User talk:VGPaleontologist

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–Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 14:41, 13 September 2022 (UTC).

Minor edits

Please don't mark edits such as this as minor. The minor tag should be reserved for small formatting tweaks, changes to punctuation, etc., not the addition or removal of content. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:42, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Good to know VGPaleontologist (talk) 23:57, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Vernacular names

When editing any Wikispecies list of vernacular names, please only add one vernacular name per language, as described in the Vernacular names section guideline. Thank you. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 14:56, 12 December 2022 (UTC).

But what if they have multiple vernacular names? What am I to do then? VGPaleontologist (talk) 14:58, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Again, I refer to the Vernacular names section guideline, specifically the paragraph about usage on that page. It states that, quote:

To avoid the list becoming too long, only include one vernacular name per language, which should generally be the standard name used in official publications in the relevant language (such as the IOC World Bird Names list, or the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland plant list).

If no particular vernacular name can be singled out as being the most used (from a global perspective), then it's best to leave out vernacular names for that language altogether. Vernacular names are seldom of any real importance to the taxonomy of a taxon, why in essence they are actually out of scope of the Wikispecies project. Every now and again the community discuss (and vote) whether to even keep them at all, but the latest bid is that they are welcome. The rule of "one name per taxon" is mainly in place to limit the size of the vernacular names lists, since some taxa may have several dozens (or more) of vernacular names – per language! A table with maybe 20 vernacular names in English (e.g. from the UK, US, India, Australia, South Africa, plus local dialects) and another 20 per language in Spanish, Hindi, German, Chinese, French and so forth would soon take up more than half the page, thus shifting focus from the information about taxonomy i.e., the main focus of the entire Wikispecies project. For some taxa the lists may become rather big even with only one vernacular name per taxon: see for example the vernacular names sections of Canis lupus, Columba livia and Panthera tigris.

Please note that there is a special case where this policy has (sort of) an exception. It concerns languages that are digraphic, i.e. uses more than one writing system. This includes for example the Serbian language (which use both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets) as well as the Malay language (using both the Latin alphabet and an adapted form of the Arabic alphabet called Jawi script). In those cases, we should still only add one vernacular name, but it's okay to present it using both writing systems. Hence the Serbian vernacular name for European Brown bear (Ursus arctos) may be listed as "Mrki medvjed / Мрки медвјед". Letter for letter it's still the exact same vernacular name, but written using both of the official alphabets for that specific language. Regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 16:56, 12 December 2022 (UTC).

Etymology not required

You added ** Etymology: From New Latin adjective "japonica," inflection of "japonicus" ('Japanese'). as a note. Etymology is generally not used on WS. It is something we encourage on WP and Wikidata. Hope this helps. Andyboorman (talk) 08:39, 7 December 2023 (UTC)