User talk:Caissaca

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[edit] Thanks

Thanks for your help on King Cobra! --Mike Searson (talk) 15:06, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bothrops jararaca

Hi Caissaca, I saw your recent revert of my last revert to Bothrops jararaca. Please read this and then maybe we can move forward in a more constructive manner. Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 21:40, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Jwinius, thanks for your reponse, I had not seen your discussion with UrsoBR. I obviously appreciate the principles of using referenced information for Wikipedia, just as I appreciate your tremendous efforts for the many snake articles you have worked on - they stand out through their professional standard. In this particular case, though, I don't think it's so much a matter of the principle of referencing information as simply one of wrong spelling - the spelling of the two common names is a simple matter of correct Portuguese, not of the principles of referencing (the accent on Mucuri may be a different matter, and I note that Brazilian websites disagree, even within themselves, on this aspect). I would agree with UrsoBR that we should not present information that is unambiguously wrong, irrespective of the source of the error.

The idea of deleting some of these common names makes a lot of sense, as most are of very limited use. In the Brazilian herpetological literature, Bothrops jararaca is given the common name "jararaca", the other Bothrops have other common names. Among the general population, the main name for most Bothrops in Brazil is "jararaca", the others are just local variations on that theme. Jararaca-do-rabo-branco refers to the white tail displayed by the juveniles of many Bothrops. Jararaca-do-cerrado is probably misleading and more applicable to Bothrops moojeni and other species found in the cerrado (B. jararaca is mostly found in forests), and caissaca is usually used for Bothrops moojeni, not B. jararaca, at least in the Brazilian literature (I am sure local farmers may use the terms differently).

Best, Caissaca (talk) 06:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Primary stock

Once again, thanks for your response to this question on the Subspecies talk page. If you can spare a little more time, though, I'd like to ask for your opinion on a related matter.

First of all, I believe what you say in this matter is correct. It makes sense and it agrees with what a number of others at WP have also said in other discussions that I've been part of. I must admit, however, that those discussion were caused in part by my own misunderstanding of this issue. The last time it was a debate where some people wanted to create separate articles for subspecies, including nominate subspecies, while others did not want to create articles for subspecies at all. I don't like either of those solutions.

I've wrestled with the problem of writing and organizing natural history articles at WP for the last two years, wondering how best to organize all the common names, scientific names, taxonomic synonyms and images of each taxon. I believe that what we need most of all is a practical solution. Considering the way WP works and how so many (sub)species are already described in the literature, I think the best method is is to have separate articles for all subspecies, except for the nominate subspecies, the information for which should be included in the species article. You can find my reasons here. What do you think of this approach? --Jwinius (talk) 15:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

Thanks for your comments. This is a very difficult issue altogether. I certainly agree with your standpoint on listing by scientific name rather than common name. The copperhead article could get interesting if half the contrbutors are writing about Agkistrodon contortrix and the other half about Austrelaps australis.

I can see your reasoning for the idea, but I am less enthusiastic about having different articles for subspecies, and only giving information about the nominate form in the species article. There are several reasons for this.

First, the nominate form does not have any special status (least of all biologically), and may only represent a very small proportion of the total range of the species - for instance, in the case of Crotalus durissus, the nominate form (C.d. durissus) is only found in parts of the Guyanas, whereas most of the vast S. American range is occupied by other, often more widespread subspecies. I suspect most readers will want to have general information on the species, not just specific info on that one set of populations. If one does want to go down the "a page for each ssp." route, then it would be more logical to have one page for the species as a whole, and a separate page for each ssp., including the nominate form - there is nothing special about it.

Second, as a matter of principle, much of current taxonomy is more than a little sceptical about the concept of subspecies and its usefulness. Most contemporary taxonomists look for evidence whether sets of populations are on an independent evolutionary trajectory or not - if they are, they are treated as species, if they are not, they are not give taxonomic recognition. If the aim is to have the Wikipedia reptile articles based on current taxonomic thinking, then separate articles for every subspecies are, if anything, a retrograde step (although I appreciate that most of the readership of WP does not consists of prefessional scientists).

Third, a very large number of recognised subspecies are either sets of populations recognised on the basis of some superficial feature of colour pattern and scalation, which do not withstand analysis with more comprehensive datasets, or they are entities that would under many currently applicable criteria be considered as separate species. Every phylogeographic or in-depth morphological analysis seems to result in various subspecies being binned, and others being elevated to species level, and that trend is continuing apace. Encouraging the creation of articles for each subspecies is going to create a lot of headaches every time a new revision appears. I know that this also applies to other types of articles, but subspecies articles are just asking for trouble.

So, in a nutshell, I am not all that favourable to the idea of separate subspecies articles. If we have to have them, then I would separate the overall species article from all other ssp. articles, including that of the nominate form.

Just my $.02 .... since I do not spend much time editing on Wikipedia, I obviously don't have your experience of the realities of WP editing, which may well be less than ideally matched to the ideas I expressed above.

Caissaca (talk) 21:38, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

You're certainly not alone in your opinion, but it makes sense, which is why I'm concerned. However, I can't think of any good way to convert that into a practical WP article structure. What I like about the current structure of the snake articles that I work on, in which the nominate subspecies is described in the species article, is that it's always easy to figure out which descriptions, images and names should be associated with which articles. If we were to create articles for nominate subspecies, it would not be possible to define the contents of the species articles as clearly, which would result in many pointless debates. It doesn't help that many sources describe species simply by describing each subspecies. On the other hand, if we were ban articles on subspecies, it would become equally difficult to manage the names, images and descriptions of the subspecies within the species articles, resulting in more ado about nothing. --Jwinius (talk) 17:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)