Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mammals

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[edit] Capitalization re-visited

I would like to initiate discussion regarding whether or not mammal species should be capitalized or not. The desired outcome is to reach a formal consensus that this WikiProject can agree upon and use as a reference to quote when editing articles. The issue has gone way too long without a formal, binding consensus, and there's a storm a-brewing.... Regards. --Old Hoss (talk) 00:08, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalized

  1. I off two arguments for capitalization. A species is a singular entity. The name of all singular entities in English are proper nouns, and proper nouns are capitalized. Therefore, the official common name of a species should be capitalized as it represents a singular entity. Furthermore, the logic laid out in WP:BIRD#Bird_names_and_article_titles demonstrates that even when viewed as a non-proper noun, capitalization helps the reader understand that the phrase in question, in many cases, is in regards to a species and not a description of a more general variety. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:25, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
  2. It has been the de facto standard for years on Wikipedia, and the majority of the thousands of mammal articles are written in this style. Those pushing for change need to consider the vast amount of work needed to make the changes. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:53, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
  3. Ugg. My first argument, remains, that ornothologists present a prima facie example in favour of capitalization: it is simply not true that no professionals view species names as proper nouns. It's also not true that one cannot find sources for mammals that use upper case. I view species names as proper nouns and it's actually become increasingly helpful to me to use upper case versus lower case when I want to create an appropriate difference in a sentence (between family and species, for instance). Common versus proper noun is not a discreet category—there is no single definition—and we can talk about it 'til we drop. But I'm not going to stop. I will capitalize when I know the page has no minders. I will leave caps where I find them. If you only care about a page because you happened across the upper case, I will wait a week or two, and then revert you. Until this part of the MoS becomes a policy, I will upper case where I can—while always avoiding revert wars. Marskell (talk) 22:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
    The problem with your argument here is that bird species have a bijective mapping of formal common names onto species. It is this justification that makes birds a specific case in which capitalization makes sense. But, with other species, there is no strict, formal agreement for exactly one common name for each species. I mean, just look at Cougar. There is no single correct English common name for that species, which is what makes it pointless to try treating common names in these situations as proper nouns. Clearly, a common name shouldn't be capitalized when it refers to multiple species, but how do we actually differentiate between TRUE common names for a species, and common names that are too vague? This is why it is safe to capitalize for birds (there has been a formal, sweeping effort to standardize their common names), but not other species, where no such initiative exists in the scientific community. I mean, look at Brown Bears. How do we treat Kodiak bear, grizzly bear, and brown bear? These are all subspecies of the brown bear. It's just a mess, and a mess that I think is better reflected by lowercase naming than trying to impose some kind of false order or formality on what is in reality unordered and messy. Nik-renshaw (talk) 06:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    Actually, there is a growing concensus among scientists as to the official common name for mammals. It's the single common name listed in MSW3. Many birds are called by alternate common name by common folks, but bird enthusiasts and ornithologists use the official common name or the scientific name. While this isn't as true with mammals, it is becoming so. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:25, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    Beyazid's compelling argument about MSW3 aside, I think that it is rather impractical to expect editors to follow the capitalization guideline: "If there exists an official common name, capitalize that." With birds, every species has one, but with mammals, I cannot imagine trying to convince people on an article-by-article basis that "this instance here is the formal common name, but that is just a common name," and then people say, "Why isn't _____ capitalized? We're supposed to capitalize common names," and we must respond, "That's because that species doesn't have any formal common name at all." It seems to me that it is far too messy of a guideline to put in place without the bijective naming scheme that birds can rightfully claim. However, I do see the value in the way that they do it over in the birds realm. I just feel like--even if MSW3 is giving it a start--mammals cannot yet be said to be in the same situation, and should thus follow standard English practice of lowercase common names. Nik-renshaw (talk) 23:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    Also, taking MSW3 as the best guideline for capitalization, that means we should be capitalizing the formal common name of this mammal as well: Human. Does that present a problem for anyone else here? Nik-renshaw (talk) 23:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    This is a non-issue. For one, we're not asking that all editors do the right thing... just that those of us who know what the right thing is, be allowed to do it. Also, on non-biology articles, the capitalization can be ignored, as stated elsewhere. MSW3 *is* the most official listing of names. There is no disputing that. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:24, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
  4. Assuming MSW3 is accepted as Wikipedia's guideline for mammal naming conventions, then the names should be capitalized accordingly. Ex.: the North American Porcupine (but - the porcupine), the Polar Bear (but - the bear), the Leopard (but - the big cat). I thought I would rather see lower case, but after working with MSW3 for awhile, I see the points Uther is making. If this were Simple English WP, then I would still think lowercase is better. But since this is a big people's encyclopedia, we should follow the conventions used by the experts, IMO. It is not as if a glossary is required to translate jargon, it is just a method of capitalization that does not impede the article's readability. A hatnote might be appropriate to add to the top of each page (using a bot) stating the capitalization conventions used in the article. --Old Hoss (talk) 18:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
There is an old meme from past discussions on this topic that MSW3 in some way is a style guideline for whether mammal common names should be capitalized, and that it supports capitalization. Actually neither of those is the case. MSW3 is a highly specialized publication that is basically data listings of taxonomic information. On that score it's authoritative. In the listings, among voluminous other info, it presents common names in the format "COMMON NAME: Eurasian Badger". But it isn't a publication that is like an article, book, or encyclopedic entry. It isn't regular writing. Yet, that being said, in some places here and there it was necessary for the writers of MSW3 to explain their data listings by resorting to regular prose in "Commentary" sections. And what does the writing look like there? The commentary virtually always uses the lowercase (I looked over a random sample of 100 pgs out of the 1600 to be unbiased in evaluating this; out of about 30 contributing writers, there was one author, Peter Grubb, who occasionally used uppercase, but he was quite inconsistent). If you would like to look up for yourself and see examples, here are a few: pg 1488 "lion-tailed macaque", pg 1559 "green acouchi", "green acouchies" , pg 1395 "house mouse", pg 1591 "West Indian spiny rats", pg 12 "gray four-eyed opossum", pg 1034 "muskrat", pg 1593 "The common name coypu is preferable to nutria, since nutria in Spanish means otter."
Arguing that MSW3 is a reason to capitalize is just as much an argument that the phrase COMMON NAME needs to be capitalized just so. It turns out that the fine folks who produced MSW3 -- edited by Don Wilson, published by Smithsonian, produced in association with the American Society of Mammalogists -- have put out other publications which are in fact regular writing, such as The Smithsonian Book of North American Mammals. Arguing that we should follow the lead of the editors and publishers of MSW3 as the experts is really an argument that we should be using lowercase, because that's what they use. You can see for yourself by reading free samples of the book here through books.google.com. Beyazid (talk) 20:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Not capitalized

  1. Common names should not capitalized except at the beginning of a sentence. Bugguyak (talk) 00:19, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
  2. An awfully comprehensive discussion took place at the end of 2007 to settle on the current WP:MOS language, the archive is here. Result? Aside from when an animal common starts a sentence or has a true proper noun in it (eg, Bengal tiger) animals are to be lowercase. There also is acknowledgment that "there are specific rules of capitalization based on current and historic usage among those who study the organisms" for some animals, for example birds, and those are acceptable. Mammals do not have "current and historically usage" that implies anything other than lowercase. The current WP:MOS style guidance on its main page is the same as what Chicago Manual of Style goes by and what you'll see from books, print encyclopedias, dictionaries, and professional science journals. On and on and on. - Beyazid (talk) 00:45, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
  3. personally, i find capitalization a tad distracting. but, big picture, i don't really care. WP:BIRDS does it, and that's no skin off my nose; maybe, in the long run, the individual projects should be the ones deciding after all. my MAIN concern is that -- per Beyazid's commentary -- if the issue was settled, and a consensus already reached, why are articles still being reverted, and by an admin no less? - Metanoid (talk, email) 02:30, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
  4. It is standard in the academic and literary world outside of Wikipedia to use lowercase for English common species names, with birds being an established exception in the scientific field (due to each species have one and only one English common name ascribed to it). Therefore, it makes sense--as an encyclopedia--to follow standard practice, rather than attempting to blaze new trails. Furthermore, I don't feel that amount of work is a great concern. Any consensus one way or the other is better than the current mess of some up and some down. Even if it takes a while to transition, a semblance of uniformity is better than utter ambivalence. Nik-renshaw (talk) 23:49, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
  5. I not have extreme views on this topic, but even putting aside the unanimous consensus in the English language scientific literature, I haven't come across any serious non-bird editors on Wikipedia that are pro-capitalization. As a person who is supposed to be contributing regularly to the published scientific literature on several species of animals, and definitely one whose desk is drowning in stacks of other articles on even more animals - including the occasional lost bird - it is a bit jarring to switch to capitalizations when writing here. I understand the arguments for capitalization can be compelling, but so are the arguments for the Shavian alphabet, and it is probably beyond the pale of whatever passes for Wikipedia's mission to impose either on the hapless readership. Eliezg (talk) 00:54, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
    Well, Marskell and UtherSRG both do a lot more work on mammal articles than bird articles. They're serious mammal editors; I don't know if this makes them serious non-bird editors ;) Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 07:48, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
    Ah, sorry, but I had to add a "no shit" here. If you haven't noticed Uther's fifty thousand edits to mammals, then you don't follow mammals. Missing my FAs is forgivable, but to miss Uther is to miss the greatest shit reverter mammal articles have. Marskell (talk) 23:04, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
    Well said. Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 05:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    Sorry, sorry, sorry. I stand properly chastised for ramming my paw up my muzzle. I meant no offense. The impression above came from the fact that almost all of the other discussions that I've seen (including this one) boil down to a few people saying "this is what we in Birds do and therefore what everyone should do", and a bunch of other people saying "But no one in mammals (or fish (or reptiles (etc.)))) does it that way!..." which remains mostly true. Also (having now just browsed through a couple more of these debates) and with the greatest possible reverence/respect for Sabine and Uther and Marskell (whose FA's I most certainly have noticed!), these three (as far as I can tell) remain the only persistent (and eloquent and faithful) advocates for capitalization, whereas the numbers of people that just find it sort of strange are, well, uncountable. Of course, those people that care more about content than formatting debates are very likely in the plurality. The fact remains that unless a consensus is reached for capitalization, which appears very, very unlikely at this point, I, for one, and many, many others are going to blithely pursue what they feel is appropriate (almost always lc), and be fully in their rights, and fully in conformity with standard English usage. Eliezg (talk) 08:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    Point of order, I only stridently defend capitalisation on bird articles. When it comes to mammals, while I've fired a few broadsides at the massed forces of anti-capitalisation for old time's sake, I don't actually have a massive preference and have made that clear (or at least I hope I have). I'm mostly just here to help defend the interests of specialists. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:17, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
  6. Short and sweet rationale: Nearly every source outside of Wikipedia uses lowercase. Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 07:27, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
    Another thought: This poll will probably demonstrate a moderate consensus in favour of lowercase. However, because capitalization is such a trivial aspect of what we do here, we would need an extremely strong consensus - which isn't going to happen - to justify making the minority unhappy about it. Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 05:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    Exactly. Marskell (talk) 09:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    Amen! In fact, that's part of the point people miss about consensus: the majority needs to convince the minority to come along for the ride. Y'all haven't been able to do that on this since day one. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
  7. Agree with others in this section. Common names are, well, common, and should not be capitalized. — Dulcem (talk) 01:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    Not so, when it is the official common name. See WP:BIRD. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    Not according to my dictionaries and style manuals. I stand by my opposition to capitalization. — Dulcem (talk) 02:24, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
    See this. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
  8. I agree with the WP:MOS - no capitalization for mammal common names except for special circumstances (e.g., proper names within common names). That is consistent with all the scientific writing I have seen for mammals. Perhaps there are occasional exceptions - even in some highly respected sources - but those are still the exceptions not the rule (for mammals anyway).Rlendog (talk) 01:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
  9. As per Talk:Cougar. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 06:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Don't care/Either

  1. The old Blue Whale (species)/blue whale (a whale that is blue) argument, where the capitalization is being used to distinguish between a species and a more general grouping is the only strong argument for capitalization (and in that case a more careful examination of the article is required before the alteration of the capitalization to ensure that those distinctions are not lost). Aside from that case, as with so much of the MoS, it honestly doesn't matter. Will anybody be injured by seeing an uppercase or lowercase species name? Will hospitalization be required for somebody who chanced across Bobcat? As long as the capitalization is consistent within the article it makes not one jot of difference. While there are so many articles in need of accurate content and readable prose there are better things to do with your time than converting the cases on articles or worrying about the minutiae of the MoS. Yomanganitalk 10:13, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
  2. Yep, beginning to agree with preceding. Heck did we make sure we had to mention just how toxic polar bear livers are, make sure that anyone hiking in Greenland is able to check on their laptop after killing one before eating it and just stick to the safe muscles, heart, brain etc...Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:13, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
    Also, watch out where the Huskies go, don't you eat that yellow snow. --Old Hoss (talk) 15:06, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
  3. Get back to work! <whip cracks> Kaldari (talk) 22:22, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
  4. Just to clarify my position, I don't mind either way, just don't be mean to the mammal editors. Unless it is a whipping them to produce more articles kind of mean. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:18, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I fail to see how this option is helpful to the debate. Obviously, many editors, myself included, don't really care which way the discussion goes — the whole point of the discussion is to settle on some way. If an editor does not have a view to support one way or the other, then stating as such, while well-meaning, is not really constructive. --Old Hoss (talk) 22:51, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Not having it presupposes the requirement for settling on one option or the other - a requirement that doesn't exist ("Would you like to be killed by a)stabbing or b)burning?". "Errr...c)Not at all") If 99% people don't care then we can forget about this and just 1% of people will be unhappy when they come across an article that is formatted contrary to their preference. I wasn't suggesting that people who would be apathetic to the outcome should vote here (since I naturally assumed they would be too apathetic to vote) but rather those that thought whether to use capitalization or not was somewhat less important than having a decent article. Yomanganitalk 23:29, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I do care very much, and I very emphatically support "Either". Unfortunately that wasn't a separate option, so I was forced to choose "Don't care/Either". Kaldari (talk) 00:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
If I may vote twice, let me concur. Marskell (talk) 09:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Yomangan is totally missing the point. If you were going to be killed, no matter what, then there would be no "c)Not at all". Just as this survey has no "Either" - because the whole point of the survey is to decide which one to use. So these opinions are legitimate in that they do want a consensus one way or the other, but they themselves are not actually helping in deciding that consensus. That was the point. No offense meant. It's sort of like the child who asks his parents if he should or should not commit suicide only to have his parents tell him whatever he decides they will support -- well, that does not help one iota. --Old Hoss (talk) 18:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I see. I did miss the point then. Can you point me to the discussion where it was decided that we must choose one or the other? Or is this discussion pre-empting that one, so if we decide that we do need to use one or the other we will already have an answer? Yomanganitalk 18:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
"[A]ll observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!" --Tombstone (talk) 03:27, 12 March 2008 (UTC) —formerly User:Old Hoss
I think that Yomangan has a completely valid point. If the vast majority of people say that they don't care, then it is clear that there is no need for any kind of consensus, because it would not represent any majority anyway. In that case, everyone should just keep doing as they wish. Nik-renshaw (talk) 00:15, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
You mean, proactively going through each article and then changing the case, only to have their edits reverted back to how they were, only to have those edits reverted, only to have those edits reverted, only to be blocked for 3RR? Again, while well meaning, I fail to see how that is a productive stance. This would not be an issue if pages were left as they were, but they are not. Therefore, an agreement one way or the other is necessary to go forward. If the policy is to never change the case once the article is created, fine; but none of the above have stated that – or stated they would abide by it. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 00:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
"Never change the case" is implied (you've pointed to the outcome if that is ignored). "Either" can be just as binding as one of the other choices and seems the obvious solution. We have precedents: British English and American English coexist quite (well, moderately) comfortably together; we allow more than one type of citation style; many of the MoS guidelines offer a number of alternative but acceptable styles. "Either" is the de facto standard anyway, as after years of discussion it is obvious that consensus for one or the other will not be reached any time soon. Yomanganitalk 01:09, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Now you are saying something I can sink my teeth into. If the guideline is to be something similar to "There is no preferred capitalization standard on mammal articles, however the case should not be changed on a particular article once the article is written.", then at least we can come to some kind of an agreement between authors. But I might point out that to a drive-by reader, it might be very confusing to see one article called "Eastern Grey Squirrel" and then another article called "Western grey squirrel". Some school teacher may be inclined to fix one article for consistency, only to be reverted. While at least this would be a guideline to follow, I can only foresee further complications. And then we end up right back here doing this again. :) --Tombstone (talk) 01:46, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
We have the same thing with varieties of English now, but it is not a big problem. Passers-by are always changing "Behaviour" to "Behavior" or vice versa, but it doesn't normally take long for somebody to flip it back. What would be nice to stop is the edit warring between authors. Yomanganitalk 02:23, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the inconsistency between articles is confusing to the reader. We have inconsistency as a pragmatic compromise between the sides that cannot agree on whether to capitalize. Considering the eccentricities that tend to come out of other experiments in collaboration, it is surprising that the wiki collaboration model doesn't produce more weird inconsistencies. I don't think the rule is strictly "never change capitalization" but rather it is, "put content development way way ahead of flipping the capitalization". If someone improves an article significantly and also changes the capitalization, I think their change is quite likely to be accepted. Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 05:55, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
As a devil's advocate, in theory if an editor significantly improves an article, but messes up a few things, the positive would outweigh the negative and another editor would clean up the mistakes. However, in practice, what happens is editors on RC patrol only see the mess and revert the entire edit – good and bad. That frustrates well-meaning drive-by editors (been there, done that, on both the giving and receiving end). Even though this is a wiki, it is still an encyclopedia, and standardization gives the average reader more confidence in the reliability of the information they read, IMO. On a side note, I think the AmEng and BrEng (mentioned above) is a different concept than capitalization here, which I could expand on if necessary. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 16:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
What do you perceive to be the salient differences between American/British English spellings and capitalized/non-capitalized common species names? Nik-renshaw (talk) 18:50, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
By "significant" improvements to an article, I wasn't thinking of things like the fivefold expansion needed to bring a stub to WP:DYK level, or bringing an article to GA or FA status. In other words, enough of an improvement to make oneself a primary contributor to the article. Make an article good and you can switch it to lowercase. Given that most contributors favour lowercase, the result should eventually be a large number of good articles that mostly use lowercase. Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 04:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comments
This discussion is a frequent source of heated debate. Please try to keep a cool head when responding to comments on this topic. How about a nice cup of tea?

The biggest, most extensive discussion on a talk page where I've participated was at Talk:Cougar#Pic_plus_caps. The sources and votes were an overwhelming landslide in pointing to lowercase as the standard to go by. In clicking through articles I see this has been played out and repeated on many other pages, almost always with a single editor issuing reverts and insisting on WP:BIRD to be followed and refusing to give any other substantive reason.

Right now, I don't like that I'm being dealt reverts left and right for following WP:MOS. See also my comments at Talk:Bobcat#Capitalization_again. Beyazid (talk) 00:45, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Other discussion on the project level and on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (fauna) (both of which supercede WP:MOS) were left inconclusive. Hence my view that such changes on a scale such as you made should not be done until a consensus is reached. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:25, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Those conversations meandered around for a little while, didn't go too far, and trickled out, they don't have any relevance. It's not like somehow there is a mysterious absence of consensus on wikipedia on whether to capitalize or not capitalize animal names, it is on the front page of WP:MOS what the wikipedia consensus is. My view is that the belief on your part about what hypothetical changes to the consensus style may or may not occur in the future doesn't in any way restrict the many other editors in the here-and-now who already have the amply-argued-over and settled consensus style of WP:MOS to edit by. I've read through the archives of many discussions on this topic, you've pushed for years over it and still after all these years you have nothing more than WP:BIRD as a reference. You can't enforce other editors to wait until some other imaginary style becomes consensus (which in the case of the style you are so attached to, could very well be never -- it certainly was brought up in the conversation for the current WP:MOS language and had almost no support). WP:MOS is 100% legit to edit by and you have no basis for issuing reverts as if me and other editors are vandals when we're actually just aligning articles with WP:MOS. Beyazid (talk) 02:31, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
An inconclusive discussion that did not go anywhere does not have relevance and is a poor excuse for all the reverts. Bugguyak (talk) 20:26, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Beyazid that we should follow WP:MOS. Birds are an established exception to the common practice in English scientific and professional consensus to leave common names lowercase. That means, when one is not dealing with birds, one should not capitalize common names (each non-bird species does not have a scientifically established and agreed upon English common name). I have run into wide inconsistency among (and even within) the articles on bears, and we need to go one way or the other, because the reverts and internal inconsistencies look tacky and make the articles look ill-informed. I believe until there is a higher-level consensus established that runs counter to WP:MOS, the Manual of Style should be followed, and it gives full license for editors to enforce its conclusions. Nik-renshaw (talk) 01:34, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Full license to enforce a guideline? Per our own definition of guideline it is never mandatory to follow, they are more advisory in nature. I realize that perhaps I'm digging at what is simply a poor choice of words, but talk of enforcement of "one size fits all" non-negotiable rules is not something many people like. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:31, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
That is exactly the point here, "enforcement of "one size fits all" non-negotiable rules is not something many people like." Enforcement of WP:BIRD as a one-size-that-fits-all rule and wielding abusive reverts to achieve that is wrong. The WP:MOS guidelines on this a) have been developed from lengthy discussion and represent broad consensus, b) are grounded in real-world sources and actual publishing standards, and c) are available on the WP:MOS front page, which is prefaced "Editors should follow it, except where common sense and the occasional breach will improve an article." WP:BIRD is none of those things and it doesn't make sense that editors should be forced to adhere to it on pain of reverts for non-bird articles. Beyazid (talk) 17:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I should also point out that having mammal species in capitals has been the de facto standard on Wikipedia since I've been around (2004). I personally don't care one way or another, but if it is going to be changed there are ways and means of achieving change without riding roughshod over long time mammal project editors and generally being rude to them. It requires a new concensus, seeing as how the old consensus (established before there was even a project and derived from the choices made by the bird project via the cetacean one) exists and would need to be overturned. Simply the MOS in our faces and telling us to obey is not the way forward. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:44, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
jeez, i just don't get how you all figure out what stands where with the maze of rules/standards! i'll let you have it. if i had the time and energy it took to learn them, i'd just go to law school. - Metanoid (talk, email) 05:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I said de facto standard. As in, "for as long as I can remember it has been done that way. I don't recall it being set in stone. The fact is that all the older articles were written that way, the articles that aren't have been changed recently. This never used to be an issue, it is now. As for the maze of standards, well, it is a regrettable outcome of the size of the project. Unfortunately there are two kinds of editor, those that add content and those that dream up new rules that the first kind of editor has too follow. I can't keep track of the rules and they always come and bite me on the arse when I submit something to FAC. Like the m-dash bullshit. What the fuck is up with that? But we have to jump through these hoops because some bureaucratic types thing it looks good. And then these same types of people decide to enforce their views on grammar on areas that have plowed their own furrow for many years and then get all bent out of shape when they encounter resistance (Christ, you should have seen the moaning when WP:BIRD fought to keep its standards against editors who couldn't tell a tit from a booby). So, like, think about the other side for a bit, eh? Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
The mammal species articles don't really have a de facto standard, they have mishmash of some articles being uppercase, some being lowercase, some being both. What's rude and "riding roughshod" is when an editor refuses to give any source for his view beyond WP:BIRD, and yet enforces his personal opinion with reverts. UtherSRG is the one blocked for 3RR violations from the other day over this, by the way. In places such as Talk:Cougar where things went so far as to hold a vote on whether that one article should be lowercase as the sources overwhelming showed (and as they show for all other mammals from everything I've seen), the vote was not even close, it was 10-2 in favor of lowercase. What's rude is when an editor refuses to acknowledge things like this, that is the pattern of behavior. UtherSRG continued to insist on enforcement of WP:BIRD style with reverts after the vote at cougar and clear consensus contrary to his views, it resulted in the article needing 14 days of full protection. Same rudeness, disregard for real-world sources, and disregard for other editors' judgments contrary to his own at cheetah, Florida panther, bobcat, etc. I don't see why "it requires a new consensus" in order for editors to edit right now in accordance with WP:MOS. The discussion at WP:MOS took place in late 2007 and it was fully advertised on the various animal project pages, it drew on participants across the gamut (including UtherSRG himself, whose views were fully discussed and decided not to be followed). Beyazid (talk) 17:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
You've both been blocked for edit waring recently, so drop the holier than thou attitude, m'kay? Besides, UtherSRG has many years of contributions to mammal related articles, whereas yours are simply about enforcing your grammar preferences. Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Sabine's Sunbird, there is no need to fall into ad hominem here. I will freely admit that my edits are primarily grammatical and anti-vandalism. Does that make me a lesser contributor with an invalid opinion, or an expert in the field of grammar? Either way, who cares? Let's ALL drop our holier-than-thou attitudes and listen to each other here. I apologize for my "full license to enforce" comment, but I certainly feel like it is within an editor's rights to change to WP:MOS unless there is a valid reason not to, especially if an article is internally inconsistent. It makes no sense to leave an article as it is when half of it is lowercase and half upper. And what better guidance is there--without relevant broad consensus--than the Manual of Style? Also, I have a feeling that whatever conclusions we may reach here are going to do nothing, as this discussion is not large enough to represent any meaningful consensus. But I guess we'll worry about that later. Nik-renshaw (talk) 23:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I too have to apologise, I got snappy. The comment about contributions was with respect to mammal contributions, not overall contributions, in essence, a plea for the specialists not to be ganged up on by the people from outside the project. As I've said above I sometimes feel that content writers are the least respected group on Wikipedia, and I do not wish to see what I consider to be a valuable editor driven away because of something so petty. As I've stated before here I don't actually care what the conclusion is. I just wanted to make the point that 1) There is an existing de facto standard (which as observed has been much less followed of late leading to the confusing mishmash) and 2) having a go at Wikiprojects for not conforming creates ill feeling, which in turn generates ill feeling amongst the MOS crowd which in turn creates ill feeling in those who've just wandered in to observe. You all want to make headway?
  1. Tone down the rhetoric. It doesn't help. Don't create a wedge between the grammar editors and the science editors by talking down at them, it'll just create bad feeling, which in turn spurs resistance to change.
  2. Don't treat a poll or consensus on one article as a precedent to make massive sweeping changes. It suggests that consensus might well lean one way, but that is all.
  3. Don't treat a lack of consensus as an excuse to ignore it and do whatever the hell you want. A consistent position can me found, it may simply take time.
  4. I notice that no opinions have been sought from any of of the project's daughter projects (primates, cats and cetaceans) yet any consensus reached here would affect those projects too. I suggest leaving notes on their project talk pages there asking for thoughts.
  5. Think about how you would implement a changed consensus. There are, what, 6 thousand species of mammals that would need their articles changed, along with genus articles, family and order articles. Plus any faunal lists. How would these changes be made in order to achieve consistency? State how this might happen, that may help allay fears.
Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
As for number 5, I feel like this is not quite as much of a concern as you make it out to be. Reaching a consensus here does not require that we make sweeping changes to follow that consensus, it only means we have something to work off in the future, when the question comes up. In the creation of new articles, and new work to done articles, we will follow that consensus, rather than go willy-nilly. When we come upon articles that don't follow it, we will adjust them. The problem is that right now, every new article that is made does whatever it wants, refers to a species in another article in the uppercase, even though in the main article for that species it is always lowercase, and so on. I think reaching some kind of consensus is necessary for consistency in the future, but I don't think it necessitates immediate full-scale rearranging of existing articles. It just aids in building consistency here on out, and gives some kind of standard when the question arises. And I agree that the sister projects should be notified of the debate. Nik-renshaw (talk) 18:38, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Other discussions

I just stumbled into this hoo-ha and found it very difficult to follow who was acting in good faith and who was not properly seeking consensus because it's split over a bazillion different pages, mostly about cats. Now this discussion has sprung up here I suggest we keep it all centralised here to make it easier. I'm posting to that end on all the other recent sites of the discussion. To further make it easier, the sites of past discussion in question are listed here: --BigBlueFish (talk) 23:45, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Also: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style -- Discussion and consensus at WP:MOS about animal common names and the capitalization issue (July 2007 - August 2007) Beyazid (talk) 01:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dead again?

Has this died again without a clear consensus? What a shock. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:13, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

What is the standard for "clear consensus"? Is it even possible to obtain a clear consensus in this kind of discussion?Rlendog (talk) 01:31, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
It is fairly clear that the common practice is preferred: "Whatever case you see in an article is incorrect and should be changed to the other case as soon as you can, and as many times as you can." The reasons for the current policy are many-fold: 1) I ♥ WikiDrama!; 2) WP:3RR is not tested enough; and, 3) getting 24-hour blocked builds character. There might be other reasons, I just haven't observed them yet. I can safely speak for everyone when I say your policy is wrong, mine is right; let's leave it at that! For cripe's sake, have Jimbo flip a damn coin and be done with it. Regards. --Tombstone (talk) 03:26, 12 March 2008 (UTC)—formerly User:Old Hoss
Good old-fashioned "we should follow the conventions used by the experts" should be just fine in pointing the way to best practice. This isn't an esoteric topic. With self-referential arguments like "My way is more logical" put on the scale as having weight equivalent to dictionaries, style guides, print encyclopedias, virtually all professional publications by biologists (peer-reviewed journals like Science and Nature, Smithsonian books, Walker's Mammals of the World, etc.), professional publications by career writers & journalists (newspapers, magazines, etc.), WP consensus at MOS... then, yeah, it becomes a tricky and thorny topic to accommodate. Without unusually-weighted self-referential arguments, sources do weigh down the balance heavily in one direction. Beyazid (talk) 01:04, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, you've got 4 for capitalization, 8 against, and 4 inbetween. If you had more people in the same proportions, I would call that consensus. Nik-renshaw (talk) 15:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Many more people with similar proportions can be found at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_87, a very large discussion on this same topic that reached the same consensus, resulting in the language presently on the front-page of WP:MOS about how lowercase should be used for animal common names except in a few situations. Beyazid (talk) 01:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
For the sake of accuracy it should be noted that one of the four "pro-capitalization" votes (Sabine's Sunbird) appears to have switched to "do not care," or is at least being double-counted. This makes the little straw-poll count 3 pro, 8 against, 4 other. Still not "consensus" sensu stricto, but in the off-chance people are swayed by the difference between 25% and 20%, there it is.... Cheers, Eliezg (talk) 01:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Sigh* Clarification, when I first posted it looked like it was collecting a range of opinions on why one position should be favoured over another, so I provided a reason. When it because clear it was a vote, not an attempt to discuss anything, I simply registered my feelings with 'don't care/either' (more either, but whatever). Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The convention proposed for the scientific community is a bit more complicated than what the birders here and several of us other biology article editors use. The fact is, that MSW3's listing of common names would qualify as the official list as per the proposal and, as such, should be capitalized. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:34, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

The link is to a request/proposal by a particular scientist. If the capitalization were widely accepted in the scientific community there would be no need for such proposals. Most scientific papers and sources that I have seen do not capitalize common names within the narrative text. Lists and titles may include capitalized common names, as does MSW3. But even with MSW3, is there narrative capitalizing the common names? I don't have the book, but all I see in the web links is the capitalization where they state the common name, but I don't see any narrative with capitalized common names.Rlendog (talk) 02:28, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree, generally, with Rlendog. UtherSRG, you are taking what is a proposal among the scientific community and trying to make it the rule here, on an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia's job is to present established information, not to break new ground. We should not be trying to adopt capitalized common names, when the scientific community doesn't even do it. If that changes, then we can change. But, in the meantime, we should follow the same conventions as the fields that we are describing: science, academia, publishing, etc. You are ahead of your time, or, possibly, taking up a cause that is doomed to fail in every arena. In that case, so much the better that we do not get involved. Nik-renshaw (talk) 17:03, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Grison

Both the Lesser Grison and the Greater Grison have the same picture in their taxoboxes. I don't think that can be right.Dixonsej (talk) 16:31, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

That is a lesser grison in the picture. Bugguyak (talk) 16:55, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of animals

I note that there are a good amount of mammals on the general animals page which could be moved to the mammals subcategory. It generally just requires changing from a {{reqphoto|animals}} to a |needs-photo=yes field in the mammals banner. Have fixed one but there are quite a few others, and I have to get to bed now. If anyone from the project would like to help tidy this up that would be great. Richard001 (talk) 10:47, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I've spent a few hours cutting it down to size, though there is still a little more to do. By the way, the mammals category for requests seems awfully full - wouldn't it be better to have some subcategories for the major orders? Richard001 (talk) 07:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] English Spot

I am currently working on an article about a breed of rabbit, the English Spot. I believe this article may fall in to the WikiProject Mammals. I was looking to further improve this article and was wondering if I could get some feed back on what sections the article is missing or which sections could use further expansion. The article is still missing a picture, and I'm currently working on trying to get one put up. If anyone from the project would like to help that would be great. Trio32 (talk) 19:46, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article name of American Beaver/Canadian Beaver

Input from the Project would be appreciated on whether the article on Castor canadensis should be titled "American Beaver" or "Canadian Beaver" (forget the capitalization for a moment!). Please reply at Talk:Canadian_Beaver#Requested_reversal_of_undiscussed_move. Regards. --Old Hoss (talk) 15:10, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gus Honeybun? Really?

I was doing a bit of touch-up at Gus Honeybun and noticed that it comes under the purview of your WikiProject. Are you really covering the article on this much loved and historical, but ultimately puppet television rabbit? Vashti (talk) 15:00, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

LOL! No. I've removed the banner. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:12, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FAR for Sperm Whale

Sperm Whale has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:58, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nearing time to choose a second collaboration....

OK, its 24 hours till the next collaboration is chosen. Lots of people chipped in to Polar bear and Clayoquot is making a fine effort making sure it has all the ingredients before having its final mixing (ie, copyedit) and baking, before going onto the gustatory table that is FAC. I am keen on finding some Cultural references as tehy are elusive online, and will chip in with copyediting soon. Other input still welcome! Brown rat is still the frontrunner for next collab, so have a last think about it and vote with your feet fingers. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Requested article: Afrochoerus / Afrochoerus nicoli

Requesting an article on Afrochoerus / Afrochoerus nicoli -- extinct giant African suid, described by Richard Leakey. See http://www.originsnet.org/hk19ab/pages/q)%20suids%20illus.htm . (I can't figure out which of the various "requested article/animal/species/mammal" pages would be best for this -- if anyone wants to place this request on one or more of those, please do.) -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 19:18, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Agriotherium needs cleanup and content

Please take a look at Agriotherium -- article could use cleanup and more content.
Article says: "Agriotherium ... may have been an ancestor to some of today's carnivores, including the wolf." Is this right?
-- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 19:22, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Polar Bear

Polar Bears: I recently read in a newspaper that DNA research has shown that the Polar Bear is the largest member of the Weasel family. I quoted this at a Rotary meeting recently and have been shot down in flames:species Ursus Maritimus. Am I right or am I right? Perrypie (talk) 22:50, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

You are incorrect. Weasels and bears aren't even in the same superfamily in Carnivora. - UtherSRG (talk) 23:30, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Brown Rat collaboration

I've been watching Brown Rat for 12 days and haven't seen much work done. I'm assuming people are revamping the article somewhere -- I've added a few good parts to it thus far. Where is the collaborating occurring, and am I invited?TeamZissou (talk) 02:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Not as far as I know. Generally if someone were editing an article such as this (especially a collaboration) in userspace, they would notify on the article talkpage so as not to conflict with other improvements. I set up the collaboration as I reckoned the size of many of the more prominent mammal articles would scare off single editors. The first was Polar bear which is shaping up nicely and I have been impressed at the tinkering with Brown rat. I was unsure how many would get really stuck into it. I know VanTucky was keen on a smaller critter rather than a bigger one...I'll have a look soon :)
So in answer to your question, the collaboration is on the page and by all means you're invited...Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I should have done this before...I'll set up a to-do list so everyone can add all the material they think should be in the article, and comprehensiveness can be comprehensively addressed before copyediting etc. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Polbot categories that still need to be fixed

As many of you may remember, back in August 2007, Polbot created a whole bunch of mammal categories based on family and genus names rather than common names (as they were automatically generated based on MSW2 taxonomy). Most of these categories were fixed, for example Category:Sciuridae was migrated to Category:Squirrels, and so on. Some of the larger categories, however, were never fixed (since they have to be fixed by hand). Maybe it's time we revisit these and knock them out. Here are the ones I know about:

Feel free to others if you find them. Kaldari (talk) 23:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the moves. As stated above. I'm fairly neutral on all the situations where there are two options of where to move to. --Aranae (talk) 03:35, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Same, although with a slight preference to Dipodids and Spalacids, but only very slight. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
In addition, Category:Caviidae should be flattened. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC) Scratch that... it should be merged into Category:Cavies, which needs some serious work. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Articles should be divided by species or genus? A definite answer, please.

Hi. At least twice that I know of in the last few months, the issue has come up as to whether we should merge articles on various species of the same genus into one article (the genus) or keep them separate (under genus+species name). I assume that this must also have come up numerous other times that I'm not aware of.
The two cases I'm speaking of are discussed at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mammals/Archive3#Merge_articles_on_Pacas.3F and Talk:Smilodon#Too_many_Smilodon_articles.
At the time of the Pacas discussion, I asked that the policy of WikiProject Mammals on this question be posted to the Project's main page. As far as I can see, this has not been done.
Therefore, in order to forestall future problems with this, could the Project please (if necessary) arrive at a consensus on this and post it to the Project's main page? Thanks much. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 02:39, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I have worked on many biological articles and the consensus seems to have been species for living animals, except for some closely related species complexes, and genera for prehistoric animals. Almost all bird species have separate pages.
These reflect nicely how these things are divided in books, the basic 'unit of currency' as it were. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:50, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I think each species definitely warrants its own page. They should not be lumped. --Aranae (talk) 03:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Casliber: species level for living taxa, genus level for extinct, although I caveat this with treating extinct species that can be more than a stub should have their own article. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:09, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree with the above. If a topic warrants its own article it is better for it to be a stub than a redirect, to encourage expansion. Very, very few people know how to turn a redirect into an actual article. See, for example Weaning, which was a redirect for three years. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 07:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I almost can't understand why there wouldn't be a page for each species? I'm personally behind a page for each subspecies as well, but I don't know how many would agree with me. As for extinct species, again there should be an article for each species, as extinct species are often very important in a full understanding of a genus and the relationships it has with others. The only time a redirect should be used is where there is only one species (extinct or extant) in a genus, thereby making the genus article unnecessary. Jack (talk) 15:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
It should be noted that I'm only referring to mammals, other classes may agree on different criteria though it seems WP:BIRD uses these standards. Jack (talk) 15:59, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
There is no universal policy on this. It must be decided on a case by case basis according to WP:N. For some animals the most granular article will be at the genus level, for others the species level, and for others the subspecies level. Kaldari (talk) 16:09, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I've gone through practically every extant mammal article adding navigation templates and, save for some of the many rodent articles recently created by PolBot, they all have plenty of content for their own article. The only mammal articles that weren't species-specific were several Cetacean articles, which was disappointing because those combined articles were rather cumbersome and harder to filter out the individual species while reading. Also, I've noticed that within a year or so of creation, someone has come along and transformed the stub into a decent article and I doubt that would happen with the species combined into a genus article. WP is still a W.I.P. so it is natural to assume not every article is as of yet a quality article, but given time it will be. Subspecies articles should be a separate discussion. I have no opinion on extinct animals, however. I will alert WP:WHALE to provide input regarding this, too. --Tombstone (talk) 16:40, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to all for good discussion on this so far. Awaiting further developments. :-) -- Writtenonsand (talk) 01:55, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Individual subspecies pages are good if there is enough information particular to that subspecies (and would unduly swell the main article). Barbary lion and Asiatic lion are two that come to mind, Dingo and of course Dog are others (from Grey wolf). No doubt there are others. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
personally i think it should be case by case but if there's enough info on a species, go for it! there are, however, lots of reptile species that are poorly studied, tho, and so remain stubs for long stretches of time. i thought the same with many sciurids/murids, but i could be mistaken... again, maybe a clade by clade approach would work where there isn't already consensus. - Metanoid (talk, email) 03:07, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with UtherSRG and Casliber. I think that with the extinct mammals it woulde be better to follow WP:Dinosaurs, an article for each genus and only spinning of species if the page gets too long. While Smilodon is a popular preditor most of the extinct mammals are not well known to the public, and even the species of Smilodon are not well known. As they are now Smilodon gracilis is a two sentences stub which repletes what is already said in theSmilodon article. Smilodon populator while a larger article, again repeats a large amount and has no citations for the remaining material. Looking at the other Genera in the Machairodontinae, three of the nine genera do not have an article at all and of the other six Smilodon is by far the largest an the only one which has species articles. Machairodus has 19 species listed, none with articles, and the genus article itself is 4 sentences long. For the state of extinct mammals in general look at Brontotheriidae; the Nine! extinct families of Perissodactyls; Astrapotheria with nothing below Order with no articals. The vast majority of prehistoric mammals are not going to have enough information for an article for every species, there just isn't enough known from the fossils.--Kevmin (talk) 03:28, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
The way I see it is mammals which have been identified as extinct through fossil study will have quite a lot of information because they are extinct and therefore will have been studied thoroughly to be identified as a species of a certain genus. Archaeologists do actually work and publish their findings: lots of peer reviewed research = good! While recently trying to find information on a few extinct species of titi I found lots of information from journals because a lot of work goes into classifying each species.
As for "not well known to the public", surely that's not a factor? I would believe 90%+ of Wikipedia is not well known to the public. Jack (talk) 10:55, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
A couple of points. I looked through the Titi sister genera articles. They show the trend the the more recent the extinction the more focus there is on the taxon. Also the more recent the description the more information there is to be found in the literature. many of the Fossil taxa were named in the 1800's and early 1900's and locating the actually description of the species (often based on a few fragmentary bones), can be extremely difficult. Also until the establishment of the ICZN the descriptions would be only one or two pages long. This means there is very little information known about many species described from the fossil record.
My point about being well know was to point out the difference between those Taxa which capture the general publics interest verse thous which do not. A great example is that of Mammuthus, a popular mammal for which there is enough ready info to create species pages. Compare that to the Order Condylarthra which only has articles for two of its six families.
Also remember that Archaeologists study humans and the rise of human culture. Paleontologists study all fossil life apart from humans. The fossil record for mammals dates back to the Mesozoic and so the material to work with is much less complete then that of modern mammals. --Kevmin (talk) 14:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the post by Kevmin (03:28, 5 April 2008 UTC), i.e.: the default level for extinct mammals and mammaliforms should be genus; we should drill down to the species level only for species where there is too much detail to fit in the genus article; other species should be covered in the genus article. Jack's proposal (10:55, 5 April 2008 UTC) is too much like counsel of perfection, as there will at any given time be many extinct species for which Wikipedia does not contain enough info to justify separate articles. The case for making genus the default level becomes even stronger as we go further back in time - few known Mesozoic mammal and mammailform genera consisst of more than one identified species; Repenomamus is the sole exception I can think of immediately, and the 2 recognised species are covered in the 1 genus article.
BTW Jack's comment "I would believe 90%+ of Wikipedia is not well known to the public" amused me. I would hope that 90%+ of Wikipedia is not known to me - where else could I look for info on the vast range of things I know nothing about? Philcha (talk) 14:01, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Oops yeah, I didn't really work out that the 10% that they would know equates to 230000+ articles!!! In all truth I would have no idea how much Joe Public knows. Maybe it's more like 0.1%? Jack (talk) 18:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad I posted about this -- I've seen a lot of good opinions.
The "species level for extant mammals, genus level for extinct ones" suggestion was sounding very good to me, but then I thought, "But on the other hand we have cases like Mammuthus, with nine species listed (eight with existing articles); possibility of more to be added (I think); and differences great enough to make lumping say, M. imperator, M. lamarmorae, and M. primigenius together in the same article seem an inappropriate choice.
Personally, I would really like a simple general rule for this issue. But I'm not sure that I could be satisfied with one. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 14:12, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

My guess, and it's just a guess, is that maybe that shouldn't be the basis for determining what has an article, but rather the amount of reliably sourced, verifiable information available on the subject. Basically, if a given species doesn't have enough such information specific to it for it to have a reasonably thorough separate article, then it doesn't get one. If it does have enough such information, it does. There will be problems in some cases, where for instance the degree of differentiation between a few different species is really minimal, but I think we should probably be guided more by the quality of the content of the articles we do create rather than the external factors. John Carter (talk) 14:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Thought I'd throw this out there: One unintended consequence of having an article for every species does leave the genus article rather bare and, in some cases, nothing more than a list of species articles. In those cases, the genus article in sometimes utterly pointless. --Tombstone (talk) 16:45, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

In a nutshell: Extant species: all should have articles. Extant genus: (with only one species) redirect, (with multiple species) own article, (with one extant species, multiple extinct species) own article. Extinct species: (with enough published research) own article, (older, less researched) multiple species in genus article. Extinct genus: own article. Subspecies (enough published research) own article, (less research) merge to species article.

Is this the consensus? Jack (talk) 17:52, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
In my opinion, any species or subspecies warrants its own article, as Aranae already stated. There is always information, even if it's only a type locality, a hypodigm and an original description (even if it's a not-quite-diagnostic 19th-century description). This information may not easily be found on the Internet, but I don't think that should be an important criterion. The solution to stubs is expanding them, not deleting them. Ucucha 18:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
"The solution to stubs is expanding them, not deleting them." - I'm not necessarily arguing with that, but in practice it does mean that stubs, even ultra-short ones, will frequently persist for years and sometimes permanently. If the consensus is that we don't have a problem with that, then I don't have a problem with that. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 21:28, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


I agree. There's nothing wrong with having a stub. When someone is able and ready to expand it it will get expanded. Until then it is there to offer the opportunity, and possibly provide a bit of information.Rlendog (talk) 06:22, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Mammals

i have nominated portal:mammals for FPOC. your comments are most welcome. Sushant gupta (talk) 11:19, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Panda redirect

thought i'd drop this here for the Project folks... currently, Panda redirects to Giant Panda. given that, while Giant Pandas are more popularly known, the Red Panda was the first of the two to be described by science, wouldn't Panda be more appropriate on its own as a disambig page? - Metanoid (talk, email) 06:55, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 07:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I read a Tetrapod Zoology blog on this a few days ago, but I still think panda should redirect to giant panda because I think the vast majority of users will be attempting to find giant panda if they search for panda. A panda (disambiguation) page is appropriate, but "panda" should go to "giant panda". I think common usage trumps etymological age. --Aranae (talk) 14:36, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Panda (disambiguation) has existed for a few years now and there is a hatnote at the top of Giant Panda as follows:
"Panda" and "Panda Bear" redirect here. For other uses, see Panda (disambiguation) and Panda Bear (disambiguation).
For the Red Panda, see Red Panda.
This seems to be already appropriately addressed. --Tombstone (talk) 14:50, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
OK, that makes sense. I had been thinking that we often end up on a genus or family page when a common name is overwhelmingly used for a particular species (e.g. Gerbil) but since the pandas are apparently unrelated we don't need a real Panda page. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. - Metanoid (talk, email) 16:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Equus Taxonomy

Our taxonomic organization of Equus (horses) looks nothing like the organization in Mammal Species of the World 3. Compare:
http://www.bucknell.edu/msw3/browse.asp?id=14100003
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equidae#Classification

What a mess. Should we reorganize those articles based on MSW3 or leave them how they are? Kaldari (talk) 20:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

The two examples aren't equivalent. One gives living taxa in alphabetical order. The Wikipedia article includes extinct taxa, and groups taxa into infrageneric groups. The latter is more current in reducing the quagga to subspecific rank; however I have my doubts as to the use of Equus ferus. Lavateraguy (talk) 21:28, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I realize they aren't equivalent, but some sections don't seem to match up at all. For example the taxonomy of zebras and quagga are very different in the two lists. Right now our list has no reference at all, so it's impossible to tell if it's based on antiquated taxonomy or more up to date than MSW3 (as you state). Kaldari (talk) 22:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
The species Equus ferus is actually a valid name retained for the extinct ancestor of the domestic horse Equus calibus per the ICZN, see here--Kevmin (talk) 05:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
It's old. Please update it to MSW3. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:38, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
After looking further I've corrected the classification for subgenus Equus, Prz...'s Horse is a separate species, with a different chromosome count, and I'm pretty sure that Equus caballus has priority over Equus ferus.
Merging Equus asinus and Equus africanus into a single species doesn't seem unreasonable, but I'd expect that E. asinus has priority. I don't know where to check this out. I recall that E. quagga and E. burchellii were merged, and I seem to recall that E. quagga has priority.
There's related problems scattered through articles on Equus - for example there's a Wild Horse article which perhaps should be pared down to a disambiguation page, with its contents split between Feral Horse, Mustang, Brumby, Tarpan and Przewalski's Horse.
Breaking the redirection of Equus to Equidae would also be a good idea - there may be only one living genus, but there's plenty of fossil genera. The list of species and subspecies count be moved there at the same time.
The inconsistencies extend to List of placental mammals in Order Perissodactyla Lavateraguy (talk) 00:52, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
This link provided at the top of the discussion should answer at least some of your questions. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:12, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Various issues...

I'm looking through the list of missing mammal species. This space will be used as a scratch list for problems, and for us to discuss what to do.

  1. Forest Tuco-tuco - MSW3 says Ctenomys sylvanus for the Argentine population. The taxonomy at Forest Tuco-tuco is Ctenomys frater, which is now listed in MSW3 as the Reddish Tuco-tuco (the Bolivian population).
  2. Burchell's Zebra - dicussed above in the Equus issues.
  3. Red-fronted Gazelle and Thomson's Gazelle need to be updated to be in genus Eudorcas.
  4. Culpeo, Darwin's Fox and Pampas Fox need to be moved into genus Lycalopex.
  5. Merriam's Pocket Gopher and Zonser's Pocket Gopher need to be moved to genus Cratogeomys.
  6. Grant's Gazelle and Soemmerring's Gazelle need to be moved to genus Nanger.
  7. Maxwell's Duiker and Blue Duiker need to be moved to genus Philantomba.
  8. Thorold's deer should be moved over redirect White-lipped Deer, and moved into genus Przewalskium.
  9. Barasingha, Eld's Deer, and Schomburgk's Deer need to be moved into genus Rucervus.
  10. Philippine Spotted Deer should be moved over redirect Visayan Spotted Deer and into genus Rusa.
  11. Sambar should become Sambar (disambiguation). Sambar Deer should become Sambar, and moved into genus Rusa.
  12. Rüppell's Broad-nosed Bat should be moved into genus Scoteanax.
  13. Western Broad-nosed Bat, Little Broad-nosed Bat, and Northern Broad-nosed Bat should be moved into genus Scotorepens
  14. Humpback Dolphin should be moved to humback dolphin, and split into multiple articles for each species.

For now.... (items 1-4) - UtherSRG (talk) 09:56, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

And more... (items 5-14). I think I've caught everything from the Missing Species list that needs work. It looks like all of Artiodactyla (particularly Cervidae) needs to be checked against MSW3, but I'd say Caniformia, Chiroptera and Rodentia need some work, too. - UtherSRG (talk) 23:27, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

A note about the humpback dolphin taken from the WP:WHALE page: "Most species have their own article with the exception of Mesoplodont Whales - too little information known for separate articles - and Humpback Dolphins - the lack of consensus from the taxonomists makes difficult to know what species to choose. Better to do at the genus level to avoid making a judgement." --Tombstone (talk) 04:14, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
No judgement needed. Follow MSW3. (PS. check my recent contributions... some of your templates need to be changed now....) - UtherSRG (talk) 04:25, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree, we should just follow MSW3 when possible, so that at least we have a consistent reference. Kaldari (talk) 18:36, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I've added a note about using MSW3 to the project page. Feel free to edit as necessary. Kaldari (talk) 19:21, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Me likee. n_n - UtherSRG (talk) 23:37, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reference Desk question

Someone has asked here on the Science Desk what to call the young of the Red deer, "fawn" or "calf". I have pointed them to the talk page for the article, but I was hoping that someone here knew the answer and would reveal it at the link above. --Milkbreath (talk) 15:27, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed breakup of Pocket pets work group

I propose that the Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals/Pocket pets work group be broken into two distinct groups, for rodents and lagomorphs. Would there be any opposition? John Carter (talk) 21:46, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good, though the rabbits may disapprove... :) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:57, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I have never understood the rationale for inclusion of articles into the pocket pets workgroup. Pocket pets are animals like hamsters, guinea pigs, sugar gliders, and hedgehogs, but there seems to be some thought that it is a taxonomic designation. Somehow capybaras, and extinct taxa such as Ailuravus macrurus have been categorized as pocket pets, something I truly cannot wrap my head around. I would be happy to see (and join) a Glires workgroup or mammal workgroups split by order. I'd also love to see some major work done on the real pocket pets (have you seen the state of gerbil or hamster?), by pocket pet enthusiasts such as those who worked on guinea pig. --Aranae (talk) 22:30, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
As someone involved in its creation, all I can say is that it got the necessary five supporters to be started at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals page, despite similar reservations being expressed there, and it did provide a bit more specificity than "Mammals", but it seems to be inactive, more or less, and it does seem to make more sense to split. Maybe, as an interim measure, I'll create two groups, one for lagomorphs and one for rodents. The pocket pets group might be able to be adjusted to being a general "mammals as pets" group or be deactivated later. Would that be acceptable? John Carter (talk) 22:43, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Kill the hamsters!!! Oh wait... ahem... yes, I believe we can call the project defunct, and reorganize for a better approach. - UtherSRG (talk) 23:39, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Evolution of mammals

Heads up and a shout out to all. Evolution of mammals is at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:12, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What happened to IUCN status in tax-box?

Has someone changed something in the general taxo-box template? Unless my memory is fooling me (which is entirely possible), until recently the IUCN illustration with EX, EW, CR, EN, etc, automatically appeared under Conservation status in the taxo-box (as it still does in Jaguar), which was logical, considering that this is the authority used in the vast majority of species articles (indeed, many species articles were initially started by a bot based on species listed by IUCN). Now this standard has disappeared, see e.g. Tiger. Are we forced to add status system to all the relevant articles (many 1000s) to get it back? RN1970 (talk) 01:08, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and many of them already have it. The conversation here provides the rationale for this, but basically the fact is that all articles should have the status system anyway, and the change was made and agreed to as an incentive to do so. Otherwise, how does one know whether it's the IUCN or someone else assessing the status (as in Tasmanian Devil and Black-footed Ferret)? It also ensures the proper graphic (either including Conservation Dependent or not) for the IUCN codes. I've already fixed all the marsupial ones and it didn't take very long. Frickeg (talk) 01:26, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Coincidentally, I just undid your edit here, which presumably applies, as its status is based on Mammal Species of the World rather than IUCN. The problem is, however, that the link still leads to an article that essentially deals with IUCN status (e.g. if Endangered appears in the taxo-box, regardless of the source, its wiki-link still leads to Endangered species). RN1970 (talk) 01:33, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
That is a point, and perhaps it should be mentioned on the Endangered species page. Frickeg (talk) 01:35, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
You can find articles that need to be fixed in Category:Taxoboxes needing a status system parameter. It should be fairly trivial to pull the mammal articles out of that, e.g. using WP:CATSCAN. Hesperian 04:13, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Spiny rats need luv

This came to my attention over at WP:RM: We have a Palid Atlantic Tree Rat (Phyllomys lamarum) and a Pallid Atlantic Tree Rat (Echimys lamarum). The two articles appear to be the result of a synonym issue and some bad spelling, but a quick look around seems to indicate that there's some taxonomic shuffling in those genera. Could someone with a more expertise than I (i.e., any expertise at all) take a look at these? Both articles are bare stubs, so the main issue at the moment is sorting out the taxonomy. Mangoe (talk) 15:43, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

The correct spelling in English is, of course, "Pallid", but Phyllomys is definitely the correct genus. I merged the two articles. Ucucha 16:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Coydog could use a look

Coydog could use a look.
(1) Stub.
(2) Has no cites.
(3) Makes the assertion that "A coydog is the hybrid offspring of a male coyote (Canis latrans) and a female dog (Canis lupus familiaris). Together they are genetically capable of producing fertile young. The dogote, a similar hybrid, is the result of breeding a male domestic dog with a female coyote. Where the cross-breeding of animals is concerned, the father's species gives the first part of the offspring's name." -- Is this okay or not?
-- Writtenonsand (talk) 18:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Problem editor

User The Shadow-Fighter (talk · contribs) keeps making questionable edits to a variety of mammal articles. Many of these are to inappropriately include hypothetical descriptions of how various animals would fare in a fight against one another (such as was dramatized in Animal Face-Off); other edits are unsourced and unexplained changes of information, such as conservation status, or substitutions of one animal species name for another where one was clearly intended to be identified. I've reverted about all of these, but I'm not a regular editor in this area. Postdlf (talk) 14:26, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Primate is the new collaboration of the month

Just a heads up to say that Primate is the new mammal collaboration of the month. Hopefully we should be able to get this very important article up to FA status. I've got a pretty good book on primate social systems and primate evolution which should be helpful, once my exams are over I'll be a bit more help. Cheers, Jack (talk) 19:03, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Articles for attention

Over the past few months, an IP has been suggesting articles on prehistoric animal genera for creation at WP:AFC. It's great that someone is taking an interest in the topic, but the articles are sub-stubs with little context, formatting, categorization, and wikilinking, and no taxoboxes. The mammal and therapsid articles that could use attention are:

Therapsids

Mammals

I had been working on the whole group of articles, but my schedule has changed, I got tired of keeping up with the indefatigable IP, and I don't know much about mammals. I've been heavily reliant on the Paleobiology Database for classifications, locations, and ages. If anyone wants to take a couple when they're bored, I'd greatly appreciate it. J. Spencer (talk) 23:48, 17 May 2008 (UTC) (updated 01:45, 25 May 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Kindly assist in developing these articles

Thanks

Atulsnischal (talk) 00:41, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Distribution maps

Is there a "standard" or easy-to-use program available for generating distribution maps?—GRM (talk) 20:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration - shall we can it or give it another run?

Well, 4 articles have been collaborations so far - Polar Bear has had a massive amount of work and shouldn't be too far off FAC, Brown Rat had less, Tiger saw little action (I found this one too depressing personally), and Primate has had some involvement. Shall we keep this rolling for a while or can it for a few months? How do folks feel? No biggie either way. 06:25, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I haven't had any time recently with exams and I'm off on holiday in a few days, but I'm definitely planning on helping out more with the article. Though I can see that there isn't much 'collaboration' going on! I do think it's a great way to drive improvement in articles within this WikiProject, maybe there should be more incentive to help out. Creating work teams, or targets, etc. Someone who is a good motivator maybe should take that role! Cheers, Jack (talk) 16:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
To be honest, the selections have been taken from a kindergarten animal list. As important as these animals are, they don't draw me in as personal projects. The Brown Rat article was fun because of the quirks of the species and its place in history history as well as natural history. I mean, "primate" is a topic which seems overwhelming. I support the continuation of the collaboration effort, but each WP Mammals member should be notified and personally asked to participate if they would like to do so. I didn't even know if the project was still underway until I went looking, and yes I have this page "watched". What are each member's strong points or areas of expertise? Some organizing must be done before collaboration can really work -- maybe mandatory nominations and votes for every active member within a reasonable time limit? What about reaching out to other projects? The Brown Rat article could have had some good input from a variety of projects, and primate could gain a lot of help from some of the anthropology and psychology projects, etc. Tiger could have been improved with input from political and resource projects related to the various locals of tigers. Whatever the outcome, I'll continue to help when and where I can. TeamZissou (talk) 01:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is a Capybara a cavy?

Forget what Wikipedia currently says on this issue. What actually defines a "cavy"? Is "cavy"=Caviidae? Or is "cavy"=Caviidae minus Capybaras? Britannica and Merrian-Webster seems to endorse the former, but our articles are inconsistent on this issue. Most of the scientific sources don't seem to have an opinion on the English common name usage, so what should we go on? I'm not asking this just for fun, BTW. The Cavy categories are a mess and need to be cleaned up, but I wasn't sure exactly how to proceed on this one. Kaldari (talk) 20:12, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Recent data indicate that a rethinking of the definition of the term cavy is required to include the capybara. --Aranae (talk) 07:19, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I've finished cleaning up Category:Cavies now. Kaldari (talk) 19:13, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for that. It was needed. --Aranae (talk) 21:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] OMG, a prehistoric mammal at Peer Review

Everyone, Leptictidium is at Wikipedia:Peer_review/Leptictidium/archive1. To date there are no prehisotic mammal FAs.....Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)