Talk:Anseriformes

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TL;DR —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.156.153.88 (talk) 01:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Recent research shows the Anseriformes to be ancestral to other Neognathes, as in the Taxonomy section and diagram, and therefore not descendant from Charadriiformes or other groups. However, I am reluctant to revert the incompatible bit in the Evolution section until this has been discussed. jimfbleak 06:57, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As the person who added the sentence on Vegavis, I just wanted to say that I am no expert on bird evolution at all. I believe I have summarized correctly the main point of the article I cited, but I would recommend that those more knowledgeable should double check what I've done. The Singing Badger 15:20, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge Waterfowl here?

Waterfowl is an awkward stub especially as regards its science. Since the non-Anseriform waterfowl are insignificant in number, it might be better to subsume Waterfowl herein, make it more prominent in the intro, and add a remark that gallinules and coots are not Anseriformes. Such as: Their common name is '''Waterfowl''', a term sometimes also applied to unrelated [[coot]] and [[gallinule]] species. Dysmorodrepanis 22:17, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree, only I believe there's a wiki guideline or policy that common names should be used as article titles wherever possible. So this article should be merged into Waterfowl, not the other way around. Dinoguy2 23:30, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree,can't think of a reason to keep both articles, as long as waterfowl is set up as a redirect. Pmeleski 01:36, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
sounds good to me - but anseriformes should be the main or there will be big probs with links. jimfbleak 05:12, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I think that anseriformes should be merged into waterfowl because most of the zoology topics are listed under their scientific names, except for the bird topics.... This should be resolved. In almost all of the other zoology topics the scientific name redirects to the common name, for example rodentia will redirect to rodents. Marr75 21:09, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Anseriformes is a much more clearly defined group and a much more coherent article. More practically, who's going to fix all the links if Anseriformes disappears? I'll have a quick tinker with waterfowl so that it makes a bit more sense. jimfbleak 05:34, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
I completely agree that it would be easier to not have anseriformes be absorbed, but most of the bird orders are currently stylisticly incorrect in that they are not listed by their common name.Marr75 01:27, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
I think that they should be merged. I apologize for not using big words, as I am a 7th grader, but waterfowl and Anseriformes are just about the same thing.
Not... quite... Few people eat magpie geese and nobody ever tried how this guy, Presbyornis, tasted like :D Dysmorodrepanis 16:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Oppose merger: "Waterfowl" is roughly defined as waterbirds of domestic use. It is not a scientific term and forcing the category is not advised, as the term has varying meanings. More than 1,000 articles link to the term "waterfowl" -- many cultural and not scientific in nature -- and double redirects will be created. 75.85.177.24 23:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

But these "waterbirds of domestic use" are almost always - except in a few and rather local cases such as when people go stalking soras - Anatidae... to which Waterbird redirects, which is way wrong IMHO!
Thus, I'd rather suggest this:
  • Waterfowl redirects to Anatidae or the other way around, and gets an explanation in the intro mentioning that "waterfowl" almost always means a member of this group, but see also:
  • Waterbird, which gets restored and the content of Waterfowl put into it. Plus all those freshwater aquatic birds like storks, herons, cranes, rails, flamingos, certain "waders"/"shorebirds" like phalaropes etc etc will receive due treatment there too. Think a freshwater version of seabird... also because most if not all of these - waterbirds plus seabirds - except Anseriformes and maybe a few others seem to be a very closely related group, perhaps even a clade. Dysmorodrepanis 16:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with Dysmorodrepanis, except I would agree that the common name Waterfowl should receive Anatidae, not the other way around. jimfbleak, the merge from article won't go away, it'll just redirect, there may be some substantial fixing to do, but that's because things are all messed up right now and need to be fixed. And there may be more than a few double-redirects, for the same reason. Merging Waterfowl here makes no sense, so I am removing those tags and re-assigning them as suggested for further discussion on the appropriate pages. The new tags will suggest Anatidae merge into Waterfowl (with a consequent clean up of that article). I will leave the proposed break-out of Waterbirds to others, as my focus right now is on the agriculturally significant order Anatidae.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:43, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Doug's suggestions. Waterfowl should be the article title if a merge occurs, per the Wikipedia policy to use common names over scientific names wherever possible. Dinoguy2 02:34, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Except that waterfowl and Anatidae are not the same thing. Waterfowl includes some, but not all, of the Rallidae, and also includes the non-Anatidae Magpie Goose. It cannot make sense to merge one bird family and a small part of another into an article which is a non-scientific poorly defined mess. How would you do the taxobox to include both ducks and coots? or would Anatidae, a very important family scientifically and economically, become the only bird family without a taxoboxed article. The main justification for the merge seems to be that the article gets an English name, but it's a scientific nonsense. In view of the importance of this issue, I suggest it is raised at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds, or you might walk into a storm. Jimfbleak 06:56, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Incidentally, all fauna articles use English names where they exist, eg Penguin, Wren, but sometimes there is no direct equivalent, eg Threskiornithidae, Anatidae or Dicruridae. Jimfbleak 07:17, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree Jim, we shouldn't actually merge anything at this point, given the apparent lack of consensus. I have moved the tags as mentioned above, that's all for now.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)