Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology/Archive 10

Biological determinism
A new user is recently inserting/reinstating material without having reached consensus at the article's talk page. It would be nice for more eyes to look at the contributions/sources. Thanks, — Paleo Neonate  – 13:49, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * : Indeed. There's nothing on the talk page - are you going to write something to kick off the discussion? Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:59, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the delay, I see that this was now already started. — Paleo  Neonate  – 20:11, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, yes, they started so I replied. Your and other editors' views would be most welcome. Chiswick Chap (talk) 22:03, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 16 – 30 September 2018
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:57, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

This template should be substituted on the article talk page.

Category:Non-Darwinian evolution
See Category talk:Non-Darwinian evolution. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:17, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 17 – 29 October 2018
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:01, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Featured quality source review RFC
Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. --IznoRepeat (talk) 21:47, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Wow! (?): A new kingdom or superkingdom - Hemimastigophora
Published: 14 November 2018

"Hemimastigophora is a novel supra-kingdom-level lineage of eukaryotes"

Gordon Lax, Yana Eglit, Laura Eme, Erin M. Bertrand, Andrew J. Roger & Alastair G. B. Simpson

Nature (2018)

"Here we report phylogenomic analyses based on high-coverage, cultivation-independent transcriptomics that place Hemimastigophora outside of all established eukaryote supergroups. They instead comprise an independent supra-kingdom-level lineage that most likely forms a sister clade to the ‘Diaphoretickes’ half of eukaryote diversity (that is, the ‘stramenopiles, alveolates and Rhizaria’ supergroup (Sar), Archaeplastida and Cryptista, as well as other major groups)."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0708-8.ris

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"Rare microbes lead scientists to discover new branch on the tree of life"

CBC News · Posted: Nov 15, 2018

"Canadian researchers have discovered a new kind of organism that's so different from other living things that it doesn't fit into the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, or any other kingdom used to classify known organisms.

Two species of the microscopic organisms, called hemimastigotes, were found in dirt collected on a whim during a hike in Nova Scotia by Dalhousie University graduate student Yana Eglit.

A genetic analysis shows they're more different from other organisms than animals and fungi (which are in different kingdoms) are from each other, representing a completely new part of the tree of life ..."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/hemimastigotes-supra-kingdom-1.4715823

- 189.122.238.134 (talk) 15:23, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks! First page of Nature article at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0708-8.epdf Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 00:03, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, but WP:PRIMARY and remember WP:NOTNEWS too. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:01, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * But probably means Hemimastigophora warrants more than just a redirect to Spironemidae? EdwardLane (talk) 12:30, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 18 – 30 November 2018
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:20, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

"Killer Bee" versus "Africanized bee"
Any chance we could get some eyes on this move discussion? NickCT (talk) 20:46, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 13
Newsletter • December 2018

This month: A general update.

The current status of the project is as follows:
 * Progress of the project has been generally delayed since September due to development issues (more bitrot than expected, some of the code just being genuinely confusing, etc) and personal injury (I suffered a concussion in October and was out of commission for almost two months as a result).
 * I currently expect to be putting out a proper call for CollaborationKit pilots in January/February, with estimated deployment in February/March if things don't go horribly wrong (they will, though, don't worry). As a part of that, I will properly update the page and send out announcement and reach out to all projects already signed up as pilots for WikiProject X in general, at which point those (still) interested can volunteer specifically to test the CollaborationKit extension.
 * WikiProject X/Pilots was originally created for the first WikiProject X prototype, and given this is where the project has since gone, it's only logical to continue to use it. While I haven't yet updated the page to properly reflect this:
 * If you want to add your project to this page now, feel free. Just bear in mind that more information what to actually expect will be added later/included in the announcement, because by then I will have a much better idea myself.
 * Until then, you can find me in my corner working on making the CollaborationKit code do what we want and not just what we told it, per the workboard.

Until next time,

-— Isarra ༆ 22:44, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 19 – 27 December 2018
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:08, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Request to move over "L."
At Talk:L. Inc. there is a proposal that the redirect ( → Carl Linnaeus ) be replaced with the article at L. Inc.. Members of this project may be interested. 92.249.211.146 (talk) 04:27, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Twin needs work

 * See in particular Talk: Twin.
 * When you type "Twin" in the "search Wp" field and click the magnifying glass icon, this article tops the list, as it should, but with the note
 * one of two offspring produced in the same pregnancy. Use with P31 on items for one twin
 * The part I've bolded surely should not be visible there.

--Thnidu (talk) 08:50, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Invasive species?
Hi, WikiProject Biology,

I do a lot of work with categories and right now we are seeing many categories involving "invasive species" that are empty. Is there a recategorization going on or deletion of articles involving invasive species? Right now there are 14 invasive categories that have been tagged for deletion as empty categories (see Category:Empty categories awaiting deletion) and I see more coming my way. Because some categories are emptied out of process, categories sit in the empty category for 7 days before they are deleted.

Typically empty categories appear randomly about different topics and this happens when 1) a category has only one article and that article gets deleted or 2) recategorization occurs and a new category system replaces an older one or there is renaming going on. It's unusual to have 14 categories on one subject to appear unless it's an intention editing project. So, I thought I'd post here in case anything funny is going on because I hope members of WikiProject Biology would know about this.

Thanks. Liz Read! Talk! 02:11, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Natural history of California by region
Please contribute to this deletion discussion about Category:Natural history of California by region and its subcategories. Marcocapelle (talk) 07:25, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 20 – 31 January 2019
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:53, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Canis lupus arctos
Is there a reference for what "arctos" means in the naming of Canis lupus arctos ? Does it refer to the thick fur? Is it a pseudo-Classical creation that isn't the Latin word "arctos"? -- 70.51.201.106 (talk) 06:10, 9 February 2019 (UTC)
 * It's the classical Greek for bear: the Great Bear is a constellation near the North Pole, so the Arctic is the region of the Bear. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:52, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at Village pump (idea lab)
You are invited to join the discussion at Village pump (idea lab). We are designing a bot script to perform a few article assessment–related tasks and would appreciate your feedback. Qzekrom (talk) 08:52, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 21 – 28 February 2019
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:02, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 22 – 28 March 2019
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:46, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!
A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.
 * – Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Using Rater to assess biology articles quickly
Hi, I just wanted to check in. I have been using Evad37's Rater gadget to go through our unassessed articles and get them assessed so we can start working on them. I started with subjects I know something about (I'm a senior in biology so quite a few of them) and I have gotten quite handy with it. I don't just open it up and let it autofill everything--I actually make sure what it says is correct, and I frequently disagree with it, especially when it recommends FA or GA. However, I find that it is generally very close to the correct rating, and it makes the process of actually assigning a rating very fast.

I have done a few dozen pages so far and I plan to actually clean out unassessed articles mostly on my own. There are only 384 in there, but with keyboard shortcuts and a good eye I can whittle that down in a month or two, no problem. For whatever reason I cannot get a normal link to work to that category page, so here is the actual link: Category:Unassessed_Biology_articles

I am recommending that tools such as Rater (I believe that there are others) be used in the future and be discussed in our assessment page and its link on the main page. Why bother when I plan on assessing everything in the queue currently? Well, because many of the articles I'm going over do have some rating--just not in biology. And often the ratings are quite old and no longer accurate. If I had a dollar for every page I've seen labeled stub or start that was really a C (8 years later, no surprise), I'd have enough money to buy my lunch for the rest of the week. And I've only just started. I'd like us to go through the stub list and check how many articles can be bumped up. Without even doing any editing we should be able to improve our Ω-value in our stats significantly. 5.91 is NOT good, even for a scientific project, and we can do so much better.

I would be happy to show people how to use Rater and help them gain confidence in assessment. I'd even be willing to rewrite and update the assessment page and actively recruit some people. I'm hoping for some support, which is why I am posting here. If you are at all interested in this, please let me know. I have no way to tell who is active and who is not. Thanks, Prometheus720 (talk) 01:43, 11 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Wow, I used an old version of Rater to help with the equivalent backlog for WP:MCB and WP:GEN. The new tool is a great improvement. I'll help out sporadically over the next weeks. T.Shafee(Evo &#38; Evo)talk 02:32, 11 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks so much! And I have to say, many of the pages I've been going over belong to WP:GEN and WP:MCB as well, and in many cases I have been upgrading them at the same time because...well why not? Never used an older version of it but the new Rater seems to overestimate the better quality articles. If it says GA, my experience is that it's a B most of the time, and if it says FA (or if it looks like a GA to me), I have usually been calling it B and putting it in a document of mine to submit for GA review when I'm done with this backlog. I have never seen it suggest an A rank, nor do I ever give them. There are several of those and I don't feel qualified to assess anything over a B. I really recommend setting it to automatically open on pages which have no assessment--it's so much faster. There is also the alt-shift-5 hotkey, which doesn't work for me but might for you. It's on my radar to talk to User:Evad37 about it in the near future. How do you feel about remodeling the WP:Biology assessment page to include info about this?


 * I agree with mentioning the rater tool on the assessment page. The ORES predictions can be a bit high for science articles in general because of how they are calculated. A-rating has really fallen out of favour. There's only a couple of projects that have an assessment system for it. T.Shafee(Evo &#38; Evo)talk 22:55, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 23 – 30 April 2019
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:27, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Race (human categorization)
This article makes biological claims but appears to have been written mostly by sociologists. Could some biologists take a look at it? Von Clown (talk) 12:28, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 24 – 17 May 2019
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:52, 17 May 2019 (UTC)