Jump to content

User talk:Peter coxhead/Archive 20

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 15←Archive 18Archive 19Archive 20Archive 21Archive 22→Archive 25

Spider genera categories & templates

I've been trying to put together some guidelines to post on WP:Spiders for genera page guidelines, and I'd like to get your input of a few things:

  • Stub templates - Some families have stub templates and some don't. Personally, I'm for giving each family its own stub template, then categorizing those templates under megalamorph and araneomorph to help make them easier to handle in the future, but I'd also like to get your opinion on it.
  • Location categories for genera. These are the ||Category:Spiders of.. (location)|| categories. Right now, they seem a bit random. I'd like to at least narrow this down to continent (and maybe country for smaller genera). I'm mostly pulling from the World Spider Catalog, so Holarctic and Palearctic are a bit more difficult to discern than countries.
  • Other categories for genera. The manual of style for biology is a bit vague, but I think that's on purpose. I've been adding ||:Category:(family)|| and ||:Category:(Mygalomorph / Araneomorph) genera||, but aside from the location categories, I'm not sure what else should be added.

Sesamehoneytart 00:34, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

@Sesamehoneytart: just as there are "lumpers" and "splitters" in determining the limits of taxa, there are lumpers and splitters in determining the size of categories. Although WP:DIFFUSE says that large categories can be broken up, there's no solid guidance on what constitutes a category that is too small – WP:SMALLCAT isn't much help. So you'll get very different advice from different editors, I fear.
I'm a lumper. So I don't usually create categories unless there are already 10+ articles and the potential for say 20 or more in total. So I wouldn't have created Category:Xenoctenidae, for example. Plantdrew is more of a splitter, it seems to me, so may have a different view. I would apply the same principle to stub templates and the categories they create. Note also that according to Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals, you are not supposed to create stub templates yourself, but to go through a proposals process.
Genera should always be placed in a "taxonomic category" (e.g. family for large enough families, or higher categories for small families) plus a "taxon genera category" (e.g. "FAMILY genera" for something like Salticidae, or "Araneomorphae genera" for smaller families).
The general principle has been not to categorize genera by location, only species, unless the genera are "narrowly endemic" (which I wouldn't interpret as including, say, Australia as a location).
For species, categorizing animals by location remains a muddle. I wrote guidance at Category:Spiders by location, which no-one has objected to, but then there are very few spider editors around to have a discussion with.
I'm not sure how helpful this is. Given the limited number of editors working on spiders, I'm just happy to see all the work you've been doing, and don't intend to quibble over issues like category sizes. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:38, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
An issue with category locations is their precise definition. For animals, the map used at Category:Fauna by continent, which I reproduced at Category:Spiders by location, is an issue because it doesn't have clear boundaries. For example, it's only by digging down that you find that Central America is in North America. But then Category:Fauna of the United States is put in Category:Fauna of North America with no additional comment, even though Hawaii is in the US but not in North America. There have been discussions, but there's still no clear definition of "Oceania", so Category:Fauna of Oceania and its subcategories remain confused, particularly Category:Fauna of Indonesia, Category:Fauna of New Guinea and Category:Fauna of Papua New Guinea. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:00, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
I can see the virtues of both lumping and a splitting, depending on the subject.
  • Stub templates - You're correct about the process for creating these- I suppose I've taken WP:BOLD a bit too much to heart. Ideally, the long term goal is to eliminate all stubs, so I'm a fan of "lumping" in this case.
  • Family categories - For this one, I'm more for splitting. The way I see it, we should stick as closely to the source material as possible. I'm using the World Spider Catalog as my primary source, and if they feel that a group is distinct enough to be considered a family, I feel that it should be reflected here as well (even if the family consists of only one genus). I've read about a number of cases where family sizes were extremely small due to loss of habitat or lack of study. I'm thinking in particular of certain genera that were found in isolated salt lakes in Australia's outback that were once part of a larger group, but have been isolated long enough by the desert that they are distinguishable even from spiders in salt lakes nearby. I've accidentally learned more about spiders than I originally intended, but I certainly don't know as much about it than those who are writing articles for these journals. I feel that if these authors and the WSC agree that a group can compose a family, we should treat it the same as other families, regardless of size.
  • "Spiders by location" categories - The only reason I can think of for these categories are for people interested in writing keys. For instance, if someone wants to write a key to the spiders of [location], it would be helpful to look at the category called "Spiders of [location]" where these would all be grouped together. You bring up a good point about vagueness of location- (certainly American Samoa shouldn't be considered USA in this case). Having these categories would only be helpful if we have universal standards for location.
  • List of [genera] species - I don't like that there are multiple places that need to be updated. I liked the idea of automatic taxoboxes for the same reason. I feel that the "list of [genera] in [family]" and "list of [species] in [genera]" articles should be merged with the respective genera and family article so it only needs to be updated in one place.
I'm only aware of four of us that semi-actively work on spiders. You, me, Plantdrew, and Sarefo, though there could easily be more; it's a wide subject.

Re. inadvertent specific name error

Hello Peter. Thanks for your input on Nicandra page. As you noticed, have just used new image of Nicandra which uploaded to Wikimedia Commons this morning. Have noticed my stupid spellchecker changed the specific name from ( correct ) 'physalodes' to ( incorrect ) 'physaloides'. How do I rectify this ? Get the impression that once a Commons file is published, hard to change accompanying text. Can you help ?

You have to ask for it to be moved, but it's easy if you uploaded it. Go to commons:File:Nicandra physaloides ( L. ) Gaertn.jpg, open it for editing, and put {{Rename|File:Nicandra physalodes ( L. ) Gaertn.jpg|1}} at the top. Then wait! Peter coxhead (talk) 13:39, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
Peter coxhead, I can move it, do you wantthe space (L._) cygnis insignis 14:44, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
@Cygnis insignis: the file was uploaded by Flobbadob, so I was just telling them how to change the "oides" to "odes". But I personally wouldn't include the spaces. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:29, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
You filled me confidence, so I decided to remove the space before as well. All done, and happy to move it again, it triggers a neat tool :) cygnis insignis 16:00, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Taxonomy templates showing anomalous ranks

Hello Peter, in the taxonomy template Template:Taxonomy/Therapsidia, why is the rank "Ichnograndordo" considered to be anomalous? Surely it should rank correctly between a Superorder and an Order? Also, why is rank=ichnomirordo not recognized as a valid rank on any of the Ichnobox templates at all? Curious again, Loopy30 (talk) 15:55, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Grandorder is usually considered a higher rank than superorder. Could this be where the McKenna-Bell grandorder needs to be used?   Jts1882 | talk  16:24, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
I've requested a protected template edit at {{Anglicise rank}}. Then I think changing the taxonomy template rank to ichnograndordo-mb will do the trick. It looks like the module will handle the change.   Jts1882 | talk  16:44, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
 Done Template:Taxonomy/Therapsidia is now ok. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:23, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
@Loopy30: is there actually a need for "ichnomirordo"? If so, it needs to be added to {{Anglicise rank}}, but I'm reluctant to add ranks that aren't actually used.
(The underlying issue is that the Lua module handles the ordering of "ichno" and "oo" ranks by stripping off these prefixes and processing the resulting 'plain' rank, whereas {{Anglicise rank}} needs every variation of rank name to be listed explicitly.)
Peter coxhead (talk) 17:16, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
Thank you Peter and Jts1882. "Ichnomirordo" is quite unlikely to be called for, but could still occur nonetheless. Its use can be avoided if there are less than four ranks between subclass and order by choosing alternative rank names. Loopy30 (talk) 18:16, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Mistakes in IPNI

Hi, sorry to bother you again. I noticed last night a number of the Rheum citations at the IPNI are (horribly) incorrect. You mentioned getting them to change things. How? Bit obtuse on my end, but if I click on the "contact us" button it wants an e-mail application to load, and I don't use any of that stuff -I looked around, couldn't figure out a work-around. Could you just send me the e-mail address (if that's how this works), then I can do it? Thanks in advance, Leo. 86.83.56.115 (talk) 11:56, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Leo, it's ipnifeedback#kew.org, where "#" is replaced by "@". They can take a few days to respond, but are very receptive in my experience. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:44, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanks! On retrospect I was wrong. There is a mistake, but just a small one. It has to do with the fact the species nova in Flora SSSR were all published in Russian, no Latin, but in the case of Rheum Losinskaja rectified this the following year -I got confused because the publication titles and dates are so similar. But the citation should still be "Losinsk. ex. Losinsk.", if I'm not wrong (again).86.83.56.115 (talk) 19:59, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Subgenera article titles

Hello Peter, could you tell me how to italicise the full article title for Clathria (Clathria)? I have tried Italic title and DISPLAYTITLE: but to no avail. I realise that normally the word in the parentheses would not be italicised as it would be a disambiguating term (such as Portia (spider) but in this case, shouldn't the Automatic taxobox recognise that it is the subgenus name based on the values in the taxonomy template called? Curiously, Loopy30 (talk) 21:03, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Is there a reason the article isn't called Clathria (subgenus)? I know usually the rank is not used in the parentheses, but in this case it would disambiguate it from the genus. Is there another subgenus named Clathria? Nessie (talk) 21:09, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
Hmm, that would be cleaner and perhaps is the more common use ... but, just as one would not refer to a species by the species epithet only, the subgenus name is also not normally used as a stand-alone name and should be generally be used in conjuction with the genus name and parentheses.Loopy30 (talk) 21:17, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
NessieVL, names of animal subgenera are unique (aside from nominotypical subgenera sharing the name of the genus as with Clathria). That's the ICZN's Principle of Coordination in action.Plantdrew (talk) 21:44, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
@Loopy30: well, it was a struggle but it's fixed. The problem is that the code that italicizes the name in the taxobox assumes that disambiguating terms begin with a lower case letter, so gets it right. {{Italic title}}, generated automatically, doesn't, so gets it wrong. You have to turn off automatic italicization via {{Italic title}} and do it manuslly, it seems. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:23, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Two questions spring to mind:

  1. Instead of the general {{Italic title}}, which can't assume that a disambiguation term always begins with a lower-case letter (see e.g. Love and Theft (Bob Dylan album)), should there instead be a taxon-specific template, e.g. {{Taxon italic title}}, that does make this assumption, so would italicize "Clathria (Clathria)" correctly? (Note that the parentheses ought not to be italicized.) Are there any taxon articles with disambiguation terms beginning with an upper-case letter?
  2. In a species taxobox, like that at Broad-bladed tree sponge, is it right to call Clathria (Clathria) dayi either a species name or a binomial? The latter seems particularly wrong to me. If it is right, then it's tricky to italicize the name correctly; all of the names at Broad-bladed tree sponge, taxobox and text, have wrongly italicized parentheses.

Peter coxhead (talk) 22:18, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

There are a few taxon articles with capitalized disambiguation terms. Kanaima (Froghopper), Hemichroa (Tenthredinidae), Incertae sedis (Lymantriinae), Tapinoma aberrans (Dlussky) seem to be the only ones for WikiProject Insects. WikiProject Lepidoptera has some more, with similar issues (family as disambiguating term, incertae sedis with parenthetical parent, author name to disambiguate homonym). I'd move away from family dab terms, and have the parent as the first word in an incertae sedis page. (species described by...) might work for homonym authors. Plantdrew (talk) 23:06, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
I don't think we should interpolate subgenera into binomials. However, we don't really have consensus or much discussion about how to title animal subgenera, or how to best display plant and animal subgenera in taxoboxes. Plantdrew (talk) 23:12, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
Perhaps this is a broader discussion that we should be having over at WT:TOL? I try to use the species binomial (eg. Clathria dayi) over the full name with the subgenus (eg. Clathria (Clathria) dayi) if both are accepted. However, I have recently found several sponges that have identical, valid binomials that only differ by their describing author and the subgenus that they have now been assigned to (eg. Clathria (Clathria) atoxa (Bergquist & Fromont, 1988) and Clathria (Microciona) atoxa Topsent, 1928) which seem to require the subgenus as a disambiguator. Loopy30 (talk) 03:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
Speaking of music/Bob Dylan, I know there are various songs with stylistic parentheticals. The only one that comes to my mind at the moment is (She Was A) Hotel Detective, where the parenthetical leads. Are there (non-subgenera) Wikipedia articles with a trailing parenthetical that isn't used for disambiguation? I'm sure there are, but I would like some examples, as that may guide how subgenus articles are titled. Plantdrew (talk)
There must be lots of songs. Most would have the parenthetical at the beginning, like (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, but some will have it at the end. Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) would be one. Loopy30 (talk) 02:05, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
(Don't Fear) The Reaper, Voodoo Child (Slight Return), Bang A Gong (Get It On) which redirects to Get It On (T. Rex song) and the double parenthetical (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!). Train in Vain (Stand by Me) redirects to Train In Vain but I Got You (I Feel Good) hatnotes to dab pages and more. There must be lots of others, drop me a line if you want me to think of some more. I think you can already see where my record collection is leading to. 'Cheers' Loopy30 (talk) 02:16, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

The template {{italic title}} has a parameter |all= which when set to yes/true italicies the disambiguation term. This also italicises the parentheses. Is this desirable? I don't see why you would want this behaviour. If this was changed then |all=yes would handle subgenera. Alternatively this could be another option.   Jts1882 | talk  11:00, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

@Jts1882: I think the parentheses should not be italicized; if you look at the ICZN online, it doesn't italicize the parentheses, either in subgenus names or in species aggregate names. So |all=yes isn't right, even as an option. The other alternative would be to modify Module:Italic title so that it had an option to italicize the dab term but not the parentheses. I have to confess that I find this module's code difficult to follow; it seems to be written in an obscure object-oriented fashion, for reasons I don't understand, given that all it does is assemble a string to be prefaced by DISPLAYTITLE: and then rendered. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:15, 5 April 2019 (UTC)


  • So it seems to be clear that we can't rely (at least at present) on disambiguation terms not being capitalized, even for taxon articles. So the way to get an article title like "Clathria (Clathria)" correctly italicized is:
    • put |italic_title=no in the taxobox to stop {{Italic title}} being added automatically
    • use {{DISPLAYTITLE:...}} to specify how the title should be displayed.
This needs to be added to the automated taxobox system documentation somewhere.
  • @Loopy30: Clathria (Clathria) atoxa (Bergquist & Fromont, 1988) and Clathria (Microciona) atoxa Topsent, 1928 can't both be acceptable under the ICZN. Art. 5.1 is clear that "The scientific name of a species ... is a combination of two names (a binomen), the first being the generic name and the second being the specific name." Names must be unique (the Principle of Homonymy); the subgenus cannot be used to distinguish them because it's not part of the binomen. It's not clear from WoRMS who transferred Dictyociona atoxa Bergquist & Fromont, 1988 to Clathria, but it was wrong to do so as "Clathria atoxa" if Clathria gradalis var. atoxa Topsent, 1928 is elevated to Clathria atoxa Topsent, 1928, because Topsent's name has priority within Clathria (at least that's my understanding of the ICZN; Dyanega is the expert).

Peter coxhead (talk) 11:33, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Well that's what I thought as well, but the WoRMS database does seem to have accepted a few of these pairs (apparently in error). If this is so, and will ultimately be resolved by WoRMS or others, then perhaps we could continue to use the binomial only and omit the subgenus assignment in the article name. However correct though, if we start to interpret binomials from a binomial with an interpolated subgenus assignment without this being reflected in a WP:RS then we would be conducting WP:OR. Loopy30 (talk) 12:37, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I agree re WP:OR; we can't correct these names (although we can point out in article text that there's a problem under the ICZN with it as a source). I've no experience of WoRMS; do they respond to questions? Peter coxhead (talk) 13:15, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
At your suggestion, I contacted WoRMS and received an immediate and positive response to this query (and from the worlds leading expert on Porifera taxonomy, no less). They have now resolved to rename Clathria (Clathria) atoxa (Bergquist & Fromont, 1988) at the next opportunity. From this, I believe we should continue to use the interpolated subgenus name to disambiguate until such time as the naming is resolved. Also, I have now sent WoRMS an additional 29 instances of homonomy within Porifera that I have uncovered in my Wikipedia editing. Loopy30 (talk) 12:11, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
@Loopy30: it's really good to know that WoRMS is so responsive, and I agree that we can continue to use this name purely for disambiguation purposes until it is sorted out. (My experience of editing plant articles has also uncovered nomenclatural problems, such as homonyms, inconsistent authorities between sources, more than one synonym being included in an 'accepted' list, etc.) Peter coxhead (talk) 12:58, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I've now added some documentation at Template:Automatic taxobox/doc#Italic title. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:44, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Loopy30 provided enough song examples to convince me that Wikipedia in general doesn't have a problem with trailing parentheticals not being dab terms. We could title subgenera in the form "Genus (Subgenus)", which is my preference, although further discussion should take place in another venue. Plantdrew (talk) 16:04, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: yes, that's my preference too (and also to use this format in taxoboxes), but, as you say, this needs to be discussed elsewhere. The issue remains how best to italicize such titles; it seems a pity to have to use the method I put at Template:Automatic taxobox/doc#Italic title, but changing it probably needs modifications to Module:Italic title. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:28, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
What about a |displaytitle= parameter. Just set |displaytitle=Mus (Coelomys) and let the module/template handle {{Italic title}} and {{DISPLAYTITLE}}. Then it would be a one step process akin to |name=.   Jts1882 | talk  11:41, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
@Jts1882: That would certainly work, but I would like to minimize the need to set taxobox parameters. If there are few articles with {{Automatic taxobox}} and capitalized disambiguation terms, the option that is easiest for article editors is, I think, to replace the use of {{Italic title}} by a template/module that uses Module:TaxonItalics to feed DISPLAYTITLE. This would also make the formatting of scientific names in taxoboxes and the formatting of page titles completely consistent. For example, it wouldn't then be necessary to use DISPLAYTITLE at Festuca rubra subsp. commutata. There may be a flaw in this approach that I haven't seen; what do you (and others here) think? Peter coxhead (talk) 17:24, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Italic taxon title

I have now created a new template, {{Italic taxon title}}, which if used instead of {{Italic title}} or {{DISPLAYTITLE:...}} italicizes the page title using the same logic as is used inside taxoboxes. You can see it working at e.g. Puzosia (Bhimaites) or Apium prostratum subsp. howense. I think that it will be ok to replace the automatically generated {{Italic title}} by {{Italic taxon title}}, but this will require careful testing. I encourage who have followed this discussion to try out the new template. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:10, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Birds complete autotaxobox/speciesbox

Peter.... I think I've completed all the auto taxoboxes for birds. I think you mentioned there is a bot that can be run within groups to check if they have been installed....can you tell me the name of the bot again?....thank-you!...Pvmoutside (talk) 12:34, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi pvm, here's a thousand more for you! 'Cheers, Loopy30 (talk) 14:27, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
Looks like 108 of those are not in the project. --Nessie (talk) 15:58, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
Loopy30's drill down from the bird category is picking up the contents of Category:Bird food plants, which pretty much accounts for the discrepancy. I would bet that there are paleontological bird taxa that are tagged for WP Palaeontology, but not birds. And there may be articles in the birds by location category that don't have a taxonomic category. As the number of manual taxobox articles decreases, the different searches (by category or project tag) will probably reveal discrepancies in categorization/tagging more clearly. NessieVL, you don't need to include redirects to the project banner. PetScan search for templates picks up redirects to the specified template. Plantdrew (talk) 16:45, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
no, there are some genera and species in Loopy's list I can create auto taxoboxes to. I'm assuming partial genus articles, i.e, quail, vulture, eagle, etc. don't need taxoboxes. Also I tried to recreate Loopy's list so I don't have to keep on looking it up at your talk page Peter. I used what I thought were the same parameters, but I ended up with 22,000 articles. What am I doing wrong?.....Pvmoutside (talk) 17:49, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
@Pvmoutside: have you reproduced the settings in other tabs, e.g. the "Templates&links" tab? Peter coxhead (talk) 18:04, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
nope.....thanks....Pvmoutside (talk) 18:06, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
@Pvmoutside:, if you're building on Loopy's search you should add "Bird food plants" and "Bird common names" to the "Negative categories" section on the main tab (that will get rid of the plants, and quails, vultures and eagles). Quails et al. should perhaps use {{Paraphyletic group}} instead of the manual taxobox (but they definitely should not use Automatic taxobox). Plantdrew (talk) 19:19, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: the category hierarchy for Category:Bird food plants is yet another example of why categories are often useless. I'm not convinced the category itself is justified, but it should not be in Category:Bird feeding, and its ancestor Category:Birds and humans should not be in Category:Birds if the latter is supposed to be a taxonomic category. Sigh... Peter coxhead (talk) 18:18, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

I didn't look at it very closely before. Category description is "Plants, primarily native species...". It includes a garden hybrid, but I guess gardens are just as much native to the planet Earth as everywhere else. Sigh indeed. Plantdrew (talk) 19:23, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Number 16 (spider)

With multiple species in Gaius now, I'm not confident that Number 16 (spider) would still be considered to belong to Gaius villosus. Should the material about this individual spider in the species article be moved to the genus article? I'm not really sure what best practice should be when sources were published before a species was split (the mess with ospreys is another case of this). I do see that Rix et al. mention #16 and refer to her as G. villosus, but her territory looks to be pretty close to the boundary between the ranges of G. villosus and G. cooperi. 18:46, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: well, Rix, Raven & Harvey (2018) say "Gaius villosus is also among the best known of Australia's Idiopidae, thanks to a decades-long demographic study undertaken by Barbara Main in the central Wheatbelt bioregion .. As a result of this work, unprecedented in its temporal perspective, we now know that G. villosus is one of the world's longest-lived spiders, with some females able to survive for over 40 years in the wild". And later "Thanks to the demographic work undertaken by Barbara Main at North Bungulla Nature Reserve over more than 40 years, we now have a very good understanding of the biology and natural history of G. villosus". So it seems reasonable to assume that, although the 2018 paper does not specifically mention Number 16 by name (as far as I can see), Rix, Raven & Harvey accept that it was G. villosus. Since Number 16 wasn't collected, I guess we can't know for sure, though. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:19, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

'Latua' / 'Latua pubiflora' page links in other languages

Dear Peter

I was just wondering whether it is possible to add links to pages in 'other languages' in the side menu for an English wiki page when the content is the same but the title different - a problem all too likely to arise with pages devoted to monotypic genera.

To clarify : there are pages devoted to the monotypic genus Latua in ( among several other languages ) French, Spanish and German; however, the only other language page to show up at the side of the English page is French, because the French page, like the English one, is entitled 'Latua' and not 'Latua pubiflora', whereas the Spanish and German pages are entitled 'Latua pubiflora'.

If one consults, say, the page on Spanish Wikipedia, one thus gets the impression that there is no page on English Wikipedia devoted to the plant ( not true ) - a situation that I'd like to remedy, if possible - not least because it would give Spanish speakers easy access to the image gallery on the English page which I've been beefing up with recent photos of Latua plants and details of their anatomy ( which I've taken at home and in a recent visit to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh ).

What is the Wiki policy re. monotypic genera : should pages devoted to a monotypic genus be under just the genus name or the full binomial of the single species ? Although I've been editing the English page 'Latua', I didn't actually create it originally. Is it possible ( or desirable ? ) to change the title under which a page was published ? Or would it be possible to create a side menu link between English page 'Latua' and Spanish page 'Latua pubiflora' ? Sorry for long convoluted post...can you help ?

regards

Flobbadob (talk) 12:02, 30 April 2019 (UTC)Flobbadob

I think the side menu links are determined by Wikidata. You could make edits there but there are rules on what can be linked, such as only one link per article. So if the articles on different language wikipedias have different scopes there are issues.
As I thought, the German and Spanish articles de:Latua pubiflora and es:Latua pubiflora and are linked to wikidata page Latua pubiflora and wikidata won't allow the same article to be linked to two wikidata items. It's a shame wikidata doesn't allow links to redirects as that would allow the one to one correspondence to be followed and multiple links.   Jts1882 | talk  14:11, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
However, I wasn't paying attention. The two wikidata pages are not for genus and species as I was thinking. They are both for Latua pubiflora: Q142308 and Q11145504. I think these two items should be merged.   Jts1882 | talk  14:30, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
This is a mess. The two wikidata items are supposed to be for species and genus, but the one on the genus had been labelled Latua pubiflora even though the rank was given as genus. I have changed this, so they are now on the species and genus, but it doesn't help with the linking to different language wikipedia pages.   Jts1882 | talk  14:37, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
@Flobbadob: this is a problem that comes up again and again. (I really must write a short essay on it, to save repeating myself.) It's a Wikidata problem, as Jts1882 says above, about which we can do little or nothing. Wikidata insists on 1:1 relationships between articles in different language wikis. Their data model does not reflect reality. There are very good reasons why different wikis may cover the same material in different numbers of articles.
  • Some topics are more important in some cultures than in others, so in some wikis are best covered in multiple articles to avoid excessive length, while one article is adequate in another wiki.
  • Concepts are language specific. Thus English uses "berry" in both the ordinary language sense of a small soft fruit (Berry) and in the strict botanical sense (Berry (botany)). Other languages work differently and have only one article.
  • Conventions adopted by different wikis for monotypic taxa are different. Some have an article at each rank, others don't. Wikidata has an item at each rank. Wikis are autonomous; there's no reason why they have to adopt the same convention. The convention here is explained at WP:MONOTYPICFAUNA and WP:MONOTYPICFLORA; we have one article, but which rank depends on the need for disambiguation.
Whenever the relationship between articles in different language wikis is not 1:1 a choice has to be made as to which articles to link. For taxa, it seems to make most sense to most editors to link articles concerning the same scientific name where possible. So if a wiki has an article at, say, both the monotypic genus and the species, and another has only an article at the genus, the first wiki's species article cannot be linked. If one wiki has only one article at the monotypic genus and another only one article at the sole species, they can be linked, but for the English wikipedia this causes problems since the introduction of {{taxonbar}}, because this works properly only when the article title and the Wikidata taxon name are the same.
This has all been discussed repeatedly at Wikidata, but there's no sign that they will change. So we are stuck with the problem. The best answer here would be to accept that when linking via Wikidata doesn't work properly, because of their 1:1 policy, we go back to the old way of adding interwikis at the bottom of the article. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:40, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Dear Peter

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to write me such a detailed reply.

À propos of Wikidata, I think I actually compounded the mischief by corresponding with a Chilean Wikipedian with the user name Barri : I tried ( with limited success ) to use my rudimentary Spanish, eked out with Google translate, to convey the problem, and he said he'd made some new links of some kind. However, I've a feeling that, before he did that, there HAD been links to the relevant pages of Spanish and German Wikis. Oh dear...

kind regards

Flobbadob (talk) 18:28, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, if you add, for example, [[es:Latua pubiflora]] to Latua, then the sidebar link will appear. However, it's likely to be removed on the grounds that "language links are at Wikidata now", even though it's only partly true in this case. This is something that should be discussed in some higher forum, although I'm not sure where. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:50, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

request for assist on E. victoriae

Hi I made a request on Plantdrew's page here: User_talk:Plantdrew#Changes_to_Emydura_victoriae but have not heard back was wondering if you could advise. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 18:08, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

@Faendalimas: sorry to be slow in responding, but I was involved in the thread below. There seem to me to be two issues:
  • Is the paper you co-authored a sufficient source to make the taxonomic changes here? I've usually taken the view that although we should include information from such papers in the text, the main taxonomy should be based on reliable secondary sources. However, turtles are way outside my competence or interests, so I have no idea whether there are sources comparable to, say, the World Spider Catalog – for spiders I'd always say wait until it's in the WSC.
  • Is it ok for you to edit based on a paper you co-authored? I myself don't see a problem provided this is disclosed on the talk page. There are certainly precedents I'm aware of (I don't want to "out" anyone).
Sorry if this isn't very helpful. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:13, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

WP:Carnivorous plants

I think all the subprojects of PLANTS should be made into Task Forces or deleted for inactivity. Abductive (reasoning) 16:55, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree, although this does create issues when non-plants are of particular relevance to a subset of plants. But this isn't a justification for keeping inactive Wikiprojects. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:00, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Maybe rename WP:Carnivorous Plants to WP:Plant Carnivory and disengage it completely from the WP:Plants talk page template? Abductive (reasoning) 02:04, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Maybe; I think we need a wider discussion of your original point all the subprojects of PLANTS should be made into Task Forces or deleted for inactivity. I suggest you raise this at WT:PLANTS. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:47, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Dicotyledon

Thank you for explaining reverting my edit on Dicotyledon. In British English "clade", "company", et al. can be treated as plural. In American English that is not possible. I am not arguing, just explaining that I was as correct as you are. Zaslav (talk) 23:30, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

@Zaslav: actually, although this statement is often made about the difference between American and British English, empirical evidence in the form of Google ngrams doesn't support it. Look at this ngram, then change "British English" to "American English" and you get little or no change in the ratio of usages.
The problem arises most acutely when the nouns connected by the verb to be are of a different number. "The monocots are the largest clade" is ok in all variants of English, whereas "the monocots is the largest clade" is not. Swap the order of the sentence and you get "the largest clade are the monocots" or "the largest clade is the monocots". I find the latter odd, it seems that many Americans don't. The best approach, I think, is to try to avoid "singular-noun is/are plural-noun" altogether. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:54, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. (1) Empirical evidence in the form of reading American and British newspapers and other publications strongly supports my statement, which I made based on my own observation over many years. For what it's worth. (1a) The Google results are interesting, for what they are worth. The different chronology of the dominance of "is" is striking. (2) I find the former very odd (although "the company are in agreement with the minister" is not very odd, merely British), and the latter totally reasonable. For what that is worth. I find many people, including many Americans, increasingly fail to understand how to make subject and verb agree in number, this being only one minor type of instance. (3) Conclusion: None! (4) Are you British? Surely you are much younger than I am (70's), and see (1a). I await answer! Zaslav (talk) 03:01, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
@Zaslav: re (4), yes, I'm British, and no, I'm not much younger than you but a similar age. I rewrote the problematic sentence as suggested above, i.e. to put the obviously plural noun first, which I think is the best approach where possible, as per WP:COMMONALITY (although it only seems to be concerned with vocabulary).
(Another interesting pair to try in Google ngrams is "the committee agree" vs. "the committee agrees". Here it's clear that (1) the plural used to be most common in both American and British English, but has declined in both (2) the decline is more rapid in American English. As ever, these ngrams have to be treated cautiously unless you investigate the actual sentences.) Peter coxhead (talk) 09:05, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

status in autotaxobox

I just changed En to EN, corrected from VU by an IP as it happened. Is this case sensitivity necessary? cygnis insignis 09:23, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

@Cygnis insignis: this is handled in Template:Taxobox/species, which is used by all taxoboxes, manual or automated. I've never edited it, to my knowledge. Looking at it, it seems to allow the fully lower case forms ("en" in this case) as well as the normal upper case ones, but not mixed case. Are there enough issues to make it worth changing this quite well used template? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:40, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
I can't predict any harm from changing it, that is all I can say, I thought someone may have thought otherwise. If a bot is chasing this up then there is little concern at my end, I suppose an editor might revert an another if it breaks the template (The IP was correct in the example that prompted me to ask, but the IUCN cite template does not allow that to be immediately verifiable (yet another concern)). cygnis insignis 10:59, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
It is easy enough to change with a few {{uc|{{{2}}}}} conversions in the switch statments, but should sloppy edits be encouraged? The IUCN always uses uppercase and anyone making a change should see that there is an error. Although not such an issue here, making the templates error-proof often makes them unreadable.   Jts1882 | talk  11:11, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jts1882: yes, I agree with your general point. However, in this case it actually makes the code simpler to change the switch statement and remove the l/c labels; see the sandbox version I've set up. It needs testing, which I haven't had time to do yet, but I think could then be made live. (If you have time before me, feel free.) Peter coxhead (talk) 15:40, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
Agreed that in this case making it fully permissive simplifies the template code, which I am in favour of.   Jts1882 | talk  15:02, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Lower case status values aren't used in automatic taxoboxes (this is something I search for every couple of weeks in my taxobox cleanup efforts). Lower case statuses are rare in manual taxoboxes (maybe ~400 out of ~210K). If it simplifies the taxobox code to make it more permissive with capitalization variants, I'm fine with that. However, I will continue to try and standardize on capitalized statuses (the TemplateData report cuts off displaying more than 50 values per parameter; there are 40+ good values for the status parameter, and TemplateData counts capitalization variants as different; I'd like to be able to see the actually bad parameter values in TemplateData unpolluted by variant capitalization. Plantdrew (talk) 04:36, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
@Plantdrew: in the current code, both fully capitalized and fully lower case values (e.g. "EN" and "en") are provided for, so don't trigger an "invalid status" message, but mixed case values (e.g. "En") are not accepted, so do trigger an error message. The sandbox code simply internally converts the input values into upper case before checking and using them.
I entirely agree that we should standardize on capitalized statuses. One possibility is to have an error-tracking category. Taxonomy templates accept rank values like "Familia" instead of "familia", but put the page in Category:Taxonomy templates using capitalized rank parameters which I check regularly. This would make make standardizing a bit easier. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:43, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
I've now created and tested (as best I can) a version that will add pages to Category:Taxoboxes with uncapitalized status parameters. It's very difficult to fully test a template that's called from within Template:Taxobox/core, but I think it's ok. I'll wait a bit to see if there are more comments here. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:15, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Again, I'm so appreciative of what you all do, even where that flags my own sloppiness. I will try to help by chasing that faulty IUCN connection, to allow verification, and by not populating maintenance categories. cygnis insignis 09:11, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life

Having some discussions around Category:Taxa by if you'd like to participate...…Pvmoutside (talk) 23:17, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

A remarkable researcher

Hi Peter. I was sad to hear that the work of B Y Main has concluded, I'm a big fan. This story gives some details that might also interest you. cygnis insignis 02:21, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

@Cygnis insignis: thank you so much for sharing that link. Like you, I was impressed by her work. A real loss. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:40, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Actinidia chinensis

Peter - could you please have a look at this article and its relation to Actinidia deliciosa, and edit where needed? The parent fruit leading to the high-selling Zespri brand is vague. Related background. Will follow article changes and any comments here. Many thanks. --Zefr (talk) 16:19, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

@Zefr: um... I've looked at Actinidia before, but the comment that opens the abstract here "Actinidia is taxonomically difficult" seems a good summary (I can't access the full paper). It's a general problem with domesticated fruiting species: scientific names are often based on cultivars, whose relationship to wild species is unclear. I think the evidence in reliable botanical sources supports the view that Actinidia deliciosa is only a variety of Actinidia chinensis, but on the other hand there are agricultural and other sources that take a different view. It's not clear to me how to proceed. (My experiences with working on banana/plantain/Musa articles has made me very wary of getting involved with popular fruit!) Peter coxhead (talk) 19:31, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

For your tireless efforts

Mr. Coxhead, your tireless work across the wiki never ceases to amaze me, and your articles are some of the most comprehensive in the plants categories. Your list articles are always very informational, and your species articles are always clean, crisp, and precise. Thank you for all you've done, from one editor to another, and keep up all the good work you do! As a small token of my appreciation for everything you've done, here's the Biology Ribbon, I assure you you've earned it and much more for everything you've done. Fritzmann2002 T, c, s, t 19:42, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
@Fritzmann2002: many thanks for your appreciation and very kind words. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:58, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

@Fritzmann2002:, this was good of you to take the trouble, an excellent summation, so well phrased. This will save me having to compliment Peter's contributions in my own awkward way, I will just refer to this award when that impulse hits me (which is frequently). cygnis insignis 12:08, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Just a heads up

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spiders#Location foul-ups Sesamehoneytart 20:52, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

eMonocot

Peter, what is your understanding of the status of eMonocot? I notice that links to the portal I placed on taxon pages no longer work, and the site itself is not behaving. It was originally funded by NERC 2010-2013 but although it appears defunct I can find no formal acknowledgement. --Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 17:11, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

@Michael Goodyear: looking at this, it seems that the intention is to incorporate it into Plants of the World Online. It's annoying, because, like you, I have used it as a reference. Some subpages work at present, e.g. Amaryllidaceae at amaryllidaceae.e-monocot.org, but the main "taxon pages" eventually take me to PoWO "not found" (I need to refresh a few times for some reason). They are available in the internet archive, e.g. Scadoxus multiflorus (Martyn) Raf. is available here. If you look at the PoWO entry for Scadoxus multiflorus (Martyn) Raf., it has the same text as the archived eMonocot page (laid out differently).
The problem seems to be that they have changed the URN for a taxon name. In PoWO, Scadoxus multiflorus is urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:66765-1. In eMonocot, it was urn:kew.org:wcs:taxon:287367. If you put the new URN with the eMonocot address, giving for example, http://www.e-monocot.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:66765-1, it goes to the correct entry in PoWO. Sigh... Peter coxhead (talk) 17:39, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
That’s what I thought, but it’s more than annoying. It’s sloppy. There should have been a smooth transition with redirects. Perhaps the grants didn’t cover that! Also it should have been announced not just left to die on the vine. I might write to them .... --Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 21:58, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

M. rubra taxonomy

Please have a look at this edit for accuracy and representation of the two new sources added. Thanks. --Zefr (talk) 19:02, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

It seems fine to me. It would be good to add something about when and why the species was transferred from Morella to Myrica. Something to look into! Peter coxhead (talk) 21:00, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Rebordered / reborded

Thanks for stepping in at Acanthogonatus chilechico. I am not good at spiders. I did find a source however for "reborded" ( https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/onlinedictinvertzoology/7/ , reproduced https://species-id.net/zooterms/reborded ). Is this just wrong, or is "reborded" possible as an unusual variant? Ingratis (talk) 22:54, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

@Ingratis: "Rebord" is a French word, a noun, defined in Larousse online as "Projecting part, sometimes added, which forms the edge of something; folded edge, turned, forming a bead or not". The great French arachnologist Simon uses it repeatedly in his 1892 Histoire naturelle des araignées. He very rarely uses it adjectivally as "rebordé". This form seems to have been adopted in English as "rebordered", with the noun rarely if ever used. For example, if you search for the exact phrase "rebordered labium" in Google Scholar, you get 21 results in papers by various authors. Searching for "reborded labium" gives 2, both by the same Israeli researcher.
Jocqué & Dippenaar-Schoeman (2007), Spider Families of the World, has 31 uses of "rebordered", and defines it in the Glossary (on p. 24) as "Rebordered: with a thickened edge; describes a sclerite in which the margin is thicker than the mainpart".[1]
So I conclude that although "reborded" may rarely be used in arachnology in English as a version of the French "rebordé", the usual term is "rebordered". Peter coxhead (talk) 06:32, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Jocqué, R.; Dippenaar-Schoeman, A.S. (2007), Spider Families of the World (PDF) (2nd ed.), Tervuren (Belgium): Royal Museum for Central Africa, retrieved 2019-07-04 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |lastauthoramp= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help)
Thank you very much for taking so much trouble over this - I'm very grateful for the explanation. Thanks again and best wishes, Ingratis (talk) 11:26, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
@Ingratis: on the contrary, thank you for bringing the query to my attention. I make quite a bit of use of Glossary of spider terms myself, and it's always good to learn more and be able to add extra information – see "rebordered" now. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:29, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Akane Yamaguchi

Hello. Help copy edit for article. Thanks you. Cheung2 (talk) 08:07, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Rosa Iceberg

Shouldn't we start the article of Rosa Iceberg with the cultivar name instead of the tradename? Rosa Iceberg is the one of the only rosa articles starting with the tradename. Coldbolt (talk) 18:18, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, the general rule is to start articles with the title. So either the article is moved to the cultivar name, which I would support, or it starts with the title. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:13, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
I changed it and replaced all Icebergs with KORbins. Coldbolt (talk) 21:03, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
@Coldbolt: well, your action has my support. We'll see if any other editor reacts. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:24, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Lycopodiophyta automatic taxoboxes

There seems to be some muddle in the assignment of orders and genera of lycopods to classes, but I don't know how to fix this. The automatic taxoboxes for Selaginella and Isoetes assign these genera to Lycopodiopsida instead of Isoetopsida, whereas the cladogram in the article on Lycopodiophyta correctly assigns Isoetes, Lepidodendrales and Selaginella to Isoetopsida. Plantsurfer 12:09, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

There seem to be differences of opinion. The automated taxobox systems references the Pterophyte Phylogeny group, which recognised two classes of pteridophytes: Lycopodiopsida (lycophytes) and Polypodiopsida (ferns). All lycophytes are included in Lycopodiopsida, making it equivalent to Lycopodiophyta (at least for extant species). This seems to be the currently favoured approach, whereas I think splitting the lycophytes into two classes is more traditional.   Jts1882 | talk  12:32, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
That does not explain the muddle and lack of consistency between lycopod articles. For example, if that PPG defines the taxonomy that is currently accepted (is there an RS for that?) then the article Lycopodiophyta needs to be rewritten to reflect it and the Isoetes article is inconsistent in referring to Isoetopsida. Plantsurfer 14:36, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

We had a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants/Archive69#Pteridophyte classification. I fixed the categories, and some of the articles to use PPG I as the main system for taxoboxes and article names, and as there was no dissent (although not much positive support) I have on my over-long "to-do" list to sort out some more of the articles, while of course mentioning the alternatives. It would be good if there were more editors willing to work on this!

To the level of order, PPG I (for extant taxa) is as follows, and as you can see by following the links, is mostly implemented, allowing for monotypic taxa. I've noted the two that need to be fixed. The counts are from PPG I and are of extant taxa only.

  • Class Lycopodiopsida Bartl. – 3 orders; the article needs to be fixed to say that the class includes 3 orders in the PPG I system, and the Lycopodiales info moved out
      • Order Lycopodiales DC. ex Bercht. & J.Presl – 1 family; needs a new article, not to redirect upwards, or downwards because it's not monofamilial when you include extinct spp. according to some accounts
      • Order Isoetales Prantl – 1 family
      • Order Selaginellales Prantl – 1 family
  • Class Polypodiopsida Cronquist, Takht. & W.Zimm. – 11 orders; I don't think that "fern" is the right English name for the article now that it includes horsetails; "fern" as commonly understood is a paraphyletic group within Polypodiopsida

But, as Plantsurfer found, there is more that needs to be done to make articles consistent at a lower level.

A remaining, and unsolved (unsolvable at present?) problem is the ranks above PPG I's class. Their paper says "The present classification recognizes the two classes [of Ruggiero et al. (2015)] but does not make recommendations above this rank." The taxonomy templates are inconsistent, as are our articles. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:04, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Further issues are with these articles, since they don't explain how they relate to the PPG I system, and links within them go to a different circumscription than intended.
  • Lycopodiophyta – for example, in the two cladograms, "Lycopodiopsida" has the same wikilink, but has two totally different senses: the first would be something like Lycopodiidae if the PPG used the subclass, the second is the PPG I sense, allowing for extinct taxa
  • Lycopodiidae
  • Isoetopsida
Peter coxhead (talk) 17:09, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Eucalyptus gregoryensis

Hello Peter - grovelling request for help. The Australian Plant Census (although not WCSP) has changed the name of Eucalyptus gregoriensis to E. gregoryensis. So, I have swapped the article about the former with the redirect at the other. That means E. gregoryensis does not have a Talk page with the article history. I have page mover rights (thanks to you) but when I use them I stuff things up. (I'm not a tech-head obviously.) Any help or advice would be much appreciated. Gderrin (talk) 23:26, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

You can move a page over a redirect if it only has a single edit, the edit history or attempt to move the page will tell you otherwise (you could have moved the page yourself before you edited the target of the move). Someone who knows how to use a delete tool can merge the history of the two pages, probably an admin, @Graham87: does a good job on history merges. cygnis insignis 01:30, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Thank you and thanks @Graham87: and @Cygnis insignis:. I hope I get better with age! Gderrin (talk) 03:03, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
@Gderrin: All fixed, after a bit of toing and froing; please don't do any more cut-and-paste moves. Thanks @Cygnis insignis: for the ping. Graham87 04:10, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Peter_coxhead/Archive_20&oldid=913780745"