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WikiProject Tree of Life

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Merge Request Northern Green Anaconda into Anaconda

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I have tagged the Northern green anaconda for merge into the Green Anaconda page due to the developments in its taxonomy. See the Talk:Northern_green_anaconda#Latest_paper_just_out,_synonymizing_akayima_with_murinus_-_next_steps? for details. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 02:58, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bacterium redirect categories

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Module talk:Science redirect § Edit request 2 April 2023 didn't get enough discussion to come to a consensus, so I thought I'd restart the discussion here.

For context, taxonomic redirect categories like Category:Redirects from alternative scientific names of insects use Module:Science redirect, which has a fairly limited set of taxonomic categories. Right now, they are:

  • Animals
    • Amphibians
    • Arthropods
      • Crustaceans
      • Insects
      • Spiders
    • Birds
    • Fish
    • Mammals
    • Molluscs
    • Reptiles
  • Microorganisms
    • Algae
    • Fungi
    • Viruses
  • Plants

The proposal is to add Bacteria as a fourth subcategory of Microorganisms. I think it's a good idea, since looking at Category:Redirects from alternative scientific names of microorganisms, most (but not all!) are bacteria. Does anyone else have an opinion on this? jlwoodwa (talk) 20:23, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Harrz, Frostly, and Izno: pinging everyone from the previous discussion. jlwoodwa (talk) 20:24, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Forgot to mention: I think it's good that Module:Science redirect has this limited set, since they're maintenance rather than content categories. I wouldn't support tripling the number of categories here, or adding something like "Squids" or "Cats". I think Bacteria is a good high-level category, on the same level as the existing ones. jlwoodwa (talk) 20:29, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I've been using |bacterium anyway (it's supported by Module:Science redirect/conf, but just puts pages in the microorganism category). However, if this is changed I'm not sure microorganisms should be even a category. Some fungi and algae are microscopic but not all of them, so the algae and fungi categories ought to be moved up a level. But there might be some protists in the microorganism category that wouldn't have any other relevant category. Plantdrew (talk) 20:55, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - bacteria & microorganisms both supported by WP:WikiProject Microbiology. Slightly off topic, but WP:WikiProject Microbiology#Scope makes me think "Microorganisms" should be changed to "Microbiology".   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  22:05, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I was the editor who made the original request, which - if I'm honest - I had since forgotten about, and I think this is definitely something that should have been done with the creation of the module. Why include viruses but not bacteria? Also, it will help with maintenance as all bacteria redirects are currently in the larger microorganisms category, which really should be a diffusion category. harrz talk 01:56, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Frankly I'm shocked that there wasn't already a redirect category for bacteria - it is too large a group to not have its own category. At risk of getting off topic, I agree with the points brought up by Plantdrew and Tom.Reding regarding the microorganism category. A broader rework of these categories may be in order, but putting bacteria in their own category is a good start. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 04:54, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Obviously bacteria should be a category. A question is whether it should include Archaea (although the name becomes an issue) or if they should have their own category (are there enough authors?). It might be better to reorganise the categories, but the Microbiology project may prefer to keep that category for practical reasons.  —  Jts1882 | talk  07:50, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Taxa by author diffusion

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Are Category:Animal taxa by author (2,017) & Category:Botanical taxa by author (1,050) intended to be mutually exclusive from Category:Taxa by American author (531), etc.?

If so, it's unclear which is the preferred destination. Should an American animal taxa author go into Animal taxa by author or Taxa by American author?

If not, Animal & Botanical will need further diffusion into their own nationality layers, which seems overly redundant, complicated, and bloaty.

Both Category:Animal taxa by author (2,017) & Category:Botanical taxa by author (1,050) were created by now-blocked, problem-producing editors in taxonomy-space, so my guess is that they should be deleted in favor of the national categories. Also, I think that having nationality above group makes more sense than having multiple national layers below Animal/Botanical/etc., since nationality-above-group will naturally result in fewer overall categories. There's only 1 nationality category that might need diffusion in the foreseeable future, Category:Taxa by American author (531), which can be done by simply diffusing into whatever the most popular taxa group is for American authors (Animal, Botanical, etc.).

@Smasongarrison, Rlendog, Beland, Phil Fish, Micromesistius, Jengod, Shellwood, Liz, Prosperosity, Surtsicna, NotAGenious, Ethmostigmus, Esculenta, and Quetzal1964: pinging all recent category editors for input.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:37, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am very not equipped to comment on taxonomy generally BUT I think it's weird to have plants vs animals bc we also need to then consider fungi and kelp and slime molds (whatever they even are) and the whole catalogue of cooties (viruses, bacteria, and all their little friends). So. My thought is just...taxa. Full stop. Don't subdivide by types of taxa. If you want to subdivide the NAMERs of the taxa by century or nationality or what have you, sure, whatever. Good luck and bye! :D jengod (talk) 20:49, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that Animal vs Botanical should be deleted. Some of these namers addressed both plants and animals (and I am sure fungi too) so that split doesn't make sense. I am not convinced we need a nationality split either but that one is at least sensible. Rlendog (talk)
Absolutely - what happens if someone dares to identify both flora and fauna? --Prosperosity (talk) 21:01, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A possible interpretation here is that the animal/botanical split refers not to the Kingdoms, but to the nomenclatural codes (in which case "fungi and kelp and slime molds" come under botanical). But there are also the bacterial and virological codes, and PhyloCode. (One might argue that PhyloCode isn't used widely enough for Category:PhyloCode taxa by author to be useful.) Lavateraguy (talk) 11:20, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not fully sold on the need for someone to look up taxa based on the citizenship of the author, but that's pretty standard for Wiki categories so it makes sense. --Prosperosity (talk) 21:01, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't aware of the nationality categories before, and I don't think they've been previously discussed anywhere. Category:Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus is in both the the animal category and the botanical category, and I'm sure there are other taxonomists in both categories. The botanical category does specify that it covers "plant and cryptogam taxa (lower plants, fungi, lichens, algae)". I think the animal and botanical categories aren't particularly useful and could be eliminated. I don't think we really need to diffuse Category:Taxa by author at all, and the nationality categories could be eliminated as well. Plantdrew (talk) 21:19, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Someone being in both Animal & Botanical is ok. I just don't see the point of having (Animal|Botanical) and (nationality) at the same level...unless...(Animal|Botanical) is declared non-diffusing. I'd be ok with that.
There are ~5600 unique "Taxa named by <author>" categories, and always growing, which I think is worthy of diffusion.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  22:15, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My intent of beefing up the taxa by nationality was to get those categories out of the FOOian people by nationality categories that they were showing up in. I personally don't find the animal vs botantical distinction to be very helpful, but I assumed that other people who know more about tax do. Mason (talk) 23:16, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting discussion, thanks for the ping! Not very experienced with categories so hopefully I'm understanding everything correctly. I think the animal/botanical(/additional categories for other eukaryotes, prokaryotes, and virus taxa?) distinction can be valuable, but agree that it definitely should not be mutually exclusive with nationality categories. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 06:58, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Get rid of the nationality part. it's irrelevant. Two prolific authors I can think of, George Albert Boulenger and Albert Günther, were dual nationals, and there will be many more. I also don't think we need anything more than "Taxa named by", so agree with removing the references to animals and plants. Quetzal1964 (talk) 07:19, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Someone being in 2+ nationality cats is ok. Someone being in both Animal & Botanical is ok. Someone being in any of (American|Australian|...) AND any of (Animal|Botanical|...) is the main question here, and which of these 2 sets, if any, should exist.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  09:33, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • When I first proposed these taxa by author categories back in the day, there were no suggestions to specify further than just author. So I wonder if nationality and field are even needed. FunkMonk (talk) 07:31, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do not see Animal & Botanical as being mutually exclusive with each other or with the nationality cats. Only having nationality category makes categories difficult to find, especially when one does not know the full name and identity of an author, or when there are spelling variations. Therefore I object to only having nationality-based categories, but I am OK with these otherwise. I see a need for diffusion but the Animal/Botanical split is quite sufficient. To me a bigger problem is propagation of categories with one or few articles, without much prospect of them becoming more populated. When does an author deserve a category? There is no good answer, and this was the reason I was initially quite sceptic to the "Taxa by author" system. Now I kind of like it because it highlights the people behind taxonomy, but the notability issue remains unresolved. Cheers, Micromesistius (talk) 11:55, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I personally vote to get rid of the field categories. The animal/botanical split is archaic, unrealistic, and completely subjective, so it should not be considered. I have no issue with the nationality categories as it could be an interesting source of demographical data, but I also have no issue with removing them if that is the consensus (also, people can have more than one nationality, and some believe to be better represented by their ethnicity than by their national status). — Snoteleks (talk) 15:28, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When you say get rid of the field categories, do you mean to do away with taxonomic categorisation for authors entirely, or replacing the animal/botanical author categories with something more comprehensive? I wouldn't consider the animal ("zoological" would be a better term IMO)/botanical split subjective - I interpreted it as referring to to taxa covered by the ICZN vs the ICNafp, and I think distinguishing between authors publishing on animals and authors publishing on plants/fungi/algae can be useful. These two categories obviously fail to address all the organisms outside of those groups, but I would prefer to see more comprehensive categorisation than do away with taxonomic distinctions entirely. Interested to get your thoughts on this given that I know your interests lie with organisms that fall outside of the existing categories. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 04:45, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The ICZN and ICNafp overlap in many protozoan groups, that's my primary concern. Authors that study protists such as Labyrinthulomycetes, Bicosoecida, Euglenida, Katablepharida and Myzozoa could belong to either of those categories, as there is no consensus (and no desire for consensus) on which nomenclatural code has domain over them. In all of those, both zoological and botanical suffixes of taxon ranks have to be used because the codes refuse to collaborate with each other. Ideally we would be able to firmly separate one from the other, but the reality is that it's subjective in the sense that it depends entirely on the author's preference for these ambiregnal groups.
However, even assuming that we collectively decide to maintain these categories, we could not even firmly separate them ourselves in Wikipedia to avoid any overlap. There are groups which, by consensus, have botanical suffixes in some taxon ranks, but zoological suffixes in others. Perhaps it would be better to have "animal", "plant", "fungal", "protist" and "prokaryotic" categories instead. — Snoteleks (talk) 12:19, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My two cents, as an ICZN Commissioner, is that the plant/animal categorization is definitely artificial, and definitely has a fair-sized "fuzzy area", which argue against the maintenance of those sub-categorizations. I have an even stronger objection to categorization according to nationality of authors, because "nationality" is even MORE artificial, and can also be pretty darn fuzzy; not just authors with multiple citizenships, but authors whose countries have changed (e.g., how does one categorize an author from the former Soviet Union, or pre-Soviet Russia?), or authors born in one country, but who lived and worked elsewhere without citizenship there? If I want to know where an author was born, or their citizenships, I can look up their linked biography. If they are not notable enough to have a linked biography, then I wouldn't care where they were from. Categorizing taxa by their author's name, by their year of description, and by their biogeographic region or continent are all fine, but I have trouble with sub-categories within these (including subdividing biogeographic regions or continents into countries, which are, as noted, artificial boundaries and subject to change). Dyanega (talk) 15:49, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My thoughts exactly. — Snoteleks (talk) 12:46, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Help the Wikimedia Foundation better understand how on-wiki collaborations work

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The Campaigns team at the Wikimedia Foundation is interested in learning from diverse editors that have experience joining and working on WikiProjects, Campaigns, and other kinds of on-wiki collaboration. We need your help:

Whatever input you bring to the two spaces will help us make better decisions about next steps beyond the current tools we support. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 18:17, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to modify the fossil range template

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The fossil range template, which we use in many taxoboxes, is intended to indicate the age of the earliest fossils of the organism. Moreover, it has an "earliest" parameter which is intended to be used for when the earliest fossil is very separated chronologically from the traditional fossil range. However, for organisms that don't have lasting structures preserved as fossils (such as most protists, which are my main line of interest), this poses a pretty big problem, as the template cannot be applied with its intended use.

However, there is a use that's emerged for protists. For example, the article Obazoa uses this template not to reflect its fossil range, but to reflect the molecular clock estimate of its age. Another, even more interesting example is the article Chlorophyta, where the fossil range template includes both the real fossil range and, through the "earliest" parameter, the molecular clock estimate.

I believe that this should be implemented formally into the template, perhaps by substituting the "earliest" parameter or by creating an entirely new parameter named "molecular" or another similar term. I believe this change would benefit everyone: not only does this benefit taxonomic groups without fossils, but even groups that have a fossil record, such as most animals, have a molecular age that is distinctly older than their earliest fossils.

I don't have any knowledge on how to modify such a template, so I ask other more experienced editors to implement this change if we reach consensus. — Snoteleks (talk) 10:43, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are you proposing any change to the output? The output says temporal range, which is agnostic on the dating method. The template {{fossil range}} is a redirect to {{geological range}}. The template {{temporal range}} is another redirect, so you could use that if you don't want the confusing name in the taxobox. Given the output, it might be better if {{temporal range}} was the primary template. The parameter |earliest= could equally refer to the earliest molecular estimate.  —  Jts1882 | talk  14:57, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would like for the output to explicitly say the molecular age separate from the fossil age. Currently the "earliest" parameter does not even get displayed as an age number, only the fossil range date is displayed. — Snoteleks (talk) 09:47, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Diffusing by rank

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I've been cleaning up some taxonomic categories, and I just realized that I've been implicitly assuming that the main category for a taxon diffuses into its subcategories by rank. For a concrete example, Aphanopetalum is a member of both Category:Saxifragales and Category:Saxifragales genera, and I was about to remove it from the former. Is this correct, or are subcategories by rank non-diffusing? If the latter, we should note this on {{plant taxa category}} and similar templates – most categories are diffusing, so the exceptions should be marked. jlwoodwa (talk) 19:20, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The categories by rank are a separate, parallel categorization hierarchy; see here for the rationale and details. Esculenta (talk) 19:24, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've read that page, but it says that Since, for example, "Category:Xaceae genera" is a member of "Category:Xaceae", the two categorization systems (one by taxon and the other by taxon rank) interact. Would diffusing be one of those interactions? Furthermore, File:Plant categorization comb ideal.svg doesn't show any article simultaneously placed into, e.g., "Category:Xaceae" and "Category:Xaceae genera". If that instruction page is supposed to communicate "never diffuse into subcategories by rank", I don't think it's successfully doing that.
That aside, if there's already a long-standing consensus that Category:Saxifragales genera should be a non-diffusing subcategory of Category:Saxifragales, I'll go ahead and add that information to {{plant taxa category}}. jlwoodwa (talk) 19:34, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I thought "separate, parallel categorization hierarchy" in the first sentence was clear enough, but it probably wouldn't hurt to mention the non-diffusing aspect. Esculenta (talk) 19:40, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jlwoodwa:, I'm not sure that there is really any Tree-of-Life-wide consensus about how taxonomic categories should work. The WikiProject Plants subpage Esculenta linked is the only guidance about "by rank" subcategories. That guidance is quite consistently followed for plant (and fungus?) articles, and somewhat consistently followed for articles on other organisms.
However, there are large swathes of "other organisms" where "by rank" categories are severely underpopulated, or have never been created.
And there have been editors who have diffused taxa from main categories to "by rank" categories.
Plants with eponymous categories are quite consistently diffused from parent categories. That isn't necessarily true for other organisms. Fish with eponymous categories are usually also included in the parent category (Brama (fish) is in both Category:Brama (fish) and Category:Bramidae).
Category:Gastropod families is one of the older "by rank" categories (and predates the existence of any guidance for plant "by rank" categories). I'm not sure how it was originally intended to be used, but it was being treated as a container category (see Category talk:Gastropod families), which is completely out of step with how "by rank" categories for plants have ever been used. Subcategories of plant "by rank" categories are also only "by rank" categories: Category:Saxifragales genera has Category:Saxifragaceae genera as a subcategory, and a Petscan search to any depth of Category:Saxifragales genera ought to turn up only articles about taxa at the rank of genus. A Petscan search to depth of Category:Gastropod families will turn up articles on families, species and genera.
Aphanopetalum as a member of both Category:Saxifragales and Category:Saxifragales genera is consistent with how articles on plant genera are categorized (barring creation of Category:Aphanopetalum, which I think would be too small (3 members) to warrant a category). If the guidance for plant "by rank" categories is unclear about that it should be amended. I believe the system for plant "by rank" categories is what Wikipedia is generally trending to for other organisms. However, I do think that is messy set of intersectional categories and I really wish Wikipedia had a system of tags rather than categories that often end up with messy intersections (i.e. tag Aphanopetalum as "Saxifragales" and "genera", and tag a person as "American" "female" "Academy award winner" "actor" "20th century" from "New York City" instead of whatever intersectional categories exist for those attributes). Plantdrew (talk) 02:11, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cyrtoidea, Cyrtida

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Order Cyrtoidea and family Cyrtida are presently red links, but probably shouldn't be. Seem to be an old synonym of Radiolaria and a family thereof, as advanced by Ernst Haeckel, well known for complex drawings of their mineral exoskeletons. Period source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Report_on_the_Radiolaria/Cyrtoidea  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:12, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikisource link isn't working at the moment (site down?), but it seems Cyrtoidea belongs to Nassellaria. Calocyclas, the subject of the Haeckel plate, is placeed in either family Eucyrtidiidae (PBDB) or family Theoperidae (WoRMS). The image File:Haeckel_Cyrtoidea.jpg could also be useful.  —  Jts1882 | talk  07:58, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@SMcCandlish: I have made so bold as to correct the link in your post. I hope that's OK. William Avery (talk) 08:08, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thanks.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:46, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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