Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds/Archive 1

Edit conflict
Sorry, Jim, that edit conflict was me fixing a typo. Tannin

Common names
On the common names issue, there are still major differences in usage, of which the most obvious are those between N Am and Europe, eg Arctic Skua = Parasitic Jaeger (and the compromise Parasitic Skua used in one field guide doesn't help).


 * Further on common names - in the last few days I've been editing a whole lot of names which did not conform to the guidelines, but were in the form Capital-Capital, e.g. Bush-Warbler, Cuckoo-Shrike. I've changed these to Bush Warbler (where the first of the two parts is descriptive), or to Cuckoo-shrike (where the first of the two parts is another bird name). - MPF 14:41, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * On the grey/gray conflict, HBW uses only grey; most of the species lists in Wiki (copied from an American text?) use gray. I think it best to use (and have edited to, in many cases) grey for Old World species, and gray for New World species. Anyone any thoughts otherwise? - MPF 14:41, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Furthermore, monographs on families often use the author's own pet names for species, and birders' terminology is often not the same as the official version, such as European Black vulture = Monk vulture = Cinereous vulture (the last being in the standard guide to birds of India.
 * "Cinereous Vulture" is a name invented relatively recently by an American museum worker who wanted to re-name the species so that America's Black Vulture could be left unchanged (shades of American imperialism, I fear?!) - but it is a very poor name choice, as cinereous means ash-coloured, i.e., pale grey, nearly white. Not a good name for a black plumaged bird! - MPF 14:41, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I would suggest that you write an article using the official name version for your country, but if you are aware of alternatives show them in the species' and family accounts and redirect. Thus, for two of the grebes, I've used Black-necked and Slavonian, but redirected from Eared and Horned.

I've also redirected from canadian robin, preffered by your northern friends, to the more familiar american robin

We are bound to miss some, but they can be filled in as they arise. Thus the USFWS picture of Nubian vulture threw me, until a bit of research showed it to be an unfamiliar synonym for lappet-faced vulture. jimfbleak 05:49 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)


 * the other thing that occurs to me is that a red link box doesn't necessarily mean nothing exists. For example, the three phalaropes are covered under phalarope, and there are often bits and pieces in the family boxes that have not grown enough to split of as species accounts, but may, for example have images. Other examples are Ibis, New World warbler and pelican. It's worth checking the family article before writing an account, an may also help in picking up species accounts written under different names, like the grebes.  jimfbleak

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Use a taxobox
In general, bird entries should have taxobox. This is something we have inherited from the Tree of Life WikiProject. There are many examples there to look at. (The one at right is just an example and leaves quite a few genera out for space resons.)

Taxoboxes on the bird pages vary quite a bit from one another and could perhaps be standardised more than they are right now. This may or may not be a good thing. Discussion of this is welcome.

There are several points to note about this example of a family-level taxobox, which is not intended as template to follow but simply as a basis for discusson&#8212;the particular issues mentioned here will crop up again and again and might as well be dealt with now.
 * It uses two columns for the lower genera section, scientific name on the left, common name on the right. This looks neat but requires extra effort to edit. Compare with the simpler example below. Good idea? Bad idea?
 * If you examine the HTML code as compared with the example below, this first one compresses the table code section down by omitting surplus spaces and uniting logical units on the same line of text&#8212;i.e., it puts everything between the and the  on a single line for ease of code-reading and editing. Of course, other contributors may think it makes editing harder! Opinions?
 * It doesn't follow any fixed scheme for linking: rather than link to all the genera or all the common names, it just links to whatever seems to be appropriate in the context of this particular bird family. (Extra links can always be added later, of course.)
 * Sometimes there is no particular common name, so it's just left out: while both species in Acanthorhynchus are spinebills, and there are no other spinebills to complicate matters, in Conopophila there are three species with no especial name to identify them bar the scientific one.
 * In the case of Phylidonyris&#8212;which unlike the other genus names is linked to an (as yet unwritten) article&#8212; there is no common name for the genus but the members of it are well-known, important, and immediately recognisable to the non-expert as "one of those striped honeyeaters with the yellow wing patch that look rather like the New Holland Honeyater". They deserve an article of their own, but it would be absurd to follow the usual "most common common name" Wikipedia naming convention in this case. Much better to use Phylidonyris than Crescent, New Holland, white-cheeked, white-fronted, and tawny-crowned honeyeaters as the article title!
 * What about Trichodere? This is the White-streaked Honeyeater. The length of its common name, if spelled out in full, makes the taxobox too wide. Is it better to abbreviate it to just "White-streaked" (as the present example table does) and let the reader assume that it is a honeyeater? Spell it out in full and live with the too-wide taxobox? Abbreviate it as "White-streaked h." Leave its common name out completely? Or leave all the comon names out?
 * While this example here lists just 9 genera, the real honeyeater taxobox lists about 20, which is just barely within reason from a page layout point of view, and there are actually 42 genera in the Meliphagidae. Other bird families are even bigger. What can be done in these cases?

This second example is a simpler one. Again, it is not intended as template to follow but simply as a basis for discusson. At present (mid-April 2003) there are perhaps 30 taxoboxes scattered around the bird pages, using perhaps eight or ten different styles. It is probably not desirable or possible to enforce a single exact standard when the circumstances vary so much from one entry to another, but is a case for attempting to get some kind of broad rationalisation?


 * I am in favour of keeping taxoboxes narrow. If an image is included in the taxobox, I would suggest a standard 250 pixel width, with a link to a larger image if desired.


 * To keep taxoboxes narrow, I would also suggest either (a) just using scientific species names, preferably shortened is possible, eg P. puffinus if Puffinus is in the genus box, or (b) Using   between the common or scientific names.


 * In a desultory way, I'm tidying up unwritten scientific family etc articles, either redirecting near synonyms Speniscidiformes, writing short articles Threskiornithidae, or removing links particulary at the genus level if it seems unlikely that an article will ever be written, eg a monospecific genus.
 * jimfbleak 10:53 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)


 * Thanks for tidying the Santa Cruz pages. I have a new question, but it still concernts naming conventions. Different continents and different cultures have different common names for the same species. Is there an international list of common names that you go by? Or how is this dilemna addressed? Kingturtle 20:39 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

There is a great deal of effort going into the rationalisation of common names, Kingturtle. Here in Oz, for example, there are no common names remaining that are not "international ready": all are unique (at least so far as I am aware). The South Africans are doing the same thing, and I think it applies elsewhere too. If you use the official common name that applies to your area (as used by the AOU, the BOU, or etc.) you should be fine. If exceptions to this rule remain, Jim would be the most likely one of us to know about it.

BTW, this isn't supposed to be a talk page, but I don't think we need to worry about that at this stage, we can easily move stuff off to talk after things take more shape. Tannin

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On reflection, Jim, I think you are right about the narrow taxoboxes. Unless someone sings out and disagrees, I'm going to:
 * Move the current taxobox section & it's discussion here into talk
 * Replace it with another one, recommending that we leave the common names out completely
 * Edit the various split-style ones I have lying around the place in various entries so that they all more-or-less match
 * Make a new taxobox section, with neatly-coded examples to use as templates. (Some of the current ones have code errors and are clumsy to work with).

Tannin

Editing Shearwater just now, I was reminded of a difficulty that the taxoboxes impose. The taxobox seems simple enough at first:
 * Animalia
 * Chordata
 * Aves
 * Procellariiformes
 * Procellariidae
 * Genera = Calonectris, Puffinus

The problem is that this implies that Procellariidae = Shearwater and Shearwater = Procellariidae&#8212;which isn't true. There are the Petrels as well. In most cases, the taxoboxes work fine, but for articles that are about a part of a taxon (and there are quite a few of them), we need to find an unobtrusive but unambiguous way to indicate that there are other creatures that we are leaving out. Any ideas? Tannin


 * I am a little unclear about your question. Are you asking what should be placed at Procellariidae? Kingturtle 09:02 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

Sorry, Kingturtle. Sometimes my mind goes racing ahead of my fingers. What I'm trying to get at is this: most of the time, when we do a bird article, it is about a particular taxon. Some examples:
 * Bird - everything in class Aves
 * Frigatebird - everything in family Fregatidae
 * Pardalote - everything in genus Pardalotus
 * Paradise parrot - everything in the species Psephotus pulcherrimus. (All one of it - well, none of it, seeing as they are extinct, but you get what I mean.)

This makes the taxobox simple and obvious, both to edit and to read. The reader can see right away where the subject of the article fits into the scheme of things.

But other times we create an article about aomething that is not a particular taxon. Shearwater is an article about half of the Procellariidae. In itself, this is fine: it makes perfect sense to have an entry about shearwaters, and there are lots of other similar examples - but it messes up the logic of the taxobox. We need to have a little symbol or something to say: Note that the shearwaters form only part of this family - see also petrel. Obviously, we can't fit all that extra text into the taxobox layout, but we should be able to think of a neat, tidy way to impart the message. Am I making more sense now? Tannin


 * Yes. I am only familiar with U.S. birds, so my knowledge of world-wide taxonomy is naive. So bear with me. My first instinct says to do the following:

But I imagine that would get ugly if there were five or six or more within one family. Another idea would be: which would take the user to Procellariidae list where the different names would be listed on a roster. From there, the user could click toward the bird of interest. Kingturtle 09:57 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)
 * Family: Shearwater (see also: Fulmar, Petrel)
 * Family: Shearwater (see also: other(s))

one:

&dagger; see also: Petrel, Fulmar, Etcetra, Fourth, Fifth

That makes senses. What if we do this? &rarr;

Where there are many things to "see also" then it can link to a list page of some sort instead. Mostly, I guess, it would just link to the next highest taxon.

(By the way, I'm no seabird expert myself. Jim is the man for seabirds, I think.) Tannin

To make more sense to the eye, try this... Kingturtle 10:39 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)
 * But will it get ugly if more names are added? Kingturtle 10:47 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

Yes. There is a rational limit to this. I guess we will see that when we meet it. Sometimes it will be better to just direct the reader up to the next highest taxon. An example of this coming right up at Bronzewing pigeon. Tannin

In your estimate, what would be the most names listed in the other category at one time? Kingturtle 10:55 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

Hmmm ... Well, I guess anything that fits on one line of the taxobox is fine. Anything that takes up three lines is too long, and two lines? Best avoided if possible, I guess. Tannin

two:

&dagger; see also: others

The first one would get wider and wider, while the second one would stay thin, and point to Procellariidae list. just an idea. I don't know how often it would come up. Kingturtle 11:17 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)


 * Ahh, I didn't think of that. You can massage it with  tags, but yes. Let's wait till Jim has had a chance to look it over, and then add it to the main page. Tannin


 * Agreed. by the way, i think the daggers look nifty. Kingturtle 11:27 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)


 * I hadn't read the taxoboxes in quite the way suggested, but I see the potential problem. Alternatively, why not just say in the text that Shearwaters are part of Procellariidae along with petrels etc. This is what I've tried to remember to do with the part families of Accipitridae egharriers, kites etc, and is probably more suitable if there are several part-family groups. Given enough time there will be more part families, since groups like hummingbirds will eventually need splitting to keep them manageable. Are hummingbirds currently a part family or not (trad or Sibley)? jimfbleak 11:27 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)


 * My above doesn't really read like an opinion. My preference is to keep taxoboxes as simple and narrow as possible, so things like part-families I would like to deal with in the text. Similarly long lists of species/genera I would prefer in the text rather than a very long taxobox, and medium lists I would just put scientific names in the box, with common in text.


 * I haven't always thought ahead on this. The Ibis box is going to creak a bit when more species are added. I'm not going to go to the stake on this though, and I'll go with the majority within reason. jimfbleak 11:39 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)


 * The species list at nightjar is interesting. My preference would be to remove the table and group by genus rather than alphabetically. I don't mind doing that(eventually), but I thought I'd seek other views since we are trying to standardise. jimfbleak 11:53 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

I don't think any of us are going to bring the Kalashnikovs out just yet, Jim. :) On your general point&#8212;keep it small and neat&#8212;I agree, now that I've thought it over. I'm planning to revamp my wide ones over the next week or two, bring them into "house style". I agree that the text is the main place to sort out part families and the like, but my feeling is that either the taxoboxes are a reliable guide on their own, or else they are fairly useless. If you have to look at the text to find out if the taxobox is telling you the whole story or not, why bother having a taxobox in the first place? If you can think of a way to make the "see also" message smaller and less obtrusive, then I'm all in favour. Tannin


 * I'm not sure that part-family taxoboxes are unreliable. Until this thread started, it hadn't occured to me that they could be read as equating eg Shearwater and Procellaridae, any more than equating Shearwater and Aves. However, I see that it can be read that way, and your Bronzewing pigeon looks the business. jimfbleak 12:20 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

Guys, I've been thinking about the passerines. It's a great, unweildy list (see List of birds) and we need to find a way to give it some pointers to help the reader make sense of it. (Not just because it's a great, long list with nothing to break it up and make it easier on the eye, but also because the passerines are more than half of all birds. That makes them particularly important.) So, I think we ought to sectionalise it a little. For an example of what I have in mind, slip over to Australasian birds. What do you think? Tannin


 * makes a lot of sense. I assume that on a World basis, Corvidae would be something like crows, jays and magpies jimfbleak 13:05 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)

That's Corvidia, Jim, not Corvidae. As you know, the passerines fall into two groups:
 * the suboscines (tyrant flycatchers, New Zealand wrens, Pittas, and a few others: suborder Tyranni)
 * the oscines (everything else - i.e., about 5000 species - suborder Passeri).

According to Sibley et al, the great bulk of the passerines are more-or-less evenly further divided into two groups:
 * those that evolved from a crow-like ancestor (the Corvidia)
 * and those that evolved from a sparrow-like ancestor (the Passerida).

Once we get past the suboscines at the top of the list and into the main body of the passerines, nearly everything seems to fall neatly into one or the other grouping. I'll see if I can find a nice, neat summary shortly. Tannin

Hollie Doolie! Your typing finger must be worn out after adding all those hummingbird species, Jimfbleak!

But it raises a matter I've been meaning to get around to for a while: presentation of species lists. It's a good idea, I think, to try to standardise these, for reasons that should be obvious. On the other hand, we must (as always) be aware that that imposing a rigid house style can sometimes lead to diffculties - circumstances do alter cases. Just the same, there are several styles floating around the place, and it would be good to (so far as practicable) bring them into allignment with one another. For example:


 * Family Imaginaryexample
 * Common Bronzewing, Phaps calcoptera
 * Brush Bronzewing, Phaps elegans
 * Flock Bronzewing, Phaps histrionica
 * Crested Pigeon, Ocyphaps lophotes
 * Spinifex Pigeon, Geophaps plumifera

That's my preffered format:
 * laid out as a list using * or **
 * common name first
 * binomial name follows, seperated by a comma & without parentheses
 * links to individual species entered only where it seems reasonably likely that a species account will get written fairly soon (we can always add more links if required)

However, there are several variations on this theme. Some people put parentheses around the binomial name, some use a colon instead of a comma, some lists don't use the asterix system, some put the common name after the binomial name, and so on. Is it time to work out a preffered format? If we do, I suggest that it not be a compulsory thing, as there are undoubtedly times when the standard format is not appropriate, just a general recommendation. (See, for one example of a non-standard list format that makes sense in the particular entry, Bronzewing pigeon.) Tannin 12:23 30 May 2003 (UTC)


 * Once again, I think this is something that has evolved organically. Some lists like nightjar were already there, and I don't think I have been particulary consistent with my listing.


 * laid out as a list using * or **
 * common name first
 * binomial name follows, seperated by a comma & without parentheses
 * links to individual species entered only where it seems reasonably likely that a species account will get written fairly soon (we can always add more links if required)


 * I think I'm doing this now apart from the comma separator. What species accounts might be written is a bit of a guess. With some groups, I've no idea what occurs in Oz, and very few N Am are being written. We are probably safe not linking any tinamous.


 * On the family heading, my only doubt is that I like to break up particularly the long lists by genus, as in hummingbird, not sure how this would look. I've a evolved a relatively easy system for knocking out the long species list, so I'll probably do a few more. Not now though: The sun is shining, and it's gardening time.


 * On breaking up long lists, I agree, at least in broad. I usually do it by subfamily where possible, because the genus information is already contained in the names, and subfamilies are thus more informative, and also because some families have too many monospecific genera for eye-pleasing layout. But note that key phrase where possible: subfamilies are often difficult to root out and not always well-defined or helpful. So I guess I just do it where it seems useful. Oh, and I almost picked up the fork myself today, but managed to restrain the urge just in time. Tannin

My edits
On my talk page, Tannin writes:
 * Hi Uther. I know you are putting a great deal of work into those long genera listings in taxoboxes, but I think we need to discuss it. The current convention is that we simply say "many: see text" where there are a lot of genera to list. This is something that evolved over a period of time when we tried lots of different ideas out, and I think most of the people working on vertebrates are comfortable with this. It would be wise, I think, to talk it over with the main contributors to the bird (and related) articles. WikiProject Birds would be a good place, or pop a note on Jim's and Big Iron's talk pages. Best Tannin 14:44, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

So here I am. I see nothing on this page (or the meta) indicating this, or where the cut-off between listing and shortcutting should be. I figured that it was an organic "I'm too tired to add them all here, go look for yourself" kind of decision. (I've used it myself that way.) - UtherSRG 15:15, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * My take on the taxobox genera/species list length thing is that it's a subjective judgement, and it depends on the rest of the entry too. It all depends on how the page looks with all the other things on it - different illustrations, species lists, all that. As a rule of thumb, I guess I start getting doubtful after about 6 genera, and I'd almost never list 12 or 20. Imagine Muridae! But that's just my opinion. Let's see what a few other people have to say. Tannin

No one seems to care, so I'll continue editting as I've been. See my note below for new questions. - UtherSRG 20:05, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm with Tannin on this. My feeling is that interminable taxobox lists of genera in taxoboxes look intimidating and ugly, and that ones with English equivalents as well look worse. I know it's partially a matter of style, but since all family level articles have a full species list or links to genera level species lists (unless I've missed any), it isn't actually necessary. Jim

Taxobox error?
&dagger; see also: others Genera Calonectris Puffinus &dagger; see also: others

Something I've noticed editing bird taxoboxes is that there is a difference (I thought it was a mistake). Perhaps it is just a mistake made once and repeated umpteen times. Take a look at these two taxoboxes to the right. The rightmost is the current Aves "standard". The other is the Animal "standard". Was this change to the lower portion intentional, or accidental? I've been fixing the Aves "standard" with the understanding that the Animal "standard" was "the" standard. - UtherSRG 15:15, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

As for the taxoboxes, you are absolutely right Uther! They are different. Stupidly, I had not noticed. There is no official standard as such, just informal ones that we develop here (and in other similar pages). I feel very stupid because, now that you bring it to my attention, I remember that one particular Wikipedian once spent ages playing with different taxobox layouts when he started trying to impose some order on the mammal pages, and finally settled on the "animal" one above as the best-looking. He then proceeded to add it to all the mammal pages (most of them had no taxoboxes at all). And .... the bit that makes me feel really stupid ... his name was ... "Tannin".

(I think I better go to bed.) Tannin


 * Aw! Poor Tony! Ok. I'll continue to fix the boxes that I find, including the ones on the meta page. - UtherSRG 15:57, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I'll do some too, as I come to them. While you are at it, maybe you would like to attack my pet hate: taxobox code with surplus spaces everywhere. I've fixed ... oh, I don't know .. hundreds and hundreds of the bloody things. The original idea, I presume, was to make them line up neatly on the edit screen. But it never works as everyone uses different screen fonts, different browsers, different operating systems, different screen resolutions. Drives me nuts! Tannin


 * (Really bedtime!)


 * I'm right with ya! I hate those damn extra spaces! - UtherSRG 16:37, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Nomenclature vs. Name
In the species level taxobox, the bird project convention is to write "binomial name". However the Tree of Life project writes "binomial nomenclature". I copied the birds over at the cetacean project.. but was that the right thing to do? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:50, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Taxobox streamlining
It seems that the 'th' tag automatically centers and bolds. As I'm editting, I'm removing the align="center" and all bolding from 'th' tagged lines. This has no effect on the display, but makes the html more user readable. I'm also making sure there's a line for an image, taged with 'td align="center"' and includes only a comment to but the image there. - UtherSRG 20:10, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

BOU vs AOU taxonomies
So I've taken on the task of going through the entire list in British birds and cleaning all the pages. Oy what a project! I'm starting to think I'm banging my head against the wall, though... S-A classification is more modern, although probably not fully settled. I have a feeling I'll be back re-cleaning these pages to adapt them to the newer classification. Any thoughts? - UtherSRG 20:10, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Or, if you want to look at it another way, S-A classification is less modern, as it hasn't been updated for over a decade, as opposed to the so-called "traditional" lists which, little by little, get modified over the years as new information comes to hand. Tannin


 * Ah now that's just more crazy... since all the pages talking about S-A say that it's more modern and bsed upon DNA and blah blah blah... but that does make sense... it was done once and not updated, so it *was* more modern until the existing classifications adapted some of it and blah blah blah and came to their own conclusions. Ok. Whatever. I'll shut up about what I think about how well taxonomists on the two shores of the pond work with each other..... - UtherSRG 23:22, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wiki tables vs HTML tables
Bah! I seriously dislike the wiki table markup. It is not readable in the slightest. The HTML tags, although sometimes cryptic, at least have some bearing on what they affect. When I see a 'table' tag, I know I'm dealing with a table, 'tr' a row in that table, 'th' a heading in the table, 'td' a piece of data in the table. Bah on wiki tables! - UtherSRG 16:00, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Templates
I've slightly modified the templates available for cut-and-paste: Abigail 09:42, May 11, 2004 (UTC)
 * I added style = "margin-left: 0.5em;" as an attribute to the table tag. This ensures a small margin between the table and the text on the left - otherwise justified paragraphs will run into the table border.
 * I fixed the HTML comments. Most browsers have buggy enough parsers that make them think that &lt;!--- ---&gt; is a correct comment, but it isn't. &lt;!-- --&gt; is correct, and even buggy browsers can parse it correctly.

request attention to Darwin's finches Duncharris 19:52, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

List of New Zealand birds
See Talk:List_of_New_Zealand_birds

Errant capitlisation silliness
Can you provide any reason why orders are always capitalised, but because some bird-brained twit made a mistake in miscapitalising the species name, and everyone else followed, like Sheep, even to the extent of moving correctly  capitalised into. It looks horrible and encourages kidiwiki. Someone needs to write a bot to do delete the redirects and move them to their right namespace. This is very very very silly, and one of the most silly things around this place. Dunc_Harris|&#9786; 18:00, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Categories
Hiya. I just noticed that almost no bird belongs to any category. I think you should do something about it. The bird articles are otherwise really well done. I'm no expert in any sort of biology but I just noticed this anyway. I'll leave it to you to define the categories and discuss the matter further. Keep up the good work with this project. :) --ZeroOne 13:51, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have been working on the categories and would like to invite any suggestions or criticisms of my work. I am attempting to find names for the cats other than the scientific ones, but I have aimed to follow them as close as possible. This is because so many species can have variable common names and are called by names the category of which they technically don't belong to. In any case, I would like to keep the scientific line-following cats so as not to leave any species just dumped in Cat:Birds. Would appreciate comment, pro and con appreciated. --DanielCD 17:29, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Also, see my short comments at Cat talk:Birds. --DanielCD 17:38, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)