Category talk:Biota by country

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I have reorganised the chat into separate problems, can new problems and further discussion be added to the Category talk:Biota by country#Separate problems section GameKeeper 09:13, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Orginal discussion

[edit] Problems with the usage of sub-categories

I do not like the use of some of the sub-categories of Category:Biota by country to categorise individual species.

I object on the basis that :-

  • It will cause over-categorisation of articles (see what wild cat used to look like ).
  • Most of the articles included , for example Category:Fauna of Scotland, do not furfil the Wikipedia:Categorization#Some general guidelines test Is the category subject prominently discussed in the article?.

However preserving the information in these categories is important as it is useful.

I propose conversion of the species in categories into lists or articles, and the deletion of the categories.

An exception I can think of is endemic species (ie native ONLY to that country]]. This would be better served by a subcategory of [[:Category:Fauna of country]], [[:Category:Endemic fauna of country]] in which these species can be placed. (suggested by User:Bogdangiusca in deletion log below)

Discussions of the usages of these categories here


Wikipedia guidelines

Examples

GameKeeper 13:34, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The related Category:Fauna of the Scottish Highlands has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. You are encouraged to join the discussion on the Categories for Discussion page.

I am using this as a test case to see if listfying is approved of. GameKeeper 14:10, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I think it's a bad idea to limit country species lists to only endemics. If you're going to go that way you might as well delete them.
Biota by country (or by subnational unit) is useful. Species distributions are recorded not at the level of ecoregions or biomes, but at the country level. While it's an imperfect system, it's usually the best level of resolution that exists.
The main argument against these categories seems to be the fear of overcategorisation. This "danger" has been hugely overplayed - most species are not cosmopolitan, and it makes far more sense to make exceptions for these species than it does to remove the information.
It has been suggested that lists are more useful than categories. This isn't the case unless you add a "see also: List of Birds of Foo" to every bird in Foo. That would produce even more clutter than would the categories.
I don't see what the benefit of limiting "Biota by country" articles to endemics. To begin with, for many species, endemic only means "hasn't been discovered elsewhere yet". Since catgories lack references, it would be impossible to determine one whose authority the species is considered to be an endemic. A species can easily go from being endemic to a country, to no longer being endemic (when it is discovered in another country), and then go back to being endemic when a third authority splits the new record into another species. "Endemic" is a stronger assertion than "present" and is more likely to be disputed. In addition, calling something "biota by country" and only listing endemics would create an inaccurately titled category, which would be difficult to maintain.
"Biota by country" is a useful category. It contains real information of a sort which is used in fields like biogeography and macroecology. It isn't, as some people keep insisting, "useless" information.
I strongly oppose the deletion of useful information from Wikipedia, especially when the main argument seems to be that people find such information "untidy". Guettarda 14:22, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
This is a tricky one. Knowing the native range of an organism is important information, but there are problems with having 200+ categories for cosmopolitian organisms like Rattus rattus. At one point I though of adding distribution information to the taxobox but didn't persue it very far. I think this is a case where we begin pushing the envelope of MediaWiki software, to do distribution well really requires a proper database or GIS system.
One solution might be to create higher level categories Category:Flora of Africa and Category:Cosmopolitian plants where biota which exist in many countries might be listed. --Salix alba (talk) 15:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
That is a great idea, and would solve this problem. It would take a hell of a lot of coding though. Anyone have ideas of the specifics for something like this? If we can get specifics of how we would like it to work, then someone with knowledge of submitting this through the MediaWiki system could do so. It is about time the biologists got something specific for them, damn mathmeticians :). Thanks --liquidGhoul 15:29, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I've done something like this on a demo wiki at http://82.138.219.137/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page (on my home PC so its sporadically available) it uses a combination of DPL and some custom extensions. Chances of getting these into the main namespace are unfortunatly vanishinly small (us mathematicians have spent a year trying to get a better mathematical typsetting). --Salix alba (talk) 21:50, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
The use of biogeographical borders are just as useful as political boundaries, but much easier to maintain. Using the US states as an example. It would take forever to categorise every US native species into their respective states. This is how the categories become useless. People create them for an endemic species, and they never get filled out (look at Category:Fauna of New York). Say you were looking for a species of frog from a state in eastern US (lets use Green Frog). It is much easier to categorise this article in Fauna of eastern United States. However, if it is categorised into all the states, there is a good chance it won't be categorised into all the categories (as it is). The person looking for that article is left in the dark because it is impossible for people to keep up with the number of categories. Seriously, how many US state articles have 0-1 articles? Also, if we use states as categories, when does it stop. Should we have Fauna of Gloucester? There are publications which use townships in rural Australia for fauna/flora. We don't have to follow every convention that is out there. Hell, we don't already!
On the use of countries, I also agree with GameKeeper. Splitting up Europe or New Guinea by their countries just doesn't make sense. We should use boundaries which the fauna/flora chose, not some arbitrary borders created by humans. --liquidGhoul 15:25, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Countries have their uses as that what people know best. An alternative would be to use List of ecoregions a fairly well established division. --Salix alba (talk) 21:50, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Categorising by List of ecoregions may be the most valid. Then the Category:Fauna of Andorra like pages could become redirects or disambiguation pages. Suggested regions as Western/Northern/Eastern/Southern/Central {Europe|Afrika|Asia|...} should not be used unless it is proper classification biology. If Wikipedia implements online database features then it would make sense to provide SELECT * from FAUNA where COUNTRY = '...' but per country categories are not the right tool here and now. Pavel Vozenilek 14:25, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Categorisation by List of ecoregions seems a good one to me. The Ecoregion classification seems ideal for this problem. See also the (now inactive) Wikipedia:WikiProject Ecoregions. Organising by ecoregion does not mean that organisation by countries must cease to exist, there will be at least some overlap. It is useful to be able to find Biota/Fauna/Flora bsed on country. GameKeeper 09:13, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
IMO the categorisation by ecoregion should be primary and expected. Information about country should be provided only if the animal is endemic and gets frequently associated with the country. e.g. Panda. This should keep "fauna in XYZ country" reasonably small and maintainable. Pavel Vozenilek 14:24, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categorizing by ecoregions

According to the List of ecoregions article, there are 867 ecoregions on the list. As the ecoregions appear to be structured in levels, perhaps we could limit usage to a specific level. For example, here is a breakdown of the "Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests" ecoregion, a "subregion" of "Terrestrial Ecoregions":

TERRESTRIAL ECOREGIONS

Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests

Afrotropical

  • 1.Guinean Moist Forests - Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Togo
  • 2.Congolian Coastal Forests - Angola, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, São Tomé & Príncipe, Republic of Congo
  • 3.Cameroon Highlands Forests - Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria
  • 4.Northeastern Congo Basin Moist Forests - Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo
  • 5.Central Congo Basin Moist Forests - Democratic Republic of Congo
  • 6.Western Congo Basin Moist Forests - Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Republic of Congo
  • 7.Albertine Rift Montane Forests - Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda
  • 8.East African Coastal Forests - Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania
  • 9.Eastern Arc Montane Forests - Kenya, Tanzania
  • 10.Madagascar Forests and Shrublands - Madagascar
  • 11.Seychelles and Mascarenes Moist Forests - Mauritius, Reunion (France), Seychelles

Australasia

  • 12.Sulawesi Moist Forests - Indonesia
  • 13.Moluccas Moist Forests - Indonesia
  • 14.Southern New Guinea Lowland Forests - Indonesia, Papua New Guinea
  • 15.New Guinea Montane Forests - Indonesia, Papua New Guinea
  • 16.Solomons-Vanuatu-Bismarck Moist Forests - Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu
  • 17.Queensland Tropical Forests - Australia
  • 18.New Caledonia Moist Forests - New Caledonia (France)
  • 19.Lord Howe-Norfolk Islands Forests - Australia

Indo-Malayan

  • 20.Southwestern Ghats Moist Forests - India
  • 21.Sri Lankan Moist Forests - Sri Lanka
  • 22.Northern Indochina Subtropical Moist Forests - China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam
  • 23.Southeast China-Hainan Moist Forests - China, Vietnam

 
  • 24.Taiwan Montane Forests - China
  • 25.Annamite Range Moist Forests - Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam
  • 26.Sumatran Islands Lowland and Montane Forests - Indonesia
  • 27.Philippines Moist Forests - Philippines
  • 28.Palawan Moist Forests - Philippines
  • 29.Kayah-Karen / Tenasserim Moist Forests - Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand
  • 30.Peninsular Malaysian Lowland and Mountain Forests - Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand
  • 31.Borneo Lowland and Montane Forests - Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia
  • 32.Nansei Shoto Archipelago Forests - Japan
  • 33.Eastern Deccan Plateau Moist Forests - India
  • 34.Naga-Manupuri-Chin Hills Moist Forests - Bangladesh, India, Myanmar
  • 35.Cardamom Mountains Moist Forests - Cambodia, Thailand
  • 36.Western Java Mountain Forests - Indonesia

Neotropical

  • 37.Greater Antillean Moist Forests - Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico (United States)
  • 38.Talamancan and Isthmian Pacific Forests - Costa Rica, Panama
  • 39.Chocó-Darién Moist Forests - Colombia, Ecuador, Panama
  • 40.Northern Andean Montane Forests - Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru
  • 41.Coastal Venezuela Montane Forests - Venezuela
  • 42.Guianan Moist Forests - Brazil, French Guiana (France), Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela
  • 43.Napo Moist Forests - Colombia, Ecuador, Peru
  • 44.Río Negro-Juruá Moist Forests - Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela
  • 45.Guayanan Highlands Forests - Brazil, Colombia, Guayana, Suriname, Venezuela
  • 46.Central Andean Yungas - Argentina, Bolivia, Peru
  • 47.Southwestern Amazonian Moist Forests - Bolivia, Brazil, Peru
  • 48.Atlantic Forests - Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay

Oceania

  • 49.South Pacific Islands Forests - American Samoa (United States), Cook Islands (New Zealand), Fiji, French Polynesia (France), Niue (New Zealand), Samoa, Tonga, Wallis and Futuna Islands (France)
  • 50.Hawaii Moist Foresst - Hawaii (United States)


As you can see, there are 50 categories for "Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests" alone. The entire list to this level numbers 238 ecoregions; some of which we likely would never use (Tropical Upwelling?).

The list also defines which countries are "members" of the region; that could possibly solve the issue of categorization by country.

The entire list (at least as far as this level) is at the World Wildlife Fund website.

I'd be very inclined to use this—it makes sense, could accommodate country-based divisions, and most importantly, is already created; we don't have to reinvent this particular wheel.

Assuming we want to put this out there as a proposal (and I certainly don't think we have consensus on that at this time, I'm just thinking ahead), what would be the next steps? (Besides getting consensus to proceed along these lines to start with.)—Chidom talk  21:30, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] mass deletion of categories

Whatever else is done, it would helpful/polite if the mass deletion of categories were halted until alternatives are discussed, agreed upon and implemented. The final part of implementation would be deletion. WP is not going to suffer irreparable harm by having some extra categories around for a bit longer; on the other hand, editors get discouraged from further efforts by wholesale deletions. Thanks Hmains 16:47, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another possible way to organize these categories

Perhaps the best example of what's wrong with the present categories lies in:

Category:Fauna by country

>Category:Fauna of the United States
>Category:Fauna of the United States by state
>Category:Fauna of Texas
>Category:Avifauna of Eastern Texas
>Category:Avifauna of Northern Texas
>Category:Avifauna of Southwestern Texas
>Category:Avifauna of Western Texas

Given that birds, of all the fauna, are more likely to disrespect political boundaries (countries, states, territories, etc.), this is overcategorization at its best (worst)? An alternative would be to listify such things and include the list(s) in a more general category.

I've listed a possible alternative to what exists presently; it is an extensive list of categories/subcats. It can be found at User:Chidom/Biota.—Chidom talk  20:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] problem is in the articles

Generally, categorization should be based on the content of an articles. If the articles fail to mention to bio geographic areas in which a plant/animal exists, how can anyone properly categorize an article even if a category structure is agreed upon? We need some biology expertize here. I am just an interested helper. Hmains 20:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Separate problems

[edit] Is organising by country valid for biota/flora/fauna

List of ecoregions suggested in the orginal discussion GameKeeper 09:13, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Organisation by country is useful GameKeeper 09:13, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
No, because as a general rule this is not a defining characteristic of a species. Taken to its logical extreme, this approach leads to widespread species being placed in tens or hundreds of categories. See for example Boar, which is currently in 30 categories and could probably be in 300. IMO, the only things that should be in "Fauna/Flora of X" categories are a) species which are endemic to X, and b) lists of species found in X. -- Visviva 02:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
This wouldn't be a problem, because that would be a mis-categorization under the current rules. Basic categorization principles are placement in the most specific applicable category. If something belongs to all of the subcategories of a category, it doesn't get each & every subcategory name; it gets the category name. For example, a "finger" isn't listed as "part of the hand", "part of the arm", "part of the upper body", and "part of the body"; it's listed as "part of the hand. Similarly, say, "Pigeons" wouldn't get listed in every single ecoregion they're found in; just the broadest -- say, Eurasia and North America. If they're found literally in every ecoregion of the world they would only get placed in "Worldwide X". Does that make sense? --lquilter 16:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Another deletion debate here Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_January_31#Fauna_of_the_United_States_by_state —The preceding unsigned comment was added by GameKeeper (talk • contribs) 23:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] What is the best mechanism to organise

  • Are Lists of Categories (or any other method) the best way to organise this?

[edit] Should individual species be added to categories like Category:Fauna of Scotland

These Categories are accessible from the species page which makes them easy to find.
Huge numbers of categories on a species page looks untidy, as do large number of 'See also' lists . Is tidyness an issue. GameKeeper 09:13, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Could we link the countries List of Biota or List of Fauna etc where the species are found within a hideable info box (see Template:North_America example of hidable list box). This would mean that it was possible to find the relevant county links without having to have a large untidy list GameKeeper 09:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Category:Fauna of the Scottish Highlands has been now been deleted, see Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_October_20#Category:Fauna_of_the_Scottish_Highlands. There are a some good comments in there. If I have time I will try again with Category:Fauna of Scotland. GameKeeper 19:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mechanisms to change

I have listified Category:Fauna of the Scottish Highlands , I think lisifying then deleting of categories is the way to change.
It is suggested above that mass deletions of categories do not occur until information in them is preserved GameKeeper 09:13, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Future enhancements of MediaWiki

Would any reorganisation be made easier/redundant by upcoming changes to MediaWiki
I heard a few months back that a change to the mediawiki software will make categorisation obsolete. I can't remember where it was writen though. Does anyone know if this is still going to occur, and what the mechanisms of it are? Thanks --liquidGhoul 09:56, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
No, but I would be inetrested in details of what the replacement would look like. TeunSpaans 17:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I thinks the enhancement is Wikipedia:Category intersection, it had a lot of buzz about a month ago but seems have gone quite now. --Salix alba (talk) 00:13, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Using maps

This is copied from WT:TOL. Please reply here.

It might not be a bad idea to have a map which links to all the ecoregions of the world. I don't know if it is entirely possible, but have a map on the text/explanatory section of Category:Fauna by continent, which has overlaid links to all the continent categories. Then, when you go to Category:Wildlife of Oceania (by clicking the map or the text), there is a map of Oceania, with links to all the subcategories (New Zealand, Australia, New Guinea etc.), and it goes down the line. This way, we can get rid of the political boundary categories, which have the disadvantage of getting out of hand, and get rid of the confusion caused by ecoregions, as well as the confusion caused by US states etc., as not many people know them.

I know this idea would take a long time, but would those opposed deleting the politcal categories be willing to use this alternative (which would involve the eventual deleting of political categories)? I would be willing to put a lot of work into this, but only if it eventually results in the cleaning up of the categories. We would need to vote on deleting political categories upon the completion of this project before anyone starts creating maps, as it could waste time otherwise. Just to make clear, the political categories wouldn't be deleted till after the maps are all created, but the decision to delete them would be voted on prior to the maps. Thanks. --liquidGhoul 14:06, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

There is a useful map showing ecorgeions online here [1]. it is mainly good but unfortunately some of the colors used for different adjacent eco-regions look identical (see the UK) but otherwise a useful resource. If you are going down this line I would recommend starting with Commons:Category:SVG_world_maps and using inkscape to slice it up. I know clickable maps are now possible , see 2006_FIFA_World_Cup#Venues. GameKeeper 14:26, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
We would need to agree on which set of ecoregions to use, that would be part of the voting process prior to beginning the project. I know about superimposing text over images, I have seen it here. I remember a technology in which you could superimpose a link over an area on pixels. I don't know if that would be feasable over different browsers, or in mediawiki. If we can use it, that would be the best way. If we cant, I would go with the text over images solution. Thanks. --liquidGhoul 14:44, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I found what I was thinking of here, and it seems it is not compatable with all browsers. Looks like I will use text. I will create a prototype for the continents some time after next Friday. People can decide whether I should continue or not then. Thanks. --liquidGhoul 13:10, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to help somehow, but the last language I learned was C (no extensions). I'm willing to learn if this does move forward, however. -- Donald Albury 14:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
You should only need wiki markup, unless of course you have a better idea in mind? Check out Psychoactive drug to see how the syntax works, it isn't too hard, just takes some trial and error to get the positions right. Thanks --liquidGhoul 14:23, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll take a look at it. -- Donald Albury 15:47, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Species distribution data is collected at points. Range data is generally little more than an educated guess. Anything more than point data is difficult to come up with.
  • Unless you want to actually go and hunt down the original surveys (many of which are not published) it's rarely possible to determine what's real in a range map and what's extrapolated/interpolated. And that is if you are lucky enough to have a range map. For plant you tend to have the specimens that someone bothered to cite in a flora - depending on the scale of the flora it might just be one collection per country.
  • If you have locational data, converting that to ecoregion is neither simple nor trivial. Ecoregions are not real biological entities - they're opinions, which are themselves based on underlying "local" vegetation classifications. The authors of the system came up with broad categories, to which they attempted to assign existing categories of vegetation. Why these categories? And are they meaningful? The one attempt I have seen to evaluate ecoregions (for the US) found that there was no evidence that the boundaries between ecoregions reflected meaningful changes in species distributions.
  • If you have your species distribution data and you trust the ecoregion map for your country of interest, now you have to assign a species to an ecoregion. How do you do that? If you are lucky enough have a range map and an ecoregion map, and you see that the range map intersects with two ecoregions, do you assign the species to both ecoregions? If you don't know the quality of data used to construct both maps, you really can't.

Obviously this ignores the OR and NPOV problems. Guettarda 14:49, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

"Obviously"? I don't see it. I am yet to find an ecoregion system I am happy with, but flat out rejecting them is ridiculous. I don't want one that is very specific, as that has the same problems as US states. What I want is something that is really broad. I would like to keep Australia as one (maybe three) regions, and if we split up New Guinea, it isn't based on a longitudinal line, as that is extremely stupid in my eyes. I don't want to make the system more complicated, I want to simplify it, so as to not have the problems that are occuring in the US and European categories.
You say that the range maps are just an extrapolation of point references. I know that, and what I am trying to do is remedy this. The problem with political lines is that they do exactly this. There are very small countries in Europe and very small states in the US. A range map may go through these countries/states, even though there is no proof of the animal existing there. If we make the areas much larger, and based on geographical differences (like a mountain range or ocean) we have much less chance of doing this.
To give an example of the scale I want. If I were to split Australia, it would be split into south-eastern Australia (SE Qld, eastern NSW, Vic and Tasmania), tropical north Australia and arid western Australia. There are animals (like the Desert Tree Frog) which cross into all of these regions, but it is well documented and there isn't much chance of error. If we split Australia up politically, it would be OR as to whether the many species endemic to SE Qld are also native to NSW. --liquidGhoul 09:17, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
By "obviously" I meant that these reservations were in addition to the (seemingly obvious to me) problems of OR (because it would be OR if we were to carry out the steps I outlined in order to fit species to ecoregions) and NPOV (because it amounts to an endorsement of one particular system). Guettarda
Do you seriously think it matters? All we have to do is create a system which makes it easy for people to browse Wikipedia's articles. The current state is terrible, as it is confusing as all hell, too diversified for anyone to fill categories, and the boundaries too small to be accurate. Categories are one of the things which usually stay within Wikipedia. If we were to choose a system, it should be based on ease of use, and not worrying about NPOV or OR. I will try to minimise NPOV and OR with the regional system I choose, but we shouldn't be that worried considering we are only trying to make a browsable index to make Wikipedia acessable. The guidelines for OR and NPOV are based on the Main namespace. It doesn't really apply here.
Please, read what I have actually said, you have yet to actually respond to my ideas. Can you think of an alternative which doesn't have the problems you are talking about, and the problems I am talking about. The use of large regions basically gets rid of the OR problems. NPOV is not a problem here, we are not using the main namespace, and are just trying to make Wikipedia accessable. We should use whatever system is the most convenient (I don't think it will offend anyone), and there are just too many problems with the political system. --liquidGhoul 20:44, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Do I seriously think it matters? How not? To begin with, NPOV and NOR are core policies - of course they apply to categorisation. But, as I said above, the major problem is accuracy. In most cases the data just doesn't exist to support this system. Coming up with a system like that involves going beyond available data. Even if you aren't concerned about core policies (which, in the case of NPOV, has been described as "non-negotiable" by Jimbo), doesn't the problem with accuracy bother you? Guettarda 13:49, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

(removing indents)This is a quote from WP:NOR, and is also talking about NPOV:

"Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in the main namespace."

I obviously think these are extremely important policies, however, categorisation is different. If Wikipedia is ever to be published on hard copy, it will not include categorisation, and when a mirror of Wikipedia is made, it tends not to use categories. I still want to obey these policies as much as possible (and I will do NOR as much as possible). But, the NPOV things doesn't make sense. We are favouring a system which is most convenient for us. This policy was created to create balance within an article. If we take NPOV everywhere, we wouldn't be able to do heaps of the things which improve Wikipedia, like featured content. Also, I could use the same argument for political boundaries. If we use political boundaries, we are favouring the political system over every other system. It is not feasible to use NPOV in every area of Wikipedia. In the articles, it is non-negotiable, but elsewhere it is negotiable.

I have said tonnes of times that I am worried about accuracy. Here is a quote from above, please read it and take it into account:

"You say that the range maps are just an extrapolation of point references. I know that, and what I am trying to do is remedy this. The problem with political lines is that they do exactly this. There are very small countries in Europe and very small states in the US. A range map may go through these countries/states, even though there is no proof of the animal existing there. If we make the areas much larger, and based on geographical differences (like a mountain range or ocean) we have much less chance of doing this."
"the current state is terrible, as it is confusing as all hell, too diversified for anyone to fill categories, and the boundaries too small to be accurate."

I have bolded the important bits, please do not ignore them. They apply to your specific concerns. Thanks. --liquidGhoul 23:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

  • The rules that apply to the main namespace apply to the template, portal and category namespaces as well. What these rules don't apply to are the Wikipedia and User namespaces, since they are not part of the "final product". That final product will is generally seen as a hypertext document, not as paper. If you apply the idea that "it wouldn't make a difference in paper" then all hyperlinks are irrelevant.
  • "But, the NPOV things doesn't make sense. We are favouring a system which is most convenient for us" - you could make that argument almost anywhere is Wikipedia, and NPOV is widely ignored. That doesn't make it ok. NPOV cannot be defined out of existence. NPOV in category naming and membership is widely discussed. It's silly to say that it doesn't apply to categories, templates and portals.
    • "This policy was created to create balance within an article" - no, it wasn't. The NPOV policy exists to prevent Wikipedia from endorsing any particular point of view as true.
    • "Also, I could use the same argument for political boundaries" - yes, that's true. You should have a look at the maps of India. They include the borders controlled by India, the areas claimed by India but controlled by China and Pakistan, and the areas controlled by India but claimed by China and Pakistan. While fringe viewpoints cannot be given undue weight, all well-established viewpoints are given equal validity.
    • "If we use political boundaries, we are favouring the political system over every other system" - umm, political units and biological units are two distinct systems. While there are minor disputes about borders (and a few major ones, which attract a lot of attention and discussion regarding categorisation). That isn't the case when we talk about biological classification systems - we don't even have a single name for these units. They are totally separate issues.
  • "I have said tonnes of times that I am worried about accuracy" - and yet you argue in favour of using a system with huge accuracy.
  • "There are very small countries in Europe and very small states in the US. A range map may go through these countries/states, even though there is no proof of the animal existing there. If we make the areas much larger, and based on geographical differences (like a mountain range or ocean) we have much less chance of doing this."
    • To begin with the whole "range map" issue isn't meaningful if you are trying to come up with "species by country". No species should be listed in "Species of Foo" unless they have been recorded in Foo. No one should be looking at range maps to determine whether a species should be included in any given country or state. They should be basing it on records from that country. This is not true for "Species by Ecoregion". Since "Species by Ecoregion" records don't exist, you need to look at range maps and guess. Not a good plan.
    • Secondly, in general at the country level there are good records. Few mappers will include a species in a country from which it has not been collected, even if they think it should have been collected there. With regards to US states, it's even less true. For well-enough known taxa (I'm not talking about nematodes here) you can get state-level distributions for most species online. They aren't range maps, they are simply an illustration of the states in which a species has been recorded.
    • "the current state is terrible, as it is confusing as all hell, too diversified for anyone to fill categories, and the boundaries too small to be accurate" - what is that comment in reference to? I don't know what your point is.
  • "I will do NOR as much as possible" - if you avoid NOR, then the project is dead in the water. Species-by-ecoregion data just doesn't exist, not on any large scale. Boundaries of ecoregions are imprecise.

If species-by-ecoregion data don't exist, and if precise boundaries of ecoregions don't exist, how do you propose to create "species-by-ecoregion" categories which are (a) accurate, and (b) not original research? Guettarda 00:51, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

(I've put a line in to seperate the conversation, it is hard to read)

"The rules that apply to the main namespace apply to the template, portal and category namespaces as well. What these rules don't apply to are the Wikipedia and User namespaces, since they are not part of the "final product". That final product will is generally seen as a hypertext document, not as paper. If you apply the idea that "it wouldn't make a difference in paper" then all hyperlinks are irrelevant."
I am yet to find a mirror site which uses our categories.
"umm, political units and biological units are two distinct systems. While there are minor disputes about borders (and a few major ones, which attract a lot of attention and discussion regarding categorisation). That isn't the case when we talk about biological classification systems - we don't even have a single name for these units. They are totally separate issues."
You are obviously not understanding me here. Some authors use biogeographical regions when they are describing a distribution, others use political. If we were to use political regions for categorisation, we would be favouring those who use political regions. That is why I think the NPOV argument is irrelevant.
"no, it wasn't. The NPOV policy exists to prevent Wikipedia from endorsing any particular point of view as true."
What do you think I was saying? Also, how does categorisation by region do anything like that?
The political system is encouraging users to create categories based on small regions. After they have created them, no-one wants to do the work to fill them, as it requires one to add multiple categories to lots of articles. This is just too much work. If you want an example, Category:Fauna of Australia is a broad category, and Category:Fauna of New York is a smaller category. There are more English speakers with internet access in the state of New York than there is in Australia, so why the lack of articles?
Obviously, the political system does not always work. How about we discuss this on a case-by-case basis. Using one system doesn't work for the entire world. It would make more sense to use a system based on 1)What is most convenient for us, and 2)What is commonly used for that region. New Guinea is one that I am very unhappy with. All the books and most the articles I have ever read on New Guinea fauna (and there have been quite a few), have never split it into Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya. It was always kept as New Guinea. Same goes for Australia (now, when little was known it was often split up). However, things I have read about Europe usually split it up politically. Would you be willing to come to a compromise, where the community discusses how we should split up the world based on the above two criteria? Now that I think about it, I am happier with this than one universal system, even if it was mine. --liquidGhoul 03:11, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


A map has now been created for Category:Fauna by continent. It is obviously not complete, as the categories in that category need to be cleaned up (remove fish from there to start with), and some extra areas such as Pacific Islands etc. need to be added. Thankyou. --liquidGhoul 09:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categories by country are being systematically deleted right now -- is this the way to go?

Apparently a user has decided that living things should not be categorized by their nationality, but rather only listed by nationality. Instead of bringing this up for discussion on the lists versus category pages, the user is proposing categories for discussion (deletion) a number at a time.

I think it is important for members of this project to decide which, if either, is the most useful method for categorizing species. Are there reasons for categorizing by country, or not? If not, they should all be deleted at once. Are there reasons for lists that make them preferable to categories for topics of this nature, or vice versa?

Please, let's decide upon our own policy here and now, rather than allowing someone outside the project, who is devoted to deleting categories decide how organisms should be categorized or not--although we should be glad to let him/her do the work of deleting all the categories if we decide that's how to go.

Categorize flora and fauna by country category, or put flora and fauna by country in lists only?

Is this what has been decided, that it is time to do away with biota by country? If this is the case, it is time to do it all at once. If it is not the case, then let's decide how to make certain it does not happen. I've asked repeatedly what are the advantages/dis of cats versus lists, and have read the page, but really don't see what is the purpose of categories, other than all you have to do is add one tag to the page to categorize anything.

KP Botany 00:08, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I gather this is mostly in relation to Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_March_15#Category:Birds_in_Britain et seq.? Getting kinda heated over there... Generally I support listification for biota-by-political-entity categories, per WP:OC, but as you've pointed out some countries can be meaningful biogeographic entities as well. Perhaps a bullet list of the issues and proposed solutions would be helpful. -- Visviva 01:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
No, I'm not following the birds in particular. I think it would be a wiser use of resources to simply decide whether or not to keep the categories by political entity all at once rather than have these discussions over and over again. It appears as if there is an attempt to do away with categories of biota by country piece by piece without including the Wikipedia community in the debate. I'm not certain I'm wholely dedicated to categories, other than it's easier to just plop one on an article than being responsible for making the lists. Yes, a comprehensibe list of the issues and pluses and minuses would probably rather helpful. Are you volunteering? I have a monster midterm on Monday. KP Botany 02:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
In my humble opinion, I believe categorization of flora and fauna by eco-regions described by the WWF (See: eco-regions) is the most useful method for categorizing species (See: reason) than categorization by country.
For further references on this topic please see:
Luffy487 07:46, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
How do you deal with the fact that current guides don't use ecoregions, but use political boundaries? I will read these. KP Botany 08:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
I believe it is to our own advantage to categorize species by the ecoregions or rather follow the guides which are been used for political purposes.
It is true that some species can only be found within a political boundary, however, there are many which don't. As quoted from Role of the Global Ecoregions and how they are selected: The 238 ecoregions selected as Global Ecoregions is simple: only by identifying a comprehensive representation of the world's habitats can we conserve the broadest range of species and maintain the complex ecological and evolutionary processes that comprise the web of life. And I certainly believe that my sincere proposal to replace categorization by country to categorization by ecoregions will be greatly appreciated by nature and animal conversation activists.
And one more thing, these ecoregions are currently been used by WWF which are recoginized by world wide. Luffy487 14:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Here is an extended list of debates

As can be seen from some of these discussions, I am not attempting to act alone or trying to slip discussions past people without discussion but I am instead working with multiple other people to fix the categorization scheme.

As for the categorization scheme itself, it looks broken. First, people cannot agree on how to use the categories. Some people want to categorize animals by every country in which the animal is found, whereas other people want to use the "fauna by country" categories only for endemic animals. When the geographical locations of some animals are listed for every country, the category list within the article becomes excessively long; see Zebra Waxbill, which currently has over 40 categories. One of my favorites is this example with the house sparrow, which only covers some of the states in United States but which could be much longer if it included every country, region, division, oblast, province, department, and territory where the house sparrow is found.

My perspective is that the category lists on article pages should be relatively short and easily readable or else the categories will be difficult to access from the articles. Categorization plants or animals by political region, especially small political regions, is impractical in this respect.

This debate has become bogged down a few times for various reasons. Some people want to keep the categorization by country (or subregion) categories for various reasons:

  • They want used the categories to identify the animals found in the given region. (This is why someone wanted to keep Category:Fauna of Minnesota.)
  • They have wanted to keep the categories also because national or state governments may affect local populations of specific animals (either through conservation or eradication efforts).
  • Their reference books discuss animals by specific locations (e.g. "Birds of Kenya"), although my books generally classify animals by continent (including my book on birds by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds).

In all of these cases, listification would be better, as it would be just as useful as a category to identify all animals in a given region but it would also be able to explain various government policies towards animals. Moreover, list articles could also give references and suggest further reading.

The debate really gets bogged down when people start discussing the specifics about sorting animals by ecozone. This is what happened in the previous discussion on this page and what almost happened at Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion#Non-endemic "endemic" birds. Sorting by ecozone and ecoregion is probably the best thing to do, but it needs to be done in a way that the average reader will understand. I have not yet figured out how to solve these problems, but some of the categories that currently exist could be upmerged now.

After many discussions, I have been pushing forward with many WP:CFD nominations on these class of categories. Again, note that I am not acting alone. I worked with two other users to set up the 8 Mar 2007 discussion on Fauna of Europe subcategories. I really thought that, after the discussions at Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion#Non-endemic "endemic" birds and Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007_March_8#Category:Fauna of Europe subcategories, consensus had been reached on at least some of these categories. I am disappointed to have to go through yet another round of discussion on these categories. Nonetheless, I am willing to participate in further discussion, and I will hold back on making additional nominations for now. Dr. Submillimeter 09:04, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

If the category system is broken it needs fixed. What you're doing is equivalent to a building burned to the ground and you're voting to move it away holding up a piece and asking if it should be removed. The discussionon Category:Fauna of Europe was absurd. No one answered any of my questions or paid the least bit of attention to what was said. The reason for closing it was that, "animals do not mind human borders, so anything found in one country is likely also found in the next country over." This is not true, and participants were not sayint it. "Anything found in one country is likely also found in the next country over?" Since when? Never.
I'm not invested in categories, but when people nominate them for deletion, ignore my questions, then close them for pure nonsense reasons, I find myself thinking, what's going on here, not, well is this a good idea or not.
A better idea, a better use of time, imo, would be to decide all at once if categories or lists or both are the way to go. Someone suggested point by point pluses and minuses for fauna and flora categorized or listed by country or other political entity. This would be a clear starting place.
If categories of flora or fauna by country should be deleted and replaced with lists, has anyone created the lists they are being replaced with, or was the information simply lost?
If categories of flora or fauna by country should be removed they should be removed all at once, rather than you and other editors (and was one of those other editors Radiant! who suggested that all animals are found in all countries?) putting up a handful at a time and repeating the same discussion, no one listening or responding to or paying attention to anyone else. If they should be kept, they should be kept all at once. Either way cleans up categories for discussion of this mess once and for all, it forces the indecisive biologists to really consider what is the best method for Wikipedia, and a method has recently been introduced that maybe can be used to create the lists that are supposed to be the replacement for categories.
And, yes, there are not a lot of biologists on Wikipedia, compared to the physical sciences, and due to the advances in the past 20 years in programming capacity and genetics techniques, the field is extremely dynamic, like the earth sciences on the road to Jaramillo. We have more fundamental issues that we are dealing with all of the time, while having to consider this.
Although your reference books may be by continent, that is generally only done on the most basic field guides, and even these often include internal political boundaries in their region maps for species. I have an entire bookcase full of floras of regions by political boundaries, and by geolomorphological regions that are within a single political entity, the Russian Arctic, San Mateo County, Mount Diablo, the Sierra Nevada, California, Colorad, New Mexico, Arizona, Australia, New Zealand, the Cape Province, Chile, the Bay Area. Not all of these have the type of fine detail or information necessary for me to use the work to put these in other than the political boundaries.
However, if the debate is only whether they should be in lists or categories by country, all this discussion of country is extraneous, and keeping on target: list or category by country, rather than floating all around: whether by country or not, would make it easier.
A decision is not going to come quickly. But when it does, then it can all be done at once. KP Botany 09:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Quick responses to the comments by KP Botany:
My first question was about how to go from using available resources, such as floras, which often do classify according to political boundaries, to a Wikipedia system that isn't in accordance with available references. You accused me of making a WP:POINT argument, which, as another editor pointed out, had nothing to do with what I was saying or asking. If the references use countries, how do we justify having Wikipedia editors use their own research to place these political entities somewhere else? European Russia's flora has to be where, in Asia? Or do we divide into 3 continents, Europea, Asia and Eurasia for countries that span both? The only answer to " What is the purpose of a category? How does that differ from the purpose of a list? Aren't they two different things? If they are, can one simply be changed for the other?" was that categories were for bottom up browsing.
I asked again, "And, again, I asked how categories and lists are used, but no one arguing for deletion seems to know, or think it is relevant. Isn't it? Are they exactly the same? Isn't categorizing about searching or something? If it is, does a list provided exactly the same thing? Are they equivalents?"
I asked again, "Again! Is there a purpose to categories or lists? If they cannot be distinguished or defined, suggesting the substitution of one for the other is simply making busy work for editors." And finally, you answered, "The general consensus has been to use lists when an equivalent categorization system is impractical simply because articles would contain very large, difficult-to-read category lists." And said it was general Wikipedia consensus and tallied with prior CfD actions, without naming any, and now you're using this particular CfD as the precedent for other CfDs. I don't know if you're aware that you do it, but you often raise spurious personal issues in CfD, such as accusing me of making a WP:POINT argument, when there was nothing remotely related, and now saying that, although I asked multiple questions which were repeatedly ignored, I am being hurtful by pointing out the utter disregard for discussion at CfD by people ignoring my questions. My questions WERE ignored, most remain unanswered. THAT was highly inappropriate, attempting and succeeding in steamrolling the discussion to its preordained conclusion by ignoring the many who stongly opposed the merge, and not answering questions about important issues people raised. KP Botany 11:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I am willing to propose a mass nomination for all categories sorting animals by country. User:Meegs had suggested using Europe as a test case, which I agreed with.
But you're not doing this, proposing a mass nomination for all animals by country, you're merely posting Europe, then you and Meegs vote for it, ignore all of the votes against it, and someone closes it based upon their personal theory that any animal found in one country is found in every country next to it. You're steamrolling through what two people decided should be policy. KP Botany 11:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Categories at WP:CFD may be listified without too much difficulty. List of blue plaques was created from a category using a bot.
Again, Category:Blue plaques does not exist, so I have no idea what was done. KP Botany 11:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Some question:
  • Would other users support a mass nomination to merge "fauna by country" categories into "fauna by continent" or "fauna by subregion" (e.g. "Fauna of Sub-Saharan Africa") categories if doen all at once?
This brings up another issue. South Africa's Cape Province has one of the world's most unique floras. And, in spite of the Radiant!'s assertion to the contrary, everything found there isn't found in every country next door. So, why should they be grouped together in with the rest of the flora of Sub-Saharan Africa? KP Botany 11:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Would KP Botany support this proposal, or is the request to nominate all categories at once simply a method for slowing down the debate because he/she wants to keep all of the categories?
I want my questions answered before I make a descision and without any further personal attacks against me, and I want the categorization system fixed or dumped if necessary, not just fauna. If it really is not usable, there is no reason for picking it apart piece by piece. And, while you've already debated and decided the issue with your two friends, I haven't, and I want input from more experienced editors in the realm of biogeography, not experts in categories for deletion. If you had answered my questions, maybe it could have been decided one way or another on the first board.
Can we stick to answering my questions? Getting together a list of useful points, including some of the points made by others on the "precedent" setting CfD that were ignored. Figuring out what is best for Wikipedia.
You can't really fix something that is broken by removing little parts here and there, especially if it truly needs a complete overhaul, or dumping. And even this isn't the place for deciding that. Again, this is a policy or technical issue. IF your goal really is to do away with categories, or most of them, then you should bring this up as a policy matter.KP Botany 11:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Dr. Submillimeter 10:02, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I have already spent ample time discussing categories versus lists and about categorizing endemic fauna. KP Botany has failed to acknowledge that I and other people have attempted to answer his/her questions on this topic. I would be willing to discuss more solutions (such as how to handle Category:Fauna of Russia, but I see no point. This discourse is no longer civil, and this categorization work is no longer worth my time. Dr. Submillimeter 11:45, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Answers to KP Botany - As regards to the questions you asked about How categories and lists are used, to my knowledge, I believe categories and lists provide the same function which is to allow other users to have an overview on the articles which are related to one another. However, a list provides more information than a category. See: List of French birds, List of Italian birds, List of Portuguese birds, List of Spanish birds for example.

And as regards to the other question u mentioned: Is there a purpose to categories or lists, I certainly believe that it is necessary to categorize or to make a list. This is at least a way to group a bunch of related stuff together and make the life of people searching for them easier. Luffy487 14:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Just because other guides go by country doesn't mean that we have to; indeed, the convenience of the person entering the data is not particularly relevant to the way Wikipedia is organized. I never said that "anything in one country is always in the next", that's a straw man. I said that most things in one country tend to also be in the next; for instance, most birds and mammals indigenous to Germany also appear in Poland, Denmark and The Netherlands. I mean seriously, you don't expect an animal to mind border signs, now do you? Also, when the country borders move around (as has been the case in Europe in the past decades), the animals obviously don't follow suit.
  • Common animals like the mouse or sparrow could be said to belong to the fauna of dozens of countries, which doesn't make it useful categorization. On the other hand, Algeria is part desert, part mountain, and part coastal area; fauna of that desert isn't really "fauna of Algeria" in that it does not appear in the parts of Algeria that aren't desert, and that it does appear in the parts of that (really rather large) desert that aren't Algeria. So no, this categorization really isn't practical. >Radiant< 09:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I can see one advantage to country categories for fauna. If someone searches the list of 25 or 30 countries in which the Turkey Vulture is found and notes that the Bahamas are included, that person could wonder, "I wonder what other birds are found in the Bahamas." Then finding out would take only one click (except for those that don't have articles yet).
Of course, the person could also wonder what birds look like the Turkey Vulture, fly "drunkenly", breed colonially, scavenge, have a good sense of smell, occur from Canada to Tierra del Fuego, exemplify convergent evolution, appear as characters in Thornton Burgess's children's stories, and I don't know what else. I'd guess all of those questions would be more likely than "What other birds live in such and such a country?" Whether that's true or not, we certainly don't want a category to answer every possible question of this kind, and I see no reason the geographical question should be the one exception.
If you want to know other advantages of categories in cases like this, you'll have to ask the people who defend them or try the previous debates. There don't seem to be too many of those people, though. —JerryFriedman 05:06, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Participants in this discussion might be interested in my suggestion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Should_we_have_hidden_categories.3F I suggested having some categories, like countries or those above for the Turkey Vulture, appear only if the user clicks a link to "More categories". —JerryFriedman 14:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Biota by country -- list only, no commentary

[edit] Pluses

  1. Floras are written by country.
Also applies to lists. —JerryFriedman 04:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minuses

  1. Cosmopolitan Widespread species wind up with large category sections on their pages. (Changed by JerryFriedman 04:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC))

[edit] List:Biota by country -- list only, no commentary

[edit] Pluses

  1. Can include additional text, sorting.

[edit] Minuses

  1. Can't just write a stub about a single species.
Certainly you can.
  1. Making the list requires commitment to writing a large article.
Not at all. A list can be a work in progress just as a category can. It takes exactly as much work to make the list by adding one species at a time as it does to make a category by categorizing one article at a time. Or, if someone is willing to make that commitment, a list can have red links so it will be more complete than the present coverage by means of articles. You can't do that with a category. —JerryFriedman 04:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
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