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Wrecking crew?

Looking at [shttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hemiramphus_archipelagicus&diff=832089977&oldid=832046446 this], I see no difference except the italics. How, exactly, does that "wreck" it? Beyond a false accusation of vandalism, or something, that is. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 19:48, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Italicizing the taxon names above genus level causes the taxobox template to not recognize the entries, and causes it to develop the red warning box color to alert the editor that the system doesn't know which biological kingdom color to use.--Mr Fink (talk) 20:17, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
@Trekphiler: precisely. I did ask you on your talk page to look at the red boxes in the version I linked for you. They are there for a purpose! Peter coxhead (talk) 21:04, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
@Trekphiler: The question in my mind is: Why are you inappropriately italicizing taxon/clades above Genus in the first place? Its very much NOT standard convention to do so, apart from how it messes up the taxobox entirely.--Kevmin § 00:09, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
"inappropriately italicizing" I suppose you think Latin isn't a foreign language. And I suppose you think foregin words shouldn't be italicised. I also suppose, based on your rv's, that you think common nouns should routinely be capitalized, just because some journal or website is doing it & you don't know any better. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 00:32, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Technically speaking, you were inappropriately italicizing when your italicizing causes the system to screw up the taxoboxes.--Mr Fink (talk) 01:08, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
@Trekphiler: What exactly do you see as being accomplished with your purposely ignoring correct english formatting for taxonomic names?--Kevmin § 04:33, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

@Trekphiler: edits need to conform to agreed policies and guidelines and not mess up taxoboxes.

  • See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Scientific names, which is clear that scientific names are only italicized above the level of genus. If you get this wrong in a taxobox, you do indeed wreck it.
  • See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Common names, which is clear that the English names of organisms should not be in title case. So your edits in this respect were correct. I monitor Category:Taxoboxes with the error color as well as other error-tracking categories for taxoboxes. If there had been one or two articles in this category, I would have investigated further to see what was causing the problem, but with so many, the easiest course was to revert the problematic edits. You may disagree, but I rate fixing messed up taxoboxes more highly that de-capitalizing the English names of organisms.

Peter coxhead (talk) 06:58, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Tom.Bot cleanup being undone

I dry-reran my {{Taxonbar}} bot just to make sure I didn't miss anything and I came across Synodus gibbsi & Triplecross lizardfish, and few things popped out. |image_width= & its aliases are now deprecated in favor of |image_upright= & its aliases. {{FishBase species}} is an alias of {{FishBase}}, which I was previously standardizing to. I'm aware that some of the {{Taxobox}}, etc., aliases are intentionally used in different cases, so I made sure not to standardize them. Is there a similar case with {{FishBase species}}? If so, I'll amend my code. Similar standardization occurred with {{Reflist}}. Also, the {{Taxonbar}}s were removed for both pages! So I'm guessing that was just accidental? (they both have a significant # of taxon IDs)   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:01, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

@Tom.Reding: the problem was that Trekphiler made edits to a substantial number of different articles that wrecked taxoboxes. I didn't have time to fix all of them step by step, so in some cases I just reverted to before their edits, which in these two cases happened to undo the bot's edits. There was nothing wrong with the bot's edits as far as I am aware. Just repeat them. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:29, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Microtis media

Hello Peter,

Thanks for the message. In the process of making the changes to Microtis media I left some (nice) messages for you on someone else's Talk Page!! Let me know if you find any other conflicts between the articles I've created and WCSP. I generally rely on Oz sources and if WCSP is different - "ah, well". Not a good attitude. If I think I'm right, I should let Rafaël Govaerts know and state my case. I'm a bit hesitant about asking him to change to Caladenia gertrudae because he's already changed it on my suggestion to Caladenia gertrudiae. Any others I'd be willing to ask. All the best to you. Gderrin (talk) 06:59, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

@Gderrin: Actually, I saw the message on Plantdrew's page before you deleted it.
Re Caladenia gertrudae: there are issues all over IPNI and similar databases (usually less so with WCSP) over changes and 'corrections' to epithets based on people's names. The ICZN rule of leaving names as they were spelt by the author has a lot to commend it. (Examples I've found recently include male Japanese botanists whose names end in "-a" where the author reasonably preferred the ending "-ai" over the apparently feminine "-ae", and Chinese botanists who used romanization systems including "¨" which is then treated as needing an extra "e", so you get the original "yüanus" turning into "yueanus" which isn't what the "¨" meant. Sigh...) There were entries in Wikidata under both "Caladenia gertrudae" and "Caladenia gertrudiae" – I merged them. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:20, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Agreed - thanks for that. Kew originally had C. gertrudeae. Had several interesting message exchanges with ANBG/APNI about the spelling. They're sticking with C. gertrudae. Re APC - it will be fantastic when it's more complete. At the moment their listing of Caladenia for example, is very incomplete - neither C. gertrudae, C. gertrudiae (or even C. gertrudeae) is listed. Being the jingoist(?) I am, I'd prefer to use APC over WCSP. Gderrin (talk) 09:01, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
@Gderrin: well, it seems to me that the ICN is very clear on this. At 60C.1(b): "If the personal name ends with a consonant (but not in -er), substantival epithets are formed by adding -i- (stem augmentation) plus the genitive inflection appropriate to the sex and number of the person(s) honoured (e.g. lecard-ii for Lecard (m), wilson-iae for Wilson (f) ..." The original name was "Gertrud"; it ends in a consonant but not -er; so add -iae giving gertrudiae. Art. 60.12 says that the use of a termination contrary to Rec. 60C.1 is treated as an error to be corrected. So I'm as confident as one can ever be with the ICN that WCSP is correct. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:54, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks again Peter. My note about C. gertrudae was only meant as an aside but I will be interested to see how this turns out. Gderrin (talk) 20:56, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Category Flora of India (region)

Hi Peter, what's the policy for adding this Category:Flora of India (region) to an article? All taxa or endemic only? AshLin (talk) 11:35, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, the policy is supposed to be as explained at Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions#Using the categorization hierarchy. So all species where no higher level WGSRPD category is appropriate (hence not just endemics), and endemic genera, families, etc. However, I've recently realized that I'd forgotten the restriction on genera, and have been adding the full distribution categories to genus articles I created.
As a side issue, there's always a problem with categories where the WGSRPD region doesn't match the ordinary use of the word the WGSRPD uses. As you will doubtless have noticed, POWO uses the WSGRPD name without qualification. So when for Mucuna sanjappae, POWO says "India", it doesn't mean "India" but "India (WGSRPD region)". Other sources do mean the country when they say the distribution is "India". Sigh... Peter coxhead (talk) 12:51, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, what a complex issue. :) Thaks a ton. AshLin (talk) 14:18, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Request

Hello. Help expand the article Maureen Wroblewitz. Thanks you very much.171.248.63.149 (talk) 10:40, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, not a topic that interests me at all. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:42, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Revert

Please see comments at Talk:Ketogenic diet. I think your edit was disruptive. -- Colin°Talk 16:46, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I've responded with a suggestion. Sorry about the tone. Two reverts in a row, by different editors, which removed all the work I had done today and some of yesterday, was just frankly too much. -- Colin°Talk 18:12, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
@Colin: no worries; I understand only too well the frustration of having carefully prepared material reverted, but WP:BRD is a common, and in my view sensible, approach. I can access the paper you can't. The 24 "clinical studies" include 14 case studies and 10 cohort studies. 7 of the case studies and 3 of the cohort studies provided evidence for an antitumour effect (Table 2, p. 8) – it bothers me that the more plausible cohort studies provided less support. If you drop me an e-mail, I can send you a copy of the article – usual caveats on its use. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:28, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

botanical glossary/dictionary

Hi Peter, I've started to write a description for Tristerix and wanted to link to a botanical glossary... I did put in a link to wiktionary for epicortical, but should I simply have left it as I did for versatile anthers? Presumably there is a plan... MargaretRDonald (talk) 15:13, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

@MargaretRDonald: there's no single botanical glossary. Rather there are pages on some topics which you can link to, particularly the main parts of plants, such as petal, tepal, sepal, ovary (botany), etc. Then there's Glossary of leaf morphology and Glossary of botanical terms where you can link to individual entries. I'm annoyed with myself, because I had a plain text file on my computer with a long list of the wikilinks I regularly used, set out as the actual wikitext, but stupidly I managed to delete it beyond recovery. I've started again, but it would be useful to have something like the table I prepared for myself at User:Peter_coxhead/Work/Spiders#Anatomy for plants. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:56, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead: Thanks, Peter (and thanks for the link: daunting but instructional) MargaretRDonald (talk) 22:31, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Caleana/Paracaleana

Hello Peter,

Help needed. (Sorry, I know you're busy.)

WCSP seems to have moved all the species of Paracaleana to Caleana. Caleana was formerly a monotypic genus. I've rewritten the page, formerly a link from Caleana to Caleana major, as an article about Caleana major. Trouble is, I do not know how to rename the Caleana Talk page. Can you help please? (Next job is to change all the Paracaleana species to Caleana species.) Gderrin (talk) 10:21, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Done. It's just a matter of navigating to the talk page and replacing the redirect with a normal WP:PLANTS template. Orchids seem to be undergoing a huge churn in the last 5 years or so; I've been working on the tribe Orchideae where I think about half the species have moved genus. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:27, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. Looks like I might be doing more changes like this in the future! Gderrin (talk) 21:19, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Fucus distichus

Hi. As a botanist I would be interested in the file: Fucus distichus. I started to edit it and stopped, I noticed that the earlier description and the photograph did not agree with the refs I had. If you have any ideas I would be interested. The main ref I used was: Bunker, Maggs, Brodie and Bunker 2017 Seaweeds of Britain and Ireland Second Edition. Osborne 12:35, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, this is a group of plants that is way outside my area of interest/competence. I do notice that the references at Fucus distichus are mostly considerably older than your source, or indeed the current AlgaeBase entry, which was verified on 27 July 2017, and refers to Bunker et al. (2017). I wonder if there's been some taxonomic revision? I wonder if Bunker et al. (2017) agrees with Mathieson, A.C. & Dawes, C.J. (2017), Seaweeds of the Northwest Atlantic, Amherst & Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, cited in the AlgaeBase entry. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:12, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. However to rewrite the file according to my records would require me to delete the photograph and more. This is far beyond my experience and ability!!!!. I suppose I could rewrite the description according to my information/books and leave the older description! I'll think about that. Thanks.Osborne 13:48, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

There is a WikiProject for Algae, but its talk page (at WT:WikiProject Algae) doesn't seem to be very active. You could however try leaving a message there. Sorry I can't be more helpful. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:58, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:Cladex

Template:Cladex has been nominated for merging with Template:Cladogram. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Chicbyaccident (talk) 22:59, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Parsonsia diaphanophleba

Hi Peter, I have just created the page Parsonsia diaphanophleba. However, there is an issue. When you look at the hidden data categories all sorts of horrors have popped up. Plants of the world online, and GBIF (check out the taxonbar I linked to), insist that the accepted name is Parsonsia diaphanophlebia but the Commonwealth Heads of Australian Herbaria don't even give Parsonsia diaphanophlebia a mention... Whoever created the species list used CHAH for Australian species and listed P diaphanophleba.... I created a redirect for P. diaphanophlebia to allow linking (?) to other language versions which are also running with the international mob, and using P. diaphanophlebia. Hoping you might have some useful solutions, but I prefer taking the accepted name from the Australians given that it is an Australian species and there is hardly a paucity of Australian botanists to sort it out...MargaretRDonald (talk) 02:46, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

@MargaretRDonald: well, there are two issues: (1) what spelling did the original author, von Mueller, actually use? (2) is his spelling one that the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants requires to be corrected? The answer to (1) is "diaphonophleba" without the "i" – see the original here. The answer to (2) is "possibly", because von Mueller's Latin is wrong according to Stearn's Botanical Latin, p. 466, which gives phlebius as the Latin adjective meaning "veined", as in Elaeocarpus dictyophlebius (net-veined) – diaphonophlebia in Latin is the feminine form of an adjective meaning "transparently veined". I'll consult an expert re (2); whether or not the ICN requires corrections is always a tricky issue in my experience! Peter coxhead (talk) 17:55, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead: Thanks, Peter. MargaretRDonald (talk) 21:28, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
@MargaretRDonald: Kanchi Gandhi of IPNI has now replied to me saying that the spelling with an "i" is an orthographical correction of the original (incorrect) spelling, as I suspected. It seems that it's very common for such errors in the spelling of epithets to be corrected (including errors made by Linnaeus himself). It's a major difference between the botanical and zoological codes that, with very few exceptions (such as gender agreement), the zoological code preserves the original spelling, but the botanical code requires errors in Latin word formation and endings to be corrected, particularly for epithets.
I take your point about an Australian plant and APNI, but the preponderance of reliable sources gives the spelling with an "i" – the IPNI in particular is usually taken as "the" authority on plant names – so I think that the most neutral point of view is that the article should be moved to Parsonsia diaphanophlebia, with a note on the original spelling and its continued use by some sources. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:34, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Upcoming changes to wikitext parsing

Hello,

There will be some changes to the way wikitext is parsed during the next few weeks. It will affect all namespaces. You can see a list of pages that may display incorrectly at Special:LintErrors. Since most of the easy problems have already been solved at the English Wikipedia, I am specifically contacting tech-savvy editors such as yourself with this one-time message, in the hope that you will be able to investigate the remaining high-priority pages during the next month.

There are approximately 10,000 articles (and many more non-article pages) with high-priority errors. The most important ones are the articles with misnested tags and table problems. Some of these involve templates, such as infoboxes, or the way the template is used in the article. In some cases, the "error" is a minor, unimportant difference in the visual appearance. In other cases, the results are undesirable. You can see a before-and-after comparison of any article by adding ?action=parsermigration-edit to the end of a link, like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Foss?action=parsermigration-edit (which shows a difference in how {{infobox ship}} is parsed).

If you are interested in helping with this project, please see Wikipedia:Linter. There are also some basic instructions (and links to even more information) at https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2018-April/001836.html You can also leave a note at WT:Linter if you have questions.

Thank you for all the good things you do for the English Wikipedia. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Wikidata Idiosepius pygmaeus / Xipholeptos

Over on Wikidata you added an image labeled "Idiosepius pygmaeus" to Xipholeptos (Q51671838). diff here. Was this a mistake? Brightgalrs (/braɪtˈɡæl.ərˌɛs/)[ᴛ] 12:49, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

@Brightgalrs: yes, it was an error: it's only Idiosepius notoides that has been put into Xipholeptos. I've removed the image. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:36, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks

For your explanation at Scorpions13526 talk page - I think I get it - so it was ok for scorpions - but not explained the same way as yourself. So If I get it it was because there is not a decade/year structure related to the usage of the century cat ? JarrahTree 09:43, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

@JarrahTree: the consensus, so far as I know, is that the only "described by" categories that should be used for articles are "described by YEAR" ones. The other categories, particularly "described by CENTURY", are container categories. This has been discussed in the past, e.g. at
So for a particular article, you can work downwards from the "Animals described in YEAR" page until you find the lowest "described in year" category. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:25, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your thorough answer JarrahTree 00:05, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

breaking up various articles (or at least changing redirections...)

@Peter coxhead: I am finding it intensely irritating as someone trying to describe plants as monoecious, that the poor clown (my potential reader) who is simply looking for a simple definition, must read some gigantic portmanteau article in order to (with luck) finally come upon the meanings of dioecious and monoecious. Similarly should I wish to use the word decussate with an inline link, my reader (should I be so lucky) must sift through three meanings before finding the relevant one. It means that I really have to think twice before I decide whether to put my reader through this (which goes entirely against the grain- people should be able to cick on a link to find a meaning). I think life would be much simpler if monoecious/dioecious and decussate (botany) each had its own (very simple) page, somewhat in the form of the old-fashioned dictionnaire raisonnee. Redirection to long portmanteau articles for dictionary items is not helpful. I looked for something in the Plant Portal about this, which I thought might have a view, but had no joy. My view is that the redirection link for decussate should be organised via a disambiguation page, separating out the three meanings in three simple short articles, and pointing also to the portmanteau job. (Hoping you and some influential admins might be able help)?? MargaretRDonald MargaretRDonald (talk) 01:38, 23 April 2018 (UTC)]]

@MargaretRDonald: I think this is a more tricky issue than it seems. When strongly related concepts, such as for example Monophyly, Paraphyly and Polyphyly, are put into different articles, there can be both a loss of clarity and duplication – for the same reason, namely that meanings are often based on contrasts, so there has to be some explanation of the whole set of concepts to make complete sense of one of them, since a core part of its meaning derives from the contrast with the others. So if you look at Monophyly, it actually spends quite a bit of space defining "paraphyly" and "polyphyly" (and vice versa). This makes maintenance more difficult, since inconsistencies can easily creep in when passing editors 'fix' one article and not the other. I think this applies to monoecy and dioecy.
I totally agree that redirection to long portmanteau articles for dictionary items is not helpful. What I favour is the glossary approach: articles or parts of articles with incoming anchors to brief, no more than one paragraph definitions of terms, with links to fuller explanations for those that want them. (It's why I spent a lot of time expanding Glossary of spider terms.) In the specific case of "monoecious", instead of redirecting to Plant reproductive morphology#Variations, it could redirect to Plant reproductive morphology#Monoecious.
The issue for editors is how to make creating links to glossary entries easier. I've toyed with the idea of a "plant glossary template" so that editors could use e.g. "[[monoecious]]" for the full explanation and "{{Plant glossary|monoecious}}" for the brief explanation. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:18, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead: That would be great (and the sooner the better would be fantastic) Cheers MargaretRDonald (talk) 04:20, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Protostomes etc

Does this seem OK? User:Oculi/protostomes. Oculi (talk) 23:36, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

@Oculi: yes, absolutely. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:11, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Now proposed. Oculi (talk) 22:13, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Cat on species redirect

Not questioning the practice, but is/should it be written down somewhere? I don't see that guidance on Category:Species by period of description or any of its descendants. It seems to be mostly, but not entirely, followed, e.g. Category:Animals described in 1966. It can easily be noted on all the relevant categories with AWB. —swpbT go beyond 15:21, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree that it needs writing down. How to use the "described in" categories has been discussed in various places, but only ever seems to have been written down for plants (at Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Description in year categories) and even then doesn't cover this issue, although it's standard practice for plants. I've tried to make a *start* at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comment: categorizing by year of formal description, but there's quite a bit more that will be needed eventually. What works for plants and spiders, which rarely use English names as titles, doesn't necessarily work for birds, for example, which almost always do.
The underlying issue is that "described in year" really means "named under the relevant nomenclature code in year", so it doesn't fit well with English names. As Faendalimas pointed out elsewhere, Aristotle described the green sea turtle c. 350 BC. The only thing that happened in 1758 was that Chelonia mydas first received a scientific name. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:10, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

sorry

that you had to fix the fish items - I wasnt into the vert/animal mix as trying to get an easier way to navigate JarrahTree 08:11, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

@JarrahTree: the problem was (actually "is" because I haven't finished yet) that about 20% of the year categories had "Animals" as the parent and the rest "Vertebrates". I don't have a view on which is best, but it should be consistent, so for now, I'm using "Animals", as it was clearly the most common.
Provided that all the categories are treated in the same way, it should be easy to get a bot to make an automated change if there's a consensus to use "Vertebrates" in future. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:44, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I personally think it's pointless to split animals into vertebrates and invertebrates in categories, since it merely splits a (usually) manageable number of subcats into 2. In 2014 I successfully got rid of 'Invertebrates in XXXX' and now a NotWith impersonator has surreptitiously introduced an equally silly vertebrates tree. 'Animals' is best as it was there first and is complete. Oculi (talk) 21:20, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
@Oculi: yes, I've changed my mind in the last few days; there's no point in introducing a taxonomic hierarchy in addition to a year-described-in scheme. If WP:Category intersection were ever acted on, rather than having to rely on PetScan, we wouldn't need any division other than by the nomenclature codes. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:46, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Billfish

Hi Peter, I want to revert the billfish article back into Scombroidei, Perciformes as per Nelson (as set out in the Wikiproject Fishes page on taxonomy above genus level), I have already made Scombroidei the parent of Xiphiidae and will do the same later with Istiophoridae, but I don't want to lose the article on billfish and I want it to have a taxobox. Any suggestions? Quetzal1964 (talk) 06:38, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

@Quetzal1964: well, fish are definitely outside my comfort zone! If "billfish" is really a term that refers to fish in two families, then it's not a taxon, and should not have a taxobox. Plantdrew does more work than me with taxoboxes across different groups, so may have a view. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:06, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
@Quetzal1964: If billfish should be treated as a group that includes two of six families in Scombroidei, you could use {{Paraphyletic group}} in place of a taxobox. However, Nelson's 5th edition does recognize Istiophoriformes, albeit also including Sphyraenidae, which means "billfish" is still a paraphyletic concept. I don't think we should follow Nelson 4th edition now that a newer edition exists; the advice at WP:FISHES is outdated. Keeping billfish pretty much as it is, but with a paraphyletic group infobox, and making an article for Istiophoriformes following Nelson 5th ed. might be a good approach. Plantdrew (talk) 15:37, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Please assess quality several Leucospermum articles

Hi Peter, Perhaps I can ask you to assess a number of articles that are no longer stubs?: Leucospermum conocarpodendron, Leucospermum erubescens, Leucospermum reflexum, Leucospermum prostratum, Leucospermum truncatum, and Gorteria. thank you in advance, Dwergenpaartje (talk) 16:05, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

@Dwergenpaartje:  Done They are all clearly B to me. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:06, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Amborella

I still think my correction was right, don't frighten away people from enwiki :)--Vinayaraj (talk) 03:20, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

@Vinayaraj: to say that "Amborella is a .. genus of an understory shrub or small tree" is simply incorrect English. You can say that it is a genus of a single species, which is an understory shrub or small tree; you can say that it is an understory shrub or small tree; you can say (just about) that it is a genus of shrub or small tree. But not that it is "a genus of a shrub or small tree", because the phrase "genus of" has the same meaning as "genus composed of", and the genus is not composed of a shrub or small tree.
I certainly don't want to frighten anyone away from Wikipedia! Peter coxhead (talk) 07:58, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Redback spider

A bunch of years ago there was a panic in Japan about redbacks which presumably came off some cargo from Australia. Australians found it funny people freaking out about something that's so normal where they live. I don't know what became of that story but I think it's a good bet that redbacks are an introduced species there. Oh by the way are you hungry? SlightSmile 12:39, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Problems with linkages for Acacia

@Peter coxhead: Hi. I know Acacia is a troubled genus, but... When I go to wikispecies:Acacia to link with corresponding Wikipedia items, when I click to go to the English wikipedia, I get Vachellia. Yet both wikispecies & the English wikipedia articles (& lists) for acacia and vachellia echo each other. It would be nice to go from easily from wikispecies to wikipedia without encountering contradictions. I was hoping you might be able to help? MargaretRDonald (talk) 19:22, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

@MargaretRDonald: it seems to be a regular occurrence that the English Wikipedia is more up to date than other wikis, including Wikispecies. I'm afraid I have neither the knowledge nor the interest to fix Wikispecies, whose value has always seemed doubtful to me. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:12, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead: Fair enough. Would there be anyone at the Plant Portal with an interest in making the lead articles link properly? (I find it very disconcerting to use the side links to go from Acacia in wikipedia to the associated link in wikispecies and then to the associated link in wikipedia and fail to return to my starting point!) MargaretRDonald (talk) 00:32, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
I don't see anything wrong with Acacia at Wikispecies (but I'm not double-checking the entire list of species); they have the type as Acacia penninervis, Racosperma as a synonym, and nilotica is in Vachellia. Wikidata items have gotten mixed up when en.wiki articles were moved. Plantdrew (talk) 21:24, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
@Plantdrew:It's more a problem with the genus' articles, not the species articles. MargaretRDonald (talk) 00:32, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
@MargaretRDonald:, I understand the problem is with the genus articles. I have extremely limited internet access at the moment, but will work on some fixes when that improves. I'm hoping Peter will check out some of the interwiki links provided by Wikidata as exist now. Wikispecies has a decent page for Acacia. en.wiki links through Wikidata are messed up by some page moves here, but that is not Wikidata's fault. However, Wikidata does have a mess through other languages and referenced items that will be a hassle to straighten out (e.g. es:Acacias (planta) and an Encyclopedia Britannica article linked to Acacia that corresponds to en.wiki Acacia sensu lato).Plantdrew (talk) 03:09, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
@Plantdrew: Thanks, very much..MargaretRDonald (talk) 03:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Ah, right: it's not a problem with Wikispecies, but with the links between wikis provided by Wikidata. Thanks for clarifying this, Plantdrew.
I had a quick look at Wikidata, but it will be a hassle to sort it out – and it probably can't be done fully, because of Wikidata's refusal to allow anything but 1:1 links between wiki articles. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:14, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

The enwiki/Wikidata situation as of now is:

There are two major issues with the enwiki/Wikidata links:

  1. Our articles are about taxa (genera in this case). However, as has been made even clearer lately by discussions at Wikidata, their items supposedly representing taxa actually represent taxon names. So there's no way of handling Acacia sensu lato and Acacia (sensu stricto) properly in Wikidata (see the very long discussion at wikidata:Property_talk:P1420#data_model and my diagram at the bottom with green and red bits). We are forced to link our Acacia (sensu stricto) to Acacia (Q81666), but this means it will connect to articles in other wikis and external sources, such as plant databases, actually about Acacia sensu lato. (Acacia sensu lato is linked to Acacia sensu lato (Q21823316), but this is not a taxon/taxon name item, so won't link to taxon databases.)
  2. Wikidata only allows 1:1 links, so there's no way of setting it up so that those wikis that only have articles at Acacia but covering Acacia sensu lato link to the five articles on the split genera we have.

Peter coxhead (talk) 06:57, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Peter for the explanation... MargaretRDonald (talk) 08:31, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Morella

Recent edits to Myrica cerifera were inadequate, but the underlying intention was probably sound. Myrica cerifera has been moved to Morella. Change of article name may be required. Plantsurfer 19:00, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I had a quick look at the sources in the taxonbar, the more up-to-date of which do seem to support a move. However, there's no genus article, so it's more than just a simple move. If you have time, how about creating Morella first? Peter coxhead (talk) 19:04, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Wikidata proposed change to P1420 "taxon synonym"

Hello. This is in case you may be interested in commenting on a proposed change to the Wikidata property "taxon synonym" to use strings instead of separate items. Strobilomyces (talk) 20:56, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Hey Peter, I would love to have your input at wikidata:Property talk:P1420#Fixing the sitelinks problem if you have time. Cheers! Kaldari (talk) 03:30, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Taxa named by Salisb.

Hello Peter, Thanks for correcting the incorrect categorisation. I thought I was copying something I saw in an other “named by” category, but you are right, an author is not a taxon. I have two further questions about when to include the category. The authority of Serruria is Burm. ex Salisb., so Burmann making a invalid description and Salisbury correcting it. Who should be get the category taxa named by? Another case is Calypso (plant), authored by Salisbury, that redirects to Calypso bulbosa, authored by (L.) Oakes, because of monophyly. (Should it not be the other way around, the species redirecting to the genus?) Added the categorisation to that page of cause leads to a wrong listing on the overview page of the category. I have no idea if this can somehow be corrected. Would you have some thoughts on these issues? Perhaps some guidance on this issue could be added to the “named by” categories. Thanks in advance, Dwergenpaartje (talk) 11:03, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@Dwergenpaartje: I think these "named by" categories are a problem since "naming" is a complex issue in reality; I'm not a fan of them. Who named Calypso bulbosa? Linnaeus is responsible for the part bulbosa, but in the ICNafp this an epithet not a name, although it is a name in the ICZN. Oakes is responsible for the combination in the ICNafp, but in the ICZN the person making a new combination is ignored. So I don't see how the same rules can be used for plants and animals.
When the "ex" is used correctly, then Art. 46.5, Ex. 25 of the ICNafp (see Article 46) is clear that "A ex B" is an alternative to "B", so if "named by" means "authored by according to the ICNafp" then "Burm. ex Salisb." means "authored by Salisbury", although in some way following Burmann.
See the last paragraph of WP:MONOTYPICFLORA for why the article on the genus Calypso and the sole species Calypso bulbosa is at the species not the genus. It is a principle here that parenthetical disambiguation is the last resort, so the species name is used when the genus name needs disambiguating. (I would prefer otherwise, but...)
So Calypso bulbosa can be treated as "named by Linnaeus" or "named by Oakes", depending on your point of view. The redirect Calypso (plant) should be treated as "named by Salisbury".
Peter coxhead (talk) 19:09, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
OK, thanks. So, not worth the effort of persuing. Enough other things to do. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 21:15, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiDodo&oldid=prev&diff=835391702

While I thank you for fixing the taxobox, you also reverted my other improvements to the article, like adding it to Category:Modern Wikifauna and fixing the namespace for the Wikifauna link. In the future, would you please just fix the taxobox and not revert all of my other changes? Thank you. Care to differ or discuss with me? The Nth User 20:02, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

@The Nth User: Sorry, I'm so used to seeing vandalism to taxoboxes causing articles to appear in the tracking categories for wrecked taxoboxes that I tend to revert more-or-less automatically, which in this case I shouldn't have done. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:06, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
It's okay; that stuff tends to happen to me a lot. In this particular case, I figured that I had to link the taxons because they weren't real taxons (as wikicucullatus is not a real species), so the program wouldn't know where to link them to. Maybe there should be a separate infobox for wikifauna, with Netizens (netius) as the sole kingdom? Care to differ or discuss with me? The Nth User 20:26, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
If the taxobox is a manual one (i.e. uses {{Taxobox}}, sure, this would be fine. The problem is that it's set up at present as an automated taxobox (viz. {{Speciesbox}}), and for this to work there has to be a hierarchy of "taxonomy templates", which I don't think should be set up for a joke taxobox. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:33, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
I'd probably use {{Taxobox}} but use a completely different hierarchy under Template:Wikifaunabox or something with its own structure that will probably mirror how I'm trying to restructure the wikifauna category.
I tried to use the template on WP:WikiDodo. First the raw code showed up, then I fixed that, but now the image is way too large. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiDodo&oldid=835662965 please help me fix it.
I think it's better to use a plain {{Taxobox}} rather than one of the automated ones. Then you can fill in any taxonomic ranks you like without any need for outside input. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:05, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
I changed the taxobox back to before because I figured out how to fix the image size. I think that it's best to use my special taxobox so we won't need to list the kingdom, phylum, class, etc… individually for each Wikifauna article. Care to differ or discuss with me? The Nth User 02:53, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
I finished organizing Category:Wikipedia fauna. Should I use a parser function in the taxobox to automatically display the right genus, based on the page that it's transcluded in? Care to differ or discuss with me? The Nth User 22:00, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
Actually, I could probably also do it based on which category it's in. Would that be a better way? Care to differ or discuss with me? The Nth User 23:21, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
If the categories are now well organized, this seems a viable approach. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:01, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
I was planning to do this, but now, I can't find the parser function for detecting whether or not a particular page is in a particular category in the list of parser functions. I can use #switch instead, but if I did, that would have to be updated separately. Care to differ or discuss with me? The Nth User 19:55, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Families? Sub-families?

I see that you reverted my edit, but I wish you had also cleared up the ambiguity in the sentence. Since you understand the topic it probably makes sense to you, but it makes no sense to me because it is the meaning of "of these" is not clear. If Orchids are the largest family, then are the two others subfamilies? If so the sentence should read: "A phylogenetic tree for the Asparagales, including those families that were reduced to subfamilies, is shown below. Of these reduced sub-families, the two largest are Amaryllidaceae and Asparagaceae." If that is not correct, please change it something that is correct and is not confusing. Thanks. -- SamuelWantman 21:43, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@Sam: you're quite right; I only looked at the dif and saw that your change wasn't correct, but the original isn't at all clear. I think what is meant is that there are four families that include former families as subfamilies (the four with "s.l." after them in the cladogram), and of these four (i.e. expanded not reduced families), Amaryllidaceae and Asparagaceae are the largest. But there's no need for this sentence at all, and if it were present, it would need to be expanded as I've done here. So I removed it. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:59, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks! Now if only someone could translate the rest of the article into English! I'm not a botanist, just a plant lover with a master's degree. Someone like me should be able to make sense of the entire article. I'll go even further to say that a teenager taking Biology should be able to understand these articles. But like many of the scientific articles in Wikipedia, you need to be an expert in the field. I've worked on articles and come back years later to find that they've been edited into monuments to incomprehensibility. -- SamuelWantman 02:14, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
@Sam: well, I'm not a botanist either, but I do understand Molecular phylogenetics, which is the basis of modern biology: the fundamental groupings of organisms are now defined by their genetics, not by their morphology. Thus the Asparagales are a group defined by the cladogram shown in the article, which reflects evolutionary history as shown by genes. Only after a group has been defined in this way do biologists look for visible features that characterize the group, and then don't always find obvious ones. (For animals, consider Afrotheria – a very clear group according to their genes, but otherwise with little if anything in common.) I'm not sure that a teenager taking biology should need to understand the Asparagales article; the orders in the modern classification of flowering plants are really only of interest to specialists. However, I am sure that to understand the article fully requires a prior understanding of molecular phylogeny. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:48, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Cryptostylis

Hello Peter,

Thanks for your help in the past. I'd be grateful if you would take a look at this strange edit. The editor's previous contributions are intersting to say the least! Gderrin (talk) 01:13, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

@Gderrin: I see that the problematic edits have been undone by another editor. I have the article on my watchlist now, so will look out for any further problems. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:53, 5 July 2018 (UTC) Thank you again! Gderrin (talk) 05:58, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

maybe nothing

Hi Peter, glad someone was paying attention when I made my lazy so-called 'fix' at Loranthaceae. ‎ I reflexively replaced some html with wikicode, which was added a couple of months ago. I note it here because I see you are more active than me, and maybe you know someone who wants to follow up the ip's possibly bold contributions to taxonomy. cygnis insignis 17:47, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Selliguea

Hi @Peter coxhead:. The article on Selliguea fails to link to commons. There is a page in the commons, "Category:Selliguea". I suspect it may make more sense if that page were redirected to Selliguea in the commons as it very much resembles the commons Banksia page. Could you tell me what needs to be done to make the link? Thanks for your help. MargaretRDonald (talk) 23:45, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Pardon me Margaret, Peter, saw this on my watchlist and made an edit at wikidata By establishing that link, the Commons category (page) now appears in the article's sidebar links and commons links back here and any other sister sites (languages, wikispecies, et al) linked to wikidata. Maybe Peter knows a way to invoke this by editing the wikipedia page directly, I imagine adding a external links template would prompt semi-auto replacement. cygnis insignis 02:44, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
@MargaretRDonald and Cygnis insignis: yes, the way to make these links show up is to edit the Wikidata page. I'm no expert at how Wikidata works – I've learnt a bit by trial and error – but I'm not aware of any automated process over there that fixes such issues.
I'm not quite sure what Margaret meant by "it may make more sense if that page were redirected to Selliguea in the commons as it very much resembles the commons Banksia page". Banksia has a page at commons:Banksia as well as a category at commons:Category:Banksia. The Wikidata item at Banksia (Q131258) has an entry that links to the Commons category as well as one (at the very bottom of the page) that links to the Commons page. Selliguea doesn't have a page at commons:Selliguea; if you think there should be one, you need to construct it over at Commons and then add the link to it to Selliguea (Q5876852) to get it to show up automatically here. Creating and fixing links to/from Commons and Wikidata is a bit tedious, in my experience! Peter coxhead (talk) 06:37, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
What I was thinking was that the page"Category:Selliguea should be redirceted to Selliguea. The information in it is precisely the information I would want on the Selliguea commons page. (or are you suggesting that I simply link the category:Selliguea page to wikidata? (which I can do) MargaretRDonald (talk) 07:38, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Selliguea I linked this to the various wikiarticles. But wiki doesn't like it. So do I just copy the stuff in wiki commons category:Selliguea to commons Selliguea?? MargaretRDonald (talk) 07:55, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
@MargaretRDonald: if I understand you correctly (sorry if I haven't), you want to create a page in Commons at commons:Selliguea. This is similar to creating "gallery page" here, I guess. You would pick the best images that show up in the category commons:category:Selliguea and arrange them suitably with explanatory text. There's basically the same difference between a Commons page and a Commons category as there is between Banksia and Category:Banksia – the first is constructed by editors, the second automatically by adding categories to pages (images in Commons). Peter coxhead (talk) 08:35, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead: Please look at commons Category:selliguea for me. Get there by clicking on the commons link for Selliguea in the article Selliguea. I CANNOT manage to correct the error on the commons page.. I am hoping someone can and will. Hoping you (or someone) can help me by doing this. MargaretRDonald (talk) 11:32, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
@MargaretRDonald: well, I've managed to fix it, after several attempts. I don't claim to know now exactly what I did! Peter coxhead (talk) 15:54, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead:Thanks, Peter. I am most grateful. I suspect that what may be the cause of the problem of non-linkage to related other language articles is that the Selliguea article links with the Japanese article for Crypsinus. At this point, both are accepted genera according to plantlist.... (Ugh! Frustrating. I like plant articles to link to their counterparts all over the world...) MargaretRDonald (talk) 21:33, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
@MargaretRDonald: yes, I like the links to be there too, but the switch to Wikidata instead of adding them to the bottom of articles has been a step backward in my experience. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:20, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Breed caps

May be of interest: Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 25#Draft RfC on upper/lower-case for standardized breeds. I've studiously carved cultivars and trade designations out of the matter.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:02, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Salmo trutta fario edit

Hi Peter, did you intend to place your signature at the beginning of the section header with this edit? - Nick Thorne talk 21:52, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

@Nick Thorne: no, it's what happens when I edit WP on an iPad! Peter coxhead (talk) 06:42, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
Ah! Yet another reason not to muck about with fruit based computing! LOL - Nick Thorne talk 09:31, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

hi

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Xanthorrhoea&curid=615626&action=history - that is not just caps - that is also removing a section on something that is of very longstanding concern in western australia - dieback - and the various issues over decades about the issue - please either on the talk page - or somewhere explain what you are doing - please - in AGF - regardless of your justification - thanks - it is almost as bad as my continual edit summary of add - which basically says nothing for thousands of edits JarrahTree 15:07, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

@JarrahTree: just an error on my part – apologies, I hadn't noticed the added section. It's all fixed now I see. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:19, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
no problems JarrahTree 14:56, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Cucurbita pepo

To explain your undo of my edit (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cucurbita_pepo&oldid=prev&diff=855635461), you wrote that "we don't normally wikilink to part of a scientific name." I point out that the abbreviation "subsp.", whose reference I felt might not be evident to general readers and therefore would benefit from a link to the article "Subspecies," is in fact listed in the first paragraph of the latter article as a standard abbreviation of subspecies: "The term is abbreviated subsp. in botany and bacteriology." — Preceding unsigned comment added by EdMcCorduck (talk • contribs) 12:35, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

@EdMcCorduck: By the way, new posts on talk pages go at the end.
I do understand that "subsp." is not familiar to some readers. I've now used the full word with a wikilink, which I think should make things clear. It's just that we try not to wikilink to separate bits of scientific names, otherwise in the extreme you can end up with something like Cucurbita pepo subsp. pepo, whereas the whole name refers to a single taxonomic entity. It's a weak kind of WP:EASTEREGG issue, I guess: the 'blue string' looks like a single link, and it's reasonable to expect that clicking on a scientific name would take you to an article about the taxon with that name. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:13, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Spinifex

Thanks for fixing this. I'd tried to link them on a previous occasion and realised that I didn't know enough about the botany to know which was which, so it's great to see you coming along and giving it a go! The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:22, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

following your edits - also just have seen how under-referenced the whole biogeography section of the west oz geography is so under-referenced... hmmm JarrahTree 10:09, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
The particular problem re the meaning of "spinifex" is that many of the sources used that are accessible to me just say "spinifex" – this is a typical example. If they talk about arid areas or mallee scrub as well, then it's almost certain that Triodia is meant rather than Spinifex, but ideally there should be sources in all cases that actually specify the genus, given that "spinifex" by itself is ambiguous. I'm reluctant to link to the disambiguation page, so where the sources in the article aren't clear, I've tended to choose the meaning based on the biogeography of the area. My experience so far is that the great majority of links from "spinifex" to the genus Spinifex appear to be wrong, and should go to Triodia. But it does need some plant editors with expertise in Australian plants to double-check. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:14, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
When I was lucky enough to live periodically on a station in Yalgoo area - there were species that had a vary similar name - and mallee/bowgada was loosely appropriated to a range of plants, however my favourite is Eremophila (plant) where there are names that really have loose association - for either emu or poverty - something that cannot be reduced - JarrahTree 10:19, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
It just shows the value of the WP:PLANTS preference for scientific names, at least as titles. Maybe we should be adding the scientific name in parentheses? At present I'm just converting [[Spinifex (...)|spinifex]] to [[Triodia (plant)|spinifex]] where it's definitely or almost certainly what is meant. But perhaps spinifex (''[[Triodia (plant)|Triodia]]'') would be better?? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:26, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
to a certain extent - I still think that the non scientific names either in lead sentences or 'aka's somewhere in the article are vital if not very valuable for searching for people who are oriented towards common names - in Australia to have scientific names only with no local or common names somewhere would be very wrong - as many people have no idea whatsoever - the latin scientific name for [1] would be double dutch to most people viewing that, and [2] for all my exposure the popular material about western australian biota for over xx years I would have never been regularly exposed to the scientific name ever - even if I can rattle off most western australian euclaypt trees sci binomial names from the top of my head JarrahTree 10:54, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Oh, yes, I'm always in favour of giving genuinely used English names (i.e. not ones made up for guidebooks). Interestingly (to me anyway!), as I get older, I find the scientific names of plants harder to recall than the English names. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:00, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
but to the original point - Spinifex is the same as the Outback and the bush - slipperier than a darwin croc's re entry into water JarrahTree 11:02, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
A good Australian simile! Yes, it's a tricky name. I've put an alert at WT:PLANTS. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:09, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
The only thing I can add is that 'spinifex country' is a loose term for a region, like 'wheatbelt' or 'midlands', but more precise than "back of beyond", "the never-never", and "beyond the black stump". "Where is the mine you are working on?" A. "Spinifex country" Reply: "Oh yeah, I have been there!" [shrug] — cygnis insignis 13:43, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
I will see if I can offer anything that hasn't already been said, but I am here because I pinged you before seeing your reply at WP:Plants. An interesting conversation :) Regards, cygnis insignis 13:36, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
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