User:NickCT/Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (pathogens)

Hey All
Hey guys and gals,

I'm throwing this on the table to see if the cat laps it up. I'm proposing this because I get a little frustrated that there isn't a unified rule for naming pathogens when a pathogen's genus/species happens to be the common name of a disease.

I'm sorta struggling at the moment, b/c I feel like species/genus names should refer to species/genus, but at the same time, I'm pretty sure tuberculosis is mainly a disease. Anyone got a way out of this conundrum? NickCT (talk) 22:32, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * There's a lot of history behind pathogen names and the associated diseases - don't expect to solve a problem like that. Your link to the fauna naming is Naming_conventions_(fauna) is appropriate and illustrates many of the same challenges - with appropriate heuristics for resolving them.  In the case of TB, the disease is clearly tuberculosis and the organism is Mycobacterium tuberculosis.  What's the problem there?  Of note - the current version of this page says that "tuberculosis" redirects to the organism, which it does not - or do I misunderstand? -- Scray (talk) 23:09, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Consider userspace?
You might want to take this to userspace until it's a little better fleshed out, to avoid the appearance of publishing prematurely. Others will still be able to contribute and comment. Just a suggestion. -- Scray (talk) 23:09, 17 August 2011 (UTC)