure species (i.e., the "primary topic" in dab-speak).

Category:Redirects from scientific abbreviations has 957 members. I would guess that most of the pages in that category are in it because I put them there myself, and that most of them are ambiguous for multiple species (although maybe not for multiple species with Wikipedia article). Most of them were created by User:Caftaric/User:Nono64/User:NotWith (a single person), with User:Neelix maybe also having contributed a substantial number. I have not systematically gone through redirects created by Caftaric, but I would guess there are thousands more that aren't in the "Redirects from scientific abbreviations" category.

If somebody does think species abbreviation dab pages are worthwhile and wants to make more of them, you can start with User:Certes/Reports/Species redirects which lists ambiguous species abbreviation redirects. Plantdrew (talk) 00:51, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Not sure how general this is, but looking at the Wikidata items for the first few items on User:Certes/Reports/Species redirects, they are bot created and only exist as Wikimedia disambiguation pages because of the pages on English Wikipedia.  —  Jts1882 | talk  06:59, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

The first three entries in Certes list were converted from redirects into disambiguation pages a couple of days ago (perhap Kevmin noticed that and it led to this thread starting). Most of the entries on Certes list are still redirects and aren't in the "Redirects form scientific abbreviations" category. When I mentioned Wikidata, I was referring to short name (P1813); most species have this property populated with the abbreviation. 15:19, 25 October 2024 (UTC) Plantdrew (talk) 15:19, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Since I see Caftaric/Nono64/NotWith and the C. elegans (disambiguation) page was mentioned here, believe I should make some comments of my own on this subject since it seems tangentially related to this discussion (also wow, I had no idea there were so many more of these disambiguation pages) and I don't think Caftaric's C. elegans-related editing has ever been significantly discussed on-wiki before if at all.

C. elegans (disambiguation) in particular seems to have been some sort of personal project of Caftaric's, as not only had they been building up this list from 2010 all the way up until they were blocked in 2018 (before 2010, C. elegans was simply a redirect to Caenorhabditis elegans), but they also created possibly most of the C. elegans species articles in the list. I'm also aware that Caftaric sometimes created pages for any higher taxa to house these C. elegans species articles, if they were missing. Unfortunately from what I've seen of them since Caftaric was blocked, many of these C. elegans articles are or were stubs, low quality, have incomplete references, are badly researched, and so on. Caftaric also apparently created articles for invalid "C. elegans" species names, as some of these were later deleted from the list (judging by the revision history). They also arbitrarily added a list of C. elegans uses to the Cicindela article in 2017 (diff link) which was still there until I removed it about two years ago now. There may be other instances of these kinds of "C. elegans notes" on other articles, though I have not extensively searched for them.

To my knowledge, they also underwent this same C. elegans project on fr.wiki as well as on Wikispecies.

Monster Iestyn (talk) 22:20, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Guidelines for categories Taxa/species "named by__" or "described in__"

I'm pretty new to Wikipedia, but I've been really working on a lot on WP:ALGAE articles. In working on pages tagged with {{Improve categories}}, is there a general guideline for named by PERSON and described in YEAR categories? The two specifics I know enough to ask about are 1) a preference to categories using "taxa" (vs. "species" or "genera"). I've also seen some articles with "protists described in YEAR"? and 2) a preference to named by and described in referring to basionym or current accepted name (or both)? I searched in the Talk Archive here and it seems like it's been discussed multiple times, but I didn't find a clear guide. Not sure if I missed it somewhere. (The article that finally pushed me to ask is Rhodoglossum gigartinoides - which was originally described in 1855, but the current name in 1993.) Cyanochic (talk) 02:24, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

The guidance I've received on this is to apply categories based on the earliest validly published description. For example, Malaxis seychellarum was originally described as Liparis seychellarum by Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Kraenzlin in 1902 and transferred to the genus Malaxis by V. S. Summerhayes in 1954, so I apply the categories for "Taxa named by Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Kraenzlin" and "Plants described in 1902". Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 02:33, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Aside from discussions in the archives the closest thing to a formal guideline is Wikipedia:WikiProject_Plants/Description_in_year_categories. Note that it says to use the year of the basionym, and includes the example of Hyacinthus muscari which had to have a replacement name published when it was transferred to the genus Muscari. Editors applying the described in year categories regularly miss the nuances and apply the year of a current combination (rather than a basionym), and don't look for earlier names that may have been replaced. The year for plants is not intended to be the year that determines nomenclatural priority (the year of any subsequent combination is what is relevant for priority). For animals the situation is simpler, as the year for priority is usually the same as the year of description (barring any need for a name to be replaced).

There is no guidance for the "named by" categories. I've seen article where both the basionym describer and the author of a subsequent combination are given. I don't think that is how it should work, but there's nothing to point to in order to say that is wrong. Plantdrew (talk) 01:07, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! Is there anything about using a more specific category E.g. taxa described in, versus species described in, or protists described in? Cyanochic (talk) 04:03, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

One thing to keep in mind is that (e.g.) "Animals described in" is a subcategory of "Species described in" – so higher animal taxa belong in "Taxa described in" instead. That was pretty unintuitive when I started catting taxa. jlwoodwa (talk) 15:17, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

That actually really helps, thank you! Cyanochic (talk) 23:29, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Not sure if other WikiProjects agree, but in WP:PROTISTA the species article falls into the category of the year in which it was moved to its current genus, while the redirect page with the original species name (basionym) falls into the category of the original year of description. I should probably write a guideline regarding this at some point, but that is exactly the way it has been functioning. Same happens with redirect pages for synonyms and monotypic groups. Actually, we should probably write a guideline on this for all of WikiProject Tree of Life. — Snoteleks (talk) 17:35, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:DBC says not to place disambiguation pages in article categories, but perhaps it's worth making an exception (like the one for surnames). Could you link an example of this? jlwoodwa (talk) 18:01, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@Jlwoodwa My bad, for some reason I was writing "disambiguation" when I meant "redirect". I hope that clears things up. — Snoteleks (talk) 16:06, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

This is also good to know. I haven't looked into redirects from basionyms and synonyms for algae pages. Still a bit too technical for me to start addressing. When I add content to pages, I've been trying to tag pages that are under an old name (e.g. Phyllophora traillii) or at least list basionyms and synonyms in a taxonomy section of an article. Though with pages like Rhodoglossum gigartinoides I didn't list all of the heterotypic synonyms, since there were 13 (or possibly 14).

(Also since I have you here @Snoteleks, I've really appreciated resources available on WP:PROTISTA while working on algae pages since there's certainly an overlap - thank you!!) Cyanochic (talk) 22:11, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Glad I could help! — Snoteleks (talk) 14:05, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Request for consensus: add a "type" parameter to Speciesbox template

(discussion initiated by this template request)

I would like us to add a new parameter called |type_specimen= or similar that indicates the type specimen, illustration or herbarium sheet of a given species in its taxobox. The parameter |type_strain=, which is exclusively intended for bacteria, could also apply to many microbial protists, but not all protists have a type strain; many have a microscope slide preparation instead. A |type_specimen= parameter would cover all eukaryotic species, as they are all designated with a specific type. The type is designated in the publication where the species is described, but it can also be checked at ZooBank, IPNI, Index Fungorum, JSTOR, etc. There could also be a |type_locality=, which indicates where the type specimen or strain was obtained. For instance:

• For plants (example given: Eucalyptus phoenix)
  • (Holo)type: MEL 2360702 ("MEL" is the code of a specific herbarium, in this case the National Herbarium of Victoria; the number string that follows is the specific herbarium sheet located in said herbarium, containing the type specimen of E. phoenix)
  • Type locality: Eastern end of the Brumby Point Track (37°03’12” S, 148°04’42” E)
  • Further collection info (necessary for all modern botanical descriptions): on the 15th November 2020 by collectors W. Molyneux & S. Forrester.

• For animals (example given: Acaris urigersoni, doi:10.1590/S1984-4689zool-20150130)
  • (Holo)type: NZAC02028792 ("NZAC" is the New Zealand Arthropod Collection).
  • Type locality: Kepa Reserve, Auckland, ex Gahnia lacera (Cyperaceae) (i.e., the specimen was found in said plant).
  • Further collection info: on the 5th August 2013 by collector Nicholas A. Martin.

• For protists (example given: Cafileria marina, doi:10.3390/microorganisms7080240)
  • (Hapanto)type: IP CAS Pro 59 (refers to the slide collection at the Biological Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Parasitology), TEM and SEM specimens and cryo-mixed cultures with nanoflagellate C. marina and bacteria S. litoris.
  • Type locality: a three-meter depth off the shore in Gaustad, Norway (Kvernesfjorden fjord, 62°59′07.9″N 7°19′17.4″E).

• For fungi (example given: Ascosphaera callicarpa, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0073419)
  • (Holo)type: Holotype C, A.A.Wynns 5165.
  • Type locality: Denmark. Zealand: Lejre Kommune, Sagnlandet (‘‘Land of Legends’’) Lejre, Landbohusene, on fecal pellets of Chelostoma florisomne nesting in the Phragmites reeds of thatched roof of shed behind 19th century cottage, 55°37′11″; 11°22′13″.
  • Further collection info: in 2010, by A.A.Wynns.

I have been trying to use the |type_strain= parameter for protists, but after learning that it was made only with bacteria in mind, I would like to implement these new parameters for more inclusivity (and, like I said, not all protists are designated by strains). Please let me know if you agree so that we can reach consensus on this matter and request a change in the {{Speciesbox}} template.— Snoteleks (talk) 15:08, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

We have |type_genus=, |type_ichnogenus=, |type_oogenus=, |species=, |ichnospecies=, |oospecies= and |type_strain=, so adding |type_specimen= could be considered similar. But they are not exactly analogous. A type species gives you a species that characterises the genus, e.g. a leopard for Panthera. The voucher codes are not informative in the same way. Is knowing the code an important point that should be in an infobox/taxobox? An alternative might be to create a sidebar template that could include holotype, locality and other informatiom.  —  Jts1882 | talk  15:35, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, is knowing the bacterial type strain important enough for a taxobox? — Snoteleks (talk) 20:17, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't be averse to having a template structure for type information, but I think it might get messy as part of the standard speciesbox template. If we went down the route of having a standard set of type-related parameters on the speciesbox, how would we accommodate fairly-frequent edge cases such as syntypes (multiple refs?), neotype (explanation)? YFB ¿ 21:03, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

I think type data is information that is better suited to Wikispecies than Wikipedia. And if it is included on Wikipedia, it is probably better to have it in prose rather than inscrutable short-hand in an infobox (i.e., "...the type specimen is held at the National Herbarium of Victoria, with accession number 2360702. It was collected by W. Molyneux & S. Forrester, with collection number 12345"). I'm not super fond of the existing type strain/species/genus parameters either. Plantdrew (talk) 01:05, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree on principle, but Wikispecies is not properly maintained, often lacks citations and I haven't seen anyone implement types in there. — Snoteleks (talk) 14:37, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

There is type information in Wikispecies for some taxa, e.g. https://species.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brycon_falcatus YFB ¿ 15:56, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

I entirely agree with Plantdrew. It would be over-detailed for a general encyclopedia, which this is. It's the kind of highly specialized information best left to Wikispecies and Wikidata. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:18, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

It may also help to know that in zoology as a whole there are very few type specimens that have GUID codes associated with them - mostly vertebrates, fossil and extant, and not even all of those. I would agree that Wikispecies is the place that such information belongs - and, in principle, there shouldn't be WP articles for species that are missing from WS; that's a situation where an editor should create a WS article if they find that there isn't one. Dyanega (talk) 14:46, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Does this argument start going against the principle that (extant) species are inherently notable though? I don't bother with WS; seems a bit quiet. I got told off a while ago for red-linking a bunch of species in a genus article (think it was nematodes or somesuch) and the creator got upset and unlinked them because it was unlikely that the species would ever get articles. I argued WP:NSPECIES of course, but they were insistent on their ownership, so I didn't pursue. YorkshireExpat (talk) 15:41, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Bateidae#Requested move 27 October 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Bateidae#Requested move 27 October 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. jlwoodwa (talk) 21:45, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Junior subjective synonyms

Bermudalana is currently categorized as an {{r from monotypic taxon}}. This was correct when it was an accepted taxon (containing only Bermudalana aruboides), but it's now a junior subjective synonym of Arubolana (which now contains Arubolana aruboides). I don't think synonyms should be categorized as monotypic taxa, but what else should we do instead? One possibility is to redirect to Arubolana as an {{r from alternative scientific name}}, but that might be a worse (less specific) target than the current one. jlwoodwa (talk) 23:20, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

I've usually used both {{R from alternative scientific name}} and {{R from monotypic taxon}} in such cases. Short of creating a new redirect category, it seems the best solution. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:49, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

New citation template: Cite NatureServe

A long overdue template for citing NatureServe Explorer has been created. Template:Cite NatureServe. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 23:49, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Is it too much original research when the etymology of a taxon is completely obvious but unstated?

Within the king crabs, there is a subfamily Hapalogastrinae and a genus Hapalogaster. Their etymology in their original 1850 descriptions are unstated, but these are extremely clearly derived from the two Ancient Greek words ἁπαλός (hapalós) and γαστήρ (gastḗr) (together meaning "soft-bellied"). This is especially evident because the main defining aspect separating them from the rest of the lithodids is that the abdomen folded against their cephalothorax (basically functioning as their belly) is not calcified and therefore soft. Do Wikipedians generally consider this to be original research, or would this be something more along the lines of WP:TRANSCRIPTION? TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 01:16, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

In my interpretation on this, if you were directly asked Is this THE ACTUAL etymology that the describing author intended? we have to say no, as they never stated it. We have to word any etymology section as neutral and with backing sources, thus if we say the etymology is ἁπαλός (hapalós) and γαστήρ (gastḗr) (together meaning "soft-bellied")" we need to avoid any implication that it was the original authors indent. This is what happens when verifiability runs into older names combined with a crufty need for providing a name translation for all names.

Also as a personal note I truly detest the "(together meaning xxxx") structure used by kids books, rarely do you ever see any describing author use that formatting, and its not actually what its means, its what a very poor English spit-take of the name would be. I only ever discuss the root words/names and what they as single words translate to. We never go around talking about the new three-horned face fossils that were found or the disjunct distribution of "rounded Ypresian ant", "Bartletts Ypresian ant" with "eastern Ypresian ant". We shouldn't continue to normalize a low quality source practice.--Kevmin § 01:39, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Interesting question! Unless a source discusses the etymology, yes, I would consider it original research and not transcription. I often come across secondary sources that posit theories on the etymology of a name when the original description fails to provide any, and adding this to an article is fully acceptable, but in my opinion etymology information in articles must reference a source that discusses the taxon in question. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 01:51, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

It is best practice to only record an etymology if one is clearly stated by a reliable source, and we should beware of creating a folk etymology for a scientific name. That said, I think it can be permissible if the etymology is clearly implied in context; 19th-century authors could generally assume their readership knew Greek and Latin, so they'd say things like "owing to its long tail, I propose to name this species Examplesaurus longicaudus" and leave the actual translation as an exercise for the reader. Does the original description of Hapalogaster clearly imply that it is named for having a soft belly? Ornithopsis (talk) 03:34, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

@Ornithopsis: Unfortunately no, but your example makes a lot of sense. The original description of Hapalogastrinae (subtribe Hapalogastrica -> family Hapalogastridae -> subfamily Hapalogastrinae) exclusively talks about its abdomen, but it unfortunately doesn't directly imply an etymology. JF Brandt, 174 years later, some amateur naturalist is very disappointed in you. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 01:40, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

You shouldn't be stating the etymology as fact, but in my opinion it's fine to state the meanings of those words as "related facts" and let the reader draw conclusions if they want to. For example:

Myzobdella is a genus of leech. [...] In Greek, μυζω means "I suck" and βδελλα, leech.

But others might complain.

Also, I hate it when taxon authors don't provide etymology, especially, when the etymology is weird or obscure. On the other hand, I also don't like it when they call the species viridis or gigantea or something and just call it day.Cremastra ‹ u — c › 01:33, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

And sometimes a source will speculate for us.[1] Donald Albury 16:57, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the point that Ornithopsis makes is very sound: in the past, etymologies weren't provided when the meaning would have been clear to someone who knew Latin and Greek. I endorse Cremastra's example: state the meaning of the components (with a source of course) and leave it to the reader to join the dots. (Botanists have it a bit easier in this respect, because Stearn's Botanical Latin has long lists of Latin and Greek components, and examples of combinations.) Peter coxhead (talk) 17:20, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I have read (and cited) entire academic articles written in Latin (the abstract is often in the vernacular, often not English). Latin scholarly articles are surprisingly easy to read, written in a Latin that favours academic terms with close loanword cognates in many languages, and avoiding elaborate syntax, like the Simple English Wikipedia does. They are much easier to read than Latin texts written by native speakers like Julius Caesar.

Per WP:NONENG and WP:TRANSCRIPTION, sources need not be in English, and it is not WP:Original research to translate information (it's just another way of paraphrasing what the source says). I once wrote an article where almost none of the sources were in English, software package listings excepted. If you are confident that you understand the language, you can write a translation. Frankly, scientific names are assembled out of components, and the meaning of the compound in natural language is pretty much irrelevant, so translating the components is better anyway. I'd favour linking both of them to Wiktionary, alongside a (cited) discussion of the characteristic softbelliedness of the crabs, as you did in your first post. HLHJ (talk) 03:55, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Category:Endangered species by reason they are threatened has been nominated for discussion

Category:Endangered species by reason they are threatened has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you.

About 70 subcategories, the oldest from 2015, are also being proposed for deletion.

These categories are used for extinct species as well as living ones.

There is debate about whether it is possible to list some threats to a species without oversimplification and omissions amounting to misinformation; comments from anyone with an interest in threatened species or extinction would be particularly welcome. HLHJ (talk) 04:47, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Automated taxonavigation in Commons

Is there any way that we could replicate the automatic taxobox system for the taxonavigations in Wikimedia Commons? It takes excruciatingly long to update the taxonavigation box for every taxon. — Snoteleks (talk) 22:56, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

In principle, yes. Commons could have its own equivalent of our taxonomy templates, and use these to construct taxonavigation boxes, or Commons could use our taxonomy templates. However, that would be a decision to be made over at Commons, not here. (A major problem would be that individual language Wikipedias don't agree on taxonomy, which is why taxonavigation boxes can be inconsistent.) Peter coxhead (talk) 08:27, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that the issue is that they don't agree on taxonomy, I believe that the English Wikipedia just happens to be better maintained sourced. If there were automatic taxonavigations boxes at Commons, they would just try to represent the most recent literature and consensus, just like automatic taxoboxes. (Also, Wikidata also gives the same taxonomy for all languages). I don't really know who I should ask about this topic at Commons, though, since I couldn't find anything similar to the ToL WikiProject. — Snoteleks (talk) 10:21, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikidata also gives the same taxonomy for all languages – Wikidata allows multiple values for the parent of a taxon, so doesn't represent a single taxonomy. Wikidata gives the same taxonomies (plural) for all languages. Look at Lemnaceae (Q14293890) – a taxon we don't recognize in the English Wikipedia. For us, the parent of Lemna (Q161207) is Lemnoideae, not Lemnaceae. The equivalent for Commons would be multiple taxonavigation templates. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

That just means that either Wikidata or English Wikipedia is not accurate and needs to be updated. I do not see that as differing opinions. — Snoteleks (talk) 21:21, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

@Snoteleks: within limits, taxonomy has a subjective component. The rank at which to recognize a group can certainly be a matter of opinion. Some sources, such as PoWO, are known 'lumpers'; regional floras and specialists are more likely to be 'splitters'. If you want to see an extreme example, see Blechnum. We chose to go with PPG I, others could perfectly legitimately choose to go with PoWO. Neither approach is "accurate" or "inaccurate". Peter coxhead (talk) 22:27, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

The scientific consensus is one thing, and at Wikipedia we try to follow it because it is backed by credible sources. The databases (such as PoWO) are a completely different thing, they are subjective because they are maintained by specific individuals who usually don't keep the data completely up to date with the literature. Moreover, databases are based off of the scientific literature, not the other way around. This means that the taxonomy based on the former is by definition accurate, while the taxonomy based on the latter is inaccurate. — Snoteleks (talk) 23:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

@Snoteleks: two quick points: don't assume there is always a consensus; we are supposed to use secondary or tertiary sources, not primary ones – we mustn't try to judge consensus from the literature. Anyway, no more from me on this subject. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:45, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

@Snoteleks: Commons does actually have its own TOL WikiProject, but I don't think it's active anymore. (Nor has it been for a few years now I think.) Monster Iestyn (talk) 18:07, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

A reminder that ping doesn't work without a signature (four tildes). Donald Albury 20:43, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

@Donald Albury: That wasn't the issue actually, I used the reply tool that's now built in and automatically adds my signature. What actually happened is that a previous edit not by me changed the wikitext of my ping from @[[User:Snoteleks|Snoteleks]] to @[[User:|Snoteleks]] and so breaking it, probably unintentionally? Monster Iestyn (talk) 22:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. Commons has Commons:Template:Taxonavigation, which produces the top navigation bar using manually entered parameters, and Commons:Template:Wikidata infobox, which produces the "taxobox" using wikidata. If you want Taxonavigation to automatically fill in the taxa, perhaps you should ask at Commons:Template:Wikidata infobox. They already have code for automating the taxonomy in the taxobox, so someone might be willing to modify that for Commons:Template:Taxonavigation.  —  Jts1882 | talk  12:27, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Just to note that if you use Commons:Template:Wikidata infobox on a taxon which has multiple parent values set in Wikidata, the template uses the first one. So if there were a Wikidata infobox on Commons with |qid=14293890 (Lemnaceae), it would (currently) show the parent as Arales, as this is the first listed parent. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:46, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

In that particular case there is a preferred parent, which the infobox should be able to select (yet doesn't). But in most cases where there are many they are all left as normal (neither deprecated or preferred). In some cases they include immediate parents and others that skip straight to a higher rank. Unfortunately, as the statements are usually in order they are added, old relationships will be selected over the new ones. There is no solution, as Wikidata is set up, as even if people tried to set preferred values, different wikipedia might want different systems (e.g. POWO v World Ferns).  —  Jts1882 | talk  17:05, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Sadly we regularly come to the conclusion that nothing can be done because of the way that Wikidata is set up. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:45, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Discussion about Taxonbar on Wikispecies

I have started a discussion on Wikispecies regarding the Taxonbar template. In the past (in 2020) it was banned for use on Wikispecies mainly due to problems with its design with respect to what Wikispecies actually does as opposed for example Wikipedia. I have made some suggestions that are more in keeping with the function of Wikispecies in the hope we may be able to get it approved for use and would appreciate any feedback from people here who may be interested in this. Thanks. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 15:08, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Taxobox images and image_alt parameters

While working on other ToL matters, I became aware that in various taxon articles with one or more images in the (manual or automatic) taxobox, these images either entirely lack a |image_alt= parameter, or have it left blank. (Going to be honest: I'm fairly sure I've been guilty of that myself as well!)

To get a rough idea of the scale of these absent/blank image_alt parameters, I spot-checked various articles transcluding the three main taxobox templates—{{Speciesbox}}, {{Automatic taxobox}} and {{Taxobox}}—until I found 20 of each with at least one image using the |image= parameter or a numbered equivalent.

Out of these sixty articles, only seven consistently provided image_alt parameters, and another two did so partially.

Assuming these results are roughly representative of taxon articles as a whole, ~88% of taxon articles with infobox images lack alt text for some or all of these. That is, well, not good, considering that per the MOS and Accessibility guidelines, such images should have one. (I wrote up a quick summary of these guidelines within the context of taxoboxes, which can be found here, if anyone prefers that).

I intend to add this missing alt text where I come across it, but the presumed scale of the issue combined with the size of ToL means I cannot feasibly do it alone. Anyone else willing to help, whether that's by looking for articles with missing alt text or "just" checking whether there's alt text for infobox images on articles you're already working on anyway, would be much appreciated. AddWittyNameHere 09:23, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

We could use |image_caption= to populate |image_alt= when it is absent. Not all taxobox images have captions, but when they do that would be useful. And in the absence of the either, we could put the file name. While sometimes confusing, this would usually be better than nothing. So in {{speciesbox}}, we could change:

• Current (line 79): | image_alt = {{{image alt|{{{image_alt|}}} }}}
• Using caption: | image_alt = {{{image alt|{{{image_alt|{{{image caption|{{{image_caption|}}} }}} }}} }}}
• And using file name: | image_alt = {{{image alt|{{{image_alt|{{{image caption|{{{image_caption|{{{image|}}} }}} }}} }}} }}}

Is there a downside I'm missing? This wouldn't be a substitute for encouraging use of |image_alt=.  —  Jts1882 | talk  10:10, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

On reflection, an obvious downside is wikitext in the caption. This could be stripped with a simple function, but does make the change less trivial.  —  Jts1882 | talk  10:13, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

If stripping the wikitext from the caption is possible, it could be a decent if flawed stop-gap measure in those cases where captions are present and alt text is not. (Which, based on my sampling, would be over half of cases with missing image_alt). I do imagine, though, that the same text getting read out twice by a screen reader, once as alt text and again as caption, might also be rather frustrating (if probably still an improvement over no alt text). Would there be a way for the template to automatically detect if a caption is present, and if so, populate image_alt with "refer to caption"? I could see that being a better solution, if feasible.

As for using the file name, my understanding is that one of the reasons for using alt text is because screen readers will otherwise default to reading out the file name, which is considered unwanted and potentially confusing. Not sure that actively populating image_alt with the file name is an improvement when the behavior is likely to remain identical but with additional steps behind the screens.

(That said, that's based on what little of the technical side of templates and alt text I understand, and I could be wrong there. As far as technical downsides go, I'm not the one to ask, really. I can use templates and follow the documentation of parameters, but creating/editing them beyond the most basic level is beyond me, I'm afraid.)

AddWittyNameHere 11:08, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) [I hadn't read your addition when I posted the following]

On reading MOS:ALT, it seems repeating the caption is discouraged. Instead, adding |image_alt=refer to caption might be more appropriate when there is a caption and no alt text provided. Also it says screen readers will read the file name which can be confusing and is one reason alt text is required  —  Jts1882 | talk  11:17, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Seems we had practically-identical thoughts at the same time, then. AddWittyNameHere 11:20, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Something like this might do:

• | image_alt = {{{image alt|{{{image_alt|{{#if:{{{image caption|{{{image_caption}}} }}}|refer to caption| }} }}} }}}

The syntax of the #if statement needs checking. It could be added to {{taxobox/core}} but that tends to need more checking  —  Jts1882 | talk  11:28, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Okay! Not sure how to best go about checking it, so I'll leave that to you and/or others with actual syntax and syntax checking knowledge. Still, it sounds like it should be feasible then, just checking whether this is the correct syntax to do it? If so, that's good news and would significantly reduce the scale of the problem for the moment. (Would still be good if those image_alts eventually get populated by actual manual alt text, of course, but certainly of lower priority than stuff that has neither caption nor alt text)

I should probably also look into how to get a list of all articles that use a taxobox of some kind, have a non-blank image parameter, and lack an accompanying image_alt or image_caption parameter and/or have a blank one. Guess I'll do that after I get some much-needed sleep, though. AddWittyNameHere 11:43, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I did a test with {{speciesbox}} in the edit preview and it looks like it worked. It's probably best to put it in a utility template, say {{taxobox/alt_text}}, so it can be added in several places, as {{taxobox/core}} handles six images (2 images and 4 range maps).

My searches suggest the number of taxoboxes with |image_alt= is only a few percent, assuming this search is what I intended it to be. About 1500 uses of |image_alt= in about 140,000 speciesboxes with images and 40,000 with captions.  —  Jts1882 | talk  11:54, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Would it work as-is in several places? I'd think that as currently written, if added to one of those other places, it'd end up looking for whether the first image--not the one it actually applies to--has a caption, since the caption parameter names aren't the exact same for image2 and the range maps. Could be wrong though, definitely am not a syntax expert. AddWittyNameHere 12:13, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

1624 Speciesboxes have |image_alt= in the Template Parameters report. Plantdrew (talk) 16:36, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Notes