Wikispecies:Village Pump/Archive 28

Stho002 Sock Puppet

@Dan Koehl:,@Tommy Kronkvist:,@Mariusm:,@Andyboorman: and @MPF: It appears clear, although is yet to be confirmed by the CheckUser process, that User:ZooBank is a sock puppet, the definiton of which includes: "The term now includes other misleading uses of online identities, such as those created to ... circumvent a suspension or ban from a website." It goes on to say: "Many online communities attempt to block sockpuppets." I am seeking consensus here for an indefinite block User:ZooBank in the interests of maintaining a degree of appropriate behaviour on WikiSpecies, even though, to date, the contributions of Stephen Thorpe, through this new alias, have not been intended to aggravate relationships here. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Accassidy (talk • contribs) 09:33‎, 1 February 2015 (UTC).

A CheckUser was performed today for this account (see diff), which confirmed that User:ZooBank is a sockpuppet for User:Stho002 (as well as User:Biota and User:BiodiverseCity).

The accounts User:ZooBank, User:Biota and User:BiodiverseCity has been blocked indefinitely, according to en:Wikipedia:Blocking policy and Sock_puppetry:

If a person is found to be using a sock puppet, the sock puppet account(s) should be blocked indefinitely. The main account may be blocked at the discretion of any uninvolved administrator. IP addresses used for sock puppetry may be blocked, but are subject to certain restrictions for indefinite blocks.

I am aware that those rules have not been adopted at Wikispecies, but it seems that sockpuppets are blocked indefinitely, as a rule, on Wikimedia. I left the talk page open for communication. But I agree that this should be done with consensus, and I will accept if changes are done to the block, but I advice not, since a sockpuppet in general should not be accepted . I also suggest that we discuss User:Stho002 main account. Dan Koehl (talk) 10:28, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe a range block will be appropriate for this situation? Mariusm (talk) 11:22, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure about a range block at this time given ZooBank's contributions are largely beneficial and have inflicted no apparent collateral damage. However, it strengthens the case for extending the block on his main account to indefinite, which would be my advice. He can reply on his talk page after all. I think that the other accounts must remain as blocked indefinitely in line with accepted practice. We also will have to be vigilant and if other suspicious accounts appear then this will be the time to investigate the ramifications of a range block. Andyboorman (talk) 11:54, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

@Andyboorman:, since his latest block by Mariusm 2015-01-28 06:45, User:Stho002 can not use his talk page or use emails through his main account Stho002, so presently he can not reply on his main account talk page. Dan Koehl (talk) 12:16, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Apologies my mistake. I still hold with the indefinite block on User:Stho002. Andyboorman (talk) 12:27, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not against an indefinite block on Stho002, but wouldn't it bee fair to lift the write block on Stho002's talk page, so he can give his version (whatever it could be) of this situation? / Ternarius (talk) 18:18, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I imagine he can see this page. He also has my personal email, but has made no communication on that since the sockpuppets were blocked. Accassidy (talk) 18:36, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

OK, that of course changes things. I realize my request could be interpreted as somewhat supercilious, that wasn't my intention. I didn't know that Stho002 had any form of contact outside Wikispecies. / Ternarius (talk) 19:03, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

For the record he's got my personal email address as well, but hasn't communicated with me in any way since January 20, 2015. Then we only discussed a template I had deleted – the template was not created nor had ever been edited by him. Our email correspondence was straightforward and held in a polite manner, and as I mentioned it had nothing to do with blocking or sockpuppetry.

In my point of view the accounts User:BiodiverseCity, User:Biota and User:ZooBank should be blocked indefinitely, as per Wikimedia policies. The user User:Stho002 should be able to make comments and suggestions on his talk page though, at least for now.

–Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 10:51, 2 February 2015 (UTC).

I have increased User:Stho002's block on his "retired" main page from a month to indefinite due to another case of sockpupputery that has just come to light. It must be appropriate to change this and other conditions of his block only by discussion and consensus. We also ought to be considering broadening measures for example a range block and spam filters. Andyboorman (talk) 19:23, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

New user

This new user showed up on Recent Changes: User:Emilia Ţuţuianu. I don't think is germaine to Wikispecies, but I know almost no Romanian. Can anybody help? Neferkheperre (talk) 20:58, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Its a poetry publishing house, so probably "gentle" spam? Andyboorman (talk) 21:01, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I've removed the promotional link from the users' page, and made a note about it on the talk page. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 06:37, 5 February 2015 (UTC).

Article template names consensus

I've seen recently some divergent formats of the article-template-names. It's important to stick to a single standard format. The consensus which most of the editors adhere to is the following format: Author1, Author2 & Author3, YEAR (or Author1 & Author2, YEAR or Author1 et al., YEAR or Author1, YEAR [no more than 3 authors allowed in name]. If there's more than one article per author per year than the names should go YEARa YEARb etc.) (after each comma there's a space). It just makes article searches easier and makes WS more homogeneous and "professional". Thanks, Mariusm (talk) 06:00, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree and have always followed this praxis, and encourage others to do the same. It might be noted though that "et al." most often is italicized. Also, the ending dot after "al." should not be forgotten, since it is an abbreviation. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 06:58, 5 February 2015 (UTC).

I agree generally, but I tend to use the variant with "et al." already starting from three authors. Anyway, that's only the name of the template. If there is consensus that three authors have to be listed with full name, that's also OK for me. More important in my opinion is listing all authors within the template. --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:58, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

While a sensible name is helpful, template names for articles don't actually matter too much, as they're invisible outside of editing - one could in theory just use a random character sequence, Template:df5y348thifu3ujyt or whatever. In particular, template names needn't (maybe even can't?) include italicisation of "et al.", as the ' symbol can mess up coding. Agree with Franz though, template content is more important, and should look professional. Mentioning all the authors isn't always wise though, with e.g. this important paper with 105 authors (!!); I was taught to cite all authors if four or fewer, and first three authors et al., for five or more. Of the rest of a citation, following the style of a major journal such as American Journal of Botany is best; I'd recommend the standard style:

Author, A. B., Author, C. D., & Authoress, E. F. (year). Full article title. Journal Name 1 (2): 34–56.

Bold for volume numbers isn't essential; I don't see it used in many scientific journals; but good punctuation and spacing (spaces after fullstops, and before brackets), and correct capitalisation of journal names, are important for professional appearance (things that were woefully ignored by a prolific former contributor!!). - MPF (talk) 11:21, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

1. I think template-names do matter when one is checking whether a template for a certain article already exists. Also when editing, especially author-pages' publication-section, meaningless names makes the task much more difficult.
2. In template-names et al. goes without italicization.
3. Even for 3 authors Author1 et al., YEAR can be used (but not for 2 authors). Mariusm (talk) 15:54, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
   

1. IMO the format for journal templates should simply be {{Author(s), Date}}.
2. If used et al. is not italicised and normally the first two authors only then et al..
3. The use of codes eg Pt1.1 should be abandoned for journal templates.
4. In general, I agree with Author, A. B., Author, C. D., & Authoress, E. F. (year). Full article title. Journal Name 1 (2): 34-56. But feel the full stop after the date is meaningless even though it is sometimes seen. Bold for issue looks good, but has gone out of fashion. Optional or not for these two variations?
5. Of course there are the rare 150 authors! But normally papers with more than 6 authors are often seminal with key researchers as contributors and et al. is inappropriate. Therefore no fixed rule?
6. In English, the use of italics to highlight Latin or other "foreign" languages is no longer required and is considered an old fashioned affectation. A bit like drinking tea with your little finger crooked!

Importantly, if we come to consensus then it should be placed in Help and contributors adopt a sympathetic approach to edits of already created templates and hard copies, unlike the already mentioned contrarian contributor. Andyboorman (talk) 19:01, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Obamabane

I just got through permanently blocking some foaming right wing hatespammer calling itself Obamabane, and deleting all pages it created. It has global block, but apparently no aliases. Most of these people infest en:Wikipedia, which is where Obamabane originated. We need to keep eyes out for aliases. One of its pages apparently was some sort of whine about Wikimedia's meanies. Likely any aliases appearing will be named along right wing political lines. I don't know what these people plan to attain. Neferkheperre (talk) 11:23, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Main page photo row

The top of the main page has a row of five photos; this morning, three of the five were for redlink taxa with no species page . . . a poor reflection on Wikispecies! I've done one (Cystopteris alpina), but the other two (an insect Sphodromantis baccettii, and a fungus Onygena equina) are both outside of my experience zone unfortunately. Can we as a group keep an eye out for redlinks in this photo row, and get them completed! Does anyone know how the photo row is generated? I'm assuming its species selection is random and automatically generated? - MPF (talk) 11:36, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I was not aware of the existence this photo row. It is shown only in part of the language versions of the main page. The place where it is generated is Template:MP pictures. As far as I see, only two persons were engaged during the last two years. --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:12, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Usually OhanaUnited edited the photo row. Now that he resigned, we need someone else to do the job. The Template:MP pictures is protected so only an admin can edit it. Anyway this is not an automatic procedure and someone has to edit this template manually. Mariusm (talk) 16:02, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I'll help do some; drop a note on my talk page with how species are selected, change frequency, etc., etc. And see if Ohana can be invited back! - MPF (talk) 20:23, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #1—2015

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's appearance, the coming Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

The Wikimedia Foundation has named its top priorities for this quarter (January to March). The first priority is making VisualEditor ready for deployment by default to all new users and logged-out users at the remaining large Wikipedias. You can help identify these requirements. There will be weekly triage meetings which will be open to volunteers beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Tell Vice President of Engineering Damon Sicore, Product Manager James Forrester and other team members which bugs and features are most important to you. The decisions made at these meetings will determine what work is necessary for this quarter's goal of making VisualEditor ready for deployment to new users. The presence of volunteers who enjoy contributing MediaWiki code is particularly appreciated. Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins.

Due to some breaking changes in MobileFrontend and VisualEditor, VisualEditor was not working correctly on the mobile site for a couple of days in early January. The teams apologize for the problem.

Recent improvements

The new design for VisualEditor aligns with MediaWiki's Front-End Standards as led by the Design team. Several new versions of the OOjs UI library have also been released, and these also affect the appearance of VisualEditor and other MediaWiki software extensions. Most changes were minor, like changing the text size and the amount of white space in some windows. Buttons are consistently color-coded to indicate whether the action:

• starts a new task, like opening the ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-savedialog⧽ dialog: blue ,
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The TemplateData editor has been completely re-written to use a different design based on the same OOjs UI system as VisualEditor. (T67815, T73746.) This change fixed a couple of existing bugs and improved usability. (T73077, T73078.)

Search and replace in long documents is now faster. It does not highlight every occurrence if there are more than 100 on-screen at once.(T78234.)

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18:30, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Type specimens

I just have added information on type specimens to Chascolytrum ambiguum. As I have not dealt with this kind of information before, I would like to hear ideas from the community.

• In my opinion, using Template:Nomen, see e.g. Chascolytrum altimontanum, is no good solution, as the name of the template is misleading. Nomenclature is much more than designation of types. Moreover, I don't see any reason to pack this information into a collapsed box.
• In my opinion, it is more logical to add the type information only to basionyms. If the correct name actually is a combination, I would not add the type info there but only to its basionym. I am aware, that in zoology this solution does not work. So, there should be a different solution.
• As far as possible, a link to herbarium scans or database entries that include scans should be given. Probably, there exist also some photos of zoological type specimens. So, this could be done also there.
• I have added links to herbarium acronyms using Holotype page, but I don't feel very comfortable with this. (1) This page in my opinion is misnamed: It does not deal exclusively with holotypes, but with collections in general. (2) Probably it would be the better solution to link to the Index Herbariorum search form somewhere, instead of linking from every acronym. This list of collections is incomplete anyway - I now had to add the Copenhagen herbarium (CP). Moreover it will save time, when only one link/template has to be added. I am aware that Index Herbariorum would not solve the problem for zoology, but maybe there exists some similar index? Do you have suggestions? (3) When W, K, US, etc. are not needed for a link to the collection any more, the link to the holotype scan should comprise also the acronym, e.g. W-17140. Probably this is less confusing.

Do you have any suggestions? Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:54, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't use Template:Nomen, because I don't know any site who is hidden his information. see Euterpiodes latipennis. PeterR (talk) 14:33, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

• • I have been converting my collapse box pages now for some months. Here is one of my later pages Stramentum pulchellum. I always strive to find type numbers, restricting those to specimens used in original descriptions. Before 1900, it was rare to publish type numbers, and most times, they were not even assigned. Providing them, if possible, can be of great time-saving assistance to researchers.
  • I think our greatest contribution which sets us apart from other similar sites is our capability to provide access to complete information for researchers as single stop providers. No other site is this extensive. And our methods of linking and infrastructure pages provides even more access to pertinent information without massive cluttering of taxon pages. I know myself how time consuming reference researching can be. Neferkheperre (talk) 15:23, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

1. I strongly oppose to Template:Nomen as it unnecessarily hides the information. This is one of the bizarre introductions of Stho002.
2. I prefer to create a special page for each museum/herbarium. PeterR and Neferkheperre started creating museum pages and I hope they'll continue with this.
3. I wouldn't restrict type info to basionyms. (of course basionym type is most the important in botany, but if other types are available, I would support in including them).
4. Info for type locality and for type residency should be separated into 2 lines by (*) as is done in Zoology. Mariusm (talk) 15:34, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe it is better to delete this template and template:syn PeterR (talk) 16:27, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Don't delete it, as it has been put into nearly 2000 pages! Just change its parameters so it has no visible effect on the page. If deleted, we'd be left with lots of pages where the synonymy is hidden in a red link, until each page can be edited to remove its entrails. - MPF (talk) 18:04, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Do you change the parameters?

I agree, these template can only be deleted, when they are not used anywhere any longer. --Franz Xaver (talk) 18:17, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: Combinations don't have own types, i.e. they are homotypic synonyms sharing types with their basionym. However, of course, in the list of heterotypic synonyms some have types, others only are combinations. As an example, in Chascolytrum poomorphum, type information would be added to Panicum poomorphum, as well as Isachne hackelii and Briza hackelii f. pseudisachne. --Franz Xaver (talk) 18:17, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I've changed the Template:Nomen so it only displays the info without the hiding feature. Mariusm (talk) 09:01, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Please get rid of the annoying break from nomen. Thanks. However, I prefer Franz's approach to typus, holotype, type locality etc. It is highly technical and with multiple useful links, but perhaps that is the way we should be heading in the future. I am most certainly against hiding information under collapse boxes except for taxonav. Andyboorman (talk) 20:36, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Help Templates

Who have delete the help templates? PeterR (talk) 14:37, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR: Like which templates? Do you know their names? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:17, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I see there are back now. PeterR (talk) 15

50, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

IMPORTANT: Admin activity review

Hello. A policy regarding the removal of "advanced rights" (administrator, bureaucrat, etc) was adopted by global community consensus in 2013. According to this policy, the stewards are reviewing administrators' activity on all Wikimedia Foundation wikis with no inactivity policy. To the best of our knowledge, your wiki does not have a formal process for removing "advanced rights" from inactive accounts. This means that the stewards will take care of this according to the admin activity review.

We have determined that the following users meet the inactivity criteria (no edits and no log actions for more than 2 years):

1. Rocket000 (administrator)

These users will receive a notification soon, asking them to start a community discussion if they want to retain some or all of their rights. If the users do not respond, then their advanced rights will be removed by the stewards.

However, if you as a community would like to create your own activity review process superseding the global one, want to make another decision about these inactive rights holders, or already have a policy that we missed, then please notify the stewards on Meta-Wiki so that we know not to proceed with the rights review on your wiki. Thanks, Openbk (talk) 18:40, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Following admins seems to be inactive as admins:

• User:Ucucha, last edit: 2013-01-16, last admin activity logged: 2011-12-26.
• User:Geni, last edit: 2013-11-29, last admin activity logged: 2010-02-25.
• User:EVula, last edit: 2013-12-03, last admin activity logged: 2012-12-06.
• User:EncycloPetey, last edit: 2013-11-18, last admin activity logged: 2013-10-25.
• User:Keith Edkins burocrat and admin. I can not find one single admin activity since 2006. The user doesnt answer emails, doesnt respond in admin matters.

Dan Koehl (talk) 04:14, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Type info standardization

It would be great to standardize the type info. Now that we decided to make separate pages for each museum, we don't need to use [[MUSEUM|Holotype]]. We can use just [[MUSEUM]].

The type info is separated into 2 line: line 1 contains the type residency and line 2 the type locality.

Line 1 should be composed of:

  * '''Holotype''' (or Syntype, Paratype, Allotype, Neotype): [[MUSEUM]] <specimen number>, <gender>, <collection date (optional)>, <collector (optional)>.

Line 2 should be composed of:

  * '''Type locality''': <COUNTRY (capital letters)>: <specific location information>.

Comments and suggestions would be appreciated. Mariusm (talk) 06:34, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

As far as I can see, it has not been "decided to make separate pages for each museum". You only have mentioned that some people have started to do this.

Your proposal probably will result in something very bulky, if there exist many isotypes/syntypes from the same colletion in a lot of different museums, as is often the case in botany. From a botanical perspective, the design in Chascolytrum ambiguum is sufficient. In older protologues, normally only the following is stated: collector, collection number, collection date, and locality. There is certainly a lot of species in botany, where from the original material no lectotype has been selected yet. When the original description was published, it often was not yet clear, in what museum(s) the original material finally would be deposited. In your proposal, what does "gender" mean? I suppose, this is something that only is applicable to zoological collections? If you want to divide the information into two parts, it could be done in (1) a part dealing with the original collection, i.e collector, collection number, date, location and (2) a second part dealing with type status and deposition in museums. In Chasolytrum ambiguum, the second part is that included in brackets. --Franz Xaver (talk) 07:53, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I was indeed referring to gender in zoological types. My scheme is not supposed to be revolutionary, it is largely based on what is recommended in the help section. Mariusm (talk) 09:09, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Here is an example Heliocheilus tengri. Line 1: 90% is First Type locality and only the first letter of the Country is a capital letter. Line 2: Holotype: after Museum comes gender because every gender have not a specimen number. You can only add Museum when the museum is available. If the museum is not available, you have to make a category:Museum and Museum. PeterR (talk) 10:12, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

The page Help:Name section suggests that the order should be 1. Name and author; 2. Type locality; 3. Type specimen info. Accassidy (talk) 20:22, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

OK, I'll follow this pattern from now on (1st line type locality; 2nd line type specimen). Mariusm (talk) 06:07, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Means it that we work after Heliocheilus tengri? PeterR (talk) 10:59, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I am not happy with that, if in any case the available type information has to be divided into two lines. Let me give an example based on the situation with Ochna afzelii. The available information in the references here is rather sparse: Flora of Tropical East Africa is telling: "Type: Sierra Leone, Afzelius s.n. (BM!, holo.)", which needs only minor adjustments to bring it in line with the example in Chascolytrum ambiguum → Typus: Sierra Leone, Afzelius s.n. (Holotypus: BM). Information in the original diagnosis/protologue and in Flora Zambesiaca is even more sparse. In my opinion it seems to be a rather bulky solution to make two lines out of this: (Line 1) "Type locality: Sierra Leone." (Line 2) "Holotype: BM, leg. Afzelius, s.n." Moreover, in botany, collections usually are identified by collection numbers, e.g. in case of Chascolytrum ambiguum the collection is cited as "Glaziou 17956". If such a number does not exist, this fact is explicitely stated by addition of "s.n." (= sine numero) to collectors name. Probably this is a difference to zoological tradition. Maybe, we should allow that the format of type information is different between botany and zoology. Anyway, our information has to be based on the available references. In older botanical protologues, information usually is very short as e.g. in Ochna afzelii, in rezent papers, more information can be found. Anyway, what you can find is more or less in line with the example from Chascolytrum ambiguum, e.g. [1], [2], [3], PDF, [4], [5]. It is just comfortable, when you can copy from your reference and need only minor adjustments. --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:28, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

For me, what is most important is the ease-of-use for the WS end-user. Many users I presume, are interested only in the species locality while others only in the type specimens, so it would be nice if they see the information separated for them under the respective titles. See for example the information in Lathrobium tectiforme; giving all this in a single line will very likely confuse the user. Another argument is the huge number of species already done in the 2-lines system. Now if we change that and amass all the info in one line, it will create a discernible 2-style format in WS. Having said that, we can also decide on two different styles: one for botany and another for zoology. By the way: we already wandered how to represent the species geographic distribution (endemic or otherwise). Any ideas on that important feature? Mariusm (talk) 15:08, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I suppose, these species in the 2-lines system mostly are animals? I would not change this, as in my opinion different traditions may result in different solutions in zoology and botany. Oxalis chnoodes (by Stho002) may give an illustrative example that this 2-lines system seems to be difficult to apply based on the information typically given in botanical papers. The second part here, telling that the type collection is "Van Royen 3932" from 30th Oct 1954 and from this series the holotype is deposited in L with isotypes in A and CANB, simply was ignored by Thorpe.
Concerning distribution, I intend to make a proposal. However, this will be another topic at the pump. And I suppose, we should not have too many open points to discuss at one time. So, this will follow in due time. --Franz Xaver (talk) 15:55, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

For botany you can make your own proposal, like in the past. PeterR (talk) 17:17, 9 February 2015 (UTC).

@Franz Xaver: regardless of how you look at it, you may agree that type locality and type residency @ collection are two different pieces of information which can be separated without much difficulty. Even terse descriptions can be separated into these 2 categories. Lets take your example. It spells: TYPUS. New Guinea, Khebar Valley, c, 100 Km West of Manokwari, in grass plains along Anjai Airstrip, C. 550 m, leg, P. van Royen 3932 30 X 1954 L. Isoftipos A, CANB. The type locality is clear: County: <<New Guinea>>; Goegraphic particularals: <<Khebar Valley, c, 100 Km West of Manokwari, in grass plains along Anjai Airstrip, C. 550 m>>. As for the type info: Museum is <<CANB>>, collection specimen is <<3932>>, collector is << P. van Royen >> and collection date is <<30 X 1954>>. Many papers cite only the type locality information, and many others only the residency, so it's clear that the two pieces do not necessarily have to belong together. In many cases where the available data is incomplete, we are obliged to supply only one piece - the locality for example, and skip the residency. Mariusm (talk) 05:48, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: Yes, of course, it can be separated, but botanical tradition obviously is to some extent different from the zoological one. Botanists would separate this information into (1) a "field part", i.e. location, date, collector, and collection number, and (2) a "deposition part", i.e. which part of the collection series is the holotype/isotype etc. and in what museum every part is deposited. Additionally to the field collection number, i.e. "3932", which is the same for the holotype and all its isotypes, there will be a herbarium acquisition number, which is of course different between museums - see Chascolytrum ambiguum: W-17140, BAA-361, K-433698 etc. When you compare my variant in Chascolytrum ambiguum with that by Thorpe in Chascolytrum altimontanum you may notice some differences. In my opinion, the variant in C. altimontanum is incorrect, as the holotype is not the complecte series "J. R. I. Wood 10841", but only the part of this series deposited in LPB. In case of this Oxalis, in order to be in line with Heliocheilus tengri, it probably would be necessary to separate the information into (Line 1) Type locality: New Guinea, Khebar Valley, c, 100 Km West of Manokwari, in grass plains along Anjai Airstrip, C. 550 m. (Line 2) Holotype: L. Van Royen 3932. 30.X.1954. leg. Van Royen, P. (Line 3) Isotypes: A, CANB. (I would not repeat collector and date here, as "iso" means it's the same.) This solution is more bulky and secondly it separates field information (see above) into different lines. Anyway, botanical tradition has its focus on field collection series, whereas zoological tradition seems to focus more on individual specimens deposited in a certain museum. Probably, the background is, that in zoology usually it is easier to define what is an individual than in botany, because of wide-spread clonal reproduction in plants etc. In botanical references, if there is some type information, you always will have the "field part" (usually locality, collector, collection number), but the "deposition part" often is missing. In my opinion, this would justify different solutions here for zoology and botany. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 10:48, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: I see your concerns, and I realize there's no single "proper" way to accommodate all cases. Can you please make a concrete proposal for botany on how the type section should be composed? Is it simply to copy the publication data word for word into a single line? Anything to be omitted; be augmented; what is the title proposed etc.? Please realize that we are not seeking for a mathematical solution and that a compromise must be taken into consideration if we ever hope to reach a consensus among the different views expressed here. Mariusm (talk) 13:12, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Basically, I propose for botany a solution as can be seen in Chascolytrum ambiguum:
Typus: <Country>. <Locality>, <Date of collection>, <Collector> <Collection number> (<kind of type>: <herbarium akronym>; <isotypes/duplicates>: <herbarium akronyms>).
This even allows, that in many cases the information simply can be copied from one of the references, as this is the most common way, how in the more recent botanical literature type, information is presented. However, some adjustments can be done later. In the Oxalis example from above, a first approximation will be like this:
Typus: "New Guinea, Khebar Valley, c. 100 Km West of Manokwari, in grass plains along Anjai Airstrip, c. 550 m", 30 Oct. 1954, P. van Royen 3932 (Holotypus: L; Isotypi: A, CANB).
Later, someone may add information on herbarium acquisition numbers and links to scanned type specimens, if available, etc. The quotation marks with the locality mean that this is cited from the protologue - especially in older literature geographical names are often used that have changed since then. I have used the Latin forms typus, holotypus, isotypi, but I am open to change this into the English forms type, holotype, isotype. (First letter upper case or lower case?) Isotype is defined by ICN als a duplicate of a holotype. Of course, if <kind of type> is a lectotype or neotype, the result would be like the following:
Typus/Type: <locality>, <date>, <collector> <coll.nr.> (Lectotype, designated by <publication>: <herbarium acronym>; Duplicates: <herbarium acronyms>.)
Syntypes will only be given in exceptional cases, e.g. when a protologue (an old one) cites several "types" and a lectotype has not be designated yet. Paratypes may be listed in case that all the other parts of the original material have been lost/destroyed and no lectotype has been selected - a really rare case. If syntypes/paratypes are given, these can originate from several localities. So, the sequence will be repeated:
Types: <locality_1 collector_1 etc.> (Syntypes: <herb. acronyms>; Duplicates: <herb. acronyms>). <locality_2 collector_2 etc.> (Syntypes: <herb. acronyms>; Duplicates: <herb. acronyms>).
Yesterday, I inspected some of my literature for variants of type information given. In one case, for a synonymous name two types (syntypes) were given and nobody had selected a lectotype, probably because it does not matter here, as it is a synonym anyway. In another case, a lectotype had been designated, but the species being dioecious a syntype was listed for the other sex. In the overwhelming majority there was information on holotypes or lectotypes, if type information was given at all. --Franz Xaver (talk) 10:25, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: I appreciate your detailed scheme and the thinking which evidently went behind it. If I understand correctly you're not entirely against line separation as you expressed earlier. The various differences arise from the type's nature (holotype, isotype, loctotype and syntype). Let me nevertheless stick to my original proposal and see if it can accommodate you. As I see it there are 4 possible cases:

(A) When we have only a holotype:

• Type locality: <COUNTRY>: <particular locality>
• Holotype: <herbarium acronym> <collection number> <date of collection> <collector>

(B) When we have a holotype + isotype(s):

• Type locality: <COUNTRY>: <particular locality>
• Holotype: <herbarium acronym> <collection number> <date of collection> <collector>
• Isotype(s): (1) <herbarium acronym> <collection number> (2) <herbarium acronym> <collection number> (3) ...

(C) When we have a lectotype:

• Type locality: <COUNTRY>: <particular locality>
• Lectotype: <herbarium acronym> <collection number> <date of collection> <collector> [lectotype designation information]
• Duplicate: <herbarium acronym> <collection number>

(D) When we have Syntypes:

• Syntype: <type locality> <herbarium acronym> <collection number> [duplicate: <type locality> <herbarium acronym> <collection number>]
• Syntype: <type locality> <herbarium acronym> <collection number> [duplicate: <type locality> <herbarium acronym> <collection number>]
• ...

Would you agree to such a scheme? Mariusm (talk) 11:46, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, this would not work: The normal way to address a certain field collection is by <collector + collection number>. These both bits belong together. As I said, this and <date of collection> belong to the "field part" together with the locality. When there is a number connected to the <herbarium acronym>, this is the acquisition number or barcode nr., i.e. an identifier within the museum. It does not make much sense to repeat <collection number> together with each <herbarium acronym>, as the holotype and all isotypes, by definition, are duplicates and have the same collection number. Please read ICN, Art. 8. In many cases, we simply cannot know, if all the parts of one certain collection/gathering are parts (e.g. branches) of one individual plant or represent several individuals from one population. Normally plant parts are collected from one population at one location. After being dried in a plant press, they may be stored in a heap of paper envelopes for years, before they are mounted on herbarium sheets. At the end, you only know that these plant parts belong to one collection, but you don't know which of them belong to one individual. The plant parts usually are mixed up during collecting in the field, during mounting in the press and on the herbarium sheets, as there is space available. So, the focus at first instance is on a gathering/collection, which finally is divided into a number of herbarium sheets. Usually, every herbarium sheet in the context of ICN is a specimen, unless one individual has been mounted on several sheets that clearly are marked as belonging to one individual. A type is selected as being a specimen in this context, e.g. the one herbarium sheet (from a collection/gathering) sent to a specialist who based a protologue/original description on this one sheet and who would keep this specimen in the herbarium of his institute. (That's the deal: You can keep the specimen, when you inform me about the determination results.) But the other specimens of the same collection may even be branches of the same individual tree or parts of one clone, and finally are deposited in different museums. Anyway, they belong together and bear the same collection number. What I proposed, in my opinion, (1) fits much better to the way, how botanical collections are processed and (2) is very close to the structure of information you can find in the references, i.e. needs only minor adjustments. On the other hand, in my opinion, it is inconsistent to highlight "type locality" in an separate line for holotypes or lectotypes, but not for syntypes or paratypes. (By the way, I had to notice that by definition syntypes (ICN Art. 9.5, last sentence) probably cannot have "duplicates", but the entire gathering would be syntypes.) Certainly, it is feasible to separate the botanical type information into several lines, but the result will be something more bulky or a bit illogical/inconsistent (or even both). Moreover, as in the references, the information is structured in the other way, more editing is required. I don't see any advantage. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 16:05, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I suggest then that zoological types will continue to be composed of 2 separate lines as described above yet botanical types will be more flexible, depending on the specific case, on the editor inclination and on the available citation data. Mariusm (talk) 13:07, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Agree, but also this will require some changes at the Help page. --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:28, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Towards standardisation in formatting of references

In order to avoid conflicts concerning formatting of references, we may try to find a consensus on a preferred (or obligatory) formatting style. As a basis for a decision, I have compiled examples of formatting styles: User:Franz Xaver/Reference formatting. The same reference is formatted in the style of selected journals. As I am botanist, these are mostly botanical journals. Feel free to add other relevant journals, especially zoological ones.
The differences often are small and mostly concern the authors of the papers, especially the initials. In my opinion, when we aim at a mainstream solution, the result could be close to the style of Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden. However, maybe the inclusion of zoological journals may give a different result. --Franz Xaver (talk) 17:06, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

The style I use is to be found here Chascolytrum, but I am happy to follow consensus. Andyboorman (talk) 20:09, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I have added to User:Franz Xaver/Reference formatting an example of the reference formatting in the Bulletin of the BMNH. This is the standard I follow, except that I think that a comma sits well after the last author and before the date. Note that dates in (parentheses) have a specific meaning in zoology. Accassidy (talk) 20:37, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: nice work, thanks! I'll add some more journals. @Andyboorman: - I'd kill the comma after the journal name, and (perhaps most important) add a space between the volume and part numbers, and between author initials. Also (from Franz's list), notable just how few journals put volume numbers in bold. @Accassidy: - moving your BMNH example to alphabetical order on Franz's list ;-) - MPF (talk) 20:53, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: I commend you for your initiative to standardize our work. It really doesn't matter if we use a "," indtead of a ";" or a (YEAR) insted of a YEAR: as long as we all follow a single pattern, so as to make WS more consistent. I'll follow any reached agreement. Mariusm (talk) 06:00, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

To be particular, in zoology it is not uncommon for the last issue, say #12, of a monthly journal to actually be published in the year following the "natural" year of the journal. So, if new taxa are described they would be cited as Genus species Author, [Year+1]. and the reference follow with: Title of Article, Journal Name Year (12): p - p+x. When a species level taxon is combined with a new Genus, the author and date are enclosed within brackets, for example: Genus species (Hewitson, 1874). This is the proper use of this type of round brackets under ICZN, not just either side of the year. Accassidy (talk) 19:09, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, these same delays happen also with botanical journals, e.g. [6]. However, as according to ICN, year of publication is not part of the correct author citation, this is only relevant for determination of priority, not for naming. Anyway, there are some journals, where in the references the year is enclosed within brackets, but this not the majority, as far as I see. --Franz Xaver (talk) 20:11, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Patrolled and autopatrolled users

For those who look on new pages and have checked in their preferences, can see all unpatrolled new pages listed in yellow color. users with admin status can mark those pages as "patrolled", but presently each and every new page, not submitted by an admin, is automatically unpatrolled. Read more about this Autopatrolled here

The autopatrolled (formerly autoreviewer) user right is intended to reduce the workload of new page patrollers and causes articles created by autopatrolled users to be automatically marked as patrolled. It means that the user can be trusted not to submit inappropriate material, deliberately or otherwise, and that the user submits new material often enough that it is more efficient to mark it all as approved preemptively.

I would like to suggest that we apply for this function to be used within Wikispecies, and förmally ask the community for opionions and support for this application.

A consensus within the community is needed in order to apply for the function.

Dan Koehl (talk) 20:06, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

• A good idea I support applying for this function. Andyboorman (talk) 20:16, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
• Indeed a good idea, and as I know the autopatrolling system works great in other wikis (English Wikipedia, Commons, Wikisource, and others) I have no problem supporting the function here on Wikispecies. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 20:29, 8 February 2015 (UTC).
• Support This would definitely make things easier. I have tried patrolling newbie additions as well. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:08, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
• I also support this function. Mariusm (talk) 06:03, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

 Support I guess I may support my own suggestion. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:08, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

@Andyboorman:, @Tommy Kronkvist:, @Koavf: and @Mariusm:, with 5 admins supporting, and noone seem to vote against, I figure that we have a consensus for a request? If you have another opinion, please reply here, I will now start to prepare the request for thus user right on Wikispecies.

A request is now up and active at Enable autopatrolling and patrolling user rights on Wikispecies on en:Phabricator. Dan Koehl (talk) 16:41, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Please also give your thoughts regarding a future documentation page about this below, if should make our own, or simply import the existing from enWii, or some other project? Dan Koehl (talk) 15:29, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

If there will be consensus for support of the autopatrolled application, do you also support to simply import the info page about autopatrolled from enWiki, or does anyone vote for a different way of text content for such a page? Dan Koehl (talk) 07:32, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Zoobank

• Some people use Zoobank as information, but Zoobank is not reliable. For instant Józef Razowski. This entomologist have published hundreds of bulletins (Tortricidae), but Zoobank mention 3 titles and if you search on Razowski 4 titles. So please don't add Zoobank to authors. PeterR (talk) 10:53, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Zoobank is semi-wiki. Anyone registered can add, but it can be difficult to edit afterwards, and usually one can edit only one's own entries. Always abominably slow. Is not possible to enter any more information for authors than name only. Neferkheperre (talk) 15:37, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
    • So people who add authors and make a link to Zoobank, the information is not reliable. Every one have to add all publications. PeterR (talk) 17:17, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

List of Viruses

Hello all! I'm a newbie, as in this is the first thing I've actually posted (so it's probably in the wrong place). I have created a collapsible and linked "complete and up-to-date" taxonomy of viruses. This is currently sitting on my sandbox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bervin61/sandbox), and I would like some review and direction on how to update the current List of Viruses page. Please help me become a better and contributing member of wikispecies! Bervin61 (talk) 15:08, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello @Bervin61: and welcome to Wikispecies. I think that the page List of Viruses isn't the right place for you to start your contribution. We concentrate here on creating separate pages for each familia, genus and species. If I were you, I'd concentrate in a specific familia, and work my way down to species level, adding the data (specimens, references, synonyms, picture etc.) A single page which incorporates all the virus information is more of a Wikipedia domain and is not designed for Wikispecies. Take for example the Picobirnaviridae familia. You can edit there the Picobirnavirus genus for example (which is a red link), and add the relevant species, the author's name, the reference etc. Mariusm (talk) 15:44, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you @Mariusm: for your fast reply! I will turn my attention to Wikipedia to try to post the list I have already compiled, but will also try to create pages for the red links, as you suggested. I am a bit confused by the existence of the (out of date) List of Viruses if this is not consistent with wikispecies' mission, but I certainly have other things to get to before I go about deleting pages. Thanks again!

My block on Swedish Wikipedia

I think I should inform the Wikispecies community that I have been blocked one month on Swedish Wikipedia, officially for trolling, extended to that my goal is to provoke and not make a good Wikipedia, where Im the user with the longest history of all active users, I translated the old perl script to php, I became user number 3 and the first admin ever (until 2007), and where I have started/created over 2 000 articles since 2001. I created the first taxobox on svWiki in 2002, I created and founded Project Biology, Pr Dog breeds, Pr Animals, Pr Horse breeds, Pr Heraldic, Pr Medevial, Portal Medevial and Portal aquarium fishes, Projekt and Portal Zoos, and Project ships. I also created the "Thing" in 2002, a forum for democrazy, which was replaced by Arbitration Committee, which was later removed, and most issues are now back to a user-admin situation. At the Thing, everyone could raise their voice, today the admins can simply block a user who question or criticise the adminstration ofthe project.

I have criticised the present group of active admins (apr 10 persons) for taking an illegitimate power and leadership over svWiki, which I cant see have any support in the rules, using threats and blocking as a method even to make users have the "right" opinon, instead of a normal NPOV discussion. Some 4-5 registered, longtime users are presently blocked, the blocking of registered users has increased over the past years, and blocked users are asked to "confess" their crimes, and show their subordination, before being aloud to use the svWiki again, by the admins in this inner group. NPOV etc has during the last years often been replaced by "consensus" by 3-4 of those admins, and single users have no possibility to demand justice, and if they argue, they get threatened to be blocked. In general, blocking has increased used as a tool of political power, which it was never intended to. Presently i can not see how this affects my role on Wikispecies, but I gather I will permanently blocked, since I will never "confess" my "crime", give up the five pillars, or that wikipedia should be free, and that everyone is equal and have the same value. I prefer not to discuss this further here on Village pump, but Im happy to answer any questions on my user page.. Dan Koehl (talk) 08:51, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Diskussion moved to my talk page. Please respect this. Dan Koehl (talk) 12:50, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Stho002 Sockpuppetry

I realise now that I had buried this update too far up the page. I have increased User:Stho002's block on his "retired" main page from a month to indefinite due to another case of sockpupputery that has just come to light. It must be appropriate to change this and other conditions of his block only by discussion and consensus. We also ought to be considering broadening measures for example a range block and spam filters. Andyboorman (talk) 19:23, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Andy, I perfectly agree with you: Stho has shown his character by impersonating a Japanese user when answering "thank you" in Japanese to a welcome message at his "BioLibrarian" talk page, so it seems he didn't learn his lesson, and is still posing a treat to WS as a disruptive element. Mariusm (talk) 05:17, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Stho002 has left a message on Steward requests/Checkuser. Dan Koehl (talk) 07:38, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Got the link but not the message - too early in the morning? Andyboorman (talk) 08:09, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

The correct link is Steward requests/Checkuser. Yes Stho is insulting & aggressive as ever. This only confirms how much WS benefited from his expulsion. Mariusm (talk) 08:19, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Insulting indeed! Vigilance is still needed though. A pity as he has made many good contributions, but trying to change WS into his own domain and a highly aggressive attitude can not be tolerated for the good of the community. Given "that" message we must ask for the "full works", surely, as I do trust him not to try and re-appear in-spite of him saying he can not be bothered with wikis? Andyboorman (talk) 08:54, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

After receiving a message from Dan Koehl I started reading the current Village Pump page. It was a long read, although somewhat entertaining at the same time. To me it's apparent that Wikimedia needs to think about how it deals with contributors that singlehandedly seem to be able to hijack community projects. I believe in 2007 I already tried to get consensus to strip Stho002's admin rights, but it failed. I hope the wikispecies project can move forward now that it has done the right thing, IMHO. Sincerely, 83.80.228.34 09:59, 11 February 2015 (UTC) (user:kempm)

Why don't we rename Category: New fossil species 2015 Category:New fossil taxa 2015?

I was wondering if it might not be best to rename Category: New fossil species 2015 Category: New fossil taxa 2015 to match the categorization scheme used by Wikipedia and the Commons. Is there a reason only species and not higher order taxa are categorized by year? I don't really know how you guys do things here or why, but I thought I would make the proposal to help keep things consistent between projects where that consistency could be beneficial. Abyssal (talk) 17:41, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I guess because it is a subcategory of Category:New species 2015, and that in turn of Category:New species. But that just pushes the question two levels higher, should they also become Category:New taxa 2015 and Category:New taxa? - MPF (talk) 09:07, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Changing the names of these approximately 170 "new species" categories probably will require a bot. Is there anyone available? Anyway, there are some cases, where actually subspecies are categorised in one of these cats, e.g. Arsenura sylla winbrechlini in Category:New species 2010. So, "new taxa" should be more correct.

Generally, I don't know, how to apply these categories to plants. Would Campylospermum andongense be categorised in Category:New species 2013, the date of this combination, or in Category:New species 1896, when it was first described as a variety, or in Category:New species 1902, when it first time was combined to species rank? If treated according to rules of zoological nomenclature, its author citation probably would be "(Hiern, 1896)", isn't it? For me, it will be OK to have it in Category:New taxa 1896. --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:50, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Generally speaking, I am not sure of the value of these yearly categories, and have not been in the habit of adding them to taxon pages. Some taxa may be described as subspecies initially and then raised to species status in later years (or vice-versa). We would have to agree which category would then apply. Does anyone really search to find all species described in 1902? Accassidy (talk) 11:37, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, maybe it is not worth the effort. --Franz Xaver (talk) 11:53, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Sofar I know you have 4 categories:

• Category:New genus-group name
• Category:New species
• Category:New fossil species
• Category:New subspecies

You want them all delete? PeterR (talk) 12:27, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Although I do add year categories to species (after Stho initiated this practice), I'm not convinced of their necessity, and I'd rather add author categories, e.g. "Category: Volker Assing taxa", so we can have the taxa list authored by a particular name. [Stho started also to add author categories, but named them "Category: Taxa of V. Assing", which is more confusing]. Is anyone in favor of author categories? Mariusm (talk) 12:55, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR: When there is a benefit from the categories, and it is worth the effort, these categories should not be deleted. Is it worth the effort?

@Mariusm: When everyone links the authors to their name page, as you did in Nazeris lamellatus, such a list easily can be retrieved, e.g. [7]. Even these categories seem to be unnecessary to me. However, also here, Thorpe has started editing in a way, that disabled this possibility, e.g. [8]. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:23, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

As an outsider, I think author-based categories would be useful. Abyssal (talk) 17:06, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Agree with @Accassidy:, I don't see the value in the year categories, and of course, about 99.95% of pages don't have them on. So yes, I'd support getting rid of the lot. Author categories as @Mariusm: suggests could be more useful, though they should - at least in theory - be duplicates of Special:What_links_here for the author page, either directly or via redirects (see e.g. for Volker Assing here). The latter does have the problem of picking up superfluous links of e.g. user talk pages. - MPF (talk) 13:32, 12 February 2015 (UTC) (note: some cross-posting here with Franz)

A list generated by "WhatLinksHere" is not the list of authored taxa because many references with links to authors are not original descriptions i.e. the author didn't describe the particular taxon. For example for a "WhatLinksHere" on Volker Assing we receive the line Nazeris which was described by Fauvel and not by Assing. Mariusm (talk) 13:40, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

That's correct. The authors are also linked from the reference templates. --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:47, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Good point @Mariusm:; that increases the value of the author categories. Perhaps also makes a similar category set for revising authors (botany only, of course) appropriate? - MPF (talk) 13:48, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

• • If we don't see the value in year categories, do we see the value of Category: Volker Assing taxa?. I add now the year categories. If most people agree with Category: Volker Assing taxa someone can delete the year categories. This means for me that I can check all the taxa again.PeterR (talk) 14:18, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

@MPF: What are "revising authors"? Authors of a taxonomic revision of a genus etc., often make nomenclatural changes, but sometimes they don't. If you mean authors that created a new combination (combining author), in my opinion a separate category is not necessary. These simply are taxon name authors, and basionym authors are a subset of this. In earlier times, botanical author citation only comprised the author of the actual combination, and the basionym author was omitted. Still now, many names in IPNI miss basionym authors, e.g. Ochna harmandii, where the basionym is Discladium harmandii Tiegh. That's not in accordance with ICN, but IPNI to a large extent is based on old entries from Index Kewensis. --Franz Xaver (talk) 14:23, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR:If there is a bot available, removal of year categories could easily be done that way. Even adding author categories should be possible by bot. Suppose, it is possible programming a bot that it adds a cat, when an author is linked from the names section, but not from the reference section. (Some mistakes may happen anyway, as it always happens with bot work.) So, this cumbersome re-checking of existing articles should not be necessary. --Franz Xaver (talk) 14:27, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR: and me stopped making year categories and started making categories by author. @Abyssal: thanks for making us see the lack of usefulness of the year categories. Mariusm (talk) 08:13, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm:@PeterR: In my opinion, we need an agreement concerning the names of author categories. Now there exists Category:Volker Assing taxa, Category:Volker Assing Taxa, and Category:Taxa of V. Assing, which should all be combined in one cat. Most categories that now exist in Category:Taxa by author are named in the form of "Taxa of X.X. Author". OK, one point is the sequence, "Taxa of ..." vs. "... taxa". The other point is, whether first names should be written in full or only with initials. In most cases, initials will be sufficient, but some disambiguations will be necessary anyway. However, for Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese names, where only a very low number of distinct family names exist, it is certainly better to write the names in full, maybe in these cases even using the Chinese order with family name first - see en:Family name#Regions of the Sinosphere. WS is supposed to be multilingual, isn't it.

As a last point, I suggest to add sorting information to the category, as I did in Category:Taxa of A. Bordoni. Otherwise the cats will be sorted by first name. --Franz Xaver (talk) 08:57, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Chinese names are difficult. You have bulletins with first family name, but most are with last family name. The chinese bulletins write Wei-Chun Li and for example Zootaxa write Weichun Li. So I prefer to write Wei-Chun Li. Now I add Category:Volker Assing taxa after Mariusm. PeterR (talk) 09:13, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I see the complications here. Again we need standardization, but the format "Taxa of X.X. Author" is bound to introduce ambiguities, so I strongly recommend using the full author-names and not the initials. The fact that Stho initiated the format "Taxa of X.X. Author" doesn't mean we must stick with it. As for "Taxa of ..." versus "... taxa", it is purely a matter of taste. I realize there's a problem in WS in that we are unable to reach definitive decisions on standard practices because so few users are participating in these discussions. What is the solution to this, and how to encourage more users to take an active role in shaping this site, I really don't know. Mariusm (talk) 09:33, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I also prefer to write the full name, initials maybe only for some middle names or Russian patronyms, where it may be difficult to find more than the initial. So, if there is consensus on this, all the author categories created by Thorpe will have to be changed anyway. Concerning "Taxa of ..." versus "... taxa", this should be decided by English native speakers. --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:43, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

It would be best as "Taxa of....", because, as a native English speaker, it is clear that this is the result of clicking on the link. Full names have greater clarity. A lot of Thorpe's imposed non-consensual formats are on the way out, which is inevitable Andyboorman (talk) 17:11, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Name difficulties. I have a name Tarakad Vythinatha Ramakrishna. In Zootaxa Ramakrishna, T.V.. But if you search on google you find the real full name Tarakad Vythinatha Ramakrishna Aiyar. Have I now to make an author Tarakad Vythinatha Ramakrishna Aiyar and a redirect from Ramakrishna to Tarakad Vythinatha Ramakrishna Aiyar? PeterR (talk) 13:32, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR: Maybe this PDF will help. He seems to have come from South India, probably from Tamil Nadu. If this name is Tamil, Aiyar/Ayyar might be a caste name - see en:Indian name#Tamil, which could be a reason that he sometimes omitted this name. However, this page suggests that the genera Ayyaria and Ayyarothrips are named after him. --Franz Xaver (talk) 14:07, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Reference template name ambiguity

Is there any standard procedure for how to handle cases where someone is the main author for two papers in the same year, e.g. Template:Biju et al., 2014 and Template:Biju et al., 2014 (Hylarana)? PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:24, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Just put "a" or "b" immediately after the year, with no space: [9] Zyxwv99 (talk) 01:35, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

The solution presented by user Zyxwv99 is good. It is more or less considered praxis at Wikispecies; for instance see some of the many Martin Baehr reference templates from 2009 and forth. Regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 11:41, 14 February 2015 (UTC).

Yes, the postscript letter is normal in the Template title, but is probably better not included in the actual citation. Accassidy (talk) 15:42, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Very true. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 13:28, 15 February 2015 (UTC).

Name

Who can help me for the full name from H.F. Chu. It is a Chinese entomologist. The bulletins gives only H.F. Chu. PeterR (talk) 17:44, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR: Good evidence this is Hung-fu Chu, based on information I've found of this name publishing several papers with Lin-Yao Wang. I've made the page accordingly. Koumz (talk) 22:15, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR: and @Koumz: It's actually Hong-fu. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 07:12, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited: Ah, romanization issues. Actually, I'm curious why you chose to use the split romanization here, as the Hanyu pinyin version of the name would be Zhu Hong-fu, as seen in this reference [10], while the spelling of the name as Chu Hung-fu would be uniformly Wade-Giles. Koumz (talk) 14:55, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

@Koumz:@OhanaUnited:. Thanks for the information. PeterR (talk) 08:41, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

@Koumz: It's not just about romanization. People in different regions of Asia have different ways to spell their name (in English). For example, my last name is spelled Leung because it's based on Hong Kong spelling. People with the same last name (written in Chinese) but grew up in Taiwan would spell their last name Leong. In mainland China, it's spelled Liang. And in Vietnam, it's spelled Luong. Getting it right is a matter of proper attribution (in legal perspective) and respect (on a personal level). You wouldn't list German first name Krisofer as Christopher or a Swedish last name Karlson as Carlson, would you? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:40, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited: I minored in Chinese and have studied Mandarin for several years (including time spent in the Chinese community in Richmond, BC), so I am well aware that your name (梁) can be spelled a number of different ways depending on which language or dialect the person speaks and/or which romanization system is commonly used in the place where the person lives or where his/her family came from (in general, each language or dialect has its own separate set of romanization systems). This person's name is 朱弘復, and he was almost certainly a Mandarin speaker since he lived in Beijing most of his life. The question on his name is not between a Mandarin romanization and a Cantonese or Vietnamese one, but between two different Mandarin systems, an older one, which would spell the name Chu Hung-fu and was used in mainland China before the revolution, and is still in use in much of Taiwan today, and a newer one, which would spell the name Zhu Hongfu, which is used in China today. This is much similar to the situation with the surname commonly spelled Chung in Taiwan (which still uses the older romanization) and Zhong in China, which is the same character and is pronounced the same way in both areas. The situation for this person is complex because the romanization system change occurred both in his home country (mainland China) and among English publishers during his lifetime, so there are several romanized forms of his name around, more than one of which may be correct according to his usage of them at different times in his life. There is at least one of his publications which uses both.[11] If you want to spell his name the way he would have spelled it at the end of his life, use Zhu Hong-Fu, the form used by his colleagues and co-authors at Chinese Academy of Sciences in their article about him [12]. The annotations in the abstract of their paper, searches on the titles of his books and papers, and this Library of Congress page [13] all show that the person referred to variously as Chu, H.F., Zhu, H.F., Chu Hong-fu, Chu Hung-fu, and Zhu Hongfu, depending on the source (and most of these sources are not the person himself or his own papers), is all the same person. These spellings are all used to refer to a person who was a professor at Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, worked on agricultural insects, and was the author of a book called "How to know the immature insects.....", where he gave only his initials "H. F.", and his name in Chinese (given above). He published almost exclusively in Chinese-only publications late in his life, so I doubt there is a more direct source for his choice of romanized spelling of his name at that point than the biography by his colleagues, but if you have one I'd be glad to see it. Koumz (talk) 03:49, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

@Koumz: My comment was referring to whether it's spelled Hong-fu or Hung-fu. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:07, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited: And what I am saying is that he likely used both spellings at different points during his life, and that if you want to use the spelling "Hong-fu" it should be Zhu Hong-fu and not Chu Hong-fu. I will leave the pages as you have made them even though I disagree with your treatment in this case, and I now consider the subject closed. Koumz (talk) 14:54, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Category valid species

Is there a benefit to use Category:Valid species? Or can we better add in the species page Original status: valid species. I don't see the value in the valid categories. PeterR (talk) 09:56, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Once I suggested to use:

Accepted    (generated by the template {{Accepted}} )

• Status:   invalid      (generated by the template {{Invalid}} )

but it was rejected immediately by Stho ... Mariusm (talk) 11:04, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

As far as I remember this discussion, it was also me, who had objections. In zoology, "valid" has a different meaning, but in botany this word is used in ICN in Art. 6 in connection with publication of names. A validly published name or valid name is one that has been published in accordance with Art. 32–45 or H.9 of the code. It can be legitimate or illegitimate, and if legitimate, it can still be a synonym. So, a "valid name" in botany is about the same what in zoology is an "available" name, a nomen invalidum is not the opposite of the correct name of an accepted species. Using these categories will cause a lot of confusion, as visitors will not be aware of the very different context in botanical and zoological nomenclature.

Generally, these categories only make sense, when WS aims at creating separate pages also for synonyms. I don't think we should open this possibility. This would open Pandora's box, as it multiplies the number of pages that have to be created, especially in botany, where a combination is a name at its own right. In my opinion, it is suffient, if we list synonyms at the pages of accepted species and create redirects. So, there would not be pages for names that do not denominate accepted taxa. I propose to empty these categories, converting synonyms into redirects after having move all valuable information to the page of the accepted species, and finally to delete these categories and also these templates. --Franz Xaver (talk) 18:04, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Franz. One other item to look out for is circular redirects - blue-linked synonyms which just take you back to the same page you found the link on; they should be culled mercilessly (i.e., delinked). - MPF (talk) 18:26, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I keep away from any use of "valid", "accepted" or any such terms, as they always raise further questions: valid... in accordance with?, or accepted... by who?. The status of a taxon can easily change as new information is gained. Something previously "accepted" as a subspecies can often be reviewed and then "accepted" as a species. Our task here is to report on the various statuses listed in the references cited and to draw some conclusion as the the current status of a taxon, but the very fact that we list, for example, Aphnaeus rex as a species and Aphnaeus erikssoni barnesi as a synonym is confirmation of current thinking, without having to use any term such as "valid species" for the former. Accassidy (talk) 18:43, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Franz, MPF and Alan. Also I move the data to the accepted species etc. when I come across a combination that has become a synonym. I think it is reasonable in botany to use qualifiers such as; nom. illeg., nom. nud. and so on. I also have a problem with the template HOM it creates a junior homonym statement with a format that does not match HET or HOT. Homonyms can be more complicated - anybody agree? Does it need modifying? Andyboorman (talk) 20:45, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree that we shouldn't "deliberately" open a page for every synonym - we have more than enough work on valid species - but sometimes there's a genus or a species which is invalid yet has some interesting or relevant information which we want to keep, it would be helpful to mark it invalid, and not just merely to redirect it. Mariusm (talk) 05:13, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Can you show us an example? --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:51, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: If taxon S is a synonym of taxon T, but you still want to make some point about S, then why not use this solution?: make a redirect from S to the discussion page of T (instead of to the main page of T) and then put your information there, appropriately worded, making clear that S is a synonym of T but that the information regarding S is still of interest. The redirect still gets the user to the "valid" or "accepted" taxon, but the discussion can be seen first. Alan Accassidy (talk) 10:32, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: Look for example at Mecosargon which is a synonym. It would be difficult to supply all this detailed information in the valid genus page without loosing some of the clarity. There are categories named Category:Invalid species with 166 entries and Category:Invalid genus with 56 entries, so the invalid banner could make the invalidity status more clear.

@Accassidy: Suppose we have 5 synonyms of the same taxon. Adding them all to the talk page would make it very difficult to grasp what is going on. Mariusm (talk) 15:12, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I have had a look through and it seems over complex, confusing and very much a Thorpe project. Found other categories eg Nomenclatural Problems...! How valuable is the information and who will it interest? I feel that some of these minor categories could be deleted without harming the project, eg Gender mismatch. Andyboorman (talk) 16:35, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm:, @Franz Xaver:, @Andyboorman: Yes, there is a lot of information on those Synonym pages, but much of it (References etc) is repetitive of information on the valid Genus page. Look at this recent species page: Aloeides aranda. Its Synonymy section includes 4 synonyms (with basic data and BHL links), 2 combinations and a subspecific status. Redirect pages have been created for each of the synonyms. I think this is adequate, but I would not spend time taking down information from the pages such as Mecosargon, which can easily be left as it is. There is such variability in the information available on genera and species sunk as synonyms that I don't think we have to be identical in all our treatments. Accassidy (talk) 16:40, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I too prefer the pragmatic approach with redirects useful for searches on the synonym. In plants there are many existing pages without synonyms and these need to be added even if sometimes the "full story" can be problematic - see Pycnandra as an example. Andyboorman (talk) 20:18, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: I don't think that Mecosargon is too difficult to integrate into Anagotus. (1) Move the synonyms from taxonavigation to a synonyms subsection in the names section. (2) Add author citation, BHL link to original diagnosis, and type species (= holotype) to the name Mecosargon in the synonyms section, along the lines as Alan has done in Aloeides aranda. Moreover, you may add "synonymised by Kuschel 1982" also there. (3) Add Broun 1915 to the references. (4) The rest in Mecosargon is either redundant (references) or irrelevant. It then can be converted into a redirect. Anyway, Alan is right, taking down such pages should not have high priority. Howver, for cases like Mecosargon there is no reason to create some new ones. --Franz Xaver (talk) 23:12, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: I agree that our energy should be directed to valid taxa rather than to synonyms, but sometimes a person who searches for a certain combination and is being redirected, can be disoriented. He may not grasp at first sight what exactly happened and that what he searched for was a synonym (it happens to me sometimes). It would be nice to alert the user that a particular combination is invalid and that he is about to be redirected to a replacement combination. I would prefer to be fronted with a page saying:

• Status:   invalid   taxon.
• This combination is a junior synonym of Alpha beta [synonymyzed by John Doe, 1900]
• Please see the information at the [[Alpha beta]] page.

This would be much clearer and much more user-friendly. Mariusm (talk) 05:30, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe I don't understand your problem. When a visitor is redirected, e.g. from Diporidium to Ochna, he will recognise easily, that he had been redirect to a page with a different name and that the name he was searching for is listed there as a synonym. Why should he be alerted? And where? As far as I see, a problem can only be created, when the synonyms are hidden in a collapsed box or when he is not redirected and ends up at a page like Mecosargon, which has a similar design as Anagotus. OK, you may add (ad interim) this Template:Invalid somewhere to Mecosargon, or better change it into a redirect. --Franz Xaver (talk) 08:59, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

We should be very careful or even avoiding the expression invalid taxon, especially in all the cases where the taxon was formed according to the rules. And this also in cases of new combinations. From the Ostracoda I know many cases where a certain combination has been in existence for many years or even decades. Under this combination a remarkable amount of literature may be existing with a lot of information on the taxon itself, on ecology, geographic or stratigraphic distribution, and so on.

And then, on the publication of a new genus, it may be listed under and combined with this new genus without any discussion or investigation of old or new material. To make a merely redirect to this last combination is a very bad action, as all the existing information is gone or hidden somewhere. On the contrary, the scientific history of such a taxon should be visible.

We should - with all our actions - have the potential user of Wikispecies in mind which mainly is a professional or semi-professional taxonomist. Many actions within Wikispecies - and also many discussions at the Village Pump - are discouraging professional users and professional contributors.

And we should think of the fact that Wikispecies is a mainly text-based database. An additional page for what has now perhaps to be regarded as a synonym is not worth any discussion. We have the marvelous possibilities to give additional information via blue links, in a Remarks section and via Categories. Things should be made in a simple way as versatile as possible for the potential user. For taxonomists Wikispecies has theoretically the potential to be the best database on the web. But it will be not, if some contributors do not know what the potential user is looking for.

And all contributors to Wikispecies should think of the fact that taxonomy is not a one-way street. Kempf EK (talk) 13:29, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

@Kempf EK: so what is your bottom line? Are you in favor of making distinct pages for the synonymyzed combinations instead of redirecting them? Mariusm (talk) 14:58, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: Yes, I am in favour of making also distinct pages for combinations now regarded as a synonym instead of redirecting them. Each new combination is nothing more than a proposal. Time will show, whether the new combination will be accepted or not by the community of researchers in the long run. A database like Wikispecies should behave neutrally and not in favour of the last combining author. And the way should be kept open to return to one of the combinations used before. Kempf EK (talk) 17:32, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

@Kempf EK: As I understand it, redirecting does not destroy information or makes it invisible, but it brings the visitor to the page, where all information is collected. For example, a species from Eastern Africa has long been known under the name Ochna mossambicensis, but the correct name, according to ICN actually is Ochna atropurpurea, which fact is not widely known among the botanical community. Anyway, the article on Ochna atropurpurea now contains all the information, which was on the Ochna mossambicensis article, before I redirected it, including flora treatments under the well known name O. mossambicensis. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 15:04, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: Indeed, you have assembled a lot of information on the page for Ochna atropurpurea. If, however, there would still exist a separate page for Ochna mossambicensis, the user could get from that page, for instance, information on the type locality of that species. But above all explicit information could be given why it should now be called Ochna atropurpurea. And the author should be cited with reference who provided proof for that fact. This would help the user of Wikispecies very much. Based on the information on the Ochna atropurpurea page he or she is forced to search around to find such an answer. Linking to lists, where only names are listed, is not of help. Kempf EK (talk) 18:01, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

@Kempf EK: The page on Ochna atropurpurea is not yet completed. Anyway, I intend to add type information there also for the basionyms among the synonyms, i.e. for O. mossambicensis, O. fischeri, and O. purpureocostata, not for the combinations of course. The synonymisation of O. mossambicensis was done by Du Toit (1975) – I had included this paper in the references, including a PDF. My point against separate pages for every name and combination is, that it requires much more work to implement this. In the case of O. atropurpurea 10 names are listed which all might need a separate page in that case. Also cross-linking is needed for all these names, which is prone to errors. Moreover, for a visitor it will be more difficult, if he is not so much interested in a certain name, but wants to collect all information on an accepted taxon. So, he would need to visit a number of pages, before he has collected all he is searching for. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 18:38, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I still got no answer if we category valid species uphold or place it in the text. The discussion about Synonyms or synonymy is not a part of it. We should learn to make a decision. PeterR (talk) 11:03, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR: As far as I understand the present discussion, nobody has supported these categories - except this one guy absent. So, it seems clear, that these categories should not be used, or they would even be removed. Using these "invalid/accepted" templates (unused up to now) is a bit more controversial, mostly @Mariusm: supporting them and several opposing more or less. When there is no clear decision, you may make up your own opinion, which arguments are more convincing to you. There is no boss to decide. Maybe, you make your own proposal? Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:32, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR: There's absolutely no benefit in using Category:Valid species because practically all the taxa we edit are valid, and we pretty much agree that invalid taxa should exist only as redirects. If you nevertheless want to create pages for invalid taxa, than you must use the Category:Invalid species. Currently there are 942 entries in Category:Valid species, all made by Stho, but we can safely ignore or delete them.Mariusm (talk) 13:04, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: "... we can safely ignore or delete them." - Probably you propose to "remove" from category, not delete these pages? --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:16, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: of course remove only the category. Sorry for being ambiguous. Mariusm (talk) 13:24, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

PLease delete the category: Valid species etc. PeterR (talk) 08:10, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Main page in Spanish

Hi. I'm working in es:WP to translate articles of species and I've noticed that the main page of this site in spanish says "Wikispecies es un nuevo proyecto de la Fundación Wikimedia con un gran potencial." "Wikispecies is a new project"... After so many years, is it not time to remove the "new" word? Thanks. --Ganímedes (talk) 00:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Your'e right, I deleted the word "nuevo". Thank you.. Mariusm (talk) 05:21, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Full name of authors

H.S. Rose

Who can help me with the full name from H.S. Rose, Department of Life Sciences, Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar, Punjab 144003, India. PeterR (talk) 11:03, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

It looks to me like this person has only ever published under the initials, and there is no webpage for the person at the institution from which the person is currently publishing, so there may not be a way to find more than that. Koumz (talk) 01:21, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Using only initials is a common practice in India, but it is a little more unusual for someone with a western name. Circeus (talk) 19:19, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

W. John Tennent

Who can help me with the full name from W. John Tennent. British entomologist and Pacific butterfly specialist. PeterR (talk) 17:47, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR: Peter, is there a reason we need to find more of a name in this case, since as far as I can see, he has always published as "W. John Tennent"? I would guess this is why Alan made the page for him as just "W. John Tennent", which is a perfectly acceptable state for it in this situation. Koumz (talk) 00:50, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

If we make a author taxa we have to do it with full names . I thought maybe there is a site with all author names.PeterR (talk) 08:05, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR: Peter, no, there is no site with all author names for zoology (there is one for botany, but it doesn't always give full names), it all has to be dug out of papers or websites, sometimes requiring a large amount of work. W. John Tennent uses the name John and does not use his first name professionally at all as far as I can see. Since he does not use his first name professionally, I would assume that this is because he does not want it used publicly or professionally. To me, we would invade his privacy if we try to dig out more of his name than he has used professionally. I would say we should use the most complete version of a person's name which the person has used publicly (i.e. in papers, webpages or other widely available public expressions), or which has been used in mainstream publications about the person after the person's death, whether or not this is a full name, particularly in the case of people who are still living, in order to maintain their privacy. To dig out the first name of someone who has not used it publicly would amount to stalking. We have plenty of pages that have only a middle initial and not a full middle name, this is exactly the same kind of case as for a person who does not use his first name. Koumz (talk) 14:28, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR:, @Koumz: John Tennent is a personal friend. He never uses his first name, as surmised above. If the first initial is a problem in any text string you could just refer to "John Tennent" and then find some way to redirect to somewhere that the W is listed. Accassidy (talk) 14:02, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion to Main page

Hello,

The Main page uses a classification for eukaryotes that resembles that of Margulis & Chapman (2009) (see Protoctista):

• Superregnum Eukaryota
  • Regnum Protista
  • Regnum Fungi
  • Regnum Plantae
  • Regnum Animalia

In the classification of Margulis & Chapman (2009), Plantae is used in the sense of Margulis, 1971 (= Embryophyta). However, in the main page, Plantae links to Plantae sensu Cavalier-Smith, 1981 (= Archaeplastida). So, I would like to make two suggestions to Main page:

(a) To maintain the current scheme, but changing Plantae to Embryophyta. The page Plantae could be a disambiguation page:

• Superregnum Eukaryota
  • Regnum Protista [paraphyletic]
  • Regnum Fungi
  • Regnum Embryophyta
  • Regnum Animalia

or (b) To use other classification (e.g., Adl et al., 2012).

• Eukaryota
  • Amoebozoa
  • Opisthokonta (incl. Fungi and Animalia)
  • Excavata
  • Stramenopiles
  • Alveolata
  • Rhizaria
  • Archaeplastida (incl. Embryophyta)

What do you think? Thanks!Zorahia (talk) 14:39, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion, switching to Adl et al. (2012) seems to be the better option. --Franz Xaver (talk) 18:49, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

On balance I too suggest we go with Adl et al. (2012). I am also happy that the higher level classifications are not strictly Linnean. Andyboorman (talk) 20:00, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

---

Maybe the following will be more clear:

• Eukaryota - Cells with nucleus
  • Amoebozoa - Amoeboid protozoa
  • Archaeplastida – Plants sensu lato
  • Chromalveolata

    Chromista

    Alveolata

  • Rhizaria - Unicellular eukaryotes
  • Excavata - Unicellular eukaryotes
  • Opisthokonta

    Animalia – Animals

    Fungi

Mariusm (talk) 05:18, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

---

I would like to propose the following:

• Eukaryota (incl. "protists")
  • Amoebozoa
  • Opisthokonta (incl. Fungi and Animalia)
  • Excavata
  • Stramenopiles
  • Alveolata
  • Rhizaria
  • Archaeplastida (incl. Embryophyta)
  • Incertae sedis

According to Adl et al. (2012), Cryptophyta and Haptophyta, formerly in Chromalveolata (seen as probably polyphyletic), are incertae sedis in eukaryotes. Zorahia (talk) 12:30, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I would embrace this classification, but I have some concerns on including it in the main page. The names are somewhat meaningless for the non-specialist, (as opposed to "Plantae" for example), and I suspect they will deter the casual visitor from further exploring this site. If we do incorporate these names, we must add some explanatory words to each to make them more clear. Mariusm (talk) 13:20, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

It is important that we reflect authoritative opinions on the higher classifications, and this Adl et al paper would appear to carry such authority. That notwithstanding, I also agree with Marius that this website must be reasonably transparent for more casual visitors for whom a large percentage of the classification may be meaningless. Thus I would like to see at least a small amount of explanation alongside the scientific cryptograms. Could someone emhance the suggestion of Marium, above, with some more explanation of Chromalveolata, and without using the same explanation for two categories viz. "Unicellular eukaryotes" for two groups. Thanks Accassidy (talk) 14:29, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

There is still so much disagreement and so many new findings in the highest-level phylogenies, that I feel we shouldn't yet try to reflect that on the Main Page. We may very well choose to use the Adl classification for our Wikispecies framework, but what we list on the Main Page does not have to conform to that choice. That is, we do not need to list all of those groups on the Main Page summary simply because they are of equal "rank". The general public and most schools (including university biology courses) are not yet teaching such a system. People coming here will usually use the Main Page summary to find a common major group, such as "plants" or "animals". That's what we should offer on the Main Page. That said, if we do have "Protists" (or whatever) on the Main Page, the link should lead to some sort of page that aids the understanding and navigation of individuals who follow that link.

With regard to the high-level classification of Plantae / Archaeplastida / etc., the nomenclature is far from settled, with different groups of botanists using different nomenclature. As our Plantae page is currently equivalent to Archaeplastida, and since the English Wikipedia is doing the same, I'd just label it "Plantae" with "Archaeplastida" treated as a synonym. That may, of course, change in the future, but it would be the clearest labeling at present. We'd really need a whole new thread and lots of discussion to sort out the high-level Plantae / Archaeplastida classification, as the phycologists, bryologists, palaeobotanists, and angiospermologists (?) cannot seem to agree on certain key points of ranks and names. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:14, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

New Zealand categories

There are 10,335 (!) New-Zealand categories which Stho managed to create. They are useless (see for example Category:Aristolochia sempervirens (New Zealand)) and they just clutter WS for no purpose. Does anyone here know how to construct a bot to clear them up? Mariusm (talk) 12:17, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, we are missing a bot. (I had suggested earlier to remove these "New species by year" categories by bot.) There used to be User:Maxim, who obviously has some bot experience. He appears only very sporadically at WS, but he is more active at en.wiki. However, I suppose that speedydelete by bot is a bit problematic. Should we really go this way? These New Zealand cats existed for some time and maybe it is sufficient to delete them step by step. I have just marked Category:Briza minor (New Zealand) for deletion. A general decision, that this kind of categories is to be deleted, would be helpful anyway. --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:54, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I propose that anyway these cats can be removed and deleted for species and genera that are not native in New Zealand. --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:00, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I see no use either. And there seems to be other similar suite for Australia. Neferkheperre (talk) 14:45, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Happy for these "non-native" categories to go first. Accassidy (talk) 14:30, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Me too not really within the scope of the project. Andyboorman (talk) 20:03, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Agree; I've been deleting them too as out of scope (probably done 50-100 or so, so far), but 10,000 is going to need a bot - MPF (talk) 00:34, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Four more gone, Aristolochiaceae cleared ;-) MPF (talk) 00:58, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I deleted 62 of them about fifteen minutes ago ^{(Log of pages deleted by me)} but deleting 10,000 more without a bot would certainly take longer... :-) Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 17:26, 23 February 2015 (UTC).

Here's some interesting information regarding Shto002's edits: X!'s tools. However I do not know how to filter out categories from that (or similar) data, let alone New Zealand categories. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 17:57, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

There are also an unknown number of pages with {{N.Z.}} links for NZ categories which he hadn't yet made (e.g. Psittacidae as of tonight, though I'll be editing it off later tomorrow) - is there any way of finding them? - MPF (talk) 01:09, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Contrary to the many thousands of different {{Genus species (New Zealand)}} categories, the {{N.Z.}} is one specific category. This makes it quite easy to find out which pages it resides on. Simply go to the category page, and click on the "What links here?" link in the far left "Tools" menu. Right now there are 4,168 pages in that category. By the way there is also a {{N.C.}} category for New Caledonia. It appears on a more modest 61 pages, and is created by the same user. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 10:33, 24 February 2015 (UTC).

Thanks! I guess if one removed the "includeonly" and added "noinclude" at the start of the template page, it would become invisible on all the pages it is used on? Would that hinder the action of looking for them for removal? I presume the 'What links here' on the template page would still list them? I'd not seen the New Caledonia one before; at least its content is likely all New Caledonia endemics. There's also at least some Australia categories, though I don't recollect seeing a specific Australia template like these two. - MPF (talk) 12:50, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

We might want to look slightly at {{N.C.}} before dumping it out of hand. New Caledonia is object of MUSORSTOM biodiversity project. If it is one category per species, that is too extreme. Broader categories grouping those taxa would be more beneficial. Neferkheperre (talk) 14:13, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Out of the 60 subcategories only 14 have a broader scope than species only. The remaining 46 regards a single species each, and are distributed over only five genera. Looking at the full set of all 60 subcategories, fourteen are not even created yet. Despite of this the "{{N.C}}" code string was added to the specific species pages anyway, with red links as a result. See the Acanthopterus lugubris species page for an example that, and one of my sandboxes listing all 60 of them, regardless whether the links are blue or red.

–Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 22:39, 24 February 2015 (UTC).

Publication categories

How about Category:Publications? I don't see much point of those either. Reference citations should belong on Taxon Authority pages (see Gábor von Kolosváry). Stho was separating those out as categories, 723 of them, with up to 45 pages each. Neferkheperre (talk) 14:45, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree with keeping citations of work on the author pages. I have always done this, for example, William Harry Evans and will continue to do so. If I come across instances of the separate categorisation I will bring the references back to the author page. Accassidy (talk) 15:54, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I have the same opinion as the both of you – citations of publications primarily belong to the author pages. That said, I see nothing wrong with a special category for publications listed by author. Having such a list might be handy in the future – but again, there is no need to erase citations from author pages, whether we keep Category:Publications or not.

It should be noted that if we decide to keep the category, the present naming scheme is flawed. All the subcategories have titles like "Publications of [author]", which makes it difficult to sort them. A better way of naming them would be "[Author]'s publications". Not as good semantics perhaps, but it would make it easier to sort the different subcategories by author name. Right now they are all sorted under "P", as in "Publications of…" Changing the present ones wouldn't be a huge undertaking, and can probably be done in about three days or so. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 11:40, 24 February 2015 (UTC).

The sorting issue can easily be solved by adding a sorting key - see [14]. We should do the same also with the "Author taxa" categories, e.g. [15]. If it is not done this way, every category in Category:Taxa by author will be sorted by the initials of the first name. --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:59, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, a sorting key would of course fix the problem. Much like the "defaultsort" magic word, only embedded in the code reference for each category, rather than by its own. By the way, as for the "Author taxa" categories I would much prefer [[Category:Taxa by Volker Assing]] over the present [[Category:Volker Assing taxa]]. The reason for this is, while the taxa might be described by an author, they are not "his" in the proper sense of the meaning. We can't own taxa, can we? :-) Anyway, how we name those types of categories mainly boils down to personal taste, and is not in any way imperative. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 15:27, 24 February 2015 (UTC).

It strikes me that any category of this kind would be best titled in the way Default Sort works, hence: [[Category:Assing, Volker taxa]] Accassidy (talk) 15:34, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

New user rights on Wikispecies, patrolled and autopatrolled

Today a new user right was introduced on Wikispecies, and pleaes note that we have not yet any rules on exactly how to use this right, and to who it is given. Maybe we will not need any such rules. Or we must fast establish, this is an issue in the hand of the Wikispecies community. We can also establish our own information pages about this, or simply adopt enWp or rules from any other wiki. Once again the community decide.

So what is this?

It makes the work for admins easier, to identify which new pages should have an extra analysis, and where there is less need. The present admins has had autopatrolled rights before, but not users who are not admins. Their created new pages are marked as yellow in Special:NewPages. When a user has autopatrolled rights, their contributions are not marked in yellow color anymore. Its like a filter system.

I cite from autopatrolled :

• The autopatrolled (formerly autoreviewer) user right is intended to reduce the workload of new page patrollers and causes articles created by autopatrolled users to be automatically marked as patrolled. It means that the user can be trusted not to submit inappropriate material, deliberately or otherwise, and that the user submits new material often enough that it is more efficient to mark it all as approved preemptively.
• Any administrator can grant this right at their discretion to trusted users who regularly create articles and have demonstrated they are familiar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.

How it works

Normal process

A person without the autopatrolled right creates a page. The MediaWiki software immediately lists the page at Special:NewPages, and highlights it in yellow. A human patroller, as part of the New Page Patrol process, reviews the article and clicks on the link to mark the page as patrolled if it does not qualify for speedy deletion. If the page does qualify for speedy deletion, then the user tags it for speedy deletion. This user (or any other user) may optionally run checks on the content and sources and may add deletion or maintenance tags as necessary.

Autopatrolled process

A person with the autopatrolled right creates a page. The MediaWiki software lists the page at Special:NewPages but marks it as patrolled and does not highlight it in yellow. The software (rather than a human) marks the page as patrolled.

Dan Koehl (talk) 18:27, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

Dan, sounds useful, However, I have looked at a new page from the list and tried to find the "link to mark the page as patrolled" to no avail. Some more detail as to how to find this link would be good. Also, exactly how do I mark a "trusted user" as "autopatrolled"? Thanks Accassidy (talk) 09:51, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

@Accassidy: in Special:NewPages you will see the not patrolled pages with yellow background. Presently there are none, since the pages made today and the last days has been made by users who already have 'patrolled' user rights. But if you do, or you choose to see the last 500 newly made pages, you will se files with yellow background. While in Special:RecentChanges you will see a red colored ! in front of the unpatrolled file.

You can click on such a file, like Montanelia tominii, Zhe-Xi Luo, Martinus van Marum and Guineobius baliemensis, and scroll down to absolute down-right corner, where you can read "mark as patrolled" or similair, because the contributor does not have autoptarolled/patrolled user rights. When you click on the link, the file becomes patrolled.

If you want to assign patrolled right to a contributor, because you judge there is no need to checkup and evaluate their contributions, you can go to the users page, and on the left side of the website you will see some links under the header "tools". One of those tools is where you assign user rights, if you click on that link, you will be given several options of user rights. When you click on "patrolled" and save, you give the user patrolled rights. and from now on that user may patrol others pages, and that users contributors are not marked with yellow background.

Autopatrolled is a user right that the system may assign a user after a certain number of contributions, without an admins decision, so there no need for an admin to use that user right for a user, 'patrolled' is enough.

Please try it out, as ideally, all admins should be able to perform this task.

Dan Koehl (talk) 15:58, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Got it, thanks. Accassidy (talk) 16:16, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Sandbox

I just noticed two pages for speedy deletion, involving Wikispecies:Sandbox. Don't we want to keep some version of that? Over on en:Wikipedia, each editor gets his/her/its own sandbox. I have occasional use for one myself. Neferkheperre (talk) 14:36, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, we do want a sandbox. The reason for the deletion request was that the {{Sandbox}} template used in the Wikispecies sandbox had been changed into the template {{The sandbox for practicing your amazing editing skills}}. The latter one is now deleted, and things are back to normal... :-) Tommy Kronkvist (talk),15:08, 24 February 2015 (UTC).

By the way it's easy to create a personal sandbox here at Wikispecies too. Simply go to your own user page and add "/sandbox" (excluding the quotes) after the URL, and hit enter. From that page go ahead and create your sandbox much like any other Wikispecies page: you will then be able to reach it from "User:Your_user_name/sandbox"

I have one of my own, even though I rarely use it: User:Tommy_Kronkvist/sandbox. It's often more convenient to have a (more or less) private sandbox, rather than to use the public one that gets reset every now and again. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 15:42, 24 February 2015 (UTC).

Mentions Section

I would like to know what is your opinions on introducing a mentions section (it also can be appended or combined with the synonyms section). It will include some or all the instances where a particular taxon was mentioned in an article, with the mention's nature (distribution, depository etc.) in parentheses.

For example for the species Sundatrigona lieftincki:

Mentions

• Sundatrigona lieftincki Sakagami & Inoue, 1987: 610, 611, 613-615, 617-624 [original description].
  • Sakagami & Inoue, 1989: 615 [comparative note].
  • Michener, 1990: 127 [systematic position].
  • Sakagami et al., 1990: [distribution, key to species]; INDONESIA, Sumatra.
  • Salmah et al., 1990: [distribution, nest]; INDONESIA, Sumatera Barat.
  • Inoue et al., 1990: [population].
  • Inoue, 1990: 582 [population].
  • Tadauchi et al., 1998: 244-245 [type depositories].
  • Nagamitsu & Inoue, 2005: 76 [distribution, foraging].

This info can be of great value (when accompanied by the relevant citations) for anyone who wants to make further research on a certain taxon. Mariusm (talk) 16:22, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

It is to get over this problem, especially revised combinations and reviews of status, that I use the title ===Synonymy=== rather than the more restrictive heading ===Synonyms===. This enables me to list changes in the taxonomy chronologically, incorporating the various authors' ideas. I do not include any references that just relate to distribution, population or even biological matters such as the early stages of insects, as these are not really within the scope of this project as I understand it. Accassidy (talk) 18:57, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Unable to log in

I get a message box claiming I am centrally logged in, but I am not. When I click on Log in, the log in page appears for about a second then returns to where I was before. Attempts to reload the page have no apparent effect. Is there anything I am missing? Cheers, 105.227.32.169 06:14, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Do you still have the same problem, or did you finally manage to login?Dan Koehl (talk) 13:00, 27 February 2015 (UTC)