Welcome to the village pump of Wikispecies.

This page is a place to ask questions or discuss the project. If you need an admin, please see the Administrators' Noticeboard. If you need to solicit feedback, see Request for Comment. Please sign and date your post (by typing ~~~~ or clicking the signature icon in the edit toolbar). Use the Wikispecies IRC channel for real-time chat.

If you're going to critique the work of fellow editors (blatant vandals excepted) in your post on this page, you should notify them, either by mentioning them with a {{Reply to}} template, or with a post on their talk page.

If you insert links to Wikipedia pages in your comments, don't forget the leading colon (:) before the wiki language code (including when you reference a remote user page instead of using a local signature), otherwise it will generate spurious interwiki links collected in the sidebar instead of in the expected location within the discussion. Thanks.

Village pump in other languages:

• Chinese - 中文
• Czech - česky
• Finnish - Suomi
• French - Français
• Hungarian - Magyar
• Hindi - हिन्दी
• Italian - Italiano
• Korean - 한국어
• Nepali - नेपाली
• Russian - Русский
• Tamil - தமிழ்
• Ukrainian - Українська
• Vietnamese - Tiếng Việt

Archives
1	(2004-09-21/2005-01-05)	2	(2005-01-05/2005-08-23)
3	(2005-08-24/2005-12-31)	4	(2006-01-01/2005-05-31)
5	(2006-06-01/2006-12-16)	6	(2006-12-17/2006-12-31)
7	(2007-01-01/2007-02-28)	8	(2007-03-01/2007-04-30)
9	(2007-05-01/2007-08-31)	10	(2007-09-01/2007-10-31)
11	(2007-11-01/2007-12-31)	12	(2008-01-01/2008-02-28)
13	(2008-03-01/2008-04-28)	14	(2008-04-29/2008-06-30)
15	(2008-07-01/2008-09-30)	16	(2008-10-01/2008-12-25)
17	(2008-12-26/2009-02-28)	18	(2009-03-01/2009-06-30)
19	(2009-07-01/2009-12-31)	20	(2010-01-01/2010-06-30)
21	(2010-07-01/2010-12-31)	22	(2011-01-01/2011-06-30)
23	(2011-07-01/2011-12-31)	24	(2012-01-01/2012-12-31)
25	(2013-01-01/2013-12-31)	26	(2014-01-01/2014-12-31)
27	(2015-01-01/2015-01-31)	28	(2015-02-01/2015-02-28)
29	(2015-02-28/2015-04-29)	30	(2015-04-29/2015-07-19)
31	(2015-07-19/2015-09-23)	32	(2015-09-23/2015-11-21)
33	(2015-11-21/2015-12-31)	34	(2016-01-01/2016-04-17)
35	(2016-03-22/2016-05-01)	36	(2016-05-01/2016-07-12)
37	(2016-07-13/2016-09-30)	38	(2016-10-01/2016-12-04)
39	(2016-12-04/2017-01-17)	40	(2017-01-18/2017-01-28)
41	(2017-01-29/2017-02-13)	42	(2017-02-14/2017-03-21)
43	(2017-03-20/2017-08-11)	44	(2017-08-10/2017-12-07)
45	(2017-12-08/2018-01-08)	46	(2018-01-19/2018-03-11)
47	(2018-03-11/2018-09-11)	48	(2018-09-01/2019-02-17)
49	(2019-02-22/2019-06-18)	50	(2019-06-19/2019-10-06)
51	(2019-10-07/2019-12-23)	52	(2019-12-24/2020-04-03)
53	(2020-04-03/2020-07-16)	54	(2020-07-17/2020-09-05)
55	(2020-09-08/2020-11-27)	56	(2020-11-27/2021-06-21)
57	(2021-06-05/2021-09-24)	58	(2021-09-25/2022-01-24)
59	(2022-01-26/2022-02-27)	60	(2022-02-27/2022-04-13)
61	(2022-04-14/2022-05-10)	62	(2022-07-01/2023-12-17)
63	(2022-12-24/2023-04-20)	64	(2023-04-20/2023-08-29)
65	(2023-09-01/2023-12-27)	66	(2023-11-18/2024-02-14)
67	(2024-02-14/2024-06-21)	68	(2024-06-22/2024-11-02)
69	(2024-11-03/2025-xx-xx)	70	(???)

Could a mammal specialist please review this genus? This has come about as the request for speedy delete of Giraffa giraffa angolensis has highlighted inconsistencies and apparent errors in the genus circumscription. For example, Giraffa camelopardalis angolensis. Thanks. Andyboorman (talk) 08:59, 12 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I commented on the talk page, reject the deletion. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 16:54, 12 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

ughh I have looked through the Giraffe in more detail, theseare a mess. Based on most recent publications we need to do some work on this genus I am going to fix this and will take care of the speedy delete. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 20:47, 12 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

(I'm sending a ping to @Nerdnewt, who first added the speedy deletion request to the G. giraffa angolensis page. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 05:37, 14 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hmm ok I may have to rethink this. I have just been sent 2025 papers of relevance to this that seem to now be recognising 4 species not 3. I will examine them all and update accordingly. By the way the MDD and Mammal species of the world are not the best sources for this genus. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 12:30, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

For those unsure. The problem is that conservation imperatives have been in the way of the taxonomy of Giraffe for decades. The phylogenetic studies presented have been both hampered by this and by the lack of explicit explanations of methodology and acceptance/ refutation of results (which are not proposed well) due to the influence of conservation imperatives. This is bad taxonomic practice. So I have had to go through each paper, question the authors and gain an full understanding of what they are trying to do and how they did it. So sorry if this takes a little time. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 13:06, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I went ahead and made a prototype for a version of {{Image}} with more Wikidata functionality - not only can it grab the image from Wikidata, but it generates a more appropriate caption based on the depicts (P180) and sex or gender (P21) qualifiers under the image (P18) property. You can check it out at User:WrenFalcon/Image. Feel free to play around with it (though, please don't use it in an actual article yet—stick to the preview or use a sandbox, please) or to suggest corrections or improvements. It's not perfect yet - I believe it wouldn't provide a caption at all on taxon authority pages, and I haven't tested it enough yet to be sure it will work everywhere else. However, I find it nice because an accurate caption can be generated without needing to provide any parameters in the Wikispecies article. Any feedback is greatly appreciated! --WrenFalcon (talk) 04:25, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

need to ensure it can be overridden by local edits though. Wikidata does not always have the correct information nor is it always the appropriate information for this wiki, as a taxonomic wiki we do need the correct name on taxa, the species epithet should be in the image title and the common name is not so relevant. There are on occasions additional information of use, for example if it's a picture of a type specimen. We also need to wary if its automatically grabbing any image of a taxon, since many of the ones on Commons are misidentified. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 09:05, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Everything should be able to be overwritten by local edits—see the newly-added examples (with some comments in the wikitext source) on the template page (User:WrenFalcon/Image).

It's not fetching any metadata (e.g. depicted taxon, sex) directly from Commons—data would have to be entered directly on the Wikidata taxon item. For example, see d:Q1048880#P18. The template is not directly affected by misidentifications in Commons; a misidentification would have to find its way into the Wikidata taxon item, which should help with data quality.

A custom caption or custom image can absolutely be provided, just like with the current {{Image}}. (However, if a custom caption is specified, I would recommend explicitly specifying the file name of the image to use; otherwise, the caption could become outdated by a change in Wikidata.)

The generated caption should always use the (scientific) taxon name, never the common name. See the last example on the template page (mallard, male, Anas platyrhinchos).

As for data accuracy, that's partly on Wikidata maintainers, partly on Wikispecies editors (and on Commons editors/reviewers for file name accuracy). However, the extended use of Wikidata by this template may also encourage more Wikispecies editors to contribute to Wikidata, especially to help fix incorrect or conflicting information. --WrenFalcon (talk) 16:23, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

unfortunately if they are misidentified on Commons they are invariably also misidentified on Wikidata. cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 18:43, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

If that is the case, fix them! Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:59, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have fixed about 700 of them. But I cannot do all of them. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 12:21, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Added documentation (which is also on the template page)! Hopefully that makes it a little more understandable what's going on. --WrenFalcon (talk) 03:16, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

So, is this is change we would be interested in making to {{Image}}? And how should this change be handled - is consensus here enough to justify making the change, should it go through an RfC, or...?

I've updated it somewhat, and I've tested it a decent amount. I feel confident that it will work without issues on the vast majority of pages, and when there are issues, the captioning behavior can be easily overridden. It's also currently standard practice to use the image in Wikidata (though this does have its own issues with misidentification). Personally, I don't think this change would significantly exacerbate the misidentification issues as opposed to the situation currently. I don't know of any common usages/patterns on Wikidata that would break this template (though, then again, many of the taxa I've looked at don't have an image in Wikidata). I believe it should also be fully language-independent. --WrenFalcon (talk) 19:09, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Lovely. Is it possible to draw out media captions with a LangSwitch thing? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:00, 22 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure what you mean specifically, but there shouldn't be a need for that. For images of a taxon, it uses the taxon (scientific) name, and if it adds a sex annotation, it uses the male or female symbol. If the associated Wikidata item doesn't have the taxon name property, it captions the image with the item's label in the current language (i.e. the display language of the user/viewer on Wikispecies). If the associated Wikidata item doesn't have a label for the current language, it then defaults to the Wikispecies page name.

Images of taxa are captioned in a language-neutral manner (i.e. not using anything specific to any one language); images of taxon authorities and other miscellaneous items are captioned using the label in the appropriate local language OR using the page name.

If the automatic caption is overridden, it can be with whatever you want, including templates and parser functions such as {{int:}} and {{#switch:}}. --WrenFalcon (talk) 02:32, 22 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

On commons, I'm regularly having to remove misfiled images related to microorganisms from the category for the plant genus Microbiota. This makes me wonder: is Microbiota a valid genus name, or does it potentially breach ICN Article 20.2 "The name of a genus may not coincide with a Latin technical term in use in morphology at the time of publication..."? Microbiota was only described in 1923, so is later than the 1912 cutoff given in Art. 20.2. Thoughts, please! - MPF (talk) 19:10, 22 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

We have a template called {{WorldWideWattle}} that produces, for example, this result -

• Maslin, B.R. & Wilson, A.J.G. (eds) 2025. WorldWideWattle Species Gallery, accessed on 20250516141102 Acacia pulchella – Taxon details on World Wide Wattle.

However, the site requests the following format - Maslin, B.R. & Wilson, A.J.G. (eds) 2025. WorldWideWattle Species Gallery, accessed on [insert date] (minor format changes to suit WS praxis). The taxon ID is used to call the specific entry for our purposes and as far as I am aware it is not possible to do a compete search.

Can anybody edit our template so that it follows the requested format? Thanks in anticipation. Andyboorman (talk) 20:01, 29 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

This should do it, with the caveat that strictly speaking, {{CURRENTDATE}} is not a magic word, so I used {{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} which includes the time as well as the date. I checked it on a page and it displayed. Here is what it looks like now with the example you gave of {{WorldWideWattle|3502}} (live version, then subst:ed version):

• Maslin, B.R. & Wilson, A.J.G. (eds) 2025. WorldWideWattle Species Gallery, accessed on 20250516141102 Village Pump – Taxon details on World Wide Wattle.

• Maslin, B. R. & Wilson, A. J. G. (eds) 2025. WorldWideWattle Species Gallery, accessed on 20250516141102 Village Pump – Taxon details on World Wide Wattle.

Let me know if more is needed. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:21, 29 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Koavf: Thanks seems to do the job nicely. Best regards. Andyboorman (talk) 08:05, 30 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't think we should ignore our house style to suit theirs. We should use small caps for authors, for example. "20250501110138" is horrendous. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pigsonthewing (talk • contribs) 11:25, 1 May 2025 (UTC).Reply

I have seen that the following terms have recently been changed in POWO:

• Czechoslovakia --> Czechia-Slovakia
• Sudan --> Sudan-South Sudan
• Swaziland --> Eswatini
• Turkey --> Türkiye ("Türkey" in the distribution data, "Türkiye" in the "Build a Checklist" tool)
• Turkey-in-Europe --> Türkiye-in-Europe (dito)
• Yakutskiya --> Yakutiya
• Yugoslavia --> NW. Balkan Pen.
• Zaïre --> DR Congo

--RLJ (talk) 09:39, 30 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

This post relates to my conflicts with User:ABeCK on Betonica officinalis, Scilla luciliae and Scilla sardensis, mainly about the citation of Catalogue of Life. As I understand Help:Reference section, primarily the sources used for writing the article should be listed in this section, further reading and useful links should generally not be listed, especially when they are already included in the Taxonbar.

The much-used "Catol-Hassler"-template is much-abused for Catalogue of Life contributions not authored by Michael Hassler, as in the above-mentioned articles and many more. The CoL entries in question here have identical content with POWO, this is also documented by citation. So citing POWO and CoL is citing the same thing twice.

I think the way of citing Catalogue of Life needs rework. The template is working with the search function of Catalogue of Life, not with the CoL-ID, giving results belonging to the relevant taxon or not. -RLJ (talk) 09:57, 1 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

As one of the original users of {{Catol-Hassler}} I can testify to the fact that the original citation request was for Michael Hassler only, but now, after years of development, there is a citation for every team involved in the current database. Therefor and unfortunately, this template has become very out of date/redundant and I do not use it, as my plant interests are cited by the version that uses WCVP as its main source and this is from the same stable as POWO. In addition, this version of COL cites Govaerts as its author, quite rightly. Andyboorman (talk) 13:29, 1 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have been looking through our pages on Wattles (Acacia) and have realised that COL now uses World Wide Wattles as its source for these taxa. Please see Acacia alata as an example. Andyboorman (talk) 20:31, 2 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Before proceeding with my arguments I must tell both @Andyboorman and @Tommy Kronkvist not to put pressure on this matter, intentionally wanting to speed up my response time, I am sure that both you and I have our lives outside WS editions, the fact that it takes time does not mean that I will not respond, it is simply a matter of time distribution.

Regarding the use of the Catalogue of Life (CoL) and the "Catol-Hassler" template, I still don't understand where is the precise line between valid and invalid templates lies in WS, and this conflict has only made things more ambiguous. Now, regarding the fonts that Catalogue of Life uses to display taxa, while it's true that it borrows heavily from POWO, there are some exceptions beyond the one Andy mentions. Other examples

While the genera Lophocereus, Lemaireocereus, or Marshallocereus, as well as their related species, are classified as independent in POWO, not only in CoL but also in GBIF, these genera are synonyms of Pachycereus, and the species are also included in this genus. And leaving aside cacti, many genera of Cactaceae family are still being discussed and moved, another case that occurs is in a species, known under the name Foeniculum vulgare, known by all under that scientific name, even by all taxonomic databases (those that are constantly updated and those that are not), except for CoL, which catalogues it under the name Anethum foeniculum. What I say can be corroborated in a reliable and truthful way, and this rules out RLJ's argument that CoL is based entirely on POWO.

In addition, if CoL tag and The Plant List tag aren't going to be allowed...why are they still valid in WS? Why aren't they removed or at least updated? Let me repeat, where do we see that limit? All taxonomic bases differ to some extent, in which case are all sources or valid ones allowed, or are no labels placed?

In which case I could make the citation template if it weren't for the fact that I don't know how to do those specific templates. That's another point a problem and a claim that I make that not @RLJ are aware of, and I am sure that they are not the only one involved in this discussion, is the economy of text, RLJ tags on the pages where this debate was generated, only make more text appear in the articles, which is unnecessary. I am still unhappy about the edits to my pages about some species of the Aloysia genus and I have not seen any response to my discussion or anything to clarify things, they have only increased the weight of bits in the articles that I have created or edited by myself. AbeCK (talk) 07:18, 3 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@AbeCK: This particular message from me is a bit off topic, but to explain: please note that I've never had any intention to "put any pressure" on this matter. The only reason I contacted you on your user talk page at User talk:AbeCK#Betonica officinalis was to make make sure you had knowledge about this ongoing discussion here at the Village Pump. I felt it wouldn't have been fair if only one party was involved in the discussion, and you were left out simply because you didn't know about it. –Best regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 13:05, 3 May 2025 (UTC).Reply

@AbeCK: I like @Tommy Kronkvist: I did not want to pressure you. However, thanks for your well considered reply and I do also use {{Catol-Hassler}} where it highlights a differing taxonomic opinion, as the one name one taxon "rule" is not always possible.

AbeCK cites Foeniculum as worth mentioning, but reading Jimenez-Mejias & Vargas (2015) cited in Col, I am not sure the authors favoured merging all of the Anethum clade into Anethum s.l., in spite of the clade being monophyletic, pointing out morphological differences between the genera. Does Catol-Hassler's opinion merits a "disputed" tag, not sure, but I could be persuaded? Cacti are very much a project still in progress and a prickly area! Andyboorman (talk) 20:05, 3 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you both for your comments, @Andyboorman and @Tommy Kronkvist. I just wanted to clarify that point, so you know it's a matter of time, but it's not intentional, not at all. Now, the main question is whether certain taxonomic databases are no longer going to be used, such as those that are no longer updated or that offer a lot of misinformation, that they should be eliminated or filed at the very least, and that those taxonomic databases that are updated and may have disparities should at least be updated more uniformly. I repeat, if CoL and The Plant List templates aren't going to be allowed...why are they still valid in WS? Why aren't they removed, filed, or at least updated? Where do we see that limit? All taxonomic bases differ to some extent, in which case are all sources or valid ones allowed, or are no labels placed? Likewise, text economy should already be applied; it's unnecessary to generate text with excessive and sometimes unnecesary edits. Let's strive for greater homogeneity and efficiency with our edits, please. AbeCK (talk) 03:39, 9 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@AbeCK: @Tommy Kronkvist: At the moment. I will respond just to the template Plant List. In an ideal world it would be replaced by WFO Plant List [1], which is its direct replacement from the same stable. Unfortunately, its template {{WFO}} does not search in the same way as {{TPLF}} and requires the taxon id to access the required taxon. For example, Eriosyce, where WFO requires the addition of wfo-4000013892-2024-12 to the template;

• WFO Plant List 2025. Eriosyce. Published online. Accessed: 9 May 2025.. This prevents us using a bot to undertake a mass replacement of TPLF. Hope this helps. Andyboorman (talk) 07:40, 9 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Catalogue of Life often uses the data from POWO (currently the publicly available database from May 2024, without updates), World Ferns and some angiosperm families from World Plants by Hassler, rarely other sources. Citing the same thing twice has nothing to do with economy. I think citing Catalogue of Life should include the original source and should not be based on a search string, but lead to a precise page. -RLJ (talk) 00:49, 10 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

My suggestion is that COL should only be used where it differs from POWO and a note added. In addition, if there are significant differences across a range of secondary and primary sources then this requires a {{Disputed}} tag with a brief explanation. Andyboorman (talk) 07:35, 13 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

ISSN 0368-8151 and Lunds Universitets Årsskrift seem to refer to the same entity. However, it's possible there's intricacies I'm missing, such as if the Wikidata item or one or more of the Wikispecies pages are incorrect (and I don't deal with botany or IPNI, which the latter page refers to). Could someone look into this and merge these, if appropriate? Lunds Universitets Årsskrift is linked to Acta Universitatis Lundensis (Q5656893), which has ISSN 0368-8151, i.e. the ISSN referred to by the first page I mentioned. Thanks. --WrenFalcon (talk) 04:55, 3 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Doubt: We have the templates for the volumes of Museum Heineanum attributed to: Vol.I: Cabanis only which seems correct; Vol II: Cabanis and Heine Sr., this template was created by @Mariusm: and I followed adding dozens of taxa; Vol.III, Vol.IV-1 and Vol.IV-2 to Cabanis and Heine Jr., all created by myself. All the main page volumes, except I, says authors "Jean Cabanis" und "Ferdinand Heine" (Stud. philos.) which seems to me to be Heine (son). The german wikipedia, in Ferdinand Heine Jr. biography attributes the authorship of volumes 2 thru 4 to Cabanis and Heine Jr.. Most of the taxonomies are confuse just stating "Cabanis and Heine" without specifing. Additionally, they also attribute Trochilidica (template created by myself) to Heine Jr. not to Heine Sr. By reading the biography (translation) I am personally inclined to believe that the authorship is really Heine Jr. for all of these works. Any light would be highly appreciated. Hector Bottai (talk) 11:17, 5 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Bernd Nicolai seems to list Heine Jr. as the author (HALBERSTADT: Museum Heineanum. p. 412. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-44321-8_33 ResearchGate ). --WrenFalcon (talk) 18:06, 5 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Ridgway's "The humming birds", p. 261, would seem to state that Heine Jr. was the author of Trochilidica as well (also see on Google Books), given that Heine Jr. was the involved author of Museum Heineanum. --WrenFalcon (talk) 18:28, 5 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Great help! Looks I have a lot of work to do now...Thanks. Hector Bottai (talk) 22:09, 5 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Could some translation admin please clear the queue at Special:PageTranslation. It hasn't been attended to since mid-2024. Pppery (talk) 22:33, 10 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, @Pppery. I've also added a note about it on the Translation Administrators' Noticeboard: Translation admin queue needs attention.
–Best regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 13:03, 13 May 2025 (UTC).Reply

The results of voting on the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) Charter is available on Meta-wiki.

You may now submit your candidacy to serve on the U4C through 29 May 2025 at 12:00 UTC. Information about eligibility, process, and the timeline are on Meta-wiki. Voting on candidates will open on 1 June 2025 and run for two weeks, closing on 15 June 2025 at 12:00 UTC.

If you have any questions, you can ask on the discussion page for the election. -- in cooperation with the U4C,

Keegan (WMF) (talk) 22:06, 15 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello,

On the Monkeypox virus page, it is said "Species: Monkeypox virus" and that it is based on "Classification System: ICTV (2023 Release, MSL#39, release v3)".

But according to the ICTV website, they say that the species was renamed to "Orthopoxvirus monkeypox" in MSL#39 v1, and is so named in MSL#40 v1 too. (btw : they also renamed a lot of others "${animal}pox virus" to "Orthopoxvirus ${animal}pox").

As a non-specialist and not very familiar with how Wikispecies works, I am not going to edit the article myself for fear of making it worse rather than better, but I wanted to report that contradiction. Kind regards --FoeNyx (talk) 23:30, 15 May 2025 (UTC)Reply