Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Arthropods/Archive 6

How to change an entry's title?
I've been confirming scientific names for a host of marine species (for a project I'm doing) using WoRMS (World Register of Marine Species) database, and in doing so found that the kelp crab, Pugettia producta, is listed at Wikipedia as Pugettia productus. So I've changed the spelling in the page content, but the Wikipedia title still reads "Pugettia productus." I don't know how to change that. Can one of you reading this do that, please? (or explain to me how?) Thanks! L. Klosterman, Berkeley USA 73.92.177.33 (talk) 22:18, 12 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for raising this. Account holders can often move articles but in this case, for technical reasons, I've requested the move at Requested moves. As long as no one objects to the move, and I can see no reason anyone would, it should be moved to the correct title soon. DuncanHill (talk) 22:32, 12 April 2017 (UTC)


 * It has now been done, and the article is at Pugettia producta. DuncanHill (talk) 23:54, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Genus Temnaspis appears to be in dual use - disambiguate?
I just noticed that the taxon Temnaspis on Wikipedia covers a genus of beetles, while it is more generally used for a genus of barnacles in the Poecilasmatidae (see WoRMS - ). Confusingly and according to EoL, both classifications appear to be recognized. In such a case, do we create a disambiguation page for the genus name? I haven't come across anything like this before.-- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:54, 6 May 2017 (UTC)


 * The barnacle generic name has the authority "Fischer, 1884" whereas the beetle generic name has the authority "Lacordaire, 1845", so the beetle's name has priority, it seems, and the barnacle needs a different name. Unless there is another generic name in the literature, I'd go with "Temnaspis (barnacle)" for now, leaving the beetle genus where it is, since it's most likely to be correct. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:22, 6 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Alright, sounds sensible; will do that. Cheers.-- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:45, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

It's complicated: the genus name Temnaspis Fischer, 1884 was given the replacement name Fischeriella Jones & Özdikmen, 2008., but Fischeriella itself was preoccupied by Fischeriella Conti & Monari, 1986 (Gastropoda) (as well as a wasp named in 1990), so was again replaced with Dianajonesia Koçak & Kamal, 2008. So unless there have been additional nomenclatural tweaks since 2008, Dianajonesia is the barnacle formerly known as Temnaspis. --Animalparty! (talk) 08:33, 7 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Jeepers :p And apparently WoRMS hasn't caught up with that yet. OK, since the barnacle genus in question doesn't have an article yet and there's only one applicable link in the family article, I'm changing that to Dianajonesia and leaving note w/ link to this thread. Cheers -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:48, 7 May 2017 (UTC)


 * So once Dianajonesia has an article, a hatnote at Temnaspis would be sufficient. If there are more than 2 taxa named Temnaspis, a genus disambiguation page (or regular disambiguation) would be appropriate. --Animalparty! (talk) 15:56, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Popular pages report
We – Community Tech – are happy to announce that the Popular pages bot is back up-and-running (after a one year hiatus)! You're receiving this message because your WikiProject or task force is signed up to receive the popular pages report. Every month, will post at /Popular pages with a list of the most-viewed pages over the previous month that are within the scope of. We've made some enhancements to the original report. Here's what's new:
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My pet cyclops are weird...
It says they are freshwater, but in my homemade aquarium they cheerfully thriving in saltwater. I respect that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.209.22.81 (talk) 20:07, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Question for major editors/contributors re: lists of taxon names on taxonomist pages
Hi, all. I've noticed that here and there, we have editors (many clearly newbies, others not) engaging in one of two types of edits which seem to me to be setting bad precedents. The first type of edit looks like it most often happens when someone creates or edits a species page, makes a link to the author of that species' name, and then decides the author's page itself needs to explicitly mention that particular species. I can potentially see this as being fine if the author (a) named very few taxa, or (b) the taxon in question has some notable association with the author, but I cannot see the merit in these sorts of edits when the author in question is someone who described thousands of taxa, like Linnaeus, or Cockerell. What purpose is served by giving a "list" of two or three species out of thousands? The second type of edit is similar, but instead of species named BY the taxonomist in question, it lists species named AFTER the taxonomist in question. Again, in many cases, a complete listing would be hundreds of taxa (nearly all of which would be redlinked if the list was truly comprehensive), and - as in the first example - mostly completely peripheral to the person's biography and accomplishments, and effectively non-notable. My question is this: is there a policy somewhere within the WP hierarchy of policies that we could direct people to in order to quell their impulse to shoehorn trivialities like this into articles about prolific taxonomists? It seems to me such efforts should ideally be treated under two scenarios, one where the item listed IS notable in and of itself (so it stands out among all the other potential items on the bigger list), and the other being when the editor can supply a genuinely comprehensive list, in which case they should create a separate article for said list. If there is no established policy anywhere to point to, would anyone support the inclusion of such a policy within the WPA guidelines, so at least those taxonomists who have worked on arthropods can have articles uncluttered by these sort of lists? If you want an example of the kind of thing that bothers me, look at the present incarnation of the Cockerell page here:. Cockerell described over 9000 taxa, yet the list here (all inserted in a single edit) would suggest that he named only 11 taxa, 9 of which are fossils. This is an extremely skewed selection out of a massive body of accomplishments, and it would be far better, I think, to simply leave this list out entirely, given that the text of the article nicely summarizes his body of work. If this is not something that anyone else perceives as problematic, I can bite my proverbial tongue and just ignore such examples, but if there are others here who agree, maybe we could have a discussion about developing a fair, objective policy that could give guidance to editors as to what is or is not acceptable along these lines. Thanks, Dyanega (talk) 22:40, 26 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree that taxa named by/for a taxonomist don't really belong in their biography. There's been recent efforts by some editors to build the Category:Taxa by author category tree; I'm not sure that's worth the trouble myself, but it's a better approach than listing the named taxa in the taxonomist's biography. Aside from the general guideline, WP:TRIVIA, there aren't really isn't any policy or guideline that address this more specifically, and it's extremely difficult to get any agreement to exclude any particular kind of information from Wikipedia articles (in spite of WP:TRIVIA, there are people who ardently defend In Popular Culture sections that are indiscriminate lists of TV show episodes where the article subject was mentioned).


 * Wikipedia is a weird place. Somewhere along the line it turned into a prose version of a taxonomic database (as well as a prose database of professional athletes and civil geography among other things). All species are presumed notable. Dead taxonomists are effectively presumed notable on the basis of having described at least one species in their career. Living taxonomists may be subject to more scrutiny as to whether they meet the more stringent criteria of WP:ACADEMIC. Notability for a taxonomist may hinge on whether they have described some blue-linked species, which leads to an impulse to link the species in the biography.


 * This talk page for WikiProject Arthropods doesn't have a lot of activity. It's effectively for discussing non-insect, non-spider arthropods, and not a metaproject covering all arthropods. Most of the taxonomy related WikiProject talk pages don't have enough active watchers to maintain a discussion or reach a broad consensus. I doubt there will be many further comments here. You might try bringing this up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life. Plantdrew (talk) 03:26, 27 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree entirely with . I can't, for example, see the point of the lists of taxa at Wanda Wesołowska. Demonstrating that taxa have been named after someone is useful in establishing notability; giving some indication of how many taxa they have named is also useful for the same reason. But long lists of taxa are pointless, in my view.
 * However, there seems no policy that can be evoked against this practice, and some editors clearly like it.
 * Try bringing it up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:24, 27 May 2017 (UTC)


 * An accurate observation by above. I also agree with pushing the lists out to a category tree and away from entries on the taxonomists' biography page for those who think this info should be included. 'Cheers, Loopy30 (talk) 11:27, 27 May 2017 (UTC)


 * The short answer is that some taxonomic articles are written more from a "fan's point of view" than is suited. I myself am somewhat guilty of this. Just as exhaustive lists of statistics are out of place in a sports biography, so are exhaustive lists of taxa named (or publications, for that matter). Overly detailed can apply. True, some obituaries of taxonomists in specialized journals compile their complete bibliography, eponymous taxa, and authored taxa, but NPOV Wikipedia articles should not resemble memorials that celebrate an individual's every achievement (and that are also often written by close colleagues). WP:NOTSTATS WP:NOTDIRECTORY, WP:NOTMEMORIAL provide more guidance. Certain taxa that have been given due coverage in secondary sources relative to a person's biography might merit inclusion, as might some or even all eponymous taxa (these are often far fewer). These should ideally be discussed in prose rather than lists (WP:USEPROSE). I think the best alternative to exhaustive lists, or the ever-creeping category clutter of Category:Taxa by author, is to move most taxonomic and bibliographic info to the corresponsing Wikispecies author page. --Animalparty! (talk) 16:59, 27 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Wow. I was wrong about not expecting many further comments. This is the first topic since 2010 to have more than three editors speaking. Good job everyone. Plantdrew (talk) 21:04, 27 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I haven't been around as long as many that have commented above, but I agree that having a list of taxa described by an author is generally not desirable unless the author has only described a handful of species. I'm more interested in how many (approximately) species were described, and in what branches of the phylogenetic tree the taxonomist specialized. I think moving the information over to wikispecies (accompanied a wikispecies link from the taxonomists pages) could be a good middle-ground. Having categories would be better than listing them on the page, but as they will only, by definition, display species with articles, they will likely remain incomplete. I agree with Animalparty that keeping eponymous taxa on the author's page could be fine, as it gives some measure of the author's importance to the field. M. A. Broussard (talk) 01:51, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Arthropods and Euarthropoda phylum discussion.
Knowledgeable editors, please see the discussion at Talk:Arthropod/Archive 2 regarding what to call the phylum containing arthropods. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:28, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to change guidelines on the naming of articles about monotypic taxa
There is a proposal to change the guidelines on the naming of articles about monotypic taxa at the bottom of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life. Please join in the discussion there. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:45, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

An image of crab to verify
Hi, another users told me by mail that the spotted porcelain crab only occurs in the Atlantic Ocean, so he thinks that the description of such might be mistaken because such crab is in the Philippines. So I can also read on wikipedia pages. Can someone double check? I need it for Wiki Science Competition 2017, if the image becomes an international finalist, the description should be accurate. Thank you.--Alexmar983 (talk) 14:15, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't know enough to identify the crab in the photo, but it looks like the spotted porcelain crab, Neopetrolisthes maculatus, occurs in the Pacific and around the Philippines. (reefguide, bioweb,inaturalist, Neopetrolisthes maculatus) Bob Webster (talk) 19:44, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Yeah, there are at least two species referred to as spotted porcelain crabs. Wikimedia Commons has some images of the Indo-Pacific species and misfiled in the category for the Atlantic species. Plantdrew (talk) 20:10, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

changed. Thank you.--Alexmar983 (talk) 11:43, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Adding Species Stub Articles
I am interested in adding a lot of new stub articles for arthropod species. I can add several thousand of these over a period of a few months, provided I can get a bot approved. (I am hoping this won't present a problem since the bot will not be modifying any existing pages, and I can limit the number of new pages per day to something reasonable.)

In my mind, these will serve three primary purposes:


 * 1) They will give users some idea of the organism, including references and, if available, a photo or two.
 * 2) They will make online and print references available to users.
 * 3) Most will contain enough references to make it convenient for editors to expand the article.

The quality of the pages might be a little above average for WikiPedia stubs. I uploaded these pages today as examples. The content was generated locally with what I hope to use later as a bot, and posted manually on Wikipedia. (All but one or two of these have images, but that's mainly for testing. 25% or less of the new stubs will have images.)


 * Ophiogomphus australis
 * Ectobius lapponicus
 * Liturgusa maya
 * Timema poppensis
 * Anisomorpha ferruginea
 * Parabacillus hesperus
 * Diapheromera arizonensis
 * Haploembia solieri
 * Falcicula hebardi
 * Cyrtoxipha columbiana


 * Anaxipha exigua
 * Oecanthus latipennis
 * Oecanthus exclamationis
 * Oecanthus quadripunctatus
 * Oecanthus nigricornis
 * Hapithus agitator
 * Velarifictorus micado
 * Miogryllus saussurei
 * Capnobotes fuliginosus


 * Pterophylla camellifolia
 * Stilpnochlora couloniana
 * Scudderia pistillata
 * Scudderia furcata
 * Scudderia curvicauda
 * Scudderia cuneata
 * Microcentrum rhombifolium
 * Microcentrum retinerve
 * Orocharis saltator

This seems like a good idea to me, but my kids like to remind me that not everybody thinks the way I do. So, I'd like to get opinions from members of the Arthropod WikiProject.


 * 1) Is this a good idea? Would it be worthwhile for WikiPedia or is this just noise?
 * 2) What changes should be made to the pages? (Of course there should be more information, but that will come over time.)

Thanks! Bob Webster (talk) 06:03, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I think it's a good idea. One style issue is the placement of references. Consider Scudderia pistillata. There shouldn't be references immediately after the Latin name at the start of the article – what is the reference supporting? The existence of the name? What needs supporting is the taxonomic placement, so we would normally have a reference at the end of the first sentence. You absolutely don't need to repeat the references after the name line in the taxobox, which should be in italics for a Latin name.
 * A difficulty with purely bot-driven article creation is to get the categories right. You've placed this article in the category for the family, which may or may not be correct, depending on how many species there are in the genus – if there are a lot, we would use the genus (plus the species name as a key). If in doubt, it is better to use the family – created a lot of plant articles, for example, and the genus was always used for the taxonomic category, which created many genus categories with only one or two articles that later editors had to merge by hand. It would be good to have distribution categories, but again these are tricky to automate, since you need to compare the actual distribution of the species with the definition of the category.
 * Your image placement violates MOS:SANDWICH. Although it's all too common, the Manual of Style says not to sandwich text between an image and another image or an infobox. It looks ok on wide screens, but can produce unreadably narrow columns of text on tablets not using the mobile version. In a short article, central placing seems the best solution. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:24, 12 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I too think there's a lot of potential here. In the overwhelming majority of cases, these stubs lend themselves very nicely to a formulaic foundation. Plenty of little details to standardize/iron out though, I'd say. Let me add some nitpicks to the above, based on Ophiogomphus australis:
 * The double-barreling of "found in X" and "native to Y" is a bit odd. Is this to make a distinction for introduced species? In the current case, it just feels like a slightly awkward repeat of information just presented.
 * Grammar is off in the conservation sentence (it is not the status that is decreasing), and IUCN & status should be linked. Also it is more important that the status go into the taxobox before considering addressing it in the text.
 * I'm not a fan of lots of general references in addition to the inline list, and would suggest only listing refs actually used inline here and shifting the rest to "Further reading"; although I'm aware some people see this differently. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:41, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you both for the comments and information. You brought up some good points.

I made the corrections to the reference placement.For the category, instead of using the family, I'll select the nearest ancestor with a common name and more than 6 North American descendants. It seems to work well, but it may require some category creation or tweaking. For example, it chooses the subfamily "Field cricket" for which there is no category, but maybe there should be. On the other end of the spectrum, it selects the order as a category for some mantids (Liturgusa maya, for example.)

Hopefully I'll be able to improve the distribution data. At the moment it is pretty general. I don't know whether it will be feasible to get the distribution data accurate and consistent enough for categories.

I moved the image thumbnails to the right, because when they are centered the alignment is off on a wide screen, because of the taxobox.

I agree, "found in X and native to Y" is definitely odd. I removed the "native" phrase, which applies almost 90 percent of the time, and will only mention the origin if it is "introduced", "incidental", etc. I have copied the IUCN status to the taxobox. I did correct the grammar. (I really hate it when I use bad grammar!) I have also moved the general references to "further reading."

I edited the files in the above list to reflect these changes.

Thanks again for your input. Please let me know if you have any additional comments, criticism, or suggestions. Bob Webster (talk) 20:25, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I like! Hopefully some more input will be received (I would strongly suggest getting this all squared with the heavy contributors before unleashing a few thousand stubs). - Note, if it becomes a reality, we might look into autopatrolled status for the stubs, otherwise it's going to murrrrder the NPP queue. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:44, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
 * A comment for the proposer: a more normal/standard bibliographic format would probably be appreciated by future editors of these stubs. Italics for book titles, quote marks for article titles, ISBNs and DOIs where applicable. Consider using the cite web, cite book, and cite journal templates to perform the formatting for you. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:44, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Qbugbot, 20 sample pages
The bot to make stub articles for arthropod species is coming along. It even has a name: Qbugbot. I've made a couple of thousand stub articles and manually posted them. The articles now include Speciesbox and Automatic Taxobox, CS1 citation templates, and a taxonbar. The first online trial was done today for the BRFA, creating and uploading the twenty random articles below. Everything worked fine, except for a minor bug that has been fixed (talk pages were blank for pages with images). Comments, questions, suggestions, and criticisms are welcome.

• Bledius annularis

• Bledius

• List of Bledius species

• Bombylius albicapillus

• Calligrapha alnicola

• Cerotainiops abdominalis

• Cerotainiops

• Efferia tuberculata

• Eremochrysa pallida

• Glyptina spuria

• Glyptina

• Hister civilis

• Hydroporus rectus

• Kuschelina jacobiana

• Kuschelina

• Osorius planifrons

• Osorius

• Paropomala virgata

• Paropomala

• Walckenaeria directa Bob Webster (talk) 02:52, 26 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I suggest that to keep the discussion centralized, comments on this be be made at Village pump (proposals) rather than here. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 06:21, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Classification of Bathyporeia
The article Bathyporeia classifies that genus under the family Pontoporeiidae based on Lindström in ITIS, but the article for that family doesn't list Bathyporeia as one of its genera, relying on the WoRMS entry for that family.

Further, WoRMS swears that Lindström puts Bathyporeia under the family Bathyporeiidae. The status of this classification is raised in this PDF from Zootaxa.

Is there any resolution to this, at least so that our articles are telling a consistent story among themselves? Largoplazo (talk) 15:26, 7 April 2018 (UTC)


 * GBIF makes it pretty easy to see the classification for major databases. It looks like slightly more of the larger databases use Pontoporeiidae rather than Bathyporeiidae.


 * Looking at some recent articles on Google Scholar also shows more papers since 2014 using Pontoporeiidae. If it was up to me, I'd pick one (probably Pontoporeiidae) and make a note about the other in the applicable articles. I am not an expert or even particularly knowledgeable about this, so bear that in mind.


 * Pontoporeiidae
 * GBIF Backbone Taxonomy
 * Catalogue of Life
 * NCBI Taxonomy
 * Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS)
 * Dyntaxa Svensk taxonomisk databas
 * Taxa Watermanagement the Netherlands (TWN)
 * Checklist of Danish Amphipods (Amphipoda)
 * Validation of the family Bathyporeiidae (Crustacea, Amphipoda)


 * Bathyporeiidae
 * World Register of Marine Species
 * The Interim Register of Marine and Nonmarine Genera
 * Artsnavnebasen
 * International Barcode of Life project (iBOL) Barcode Index Numbers (BINs)
 * TAXREF
 * Peracarida Bob Webster (talk) 02:58, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

RfC on categorizing by year of formal description
Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life for a discussion on possible guidelines for categorizing by year of formal description of a species. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:52, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject
The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template Transclude lead excerpt.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background
On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you. &mdash; The Transhumanist  07:26, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment on recommending usage of automatic taxoboxes
There is an RfC regarding recommending usage of automatic taxoboxes at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life. Inviting anybody who watches this page to contribute their thoughts to that thread.

WikiProject Arthropods is currently using automatic taxoboxes in 19.2% of project tagged articles that have any form of taxobox. Plantdrew (talk) 01:23, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Longhorned tick importance
Should the importance of this article be upgraded? It's spread into the eastern US is now of concern and in the press.JuanTamad (talk) 04:00, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Category:Mites described in 1959 has been nominated for discussion
Category:Mites described in 1959, which is within the scope of this wikiproject, has been nominated for merger to Category:Animals described in 1959. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. -- Brown Haired Girl (talk) • (contribs) 18:01, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Category:<Animal&gt;s described in <year&gt; with very confined scope and small size submitted to CfD
This includes the following animal cats: Anemones, Ants, Aphids, Bees, Caddisflies, Centipedes, Cicadas, Damselflies, Dragonflies, Fleas, Flies, Lacewings, Mantises, Mites, Scale insects, Sea cucumbers, Stink bugs, Termites, Ticks, Urchins, & Wasps, @ Categories for discussion/Log/2018 November 4. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 22:19, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

the image of Bosmina
On the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosmina the genre is wrongly illustrated with an image of Pseudochydorus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 181.170.41.118 (talk) 20:32, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Stub vs. Start class for taxon pages
Please see this discussion at WikiProject Arthopods/Article Classification on clarifying the distinction between stubs and starts for articles about species and other taxa. I looked at the assessment pages for TOL and WPPLANTS recently and since there is a basic template for these types of pages, I think it would be helpful if we had a bit clearer guidelines to distinguish the class categories. Thanks! —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 20:02, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Fixing inconsistent ranks in taxonomy templates
Input sought At Wikipedia talk:Automated taxobox system/Archive 1 I've suggested some alternative ways of fixing inconsistent ranks in taxonomy templates. They could make it easier to deal with the problem of inconsistent classification systems, e.g. the ones used for birds and dinosaurs, or the ones used for mammals and dinosaurs. Be warned that it's a long post, but it very much needs input, particularly from "old hands" at using the automated taxobox system. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:45, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Subscribe to new Tree of Life Newsletter!
Despite the many Wikipedians who edit content related to organisms/species, there hasn't been a Tree of Life Newsletter...until now! If you would like regular deliveries of said newsletter, please add your name to the subscribers list. Thanks, Enwebb (talk) 00:20, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Arthropoda or Euarthropoda
Every Speciesbox and Automatic_taxobox for taxa in this project seems to use the phylum Euarthropoda. Every Taxobox I've seen has the phylum Arthropoda. I'm no biologist. Which is correct? Should I be changing Arthropoda to Euarthropoda. There are some 137 thousand articles which say "Phylum Arthropoda". It could be done with automation I'm sure. SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨ 03:57, 2 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Sigh. Automatic taxoboxes need to be changed back to Arthropoda. You already commented on the initial discussion about this (Talk:Arthropod), but may have forgotten about it. Basically, one research group studying evolution of early arthropods is pushing to use "arthropod" for the clade that includes Onychophora and (eu)Arthropods. As originally described, Arthropoda did include Onychophora, but there is nothing in the nomenclatural codes that mandates that the original circumscription of any taxon must be followed (there's no Euplantae just because Linnaeus might have included fungi as plants). Aside from a single research group, nobody else uses "arthropod" to refer to a clade that includes onychophorans. Plantdrew (talk) 21:59, 3 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I do remember that and it seemed that it was somewhere between unresolved and not followed through on, so I thought I'd try again. I've posted notifications about this question at Talk:Arthropod, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life and Template talk:Taxonomy/Euarthropoda. SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨ 03:51, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
 * The simplest solution is to change it back in automatic taxoboxes (the simplicity being a vindication of the system). While the Ortega-Hernandez paper makes some good arguments about the history of the taxonomy, they don't seem widely accepted. Sometimes a dog is just a dog. Euarthropoda should have a better use for the crown or crown plus some upper stem animals, which is what Ortega-Hernandez set out to resolve.  Jts1882 &#124; talk 07:55, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
 * A very recent proposal (Aria, 2019) uses Arthropoda in the "traditional" sense and uses Euarthropoda for a more restricted group. For extant animals they are equivalent. This seems a sensible approach.  Jts1882 &#124; talk 09:07, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Looking at the taxonomy templates, the offending one is Taxonomy/Pancrustacea, which has Euarthropoda as parent. This gets used by all crustaceas and hexapods using the automated taxobox system (a lot of articles). Myriapods, Cheliceratans and trilobites all use Arthropoda. The change was in 2017 and sparked the earlier discussion. I propose changing it back.  Jts1882 &#124; talk 09:34, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I took a look at Pancrustacea yesterday after seeing the discussion here, and would have been bold, but since the change in 2017 the editing has been restricted to template and admin. I agree, the simple approach is to follow the majority of taxonomists and use Arthropod.-- Kev min  § 12:36, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree entirely with those who say the taxonomy template should be changed back. I've been bold and done it. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:24, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
 * You're the hero we need. I don't feel qualified to evaluate such questions, but earlier discussions seem to have indicated that was the change needed. Thank you. Now we will see if there are objections. SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨ 00:35, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
 * It looks like the extinct classes Dinocaridida and Marrellomorpha still link to Euarthropoda. Ok if I fix those or is something else going on? Thank you, SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨ 00:13, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
 * ✅ SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨ 18:44, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool
Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:23, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Article alerts
This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the  parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 08:49, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

First annual Tree of Life Decemberween contest
After all the fun with the Spooky Species Contest last month, there's a new contest for the (Northern hemisphere's) Winter holidays at WikiProject Tree of Life/Contest. It's not just Christmas, but anything festive from December-ish. Feel free to add some ideas to the Festive taxa list and enter early and often. --Nessie (talk) 18:06, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Identify millipede
Hello. Can someone help me identify the binomial name of the millipede in the image on the right please (here's a second image)? I've added whatever information I could find on the file. Thank you for any help! Cheers, Reh  man  14:12, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

a taxobox for Protoichnites
The article for Protoichnites needs an ichnobox. I'm not super knowledgeable about ichnotaxa, and I couldn't find the original description anywhere in the literature, just short asides. The citation in the article also doesn't seem to mention the ichnogenus. Can someone take a look? --awkwafaba (📥) 16:23, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Assessment, Statistics section - updated
Greetings, For Arthropods WP, I added progression, pie graph, rainbow; wikilinks "Quality operations" log and "Popular pages". JoeNMLC (talk) 18:25, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Carcinisation
This article has been getting huge traffic (580,000 views) over the last year, averaging 2,200 views per day over the last month and being number 3 on WikiProject_Arthropods/Popular_pages, after Charles Darwin and the main Arthropod article, yet it is pretty lacklustre at the moment, is anybody interested in helping to improve it? Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:03, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Butterfly crab (Cryptolithodes typicus)
About six months ago, I substantially expanded the article for Cryptolithodes typicus. The last time it was assessed was in 2015, when it was a paragraph-long stub with one citation. I was hoping someone from WikiProject Arthropods could reassess the quality of the article. I believe the article to be a 'Start', based on what I remember from researching the subject to expand the article. I don't remember a wealth of information being available for this species, but I still think 'C' might be pushing it. Either way, I would argue it's no longer a stub, based on a stub's description as: "Provid[ing] very little meaningful content; may be little more than a dictionary definition. Readers probably see insufficiently developed features of the topic and may not see how the features of the topic are significant."  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  05:49, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I have added a little more information and marked it as start class. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 14:07, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Is Wikapedia up-to-date with entomological classifications?
I was looking at the page for Hyalomma dromedarii and it listed the camel tick as of order Ixodida and subclass Acari. From what I've been taught, the order for ticks should be Acari, and the ESA search tool backs me up. I think that wikapedia must not be up-to-date on entomological classifications. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:249:e01:5340:a08a:745d:616:a255 (talk) 21:50, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Sandbox organiser
Hi all

I've been working on a tool for the past few months that you may find useful, especially if you create new articles. Sandbox organiser is a set of tools to help you better organise your draft articles and other pages in your userspace. It also includes areas to keep your to do lists, bookmarks, list of tools. You can customise your sandbox organiser to add new features and sections. Once created you can access it simply by clicking the sandbox link at the top of the page. You can create and then customise your own sandbox organiser just by clicking the button on the page. All ideas for improvements and other versions would be really appreciated.

Huge thanks to PrimeHunter and NavinoEvans for their work on the technical parts, without them it wouldn't have happened.

Hope its helpful

John Cummings (talk) 11:18, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Help on article about Rivancindela Hudsoni
Hi! I am a uni student working on an article about the tiger beetle Rivancindela Hudsoni, would anyone be willing to look it over in a few weeks? Thank you :) Anastasia.sck (talk) 05:13, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Sure, post here when it is ready for review. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:46, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Seeking help editing my Article
Hello!!

I am a student who is new to Wikipedia. One of my courses consists of editing and updating the Geophilus Flavus Wikipedia page, I was wondering if you would be able to provide me with some feedback or suggestions to help me improve this page. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

Witchruby (talk) 03:18, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Requested move discussion for Louse opened 31 January 2022
A proposal to rename the Louse article to Lice was opened on 31 January 2022 and is under discussion. Please participate in the discussion at Talk:Louse (not here) if you have an opinion on the question (until a consensus has been reached and that discussion has been closed). —&#8288;&#8202;&#8288;BarrelProof (talk) 02:24, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Ascoidea
Ascoidea is a name used for a genus in the Saccharomycetes class and for a superfamily of mites. A couple of arthropod articles link to the redirection page Ascoidea which in turn points to the fungus family Ascoideaceae. At least I found out how to correct a similar issue with the infobox in the Commons category. But I am not able to add any details to a Wikipedia article about this superfamily so resolving the issue by changing the redirect to a disambiguation page would lead to a red link. Maybe somebody in this project feels the drive to step in?! Thank you very much! --Matthias.Wolf (talk) 11:09, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
 * there don't seem to be many editors around here, hence the long delay. (Not my usual area, either.) I created a quick stub at Ascoidea (mite) with a hatnote re the yeast genus. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:06, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Orconectes / Faxonius issues
This source:

moved a substantial number of Orconectes species to Faxonius. An IP editor (79.77.96.73) updated the species list at Faxonius (I've now added links to the synonyms where there are articles), and changed the scientific names in the relevant Orconectes articles (e.g. Orconectes obscurus) but without moving the article, leaving it inconsistent. If there's anyone around with an interest in crustacea, moves and fixes are needed. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:17, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Haemaphysalis concinna
Hello. Can I draw members attention to talk:Haemaphysalis_concinna where it is said the image used in the article is of a tick in the genus Dermacentor and is not Haemaphysalis concina. In other words, the tick in the picture is wrongly identified. Is there someone with the knowledge to be able to verify the image? --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 22:12, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Siphonophora (genus)
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Siphonophora (genus) that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 🐶 EpicPupper (he/him &#124; talk) 08:50, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources
I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like and turns it into something like
 * John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.
 * John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from cite web, cite journal and doi.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Periclimenes brevicarpalis
Hi, Periclimenes brevicarpalis was edited badly causing errors, but I realised they were attempting to change to the listed Synonym Ancylocaris brevicarpalis. After checking it does appear some sources claim that is the correct accepted name. Such as gbif and WoRMS, but others such as itis ncbi and irmng go with Periclimenes. I get the feeling Ancylocaris brevicarpalis may be the correct term based on WoRMS listing Periclimenes as superseded, also I foundthis. However I'm unsure what the standards Wikipedia uses - which site or sites are used as the primary source, so I thought I'd flag here. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 12:35, 28 May 2022 (UTC)