User talk:Robinswilson

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Hello, Robinswilson! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. You may benefit from following some of the links below, which will help you get the most out of Wikipedia. If you have any questions you can ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking

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Many thanks for this and the useful links above and apologies that I was slow to respond here. Robin Wilson (talk) 06:22, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Linking to categories

Hi, I noticed your placement of category links on your userpage before you converted them to external links. Within wikipedia syntax, categories (and files) can be linked to by including a colon at the beginning of the wikilink. eg.: Category:Annelid stubs. Best, CMD (talk) 04:01, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

many thanks, beginner error ! Robin Wilson (talk) 06:05, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wikilinks in scientific names

Howdy, just a quick note: please avoid putting wikilinks into parts of a scientific name (as at Eunoe abyssorum). If the name is linked, the expectation for the reader would be that the link goes to the article for the full name. This is to avoid jostling the reader with "easter egg links" that don't lead where expected. Imagine, e.g., Panthera tigris tigris, which splits into three destinations based on where you click - not healthy :p A link to the genus is present in the taxobox, which for a stub is probably sufficient. Cheers --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:35, 11 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

many thanks, I admit I wondered about that but wanted to avoid an ugly "back to Genusname" construction to enable users to return to the genus page. Completely forgot about the taxobox, of course that is absolutely sufficient. You will probably have noticed that some of our glossary-ish anatomy explanations are still incorrect and point to usages that need disambiguation - we are working on that as time allows and most problems of that type should be fixed in the next week or 2. When we have a minimal list of technical terms I'll adjust my Delta-generated descriptions so we can create Wikipedia style description paragraphs rapidly. (I haven't forgotten I promised another update back on the expanded_taxon-articles discussion, but we are still refining our workflow during these manual edits.) Thanks very much for keeping an eye on this editing, which will continue to evolve as we strive for an appropriate style we can maintain across the whole family (and subsequently the intention for other Polychaeta too). Robin Wilson (talk) 06:16, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Looking forward to it. If you can get it to work, DB-generated descriptive sections in natural language will be something entirely new on Wikipedia - exciting! --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 12:26, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Monotypic taxa

Quick note: in the case of monospecific taxa, we don't have a separate article for the single species - everything is treated at the genus level. E.g., in the case of Australonoe willani, species content would go into the genus article, and the species name is made a redirect there. (The genus level is the target even if it is itself in a higher monotypic taxon, e.g. family Cephalotaceae - all the goods are at genus Cephalotus.) Cheers! --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:40, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, that is a bit of a setback. I can see the reasoning from a redundancy and data structure point of view, but I would argue that species are the real entities, if anything was to be discarded/redirected it should be the genus (in monotypic instances anyway). That would also make more sense to general readers - most folk find the concept of a genus a bit esoteric and would be confused to find that speciees names in monotypic genera are effectively "hidden". I can think of other arguments too. But there must have been a discussion about this - can you please direct me to a page that summarises the reasons for this approach? Many thanks Robin Wilson (talk) 05:27, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The existing guideline is at WP:MONOTYPICFAUNA. I'm sure there was a discussion about that way back when, but it was before my time. To discuss this or ask for background, Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(fauna) would probably the suitable forum. (I just saw that people were discussing edge cases w/ historic use there a few years back: Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(fauna)#WP:MONOTYPICFAUNA:_A_two-page_solution_is_sometimes_appropriate?)

To make things a little more convoluted, if there is a well-established common name for the species, we do go for the species article (and redirect genus there) - e.g. Grey-throated rail. Basically all monotypic bird genera get that treatment, because they all have widely-used common names. But I suspect that won't apply to most of your taxa?

One common way to render the article less confusing for the non-specialist in this case is to fiddle with the lead, mentioning the species name first and the genus second. Also, the taxobox can be set up for the species name rather than for the genus. Both of these have been done at, e.g., Chapinophis or Palatigum; only for the lead, at Heliophora or Haplophryne; or only for the box, at Hoplophrys. AFAIK there's leeway how these two things are handled, the main point being that the actual article title is at the genus name. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:54, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for those pointers. From a quick scan of the arguments mooted in the past I can see that I'm far from being the only one wishing that "Genus species" was the article title for monotypic taxa, as it is for all other species pages. All the workarounds and exceptions you mention seem to be convoluted ways of getting around what is bad policy in the first place. But I don't have the time to restart an old argument that will no doubt go nowhere, and this is undoubtedly an case of where those presenting specialist knowledge to a wider audience need to bend a bit. There will be all sorts of confusion arising from "Genus species" combinations elsewhere (eg WoRMS, EoL, ALA, identification guides) pointing to "Genus" here. Even within Wikipedia, categories that one might aspire to, eg "Australian annelid species", are going to be an inconsistent mess (no doubt there is another clumsy workaround here that I'll have to learn one day). However, for the moment I'll live with it and instead use the workarounds you suggest (fiddle with the format to emphasise Genus species combination in lead and taxobox). I do appreciate your guidance and patience. Robin Wilson (talk) 00:38, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oy, don't ask me about categories... the (intended) structures there are an arcane area in its own right, and I've never attempted to dive into it. - Regarding links from Genus species on WoRMS etc., those can go to Genus species here, because there ought to be a redirect of that name. Which then decants the reader at the genus article; but, it can at least be linked. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 01:32, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

yes, I'm doing that now, WoRMS links will go to a redirect page and those who follow that link can work out for themselves quickly enough that Wikipedia is only supporting monotypic taxa as Genus names (on titles). Regarding categories, I might not even bother - as EoL imports content I can make categories there (they call them Collections). Either way, there is a lot of work ahead before any any such grouping would be complete enough to be useful... Robin Wilson (talk) 07:34, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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