User talk:Stemonitis/Archive35

DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.

This archive page covers approximately the dates between September 29, 2011 and November 6, 2011.

Post replies to the main talk page, copying or summarising the section you are replying to if necessary.

DYK for Potamon ibericum

Orlady (talk) 12:03, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Freshwater crab

Orlady (talk) 12:03, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

A cookie for you!

Hi Stemonitis! This is for you as a message of thanks for giving me points to improve the Common eland article. I shall make modifications in it and then nominate it again. Wouldn't that do? Sainsf <^> (talk) 07:10, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

That would be excellent. I always feel bad about rejecting nominations, especially when people had put a lot of effort it, so it's good to see that you're taking it positively. I look forward to seeing a second nomination of an improved Common Eland article. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:20, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Did you know?

How do you do?

Excuse me, but I would like to know why did you erase my work on thi edited articles.

Best reguards, and have fun ;)

Bastien Sens-Méyé discuss 3 October 2011 —Preceding undated comment added 09:28, 3 October 2011 (UTC).

It's not just me. Several people undid your edits. Apart from the distracting image and the awkward placement (generally causing the reference lists to be crammed into a tight space with lots of whitespace to the side), such questions are not really part of the encyclopaedic content, and do not belong on article pages. When you consider that Wikipedia articles are also produced in static, printed form, having questions for which the answers appear only in the wikilink is evidently a bad idea. Is there any precedent for this kind of box? I am not aware of any. I see no advantage to their inclusion but significant disadvantages. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:08, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I would like to discuss it on my page. Thank you for your answer. Best Reguards :) -Bastien Sens-Méyé (discuss) 10:11, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I open a new topic here : [1] . I would be pleased if you participate! Thank you! Bastien Sens-Méyé (discuss) 3 october 2011 14:05 (CEST) —Preceding undated comment added 12:06, 3 October 2011 (UTC).

Crayfish

I don't know who posted the original Dorohoi heraldry and comment on the Crayfish page, but I'm the one who restored it after your deletion. You seem to be overly aggressive in your desire to keep things "relevant". Did you even look at the image? It seems, if you did, you missed the significance.

Unlike lobster, crayfish went from being food-fit-for-royalty to commoner staple. This is fairly well documented, including at the link I offered (which I only included because of your spurious action--ideally, I would like a more substantial reference and a placeholder in the article where it should go, which should be the responsibility of the previous editor, who remained anonymous). Although Romania does not show up on the list of countries one usually associates with crayfish (Russia, Finland, Sweden, Australia, Mexico, US--mostly, but not exclusively), crayfish appears to have played a significant role in Romanian history--and that is relevant to crayfish! Romania has at least two cities with crayfish incorporated into their Coat of Arms, including Dorohoi. It also released at least two commemorative postage stamps with crayfish on them. I would say these are significant mileposts in the history of crayfish. Therefore, I suggest, you reconsider your objection. I am watching the article and there is far less relevant material being posted and let go. More to the point, you are acting as if you have veto power over this article--either that or it's just petulance. --Alex.deWitte (talk) 01:10, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Just because crayfish are significant in Romanian culture and history, that doesn't mean that Romanian history is important to the discussion of crayfish. When we think of crayfish, do we think that no account would be complete without a Romanian coat of arms? Hardly. I don't know why that image was originally added (by a Romanian IP, suggesting a possible local bias), but it doesn't belong there. There are loads of examples of crayfish in heraldry, every instance of which would claim that crayfish have some special significance in their town. There are even more examples of "lobsters" in heraldry, and they look exactly the same. The makers of coats of arms are often lacking in zoological nous, and the distinctions between different crustaceans is often overlooked. We simply cannot mention every commune or city which has a crayfish-like crustacean in its coat of arms, and we cannot just pick one because that would give that one undue weight, given that there are so many to choose from. What might be added is a statement that crayfish are frequently used in coats of arms in Central Europe (say), provided there was a good reference for that, but the image you insisted on adding cannot be included as it stands. Images are supposed to illustrate the text, but your caption attempted to include new information; information is supposed to be verifiable, but the purported fact is not backed up by the source; our sources are meant to be reliable, but I see no indication that "Crayfish World" meets the criteria for a reliable source. This has nothing to do with petulance (and you're veering close to a personal attack in suggesting it...), and nothing to do with a veto; the edit was unacceptable, and Wikipedia is better off without it. One is expected to reach consensus for new additions; where an addition has been reverted, the onus is on you to demonstrate consensus for such a change. Needless to say, there is no such consensus here, and I have provided strong arguments in terms of Wikipedia policies against it. I'm sure you meant well, but that edit is not helpful. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:32, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Whoa! Slow down! It was neither my image nor my text. I simply restored it because I thought your deletion was premature and aggressive. You've made a point as to why it may not be premature, but your comments remain as aggressive as your actions. This is not a personal attack, but an observation--I prefer to resolve such conflicts without deletion. This is why we call it "editing". I agree with the idea that a more general statement concerning use of crayfish in heraldry may be more appropriate than a reference to Dorohoi--it is an otherwise unremarkable city, except for a famous pogrom that took place there (nothing to do with crayfish). I believe, a statement concerning heraldry and another concerning crayfish on postage stamps would improve the article and offer meaningful, relevant information concerning cultural history of the crayfish--I don't see anywhere in Wiki policies a requirement that an article must be restrained to biological and biogeographic descriptions of species. You're also correct that the insert did not reflect the text where it was inserted--but, once again, this is a placement issue, not a deletable offense. I also don't think that singling out Dorohoi coat of arms is productive, but it would be productive as a sample of such coats of arms, provided a general reference to cultural significance in history. Now, if you think your time is more valuable than for moving things around after someone made an incorrect placement (and for correcting copy), what's the point of communal editing? The poster, despite the local bias and inept placement did have a valid point--crayfish have a significant place in cultural history. There is nothing wrong with that. Changing the language to accurately reflect this is obviously more difficult than simply deleting everything. I see this as an opportunity for development--not necessarily to be developed by either one of us. You obviously don't see it that way, which is why I said that your behavior was possibly petulant. It was a good-faith effort with an opportunity for improvement. I don't believe Wikipedia is better off without it--although I agree that it is better off without the specific text. If I deleted everything that I thought could use improvement, Wiki would be down to about three dozen pages (an exaggeration to make a point). Obviously, I don't think such behavior is productive. When I see something that could be improved, I flag it for myself, add watch to the page and come back to it later if no one makes a change. But I would certainly not delete it simply because it is incomplete or poorly written. I also believe you're simply wrong in the assertion that the additions might have been significant to Romania (or some particular part of Romania), but they are not significant to crayfish--the fact that crayfish is significant to Romania is certainly significant to crayfish! If I told you that the crayfish is a major deity of Myrandia (yes, it's made up), would you not agree that this is a significant statement about crayfish? I am, frankly, puzzled, how anyone could believe otherwise. In this case, Romania itself is not important, but it is representative. So fix it, don't nix it! --Alex.deWitte (talk) 06:38, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

No, I do not agree that just because A is important to B, that B must therefore be important to A. Carl Linnaeus is significant in the story of Cancer pagurus, but I don't expect the article on Linnaeus to mention the crab (much less every other species named by him). That logic is fundamentally flawed, and obviously so. The addition, regardless of who made it (and I referred to the Romanian IP, so you must have realised I understood the history), is entirely unreferenced. It's not a question of placement, which I would undoubtedly have fixed, but one of verifiability. Without a good citation, it cannot be included. I can only repeat that it doesn't illustrate the article text, and is not cited to a reliable source. Any content as poor as that deserves to be removed, and I praise anyone who removes it. I recognise that it was added in good faith, but good faith is not the same as good quality. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:21, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

An interesting logical refutation of a claim I did not make. I would certainly agree, for example, that while crabs (specifically Blue crab) are significant to Baltimore, I certainly would make no assertions that Baltimore is significant to crab, in general (blue crab, specifically, may have a different claim). This is the parallel you're drawing, but this is not what I said. My claim was both more narrow in one aspect and more general in another than you claimed (I said Romania itself was not significant, but representative). As it stands now, the article has references to a number of countries and regions, many of which are cultural. I certainly would not advocate expanding this list to include every European country (although I have plenty of evidence of specific use of crayfish in at least three countries that differs significantly from the ones listed). The point being made is that crayfish is not merely a biological species, but also a significant cultural artifact in much of Europe. Some of this has been covered (Russia, Scandinavia--I did some of the editing, but I was neither first nor only editor to do so), but a lot (such as use in heraldry, appearances on stamps) has not. Generally, something being recognized in a local commemorative stamp is encyclopedia-worthy--it certainly has been the policy in printed encyclopedias to include such information as being indicative of the significant cultural value reflected in such events (this does not include publications of purely souvenir stamps by third parties, such as Grenada, Oman, etc.). You're also correct that there is hardly any distinction between appearances of lobsters and crayfish in heraldry--the rudimentary images appear quite similar. However, this is irrelevant, as the distinction can be fairly clearly made geographically. A Breton coat of arms is more likely to refer to a lobster (homarus), but a Central European coat of arms is highly unlikely to refer to a lobster, which has historically not been available, and must, therefore, refer to crayfish. A proper encyclopedia would include such information in a detailed article on heraldry symbols, but also would include a briefer description under both Lobster and Crayfish. Take a look, for example, at Crab at how some cultural references can be incorporated (I consider that entry incomplete, while you may see it as superfluous).

I also want to say that passion for a particular subject or expertise in it can be detractors in Wiki editing (unlike other encyclopedias that use only experts to write individual articles). Expertise can lead to arrogance and to willful blindness when it comes to divergent opinions. It is easy to mistake absolutism for superior knowledge, which is why most experts actually refrain from major edits on the subject of their expertise (and limit their writing to significant corrections). It's important to look at each article from the perspective of the reader, not of the writer. --Alex.deWitte (talk) 18:52, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

You can argue that coats of arms of maritime districts are likely to show lobsters, and landlocked districts to show lobsters, but that is your own original research. Until you have a decent source that discusses the animals used in heraldry, and can reliably distinguish a lobster from a crayfish (i.e. at least specifically recognises the difference), it cannot be included, either at lobster or crayfish (although there may be scope at Decapoda, or perhaps Astacidea). The Cultural influences section of the article crab is missing important information, and much of the stuff it does contain is not important; these sections routinely accumulate isolated trivia, and this is, sadly, no exception (one editor added mention of the Moche people to all sorts of articles; I doubt that that one people deserves special mention in most of those cases, although it is at least verifiable). There may be good examples somewhere on Wikipedia of well-constructed "Cultural influences" sections that I am not aware of, although perhaps only of creatures with greater cultural significance. I am not aware of any in comparable articles. I did try to find usable information about crabs for their article, but could find reliable sources for very little.

One specific point worth mentioning: I do not consider appearances on stamps to be particularly significant, including because – as you rightly recognised – there is not always any particular tie to a region, or significance to the choice. What would it signify if Germany had produced a stamp showing a crayfish, while France had not, for instance? Are crayfish more "culturally significant" (however that is to be quantified) in Croatia, which has shown them on stamps, than in neighbouring countries which have not? Crayfish are hardly frequently depicted on postage stamps. I strongly suspect that there is too little data to draw any conclusions on the distribution of postage–stamp crayfish, and I can only reiterate that we must not be the ones to do that research.

The intention behind your second paragraph is entirely opaque to me. You seem to be arguing that articles are better written by people who don't know what they're talking about, which can't be right. Regardless of that, the subject of this discussion was the suitability of one particular edit, which you had undertaken. I think it is now clear that it was not acceptable, for several reasons. The various additions that one could make to improve an article need not be enumerated for that to be evident. --Stemonitis (talk) 21:50, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Spigelia genuflexa

Allen3 ^talk 12:10, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese names in citations

Hello there; I saw you "corrected" my casing in the references section of Undulopsychopsis. Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese names are expressed with the surname first, given name last, so small caps and no comma is typically appropriate for those names (although it does look funny). This rule is in practice (though seems to be fairly unknown) in both medical and scientific literature. Does Wikipedia follow a different guideline? Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:34, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

There are a couple of interesting observations that can be made on this account. The rule does not apply to Anglicized names, such as Johnny, Lily, Eileen, etc. A number of my friends use both notations in both languages (native and English) for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that official papers (e.g., university registration) are generally filled out in one form and not the other, and must be the same in both languages. Interestingly, some of them choose to Anglicize the first name, i.e., the family name, which makes the second name appear to be the family name instead. Whatever the case, I agree with Bob the Wikipedian that there is no comma in Chinese names in most instances. This convention, however, is broken on some occasions--for example, in listing of names in sporting events official registers (but the convention returns in journalistic reports on these events, which causes endless confusion as the names are often listed in both combinations in different publications). I would suggest, however, that the rest is simply a local convention, due to the publication where the name appears. Those using Chicago style use one form, those using AP style use another. Legal sources that follow the Blue Book are another matter entirely. AFAIK, that applies to all aspects, but font does not appear to be such a consideration. As a related matter, in Hungarian, names are reported in the same manner--family name first. However, when the same name are reported in English, I know of no Hungarian who would not reverse the order to comply with conventions of the adopted tongue. --Alex.deWitte (talk) 04:16, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

My main problem with your formatting was that it used small caps, and inconsistently. Template:Smallcaps explains that this is not desirable (the only explicit reason given is for Harvard-style citations, and I am reliably informed that it is not even mandated then). I don't see that a different name order immediately requires the use of small-caps, any more than our own name order does. As to the ordering of names, I used the exact form that appeared in the journal. It is not always clear to me (or many other people, I suspect), when names have been reversed to fit the English-language convention, and when they haven't. (Is Dong Ren called Mr. Dong or Mr. Ren? Is he Ren Dong in Chinese, or Dong Ren? Either seems possible, and there aren't always helpfully-named co-authors to make it clear.) I therefore think it best to alter the authorships as little as possible from the original citation. There is no need to abbreviate, since Wikipedia is not short of space, and so the problems of trying to work out which name to abbreviate can be entirely avoided. "Yuanyuan Peng, Vladimir N. Makarkin, Xiaodong Wang & Dong Ren" is straightfoward, and not inaccurate. Why mess with that? A similar principle applies to Western names; there is no advantage in a non-alphabetised list to representing "Vladimir M. Makarkin" as "Makarkin, V. M.", which is, after all, not his name. It can only add confusion, and results in no greater information. Even in alphabetised lists, only the first name needs to be reversed; I can't be the only person who has scanned through a list like "Jones, A. B., Smith, C. D., Johnson, E. F., Jr., Thompson, G., Peters, H. I. J." and struggled to work out which initials go with which author. I cannot understand the (admittedly widespread) desire to turn names into incomprehensible messes, merely to fit some inappropriate style guide. (Actually, the worst is the PubMed style, with no punctuation, and no common sense: "Makarkin VM", like "Windows XP".) --Stemonitis (talk) 06:09, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

An relevant issue is how the various citation templates work. I normally use {{citation}} which I want to be able to combine with Harvard templates such as {{harvnb}}, {{harvtxt}}. This requires specifying |last= and |first= for the names of authors or editors. {{Citation}} then generates citations of the form "Wang, Xiaodong; Jones, Peter S. (2011) ..." which are then linked "Wang & Jones (2011)" produced by {{harvtxt|Wang|Jones|2011}}. I don't see any way out of the name ordering problem in this case (unless the template allows specification of the displayed order of given & family names separately for each author). Peter coxhead (talk) 09:11, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure there are other solutions – possibly better solutions – but I find it easy to simulate the output of {{harvnb}}, using section links and the ref= parameter in the {{cite}} templates. That way, you don't have to use last= and first=. Have a look at the references at Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for an example. The system used there is infinitely more flexible than the (Wikipedia implementation of) Harvard referencing. In that instance, I have used last= and first=, but it isn't necessary, because those fields aren't used to generate the anchor. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:18, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that you can simulate the Harvard templates and thus avoid having to use |last= and |first=. (Although I can't quite see that simulating them is really more flexible than using them, and it involves slightly more work.) So suppose you always use |author= and leave the names in the order given in the original source. Since journals are not consistent, this could produce citations in the same Wikipedia article with "Xiaodong Wang", "Wang Xiaodong" and "Wang, Xiaodong". This feels wrong to me. Further, splitting names into |last= and |first= means that other software can more accurately extract information from WP articles (e.g. reference gathering software like zotero).

[Slightly off-topic, but actually it's even more confusing, because typical two-part Chinese given names are often written with a hyphen or as two words. Thus Hao Shougang (who published many names of fossil plants) can (and does) appear in the literature as one of "Hao Shougang", "Hao Shou-Gang" and "Hao Shou Gang" plus the reverse orders. IPNI makes up botanical author abbreviations based on the separated form and the Western name order, so his abbreviation is "S.G.Hao". So like it or not, you do have to work out which is the person's family name and which the given name(s) if the individual is a botanist who published any scientific names.]

On the other hand, I do agree with the original point, namely that small caps are to be avoided. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:48, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

It could lead to inconsistencies, but only where the sources we're citing are inconsistent. I would think anyone writing articles about Chinese people would know to create redirects from the other name order for the reasons you describe. (The same applies to botanical authorships.) S.G.Hao, Hao Shougang, Hao Shou-Gang and Hao Shou Gang should all redirect to the same place, removing the need for anyone writing any other article to know the "correct" form. (In fact, for a scientist known for his publications, all of which have appeared under a westernised name, that westernised name would probably be the appropriate article title.) I haven't actually seen any obvious examples of mixed formatting, but I accept they could occur.

Using manual section links and author= is decidedly more flexible than using first= and last=. Software could extract the first= and last=, but they won't know which is the given name and which the family name unless they know whether or not the author and/or journal westernised the name order for publication, and whether or not we have re-orientalised the name order. In simple terms, it won't know. It will just know which name we want to appear where western Christian names go, and which name we want to appear where the western surnames go, and, inevitably, with a comma in between. Using author=, I can have the author list appear in any manner I like; I don't need to reverse the given name and surname of the first author, but I can if I want; I don't need to reverse given names and surnames for the remaining authors, but I can if I want; I can choose whatever punctuation seems appropriate to separate authors and separate given names from family names. If a reference is from a consortium, I can call it "#Consortium", rather than trying to crowbar its name into the last= or first= fields, and without having to use {{harvnb|International Consortium for Important Research Work into the Biology and Ecology of Something-or-other|2011}} (an exaggerated example, but you get the idea).

Anyway, none of this was really on my mind when I made the edit; I was just removing the small-caps, and we seem to be agreed on that! --Stemonitis (talk) 15:47, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Wow, Stem. You're popular. This is all a very nice analysis of how to handle such situations, and I'd like to add one thing-- citations that place the first author's surname at the beginning are easier to quickly glance through. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:07, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

When writing articles, one often makes decision of style implicitly assuming that these aren't debateable, so I find this thread interesting – it hadn't occurred to me that another editor might disagree with separating names into |first= and |last=, and I hadn't questioned whether I've been consistent. The "S.G.Hao" example is a real one. In Yunia, I've used |first= and |last= to display the authors of the first reference as "Hao, Shou-Gang & Beck, Charles B." whereas the article itself has "Hao Shou-Gang, Charles B. Beck". On the other hand, in Celatheca, I originally used these parameters to display the authors as "Hao, S.-G. & Gensel, P.G." whereas the article itself has "SHOUGANG HAO AND PATRICIA G. GENSEL" (the practice of setting authors' names in capitals in some journals creates other problems).

• You've persuaded me that it's wrong to reduce first names to initials. I've been used to doing this for academic references, but as with journal titles, there's no point in abbreviating in Wikipedia, and I'll stop. I'll change the reference in the Celatheca article now.
• I still want it to be made be clear which is Hao's surname, and I agree with Bob's point about glancing through lists of citations. But it's clear that how to handle Chinese (etc.) names in citations needs more thought. (Article titles are a different issue, since re-directs allow a variety of access/search methods.)
• You're absolutely right, I'm sure, about not shoe-horning organization titles into Harvard style references, which the templates would force you to do; this is a clear example of when to do things manually.

So thanks for your comments, even though I don't wholly agree. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:44, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Coconut Crab

Good article, you did a great job, that was an easy one to pass!--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 21:02, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

No, thank you. I was away from the computer for a couple of hours and found the review all done and dusted. Now, that's the kind of review one likes to receive! --Stemonitis (talk) 21:04, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that's how I like them, too! Unless it's something major (lack of sources, really bad prose, questionable images, etc) I just make the quick fixes, rather than tell someone else to do them, it's quicker for me anyway. It was very well rounded and well written, just tighten up the page ranges on the references and maybe find a real wordsmith to fine tune the text and you should be good to go for FAC(I didn't see anything jump out, but they will find it at FAC if it's there!) I left my reccomendations on the talk page. Good Luck!-Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 21:10, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The Good Article Barnstar
		Thanks Stemonitis for helping to promote Coconut crab to Good Article status. Please accept this little sign of appreciation and goodwill from me, because you deserve it. Keep it up, and give someone a pat on the back today. Sp33dyphil © • © 07:08, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of international cricket five-wicket hauls by Shane Warne/archive1

Hey Stemonitis, thanks for your incisive comments at the FLC. I've asked others (hopefully more qualified than me!) to respond, and there are a few comments at the FLC that may be of interest. In any case, thanks once again for your input in the WP:FLC process. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Taxonomy (again!)

Hi Stemonitis. I am trying to work out whether the Antestia genus was at some point renamed Antestiopsis. I am fairly sure it was as both genera are described at different times as serious coffee pests in East Africa, and the common name for Antestiopsis is antestia. I never know where to try and find these things out though - I'd be very glad if you can help (again). Thanks SmartSE (talk) 10:07, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I've had a quick look, and David Rider of North Dakota State University recognises both genera – Antestia Stål, 1865 and Antestiopsis Leston, 1952. The name Antestiopsis obviously refers to Antestia, so I wouldn't be surprised if Antestiopsis wasn't segregated off from Antestia by Leston. That is, many of the species in Antestiopsis were treated as members of Antestia until the new genus was described. This is supposition, but it makes sense. If the two were synonymous, Antestia would have priority over Antestiopsis unless it were for some reason invalid (junior homonym; etc.). I see no sign that either is invalid; Rider's acceptance of both also speaks against that possibility. It looks like the bugs were in the genus Antestia, gained the vernacular name "antestia", and some were then separated as the genus Antestiopsis, but kept the common name "antestia". It's all quite confusing. Anyway, I hope that helps you in some way. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:18, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

The segregation seems to have been done by Leston at Leston, D. (1952), "Notes on the Ethiopian Pentatomidae (Hem.) I. The genotype of Antestia Stål.", Revue de Zoologie et de Botanique Africaines, 45: 268–270; unfortunately this article doesn't seem to be online and it's not an easily available journal. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:44, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for your help. That makes more sense to me than it did before - it's certainly a tricky one! I just wanted to check before using sources from before the 1950s in the Antestiopsis article. SmartSE (talk) 11:03, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

It would be great if you could knock up a stub on Antestia (the genus) at the same time. I'm not entirely comfortable having "Antestia" redirect to Antestiopsis when both genera are valid, but we can't disambiguate properly until we've got articles to disambiguate between. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:07, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Yep - I'll get round to that at some point - I only realised the confusion between the two after creating the redirect. SmartSE (talk) 15:41, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Colpodella

Thank you for your help. DrMicro (talk) 12:08, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

took some photos...

Went for a bit of a tramp around and took some photos...but very hard to take a photo of a green bush in green bushland sometimes...see the commons page to see if you think any of the new habit shots are ok, it is a bit of a dingy shrub and it is really hard to capture how green the leaves are - it is as if someone coloured a plant with a fluoro green marker in real life (in any case it was a lovely spring day to get out in the sunshine here in Oz :)) Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:23, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm very jealous! I think the one that works best at thumbnail scale is File:Persoonia levis habit4 grnp.jpg, because the Persoonia stands out better from the background, although it doesn't capture the colouration as well as some of the others. It's a difficult decision, but in the end it probably doesn't matter too much, I don't think, because we'll link to the Commons page, and then readers can see all the images they want. I'm happy to trust your judgement about which is the best illustration of how P. levis looks in real life. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Let me see your proposal

Let me see you proposal to the edit. The sentences are first in Ms Encarta article. This is in second paragraph of Britannica. The fact is insect are crucial part of the Food Chain whoever likes it or not. If we do not emphasise this fact we doing wrong. I am entomologist and beekeeper so I am sure personally what I am talking about. There are other critical links in our environment like plankton in sees, but on land the insects and micro biosphere are the adequate too plankton background for sustainable environment. I hope you return my edit on place. --Pszczola-osa (talk) 18:54, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm struggling to understand what you're trying to say. The problem with your edit is not the information itself, but rather how it is presented. The lead is not the place to introduce ideas that are not already present in the rest of the article, and adding a boldface paragraph will never be welcomed. There is already a discussion of insect ecology in the article, albeit focussed around impacts on Homo sapiens. It seems to me that everything you're trying to say in your edit is already covered in that section, but I may be wrong. In any case, it's best to try and integrate any additions into the existing text and in an appropriate style. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:10, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

As I underlined the sense and even the format is practically exact to writing in Encarta and Britannica. Also the placement is very significant at beginning of the encyclopaedias articles. Most important think should be placed at start, this is the way. Please read the Encarta and Britannica articles. Although English is not my first language I feel I did not make so basic mistake in editions as you would suggest.--Pszczola-osa (talk) 19:54, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

You have no explanation why. Anyway I return my edit since I respect insects.--Pszczola-osa (talk) 15:25, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

We do not necessarily follow what Encarta and Britannica do. Your edit is not appropriate in its current form, and I have tries to explain why not. Other editors have also undone your edit, demonstrating that there is consensus against it. If you make it again, without establishing consensus, it will again be undone. Your explanations talk of "respect" for insects and other such irrelevances. There is no disrespect to insects in writing a coherent, well-formatted, well-referenced article, but placing the sections in a different order. You are welcome to your opinion, but it does not trump those of others. Insect has been recognised as a Good Article, which rather suggests that no major field of entomology is missing. You appear to be alone in your judgement. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:29, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

"We"? This is little to highly speaking. Encarta and Britannica are good resources and I agree in this point fully with the issue. Stop supporting yourself by other reverts in the past. In this case it is you and me - you assumptions against mine. That is simple and honest. Calling some CONSENSUS is combination when real argument are not existing. As I told you just erase you have nothing as will to improve essential point for understanding Nature. My impression is you just dislike or like something without effort to understand other point of view. No I am very offended by you statement (which is just false) I tramp other opinions. You use personal approach instead counterarguments it is not polite at least. Now, it does not mather if I am alone with my opinion, until I can proof I am right. I can see their is already two resalable SCIENTIFIC sources which talk as I do. If you say insect are not the crucial link in Nature give me scientific source saying that. If you have no such source think how to edit the issue of insect importance for average Wikipedia reader. I think it is friendly and objective proposal.--Pszczola-osa (talk) 16:12, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

You may "think it is friendly ... proposal", but that's not how it comes across, particularly on this talk page. It is not a question of "you and me" – your edits have been reverted by at least two other editors, and in any case, that's not how Wikipedia works. Wikipedia is based on consensus, and in this case, there is very clearly no consensus for the change you propose. I have made no personal attack against you (cf. "you just dislike or like something without effort to understand other point of view"), only against your edit. No-one is arguing against the importance of insects in the terrestrial biome, merely that the way you are attempting to incorporate it into the article is not appropriate. Some parts of your addition may be accommodated in the relevant parts of the article, but there is no way that a large boldface quotation will be incorporated into the lead. No other article does that, and it is not desirable that this one should, either. Suffice it to say that without a demonstration of consensus for such an edit, any further attempts to make it are likely to be seen as disruptive and could result in your being blocked from editing. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:27, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

You are mistaken nobody reverted it except you. I think you have wrong idea how Wikipedia works. Wikipedia is in first place scientific project and the CONSENSUS is wrong interpretation. CONSENSUS does not mean if a group of few people like something an individual can not change their WISHES, The simple point is that unnecessary the majority is right. The true is result of objectives and facts not WISHES of a group of people, even the group is a majority. Please stop the CONSENSUS, CONSENSUS. No consensus you can proofed anyway since it is YOU and ME at the specific paragraph, that is all. Again stop offending me by blocking opportunity. Please start change the idea/edit presented on base of reasonable resources. The importance of the insect is not put in correct place and I will fight for it. It is depended on you if you will cooperate with me to get an mutual solution or not. You choose just erase the IMPORTANT idea/point and that is all. I will not allow it. I ought to cooperate you are no COMMANDER here.--Pszczola-osa (talk) 17:21, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

You are wrong. Wikipedia's primary criterion is verifiability, not truth, and consensus-building is a hugely important part of contributing here. You will need to understand those two concepts if you are to have any success in editing Wikipedia. Sorry to have to put it so bluntly, but unless you change your approach, you will very quickly make yourself unwelcome. To counter your specific claims: your edits were undone here and here by editors other than myself, so characterising this as some kind of personal spat between the two of us has no basis in reality. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:24, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

OK. Verifiability, for me truth is think which is verifiable. Truth is not believe obviously if "somebody think that is true" it is obviously believe :) Somebody who wrote the "Verifiability" use fanny talk :)

Obviously consensus-building is very important - it is for what I want convince you - to build consensus with me since I have VERIFIABLE source. My personal feeling is: you are unfriendly and do not work for consensus - you choose erase, erase and push me to accept the erase.

Actually I do not worry if you welcome me or not I request you to cooperate and you are saying me NO. Again the past editing and argue have no matter here. There is no obligation to be accepted by everybody- in fact it is impossible.

Stop looking in somebody record, you are no Policeman. You are editor as I am and again I proposed you COOPERATION to do GOOD THINK. Let me cite something which I wrote to Haploidavey: "In the present time of Colony Collapse Disorder and generally all other bees disappearance it is extremely important that public get correct message. Somebody who opposes the message doing extremely wrong for the public interest."--Pszczola-osa (talk) 18:32, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

User:Haploidavey is right to state that the correct place for discussion about the article "insect" is Talk:Insect. Please feel free to propose changes on that page. It seems that our attempts at discussion here are not leading anywhere. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:37, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I wait for you proposal politely and patiently. PS. At least one person return my edit after erasing so he agree with me. Secondly the RA0808 did not return to argue so I think I convinced him. Finally, and again, I wait what is you proposed edit first. It probably will shorten my and yours trouble.--Pszczola-osa (talk) 18:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I do not need to make a "proposal", so there's no point waiting. You cannot interpret an editor's absence from a discussion as agreement with either side (and especially not a side he actively edited against). I must repeat, the place for this discussion is at Talk:Insect, and I reserve the right to delete any subsequent comments here. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:10, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

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Anubias barteri

You just moved this article from Anubias barteri var. barteri. The species A. barteri has several varieties. The description given only applies to A. barteri var. barteri, not to the species as a whole. Also, after this move, the article is rather weird in not mentioning any of these varieties. I'm currently too busy to do much about this, just thought you should be aware of this. Thanks. --Crusio (talk) 15:58, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorted. It was probably a mistake to redirect the species to the variety in the first place. They may be nomenclaturally equivalent, but they are not the same taxon. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:18, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. And I learned a few things in the meantime... :-) --Crusio (talk) 16:37, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Year of description categories

Hey Stemonitis, I saw you moving some year of description categories on monotypic genera articles to their species name redirects. I'm not sure if that's the best course of action, even if it is tidier. Categories are meant for browsing, and viewers of the article Lacandonia will not see the category Category:Plants described in 1989 on the page and thus, even though it's unlikely, won't be easily able to browse to see what other plants were described that year. A quick browse through of WP:RCAT doesn't seem to support categorization of redirects in this manner. Thoughts? Rkitko ^(talk) 17:35, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

That is a disadvantage, and I am aware of it, but it simply doesn't make sense to have Lacandonia in a subcategory of Species described in 1989. It is not a species, and must not be categorised as such. This situation is therefore covered by "Redirects whose target title is incompatible with the category" on WP:RCAT. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:39, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, I am also aware that "Fossil taxa described by ..." categories currently buck this trend by including articles on genera and higher taxa in a supposedly species-rank-specific hierarchy, but I am unsure of which way to deal with that at the moment. It certainly isn't a priority of mine to alter those. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:44, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Different projects are using those categories differently. I think for the most part, plant editors are using it inclusively as "Plant taxa described in..." If I recall correctly, Hesperian was an advocate of reforming the category structure to be inclusive, rather than create parallel "Plant genera described in..." categories. I've seen you also moving Category:Monotypic plant genera to genus redirects. I also disagree with this approach. The article Darlingtonia californica is the article for the genus and the species and can and should include categories pertinent to both, I think. The article Lacandonia is our article for both the genus and the species, so it makes sense to have it in a subcategory of Species described in 1989. Rkitko ^(talk) 18:02, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I am following the approach laid down in WP:RCAT pretty closely (as it turns out – I can't claim to have consulted it all that closely before). It doesn't matter whether the article at Darlingtonia californica covers both the genus and the species, the title "Darlingtonia californica" refers exclusively to the species. There will be cases (although this isn't one) where the year the genus was described is not the same as the year the species was described (e.g. Abdominea was described in 1914, but its only species, A. minimiflora, was described in 1893, as Saccolabium minimiflorum). If you advocate categorising both ranks by date, and putting both dates on the same page, you will have to categorise the same article in two contradictory categories. This is clearly untenable. The categories that apply exclusively to species (which includes de facto date of description categories for animals and plants) can only logically be applied to species titles, whether they are redirects or not. Likewise, categories that apply exclusively to genera cannot be applied to titles at other ranks, whether they are redirects are not. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:12, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I too noticed Stemonitis doing this, and had been thinking about it. I concluded that he's right, and that his is quite an ingenious solution. The titles of the categories could be clearer but "Plants described in ..." actually means "Plant species described in ...", since it's a subcategory of "Species described in ...". So long as the category hierarchy is as it is, "Plants described in ..." can't mean "Plant taxa described in ...". However, the problem is that there's nowhere to put "Plant genera described in ...". Personally I would advocate changing "Species described in ..." to "Taxa described in ..." but that would require (a) consensus across a number of projects (b) quite a bit of work.

Fossil plant taxa are another problem altogether. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:25, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Common Bluebell

I think that Common Bluebell should be moved to the scientific name. Apart from the general arguments for scientific names, "Bluebell" is an ambiguous common name, being used for at least two other unrelated plants. I can't move it myself; perhaps you will if you agree? Peter coxhead (talk) 19:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Done. I'm not sure I buy the common names argument, since I can only see one taxon called "Common Bluebell" (as opposed to several for "bluebell"), but WP:PLANTS requires scientific names, and that's enough. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:56, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm inclined to agree with you about the WP:PLANTS requirement being enough, but I'm aware that there are editors who don't.

(As it happens, I would argue that the 'real' English name of Hyacinthoides non-scripta, at least in Britain, is simply "bluebell"; I've never heard anyone, naturalist or not, talk about going to a "common bluebell wood". The "common" is an artificial addition by those who make up English names (e.g. the BSBI) to make a distinction between it and the Spanish or Italian bluebells. So the page wasn't, in my view, actually at the common English name.)

There are some different uses of non-scientific names which puzzle/trouble me. For example, the use of Category:Cacti rather than Category:Cactaceae, which messes up the clarity of the category system, e.g. appearing to rule out "Category:Cactaceae genera" parallel to other families. Are these just historic – you've been editing much longer than me – or are there good reasons? Peter coxhead (talk) 17:48, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

My suspicion is that they're mostly historical accidents, but I can't be sure. (Incidentally, I've never understood the categorisation of plants by rank, particularly as it seems to undermine the taxonomic hierarchy. Why should orchid genera be placed in a separate hierarchy to orchid species? The animal hierarchy works fine without slicing things sideways.) There may be a case for a category discussion to propose a new, standardised title. I have no idea how much support there would be for that. I think I would prefer "Cactaceae" to "Cacti", but it would depend on the arguments presented. --Stemonitis (talk) 00:05, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

On your parenthesized point, I did try to understand this parallel system, which still seems very odd to me, and in particular to get a consensus on some written guidelines; if you were interested you could look at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_life/Archive_30#Guidelines_on_categorization and User_talk:Hesperian/Archive_49#Categorization_of_plant_articles (Hesperian is the architect of the parallel category system). However, it seems to me now that the discussion was largely a waste of time; I think that (a) only a few people are really interested in categorization (b) those few have strongly held and incompatible views so that reaching a consensus is unlikely.

I suspect that discussing "Category:Cactaceae" versus "Category:Cacti" would be equally fruitless. Stick to things like helping to get Linnaeus to GA status, which was much more useful! Peter coxhead (talk) 10:21, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Carl Linnaeus

Thanks for all the help in geeting this imporant article to GA status. I've now restored the section on Taxonomy, with cited references. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:30, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Excellent. That means that there can be no doubt about its "broad coverage", which is after all a GA criterion. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:55, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

ibid

Thanks for the note on List of vegetable oils. The specific problem there is that there is a large number of references to the same work, but with different page numbers. I'm not aware of how it might be possible to do that. Any ideas? Waitak (talk) 17:01, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

There are a number of ways. The one I tend to use is illustrated at Verney Junction railway station. The works go in a bibliography, and then the individual page citations go inline, and link to the appropriate item in the bibliography (using the ref= field of {{cite book}} and related templates). Feel free to ask for assistance if that's not clear. The important thing is that the citation should be unambiguous, even if other references are added – that is, you can't rely on the current ref. 111 always following the current ref. 110, for instance. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:06, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that's helpful. I think I'll leave the two instances of ibid there in the meantime. I like the approach at Verney Junction railway station, but converting all 180 references in List of vegetable oils doesn't seem like it would improve the clarity of the article. I do understand the thought behind not using ibid. It seems to apply less here, because the article is a list, and all three of the references are within the same list entry. If I were to re-use the source for other entries, the risk would be greater, but, so far, that doesn't seem to apply. In other words, at least for now, I can rely on ref 111 always following ref 110. I wish that I could nest calls to the ref tag, but Cite.php doesn't implement that, I don't think. I'm leaning toward WP:IAR in this instance, since the style guide says "discouraged", not "prohibited". Waitak (talk) 17:20, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I understand your concerns. A simpler approach, and one you may find more acceptable, is to put the book's title in each page citation, so that should the order of citations change, it will still be clear which book is meant. Readers still have to look around to find the full citation, but they have at least got a sporting chance of finding it. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:22, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

The problem with this particular article is the breadth of citations. There are only a few that are cited repeatedly. I'll keep an eye on it - I'm pretty consistent in maintaining the article. If we end up with any dangling ibids (and I suspect that's the first time anyone's used that phrase), I'll put some effort into a better solution. Waitak (talk) 00:01, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I think that's the wrong approach. It's better to fix things before they become problems, rather than waiting for problems to occur, and then trying to fix them. There are several ways that could be achieved here, and I don't see that this article is a special case where ibid. references are somehow more acceptable than elsewhere. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:23, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Another user contributed a wonderful solution. Have a look. Waitak (talk) 13:59, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that works. Thanks for your understanding, and thanks also to Peter (I'm pretty sure you're watching this). --Stemonitis (talk) 14:12, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

You're most welcome. I think that Wikipedia ought to be about collegial, cooperative building of a knowledge base, even (or especially) when editors see, and communicate different aspects that don't always obviously go together. There's almost never a need for people to really butt heads. Waitak (talk) 14:34, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Monotypic

What is the percentage in going through all the monotypic genera and putting "citation needed" next to uncontroversial statements to the effect that they are the only species in the genus? Especially when you are removing the genus categories precisely because they are monotypic? Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:23, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Those statements were added solely based on Polbot's conjecture that the genera are monotypic. Polbot's logic is now known to be faulty (see User:Quadell/scrap2), so any statement left from Polbot's assumptions are dubious. If you have a source that says the genus is monotypic, please add it and remove the {{citation needed}} tag. Until there is a reliable source, the statements are not uncontroversial. The categorisation is a slightly separate issue. There is no point in having a category with only one member, but such categories are even more emphatically unhelpful if there will only ever be one member. --Stemonitis (talk) 21:26, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Unless you have checked to make sure there isn't another article that could go in them how can you know that there isn't? And if you have checked - why not take a moment more just to add the citation you just found to the article instead of slapping a tag in? Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:50, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

A category is useful or not useful based on the number of articles it contains currently. If it contains one article, then it merely complicates the hierarchy without helping navigation. If articles are made in the future, then the category can be re-created, but until they exist, such a category is distinctly unhelpful. I would love to have the time to fix all the articles that might be affected by this issue, but as you may have seen, there are quite a lot of them. Perhaps rather than criticising work which is clearly intended to improve the quality of the encyclopaedia, you would like to help. One very good way of helping would be to check whether some of the articles I have tagged actually do represent monotypic taxa, and deal with them appropriately. You have done so at Goldenface, which is excellent, but there will unfortunately be many more. --Stemonitis (talk) 21:54, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

• • I would love to have the time to fix all the articles that might be affected by this issue, but as you may have seen, there are quite a lot of them. The list of things that need fixing on Wikipedia are as endless as the articles themselves. If you cannot be bothered to fix the mistakes you make, who else is going to?
  • Perhaps rather than criticising work which is clearly intended to improve the quality of the encyclopaedia, Help? Helping would be fixing. Adding tags that will still be there years from now? Not so much. To quote myself during the unfortunate incident that was my RfA I'm also proud of my research. The one thing that gets my blood boiling on Wikipedia is the use of {{fact}} or {{cite}} tags, particularly when the citation being asked for is on the end of the next sentence. I appreciate without question the need for proper citations, but if I find a fact that needs citing I go off and try to cite it. Only if I fail do I flag it, or, more commonly, I pull it out of the text and place it in the talk page. I understand that citing is harder than simply throwing in a tag, If you trully wanted to improve the Wiki, fix the problems you find.
  • One very good way of helping would be to check whether some of the articles I have tagged actually do represent monotypic taxa, and deal with them appropriately. No, that would not be a good use of my (unfortunately ) limited time. Improving important articles that are in a poor condition, like tern or owl or eagle, which lots of people see, are useful uses of my time. Fixing citations to a bunch of articles of really quite unremarkable facts that are easy to verify? Not so much. If you want to do this, then well, fill your boots. I'm not going to stop you. But Wikipedia would be a hell of a lot better if the people who filled it with tags spent more time fixing the problems they found. I see from your page you are no stranger to content creation, so I find it hard to understand your attitude. Sabine's Sunbird talk 09:25, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I must pull you up on your first point. I am not making mistakes. I am flagging statements that we know have been made based on faulty logic. There is no guarantee that they are true, and must be marked as such. If you look through my edit history, you will find that I have fixed a lot of articles, but where I don't have easy access to the appropriate sources (I don't happen to have a copy of Handbook of the Birds of the World on my desk, and there are no links to an online version), I can't do that. To that end, I flag the dubious statements, hoping that someone else will be able to fix the articles. That is the collaboration on which Wikipedia is based. This is not a situation where the fact can be simply moved to the talk page, because the presence or absence of articles and the choice of their titles depend on it. There have been blatant untruths in articles for years because nobody picked up on this problem. This is unglamorous work, and I didn't expect a lot of help, but I definitely didn't expect misinformed criticism. At least with a {{citation needed}} tag, the reader will know that that statement might not be true, so even without the needed citation, there is a definite improvement. This is an important task, and I am surprised that you can't see that. Where articles contain unsourced statements, that is a real problem. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I meant to say fix the mistakes you find. Apologies. As for the value of such work I doubt either of us will convince the other so I'll drop the matter. Sabine's Sunbird talk 18:31, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Categories

Please restore Category:Malayemys and Category:Platysternon and others you have deleted without due process. The deletion reason given Wikipedia:CSD#C1 is invalid, they both where populated, but you removed the items. Such behaviour is not responsible nor productive. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 14:42, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

It's not strictly covered by the wording of C1, but it is, in my opinion, covered by the spirit of it (WP:IAR). The categories were created by a (possibly malfunctioning) robot, and were a bad idea from the start. A category for a monotypic taxon is entirely useless; see WP:CAT for advice on creating and using categories. I don't see that anything would have been gained from waiting four days before deleting the empty categories – that would merely increase the likelihood of one or more being overlooked. I would be more than happy to restore any category that can be shown to be useful. I don't see that ridding Wikipedia of superfluous complications in the category hierarchy can be conisdered irresponsible or counterproductive. Why do you think Category:Malayemys or Category:Platysternon were or would be useful? Platysternon is monotypic (indeed, it is the only species in its family), and we only have an article for one member of Malayemys. Neither Category:Testudinoidea nor Category:Geoemydidae is so full as to be in need of diffusion, so navigation is hardly harmed. I cannot see any harm caused by deleting the categories I did, but rather the category hierarchy is simpler and clearer. That is both productive and responsible. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:15, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

This is not the point. This is what we have CFD for. IAR and deletion processes are not a good mix. Johnbod (talk) 15:27, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

You are making assumptions. Malayemys is not monotopic as the article Malayemys subtrijuga makes clear. It is a false assumption to believe that a monotypic species only has one item in the category. For multiple reasons: 1) the category for a species goes into the genus category and there is often a genus articles or should be. 2) monotypic is ambigious in that it can refer to extant and overlook the extinct. 3) Even monotopic extant articles can have subspecies which belong in the category, that is the case with the Platysternon species Big-headed turtle because it has subspecies, Chinese Big-headed turtle, Vietnamese Big-headed turtle and properbly more. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 15:54, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Johnbod, you cannot argue that IAR does not apply to some specific fields of editing; it stands for "ignore all rules" (my emphasis), after all. I have yet to hear any evidence that I have harmed Wikipedia or was likely to. Neither Category:Malayemys nor Category:Platysternon is a useful category at the moment. Indeed, neither of them should have been created in the first place. Your point 1 is inherently faulty, SunCreator; if a genus is monotypic, there should emphatically not be separate articles on the genus and sole constituent species. Your second point also fails, since monotypy is not contingent on species' survival. If a genus contains one extant species and six extinct species, then it is not monotypic (e.g. Nephrops), and anyone who claims it is is simply mistaken. No subspecies are mentioned at Platysternon, and it wouldn't matter if they were; there are not currently enough articles to make the category useful. I do not accept that it was wrong to delete those categories or any of the others, but, as I said, I will happily restore any that might actually be useful (I have heard no claim yet in that regard). If anyone can explain why, at the time of the deletion, the category should not have been deleted, I might reconsider, but none of your arguments have touched that central point. They have all been about how things could have been, or how things could be in the future. Polbot created an awful lot of cleanup work in its short period of editing – work which is still ongoing over four years later. I quite understand if you don't want to help out with that task, and no-one will force you to, but please don't hinder it. That really would be irresponsible and counterproductive. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:24, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, no one can fault you for failing to consistently ignore all rules, and then failing to recognise it. I have no view on whether the categories are good, bad or indifferent, but I feel strongly that the elaborate processes we have for dealing with these matters should not be circumvented on a whim, especially after the matter has been challenged by another editor. Johnbod (talk) 22:22, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Both those cateogries are useful, please restore them and others also. As I said before this is not productive, have you read WP:CATS? "Each article should be placed in all of the most specific categories to which it logically belongs." Polbot was correct in these cases but now you creating excess work. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 16:30, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

How are they useful? A category containing a single page appears as a single entry in the parent category, but requires two clicks to reach the article in question. Placing the single article directly in the parent category simplifies that, requiring only one click to reach the article in question. Such categories are therefore directly unhelpful. If there were several articles, it might be different. Indeed, I have left any category with as few as 2 entries; although I doubt the utility of such categories, there is at least a case to be made for their being somehow useful. (The main aim of the task – explained at User:Quadell/scrap2 – is not to fix categories but to find potential lies and flag them as being questionable, but it's a good opportunity for fixing some other glaring errors.) In this case, there is no such case to be made. They just make navigation harder, and for no benefit. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:44, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I have read WP:CAT; have you read WP:SMALLCAT? There is no need to have a category for every genus to diffuse an otherwise unwieldy category in these cases. You will find that the pages are in the most specific available category, entirely in line with WP:CAT. I have actually improved compliance with that guidelines quite a lot over the past few days. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:47, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I really dont get the issue here. Ok you deleted two categories you thought were superfluous. Fair enough, it happens, but then the editor who actually edits those sections of WP asks you to put them back. Its 2 categories. These are under the WP Turtle project of which Sun is a member. I think his request is reasonable. He obviously has plans for them. Why not have a little faith in another editor and just put them back. To my knowledge you don't edit the turtle pages, and are not a member of the turtle project. What harm is this doing to you or anyone else. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 19:50, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

The point is that if those two deserve for some reason to be restored, then so do quite a number of others. As far as I can see, they don't deserve to be restored. Appropriate categorisation has nothing to do with project membership, so that (perhaps a little ownerish?) argument doesn't really carry any weight. I have explained the harm they do above – they add unnecessary levels of complication to the category hierarchy, making it harder for readers to find articles, without providing the usual benefit of grouping together articles with something in common. If someone "has plans for them", those plans would have to involve the creation of new articles. At that point (and not before) it might make sense to restore the categories, and at that point I will be happy to do so. Categorisation is based on the current set of articles, not a future set, or a potential future set. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:58, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I am aware that the sections are not owned that was not my point, but I guess it gave you the opportunity to link another policy. Just seems overly bureaucratic to me, and most users search by terms, and maybe use categories to further find connected articles, at this point one or two extra mouse clicks is not worth the argument. Seems to be a rather pointless deletion to me, and a rather long discussion over it too. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 20:22, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I would certainly agree that too much discussion has been devoted to this topic! --Stemonitis (talk) 21:01, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Out_of_process_category_deletions_by_admin_who_refuses_to_back_down Here in fact Johnbod (talk) 22:37, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

• Uninvolved opinion (from ANI): Using admin-only tools such as deletion under IAR is absolutely unacceptable, in my opinion. Mere "editors" have no ability to apply normal BRD processes here; you (Stemonitis) have exploited this privilege divide to push through a change for which there is clearly no consensus in such a manner that the previous status quo that you disputed is not re-attainable by other editors. I recommend you recreate the categories and take the issue to CfD to rectify this abuse of tools. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 23:46, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

A problem briefly discussed above is that there isn't a clearly set out policy on how to categorize taxon articles, either at WP:TOL or in 'lower level' projects like WP:PLANTS. Such a policy could have provided guidance in this dispute. Lothar von Richthofen may be right that there isn't a consensus among the few editors who have discussed this specific case, but it can't stand alone – it's part of the general approach to categorizing taxon articles. I don't know about animal articles, but in the case of plant articles, studying the actual categories in use will quickly make it clear that there is a strong consensus for avoiding categories with few entries. Species articles are categorized at the subfamily or family level, for example, not the genus level unless there are a lot of articles. Peter coxhead (talk) 00:14, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

The rights & wrongs of the actual issue, about which I have no view, are totally irrelevant. The matter should have been aired at CFD; that's what it there for, and has a constant flow of taxon noms. Using admin tools to avoid a discussion, in an area known to be unclear, is clearly an abuse of admin powers. Johnbod (talk) 00:27, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I'm not making comments on the legitimacy of arguements for or against the deletion. I am commenting specifically on the use of the deletion function when there is no consensus and then refusing to undo oneself when reasonable complaints are raised. That (i.e., flat-out flouting community input) is not an attitude which an admin should have. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 00:29, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Johnbod, the rights and wrongs of the issue are entirely relevant here, and I don't see how they couldn't be. I am not on a random deletion spree, deleting good and useful content willy-nilly. I am following the established consensus laid out in various guidelines and common practice concerning categorisation (corroborated by PeterCoxhead's statement). That answers Lothar's comment too – the true consensus is pretty clear that categories for monotypic genera (assuming no subspecies or suchlike) are to be avoided. The categories were all created by a robot with no idea about categorisation. It created categories for every genus, and then populated them as new species articles arose. Thus, it had no idea which categories would contain many members, and which would contain just one. If a human editor worked that way, he/she would be asked not to, I am sure, or at least to clean up afterwards, which is what I am now doing for Polbot's categories. I have repeatedly said that I would gladly restore any category which can be shown to be useful. No meaningful content has been deleted, which would have been a much more serious issue. I would be glad if all those commenting here and at AN/I could read User:Quadell/scrap2 and User talk:Quadell#Polbot and monotypy to see the rather larger issue at hand – one of verifiability and of truth. It seems that the only point at issue here is the process, rather than the outcome. No-one is actually arguing that these should be retained. Had I gone through the process, only a much smaller amount of the important work fixing Polbot's errors would have been done. Much less of the misinformation would have been fixed. Many fewer dubious statements would have been cited, removed, or flagged as unverified. The process would therefore have impeded good and useful work; that is exactly the spirit of IAR. The problem may even be larger that is currently recognised, because I have found a few examples where User:Smallweed carried out similar actions, and I don't know whether Smallweed checked thoroughly for monotypy before doing so – Smallweed is no longer a very active contributor and has not yet responded to my enquiry. In the past, when I have left categories for four days before deleting them, I have had complaints about cluttering up the database reports of empty categories. When they are deleted before the four days, there are complaints about not following due process. The only simple solution which would be acceptable to everyone is apparently to do nothing, and that is the option which should be least acceptable, since having single-entry categories is not helpful. I have launched a CfD for the two categories specifically mentioned here, as something of a test case. Sadly, it means that I will not be able to continue with the work of fixing Polbot's errors, because I see little point in fixing one aspect of a problem without fixing the other – categorisation and monotypy are intimately linked, since the IUCN database generally only reports species. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:03, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

You still just don't get it at all, do you? Having seen how much extra work for a number of editors your IAR attitude caused at the Roman pottery, I am unimpressed by your arguments about the importance of your work. If there are so many categories, you can assemble a mass CFD as you go. If the matter has the consensus you claim, it should go through without trouble. As it is you just blunder around breaking policy and causing messes. Johnbod (talk) 14:47, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

You will have your own opinion of what constitutes a "mess"; my opinions evidently differ considerably from yours. But let's not confuse different issues. At Ancient Roman pottery, I even gave advice on how to reduce the effort you would need to employ, if you wanted to undo parts of my edit, which you chose to ignore. That had nothing to do with IAR – it was merely a bold edit to an ill-formatted article. Many of the elements of that edit were eventually taken in after discussion, and the article has benefited from it. To me at least, that's all ancient history (if you'll pardon the pun), and is certainly unrelated to the categorisation of monotypic taxa. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:01, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

It was a clear breach of WP:CITE, which I see you still refuse to admit, just as this was a clear breach of deletion policy. You are a loose cannon I'm afraid. Johnbod (talk) 15:18, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:CITE is a guideline, which I knowingly overrode in order to improve the article. I never argued (or at least I didn't intend to) that I hadn't done so, merely that it wasn't the most important factor involved. I had no way of knowing whether the editors who had worked on it had entrenched ideas about referencing or not; had I asked and waited for an answer, I would have lost the enthusiasm to make the improvements. Anyway, if you want to go over old ground again, I would ask that we do it in some other location to keep everything clearer. And I would ask that you avoid personal attacks such as "loose cannon" and "blundering", which have no business here. A CfD is ongoing; we should wait for the results of that before jumping to conclusions. Unless you have some new point to make, it would be better to let the matter run its course. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:32, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Purely out of interest, since I was surprised by the personal criticisms of Stemonitis made here, I had a look at the pottery article. The References are still a mess, as I've demonstrated at Talk:Ancient_Roman_pottery#References_still_a_mess so if User talk:Johnbod does want to go over this old ground, he can do so there. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:17, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I have not seen the other pages, and do not consider them relevant, so in this I agree with the statements by Stemonitis that its old news and not relevant. I think I managed not to be critical, I apologise if I have been. I have limited my comment to the fact that I felt that not reinstating them on request, for further discussion appropriately, was a bit unreasonable. This is now going through what I feel is a preferred process. To Peter, I agree that not every case needs to be discussed, if these had been deleted without comment, nothing would have happened, and I am sure most go that way. But comment was made and that means it needs to go down a different path. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 17:48, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Jurellana

Thanks from me and the wiki Victuallers (talk) 00:03, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Devil's coach horse beetle

Hi can you explain what you have done with the redirect. There was a debate on the talk page a long time ago but did someone else change the redirect more recently?Billlion (talk) 20:16, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

As an after thought. OED hyphonates coach-horse and it looks like you omitted the hyphen in the new page name. Was that deliberate?Billlion (talk) 20:20, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I have just undone a fair number of moves by User:Dysmorodrepanis, all against established convention, most of which concerned monotypic taxa. This particular one was done back in April, but does not appear to have been discussed before being carried out. There is a longstanding practice of having beetles (indeed, all arthropods except Lepidoptera and Odonata) at sentence-case titles (see WP:ARTH and WP:INSECT). It may well be that the current title is not the best option (I think there's a strong case for the scientific name), but I thought it best to simply undo the obviously flawed change, and work from there. A proper discussion now would probably be a good move. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:21, 6 November 2011 (UTC)