Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lepidoptera/Policy Archive

Discussions on policy issues pertaining to WikiProject Lepidoptera are archived here.

Assessment of importance of articles
This is the first important policy issue I'm bringing up for discussion since so far most edits have been made by me without discussion just to get the WikiProject in place. I had cut and pasted from other WikiProjects. But we need to get our own WP decisions in place for the future.

I'm starting with the issue of which articles should be allotted what level of importance. As per LepidopteraTalk mechanism there is a need to allocate importance (top/high/mid/low) as one of the piped arguments in the template (the other being quality, which is NOT being discussed in this post). The relevant subpage for our WP which compiles articles as per the template arguments is WikiProject Lepidoptera/Article Classification.

So which articles should be (top/high/mid/low)? A suggestion we can start our discussions from (the one I have been following more or less while assessing) :
 * Top - Lepidoptera, Moth, Butterfly. Lepidoptera taxonomy.
 * High -
 * National/area lists which create red links and stubs and populate the wikispace. E.g.List of butterflies of India.
 * Articles on butterfly biology such caterpillar.
 * Other important general articles such as Lepidoptera migration.
 * Important, prominent butterfly/moth species such as Monarch or silkworm (as per Kylu's suggestion) incl those of economic importance (as per Richard Barlow's suggestion).AshLin
 * Mid -
 * Articles on higher taxa such as superfamilies, families, tribes, subfamilies (AshLin).
 * Regional lists which are a subset of national lists and do not create new links. (such as Western Ghats butterflies which is a subset of List of butterflies of India.
 * Low -
 * Articles on tribes, subfamilies (AshLin), genera and species of butterflies and moths.
 * Articles on trivial topics such as fictional butterflies etc.

May I have your views to help reach a logical and well-reasoned out rationale for importance of Lepidoptera articles. Regards, AshLin 21:39, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd like to suggest that some of the more "popular" moths and butterflies be rated as higher priority than Low. For instance, we could have Monarch butterfly be of Mid or even High priority, as I'd bet it gets more readers than any of the superfamilies and regional lists. ~Kylu ( u | t )  23:35, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Kylu, there are some charismatic species which may get higher ratings. In WP:BIRD we have something similar and current discoveries, birds in the news can bring up humble species up into the Top importance. In the class there is a List class which I think is currently not being used. Shyamal 02:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds reasonable. I'm adding the genre to high. However which butterflies or moths will make it to this list will be a matter of discussion. Only a handful, say 15 to 20 wikis of butterflies around the world may be of high importance, some of which may be generic common names such as Swallowtail, Birdwing and so on.AshLin 03:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Also Lepidoptera of significant economic importance maybe? Gypsy moth springs to mind but there are obviously more. Richard Barlow 07:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Richard's suggestion incorporated.AshLin 07:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Should we have classification of species wikis as a two-tier (high/low) classification or three-tier (high/mid/low)?AshLin 07:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Since there seems to be consensus so far and no major issues raked up, on advice of Shyamal, I'll be bold and go ahead. The final wording I am proposing has been placed below. I'll leave it open for a few days. If no other major issues crop up, it'll be our first piece of WP policy to come up. This is because 1385 articles are unassessed and I did not want assessment work to begin in a major way without consensus based guidelines - so that no challenges and reverts take place.AshLin 06:55, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Might I also suggest higher importance for species that are endangered or threatened. These are more likely to be of interest to more people. There would have to be some grading of this as endangered status in a place doesn't neccessarily mean endangered status everywhere. For example the Palos Verdes Blue is arguably the world's rarest butterfly with a proven world wide distribution of one single site in a Los Angeles suburb, despite the fact that is is only a distinctive subspecies, whereas the Brimstone Butterfly is legally protected in Northern Ireland only. ( It is the supply of suitable buckthorn foodplant that is the problem.) Neilj 31 July 2007
 * Done, see the template below. At this point, let them all remain in high importance since species are presently proposed to be classified into two groups only (high and low). AshLin 14:10, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Having reviewed the input to date, I find the proposed template below quite acceptable, and it should work for a starter. It is possible that it might require a tweak jimmy or two after it has been used for a while, but I think it will hold as is for the greater part. Glacierman 16:08, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed importance infobox



 * The text for Low-Class is somewhat muddled. Looks like a cut-and-paste gone awry. :-) Glacierman 15:59, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
 * My mistake, is it better now? There was a cp error in Mid too. Guess if you are too close to a wiki, glaring errors staring at you in the face aren't noticed. The struck off text is because till now we have proposed two tier classification of species only, i.e. (high/low) which is neater and cleaner. Three tier (high/mid/low) becomes messy espescially when trying to decide is it high or mid, or is it mid or low. The criteria for a butterfly to be of high importance so far is that it has to have one of the following :
 * national or area lists of lepidoptera; example List of butterflies of India
 * wikis on lepidoptera families and superfamilies; Papilionidae
 * pages on butterfly biology; Butterfly migration
 * lepidoptera species of high scientific, economic or cultural importance; threateneded or endangered species or those having high public recognition for any reason, such as
 * Monarch, its cultural & scientific importance and iconic status in the Americas.
 * Gypsy moth, its economic importance as a pest.
 * Silkworm, its economic importance as a resource for silk.
 * Palos Verdes Blue, due to its being a highly threatened species.
 * Maguey worm, due to its cultural importance to native Australians.


 * All butterfly/moth species not notable as per above aspects will be low importance. I suggest that common butterflies also be low importance unless they are exceptionally well known like the Monarch. The high importance group shouldnt be cluttered with common but otherwise insignificant species. Request comments since this a modification of sorts. AshLin 06:36, 1 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Good fine-tune. Should work out OK. BTW, I get the C&P gremlins all the time.... Glacierman 17:50, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * A very good discussion and proposal all round. My apologies for not getting in on the act sooner, but I was away and subsequently busy. Will the "Classes" auto-generate lists for quick reference, or does that only come with "Categories"? For example, I can envisage quite a number of species making "Top Class" on the basis of being (especially agricultural) pests, and would be quite keen to check up on those proposed under this criterion—GRM 21:03, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, they will. The autolist will be a list of talk pages rather than the main page since the Project template goes there. However, a two-tier classification has been proposed (High/Low) as of now. Top is intended to be kept for the few main generic articles, which would form the cornerstone of the project, eg Lepidoptera, butterfly, moth, classification, life-cycle, ecology, conservation. But of course, these are issues for debate and consensus. AshLin 03:54, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Two questions: (1) Other than the preceding message, I don't see the simple two-tier proposal. So, when does the "importance" categorization come "live"? (2) If threatened species retain some higher ranking, will that be restricted to globally threatened, or include locally threatened? I'm thinking of my "adopted" article Heath Fritillary that fits the bill perfectly. Thanks—GRM 16:13, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Some other issues

 * Who can assess?: Preferably it should be Wikiproject Lepidoptera members, but since many people interested in Lepidoptera are not in the project, and keeping in mind the open nature of Wikipedia, it would in practice be anyone.
 * Changing the importance status of a wiki: Any editor wanting to change status must mention the reason in edit summary and in the talk page the reason for upgrading or downgrading a wiki in importance.

The proposal is now on hold till 05 Aug 2007 for any additional inputs.

Thanks, AshLin 07:43, 30 July 2007 (UTC)