User talk:Stemonitis/Archive22

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This archive page covers approximately the dates between January 23 2009 and February 15 2009.

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Category:Invertebrates

I was about to recreate this category when I noted you had deleted it previously. However, there are a number of subcategories for it nonetheless. There are eight invertebrates by location categories (see here) and several others, e.g. Category:Extinct invertebrates and Category:Fictional invertebrates. It would also be suitable for e.g. Life in the Undergrowth, which is about invertebrates. Unless these are all to be deleted, shouldn't the parent invertebrate category be recreated? It doesn't have to be used as a taxonomic parent category; in fact a note cautioning not to do so might be appropriate. (Please respond on my talk page, or notify me of your response here if you like) Richard001 (talk) 23:30, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Replied at User talk:Richard001. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Northern Emerald

I made this article. There is a distribution , there is a reference, a description of the preferred environment something on the living habits. And there is a clear picture. On the other hand this is a species of dragonfly indigenous to Great Brittain, so the qualification as low on the importance scale contradicts the former qualification as a stub. Viridiflavus (talk) 21:32, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Two different things are being measured here. The importance is a measure of how important the subject of the article is, in the context of the entire WikiProject Arthropods. Very few individual species warrant anything more than "low" status here; only important model organisms (e.g. Drosophila melanogaster) or pests (e.g. Colorado potato beetle, Aedes aegypti) make it as high as "mid". Here, I think, there is no doubt that the rating is appropriate. The second indication is the state of the article, and those criteria are less subjective and are laid down at the general assessment page. Northern Emerald is marked with a stub tag, so it was classed as "stub-class". In some cases, particularly with arthropods, an article can say all that is known about a subject and still be quite short, in which case, the stub tag can be removed. In the case of a widespread European dragonfly, however, I doubt that that is the case. Have a look at one of the longer dragonfly articles (there aren't too many at the moment, but Halloween Pennant is a reasonable example), and see if that helps you expand Northern Emerald. What you've got so far is excellent, but there must be considerably more that could be said. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:10, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Category's rationale

What is the benefit to the reader in adding a category such as this? cygnis insignis 14:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The benefit is that it links more directly to other taxa described at about the same time. It may not be a common line of enquiry, but I see no need to rule it out a priori. At the moment, it's clearly not very useful, because so few taxa have been categorised quite so precisely (note the emptiness of Category:Animals described in 1758, which ought to be bursting), and it may be that an intermediate level is preferable in the long term for most periods (1758 being a special case). Ultimately, I can foresee a time when individual works are separated out, so that different species described in the same work easily link to each other (Category:Species described in Fauna Japonica, Category:Species described in Species Plantarum, etc.). At the moment, to find another species described by a given biologist, you have to follow the link to him/her, and then click on "What links here", and scan through that list, most of which won't be taxa named by that author, making the whole process tiresome. The category system would simplify that significantly. I didn't set up the category hierarchy, as it happens, but I saw that it existed, and I wanted to try it out to see whether I thought it was worth extending to the whole range of relevant articles. I think it could eventually be quite useful, but it will need a 'bot to get everything sorted. Have you any particular reason to oppose it? --Stemonitis (talk) 14:43, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

With respect, Stemonitis, you appear to have assumed that I was opposing its inclusion. It was simply a request to supply the reason for it. Given the rationale, it is now reasonable to suppose that I will. Categorisation by the work in which it was first described may be useful, like Species Plantarum, but I fail to see how the year of publication is significant to the group of articles. You might consider adding it as a hidden category, if you think it will assist the future categories you mention, but why would our reader want to know what other animal was described in the same year as this Panulirus? I don't believe you have answered that query. cygnis insignis 15:43, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I alluded to before, I am not necessarily convinced that the current category limits are the best (animals vs. plants, and then by individual year); it may be that we should be using finer taxonomic categories and broader temporal categories (e.g. Category:Crustaceans described in the 1830s or Category:Crabs described in the 20th century). It will be difficult for me to convince you that something is interesting if it's not the sort of thing that interests you. Personally, I would be interested to find out what other (related) taxa were described at a similar time. It indicates something about their position in the history of science. It needn't only be used to find what was described at the same time, either — the category system would allow you to discover things which were described at other times (e.g. "If it took them until 1963 to describe this species, what species did they know about before?" or "I wonder roughly how many other spiny lobsters have been dsecribed since…"). In fact, there are all sorts of questions which the system doesn't exactly answer, but where it allows one to get a feel for the answer, and which would have been nigh on impossible without it. If that sort of thing doesn't interest you, then you needn't ever visit the category, but as far as I can see, the extra categories are in no way harmful, so as long as they are (eventually) even slightly useful to a small group of people, there's no real reason not to allow them. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:26, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You have been frank in discussing its limitations, your objectivity has increased my respect for you as a contributor. However, you are still making assumptions about what I'm interested in - I'm interested in everything (its actually a big problem for me as an editor). In particular, that it took until 1962 to describe this economically important and fascinating animal is very curious. I had been meaning to look into that and add it to the relevant articles (but was distracted by something else), the information should be contained in the articles, P. cygnus and "spiny lobster" (we call 'em crayfish or "Crays"), rather than inferred by an absolute categorisation. As you point out, the cat does not supply this information or even lead to an answer. All these cats would be "bursting" - total taxa divided by 250 years - useless for any enquiry. It is mere data from a taxonomic POV, and irrelevant from a biological one, the taxa contained by the category has no relevance from an absolute NPOV. Cats and templates are not a substitute for content, that is where the answers to your (and now my) questions would best be explained. I see this an example of where the overused WP:OCAT guideline is justifiably invoked. BTW, I notice you removing the | name = from a taxobox, which I have been doing with renewed enthusiasm; have you noticed the effect it has on the page name itself? Regards, cygnis insignis 17:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You might be right that, rolled out across the entire Wikipedia, categorising by date of description would become too cumbersome (although the size of individual categories is not really an issue; we could always split them into increasingly fine taxonomic groupings until they become manageable), but I wanted to get a feel for how useful they could be. If nothing else, Category:Species described in the 21st century seems intuitively useful, but then where do you draw the line? I can't think of any objective middle ground between categorising every taxon by date of formal description, and categorising none (which needn't rule out categorising by work for the big things like Linnaeus or Fauna Japonica or whatever). It probably needs a wider discussion before we can even work out what all the advantages and disadvantages are, let alone whether or not to start going back over all existing taxonomic articles, recategorising them. Incidentally, after typing my last reply here, I found new questions that could be answered coming to me, like "What was going on in ornithology while all these crustaceans were still being discovered?", "What were the first nemerteans to be described?" and so on. In each of those cases, I could probably think of a (different) way of finding the answer, but I don't know if the layman would find it so easy, and we're here to help educate after all. If we're not going to use the species by date hierarchy, then a lot of categories need to be deleted, because otherwise, someone will just start filling them up again. So, either way (CFD or Bot request), we're going to need community input. I'm not firmly in either camp, but it would be nice to see some consensus.

Yes, I've been removing the name= field, at least from the articles I started. It took me longer than it really should have to work out why some articles had their titles in italics. Now I know, I'll be putting it into practice at every opportunity. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:32, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have no problem with this in principle; if it gets too big one can always break out subcategories by taxonomy: e.g. Category:Arthropods described in 1962, Category:Crustaceans described in 1962, etc.

But I'm not so sure about this particular article. The problem is that this animal was well known long before 1962. It was initially placed in P. penicillatus, but in 1936 Ludwig Glauert decided it was identical to the widespread P. longipes. Eventually Ray George recognised it as a distinct species, publishing it as P. cygnus in 1962. But this animal was extremely well known by then. It had been the target of a substantial fishing industry since the 1900s, and as a result was well studied. In fact George did his PhD on it: "The biology of the Western Australian commercial crayfish - Panulirus longipes", published in 1958. I would be happy with Category:Animal taxa published in 1962 or Category:Animal species published in 1962 or even Category:Animal species described in 1962; but Category:Animals described in 1962 just seems misleading in this case.

Hesperian 03:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the late reply — I didn't see that you had replied until just now. You may be right: I too was wondering whether it makes sense to treat taxa split off from existing taxa (i.e. previously known organisms such as Panulirus cygnus) the same as newly-discovered organisms (e.g. Kiwa hirsuta, Neoglyphea inopinata). Again, I think this is an issue for wider discussion. The title of the categories is not something I feel strongly about; "Animal taxa published in..." certainly seems more unambiguous. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:28, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Categories and Taxoboxes

Hi Stemonitis. I was going to ask you a question about categories, but became sidetracked reading your discussion with Cygnis insignis, at the end of which you both expressed value in removing name = from taxoboxes. Since I was recently adding this, based on templates and other usage, what is it that attracts the two of you to removing it (the repetition of binomial name in the box came to mind)?

Scratch that. Had a look at one you changed and see how it grabs the article title. The reason for my confusion was that I came across some the other day that had no name =, but no title for the taxobox at all.Heds (talk) 01:33, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But my original question was about the few number of pages that are tagged by, for example, Category:Insects or Category:Arthropods. Is it because WP:ARTH prefers only to use a subcategory where one exists? Heds (talk) 01:23, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not just WP:ARTH, actually, but yes, where membership of one category entails membership of a broader category, we only use the more precise one. If we included all the beetles, flies and everything else in Category:Arthropods, it would be swamped with articles and be as good as useless. Instead, it is possible to navigate down through sub-categories of Category:Arthropods, and get to whatever group you're interested in. The reason there are so few articles directly in Category:Arthropods is that almost all the articles can be assigned to one of the subcategories (it's basically only Xiphosura and fossil groups of uncertain allegiance that are left, and there probably aren't enough Xiphosura to warrant a new category just for them yet). You can read all about categorisation at WP:CAT, and biology-specific guidelines at WP:TOL. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:19, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Heds (talk) 12:46, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Editting geo-stubs

I find it curious that you edited several of the additions I had made to several article exclusively in the direction of maintaining the regional (in this case Catalan) stub designation and not the national (in this case Spanish) designation.

If they are both superfluous, why was not the regional one discared? Why did the national one always disappear?

I don't see the harm in having both there. Many people may not necessarily know in which country Catalonia is. They have a better chance of knowing about a place if they know it is in Spain.

Eboracum (talk) 06:17, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:STUB. {{Catalonia-geo-stub}} puts articles in a sub-category of {{Spain-geo-stub}}. Without the subdivision, Category:Spain geography stubs might become unhelpfully large, so it is split up into smaller categories, which also makes it easier for editors to direct their efforts towards improving articles about places in a particular region that they know well. This in no way indicates a preference for Catalan culture over Spanish culture — it's merely a pragmatic solution to otherwise unwieldy categories, and is perfectly standard across all countries (see how Category:England geography stubs is almost empty because nearly all the articles have been subcategorised). --Stemonitis (talk) 06:54, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Scutigera coleoptrata

Hi. I've been doing some work on Scutigera coleoptrata. I'm not too good with the formating. You took out the white space I put in to get the pictures to go with the respective text. The two images I put back in from commons go with feeding. If we put the images in places where they are unrelated to the text we are going to get a merry go round here. The next person who edits will put them in a gallery and you'll then move them back to commons. The purpose of images in commons is to put them into relevant places in the article. A link to commons is nice for expert users, but won't do anything for the average Jo. I hope you'll be nice enough to give me an hand and see if we can't make the 2 pix fit. (BTW. I think there will be more text coming in the long run. It just doesn't seem to be a well documented critter.) Do you have any idea where they got the info about Australia from? I've searched, but could neither find S. cleoptrara mentioned as invasive, nor could I find a report on a specimen that was 17 cm. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 12:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly suspect that once there's more text, any problems with the image formatting will disappear. It just needs a suitably long paragraph, which takes up more vertical space than the picture does, so that's something that will come naturally as the article expands. I don't know where the Australia information came from; it seems to have been added by User:Gordon Eyre here, and those were that user's only edits. If you can't find a source, then by all means remove that text. Likewise, the length of 17 cm contradicts the current second paragraph, so if it's unsourced, it can be treated as suspect and removed. Don't worry too much about any imperfections in the formatting; there are plenty of people around who will gladly chip in (indeed, quite a few who seem to do little else). If you ever want me to have a look at it, for instance, just let me know. I'll lay off doing too much of that kind of thing while you're still working on it, because that would probably just be irritating for you. From the considerable improvement you've achieved so far, it should end up being a very good article inded. Keep up the good work! --Stemonitis (talk) 18:23, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

DYK nomination of Scyllarus arctus

Hello! Your submission of Scyllarus arctus at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Shubinator (talk) 06:59, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for flagging this up. I have now expanded it, and it should be more than big enough now. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:37, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Steelblue ladybird

Thanks for your improvements to this stub I created. According to the site you added a link to, [1], this seems to be a single species genus, no? Should I just redirect Halmus to the article? Can I add the synonym (Orcus chalybeus) to the taxobox, or is that not possible? Richard001 (talk) 01:19, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hadn't spotted that the genus was monotypic. In that case, yes, Halmus should also redirect there. Taxonomic synonyms can easily be added to the taxobox, using the "|synonyms=" parameter. It is traditional, but by no means compulsory, to include the authority for synonyms (where known) in <small>...</small> type (my recent Scyllarus arctus will show you what I mean). There is also a Category:Monotypic animal genera, I notice, which you may like to use. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:44, 8 February 2009 (UTC

Diptera

You have removed detail from Diptera, There has been plenty of discussion on this matter before, This level of detail is deemed relevant for Hymanoptera, Coleoptera and Diptera. where 10,000 of species are involved. But not for other groups. Italics are correct where its a Latin binomial name. Fly category is correct for all diptera, again we have been here before. you should have used the talk pages before such wholesale edits. this detail is useful and reliant for workers in these groups. A considerable amount of work has gone into getting these groupings correct by myself and many others.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Mark-mitchell-aldershot (talk • contribs) 19:35, 8 February 2009

I'm slightly confused by your reply. By whom is this level of detail deemed relevant? Number of species alone doesn't necessitate extra ranks throughout the taxobox, which is after all intended to be a summary. It might indicate that minor ranks are needed at a similar rank to the one the article covers, but not at very different ranks.

Italics are indeed correct for a scientific name (of genera and below), and where I have removed the name= parameter, it is to ensure that the scientific name appears in italics, not only in the taxobox, but also in the title of the entire article. I'm sure you would agree that that's an improvement.

Please see WP:CAT for details on how categorisation works. Large categories are routinely divided into smaller sub-categories, and flies are no different in that respect.

I don't doubt that you have gone to a lot of effort to incorporate this information, and it's because I respect that that I wanted to engage you in a dialogue before you spend too much time undoing things against community consensus. I'm not saying that my edits were perfect, but every one was an improvement to the article, and I'd rather be able to explain why calmly than end up in a pointless cycle of reversions. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I stand by what I said before. Wiki recommends using "talk" even for minor edits. I will be undoing most of your changes, as I am sure will many others. Like I said we have been here before. trust me it is OK diptera. even I have removed unnecessary taxo usage in other groups (manly mollusks), I have huge amounts of journals on use of diptera superfamily placements etc. they are relent. sorry.

As for category, yes agree, to a point. don't think we have reached that point yet. took at the size of very many other categories? even though they have many sub categories. with diptera we have < 1000.

Please consult on on changes first. several of these diptera pages have featured on the Wiki main page, and no one took issue then.

I don't think it's a good idea for you to undo my edits. There is clear consensus, both at WP:TX and elsewhere, that the taxa listed in a taxobox are to be kept to a minimum (e.g. "Taxoboxes should include all major ranks above the taxon described in the article, plus minor ranks that are important to understanding the classification of the taxon described in the article, or which are discussed in the article. Other minor ranks should be omitted"). I also see from your talk page that this is an issue that other people have brought to your attention before. I have yet to see any evidence for a consensus among dipterists that your approach is preferred, and I can't remember having seen the extra ranks added by anyone other than yourself. Please demonstrate the consensus you mention before trying to act upon it.

Similarly, the use of subcategories, if they exist, is not determined by the number of articles in the parent category. If an article is in a subcategory, then there is no justification for having it in the parent category (lead articles of subcategories aside). If you think that a single Category:Flies is better than the current arrangement, then the family categories should be nominated for deleteion (see WP:CFD), rather than left in place. That would also provide an opportunity for community input.

I'm sure you agree that it's better to work these things out in talk before making large numbers of evidently contentious changes. Had I thought my edits would be seen as anything other than constructive, I might have brought them up at WP:ARTH or elsewhere first, but since the community's will seemed clear to me, I acted boldly and in good faith. If you would like to see special rules applied to Diptera in terms of categorisation and taxobox usage, by all means bring them up at the relevant talk page(s). I look forward to taking part in the discussion. --Stemonitis (talk) 21:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hoverfly Edits

you are very wrong. ITIS has this detail so should Wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.56.108.94 (talk) 09:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid that conclusion simply doesn't follow. The sole purpose of ITIS is to give taxonomic information. Wikipedia, in contrast, is an encyclopaedia, and not all taxonomic information is relevant to every article. Please see WP:TOL, WP:TX and elsewhere. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is very useful to me. I do not feel I am alone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.56.108.94 (talk) 09:17, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

DYK for Scyllarus arctus

On February 9, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Scyllarus arctus, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Gatoclass 10:56, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Gryllus veletis

On February 10, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Gryllus veletis, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Dravecky (talk) 10:08, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Category removal

I was wondering why you recently removed all categories associated with a couple of images I had posted.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjmontem (talk • contribs) 16:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(Most) categories are intended to hold articles. In order to categorise your images and make them available and obvious to the users of Wikipedia, the best approach is to upload them to the Wikimedia Commons and put them in categories there (which are intended to hold images and other media). --Stemonitis (talk) 17:28, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. I believe when I had uploaded those images Wiki Commons requested that I add categories to assist in users finding the images... I suppose, however, that if the article I've linked them to (Hydropsychidae) is assigned categories, the images can still be easily found. Justin (talk) 17:34, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Those images of yours are uploaded to en.wikipedia.org, and not, as far as I can tell, to commons.wikimedia.org, although I'm assuming that this is you. Once they've been uploaded there, then they can be put in the categories that exist on the commons (e.g. here). The categories here at en.wikipedia.org are quite unconnected with those on the commons, although there are often links between them. Almost any editor here will look in the relevant places on the Commons for suitable images, so if you upload them there and categorise them there, they will be found. (Having said that, I hadn't spotted your crayfish pictures before, and I can think of one or two places where they'd be very useful.) --Stemonitis (talk) 17:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see. That certainly makes sense and perhaps I'll put those Cheumatopsyche photographs up on the Commons, similar to my crayfish photographs. Again, thanks for the help.Justin (talk) 14:35, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

DYK for Palaemon serratus

On February 11, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Palaemon serratus, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Dravecky (talk) 21:24, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mile long taxoboxes

Please don't continue to edit war about this, although I realize you are attempting to enforce current community consensus, and, I realize that you are and have been attempting to discuss the issue with the other editor. I will revert what I can find for now, and I posted a warning on the other editor's talk page, along with a link to the taxobox usage talk page for that editor to discuss his issue and attempt to gain community consensus for his style. Please monitor his contributions should you wish to discuss the issue there.

Should the editor not listen to this suggestion and continue to edit the taxoboxes against current community consensus, then please specifically request at AN/I, or wherever it is appropriate, that this editor be blocked from editing Wikipedia, until the issue can be discussed, and the inappropriate editing be reverted, as the editing is disruptive. However, so is edit warring, so simply requesting for a block if the editor is unwilling to discuss the issue seems most reasonable. Thanks. --KP Botany (talk) 10:14, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Noted. Thanks for your assistance. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:07, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

DYK nomination of Trichoniscus pusillus

Hello! Your submission of Trichoniscus pusillus at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 14:36, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]