Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive3

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Archives for WT:TOL		edit
1	2002-07 – 2003-12	Article names
2	2003-11 – 2004-02	Taxoboxes
3	2004-02	Taxoboxes
4	2004-02 – 2004-08	Bold taxa; taxonomy
5	2004-03 – 2004-04	Taxonomy; photos; range maps
6	2005-04 – 2004-06	Capitalization; authorities; mammals
7	2004-06 – 2004-08	Creationism; parens; common names
8	2004-05 – 2004-08	Templates; †extinct; common names
9	2004-05 – 2004-08	Categories; taxoboxes
10	2004-08 – 2004-12	Categories; authorities; domains; Wikispecies; ranks; G. species; capitalization; Common Names
11	2004-11 – 2005-05	Capitalization; common names; categories; L.; authorities; algae; cultivars
12	2005-03 – 2005-05	Ranks; common names
13	2005-05 – 2005-06	Hybrids; taxobox format; cultivars
14	2005-06 – 2005-07	Categories; food plants; identification; Capitalization
15	2005-07 – 2005-09	Synonyms; types; authorities; status; identification
16	2005-09 – 2005-12	Paleontological ranges; Rosopsida; Taxobox redesign; identification
17	2005-12 – 2006-04	Taxobox redesign; identification; APG; common names; capitalization
18	2006-4 – 2006-10	Categorization; include in references; snakes; range maps; seasonality graph; common names; bioregions; brya;

Contents 1 Extinct 2 Color Combos 3 Colour combos again

tab

[edit] Extinct

Ok, time for a new controversy. *grins* I've been stting on this idea longer than most of my thoughts for taxoboxes. I think there should be some way to indicate on the taxobox that the organism (or group of organisms) is extinct, and to do so without adding a line to the taxobox. My original thought would be to hash or otherwise modify the texture of the bgcolor for the taxoboxes. I'm not wedded to that implementation, but I do feel strongly that such an indication would be helpful. I'm against using a † to indicate extinct organisms, whether in a list of organisms or in the taxobox's top header. - UtherSRG 21:14, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, the dagger as a symbol for "dead" is considered POV as it is a christian symbol (not that I care, but it had a discussion about it for use it in biographies), and it's also a footnote symbol, AFAIK most common in english sources. The only case where I wrote about an extinct animal I simply added the string "extinct" to the taxonomic name in bottom of the taxobox (see Cave Bear). andy 21:19, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

{nods} How would you deal with a whole rank of creatures, like the omomyids?

Eastern Yellow Robin
Image:Eastern Yellow Robin.jpg
Status: secure
Kingdom: Animalalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Passeriformes Family: Petroicidae Genus: Eopsaltria Species: australis
Binomial name
Eopsaltria australis

Good idea, Uther. I agree—or at least I would agree, but you need to take it further. We should indicate the conservation status of the species in the factbox. See my example at right. Is it:

• secure
• vulnerable
• endangered
• extinct

This is probably the single most important bit of information there is about ay species—i.e, does it even exist anymore?—and we really need to put it in the factbox. If that needs an extra line, well, so be it.

I worked out a decent-looking way to do this a while back but I've been sitting on the idea pending a consensus. Meanwhile, there is also the new, streamlined box proposal of Josh's (which I also support, at least in theory). See Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Alt. Josh proposes taking out the many duplicated links to scientific classification (from family, genus, order, & etc.) and just having the heading scientific classification—thus (a) streamlining the boxes, and alas (b) scuppering my proposal, which is to replace the endlessly-duplicated scientific classification link with a much more useful and informative one.

Where do we go forward from here? There has to be an ideal way to do these boxes, if only we can think of it. Tannin 21:59, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I do like your proposal, but I'd been hesitant before to support adding another line to the box. But you are right, it is very important information, and applies to all organisms. However, it doesn't work as well to groups of organisms (unless they all have the same status). So Here I am saying I support adding a conservation status line to the species level of organisms, but I'm going to stay on my search for a way to texturize the bgcolor. - UtherSRG 22:27, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

So I would propose:

• Eliminate the links to species, genus, family, etc.
• Add a line for status, but only for the species.
• Put in the author in the binomial name, sublinked if possible.
• have a reference only if it is to clarify a taxonomic question, all other references to go in the body text.
• Encourage the use of range maps for species, but not necessarily in the taxobox.
• Keep lists of genera, species, etc. in the body of the article rather than the taxobox unless very short.

WormRunner 22:40, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Elements that have not been discovered have muted fill colors. Maybe we could do something like that or have gray text for the headings along with having '(extinct)' right after the name in the first th cell. Hm. Maybe we could develop a heading text color scheme for all status types (black would be uncategorized). Forrest green for secure, dark yellow for vulnerable, red for endangered and gray for extinct. We would still need an extra cell to actually state this info, but where should it go? The table is so pretty the way it is now. --mav

I suppose that would work for organisms and groups. I still like a texture. I'm good with WormRunner's proposal, too. - UtherSRG 23:08, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

That's exactly the proble, Mav! Where to put it?

I spent ages three or four months ago messing abot with table layout and colours, but wound up not being able to do what I wanted to do with the wiki table code. (I could do it in real HTML, as I remember, but the wiki code is a subset of HTML. Anyway, I can't remember what it was I was trying exactly to do now.) But the colour code idea is good, provided only that we can (a) implement it in practice and (b) get a set of colours and layouts that work well (we have to be careful to maintain readability).

The choices seem to be:

• (a) an extra line in the factbox (but how to lay it out?)
• (b) Use the slot currently used for scientific classification header and let the order/family/genus & etc lines link to scientific classification (as they do now).
• (c) come up with a different and better idea (I have no idea what).

Tannin

Trilobites - extinct

Perhaps something like this?

I like it! We could also use my text color scheme. --mav

Oops! You had already suggested that, sorry. How would the status colors work with the kingdom colors, or would the latter simply be dropped?

Heavens no! The fill colors would stay the same. The text color of the common name in the table would be:

• forrest green for secure,
• dark yellow for vulnerable,
• red for endangered or
• gray for extinct.

Black would be uncategorized or unknown. --mav

Ah. Wouldn't that be a problem for secure plants, vulnerable protists, endangered animals and extinct bacteria? By the way, there may be a couple other statuses to consider. The one that comes most readily to mind is questionable, for groups like the Korarchaeota whose existence has not been well confirmed.

(This is a gentle reminder to properly sign your text.) - UtherSRG 06:35, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Color Combos

	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Secure	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Vulnerable	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Endangered	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Extinct	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Unclassified	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea

Here's a table listing all the proposed clor combinations. I chaned mav's suggestion of darkyellow to darkorange... 'cos darkyellow doesn't exist. - UtherSRG 06:30, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Cool - thanks! --mav

I'll tell you where to find the list of color names if you properly sign your text. *grins* - UtherSRG 06:37, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Archaea's gray is too dark for both extinct and vulnerable species. Extinct and vulnerable fungi, secure plants and vulnerable animals aren't too nice on the eyes either. Tuf-Kat 06:42, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Modify at will. *grins* - UtherSRG 06:46, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Oh... color name list - UtherSRG 06:47, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Eastern Yellow Robin IUCN status is secure
Image:Eastern Yellow Robin.jpg
Scientific Classification
Kingdom: Animalalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Passeriformes Family: Petroicidae Genus: Eopsaltria Species: australis
Binomial name
Eopsaltria australis

So here's how the modified table now looks. Note that this is done with wiki markup, but an HTML font tag. - UtherSRG 06:46, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I added a link to the table. -mav

Excellent! - UtherSRG 06:53, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! How is my most recent mod? Critically Endangered is a bit long to have on the same line as the name. --mav

IUCN status is secure is not good. I would really not know what that meant if I had seen it in an article. How about Population status: Secure (IUCN)? Tuf-Kat 07:30, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)

Changed the colors a bit. Tuf-Kat 07:42, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)

That would also work, but would need its own cell. --mav

One issue that all this doesn't address is that the IUCN listings are often not as simply as simple as "secure". Sometimes it is "Population A: secure", "Population B:Endangered" etc. Is this a common occurance for all species or just happens to be so for the small area I happen to know a bit about? Is it a problem for the taxoboxes?

Hm. This is an issue... --mav

We are getting places, gentlemen. Good work!

I suggest that we keep the amount of text in the box down, so far as we are able. Yup, mention the status, yup, base it so far as practicable on IUCN status, but let's bear it in mind that this is not always practicable or desirable.

IUCN status is not always the best thing to report. In the area I happen to know best (Australian birds), several species have had much-needed status updates recently (some more endangered than before, others less so). These updates (so far as I know) have not yet filtered through to the Red List. Also, with the constant flux of reclassification, we often wind up writing entries about species that are newly split or newly merged. I'd be surprised to discover that this same sort of thing didn't apply equally to other areas (American fish, or Japanese wildflowers - whatever).

What I'm getting at here is that we should be guided by IUCN status, not not always bound by it. This requires, in turn, that we cite "conservation status" or simply "status", as opposed to "IUCN status". It follows that the page the status line links to should not be the IUCN Red List page or the current conservation status page, but a page designed for the task: i.e., to outline the various status codes used here on the 'pedia and refer the reader on to more in-depth reading - i.e., the Red List page, and anything else appropriate.

The end result would look something like this one at right:

Eastern Yellow Robin Status: secure
Image:Eastern Yellow Robin.jpg
Scientific Classification
Kingdom: Animalalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Passeriformes Family: Petroicidae Genus: Eopsaltria Species: australis
Binomial name
Eopsaltria australis

Right now, status: secure is simply a redirect to IUCN Red List, but that can be changed easily enough.

But wait! Doing this way, we lose the colour-coding. (Because the entire text of the "status" message is a link.) Hmmm ....

Is this actually a problem? I like the colour-code idea but I'm a bit concerned that it will end up too messy and confusing with all those colours, so maybe it's a blessing in disguise?

But let's try another variant where, at the cost of a little bit of messy HTML, we get to keep the colours. I'll stick this one on the left, just for clarity.

Eastern Yellow Robin Status: secure
Image:Eastern Yellow Robin.jpg
Scientific Classification
Kingdom: Animalalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Passeriformes Family: Petroicidae Genus: Eopsaltria Species: australis
Binomial name
Eopsaltria australis

Hmmm ..... At least for the green "secure" colour, it looks better. It's a fraction messy, code-wise, but I like it.

If I can stay awake long enough, I'm going to write two or three little articles (or maybe edit existing ones) just to try this out in "real life". I'll post links to them here when I'm done. Tannin 10:23, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I like the idea of a new page, that status: links to, for the reasons you describe - it is necessary to have the flexibility of not being tied just to IUCN. In addition I'd like to propose that as well as secure, endangered, unknown etc it would be permissible to put "see text" in the status line for the occasions described above when it is too simple-minded to just one classification for all populations - because if the population status is complicated we are sure to write about it in the text! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:10, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I really like the Status: secure version Tannin! Also great point re coordination page. --mav

AH.. It's nice to wake up and see that good progress has been made. *grins* If we want soething a little simpler, we could do this: Status: secure. - UtherSRG 14:55, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

OK, I made a (very rough) draft at conservation status. Also see Talk:conservation status. Hop in and edit at will. Tannin 07:24, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Problem: We need one more colour - for the critically endangered category. There is a lot of difference between endangered and critically endangered, we need a colour for it. I suggest switching the pink for vulnerable to a less red-like colour, and bumping the other categories up one. Any thoughts? Tannin

[edit] Colour combos again

	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Secure	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Vulnerable	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Endangered	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Critical	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Extinct	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Unclassified	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea

Here's Uther's table listing all the proposed colour combinations, as updated, tinkered, and generally buggerised about with by me.

Comments?

Further tuning required?

Tannin 09:28, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I like the switching so that extinct = black and unknown = purple. (Although "see text" will probably black too when required, but I don't think this is a biggie). At initial glance I wondered if the vuln/dangered/critical colours weren't differentiated enough, but having just tinkered around a bit I couldn't find anything better under the constraint that it has got to work on background colours for all kingdoms. And maybe very high differentiation is not necessary, given the classifications are often a bit arbitrary in practice anyway! I am happy to go with this scheme, or a scheme that is tinkered with only a little bit more. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:06, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I agree, Pete. I think we are nearly ready to go live with this one. I think the purple is a little twee and would gladly replace it with something a bit less in-your-face. A deep blue? A charcoal grey? I suggest using the purple/purple replacement colour for "see text", as we should reserve the black for extinct taxa - anything other than black for extinction would be counter-intuitive. Tannin

Fair point - let's have "see text" colour the same as "unknown" colour then. Whether it should be so bright/twee I don't really mind.. shown next is a "darkslateblue" for comparison. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:48, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Secure	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Vulnerable	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Endangered	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Critical	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Extinct	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Unclassified	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea

NB I suggest that to be on the safe side, the status link should be a MediaWiki msg: for the time being, which converts to a link to the new Conservation status page. Thus if we want to tinker with the naming and/or namespacing of that page over the next day or week or so, we can do so simply changing the msg: value, without having to hand edit all the articles that have gone ahead and implemented the extended taxobox with status. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:48, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Looking good, Pete. Tannin

Actually, I think the new Unclassified color should be the one we use for the Extinct status - it looks ghostly to me and IMO, Unclassified shouldn't have its own color because it isn't a real classification in the same sense as the others are. --mav 10:53, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm .... A fair point. And yet we shouldn't imply that unclassified = extinct either. Pete's (much less twee!) deep blue does at least fit into an entirely different colour group. Ideally, we would use white for unclassified, but I don't think that would work. Tannin

PS: See Red Goshawk and Paradise Parrot for a couple of live examples.

(re the Red Goshawk pic: Following the recent licencing of images kerfuffle, we are supposed to describe the image's status using tags in the image description from now on, e.g. if its your own photo, write {{msg:GFDL}} to licence it under GFDL. Maybe there will be tick boxes on the image upload page in the near future to make this simpler).

I really do think that extinct should have its own color since that would draw the readers eye to the word. The fact that a species or group is extinct is a very important one. I also don't see a problem with having white for Unclassified - the white text will be on a solid color background. White also works in the printed color sense - a lack of color and a lack of status. --mav

Let's try it out:

	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Secure	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Vulnerable	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Endangered	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Critical	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Extinct	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Unclassified	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea

Purple Goshawk Status: see text
Image:Red Goshawk-3.jpg
Scientific Classification
Kingdom: Animalalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Falconiformes Family: Accipitridae Genus: Erythrotriorchis Species: radiatus
Binomial name
Erythrotriorchis radiatus

Hmmm ..... Tannin

On reflection, I think you may be right, Mav. I'm happy to go with the darkslateblue for extinct and the black for unclassifieds. Should we let this sit for ~24 hours and see what the other contributors think? Tannin

Sure. --mav

(via edit conflict) In the examples the red "vulnerable" does indeed jump out at you more than the black "extinct". Note that black is a lack of colour and white is all the colours... so maybe the lack of status should have black! (This would also sidestep the issue of white being more potentially risky from a universal accessibility point of view). Thus the proposal is to swap extinct and unknown back again! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:19, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Most people intuitively think about color in the print color sense. So white for no-color makes more sense in that regard. Black also works for Unclassified though. --mav

Fair point about print (sorry I missed that earlier) - but at least we have all three of us saying that black for unclassified and darkslateblue for extinct is acceptable. I'll join Tannin/Tony in sitting on it for the rest of the day - and pray that Uther won't spot something we've all missed when she gets up/gets home from work! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:31, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

On second thought, white is too hard to read. Here are the colors I like. I added 'Extinct in the wild' and made that darkslateblue and made 'Extinct' slateblue (which is even more ghostly than darkslateblue). --mav

	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Secure	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Vulnerable	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Endangered	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Critical	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Extinct in the wild	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Extinct	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea
Unclassified	Animalia	Plantae	Fungi	Protista	Bacteria	Archaea

I believe I prefer White for Unclassified, but I'm not willing to let that be a stopper. I think this looks fantastic! - UtherSRG 13:20, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Oh... and I'm a guy, Pete. *grins* - UtherSRG 13:34, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Ok... I've made MediWiki msgs for each, and will post them on the MW Msgs page soon. - UtherSRG 13:41, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Done! Take a look at Wikipedia:MediaWiki_custom_messages! - UtherSRG 13:52, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Neat! --mav

Thanks for the msgs Uther. Nice to go away for an hour or two and find all the work done without doing it myself. And apologies for getting your sex wrong! Examples of taxoboxes with status and range map (I think the talk about this is now in archive 2) are now available at Bottlenose Dolphin, Blue Whale, Fin Whale and Sperm Whale. I guess the product of all this talk now needs to go onto the project page. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:46, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Fantastic! I really like how the autothumbnail range map works in the taxobox. I don't, though, like the autothumbnail for creature pics. I'm going away for an interview this evening. I'm taking my laptop along so I hope I'll be able to get some edits done at my hotel tonight. (Yes. I'm a geek. Ain't we all? *grins*) Now that we have this settled I can add it to the primate pages we already have, and put the extinction indication on the groups of organisms (see: omomyids). - UtherSRG 17:58, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Great work, team!