Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 14

Category nomenclature
I suspect this may have been discussed here before, if so please point me to the discussion. If not ..... I was wondering if there has been any thought given to re-naming the taxonomic wikipedia categories to indicate what level they are. So categories like Category:Emberizidae would be something like Category:Family - Emberizidae or perhaps Category:Emberizidae (family). This would give people an idea of what taxonomic level they are looking at. Failing re-naming them perhaps we could come up with some conventions for how to describe the categories themselves on the category page. This way even if the name does not tell the user where they are reading the category description would (or we could do both). Dalf | Talk 01:36, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Perhaps a description or key somewhere telling people about what endings represent what level, such as -opyta (division), -opsida (class), -ales (order), aceae (family). Just my two cents worth. But yes, you are on to something. --DanielCD 02:06, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * What you are describing would make a good template to put in each category. Nice and uniform.  I still think it woudl be nice to rename them, but that would be a lot of work and unles there is built in stuff for renaming categories someone woudl ahve to write a bot to help.  That is not that much work but things like this do have a lot of inertia. Dalf | Talk 05:18, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't see why making levels explicit on category pages is a good idea. It makes them more system-dependent when the levels vary between authors, and it makes things difficult when a single group has multiple levels. Since the taxonomy is already discussed in the articles, what does it help? Josh
 * Josh's suggestion should also avoid some of the PhyloCode clashes that will surely come. Guettarda 05:46, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * The reason is that the categories are suppose to be navigation aids. The articles are not meant to help you navigate the categories but vice versa. Right now using the categories to find for example other animals in the same genus or to find other familys in the same genus of an animal's article that you are looking at is very hard.  You have to pretty much already know the information you are looking for to make it work with the current category system.

I know this to be the case because I have been adding missing or filling out incomplete taxoboxes on animal pages and using the category system and related articles to do so is non-trivial. Granted with something as complex as taxonomy total uniformity is impossible but I think some degree of higher usability could be achieved. Dalf | Talk 01:00, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The level of taxonomy of the category could/should be described on the category page, it doesn't need to be in the category name.--nixie 06:02, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, for those of us who do a lot of work in the plants and animals, the categorizing by sci. classification is indespensible. You can have other categories along side of it. But I often want to refer to the Category:Mimosoideae or Category:Asparagales. I want to write an article on a type of Faboideae, I can go to the category and see what's been done there. Others may not need it, but they don't have to use it. It would be chaos without categorizing this way. But I don't see a problem with Category: Order Asparagales or Category:Family Asteraceae. That might really work. --DanielCD 01:19, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Larval food plants
As some of you may know I have been writing moth articles for a few months and including info on larval food plants for each species. I have also updated the plant articles with a link to the moth article. Some of the plant articles (eg Birch, Hawthorn) now have long, rather unwieldy lists of moths incorporated into the text. I think it may be a good idea to develop a "phagobox" which could be used to show this data in a neater way. It could also be used to differentiate between insects which use a plant as an exclusive food source and polyphagous species which feed on this plant among others.

Does anyone (especially "plant people") have any comments on whether this is a good idea and any suggestions on formatting/where on the page it should be placed, etc. Richard Barlow 11:14, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a good idea, particularly the exclusive / polyphagous differentiation; it would also be useful to discriminate (if data is available) between those that cause only minor damage to the plant, and those than can cause serious damage or mortality. If lists get really long (e.g. when all the hundreds of insects that feed on oaks get pages!), maybe they could even go on a linked separate page "Insects (or 'things') that feed on Xxxx" - MPF 22:51, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is very much a first draft of how this might look:

A bit basic I know. Any comments on how it could be improved? Richard Barlow 13:19, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Can you make it four squares? - there's a fourth type not covered there, polyphagous major pests like gypsy moth. So e.g., top row major pests, lower row minor pests; left column exclusive feeders, right column polyphagous. I guess there's also an intermediate case of insects which will eat every species in a genus, but not other genera. - MPF 14:55, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have a horrible feeling "intermediate cases" will be very common indeed! If a moth larva feeds on rowan and whitebeam should it be listed as monophagous in Sorbus or polyphagous in Rowan and Whitebeam? I think strictly single species monophagy is actually quite uncommon. Foxglove Pug is an obvious example but I can't think of too many other common examples offhand. Richard Barlow 15:51, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Is it certain that Foxglove Pug won't touch Digitalis grandiflora or D. lutea?!? Otherwise, I would guess, yes, the Sorbus example might be the best way to go, or alternatively mention the insect only on the plant genus page rather than the plant species page? (though this would leave pages like Oak with gigantic insect lists, much of it not relevant to species on other continents). Tricky! - MPF 18:14, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have just found a huge database (called HOSTS) on the Natural History Museum site dedicated to this info. If I use this there is going to be a big increase in insect/food plant links: I think a table is going to be required in both the insect and the plant page. It's all a bit daunting and I'm beginning to regret starting all this! (but not really, obviously). I'm going to give some more thought to the best way to do this. Input would still be appreciated! Richard Barlow 16:19, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Article sections for mammals
I've been working on a couple of animal articles and have noticed the lack of suggested animal artcile layout (I expected one from WikiProject Mammals). I have been applying the following sections consistenly to articles long enough to need sections, Then I add whatever additional sections are relevant to the critter. Should we come up with some kind of semi-formal suggested outline for wikiproject mammals? --nixie 04:38, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) taxonomy -sometimes taxonomy and evolution
 * 2) physical description
 * 3) reproduction
 * 4) ecology and behaviour- including habitat, position in the food chain etc.
 * 5) distribution- if it occurs in more than one place
 * One thing I'd suggest that unless there's a very large amount of info to go on (as at e.g. Lion), then keep the number of headers to three or less, so that no TOC appears (as e.g. Fallow Deer). Pages with nearly as many headers as lines of text look awful. - MPF 18:25, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Move request
For Dogwood (plant) to be moved back to Dogwood; it needs admin assistance, please. Thanks - MPF 18:25, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Ooops, it's already done, by Niteowlneils - MPF 18:30, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Move & merge request for an admin
For Meadow-grass to be moved to Poa: since all meadow-grasses are in Poa, but not all species of Poa are called "meadow-grass". Thanks - MPF 16:35, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Done. Josh
 * Thanks! - MPF 10:37, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Beetles...a project in the making
Hi all,

I'm a relatively new but already addicted wiki-bod. I've just got done re-writing the beetle page, which was a bit sad considering the number of species. Would be great if someone could cast a (nice) critical eye over it.

There is a list connected to that page of families within the order of beetles, and few of them are populated! - I'd really like to start banging through them but it would take some time, any one else out there a bit of a beetle nut who'd like to help me out, trade ideas, and maybe act as a wiki-style mentor??

Anyone out there with pictures of beetles, also somewhat lacking?

Thanks

John --John-Nash 06:46, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi John. Nice to see someone else tackling Wikipedia's insect drought. I'm more of a Lepidoptera person (I've mainly been adding British moths) and I'm relatively new myself but I'm willing to help you in any way I can (although looking at the Beetle article I don't think you need my help!). As for pictures, I have trouble finding decent images myself without getting caught up in a copyright maze. My only suggestion would be to create your articles with a link to a picture on the web until you can find something you can put in the article. Richard Barlow 28 June 2005 09:07 (UTC)

The article Subgroups of the order Coleoptera is the place to see how broad Wikipedia's coverage of beetles is. You can see that we have (stub) articles on all the suborders and infraorders, 11 out of 17 superfamilies, and 46 out of 168 families. (This article needs a reference indicating whose taxonomy this is and how recent, by the way.)

There are several lovely photos of beetles at http://www.sxc.hu/ that can be redistributed without restriction — see and successive pages of search results. Some particularly good photos include: Gdr 2005-06-30 10:39:31 (UTC)
 * from New South Wales — ?
 * from Poland — some kind of scarab beetle
 * from Israel — Potosia cuprea, a scarab beetle
 * from New South Wales — ?
 * from South Africa — a toktokkie, Psammodes sp., a darkling beetle

I worked on beetles for a while, and got tired... :-) Generally you want to work topdown, which amounts to finishing out the families, and then push on to the more interesting genera. Complete lists of genera would be great but seem hard to come by; in some cases the "family is in need of revision" with the last complete list dating from the 1920s or something, and known by all the specialists to have no connection to reality. Incremental is good - it's fine to create a family article with taxobox and one paragraph summarizing what the family is all about, then go back later and do more details like morphology and such. The commons is accumulating a nice little stash of beetle pics that could have god articles written around them, see and click around. Stan 30 June 2005 13:09 (UTC)

Flacourtiaceae
I need some assistance with Flacourtiaceae please, to get it up to the APG classification. Most of the genera are now in Salicaceae, but there's quite a few genera where I've not been able to hunt down where they've been moved to since the demise of Flacourtiaceae. Does anyone know where to sort them to? - Thanks, MPF 28 June 2005 17:17 (UTC) (PS I like Wiwaxia's description of Flacourtiaceae as Cronquist's trash can!)


 * Some guesses:
 * Aberia is a synonym for Dovyalis
 * Berberidopsis in Berberidopsidaceae
 * Buchnerodendron in Achariaceae
 * Caloncoba in Achariaceae
 * Camptostylus in Achariaceae
 * Gossypiospermum may be in Buxaceae
 * You may find http://taxon.molgen.mpg.de/gettaxon useful. Gdr 2005-06-28 20:35:40 (UTC)
 * Thanks! - MPF 30 June 2005 10:00 (UTC)

Fern ident
Can anyone identify this fern pic uploaded by Fir0002 and now added at plant? It's from Nunniong in Gippsland, southeast Australia, I'm fairly sure it is a Blechnum species, but don't know which. It is a super photo, but for its taxobox position, it would be nice to have an accurate identification. - MPF 30 June 2005 10:00 (UTC)
 * A bit of rooting around on a google search Blechnum+Gippsland gives Blechnum nudum as very close and my best guess unless someone knows better - MPF 30 June 2005 10:28 (UTC)

Praying mantis
Can some people familiar with Taxobox articles take a look at Talk:Praying_mantis. Earlier in the month a user asked for input on merging Praying mantis with Mantidae which was previously a normal redirect. They may also have been getting confused with the order Mantodea, but having received no response, they have now gone ahead with a number of cut-n-paste moves and other changes.

It now needs someone familiar with standard taxo practice to untangle the related articles. -- Solipsist 30 June 2005 21:04 (UTC)
 * Took a look; I agree it's a mess. It also needs going over by someone familiar with mantises from a global perspective, as the pages all have a terrible US-POV as well, written as if nowhere exists outside of the USA (or at least, nowhere that matters). I'd agree with Stemonitis' note of 4 Mar 2005 on the naming of the pages. - MPF 30 June 2005 21:36 (UTC)

The article for Mantodea looks ok - I checked, and most information applies to the order as a whole. The article for Mantidae was mostly duplicated text, which I've removed. The species list was terribly incomplete for either - compare TOL - so I've pulled it as well. That should give a place to start. Someone else should decide exactly what praying mantis refers to; the Audubon Guide mentions it as a common name for Mantis religiosa. Incidentally, preying mantis is clearly a mistake, and I don't think we should mention it as an alternate name. Josh

Thanks a bunch for the help. When I started out praying mantis was the main article and Mantodea and Mantidae both redirected to that. Then it got ugly once I wanted to add the Chinese mantis, which is clearly different from religiosa. I tried to get input, but it looks like I simply wasn't asking in the right places. I've also been doing some big moves and re-arranging on Cockroach and Grasshopper which played similar tricks. Given that I now know about this page I'll hold off on doing more of those so that if it's wrong it's not too much work to undo. I've also been adding information (and sources) to a few of these as well. I'm very open to constructive criticism. Wikibofh 30 June 2005 22:39 (UTC)

Chillean identification
Instead of going straight to the reference desk, there was a suggestion that people here might be well placed for identifying photos of plants and animals. So here is one of each from a mountain top in the Atacama Desert. Any ideas? -- Solipsist 3 July 2005 11:06 (UTC)


 * Here are my semi-educated guesses, based on about an hour's research:


 * The cactus is probably a member of the genus Eriosyce (syn. Pyrrhocactus). While there are several genera of globose cacti, Eriosyce is the largest Chilean cactus genus, with ca. 27 endemic species and several(?) reported from the Atacama region. I can't pin down the species.
 * The lizard is probably a member of the genus Liolaemus, as this is one of the dominant genera of Atacaman lizards. I think this specimen most resembles the "rough-scaled lizard", Liolaemus nitidus (compare here; the coloration seems to be variable, and may also be seasonal). This is the only Liolaemus species with spiny scales that I'm aware of. The scale morphology is a very close match. Some sources seem to treat L. nitidus as a species group, suggesting even the experts aren't sure. Note that the general form and scales make this species look like a spiny lizard (Sceloporus spp.), but AFAIK they don't occur in Chile.


 * I hope I've helped! -- Hadal 5 July 2005 11:03 (UTC)
 * The identification of the 'curtailed' lizard as Liolaemus nitidus looks very likely. -- Solipsist 5 July 2005 18:27 (UTC)

Capitalization
When should the title of an article about a species be capitalized? I see that birds and crocodiles are almost all capitalized, mammals are mostly capitalized, fish and frogs are about 50/50. Dragonflies are capitalized, Butterflies are about 50:50, but cockroaches are not. Pines are capitalized, but flowers are mostly not.

I confess to being unable to understand the principles behind this scheme. Is there an article somewhere explaining it? How should I know whether to capitalize the title or not? Gdr 4 July 2005 22:23 (UTC)


 * My ignorant opinion: Capitalize like most of the rest of the wikipedia.  First word capitalized, all others not, except in proper nouns.  So, since species is normally not cap'd it would not be. The first word in the wiki is case insensitive.  (ie Butterfly and butterfly are the same) Wikibofh 4 July 2005 22:29 (UTC)
 * There is some guidance at Naming conventions (fauna). But, curiously, nothing at Naming conventions (flora). -- Solipsist 5 July 2005 00:09 (UTC)
 * This has been an ongoing discussion since the beginning of WikiProject Tree of Life, recorded in the archives ; see for instance : Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive11. And if you look deeper in the archives, you'll find more discussions. If I recall well, the naming convention for floral common names was to capitalize the common names. Unfortunately, some editors don't, creating confusion. JoJan 5 July 2005 07:54 (UTC)


 * And before that of course, there were the stonking great discussions on the mailing list, particularly about birds.
 * What all these discussions produced was that there is no truly compelling argument either way.
 * Since we can find worthy books that take each side, I am not sure there is correctness to worry about (i.e. both are in some sense correct).
 * I personally have a preference for the capped version, but fundamentally this for informal reasons ("black rat is ambigious, Black Rat isn't"-style arguments). However I think this preference is second to my preference that we are consistent to as large extent as possible. This discussion comes back again and again as newcomers think uppercase is wrong. I wonder if switching to lower case for all but Aves (where the birdwatcher vote, even in the literature outside of Wikipedia, which always capitalizes, is much stronger) but be a) acceptable and b) aid in reducing the noise. Pcb21| Pete 5 July 2005 08:38 (UTC)

Yes, I've read all those discussions. But what I don't see is any conclusion or style guideline. Naming conventions (fauna) says that capitalization is disputed. I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I would like to see something written down even if it's only a division of the higher taxa into "capitalize" and "lowercase". Gdr 5 July 2005 09:11 (UTC)


 * The project page (and I believe the naming convention page also) used to contain a distillation of the discussions that was quite pro-active (e.g. something like "Mammals are capitalized... Fish are not... For plants see... For the rest, writer's choice"). Another round of discussions watered that down to "no consensus". Another round watered that down to disputed. It is hard to avoid that really, because if one person disagrees with a fragile consensus, then they can slap a "disputed" clause on the relevant project page and the page ends up saying nothing at all. I too would like to see a strong statement either way. Maybe we need to slog it out with a fully-worked out choice of options and well-advertised vote (ala the Gdansk naming vote). After that we can legitimately say, sorry, unless your saying something new we've decided on this Pcb21| Pete 5 July 2005 09:29 (UTC) p.s. and now you say "but we did this already!" :-). Pcb21| Pete 5 July 2005 09:29 (UTC)


 * Yep, this one's been gone over many times! Each time there's been a vote, there's been a slender majority for full capitalisation, as Jo points out. But the anti-caps lobby is nearly as large as the pro, and both sides tend to continue as if their way is right . . . For the record, I'm in the pro-caps lobby (as is easy to see from the previous discussions).
 * While on the subject, I'd like to move all the oaks to full caps - a few already are, and all the other species in Fagales are, so the lower case oaks are a bit out of accord with the rest of the Fagales. And while I'm at it, I'd like to merge Category:Oaks into Category:Fagaceae; the latter has very few articles listed, and there's not really enough oaks to justify their own category either. So don't be surprised if you see a few oaks getting capitalised over the next few days!
 * The other option, for plants at least (as has also been discussed several times!), is to move all plant species to scientific names, thereby nullifying all the arguments over which (un)common name is the best one to use for the title. - MPF 5 July 2005 21:06 (UTC)

I'm also in the caps camp. One partial solution is to have a child project of ToL decide the issue for the articles that project would cover. This has been effective for at least the cetaceans, primates, and cephalopods, as well as the birds, of course. - UtherSRG July 5, 2005 21:56 (UTC)

To see a debate in process, check out the editorialization in, including the the familiar-sounding "We are aware of the polemics (and attendant emotion) that capitalization of common names invokes among some of the academic community [...]". While I personally prefer non-capitalization, I'm willing to go along with whatever the experts say to do - but in an area where there is ongoing debate and no consensus, I don't think that non-experts should presume to make a decision on their own authority. (It would be cool if someone were to create a WP article on this very subject, so that at least the facts of the situation are gathered in one place; perhaps this could become an opportunity to influence the discussion among specialists, who are not always fully aware of the situation outside of their own disciplines.) Stan 5 July 2005 22:23 (UTC)


 * Not sure about a seperate child project page - that's just one more page to forget to look at until too late (like the WikiProject Plants which I never remember to look at!). I think it's better to keep to just one (this) page.
 * Interesting to note that even with Wikibofh's rules things still aren't consistent - all the Magnolia species pages are lower case (e.g. Southern magnolia) - poor Pierre Magnol must be turning in his grave at being decapitalised! - MPF 5 July 2005 22:46 (UTC)

Stan Shebs had an interesting comment a while back that people tend to ungrammatically capitalize things they feel are important. I mainly get peeved at people who go on a crusade, changing hundreds of existing articles to their personal capitalization preference. Mackerm 5 July 2005 23:21 (UTC)


 * I don't recall saying "ungrammatical", but the Chicago manual does have an interesting comment about writers often capitalizing excessively when writing about religous topics, apparently thinking that it's more pious. The fish-related editorial does have a revealing little comment near the end, suggesting that capitalization might result in species being treated with more respect. That's POV though, we can't use that as a reason. :-) Stan 6 July 2005 03:09 (UTC)


 * I've been studying the taxonomy of skateboarding tricks, and was shocked to find out that only some of the maneuvers are capitalized. How are we to know whether a "stalefish grab" is a recognized move, or just rude behavior? With "Gorilla Grab", there's no confusion. Mackerm 6 July 2005 04:03 (UTC)

How about the following policy as a compromise: Gdr 6 July 2005 23:33 (UTC)
 * 1) Official or standard common names are capitalized if they are capitalized by the body that standardizes them, lower case if not.
 * 2) Common common names (not standardized by any official body) are always in lower case.
 * Interesting idea, though I'm not sure how well it would work, as I doubt official bodies agree any more than we do - MPF 7 July 2005 21:52 (UTC)
 * Seems plausible to me - since the official bodies that have actually standardized names seem to favor capitalization, use of lowercase would tend to suggest an unofficial status. Stan 7 July 2005 22:35 (UTC)


 * If we do this long enough, does it become a standard, and thus force us to change to number 1? Of course, I'm kidding.  :)  Wikibofh 7 July 2005 22:44 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, in what cases are there official common names? I know they exist for birds, but I haven't heard of any others. This page, incidentally, suggests that capitalization of species names is done almost exclusively by ornithologists, although it's fairly old. Josh
 * Though they also say "The use of lower case initial letters in English names in other disciplines seems to be a matter of traditionß but we encourage capitalization for English names of species not only in birds but in other groups as well" - a statement which I (of course!) would agree with strongly, for the reasons they give. The comment "the phrases "a White Tern" and "a white tern" have distinctly discrete meaning" are just as relevant repeated "the phrases "a White Oak" and "a white oak" have distinctly discrete meaning" (respectively, Quercus alba and Quercus sect. Quercus) - MPF 7 July 2005 23:17 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the arguments. I'm just pointing out that Gdr's proposal would probably amount to capitalizing birds and not capitalizing much else. Josh


 * The idea behind my proposal is the principle that Wikipedia should in general follow the experts in a field, not try to anticipate them. As to which taxa would be included, I'm not sure. But it wouldn't just be birds. I note that there appear to be official common names for:
 * Reptiles
 * Fishes
 * Insects
 * Gdr 8 July 2005 07:49 (UTC)


 * Alternatively, you could just follow the standard in some other encyclopedia, which has the advantage of reconciling the use of non-standard capitalization in various academic fields, not just biology. Although I've been critical of the over-use of capitalization, it does have one advantage: it just looks amateurish. It's a red flag that an article isn't to be trusted. Mackerm 8 July 2005 08:27 (UTC)


 * Ouch! I've stayed out of this debate as views seem to be so entrenched but that hurt! I always use capitals, partly for disambiguation reasons (eg Ghost Moth indicates a species, ghost moth can mean any member of a family), partly because all the sources I use (some very erudite and scientific, some more populist, all "trustworthy" for my money) use caps as well. Richard Barlow 8 July 2005 09:58 (UTC)


 * What capitalization scheme do you use to indicate any member of a genus? "ghost Moth", perhaps? Mackerm 8 July 2005 15:09 (UTC)


 * Why does a capitalization scheme for common names need to cover the precision of all the scientific categories? Since we're talking about common names, they are already going to be inconsistent and informal and we can't change that.  We're not talking about precision here, we're talking about consistency. It's a style debate. Wikibofh 8 July 2005 15:18 (UTC)


 * Your mouth to God's ear. Mackerm 8 July 2005 15:30 (UTC)


 * Amusingly enough, at least the insect link from above makes no mention of capitalization, although it uses all lowercase in it's examples. :)  Wikibofh 8 July 2005 13:52 (UTC)

Given that Jimbo decreed that Wikipedia ToL was for trivia whilst real science was reserved Wikispecies, perhaps we should standardize on whatever the makers of Free Willy. Pcb21| Pete 8 July 2005 16:41 (UTC)


 * So far, wikispecies doesn't do list much that isn't better suited to TOL. Since the charter is for it not to overlap, I would consider it still in the experimental stage, and not worry about it. Josh

If we are to follow the standard authorities (sensible), then - for plants at least (and I suspect several other groups too) - we ditch common names completely and stick to scientific names. The authoritative plant books (e.g. the Kew checklists, or the APG publications) simply don't even mention common names at all. I'd have no problem following suit for page titles. This gets rid of all the capitalisation problems too, since Genus species capitalisation applies throughout. Beautifully simple and consistent. - MPF 8 July 2005 21:43 (UTC)


 * Get thee to Wikispecies! More seriously, it is a complete non sequitur to use a discussion about capitalisation to abandon common names. We've been through this issue before too and there is strong support for using common names as part of making our content widely accessible. Pcb21| Pete 8 July 2005 22:37 (UTC)
 * The problem with plants is that the the sommon names aren't necessarily common at all. I can think of a number of examples where there are several common names, even just within the United States.--nixie 05:34, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * We shouldn't use those. The way I read our policy is to use the most common name, which can be either the scientific name or the vernacular.  For instance we should use sunflower instead of Helianthus and wheat instead of Triticum, but Lithodora instead of grace ward. Josh
 * Just to illustrate the pitfalls, Helianthus can indicate sunflower or Jerusalem artichoke! All three have separate articles and that's probably how it should be. I agree with your point but what is the "most" common name should provoke "healthy" debate! Richard Barlow 10:00, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm hoping that this discussion is wider than just about Titles, so I'm goint to suggest what the key problem is with Common Names. But first, were problems with Common Names not solved during the great era of Taxonomy or in the century since? Or, are today's experts (mostly narrow group specialists) about to demonstrate some great new consensus? Or, are the cultural mores of the world's nations about to hand up the necessary new concepts? No signs; whatever it is, it's our problem. The good news? Most of the clues needed to solve it are already posted here!

The above discussion seems to lean towards a consensus (but do let's have a vote), yet the problem area remains static. Nobody moved it; nobody moved themselves. I guess this is because our focus is skewed. We seem to want to know,' "What should the standard Common Name' look like?".

It's our current social 'tradition' to be superficial. Why are we concerned about 'style' when there are more interesting aspects? Where, in the above discussion or in the works of the great academic institutions, is there interest in the uses and functions of Common Names? I don't see any, yet I've got a feeling that Common Sense says they are needed to help people deal with important information: for remembering and recall; as indispensable keys to unlock recorded information; and for communication of information for use in Conservation, etc. Useable Common Names are primarily needed in peoples' heads - everywhere that Conservation needs local help. Ie, they need to be in use at a local level, and therefore in all keyboard compatible languages (so that computers can cope later).

There is only one rule that I know of: 'Common Names should be linked to valid taxonomic names'. OK, this is a series of minefields - one for each Rank that is, or isn't, used. But this area is worth working hard at. Let's do it - unless we can be sure that others are already doing it better. Other points are about style, appearance or preferences and should be dealt with pragmatically, thinking only of the users in the field. Common sense and cooperation will cope without a fuss.

Do I need to hint at my Capitalization preference? The "black rat", as mentioned above, could be tan coloured with a pure white underbelly (photo available (thanks to "Meg" (our resident Canine Megafauna) when I learn how to post it). 11:17, 10 July 2005 (UTC) & Stanskis 21:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't understand anything you've written above. Please clarify. Gdr 14:06, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I will try, thanks. Thanks for starting this discusion It's a favourite of mine from the aspect that Common Names should have a function, and this should help with "the problems" that people find in "how to standaradise them". I don't want to preach or to lecture, so, above, I've tried to theorise. My best answer to you is the page User:Marshman which contains wisdom that I'm only beginning to pick up on in WikiWorld. One specific point; I see your proposal: "the principle that WIkiPedia should in general follow the experts...". Where to? Are we lost? Some experts would print "black rat", but who would dare to print "honda integra" or "toyota corolla"? Where are society's (conservation) values? Stanskis 21:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Identification of dragonflies
Hello there, it would be great, if you can help us identify some pictures of dragonflies from Ontario near Algonquin Provincial Park. It is discussed in the german Wikipedia so it would be great if you may answer at de:Diskussion:Portal_Lebewesen. Greetings from Berlin, Achim Raschka 6 July 2005 07:41 (UTC)
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 * Image:Libelle 7 db.jpg
 * Image:Libelle 8 db.jpg


 * The first two look like female Libellula luctuosa, or possibly immature male. I don't immediately recognize any of the other six. --Eric Forste 8 July 2005 23:39 (UTC)
 * Thanks I took the pictures and would be very glad if anyone could identify the other ones. de:Dickbauch

I thought that No. 7 could be an Orthetrum albistylum, but I'm not sure if this species of dragonflies lives in Canada. Does anyone know more about that? -- Der Meister
 * googling wasn't helpful in answering, but did dig up these images, that cast some doubt on this identification

(unless that's a case of sexual dimorphism, but my are is plants, not insects) Circeus 12:41, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * Hi Circeus. The pictures you found both show female dragonflies. Here you can see a male one and here you can see the differences between the male and the female insects. But I still am not sure if O. albistylum lives in Canada. -- Der Meister

Poultry
A dispute has arisen on the categorisation of several articles including Phasianidae, Anatidae, Dove, Wild Turkey, New World quail. I've moved it to Talk:Poultry to get other viewpoints on this. jimfbleak 05:25, 11 July 2005 (UTC)