Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 11

message: Should an article like this be at the title Oleaceae which is now a redirect. Some of the species seem pretty far from the common understanding of an olive. Rmhermen 14:10, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)
:I'd say yes. While it's good to have the article title be a common name, it's not good when that common name is misleading, as in this case. - UtherSRG 14:51, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: ditto.  -- WormRunner | Talk 16:04, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: Technically, "olive family" is just as accurate as "Oleaceae" - note that a large number of botanical writeups write "olive family Oleaceae" at least on the first usage, which says two things; a) they're synonyms, and b) the "-aceae" names are still not quite second nature to everybody, what the computer nerds would call a "human interface"
problem. :-) But we've signed up with the Latin names. (Might not hurt to have redirs tho, "soapberry family" garners several thousand matches, 600 of them not mentioning Sapindaceae at all.) Stan 17:03, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say "yes" to Oleaceae.  While I can understand the concern that common names are more familiar to most people, it is not the case that "olive family" should mean "all plants that look like an olive."  The terms are, in essence and as notedabove, synonyms; therefore olive family means: "plants related to and sharing specified morphological characteristics with the familiar olive plant." As cladistics advance this becomes "plants related to and sharing a specified genetic similarity with the familiar olive plant." - Marshman 17:40, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Olive family]]

message: When I come across a taxobox created with the table code rather than the new ToL template I update it. I'm not sure if people are of the opinion 'if it ain't broke -don't fix it', or if its better to update them to make any subsequent updates simpler. A list of entries with the 'old' template can be found here  .--nixie 02:48, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's good to make the changes in an ad hoc manner. No need to rush out and change all the taxoboxes at once, but if one happens upon an article and it's got an old format, update it. If one is bored they could pick an article that needs an update taxobox and start there and work up and down the tree as appropriate. I've done that with Canidae and Felidae and with some other mammals. - UtherSRG 14:56, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: 'Old' style taxoboxes

message: (Posted by new User:Fledgeling on my user page - can anyone help out? I'll have a look in HBW, but I suspect that's not up-to-date enough) - MPF 09:51, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  ! Important ! Kiwi page sorely out of date! 

message: There is something of an edit war starting with User:Mario and Dario on Anseriformes, Anatidae and the various whistling duck species' pages. I posted the following on their talk page:
::I noticed that you made changes to Penguin (new species) and Anseriformes. Usually we follow the taxonomy of Handbook of birds of the world (list available on-line). Where we want to show an alternative view, we normally make it as a comment in the next.
::I've done this with the whistling duck, since your change makes it inconsistent with related pages and with Wildfowl of the world. I've left the penguin species for now. On the relevant talk pages, could you please indicate the sources for the proposed changes? Many thanks, jimfbleak 06:31, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi again. The problem with ITIS is that it is a bit eccentric, and, as a USDA source, strongly linked to one country. Unfortunately, the USA taxonomy is also the one most out of step with the rest of the world, which is why we settled on HBW as the standard source. HBW
Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life
Unfortunately, their only response has been to revert my changes, which I thought were a fair compromise. Any views? Should the relevant pages be protected pending resolution? jimfbleak 06:51, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: Hmm...unfortunately, my knowledge of ornithology is not strong enough to be able to offer factual support to either side. However, it looks like you have good evidence for your version. What I'd recommend is for each of the pages involved, explain on the article's talk page your reasoning, including documenting your sources if possible. Then go ahead and update the article in line with your ideas, including a statement about alternate views as you did before, if its appropriate (that is, if it's seriously a controversial topic). In your edit summary, I would very briefly explain the edit and make a note to discuss changes in the talk section before making them. If that doesn't work, or if this is too much or unfeasible, then protection may be necessary. Hopefully good documentation and explanation, along with vigilance, will suffice. Also—are there any other ornithologists who can help out here? — Knowledge Seeker দ (talk) 05:24, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Whistling duck]]

message: I'd like to get a feeling for peoples like or dislkie for the 'always used common names' paradigm. I don't like is for a few reasons:
#Common names aren't universal, and it irks me when an article's name gets changed to the USDA PLANTS common name especially when that plants isn't from the US or a significant agricultural or horticultural species there.
#The same common name is applied to different species in different countries, like Mountain Ash or wood duck (there is also an Australian wood duck Chenonetta jubata).
I think a better system would be to have redirects to the species or disambiguation pages where a common name applies to many species. Since wikipedia isn't paper an integrated system of cross referencing shouldn't be a problem, nor should updating if name changes occurs. Let me know what you think, and I'll decide if I should take this on to the Village Pump--nixie 04:58, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I have been in favor of this for some time.  Go for it! -- WormRunner | Talk 06:03, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: I'd very much like to go with scientific names for the individual articles, certainly for plants. What Nixie points out is true; it'll also promote accuracy, and add A LOT to the reputation of wikipedia as a serious reference source. Just wishing I'd joined wikipedia before the 'use common names' was settled on! It'll be a huge task to move everything now, but I'll be happy to help do so. Birds, I'm not quite so sure; even some surprisingly high-powered ornithological journals use common names more than scientific names (typically a species is referred to by both common and scientific at the first mention, and thereafter only by the common) - MPF 13:48, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: Obviously, this is a never-ending story. We have agreed upon rules in the past, with  in the end as golden rule : use your common sense. I agree with MPF. I use the scientific name for the title, unless the common name is really commonly known and indicates univocally the taxon discussed. Anyway, when I use a scientific name as title, I put an eventual common name on top in the taxobox. Scientific names in titles also have the advantage of easily being found by bots, linking the diverse Wikipedias. BTW, have any of you noted that our Tree of Life-articles are being taken more and more seriously by the rest of the world ? For instance, the article on the orchid family Orchidaceae, where I and several others have worked on,  is mentioned as reference on On-line orchid references, in the company with the best, such as Kew, IUCN and several other great orchid sites. We have the eyes of the world upon us. Therefore we must have a correct and uniform standard for naming taxons. If the rules of the past don't agree with several of us, then the discussion is wide open again. But if we have to change the rules again, the task of changing the existing articles will be gargantuan. Better think twice. JoJan 14:40, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: Certainly it would be a lot of work, but I think it would be worth it.  There would still be an occasional name conflict, but far less and with a more rational way to resolve it. Birds seem to be a special case with their "official" common names, but with plants and most animals it would make so much more sense.  -- WormRunner | Talk 16:53, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: As I've mentioned elsewhere, I agree that systematic names would be superior.  It would also help sort out the conflict over capitalizing common names in article titles -- and, as JoJan notes, it will help with linking with the non-English Wikipedias.  I can usually sort out (with some effort) links to the European languages (with the help of FishBase's list of common names), but there's little or nothing I can do for CJK or Hebrew, for example. We might run into quasi-official opposition, however, as the "use English only" policy is not just a ToL thing, but Wikipedia-wide. —Tkinias 18:38, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: As to the interwiki-links, this is done with the Spybot, operated by Andre Engels. He explained this excellent program at the Wikimeeting in Rotterdam, Holland. Through the linking of this bot, you can get an insight of what others have written about the same subject in their language. I regularly check the French, Dutch and German Wikipedias especially for additional text and eventually photos.  JoJan 19:20, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: I've come to take a tough line on common names, namely that the candidate name really has to be official and/or the most common across a range of English-speaking groups, which generally means looking at multiple sources, old and new, scientific and nonscientific. For instance, many plant genera seem to be better-known to gardeners by generic names than their traditional common names. On the other hand, fish people seem to have gone to some trouble to make English names for many families, even de-assigning some traditional common names of species in order to make them available. In any case, if there's any doubt at all, stick with the Latin. Stan 05:01, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: Interesting suggestion, but it would look very odd in genera with a substantial number of species already with pages (e.g. pines, oaks) to have some appearing in a different format (it would make their category page look weird, with half listed under O for Oak, and half listed under Q for Quercus). My preference would be to tackle them a genus at a time, and make sure everything in the genus was shifted over to scientific names in one go - MPF 11:12, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I would second MPF's suggestion, take a genus at a time, or work through a family, and move all of them.  But I also think a priority should be made toward cleaning up all members of an ambiguity (such as Black cumin) at once. WormRunner | Talk 18:05, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Common names

message: This page is a bit of a mess, perhaps it should become an actual disambiguation, and herb be broken into herb (culinary) and herb (botany) --nixie 02:22, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: There really is no botany article. "Herb" is short for herbaceous plant, a dictionary definition at best. It is pointless to spilt things up to create numerous permanent stubs.  Rewriting the existing article to be less of a "mess" would, IMHO, be a contribution. - Marshman 04:13, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Herb]], Herb (disambiguation)

message: A while back, I posted a query at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fishes asking what taxa the project should encompass; nobody responded.  What does the greater ToL gang think?  Should Fishes be restricted to the Actinopterygii, or should it include other taxa that people think of as "fish"—like the Agnatha, for example? —Tkinias 23:35, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's a fish? 

message: Discussion moved from project page:
*Acetabularia_crenulata - some alege; the page was blanked by the anon who contributed it, but, assuming it's not fake, it looks like a fine stub.  Please look over, verify, and revert to the stub status. JesseW 02:58, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  cleanup 

message: I am overhauling the algae taxonomy, mostly based on a series of publications in the October 2004 Issue of American Journal of Botany. Can someone take a look at my sandbox and tell me what they think?
http://www.amjbot.org/content/vol91/issue10/ - AMJBot Onco p53 07:53, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am a big supporter of phylogenetic classification so it gets my vote. Onco p53 03:41, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: An overhaul of the red algae seems to be in order. A history of the taxonomy of the red algae would be a great help to the interested reader. As to the sandbox on the green algae, this looks fine to me, except the mentioning of Kingdom : Plantae or Chlorobionta. There is no explanation or definition for Chlorobionta. I thought, but I'm certainly not an expert in the matter - just an interested reader, green algae belonged to the Kingdom Plantae. Where does this 'or  Chlorobionta' comes from ? There is no explanation. In the whole ToL, I don't think there is another taxobox stating :   X belongs to Kingdom Y or Z. This point should certainly be tackled. But you have my full support for overhauling the algae articles. In view of all this new research, this could put the Wikipedia articles in the forefront of related scientific articles. JoJan 12:52, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree - Algae are generally accepted as being distinct from the Kingdom Plantae.  I see no reason to put them back into that kingdom.  Having looked through the Lewis and McCourt paper  I see no reason why we should not be using that kindgom.  It's cetainly more appealing than using the alternative - i have never liked  Kingdom Protista for algae.  Guettarda 19:22, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: It's not the end of the world to have a taxobox that is missing a line or two - after all, one of the reasons we discourage infraphyla and suchlike entries because they don't have enough of a consensus. The discussion above tells me that there is not much of a consensus for kingdoms, so putting in a navigation link that favors one system over another overstates the situation, and (dare we say it) espouses a POV. If you really really really want a link on that line, make it to an article that discusses the problem briefly, perhaps even one special-written for the purpose, so that general readers can see what the choices are (if I'm reading a 1980 book, the historical kingdom is probably of more interest for instance), and so that backlinks can be easily be found and fixed when a consensus emerges. Stan 19:45, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Algae 

message: Should legumes and pulse (legume) be merged? --nixie 04:45, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My feeling is no.  Pulses are agricultural crops in the legume family, while legumes constitute (one of?) the largest plant families.  Worth keeping separate; it would be (almost) equivalent to merging cereal with Poaceae.  Guettarda 15:33, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree with Guettarda. The pea family (Fabaceae) contains much more than pulses, just think of e.g. exotic hardwoods and gum arabic. BTW the orchid family (Orchidaceae) (+ 25,000 species) and the sunflower family (Asteraceae) (+ 20,000 species) are larger than the Fabaceae (+ 18,000). JoJan 17:40, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 25,000 Orchids?  That explains a lot - the figure that I had in my head was 10,000.  Always wondered why it was that the Flora of Trinidad and Tobago was 10% orchids, but that they were <5% of the world total for angiosperms.  Mystery solved - my numbers were wrong.  Guettarda 18:01, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Absolutely. do not merge.  Pulse has a very specific definition that includes only legumes used for food or feed as the dry seed. -- WormRunner | Talk 02:12, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with Wormrunner and others: absolutely not. The idea has no merit. Where is "pulses" considered a common name for all legumes? - Marshman 04:47, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Pulse" is the term for legumes as a seed crop, much like "cereal" is the term for large-seeded grasses.  Not widely used in American English, but moderately common in other places (based on experience, which may be slanted, I think it's pretty much standard in Indian English, for example).  Guettarda 14:12, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, "pulse" woud be considered an agricultural/botanical term not used much at all in American English outside those fields - Marshman 17:08, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge opinion

message: I encourage you all to help with maintaining the biology Wikiportal connected with this project! Ausir 23:03, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biology portal 

message: Is there a technical difference between fodder and forage? --nixie 04:59, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Without having looked at the articles, I'd understand it as fodder is what you cut and bring in to feed to animals, forage is what the animals go out to find for themselves. So hay is fodder, grass is forage. - MPF 00:12, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Fodder and Forage

message: Been getting no reply to this at Wikipedia talk:Image use policy - anyone here any ideas? or at least know where to ask to get an answer?
There's a huge collection of tree and forestry photos at http://www.forestryimages.org/. Most are taken by private individuals and copyrighted, with (usually) a non-commercial licence note attached; fair enough. 
However, some are marked as taken by United States Forest Service personnel - these photos carry the same non-commercial license restrictions on the page (typical example: this one). Yet surely as US Government photos, these are in the public domain and free of copyright? Can I ignore the stated restrictions as being incorrect, and use these USFS photos with the tag ? - thanks, MPF 00:12, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: forestryimages.org

message: Does anyone else think that these List of genera by name: B etc. are a bad idea? I tried to suggest to the creator of the lists that they would be unmanagable, probably never complete and really quite uninformative without a Kingdom type of breakdown.--nixie 05:09, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Genera lists

message: I've created a new WikiProject, WikiProject Viruses that has been listed as a descendant of the tree of life.  Yes, I know, viruses aren't living creatures, but I feel that articles on viruses could definitely benefit from what other articles (such as ones on mammals, birds, etc.) have.  It is so similar to those projects that I decided to add it here.  Since it was just created a couple minutes ago, it really needs some motivated people to help begin this task.  Please feel free to list yourself as a participant, or offer your help to the WikiProject! Thank you. -Frazzydee|✍ 22:15, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  New descendent WikiProject