Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 2

I have a question regarding standard templates. I noticed that there has been some discussion on wether to split articles on animals into scientific and more popular ones. I personally think that the information should be in one place and not spread over (or duplicated in) more articles. Since I would like to create some new animal articles, my proposal would be to start with a general introduction / summary and then a more in depth scientific part. The structure I would like to use is:

Scientific name: Scientific synonyms: Common name: Common synonyms: General introduction: -->here come a summary / popular description Description: Habitat: Diet: Behaviour: Reproduction: Ecology: Anatomy: Physiology: Taxonomy: Care and maintenance in captivity: References:

Now, before someone starts to restructure my work, I would like to know if there are any thoughts/comments on my proposal.

Jurriaan

I just added a quick paragraph on Trilliaceae. How does one add the "template stuff" to a page so that it fits in with the TOL framework?

Susan

Suggestion for standard template: status
Would it be a good idea to add something like "status" to the standard table? I'm envisioning this saying something like:
 * Extinct (ca. 1985)
 * Extinct (ca. 600 m years ago)
 * Endangered (UN classification something or-other-with-a-link)
 * etc.

This way people could tell at a glance whether the animal/plant/etc. being discussed is an ancient one, a current but rare one, a common one, etc.

Another possibility would be to have a field "estimated population":
 * 5.2 million
 * 25 billion
 * Extinct (ca. 1985)
 * etc.

But this may be problematic because I'm not sure even remotely good estimates are available for many species. --Delirium 21:33, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

Templates or not?
I'm a newcomer here but have been doing some work on a few species of mammals and birds I know about. I didn't find my way to the standard template until after I had started (I know, I know...) but I do have my doubts about it.

1. the page on the ToL project page badly needs re-writing to reflect current realities - the project seems to have evolved since the page was put together. Who has the authority to do that?

2. I agree that we certainly don't want two types of pages, popular and scientific. We should get the two sorts of information onto a single page, though we need to flag, at least implicitly, the level we're talking at - usually pretty clear from style and content

3. Partly because of (2), the rigid use of a template should be avoided. Particularly with taxa where there's a dearth of scientific knowledge, it's going to lead to unattractive articles with sections like

Diet: little known

etc etc. Have a look at one I've just done on the Woolly Flying Squirrel - as it stands, it's a quick summary of what we know that you can read in seconds - if we templated it, it would stretch over 2 screens and look a mess. (And it's likely to stand like that for some time unless we can track down P. Zahler and get him/her to fill in the details.) On the other hand, a template is always a useful checklist, and where we know more should probably normally be used, if only to flag up gaps in the article that others with an interest should be able to fill.

seglea at 0522utc on 031104


 * I agree with you about the templates; there's no real reason to have standardised headings, in fact, this is the first time i've even noticed them.


 * It's good to have ideas for headings, if your article is long enough, but i don't think they make an article read like an encyclopedia. If we have headings and one-line responses it looks more like a information table than an article.

Who has the authority to do that?
 * Everyone has the authority to do everything on wikipedia. :-) Tristanb 21:42, 4 Nov 2003 (UTC)

So, the article headers seem to have little support, and are rarely if ever still used. Can we take them out, so that we can focus on organization and the taxoboxes, which are used everywhere? It would be much more helpful to make this page a description of the standard wikipedia treatment of taxa.

lists of genera
There are several articles which are just lists of genera in a family (e.g. List of Araliaceae genera). It seems to me we should merge those with the family in each case. Any objections, or other thoughts? WormRunner 04:59, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * Seems like a good idea. The only reason for not doing that would be if it made the family entry too unwieldy - but I can't think of any that would be like that.  Presumably the list will always be at the bottom, anyway, where it isn't exactly in the way. seglea 07:00, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * The basic problem is that some families have huge numbers of genera. You can put them in the taxobox, but this makes for a gigantic table (see Ladybird for one I did) and cause make problems for pictures in the body of the text. So one reaction is to move the genera to their own list article, which looks weird but works, and another reaction would be to put the genera as a list in the body of the article. It's a reasonable approach, a downside being that the big blob-of-list in the narrative is not so good for readers, who have to scroll through it. Stan 07:41, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * I would prefer to put the list of genera into the body. It looks ugly in the taxobox. This list should appear at the end of the text, so that readers don't have to scroll endlessly before reaching the section they are interested in. Only if an article has reached a huge size, one could think about moving that list into an own file. In most cases that should be avoided. -- Baldhur 08:27, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * I agree with Baldhur Jurriaan 09:56, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It doesn't like there has been any discussion about expanding the taxobox (BTW, see Taxobox) to include other information besides classification. I think it would be a Good Thing to include stuff like:
 * Time of flowering/seed-forming for plants
 * Mating season for animals
 * Migration sources/destinations for birds
 * Wingspan for birds
 * Habitat (either general or specific -- shallow waters, prairie, tundra or Chesapeake Bay, Amazon Rainforest, Ural Mountains, as required for the species)
 * For fruits and vegetable that are eaten, some nutrition stuff might be good, though it might be better to make a separate table for foodstuffs)
 * Diet
 * Predators

Tuf-Kat


 * I would be against putting more into the taxobox - it would gobble up most of the article on Tuf-Kat's proposal, for many of the less known taxa. We already have quite a lot of cases where the taxobox is bigger than the text, and we don't want more.  But I do think we should try harder to put the name-authorities into the Binomial Name section of the taxo box - we really should be able to manage Gadus wallopantis L. instead of just Gadus wallopantis.  seglea 07:56, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree 100% with Seglea, we should leave some information for the text. Most of the points listed above don't fit that much into a list-style presentation, complete sentences are more approbiate to present them. The only exception might be a world/region map to show the geographical distribution. But even that can be fit into the text and doesn't need to go into the taxobox. And we just more-or-less agreed to move longer lists of sub-taxa (like the list of species) out of the taxobox to avoid the taxobox being longer than the actual text. andy 09:02, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree with seglea and andy. The idea of a standard range map is intriguing, though the problem of scale (universal occurence, versus a range with a 35 mile radius) might make this less useful.  WormRunner 09:16, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * It's the same problem already solved for the country maps - there are a few countries which have just 35 miles circumferences as well - see e.g. Andorra. andy 09:20, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I am very keen to put in a range map for each cetacea species once I've finished off the last few species articles text. Do we have a GFDL map of the world that could be used as a template lying around anyway? Preferably as plain as possible? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:23, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Take a look at Blank maps - most of the maps there are created by User:Vardion. andy 09:27, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks, the world map by Vardion will be great for my purposes. Good work you and him! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:51, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Seglea + world + dog that it is a bad idea to add more info to the taxoboxes. But I think that the suggestion made above about the creature's status is an excellent one. This is, after all, the single most important bit of information there is about the creature - i.e., does it even exist anymore?

Some time ago, I spent quite a few hours trying to work up a taxobox form that would (a) contain the animal's conservation status in an easily-read, at-a-glance way, and (b) not clutter up the page or take too much space. I never did get one that I was 100% happy with, but my drafts are still here on the 'pedia somewhere, probably in a subpage of my user space. Tannin 11:03, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Or, as I wrote on my scratchpad: I think it would be a vast improvement to have the IUCN conservaton categories as part of the taxoboxes - (a) because that is very important information, (b) because, seeing as we are using so much screen real estate for the taxoboxes already, we might as well make them work a bit harder for their living, ad (c) becasuse it's one of the few items of information that is always present for any animal: i.e., all animals have a conservation category, even if it is just "data deficient". Tannin 11:15, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, I'm not going to push it if nobody wants to go along, but I think this will come up eventually, and I'd rather be pre-emptive. Right now, the only easy-to-read at-a-glance table in these articles gives scientific taxonomic info.  Sooner or later, a birdwatcher or gardener or dietician or fisherman or vet or hunter will want to put information in that is more relevant for their fields of interest; stuff that they might want to be able to see at a glance.


 * For example, I have Audubon Society field guides to North American wildflowers, trees and fishes, whales and dolphins. For the purposes of identifying fishes, the following characteristics are given: (this is verbatim for the diamond killfish (a wonderful name, BTW, sounds like a James Bond movie))


 * Description: To 2 in (5 cm). Very deep and compressed, depth about half length.  Dark green with 10-14 narrow, pearly bands with wider interspaces; belly yellow; lower jaw orange; pelvic fins fusky; tips yellow; dorsal and anal fins dusky with pale blue or orange spots; caudal fin barred with some pale spots. Snout pointed; head flat above, anterior profile concave; mouth terminal; teeth conical.  Dorsal fin origin anterior to anal fin origin. Caudal peduncle deep.
 * Habitat: Shallow lagoons, tide pools, ditches and salt marshes
 * Range: Gulf of Mexico from S. Florida to S. Texas
 * Similar species: Sheepshead Minnow (Cyprinodon variegatus) has blunter snout; humeral scale present
 * Comments: This beautiful killfish is often locally abundant in shallow tidal areas of marshes and barrier islands.


 * Even the somewhat tabular and space-efficient Audubon entries aren't very difficult to read -- too many numbers and jargon tossed about; it would be much easier in a more organized and longer table with links to articles explaining the jargon (which Wikipedia, being not paper and being hyperlinked, is ideal for). The long description above is barely comprehendable in a paragraphed list, and would not be much easier even in full sentences.  The wildflowers and trees include the same kind of detailed descriptive info that would be of use to someone trying to identify the species in the wild.  It is not easy to read through prose while inspecting birds through binoculars or fish through muddy lake water, and a standardized, tabular way of including this info would be useful for people not interested in the more arcane aspects of taxonomy. These facts can certainly be included in prose (as could anything), but would be most useful in an easy to read format. Tuf-Kat 06:43, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * P.S. I'm aware we have a wikiproject for dog breeds, birds and cetaceans and that none of them have brought this up, but they (or future participants) could, and my point still stands.
 * Wikiproject Cetaceans to a large extent consists of just me, so I thought I should throw in a comment. I too have the Audubon guide (to Marine Mammals). It and other field guides list some data in table form - such as weight, length, gestation, maturation, longevity - i.e. pure numeric statistics. I could cope with these things being in table form on the wiki too - if that was happening elsewhere in the Tree of Life. Things like distribution and description need to be prose, IMO. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:34, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, it looks like the consensus is to not drastically expand the taxobox, but there is interest in the range map and the conservation status. Maybe we should look at this bottom up rather than top down. Are there any other pieces of info that might be looked on favorably? Should the species box be fundamentally different from the higher categories? Any changes in standard format people would like to see? I would like to see less bold type and more consistent inclusion of the author of the taxon. WormRunner 07:20, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think that it would be neat to add a few well-chosen items to the bottom of taxoboxes (such as Red Book status, range, habitat type). It would also be neat to have maps showing the range. But all those changes will have to be decided upon by consensus. --mav 08:51, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

As you say, Mav, adding more information to the bottom would be neat. I'll ponder which information in another post. But first, I think we need to consider another factor: this is that the longer the taxobox grows, the more difficult it makes the layout of the page as a whole. In particular, a long taxobox makes it all-but impossible to add a picture. Sure, you can pot a picture in the box itself, but you often need two or three pictures to do justice to a subject. Many bird species have very different male, female, and juvenile plumages, for example. Sometimes you might want a nest, or maybe even some representative habitat. It's the same with plants. Often the best arrangement is to have (for example) a mature tree in the taxobox, a close-up of the leaf and blossom, and finally the fruit. If you have a long taxobox, you can't fit the 2nd and 3rd pictures into the text as there is not enough horozontal space for them (unless the article is a good deal longer than average).

So, yes, I'm in favour of making the taxoboxes as informative as possible, but also in favour of making them as small as possible. Obviously, these goals are mutually incompatible. Somewhere in the middle is the ideal compromise. But exactly where? We need to ponder this carefully, I think, and try out as many ideas as we can to find the best one. Tannin 09:05, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree. The long length of the element tables has been a bit of a formatting frustration for me. But I guess that goes with the territory for the elements. The formatting needs of organisms are going to be more demanding, as you state, and there is less easily tabulated data for them as well (esp given the great differences there are between large taxonomic groups). --mav 09:11, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't think I've seen anybody suggest using a second separate table for additional specialized info. While a large taxobox is formatting hell, text can flow nicely around a collection of smaller tables and images. It also finesses pushing inappropriate or unavailable data into the standard taxobox format; the things that you might want as tabular data for birds are rather different than what you want for beetles, or fish, or palm trees. To me a taxobox answers "what is it" at a glance and gives me nav tools to escape quickly if I'm in the wrong place; if I'm really interested in diet, range, etc, I'll take the trouble to scroll around a bit. Stan 20:52, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'd say that's the important point, that stuff in the taxobox be generally applicable, and also something that tends to vary within the group. Diet isn't likely to be exceptionally simple or different for most species of termites, say, and simply doesn't apply to most plants. Status, however, could be genuinely useful for extinct groups if it is extended to a temporal range. It's worth knowing that Tyrannosaurus is from the Late Cretaceous and Apatosaurus from the Late Jurassic, and that sort of information should apply to nearly everything. --Josh

I just pick up Wormrunner's side point of adding the author of the taxon. I did include that one with the latest taxoboxes I did in case I could find the info, however it didn't look much good for those cases the author isn't abbreviated - the "L." behind is no problem, but if it is two names a linebreak is necessary, and also I'd prefer it be non-bolded as it is less important than the taxonomic name except for the biologists. BTW: Binomial nomenclature does not mention that the author is often listed after the taxonomic names, can anyone add it who knows more about that scheme than me. Also interesting would be the rules when and how the author is abbreviated - that Linne gets a L. is rather easy to grasp, but he is not the only one I saw abbreviated. andy 09:27, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * (Copied from our user talk pages)
 * WormRunner: I noticed you removed the author from the example organism taxobox. Is this a policy thing for birds?  The standard on the tree of life page is to have the author there and this is standard in my experience for species in general.


 * Tannin: Actually, I didn't realise what I'd done until afterwards. I happened to glance at the page again (not having edited it since last night) and thought Tannin, you idiot: there is a great big typo in the middle of your shiny new wikicode taxobox. It was only after saving the (minor) change that I paused to wonder where that particular typo had snuck in from and the reality dawned on me.


 * Having explained that, let's ponder the idea. Currently, none of the animal taxa taxoboxes provide the author (or at least not in the areas I am familiar with, mostly the higher taxa). In fact, I don't recall seeing it around the plant pages either, though I've not spent much time there. So the tree of life "standard" is not a standard, at least not currently. I suspect it was quietly added by someone and no-one has noticed that it's there yet.


 * Should it be a standard thing? Hmmm .... I can see arguments both ways. The "pro" is obvious, the main "cons" are (a) layout considerations in the already cramped taxoboxes, and (b) readability. My first impression thought it is that if we were to add the author to the taxoboxes we would need, at the very least, to abandon the bold type to help make stuff fit. Possibly the article text is a better place. One to ponder.


 * (End copy)


 * What do you guys mean by "author"? Do you mean the super-ugly ref link? That is what the ==References== section of articles are for. Standard MoS stuff. --mav 09:43, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * The "L." of "Urtica dioica L." is what we are discussing. I certainly didn't come up with the idea.  It has been on the standard plant species template since I started editing here.  For mammals and birds it may not be that important, but some strange things happen with names among plants and invertebrates and I think its a good idea.  I wouldn't stick it in any other part of the article though unless there is a really good story to tell there.  As for the bold type, I think there could be less of it in the taxobox.  Perhaps its just my browser, but it doesn't seem to work well for me.  Anyway, just my 2 cents. As has been pointed out elsewhere, this is a consensus thing.  WormRunner 09:53, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * It is the name of the taxonomist who first described that taxa. You can find many taxonomic names with a small "L." behind it as that taxa was first introduced by Linne himself. The more scientific the reference the more often you'd find that author behind the name. I said someone more knowledgeable about it should add about it into the article on the taxonomic names :-) Of course we can also cite the paper/book which introduced that taxa in the references section as well. (I hate editing conflicts). andy 09:57, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Personally, I wouldn't cite the original reference in an encyclopedia unless it was the primary source of information about the species. This is only likely when the species is newly described or obscure.  BTW, I put a note about authors into binomial nomenclature. WormRunner 18:18, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * That's not so bad. But I never got the L. = Linne bit. I don't think that stuff that obscure should be in the table. --mav

Taxobox streamlining
(Copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds): It seems that the 'th' tag automatically centers and bolds. As I'm editting, I'm removing the align="center" and all bolding from 'th' tagged lines. This has no effect on the display, but makes the html more user readable. I'm also making sure there's a line for an image, taged with 'td align="center"' and includes only a comment to but the image there. - UtherSRG 20:32, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * The extra line does have a visual effect - on many browsers it creates a gap and double line. It looks ugly, and yet it's not clear that every group should have an image.  Many bacteria, for instance, look identical but have other important differences.  I'd vote strongly against the empty row, and in absence of a convincing reason to do otherwise will remove it wherever I run into it.  For center tags, see below.

Wiki tables vs HTML tables
(Copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds): Bah! I seriously dislike the wiki table markup. It is not readable in the slightest. The HTML tags, although sometimes cryptic, at least have some bearing on what they affect. When I see a 'table' tag, I know I'm dealing with a table, 'tr' a row in that table, 'th' a heading in the table, 'td' a piece of data in the table. Bah on wiki tables! - UtherSRG 16:01, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * I find that I can't instinctively construct them from scratch - I need to copy and paste - but then again I do that with HTML tables too!. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 20:00, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Range map: Request for advice
I have just added my first cetacea range map - at Sperm Whale. I would very much appreciate advice on the map itself, and its positioning on the article page. Graphic design is not my forte! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 20:00, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * In a parallel attempt I made one such map for the Fire Salamander - with the two main differences that it is a terrestrial animal, and limited to Europe. I have just two comments to your map which is already quite good: at first I would suggest to keep the land in grey, so it is easier to recognize that the colored part means the area where the species is found. Of course it's easy to grasp that for a whale the blue part is the important one, but with grey land it'd be even more obvious. The second is that the non-thumbnailed version is a bit big, half the size would be better, then it can be seen fully on the image page, at least for the bigger screen resolutions. For the map I created I avoided to make a bigger map, as the source map wasn't much more detailed either.
 * So I'd like to request for comments on mz fire salamander map as well. andy 22:11, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * I've updated the map to take your comments on board (see Sperm Whale) but with a different filename in case there is any need to go back to the old one. I like your image a lot - the only thing is that it is a little too small for my taste - but a lot of this could be to do with screen resolution? Keeping the country borders seems to be very effective to me on your map. However when I tried that for whales it seems to detract too much from the important data which is the sea! So the rule of thumb so far might be to have borders for land animals, no borders for sea animals ... the birders of course have more to think about! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 00:31, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * I've kept the borders as they make it a bit easier to find around on a map - but they only make sense if they are still visible enough. So they are useful on a European map (including maritime animals of the baltic sea for example) or other regional maps, but on world map they will become more-or-less useless. For the size I just choosed the same size as the country locator maps - and my source data for the map wasn't good enough to upload a higher resolution without feeling showing wrong data. Another minor comment on your map - I would put the legend to the image description page, not inside the picture, as in the thumbailed version only a white square in bottom stay visible. This looks like the sperm whale lives almost everywhere except in that small square in the South Pacific :-) Ah, and I'd suggest to use a lighter shade of grey (white for the ocean, light-grey for the land, maybe same colors as I used?), to have a higher contrast between the populated and unpopulated area. andy 08:48, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Pictures for you guys
I have uploaded several pictures you people might be interested in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plants_and_animals_of_Belize  Most are unidentified and any help along those lines would be appreciated I took all of them in Belize where I reside and will take request for anything that is native to Belize and will try to fill request in a timely manner. Belizian 03:24, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC) Added more pics Belizian

Another flora picture (to identify, this time)
I was walking around Kenilworth Castle and spotted this tree, which I didn't recognise but thought perhaps rather uncommon (at least in the United Kingdom); is it (a) identifiable and (b) worthwhile for the Wikipedia? (The images on that site are licensed as public domain.) James F. (talk) 14:09, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

My opinion is that this tree looks like a Cryptomeria. jaknouse 02:03, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It's a Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum). Several photos on the page already. - MPF 18:02, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

While it looks like a sequoia to me, I can't tell at that resolution. It is currently being used as the photo for Sugi. Shouldn't this discussion move back to the current page? -- WormRunner 18:10, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Hi WR, I've enough experience of both to tell at the small photo, but if you click on it to see the full size pic full size it's even more obvious, with the diagnostic cones readily visible (and the foliage, too). I'll go collect a Cryptomeria shoot and scan it in the next day or two for a pic (I've got a scanner but not a digi camera). - MPF 18:45, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Doh! (smacks forehead) I never clicked to look at the fullsize picture.  Thanks.  WormRunner 18:53, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

ToL Children Projects
I'm becoming strongly of the mind that we should have more children of this project. Birds and Cetaceans are a good start, but there are plenty of commonality and taxonomic discussions that really need to happen, but here is probably not the place. For instance, I've begun looking at the Primates and they are a mess! Regardless of how fractured the literature is, we should be consistent in our usages. If Catarrhini is a subfamily on the Primates page, it should be a subfamily throughout all of the other primate pages it is on. (Discussions like this would happen on the respective Project pages, instead of on the individual article talk pages.) I suppose, given the demoanarchy (my own neologism, from democracy and anarchy) here, I should just go ahead and make any Project I think needs to be made, but I wanted to get some discussion going about it first. (I'll very likely create WikiProject Primates this evening regardless.) - UtherSRG 18:46, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Linking to Projects
Species P. punnctatus P. quadragintus P. rubricatus P. striatus I also think it would be wise to have a link to the relavent Project(s) from (at the very least) the taxobox. Something like the taxobox the the right. - UtherSRG 18:52, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * No - self referential links are not supposed to be in articles due to the fact that downstream users often leave out the Wikipedia namespace. Just have those type of links at the top of every talk page associated with such a project. --mav 09:26, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I do agree that having something very explicit on the talk page is good, and I've proceeded with that via. I don't totally agree with the reasoning to exclude any such info from the article page: Should the needs of the direct user or the absolute prevention of lossage on the downstream end be given a higher priority? I think the direct user should be given as much preference as is reasonable, without unduely affecting the downstream user. Including the links in the manner I'm suggesting gives significantly more benefit to the direct user than the potential lossage to the downstream user. - UtherSRG 14:28, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * For direct WP readers, it is a benefit. One wouldn't see the style guide for a hard copy encyclopedia, but WP isn't paper. I think it's a good thing for the non-editors to have a look under the hood. Let's them see the hows and whys of some articles.
 * For non-WP users, it will either work normally, link directly to the WP namespace, or not work. As long as it works somehow, it is somewhat beneficial. However, the benefit is much less than for the direct WP user. The lossage is therefor less significant.


 * I don't care for adding the WP-referencing stuff into the reader-visible content of the article; in the case of WikiProjects, which are not universally accepted/followed on the best of days, it's a little more like a look onto the sausage factory floor. :-) Although WP is not paper, we do know that people print out articles to hand around, and there is an expectation that eventually copies will go onto CD for schools and such. In those cases we want the article to "look right", and not have the anybody-can-edit paraphernalia all over articles for which that's not true. In the case of links to WikiProjects from the article rather than the talk page, what exactly is the problem that is being solved? Stan 18:10, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Does a change have to solve a problem for it to be valid? Does a change have to cause no problems for it to be valid? I think the answers to both of these questions in 'no'. As I addressed above, this change will add some beneficial links, and cause minimal problems. Print versions of WP will have plenty of other internal WP references. As for the sausage factory, at least there is a factory standard that links together all the bird pages and all the cetaceans and (soon) all the primates, and then above them all of the life articles. There are plenty of articles being made by individual sausage makers without any guidance. I want to make it as easy for the sausage makers to find the sausage making guidelines. The best way would be for the link the the WikiProject to show up on the sideboard for the relevant articles. I don't ever see that happening anytime soon, if at all. The next best way is for it to show up in the article itself in a most unobtrusive manner. - UtherSRG 18:29, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I still strongly object since these links will only be useful to Wikipedia editors. They are at best useless and at worst distracting for readers -- especially readers who are reading a non-editable version of the article (which includes nearly every single downstream user - except Wikipedia forks). Best then to just put the links at the top of talk pages (where actual editors hang out to discuss how to improve the article - part of that is conformance to the WikiProject it falls under). No reason to expose readers to the guts of the article creation process. That is metadata and that is what talk pages are for (notice that talk pages are not linked from the body text of articles either). --mav


 * I agree with mav - think of the proposed Wikipedia 1.0 or the proposed paper version - an article should stand by itself, or at worst stand together with other articles of an article series. Of course if those links are "hidden" on the talk page which the casual editor might not find we can have non-standard articles - but with that nifty table such a user might guess that there is something special going on anyway. But if that user wants to start a new article about a lifeform, how will he ever see the link to the project? In short - I think they are not needed. andy 08:45, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * If they were creating the new critter page from some page within the Project's realm (ie. from a Genus or Family page listing the critter), they would already have the link to the Project from that page. Elsewise, you'd have what you have now - some pages created within the Project's standard, some not. - UtherSRG 13:08, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Firstly, I am really pleased that you are spearheading a Primates project. I've scooted around the orders descending from Mammal and was pleasantly surprised by how good the coverage is. However primates is a big, important area - I imagine it would be possible, like cetaceans, to more or less get down to an article per species eventually. We will really benefit from a WikiProject devoted to it.


 * Secondly, I heartily agree that a customisable sidebar would be a great boon. There is a feature request on sourceforge for it, but like you I'm not holding my breath.


 * Finally, and this is one you probably don't want to read!, I have to agree with mav and andy that it is best to have links to WikiProjects only from the talk page. The neatness in separating creation and presentation of articles appeals to me a lot. Rest assured editors will read the talk page. One possibility is a List of primate topics which will help co-ordinate articles in the main namespace Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:11, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Feh. Well, I'm certainly out-spoken on this one. The overwhelming majority is against these links. Hrm. One final benefit of the link being on the page mean that the "What links here" link on the Project page will get the user the set containing all of the Project's articles (albeit more than just that set). Ok... next thought... is there a way for wiki messages to expand differently for local WP users vs. downstream users? My thought is that the infobox could include the links via a that produces nothing for downstream users and Project links for WP users. - UtherSRG 13:08, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Mav, UtherSRG please ceasefire!
UtherSRG, Mav the backwards and forwards reverting of this page is becoming close to an edit war. On the science pages we expect better :-). Let's sort out a reasonable solution: The goal is to have a centered header in the taxoboxes. Some browsers require an align="center" statement to achieve this, others do not. The data I have is this:


 * IE 6.0 -
 * Pcb21's laptop A - requires the align
 * Pcb21's laptop B - does not require the align
 * UtherSRG's computer - does not require the align
 * Mav's computer - requires the align


 * Konqueror x.x
 * Mav's computer - requires the align


 * Mozilla 1.6
 * Pcb21's laptop B - does not require the align

Clearly there is something odd in the bowels of Windows (something to do with updates or something) that is causing differing alignment behaviour even within the same version of IE. The issue therefore boils down to a choice of

a) include the align statement - RESULT: everyone has a centered header, at the expensive of a bit more HTML code

or

b) don't include the align statement: RESULT: people may or may not get that centered header. (They may get a left-aligned header instead). The markup is a little bit simpler.

a) or b) is absolutely fine to me. Please discuss here and then pick one that could be stuck to! Thanks, Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 01:29, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Mav picks a), I pick b). *grins* - UtherSRG 02:09, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * It'd be good to get a few more opinions then :-). I have to say it is a bit disappointing that mav has reverted both this and the bird page again since I tried to move the debate to a talk page rather than ping-ponging edit summaries, once with the summary that Konqueror doesn't work either, which I had already noted here, and once with the summary "wrong" which is hardly helpful. Resolving disagreements on a talk page is the policy for all, mav, no exemptions for particular personality types, sorry. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:25, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * NB mav had forgotten to log in/got logged out which is why the most recent revert appears as an anon ip - above comment might not make sense without noting that! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:28, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I use Galeon and Konqueror and it works fine on both of them, and yet if it doesn't on some people's machines, unless we can point to a specific setting problem, we should explicitly center. WormRunner 02:23, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * BTW, since this involves so many different browsers which seem to operate differently on different machines, perhaps it is a CSS stylesheet issue? WormRunner 05:00, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Just as a note, do any require align="center", or will align=center work for all of them? The quotation marks are a nuisance, and we shouldn't use them if they're not necessary.  This applies to the color tags as well.  Btw, my vote would be to leave the tags out, on the grounds that people who need them would presumably be used to left-aligned headers - but I'm not one of the people affected, and they count more. --Josh


 * In HTML, Josh, the quote marks are required, otherwise the code will not validate. However, most (all?) modern browsers don't fuss about it too much and you can usually get away without the darn things. Here on the 'pedia, I'm not sure.


 * BTW, I am unsure about the Mav vs Uther question. Either way works fine on my favourite browser here at home (Opera 6.0x, Win 2000). Do we need to do a proper formal test with multiple browsers? How does the introduction of the new code tie in with this? Tannin

Some research shows that the HTML 3.2 reference specification declares that th tags should be centered by default, and presumably the same goes for all later versions. In short, Mav's browsers aren't working properly. Given this, I think it's fair to say that we should leave the tags out unless it proves to be a widespread problem.

Other, more important issues. The ranks on the left side of the tables all redirect to scientific classification, and there seems to be infinitesimal chance that they will ever do anything else. It doesn't make any sense to link them, and there was as I recall some agreement about this in the distant past. Obviously there are too many pages out there to change them all immediately, but couldn't we at least change this here, on the standard page?

Also, guidelines on how big images should be, how a given image should be named and labelled, and where they should be used (given that each will belong to several taxa simultaneously) would be useful. I really don't think the current page greatly reflects current use and issues, and accordingly I've started an alternate page at WikiProject Tree of Life/Alt that I hope might do a better job. It's still kind of clumsy, but may be worth working on. Please let me know what you think. --Josh


 * Looks good to me (I really hate the ref links on this meta page - glad to see they are not in your version). The actual binomial names should be centered though. --mav 06:24, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I think discarding the rank links is a good idea. But I also think the ref link is often, though not always, necessary.  I also think that the author should be there for the species.  (Yes, mav, I know you don't.) -- WormRunner 06:31, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm not talking about the author, I'm talking about the external links in the table. The ==References== section of the article is what that is for. I'm also not that against the author info, but stuff like L. is not useful to most people. At the very least sublink the name (example: L.). --mav


 * Hmm. Interesting idea about the sublinking.  Will start doing that and seeing how it goes.
 * As for the refs, it seems that where there is a taxonomic dispute that is obscure, an ITIS or similar reference in the taxobox is precisely the place for it. Other references, no.  They should go in a references section as you say. WormRunner 07:08, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Ok. I've centered the binomial names, and covered most of everything relevant I can think of. Please add whatever else you think is important, relevant, and safe (not currently under dispute). Then, if there are no objections, I'll replace the current page. Hopefully that'll help us standardize the current taxoboxes and focus on how they should be improved. --JG