Wikispecies:Village Pump/Archive 66

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This is an archive of closed discussions. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this archive.

A way to mark a name for verification?[edit]

In the list of heterotypic synonyms of Achillea salicifolia subsp. salicifolia, there are several names I couldn't find:

  • Achillea cartilaginea var. latifolia Rupr., Fl. Ingr. 587. 1860. (IPNI, POWO, COL)
  • Achillea cartilaginea subsp. borystenica (Klokov) Sakalo, Vizn. Rosl. URSR 543. 1950, nom. subnud. (IPNI, POWO, COL)
  • Achillea speciosa subsp. occidentalis Rupr., Mater, Blizh. Pozn. Prozya-baemosti Ross. imper 2. 1845. (IPNI, POWO, COL)
  • Ptarmica vulgaris var. pycnocephala Trautv., Bull. Soc. Nat. Mosc. 39(2): 345. 1866. (IPNI, POWO, COL)

Perhaps they have not yet been registered in IPNI.

Is there a way to mark them for verification so that other editors can review them? I don't know if there is a template for this, there doesn't seem to be one in Category:Name status templates and Category:Pictograms. I'm not sure what wording we could use and how it would look, but here is an idea, based on Template:Invalid:   verify  

So we can mark a name for verification with a template:

  • Achillea speciosa subsp. occidentalis Rupr., Mater, Blizh. Pozn. Prozya-baemosti Ross. imper 2. 1845.   verify  

As a side note, shouldn't Template:PWO be renamed to Template:POWO? See https://powo.science.kew.org/about and en:Plants of the World Online. Korg (talk) 21:58, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If so, we editors have to notify what should be verified (e.g. whether name itself was indeed published; who has published such taxonomic view), don't we? I will agree with your idea if this point is included. By the way, I have revised the given page and had reported Achillea cartilaginea var. latifolia and Ptarmica vulgaris var. pycnocephala to IPNI. --Eryk Kij (talk) 06:34, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If the names has not been lodged with IPNI then POWO, COL, MBG, APC and so on will generally not use it on their sites. That is not to say the names have not been legitimately published. They do need verifying by chasing up the source, if possible. If you do find that IPNI ought to have the name in their database then you can enter a registration here, but you will need to open an account first. Hope this helps. Andyboorman (talk) 09:06, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
IPNI is not at all complete for lower ranks, many names of varieties are still missing. Sometimes additional varieties are cited on Tropicos. IPNI also lacks a lot of authorities for algae. --Thiotrix (talk) 11:37, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Join us in improving IPNI by adding missing names once verified. I tend to concentrate on higher taxa as consensus is beginning to emerge. Andyboorman (talk) 11:43, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
These are in fact Species inquirenda (see [1]). Mariusm (talk) 16:11, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
1845 citation was edited; 1950 Ukrainian one I'll check in a few days. Anna Pavlova IFPNI Staff (talk) 23:51, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

┌───────────────┘ Yes, we should notify what needs to be verified.
The general idea is to introduce a process for identifying and marking information and content that needs to be verified, corrected and/or updated, which in my opinion is lacking.
Of course, the best and easiest solution would be to simply correct the information ourselves, but do you really do that all the time when you come across information that needs to be corrected? Sometimes we start a new topic on the Village Pump, but I don't think that's the best place for this kind of process, or we add a note on the talk page, but it often goes unnoticed. In my personal experience, I correct what I can, but often I don't, usually because I don't the have the time to do so, or the knowledge of the subject, so I just add the problematic page to an ever-growing notes sheet and/or bookmark folder. I think it would be best to inform other editors of this. Here are some examples:

I was thinking of a process similar to that of the English Wiktionary called wikt:Wiktionary:Requests for verification. A term or sense requiring verification is tagged with a template, and a comment indicating why verification is needed is added to a dedicated page, so other editors can discuss it; see for example wikt:Wiktionary:Requests for verification/Italic.
On Wikispecies, in addition to verification requests, we could include correction and update requests. What do you think? Korg (talk) 22:35, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I like the idea to make a distinct term Requests for verification. IFPNI Staff (talk) 08:05, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

PWO/POWO[edit]

(Moved to a new subsection. Korg (talk) 22:35, 20 November 2023 (UTC))[reply]

Pedantically, indeed it should be POWO, following Cite Us, but as long as our actual citation generated by the template follows POWO we are following their guidelines. Andyboorman (talk) 09:06, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why "pedantically"? As far as I know, they do not use "PWO": https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Akew.org+%22PWO%22. If the template is moved, the code {{PWO}} can still be used as a shortcut. Korg (talk) 22:35, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that PWO/POWO is non-functional or partially functional at the moment.Andyboorman (talk) 08:46, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
POWO is now back up and running, all be it a bit slow, but has some additional features worth exploring. Andyboorman (talk) 13:58, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Treatment of Eremopoa and other examples[edit]

(Moved to a new subsection. Korg (talk) 11:51, 24 November 2023 (UTC))[reply]

Multiple sources agree with POWO with the treatment of Eremopoa above, so I will undertake the required edits. There is no need to tag them as requiring verification. Andyboorman (talk) 14:07, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the edits (and thanks to エリック・キィ, RLJ and IFPNI Staff for the edits to Achillea salicifolia subsp. salicifolia).
For these examples, there was indeed no need to tag them as requiring verification, but they could have been marked or listed for updating. That's why I was thinking of a process to identify such cases.
To take another example, I've just come across the insect genus Euobrimus that may need to be updated (on the German Wikipedia, it is considered a synonym of Brasidas). Obvious and simple cases can be edited directly, but for more complex cases that require research, I think it would be useful to mark them, or list them on a dedicated page to inform other editors that they need attention; interested editors can then help check and edit the pages to update them.
Here are some other examples of pages that probably need updating:
Consolida is now more commonly found as a synonym of Delphinium and probably should be dismantled where suitable names are available. Andyboorman (talk) 13:42, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
 Done all combinations transferred to Delphinium subg. Consolida and redirects created. Andyboorman (talk) 09:41, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Double check Fraxinus schiedeana, which should be the accepted name and this seems one that can be resolved easily. Hassler & Govaerts both agree and the name used on WS seems to a later homonym for a fossil taxon. Andyboorman (talk) 13:42, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
 Done including a key reference. Andyboorman (talk) 15:18, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Salsola is a mess and needs extensive work. WS can not take sides when there is a taxonomic opinion. Andyboorman (talk) 13:42, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The genus Nitrosalsola is accepted by Hassler, but not by POWO (where it is included in Caroxylon). Nitrosalsola subglabra was added to this genus in 2015. POWO cites just references from 2011. That's why I preferred Hassler. --Thiotrix (talk) 16:45, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is we can not run WS on personal preference. It would be better to contact POWO and Hassler and ask them why they differ, in addition to undertaking a Google Scholar search. Andyboorman (talk) 17:28, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In addition, World Plants Hassler's prime source notes for Nitrosalsola "Distribution: N-Africa, Mediterranean to C-Asia. Status of genus uncertain, possibly a synonym of Caroxylon." Andyboorman (talk) 18:30, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
POWO follow Global Flora for this genus. Their treatment has been heavily criticised and is not universally followed - see Hassler and others, so this a taxonomic opinion. WS should adopt a conservative position and not take sides. Andyboorman (talk) 13:26, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have added notes on Capparaceae and Morisonia demonstrating the taxonomic opinions. Science supports both sides and WS must be neutral. Andyboorman (talk) 18:36, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There could be a project page where they would be listed, with sections or subpages for botany, zoology, etc. I don't know what its title could be (something like Requests for verification, correction and update, or a simpler title like Update requests, Edit requests, Editing requests, Requests for editing...). Korg (talk) 11:51, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Bird scientific names: IOC, ENwiki vs Wikispecies[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of this discussion was inconclusive.

The Wikipedia bird scientific names are aligned with the world bird list IOC 13.2. Comparing the scientific name from EN:Wikipedia versus that of wikispecies (as reported in wikipedia's Taxonbar) I find 400+ differences (~350 of those are changes in genus). That seems rather a lot. How do you view these differences? Is an alignment of wikispecies names with IOC/Wikipedia names wanted? - Kweetal nl (talk) 03:39, 13 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Very opportune observation. Unfortunately we have to recognize that Wikispecies is quite outdated in relation to IOC, Aves related. In some cases taxonomic changes happened more than 5 or 6 years ago are not yet implemented here. I take care of Neotropical passeriformes which I guarantee is quite updated, even upfront of EN:Wiki, but the rest of the world I have no time to look after. Specially Africa, Southeast Asia, Indo Pacific. And it is not only simply change names, new species, genus and families have to be created, and the respective references for those changes either. It is an incredible amount of work. Just as an example, time ago it took me 3 months to update and reference Trochilidae, which is a fully Neotropical family (hummingbirds), hundreds of changes. We are just a few editors and may be we should change the way we work, instead of being generalists why not to specialize in certain Order/Region? Food for thought. Hector Bottai (talk) 12:03, 13 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I /did/ notice that there were very few diffs from the SACC list, just a handful. Good work.
I was hoping some sort of interface file could be used. I mean, I can prepare a diff-list of those 400 names, with columns:
"Name from ENwiki" | "name from WikiSpecies (from taxonbar)" | "IOC 13.2 name" | "Clements" | "H&M" | "HBW" | ...
To be honest I don't intend to process all those 400 names either but I could put such a file somewhere (enwiki-sandbox?) for others to work from (and flag when they've done so). - Kweetal nl (talk) 14:03, 13 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It would be wise to factor Wikidata into that table, also. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:55, 13 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reading the wikispecies-name from the wikipedia-taxonbar, means wikidata is already factored in, no? I was under the impression that taxonbar data comes from wikidata. I added a QID (wikidata identifier) column to the table. Perhaps it helps. - Kweetal nl (talk) 18:26, 13 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Birds are unfortunately problematic with 4 major checklists, the different international organisations use different lists. There is an effort underway at present to ratify the 4 lists which will be very helpful. However this is not finished yet. Currently for example for ratites Birdlife and IOC differ by 20% of names, IUCN uses Birdlife Intl, CITES uses IOC and other sources. The reality is it is likely that neither list is actually correct and the genuine number of recognisable taxa is somewhere in between. I do not think its a great idea to just follow Wikipedia as it only uses one of the 4 recognised sources putting them out of step with major conservation lists. This creates confusion as Wikipedia and Wikispecies to be honest are out of step with legislatively recognised names under various Endangered Species legislation. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 19:44, 13 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
True. But, since our definition is to follow IOC, we do not have to worry about the other classifications, and, I agree in not following EN-wiki. Hector Bottai (talk) 20:53, 13 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agree, WS is out of date, Commons even more so - it got to be a real problem because moving species to a new genus involves so much work now, it has got really tedious since wikidata 'took over'. Renaming categories at Commons has become particularly onerous as you have to update wikidata's links in several places. Renaming used to be a matter of a few minutes; now, even just a genus of 3 species reclassified into a different genus is a whole day's work getting all the link-ups sorted. And then you still find wikidata orders you to change various things with annoying red 'error' messages. Before wikidata, things were reasonably up to date, but not now. Leiothrichidae and Phalacrocoracidae are two families where things have got particularly badly behind, but there are plenty of others. - MPF (talk) 00:59, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Tentative start: here is a subset of those 400+ cases (where the wikispecies binomen is different from the IOC/enwiki binomen). This is a list of the 310 cases where all 4 world lists agree (197 species) or at least 3 of the 4 world lists agree (agree meaning: they have the same binomen that is different from wikispecies'). (The 4 world lists are: IOC, Clements, H&M, HBW.)
See: wikispecies-diff-20231214 or linked version wikispecies-diff-20231214-2
- Kweetal nl (talk) 03:44, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks ok I had a look at just the first one, Euaegotheles and yeah our page dates back to 2006 it was changed to its current genus in 2008 (followed by IOC since 2008 rouphly) so we have failed to update on that one so all the members of that genus need to be moved here. We will have to go through each one of these and assess whats happening and move as appropriate. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 08:20, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────┘ Also, many (all?) Wikispecies Taxonavigation sections for Aves lists two orders for any single taxon of birds: Apterygiformes and Saurischia, or Passeriformes and Saurischia, or Suliformes and Saurischia, etc. This looks very, very odd to me. Generally speaking any taxon should only be a member of one order, right? We've had a brief discussion about this problem earlier, here: Village Pump Archive 62: Two ordines?
–Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 15:17, 14 December 2023 (UTC).[reply]

The point I made in that discussion still applies; Saurischia was an order in its time, 70 m.y. ago, but time has passed, and its heritance has diverged and expanded into multiple recent orders. Some sort of new group name is needed, that corresponds to 'prehistoric order'. This would need to include a time frame. After all, at one point (around 230 m.y. ago?), when Saurischia diverged from its nearest relative, it was just a species . . . MPF (talk) 18:11, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

┌──┘ Other way to start updating is following IOC updates available from 14.1 draft to 5.1 (2015): Species updates and Taxonomic updates. Also very useful is the Reference list.--Hector Bottai (talk) 15:49, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed - the problem is, finding enough people with enough time and enough enthusiasm to carry out the tedious drudgery of all the taxon shifting required! At around 3 species per person per day (and getting no other work done during it), will we ever be able to catch up with the rate of changes made by the global scientific community feeding through IOC? I have serious doubts. In particular Wikidata needs to be made much, much easier to carry out shifts. - MPF (talk) 17:58, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me the number of actions is limited, and each could be described in a row of a file. The file can then be submitted for a administrator to 'run'.
It may be possible to separate out the needed steps from "Species updates" and "Taxonomic updates" (mentioned by Hector Bottai, above). - Kweetal nl (talk) 19:47, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If I may make some points here. Ok Aves are as I said difficult, and time consuming to update. Yes a file can be run we can organise that. I suggest a couple of things with that. First separate this into two issues for the sake of ease of action, 1. Higher Orders, 2. Species and Genus group. I would suggest do the 2nd one first and ignore the higher order issues until we fix the species level issues. Second, we cannot fall into the trap of creating circular arguments. Our pages are supposed to be backed by the published science, not all IOC names are backed by science. There is significant politics with birds. I have no issue with using IOC as a starting point but honestly we should not be following it blindly. It really does not take a lot of work to take IOC listing as the starting point then searching to see if that name is actually valid. In particular with Red-Listed species it is better for us to follow the species as per the Red-Listing if it has been updated in the last 5-10 years. The date of last update of an endangered species is readily searchable. So I would prefer that any names in this file have been checked against the current literature, for usage and validity. I am happy to help with this I have been publishing more on birds lately anyway. Once we get the species sorted, hopefully much automatically, we need to take a hard look at the higher orders for birds there was a recent 2 month long discussion on ENWP about this and it had some good points made, some which we should also look at. I serve on the IUBS working group on checklists as many here know, what I should not say yet as we have not finalised it but I will tell you no vertebrate checklist has scored higher than 60% for usability, so please do not fall into the trap of just believing these checklists, they all have errors, all have political influence on them. I think we can be better than that. We are listed by the IUBS as one of two existing Global Checklists, the other being CoL, we need to live up to that. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 06:52, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't follow. Is there anything left argueing about when the 4 world lists /agree/ on a name-change? (true for ~200 species)
Do you want to add a fifth list, for a fifth vote? - Kweetal nl (talk) 08:41, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Its not about voting its about following the science. 4 checklists cool who followed who, I am meaning we need a peer reviewed review article to back the name not a checklist. When possible. I do get that is not always possible, nor needed. For my own work I never follow checklists, I provide the information that the checklists follow. Thats the references we need. I will give you an example. Its one of my own species but thats just to make it quick. Elseya rhodini is listed on both Reptile Database and the Turtle Taxonomy Working Group Checklist under that name, however, we do not follow either CheckList for the reference to establish it is the valid name for the taxon. We follow Thomson et al 2015 because that paper establishes the name, its usage and is peer reviewed. There are a couple of other papers that have come out since that also back this up. So well established. What the checklists say is irrelevant, afterall they are following the same papers we are, we need those peer reviewed pubs whenever possible. Now absolutely there are many names that are just so well accepted you may not find a recent paper in which case sure follow the checklist. But as a generalisation we follow the literature not the checklists. Remember this is not Wikipedia, we do not have the same Policies on NPoV and COI and tend to use primary lit not seconday. Checklists are a good starting point, but they are not the finished job here. Checklists are Secondary lit. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 10:25, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that sounds reasonable but also, it seems to me, very much not feasible with the workforce at hand. But I'll shut up now, I'm a newbie here (10 edits!), and I can't really help. - Kweetal nl (talk) 10:44, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

┌───────────────┘ @Kweetal nl: Still, you came up with a very valid and important point when starting this thread. Thank you for that! –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 11:21, 15 December 2023 (UTC).[reply]

Well, I am just an engineer and totally amateur editor, my knowledge ahead of Aves is "zero". As Kweetal nl I will stop here, because this discussion has taken a course that, in my poor understanding, is not helping to solve the basic problem of outdating. I strongly recommend we continue to follow IOC, I have no conditions to judge when a peer reviewed paper is valid or not. I have seen many "peer reviewed" splits being rejected by SACC. There is politics also in the papers. And, again, > 90% of IOC changes are based on papers and those are clearly referenced. And we always have the resource to mention a different name opinion in the Synonymy section. And back to the basics, here is an example: family Meliphagidae (honeyeaters) has actually 55 genera, WS only shows 38, 3 of them no longer belong to the family, two moved to Mohoidae not even existing here! So we have 20 genera, 1 family to be created and the respective species to be moved/renamed. I will take care of it, estimated + 3 weeks work. Let's move updating! Greetings! — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hector Bottai (talk • contribs) 11:53, 15 December 2023.
Heya it was not my intent to push you guys into a corner. I am trying to encourage the use of the primary lit where possible. I did say start from IOC just do some comparisons. Many times this is not possible so we just end up using IOC. In publications I have been highly critical of the 4 checklists for birds, all 4 of them, as I think they just create headaches for everyone. But we have to start somewhere. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 19:10, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It really isn't IOC (or the other bird lists) - it is, as @Hector Bottai: says, that it is 3 weeks work just to update one family out of the dozens, perhaps hundreds, that need doing. And that is almost entirely due to the complexity of getting Wikidata's arcane proceedures satiated. I wish the process could go back to how it was before Wikidata kept sticking its nose and fingers in! Well done Hector for volunteering for this! Now who will take on Leiothrichidae . . .? - MPF (talk) 20:35, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Leiothrichidae... Including the use of inappropriate formats. I empathise with @MPF:, WD has created problems as it just wants data, WS must ignore its wishes IMO, if WD wants data it can pull it out, but should not ask WS editors to focus on WD. WS should be about creating taxon pages for accepted names. This usually requires using multiple sources, including peer reviewed papers. Therefore contributing to WD is easier once you become familiar with its procedures. However, WS sometimes highlights problems where different sources propose conflicting taxonomic solutions when proposing an accepted name and that is a WS issue, as one name one taxon is not possible. See below though. Andyboorman (talk) 21:35, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

A helpful tip[edit]

If you add {{User:YOURNAME/common.css}} to your main page, it has the ability to highlight changes to taxon pages. For example I have set it up to let me know redirects as they are coloured green. It is useful when editing list of species and genera. I can then check to make sure for possible be homonyms. As an example Osbeckia leschenaultiana is both an accepted species and also a synonym depending on the author, according to POWO. Regards Andyboorman (talk) 15:15, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Andy! Here's some added details on how to go about creating the Cascading Style Sheet, i.e., CSS-file.
First of all, the above tip will only work if you have registered a Wikispecies user account, and are logged in. Also, everyone who wants to add a common.css-file for their user account will need to replace “YOURNAME” in the above text string with their actual Wikispecies username—or, you can simply click this link and your username will be added automatically!
Clicking the link will open an edit window for your new, properly named CSS-file, which can then be populated with more or less any standard CSS code. Here's an example:
/* Make links to redirects green, and already visited redirect links a bit darker green */
a.mw-redirect { color: #398131; }
a.mw-redirect:visited { color: #466446; }

/* Show links to disambiguation pages in orange */
a.mw-disambig { color: #ff8c00; }

/* Remove (dotted) line from popup-info links */
.mw-body-content abbr { border: none; }
In this example I've specified the colours using their hexadecimal format (e.g. #398131) because hex is very precise and you can use it to pick any single one colour out of a maximum of 16,777,216 different shades and hues... You can also use plain English (without the # hash tag, e.g. green, yellow, limegreen, slategrey, salmon etc.) but then you're "limited" to 147 or 148 colours (depending on which browser you use). Choose your pick, save the file just like any other Wikispecies edit, and you're good to go!
Note that rendering CSS code can often differ slightly between different hardware platforms, browsers and operating systems, so a bit of trial-and-error might be necessary before everything looks exactly the way you want it to. You can read more about CSS and Web colors (with examples) on Wikipedia, and there's a great beginner's guide about CSS at W3Schools, here: CSS Tutorial.
Happy editing! –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 18:00, 17 December 2023 (UTC).[reply]

FYI: Great Mother Jones series on endangered species[edit]

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/12/endangered-species-act-fifty-years/ Pretty tangential to any work here, but something that may interest editors, particularly those interested in American politics. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:54, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Navigation popups not working?[edit]

The Navigation popups gadget recently stopped working for me, on this wiki. I can still use it on en.Wikipedia, Commons, etc. Is anyone else having issues with it? Does anyone know why? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:22, 21 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is still happening. A work-around was suggested, but I'd rather fix the problem properly. Can anyone help? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:53, 28 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Andy, and sorry for the late reply. First of all: have you checked your browser settings? It's rare, but some updates to the operating system, web browsers and/or security software have been known to disable JavaScript in the browser settings, and JavaScript is required for the gadget to function. This is also true for the suggested work-around. Some ad-blocking browser extensions may also prevent the popups from showing.
With that out of the way, here's my thoughts. I've always found the Navigation popups feature a bit fiddly when activating it via the the standard checkbox in User Preferences. Some days it works, some days it doesn't... As a result I opted for your suggested work-around already back in 2014, and it works great all the time. I periodically go back to the "standard" method just to check it out, but I still find it unreliable. As for "my" alternative method, please note that I use a slightly different code structure than in the work-around presented for you, with cleaner and less complicated JavaScript, like so:‎
// [[Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups]]
mw.loader.load('https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Gadget-popups.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');
mw.loader.load('https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Gadget-navpop.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css', 'text/css');

popupOnEditSelection=false;
popupAdminLinks=true;‎
I've added the code to my GUI skin JS-file of choice here at Wikispecies (I still like "Vector Legacy 2010"), but if you instead add it to your Meta-Wiki global.js file it will automatically work on all the Wikimedia wikis.
But that's just another quick fix, and I know that's not really what you asked for... Unfortunately editing gadgets and gadget settings is tricky stuff, and I need to read up on a bunch of details before I can be of any real help there. Perhaps Koavf i.e. Justin have an idea on how to go forward? He's often good with these techy things. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 23:25, 6 January 2024 (UTC).[reply]
Thank you. I've done that now, and it's working again. It never stopped working on other projects, so I don't think it's a browser issue. It would still be good to identify the cause, for other users' benefit. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:07, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Diff post[edit]

For those interested one of my other functions on WMF is Chair of the Ombuds Commission. As such I recently published a Diff Blog about the OC. What do you know about the Ombuds Commission? Hope people find it interesting. In general the OC is by necessity a very private commission so this may give some of you some insight as to what we do. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 19:51, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good to know Scott, I didn't know about OC. Success! Hector Bottai (talk) 12:21, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Pictures[edit]

Who can help me with pictures. See Lambula flavistrigata. PeterR (talk) 11:30, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You can't link to images on other sites like that. Images - which must be freely licensed - can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, and then transcluded from there (or pulled in via Wikidata). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:01, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Editing Jiří Hodecěk[edit]

The first line of Jiří Hodecěk was recently changed to:

Jiří Hodeček, Czech entomologist.

Which spelling is correct? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:50, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Pigsonthewing: In the author's own works, e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341285761 , it is Jiří Hodeček with the diacritic on c rather than e, so that must be the correct spelling. Monster Iestyn (talk) 15:01, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Page now renamed to Jiří Hodeček. Monster Iestyn (talk) 15:39, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Page layout[edit]

Is there a proper order for {{Commons}} and {{Taxonbar}} in a page? I've seen pages with both Commons (Panthera tigris) and Taxonbar (Halimione portulacoides) at the bottom, so there doesn't seem to be a standard. Trooper57 (talk) 15:38, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The standard is Commonscat and then Taxonbar at the bottom. Hector Bottai (talk) 12:23, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed and I have edited Panthera tigris Andyboorman (talk) 12:42, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

W.L. Jellison arachnologist[edit]

Who can help me with the full name from W.L. Jellison arachnologist? PeterR (talk) 11:52, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A search on Wikidata returns William Livingston Jellison (Q21516983). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:37, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Andy thanks PeterR (talk) 11:17, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

NHM (London) staff described 815 new species in 2023[edit]

Natural History Museum scientists described a record 815 new species in 2023. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:21, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Rift Valley fever phlebovirus renamed[edit]

I've just reverted this good-faith attempt to rename Rift Valley fever phlebovirus. Is the new name valid and how should it be handled on this project? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:25, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Phlebovirus riftense the correct name; see ICTV. Virologists recently adopted binomial nomenclature for virus species (previously the name of a virus species could be any number of words and didn't necessarily include the name of the genus (and when the genus name was included, it was usually the last word in the species name)). All virus species will be renamed in the next few years. Plantdrew (talk) 17:01, 2 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you both. I've now updated the references and moved the page to Phlebovirus riftense. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 18:46, 2 January 2024 (UTC).[reply]
Actually all the name changes are slated to be done by end 2023 - although I have not checked - according to this paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00705-023-05797-4 Tony 1212 (talk) 19:35, 2 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the link, @Tony 1212. In either case the Wikispecies Phlebovirus page is very outdated. For example, we list a mere 10 species, whereas ICTV enumerates no less than 66. I'll add the missing ones to the species list in a day or so, but I'm no expert on virus taxonomy and will most likely need help​ to create the actual taxon pages. As always, Wikispecies is a work in progress. :-) Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 16:01, 3 January 2024 (UTC).[reply]

┌──────────┘ Please also see Talk:Guinea pig type-C oncovirus. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 17:43, 4 January 2024 (UTC).[reply]

The current status of taxonomy[edit]

Here is an interesting recent article on the poor state of Taxonomy which is being underfunded and undervalued:

Mariusm (talk) 11:40, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Acta arach[edit]

Any objections to Template:Acta arach being deleted? This appears to be another of Stho002's creations from 2014, but until today very few pages were actually using this template as it turned out (eight templates and one directly using it in a species page), so I have now substituted out all instances of this template from Wikispecies. Monster Iestyn (talk) 20:01, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

no Agree with deletion. Burmeister (talk) 20:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
no Agree with deletion. Andyboorman (talk) 20:10, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
no Agree with deletion. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 23:16, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

POWO templates[edit]

Please see new discussion at Template talk:PWO. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:00, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Workpage template[edit]

I've recently edited the {{Workpage}} template which was completed late November by @Tommy Kronkvist:. I have edited it on the basis of some feedback and also my use of the template. Please review my changes and post feedback here. Andyboorman (talk) 15:30, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me, thanks! - MPF (talk) 01:16, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@MPF: Yes I agree, it looks better now. Thanks for the enhancing it, @Andyboorman. I got the idea from one of @Great Wall of Text's user subpages here at Wikispecies, and based my original version on the equivalent Workpage template on English Wikipedia. Earlier today I added our current Wikispecies version to Wikidata, here: Q14452234. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 16:22, 27 December 2023 (UTC).[reply]

Task for a bot: add image template to biographies[edit]

From time to time I come across a biography page, which has no image of the subject, despite their being an image on Commons, with a link to the image in a statement on their Wikidata item.

Please can someone with a bot add {{Image}} to all biography pages, which do not already have that template, and do not have an image in [[File: format?

For those not aware, the template displays an image if one is linked on Wikidata, otherwise does nothing. Its particular usefulness is that if an image statement is subsequently added on Wikidata, it will immediately start to display on Wikispecies.

For that reason, please also include the template when you create new biography pages. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:53, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good initiative! However, rather than skipping all pages with [[File: links I think it would be better to convert them to {{Image}} dittos (while keeping the image captions, if any, but making sure to remove any thumb, 250px and right etc. parameters). Unfortunately I don't run bot at the moment, and can't help out with the actual bot job (other than giving advice of course). Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 02:29, 5 January 2024 (UTC).[reply]

Sections in Acer[edit]

When looking through stub pages, I found that all section pages for Acer were stubs. A bit of research later I came to the conclusion that these section pages were more or less redundant and contradictory. In addition, I could not find any recent papers supporting their use or utility. What do botanists on WS think? Do sections have a taxonomic role in contemporary sub-generic classification post phylogenetics? Are you aware of supporting literature for those found here for Acer? Shall we edit them out of Acer and seriously review other generic taxon pages? Thanks and Happy New Year. Andyboorman (talk) 20:46, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I took out a lot of infrageneric classification a while back, because the 'traditional' classification (de Jong et al.) had significant mismatches with recent genetic data. Unfortunately, the genetic data (IIRC) wasn't very consistent between studies, either, and is also incomplete in species coverage. I'd say, omit it until there's a better agreement and fuller coverage - MPF (talk) 17:05, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is this: Maple Society Accepted Species Names which is probably as good as anything, though (from a personal viewpoint) it has massive over-splitting in Sect. Palmata (numerous microspecies barely distinguishable), moderate oversplitting in Sect. Macrantha, and significant under-splitting in Sect. Ginnala (just one species made up of two conspicuously different taxa with a 3,000 km range gap between them). - MPF (talk) 17:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Fagus: is adding some reference detail removing stub labels for sect., but the source for species allocation is about 30 years old. Sect. Ginnala seems to be interesting case of two taxonomic opinions. However, the disjunct distribution, as found on the WS map, may not be entirely correct, as there are probably a number of sub-taxa filling the 3,000 km range, if Kew is to be believed. In addition, putative fertile "hybrids" are common and other than geography there is little or no barrier to breeding. I assume this is a classic taxonomic opinion with no definitive evidence favouring one side over the other. I have a note on the discussion page. Andyboorman (talk) 11:27, 5 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, a classic taxonomic opinion case, but not "with no definitive evidence favouring one side over the other" - there is good morphological evidence to favour the splitting side over the lumping side. The range gap between A. tataricum s.s. and A. ginnala is real; the problem with the Kew maps is that they show a taxon's presence in any part of a region (even a tiny fragment), as present in the whole of that region - and the mapping regions in that part of the world are very large. Hybridisation in cultivation (or in captivity in zoos) when allopatric taxa are brought together for the first time isn't a useful character; if it was, then thousands of universally accepted species would be lumped. - MPF (talk) 14:34, 6 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to side with the one species 5 subspecies hypothesis. I agree that there are morphological differences along the range. This was one of my examples when teaching plant ID. "Look at the leaves, what differences do you observe?" Sort of thing. However, I have two very distinct forms of Centaurea nigra in some of my sown wild flower patches. One has very distinct and attractive ray florets, whereas the other has none, but they are the same named species not even varieties. However, I do not think that I can force one taxonomic opinion on others, hence my notes. Andyboorman (talk) 18:14, 6 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What is our place in International Species Lists[edit]

This is something I have been stewing on for a while, I may have mentioned it once or twice. With the development of a Global Species list the decision has been made within the GSLWG of the IUBS of which I am a member to develop Catalogue of Life as the singular global species list. As such I think we need to address our part in all this. We do actually have an opportunity to present unique information of high value to science. But we do need to address a couple of things to accomplish it. We actually have the information to do it already, at least for most of the taxa we have listed. I have had ICZN Commissioners for example suggest this is the role we would be made for. We can present the complete nomenclature of every species. The main change we would have to make is stop redirecting junior synonyms to the valid name and actually create that page too but it would link to the senior valid name. This actually does not exist anywhere at a global level. Now yes its a lot of taxa, but for the most part as I said we have the data, we just need to rethink our purpose a little and carve out an important sector for ourselves. We would still be able to supply Wikidata with the info they need and it can then be still used for other projects accordingly, eg taxoboxes etc.

Basic things we would have to address is some MOS issues on how we differentiate a valid and non valid name (using ICZN definiations here), how we actually link them and how we address homonyms better as with all the junior names included the number of homonyms would increase. But I think it is doable and I think we can carve out a niche that would be used by science.

We actually assess the validity of names here, we are not just a database. We are a Global Checklist, one of two in existence, and the other is going to become THE Global Checklist, we need to adapt.

To address a couple of negatives I have seen over the years:

  1. . Wikidata does what you do! Actually no they are a database not a checklist, they do not assess names for the most part they extract them without any assessment of what they get, they also extract them from here. But databases are not CheckLists. Wikidata absolutely has its role in all this but it is not the same as Wikispecies or Wikipedia.
  2. . It is not used by general readers, nope Wikipedia is, however, researchers who are past the post doc phase realise that what is presented on Wikipedia not really the right information for research grade work, and they have the added difficulty of a number of policies making it difficult to address that issue. I also doubt they want to. Honestly they shouldnt encyclopedias are aimed at upper high scholl to undergrad level as they always have been. We can provide summaries actually usable by researchers of nomenclatural science and taxonomy, conservation biology and genetics etc. We just need to present a consistent and unique product.

Would appreciate people thoughts on this. I can create some example pages of a couple of species to demonstrate what I think we should aim at if people want.

Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 07:28, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent initiative!. A few questions from a plants perspective. I assume that ICN will be on board as well as ICZN? No doubt IPNI will be the database of first resort for published plant names? Are POWO, WFO, COL(Hassler), GRIN and so on involved? Finally for now. As you propose pages for all synonyms of accepted names, I assume that Global Species list, from a plants perspective, is IPNI with the added detail WS can provide? In other words it is more that accepted names, such as POWO. Thanks. Andyboorman (talk) 08:12, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • To have a page for each names makes sence, as synonymy and potential acceptance are taxonomic point of views witch can change from time to time can be different according to the source used. So I quite agree. WoRMS already have pages for synonyms, but WoRMS often shows one point of view, i.e. they gives one specific status for a name, status witch is often given by one editor, who of course has his own point of view. The question for us is how to display different points of views, and in at minimum two differnet places, i.e. if you deal with a species you have to quote somewhere 1/ in the species page that this name is accepted according to xxx but synonym according to yyy 2/ in the genus page you may have to highlight that the species list contains potentially (a)disputed taxa, (b)valid taxa, (c)unambigous synonmys, ect.... Christian Ferrer (talk) 07:17, 16 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are two kinds of synonyms: (1) when a species is moved from one genus to another (results in a different binomen – an alternative combination) (2) when the same taxon is described and named more than once. For (2) I already try to retain the synonym-pages with all the species details. For (1) I redirect. What do you think should be the data and format of (1) pages? Mariusm (talk) 08:30, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
When we have more accepted taxa up and running with high quality pages, then I may consider adding individual taxon pages for "all" synonyms. Andyboorman (talk) 14:43, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am used to Zoological Nomenclature as such I consider recombinations as just that and their info should be on the current combination page along with the protonym. The ones I am most interested in here are the alternative epithets for the same taxa. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 11:39, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, so synonyms are now (or in future) going to have their own pages instead of being redirects to the valid names? While I understand that this may be useful, it does feel as if Wikispecies has alternated between formatting synonyms as redirects and as pages over the years, which is honestly rather confusing for someone newer like me trying to clean up old pages and bring them up to standard. In fact, there's still a lot of pages for synonyms in Category:Invalid species name which haven't been converted to the redirect format for instance (as well as some in the parent category Category:Invalid species). For example, Ectopsocus australis was originally created as a redirect in 2009 (See [6]), then in 2012 was converted into a page (as it still stands today, because nobody except Rosibot has touched it in a decade). Since I started editing Wikispecies in 2018, I've had the impression that synonyms should be set up as redirects to their respective valid names and as such I've set them up that way (and occasionally I've converted some older synonym pages into redirects as I come across them, transferring their references and other data to the pages for the valid names), but now they're going to be converted to pages again?
That said, I don't really object to this plan in principle, and I'd be happy to help out converting the synonyms to full pages if everyone agrees with it and any details of formatting them are ironed out, but please let's not change this again afterwards if possible. Monster Iestyn (talk) 18:03, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In part what I have suggested is a reaction to how international lists are being re-envisioned at the current time. We need to maintain a presence in this and we have been asked numerous times if we could do something unique which is also be a list of names, all names, that does not exist and is missing. Its a resource we can provide and make this site more usable. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 00:54, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
With synonyms it would become a modern version of Peters' Check-list of Birds of the World
Peters' Check-list at BHL which took more than 50 years to complete - it's an obvious step but it will be a huge task.
Kweetal nl (talk) 06:01, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Synonyms on Wikidata[edit]

  • I will add this here cause I am not sure this helps. I have been creating a few of the synonym pages as I have indicated here making it clear they are synonyms linking them to their senior name etc. However, Wikidata has semi-auto created the corresponding page. However they do not have an identifier to state it is a synonym, ie an invalid name and not in usage. As such for example the name Chelodina novaehollandiae now has a Q-number there Q124307585 but it is not distinguished as an invalid name (zoology) putting it on equal standing with valid (zoology) names. I think Wikidata may need to create instances of invalid names or any queries will list all synonyms with all valid names with no way to distinguish them. I guess they may have to start reading what they inport. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 05:57, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nomina nuda[edit]

I forget if it's been talked about before here, but should Wikispecies have pages for nomina nuda? I ask because for instance I've learned that the animal species Convoluta elegans is considered a nomen nudum in {{Achatz et al., 2010}}. (According to the paper, the description is so loose that the species cannot ever be identified with certainty. No types are mentioned either, maybe there aren't any?) Monster Iestyn (talk) 03:55, 6 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Basically no. Just a few non-trivial mentions but no real discussion or consensus. Somewhat relevant: Wikispecies:Village_Pump/Archive_6#Discussion_about_invalidly_published_names, Wikispecies:Village_Pump/Archive_37#Scope_of_"AUTHOR_taxa"_categories, and Wikispecies:Village_Pump/Archive_39#Nomen_nudum_or_not?. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:52, 6 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See Template:Nomen nudum; I'm planning to change it in the style of Template:Incertae sedis. You should insert it in the Synonymy section. See for example Pheidole bahai and Pheidole ebenina. Mariusm (talk) 14:32, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nice initiative, Mariusm. I've been thinking of this myself for quite a long time now. It will be a nice improvement after you're done. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 21:43, 7 January 2024 (UTC).[reply]
Done! Template:Nomen nudum style have been changed. You can use it, but remember to add the species name in the genus page under "Unaccepted names" title. Mariusm (talk) 07:47, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would not mind a couple for Junior Subjective Synonym and Junior Objective Synonym also to be honest as I want to start adding the synonyms on here and they have to link back to the senior synonym rather than a redirect. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 08:02, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've made the template apply Category:Nomen nudum. Any issues? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:37, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
None here best group them all Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 12:42, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

┌──────────┘ @Scott: I've created {{Junior subjective synonym}} and {{Junior objective synonym}} which renders as

  • Status:   junior subjective synonym  

and

  • Status:   junior objective synonym  

They're fairly basic. Feel free to change/add categories and linking possibilities to the templates as you see fit. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 01:35, 29 January 2024 (UTC).[reply]

Thank you for those already started using them eg. Chelodina rankini. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 14:30, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps a less bright colour might be better, even a neutral grey? The positioning of the band relative to its text is also slightly too high, going a few pixels above the tops of the 'J' and 'b', while the bottoms of the 'j' and 'y' cut through the bottom of the band - MPF (talk) 14:41, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@MPF: The code is more or less identical to a whole bunch of similar, much older templates: see Category:Pictograms for examples. The other templates only use lowercase letters and none of them have a "j" or "y", hence no descending "loop" reaching through the bottom of the band.
I've changed the colour in both of the {{Junior subjective synonym}} and {{Junior objective synonym}} templates per your suggestion (see above), as well as changed them to all-lowercase. This fixes some of the issues you bring forth, but I think that any other alterations should be made to all of the other, similar {{Dubium}}, {{Invalid}} etc. templates as well (again, see Category:Pictograms for more examples). –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 19:33, 29 January 2024 (UTC).[reply]
@Tommy Kronkvist: Thanks! Yes, I'd agree any formatting changes should be applied to all of the relevant ones; unfortunately I don't know how to do it! Another query about them - can they be internationalised for different languages? - MPF (talk) 20:13, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@MPF: Yes, some of them are already localized, at least to some extent: see for example {{Status unresolved}}. It's fairly easy to do, I've just not gotten around to it yet. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 20:30, 29 January 2024 (UTC).[reply]
Thanks! Yes, that'll be good 👍 - MPF (talk) 22:17, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Vote on the Charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee[edit]

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to your language

Hello all,

I am reaching out to you today to announce that the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) Charter is now open. Community members may cast their vote and provide comments about the charter via SecurePoll now through 2 February 2024. Those of you who voiced your opinions during the development of the UCoC Enforcement Guidelines will find this process familiar.

The current version of the U4C Charter is on Meta-wiki with translations available.

Read the charter, go vote and share this note with others in your community. I can confidently say the U4C Building Committee looks forward to your participation.

On behalf of the UCoC Project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 18:07, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hugh Cuming (1791-1865), English botanist[edit]

For the attention of editors of plant pages. Sometimes species epithets honouring the prolific plant collector Hugh Cuming have been misspelled using cumming. I questioned IPNI about Medinilla cummingii, which I found out from its protologue that it was named after Hugh Cuming, but the type collection was mislabelled. After an investigation they agreed with me and on searching their databases realised this mistake had occurred a number of times. If you encounter an epithet containing cumming in all its variants, it is worth double checking, as to whether or not it is an eponym of the plant collector. IPNI, POWO and other rapidly updating sources will update over the coming days and weeks. Best regards Andyboorman (talk) 19:15, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

He also made vast collections of shells, including barnacles. Darwin described many species from his collection, and noted these as "Cuming Museum". Neferkheperre (talk) 14:45, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The genus Stewartia is named after John Stuart, but mis-spelled by Linnaeus. This has I understand been ruled a non-correctable error, even though many texts have used the spelling Stuartia. Same for Acer pensylvanicum, Carex pensylvanica, and Sphex pensylvanicus, all named after William Penn and the state of Pennsylvania. I'd suspect the same may well apply here; the ICN is not clear on when spelling errors should be corrected or not. - MPF (talk) 12:30, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
IPNI informed me that they are happy that Cumming is a correctable error, as its use is a mistake in labelling of type specimens. Andyboorman (talk) 15:33, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How do we know that Linnaeus was honouring John Stuart when he published Stewartia? Just a thought
@Andyboorman: - not sure offhand, but it has long been so cited without dispute (e.g. Sprague, 1928 [full text paywalled, unfortunately]) - MPF (talk) 20:29, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@MPF: I have read the paper having signed up for 100 article free access years ago. Unfortunately Sprague is incorrect in his treatment of Stewartia. ICN is very clear, as generic names in Sp. Pl. have priority and are not to be corrected - see Art.13, even if correctable under normal circumstances. In addition, without going through supplementary material we can not say that Linnaeus was honouring John Stuart. Sprague is simply making a reasonable supposition in his treatise. I think if you contacted IPNI they would refuse to correct. This genus was one of my mini case studies when teaching nomenclature. Interesting for nomenclature nerds! Andyboorman (talk) 21:04, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I wasn't arguing for Sprague being right; I knew (from earlier work) that he wasn't, and was suspecting that the same 'no correction' might also apply to the Cuming case - MPF (talk) 22:22, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@MPF: Just as an aside, Wikipedia Library gives access to JSTOR and other resources. I can access Sprague, 1928 for instance from there with no issue. Monster Iestyn (talk) 21:11, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I've yet to work out how to use this (I tried once and got stuck with something or other, I forget what), but I'll give it another go - MPF (talk) 22:24, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Free access to Phytotaxa and Zootaxa[edit]

Would you like to have free access to Phytotaxa and Zootaxa though the Wikipedia Library? If you are eligible for a Wikipedia Library account, please upvote this request.

Even if you already have access through some other means, your upvote will help to secure free access for other Wikimedia volunteers. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:52, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

the inclusion of these journals in Wikipedia Library would be very welcome! --RLJ (talk) 15:10, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Pigsonthewing: Thank you for notifying! I also upvoted CSIRO Publishing, publisher of Australian Systematic Botany. It is inconvenient that currently we do not have free access to Brooker (2000), who has a great influence on today's infrageneric taxonomy of eucalypts. --Eryk Kij (talk) 17:49, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Upvoted both of the above. I will check out others.Andyboorman (talk) 18:28, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That'd be amazing! Upvoted (among a few others) --Hiouf (talk) 06:53, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: 'Obelisks': Entirely New Class of Life Has Been Found in The Human Digestive System[edit]

https://www.sciencealert.com/obelisks-entirely-new-class-of-life-has-been-found-in-the-human-digestive-system —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:05, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00266-7 Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:38, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And Obelisk (Q124389730) as a placeholder. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:47, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you both. Very interesting information, even though the taxonomists probably still have a lot of work to do before a formal paper can be published.
I've added the information as a Wikispecies tweet: "Obelisks": Entirely New Class of Life Has Been Found in The Human Digestive System. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 23:34, 30 January 2024 (UTC).[reply]
Should we crate a placeholder page here? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:32, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion, no. As far as I understand the paper has yet to be peer reviewed, hence one could argue that right now there is no new, scientifically accepted taxon name for these "obelisks", and as far as we know there may never be. Then again there wouldn't be anything explicitly wrong with a placeholder page: for example, it probably wouldn't even border to be classed as original research. However, I think we should restrict Wikispecies taxon pages to taxon names that are (or used to be) accepted. Otherwise we might risk a veritable flood of placeholder pages for "taxa" that at some point in the future may or may not become considered valid taxon names. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 20:00, 31 January 2024 (UTC).[reply]
I would argue against a placeholder page as our function is to report accepted changes to the taxonomy of life. Until this is published it does not exist, its noteworthy and and interesting news but we need to see if it pans out. Many people claim they have found new taxa, but never publish it. The fact that I am aware of around a dozen new species of turtles does not give any of those potential taxa a place here until myself or those that told me of these taxa actually present the findings to science. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 02:50, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

┌────────────┘ Note: Earlier today "Obelisks" was added as a red link to the "Alternative classification" section on Acytota. It was added by an unregistered user, i.e. an IP edit.

As a side note "Obelisk" (without the ending "s") is also mentioned on five other Wikispecies pages, since it's the name of a type locality in New Zealand. Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 22:55, 4 February 2024 (UTC).[reply]

Last days to vote on the Charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee[edit]

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Hello all,

I am reaching out to you today to remind you that the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) charter will close on 2 February 2024. Community members may cast their vote and provide comments about the charter via SecurePoll. Those of you who voiced your opinions during the development of the UCoC Enforcement Guidelines will find this process familiar.

The current version of the U4C charter is on Meta-wiki with translations available.

Read the charter, go vote and share this note with others in your community. I can confidently say the U4C Building Committee looks forward to your participation.

On behalf of the UCoC Project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 16:59, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Search queries for Wikispecies cleanup[edit]

For some time now, I've been collecting in my userpage a few useful links to search queries I've been using for doing cleaning up on Wikispecies. At this point I think I should share these here, so others can more easily find these same problems I've been fixing:

Queries for taxon pages:

Queries for taxon author pages:

Queries for reference templates:

  • Special:Search/Template: deepcat:"Reference templates" -insource:"Reference page": Reference templates missing the "Reference page" link, or those where the text "Reference page" has been misspelled. However, this will also list templates like {{WFO}} that don't need these links as far as I know. Over 990 reference templates are listed here as of writing.
  • Special:Search/Template:insource:"http://zoobank.org/": Reference templates with raw ZooBank URLs, which should instead be formatted with {{ZooBank}} template. Over 220 reference templates are listed here as of writing.
    • Note: this includes some of the old "Template:Urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:<ZooBankID>" templates created by Stho002 many years ago. They have all since been renamed, but some of them still haven't been corrected to use the usual reference template format, in particular lacking a "Reference page" link. It just happens the ones not corrected yet also have raw ZooBank URLs.

Monster Iestyn (talk) 22:31, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I believe there is no more reference template with raw ZooBank URLs. --Hiouf (talk) 07:18, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you!! Monster Iestyn (talk) 12:40, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I also completed the authors missing sortkeys. Except for the last 2 that I do know how to deal with: one is a trust board and the other is (I think) only a family name. Any ideas about the recommendations for those? --Hiouf (talk) 14:57, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Hiouf: Those both sound like exceptional cases... The second one is from Indonesia, so it may be a case of a given name with no family name? Maybe just add {{DEFAULTSORT:Ngatiwai Trust Board}} and {{DEFAULTSORT:Roekmowati-Hartono}} for those two. Monster Iestyn (talk) 15:13, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the tips. It is now completed! --Hiouf (talk) 18:35, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Name section[edit]

Should the additional information in the Name section be in a bulleted list? I've seen a lot of pages using bullets before "type locality", "type species", "etymology" etc., but the examples at the Help:Name section don't have them and I remember some user deleting the bullets in one of my edits. Trooper57 (talk) 19:28, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Trooper57. Personally I try to always follow the how-to guides and examples listed in all of the Help pages, and it may very well have been me who deleted "your" bullet symbols. I believe we had a discussion about the Name Section format a few years ago, and that the current "Help:Name section" guideline is a result of the outcome of that. Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to find a link to the discussion at the moment. (The closest I get is a discussion about the format for References we had back in December 2015, which was followed by a poll later the same year. That poll is the basis for the Help:Reference section guideline we still use today.)
Perhaps any of our fellow Wikispecians can find a link to the discussion I refer to? Best regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 20:37, 28 January 2024 (UTC).[reply]
Technically no for bullets in this as it should be a synonymy, and these have a specific format in science. So for example the indented names should be junior synonyms and the currently used name should be the least indented etc. So I prefer no bullets in this list. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 22:06, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer the bullets style and am constantly using it because it's more clear, makes for more concise text and differentiates between the components. A poll seems to me a good idea though. Mariusm (talk) 06:34, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
actually scratch my answer somewhat. I was thinking of the synonymy not the name section. though I have been using bullets to indent it all anyway. But yes my pref for the names section is one bullet for the name then double to indent for the type locality and holotype etc. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 08:16, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer the bullets style too, in the same way of Mariusm, the data is better arranged, making it easier to read and understand the information provided. Burmeister (talk) 11:06, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I fully agree with @Mariusm: and @Burmeister:, and I have done this way for years and thousands of editions. Apologyze for unknowing the existing recommended format. I am in favour on a vote for changing.--Hector Bottai (talk) 14:54, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The format I use is found here Azara. Andyboorman (talk) 15:03, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Could we resolve this issue with a template, so that people simply enter the data and the template handles the formatting? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:50, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A template sounds very reasonable and will help new editors a lot I feel. Andyboorman (talk) 10:51, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

IPNI update for some plant species epithets[edit]

I have just heard back from IPNI about plants with the species epithet davidii, for example Acer davidii or Vitis davidii, that are eponyms for Père David. These species epithets will have to be corrected to davidi in line with Arts 60C.1. David is Latinised to Davidus and thus becomes davidi as a species epithet. It appears that there is some 150 "davidii" names to be corrected on their database and these will be progressed in due course. One exception will be Buddleja davidii Franch., Nouv. Arch. Mus. Hist. Nat. ser. 2 10: 65. (1887), for which the RHS is progressing a nom. cons. Interestingly many of the protologues use davidi and were changed over time. In addition, it seems that similar corrections will apply to other species epithets. Andyboorman (talk) 14:56, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the information, @Andyboorman! I can have a bot take care of the corrections as soon as IPNI are up to speed, but will need a list of the affected taxon names in order to do so. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 19:43, 2 February 2024 (UTC).[reply]
Brilliant. As soon as IPNI generate the changes I will endeavour to get you the lists. Andyboorman (talk) 19:54, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If the RHS are proposing a nom. cons., can they be persuaded to get the genus name conserved with its near-universal historical spelling Buddleia (pronounced "budlayer") over Buddleja ("budledger"), because of the drastic effect the recent change to -j- has on English pronunciation of the name? - MPF (talk) 21:42, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@MPF: Highly unlikely as Linnaeus used Buddleja in his original description in Sp. Pl. The IAPT site is down at the moment, but I think Art 60 is clear about conserving Linnaean names, as far as possible. Pronunciation is a matter of choice. Andyboorman (talk) 09:11, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Andy. Also, in many languages (including Swedish, the first language of both Linnaeus and myself), "i" and "j" are often pronounced exactly the same, except in loanwords or when used as the first letter of a word. For example, both Buddleja and Buddleia are pronounced in exactly the same way in Swedish. As for taxon names in general, I'm happy as long as we stick to Latin script. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 18:28, 3 February 2024 (UTC).[reply]
Seems to me Art. 60.6 is relevant here: "When the original publication of a name adopted a use of the letters u, v or i, j in any way incompatible with modern nomenclatural practices, those letters are to be transcribed in conformity with modern nomenclatural usage." Given that it has been Buddleia for almost all of the last century or more . . .? - MPF (talk) 00:19, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

┌───────────────┘ @Andyboorman and MPF: I didn't know that. Buddleia isn't even listed as a synonym on the Buddleja taxon page, and as far as I know it never has been? Then again I'm not a botanist. In either case I'm sure that pretty much anyone can write to the Royal Horticultural Society and contribute with constructive suggestions, and referring to Art. 60.6 (per MPF's quote) seems valid indeed. However, in line with Andyboorman my guess is that 60.6 doesn't top the "conserve Linnaean names" clause.

By the way: I guess you both know it already, but Buddleja is an eponym of Adam Buddle so there's not a lot of Greek or Latin stuff to take into account. For once.  –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 04:01, 4 February 2024 (UTC).[reply]

Thanks! Yes, knew about Buddle; not sure myself if there are any ICN instructions for forming a name from it. At first I thought Art. 60.8 might apply, but that's for species names, not genus names. Does 60.8 (d) apply in the context of this discussion re David? Should it be davidiana (as in Keteleeria davidiana), rather than davidi? David is of course a Hebrew name, not either Greek or Latin. - MPF (talk) 11:39, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Repository disambiguation[edit]

We currently have a page SNP (Category:SNP) for Herbarium Sabah Parks in Malaysia. However it seems there is also the Herpetological collection of Sochi National Park in Saint Petersburg, Russia, which uses the same abbreviation, SNP. See for example Darevskia praticola hyrcanica. Perhaps the Sochi repository is a subsidiary of ZIN? If so, the problem is more or less already solved. But if not, which is the best way for us to disambiguate between the two SNPs? –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 07:38, 4 February 2024 (UTC).[reply]

no Agree to NAS vs. NAS (Jiangsu). Dan Koehl (talk) 11:32, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Botanist(s) Cal(c)edonio Tropea[edit]

I'm guessing that the Italian botanist we call Calcedonio Tropea (Wikidata item Q44745974) should really be called Caledonio Tropea (Wikidata item Q26714196; per IPNI: floruit 1910, Tropea) but I'm not 100% sure. There is a page Calcedonio Tropea (botaniste) on French Wikipedia that contradicts this. Perhaps they are two different botanists after all? Does anyone here have more information on this? –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 06:07, 9 February 2024 (UTC).[reply]

@Tommy Kronkvist: It could be just that IPNI's record is a misspelling of Calcedonio Tropea: One of the species listed under the record is Vicia saxatilis (Vent.) Tropea, Malpighia 21: 46 (1907)., which turns out to be in an article authored by Calcedonio Tropea. I am not able to access the original publication for Eragrostis pringlei Mattei & Tropea, Contr. Biol. Veg. 4: 241 (1909). however to verify if this is the same for that species. Monster Iestyn (talk) 11:11, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I will ask IPNI to check, as @Monster Iestyn: seems correct in his research. Kew, Tropicos and others are just following IPNI. In my experience IPNI are usually over 99% correct and are appreciative of enquiries of this nature. Andyboorman (talk) 15:47, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you both. Please contact me again (or simply make any necessary changes) when the information is verified. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 02:32, 10 February 2024 (UTC).[reply]

┌───────┘ @Tommy Kronkvist: & @Monster Iestyn: IPNI have confirmed that they agree with the spelling Calcedonio Tropea - and have sent me this link. They have amended their records and these will go live in due course.Andyboorman (talk) 11:03, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Andyboorman: Thank you! –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 11:07, 12 February 2024 (UTC).[reply]

Announcing the results of the UCoC Coordinating Committee Charter ratification vote[edit]

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to your language

Dear all,

Thank you everyone for following the progress of the Universal Code of Conduct. I am writing to you today to announce the outcome of the ratification vote on the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee Charter. 1746 contributors voted in this ratification vote with 1249 voters supporting the Charter and 420 voters not. The ratification vote process allowed for voters to provide comments about the Charter.

A report of voting statistics and a summary of voter comments will be published on Meta-wiki in the coming weeks.

Please look forward to hearing about the next steps soon.

On behalf of the UCoC Project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 18:23, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A Question for Fern Experts[edit]

There are two basic differing taxonomic opinions regarding the circumscription of Cyatheaceae. WS, World Flora and Hassler maintain a narrow description, whereas POWO includes; Dicksoniaceae, Loxsomataceae, Metaxyaceae and Plagiogyriaceae in its synonymy. See also Cyatheales for PPG (2016) c.f. Christenhusz & Chase (2014) for the basic underpinning for these opinions. Is anybody aware of which is more accepted by specialists and are there other, more up to date references that can be used to support the stance adopted by WS? Andyboorman (talk) 15:39, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the vast majority of pteridologists follows PPG, with the narrower genus and family concepts. This results in many unplaced taxa in POWO, simply because the combinations in the broad genera are missing. I can't find any title with "Dicksonia (Cyatheaceae)" in ResearchGate. --RLJ (talk) 19:49, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Something to do with Christenhusz & Chase having strong contacts with Kew? Andyboorman (talk) 10:46, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this archive.
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