Talk:Monodactylus argenteus

Article Name
"Silver moony" is not the correct name for this article. The article should be moved to "Monodactylus argenteus". Looking at Wikiproject Fishes' criteria for article names:

Use the common name for any species that satisfies at least one of the following criteria: 1(i) The species has a single common name that is widely used and never used for any other species. While the species in question may have additional common names, those names are rarely used. Example: Greenland halibut. 1(ii) The species has a widely recognised common name that is so rarely applied to other species that confusion as to the subject of the article is unlikely to arise. Example: Guppy. 1(iii) Within the area where the species is endemic and/or of commercial importance, only a single common name is used by the relevant legal, conservation, fisheries or local institutions, even though other common names may exist. Example: Atlantic salmon. 1(iv) The species has a common name that is normally separated from similar common names by use of geographical, descriptive, or other modifications to those names. Once differentiated, these names satisfy criteria i, ii, or iii above. Examples: Shovelnose sturgeon, Little shovelnose sturgeon, False shovelnose sturgeon.

Use the Latin name for any species that fails to satisfy criteria 1(i) to 1(iv), including such situations as the following: 2(i) The same common name is regularly applied to multiple species. Example: Green spotted puffer. 2(ii) There is no single common name used for the species. Example: Black widow tetra (a.k.a. Black tetra, Petticoat tetra). 2(iii) The species has different common names in different English-speaking countries. Example: Plec (UK), pleco (US). 2(iv) The species simply has no widely used common name. Example: Dermogenys sumatrana.

Criteria 1(i) is not satisfied. This fish does not have a single common name. Most commonly among aquarists it is called a mono, or sometimes a silver mono (with M. sebae being called an African mono to distinguish it), but it is also called a malay fingerfish, a silver batfish, a diamondfish, a butterfish, and many other names depending on country. Therefore criteria 1(ii) is not satisfied as the common name "silver moony" is not widely recognized. Since M. argenteus is widely distributed across the Indo-Pacific and has different names in the different countries where it is native, and has no one "most common" name throughout its range, criteria 1(iii) is not satisfied. I'll grant that criteria 1(iv) may be satisfied, but since this fish is of worldwide importance in the aquarium industry and mono or silver mono, not silver moony is the most common name in the aquarium industry, common sense should disqualify criteria 1(iv). Criteria 2(ii) applies as there is no single common name for the species (mono, moonfish, moony, batfish, diamondfish, fingerfish, etc). Criteria 2(iii) applies as the species has different common names in different English speaking countries (see above). Mmyers1976 (talk) 15:31, 3 November 2015 (UTC)