Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian biota

Change of scope

This is a good idea for a WikiProject, but I suggest we expand it to include all Australian biota. This would also require a rename to "WikiProject Australian biota". This way, when we get new people who are interested in plants (which are not Banksias) or any other type of life (we need a fungi expert), they have somewhere to come which is related to Australia. Thanks. --liquidGhoul 07:50, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was actually wondering if that should have been the scope of the project from the start. Anyway, I think it's a good idea.So that's what we'll do. Atlantis Hawk 06:41, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New section

I've started a new section in the project. What do you think? Atlantis Hawk 07:53, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind the idea, but I would rather do it the way Wikipedia:WikiProject Banksia do it, where they stick with it until it is featured. Then go on to the next article. Of course, they have it easier, as there are less people with a narrow field of interest. --liquidGhoul 10:43, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that once an article is identified as near ready for a run at FA Wikipedia:WikiProject Banksia concentrates one that one, but in between we just work on everything as info presents itself. For this project maybe we identify 3 or 4 different types of articles that have reached GA work collectively on them all, when one is very close it gets presented to the project for everybody to concentrate on. You dont need to know specifics about the subject but everybody can copy edit check images, ensure all those little style niggles that get picked at FAC have been fixed. Gnangarra 11:03, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I like it. Because we have such a broad scope here, we would probably need a couple for fauna, a couple for flora etc. Even though I know nothing of flora, I would be happy to copyedit anything that is needed. This could be a good place to get this kind of thing started, with a community which help each other as much as possible. --liquidGhoul 13:52, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well I think we should continue to work on the Corroboree frog article, but also work extensively on any 'GA'-classed article until it is featured. Atlantis Hawk 10:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Photography

I have been wanting a WikiProject like this to help with the collaboration of photography. There are many common species around Australia which don't have a photo yet. For some reason, all our froggers are in the Sydney area (although there is a new guy from South Australia). For this reason, we need people from the outback, out west, up north etc. to take photos of their local frogs for us. I am sure there are flora people who need common species from my region as well, but I don't know what is needed, and don't know how/where to find it.

I think the best system, would be for people to announce whenever they are going on a field trip somewhere (which could include the bush, local park or zoo). If the location rings a bell for someone, they can run in and say something like: "Take a photo of Banksia integrifolia" or "take a photo of any frog you see, and remember to look under logs and follow calls!" (I would probably say something like that :P). Also, maybe create a database of where we are missing many photos. So, if we are missing a large number of Banksia species from around Broome, Hobart, Adelaide etc. we write that somewhere obvious, and hopefully people can notice it, and go out a snappin'. Thoughts? Thanks. --liquidGhoul 14:13, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For plants I just photograph everything(joy of digital) thats flowering when wandering in the bush, same goes for animals and birds that are around. One day some poor person(me) is going to have to work what genus they all are and post. Gnangarra 14:38, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do to a degree. Will be more willing to now that I have a 2Gb card instead of 128mb. But, I never upload the plants to wiki, as I never expect them to get identified. I have quite a few plants which need identification. Also (sorry to bring it back to frogs), frogs are in people's backyards, and they don't think of photographing them. I have asked a few people if they have photos, as they live in a different area, and many have said they never think about it. Have you gotten any unidentified frog photos in your travels? --liquidGhoul 14:44, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Besides the one with White-faced Heron I've got a couple of snaps but I must admit I havent taken considered/composed photos. Gnangarra 14:57, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to upload photos of the Eastern three-lined skink to the 'stub' page that asked for contributions, but as a new user, was not allowed - they are now on Wikipedia Commons if anyone who can cares to upload them to the Eastern three-lined skink page. I may be able to upload/forward any of the plant photos from Friends of Herring Island website (www.vicnet.net.au/~herring) for the appropriate pages. Onesland (talk) 02:49, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed category conventions

I've done a lot of work on the flora categories this weekend. Something I've been wrestling with over a long period of time is the problem of what to include in the Category:Flora of Australia category tree. Australia has lots of flowering plants, but no-one in their right mind would seriously suggest we tag Flowering plant into Category:Flora of Australia.

I think I have a solution to this. I have posted a proposed convention for categorisation at Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian biota/Categories. Feedback would be appreciated. It is currently written only in terms of flora; if accepted, should it also be applied to fauna?

Hesperian 12:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Have you seen the new guideline I added to WP:TOL today? It is still experimental (and will need some ammendments), but I think it would apply well here. Books on Australian plants (that I have seen) either collate all Australia's flora into the one book, or split them up according to taxonomy, not geography. Therefore, I would go with the taxonomy section. Also, in relation to the fauna categories, they are already split up according to taxonomy. E.g Category:Frogs of Australia (I will change this to amphibians soon), Category:Birds of Australia etc. Thanks. --liquidGhoul 13:09, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The category system is a lattice not a tree, so we can use both. I've rolled out Category:Proteales of Australia and Category:Myrtales of Australia, and will continue along this road. But there really is no reason why we can't also have categories like Category:Flora of Western Australia. In the long run, I think there would even be merit in categorising by IBRA region. Hesperian 01:37, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would much rather ecosystems than state lines. There are lots of them though. --liquidGhoul 01:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My theory is you don't fight what you can't win. People will categorise by state, because people will want to know what flora are in their state. There's no point fighting it. A sensible compromise on distribution by state would be to adopt the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions [1] which breaks Australia up as follows:

Australasia

Australia

Norfolk Island

Lord Howe Island

Norfolk Island

New South Wales

Australian Capital Territory

New South Wales

Northern Territory

Queensland

Coral Sea Island Territory

Queensland

South Australia

Tasmania

Victoria

Western Australia

Ashmore-Cartier Islands

Western Australia

New Zealand

This would give us a state-based categorisation system, but with an official stamp of approval from botanists. We'd just have to convince the ACT people to permit Category:Flora of the Australian Capital Territory to be set as a subcategory of Category:Flora of New South Wales. They might not like that much. ;-) Hesperian 02:06, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If we create the categories in such a way that there is no need to create many overlapping categories, then that would be best. Means we don't have huge umbers of categories for one article. I have given up trying to convince other countries (except New Guinea) to go the non-political route, but I just don't see it working in Australia (especially for fauna). I am less knowledgable in flora, and if it is common to do things by state, then that is the way it should be done. However, if we can find the most common method of splitting up Australia for botanists, it doesn't matter if most people don't understand the regions. We can create maps (I have already started here) so they know what the regions mean. It is better to educate people than to dumb down our categorisation system to suit them. I would find it much more useful to look up "Flora of Eastern Australia" than "Flora of New South Wales", as there are so many plants out west which just aren't around here. --liquidGhoul 02:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Even at a continental scale I think it would be better to follow the WGSRPD. Their continental scale subdivision is:

Europe
Africa
Asia-Temperate
Asia-Tropical
Australasia
Pacific
Northern America
Southern America
Antarctic

If we could convince people to follow this categorisation, which is the categorisation endorsed by botanists, I think that would be a good thing. Hesperian 02:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That'd be fine, do you want to bring it up somewhere like WP:PLANTS? I just created it according to what was there. What do they do about the Atlantic? Thanks.

I think we would need to bring this up to a certain level of maturity before taking it to a wider audience. I'll create an article on the standard, and bring Category:Flora of Australia into line with it. Then we can talk about how to convince others to jump on board.

From the standard:

"Except for the Pacific, islands have been included with their nearest continental land mass. The rather few Atlantic islands have been attached to the Americas to the west or Europe or Africa to the east, and Bermuda has been placed for convenience into the Caribbean. It was a moot point whether the Azores should go into Europe or with the other Macaronesian islands into Africa, the decision narrowly favouring the latter on phytogeographical grounds.

As well as answering your question, I think this quote gives a pretty good idea just how difficult and subjective it is to define a categorisation for plant distributions. All the more reason to let the botanists figure it out, and adopt their recommendations.

Hesperian 03:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do you want to work on all parent articles up to "Flora of Australia" as well (Oceania, continent etc.), so we have more barganing chips. I will try and clean up the Australian fauna, and parent articles (including maps). It shouldn't take much, as I have been working on it for a while. --liquidGhoul 03:16, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think so. Step one: Bring Australia into line. Step two: Help our Kiwi friends to bring their categories into line. Step three: Replace Category:Flora of Oceania by Category:Flora of Australasia, in accordance with the standard. Step four: Tell the rest of the world what great things we've been able to achieve by working to the standard. Hesperian 03:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(rem. indent) Don't forget New Guinea. :) Why Australasia instead of Oceania? Is there an actual difference, or is it just preference? --liquidGhoul 03:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New Guinea is placed in continent "Asia-Tropical", region "Papuasia", along with the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands. New Caledonia, which we currently include in Oceania, is placed in continent "Pacific", region "Southwestern Pacific".

I think the name "Oceania" was never even considered, as "Australasia" as defined contains only Australia and New Zealand.

From the standard:

"The term Australasia, here used for Australia and New Zealand, has been controversial, some members considering that it implies a fusion of Australia with Asia and thus extends from Australia as far north as Indo-China, but others never having understood this connotation. Eventually, because nobody could devise another term to combine Australia with New Zealand, opponents of the term agreed to its use."

Hesperian 03:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't make sense. New Guinea is connected to the Australian continent, New Zealand no longer is. New Guinea would share a lot of its flora (as it does with fauna) with northern Queensland. It doesn't share much with Asia, in comparison, and shouldn't be a subcategory of it. It isn't even part of the Asian continent. --liquidGhoul 03:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I thought the same thing, but assumed that smarter minds than mine had been hard at work on this and decided that this was the best compromise between botanical, phytogeographical and political imperatives. Hesperian 03:59, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly there have been a lot of thought go into this; from the standard:

"In ed. 1, New Guinea NWG and Bismarck Archipelago BIS were included in Malesia. It has been argued strongly that it makes much more floristic sense to link these two units to the Solomon Islands, previously included in 60 Southwestern Pacific but without strong floristic affinity there. A new region Papuasia is therefore newly recognised to incorporate these three level-3 units. This permits a much better phytogeographical analysis of the region."

Hesperian 04:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then we'll just have to draw lines on the maps. Otherwise, people may get lost. --liquidGhoul 04:06, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Recruitment

I think we should now try to recruit a few more members to help us out with this project. Atlantis Hawk 03:51, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I put a note of WP:AWNB a while ago, but didn't get any interest. I know there are heaps of people interested in Australia biota, but haven't joined. I don't really like to spam up people's talk pages, but if you feel up to it, go ahead! ;) --liquidGhoul 06:46, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And that's what I'm going to do! Atlantis Hawk 10:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Frog list

A list of all Australian species of frog (not completely up to date) was created by User:Froggydarb a couple months back. I have cleaned it up, and seperated all those articles into ones with photos and ones without. To my surprise, we have 75 species with a free licence photo! If anyone is bored, please try to make less red links, and create an article. If anyone does create an article, please move it up the list. It is on my watchlist, so I can keep an eye on any new articles which are created. You will also notice, if you go through all the articles that is, that there is not one stub in that list. Something I am very proud of, being a person who doesn't like stubs. Thanks. --liquidGhoul 06:46, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed Veterinary medicine project

There is now a proposed project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Veterinary Medicine to deal with matters of veterinary medicine, a subject which currently has disproportionately low content in wikipedia. Any wikipedia editors who have an interest in working on content related to the subject are encouraged to indicate as much there. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 22:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations

Well done everyone that helped to make the Green and Golden Bell Frog article featured. There's nothing better than a featured article to bring credit to our WikiProject!

Atlantis Hawk 09:23, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Marine issue

I have just tagged Fish in Australia, and some of the fish in the category - the main article is an embarrasment, just in case anyone needed to know. ta. Satu Suro 12:17, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of introduced fish in Australia

Hello, would anyone in this WP be able to help me by writing a good lead section for this list? Thank you very much. Abbott75 ☺ 04:31, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cherax

Image:Australian_Cherax.jpg is posted at Cherax and wants a home. Can anyone confirm the identity of the handsome fella? Fred ☻ 05:40, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Australian biota template/tag as applied to fish

Hello, i have a question about the use of the Australian biota template on the talk pages of fish which are not endemic to Australia but are widespread throughout many countries and oceans (eg a number of tuna, mackeral, trevally, whiting species etc). Should these taxa be tagged with the Aussie biota template? Is there a page describing the use of the Australian biota template...? i can't seem to find it.

Cheers Kare Kare 11:05, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Centipede Key

Thought I'd let everyone know that there is now a Centipede key available for free on the net. So start IDing and uploading your centipede photos! --liquidGhoul (talk) 00:09, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

John Gould collaboration on Wikisource

English ornithologist and researcher of Australian animals John Gould has been chosen as Wikisource:Collaboration of the Week. Please contribute. —Pengo 04:07, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nomenclature

Dear Aussies, Back in Auld Scotia we are way behind your excellent work on all things living and I wonder if you help me out with a policy issue. I contribute to numerous articles about Scottish islands and they often include references to a wide variety of biota. I find myself constantly coming up against the rather odd editorial style of this fine encyclopedia, which allows workers in different parts of the Tree of Life to use different capitalisations. Do you have an agreed policy of any kind that enables Australian articles with a similar scope to be internally consistent? Ben MacDui ^Talk/Walk 13:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know of no policy on this. I think people tend to follow the capitalisation policies of the varius biota projects. e.g. initial caps for most vertebrate groups - birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians - but not fish (weird!). I would favour initial caps for the common names of all species, including plants, because they are, effectively, proper names, and because they are often unambiguous compared with the non-use of caps. In other words, they carry more information. However, there are some strange folk out there who object (out of some misplaced aesthetic?) and are constantly carping about it. Maias (talk) 01:35, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So if the answer is that WP:AUS has no system of its own, I presume that if I were inspired to write an article about the fauna of a region of Australia I can choose to ignore the system used by Fauna of Australia - which I think is similar to the one I have used in Scotland, namely capitalise per WP:BIRDS, regardless of the actual article name. The thought that has occurred to me is that if WikiProject Cephalopods (for example) are free to come up with a system of their own for individual creatures, why not WP:Australia, WP:Scotland etc. for references to all creatures great and small set within those national/regional boundaries. Absurd, but perhaps better than no system at all. It may be that you have tried this already without success. Ben MacDui ^Talk/Walk 12:03, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Go for it. Maias (talk) 01:38, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm considering using the text here to engage with WP:Scotland. You are welcome to borrow it for use here if you wish. There is something of a difference as you seem to have a large and well-organised group for wildlife, but in Scotland there are very few of us. Also, the Celts are notoriously as fickle as virgins and may be no more amenable to consistency than the biologists. We shall see. Ben MacDui ^Talk/Walk 19:05, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

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Articles that cover a variety of taxa

Further to above comments I took a slightly different tack.

I have posted a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Animals, plants, and other organisms to enable some kind of consistency in geography and other articles with similar issues. Please note that as the related essay states, this is not aimed at having individual WP:TOL projects change their policies. Ben Mac Dui 18:05, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Australian biota

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Unreferenced living people articles bot

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WikiProject cleanup listing

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Changing format of Animal lists

Currently the many List of mammals of Australia are arranged in a format where each species simply gets a bullet point. This is not very informative for the reader. I feel that it would be much better if organised in the way FA List of cetaceans is, summarizing basic points like name distribution and a picture. This would probably make the lists much better, and there are some details that may need to be worked out, but would it be worth it to work on a change of format? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:21, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Citation templates now support more identifiers

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Tagging?

I found this project and would have tagged the talk page of a new article with it, but discovered that {{WikiProject Australian biota}} does not work. I wonder if members of this project are interested in changing that? LadyofShalott 15:05, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tag WikiProject Australia|biota=yes is the way to do it Satu Suro 15:16, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit Conflict) Thanks for tagging for me, sorry I'm so lazy. In my defence, I was mainly uploading photos whilst watching the Tour de France, and knew that someone helpful would fill in the details for me! The way to do it is as a sub-project of Australia: {{WikiProject-Australia|biota=yes}} --99of9 (talk) 15:19, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Noted. Thank you both for the info! LadyofShalott

99 is clearer at least :) Satu Suro 15:38, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Naming ambiguity

I was trying to clear up some naming ambiguity, but somebody^[who?] more knowledgeable should probably handle this. The fundamental problem deals with capitalization:

There currently is no redirect for Greater bilby, yet there is a link to Lesser bilby.
Currently, also — Lesser Bilby • Greater Bilby • bilby • Bilby
The Bilby page mentions: "...also referred to as the greater bilby to distinguish..." -yet- there is currently no redirect for greater bilby
One taxonomy table is titled "Greater Bilby", while the other is "Lesser bilby"

I attempted to clarify, but was uncertain whether or not this might have something to do with one being extinct and the other extant - or "greater" vs. "lesser", or...(?)
~Thank you for your attention on this matter, I imagine that I'm not the only one confused.^{[citation needed]} ~Eric F Modified:74.60.29.141 (talk) 20:42, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed, I hope. Maias (talk) 00:31, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, - my apologies for stirring things up. Just one last nit-pick: should the 'B' in the Greater bilby Taxobox be lowercase? ~Thanks again, ~E 74.60.29.141 (talk) 02:14, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer upper-case but the mammal project seems to go with lower-case these days. Maias (talk) 03:17, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

WikiConfererence Australia 2015 - Save the date 3-5 October 2015

Our first Australian conference for Wikipedians/Wikimedians will be held 3-5 October 2015. Organised by Wikimedia Australia, there will be a 2-day conference (Saturday 3 October and Sunday 4 October) with an optional 3rd day (Monday 5 October) for specialist topics (unconference discussions, training sessions, etc). The venue is the State Library of Queensland in Brisbane. So put those dates in your diary! Note: Monday is a public holiday is some states but not others. Read about it here: WikiConference Australia 2015

As part of that page, there are now sections for you to:

indicate your interest in possibly attending the conference (this is not a binding commitment, of course)
add suggestions for topics to include in the conference: what you would like to hear/discuss (again, there is no commit to you presenting/organising that topic, although it’s great if you are willing to do so), or indicate your enthusiasm for any existing topic on the list by adding a note of support underneath it

It would really help our planning if you could let us know about possible attendance and the kind of topics that would make you want to come. If you don’t want to express your views on-wiki, please email me at kerry.raymond@wikimedia.org.au or committee@wikimedia.org.au

We are hoping to have travel subsidies available to assist active Australasian Wikipedians to attend the conference, although we are not currently in a position to provide details, but be assured we are doing everything we can to make it possible for active Australian Wikipedians to come to the conference. Kerry (talk) 00:11, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Folks, just letting you know we will not be proceeding with Wikiconference Australia 2015 originally proposed for 3-5 October 2015. Thanks to those of you who expressed your support. You are free to attend the football finals instead :-) Kerry (talk) 07:41, 3 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Notice to participants at this page about adminship

Many participants here create a lot of content, have to evaluate whether or not a subject is notable, decide if content complies with BLP policy, and much more. Well, these are just some of the skills considered at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.

So, please consider taking a look at and watchlisting this page:

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Optional RfA candidate poll

You could be very helpful in evaluating potential candidates, and even finding out if you would be a suitable RfA candidate.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:47, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New 5000 Challenge for Australia

Hi, Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/The 5000 Challenge and the wider Wikipedia:WikiProject Oceania/The 10,000 Challenge are up and running based on Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge for the UK which has currently produced over 2300 article improvements and creations. If you'd like to see large scale quality improvements happening for Australia and Oceania like The Africa Destubathon, which has produced over 1600 articles in 5 weeks, sign up on the page. The idea will be an ongoing national editathon/challenge for Australia but fuelled by a contest if desirable to really get articles on every state/territory and subject mass improved. After every 100 articles done for Australia this would feed into the main Oceania one. I will start a smaller challenge for your field of focus if there is the support. I would like some support from wikipedians here to get the Challenge off to a start anyway with some articles to make doing a Destubathon for Australia and Oceania worthwhile! Cheers.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:14, 20 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Project tagging of plants for biota project 2018 +

Despite some very good intentions by editors to adequately provide project tags and assessments over the last 10 years - some 10.000+ articles have biota=yes, but no importance attributed.

In the process of slowly non automated method of assigning importance and checking each item - there also have been encountered some items/plants that exist across most mainland states.

suggestion

up to 3 states identified in the content /text of the article allow the states to be identified and added as such.

where the distribution of a plant is over more than 4 states that the state tags are left off as that is wide enough distribution to assume an australian wide distribution that really does not need the individual states identified.

I realise that this project is unlikely to have many talk page watchers (if any at all), despite the large range of articles aligned with the project - so please alert anyone you might think be interested in this issue - thanks.

updated and edited this JarrahTree 00:51, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Point of project tagging i.e. got there at last

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Unknown-importance_Australian_biota_articles - under 10k - please it would really help if we create new biota articles - please be kind enough to put biota-importance=low - which is the default - so we can keep the number under 10 k - it would be much appreciated if you can help with this (keeping the number down that is) - thanks... JarrahTree 08:45, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WP 1.0 Bot Beta

Hello! Your WikiProject has been selected to participate in the WP 1.0 Bot rewrite beta. This means that, starting in the next few days or weeks, your assessment tables will be updated using code in the new bot, codenamed Lucky. You can read more about this change on the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team page. Thanks! audiodude (talk) 06:48, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Subscribe to new Tree of Life Newsletter!

Despite the many Wikipedians who edit content related to organisms/species, there hasn't been a Tree of Life Newsletter...until now! If you would like regular deliveries of said newsletter, please add your name to the subscribers list. Thanks, Enwebb (talk) 00:38, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

for the regular editors here

Specially those very helpful editors who help improve and expand content in this project

Please note that a proposed Australian Wikipedians Biota Users Group (AWBUG) is currently being proposed - for more information please see the item at meta: -

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Australian_Wikimedians_Biota_User_Group

It would be great if anyone interested is able to sign up to be involved! Thanks JarrahTree 09:01, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Edit warring of etymologies

A discussion has been started at WP:Tree of Life regarding recent edit warring behavior of taxonomic etymologies. Comments are requested.--Kev min § 03:08, 9 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

First annual Tree of Life Decemberween contest

After all the fun with the Spooky Species Contest last month, there's a new contest for the (Northern hemisphere's) Winter holidays at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Contest. It's not just Christmas, but anything festive from December-ish. Feel free to add some ideas to the Festive taxa list and enter early and often. --Nessie (talk) 17:39, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

abandoned ? drafts

https://tools.wmflabs.org/enwp10/cgi-bin/list2.fcgi?run=yes&projecta=Australian_biota&importance=NA-Class&quality=NotA-Class

Possibly most of these could be brought to main space - any thoughts? .... JarrahTree 08:46, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@JarrahTree: only two of those are drafts, Draft:Dicranoloma dicarpum by Jasallnutt and Draft:Germs found in rain water in Australia and the symptoms of the germs. by an ip. I’m not sure the second one can be published. --awkwafaba (📥) 13:20, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

thank you for that - the rain water item is interesting and notable - there might be either related articles - or ways some of the material might be utilised. JarrahTree 13:25, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Use of cite Q

The template {{cite Q}} is very much worth using.References are updated in wikidata to be as adequate as possible. In particular, a fair number of Austrobaileya journal articles, most of the Muelleria articles, most of Nuytsia articles are now in wikidata, as well as many Australian Systematic Botany, Taxon, Telopea and other plant articles. There are several advantages to using {{cite Q}}

When an author has been disambiguated and has an enwiki article, it gives an automatic author link. Thus the simple code {{cite Q|Q102425852}} gives: G. Kantvilas; J.A. Elix (2013). "The lichen genus Lecidella (Lecanoraceae), with special reference to the Tasmanian species" (PDF). Muelleria. 31: 31–47. doi:10.5962/P.295675. ISSN 0077-1813. Wikidata Q102425852.. {{cite Q|Q92315294}} gives: A. R. Bean (2019). "Reinstatement of Ptilotus parviflorus (Lindl.) F.Muell. (Amaranthaceae)" (PDF). Austrobaileya. 10 (3): 473–479. ISSN 0155-4131. Wikidata Q92315294. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 November 2022.
There are at least two parameters which work in this template. Thus {{cite Q|Q7247677|pages= 250|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/6157386}} overrides the pages and url given in wikidata, and gives: Brown, Robert (1810), Prodromus florae Novae Hollandiae et insulae Van-Diemen, exhibens characteres plantarum quas annis 1802–1805, London: R. Taylor et socii, p. 250, doi:10.5962/BHL.TITLE.3678, Wikidata Q7247677 taking you directly to the original text.
The journals, Muelleria, Austrobaileya, and Nuytsia generally have wikidata links allowing the reader to go directly to the article.

So it is worth thinking of using it. To use it I grab the name of a reference from APNI and search for a corresponding Qitem. Doesn't always work but with the efforts to upload articles, it should become increasingly useful.@JarrahTree: @Allthingsnative: @Casliber:@Gderrin:@99of9: MargaretRDonald (talk) 20:58, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is also an excellent way of linking notable people with their work.Thus, if I were now to write an article for Helge Thorsten Lumbsch, any cite Q link where his name is author immediately links to him, without anyone having to find where his references are sprinkled. MargaretRDonald (talk) 06:32, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Looks interesting yes Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:14, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Q code template should not be used in plant articles where its use results in errors in the titles of journal articles, especially with regard to the italicization of plant names. The template is a work-in-progress and a discussion about its use did not achieve consensus. Gderrin (talk) 10:45, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking the same thing. It's unfortunate that articles are rendered incorrectly on Wikidata itself. Though it also sounds like that won't be fixed. —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 00:57, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that wikidata labels, even after all these years, do not have a way to include italics. It seems like an obvious gap to me to not even have a "display it like this" option that allowed for italics. See T139573 for the feature request. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:51, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the discussion. But surely it is better to have a cite Q template used rather than nothing referencing a source, despite the failure to honour WP:CITEVAR and the failure to italicise taxon names. Compare for example: Pogonolepis August 2, 2020 with Pogonolepis December 21, 2020 where the italics have been lost but we are linked to the source article and to an important researcher in the area, Philip Sydney Short. Two important links given by the simple use of {{Cite Q}}. (Please note this discussion, @Pigsonthewing: @Rdmpage:) MargaretRDonald (talk) 20:59, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the issue of italics, their use isn't always consistent in journals themselves. For example the PDF for the Pogonolepsis discussed above does not have articles in the title. If this PDF were considered to be the version of record for this article then arguably we shouldn't include italics in its title. Likewise, the "official" source of metadata for many articles is CrossRef, and publishers submitting their metadata to CrossRef routinely strip italics (and other markup) from titles (often resulting in scientific names being joined to other words in the title). My point is that journals, publishers, CrossRef, and Wikidata all struggle with this issue. I have no insight into {{Cite Q}} but would it be possible to use the Wikidata qualifier "title in HTML" P6833 to address this problem? If that qualifier exists, can CiteQ use it in preference to the title? See Q64173850 for an example of a reference with this qualifier. Perhaps @Pigsonthewing: could comment? --Roderic D. M. Page (talk) 21:50, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Rdmpage: the titles of journal articles, particularly when their format is all caps, often do not use italics. That is irrelevant. We don't, for example, set citation titles in all caps just because they appear that way at the head of an article or on the cover of a book, and nor do any of the style manuals I'm aware of. Look at the list of references in the article, and you will see that scientific names are correctly italicized. In a list of references it looks very unprofessional not to italicize and we should certainly not follow the bad example of Wikidata. Until this is fixed, {{Cite Q}} is not acceptable when the title contains scientific names that should be italicized.

@Peter coxhead: My point was simply that this stuff can be difficult to do at scale, and even people who do this for a living get it "wrong". {{Cite Q}} is new, there are growing pains and, I gather, tensions about the desirability of centralising all bibliographic information in Wikidata. Whether {{Cite Q}} can include marked up titles, and how to handle "unknown values" are things hopefully the developers can address. The later problem (unknown values) can also be addressed by adding the missing information to Wikidata. Roderic D. M. Page (talk) 12:33, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Rdmpage: old books often don't really have a "publisher"; the name of the author and the name of the printer appear on the title page, nothing else. "Unknown" should not be shown.

It seems that at present, Wikidata editors have explicitly decided not to allow marked up titles, which, I can only repeat, makes many uses in taxon articles unacceptable in my view.

The idea of centralizing citation has been tried before; see, e.g., Template:Cite doi, but the consensus then was not to do this. I suspect that if there had been a proper RfC before Cite Q was deployed, the same conclusion might have been reached. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:20, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@MargaretRDonald: neither example in your (1) above is acceptable to me because of the failure to italicize, nor is (2) when it shows "unknown" as the publisher. None of these should be used as they are in an article. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:55, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Peter coxhead: I suspect the issue of "Unknown" in that instance can and will be easily resolved by those working on making cite Q an effective tool. Just as the author qualifier "stated as" (when there) is (currently) used as the author name, I have no doubt that using the "stated as" qualifier for publisher would make this particular use of Cite Q more acceptable. MargaretRDonald (talk) 01:13, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The issue for me is the use of this template in articles before all the fixes are applied and without the use of parameters such as "stated as" to ensure that the displayed citation is consistent is style with the others in the article. Doubtless it will in the end be possible somehow to ensure this consistency. However, the value of the Cite Q template diminishes if it is regularly necessary to over-ride the values in Wikidata. Scientific papers which require italics in the title and have a dozen or more authors are quite common; if you had to supply the title and authors manually each time, there would be minimal gain in using Cite Q. So I hope this will not be necessary. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:02, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Contentious editing at List of mammals of South Australia

There's been some protracted edit-warring at List of mammals of South Australia, and now a discussion on the article's talk page - a US-based editor has insisted on replacing the term "extinct in South Australia" with the term "extirpated", which he claims is synonymous. it seems that this is a common usage in the USA but, backed up by numerous dictionary definitions, I have been arguing that "extirpated" is a non-neutral term that implies deliberate human intention in wiping out a species. This editor is also currently the subject of an ANI discussion. Bahudhara (talk) 03:14, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Help on article about Rivancindela Hudsoni

Hi! I am a uni student working on an article about the tiger beetle Rivancindela Hudsoni, would anyone be willing to look it over in a few weeks? Thank you :) Anastasia.sck (talk) 05:13, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Help on article Dysoxylum Fraserianum

Hii! I am a uni student working on an article on Dysoxylum Fraserianum commonly known as rosewood, would anyone be willing to look it over in a few weeks? Leaving comments and making changes would be great, many thanks in advance :) Jumcombo0811 (talk) Jumbocombo0811 (talk) 05:42, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Help with Schayera baiulus article

Hi! I am a student working on a stub article for my class and I am hopeful that someone may be able to help me out by engaging with my article in some way? any feedback would be much appreciated! Here is a link to the article I am working on --> Schayera baiulus

Thank you for any help! dreamysharkgirl (talk) 12:48, 16 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Another Request for peer review help

Hi Everyone! I hope you are all doing well and staying safe during these times! Apologize to bother and posting a random request. I have just started to work on a stub (Fontainea Venosa)and had added some sections. Knowing your expertise, I would love if you can help me to review and left a comment on what I can do to improve my edits. I hope that this is okay, but no pressure if you are busy. That is completely fine and understandable :) Hope to hear from you soon. The article is Fontainea Venosa

Thank you so much :) Sparklingkull (talk) 09:33, 17 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Help with Lomandra Multiflora assessment for university

Hi there, I'm a university student and for my course I need to improve a stub. I have added new sections to Lomandra Multiflora, I would really appreciate any feedback and I will continue to add more onto the page until the 31st of May. It would be great if I could get the stub improved to a c or b level ! Thank you so much for your time :) Rachelw07 (talk) 02:00, 19 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Request for assessment of article - Leucopogon parviflorus

Hi all, similar to above, I am an Australian university student expanding a stub article for a unit of study. The article I am working on is Leucopogon parviflorus I would appreciate if you would be able to edit my work and re-assess the rating of my article. I will continue to add to it until the 31st of May, at which point it will be marked. Any input is greatly appreciated! Many Thanks :) Backpfeifengesicht123 (talk) 05:19, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done, a great improvement from its previous state. CMD (talk) 06:02, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Help on Article

Hello fellow Wikipedians, I am a student from University of Sydney, a newbie Wikipedia editor. I am working on this page as one of my course assignment until May 31st. I would like to ask for your help to have a look on this article (Macrozamia glaucophylla), also to listen your opinions and constructive criticism towards my work. I really hope I can improve this page to B or C level. Thank you! Gabrellaevelyn (talk) 05:37, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Atlas of Living Australia links?

Should we be adding ALA links in the "External links" section?

"Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris (Latham, 1801) — Eastern Spinebill". Atlas of Living Australia.

RDBrown (talk) 00:16, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why not, unless of course it's being used as a source itself. CMD (talk) 02:03, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Western Australian flora frequently incorrectly labelled as endemic to WA

I'm not a very experienced Wikipedian so I'm not sure if there's something obvious or standard practice I'm missing, but there's a bit of an issue with plant species being described as endemic to Western Australia when they actually have a much broader range, and when this isn't supported by the souce (generally WA Florabase). WA Florabase is a highly credible souce, but an appearance in WA Florabase in itself is not in itself evidence of endemism to WA. This is something I've noticed as someone interested in Victorian flora — most recently with Patersonia occidentalis. I'm happy to edit these articles as and when I come across them but I would appreciate people keeping an eye out for this kind of thing. In general, I think it's a good policy to check the recorded range in the ALA before claiming something is endemic to a specific region of Australia — a wide distribution doesn't necessarily disprove that, the organism could be widely naturalised as an introduced species, but it's a good flag that double checking other state floras is needed. PeoplesFootscray (talk) 06:49, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed! Thanks for that @PeoplesFootscray: and for editing Patersonia occidentalis (although it still needs some work). Feel free to flick me any WA species that are incorrect in the way you've mentioned and I will sort it. Gderrin (talk) 07:16, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Care needs to be taken when using the ALA as a reference though, since it often mirrors Wikipedia. Gderrin (talk) 10:20, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

wow - that needs to be noted very carefully then JarrahTree 10:23, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

yeah it could easily create a circular citation error that could blow this whole joint to kingdom come! I should specify — the MAP on the ALA is a good place to check range (native or introduced), but native/introduced status will generally require a check with another source. PeoplesFootscray (talk) 16:58, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

and yeah P. occidentalis definitely needs more work! any Patersonia experts in the house? PeoplesFootscray (talk) 17:01, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

User script to detect unreliable sources

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like

John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia requested images of New Zealand biota Category

In the latest issue of This Month In GLAM, the New Zealand group have written about how they've been adding requests for photos to New Zealand biota pages on Wikipedia. They've created a category collecting those pages and are hoping to target institutions who might be able to share their images.

You can read the whole thing here. I realise there's similar ways to do this on Wikidata, and the requested image tags need to be manually added and removed which is a pain, but I thought this might interest people here. Jimmyjrg (talk) 00:20, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Project-independent quality assessments

Quality assessments are used by Wikipedia editors to rate the quality of articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project decides to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:24, 9 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]