User talk:JMK/Archive 4

Common Birding names
Hi JMK,

Is there a way we can accommodate the common bird names AND the academic bird names - there are many keen hobbyists who will take a while to get to know the correct academic names for the birds (e.g.lapwing) Not that we reject the correct names - but 40-odd years of use of a common term takes a lot of un-doing.

Perhaps a re-direct page ?!? or the use of a synonym page.

Cheers &amp;Brew 11:28, 27 May 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andbrew.downes (talk • contribs)


 * The article title will most likely be the IOC name, like Crowned Lapwing. As in the latter article, a chosen alternative can be added to the lead sentence, which in that case is "Crowned Plover", with an associated redirect page. Without cluttering the article itself, one can add any number of redirects, that will lead users of older names to the article. In case those older names have become ambiguous, or if the species has been split since, one can create a "set index article" (which includes an sia template), which is almost like a disambiguation page, but of related entities. Some examples of sia pages are Olive Pigeon, Yellow-billed Hornbill and Green Turaco. I suspect that would cater for most situations. JMK (talk) 13:26, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Stuiwer in die beurs: I strongly recommend that the primary name of any biological article on any organism or taxon, be the formal taxonomic name wherever practical. Eg, if I write an article on Phalacrocorax lucidus, or on Tabanidae, those would be the article names I choose. Then I could supply redirects from White breasted cormorant and possibly Great cormorant (though that probably would be better handled with a link from Phalacrocorax carbo). Then there could be as many redirects as would make sense, from "witborsduiker" for Afrikaans speakers, and witborskormorant for dictionary readers, plus as many other languages as people think anyone might want to search on. Tabanidae could have redirects from "Horsefly", "Horse-fly", and "Horse fly", perdevlieg, blindevlieg, ens, plus Bremse, taon, and any other languages as appropriate. There are various opinions on such points, but first of all read common name to evaluate some of the complications of relying on common names for almost anything. Then bear in mind that by using a common name as the article title, one implicitly endorses the use of one name, possibly misleading or transient, in one vernacular as opposed to others. That is not "encyclopedic" in terms dear to the heart of the WP mighty, and in this matter I agree with them, which in many other matters I often do not. The taxonomic name does no harm at the head of the article because it need not be one's search term, and apart from the redirs there are the common names in the lede. And if there are not enough common names in the lede, why, this is a wiki after all; add any that you prefer and that you can justify. That way the rankest tyro can use the widest possible range of common names, find the right article directly, and (only) if he is interested, learn the "scientific" name as well. If he is WP-literate, he also can use the un-redirected text-search option at the bottom of the search list to find all the articles that refer to the desired search term even if no redir has been supplied at all. That is what I call win-win (maybe even win-win-win). Any comments?  JonRichfield (talk) 10:19, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't have a ready answer - and maybe wikipedia doesn't either as it is using both Latin or vernacular names as page titles. The benefit of the vernacular names is that it brings the topic closer to the reader. The reader would have an idea whether the species is something he/she may encounter, or something that is found on the other side of the earth. With the Latin names the familiar and unfamiliar species may appear equally unfamiliar. An alphabetical list of Latin names may also not direct the reader to his area of interest. I guess the IOC type of name does endorse a vernacular name over others, and due to some fault of my own, I'm not too worried about it. I see it as a kind of Periodic table that sorts things into positions where they can be found. Imperfect and artificial, and only endorsed out of practicality. JMK (talk) 11:45, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

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--Awinda 13:03, 6 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Awinda (talk • contribs)

Varanus photo
Sorry for answering so late. I don't have the time to "work" at wikipedia at the moment. The picture was taken in the zoo of Frankfurt in Germany. Hive001  contact  19:10, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

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Agelanthus
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