User talk:Hagenia

Ways to improve Surdisorex schlitteri
Hi, I'm Kudpung. Hagenia, thanks for creating Surdisorex schlitteri!

I've just tagged the page, using our page curation tools, as having some issues to fix. Is it a buttrfly? Is it a pachyderm? It might be helpful if you could inform the less well educated reader what it is in more simpler terms rather than just genera and other taxonomic terms.

The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, you can leave a comment on my talk page. Or, for more editing help, talk to the volunteers at the Teahouse.

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:56, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Copyright problem on Surdisorex schlitteri
Please don't add copyright content to this wiki, not even temporarily for editing. Please do your amendments before you save the page, or use an external editor. Thanks, — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 23:56, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Ways to improve Javan ghost shrew
Hi, I'm Nick Moyes. Hagenia, thanks for creating Javan ghost shrew!

I've just tagged the page, using our page curation tools, as having some issues to fix. You might want to check whether this reference is better. I seem able to read the entire article, unlike just the abstract in the one you've given. If you can expand this article further, I think it could make a nice WP:DYK.

The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, you can leave a comment on my talk page. Or, for more editing help, talk to the volunteers at the Teahouse.

Nick Moyes (talk) 21:17, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Ways to improve Kerbis Peterhans' wood mouse
Hi, I'm Nick Moyes. Hagenia, thanks for creating Kerbis Peterhans' wood mouse!

I've just tagged the page, using our page curation tools, as having some issues to fix. Nice one. I've also created a redirect from its specific name to this page (though personally I prefer to see it the other way around with obscure taxa like this)

The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, you can leave a comment on my talk page. Or, for more editing help, talk to the volunteers at the Teahouse.

Nick Moyes (talk) 21:36, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Ways to ensure the best articles
Hi again. Having just reviewed a couple of nice little mammalian stubs you recently created, may I suggest a few ways to ensure even better content?
 * Have a skim read of our Manual of Style as it guides editors into preferred formatting, such as ensuring that the lead sentence contains the name of the article in emboldened text.
 * Please don't ever create two articles on the same species as you did for Mount Elgon mole shrew and Surdisorex schlitteri. Create just one page, and then later on you can create another new page as a 'REDIRECT' using the alternative name. See WP:REDIRECT for simple description of how to do this. You'll see I recently transferred over text from the mole shrew page into the Surdisorex one and then blanked its content and turned it into a redirect. This means people can find it by its English name or its scientific name, and that only one page will ever get edited. (It would be a nightmare if every taxon had two articles about it!)
 * Do create a 'References' section for each new article. Just add this text at the end, prior to the Categories.First line: Second line:

If your interest in mammals extends to the researchers themselves, you might like to consider seeing if there are enough reliable sources to create pages on both Duane Schlitter see this for starters and Kerbis Peterhans see here for starters. Should you need any help, just give me a shout on my Talk Page. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:25, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
 * In the near future I will create a page for Julian Kerbis Peterhans. I will probably not do this for Duane Schlitter.Hagenia (talk) 04:53, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Please justify your use of 'English/Common Names' in three of your new articles
Please could you provide links to justify your use of the so-called English/common names for the titles of these articles you recently created:
 * Mount Elgon mole shrew (Surdisorex polulus)
 * Javan ghost shrew (Crocidura umbra)
 * Kerbis Peterhans' wood mouse (Hylomyscus kerbispeterhansi))

I can possibly accept the third name as being a valid one to use, but none of your sources (i.e. neither the paper in which the new species name was formally published, nor the IUCN Red List website) give any such common names. They do for other taxa like Mount Kenya mole shrew and Kahuzi swamp shrew, but not these.

So, I would be deeply concerned if reliable sources cannot be quickly produced to validate use of the 'common names' I've listed above. My reason for that concern is that I wouldn't see it as any Wikipedia editor's place to be erecting names for species which haven't been accepted by the scientific or mammalogy community, even if they are a logical translation of the Latin name, or simply make sense and have been done with the best of intentions. Whilst they do make sense, it wouldn't be our place to be doing this, as we rely on reliable sources to prove our page titles are valid, and we shouldn't be the driver for that naming when it comes to newly-described species. I recognise that there is nowadays a growing trend to give 'common names' to every species, no matter how obscure or rare, but it's really not our place as editors to be doing that job.

I hope you can speedily insert some supporting evidence, as it's all too easy for errors or wrong terms within Wikipedia to become absorbed into general use because so many other websites mirror our content. Anyone looking at Google than assumes that to be factually correct when, in reality, it may not be. I hope this makes sense and that you can quickly allay these concerns. If not, I propose to remove the common names, using only the scientific names as the page title and request complete deletion of any redirects using 'common/English names' that cannot be supported with references. (I'm really not trying to be bullish in any way, and I do appreciate your recent contributions - I just want to do the right thing by the content we publish here, and I'm sure you do too). Regards Nick Moyes (talk) 23:28, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
 * The article in Journal of Mammalogy describing this new species explicitly proposes the common name "Javan ghost shrew". There is no IUCN page as of yet. However, I was a reviewer for the IUCN page in prgress and Javan ghost shrew has been accepted as the common name by the IUCN editor. Thank you for the suggestions and editing.Hagenia (talk) 04:50, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
 * There is no common name for Surdisorex schlitteri presently. However, I was a reviewer on the IUCN Redlist update for the taxon in question and my suggestion of "Mount Elgon mole shrew" was accepted by the editor. I also note that this new common name is consistent with the common names for the other two species of Surdisorex. As you state, "Kerbis Peterhans' wood mouse" seems reasonable for a common name for this species. I have also contributed to the pending IUCN Redlist update for this taxon and the common name has been accepted.Hagenia (talk) 05:01, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hagenia - that's a wonderful reply, and you've fully allayed my concerns over these common names. With only the abstract online, I'm afraid there was nothing for me to go on (I did look for it), but you'll see I've now changed the url to a ResearchGate page containing the entire articl. It could be worth you adding a brief explanatory note on each of the other article's Talk Pages, explaining how you know this. (It might stop another pedant challenging the naming in future.) It's really great to have subject experts sharing their interests on Wikipedia. Have you come across WikiProject Mammals, which might interest you. (You've no excuse for not expanding the articles now!) Perhaps you might consider saying a little about your interests and specialist expertise on your User Talk Page? Pedantic editors like me often check out these pages to gauge the level of knowledge an editor has in any given subject, and in your case I had nothing to go on. My apologies for that. Oh, and OK on maybe you  making a page on Kerbis Peterhans. Writing biographies of living people needs an element of care to ensure a neutral point of view and only to state facts provable from reliable third party sources.  Kind regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 01:04, 5 September 2017 (UTC)