Wikispecies:Village Pump/Archive 51

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This is an archive of closed discussions. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this archive.

Main Page topics.

I have been thinking a little about our main page, since I wrote a species of the month other day as we did not have one. I had not done that before but as it was missing I thought I would just do it. But I thought another section we could do on that page would be each month have a section that highlights 3 or so brand new to science species, those whose descriptions have literally just come out the month before. I know that we occasionally put these up on the twitter feed for Wikispecies. Also we can let the authors know we are doing it maybe they will provide pictures with permissions etc of these new species. Over the years my co-authors and I have provided Wikimedia with pictures of several of the species I described, some of these for a long time were the only pictures online of these species. What do people think. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 22:15, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

something like this I guess I am getting at: New Species Daily cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 22:41, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support the initiative, although I can not be of much help, especially if that can motive researchers to provide one of more free licensed image(s). A kind of "recent new species sample", but maybe concerning species discovered in the past few months, and not necessarily out of the month before (in order to let to the Wikispecies editors a longer time range to prepare the section). Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:56, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Rhododictyon Orla-Jensen 1909

Ok, this one has me at a loss, though admittedly I'm new. In 1909, Orla-Jensen published an invalid name for the bacterial genus Thiodictyon, calling it Rhododictyon. This is cited in Bergey's Manual of Determinative Biology, 7th ed, and I've traced down the original publication by Orla-Jensen, which is cited on the page for Thiodictyon.

In 1961, W.R. Taylor used the name Rhododictyon for a genus of algae. So, how do I create a redirect from the invalid name for the bacterial genus when it's already taken? Jarnsax (talk) 08:34, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Jarnsax, in case of a non-valid homonym, you could redirect from Rhododictyon Orla-Jensen. I added the homonym at the Rhododictyon page. If both names are valid (hemihomonyms), or in case of multiple homonyms, it is better to create a disambiguation page, e.g. Phyllophora or Baileya. Kind regards, --Thiotrix (talk) 15:25, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Thiotrix: Awesome, thanks!. I knew there had to be an established way to do it, just didn't see it documented (can't be that common). Jarnsax (talk) 15:47, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The old LSID templates

I am happy to report that as of tonight, there are no longer any templates of the unwieldy format "Urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:04103285-9670-452E-B5B3-CC378D470C90".

However, there remains many redirects, and these tend to be the ones with the most links from other pages. Could a bot swap these with links to the proper template so the redirects can be deleted? Circeus (talk) 07:58, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Circeus: Many thanks for straightening this out. This kind of bot would be too complicated to make offhand. Better do this manually at a slower pace. Mariusm (talk) 12:21, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's likely that we should now turn some attention to hundreds of [no longer any templates templates of the form] Zt+a string of numbers... If only to formally decide these are okay. Circeus (talk) 02:06, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

These templates are problematic in the following: (1) the authors are not linked (1) the authors don't appear in full for more then 3 authors (et al. is used instead) (3) the templates don't appear on the author's pages (4) the names are difficult to manage due to the awkward names. However I can't recommend changing the names as this involves a lot of work. I occasionally do change the ones which are relevant to my edits. Mariusm (talk) 09:03, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, there are a lot more of them then there where lsid templates (at least when I got onto the LSID train two weeks ago). The name is my biggest concern, but at least they are nowhere as awkward to work with as the LSID ones. One of the reason I was never that much on board with templates as they are currently designed is that you don't have a choice what is or is not linked, so it looks like a see of unnecessary links if you have multiple articles in a row by the author(s). Circeus (talk) 16:34, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Perseverance pays. I have managed to purge Cirripedia of Zt templates, converting them to standard format. I like the standard templates, as I don't have to remember every instance in case something needs changed. You will probably find that no Zt templates are author linked, and as observed, zero list more than first three authors. In actual history, full author linking was only performed after Zt templates were discontinued. Neferkheperre (talk) 17:23, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I don't disagree about the usefulness of the template concept. I just wish when implementation started people had been willing to ask for external help conceiving a version that could handle all the formatting and generate COinS. The ability to import references directly through Zotero and other citation tool is incredibly convenient for visitors. I'm also of the opinion that we should have kept the "see all citations of this reference" link instead of the reference template link since anyone who ever edits the wiki will quickly learn about how to get to the reference page, so it's harly useful link to a noneditor!
By now though, even a partial rollback on these things is essentially impossible. Circeus (talk) 20:06, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Help for a redirect

@Christian Ferrer: I think the answer I just got in the previous section might help, lol. :) Jarnsax (talk) 16:42, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Great, thanks you Jarnsax, I was absorbed by my works and I did not notice that discussion. Now I will will manage to do something. Christian Ferrer (talk) 16:47, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm aware this has already been answered, but another method I've seen for disambiguating plant and animal etc. genera I've seen is putting the family in parenthesis after (as in, "genus (family)"). Though either way, there honestly really needs to be some kind of written-up standard for dealing with homonyms. Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:23, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The "genus (family)" method is used in the example of Baileya that I cited above. I prefer to use "genus author", as for algae, genera may change their family rather often after every new research. And in groups with taxonomic stability, there may also exist homonyms in the same family. Caused by the lack of a formal center for taxonomic classification for all taxa, there are really a lot of homonyms! ( see also https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikispecies). I agree that the way of dealing with homonyms should be described at Wikispecies' help pages, if it is not yet included. --Thiotrix (talk) 22:18, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The Help stuff has generally seen fairly little updating since... it was created, really. I mean, Stephen came and went, with a highly idiosyncratic style and none of which was ever recorded down anywhere... thankfully tbh, because I,ve seen articles with three references separated by three different subheaders under "references". That way is madness.
I've tried starting a few standardization discussions in the past, but it's always amounted to herding cats. A simple example: we have not even an informal standard reference formatting for handling book series that involve no neat article divisions. (Not that I like the no-templates standard that ended up established, but that's an entirely different topic I've lost a long time ago.) Circeus (talk) 23:02, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Circeus: Yes, coming in here at this point, even with experience on wikipedia, figuring out the preferred reference format is kinda nuts.... seems like the easiest option would just be to adopt how they are written in some (whatever) style manual (MLA, APA, whatever). Jarnsax (talk) 02:13, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Last time I counted, I had around 70,000 non-unique genus name instances (homonyms sensu lato) representing perhaps 25,000-30,000 duplicated names, out of around 490,000 genus names total in my database (lists can be auto-generated via http://www.irmng.org/homonyms.php) so a consistent handling method on WikiSpecies is worth striving for. And that did not even include Rhododictyon (bacterial instance now added...) Cheers - Tony Tony 1212 (talk) 19:24, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback wanted on Desktop Improvements project

06:53, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Pales

Hi, I'm relatively new to Wikispecies in case you couldn't tell. I'm not actually a taxonomist of any sort, I've just been helping fix, create and clean up taxon articles in my spare time as a kind of hobby, both on the English Wikipedia and, more recently, this site. In particular, one of the areas I've been updating for a while now are the pages linked to Eumolpinae (a subfamily of Chrysomelidae aka the leaf beetles family). Unfortunately, there are a few nomenclature-related messes hiding within this subfamily, and one of them includes the generic name Pales. Bear with me while I explain my problem here...


Long explanation:

For those not aware, the Pales page is linked from both Eumolpinae and Tachinidae (a fly family). From what I'm aware, this confusion is because there are actually two genera named "Pales": one in Tachinidae named by Robineau-Desvoidy (1830), and one in Eumolpinae named by Chevrolat in Dejean's Catalogue of Coleoptera (1836). There is no doubt that Robineau-Desvoidy's name has priority and the other is a homonym. However, the Pales page itself was apparently written for the genus in Eumolpinae! (Well, not really "written", it's a stub page right now quite frankly.)

Now, I could have solved this straight away were it not for the fact that Pales Chevrolat has not one but two replacement names: Floricola Gistel, 1848 and Eupales Lefèvre, 1885. Normally, Floricola should be the name to use, as it has priority over Eupales. However, according to the Catalogue of Palaearctic Coleoptera vol. 6 (2010) (see page 83) and Bouchard et al. (2011) (see pages 539, 733 and 894), there was an ICZN application (case 3498, currently unpublished) submitted in 2009 to suppress Floricola and conserve the name Eupales and the proposed tribe name "Eupalini" (named, but not stated as explicitly new, by Verma et al. (2005): see here on ResearchGate). However again, more recent sources (e.g. here and here) now seem to ignore the application's existence and use Floricola anyway, and no news of this ICZN application itself seems to have been spoken of since 2011 to my knowledge. So then, do we use Floricola because of priority, or use Eupales because of the ICZN application (even if it seems to have been ignored by now)?

This also gives me some additional personal headache, because I created the Eupales article on Wikipedia back in May 2018 before I was fully aware of this name problem (which I later made a note of on the article itself). I hope by addressing this to others first this time I can clear this up properly.

(Additionally, if the name Eupales is chosen, it may be worth noting there is actually a longhorn beetle genus of the same name, Eupales Dillon & Dillon, 1945, which was renamed to Eupalessa by Monné in 2005 (see here). Then again, I don't know if the Eupales/Floricola matter directly affects the name of this genus? Oddly enough though, we already have a page for its sole species, Eupalessa attenuata, but not the genus itself.)

(Oh, and yes, Pales Robineau-Desvoidy is currently a valid name, if it helps to know.)


Short explanation: Pales as it is on Wikipecies right now should be in fact be either Eupales or Floricola ...but I'm not sure which name should be used instead. I put it to Wikispecies' other members to help me out here.

(Apologies for the wall of text.)

Monster Iestyn (talk) 18:03, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, this is a little complicated, so let me try to clarify. The various genera being discussed above are...
  • Pales Robineau-Desvoidy, 18 (Tachinidae)
  • Pales Chevrolat, 1836 (Chrysomelidae:Eumolpinae)
    • This name is not available, and not in use
  • Floricola Gistel, 1848 (proposed as a new name in Naturgeschichte des Thierreichs, p. 123)
    • This is a replacement name for Pales Robineau-Desvoidy, it is not currently the most accepted name
  • Eupales Lefèvre, 1885.
    • The generally accepted (until at least 2009) name for Pales Robineau-Desvoidy, and the base for Eupalini Verma, 2005
  • Eupales Dillon & Dillon, 1945 (Cerambicidae:Lamiinae:Onciderini)
    • An unrelated homonym, its valid replacement name is Eupalessa Dillon & Dillon 1946
The case was notified as having been received in September 2009. But never decided on, much less published. I'd venture there's a likelihood the application was withdrawn (notices of closure of cases after 2011 are inaccessible through sci-hub), but it seems at first blush like the sources using Floricola are very much in the minority. Until the case is resolved, the predominant usage of Eupales is to be preserved. I would consider emailing the ICZN or the applicant of the case in hope of learning what the hell is going on. Circeus (talk) 22:50, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I checked with some commissioners I know and no one knows anything about that case. I could if you like email the Secretary who is responsible for the publication of cases or the editor of BZN, I do know both of them, but in all honesty since this is a 10 year old submission and not published I am suspecting as you have that it was withdrawn. As a withdrawn case it is not relevant to the issue. In which case we need to follow the recommendations of any published revisions or Priority in the absence of this. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 00:43, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If the ICZN application was indeed withdrawn, I take it that means we should use Floricola then? All the most recent publications I can find so far that list the genus seem to use that name now anyway. Monster Iestyn (talk) 08:09, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As best as I can figure it looking at some of the refs, the only justification for maintaining usage of Eupales Lefèvre, 1885 would be if the ICZN Case had been actually published. Under a published case before the commission prevailing usage is to be maintained until they publish an opinion. However without a published case under consideration this is not possible and hence it falls back to the Principal of Priority and the Principal of Homonymy. Pales is clearly a junior homonym hence is not available, therefore the valid name under the Principal of Priority is Floricola Gistel, 1848. Unless someone submits and publishes a case, this cannot be overruled. If someone has published a statistically supported (publication and usage stats) revue of the issue that shows that Eupales has prevailing usage as defined by the code, and Floricola does not meet the criteria, then maybe it could be accepted, but as far as I can tell this has not been done. So I would go with Priority and use Floricola I would suggest you ensure there is a synonymy on the page, with an explanation beside the name Eupales and Pales. That is Pales is a junior homonym, Eupales is a nomen novem. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 08:45, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I thought maybe Eupales could be declared a nomen oblitum and that's why the application was rejected, but a few mentions here and there noted that Floricola was used at least once in the 1980s, which prevented that. Maybe other factors came to light to influence the withdrawal too, like competing names published between Floricola and Eupales or another homonym for Eupales, but at this point that's entirely speculation on my part. Circeus (talk) 16:22, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I've just now created Floricola (Chrysomelidae) with synonyms included (judging by the genera list in Floricolaceae, the name also used for a plant genus, which is why it was not just "Floricola"). I'm thinking Pales and its taxonav template can probably just be reused for the fly genus instead. I think that should settle it for now hopefully. Thanks both of you! Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:50, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

nontaxonomic content

As I stroll through reference templates, I often stumble upon some that are of absolutely no taxonomic or nomenclatural relevance. While I don't touch those of geographical interest (since we record distributions, although I've voiced by disagreement with that), others I have been deleting (e.g., and yes I have had a quick read through to double check). These are, as far as I can tell, all due to Stephen (again... sigh) creating templates for every single papers published in certain journals or by individuals whose bibliography he for some reason wanted to be comprehensive on wikispecies.

So yeah, just a heads up about those occasional "out of project scope" deletions. Circeus (talk) 16:27, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

agree delete them if they are not relevant. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 17:10, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ok I will do as well! Andyboorman (talk) 19:21, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Fully agree.--Hector Bottai (talk) 19:51, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but... an otherwise taxonomy-involved-author publishes sometimes an article not purely taxonomic yet for the sake of completeness should be listed on the author's-page (Although not in a template form). For example: Löbl, I. 2017. Assessing biodiversity: a pain in the neck. Bionomina 12: 39–43. DOI: 10.11646/bionomina.12.1.3. Mariusm (talk) 09:27, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not opposed to that, I'm jus opposed to them being either templates or (an even worse offense IMO) being cited in name pages when they are entirely irrelevant to Wikispecies' interests (as the article linked above was). Löbl's paper is actually of generic/peripheral interest to the project, though I can hardly see where we would cite it. Circeus (talk) 18:22, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe among the help pages an explanation of what taxonomy and nomenclature is could be useful? in which case some of these types of pepers could be useful. Personally I do not know that every paper written by everyone that gets a place on this wiki is necessary, my own page only lists relevant papers, I myself have many publications not listed on this site. Some of them are not relevant here. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 22:01, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Please check the data exists on Wikidata before deleting it here. If necessary, we could use a "Migrate to Wikidata then delete" template. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:58, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What to do with Protista

As I was patrolling today there was one on Protista to deal with and I noticed it had been tagged as in dispute some time ago. I added a delete tag to it to flag it, though in my comment I stated we should discuss it. @Andyboorman: removed the tag, which is fair enough, my main aim was to get its attention. The tag can go for now. Ok this Division is no longer used in Biology, it was shown to be paraphyletic. There is some discussion on its talk page about this. It is no longer linked within the groups to which it once represented, though does still have a link up to its former Parent taxon Eukaryota. The reverse is not true. So it is currently a dead end so to speak. So what do we wish to do with this? Options are delete, redirect (to Eukaryota??) or leave it be. I would like to hear some suggestions though please. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 20:24, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Scott, all... if Wikispecies uses Ruggiero et al's 2015 classification, Protista (colourless unicells) mostly equates to their kingdom Protozoa plus part (only) of their Chromista (the situation has got a bit murkier as Chromista has been expanded to include some large colourless groups such as Radiolaria). So I would make an approximate mapping between Protista and Protozoa, noting the fuzzy boundaries. On the other hand if you follow Adl et al., there is not such a single approximate mapping, and someone else should suggest what to do. Regards - Tony Tony 1212 (talk) 11:56, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I would vote to adopt Adl et al. and redirect protista to eukaryotes. Here's a good recent review on the issue. Voganaa (talk) 14:40, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I shall pass a message to Barun Sen Gupta when I go to LSU Tuesday. He should have an idea of preferred classification.Neferkheperre (talk) 14:52, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Far as I see, this is one of those situation where we can't be entirely neutral if we want to mimic something like ITIS, but as we are not a structured database, we can actually display multiple conflicting classifications if we so decide. Circeus (talk) 18:26, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Template:BHL's documentation finally displays properly

See Template:BHL for the current result. Turns out the start of the green doc box was being included as part of the list item started by the template itself, splitting it from the rest of the box. A single line break before {{documentation}} fixed the problem.

Thought I'd put this news here in case there are similar problems with docs for other templates that involve list syntax. Monster Iestyn (talk) 20:51, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

BRKMAHS

Is there any reason why BRKMAHS is not spam? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:06, 21 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

not that I can see. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 21:36, 21 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like something that fell out of Wikipedia. Neferkheperre (talk) 12:44, 22 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing to do here. Delete.--Hector Bottai (talk) 13:21, 22 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Done Circeus (talk) 03:00, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Marking synonym, invalid or deleting

What is the process when a species is no longer appropriate or valid? I'm thinking of Testudo werneri which is now a synonym of Testudo kleinmanni. I'm sure there will be other taxon, so would like to know the process involved. Sun Creator (talk) 12:44, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Sun Creator: welcome from WP. What should generally happen is the synonymy on the Testudo kleinmanni page would be updated to include the species Testudo werneri and the now junior synonym will become a redirect to the senior synonym. The page is not usually deleted, just a redirect. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 14:33, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Just looked at them the Testudo are not up to date I will look at them later today and fix it up. I think when I added the fossil Testudo I added the subgenera those pages may be somewhat orphaned from the main nomenclatural taxonomy of the Testudo. I will fix it up. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 14:43, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Sun Creator: all fixed, cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 15:14, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Update of "Other review tools" header

The header "Other review tools" on page Special:RecentChanges seems to be out-of-date. It shows yellow marking for a RFC that is no longer active, but misses a marking for a request for Translation Adminship. I do not know, where or how this is updated. Kind regards, --Thiotrix (talk) 10:07, 24 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It can be updated at MediaWiki:Recentchangestext (example diffs: [1], [2]). Korg (talk) 18:13, 24 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for this information. It is now updated. --Thiotrix (talk) 07:18, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Important resource for Japanese journals

I just came across this and since our pages on Japanese journals tend to be more likely then average to be bare (although Russian journals, I find, are often worse off), I thought I'd share it. It's shock full of places to find these articles:

(use sci-hub to access it) Circeus (talk) 16:09, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't look like you need Sci-Hub here actually, this article appears to be open access. Monster Iestyn (talk) 16:40, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Jesus, I am an idiot today XD Circeus (talk) 17:35, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
For Russian journals, take a look here. --RLJ (talk) 18:30, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, I mean a resource fro someone who doesn't speak Russian. Usually the problem is moving from the transliterated titles in many databases to the actually useful Cyrillic title. If I can puzzle out either the title in cyrillic or the ISSN, I can usually get at least some info through elibrary.ru (that's how I got the ISSN for this. i should have taken the time to create a journal page, I'll admit). I haven't yet puzzled much about the potential usefulness of cyberleninka.ru, though.
I'm thinking a page compiling repositories would be useful, there's so many and new ones crop all the time @.@ Circeus (talk) 22:55, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Circeus: Is that possibly the same as Doklady Akademii Nauk Tadzhikskoi SSR (Q16557846)? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:35, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Probably. The elibrary.ru website implies rather heavily that the ISSN didn't change after the country's name did. Circeus (talk) 13:59, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #2 – Mobile editing and talk pages

Content
11:13, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, the only species of the genus above have been moved to another genus. I guess that it is not needed to create an entry here, is it? If it is relevant to create it, then ok, no problem, but otherwise I delete the name from the genera list of the family Arenicolidae, no? I do not see the point in keeping the red link. Eitheir I create it (the reference template is already created) or I delete it from the list. Christian Ferrer (talk) 15:47, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This would make the above genus a junior synonym of the genus its species was moved to. If the genus was used and may be searched for the genus can be a redirect to its now valid name. If its never really been used and its not created leave it that way but list it as a synonym on the genus page. Yes definitely delete it from the family page, red link can go. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 15:54, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
WoRMS (and therefore IRMNG) presently has Protocapitella listed as accepted (WoRMS), but that may be an oversight. I have sent an email to the relevant WoRMS editor (Geoff Read for Annelida) and will await a response. Regards - Tony Tony 1212 (talk) 21:33, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
OK, fixed now in WoRMS courtesy of Geoff, also in IRMNG. Tony 1212 (talk) 04:20, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Internal links formatted as external ones (Bot please?)

If anyone's looking for a cleanup/bot task, here's one! Circeus (talk) 19:02, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ETA: Wasn't there a bot doing this on templates at one point? because there's 5.6K of those still to do, and using the search function is a LOT less efficient than Special:WhatLinksHere or even Special:PrefixIndex . Circeus (talk) 04:13, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Jonas Rimantas Stonis taxa

Circeus. Can you transferred the species with Johan R. Stonis taxa to Jonas Rimantas Stonis taxa? (102). With hand it cost a lot of time.PeterR (talk) 08:28, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Will have a look. Circeus (talk) 16:39, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
What's going on between that and Rimantas Puplesis? Is it a married/birth name thing? Or did he change his name for another reason? (apparently Stonis is his mother's name?) Circeus (talk) 17:29, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Done, either way. Circeus (talk) 00:19, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
First he published under Rimantas Puplesis after then he published under the name Jonas R[imantas] Stonis.
Thanks for transferred above transaction PeterR (talk) 07:11, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Community Wishlist Survey 2020 is open

m:Community Wishlist Survey 2020/Wikispecies. —Justin (koavf)TCM 19:38, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Full name: E.T. Giles

Anyone can help with this one? It's a page creation of Stephen, so can't ask him. Author (can't quite tell if they are male or female) was active form the 50s to the 70s at and based in Australia, associated with the Museum of South Australia and the University of New England. This has not proved enough to allow me to ferret out a full, name however. Anyone got ideas? Circeus (talk) 20:46, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

from South Australian Museum Archives "In March, 1955, Dr. Edward Thomas Giles became official Entomologist at the Museum. A New Zealander, he had just completed a postgraduate course at the Imperial College, London, there securing his Ph.D. He worked particularly on the morphological affinities of the Dermaptera." Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 21:39, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, great. thanks! Circeus (talk) 22:23, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Also: I can't believe I overlooked that someone had already ferreted the info at Wikidata ><;;; Circeus (talk) 22:24, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Displaying vernacular names from Wikidata

There was some talk recently of using Wikidata to populate {{Vn}}. This will reduce the workload for editors on this project, increase the quantity of names we display, especially in under-served languages, improve the searchability of our content, and reduce the duplication of data currently being stored twice.

A rough-and-ready prototype has now kindly been provided by User:RexxS. This is at {{VN/sandboxWD}} and an example of its use (since reverted) can be seen in [3], immediately below the output of the current template (retained in that edit for ease of comparison).

If you wish to see it in action, you can put:

{{VN/sandboxWD |useWikidata=true}}

into the body of page about a taxon with a common name, and preview (please don't save) it. (The need for |useWikidata=true will be dropped before the template is finalised.)

We (that is, RexxS, at my request) plan to add the ability to include local overrides, so, for example:

{{VN |de=Foo |fr=Bar |hu=}}

will display all the available values from Wikidata, except for the German and French names "Foo" and "Bar", and nothing at all for Hungarian.

We can then turn our attention to any aesthetic changes that the community may desire. Please do report any bugs or other issues. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:04, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Looking good tried it on a lizard, thanks. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 22:16, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Have a look here Pavetta. Is this what is required? I have left the original as a comparison. Andyboorman (talk) 14:25, 22 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think we don't need interwiki links here in the VN table, as they are already available at the left side. The table looks rather messy yet and will need some formatting (columns). --Thiotrix (talk) 10:18, 24 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We used to link VN from wikidata, but the result was such a mess - full of errors, inconsistencies and ridiculous duplication - that we got rid of it. I'd not want to return. - MPF (talk) 09:56, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Quick update to Template:Access

I have removed the "green" option from {{Access}} (it now does the same thing as "open") and added a "broken" option instead, which generates a standard formatting for those DOIs (I assumed they will all be DOIs) that are given in the source but not actually functional: [nonfunctional] Broken access. Reference templates with this option will feed into Category:Reference templates with broken identifiers. Circeus (talk) 15:04, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This is why we do what we do

Major Step Backwards For Science: A Group Of Leading Biologists At Stanford Has Lost Their Big Notebook Full Of Elephant Facts. —Justin (koavf)TCM 17:46, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You do know ClickHole is a satire of clickbait websites right? Just making sure. Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:54, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The disclaimer at the bottom of the pages: "ClickHole uses invented names in all of its stories, except in cases where public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental." Circeus (talk) 18:02, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Community Wishlist 2020

IFried (WMF) 19:30, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Reference"

Nice that all of == References == have been changed to =={{int:References}}==. But there's also a lot of pages where it was just put as == Reference == (singular!), and these have escaped the bot and need converting to =={{int:References}}== (plural!) too - can someone set a bot to do this, please? Thanks! - MPF (talk) 15:22, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed some of those myself. If someone has a bot that can do it, I can make a list with the help of some special:search voodoo stuff. Circeus (talk) 16:04, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I do not know if you looked, but you may have a similar issue with synonymy, synonyms etc. May want to check that one too. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 16:14, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I agree about the synonym/synonymy detail – most likely there are several hundreds of those, if not more. They too should both be changed into plural ==={{int:Synonyms}}===. The same goes for any representation of the Primary references, Additional references, Links, Publications, and Vernacular names paragraph headings that may be left behind in singular. I'm sure KoehlBot can handle this with ease, if @Dan Koehl is up for it. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 19:14, 4 November 2019 (UTC).[reply]
Yes, no problem, but please give me some days... :) Dan Koehl (talk) 19:17, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

───────────────────────── Sure thing! Here's a legend, of sorts, split between the two paragraph levels:

==Publication==               =={{int:Publications}}==
==Reference==                 =={{int:References}}==
==Vernacular name==           =={{int:Vernacular names}}==
===Synonym===                 ==={{int:Synonyms}}===
===Synonymy===                ==={{int:Synonyms}}===
===Primary reference===       ==={{int:Primary references}}===
===Additional reference===    ==={{int:Additional references}}===
===Link===                    ==={{int:Links}}===

And please remember that contrary to the others, Taxonavigation should still be written in singular number. ;-) Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 19:40, 4 November 2019 (UTC).[reply]

Thanks! Though I'd definitely recommend ==={{int:Synonymy}}=== rather than ==={{int:Synonyms}}===; 'Synonymy' is in my experience the usual in printed works. And also Latin Typus rather than English Type species. - MPF (talk) 22:24, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree that ==={{int:Synonymy}}=== is the more accurate term, as it implies a formal synonymy per the various codes. cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 22:35, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I second both MPF's and Scott's opinion here, however at the moment ==={{int:Synonyms}}=== is the format listed in MediaWiki:Edittools hence used by a lot of users who still prefer to use the text editor over the visual mode editor (me included). If we decide to change the recommended format then we need to change it in Edittools as well, lest many users will continue to add the wrong term over and over again. That's an easy thing to do though. As for Typus/Type species I think it's a bit trickier. First of all they're not 100% equivalent, as "typus" is closer to type specimen rather than type species. Also, "typus" is more broadly used in botany than zoology. Lastly, strictly speaking "type species" only denotes nominal species that are the name-bearing type of a nominal genus or subgenus. So if we chose to continue using "type species" we should introduce "type genus" as well, however as MPF indicates that doesn't play well with our efforts to keep Wikispecies language neutral. Also, adding more and more terms to our preferred format is counterproductive. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 23:38, 4 November 2019 (UTC).[reply]
@Dan Koehl: STOP to reflect a moment before starting a bot !!!! Definitely don't change "Synonymy" to "synonyms" !! And don't change "Type species" to "Typus" !! And what is this mania with the int template. Users who don't understand "References" or "publications" in English definitely won't be interested or benefit in using WS. Mariusm (talk) 16:17, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The words synonyms and synonymy do not mean the same, one is just a list of names that refer to the same taxon (synonyms) the other is a formal list of names in order of priority per the principals of the code. We should be doing synonymy's on the pages, and it is an explicit term. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 17:58, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone uses this??

Came across an undocumented leftover of Stephen (yet another... sigh): {{Spt}}. This is clearly intended to be some sort of article-creation substitution template, but unless someone says they are actually using it (which I don't think is the case?), I'll delete it. Circeus (talk) 19:32, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I do not, so I agree to delete it. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 20:18, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No pages using it, so go ahead and delete - MPF (talk) 20:35, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Good riddance I say. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 20:53, 5 November 2019 (UTC).[reply]

(I mean, I know no pages use it, because it's intended to be substituted (like {{Reftemp}}), and that's why I'm asking so I don't get angry messages about it later.) Circeus (talk) 22:25, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The format it is using is outdated anyway. `Neferkheperre (talk)

I have a feeling these subpages of ISSN pages are probably controversial in the first place due to who made them among other reasons, but this one seems particularly useless, since it has nothing of note at all in it. In addition, based on available info I could find online, I think Annales entomologici fennici (ISSN 0003-4428) stopped in 1989 and was succeeded by Entomologica Fennica (ISSN 0785-8760) in 1990, and it looks like the two have been confused here. In other words, this page is for a volume that actually belongs to another ISSN?! So could someone delete it perhaps, if that's not a problem?

Likewise the "contents" list at ISSN 0003-4428 should be removed too for the same reasons, but that's easy to do by comparison. Monster Iestyn (talk) 22:16, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

To the best of my knowledge, these were 100% a project of disgraced user Stephen Thorpe (who had a tendency to use Wikispecies as his own personal bibliographical database). Personally, I would happily do away with them as special:whatlinkshere can much more easily list all reference templates that are from a given publication. Listing templates is useful for books and multivolume works, not so much for periodicals IMO. Circeus (talk) 22:28, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, there would be literally hundreds or thousands of them listed for megajournals like Zootaxa (there probably are already come to think of it). But for now, I came here just to ask if something could be done about the page in the title, since it was a mistake even on Stephen's part to make it in the first place, if he did mix up the two periodicals like I suspect. Monster Iestyn (talk) 01:38, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oh no. I firmly believed he was fully intent on filling it. It was created during a brief period when Stephen was unblocked in 2016, but he was reblocked like 2 days after creating that page. Circeus (talk) 03:53, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
...perhaps I've explained things a bit confusingly, my fault for that. What I was trying to say was, as well as being completely empty (regardless of whether it would have been filled in later or not), it's also for the wrong periodical in the first place I'm pretty sure. Monster Iestyn (talk) 05:17, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I did not pay attention to that. Circeus (talk) 16:59, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

New Coccoloba

Coccoloba gigantifolia from Brazil. Leaves up to 2½ metres long and 1.4 metres wide 😱😱 I wonder how many standard herbarium sheets one of those would fill 😂 Article here; photos cc-by if anyone want to add them at Commons as well. - MPF (talk) 15:02, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ISSN 0424-7086

We say ISSN 0424-7086 has "Series title: Japanese journal of sanitary zoology", but reliable online sources say it is called "Medical entomology and zoology": [4], [5].

Before I swap it, are any of the sources using it from a "Japanese journal of sanitary zoology"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:37, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Doing my own digging on the journal, I've found out the following:
  • The title for the journal in Japanese seems to be 衛生動物 (Eisei dōbutsu). I'm not sure if that helps at all though, since it doesn't translate to either name exactly as far as I can tell. (but rather to "Sanitary animals" according to Google translate)
  • this seems to be the journal's current website, and there the English name is "Medical entomology and zoology".
  • this site calls it "Japanese journal of sanitary zoology"
  • this page on CiNii seems to give all three mentioned names as titles for the journal.
  • In the article Circeus linked a few discussions back as a resource for Japanese journals, the title is given as "Medical entomology and zoology".
I'd say go for "Medical entomology and zoology" since it seems to be the favoured name (at least in English), but I suspect maybe the English title used to be the other one in the past. But I can't back up this guess with anything concrete right now. Monster Iestyn (talk) 21:15, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, hang on, this page in the very first volume shows "Japanese journal of sanitary zoology" as the English name for the journal. So it does seem to have been the old English title then, curious. Monster Iestyn (talk) 21:38, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The ISSN is indeed attached to the Japanese title, so they can change the official English title of the journal without triggering an (in theory) obligatory ISSN change. Circeus (talk) 23:13, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I merged the items on Wikidata and changed the labels, etc., there, an the details here, according to the above discussion. Thanks, all. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:16, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Check of Rosibot errors in replacing "March"

Today, Rosbot replaces March by {{int:March}}. Even if "March" is part of a name, e.g. Marchantiophyta, Marchese Saverio, Spencer Le Marchant Moore... I have asked User talk:Rosibot for stopping the bot, but there was no answer. So I have just blocked the bot for 2 hours. Please check all today "March" replacements of your watchlist, or at Special:Contributions/Rosibot. --Thiotrix (talk) 17:52, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I had a similar incident with "January", where even the "January" in an article title was replaced with {{int:January}}. Monster Iestyn (talk) 20:14, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure any month names should be auto-internationalised in any way...

As an aside on this - but probably just as important - I looked at a random example of these bot changes, and it showed up a major example of bad practice: date citation as 'Monthname DD, YYYY'. A format only used by one country, and confusing to (and often detested by) people in 190 others. Fails our internationalism commitments very badly. These date citations all need to be converted to ISO standard YYYY-MM-DD, as they are at e.g. Commons. Should be possible for a robot to do this? - MPF (talk) 21:18, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What is wrong with DD Monthname YYYY. i think virtually all of date notes are in that format. Neferkheperre (talk) 21:40, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's illogical, and out of order. Units should be in order largest to smallest, or smallest to largest, not disorderly middle-small-large. It's like citing a length as 2 metres, 23 millimetres and 5 kilometres. Or in archaic nonsense, 2 feet 5 inches and 27 miles. Utterly silly, if you stop to think about it. - MPF (talk) 23:12, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I am from the US, but still agree with using ISO standard for dates. Using the ISO standard eliminates the need for other forms of internationalization. Best practice would be to include ISO dates inside a template, giving the possibility that a user could set Preferences for a specific date format, and for people from countries that use a different calendar to make use of the dates as well. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:32, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The bot had started again, so I've re-blocked, indefinitely. The block an be lifted by any admin once the bot operator undertakes satisfactorily to modify its behaviour. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:11, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings,
  1. because there is disagreement, I will no longer continue to internationalize for months until there is agreement.
  2. If you agree on the need to abolish this internationalization, I can do so. --Rosibot alias--Rosičák (talk) 14:10, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with blocking Rosbot. Internationalizing the months of year seems to me an overkill. The errors of this bot are way beyond what we can tolerate. If we unblock, the exact premises of this bot must be specified and agreed upon in a poll! Mariusm (talk) 16:09, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The results of this bot are absurd! Take for example Amazophrynella teko where the sentance:

  • coll. by A. Fouquet and P. Nunes between 20 and 24 March 2015

was "internationalized" to:

  • coll. by A. Fouquet and P. Nunes between 20 and 24 {{int:March}} 2015

This is ridiculous! Are we going to int every single word in this sentance or what? I propose to rollback all the months int. Mariusm (talk) 16:35, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Orphans?! Andyboorman (talk) 18:28, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I put ashes on my head. If you unlock the shoe, it removes the template from January, February, March.--Rosičák (talk) 16:43, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As Rosičák promises to undo the replacements of January, February, March, I have now unblocked his bot. Kind regards, --Thiotrix (talk) 19:48, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Rosičák: Thanks for removing the months' templates. Before resuming the int insertions, please inform us of the phrases/words you intend to address, so that we get a chance to evaluate the necessity of the changes. I understand the mandate you have as a bot is to only handle paragraph headings. Am I right? Mariusm (talk) 10:10, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
For something useful, the == Reference == → =={{int:References}}== still needs working on! - MPF (talk) 13:59, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Could these two pages be of the same journal? Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:17, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Most likely. ISSN 0070-7279 is listed at Wikispecies with a ZooBank ID, which give no additional information. However the OCLC ID listed on the Reichenbachia (journal) page is more helpful. It links to for example OCLC 2404786 and OCLC 488045596 in WorldCat which in addition refers ISSN 0070-7279 for both works (and also states Staatliches Museum für Tierkunde in Dresden as the publisher.) Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 17:51, 5 November 2019 (UTC).[reply]
In that case could someone merge the two? I already put up templates to indicate they need merging a few days ago. Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:09, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Also merged the wikidata items. Circeus (talk) 17:16, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved.

indexing papers by journal/issues

This was one of Stho002's old practices, and far as I know, no one has bothered with it since because it's too much trouble for too little reward. I've notices that @MILEPRI: has started doing it too, and before they start going down a prossibly fruitless (and endless) path, I think we ought to have a full discussion about it. This is NOT an indictment of Milepri's actions, just an excuse to initiate the topic as it was on my mind from being recently talked above (and part of many things to talk about toward writing a full and proper manual of style).

Should templates for the papers from a journal be listed at all on that journal's ISSN page or subpages of it?

Personally I strongly inclines toward "no". Circeus (talk) 18:31, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I see no value in it, this is not something that will be used and hence is a waste of time and resources better used for creating species accounts etc. So I agree with a firm no. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 19:34, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Add me to the no side of the debate. Andyboorman (talk) 20:50, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
"no" too. Burmeister (talk) 21:01, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No for me. I have been noticing Thorpe's tendency with Zootaxa citations, and I have not followed it. Thus, Zootaxa's entries are 4 years behind. regular reference citations are quite sufficient. Neferkheperre (talk) 03:17, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
On a tangentially related note, one thing I have been doing is linking reference templates I create here from the relevant item on Wikidata (such as d:Q45339190). Don't know if that's standard, but seems like it would help eventually with WikiCite. Jarnsax (talk) 05:24, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's been very awkward on the Wikidata side because twice a property linking the template to the work has been shot down. So some work can be linked template to work, but many more (e.g. Flora Aegyptiaco-Arabica) can't because there is an extant work page that is used to link instead. Circeus (talk) 06:22, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
An hefty NO to journal indexing. It's just a waste of time. Mariusm (talk) 16:11, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No. Lot of priority work to be done.--Hector Bottai (talk) 00:50, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Internationalizing - what are the limits?

I'm observing that @Rosičák: (with Rosibot) is int-ing presently "Native distribution areas". This is a paragraph heading, so this is ok. But what about Holotype, Type locality' and type species for example, which he already int-ed? I very much prefer Holotypus, Locus typicus and Typus generis to translating these terms. On top of this these are not paragraph heading, and therefore not within the mandate which Rosibot received when getting permission. I would certainly block Rosibot if he breaches his limits again. The excessive int-ing is cluttering the pages, distorting meanings and scientifically inaccurate. Mariusm (talk) 16:29, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings, if you have a colleague feel that I have focused on the articles you have created, it is just a semblance. In fact, they contain a minimum of translation templates and are therefore added.
I mentioned this fact in the user discussion 30.10.2019 here Such preventive suing is not conducive to good humor, and it would certainly be better to look at it biasedly, and above all to assume goodwill.--Rosičák (talk) 17:07, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Mariusm: As for the preferred translations you provide above. It is possible to create such translations on this page (does not exist yet) and set the appropriate language (Latin) on the personal settings interface.--Rosičák (talk) 17:31, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Rosičák: - could you please set your bot to change == Reference == (singular!) to =={{int:References}}== (standard plural). There are lots of these, and it would be very useful to get this done! Thanks :-) - MPF (talk) 00:57, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Rosičák: I certainly don't doubt your good will. What I doubt is your judgement on what to translate and what not to. Holotype is one of the words which does't need translating. It's not about my personal preferences and not about what appears on my screen. It's a global concern about translating what doesn't need translation. Mariusm (talk) 16:21, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Author citation

Hello, I would want a little confirmation. If the original publication of a name is Gorgonia (Pterogorgia) gracilis Verrill, 1868: 359, shouldn't be the name Gorgonia gracilis (Verrill, 1868) quoted without brackets?

I ask because a few days ago I asked WoRMS that they fix this name that was wrongly quoted as Pterogorgia(Gorgonia) gracilis Verrill, 1868; they did it, very fine. But I also asked that they therefore remove the brackets for Gorgonia gracilis (Verrill, 1868), however they did not that last thing. Before I raise them again, I would like your opinion, would it be an oversight on their part or I missed something? Regards, Christian Ferrer (talk) 17:24, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Article 51 (or specifically 51.3) seems to be the relevant part of the ICZN code for this. As far as I'm aware, it doesn't look like it should be quoted with parentheses around the author or date at all, so you are correct I think. Monster Iestyn (talk) 18:00, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks you, I just send them a mail. Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:26, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Christian, if the name was published as "Gorgonia (Pterogorgia) gracilis" by Verrill in 1868, it can be legitimately cited both as Gorgonia (Pterogorgia) gracilis Verrill, 1868 and as Gorgonia gracilis Verrill, 1868 - subgenus inclusion is optional. The only time the authorship would be cited in parentheses, i.e. "(Verrill, 1868)" would be if the species is moved to a different genus than Gorgonia, which would be a subjective taxonomic judgement by a subsequent worker, if any (and subject to "community acceptance", whatever that means). Cheers Tony Tony 1212 (talk) 20:55, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks you, they have fixed it. Christian Ferrer (talk) 12:07, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Papers with pages in Wikispecies, not linked in Wikidata

I've raised on Wikidata the matter of Wikispecies pages about scientific papers, which are not linked to Wikidata: here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:13, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Allurus Förster

Should Allurus Förster be moved to Allurus (Förster)? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:45, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the disamb page the two other names are not valid and are only redirects, the second one also to the wrong genus as Allinectes = Careproctus. So if we want the disamb page to function for two genera that are invalid I guess so yes. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 18:02, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Better will move on Allurus, which is the main and nomenclature meaning --Rosičák (talk) 18:14, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Agree, unless the homonyms are both valid (e.g. a plant and an animal), the valid name should be the main page (Allurus, here), and with invalid homonyms relegated to a disambig page - MPF (talk) 09:55, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I absolutely agree with MPF: the valid name should be the main page therefor Allurus Förster should be moved to Allurus. There are literally thousands of invalid preoccupied genera names, and if we make a disambig for each case it would result in chaos. Mariusm (talk) 16:07, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've gone ahead and done this; the old Allurus disambig page is now Allurus (disambiguation), and the wasp genus to Allurus - MPF (talk) 00:49, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

While the above case is resolved, the generic question remains: should disambiguated taxa pages be at "[taxon] [author]" or "[taxon] ([author])"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:59, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Photos

Who can help with upload photos to commons, though the versions in Narakusumo et al. might require some cropping and removal of the figure number to achieve a look mimicking that of the other paper. PeterR (talk) 13:22, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We can not infringe copyright, so make sure the legal niceties are covered first. Andyboorman (talk) 14:21, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't zookeys material usually kosher? I mean, there was a big fanfare of "collaboration" announced a long time ago, but far as I know, the work was always 100% upon us in practice. Circeus (talk) 14:26, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note that the fact to give free licenses for the articles is already a signifiant good part of that colaboration. IMO it is up to the Wikimedia volonteers to upload the images, I don't see why it should be otherwise, though I know very well that it is manually a very very big job. We would need a BOT for that, and sadly the BOT that was doing this have been blocked in Commons a few years ago because it uploaded duplicates (thing that would not happens if the images were sorted by article as I suggected above). Sadly again, no one have fixed the BOT, I currently manually generate XML files to batch uplads the files, maybe I should contact Zookeys to see if they can provide some Darwin Core Archive, or .CSV files, or something similar that will help me to generate more easily the XML files needed for the batch uploads. Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:08, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I used to edit the photos and then upload them. The edits were mainly to remove the figure labels in the image (e.g. "Fig. 3a") to improve its re-usability. But it's such a tedious and thankless task that I stopped doing it. I don't think a bot is capable of doing this automatically. OhanaUnitedTalk page 03:02, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Translated reference template?

I came across a reference template that is translated for some reason. Is this normal? Is this desirable in any way or form? Circeus (talk) 01:28, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think not. I'll be happy to delete the translations. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:48, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The answer is no! Sometimes, when the article is in a language other than English, the English translation can be added in square brackets, provided it appears in the article. Mariusm (talk) 17:17, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Pigsonthewing: well as it happens I'm not a translation admins and can't touch these subpages. I didn't even know translation amdins had powers regular admins don't have. Circeus (talk) 21:43, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. I'm not impressed to find that there are pages that admins can't delete. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:08, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Out of curiosity I checked I cannot delete it either, I do think that someone besides a translation admin should be able to delete these pages. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 15:23, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
How a translatable page is identified? I edited the template and left only the usual data, but still it's recognized as a translatable page. Can @Tommy Kronkvist: please delete the page? Mariusm (talk) 17:25, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That's why I checked both Tommy and I are Crats, not admins. I doubt either of us can delete it, though Tommy is also a translation admin. I think someone besides a translation admin should be able to delete these pages if it is necessary. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 18:05, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'd wager once <languages/> or <translate> tags have been used, the page remains marked as translatable, though how to reverse that I have no idea. Circeus (talk) 18:24, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Koavf: Do you have the tools to make such a deletion? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:53, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I.e. "periodically these references should be checked so the full and proper reference can be put in." Circeus (talk) 19:02, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Something's very strange here... of the 40 or so references currently placed in this category (as of writing), only 3 are from this year (including the two I added today myself). 31 of the rest are from 2014, and the other 6 of course from other years, the oldest few being from 2013. What's going on here, have these publications really been waiting for a print version for up to 6 years? Monster Iestyn (talk) 01:38, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The wordings I searched found a lot of stuff from Stephen, which I presume is from before he got banned in 2014. I still have to go through them to actually update them as/if necessary. Circeus (talk) 02:22, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, no wonder then. Monster Iestyn (talk) 02:24, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
All those I've checked (about a dozen) have been published, so I've updated them accordingly. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:32, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Now if you could only do it in the style in use instead of generating more work for us, that would be appreciated. Circeus (talk) 13:48, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Feel free not to do any such work, since you like me, are a volunteer. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:54, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
And feel free to avoid doing edits that do more harm than good. Circeus (talk) 13:56, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You know where Wikispecies:Administrators' Noticeboard is, right? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:58, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I am, but I don't need to talk to other admins. I need to tell you to not remove things from this category that plainly belong there, and it's not my problem if you are here initiating the discussion by boasting about it. Circeus (talk) 14:00, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
... and funnily enough, only days later the article in question has now been added to a proper issue, so I've since removed the category from the template myself. At least, I assume this is correct to do now the print version exists, right? Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:40, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to butt in. However, most of the templates may have been created before the paper was in publication, but now this is just ancient history, as the template and its doi link to a published paper not a pre-print. nom. superfl.? Andyboorman (talk) 14:19, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Naah, the doi doesn't change, just the publication information gets tacked onto the article when the paper version is issued (with the "online date" still displayed). Same principle as Online first versions of Taxon articles. I dunno how exactly it works for dating under the ICZN, though as I am not familiar with the details of epub ahead of print under it. Circeus (talk) 14:24, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've attempted to look into that exact issue myself recently, and according to some it's actually somewhat unclear, at least going by this article I found for instance:
The same article also seems to give a list of which sites' epub-ahead-of-print cases are available or not. However, I don't know if this particular article is up-to-date anymore; it lists Oxford University Press's "Advance Articles" as unavailable, but I recently found a journal on it (Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society specifically) that states they comply with ICZN rules even for "Advance Articles" in their Author Guidelines page. Monster Iestyn (talk) 16:17, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

To research or to no research

This is a case I run into a lot. Paper says Type is in collection X, but without citing a collection/barcode number. That collection is databased and accessible online, so I track down the type specimen, and quote the catalogue number on the wikispecies page. Is this OR? I think not (I'm just reporting available information), but I figure I oughta ask out. Circeus (talk) 19:36, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion it is not OR, a form of cross checking source against source and then reporting the results. However, it is a very useful service to users. Andyboorman (talk) 20:41, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So, Andy, who apparently has nothing better to do, decided back in January of last year that it was imperative to import a hundred of these. Far as I can tell they are only used (with a few minimal exceptions) in transclusions of Template:Done/See also.

I'm confident he would be the only one to notice if I went ahead and deleted the whole lot (I will eventually see them all them as I make my way through special:unusedtemplates), but hey, it's always nice to have approval beforehand. Circeus (talk) 07:48, 20 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Go for it. Andyboorman (talk) 21:41, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Kyphocarpa versus Cyphocarpa

Before I begin to write species pages for this plant genus, I like to ask for opinions, which orthographical variant should be used at Wikispecies. The genus was described by Lopriore (1899) as Cyphocarpa, based on Sericocoma subg. Kyphocarpa Fenzl. (1843). Lopriore changed the spelling (reason: "der Gleichförmigkeit wegen"). Schinz (1934) corrected the name to Kyphocarpa (priority of original spelling, Shenzhen ICN Art. 61). The spelling Kyphocarpa is used in many African Floras. But Hernández-Ledesma et al. (2015) preserve Lopriore's spelling Cyphocarpa and omit the basionym (Shenzhen ICN Art. 60.3). Which ICN Article is more important? Links to the protologues are on page Kyphocarpa. There are also 2 Wikidata items for this genus. --Thiotrix (talk) 09:49, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For what it is worth "Based on Sericocoma subg. Kyphocarpa Fenzl, Linnaea 17: 324. 1843, an avowed substitute name for Sericocoma a. Hypocarpha Fenzl ex Endlicher, Gen. Suppl. 2: 33. 1842. Art. 60.3 prevents correction of Cyphocarpa to Kyphocarpa. fide ING 2009.", which is an opinion from Tropicos. This agrees with IPNI, Hernández-Ledesma et al. (2015) and as replicated in Hassler and Govaerts. Google scholar is more productive with Kyphocarpa, which is not a reason under taxonomic rules. Cyphocarpa is the original spelling under Art 61 and Art 60.3 indicates that this should retained. "der Gleichförmigkeit wegen" could be seen as an opinion not reason. Just my pennies worth! Andyboorman (talk) 10:16, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting - in IRMNG I had Kyphocarpa as correct, Cyphocarpa as a synonym, based on a 2011 comment from GRIN and also Mabberley's Plant Book, 2008 version. However ING and Plants of The World Online have the reverse so I have now changed IRMNG accordingly to list Cyphocarpa as the current (accepted) name. It does seem a tricky case since Kyphocarpa would be correct as a subgenus it seems, therefore Cyphocarpa must be treated as a new name, not based on Kyphocarpa; note that in ING etc., the authorship is given as "Lopriore", not "(Fenzl.) Lopriore", which is/was the authorship used in GRIN. How does that fit if the taxon Kyphocarpa is then used as a subgenus, the nominate one? I don't know. Tony 1212 (talk) 14:13, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, based off this, Kyphocarpa is NOT correct as a subgenus. It is illegitimate for being a superfluous name and thus cannot be used (in zoological term, it's an avowed substitute and thus permanently available). This means that any name based on it would be illegitimate. Art 58.1 is the key one here. The ultimate result is that the rules treats Lopriore's name as essentially a stat. et nom. nov. (rather than an illegitimate stat. nov.), where the name and typification are based off the original, illegitimate name. I would put in a note in the article to clarify as various different sources are confused about this.
BUT there is an additional complication!!!! All infrageneric names. in Gen. Pl. are unranked (Taxon. Lit., ed. 2 1:799) so do not affect the priority of later names other than homonyms (Art. 37.3). This means that Sericocoma subg. Kyphocarpa is not illegitimate because citing an unranked name does not make it superfluous.
Oh, and here is the protologue for Sericocoma [unranked] Hypocarpha Fenzl. ex Endl. Circeus (talk) 16:17, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
My German is not brilliant, but it seems that Lopriore established the genus with reference to descriptions of its type Cyphocarpa trichinoides Lopr., Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 27(1-2): 45 (1899), with Sericoma trichinioides as the replaced synonym. He did not use Sericocoma subg. Kyphocarpa Fenzl. (1843) in his description, so it is a "based upon" and the subgenus is not strictly a basionym. Am I reading this correctly? It fits with the Tropicos annotation. Andyboorman (talk) 16:25, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Are we looking at the same protologue? Lopriore literally gives the authorship as "(Fenzl.) Lopr." and right below his generic heading, lists Fenzl's subgeneric name (validly published and legitimate) in synonymy while saying that he correcting the spelling. There is no way that Lopriore's name can be salvaged under art. 58.1.
In my opinion, the correct spelling has to be Fenzl's Kyphocarpa until and unless the spelling Cyphocarpa is conserved.Circeus (talk) 18:16, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Circeus: Yes we are and I disagree, but basically I don't care. Will you contact IPNI? If you do the other secondary sources will follow. If IPNI agree with your reasoning they will change, if not they will leave as is. They will give you reasons one way or another. I always go with IPNI unless strongly convinced otherwise and then will contact them, as I hate loose ends. It up to you. -- Andyboorman (talk) 18:26, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I have not been able to find any actual published material arguing the case one way or another, and the code is v. ambiguous on application of article 60.3. I might have to write a request for clarification of that article.Circeus (talk) 20:08, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Thiotrix: would you be interested in collaborating with me on this? Circeus (talk) 20:11, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, sure. This should be clarified. Additionally, the name of the type species Cyphocarpa trichinioides was also changed by Lopriore to Kyphocarpa trichinoides (without the third i). (Cyphocarpa trichinioides is used by POWO, but IPNI uses Cyphocarpa trichinoides). I have no access to the work of Schinz (1934), do you? --Thiotrix (talk) 12:44, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No. Unfortunately, the libraries at MT don't have a copy of it. I was hoping you would have better chances than me, as it is a German work.
I got an answer from Kanchi Gandhi at IPNI who basically said he agrees with ING (the apparent source of the shift back from Kyphocarpa to Cyphocarpa), but made no code-based argument as to why art. 58.1 should be prioritized over art 60.3 in this case. He implied this would require a conservation request. I don't really care for a conservation request so much as for having a definite answer as to the correct spelling according to the code. It may be the only way to get an answer, though. I will probably have to email N. Turland to ask whether this needs to be formulated as a request for binding decision or a request for conservation. Circeus (talk) 15:15, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I assume you mean conservation for Kyphocarpa Schinz (1934) not Cyphocarpa Lopr. (1899) where the request for conservation will be based upon common usage. Andyboorman (talk) 16:30, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

[undent] K.Gandhi mentioned it as a conservation proposal, and while it is an option for getting eyes on the issue, it is not the one I intend to prioritize.

As I said, I don't care which is the correct spelling under the code, just to have final confirmation in published form. Right now it seems clear to me there are conflicting interpretation how the code apply to the situation and specifically whether art. 58.1 or 60.3 has precedence over the other.

This is an issue of application of conflicting provisions in the code, and a binding decision seems entirely appropriate! I'd be happy submitting a request for such a decision (of the same kind that they ask about whether names are homonyms, for example), assuming this fits within the framework of what Taxon is willing to publish. And then if other others are unhappy, they can present a proposal for conservation if they so desire.

If I am told such a binding decision is not within the scope of publication, however, then yes, a request for conservation will be the only way to settle this issue. At least it will get more eyes on it since, as I said above, no one (maybe Schinz, but we can't be sure, and even then that is well before the modern codes!) has investigated this split in any fashion. Circeus (talk) 22:22, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A plausible interpretation:
  • Sericocoma [unranked] Hypocarpha Fenzl ex Endl. (1842)
  • at the rank of subgenus a substitute name was published as Sericocoma subg. Kyphocarpa Fenzl (1843),
  • at the rank of genus a substitute name was published as Cyphocarpa Lopr. (1899)
No name has priority outside its own rank. Also see the new provisions on substitute names (Art. 6.12-14). If these were combinations with a basionym wouldn't the correct spelling be Hypocarpha? - Brya (talk) 05:56, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The spelling Hypocarpha was sphalmate (by mistake), as Fenzl noted 1843 here. For now, I will move the Wikispecies page to Cyphocarpa, to be in accordance with Index Nominum Genericorum and with IPNI. And I will try to find an access to the work of Schinz 1934. --Thiotrix (talk) 07:42, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Brya, basically, some people believe the name ought to be treated as a combination (stat. nov.), with Lopriore's alteration to be corrected under article 60.3. Others consider that this alteration is in fact generating a wholly new avowed substitute (stat. et nom. nov.). Art. 58.1 is not in play as no illegitimacy is involved (although the terse ING note vaguely implies it may be). No provision of the code clarifies which approach is to be taken here. Circeus (talk) 08:03, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Botanical nomenclature is full of settled cases that don't relate on a one-on-one basis with provisions of the ICNafp, but that require background info and interpretation. One always hopes that there is a publication that deals with these in detail, but even if it exists it may not be that easy to find. - Brya (talk) 08:18, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If Lopriore's publication wasn't so unmistakably clear that the intention is to publish a new combination, this wouldn't be a problem because of the whole "names have priority only at one rank" rule... but I really don't see how one can argue that Lopriore's intent isn't to publish a new combination for Fenzl's subgenus. I would love to see a case about this, but I doubt the search system of JSTOR would let me find it. Circeus (talk) 09:31, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Erythrolamprus Boie or Wagler

This paper asserts without any explanation that Erythrolamprus dates from Boie, 1826a (BHL). We currently assign it to Wagler, 1830 (BHL). I have to say I am far from convinced that name is made available in Boie, but I have little familiarity with the intricacies of the ICZN as it applies to such a... bare bones piece. Anyone can help? (my almost absent grasp of German doesn't help, and the Erpétologie de Java mentioned in the footnote was never published). Circeus (talk) 21:38, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wallach et al. (2014, Snakes of the World) cite Boie, 1826 as the autorship for genus Erythrolamprus. Burmeister (talk) 21:51, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
On page 981, the name seems to be listed under "III Coronellae" as "2. Gatt. Erythrolamprus.", where a single species "Col. venustissimus Pr. Max u. v. a." seems to be assigned to it. I've heard before of generic names being considered available by just including a species that already has a description (at least, in articles this old), perhaps this species here listed is why it's available in Boie? Probably would be assigned "Col. venustissimus" as the type species by monotypy too as far as I'm aware. Monster Iestyn (talk) 23:22, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Pre 1930 there does not need to be much without looking up the description of venustissimus which is now a subspecies of Erythrolamprus aesculapii. If people want I can ask the authors of some of these taxa, I work with them. However for pre 1930 works a genus can be defined by indication of type species which was done. So I agree this looks like a correct call. Description of the species is : Wied-Neuwied, M. Prinz zu 1821. Reise nach Brasilien in den Jahren 1815 bis 1817. Vol. 2. Heinrich Ludwig Bronner, Frankfurt. See also Reptile Database discussion Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 23:40, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for clarifying this, guys. I have swapped the authorship. Circeus (talk) 09:53, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Reference templates

Hello, how to deal when there is already a template for an author homonym? I mean, when there are several publications for a said author, and in the same year, we add a, b, c, ect... But how to do when the author is different? I wanted to create a ref. template for a 1920 publication made by Austin Hobart Clark, but there is already {{Clark, 1920}}. Christian Ferrer (talk) 17:45, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

While normally letters are used, for different authors, we don't have an already established system.
When I've run into the case, I've used initials: {{Bennett, 2008}} vs. {{J.R.Bennett, 2008}} (J.R.Bennett being his standardized IPNI abbreviation). Circeus (talk) 19:11, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks you. There, it is: {{A.H.Clark, 1920}}. Christian Ferrer (talk) 19:22, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Circeus: I'm not sure I put the italics right, can you correct? as you do nicely, quite often... as far as the BHL links are working well for you as for me it is down since 30min. Christian Ferrer (talk) 19:27, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I noticed the bhl scans problem when I followed the link. Italics look fine by me. Circeus (talk) 19:31, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Great, thanks you. Christian Ferrer (talk) 19:32, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

While we're on the subject, does it particularly matter if reference templates for one author are out of order chronologically for a particular year (assuming we have the exact publication dates of course)? Say Smith, 2000 was published December 31, 2000, but Smith, 2000a was published January 1, 2000? Maybe I'm being pedantic, but it bothers me a little bit, especially for listing them on the actual taxon authority pages. Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:46, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Is is of course better if the alphabetical order corresponds to the chronological order. However it is hard to make complete list of publications for some authors, and without complete lists it is very hard to apply strictly that... indeed how to be sure when you create a template, that this is the first or the second (...or more) publication from this author within a specific year. Christian Ferrer (talk) 20:14, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's only relevant on author pages, I'm usually more worried with disambiguating multiple pubs by the same author in the same year that need to be cited in the same page. Circeus (talk) 22:09, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be better practice to disambiguate using the journal title when there are multiple works by the same author in the same year? Since using letters may put them out of chronological order. This may not work for some prolific authors, but might it be a better approach to start using this method? --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:40, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
"using the journal title when there are multiple works by the same author in the same year" is hardly a solution since typically the problem is the author(s) publishing multiple papers in each issue of the journal. Circeus (talk) 23:04, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Authority Control - WD

I think we ought to include the Wikidata link in the Authority Control template.

VIAF data now include Wikidata items. Also, there is no simple way to navigate to Wikidata items from authors. Sometimes "Add Links" takes me to Wikidata, but most of the time I just get a pop-up window asking which Wikipedia I want to link to.

Yes, I know there is a link hidden under "Tools", but the point of the AC template is to link to major databases, yes? And Wikidata is now a respected international database. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:44, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If we do, I think it should be extra prominent. Either swap the Wikipedia link of "Authority control" or add a "Wikidata item" link right bellow "Authority control". Circeus (talk) 23:07, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If we choose to control the order in which database links are given, I would bump taxonomic references like IPNI to the front of the queue, then Wikidata, then everything else. I think retaining a link that explains what "authority control" means is useful. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:15, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

New identifier template, useful for Internet Archive links

If like me you think the semantic IDs of Internet Archive tend to be impractically long, I've created a template {{Ark}} that resolves Archival Resource Keys (ark:/) URNs. Various other archival sources (notably Gallica) use ARKs.

  • Brunner von Wattenwyl, K. 1907: Die Insektenfamilie der Phasmiden. Phasmidae Anareolatae (Clitumnini, Lonchodini, Bacunculini). Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig, Germany: 181–340. ARK: 13960/t1jh3x09v . Reference page

For reference, the identifiers that we have resolving templates intended for references:

  • {{Ark}}
  • {{Hdl}}
  • {{Doi}}
  • {{PMID}} (included here mostly because it has the same format as the others, as it is technically not a persistent identifier)

Circeus (talk) 01:47, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Cite This Page display error

I notice that when I click "Cite This Page", such as [6] that it identifies the published as "Wikispecies, ." including the comma, a space, then a full stop. In some of the specific style it appears instead as "Wikispecies, ," (with a double comma). Surely this is an error. Does someone here know where to correct this issue? --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:27, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty it happens because those styles cannot handle an "author" parameter that doesn't have both a first and last names. Circeus (talk) 00:38, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but is there a way to fix it? And whom do we contact to do so? --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:31, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
mw:Extension:CiteThisPage is what generates these. Circeus (talk) 01:38, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That response does not answer either of my questions. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:40, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Look, the documentation is there, if you can't read that, I don't know what to tell you. Circeus (talk) 01:48, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's there now that Korg has corrected your link. [7]. What you originally linked to (meta:Extension:CiteThisPage) had no page nor information at all. So, no I couldn't read that, because you didn't link to anything. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:01, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
According to the documentation of this extension, the configuration is done in MediaWiki:Citethispage-content. For the publisher, the content in {{SITENAME}}, {{int:sitesubtitle}} is displayed: Wikispecies, . Actually the content in MediaWiki:Sitesubtitle has been deleted. We could either restore it (maybe it was "(the) free species directory" or something like that?) (see also: en:MediaWiki talk:Sitesubtitle), add another (internationalized) text, or remove the occurrences of the code , {{int:sitesubtitle}} in MediaWiki:Citethispage-content. Korg (talk) 16:31, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Beitrage zur Neotropischen Fauna

Does somebody know some on line library/link for this publication, mainly years 1950-1960? --Hector Bottai (talk) 18:58, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A relevant Wikisource collaboration

For those of you who feel confident with English and who want a break from strict taxonomy with a sister project, does anyone want to work on s:en:Index:The Code Decoded (2nd Edition).pdf? —Justin (koavf)TCM 02:31, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the Community Wishlist Survey 2020

Please note that the 2020 Community Wishlist Survey includes a matter that directly involves Wikispecies, even though that particular issue has never been discussed here at Wikispecies. In my opinion implementing it seems like a very bad idea. Please read about it at meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2020/Wikispecies/Add Google's view in 3D to Wikispecies pages. Weigh all the pros and cons together, make up you mind about whether you would like to support the proposition or not, and leave a vote accordingly (same link). Please note that the voting on proposals ends in 2 December 2019. Best regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 03:53, 27 November 2019 (UTC).[reply]

Rosibot misbehaving

Rosibot is misbehaving again (see this). It converted hundreds of ==Publications== into =={{int:Publications}}= (one equals sign only}. It corrects this now, but we better watch more closely its doings. Mariusm (talk) 17:06, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have applied an emergency block until @Rosičák: gets back to us. Circeus (talk) 23:16, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the block, as the "corrections" were also made on pages with balanced equal signs, e.g.. --Thiotrix (talk) 23:30, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That is why I suddenly finding unbalanced equal signs just this weekend. Neferkheperre (talk) 23:59, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I had the exact same reaction. Circeus (talk) 01:19, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There are still hundreds if not thousands of orphans left over from the last boat of misbehaviour! Andyboorman (talk) 09:33, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
My God, @Andyboorman: I thought we're past this scuffling. How can you compare orphans to wrong wiki syntax? I would expect from you a little more collegiality... Mariusm (talk) 16:41, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

───────────────────────── Stating a simple fact is not necessarily scuffling, Mariusm... :-) Anyway, the bot owner is back online and Rosibot is now working hard with the fixes. The bot has made 1 291 corrections since yesterday, plus another circa 100 manual corrections by Rosičák himself. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 21:59, 26 November 2019 (UTC).[reply]

I think (and really hope) Marius is being playful. Circeus (talk) 07:15, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Allan Hancock Foundation Collection

Hello, just for info, while I was surfing in the web looking for articles, I found that the University of Southern California had published under CC BY licenses digitalized versions of a sugnifiant number of article of the Allan Hancock Foundation Collection, this includes somes papers of the reports of Allan Hancock Foundation Expeditions. I alredy uploaded the plate of one article (see {{Hill, 1940}}), and I will try to make consistent uploads for the other articles. Regards, Christian Ferrer (talk) 12:31, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That is fine. Maybe it is possible to get the plates from {{Taylor, 1945}}? We have a lot of algae species described in this work, so I would like to use these images. --Thiotrix (talk) 13:35, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Good news! This one is also available, let me a few days, I will upload the images and will ping you when it will be done. Christian Ferrer (talk) 17:17, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Thiotrix: as you saw, I started to upload the images but as I am picky I also copy the description of the plates, so since there are 100, it will take a while before uploading. I will upload the plates "as they are", and if needed, you can ask me at any time cropped versions, or extracted figures which I will upload in different files, as I did for this one. Even if the "CropTool" is available for evreryone in Wikimedia Commons, do not hesit to make this kind of request for complicated cases, because I am very used to use Photoshop softaware, and I can extract something and clone the unwanted elements very neatly (it's also valid for everybody who reads this message, and for files other than the ones we're talking about now). Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:23, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Christian Ferrer, for uploading these plates. Images of those algae specimens are very valuable. If you like, I can help you with the categorizing at Commons (as I have categorized nearly all images of algae there). You just need to put the images into Category:Allan Hancock Pacific expeditions - Volume 12. Then from the description and referring to Algaebase, I could add all current taxon categories and make the wikidata links for the Commons categories. I am used to CorelPhotoPaint, if an image needs cropping, cleaning or cloning, but thanks for your offer, and for all your work. --Thiotrix (talk) 22:17, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, here we go like that, I will let what is relative to the categorization. Christian Ferrer (talk) 05:44, 28 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I take it this is another of Stephen's templates, right? In this case, the only article that uses it is Allodontichthys zonistius, and in there the generated link doesn't seem to work at all (or at least not anymore). The other MCZ link works fine but that's just a regular external link. So it looks like this could be easily deleted if we can figure out what Allodontichthys zonistius was originally trying to use it to link to, unless we want to keep it and just change what it's used for? Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:49, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Probably linked to the Museum of Comparative Zoology type specimen database at Harvard, now at [8]. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:29, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I meant as in which specimen was it linking to, but yes. Monster Iestyn (talk) 20:31, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Try these:
Best regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 04:05, 27 November 2019 (UTC).[reply]
Hm, the Ich:26097 link leads to a specimen of "Awaous sp.", a fish in a different order to Allodontichthys zonistius. Probably not what the page was trying to link to then? Monster Iestyn (talk) 04:32, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
...Okay, I decided to double check the base URL of the template on Internet Archive (http://insects.oeb.harvard.edu/mcz/), and I recognised at once it as the site now living here. And then suddenly it hit me: the whole site is for insects, not fishes (should have been obvious just reading the URL itself). So clearly this was a mistake in the first place, even before the URL broke. Monster Iestyn (talk) 04:49, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
*sarcasm mode* The History does suggest it to be a Stephen creation. Stephen created a LOT of these external link thingies, and I am not sure whether their nonuse is because A) he never used them B) he was substituting them or C) they broken and were subsequently removed. Circeus (talk) 07:18, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Going through his contributions history on the day, apparently he made the template specifically for the one page it's still used by to this day... or, at least you can see it was made the exact same minute this edit was made anyway. Given that the site used by the template was for the Entomology collection of MCZ though, this makes no sense whatsoever!
I have no idea whether Stephen was aware of what he was doing wrong here, but at this point it seems pretty safe to just delete it and remove the link on the Allodontichthys zonistius as far as I can tell. Monster Iestyn (talk) 09:06, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Stephen tended to do things his own way, many of them have been deleted since, so yes just delete it if its not needed. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 17:54, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Alright. Article cleaned of Stephen's idiosyncracies (such as the empty zoobank template and direct-linking references instead of putting them in the reference section), and template deleted. Circeus (talk) 22:12, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Did this exist already? template:taxotemp and a quick edit to template:reftemp

I created this template because I was getting of copy-pasting the categories when I stumbled across an uncategorized taxonav template. It works exactly like {{Reftemp}} does for references.

Speaking of {{Reftemp}}, I have added a parameter to it, so that you can also put any content desired below the "find all references" link when using it instead of having to edit the template a second time. Circeus (talk) 01:48, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not aware of any existing substitution template for adding categories to taxonav templates personally. I was copypasting the categories text from my own userpage up to this point when making those pages. Both of these changes sound good to me. Monster Iestyn (talk) 02:26, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
{{Reftemp}} is made by MariusM and I use this by making new reference templates. He have also made a bot and update all reference templates.PeterR (talk) 09:11, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
PeterR talking shit as usual. The template was my idea and created by me. Ciao, Stephen
As PeterR, I too always use the {{Reftemp}} template when creating new reference templates. Hence it's not uncommon that I employ this template several times a day. Furthermore it's also part of the MediaWiki:Edittools palette and therefore automatically visible for all of us users who still prefer editing in plain text mode rather than by using the VisualEditor. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 19:08, 29 November 2019 (UTC).[reply]
Is there some confusion here? The new template Circeus was talking about was {{Taxotemp}}, while {{Reftemp}} only got an edit. Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:06, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The header I originally used might have given the false impression I thought reftemp was a recently created template. Circeus (talk) 19:50, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

───────────────────────── Yes @Circeus, that's how I understood it. Good thing you cleared that up. Btw I've added a note about template substitution i.e. {{subst:Taxotemp}} to the template's documentation. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 02:04, 1 December 2019 (UTC).[reply]

thank you for that. I can't believe I forgot to put it in the doc <_<;;;; Circeus (talk) 14:32, 1 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Zoobank inaccessible?

Hello, since a week I don't manage to access at the pages from http://zoobank.org/ , am I alone in that case? does it happen often? no idea about the delay before returning to normal? Christian Ferrer (talk) 15:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot access either I will try get a hold of the admin there, unfortunately I believe he is in the field at present. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 16:10, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I just posted below without knowing this thread was here. All my Linux does is go into a loop, and my android can't find the site. i have seen them go down for up to 2 days for upgrades, but nothing like this. Neferkheperre (talk) 16:23, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
For every one: [9] Christian Ferrer (talk) 16:28, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi everyone just got an email from ICZN, Zoobank is down and the administrator has literally just returned from the field, his first priority is to get it back up and running. So should be online soon I hope. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 16:59, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
ZooBank seems to be working again as of writing. Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:22, 2 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ZooBank

I have not been able to get on ZooBank for several days. I just tried on my Android, and it was unable to find the website. Anybody know what happened? Neferkheperre (talk) 16:19, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

see above Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 17:00, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Author pages

Hello, should an author page redirected to another page when a more complete name is provided? Example: Alfred Kaltenbach, his full name is in fact Alfred Peter Kaltenbach (see Zobodat), my question is: must we create Alfred Peter Kaltenbach? and then redireted the former page to this new page. Christian Ferrer (talk) 06:02, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

My position is that (aside from historical content from databases such as IPNI), in the absence of homonymy or near-homonymy, the page should be at whatever name was most commonly used by the author, with any initials fully expanded. Unless Kaltenbach has published a significant amount of material under his full name (and I mena in the publication, not as normalized by Zobodat or other after-the-fact databases), I would keep him at the shorter form as homonymy doesn't seem to be a likely concern. Circeus (talk) 07:28, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks; Christian Ferrer (talk) 07:41, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Where a change of page name is desired, pages should be moved, not recreated. That keeps the page history intact. See en:Help:How to move a page for guidance. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:11, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • We have an agreement for many years to use the full names. So you have to redirect Alfred Kaltenbach to Alfred Peter Kaltenbach. You have to make also a Category: Alfred Peter Kaltenbach taxa. PeterR (talk) 10:46, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Expansion depth limit exceeded for Trochilidae

Too many steps have been accumulating in the taxonavigation ladder for Trochilidae (Aves). See categories in Trochilidae and error massages when Taxonavigation Expand is pressed. Obscure cladus such as Averostra and Averaptora have to be culled. See also Category:Pages where expansion depth is exceeded Mariusm (talk) 16:25, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Totally agree this happened in turtles too a while back clades are generally only supported by phylocode and have little support in the general literature and can be easily culled out. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 16:54, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Link: Category:Pages where expansion depth is exceeded. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:09, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Many of these templates were created earlier this summer by User:Kiwi Rex. Unfortunately I didn't really have the stamina to go through with the whole thing then (plus I'm not an ornithologist) but please see User talk:Kiwi Rex#Template recursion depth limit for details. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 18:27, 29 November 2019 (UTC).[reply]
I assigned Aves directly to Neotheropoda to circumvent some of the intermediate cladi. Take note that Category:Pages where expansion depth is exceeded isn't updated immediately. It requites a couple of days to reflect the true list. Mariusm (talk) 14:41, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
To get around expansion depth limits, English Wikipedia uses "skip" templates, which are copies of the regular templates that omit sections of the taxonomic hierarchy. This also avoids inconsistencies/repetition in Linnaean ranks (e.g. Wikispecies now has classis Aves within ordo Saurischia within classis Reptilia). See en:Template:Taxonomy/Aves. Plantdrew (talk) 20:42, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

W. Warren

W. Warren described in 1922 the species Ditrigona regularis in Drepanulidae. In: Seitz A (Ed.), Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde. Alfred Kernen, Stuttgart, pp. 443–490. The only W. Warren I know is William Warren but he lives from 1839 to 1914. Who can help me?PeterR (talk) 10:39, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Looking into this myself, I seem to have fallen into a rabbit hole. A messy one, even. To explain what I mean, here's what I've found so far:
  • The relevant article section that Peter stated starts here, in volume 10 of Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde.
  • Here (p. 463) looks like the actual page that Ditrigona regularis was described in.
  • Looking through this entire volume I can't find anything fuller than "Warren" or "W. Warren" though, unfortunately.
  • The next thing I tried was figuring out the years of Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde itself, just in case. Unfortunately the actual dates given in the volumes seem to be of little help, if anything they make things more confusing! (For instance Volume 10's title page has "1933", but Volume 11's title page has "1912"!)
  • And then, I found this article...
    • Griffin, F.J. 1936. The contents of the parts and the dates of appearance of Seitz' GrossSchmetterlinge der Erde (The Macro‐Lepidoptera of the World), Lieferungen 1 to 130 Palaearctic and 1 to 575 Exotic. Vols. 1 to 16, 1907–1935. Transactions of the Royal Entomological Society of London 85: 243–279. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2311.1936.tb00232.x Paywall.
  • Just the very existance of this article tells me a huge publication-related mess is involved here apparently. Wow.
  • Though, this does give me some suspicions that maybe W. Warren is the 1839-1914 William Warren, and because of possible delays in publication his descriptions were published posthumously, possibly? That's the best I have so far.
Monster Iestyn (talk) 13:33, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Warren's obituary confirms that he did collaborate on Seitz's big work, and although it mostly discusses his work on Noctuidae for it (Geometridae had been assigned to a different worker), the very last entry to the bibliography states: "In press : 128. Drepanulidae, in Seitz, Macrolepidoptera of the World x." So there you go. Circeus (talk) 16:32, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Gentlemen thanks for your answers. I know now it is William Warren.PeterR (talk) 14:21, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thoughts about the latest community wishlist

Hi everyone, maybe you could be interested participating to this discussion about the community wishlist and how to improve the process. Do not hesitate to give your opinion; the more we will know about the small communities, the more we can build something representative. Pamputt (talk) 17:37, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I just created the author page quoted above but I was not abble to find relevant infos about this author. This is likely the same J. Brock that is quoted in those titles: [10] and [11]. If you have usefull infos, you're welcome. Christian Ferrer (talk) 19:56, 11 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This might be w:de:Johannes Georg Brock, 19th-century zoologist and anatomist. He died in Göttingen, which is where our mystery author published from. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:48, 11 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yup! The German article cites an obituary by Ernst Heinrich Ehlers in 2 Parts (Leopoldina 25:118–121,138–141). The latter includes a bibliography, and your "mystery" work is cited as item number 22 on it. Circeus (talk) 04:34, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Very fine. Thanks you very much, I will update very soon the page that I created! Christian Ferrer (talk) 05:46, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

MoreMenu gadget

I have been requested to update this wiki's "MoreMenu" gadget; see User talk:Pigsonthewing#MoreMenu gadget.

The 31 users who have MoreMenu installed will need to re-install it.

I will make the update, if there are no objections, in a couple of days or so. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:00, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Now done. Please check, and please use {{Ping}} to let me know of any issues (that are not resolved by clearing your cache). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:59, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Contributions in Science and Science Series the same journal?

According to this PDF the two NHMLA journals Contributions in Science (ISSN 0459-8113) and Science Series (ISSN 0076-0943) are the same journal. The title page of the PDF paper refers to "Science Series 39" while the page footer from page 2 and onwards refers to "Contributions in Science, Number 39". Can anyone please elaborate on this? Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 14:06, 24 December 2019 (UTC).[reply]

I'm not entirely sure why the PDF bears the "Contributions in science" footer, but I highly doubt they are the same. Science Series is clearly a monograh series (though it has the ISBN labeled as a ISSN), and COntributions in science is a proper journal with articles and all, and over 500 issues. Circeus (talk) 17:13, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Contributions is their monograph series, released ad hoc with single large articles in each one, science series is their regularly issued journal with multiple articles per issue, both released by Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County so same publisher, not same journal. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 17:17, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think you got the title swapped there, but yeah, same conclusions I reached. Would be easier to clear out had the museum not (as far as I can tell, since Google insists it exists) removed the webpage for their publications.Circeus (talk) 17:26, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Going by an archived version of their publications page (see here) they seemed to me to be separate series. It's weird that they decided to get rid of the page though, did they think visitors would not want to know/access what they publish? Monster Iestyn (talk) 18:57, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Naturalista Siciliano, Giornale de Scienze Naturali and ISSN 0394-0063 the same journal?

How about Naturalista Siciliano, Giornale de Scienze Naturali and ISSN 0394-0063 then? Are the two WS pages referring to the same journal? –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 08:34, 27 December 2019 (UTC).[reply]

I think so. --RLJ (talk) 12:55, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, duplicates happen sometimes. Circeus (talk) 00:48, 28 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you both for the input. Also thanks RLJ for changing Naturalista Siciliano… into a redirect page. I've subsequently altered all pages linking there so that they now link directly to ISSN 0394-0063 instead. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 01:21, 28 December 2019 (UTC).[reply]

───────────────────────── @Circeus and RLJ: I guess that Brotéria. Série Botânica; Revista de Sciencias Naturaes do Collegio de S. Fiel and ISSN 0871-0473 are also the same? (There's also a "Série Zoológica" but I don't think we have a page for that one yet.) –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 10:36, 28 December 2019 (UTC).[reply]

Definitely. at least part of the problem is that a sizeable amount of pages were created based off solely Tropicos+IPNI data, neither of which document ISSNs. Circeus (talk) 16:24, 28 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, Brotéria, Série Zoológica is ISSN 0871-0481. Circeus (talk) 16:25, 28 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I've created a page for Brotéria, Série Zoológica per your ISSN links, but feel free to fill in any of the gaps! Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 21:47, 28 December 2019 (UTC).[reply]

Translations of templates

Hello, today Rosičák made this on {{Commons}}, which I saw as a bug and which I reverted. Then I added a {{LangSwitch}}. Please let me know, if I was wrong, if this solution is suitable, or if it's better to opt for a system with a layout and template subpages for each translations. Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:29, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Now I see that there is also {{Commons category}}!? already available with translations.. why there is 2 templates? Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:35, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There are at least four such templates now: {{Commons}}, {{Commons category}}, {{Commons2}}, and the recently created {{Commons(with translations)}}. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:08, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The main reason (at least originally) for creating more than one is that they link to different namespaces. {{Commons}} links to a page in Commons' main namespace, while {{Commons category}} links to a page in Commons' category namespace. Much like we have for example {{Linnaeus, 1758}} which adds a reference from a specific Wikispecies page, while {{Taxa authored 2}} always links to an entire "Taxa named by NN" Wikispecies category.
As for the other two {{Commons2}} redirects to {{Commons}} since 2017 (they're both created in Sept./Oct. 2005) and the new {{Commons(with translations)}} is... experimental. It was created by user Caftaric: please see User talk:Caftaric#Localization and translation for an ongoing discussion about this. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 20:18, 27 December 2019 (UTC).[reply]
Thank Tommy for introducing me and my experimental tranlation template. I think it has no utility anymore, if Christian is authorized to continue with his change of the main commons template. May I suggest in this case, that I add the French translation contained inside my experimental template to it? Cheers, --Caftaric (talk) 05:13, 28 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

───────────────────────── I was not aware that: "{{Commons}} links to a page in Commons' main namespace, while {{Commons category}} links to a page in Commons' category namespace", I was only aware about {{Commons}} and always have used it for the category namespace, example. And this is because I use it daily that I noticed the change made by Rosičák, which made disappear the english version (which I saw as a bug). I don't want to be "authorized to continue", I only added a {{LangSwitch}} because I thought 1/that this was not appropriate 2/after to have reverted Rosičák, I wanted to help them with an alternative solution 3/I did not know at all {{TranslateThis}}, neither is was already used in several place such as {{Commons category}}, which I was neither aware about it.

I don't specially want tu use {{LangSwitch}} of something else. It was just that when I used the template yesterday, the english version has disappear, which I saw as a bug... If someone want to use {{TranslateThis}} such as in {{Commons category}}, that is fine for me. I repeat I was just thought to a bug...
That being said, in Wikimedia Commons, I already was abble to create those things (with layout and subpages, ect...), which provides the translations of templates as you can see in c:File:Marasmius bellipes Morgan 1132468.jpg. If it is appropriate I can try to do the same here. Let me know if you are interested. Otherwise I don't plan to use {{LangSwitch}} or {{TranslateThis}}, and if nobody make disappear the english version of the templates that I use, then I have currently no specific reasons to add translations. Regards, Christian Ferrer (talk) 07:57, 28 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The whole localization project is a bit messy at the moment, but I'll try to have it sorted in a few days (early next year..?) Ideally the {{Commons…etc}} templates shouldn't include any translations at all. Instead they should use the same system as all other localization in Wikispecies, i.e. the MediaWiki {{int:}} transclusion magic word in combination with the Wikispecies Localization database. Then we only need to add the {{int:}} interface magic word to the templates, and the server software will handle the actual translating in the background, automagically.
Please also note that the Translation Administrators' Noticeboard is always available for questions, discussions, and presenting new ideas. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 10:31, 28 December 2019 (UTC).[reply]

700,000 articles on Wikispecies

Yesterday, Wikispecies exceeded 700,000 articles! Good work: our editors created the last 100,000 pages during about 13,5 months. This should be added to the "Wikispecies milestones" (do we have a page like this, and where?). I will update the English and German Wikipedia. Kind regards, --Thiotrix (talk) 13:07, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone tweet that? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:25, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I believe @Tommy Kronkvist: is who took over the account after me. Circeus (talk) 22:11, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Should go on all our mass-media platforms I think @Dan Koehl: has a couple of them too. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 22:23, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This is indeed good news, and a great success. I believe I only created a Facebook page, I now updated the Wikispecies article on Meta but will look if theres more I can do. Dan Koehl (talk) 01:40, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the update, @Thiotrix! And yes @Circeus, it was me he took over the Twitter account. @Andy Mabbett: I've now sent out a tweet about the 700K milestone. Sorry for being late about it, but I'm renovating my house, just got a new job (while still keeping my old one...) plus haven't been near my "home base" for some time. For @Dan Koehl and @Scott: I've added a short Facebook note about the milestone too. Do we have any other mass-media platforms as well? I dunno... — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tommy Kronkvist (talkcontribs) 10:03, 11 December 2019‎.
After some pain-staking counting, the 700,000th article is Almita texana, created by User:PeterR. OhanaUnitedTalk page 23:02, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know that we have a separate Milestones page, but we have Wikispecies:PR, albeit that page has had little attention given to it. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:33, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It would be nice to notify Wikipedia Signpost (submit blurb via Signpost newsroom). That should raise the project's profile and potentially draw more editors. OhanaUnitedTalk page 00:59, 26 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I left a comment at w:Special:Permalink/932450536#Wikispecies asking that a note be added. We'll see what happens --DannyS712 (talk) 01:21, 26 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's mentioned in the current edition, see last line. OhanaUnitedTalk page 03:38, 29 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Circeus, Dan Koehl, DannyS712, EncycloPetey, Faendalimas, OhanaUnited, Pigsonthewing, and Thiotrix: Thanks, OhanaUnited. I didn't know we created the last 100,000 pages in a mere 13.5 months. Rather astonishing considering we only have 231 active users. That's about 500 page creations from each of them! I suggest we take a moment to lift our fingers from the keyboards, and give ourselves a hand! :-) Please also remember that the 700,000 milestone only regards "content pages", i.e. taxon- and author pages and such. If we also consider talk pages, categories, redirect pages, templates + the Village Pump etc. the total number of Wikispecies pages is 1,945,186. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 22:36, 29 December 2019 (UTC).[reply]

Variety vs subspecies

Hello, is there an interest to create a redirect from a variety to a subspecies. Here is my case:

Addison Emery Verrill published in 1899, there, the following variety: Ophiomusium eburneum var. elegans; now accepted as a subspecies. My question is: is it better to quote in the reference page {{Verrill, 1899b}}, [[Ophiomusium eburneum var. elegans]] (and then later create a redirect to the subspecies page when it will exist) or directly [[Ophiomusium eburneum elegans]]? Christian Ferrer (talk) 15:03, 29 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You can do this: [[Ophiomusium eburneum elegans|Ophiomusium eburneum var. elegans]]. Burmeister (talk) 16:07, 29 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Burmeister, of course, thanks you. I just wondered if there was any interest to have a redirect for historical accuracy... Christian Ferrer (talk) 16:19, 29 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I did as you suggested. Christian Ferrer (talk) 16:30, 29 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Someone doublecheck me please, but I thought ICZN considers that "Ophiomusium eburneum var. elegans" is functionally the same as "Ophiomusium eburneum elegans", in so far as the code does not recognize any rank other than subspecies? Circeus (talk) 18:50, 29 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's complicated last I checked, it depends on the year it was named and the context I think? Monster Iestyn (talk) 20:08, 29 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ah here we go, Articles 45.5 and 45.6 cover infraspecific names: [12] Monster Iestyn (talk) 20:10, 29 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the links, if I well understand, Article 45.6.3 matches with Verrill's 1899 publication, as he used "var." the name is available as a species-group name. Christian Ferrer (talk) 21:29, 29 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Species (taxa) counts

Have we as a community ever decided in favor of or against the inclusion of species counts, such as in the Taxonav section of Glauconycteris? I didn't see anything at Help:Taxonavigation section that advocated for them, but nothing that forbade them either. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:16, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Far as I'm aware, it's entirely a Stephen thing. Mind you, rewriting the style guide from cover to cover is a long-term project I have. Circeus (talk) 15:14, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It might be worth deciding this point, either for or against, since we seem to have some new(ish) contributors making a special effort to propagate these counts. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:02, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Same, I've been inconsistently including taxa counts or not in my contributions, since I wasn't sure if they're was accepted or not. If it was made clear whether we should include them or not, that would things much easier for me. The same could be said about a lot of other minor details of making a taxon page though. Monster Iestyn (talk) 18:21, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps we could decide this issue as a test run, and simultaneously make a list of similar issues we'd like to see resolved. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:31, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
WoRMS does it as well. I find it useful in comparing with lists provided by authors, reviewers, and WoRMS. Any discrepancy can be spotted in seconds, and evaluated. Neferkheperre (talk) 00:15, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Personnally, I feel like it's asking for trouble. I mean, in theory it's useful, but in practice? It's really just another punctilicious detail to keep track of (like whether or not there is a letter in the date of the template you're happening to be referring to). And that's presuming it is easy to make such counts the first place! Circeus (talk) 01:43, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
AFAIK the WoRMS count is self maintaining (just an auto generated count of the number of present child records in WoRMS, which would be a mix of accepted and unaccepted names as well). If it were to be maintained manually that would be more of a headache and also harder to verify since the base data would not necessarily be there for reference... (I guess I would say no unless someone is a glutton for punishment and continuous updating). On the other hand, I do find such counts useful in other works e.g. printed lists, so... Tony 1212 (talk) 04:33, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I can't see the utility of such counting. Many pages it is easy, a fast counting of a handfull of taxons, others, there are hundreds, and changing constantly. No value added.--Hector Bottai (talk) 12:58, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'd vote against the counts, particularly due to the issue of updating as mentioned previously. It would however be very useful if we had some sort of tool to get this information. As in a way to query number of instances of rank X under rank Y, i.e. number of species in a genus or number of genera in an order.Voganaa (talk) 19:41, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that a wiki is not a database. It functions as a database, but the content is not structured as one the way Wikidata is. (worth pointing out additionally that any counts can only give however many of those taxa have been created). In wikipedia projects, such numbers can only be reliably extracted from categories, and wikispecies has made the choice not to use such categories. Circeus (talk) 21:09, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

─────────────────────────yes this is one reason the complete removal of categories concerned me a little in the past. I get it was a reaction to the over-categorization done by stho01 but some categories to identify currently used combinations may be useful for the purpose of determining how many species we have created, its not the same as the article count. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 01:16, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Remember though that right now we have a non insignificant amount of synonym pages which should be redirect, and would certainly render most category numbers incorrect (there are alos various issues with the naming of some categories).Circeus (talk) 15:15, 26 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes agree all the synonyms should be redirects, My thinking on above is only a currently used name would be categorized, the valid name in zoology, synonyms would not be. The idea is to be able to determine how many recognized species we have catalogued. Not how many names. This count would be relevant beyond nomenclature and make us more usable to others as a source of information. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 17:40, 26 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds as thought no one here thinks the species counts on pages are useful, and many think they would be a headache to maintain. So do we want to (a) tolerate species (taxa) counts on pages, (b) discourage species counts on pages, or (c) remove/prohibit species counts on pages? --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:36, 26 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

at least discourage them until we are ready to revamp properly revamp the style guide. Circeus (talk) 22:34, 26 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me. Up above I indicated they had usefulness, so thus I would be one to tolerate them. They are not that big of a headache if one is diligent to adjust each time making change to list. Neferkheperre (talk) 02:36, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Neferkheperre, they are useful/relevant and can be tolerate, until a better option come. Burmeister (talk) 03:18, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry yes I got a little side-tracked by another issue relevant to this. I can tolerate it, but do agree we need to revamp the style to make it more widespread. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 04:44, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So it seems we're not happy with the counts, but will tolerate them until some better solution can be found. One remaining question is: Do we tolerate them far all ranks of taxa, or for species only. This is a situation where I personally favor "species only" as the numbers of species are less subjective and not tied to the choice of classification scheme. I would recommend we discourage and even remove counts for any taxa above the rank of species. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:11, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to assume that a week of silence implies tacit agreement. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:00, 2 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Give it a little more time. This is the holidays. Circeus (talk) 20:29, 2 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"tolerate all" until a robust discussion about format/style can be done! Burmeister (talk) 20:39, 2 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Another old formatting template of Stephen's I assume, this time for Pacific Insects. It turned out only three reference templates were actually making use of it, before I subst:'d it out of them just now. This template should definitely be safe to delete now, in other words. Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:23, 6 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved.
Done Circeus (talk) 19:33, 6 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Use of a ping template to send private message

How do I send a private message to another editor usng a ping template? I don't know how to do this. Could someone please explain? Thanks, Nytexcome (talk) 13:55, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If by "private" you mean "sending a message that no one else can see", that is by design not possible with a wiki edit. The point of pinging is to alert a user that they are being addressed on a page other than their talk page. To generate a ping, you use the {{Ping}} template in an edit that you sign. You must be adding a Fresh ~~~~ for the ping to register, editing a past post (as was pointed out to me not long ago) will not work without a new signature. Circeus (talk) 19:44, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Nytexcome: A late note, but strictly speaking the template is called {{Reply to}}. However {{Ping}} will work too since it automatically redirects to the correct template. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk) 19:04, 7 January 2020 (UTC).[reply]
@Nytexcome: If they have email enabled, you can send them a private message via a wiki page, by using the "Email this user" link in the left-hand navigation page, on their user page. Note that doing so will reveal your email address to them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:51, 8 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone has access to old issues of Reichenbachia?

I'm trying to clear "Onthophagus novaki Petrovitz", an old creation of Stephen. Despite all my efforts I can find no reference to such a name whatsoever, however, I noticed that the article is about "species from the Near East", and Boucomont's species is from Israel and Jordan 🤔, so I am seriously starting to believe this is another of those name misattributions (though where Stephen got it from I have no idea).

However, it is impossible to verify this without access to Petrovitz's publication. Anyone can help? Circeus (talk) 20:16, 18 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not an answer to the original question about Reichenbachia (I can't help there), but here's some useful notes about the species themselves I gleaned from Catalogue of Palaearctic Coleoptera Volume 3 (DOI: 10.1163/9789004309142):
  • There is no mention of a Onthophagus novaki Petrovitz anywhere in the Catalogue that I can see.
  • Onthophagus novaki Boucomont, on the other hand, appears in the Catalogue as "novaki Gillet & Boucomont, 1927: 125", reportedly a replacement name and synonym of "muelleri P.Novak, 1921: 100" (rather than the other way round according to WikiSpecies).
  • ...muelleri P.Novak, 1921 itself is presumably a hononym of Onthophagus muelleri Lansberge, 1883, possibly? (The latter does not appear in the Catalogue so this is just pure guesswork)
I think you're probably right about the Petrovitz name being a misattribution, though on the other hand the Catalogue of Palaearctic volumes have had many mistakes and corrections. Monster Iestyn (talk) 01:36, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Unless you can get hold of the putative primary reference listed on the taxon page for Onthophagus novaki Petrovitz, you cannot confirm or refute the correctness of the name attribution. Note that "Stephen" explicitly stated on the taxon page that he had not personally seen the primary reference. I suspect that he got it from a generally reliable secondary source, such as ION, which has the same attribution and reference for that name ... WSBiography (talk) 02:39, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Here is at least one such journal; reichenbachia. It seems to be complicated subject. `Neferkheperre (talk)
@Neferkheperre: That's en:Reichenbachia: Orchids Illustrated and Described (1886-1895), the one I'm interested in is ISSN 0070-7279 (1963-).
@WSBiography: Thank you, but I'm well aware I need the asserted place of publication before I can clear it out! Mind you, ION and other aggregators without dedicated taxonomic or nomenclatural editors are not all that reliable (and the zoological literature in general is brimming with similar issue), and tend to propagate errors if anything else. Circeus (talk) 16:34, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't propagating errors if it is made clear that the information is from secondary sources only and has not been verified from the primary source. It is simply a heads up to an issue which could do with looking into at some stage ... WSBiography (talk) 21:04, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Clearly you and me have very different definitions of "propagating errors". Circeus (talk) 00:39, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

───────────────────────── It looks like the first 15 volumes of Reichenbachia (1963-) are available to buy from Conchbooks, if that's an option at all: [13]. (On the other hand, they're 250.00 €) Monster Iestyn (talk) 01:26, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Holdings in German academic libraries. --RLJ (talk) 01:58, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately I'm in Montreal, and there are apparently no sets in all of Eastern Canada (and let's be honest, I'm not hardcore enough that I would travel out of town just for that). Hence why I was hoping someone had access to a run at their local university library. Circeus (talk) 04:44, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Found a copy

@Jmchutchinson: has helpfully sent me a scan of the article, which both muddies and clarifies the issue. In it the species is cited as "Onthophagus novaki MÜLL." [capitals as in the article]. It is clearly not meant to be a new species if compared to the actual new taxa in the article, and the full paragraph in German tersely reads "Diese syrische Art ist über fast ganz Anatolien verbeitet: Kasatamonu im Norden und Burdur, Isparta und Eğridir im Westen [specimen citation removed]. —Tiere mit roten Flügendecken sind ab. rufipennis nov."

I believe that last line means "Individuals with red elytra are removed to rufipennis [sp.] nov.", could someone confirm that? If so this is definitely not available from this publication and I am 90% sure this is an error for O. novaki Boucomont & Gillet. Both O. novaki's are then synonyms of O. muelleri as the substitute name was unnecessary (muelleri is not a homonym of mulleri Lansberge). Circeus (talk) 16:58, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, "ab. rufipennis nov." sounds more like a variety/aberration (i.e. an infraspecific name) is being named here to me. Luckily I already recently linked the relevant part of the ICZN code recently in the #Variety vs subspecies discussion to clarify those. Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:56, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
OH. Thank you for pointing that out. The "ab." bit was the only part still tripping me. Definitely confirms my thoughts then: name is not available, likely meant to be Boucomont & Gillet. Circeus (talk) 19:20, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this archive.