User talk:Peter coxhead/Archive 12

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Archive 5

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Archive 10

CITEVAR RfC supervoting

Did you notice this RfC closure? It appears to be a WP:SUPERVOTE to me, since nothing in the discussion suggests anything as extreme as: "There is consensus that any change in coding that alters the visual output whatsoever requires consensus. This could be as minor as a visual change in whitespace or a comma changing into a period." Consensus clearly did not form such a conclusion, which would invalidate the second part that followed it (any change of a template, etc., is fairly likely to result in a one-character change somewhere). This seems to run badly afoul of WP:OWN, WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY, WP:IAR, WP:VESTED, WP:MERCILESS, etc., etc., freezing the tiniest details of citation formatting forever, unless RfCs are held every single time for every tiny change. It also contradicts the actual guidelines, which clearly allow a consistent style to be imposed where multiple styles exist in the article, and so on. It would even appear to invalidate any future work on the citation templates themselves in any case in which a code change might alter the output in the slightest way, which is probably almost all such work. It does not actually address the concerns raised in the RfC. I'm thinking of seeing about having this non-admin closure overturned. I guess I should ping BU Rob13, since I'm criticizing his close, and give him an opportunity to just revert it in the archive, at which point I'll open a new request for admin closure at WP:ANRFC. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 06:32, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I'm on vacation at the moment, so I can't respond in great detail, but this appears to be a problem with my wording. I meant that systemic changes of coding that alters the visual output (i.e. changing every citation in an article to a new coding style from one consistent style to another by converting everything to a template) is against consensus. I did not intend my close to be interpreted in the extreme way it appears to have come across. I found consensus that the most extreme case of changing coding needed discussion, not that all cases of changing coding needed discussion. Does that clarification address your concern? If so, I'll edit my close to clarify it tonight. ~ Rob^Talk 11:13, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: It surely would (and sorry to interrupt your vacation time with wikistress!). Anything that can be perceived as vague overbreadth or a loophole in the RfC closure wording will be exploited toward OWNership ends. (We see this a lot of with style-related RfCs. See, e.g., months of tendentious resistance – entirely based on article age and preferences of particular editors – to the implementation of MOS:JR after the RfC establishing its current direction. MOS:LIFE raised similar resistance, resulting in several years of multiple RfCs, PoV-forking of WP:NCFAUNA, etc., to contradict it, and attempts to disrupt the RfCs with canvassing and even off-WP meatpuppet recruitment. Similar problems have beset the last two year or so of RfCs about MOS:IDENTITY.)

The genesis of this citation-code RfC was that Peter_coxhead raised concerns about citation-proprietary attitudes interfering with legitimate editing needs, and the RfC was opened by an opponent to shut this complaint down by overgeneralizing, making a false dichotomy between "citation code can be changed willy-nilly" and "citation code cannot be touched because it's synonymous with citation style". You've wandered across an RfC the background of which includes years of wikilawyering, system-gaming, and PoV-forking of WP:CITEVAR away from MOS:RETAIN (twice), to change the intent from "don't disrupt for the sake of nitpicks" to "don't challenge the authority of an article's previous editors". The present wording of the RfC close could essentially hand the keys of the citation kingdom to those who oppose all citation standardization except at the individual article level, where they consider it essentially immutable without the consent of the wikiproject or individuals most frequently at the page, instead of the question being based on the merits of what works best. This view does not actually represent WP consensus (or we would not have citation templates that most editors use); it's just the "local consensus" of those fans of CITEVAR who use idiosyncratic citation markup and won't entertain complaints that it's ever problematic. (This is a good example of why WP:VPPOL should be used for RfCs of site-wide, all-topics, every-article import, instead of burying them on guideline talk pages, where they attract bloc voting by vested interests.) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 12:07, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Alright, sounds good. I've admittedly not been around long enough to know the context to these discussions. The closure was very poorly worded, so I appreciate you bringing it to my attention. I think my intention is somewhat clear in the "no yes or no answer" bit, but you're absolutely correct that vagueness is never good. I'm always happy to clarify or consider reversing my closes if I made an error, as I did in this case. ~ Rob^Talk 12:40, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I've been tied up with non-wiki stuff lately, so I didn't notice this closure. I agree that BU Rob13's closure goes too far. On the other hand, notwithstanding our reasoned arguments (yours in particular), it's clear that a vocal set of editors will continue to interpret WP:CITEVAR to mean "don't challenge the authority of an article's previous editors", and no amount of discussion will change their views. I'm doubtful that moving the discussion to WP:VPPOL will change anything, since participation there will be limited to the same set of editors. Wikipedia's philosophy of determining policy and guidelines by non-local consensus only works if a wide cross-section of editors are prepared to participate in reasoned discussions, and at present the evidence is that they aren't. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:53, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: (and Peter as well): Please take a look at the clarifying statement I've now included. Does that address your concerns? This was what I originally intended with my close, but it was written very poorly. I can certainly see how that didn't get through. Hopefully, my mistake is now fixed. Cheers. ~ Rob^Talk 17:55, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: That's a vast improvement, and thank you. Peter: I tend to concur; it's unclear if and when the localconsensus problems are going to improve; they may just worsen, in which case most of the WP:ENC-focused editors are going to quit, and the editors left with be those attempts to push PoVs to carefully manipulate what appears near the top of most Google searches for particular topics. People are using WP as an SEO engine and a memetic manipulation tool, instead of treating it as a cohesive work. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:45, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Request for File:Puttingondog2.jpg and File:Puttingondog4.jpg

I upload these images but they're empty. Could you help? Thanks. Marole3 (talk) 18:44, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I think they have been deleted because they do not have the right copyright. Did you create them? If not, where did they come from? Peter coxhead (talk) 19:47, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Phoronidae

Hi Peter, When browsing I came across the article on Phoronida. The Phoronida are monofamilial, and the family name (Phoronidae) redirects there. Should this family name not be mentioned in the text in bold and should it not be included in the box with its authority (Hatschek, 1880) (source: WoRMS)? I do not now how to do this in an Automatic taxobox, so perhaps you can help me out here.

Um... If this were a plant article, I'd say that it should be at the lower rank, i.e. the family. Then it's easy to create the right kind of automatic taxobox. But I don't have much experience with this kind of article. So first we need to know where the article should be located in the taxonomic hierarchy.

@Stemonitis: can you help with this question? Peter coxhead (talk) 19:57, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Something else is that the brachiopods are regarded paraphyletic with respect to the Phoronidae, see B.L. Cohen (2000). Monophyly of brachiopods and phoronids. I'll create a tree for the Taxonomy section of the brachiopod article and some explanatory text as well. I think this could mean that the Phoronida article should be renamed to Phoroniformea, a new subphylum name suggested in the referenced science article, and that both articles need to be changed. I'm sure I do not know the procedures to do this correctly. Could you assist me in this as well please. Kind regards, Dwergenpaartje (talk) 15:17, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

The issue here may be the lack of a secondary source. Since taxonomy is subjective, it's generally necessary to see whether a new classification can gain consensus. Are there other sources supporting this view? Peter coxhead (talk) 19:57, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

There is at least Cohen, Bernard L.; Weydmann, Agata (2005). "Molecular evidence that phoronids are a subtaxon of brachiopods (Brachiopoda: Phoronata) and that genetic divergence of metazoan phyla began long before the early Cambrian". Organisms Diversity & Evolution 5 (4): 253–273, but this is the same author albeit some years later. In this later article one other opinion is cited: [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.121.1228&rep=rep1&type=pdf K. Peterson & D.J. Eernisse (2001). Animal phylogeny and the ancestry of bilaterians: inferences from morphology and 18S rDNA sequences. Evol. Dev., 3, pp. 170–205, p. 188]. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 10:27, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Citation style and Corybas edits

Hello Peter,

1. Sorry for changing what you included about Salisbury's naming of Corybas - I did search "The Paradisus Londonensis" but did not read the Latin. Careless!
2. About "consistent citation style": The Corybas article was a stub with 3 inline citations when I started on it. Although I have done a lot of editing, the articles are all pretty similar and I just do them all the same way. Clicking ["Cite" → "Templates" →"book"] returns: "cite book" rather than "citation". The date format using that method is, (eg.) "7 July 2016" If I'd known about the rules at WP:CITEVAR I would have asked. Sorry if you took offence. Can you help please - do I have to learn a new method? Gderrin (talk)

Actually, when I re-read Salisbury's comments, I missed the Latin at first – I'm a little impressed that I noticed it the first time, so I wouldn't call it "careless". I don't get the impression that Salisbury was much of a Latin scholar, so he may well have derived the name incorrectly, but I believe we have to report what the author of a name says, even if it's actually wrong. (There are some weirdly derived scientific names around. One I came across recently is Phoneyusa, which is actually a strange transcription of the Greek phoneuousa, meaning "murderess", but most references seem to have been misled into thinking that it has something to do with "phone" = "sound", so give a pronunciation like "fo-ne-you-sa" instead of the etymologically correct "fo-nev-oo-sa".)

Oh, I didn't take any offence at all over the citation style; it's far more important to have a well-referenced article than be bothered about the style. It's annoying to those of us who prefer the CS2 style (basically commas instead of full stops) that many of the tools automatically generate CS1. I'm happy to "fix" mixed or changed styles. Ideally, however, you should keep to any consistent style already in use.

Your expansion of the article was very good. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:31, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks mate. I guess you'd be familiar with this All the best to you. Gderrin (talk)

July 2016

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Imposing a consistent citation style

This is the approach I've been taking (note the explicit edit summaries), and it has been working so far, though the articles are not swarming with WP:OWNy watchers: [1], [2], [3]. It shifts the burden onto an objector, to show that there was a consistent citation style before I arrived (which there of course was not, otherwise I could not have imposed one). PS: I also do this regularly with MOS:ENGVAR, and with MOS:DATEVAR (especially to eliminate ISO and abbreviated dates, and to match the DATEVAR to the apparent ENGVAR). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 17:16, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: yes, I generally do the same, but will try to be more consistent in my edit summaries. (However, in examples like [4] I would standardize on the YYYY-MM-DD format for the access date, since I prefer it and half already used that style.) Peter coxhead (talk) 06:19, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

I've never seen any point to switching to a different date format for access dates, but it's not something I would strive much about; it's toward the bottom of the consistency issues list to me. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 06:30, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Cannabaceae

I saw that you reverted my edit at Cannabaceae. After reading your edit summary, "reliable sources doubt that C. indica and C. sativa are distinct species; best to be vague here" (which I don't disagree with), I'm a bit confused about why you think the previous version is any better. It seems to be at odds with your edit summary just as much as my version is, plus it has grammar problems. It's not a big deal to me either way, but maybe you could have a second look and find a better wording. Thanks. Deli nk (talk) 15:21, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

My humble apologies. What I meant to do was to remove the whole bit about "indica" and "sativa"; I didn't read what was there before correctly. Fixed now, I hope. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:58, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Looks good, thanks. Deli nk (talk) 19:20, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Coronopus didymus

Coronopus didymus is another plant species article where the article name is the synonym and the accepted name, Lepidium didymum is redirected to it. What is the procedure for fixing this? Plantsurfer 22:14, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

I moved the article. (In this case you could have done it yourself, I think.) When there's a good secondary source, like The Plant List, supporting a name change, then I regard such moves as uncontroversial and not needing any prior consultation. Please check that I've cleaned up the article correctly; the description could usefully be sourced. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:14, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

(orchid) redirect banner tags

I don't see much point in having the WikiProject Plants banner on redirects from Corybas (genus), Corybas (orchid) and a target article at Corybas (plant), where 3 titles differ in choice of disambiguation term. I'm trying to get the remaining (orchid) titles moved over to (plant), in line with the most common choice for a plant genus that requires disambiguation. In the last few months, the Article Alerts tool has begun picking up redirects to pages that have a project banner already. Since the software can associate redirects with WikiProjects now, I've become a lot less enthusiastic about putting banners on redirects. I still do it for monotypic taxon redirects, but where (plant), (genus) and perhaps (orchid) are in play, I've been restricting the article talk space banner to the (plant) title. I'm not going to complain if you want to re-add the banner to anything I've just removed it from. On the (not talk) article space end, I've been restricting the various categories (e.g., species described in year, category by taxonomic rank, category by next higher taxon) to (plant) redirects. (Genus)/(orchid) redirects get a rcat template, but not a regular category. Hope that explains what I've been doing, feel free to disagree. Plantdrew (talk) 05:47, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps the real problem is the lack of subcategorization within Category:Redirect-Class plant articles. On the other hand, consistency with what we've been doing so far does seem of some value to me, and we have been tagging such redirects up to now. Restricting the categorization to the "(plant)" redirect is entirely sensible. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:56, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Making sure that everything with a talk page banner putting it in Category:Redirect-Class plant articles has an appropriate rcat template is on my list of things to do. And I don't think I'll be removing project banners wholesale when I get around to doing that (though I'm sure there are a few cases where there are a half dozen project bannered common name redirects with minor differences in capitalization and other formatting). With the Calypso and Corybas talk pages you reverted me on, they started out as unbannered redirects (blanked page history due to moves), and I had reverted banners I had added myself. It's really not a bid deal however we decide to approach it. Plantdrew (talk) 06:22, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Peter, would you mind using your powers to move Leptotes (orchid) to Leptotes (plant)? Thanks in advance. Plantdrew (talk) 20:30, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Done Peter coxhead (talk) 06:39, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. A couple more moves that would be nice are Aglaomorpha (fern) to Aglaomorpha (plant) and Chlorotetraëdron to Chlorotetraedron (ICNafp doesn't currently recommend diacritics). And there are a bunch of plant common SIAS that should probably be moved from title case to sentence case (Downy Serviceberry for one, I can list others for you if you're interested in bothering with the moves) Plantdrew (talk) 07:02, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

I moved Aglaomorpha (fern) to Aglaomorpha (plant).

The diaeresis in Chlorotetraëdron is more questionable. It's not what the ICN calls a "diacritical sign". Article 60.6 says:

"60.6. Diacritical signs are not used in scientific names. When names (either new or old) are drawn from words in which such signs appear, the signs are to be suppressed with the necessary transcription of the letters so modified; ... The diaeresis, indicating that a vowel is to be pronounced separately from the preceding vowel (as in Cephaëlis, Isoëtes), is a phonetic device that is not considered to alter the spelling; as such, its use is optional."

I've removed diaereses in articles where their use was inconsistent, but at Chlorotetraëdron, the usage seems to be consistent and I see that AlgaeBase uses it. My personal preference is to remove it, but as its use is optional under the ICN, I'm not willing to make the move without some input from others. Are there any other "algae editors" around?

I can't say I'm very enthusiastic about the de-capitalization of the SIAs, but if you build up a list, I'm willing to work on it. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:35, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

If you're not enthusiastic about the SIAs, I won't bother you with them. I'm sure I can get somebody to do them that doesn't need to resort to do them round robin style. WikiProject Algae is pretty dead and I'm not aware of anybody who is actively working on algae articles. I'm pretty sure Cholotetraedron is the only ICNafp taxon with a diaresis on Wikipedia. Plantdrew (talk) 16:22, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

I see that AlgaeBase also has Cryptozoön. Maybe ask at WT:PLANTS? Peter coxhead (talk) 17:15, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Paeonia daurica again

I've now finished working on the Paeonia daurica page. Further improvement based on "Peonies of the world" is possible, but I haven't had a chance to obtain it. I'd appreciate if you'd have a look at it. For which of the synonyms should redirects be created and should the subspecies page that already exist (Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii) maintained or changed to a redirect? If to retain subspecies pages, how can I get those that are currently titled as a species (Paeonia wittmanniana, Paeonia macrophylla) to be moved? For the Peony page, I removed jr. Synonyms from the specieslist. I think a phylogenetic tree would be preferable over the current list, but the reticulate evolution makes that impossible. I'm considering a table with the parent species on X- and Y-axis, with a cell for diploid and tetraploid. Perhaps you have some thoughts here. Thanks again in advance. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 08:35, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

@Dwergenpaartje: I hope to be able to get to the library later this week, and will let you know if I succeed in finding that book. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:44, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

@Dwergenpaartje: I've copy-edited Paeonia daurica page. It's a useful account for the botanically minded, but I suspect a bit technical for the general Wikipedia reader!

I take the view that horticulturally important subspecies can reasonably have their own pages; "Molly the witch" a.k.a. P. mlokosewitschii, P. daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii, is widely grown and loved by many UK plantspeople, and I think justifies a separate page.

I'll wait for a response from Sminthopsis84, but I can move Paeonia wittmanniana and Paeonia macrophylla to subspecies titles if it's agreed. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:09, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks to the both of you. This is very helpful! Dwergenpaartje (talk) 17:16, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

@Sminthopsis84: I have the copies you made. Very useful. Thank you! Dwergenpaartje (talk) 13:35, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Dwergenpaartje. Peter, I would support moving Paeonia wittmanniana and Paeonia macrophylla to subspecies titles, and have made some corresponding reorganization in Commons. There's even a picture of the Velebit peony there. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:34, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

@Dwergenpaartje and Sminthopsis84: actually anyone could have moved the articles, as the redirects hadn't been edited. Anyway, I've moved them both, and tidied up afterwards – but please check. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:12, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Peter. Perhaps you can tell me how to move a page, so I could do it myself in future. I have no idea. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 14:48, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

@Dwergenpaartje: under the "More" tab just before the search box, you'll find a "Move" item (there may be other choices depending on your user preferences). It won't work for normal users if there's something at the target title that has been edited. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:55, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

I see ... Thanks! Dwergenpaartje (talk) 14:09, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Sir Frederick Claude Stern, Colonel

I made a page on plantsman F.C. Stern. Before I create a new name space, perhaps you can advise me on the most adequate naming. Two existing pages link to Frederick Claude Stern, three others to Frederick Stern.

In addition I would like to ask you to have a look at the structure of the article too. Thank you in advance. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 13:29, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

If in doubt, I would go for the full name; in the long run it's less likely to turn out to be ambiguous. It's a good article! I've made some copy-edits. You could usefully add a list of his major books. The WorldCat website is usually a good source. See this search. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:17, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Maratus Species List

Hi Peter,

You wrote: "Species list for Maratus[edit source] Hi, species lists are ideally based on a single secondary source; 'secondary' as per WP policy at WP:RS, and 'single' to avoid inconsistencies caused by different sources using different names for the same species. In the case of spiders, the definitive secondary source is the World Spider Catalog. The species list now at Maratus does not have a source. It's acceptable to source the whole list to the World Spider Catalog and then for each additional new species give a primary reference, although I still prefer to list them separately as was done before your change to the list. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:01, 28 July 2016 (UTC)"

The Publication with the new species has been accepted by Volker Framenau, the Australian Country rep for the WSC, and for his own DB http://www.australasian-arachnology.org/download/checklist_australian_spiders.pdf (pers.comm.) Volker told me he has them in his database but hasn't had time to upload it. Yes "species lists are ideally based on a single secondary source" but "ideally"is trumped when the single secondary source is laggardly and does not reflect the reality in the world from where it draws its information. In such cases one must adopt, for clarity and truthfulness, the actual factual sources. IMO these should not be separated from the species lists, it is the responsibility of the WSC to be up to date. It is fine to add WSC into the External Refs or the See Also refs. It will supply the broad generic overview. Since Peckhamia is a respected peer-reviewed journal meeting the criteria of the WSC, Wikipedia has a duty to present the facts if they are available, it is not factual to rely on WSC solely, especially when it is slow in taking up any particular respected publication. BTW this publication is not controversial. The spider community in Australia is overworked and underfunded but Wikipedia does not have to be the victim of this situation, (waiting for a single secondary source). I will add the WSC Maratus Entry as a External Ref. Robertwhyteus (talk) 10:10, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

@Robertwhyteus: I understand the points you make, but you must accept that Wikipedia has policies, guidelines and practices for good reasons.

WP:RS and in particular WP:PSTS are policies; they can't just be disregarded without very good reasons.
Taken together with WP:NOTEVERYTHING and WP:NOTNEWS, it's clear that, as an encyclopedia, Wikipedia's task is not to present the facts if they are available as you wrote, but only to present a summary of those facts available in appropriate sources. Wikipedia is not a victim as you wrote, but the deliberate instigator of a policy of waiting for confirmation from secondary sources.

It's not acceptable to simply cite the WSC as an external reference (whatever that means). Either:

reference separately each and every entry in the species list
reference the list as a whole to the WSC with a note that additional species are sourced separately, and then reference each of them.

I would also point out that a number of spider editors have semi-automated tools that are regularly used to update genus and species lists from the WSC, so that lists not based on it are quite likely to be over-written. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:06, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: Thanks Peter, for clarifying those nuances, I defer to your experience. I will fast track that paper's integration into the WSC. Robertwhyteus (talk) 06:41, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Hylotelephium telephium

Hi Peter,

Would you be able to use your powers to move Hylotelephium telephium to Sedum telephium over the redirect? It is one of those cases where little maintenance edits have thrown a spanner into the process that an ordinary editor can use to move a page. This is just to bring the taxonomy in line with The Plant List, so that various pages can be fitted out with citations. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:33, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Done The boundary between Sedum and Hylotelephium seems to be very confused!

The garden cultivar 'Herbstfreude' (syn. 'Autumn Joy') is said to be a hybrid between Sedum telephium (syn. Hylotelephium telephium) and Hylotelephium spectabile (syn. Sedum spectabile), so what is the its (notho)genus name? The RHS plant finder calls it Sedum, the Missouri Botanical Garden plant finder calls it Hylotelephium. Is there a name for Hylotelephium × Sedum? I simply deleted the genus name for this cultivar at Sedum telephium. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:45, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Not sure that this really answers your question, but MBG's Plant Finder get names from a separate database (Living Collections) from Tropicos (Tropicos doesn't do cultivars). Living Collections has its own set of issues; nothotaxa not being treated as such, cultivars named pre-ICNCP at binomials, etc (though these are slowly getting fixed). Unlike Tropicos, Living Collections does take firm positions on synonymy; with synonyms redirecting to the accepted name. The RHS Plant Finder is cited as a source for the name Sedum 'Herbstfreude' AUTUMN JOY, but there's no source for the direction of the synonymy itself. At least we know somebody did consciously decide that MBG Plant Finder/Living Collections would treat stuff as Hylotelephium rather than Sedum (though I don't know for sure if that position is correct).

It looks like Living Collections may be getting common names from Wikipedia; the names listed at Hylotelephium telephium 'Matrona' include everything we've got at Sedum telephium.

Thank you both! I didn't know about Living Collections (that's a cute column listing dead or alive). What I wanted to achieve was a more respectful attitude to Flora of China, and a way to attach more citations, but this is clearly a mess. FNA and FoC differ from one another. After searching, I think that there is no nothogenus name, which is a common situation with hybrids; a hybrid formula could be used. About common names, I'd call these things sedums, but Living Collections lists hylotelephium and not sedum as a common name for that cultivar -- weird. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:57, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

@Sminthopsis84 and Plantdrew: I note that Stace's New Flora of the British Isles lumps everything into Sedum with the comment that "possibly some genera should be segregated but more evidence is needed". Looking around the recent literature using Google Scholar didn't turn up a good molecular phylogenetic study. The bottom part of the tree on p. 444 in this paper suggests no clear separation of a number of genera related to Sedum. It seems that "monoecy and erect habit" are the main features distinguishing Hylotelephium from Sedum. Neither strike me as very reliable indicators of genetic boundaries, so personally I'm sympathetic to Stace's position. I agree that the best we can do for now is to go along with The Plant List, although with scepticism. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:22, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Peter, I'd say that the paper you found is very nice, careful work, and that in combination with an earlier one that I cited at Hylotelephium, and a review article cited at Crassulaceae (Gontcharova and Gontcharov) I think it is convincing that the genus doesn't belong within Sedum, even if several genera could be usefully combined. The papers show that the traditional characters of morphology, dioecy, and even chromosome number don't by themselves provide enough illumination of all the homoplasy, and the molecular data are needed to figure out what other characters could (eventually) be used to devise an identification key that could be of some practical use. I'd prefer not to use old classifications in a case like this, where that could leave an impression that recent taxonomic work is bunk, but it is extremely hard work to follow the trail. Fortunately, there are some secondary sources such as review articles and The Plant List. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:03, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, I guess it depends on whether you are a lumper or a splitter as to how you interpret Zhang et al. (2014). It seems to me (as a lumper) likely that the differentiations among Rhodiola are as large as those among all the genera from Orostachys to Aeonium in their tree, but obviously more species would need to be sampled to get better resolution. What does seem to be the case is that Sedum, as currently circumscribed, is at least paraphyletic, if not polyphyletic. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:08, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, and more molecular phylogenetic work is needed. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:37, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

My BSBI page

Peter, feel free to delete anything that's been addressed from my BSBI page. I'm not keeping records for posterity there. I've been meaning to go back through and start working on SIAs for some of the BSBI/USDA common names that are used for more than one species. I'm feeling more motivated to do that now that you're working on some of the missing articles. Thanks. Plantdrew (talk) 22:00, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Ok, will do. As you've seen with Spergularia marina, some of those on this "left over" list are quite tricky. IPNI has now amended the entry for Arenaria marina in response to input from a fellow editor, so the article needs updating. The priority of marina over salina within Spergularia remains not entirely clear, to say the least. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:51, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Error in note numbers - UK copyright

You wrote :

""In the version current at the time of writing this, there was a curious error in the automatic numbering of the notes. In the infobox, the superscript [2] links to the note numbered 19; this throws out all the other notes in the range 3-18. I going to make a trivial edit to the page and save it again to see if this disappears. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:49, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

It didn't, so I'll report this. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:51, 27 November 2009 (UTC)""

as of aug 2016 the issue or a similar one persists and the related reference numbers are not correct ... the page needs to be re done or removed as it is not accurate for the purpose of what it was intended for..

CanadianAME (talk) 10:50, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

@CanadianAME: the underlying problem seems to be the use of the non-recommended template {{Ref}} alongside the now usual <ref>..</ref>. I agree that the article needs fixing, but no-one seems interested, and I don't have time. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:26, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Redback

Hi Peter just letting you know I updated the Redback page, notably under "Treatment". The recent large studies whose papers I added establish a considerable body of evidence the antivenom is not efficacious, in fact no better than a placebo and risking adverse reactions. This is not without controversy of course as some clinicians feel some attachment and naturally ascribe implied validity to their history of use, and this has been voiced, but not with any scientific evidence refuting the studies, but arguing caution, on the face of it. The authors of the recent papers notably Isbister argue the cautious approach should be to abandon the antivenom rather than continue using it. The whole article probably needs to be carefully revised over the next few years to reflect current advice to clinicians and ongoing research. I'd appreciate it if you had a look to make sure the changes I made are not foolish. Robertwhyteus (talk) 07:46, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Interesting. Just be aware of the need under the provisions of WP:MEDRS for high quality secondary sources for medical information; the material seems ok to me, but I'm not an expert. It may be worth asking for someone active at WT:MED to have a look. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:39, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Endemic genus

Hello Peter,

Is it OK to say a genus is endemic to somewhere? I'm writing an article on Augacephalus and I said the genus was endemic to Africa. Is that OK or is there a better way to put it? Thank you, Megaraptor12345 (talk) 11:41, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

@Megaraptor12345: sorry, been busy in real life, so slow in responding. In principle, it's correct to say that an organism is "endemic to Africa", given the definition of "endemic" as "native or restricted to a certain country or area". However, in practice the term only seems to be used for a country with clear ecological and geographical boundaries or for a smaller area. "Endemic to Australia" seems ok to me, but "endemic to Africa" seems odd, partly because of continuous regions extending outside the continent, e.g. the Mediterranean coast of Africa isn't distinct from the Mediterranean coast of West Asia. So an organism found only in Africa is actually likely to be endemic to a much smaller region of Africa. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:34, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Okay, thanks! I changed the wording a little so it's less "odd". Thanks again, Megaraptor12345 (talk) 00:48, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

"Discovered" cultivars

I'm not sure what you mean by that. In my habitual fashion, I'll just lay out my stance as if it must be and obviously is true: A cultivar is a cultivated variety that's been given a name, and is by definition distinct enough to consistently identify, with these distinctions being genetic and reproducible. If it's a cultivar, someone developed it, whether the mutation(s) arose initially by accident or by intentional attempts to produce change, but it's not a cultivar until it's intentionally bred and it's demonstrated to not be a one-off fluke. I, several times, have discovered mutant kiwis [or maybe they're not really mutants strictly - I haven't looked into it, and it might be some kind of embryological issue] with three fruits fused into one, but I have not discovered a new cultivar of kiwi. If I can develop a consistent variety of them from an/some existing cultivars, that breed true for this triple-fruit feature, then I will have created a cultivar, and I'm the developer, not discoverer of it, even if I was the discoverer of the foundation stock I used to breed the cultivar. Referring to "discovery" of a cultivar appears to be the same kind of imprecise use of language as saying "I went to Reersø in Denmark and discovered a new breed of tailless cat." Does not compute. Either you've discovered a landrace that naturally arose [the actual truth of the tailless cats of Reersø pennisula, which used to be an island, and had the same founder effect produce tail mutations as in the Isle of Man, the Kuril Islands, and Japan), and I can attempt to establish it as an artificially selected breed [as has also happened with several of those mentioned populations], or someone(s) in Reersø were already selectively breeding it and it is already a breed (animal cultivar) [was true of the Japanese bobtail before the rise of the modern cat fancy, but true of any of the others], in which case I've discovered nothing.

But, I'm not a botanist, so I'm sure you can tell me what I'm missing and why "discoverer of a cultivar" is a legit phrase. :-) Even if it is, I would suggest that the concept is iffy and reader-confusing enough that there's no reason to include that word in the article in question.

The idea could be explored in a section at Cultivar if there's something to it that should be covered here. If I'm basically right, but people actually do use the phrase "discover a cultivar" to mean something like "discovered a mutation in an existing cultivar, or discovered a naturally occurring biological race, form, subvariety, or whatever, then used it to develop a new actual cultivar", this is a confusing enough term-of-art usage that it probably should be explained, since to the average reader "discovered a cultivar" implies that "cultivar" and "botanical variety" [or some other infraspecific taxon used for naturally occurring types] are synonymous, that the "culti[vated]" part is linguistic deadwood. It reminds me of figuring out that in botany the only apparent difference between a biological race and a forma specialis are the name and its formatting, and which group of researchers uses which (phytopathologists trying to combat rapidly evolving fungal pests, versus botanical classifiers trying to describe them and fit them into a taxonomic hierarchy). It took a while to unravel that at Race (biology), but with good results. If "discovered cultivar" is used for "something that isn't a cultivar in its own right but was used as the foundation stock for one", that nuance should probably get documented. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 18:28, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Take variegated plants, for example. One day I discover a shoot on an otherwise normal plant (whether a wild plant or a cultivated one) that has variegated foliage. I take cuttings and manage to root them. I give the clone a cultivar name and it's taken up by the horticultural trade. It's not a "mutation in an existing cultivar" or "a naturally occurring biological race, form, subvariety, or whatever". The cultivar is a single aberration or mutation, full stop, that I discovered. Cristate ferns are a good example of cultivars that were mostly discovered in the wild and then vegetatively propagated. "Discovered" is the normal language used in talking about such cases. (One I found quickly is http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1866544.htm.) This could be explained more in the article, but cultivars can certainly be discovered as well as deliberately bred, and in the past, most were. Double snowdrops or yellow snowdrops are other examples that spring to mind. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:58, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

pageswap script for convenience

Hi Peter coxhead, I've noticed that you performed round-robin page moves at one point. Thought I'd share a script here (js) that semi-automates page swaps for convenience, if you ever encounter the scenario. You'd simply click "Swap" and enter a page destination, the script performs the 3 moves as necessary (saves time having to manually go through the move form 3 times). (It doesn't correct redirects afterwards, that's still manual)

Anyway, just an FYI, feel free to adapt this script as you see fit, cheers :) — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 02:48, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

@Andy M. Wang: looks very useful; I'll certainly try it the next time I need to make such a move. Thanks! Peter coxhead (talk) 06:01, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Automated taxonomy system errors

Hi, User:Wikid77 responding here, in case other editors also want to comment. I have NOT yet pinpointed the cause but have confirmed a depth problem (around 55 levels) at Template:Taxonomy/Abavornis, which would work fine if the upper-level templates had fewer taxo levels. Hence, there is NOT a problem inside Template:Taxonomy/Abavornis, but an aggregate depth problem of all templates nested together. In prior years, I have avoided depth problems by simply hard-coding perhaps 10 upper-level taxo templates to not nest but instead each act as only 1 level deep, to simulate the upper-level display as if nested above. More later. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:28, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Some pages at limit fail to show "Page exceeded the expansion depth": While most of the over-long taxo templates are listed in "Category:Pages where expansion depth is exceeded", some pages such as Template:Taxonomy/Abavornis do not show "Page exceeded" during edit-preview due to an accounting error in the MediaWiki depth-level count, and such pages merely fail to work as expected while not showing page-exceeded error. To catch miscounted levels, edit a suspected page and double-nest the contents inside +2 levels of {{1x |{{1x |...contents...}} }} and then the show-preview button will display error "Page exceeded the expansion depth" at top of the edit-preview display. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:57, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
To avoid depth-limit create special taxo templates to skip levels & show note about skip: Because the wp:developers have refused (for years) to increase the wp:expansion depth limit beyond 40 levels, it will be necessary to alter the taxo templates to skip some levels, perhaps in the lower-level taxons, and change the Template:Taxonomy_key to show a mid-table explanatory note when such levels are skipped (or generate the skipped taxon rows in the table as an extra parameter). -Wikid77 (talk) 17:57, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I had reached the same conclusion, but without your level of detail. What is puzzling is that these errors apparently didn't occur before although the taxonomy template hierarchy was the same. However, tracking upwards, I can't find any extra levels that were inserted. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:28, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

I've now raised the issue at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs#Automated taxonomy system errors. Whatever "fixes" can be implemented to get round the problem, editors can't just keep adding clade levels to the stored taxonomic hierarchy. (Maybe if the system could be re-implemented in Lua it would avoid the depth issue?) Peter coxhead (talk) 09:05, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Conyza canadensis vs Erigeron canadensis

I notice you moved / renamed Erigeron canadensis to Conyza canadensis. The relatively current 2nd edition of Plants of Pennsylvania by Fowler and Block (2007) classifies this under Conyza, not Erigeron. My impression was that Erigeron is the older name, I'm sure I've read this in some sources but I don't recall which. The USDA page for this plant also classifies it as Conyza. Did you have a particular justification for renaming this? If not, I would like to revert this edit and move this page back to what I think is the more current, widely accepted classification, and I wanted to make sure we were on the same page because you were the one who had moved them.

Thanks! Cazort (talk) 17:53, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

You meant the other way for the the move. The Plant List (TPL) here, based on the Global Compositae Checklist, has Erigeron, which is why I made the move. When there are differences of taxonomic opinion for plants, we've usually gone with TPL. I did a quick search using Google Scholar, and it's clear that papers in the last five years use both names. However, there seems a trend to accepting that the two genera are not separable, and recent Floras, like the 2014 French national flora, merge Conyza into Erigeron. So I don't see a good reason not to follow TPL, while being clear that at present there's no consensus. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:03, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Taxoboxes

Hi, thanks for your help with the taxonomy boxes, I will check out the resources you suggested. I have expanded the T. terricola article. I normally use taxoboxes but found Thorosa frustrating as the background information for the Species box wasn't there and you had used that method when editing my previous attampts at spider articles, it is worth me persisting as it is less typing than my normal method. Quetzal1964 12:55, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your encouragement, I have used the list of publications for Allan Frost Archer. I finally managed to get the automated taxobox to work in Cryphoeca and Cryphoeca silvicola‎, hope the synonym list is right too.Quetzal1964 19:59, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

/* Other divisions */ move <"Continents" may be defined differently for specific purposes. > & slightly modify; hopefully this is a "friendly edit"

I.e., ~~hopefully~~ i'm hopeful that you find this to be a "friendly edit".
--Jerzy•t 07:56, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

@Jerzy: I see that another editor has reverted your edit. It did seem to me sensible to make a comment about other definitions at the head of the list, although I think that Categories close, in rank and meaning, to "continent" isn't quite right, because it suggests that there's one clear meaning to the word "continent" (and by extension that there's one set of continents), whereas the reality is that this is a fuzzy concept: the WGSRPD's division of Asia into Asia-Temperate and Asia-Tropical is as valid as the division of Eurasia into Europe and Asia. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:32, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, i hadn't registered the fact this had turned into a three-party concern, and was considering leaving the section i'd removed text from alone, and focusing on adding the intro of its parent section. I'd especially be interested in your own drafts or statements of issues you find relevant. I'll mull all that you both have said in the meantime, and see what i can tease out of our colleague's ed hist on that page, and the for me at-least-initially-unhelpful ed summary for the reversion.
--Jerzy•t 14:15, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, second reading of your last is even more comforting.
--Jerzy•t 14:18, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Further split /Test/Big_cladogram

Inside the page User:Peter coxhead/Test/Big_cladogram, to fix nesting error "Page exceeded the expansion depth" now I also split the "lamiids" clade into section "Lamiids (continued)" as similar to the Malvids split. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:35, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

The point of the page was to determine precisely where the error occurred and then eliminate it; I hadn't noticed that some time since 2012 it had re-appeared. Thanks. Peter coxhead (talk) 00:44, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Pleasure!

Hi Peter, I made that edit to the sandbox of the speciesbox template in a futile effort to remove the Class: Reptilia from the box on all the bird pages. I did trace it to the {{Taxonomy/Aves}} template and tried again there, only to again fail. Then I asked Wikid77 for help and was pointed to this discussion, where I left my 2 cents. It is curious to know how this could have been altered without community consensus. I can see the need to list a reptilian past for birds, but two classes in all of the birds' infoboxes just doesn't seem to be anything less than confusing for our readership. Paine ^u/c 19:27, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

@Paine Ellsworth: it's not only confusing, it's downright wrong to have two class ranks. Since I'm neither a "bird editor" nor a "dinosaur editor", I'd hoped that editors would turn up from both Wikiprojects, and reach a consensus on what class to use in bird taxoboxes. So far the view is that "Class: Reptilia" is at the wrong rank. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:35, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree, so I've altered the taxonomy/Aves template with a parent of the also controversial, yet seemingly more acceptable in sources, "Sauropsida". That removed the Class: Reptilia from the infoboxes. And yet, I sense that this is far from over. Paine ^u/c 21:38, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Plant cell

How about linking to plant cell biologists that are "notable" enough to have a wikipedia page?BinaryPhoton (talk) 18:06, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

@BinaryPhoton: the problem then is that it's using Wikipedia as a source, which is expressly forbidden (see e.g. WP:UGC or WP:CLONE "Wikipedia cannot be used as a source for itself". You need sources that explicitly list notable plant cell biologists – sources plural to avoid national biases. Note also that someone who happens to be a plant cell biologist may be notable enough for an article for other reasons. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:21, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks!

I just want to say thank you for fixing some of my mistakes on ootaxon taxoboxes. Ashorocetus (talk | contribs) 22:42, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

@Ashorocetus: no problem! Actually, in my view, the instructions weren't clear enough, particularly on the need for ranks to be Latin rather than English. I've expanded Template:Automatic taxobox/editintro/preload a bit – this is the template that generates instructions when you start a new "Template:Taxonomy/..." page. Any further suggestions for improving these would be welcome. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:46, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Plantae

Responding to your ping here, because the discussion on Plantsurfer's talk page has been archived. The phrase he reverted was not in an article or taxobox, it was in a discussion on Talk:Protist where I was explicitly talking about Embryophyta and Plantae in Adl et al., 2005 & 2012 (specifically, the absurdity of placing their supergroups under "Kingdom Protista" in the protist taxobox). Aside from the fact that the nomenclature was quite correct, I don't think it is appropriate to alter another User's signed comment on a Talk page. Deuterostome (Talk) 12:40, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Many apologies if I misunderstood the context (there have been quite a few attempts to change the definition of Plantae used in taxoboxes, some of which Plantsurfer fixed). It's certainly not appropriate to alter another user's comment on a talk page, other than a minor typo correction. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:48, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

He's fighting the good fight, without question. :) My guess is that he was working quickly, and didn't realize he'd reverted a signed comment, in a discussion that was actually about the confusion caused by different definitions of Plantae. Anyway, I think we all agree on the need to develop consistent nomenclature across Wikipedia articles, templates and taxoboxes. The existing patchwork is unwieldy and confusing. A high school student who finds his way to the Chlorophyta article will learn that the group belongs to the "kingdom" Archaeplastida. If he clicks on Chlorophyceae in the taxobox, he will find himself at a page in which the taxobox contains a "kingdom" Viridiplantae. If he clicks on Chlamydomonadales he will find himself at Volvocales, where the taxobox will cheerfully assure him that it belongs to "kingdom" Plantae. Kingdoms nesting within kingdoms...it's embarrassing. Deuterostome (Talk) 15:52, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Common names

Many thanks for your comments Peter and point taken. Do you know of any good references for common names (especially in Asia) - apart from Indian flowers? Tetrameles is an important tree here in Vietnam and the name tung is widely accepted. Roy Bateman (talk) 14:46, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

@Roy Bateman: The online Flora of China has Chinese names; I'm afraid I'm not aware of anything online for Vietnam, but note that you can source names to books – the source doesn't have to be in English, just available in principle in a library, for which an ISBN number is sufficient evidence. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:43, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

@Roy Bateman: The [Multiingual Multiscript Plant Name Database] has a decent collection of Asian language common names for some plants (but nothing for Tetrameles). I haven't looked at it in enough detail to have an opinion about whether it should be considered a reliable source. Plantdrew (talk) 20:25, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

On 7 March Stemonitis moved page Tetrameles nudiflora to Tetrameles: monotypy. By doing this links were lost to 12 languages (see: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrameles_nudiflora) - I am not sure how can these be restored. Roy Bateman (talk) 23:41, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

@Roy Bateman: Interwiki links are handled through Wikidata. Wikidata items split apart some concepts that may or may not be lumped together in Wikipedia articles in various languages, such as monotypic genera and their sole species, or a plant species that is the source of a natural product and the natural product itself. From what I've seen, taxonomy editors at Wikidata are generally OK with putting all the interwiki links for a monotypic genus on a single Wikidata item, even if some Wikipedia languages have the article at the genus and others have it at the species. For Tetrameles/Termeles nudiflora, Wikidata items d:Q3236759 and d:Q15281786 could be edited so that almost all of the Wikipedia links are contained in one of the items (the Chinese Wikipedia appears to have separate articles for genus and species). I'm not entirely comfortable with that Wikidata practice myself, which seems to stem from a technical limitation where Wikidata can't link to Wikipedia redirects, although I appreciate that they split monotypic genera/species and natural products and their sources. It would be better if Wikidata could link Wikipedia redirects in these cases. Plantdrew (talk) 04:08, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

There are several serious problems with Wikidata; not only can it not link to redirects, it more importantly it can only handle 1:1 links. This simply doesn't fit with practices on different Wikipedias. The clear policy in the English Wikipedia is to handle monotypic genera at the genus; other languages have different practices, including having two articles. There are usually fudges, but they are only fudges. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:16, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Could you please use your magic wand?

Hi Peter, could you please use your template-editing powers to fix a typo in a template, which is mentioned at Template talk:Taxonomic links#List of Prokaryotic Names with Standing in Nomenclature? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 09:03, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

I've had a go, as you've seen, but I'm not sure the original coding was entirely correct, so may still not be right. Because the template is called from articles with the misspelt parameter names, I've left them as alternatives. Ideally, the calls would be fixed and then the wrong names removed. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:39, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for that. I think it is unlikely that real polishing will happen on those articles any time soon. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:49, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Opiliones

Hello Peter- Might I learn some of the "excellent reasons" for not changing the intro line of Opiliones to the singular? Eric ^talk 13:13, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

If you look at original sources, you'll find that singular and plural are both regularly used with higher taxa. All that will happen if you change from one to the other is that before long someone will change it back. All of which wastes time and resources. I can't find the link for animals right now; for plants see WP:PLANTS/TAXONNUMBER. You can experiment with different taxa in Google ngrams by editing this one for Crustacea. You'll find that for regularly used Latin names of taxa above genus, both uses are found in various proportions. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:35, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. In my edit, I was just following my tendency to keep intro sentences in the singular if possible. But from what you say, I might have been wrongly assuming that Opiliones is singular. In that plant project advice section you cite, is the first bullet (The botanical name of a taxon higher than genus (i.e. from family upwards) is plural in Latin) stating that these names are plural forms in Latin, or suggesting that they ought to be used that way? i.e. is Opiliones a plural form in Latin? Eric ^talk 17:26, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, all the ranks above genus are given plural Latin names, so Arthropoda, Arachnida, Opiliones, etc. are plural in Latin. Thus when writing in Latin, zoologists would have used arthropodum to mean an arthropod, the plural being arthropoda. Opiliones is the Latin plural of opilio. Some insist that the plural is used when writing in English (e.g. here). On the other hand, others argue that we are writing in English, not Latin, and don't have to be bound by Latin grammar rules. Since both singular and plural are found in reliable sources, and this is one of those arguments that in the end come down to preference, it's usually best to leave the article as it was written, unless there are very good reasons to make a change. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:04, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining this, Peter. I'll always think it looks better for the initial sentence describing a term to be in the singular if possible, but I see your point. Eric ^talk 13:34, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, I too prefer the singular, and it's what I use when creating an article, but I know from experience that there are many editors who disagree! Peter coxhead (talk) 16:25, 23 October 2016 (UTC)