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Welcome to the Administrators' Noticeboard.

This space is for anyone who needs to contact an administrator ("sysop") for actions such as protecting a page, deleting spam, or blocking vandals.
If you rather need to reach a Translation administrator, please use the Translation Administrators' Noticeboard instead. For general conversation, see Wikispecies:Village Pump.

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Report concerning 90.1.22.55

• 90.1.22.55 (talk • contribs • block log • all projects)

Vandalism XReport --MathXplore (talk) 13:22, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

I took a look at several diffs and don't immediately see anything that I can tell is vandalism. I'm not a taxon authority myself, so maybe there's something that I'm missing? Can someone determine if there's something inappropriate with these edits? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:57, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on fossil Hadrosauridae, but many of the IP's edits involve taxon names with Wikidata items. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 17:01, 2 May 2025 (UTC).

This edit would qualify, I think. The first four genera don't seem to exist (via a Google search), the fifth seems to be a synonym, and the sixth is listed by the English Wikipedia as a dubious genus. --WrenFalcon (talk) 19:52, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Good point: "Wxfghlambeosaurus" seems not-real... but that was by Special:Contributions/90.60.184.114, not Special:Contributions/90.1.22.55. Do we think this is the same person? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:54, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! I didn't catch that... makes sense why when I checked the contributions through that edit, it showed only one edit. I thought it was a temporary bug.

Personally, I think it's definitely a possibility, considering that the edits are to the same subject (and one of the same articles), and that the WHOIS reports are similar for both. --WrenFalcon (talk) 20:16, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

JWB error message

Attention fellow administrators: 1234qwer1234qwer4—Andyboorman—Burmeister—Christian Ferrer—Dan Koehl—DannyS712—EncycloPetey—Faendalimas– Floscuculi—Hector Bottai—Keith Edkins—Koavf—MKOliver—MPF—Mariusm– Neferkheperre—OhanaUnited—PeterR—Pigsonthewing—RLJ—Thiotrix.

As you may know, the JavaScript Wiki Browser script ("JWB") is a browser-based, online version of the downloadable Auto Wiki Browser software ("AWB"). At the moment, entering the Wikispecies' version of JWB shows an error message with the following text:

Warning: The AWB checkpage found at Project:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage is no longer supported.
Please convert this checkpage to a JSON checkpage. See the URL below for more information.
After creating the JSON checkpage, you can use "Special:ChangeContentModel" to change the content model to JSON.

The "URL below" referred to is Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage format on English Wikipedia, which informs you that a page named "CheckPageJSON" is necessary for the JWB script to work. However, here at Wikispecies we already have a local Wikispecies:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPageJSON page, and it's had the JSON content model ever since it as created by @Reedy (WMF) back in June 2021. The same is true for the related page Wikispecies:AutoWikiBrowser/Config, also from June 2021 and created by the same user (a member of the Wikimedia Security Team.)

As far as I can tell all of the pages and settings involved in our Wikispecies JWB setup are fine, and I don't know why this error message pops up. Ignoring the error message can be done by simply clicking "OK", and the JWB page is then loaded. I've tested it, and it works as expected.

Kind regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 22:28, 4 May 2025 (UTC).

And I do not see any recent update that might have caused this issue. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:21, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree. However I've also just now cross-checked with JWB in Wikimedia Sverige (=the Swedish Wikimedia chapter) and the Swedish language version of Wikivoyage and the error does not replicate there. So something is obviously wrong here at Wikispecies, though unclear what. Hopefully it's not an issue that aggregates into something worse. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 00:00, 5 May 2025 (UTC).

The same goes for Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata: no error message there either. I checked them since they're language independent just like Wikispecies (contrary to the above-mentioned Swedish ones which are language specific). –Tommy Kronkvist (talk)‚ 00:11, 5 May 2025 (UTC).

I just created Wikispecies:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage/VersionJSON based on the page at en.wp. Does that help? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:52, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

(I think that page should probably be write-protected.) --WrenFalcon (talk) 06:32, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for creating the page, @Justin, but unfortunately it didn't help. Also, to @WrenFalcon: thank you for notifying. I've now write-protected the page. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 06:42, 5 May 2025 (UTC).

So maybe the first step is recreate all the relevant pages from en.wp, protect them, and then clear caches/restart browsers and try again? I'm at a little bit of a loss: I kinda/sorta understand some scripting and JSON, but I'm not an expert. The best I can do is reverse engineer and try to troubleshoot, but not make anything from scratch. :/ Any other thoughts? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:00, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Yesterday I was thinking along the same lines as you, about recreating etc. I haven't got time to make the actual changes today (moving houses soon, hence busy) but all of you guys are of course welcome to have a go at it. I'll check back in tomorrow, making any changes that may still be needed. (That is, if I can figure them out: JSON is pretty straightforward but I wouldn't be surprised if there's some extra MediaWiki spice involved here.) –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 07:14, 5 May 2025 (UTC).

Okay, I'll kick it back to you since you had the idea first and started the thread. If you can make the pages in the next 48 hours or so and see if it works, then please ping me if there's still a problem and I can put my tiny brain to it. :/ —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:20, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Report concerning Natsfdsf3423

• Natsfdsf3423 (talk • contribs • block log • all projects)

Not exactly sure if they've broken any rules (though that's for the admins to decide), but they left an ad on their own talk page. --WrenFalcon (talk) 06:48, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. If you ever see edits like this, they are just done by bots and they are complete trash that should be deleted and blocked. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:24, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Long AI Discussion Today.

Ok in recent times I have been involved in training AIs in taxonomy and getting them to the point where on querie they can respond with a taxonomic framework for groups of species and answers around this that are actually correct. Towards the end in looking carefully at some of the problems that were occuring it was clear that machine reading of Wikispecies pages was a problem. So I started asking it to examine the pages and that lead to an even longer discussion on the issues. It also made some suggestions. Clearly its very used to ENWP over what we have been doing and some of the templates it suggested were ENWP templates not ours. One pat on our back from the machine if it means anything it could see that our pages were being analysed by experts completely, presented the full heirarchy and were generally clearly formatted. I found it somewhat interesting as it said not to import information from wikidata but rather be the information provider to wikidata to maintain the level of consistent expert level analysis of all nomencklatural and taxonomic information we do. This is what I have always been aiming at in the past. That is we build, authenticate etc the nomenclatural information and metadata, it goes to Wikidata and is then used across wikipedias etc. However..... (please note this is not a request to change anything just a discussion we probably need to have.... again)

1. Prime issue - references. It recommends we adopt the Cite-Journal etc templates rather than our method as our current method is too antiquated. It did suggest two ways of automating a fix to this. One was to develop an LUA Module to do it, second was a good bot. The preference is the LUA Module as it would get messed up by weird cases less often. But the AI said it could certainly take each reference template and convert it to a cite-journal etc template and insert it back into the page. So what do people think? Yes Andy you have said that for a couple of years, I do actually agree with you but have been very concerned with the amount of work to accomplish it. Maybe the LUA Module could help. Even the LUA method has to be watched like a hawk though there are too many variables involved its going to have edge cases.
2. It says we should use taxon categories, we have had that discussion before STH002 added many of those and we removed them. It was brought up so I mention it, but I think we should leave that for now. Also it was not reading our {{int:synonymy}} subheader at all as well as a few other things for overall formatting.
3. It recommended listing the Wikidata page for each taxon on each page, including unused junior synonyms etc. we already list the basepage wikidata q-number link. It also recommneds us being listed as further information on any wikipedia page, which is already done but I think it cannot read the wikipedia template that does this. Too much formatting I think makes it harder to machine read.

Anyway I would like to know what people think. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 21:35, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

small addit. Discussing this here first before doing it as an RfC or something if we seem to think it useful. So short discussion here also consider should we go to an RfC. Second it also suggested wrapping species genus names etc in <i>...</i> tags which basically means its not reading our templates there either. Another time though but this is more than just a formatting issue, AI can identify start and end of species names by these tags. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 21:48, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

RE: (1) Our current "cite journal" is a warning not to use that template, so you'd need a sizeable discussion to reverse that decision. Also, a lot of the primary literature for names publication and references do not come from journals. You have not indicated whether the AI is able to handle non-journal taxonomic publications. (2) There is no reason to implement categories, since properly structured taxon pages will already lie in a nested hierarchy. (3) Is this AI model already in use? I spotted an editor on Commons tagging images that "depict" certain taxa, and he was using basionym data rather than current names. As a result, pages were being tagged with names that are centuries out of date. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:31, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

I was using the "cite journal as an example but of course this also includes the cite book and cite web templates, though the later I would personally prefer not be used as a primary reference. Yes of course this would require an RfC hence I said I am not proposing any changes here. Just getting some comments to see if we should consider this. I agree on categories, clearly the AI is imposing Wikipedia organisation on us so the machine needs to learn also. Yes the AI is being used it is being queried for this type of information but its results are often mixed in what it thinks is the current taxonomy of a group. As for the basionyms they have no use except for detailed nomenclatural discussions and should not be on images its not releavnt to the usages of the image. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 12:04, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

•  Comment Rather agreed to a potential use of {{Cite journal}} on our reference templates. And more generally we should use more often templates for taxonomic content, e.g. User:Christian Ferrer/sandbox3. Template have 3 advantages: 1/ the data is potentially more easily extractable (e.g. by A.I. or BOTs) 2/ the content of each page is presented in a uniform manner (almost each experencied users here have their own way to write taxa pages) 3/ When you decide to change something in a template, you do it once in the template, and each page where the template is used is automatically updated. In addition for machine reading, maybe that the use of {{Reflist}} as in Wikipedia could be usefull, I made an attempt some time ago. Christian Ferrer (talk) 10:03, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Citation templates

Since 2020, we have had consensus to develop more templates for citations. But a lamentable lack of willingness to implement that consensus, from those with the ability to do so. As ever, I remain wiling to do my part. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:04, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

In the long run I think we need to develop our own templates that are in principal based on the more wide spread ones but have some additional options for the higher detail we need here and possibly encompass some of the common but more difficult cases,for example when authors of a name are cited in the publication of another set of authors (eg the name Chelydera. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 12:12, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────┘Let's compare {{Shea, Thomson & Georges, 2020}} as currently used on that page, with {{Cite journal}} for the same work:

• Shea, G., Thomson, S. & Georges, A. 2020. The identity of Chelodina oblonga Gray 1841 (Testudines: Chelidae) reassessed. Zootaxa 4779(3): 419–437. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4779.3.9. PDF Reference page. 

vs:

• Shea, G., Thomson, S. & Georges, A. 2020. The identity of Chelodina oblonga Gray 1841 (Testudines: Chelidae) reassessed. Zootaxa, 4779(3): 419–437. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4779.3.9. 

While {{Cite journal}} still (as discussed previously) may need to be tweaked slightly to suit our style, it is perfectly capable of handing that use-case. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:47, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

The name is actually Thomson and Georges in Shea et al., 2020. Glenn Shea asked not to be considered an author of the name as he is not a turtle specialist but a nomenclatural scientist and historian. H felt it more appropriate that Arthur Georges and I received credit for the name. We actually asked him not to insist on that but in the end its his call. On the page I have just cited the paper at present but thats not quite correct. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 16:58, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure how any of that is relevant to the issue of formatting the citation of the paper, in the references section. Which difference between the two versions I show above is of concern? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:12, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. Replacing in the reference template the current wikitext related to the citation does not affect potential other sections such as the Nomenclatural Acts. BTW I am not sure that the Administrators' Noticeboard is the adequat place for that discussion. Christian Ferrer (talk) 07:42, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Your latter is a good point; shall we move to the Village Pump? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:20, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

If the paper is only cited as the name reference then the correct nomenclatural formatting of the citation in the reference section is Thomson and Georges in Shea et al. Not Shea et al. Thats the basic reason we are citing nomenclatural acts not just papers. I put it here first to get to those who have the larger vested interest before going to all with it. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 18:03, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

That is not how it appeared before this discussion; nor, in my experience, is it common on most of Wikispecies' pages in such circumstances.

It doesn't seem to be mentioned on, much less required by, Help:Reference section.

On the other hand, the current Name section shows "Chelydera Thomson & Georges, 2020:430 (in Shea et al. 2020)"; this does seem to be common practice. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:30, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

There are two "first steps" that would be good. Firstly, properly documenting {{Cite journal}} (chiefly listing the parameters and options); and secondly modifying it so that the default separators are commas and ampersands (instead of semi-colons).

@Koavf: You did early work on {{Citation/core}}, which the template calls. Can you assist with this, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:25, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

I've made start, including some examples. A tracking category would also be useful. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:49, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Report concerning User:RLJ

Hi, to whom it may concern, I would like to request administrator attention regarding the behavior of user User:RLJ during recent edits to the page Acanthoprasium blocking the possibility to edit it. The user made multiple changes without providing edit summaries or proper justification, reverted contributions without clear reasoning, and enforced their version by protecting the page without prior consensus.

This is not the first time that RLJ has created issues for me. There is an ongoing pattern of controversial edits—particularly on pages where I am active—combined with a consistent avoidance of discussion. RLJ tends to revert some of my editions without justification some times, even when presented with well-founded corrections, and repeatedly ignores messages and requests for clarification, including on topics initiate, Even when, he starts arguments at the Village Pump that starts, I hope you can help me with this problem. Greetings AbeCK (talk) 20:41, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

@RLJ: can you please comment and explain from your perspective? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:09, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

This user has controversial ideas like reintroducing the deprecated "PAGENAME" template (which is still left in many articles), using the "Catol-Hassler" template without Hassler's authorship, and others reducing the quality of the articles. Since 29 Apr, 22:15, he is doing hardly anything else here than leading edit wars and reverting, reverting, reverting, including errors, ignoring my attempts to find consensual solutions and compromises and all in all in an unconstructive and pseudohierarchical way. If it was necessary to explain my reasons for changing the article I did. To calm down the situation I have protected my version of the article Acanthoprasium for one week. I think this version is acceptable for nearly everybody, and I would recommend to keep this article at this state for this week. --RLJ (talk) 01:00, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

@AbeCK:, RLJ is a generally trusted user and furthermore seems to be engaging civilly and is attempting consensus. For my part, I don't think this warrants anyone else intervening at this juncture and if anyone engages in serial edit warring and consistently introducing errors into this site, that person will be blocked. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:04, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Koavf I'm willing to work by consensus, but that requires everyone to do so. If a user protects a version they're involved with without prior discussion or room for dialogue, I don't see how that can be considered collaborative.

I am not here to prevent me from participating either. I just ask that my right to edit and discuss on equal terms be respected. If a protected version is going to be maintained, it must be the result of real consensus, not unilateral decisions.

Acanthoprasium: Either we resolve this by opening up dialogue, or what are we going to do? Because so far, no formal avenue for discussion has been opened. AbeCK (talk) 01:37, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

I respect anyone else feeling like there needs to be some mediation. I just don't see it as crucial now. Any other admin can jump in. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:47, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

RLJ However, I am concerned and upset that you have protected a version in which you yourself are implicated, without first exhausting a genuine attempt at dialogue or consensus.

I have made an effort to explain my edits when necessary, and I don't think it's fair to limit my right to contribute or to be labeled as controversial for defending a different point of view. I also think some of your edits are extensive, generating unnecessary text and even affecting the aesthetics without reviewing them, placing author tags where they don't belong.

If you had invited us to open a formal discussion, either on the article's talk page or in the Village Pump, to find a collaborative solution, this would have been different. We all want to improve the content, but instead, you are taking advantage of your power as an administrator by imposing this editing restriction. AbeCK (talk) 01:33, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Report concerning LeinadZodrack

• LeinadZodrack (talk • contribs • block log • all projects)

LTA Exactamente XReport --Leonidlednev (talk) 19:40, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Blocked. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:10, 16 May 2025 (UTC)