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Restoring older Featured articles to standard:
year-end 2022 summary

Unreviewed featured articles/2020 (URFA/2020) is a systematic approach to reviewing older Featured articles (FAs) to ensure they still meet the FA standards. A January 2022 Signpost article called "Forgotten Featured" explored the effort.

Progress is recorded at the monthly stats page. Through 2022, with 4,526 very old (from the 2004–2009 period) and old (2010–2015) FAs initially needing review:

  • 357 FAs were delisted at Featured article review (FAR).
  • 222 FAs were kept at FAR or deemed "satisfactory" by three URFA reviewers, with hundreds more being marked as "satisfactory", but awaiting three reviews.
  • FAs needing review were reduced from 77% of total FAs at the end of 2020 to 64% at the end of 2022.

Of the FAs kept, deemed satisfactory by three reviewers, or delisted, about 60% had prior review between 2004 and 2007; another 20% dated to the period from 2008–2009; and another 20% to 2010–2015. Roughly two-thirds of the old FAs reviewed have retained FA status or been marked "satisfactory", while two-thirds of the very old FAs have been defeatured.

Entering its third year, URFA is working to help maintain FA standards; FAs are being restored not only via FAR, but also via improvements initiated after articles are reviewed and talk pages are noticed. Since the Featured Article Save Award (FASA) was added to the FAR process a year ago, 38 FAs were restored to FA status by editors other than the original FAC nominator. Ten FAs restored to status have been listed at WP:MILLION, recognizing articles with annual readership over a million pageviews, and many have been rerun as Today's featured article, helping increase mainpage diversity.

Examples of 2022 "FAR saves" of very old featured articles
All received a Million Award

But there remain almost 4,000 old and very old FAs to be reviewed. Some topic areas and WikiProjects have been more proactive than others in restoring or maintaining their old FAs. As seen in the chart below, the following have very high ratios of FAs kept to those delisted (ordered from highest ratio):

  • Biology
  • Physics and astronomy
  • Warfare
  • Video gaming

and others have a good ratio of kept to delisted FAs:

  • Literature and theatre
  • Engineering and technology
  • Religion, mysticism and mythology
  • Media
  • Geology and geophysics

... so kudos to those editors who pitched in to help maintain older FAs !

FAs reviewed at URFA/2020 through 2022 by content area
FAs reviewed at URFA/2020 from November 21, 2020 to December 31, 2022 (VO, O)
Topic area Delisted Kept Total
Reviewed 		Ratio
Kept to
Delisted
(overall 0.62) 		Remaining to review
for
2004–7 promotions
Art, architecture and archaeology 10 6 16 0.60 19
Biology 13 41 54 3.15 67
Business, economics and finance 6 1 7 0.17 2
Chemistry and mineralogy 2 1 3 0.50 7
Computing 4 1 5 0.25 0
Culture and society 9 1 10 0.11 8
Education 22 1 23 0.05 3
Engineering and technology 3 3 6 1.00 5
Food and drink 2 0 2 0.00 3
Geography and places 40 6 46 0.15 22
Geology and geophysics 3 2 5 0.67 1
Health and medicine 8 3 11 0.38 5
Heraldry, honors, and vexillology 11 1 12 0.09 6
History 27 14 41 0.52 38
Language and linguistics 3 0 3 0.00 3
Law 11 1 12 0.09 3
Literature and theatre 13 14 27 1.08 24
Mathematics 1 2 3 2.00 3
Media 14 10 24 0.71 40
Meteorology 15 6 21 0.40 31
Music 27 8 35 0.30 55
Philosophy and psychology 0 1 1 – 2
Physics and astronomy 3 7 10 2.33 24
Politics and government 19 4 23 0.21 9
Religion, mysticism and mythology 14 14 28 1.00 8
Royalty and nobility 10 6 16 0.60 44
Sport and recreation 32 12 44 0.38 39
Transport 8 2 10 0.25 11
Video gaming 3 5 8 1.67 23
Warfare 26 49 75 1.88 31
Total 359 Note A 222 Note B 581 0.62 536

Noting some minor differences in tallies:

  • A URFA/2020 archives show 357, which does not include those delisted which were featured after 2015; FAR archives show 358, so tally is off by at least one, not worth looking for.
  • B FAR archives show 63 kept at FAR since URFA started at end of Nov 2020. URFA/2020 shows 61 Kept at FAR, meaning two kept were outside of scope of URFA/2020. Total URFA/2020 Keeps (Kept at FAR plus those with three Satisfactory marks) is 150 + 72 = 222.

But looking only at the oldest FAs (from the 2004–2007 period), there are 12 content areas with more than 20 FAs still needing review: Biology, Music, Royalty and nobility, Media, Sport and recreation, History, Warfare, Meteorology, Physics and astronomy, Literature and theatre, Video gaming, and Geography and places. In the coming weeks, URFA/2020 editors will be posting lists to individual WikiProjects with the goal of getting these oldest-of-the-old FAs reviewed during 2023.

Ideas for how you can help are listed below and at the Signpost article.

  • Review a 2004 to 2007 FA. With three "Satisfactory" marks, article can be moved to the FAR not needed section.
  • Review "your" articles: Did you nominate a featured article between 2004 and 2015 that you have continuously maintained? Check these articles, update as needed, and mark them as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020. A continuously maintained FA is a good predictor that standards are still met, and with two more "Satisfactory" marks, "your" articles can be listed as "FAR not needed". If they no longer meet the FA standards, please begin the FAR process by posting your concerns on the article's talk page.
  • Review articles that already have one "Satisfactory" mark: more FAs can be indicated as "FAR not needed" if other reviewers will have a look at those already indicated as maintained by the original nominator. If you find issues, you can enter them at the talk page.
  • Fix an existing featured article: Choose an article at URFA/2020 or FAR and bring it back to FA standards. Enlist the help of the original nominator, frequent FA reviewers, WikiProjects listed on the talk page, or editors that have written similar topics. When the article returns to FA standards, please mark it as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020 or note your progress in the article's FAR.
  • Review and nominate an article to FAR that has been 'noticed' of a FAR needed but issues raised on talk have not been addressed. Sometimes nominating at FAR draws additional editors to help improve the article that would otherwise not look at it.

More regular URFA and FAR reviewers will help assure that FAs continue to represent examples of Wikipedia's best work. If you have any questions or feedback, please visit Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020/4Q2022.

FAs last reviewed from 2004 to 2007 of interest to this WikiProject

If you review an article on this list, please add commentary at the article talk page, with a section heading == [[URFA/2020]] review== and also add either Notes or Noticed to WP:URFA/2020A, per the instructions at WP:URFA/2020. Comments added here may be swept up in archives and lost, and more editors will see comments on article talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:06, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Biology: Other

  1. Amanita phalloides
  2. Charles Darwin
  3. DNA
  4. Ediacaran biota
  5. Evolution
  6. Exosome complex
  7. History of biology
  8. Metabolism
  9. Proteasome
Other FAs from the Biology content area last reviewed from 2004 to 2007

Also posted to individidual WikiProjects

Biology: Birds

  1. American goldfinch
  2. Bald eagle
  3. Barn swallow
  4. Bird
  5. Black vulture
  6. California condor
  7. Common raven
  8. Flight feather
  9. Kākāpō
  10. Mourning dove
  11. Peregrine falcon
  12. Red-tailed black cockatoo
  13. Red-winged fairywren
  14. Splendid fairywren
  15. Superb fairywren
  16. Turkey vulture
  17. Variegated fairywren

Biology: Dinosaurs

  1. Acrocanthosaurus
  2. Albertosaurus
  3. Allosaurus
  4. Archaeopteryx
  5. Compsognathus
  6. Daspletosaurus
  7. Deinonychus
  8. Dinosaur
  9. Diplodocus
  10. Iguanodon
  11. Lambeosaurus
  12. Majungasaurus
  13. Massospondylus
  14. Parasaurolophus
  15. Stegosaurus
  16. Styracosaurus
  17. Thescelosaurus
  18. Triceratops
  19. Velociraptor

Biology: Fish

  1. Ocean sunfish
  2. Oceanic whitetip shark

Biology: Mammals

  1. Beagle
  2. Blue whale
  3. Bobcat
  4. Cougar
  5. Elk
  6. Hippopotamus
  7. Humpback whale
  8. Javan rhinoceros
  9. Knut (polar bear)
  10. Platypus
  11. Pygmy hippopotamus
  12. Thylacine

Biology: Plants

  1. Ailanthus altissima
  2. Banksia epica
  3. Banksia ericifolia
  4. Banksia spinulosa
  5. Banksia telmatiaea
  6. Pinguicula moranensis
  7. Verbascum thapsus

Biology: Reptile

  1. Olm

Joseph DeRisi Career Draft

Hello! I'm looking to improve the biochemist Joseph DeRisi's Wikipedia page. I've composed a new Career section for his page, which builds on what's already there by revising certain passages for clarity, adding new information about his professional life, and trimming away a handful of less-than-encyclopedic details. I've currently got an edit request active on Mr. DeRisi's Talk page, which further explains what my draft seeks to accomplish. You can see that request at this link, and the full Career section draft is available for review on a sub-page of my user page.

To be transparent, I'm a COI editor working on behalf of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub to propose improvements to Mr. DeRisi's page. You can view my full COI disclosure on my user page. If anyone at this WikiProject could help me implement my edit request, or provide notes on how I might improve my draft, that would be immensely helpful. Thank you! Patricia at GMMB (talk) 16:42, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Organ Redirects

Some organs are known in most way as a word (ex Pulmonary) but the organ itself has another name (ex Lung). The possible spelling based of the former could be a redirect, for example:

-Cerebre

-Pulmon

-Cardio

I think those are all. Oixyplanet (talk) 07:31, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

Quality assessments are used by Wikipedia editors to rate the quality of articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:34, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Task forces

Hi all - I know this is a 'meta' discussion but I was wondering if there is any appetite for formation of some task forces in the model of WP:TV to inherit some inactive descendant projects as task forces rather than have a diaspora of smaller projects? (for those who don't know, many TV shows had their own wikiprojects prior to many, but not all, TV show-specific WikiProjects being rolled in to WikiProject TV as task forces)

My overall opinion is that this does take a bit of effort (which I am happy to coordinate) but does offer some benefits in the form of centralising maintenance and deduplicating bits and bobbs. Such a process would of course need consent from the smaller project pages: I thought it may be worth asking here prior as an initial step. Tom (LT) (talk) 06:13, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea. There are so many pages out there that nobody's watching, though as you said, it will have to be done with care. As a side note, "deduplicating bits and bobbs" is a phrase that I will try to integrate into every conversation I have. SchreiberBike | ⌨  12:39, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Biogenic magnetite

I created a draft for Biogenic magnetite. Any help with expansion would be appreciated. Thank you, Thriley (talk) 12:53, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Epigenetics

This interrelated series of articles is one of the most disoriented, contradictory and factually compromised sets that I've encountered on our project in quite some time. Moreover, the overlapping nature of content and lack of adequately unambiguous central navigation is confusing, even for someone who has existing familiarity with the general topic. I'm not certain of how much available manpower WikiProject Biology has to offer at the moment, but I'd like to get the ball rolling on a collaborative effort of some sort.   — C M B J   04:56, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Plants used as herbs or spices

The page (plants used as herbs or spices) finally went live, and if any knowledgeable people care to add to the, well, biology-ness of it, I'd appreciate it. <g> Tamtrible (talk) 13:15, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello,
Please note that Physiology, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 21 August 2023 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team

Removal of Influences/influenced from the scientist infobox

hey, here's a proposal to remove Influences/influenced fields from the scientist infobox. It was done for the philosopher infobox, and bacause these fields often have too many unsourced / unnecessary entries never covered in text it might be a good idea for scientists as well. Please see and comment there: Template_talk:Infobox_scientist#Influences/influenced. Artem.G (talk) 16:36, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Request for input on Talk:Sex

There's a discussion on Talk:Sex that may be of interest to this WikiProject. Loki (talk) 19:59, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory#Request_for_comment

An editor has started an RfC about whether the announcement by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Energy that they support the COVID-19 lab leak theory should be in the lede of the COVID-19 lab leak theory article. Editors are invited to contribute. TarnishedPathtalk 01:54, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Definition of biological sex in all sexually reproducing species

Please see Talk:Sex#Suggestion for Leading sentence and section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:37, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

RFC relevant to this WikiProject

Hello! I'm posting here to notify this WikiProject that an RFC that may be relevant to it has started regarding the definition of sex. Loki (talk) 07:58, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

bicavea radiata

Amusingly, as a totally unexpected consequence of Cote, West Sussex (AfD discussion), we have Gaster's paper on bicavea radiata for you. Uncle G (talk) 08:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Request for comment, deletion of dubious species

Should we, or should we not, delete articles about species that are not properly accepted?

The context for this RfC is a number of recent AfD debates on deletion of articles about species that have been described, but whose names have never been properly accepted, for example Stomopteryx splendens. WP:SPECIES advises that we should keep articles on valid species, but it doesn't give any advice on what to do about non-valid species. Elemimele (talk) 18:23, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

To start the discussion: I believe we need to consider why we have articles on species. If they aim to help the reader establish the status of species names, whether they exist (or not) and who described them, then we should probably keep the non-valid names; readers still need to know that they're not valid. But if stubs on species with little information are kept because we hope they'll grow into more detailed articles, then we should probably delete those non-valid species that have never generated enough literature to create an article; they presumably never will. Obviously we should keep, or redirect articles about names that have created a decent quantity of literature. This RfC only applies to species names that aren't notable by GNG. Elemimele (talk) 18:24, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
@Elemimele:, you're using some words that have a technical meaning in taxonomy that makes it difficult for me (with my awareness of the technical meanings) to understand exactly what is being proposed.
Valid name (zoology) basically means (in the context of WP:SPECIES) that a name isn't regarded as a synonym (taxonomy). If a name is regarded as a synonym (invalid), it typically doesn't get deleted because it can just be redirected to the accepted name. Articles on names regarded as synonyms get redirected all the time by taxonomy editors without them initiating a discussion. The redirect target should mention the synonym (which shows that the name exists). There is no need for articles about names that are definitely invalid (but redirects are appropriate).
A dubious name (nomen dubium) doesn't have a good type specimen; the type specimen may have be missing or destroyed, or may be a fragment (such as a single tooth) that lacks the characters needed to distinguish it from similar species. It can be possible to write a somewhat detailed article about a nomen dubium (e.g. Clasmodosaurus known from three teeth, or Pyxicephalus cordofanus with no known type specimen), although such an article is necessarily more about the name than an organism per se. Since nomina dubia can't be confidently identified, they can't be definitively synonymized with anything else, and thus there isn't a good place to redirect them if an article is unwarranted. I wouldn't encourage anybody to write articles about nomina dubia, and some of the articles Wikipedia has for nomina dubia might best be deleted.
Of the deletion discussions that prompted this, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pyxicephalus cordofanus (a nomen dubium) was initiated by a taxonomy editor, with the delete/merge !votes coming from taxonomy editors. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stomopteryx splendens was initiated by an editor who doesn't work on taxonomy articles and who started deletion discussions for some other species articles that were ultimately kept; several taxonomy editors commented without making a !vote. Stomopteryx splendens is valid (not a synonym) according to the source used in the article, although the nominator claimed it was not valid; it does appear that Stomopteryx splendens may be a synonym, but it not clear what the valid name is.
I think that "species with little information are kept because we hope they'll grow into more detailed articles". People who only want to "establish the status of species names, whether they exist (or not) and who described them" are better served by taxonomic databases than Wikipedia; Stomopteryx splendens is possibly something that may "have never generated enough literature to create an [detailed] article". Plantdrew (talk) 22:32, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
I basically second Plantdrew here. We are largely writing articles about taxa (more or less natural groupings of organisms), which we conveniently label with names; in general, we should strive to title those articles with names consistent with the provisions of the relevant nomenclatural code, and with the taxonomic placement best supported by reliable authorities. When we have nomina dubia, names that we can't confidently attach to a taxon, there will rarely be material sufficient for an article, and we should usually be deleting or redirecting standalone articles on same. (Lsjbot did a great disservice by spewing nomina dubia, synonyms, misspellings, unpublished names, etc. from poorly-vetted datasets over the Wikipedias in which it operated, but I digress.)
I think it's reasonable, in a well-fleshed-out article on a higher taxon (genus, tribe, subfamily, etc.) to include in the taxonomy section a list of the nomina dubia that can be associated with this taxon but not with any lower one. (This could also be a section in "List of X species" articles.) That said, I would probably save that for nomina dubia that have explicitly been discussed in reliable sources. If there are 5,000 nomina dubia (to invent a number) about which the most we can say is that they belong to Geometridae, I'm not sure a giant list article enumerating them is terribly useful. Choess (talk) 00:05, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
As stated by Plantdrew words such as valid, dubium and available have specific meanings in zoology and botany and unfortunately not necessarily the same meaning in both. So what is being asked here is a little confusing. However, if I am reading it right I will say the following.
If a species has a page that is now considered in the synonymy of another species yes that taxon should be removed, but not outright. Consideration should be given to merging. I would also argue that the synonym would serve well as a redirect to its current senior name if it was under the mainspace name of its scientific name. The current nomenclature of life is a dynamic situation. No species has to stay the same it can be recombined, synonymised or further split dependant on the current scientific knowledge which is forwever changing. No one should expect any species name to be immutable. That is even true of our own species with it being recombined, split and synonised in recent years.
I would suggest that you may want to use a tag on any species page that should be examined for its current nomenclature and if its still a used name, this way it can be discussed how best to take advantage of what information is on the page, ie maybe merge it, rather than delete maybe comment it all out and turn it into a redirect after all it may get resurrected again in the future and this preserves its page even if its not readily viewable. I think preserving information for potential use later is not unreasonable. I tried that once with several turtle species but the commented out info was later deleted by others.
The tag to me would serve well if it flagged the page, encouraged an rfc on its talk page, and notified relevant projects. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 03:13, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
I was trying to avoid getting into the multitude of ways in which a species name can be less-than-perfect, and also to avoid the fact that zoologists, botanists and microbiologists all go about taxonomy in slightly different ways, each with their own meanings for technical terms.
To clarify what I was asking: WP:NSPECIES tells us we should keep anything that has a correct name (botany) or valid name (zoology) but periodically people turn up at AfDs with names that are (1) missing from whatever database/publication is considered definitive; (2) validly published but not formally accepted as "correct" (botany; which I think is equivalent of "available" in zoology?); (3) nomina dubia in various ways. I was trying to get clarity about whether these should be deleted.
I'm wondering whether it's too complicated to make a simple rule. For example, I think I'm right that palaeontology is riddled with nomina dubia because of the fragmentary nature of fossils, but many of these things are of interest to encyclopaedia readers, widely written-about, and there isn't actually a better name at the moment. Similarly bacteriology has ambiguous names, where the same name has been used for two different species, and it's really quite important that readers with an interest in bacteriology should know this has happened! Even worse, there are the cases where the ambiguity creates a hazard to health, something which an encyclopaedia might have to document. An ambiguous bacterial name might be a lot more significant than a botanical name validly-published in 1850 and never mentioned again! Not sure what to think... Elemimele (talk) 12:02, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
Your point that "(2) validly published but not formally accepted as "correct" (botany; which I think is equivalent of "available" in zoology?)" not quite, a name in zoology that is meant to be in current usage ie the botanical correct name is a valid name. In zoology a synonomy is headed by the currently accepted valid name, all other names are available. Valid means must be used, available means could be used. In paleontology, yes many fossils are fragmentary and often you will see the term incertae cedis after a name. Of course fossils are rarely complete, it is the nature of this and just has to be dealt with. Nomina dubia technically refers to a species whose type specimen cannot be assigned to a taxon for some reason, it may be incomplete, it may be missing. If its missing researchers can set a Neotype and repair the situation, but if the type exists no matter how bad, only the Commission can set the neotype which tends to slow this down. If nomina dubia are old, ie more than 100 years, they tend to just be declared nomen oblitum and left as forgotten names. This is all up to the researchers working on the group though.
The reason I suggested using a tagging system was because of the complexities, sure some are simple and an outright decision can almost be made but some are far more complicated and probably warrant significant discussion to proceed. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 00:45, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Maybe this is my own hairsplitting, but I'd interpret that quotation from NSPECIES to mean that if you have a species (a group of organisms related in particularly close ways, cf. species concept), and there is a suitable name to apply to that species, you can presume notability. A nomen dubium is a name, not a species; definitionally, we don't know which species it applies to, if indeed to any. Names could wind up as parts of set index articles, as redirects to sections and in-article lists, or sometimes as standalone articles when sufficiently notorious that GNG applies. I'm not sure we have to try to craft a comprehensive rule for this as long as we understand NSPECIES protects articles about taxa, not about names. Choess (talk) 01:47, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
I don't think this is hairsplitting at all. Articles are definitely about taxa, not about names. (Long ago, we had a plant editor who insisted on starting articles with text like "X y is the name of a species ..." This was firmly rejected.) If there is reliable evidence that a taxon is accepted, then we can have an article. What the title should be is a secondary question, given the general flux in taxonomy in the molecular phylogenetics era.
I'm more concerned about the quality of the evidence that a taxon is accepted. In almost all cases (all cases?), this requires at least one secondary reference, not just the paper that proposed the taxon. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:32, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
To be honest, that approach fits very well with the concept that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not an index, which means our traditional role is to take subjects on which many have written, and produce an overview summary. If there's only one document, no "overview" is necessary; the reader might as well just read the one document that exists.
Going a bit off-topic, it also fits with biomolecules and genes; new ones appear at a frenetic rate, but probably don't need an article until they get mentioned in reviews, or discussed outside the context of the primary paper that first described them.
The discussion above has cleared up a big question to me: we automatically accept articles about a species even if there isn't much to say about it yet, in recognition that they are likely to grow to be bigger articles in time. It's also helped me understand that the article is about the species, not the name, which is further reason not to have articles about names that shouldn't be used. We should have articles about the name only where the name itself is independently wiki-notable, perhaps widely used in popular culture, or the subject of a huge scientific bust-up, or whatever. Elemimele (talk) 11:26, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
yes this is an encyclopedia, not a checklist. Wikispecies is about names and those who name them for the most part. Wikipedia has another purpose. I would prefer taxa were not accepted without some secondary review, however I recognise thats not always possible. But at least give the scientific literature time to respond to a new taxon. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 13:37, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Grant abstract as reference

I was cleaning up Reuben Shaw just now and noticed that there was an issue with a journal citation without a journal listed. It turned out to be a link to a grant abstract from grantome.com, and I couldn't remove it without leaving a substantial part of the article without a reference to a pretty specific claim. So:

1. How should a grant abstract be cited to not leave errors?
2. Should a grant abstract even be cited in an article? From my perspective it's a lot less useful than a primary source/journal article that draws the conclusions the grant author is relying upon. Only 70 articles on Wikipedia, the majority of them short biographies of scientists, cite this specific website.

Thanks. Reconrabbit (talk|edits) 15:51, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Grants are written for a specific purpose, to obtain money as such, although I won't say they are fiction, they have ulterior motives to the science being discussed. I do not think they should be a citation unless it is a page about the applicant for the grant or the granting body. Generally if you can get the grant proposal it should have in it any references they used, then if necessary those could be sout out and used instead. Or if an older grant application its possible it has since been published as finished work and this would be a better citation. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 23:45, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

"rehabilitation" of Aristotle?

Hey all, there's a discussion about Aristotle's standing in current biological science going on here. I'm pretty sure this is wp:fringe or wp:undo, but I'm not trained as a scientist. Input from anyone who is would be most welcome! Cheers Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 22:59, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Fossorials!

Hello fellow Wikipedians! I have just created a new WikiProject, WikiProject Fossorials. If you can, please join, as we are in desperate need of members! Fossorials are animals that spend much of their time underground, so if you are interested, please join!

Thank you, UserMemer (chat) Tribs 00:33, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello,
Please note that Carbon source (biology), which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 25 December 2023 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team

Chronic wasting disease: clarification needed

Clarification needed (in-line template includes reason) from article Chronic wasting disease.

However, it is noted that as of 2013, although CWD prions were transmissible within the cervidae family, CWD was not considered transmissible to humans or to cattle.[1]

[...]

Recent research on Rocky Mountain elk found that with CWD-infected cows,[clarification needed] many subclinical, a high rate (80%) of maternal-to-offspring transmission of CWD prions occurred

Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 03:07, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Patrice N Klein, CWD Program Manager USDA/APHIS (5–6 February 2013). Chronic Wasting Disease - Review of Disease Transmission and Control (PDF). WHHCC Meeting. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 September 2014.

Epicanthic Folds in other animals?

I looked on various places and there's literally only Quora that says these:

"Most animals have no whites of their eyes showing, as humans do, and so it is difficult to see the epicanthic folds. They seem to be in young animals like puppies and kittens."

"They have, but you did not know about them. Also, some have even evolved an extra transparent eye lid for even more protection and so forth."

But, there's no reliable info on this in animals, so I tried looking clearly into puppy and kitten eyes especially those of Asian breeds, and I think they have them? I'm not really sure, but I'm inclined to think they do?

If anyone is able to find more info please tell me. I desperately need to know. LoverOfAllAnimalsActivist (talk) 07:55, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Most mammals have the sclera of the eye showing, so I'm not sure how accurate any of that is (and the sclera isn't always white). In humans, epicanthic folds don't hide the sclera completely either. Either way, I believe the term "epicanthic fold" is exclusively used for the condition in humans, so there simply doesn't exist any such info on animals. FunkMonk (talk) 09:15, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Wikimedia Discord has a Biology Channel!

It has recently come to my attention that not only is there a highly active Wikimedia Discord Server, it also has a #wpbiology channel! See Wikipedia:Discord for more details.

I hope to feature a link to this on the main page after the redesign is complete, but for the time being I wanted to advertise it here. I would love for more people to join, and I hope it will prove a major resource to us going forward as we improve WP:BIOL and it's subprojects. I cannot emphasize how refreshing it can be to talk in real time (or even in voice channels!) rather than in talk pages.

@Evolution and evolvability and Alexmar983: This also should serve us nicely for the user group discussions--they have a #meta channel as well.

How to handle human vs. Non-human?

I've been having some confusion with how to handle human and non-human components in anatomy/biology (and related) articles. Is there a rule of thumb for this?

I was making a plan to resolve visual system and visual perception and noticed ambiguity on whether information was human-specific or vertebrate-specific.

Looking through some similar articles:

  • Olfactory system is written generally, mostly human, but sense of smell is almost entirely general, not focusing on humans whatsoever, which is the opposite for visual system (some non-human content) and visual perception (entirely human).
  • Color vision is entirely general, mentioning humans specifically, when applicable.
  • Auditory system makes no mention of non-humans, but auditory perception (hearing) does.
  • Digestive system redirects to human digestive system, but then I don't know where to go for more general non-human digestive systems. It seems qualifying articles with human in the lead, but not in the title, and still including other animals as a subsection is an okay solution?
  • I see a perhaps useful example in trachea, but then would the vertebrate section just say "the vertebrate visual system generalizes well from the human case, with the following differences"? I have not seen an example of leads ever including human in the qualifiers, "The human trachea (pl.: tracheae or tracheas)...". I think I would prefer this, but I guess that has been discussed before somewhere.
  • Liver mentions only vertebrate in the lead instead of human, but then ignores this distinction until an #other animals section.

Ideas? Curran919 (talk) 13:29, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

That's been handled lots of ways and Wikipedia is inconsistent. Of the descriptions above I like "entirely general, mentioning humans specifically, when applicable" and mentioning other species when applicable. There are many topics where so much work has been done on humans that article titles like Human sense of smell might be helpful, and there should be links to that from Sense of smell, but for an article about an aspect of biology to only or mostly talk about humans and ignore the rest of the tree of life is speciesist. SchreiberBike | ⌨  15:58, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
This has come up repeatedly (see e.g. here), and the response from WikiProject Medicine editors is that somebody needs to write the content relevant to non-humans. Once sufficient content exists (in theory) an argument could be made to split the human content into a separate article.
In practice, previously separate articles on humans do get merged back into what were small articles that weren't focused on humans (e.g. human pelvis->pelvis), or a term that is primarily used in non-human contexts gets hijacked into a redirect to a human context (copulation->sexual intercourse, followed by a fork of copulation (zoology)). Recent successful splits are injury/injury in humans and kidney/kidney (vertebrates)/mammalian kidney.
My advice is to write the non-human content at what appears to be the appropriate title. If that gets reverted by an editor who wants the articles to stay focused on humans, bring it up here or at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life.
If a general title redirects to a human specific title (as with digestive system->human digestive system), you might consider making the general title a disambiguation page and creating a non-human article at a new title, or starting (or restoring) an article at the general title and see what happens. (For digestive system in particular digestion and gastrointestinal tract are apparently supposed to cover non-humans). Plantdrew (talk) 21:23, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for all the context. The template deletion thread was interesting, especially when poised as a wp:med vs. wp:biology conflict of interests! I agree is most cases it does not make sense to split into general and human articles, even once the non-human content is expanded. It also seems clear that a human centered article will often take priority over a name space (e.g. pelvis and pelvis (tetrapods) seems reader-friendlier than human pelvis and pelvis). However, I'm interested particularly in how best to get them to share the article and what language should be used in the article to clarify this organization. If the article defaults to human most of the time, should we isolate non-human content to the non-human section? Should the lead introduce the article as about the human aspect, even though the non-human part is represented in a section? Curran919 (talk) 22:54, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
This. This is something that I agree on.
Its not just digestive system though. There's a few more articles that ONLY have human articles but no general article.
Voice and Back redirect to their human articles respectively, even when talking about them in other animals due to a lack of general articles for them. I still wish for a general Voice and Back article because there should be when you're referring to those topics in non-humans. LoverOfAllAnimalsActivist (talk) 07:08, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
@LoverOfAllAnimalsActivist I think a concept like voice is inherently human-centric. A redirect to human voice, I think is a good design. There should probably be a headnote that directs to the non-human equivalent, but this doesn't seem to exist. Vocalization is a disambiguation page that references animal communication and subgroup vocalization (e.g. bird vocalization), so I think a generic non-human vocalization article would need to be synthesized before being worked into the mix. Back as well is such an inexact term that it leads to an inexact article (and wow, look at all those citations!). This would be ripe for a non-human animals section, but honestly, what information would you add here? If you have ideas, put it in a sandbox for review and we can talk about how to incorporate it, but I can't imagine what that would look like. Also, think about the type of user who is going to look up back on wikipedia instead of spine or something else more specific, and think of what kind of information would be useful to them. For example, I think redirecting back to a disambiguation page would probably be a mistake. Curran919 (talk) 10:03, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
This and musculoskeletal system are the only systems that do not have general animal articles despite almost all animals having them in my knowledge. It BAFFLES me that digestive system has no general article whereas pretty much every other system aside from musculoskeletal have general articles. With this in mind, somehow there's a few animal info in human digestive system. So why don't we split that part into "Digestive System" that talks about animal digestive systems then? Other animals have them too (if gastropods have their own digestive system page, why can't a general digestive system article be made? Of all the major systems this is the odd one out and it baffles me.) LoverOfAllAnimalsActivist (talk) 11:28, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
On digestion, I suggest you write an article that spans digestion of wood and cellulose by bacteria, fungi, and protozoa, mentioning their symbioses with herbivorous animals such as cattle, as well as digestion of oil and plastic by bacteria, digestion of insects by insectivorous plants, and for good measure digestion of meat by carnivores. This will be impossible to merge into an all-human article (and it won't be limited to animals, naturally). You will have a short subsection on digestion in omnivores, with a "further" link to Digestion in humans. Then we get the humans-only article renamed to that, and, Voila!, we'll have a proper representation of digestion for WikiProject Biology. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:42, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Hypoxia (environmental)#Requested move 10 February 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Hypoxia (environmental)#Requested move 10 February 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ❯❯❯ Raydann(Talk) 02:17, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Narwhal#Evolution

Hi guys, can you help me combine the two phylogenetic trees? Thanks, Wolverine XI (talk to me) 08:17, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Potential significant change to species notability

Over on Wikipedia talk:Notability‎, several editors are working on a draft proposal to replace our current notability guidelines for species (all species are notable) with something much more restrictive (only species that go beyond certain limited pieces of information would be allowed their own articles). If you have opinions on this issue, now would be a good time to weigh in there. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:20, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Also now at Village Pump (Policy): Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Species_notability Crossroads -talk- 01:40, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Nature

Nature has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 20:10, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

RetractionBot

I posted this story from the Signpost last month. Things have evolved a bit and now Retraction bot handles {{Erratum}}, {{Expression of concern}}, and {{Retracted}}. These populate the following categories:

  1. Arsenic biochemistry
  2. Bioeconomy
  3. Biotechnology
  4. Hypoxia-inducible factor
  5. Stephen Jackson (biologist)
  6. Liposome extruder
  1. Fish intelligence
  2. Human genetic enhancement
  1. Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences
  2. Biomarkers of aging
  3. Epiphenotyping
  4. Rubicon (protein)


If the citation is no longer reliable, then the article needs to be updated, which could be as minor as the removal/replacement of the citation with a reliable one, to rewriting an entire section that was based on flawed premises. If the citation to a retracted paper was intentional, like in the context of a controversy noting that a paper was later retracted, you can replace {{retraction|...}} with {{retraction|...|intentional=yes}}/{{expression of concern|...}} with {{expression of concern|...|intentional=yes}}/{{Erratum|...}} with {{Erratum|...|checked=yes}}.

I put the list of articles within the scope of WP:BIOL in sub-bullets. Any help you can give with those are greatly appreciated. Feel free to remove/strike through those you've dealt with. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:57, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

RfC: On discovery of the 23 nonmetals

Should this content on the discovery of the 23 nonmetals be removed from the nonmetal article?

RfC is here. --- Sandbh (talk) 00:03, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Request to merge Frisson into Goose bumps

I have noticed that these two articles talk about the same thing. I have created a proposal on Goose bumps's talk page to discuss a merger. 80.0.166.171 (talk) 01:05, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

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