User talk:DCDuring/2015

2015

Flood flag

Hi Dennis. Any chance of a flood flag for about 30 minutes while I add lots of Spanish plurals/adjectives/verb forms? --Type56op9 (talk) 12:59, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't know how, but I'll look into it. DCDuring TALK 13:01, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

 Done DCDuring TALK 13:02, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. Thousands of entries coming up without flooding RC. --Type56op9 (talk) 13:03, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Are you done yet? DCDuring TALK 17:04, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks again. Any chance of getting it again? I'd like to do the same thing with some more Spanish forms. There's 789 entries I've got lined up, which should take about 15 minutes to add. --SuperWonderbot (talk) 17:22, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Just don't do anything rash and let me know when you are done. DCDuring TALK 17:24, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Nothing rash, don't worry. I hope CodeCat doesn't delete all my edits like last time. --SuperWonderbot (talk) 17:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Was there a reason? Was there some departure from CodeCat's standards? From Wiktionary standards? DCDuring TALK 17:27, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

You'll have to ask him about that. I have no hard feelings about being blocked. --SuperWonderbot (talk) 17:29, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Another 100 chordates

Thanks for your work on the others. If you're interested, I've just posted the next 100 "most common" vertebrates as found in books here: User:Pengo/2gram-chordata/2 —Pengo (talk) 03:38, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the lists. It would have taken a long time for my methods to have gotten to these and they are clearly meritorious entries. The closest I would come to those is the WP lists of organisms that have had their genome sequenced. BTW, I like plants, too. DCDuring TALK 04:04, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok, got around to making a plant list too: User:Pengo/2gram-plantae :) Pengo (talk) 23:45, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. It has a good number of species that are on my list, but many of them are not at the top of my list. Arguably these are more important than some that are higher ranked on my lists. DCDuring TALK 03:17, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

One more thing

Also, could you unprotect Template:es-adj for a while. There's a little change I'd like to make to it, which hopefully could lead to finding some errors in some entries. --SuperWonderbot (talk) 17:35, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Could you ask someone who knows something about Spanish or inflection templates? DCDuring TALK 17:37, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Apparently headers are my enemy

I apologize for my apparent inability to spell or capitalize headers correctly. Thank you for fixing everything. —JohnC5 ^{(Talk | contribs)} 22:46, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Don't worry about it, but try not to produce so many. DCDuring TALK 22:51, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

User:DTLHS/headers

If it's okay with you, could you remove corrected pages instead of striking them? Cheers. Renard Migrant (talk) 00:15, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Sure. DCDuring TALK 03:15, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Flood flag

Hey, can you flood-flag me for a few minutes? --Type56op9 (talk) 18:47, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Species names with abbreviated genus

I'm not sure how these are supposed to be formatted; E. coli looks good to me, but I wanted to make sure that you agree before I start trying to fix C. elegans or T. rex. Thoughts? What L3 header is best? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:56, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't like having the entries very much, but [[E. coli]] is well-formatted! (I had put my best man on it.) Relatively few such abbreviations are actually used without the context having previous provided the expanded name. Is C. elegans in that class? Certainly anything that has survived challenge in RfV or RfD (or is likely to) should be properly formatted. Let me know if we don't have entries for the expanded forms of any of these. DCDuring TALK 19:38, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: I don't know that it really helps to have separate etymology sections; they add clutter without much information. Also look at the usage note at [[E. coli]]. In this case it doesn't add anything, but in others it might. DCDuring TALK 19:46, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, C. elegans is in that class. (As are the others noted above, D. melanogaster, and possibly X. laevis, but that's about all of them comprehensible by every biologist wholly out of context.) I'll work on them when I get a chance, but I won't create X. laevis because I don't really want to sift through citations to find three where Xenopus isn't used. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:23, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I trust your judgment. DCDuring TALK 21:55, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

not so hot

Adverb? SemperBlotto (talk) 14:21, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think so. It can be used as a predicate: "His later work was not so hot." Feel takes adjectives (eg, sick, blue, happy) as complements. DCDuring TALK 14:44, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

If you say "I don't feel so hot", then you're saying a) You're relatively cool to the touch, b) you aren't experiencing as much of a sensation of heat as you might have expected, or c) you don't feel all that well, with "feel" being a stative verb in all three cases, and thus like "am". It's possible for "feel" to be an active verb: if you say "I'm feeling poorly today", prescriptivists would say that you're commenting on your tactile competence, not on your perception of your own condition. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:22, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

old taxonomic names

I got the idea to search Google Books for books that contained terms from Category:mul:Taxonomic names (obsolete), on the theory that works which contained a few obsolete taxonomic names might also contain more obsolete taxonomic names. I just picked sets of 2-3 terms at random out of the category and searched for them, and then flipped through the pages of the books that turned up, looking for other taxonomic names. I don't know if there's an easy way to make a more systematic search, or to more easily/systematically extract names from the books that turn up. (Searching for unrelated taxons turned up books with more taxonomic names in them than searching for related taxons did.) But here's a list of some old taxonomic names: User:-sche/old taxonomic names. Some may still be in use (i.e. not obsolete); I couldn't think of a way to filter them out automatically.
The old methods of grouping animals — "well these both have large heads", "well these are both inoffensive"(!) — are hilarious!
- -sche (discuss) 18:55, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

That's an interesting approach and has already yielded a good grouping on you page that we should cover.

The only way we can filter taxa for obsolescence is by subtracting the union of names in Wikispecies and other accessible sources that try to have current names from whatever list we find. I haven't mined Wikispecies for anything but lists or hypernyms and hyponyms. But they have lists of synonymized taxa (not exactly what we would call synoyms) and vernacular names in quite a few languages. It would be possible to extract their list of taxa, add any additional ones from WP and possibly Commons and find all unlinked uses of those taxa in Wiktionary. Comparing such a major list with all of Wiktionary namespace content would be really resource-intensive, but doable. Breaking it into smaller pieces would probably be smart, eg, only genera or only definitions.

We were focusing on genus-level names because they sometimes serve as, 1, specific epithets (Pengo's long-term interest), 2, the stem of supra-generic taxa, and, 3, the names of subgenera, sections, and subsections. Someone would eventually come across those or types 2 and 3, but it might be a long-time before it was determined that the stem or subgeneric taxon was once a genus.

With all the interest being shown in obsolete taxa, I am hopeful that we can develop a comparative advantage over other online databases by covering these. Otherwise our advantage is limited to our coverage of vernacular names that correspond to taxonomic names, which is, however, compromised by the lack of support for translation sections for taxa. DCDuring TALK 21:40, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I've added a few of them. I use a simple piece of cut-and-paste:

==Translingual== ===Etymology=== {{rfelite|mul}} ===Proper noun=== {{taxoninfl}} # {{cx|obsolete|lang=mul}} {{taxon||||corresponding to }} ===External links=== * {{R:Century 1911}} [[Category:mul:Taxonomic names (obsolete)]]}}

I insert the cut-and-paste and look up Century's definition. I'll be adding more. DCDuring TALK 22:45, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

saimiri

What does it mean that saimiri is defined as "Saimiri"? Should that sense just be moved to the uppercase form, or is the word used in lowercase to refer to the genus, in which case it should perhaps use Template:alternative case form of? - -sche (discuss) 19:15, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I have altered saimiri in line with the fictions that our entries maintain, more or less.

We have been maintaining the fictions that:

1. All Translingual taxa are proper nouns designating lineages, along the lines that many modern systematists insist on
2. All vernacular names refer to individual animals, who are members of the lineages designated by taxa.

I think these are both fictions. Biologists may refer to a specimen by its taxonomic name, certainly in informal use. Capitalized use of plant and animal names is an indication that English writers think of the groupings they name as proper nouns. The fictions are useful. I don't see any advantage to dispensing with the fiction in a way that causes mere multiplication of sense lines. Wording changes - not too cumbersome - that included the usage that is contrary to the fictions, especially in real languages would be worth considering. DCDuring TALK 19:42, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

If people refer to taxonomic groups in lowercase, I would think it would be fine to reflect this, using Template:alternative case form of to avoid duplicating info (and having it fall out of sync). I notice that mammalia does this. - -sche (discuss) 19:46, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I won't object. DCDuring TALK 21:17, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Bia

This entry was created by a problem IP mostly for inane mythology purposes, but, in typical clueless fashion, they threw in a butterfly genus as a second English sense. Could you make a proper translingual entry out of the buttefly sense? Chuck Entz (talk) 06:47, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

I suspect that most of these mythological entries should have Translingual sections, usually for insects. They are not high on my list of priorities but I'm happy to do the clean up whenever required. Thanks for letting me know. DCDuring TALK 13:05, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Linnaeus reference templates?

I'm in the process of creating the entry triandrus, which the OED claims was introduced in the 1st edition of Systema Naturae, and I couldn't find a reference template. Does one not exist? If not, should we create one that takes the edition, part, volume numbers, etc., and spit out the publication info and maybe even autolink to an entry, if such a thing exists? Just curious. —JohnC5 05:34, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Not that I know of. It would be useful for there to be perhaps several different ones for the different major works. It would be useful for his coinages and also his appropriations of Latin (all vintages) and Greek terms for his own purposes. We would do the world a service by having all the Linnaen terms as well as other taxonomic terms no longer in use and the definitions of terms as used in the nineteenth century. I have been more focused on the current definitions, but less current and obsolete ones come up in etymologies regularly. DCDuring TALK 06:17, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Ok, do you have anyone in mind who might be able/willing to help us create a fairly complex template (unless you can do it)? It would need to be able to distinguish the many editions of Systema Naturae. Also, is there some easily queried database of Systema Naturae that we could use?

In a related note: the system of Latin epithets for Translingual words seems strange to me, i.e. that we add a New Latin term which may not have a true definition outside of taxonomic use. I feel like we should have a template {{epithet|la|some description of other}} which has entries say:

1. a taxonomic epithet meaning "something about plants or some such"

Then this would link to categories like Category:Latin taxonomic epithets, Category:Translingual taxonomic epithets, etc., which in turn would make a nice pretty list of taxonomic epithets for us to admire with great delight. —JohnC5 06:52, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I would recommend treating different editions as different references: the main title may be the same, but all the details such as pagination and location of online versions are different. I'm not sure about other taxa, but the TROPICOS system has links to page images for all Linnaean vascular plant names

As for the strangeness of taxonomic Latin vs. Translingual: taxonomic publications started out as pure Latin text, then the Latin became progressively more restricted and constrained to the point that only the taxonomic names themselves have to be Latin, and they only use a very limited subset of Latin or Latinized Greek inflection. For the two main taxonomic codes, you can have:

1. A generic name, which is a Latin noun in the nominative singular
2. A specific epithet, which is either:
   1. An adjective modifying the generic name, which agrees with it in gender and number or
   2. A noun in the genitive, agreeing with the referent in gender and number or
   3. A noun in apposition, which is in the nominative case and doesn't agree with anything.
3. Names of infra-specific taxa, which follow the same rules as those for the specific epithet
4. Names of ranks above genus and up to superfamily, which consist of the genitive of a generic name with any inflectional ending replaced by rank-specific endings to make nouns
5. Names of higher ranks, which can either:
   1. Follow rules like those for the supergeneric taxa or
   2. Be constructed as nouns according to traditions specific to the taxonomic group, such as insect orders ending in -ptera or
   3. Be just about anything that can be construed as a Latin noun, at the whim of the first describer

Non-Latin words are converted to Latin spelling, with first- or second-declension endings tacked on to nouns in the genitive, according to the gender:

1. Male individuals take -i or -ii, as if their names ended in -us or -ius
2. Female individuals take -ae, as if their names ended in -a
3. Masculine or mixed-gender groups take -orum, as if their names ended in -us/plural -i
4. Feminine groups take -arum, as if their names ended in -a/plural -ae

With taxonomic names such as Quercus john-tuckeri, it's questionable whether the specific epithet is really Latin, since it's just an English name formatted according to the taxonomic code and with -i tacked on to make it genitive. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:24, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz Thanks! This is very informative. Of course I'm aware that publications were originally in Latin, and I suppose I was just seeking a method to mitigate that cold feeling I get in my heart every time I create a "Latin" entry with no Latin meaning. :( —JohnC5 09:54, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

• See {{R:AnimalBase}} for a database of links from modern names to pre-1790 names, with links to Linnaeus and others. DCDuring (talk) 19:52, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Flood??

Hey DC. Feel free to flood me for a while if you like. I'm adding loads of Catalan plurals - all pretty dull... --Type56op9 (talk) 16:53, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Error?

https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=downward-facing_dog&diff=32246524&oldid=28455170 Not sure why you did that, but you removed the page from its proper category (Category:en:Yoga poses). Ƿidsiþ 14:00, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

OK, I corrected the label. I didn't allow for the possibility of such consequences. I thought "asana" would appear on the screen for users. I won't be making that mistake again. I can't speak for all the others who will and those who will be discouraged by being reverted for making a change whose consequences are not at all obvious. DCDuring TALK 16:18, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Well I didn't mean to discourage you. Just wanted to point out that the cat exists and check whether you were deliberately depopulating it. Ƿidsiþ 08:12, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I worry about all the complication and lack of transparency that seems to be the natural result of our maturation?/ossification. DCDuring TALK 14:22, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Personal attack warning

Please refrain from sarcastic remarks and from saying other editors have a God complex. Purplebackpack89 22:23, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I said nothing of the kind. I was trying to bring you down to earth, to realize that the ordinary Wiktionary user, for whom we should be developing it, are closer to the average human than to the average Wiktionary contributor in terms of raw capability, education, and patience. DCDuring TALK 22:29, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

But not all those things you've mentioned favor having fewer definitions. Being of lower education and capability would favor more definitions. And the God reference was way out of line, as was the belief that I advocate more definitions only because I want them. I believe the run-of-the-mill user wants as many definitions and entries as possible, which is why I want there to be as many definitions and entries as possible. Case in point is the fact that many of the dictionaries that are more widely-used than we are (such as Urban Dictionary) are less restrictive about what can become an entry than we are. Purplebackpack89 22:33, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

• Is Urban Dictionary really used more than WT? If so, how do we know? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 23:11, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

While I agree that the God reference was a bit much (I read it the same way as you did until I saw DCD's explanation), I think we should run as far and fast as we can from the Urban Dictionary model: the main things they allow that we don't are rampant fraud and ineptitude. I suspect that a substantial part of their readership is the same type of looky-loos that watch train wrecks and reality series for entertainment. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:30, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not necessarily saying go full UD. But the fact is that they have a lot of definitions there that we don't have, but would pass RfV if put to the test. Purplebackpack89 00:00, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I was only...

...bringing Wiktionary in line with everyday language, where "deer" is understood to mean "deer that is not a moose". Georgia guy (talk) 01:38, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

You would have to lose Cervidae in that definition. I also would bet that most people don't view moose as a kind of deer. For normal folks the most useful thing on that page for defining deer is the picture. Any use of taxonomic names is aimed at precision and getting folks to more specific pages, if they need that. That said, I think many of our definitions of common animals could use help. DCDuring TALK 03:01, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Is the definition as it is now after the changes made (by another user) seem better? DCDuring TALK 03:04, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

æ & œ

Do you think that we should include any translingual forms that are spelt with æ or œ? Could we make Pongo pygmæus, for example? I’m enquiring because it’s not (yet) a common practice here. --Romanophile (talk) 22:23, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't favor ligatures, but am powerless to resist them. Whom do they help? There are so many substantive entries that we need, including in Translingual and English, but we spend time on entries that help no one? DCDuring TALK 22:29, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Ash and oethel are a bit special in terms of ligatures, don't you think, considering their histories in regards to the English language? Particularly ash. Tharthan (talk) 22:47, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

We might as well have them if they are attested forms, but I agree with DCD that there are better things to work on — especially because these days the Wikt search engine is (IIRC) smart enough to auto-redirect from one form to the other. Equinox ◑ 23:01, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

For animal names, at least, ligatures are against the rules. The same is true for algae, fungi and plants. I don't have access to them, but I doubt any of the other codes allows ligatures, either. Of course, the codes don't apply to historical usage, nor to higher-level taxa, but ligatured spellings would have to be tagged as obsolete and/or proscribed alternate forms. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:44, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

spelink behavior

Is there a reason that {{temp|spelink}} does not have the same behavior as {{taxlink}}? Perhaps because you don't want to be overwhelmed with uncreated pages? I only ask because User:Pengo has switched over his script for creating species descendant tables to epithet pages (IO found here) to using spelink over taxlink. I'm just making sure you aren't sad about missing out on the huge masses of extra work that adding spelink to your tracking would entail. :) —JohnC5 19:42, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Is it still in use? DCDuring TALK 19:54, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, if it shouldn't be, Pengo and I need to stop using it... —JohnC5 19:55, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Very few of the species that are descendants of the New Latin specific epithets appear in any other entry. As such it will take a long time before they become Wiktionary entries. I find it more promising to look for genus and species names that redlinked or unlinked in definitions or etymologies. If you do use {{taxlink}} in specific epithet entries, please use the noshow=1 parameter. The two of you already have my undying gratitude. Other users of {{taxlink}} still need a little encouragement via thanks. DCDuring TALK 22:47, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Aw, gee... when I saw this in my watchlist, I thought it might be bad pseudo-German dialectal spelling, or a misspelled reference to caving but, no, it's just more boring shop talk about templates. How disappointing! ^{<cue rimshot>} Chuck Entz (talk) 23:41, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

I thought the same thing. "Your spelink ees awful." "Ja, but ze study of orsography ees so taxlink." IGMC. Equinox ◑ 23:43, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, great minds think alike... and I guess we do, too... Chuck Entz (talk) 23:57, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Ah sorry, I thought {{temp|spelink|...}} it was just a shortcut for {{taxlink|...|species}}. Will add noshow=1. We really should start a Wiktionary:About taxonomy sometime by the way. Pengo (talk) 21:20, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

• @Pengo, JohnC5: See Wiktionary:Taxonomic names. DCDuring TALK 07:31, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Very informative. That said, I shall probably stick to etymologies and epithets as they are requested (which you may do at any time, of course!). —JohnC5 08:23, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Pengo, JohnC5: Please consider mining Category:Species entry using missing Latin specific epithet and Category:Species entry using missing Translingual specific epithet. They are sorted by lemma form of the epithet. Anything with more than one use of the lemma could be considered a priority, but inherent interest is a valid consideration of course. As a rule I don't think it is worth the effort to make requests for these. I have about 1,200 more species names to process to generate a few more category members for those categories. DCDuring TALK 16:51, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I was waiting until I wasn't just talking to myself and getting various kibbitzers to say it wasn't policy or was just so much talk. DCDuring TALK 22:22, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok, so I'll just convert all the spelinks back to taxlinks with noshow=1 soon. —JohnC5 01:29, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I have removed all the transclusions of spelink in all entries, so maybe the template should be removed along with the mentions of it in the {{taxlink}} and {{pedlink}} documentations? Removing it should prevent this mistake from occurring in the future (Also, am I allowed to edit archived conversations that use a soon-to-be-removed template to replace it with an equivalent one?). —JohnC5 04:11, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Mostly people just leave deleted templates in archived material, User talk pages etc. After all the edit histories are already full of such things. RFDO is the venue for deleting templates. I certainly don't object and am sorry that you and Pengo wasted time because it was there and lacked any sign even of deprecation. DCDuring TALK 05:41, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Ah, WT:RFDO. One would imagine that I would have observed this page by now. One would be wrong, however. :| —JohnC5 06:05, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Revert of Nosema apis

Nosema apis is "A taxonomic species within the genus Nosema" and not "A taxonomic species within the family Nosema" – Nosema, in the species name Nosema apis, is the genus, not the family.

The species name of the parasite was coined by Enoch Zander in 1909 by combining Nosema (a single celled fungus, “a taxonomic genus within the family Nosematidae”) + Apis (honey bees, “a taxonomic genus within the family Apidae”) to describe a specific organism – the Nosema of the Apis, i.e. some fungus parasite Nosema infecting some insect host Apis. The adopted disease name is, variously, "nosema disease", which is also more generally an infection by various parasite species within the genus Nosema of some insect host species. Other species within the genus Nosema include, for example, Nosema bombycis which infects the bumble bee. —BoBoMisiu (talk) 20:41, 29 March 2015 (UTC), modified 20:45, 29 March 2015 (UTC) to add my username.

My mistake, I forgot to put the correct family in the template.

BTW, I put the family and not the genus name in the template principally because the genus name is already in the species name, but also because family names are sometimes more recognizable, there being fewer of them, because they are more likely to hint at a similarity relationship with another genus (not true in this case), and because the family ending also serves to indicate, at least to some, whether the definition is for a plant (or fungus) or an animal (not true in this case). DCDuring TALK 20:57, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

The species is a parasite of a kind of raised livestock – honey bees – used to pollinate plants, and that makes it quite recognisable since it affects agriculture. Other Nosema species (Nosema anomalum and Nosema bombycis) also affect livestock. In this case, the genus is the hint since the disease also contains the genus and not the family. —BoBoMisiu (talk) 21:45, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

The specific epithet bombycis refers to the silkworm (genus Bombyx), not the bumblebee (genus Bombus). As to the topic at hand: stating the genus for a species when the binomial has been given is redundant, and a waste of precious space. In a terse, highly-structured work such as a dictionary, knowing what to leave out is every bit as important as knowing what to leave in. Also, stating that the describer of a species combined the generic name with the specific epithet isn't a good habit to get into, given the huge number of species that have been moved to other genera. More often than not, you have the author of the genus, the other of the species, and the author of the combination. You also seem to have this naive belief that taxonomic names necessarily mean something- often they do, but there are far more species than there are names that mean something. It's better not to attempt to read the mind of the describer in order to explain why they gave it the name they did. Explaining in the etymology that Nosema is a taxonomic genus within the family Nosematidae is also redundant, given that this is a taxonomic entry, and you've already stated in the definition that the species belongs to the family Nosematidae. You have to let the structure of the entry provide some of the information, rather than spelling everything out. Otherwise, you might as well state that Eric Zander is an organism in the taxonomic subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, just to be thorough. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:12, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

After edit conflict, before reading the most recent post:

I'm not sure that I understand your point. Are you referring to the specific epithets being in the form of genitives of genus names? apis being the lower case genitive of Apis and bombycis of Bombyx? This is a fairly common occurrence in species that we see only as parasites or causes of infection, as well as some that may be beneficial or more or less neutral in their effect on the host.

I think that you may be using the word genus where I would use specific epithet, which in this case has the form of a genitive of a genus of the host, different from the genus of of the parasite. In other cases, the specific epithet can be in the form of an adjective modifying the genus or of a noun being used attributively to modify the genus or of a genitive form of a name of a person being honored by an eponymous adjective. There are probably other types of specific epithets, but the ones I've mentioned are the most common types. DCDuring TALK 23:21, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually, here it's a noun in apposition, and the noun in question happens to be the generic name for the genus Apis. This is rather rare: usually the noun is in the genitive case. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:11, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

apis is also the genitive of apis, it being a third-declension 'i-stem' noun, so we could assume that they followed the usual pattern of using the genitive of the host, though I have no hard evidence that it is not the nominative. DCDuring TALK 00:42, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Nosema bombycis is a parasite of both silkworm moths and bumble bees. If I were looking up a definition of either the disease (nosema disease, or properly nosema disease of honey bees) or the parasite (Nosema apis) I would understand more by seeing the genus of the parasite in the definition and etymology. The epithet form is "Nosema apis Zander 1909". —BoBoMisiu (talk) 01:05, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Which shows how useful etymologies of taxonomic names are: bombycis is the genitive of bombyx, the Latin word for silkworm, and it might also be construed as genitive of the generic name Bombyx- but you'll have to look elsewhere to find a mention of bumblebees. As for Nosema apis, I see nothing in the original description about whether Zander was referring to the generic name Apis, or was using the Latin name for the honeybee, which happens to be apis. Granted, I have a hard time slogging through Fraktur, so I might have missed something- but in the paragraph where he introduces the name, he doesn't explain it at all, except to say that he consulted with a colleague in coming up with the name. As for what you would find helpful: from all the stuff you've added to the entry, it's obvious that you still think of this as an encyclopedia article- so your expectations may be a bit off. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:01, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘@Chuck Entz: thank you for finding the German article. The title of the English article which I referenced states "Zander discovers a cause for a disease of mature bees". The entry in wiktionary is Nosema apis, in which I added an etymology of the word, which I more explicitly described above (diff) as the relationship. Neither the silkworm moth nor the bumble bee is affected by this species of parasite – this parasite infects honey bees. Zander was coining a species name for a parasite, of a species of Nosema (although genus Nosema was not classified as a fungus at the time), using the scientific convention of the time, nevertheless he described a species of parasite of honey bees, conventionally in Latin. The German article shows the parallel with Nosema bombycis and stated that Nosema is a Gattung (“genus”), note the use of a different typeface to differentiate the Latin names from the German text and that "den namen nosema apis gegeben" (the name nosema apis given). Apis is, in Latin, the genus of the bees. So, yes, instead of "honey bees" the entry should use "bees". I don't think a single sentence as an etymology is too encyclopedic, this is not paper, it is a 21st century way of doing things. Why be restricted? I am not an academic trained to follow an 18th century way of doing things like a Webster. Saying that a sentence is too encyclopedic is just moving the goal post. I write entries that I believe provide dictionary information. —BoBoMisiu (talk) 15:18, 30 March 2015 (UTC) modified 16:19, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

greeneye

Hi there. Strange text before Etymology, and within Synonyms section. Not sure how to fix properly. SemperBlotto (talk) 15:09, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

You caught it in media res. It is interim detritus from a subst operation for new English vernacular names of taxa. DCDuring TALK 15:19, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

head butter

Unless I'm missing something, the quote you add does not support an alternative spelling of headbutter (or head-butter as the case may be). bd2412 T 17:32, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Right. My mistake. It belongs under &lit, DCDuring TALK 19:38, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Definitely &lit. Thanks! bd2412 T 20:20, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Correlation Does Not = Causation is a Proverb?

How is correlation does not imply causation a prover? It seems like a statement of fact to me. Proverbs are usually meaningless words of "wisdom" like the Chinese proverb "Tension is who you think you should be, relaxation is who you are" or Sigmund Freud's statement "We get intense pleasure only from a contrast and very little from a state of things." Correlation is not causation seems like a pretty concrete statement to me, not abstract at all. Its saying that if a person drinks soda, and gets diabetes, it does not mean drinking soda caused him to get diabetes.--PaulBustion88 (talk) 20:26, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

1. By the definition of proverb.
2. A fact is not "something true"; it is more "something actual". General logical truths are not actual.
3. Your definition of proverb is not a common one. See “proverb”, in OneLook Dictionary Search..
4. That an instance of a generalization is concrete does not make the generalization concrete.

I rest your case. DCDuring TALK 20:43, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

jacana

Tupian is a family, not a language. Which language did you intend here? —CodeCat 16:48, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I had no intent, simply inserting the recognized code into {{term}}, but I don't see why families aren't supported in {{m}} and {{term}}. The family categories would seem to me to be a useful holding pen for terms where the current level of scholarship or references available to contributors doesn't allow greater specificity. These seems like a case of the "better being the enemy of the good". But "better" gives to much credit to our current approach, which makes for either loss of category information or unwarranted precision without real evidence. DCDuring TALK 17:06, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

It's not well-defined. What would it mean, for example, for a term to be in "Slavic" or "Romance"? And we don't allow for entries using families as the language, so such a link would point nowhere. If the references don't specify which language, how come they know what the term itself is? Did they forget where it came from? It's a bit like saying "from Germanic green". —CodeCat 17:32, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

What difference would it make if it were not well-defined?

In any event, it is perfectly well defined as a term believed to be from an unknown language of the Tupian/Slavic/Romance family.

What different does it make that we can't have an entry?

Re: "If the references don't specify which language, how come they know what the term itself is?" Because many people operate in the real world of very imperfect information. For example, I find it very useful to be able to specify "?", "m?", and "mf?" for genders of taxonomic names. In the case of terms with ostensive definitions, such as the names of living things, the meaning of the term is probably not in doubt, but the reporter may not know what name the Western naturalist would assign to the language and the naturalist may not have any knowledge or interest about the language. DCDuring TALK 18:12, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

If you don't know the language, use "und". That's what it's for. But still, where did the term ultimately come from? How do we know that there is such a word as "jasaná"? —CodeCat 18:26, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Ah, if only all reference works were as tidy and complete as they should be. The problem is that the only references I can find which discuss the etymology of this term do indeed just say "from Tupi-Guarani jasaná" or "from Tupian jasaná". Actually, I can find one French reference which suggests it's from Guarani, not that that helps much, since Guarani is itself only sometimes considered a language rather than a family. - -sche (discuss) 18:39, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Ideally, such terms should be reconstructions in the appendix namespace. It's pretty simple: if it is attested, then it is attested in a particular language; if it is not attested, then it is a reconstruction. --WikiTiki89 18:47, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

That approach may be valid for well-documented language families, but for the various indigenous languages of the Americas, it's often enough the case that a record attests some words in some orthography — sometimes enough words to allow identification of the family — without specifying intelligibly which language they belong to. "The Indians call it X" is a fairly common and vague phrase. Category:English terms derived from Tupian languages has quite a few terms for which available scholarship has not yet allowed more precise categorization. - -sche (discuss) 18:52, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I recently ran into this issue when thinking about how we could potentially treat Amorite. Amorite words are only attested as names in Akkadian text. I think the most logical way to treat them would be as attested as "borrowings" (or whatever you want to call them) in Akkadian and then reconstructed in Amorite. The same thing can be done here: "Indians call it X" would sort-of count as an English "borrowing" ("borrowing" is probably not the right word) and the original term would really be a reconstruction. It makes no difference that these languages might still even be spoken and that this term may still even be heard in speech but not text. --WikiTiki89 19:05, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that "the Indians call it X" (or "our name, foo, comes from its native name, X") attests X as an English word, though, any more than "the Germans call it Schwarzdrossel" attests Schwarzdrossel as an English word.

An Akkadian text that says the equivalent of "King Amorite-name conquered the land" is different; it does seem to be using "Amorite-name" as Akkadian, just as "President Putin said he was concerned" is using "Putin" as English and not Russian.

- -sche (discuss) 19:43, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Well I didn't mean we should count it as an English word that we can include, but we should look at it as if it were an borrowing into English in terms of figuring out what it is in the original language. A closer example with German would be if someone had said "Germans call it Shvahtsdrussle". Now if Schwarzdrossel were (hypothetically) not attested directly in German, we would have to reconstruct it as *Schwarzdrossel. --WikiTiki89 20:19, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

How should we handle cases of imperfect knowledge that is better than nothing ("und")? Shouldn't we make the cases of imperfect knowledge easy to find in groupings that corresponded to areas of expertise and reference-work coverage? DCDuring TALK 20:07, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

It seems obvious to me: use a family/etymology-only code in the etyl template, and leave the term itself without a wikilink or template. The only possible problem might be terms in non-Roman scripts that might need script support. Otherwise, you have to ask yourself: "What am I trying to link to?". I'm not so sure we would want to have a "Tupian" entry even in an appendix, based on another dictionary's etymology alone. If you don't know anything about the language, you can't really correct for differences between the transcribers' languages and those of the speakers. There are word lists in w:Clinton Hart Merriam's work, for instance, that are poorly transcribed and have language names that don't match those in other works. If I see a word in a Merriam word list for Cahuilla, I can compare some known words in other sources for Cahuilla and make a good guess at what the original word might have been. His Alliklik list, on the other hand, is almost useless.

Also, if the etymology is from an older non-linguistic reference, remember that some authors who know a lot about other subjects are horrifically misinformed when it comes to etymology. Aside from incompetent amateur dabblers such as w:John Bellenden Ker Gawler and poorly-educated taxonomists such as w:Eugène Simon (he published many new spider species as a teenager, before he studied Greek or Latin), there are those who relied on etymological works using discredited theories such as "everything came from Celtic" or "everything came from Greek". I've seen books on plants with all kinds of references to the "Celtic" words that ordinary English plant names were said to come from. As for enigmatic word lists, some of them end up with ad-hoc names for their languages, such as w:Crimean Gothic, but for others we might consider having appendices with collections of "mystery" terms. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:41, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz, CodeCat: I think "linking" is a red herring. Through the magic of programming, there could be no link if there were not an entry and there were not an explicit parameter set to allow a link to an appendix. Special pages could be used to show demand for pages or categories that grouped terms or pages containing terms from specific families.

As to relying on dictionaries we mostly rely on reported etymologies, few here being sufficiently qualified to be called authorities. Most of our entries are little more than interim drafts of a dictionary-quality entry, so we would seem to getting a bit ahead of ourselves to demand high perfection and abandon imperfect information, provided we make it easy to show that we are aware that our information is imperfect. If we were to apply comparable quality standards to our definitions as are being implicitly invoked here we would need disclaimers for virtually all our English-language definitions that were unsupported by citations and did not bear our Webster 1913 disclaimer.

I think Chuck's idea of appendices (or families of appendices) for words of uncertain placement in a specific language within a conjectured language family is a good one. How could we harness one or more of the special pages to show which appendices were in demand? Special:WantedPages is currently much too cluttered, but Special:WantedCategories would be practical. DCDuring TALK 08:10, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Template:C

Hi DCDuring. Would you mind if I moved {{C}} to {{C.}} so that Template:C can be used for {{catlangcode}}? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 00:28, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

No. Sadly, the only user who valued it much was driven out of Wiktionary. Now I may be the only one who cares about the ugliness of orphaned dashes. DCDuring TALK 01:01, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I've done the moving. Are you referring to ReidAA, by any chance? What happened there? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 01:24, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

basic words

You correctly point out from time to time that our entries for many basic, polysemous words are sorely lacking. That inspired me to begin a slow campaign to systematically improve such entries: User:-sche/basic English. Feel free to add entries to that list and I'll try to work on them. - -sche (discuss) 20:18, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Sure. And thanks for taking them on. User:Visviva and User:Widsith were the principle other recent contributors to such entries. User:Visviva, in particular, was undaunted by the big ones, eg, head. I posed you some questions on your talk page. No rush, but I'd welcome your thoughts. DCDuring TALK 21:01, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

I can only help when I am taking a break from taxonomic names.

I've been making a lot of progress on achieving more uniformity among Translingual entries. See and, especially, its subcategories. I would like to bring the entries up to a standard that includes Hypernyms and Hyponyms sections and lots of External links for all 13K current taxon entries and English vernacular names and improved or added definitions for the 2,500 that have neither and for the several thousands that have only one. Then there are the missing, linked-to taxa, of which there are many on the more than 12,000 pages that have at least one {{taxlink}}. There are thousands that are linked to on more than one page. And then there are the vernacular name entries, both from dab pages at WP and from {{vern}} (more than 6,000) that need to be added and the existing ones that need to be expanded with multiple definitions and with Derived terms. DCDuring TALK 03:25, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

noshow parameter to taxlink

What is the purpose of this parameter? Seems like all uses set it to 1, so that there are no pages in "Entries using the taxlink template" category. --Tweenk (talk) 19:15, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

I gives me a chance to look at new uses of {{taxlink}}, make any corrections, and often add {{vern}} for any English vernacular names used. I had been in the habit of thanking people who used it too, but I've been remiss. In any event, thank you for taxing a sufficient interest in {{taxlink}} to notice and ask. DCDuring TALK 20:06, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

OK not OK!

Hi DCDuring
At the OK entry, when you did this edit I think you meant to have "{{" at the start of the template, not "PP". (which are right next to each other on my keyboard) Fixed it here. (Wow, my second Wikt. edit! Except for my IP contribs.)
Regards, 220 of Borg (talk) 05:57, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Even veteran editors make mistakes and don't catch them when they save. Thanks. DCDuring TALK 12:21, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

noshow

Remind me again - when should I code noshow=1 in a taxlink? SemperBlotto (talk) 15:17, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Feel free to insert it or not as you please. If you would like me to look at the entry to make whatever changes I like to make, usually for taxonomic-related content, omit it.

I aggressively watch such entries. Formerly, I had been thanking folks for using {{taxlink}}. But most of the users of that template by now should know that I appreciate their cooperation in developing taxonomic entries that respond to the "demand" for them reflected in the number of entries that have the taxon enclosed in {{taxlink}}. Thank you for being one of the heavier users of the template. DCDuring TALK 15:38, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

OK. I'll omit it if the entry is missing and I haven't got time to add it (or if I'm unsure of it). (I may sometimes forget) SemperBlotto (talk) 11:04, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Kind acknowledgement

Thanks for your kind acknowledgement DCDuring. Cheers! AmericanDad86 (talk) 17:14, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

aburri

Hi there. I don't think this is from a surname, rather from the genus name Aburria - and I've forgotten how we define those sorts. SemperBlotto (talk) 12:44, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think we ever had one quite like that: They are both from a common native source or aburri is and the other is onomatopoeic directly, influenced by the -ia suffix. I have A Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names, which gave some substantive help. If anything about the numerous bird epithets seems hard, I should be able to resolve it fairly quickly and reliably. DCDuring TALK 14:12, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Template:R:L&S2

Howdy DC! long time, no see. I was just editing {{R:L&S}} and was wondering why {{R:L&S2}} exists. You seem to be the only one using it (in User:DCDuring/Latin words ending in -bilis). What's going on with it? —JohnC5 21:31, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

I was looking for a simpler display for use out of principal namespace. DanP objected to someone else's attempt to shorten the display generated by {{R:L&S}}. I have't had much use for it, but I could imagine using it or an even shorter version in WT:RE:la in the same way that I use {{taxlook}} in WT:RE:taxa or {{REEHelp}} in WT:REE#G et seq. DCDuring TALK 21:50, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Aha, makes a lot of sense. May I suggest adding a line to the documentation saying that is not for use in the mainspace? Also, if you want it short, you could do something like:

“fūbārius” (L&S)

Just a thought. —JohnC5 22:08, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

I just wanted to stake a claim to a short template name for subsequent improvement, such as your shortening. It actually would be pretty useful to transclude it into {{taxlook}} when parameter2 = "genus". DCDuring TALK 22:13, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

I did not object to attempts to shorten the display. I support shortening displays, in general, omitting unnecessary details. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:15, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

{{Template:R:L&S2}} currently shows this:

“term” in Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary

I support this except that the year should be provided since year is a key part of the identificaiton of a publication. The difficulty is in convincing other editors of the following:

• "Oxford: Clarendon Press" is unnecessary and should be dropped
• "Lewis & Short" is preferable to "Charlton T. Lewis & Charles Short"

So again, I actually prefer R:L&S2 except for the year missing. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:36, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

I created Template talk:R:L&S#Provision of publisher. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:39, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Your attack.

This is demonstrably false. I expect you to acknowledge that, or provide evidence to the contrary if you disagree. If this kind of attack is the route you're going, I think you might need to cool off for a while. bd2412 T 20:02, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

If you fail to acknowledge in any way that the process is being manipulated and propose to disallow votes by rules not in effect during the vote, what is one to think? The procedural inconsistency is clear as is the consistency of manipulation or advocacy of manipulation to achieve your objectives. DCDuring TALK 20:09, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

I am specifically referring to your assertion that I have closed RfD votes in order to bring about a certain result. I have never done that. I have never been accused of that. I have, in fact, been very careful to avoid doing that. I'm sure you can see why such a claim would tend to be inflammatory. If you disagree, support your claim. Otherwise, please retract it. bd2412 T 20:16, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Re: "If you disagree, support your claim. Otherwise, please retract it.": Agree absolutely. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:19, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

In the discussion you (BD) invoked a "principle" that has never been voted on and is not part of any policy here. That is, such "principle" is merely YOUR VIEW. You have used your discretion to close RfDs using the "no consensus" rationale. One could as easily extend the RfD, especially as there is no time limit. Thus one cannot escape the conclusion that you find it convenient to close RfD discussions to keep terms in accordance with YOUR VIEW. Other choices you could make are to insert {{look}}, to request at BP that folks participate in the RfD process, or to simply leave it alone. There are at least 100 talk-page-archived instances of this. DCDuring TALK 20:26, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Which part of the following sentence of yours is correct and substantiated, DCDuring: "BD has no trouble closing RfDs, which have no time limit, rather than keeping them open because he apparently likes the result."? --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:34, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

The RfD guidelines require closing a discussion as "no consensus" where there is an absence of consensus, and specifically state that a discussion without consensus should be closed after thirty days. I try to follow that scrupulously. Of course, we could just let old discussions linger on the page until it exceeds 500k and becomes almost impossible to open and edit. I prefer not to do that. As for your conspiracy theory about my motives, it took me no time to find five recent RfD discussions where I supported or would have preferred deleting an entry, and closed the discussion as keep or no consensus: Talk:Mobil, Talk:police protection, Talk:bacon and eggs, Talk:am I right or am I right, Talk:big balls. bd2412 T 20:37, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

That only shows that YOUR VIEW on the principle over your preference in an individual case. How many times have you exercised discretion to delete something not patently garbage? DCDuring TALK 21:01, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

DCDuring, how many times have you closed a RFD nomination, approximately? --Dan Polansky (talk) 21:06, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

There is no discretion involved. If there is consensus to delete, I delete. If not, I close as no consensus. For an example of an RfD where I preferred to keep the entry, but deleted it per consensus, see Talk:dolemite. bd2412 T 21:38, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm with BD and Dan on this. DCDuring, you either need to provide evidence of improper closures, or else drop the matter altogether. It is perfectly acceptable for anybody (you, me, BD or Dan) to close a discussion as keep after 7 days, and as no consensus after 30; there is no more discretion taken by BD in closing it as there is in you keeping it open. Purplebackpack89 19:26, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

You have made a false accusation against me, and rather than providing evidence in support of it, you have demanded that I provide evidence to prove my innocence of that accusation. Fine. I have provided that evidence. Will you withdraw your accusation? bd2412 T 17:07, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

I have just gotten back from the hospital and will refute your assertion in due course or die trying. DCDuring TALK 21:42, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

That's most uncharitable of you. bd2412 T 23:37, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

So, how is your quest to refute my assertion going? Let me know if you need any help. Cheers! bd2412 T 14:58, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Hi. It's been a few weeks since your declaration that you "will refute your assertion in due course or die trying". I gather that you haven't died yet, so are you ready to provide evidence of your claim, or are you going to need to withdraw the claim? bd2412 T 18:49, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Cechenodes

Re this, where did you find out that this generic name is feminine? I thought it was undeterminable because the only species (Cechenodes oweni) uses a genitive for its specific epithet… — I.S.M.E.T.A. 01:12, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Not only that, the ICZN has a clause here that says:

30.1.4.4. A compound genus-group name ending in the suffix -ites, -oides, -ides, -odes, or -istes is to be treated as masculine unless its author, when establishing the name, stated that it had another gender or treated it as such by combining it with an adjectival species-group name in another gender form.

Without access to the original publication (the American Entomological Institute is asking $23 for it), there's no way to independently verify whether the author did so, though I suppose a third party might have gleaned that information from the article and passed it on to us. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:08, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't have good familiarity with the rules. I usually infer the gender from, 1., the gender of 1st declension adjective or participle used as a specific epithet or subspecific epithet, searching far and wide for any such epithet. Fairly often there are none of these. I then, 2., try the gender of the word the genus name is derived from and see if any specific epithet contradicts that. Then, 3., I compare the ending of the genus name with the endings of genera of known gender and with the endings of Latin and Greek words of known gender (L&S, LSJ}. Finally, 4., I place a ? in the place where gender would be, as Cirrus search lets me find that with a regular expression. The one thing I haven't done is looked at the damned rules. But the rules can only be assumed to apply to new names assigned since the rules have gone into effect and decisions to accept non-conformming names sometimes occur. For us usage still trumps rules, though my third step cannot be defended as usage based. Perhaps we need a category for genera that don't have gender yet. DCDuring TALK 03:13, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Your methods will work fine for most first and second declension adjectives/participles or nouns but the third declension ones like this are a mixed bag- the reason that rule is there is because those particular endings can be either masculine or feminine, so there really is no way to even guess the gender of a word that ends with them. If you don't have the gender of the specific epithet to guide you and the original publication doesn't say, you might as well just flip a coin- or set an arbitrary rule.

As for application: the rule applies to every generic name ever published that meets the criteria. These generic names are sort of like Schrödinger's cat: they can go for centuries without being one gender or the other- until species with adjectival/participial specific epithets are placed in them. After that, the gender is set for any future specific epithets. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:48, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Henceforth I will add and not remove question marks from doubtful cases and I will apply the rule applicable to this case to other similar cases. I will also extract what I can from the codes on this subject. DCDuring TALK 21:21, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

@DCDuring: What made you think it was feminine in the first case? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 23:42, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

@I'm so meta even this acronym: Beats the heck out of me. I didn't follow step 2 of my procedure either, as there is an exact etymological match with the correct gender. I was pushing to clean up some of the unknown gender items and might have been, must have been tired as well. Thus a lapse of judgment. DCDuring TALK 04:48, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

OK, I see. It happens to us all. Thanks for the response. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 08:45, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

R. rotunda

While looking for books using r rotunda, I noticed that "R. rotunda" exists as an abbreviated taxonomic name, possibly of Rossella rotunda or Runcina rotunda (although both get only 2 Google Books hits); Runcina coronata also exists. I just mention this in case you want to create the entries. - -sche (discuss) 21:11, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for thinking of me, but I don't even have all the taxa in Special Wanted Pages, let alone all the ones with 5 or more uses in {{taxlink}}. DCDuring TALK 23:41, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

hyperbole

You're welcome. — LlywelynII 23:06, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

@LlywelynII: I don't get it. You've done this to me and to several other users. Is the idea that you are passive-aggressively pointing out that we should have thanked you for your edits? Please clarify why you leave these messages. —JohnC5 01:04, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I did thank him. DCDuring TALK 03:36, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Very intriguing. Maybe I did too in the past? That would explain why he did it the first time, I guess. I still find it odd. If it just that, then I apologize. —JohnC5 03:44, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I understand the impulse to say "you're welcome": I've felt it myself, but then I reflected on why it wasn't built in the same way 'thanks' is. DCDuring TALK 03:56, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

As above, in response to thanks. I don't have any problem with it not being a built-in feature. Seems like it would be taken as more sincere when you take the time to visit. My sympathy for whatever's going on in your life that your first thought is passive aggressive snark, let alone to the point where you take it to third-parties' talk pages instead of mine. (My apologies, DCD.) — LlywelynII 04:08, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I have given this great consideration and determined that I've had enough arguments with users like Nemzag recently. Many happy returns, LlywelynII. —JohnC5 04:43, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Arctocephalus ursinus

It looks like it was known as Arctocephalus ursinus for a very short time- I can already find citations for Callorhinus ursinus in 1860. Just thought it may not be that relevant for an English definition. DTLHS (talk) 20:16, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Linnaeus had called it Phoca ursina. The chain of renamings is often not worth knowing, so it's not high on my ever-growing list of projects. But if we can find them easily enough or there is some reason to try to show off, why not put 'em in? DCDuring TALK 20:22, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

BTW, Arctocephalus includes all or almost all of the other fur seals. DCDuring TALK 20:23, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Unprotect

Hey. Can you temporarily unprotect Template:es-adj please? --A230rjfowe (talk) 20:24, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

(For the record this has been taken care of by Angr. - -sche (discuss) 20:57, 8 August 2015 (UTC))

Thanks for letting me know. I don't know the first thing about the template, the user, or Spanish. DCDuring TALK 21:07, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

The user is WF. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:22, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

He knows I'm a soft touch, or was. DCDuring TALK 00:29, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Template:w

Please look at the code of this template. If you need to use the template with the second parameter, it's completely pointless and just adds to page-loading time. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 21:55, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm using it's presence or absence as an indicator of some other search and cleanup I am doing. That it doesn't make a visible difference and makes only an imperceptible loading-time difference is fine. When I'm done, I won't care whether it is reverted or bot-corrected. DCDuring TALK 00:20, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I see. Do you have some idea of when you'll be done? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 01:55, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Can you give me a week? I get bored doing the same kind of thing, so I don't work straight through. The kind of thing I'm looking for was formerly more common and therefore implemented with "[[w:" rather than "{{w|", so search for "[[w:" has a better yield than searching for "{{w|". DCDuring TALK 02:04, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Please excuse the late response; I've been busy IRL. A week would, of course, have been fine. It's been a fortnight; can I assume that you're all done with this now? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 23:12, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I'll figure out how to do what I want on the dump, not that I understand why you care about this. DCDuring TALK 23:35, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't. It's just that removing pointless uses of {{w}} is something I'd do habitually, but I'll avoid doing it for as long as you are using its presence or absence as an indicator. I wish to extend you that courtesy. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 23:45, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

"vern" links

I think it's a pity to lose red links (which flag up entries requiring creation) by turning them in to Wikipedia "vern" links. Any thoughts? Equinox ◑ 16:32, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes. I will do an XML run, sooner rather than later, sorting the links by count. I would not object to an appearance and function like blue goose^WP, as I think many users would think to click on the "WP". I'd been putting off the template change for fear of objection and the XML run for fear of revealing my lack of good Perlmanship. DCDuring TALK 16:39, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

There is Category:Entries missing English vernacular names of taxa into which {{vern}} places entries, sorted by the first missing vernacular name the software comes upon. DCDuring TALK 16:45, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

And also see User:DCDuring/Vernacular plant names from Wikipedia disambiguation pages for more complex, but useful missing entries. DCDuring TALK 16:51, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Three taxa

Hi DCDuring. I just created entries for Grammicolepis brachiusculus, Vesposus, and Vesposus egregius; could you check them for errors and insufficiencies, please? Thanks. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 18:33, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

 Done. Thanks. DCDuring TALK 18:51, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for doing the touch-ups. You improved Grammicolepis brachiusculus considerably. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 21:25, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

That is the standard I aspire to for the most-linked-to current taxa (eventually all current taxa) at the rank of genus and species. Something less is all I can do for other taxa. The links carry the weight of the encyclopedic content people may want; the entry should be a superior source of lexical information. The images are intended to supplement the etymologies in many cases. DCDuring TALK 22:01, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I shall try to imitate your practice in my future taxonomic entries. I was going to ask you to turn your hand to Grammicolepis, but I see you've done so already! Many thanks. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 12:27, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Any help in covering taxa is appreciated. Adding plain links to unlinked taxa is good. Adding {{taxlink}} and {{vern}} is very useful. Removing those templates when they are redundant (indicated by membership in hidden categories) helps too.

Of course good and near-good entries are wonderful. And if you omit "noshow=1" from {{taxlink}}, I will take a look at the entry. Periodically I look at additions to the large taxon categories: species, genus, and family. I may also create {{taxcheck}} to facilitate requests to validate, correct, or enhance taxonomic entries or uses of taxonomic names in other entries.

It may not be a good use of your time to add external links other than to WP, Species, and Commons. Checking those links is relatively easy. If necessary, correcting them to bypass redirects, and possibly using the post-"failed search" search to find the lowest-ranking higher taxon entry is straightforward. If you want to see what's involved beyond those, you could search for the taxon using {{R:NCBI}} and look at the links at NCBI, which usually include most of the good general-purpose ones (as well as some for the biochemistry of the taxa and others to confirm the legitimacy of the name). But I have bookmarked about a hundred bookmarked taxonomic sites and have repeatedly used at least half of them for research, usually for obsolete taxa, insects and other invertebrates, bacteria, viruses, etc. DCDuring TALK 13:03, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I admit that I am unlikely to add taxa for their own sake: I added Vesposus for etymological reasons, and then the rest followed; that will probably be my future editing pattern, too. I'm fairly familiar with {{taxlook}}, {{taxlink}}, and {{vern}}, and I generally use them where appropriate. Re "[r]emoving those templates when they are redundant", would it be possible to add something like a |nocat= parameter to those templates, which could then be used instead of removing the templates? The templates have section-linking and italicisation features that are useful beyond their categorisation feature. {{taxcheck}} would be useful, and I would be likely to use it. Noted re external links; it looks like a lot to master, but I'll do what I can. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 19:32, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I assumed that to be the case. Obsolete taxa are not high on my list, but are definitely worth adding, in part because they are sources of current taxonomic terms, but also because some of the etymologies are intrinsically interesting. Obsolete taxa do not need WP, Species and Commons external links. You might find it useful to include {{R:Century 1911}}, {{R:TPL}} (the Plant List), and {{R:ION}} (Index of Organism Names) to validate the names. DCDuring TALK 21:37, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

By way of example, See Plautus at Index to Organism Names. You could pick almost any Latin or Greek name and find a taxon by that name, albeit often an obsolete one. DCDuring TALK 21:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

What do you mean by "validate"? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 21:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Find evidence that it would probably be attestable. Actual attestation (3 uses) of obsolete names can be tedious. DCDuring TALK 21:53, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh, right, I see. Well, I tend to use the trusty Google Book Search for that, but I'll keep {{R:ION}} in mind for cases where GBS fails to produce the goods. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 23:25, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Re my question above ("Re '[r]emoving those templates when they are redundant', would it be possible to add something like a |nocat= parameter to those templates, which could then be used instead of removing the templates?"), do you mind if I add that |nocat= parameter to {{taxlink}}? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 12:54, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

If you add something like that, I hope the idea would be to eliminate the #ifexist test, or at least its execution, which adds to wanted pages and slows execution. If we know we have a Wiktionary entry for the taxlinked term, the #IFEXIST test is silly. We could use a different template that differed by one or twp characters from {{taxlink}}, eg {{taxlnk}}, {{taxlinkwt}} or similar that did not contain the test. DCDuring TALK 15:58, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Unless I'm very much mistaken, this change of mine should make |extant=1 skip all but one of that template's tests. Is that OK? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 17:22, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think it does what you say. But extant in this context contrasts with extinct. We might want to show something as extinct, but having an entry here. Do you have dreams of automagical formatting for taxonomic names using taxlink, like reading rank from words like variety and subspecies that appear in the name, from punctuation and from suffixes? DCDuring TALK 00:17, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Ah, good point. I meant "extant" to mean that the linked-to entry exists, but you're right that that usage is ambiguous (incidentally |nocat= was already performing another function in {{taxlink}}). Can you suggest a better name for the |extant= parameter? (|extant=1 is only used in Vesposus so far, so it's no hassle to change the parameter name.) Re "automagical formatting", I know that bits of taxonomic names (like var.) are meant to appear in regular type in the context of an otherwise-italic name, and from what I've seen of the other tricks accomplished by Lua string manipulation, I'm sure that such formatting could be automatically generated by Luacisation; accordingly, having as many taxonomic names as possible enclosed in {{taxlink}} in antecipation of such future improvements to the template's functionality is, IMO, A Good Thing™. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 11:20, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps wikt=1 or entry=1. I was thinking that we could get regexes to also detect the endings for order, family, subfamily, tribe, subtribe, and possibly others. We could let users override what the regex found. DCDuring TALK 13:38, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I went for |entry=. Agreed re regexes — suffixes like -idae are pretty regular in their meaning, aren't they? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 14:02, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Denali

I think you were interested in monitoring words that were 'in the news'. If so, this one is now.
I'll see about adding an etymology section and some translations. - -sche (discuss) 02:25, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I've added a bare entry for Mount McKinley, in which is a quote (with a pagelink !!!) about the naming after McKinley from W.A. Dickey's NY Sun article on his explorations. I have edited the usage notes in line with the sources. Did the Territory or State of Alaska ever officially call the mountain Denali before yesterday? The Territory (1917-1959) may not have had the power to do so, but the State might have from its admission as a state on January 3, 1959. DCDuring TALK 11:44, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

The WP article on the dispute says an official Alaskan agency renamed it in 1975, but the link is dead. DCDuring TALK 12:00, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Shouldn't we at least have any other native names we know of as translations? DCDuring TALK 12:09, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Have you looked at a copy of Shem Pete's Alaska (2003), which has a partially visible table of the names of Denali in many native languages of the area? I've added some {{t-needed}}s for four native languages that reportedly have native speakers. DCDuring TALK 12:51, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I've found and added a live usgs.gov link confirming the 1975 rename by the Alaskan board of names. And Shem Pete's great book is where I found the pronunciation information for the native translations I added. :) The translations themselves I also confirmed in the Handbook of North American Indians, which cites Jette+Jones, who seem to have been the primary researchers of the subject. I've tried to find another names (e.g. Gwich'in), but so far no luck. - -sche (discuss) 17:09, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I put in {{t-needed}} just to remind folks of the 'small' languages - and in hopes that these were on the page that Google wouldn't let me read. Have you had access to all of Table 13 in Shem Pete's Alaska? Have you mined it for all that it has?

I never cease to be amazed at the amount of material that has been scanned and is available online. The US LoC has an astonishing amount of newspaper material, though the OCR of what I've looked at is awful. That's where I found the NY Sun article "by" the prospector. I had been able to find my grandfather's death notice in the Brooklyn Eagle online. I thought it was just New Zealand that had such good coverage. DCDuring TALK 17:19, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I mined all of table 13. Here's a copy; note that Middle Tanana = Lower Tanana; the apparent difference in the forms of the two dialects is due to differing orthography/notation. It's amazing not only how much is online, but how much is continually coming online; entries like Talk:octaviate, Talk:hatefuck and Talk:cisphobia went from being uncitable to being citable in the space of a few months/years, not due to new uses of the terms but due to old uses being digitized by Google. - -sche (discuss) 21:11, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Plautus Appendix

User:DCDuring/Names of characters in plays of Plautus By "not ready for prime time" do you mean that substantive work remains to be done, or are you merely waiting for the outcome of the discussion? I'm prepared to close it in favor of your proposal. bd2412 T 01:36, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Obviously I didn't want to invest in completion if the proposal did not get favorable reception.

The data needed to be edited for missing fields. It still needs to be formatted as a sort table. I will eventually figure out the regex editor or do search and replace offline to yield a sort table. I will then add any missing taxonomic names or epithets and {{taxlink}}s or regular links for them. DCDuring TALK 13:21, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

I frankly don't think it matters if the page is in User space or Appendix space while these details are sorted out. bd2412 T 13:37, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Moved to Appendix space. DCDuring TALK 00:30, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Kromskop

Hi! I bet you removed the ety because it wasn't categorising nicely (i.e. it showed up at chromo- despite not having that particular orthography). But that seems like the kind of thing you'd normally oppose: putting the templating rules ahead of what benefits users. Surely that semi-ety was better than no ety, for someone who wants an ety? Is there a proper template for showing such equivalences without messing up categories? Equinox ◑ 05:33, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes. I hate those "equivalent to" pseudoetymologies wherever they occur. I think they are phony. This etymology failed to even show that it was a borrowing and from what language. I am suspicious that the word meets even our ludicrously lax standards for inclusion as an English word. Using {{term}} or {{m}} would do the job you desire. DCDuring TALK 03:19, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I fixed your edit

diff. URLs must always be given as named parameters because they can contain = signs. —CodeCat 21:06, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Linnaean definition of Glires

Please see "talk:Glires#Linnaean definition" regarding your recent edits. I think you may have confused the smaller-scope now-obsolete definition (#2 on "Glires") equating Glires with Rodentia, versus the original Linnaean definition, which also corresponds to the modern phylogenetic definition of Lagomorpha plus Rodentia. Linnaeus had the correct definition from the beginning, but for a long time apparently biologists thought that he was wrong to group rodents and lagomorphs together, until modern genetic studies proved him right. The second obsolete definition then corresponds to the usage of Glires between the time of Linnaeus and the recent genetic results. Nicole Sharp (talk) 15:00, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Feel free to edit to include all three definitions, which seems appropriate. I can't ascribe to Linnaeus any definition that includes the word "clade". I'm sure we could even add more definitions, but to little gain. The obsolete definition is sourced from “Glires”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC., a convenient source for Victorian and Edwardian English, even of the scientific and technical sort. DCDuring TALK 15:16, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Glirina on Glires

What is Glirina (linked on Glires)? There is no mention on Wikipedia or WikiSpecies, and the interwikilink goes to a blank page with no content? Nicole Sharp (talk) 16:58, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Again I used “Glirina”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC. as a source. I doubt that it is an important term, but we might have some minimal entry for it. Sometimes we add terms that we discover while working nearby, without regard to their importance or fit with any strategy or priority. DCDuring TALK 18:33, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

I spent a little time trying to track this down: the marsupial sense is explained by this reference and this reference: it was first published as a family, but I suspect it was inadmissible due to the -ina ending, then it seems to have been made a "tribe", but with a rank higher than family. I believe it's equivalent to the modern suborder w:Vombatiformes, with the family Phascolomyidae corresponding to the modern family Vombatidae, aka the w:Wombats. I'm not sure what the rodent sense of Glirina means: it seems to include the w:Edible dormouse, but I have no idea what else, or what rank it's supposed to be. In fact, I suspect the Century Dictionary refers to Glirina in either sense as a "group" because of disagreement among references as to rank. Perhaps the best we can do for a definition is something like: "(obsolete) a taxonomic group within the rodents that includes the edible dormouse Glis glis." I hope not! Chuck Entz (talk) 03:18, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it. I suppose the Glarina saga is a cautionary tale (at least for me) about problems with older names. Glires is a simple illustration of the evolving meaning and recycling of terms. Linnaeus' groupings have had sufficient influence to be worth having without much reservation, but the post-Linnaean/pre-Codes names and definitions (like Glirina and the obsolete sense of Glires) seem both highly problematic and of limited reward. OTOH, I am encouraged by what I have learned about the quality of Century's entries. They seem to get encyclopedic sometimes to explain ambiguities of terms. DCDuring TALK 04:32, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps definitions of taxons should be differentiated into traditional physiological taxons (e.g. pre-genomics) versus phylogenetic taxons? Modern genetic studies have turned traditional (Linnaean) taxonomic nomenclature pretty much onto its head. Technically a full taxonomic name for a species can now include dozens or hundreds of hypernymic taxons, since each evolutionary change often delegates a new taxon. A sense template for taxons might help, e.g. {Linnaean} for original 1700s definitions, versus {physiological} for 1800s-1900s definitions, and {phylogenetic} for modern 2000s definitions. Nicole Sharp (talk) 03:57, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

As I understand it, the phylogenetic names are as subject to change based on new information as the morphological definitions, the morphological names often remain the best classification available for many organisms and may remain so indefintiely (organisms known only from fossils). Pre-Linnaean scientific names are at least potentially includable as well.

I am attempting to not be diverted from a lexicographic focus by obsession with being up-to-the-minute with the latest taxonomy. I assume that our users are not taxonomy students or professionals, but rather folks who need some link to that world to help them understand what a vernacular name in English or another language might refer to, or what a taxonomic name in a book or sales catalog (say, for plants) might refer to. Gardeners, foodies, citizen scientists are perhaps representative users. If we also provide a service to biologists, it is likely to be in providing vernacular names, etymological information, and gender information for taxonomic names. I have been trying to use our normal labels, like archaic and obsolete for taxa to convey what users expect from Wiktionary, rather than introduce labels foreign to normal users. DCDuring TALK 04:35, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) First of all, the standard plural of taxon is taxa. It's not a big deal, though.

Secondly, any time you ask two taxonomists, you'll generally get at least three opinions. Differentiation of taxa is a very complex matter, with traits sloshing around in the gene pool until it moves in one direction or another. Compounding this is the difficulty in keeping track of what's already published, and in figuring out whether the specimen you're looking at is the same as a published description. Taxonomy is like taking a huge sack of pieces from many different jigsaw puzzles and trying to make them all fit, even though you know that most of the pieces are missing. Any taxonomic work worth its salt is going to have a long synonymy section, with misidentifications, partial overlaps, clashing classification schemes and various other uncertainties. Not only that, but different taxonomists will have different concepts of what belongs to a given taxon: just try and come up with a coherent account of all the different versions of w:Orthoptera, for instance.

Molecular methods have added powerful tools for taxonomists to work with, but they haven't been applied widely enough, and different studies using different sample sets, different statistical methods, and different choice and weighting of characters can still come up with divergent, wildly incompatible results. Most of this will eventually get sorted out, but for now even many molecularly-based taxa are still rather unstable.

Worse, each sub-sub-sub-field of taxonomy has a different history with a different timeline. There are taxa that Linnaeus got right the first time and haven't changed, and there are others where no one has ever done a decent taxonomic study, and new specimens keep turning up that keep completely changing the picture. There's a reason that no taxonomic name is technically complete without an author abbreviation: it very often comes down to scientist X said this, and scientist Y said that, and so on. Trying to come up with a tidy scheme for summarizing it all is a sure path to either insanity or procrustean denial of reality. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:57, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

The best Wiktionary taxonomic entries are better in a few dimensions than most taxonomic databases, but inferior in many others, such as synonymy, authorship, technical description, etc. We try to make up for the deficiencies, without becoming an encyclopedia or simply duplicating other databases, by linking to other online sources, first to WP, WikiSpecies, and WikiCommons, then to some of the standard comprehensive databases (ITIS, NCBI, EoL), then to the broader specialized databases or sources, like Tropicos, APWeb, FishBase, WoRMS, Avibase, ICTV, Mammals of the World, AnimalBase, AnimalWeb, etc. Occasionally we link to the narrowly specialized databases. I think this is a reasonable approach to including coverage of taxonomic names in a general-purpose, but comprehensive dictionary. It is hard enough to carry out this program for the existing list of only 12,000 or so taxonomic entries (4,000 species, 5,200 genera).

We need more coverage even more than we need greater depth. We even lack the overwhelming majority of orders from the recent comprehensive list of 1,400 published by Ruggiero et al. (We have fewer than 400, some obsolete and not included in Ruggiero et al). We have about 4,000 vernacular names that have redlinks in our entries. More generally we have about 70,000 redlinks for taxonomic names. Even if we exclude some of the sillier lists of hyponyms of insect genera we have tens of thousands of such redlinks. And the data are limited to those missing taxonomic and vernacular names that are enclosed in {{taxlink}} and {{vern}}. Many more are bare redlinks, as I was mortified to discover reviewing Special:WantedPages (no longer refreshed).

There might be some labeling scheme that enhanced the value of our definitions. On occasion, usually for disambiguation of polysemic taxonomic terms, I use {{defdate}} to indicate when a taxonomic name came into use, generally using a publication date, which is roughly consistent with its use in other kinds of entries here. DCDuring TALK 15:00, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

• We also have {{R:ZooBank}}, which allows reference to ICZN nomenclatural acts to give us yet another link for some taxa. DCDuring TALK 23:57, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Curry favor

Hi! I was hoping we could reach consensus on curry favor – I realize I was being bold in removing the etymology, but I sincerely believe it's not true and needs good evidence if we're to include it. Do you have any thoughts on how we could best approach this issue? ThanksJchthys (talk) 00:47, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Necator

Wikispecies has the nematode genus in family Uncinariidae, while wikipedia has Ancylostomatidae. Are these synonyms, and is one preferred? DTLHS (talk) 01:46, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

The better quality sources favor Ancylostomatidae: Index fungorum (cited by WP), NCBI (tries to be current), both better than Animal Diversity Web (cited at species:Uncariidae), at least for taxonomy.

Sometimes I try to have alternative views of the taxonomy. I then try to have a sense defined in English and use {{taxon}} multiple times as subsenses (usually just twice) for the placement. That also can mean multiple sets of Hyponyms and Hypernyms, sometimes identical, usually overlapping. I usually do this when there already is a definition in the entry that seemingly differs from the current one I am using.

I have a good source for modern taxonomy across the board at the rank of order and above. There are many sources for species and genera. I find less information on the ranks between and often rely on WP and its sources, but also NCBI. Incidentally there is much more information at the rank of family that at other ranks above genus and below order, which is why all uses of {{taxon}} below the level of family have "family" as the second parameter in {{taxon}}. DCDuring TALK 02:15, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Ancylostomatinae has two genera in it per NCBI: Ancylostoma and Uncinaria, so Uncinariidae and Ancylostomatidae are at least approximately synonymous. DCDuring TALK 02:26, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

If we're using family as the parent taxon for genus in all cases, does that mean only major ranks (family) should have hyponyms? Otherwise you might go from tribe -> genus, but the genus will have no mention of the tribe. This might also lead to extremely long lists of hyponyms that might otherwise be spread out over several tribes or other intermediate taxa. DTLHS (talk) 02:32, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

It is particularly important to have good lists of hypernyms and hyponyms for the ranks between family and genus because it is hard to have other good content for the entry. I think the best use of a taxon of a rank like "subtribe" is often to help users get what the close relatives of a given genus might be. That means that fairly complete lists of lower-level hypernyms can be very helpful. The hypernyms in turn need to have good lists of hyponyms to fully achieve this. But many families and genera have numerous hyponyms (sometimes hundreds), which lists have not (yet) been broken down to more usable groupings. This limits the possibilities for understanding those taxa.

I try to have hypernyms lists whenever possible. I have many templates of the form {{Asteraceae Hypernyms}} for families, which I supplement with the missing ranks down to the genus. I am also putting together templates for phyla. I may do something similar for orders and/or classes. I decided against a full system of nested templates because of the seemingly endless proliferation of clades between the better known taxa at traditional ranks. It may be useful to have definitions for the clades but not necessarily to include them in every chain of hypernyms to which they might belong.

Typical taxon entries have only one definition, sometimes without any useful vernacular content, rarely with a substantial vernacular definition. So, long lists of Hyponyms and Hypernyms don't seem to me to be a problem. The long hypernyms lists sometimes help establish a connection to something a normal human would understand (eg, Mammalia, Reptilia, Tetrapoda) or might understand (eg, Aves). Climbing the ladder of hypernyms gives a user multiple chances to find real content or good links somewhere on the ladder. A rank like subtribe often has more need for Hypernyms and Hyponyms because they often have no corresponding vernacular name in use at all. OTOH, I am happy that we have any entry at all for a given taxon. My intent is to develop some shortlists of taxa that are "important" to users for improvement to the highest level that I can manage (image gallery; multiple external links; vernacular name(s); some brief combination of differentia, location found, importance to humans, etc.; hypernyms and hyponyms; etymology; gender (for genera and lower); historical and/or alternative definitions; even useful see alsos like symbionts, parasites, hosts. Lesser levels of completeness could be adequate for the vast majority of the taxon entries we have, let alone all those we could have. Links to WP, Species, and Commons are vital for further entry improvement; pictures help make up for lack of adequate definitions and hypernyms lists; etymology can help with gender determination; links to sites other than sister projects can compensate for missing or stub entries at sister projects. DCDuring TALK 13:59, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Template:REEHelp

Hi. I find this quite space-consuming and verbose, especially on WT:REE. What do you think about abbreviating some of the text it produces? Equinox ◑ 08:15, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

As a first attempt, I'll assume the main problem is the horizontal screen space taken up rather than the number of words or tokens. Let me know of any other changes you'd like once I given it my first try, DCDuring TALK 13:45, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

test - OneLook - Google (Books • Groups • Scholar) - WP Library - current

test - OneLook - Google (Web • Books • Groups • Scholar • News Archive) - replacement

Is the replacement good enough in appearance? I need to test it a bit. DCDuring TALK 14:09, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Yep, I think it's much better. Equinox ◑ 09:01, 29 December 2015 (UTC)