User talk:Peter coxhead/Archive 10

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Angiosperm Phylogeny Group

Angiosperm Phylogeny Group is a bit of a mess, to say the least, and I have been meaning to clean it up for some time, but have only Band-Aided it so far. But I have a question - do we really need page references within a journal article - I saw you restored one. In all my years as an academic author, reviewer and journal editor I have never seen that as a style requirement - at least in my field. Cheers --Michael Goodyear (talk) 21:21, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

PS According to my browser, your recent edits introduced a whole lot of new problems in the citations - lots of red ink! I would like to clean that up --Michael Goodyear (talk) 21:27, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
Page numbers: it depends on the length of the article, I think. I've been working on spiders recently, and there are monograph length articles where page references are very helpful. I don't think it's as necessary for the APG articles, but it doesn't do any harm, so I just thought it was better not to lose information.
I don't see any errors now, which is strange. I'd be interested to know what errors you see. Of course fix any red text! Peter coxhead (talk) 22:22, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
Citations that point to non existent refs and vice versa. It depends on how you have set up your editor - there are many editing tools which are set up in your common.js page, and which highlight errors in red the ordinary user does not see. Anyway I revised and cleaned up all the citations and some other minor irritants. I thought the page was simpler this way. I don't see how any reader would have difficulty finding the information they want in the APG papers. My interest at present is in the APG IV process.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 03:41, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
One point I would make about your edits is the need to maintain the same citation style (in this case CS2 rather than CS1). So this article should not use the "cite" templates (or if they are used, then you have to add |mode=cs2, but this seems overcomplicated). Because of changes made to the "short footnote" templates in the last year or so, to maintain the correct CS2 style with no full stop at the end you need to use |ps=none.
Also as far (as I know) the only way to correctly correctly format a contribution where the published work is going to be referenced via "in ..." is to use {{harvc}}. If you do it the way it was done before I changed to this template, and as you had changed it back, the contribution title comes out in italics, but should be in roman in quotes. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:34, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
Frankly I'm a bit puzzled about this. I'm all for consistent style - though difficult with multiple editors, indeed I thought I was, as WP suggests, and it is usually the first thing I do when I try to clean up a page. But to the best of my knowledge (and I'm always ready to be better informed) there is no recommended style, as per WP:Citing sources. You have probably noticed that my personal style has evolved to the use of sfn with a separate bibliography and ref=harv. But I would need to be convinced that other styles present a substantially better outcome to change this at present. Maybe you have seen something I missed. I notice your style has also been evolving. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 23:12, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
Sure, there's no fixed style. However, consistency is required, and this was all I was saying, so I'm puzzled by why you are puzzled by my comments above! Can you explain further? If it's about {{harvc}}, I don't like using it, but you can't now have |contribution= without |title=. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:27, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
I was only puzzled because you seemed to imply there had been a change in policy that now required CS2, which i don't have much experience of. I thought I had changed the tangle of citations to sfn CS1 uniformly, but have missed a few. Anyway it looks like you have now got them all at CS2, so there should be no problem. I assume your comments on harvc apply only when CS2 is in use, since harvtxt seems to work fine with CS1.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 22:23, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

The need for {{harvc}} is independent of CS1/CS2. Suppose you want to produce a citation of the following form (but of course with the appropriate links present):

  • Smith, A. (2015). "Chapter 1". In Jones (2015).

You used to be able to use either {{cite book}} or {{citation}} for the contribution or chapter part, and then use one of the "harv" templates for the "in" part, enclosing both in ref tags. E.g.

  • <ref>{{cite book |last=Smith |first=A. |date=2015 |contribution=Chapter 1 |contribution-url=... }} In {{Harvtxt|Jones|2015}}.</ref>

If you try this now, it doesn' work; the cite/citation templates no longer allow a contribution or chapter parameter without a title, and generate an error message. If you use a title parameter, as you did when you changed my use of {{harvc}}, then you get something like:

  • Smith, A. (2015). Chapter 1. In Jones (2015).

which is wrong, because only the title of the published entity is supposed to be italicized.

As far as I know, the only way to get the correct effect when you want to cite contributions and the main work separately, using "in" to connect them, is to use the new {{harvc}} template (which is badly named in my view.) I find this irritating, but it seems to be necessary. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:16, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I hadn't come across that because I usually do not do it that way, it created too long a line in References which were all sfn. So I put Smith's chapter in Bibliography under Chapters, add in {{harvtxt}} to link it to Jones' book, and sfn directly to Smith's chapter in the text. I tried quite a few different methods before lighting on that style --Michael Goodyear (talk) 12:59, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I've seen that you do this, but then your citations are wrongly formatted and generate bad metadata. Look at Taxonomy_of_Liliaceae#Chapters – all the chapter titles wrongly appear in italics. All your chapter citations create bad metadata. Thus the chapter by Meerow produces the metadata "rft.aufirst=A.W.&rft.aulast=Meerow&rft.btitle=Taxonomy+and+Phylogeny%3A+Liliaceae&rft.genre=book", claiming it's a book (rft.genre=book) by A.W. Meerow with the book title (rft.btitle) Taxonomy and Phylogeny: Liliaceae. Anyone who uses automated tools to pick up references from Wikipedia articles will get the wrong information. I use Zotero. When I pick up the Meerow citation through Zotero I get an entry which when re-converted to a Wikipedia template yields {{Cite book| last = Meerow| first = A.W.| title = Taxonomy and Phylogeny: Liliaceae}} with missing date and publication details.
All of your chapter citations need to be converted to use {{harvc}}. As I noted above, I find the need to do this very irritating. It would be better to be able to use |chapter= or |contribution= without |title= and then there be no book metadata generated. But those who fix the citation templates don't agree, so we're stuck with the situation. If you leave the citations, someone will eventually notice and fix them, although don't be surprised if tighter error checking gets implemented and they start to generate red messages! Peter coxhead (talk) 14:03, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
Very irritating! And certainly not something I was aware of, and it looks like the GA reviewer was not either. Can you point me to the relevant WP documentation so that I can bookmark it for future reference? --Michael Goodyear (talk) 22:34, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
Michael, I'm not quite sure what documentation you are looking for. How to use {{harvc}} (now aliased to {{citec}}) is supposedly documented at the template page, as usual. (I don't find it especially clear.) How it came about that you have to use {{harvc}} is in the voluminous archives of Help talk:Citation Style 1, which is where almost all changes to the citation templates seem to be discussed. The actual development of the template was discussed here. I began that thread by asking why I could no longer use something like {{cite book |last=Jones |first=R. |date=2001 |chapter=Rotation |pages=11–34}} In {{Harvnb|Smith|2001}}, but got no support for this to be reinstated. Instead the new template was developed. Why |chapter= without |title= was made an error is presumably documented somewhere earlier in the archives; I believe it's because of the requirement to generate complete metadata – a book needs to have a title and this can't be deduced from the separate use of a "harv" template for the "in" part of the citation, whereas it apparently can from the in parameters of {{harvc}}/{{citec}}. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:20, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Peter. I will read through those and make some notes and decide how to proceed. If I had known you were looking for support, I would have supported your position! --Michael Goodyear (talk) 12:32, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
There's always too much to watch out for, but any editor making serious use of the citation templates could usefully add Help talk:Citation Style 1 to their watchlist. A particular issue is that now they are coded in Lua rather than in the Wikimedia template language, there are few editors competent to change them, so we're very dependent on those that can. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:17, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

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Season's Greetings!

Hello Peter coxhead: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, North America1000 02:04, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message
To editor Northamerica1000: thanks! And the same to you. Peter coxhead (talk) 02:12, 23 December 2015 (UTC)


Savvyjack23 (talk) — is wishing you a Happy New Year! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the New Year cheer by adding {{subst:New Year 1}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Savvyjack23 (talk) 07:36, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Happy New Year Peter coxhead!

File:Happy new year! --) (6605281377).jpg Happy New Year
Wishing you good health and happiness in 2016. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:40, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Clappia suaedifolia edits

Dear Peter -- being a relatively new Wikipedia editor, and a professional botanist specializing in Asteraceae, I wanted to further explain the synonyms and references that I added (and you removed) in the Clappia suaedifolia article, and seek any advice you may have.

The IPNI reference is easy -- it simply establishes that Haplopappus nealleyi and Stanfieldia nealleyi are nomenclatural synonyms. If it would help, I could probably drill down the URL further so that it points to the specific IPNI index entry that states the synonymy.

The NMNH Type Register reference is more challenging, because there does not appear to be a direct URL to the definitive information. If one searches on Haplopappus nealleyi via the URL provided in the reference, however, the type specimen image thus displayed shows the most recent annotation being Clappia suaedifolia (as suaedaefolia). The annotation was by a noted Asteraceae expert from the native geographic range of the species, so I consider it to be authoritative.

I do wish there was a URL pointing directly at the type specimen image, but there is not. It is a publicly accessible image of a primary reference (an herbarium specimen). And it is the only reference I have been able to find establishing the disposition of the basionym Haplopappus nealleyi (though I have one more book to check at my office tomorrow).

Again, would appreciate your thoughts and advice on how or whether this information can be made available in the Clappia suaedifolia article. With thanks,

James D. (Jim) Morefield

James D. Morefield (talk) 07:28, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry to be slow in replying, and also not to have left a better explanation of my edit for you – I've been on a break from Wikipedia over the holiday period.
The problem is that although the IPNI reference definitely establishes the synonymity of Haplopappus nealleyi and Stanfieldia nealleyi, this is irrelevant unless there is a reliable source (in the sense of WP:RS) for the synonymity of Clappia suaedifolia and Haplopappus nealleyi. I'm doubtful that an annotation on a herbarium sheet meets the required standards. There are good reasons for wanting secondary sources for synonyms, accepted names, etc., since otherwise we are relying on the opinion of one taxonomist, and taxonomists notoriously disagree (as doubtless you know!). The Plant List, citing TICA, says of Haplopappus nealleyi "unresolved", and this has to be given at least equal weight.
So, personally, I wouldn't put these synonyms in the taxobox, which doesn't allow a commentary, but the information from both The Plant List/TICA and the herbarium sheet could certainly be given in the text. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:12, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Thank you Peter, that is a helpful and well-reasoned suggestion, and I have implemented it (well, I hope) for the Clappia suaedifolia stub, and also for the pre-existing Stanfieldia stub. Suggestions for further improvement are of course most welcome!
Thanks also for finding better reference URLs. Turns out I was able to further finesse a NMNH URL that points directly to the type specimen image, but decided not to use this since it displays the image only, with no surrounding context. Any thoughts to the contrary? James D. Morefield (talk) 10:48, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
Your edits are all very clear. (Given your background you might be able to get the TICA global checklist updated, which would mean that The Plant List would be updated at the next round.) Good to have you on board at WP:PLANTS – editors with professional taxonomic knowledge are a particularly welcome addition. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:29, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Taxonomy of Liliaceae

I have a problem, which I would appreciate your input on. See this discussion on the project talk page regarding this article. Thanks --Michael Goodyear (talk) 13:46, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Responded there. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:33, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
The debate there is getting a bit tiresome, particularly the GA reviewer's decision to go ahead and change the template to reflect their point of view, without any concensus that I can see. It all seems designed to force me to rewrite Taxonomy of Liliaceae. Do you have any bright ideas as to how to resolve this question? In the mean time, Compliments of the Season! Michael Goodyear (talk) 24 December 2015
Finally GA! --Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:02, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
Excellent work! Best wishes for 2016. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:47, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

BSBI capitalization

Hi Peter. I see you've been creating redirects for BSBI names again. I dialed back my Wikipedia activity over the holidays and haven't ramped it back up yet, but BSBI names are the next project I want to tackle. I was intending to do both forms of capitalization, but you've only been doing the lower-case. Is there anything in particular that changed your mind? Plantdrew (talk) 18:48, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, both would be ideal, perhaps. However, the difference only matters with a wikilink, given the current search behaviour within Wikipedia. Thus searching for "Bog Pimpernel" via the search box finds Bog pimpernel, which redirects to Anagallis tenella. However, since at present Bog Pimpernel doesn't exist, a capitalized wikilink fails. So should we create the alternative capitalization redirect? I guess the issue is that since capitalizing English names of species is banned, there shouldn't be a wikilink of the form Bog Pimpernel, so providing for it isn't important. I was creating the capitalized form simply because I was working from a list generated from the BSBI spreadsheet and couldn't be bothered to de-capitalize (which isn't always algorithmic because of proper names). I'm also used to the capitalized forms, since they are used in all the stuff I write off-Wiki. But I decided (New Year resolution) not to be so lazy! Peter coxhead (talk) 19:02, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
Makes sense. I just question how fast the ban is being implemented. 1.5 years since the birds were decapped, and it's still easy to find articles with capitalized common names (and some groups of vertebrates went with downcased titles more than 5 years ago, but still have caps in the article text). It seems to me that if there's any link to a BSBI common name it is still likely to be capitalized (and most likely occurs in an article about an SSSI). But I'd guess 90% of common names don't have any incoming links (aside from work pages in User space). And I think a lot of people aren't aware of the ban; there is still new material being added that incorporates capitalized names (I've been following behind somebody who's added a few articles on Australian plants recently; they've been making redirects for common names (yay) and have learned to add the R to scientific name template (yay), but have only been creating capitalized redirects (boo)). 20:27, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
Do you intend to work much more on BSBI redirects? I'd rather have a list sorted by scientific name than common name (e.g. User:Plantdrew/BSBIname). It makes creating redirects by copy-paste a little more efficient if I can reuse genera on subsequent edits. If we're working on them together we should probably use lists that are sorted the same. No big deal if you want to keep it by common name though, and certainly no big deal if you don't want to use my copy of your page with algorithmic downcasing; I already made one useless redirect tonight because I wasn't paying close attention (lower case "japanese"). Plantdrew (talk) 03:00, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
I work on BSBI redirects when I want something "light" to do on Wikipedia (often if I find myself beginning to react to irritating edits/editors). It makes sense for us to work from the same list, so I'll work from your page, starting at the bottom. I noticed a few global edits that can be made to fix capitalization (e.g. "St"), so I'll make these first. Maybe it is best to continue to create both redirects where these differ.
One of the arguments against de-capitalization (which I made in the discussion at the time) is that you have to make unsourced decisions. Some seem obvious, e.g. "lesser Londonpride" not "lesser londonpride"; others produce what seem to me very oddly formatted names, e.g. "garden star-of-Bethlehem". Is it "Colorado River-hemp" – the hemp from the Colorado River, or "Colorado river-hemp" – the river hemp from Colorado? I assume the former. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:39, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
Wrong capitalization: um... Given that the "rules" for de-capitalizing hyphenated words aren't always clear, I'm inclined to create redirects like Downy japanese-maple and tag them as "R from alternative capitalization" rather than "R to scientific name". Maybe not a good idea? Peter coxhead (talk) 11:24, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
Well, since I made apparently made redirects for both "japanese maples", got one of them deleted, and didn't even remember the other when I wrote you previously, I guess we might as well make them (though that doesn't include being sloppy when hyphens aren't involved).
I came across pretty much identical issues as you describe working on common names from Jepson eFlora (California plants); they are all caps in the source. San/Santa place names were an obvious global fix. B/blue M/mountain foowort isn't clear whether the mountains or the plant are blue. Fortunately there are usually other sources that can clarify typical capitalization (Sesbania herbacea is consistently capitalized as Colorado River hemp, but hyphenation is inconsistent). Plantdrew (talk) 18:00, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
One thing I noticed earlier was that you had created some redirects but not the talk page with {{WikiProject Plants|class=Redirect}}. Was this because you do them separately (makes an easier workflow) or had you just overlooked them? Peter coxhead (talk) 19:04, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
Easier workflow. I'm hoping a bot can be enlisted to add talk page banners to everything in Category:Redirects to scientific names of plants. I realize that could be a problem if we don't ultimately want all of them to get a talk page (I'm not convinced we need eight redirect variations of wavy(-/ /)lea(f/ved) basket(-/ /)grass (see Special:WhatLinksHere/Oplismenus_undulatifolius), some of which are likely unattested in the literature; should unattested ones exist or get a banner?). Plantdrew (talk) 20:13, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
It goes back to the purpose of the banners, I guess. If we do have the banner, then if there's a proposal to delete the redirect, for example, it's more likely that the project will be informed. But it's certainly not important to have the project banner on every single redirect variation! Peter coxhead (talk) 09:53, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

How have you been handling synonyms? I've usually been skipping (but noting) common names in cases where one species is lumped into another (i.e. heterotypy). In the worst case scenario, there's something with an epithet "smithii" that our sources for common names say is known as "Smith's foowort". I'm not comfortable adding a redirect for "Smith's foowort" or citing the source if our taxonomic source (e.g. TPL) are treating it as a synonym. It can be less of an issue if the common name is descriptive rather than based on an eponym, but even then, many descriptive names are translations of epithets that are no longer really in play. Of course, if another source lists the common name from the synonym, it's all good (there are even a few cases where USDA Plants promotes a common name based on an obsolete eponym).

On the other hand I have been creating redirects when the synonymy is due to a genus tranfer (homotypy). It may be tending towards synthesis, but as long as the article has a source for the synonymy, I've been comfortable with it. But I'm feeling a little uncomfortable with homotypy for the BSBI names. When I've been citing USDA PLANTS, the citation includes the scientific name used by PLANTS, and a quick glance at the article's synonym section should confirm that the PLANTS name is the same species covered by the article. With the BSBI citation, there's no indication of what name BSBI uses; if somebody loads the Excel document to confirm the citation, they won't find the name of the article from which they've arrived, and will have to go back to the article to look for synonyms. But I'm maybe making a big deal out of nothing. Plantdrew (talk) 22:51, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

I have been adding redirects to synonyms, but you make a valid point about sourcing. My feeling is that if the BSBI 2007 English name relates to the scientific name A b but we have the article at C d and there's a source in the C d article saying that A b is a synonym, then it's ok to make the redirect from the BSBI 2007 name to C d. But I realize that I haven't been as careful as I should have been in making sure that the synonym A b is actually sourced in the article; too many editors add synonyms to taxoboxes without references. (It would perhaps be useful to have a maintenance category for plant taxoboxes with values for |synonyms= but no value for |synonym_ref=.) I'll try to remember to be more careful! Peter coxhead (talk) 11:24, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Psychrophila

Regarding your comment about Psychrophila, I have a response, and a question.

Kind Regards, Dwergenpaartje (talk) 11:30, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Um... The usual databases are unhelpful, since WCSP (in review), on which TPL is based, regards most of these names as "unresolved". I would be inclined to create redirects from the Thacla and Psychrophila species names to the names in Caltha with the text of these articles noting that there is uncertainty at present over the generic placement. We could also create a redirect from "Psychrophila" to "Caltha", which would enable a headnote to be placed at Psychrophilia.
I've posted a query re Caltha dionaeifolia at WT:PLANTS. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:35, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I seem to have mixed up the two alternative spellings to a third, which is wrong regardless of the outcome. Sorry for that, and thanks for noticing. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 14:42, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I'll try to create missing articles on Caltha species. Before doing so, I'd like to confer if the correct spelling is C. novaezelandiae as I am thinking, or as is said in C.J. Webb & E. Edgar (1999) C. novae-zelandiae, which I regarded outdated. Thanks for advising me. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 15:57, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

@Dwergenpaartje: from Art. 60.9 of the ICN: "The use of a hyphen in a compound epithet is treated as an error to be corrected by deletion of the hyphen. A hyphen is permitted only when the epithet is formed of words that usually stand independently, ..." So if the original form was novae-zelandiae then it should be retained; Hook used a hyphen (see here), as does IPNI, so the hyphenated form is correct, I'm pretty sure. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:19, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Great, thanks. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 12:02, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

David Bowie spider

Hi Peter, I found this while looking at the David Bowie (R.I.P.) article. In case you'd find it interesting: H. davidbowie. Happy New Year and best wishes -- Hamamelis (talk) 17:51, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

@Hamamelis: Happy New Year to you too! Yes, I did find the spider article interesting; I tidied it a bit and added more on the choice of name. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:12, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
Nicely improved, and I'm glad you liked it! I just edited it a bit too. Unfortunately, the link to Glass Spider is about an entire video album (and tour), not the song, so I edited in an additional wikilink to the article about the album on which the song appears, which discusses the song (a little). Inconveniently, no WP article yet exists to link to that's about the song itself :( Hamamelis (talk) 16:13, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
Good fix! I added an image of David Bowie with a painted face which the spider is supposed to resemble. It might not be appropriate long term, but for now it's a kind of tribute, perhaps. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:13, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I'm sure someone will eventually remove a lot of the recent edits labeling them fan cruft (I have reservations as well); but if Jäger said those were his reasons for his choosing the name, then I think in this case that the links (considering there isn't a singular precise WP article to link to) and pic are relevant. And yeah, since it's likely more fans will be drawn to the article following his death, at least they would feel it a tribute of sorts, while it lasts. I'm not sure what's best long term, but I'll leave the topic for another time. Hamamelis (talk) 16:44, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Spider assessment table/Pandava and a massive bug

My watchlist showed me the WikiProject Spiders assessment table got updated twice off-schedule and figured you had to be behind it (being probably the only person likely to care about it that knew how to force it to update). But I'm a little surprised that you apparently didn't know about the bug that's keeping the table ugly. Draft class articles aren't handled properly in most of the assessment tables (the Plants banner has the same problem). Draft:Pandava (spider) is the NA-class/unknown-importance article. At this point, the draft should probably be redirected to your article on the genus, but there's a little bit of extra content (mostly specific to P. laminata) in the draft.

A small part of the problem can be fixed by enabling Draft-class in individual WikiProject banner templates, but there's something wrong at a higher level.Wikipedia:WikiProject_Video_games/Assessment correctly displays Draft-class pages as Draft-class in the assessment table, but trying to click through to the individual drafts still takes you to a non-existent page in article space rather than the draft. I don't know if that problem stems from something in Template:WPBannerMeta or whether it's in the code for the Article lists tool. Plantdrew (talk) 17:02, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

No, as you suspected I didn't know about this bug (although I'm a little flattered that you were surprised!). The WP Video games case is complicated by the fact that they do have some articles in mainspace that are classed as "draft" (or were when I looked, e.g. Danny Johnson (Guitar Hero)).
I'm pretty sure it's a bug in the Article lists tool. Go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Video_games/Assessment and click on the Category/NA entry and you'll find that all the links in the subtable correctly have the "Category:" namespace at the start. But if you click on the Draft/Low entry then you'll find that none of the links in the subtable have the "Draft:" namespace. All the links in any subtable linked from the Draft row should have "Draft:" just as all the links in any subtable linked from the Category row have "Category:" and those in any subtable linked from the Template row have "Template:". It's a simple omission; not adding "Draft:" where it's needed. I'll try reporting this as a bug. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:31, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
That makes sense. I do think there are two problems; one with Article lists, and another with the project banners. Template:WikiProject Video games/class has a "draft=yes" line that Template:WikiProject Plants/class lacks (and it's not clear to me where WikiProject Spiders is getting their class values from). Maybe the draft=yes line is what make the draft row show up in the table for Video Games, but not for Plants? On the other hand, Wikipedia:WikiProject Film/Assessment has a row for draft class in the table, but there's no draft=yes in Template:WikiProject Film/class. I'm not sure what's going on. And Danny Johnson has WikiProject Biography Draft categories on the talk page, but I don't see a way to get to his article from the Biography table (it lack a Draft row and Danny doesn't show up with the other NAs). Plantdrew (talk) 22:39, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
As you can see from the history, I did edit Template:WikiProject Plants/class and at the time appear to have understood how it works; I can't say that I entirely do right now! I do know that if you don't supply a special project class page, then a default applies, which may be what is happening with WP:SPIDERS. I'll have a look when I get time. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:51, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

The tool seems to have some "lag" in it; perhaps it finds cached pages. Just now, when I explicitly searched for "Pandora" via the tool (here), I got two results: one is the new page and one will be the old draft page but without "Draft:", even though this page doesn't now have the WP:SPIDERS assessment. Maybe it will go away... I'm going to force an update and see if that does anything. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:51, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Success! The "???" entry has gone. Needed a null edit at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spiders to force the table there to update. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:55, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: I've attempted to extend the assessment table for WP:SPIDERS. Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Spiders_articles_by_quality_statistics is starting to fill out as the categories get populated, though it seems to need null edits to show the latest data. There are obviously many more pages in the Category thru Template classes, but I think that |class= is rarely set for these. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:25, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I didn't set |class= on the ones I tagged (working on 2014-12-15) and it looks like neither did koavf (working on 2011-01-25), and we did most of the tagging. They should eventually update even without null edits, but it may take quite some time (though I'm happy to wait). WikiProject Cephalopods was originally set up without any support for class/quality parameters. I enabled the parameters, but it took more than 3 weeks for everything that had already been tagged to show up in the right place. Plantdrew (talk) 17:59, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
Very useful to know that it can take so long, so I'll leave it to settle down. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:37, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
@Plantdrew: I've been amusing (?) myself getting SIA-Class set up as a separate class for WP:SPIDERS. It shows up at Template:WikiProject_Spiders/class and now at Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Spiders_articles_by_quality_statistics. There are a lot of steps needed to make it work, which I may or may not be able to remember if we want to do the same for WP:PLANTS. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:28, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
Very nice. I wonder if WP:SHIPS and WP:WPNAMES might be interested in having a SIA class. Plantdrew (talk) 21:04, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
I'll try to write up some notes on what you need to do to add SIA-Class. Some of it was one-off (e.g. background colour and icon in tables, etc.); some has to be done for every project.
See the tag added at Banana spider. This does raise an issue: disambiguation pages don't need to be sourced, but if SIAs aren't disambiguation pages, then it might seem that they do. Um... Peter coxhead (talk) 10:14, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps they ought to be sourced, but how often is the extra information in a SIA explicitly sourced in the target articles? I'd worry about that first. And while ships and people that share a name are self-evidently so named, organism common names ought to be sourced and we're still very far away from having all common names sourced.Plantdrew (talk) 17:58, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Annandaliella ernakulamensis

I added the tag back (spider stub), since as the article exists now it's a stub. If you would like to add further information to push it past stub class please contribute, but don't simply remove the tag one editor has placed with no rationale. The spider stub tag exists on the other species in the same genus as well, where there is a similar amount of relevant information. If you have an issue with this discuss, don't revert. Garchy (talk) 13:04, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I have already commented at Talk:Annandaliella ernakulamensis. The advice you give re discussion applies to you: if you had an issue with my removal of the stub tag then you could have discussed it first. You began by reverting my removal of the tag. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:08, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
the red link remove was accidental, I just fixed that. I did reply to your tag removal, and then reverted it, as I should. I see no issue with me replying on the talk page and then being kind enough to bring this discussion to your talk page, something you didn't do upon revert (luckily I watch all my edited pages, you never pinged me so maybe you were hoping I wouldn't notice). Discussions with other editors is part of the job, and the steps that I've taken would be looked at positively by most editors. Garchy (talk) 13:18, 14 January 2016 (UTC) - and yes, I meant to ping you, not PlantDrew. The main reason for the stub tag, I should add, is to get other editors to expand and add information. If you believe it's past stub class than you can remove the tag and I will not contest it, I do recognize your work on related articles. Garchy (talk) 13:23, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
The problem for me was with your edit summary "added stub tag - tags should not be removed without discussion (incl. merge tags)". Of course stub tags can be removed without discussion; it's part of article assessment for a WikiProject. Merge tags are different. I re-assessed the article as "Start" – it's a fine judgement and I'm happy to leave it as a stub – so of course I removed the stub tag. But you just restored the stub tag without changing the assessment on the talk page – which is, as of now, inconsistent. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:28, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for your explanation, I removed the stub tag as your rationale makes complete sense. Garchy (talk) 14:48, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions

I was attempting to resolve an issue that was created for that reference by using both sfn and sfnp. If you are working on it i will stay out the way. Haakonsson (talk) 20:12, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

@Haakonsson: the issue was, as you correctly identified, caused by one being {{sfn}} and the other {{sfnp}}, but for consistency within the article, they should both have been the latter, so your correction wasn't quite right. Not a very helpful error message! Peter coxhead (talk) 20:34, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Tangential mention at WP:AE

A conversation in which you were involved has been brought up at [Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement&diff=700815589&oldid=700811585 WP:AE]. You personally are not the subject of the request. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:30, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Errors in BSBI common names?

Have you encountered any errors in the BSBI common names (typos, misspellings, etc.)? "Longleaf" for Falcaria vulgaris looks to me like something got cut off. And I've never seen tansy spelled with an "e" as in "Tansey-leaved Rocket" for Hugueninia tanacetifolia (and they've got the usually spelling for Tanacetum vulgare). I saw enough outright errors in the USDA names to take them with a grain of salt if they looked suspicious (one particularly bad one was something along the lines "grandifolia" being called "largeflower"; I frequently mix-up folia/flora epithets myself, but I don't screw up the translation). Should I regard fishy looking BSBI names with suspicion? And if you have a copy of Stace (or other sources) at hand, would you mind verifying the spelling for H. tanacetifolia? Plantdrew (talk) 23:45, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Stace (p. 823) does indeed call both the genus Falcaria and the sole species "Longleaf". It seems a rather silly name to me, but it's in the source...
Hugueninia tanacetifolia isn't in Stace (2010), not under this name or the synonym Sisymbrium tanacetifolium. It isn't in my older floras either. It does seem that "tansey" is an old spelling for "tansy"; see e.g. The Gardeners Dictionary of 1754. Weirdly, USDA and some other apparently reliable US sources have "Tanseyleaf Tansyaster" as the name for Machaeranthera tanacetifolia – a search for "Tanseyleaf Tansyaster" throws up USDA, Calflora, ITIS, etc. "Tansey-leaf evening primrose" is Oenothera tanacetifolia. In Australia, "Tanseyleaf Milfoil" is Achillea distans. (But most of these will also be found under the spellings "tansyleaf", "tansy-leaf", "tansy-leaved", etc.) So it's not clear that the BSBI name is a typo. Sigh... Peter coxhead (talk) 21:32, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Phylogeny of Asphodeloideae

Hi, any thoughts on above now that IAPT nomenclature committee for vascular plants has recommended conserving Asphodelaceae? MisterCDE (talk) 01:00, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

My understanding is that this is only a recommendation (one I welcome, for sure), so we need to wait until we see whether it is accepted into the next version of the ICN. But I'm not a taxonomist; Sminthopsis84 is likely to know more. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:18, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
After the 2014 decision from the Committee for Vascular Plants, we are supposed to wait for the report of the General Committee that would deal with the reports of the committees for the various taxonomic groups, and I think that it would be report 13 of the General Committee. The code of nomenclature leaves room for such a decision to be overturned:
14.16. When a proposal for the conservation of a name has been approved by the General Committee after study by the Committee for the taxonomic group concerned, retention of that name is authorized subject to the decision of a later International Botanical Congress (see also Art. 34.2 and 56.4).
Of course, in the interest of nomenclatural stability, Asphodelaceae is preferable to Xanthorrhoeaceae, so I think it would be desirable to explain this a bit in Wikipedia, if possible, that the proposal has been made, has passed the first hurdle, and is likely to come into force on 29 July 2017. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:26, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Thanks, Peter Coxhead, for your constant help and fantastic editing on Wikipedia, especially in relation to Spider articles. Keep up the great editing!!!

Megaraptor12345 (talk) 20:08, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks – a new reward for me! Keep up your good work on spider articles, too. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:21, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

BSBI done

I've finished creating BSBI redirects and adding BSBI citations. There are about 50 species I've skipped, mostly either because the vernacular name has some ambiguity issues, or the scientific name is a redirect that should be an article (there are also a bunch of messy cases I skipped from the USDA list). I'm going to tackle the British Bryological Society's recommended English names for mosses next, although that won't take very long. Then I might go back and tackle the messy cases. Plantdrew (talk) 22:45, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I'd noticed the fantastic work you've been doing (and that you're currently ranked 222nd as a contributor to Wikipedia). I've got rather bogged down among spiders, where there are very few active editors, and plenty of problems. I really appreciate what you've been doing. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:00, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Some help needed...

Hello, Peter! I am creating a new page, Stromatopelma fumigatum, a, you guessed it, tarantula, which was described by Reginald Innes Pocock in 1899, but in Smith's description of this species he described it as having "mounds" on the sternum. What did he mean by "mounds"? To access this paper go [[1]] and download the PDF and go to page 61 (sorry, I do not know how to create those "download links" things). If you don't know then that's fine. Thanks Megaraptor12345 (talk) 23:35, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

(I already had that paper as it happens.) I think he's using "mound" in a non-technical way, to mean some kind of outgrowth which is usually wider than it is high, so it doesn't look like a "horn" or "protuberance", words he uses elsewhere (e.g. on p. 9). Several diagrams show different sorts of "mounds" (e.g. fig. 75 on p. 29; fig. 174 at the top left of p. 42).
I tried to find some other descriptions of tarantulas that discussed the features at the labium/sternum junction that Smith calls "mounds". In this paper, fig. 3 on p. 407 shows the same structures, but Gallon doesn't describe them in words.
Maybe "mounds or raised areas" would be a good way to describe the structures in a Wikipedia article?? Peter coxhead (talk) 08:55, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you!!! Megaraptor12345 (talk) 11:13, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Aphonopelma

Thanks for your recent work on Aphonopelma species. I just want to point out that the common names of many species are found in Smith, 1995 Tarantula Spiders: tarantulas of the U.S.A. and Mexico, which is accessible from the World Spider Catalog with registration. Also, should the recent taxonomic revision necessitate article mergers (which it likely will), it's important to ensure that content is merged as well: the results from previous studies, and the organisms themselves, are largely independent from the names we silly humans give them. Carry on! --Animalparty! (talk) 19:32, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, after I tagged one common name with "citation needed", I found another one referenced to this work. I'll use it in future (I am registered with the WSC). I note that most of Smith's US species have been synonymized by Hamilton et al., which does raise some questions about his work.
Initially, I only created the Aphonopelma stubs to hold the images I'd uploaded to Commons; I hadn't realized the really dramatic taxonomic changes made in the source. If WSC goes with them, then the articles will need merging, saving as much information as possible, of course. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:15, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Embolus

Hello, Peter coxhead! I just needed to ask you something... If one was trying to say "of the embolus", would you say "embolic" or what? I am using it in a new article I am creating, but if you do not know that is just fine. Thank you, Megaraptor12345 (talk) 21:58, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

The adjective is "embolar", but I would just say "of the embolus". Spider terminology is sufficiently complex already for our readers! Peter coxhead (talk) 23:01, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Redirect categorization

Hi Peter coxhead! You've been interested in redirect categorization and the This is a redirect template in the past, so I wanted to let you know that there is a discussion at Template talk:This is a redirect#One parameter that might interest you.  Good faith! Paine  20:50, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Subfamilies in taxoboxes

Hello Peter,

(Got your message - thanks.) I added the subfamilies to the taxoboxes for Conostephium and Stenanthera following a discussion with Stemonitis yesterday after he(?) made some changes to the categories on these (and a couple of other pages). He wrote "It is indeed preferable that the subfamily and/or tribe should be included in the taxobox of each genus (probably not each species)". It's not a big deal to me - just seems strange to have a category at the bottom of a page that's not mentioned anywhere else on that page. I'll leave it up to you - just thought I'd let you know. All the best to you. Gderrin (talk) 12:20, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, I'll leave it to Stemonitis, but he usually goes around removing minor ranks from taxoboxes. The general advice seems to be against including them except in special cases, e.g. very large families like Orchidaceae, or the "merged" families of APG III like Asparagaceae, where the subfamilies are treated as separate families by most specialists. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:23, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Anchors in titles

There appears to be some confusion here. For instance {{Anchor}} definitely indicates their placement in titles --Michael Goodyear (talk) 13:41, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

@Michael Goodyear: actually, the documentation for {{anchor}} says "consider" using a span tag instead, which doesn't seem to be as strong as advice elsewhere. I used to put anchors in headings, but these were moved by various editors, on the grounds that they mess up edit summaries and cause acessibility problems. There's no real problem with putting them immediately below the heading, is there? Peter coxhead (talk) 21:44, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
@Michael Goodyear: further to this, it has apparently been the subject of quite a bit of discussion, not yet resolved. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/anchor tests shows the problems with different approaches. Putting the anchor(s) before the heading with an HTML comment after the heading seems the best to me for the present:
   {{anchor|ALTERNATIVE1}}{{anchor|ALTERNATIVE2}}
   ==HEADING===
   <!--There are anchors above this heading; please keep them with it if you move the section.-->
There needs to be a community-wide decision on this issue. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:06, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

RE: Spider articles

Thanks for supporting me with the spiders. Can I access the info in the WSC without registering? Could you help me create the genera and species of the Linyphiidae family? --Seacactus 13 (talk) 16:16, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

As far as I know you have to register/create an account with the WSC to be able to access the original papers, etc that they have online. Of course the database itself is freely accessible.
With more than 600 genera and over 4,500 species, most of which are minute "money spiders", covering more than a fraction of the Linyphiidae in Wikipedia would take a very long time indeed. I'm not convinced of the value of creating very short stubs that don't tell readers more than "it's a linyphiid". Is there any way of picking out some of the more 'important' linyphiids, I wonder? Peter coxhead (talk) 21:57, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
Do you mean the most common, most well-known or that has ben known of for the longest for important? There isn't much info on the small money spiders, therefore I only make stubs.--Seacactus 13 (talk) 03:08, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
How you spend your time on Wikipedia is rightly up to you, but I think it's more useful to create longer articles on spiders that readers are likely to want to know about than mere stubs on those they aren't. So I think it's better to look for the most well-known and the most common; in the case of linyphiids these are likely to be the larger species. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:09, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Lilioid monocots

I appreciate that you did most of the work on Lilioid monocots, so I am letting you know I am putting it up for GA--Michael Goodyear (talk) 18:18, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Looking at the article now, actually most of the work is yours – and a great deal of it! Peter coxhead (talk) 18:20, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
FYI - now under review - does not look insurmountable! --Michael Goodyear (talk) 04:17, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
: Now GA --Michael Goodyear (talk) 19:46, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
@Michael Goodyear: excellent work! Peter coxhead (talk) 08:09, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

SIA

Regarding [2] - WP:SIA isnt a subset of disambiguation, its a list article and should be sourced like all list articles. See Wikipedia:Set index articles. Christian75 (talk) 09:49, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

I agree that my edit summary is misleading. WP:SIA isn't really clear on the distinction. The main differences seem to be that:
  • "A set index lists things of only one type", whereas a disambiguation page need not if things of other types need disambiguation
  • A set index page "need not follow the formatting rules for disambiguation pages; however, many do so by convention."
If SIAs really need sources, then the solution is most cases is to turn them (back) to disambiguation pages, which do not. It would be easy to do this for Banana spider, but how would this be helpful? Peter coxhead (talk) 12:20, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Questions

Hello! I hope I'm not intruding with a query as quibbling as this, but I wanted to confirm if this edit of mine was incorrect in removing the italics from "Chloroflexi", and whether or not we italicize et al. on Wikipedia. I asked Stemonitis a while back, who said it was their understanding that some bacterial taxa above genus are italicized and I've just been avoiding the use of et al. entirely. I now notice that Chloroflexi uses no italics, so I would like to either remove the italics from Herpetosiphonales or add them to Chloroflexi because I am extremely confused. (Also, do you happen to know the proper capitalization of gram-negative/gram-positive? The G in Gram stain and its variations is always capitalized, but not in those two for some reason.) Thank you in advance, and have a nice day! Me, Myself & I (☮) (talk) 14:41, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

@Me, Myself, and I are Here: all very good questions. There's some guidance on scientific names here and here. The first seems to treat all kinds of organisms alike; the second suggests using the same convention for all organisms other than viruses. So I think that, unusually, Stemonitis is wrong about current practice for bacteria in the English Wikipedia.
I can only give you a personal answer re "Gram" vs. "gram" – as the word is the name of a person (Hans Christian Gram), I would always capitalize it. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:49, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
I'd capitalize Gram myself, but see Gram-negative bacteria#Orthographic note. And I wouldn't italicize et al. (or other common Latin derived abbreviations; e.g., i.e., etc.). The italics for bacteria are a mess.
The 1990 version of the Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria says (in chapter titled "Advisory Notes" see here):

For scientific names of taxa, conventions shall be used which are appropriate to the language of the country and to the relevant journal and publishing house concerned. These should preferably indicate scientific names by a different type face, e.g., italic, or by some other device to distinguish them from the rest of the text.

This language is retained in the 2008/2014/2015 version of the code (now titled International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes), available here.
However, the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology is the journal which is mandated by the code for publication of new nomenclatural acts (and which published the most recent version of the code itself). Their editorial guidelines say NOT to use italics for ranks above genus (see here). Given that the code and the code's favored journal don't agree on italics above genus, I think it best to go with long-standing practice in biology and reserve italics for genus and lower. This is also consistent with the formatting in most Wikipedia articles on bacteria and our Manual of Style.
The current language in the plant code is similar to the bacteria code. In the preface, they suggest italicizing all ranks of plant taxa, while deferring to other established editorial conventions. However, italicization of all plant ranks has not been widely adopted. In contrast to the plant and bacteria codes, where italicizing higher taxa is a suggestion made outside of the sections covering nomenclatural rules, the viral code has a rule to italicize all taxa (see section IX). Nevertheless, outside of taxoboxes, Wikipedia often has virus species unitalicized (most likely because they appear unitalicized as "common names" in the medical literature). Plantdrew (talk) 19:02, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Thank you both so much for your answers! They were extremely helpful. I am very grateful for the advice. (And extremely relieved – removing italics from one word is easier than adding them to 20.) Best, Me, Myself & I (☮) (talk) 00:28, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Geologic time nav templates

I'm flattered by your kind words on my talk page. I think you got all the templates categorized. :) Abyssal (talk) 01:13, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

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