Category talk:Birds by location

Areas to include

This category needs some type of definition or guideline for inclusion. I was wondering about the areas that should be included as sub-categories. The following spring to mind:

• continents
• oceans
• hemispheres
• there should be a sub-category, perhaps, for birds of world-wide distribution
• maybe by land type (swamp, wetland, grassy plains, etc.)

I will think for a while about it. I'll wait for other comments (years, if need be).

Jason Quinn (talk) 04:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment - Standard guidelines for categorisation by location needed

There is no consensus in this RfC owing to insufficient participation. RfC participant North8000 recommended starting with a narrower question. Cunard (talk) 09:35, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

The following 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 discussion.

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From what I can find there still are no guidelines for the categorisation of wildlife by location. If there is I would be grateful if someone could point it out, if not one needs to be generated. A disagreement has arisen between myself and another user as to the appropriate method of categorisation of fauna, in particular in relation to bird species. I find it difficult to fairly put forward the opposing point of view here, in part because the user has not been explicit in our discussions as to the underlying rationale behind his methodology. The user has been working for some time altering the existing categorisations of birds, and as such is quite unwelcoming of any suggestion that his methodology is not the correct one, and quite resistant to any suggestions of change. Unfortunately he is also, in my opinion, quite unable to express why he is doing what he is doing. Needless to say I don't agree with his methodology, and for the article from which this issue originated I was happier with the categories that had already existed, and felt that his changes were a negative. He has taken the relative lack of opposition to his previous changes as sign of other editors condoning it.

Thus I can only put forward my suggestions as a starting point to a possible set of guidelines. The basic principle is the ease and simplicity in using the categories for navigating Wikipedia for a reader who might be searching for a bird or birds in a locality for which he/she has only a vague description, idea and no name. In this sense for it to act in the same manner as a library of bird guidebooks. The basic design of the methodology might look something like this

1) That geographic categorisation of species should be clearly explained in the category pages.

2) That the level at which the species are found should be, unless there is good reason, and that reason is explained on the category pages, all at the same level. This is so that the reader does not need to hunt through several pages of categories in order to find what they need.

3) What these levels are need not be fixed, but they need to be self-consistent - in other words do not start categorising species until all subcategories are sorted out (this is so the reader is not left guessing in which category there animal might be found). Given that countries have already been set up and that these are simple concepts for the reader (as opposed to ecogeographical zones).

4) Thus the simplest method is to list all species by country only, unless there is good reason, and the reason is stated in the appropriate parent category article.

5) All of the areas must be listed and be complete - in other words no areas are not included - otherwise the reader will go to that category and not find the animal that they are looking for.

6) how many categories are displayed at the bottom of the page is relatively unimportant, however some species have near global distributions, in which case these creatures are not put into country categories and are instead put in the global or near global distribution category. If this becomes too full then this is subcategorised into the continents but no further.

7) creatures that are restricted to one or two countries may be broken down into one further subcategory, but again only with it made clear in the category article.

8) Categories are listed on an article page in alphabetical order, this is the only objective system. Otherwise it makes it hard to find them - note the display of categories at the bottom of articles is more for the benefit of the editors than it is for the readers, though readers may find them useful also

9) includes regular migrant birds and established introduced species

10) This is my proposed methodology based on the principles of a) what categorisation is used for b) self-consistent objective categorisation that is simple for the reader to follow c) acknowledging the underlying limitations in determining distributions of species.

Any comments or help would be greatly appreciated.Jameel the Saluki (talk) 12:41, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

This is very complex for someone to just jump in and comment on. You are talking about the general architecture of an immense system. Also, it is hard to comment on the particular discussion because I don't see it on the talk page and don't know where it's at. Certainly all of your thoughts above look reasonable and well thought out. In one area where you alluded to two sides (countries vs. ecogeographical zones) I would agree with countries because a user would not know ecogeographical zones. I may not be actively watching this page so if you'd like further discussion you'll need to leave a note on my talk page, North8000 (talk) 13:12, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Link to discussion is here - User_talk:Couiros22#Common_hill_myna_categories Jameel the Saluki (talk) 15:10, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Again, what I see here is two people making an effort to come up with the best general architecture of an immense complex system where there is no right or wrong answer. Regarding the nature of the conversation, I do have one minor quibble with one of Jameel the Saluki's posts, getting a little rough on Couiros for the stated reason of Couiros not being responsive to a question on classification rationale. I don't see where that question was clearly asked, and even if it was, I think that both of you are carrying on excellent conversations, and being a bit rough over such an omission may be a bit much.

Every classification system is done within a particular selected view. My one suggestion is that that "view" be selected with typical users and uses in mind. Also, to help you make progress and possibly help the RFC make progress, you might select and start with a narrower question. North8000 (talk) 19:15, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Thankyou for your response. If defence of my being a bit rough, by question of classification rationale was made in the very first paragraph I wrote, and is the entire nub of the conversation from my point of view "1) You removed all of the categories of South East Asian countries, and kept the category South East Asia. Conversely you have removed the Asian category and kept the Asian countries outside of South East Asia. What is the rationale behind this? When would you use, for example, Category:Birds of Brunei? Why not have either Birds of Asia, or list every country that the bird exists in?". I will try you suggestions and see how I go. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 12:49, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. North8000 (talk) 13:14, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@ User talk:North8000,

I'd like to clarify a few things regarding skepticisms towards my recent enhancements regarding bird article categories:

- the ambiguity highlighted above can be explained by the straightforward principle that areas of distribution of bird species should be categorized according to their most clear-cut, ostensible areas of presence, (i.e. retrievable from the BirdLife International website). Hence, the common hill myna should on one hand be categorized into 'birds of SE Asia' given this is one of the most ostensible areas to which it corresponds - as is 'birds of South China' (although it is of a lower geographical scale than the former, it equally corresponds to an area of presence ostensibly observable).

- much skepticism has also been raised upon the issue of how birds' wintering ranges should be represented. My view is the following: given that they spend a few months in those areas per year these should not be ignored... however given these do not represent their core area of presence throughout the year, they should be reflected separately (e.g. 'Vagrant birds of South America'... rather than "birds of South America" which does not correspond to their year-round area of presence)

- finally, I'd like to list a few advantages from my latest edits:

-the 'birds of Sub-Saharan Africa' cat. formerly included many bird entries, many of which corresponded to very local areas on the continent, whereby I felt the necessity to assign them to relevant sub-categories when appropriate: (e.g. 'birds of East Africa', birds of the Miombo' etc). Hence, the category now only includes bird species being widespread throughout Sub-Saharan Africa

-many South American cats (e.g. 'Birds of Peru', 'birds of Ecuador', 'birds of Colombia') formerly contained a very high amount of entries, many of which either had a much broader area of presence or a more local one (i.e. 'birds of South America' or 'birds of the Colombian Andes', 'birds of the Ecuadorian Amazon' etc); as a result all three of these country categories now contain a much more modest amount of of bird entries (albeit still many!) whose areas of presence more genuinely reflect their areas in question

-the 'birds of Australia' cat. formerly included many entries, many which could be allocated to more local areas (e.g. 'birds of Western Australia' etc) and ere not broadly present throughout the whole island.

-I've added some photos to the 'list of birds of China' either endemic or near-endemic & widely present across the country

-many birds in the 'bird of Europe' cat. were wrongly included, i.e. being only very rare migrants, not present 99% of the time - I felt a need to make a distinction, therefore many are now categorized separately (e.g. the Aleutian tern, a rare vagrant to the UK is now included in 'Vagrant birds of the 'British Isles' rather than 'Birds of Europe').

finally, thanks for your support ;-) --Couiros22 (talk) 10:25, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Firstly let me say that this was a request for comment on starting a set of guidelines by which all birds by location can be categorised. As such I think it would be more helpful if you could suggest what those guidelines might be, so that they can be stated explicitly on the category page and thus have all editors follow them. What your comment appears to be is a request for approval that your actions continue in an unfettered manner and using a methodology that you see fit to apply, but without making it clear to anyone else.

It would have also have been nice to compare and contrast any methodology suggestions you had with the ones at the start of this section.

Having said that, I don't think any other editors are going to join this discussion, so I'll respond to what you've posted.

-"the ambiguity highlighted above..". I have to say that I don't know what you are talking about here, what ambiguity? I am requesting a set of guidelines where none seem to exist. In relation to the rest of the paragraph, could you please explain why you think that bird species should be categorised in that manner. I believe that such a method would result in it being more difficult to navigate through wikipedia using the categoriy method. Taking the example of wanting to find out about local birds without really knowing any names, if the birds are categorised only by country then all a reader has to do us go to that category, whereas in the system you are suggesting the reader would have to go to many different categories, possibly an indefinite number, trying to track down the name of a bird or birds in the locality.

-"much skepticism has also been raised upon the issue of how birds' wintering ranges should be represented." - could you please provide examples of this scepticism. If it relates to discussions that I have been having what you have posted is a grossly misleading appraisal of our discussions, and whilst a useful addendum to the general discussions pertaining the writing of guidelines is not one of the most critical issues at hand.

I am extremely concerned that the rest of your post is reading as a resume, and merely a request to keep going as you are without guidelines being written. If you do not think that guidelines be written that please explicitly make that comment. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 13:21, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

An additional comment - for all the articles that you have listed, categories already existed, which I believe were more appropriate and probably so did the editors that put them there that way in the first place. I am happy to discuss with you on your talk page why, if necessary.Jameel the Saluki (talk) 13:36, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

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The discussion above 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 discussion.

Category text

I've removed the text shown below from the category page. The text is unclear and afaics was added without any prior discussion that agreed it (the edit that added it had no edit summary).

This project aims to give users a clear acquisition of bird species' ranges throughout the world. Birds are categorized according to their true, discernible areas of presence (continent, sub-continent, island or natural region). Therefore, some birds present in a particular area, yet within a much broader or at a much smaller level, will not necessarily be included within the corresponding category ; e.g. birds of New Zealand present on only one of the two islands are classified into either sub-category, rather than under "birds of New Zealand", in which only birds found throughout the whole country are listed, although not necessarily those of a much broader range of presence such as the pacific reef heron or cosmopolitan birds etc.

http://datazone.birdlife.org/home

DexDor ^(talk) 23:09, 27 December 2018 (UTC)