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Collapse synonyms

Is there any chance the synonym section could be collapsible? Perhaps: synonym_collapse = yes and would give a show/hide option. It would be off by default (and not even display the show/hide), but when a species has a lot of synonyms it could be enabled. I would think synonyms are not of interest to most readers and often date back to the beginnings of taxonomy, so when there are lots taking up article space it may be best to hide them, e.g.: Bornean orangutan. Cheers, Jack (talk) 13:27, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

MOS:COLLAPSE makes the important point that encyclopaedic content should not be hidden by default, as it will not always be possible to click "show". It is permissible to collapse summaries such as infoboxes, provided the content is also presented elsewhere, typically in the article prose, but that doesn't apply in this case. The synonyms should ideally be in the running text; I could also see a case for putting them in a footnote, although I have never seen that done. In this case, it could be removed for being unsourced. They appear to be mostly unaccepted subspecies, anyway, and without that explanation, it is hard for the reader to interpret. Who synonymised them, and why? --Stemonitis (talk) 13:37, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I understand the reasons why this shouldn't be implemented. Not sure how you could avoid the taxobox being overrun with synonyms as they are all meant to be listed. Cheers, Jack (talk) 17:32, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Are they? That's probably true at Wikispecies, but here, in a general encyclopaedia, only the informative ones should be included. The taxobox is a summary of the key facts about the taxon, rather than a nomenclatural laundry list. There are some synonyms that should definitely be included, such as Physeter catodon instead of Physeter macrocephalus (a name which has been in wide use until recently, and is apparently still used), but beyond cases like that, I don't think there are many clear criteria for deciding which should and which should not be included. That's probably the reason why our taxoboxes tend to include all synonyms, rather than coming from a philosophy that all synonyms should be included. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:04, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

There are several taxa with extremely long lists of synonyms; the three burying beetles that have all been called at some point in literature Nicrophorus cadaverinus come to mind as all having extremely long lists of synonyms, and someone ought to be able to search for these beetles using any name that was ever used in scientific literature (if it's in the synonyms box, it'll at least show up under the search results). It might not be a bad idea to add a parameter |collapse synonyms= to the taxobox templates. If we do, I'd say it needs to function just like the optional parameter |extinct= in the {{automatic taxobox}}-- it should default to normal appearance without "show/hide" options when omitted, but appear collapsed and provide a "show/hide" option if a value is given. My reasoning for this is that most taxa have short synonym lists, and this modification would be least intrusive to the articles that already have synonym lists. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:12, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

This is exactly how I imagined it being implemented. Jack (talk) 13:13, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Bob, how do you reconcile this suggestion with MOS:COLLAPSE, which explicitly advises against it? --Stemonitis (talk) 18:16, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Clever of you to pull a policy on me when I just referenced a policy to someone else. . While I'm not advocating the change, I do think it makes sense and would be willing to make the coding adjustments if the community agrees.

The policy you've pulled on me says collapsing in an infobox is not permissible, unless the information contained within the collapsed cell is discussed within the article. Gotta love loopholes! I'm not sure to what extent it would need discussed; for instance, let's take one of those Nicrophorus beetles: Nicrophorus germanicus has 34 listed synonyms. If the list is collapsed, then would a few phrases regarding the diversity of the species and the confusion it's caused, along with a note to reference the taxobox suffice? Or would we need to document each of the details surrounding the 34 synonyms? Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:06, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

If the list is in the text, then it doesn't have to be in the taxobox at all, particularly if it's burdensome there. If it's not in the text, you cannot collapse it in the taxobox. I don't see the word "discussed" in the guideline (not policy, as it happens); it says table contents can be collapsed where they "consolidate information covered in the main text". If it's that important that every synonym be mentioned (and that's not the current policy as I understand it, although for reasons I have argued above, that's how it's generally implemented), then they have to be mentioned in the text, and not just vaguely (e.g. "... alongside 14 heterotypic and 20 homotypic synonyms..."); you have to list them individually. How much further detail you give is a separate issue from the general principle under discussion here. In general, show/hide boxes are a bad idea anyway, and they generally indicate something either being crammed in where it doesn't belong, or something being glossed over rather than dealt with properly. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:20, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, I prefer seeing a list in the taxobox (but I have no preference as to whether I have to uncollapse it). With all of the above in mind, I think it's safe to turn down this request unless someone wants to set up an RfC to modify the existing guideline to make this exception. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Stemonitis that if the list looks as if it needs to be collapsible this just shows it shouldn't be there anyway. Short lists of synonyms, species in the case of genera, genera in the case of families, etc. work well in taxoboxes; long lists don't and should surely be replaced by "See text". Peter coxhead (talk) 12:18, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

How would you present it inline though? In bulleted lists? Paragraph form? -- Obsidi♠n Soul 12:35, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that synonyms need emphasizing in Wikipedia articles, for the reasons I've given below. So I wouldn't expect to use bullet lists myself. (Species and genera lists are another matter.) Peter coxhead (talk) 10:53, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Is it permissible to say something along the lines of "for the full list of synonyms see Wikispecies" (or maybe a note in the synonym section of the taxobox)? Then list the key synonyms (who decides which are key?) in the taxobox? Jack (talk) 13:19, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, this would seem to treat Wikispecies as a reliable source, which it isn't. Secondly, why would readers want the full list of synonyms? Surely only those who know where to find this information anyway, i.e. biologists, ever want a full list? The "target Wikipedia reader" needs, it seems to me, only those synonyms which have commonly been used in non-specialist sources, such as gardening books, natural history books, field guides. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:53, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

In theory Wikispecies should be as reliable as Wikipedia so long as it is properly referenced, and would be a more suitable place for taxonomic information. I'm not sure you could consistently rule which synonyms are less obscure than others. I believe a Wikipedia article on a species should really list all the information we have available. Jack (talk) 16:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

• I agree that Wikispecies would be a more suitable place for some kinds of detailed taxonomic information. However, it can't be a source of such information, only a "see also" via the Wikispecies template {{Wikispecies}}.
• Wikipedia should definitely not list "all the information we have available", as per WP:NOTGUIDE. It's not a scientific journal; it's not a gardening encyclopedia; its target readership is not professional biologists; etc. Yes, you can't consistently decide which synonyms are worth including in Wikipedia, but that's what editorial judgement and collaborative editing are for. My view on synonyms is that if there's a doubt, leave it out. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:11, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay that's fine, you're probably right. Jack (talk) 17:37, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to bring this up again, but I've noticed on the human page there is a collapsible list used for the synonyms in the taxobox (which is the speciesbox version). Is this acceptable to use on non-human species pages as well? Jack (talk) 12:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I would say not, and nor is it acceptable to use it there. I don't believe it's useful to have a list of synonyms for such a recognisable species anyway, most of which must be subspecies that have since been sunk. That article doesn't even have a Taxonomy section for the synonymy to accompany (and I'm not suggesting that it should have, either). No, it's an especially bad idea at human, but it's still a bad idea elsewhere. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The best solution in this case is probably to move that synonymy – once it's properly formatted – to Wikispecies, which doesn't mention any of them yet. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:13, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm still not convinced per Bob above. Synonyms are also redirects. A user redirected to a page where the words he typed are nowhere to be found would be completely confused. I would also argue that they are quite important information that can not be placed in-text as they would lose their author citations. Subjective/heterotypic synonyms can (and should) be explained in-text, but discussing each and every objective/homotypic synonym in the text would be giving them even more detail. The only other option would be to remove them, and that would mean losing the information just for the sake of article layout.

Besides, if you're arguing that they are not important enough to even be mentioned, then MOS:COLLAPSE wouldn't apply to them at all. So unless you have an alternative proposal on how they could be dealt with in text, I'd rather keep them than remove them for purely aesthetic reasons. Even if that means a collapsible list.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 14:27, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Count me in as another who likes the collapsible synonym list. I've used them on some FAs without a problem. Sasata (talk) 14:40, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Sasata, cases like Lactarius volemus are different, in that the collapsed list summarises information that is presented in the text. No-one is disputing that usage, which is explicitly allowed by the MOS. We are discussing cases where the taxobox is not summarising information shown in the text, but is presenting new information, and then hiding it from sections of the readership. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:48, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

So the ideal solution would then be to expand the taxonomic history in these articles, correct? Sasata (talk) 15:04, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

None of those synonyms is a redirect, either as presented or as a full name. Surely you're not arguing that someone typing in "Homo sapiens scythicus" would be surprised to end up at human (even in the event that such a redirect were put in place)? The fact that Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent named a bunch of taxa that no-one else believes in is probably not important enough to be in the article, and is certainly not worth putting in the taxobox. The collapsibility really is irrelevant here; the list should be at Wikispecies. If we mentioned synonyms in the text, there might be a case for retaining the list in the text, but certainly not as currently presented. The source we cite for that information is dedicated to mammalian taxonomy and nomenclature, and even that only says "Most of the synonyms have fossil specimens as their type specimens; Bory de St. Vincent’s names refer to living geographic varieties of modern humans." It's clearly not a major topic, and a generalist encyclopaedia such as this has no use for such trivia. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

You seem pretty sure of this ("certainly not worth putting", "clearly not", "no use for such trivia"), but I for one find this aspect of taxonomy interesting, and were this article to appear at FAC, I would question why the synonymy was not included and discussed if it were absent. Sasata (talk) 15:01, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I suspect you are not typical of Wikipedia's audience. I doubt many of them would be interested to know that one scientist once made a whole slew of names for geographical races only to be promptly overruled and for the names he created to slide inexorably into oblivion. There may be a place for that in race (classification of humans), but not at human. A taxonomic history of humans could be added, but those names wouldn't really fill any part of it. The species was named by Linnaeus in 1758, and has stayed unchanged ever since. It was eventually and validly typified as Linnaeus himself (I forget the reference for that). And that's about all I would expect to see. Perhaps some discussion on whether Neanderthals are a separate subspecies or species (or whatever)... To answer your original point: yes, I am pretty sure of this. It seems perfectly self-evident to me that that list is worthless; presumably that's why it was collapsed in the first place. I, too, find taxonomy interesting, but this is just a series of scribblings in the margin of the real taxonomy, which is unusually straightforward for this species. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:22, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I guess we just have different opinions on the matter. Rather than choosing for the reader what I think will be interesting for them to read, I think it's better to present the information and let them make the choice. I notice that the human article has no taxonomy section at all, which I would count as an omission. Perhaps I'll knock up a short one and see if I can discuss some of that trivia in the taxobox :) Sasata (talk) 15:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

In case you need it, this appears to be the reference which is generally considered to have lectotypified H. sapiens with Linnaeus, although apparently there have been counter-claims! --Stemonitis (talk) 15:41, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Oof. I just took a look at the human synonymy list and I have to agree they are of questionable significance to say the least, heh. That said, I was speaking more in general terms, when there's a long list of synonyms that were established in less trivial circumstances. I really think it would be a big loss if they were left out simply because there were too many to fit.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 22:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with several above that raw lists of obscure synonyms are not a valuable addition to an encyclopedia. You can look at the list and say "Cool.", but that's it. As was mentioned, people who can really use this stuff already know how to get it. One concern was that it would be difficult to draw the line on what is notable. An easy way to decide & codify that is only allow synonyms that are relevant enough to be discussed. If you have something to say about, then fine; but if there is nothing interesting on encyclopedic you can say in words about it, then it doesn't belong.

My opinion on collapsed lists doesn't matter though because the guideline at MOS:COLLAPSE is clear that they are not to be used to hide content not in the article. To hide synonyms that way not even listed in the article is stretching the rules in a less-than-honest "interpretation".

--Tom Hulse (talk) 21:20, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Extinction date

Is the parameter | extinct = year broken? I don't think I have ever seen it display in a taxobox, but it is mentioned in the documentation. – VisionHolder « talk » 09:43, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't even exist; I'll remove it from the documentation. Thanks! Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:44, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Might a better solution be to restore the parameter, in case there are taxoboxes that are trying to use it? I for one would like to know when it was dropped and why. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:10, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

It was removed in October of 2009 as part of an update to bring it from "archaic" to "modern" infobox style, proposed by Thumperward and implemented by Hesperian. If we want more information on this, I'd say Thump's the one to page here. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:10, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Also-- it would be pretty simple to set up a tracking category to see if any pages are using that parameter; a much simpler version of the Lepidoptera tracking categories we used last year. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

If indeed it was used, it doesn't look like it's worked in over two years if it's my 2009 work that removed it. Re-adding it probably wouldn't be trivial given that the code in question was heavily reworked at the time, but it shouldn't be difficult either. I'm on holiday and unlikely to have much in the way of time to look at this in the next fortnight, but I suppose if it were a high priority it wouldn't have taken 28 months for it to get noticed. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 07:04, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I've modified the template so that articles using this parameter show up in Category:Taxoboxes using extinct parameters. It'll take a little while for this category to populate, although I notice that it is already inhabited. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:47, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Looking at the code, it was dead easy to restore the desired functionality. I'll leave the tracking category in place for now though, in case anyone's interested to know how widely the parameter is used. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:52, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

It's certainly an interesting category...I wasn't aware there was an earthworm marked as extinct on the Red List! Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:21, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I figured there would be some taxoboxes still using it, but who'd have thought there would be so many! One minor point – can we arrange it so that there's only one space between "Extinct" and the date in brackets, please? At the moment there appears to be a normal space and an HTML non-breaking space entity in there. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:53, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

FYI, I noticed that this parameter was broken more than a year ago. I didn't bring it up because I didn't want to get bogged down with any discussions about it. Personally, I think extinction dates are good to summarize in the taxobox, but only for Holocene extinctions. If the parameter is restored, I suggest noting this in the documentation. – VisionHolder « talk » 15:45, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Automatic taxoboxes

Please could someone who understands automatic taxoboxes correct the family name in the taxobox of this article. The correct name is "Aliciidae". Thank you. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:38, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. I think that in general, if you can't get the automatic taxobox to do what you want, you are justified in converting to the manual taxobox. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:00, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Redundancy

This was archived before resolution, so I unarchived it. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 00:27, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

This is one of the most annoyingly redundant infoboxes on the whole system, because of presentation like this:

...

Genus: Zingiber

Species: Z. mioga

Binomial name

Zingiber mioga

— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 23:19, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Hear hear! The term 'Binomial name' is itself an outstanding example of a pleonasm, something which WP is supposedly trying to eradicate. However, some editors are painfully conservative and belong to a sect which feels that WP has already attained perfection and that anyone trying to improve it is simply a trouble-stirrer. Paul venter (talk) 08:01, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

No, it's not. "Binomial" means made up of two names, and could apply to anything, as the two names needn't make up a name when combined. Nor indeed must a name be made up of parts that are themselves names. "Gordon Bennett!" could be described as a "binomial exclamation". Of course, we don't, but the point is that there's no logical requirement for a thing made of two names to be itself a name, or for the two parts a name is made up of to be themselves names. We understand that the term "binomial name" is your personal bugbear, but that's no reason to overturn policy. Even under SMcCandlish's proposals to remove redundancy (the point of this section), the term "binomial name" would still be applicable. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:28, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I think you miss the point entirely and that is that SMcCandlish is annoyed by the presentation of the infobox in that it tediously repeats information. I'm just amused by the pleonasm - "two-name name" - which refuses to make way for accepted and more sensible terms like "binomen", or "binomial". I find the attempted justification of this mumpsimus involving Gordon Bennett ponderous and obscure, while adding that "binomial name" is not so much policy as historical accident which is now zealously preserved as Wikipediana. Paul venter (talk) 13:07, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

No, you have missed the point. The nomen in "binomial" is not the same as the name in "name", so there is no redundancy. Since your whole argument is based on this supposed pleonasm, you have no case at all. That's all academic, though, because this battle has already been lost, and lost quite badly. I think you already recognise that the weight of opinion is against you; the best course of action would therefore be to accept that that is so, and find better ways of contributing than repeating your complaints here ad nauseam. Sometimes redundancy can be helpful to convey information clearly; using words such as "pleonasm" and "mumpsimus" rarely aids in comprehensibility, and such sesquipedalian ostentations are generally avoided when trying to reach a broad audience. Consider that you may not be typical of Wikipedia's readership. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:32, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

1) Species names can never be written by themselves. The following is wrong:

Genus: Zingiber

Species: mioga

2) It includes the author, which isn't included in the preceding list. Those little text are important to those who can understand them.

Binomial name

Zingiber mioga

(Thunb.) Roscoe

3) Instead of a binomen, that section is a trinomen at times, even when the third name is not listed beforehand. In which case it would usually have a different author citation.

4) The header for Binomial name provides a place to insert references rather than directly on the binomen, where it might be misconstrued as part of it.

5) It focuses the attention of the reader to the actual binomen.

6) Don't fix what isn't broken.

-- Obsidi♠n Soul 23:38, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

+1 for this, especially #6. It's not your traditional infobox because its main function is the display of the classification hierarchy. I have no problem with the current layout and see no reason to alter it. Rkitko ^(talk) 01:22, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

+1 too, but an additional (and very important) point relates to the problems of creating a layout which is correct for both botanical and zoological names. (1) above is actually wrong for zoology, but right for botany (the second part of a binomial is a name in its own right in zoological names, but not in botanical names). I too at one time was concerned about the apparent redundancy in the layout, but the onus on those who don't like it to suggest an alternative which is correct in terms of the nomenclature codes and which can gain a consensus. Peter coxhead (talk) 04:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

@Obsidian Soul:

1. I didn't suggest that it should be written "Species: mioga", but as Peter coxhead says, this isn't universally considered "wrong" anyway. Obviously it wouldn't be done in running prose, but a table heading labeled "Species:" isn't running prose. I don't really care about that though, but the redundant "Binomal name:..." section's repetition of the information immediately provided already just above it. It's like having a bio template that produces:
     Last name: Jones
     First name: Jane
     Full name: Jane Jones
2. The author could be included in the preceding list: Species: Z. mioga<br /><small>(Thunb.) Roscoe</small>.
3. So list the third name beforehand, with a subspecies parameter. You can add a citation there, too.
4. See above example in #2; there's no more potential for confusion in the one place than the other.
5. True, but the lead already has that, so this doesn't seem to be a very compelling rationale.
6. Don't be flippant and dismissive. Someone wouldn't raise a criticism of the template if they thought it wasn't an actual issue.

@Rkitko: This would still focus on "display of the classification hierarchy".

@Peter coxhead: I think this would constitute "suggest[ing] an alternative which is correct in terms of the nomenclature codes", unless I missed something.

PS: This also applies to Template:Speciesbox and Template:Automatic taxobox, the talk pages of which have been cross-referenced to this discussion. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 00:34, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, writing just "mioga" is universally considered wrong; it's just that the codes differ as to whether or not it constitutes a "name" in its own right. That's a terminological nicety that we don't want to get into, and is beside the point anyway. It seems that your complaints are chiefly aesthetic or emotional (you find it "annoying"), rather than functional (for instance, if readers were to find it confusing). As such, it is likely to be subject to Parkinson's "bicycle shed" effect, and is probably not a good way for any of us to spend our time. If the topic was archived without resolution before, that may be because resolution isn't going to happen, and the topic should be quietly forgotten. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:44, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I concur that there isn't going to be a change, but it's worth noting for the record what the purpose of the current layout is. The taxobox is intended to show the taxonomic hierarchy for the taxon in question. So for, say, a subspecies of plant, it should show all the ranks from Kingdom down to Subspecies. The layout problem isn't caused by us but ultimately by Linnaeus: he chose to make species names largely of the grammatical form noun adjective (and hence noun adjective connecting-form adjective for botanical subspecies). Since the adjectives don't make sense by themselves, and therefore convention says that they should not be used alone, we are stuck with repeating the genus, at least in its abbreviated form. We could correctly have something like:

Genus: Echinopsis

Specific epithet: candida

Subspecific epithet: candida

Full name: Echinopsis candida subsp. candida

But (a) this should be different for organisms governed by the zoological code (b) it doesn't show the taxonomic hierarchy as such (c) it's more confusing for the average reader (d) it's just as aesthetically displeasing, if not more so. The present layout is, by general consensus, the best that can be done given the purpose of the taxobox and the facts of the situation. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:15, 23 February 2012 (UTC)