Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 37

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Archive 35

Formatting issue 1 - IUCN status

I've got two questions relating to formatting/phrasing issues that have kept popping up in the past few days, and since I can't find any solid statements about either I'd like to pose them here:

(reformatted into separate headings due to to stupid original setup)

- 1) To what extent do we capitalize the IUCN status? Usage seems to be inconsistent - IUCN do full capitalization of one and two word statuses ("Critically Endangered"), our taxoboxes capitalize first word only ("Endangered", but "Critically endangered"), and in the text it's often a toss-up. See some discussion at Talk: Northern white rhinoceros. If there's no current written guideline on this, we might consider the proposal nagualdesign made there.

As far as the other issue goes, on how to capitalize the IUCN status, I agree with nagualdesign. Unfortunately you have raised two unrelated issues in the one thread, making discussion on either issue awkward. --Epipelagic (talk) 21:05, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Okay, I guess I should post this here. I found the following at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Typographic conformity:

A quotation is not a facsimile, and in most cases it is not a requirement that the original formatting be preserved. Formatting and other purely typographical elements of quoted text should be adapted to English Wikipedia's conventions without comment provided that doing so will not change or obscure meaning or intent of the text; this practice is universal among publishers. [...]

Direct quotation should not be used in an attempt to preserve the formatting preferred by an external publisher, especially when the material would otherwise be unchanged:

Right: The animal is listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Wrong: The animal is listed as "Endangered" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Italics can be used to mark a particular usage as a term of art (a case of "words as words"), especially when it is unfamiliar or should not be reworded by a non-expert:

Permissible: The animal is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

While I broadly agree with the rationale, the specific examples shown lack any sort of subtlety. If what it's really saying is that Wikipedia has its own rules, then is it okay to preserve certain formatting, if that's become the general convention here? Whatever the case, as per my original post we should at least aim for consistency. The crux of this, I guess, is whether my proposal reflects what has become the general convention here. If it does then applying those guidelines more rigorously will only improve consistency. What those MoS examples don't say is that preserving the original capitalization is one commonly used way of negating the need for quotation marks, especially with one- or two-word phrases and such. It may not be a requirement that the original formatting be preserved, but neither is it a requirement to not preserve the formatting. Given the general convention with IUCN classifications here I think MoS is using bad examples. I'll leave it to other users here to make sense of all this. nagual design 23:49, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

A grouped response:

Re: 'our taxoboxes capitalize first word only ("Endangered", but "Critically endangered")' – Infoboxes capitalize the first letter of every entry; what this represents in regular text is "critically endangered", since we do not use "Sentence case" for any terminology of any kind.
If there's a "toss-up" in the text and some people are using "Critically Endangered" this is a specialized-style fallacy, importing style from another organization's house style into our context, where we do not use unnecessary capitalization. I.e., it's people unaware of MOS:CAPS and the above-quoted section of MOS:QUOTE. No one is required to read MoS before editing, but non-compliant material will be WP:MERCILESSly made compliant. Reverting compliance edits (i.e., interfering with other editors following our guidelines) has been branded disruptive at ANI. So, just accept that WP style is not 100% the same as what you're personally familiar with. This would also be true if you were following the Associated Press Stylebook, or the style guide of a journal, or following the one of The New York Times when writing for them. Organizations of all kinds Capitalize Stuff Important to Them in their internal and marketing materials; WP does not mimic this, ever.
Re: "the specific examples shown lack any sort of subtlety" – Examples in guidelines are not supposed to be subtle. The point of the examples is to be very clear with no room for interpretation or confusion, otherwise they completely fail as examples.
Re: "What those MoS examples don't say is that preserving the original capitalization is one commonly used way of negating the need for quotation marks" – Oh, but MoS does address this, which is one of many forms of Capitalization As Emphasis. The #1 rule at MOS:CAPS is do not use capitalization for emphasis. We've been over this thousands of times in innumerable contexts, and the answer is always "no". Otherwise, every specialist in every speciality will demand to capitalize their special terms, eventually resulting Wikipedia reading like German, since everything is subject to some specialty somewhere, so eventually just about every noun and noun phrase would end up capitalized. These rules were instituted for a reason. I'm guessing you were not around for all the fights about things like capitalizing "Mountain Lion", "Method Acting", "working as President of XYZ Corporation", "the Parties to a Contract", "all Stops and Stations in this Subway System", etc., etc., etc. Many things are "common" but not used on Wikipedia. Also, the quoted section of MoS also says not to use quotation marks in an attempt to preserve some other organization's style, so the whole "one commonly used way of negating the need for quotation marks" thing is a wash from the start. Just use plain English "critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species". No one is going to be confused in any way. The part that is capitalized – the proper names – belong that way and are quite sufficient for "IUCN branding" purposes. No one is suggesting writing "the IUCN list of threatened species", reducing the title of a published work into a description.
Italics are permitted when introducing a term for the first time in a context in which it may be unfamiliar to most readers, or when a "words as words" usage needs to be marked as such to avoid ambiguity or confusion (e.g., "use of the subjunctive were is declining"). Odds are that in an article on a species, this won't be the case for an IUCN status; later editors would probably remove the italicization, too, as superfluous stylization.
Re: "I think MoS is using bad examples" – It's not. Those were chosen to illustrate the principle (which needed illustrating) while avoiding having to create a special rule about IUCN terminology; two birds, one stone. If the example were removed, we would then create a special rule (probably in MOS:CAPS) about IUCN terminology that said the same thing, since the matter keeps coming up again and again despite the #1 rule of MOS:CAPS. The primary point of MoS is ending pointless style disputes so that editors get back to creating and improving content. If this debate is recurrent, a more explicit rule than the use of some examples will have to be put in.
Re: "neither is it a requirement to not preserve the formatting" – Since these examples are explicit about this in particular, yes, it is a requirement, to the extent that guidelines are requirements. (There is no WP:IAR case to make here; capitalizing just because you will like it and it's what you're used to will not objectively improve the encyclopedia, only make you [and presumably some IUCN employees] happy but irritate other editors by creating pointless cleanup work for them to do.) You can't use a lawyerly or system-gaming approach to Wikipedia guidelines and policies. Just because it doesn't state "you must not capitalize IUCN endangerment designations" doesn't mean you're free to do so when the intent is clearly the opposite. WP's rules are interpreted as to their spirt and intent, not their exact to-the-letter wording; this is covered at WP:POLICY.
PS: MoS bends over backwards to try to keep biologists and other scientists happy. E.g., we "enforce" Notophthalmus viridescens style for binomials, despite the fact that the average reader doesn't care about the genus capitalization or the italics. And see most of MOS:NUM, a huge pile of sci-tech nitpicks. The general rule of thumb on scientific style quirks is to do what Scientific Style and Format does – except when this clashes with everyday readers' expectations and may confuse them. Inappropriate capitalization, as emphasis (including as some form of disambiguation), is a common source of that confusion, and has caused serious problems in the past. E.g., one wikiproject's insistence on capitalizing the vernacular names of species in one order lead to years of disruptive "capitalization wars" to force this style on all living things, and further overcapping problems all over the site; new users got the incorrect impression that Capitalizing Important Stuff Is Wikipedia Style. We cannot go back to that kind of mess just to make IUCN insiders happy.

— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:40, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Disagree profoundly with User:SMcCandlish. This is not a question of house style or proper nouns, it's a more nuanced use of capitals to indicate (subtly) that there is meaning attached to the words beyond their usual generic meaning and they are being used in a particular context. These are "terms of art". They aren't "Organizations of all kinds Capitalizing Stuff Important to Them". This is a long-established use of capital letters. MOS offers italic, which is better than nothing, but I see no reason not to use capitals. None of the lower-case zealots can ever come up with a reason for disliking capitals stronger than "they look untidy". --Dave.Dunford (talk) 10:51, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately emotions seem to run high here whenever capitalization is discussed, which isn't helpful. As Dave.Dunford rightly points out the purpose of capitals in this case is not to mark a proper name or claim that This is Important, but to distinguish between the ordinary language meaning of "critically endangered" and the IUCN's use of "Critically Endangered" as a precise status. It's possible with careful writing to make this distinction, but using capitals is easier. Perhaps the answer is to introduce the initials at first use and then use only the initials thereafter, since the MoS allows "CR", "EW", etc. The problem is that achieving clarity in this way requires more writing skill on the part of editors than I see in evidence day to day. (I look forward to the debate on decapitalizing phrases like "the White House", which no more need to be capitalized than "Critically Endangered".) Peter coxhead (talk) 11:30, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, the intent behind the capitalization of IUCN classifications is not one of peeing a capital onto a term to mark a territory, but intended to indicate a special meaning distinct from common usage. I'm aware the entire issue looks somewhat frivolous if this is either not known or ignored, so please let's not misrepresent that background. - The danger of such a misrepresentation in WP articles by not capitalizing is actually low, because the status term in the majority of cases is wikilinked and thus clearly defined. Thus if the combined weight of MOS interpretation (presented unnecessarily combatively above) and expected non-expert use in articles tips the scales that way, I guess it won't do that much damage. Still, I'm not convinced we should just ignore a convention that is used in the literature of the entire field. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 17:42, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

The question is whether or not endangered can be a capitonym. Our general rule: "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. ... capitalization is primarily needed for proper names, acronyms, or for the first word of a sentence" indicates that we wouldn't capitalize conservation statuses. We could decide to make an exception for a specific, sourced, official, status - according to some organization. Alternatively we could follow our general rules and write clearly to make the meaning of the word clear. I favor sticking with lower case; if we allow exceptions to rules, they tend to proliferate. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 01:08, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

That would argue for capitalizing, since "Endangered" as an IUCN status does not mean that the animal is endangered in some generic sense but meets the specific criteria for the particular "Endangered" status as determined by this particular organization. The IUCN itself capitalizes its statuses, and as far as I can tell from a quick Google search most other sources capitalize as well, e.g., Australian Museum, Giraffe Conservation Foundation, this scholarly article. If we can show that a preponderance of reliable sources use sentence case for IUCN statuses then it may be appropriate to use sentence case for Wikipedia to do so, but if the IUCN itself and a preponderance of reliable sources capitalize the statuses then it would be inappropriate for Wikipedia to do otherwise. Rlendog (talk) 01:58, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't be persuaded that Wikipedia should capitalize statuses if specialist sources do. I'd look to general encyclopedias, news articles, generalist books, etc. We are an encyclopedia about everything, so we need a style that works with all topics. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 04:19, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Doesn't qualify as a capitonym here (though the idea that it is one – inside a particular specialist context – is obviously the idea behind the style). It's not "due to one form being a proper noun or eponym"; it's not a name for God; it's not a distinction between a philosophy and a political party based on it; it's not a platonic ideal; it's not anything else covered at Capitonym. WP doesn't use capitonyms at all unless one is a proper noun or derived from one and capitalized as such (e.g., and eponym, demonym, geonym, etc.), and probably the majority of capitalization debates are WP are in fact attempts by specialists to assert that something they like to capitalize is a capitonym, and WP rejecting that idea. It's just not usually put into this particular terminology. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:13, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Re: "it's a more nuanced use of capitals ..." – This is exactly what MOS:CAPS means when it says to not use capitalization for emphasis. There is no issue that the intent to mark the terms as laden with a special, particular significance is "not known, or ignored"; we're well aware and have to deal with this very same intent from specialists in every field on every topic. This is not a specialist publication. WP just does not use capitalization for this sort of thing. (I don't know anyone who believes that this sort of capitalization is "subtle". There's a reason no mainstream style guides support the use of capping to mark terms of art: it visually brow-beats the reader, and is confusing, because it implies proper names status. You'll only find this style recommended in marketing style guides, and for certain kinds of documents, especially legal ones).

"I see no reason not to use capitals" – You've already been given the link to MOS:CAPS. "None of the lower-case zealots can ever come up with a reason for disliking capitals" – If you start labelling other editors with name-calling and aspersions, over stylistic trivia, that's not going to lead anywhere good. WP's style guide is primarily based on The Chicago Manual of Style, New Hart's Rules, Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, Garner's Modern English Usage, Scientific Style and Format, and The Elements of Style (in roughly descending order of influence). None of them call for the kind of capitalization you are talking about. That's hardly the IDONTLIKEIT argument you make it out to be.

Re: "a quick Google search ... most other sources capitalize as well" – No, they don't: [1] [2]. If you include "IUCN" in the search, the frequency goes up, but this is due primarily to a) IUCN's own publications showing up; b) people referring to the IUCN categorization scheme itself and its categories, as a system; and c) journals with a house style that wants such terms capitalized, and does it with lots of others WP also does in lower case (e.g. vernacular names of species). [3]. There is some use of the caps in mid-sentence in general-audience publications like newspapers and conservation newsletters, e.g. "the species is listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN", but the usage is mixed and still predominantly lower case, so we also use lower case (first rule of MOS:CAPS again). PS: I don't see any evidence that there is usage of "critical endangered" (and various other terms IUCN wants to lay capitalized claim to) differing sharply enough from IUCN's meaning that there could be potential for confusion, especially since we're going to mention IUCN and cite them if we're talking about their list, and or link to the article about it. Even if there were a confusion potential, we wouldn't use overcapitalization to solve it, ever. Causes too many problems here. Italics is the go-to style for marking a term of art as such.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 03:09, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: an aside, because it doesn't distract from your overall argument, but the searches you linked to above don't quite make the point you intended, because the text that Google shows in the results list is often lower-cased when the original isn't. E.g. this shows up third in the results I get for your first search, but actually does consistently capitalize "Critically Endangered", including in the title. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:12, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Right. I didn't mean that the Google page is evidence; one has to look in the actual pages to see that the style is mixed; Google's just a way to get at them quickly. It's more often uppercased when IUCN is explicitly mentioned, but still very mixed. If you do a search like "critically endangered" iucn -wikipedia -wiki at news.google.com you have no choice but to look at the actual articles since the acronym and the phrase don't show up together in many if any headlines. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 06:59, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

We've now arrived at the "Danger, Will Robinson!" point. Re: "Still, I'm not convinced we should just ignore a convention that is used in the literature of the entire field." This style is not used "in the literature of the entire field"; it's simply fairly frequent in it, but a very mixed usage, so we drop it as a rule. The capitalization is much, much less frequent in general-audience publications (way below 50%). Even if it were a near-unanimous practice in the specialist ones (it is not), we'd still reject it here on that basis. We arrived at this conclusion painfully but firmly, in a massive RfC.

This discussion is very closely mirroring the terrible old "capitalize common names of species of certain things because all journals in my field do it" dispute behind that RfC. It was also a claim which turned out not to quite be true, and which didn't matter because publications outside that field generally didn't do it. I think an eight-year, tiresome style fight about the exact same issue is one time-sucking mega-disruption too many, so let's not have another. Specialists in favor of the capping never gave up the desire to impose the jargonistic usage on readers who don't get it and were mystified by it, all for the exactly the same "caps help distinguish" reasoning that simply isn't valid here, only in an insider context. It was the most pointless style and titles conflict in WP's entire history, and its exact nature and inspiration are virtually indistinguishable from this one.

The very point of a house style guide is to set one particular style for a particular publishing context, in lieu of the utter chaos of people randomly following whatever style they like from any of innumerable other contexts. That necessarily means "ignoring conventions that are used in the literature of entire fields" that aren't the specialty of the current publisher (ours is producing encyclopedic material for a broad general audience). And extrapolating from "lots of journals I know use this style" to "this is the best/only way to write about this topic for everyone" is obvious original research, directly contracted by actual reliable sources on writing English for a general audience.

Emphasis-capping as form of signification/disambiguation does not work unless the reader is already an insider to exactly what is being signified; if they're not, it's just confusing/irritating, and (here) inspires one to click "Edit" to fix what in most readers' minds is an error. Guess what that demonstrably leads to? Years of tendentious editwarring between the pro-caps specialists and everyone else in the world who comes by. We've already survived that once, with pretty bad scars, including editorial resignations due to the heat generated over style trivia. Let's learn from the past, not repeat it.

Far be it from me to stir up a civil war over style (or at least that's the threatened severity that seems implied here...) If it's to be all lower case, let's put it into MOS:LIFE with the other cap cases so there's an easy point of reference in the future. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 17:39, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

That's a good place for it. I would also suggest adding it to MOS:ORGANISMS. While it's been a draft for yeårs because of the unresolved "to capitalized standardized breeds or not" disagreement, that'll settle out eventually. All it would take is a single RfC. The MOS:ORGANISMS page is far more comprehensive. That said, this does come up often enough that having it in "just the basics" MOS:LIFE would be of value. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 04:43, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Taxoboxes

I note that the original poster stated that the terms aren't fully capitalised in the taxoboxes, but this doesn't appear to be the case, editors fill code (LC, V, CE etc) into the taxobox or species box and the temple shows the full name and link, which from a quick check seems to be consistently capitalised (Hooded pitohui, White rhinoceros, New Zealand storm petrel are some examples). Northern white rhinoceros, which is where this discussion originated, seems to be an exception and may be because it's critically endangered, presumed extinct in the wild, which is a fairly rare category. So any decisions made here would need to be added to the templates (which would at least make implementing it across the whole of the TOL fairly easy at least from a taxobox POV). Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:57, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Hmm... There's definitely something amiss, although the vermicelli is so deep with these templates that it's hard to get to the bottom of it. The nearest I got was at Template:Taxobox/Status sandbox, where I can see how the codes are converted to statuses, in which they are not fully capitalized. Though as you point out, most taxoboxes in article space are capitalized. Perhaps there's some inconsistency between Template:Speciesbox and Template:Subspeciesbox or something? One thing's for certain; rightly or wrongly (by WP:MOSCAPS) Wikipedia's general convention seems to be to use caps, albeit inconsistently. So should this trend be reversed or more fully embraced? nagual design 23:35, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Digging a little deeper, at Template:Taxobox/species I see that IUCN 2.3 classifications are all capitalized apart from "Critically endangered, possibly extinct" and "Critically endangered, possibly extinct in the wild", ditto for IUCN 3.1 classifications, EPBC classifications are capitalized apart from "Critically endangered", and TNC classifications are consistently capitalized, as are ESA and COSEWIC, apart from "Not at risk (COSEWIC)". Make of that what you will (as long as we can all maintain a ceasefire for the time being). nagual design 23:55, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

The verbal equivalents of IUCN3.1's 9 categories (EX, EW, CR, EN, VU, NT, LC, DD and NE) are capitalized, but other designations are not. Actually, other parameter values like "PE" should not be used in conjunction with "IUCN 3.1" because they aren't part of the IUCN3.1 system, and should really be treated as errors, I think. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:22, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

You're correct in that PEW and PE are not bona fide IUCN categories. It seems that they never were. But the IUCN does indeed use "Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct in the Wild)"[4] where the official category is CR and the EW is parenthetical. The fact that the templates use PEW internally as a code/shorthand is by the by. I don't think that they should be treated as errors. nagual design 15:16, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Conclusion

Thank you to those who contributed to this discussion. Drawing this to a close then (unless others have more to add?) I think User:SMcCandlish has made a lot of valid points regarding MOS:CAPS. However, he isn't the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes the correct interpretation of WP guidelines, and "English Wikipedia's convention" (ie, the status quo) regarding IUCN categories appears to follow the same rationales as outlined in my proposal (which also requires the fewest amendments). So do we take a vote or what? Personally I don't have any strong feelings either way; I began this by blindly applying MOS:CAPS but I can see that we do indeed use caps when making explicit references. Earth-shattering floodgate opening notwithstanding, what's the deal here? nagual design 23:02, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, the sources' usage is inconsistent, and usage by Wikipedians is inconsistent. That means drop the stylization. It's what we always do when stylization is not applied consistently (like, >90% of the time) in reliable sources. This is a simple standard operating procedure that has served us well; it requires no "ultimate arbiter" of anything. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 14:29, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

I have no strong feelings either, but I certainly think a vote is needed. That SMcCandlish personally thinks there isn't need for one shouldn't really matter. Wikipedia works by consensus, not by enforcing arbitrary, bureaucratic preferences. Let the actual content-creators decide. FunkMonk (talk) 14:46, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

I said nothing of the sort, I'm simply predicting the outcome. I will say that we shouldn't launch RfCs without good reason, because they suck up editorial time and productivity. A maxim around here is that voting is no substitute for discussion. We've already had the discussion. Do we really need more of it? We have guidelines that strongly indicate lower-case here, because the sources are not consistent in the other direction. But feel free to RfC it if you want to. RfCs do have a tendency to "put to bed" recurrent style disputes, even when the outcome is already obvious, because some parties will not accept that outcome, no matter how clear and obvious it is, until it is "official" in their minds as an RfC. I further predict that the aggregate man-hours lost to an RfC will be far fewer than those lost to continued debate about this over several years, so on balance I support RfCing it, if we don't just do as suggested above and put "use lowercase" for this into MOS:LIFE on the strength of the discussion so far. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 04:43, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Not firmly wedded to any approach either, but consistency would be desirable, and I do think the proposal is a good solution. Hence, do let's !vote. Can we just tack this onto here (with some scattering of additional notifications to suitable pages) or do we need to open an RfC? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:14, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

There should be a formal RfC, widely advertised. A serious problem at present is the low number of editors commenting on issues like these, which risks accepting decisions with very limited support. Although I will !vote for capitals, I believe that SMcCandlish is right that the default decision if there isn't a strong consensus against is to drop the capitals, since this is clearly in line with the general trend in the English Wikipedia. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:29, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

WT:MOS itself is a good venue for it, with the RfC advertised at WP:VPPOL and related wikiprojects like this one. This has worked well in the past. Actually hosting style RfCs at VPPOL tends not to, as we learned the hard way with MOS:IDENTITY. It also doesn't work well at the talk pages of wikiprojects (general perception of WP:OWN antics), or at talk pages of MoS subpages, which aren't as well watchlisted. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 04:43, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Alrighty... I don't feel I have the time right now to polish and nurse an RfC, so if someone else feels up to it, fire away. Otherwise it might take a week or two from my side to set something up. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:59, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

web based tax references

Can anyone recommend a good web based taxonomy reference? All the ones I know do a good job with species, genera, families, etc. Having trouble with finding something web based that can help more obscure tax such as subfamilies, sub and superorders, and the like that is up to date....best I can find is ITIS, but I'm not sure how up to date it is......Pvmoutside (talk) 15:22, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

UniProt and NCBI have fine-grained classification with many minor ranks. I don't know much about the quality of their data. Tree of Life Web Project has fine-grained clade-based classification, but isn't being updated regularly. Wikispecies might also be worth checking, but it's not a citable source. ITIS is far from perfect, but where it includes minor ranks that you're trying to address, it's an acceptable source. Plantdrew (talk) 17:00, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Cladogram request page?

Down at the lil old Dinosaur WikiProject we've had an informal and impromptu cladogram request page going for a little while on my user page User:IJReid/sandbox/Cladogram request. We've been revising the project pages and were wondering if we could assist in making an official cladogram request page here on the Tree of Life WikiProject, since its probably the best suited for a "tree of life" request page. Would this be a possible undertaking? Thanks -- IJReid ^discuss 23:44, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

I at least think this would be beneficial for pretty much all articles that deal with life, since many (most?) editors don't know how to create them. I've requested many cladograms from IJReid in the past, and recommended it to others, but is is of course not so visible when it is on a specific person's userpage, so maybe it is good to make it less "esoteric". Then others can also jump in and create cladograms, in case Reid is overloaded. FunkMonk (talk) 23:55, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

I know User:Lythronaxargestes has said he would help make cladograms, but also that he didn't want to comment because all he'd say would be "I agree". IJReid ^discuss 21:28, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

I agree. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 21:29, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

I am going to go ahead and create a request page. Since really no-one has commented against it ... or even commented on this at all. IJReid ^discuss 02:05, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

I think that's fine, now we only need to find out where to add a link... FunkMonk (talk) 02:14, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

The Requests section seems apposite... Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 05:29, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Oh, seems this would be where to place the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Requests FunkMonk (talk) 06:07, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Might be useful to link this on other project pages too. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 20:36, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Yeah. I've linked to it on the Dino WP, not to go to paleo and all the subprojects of this one. IJReid ^discuss 21:30, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 4 – 18 September 2017

Facto Post – Issue 4 – 18 September 2017

Editorial: Conservation data

The IUCN Red List update of 14 September led with a threat to North American ash trees. The International Union for Conservation of Nature produces authoritative species listings that are peer-reviewed. Examples used as metonyms for loss of species and biodiversity, and discussion of extinction rates, are the usual topics covered in the media to inform us about this area. But actual data matters.

Clearly, conservation work depends on decisions about what should be done, and where. While animals, particularly mammals, are photogenic, species numbers run into millions. Plant species lie at the base of typical land-based food chains, and vegetation is key to the habitats of most animals.

ContentMine dictionaries, for example as tabulated at d:Wikidata:WikiFactMine/Dictionary list, enable detailed control of queries about endangered species, in their taxonomic context. To target conservation measures properly, species listings running into the thousands are not what is needed: range maps showing current distribution are. Between the will to act, and effective steps taken, the services of data handling are required. There is now no reason at all why Wikidata should not take up the burden.

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:46, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Clades versus or in addition to phyla, etc., in "Ancestral taxa" navboxes

While doing TemplateEditor rounds, I noticed this request at Template talk:Taxonomy/Angiosperms#Template-protected edit request on 17 September 2017, and it raises the question of whether clades should be replaced with traditional taxonomic ranks, or both used, or what. This question might also affect taxoboxes, etc. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:23, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I think this issue is more dependant on the specific group than anything else. In places like Aves and Mammalia, Linnaean taxonomy is still used significantly, and in those cases, the ranks should be used. Amongst extinct groups like Dinosauria or Crocodilia, there is no real precedent for using ranks over clades, so the cladistic format should be used. IJReid ^discuss 14:52, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

What about Angiosperms? — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 16:54, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

For angiosperm classification, we follow the APG IV system which has near universal consensus among botanists. APG doesn't recognize any ranked taxa above orders, solely clades. The classification(s) we use for fossil vertebrates is a Frankstein mish-mash of different sources and systems of classification, but I don't think that can really be helped (although it could undoubtably be improved). The reality is that there aren't enough Linnaean ranks to account for our current understanding of the classification of life, so clades are increasingly recognized. At least for angiosperms, there is a good single authoritative source, and we are following it.

This is the second time in as many months that a high school student has insisted we should treat angiosperms as a phylum. There are two problems with that. Plants and fungi traditionally have division rather than phylum as the rank between kingdom and class. And recent, non-APG sources that do retain a full rank-based (no clades) classification push angiosperms below the rank of phylum/division. E.g. at ITIS, angiosperms are a class (although ITIS also has the next rank up as division). It's going to be well nigh impossible to find a source that uses phylum as a rank in classifying plants and that recognizes angiosperms at that rank. Plantdrew (talk) 17:42, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I've turned down the EditProtected request at the template. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 18:47, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish:, thanks. While the request was misguided, I don't necessarily think they were asking in the wrong place. If there was a consensus to modify the higher level classification for any group of organisms, the first place to make that change would be in the taxonomy templates used by the automatic taxobox system. The next step would be presumably getting a bot to modify the value in the articles using manual taxoboxes. Automatic taxoboxes are currently used in about 20% of taxon articles, a number which has been rising sharply over the last year or so (see here for some statistics on automatic taxobox usage I compiled). Plantdrew (talk) 19:19, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Noted. Will keep that in mind. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 19:42, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

IUCN template discussion

There is a discussion at Template talk:IUCN#version vs. criteria-version regarding broad changes/updates to the IUCN template family; your input is requested. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 11:55, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Nowhere to redirect, which points out a deeper organization/presentation problem

Classification (botany) should go somewhere; this is a term of art with a particular meaning (a botanical designation with more than three ranks, e.g. Saxifraga aizoon var. aizoon subvar. brevifolia, which isn't a name but a classification in ICN terms), but we're not covering it anywhere. Maybe a short section at Botanical nomenclature would be the right place? Peter coxhead observed, "the articles on nomenclature, classification, etc. in the English Wikipedia are, in my view anyway, confused because editors have developed articles based on terms, not on topics. So it's not entirely clear where."

I ran into this problem again half a day later, in nothing that Subordinate taxon and Subordinate taxa don't go anywhere. They're apt to be confused with Junior synonym (which just redirects to Synonym (taxonomy)) but means something very different. Biological nomenclature seemed like a good place, based on its name, but it just redirects to Nomenclature codes, which seems misleading. Taxonomy (biology) might be the "likely suspect" target article, but it doesn't use "subordinate" anywhere in it, and what it does have in it varies from super-general to nit-picky without much of a logical flow from one to the other. We have lots of almost orphaned terminological stubs like Forma specialis that should be linked to from a central place that provides an overview.

Some kind of "how should we present all this to readers?" reorganization is probably in order, and a glossary of key biological taxonomy terms is likely needed, either within an overview article or as a stand-alone list article.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 21:23, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

I'd support some sort of glossary. There should be a list of the abbreviations used between Latin names; there's a name for these, but I can't remember what it is. It includes: "f.", "var.", "ab.", "r.", "cf.", "v.", "ssp.", "sp. nr.", "nr.", "m.", "race" and probably others. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 21:54, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Interpolated term (or something like that)? I'm not sure that there's any other term that really covers all of these. Some of these abbreviations are used in open nomenclature, while others denote an infraspecific name. Most of these redirect to an appropriate article or a disambiguation page that lists an appropriate article. Plantdrew (talk) 22:14, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Article 24.1 of the ICN: "The name of an infraspecific taxon is a combination of the name of a species and an infraspecific epithet. A connecting term is used to denote the rank." So those trinomials which are accepted in the ICN must contain a "connecting term". Article 4.2 lists the accepted ranks below species: subspecies, varietas, subvarietas, forma, and subforma; so "subsp.", "var.", "subvar.", "f." and "subf." are within the botanical code. We've agreed not to use "ssp." or "v." instead of "subsp." or "var." Some of the others listed above by SchreiberBike are "ranks" not in either the zoological or botanical code; for example, lepidopterists make use of "ab." for abnormalities, and "r." = "race" will be found in older works. At least one of the terms isn't a rank: "cf." means "compare with" and is used when the species isn't certain, so it isn't a "connecting term". Peter coxhead (talk) 06:33, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Turns out there is a glossary already, just at the fairly ambiguous title Glossary of scientific naming (does it cover chemistry and archaeology? LOL). That's a good starting point and has more detail than I'd dared to hope, though it doesn't really get to the problem that we have no real central point, no truly "main article" that explains how this stuff works to noobs to the topic. The closest we have seems to be Taxonomy (biology) though a better title might actually be Biological nomenclature which presently redirects unhelpfully (and yes, regardless what the title is, it'll need to explain the difference between taxonomy and nomenclature). PS: Those inserted things seem to be called interpolations or interpolated terms as a general class, but have more specific categorizations such as connecting terms and infrasubspecifics. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 00:51, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Someone might like to add "aff." and "agg." (and "ab." from the list above) to Glossary of scientific naming. (I thought that ab. was an abbreviation of aberration, not abnormality, but I could be wrong on this point.) Lavateraguy (talk) 08:52, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Regarding the original question, I think Botanical nomenclature is a perfectly suitable redirect target for Classification (botany) (assuming the meaning here is a substantially different than the more broadly understood classification of plants and other organisms - I lack a working knowledge of the minutiae of botanical taxonomy). Regarding the broader issue now at hand (deeper organizational problem), for right now I'll simply say that not every term in a given article needs to link to anywhere: dictionaries do exist (online and off), and for certain esoteric biological articles most likely to be primarily of interest to specialists, linking to terms like cf or sp. in a way assumes readers need to be spoon-fed definitions. If we're working on a general interest article like poppy or lion, we probably shouldn't be using specialized terms of art at all (WP:MTAU). If we're working on some obscure taxon, and the only references available are primary literature (let's not delude ourselves into thinking the average high schooler is aching to do a report on Fenestella (bryozoan)), the people most likely to read such an article already likely know a good deal about taxonomy, biology etc. In short, lets neither spoon-feed readers (resulting in sea of blue, nor write in a needlessly highfalutin style. Maybe in a situation where terms absolutely must be defined, but it's silly to direct the reader to a huge article just to define it, or a glossary entry, a simple link to the term on Wiktionary can suffice. (apologies for a long-winded gripe: I think too many articles are overlinked and overly-pedantic. But its Friday, happy weekend to you all!) --Animalparty! (talk) 03:38, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

What about Subordinate taxon and Subordinate taxa? I redirected Classification (botany) to Botanical nomenclature, with {{R from subtopic}}. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 02:19, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Genus group

We don't seem to have a place to send Genus group (biology) or whatever the title should be (Genus group presently goes to a non-biology topic). We're not covering genus groups (sometimes written genus-group, or just group, if confusion with the special lepidoptera usage of that term, or with horticultural cultivar group, isn't an issue) at Genus, nor at Taxonomic rank. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 02:16, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Genus (biology) ? IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 05:06, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Oh I see, I haven't heard of a "genus group" myself before. Perhaps we should simply add the information into Genus (Biology)? IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 05:07, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

There are two senses of "genus group". In the ICodeZN, "genus group" is defined in Article 42: "Definition. The genus group, which is next below the family group and next above the species group in the hierarchy of classification, encompasses all nominal taxa at the ranks of genus and subgenus". In this sense "group" means a group of ranks centred on a particular rank. There's also a sense in which it means a taxon consisting of a number of genera. @SMcCandlish: which do you mean? Peter coxhead (talk) 17:33, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Neither in particular; rather, we don't include the term(s) at Genus (to which Genus (biology) redirects. So that article should probably include these two meanings of "genus group" somewhere. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 22:17, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Genus group isn't used in any taxoboxes (although species group shows up in a handful). There are 165 articles mentioning "genus group"; in the vast majority it shows up in bibliographic citations that are using it in the ICZN sense. Most of the cases where it's being used in the sense of "a group of genera" are ants (e.g. Nylanderia, Yantaromyrmex, Tyrannomyrmex). What's the lepidoptera usage of the term (I'm not seeing it used in any lepidoptera articles)? Plantdrew (talk)

IIRC, it turns up in Kubitzki & Bayer, Fam. Gen. Vasc. Pl. 5, for groups of genera in Thymelaeaceae. The equivalent in Malveae and Cichorieae are referred to as alliances. Lavateraguy (talk) 01:08, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

The lepid. use is mentioned in Taxonomic rank; it's just "group" by itself, and is a higher rank, a tiny notch above family. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 05:35, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

The Thymelaeaceae usage may well also be just "group" by itself. Lavateraguy (talk) 09:35, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I really doubt "group" is standardized among lepidopterists. It's likely something that a few lepidopterists have used to fill deficiencies in the Linnaean ranks under phylogenetic systematics (when every node in a cladogram is a potential rank, you run out of ranks very quickly). There's nothing that ensures that informal ranks such as "group" will be consistently used at the same level in the taxonomic hierarchy by different researchers. This turns out to be an issue with alliance as well (previously discussed at WikiProject Plants). Plantdrew (talk) 15:24, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree. There are other ranks, too, like "series", that are used very differently by different sources. (Then there are all the recently invented prefixes for principal ranks, like "mira-" and "grand-" as in "mirordo" and "grandordo", that are used inconsistently. The table at Taxonomic rank#All ranks is neither complete, nor entirely correct as to actual usage. It needs more sources.) Peter coxhead (talk) 09:18, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I think we want an aberration (lepidopterology) article (or should that be aberratio) - if the equivalent already exists it's missing from the aberration dab page. Lavateraguy (talk) 11:22, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I've inserted links to form (zoology) as an expedient. Lavateraguy (talk) 12:27, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Suggestions for subdividing Category:Spilomelinae stubs

I'm trying to think of a good structure of subcategories to subdivide Category:Spilomelinae stubs into more manageable groups of around 200, but the best I could think of was alphabetical categories by genus. Do people have any better ideas or examples of sorting large orders?

GenusASpilomelinae-stub - 217 stubs
GenusB-CisSpilomelinae-stub - 188 stubs
GenusCna-DiaSpilomelinae-stub - 214 stubs
GenusDic-FSpilomelinae-stub - 189 stubs
GenusGad-LinSpilomelinae-stub - 200 stubs
GenusLio-MimSpilomelinae-stub - 217 stubs
GenusMuk-PanSpilomelinae-stub - 189 stubs
GenusPar-PoliSpilomelinae-stub - 184 stubs
GenusPoly-PseSpilomelinae-stub - 189 stubs
GenusPyc-SatSpilomelinae-stub - 201 stubs
GenusSca-SylSpilomelinae-stub - 290 stubs
GenusSym-ZSpilomelinae-stub - 191 stubs

I cross-posted at Talk:WikiProject Stub sorting and Talk:WikiProject Lepidoptera a while ago, but haven't gotten a response.

-Furicorn (talk) 06:43, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

There is a potential problem if someone adds a genus which falls into the gaps between subcategories. You could avoid this by not trying to even out the subcategory sizes to the same degree, and splitting them by the first letter of the genus name only. (But I suspect that leaves GenusPSpilomelinae-stub and GenusQ-SSpilomelinae rather large.) Lavateraguy (talk) 16:44, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Furicorn: Your suggested categories work, but are very inelegant. Is it OK to just leave it as a large category (I'm not very familiar with stub sorting standards)? Spilomelinae notes that the subfamily may be polyphyletic and that "many genera are only tentatively placed here". If the classification isn't going to be stable, I don't see the point in expending the effort to refine stub categories now when future taxonomic developments are likely to make it necessary to fix the stub categories yet again. Plantdrew (talk) 16:44, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

The salient question is: will subdividing stubs actually help anyone improve these stubs? Or is it just because of a personal dislike of large categories? I highly doubt that someone interested in Zenamorpha discophoralis will not be able to quickly find Aethaloessa calidalis, if they so choose to. We're editors of articles, not curators of specimens. The template {{Category TOC}} can help navigate the 2400+ stubs alphabetically, and if one feels that is not nimble enough, perhaps {{Large category TOC 2}}. The more stubs and stub categories we create, the more difficult it is to find or remember the correct stub-template, and the more likely stubs are to be mis-categorized (e.g. placed at the tribe instead of subtribe category), which increases the burden of sorting. I say leave it be, and encourage depletion of the category through article expansion. --Animalparty! (talk) 18:48, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 5 – 17 October 2017

Facto Post – Issue 5 – 17 October 2017

Editorial: Annotations

Annotation is nothing new. The glossators of medieval Europe annotated between the lines, or in the margins of legal manuscripts of texts going back to Roman times, and created a new discipline. In the form of web annotation, the idea is back, with texts being marked up inline, or with a stand-off system. Where could it lead?

ContentMine operates in the field of text and data mining (TDM), where annotation, simply put, can add value to mined text. It now sees annotation as a possible advance in semi-automation, the use of human judgement assisted by bot editing, which now plays a large part in Wikidata tools. While a human judgement call of yes/no, on the addition of a statement to Wikidata, is usually taken as decisive, it need not be. The human assent may be passed into an annotation system, and stored: this idea is standard on Wikisource, for example, where text is considered "validated" only when two different accounts have stated that the proof-reading is correct. A typical application would be to require more than one person to agree that what is said in the reference translates correctly into the formal Wikidata statement. Rejections are also potentially useful to record, for machine learning.

As a contribution to data integrity on Wikidata, annotation has much to offer. Some "hard cases" on importing data are much more difficult than average. There are for example biographical puzzles: whether person A in one context is really identical with person B, of the same name, in another context. In science, clinical medicine require special attention to sourcing (WP:MEDRS), and is challenging in terms of connecting findings with the methodology employed. Currently decisions in areas such as these, on Wikipedia and Wikidata, are often made ad hoc. In particular there may be no audit trail for those who want to check what is decided.

Annotations are subject to a World Wide Web Consortium standard, and behind the terminology constitute a simple JSON data structure. What WikiFactMine proposes to do with them is to implement the MEDRS guideline, as a formal algorithm, on bibliographical and methodological data. The structure will integrate with those inputs the human decisions on the interpretation of scientific papers that underlie claims on Wikidata. What is added to Wikidata will therefore be supported by a transparent and rigorous system that documents decisions.

An example of the possible future scope of annotation, for medical content, is in the first link below. That sort of detailed abstract of a publication can be a target for TDM, adds great value, and could be presented in machine-readable form. You are invited to discuss the detailed proposal on Wikidata, via its talk page.

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:46, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Need to repeat authors?

I often see species described by "C. Felder, R. Felder & Rogenhofer in C. Felder, R. Felder & Rogenhofer, 1875". Is there a need to repeat the authors of the book when they are the same as the authors of the species description? SchreiberBike | ⌨ 05:46, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Seems to be in error. That form is usually used if the publication contains a taxon name and description in it that is explicitly credited to someone other than the authors of the publication. Shyamal (talk) 07:51, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

The most relevant portion of the ICZN is Reccomendation 51E. In the ICN it is Article 46.2 Note 1. There's no need to use "in" to repeat the authors when they're exactly the same. However, the ICZN (but not the ICN) makes it clear that "in" authorship should be specified when the people responsible for the species description include some, but not all, of the people credited for the entire paper. Plantdrew (talk) 14:36, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! That's what I thought, but didn't want to change it in case I was missing something. I'm a copy editor just dabbling in biology. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 23:17, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I should have noted in my previous comment; it's not uncommon for species described recently (in the last ~25 years) to have the description attributed to one or two authors of a publication with many authors. Any more limited authorship attribution will be explicitly noted in the section formally describing the species. It can get a little messy when you have a half dozen people or more credited for the publication (making it desirable to limit publication authorship with an et al.) and a single taxonomist credited for the description. Plantdrew (talk) 02:23, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

A more important question is probably when to give this sort of info at all. It probably belongs somewhere in the body of the article on the species (or subspecies or whatever) itself, usually in a section on taxonomy, but not otherwise. WP isn't a biology journal, and shouldn't write like one. I sometime encounter paragraphs in (mostly botany) articles that are so dense with this sort of "over-crediting" they're almost impenetrable except to a specialist. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 10:28, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

In most cases, the authority/authorship just goes in the taxobox. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:40, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Invasive range maps?

Should we add the invasive ranges of invasive species to the range maps? HLHJ (talk) 03:09, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, but how would this be done accurately, and kept up-to-date (presumably every 5–10 years)? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 04:20, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I think it should be done in a case-by-case basis. If an invasive species has a large and substantially documented non-native range, it might be prudent to include it with native range in the Taxobox. If a widespread species is invasive in only a few scattered locales, it might be better to discuss this lower down in text, perhaps with a second map. In either case, native range should be clearly defined, and discussed first. --Animalparty! (talk) 16:46, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Bot for adding IUCN data

At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Extinction#Useful future bots, I have suggested that adding IUCN database categories to species pages should be automated. Does anyone here has suggestions or comments? HLHJ (talk) 03:18, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Might be useful. Are we certain that the whole world agrees with IUCN, and that they don't have "competition"? Last I looked, they are not the only organization making declarations about endangerment status, so there could be a WP:UNDUE concern. But I don't know of any particular criticism of IUCN. A side concern I would have is misuse of a bot to try to force capitalization of IUCN labels (e.g. "Endangered", "Critically Endangered", etc.), when the last several times we've had discussions about these, the consensus was clearly against the capital letters. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 04:23, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

One problem is the different names and taxonomies in use. When a bot was used years ago to create stub articles from the IUCN database, it resulted in some duplicate articles at synonyms and classifications not used in the English Wikipedia. So any bot needs to be very carefully set up and monitored. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:52, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

if a way can be found to avoid the problems Peter brings up, I'd be all for it. There are competing assessments, but most of the species that Wikipedia has pages for have a IUCN assessment, rather than another body. The only non IUCN assessments I see is for those species not IUCN assessed, and then its sporadic. Also, the IUCN does publish updates, which I've been trying to keep up with manually. Automation would be great. The IUCN also adds new assessments for species all the time for unassessed species. Manually, for existing Wikipedia pages, there is no way to keep that current, unless you happen to be lucky and editing the page at roughly the same time the assessment is published, or adding them some time after.....Pvmoutside (talk) 19:00, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

iucn_id, or similar, would aid automation

Assuming the IUCN's id number for species is semi-permanent, having it easily accessible in the species/taxobox would be very useful, instead of hunting around the page for an IUCN URL and/or an {{IUCN}} |id= parameter. I can go through the Red Listed WP pages and add |iucn_id=, verifying that the IUCN page name matches the WP page for confirmation, if there're no reasonable objections. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 13:18, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Would adding a {{taxobar}} template for all Redlist pages do the same? This would provide access to the IUCN number and also others for other purposes. I don't know if the taxobar is complete in terms of IUCN numbers. Jts1882 | talk 16:03, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Ah ha! Yes it would, thank you! And I believe I can proceed uncontroversially to make sure all/most {{taxobar}}s have an IUCN id, and ultimately to make an update script (and possibly formalize it as a bot if robust enough to be hands-off). ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 16:21, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there is a semi-automated way to get and use the IUCN id info on WikiData. I've asked, and, assuming there is a way, in the meantime I'll be adding missing {{taxonbar}}s on all pages under Category:Species by IUCN Red List category with a {{taxobox}} or {{speciesbox}} template (it's useful, regardless).

If anyone here knows how to interface semi-automatically with WikiData (AWB can/does not), that would help. If there isn't a way, then that strengthens the argument for creating |iucn_id= in {{taxobox}} & {{speciesbox}}. I do not prefer that solution, because that opens the door for all of the other various databases' ids—the very thing {{taxonbar}} is attempting to shoulder (ironic, isn't it?). However, if |iucn_id= (or any, single, taxon-id) were the only allowed (or strictly limited) taxon-id (by project consensus) in those 2 templates, I could begin updating the conservation status immediately. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 23:13, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

If you want to get the latest assessment from the IUCN using their API, it might be better to use the species binomial name rather than the id. The species name would get the latest assessment when there is a change of ID, while the ID would continue to get the old assessment (or nothing, as they usually delete old ID entries from their database when the ID has changed). Jts1882 | talk 07:34, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Well that was my first explicit assumption in this section. Thank you for clarifying. I've just requested a token from iucnredlist.org. Have you used the API before? I might have some questions. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 12:57, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I've being playing with some JQuery for getting information through the IUCN API. I've a crude tool that allows me to explore their database using some of their API options. For instance, a function to get the status and citation (in {{cite journal}} format) for a species name. I did try and get it to run in my commons.js but it got a "Blocked loading mixed active content" error. I don't really understand what this means, but it could be because the IUCN is not HTMLS. Anyway, I will answer any questions I can. Jts1882 | talk 14:04, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

2 issues regarding binomial name vs id number. A few months back I got a note from another editor stating the IUCN was requesting citations be referenced as a http link rather than referencing the id #. Since then I've copied and pasted the IUCN ref which does not reference the ID #. I haven't changed the older references unless they've been updated over the past year. The other issue is some editors in the tree of life prefer species in monotypic genera without English names use only the genus name for the species article. The entire binomial should be found somewhere on the page, but sometimes not on the article name itself. I know you need to pull from other the article title the many species with English names anyway......Pvmoutside (talk) 16:19, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

If you are using jQuery and there's a species-level taxobox on the page then a binomial will be available in $('.binomial i'). It may not be the binomial that IUCN prefer, of course. William Avery (talk) 17:13, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Via the API, I've found a robust way to avoid ambiguity between WP & the IUCN. By doing a "forward lookup" like this using a valid |binomial= or |taxon=, storing the "taxonid":12392, then using this query to find the weblink that the IUCN associates with a particular binomial, and making sure the weblink ID # matches the taxonid # from the original lookup, an unambiguous match can be made (assuming |binomial=/|taxon= are correct). I'm avoiding any WP pages failing this check. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 17:41, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Taxon list templates updated

I have today updated {{Species list}}, {{Taxon list}}, and the various allied templates meant for use in taxoboxes, to use an underlying Lua module. (I haven't touched {{Nested taxon list}}.) The updated versions no longer have different arbitrary restrictions on the number of arguments, but can take an indefinite number.

I've tested the templates fairly thoroughly (they're not very complicated as these things go), but if anyone sees any issues, please let me know here (and revert as appropriate). Peter coxhead (talk) 17:06, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Category:Nephrozoa taxa

Category:Nephrozoa taxa was made recently by a ~~temporarily~~ soon-to-be-blocked editor with few legitimate edits. Someone please have a look since this is outside my realm of expertise. 3 additions were made to this category by the same user that may/not need to be corrected/reverted. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 19:38, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

It's a pointless category regardless of whether the entries are correct or not, because it can't have more than the three subcategories. Further, User:Knson continues to make edits without summaries or discussions which are messing up taxonomy templates and articles. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:31, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Most of the damage should be contained now, just pending a few CSD C1/G6s. {{Taxonomy/Planulozoa}} needs a once-over, since User:Knson created it, and it was auto-transcluded to 588 pages somehow. How did that happen? 04:12, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

{{Taxonomy/Planulozoa}} is not so transcluded now.

To answer the question, it takes two edits to insert a new taxon into a taxonomic hierarchy: one to create the new taxonomy template and one to set it as the parent in another taxonomy template. Then a hierarchy that contained A → B will contain A → X → B. If this hierarchy is part of 588 taxoboxes, then 588 articles are potentially changed. It's why editing taxonomy templates is dangerous. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:17, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Interesting; that's a very powerful and impressive (but massively breakable) setup! They should all probably have at least a basic level of protection on them - either pending changes or even extended confirmed? Doing a spot-check of about a dozen on the first page of Category:Taxonomy templates shows that they have very few edits, and exclusively by established editors, so WP:ECP seems quite appropriate (I'm glad I voted yes on its creation :). I can help semi-automatically put whatever protection request tag on non-protected templates that the project agrees on. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 13:24, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Sounds like a very wise plan. Won't say more per WP:BEANS. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 14:31, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that ECP is a good idea, certainly as a trial. The WP:Automated taxobox system is, as you say, powerful and impressive, but by the same token open to abuse, and dangerous for inexperienced editors to meddle with. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:26, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Excellent. I see 2 options:

1) I'm running a transclusion-distribution script now for the first 25,000 members (75%) of the Template:Taxonomy/<x> template family. I'll share the graph of it here when it's complete, and we can perhaps decide on a transclusion cutoff number which accounts for the majority of the total transclusions. It's shaping out to be a very steep exponential that hugs the X-Y axes. Or,

2) I can just do all 33,313 of them.

I already have a preliminary list which I'll start working from, from the most-transcluded on down, which accommodates both options. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 17:58, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

MuskiAnimal protected everything(?) that had more than 1,000 transclusions a month ago. Plantdrew (talk) 19:18, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Here it is, up to 10,000 only, for easier viewing. Protecting the top ~3000 templates will protect ~97% of all transclusions (the completion fraction at 3000 may deviate from a value of 97% after I include the remaining 25% of all taxonomy templates). So I'll improve on MuskiAnimal's protections up until the top 3~4k templates, which will account for transclusion counts as low as 16~11, respectively, unless we want to go farther up the graph.

Also, after looking at the guidelines, WP:ECP can't be used preemptively, so I'm afraid we're restricted to pending changes, which is still good. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 00:28, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

@Tom.Reding: I'm doubtful that pending changes is very useful, since it depends on a reviewer coming along who understands the automated taxobox system plus the taxonomy of the organisms in question. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:41, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

That's ok - the only people throttled by pending changes are IPs and new users, neither of which make productive edits to these templates (as far as I've seen via a spot check of some of the highest transcluded templates).

My only concern is how PCP behaves with templates. I'm not confident that "the edit is not directly visible to the majority of Wikipedia readers" satisfies our desired behavior. If it doesn't, then WP:SEMI is next. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 15:26, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Apparently, since WP:PCPP is only for main and project namespaces, it looks like WP:SEMI is the only option for these circumstances. I'll put in a bot request in the next day or so. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 20:51, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

While writing the BOTREQ, I thought it would be good to also include all of the {{Taxonomy/}} templates down to a certain taxonomic level, say down to family? Since these templates are all hierarchical, some not-so-frequently-transcluded templates might still have a larger effect? ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 19:44, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Transclusions go all the way down the taxonomic hierarchy. Any species article that uses the automatic taxobox will show up as a transclusion of a family taxonomy template. However, with ongoing efforts to convert manual taxoboxes to automatic taxoboxes, there are certainly taxonomy templates that aren't highly transcluded now that have the potential to be highly transcluded in the future (e.g., the template for Asteraceae has about 300 transclusions, but there about 4700 Asteraceae genera and species using manual taxoboxes). Plantdrew (talk) 20:08, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm just worried about the templates in the bottom 91%, which have transclusion counts <= 23, and what the maximum single-edit disruption potential is for them. Perhaps we'll just have to see how easy/hard it will be to get the top 3000 templates basically-protected, and go from there. I'll post the WP:BOTREQ here after submission, for reference. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 20:19, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Submitted. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 21:37, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 6 – 15 November 2017

Facto Post – Issue 6 – 15 November 2017

WikidataCon Berlin 28–9 October 2017

Under the heading rerum causas cognescere, the first ever Wikidata conference got under way in the Tagesspiegel building with two keynotes, One was on YAGO, about how a knowledge base conceived ten years ago if you assume automatic compilation from Wikipedia. The other was from manager Lydia Pintscher, on the "state of the data". Interesting rumours flourished: the mix'n'match tool and its 600+ datasets, mostly in digital humanities, to be taken off the hands of its author Magnus Manske by the WMF; a Wikibase incubator site is on its way. Announcements came in talks: structured data on Wikimedia Commons is scheduled to make substantive progress by 2019. The lexeme development on Wikidata is now not expected to make the Wiktionary sites redundant, but may facilitate automated compilation of dictionaries.

And so it went, with five strands of talks and workshops, through to 11 pm on Saturday. Wikidata applies to GLAM work via metadata. It may be used in education, raises issues such as author disambiguation, and lends itself to different types of graphical display and reuse. Many millions of SPARQL queries are run on the site every day. Over the summer a large open science bibliography has come into existence there.

Wikidata's fifth birthday party on the Sunday brought matters to a close. See a dozen and more reports by other hands.

Links

Wikidata statistics
I4OC progress in its first year, with 47% of scientific citation data now open (announced two days ago)
The flowering ORCID, Magnus Manske blogpost on identifying authors of scientific papers
@querybook, a Twitter feed devoted to SPARQL queries
Massive progress on Wikidata coverage of the UK parliament
Reminder: WikiFactMine pages on Wikidata are at WD:WFM

Editor Charles Matthews. Please leave feedback for him.

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