User talk:Pvmoutside/Archive 4
August 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter
[edit]- August 2019—Issue 005
- Tree of Life
- Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Letter-winged kite by Casliber |
Kosmoceratops by FunkMonk |
Guest column by Thomas Shafee (Evolution and evolvability), Editor in Chief of WikiJournal of Science
Firstly, WikiJSci can be a complementary system for FA review (getting external review, input, and validity). When an Wikipedia article is nominated (via WP:JAN), journal editors go out to non-Wikipedian academics and researchers who have published on the subject on the last five years and invite them to give feedback comments (e.g. Peripatric speciation and Baryonyx). The resulting changes can then be integrated back into the Wikipedia article.
Getting more editors involved in Wikipedia is always a high priority. WikiJSci can also be a way to encourage new people to contribute articles (especially on missing/stub/start topics). An example of an article that was written from scratch by a group of non-Wikipedians is Teladorsagia circumcincta. This not only resulted in a new Wikipedia page on an underdeveloped topic, but introduced the idea of Wikimedia contribution to a group of people who had previously never considered it.
The journal can be a way to get multimedia content reviewed or encourage contribution. The same approach could be easily adapted to sounds (e.g. frog mating calls) or videos (e.g. starfish feet motion). It also allows for tracking of those images in new articles via Altmetric (this example has >200, which is bananas). There aren't any biology examples in WikiJSci yet, but the sister medical journal has published a few summary diagrams, photography, and image galleries. Examples include this gallery by Blausen Medical or the diagram of cell disassembly during apoptosis.
For those interested in other Wikimedia sister projects, there's also broad scope for interactions with the WikiJournals. Perhaps peer reviewed teaching resources could be useful to sit alongside sets of Wikipedia articles and be integrated into Wikiversity courses (like this or this)? Can sections of Wikidata & Wikispecies be peer reviewed? What are the potential avenues for integration with WikiCite, WikiFactMine, Scholia, etc.? Currently, WikiJSci is aiming to be very flexible and try out different formats so long as they can be externally peer reviewed. For more info, see the 2019-06-30 Signpost article and the current sister project proposal. |
1) Enwebb: You're very prolific with DYKs, with over 2,000 nominations credited (in fact, I'll highlight which DYK nominations this month were yours below). What made you become so involved in this part of Wikipedia? Why should Tree of Life editors nominate articles for DYK?
2) Enwebb: I noticed that your DYK nominations reflect a diverse array of flora and fauna, from trees, marine invertebrates, birds, fishes, and mammals. How do you decide what to work on?
3) Enwebb: Which of your Wikipedia accomplishments are you most proud of?
4) Enwebb: What motivates you to keep contributing? What's your 10,000 ft view (pardon the non-SI) of the community and Tree of Life?
6) Enwebb: How did you first become interested in natural history?
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Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 15:43, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
Your help please
[edit]when you create new stubs about biota in Australia, in Australia is particularly problematic in relation to the size of the continent. It would be really appreciated if you could make the effort to identify where in Australia. Some geckos, lizards and other slithering things simply do not have the metabolisms to populate the continent, let alone even move much out of fairly limited range habitats. It helps the taggers who have to follow you who wonder where exactly in oz, the delightful little creatures actually inhabit. Thanks. JarrahTree 09:13, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
September 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter
[edit]- September 2019—Issue 006
- Tree of Life
- Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Kosmoceratops by FunkMonk |
Apororhynchus by Mattximus |
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This month saw a vanishingly rare occurrence for the Tree of Life: a new WikiProject joined the fold. WikiProject Diptera, however, is also unusual in being a classroom project. Whether or not this project will stay active once the semester ends remains to be seen. It does not bode well, however, that WP:WikiProject Vespidae—a creation from the same instructor at St. Louis University—faded to obscurity shortly after the fall semester concluded in 2014. WikiProject Vespidae is defunct and now redirects to the Hymenoptera task force of WikiProject Insects. Since 2014, the Tree of Life has seen a string of years where one or zero projects or task forces were created. The only projects and task forces created since then are WikiProject Animal anatomy (2014), Hymenoptera task force (2016), Bats task force (2017), WikiProject Hypericaceae (2018), and now WikiProject Diptera (2019). The year 2006 saw the greatest creation of WikiProjects and task forces, with fourteen still active and the remaining six as "semiactive", "inactive", or "defunct". |
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Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 22:26, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
List of birds of Europe
[edit]Hi pvmoutside. I see you've removed Hume's whitehroat and Desert whitethroat form the List of birds of Europe page. Hume's whitehroat is accepted on the Dutch list (see https://www.dutchavifauna.nl/species/humes_braamsluiper). OK if I add that one again?Calonectris (talk) 13:18, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
- .My bad.....I see the European list references the IOC as its source which includes the Humes and Desert Whitethroat (the Clements list does not)…..go ahead and add them....Pvmoutside (talk) 16:50, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
- .Thanks for the reply. I'll make the adjstments. Not entirely sure on the status of desert Whitethroat. I couldn't easily find an accepted record the last time I checked, but that's also because of the poor understanding of that species complex.
It was my understanding that all bird lists on WP use IOC as their standard. Is this not correct? Calonectris (talk) 16:02, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
- good you are adjusting... No, the bird lists predominately use Clements as the standard. Some lists use the IOC, others use country or regional organizations....all species taxonomy pages and English names for species pages are standardized on the IOC. Europe can use the IOC if you wish since it already states that.....I don't think there ever has been a discussion on standardization for bird lists at the wikiproject...There has been one for taxonomy and English names for the species pages.....Pvmoutside (talk) 16:16, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Speedy deletion nomination of Diaptomididae
[edit]If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.
You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.
Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. This is a notice to inform you that a tag has been placed on Diaptomididae requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an article with no content whatsoever, or whose contents consist only of external links, a "See also" section, book references, category tags, template tags, interwiki links, images, a rephrasing of the title, a question that should have been asked at the help or reference desks, or an attempt to contact the subject of the article. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. Jalen Folf (talk) 02:23, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
- @JalenFolf: the page was clearly a mistaken copy of Template:Taxonomy/Diaptomididae – the content is not an infobox but a taxonomy template. I've quickly created a stub for the family itself. It may be a misspelling of "Diaptomidae", in which case both the article and the taxonomy template need to be redirected. However, there are scientific articles with this spelling. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:27, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
- It sure looks like a spelling error that originated on Wikipedia. All the taxonbar databases at Leptodiaptomus ashlandi put it in family Diaptomidae, as do the other language Wikipedias. Diaptomididae has been in en.wiki articles on Leptodiaptomus species since June 2014, and the only scientific article with that spelling was published in 2017. Plantdrew (talk) 21:31, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
- I'm OK with Diaptomididae speedy deletes. I assumed the family to be correct when I when I copy and pasted yesterday......Pvmoutside (talk) 00:50, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
- Ok, I agree it's a misspelling. For now, I redirected Diaptomididae and put Template:Taxonomy/Diaptomididae in Category:Unnecessary taxonomy templates (which could usefully be taken to WP:Tfd). Peter coxhead (talk) 08:44, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
- I'm OK with Diaptomididae speedy deletes. I assumed the family to be correct when I when I copy and pasted yesterday......Pvmoutside (talk) 00:50, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
- It sure looks like a spelling error that originated on Wikipedia. All the taxonbar databases at Leptodiaptomus ashlandi put it in family Diaptomidae, as do the other language Wikipedias. Diaptomididae has been in en.wiki articles on Leptodiaptomus species since June 2014, and the only scientific article with that spelling was published in 2017. Plantdrew (talk) 21:31, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
- Also, there is a Category:Taxa named by Ernesto Marcus which should be deleted as it is empty....Pvmoutside (talk) 02:29, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Nacamier Nunoi
[edit]MelanieN (copying MelanieN) In two days, 10/29 & today, this new editor made 109 primary sourced additions of American Conservative Union voting scores to the ledes of recent and incumbent Republican congresspersons. I've reverted 70 and will continue until they're all rolled back but you had made the last edit to a number of those articles before "Nunoi" vandalized them. That's the only thing this editor has done under that USER name. Other editors have probably done rolled back more than a dozen more. Any suggestions on how to deal with it as he or she will probably continue to vandalize articles? Activist (talk) 20:40, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
- user:goldringchip may have some ideas. It does look like a few editors are keeping up with nacamier nunoi deleting the edits.....thanks for letting me know....Pvmoutside (talk) 01:19, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
October 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter
[edit]- October 2019—Issue 007
- Tree of Life
- Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Meinhard Michael Moser by J Milburn |
King brown snake by Casliber |
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By request from another editor, this month I wrote an overview of ways that content is featured on Wikipedia. Below I have outlined some of the processes for getting content featured: Did You Know (DYK)[edit]What is it: A way for articles to appear on the main page of Wikipedia. A short hook in the format of "Did you know...that ___" presents unusual and interesting facts to the reader, hopefully making the reader want to click through to the article How it works: The DYK process has fairly low barriers for participation. The eligibility criteria are few and relatively easy to meet. Some important guidelines:
The process for creating the nomination is somewhat tedious. Instructions can be found here (official instructions) and here ("quick and nice" guide to DYK). Experience is the best teacher here, so don't be afraid to try and fail a few times. The last few DYK nominations I've done, however, have been with the help of SD0001's DYK-helper script, which makes the process a bit more streamlined (you create the template from a popup box on the article; created template is automatically transcluded to nominations page and article talk page) Once your nomination is created and transcluded, it will need to be reviewed. The reviewer will check that the article meets the eligibility criteria, that the hook is short enough, cited, and interesting, and that other requirements are met, such as for images. If you've been credited with more than 5 DYKs, the reviewer will also check that you've reviewed someone else's nomination for each article that you nominate. This is called QPQ (quid pro quo). You can check how many credited DYKs you've had here to see if QPQ is required for you to nominate an article for DYK. Good Article (GA)[edit]What it is: A peer review process to determine that an article meets a set of criteria. This adds a symbol to the top of the article. About 1 in 200 articles on Wikipedia is a GA. How it works: You follow the instructions to nominate an article, placing a template on its talk page. Anyone can nominate an article—you don't have to be a major contributor, though it is considered polite to inform the major contributors that you are nominating the article. The article is added to a queue to await a review. In the ToL, it seems that reviews happen pretty quickly, thanks to our dedicated members. Once the review begins, the reviewer will offer suggestions to help the article meet the 6 GA criteria. Upon addressing all concerns, the reviewer will pass the article, and voilà! Good Article! Advice to a first-time nominator: Look at other Good Articles in related areas before nominating. If you're unsure about nominating, consider posting to the talk page of your project to see what other editors think. You can also have a more experienced editor co-nominate the article with you. Featured Article (FA)[edit]What it is: An exhaustive peer review to determine that an articles meets the criteria. This adds a to the top of the article. About 1 in 1,000 articles on Wikipedia is a FA. How it works: You follow the instructions to nominate an article, placing a template on its talk page. Nominated articles are usually GAs already. Uninvolved editors can nominate, though the article's regular editors should be consulted first. Several editors will come by offering feedback, eventually supporting or opposing promotion to FA. A coordinator will determine if there is consensus to promote the article to FA. For an editor's first FA, spot checks to verify that the sources support the text are conducted. Advice to a first-time nominator: The Featured Article Candidate (FAC) process is a bit intimidating, but several steps can make your first one easier (speaking as someone who has exactly one). If you also did the GA nomination of the article, you can ask the reviewer for "extra" feedback beyond the GA criteria. You can also formally request a peer review and/or a copy edit from the Guild of Copy Editors to check for content and mechanics. First-time nominators are encouraged to seek the help of a mentor for a higher likelihood of passing their first FAC. Good and Featured Topics (GT and FT)[edit]What it is: It took me a while to realize we even had GT and FT on Wikipedia, as they are not very common relative to GA and FA. Both GT and FT are collections of related articles of high quality (all articles at GA or FA, all lists at Featured List). GT/FT have to be at least 3 articles with no obvious gaps in coverage of the topic, along with other criteria. For GT, all articles have to be GA quality and all lists must be FL. For FT, at least half the articles must be FA or FL, with the remaining articles at GA. How it works: Follow the nomination procedures for creating a new topic or adding an article to an existing topic. Other editors weigh in to support or oppose the proposal. Coordinators determine if there is consensus to promote to GT/FT. Advice to a first-time nominator: There are very few GT/FT in Tree of Life (5 GT and 11 FT). Most of the legwork appears to be improving a cohesive set of articles to GA/FA. |
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Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 03:34, 3 November 2019 (UTC) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk)
Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Years#Past or present tense
[edit]You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Years#Past or present tense. —GoldRingChip 17:06, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Shortwing pictures
[edit]Hello! Someone wrote in to OTRS to point out that we have the same picture on Himalayan shortwing and on White-browed shortwing. I wouldn't know a robin from a sparrow, but I figure you might be able to sort it out.
P.S. Go Minutemen! or something. —Emufarmers(T/C) 04:09, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
I have PRODed this page; thought you'd like to know as you've edited it. ShreiberBike also knows. Craigthebirder (talk) 01:59, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
Page move request 3
[edit]Hi Pvmoutside, as a result of the page move discussion held on the project talk page here, could you move Southern crested toad to its scientific binomial (Peltophryne guentheri)? The binomial is currently a redirect with minimal page history. Following the move, I will then merge the content of Eastern crested toad into that page as well. Thanks, Loopy30 (talk) 12:07, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
- all set...Pvmoutside (talk) 12:17, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
ArbCom 2019 election voter message
[edit]Round robin moves and redirect templates
[edit]Might be you're already aware of this--your talkpage is a bit too long for me to go read through everything to check--but if doing round-robin moves of taxa, any chance that, when updating the redirect targets, you could also double-check if the redirect templates on the redirect(s) still make sense after the move? I've found a number of moves you made where you had left redirect templates such as "R from monotypic taxon" and "R to scientific name" on redirects that were, post-move, to a monotypic taxon or from a scientific name instead. AddWittyNameHere 23:48, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
November 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter
[edit]- November 2019—Issue 008
- Tree of Life
- Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
King brown snake by Casliber |
News at a Glance |
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Class is in Session in the Tree of Life |
In an interesting turn of events, this month's guest column is by my alter-ego, Elysia (Wiki Ed): *Puts on Wiki Education hat* Hi everyone, I'm Elysia and I work for Wiki Education. You may know me as Enwebb. I got a request last month to let you know how Wiki Education is intersecting with the Tree of Life subprojects. As one of Wiki Education's major goals is to improve topics related to the sciences, leading to our Communicating Science initiative, we end up supporting quite a few in the biological sciences. Here are the TOL-related courses active this term: What is the impact of student editors in Tree of Life? Altogether, these 16 courses have 347 student participants. As the end of the semester hasn't come yet, these numbers are still growing, but these students have:
Some of our best student work this semester (of any kind, not just biodiversity) has come from Agelaia's Behavioural Ecology course—you may remember this as the course that created WikiProject Diptera. The students have several Good Article nominations, including Dryomyza anilis, Anastrepha ludens, Aedes taeniorhynchus, Drosophila silvestris, Drosophila subobscura, and Ceratitis capitata. And while long-term participation from students is low, there's always the chance that we'll discover a Wikipedian. I had never edited before my Wikipedia assignment in 2017 and I'm still here nearly 20,000 edits later! After I poked around in the beginning of the semester, I had the realization that not many people write Wikipedia, and very few of those have a special interest in bats. If I didn't stick around to write the content, there was no guarantee that it would ever get done. Why are species articles suitable for students? Writing about taxonomic groups is a great fit for students, as it keeps them away from areas where new editors traditionally struggle. The notability policy is generous towards taxa, and there is little danger of a student's work getting removed for lack of notability; this is to be expected when students write biographies. Students may struggle with encyclopedic tone for biographies and stray towards promotional writing, but this is much less common when writing about a shrew or algae! Additionally, we're never going to run out of species to write about. Students have a bounty of stubs and redlinks to pick from. Creating a new article or expanding an existing one also takes a fairly predictable structure, with plenty of articles that students can model after. Don't students just create messes for volunteers to clean up? Our sincere hope is that, no, they don't, and we take several steps to try to minimize the burden on volunteer labor. With automatic plagiarism detection, alerts when students edit a Good or Featured Article, and notifications when students edit an article subject to discretionary sanctions, we try to stay ahead of problems as much as possible. We also review all student work at the end of each term. Ian, Shalor, and I are always happy to receive pings alerting us to student issues that need to be addressed. |
November DYKs |
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Disambiguation link notification for December 11
[edit]An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Pygmy marmoset, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Vulnerable (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).
(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 08:54, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress#Lists of living former members. —GoldRingChip 15:01, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
"Cochranella" ramirezi
[edit]Hi Pvmoutside, on 30 Oct, I moved the page name for Cochranella ramirezi to a title with quotes around the genus name, including a reason provided in the edit summary that it is presently incertae sedis. Today you have reversed this move, but without any edit summary explaining why. As the original page move (and others like it) was done to bring the naming of frog species in line with ASW 6.0 (ref), could you either provide a reason for your change or return it back to the previous state? Loopy30 (talk) 22:43, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
- done...sorry, it looked weird...…Pvmoutside (talk) 01:56, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for December 26
[edit]An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Natal shyshark, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Vulnerable (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).
(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 08:07, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
December 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter
[edit]- December 2019—Issue 009
- Tree of Life
- Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Apororhynchus by Mattximus |
Cactus wren by CaptainEek |
News at a Glance |
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Editor Spotlight: Plantdrew |
We're joined this month by long-time editor Plantdrew, who's currently engaged in streamlining the taxonomic structure of Wikipedia articles via the automated taxobox system. How did you become a Wikipedian? What are your particular interests (besides the obvious of "plants")?
What projects are keeping you busy around the 'pedia at present?
What's your favorite plant?
What's your background like? How did you come to have a special interest in biology?
What's something that would surprised TOL editors about your life off-wiki?
Anything else you'd like us to know?
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December DYKs |
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"Editing Category:Taxa named by Willis Blatchley" listed at Redirects for discussion
[edit]An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Editing Category:Taxa named by Willis Blatchley. Since you had some involvement with the Editing Category:Taxa named by Willis Blatchley redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Pkbwcgs (talk) 20:41, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
"Editing Category:Taxa named by Si-min Lin" listed at Redirects for discussion
[edit]An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Editing Category:Taxa named by Si-min Lin. Since you had some involvement with the Editing Category:Taxa named by Si-min Lin redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Pkbwcgs (talk) 20:44, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Ptychozoon
[edit]A tag has been placed on Category:Ptychozoon requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 03:37, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm fine if you want the names to remain as above. But you removed Dinopium benghalense psarodes from the description with the edit summary "Clean up". Was that intentional? Rehman 16:37, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
- yes, we follow the IOC with all taxonomic and English name conventions. The IOC lists Dinopium psarodes as a species...Pvmoutside (talk) 17:26, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
- With regards to the latter, yes they may list as such, but Dinopium benghalense psarodes is a synonym. Rehman 02:10, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
- I added the synonym to the appropriate place....thanks....Pvmoutside (talk) 18:50, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
- With regards to the latter, yes they may list as such, but Dinopium benghalense psarodes is a synonym. Rehman 02:10, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for January 25
[edit]An automated process has detected that when you recently edited List of birds of Turkey, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Rock pipit (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).
(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 11:27, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
Disambiguation pages
[edit]Hello, Pvmoutside. When you moved Whimbrel to a new title and then changed the old title into a disambiguation page, you may not have been aware of WP:FIXDABLINKS, which says:
- When creating disambiguation pages, fix all resulting mis-directed links.
- Before moving an article to a qualified name (in order to create a disambiguation page at the base name, to move an existing disambiguation page to that name, or to redirect that name to a disambiguation page), click on What links here to find all of the incoming links. Repair all of those incoming links to use the new article name.
It would be a great help if you would check the other Wikipedia articles that contain links to "Whimbrel" and fix them to take readers to the correct article. Thanks. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 00:08, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
- Whimbrel has 270 incoming links (eight times more than any other disambiguation page on Wikipedia) and the gnomes are finding it hard to fix them because the birds are so similar. Any help would still be appreciated. Certes (talk) 19:49, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
- I'm working on it.....I've done all the bird lists except North and South America, I've told the person who takes care of those pages, and he should be back in a week or so.....I still have other disambig pages for the Eurasian whimbrel I am still working on and should be done with them in a few days.....Pvmoutside (talk) 19:53, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
January 2020 Tree of Life Newsletter
[edit]- January 2020—Issue 010
- Tree of Life
- Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Megarachne by Ichthyovenator |
Wolf by LittleJerry |
News at a Glance |
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Vital Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The vital articles project on English Wikipedia began in 2004 when an editor transferred a list from Meta-Wiki: List of articles every Wikipedia should have. The first incarnation of the list became what is now level 3. As of 2019, there are 5 levels of vital articles:
Each level is inclusive of all previous levels, meaning that the 1,000 Level 3 articles include those listed on Levels 2 and 1. Below is an overview of the distribution of vital articles, and the quality of the articles. While the ultimate goal of the vital articles project is to have Featured-class articles, I also considered Good Articles to be "complete" for the purposes of this list. Animals (1,148 designated out of projected 2,400)
Plants, fungi, and other organisms (510 designated out of projected 1,200)
Many articles have yet to be designated for Tree of Life taxonomic groups, with 1,942 outstanding articles to be added. Anyone can add vital articles to the list! Restructuring may be necessary, as the only viruses included as of yet are under the category "Health". The majority of vital articles needing improvement are level 5, but here are some outstanding articles from the other levels:
· Abiogenesis · Death · Cell · Human evolution · Organism · Zoology · Cattle · Dog · Reptile · Flower · Nut · Seed · Algae · Eukaryote · Biodiversity · Extinction · Photosynthesis
· Sexual dimorphism · Feather · Fur · Hair · Gill · Plant anatomy · Plant morphology · Berry · Leaf · Root · Stoma · Shrub · Plant stem · Bark · Trunk · Epidermis · Ground tissue · Meristem · Vascular tissue · Vascular cambium · Hypha · Mycelium |
January DYKs |
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Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Taxa named by Jean-Théodore Cocteau
[edit]A tag has been placed on Category:Taxa named by Jean-Théodore Cocteau requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:55, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
February 2020 Tree of Life Newsletter
[edit]- February 2020—Issue 011
- Tree of Life
- Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Segnosaurus by FunkMonk |
Danuvius guggenmosi by Dunkleosteus77 |
News at a Glance |
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The spread of coronavirus across Wikipedia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
With the outbreak of a novel coronavirus dominating news coverage, Wikipedia content related to the virus has seen much higher interest. Tree of Life content of particular interest to readers has included viruses, bats, pangolins, and masked palm civets. Viruses saw the most dramatic growth in readership: Coronavirus, which was the 105th most popular virus article in December 2019 with about 400 views per day, averaged over a quarter million views each day of January 2020. Total monthly viewership of the top-10 virus articles ballooned from about 1.5 million to nearly 20 million.
From October 2019 – December 2019, the top ten most popular bat articles fluctuated among 16 different articles, with the December viewership of those 10 articles at 209,280. For January 2020, three articles broke into the top-10 that were not among the 16 articles of the prior three months: Bat as food, Horseshoe bat, and Bat-borne virus. Viewership of the top-10 bat articles spiked nearly 300% to 617,067 in January. While bats have been implicated as a possible natural reservoir of SARS-CoV-2, an intermediate host may be the bridge between bats and humans. Pangolins have been hypothesized as the intermediate host for the virus, causing a large spike in typical page views of 2-3k each day up to more than 60k in a day. Masked palm civets, the intermediate host of SARS, saw a modest yet noticeable spike in page views as well, from 100 to 300 views per day to as many as 5k views per day. With an increase in viewers came an increase in editors. In an interview, longtime virus editor Awkwafaba identified the influx of editors as the biggest challenge in editing content related to the coronavirus. They noted that these newcomers include "novices who make honest mistakes and get tossed about a bit in the mad activity" as well as "experienced editors who know nothing about viruses and are good researchers, yet aren't familiar with the policies of WP:ToL or WP:Viruses." Disruption also increased, with extended confirmed protection (also known as the 30/500 rule, which prevents editors with fewer than 30 days tenure and 500 edits from making edits and is typically used on a very small subset of Wikipedia articles) temporarily applied to Coronavirus and still active on Template:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak data. New editors apparently seeking to correct misinformation continuously edited the article Bat as food to remove content related to China: Videos of Chinese people eating bat soup were misrepresented to be current or filmed in China, when at least one such video was several years old and filmed in Palau. However, reliable sources confirm that bats are eaten in China, especially Southern China, so these well-meaning edits were mostly removed. Another level of complexity was added by the fluctuating terminology of the virus. Over a dozen moves and merges were requested within WikiProject Viruses. To give you an idea of the musical chairs happening with article titles, here are the move histories of two articles: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Awkwafaba noted that "the main authorities, WHO and ICTV, don't really have a process for speedily naming a virus or disease." Additionally, they have different criteria for naming. They said, "I remember in a move discussion from the article then called Wuhan coronavirus that a virus name cannot have a geographical location in it, but this is a WHO disease naming guideline, and not an ICTV virus naming rule. ICTV may have renamed Four Corners virus to Sin Nombre orthohantavirus but there are still plenty of official virus species names that don't abide by WHO guidelines." |
February DYKs |
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List_of_birds_of_Switzerland
[edit]Thanks for identifying the source of the material in your edit.
This type of edit does get picked up by Copy Patrol and a good edit summary helps to make sure we don't accidentally revert it. However, for future use, would you note the best practices wording as outlined at Wikipedia:Copying_within_Wikipedia? In particular, adding the phrase "see that page's history for attribution" helps ensure that proper attribution is preserved.S Philbrick(Talk) 12:46, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
thanks for going to the trouble (sigh)
[edit]Glen Storr was an important person in his field in western australia, butler less so JarrahTree 15:13, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
March 2020 Tree of Life Newsletter
[edit]- March 2020—Issue 012
- Tree of Life
- Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Argentinosaurus by Slate Weasel and Jens Lallensack |
Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations by Britishfinance |
News at a glance |
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A new WikiProject responding to the pandemic | ||
The newest Tree of Life WikiProject is about a taxon that is dominating the headlines, Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, and its many effects. We interviewed Another Believer, the founder of WikiProject COVID-19. This interview has been edited for length. Find the full interview here.
Number of participants of WikiProject Covid-19
Thank you to Another Believer for your time, both in this interview and in this project. Interested readers can join WikiProject COVID-19. And please stay safe and healthy out there. --Awkwafaba |
March DYKs |
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Disambiguation link notification for April 14
[edit]An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Marumba dyras, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Francis Walker (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).
(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 14:55, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Since you created this article, I'm giving you a heads up. Based on this[1] I altered[2] the list of Auditors. As the source I mention is a Wyoming government website, I feel it is a WP:RS and justifies the changes I made....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 12:51, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Thomasia
[edit]I believe your change of genus from Haramiya to Thomasia is incorrect. You have stated the change was on the basis of your discovery of an older name found in GBIS, however Thomasia was already being used as a plant genus, and still is, so Thomasia cannot as a mammal genus cannot be valid. Further, I do not believe there to be any uses of the genus name in any recent literature, so even if you were correct it is a change that cannot be made in Wikipedia as this would be personal research. Could you please undo the changes that you have made Jameel the Saluki (talk) 05:38, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
- I believe the Thomasia change is correct because it is the only one I see as referenced. The previous genus was not and shows inactive at many taxonomic sites. There are a couple of occasions where plant and animal genera use the same taxa name.....Pvmoutside (talk) 13:04, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
Megazostrodontidae
[edit]Hello, I'm Smjg. I noticed that you recently removed all content from Megazostrodontidae. Please do not do this. Blank pages are harmful to Wikipedia because they have a tendency to confuse readers. As a rule, if you discover a duplicate article, please redirect it to an appropriate existing page. If a page has been vandalised, please revert it to the last legitimate version. If you feel that the content of a page is inappropriate, please edit the page and replace it with appropriate content. If you believe there is no hope for the page, please see the deletion policy for how to proceed. If this was a mistake, don't worry; the removed content has been restored. If you wish to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. — Smjg (talk) 11:17, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
April 2020 Tree of Life Newsletter
[edit]- April 2020—Issue 013
- Tree of Life
- Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Danuvius guggenmosi by Dunkleosteus77, reviewed by J Milburn |
Lythronax by FunkMonk, Lythronaxargestes and IJReid |
News at a glance |
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Tree of Life's growing featured content | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Inspired by a March 2020 post at WikiProject Medicine detailing the growth of Featured Articles over time, we decided to reproduce that table here, adding a second table showing the growth of Good Articles. Tree of Life articles are placed in the "Biology" category for FAs, which has seen a growth of 381% since 2008. Only two other subjects had a greater growth than Biology: Business, economics, and finance; and Warfare. Percentage Growth in FA Categories, 2008–2019, Legend: Considerably above average, Above average, Average Below average , Considerably below average, Poor
*subset of natural sciences Unsurprisingly, the number of GAs has increased more rapidly than the number of FAs. Organisms, which is a subcategory of Natural sciences, has seen a GA growth of 755% since 2008, besting the Natural sciences overall growth of 530%. While Warfare had far and away the most significant growth of GAs, it's a clear outlier relative to other categories. |
April DYKs |
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:40, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Please explain your reverts that link to a dab page
[edit]Such as this (or, of course, self-revert your edits). DexDor (talk) 16:41, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
- So the species has been split by the IOC, but not Clements, which the lists follow. Both occur in those areas.....Pvmoutside (talk) 16:50, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
- That would explain a change to the text (e.g. from "RA, DE" to "RA, DS and DE"). It doesn't explain the change you made (linking to dab instead of article). DexDor (talk) 17:46, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
- Since taxonomy follows the IOC and the lists follow clements, Clements still has it listed as one species, but the tax link gives it to the two...…Pvmoutside (talk) 19:12, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
- That would explain a change to the text (e.g. from "RA, DE" to "RA, DS and DE"). It doesn't explain the change you made (linking to dab instead of article). DexDor (talk) 17:46, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for May 15
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Disambiguation link notification for May 25
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Category:Grackles has been nominated for deletion
[edit]Category:Grackles has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. DexDor (talk) 13:21, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
May 2020 Tree of Life Newsletter
[edit]- May 2020—Issue 014
- Tree of Life
- Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Gigantorhynchus by Mattximus |
News at a glance |
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Interview with Jts1882 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This month we're joined by Jts1882, who is active in depicting evolutionary relationship of taxa via cladograms. Part of this includes responding to cladogram requests, where interested editors can have cladograms made without using the templates themselves. How did you come to be interested in systematics? Are you interested in systematics broadly, or is there a particular group you're most fond of? As long as I can remember I’ve been interested in nature, starting with the animals and plants in the garden, school grounds, and local wood, and then more general wildlife worldwide. An interest in how things are classified grew from this. I like things to be organised and understanding the relationships between things and systems (not just living things) is a big part of that. Biology was always my favourite subject in school and took up a disproportionate part of my time. My interest in systematics is broad as I’d like to comprehend the whole tree of life, but the cat family is my favourite group. What's the background behind cladogram requests? I see that it isn't a very old part of the Tree of Life Well I can’t take any credit for the cladogram requests page, although I help out there sometimes. It was created by IJReid and there are several people who have helped there more than me. I think the motivation is that creating cladograms requires a knowledge of the templates that is daunting for many editors. It was one way of helping people who want to focus on content creation. My main contribution to the cladograms is converting the {{clade}} template to use a Lua module. The template code was extremely difficult to follow and had to be repetitive (I can only admire the efforts of those who got the thing to work in the first place). The conversion to Lua made it more efficient, allowed larger and deeper cladograms, plus facilitating the introduction of new features. The cladogram request page was recently the venue for discussion on making time calibrated cladograms, which is now possible, if not particularly user friendly. What advice do you have for an editor who wants to learn how to make cladograms? The same advice I would give to someone facing any computer problem, just try it out. Start by taking existing code for a cladogram and make changes yourself. The main advice would be to format it properly so indents match the brackets vertically. Of course, not everyone wants to learn and if someone prefers to focus on article content there is the cladogram request page. Examples of cladograms Jts1882 has created, showing different proposed clades for Neoaves
Do you have any personal projects or goals you're working towards on Wikipedia? As I said I like organisation and systems. So I find efforts like the automated taxobox system and {{taxonbar}} appealing. I would like to see more reuse of the major phylogenetic trees on Wikipedia with more use of consensus trees on the higher taxa. Too often they get edited based on one recent report and/or without proper citation. Animals and bilateria are examples where this is a problem. Towards this I have been working on a system of phylogeny templates that can be reused flexibly. The {{Clade transclude}} template allows selective transclusion, so the phylogenetic trees on one page can be reused with modifications, i.e. can be pruned and grafted, used with or without images, with or without collapsible elements, etc. I have an example for the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification (see {{Phylogeny/APG IV}}) and one for squamates that also includes collapsible elements (see {{Phylogeny/Squamata}}). A second project is to have a modular reference system for taxonomic resources. I have made some progress along this lines with the {{BioRef}} template. This started off simply as a way of hardlinking to Catalog of Fishes pages and I’ve gradually expanded it to cover other groups (e..g. FishBase, AmphibiaWeb and Amphibian Species of the World, Reptile Database, the Mammalian Diversity Database). The modular nature is still rudimentary and needs a rewrite before it is ready for wider use. What would surprise your fellow editors to learn about your life off-Wikipedia? I don’t think there is anything particularly surprising or interesting about my life. I’ve had an academic career as a research scientist but I don't think anyone could guess the area from my Wikipedia edits. I prefer to work on areas where I am learning at the same time. This why I spend more time with neglected topics (e.g. mosses at the moment). I start reading and then find that I’m not getting the information I want. Anything else you'd like us to know? My interest in the classification of things goes beyond biology. I am fascinated by mediaeval attempts to classify knowledge, such as Bacon in his The Advancement of Learning and Diderot and d’Alembert in their Encyclopédie. They were trying to come up with a universal scheme of knowledge just as the printing press was allowing greater dissemination of knowledge. With the internet we are seeing a new revolution in knowledge dissemination. Just look at how we could read research papers on the COVID virus within weeks of its discovery. With an open internet, everyone has access, not just those with the luxury of books at home or good libraries. Sites like the Biodiversity Heritage Library allow you to read old scientific works without having to visit dusty university library stack rooms, while the taxonomic and checklist databases provide instant information on millions of living species. In principle, the whole world can now find out about anything, even if Douglas Adams warned we might be disinclined to do so. This is why I like Wikipedia, with all its warts, it’s a means of organising the knowledge on the internet. In just two decades it’s become a first stop for knowledge and hopefully a gateway to more specialised sources. Perhaps developing this latter aspect, beyond providing good sources for what we say, is the next challenge for Wikipedia. |
May DYKs |
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Enwebb (talk) 19:40, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Something about Gallirallus
[edit]See IOC version 10.2 (draft), Gallirallus was found to be paraphyletic (many species moved to Hypotaenidia (with Nesoclopeus sunk into Hypotaenidia), with the Chatham rail moved to Cabalus, and also the Slaty-Breasted Rail moved to Lewinia), and so it also seems that we have to update the taxonomy of prehistoric species… — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.237.203.92 (talk) 08:12, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
- I usually wait until the drafts become official.....Pvmoutside (talk) 12:50, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
congrats on clearing 187k
[edit]small problem we dont have fauna as a sub project in the oz project - it defaults to biota anyways - it is appreciated when you go to the trouble of locating states on the lead/sole sentence of the stubs... JarrahTree 15:24, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
- it probably means absolutely nothing to you but I knew some of the describers of the skinks - its good to see they have species named after them... JarrahTree 15:29, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
- very cool!....Pvmoutside (talk) 15:52, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
- it probably means absolutely nothing to you but I knew some of the describers of the skinks - its good to see they have species named after them... JarrahTree 15:29, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
Category:Brownbuls has been nominated for merging
[edit]Category:Brownbuls has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. DexDor (talk) 11:37, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Category:Cuniculus has been nominated for renaming
[edit]Category:Cuniculus has been nominated for renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:04, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
Category:Glyphis has been nominated for renaming
[edit]Category:Glyphis has been nominated for renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:09, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Lerista alia
[edit]Hi, could you explain me how you can have accessed the Reptile Database on 22 March 2015 to find information on Lerista alia, a species that was described only in 2019? More in general, it baffles me why you insist using some archaic access date when creating new stubs. I imagine this is some copy-paste thing that would take few seconds to fix. Cheers, Micromesistius (talk) 08:51, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
Category:Rissa has been nominated for renaming
[edit]Category:Rissa has been nominated for renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:49, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
Evan Quah categories
[edit]Hi, I've proposed your two categories Category:Taxa named by Evan S. H. Quah and Category:Taxa named by Evan Quah Seng Huat for merger since they're about the same person. Please comment at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 July 22#Category:Taxa named by Evan Quah Seng Huat if you have any opinion about what the category should be called. Cheers, 59.149.124.29 (talk) 06:05, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
June/July 2020 Tree of Life Newsletter
[edit]- June and July 2020—Issue 015
- Tree of Life
- Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Canada lynx by Sainsf |
News at a glance |
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Categorizing life with DexDor |
DexDor is a WikiGnome with a particular interest in article categorization, including how organisms are categorized.
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June DYKs |
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July DYKs |
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Delivered on behalf of Enwebb (talk) 16:33, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for August 2
[edit]An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Puerto Rican owl, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Bonaparte.
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"Category:Category:Taxa named by Wang Yuan" listed at Redirects for discussion
[edit]A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Category:Category:Taxa named by Wang Yuan. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 August 7#Category:Category:Taxa named by Wang Yuan until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:09, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
Happy First Edit Day!
[edit]Happy First Edit Day!
[edit]Disambiguation link notification for August 9
[edit]An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Trochilinae, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Amazilis.
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August 2020 Tree of Life Newsletter
[edit]- September 2021—Issue 016
- Tree of Life
- Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Horseshoe bat by Enwebb |
Black-and-red broadbill by AryKun |
Hoax taxon sniffed out after nearly fifteen years |
Cross posted from the Signpost On August 7, WikiProject Palaeontology member Rextron discovered a suspicious taxon article, Mustelodon, which was created in November 2005. The article lacked references and the subsequent discussion on WikiProject Palaeontology found that the alleged type locality (where the fossil was first discovered) of Lago Nandarajo "near the northern border of Panama" was nonexistent. In fact, Panama does not even really have a northern border, as it is bounded along the north by the Caribbean Sea. No other publications or databases mentioned Mustelodon, save a fleeting mention in a 2019 book that presumably followed Wikipedia, Felines of the World. The article also appeared in four other languages, Catalan, Spanish, Dutch, and Serbian. In Serbian Wikipedia, a note at the bottom of the page warned: "It is important to note here that there is no data on this genus in the official scientific literature, and all attached data on the genus Mustelodon on this page are taken from the English Wikipedia and are the only known data on this genus of mammals, so the validity of this genus is questionable." Editors took action to alert our counterparts on other projects, and these versions were removed also. As the editor who reached out to Spanish and Catalan Wikipedia, it was somewhat challenging to navigate these mostly foreign languages (I have a limited grasp of Spanish). I doubted that the article had very many watchers, so I knew I had to find some WikiProjects where I could post a machine translation advising of the hoax, and asking that users follow local protocols to remove the article. I was surprised to find, however, that Catalan Wikipedia does not tag articles for WikiProjects on talk pages, meaning I had to fumble around to find what I needed (turns out that WikiProjects are Viquiprojectes in Catalan!) Mustelodon remains on Wikidata, where its "instance of" property was swapped from "taxon" to "fictional taxon". How did this article have such a long lifespan? Early intervention is critical for removing hoaxes. A 2016 report found that a hoax article that survives its first day has an 18% chance of lasting a year.[1] Additionally, hoax articles tend to have longer lifespans if they are in inconspicuous parts of Wikipedia, where they do not receive many views. Mustelodon was only viewed a couple times a day, on average. Mustelodon survived a brush with death three years into its lifespan. The article was proposed for deletion in September 2008, with a deletion rationale of "No references given; cannot find any evidence in peer-reviewed journals that this alleged genus actually exists". Unfortunately, the proposed deletion was contested and the template removed, though the declining editor did not give a rationale. Upon its rediscovery in August 2020, Mustelodon was tagged for speedy deletion under CSD G3 as a "blatant hoax". This was challenged, and an Articles for Deletion discussion followed. On 12 August, the AfD was closed as a SNOW delete. WikiProject Palaeontology members ensured that any trace of it was scrubbed from legitimate articles. The fictional mammal was finally, truly extinct. At the ripe old age of 14 years, 9 months, this is the longest-lived documented hoax on Wikipedia, topping the previous documented record of 14 years, 5 months, set by The Gates of Saturn, a fictitious television show, which was incidentally also discovered in August 2020. How do we discover other hoax taxa? Could we use Wikidata to discover taxa are not linked to databases like ITIS, Fossilworks, and others?
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Spotlight with Mattximus |
This month's spotlight is with Mattximus, author of two Featured Articles and 29 Featured Lists at current count.
I think I have a compulsion to make lists, it doesn't show up in my real life, but online I secretly get a lot of satisfaction making orderly lists and tables. It's a bit of a secret of mine, because it doesn't manifest in any other part of my life. My background is in biology, so this was a natural (haha) fit.
This experiment was just to see if I could get any random article to FA status, so I picked the very first alphabetical animal species according to the taxonomy and made that attempt. Technically, there isn't enough information for a species page so I just merged the species into a genus and went from there. It was a fun exercise, but doing it alone is not the most fun so it's probably on pause for the foreseeable future. Note: Aporhynchus is the first alphabetical taxon as follows: Animalia, Acanthocephala, Archiacanthocephala, Apororhynchida, Apororhynchidae, Apororhynchus
I would recommend getting a good article nominated, then a featured list up before tackling the FA. Lists are a bit more forgiving but give you a taste of what standards to expect from FA. The most time consuming thing is proper citations so make sure that is in order before starting either.
My personality in real life does not match my wikipedia persona. I'm not a very organized, or orderly in real life, but the wikipedia pages I brought to FL or FA are all very organized. Maybe it's my outlet for a more free-flowing life as a scientist/teacher.
The fact that wikipedia exists free of profit motive and free for everyone really is something special and I encourage everyone to donate a few dollars to the cause. |
August DYKs |
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Delivered on behalf of Enwebb (talk) 17:10, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for September 30
[edit]An automated process has detected that when you recently edited List of birds of the Prince Edward Islands, you added links pointing to the disambiguation pages Royal albatross and Yellow-nosed albatross.
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Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Taxa named by Kenneth Kermack
[edit]A tag has been placed on Category:Taxa named by Kenneth Kermack requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Liz Read! Talk! 16:17, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
Care needed
[edit]Hi Pvmoutside: Thanks for all your hard work updating genera, etc. for various birds. Please be sure to check through the taxonomy sections of the articles you're modifying though. I found an error in the Ruff (bird) article, introduced (accidentally, I know) with [this series of edits way back in 2017. The genus was changed from Philomachus to Calidris, but the verbiage that said "It was moved into its current genus by German naturalist Blasius Merrem in 1804." was not modified — and Merrem put the bird in Philomachus, not Calidris. I've fixed it. MeegsC (talk) 10:10, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks MeegsC for catching that...every now and then one slips by.....Pvmoutside
English varieties
[edit]Hey there Pvmoutside! We seem to be working on the same articles these days. I'm cleaning up old parameters, you're updating bulbul names. I happened to notice that you're changing the spelling of bird names from British English to American English on a number of the lists you're updating — including those of former British colonies which definitely use British spellings locally. Per the project's Manual of Style, we're really not supposed to change English varieties. Do you think you could go back and change those "grays" back to "greys"? ;) MeegsC (talk) 23:43, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
- so most of the lists state in their intro they follow Clements which uses American English (i.e gray). I've been sticking to that except for places like Australia and Great Britain... I know Craigthebirder has been doing that as well....l'm guessing it won't be an issue when everyone goes IOC but I could be wrong......Pvmoutside (talk) 23:44, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
- Well, for example, YOU added the verbiage about the nomenclature being in line with Clements on the List of birds of Madagascar page. It was aligned only with the Clements taxonomy prior to that. So I might change those back, if that's okay with you. MeegsC (talk) 17:24, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
- I don't mind at all if you wanted to change them back....Pvmoutside (talk) 17:27, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
- Well, for example, YOU added the verbiage about the nomenclature being in line with Clements on the List of birds of Madagascar page. It was aligned only with the Clements taxonomy prior to that. So I might change those back, if that's okay with you. MeegsC (talk) 17:24, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for November 1
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November 2020
[edit]Your recent editing history at Nikema Williams shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See the bold, revert, discuss cycle for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.
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Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Taxa named by Abida Abdullah
[edit]A tag has been placed on Category:Taxa named by Abida Abdullah requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Liz Read! Talk! 18:00, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Current congress
[edit]Since you're being so diligent about updating the district lists, I suggest you update {{USCongressOrdinal/current}} to 117 and that should simplify your work. —GoldRingChip 13:06, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks for the tip....I think I'll wait until all the races are called, or I finish all the new reps for each of the districts, whichever comes last. That way any of the existing reps won't get in the 117th if they've lost or retired.....Pvmoutside
- Good plan. —GoldRingChip 20:39, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
"Elected United States Senator"
[edit]I think that when a member retires to run for another job, they didn't leave office because they were elected, see this link, but because they ran. Right? —GoldRingChip 14:24, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message
[edit]Infobox stuff
[edit]Howdy. There's a RFC occurring WP:Village Pump (proposals), concerning whether or not to show 'successors-to-be' in political bio infoboxes. I'm mentioning this because you made an erroneous edit T.J. Cox article. GoodDay (talk) 21:39, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
Northern harrier
[edit]Hi Pvmoutside: Way back in 2017, you added a lot of information to the northern harrier article, including a sentence that reads "Some Native American tribes believe that seeing a hawk on your wedding day is a sign of a long, happy marriage." Do you have a reference that indicates which tribes, and that says this is true specifically about northern harriers? A reader has questioned the information and it's not sourced. MeegsC (talk) 21:21, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
- Hi MeegsC....I think that was when northern and Eurasian harrier were split, and I copied and pasted all the North American stuff to northern...Go ahead and delete it if you'd like....pvmoutside...
Disambiguation link notification for December 18
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Happy New Year, Pvmoutside!
[edit]Pvmoutside,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
SchreiberBike | ⌨ 02:05, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.
Kelly Loeffler
[edit]Sen. Kelly Loeffler will not be leaving office on January 3, 2021. Please research the information more carefully before adding that to 117th United States Congress. Sdrqaz (talk) 21:23, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
Indeed. Loeffler's serving a Senate term that doesn't expire until January 3, 2023. The special election will decide whether she or her opponent will serve out the rest of that 2017-23 term. If she loses? her tenure will end 'only' when her opponent is sworn in. GoodDay (talk) 21:40, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
Sorry...thanks for clarifying....Pvmoutside...