Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 14

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: Josh's suggestion should also avoid some of the PhyloCode clashes that will surely come.  Guettarda 05:46, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Category nomenclature 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Larval food plants 

message: 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, 
#taxonomy -sometimes taxonomy and evolution
#physical description
#reproduction
#ecology and behaviour- including habitat, position in the food chain etc.
#distribution- if it occurs in more than one place
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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Article sections for mammals

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

message: 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)
thread_title: Poultry