Wikispecies:Village Pump/Archive 29

More truly odd categories

These two categories seem rather over the top, and should perhaps be deleted:

• Category:All known included nominal taxa have been added, including synonyms (1,073 pages)
• Category:Nomenclature verified against primary references, except any marked as 'not seen' (1,051 pages)

They are the only sub-categories of Category:Verification categories. All three categories were created in September 2011 by Stho002. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 20:24, 1 March 2015 (UTC),

Furthermore, there are two templates linking to the subcategories: {{Ait}} and {{Nv}}, respectively. I guess the names of the templates are short for "all included taxa" and "nomenclature verified". –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 20:34, 1 March 2015 (UTC).

Agree. Dan Koehl (talk) 20:47, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't see any point for them. I randomly checked out some entries, and find some overwrought attention to validity etc. And links to category:valid species. All that last would accomplish is to list all species group namepages. Neferkheperre (talk) 21:09, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Ditto. I've changed "includeonly" to "noinclude" so they don't show on the pages, though are still there on the edit page. - MPF (talk) 21:12, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

New names in author templates

Why mention some people the new taxa names in the author templates? Template:Muricy et al., 2015
For me it is overdone. The new names are mention in the Museum category and in the author taxa.
After making the author template, who of us looking for the new species in the author template? PeterR (talk) 14:32, 3 March 2015 (UTC).

@PeterR: I think it's OK to add the nomenclature info to the citation templates. It makes things more clear for those who want to see the full data and it poses no problem, since the added information is hidden in normal use by the "noinclude" marks. You can add this section but you can also leave it out. Both ways are possible. Mariusm (talk) 15:24, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

SteinsplitterBot, a new bot

Yesterday I stumbled on a script at commons, which keeps record of total number of not patrolled files, which I thought can be useful on Wikispecies, for two reasons, one of course to have an overview of how many created files and edits that are not patrolled, and secondly to inspire more patrollers to patrol the unptarolled pages. So I asked the creator User:Steinsplitter if he would mind sharing that Bot with Wikispecies, and he was kind enough to upload it already today. Its active for reviewing and evaluation by the Wikispecies community, and you can see it as a smaller blue colored box on the page about patrollers as well as the number characters before the sentence "unpatrolled pages" in the header of the page Special:RecentChanges.

So far only a few users patrolled any unpatrolled page.

It would be good if every admins and every 37 patroller can patrol some 5 of those apr 110 pages, so you all know how to do it, and to see if you like it.

Anyone who feel that you are not interested in Patrolling pages at the moment, please tell any admin, and they can remove your Patrol rights (but not the Autopatrol rights). You will keep the Autopatrol rights, which are just there to reduce work load for the Patrollers.

The bot is now active in trial period for evaluation, where you can share your opinion about the bot, and weather it may be permanently approved. You may of course also discuss here, as the evaluation page is ment for voting. But I hope you will find Steinsplitters bot useful.

Dan Koehl (talk) 13:10, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Reasons for speedy deletion

I am wondering why Wikispecies:Candidates for speedy deletion lists "Not using standard taxon formatting" as a reason for speedy deletion, but it seems to be no reason for deletion, if the content of an article is unsourced. In my opinion, formatting should not be a reason for deletion at all, and unsourced content should only be deleted, if a thorough search for a source is unsuccessful. Should we reconsider the reasons for speedy deletion? --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:21, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

You have a point there @Franz Xaver:. Do you have any suggestions how to change the page? Personally, I believe that a speed delation page should be used for vandalism, eg non-admins can list spam etc on this page, so the files can be deleted by an admin.

But issues, where users may have different opinions, should maybe not be submitted here, perhaps it would be better to bring the attention to such files in a special forum, where their existence can be discussed, and the deletion takes place only after consensus is reached, and after a specified time? (See EnWp articles for deletion as example) Speedy deletion should of course not be used as a tool of opinions, but be restricted to very clear cases lika spam and similair? Dan Koehl (talk) 17:57, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Meta have a similair, but more uncomplicated concept, see m:/Meta:Requests_for_deletion Meta:Requests for deletion. Dan Koehl (talk) 18:30, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: When you ask me for suggestions, I would remove the two first reasons from this page. If a page is incorrectly named, it should not be deleted, but be moved to the correct name. We might add as an additional reason "unneccessary redirects", which may be created when a page is moved from an incorrect name.

In my opinion, an own forum to discuss deletions that don't fall under the conditions for "speedydelete" is something we really need. My main target are pages missing any source or reference. My expectation is, that most of them will not be deleted, but references will be added. Probably one week or ten days are sufficient to discuss such cases. After the end of this period admins will evaluate the discussion (or vote) and execute the decision. The person who created the page/category/template should be notified, if possible. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 11:31, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good with a page to discuss and vote for deletions. Does anyone else support this suggestion? We need a consensus in order to change the present concept. Dan Koehl (talk) 11:43, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: "Incorrectly named" means that when a page name was created with a typo (and quite often is marked by the individual who created the page but then realized that they made a mistake) or it is not using its latin species name. See Bengal tiger and Ray florets as examples. "Not using standard taxon formatting" means someone copied Wikipedia page and paste it into Wikispecies or a blurb of text describing the species without the taxon table. See Dover Demon as an example. We have never deleted a page that is unsourced. Is this a big issue recently? Going back by last 500 deletions, I don't see any taxon page which are deleted by mistake that a reasonable person should have kept undeleted. I don't anticipate that we have to create a queue for pages to be discussed before deletion (not because it was created by vandals or spelling mistake). Can anyone show examples where a page ought to be deleted but couldn't because of current system? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 22:11, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited: It is not surprising that unsourced pages have not been deleted, when the rules don't mention this possiblity. I mean cases like Stenotrupis. The page is completely unsourced. This is certainly no case for speedydelete, but unsourced content also should not exist here. (The author obviously didn't complete this piece of work.) Anyway, promoting this to some kind of deletion forum either will give the result that somebody tries to find references for this or the page finally will be deleted. (Hopefully, somebody will rescue this page.) Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 22:57, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree with OhanaUnited that "Incorrectly named" is usually a mistake made by an editor, who already created another corrected page and wants to delete the original mistake and that "Not using standard taxon formatting" is a verbal "wikipedia" description of a valid species. Having said that, I agree that a discussion page of "candidates for deletion" is appropriate. Mariusm (talk) 05:30, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: Every page will inevitably start off small and other people add information to it. Don't demolish the house while it's still being built. Creating a page starts the ball rolling and allows Google to display the page (which draws more traffic and possibly editors). Furthermore, if a valid species page is deleted and later on re-created (assuming with references), there is an additional admin task of undeleting all of the revisions made to the page prior to deletion to ensure proper CC BY-SA 3.0 licensing. To me, it's additional workload that we're inventing and it wouldn't have existed if we just leave the page alone and wait to improvements to come. There is no deadline to finish the page. In fact, as new species getting discovered or new classification systems being introduced, all pages are always a "work in progress". OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:43, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited: "Every page will inevitably start off small and other people add information ..." Yes, of course, but anyway the sources have to be added by the person, who posts a certain piece of content. Who else should better know the source? Posting something and then expect that somebody else will care for the appropriate references is just anti-social, in my opinion. As far as concerns Stenotrupis, after more than four years of inactivity, I doubt that this "house" is still being built. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 07:49, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't aim at deleting anything, but to give an incentive that appropriate references should be added to unsourced content. So, it is about improving quality of WS content. --07:54, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

As User:Mariusm now has added a reference to Stenotrupis, which is fine of course, I will give another example of an unsourced page: Pseudopanax laetus. Seems there is a lot of them. --Franz Xaver (talk) 14:02, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Pseudopanax laetus is a synonym of Neopanax laetus and a redirect has been created. References on the page also created. Many older taxon pages have minimal references as well. Andyboorman (talk) 15:49, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Type Data for Junior Synonyms.

I realise we often where possible include type data for the current valid name, however one thing I have always wished for as a taxonomist is an online place to look up the type data for all available names for a taxon. Would there be an issue with adding this information in the list of synonyms? I am not saying it should be a requirement but it would be some useful information for some users if it could be added slowly where it is possible. Cheers Faendalimas (talk) 12:25, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree, this information should be added. --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:31, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

This synonym info is added by some editors. See for example Spilarctia mindanao. Mariusm (talk) 12:37, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Agree. I always add it at the end of the synonym line when it is available. See Aloeides aranda for example. Accassidy (talk) 13:18, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree. I have been adding primary type numbers, synonymizing author with its reasoning (if available), and ZooBank link, which will have fuller information. See Stramentum pulchellum. I consider this as part of our function, by providing potential taxon reviewers with as complete information as possible, saving very much time. Many times, junior synonyms will be restored as fully accepted taxa. March 6's Zootaxa had three such articles. Neferkheperre (talk) 15:41, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

A new gadget in the preferences

Estimated
1680+ unpatrolled edits
--SteinsplitterBot 00:02, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Theres still over 100 pages to patrol, many of them old "new" pages created before the users who created them became autopatrollers. And for every day, new pages and new unpatrolled edits are created. admins and patrollers can look through those files, and if they are OK mark them as patrolled. Anyone who is not admin or patroller, but have a good understanding of Wikispecies policies and guidelines and want to help out with patrolling, you can request patrol rights at Patroller.

I have submitted a new gadget on Wikispecies, which I find very useful, and which makes the patrolling more fun, and I really recommend you to try it, and its useful for anyone, not just patrolling. If you wan to try it: 1. simply go to gadgets in your preferences. 2. Under gadget-section-RTRC you mark the checkbox Real-Time Recent Changes: Monitor and patrol recent changes in real-time, and 3. save. Then you go to Special:BlankPage/RTRC, ( You can also find a link to this new function in the head of Special:RecentChanges). Under the second section filter, you can check for example Unpatrolled only, then press the blue "apply" button. The benfit with this gadget is that you can click on (diff) on each file edit, and mark it patrolled, without going hence and forth between pages.

If you want to read more about this gadget before trying it out, or if you like it, and want to try it out out on other wikis, there's more information about RTRC on meta, with instructions how to use it.

Please add your evaluations below, so others may get inspired to use this tool. Dan Koehl (talk) 21:02, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I can very easily mark new pages as patrolled, but most marked as unpatrolled are edits of existing pages. I have not found any way to mark them as patrolled. Neferkheperre (talk) 02:26, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Promotion of Wikispecies on sister projects on Wikimeda

Since it came to my knowledge that the German lang section does not have template links to Wikispecies, because some users there does not have confidence in WS, which I felt was a little sad, and my thoughts were that we need to increase knowledge and status for WS.

Lately I have been active with a small promotion campagne on the sister projects on Wikimedia, I have given extra energy of making "I have a page on Wikispecies" userboxes, and I have been busy linking back from the various langauge Wikipedias to Wikispecies, mostly in the different language sections of Wikipedia, which are linked from WS.

Backlinks

At least two wikipedias, the Swedish and the Dutch, has automatic links by default, from their taxon boxes. The Dutch has show the taxon name, a small WS logo and Wikispecies written, all linked. On the left side of the website is also link to WS under a subheader "In andere projecten" above the language Interwiki links. The Swedish Wikipedia has a semihidden link to WS, inside each taxobox is the subheader "Vetenskapligt namn" (= scientific name) where a small § sign to the right of the binominal name is a link to WS.

But those 2 wikipedias, and most of the others has the possibility to make links back, trough a template, placed under a subheader See also, or likevise. When making/checking language links from WS taxon articles, I check if there's a link back to WS (and commons) and if not, I submit links back. I think this a is a good routine, since links from the texon articles to WS will increase the status of WS.

You can find my collection of such link templates from the different wikis at my subpage User:Dan Koehl/backlinks and the Interwiki language links from Template:Wikispecies. Anyone who want to join in this link campagne, please do, and use the links. Eventually we should maybe try to push more lang sections to make automatic links from their taxoboxes, also?

Im not sure, but I think that Wikidata will one day make those links automatically, if anyone has knowledge about this, please share your views.

The most generous system, towards Wikispecies, which I have found, is from lt.wikipeda, see Homo sapiens as an example, where every scientific taxon in the taxobox is individually linked to Wikispecies!

Userboxes

For those of you who have a user page on other lang Wikipedias, putting a "I have a page on Wikispecies" user box on your page is a good idea, especially if the userbox is connected to a categorie, where everyone with such a box gets listed.

So far I have made userboxes on: Danish, German, Norwegian, New Norwegian, and Swedish Wikipedias. Other persons made userboxes on French, Hrvatski, Icelandic, Japanese, English, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese. For those missing, if you want a user box and need help, just tell me.

Italian version online! --Ruthven (talk) 12:42, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Good news, thanks you! Dan Koehl (talk) 16:05, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Not to forget: North Frisian ;-) Thanks for the tip! --Murma174 (talk) 18:22, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Other ideas

Any other ideas to promote Wikispecies? I welcome all feedback on this topic, as well as other ideas and suggestions within this area. Dan Koehl (talk) 13:26, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion, most important will be to work on the quality of WS content. As long as it is quite easy to find some articles that miss references/sources, it will be difficult to convince a wikipedia community already having a negative attitude. --Franz Xaver (talk) 14:11, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

This is of course true. I was more refering to how to attract more contributors, just like any Wiki increases in volume and quality by getting more and more users who contribute. But I fully agree that work on the quality of WS content is number one. But how can we attract more who are able to do that? One way I have tried is checking on each Wikipedia after who did the most work on taxoboxes. If more people, within Wikipedia and Wikimedia, who are already familiar with Wikimedia concept, would make an account here, chances are pretty high that they would contribute to a larger and better Wikispecies. Alternatives could be to supply some sort of information package that could be sent to museums and similair institutions, where biologists and taxonomists would be invited, people with knowledge, but maybe with limited experience from Wiki collaboration. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:20, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

You are right, WS will need more contributors. However, it is probably not the average wikipedia author who will feel comfortable here. WS is not about writing some kind of journalistic essays, i.e. texts based on the information presented by other texts. WS in my opinion requires people that have at least some minimal interest in nomenclature, as well as in taxonomy, faunistics and floristics. Even among biologists, these are not the majority. As you said, museums certainly are a type of institutions where this kind of people can be found. However, the staff presently employed will lack time to contribute a lot. Maybe, we should think about retired staff members of museums, botanical gardens etc., and of course also other retired biologists. How to find contact? Maybe we should better address some scientific societies? --Franz Xaver (talk) 15:02, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

And it is also about younger people that are interested in taxonomy, but in their paid job have to do something different. Also to this group it probably will be easer to find contact via zoological, botanical or mycological societies. --Franz Xaver (talk) 15:07, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: Thank you. for your efforts to make WS more popular. I thought of sending mails to authors of recent journal-articles who have here authors-pages, asking them to check and revise their own WS author-pages and perhaps contribute also some information on the taxa which they described in their articles. Usually the mail addresses are given in the article abstracts. I'm sure some will react positively to such an offer. The message can look like this:

"Hello xxx, I'm an editor at Wikispecies, a Wikipedia-like taxonomic directory which gathers information on taxa, authors and type repositories. I've noticed that we have a page here describing your publications and your authored taxa. Unfortunately the information is incomplete. We would be glad if you can spare the time to revise the information and bring it up to date." Mariusm (talk) 15:35, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

In recent years, at an international conference, within a discussion forum of 300+ specialists, and also within a yearly newsletter published on the internet, I demonstrated the possibilities and usefulness of WIKISPECIES. This was done with the aim to encourage younger scientific colleagues to contribute to this database. A few scientists started to do so, but soon gave up. The main reason, in my opinion, for being discouraged and no longer contributing to WIKISPECIES is the fact that editing and the organisation is not kept in a simple way. Instead, there is a growing trend to unnecessarily complicate editing more and more especially by creating templates for nearly everything. Kempf EK (talk) 00:15, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

This is very important information, @Kempf EK:. The development of wikis, was in the beginning following Albert Einsteins words Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler. and the KISS principle, and maybe for some time WS has developed in a direction away from this? A newcomer may have a hard time to get a grip of how to do the work? Apart from that WS will undergo changes when it gets connected to Wikidata, what could be done about this right now? Dan Koehl (talk) 04:23, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I also think that complex editing practices - especially the proliferation of article templates and templates such as {{a}} {{aut}} {{itis}} etc. - are a major obstacle for newcomers. On the other hand, templates give us great benefits. We must compromise and allow both simple and more complex editing practices to coexist. Mariusm (talk) 05:17, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I think templates are fine, but with a caveat, that is they should not be compulsory. Most of what is a achieved by templates can be done with basic wiki markup, albeit it takes longer. When encouraging newcomers the first thing we need them to learn is wiki markup, and the basic rules we all follow of course. The use of templates can come later. It is too overwhelming, particularly for someone in the biological sciences who may not have a knowledge of programming. So I think its fine to keep the templates, but make them optional, people will pick them up. There are some templates people should use and they can for those, but others are not completely necessary and can be achieved with the standard wiki markup. Cheers Faendalimas (talk) 06:09, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Faendalimas is right. The basic wiki markup with some basic templates will facilitate the way to attract new professional biologists as editors. The organisation of WS pages should also concentrate on Taxon pages as well as Authority pages with its sections Publications, Authored taxa, Patronyms, Biography, and Links.

Just to mention another way I tried to attract new WS contributors: I established 600+ pages for authorities of Ostracoda taxa so that it became easier for newcomers to add their own or publications of collegues. What happened to a newcomer you can see, if you follow the page: Revision history of "Todd H. Oakley". After some trials it resulted even in a template of a new taxonomic publication on that Authority page: {{Zt3802.4.2}} . But only half an hour later this was already replaced by a link to the following page: [http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Publications_of_T.H._Oakley Publications] . Such a page - in my opinion - is chaotic and not suited to attract new contributors to WS. Publications as well as information on Authored taxa, Patronyms, Biography, and Links should be on the Authority pages and not somewhere on Category pages. Categories are far more useful for other information in connection with taxa. Kempf EK (talk) 02:07, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

The most important thing is do not "press" newcomers to conform to all our formatting peculiarities. Give them a free hand at their WS-experience start. Even if their work is initially template-less and format-less, it's fine as long as taxonomic-wise the contributions are sound. Mariusm (talk) 05:10, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Please do not bite the newcomers is important, as well as making new contributors feel accepted and part of the community as fast as possible. Dan Koehl (talk) 10:30, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Bring back past contributors

I have also tried to bring past contributors back to WS, people who left for various reasons, something I personally think is high priority. Past users already know WS, and they may be happy for the information that WS is now stabile, and that the working environment has improved, and gets more and more creative. I hope that you all can help with this, to contact past users, that you have contact with, or know how to reach, and ask them to come for a visit and try it out again. Dan Koehl (talk) 09:46, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Project Page

@Dan Koehl: Have you thought of developing a project page on Wikipedia as a way to get experienced editors for Wikispecies? I do not know if this has been thought of or tried so if it has ignore this. I can see some downsides to it also. Upsides would be the likelihood of getting experienced wiki editors. If it was put under the umbrella of the Project Tree of Life it would get aimed at editors who have an interest in what we do here. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 23:51, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Hey, this sounds like a really good idea. Would you even have a suggestion as how to develop the page? I guess this will need the support of the community, and maybe you should present the idea at a more exposed place? Dan Koehl (talk) 00:19, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

We would have to look into proposing a WikiProject, after of course getting community support here. There is already a page for Wikispecies but its not set up as a project. One I am a member of as an example would be WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles so I was thinking something like this if all here agree. Note in particular the section called Parentage, which is where we can focus the page at people who would be interested in Wikispecies by putting it in their under the Tree of Life. The requirements are in the above link to WikiProjects. I probably know most of the editors involved in Tree of Life and similar projects. This could if up and running also be a means to ensure there is a link from each taxon page on Wikipedia to a relevant page in Wikispecies. The hope would be that Wikipedia would follow Wikispecies for its nomenclature and taxonomy. This way the relevance of both sites is ensured. Anyway that's my suggestion in a nutshell, would like to see what others think. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 02:14, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Oh link I forgot: WikiProject Council they make the decisions on this on Wikipedia. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 03:25, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Facebook page

Speaking about promotion etc, it has now become very common with a Facebook page for the different sections and projects on Wikimedia. Does anyone have opinions reg a Facebook page for Wikispecies? And if yes, would a closed or secret group be better and an alternative way of discussing things, rather than an open group, which would be more a promotion? Or both? Dan Koehl (talk) 22:37, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I Guess it comes down to whether it is promotion or a way to discuss things in a more live fashion than we can on the message boards here. The risk of promotion is it may attract some vandalism, both to the facebook page and to the wikispecies. For private live discussion most have skype and that would probably be a better way I am fine with handing my skype name out its in all my emails anyway. For what can be achieved I think an open group is more appropriate but it will need to be watched carefully and it can promote wikispecies. Cheers Faendalimas (talk) 23:38, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

This Facebook page idea is very nice. I would favor an open page to attract more users to participate and ultimately to contribute. I also thought of opening a mail account (for example a gmail account) with the password made known to the admins, where we can write authors and ask them to contribute and revise their described taxa and their author-pages. Mariusm (talk) 05:25, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

One thing I hear from many scientists is that Wiki (and they often are only are aware of Wikipedia) does have a little bit of a bad rap due to the issue that anyone can edit. What these people do not realise is the systems in place to prevent, watch for and overturn vandalism, plagiarism etc. Wikispecies has less of this than Wikipedia and can be promoted that way. One thing we need to do and make sure everyone sees it being done is recognise the experts in their fields, this was why I stopped editing for quite some time. I do not pretend to know much about invertebrates, or most vertebrates outside of reptiles I think when we are able to get these experts then we need to listen to them. We have a good project here if its well structured and well run. Cheers Faendalimas (talk) 05:43, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Im checking up the rules applied to use the WS logotype on Facebook. Dan Koehl (talk) 09:14, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I doubt, we would not be able to address via Facebook the group of people we would wish to have here. Inducing experts to make contributions to WS, probably will require some patience. First point, in my opinion, should be to raise awareness in the scientific community, that this is a project where high-quality content is compiled. Sooner or later, some experts will experiment with some edits. At this point, it is important, how they perceive this experience. If editing seems to be too complicated, or if the result is reverted within minutes and without any communication having started, probably this will be the last time. Anyway, one possibility to bring WS into the minds of experts, is to contact them by email at suitable occassions. E.g., we may contact the keepers of external databases, if we find some errors, or the authors of publications, if there are some inconsistencies or ambiguities in a paper or if they had overlooked something, etc. I myself, already have contacted several experts, most of them replied and the contact has resulted in some improvements here and there. Most important is, that the experts would know it is no waste of time to contribute to WS. --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:06, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: Our goal is not to attract "experts" only. The bulk of the work can be done by hobbyists and by enthusiasts with no less precision and without sacrificing on scientific accuracy. Experts may give the authority and "approval stamp" we need and help us resolve disputes or conundrums, but they won't do for us the routine and tedious job of adding taxa, compiling references etc. These hobbyists can be channeled here through Facebook. Mariusm (talk) 10:00, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I have an idea for the Facebook planned page: To start a campaign named "ADOPT A GENUS", where a person will choose a genus, which he'll try to update at WS and make as accurate and as complete as possible. To make this more attractive, we can start a competition where the best 3 efforts will receive the prize of being nominated at the main page as "HONORARY BIOTA DOCUMENTERS". Mariusm (talk) 11:39, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

If scientists wish to send emails related to this project, you don't need to create a new email account. All they need to do is by emailing OTRS sisterprojects queue. Alternatively, there is a mailing list available (wikispecies-llists.wikimedia.org) OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:31, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Facebook page created

I found that several users liked the idea of a Facebook page, and creative ideas how to use it came up, so I created a group at Facebook Wikispecies, please feel free to join the group! Dan Koehl (talk) 02:34, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

This is excellent and thanks for inviting me to it. Anyone who is an editor here feel free to add me on facebook also. Sometimes its good to be able to live chat about things. Cheers Faendalimas (talk) 02:38, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Twitter

Does anyone know who controls Wikispecies' Twitter account? Apart from one tweet made in last November, the account has been dormant for 3 years and squatting its name so we cannot use it. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:36, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't know, but I'll try to look into it. By the way there is also a Twitter account called Wikispeciesbot. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 20:49, 11 March 2015 (UTC).

That's just a bot tweeting a random article (just like we click on Random page) every hour. It can't be used for news or announcements. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:10, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Hidden Categories

Hi everyone,

I was wondering what peoples thoughts are on hidden categories. My reason is I have been making templates for papers that are frequently used in the pages I am making as they major reviews of many taxa. I was hoping to add a category to keep them together them together for speed and to make it easy to grab them all for updating using AWB etc. Basically its a convenience option for editing, but since not everyone would use them they may as well be hidden, and are of no use to general users. For myself I would use them on templates.

In saying this I did check and {{Hidden Categories}} or something similar is not enabled here so it would have to be ported over from Wikipedia, however I am not going to do this if there are objections to it, so thought I would ask. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 08:02, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

@Faendalimas:, It seems noone has any objections, but perhaps you can make a slow start, which can be evaluated? Im not sure if hidden categories is activated, there is Category:Hidden categories, which is presently empty. Maybe a start is to list a couple pf pages, and see if they turn up there? If the function has not been activated, maybe __HIDDENCAT__ will work. Dan Koehl (talk) 19:42, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

For reference, there is some additional information on Meta: Help: Category #Hidden categories. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 23:16, 15 March 2015 (UTC).

Heya thank you, I got it to work test page is Birlimarr it has a hidden Cat I called Category:Turtle Maint which appears as a subcategory in Hidden Categories. I can use this to create page lists for updating, I can remove the Category when I am finished the page. The magic word __HIDDENCAT__ works fine. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 23:36, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, and the file turns up at category:Hidden_Categories. I wonder if it is important where the magic word __HIDDENCAT__ is placed. As if everything afterwards gets hidden, but categories before __HIDDENCAT__ are visible... Dan Koehl (talk) 00:24, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I do not think so. It seems important that the category to hide must itself be a member of Category:Hidden categories. In other words, it is not enough to put the __HIDDENCAT__ magic word on a page in main namespace: it must also be placed in the code of the (hidden) category page itself. To see an example go to the hidden Category:Turtle Maint, then click "Edit" and check out the code.

Any category without that magic word on the category page itself will never be hidden by the __HIDDENCAT__ command, regardless of where on a page the magic word is placed. I made a test in order to try and verify this: see this diff. for the result. Looking at the very bottom of the page it is apparent that the Category:Heteroplocamus (New Zealand) is not hidden, even though it sits below the __HIDDENCAT__ magic word in the code. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 03:18, 16 March 2015 (UTC).

Unpatrolled pages

Does anyone have any ideas on how we can inspire more admins and patrollers to patrol the apr 80 unpatrolled pages? Dan Koehl (talk) 13:56, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

I have a question: a new unpatrolled page has the [Mark this page as patrolled] option, but how do I mark as patrolled a page which isn't new and hasn't this marking option? Mariusm (talk) 14:45, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm:, One way is to press the diff-link, and mark the diff. There may be other options. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:57, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

@@Dan Koehl: I will do a few each day, happy to go through a dozen or so. My internet is intermitant next couple of days but I managed some today. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 02:53, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: I admit of neglecting to participate in page patrolling, and I promise to lend a hand from now on. Mariusm (talk) 05:20, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Links prohibited from DeWp to WS?

After discussions on the German Wiki about template links to WS, which they don't want, I have been making links to WS from the German Wp with an alternative design. Today, I was rollbacked by Achim Raschka, and had the following message on my user page: (maybe @Franz Xaver, Murma174, and Orchi: can translate?

Moin Dan Koehl,

wie dir bekannt ist, gibt es derzeit einen Konsens der Biologie-Aktiven in der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia, auf Links auf Wikispecies zu verzichten - an diesem Konsens hat sich bislang nichts geändert, auch wenn es zu entsprechenden Diskussionen kam. Ich möchte dich entsprechend bitten, auf diese Massenverlinkungen zu verzichten, die für die entsprechenden Artiekl keinen Mehwert und dem Leser keinen Cent mehr Informationen bringen als sie bereits durch die Lektüre haben (siehe hierzu auch de:WP:Weblinks). Danke, -- Achim Raschka (Diskussion) 15:53, 14. Mär. 2015 (CET)

What do you think about this? To me, it looks like a boycott, and does really a wiki have the right to prohibit links to a sister project?

Dan Koehl (talk) 15:14, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry. I did not know that you don't understand German so I can translate it by myself: Dear Dan Koehl, since you may know there is a censensus in the German community of biology-related topics not to link to wikispespecies - this consensus is still there and did not change by now, even if there were some discussions on this. I therefor ask you to stop with mass linking on this project, especially since there is no additional value on the WS articels and there is nothing to learm from these additional to the WP article. Thank you, -- Achim Raschka (Diskussion) 15:53, 14. Mär. 2015 (CET)

Dear Achim Raschka, I do understand German, but dont feel comfortable to the extent, that I want to translate other users words, so thanks for the translation. Dan Koehl (talk) 16:26, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

And to add: Yes, if a project at consensus decide not to link to a sister project there is no need to do so (there are also no links to Wikinews). So please stop to force this. Before starting to include such links a broader discussion and consensus is needed in the German WP by the authors related to these fields. Maybe this consensus can be reached for botany topics faster since there are some experts like Orchi and FX working on this, but I don't see any chance for a consensus on zoology topics or biology topics overall in the moment to link to WS. Best regards, -- Achim Raschka (talk) 15:35, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: As I understand this, it is not an absolute boycott, but there would not be allowed any mass linking from de.wiki to WS, being undifferentiated as to quality of WS pages. So, linking only to some selected pages would be accepted, when these contain some surplus value ("Mehrwert"), e.g. complete list of synonyms with publication data, including links to protologues, comprehensive type information, etc. Of course, WS potentially can present more information of this kind than would find place in a WP article. However, as I stated earlier, many WS articles are rather sketchy and a lot of them still is missing any references. As I understand the atmosphere in de.wiki, it is also negative against article created by bot in some sister projects. However, these interwiki links are managed by Wikidata, so there is no possibility to get rid of such links. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 16:15, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

@Achim Raschka: I must say that I object to your suggestion that articles on WP, whether the German version of the English one, are necessarily superior or more complete than the equivalent WikiSpecies pages. Recently, I have been adding information to the Wikispecies page for Mesapia peloria, because there have been papers published in 2007 and 2014 which relate to this genus and species. You will see these new papers, and their consequences, referenced on the WS page. Then if you look at the equivalent page on WP, you will find it just reproduces a now outdated phylogeny referenced solely to Markku Savela's "Funet" site and no other recent publications. In this case, it would be really quite beneficial to link to WS from either English or German versions. There are many such examples. Regards, Accassidy (talk) 19:43, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Dear Accassidy, I believe you and others are doing a good job - but you did not really read nor understand my post on the recent consensus and mass linking. From my point I do not see a real add-on to link a WP article with Fregata minor and I real see a quality problem to link Ochna to our article of de:Schlangenhalsschildkröten - two of those mass linkings I reverted due to our consensus.

On Mesapia peloria: This, in my opinion, may be a good example for a WS article to be and maybe it could be on added value to link to this from WP - but this is not typical for WS; and to be honest I would think the add-on effect will be lost in that moment these papers will be included into WP directly and not via a link to WS. -- Achim Raschka (talk) 22:17, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

To amend our bad reputation I strongly advise not to create minimal new pages such as this and this and even this and this!!! Anyone starting a page should at least fill in decent references or else should't create it at all! According to my check we have more than 10,000 such minimal pages without any content and any value. On top of this we have another 30,000 pages like this, which is also unacceptable. Mariusm (talk) 05:29, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I would agree with that, there needs to be a minimum of info that is useable and acceptable, or at least an explanation. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 06:24, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

On your addit, many of the changes I have been making in the last week or so have been to add type data and references to pages like the last one you linked. These 30000 odd pages with an absolute minimum of data will need to be updated, it will be a slow process. Its part of why I want to add hidden categories (my question above) to groups of pages so that I can use AWB to mass update pages like this. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 08:52, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Use Special:ShortPages to find a list of those pages. Side note, why is User:PeterR blanking a lot of the pages he created? Ah, I see someone has beat me to ask the same question. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 21:44, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Apart from the explanation given in the link you provided yourself, PeterR has also created some author templates with incorrect names. In most cases – and more than once rather quickly – he has noticed the error himself, created a new one using the correct name, and then blanked the original and marked it for speedy deletion. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 22:58, 15 March 2015 (UTC).

SteinsplitterBot

Estimated
1680+ unpatrolled edits
--SteinsplitterBot 00:02, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

With 7 edits left to reach 100 edits, so far noone had any objections, so it seems the SteinsplitterBot has soon passed the evaluation period of 100 edits, and it may be approved by the community? Dan Koehl (talk) 20:00, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I asked on the bot request page to request a slower update rate but no response was provided. Given we have database replication lag, shouldn't the bot be updating at the original request rate (2 edits per day) instead of revised rate (1 edit every 3 hours)? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 20:06, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited:, I have understood from User:Steinsplitter that the number of edits has no performance effects to the site, you can make thousands of edits without effect to the site? If this is true, I think the present update speed is good, considering that it hopefully inspires users to patrol, when they faster see the result? But this is not a priority issue for me, as far I understood, its just to ask Steinsplitter to change the rate. Dan Koehl (talk) 00:24, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I am approving the bot SteinsplitterBot now, since t has reached 95 edits, and noone has objected against the bot. Thank you. Dan Koehl (talk) 00:27, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I want to hear the explanation from the bot owner since it's him and not you who operates the bot. Also, it seems like you rushed to your decision without fully understanding what the concern is. Replication lag occurs when there are too many edits made at the same time. The edit is made but as a protection to the server, the replicated version is placed in a queue before it is copies to mirror sites to avoid overworking the server. As of this moment, we have a replication lag of 15 mins (an exponential increase from 1 min about 8 hours ago). Reducing replication lag helps actual page content getting written into the database for others to read. It's far more useful to write contents into the database than updating a tracking counter that does not benefit readers. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:13, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Detailed explanation of replication lag and its effects can be found here. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:16, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited: Your understanding of the replag seems wrong. There does not exists a real replag for the prod cluster, even if you made 5 edits per second. The tool above is for measuring the replicated database lag on tools, which has zero affect to prod. It is unlikely that there is a replag because of too much edits. Replag is no issue. If you don't like the bot, let me know and i switch it off - i don't care - only running the script here upon Dan's request. Best --Steinsplitter (talk) 17:48, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Changed the config to 2 edits per day. Best. --Steinsplitter (talk) 17:59, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

The script was configured to count anonymous edits only, it was changed today, and as you can see with +3544 unpatrolled pages, theres some work to do, until this list is patrolled and we have a clean start. So please keep on patrolling! Dan Koehl (talk) 18:32, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

@Steinsplitter: I don't mind the bot. I was only concerned whether its update rate was too frequent. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:52, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Some statistics of pages of concern

• 55 Unverified pages (+5)

• 684 Disputed taxa (+5)

• 0 Validity disputed

• 250 Homonyms (+5)

• 148 Non-standard taxon formatting (+5)

This list is dynamic, if you change/correct any of the pages, the list will automatically change. Please note that this is not the real numbers of pages, its only those which are marked with a certain category. Im not sure if there's any bot which can locate all pages without reference, and list them in that category, so they are easier identified, located, and dealt with.

Is there any certain categories or pages you think should be under closer observation like this, please discuss below. Or, anything else that slips your mind when you see this. Dan Koehl (talk) 02:33, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok I have edited one of the non formatted ones Aetheolirion and removed its tag. Will slowly keep on these. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 08:51, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Aetheolirion

A previous version was in Category:Non-standard taxon formatting. In the meantime User:Faendalimas has converted this into a page within WS standards. However, I propose to delete the older versions of this page, as this most likely was a copyright violation. (This will need admin action.) As far as I understand, copyright violations should not exist here even in page history. The original content of the page most likely has been copied from a manuscript version of a yet unpublished treatment for Flora of Thailand by R. Faden & T. Thitimetharoch - see [1]. Anyway, text and formatting of the previous version of Aetheolirion conforms well to other Flora of Thailand treatments I have got. Of course, it is not clear, how an unpublished manuscript could have found its way to WS. However, the IP is from Thailand. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:09, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I have hidden the earlier edits under the causal factor of copyright infringement. I think that should suffice. Accassidy (talk) 09:49, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! This should be sufficient. --Franz Xaver (talk) 11:58, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, could you please hide also the version of User:Floscuculi, as this also contains the text under question. --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:05, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you @Franz Xaver:, for going through the category and observing this. Dan Koehl (talk) 13:10, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I was too late. I was about to make a deletion request for the page, when I noticed that User:Faendalimas already had changed it. --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:13, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry I agree that what was there looked like a copyvio issue, I commented it all out for now. Look at it in Edit View. I am traveling right now so am limited how much I can do today. Was going to raise the copyvio issue later, just commented it out for now. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 23:57, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

For those wondering; while fixing it, I also created the taxonavigation template for this genus and kept the original page, heavily reformated as the genus page and made a new species page. I have not done plants before so do not have a lot of info on this taxon, was just interested in repairing it. So if anyone has better info please edit it. Cheers, Faen

Add Stub template to minimum-content-pages

I improved the Stub template to help us mark articles with minimum content. See below. Mariusm (talk) 15:49, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

This is a stub page which contains only a minimal amount of information. Please contribute to Wikispecies by adding References, Type locality, Holotype and Synonyms. References: Help on contributing Reference information. Type locality: Help on contributing Type locality information. Synonyms: Help on contributing Synonyms. Help improve Wikispecies by adding information to this taxon!

Looks very nice! Did you update the Template page? Dan Koehl (talk) 19:26, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it can be used on pages like this one Mariusm (talk) 09:01, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Nice template I will use it. I assume we can do a search for pages containing this template. I also assume that as a bare minimum the page must have type data and at least original references to remove the stub tag? Just want to be clear on where we are drawing the lines. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 14:25, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I added category Category:Templates with noinclude and [[Category:Stubs]] with includeonly. I undeleted the last category and started to mark articles with zero content, only the title, the total number is 58.... !!! Dan Koehl (talk) 19:52, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Template:Lien_wikipédia

While patrolling I stumbled over Template:Lien_wikipédia, which e.g. is used in Melaleuca_leiocarpa.
It obviously is intended to link to the French WP, but it doesn't (misconfigured template).
Actually I don't get the sense of this template, as there are Interwiki-links doing this job.
What to do? --Murma174 (talk) 20:02, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually this is a redirect to Template:Wikipedia. Anyway, for linking to Wikipedia there exist interwiki links. In my opinion, links to a genus page from a species page do not make much sense. Moreover, I do not see, why there should be categories for WS articles, that are motivated by the reason that there is some stuff in a special Wikipedia language version. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 21:13, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I removed the template from Melaleuca leiocarpa, but it is still present e.g. in Hellinsia triton. It seems, that the category only means that there is some stuff in any of the Wikipedia language versions, not only French. --Franz Xaver (talk) 21:20, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Even the Template:Wikipedia including its redirects is used only in a couple of species pages. My suggestion: Delete the template calls in these mentioned pages and delete the templates redirecting there an delete Category:Wikipédia. --Murma174 (talk) 11:38, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree, Delete the template calls in these mentioned pages and delete the templates redirecting there an delete Category:Wikipédia. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:25, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

 Done --Murma174 (talk) 08:06, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Template:Language

Template:Language links to species pages in French, e.g. Dikarya and Dikarya/fr. It is hardly used. These doublettes make no sense, and the citation is wrong. Same suggestion as above: Delete the template calls, the template itself and the templates redirecting there. --Murma174 (talk) 17:50, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

 Done --Murma174 (talk) 09:03, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Stubs and short pages.

Press to refresh the numbers

Problem pages

• 1 Candidates for speedy deletion

Stubs and (MANY) short pages

• 55 Unverified pages

• 684 Disputed taxa

• 0 Validity disputed

• 250 Homonyms

• 148 Non-standard taxon formatting

• 1680 not patrolled edits

Thanks to @Mariusm:s initiative with the stub template mentioned above, I started to try to get an overview over such files. The {{stub}} templae also sees to that the files with this template are listed in the category Stubs, which contains a total number of 6,377 articles (dynamic number, will change for every new that gets the {{stub}} template. In those stubs, as well as in the special page short pages (over 500 pages, dont know how many.....), we can identify a lot of files that maybe should be deleted, as well as files we want to update with more informtion. Some of them doesnt have any text, only header with species name and nothing more.

Until decided what to do with them, I will keep on putting the {{stub}} template into the files listed and hope more users will do the same, so that we can get an overvview, although some files may be clear cases, just to delete.

This also bring up the question, should we have some more developed system for files, where we discuss what to delete and what to keep, which is different from the function of Candidates for speedy deletion?

Input ideas, and suggestions warmly welcome. As well as joining me in the tiring work to list stubs as stubs. (is there any existing bot that could do this?) Dan Koehl (talk) 23:38, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Can we put Status Block where we can all easily find it? It sill soon get harder to find on Village Pump.

On homonyms; always remember that these only happen if both names are in either Plantae or Animalia. Between kingdoms they are not homonyms. Homonyms should be diligently researched. Some may already have been corrected by new replacement names, or ICZN rulings. Our work here is going to uncover very many. I have found four myself, published one replacement name Perreault, 2014. I am working on other 3.

Disputed taxa; criteria shown include names with some nomenclatural issues to be solved. Many can possibly be done on our end, with more reference work. Some, including Squama and two doubtful species of Zeugmatolepas, I put on because they are based on poorly preserved specimens or poorly illustrated or described publications, and not definitively solved. Those await further research or discoveries. Neferkheperre (talk) 03:07, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

As I said earlier, I estimate there are about 10,000 pages with no content at all and another 30,000 pages containing only author & year without any reference, synonyms, type info etc. Most of these pages carry taxon names that are perfectly valid. The problem is these pages are useless since they don't contain (almost) any information. The first priority is to stop creating such stub pages and to tell anyone who does create them to stop. The best way to deal with these pages would be to locate them with a bot and to mark them with {{Stub}}. Since we don't have a bot expert among us, it would be a very difficult and lengthy job to do. Mariusm (talk) 07:50, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Im trying to locate such a bot, or to get some insight in how to develop one. If anyone has a suggestion for such an existing bot, please tell so we can try it out. Dan Koehl (talk) 15:28, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

My detailed programming experience stopped about 1980, but at least I can provide desired parameters. I would design this bot to seek out pages of less than agreed determined length. When such pages are identified, they need to go through 2 filters definitely, to leave alone REdirect pages and taxon template pages. Those two classifications are invariably of stub length, and would make massive unnecessary work for us wetware units. It should probably leave alone Category pages, for same reason. Pages which pass these filters make our bot insert {{stub}} onto page, and automatically enter stub category. Once it has zizzed through all of our existing pages, invoke new filter to examine only current date pages. Much less repetition there. This could probably cause us to address Orphan pages more closely. I have checked that out, and it is quite formidable. Neferkheperre (talk) 20:45, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Use Namespace as part of it pointing at pages, not talks, categories or templates then it will leave the latter alone. As for Orphans many of them are Taxon Authorities, though not all, I would likewise suggest that when searching for orphans ignore Category: Taxon Authority. There is a bot on Wikipedia, that could be adapted Ariebot or something like that. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 20:53, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Neferkheperre, this sounds very good, I guess the best option would be something tailormade that can be modified/developed for other needs later. But lets search for Ariebot, that Faendalimas mentions as well? Dan Koehl (talk) 20:59, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I cant find that bot, @Faendalimas:. Dan Koehl (talk) 21:05, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Here you go, among its functions is the ability to tag short pages with stub. Alaibot. You may need to ask the user for the bot. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 21:15, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I made a request here to use it. Dan Koehl (talk) 22:21, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I am willing to help with tailoring it if accepted. Wikispecies is not quite like Wikipedia, so some tweaking may be needed. Neferkheperre (talk) 23:34, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

That will surely be a benefit @Neferkheperre: if we may use it, but when looking on the bot again, it seems it is inactive... (see the category at Alaibot) But Alai got some messages on talk page not so long time ago. Dan Koehl (talk) 23:43, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

@Neferkheperre: Like most bots it's written in Python (see here). Are you familiar with this programming language? Mariusm (talk) 16:15, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I added the __HIDDENCAT__-tag to the Category:Stubs, so it is enough to add just the {{Stub}}-template to stub-pages. There is no need to tag each single page. --Murma174 (talk) 17:25, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I made a request reg the bot, and if someone else may have access. Answer may take time though. Meanwhile what about this bot? Dan Koehl (talk) 06:32, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Mistake I am finding alot

I cannot think where to put this so I will put it here. Unfortunately these guys get cited alot the paper McCord, Joseph-Ouni & Lamar 2001 is often being written as McCord, Mehdi & Lamar 2001, I think from memory Reptile database has it wrong too I will inform Peter, the owner of the site, anyway the guys full name is Mehdi Joseph-Uoni he is Indonesian. First name is Mehdi where I find this I am fixing it, but it is apearing alot. I guess its a mistake that has made its way into some major databases and hence is proliferating. Just sometyhing to watch out for, Thanks... Faendalimas ^talk 18:18, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Time to look at Admins?

Looking at the current activity level of the 23 WS admins, I think it is time to ask the dormant ones to either become active again, or to step down. Thoughts?--Kevmin (talk) 01:28, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

This is a relevant question @Kevmin:, here is some background info:

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. Wikispecies does not have a formal process for removing "advanced rights" from inactive accounts. This means that the stewards will take care of this, desysoping that users meet the inactivity criteria (no edits and no log actions for more than 2 years) according to the admin activity review.

But what we are free to do, is to establish a formal local Wikispecies process for removing "advanced rights" from inactive accounts. Dan Koehl (talk) 01:48, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Good to know, and it should be something to draft and work out in light of the last 5 years here. What all will be needed to work out and would the guidelines approval allow WS to take care of inactive and "retired" admins in house?--Kevmin (talk) 01:52, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, they most likely will, as long as we develop and decide a relevant local policy, which gets a consensus within the community. This is just one policy we could develop locally, theres more. But I agree with you, this is something we could start with. Dan Koehl (talk) 02:46, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Im willing to start the process, here is the relevant paragraph rules from EN.WIKI:

Review and removal of adminship

If an administrator abuses administrative powers, these powers can be removed. Administrators may be removed by Jimbo Wales, by stewards, or by a ruling of the Arbitration Committee. At their discretion, lesser penalties may also be assessed against problematic administrators, including the restriction of their use of certain functions or placement on administrative probation. The technical ability to remove administrator status rests with bureaucrats, stewards and Jimmy Wales.

There have been several procedures suggested for a community-based desysop process, but none of them have achieved consensus. Some administrators will voluntarily stand for reconfirmation under certain circumstances; see Administrator recall. Users may use dispute resolution to request comment on an administrator's suitability.

Technical note – Removal of rights performed by stewards does not currently show up in the usual user logs. Use {{Userrights|username}} for full links to user rights information and full logs, including the stewards' global logs on meta as well, or Special:ListUsers to verify a user's current rights. See: Bugzilla:4055.

Procedural removal for inactive administrators

Admin accounts which have made no edits or administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped. Subject to the #Lengthy inactivity consideration below, this desysopping is not to be considered permanent, or a reflection on the user's use of, or rights to, the admin tools. The admin must be contacted on their user talk page and via e-mail (if possible) one month before the request for desysopping and again several days before the desysopping goes into effect. Desysopping on inactivity grounds should be handled by English Wikipedia bureaucrats. The summary in the user rights log should make it clear that the desysopping is purely procedural.

If necessary, the user's userpage should be edited to clarify the status — particularly if any categorization is involved. For example, the userbox {{User wikipedia/Administrator}} should be replaced with {{User wikipedia/Former administrator|inactive=yes}}.

Voluntary removal

Administrators may request that their access to administrative tools be removed at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard.

Disputes or complaints

In most cases, disputes with administrators should be resolved with the normal dispute resolution process. If the dispute reflects seriously on a user's administrative capacity (blatant misuse of administrative tools, gross or persistent misjudgment or conduct issues), or dialog fails, then the following steps are available.

Administrator recall

Some administrators place themselves "open to recall", whereby they pledge to voluntarily step down if specified criteria are met. The specific criteria are set by each administrator for themselves, and usually detailed in their userspace. The process is entirely voluntary and administrators may change their criteria at any time, or decline to adhere to previously made recall pledges.

Arbitration Committee review

This is an involuntary process. Generally, the Arbitration Committee requires that other steps of dispute resolution are tried before it intervenes in a dispute, such as raising the issue at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. However, if the matter is serious enough, the Arbitration Committee may intervene early on. Remedies that may be imposed, at the discretion of the Committee, include warnings, admonishments, restrictions, and removal of administrator privileges.

It seems that the arbitration committee references and dispute resolution sections could be retooled to point to starting threads here on the Village pump, due to the small size of WS as a project. I like the 12 month timeline more then the two year timeline also, but a whole month before proceeding with the process, and think 2 weeks should be plenty.--Kevmin (talk) 03:58, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I would hope that if Admins, or any other restricted group, know they cannot commit for a long period of time the right thing to do is make this known and if its going to be protracted request their rights be removed and that be done so then the person can have those rights back upon returning if they wish. However real world, I think if an admin is not editing and using the tools they are given then this also needs to be dealt with, regular users do rely on admins and finding them to be inactive is frustrating, considering they may not be privy to all the discussions. So I support the need for a clear policy on this. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 10:14, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Confirm removal of templates on pages

I cite from the previous discussion earlier here on Village pump: >>>

These two categories seem rather over the top, and should perhaps be deleted:

Category:All known included nominal taxa have been added, including synonyms (1,073 pages) Category:Nomenclature verified against primary references, except any marked as 'not seen' (1,051 pages) They are the only sub-categories of Category:Verification categories. All three categories were created in September 2011 by Stho002. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 20:24, 1 March 2015 (UTC),

Furthermore, there are two templates linking to the subcategories: {{ait}} and {{nv}}, respectively. I guess the names of the templates are short for "all included taxa" and "nomenclature verified". –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 20:34, 1 March 2015 (UTC). Agree. Dan Koehl (talk) 20:47, 1 March 2015 (UTC) I don't see any point for them. I randomly checked out some entries, and find some overwrought attention to validity etc. And links to category:valid species. All that last would accomplish is to list all species group namepages. Neferkheperre (talk) 21:09, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Ditto. I've changed "includeonly" to "noinclude" so they don't show on the pages, though are still there on the edit page. - MPF (talk) 21:12, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

My question is, is there still a wish to have all {{Ait}} and {{nv}} deleted? (Or changed to something else?) I may perform a mass marking on those articles, and want to make sure this a common wish within the community.

Sorry, {{Aust}} and {{N.Z.}} as well?

Dan Koehl (talk) 17:28, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I see no value in them, so I agree remove them. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 19:34, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I am experimenting with mass changes since theres so many files involved, and hope to sort all those problems. I can mass change entire text strings in articles, I can change categories in groups of articles to a different category, and a lot of similair things, which is hard work to do manually. Dan Koehl (talk) 19:41, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Which more issues has been frustrating, apart from the those I mentioned above? What about all those "New Zealand" categories, like New Zealand AK and similair? Dan Koehl (talk) 19:39, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Agreed frustrating and outside the scope of WS. All hang overs from a personal view of the project. Do what you have to IMO. Andyboorman (talk) 20:35, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I am happy for this housekeeping work to go ahead. I agree that it is invariably out of the proper scope of the project. Accassidy (talk) 21:44, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I too support the removal of all N.Z. categories. Mariusm (talk) 06:50, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I have started removing a lot of category:something (New Zealand), as well as removing {{Aust}} and {{N.Z.}} and {{ait}} and {{nv}}, if anyone have a special wish list, or want me to focus on something, just tell me here. Dan Koehl (talk) 00:29, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

User:Stho002 has objected on this cleaning of categories

User:Stho002 has objected on this cleaning of categories at what he call "Mass destruction of Wikispecies data by an out of control crat" at Meta-Wiki. Dan Koehl (talk) 05:01, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Will he ever learn his lesson? His rudeness and incivility certainly does not serve his cause. --Franz Xaver (talk) 10:13, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Links to commons

I think something went wrong with Dan Koehl's procedure. It is adding redundant {{commonscat}} for every edit he makes! Mariusm (talk) 07:32, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I stopped using that, was thinking that it was good to use this tiring work for a second use, inserting commons link where there maybe were none. But for some reason I had to go trough some files many times, I think its easy to remove the dupicates later, but you and others pointed it out, so Ill leave adding for now, this can be done later. Dan Koehl (talk) 07:43, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Thinking about this, IF we should make links to commons on the bottom of, more or less all pages, then it doesnt make sense to do this manually? Isnt it better to remove all those links on all pages, and control all those links from one place, so it looks the same on all pages? Dan Koehl (talk) 08:12, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: You are very active, but stop, please, using AWB to enter links or multiple links on pages of authorities that are leading to pages that are not or not yet existing. That makes no sense and is not improving the quality of WS. See {{commonscat}} [[en:Patricia Behrens]] [[en:Patricia Behrens]] on the page Patricia Behrens and many others, for instance. Such links should be inserted manually, if there are really pages existing. Kempf EK (talk) 12:17, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes@Kempf EK: I will, and I have also started to remove the links I did, going through the list. I totally agree that in the pages of authorities there is no sense in making links to commons and en.wikipedia, unless there is a page existing, and then, like you say, that link should be made manually. Dan Koehl (talk) 12:27, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Patrolling

Created files and edits by IP-addresses and users who have not yet been given autopatrolled user rights, need to be patrolled and checked that they follow Wikispecies rules and standards. (from: Wikispecies:Patrollers}

The changes in Acanthiza_lineata (translating the taxons an the reference) do IMO not follow Wikispecies standards, and should not be marked as 'patrolled'. What do you think? --Murma174 (talk) 10:05, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Agree, personally I only see a reason for other languages in the limited number of pages which are intended to to keep translated, and in the Vernacular names, thats all. Dan Koehl (talk) 10:09, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

 Done Cleaned up Acanthiza_lineata --Murma174 (talk) 14:59, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Online status on your user page

You can see on my user page if I am online or not, and now when I will leave for dinner, you will see in the latest changes, and on my contributions that I go offline. Just let me know if you want to have this function on your user page, and Ill fix it for you. All you have to do after that, is clicking on a link upp in the haed of the page, between the link to your user talk page, and the link for logout. Tell me on my user page if you want this. Dan Koehl (talk) 17:09, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I will take it, and by the way if anyone ever needs to live talk to me with problems my skype if the same as my user name here, happy to help. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 18:17, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

@Faendalimas:, I believe it should work now on your page now, I have put the indicator on your talk page. Dan Koehl (talk) 22:51, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

What qualifies as a stub and what doesn't

Dan Koehl was recently bulk-adding the Stub template to pages among then Rhyzobius aurantii and Queenslandina, which have all the necessary sections, including a satisfactory reference. I really don't think they qualify as stubs, since there isn't much more that can be added to these pages. If we qualify them as stubs than more than 70% of the WS pages will qualify as stubs as well. The stub template should only be added to minimal pages which carry no references. The nature of WS is to typically have short pages. I would like to here other opinions. Mariusm (talk) 13:36, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I very much agree with you, and it would be good if we establish a common criteria for a stub. When using programs like en:Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser the AWB stub definition seems to be an article with less than 500 words. It seems we can ask for a changd definition for this particualir wiki at AutoWikiBrowser feature requests, which may be a solution for the future, but such a change may take time. As a sideline, I want to inform that the marking of stubs with AWB follows an automatic cleaning function which is ticked or unticked. When unticked, the other benefits of that cleanup function is not activated, which is sad... Dan Koehl (talk) 13:54, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

500 words is an unreasonable requirement for WS. More likely the limit should be set to 120-150 characters (not words!). Mariusm (talk) 14:17, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Automatic stub marking by length always will produce some errors. For example, an included reference may be a template or may be given in full length. This will make a big difference. In my opinion, it is more important to improve articles already marked as stubs than to mark all possible stubs. As long as there exist several hundreds of marked stubs, it is probably no hiqh priority to mark the rest of the stubs. Anyway, for a first round, I propose to mark all taxon pages, i.e. articles including a taxonavigation template, that do not include any reference, i.e. articles without reference header. I suppose, this will result in a rather large pool of stubs which will give us some work for a long time. --Franz Xaver (talk) 14:59, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Agree and good idea, I will look into the possibilities to mark articles without references. (meanwhile, when relevant I will insert Category:unverified manually, so you will see that category grow now!!) Dan Koehl (talk) 15:08, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Apart from that category, should we insert a template on pages without references? Something that would stimulate someone to do it? You made a very nice one for stubs @Mariusm: maybe you would care to do one for non references, which automatically submits the Category:unverified? Then I can insert that template manually, instead of the category. Dan Koehl (talk) 16:02, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: One problem is that there are a substantial amount of articles that do have a reference header, but no actual references listed in it, i.e. the section is left blank. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 01:11, 28 March 2015 (UTC).

@Dan Koehl: - See the Template:Noref I made to be inserted in pages with no references. Mariusm (talk) 07:16, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Cleanup keep or delete?

What about following categories, keep or delete?

• [[Category:Type locality: Lord Howe Island]]
• [[Category:Herbivore of Solanum mauritianum]]
• [[Category:{{subst:BASEPAGENAME}} (British Isles)]]
• [[Category:{{subst:BASEPAGENAME}} (Japan)]]

Dan Koehl (talk) 20:41, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

To me like some of the others we have discussed they seem either not particularly useful or beyond the scope of WS. Fauna lists of regions for example are covered by WP and they do it well. We are here to present the nomenclature and taxonomy of taxa. We should mention type localities in text. But greater distributional data etc is more relevant to a full article such as those done by WP. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 21:17, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I fully agree, they're totally beyond the scope of Wikispecies. Wikipedia is one thing – at least some of them may certainly have their place there – but I would be glad to see categoofies like these deleted from Wikispecies. Good riddance. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 01:04, 28 March 2015 (UTC).

Spage

Another issue is the template {{Spage}}. It seems it should be replaced, and deleted? Dan Koehl (talk) 01:17, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

That particular template is not very useful and makes the code in species pages seem more complex to new users, and therefore I think it should be deleted. The template itself is supposed to be placed below "Genus" in the taxonavigation section, and does three things. It adds Species: ''[[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]'' last in the taxonavigation section, then adds ==Name== in order to create the name section and headline, and quits its work adding Species: ''{{BASEPAGENAME}}'' immediately below the name section headline. That's it. It does not add any author name after the species name in the name section, since that information can not be automatically generated or brought from a database.

The template is used on some 8,000+ species pages, and simply deleting the template will automatically remove the "Name" section and species names from all of those pages. Of course that's not desirable, hence the text string {{Spage}} must first be altered on those pages, should we decide to delete the template. I propose that the string is changed into the following text string, using AWB:

Species: ''[[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]''

==Name==
''{{BASEPAGENAME}}''

The apostrophes and both types of parenthesis are necessary in order to comply with our current taxonavigation- and name section formatting standard. Also, while not strictly necessary I personally prefer the blank line in the middle, since it makes it easier to distinguish between the taxonav- and name sections in the code. The template itself can be safely deleted after the changes have been made on all of the 8,000+ pages.

Any thoughts, ideas or suggestions regarding all this? –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 03:32, 28 March 2015 (UTC).

@Tommy Kronkvist: I think you are perfectly right. Mariusm (talk) 07:24, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata:Wikispecies

There is a Wikidata:Wikispecies portal, which also has a discussion page where discussions has been going on for some time. I asked some questions there, and suggest that more users from WS gets involved. Dan Koehl (talk) 13:28, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata:WikiProject Taxonomy

I would like to put your attention on WikiProject Taxonomy. (see also the discussion page where I wrote some lines, suggesting collaboration with Wikspecies members)

Scope

• All items in wikidata describing a taxon

Some brief info which is written on the project page:

The goal of this WikiProject is to compile the rules for the biological taxonomy in wikidata and implement them. An overview of the rules shall be compiled here, the discussion takes place on the [:d:[Wikidata talk:WikiProject Taxonomy|talk page]].

In general, each taxon has its own item here: The species {{:d:Q|606}} as well as its monotypic genus {{:d:Q|Q13231734}}. Moreover, each (important/notable) taxonomic viewpoint can be stored, also historic ones. See for example {{:d:Q|Q14560}}.

I believe everyone with an interest for those issues can be a participant on this project.

Personally, I believe that it would be good for the Wikispecies project if the INterwiki links from here to the different language sections on Wikipedia, could be integrated in Wikidata, instead of handled manually on each article page. Futurevise, maybe a synchronisation with Wikispecies and Wikipedias taxo boxes would make sense?

There may be other issues within WikiProject Taxonomy which may be interesting for you as member in Wikispecies.

Dan Koehl (talk) 11:20, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Dan, I don't want to think about how they are generating this, or how they expect to keep it up to date, but I am a bit surprised that they seem to be completely ignorant of the existence of WikiSpecies, evidenced by their links to WP, and Commons categories, but not at all to WS. What can we do, if anything, to point this out and to try to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort? Alan Accassidy (talk) 11:38, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

@Accassidy:, I believe in the Good faith on Wikimedia projects, and that they will welcome Wikispecies users over there, and that our feedback is welcome. Dan Koehl (talk) 11:41, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Interesting thing to me is I have been involved for years writing taxonomic pages on Wikipedia and dont know who these people are either, they seem rather independant. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 11:58, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Re your comment on the taxoboxes, I have long thought it would be a good idea for the auto taxobox used on Wikipedia pulled its data from wikispecies where that is possible. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 14:10, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Duplicate pages in subgenera

We have quite a few duplicate articles regarding species and subgenera, such as Polyommatus golgus and Polyommatus (Plebicula) golgus. All good ideas about how to fix this is very welcome! –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 16:36, 28 March 2015 (UTC).

One is presently accepted form, one is not. Keep accepted page, re-direct or otherwise dump other one. Neferkheperre (talk) 20:18, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

The agreement is not subgenera text in the species name. Ask Accassidy for advice. PeterR (talk) 11:58, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Malamel

I need clarification from our arachnologists. I have been templating and inserting Zootaxa articles since Stho left. I have been taking time to make sure all taxon authors are presented accurately without duplications. Today is my first serious problem. Last Feb. 2, I ran one article where second author was presented as Malamel J. Jobi. OK, no problem. For Thursday's issue, I got another article with second author as Jobi J. Malamel. Evidently same person from same institution. I checked back carefully, and can find no indication which one is right. Can anybody help out, so I can get this straight? Neferkheperre (talk) 20:18, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Avoiding Orphaned Taxa

@Mariusm and Franz Xaver:, would you accept if I move this discussion to Wikispecies_talk:Project_CleanupWikispecies_talk:Project_Cleanup with the ambition that we can take a decision soon in this issue, and establish consensus for a policy approach, and update Wikispecies talk:Project Cleanup with a concept in how to deal with orphanes? Dan Koehl (talk) 10:27, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: yes, by all means, go ahead. Mariusm (talk) 10:36, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

This discussion has now been moved to Project_Cleanup: Avoiding Orphaned Taxa.

Please join the discussion there, and help us to come to a decision in the issue of the apr 4 000 orphaned pages. Dan Koehl (talk) 10:58, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

To many issues here on Village pump

I have the feeling that we have been pretty creative lately, and a lot of good ideas, suggestions, and/or frustration about that something should be fixed, ends up on the village pump, and gets answers and feedback.

Or not. Maybe no one answers. Or, answers gets forgotten. And someone who has a lot of input to give reg an issue, has a weeks leave from WS, and will maybe never read the discussion.

Later, all those issues gets hidden in earlier histories in a village pump that starts to grow so much, so we miss overview.

We may also start to think that its too much to read on Vllage pump, and stops opening the file.

Id like to suggest that we start to do something about this, and issues like Policy rules, format of pages, stubs etc, that would have to be voted about and decided, should be moved out to project pages or likevise, and only when such page gets updated, this would be noted on Village pump with a link to te subpage.

I know that many users wants everything be covered on village pump, and I agree that its easier to look on only one place. But if changes were made on project pages/subpages to Village pump, this could be indicated on village pump, OR "today we have a discussion about blah, and hope to get to a decision before blah time, follw this link to take part of this discussion.

I have read many examples when a user made very good suggestions for promotion of Wikispecies some week ago. Were are they now, who reads them, what will happen, what will be executed, what will be decided, its just gets hidden in thousands of ones and zeros.

I also read that different issue gets discussed, theres a consensus, but later we can't find it, it just within masses of text.

I can also see that a lot of discussions on users talk pages nevet reach the community, and maybe they should be moved to project pages or Villga pump subpages, where they ge stored in a better way, and where we can go back and read about the reasons for the change or the decision.

The Village pump simply can't handle all this anymore. Too many issues, too many discussions.

There may be other, better ideas reg this. I suggest that we create a method to take control, and see to that good ideas, important issues, etc don't just gets forgotten because they are so far back in the history of Village pump, so they will belong to waisted time and energy.

I hope that such pages could get a function, where users can sumbit their interest, so they automatically get a ping whenever someone write something, so we don't have to write 6 pings for every time we write something.

And I also suggest that we should get a cleaner Village pump.

So if we can decide this, I suggest that we start with a Project page, where we decide which Projects/Categories needs to be covered, on how many ppaces and where, so it gets easier to follow this, and the Village pump gets cleaner, and just gets links to different sub discussions and when a certaon discussion Village pump gets to large and comlicayed, it gets its subpage or project page.

Ideas, suggestions, opinions about this? Dan Koehl (talk) 14:28, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: you made very good points there. We are plagued by indecision and our discussions usually don't culminate conclusively. I would like to see a separate page dedicated to problems/solutions with the following steps: (a)List issues to be solved/dealt with - (b)Devise solutions to solve these issues - (c)Vote on these solutions. Any opened issue on this page will have to be closed with an agreed-upon decision and not just left there and forgotten. Mariusm (talk) 14:55, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl:@Mariusm:You will need to take a leaf out of WP book here I guess, with so many editors they could not have kept it on the pump either. So I would recommend that key and often repetitive issues be given their own pages, if someone posts on that topic on the pump, we admins etc politely move it to the appropriate page with a ping to the user letting them know, several of the special pages could have their discussions elsewhere, eg orphans. Promotion ideas too could be their own page. These can be linked in the "Home" page for those wanting to see them, and again we will have to occasionally move comments to the appropriate page. Its called housekeeping. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 15:02, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

It would seem sensible to raise major issues here, but for less important things just to flag them here and have more general discussions on pages subordinate to the Pump. Not sure how to do this, but happy to follow others. Accassidy (talk) 15:13, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

One useful point for the user talk pages, there are templates on WP that you can add into users talk pages to let them know something relevant has been discussed elsewhere, its a little more informative than the ping we use here currently. ENWP has 4 million pages and thousands of users, so many of these issues have come up there and we may as well look at how they dealt with it and adapt that to our needs. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 15:29, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

@Accassidy, Mariusm, Faendalimas, and Tommy Kronkvist:Below I also suggest establishing working groups for different issues. And that each working group has one or more users that are responsible for information/communication, which would give a guarantee that the community gets reports on the Village pump.

I know that all this sounds complicated for some, but I believe it's the only way to increase that our Report of issues >> discussions about that issue >> decisions >> results, get more effective. I actually believe that when we have a more effective system, we will be able to handle much much more, and it will not be so tiring, we will use our time better. Taxonomy interested persons should per definition, see an advantage in this, since Systema Nature was in fact this, to bring order in the chaos.

@Mariusm and Dan Koehl: Sorry I just read your post above Mariusm, we had an edit clash at the time. I agree definitively that closure of discussions must be indicated. An example from a recent issue Dan Koehl linked a discussion with by stho001 and his complaints that was closed by a template. I am not picking on Stephen here the discussion is irrelevant to this point, but it was made clear it was closed as an administrative action by the application of a template. At this point action on any decision is free to be made according to whatever discussion it was and its resultant actions if needed. We need it to be obvious and clear to all. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 17:03, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

@Accassidy, Mariusm, Faendalimas, and Tommy Kronkvist: What do you say, can we start with one page, like project: Organize work on Wikispecies or something, that forks out for the different branches, and start with reorgazing there, and aonly report back here when something has been decided and/or executed? Dan Koehl (talk) 15:35, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

All this sounds great to me, and starting a "Project:Wikispecies work flow" (or whatever) seems almost necessary in order to give the Village Pump room enough to breathe again. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 00:37, 30 March 2015 (UTC).

Working groups

@Accassidy, Mariusm, Faendalimas, and Tommy Kronkvist:According to discussions above on different projects, I suggest that we establish working groups, where users interested in particular issues, submit themselves. If possible, those users would get a ping automatically, when something happens with that project.Dan Koehl (talk) 15:34, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: sounds fine to me, you got ideas who takes what? or are we volunteering. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 16:33, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Personally @Faendalimas:, I suggest we just go ahead, in case no one objects. If anyone gets inspired to start, then shoot. The only condition I see is that we should not explode into hundreds of ideas in one hour, but rather step-by-step, so its possible for other users to give input. I suggest the first thing is to start the first project, a mother page for projects, which describes the goals, participants, interested users (maybe not the same as participant, but for someone who is interested to follow the development of the project?), someone who takes information/communication responsibility so there will be a report function back to Village pump, and this first page may describe what other projects that could be needed to start. But personally I suggest that the project page gives a description, but not the discussion, the discussions should be on the project page discussion page. If the discussions leads to a decision that the project page should be changed, then it gets changed, but the project page itself should not a place of discussions, it should be clean, clear and easy to understand in seconds or minutes, and without masses of text and discussion to go through. If you feel inspiration, then Id say go for it! Dan Koehl (talk) 16:52, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Well as a suggestion @Accassidy, Mariusm, Tommy Kronkvist, and Dan Koehl:, I think we could use project pages for the admin issue mentioned earlier, ie developing the reasons for removal of sysop (that one needs to be run by a Bureaucrat though), a cleanup page would be handy where issues regarding orphans, patrolling etc could be discussed might want to include in there the option to just ask whois .... there has been a lot of taxonomists in the last 250 years, and to deal with orphans its not a simple matter of linking it to its genus, it may be an invalid name. Need one I would say that could cover stubs and unverified pages. Also one for promoting Wikispecies and integrating with WP and Wikidata. So thats four projects that would remove alot from the pump, giving us some structure. (and I so forgot to sign this..... lol) Faendalimas ^talk 17:26, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

@Faendalimas: it would be fantastic if we could have this started. Id add collaboration outside WS also, like the project on Wikidata I found yesterday, a project page that describes the structure, and how to collaborate with wikidata, and who is interested in this. As long as we get a better structure on all this, easier to follow and get fast overview in, and more done with more fun, I'm sure no one in the community will have objections. There is a word tale "after all is said and done, more is said than done". I hope we can change this, because it gets very tiring to discuss and discuss, without all the time and energy leading to anything. Id like to introduce the concept Wikispecies version 2.0, where we can share the goal of upgrading quality, structure, usefulness for us users, usefulness for the visitors that are not users, and an increasing confidence for our project from de.wikipedia and other sites. We just need to start, and I think soon more Wikispecies users will increase in interest and take part of this goal.

We all work within our personal corners. Can we find a better structure for the cooperation between users?

And in order to upgrade the project, it has to be more effective, but at the same time easier and more fun. Is this possible, or its needless, or am I dreaming or just seeing a need which is not obvious for others? Dan Koehl (talk) 17:40, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Well as Dan already noticed I have made a start on one: Wikispecies:Project Cleanup please add more info let me know what you think. If it seems good we can move some discussions from here to the talk page of that project. But first let me know what you all think. It is an Orphan at the moment so easy to delete. But we could eventually link it in the side maybe if its acceptable. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 19:03, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

New front page ++

Hi. Dan Koehl asked if I would make a Norwegian translation of the front page, witch I have made an attempt to do. But I have problems with to get it linked in the other front pages. Can someone please give me a hint, how to do it. Or fix those links. I have also tried Wikidata without success.

I am also trying to make the Wikispecies page on Brassica oleracea convar. capitata. And I think I know there are three subgroups under that one B. o. convar. c var. alba (white cabbage), B. o. convar. c var. rubra (red cabbage) and B. o. convar. c var. saabuda (savoy cabbage). But how do I make convar. and maybe subvar. in the finished templates? Or do I need to make everything from scratch? --Amdb73 (talk) 19:46, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't help with the Norwegian front page. But on the cabbages - these are all cultivar groups, not natural botanical taxa, and therefore out of scope for Wikispecies. Hope that helps! - MPF (talk) 23:33, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

@Amdb73: The Norwegian frontpage has to be integrated in the Template:Languages. Please ask an admin on the disc Template_talk:Languages to do this for you. --Murma174 (talk) 12:39, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you both for help! Amdb73 (talk) 12:16, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

And thank you @Amdb73: for translating the main page into Norwegian! Its now included in the language links. Dan Koehl (talk) 13:13, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Incertae sedis

Hi all, it seems that there is kind of renew in the air :) Time to decide some editing guidelines imho...

When dealing with taxa that are incertae sedis (i.e. which classification is poorly known) I encountered no pre-established consensus, but a small conversation, and basically two kinds of approaches to deal with them:

1. Making a specific page and template (e.g. Incertae Sedis (Crambinae)) used as a normal taxon.
2. Including the uncertainty in the parent taxon (e.g. Asellota)

The second solution seems better to me, because whenever a taxon is eventually classified, it is possible to update it just by editing one page; the first solution would imply a Template for exevery taxon potentially, and to delete that page when the taxa are classified precisely. But this is my opinion, and it would be nice to have a consensus and a precise guideline on that one. --Ruthven (talk) 09:47, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

We have discussed it many times. The solution is: === Overview of xxx not assigned to a xxx ===. See for example: Xestia. PeterR (talk) 10:22, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Fine, thanks a lot PeterR. I wasn't able to find a discussion about that... --Ruthven (talk) 10:58, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

What is considered as a satisfactory reference?

We have a huge amount of references which are done in a concise manner, with only the publication's abbreviation and page displayed like this one:

Jordan 1894: Novit. Zool., 1, 626.

There are a lot of such references, especially in botanical taxa. I really don't think these references are good enough. Compare the above ref it with the full ref:

Jordan, K., 1894: On Anthribidae in the museum of the Honourable Walter Rothschild. Novitates Zoologicae, 1: 591–651. BHL [see p. 626]

One can immediately see that the concise ref is very lacking in information and clarity. Many pages are now being created with this type of ref, but shouldn't we strive to up the standard a little? I'm now investing my energy in trying to re-write the inadequate references for Aves (birds). Mariusm (talk) 06:10, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree, references should be written out, name of author, date, title, journal, edition and pages. If I see a ref I want to be able to look it up. I have seen many that are just journal, ed and page. Not even authors name. We are writing references not inline notes. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 06:50, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Also agree full details including; doi link, if possible and online access to full text where available. Andyboorman (talk) 07:21, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

for me this references is good see Euselasia pance. I thought we have had this discussion already. Now we make templates after agreements. The only discussion left is the template name. PeterR (talk) 07:07, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Another random example from Nigrita bicolor :

Systematisches Verzeichniss der naturhistorichen Sammlung der Gesellschaft Museum 1 p.76

Just like that. Without author, without year.

Another typical example from Posidonia australis :

Fl. Tasman. 2: 43 1858.    Mariusm (talk) 09:52, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I am sure you agree the references here Erythranthe and here Pedaliaceae are better? However, do contributors think that adding the access date is excessive? I do not think so for sources that may change fairly rapidly. Andyboorman (talk) 10:22, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

This is not after templates. Maybe you can make reference templates for Botany like this Template:Callaghan, 1999? PeterR (talk) 11:11, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: @Faendalimas: @Andyboorman: @PeterR: I agree, the abbreviated form is not a full reference. However, in botany according to ICN Art. 46 the year of publication is not part of the author citation. Instead of this, it is common usage to add an abbreviated reference citation, which includes journal (or book title), volume, page number, year of publication, as an extension to the author citation - see e.g. IPNI, Flora Malesiana, Flora Zambesiaca, Flora de Nicaragua. You may see, e.g. Adenanthe bicarpellata, where both an abbreviated citation is given in the names section and the full references in the references section. That's how finally all botanical pages should look like, in my opinion. (Type information still missing here.) Of course, there are also pages as Rhabdophyllum affine, where in a first round only part of the references is given in full length and some others are only represented by the abbreviated form. Anyway, the abbreviated form is better than nothing and I will add the full references step by step. This has to do will the usual progress of work. When I first start evalutating some regional flora, regional checklist etc., usually only the abbreviated reference is available without further searching. Later I try to spot the full reference and add it, when I have found it. You may check the version history of Adenanthe bicarpellata. However, sometimes it is difficult to find the respective paper, especially when a journal is not accessible easily. In this case it may be better, instead of guessing, to leave the abbreviated reference as you got it from IPNI etc. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 11:17, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

When I started here, I refrained from using reference templates, but now I am converting these references to templates step by step. First, the simple reason was, that using templates was new to me, and later I thought, I would be easier to avoid an edit war on formatting (with one special user), when I don't use templates. So far, this has worked, but now, since this special user hase gone, the latter reason has lapsed. --Franz Xaver (talk) 11:25, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

---

@Andyboorman: yes they are better but not perfect. compare your ref at Pedaliaceae:

Brown, R. (1810) Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae 519. BHL

with a better version that I can supply:

Brown, R. (1810). Prodromus florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van-Diemen, exhibens characteres plantarum. vol I, Londini. pp. i-vii + 1-590. DOI: 10.5962/bhl.title.3678 BHL [see p. 519]

@Franz Xaver:, I'm sure you'll agree there must be a difference between the abbreviated citation given as a continuum of the taxon name in the name section, which is perfecly OK, and the reference given in the reference section, yet many users just copy and paste the abbreviated citation from the name section into the ref section. Mariusm (talk) 11:34, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: Yes, of course, the abbreviated form is just for use within the names section. In a case as Posidonia australis it simply can be moved into the names section. Adding the full reference will need some searching. --Franz Xaver (talk) 11:41, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

OK, in Posidonia australis, I have moved this now and given a link to the respective page at BHL. However, adding the full reference seems to be a bit tricky. (1) Flora Tasmaniae is hidden in The botany of the Antarctic voyage ... and (2) year of publication is problematic, as it seems that this volume was published in several issues, each at a different date. --Franz Xaver (talk) 11:59, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: Well, this kind of research makes our work here a little bit more challenging & interesting than just copying data from IPNI ... Mariusm (talk) 12:34, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: Yes, more interesting, but time consuming. Finally, I have found a table of publication dates for Flora Tasmaniae. Good old Stafleu is really helpful! So, the Australian Plant Names Index (APNI) in IPNI seems to be wrong with 1859. According to Stafleu the correct date for this page is 3 May 1858. --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:49, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I am guessing this again also falls into the category of differences between animals and plants. At least in some of these. Zoology the authors are technically part of the name, when written in full, I believe this is not the case with plants. After the name, eg Elseya Gray 1867, I would then ensure that reference is cited in full in a reference section. I think where the name goes we should do whatever is customary but I am in favor of the reference being written out in a reference section. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 18:59, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

On a species page (in animalia at least) we really have 3 major sections below the taxonav. The Name section has the name, author and date - and the type information (locality and repository) where known. Then we have a section on Synonyms or Synonymy (I prefer the latter) which includes a list of "equivalent" names, authors and dates. Lastly we have a Reference section, just as in most scientific papers, where references are cited in full to enable precise location in the literature, library or wherever. If we are aware of links to e-docs, then we include those here as well. This is reasonably well illustrated at Aphnaeus orcas in Lepidoptera. However, if it is traditional in plantae to do it differently, then plant pages may well follow a different convention. However, the use of a Reference section and of Reference Templates becomes more obvious when you consider what will happen in the future. For example, every year more older papers come out of US copyright and will become available through public domain outlets such as BHL. When this happens, for a major work with lots of taxonomic acts, the link to the online version need be made only once, on the reference template, and it will then be reflected on every page that links to that ref template. If a template has not been made and linked, and instead appears in full text form on many pages, the updating process to a new web link will be preponderous. Thus reference templates are valuable now as an investment in saving future time. This is a lengthy note, but sometimes logic demands a more full exposition. Accassidy (talk) 20:54, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Unverified according to Stho002

A number of pages are marked with the template Template:Unverified, see see them here.

Shall this unverifed marking be left, or analyzed for if its personal opinions or officially unverified taxon? Dan Koehl (talk) 21:17, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I suppose, he had good reason to be suspicious there might be some problem. E.g. in Meles one of the references postulates an additional species from SW-Asia, which however is missing in the species list. Unfortunately, he did not leave a comment at the talk page. Probably, Thorpe did not expect that anyone might be able to give a reasonable contribution to a discussion. Anyway, probably it was not the taxon whicht Thorpe thought to be unverified, but some fact presented at the page. In my opinion, these pages should be checked carefully. --Franz Xaver (talk) 22:04, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I am running across these while recording Zootaxa. I do not see anything wrong, as these taxa are being cited recently, like in past week in some cases. If there is no evident problem with these pages, I see no reason not to remove unverified tag. Stho provided no reasoning for his decisions. Neferkheperre (talk) 22:15, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree, if there is nothing obvious and there is no reasoning provided remove the tag otherwise we may never know and can only make assumptions. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 23:21, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

As there is no "Verifying Authority" in taxonomy as a whole, I cannot see that one person's idea of verified or unverified has any meaning at all. Any name published in a peer-reviewed journal is acceptable unless or until it is shown to be otherwise in another such journal. So I agree that this Template should be removed. Accassidy (talk) 08:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Alan. PeterR (talk) 09:54, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Accassidy: Unfortunatly, Thorpe has not explained his reasons. However, I suppose he did not question the validity of the taxa itself, but he thought that some facts should be rechecked. Meles certainly is not a questionable taxon, but one of the references (Abramov & Puzachenko, 2013) proposes an additional species, Meles canescens, which is missing from the species list. I expect that in any of these cases, there is some point that should be checked. But I agree, if this is not obvious, the tag can be removed. --Franz Xaver (talk) 10:04, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: As far as I understand the subject, an author either describes a new species or does not. So if the "proposal" of Meles canescens is actually a competent description in accordance with the Code then we should create a page for it. If the "proposal" does not take the form of a valid description then it will be a nomen nudum, have no validity, and not need a page. The requirements that make up a "valid" description of a new taxon are readily available on the ICZN website, and I imagine that the same rules apply for Botanical descriptions. Happy days!! Accassidy (talk) 16:02, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Accassidy: Yes, that's the straightforward solution for this special case, in zoology as well as in botany. Someone with access to Zootaxa can do it. Thorpe certainly had access to the journal, but for whatever reason he did not do the necessary steps. Best wishes --Franz Xaver (talk) 16:16, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver:@Accassidy: I've removed the tag from Meles. As to M. canescens, I've not added it - I think we should wait until it has been accepted by one or more of the acknowledged peer-review groups like MSW. - MPF (talk) 23:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

The Distribution Issue Revisited

As you remember we had in the past a heated argument about distribution categories. All agreed at the end of the day that categories are an unpractical way to deal with distribution since it would need many dozens to accommodate a species which is dispersed across the globe.

On the other hand we occasionally hear from many of our critics that there isn't enough "meat" or substance in our pages, and that the information we provide is too meager and too unworthy to link to.

My feeling is the distribution information is very important and might be a valuable addition to the value we provide and in consequence in augmenting our popularity.

I propose adding an optional field to the name section, which will follow the type information, and which will verbally specify the localities where the species is endemic. @Neferkheperre: already started in making the distribution info addition - see Minyaspis amylaneae for example - and I think it looks very nice. I again stress that this field would not be mandatory, but nevertheless would be helpful and informative. Mariusm (talk) 06:02, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree that distribution information should be added, but probably not as a first priority. Anyway, at least as it concerns plants, most external websites with a similar focus as WS include distribution information in one or the other way, e.g. WCSP (even more visible than the synonyms), Tropicos, ILDIS, African Plant Database. So, if we don't give this information, WS will have lower attractiveness compared to those sites.

However, I don't think, that distribution information should be part of the names section (or an additional line at the bottom of the type information). Actually it is a different topic, that should not be mixed with nomenclature. Until now, some users (also me) have experimented with Template:Nadi, see e.g. Ochna afzelii or Orchis mascula (at the bottom of the pages). This template uses the geographical scheme TDWG, which is also used by WCSP. Template:Nadi is a collapsible box, as Thorpe would not have tolerated something larger, but this can be changed easily.

I am thinking about some solution that goes beyond the present Template:Nadi. We may create templates for every of the regions/countries of the TDWG schema, in order to use these templates for internationalisation in a similar way as it is done in Commons. So, depending on the language preference settings of a visitor, the Template:ETH would be visible as Ethiopia (English), Éthiopie (French), Äthiopien (German), Etiopien (Swedish), Эфиопия (Russian) etc. (Of course, we finally should also have the variants in Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Hindi, and more). (We may do this kind of internationalisation also for other parts of our content, e.g. by internationalisation templates for our typical headers.) --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:39, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, of course, the TDWG scheme was developped for plant distribution. Probably it is less convenient for marine animals. Also for migrating birds etc., some more specifications will be needed. However, TDWG probably will also work for most of the animals. --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:48, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: I HATE those collapsible boxes and I would like to throw them all to the trash bin. They seem very annoying to me. As to predescribed zoning or pre-defined geographical ranges, many animal species are restricted to a very limited area so they won't fit in this scheme. As to opening a separate distribution section - it may be a good idea. Mariusm (talk) 12:32, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: As I said, it is easy to change this template, so that it would not be a collapsible box any more. The pre-defined geographical ranges have the advantages, which standardisation generally has. It's about comparability and, of course, everyone straightforward knows, how to procede. Moreover, this internationalisation as proposed can only be done with pre-defined geographical regions/countries. Of course information is lost by this standardisation: Endemic species of Alpes Maritimes or the Bretagne both would show up as species restricted to France. However, from a global perspective, a localisation finer than the TDWG countries probably is not necessary. If really required, it can be added in brackets, as I did e.g. in Ochna membranacea for the Gulf of Guinea Islands. Or we may add some space for a range description in free text to Template:Nadi? --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:02, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: I am also in favour of adding additional information on distribution or ecology, but not on the taxon page. In my opinion categories are the best and most powerful possibility to do that which might be quite different for plants or the different animal groups. For the Ostracoda I created several such categories. See, for instance, Category:Afrotropic Ostracoda, Category:Australasian Ostracoda, Category:Neotropic Ostracoda, or Category:Atlantic Ocean Ostracoda, Category:Deep Sea Ostracoda. But, as Ostracoda have been existing on earth already since about 500 million years, there are also categories like Category:Neogene Ostracoda, Category:Tertiary Ostracoda, and so on. The most problematic category will always be "endemic". I am preferring to separate according to the first locality from where a taxon has been documented. Such categories may be very helpful for new students of a group of organisms and generally may attract new users of WS. Kempf EK (talk) 13:40, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Kempf EK: your categories are fine for Ostracoda, but how shell we accommodate Periplaneta americana (the American cockroach) which is dispersed over 190 countries. shall we fill its page with 200 categories? Mariusm (talk) 14:59, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: No, not at all. In such a case, also known for some freshwater Ostracoda, there could be a Category:World-wide distributed .... We should, perhaps, not make categories for single countries, as has been done for New Zealand. Kempf EK (talk) 16:12, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Kempf EK:, check out Category:Cosmopolitan Taxa. I created it to handle taxa whose natural distribution (not invasive) is effectively worldwide. I have made complex of categories for Cirripedia based on your Ostracod system. I would like to expand upon that later, but now I would like to see our Spring Cleanup Project worked out first. Neferkheperre (talk) 17:03, 2 April 2015 (UTC) (Correction was necessary) Neferkheperre (talk) 00:19, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

I'll mention again the suggestion I've made before: maps, where they exist on Commons. See the example page I did before, Acer platanoides; I think hugely better than any attempt at a verbal description of the distribution. The only difficulty of course is that a lot of taxa don't have maps on Commons yet. - MPF (talk) 23:39, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Wow, this is news to me, didn't see those maps before, it really looks good. Dan Koehl (talk) 23:59, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: There's plenty of them; work your way through Commons:Category:Distributional maps of organisms - MPF (talk) 00:31, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree that maps are the best way to handle distribution, but to construct them is too difficult and time-consuming to be done on a regular basis. Mariusm (talk) 13:48, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Described taxa

@Mariusm: Why is it so difficult to except descriptions from others?. Mariusm have designed Described taxa for the author names see Andrew D. Warren. Why have the name changed in authored taxa see Claudia Hernández-Mejía? PeterR (talk) 10:38, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

The author of a nomen novum usually does not describe the taxon. --Franz Xaver (talk) 10:47, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR: you are right. There are two versions for the title: "Descibed taxa" and "Authored taxa", and there is a difficulty in reaching a decision which one to use. the user @Kempf EK: asked @Neferkheperre: to change the title to "Authored taxa", but essentially these two names have the same meaning. You can ask @Kempf EK: if he agrees to use the title "Described taxa" and to abandon the title "Authored taxa". Mariusm (talk) 12:16, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm:. I have ask Kempf already. The different is that @Neferkheperre: don't make Category:author taxa. So with authored taxa the formula don't work. PeterR (talk) 12:49, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR:@Mariusm: The meaning of "Authored taxa" and "Described taxa" is not the same. In a publication a certain number of taxa may be described, but only one or two may be authored, i.e. described as new taxa. The other ones are descriptions which extend the knowledge about a taxon according to the new locality, or better preservation, or something else. Moreover, we have already on hundreds of authority pages the section "Authored taxa". That is the right place to assemble all new taxa published by the authority in question. Kempf EK (talk) 13:03, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree, "authored taxa" and "described taxa" is not the same. As I said before, a "nomen novum" is a name of a taxon, which usually is not described by its author, as it only replaces a previous (illegitimate) name. --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:12, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I would agree that "authored taxa" would probably be best term to use. Neferkheperre (talk) 14:15, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but when a person "discovers" a new taxon, he or she first of all gives it a new name and than describes the taxon in the vary same publication - I don't see how can we argue on this fact. Having said that, another person may later redescribe the same taxon in another publication. Reflecting on this, I also agree that "Authored taxa" is better. @PeterR: would you please agree to change the title to "Authored taxa"? Mariusm (talk) 14:47, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

In part this is mixing up taxonomy and nomenclature, two very separate fields. You have the author of a name and the describer of the taxa, When dealing with the names of taxa we are dealing with the former not the later, ie the nomenclaure, when determining which taxa those names apply to we are dealing with taxonomy. The taxonomy can change, hence we end up with synonymies, but the author of a name never changes, just whether or not that name is currently being used. Since what we are trying to do is determined who made the names we are after the author of a name, we can call that taxa if you wish, hence authored taxa is fine with me, but I know this is one of the hardest concepts to get across I watch many students struggle with it. You need to always when working with names keep in your mind that nomenclature and taxonomy are not the same thing, they are entwined and rely upon each other. But different all the same. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 15:11, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Faendalimas: Franz talked about Nomen novum which in zoology is a replacement name which is created to replace another scientific name. Can you please give me an example where one person gave a new name to a newly discovered species, and than another person described it for the first time? Mariusm (talk) 15:30, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Hmm well these days naming a species without describing it, even badly, would be or at least should be difficult, the ICZN requires that characters are given that "purport" to differentiate the taxon. However one example could be the rather long history of the naming of the Mata mata Chelus fimbriata the initial naming (Testudo terrestris Fermin 1765:51) considered a rejected name by the ICZN in 1969, was basically copied from a 1735 drawing, with no information, its current name (Testudo fimbriata Schneider 1783:349) is actually a copy of that volume with a different name, whereas the first description that actually said anything about the species is Testudo matamata Bruguière 1792:257, note that holotypes were not set because none of these authors actually had access to the species, the first person to have one to actually describe was Cuvier in 1824 but the first time a specimen was actually in a museum that might be able to be located was Chelys boulengerii Baur 1890:968 the holotype is one of 3 specimens found in the basement of the NHM, I have to go there and examine them to figure out which. It also depends on what you are willing to call a description, Flaviemys purvisi´s original description is "has a yellow stripe" that is from Wells and Wellington 1985, when they named it. Since that time I presented considerable more information about this species over several papers. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 16:01, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: @Faendalimas: If it is about a "nomen novum", it will happen the other way round. Someone is describing a new species and uses a name, that cannot be used, e.g. a homonym or a name, that would be homonymous when transferred to the correct genus. Someone different creates a replacement name and does not necessarily describe the species again. Anyway, the correct name of the species then is authored by someone, who did not describe the species. As an example, Ochna sambiranensis is authored by Callmander & Phillipson (2012), based on a description by Van Tieghem (1902). (Actually Callmander & Phillipson have added some characters to the description of Van Tieghem, but this is not required to create a "nomen novum".) The epithet "macrantha" cannot be used, when the species is transferred to Ochna, as the name Ochna macrantha already exists. Another example is Ouratea pilgeri, where Van Tieghem renamed a species described by Pilger, in this case it is really renaming without redescription. --Franz Xaver (talk) 16:28, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I have start to change described taxa in authored taxa. PeterR (talk) 07:24, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

@Faendalimas: Being hard pressed to produce an example only testifies to the fact that a newly discovered species entails naming + describing done by the same person at the same time on the same publication.

@Franz Xaver: what you refer to is essentially renaming of an already authored & described species, so this wouldn't be a new discovered species but would be giving it a new name (e.g. by transferring a certain species to a different genus). So it would not be really "authored" but "named". Authored must include only newly discovered species and by all means not nomen novum. Mariusm (talk) 13:38, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: Probably, there is a misunderstandig. As I understand it, also papers, where species are only "renamed" (nomen novum, transfer to other genera), have "authors". Maybe one more difference between zoology and botany? Please compare ICN Art. 46.2: "A new combination, name at new rank, or replacement name is attributed to the author(s) ..." The botanical author citation, contrary to zoology, includes also these combining authors. In earlier times, it even went that far, that basionym authors were omitted. I am not sure. Would you propose, that a species should be listed at an author page only, when this author has produced the original description? So, Alnus glutinosa (L.) Gaertn. should be listed only in the author page of Linné, but not at the author page of Gaertner? Where would you list Ochna sambiranensis? --Franz Xaver (talk) 14:59, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: I think we confuse some issues here:

• We must differentiate between two cases: that of nomen novum and that of combinatio nova.
• The case of Alnus glutinosa (L.) Gaertn. is a typical case of combinatio nova.
• The case of Ochna sambiranensis Callm. & Phillipson is a typical nomen novum. It was initially described as Polythecium macranthum Tiegh.
• Essentially the only difference between these two cases is that in the later not only the first portion of the binomial name - the genus name was changed but also the second portion - the species name.
• My logic tells me that both nomen novum and combinatio nova should be listed on the page of the original author i.e. Linne for Alnus glutinosa and Tiegh. for Ochna sambiranensis (I always look at the original description as the decisive element). Mariusm (talk) 08:22, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

I would not call this a logic, but it is a concept, that results in some logical consequences. Your concept makes a distinction between the author of a name and the person, who originally discribed a taxon. OK, this is one legitimate approach. If you stick to this concept, as a consequence, you should better use the wording "described taxa" instead of "authored taxa". The wording "authored taxa" would be preferable, if the focus is on the authors of names, irrespective of them having described the taxon or not. Both concepts are OK for me, but we should find a decision. What do other users think? --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:14, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

I forgot one point. In the concept presented by @Mariusm: it seems to be a logical consequence to list only the original names at the respective author pages, but not the names as used today. E.g. at the author page of Linné there would be listed Betula alnus var. glutinosa and at the author page of Van Tiegham Polythecium macranthum, both redirecting to the recent names. We cannot claim, that Linné had described "Alnus glutinosa", as he never would have known this name. In author taxa categories, the respective redirect pages from the original names to the recently used names would be categorised. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:32, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: your saying "We cannot claim, that Linné had described Alnus glutinosa" is very controversial. I think the phrase "Linné didn't place Alnus glutinosa in the right genus" would be a more correct statement. You also say "you should better use the wording 'described taxa'" but what about re-described species, where a species is described anew by a subsequent person in a subsequent publication. This would be indeed a description, but not a description of a "newly discovered species". Mariusm (talk) 12:56, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: I put "Alnus glutinosa" into quotation marks. That makes a slight difference. When reading the name Alnus glutinosa, Linné himself probably would wonder "What are they talking about? What is this?" (Of, course, he cannot, as far as we know.) --Franz Xaver (talk) 16:50, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

The protologue of Betula alnus α (= var.) glutinosa certainly is not the most comprehensive description of this taxon. Anyway, it fulfills the conditions of the Code, maybe marginally, but it does. The place, where Gaertner transferred the taxon to Alnus, is much more informative - see [2]. Nevertheless, in terms of the nomenclatural code, this is only a new combination. In my opinion, it is easier to argue about authorship of names, than about the person, who first time "described" a new taxon. --Franz Xaver (talk) 17:13, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: you may agree that a "discovery" of a new species is more "important" and more "significant" than the renaming of this species - no matter haw sparsely the original discoverer had described the species and how meticulously had the re-namer re-described it and elaborated on the original. We must not "mix" between "discoverers" and "re-assigners" because these are two distinct levels of scientific endeavor. The credit should always go to the "discoverer" and not to the "elaborator". To make a parable, Richard Dawkins significantly contributed to the theory of evolution but most of the credit goes to Charles Darwin who "discovered" the theory. Mariusm (talk) 06:03, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: Who discovered the species, which we know under the name Alnus glutinosa? It certainly was not Linné, who discovered it. He only initiated a new system of naming. When in the protologue of Betula alnus var. glutinosa Linné is citing older works of Bauhin, Camerarius, and Loesel, it is quite clear, that Linné did not more than to apply his new system of naming to a wellknown taxon. Also here, we are back again at the naming issue. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 15:19, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: Linné is an exception in that he initiated the binomial system, so he had to confront the task of naming all the organisms which were already known to humanity. You really can't "discover" a fig tree when people are eating and growing figs for thousands of years before. I didn't use "discover" in this sense at all. I used it in the sense of being the first who "names and describes an organism for the first time". Following that, naming alone - be it nomen novum or combinatio nova doesn't qualify for this requirement and subsequently doesn't qualify to be included in the "Authored taxa". Mariusm (talk) 05:48, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: When you have to define exceptions in order to make a concept workable, it can be questioned, if the concept is optimal. Maybe, Linné will not stay the only exception. In different groups of organisms, different starting points of nomenclatural priority have been defined. Probably, for fungi, mosses, etc. you will need other exceptions for other authors, analogous to the Linné exception, e.g. for Johann Hedwig ... More and more, I come to the conclusion, we should only focus on authorship of names. This can be decided straightforward. In most cases, the result will be the same. However, these cases, which will differ, most likely will cause problems, when you have to find out the person, who discovered the taxon and/or produced the original description. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:44, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: let me assure you that in zoology the situation is exactly opposed to what you say: only the original author is given in the cases of combinatio nova (which are numerous). It would necessitate to make a time-consuming research to determine the current name originator. In botany too, you have no difficulty in obtaining the original name author - it is given in parentheses. Overall it would be much easier to focus on "discoverer" rather then in "namer". As for Linné, I meant he's an exception in the way he "discovered" his taxa but not in the way his taxa-names should be treated here at WS.Mariusm (talk) 14:11, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: I don't see any problem, when the focus is on authorship of names, neither for zoology nor for botany. I make the following proposal: Concerning names regulated by ICZN, only original combinations would be attributed to their author. This means, for the lion Felis leo would be attributed to Linnaeus, which redirects to the actual name. Combinations would not be attributed to any author. Concerning names regulated by ICN (former ICBN), the same applies to basionyms, but additionally combinations would be attributed to their authors, i.e. Betula alnus var. glutinosa would be attributed to Linné, and additionally Alnus glutinosa to Gaertner. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 14:33, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: fine, as long as the basionyms are accounted for I'm willing to accept your proposal. Mariusm (talk) 06:00, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Author

@Accassidy: Now I have start change the described taxa in authored taxa, I see an other different. Do we === Publications === Yair Achituv or === Work Include === Jean-Marie Cadiou. The last was an proposal from Alan Accassidy and I agree with him. PeterR (talk) 12:45, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR: I disagree - I prefer Publications because it's commonly used by other sites and by scientific papers; moreover it must be a == section and not a === section. Mariusm (talk) 13:38, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree: indeed ==, since it is a section of its own – not a sub-section of the section above it. This is a common error on Wikispecies. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 16:35, 5 April 2015 (UTC).

Category: taxa by author

I have an other different. Category: taxa by author. Mariusm have made Category:Taxa by Author see Category:Franz Daniel taxa and ? have made List of taxa named by and category: Taxa by author see Category:Kai Li taxa. Which one we prefer? PeterR (talk) 14:26, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR:, one little quirky thing about our software - if one wishes to discuss particular categories in text body, precede Category with ":" (:Category:), otherwise, it heads straight for bottom row.

Personally, I like to make some little mention on category pages of its contents. Named taxa would be authored taxa. I think Franz it was, last week edited one of these to link author's name back to author page. Sounded good, keeps people from getting lost. Neferkheperre (talk) 16:01, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Possibility of a "Sister projects" report in the Wikipedia Signpost

Hello, all I'm a volunteer at the Wikipedia Signpost, the Wikimedia movement's biggest internal newspaper. Almost all of our coverage focuses on Wikipedia, with occasional coverage of Commons, the Meta-Wiki, MediaWiki, Wikidata, the the Wikimedia Labs; we have little to nothing to say about Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, or Wikivoyage. I'm interested in writing a special long-form "sister projects" report to try and address this shortfall. Is there anyone experienced in the Wikispecies project with whom I can speak with, perhaps over Skype, about the mission, organization, history, successes, troubles, and foibles of being a contributor to this project? If so, please drop me a line at my English Wikipedia talk page. Thanks! ResMar 21:04, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi, why Wikiversity? --Franz Xaver (talk) 22:30, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

This sounds like a very good oppurtunity to spread information about Wikispecies to the rest of Wikimedia and promote the project to potential new users. Dan Koehl (talk) 23:15, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Someone else pointed that out at another forum. Unfortunately, I wish I had the excuse that I was tired, but no, I left the computer, went to eat lunch, came back, forgot I had to change that bit, and cross-posted. Well, I've fixed it now. Almost done jumping around forum pages, now, at least... Resident Mario (discuss • contribs) 00:27, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: You seem to be eminently experienced here, perhaps you'd be willing to do it...? Looking for people I have a chat with over Skype about the project. Or maybe you could nominate someone else for the job? :). I also wouldn't mind speaking to multiple people. Resident Mario (talk) 01:45, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Dear @Resident Mario:, I was active some time after the project started, and returned and tried to help during a problematic period last year, but I'm slowly stepping back and and nowadays I have more focus on cleaning up pages, administration, community organisation and trying to initiate discussions of how to increase the synchronization of the project with sister projects. Much more active than me, also with a long history here, is @MPF:, and a number of even more active contributors who joined some years later, like @Accassidy: ([1,942 actions in the last 30 days), @Franz Xaver: (1,278 actions in the last 30 days), @Mariusm: (1,104 actions in the last 30 days), @Tommy Kronkvist: who apart from contributing also assist other users in technical matters and like to communicate, and many other active users, and admins. I'm sure someone will be willing to assist in the, for Wikispecies, important questions you may have. It is a rather productive team here, and after a minor crisis from which I believe we learned a lot, there is now a good community spirit, and everyone with knowledge in taxonomy is warmly welcome to become a member of the project. The real need is more taxonomy experts, in order to cover more species. But people with less taxonomy expertise are welcome to make language links etc from the articles, so there's almost something to do for just everyone who want to join, even if the project is specialized, and was intended for scientists. We do need more members here, in order to improve the number of articles, as well as improving the quality of articles, which may lack references and other data, why any promotion is greatly welcomed. I will also send you the mail address to User:Benedikt, who started the project supported by Jimbo Wales, but is not more active, and en:User:UtherSRG, not active the last years, but still active on EnWp. We three were the first three admins, of which I'm the only active today, but I was never a large contributor. Benedikt and UtherSRG can give you some interesting background, and the visions 2004, which can be interesting to compare with the present development and the most active users today (mentioned above), will surely help with giving an insight in the present activities here. Thanks for your interest, Dan Koehl (talk) 02:28, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Anyone up for an initial interview? At this point I'm caught between a summary and a longer-form article; I may do either, or both. Resident Mario (talk) 19:43, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Dear @Resident Mario:, I'm happy to talk, but need to know a bit about your time zone etc in order to choose best day/hour/method of communication. My direct email is accassidy@aol.com, so feel free to contact me there with your info and we can make arrangements without a long discussion here. Alan Cassidy Accassidy (talk) 21:53, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Cleanup

All links to following templates has been removed from thousand of pages, and after they got empty, the templates were deleted:

• {{Ait}}
• {{Aust}}
• {{N.Z.}}
• {{N.C.]}}

But there's more to remove, all categories with something (Australia/New Zealand) etc, like:

• {{NZOR}}
• Category:New_Zealand_by_Crosby_Code

should those be removed from pages, and deleted, or kept?

I believe that it may be a little frustrating to see all those edits on recent changes, and its tiring for me to do all those edits manually, with my personal account. For the purpose of cleaning up more automatically, I created the account User:KoehlBot, and have applied for approval on Requests for approval, where, if this Bot get approved, the edits will not be visual on the recent changes, unless you click Show bots, and I can have the work being done much easier and faster. Dan Koehl (talk) 23:42, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

As far as I see, Template:NZOR can be used as an external link template. In my opinion, it should be decided case by case, if a link to NZOR should be kept at a taxon page or not. Is there a need, that this template must be protected? The Crosby Code seems to be a regional subdivision of New Zealand. I suppose, this is beyond the scope of Wikispecies. Are there different opinions? --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:21, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I think Template:NZOR is another incarnation of the N.Z. categories. On top of this, save the taxon name, the site doesn't divulge almost any information. Category:New_Zealand_by_Crosby_Code too isn't doing any service beyond cluttering the pages. Mariusm (talk) 13:56, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

NZOR can be a source see Amblyseius as a random link of its use, but it may not get too much use in the future. The Crosby Code is beyond scope, IMO Andyboorman (talk) 16:42, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Andyboorman. Accassidy (talk) 20:34, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Very good, thanks for the answers @Franz Xaver, Mariusm, and Accassidy:, I interpret that I can start to remove links to the The Crosby Code, and its subcategories.

I also want to remind you that I have applied for approval on Requests for approval, where, if this Bot get approved, the edits will not be visual on the recent changes, unless you click Show bots, and I can have the work being done much easier and faster. Dan Koehl (talk) 20:46, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Dan, yes OK, so please go ahead. Accassidy (talk) 20:50, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #2—2015

Did you know?

With Citoid in VisualEditor, you click the 'book with bookmark' icon and paste in the URL for a reliable source:

Citoid looks up the source for you and returns the citation results. Click the green "Insert" button to accept its results and add them to the article:

After inserting the citation, you can change it. Select the reference, and click the "Edit" button in the context menu to make changes.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's performance, the Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 11:00 (noon) PDT (18:00 UTC). You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal.

Recent improvements

VisualEditor is now substantially faster. In many cases, opening the page in VisualEditor is now faster than opening it in the wikitext editor. The new system has improved the code speed by 37% and network speed by almost 40%.

The Editing team is slowly adding auto-fill features for citations. This is currently available only at the French, Italian, and English Wikipedias. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections by contributing to the Citoid service's definitions for each website.

Citoid requires good TemplateData for your citation templates. If you would like to request this feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.

The special character inserter has been improved, based upon feedback from active users. After this, VisualEditor was made available to all users of Wikipedias on the Phase 5 list on 30 March. This affected 53 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh.

Work continues to support languages with complex requirements, such as Korean and Japanese. These languages use input method editors ("IMEs”). Recent improvements to cursoring, backspace, and delete behavior will simplify typing in VisualEditor for these users.

The design for the image selection process is now using a "masonry fit" model. Images in the search results are displayed at the same height but at variable widths, similar to bricks of different sizes in a masonry wall, or the "packed" mode in image galleries. This style helps you find the right image by making it easier to see more details in images.

You can now drag and drop categories to re-arrange their order of appearance ​on the page.

The pop-up window that appears when you click on a reference, image, link, or other element, is called the "context menu". It now displays additional useful information, such as the destination of the link or the image's filename. The team has also added an explicit "Edit" button in the context menu, which helps new editors open the tool to change the item.

Invisible templates are marked by a puzzle piece icon so they can be interacted with. Users also will be able to see and edit HTML anchors now in section headings.

Users of the TemplateData GUI editor can now set a string as an optional text for the 'deprecated' property in addition to boolean value, which lets you tell users of the template what they should do instead. (T90734)

Looking ahead

The special character inserter in VisualEditor will soon use the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki will also have the option of creating a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Instructions for customizing the list will be posted at mediawiki.org.

The team is discussing a test of VisualEditor with new users at the English Wikipedia, to see whether they have met their goals of making VisualEditor suitable for those editors. The timing is unknown, but might be relatively soon. (T90666)

Let's work together

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• Can you translate from English into any other language? Please check this list to see whether more interface translations are needed for your language. Contact us to get an account if you want to help!
• The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
• File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.

Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

— Elitre (WMF)

19:48, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Integration with Wikidata

I have made a question, and a suggestion on Wikidata_talk:Wikispecies, please feel free to add your views.

If no one has anything against it, I would also like to start a new project page, like we did with Project cleanup: What I would like to establish, is a type of mirror page to Wikidata:Wikispecies, where discussions on Wikidata can be reported, and how we can as community collaborate our opinions, point of views and consensus versus the Wikidata page. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:16, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't know what the Wikidata sources are, but they don't seem to care/check for invalid-names/synonyms and a considerable amount of taxa there are missing or not valid. Mariusm (talk) 14:59, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't know, but I think its time that Wikispecies community takes a more active part in the discussions and future plans on Wikidata regarding taxonomy. Dan Koehl (talk) 15:34, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

No one objected, and this new Wikispecies project is now opened at Wikispecies:Project Wikidata as well as the Project Wikidata discussion page. Welcome to participate, and share your views and opinions in regard to an integration of Wikispecies with Wikidata. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:01, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

I have added my thoughts at Wikispecies talk:Project Wikidata. Accassidy (talk) 18:47, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

KoehlBot

KoehlBot has now performed over 100 test edits, and I ask kindly the community to analyze the edits, and if you observe no errors, finlly give the Bot your approval, so it can be upgraded to approved bot here. Dan Koehl (talk) 02:40, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Looks good to me go for approval IMO. Andyboorman (talk) 07:47, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, @Andyboorman:, maybe you can be kind and copy your approval here? Dan Koehl (talk) 14:18, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

The Bot has now already cleaned over 1 000 files, see here. Dan Koehl (talk) 11:04, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi community. Where can I find the discussion to give this bot the admin flag?

Where can I find the discussion regarding DanKoehlBot that got the bot flag the same day as the account above? -- Tegel (talk) 16:48, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

@Tegel: After taking a closer look, I have to say the painful answer, which was there's none. Dan put the cart before the horse. The bot got bot flag and admin flag within an hour after the account was created. A formal request for bot flag wasn't made until a week later (and to this date, no request for admin flag on bot). OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:04, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

So if I understand you correct you have:

1. A bot with an unapproved admin flag (KoehlBot).
2. A bot with an unapproved bot flag (DanKoehlBot).
3. A Bureaucrat that adds advanced right to his own bot accounts without community approval (Dan Koehl). -- Tegel (talk) 19:26, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I had the feeling that "the retired" OhanaUnited wasn't finished with this issue. Dan Koehl (talk) 20:57, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

After manually cleaning up over 15 000 files I was happy to run Bot mode for a day, and the bot cleaned up over 1 000 files. I now interpret you are not happy with this, so I reverted the approval of the bot, please feel free to invest your life here. Meanwhile, I continue to work for Wikispecies, manually cleaning up more files. @OhanaUnited and Tegel:, If you have a couple of weeks free to invest on some Wikimedia work, please join me in this effort. Dan Koehl (talk) 23:14, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I have no objection to the work that you do with the bot. The problem that I have is that you assign rights to your bot accounts without seeking community approval. Point me to the discussion where KoehlBot has been approved for admin right, or the policy page that give Bureaucrats on this wiki permission to assign rights without seeking community approval. -- Tegel (talk) 00:40, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

By all means, feel free to engage in this noble cause. I gave you the link where to discuss the Bot. The Bot was up for discussion between 6 April to 18 April, which should be sufficient time, to find out if theres anything harmful Im doing. Now I quit, maybe someone else have time and energy to continue the cleaning, taking a share of manually cleaning some 20 000 files, like I did. Have fun. Dan Koehl (talk) 00:53, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I noticed that the bot was up for discussion and I have no problem with that. What I can't see is where you asked for the bot to have admin rights. I have no problem with the bot having admin rights so it can delete pages as well as long as it's approved by the community. -- Tegel (talk) 01:05, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I have to support Tegel on this matter. A bureaucrat who does not follow due process is undertaking a conflict of interest and without adequate scrutiny. That is a bad precedent, and a poor leadership position. Don't blame the messengers for your own lack of due process, and being held to account for your actions and decisions. While openness and community consensus take time, they are there to ensure that you have a community-approved process. Billinghurst (talk) 02:46, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I see now that all three of you seem to have reacted on Stho002s writings on Meta-Wiki. And since Stho002 and OhanaUnited previously had email correspondance this is the most possible reason this issue was brought up. With all respect, when I'm sitting and doing a totally boring job for Wikispecies and the sake of the community, what kind of conflict of interest am I supposed to have? This is the second time that you start to criticize me @Billinghurst:, and as before, as far as I can see without real course, there was discussions about the Bot for almost a month, and approval discussions for at least 6th of April until 18th of April which is far more than standard? Where were all this interest for Wikispecies during the years the project and its users were harassed by Stho002, defended by OhanaUnited? When users simply left the project, what did you do? When OhanaUnited defended Sthoo02 every time a user became frustrated, what conflict of interest did you accuse him for? And exactly what do you want to reach with all this? So far, after a consensus discussion, I cleaned over 20 000 files from different personal categories Stho002 made for his personal use, and Im pretty bored with that work. Maybe you would care to clean the pages? Please feel free to engage in something constructive. I have had no bad intentions what so ever, and I see very clearly the origin of yours, Tegels, and OhanaUniteds present actions. But I can't see how it helps the Wikispecies project in its development. If you really think that I want to harm the Wikispecies project, and have conflict of interest, then may I ask, has any member of the WS community given you and indication that the community share this opinion? If so, I ask for a more clear explanation as for what I am being accused for. As for the Bot, if the community has changed their opinion, Im happy to withdraw my application for approval of the Bot. And if you want to join Stho002 and OhanaUnited in this tiring cruisade against me, please list all accusations at once so we can clear them out. So far: 1. bad precedent, 2. a poor leadership position, 3. not follow due process, 4. Not clearly stated, but it seems Im accused of not respecting openness and community consensus as well, is there anything more you, Stho002, Tegel and OhanaUnited want to accuse me for? Dan Koehl (talk) 03:11, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Shooting the messenger again, it doesn't work. Neither Tegel or I have a vested interest in this matter, from the outside we are looking at the governance, not the processes that the bots undertake. 'Crats are clearly responsible for good governance, so please stop trying to avoid the accountability. Billinghurst (talk) 05:45, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

@Tegel: @Billinghurst: as an admin here I must protest against the insinuation that Dan Koehl acted improperly on this issue. He repeatedly asked for the community consent for the bot and he actually received approval from at least 4 admins. I can't see what he could have done more. User:OhanaUnited isn't actually making any contribution to Wikispecies in the last six months except for criticizing Dan Koehl, so this speaks for itself. Mariusm (talk) 04:44, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

There are nine (9) bureaucrats listed as being active here. Tell me how it is not a conflict of interest to assess your own bot request. Tell me how one of the other 'crats could not have made an assessment and granted rights. Simply put, get someone independent to make the assessment. If no response from your other 'crats, then get a steward to make the assessment so you can maintain independence. Simply put, do not assign yourself advanced rights.
Looking at Special:PrefixIndex/Wikispecies:Bots/Requests_for_approval and Wikispecies:Administrators/Archive_3 please point to me the request for administration rights for KoehlBot. If your community thinks that it is appropriate to assign administration rights to a bot without an admin discussion, then you need to review your processes. Please point to me the discussion for DanKoehlBot to be assigned rights. They aren't obvious. I am surprised that the community finds that acceptable?
So to me that addresses the points of 'bad precedent', 'poor leadership', not following 'due process'. I would also suggest that the community adopts a practice of use of permanent links for rights changes (eg. Special:PermanentLink/2196542 relates to this page prior to my addition) so that people can find the community approval process easily. Billinghurst (talk) 05:45, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: If you look at [3] you can see that the following admins expressed their approval for the bot: Tommy Kronkvist, Faendalimas, Andyboorman and Mariusm. Theoretically there are nine bureaucrats listed here, but practically none except Dan Koehl is active. We usually don't run bots at WS and maybe the exact bureaucratic procedure is unfamiliar to most of the admins here. This said, I can confidently tell you that Dan Koehl did everything in his power to make sure the community checked and accepted the bot before he went on to enable it. Mariusm (talk) 06:25, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: I am one of the admins that approved this bot, considering the purpose and function of the bot I took it for granted that this bot would need admin rights. I assumed also that the other admins looking at this would also realise this, as well as some of the general users depending on their experience. However with the benefit of hindsight I can see your point that this should have been clearer. As Mariusm pointed out there are not many bots on this site, in comparison with other Wikimedia projects, this is something that I reckognise that this site needs to form policy on, among several other issues. I am still in support of this bot, and that the account KoehlBot needs admin rights for it to be effective. I can see that there has been a technical process issue here, and can see we need to fix that, however there seems to be a need to move forward here. I can confirm that Dan Koehl made it very clear what this bot would be doing and communicated with all active users on this. Its also somewhat clear that the impetus for challenging this has at least in part been instigated by a former user who is now banned. I would have thought this would mean they should no longer be influencing what happens here. So all that said, as a Steward, please what is the way forward that will saticfy the Stewards and the needs of Wikispecies, which I would hope is the main interest here. I am happy to support going through the bot approval process again in a way that satisfies wider policies, but I would like to see that this also satisfies the needs of the active contributors to WS. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 13:35, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: I would like you to stop casting aspersions about me "isn't actually making any contribution to Wikispecies in the last six months". A little research on my mainspace alone would have showed that your statement is entirely incorrect. Furthermore, I was teaching a class from January to April, which explained my low activity during this period (and you may verify that here in our course page listed under Andrew). I certainly hope you would stop this character assassination. Regardless of my level of activity, this is not a justification for Dan's unilateral decision process which includes providing a bot flag for an unapproved bot and providing an admin flag for a bot account without going through proper channel (plus many more questionable conduct). In any other major projects, this kind of action would have immediately be desysopped and decratted. Sadly, Dan and his enablers have assembled a critical mass to remove an editor (Stho002) who is not afraid of asking difficult questions. After Stho002 was gone, I have some editors who contacted me privately stating that they have likewise ceased editing and left this project. A few others said in private communication that they also disagree with Dan's actions but never make it public for the fear of reprisal from Dan's group of editors. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:31, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I have cancelled the use of KoehlBot (back to cleaning up thousands of files manually again....thanks for that...), and I will read through rules regarding Bots which has been referred to, I guess I find some on Meta or EnWp. (not available locally on Wikispecies?) All this could have been politely referred to on my talk page, and if there were technical errors in my flagging of the bots, it could have been easily solved, by running a a new application for approval for the bot, which I will now do, since I have no hidden agendas, no evil ambitions to hurt the project, and I have no secret will to undermine the influence of the community, or work against any consensus. I interpret that there's only three persons, mentioned above who believes so, why I view the lines above as more political, rather than actually informing me about an error I have done.

My crime however was clearly not intended as ignoring the community, its will and its consensus, contrary comments above indicate that at least mentioned users believe I did all in my power to get approval from the community. As to my knowledge, I was never before accused of not respecting the consensus of the community, except for similar accusations from Billinghurst half a year ago.

I therefore react over the words of OhanaUnited above, who now accuse me of even more crimes, referred to as (plus many more questionable conduct) but not specified. In the world where I grew up, making such general accusations against a person, without specify the accusation, is a highly political deed. Giving me no possibility to defend myself, it looks more like an effort to discredit my person, rather than bring up an important issue to the Wikispecies community.

Finally, OhanaUnited declares, as far as I can understand, with his words: Dan and his enablers have assembled a critical mass to remove an editor (Stho002) 1. That I personally acted against Stho002 and manipulated "the mass" to join me, and 2. that there should be anything questionable by banning Stho002? I judge both accusations as invalid, the ban of Stho002 simply followed a community consensus, nothing else. There was not on single voice raised in Stho002 defence during the ban discussions as far as I remember, and OhanaUniteds impression that the opinions, consensus and decisions by the Wikispecies community was false, reflects in my eyes a much more severe error, than flagging a Bot as admin without asking the community, after months the crat OhanaUnited, still don't respect the Wikispecies community, attacks users for their personal opinions, and acts destructive for the project by bring up issues and creating conflicts, ina time when Wikispecies has finally reached stability, a creative and calm working atmosphere, and developing into an increased level of democracy through Projects and local discussions, which hopefully will benefit the project and the community. It was for me clear that OahanaUnited was bitter and angry when the Wikispecies community acted against his willand opinion, and as a consequence labelled "retired" on his user page. In spite of that label OU returns and seem to hunt me for different issues, specified or not, as well as questioning the will of WS community. Based on this, I now start to think that OU is becoming destructive for the community, and kindly ask OU to respect the direction WS is developing into, and stop creating more conflicts, which we don't need.

I object to the use of Dan's group of editors. simply because such a group is not existing. If I have more support than OhanaUnited as crat, I believe the reason is simply that I have earned the confidence of the community, that I had no hidden agendas (which we have seen in the case of OhanaUnited less clear support of Stho002 between 2008 and today) and that the community possible have an opinion regarding my person that is totally contrary to what Billinghurst indicate above. From my point of view, its highly possible that OhanaUnited has managed to get sympathy and support from Billinghurst, using the issue of my Bot, in order to discredit my person. I also think this is considered as highly unethical within the Wikimedia community, and should be regarded as a much higher level of "crime" compared to not knowing in detail how to process an approval of a Bot.

Whatever your reasons for this transparent attack above, which like I said could have been handled othervise, I can't see that it has resulted in less confidence from the WS community towards my person, so you seem to have failed again with your strategy, and I thank the WS users for the existing confidence, and want to excuse myself for possible errors during the Bot approval process, and hope you will believe me, that I had no bad intentions, and that I'm innocent of the accusations presented by Tegel, Billinghurst and OhanaUnited.

I'm also happy to see, that as organisation and community, we are stronger than a year ago. Any political game is not anymore likely to win, and any effort to hinder a positive and democratic development of the project, can not be stopped by a crat who doesn't respect community consensus. Wikispecies is approaching a higher level, with less conflicts and negative issues, and we can all take parts in this with joy and pride, even if someone tries to move back to how it was. Lets face this effort above to start a conflict for what it is, a bad try, and invest our energy in positive development, rather than political manipulation. Ill repeat the Bot approval process from the beginning again. Sorry for all this.

Dan Koehl (talk) 18:30, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Trying to find more info how such issues was handled on WS before, I found those lines:

I've been a sysop here for a bit, and I think I could be of some benefit with the bureaucrat flag. The main reason is because I sometimes use high-speed scripts to do some maintenance tasks; quickly flagging myself as a bot (and unflagging when done) can help unclog recent changes. While bots go through approval, I think this is more of a case were not showing 50 deletions in a row in recent changes is a convenience to us all. Finally, I'm of the belief on small project such as this, being having both the admin and 'crat bits doesn't hurt. Maxim(talk) 01:26, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Poll starts 01:26, 25 May 2008 (UTC); poll ends 01:26, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Closed early. Maxim is promoted to bureaucrat. OhanaUnitedTalk page 19:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

AND:

I also recommend using a separate bot account. However, you can assign sysop & bot flag to your bot without asking us just like Monobi did to his bot (as long as it's for legitimate use) OhanaUnitedTalk page 00:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

In conflict with his words above (my bold):

@Tegel: After taking a closer look, I have to say the painful answer, which was there's none. Dan put the cart before the horse. The bot got bot flag and admin flag within an hour after the account was created. A formal request for bot flag wasn't made until a week later (and to this date, no request for admin flag on bot). OhanaUnitedTalk page 18:04, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I guess OhanaUnited has changed opinion since then, OR he thought my intentions for KoehlBot was not legitimate use? Dan Koehl (talk) 18:54, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry to hear you cancelled the bot but I guess getting it done in a way that satisfies policy and the stewards is important.

I do not wish to drag stho002 through the mud and am only going to point out this once, I do actually know him and he is a very good taxonomist, unfortunately he is very headstrong and that style does not work well on Wikimedia. He has managed to be banned not only from WS but also enWP for almost the same reasons. A combination of edit warring, sockpuppetry, multiple warnings, multiple bans, on numerous occasions he was given the chance to correct these issues and had the bans lifted but was back at it again in no time. I do not think it is possible for any group of editors on WS to have also accomplished that on WP. Particularly considering none of those involved on WP are also editors here as far as I am aware. So considering the account, and multiple sockpuppets, was permanently banned on two Wikimedia projects independently for similar reasons I think there is a pattern here. I myself was not involved in either banning, but I did see it happening on WP, heard about it after the fact here. I do wish he could have worked better with others, but I think this situation was inevitable and its probably time to let it go and move on. Its not achieving anything and just looks bad. Faendalimas ^talk 19:03, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

My initial question has nothing to do with any blocked or inactive user that might have been mentioned above.

I have no concern regarding giving the account the bot flag. The request for bot flag was applied for at Wikispecies:Bots/Requests for approval/KoehlBot and was approved by the community. What I missed was where the discussion was regarding giving the bot admin rights. Giving a bot admin rights is not common practice and I didn't see any request for it at Wikispecies:Bots/Requests for approval/KoehlBot. The community can approve the bot for admin rights as well and I have no problem with that. Just that it should have been included in the application. The fact that there is no application at all for the account "DanKoehlBot" that got the bot flag the same day and that KoehlBot got it's right 1 week before the application was posted is something for your community to discuss. I can't see why you can't follow the common practice of "application" -> "approval" -> "add user right" in that order. You are a big enough community here so as long as you agree on to whom you shall give a certain user right you can do so. -- Tegel (talk) 20:13, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Dan, we are discussing your conduct and your bot. This conflict of interest arise after Stho002 was removed so please try not to sidetrack it with other editors' issues (namely Stho002, me, Tegel, Billinghurst) to dilute the discussion and make distractions. Besides, a blocked user's previous contribution never justify your current rule-breaking. I have not lobbied or discussed this issue with any stewards (and you can check my contributions on Meta). Tegel and Billinghurst came to this issue themselves. Please, Dan, if you think you have the confidence of the community, your RfB would have attracted more than 1 support vote in 7 days. I'm impressed that you have done more research and dug up my comments from 7 years ago. The difference between then and now lies in the process. Maxim, back in 2008, was perfectly clear on his task and he did not give his bot account an admin flag. Rather, Maxim used his main account temporary as a bot. My, as well as many others' comments (if you read and entire discussion and not cherry-pick selected points) are based on that fact. You, on the other hand, grant yourself bot account a bot & admin flag immediately after creating the bot. Not only does it create a spectre of conflict of interest, it also violates the "one admin account per individual" principle. It is a clear-cut, blatant miuse of your bureaucrat tools (since only bureaucrats and not admins can grant bot flag and admin flag). While a bot approval request was filed later, that in itself is a correction but does not rectify the misuse. @Tegel: Our community is kind of large but not large enough to have a lot of independent voice. I understand that Meta's RfC route is gruesome and long. But if the community cannot reach an agreement because there's just not enough third-party eyes to make a resolution on an issue, what kind of "powers" does a meta RfC have? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 20:25, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Strange though @Tegel:, that no one made such remarks during 2008, when OhanaUnited didn't find the common practice of "application" -> "approval" -> "add user right" in that order so important, and it seems my way of handling the issue is not really the same as that Im abusing my admin rights but simply is not common practice, which in my ears sounds like a less criminal activity than 1. bad precedent, 2. a poor leadership position, 3. not follow due process, 4. abusing openness and community consensus 5. unilateral decision process and 6. (plus many more questionable conduct)?:

Once more I highlight this text, that Tegel omitted to comment:

I also recommend using a separate bot account. However, you can assign sysop & bot flag to your bot without asking us just like Monobi did to his bot (as long as it's for legitimate use) OhanaUnitedTalk page 00:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

In conflict with his words above (my bold):

which doesn't really harmonize with OhanaUniteds comments today:

@Tegel: After taking a closer look, I have to say the painful answer, which was there's none. Dan put the cart before the horse. The bot got bot flag and admin flag within an hour after the account was created. A formal request for bot flag wasn't made until a week later (and to this date, no request for admin flag on bot). OhanaUnitedTalk page 18:04, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

OhanaUnited writes above: In any other major projects, this kind of action would have immediately be desysopped and decratted.

And if he is right with this, we can start with that process now, and with OhanaUnited, who created common practice in regard to this on Wikispecies in 2008, and it seems my crime is much less, than his. Furthermore, the accusations Not only does it create a spectre of conflict of interest, it also violates the "one admin account per individual" principle. It is a clear-cut, blatant miuse of your bureaucrat tools (since only bureaucrats and not admins can grant bot flag and admin flag).

Which rise the question: what type of spectre of conflict of interest am I supposed to have committed? What kind of anto-wikispecies activity could I possibly have planned, when trying to perform the will of the community, and follow a decision by consensus?

OhanaUnited also writes we, who are we? Is this also a political strategy, trying to establish a fictive situation that I am alone, the accused in court, and everyone else is we? I would rather turn this around, and hereby state that its only You, OahanUnited, that continue with useless conflicts on Wikispecies, and I certainly hope you would stop this character assassination. It doesn't help Wikispecies, it doesn't help the communitys support for you, and for every time you succeed to start a new attack against me, you create a bad working climate, by making Village pump look like it did before Stho002 was banned. Conflicts is simply not the best method to develop a project like Wikispecies.

@Billinghurst, Tegel, and OhanaUnited:, if you feel uneasy by reading your unvalid accusations repeated here, and how you seemingly have acted doubtful in view of building up a good Wikimedia, when assisting someone in his aggressive personal attacks, please bear in mind the words: Don't blame the messenger. Dan Koehl (talk) 21:04, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I removed the Bot flag for User:DanKoehlBot, and hope that the risk for anti-Wikispecies activities due to User:DanKoehlBot, is now minimized as well as any risk of me being in spectre of conflict of interest due to that specific User.Dan Koehl (talk) 21:14, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: I'm very sorry we are forced to divert our energy from adding content and improving WS to unfruitful battles. I'm also sorry to hear you had to cancel the bot. I'm sure the good guys will prevail in the end in spite of all these distractions. @Billinghurst: your intervention really wasn't helpful at all to us. I'm sorry to inform you that it has done more damage than good to WS and I wish that in the future you'll have the patience of hearing carefully all sides concerned before stepping in with your unjustified verdicts. Mariusm (talk) 04:22, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

What intervention? I made commentary only about your governance. I made no commentary about the bot's action or its use. I stand by the fact that a bureaucrat should not be making decisions about their requests and should not be granting themselves rights. I stand by the fact that the nomination and discussion processes for administrator were not undertaken. That others in the community didn't point it out and demand better should not be a reflection on Tegel or me holding up the mirror to this community. That you provide ammunition for a discontent to bring to the attention of the stewards is not the stewards' faults, and that you expect stewards to ignore poor governance because it was brought to our attention by a discontented person is unreasonable. Practice better governance is the answer. Billinghurst (talk) 13:37, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: you're probably right: we didn't proceed according to the strict protocol, but 4 admins supporting, 0 opposing and on top of that Dan Koehl being the only effective (available) crat - all this makes the protocol a little irrelevant. Mariusm (talk) 14:02, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

It is quite clear that we have reached an impasse and that we agree to disagree on key issues. @Billinghurst: Can you inform us what kind of "powers" does a meta RfC carry and what type of proposal are off the table? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:36, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: The strict protocol is fine when applied to a large wiki with many crats and lots of admins, yet it becomes inadequate when dealing with a small wiki with a single active crat and with half the listed admins not participating in the votes. Mariusm (talk) 05:06, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

In the document Wikispecies:Bot, as far as I can see, largely written by OhanaUnited is to read the local Wikispecies rules for bot operating on Wikispecies. Maybe Mr @Billinghurst:, Mr @Tegel: and Mr @OhanaUnited: can be kind enough to point out which rule in this document I am supposed to have broken? I myself have problems finding the section in the text which I have broken against in a way, making all the numbers of accusations above against my person valid? Dan Koehl (talk) 05:20, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Still fighting this one? Really? Try Wikispecies:Administrators. Even then not everything will be codified and you will have unwritten expectations on people's actions based solely on the grounds of reasonable and practical.

FWIW I am looking for reflections on the past actions; improvements in future processes; a community that looks at the broadest interests. I have no expectations of blame or corporal or administratie punishment. Billinghurst (talk) 07:54, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Outside review

I was asked to look into Wikispecies by the blocked User:Stho002. That user has some obvious problems, but that doesn't mean there are no issues here. My interest is in wiki structure and process, how communities may communicate, cooperate, coordinate. That's what wikis are about. However, wikis do not automatically become efficient and they can even decline in reliability. So I look at structure and process. When a community is not fully functional, the problem is almost never Bad Users, but missing structure that then can bring out the worst in people, or damage efficiency so that users give up. So my observations here:

• Dan Koehl is a bureaucrat. The election was here:[4]. Above, OhanaUnited points to this discussion in criticising Dan: Please, Dan, if you think you have the confidence of the community, your RfB would have attracted more than 1 support vote in 7 days. How, then, how did Dan become a 'crat?
• The discussion was never formally closed. Rather, OhanaUnited actioned it, 30 March, 2014.
• 1/0/0 is not consensus. Therefore Dan was made a 'crat without consensus. Did anyone object? If nobody objects, that is a form of rough consensus. Objection would normally appear on the candidacy page. Dan did not do anything wrong in this. I do consider this an error, but the error was OhanaUnited's responsibility. Wikispecies:Administrators is very unclear about requirements to become a bureaucrat. That's common, in a context where the community nevertheless knows what to expect.
• If there was objection, another place it would first appear would be on the 'crat talk page. Nothing there. What I do see was that this 'crat was burning out.
• So, then, Dan set up a bot. Bots may be operated at low rate without approval.
• Bots are highly dangerous, because they can bypass community review of editing, at high rate, and suppressing notice in Recent Changes. The bot request, created 6 April 2015,[5] seems vague as to the action of the bot. If asked, I will come back with suggestions.
• A bot with an admin flag is even more dangerous. It could massively delete pages and again escape notice.
• Dan gave the bot its flag and admin status on March 28.[6], both requiring 'crat approval, thus using his 'crat bit.
• From the bot description, to this neutral observer, it looks like the bot was created to go after Stho002's categorizations. "Locates templates like {{N.Z.}}, {{Ait}}, and {{nv}}, as well as categories like Category: something (Australia) or Category: something (New Zealand) and removes them."
• The bot began operating 15 April. The bot approval discussion still has not been closed. In the discussion above, it's argued that it could be closed with approval. Maybe so. However, it wasn't. And it was already running anyway. Is lack of closure a mere punctuation error? No. When there is a neutral closer, as is widely expected, there is someone to receive complaints, who can reverse it.
• There are reasons for scrupulous observance of certain process niceties, they are not merely wikilawyering. Above, there are signs of substantial community discontent. That's what happens when there is lack of caution about these things. Many users just go away, the full extent of the damage may not be visible.
• This is not an overall judgment, merely an assessment of the narrow issues involved here, and what little I've seen.
• Dan mentions above that he removed the bot flag for User:DanKoehlBot. I put on my jaundiced glasses and can then see this as an attempt to confuse the community. That bot never had admin status, and apparently never operated. I take off those glasses and put on my rose-colored AGF glasses, and this was merely an offhand comment and Dan did not realize how it might look to someone upset about his actions.
• Of greatest concern to me is the reaction to steward comments:
• Dan: re OhanaUnited: "Whatever your reasons for this transparent attack above, which like I said could have been handled othervise, I can't see that it has resulted in less confidence from the WS community towards my person, so you seem to have failed again with your strategy, and I thank the WS users for the existing confidence, and want to excuse myself for possible errors during the Bot approval process, and hope you will believe me, that I had no bad intentions, and that I'm innocent of the accusations presented by Tegel, Billinghurst and OhanaUnited.
• OhanaUnited is also a bureaucrat on this site. The apparent conflict between bureaucrats is of high concern.
• It is not necessary that a wiki have any bureaucrats. Bureaucrat tasks are not common. On en.Wikiversity, we have had periods where all the crats were inactive. There was, in fact, a new 'crat nomination, it was clear consensus to promote, and nobody had actioned it, and other admin approvals were waiting. Like mine, as I recall! I was relatively new there at the time. I pinged all the 'crats with a neutral notice. I may have emailed them all, I forget. And when there was no result, I went to meta and requested steward action, explaining the lack of crat response. Stewards would have acted, but a local crat finally woke up and set the crat bit. And that's how I first became an administrator on en.wikiversity. I made it happen, with total propriety. If there is no local crat, or none active, there must then be a discussion, or stewards will not act. It's not difficult.
• Precisely because I do trust the good faith of Dan, it's difficult to say this, but my assessment at this point is that his recent actions are unbecoming of a bureaucrat, who must, it's essential, be able to detach himself and not react personally to criticism. I see from the stewards nothing but good advice, and no "accusations." The worst of it is "poor leadership." Bureaucrats are held to the highest standards, because it is essential that they have strong community support. Like all admins, they must be able to receive criticism without responding to it as an attack. In the above quote, there are the words "transparent attack," and "failed again with your strategy," both uncivil, "I had no bad intentions," when there were no claims of bad intentions, at least not by those named, and "innocent of the accusations," when what was stated was either simple truth or reasonable neutral judgment. Dan is not "innocent" of recusal failure. I've seen no evidence of bad faith actions, but Dan is reacting as if he were accused of bad faith. That would be more in line with the accusations of Stho002, not those he is defending himself from, here. Dan lost balance.
• I recommend that Dan recognize what he's done and acknowledge it. Communities readily forgive error, usually. When error -- or the reasonable appearance of error -- is not acknowledged, it cannot be forgiven.
• The real problem. The community has not made itself knowledgeable about general wiki process, it appears. And it is not guiding and supporting its administrators and bureaucrats. It is work to clarify policy, and it usually gets put off until later. So then the community operates ad hoc, and in that situation, personalities loom large. I see others supporting Dan here, and that's great. However, if what Dan has done is damaging the community, creating or intensifying conflict, we must guide our own friends. If we don't, our enemies will do the job. --Abd (talk) 19:31, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Is there a need of 20,000 and much more Category pages for "Authored taxa" ?

At present there are about 21,000 pages existing for authorities of taxa, a number that is growing week by week. On each of those pages we have or can have a section "Authored taxa". Why not collect the information there for having it at a glance? Why are there separate category pages necessary? Complicated systems will not attract users. Kempf EK (talk) 00:11, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree, and I think with an integration with wikidata, all this would be easier.Dan Koehl (talk) 00:19, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

@Kempf EK: @Dan Koehl: I think you're missing the point: the main benefit of making categories of taxa per author is the ease of use, the better management and the alphabetical ordering. Instead of going back to the author page for each added taxa and inserting it manually there, the category allows the taxon to be added automatically and in alphabetic order to the list. A click on the category will show all the relevant taxa. I'm sure that these categories are a great benefit, and should not by any means be eliminated. Mariusm (talk) 04:22, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

NZcat

Please take a look on the edits by the new user NZcat, who reverted 30 of my cleanup edits until I blocked this user name. It seems this user (a Bot?) was registered on EnWp 2015-04-19 23:13:35, and started to revert my clean ups 2015-04-19 23:14:51. The name suggest that theres a connection to "New Zealand categories"? Dan Koehl (talk) 21:26, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Can we do a checkuser? just in case? It does seem suspicious. Faendalimas ^talk 22:07, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes we can, if another two admins support your request. Dan Koehl (talk) 22:40, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Support checkuser - MPF (talk) 23:15, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

CU requested for User:NZcat at NZcat@species.wikimedia.org Dan Koehl (talk) 00:17, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

The CU request was denied. However, as I understand, the answer of Billinghurst does mean, that it's obvious that NZcat is a sockpuppet of Stho002? If you agree, the account probably can be permanently blocked. --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:27, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Honestly @Franz Xaver:, Im not sure what Billinghurst mean, except for what he wrote :

It looks like a duck to me you don't need CU to deal with problematic editors.  — billinghurst sDrewth 12:01, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm surprised that we couldn't get a confirmation on the suspicion, and have to decide on permanent block based on guesses, but I agree with you that the account probably can be permanently blocked. Lets see if we get more opinions. Dan Koehl (talk) 12:51, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

In his answer, Billinghurst linked the word "duck" to en:WP:DUCK. --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:56, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but is the Duck test the confirmation through a CU we asked for? I believe not. Personally, I think this raises the need for a local CU Policy, see below. Dan Koehl (talk) 13:13, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

It means that it doesn't need a CU to deal with it. A checkuser will prove nothing that you don't already know. Billinghurst (talk) 13:26, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

@Billinghurst and Dan Koehl: That's how I read the statement on Meta: The second sentence at en:WP:DUCK tells "The duck test does not apply in non-obvious cases." So, this would be an obvious case. Anyway, if NZcat was not a sockpuppet of Stho002, the latter probably would not argue against the CU request, I suppose. --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:38, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver and Dan Koehl: what Billinghurst is really saying is "you know and I know it's stho002 so the CU verification won't advance us in this case" Mariusm (talk) 13:54, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I understand that different cultures may differ from each other. A country like USA who hanged people on suspicion of being horse thieves, may have a more generous attitude to "you know and I know" than a 2 000 years old country like Sweden, with a justice system that is documented back to iron age. I can't say I know at all if NZcat is Stho002, but Id like to know. I had the impression that is what CU is all about. I feel extremely uncomfortabale to accuse Stho002 for something he may not have done, and call this a Duck case. None of us would like to be treated like that, I believe? We are not ducks... Dan Koehl (talk) 14:06, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Billinghurst I beleive is acting according to the WP policy which says: if it's a Duck then shoot it yourself... Mariusm (talk) 14:14, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

And I guess the Wikispecies policy says its only considered a Duck if anyone has presented references for that :) Anyhow, In this surprising freedom to define other users identity from the "you know and I know" consensus, I block NZcat permanently. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:25, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't like this comparison between culture of justice systems between countries. I suppose, basically the difference between the justice system of the USA and old Europe is not that big. Among the people, who hanged horse thieves in the Wild West, there certainly were also immigrants from Sweden, or from whatever country you like. What people are doing, usually depends on the general situation and context. --Franz Xaver (talk) 14:30, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you on that, I just reflected on how the last 100 years may have established different views on "know" and "knowing". In the case of NZcat, I would have felt much more satisfied if I know that this was a sock puppet, rather than now, when I apparently "know" it. I think its important to act straight and acting according to Policy rules. In this case I feel that we may have violated them, and Stho002 by accusing him for something we don't really know he is guilty of, even if we "know" it. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:38, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

The chosen name is not actually cryptic, so if it is Stho002 it is a very non-surreptitious effort to re-engage. Of course, there may always be an element of double bluff. Whoever it is has also made useful changes (the BASEPAGENAME template for example) along with the re-establishment of the New unwanted Zealand Category system. I think we should only revert the Category additions, not the more normal edits. Accassidy (talk) 17:16, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

@Accassidy:, how or where can you see those edits you refer to? With Special:Contributions/NZcat I can only find the reverts of my edits, starting 2015-04-19 23:14:51, nothing more. I can't find the templates you mention, how did you find them, and why are not those more normal edits listed at Special:Contributions/NZcat? Dan Koehl (talk) 18:42, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: See Philinopsis_taronga for example. Accassidy (talk) 21:51, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

• @Dan Koehl: et al. I was asked to look at this discussion by the blocked editor. From what I see, there is a procedural error here, which is all the blocked editor sees. I also see that the action itself, aside from who did it, was proper in result, or almost so and easily corrected. Small wikis often fall into this problem, because of lack of sufficient administrative attention, if there is only a single active administrator, that admin may often take actions that on a more developed wiki would be violating recusal policy.
• The sock was reverting Dan Koehl's edits, exclusively. (contributions) So, technically, Dan blocked a user in a content dispute with the administrator.
• NZCat was editing at high rate, probably going down a list of Dan Koehl contributions, last edit 21:19, 19 April 2015.
• The block was for 24 hours at 21:20, 19 April 2015.
• Dan came here with a report of the block at 21:26, 19 April 2015.
• The block was recusal failure, but emergency can trump recusal requirements. To hold the line against admin abuse, then, emergency actions taken in the face of recusal requirements must be immediately submitted to the community. Dan did that. Dan also made the block for only 24 hours, instead of a more normal indef block for a vandalism-only account. Was this vandalism? Technically, no, but it was, in fact, block evasion and, further, clearly abusive, and as the only edits of a new editor, even if not block evasion, this indicates a highly disruptive agenda.
• Dan took emergency action to stop high-rate reversion of his own edits. Had he waited, much more work could have been required for clean-up. Therefore the action was warranted. He did not cut off talk page access for the user and did not cut off email. Thus the user could appeal if there were really a problem.
• However, one action Dan took was more visibly a recusal problem. He reblocked indef as a sock, per the "duck test." That is a judgment that an involved user should not make. If nobody can be found who is not involved in some way -- as happens when a prominent user goes south -- then at least a different sysop should close. If another sysop has not appeared to handle it, Dan could consider that the emergency continues and reblock to extend the block to give enough time for confirmation -- or unblock -- to appear. He could even reblock indef, pending review.
• The problem with recusal failure is that it can increase the perception of a user that they are the victim of prejudice and bias by a single administrator. If I assume that the community supports the block, that the actions are by a single admin allows the user to distract himself from the real issue: disregard of the community.
• So, solutions: develop and clarify recusal policy and how an administrator is to conduct himself or herself in the presence of an emergency (as he or she sees it, "emergency" is always somewhat subjective).
• And make sure there are enough administrators. If you are down to only one or two active, that's not enough. (I don't know the situation.) Wikiversity has "probationary custodians," which is an excellent system. Policy allows any admin to mentor a probationer, it's routinely implemented by a 'crat without a vote. Consult me if you want to consider that here, I've seen both sides. Overall, it works and it works well, if the probationer has active supervision. (Which really means that if there is a complaint, there is another administrator to go to, first, the mentor.) This does not immediately resolve the recusal problem, because it will be assumed that a probationary custodian will confirm their mentor, or vice-versa. Eventually, though, most of the probationers become permanent.
• However, just for fun, I'll mention that I lost my first probationary custodianship on Wikiversity, because I short-blocked my mentor for gross incivility. 2 hours. He unblocked himself. No emergency required that he unblock himself, other than his outrage at my temerity. He also revision-deleted the block notice and the block log, and went to meta for an "emergency desysop" of me, lying to the stewards about Wikiversity policy, which allowed me 48 hours to find another mentor. There was no emergency, other than his own outrage at my temerity. My action was later ratified by a 'crat.... The mentor ultimately lost his privileges over the affair. He had long been abusive in various ways. So probationary custodians, if dedicated to serving the community and not their own private agenda or the mentor, can make a big difference. --Abd (talk)
• Ah, two more points: the "duck test" is here stronger than checkuser. Famous comment about checkuser: It is not "magic pixie dust." It can easily fail to connect accounts under some conditions, and false positives are possible under some conditions. This was Stho002, I haven't any reasonable doubt. If not, it was a meat puppet, which will be treated the same.
• There is no need for corrective action at this time, based on anything I have raised. The block record is technically improper, but it will never make a difference for anyone but Dan. (I.e, someone could maybe later raise this as an issue about him, "Look what he did!" So it's up to him, and there is no rush. In fact, what he did is within range of normal behavior, sysops are not expected to be perfect. Given the little I've seen so far, he's damn good.) --Abd (talk) 17:10, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

@Abd: @Dan Koehl: Thank you for your detailed and considered reply. A couple of additional points to consider as well. NZcat was operating at night GMT generally a quiet time for admins here on WS, luckily Dan was also active. Secondly, NZCat2 and NZcatO quickly replaced the blocked NZcat with the same modus operandi and Dan had to speedily act again under the duck criteria! I for one give Dan my full support for these actions. This was not an edit war, but merely an application of the duck principle, particularly as Dan had community support and was acting on behalf of the community for his original edits. Andyboorman (talk) 19:18, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Having looked around a little more, this is the issue: there was no close supporting Dan's actions. Understanding of the role of the closer is often missing. The closer actually makes the decision, as informed by the community. If someone disagrees with a decision, the first place to go is the closer. We are accustomed to administrators closing. That's an unnecessary -- and sometimes damaging -- limitation. If an admin action is required by the close, yes, an administrator must close (in that case, a normal user may request a close as ready, analyzing the discussion, and then any admin can ratify it and action it.) Dan did have community support, but the formalities are missing. That, then, creates a loophole, a process error, for Stho002 to attack. Stho002 is good at finding what is wrong with what he doesn't like. That can actually be harnessed, because he's not necessarily wrong. I.e., he finds something that is actually missing. The problem with his behavior (as far as I've seen so far) is in all the blame attached to error, and the incivility.

It's a wiki. It is easy to fix mistakes. It is not required to be perfect, to do everything crisply according to set and fixed rules. Nevertheless, when basic operating principles are neglected, damage accrues. Here, probably, an admin should close, if it is considered necessary for the block log to show another admin confirming the block.

In theory, an admin could review the unblock request and unblock. I consider that extremely unlikely here, and it is moot, this being a sock. Another process nicety: no unblock unless there is a unblock request. There are very, very clear reasons for this. Another one: no unblock based on "abusive block." That is really wheel-warring. Rather, "block no longer necessary" is generally legitimate, and what I like to see is: "User has agreed to regulate own behavior to avoid problems, and to seek consensus before proceeding in the face of warnings." Administrators can and should treat users with respect, including negotiating with blocked users instead of just giving Yes or No answers, with lack of support. I do think that Dan might be good at this, from what I've seen. But I don't actually know. --Abd (talk) 19:46, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Point taken another admin should have stepped in and taken the load off Dan and acted as a closer, even at a risk of a "Dan and his gang" (sic) accusation. I probably would have done so except I was off line during this problem. Stho002's behaviour was much more than blaming errors in procedure and (euphemistically) incivility as a bit more digging will show you. However, there hopefully will be two more active crats in place shortly. Also I am sure this additional brush with Stho002's sockpupettry and complaints to Stewards will teach all to be more supportive and proactive. Mind you all most of us want to do is to add robust information! Regards Andyboorman (talk) 20:38, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Present active project discussions

The lately developed Wikispecies:Projects are active, and need more users opinion and feedback to develop further. Basically, the different projects has a description, where you can submit yourself as participant. The project talk page is where the real development takes place, and the intention is that after discussions and consensus, changes can take place according to the will and wish of the Wikispecies community. Reasons for the projects is to make the discussion, consensus and decision process more effective, but also to reduce the number of discussion on the Village pump, even if important discussions and planned decisions are to be announced at the Village pump.

Presently Wikispecies has several active projects:

• Local policies, where a Local admin activity review is discussed, as well as a local Local Checkuser policy, see Wikispecies talk:Local policies. Later suggestion of changes to our present [[Wikispeci[es:Policy]] can be discussed here as well.
• Project Cleanup is for those willing to take on the task of cleaning up pages that are in need of attention, see Wikispecies_talk:Project_Cleanup
• Project Wikidata is for those interested in the integration of Wikispecies into wikidata, see Wikispecies_talk:Project_Wikidata

Your participation is important and appreciated, and since it is important that major changes to the project are supported by the community, its good if you can at least support suggestions, or vote against. Please feel free to suggest new projects that you believe should be added to the list here.

Dan Koehl (talk) 13:15, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Possible new projects I would see a need for is (please add suggestions of new projects in the list below):

• Project:Tree of life, a project for those interested in collaboration with EnWp Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life and to promote an intensified cooperation between Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life and Wikispecies. Dan Koehl (talk) 13:54, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
• To start a project like Project:Sister project collaboration or likevise, which discuss back links to Wikispecies from the different sister projects would probably benefit Wikispecies. Presently the dutch and Swedish Wikipedia automatically links all taxon boxes to Wikispecies page for that specific taxon. How can similar backlinks be established from other Wikipedia languages and sister projects, and what will be needed to increase the confidence for Wikispecies from the German Wikipedia?Dan Koehl (talk) 13:54, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I am a member of Project:Tree of Life on Wikipedia have been for about 5 years, so could probably help with that one. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 06:44, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Great @Faendalimas:, please feel free to start the project if you feel that you are prepared to invest some time. You are probably th best to think how that project could be used, I only saw the possibility to establish a communication bridge, and start cooperate. You may see more in detail how Wikispecies can benefit from a cooperation with Tree of Life. Even if its would be limited to some reports and information about what is being done there, it would have a value, I think. Dan Koehl (talk) 06:53, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Approval of KoehlBot

I kindly once more ask the Wikispecies community to give User:KoehlBot Botstatus, and approve the Bot on the above stated motivation, and that it be given both 'bot' and 'sysop' rights. Link to approval is here. Dan Koehl (talk) 13:18, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Template I made earlier some may wish to use

Hi I made a template earlier since I am about to add a lot of fossil taxa. {{Extinct}} which produces † its one used on Wikipedia also. Produces the dagger for extinct which is fairly universal but if you hover over it it says extinct, for users who may not know what that means. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 20:00, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

That's a brilliant idea. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:50, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

thank you appreciate that. By the way you can put it inside other templates if you wish, its font is fixed to no italics and no bold so even if the other template sets a species name say to italics this dagger will still not be italicised which looks better. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 04:28, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Worth giving it a go! Thanks Andyboorman (talk) 17:44, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Accusations against my name and person

I would like to ask for a minor assistance from the Wikispecies community. In order to do what I could, to perform the will and consensus of the Wikispecies community, and remove the different Australia and New Zealand categories, created by User:Stho002, I have been busy with this, especially during the (european) nights, when Wikispecies doesn't have so many active users. I realized soon it was much better for everyone if I would perform this cleanup with a Bot, since a bot accounts edits doesn't show up in the recent changes, as my edits are now doing. I studied the Wikispecies policy for bot creation, approval application an operation, and have, to my knowledge followed this local policy, mainly written by User:OhanaUnited. Until two days ago, this went fine, after the community had given approval to User:KoehlBot, including User:OhanaUnited, who gave his approval with the following words: @Dan Koehl: Ok, that's fine. OhanaUnitedTalk page 02:06, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

03:49, 26 March 2015 (UTC) User:Stho002 started a discussion on Meta Mass destruction of Wikispecies data by an out of control crat which, to my surprise has been going on without being stopped, until yesterday, when Stho002 was blocked after called User:Franz Xaver an idiot. Before that he addressed me personally, with different bad words and suggested I should make mankind a favor and commit suicide after which Stho002 got blocked 22:28, 27 March 2015 (UTC) for a week !!!.

But the whole world can enjoy reading different accusations against my person, no one has removed the text, and no steward has informed a reader that all this is not true. I guess my grandchildren may be able to read all this one, day, and I ask everyone here, who work under a pseudonym, to imagine how it feels if your real name, was publicly abused in such a way, without anyone on Meta doing anything. Im even identified to the Wikimedia Foundation but my name has no protection whatsoever, against false accusations, or a an entire small novel painting me as one of the worst people on Wikimedia. Meta-Wiki stewards has done nothing to clean my name. At the same time, they and I know, that Im not supposed to step into Stho002 attack, and defend myself. Ten years later, people will probably be able to read Stho002s comments about my person like: an out of control crat, Koehl is an insidious little misanthrope , DanKoehl's Mafia attitude to wiki, Your drivel makes no sense, You have no idea what you are doing, You are just hell bent on destroying, You are the sort of person who drags mankind down into the gutter, who retards progress, who hides knowledge, Really, Dan, the most constructive contribution you could make to mankind is suicide, you are destroying data, an out of control crat who has local backing of a small group of thugs, This is a gross abuse of sysop powers by Koehl, To prove what a liar and a fraud Koehl is, This is massive scale vandalism, Koehl and some others have proven themselves to be unworthy of respect, I alert stewards to the use of an unapproved bot (KoehlBot) , How can stewards turn a blind eye to such a blatant breach of protocol by DanKoehl, I am alerting stewards to the issue whereby a WS crat (DanKoehl) has made over 1000 edits with a bot which did NOT have proper approval by the community, This is an issue about a crat not following proper procedures and policies. Why the fuck aren't stewards giving a shit about this, Further evidence that crat DanKoehl does not know what the fuck he is doing, and is acting (on a massive scale) without proper community consultation/support, .

-Thank you Wikimedia, as a contributor since 2002, I never thought I or my family bearing the same family name, had to experience this!

Meanwhile, I have taken the initiative to improve development and democrazy on Wikispecies, by founding the projects, as well as cleaned up some 20 000 files, removing categories the community finds out of topic. During the last days, I could finally, after that I had the impression that KoehlBot was approved by the Wikispecies community, some 1 000 files were cleaned by the Bot.

Three days ago, at 16:48, 18 April 2015 (UTC) comes a surprising message from Steward User:Tegel with a question regarding the bot flag, and 18:04, 18 April 2015 (UTC), User:OhanaUnited answer After taking a closer look, I have to say the painful answer, which was there's none. Dan put the cart before the horse. which, in my eyes is an indication that I deliberately should have broken against certain rules.

18th of April User:Stho002 continue his Novel about my person on Meta Wiki: Again, I alert stewards to the use of an unapproved bot (KoehlBot) as a weapon of mass destruction (see here). I alert you to the discussion here. How can stewards turn a blind eye to such a blatant breach of protocol by DanKoehl??? How much destruction is he going to be allowed to wreak? Blocking me from Meta for one week really helped the situation, didn't it Vituzzu? ... Stho002 (talk) 22:55, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

02:46, 19 April 2015 (UTC) the steward User:Billinghurst steps in to give support to the criticism against me ina pretty unpolite way, when he could have informed about those rules in a private conversation. Obviously it was important to confront me in a way, that would decrease my support from the Wikispecies community?

Wikispecies:Village_Pump#KoehlBot.

You can yourself read through Wikispecies:Village_Pump#KoehlBot, where, based on that I wanted to follow the community consensus and cleanup the Stho002 files, you can find the following accusations against my person: 1. assign rights to your bot accounts without seeking community approval, 2. A bureaucrat who does not follow due process is undertaking a conflict of interest and without adequate scrutiny, 3. That is a bad precedent, 4. and a poor leadership position, 5. Don't blame the messengers for your own lack of due process, 6. While openness and community consensus take time, they are there to ensure that you have a community-approved process = I'm accused of not valuing openness and community consensus?? 7. Crats are clearly responsible for good governance, so please stop trying to avoid the accountability, Tell me how it is not a conflict of interest to assess your own bot request. . Since I got some support from the community, Billinghurst started with comments like I am surprised that the community finds that acceptable.

The OhanaUnited continues with a rain of criticism: Regardless of my level of activity, this is not a justification for Dan's unilateral decision process which includes providing a bot flag for an unapproved bot and providing an admin flag for a bot account without going through proper channel (plus many more questionable conduct)., In any other major projects, this kind of action would have immediately be desysopped and decratted., and finally ends with accusations that I have made people fear me: Sadly, Dan and his enablers have assembled a critical mass to remove an editor (Stho002) who is not afraid of asking difficult questions. After Stho002 was gone, I have some editors who contacted me privately stating that they have likewise ceased editing and left this project. A few others said in private communication that they also disagree with Dan's actions but never make it public for the fear of reprisal from Dan's group of editors..

Dear Community, I believe that the Epilogue of last years problems on Wikispecies, will never end as long as all this is accepted, and as long as Stho002 has support from one of Wikispecies bureaucrats, and he is aloud to drag my name in the dirt writing books about me on Meta-Wiki. Billinghurst already showed his support for OhanaUnited a couple of months ago, and apparently feel free to address me with lines like Still fighting this one? Really? when Im defending myself, something which a Steward maybe thinks I don't have the right to do without being bullied and ironically commented?

before creating the User:KoehlBot. I read through the document I think both you as a group and I, believed that you approved my Bot. And as I wrote above: My crime however was clearly not intended as ignoring the community, its will and its consensus, contrary comments above indicate that at least mentioned users believe I did all in my power to get approval from the community. And I truly believed I had done everyting right, and that your approval was in order, especially since I waited several days after the normal time limit, to see if anyone had a different opinion, or if the Bot was totally approved. I, and I think the community as well, thought that the Wikispecies community had approved KoehlBot.

Now User:OhanaUnited, User:Tegel User:Billinghurst, and Stho002 tell us you didn't, and furthermore indicate that I deliberately should have broken against certain rules, by purpose, and omitted to give the community have I have written documentation that User:OhanaUnited has supported and defended Stho002 since 2008, which in my point of view created last years crisis. I have felt his anger over that I stepped in last year, and contrary to him, supported the community against an abuse admin and user. Since then he has put a sign "retired" on his user page, and mainly engage on Wikispecies, in situations where he criticize me directly or indirectly. Stewards Billinghurst and <tegel may be unaware of this, or supporting OhanaUnited, since once when I Billinghurst went on a critic campaign against me here, I wanted to mail him the document on Stho002/OhanaUnited, but then stopped communicate, and didn't answer emails. When I defend myself above, Billinghurst writes : and Still fighting this one? Really?.(indicating that he may be pretty young and think its OK for a Steward to address anyone like that on apublic place like a Village pump) His last words above, is for me as Swede, even if I lived in California 1963, and started to study english in first class, a riddle. Maybe someone can explain what he means, and why the Wikispecies community needs to read this?

Even then not everything will be codified and you will have unwritten expectations on people's actions based solely on the grounds of reasonable and practical. FWIW I am looking for reflections on the past actions; improvements in future processes; a community that looks at the broadest interests. I have no expectations of blame or corporal or administratie punishment

I may be an idiot, but I can't get what all those words mean, and unless the intention is to humiliate me, it would be better to write straight and easily understood. Stewards are not supposed to create misunderstanding and problems, they are supposed to solve them.

And again OhanaUnited and Billinghurst makes their visit to Wikispecies, with one single mission, a new smear campaign? And again they pretend being here at the same time on random, like they did in January when both accused for breaking rules after I had blocked Stho002:

(From Village pump January) @Tommy Kronkvist:, @Dan Koehl: I agree with Dan Koehl that a block doesn't require a poll. Dan could have legitimately blocked Stho002 without asking for permission or conducting a poll. Any admin or crat has the right to block an offender whenever he thinks a person deserves it. This over-discussing and over-cautiousness only harms WS in that it lets offenders conduct a sort of a public trial where a lot of bad feeling are expressed and unnecessary rivalries are made. The bottom line is this: do we trust an admin/crat to make a reasonable decision on his own, blocking an offender, or not. If not than the admin/crat should be desysoped. If yes, his decision should be respected without the need of any poll. Mariusm (talk) 05:25, 11 January 2015 (UTC) @Mariusm: I clearly said "I'm not justifying Stho002's actions here". By continuing to support Dan, Mariusm you're enabling Dan's administrative rule-breaking to continue. @Dan Koehl:, the "discussion" (or as I call it a poll) started with headings like "support" and "oppose", which is no different than RfA. And no you didn't leave it open for 36 hours. You voted support at 00:47, 9 January 2015 (UTC) and concluded it at 00:09, 10 January 2015 (UTC). That's less than 24 hours. In case you haven't read this, please read what constitutes as an "involved" admin and why it's never a good idea to use your tools when you are both a judge and a jury. I asked you a procedural question in terms of how long the block should be because your proposal didn't list out any. You ignored it and continued your discussion/poll anyway. I even predicted that this was going to happen (without naming names at that time but pretty much anyone in the community who have been following along knew that it's about your insufficiency in being impartial). I'm glad that stewards have taken notice to this type of procedural issue. (And no, it wasn't me who contacted @Billinghurst: so someone else must have felt the same way and contacted him.) OhanaUnitedTalk page 00:55, 12 January 2015 (UTC) @OhanaUnited: what your'e saying above doesn't amount to much. Your arguments certainly don't prove that Dan Koehl have broken any rule. You are trying to compare a blockage to a trial, mentioning judge, executor, jury (poll) etc., while a wiki doesn't work at all like this. If Dan Koehl reached the conclusion that Stho002 deserves to be blocked, than he is entitled to exercise his power to block the offender. No poll is needed, no jury and no judge. In fact Dan Koehl went out of his way to ensure fairness and to explain his reasons and the offenses which were made. Please don't try to bring accusations where none are appropriate, just because of your affiliation with an offensive user. Mariusm (talk) 06:20, 12 January 2015 (UTC) (From Village pump January)

I now want to ask you:

1. to please read through OhanaUniteds document Wikispecies:Bot and see if I have broken against any rules stated there.
2. How do you interpret following sentence:I've been a sysop here for a bit, and I think I could be of some benefit with the bureaucrat flag. The main reason is because I sometimes use high-speed scripts to do some maintenance tasks; quickly flagging myself as a bot (and unflagging when done) can help unclog recent changes. While bots go through approval, I think this is more of a case were not showing 50 deletions in a row in recent changes is a convenience to us all. Finally, I'm of the belief on small project such as this, being having both the admin and 'crat bits doesn't hurt. Maxim(talk) 01:26, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
   Poll starts 01:26, 25 May 2008 (UTC); poll ends 01:26, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
   Closed early. Maxim is promoted to bureaucrat. OhanaUnitedTalk page 19:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC) AND
3. I also recommend using a separate bot account. However, you can assign sysop & bot flag to your bot without asking us just like Monobi did to his bot (as long as it's for legitimate use) OhanaUnitedTalk page 00:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
4. If there's any support from the community, for the accusations that I was lying, and deliberately giving KoehlBot botstaus and admin status without telling you, and with an evil ambition, then please tell me so, and if I have lost the confidence from the community, so I can take the consequences for that.
5. But if not, how do you see the latest attacks on a Wikispecies bureaucrat, from outside (Meta-Wiki) and inside (The "retired" OhanaUnited) and what can we, shall we do? Do we accept that stewards acts like this. I'm not referring to stewards informing about rules, I'm referring to how they do it, and if its OK with the unpolite ways and cited accusations above?

Im so sorry that my ambitions to serve Wikispecies by cleaning up certain files lead to this, I had no intentions at all, I have been sitting up whole nights working and I just feel something went over the limit now, and I hope that the conflicts on Wikispecies finally can stop, and for sure, we don't need any stewards starting up more problems and conflicts. As for the worst accusations from above mentioned persons, that is of course not an issue for Wikispecies, that's business for may family's lawyer. Still, does anyone here, accept what the stewards seem to accept on Meta. Where shall we draw the line? How can we as users be protected against what I have described above?

Dan Koehl (talk) 10:00, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Dear @Dan Koehl:, in my opinion, the accusations and insults by Thorpe are a matter very different from the statements of @Billinghurst: and again different from that of @OhanaUnited: and @Tegel:. I agree that at Meta too many insults by Thorpe were tolerated at the beginning. Finally, he has been blocked for a month because of a very minor insult, whereas the more heavy issues before resulted only in a block of one week. However, this seems to be the usual escalating procedure of intensified consequences. Anyway, this collection of heavy insults at Meta better should be removed (by one of the stewards, I suppose). On the other hand, I recommend not to repeat them here. As far as I see, the statements of Billinghurst here have some points and I would not like to see them lumped with the rest. He is certainly struggling to stay neutral and it is not easy to act in a fair way, when under pressure. m:User talk:Stho002#You still misunderstand a steward's role is showing that Billinghurst received emails by Thorpe in order to influence him, which he obiously has declined. Anyway, at that point, when he wanted to avoid criticism for being biased, he probably could not avoid to give a comment on that points, which in his view were not in accordance with good practice. As far as I see, it actually is problematic as a bureaucrat to evaluate the own request, especially when the situation is as delicate as it is. (In a normal situation, maybe nobody would make a notice of this.) As far as concerns Tegel, he only has put a procedural question, which is legitimate, in my opinion. However, I suppose, there might be some unexpressed background issues, as there obviously have been conflicts at svwiki in the past. Maybe his attitude is not fully neutral, but anyway he refrained from explicitly expressing any bias. That seems to be OK, in my opinion. More problematic maybe are the postings of OhanaUnited, as obviously he is expressing some bad feelings. Anyway, also for him applies AGF. I suppose, his reaction partially comes from some concern for the project, as he during a low activity period probably did not notice all activity going on here. So, some surprising discovery easily may result in some concern. However, I would like to hear from @OhanaUnited:, if he also, as Billinghurst, has received private emails from Thorpe, who tried to exert influence in a certain way? He need not answer this question, as it is about private mails. However, if he has got some, he may investigate his mind, whether he still can claim to be impartial. Dan, I am convinced that your intentions are good and you want the best for Wikispecies. Yes, and I trust in you. However, sometimes a more relaxed approach might be better, and allowing more time for the things to develop. (I remember that I also have been accused to be hot headed, but I am working on this.) Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 11:59, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I respect your words Franz, and I value them and thank you for being straight and open with your thoughts. I can however, only with great efforts, have a more relaxed approach, when being victim for a smear campaign at Meta, where Im suggested o commit suicide as a favor to mankind, and accused to break rules, which locally doesn't seem to exist, and accused by the very person who wrote them. I call all this I now experience smear campaign, and back stabbing, and I think all this has passed by what is expected as normal. I shouldn't even have to accept all this. Only if I have had bad intentions, and played a foul game. Its not me taking that role in this game, however. Did you read through OahanUniteds rules for bots, can you read anywhere about the things I'm now accused for, which according to OhanUnited, In any other major projects, this kind of action would have immediately be desysopped and decratted? Did I break a local policy, or not, and if I did, and Im guilty to Billingshursta ccusations, where is the diffs? Where is the clean game in this campaign? feel like Im in as much hot wind as Stho002 was, but why? Is there relevant reasons for this, or is there a theater going on behind the scenes? (For sure, I know Tegel from SvWp, as well as his insinuations against me on Meta...) Dan Koehl (talk) 12:16, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: I think our best strategy is to calm down. Not to attribute any importance to what Stho002 is saying, the same as a judge doesn't pay attention to a convicted criminal's accusations. We can't let Stho002 achieve his intentions, namely to throw you off balance and make you abandon your category-cleansing project. Our best strategy would be to disregard all the pointless noises and to calmly pursue the goals we set to accomplish. I am strongly backing you in this bot affair, and I think you acted in a fair way to get the community approval. Mariusm (talk) 12:40, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: At Wikispecies:Bot under the heading "Approval", there is the following sentence "Contributors may carry out limited testing of bot processes without approval, provided the test edits are very low number", which contains the term "very low number", missing a clear definition. As far as I remember, your test concerned about 100 pages, but OhanaUnited might have thought of a much lower number, when he wrote the text. Anyway, it is not really defined at that place. However, I can imagine, how Thorpe would have described these tests using exaggerating vocabulary - and maybe this was part of some emails he sent. I cannot find a clear violation of policy, but the point of "very low number" might be debatable. The other point is about evaluating as a bureaucrat the own request. Here, Billinghurst has a point, as it would have been possible to address the stewards, when other bureaucrats were not available. Anyway, as I understand his last posting, he does not rate this as a heavy issue, as he expressed to "have no expectations of blame or corporal or administrative punishment". When he is "looking for reflections on the past actions; improvements in future processes; a community that looks at the broadest interests", this seems to apply to all members of the Wikispecies community, not only to someone particularly addressed. And yes, I think, that's the way, how we should go on. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:05, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

-Yes, Franz, but like I said, I thought the community had approved, also after the 100 edit test. If I should wait another week, or a month, or three years, and see if anyone objects, nothing would be done. 6 April until 17 April is 11 days, while I believe one week is normal. I wrote I interpret that the Bot is now fully approved. Dan Koehl (talk) 13:30, 17 April 2015 (UTC) and no one objected.

-Did anyone of you find the passage in OhanaUniteds document stating the rules I'm supposed to have broken? I think its very confusing to be in very unpolite ways accused of abusing my admin and crat user rights, for breaking rules, which OhanaUnited seemingly forgot to mention in the local policy. (and even more confusing to be attacked for stopping a WS user who, by evidence really broke the rules. In a normal world, One bureaucrat should not attack another bureaucrat for doing the job, the right thing, and follow the will of the community?) Dan Koehl (talk) 13:39, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Hopefully, @OhanaUnited: will provide the relevant diffs, if these really exist. Moreover, he has claimed above to "have some editors who contacted" him "privately stating that they have likewise ceased editing and left this project. ..." As nobody can demand, that he discloses private emails, especially when they are explicitely confidential, these claims are difficult to substantiate. However, he maybe can point us to the contributors, who "likewise ... left the project". (They would not need to have "fear of reprisal" from whoever, when they really have left.) Maybe, the community can learn from these cases, what actually went wrong. However, if it is not possible to substantiate these claims, these anyway might be unfounded, maybe based on having misunderstood what someone was communicating. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 15:07, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Can anyone find in this document the rules, I am supposed to have deliberately not followed, which makes the accusations against my person relevant, when I was trying to help the project by cleaning up files? -I can't find those mentioned rules, and therefore believe that they are not valid on Wikispecies. And if this is true, my conscious is cleared, and all the accusations during the last three days can be regarded as politcs? Dan Koehl (talk) 17:04, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I think that @Dan Koehl: followed both the stated rules and community desire when developing and asking for the bot and getting approval. I for one was not aware that separate approval was required in order to grant the bot admin rights, if these were required for its correct function. If this is the case then we have all learnt and for that we can thank Billinghurst and Tegel. Dan's conscience is clear. As to the vindictive rant on Meta it has no support here nor should it have support on any right thinking forum. I for one have been trying to concentrate on getting rid of red links, stubs, blanks, adding journal references and so on in between getting some order in my my new home. Why the politics now? I am also glad that more crats will be in place to help take the political load off Dan. He deserves at least that! NZcat - quack enough said! Andyboorman (talk) 20:08, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I am in agreement with @Franz Xaver: and @Andyboorman: I also think the matter needs to be dropped keeping it visible and as an ongoing war only makes the detractors feel better, a point stho02 made himself on his talk page at Meta in a previous accusation of this. Some points by User:Tegel and User:Billinghurst are valid points, and clearly we need to make corrections to move forward on that. I think the bot policy Wikispecies:Bot probably should be revisited and examined and probably updated. It should at the very least actually state that bot accounts may need permission for both the bot flag and the admin flag, however if I may recommend @Dan Koehl: I would encourage you not to take the lead on this issue, you are too close to it at this point in time. Instead since @OhanaUnited: it is originally your document I think it would be best for all if you acknowledged it could use an update and lead that discussion make improvements under community consultation and rewrite it accordingly. I am sure in its time it was fine, but recent discussions have showed some weaknesses in it in the current climate. Just remember you cannot reason with a person with the mindset of a tantruming child the best way to deal with them is to ignore them. UhanaUnited I know you supported stho02 for a very long time, you told me this yourself by email in 2010, Uccucha also confirmed this was the case at the time. He is gone now, and time to move on, ignore him. I am sure he still emails you, whether you want him to or not, but he is not a part of this anymore and should not be influencing the decisions of a Bureaucrat. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 22:08, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Much appreciation for the comments so far, and I feel better now, knowing that four users couldn't find the rules I was accused of breaking, in OhanaUniteds Bot policy document. My conclusion is that 3 days of accusations was invalid, especially since I only had good intentions. I guess you all saw that a new duck turned up, and there may be more flying over this lake. I think we should really get that local CU started up. Dan Koehl (talk) 22:28, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: You seem as self-defiant as another user. My commentary about your actions is expressed above and does not need repeating and still stands. At the very beginning you could have said "They are all good points raised. I was looking to act in the best interest of the community, and will continue that by asking for another bureaucrat to review the decisions that I made with relation to my actions on my accounts. I will reflect on your other comments," and this whole discussion would have been over. Instead you wanted and progressed to a fight. We all get negative opinion poked at us, stop being precious. At all times I have tried to play this neutrally, and even when someone is being a PITA at another wiki it doesn't mean that you can ignore what they say, but you have to make your own assessment of the facts, which is what I have tried to do here. To note that governance is more than "not doing the wrong thing", nor about your motives for doing whatever you did, it is about freely "doing the right thing, and being seen to be doing the right thing". Governance belongs to the whole community, but it is the advanced right holders who need to be its champions. This has been my theme and why I have addressed this matter to your community. Billinghurst (talk) 12:59, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Dear @Billinghurst:, I believe that of the advanced right holders who need to be its champions you could have criticized OhanaUnited first, who created a policy document for bots, which didn't point out the details you informed us about, and which you criticized me of breaking. You could also have asked OhanaUnited why he at 17th of April gave approval to the bot @Dan Koehl: Ok, that's fine. OhanaUnitedTalk page 02:06, 17 April 2015 (UTC) and didn't object to my comment I interpret that the Bot is now fully approved. Dan Koehl (talk) 13:30, 17 April 2015 (UTC) when I had given the community possibility to give their opinion for 11 days. You could have asked OhanaUnited why he used such aggression only three days later, indicating I should be desysoped etc on other wikis, when all I did was following the policy document he has written. In my world, what you two did is referred to as backstabbing, contrary to good Governance. It would have been easy for you see I have been working manually thousand of edits, choosing the night so the massediting would not disturb so many users, a work that would have been much easier to perform with a bot. It would have been easy for you to see, that IF I had broken a rule, it was not my intention, and I had all willingness to everything right, and that I acted in good faith and had no intention whatsoever to cheat the community.

A neutral and objective steward could have seen all this.It would have been easy to see already the first time OhanaUnited brought you here to humiliate me in February, that you were used as a tool in a campaign, with a goal.

I will not comment more on your behavior and your person, and I have not followed your example and attacked you on Meta, and you can not list a group of bad names I have delivered in your face, you simply have to take responsibility for your lack of politeness and rude behavior yourself. You have once more exposed yourself here on Wikispecies, and most probably with a similar result as to the other times. You have gained nothing in your personal campaign against me. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:08, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Actually, Dan Koehl, the bot request process has been around since 2006. I only moved the process into a subpage in 2008. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 14:24, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited:, I think you remember wrong, as far as I can see you are the creator of the present document, which you created 2008-03-15 18:12:23?

In your email to me 5th of November 2014, when I mentioned that Stho002 was abusing the Policy rules, you wrote Good lord, I have totally forgotten that page since nobody touched it for over 5 years. and I guess when a bureaucrat forgets the existence of Policy rules on a Wikimedia website, it shouldn't be surprising when you forgot that Wikispecies has a local Bot Policy, which doesn't include the things you, Tegel and Billinghurst have accused me of breaking against. This may also explain why you claimed I had committed activities that normally would have caused me to be desysoped, three days after that you, yourself gave approval to KoehlBot with the words @Dan Koehl: Ok, that's fine. OhanaUnitedTalk page 02:06, 17 April 2015 (UTC) and why you didn't object to my comment I interpret that the Bot is now fully approved. Dan Koehl (talk) 13:30, 17 April 2015 (UTC).

OhanaUnited you may also have forgotten what I wrote on your talk page last year, 9 November 2014 (UTC):

OhanaUnited, I suggest that we officially declare that we are not in conflict, and furthermore cooperate as bureaucrats, which is our responsibility to do. And when a contributor abuses the project again, as described above, and breaking the policy rules again, this demands our attention and reaction. I have already written a warning on the users page, asking him to accept and follow the policy rules for Wikispecies. I have also informed him, that in case he doesnt follow the community rules, he may get blocked. I now ask you for the cooperation as bureaucrat, to do the same, so that we act together, and show the community, that we as bureaucrats dont accept anyone repeatedly breaking the policy rules. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:59, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I find it sad that you didn't find it very important if Stho002 was breaking Policy rules during several years, protecting pages, maiing edit wars, blocking other longtime users, blocking other admins, as far as I can see without a sinle admin action from your side? And I find it sad that instead of accepting my invitation mentioned above, you chose to "retire" in bitterness, with the words I don't know how long I'll leave (maybe forever, maybe not). When and if I come back, hopefully it'll be better in the future. But I can't be certain with the direction it is heading towards as of now. but you didn't. You have been repeatedly "crossing my paths" and jumped in all of a sudden, removing links I did to Wikispecies facebook page, or just creating problems, like you did during the previous discussions on Bots, namely when your meaningless comments reg Steinsplitters Bot, which almost made him remove it: @OhanaUnited: Your understanding of the replag seems wrong. There does not exists a real replag for the prod cluster, even if you made 5 edits per second. The tool above is for measuring the replicated database lag on tools, which has zero affect to prod. It is unlikely that there is a replag because of too much edits. Replag is no issue. If you don't like the bot, let me know and i switch it off - i don't care - only running the script here upon Dan's request. Best --Steinsplitter (talk) 17:48, 18 March 2015 (UTC). (Since then some 3 000 unptarolled pages has been patrolled.

You could have chosen to cooperate in peace, instead it seems you chose some sort of war with backstabbing, repeatedly trying do miscredit my person, insinuate Im violating rules, working against the community etc. in a political way, that I very much question, why you did. What, may I ask, have you actually gained from all this? If you watch Village pumps history for the latest months, all you see is peaceful discussions, and now thees a conflict again, whats the use of this? And you know deep inside you, that all I had with that bot was good intentions, and trying make a major horse work just a little bit easier.

I herebye ask you, stop attacking my back, stop making problems, remove you false "retired" sign and return to the project and work constructively, OR please keep your retired sign, and take the consequences of that sign. Dan Koehl (talk) 15:06, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I find it despicable for you to post my private communication without consulting my permission. Yes I'm the creator of Wikispecies:Bot but as I showed you in the link, the bot approval process has already existed in 2006, long before I joined the community in December 2007. Moving the process from Village Pump to its own separate page isn't creating the process from scratch. However, that process was created after you joined in 2004. I don't see why you didn't speak up or voice any concerns about this process for last 9 years until you started doing cleanups with AWB this month. Moreover, using your theory of thoughts, point out to me which rule I have broken that I'm not allowed to comment while having the "retired" template on. This is exactly the type of intimidation comments that others have felt its chilling effect. I have indicated clearly why the retirement template was placed. Asking tough, but legitimate, questions should not be viewed as attacking or backstabbing another editor. Learn to work and cooperate with others who share different views. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:44, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

You have been lying, doing politics, and together with Stephen created a bad working atmosphere. I can only give you the same advice I just gave Stephen, grow up, be a man. And stop with hate. Be honest, accept your errors, forgive yourself and move on. Wikispecies is not a drama theater. Regain peoples respect by earning it, not by trying intrigues. And above all, stop focus on me, that's a dead end alley. Focus on yourself, and your own well being. But remember, for every time you attack me, I will defend myself. But in the time in between, I try to be productive. I think you should too. Dan Koehl (talk) 05:05, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

"Be a man"? Really? That's a very sexist comment. I don't understand why I should "be a man" as opposed to a rational person of either gender. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:31, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Its not sexist, because I didn't refer to gender. Good Night, and try to see what I, you, Wikispecies, and your friends at Meta could benefit, if this war was over. Please don't make the Village pump look like it did, when Stho002 was still here. I'm ready with this now, my conclusion is, that I was not guilty in any sense of trying to lie and cheat for the community, I had no bad intentions with the Bot, The local policy rules didn't include what I was later accused to have broken against, and I'm sick and tired on this game now, and so is probably the Wikispecies community. CAN WE BE FRIENDS?, or if you want to continue your campaign, can we do it on mine, or your talk page? I let you decide. Dan Koehl (talk) 05:38, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

---

Can we please be civil and draw a line under this now? Andyboorman (talk) 10:55, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Au and NZ categories

I have been doing the cleanup for weeks, and apart from the Bot issue came into other problems recently because of this, since two more users, @Neferkheperre: and @Kempf EK: also use geographical categories, please see my talk page. I have not reached knowledge weather those categories are inline with community consensus, there seems to be different vieews on what the consenus included, and I will be a bit busy for the next days, but hope the community simply can straighten this out.

The cleanup work is becoming more and more complicated, after over 30 000 edits I have to admit, that the fun and the enthusiasm is really over when I as a person, only get more and more problems when I'm trying to put my energy for the good of Wikispecies. I will only be too happy if someone would care to continue the work I did, after trying to sort out the above issues. Im sure you will be able to straighten this out, and I wish you good luck. Dan Koehl (talk) 00:53, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: Thank you for your efforts with these categories, which by consensus of those participants in the discussion, were considered as not adding much, if anything to the taxon page or WS in general. Much appreciated! @Neferkheperre: and @Kempf EK: I would advise editors who are experimenting with geographical and ecotone categories to use a different approach compared to Au and NZ, which should help with the use of the bot, once approved, which I assume it will soon as there are no dissenting voices as yet. I will, of course, help out with Au and NZ, if I come across them on the taxon pages in the future. Andyboorman (talk) 10:45, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

A good idea, and something I suggested before to Neferkheperre. I ask @Neferkheperre: and @Kempf EK: to join this discussion, because there's a need to get a deeper insight in "your categories" from the community, and see to that you get support. I see, from perspectives of the present job of cleaning pages from Stho002 categories, a need that they would look very different from his, and easier to identify as your category's, and it would be excellent if you could give us an overview of "your categories", and their titles, so we can see if they can be renamed, because I think that there's a need to have them approved by the community. Dan Koehl (talk) 15:36, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I established the Category:Australasian Ostracoda for freshwater Ostracoda that were published for the first time from the Australasian ecozone, like for other ecozones (Category:Nearctic Ostracoda, Category:Afrotropic Ostracoda, etc.). That category is neither an Au nor a NZ category and has nothing to do with the categories established by Stephen Thorpe. Nevertheless, the Category:Australasian Ostracoda with all its species was deleted, obviously without looking at that category, but blindly via AWB. There should be more respect for the work of others. Kempf EK (talk) 00:35, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I think there needs to be careful discussion and looking at which ones are being cleaned out, to avoid the accidental removal of categories without discussion. I would suggest if you have created categories it would be a god idea to join this discussion so we know what they are in advance. It also may be that auto removal, using AWB, may not be an option for some of them due to lack of detailed filters. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 00:40, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, but once again, there's a need for a "green list" of geographical categories. Ill remove everything "Ostracoda" from the clean up. Dan Koehl (talk) 00:46, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry again @Kempf EK:, and good that you were present, do you could revert the edits. The cleanup project by now cover some 30 000 edits, and its not easy to keep an overview over what can be someone else s categories than Stho002. I believe that the only logical method is to have a "green category list" which not only me, but the rest of the community knows. This is why I have initiated this discussion, and I ask you kindly again, to take some step in direction how we can work this out. Its also important that there is a consensus in this and similar questions. Ife everything gets discussed and decided, Im sure we can develop a solution for this problem.Dan Koehl (talk) 01:03, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

may I guess that this is your category as well?: Category:Non-marine Ostracoda? Dan Koehl (talk) 02:24, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Request for Policy Approval/ Further Comments

Hi,

I have created a section in our discussion of a local Check-User policy and would appreciate it if all members could look at Wikispecies_talk:Local_policies#Request_for_Policy_Approval and also please check the links I have included there to have a good understanding of the process. I welcome further discussion and refinement. I would also appreciate approval to take the next step of creating these pages so we can move forward to the next step, of having a policy and process in place.

thanks everyone, Faendalimas ^talk 12:10, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I would urge everyone to please have a look and get involved - its is painless and relatively non-controversial, but important! Thanks Andyboorman (talk) 18:03, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

The Use of [[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]

During the cleanup project, I have often seen different examples of the use of Species: ''[[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]''. The AWB per default wants to correct this to Species: ''[[subst:{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]''. The reasons and its consequences are obvious, in the case od using ''[[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]'' the code reamins, and if the files is renamed/moved, the page and the taxon automatically gets the new name. On the other hand, this is not how it is meant to be used, and therefore the program AWB wants to correct it. The thing is that programs like AWB are very useful, and it would be good if as muach as possible on the website is compatible on such a program. On the other hand, there is not a bright idea that a program force users to adapt a concept which is less handy, practical and logical.

Now, I would be very interested in the public view on this, I guess there may have been discussions on this topic before, but I couldn't find them. Since there is presently a tradition on WS to use the ''[[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]'', which goes against the standard on Wikimedia, I think its good to talk about it, if this use still have support from the community, clearify in the policy rules and instructions on how to make a page? Dan Koehl (talk) 16:13, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't make use of ''[[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]'' in taxon pages. In zoology it can make some sense, as in many cases after moving the page the name will need no more correction. Even here the brackets around the author have to be checked. However, in botany pages, anyway the author combination has to be corrected. I remember to have found plant pages that have simply been moved, but correction of the author combination has not been done. Probably this was produced by someone who usually was working with animals and expected that moving alone would produce a correct name. So, in my opinion, ''[[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]'' is a bit dangerous, as it suggests that no rework is necessary. Moreover, this is something that makes WS to an odd wiki for newcomers, when this is unknown to them coming from any Wikipedia. --Franz Xaver (talk) 18:24, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Franz for the same reasons. I experimented with it but dropped its use for my edits. Needs correcting for plants when I come across it and remember to do so! Andyboorman (talk) 18:40, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I have been using it, mainly because it seemed to be a preferred option here, however I have always had reservations (despite being a zoologist). As stated above there is more to changing a name than just the name itself, authors may need to be bracketed, synonymy changes, references for the justification etc. So if people want to drop this usage here I will be in agreement also. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 18:45, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm happy to hear those opinions, the use of ''[[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]'' system doesn't seem to have many supporters. In pages made by Stho002 the use of ''[[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]'' seems to be a rule. I agree with your arguments against, and I am personally positive for that Wikispecies follows Wikimedia standards as much as possible, and that our routines and rules of editing is as compatible as possible with programs like AWB,as well as migrations of data from here to oher projects.

Wood you agree that we have a consensus: that replacing ''[[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]'' with Species: ''[[subst:{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]'' is OK, and supported? Dan Koehl (talk) 22:41, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that ''[[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]'' is not the preferred option. Mariusm (talk) 04:15, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

agreed... cheers Faendalimas ^talk 10:18, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. --Franz Xaver (talk) 10:34, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Andyboorman (talk) 11:19, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

+1 --Murma174 (talk) 07:02, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I use for years ''[[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]'' after advice from Mariusm. PeterR (talk) 07:12, 27 April 2015 (UTC). I agree with changing it, but the result have to be the same.

Replace it, indeed. --Ruthven (talk) 21:30, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

No objections, I interpret that there is a consensus replacing ''[[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]'' with Species: ''[[subst:{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]''. Dan Koehl (talk) 20:20, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Named taxa: list or categories? or both?

Discussion has been moved to Wikispecies talk:Local policies: Named taxa: list or categories? or both? Dan Koehl (talk) 17:30, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

A Wiki for agriculture?

I'm not sure where else to post this, but I'm wondering if there is a related project to Wikispecies that focuses on agriculture? Agricultural research is so fragmented and out-dated on many university websites, I'd like to be involved in a Wiki for ag that maintained updated research on cultivars' management practices, yield data, cost of production data, potential disease and pest pressures, etc. I see it being linked to Wikispecies, maybe through Wikidata in the future? Any guidance would be appreciated. --Rob Barreca (talk) 23:50, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

@Robbarreca: Have you seen Appropedia? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:58, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Discard double square brackets?

I've seen that @Dan Koehl: has been clearing the double square brackets from taxon names (see for example the following diff). I wonder, has this been agreed by the community??? Virtually every single taxon page carries these brackets. Are we going to delete them from every page? What was the original rational behind these brackets anyway? (apart from making the name display in bold).Mariusm (talk) 10:33, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree that with that question, I just couldn't see any meaning of a link on a page making a link to itself... Dan Koehl (talk) 10:37, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

We add already the authors for years with double brackets. The use of it was that you come direct by the author name. Now I use this information to add the author taxa. PeterR (talk) 10:42, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

But that is another case; the author name refers to another page. A link on a page to the page itself accomplishes nothing. / Ternarius (talk) 10:48, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Koehl: I would advise to stop for now the bracket removal until we have a clear decision here. Mariusm (talk) 10:59, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I did. Lets see if anyone has any opinions, or even better, an explanation reg those brackets. I couldn't find any specification on this in the policy rules, or the help Dan Koehl (talk) 11:08, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I did find this text now: Every name in the taxonavigation should be a link, including the one for the page it's on (this self-link is desirable). at Help:Taxonavigation_section. As far as I can see this text was added 2009-06-30 by Rocket000. Dan Koehl (talk) 11:26, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Maybe it was introduced to remain consistent and to provide the scaffold for the following subtaxa. I would keep this self-link which provides emphasis to the name and which is already ingrained in all our pages. Mariusm (talk) 14:22, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly. Andyboorman (talk) 14:33, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

As far as I see, it does not do any harm. Such self-link is not shown as a link, but in bold face letters. So, nobody would click on this name. If the brackets are removed, they should be replaced by inverted commas for bold face in order to keep the appearance as it is. --Franz Xaver (talk) 14:49, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

A lot of older author citations were created using the {{aut|[[Author Page Name|Author Short Name]]}} syntax. This returned a author name in Small Capitals and linked to the Author page. Now the same is possible using the {{a|Author Page Name|Author Short Name}} syntax, and so the code can be marginally simplified. This is particularly applicable on Reference Templates. I have been slowly changing some of these to the more efficient syntax, but it is low-priority housekeeping task when updating references. Accassidy (talk) 16:15, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

@Accassidy: Using the {{a|Author Page Name|Author Short Name}} syntax, with author citations as in Brackenridgea arenaria will not result in a simplification. Such author citations are more common in botany than in zoology. In order to avoid errors I decided not to mix both and use only the older syntax. --Franz Xaver (talk) 17:30, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

@Franz Xaver: I agree either system works. See Plebejus pilgram. Accassidy (talk) 18:54, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I have to agree with Dan. Linking back to the same page does not make much sense. If emphasis is needed then the same effect can be achieved by using '''foo''' i.e. foo. Green Giant (talk) 08:35, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I also am in agreement, that linking to itself is unnecessary, but also can be frustrating for users, people click on links expecting to go somewhere, if it doesn't it gives the impression of being incomplete. There are better ways to emphasise text. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 10:56, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

@Faendalimas: but the self-link doesn't behave as a link and doesn't show as a link. Why change [[...]] to '''...''' in hundreds of thousands of pages and not leave it as it is? It doesn't make any sense. The self-link also adds to consistency where every taxon in the taxonavigation hierarchy is linked. Mariusm (talk) 11:05, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I think it makes sense because of 2 reasons: 1. AWB full potential can be used while going through the articles, othervise some of its functions must be unchecked. 2. '''...''' follows Wikimedia standards and recommendations, and that's why AWB wants to change in every file. I think that Wikispecies should follow the standard. Dan Koehl (talk) 11:21, 28 April 2015 (UTC).

The history of using brackets by authors was to make a link to the author side. We didn't make templates or author taxa. If every body makes author templates and author taxa it could be cancelled. PeterR (talk) 11:30, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

@PeterR: I think you don't understand the core issue of this discussion; it isn't about cutting off all brackets in the page. It's about the self-link only. For example for the page Leucotrichia mutica we want to cut the brackets only on Species: ''[[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]''.@Dan Koehl: All I can say is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Mariusm (talk) 11:38, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm:. I mean the same, but what for name we use Oliver S. Flint Jr., O.S. Flint Jr. or Flint Jr., 1991 see Mortoniella roldani PeterR (talk) 12:43, 28 April 2015 (UTC).

Was his father also a taxa authority? if not just his name would suffice, I think where it is known we should respect authors wishes on this, H. Bradley Shaffer for example, his whole career has been known as Brad Shaffer. His first name is Howard, but he prefers Brad, and publishes as such. The important thing is the name recognizable. You look up works by Shaffer it will list him as H.B. Shaffer or H. Brad Shaffer. I am using this one as an example I think the way we have it is right. Applying this to your case. Will searching for Flint Jr find him? Or would it be better to be Oliver Flint, or include the Junior, what has he put on his papers, since Flint is a common name. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 13:10, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: as long as the code is not behaving as a link that is fine, but there are plenty of examples where it does. I come across them frequently. I personally dont have an issue with either making sure they all work correctly, ie they have the necessary template to ensure they bold / italicise the name, or they get removed and replaced. Whichever is fine but I think one or the other, whichever is easier, I recognise your point on thousands of pages. But linking to yourself for a page is a sign of incomplete work on web pages, it leaves a bad impression. So one or the other. But it should not be a link. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 11:37, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

@Faendalimas: do you mean that future wiki code versions will behave differently? Can you give me an example of a misbehaving self-link? Mariusm (talk) 11:48, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mariusm: off the top of my head no, and the ones I referred to were probably not behaving as we wish. I do not think its to do with the wiki markup changing, its to do with different people using it differently. If the way you have been using the markup works and does not create a link then I am fine with that. Authors can be links because they go to a different page, all I am referring to is having a link on a page that loads that page is bad form on the internet. The ones I have come across I have fixed as I see them. I agree with your earlier statement if it aint broke, dont fix, just need to make sure the ones that are get fixed. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 12:04, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Sometimes there exist links to redirects that lead back to the page itself. Such links certainly have to be removed. --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:16, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

That latter one @Franz Xaver: possibly occurs because names have changed several times and the links in the current page have not been updated, when moving pages we need to check all links, agree with you though it must be fixed when found. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 12:21, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I can not see that the help section for creating a page includes instructions of that a page should make links to the page itself? Dan Koehl (talk) 18:05, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Replacement of {{commons}} by {{commonscat}}

@Dan Koehl: In my opinion, such replacements should not be done by bot or AWB. It should be up to the decision of the author of the page, if he wants to link to the category or to a page of the same name. Whereas the categories include more images, the contents there usually are not well structured and often there are shown a lot of low quality images. On the other hand pages at common will show a selection of high quality images. At commons it is easy to switch between both. As far as it concerns Orchidaceae, I am quite sure, that @Orchi: on purpose has linked to pages and not to categories. --Franz Xaver (talk) 15:01, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Please, compare commons:Acianthus fornicatus and commons:Category:Acianthus fornicatus. The page has a link back to Wikispecies, but the cateogory does not have one. --Franz Xaver (talk) 15:06, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

OK; I turned that off. Dan Koehl (talk) 15:07, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

....danke Franz Xaver and thanks to Dan Koehl. Orchi (talk) 16:33, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure how far away Wikispecies is from integrating with Wikidata, but I think it is good practice to have interwikilinks between pages of the same namespace i.e. link WS articles to Commons galleries and WS categories to Commons categories. Commons galleries are usually in the relevant Commons category anyway. Green Giant (talk) 08:45, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Taxon categories don't exist at Wikispecies. (Maybe there are some few exceptions?) Integration with Wikidata has not yet progressed very far. However, if Wikidata will only provide interwiki links from taxon pages to Commons galleries, but not to Commons categories, we will have to continue with the use of {{commonscat}} in cases, where Commons does only have categories but not galleries. --Franz Xaver (talk) 09:54, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

If you find there isn't a matching gallery, I would highly recommend creating one, assuming there are more than 2-3 relevant files. :) Green Giant (talk) 16:41, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Removal of Wikispecies links at Commons

A former WS admin seems to be on a crusade at Commons against links to Wikispecies, and moreover tries to introduce novel formats - see e.g. [7]. However, the admins there seem to be less patient - see his talk page. --Franz Xaver (talk) 11:59, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

See also Commons:Commons:Administrators' noticeboard#Suggested boycott of links to Wikispecies. --Franz Xaver (talk) 12:34, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Such a proposal will not get very far; the user has been blocked on Commons for removing links from Commons to Wikispecies. Green Giant (talk) 16:54, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikispecies:Requests for comment and Administrators' noticeboard

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I would like to renew the suggestion of creating a Requests for comment (RfC) section on Wikispecies, (see Wikipedia:Requests for comment on Wikipedia) as well as a Wikispecies:Administrators' noticeboard. (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard)

Requests for comment (RfC) is an informal process for requesting outside input concerning disputes, policies, guidelines or article content. RfC is one of several processes available within Wikipedia's dispute resolution system. Alternative processes include third opinion, administrator's incident noticeboard, reliable sources noticeboard, neutral point of view noticeboard, and the dispute resolution noticeboard.

Issues appropriate for Administrators' noticeboard could include: General announcements, discussion of administration methods, ban proposals, block reviews, and backlog notices.

Until now, smaller and larger disputes and conflicts on Village pump or user talk pages was lacking a standardized formal process, why not always a solution to the conflict the end of the story, which may lead to increase of the conflict. Further, there's no formal place to make complains about the admin ship on Wikispecies, and a lot of the discussions over the years are drowned in the archive of Village pump, where each issue can be difficult to find. I think setting up a Requests for comment (RfC) will give such issues a better structure for the futue, and will help the project to develop further, and minimize conflicts between users. Dan Koehl (talk) 18:25, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

•  Support - whilst village pumps are all-round generic discussion places, it is always better to have additional specialised structures. Green Giant (talk) 01:20, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
•  Support - past experience here shows the need for something specialised such as Rfc and an administrator noticeboard. Andyboorman (talk) 08:08, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
•  Support - yes anything specialised needs to be kept out of the Village Pump, wherever possible, just to make it easier to read. We can make it clear to all that these discussions take place. Faendalimas ^talk 15:47, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

No objections, I interpret that there is a consensus to to setup Requests for comment (RfC)n and an administrator noticeboard. Dan Koehl (talk) 20:03, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.