User talk:Peter coxhead/Archive 11

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CITEVAR progress

See [1]. It's a bit verbose [SMcCandlish says, ironically], but a step in the right direction, with two holes knocked in the you-can-touch-my-cite-code nonsense.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:24, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

I copyedited it down and integrated it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:55, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: yes, it's considerably better. (I also think the non-reversion of my preamble to Wikipedia:Citing sources#To be avoided is slightly helpful: at least it's quite clear that an article can be tidied up.) Peter coxhead (talk) 09:23, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Baby steps. I think all this is resistance predicated on the idea that there's a lurking band of LDR marauders waiting swoop down at first opportunity and reformat cites in 20,000 articles (plus the VESTED/OWN stuff), as if there were enough editors, enough who cared about that, and enough of those who had the time.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:36, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Oh, it's far from just LDR. My experience is that there's a huge amount of WP:OWN related to the minutiae of all referencing techniques. I usually encounter it most if I step outside the biology-related areas in which I mostly edit (perhaps scientists are more used to having to change styles radically between journals?). At Ancient Roman pottery, for example, the editors concerned will not allow the Harvard style refs under Notes to link to the full refs under References by using the relevant Harv template, even though this would obviously help readers to navigate. Why? One or more key editors "doesn't like all the blue", and CITEVAR protects the way it's done now. Sigh... Peter coxhead (talk) 09:47, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Well, let's see them justify reverting this cleanup and normalization to MoS's first post-stub revision to establish a style standard. [2]. Doing similar redundancy compression on the equivalent wording at MOS:RETAIN.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:17, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

I had too much coffee, and grew an extra pair. Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Cleaning up and normalizing MOS:ENGVAR, WP:CITEVAR, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:59, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

http://journals.royalsociety.org/

In regard to this revert, http://journals.royalsociety.org/ down from here and the web: [3]. Perhaps you have subscription/royal society vpn? Kindly self revert once you confirm. Spirit Ethanol (talk) 22:36, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

I have never really understood the logic of including a URL and a DOI in a citation; personally I normally omit the URL if there's a DOI. If the URL fails, but the DOI (or PMC or whatever) works, then remove the URL, don't mark the whole citation as a deadlink, because it isn't. I'm sorry I didn't explain this better in the edit summary. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:53, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Authority of subfamilies

In the article on Roussea simplex, I included the subfamily in the taxobox. This is because previously the family Rousseaceae was monotypic, while it has been merged with the Carpodetoideae as off AGP II. As the article is now actually on species, genus and subfamily, authority needs to be assigned for all these. If I am not mistaken, the subfamily authority is identical to that of the family, irrespective of the scientist that introduced the taxon on the subfamily level. Another question is if a redirect page should be created for the subfamily. Finally you too may help to resolve the fact that Roussea is taken as a redirect to a grape variety, while the variety is not mentioned among an extensive list of synonyms. I hope you are knowledgeable about this. Hope to hear from you. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 15:53, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

To take your first question first. Article 49 of the ICN applies, but is a bit obscure in my view. 49.1 says that "When a genus or a taxon of lower rank is altered in rank but retains its name or the final epithet in its name, the author of that earlier name ... is cited in parentheses, followed by the name of the author who effected the alteration (the author of the name)." By contrast 49.2 says "Parenthetical authors are not cited for suprageneric names." So if X raises a section originally named by Y to a genus, the new genus name is cited as "(Y) X". On the other hand if X raises a subfamily originally named by Y to a family, the new family name is cited just as "Y". However, it's a bit more complicated here, it seems to me, because we end up with two taxa, Rousseaceae and Rousseoideae, and I wouldn't expect these to have the same author, because it's not a case of simply moving one taxon between the ranks of family and subfamily. In default of a better source, I would be inclined to use and cite Reveal's Indices Nominum Supragenericorum Plantarum Vascularium – see section R – which gives Rousseaceae DC. and Rousseoideae Horan.

As for the redirect at Roussea, as you say, there's no mention in the article to which it redirects, so I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be used as the name of the plant article; we can have a redirect at "Roussea (grape)" or something anyway. Monospecific genera are treated at the genus name in the English Wikipedia, so I would propose getting an admin to move Roussea simplex to Roussea.

However, I note that The Plant List here prefers Roussea salicifolia as the species name. It all seems a bit of a mess.

@Sminthopsis84: any comments welcome, please! Peter coxhead (talk) 17:09, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Peter, look at TPL again. Roussea simplex is unresolved and Roussea salicifolia is a synonym of Pouteria salicifolia. That's not a trivial change in genus, which makes me wonder whether there's a homonymous Roussea in Sapotaceae (though IPNI and Tropicos have no record of one). Plantdrew (talk) 17:30, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: whoops, yes, I clearly didn't look at TPL properly. There is a Tropicos entry here which didn't get into TPL. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:34, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. I'll use Horan. as author, and ask to move to R. simplex to Roussea. It is useful to know that Roussea salicifolia is a synonym of Pouteria salicifolia (Spreng.) Radlk. because we can treat it as a renamed species, to help the readers. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 17:38, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Peter, the authority for a subfamily is often different from that of the family, created by a later author. APG and Reveal's list show "Rousseaceae Candolle" (or "DC." as the standard abbreviation) and "Rousseoideae Horaninow" (or "Horan."). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:52, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

As the period ended, I created a redirect Roussea (grape) to Trebbiano, moved the content and talkpage of Roussea simplex to Roussea, turned Roussea simplex to a redirect to Roussea. What I cannot do is move the logs. I probably should have waited for someone to do it for me. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 09:55, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it's considered a sin to move pages by "cut-and-paste", you need to ask an admin to do this for you. Usually if you leave a message at WT:PLANTS, it will get done if the reasoning is good (as it is here). I'll ask someone to sort it out. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:03, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Brexia

Thank you for all your previous advice. I've been working on Brexia lately. I'm seeking some wisdom how to deal with it from now on. Many authors considered it monotypic, the only species being B. madagascariensis. One revision paper however say it contains twelve species. The assumption that more species may be distinguished, is corroborated in a very recent phylogenetic study. The Plantlist recognises four species, but apart from the type species, these are the newly described species in the revision paper, which itself says some of these new species are more alike a species not recognised in The Plantlist than to B. madagascariensis. The review describes the species that were already described somewhere before very brief, qualitatively and in relation to another species it is thought most comparable to. Now, what to do? I now basically dealt with it as a monotypic genus, and the only remaining action would be to create a redirect for B. madagascariensis (but could be done for all of the species recognised in TPL, or in the revision, or for all synonyms that can be found). I could also create species articles, but which should be made and which should be for now be dealt with as synonyms? Dwergenpaartje (talk) 10:21, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Not an easy question to answer! It does seem pretty clear that Brexia isn't monotypic, and I think we should say this, supported by both the journal papers you link above + TPL. On the other hand, only Schatz & Lowry (2004) list species (11 of them) as a "taxonomic act"; Bacon et al. (2016) only include a few species in a cladogram, and don't discuss the genus in the text. I'm surprised that a 2004 paper hasn't been picked up more widely. Tropicos has a longish list of species, but can't be used as a source for "accepted" species. So I would personally be reluctant to create species articles yet, which leaves something of an anomaly. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:51, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Ixerbaceae

I recently extended Ixerba. APG II erected a monotypic family, the Ixerbaceae, but APG III reassigned Ixerba to the Strasburgeriaceae. That makes Ixerbaceae a synonym of Strasburgeriaceae. Currently Ixerbaceae redirects to Ixerba, but I wonder if it should rather redirect to Strasburgeriaceae? Do you have any thoughts on this. Thanks in advance (again). Kind regards, Dwergenpaartje (talk) 10:39, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Interesting. There's a possible conflict, I think, between taxonomy and utility to readers. Taxonomically, it makes sense to redirect to Strasburgeriaceae. On the other hand, someone searching for information on APG II's Ixerbaceae will be best served by a redirect to the genus. There's a third possibility: since we do have articles on obsolete ("historically recognized") taxa, there could be a short article at Ixerbaceae explaining the changes. Sminthopsis84 wrote most of the material on synonyms at WP:PLANTS, and may have a useful view. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:48, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you @Dwergenpaartje: for expanding and polishing the page on Ixerba, one of the genera that was caught up in some poor-quality editing on New Caledonian plants in the past. Just a suggestion: since there is already a nice little summary at Ixerba#Taxonomy, how about redirecting Ixerbaceae to that section and using bold-face for where the family name appears in that section? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:18, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Ah, yes, that seems to be the best suggestion, which I've implemented. And my thanks too to Dwergenpaartje for work on plant articles. (A little bit of polishing to the English is needed in some places – not knowing the plant, I'm not sure what "midlengs" should be, for example.) Peter coxhead (talk) 08:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, this is very helpful. @Peter coxhead: I corrected the typo. Sometimes my brain types something else than my fingers and ones eyes are part of ones brain ("beyond midlength" helps me avoid "in the distal half"). @Sminthopsis84: thanks for the guidance on synonyms. I think I have been applying it intuitively. Something I try to do when relevant is adding information on homonyms, such as here and to create lists in genus level articles of taxa that have been reassigned as a sort of disambiguation section, see there where it utterly dominates the article. Perhaps some of this may be useful for plants. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 14:49, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Peter, I haven't been entirely clear on your preference for {{R from alternative scientific name}} over {{R from taxonomic synonym}} (though I've been using the alternative scientific name one). Is this the kind of case you want to account for? Ixerbaceae isn't technically a taxonomic synonym of Ixerba, but we are treating it as another scientific name for Ixerba. Plantdrew (talk) 15:17, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Personally, I prefer "alternative scientific name" because it avoids the issue of what is a strict taxonomic synonym; there are pro parte cases, typographic variants, illegitimate names, "hort." usages, etc. which can then be treated in the same way. But it's just a matter of practicality rather than any kind of principle. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:09, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

@Dwergenpaartje: it is interesting that you mention homonyms in a zoological context because as a botanist, I find the zoological situation very difficult to understand. I'm still reeling after reading an article by John McNeill from 2000 (Taxon 49:705–720) which points out something that I didn't understand and I don't think wikipedia is clear about, when moving a zoological species to a different genus, it could unseat an existing species name in that second genus: "On the other hand, the requirement of the zoological Code (Ride & al., 1999) that the earlier published epithet be used regardless of its prior independent use within the second genus (i.e. that to which transfer is being made) creates the possibility of instability in the name of a taxon, the one already bearing that epithet in the second genus, that is not involved in the taxonomic change-the situation of "secondary homonymy"." Anyway, if you have time to look at International Code of Zoological Nomenclature to see if it can be simplified at all ... Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:31, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

This arises because of a real difference between the Codes concerning species names vs. epithets. I understand it like this, which I hope is correct. In the ICZN the second part of a binomen is a name, independent of its placement in a genus. The priority is attached to the name; transfer to another genus doesn't change this priority (which is why the transferrer and date aren't given for ICZN names). In the ICN, the second part of a binomial is just an epithet, not a full name. The priority applies to the combination, not just the epithet, which is why the transfer has to be noted. So when a species is transferred and the epithets clash, the earliest published combination has priority in the ICN whereas the earliest published name/epithet has priority in the ICZN. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:50, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that's how it works. Understanding the difference in how the codes handle priority illuminates the differences in how authorities are cited. In my opinion, the priority difference is the single biggest obstacle to a unified code (e.g. BioCode). I'm surprised that Wikipedia's ICZN aricle and Principle of Priority don't explain this better. Plantdrew (talk) 20:10, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes. I think we have the same problem that the BioCode had, that people raised with one of the Codes think that the other must be about the same (if only they could understand the wording of that other code). A first step here, I think, would be to simplify, but I'm hesitant to try to do that because I've been unsure of my understanding (less so now because of this discussion). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:40, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

I regularly look at the articles on biological nomenclature; lament their collective lack of correctness and/or clarity; and then chicken out of making any changes. As an example of problems, look at the opening of Principle of Priority. It has two bullet points:

• The first formal scientific name given to a plant or animal taxon shall be the name that is to be used, called the valid name in zoology and correct name in botany.
• Once a name has been used, no subsequent publication of that name for another taxon shall be valid (zoology) or validly published (botany).

What about circumscription and rank, both vital qualifications? For species and lower, the two codes mean different things by "names", and it's not obvious from the text above that the same specific name/epithet is allowed if published in different genera. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:48, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Expanded popular pages

I just recently discovered this tool, that can display all pages in a WikiProject ranked by page views (unlike the regular popular pages that can't go beyond the top 1000). As you've noticed, I've been bumping some things from low to mid importance out of the top 3000; I figure being in the top 5% of plant articles by page views is a good indication that something might be worth more than low importance (though I'm not blindly bumping everything that I see). Anyway, just thought you might be interested in playing around with the expanded popular pages report.Plantdrew (talk) 20:28, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Ah, right; I'd seen you increasing importance and had wondered why. For WP:SPIDERS, which is where I've been working most lately, the number of views falls off rapidly, but it's still a nice tool. I notice it doesn't cope properly with "extra" classes, such as SIAs.

A general problem with page views is that you don't know how long people spend looking at the article, so it can be a case of the page regularly being found in error by a search. I do know that for a website I control, and so have full access to its logs, there's a weaker relationship between page views and time spent with the page open than I had expected. We never know, of course, how long someone spends actually reading the page. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:07, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Bluffopollis scabratus

Dear Peter,

• I recently created Nicobariodendron, one of the genera APG-III was unable to position. Sources state that no genetic testing has been done, only one specimen is known, the species is dioecious, no female flowers were available, but unripe fruits were described. The describing authors assign it to the Celastraceae. Could you please have a look at the article, in particular the taxobox.
• I recently created Strasburgeria and made a redirect from Bluffopollis scabratus, a fossil pollen type, to Strasburgeriaceae. Do you concur this is the correct way to deal with such an item?

Thank you in advance. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 13:27, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

@Dwergenpaartje: sorry to be slow in responding. I wanted to look at APG IV; it puts Nicobariodendron in Celastraceae, so I've altered the article accordingly. They don't seem to have used any new evidence to do this, so the text of the article could probably do with a bit more adjustment to clarify that it still remains uncertain. However, we have always used the latest APG here for taxoboxes, so this seems the right taxobox for now.

I agree re the redirect from Bluffopollis scabratus. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:41, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Ischnocolinae

Hi, Peter!

You recently edited the article Ischnocolinae, in which you gave a list of genera moved from the subfamily. But you did not mention that they were moved to the Schismatothelinae! Also some of those genera are still in the Ischnocolinae, such as Heterophrictus and Neoheterophrictus (Or maybe I am wrong?). So could you please clarify why you say these are no longer present? From what I read in Josè's article, he said only some (like Schismatothele) were removed from the Ischnocolinae. Maybe I am just confused. I never really grasped the concept of "monophyly" and that stuff. Wikipedia does not explain it well.

Regards, Megaraptor12345 (talk) 09:57, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

There seem to be many uncertainties regarding the subfamilies and even the genera of mygalomorphs. If you look at Guadanucci's article, on p. 509 he says that the 'Ischnocolinae' he started from consists of 12 genera, which he lists as Acanthopelma, Catumiri, Guyruita, Hemiercus, Holothele, Oligoxystre, Sickius, Chaetopelma, Heterothele, Ischnocolus, Nesiergus and Plesiophrictus. So he doesn't start with Heterophrictus and Neoheterophrictus in the 'Ischnocolinae'. In an earlier paper – Guadanucci, J.P.L. (2011). "The genus Plesiophrictus Pocock and revalidation of Heterophrictus Pocock (Araneae: Theraphosidae)". The Journal of Arachnology 39(3): 523–527 – he put Heterophrictus in the subfamily Eumenophorinae, and the authors of the new genus Neoheterophrictus followed suit.

On p. 514 of the 2014 article, Guadanucci says that his Ischnocolinae s.s. "comprises a group including" and then lists the genera I put in the Ischnocolinae article. Now "including" isn't clear; it could imply that there are others of his original 'Ischnocolinae' s.l. that are also there, but as far as I can tell from the article he does explicitly exclude all the other genera he started with.

I did start to list those moved to Schismatothelinae, and maybe something should be said, but he says "It comprises a Neotropical group with unresolved internal relationships: Sickius longibulbi, Guyruita spp, Schismatothele lineata, Hemiercus modestus, Holothele incei (plus non-described allied species) and Holothele colonica (plus non-described allied species). The genera Schismatothele, Hemiercus and Holothele are in urgent need of a taxonomic revision to evaluate their morphology and diversity." So we could say that Sickius and Guyruita are included in this new subfamily, but what else? The World Spider Catalog currently doesn't recognize Hemiercus (merging it into Schismatothele); only some species of Schismatothele and Holothele are suggested as being included, meaning that these genera need to be split up. Basically I concluded that it's all too new and too uncertain. I thought we needed to wait for these issues to be sorted out.

Indeed, I think that at present it's better to ignore the subfamilies of Theraphosidae: every new paper seems to reject the traditional subdivision of the family, but there seems as yet no consensus on a new one. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:37, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Re monophyly – there are two issues: what it means, and whether it matters. A "monophyletic group" or "clade" is a group of species or genera or whatever which consists of all the descendants of a common ancestor. Of course we never know with absolute certainty how organisms evolved, since it happened in the past, and any given evolutionary tree could be wrong. Anyway, if you draw an evolutionary tree (cladogram), a monophyly will show up as a complete tree or subtree. It matters nowadays because most (but not all) taxonomists have decided that they will only name monophyletic groups (clades). So when Guadanucci (2014) draws cladograms which are possible evolutionary trees, he will only accept a subfamily if all its members turn out to make up a complete subtree. The same is true for a genus: all of its species have to make up a complete tree or subtree for it to be accepted. Not sure if this helps. Do feel free to continue to ask, and keep working on spiders! Peter coxhead (talk) 12:51, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Peter! That clarifies everything. Megaraptor12345 (talk) 11:45, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Small fix needed to R from scientific name

Template:R from scientific name is displaying "...scientific name of an organism (or group of null)..." when no switch is specified, with "null" where "organisms" should appear. Plantdrew (talk) 02:59, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: whoops; well spotted. It should be fixed now (and for {{R to scientific name}}). As with all changes to templates, it may take time or need null edits to be visible in some cases. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:00, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Spiders

Hi. Many thanks for your editings in my spider articles. Also thank you for informing me that most of the species' families has been changed. I did these edits with the help of Manju Siliwal and Sanjay Molur's detailed checklist of spiders of South Asia including 2006 revision, and I think some of the species are now in new genera and families. So, it is good to know about that and as you said, I will use correct present taxonomic classifications as well. Cheers...Gihan Jayaweera (talk) 7:56, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

@Gihan Jayaweera: yes, in the last few years there have been a lot of changes. Researchers are now using genetic data to sort out the correct groupings of spiders, and this is leading to new families, and genera being moved between families. It's best to rely on the World Spider Catalog for the latest taxonomy. They are always very up to date.

But don't be put off from making new articles! Peter coxhead (talk) 14:31, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Paeonia anomala

For the last two weeks I'm having fun in editing the article on Paeonia anomala. A few issues still remain in the lead, such as no access to the source that was cited by a previous editor that autumn color is orange (while my source says red), and the species epithet refers to the putatively unusual fact that it has an autumn color, for which I do not have an alternative source. Of cause we all know the meaning of anomalous, but the interesting bit is why the author regards it as such.

I primarily used Hong De-Yuan; Pan Kai-Yu (2004). "A Taxonomic Revision of the Paeonia anomala Complex (Paeoniaceae)". Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 91 (1): 87–98 as the basis of my edits, and as the inclusion of P. veitchii as a subspecies, with only one constant difference with the nominal, and the Flora of China accepting this new taxonomy, I decided to redirect the stub-article P. veitchii to P. anomala. While looking for conformation of the chromosome number I read just now the summary of another article Pan, J.; Zhang, D.; Sang, T. (2007). "Molecular phylogenetic evidence for the origin of a diploid hybrid of Paeonia (Paeoniaceae)". American Journal of Botany 94: 400–408. It seems to overhaul the taxonomy I had just added quite fundamentally, since it says:

"we showed that P. anomala is a homoploid hybrid that originated from a cross between P. veitchii and P. lactiflora. Five populations of P. anomala were sequenced for the following molecular markers: the matK gene and two intergenic spacers, psbA-trnH and rps16-trnQ, of the chloroplast genome; the internal transcribed spacers (ITS) of nuclear ribosomal DNA; and three low-copy nuclear genes, Adh1, Adh2, and Gpat. The populations of P. anomala were grouped together with P. veitchii on the ITS and Gpat phylogenies but with P. lactiflora on the chloroplast phylogeny. Sequence polymorphism was found at the Adh1 and Adh2 loci within individuals of P. anomala. These polymorphic sequences were grouped with P. veitchii and P. lactiflora, respectively. Phenetic analysis indicated that P. anomala is morphologically similar to P. veitchii. Phenotypic evolution resulting from the combination of two diverged genomes might have occurred primarily at the physiological level and allowed P. anomala to adapt to geographic regions different from those of its parents".

I did add this to the Modern classification section, but would appreciate your guidance on how to deal with this issue in the P. anomala article and the P. veitchii redirect.

Thanks in advance for your answers. Regards, Dwergenpaartje (talk) 10:43, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Hum... As you imply, if we accept that P. anomala is a hybrid between P. veitchii and P. lactiflora, then we can't simultaneously treat P. veitchii as P. anomala ssp. veitchii. I find the Pan et al. (2007) article quite convincing, but it would be good to have a secondary source. I have found some papers which accept Pan et al. (2007), e.g. this one, which could be cited – it has some impressive authors. The problem with many sources is that you can't tell whether they accept P. veitchii because they haven't caught up with Hong & Pan (2004) or because they have caught up with Pan et al. (2007).

My instinct is to go with the latest view, and have articles at P. anomala and P. veitchii. (Incidentally, I have grown the latter, though I don't have it now.) Peter coxhead (talk) 15:00, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Done. Thanks. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 21:55, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

More synonyms

a couple more incorrect plant species redirects: Persicaria vivipara (accepted name) incorrectly redirects to synonym Bistorta vivipara. Frangula alnus (accepted name) incorrectly redirects to synonym Rhamnus frangula. Plantsurfer 11:05, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree that these two need to be moved, but in both cases the genus article really needs sorting, perhaps first, since more species articles appear to be at the wrong genus. Persicaria is terrible: it looks as though the list of species has been synthesized from multiple sources, some quite old. Rhamnus (genus) also has no sources for the species list.

Do you have time to work on these? I don't at present. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:16, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

ISBN

Veronica serpyllifolia My copy of Parnell & Curtis, First published 2012, Reprinted 2012 gives an ISBN: 978-185918-4783 Osborne 13:37, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, publishers frequently don't set out ISBNs correctly, and they are not infrequently invalid. It's usually best to check with the definitive source, namely isbn.org. If you put in "978-185918-4783", it yields the 10-digit ISBN "1-85918-478-2". If you put that back in again, you get the correctly formatted ISBN "978-1-85918-478-3". If a book gives a 10-digit ISBN, use this website to find the 13-digit ISBN, which is preferred. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:44, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

For information, the "978" identifies the medium. The other four parts of the ISBN are a group/country identifier (here 1=US); a publisher identifier (here 85918); a title/edition identifier (here 478); and a check digit (here 3). It's the check digits that I find are occasionally wrong – different systems are used with 10 and 13 digit ISBNs. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:51, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Reticulata (thanks)

Wasn't it Samuel Johnson who defined a network as "any retiticulated or dessucated structure with interstices between the intersections"? Jolly helpful that was :) Thanks for your hard work at RfD because we are sadly lacking in experts on taxonomy over there. So just wanted to say thanks, really. Si Trew (talk) 16:51, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

philosophical question

If a genus consists of unresolved species, can it be said to have a type species? or is this illogical? See e.g. Aconogonon. Plantsurfer 18:32, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

My reading is that the reason the names are treated as "unresolved" is because of the issue of whether the genus name should be spelt Aconogonon or Aconogonum (see here), but that everyone is agreed that, whatever the spelling, the name derives from Polygonum sect. Aconogonon Meisn., whose type species (i.e. the species whose type is the type of the section) is Polygonum divaricatum L. So in this case there is a type species, which if Aconogon[on/um] is accepted as a separate genus will have the name Aconogon[on/um] divaricatum.

If the unresolved status were due to doubt as to whether the name had been properly published, I guess it would be different. But I make no claims to be an expert in taxonomy! User:Sminthopsis84 is usually the first I turn to in such cases. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:19, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

@Plantsurfer: I'm not sure I understand the philosophical conundrum. A genus that is treated as a synonym still has a type species. If a genus that is known to have zero accepted species (because they're all treated as synonyms) has a type, why wouldn't a genus that is not known to have any accepted species (because they're all currently unresolved) have a type? Plantdrew (talk) 19:52, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Sure, I agree that if the reason the names are unresolved is because of doubts over synonymity, then the genus name still has a type. But "unresolved" can imply doubts over the legitimacy of a name, which would surely be a different matter? Peter coxhead (talk) 20:06, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the genus has been typified, so there is a type species. ThePlantList might be confused because of the spelling problem. ING lists it only under Aconogonum, although Proposals and Disposals says that the proposal to conserve the spelling has been ruled on by the Committee for Vascular Plants: "consider Aconogonon to be the correct spelling". That's only the first of three steps, the last one due at the IBC in summer 2017, but it is surely likely to be carried through. So, I'd guess that ING won't change until after the IBC, and that ThePlantList is similarly refusing to commit itself, preferring to make a public statement that it is confused, scientifically cautious ("unresolved"). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:24, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that's my interpretation; it's just the orthographic issue. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:57, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Speaking of spelling issues, you might want to take a look at Aranea and it's incoming links, Peter. Plantdrew (talk) 21:43, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

@Plantdrew:If the names are unresolved because of doubts about relatedness, or the species scattered to a number of other genera, then the concept of a type species becomes questionable doesn't it? I don't see a problem if the only issue is which of two or more names to apply to the whole group. Plantsurfer 22:24, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

The genus name follows the type species. If every other species but the type gets scattered to other genera, no problem, you've just got a monotypic genus. If the type species gets placed in a different genus, the genus name anchored by the type becomes a synonym. If the type gets moved, but you still want a separate genus for the remaining species, you either need to dig an old genus out of synonymy (if any of the remaining species have ever been designated as the type of a genus) or erect a new genus. 00:22, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

@Plantsurfer: I think you may possibly be falling into the non-taxonomist's trap of thinking that the "type species" has to be in some way "typical" of the genus, but this is not so. It's simply the species that is based on the same type (specimen, drawing, whatever) as the genus. It can be particularly non-typical when originally based on a cultivar under the assumption that it was a distinct wild species; Musa and Citrus spring to mind. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:57, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Echinopsis peruviana article

I don't understand the basis on which you have reverted the 'citation needed' on this page. The link to mescaline provides supporting evidence of the claim. It is not necessary to have a citation for every statement, only those that can't be supported by other links. --Gumsaint (talk) 02:51, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Further to this point I draw attention to the common practice that "Citations are often omitted from the lead section of an article".. The claim about mescaline is easily supported. --Gumsaint (talk) 02:58, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

@Gumsaint: Wikipedia cannot be used as a source of reference: see WP:CIRC. "Links" does not mean "links to other Wikipedia articles". As it happens, Mescaline does did not contain a source that says that Echinopsis peruviana contains this compound.

The lead section should summarize the rest of the article; there's no need to repeat a citation in the summary that's given in the article. This was not the case here. See also WP:CITELEAD.

The best solution is for the bioactive compounds in Echinopsis peruviana to be discussed in the article with sources, and then the lead section can summarize this material. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:08, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

I have now added a section on mescaline to the Echinopsis peruviana article, and a reference to the Mescaline article. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:46, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Green redirects

I saw your query to Stemonitis about Dolichognatha redirects, and Stemonitis's response about having redirects in a different color. I've had that set up myself for a couple months and am finding it very helpful, and I think you might find it useful too. User:Anomie/linkclassifier does a whole bunch of different colors for different kinds of links. I've got something simpler just for redirects at User:Plantdrew/common.css. Plantdrew (talk) 15:36, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! That is indeed very useful. (The need to go through the RfD process for all the redirects is not...) Peter coxhead (talk) 16:34, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

That was patronising

Nice to see you back at RfD. That was very patronising to assume that I don't know the BV distinction. At home in Hungary I speak English, because my wife works for a firm that the first language is English, so it is just easier for us to do it in English. I speak fluent French, and on the street I speak Hungarian and Roma. That was a little bit patronising old sweet and I was a bit offended by your off-the-cuff remark there, but I am sure it was just an off-the-cuff remark and didn't mean it. For if not, have a look at the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and the stacks of articles sub under I translated there. Look at Old Rouen Tramway and tell me that is not perfect but a reasonable translation. Look at Mariniere and tell me that is not perfect but a reasonable translation.

I am offended, I must say, it would be like calling you Pete. Si Trew (talk) 06:05, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

To be clear. I expect an apology then all is done and dusted and we can get back to making the encylopaedia better. No big deal but you genuinely offended me. You probably didn't mean to. Big men say sorry. Si Trew (talk) 06:09, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Two points. (1) The etymology bit was a side issue, and should, with hindsight, have been in small type or otherwise indicated as off the main point; it had nothing to do with what to do about the redirect and wasn't intended to address this. (2) I wasn't aware of your linguistic background, so nothing patronizing was intended; if it offended you, then sorry. My experience here is that levels of knowledge about linguistics and languages other than English are often very low; I'll try to remember that you're an exception (and that you may be able to help with translations). Peter coxhead (talk) 08:43, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the corrections on the "mite harvestman", I now get it

Hi Peter, thanks for the corrections. I've corrected the other species articles (not on harvestmen, but all linked to the Muisca people that I am working on) I created in the past days similarly. Also added a chapter Etymology to your Good Article Schlumbergera, the first link in Google actually is a very familiar page... Fr, es and de wikis have it in their -not so good- article, what do you think about the addition? Cheers, Tisquesusa (talk) 16:23, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Actually the etymology was in the Taxonomy section already, but it does no harm to repeat it at the start of the article.

What I've been wanting to do for some time is to add something on how to pronounce "Schlumbergera". See the long discussion at Talk:Schlumbergera#Pronunciation. I think we all got bogged down and in the end did nothing. What do you think? Peter coxhead (talk) 16:30, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Why you infidelidade My edition In Quercus robur?

Why you infidelidade My edition In Quercus robur?

The species terem wasn't only in Northern Europe in the pre-colonial times, look at the estimated species of in the New Europes, the native distribuction isn't spead to most Americas or to most Australia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.81.64.163 (talk) 08:14, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

There are two problems with your addition:

1. Most important: it goes beyond what the two references say. You need a reference that says what you added.
2. Less important: the English is poor and hard to understand. If there was a reference, I would see what it says and improve the text to follow the source, but as there isn't one, I can't.

Peter coxhead (talk) 08:23, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Map on Filistatidae distribution

Hi Mr. Coxhead,

I just wanted to notify you that at least one species of Filistatidae (Sahastata nigra) is present in northern Oman and probably the southern UAE. I'm not sure of the precise distribution, but could you please add that information to your map?

See this page: https://science.mnhn.fr/institution/mnhn/list?genus=Filistata&specificEpithet=nigra&scientificNameAuthorship=simon,%201897&collectionCode=ar

Thanks very much!

--Moshe — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moshesteynisgreat (talk • contribs) 01:06, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

 Done (The changed image sometimes takes time to show up as the old one gets cached in various places.) I have added the approximate area of Oman; not sure about the southern UAE: is there a source for that? The World Spider Catalog just says "Mediterranean to India" which is a bit vague for a map! Peter coxhead (talk) 09:00, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Polygonatum biflorum article

Hello Peter Coxhead,

You reverted my edit removing an [unreliable medical source?] tag on a reference to James A. Duke's reference work, "CRC Press Handbook of Medicinal Herbs" with the explanation "(tagging removed was correct in my view)".

This seems to imply that you believe this reference work is unreliable. Are you aware of evidence that this standard reference work is unreliable? The publisher describes the second edition thus: "Still considered the definitive work on medicinal herbs and their uses after two decades, the Handbook of Medicinal Herbs has undergone a long-anticipated revision. In the second edition, world-renowned ethnobotanist James A. Duke provides up-to-date data on over 800 of the world’s most important medicinal plant species."

In the context of the article it was clear that source was an ethnobotanical work, not a medical one.

Please be aware the James A. Duke is alive. I have no connection with him other than knowledge of his work.

Ggpauly (talk) 21:15, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

I don't think it is clear that only an ethnobotanical claim is being made. The text in question says "... having nearly a dozen medicinal uses including as an anti-inflammatory, sedative, and tonic". Saying "medicinal uses" implies a claim of efficacy. Any claim of efficacy needs to be supported to the standards of WP:MEDRS. Is the listing in Duke's work supported by such sources? If so, cite Duke + these sources.

Otherwise I think you could say something like "In herbal medicine, Solomon's seal has been used as an anti-inflammatory, sedative, and tonic, among other uses" sourced to Duke. But not that it has medicinal uses.

The wording produced by {{Medrs}} could be clearer; it's not that Duke is unreliable as a source of ethnobotanical information, rather that Wikipedia requires very high standards for medical claims. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:39, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Come on, how could you be more patently disingenuous? You cut out the words out of the sentence you quoted that make clear the claims were ethnobotanical. The text in question is: "Solomon’s Seal is listed today in the Handbook of Medicinal Herbs as having nearly a dozen medicinal uses including as an anti-inflammatory, sedative, and tonic.[5][unreliable medical source?]". Some people, such as myself, use medicinal herbs. Herbal medicine is a form of medicine, and the distinction between herbal and allopathic medicine is clear here.

If you were, in fact, troubled by the claimed ambiguity between herbal and allopathic medicinal uses, why did you not go ahead and edit the article as you suggested instead of (apparently and not your fault, you claim) disparaging a living person?

Ggpauly (talk) 22:11, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Why do you expect readers to know the status of the Handbook of Medicinal Herbs? No-one is disparaging Duke, but this work cannot be used in Wikipedia as a source of medical information as per WP:MEDRS. If you have a problem with that, take it up at WT:MEDRS. Those who choose to use herbal medicines are as entitled to reliable information on their efficacy as those using any other kind of medicine.

As for changing the article myself, I made a suggestion so that we could try to reach agreement, which is the proper approach here. I would like to find a wording that is acceptable to us both. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:39, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Parenthetical title search

I was interested to see your search parameters at the discussion about "fly" vs "genus" dab. I have another search technique for parenthetical dab terms based on WikiProject Banners, but I'm having trouble linking it in discussions, it gets mangled and ends up looking like this: [A-Za-z&quality=&importance=&score=&pagenameWC=on&limit=250&offset=1&sorta=Importance&sortb=Quality]. At the link, the Page title should have .\([A-Za-z], and "Treat page title as a regular expression" should be checked. I'm sure you'll recognize that as a regular expression for something alphabetic after parentheses. The project can be changed, or "[A-Za-z]" can be replaced with "genus", "moth", etc. Using the regular expression search of Release Version Tools page titles has been useful for me, but I've had trouble getting it to do some things I want it to. To start with, I'm not sure why I need to start the search with a ".", that doesn't seem to be a standard for regular expressions. More importantly, I'd like to be able to perform a search for articles that have a capital letter following a space (to find organism articles that have upper case common name titles), but I've never been able to figure out how to make that regular expression search work on Wikipedia. Plantdrew (talk) 05:12, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

I've tended to rely on using only the search techniques described here, which do seem to work exactly as I would expect, but only allow a regex for insource: and not for intitle: (however, on reflection, intitle:WORD insource:/\(WORD\)/ would have eliminated some articles in which it's not the genus being disambiguated).

I have used the "Article lists" tool, but, like you it seems, have had some odd results with regular expressions. However, looking at it today, I seem to have better "luck" (or have coded it correctly this time!). If I try Project set to "Spiders", page title \([A-Za-z], and tick "Treat page title as a regular expression", I do get a sensible response (with some harvestmen pages tagged as WikiProject Spiders that I've fixed but as of now still show up in the search). I don't see why you needed the dot in .\([A-Za-z]; as noted above it worked fine for me without it.

The problem with creating links to these searches in wikimedia pages seems to be due to encoding issues – if you leave "[" and "]" in the url, they get interpreted as wikitext; if you replace them by the uuencoded %91 and %93 the tool doesn't interpret them correctly (which I suspect is an error in its coding). I've tried various "tricks" just now with no success. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:36, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Banana references

Peter, thanks for putting the references in order. Sorry my deletion created extra work for you, but the citations now appear to be repaired, indicating the effort was worthwhile. --Zefr (talk) 16:35, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Page mover granted

Hello, Peter coxhead. Your account has been granted the "extendedmover" user right, either following a request for it or demonstrating familiarity with working with article names and moving pages. You are now able to rename pages without leaving behind a redirect, and move subpages when moving the parent page(s).

Please take a moment to review Wikipedia:Page mover for more information on this user right, especially the criteria for moving pages without leaving redirect. Please remember to follow post-move cleanup procedures and make link corrections where necessary, including broken double-redirects when suppressredirect is used. This can be done using Special:WhatLinksHere. It is also very important that no one else be allowed to access your account, so you should consider taking a few moments to secure your password. As with all user rights, be aware that if abused, or used in controversial ways without consensus, your page mover status can be revoked.

Useful links:

• Wikipedia:Requested moves
• Category:Articles to be moved, for article renaming requests awaiting action.

If you do not want the page mover right anymore, post here, or just let me know. Thank you, and happy editing! Jenks24 (talk) 05:18, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Linking to an author of a citation

Thanks for the note you left on my talk page. Is it ok to add in the DOI to the citation? Or will that pollute the metadata as well? Ambrosia10 (talk) 08:58, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

@Ambrosia10: no, it's very good to add a DOI; there's a parameter for this. Just add |doi=value inside the cite/citation template. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:01, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Labio-sternum mounds

Hello, Peter Coxhead! I have a quick question on a page I recently created Selenogyrus caeruleus. I was writing something about labio-sternum mounds, and since no one but enthusiasts know what they are, I added links to two separate articles, one about the labium, one about the sternum. But neither have any coverage on labio-sternum mounds! So, is there any articles on labio-sternum mounds you know about, or should I add something about them to one of the articles? Thanks a lot, Megaraptor12345 (talk) 22:04, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Even for major features of spider anatomy, I've often been puzzled by where to link – some of the wikilinks that are often used aren't good for spiders (e.g. you find Maxilla linked like this, but it's about bones; so some editors have linked to Maxilla (arthropod mouthpart) but actually it's about mandibulate maxillae, which are quite different structures). I've been working from time to time on a table of wikilinks that can be added to the WP:SPIDERS page (the work is currently at User:Peter coxhead/Work/Spiders#Anatomy).

"Labio-sternum mounds" or "labio-sternal mounds" seem only to be a feature of some genera/subfamilies of Theraphosidae, so I'm doubtful that it's worth adding them to one of the articles. I'd be inclined just to have an entry at Glossary of arachnology terms, citing perhaps Smith (1990, p.9) – two mounds on the dividing line between the labium and the sternum, used as a diagnostic feature in some tarantula species.

By the way, a quite separate issue: don't copy the letters after the year in the WSC bibliographic entries. If a list of references ends up with more than one author/year combination – as the WSC Bibliography has three A.M. Smith (1990) articles – then in Harvard-style referencing, the letters "a", "b", etc. are placed after the date to distinguish them. They aren't part of the reference and shouldn't be copied. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:54, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Paeonia daurica

I turn to you again with a question. Am I right that when several subtaxa are distinguished within a species, the one that contains the type is the nominate subtaxon, and its epithet is always identical to the species? If I am right, there may be an interesting dilemma concerning the subtaxa of Paeonia daurica. According to Hong & Zhou (2003), there are five subspecies: coriifolia, macrophylla, mlokosewitschii, tomentosa and wittmanniana. This is corroborated by The Plantlist. The types for the species and synonymised taxa are not referenced under any subspecies. Hong & Zhou state that four ssps. can be found in the Caucasus above 1000 m and only ssp. coriifolia occurs below 1000 m. The only herbarium cited as type under the species is from the Crimea, and although the highest mountain there is 1500&nmbsp;m, it is not part of the Caucasus. So, if this is all correct, P. daurica coriifolia should actually be called P. daurica daurica. Wikispecies lists P. daurica daurica, along with the five subspecies mentioned above and cites Hong & Zhou (2003), although the combination P. daurica daurica does not occur in the text of that publication anywhere. Wikispecies also lists P. daurica ssp. velebitensis , based on Hong (2010), and it might be that P. daurica daurica is added to the subspecies from 2003 or replacing one of them, but that publication is not open access.

Can you please advise me again. Thank you in advance. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 22:27, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, the ICN is clear that whenever anyone creates a subspecies the nominate subspecies is automatically created. So when Hong & Zhou say in the abstract "[t]he last species [P. daurica] is further divided into five subspecies: sspp. coriifolia, wittmanniana, mlokosewitschii, macrophylla and tomentosa" they must simply be wrong; there has to be a subsp. daurica as you say, and the type of P. daurica subsp. daurica is automatically the type of P. daurica itself. (They may mean "... in the Caucasus is further divided ...")

The type of P. daurica, and thus of P. daurica subsp. daurica, is the illustration here, according to Hong & Zhou, p. 144: "3. Paeonia daurica Andrews, Bot. Rep. 7: t. 486, 1807 ... TYPE: Andrews' tab. cited." Its origin is "Tauria" or "Dauria" or "Daurica", i.e. the Crimea. From Hong & Zhou's synonyms, it would seem that the type of P. daurica subsp. coriifolia is the type of Paeonia triternata f. coriifolia Ruprecht, in Mem. Acad. Imper. Sci. St.-Petersb. ser. 7.15(2): 46. 1869, so if P. daurica subsp. daurica = P. daurica subsp. coriifolia, they would have to be heterotypic synonyms. I can't see that Hong & Zhou say that they are, so my assumption is that they are not.

Not sure if this helps. Sminthopsis84 may have a view. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:55, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

What a complicated situation. Carsten Burkhardt's peony database offers no further enlightenment. I think Peter has the solution, that the type of P. daurica, and hence of P. daurica subsp. daurica is not from the Caucasus. The Anderson 1817 publication doesn't help much, saying that the seeds from which the type was grown were believed to have come from Siberia but without precise information. A subsidiary question that I wondered about is why P. triternata Pall. 1795 isn't the name that has priority; the publication can be seen here on page 52, which is just a listing of the name with "(nov.)", so that's a nomen nudum. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:01, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I wonder if anyone has designated an epitype (I think that's the correct term) for P. daurica? The problem is that the holotype illustration is simply not sufficient to show some of the characters that are used in differentiating the subspecies. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:12, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I'd bet that the 2010 book Peonies of the World. Taxonomy and Phytogeography would explain the whole situation, and perhaps it even includes designating an epitype. It is in a library in this city, but I'm sorry that I won't be able to get to that library in the foreseeable future. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:39, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks guys(?). I'll ask for someone to provide me with Peonies of the World, at least the pages on P. daurica and see where that leads me. I'll ask for your critical eye when I'm done. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 11:38, 23 June 2016 (UTC)