Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life

Titles for virus species
Every virus species has been renamed in the last few years. I've started a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Viruses to get a sense for whether we should be using the current species names for the titles of articles. Wikipedia has ~1000 articles on virus species. Plantdrew (talk) 18:22, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Proposal to merge Neodiapsida into Diapsida
Hi, I've proposed to merge Neodiapsida into Diapsida, since the two are largely synonymous. Discussion can be found here. —  Trilletrollet  [ Talk &#124; Contribs ] 13:49, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Ongoing discussions about policy and guidelines relating to notability of species
This Wikiproject is likely to be interested in the following discussions: Wikipedia talk:Notability and Village pump (policy). Crossroads -talk- 02:01, 26 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Reposting these at WP:PALEO and WP:DINO The Morrison Man (talk) 12:23, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Update: I have posted a draft proposal at WP:Notability (species).  It is not yet time to vote.  However, if you see errors (e.g., the wrong set of taxonomists) or think it is unclear, please post your comments on the talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

cite iucn
will now create a template from the IUCN's Green Status assessment citation. Here is an example from IUCN's Iberian Lynx page:

lists ten articles that have urls that does not recognize as valid (valid urls link to a species assessment page). Grouped by unknown url, these articles are:
 * https://www.iucnredlist.org/en – reader hostile; it is pointless to link to the IUCN red list as a whole; links should be specific to the species
 * Garter snake
 * Guzmania teuscheri
 * Japanese rice fish
 * Plectostoma sciaphilum
 * Sarcosoma globosum
 * Silky short-tailed bat
 * https://www.iucnredlist.org/ – reader hostile; as above
 * Eremias persica
 * Oval electric ray
 * South Georgia shag
 * http://www.iucnredlist.org/search – reader hostile;
 * Butia campicola

I intend to modify Module:Cite IUCN to promote unknown url messaging from maintenance to error status.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:54, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Another maintenance message to be promoted to error status is no identifier. At this writing, only one article has a template emitting that message:
 * List of carnivorans by population

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:15, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

In preparation for the above, I have refactored the error messaging code in Module:Cite IUCN. Report any anomalies here.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:23, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Bamboo coral taxonomic revision
I was trying to find out what bamboo whip coral were (turns out this term just means whip-shaped bamboo coral, and does not refer to a particular species/genus/etc.), when I read a study saying that the family Isididae (what we currently have for bamboo coral) has been shown to be paraphyletic and been split into four separate families. MarineSpecies references the article establishing the revision on the respective pages. I added a statement that it had been shown to paraphyletic. I think the sources are adequate, but because I don't know much about taxonomy, I'm trying to double check here: should the taxonomy be updated? Mrfoogles (talk) 06:43, 12 July 2024 (UTC)


 * It seems that many of the articles here are cited to MarineSpecies, and it seems reliable, so I've started trying to update a few things. Based on this, though, probably a lot needs to be done Mrfoogles (talk) 02:46, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Twitter coverage
Yesterday I created a social media account for sharing WikiProject Protista's news, if anyone is interested the link is @WikiProtista. I plan on sharing mainly two things: 1) newly created articles, with at least a brief mention, and 2) newly GA-nominated articles, with a more elaborate thread. All suggestions are welcome! I also made a custom icon which I will soon upload to Wikimedia. —  Snoteleks  ( talk ) 20:20, 12 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Don't have a twitter but personally I'll probably look at it if any of it's on Mastodon or something more easily accessible (Twitter makes you log in these days) Mrfoogles (talk) 02:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not accustomed to Mastodon, I would like to make an account there but it seems like I have to choose a server? Any advice? —  Snoteleks  ( talk ) 13:20, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * A web search found this directory of servers. Either I'm not finding the correct search term, or there isn't a relevant specialised server. The nearest I'm finding is Scholar.Social. You could always use a general server. Lavateraguy (talk) 19:02, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Upcoming International Botanical Congress vote on "offensive" binomial names
This has been rolling along for a while, but the vote happens this week (see the recent Nature story) there are two main proposals that are being voted on:
 * 1. Replacing "caffra"-related names (which are etymologically related to an ethnic slur) to derivatives of "afr" (affects around 218 species)
 * 2. A proposal to "create a committee to reconsider offensive and culturally inappropriate names."

I'm not a botanist or involved in the botanical taxonomy community, so I'm not sure what the broader mood within the community is about whether these proposals are likely to pass (they appear to require a 60% supermajority). Obviously there are a group of quite vocal botanists who have made their voice known repeatedly on this issue, the question is whether there voices represent that of the broader botanist community. There does seem to be substantial (around 50%) support for renaming "caffra" related taxa in preliminary polling according to the Nature article, so the issue is worth keeping an eye on. Hemiauchenia (talk) 06:13, 17 July 2024 (UTC)


 * The Botanists seem to be taking a different approach to the AOS where they are openly discussing it rather than imposing it without consulting members. They are proposing changes only to a few particularly egregious names, compared to removal of all bird eponyms from common names, although they are going further by looking at the scientific names, which the AOS is not addressing at this stage. —  Jts1882  &#124; talk 09:19, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * As someone who has some foot on the botanical community, I guarantee the general mood is against. A compendium of over 1,000 international botanists came together and expressed their opinion on this Bioscience article, which is summarized in this Twitter thread. Basically, we want a universal stable taxonomy, which means we don't want to retroactively change the species names due to subjective socially guided perceptions as it is supposed to be completely separate from social perceptions, and changing it would be incredibly risky for every practical effort of conservation. However, the article also emphasizes that we as taxonomists have a responsibility to name new species in an appropriate manner, and even give representation to local ethnicities, cultures and languages. —  Snoteleks  ( talk ) 15:41, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * See (126) Proposal to add a new Article 61.6 to permanently and retroactively eliminate epithets with the root caf(e)r‐ or caff(e)r‐ from the nomenclature of algae, fungi and plants (wiley.com) (square brackets in title replaced by parentheses to avoid breaking WikiPedia syntax).
 * This is a rules hack - treating "caffra" etc. as orthographical variants to be corrected. This is not etymologically the case, and even somewhat of a stretch semantically - Cis/Transkei is rather narrower than Africa, even if afric- names often referred to South Africa, or other parts of Africa, rather than to the whole continent, but it's not greatly disruptive. (The Nature article is slightly wrong - caffra -> afra (not affra).) I suspect that much opposition will be to the precedent rather than to the proposal.
 * But there's not really much to discuss here - either it passes and WikiPedia changes the titles of a score or so articles, and the spellings of a few synonyms, or it doesn't pass, and WikiPedia doesn't have to make any changes.
 * I note that there are 4 names referring to Kafiristan (rather than the more recent Nuristan), and these are all relatively recent (one from 2018), and aren't fixable by this rules hack. Lavateraguy (talk) 20:52, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I essentially agree with Lavateraguy. Nothing for Wikipedia to discuss as we don't get a vote on this. 🌿 Mt B o t a n y (talk) 23:18, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The "afr" vote has passed, so we will need to get around to changing the affected articles. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:04, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The search may be helpful. And perhaps this search.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:29, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * "caffra" is too narrow - it would miss "caffrum", "caffer" and "caffrorum" and some other variants. See IPNI for a list of relevant names (excluding fungal and algal names). (There are remarkably few false positives - on a cursory skim a few names honouring Caflisch and Cafes (sp?). Lavateraguy (talk) 22:34, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Ok, try this one.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 22:49, 18 July 2024 (UTC) 23:01, 18 July 2024 (UTC) (revised for fewer false positives)
 * Shouldn't we wait for secondary sources to adopt the changes? —  Jts1882  &#124; talk 19:38, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * My understanding of past discussions is that we have generally deferred to the opinions of the ICN and ICZN over those of secondary sources. The IBC vote has direct power over the ICN, so isn't it effectively equivalent to an ICZN ruling, or an I mistaken? Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The last day of the Shenzen IBC was July 29th, and per our article on the ICNafp, that is the day that the Shenzen edition of the code was ratified. The Madrid IBC hasn't even started yet (the nomenclature meetings occur prior to the opening of the main event, and still have a day to go). The Madrid IBC ends on the 27th. There is at least one name that will become a later homonym which will need to have a replacement name published.
 * Where things are at right now is equivalent to a media organization calling an election for a political candidate, before the election results are certified, and before the candidate takes office. Plantdrew (talk) 01:06, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Before we jump into any conclusions: 1) the Congress hasn't even ended yet. 2) The change will be implemented from 2026 onward. 3) There was also a vote to allow the rejection of new species names (given after 2026) that are derogatory. Let's not make any changes before that date. —  Snoteleks  ( talk ) 13:22, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Are there any potentiel conflicts with any of these name changes? It seems like such a broad stroke for there not to be any preexisting afr- names already in these clades. awkwafaba (📥) 03:21, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Of the subset of these names which are currently accepted there is one which clashes with another name. There is an available synonymous name available, with the result that Plantago cafra is changed to Plantago capillaris. Lavateraguy (talk) 09:17, 19 July 2024 (UTC)