User talk:Eryk (Wiki Ed)/Living species brochure

A bit of feedback
At the bottom it refers to "Wikipedia biographies" which isn't the topic of the brochure.

I'd suggest making it clear that they are entering into a collaborative process and that other people will be editing the article too, so they do not have full control.

If I were in the shoes of a reader, I'd want to see some samples of basic articles similar to the one they might create. These won't be featured articles, but probably just beyond stubs.

I hope that helps. SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨  00:36, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I fixed "biographies", and added a bit to "Engage with editors" about how their article might be changed. In each example of articles, we list some example articles for students to explore and some structures to follow, so I hope that gets them looking at good examples. Thanks for your feedback! Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:07, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Species articles
One of the things that education program participants do is to choose a single article and cover unrelated topics in the same article - for instance the behaviour section of every bird species tends to repeat content related to the handicap principle or ESS. The other thing that students do is to mention paper authors, university affiliations (their own presumably!) and chronological details while reviewing their work. This is best left to the inline citations and is fluff when included in the body of species articles. I think looking at an ornithological monograph (not a field guide, not a review paper) as a guide for style and structure would be appropriate. So my guideline suggestions:Shyamal (talk) 02:45, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep articles focused on the species, use links and avoiding repetition.
 * Avoid commentaries about the authors, affiliations and chronology of research unless actually pertinent.
 * Examine a comprehensive ornithological monograph (not field guides or journal papers) - of a particular group for style and structure ideas. General group characters can go into the genus or family articles.
 * Brilliant! I'll be working these in. Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:09, 28 October 2015 (UTC)


 * This probably ties in to using primary/secondary/tertiary sources. Students often cite primary sources (which isn't prohibited), but then add excessive detail specific to that study (rather than taking the broad concepts). E.g., a primary study on a bird's diet mentions a half dozen insect species that it eats. Rather than listing each insect species, it's probably better to note that the bird is an insectivore. A secondary source (monograph or review) will distill details of diet to a more appropriate level than a primary source. Plantdrew (talk) 16:27, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Taxobox etc.
Wikipedia may use a different classification than the sources cited by the students (and most sources lack a full taxonomic hierarchy). Rather than filling in a blank taxobox, students should copy a taxobox from a related organism and change the relevant details (taxobox fields of name, authority, image, species, binomial and conservation status are what usually need changing or blanking). Best is to copy from another species in the same genus if there are any articles on other species (genus taxoboxes may include ranks between genus and family that are usually omitted in a species taxobox, and family taxoboxes may include extra ranks between family and order).

It should go without saying, but I see enough issues with formatting scientific names in student articles that it's probably worth emphasizing that scientific names are italicized and the specific epithet is lower case.

Animal species should have a "Distribution and habitat" section (or "Range" or something along those lines); distribution is one of the most important facts about a species, and I would not come to an article expecting range to appear in a "Diet and ecology" section. Ecology is a fair place to discuss habitat, but habitat could also fall under the same section where distribution is discussed. Plantdrew (talk) 16:19, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this! I'll make the change in the animal section, and will look and see if I can emphasize the scientific names more visually in the layout. Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:34, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

More ideas
One thing I suggest is differentiating between improving existing articles and starting new ones. Begin with how to search to be sure that an article is truly in need of creation, (for example, both Latin species names and English names). Go on to explain ways to help improve existing articles, particularly sourcing. But also include a caveat that if they want to "help" with an existing article, check to see if it is already GA or FA, as "help" on those is often ... not helpful at all! Montanabw (talk) 22:25, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Great ideas, thank you! Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:09, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know if you will find these useful. I don't like to sing my own praises but I developed these as A5 booklets for a training session in Clitheroe UK. They are still at a draft stage but obviously CC-BY-SA.
 * Clitheroe Adult Beginners
 * Clitheroe Adult Intermediate
 * At very least it may save you some typing. I will be looking to add four pages on using sound files for the British Library Session this coming Saturday,-- Clem Rutter (talk) 16:28, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * This is a great undertaking and really well-done! I'll be sure to reference (and provide appropriate credit) in the development of future trainings - as they're broader than the species article requires, but certainly extremely useful. Thanks for sharing! Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:35, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Topic addition
I have been planning to add such an activity to an upper-level university course on animal physiology and am delighted to find your pages. I suggest adding physiology to the topics. Some species (of any major taxon, not just herps) have been foci of substantial studies that have contributed to the body of knowledge on comparative physiology-- indeed that is what I hope my students will post about. Rico.schultz (talk) 13:48, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Rico.schultz! Where are you teaching your course? Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:13, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Further thoughts
I was quite excited when I saw the post about this brochure, mainly because I thought it might be of use to me as a relatively new editor. I've just gone through the learning curve of trying to understand the intricacies of article creation and editing. (Having just reached my first thousand edits, I think I'm slowly beginning to understand what to do, and what not to do, though there's so much still to learn.) So I tried putting myself in the shoes of a first year biology student being encouraged to bring their skills to Wikipedia for the first time. I think I might have been a bit frustrated.

The comments made by others above will clearly improve the brochure on editing Living Species. But my main frustration was that this publication follows the style of the other brochures on editing Biographies and editing Ecology. In my view all three fail to make it sufficiently clearly right from the outset that a student new to Wikipedia being set this task needs first to familiarise themselves with the basic 'how to' information on editing, and to spend time reading and understanding the associated 'Editing Wikipedia' brochure. I think it would be very helpful to emphasise this much more. Of course, such links may well have been made in other literature given to students, but it doesn't come across here.

Writing about plants and fungi - Plants also have conservation concerns, so Conservation should be included here, too, as should any invasive non-native issue for both plants and animals.

Biographies - I note another user queried biographies. I would just observe that for students struggling to find a suitable topic to edit or create, there is a vast untapped area of biographies of scientists whose names are notable because they are the scientific authorities of a particular living taxon, species or group, but who do not yet have an article on them. Some may find researching the work of such taxonomists of great interest, and might expect to find some mention of it in a brochure on Living Species. So why not at least cross refer students to the Biographies guidance for help (though even that guide is not itself very detailed on author citations). I presume other other Projects highlight author notability as set out in WP:WikiProject_Plants?

What's a Lead Section? I was surprised the brochure is encouraging the use of common names first, followed by scientific names. For the less well-known species - and I'm sure that's virtually all that's left now to create - would it not be preferable to refer to the Organisms section in WP:MOSLEAD and advise creating the article using its internationally known scientific name first, rather than a name known only in one English-speaking region, but not in others?

Typo "The text WP:MDRES is what’s known on Wikipedia as a shortcut." Except this doesn't seem to be one! I think you mean WP:MEDRS

Getting Started I was unclear what this bullet point is trying to get at. Is this better:
 * "Before creating an article, double check the scientific and common names for a species (it should only have one)."
 * Before creating a new article, double-check if one already exists by searching for any pages containing either the scientific or any common names for that species.

Engage with editors Neither the Editing Wikipedia brochure, nor this one seem to recommend that students draft their articles in either their userspace or sandbox. Nor does it suggest that submitting a draft through AfC can be a very good way for students to engage with editors and receiving helpful feedback to get their articles into shape. Perhaps this is explained elsewhere in the course notes? I know from experience there's nothing worse than starting work on an article in mainspace only to find some eager beaver ready to delete it before it's got going. That would really have hacked me off if I were a student set this assignment!

All in all though, this should still be a useful brochure - I wish I'd known of this series when I began editing! Parkywiki (talk) 03:21, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Parkywiki, indeed, this brochure is intended as a complement to a series of print materials and online trainings. For example, if a course assignment will include biographies of scientists, we have a Biographies brochure already, with specific guidance on scientists. One or both of these brochures is distributed alongside the editing brochure, so we are hoping to avoid overlap in content! Hope that makes it a bit clearer where this brochure will fit in. Your other comments will be worked in as well - thanks for taking the time to help out! Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:24, 2 November 2015 (UTC)


 * You're welcome. My point about scientists/taxonomists who describe/name/reassign species, although probably not very well put, is that the Living Species brochure should refer to them (albeit briefly). It needs to direct students to the Biography brochure. But that brochure does not currently adequately addresses how to construct a biographical article on a person notable for author citations. In particular, emphasising the need to use both Template:Infobox scientist and Template:Botanist or Template:Zoologist. One or other of those brochures should do that, I feel. Parkywiki (talk) 01:52, 4 November 2015 (UTC)