Talk:Main Page

References

Global biodiversity estimation

• Bebber, D.P. et al. 2007: Predicting unknown species numbers using discovery curves. Proceedings of the Royal Society (B), 274(1618): 1651-1658. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2007.0464
• Costello, M.J.; Wilson, S.; Houlding, B. (online, 2011): Predicting total global species richness using rates of species description and estimates of taxonomic effort. Systematic biology, doi: 10.1093/sysbio/syr080
• Joppa, L.N.; Roberts, D.L.; Pimm, S.L. 2011: The population ecology and social behaviour of taxonomists. Trends in ecology & evolution, 26(11): 551-553. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2011.07.010
• Hamilton, A.J. et al. 2010: Quantifying uncertainty in estimation of tropical arthropod species richness. American naturalist, 176(1): 90-95. doi: 10.1086/652998
• Mora, C. et al. 2011: How many species are there on Earth and in the ocean? PLoS Biol, 9(8): e1001127. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127

other

• Cook, L.G.; Edwards, R.D.; Crisp, M.D.; Hardy, N.B. 2010: Need morphology always be required for new species descriptions? Invertebrate systematics, 24: 322–326. doi: 10.1071/IS10011
• Costello, M.J. et al. 2010: A census of marine biodiversity knowledge, resources, and future challenges. PLoS ONE, 5(8): e12110. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0012110
• Fitzhugh, K. 2009: Species as explanatory hypotheses: refinements and implications. Acta biotheoretica, 57: 201-248. doi: 10.1007/s10441-009-9071-3
• Freudenstein, J.V. 1998: Paraphyly, ancestors, and classification: a response to Sosef and Brummitt. Taxon, 47: 95-104. JSTOR
• Funk, D.J.; Omland, K.E. 2003: Species-level paraphyly and polyphyly: frequency, causes, and consequences, with insights from animal mitochondrial DNA. Annual review of ecology, evolution, and systematics, 34: 397-423. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.34.011802.132421
• Goldstein, P.Z.; DeSalle, R. 2000: Phylogenetic species, nested hierarchies, and character fixation. Cladistics, 16: 364-384. doi: 10.1111/j.1096-0031.2000.tb00356.x
• Gordon DP (2009). Towards a management hierarchy (classification) for the Catalogue of Life: Draft Discussion Document. In Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of Life: 2009 Annual Checklist (Bisby FA, Roskov YR, Orrell TM, Nicolson D, Paglinawan LE, Bailly N, Kirk PM, Bourgoin T, Baillargeon G., eds). CD-ROM; Species 2000: Reading, UK.
• Page, R.D.M. 2010: Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia of life. Organisms diversity & evolution, 10: 343-349. doi: 10.1007/s13127-010-0028-9
• Rieppel, O. 2010: Species monophyly. Journal of zoological systematics and evolutionary research, 48: 1-8. doi: 10.1111/j.1439-0469.2009.00545.x
• Wägele, H. et al. 2011: The taxonomist - an endangered race. A practical proposal for its survival. Frontiers in zoology, 8: 25. doi: 10.1186/1742-9994-8-25

links

• Paleobiology Database

Talk

Archives
Archive 1

Why Linnaean taxonomy?

There needs to be an explanation on the Wikispecies FAQ at Meta Wikimedia. See comment at meta:Talk:Wikispecies/FAQ #Why Linnaean taxonomy? --Chriswaterguy 11:27, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Classification

If the current classification system is not the best, I recommend using both systems, and let people add in the pages.

Also, on the main page, please include a link that explains terms used in the Taxonavigation Fulldecent 18:46, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I second this recommendation. --ThatNateGuy (talk) 18:38, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Navigation

I tried taxonavigating to Homo_sapiens, but there were several breaks that made this impossible. Fulldecent 18:46, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I think Wikispecies is a great idea but I miss complet descriptions. It may have an thinked structure for a lot of languages.

HI

To whom it may concern, I would find it better if the pages were linked to any sort of content or description of the species, etc. Thank you, Melara... 23:44, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Many of them ARE so linked, via the references section (doi and PDF links). Example: Doxozilora punctata Thank you ... Stho002 00:07, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Pages should have the kind of info shown in the current species of the week Thermorules123 (talk) 16:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Regna and links

Could a link to "Regnum Chromalveolata" be added to the Main Page? I cannot for the life of me figure out how to navigate to it from either Protista or "Eukarya". Please also note that the "Eukarya" link goes to Eukaryota, so that link text should also be corrected on the Main Page. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:10, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I've eliminated the piped link for Eukaryota, but am still waiting on opinions concerning the addition of Regnum Chromalveolata to the MP, or at least a way to make it easier to navigate to. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:00, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

So confusing!

Why is this classification system so complex? In my opinion it would be much better if we could just use the seven rank system that Linnaeus used. The Zebra doesn't need to be 23 pages down from the top! --Thermorules123 (talk) 16:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Surely Aristotle's system would be even easier. Then, we wouldn't need to include microorganisms. Much nicer to only include plants and animals known to ancient Europeans, since it would greatly reduce the clutter of the site.

Unfortunately, scientific classification does not exist for the purpose of internet navigation. It serves to summarize hypotheses about interrelationships among the diversity of life on Earth. If Wikispecies discards current taxonomy in favor of a 250-year old system, we would be serving no one's needs. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:16, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Species Count?

I have an idea for taxonavigating in Wikispecies. There could be a species count for each level of taxonomy. For example, on the page Animalia, there would be a section of the page that reads Animalia: 1,250,000 species. And it will continue as you go down the levels of classification: Aves: 9,800 species. Piciformes: 400 species. I think that this would help give people an idea of the enormous amount of species on this Earth. Stripey the crab (talk) 17:08, 28 August 2010 (UTC) This is basically what I came here to find. Great idea!

Vector rollout issues

I fixed the problem with the Main page tab in Common.js. I've also filed a bug for the logo problem. Let me know if you notice anything else. Kaldari (talk) 19:12, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Fixed the logo. Kaldari (talk) 23:54, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Please correct spelling in Dingo description

The word "weened" in the current featured species is incorrect - please substitute with "weaned". Many thanks. Careful With That Axe, Eugene (talk) 14:58, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Done OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 16:53, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Is the lizard classification system up to date???

It differs a lot more than Wikipedia's classification. Is it still valid and up-to-date? --TangoFett (talk) 07:44, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Searching

While viewing this site I noticed something odd. If you search for "spirulina" it takes you directly to the main page of Spirulina. The problem with this is that I was actually looking to the common(Vernacular) name of Arthrospira.

The question I pose here: Is it desired to refrain from showing search results if the search string exists as a page itself? 99.156.230.52 17:49, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Lizards

hey, sorry to interrupt, but I'm starting a lizard kiosk at my high school and I'm using this site as a reference. Will lizards be able to live in a non-swamp environment? if anyone can answer, thanks. Tragic serenity (talk) 00:29, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

This is a site about scientific names, and not about ecology. That sort of information won't be presented here. You might try looking at the Lizard article on Wikipedia. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:32, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Editing (third level?) pages

For the main (third level?) pages that head the sections for Fungi and Protozoa, showing the word in different languages, editing is possible. I managed to add the respective word in Cymraeg (that's Welsh, in case you didn't know). But for the 20:24, 29 March 2011 (UTC).

Those pages are vandalized so often that they are now protected. While your edits may be trustoworthy, there are many others whose edits are not only untrustworthy but detrimental. You acted correctly in posting the corrections to the talk pages, and I have put the changes in place for you. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:49, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Tamarind typo correction

Hi all. I feel bad for the poor Tamarind, this week's featured species. Apparently, The pet trade is posing a treat to their survival. Can someone change the emboldened word to "threat"? Many thanks. Careful With That Axe, Eugene (talk) 08:43, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Enormous butterfly!

This week's featured species (Heath Fritillary) is listed as ranging in size from 39 to 47cm. This is huge! I live in Britain and I certainly don't remember the skies ever being darkened by this monster. Clearly this should be millimetres (mm) - please could an Admin edit this? Many thanks. Careful With That Axe, Eugene (talk) 10:01, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Done Ark (talk page) 10:07, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Spelling errors in Featured Species

Hello. The blurb below features two spelling mistakes which I have emboldened:

Canis simensis is the world's rarest canid. Territorial packs consist of 2 to 12 members. They congregate during the day and cooperate to guard and provide food for the dominant feamale's pups. They have a blood-chilling hawl, which reaches up to five kilometers and is used as long-distance communication. The arrival of high-altitude farms and domesticated dogs to their range make life difficult for this species.

These words should be spelt female and howl respectively. Careful With That Axe, Eugene (talk) 10:46, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you're seeing that information. The current "Species of the Week" is Attwater's Prairie Chicken, and not Canis simensis. You may need to clear your browser's cache to see the current species. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:46, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Look at the datestamp and you'll figure out that it was related to a past (not a current) issue. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:38, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Species of the Week: Dung Beetle

"It rolls dung balls using its scooper-like head and paddle-shaped antennae..."?

It is an insect. It therefore has six legs, not four. Those large paddles are its front legs. The antennae are the pair of small projections from the head, and are too small and sensitive to be used as paddles.

Would you please correct this?

Done Stho002 (talk) 21:29, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Don't seem very paddle-shaped to me...

Actually, their front legs don't seem very paddle-shaped at all. Looking at a picture of a dung beetle, their antennae (which is what it looks like) do seem to be paddle-shaped. I'm no entomologist, but I've handled beetles firsthand and they are very strong. --72.197.35.238 07:58, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Not a gecko

UGH. This is a baby bearded dragon. Delete this please. --72.197.35.238 13:14, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

If you are correct, the image needs to be relabeled at Commons. You would seem, however, to disagree with the zoo where the picture was taken. Koumz (talk) 13:27, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I suppose I would. This is a picture of Cyrtopodion here:

http://www.geckolist.com/photos/263_Cyrtopodion_scabrum-Rough-tailed_Gecko.jpg

As you can see, it is a gecko. More specifically, a gecko without eyelids. I sincerely hope it's just a mistake of the photographer and not the zoo. --72.197.35.238 13:57, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Taxonomy conflict

From the Lamprophiidae article, its subfamily appears to be Lamprophiinae. However, looking at the latter article, it lists its family as Colubridae. Which is right? --72.197.35.238 13:26, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Chromista and Protozoa

Please replace Protista with Chromista and Protozoa.

Sorry, can't do that without solid literature support...Stho002 (talk) 21:01, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Cavalier-Smith (1998) A revised six-kingdom system of life

yes, but that is one view, and 1998 is actually a bit dated now...Stho002 (talk) 21:20, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes you are right it is bit out dated. So what do you think of: http://www.itis.gov/itis_phy.html

That site's taxonomy is often more than 30 years out of date; they still group the bryophytes as a monophyletic division. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:39, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Language

is a pity that English is prioritized

Why? The largest language in the world should be prioritized. Not to mention the fact that classification is in Latin, and therefore universally acceptable. Other languages would be a waste of everyone's time, and precious server space, which is quite limited at a free and open organization such as the Wikimedia foundation. And also, Wikispecies is a Simple English website.

Protip: don't forget the dummy subject "it". You should have said: "It is a pity that English is prioritized". John Holmes II (talk) 02:55, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

"Other languages would be a waste of everyone's time". A waste of English speakers' time, you mean. You don't see the need for change as you are benefiting from the status quo, but others clearly see the need. Wikispecies should at least make a multilingual effort, like Commons does. Pikolas (talk) 02:36, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

"The largest language in the world should be prioritized" - a disgusting attitude. Remember that the majority of the planet's inhabitants don't speak English, and large percentages are monolingual in Spanish and Chinese. The Wikimedia movement is an international movement, which by extension and by necessity also means it's multilingual. So monoglot English speakers who get off on imagining their language is king of the world don't help anyone by enshrining their linguistic supremacy in official policies. --68.227.243.244 07:57, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

No.1 species directory with no floral representation? Help wikispecies to make it perfect.

The only thing that we acquire from this site is the taxonomic name, synonym and vernacular names. Got tired about names. Does mere study of classification become something scientific?

• In angiosperm and gymnosperm topics like vegetative characters, floral characters etc can be given along with the names and mere photos. It will improve this site.
• Why don't we start a project, PROJECT: FLORAL FORMULA and include the floral formula of each plant belonging to angiosperm class?. Then the site will be useful. Wikispecies doesn't discuss the use, cultivation etc. of an organism (I stress more on plants) and there is no need for it; I agree. But doesn't the morphology of it be given for this. It is very required for the improvement of our wiki.

Visit http://www.iasexams.com/NCERT-Books/NCERTBooksforClass11/FreedownloadClass11BiologyNCERTBook/Class11_Biology_Unit05_NCERT_TextBook_EnglishEdition.pdf to see how this is done.(NCERT textbook for class 11.) Valchemishnu (talk) 02:30, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Would it really be that hard?

Would it really be that hard/bad/whatever to put the language box at the top of the page? This is a Wikimedia project, isn't it? Isn't Wikimedia an international movement? Then why isn't this project more multilingual? --68.227.243.244 07:59, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

The scientific community primarily uses English as official language of communication and Latin for describing species. Meta and Commons both have their language boxes at the bottom of the page so I don't think there is any concern for its placement location. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:20, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

...yet another example of Wikispecies privileging English, thereby limiting its use and scope as an international project...

...yet another example of missing the point ...

Missing whose point? I was unaware that Wikispecies was meant to only be used by academics (OhanaUnited stated that English is the "official language of communication" of the scientific community, which = academics)... what a pity. I guess the WMF has given up on its mission of making free knowledge available to the whole world and decided that it only wants to make free knowledge available to academics who speak English.

User:Node ue, please try take a look at our FAQ for explanation. While we do cater towards general audience, we provide a more professional atmosphere for the scientific community. And when I mean scientific community, it does not necessarily mean academics. A good example of individuals in scientific community and not an academic would be science students in high school or university undergraduate level. They learned the proper format of a species name, its language (Latin), and its medium of communication (English) through their biology classes. It is a fait accompli (aka accomplished fact) and any language changes towards how a species is described is extremely unlikely. Also, the species' page names in Wikispecies are in Latin because this approach provides and guarantees that one species only has one official name. Anything which deviates from it (i.e. a common name, name in other languages) will bring dispute and disagreement over which one is the "preferred page title" (note that it is only "preferred", not "official" since the official name will always be in Latin). Without even going into another language, I have an example in English that everyone will understand. If I create a disambig page called White Pine, it actually means five different pine tree species (three from North America, one from China, one from New Zealand). People will argue which species should be listed first in this disambig page. Then if a Chinese editor came and made a common name page with everything from title to content in Chinese, he might list the Chinese species in the top spot. You see how confusing it will become if we go multilingual? We will be fixing something that isn't broke. Since this issue is raised multiple times recently, I'll amend the FAQ to provide more clarity on why we decide not to go multilingual beyond main page and vernacular names. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:08, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

This is a really poor explanation and does not change the fact that you are privileging one language over all others. Scientific naming conventions are one thing and I am not disagreeing with the practice of species' pages being located at their binomial names in Latin. What I am disagreeing with is the use of English (again, not Latin) to the exclusion of all other languages, which you have yet to provide a satisfactory justification for. I'm still waiting for that. --Node ue (talk) 00:38, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me? Where did we "exclude" other languages? We have main page in 66 languages and we have village pump in 6 languages. On top of that, each species page contains, to the best of our abilities, common name(s) in each language. Could you provide us an actual example of your allegations rather than just pointing us to that direction without a specific example? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:45, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikispecies follows international standards. The International Botanical Congress publishes its taxonomic code in English, and the latest edition (in press) allows new species to be decribed in either Latin (as is traditional) or in English. English is the international language of botanical nomenclature by international agreement. If you disagree with this decision, you will need to take the issue up with the International Botanical Congress. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:28, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

FAQ candidate: how do you identify a member of a species?

This project seems exceedingly strange to a new user like me. You have a purely theoretical structure describing a logical hierarchy of objects alleged to be in the physical universe, but there seems to be no systematic information given to how to link theory to physical reality, and (equivalently) no definitions given of the atomic objects in the hierarchy. Have I missed something? If not why doesn't each bottom level entry contain a link to a source that describes the entity and/or gives a location where a prototypical specimen is housed?

[quote]why doesn't each bottom level entry contain a link to a source that describes the entity and/or gives a location where a prototypical specimen is housed?[unquote]

It does! Or at least it will do, but it takes time. Here is an example of a finished page: Lagynodes gastroleius ... Stho002 (talk) 20:20, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Missing ?

I used to think Wikispecies is completed. I was just surfing through some of the pages and surprised that it is still missing a lot in term of Vernacular names of all the languages in the world. Some of the articles haven't update the links to Wikipedia. I suggest that all the bot-master should run their bots more often in updating links to Wikipedia and searching for Vernacular names in all languages of the world. There is also need to update Vernacular names section too. Some of the Vernacular names are in the links to Wikipedia but haven't been written in Vernacular names section. I guess we have long way to go until this is complete and actually useful for 7 billions people on this planet.Trongphu (talk) 18:58, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Language: An Idea

Unlike Wikipedia, which is an encyclopedia, and Wiktionary, which is a dictionary, Wikispecies is basically a structured list of scientific names with supporting data. While the other two are designed to define and explain things- both very language-dependent tasks- Wikispecies mostly just presents a highly-structured and language-independent system, which is defined and explained elsewhere. That means the substance of the site is best not replicated from scratch for each language, but the presentation can be made adaptable.

It looks to me like most of the language-specific content on the main pages is in a very standardized and predictable format- i.e. in section headers. Would it be possible to have a system whereby "skins" using other languages could display the pages with phrases in the specific language replacing the English phrases, and translated versions of all the navigational verbiage on the page? The taxa and the data would be in a single central database, but the expression of them on the pages would depend on which language-specific version was used. This would be not unlike use of alt captions to accommodate page readers for the visually-impaired, but much more basic to the system and more evenly-applied.

To make a skin, you would start with a list of existing header names and navigation labels, providing a translation for each. The system would substitute the skin's versions when drawing the page to be viewed in a specific language.

The main obstacles I can see would be non-standard header names, proliferation of references to cover multiple languages, and communication problems on the talk pages. There would no doubt also be page-design issues from differences in physical size and shape of the words in different languages (Watchlist [English] vs 监视列表 [Chinese] vs Beobachtungsliste [German], for example). Much of this could be alleviated with good system design. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:14, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I just had the odd experience of finding a page I had bookmarked coming up in Polish. I went to my user settings and saw an item I hadn't noticed before for "internationalisation". Either someone just enabled a feature in the software that hadn't been applied to this wiki, or it was there all along and I was going on like an idiot about reinventing what was already in place. Either way, I like it. I should have figured my idea was too obvious for someone not to have already thought of it. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:41, 9 January 2012 (UTC)