Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology/Archive 7
 | This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Biology. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
| Archive 1 | ← | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 |
Credibility Hans Eiberg
How does one assess the credibility of a scientist? In the WP "Eye color" article Hans Eiberg is mentioned and quoted extensively under the Blue eye color section. There is all of one, yes count 'em, ONE, articles that he is connected with. Is this science? Dynasteria (talk) 18:49, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
- Note to others: I moved the above post here from the main page. Flyer22 (talk) 00:48, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
- Yes. Most of the more well-known scientists are specialists (e.g. Darwin, Einstein). A jack of all trades, after all, is a master of none. Polymaths have always been rare. And getting rarer now that the standards of what an "expert" is is getting higher in different disciplines. And see Credibility#Scientific credibility. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 01:32, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks for moving my clumsy post, Flyer22. In fairness to Dr. Eiberg, he may have been misquoted around the web and in the "Eye color" article. I have done a bit of looking into this and the science of the article of which he is co-author appears to be sound. The issue is the age of the mutation, which he never said was 8-10K years ago. The article says it is difficult to calculate the age of the mutation. BTW, the misinformation that the mutation dates back 8-10K years has been circulating the web for 6 years. I think it's time to put a stop to it. Dynasteria (talk) 23:39, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
WikiCup 2015
Hi there; this is just a quick note to let you all know that the 2015 WikiCup will begin on January 1st. The WikiCup is an annual competition to encourage high-quality contributions to Wikipedia by adding a little friendly competition to editing. At the time of writing, more than fifty users have signed up to take part in the competition; interested parties, no matter their level of experience or their editing interests, are warmly invited to sign up. Questions are welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Thanks! Miyagawa (talk) 21:49, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
Nomination of Dolichyl-P-Glc:Glc1Man9GlcNAc2-PP-dolichol alpha-1,3-glucosyltransferase for deletion
Dolichyl-P-Glc:Glc1Man9GlcNAc2-PP-dolichol alpha-1,3-glucosyltransferase, along with many other articles, has been nominated for deletion. You may view and comment on the discussion. Rcsprinter123 (rap) @ 13:22, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
consider this
bio engineered self replicating system,created to thrive on the surface of mars. in order to:::: create a power station on mars... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.153.147.78 (talk) 05:52, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
WikiProject X is live!
Hello everyone!
You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!
Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.
Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
We apparently need to create an article for Supergroup (biology)
We apparently need to create an article for Supergroup (biology).
Rhizaria says:
- The Rhizaria are a species-rich supergroup of mostly unicellular eukaryotes.
- This supergroup was proposed by Cavalier-Smith in 2002.
I wanted to understand the term "supergroup" better, but I don't find an article for it. The disamb page Supergroup doesn't seem to show a biology-related meaning.
Apparently we should create an article at Supergroup (biology) (per the format Family_(biology) and Order (biology)), and we should also add a link to Supergroup.
Thanks. - 189.122.195.17 (talk) 15:16, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
Maintenance category for IUCN Red List in taxobox
Please see Template talk:Taxobox, where I've proposed having {{taxobox}} add a maintenance category to articles where a species' Red List status is not specified. Nyttend (talk) 18:18, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
"Stargazer"
The naming, usage and primary topic of Stargazer is under discussion, see talk:Stargazer (disambiguation) -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 06:01, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
AfD Observado.org
The article Observado.org was nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Observado.org. Your feedback is appreciated. – Editør (talk) 17:39, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
TfD: Nomination for deletion of Template:Infraspeciesbox
Template:Infraspeciesbox has been nominated for deletion. Given that these templates are of interest to WikiProject Biology, you are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:16, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
"Homunculus"
The usage and primary topic of " Homunculus " is under discussion, see Talk:Homunculus patagonicus -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 04:49, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
"Patasola"
The usage and primary topic of Patasola is under discussion, see talk:Patasola magdalenae -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 04:57, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
Question for posting external links
Hi, I'm an editor for the Embryo Project Encyclopedia and I'm following up on a discussion that you can find here; [1]
I'm looking to connect with the wikimedians who are the main editors of this page, could someone please give me some information on how I could find them? Thank you Page Historian (talk) 21:02, 26 March 2015 (UTC) Page Historian (talk) 21:02, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
Merge Fragile Mental Retardation 2 & AFF2?
Not fluent enough in English to drive the process, I posted here; please have a look. Regards --BonifaceFR (talk) 10:27, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
Odd article that needs some love
I don't really edit much anymore, but just stumbled upon this odd little orphaned article from 2013 that was untagged as part of any project. Really needs a lot of love from a competent editor though: Uracil in DNA. Anyone interested? Acather96 (click here to contact me) 15:12, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
End-Capitanian extinction event might be profitably turned into an article, since it is about a Big-6 extinction level event, or deleted as a WP:REDLINK; per [2] elevating its status to one of the major extinctions. doi:10.1130/B31216.1 -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 13:13, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
Check needed for Draft:Precambrian Body Plans
This article has been submitted for review through Articles for Creation. I am not familiar enough with the area to tell whether it is just a student paper using mostly primary sources or if this is work from secondary sources and thus a good Wikipedia addition. Can someone take a look at it. Thanks. StarryGrandma (talk) 15:55, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
- I haven't looked into copyright issues (there are some comments about that at the top of the page), but content-wise I would have no trouble at all approving this article. It is quite good. Looie496 (talk) 17:08, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you very much for looking at this. I've approved the article (after looking the changes made to take care of the copyright issues). StarryGrandma (talk) 21:12, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 3
Greetings! For this month's issue...
We have demos!
After a lengthy research and design process, we decided for WikiProject X to focus on two things:
- A WikiProject workflow that focuses on action items: discussions you can participate in and tasks you can perform to improve the encyclopedia; and
- An automatically updating WikiProject directory that gives you lists of users participating in the WikiProject and editing in that subject area.
We have a live demonstration of the new WikiProject workflow at WikiProject Women in Technology, a brand new WikiProject that was set up as an adjunct to a related edit-a-thon in Washington, DC. The goal is to surface action items for editors, and we intend on doing that through automatically updated working lists. We are looking into using SuggestBot to generate lists of outstanding tasks, and we are looking into additional options for automatic worklist generation. This takes the burden off of WikiProject editors to generate these worklists, though there is also a "requests" section for Wikipedians to make individual requests. (As of writing, these automated lists are not yet live, so you will see a blank space under "edit articles" on the demo WikiProject. Sorry about that!) I invite you to check out the WikiProject and leave feedback on WikiProject X's talk page.
Once the demo is sufficiently developed, we will be working on a limited deployment on our pilot WikiProjects. We have selected five for the first round of testing based on the highest potential for impact and will scale up from there.
While a re-designed WikiProject experience is much needed, that alone isn't enough. A WikiProject isn't any good if people have no way of discovering it. This is why we are also developing an automatically updated WikiProject directory. This directory will surface project-related metrics, including a count of active WikiProject participants and of active editors in that project's subject area. The purpose of these metrics is to highlight how active the WikiProject is at the given point of time, but also to highlight that project's potential for success. The directory is not yet live but there is a demonstration featuring a sampling of WikiProjects.
Each directory entry will link to a WikiProject description page which automatically list the active WikiProject participants and subject-area article editors. This allows Wikipedians to find each other based on the areas they are interested in, and this information can be used to revive a WikiProject, start a new one, or even for some other purpose. These description pages are not online yet, but they will use this template, if you want to get a feel of what they will look like.
We need volunteers!
WikiProject X is a huge undertaking, and we need volunteers to support our efforts, including testers and coders. Check out our volunteer portal and see what you can do to help us!
As an aside...
Wouldn't it be cool if lists of requested articles could not only be integrated directly with WikiProjects, but also shared between WikiProjects? Well, we got the crazy idea of having experimental software feature Flow deployed (on a totally experimental basis) on the new Article Request Workshop, which seeks to be a place where editors can "workshop" article ideas before they get created. It uses Flow because Flow allows, essentially, section-level categorization, and in the future will allow "sections" (known as "topics" within Flow) to be included across different pages. What this means is that you have a recommendation for a new article tagged by multiple WikiProjects, allowing for the recommendation to appear on lists for each WikiProject. This will facilitate inter-WikiProject collaboration and will help to reduce duplicated work. The Article Request Workshop is not entirely ready yet due to some bugs with Flow, but we hope to integrate it into our pilot WikiProjects at some point.
Harej (talk) 01:58, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Annotated image policy
If anyone has an interest in interactive annotated images, I've made a post on WP:IUP to discuss when wikilinked image annotation is appropriate. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 02:23, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Please could someone with knowledge in biology/proteins look at this draft article- due to my lack of subject knowledge, I cannot determine if it's notable enough for Wikipedia or not. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:50, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
New Essay
There is a new essay, "Identifying primary and secondary sources for biology articles", you are invited to comment on.DrChrissy (talk) 12:11, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
- I took a quick read and think that this would be very useful for students in my classes that are part of the Wikipedia Education Project. One problem I often face is primary sources that have many citations in Introduction/Discussion of other articles (secondary sources) as you clearly describe in this essay. WP prefers secondary sources, but one or two sentences in a paper focusing primarily on a related topic does not make a good citation, so I usually tell my students to cite the primary source - but only if it has multiple solid citations. It would be nice if there was some way to indicated this, maybe include number of citations within the reference. I know this is a bit off topic from the requested comments. Biolprof (talk) 18:28, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
Cambrian symbols in temporal range
Taking this here, since it's apparently not just a technical problem with my browser!
Back in April, the {{Phanerozoic 220px}} template was changed to use the "Ꞓ" symbol (Unicode 792), rather than "Є" as previously. I understand that this symbol is only viewable by a minority of readers - I certainly can't view it, even after following all the instructions at Help:Special characters - although I'm not sure how small a minority that is. Since the template is present on literally thousands of articles, should we revert to the older, but less technically correct, symbol in the interests of readability, or leave it as it is, perhaps with clearer advice somewhere on how to view it for those currently unable to?
To be honest, I'd be inclined to be bold and revert to "Є" myself, pending consensus for a change, but the page being, quite rightly, under template protection I don't have that ability. And it's also possible that it's an issue for a smaller number of readers than I think it is - perhaps an RFC would help establish the scope of that, but if we can get quick consensus here first, we might not need to go that far. Anaxial (talk) 08:30, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
- The issue is resolved as the edit to {{Phanerozoic 220px}} has been reverted—see its talk. The reverted edit changed the symbol used at Template:Taxobox#Fossil range for PreЄ and Є. That affected thousands of articles! Johnuniq (talk) 10:08, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 4
Hello friends! We have been hard at work these past two months. For this report:
For the first time, we are happy to bring you an exhaustive, comprehensive WikiProject Directory. This directory endeavors to list every single WikiProject on the English Wikipedia, including those that don't participate in article assessment. In constructing the broadest possible definition, we have come up with a list of approximately 2,600 WikiProjects. The directory tracks activity statistics on the WikiProject's pages, and, for where it's available, statistics on the number of articles tracked by the WikiProject and the number of editors active on those articles. Complementing the directory are description pages for each project, listing usernames of people active on the WikiProject pages and the articles in the WikiProject's scope. This will help Wikipedians interested in a subject find each other, whether to seek feedback on an article or to revive an old project. (There is an opt-out option.) We have also come up with listings of related WikiProjects, listing the ten most relevant WikiProjects based on what articles they have in common. We would like to promote WikiProjects as interconnected systems, rather than isolated silos.
A tremendous amount of work went into preparing this directory. WikiProjects do not consistently categorize their pages, meaning we had to develop our own index to match WikiProjects with the articles in their scope. We also had to make some adjustments to how WikiProjects were categorized; indeed, I personally have racked up a few hundred edits re-categorizing WikiProjects. There remains more work to be done to make the WikiProject directory truly useful. In the meantime, take a look and feel free to leave feedback at the WikiProject X talk page.
What have we been working on?
- A new design template—This has been in the works for a while, of course. But our goal is to design something that is useful and cleanly presented on all browsers and at all screen resolutions while working within the confines of what MediaWiki has to offer. Additionally, we are working on designs for the sub-components featured on the main project page.
- A new WikiProject talk page banner in Lua—Work has begun on implementing the WikiProject banner in Lua. The goal is to create a banner template that can be usable by any WikiProject in lieu of having its own template. Work has slowed down for now to focus on higher priority items, but we are interested in your thoughts on how we could go about creating a more useful project banner. We have a draft module on Test Wikipedia, with a demonstration.
- New discussion reports—We have over 4.8 million articles on the English Wikipedia, and almost as many talk pages as well. But what happens when someone posts on a talk page? What if no one is watching that talk page? We are currently testing out a system for an automatically-updating new discussions list, like RFC for WikiProjects. We currently have five test pages up for the WikiProjects on cannabis, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and Ghana.
- SuggestBot for WikiProjects—We have asked the maintainer of SuggestBot to make some minor adjustments to SuggestBot that will allow it to post regular reports to those WikiProjects that ask for them. Stay tuned!
- Semi-automated article assessment—Using the new revision scoring service and another system currently under development, WikiProjects will be getting a new tool to facilitate the article assessment process by providing article quality/importance predictions for articles yet to be assessed. Aside from helping WikiProjects get through their backlogs, the goal is to help WikiProjects with collecting metrics and triaging their work. Semi-automation of this process will help achieve consistent results and keep the process running smoothly, as automation does on other parts of Wikipedia.
Want us to work on any other tools? Interested in volunteering? Leave a note on our talk page.
The database report which lists WikiProjects according to the number of watchers (i.e., people that have the project on their watchlist), is back! The report stopped being updated a year ago, following the deactivation of the Toolserver, but a replacement report has been generated.
Until next time,
Harej (talk) 22:20, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
New Wikipedia Library donations
Hello all, I wanted to let you know of two recent donations we just opened up at the Wikipedia Library: WP:Taylor & Francis and WP:AAAS. Please sign up for the accounts if you think you can use them. Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 00:22, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
Article about Hans Ris
Dear biologists,
as the articles for creation process is severely backlogged, I hope to count on you concerning the review of this article draft :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Hans_Ris
Thanks!
You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride!
- What? Wiki Loves Pride, a campaign to document and photograph LGBT culture and history, including pride events
- When? June 2015
- How can you help?
- 1.) Create or improve LGBT-related articles and showcase the results of your work here
- 2.) Upload photographs or other media related to LGBT culture and history, including pride events, and add images to relevant Wikipedia articles; feel free to create a subpage with a gallery of your images (see examples from last year)
- 3.) Contribute to an LGBT-related task force at another Wikimedia project (Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, Wikivoyage, etc.)
Or, view or update the current list of Tasks. This campaign is supported by the Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group, an officially recognized affiliate of the Wikimedia Foundation. Visit the group's page at Meta-Wiki for more information, or follow Wikimedia LGBT+ on Facebook. Remember, Wiki Loves Pride is about creating and improving LGBT-related content at Wikimedia projects, and content should have a neutral point of view. One does not need to identify as LGBT or any other gender or sexual minority to participate. This campaign is about adding accurate, reliable information to Wikipedia, plain and simple, and all are welcome!
If you have any questions, please leave a message on the campaign's main talk page.
Thanks, and happy editing!
WP:WikiProject Life on Mars
As the name of this Wikiproject may provide confusion with the article located at Life on Mars (to which is it unrelated to), I thought you'd like to know about a change to the naming of that project, see WT:WikiProject Life on Mars -- 67.70.32.20 (talk) 05:58, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Criollo people which affects several animal breeds. -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 04:16, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
Present Day Habitability of Mars source material
Editors here may be interested in source material from: Draft:Present_day_habitability_of_Mars, for instance, for articles on liquid water on Mars, or on Mars analogue habitats, or on the Viking experiments etc.
Also, some of the material may be useful for Life_on_Mars#Habitability. I don't feel I can contribute there myself because I just don't feel I can write on this topic area if I can only mention those who think that the present day Mars surface is uninhabitable. As you will see, my draft article's section Views on the possibility of present day life on or near the surface summarizes a range of published views on the habitability of present day Mars.
The article was rejected mainly because it is too detailed for wikipedia, and relies a bit too much on primary sources.
Incidentally I'm also interested in any suggestions for other wikis to submit it to. Thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 12:15, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
Copyright Violation Detection - EranBot Project
A new copy-paste detection bot is now in general use on English Wikipedia. Come check it out at the EranBot reporting page. This bot utilizes the Turnitin software (ithenticate), unlike User:CorenSearchBot that relies on a web search API from Yahoo. It checks individual edits rather than just new articles. Please take 15 seconds to visit the EranBot reporting page and check a few of the flagged concerns. Comments welcome regarding potential improvements. These likely copyright violations can be searched by WikiProject categories. Use "control-f" to jump to your area of interest (if such a copyvio is present).--Lucas559 (talk) 16:15, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
Blue eye image and blue eye primacy for the image caption at the Physical attractiveness article
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Physical attractiveness#Blue eye image and blue eye primacy for the image caption. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 (talk) 05:54, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
Biology article
Please, see the current dispute in Biology article. I think vandalistic nationalistic edits are serially reverted by two users and I can not deal alone.--Evropariver (talk) 09:17, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
African golden wolf
Are all golden jackal populations in Africa the African golden wolf Canis anthus? [3] seems to indicate this, but our article Canis anthus is about the subspecies found in Senegal, formerly Canis aureus anthus. Is the newly defined African golden wolf equivalent to this subspecies, or are we missing an article that should be split from golden jackal covering many more African populatoins? -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 08:12, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
AfC submission
Mind having a look at Draft:Tumor antigens recognized by T lymphocytes? FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 01:13, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
"Other red cell antigens"
Other red cell antigens has been proposed to be renamed, see talk:Other red cell antigens -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 05:13, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Too incoherent to edit
Please see Talk:Offspring § Often garbled and incoherent. The article needs a review by a biology maven before it can even be edited for grammar and style. --Thnidu (talk) 21:40, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
Commons Flickr image dump- files need categorizing!
Just a heads up: There are a ton of recent images on Commons that are of value to all sorts of natural sciences articles, but that need categorization. Please see the discussion on the Commons Paleo Project Talk page here (Note: The images are of interest to more than Paleo projects.) Cheers. --Animalparty! (talk) 00:53, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
A call for more GA and FA biography articles
I notice that while there are hundreds of recognized articles (GA or FA class) for plant and animal taxa, there are relatively few biographies of biologists that are recognized as Good Articles (23) and even fewer are Featured Articles (9). As a new school year begins, I'd like to put out a call to dedicate some attention towards biology biographies, with the hope of improving more towards recognized status (see the Good Article criteria and the more strict Featured Article criteria). Some articles (e.g. Asa Gray) probably already meet the criteria and just need a couple dedicated editors to nominate and review, while others are close but need a bit more primping. While anyone can improve or nominate any article they wish, priority might go towards substantially developed articles of higher importance such as High importance B-class biographies rather than biographies of relatively low-importance (I'm certainly guilty of working on relatively obscure scientists when Gregor Mendel languishes as C-class!), but note that fame or importance of the subject is not a criteria for GA or FA, and a "Good Article" needn't be an exclusive club but rather a threshold that all articles should strive to attain. It's also likely that some articles are under-ranked (i.e. an article assessed as Start now meets C or B class criteria on the quality scale), and can simply be upgraded without peer-review. As always, happy editing! --Animalparty! (talk) 20:24, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
New article on Coastal erosion in Southeast Louisiana
I just finished creating the article Coastal erosion in Southeast Louisiana. It is my hope that this project will give the article its highest priority. I am not a scientific writer--I usually contribute to articles on arts and culture. However, this one I could not ignore. I was shocked to find that there was no article on this specific topic. The older article, Coastal erosion, pertains to situations in other regions which bear no relation to ours. I live in a region that looses 30 football fields of land a day (i.e. wetlands) and needs our wetlands for protection from hurricanes. Our wetlands tie into the ecosystem of the whole continent, being a prime layover for numerous migratory species. It is my hope that we will concentrate on the improvement and expansion of this article in order to provide vital information about an important topic. So, I am asking for everybody's help. Garagepunk66 (talk) 23:29, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
- @Garagepunk66: Thanks for contributing that article. I've tagged the article talk page with some relevant WikiProjects such as WikiProject Louisiana and WikiProject Geography. You might request assistance from those Projects as well to attract more experts from a variety of angles. Cheers, --Animalparty! (talk) 01:02, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks! Garagepunk66 (talk) 01:04, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Discussion about whether to deprecate Template:Cite doi
Template:Cite doi allows editors to generate a citation from a digital object identifier. There is a discussion about whether to deprecate this template. Since doi's are used the sciences and this is a science WikiProject, I am inviting anyone here to comment. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:25, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
Q on disambig of bio vocabulary terms like "gular"
"Gular" is a term that is usefully linked in articles, and is defined easily as "of or pertaining to the throat" at top of Gular, a disambiguation page (permalink). There could be a little bit more to say there, but it seems there's no need for a separate article on it. However the links to gular are technically illegal and disambiguation-focused editors are likely to unlink every usage, undercutting the articles. (The six articles with good links to it are: American bullfrog, Desert tortoise, Draco indochinensis, Eastern casquehead iguana, Laemanctus, and Oxycorynini.)
What is preferred for a term like this?
1. Replace each usage by a Wiktionary link [[wiktionary:gular|gular]] as in "The bullfrogs were displaying their brilliantly colored gular sacs".
- ...but the reader is taken out of Wikipedia and deprived of exposure to context, including related other terms, that can be given at the disambiguation page
2. Move the current page to "Gular (disambiguation)" and redirect Gular to a new entry for it in the Glossary of biology, perhaps an entry like:
- Gular - of or pertaining to the throat. Usage includes Gular fold, Gular scales, Gular scute, or gular projection.
- ...but that would probably be disallowed there; this particular glossary has an editorial policy to include only certain kinds of terms, and all of its entries have separate articles. (Contrast to Glossary of botanical terms, which is managed differently.)
- ...and also there would be no way for readers looking for the other usages to navigate their way to an article or redlink about a village named "Gular" (which I don't see how to address, so "2." might be disallowed by some rule, and the article move could be disputed).
3. Replace each "[[gular]]" by ""[[gular (disambiguation)|gular]]", which indicates the linking to a disambiguation page is deliberate. (This removes it from the main worklist and immediate focus of the most prolific disambiguators.)
- ...but links to disambiguation pages are poor style, and another editor might be dissatisfied by that and remove that link.
4. Any other option?
- --a mass disambiguator, doncram 00:11, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
RfC at Homo naledi
Interested editors are invited to comment at Talk:Homo_naledi#RfC:_a_dozen_articles_rejected_by_Nature. --Animalparty! (talk) 00:18, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
Category:Sequenced genomes
Category:Sequenced genomes, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for renaming to "Category:Lists of sequenced genomes" with the deletion of all sub-categories. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. RevelationDirect (talk) 02:20, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
A butterfly feeding on the tears of a turtle in Ecuador
I've nominated A butterfly feeding on the tears of a turtle in Ecuador for Featured Picture consideration.
Discussion is ongoing, at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/A butterfly feeding on the tears of a turtle in Ecuador.
— Cirt (talk) 02:34, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 5
Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:
In July, we launched five pilot WikiProjects: WikiProjects Cannabis, Evolutionary Biology, Ghana, Hampshire, and Women's Health. We also use the new design, named "WPX UI," on WikiProject Women in Technology, Women in Red, WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health. We are currently looking for projects for the next round of testing. If you are interested, please sign up on the Pilots page.
Shortly after our launch we presented at Wikimania 2015. Our slides are on Wikimedia Commons.
Then after all that work, we went through the process of figuring out whether we accomplished our goal. We reached out to participants on the redesigned WikiProjects, and we asked them to complete a survey. (If you filled out your survey—thank you!) While there are still some issues with the WikiProject tools and the new design, there appears to be general satisfaction (at least among those who responded). The results of the survey and more are documented in our grant report filed with the Wikimedia Foundation.
There is more work that needs to be done, so we have applied for a renewal of our grant. Comments on the proposal are welcome. We would like to improve what we have already started on the English Wikipedia and to also expand to Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. Why those? Because they are multilingual projects and because there needs to be better coordination across Wikimedia projects. More details are available in the renewal proposal.
The Wikimedia Developer Summit will be held in San Francisco in January 2016. The recently established Community Tech team at the Wikimedia Foundation is interested in investigating what technical support they can provide for WikiProjects, i.e., support beyond just templates and bots. I have plenty of opinions myself, but I want to hear what you think. The session is being planned on Phabricator, the Wikimedia bug tracker. If you are not familiar with Phabricator, you can log in with your Wikipedia username and password through the "Login or Register: MediaWiki" button on the login page. Your feedback can help make editing Wikipedia a better experience.
Until next time,
Suggestions welcome on species-article writing handbook for university students
Hello all; I'm writing on behalf of the Wiki Education Foundation, which works with instructors who assign university students to write or edit Wikipedia articles in the United States and Canada. We're developing a print handbook for students who will write or expand articles on a brochure - found here - about editing species articles, including animals, plants and fungi. I'd appreciate any feedback on the draft! It is open for comment until November 5th; after that we will set it to print. Thanks so much! Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:10, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
Vandalism or common knowledge? Fish procreate by randomly by "mating" into the open ocean without any fish of the opposite gender-identity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_mackerel#Life_history
WTF @ "Eggs and sperm are shed into the sea and their union is by chance."
71.55.24.102 (talk) 23:27, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
- @71.55.24.102: See Broadcast spawning. Without an inline citation in the king mackerel article it is difficult to determine the meaning, but presumably fish of the opposite sex are nearby (e.g. in a school or mating swarm). --Animalparty! (talk) 23:32, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
Pheromones material at the Sexual orientation article
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Sexual orientation#PNAS/pheromones material. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:33, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
Guidance
Hi All, I am working on improving the information provided on the Cell Biology page for my Cell Biology class. I do not want to make a wrong turn or post, so I would like your feedback and suggestions on what I may be able yo do during my edits. I am currently working on the first part of the introduction and before I post on the actual page I would like to copy my suggestion of what should be posted here. Below you can see what I have started with and please be free to tell me what else you think would be wise to add.
Cell Biology Cell biology (formerly cytology, from the Greek κυτος, kytos, which means "vessel"), and otherwise known as molecular or cellular biology, is a branch of biology that studies the different structures and functions of the cell, and focuses mainly on the idea that the cell is the basic unit of life. Cell biology explains the the structure, organization of organelles, physiological properties, metabolic processes, signaling pathways, life cycle, and interaction of the cell with the environment. This done both on the microscopic and molecular level as it encompasses prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Knowing the components of cells and how cells work is fundamental to all biological sciences. Therefore, research in cell biology is closely related to genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, immunology, and developmental biology. SBlai005 (talk) 04:41, 10 November 2015 (UTC)SBlai005
Anyone want to look at this?
I came across this draft at AfC and I figured that it'd best benefit from someone more familiar with the topic. The draft is Draft:Dark diversity and it looks like it's a fairly new concept, so it may be a bit too soon. Still, it may benefit from a WP Biology member coming in and taking a peek. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:50, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
Slow Science
Slow Science has been requested to be renamed, see talk:Slow Science -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 04:37, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
Need some more help
I was wondering if anyone could take a look at Draft:Mother's curse and see if it passes all the necessary guidelines for notability, verification, and so on. I'm not familiar with this subject matter, so I think that it'd be best if someone more familiar with the topic took a look at this. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:46, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
Life for GA
I'm reviewing the Life article for GA status, but I was told the nominator was "an editor with very weak English skills and very little Wikipedia experience". I'm asking for someone else to take over the nomination, preferably someone familiar with the article and Wikipedia. Dunkleosteus77 (push to talk) 19:07, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
"Animal research"
The usage and topic of "animal research" is under discussion, see Talk:Animal testing -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 09:42, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 6
Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:
Some good news: the Wikimedia Foundation has renewed WikiProject X. This means we can continue focusing on making WikiProjects better.
During our first round of work, we created a prototype WikiProject based on two ideas: (1) WikiProjects should clearly present things for people to do, and (2) The content of WikiProjects should be automated as much as possible. We launched pilots, and for the most part it works. But this approach will not work for the long term. While it makes certain aspects of running a WikiProject easier, it makes the maintenance aspects harder.
We are working on a major overhaul that will address these issues. New features will include:
- Creating WikiProjects by simply filling out a form, choosing which reports you want to generate for your project. This will work with existing bots in addition to the Reports Bot reports. (Of course, you can also have sections curated by humans.)
- One-click button to join a WikiProject, with optional notifications.
- Be able to define your WikiProject's scope within the WikiProject itself by listing relevant pages and categories, eliminating the need to tag every talk page with a banner. (You will still be allowed to do that, of course. It just won't be required.)
The end goal is a collaboration tool that can be used by WikiProjects but also by any edit-a-thon or group of people that want to coordinate on improving articles. Though implemented as an extension, the underlying content will be wikitext, meaning that you can continue to use categories, templates, and other features as you normally would.
This will take a lot of work, and we are just getting started. What would you like to see? I invite you to discuss on our talk page.
Until next time,
Marmoset
Can someone keep additional eyes on the current foolishness taking place at Marmoset? Thanks... ‑ Iridescent 01:16, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Intervention in entry that has been targeted by edit warring
I'd like to solicit Project members to weigh in on the entry Biology and sexual orientation, which has been the target of arbitrary content removal by User:Flyer22 Reborn (though she'd argue it's I who's edit warring. These are the sections of the entry she insists on removing, all of which, as can be seen by anyone, are properly sourced to peer reviewed sources but which for some reason, in my view unsupported by editing guidelines, she considers biased (see Talk Page). Her justification for the continuing removal of the sections for 3 months is the need to establish consensus (she along with two other users want to keep it removed; me and another user have expressed the desire to have it re-inserted). I think both she and I said everything we could in this regard, so please, give us YOUR opinion and help debate advance and true consensus be built. Rafe87 (talk) 20:00, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
- Anyone wanting to know why I and others keep removing Rafe87's poorly sourced material can see this section. And it was already explained to him that peer review by itself is not the same thing as literature review or systematic review; WP:MEDRS prefers the latter two. Primary sources like the ones he's adding are discouraged for very good reasons, noted at WP:Primary sources and WP:MEDRS. The next stop is WP:ANI if he continues to edit war. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:16, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 7
This month:
Development of the extension for setting up WikiProjects, as described in the last issue of this newsletter, is currently underway. No terribly exciting news on this front.
In the meantime, we are working on a prototype for a new service we hope to announce soon. The problem: there are requests scattered all across Wikipedia, including requests for new articles and requests for improvements to existing articles. We Wikipedians are very good at coming up with lists of things to do. But once we write these lists, where do they end up? How can we make them useful for all editors—even those who do not browse the missing articles lists, or the particular WikiProjects that have lists?
Introducing Wikipedia Requests, a new tool to centralize the various lists of requests around Wikipedia. Requests will be tagged by category and WikiProject, making it easier to find requests based on what your interests are. Accompanying this service will be a bot that will let you generate reports from this database on any wiki page, including WikiProjects. This means that once a request is filed centrally, it can syndicated all throughout Wikipedia, and once it is fulfilled, it will be marked as "complete" throughout Wikipedia. The idea for this service came about when I saw that it was easy to put together to-do lists based on database queries, but it was harder to do this for human-generated requests when those requests are scattered throughout the wiki, siloed throughout several pages. This should especially be useful for WikiProjects that have overlapping interests.
The newsletter this month is fairly brief; not a lot of news, just checking in to say that we are hard at work and hope to have more for you soon.
Until next time,
Harej (talk) 01:44, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
Discussion about generally considering articles from predatory publishers unreliable
There is a discussion here if that topic is of interest. It has been going on since Feb 26, but just wanted to make sure folks here are aware of it. Jytdog (talk) 18:07, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Merging Category:Human blood to Category:Blood
See Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2016_March_6#Category:Human_blood for a discussion to merge the human blood category to the general blood category -- 70.51.46.39 (talk) 00:31, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
"Plasma"
The usage and primary topic of "plasma" is under discussion, see talk:plasma (physics) -- 70.51.46.39 (talk) 05:51, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
"Basophil"
The usage of Basophil and basophil cell is under discussion, see talk:Basophil granulocyte -- 70.51.46.39 (talk) 04:54, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
Guidelines about living scientists
FYI Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography/Science_and_academia#guidelines_about_living_scientists--Alexmar983 (talk) 04:52, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
Omnivore article
Could I please request some extra eyes at the Omnivore article regarding the etymology/definition. Thanks in advance. DrChrissy (talk) 23:21, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
Sessility
Sessility is covered in three different short articles. Sessility (botany) is about plants without stalks. Sessility (zoology) is about aquatic animals that don't move. Sessility (limnology) is part of the Biology project, is listed as a Botany stub, and has mostly information about aquatic animals like barnacles and tunicates although it does also mention vegetation and microorganisms. I think something should be done here, probably deleting the limnology article and merging it's contents into the zoology article (perhaps with a better name). Any comments? MB (talk) 16:13, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
- The limnology version is garbage. It has nothing to do with limnology. It has 25 incoming links, which seem to be the result of the sessility disambiguation page presenting it as a term that isn't botany/zoology specific, and editors fixing dab links selecting it when plant/animal context is unclear. Merge anything relevant from the limnology article to the zoology article, delete the limnology article, and retarget the incoming links. The sense of "aquatic
animalsorganisms that don't move" might also be applied to algae (which may be free-floating, or anchored to a substrate and thus unmoving), in which case there might be a better title. Sessility (habit) probably isn't it, but something along those lines. Plantdrew (talk) 06:39, 9 April 2016 (UTC)- @Plantdrew:I have taken the first step and merged the articles. Please take a look at Sessility (zoology) (article and talk page). Thanks. MB (talk) 05:49, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
A new article has shown up, with a move request to overwrite Peripheral nervous system, for the discussion see talk:To new title:Peripheral nervous system -- 70.51.45.100 (talk) 03:55, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
- This has reverted to User:Jungi0714/Peripheral nervous system -- 70.51.45.100 (talk) 03:07, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
List of organisms by chromosome count
List of organisms by chromosome count and the adders-tongue / Ophioglossum entry there could use some eyes after my edits. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:07, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Dear biologists: This old draft will soon be deleted unless someone takes an interest in it. Is this a notable topic?—Anne Delong (talk) 22:10, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
A disaster since the 2004.Xx236 (talk) 07:02, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 8
This month:
In the last issue of the WikiProject X Newsletter, I discussed the upcoming Wikipedia Requests system: a central database for outstanding work on Wikipedia. I am pleased to announce Wikipedia Requests is live! Its purpose is to supplement automatically generated lists, such as those from SuggestBot, Reports bot, or Wikidata. It is currently being demonstrated on WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health (which I work on as part of my NIOSH duties) and WikiProject Women scientists.
Adding a request is as simple as filling out a form. Just go to the Add form to add your request. Adding sources will help ensure that your request is fulfilled more quickly. And when a request is fulfilled, simply click "mark as complete" and it will be removed from all the lists it's on. All at the click of a button! (If anyone is concerned, all actions are logged.)
With this new service is a template to transclude these requests: {{Wikipedia Requests}}. It's simple to use: add the template to a page, specifying article=, category=, or wikiproject=, and the list will be transcluded. For example, for requests having to do with all living people, just do {{Wikipedia Requests|category=Living people}}. Use these lists on WikiProjects but also for edit-a-thons where you want a convenient list of things to do on hand. Give it a shot!
The value of Wikipedia Requests comes from being a centralized database. The long work to migrating individual lists into this combined list is slowly underway. As of writing, we have 883 open tasks logged in Wikipedia Requests. We need your help building this list.
If you know of a list of missing articles, or of outstanding tasks for existing articles, that you would like to migrate to this new system, head on over to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Requests#Transition project and help out. Doing this will help put your list in front of more eyes—more than just your own WikiProject.
WikiProject X maintains a database that associates article talk pages (and draft talk pages) with WikiProjects. This database powers many of the reports that Reports bot generates. However, until very recently, this database was not made available to others who might find its data useful. It's only common sense to open up the database and let others build tools with it.
And indeed: Citation Hunt, the game to add citations to Wikipedia, now lets you filter by WikiProject, using the data from our database.
Are you a tool developer interested in using this? Here are some details: the database resides on Tool Labs with the name s52475__wpx_p. The table that associates WikiProjects with articles and drafts is called projectindex. Pages are stored by talk page title but in the future this should change. Have fun!
- The work on the CollaborationKit extension continues. The extension will initially focus on reducing template and Lua bloat on WikiProjects (especially our WPX UI demonstration projects), and will from there create custom interfaces for creating and maintaining WikiProjects.
- The WikiCite meeting will be in Berlin in May. The goal of the meeting is to figure out how to build a bibliographic database for use on the Wikimedia projects. This fits in quite nicely with WikiProject X's work: we want to make it easier for people to find things to work on, and with a powerful, open bibliographic database, we can build recommendations for sources. This feature was requested by the Wikipedia Library back in September, and this meeting is a major next step. We look forward to seeing what comes out of this meeting.
Until next time,
Harej (talk) 01:29, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
"Monkey test" and "monkey testing"
The usage and topic of monkey test and Monkey testing is under discussion, see talk:monkey test -- 70.51.46.195 (talk) 06:16, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
We have a submission in Articles for Creation about 'self' in biology but it's unclear whether this is actually an established and notable concept. Could anyone from this WikiProject comment on that? Joe Roe (talk) 11:42, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
- It would be great to get a response about this. Please post your comments to the draft's talk page. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:30, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
Comment: Oh, crap. There is even a Nobel Prize about the self/non-self notion in biology[1]. Too bad : a non-biologist declined this.
References
"Usurpation"
The usage and primary topic of Usurpation is under discussion, see DRAFT TALK:Usurpation -- 70.51.200.96 (talk) 06:50, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
RfC: Photographic memory vs. eidetic memory
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Eidetic memory#WP:RfC: Should the article be strict in stating that photographic memory and eidetic memory are not the same thing?. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:27, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
Peer review of life.
I have started a peer review of life here. Feel free to drop some suggestions on how to improve the article. MartinZ02 (talk) 16:41, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
Creating a Sex characteristics article
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Sex characteristics#WP:Redundant fork. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:53, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
Naming of articles
There is a discussion at Duck (food) about the naming of articles which editors might be interested in. DrChrissy (talk) 18:45, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 9
Check out this month's issue of the WikiProject X newsletter, featuring the first screenshot of our new CollaborationKit software!
Harej (talk) 00:23, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
WikiFactMine: Proposed Wiki Grant for biological Wikidata
We are proposing a Wikimedia Project Grant (WikiFactMine) which will automatically scan the daily peer-reviewed scientific literature (up to 10000 articles /day) and extract biological entities (definable in Wikidata). We concentrate on genes and species which have high precision and recall. These, with their citations, are then offered to Wikidata editors for potential inclusion/update. These can also alert Wikipedia editors to new citations. The project includes a Wikimedian in residence in the University of Cambridge. We'd be grateful for comments, endorsement and offers of help.Petermr (talk) 10:37, 2 August 2016 (UTC)