Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fungi/Lichen task force/Archive 1

Shortcut
I've created a shortcut – WP:LICHEN – which brings you directly to the main taskforce page. MeegsC (talk) 13:58, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Userboxes
I mocked up a few userboxes this afternoon, if we think those might be useful in attracting attention to the project. Have a look and let me know what you think. MeegsC (talk) 15:55, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Hot articles
Is there interest in a daily "Lichens Hot Articles" report, which would show activity on articles tagged by this project? If so, I can submit a request. It would generate something like this. MeegsC (talk) 09:09, 21 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I'm into it. On the flip side, a 'Lichens Rescue List' of articles in dire need of improvement/maintenance or that are CfD would also be helpful to try to keep standards up, though that might be a more difficult request... Kazamzam (talk) 13:00, 21 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Article alerts would show any that are CfD; I can sign us up for those as well. Finding "articles in dire need of improvement" will be harder. signed the project up to get a weekly bot-generated cleanup listing, which should help. However, the output relies on someone having tagged the article with one of Wikipedia's many, many "improvement needed" tags. We'll see! MeegsC (talk) 13:54, 21 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Also interested in all the available bells and whistles used by other projects to help maintain their articles. I'm trying to get the "Article assessment" box (e.g., the task force version of the ) working on here; but I don't really know what I'm doing and haven't gotten it to work yet... Esculenta (talk) 15:48, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * WP Hawaii has a parameter for articles that are unreferenced/need additional citations. I imagine there is no shortage of unreferenced lichen articles. If we could add that to the task force component as a tracking category that would be great, although there would be difficult in sifting through 'truly unreferenced' and 'obscure species mentioned in one paper from 1973 and never again'. Still, I think it's a useful addition given the importance of citations. (This is also an unsubtle plug for WP Unreferenced articles, my passion project and likely cause of death). Kazamzam (talk) 16:03, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Rather than having to rely on someone knowing to go to the article's talk page to plug it in to the project box, why not just use the various "references needed" tags on the article itself? I'm most familiar with these from the WP:BIRDS cleanup list (see it here as an example), and it works okay – and means we'll see even drive-by tagging by anonymous IPs who know nothing about updating template parameters. MeegsC (talk) 16:09, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Having tagged a couple of thousand articles yesterday, I saw there's actually not too many lichen articles that are completely unreferenced. On the other hand, I've written 100s of stubs on obscure species with only one citation (but it's on my to-do list to expand most of those to starts and add another citation. Really). I'm expecting the "bot-generated cleanup listing" to show relatively few articles with problems (but perhaps because lichen articles are not highly viewed and consequently not frequently tagged for cleanup?) Esculenta (talk) 16:21, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, this should start to show tomorrow. MeegsC (talk) 18:16, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Tabs?
Do the tabs on the front page look okay? The main page was getting pretty ridiculously long, what with all the log files being posted there! Happy to add or subtract tabs as others suggest. MeegsC (talk) 20:00, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Looks much better! Esculenta (talk) 21:18, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Potential members
I pinged the one person on the WP:FUNGI members list who indicated an interest in lichens who hasn't got a blocked account (!!) and/or has edited within the past decade. Since he's only made a dozen or so edits since 2015, I'm not expecting much. :/ I also put a note on the main project's talk page. MeegsC (talk) 16:41, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Showcase bot
So the showcase bot worked its magic last night and has generated a list of project articles in various categories. A few questions: MeegsC (talk) 10:36, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) Do we need the "featured portals" section? The only portal there is one about fungi in general. Given that portals are now discouraged (the rationale is that very few readers use them, so editor efforts are better spent elsewhere), would we ever bother to create one? That said, they're relatively easy to set up, so if we wanted to do so, we certainly could.
 * 2) Do we want to list the actual "did you know" sentences rather than just listing the articles that had a successful DYK? To me, the actual DYKs seem more compelling.
 * 3) Given that the project only has one Vital level-4 article and one Vital level-5 article, it is still worth displaying them? I'd note that both of these should rank near the top of our to do list!
 * I don't think the featured portals link is necessary here, nor do I have plans to make a featured portal (opinions may change when we have a few dozen pieces of featured content?). Agree that listing the DYK hook would make for more compelling reading. Also, perhaps it's redundant to list "Main page featured articles" and "Picture of the day pictures" (which are just repeats of those content categories). Don't really need to list the two vital articles. Esculenta (talk) 15:27, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Navigational templates?
Do you think it's worth creating navigational templates for the various lichen orders, families and genera? They could go at the foot of appropriate articles. For example, here's one I've created for the family Arthoniaceae, which could be put at the foot of each appropriate genera article. If it's thought they would be useful, I can carry on with creating others. MeegsC (talk) 22:12, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think I agree with the general ToL sentiment (search ToL archives for "navigation") that they are more trouble creating (120+ families, 1000+ genera) and maintaining than they're worth - especially at this early time in the task force. I've been trying to update the lichen family and genus articles, but there's hundred's more to update, as well as dozens and dozens of family and genus redlinks; I think completing all taxa genus upwards should be a priority. We can improve navigation later with a solid taxonomic foundation. Esculenta (talk) 23:34, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Carrying on with my last thought, I wonder if there is a way to extract all of the single-word redlinks in lichen articles (i.e., excluding species redlinks), from which we could make a master list of all taxa genus and up that need articles? Esculenta (talk) 23:38, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll put that project on hold. I'm working on developing an outline of lichens (using outline of birds as an example) which will provide an overview of all lichen topics. While the ultimate goal of the outline is to provide a "one-stop" place for readers to access all lichen articles, it can also highlight where we need to put our efforts. Those redlinks, for example, will show clearly there. MeegsC (talk) 07:36, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Hot articles list
Our hot articles list is finally working! This should hopefully help us to keep an eye on the editing being done on task force related articles. If necessary, we can tweak the number of edits needed to hit the list; the maximum number of articles it will display is 10, and I've currently got the trip points set at 5+ edits for orange and 10+ for red (over the past 7 days). If there aren't 10 articles that hit the trip point, the bot drops the count lower until it finds 10 edited articles it can include. MeegsC (talk) 07:53, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Taxonomy templates
I've been learning about the automatic taxonomy system today, and have been through all of the appropriate class and order templates, checking that they've been updated with the recent updates and adding our task force to the project banner. A couple of issues: MeegsC (talk) 13:38, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I added a template for Taxonomy/Phaeomoniellales, which was missing., can you please check and make sure I've done it correctly?
 * Hymeneliales is now in the subclass Ostropmycetidae, which doesn't appear have an entry in the automatic taxobox system yet. Should I add it?
 * We appear to be down to 38 lichen orders now, rather than the 40 in Lücking's list. This obviously doesn't include "incertae sedis", and Trapeliales has been subsumed into Baeomycetales. Does that number sound correct?
 * a) I set the parent as (subclass)	Chaetothyriomycetidae.
 * b) the Ostropomycetidae have already been already setup.
 * c) Not exactly sure, I vaguely recall at least 1 new order being circumscribed in the last 5 years, but I'll have to investigate. Esculenta (talk) 15:37, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for cleaning that up. I'm working my way through the missing order articles at the moment. That and working on a replacement for lichen growth forms. MeegsC (talk) 19:01, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Remember monotypic orders will typically get redirected to the family (or even genus if that's also monotypic), so sometimes only redirects will have to be made. Vezdaeales/Vezdaeaceae/Vezdaea and their associated taxonomy templates can serve as an example for this purpose. Esculenta (talk) 20:32, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. I also need to learn what to do in the event that a parent is "incertae sedis". MeegsC (talk) 21:24, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I've fumbled around with this, see some discussion here (Wikipedia talk:Automated taxobox system/Archive 4), and instructions here: Automated taxobox system/advanced taxonomy. I've set up the taxonomic template hierarchy for Ascomycota genera incertae sedis (see  Allophoron as an example), but other times I'm lazy and will just use the first higher non-incertae sedis taxon as the parent. Esculenta (talk) 22:23, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Priorities
Looking at the current listing of WP:FUNGI's most viewed articles, Lichen is actually #12, with an average of almost 1200 views a day! That suggests that we should make a concerted effort to whip that one into tiptop shape in the near term. It's currently assessed as a B, but is probably pretty close to being able to get its GA credentials. And an FA star probably isn't too far off either. That would bring more "bang for the buck" than just about anything else we could do, I'd think.

I'd also love to get a good glossary – a la glossary of bird terms – off the ground. We could fold a lot of stubby articles which will never amount to more than a sentence or two into it. That's what we did at WP:BIRD. MeegsC (talk) 16:31, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree that getting lichen to GA standard in the short term would be a good idea. My personal GA standards are pretty high, so I wouldn't be comfortable submitting it until I'd verified every single citation, so it would take a while given its length and number of citations. Maybe we can organise a collaborative GA push in the near future? I really like the setup of the glossary of bird terms article and wish we had a lichen equivalent, although really it should be a fungal glossary, as many terms are used in both fields. If you wanted to start that, MeegsC, I would be happy to contribute. I have the Illustrated Dictionary of Mycology (2nd ed.) and the Dictionary of the Fungi (2008) that would be excellent sources for this. Speaking of priorities, I see that having a task force allows for an extra importance rating (in addition to the one inherited from the main project) that lets us rates lichen articles specifically for this task force. Perhaps we should figure out what our top-10 most important are, and make some guidelines for assessing articles in "high" and "medium" importance categories? Throwing out some suggestions for 10 "top priority": Esculenta (talk) 17:13, 21 July 2022 (UTC)


 * 1) Lichen
 * 2) Lichenology
 * 3) Spot test (lichen)
 * 4) Saxicolous lichen
 * 5) Fruticose lichen
 * 6) Crustose lichen
 * 7) Photobiont (needs its own page, not just a section in the lichen article...so much to write about here)
 * 8) Cortex (botany)
 * I think all of those rate top priority. I'd add:
 * Foliose lichen (since we have crustose and fruticose) and
 * Glossary of lichen terms (once we have one!) MeegsC (talk) 09:07, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Draft:Glossary of lichen terms - a small start! Kazamzam (talk) 16:10, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I've combined what I had started in my sandbox with your draft . Have at it, everybody. Lots still to add! MeegsC (talk) 10:58, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, given that there was no disagreement, I've upgraded all of these to "top class" (for the task force only). MeegsC (talk) 08:55, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I added cortex (botany) as the eighth top priority article, as it's linked (or should be) in most every lichen species article. I'm confident there's more than enough literature to someday write an independent cortex (lichen) article as well. Esculenta (talk) 22:41, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Order
What order should we tackle things – starting with the genera and working up, or starting with the classes and working down? There are a lot of changes to make! Also, whose taxonomy are we using, if the latest journal article (Wijayawardene et al.) doesn't agree with IndexFungorum, or Index Fungorum doesn't agree with MycoBank? MeegsC (talk) 19:00, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Answer to first question is easy: whatever pleases you! I often try to work on a single family and then create/tidy all of the genera within it (sort of working on Verrucariaceae at the moment, was sort of working on Parmeliaceae before that) but I get distracted easily and then making species articles is more fun for a while .... Answer to second questions is more difficult ... it depends. For example, in 2017 a bunch of lichenologists proposed synonymizing many Parmeliaceae genera because they used a fancy new technique ("temporal banding"), arguing that orders, families, and genera should evolutionarily diverge at about the same time, and that circumscription of taxonomic ranks could be guided using this info . A couple of years later, Robert Lücking wrote a quite detailed (and convincing) rebuttal arguing against the uncritical adoption of this technique, and did not accept some of the proposed changes (although some changes were accepted) . However, some "compilers" (including Wijayawardene et al.) seem to have accepted the 2017 work. So who to follow? I'm following Lücking in these instances, but try to make it clear in affected articles that an alternative classification has been proposed; see Allocetraria and Cetrariella for examples. In other cases of disagreement, a literature search will be needed to work out the discrepancy. In some cases, I just decide to work on something else! Feel free to bring up any difficult cases here. Esculenta (talk) 19:37, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Cleanup listing
Unfortunately, our cleanup listing didn't generate properly last night. I think I've corrected the problem (crosses fingers), but it means we'll have to wait another week to see one, as the listings are generated overnight on Tuesday nights. MeegsC (talk) 07:35, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Turns out it did generate – I was looking in the wrong spot. I've hotlinked the list on the To do page, but here it is too. Lots to tackle! MeegsC (talk) 13:13, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Excellent! I will try to fix up all of the "Cites no sources" Menegazzia articles before next update. Esculenta (talk) 16:47, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Our cleanup listing numbers are going in the right direction. :) MeegsC (talk) 08:48, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Outline of lichens
I've entered all of the info from Lucking's 2016 paper, though I've managed to miss out three genera – arg! I'll have to go back through and see if I can figure out which ones I've skipped. Next up will be going through the 2017 update and making the necessary changes. Plenty of red links to work on! :P MeegsC (talk) 16:05, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

A project update
MeegsC (talk) 08:59, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Popular pages
Our first listing of the project's most popular pages has been posted. Predictably, lichen is the top hit, with almost 1200 views per day. It drops off pretty quickly after that, but there are some surprises in the top 150. And plenty of stubs to work on expanding, given their popularity! MeegsC (talk) 07:58, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Vital articles
I'm thinking we should suggest some lichen articles for the "vital articles" section of the encyclopedia. Lichen is already rightfully listed, but that's the only lichen-related article that is. Surely there are other lichen articles that "every encyclopedia should have". How about Lecanorales as the largest order of lichens, and/or Lecanoraceae as the largest family? Usnea as a genus of lichens even non-lichenologists notice? Erik Acharius as the "father of lichenology"? Some of the key individual species: Evernia prunastri, Lobaria pulmonaria, Pseudevernia furfuracea, Cetraria islandica, Cladonia rangiferina or the like? Thoughts? MeegsC (talk) 12:05, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I see there's some room in the "Fungi" section in Vital articles/Level 5 (currently at 36/60 articles). All of those species suggestions sound logical; Parmeliaceae is the largest family, perhaps best-known, and contains 3/5 of those species, so should be considered. Acharius is already there at level 5 (in People/Scientists, inventors, and mathematicians). Esculenta (talk) 20:15, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay! At the suggestion of those who commented (both here and at the VITAL 5 talk page), I've added 9 articles to the list: Lecanorales, Parmeliaceae, Usnea, Cetraria islandica, Cladonia rangiferina, Evernia prunastri, Lobaria pulmonaria, Parmotrema perlatum and Pseudevernia furfuracea. (Note that – for whatever reason – lichens are in the "other eukaryotes" section rather than with the fungi.) If there are additional articles we should consider, let me know. Apparently, the vital 5 biology list has some 500 empty spaces, so plenty of room for others – particularly in the non-plants. MeegsC (talk) 15:18, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Index/Species Fungorum
Yesterday I sent an email to Paul Kirk, database curator of Index Fungorum, to let him know that the classification of some genera according to IF was at odds with both recent molecular work and with Wijayawardene et al. 2022. He made the updates almost immediately, and seems to be quite receptive to further corrections/updates. Much of the classification at IF is based on the latest edition "Dictionary of the Fungi" (2008), which is now quite out-of-date for some groups of taxa. So, don't be shy in sending in corrections (his contact can be found at IF main page), which will then later be propagated to Species Fungorum and the Catalog of Life. Esculenta (talk) 23:33, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

All species articles now tagged
All existing lichen species articles should now be tagged as such in. I've been through all the "lichens by description year" and "lichens by continent" (thank you petscan!) to sweep up any missing articles. Phew! That's 1500+ of them – which took more than a few days! I'm still working on making sure the genera have all been tagged... MeegsC (talk) 18:06, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Nice work! That's about 500 more species than I was expecting ... only about 18,500 more to write ;) Esculenta (talk) 17:15, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Ha! A depressing number of them are tiny, tiny stubs, with basically no information at all. And I'm still finding lots of redirected species in monotypic genera that need tagging. But hey, there's no rush, right?! :P MeegsC (talk) 19:32, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a mini-project that should be on the to-do list; it would be great to get that all behind-the-scenes taxonomy stuff sorted out. Idea would be all redirects get Redirect from/to monotypic taxon template, and all appropriate cats – classification, year described, person who named, lichen species (probably this is mostly done now?), and tagged on talk page for task force. Esculenta (talk) 22:37, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Monotypic lichen genera
Would it be useful to break monotypic lichen genera out for any reason? That category could then roll into the existing "Lichen genera" category? I'm wondering, for instance, if that would potentially make classification category buckets less "bitty". MeegsC (talk) 13:47, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It would make it much easier to find articles for the cleanup task I suggested above, but perhaps that's already easy to achieve with catscan–assuming, of course, those articles already have the appropriate monotypic classification category. Maybe it would then be better to make sure these articles have this latter category instead of making a lichen equivalent? Esculenta (talk) 14:07, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think articles should have two categories for monotypy. If an article is in Category:Monotypic Lecanoromycetes genera (or it's subcategories), it doesn't need an additional category for monotypy. Wikipedia's category system is poorly suited to some of the uses to which it has been put. The number of possible intersectional categories is endless. A system of tags/attributes/properties would be better, with editors/readers able to select the intersection of tags they are interested in. I.e., there could be tags for lichens, monotypic taxa, taxon rank of genus, and Lecanoromycetes. But that's not what we have, so we end up with intersectional categories, because putting all monotypic taxa in a single category would result in a category with tens of thousands of members, which would be considered "too big". (Wikidata's properties should allow for custom intersectional searches, but I don't understand how to do that very well).
 * I don't think categories for monotypic genera are really of much use to readers (other than to glance at the category and go "wow, there sure are a lot of monotypic genera"). Monotypic genera categories are useful to editors given Wikipedia's practice of having a single article covering the genus and the species; the categories make it easier for editors to perform cleanup tasks related to monotypy. Plantdrew (talk) 16:54, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, . I'll investigate the categories you mention to see how we can use them. Undoubtedly, there will be some that go beyond where we need them to go, but so be it! MeegsC (talk) 18:08, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Genus/Species article layout
I thought it might be useful to have a section on the main project page where we lay out how we'd like to see genus/species articles look -- what should be included, what order things should go in, etc. I've started this in User:MeegsC/sandbox2; it would be great to get some feedback! When we're all agreed it looks okay, I'll move it over to live space. MeegsC (talk) 19:47, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Once we're agreed on this, we should figure out how we want to assess articles – that is, what needs to be included in order for articles to move up to a Start or C or B rating. MeegsC (talk) 19:47, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Basically a lichen version of WP:WikiProject_Plants/Template? Sounds useful. I also had a related idea to make an "ideal species stub" template, designed particularly for those lichens that have little written about them (often only the protologue and database mentions). This is probably the situation for over half of the 20,000-ish species. But first we'd need to decide what an "ideal species stub" would look like in these circumstances. Offering an example, I made stubs for nearly all of the species in Cora (fungus), most of which follow a similar format (what it is; who described in what year; meaning of specific epithet; where it's found & what kind of habitat); I think this would suit the basic encyclopaedic needs for most readers. Agree? Perhaps including all of this information, as well as a short description including at least basic distinguishing characteristics is sufficient for a stub->start rating? I would also suggest that a minimum of two non-databases sources should be needed for start-class rating. Esculenta (talk) 20:50, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I made an attempt of sorts at an "ideal species stub" for plants at User:Plantdrew/Plant stub checklist, but I haven't done much with it. You're welcome to copy and modify it. I don't think an article that meets the "bare minimum" requirements I listed is at all adequate, and I don't think articles that only have that information should even be created. It's the bare minimum in that I try to monitor all new taxon articles created, and if any of the bare minimum elements are missing from a new article, I add them (there are a number of editors (including both of you) I trust to consistently do the bare minimum and more, and I don't actually routinely examine their articles). An ideal stub in my view should have everything I've listed under "more prose content" (Esculenta suggests etymology, which I hadn't listed). Plantdrew (talk) 21:29, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks ! Along those lines, I love Denis Diderot's comments in Urena lobata, which I found thanks to the link on your user page. He sums up exactly what I think about far too many stub articles! XD MeegsC (talk) 21:35, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * When I first featured Urena lobata on my user page, it looked like this. Just 3 sentences that were really about the plant, along with Diderot's comments, and Wikipedia editorializing on Diderot's editorializing. It's less meta than it once was. I should update my user page to clarify that the article has been expanded. Plantdrew (talk) 21:52, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * That's great – I will modify that for my own use, Plantdrew. This is interesting to me, because, if we could agree on the bare minimum for a lichen species start-class rating, and then populated that category to about a thousand examples, that could be used to train a bot to do write these articles, given the protologue description – a much more efficient way to get the bulk of these articles written. Esculenta (talk) 21:58, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Article importance settings
Does it make sense to set the importance level for species to low, genera to middle, and families and orders to high for the project? Obviously, if there were species that were particularly important for some reason, we could raise the importance for that particular species, but I don't see most ever falling into that category. MeegsC (talk) 09:01, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
 * That sounds about right. There's maybe a couple of hundred species I'd say was more more important than "low" for several possible reasons, and perhaps a dozen or so at "high" (thinking of eg. Evernia prunastri, Lobaria pulmonaria, Pseudevernia furfuracea, etc.) but the vast majority should eventually fall into that category. How about lichenologists? How about all Acharius Medallists and some well-known historical lichenologists at high, and all others notable enough for an article at mid? Esculenta (talk) 22:55, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Those levels for lichenologists sound appropriate. How about sub-classes (where they exist)? Do we want to add those to our remit? And if so, should they be included as "high importance"? MeegsC (talk) 08:18, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Another question – for monotypic families which are redirected to a genus, should the genus article then be ranked as "high importance" due to the presence of family level information? Or should it stay as mid importance? MeegsC (talk) 14:53, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I think articles on monotypic families largely tend to focus on the genus (the description of a family is usually a simplified version of the genus description), so my inclination would be to rate these as mid. As for subclasses, I think we should include them in our scope (there's not a lot of these relevant to the task force, anyway), but there typically tends to be not a lot written about them, so I'd downgrade their importance a level from the classes (but am not fussed either way). Esculenta (talk) 20:27, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

October task force newsletter...
... is available here. MeegsC (talk) 21:32, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Parmeliaceae
I plan to continue working on the Parmeliaceae article sometime soon, with the goal of eventually bringing it to good article status. The 70-ish genera are listed on their own page (List of Parmeliaceae genera), as well as being listed in the taxobox of the family article (awkwardly, as the list runs down the length of most of the article). In my opinion, taxon list articles aren't really necessary until there's about 100 or more taxa, so I propose to redirect the list article to the family article and give details about the genera similar to what's done in the family articles Caliciaceae and Verrucariaceae. Opinions? Objections? Do we agree that the "about 100" number is a good cutoff? Esculenta (talk) 16:21, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Personally, I'd put "see text" in the taxobox, and then put the list of species into the article itself. That would allow you to add pictures, which I always think make articles more appealing. MeegsC (talk) 21:28, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd cap the number of subdivisions to list in a taxobox at "about 10". From 10-100, list in the main article, beyond 100, create a separate list. Plantdrew (talk) 22:07, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Glossary
I think it's time we move the glossary to live space. It's obviously not finished, but we can continue to add entries as and when. And this would allow us to start linking terms in articles with the appropriate entry, as well as letting us redirect some tiny stub articles (never likely to expand beyond what they currently say) into the glossary instead. What say the rest of you?? MeegsC (talk) 07:05, 13 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Agree with taking it live, although I would like the chance to expand the stubs (one of the great joys in life). Go forth!  Kazamzam (talk) 11:56, 13 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Ok with me. Interestingly, the related Glossary of mycology was dropped into mainspace very recently! Esculenta (talk) 22:30, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, I submitted the draft, which was approved within hours. It's now live. Obviously, there are many more things to add/expand. That mycology one is pretty darned impressive! MeegsC (talk) 20:48, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Using the glossary
Here's how to use the new glossary. (Click to see the documentation: Template:Lichengloss) MeegsC (talk) 19:59, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Biographies
Hi! I thought I'd have a go at some of the biographies that appear on the Cleanup listing, and would check if other well-known lichenologists are described. OK? MerielGJones (talk) 09:16, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Sounds great Meriel! MeegsC (talk) 20:57, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for adding links and info,, and others as we work through the now-not-so-many-missing Acharius medal winners!--MerielGJones (talk) 11:45, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
 * You're doing a great job, ! It's been impressive watching all those redlinks turn blue. MeegsC (talk) 11:49, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Just a heads up (to avoid work duplication), I'm working on an article for Josef Poelt which should be ready in a few days. Esculenta (talk) 11:59, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Apologies, I only now saw that you were working on Josef Poelt. Apologies. MerielGJones (talk) 23:19, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Lichen acids
Hi all! I was doing to reading on saxicolous lichens to beef up the stub (our only top importance stub article to date) and a few of the articles mentioned lichen acids (a collective name for the secondary metabolites produced by lichens). There are over 800 (more being discovered regularly) and some of these substances are only produced by lichens. But we have no lichen acids article! I've started a draft if anyone would like to join in with editing, following the success of the glossary. Cheers, Kazamzam (talk) 15:43, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Lichen product? Esculenta (talk) 15:50, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Well this is embarrassing. Kazamzam (talk) 16:13, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * We've identified a good redirect term, so that is a positive! I didn't call the article that to begin with, though, as not all lichen products (substances) are acids. Esculenta (talk) 16:20, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Moelleropsis
What should we do with articles like Moelleropsis? According to Index Fungorum / Species Fungorum, all of the former members of this genus have been moved elsewhere (to three other genera). Do we keep the article and say where its former species now fit? Or do we delete it and just redirect the species names as necessary? MeegsC (talk) 17:07, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It should be redirected to Fuscopannaria, and that name placed in the synonyms parameter of the Fuscopannaria taxobox (with citation). Esculenta (talk) 18:39, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * But how about Moelleropsis humida, which went to Gregorella? Or Moelleropsis nebulosa f. coronata, which went to Protopanaria? MeegsC (talk) 21:31, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Since the genus is split into 3, a genus-level redirect will not work; it needs to be at species level. Would it be helpful to keep Moelleroposis, since some are bound to look for the genus, and explain all members are now split into 3 other genera, with species listed as appropriate. Could add about what was the problem that led to the split? And redirects for each of the old species names?MerielGJones (talk) 22:23, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * When those articles are written, the taxobox synonyms will show the different genera in which they were previously classified. What's important is where the type species went (in this case Moelleropsis nebulosa, now Fuscopannaria nebulosa); this determines the generic synonymy. Esculenta (talk) 00:38, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Moelleropsis is now a redirect, so anybody who searches for it will be redirected to the synonym, where there is an explanation for why it was merged. We'll need to make sure the correct synonyms are also in any affected species articles. MeegsC (talk) 18:31, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

November newsletter
MeegsC (talk) 20:52, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Problem genera
We're down to fewer than two dozen genera articles still to convert to the automatic taxobox system, and a few of them are proving "problematic".
 * Omphalodiella: According to the Catalogue of Life, this one is a synonym of Xanthoparmelia (specifically Xanthoparmelia peltata) but it doesn't show as such in the genus article. (We don't have a species article yet for Xanthoparmelia peltata.) It's not in Wijayawardene et al's latest listing of fungal genera. Is it okay to redirect?
 * When I added synonymy to the Xanthoparmelia article a couple of years ago, Omphalodiella was not yet on the Species Fungorum synonym list, but it is now, so I've redirected and updated. Esculenta (talk) 14:53, 23 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Reinkella: According to the Catalogue of Life, members of this former genus have been reassigned to multiple genera, and none of the ones it lists is the species we name as the type species. The genus doesn't show in Wijayawardene et al's latest listing. Any idea which genus we should redirect it to?
 * According to this paper, Reinkella has been synonymized under Roccella, so I have also done so, and will inform Index Fungorum about this synonymy in my next batch of updates. Esculenta (talk) 15:11, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

MeegsC (talk) 08:07, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks ! MeegsC (talk) 16:42, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Another genus query
What to do about Xanthodactylon? It's currently listed as a valid genus (containing two species) on the Catalogue of Life, but Index Fungorum says it's a synonym of Dufourea. Which is considered currently correct? MeegsC (talk) 11:03, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This one is tricky. The backstory: Xanthodactylon was circumscribed in 1941 as a monotypic genus with Xanthodactylon perforatum as the type. A couple more species were transferred to the genus 30 years later. In 1989 (i.e., pre-molecular era), Kärnefelt proposed that Xanthodactylon perforatum was the same species (and a later synonym) of what is now known as Dufourea flammea, which is the type species of Dufourea. In 2008, Kondratyuk et al. recircumscribed Xanthodactylon, and included four species in the genus (two of which have been subsequently reassigned to Dufourea). They mention the Xanthodactylon perforatum=Dufourea flammea synonymy, but never really address the fact that the type species of Xanthodactylon is now in another genus (and thus the taxonomic foundation of the genus is in limbo), and do not assign a new type species for Xanthodactylon. In several later publications, Kondratyuk and others mention Xanthodactylon in passing, so they seem to believe in its validity. Index Fungorum lists Xanthodactylon perforatum as an accepted species under that name, which contradicts the fact that they list Xanthodactylon as a synonym of Dufourea. So I think we're stuck until an authoritative source resolves this. I'll send what I've written above to Paul Kirk and see if he can help clear this up. Esculenta (talk) 12:57, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Xerotrema
Is Xerotrema a genus of lichen or not? Our article says it is, but it's not listed in either of the Lücking papers (despite being circumscribed long. before their publication), and this article isn't clear as to whether it's a lichen or just a fungus. MeegsC (talk) 11:24, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It appears to be a non-lichenised fungus that has a green algal crust. This paper calls the second species, X. quercicola, "doubtfully lichenised". It may fall into the borderline lichen category (I'm working on an article for these), but I think we can call it fungal for now. Esculenta (talk) 13:08, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

The Lichenologist
... is now the 248th most-often cited journal on Wikipedia and appears on the top page of "Journals Cited by Wikipedia". Esculenta (talk) 21:33, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Wow! That's impressive, considering how few lichen articles there are, compared to some of the other "specialty" areas. MeegsC (talk) 07:31, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Up to 244 now! MeegsC (talk) 18:50, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
 * And now to 242. MeegsC (talk) 11:23, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Up to 235! It's climbing quickly. MeegsC (talk) 19:18, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It might be worthwhile to improve the page of the Lichenologist itself - kind of paltry at the moment. The American Journal of Botany is in similar straits, but finding sources not published by the AJB is challenging. Kazamzam (talk) 22:32, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree (with both improving the article and the difficulty of getting secondary sources)! I've ordered the book Lichenology in the British Isles 1568–1975, which I think will be useful for bulking up this article. Esculenta (talk) 16:25, 2 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Now 194th! Esculenta (talk) 16:04, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Vermilacinia?
What's the status of Vermilacinia? It shows as subsumed in the Catalogue of Life, and seems to be as well in Species Fungorum. Should it be redirected? MeegsC (talk) 19:55, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That genus was long considered superfluous by many (there's a long backstory I won't go into here), and placed into synonymy with Ramalina, but recent research seems to show it has a sound phylogenetic basis that hasn't yet been updated in the traditional "authoritative" sources; will add it to my list of updates for Index Fungorum. Esculenta (talk) 20:13, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Another lichenologist for the list?
This guy sounds interesting! And an inspiration for us "amateurs"... MeegsC (talk) 13:25, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Certainly! I have his interesting book On the Wild Side: Reflections of a Kansas Naturalist, although it was written (1987) before he got into lichens. Esculenta (talk) 15:53, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
 * There's a short film with him here. Esculenta (talk) 19:31, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The DYK hooks practically write themselves!! ;) MeegsC (talk) 21:31, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Three family puzzles
I've been trying to sort out automatic taxoboxes for the few remaining articles that need them, and am having trouble with three families: Clavulinaceae, Myeloconidaceae and Chrysothricaceae. None are showing in the Catalogue of Life, nor in Wijayawardene et al's 2021 listing. Any suggestions as to how they should be handled would be much appreciated! MeegsC (talk) 16:35, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Chrysothricaceae was spelled incorrectly before, so I moved it to the correct spelling, where a taxonomy template had already been set up (article still needs work, including better explanation of the spelling discrepancy); Myeloconidaceae was folded into the Porinaceae, which itself is a synonym of Trichotheliaceae, so I redirected that; some recent literature suggests that Clavulinaceae has been subsumed into Hydnaceae, but this hasn't been followed by everyone, so I'll have to dig into this some more before changing these articles. Esculenta (talk) 17:59, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Great! That will be the last of the old taxoboxes to convert. MeegsC (talk) 18:52, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Update: further research convinces me that Clavulinaceae (and Cantharellaceae) have been placed into synonymy with Hydnaceae (originally proposed in 2014), and some intervening molecular studies have reinforced the validity of this new classification. Three family articles (all with substantial amounts of text) and all of their constituent genera will need to be updated, so this is a not insignificant undertaking (but it's now on the radar). Esculenta (talk) 02:02, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Lichinomycetes
"The results suggest that 600 species of fungi, previously placed across seven different classes, should all belong together on the same evolutionary branch, called Lichinomycetes. Since the class Lichinomycetes was the oldest name in the bunch, the researchers decided to use it as a new category."

https://www.sciencealert.com/these-mysterious-fungi-belong-to-an-entirely-new-branch-on-the-tree-of-life

Pertains to some lichen species so I though someone here may find this useful for the project. Link to the paper (open access): https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01770-5

MycoMutant (talk) 10:34, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Very interesting, thanks for the heads-up. It's a big-shakeup of a seldom-visited branch of the Tree of Life, but they haven't proposed any formal changes in classification, so we don't need to undertake any major article changes ...yet. Esculenta (talk) 17:56, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

December newsletter
It occurs to me that I never posted this month's newsletter link here, for the benefit of those who aren't task force participants...

MeegsC (talk) 21:05, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Lichen growth forms
I've just made a pretty massive update to our lichen growth forms article. Please have a look and provide any feedback you can; I'd like to take it to GA lion's den at some point. It would be great to know what isn't clear, or if there are any other forms I should add. MeegsC (talk) 21:37, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Looks much better than before! A quick note: there are several "informal" growth forms that take the parent genus name + ending "ioid"; off the top of my head, some examples include alectorioid, astrothelioid, catapyrenioid, cetrarioid, hypogymnioid, and parmelioid (most of these are mentioned in the lichen glossary). Perhaps include another section to cover these? I can't think of a single source that would cover all of them, but feel free to re-use the citations I've used at the glossary. I'll have a closer look at the article soon. Esculenta (talk) 21:46, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Hymeneliales
According to our article, Hymeneliales has been rolled into Baeomycetales. Yet it still shows as valid on the Catalogue of Life. Which is correct? If the former, then we should get the existing taxonomy template removed, and remind Paul Kirk that he needs to make some changes on his database. MeegsC (talk) 10:36, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

List of lichen checklists
I think the list of lichen checklists should probably be deleted. It seems to contravene the "Wikipedia is not a repository of links" directive. In addition, many of the links no longer work, and some of those that do go only to archived pages a decade or more old (i.e. probably long out of date). If we want to include checklists on the site, we should probably create our own! What say the rest of you? MeegsC (talk) 12:40, 19 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Agree completely! Esculenta (talk) 14:57, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Redirects
I've redirected the filamentous lichen, pin lichen, areolate lichen, placodioid lichen, byssoid lichen and leprose lichen articles to the expanded lichen growth forms article. These were tiny stubs and I can't imagine that they would ever expand to something longer than the appropriate paragraphs in the lichen growth forms article; there just isn't much more to say about them! However, we can always break them out again if some new information arises. BTW, I've also redirected a number of redirects: calicoid, calicioid lichen, areolate, placoidioid and placodiod lichen. MeegsC (talk) 09:49, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * While we're on the topic of redirects, I'd like to redirect the page verruculose (currently now a cross-wiki redirect to wiktionary) to its entry on the Glossary of lichen terms, but am not sure of the code do this ... anyone? Esculenta (talk) 17:01, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I've done it for you. The code is just like a regular redirect, but with a link to the anchor: #REDIRECTGlossary of lichen terms . But in reality, anything you want to link to that should just use the option instead. MeegsC (talk) 21:28, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I tried that with the term capitalized, but I guess the capitalization needs to be the same as the anchor for it to work properly. Esculenta (talk) 22:03, 19 December 2022 (UTC)