Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Animals

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Contents

[edit] Naming Conventions

There are currently several different naming conventions by subprojects and sister projects of WP:ANIMALS, including WP:PLANTS and WP:BIRDS. I think it might be a good idea to have a formal discussion on the guideline we will use, and then individual subprojects can depart from that if they have a system that works better. Personally, I think we should use the standard WP:TOL guideline, but depart in that common names for article names should always be capitalized (Cane Toad but not Komodo dragon). If subprojects choose to ignore that, that's fine, but there are a LOT of phylum and orders that don't have their own projects. J. Hall • (Talk) 17:54, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I figure use the WP:TOL conventions unless subprojects have their own conventions. Cheers, Corvus coronoides talk 17:35, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Participants

If there's a seperate page to sign up on (Wikipedia:WikiProject Animals/Participants), then why does this page have it's own "participants" section? Should this be removed? --Luai lashire 22:47, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Yep, it has it's own page. By setting it up this way, it prevents talk pages from getting overly crowded. I removed it from the main page and added the names to the list at the page. J. Hall • (Talk) 23:49, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Animal colouration

I've been trying to get input on this but I'm not having much luck. Basically the problem is that we have no article on coloration in general. Should we have one on animals specifically, or are the principles too similar with coloration in other organisms, such that there would be too much duplication? Richard001 22:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I personally think that article is using material so dated, and without citations, that a general article might be better from scratch. If the sections get too big they can be broken up (Coloration (animals) and Coloration (plants) etc. I'd assume that duplication would be an issue, but if that happens, I'd say merging the articles would be better. I can't fathom the animal kingdom needing it's own, since really the underlying biology would be the only significant difference. The colors, and the reasons for using them, are similar across all kingdoms. J. Hall • (Talk) 00:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Probably the best idea. We'll keep the animal one until a new one has been written, then we can decide if there's any need for it. Richard001 07:53, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Territorial marking

I suggest this be merged with territory (animal), which I also think we should move to territoriality. Thoughts? Richard001 07:53, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Organisms Wiki

Organisms Wiki was recently started as a wikia to educate on all types of organisms and their biological counterparts. This wiki will aim to provide free, excellence-quality and concise articles dealing with organisms and habitats. Organisms Wiki is a wikia, and is also very small and new, which is why I would like to leave a note here that we appreciate any helpful contributions.

I have had people criticizing the sense of making a wiki on this topic when indeed Wikipedia covers just about anything related to organisms. Sure, this may be true - but a major advantage of having Organisms Wiki hosted at wikia is to cover the topics in broader depth. Thank you. Organisms Wiki Paul Davey 00:23, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I've left a reply on your talk page. I think most of our biology editors would agree such a project is unnecessary; our current biology articles are too poor and our editors spread too thin. You describe the project as 'free, concise articles about organisms. How would that be 'in broader depth'? In fact, I challenge you to add referenced material to any article that is too 'in depth'. If such a situation did arise we simply split off a new daughter article - that's how Wikipedia works. I feel the same way about many other Wikia projects, though some clearly wouldn't meet the notability requirements of Wikipedia or have a different purpose (e.g. uncyclopedia). Richard001 01:34, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Richard. At the moment, we have a very limited quantity of biologists, and a severely limited group of zoologists working on biology articles. I fail to see what "Organism Wiki" can provide that Wikipedia can't. In fact, in visiting the wiki, all I see are replica's of existing Wikipedia articles.
Wikia certainly has a purpose. Uncyclopedia and even Wookieepedia makes sense, given the former is a joke, the latter written mostly in universe. But given that Wikipedia itself has a limited collection of biology-related article, I fail to see how a Wikia-hosted wiki will have any more success, given it won't have the "brand" that WP does. I'd say your time would be FAR better spent joining WP:BIOL, WP:TREE or one of the various subprojects. Justin chat 06:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested articles

Should we just redirect all animal requests not covered by daughter projects to our requests page? Richard001 08:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

You mean list the articles there or litterally create the articles with a #REDIRECT to the page? I certainly think the former makes sense, as the requested articles you listed is completely overrun with needed articles. Justin chat 02:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I moved the entire section to our Animal requests page. A lot of the daughter projects don't have their own Article requests sections, so I moved them as well. Justin chat 19:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Animal article nominated

I've nominated the Animal article for the Article Improvement Drive. Justin chat —Preceding comment was added at 20:20, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What featured pictures should be acceptable for animals?

There is a discussion here. Permalink is here. Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:38, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Greenspun illustration project: requests now open

Dear Wikimedians,

This is a (belated) announcement that requests are now being taken for illustrations to be created for the Philip Greenspun illustration project (PGIP).

The aim of the project is to create and improve illustrations on Wikimedia projects. You can help by identifying which important articles or concepts are missing illustrations (diagrams) that could make them a lot easier to understand. Requests should be made on this page: Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project/Requests

If there's a topic area you know a lot about or are involved with as a Wikiproject, why not conduct a review to see which illustrations are missing and needed for that topic? Existing content can be checked by using Mayflower to search Wikimedia Commons, or use the Free Image Search Tool to quickly check for images of a given topic in other-language projects.

The community suggestions will be used to shape the final list, which will be finalised to 50 specific requests for Round 1, due to start in January. People will be able to make suggestions for the duration of the project, not just in the lead-up to Round 1.

thanks, pfctdayelise (talk) 13:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC) (Project coordinator)

[edit] Proposed change to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)

There is a current proposal to change an animal-related naming convention, which directly effects the the Manual of Style guideline, and the naming conventions policy. If you are interested, your input would be appreciated. Justin chat 06:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed change in taxobox categories

There is a current CfD discussing a potential change to Category:Animal articles without taxoboxes. There are two proposed changes: Category:Animal articles needing a taxobox and Category:Animal articles without infoboxes. At present time there is no consensus, so input from the WP:ANIMAL editors would be appreciated. . Justin chat 19:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of animals displaying homosexual behavior AfD

List of animals displaying homosexual behavior is up for AfD. Benjiboi 17:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Aquatic Invertebrates

I am making this Wikiproject and I would like to get some backing, as I think it would be advantageous. User:Jourdy288/Wikiproject Aquatic Inverts Jourdy288 (talk) 22:38, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Made REDIRECT: Please review

I am new to WikiProject Animals. On the Article Requests page, I made "Kamtjatka bear" redirect to Kamchatka Brown Bear. If I've done anything inappropriate, please let me know. Thanks. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 20:33, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

As long as they are the same species (or, I guess, subspecies?) there should be no problems. You may like to add the alternative spelling to the article. Also, you can tag redirects with a template, for example this one would be a redirect from an alternative name: {{R from synonym}}. Not that I've tagged many of the redirects I've made... Richard001 (talk) 04:55, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Social behavior in animals

Do we have any current article that is more or less the synonymous with this? (cf. Britannica article) There's social behavior, which is very stubby, and I'm not entirely sure of its future direction. Should this redirect there, or somewhere else, or should we create a new article from scratch? Richard001 (talk) 08:27, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it's scattered in many different articles, Ethology (section on society life), social ecology, Sociobiology and quite a few other related articles. If you're going to start a new article is should probably be named social ethology. Calibas (talk) 21:42, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Do you think we need such an article, though? Richard001 (talk) 21:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
I think it would be a good article to have, but it would be a bit of work to put everything together. If someone's willing to put forth the effort it would be worth it, but if nobody feels like doing all the work I think we should keep it as part of the Ethology article instead of creating a new stub. We could create redirects to Ethology#Society life for social behavior in animals and social ethology.Calibas (talk) 22:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reminder of the Philip Greenspun Illustration project

Hi. You may be familiar with the Philip Greenspun Illustration Project. $20,000 has been donated to pay for the creation of high quality diagrams for Wikipedia and its sister projects.

Requests are currently being taken at m:Philip Greenspun illustration project/Requests and input from members of this project would be very welcome. If you can think of any diagrams (not photos or maps) that would be useful then I encourage you to suggest them at this page. If there is any free content material that would assist in drawing the diagram then it would be great if you could list that, too.

If there are any related (or unrelated) WikiProjects you think might have some suggestions then please pass this request over. Thanks. --Cherry blossom tree 16:51, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fighting in animals

Fighting redirects to the shamelessly anthropocentric combat. We need an article on physical conflict between animals (it could be mentioned in interference competition and male-male competition, and contain a summary of blood sport. What would be a good name? Richard001 (talk) 03:40, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

It may be a bit too broad for what you want, but Animal aggression seems like a broad enough topic. Were you thinking more interspecies fighting or is a general title more appropriate? Justin chat 05:02, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking more intraspecies, though there are physical conflicts between species as well, e.g. those with partially overlapping niches and this would be a good inclusion in such an article. Even broader still is simply interference competition, though this can also include other forms (e.g. mussels competing with others for space through shell strength etc). Animal aggression sounds like a good title, though for now the most I can do is add it to the requests page. We really need to recruit some more writers! Richard001 (talk) 00:19, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProjet Birds March 2008 Newsletter (full contents)

The Birds WikiProject Newsletter
Issue I (March 2008)

Welcome to the first issue of the Birds WikiProject newsletter. We hope to produce it monthly, to keep project members up-to-date regarding current efforts and issues. This month only, the full newsletter is being delivered to your mailbox. In future months, a link will be posted instead, though you can choose to continue receiving the full newsletter—or to receive nothing at all—here.
Articles of note

New featured articles and lists – 2008:

  1. Blackbird
  2. Andean Condor
  3. Chiffchaff
  4. Northern Pintail
  5. House Martin

New good articles – 2008:

  1. American Robin
  2. Chough
  3. Osprey (a former collaboration)
  4. Rock Pigeon
  5. Song Thrush
  6. Storm-petrel
  7. White-eyed River Martin

Special kudos to jimfbleak (talk · contribs), who was lead editor on an impressive eight of these articles—with, of course, capable assistance from others in copy-editing and article review!
Project news
  • The current project collaboration is Moa. Help us to improve the article about this intriguing group of birds—now-extinct species which were once the dominant herbivores in New Zealand's forests.
  • On a related note, be sure to vote for April's collaboration, which will be chosen on 21 March. Nominations are listed on the collaboration page; feel free to add a new article to the list if there's one you'd especially like to see worked on.
  • Work on our first potential featured topic—New World vultures—is progressing nicely, with only two articles left to go: New World Vulture and Cathartidae. Lead editors Hey jude, don't let me down (talk · contribs) and Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk · contribs) are particularly looking for help on the family (Cathartidae) article.
  • We now have more than 2,400 articles awaiting assessment. If each project member assessed just a couple of articles a day (most will be stub or start class), we could quickly drive that number down. To find articles needing assessment, have a look at the Statistics table here and click on Unassessed for a listing.
New task force co-leader wanted

Tobi4242 (talk · contribs) has volunteered to help start up a Raptors task force, to fall under the umbrella of the Birds WikiProject, but is looking for another editor willing to serve as co-coordinator. Anyone who'd like to help is encouraged to get in touch.

Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Please contact MeegsC (talk · contribs) with your ideas!

To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.



This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 18:39, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deterioration of articles

It pains me to see articles deteriorate, but I've seen too many instances to pretend it doesn't happen. Write a great article and, to be sure, it will gradually deteriorate given enough time, especially if a lot of people edit it. This can only be prevented by watching the article and healing its every injury. I've tried several times to try to get the community to think about doing something about this problem, but people seem unwilling to even acknowledge it. So maybe a bottom up approach might work (I'm pretty sure it won't, but I can at least say I tried...)

So today I see the article sponge, and note that several sections are missing. Surely enough, some IP idiot has come along, removed the section, and their vandalism has been lost in the almost daily flood of almost purely nonsense edits (but probably not quite enough to be protected...) and thereafter forgotten about. Obviously nobody watches the article, or if anyone does, they're doing a pretty bad job of it. In any case, I can't find out if anyone is, so I'm basically in the dark.

So, besides the idiotically narrow minded reactionary response of just fixing this one instance of vandalism, what can we actually do to treat the cause of this problem? My suggestion is, not surprisingly, that we need to have people responsible for articles. We need a system of article maintenance. There are potentially millions of articles that could be written on animals, so this is no easy thing to sort out. But if we can identify our most important articles (top importance, for instance) and make sure each and every one of those is watched and maintained by someone (ideally more than one person for the top articles, but one will have to do for a start), we can at least hope to prevent our most vital articles from falling victim to the steady deterioration that will otherwise be their fate.

Is anyone interested in doing this? Richard001 (talk) 07:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea. We may also have to consider blocking anon edits on articles that get the most attention (Animal, for example, has little problems since it's semi-protected). Currently I have most of the top articles watchlisted, but most are in such dire need of help they aren't being vandalized very often. I've been a little busy lately, and my work as of late has largely been focused on the horrid quality that taxoboxes are in (some are completely wrong). However, I'd be more than happy to help work out a system preventing these articles from getting destroyed. Justin chat 15:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, I suppose we could start by identifying a small number of articles that are most important. We could also use the opportunity to review our top-importance class (make sure we haven't got any major omissions etc). From there we would need to organize some sort of watching system where we all knew who was watching what. I'd like to be able to find out if any article was being maintained, and if so by who, from the article itself. For example there could be a template saying 'this article is being maintained by <maintainer(s)> of WikiProject Animals'. The maintained template could be used, but I don't really like that one. It seems to imply some sort of authority (which would be nice, but we don't have many experts here) and editing activity which is by no means necessary for a maintainer. If this was used though we would still need some way of listing or categorizing the maintained and unmaintained articles so we can see how things are going and whether the maintainers are all still active.
We're also very short of volunteers. We'll have to try to recruit more editors if it is to work. Richard001 (talk) 09:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Let's start with four: animal, zoology, ethology and invertebrate. None of these are particularly brilliant, but we're not concerned here with improving them, just with stopping them from getting any worse, and trying to minimize the time they are vandalized. So, if we're going to do this, how are we going to record who is maintaining what? Richard001 (talk) 07:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Can I suggest something? We could create a list of 50 or so important articles unlikely to be covered by one of the subprojects on a new subsection in the WP:ANIMAL space (this is how we flag ongoing tasks at WP:BIRD). Then, rather than watching them on an ongoing basis, simply conduct a six-monthly check on them. Every six months compare the old and new version for the kind of missed vandalism and stuff that you dont notice over the short term. If whole sections are missing these can be restored, other problems can be quickly identified, without worrying about the article on an ongoing basis. As each article is checked by an editor it can be struck through and a few editors can quickly work their way through the list, then get back to the stuff they want to do for six months. Thoughts? Sabine's Sunbird talk 23:47, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Sounds kinda like having a bath every six months to me. If you're only going to fix vandalism every six months there's not really much point fixing it at all. And only a handful of articles would be covered anyway. It would still be better than nothing I guess, but isn't really what I was looking for. Richard001 (talk) 05:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Okay, here's another crazy idea: we add a field to the template: |maintainer=, followed by the maintainer's/maintainers' user name(s) (without the User:). This would then show something like 'This article is being maintained (show details)', clicking upon which would show who was maintaining the article. I'm sure there would be plenty of opposition even to something like this in the wider world of Wikipedia politics, but we could always be bold and see how it goes. Richard001 (talk) 03:36, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
The Wikipolitics (related to WP:OWN, I assume) would probably be easier if you allowed more than one username there. As for whether this would be effective, I guess it depends on whether people whose name there actually watch the page, and whether names get removed when people lose interest. Compare the list of participants on a wikiproject - does this actually help anything, or is it pretty much unrelated to the list of people who actually do things on the wikiproject? Kingdon (talk) 18:30, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
More than one user could (and ideally would) be included; sorry if I might have implied otherwise. That's definitely one of the major problems; ideally people would be honest when signing up as a maintainer and self remove when no longer active. Others could monitor their performance and automatic processes could remove inactive editors, but there is no easy way to tell whether someone is maintaining an article properly, poorly, or not at all. Richard001 (talk) 08:54, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I see Justin is going ahead with some modifications to the template. Hopefully we can give this a try. We might also try to identify some animal articles within the project that tend to receive a lot of vandalism. Richard001 (talk) 08:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, take a look at {{Maintained}} might just be the ticket, so to speak -- Nashville Monkey 15:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm aware of it, but I don't like that template much (see my unresolved comments on the talk page). Richard001 (talk) 07:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tree of life banner and phyla articles

I note that a lot of the articles that formerly came under the TOL banner need updating. I've updated some of the major animal phyla articles (nemertea, ctenophore, arthropod etc). I've also tended to lift the importance and often lower the rating (arthropod was especially overrated, and apparently unmaintained as well [see above]). I think the TOL banner should only go on the animal article itself, just as our banner should only go on arthropod and not more specific taxa. Assessing the quality and importance of all the animal phyla articles might also be a good idea. Richard001 (talk) 09:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Homosexuality in animals - debate brewing

Someone at Talk:Homosexuality#The word "homosexuality" or "homosexual" should not be used to describe same-sex animal bonding has begun criticizing the use of the word homosexual when referring to non-human animal behavior. My contention is that that is the term used in the scientific literature. Am I incorrect? Does anyone know of any serious ethological/zoological debate over what same-sex sexual behavior in non-human animals should be called? Given other discussions with this user, I am anticipating an escalation of his argument, and I would like to know that my footing is certain. (Is there anyone who can affirm or deny his contention with reference to the scientific literature?) Aleta Sing 19:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Lots of references at List of animals displaying homosexual behavior and Homosexuality in animals but I didn't read them all to see what terms they use. Some of the titles seem more cute than clinical, but all the ones I glanced at matched the (sometimes controversial) words used for humans. Kingdon (talk) 18:54, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Biologists often just use the normal word, e.g. harem. Some words are somewhat controversial, e.g. the use of the word rape to describe manifestations of sexual conflict in animals. Richard001 (talk) 07:59, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Funisia

I've written a stub for Funisia, a fossil which is in the news currently for being the oldest animal to have sex (or other such characterizations, many of which are surely wrong or just kind of vague and trivial, since Funisia is one of the oldest known animals period). Just to pick one, First sex was 570m years ago. I mention it here just in case this is cropping up on other wikipedia articles which should be linking to Funisia. If anyone feels like working more on this, the first step would likely be the Science (journal) article itself; I wrote the stub just from the abstract and some news articles. Kingdon (talk) 20:39, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Audio requests

Audio requests are a very seldom utilized form of request here. The number is gradually growing though. Animals are the only form of life I know of that make sounds, one of the many unique properties that has arisen first in the animals. They don't appear in the "lower" animals, like sponges, box jellies and flatworms, but besides that they are seen in a range of taxa, from crickets to dolphins. I suggest we make a subcategory of Category:Wikipedia requested audio specifically for animal requests, something like Category:Wikipedia requested audio of animals. I've added an audio request feature to several templates, and I suggest we make it a standard among all animal projects that involve animals capable of producing sound, as there are bound to be many such species with no media available. As new categories become available (e.g. the one I am proposing, for a start), we can just modify the templates, changing the location of requests in the process. Richard001 (talk) 06:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I like this idea, and have started putting the articles I'm assessing for WP:BIRD into this category (where appropriate). Should we now start setting up some of those categories and sub-categories, so we can get listings of the audio requests for each particular project? MeegsC | Talk 11:11, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I can't actually think of any animals outside of arthropods and vertebrates that actually make any distinctive sounds, so I guess there isn't much use adding a req audio function to the animals banner itself. Which subproject banners should we add it to then? Richard001 (talk) 22:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I'd suggest WP:BIRD, WP:ANIMAL, WP:AAR, and WP:ARTH. Some of these may already have a "needs-audio" flag in their assessment template—I know we've already got one in the BirdTalk template, for example. We'll need to set up sub-categories to break these requests out from the general audio requests (which is where they're going now). I'll leave that to someone with more know-how than me! : ) MeegsC | Talk 01:16, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
As I said I don't think there is much use adding it to the animals banner as I know of no animals outside the more specific projects (whose banner will be used instead of ours). All I can think of is arthropods (specifically insects; I can't think of other arthropods that make sounds but I presume there are some) and the verterbrates. Do any fish even make sounds? Marine mammals make extensive use of sound so I wouldn't be surprised if fish (perhaps even some cephalopods) do something similar. So basically it would just be arth, birds, AAR and mammals, and some of their subprojects where it would be appropriate. There are also the sounds animals make outside of communication, such as a hummingbird hawkmoth's wings beating, or limpets grazing with their radula, but I don't think these would justify modifying every animals project's banner. I'll create an animal subcategory for audio requests now. I don't know if more specific categories are called for yet as there are less than a page of requests, but we could certainly split them up if it starts growing. Richard001 (talk) 11:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I have created Category:Wikipedia requested audio of animals and have modified the primates, arthropods and AAR banners. More remain to be done. Richard001 (talk) 11:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Oops! I meant to say WP:MAMMAL earlier but typed WP:ANIMAL. I think you can probably set up a sub-category for bird requests. We've just started putting requests for audio into article assessments (and may ask for help from a bot to flag more), but with more than 9,500 species on the radar screen, this could soon mean a very many articles in that category. It would probably swamp any and all other requests... MeegsC | Talk 12:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I've changed the BirdTalk template to put audio requests into this category. Tested it (on European Starling!) and it works. How do I now get all the already-assigned articles into this new category? I thought they'd transfer once I modified the template, but they haven't. MeegsC | Talk 12:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure. Some bird pages are showing up (e.g. tui (bird), which has not been changed since the template was modified), but others are still in the audio requests category. They should all be in the new one according to my understanding. If the problem persists we can always seek someone more clueful.
Bird articles would certainly provide an enormous number of requests, though the insects would probably swamp even the birds given that there are probably well over a million species of them. We could possibly get a bot to flag all bird articles without audio (which would be most of them), though that assumes every bird article should have audio available and accessible from the article page (what if there is some at Commons?). I don't know... it's sort of like getting a bot to place the animals template on every page within our scope (should we do that?)
Ah, but many (most?) insects don't make a noise; I've yet to hear a butterfly or moth, for instance... : ) Seriously, though, there are a few bird species which don't make much in the way of noise—and lots which don't have any recordings made anywhere, let alone here—but I don't know if that means we shouldn't flag them all up, and then remove the ones we know don't need them. Certainly that's got to be easier than adding the flag to 9500 articles individually! MeegsC | Talk 00:35, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Given their species abundance it would require only 1/100th as many insects to to produce sounds, and I can think of several species off hand that make very conspicuous sounds, so there would probably be at least a similar number of insects that do make sounds. Richard001 (talk) 06:54, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I'll add the audio request banner to the animal template too. I've just remembered that there are some non-taxa specific animal behavior articles where it can be useful (e.g. alarm call). I've also added it to the navbox. Richard001 (talk) 00:06, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Not sure a bot is the best idea. You may want to add a section to the taxobox for the audio, if making it a bird standard. If this is done, you would also need a template for those birds which do not produce noise or those which are extinct. Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 04:19, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
This is really something that needs to be decided on at the bird project. Making it a standard for infoboxes is an interesting idea. I'm not sure why you think a different infobox would be needed; you just don't have the audio shown if the article doesn't have a suitable file (which will be most for the foreseeable future) just as you leave the image field blank if there is no image available. The problem is which vocalization do you have for the infobox? Each species probably has several vocalizations - alarm calls, mobbing calls, contact calls, territorial and mating songs, calls of chicks from the nest etc etc.

Richard001 (talk) 06:54, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I was just considering using a bot to tag the template (which is on the talk page) with "needs-audio=yes"; this will list the species in the new Wikipedia requested audio of animals category. I'm not sure adding a sound to the taxobox would be appropriate. Currently, we're putting any recorded songs and calls into a "Vocalizations" section, which seems a much more intuitive (and flexible) place. MeegsC | Talk 07:29, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Looking things over it doesn't seem there is much more to be done. Most templates have been modified besides the mammals one and some of its descendants. I'm waiting for the annoying full protection to be lifted from the mammal template first. Richard001 (talk) 07:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Here is what I had in mind when I suggested it be added to the taxobox, although it sounds as though it may not be such a good idea.Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 00:11, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
It would look better if it was at the bottom, not the top, but I'm not sure the taxobox is the best place. Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:44, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I must agree with you that the bottom is far better than the top. Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 22:06, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I've uploaded a new version of the image with the sounds at the bottom. Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 22:26, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Quadruped gaits

WikiProject Equine has been working on several articles having to do with gaits:

Help would be appreciated, particularly to expand the POV of all these articles from horses to encompass other relevant quadruped animals. --Una Smith (talk) 21:58, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Except, obviously, Horse gait! And also be aware that there is a dispute amongst editors over if there really is a POV problem here at all. Montanabw(talk) 05:33, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Molluscs?

Posted to the animal, gastropod and cephalopod projects; please discuss at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Animals

I'm guessing some of you have noticed that there is no mollusc WikiProject, despite there being both a gastropod and cephalopod project (two classes of the phylum Mollusca). Should anything be done about this? They could perhaps be merged, made into work groups of a parent molluscs project, or a parent project created and the two left as subprojects? Molluscs are the second most abundant animal phyla in terms of known species and an active project on them would certainly be an asset to Wikipedia. Richard001 (talk) 11:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Go for it. I'd make Gastropod and Cephalopod descendants of Mollusc. Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 13:36, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Keep in mind I'm not planning to work on a mollusc project myself (though I may be able to help out if there is any setting up etc to be done). When you say descendants, you mean descendant projects, right? How active are the two projects? To be honest, there doesn't seem to be much activity on the cephalopod project and only slightly more at gastropods; I personally think a mollusc project would be better than two separate ones, with the existing projects remaining work groups of the project at most. Richard001 (talk) 23:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, most students of this very large phylum (malacologists), specialize in just one class of mollusks, and often know relatively little about the others. From that perspective, individual projects make sense. Tim Ross (talk) 10:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
That doesn't help much with the classes that aren't covered (e.g. bivalves) though. Even if malacologists do specialize a little they are still studying organisms with many very similar characteristics, and there aren't going to be many people in isolated groups working at the class level. I think this is somewhat like the animals project itself - we didn't have anything before, going straight from 'tree of life' to 'gastropods' or 'birds'. Now that we have a project some good progress is starting to be made, and new possibilities are opened up. We're still a pretty disparate group though.
Another way to think of it is if there was a molluscs project and people were proposing a more specific subproject like bivalves. Given that there would only be at most a handful of interested editors, it would probably be better not to divide it further. Richard001 (talk) 01:40, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Another way to look at it is that there is obviously interest in the two current projects, if there had been an interest in molluscs there would have been a project titled same started. As it is, the two projects have worked for numerous months and they are accomplishing work (albeit slowly), I don't see a reason to fix what isn't broken. If at some future date the interest in molluscs in general increases I would be all for a project being created and the two current projects being "adopted" by same. As for the "classes that aren't covered (e.g. bivalves)" they still would not be addressed directly if there wasn't somebody willing to do the enormous task of tagging each one of them, working to correct mistakes, etc... so you'd have a big project with little to no work being done vs two small projects with their limited scope making some progress. JMHO - -- Nashville Monkey 21:30, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Second infobox

This is sort of an extension of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Animals#Audio requests, or at least it has to do with it.

I was trying to quickly find out which bony fish was the largest, so I visited the ocean sunfish page. I immediately turned my attention to the taxobox, forgetting that the taxobox did not function the same way as a normal taxobox would. Then I got to thinking...

I have a collection of animal fact cards called the Wildlife Treasury...or something like that. Each card had not only an article on the animal and the classification, but also a quick facts table listing things such as the size of an adult, the gestation period, the number of young per brood/litter, the life span, the distribution, the diet, the wingspan (when applicable), and possibly a few various other statistics. It all fit on a section of the card that was about 2x2 inches (it was small print, but it was still brief).

Here's my proposal: Could we possibly either redesign the taxobox or add a second infobox to pages? This new section would also give the audio section a better home.

Let me know your opinion. I'm going to do a bit of research on how to make infoboxes and try to come up with a rough example of what I am suggesting.

Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 01:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Here is a rough idea of what I'm talking about: experimental second infobox
I came up with the name Zoobox as a test name, but I'm sure there's a better name for it, since it could also be used for plants and whatnot.
Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 02:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, test away and let me know what you think. PLEASE feel free to improve on it! User:Bob the Wikipedian/Zoobox/doc
Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 05:34, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I have thought about this myself and think an infobox would be the best way to provide this sort of information. It could be used for any organism (thus it would be more a TOL/BIOL project thing), though the nature of the information given would be very different depending on the species. It might also be better as a separate page (e.g. an organism 'data page') that is basically a large infobox (I suggested something like this for {{infobox-country}}, but nobody seemed interested). I think this sort of thing is useful as it allows people to quickly find facts without having to read through a lot of prose. For many species though, we don't have much data available. Richard001 (talk) 08:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Here are a few examples to give you an idea of the varieties of ways this box could be implemented in different animals. (they aren't supposed to be inside of each other...that is a bug. Please feel free to work on the template design as you see fit. (As you can see, the distribution image and audio preview sections need work):


I'm adding some line breaks after this section, since my sloppy coding has spilled onto the text below. If anyone knows about coding these things, PLEASE feel free to edit the code at User:Bob the Wikipedian/Zoobox. If you update the code, I believe you will need to refresh this page by clicking edit and save (don't make any changes, just save). Sorry for the inconvenience this appears to be causing as far as the page layout. Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 02:18, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Yikes, the code really needs reworked. It's so bad I had to remove the examples from the page in order to keep the rest of the page in good condition. You can find examples here:
User:Bob the Wikipedian/Zoobox/American Crow
User:Bob the Wikipedian/Zoobox/Humpback Whale
User:Bob the Wikipedian/Zoobox/Common Starfish
Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 02:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry Bob, but I'm going to need a lot of convincing about this. Some of these things can be incorporated into the taxobox anyway, and I don't see the value in repeating everything again. At least with taxonomic info a taxobox can run you all the way backl to kingdom and includes info not included in the main text (like genus or species author). The second infobox would also look doubly ridiculous in stub and start class articles which already have the problem of overlong taxoboxes being much lengthier than the text. Sabine's Sunbird talk 04:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Which of this information is in the taxobox already? I'm aware of the distribution, but if this infobox is implemented, I think it makes sense to move it to this box from the taxobox rather than duplicate it. After all, it's a statistic, not part of the taxonomy. Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 13:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProjet Birds May 2008 Newsletter

The Birds WikiProject Newsletter
Issue III (May 2008)

Welcome to the third issue of the Birds WikiProject newsletter. Good news: we've finally eliminated our massive backlog of unassessed articles! Never fear though; we have plenty of new group tasks to keep us busy. See details below...
Articles of note

New featured articles and lists:

  1. Emperor Penguin (April 5)
  2. Red-billed Chough (April 10)

New good articles:

  1. Cattle Egret (April 18)


Featured list review candidate
  1. List of birds in Canada and the United States Needs to be sourced (see the list of citations requested here) to avoid being de-listed.


Welcome to our newest members


Welcome banner

We've got a new greeting, which can be put on the talk page of new members to welcome them to the project. To use it, simply paste {{subst:Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Outreach/Welcome|~~~~}} into the talk page.
Project news
  • Last month's collaboration (Cattle Egret) was promoted to GA status before the month even ended! Help us do the same with Cockatiel, which is our current project collaboration. This is a good chance to help our Aviculture task force get their first project off the ground.
  • On a related note, be sure to vote for June's collaboration, which will be chosen on 21 May. Nominations are listed on the collaboration page; feel free to add a new article to the list if there's one you'd especially like to see worked on.
  • Thanks to tag team efforts by Maias (talk · contribs), Dixonsej (talk · contribs) and MeegsC (talk · contribs), all previously unassessed bird articles have now been assessed. Excellent work—thanks to all who helped with this massive task!
  • A change in Wikipedia's taxobox setup has meant the removal of the IUCN status scale image from all articles. These will need to be re-added to all appropriate articles (that is, all articles for which the IUCN has a listing) by hand—unfortunately, the use of a bot to do this is apparently out of the question! To re-display the scale, add "| status_system = iucn3.1" to the taxobox parameters in the article.
Bird family article drive

A drive is on to bring all of our bird family articles up to at least start class. Currently, more than 40 families have only stub-class articles. See the list of families needing improvement here to help with the project.
Bird list template creation

As a first step in creating templates for the bird family headers used in various country/state/province birds lists, there's a page here to set up and edit the information we'll put in the templates. Please help to improve our lists by writing a short summary of a bird family or two. We have nearly 270 to do!

Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!

To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.


This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:24, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Animals and ethics

Posted to WT:WikiProject Philosophy, WT:WikiProject Animals and WT:WikiProject Animal rights, discussion preferred at WT:WikiProject Philosophy

I don't think we have a broad article on the place of non-human animals in ethics. There are a few specific articles like animal rights, ethics of eating meat, animal cognition etc, but nothing on the broader issue. Going in the opposite direction, there are articles broader than animals that cover more 'holistic' views, e.g. environmental ethics and deep ecology, though given that most animals are probably not conscious beings that would also overlap with the subject. I guess such an article could be called animals in ethics or something like that. It might also mention the prehuman precursors to morality seen in other animals (which relates to the origin of morality, another needed article), although this is broadening the scope a little more. Richard001 (talk) 04:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Birds June 2008 Newsletter

The Birds WikiProject Newsletter
Issue IV (June 2008)

Welcome to the fourth issue of the Birds WikiProject newsletter. It's been a good month for article improvement, with six new GA articles, and one new FA article. And we managed to save the featured status of List of birds in Canada and the United States, which had been threatened with delisting. There's still plenty to do on all fronts, of course...
Articles of note

New featured articles and lists:

  1. Cattle Egret (May 8)

New good articles:

  1. Pamela C. Rasmussen (May 8)
  2. White-winged Fairy-wren (May 17)
  3. European Robin (May 19)
  4. Common Treecreeper (May 24)
  5. Puerto Rican Amazon (May 26)
  6. Flammulated Flycatcher (May 30)


Welcome to our newest members


Bird article statistics
Bird
articles		 Importance
Top High Mid Low None Total
Quality
Featured article FA 2 11 16 17 5 51
Good article GA 6 15 6 27
B 16 52 81 78 2 229
Start 20 156 518 1568 148 2410
Stub 6 53 517 2817 6203 9596
List 19 9 9 63 100
Assessed 44 297 1156 4495 6421 12413
Total 44 297 1156 4495 6421 12413
Collaboration efforts
  • We improved our April collaboration (Cattle Egret) all the way to FA status! Help us to do the same with this month's project collaboration. The White Wagtail is a very variable species (or is it several species, as some authorities insist?) found throughout much of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa, and in small numbers in westernmost Alaska.
  • Be sure to vote for July's collaboration, which will be chosen on 21 June. We could use a few new nominations...
Domestic pigeons task force

We have our first official task force, covering articles related to domestic pigeons; new project member OnorioCatenacci (talk · contribs) started the group in May. If you're interested in helping with that suite of articles, drop by the new task force page at WP:PIGEONS.
Project news
  • The ongoing drive to improve our bird family articles continues; there are still at least 36 bird family articles currently rated as stubs. If you'd like to help improve one or more, the list of those needing work is here.
  • A change in Wikipedia's taxobox setup has meant the removal of the IUCN status scale image from all articles. To re-display the scale, add "| status_system = iucn3.1" to the taxobox parameters in any article for which it is appropriate.

Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!

To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.


This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 12:53, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template

Should we create a template:animals (it would replace the redirect)? It could include various taxa, general articles etc. If the answer is an obvious 'yes', how about we work on a draft here before we make it? Richard001 (talk) 09:28, 5 June 2008 (UTC)