This is an archive of closed discussions. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this archive.
My friend User:Nicolekearney, Manager of BHL Australia, the Australian branch of the Biodiversity Heritage Library (based at Museums Victoria in Melbourne), has tweeted:
The species descriptions in John Gould's "A monograph of the Macropodidae, or family of kangaroos" (1841-2) now have DOIs (they're now persistently findable, citable & trackable!) Find the shiny new DOIs here: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/itemdetails/132864
Nicole and her BHL colleagues have previously minted DOIs for other historic species descriptions, also.
The actual article at sci-hub: https://sci hub.cat/10.1111/j.1756-1051.2004.tb00833.x gives 2006! (replace "sci hub" with "sci-hub" to get the link) - MPF (talk) 18:01, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect the June 2008 date is actually just the date the article was made available online, I notice for instance that volume 20 (2000) issue 1's articles were "first published" June 2008, while volume 19 (1999) issue 1's articles were "first published" March 2008, etc. On the other hand, volume 1 (1981) issue 1's articles have "January 1981". Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:46, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Mitrephora sirikitiae Weeras., Chalermglin & R.M.K.Saunders, Nordic J. Bot. 24(2): 203 (201-206; figs. 1-8) (2006) (IPNI, 2021}, I favour the June 2008 referring to epublishing or on-line publishing. The date tag 2006 for the taxon on the article could refer to the taxon being lodged with IPNI, but the journal home page definitely dates the articles as 2004. Perhaps the authors had a problem getting independent botanists to agree that they were describing a sp. nov.? Hey no idea really! I would use the IPNI citation for its WS taxon page unless proved otherwise - you always check with IPNI as they are very amenable to explanations. Andyboorman (talk) 20:01, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
New Megataxa issue with list of genera in insect orders Thysanoptera and Lophioneurida[edit]
See here, published just two days ago. It doesn't look like we have any information on the latter order on Wikispecies as of writing, so this could be useful. Monster Iestyn (talk) 01:44, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Some if not most, I would hope... I view this new initiative as an expert-vetted, less "interim" product (therefore ultimately: better) than IRMNG, however unfortunately it will be print/pdf format, not a database (and therefore not amenable to interrogation or analysis with data-related tools). Also will not be complete for a good while :) Cheers Tony Rees, IRMNG Tony 1212 (talk) 23:26, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I mean more along the lines of "So far I have rarely dealt with a work like that without running into at least a few names in IRMNG that were unaccounted for in the paper". Circeus (talk) 04:03, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I will take that as a compliment in IRMNG (I think), although of course IRMNG leans heavily on previously compiled works e.g. Neave (for animals) and Index Nominum Genericorum (for generic names in botany), so cannot take credit for that content. However Neave in particular includes many unavailable names (subsequent misspellings, nomina nuda etc.) which would be out-of-scope for "All Genera of the World" as I understand it. Nevertheless if you mean available names that are missing from the "new" lists, that would be something to engage the authors about (or maybe inform them of the availability of IRMNG as a resource for their use while compiling the list); also further check names presented as available but in fact possibly unavailable for reasons of homonymy etc., as I did with a previous list (not in this series) intended to have the "last word" on genus names in Decapod Crustacea, which resulted in a small flurry of papers introducing replacement names for a subset of them :) Cheers Tony Tony 1212 (talk) 19:49, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oh I intend to communicate with the authors about such topics when I get to do that paper! I usually end up spotting at least a couple issues. Even in the work of such a competent compiler as Evenhuis I ran into a couple cases of references that were either mislabeled or missing entirely (but luckily none where an abbreviated journal title was transformed into a title that no journal has ever borne, as happened for two different sources in Francke, 2019 lol). Circeus (talk) 01:38, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that starting earlier today, BHL services including page loading may be disrupted for the near future due to expected outages at Internet Archive. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 22:53, 15 June 2021 (UTC).[reply]
Wikimania 2021: Individual Program Submissions[edit]
Dear all,
Wikimania 2021 will be hosted virtually for the first time in the event's 15-year history. Since there is no in-person host, the event is being organized by a diverse group of Wikimedia volunteers that form the Core Organizing Team (COT) for Wikimania 2021.
Event Program - Individuals or a group of individuals can submit their session proposals to be a part of the program. There will be translation support for sessions provided in a number of languages. See more information here.
Please note that the deadline for submission is 18th June 2021.
Announcements- To keep up to date with the developments around Wikimania, the COT sends out weekly updates. You can view them in the Announcement section here.
Office Hour - If you are left with questions, the COT will be hosting some office hours (in multiple languages), in multiple time-zones, to answer any programming questions that you might have. Details can be found here.
Quick question: are "orbiculus" and "bacchulus" nouns, rather than adjectives? I ask because I think I might have named Acrocera orbicula incorrectly, and I also noticed Stephen left a note years ago on Acrocera bacchulus about a possible correct name ending of that species. I don't know a lot of Latin/Ancient Greek, but I'm aware that some species names (besides patronyms/eponyms) aren't supposed to change with genus gender, and I suspect now these two might be examples of them. Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:53, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
For botany adjectives agree with the gender of the genus, but when "the epithet is a noun in apposition or a genitive noun, it retains its own gender and termination irrespective of the gender of the generic name" ICN Art. 23.5. Any epithets found not to follow this rule are auto-corrected, see Art. 23 Ex.8 - 11. Orbiculus is a Latin masculine noun. Hope this helps. Andyboorman (talk) 18:51, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, I have added a templateSwedish and replaced "Swedish" in the page for Linnaeus with Swedish (enclosed by curly brackets); if you change the language settings at the top of the page to Latin, Italian or Japanese, you can see the result; if this is a good path to follow, perhaps many similar templates could be created and used when editing authority pages, for countries, institutions, cities, even the authority names - would then just need the curly brackets. Thank you, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 22:51, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have just discovered one slight problem, for now at least - if you choose a language where the translation does not yet exist you see eg "Swedish (en) – (Please translate this into Scots.) "; does anyone know how to disable the message? Thanks, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 23:23, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I don't really like these templates since it's often necessary to add a huge amount of code into them in order for them to work well. For example I don't know exactly how many languages there are available for the users to chose from in the user settings, but there are a lot. Have a look at you user preferences, scroll down to the "Internationalisation" drop-down meny, and you'll see that there's at least 100 languages listed there, from Abkhaz to Zulu language. All of them needs to be added to the "Swedish" template, to complement the mere five already there... Using this method the "language templates" would become huge, take time to load, and use an unnecessary amount of server resources and bandwidth.
A slightly better way is to use Lua Modules and get the so called labels from Wikidata items instead (in this case the name of languages). As an example the Wikidata item for "Swedish" (found here: Q9027) currently lists 203 different labels with languages or language variations of the word "Swedish". However our Wikispecies {{Swedish}} template would only need a single line of code to access them all, and then serve the correct one to each user depending of their preference settings. I'm still not a friend of these language templates, but if you like to you can see for example {{Botanist}} for an example of how it can be done.
One starting point is that ja.wikipedia (one of the biggest) does not yet even have all the primate names - or pages on all the extant big cats. On a discussion linked to the {{Botanist}} page, the point was raised that users in a non-English mode would be presented with part-translated pages etc; but perhaps something is better than nothing, one has to start somewhere, and there's always the option of English.
To me, a template that renders Genus（属)： (or Genus with a hover/mouseover 属) would be helpful; perhaps even at the top, next to the language selector, a vernacular name selector (perhaps with a health warning) - or similar to the Latin name at the top left, the vernacular in brackets, with question marks, at the top right (perhaps even the whole taxonomy section in the vernacular on the right, with the Latin on the left; see Loeb Classical Library eg Aristotle Historia Animalium for how it could be done); one issue with using just wikidata is the point that word order can vary, which can be better addressed manually; eg Linnaeus, father of x; in Japanese, the order is x of father - so perhaps we could use sons: or offspring: ; re masculine/feminine that could be addressed via (Swedish-f}=Suecia instead of {Swedish}=Suecius (if users simply use {Swedish}, Latin-only readers would just have to put up with the fact that the inflection is slightly wrong, but they could still get the gist - or switch to the English version).
The server/load speeds I don't know anything about - whether local poor load times can be detected and addressed this end via a different offering, etc (relative to live video streams..); perhaps extra wikidata items could be created for eg Suecia instead of Suecius (I see users are adding basic vocabulary as items); is the alternative not to localize eg botanist and just see botanist, in Abkhaz and Zulu settings too? Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 03:59, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It is true that wikispecies is significantly quicker to load than wikipedia where I am (and for sustainability reasons, even with a superfast connection, less is better than more). Another option might be to use parameters: {Swedish | f} would then get the labels from the wikidata Suecia item instead of wikidata Suecius; or {Swedish | f | ja }, which would get the labels from wikidata Suecia unless the local language option is Japanese, in which case it would return スウェーデンの ["Sweden" + "of/from" - no corresponding wikidata item] (specified on the wikispecies {Swedish} template page); perhaps, if there's a linked local page eg jawiki Linnaeus, disregard the localization, else do as above; of course wikispecies localization would be hostage to/benefit from wikidata label changes, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 07:32, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wikispecies pages not yet linked to Wikidata items[edit]
This is same todo list I mentioned above. It has not been updated since 4 April. I shave off 20 or so each day, correcting formats as necessary. Neferkheperre (talk) 15:11, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Movement Charter drafting committee is expected to work as a diverse and skilled team of about 15 members for several months. They should receive regular support from experts, regular community reviews, and opportunities for training and an allowance to offset costs. When the draft is completed, the committee will oversee a wide community ratification process. (Creating the drafting committee)
@MILEPRI:, @Thiotrix: & @Pigsonthewing:. For Castellanosia / Browningia and Castellanosia caineana there are differences in synonymy between the secondary sources Hassler cf. Govaerts. Perhaps not quite disputed, as these are secondary sources, but worth a note on the pages. WS can not take sides so Castellanosia has to have its own page for now. If we had to make decision I would advise making the monotypic Castellanosia part of the synonymy for Browningia, but I am not a cactus expert. Andyboorman (talk) 08:22, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Categories listing taxonomists by repository[edit]
I remember that there was a vote against Category:taxonomists by country, so I think, we do not need taxonomists by repository. --Thiotrix (talk) 18:33, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That could be a can of worms. If using repository as affiliation, that could be subject to change with affiliation. If using as place where taxonomist's types are placed, then it gets really complicated. Using just me, there is LSU, University of Florida, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, USNM, LACMP, Melbourne, Australia, and soon Mississippi Museum of Natural Science. I believe it is a considerable amount of time for little results. Neferkheperre (talk) 19:24, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There are all sorts of reasons why taxonomists may use a repository for types, that are not related to work affiliation. One of my neotypes and one of my holotypes are in New Guinea because the country requested it as part of the permitting agreement. I have never worked for that museum. They would be all over the place. Where the type is is what matters. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk04:56, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
When newcomers had the Reply tool and tried to post on a talk page, they were more successful at posting a comment. (Source)
Earlier this year, the Editing team ran a large study of the Reply Tool. The main goal was to find out whether the Reply Tool helped newer editors communicate on wiki. The second goal was to see whether the comments that newer editors made using the tool needed to be reverted more frequently than comments newer editors made with the existing wikitext page editor.
The key results were:
Newer editors who had automatic ("default on") access to the Reply tool were more likely to post a comment on a talk page.
The comments that newer editors made with the Reply Tool were also less likely to be reverted than the comments that newer editors made with page editing.
These results give the Editing team confidence that the tool is helpful.
Looking ahead
The team is planning to make the Reply tool available to everyone as an opt-out preference in the coming months. This has already happened at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.
In the course of my editing I found an error in a paper. I contacted the author and indeed he acknowledged the error and is going to amend it.
I wrote to him:
Dear ...,
I'm Marius, an editor at the Wikispecies online species directory.
In your paper "On the taxonomy of Parocyusa, Tectusa, and miscellaneous genera of Oxypodina (Insecta: Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Aleocharinae: Oxypodini). Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien (B) 123: 99–218" you revalidated the genus Eurylophus Sahlberg, J., 1876.
However Eurylophus Sahlberg, J., 1876 is a junior homonym of Eurylophus Schönherr 1836 (Curculionidae: Coleoptera).
Would you please comment on this ?
Best wishes,
He wrote me back:
Dear Marius,
Thank you for drawing my attention to this. You are right, Eurylophus Sahlberg is indeed preoccupied and a junior homonym of Eurylophus Schönherr. I was not aware of this when I revalidated Eurylophus Sahlberg. In consequence, this means that Drepasiagonusa Pace, 2012 will have to be revalidated again and Eurylophus Sahlberg will be a synonym of Drepasiagonusa. I just wrote a short taxonomic note (to be published at the end of this year) rectifying this.
All the best,
In case you or others are interested, some useful links may be as follows, automatically generated based on present holdings in IRMNG:
IRMNG can generate lists of "duplicate names" (homonyms sensu lato - i.e. not all are true homonyms in a nomenclatural sense, some are unavailable i.e. misspellings, nomina nuda etc., and some occur across Codes so are acceptable) at several ranks - go to https://www.irmng.org/homonyms.php for the homonyms "start page"; e.g. Eurylophus is included in the "genus rank" list at https://www.irmng.org/homonyms.php?tRank=180&start_letter=E ...
However these lists can be long as you will see, and the included content may require "cleaning", i.e., can contain errors or obsolete synonymy assertions, family allocations, etc. - such cleaning/upgrading being an ongoing process...
Hope this may be if interest - I have used such services myself to do similar work, although not as a regular task! Cheers Tony Rees, IRMNG Tony 1212 (talk) 19:11, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Families with tribes but no subfamilies (in zoology)[edit]
Just as a general question, is it acceptable at all for an animal taxon of family rank to have subtaxa that are tribe rank, while skipping the subfamily rank altogether? I ask because for a while now I've intended to move Disteniinae to Disteniidae to be consistent with recent sources, but I'm held back by the fact it has this seemingly weird subtaxa classification going on (see Talk:Disteniinae for my notes on that). Has anyone seen this anywhere else before? Monster Iestyn (talk) 15:29, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's a common practice in botany (though some botanists don't like it). As far as I know there is absolutely nothing in the ICZN that prevents it. Circeus (talk) 18:13, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Very common in botany and most of us are OK with it. For example, in Scrophulariaceae, the previously accepted subfamilies of Antirrhinoideae, Gratioloideae, and Digitalidoideae have been made redundant due to the family being dismantled in favour of monophyletic more natural groups. This has meant that many previous "scroph" genera have migrated to other families leaving behind a smaller number of naturally related clades that can be accommodated into the tribes found on the taxon page. However, there are still tweeks for example in Buddlejeae, which may become monotypic, though this is at present a taxonomic opinion. Andyboorman (talk) 18:52, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ah thank you everyone, that's helpful to know (didn't know it happened in botany at all!). In that case, I'll correct Disteniinae/dae as planned when I can but I'll leave the tribes as they are consistent with current classifications. Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:41, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Marion Russell Smith" or "Marion Russell Smith"..?[edit]
There is an author page named Marion R. Smith regarding a U.S. myrmecologist. His full name really is "Marion Russell Smith", and we're discussing to move the author page to Marion Russell Smith as this would be in line with the Wikispecies page naming praxis. However we're not fully sure whether "Russell" is a given name or part of a compound surname "Russell Smith". In this particular case the latter seems more likely. Please have a look at the talk page for more intriguing details. ;-)
Just noticed we have some categories for taxon ranks (and categories to house them), most of which were created by Caftaric last year (except where noted):
Do we actually want these on Wikispecies? With exception to the Fossil species/genera categories, none of these seem to be in regular use as they all have less than 20 pages in them each as of writing, excluding those in subcategories. I also noticed the three categories not by Caftaric have been mentioned in past Village Pump discussions, but those by him have not been brought up at all before. Monster Iestyn (talk) 14:07, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. With the possible exception of the categories listing fossil taxa (which may be useful for statistics), I've never really seen the point in keeping any of these categories. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 16:13, 6 July 2021 (UTC).[reply]
aaaaaand this is why I attempted, a long time ago, initiate a general discussion on the categorization scheme: avoid th streat of piecemeal discussions that have been recently arising. Circeus (talk) 21:00, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Lapeyrouse's English Wikipedia article lists a Figures de la flore des Pyrénées, avec des descriptions (1795), which is viewable online at [3]. (For Antirrhinum sempervirens: p. 7, t. 4). Monster Iestyn (talk) 16:38, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
They are very likely the same person, as it is very unlikely that there are two herpetologist within the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources (Hanoi, Vietnam), one named Cuc Tho Ho and the other Cuc Thu Ho. I have no idea what is the correct spelling. Christian Ferrer (talk) 16:14, 24 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thanks for looking into that. Sounds like Cuc Tho Thu Ho might be preferable for now. Just as well, since Cuc Tho Ho's Wikispecies page has no information and hasn't been identified as potentially anyone else yet. If you're curious, I discovered the ResearchGate article I linked through this page, which shows both "Thu" and "Tho" spellings. Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:07, 24 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Worth pointing out that Vietnamese is a heavily accented language (those accents are missing here, no doubt making our search harder than needed) and is not transliterated (unlike say Chinese) so this has one correct answer only. Circeus (talk) 16:56, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
After doing some Googling for Herpetofauna of Vietnam, I have found out that "Hồ Thu Cúc" might be her actual name with the accents (and written in Chinese name order). I've also stumbled on other proper Vietnamese names for other Vietnamese herpetologists such as Nguyễn Văn Sáng and Nguyễn Quảng Truờng. At this point it's clear the "Thu" spelling is correct after all. Monster Iestyn (talk) 02:25, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
These four three edits from June 22 are still unpatrolled, however I don't think I've got access to the proper literature to verify them. Can any of our fellow botanists entomologists please check them out?
Why are there no specialities for each clade?[edit]
When I went to Wikispecies, I expected that each clade will have their own feature that only they possess. For example, Chordates have spinal chords, Primates have a movable thumb, and Mammals' mammary glands produce milk for their offspring.
Why are they not present, and if anything, can we add these properties for each clade? (Just a question from a naïve stranger in the internet...)
Hello @BrightSunMan, and welcome to Wikispecies! The reason is that anatomical features are more or less unrelated to taxonomy, hence they're out of scope for Wikispecies. Please note that Wikispecies is very different from the other sister sites at Wikimedia, especially in comparison to Wikipedia. While Wikipedia is a generally kept "all you can eat" encyclopaedia, Wikispecies is only a database for taxa, taxonomy, biological systematics, type repositories, and information about the authors and references needed to verify that data. Nothing else. This also means that Wikispecies will always take on a much more scientific approach, while Wikipedia is more mainstream. For some more information regarding this, please read What Wikispecies is not. Kind regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 12:39, 10 July 2021 (UTC).[reply]
The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this archive.
This might be partly my fault; enwiki also used to use the "Ivanovitsch" spelling for the patronym, until December last year when I changed it to "Ivanovich" to be consistent with typical English transliterations of his name in some sources (rather than German or whatever it is with the other one?). Later the same day, I asked on Wikispecies' Village Pump what the correct spelling of his full name should be to possibly get his page renamed on Wikispecies, but didn't get much response apart from Circeus's. So nothing happened after that. Monster Iestyn (talk) 23:34, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, at least it's (mostly) internally consistent and uses the same transliteration for /ʧ/ for both words. Circeus (talk) 18:29, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
In the case of Motschulsky in particular, his last name is also commonly given as Motschoulsky, so there's no perfect option, really. Circeus (talk) 16:16, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
I would be in favour of the modern normalised English transcription Victor Ivanovich Motschulsky from Виктор Иванович Мочульский. On wikipedia both Victor and Viktor are used for Russian Виктор, although w:Viktor is redirected to w:Victor as alternate form. As French was a language of prestige in Russia in the 19th century, the author sometimes used the French transcription of Мочульский as Motschoulsky. The aristocratic predicate de (French variant) or von (German variant) can be mentioned as in the original article here. --AtonX (talk) 00:51, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Reflecting on a previous comment on internal consistency, the transcription Victor Ivanovich Motschulsky is not consistent at all in the transcription of [ч] /ʧ/. Peeking into w:Romanization of Russian, all major systems mentioned therein use [č] or [ch]. The transliteration [tsch] is German (w:de:Kyrillisches Alphabet#Russisch). Furthermore, to stay in alignment with WP, the transcription according to w:Wikipedia:Romanization of Russian could be a good solution: Victor Ivanovich Mochulsky. I also looked into w:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Russia), and the general rules confirm Victor Ivanovich Mochulsky: [ch] for [ч], [u] for [у], [-y] for [ий]. The section #Names of persons is also relevant, with three rules: #1 does not seem to apply, as the author published mostly in French and German (whence the spelling variants); #2 the person's preference for English transcription does not seem to be documented; and #3 so far there does not seem to be a bibliographic publication in English on this author. --AtonX (talk) 19:08, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, the inconsistent transliteration bothered me too. There are snips of various publications mentioning him sometimes, but there are very few English-language publications specifically about him at all besides the ones I already linked (maybe none at all). Best you can do is say that "Motschulsky" is the most common spelling of his name when he is given as a taxon authority, maybe? Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:31, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Also on another note, Evenhuis's Authors of fly names (3rd edition) from last year lists him as "Motschulsky, Viktor Ivanovich [Ivanovič] [Мочульский, Виктор Иванович] (1810–1871)", if it helps at all. In the orthography section at the beginning he also notes that Штакельберга should be transliterated as "Shtakel’berg" but is commonly transliterated to "Stackelberg" which is the spelling he uses (for Alexander Alexandrovich Stackelberg). Maybe we should stick with "Motschulsky" for similar reasons. Monster Iestyn (talk) 14:46, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It took around 480 page edits, but now almost all redirects from the old "Victor Ivanovitsch Motschulsky" and other related redirect pages are changed into direct links to the main Victor Ivanovich Motschulsky page. There are still 10 pages that are being redirected, however they are related to logs, archives and these Village Pump talks, and should be left as is. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 00:38, 12 July 2021 (UTC).[reply]
I've just created a new Genus page at Neposa and the software is putting a basline squiggle, associated with the ̻{{ before the italicised name. It seems to be a new issue and I can't seem to stop it happening. Antone any ideas? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Accassidy (talk • contribs) 22:31, 7 July 2021.
Are you copying the names from the PDFs linked as references? I'm wondering if there is bad OCR involved and somehow some mark or blot got interpreted as a diacritic in a PDF, though I can't seem to reproduce it from Austin & Warren (2009) myself. Monster Iestyn (talk) 12:42, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Referring to the comment by Monster Iestyn; I am not copying the text from elsewhere directly in WS. I create all my entries initially as very basic text files in Windows Notepad. Accassidy (talk) 19:54, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In that case it's very, very odd. Does anyone even know how to produce the diacritic for apical consonants on a Windows keyboard, if at all possible? (Unicode U+033A, HTML ̺) Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 08:41, 11 July 2021 (UTC).[reply]
Do you remember if you changed any settings/preferences at all recently, before this started happening? (Like for instance the language, though I guess it would be obvious if that was wrong...) Also, it doesn't just seem to be apical consonants; I checked out the first page linked here at the revision the odd characters appear, put the text into a website that gives character codes, and found there were other diacritic characters involved too. Monster Iestyn (talk) 13:07, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I mention language as an example because I know that Vietnamese Wikipedia for instance has a system to add accents automatically based on what you type, and I wondered if something similar was going on here somehow. Monster Iestyn (talk) 13:14, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Accassidy: As far as I can tell it's the diacritic used to mark apical consonants, a type of phone (i.e. speech sound). Details on Wikipedia: Apical consonant. Getting rid of it should be easy and is done in the same way as removing/replacing any other letter or symbol. Simply highlight it and replace it with a space. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 11:07, 12 July 2021 (UTC).̈[reply]
@Accassidy: We don't need it on Wikispecies: and we don't have it. No one else seems to have this problem, so I think it must be somehow related to your computer. By the way it's not only the "diacritic for apical consonants" that gets inserted in your edits. In your very first edit of the Nyctelius nyctelius agari page (here: https://species.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nyctelius_nyctelius_agari&oldid=8424143) the "Type locality" and "Typus" phrases aren't followed by the colon punctuation mark (Wikipedia: w:Colon (punctuation). Instead they're followed by a phonetic letter resembling colon (Wikipedia: w:Colon (letter). Just like the "apical consonant" diacritic, this symbol is also used by phonetic transcription systems – generally to point out the length of vowels. As you know the standard colon is two perfectly round circles placed one atop the other. The phonetic symbol looks the same in small, on-screen type-sizes, but looking closely it's actually two wedges pointing to each other (see picture to the right). I'm afraid I don't know why all of these odd symbols are added by your computer. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 12:36, 14 July 2021 (UTC).[reply]
A minute ago I checked the Nyctellus nyctellus agari page again, and found four of those "letter" colons, which I replaced with standard colon: diff. I also found one in the {{Dillon,S,1947}} template created by you July 12. I removed that one as well: diff (directly after the volume number "97".) Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 12:50, 14 July 2021 (UTC).[reply]
Hello, this is about Ida Alison BrowneQ21539208 she have described two fossil taxa there. I was going to create a page for her, but it apprears that her maiden name was "Brown" and then she got married with William Rowan Browne, that is a quite unusual case. In that publication it is quoted "Ida A. Brown", and I'm not aware of other publications where other taxa are described. Question: do I create Ida Alison Browne or Ida Alison Brown? Christian Ferrer (talk) 11:28, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
At first view I think we should use the name "Brown" chosen by her when she authored those two taxa. Besides, it is the name that is chosen in the publications that quotes the concerned taxa, e.g. in Kier & Lawson, 1978 [DOI: 10.5479/SI.00810266.34.1 page 3], as well as in WoRMS. Christian Ferrer (talk) 11:39, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wikispecies naming scheme praxis is to dub the author pages after the author's latest known full name, and then redirect other, older and/or more commonly used names to that page. The latest known actual name takes precedence over the most commonly used form: sort of in the same way as we name taxon pages after the latest know accepted taxon name, and not after a synonym even though the synonym may be more commonly known. It's a question of the current state of facts, not frequency or recognisability. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 12:34, 13 July 2021 (UTC).[reply]
So Wikispecies logical would be to create Ida Alison Browne with a note saying that she is often published with her maiden name "Brown", the taxa pages are not a problem as we will still the possibility to use if necessary {{a|Ida Alison Browne|Brown}}, while hoping no one will correct the spelling in the future believing it to be a mistake. Christian Ferrer (talk) 15:41, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
One could always leave a comment {{a|Ida Alison Browne|Brown}}<!-- Note: Brown, not Browne! This is not a mistake. -->. --AtonX (talk) 19:11, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
┌─────────────────────────┘Done I created Ida Alison Browne, for the record I listed the publications I found, and I created templates for publications where I noticed new taxa. As said above, while I created the author page with "Browne" I respected the citation of the author and I cited "Brown" each time the author did it, following the good suggestion made by AtonX just above. Christian Ferrer (talk) 15:07, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Christian Ferrer and AtonX: Good work! By the way since 2017 we have {{Not a typo}} and {{sic}} (i.e. "thus") templates that can be used for marking/making notes about uncommon or unexpected spelling. Depending on the parametres the latter can be set to either display the word [sic] directly on a page, or to not render anything at all (in which case it's only visible in the wiki code when you edit the page). For more information about what "sic" is and how to use it, please see Wikipedia: Sic.
Hello fellow Wikispecians! For our botany- and mycology related author pages we frequently use the {{IPNI standard form}} template to automatically fetch each botanist's standard IPNI abbreviation from Wikidata. IPNI (i.e. the International Plant Names Index) lists well over 10,000 authors – so far 414 has been added this year alone. It's an easy-to-use, well functioning system.
What some of us might not know (a few weeks ago I didn't…) is that there is also an International Fossil Plant Names Index, IFPNI. Just as IPNI their database doesn't only record (fossil) taxa and publications, but authors as well. It currently contains 5,181 author names, however none of them are easily accessible for us through Wikidata. In order to remedy this I've made a proposal at Wikidata to create an "IFPNI author ID" properpty for IFPNI authors, which would work in the same way as the "IPNI author ID" property we use today (e.g. using an {{IFPNI standard form}} template.)
I now realize that we also need a Wikidata property "paleontologist author abbreviation" (or equivalent) to go with it, in order for a future Wikispecies {{IFPNI standard form}} template to work. The two properties would work similarly to how the already present Wikidata property botanist author abbreviation (P428) relates to the IPNI author ID (P586) property. Unfortunately it's +32 °C outside my office window (in the shade) and due to the computers even hotter inside. My Nordic brain isn't used to this, and will soon start to malfunction. ;-) So please: if any one of you friends have the time and skills, please go ahead and create a proposal for such a Wikidata property. You can use the above links as examples; I think the already present IPNI equivalents would prove especially helpful. (Please note that anyone can make a proposal for a new Wikidata property, per above. However the actual creation of the properties can only be made by Wikidata admins or Property Creators, a user group specific to Wikidata.) –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 10:33, 15 July 2021 (UTC).[reply]
I have received an email from a relative of the late Antoni Ribes, asking us to create pages about eight species whose names he authored, currently red-linked at Category talk:Antoni Ribes taxa, in time for his birthday on 19 July. To that end, I have begun creating templates for the relevant publications; a task which I envisage completing today.
As far as I can tell the BHL link in the ichthyology related Template:Lowe, 1834 points to biodiversitylibrary.org/page/12859582#page/156/mode/1up however that seems to be another article than the reference template refers to. Looking at the table of contents for that band doesn't help either, since I can't find any article by Lowe that would match the title given in the template. The reference template was created by user Haps back in 2015. He made his latest edit to Wikispecies in September 2016, and his latest edit to Wikimedia as a whole was made in January 2018. Can anyone else please help with identifying the article, otherwise we need to delete the template. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 21:08, 15 July 2021 (UTC).[reply]
@Tommy Kronkvist:Try here? I found that just browsing through volume "pt.1–6 (1833-1838)" of the journal on BHL, though it seems you'd get the same thing trimming off the "#page" part onwards in the existing URL. Wait I see your confusion now, possibly: there is no actual title, the template's "title" is just extracts of text from page 142. Monster Iestyn (talk) 01:32, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, that's a lot better, and makes the template way more useful. It looks like most of the "new names" are now synonyms but it's a good starting point for creating articles nonetheless. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 08:29, 16 July 2021 (UTC).[reply]
I've run into these before and I always wonder if there's a better way to handle them. I've seen square brackets sued for these before. Though they more commonly mark a translated title for a foreign-language article (especially for Chinese, Japanese or Russian material), it seems like a useful flag to show that it's not a "true" title because there is none in the quoted proceedings. Circeus (talk) 20:20, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have come across a problem when using template #invoke:VN|main when moving pages - see edit histories for Pontederia. It does not move the vernacular names across and so I have only added the English names. I assume that this needs to be sorted out in WD. Any comments? Andyboorman (talk) 06:43, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have just removed a caption, added in German to the image on Drassodes lapidosus (a spider), which translates as "unfortunately not true, the spider shown here is a Clubiona, recognizable by the position of the eyes and the spinnerets". Can anyone confirm? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits21:09, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Checking the history of the image itself on Commons, it was renamed from "Drassodes Lapidosus.jpg" to its current name back in 2011. Seems no one thought to correct Wikispecies at the time, nor in the ten years since. (It is also still wrong on some of the Wikipedia languages, for that matter, assuming the new ID is correct.) Can't confirm the identity of the spider itself, I have no knowledge on them at all. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Monster Iestyn (talk • contribs) 21:23, 16 July 2021 (UTC).[reply]
This is one of many reasons why it's often superior to fetch some data (such as pictures) from Wikidata, rather than to "hard code" them into the pages. With Wikidata the change only has to be made once, and then it will be automatically and more or less instantly adopted by all of the other Wikimedia sister projects. I have changed the Wikidata picture, and the code in Drassodes lapidosus accordingly. (I've also requested that the former Wikidata picture be renamed from "Drassodes fg01.jpg" to "Clubiona cf. corticalis.jpg" on Commons, since that one was wrong as well.) Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 00:51, 17 July 2021 (UTC).[reply]
@Tommy Kronkvist: - I've renamed that image now, though as File:Clubiona corticalis, Nied, Frankfurt am Main, Deutschland.jpg as having the location in the filename is very useful (and without the 'cf.', as the note on the pic's talk page didn't equivocate). Disagree on having just {{Image}} on pages here though, as it removes the option of added data (like location, or species / subspecies of the image depicted) from the image caption. Having the image caption just repeating the page title isn't very informative. - MPF (talk) 14:00, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
┌─────────────────────────┘@MPF: I think that whether to only use {{image}} or add more data should be decided on a case-by-case basis. Most pictures on Commons doesn't state location and such. Also, the location most often isn't related to the taxonomy of the depicted specimen. In any case: thanks for renaming the file! –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 22:30, 20 July 2021 (UTC).[reply]
@Tommy Kronkvist: I fear I'd disagree there! Location is critical to taxonomy; that's why we have type localities, distribution maps, and so on. This is something that's stuck with me ever since visiting Kew herbarium when a student: I found a specimen (an Abies densa cone collected by Kingdon-Ward) which didn't have any location data; I showed it to the curator, and his reaction was to sling it straight in the bin, "no location, therefore worthless". See also the quote by Seebohm [on visiting the Ornithology department at Kazan Museum] I have on my user page: "The birds were without locations, and consequently without scientific value" (The Birds of Siberia 1901: 483). If a picture on Commons doesn't state its location, it shouldn't be used, either here, or on wikidata. When I'm selecting a photo to use on a page here, I try to find one from as close as possible to the type locality, even if the image quality isn't as good as another photo of dubious provenance. - MPF (talk) 23:37, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@MPF. Interesting points. I don't disagree with you, as long as the image captions can be kept in line with the Wikispecies convention to be as language independent as possible. Another problem is that Wikidata frequently aren't bothered with the scientific aspects of things, hence WD editors often chose a picture that is "beautiful" rather than of any scientific importance. Or, if there are several images connected to a Wikidata item the "better looking" one is placed as number one, which is the one fetched by our {{image}} template. Ideally the template should be extended with the ability to chose which of those pictures to fetch. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 09:38, 21 July 2021 (UTC).[reply]
@MPF. I might agree, in principle, for photos of most species. However, a collage representing the Kingdom Fungi ought not to need location data if the purpose of the photo is simply to illustrate variety within the kingdom. There are also many instances where the only image on Commons representing a taxon has no location data. I do not mean species; there are some families and orders (even classes) where Commons has a single image. I am not willing to throw the baby out with the bath water. Desiring location data is a laudable end goal, but we are nowhere near that goal. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:08, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Departure from convention when editing taxon pages.[edit]
When constructing or editing genus and species taxon pages I usually cross check through secondary sources supported by a selection of recent primary sources, usually scientific papers. However, I am proposing to undertake a change to this praxis for Mesua-Kayea (Calophylleae, Calophyllaceae). Conventionally Kayea is found in partial synonymy under Mesua based upon Kostermans, A.J.G.H. 1969. Kayea Wall, and Mesua L. (Guttiferae). Reinwardtia 7(5): 425-431 PDF. This approach has been challenged recently by P.F. Stevens (APWeb} and others using a mixture of phylogenetic and morphological evidence. Stevens described Kayea borneensis (1996), Kayea coriacea (1993) and Kayea scalarinervosa (1996) both with no equivalents in Mesua. Other papers I have located supporting Stevens are found on the Calophylleae taxon page, there are others. The changes recommended will result in Mesua becoming monotypic represented by just its type Mesua ferrea and all other combination moving to Kayea s.l.. However, none of the common secondary sources yet follow this with Hassler placing all species in Mesua including a few com. ined. and PWO-Kayea keeping most species under Mesua, but retaining six under Kayea. My proposal is to complete the changes on Mesua (monotypic) and Kayea (s.l.) using the recent primary sources, but noting the differences with the secondary sources. I have contaced Kew and they agree that this is valid and will likely change their databases in due course. My running notes on the taxon pages and discussion pages will be tidied up! Thought please fellow editors, best regards Andyboorman (talk) 10:27, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to me you have researched the issue so I will go with your judgement on what is best. I have had to do similar things to varying degrees with turtles, which as a taxonomist are my specialty. At times I have been aware of material in the pipeline, not my own, I may have been reviewer on a paper or discussed it with colleagues for example. This has sometimes impacted what I have added for the higher orders, for species I always wait till the paper is actually published but higher orders are generally revisions. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk12:23, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Call for Candidates for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee (Aug 2 - Sept 1, 2021)[edit]
The Committee is expected to represent diversity in the Movement. Diversity includes gender, language, geography, and experience. This comprises participation in projects, affiliates, and the Wikimedia Foundation.
English fluency is not required to become a member. If needed, translation and interpretation support is provided. Members will receive an allowance to offset participation costs. It is US$100 every two months.
We are looking for people who have some of the following skills:
Know how to write collaboratively. (demonstrated experience is a plus)
Are ready to find compromises.
Focus on inclusion and diversity.
Have knowledge of community consultations.
Have intercultural communication experience.
Have governance or organization experience in non-profits or communities.
Have experience negotiating with different parties.
The Committee is expected to start with 15 people. If there are 20 or more candidates, a mixed election and selection process will happen. If there are 19 or fewer candidates, then the process of selection without election takes place.
Will you help move Wikimedia forward in this important role? Submit your candidacy here. Please contact strategy2030wikimedia.org with questions.
Displaying of downloadable PDFs of Wikispecies pages[edit]
Hello, by curiosity I opened a PDF generated from a Wikispecies page with the link available in the left panel (section "Print/export: Download as PDF"). I noticed a kind of bug for the pages about genera inside the section where the species are listed, the letters for the genus are displayed in a strange way. E.g. the first and alone "s" of S. amplilobata – is displayed with strange character. For who want to see this by themselve the better is to go in a genus page and to open it as a PDF. I guess this have something to do with the topic Village_Pump#Odd_character_after_italicised_Genus_name. a bit above. Regards, Christian Ferrer (talk) 16:28, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oh I just understood from where it comes from, that is the tag <abbr></abbr> used in {{Sp}}, this is how the result of that abreviation is rendered in the PDF. Christian Ferrer (talk) 16:35, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I downloaded a PDF from the Serpula (Linnaeus) page and see the problem. Since the issue is related to the {{Sp}} template the "error" is of course not specific to the S. amplilobata taxon link, but replicates for all of the 44 taxa in the species list.
It may be possible to replace the HTML tag <abbr title="..."> in {{Sp}} with a non-HTML based equivalent that doesn't render this problem, but right now it's 02:30 AM here and not the time for tinkering with WS templates. I'll have a look in the next couple of days though. Thank you for bringing this up to our attention. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 00:31, 3 August 2021 (UTC).[reply]
It is neither an "odd character", nor a bug; it is, as intended, a dotted underline. Compare:
Thanks! In comparison, the English Wikipedia has got one broken redirect, namely a page called Wikipedia:Example of a broken redirect. I can help help out with our broken redirects for author pages etc., but most of the others seem to regard botany for which I lack the proper literature.
Good job – thank you Andy! We need more of these. It reminds of the "IFPNI author ID" talks we started earlier (thread above), where the work at the Wikidata end is still only halfway done. Perhaps our most recent administrator @DannyS712 can help? He's also an admin at Wikidata, hence has the proper user rights there to create new Wikidata properties (while the rest of us must settle for creating Wikidata items). Being able to use a working {{IFPNI standard form}} template would be a welcome addition to the {{IPNI standard form}} we already utilise, but we still need one (1!) more Wikidata property in place for that to happen. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 13:24, 4 August 2021 (UTC).[reply]
However as for this second (and last?) property we need I'm not entirely sure how to go forth. That property would involve making data from the first property available to a Wikidata item (e.g. via a future "IFPNI botanist author abbreviation", in the same way as the botanist author abbreviation (P428) works for IPNI abbreviations today.) Unfortunately I don't really know what should be included in such a proposal, so I'm at a loss. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 13:24, 5 August 2021 (UTC).[reply]
This one is for entomologists, or perhaps even anyone who understands German maybe. It's been bothering me for months now, maybe someone here can get to the bottom of this mystery.
For a while now I've been trying to find out the identity of "J.D.W. Koch", one of the known authors of Entomologische Hefte published in 1803 (see the preface for the list). Some other sources even indicate that Koch alone is the author of the Haltica (= Altica) monograph, and therefore is also the author of a few species of flea beetles (see Insects of Samoa pt. IV: fasc. 3.: page 207 (1929), which itself cites Magazin für insektenkunde vol. 6: page 50 (1807)). The few things I do know is that this author was a "Dr.d.A.W." in Kaiserslautern (going by the preface), and is probably German.
The most plausible identities of "J.D.W. Koch" I am aware of so far are one of these two:
Wilhelm Daniel Joseph Koch, who was a state physician of Kaiserslautern, and is claimed to have contibuted to Entomologische Hefte by German Wikipedia. However, I'm not sure where the German Wikipedia's information even comes from, unless it is original research, especially since the Entomologische Hefte part was written there as far back as 2005. Plus, it seems odd that he would put down his given names' initials completely in reverse to the order they normally are?
Carl Ludwig Koch, who is a younger brother of the above. According to the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie entry for him quoted on German Wikisource (as far as I can understand it through Google Translate), this Koch is claimed to have contributed to Entomologische Hefte? But his initials don't even match at all, so I'm not sure about this either.
I have a feeling the answer might be in some German-language book or article somewhere, but since I cannot read German this makes things difficult and slow for me. Monster Iestyn (talk) 14:07, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is well Wilhelm Daniel Joseph Koch, you the link you gave we have "J.D.W. Koch Dr, d.a.w in Kaiserslautern" and in de:Wilhelm Daniel Joseph Koch we have "So wurde er 1795 Arzt in Trarbach an der Mosel und 1797 Oberamtsarzt in Kaiserslautern, wo er 1816 den Titel eines Kreis- und Kantonarztes erhielt und 27 Jahre blieb." [I don't speak at all German but used Google] The dates seems to matches and it is unlikely that there was two homonyms J.D.W. Koch who furthermore were doctors at the same date in the same town. Christian Ferrer (talk) 19:02, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The publication in Entomologische Hefte 1803 is mentioned in the obituary of Wilhelm Daniel Joseph Koch in the list "Verzeichnis von Kochs Druckschriften. See: (Ludwig Döderlein: Worte am Grabe des Herrn Wilhelm Daniel Joseph Koch, J. J. Barfuß, Erlangen 1849, [4], see p. 10., also as "J.D.W. Koch". This reference is cited in the German Wikipedia. Maybe "J.D.W. Koch" was just a printing error? --Thiotrix (talk) 09:40, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
J.D.W Koch is certainly a subject of intrigue for me as well, i do not have any leads that are solid but we can compare texts made by this guy to i suppose find out more about who he is, even though this is informative i certainly refuse to believe there is nothing characteristic of him.(Fri,Sep 3) — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.200.134.52 (talk • contribs).
For reference, we have many repository pages which other repository acronyms are redirected to. See for example our page about the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm (SMNH) and the list of acronyms used there. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk) 13:44, 9 August 2021 (UTC), 13:44, 9 August 2021 (UTC).[reply]
I am a former applications engineer who has been copying WikiSpecies pictures for offline reading.
I notice that recently you have started to enter your online pictures in lower-quality, smaller form.
This is OK with me, but what is NOT OK is the sudden requirement to view ALL your entries, whether composed by anyone or not, to mark them as "read" (and thus ignorable by uninterested readers).
I would greatly appreciate it if you would return to the practice of labelling uncomposed entries with solid red outlines NOT requiring any user activity.
This won't affect readers who want to add input and will be more considerate of the vast majority of readers who would like to view entries which actually have been modified. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zjwill (talk • contribs) 18:50, 9 August 2021.
@Zjwill: I agree with Andy. Also, pretty much none of "our" pictures are stored here at Wikispecies. Instead they are stored at Wikimedia Commons and automatically fetched from there when requested by specific Wikispecies pages. The same is true for more or less all media files on any of the Wikimedia sister projects, e.g. Wikipedia, Wikinews, Wikivoyage, etc. All of their still images, movie- and sound clips etc. are reposited at Wikimedia Commons, not by the actual projects themselves. Hence it may be more convenient for you to copy the pictures directly from the source, i.e. Commons. Regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 09:40, 10 August 2021 (UTC).[reply]
You have now sent me - by email, for reasons I cannot fathom - a copy of the text content of the page-creation form for the red-linked Suniana sunias nola, describing it as "one of the hundreds (or thousands) of unnecessarily wordy empty items". It is still not clear what issue you have with Wikispecies, nor how we ca help you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits15:50, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have imported Template:Coord from the English Wikipedia, so that coordinates in page text (for example, those on Tegenaria zamanii) can be properly formatted, and link to mapping services, like on that project, as described in the documentation at en:Template:Coord. This will also make them machine-readable, so that they can more easily be used by external tools.
In order for the template to work, the GeoData extension must be enabled on this project. The process for requesting the enabling of an extension is set out at m:Requesting wiki configuration changes.
I cannot support anything that can be used to create localities in a digital format. Sorry Andy its not a criticism of you finding useful items I want you to do that. Locality data is a complex issue. I am currently attending a conference where I have been told that no precise locality data for any species is to be provided in our abstracts or presentations. The reason is it gives smugglers a goto reference for grabbing animals for trade. With this in mind I prefer to keep locality info as vague as possible, we have to state type localities in taxonomy but lets not make it easier. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk20:10, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a proposal to "create localities in a digital format". This is not a proposal to make any data on location "less vague" than otherwise. This is not a proposal to make "stating type localities easier". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits16:12, 12 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nope but it will make it possible to mine them into digital format as you said. That's what I do not want possible. I don't want people using this site to download a digital map to their phone that lets people use that as a smuggling address. As I said above as a biologist I am not even allowed to present that type of data anymore at conferences. Many journals now have policies on the inclusion of this information in papers. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk17:45, 12 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This uses {{Image-IUCN}} but the relevant property is not (yet) set up in the Wikidata entry, Does anyone on Wikispecies have access to the relvant taxon databases to add that information to Wikidata?
ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:36, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Universal Code of Conduct - Enforcement draft guidelines review[edit]
These guidelines are not final but you can help move the progress forward. The committee will revise the guidelines based upon community input.
Comments can be shared in any language on the draft review talk page and multiple other venues. Community members are encouraged to organize conversations in their communities.
There are planned live discussions about the UCoC enforcement draft guidelines:
Without particular expertise in the field, I was wondering how to contribute recent images (with information on location, date and time, etc.). Should content be updated on Commons and picked up by specialists later on? Should it be uploaded (or only proposed) on Discussion Pages of the top level category (i.e. as low in the taxonomy as possible)? Thanks Script.meta (talk) 15:54, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wow! That Charter quotes Jimbo from back in 2004, and ever since it's second edit (by Jimbo himself, and his only edit on Wikispecies) has persisted basically unchanged. That's some seriously out of date garbage. I'm not sure where to go to seek consensus to change a charter based on ancient offhand comments by Jimbo somewhere (where? internet mailing lists were relevant to Wikimedia development in 2004 as was Jimbo's en.wiki talk page). The Charter needs to be overhauled; for one, it shouldn't only focus on what makes Wikispecies different from various language Wikipedias (Jimbo seems to assume that en.wiki is the default), but what Wikispecies does differently from Wikidata.
Image files should be uploaded to Commons (standard Wikimedia procedure, although I haven't actually read the Charter for Commons ever). I don't think there's any controversy on Wikispecies about then added images from Commons to Wikispecies pages (Wikispecies editors would like some assurance you're competent in identifying the subjects of the images). You could also link any images to Wikidata, and nobody there will question whether you're competent in identification. Plantdrew (talk) 04:06, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I do a lot of re-identifications on Commons, about 300 pictures I think to date. I restrict myself to turtles as they are my specialty. However, I may re-identify photos but I never imply incompetence on the part of the up-loader. In my experience working with turtles there are actually only a couple of people alive at the moment that can identify most species at all let alone from photos. So I do not generally expect people to be able to do it. Implying incompetence is belittling and rude. So people should upload their pics of species, if they have the identification wrong, so be it, it will hopefully get fixed in good time. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk13:41, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, and I've also made a few re-identifications at Commons (but not many enough!) While making them I try to remember to also post a request for file-renaming, in the many cases where the wrong taxon name is not only listed in the Commons media description, but also in the file name. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 22:36, 17 August 2021 (UTC).[reply]
I'm another one constantly doing ID corrections on Commons, mainly birds and plants; not counted, but probably thousands in total (the most recent just this evening, a Turdus merula misidentified as a Sturnus vulgaris). If you have any photos where you'd like an ID checked, I'll be happy to do so if it is in a group I have any familiarity with; just upload them on Commons and give me a link to them - MPF (talk) 22:26, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hard to tell. I've also seen a few "invalid" homonyms in Wikispecies, e.g. when both taxa are placed within the same Regnum (i.e. aren't hemihomonyms). Also, perhaps members of Category:Hemihomonyms (such as for exampel Agathis and Agathis montana) was automatically excluded from checking whether they were "valid homonyms" or not, hence not listed in the "List of valid homonyms #" pages? Who knows. It may help sorting this out if we had any form of categories for homonyms (apart from the hemihomonyms). –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 10:11, 25 August 2021 (UTC).[reply]
Hello, just for your curiosity , after entering the relevant data in Wikidata for the names available in {{Alcock, 1893}}, I retrieved the data here thanks to {{Wikidata list}} as you can see in Template talk:Alcock, 1893. Note that the links available with the taxon names leads to Wikispecies when the taxon page exist, and to the Wikidata item otherwise. Christian Ferrer (talk) 19:06, 22 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Amongst other discoveries is notable the description of a new animal phylum, Mesoneurophora, done in a monography with his disciple Raúl Montero expounding the phylogenetic justifications for this new morpho-evolutionary creation."
{{Rebel, 1907a}} - Rebel, H. 1907a. Lepidopteren aus Südarabien und von der Insel Sokotra. Denkschriften der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien 71(2): 31–130. Reference page.
Going by Zobodat and its PDFs of this issue, 31–130 are the correct pages, while 1–30 are for an unrelated article by another author about Orthoptera. What is strange to me though is that Zobodat says this issue was published in 1931 rather than 1907, while it says 71(1) was published in 1907. Mistake on Zobodat's part, or something else? Monster Iestyn (talk) 15:01, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally, the correct title appears to be "Zoologische Ergebnisse der Expedition der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften nach Südarabien und Sokótra im Jahre 1898/99. Lepidopteren." The one used on both templates looks like it may have been mixed up with the title of the Orthoptera article. Monster Iestyn (talk) 15:08, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
probably same work and yeah I agree pagination is likely wrong as pointed out above. The journal in question does however publish in themed series, so it can theoretically have two papers from same volume with different pagination. Though I do not think this is the case here. Volume 71 is 1907, so if someone is referencing it as 1931 for volume 71 then the date is wrong, plus I think 1931 may be after Hans Rebels death, but I am not sure of that, he was publishing close to that period still (1925).. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk16:18, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
According to a 2015 thread on Taxacom, "Rebel initially published this as a free-standing pre-print in 1907 [...] but it was republished in 1931" The thread suggests that the page numbers for the reprint were different. "Lepidopteren aus ... Insel Sokotra" is the title given in that thread. I have now written to the author of the thread, to see if he can shed any light on the matter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits16:45, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
AfroMoths ([7]) has 'Rebel 1097' as " Lepidopteren aus Südarabien und von der Insel Sokotra. — Denkschriften der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien 71(): 31–130, pl. 1." and 'Rebel 1930' as "Zoologische Ergebnisse der Expedition der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften nach Südarabien und Sokotra im Jahre 1898/99, Lepidopteren. — — —Verbatim reprint of Rebel 1907, Denkschriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien 71(2): 31–129. (): 31–129." Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits16:52, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A preprint would definitely explain it. they can thoroughly fuck up the record for a citation, especially if there is some subtle difference between the publications, as with Bonelli, 1810, where the preprint alone must be consulted for most new generic names, as the Tabula Synoptica is not in the reprint. Circeus (talk) 12:14, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have a reply from Donald Hobern (the originator of the 2015 thread on Taxacom). He says:
I can't add very much to what you see in that thread. The result of it was that Zobodat added a copy of what is presumably the 1931 (re-?)print. A couple of people said they'd take a look for the 1907 copy but I never heard of one. I believe someone suggested to me verbally (so perhaps someone at the museum in Copenhagen) that these volumes had a complex history, where they were planned as a set of papers which were initially published loose and then bound together as the volumes and that the massive delay in finalising this volume was an oddity - but I'm not sure how much this was speculation.
I would not use the term preprint as it has specific meanings in the code and a pre 1930 publication is excluded from it. As Donald said a lot of this may be speculation we can really only judge what we see. If the new nomens are in these papers I suggest using the first date as the available date, hence Priority, and making sure the template refers as best as we can to the 1907 publication. Which being a pre 1930 publication is published as it is not required to meet any of the main code requirements for publication. It may not be completely resolvable until someone really looks at the issue from a date perpective, which will likely only happen if there are contested names with Priority. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk13:56, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
According to Lepidopterorum Catalogus the "preprint" (or "reprint", as it is called here) has 100 pages and 1 plate, which would explain the page details of the first template at the start of this discussion. The way it is cited here could also be suitable for Wikispecies I think, if the 1907 and 1931 prints are found to be identical. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like the 1907 one is available online to check this... Monster Iestyn (talk) 16:45, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have now combined these sources into one template, {{Rebel, 1907}}, which renders as:
Rebel, H. 1907. Zoologische Ergebnisse der Expedition der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften nach Südarabien und Sokótra im Jahre 1898/99. Lepidopteren. Vienna. 100 pp., 1 pl. [not seen]
Two points: note "[not seen]" for the 1907 version, as no-one seems to have found a copy, and given that I have doubts that "71(2)" and even "Denkschr. K. Akad. Wiss. Wien" are correct for 1907.
I have modified it to match the information from Lepidopterorum Catalogus, which seems to indicate the 1907 version was not published in that journal at all before 1931, but rather as a separate/offprint. Monster Iestyn (talk) 12:14, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That does not appear to be the actual title of the article, unless I'm mistaken? Though, that is used as a short title at the headers of some of its pages in the 1931 print, then again. Revert that if you think it's wrong, I was just copying Lepidopterorum Catalogus which stated that as the title. Monster Iestyn (talk) 14:28, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I looked in Category:Homonyms for hints, but it doesn't mention our preferred naming convention in this matter. I guess that our policy recommends "Taxon name (Author)" since the taxonomy may change—while a published scientific work is "forever" in that is doesn't suddenly get a new author. However I quite honestly can't remember which system we are supposed to use. Which one is it? –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 07:50, 18 August 2021 (UTC).[reply]
I also agree that author is better, if you were going to use a parent taxon I would argue it would need to be at the level both are available, ie Kingdom level for example, a plant an an animal name. This would avoid rearrangements of families and genera. Author is the better way. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk11:14, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like we don't have a preferred naming scheme for homonyms! Therefore, this discussion could be used to decide once and for all a standard scheme for homonyms. Would the author option be with or without parentheses? Burmeister (talk) 11:44, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I know that it's been up for discussion several times over last couple of years, but I'm not sure where… As for setting a standard I would personally prefer using parenthesis, whether we chose to use author (preferably) or parent taxon. In my opinion using a parenthesis would be clearer, and as an extra bonus also more in line with how its done in Wikipedia and other sister projects. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 12:27, 18 August 2021 (UTC).[reply]
Yes for me Name (Author, year) would be my preference, however I am not insistent on the date part so please see that is optional on my part just suggesting it. If no one likes it Name (author) is fine. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk14:39, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The use of the date is likely a bad idea, i.e. for kingdom Animalia if you have a binomen being also an original combination you have the citation of name being: "genus epitethauthor, year", now in case of homonymy if you name the page with author+date and parantheses you obtain "genus epiteth (author, year)" whitch would be the name citation of a recombination. Precise exemple: if you take Chelodina mccordi in the case of homonymy, with that system, the page name would become Chelodina mccordi (Rhodin, 1994) while that name is not a recombination. This is quite disturbing IMO. Forget the year. Christian Ferrer (talk) 17:43, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The year is essential for plants given the number of isonyms floating around. I hope we are not talking about a discrete taxon page for homonyms! These should be removed ASAP, as soon as the disputed status is cleared up. Why do zoologists wish to routinely retain these pages as the information can be presented on the valid/accepted taxon page, once this is established. Andyboorman (talk) 18:01, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would hope we are talking about available (per zoology meaning, ie valid per botany) homonyms which generally means identical names from different codes, I have no plans to make a page for Chelus terrestris for example, and parentheses only mean recombination when used in the right context, which a page title is not, it is within the context of synonymy it matters. There is no homonym of Chelodina mccordi of course and if their were it would be unavailable hence not needed. On Andyboorman's point, one of the criticisms of Wikispecies is that we do not make pages for every name, rather than every species, then tie the juniors to the valid/ accepted name thus providing a database of names and nomenclature rather than a hybrid taxonomy/ nomenclature checklist. Its a fair point and is something we should be doing. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk19:01, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently you don't understand my comment. You said "There is no homonym of Chelodina mccordi of course and if their were it would be unavailable hence not needed"→ don't you understand on purpose? it is just an exemple on how this construction of page name can lead to such situation, and yes of course I'm right and such situation can happen with valid homonyms, but I will not even try to provide to you a valid exemple, search it by yourself or remain convinced. You said also "when used in the right context, which a page title is not": I'm not sure it will be so obvious for all the potential readers what is the "right context", what the title mean and what the title don't mean. Also search engines such as Google and others may display the page titles without even less context, and regarding taxa, the web is already full of typos, mispellings and author citation mistakes, without we introduce additional misleading "taxon names". I will not be surprise if some misspelling of taxon names have more results in the web than the right spellings, just because one person have typed it in a database. Therefore I would not encourage anybody to read/re-write a wrong citation simply because they did not understand our "right context". But well, do as you want, I will follow . Regards,Christian Ferrer (talk) 20:00, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I just lost my dad, my mind is confused and I have trouble concentrating. So take anything I may have said with caution, as I may had get mixed up a bit. I don't know. Regards, Christian Ferrer (talk) 05:07, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Christian Ferrer: sorry to hear about your father, my condolences. I did get what you meant, I also had said date was an optional suggestion I could live without it. Main reason I liked date was because it can be made useful for both Botany and Zoology, it has issues as well as pointed out. We do have to weave a path between ICZN and ICBN at times. Its not always going to be successful. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk10:07, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Bit late to this discussion, but I thought I'd better add my thoughts here: I've somehow wound up using some kind of mix of both author and family as a means of disambiguating homonyms. In particular I tend to use "Taxon name (family)" for a valid name that is also a hemihomonym. For junior homonyms (for which I create redirects usually, unless there is currently no valid name), I instead use "Taxon name Author", sometimes with year if necessary to disambiguate. If the name is the senior homonym and is not a hemihomonym I tend to use just "Taxon name". I'm not sure how I came to this system though, I think I must have followed others or read previous Village Pump discussions and mixed all this information up in my head resulting in this. So it would be nice to finally standardize homonym pages, though we should be wary of the kind of homonyms we're likely to get: I remember in a previous discussion it was pointed out even "Author, Year" would not be enough to disambiguate in an extremely rare case. Monster Iestyn (talk) 11:33, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would imagine name it as Elasmopoda (Théel) and redirect it, its an emended name per Elasipodida Théel, 1882 the original spelling is invalid. You may find the date useful on this one as the same author published both spellings. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk07:39, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There's a couple of surplus linespaces appeared in all Pinus pages above and below the Subsectio line (see e.g. Pinus banksiana); I can't work out where they've come from or how to get rid of them. Can anyone deal with them, please? MPF (talk) 15:31, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What has happened, I think, it that a <br> has been added to famlast, glast, splast, sectlast and so on. If you look at templates, such Pinus sect. Trifoliae you will see a <br> as well as sectlast. This seems to result in a double line break. It can be edited out by not using sectlast etc. in the templates. Hope this helps Andyboorman (talk) 15:45, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I believe Tommy Kronkvist added line breaks to some of these templates recently, had been meaning to ask him about that since, apart from the added whitespace already mentioned, it now makes all the taxa link documentation pages a little inaccurate. Additionally, it makes templates like {{Gbr}} redundant? Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:35, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I find the {{Gbr}} works just fine as I just use the genus name. I have not noticed the inaccuracies in the taxa link documents, but this can be edited out. I am happy with the improvements, but it needs publicity in order to remind editors not to add a br after a list of genera, species and so on. Incidentally I have never used the template format found in the Pinus pages what is wrong with embedding the taxon name works fine for me? Andyboorman (talk) 20:18, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it was me who added the recent line breaks to for example the {{splast}} and {{glast}} templates. I feel this is correct since the information about the line breaks for the "-last" templates was added to the templates' help pages already in October 2015 (Template:Splast/doc) and January 2016 (Template:Glast/doc). In other words, both templates (or their documentation) has been wrong up until recently. Some of the other "-last" templates have had this line break since I created them in 2015/2016, hence in accordance with their documentation; see for example the revision history of the "Ordolast" template.
As for the {{gbr}} and {{fbr}} templates I was under the impression that they were supposed to be exclusively used in Taxonavigation templates (e.g. {{Quercus}}) and not added inline to the actual Taxonavigation sections. And reversely, I've always only used the {{splast}} etc. templates in the Taxonavigation sections, but never in the Taxonavigation templates (i.e. not like this). Instead I simply embed the taxon name link, as Andy suggests above.
I'll have a thorough look at the "splast and <br>" situation later today or tomorrow, however my herniated disc is acting up again (was at hospital yesterday) so it may take some time. I'm sure the line break issue can be mended by the use of a bot though. Please give me a day or so and I'll have it fixed. Best regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 11:59, 31 August 2021 (UTC).[reply]
Hope you get well soon too, sounds awful. That said, {{Glast}} and {{Gbr}} for instance are now identical character-for-character as of writing, if you look at the wikicode for both. There is no difference between the two templates anymore. That is what I meant when I said the latter kind of templates are now redundant. Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:36, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks all. I think Pinus… and its daughter taxa are now corrected, though I opted for +80 manual edits rather than a bot solution, since many of the taxon pages also needed a lot of other fixes (mainly in regards to references such as this example or author names like here). However for the future we need to agree upon a guideline for how and/or where to use the two types of templates. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 14:38, 1 September 2021 (UTC).[reply]
Duplicate author pages with different official IPNI forms[edit]
My personal view is we should make the page under their most recent, and possibly preferred, name as complete as possible. If there are other names, eg under maiden names or other reasons for changing ones name, these could be redirects and make sure the details are in the main page. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk18:09, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's my view as well, however also means we'll lose some of the Wikidata auto-functionality, for example the {{IPNI standard form}} (for the redirected page). I was thinking we might try to find a way to stick to our present system (the one suggested by Scott and Andy) while still keeping the Wikidata-connectivity intact. Perhaps by altering or creating a new, complementary {{IPNI standard form}} template. Today the template fetch the author abbreviation by use of the P428 Wikidata property, but I don't know if it's possible to use the same WD property in one Wikispecies template for fetching two values from separate Wikidata items (Jackes and B.R.Paterson, respectively) and merge them into one Wikispecies' author page. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 09:13, 1 September 2021 (UTC).[reply]
The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey will happen in January[edit]
Hello everyone,
We hope all of you are as well and safe as possible during these trying times! We wanted to share some news about a change to the Community Wishlist Survey 2022. We would like to hear your opinions as well.
Proposing and wish-fulfillment will happen during the same year[edit]
In the past, the Community Tech team has run the Community Wishlist Survey for the following year in November of the prior year. For example, we ran the Wishlist for 2021 in November 2020. That worked well a few years ago. At that time, we used to start working on the Wishlist soon after the results of the voting were published.
However, in 2021, there was a delay between the voting and the time when we could start working on the new wishes. Until July 2021, we were working on wishes from the Wishlist for 2020.
We hope having the Wishlist 2022 in January 2022 will be more intuitive. This will also give us time to fulfill more wishes from the 2021 Wishlist.
Encouraging wider participation from historically excluded communities[edit]
We are thinking how to make the Wishlist easier to participate in. We want to support more translations, and encourage under-resourced communities to be more active. We would like to have some time to make these changes.
A new space to talk to us about priorities and wishes not granted yet[edit]
We will have gone 365 days without a Wishlist. We encourage you to approach us. We hope to hear from you in the talk page, but we also hope to see you at our bi-monthly Talk to Us meetings! These will be hosted at two different times friendly to time zones around the globe.
We will begin our first meeting September 15th at 23:00 UTC. More details about the agenda and format coming soon!
Brainstorm and draft proposals before the proposal phase[edit]
If you have early ideas for wishes, you can use the new Community Wishlist Survey sandbox. This way, you will not forget about these before January 2022. You will be able to come back and refine your ideas. Remember, edits in the sandbox don't count as wishes!
There are several ways to start a new page. See Help:Starting a new page at MediaWiki for examples. Please also see Help:Contents and its sub-pages for information about the scope and preferred format for the Wikispecies project. Note that Wikispecies is a wiki specifically and exclusively encompassing the taxonomy (i.e. description, identification, nomenclature and classification) of biological organisms. Wikispecies is not a general encyclopedia such as for example Wikipedia – for more information about this please see Wikispecies:What Wikispecies is not. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 00:27, 9 September 2021 (UTC).[reply]
Some users like them, others don't. We haven't got a strict policy or guideline about etymologies, so in that sense they have a similar status as the vernacular names. Quite frankly it's up each user whether to add them or not. However if you add etymologies they should always be placed in the "Name" section, more specifically after the scientific name and any information about type material and type locality, but before the list of synonyms (which is a subsection of the "Name" section rather than a section of its own).
For completeness: vernacular names should always be added to the very bottom of a page (if at all), below any list of names, synonyms, data about distribution, references, external links, etc. The reason is that information about vernacular names isn't particularly valuable in regards to the actual taxonomy, and therefore comes last. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 08:05, 18 August 2021 (UTC).[reply]
The etymology can have some uses and it is information that is recommended to be part of a species description, not compulsory. It comes in handy for determining the gender of names for the Principal of Coordination. So is not useless information. I am not going to go out of my way to add it myself but if its something someone wants to do it could reasonably go as the last part in the name block after the type data. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk09:47, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to put etymologies at least when they are relevant to eponyms. I suppose theseedits made by Andyboorman are based on the idea that Wikispecies should play a different role from Wikipedia, Wiktionary and other WikiProjects and it should be concentrated on taxonomic character. I accept Tommy Kronkvist's concept presented above that information about vernacular names isn't particularly valuable in regards to the actual taxonomy and then I will someday request extension of languages used for 'Vernacular names' sections. Even so, I do not know what Andyboorman thinks about eponym categories. If you tolerate them, don't you think that it is preferable that editor explains about etymology linked with any epithet? It is not likely that every reader would understand in a glance that the generic name Temochloa is taken after Thai botanist Tem Smitinand (source), so I think it is the most sincere way that we place explanation for etymology and source (like this) when we add eponym categories; category addition without any explanation may be indeed insincere. --Eryk Kij (talk) 10:03, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, given there is so much taxonomic work to be completed, etymologies, eponyms, vernacular names and similar data is a waste of my time and knowledge and I will not be editing that data, except if I spot obvious errors. However, if fellow editors wish to contribute in this way then go ahead. In addition, WS is fundamentally taxonomic unlike WP etc. and aims at teasing through the minefield in order to produce robust scientific data that can be accepted by plant and animal students and scientists. We have a long way to go. Best regards Andyboorman (talk) 13:28, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A bit late to this one - but one reason not to include them, is that they are inevitably language-dependent. Take e.g. Chroicocephalus; of Greek derivation, in English it means 'coloured head'. But to a reader from Greece, the English translation is less comprehensible than the actual name, so is completely pointless. To a reader from Mongolia, both are equally obscure. So unless one includes the etymology in every language we support, why have it at all? It only makes sense in the individual language wikipedias. - MPF (talk) 15:43, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Call for Candidates for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee ending 14 September 2021[edit]
The Committee is expected to represent diversity in the Movement. Diversity includes gender, language, geography, and experience. This comprises participation in projects, affiliates, and the Wikimedia Foundation.
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This message may have been sent previously - please note that the deadline for candidate submissions was extended and candidacies are still being accepted until 14 September 2021. Xeno (WMF)17:16, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.
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Looks like the text has been cribbed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphysodon_aequifasciatus, with names changed to a genus and species that do not exist, for a reason that is not explained - perhaps someone is trying to legitimise in advance a planned change of name, but they are not doing it well at all. Delete as junk, maybe with an explanation as to why? Cheers Tony Rees Tony 1212 (talk) 19:31, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Also found this, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discus_(fish): "The discus fish has attracted a cult following of collectors and has created a multimillion dollar international industry complete with shows, competitions, and reputed online breeders." So maybe there is some additional shady backstory here, just guessing... Tony 1212 (talk) 19:46, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. As a final side note the taxonomy of the Symphysodon i.e. Discus genus has always been a mess, but it's never encompassed a species named "Symphysodon puiramis". Furthermore I don't think there has ever been a genus named "Tedicpus" (fish or not) nor a specific name "puiramis" for any fish; the only fairly similar I can find is the saltwater blenny Enneapterygius pyramisFricke, 1994, which is unrelated. Also and for what it's worth a Google search for "Tedicpus puiramis" renders zero hits. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 14:14, 18 September 2021 (UTC).[reply]
For a new replacement name (Nomen novum) is it possible to modify the the old name page (if pre-existing) or is necessary to create a new independent page for each name?
If you need to modify an existing page, are there any examples?
Hello Eve Hutch, as Wikispecies has pages for taxa (not for names, unlike Wikidata), an existing page should be moved to the new replacement name. The move can be done by all experienced editors. For an example of a page with a nom. nov., see Neothomasella. Kind regards, --Thiotrix (talk) 15:59, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a lot. What do you mean by "moving" an existing page? If you explain this to me, I can then modify an existing page for testing. Thanks again. Kind regards, Eve Hutch (talk) 14:57, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
He is referring to what is basically renaming a page. In the case you are mentioning the page would be renamed from its old taxon name to the new replacement name. First thing you should do is run the Special:WhatLinksHere tool to be sure of what pages would be affected by the move. If its a species page then the genus page will link there and needs to also be modified to direct to the new name. However, there may also be redirects from other unused names to the name you are replacing, to avoid double redirects these also need to be updated to point to the new name. So have a list of these before you move the page, the tool will help.
Once all this is sorted in the top right next to the search box is a dropdown box that says More, under this is a link for Move. Click on that from the page you intend to move and you can place a new name in for the page, you must give a reason, I suggest you do leave a redirect which it will ask you. Then you can move the page once you action this page. The page will now have a new Mainspace Name, so any pages that direct to it have to be updated to reflect this.
This is all logged in the recent changes that admins watch so if their is a problem we will see it immediately, so do not worry too much there will be people who see and can fix mistakes. Take care with spelling, as if you move the page and have made a spelling mistake you may need an admin to untangle that. So double check everything before you accept the changes. I would suggest you include in the references on the page the citation that makes the move in the literature, in your comments be explicit as to why your moving the page.
The past month there's been quite a lot of activity on the Leucadendron page, where a total of 38 species were added by the same unregistered IP editor. Please have a look at this diff for an overview of the latest 18 edits from August 27 up until the day before yesterday. (Two edits by me, and 16 by the IP.) I'm not saying that the page now includes any errors, but perhaps a botanist with a registered user account should have a quick look just to verify? Thanks beforehand, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 14:14, 21 September 2021 (UTC).[reply]
Not in my area of particular expertise, but Wikipedia says there are "about 80 species" and there are over 100 names (including synonyms) in Tropicos, from which one could potentially obtain a list of current names. The genus is also treated in Plants of the World Online. www.worldplants.de (source for the data in CoL) has a long list, some valid, some synonyms... BTW there are three different genera named "Leucadendron" according to ING and Tropicos, all listed in fam. Proteaceae, the earliest (Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 91) is a nom. rej. for some reason... Tony 1212 (talk) 19:19, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
For completeness, Kuntze's 1891 genus of the same name (attributed therein to "Linnaeus, 1840"), is now Leucospermum, refer ING. Cheers Tony Tony 1212 (talk) 20:03, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Movement Charter Drafting Committee - Community Elections to take place October 11 - 24[edit]
This is a short message with an update from the Movement Charter process. The call for candidates for the Drafting Committee closed September 14, and we got a diverse range of candidates. The committee will consist of 15 members, and those will be (s)elected via three different ways.
The 15 member committee will be selected with a 3-step process:
Election process for project communities to elect 7 members of the committee.
Selection process for affiliates to select 6 members of the committee.
Wikimedia Foundation process to appoint 2 members of the committee.
The community elections will take place between October 11 and October 24. The other process will take place in parallel, so that all processes will be concluded by November 1.
Hi all, the author name Henry James Clark presently in Wikispecies (presumed surname=Clark) is also spelled H. James-Clark in some (all?) relevant pages, for example on the same page (publication list), and taxon names such as Bicosoeca - with authorship given as "James-Clark, 1866". I checked a sample original work, https://www.ajsonline.org/content/s2-42/125/223 , and the running header is "H. J. Clark on Anthophysa Mulleri", while the actual article is prefixed "On the structure and habits of [...]; by H. James-Clark, A.B., B.S." Nevertheless various sources of his protist/sometime algal names use "H.J.Clark" as a botanical abbreviation (AlgaeBase, WoRMS), as does VIAF https://viaf.org/viaf/27461281/ , incorrectly in my view?? Even Index Nominum Genericorum uses "H. J. Clark". IPNI/Plant Name Authors index has no entry for him.
I am thinking all instances of his name should be standardized on Wikispecies to "James-Clark", but would welcome other input. If this is agreed, then most likely the present page Henry James Clark should be maybe renamed (moved), or possibly kept as a redirect?? Cheers Tony Rees Tony 1212 (talk) 05:05, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
On Wikipedia he is "Henry James Clark" as well (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_James_Clark) with DEFAULTSORT:Clark, Henry James, however the facsimile signature included is hyphenated:
In his publication Mind in nature, or, The origin of life, and the mode of development of animals (BHL), he is called Henry James Clark. And in his biographical memoir by A.S. Packard, too (PDF). --Thiotrix (talk) 06:50, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Dear all, (text below is copied from a post just now to the Taxacom mailing list)
OK, I have been doing some more digging. As Valéry Malecot states in an earlier post, Henry James Clark/Henry James-Clark was born to the Clark family, thus it is presumed that originally his surname was Clark, however he seems to have adopted "James-Clark" for his professional surname most (but perhaps not all) of the time; nevertheless in the posthumous biographical memoir by A.S. Packard, he is referred to as "Clark".
However, the clear majority of his authored taxa are in papers under the stated authorship of "[Professor] H. James-Clark", as also per his signature reproduced on the cited Wikipedia page. These cover the following taxa (possibly a few missed) :
Order:
"Lucernariae H. James-Clark", 1863 [1]
Families:
"Cleistocarpidae H. James-Clark", 1863 [1] - elsewhere given in text as "Cleistocarpidæ H. J. C."
"Eleutherocarpidae H. James-Clark", 1863 [1] - elsewhere given in text as "Eleutherocarpidæ H. J. C."
Bicosoecoidae [H. James-Clark, 1868] [5]
Codosigoidae [H. James-Clark, 1868] [5]
Genera: as per Nomenclator Zoologicus entries:
Calvadosia James-Clark 1863 Boston J. nat. Hist., 7, no. 4, 556. Coel [1]
Craterolophus James-Clark 1863 Boston J. nat. Hist., 7, no. 4, 539. Coel [1]
Haliclystus James-Clark 1863 Boston J. nat. Hist., 7, no. 4, 559. Coel [1]
Halimocyathus James-Clark 1863 Boston J. nat. Hist., 7, no. 4, 536. Coel [1]
Manania James-Clark 1863 Boston J. nat. Hist., 7, no. 4, 541. Coel [1]
Bicosoeca James-Clark 1866 Proc. Boston Soc. nat. Hist., 11, 16. Prot [2]
Codonoeca James-Clark 1866 Proc. Boston Soc. nat. Hist., 11, 16. Prot [2]
Codosiga James-Clark 1866 Proc. Boston Soc. nat. Hist., 11, 16. Prot [2] (**Amer. J. Sci. 92 in ING [4])
Salpingoeca James-Clark 1866 Proc. Boston Soc. nat. Hist., 11, 17. Prot (Flag.). [2] (**Amer. J. Sci. 92 in ING [4])
Heteromastix Clark 1865 Mind Nat., 146. Prot [3]
Species: (possibly not all located)
"Calvadosia campanulata H. James-Clark" [1]
"Craterolophus tethys H. James-Clark" [1]
"Haliclystus auricula H. James-Clark" [1]
"Haliclystus salpinx H. James-Clark" [1]
"Haliclystus octoradiatus H. James-Clark" [1]
"Halimocyathus platypus H. James-Clark" [1]
Heteromastix proteiformis Clark, 1865 [3]
Bicosoeca gracilipes H. James-Clark, 1868 [5]
Bicosoeca laustris H. James-Clark, 1868 [5]
Codosiga pulcherrimus H. James-Clark, 1868 [5]
Monas neglecta H. James-Clark, 1868 [5]
Salpingoeca gracilis H. James-Clark, 1868 [5]
From the above I would infer that the "correct" authorship for the majority of the above taxa would be "James-Clark", not "Clark" (or H.J. Clark); the exceptions being Heteromastix (genus) and Heteromastix proteiformis (species), both published under the authorship "Clark" (or H.J. Clark).
Here are the relevant references, with authorship as printed i.e. [sic]:
[1] "Art. XII - Prodromus of the History, Structure, and Physiology of the Order Lucernariæ". By Prof. Henry James-Clark, of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Boston J. nat. Hist., 7, no. 4: 531-567
BHL: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4988417
Includes:
"Lucernariæ H. James-Clark" (new order) - elsewhere given in text as "Lucernariæ H. J. C."
"Cleistocarpidæ H. James-Clark" (new family) - elsewhere given in text as "Cleistocarpidæ H. J. C."
"Eleutherocarpidæ H. James-Clark" (new family) - elsewhere given in text as "Eleutherocarpidæ H. J. C."
"Halimocyathus H. James-Clark" (new genus) - includes H. platypus H. James-Clark (new species)
"Craterolophus H. James-Clark" (new genus) - includes C. tethys H. James-Clark (new species), "?C. convolvulus H. James-Clark" (new combination)*
"Manania H. James-Clark" (new genus) - includes "M. auricula H. James-Clark" (new combination)*
"Calvadosia H. James-Clark" (new genus) - includes C. campanulata H. James-Clark (new species)
"Haliclystus H. James-Clark" (new genus) - includes H. auricula H. James-Clark (new species), H. salpinx H. James-Clark (new species), H. octoradiatus H. James-Clark (new species)
[2] Proc. Boston Soc. nat. Hist., 11: p. 16 et seq:
In "[Society Proceedings] June 20, 1866" (Pp. 15-25)
BHL: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/8059352
Text reads: "Professor James-Clark stated that he had lately been engaged upon an investigation of the nature of Sponges..."
Bicosœca, Codonœca, Codosiga and Salpingœca are described as nov. gen., with "species to be described in a forthcoming memoir"
[3] Henry James Clark: "Mind in nature, or, The origin of life, and the mode of development of animals". Appleton & Company, New York, 1865.
[4] James-Clark, H. 1866 "Conclusive proofs on the animality of the ciliate sponges, and their affinities with the Infusoria Flagellata". American Journal of Science November 1866, s2-42 (126) 320-324; DOI: https://doi.org/10.2475/ajs.s2-42.126.320
[5] H. James-Clark A.B. B.S. (1868) "XXII.—On the Spongiæ ciliatæ as Infusoria flagellata; or observations on the structure, animality, and relationship of Leucosolenia botryoides Bowerbank". Mem. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist. 1: 305-340. BHL: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/7494383 Title says: "By H. James-Clark, A.B., B.S., Professor of Natural History in the Agicutural College of Pennsylvania"; running title: "Prof. H. James-Clark on the Spongiæ Ciliatæ"
Reprinted: Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 1:2, 133-142, https://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080%2F00222936808695657 ...
includes:
"Monas neglecta, nov. sp."
"Bicosœca, nov. gen." - includes "B. gracilipes, nov. sp."
Salpingoeca gracilis
Bicosœcoidæ and Codosigoidæ are mentioned in text (?= established as new families)
"Codosiga, nov. gen. (C. pulcherrimus, nov. sp.)"
"Bicosœca lacustris, nov. spec."
The utter inability for English-language journals and databases of handling foreign names that do not confirm strictly to the structure [singular given name] [optional middle name or names] [singular family name] with any sort of consistency and without mangling them becomes extra amusing/frustrating when it affects the name of an English-speaking person. Circeus (talk) 11:57, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I did wonder whether in the publication [3] under the name "Henry James Clark", "James Clark" might still be intended as a 2-part surname... when I worked for CSIRO, for a while our Divisional Chief was F. R. ("Roy") Harden Jones; Harden Jones being the surname. You can imagine that name giving indexers a bit of grief, and indeed it did, e.g. see https://viaf.org/viaf/33240655/ ... Cheers Tony Tony 1212 (talk) 18:26, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
An "Aha!" moment perhaps... Heteromastix (genus) and Heteromastix proteiformis (species), both published in the sole work listed above that is under the authorship "Henry James Clark" (thus previously suggested by me to be treated as "Clark") are listed as "Heteromastix, Jas.-Clk." and "Heteromastix proteiformis, Jas.-Clk." by the author himself, in publication [5]. Thus, I feel that this justifies citing the authorship of all taxa by the author in question as James-Clark. Thoughts? Regards - Tony Rees Tony 1212 (talk) 19:27, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved. Thank you all for your cooperation. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 17:18, 23 June 2021 (UTC).
Done Andyboorman (talk) 14:43, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
wikimedia.org with questions.
I'll have a look in the next couple of days though. Thank you for bringing this up to our attention. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 00:31, 3 August 2021 (UTC).
Question what to do with Elasmopoda in 
wikimedia.org with questions.
