Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals/Genus links

This is a proposed guideline initially designed to establish a guideline within WikiProject Mammals on how species names are displayed on Genera pages. Should the proposal be passed, the naming conventions will be expanded to other topics.

Rationale
Genus pages within the scope of WikiProject:Mammals are completely different in styles, and one thing that has particularly struck me is the way species names are displayed, with some ways being extremely unhelpful to users. Wikipedia is meant to be accessible, yet many pages, for example, simply display the binomial name; unhelpful for those of us who are not professional taxonomists. Standardising this would make the pages within the project a lot easier to navigate.

Proposal
I propose that links be displayed as such:
 * Species Common Name Goes Here (species binomial name goes here, in italics)

For those with alternative common names:
 * Species Common Name Goes Here, or the Any Species Alternative Common Name Goes Here, it does of course redirect to Species Common Name (species binomial name goes here, in italics)

Support, but with a different suggestion for style

 * Common Name, Species name - as per WP:CETA, WP:CLC, WP:PRIM, etcetera. Jack (talk) 13:55, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I support this proposal. It's good to be consistent, especially since these are examples from subprojects of WikiProject Mammals. --Gimme danger (talk) 21:42, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I support as well. It works for WP:PRIM and WP:CETA.  I am not aware of specific issues to other mammal groups that would make it not work for those.  Of course, if no common name exists, just the Species name would be used.-Rlendog (talk) 00:24, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Common name, Species name, (geographic distribution or other comment) . I prefer the use of an appositive to a parenthetical for the scientific name.  I think the appositive also allows for the use of parentheses in the event that the authority is used without requiring awkward double parentheses.  I am essentially in agreement with Jack above, but I don't want to restrict editors to not providing quick useful information in a final parentheses.  For example, certain archipelagos will have individual species  restricted to certain islands (I'm working on an article for the Echimyidae subfamily Heteropsomyinae where that is the case).  In one species per island cases it's simply too useful to include the island in a species list to not include an optional parenthetical for geography.  Also note that certain taxa (particularly fossils and newly described species) do not have common names and these should be in the format: Species name (geographic distribution or other comment) .  --Aranae (talk) 23:19, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Oppose
I just want to bring to your attention that the majority of extinct species - and this is the majority of all species - do not have a common name. Further, many extinct species are only known from one sample of fossil evidence, and this becomes problematic when new species of the same, or questionably the same, genus are found. I do not think that adding a brief reference to geography in parentheses clutters it up. To the contrary, this helps the reader quickly identify its habitat location or where it was discovered and acts as a quick reference. I find nothing wrong with stating "North South America" or Northern South America."

There are many different types of common names: family, genus, species, subspecies, breeds, and lineages. If the common name is in general usage and this general usage name is used more commonly than the species binomial name, then this should be used as the lead, followed by its binomial or trinomial name. I favor bold print, but the common name should only be capitalized if it is that animal's last and only common name down through the heirarchy from family to genus to species to subspecies to breed or lineage. For example, Ursidae (family) and Ursus (genus) are both called bears, but there are many different subspecies of brown bears Ursus arctos. Therefore, brown bear is not capitalized. However, the subspecies of brown bear "Ursus arctos horribilis," commonly called the Grizzly Bear, is usually capitalized, but not always (sometimes Grizzly bear or grizzly bear), even though there are still different lineages of grizzlies. But these different genetically-distinct lineages have no further identifying common name, so they are all called Grizzly bears.

The business of commons names and of capitalizing common names can be very problematic and should not be set in stone. Take for example the wolf Canis lupus. Is the gray wolf, Canis lupus, the same as a timber wolf, also Canis lupus? In Arizona and New Mexico we distinquish between the southern timber wolf and the northern gray wolf. But shouldn't the Canadian Timber Wolf or Eastern Timber Wolf, Canis lupus lycaon, be capitalized, since they are distinct subspecies? And to be consistent, shouldn't we also capitalize Gray Wolf since it is a distinct species of a wolf, along with the eight other or so distinct species that we have capitalized? In any case, all subspecies should be listed and linked in the taxo boxes under the species article unless there are so many subspecies that a separate section in the article is needed to list them all. For example, in our wolf article, the subspecies Eastern Timber Wolf and Western Timber Wolf, along with the distinct species Tundra Wolf, Plains Wolf or Great Plains Wolf, Mexican Wolf, Arctic Wolf, etc., should all be listed and linked somewhere as being separate species and subspecies of wolves. The term "wolf" is a generic word for a member of the genus Canis of which the Gray Wolf and the Timber Wolf are separate species. And then there is the dog, Canis lupus familiaris, and all the unique breeds of this subspecies of the wolf, or rather wolves. Here the common name is the particular breed of dog, such as the German Shepherd, and are always capitalized. Or are they? Is it Border Collie, Border collie, or border collie? By the way, why do we not have taxo boxes in the dog breed articles? All animals have a scientific binomial notation.

Capitalizing common names is a layman convention and not scientific notation. There is no standardization because it is dictated by common use, or for emphasis. Valich (talk) 23:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment
Without weighing in on this proposal, I will merely note that so-called 'common' names for mammals (and for almost all living groups other than birds) are a problem. As Valich points out, the relationship of common name to specific binomial may be one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, many-to-many or none-to-one. As there is no generally accepted authority for assigning common names to species of mammals, choosing one common name out of multiple possibilities becomes a matter of consensus, which is subject to the linguistic and cultural biases of the participating editors, and subject to change over time. (Confer the article Cougar, which was named Puma a couple of years ago, when we had a discussion here of which of the some 50 'common names' for the animal was the best one to use in the title.)
 * Although it is difficult to choose one common name, there won't be a time where all common names redirect to the scientific name; it's just not plausible for mammals. There should be discussion on which name to use where different sources cite different common names, MSW3 has already been widely accepted here as a reliable mammal reference text. Jack (talk) 13:26, 7 July 2008 (UTC)