User talk:Peter coxhead/Archive 30

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What exactly happened with the Birds

Heya Peter, I wanted to ask what exactly happened with the birds. We had a good 2 month discussion but I look on the Aves page and it is a cut down taxobox. Cut down way more than I expected based on the discussions. I know that it was a long and difficult discussion, but my impression was that we achieved more than is apparent on the Taxobox as it currently appears. So what was the issue? Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 07:03, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I should have asked this of Plantdrew also so pinging them here sorry about that. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 07:07, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

@Faendalimas: I was only interested in the technical aspects of how the taxonomy templates were set up, because I was involved in setting up the 'old' system. My understanding is that Jts1882 implemented whatever was decided in the discussions, which I stopped following. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:31, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I set up the templates for the Therapoda-Archosauria-Sauropsida proposal I made, but didn't implement it. Later the discussion was closed (improperly in my opinion) and someone else implemented the templates with the addition of Dinosauria with always display on. Iirc, I removed the always display because it was putting Dinosauria in all the bird taxoboxes (not what was being discussed) but left the sequence as set up, which essentially added Therapoda, Dinosauria and Archosauria to what was there before. I may be missing something, as I don't see a "cut down taxobox". —  Jts1882 | talk  09:20, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

@Jts1882: ah, right. As you had worked on them earlier, I thought you had implemented the current system. Like you, I don't see a "cut down taxobox" at Aves; in fact there are more clades visible than I think is sensible. Certainly there is no consensus for Dinosauria to be shown in every bird taxobox. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:24, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Sorry by cut down I meant cut down from what seemed to have some support in the discussion, not the taxobox itself, bad wording on my part. I agree the discussion was not closed well. It needed to clarify at the end what was and what was not agreed to and maybe get some further opinions. I also agree Dinosauria was not supported by consensus at least not to the point of implimenting it. I felt Therapoda was though. Its a tough discussion and always has been. Thanks for the answers it was a bit confusing, also seems a bit of a pity. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 11:42, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Template transclusion depth

I don't know if you've seen this but the limit for template transclusion has been increased from 40 to 100. That allows a depth of 50 in cladograms (more than practical for the page width). Were there any remaining depth issues with the autotaxobox module or did Lua solved them all? —  Jts1882 | talk  11:44, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

@Jts1882: I hadn't seen this, so thanks. All the depth issues were solved by implementing the recursive processing of the taxonomy templates in Lua. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:56, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Merge pages

Peter please merge the history of Escobaria robbinsiorum to Pelecyphora robbinsiorum. I missed the page while editing and instead of moving the page I accidentally created Pelecyphora robbinsiorum Thanks--Cs california (talk) 08:20, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, you need an admin to merge histories – not something I can do.

You can do the same things I would do in such a case:

• When all the relevant material has been copied over, make the old page a redirect, with {{R with history}} added.
• Add the {{Merged-to}} and {{Merged-from}} templates to the appropriate talk pages.

Peter coxhead (talk) 12:20, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

High-use taxonomy templates

I found ~330 taxonomy templates deserving of a {{high-use}} tag (max ~500k transclusions, median ~9k), but I see that tagged taxonomy templates are in the minority (there are ~50 tagged templates out of a possible ~380). I'm wondering if this is intentional (to keep them low-ish profile), or if they should be tagged (i.e. with a noinclude-wrapped {{high-use}} at the top)?   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:08, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

@Tom.Reding: such tagging isn't something I've done, but I don't think there's any reason not to, so I would go ahead if you want to. (The various error-tracking categories do a pretty good job for taxoboxes and taxonomy templates, so vandalism or incorrect edits don't usually last long.) Peter coxhead (talk) 13:01, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Please remove "Black Man's Willy" from Rhodochiton article

Hello Peter. Please consider removing "Black Man's Willy" from the Rhodochiton article. There is a difference between "censorship" and "refraining from planting a hurtful seed". Somebody invented the racist phrase and thought it was funny. But countless others of us find that it is hurtful and does not merit dissemination in a botany article. Thank you. Yuezrnaem (talk) 16:24, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I find the term highly offensive too, and I would certainly never use it. However, it has a reliable source. So the question is whether there is a policy that allows its removal. My understanding is that there is not, so if I or anyone else removes it, another editor is justified in reverting.

(There are other plants that have names that have always been or are now understood to be offensive, e.g. Carpobrotus edulis, Coleus esculentus and many more, Xanthorrhoea (see under Taxonomy), etc. In some cases there's a redirect at the offensive name but it's not mentioned in the article, so therefore it isn't explained that it's offensive, which seems to me not helpful.) Peter coxhead (talk) 07:36, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Botanical author abbreviations

Hello, I have noticed that you have removed my entries on many articles of List of botanists by author abbreviation and claimed them as unsourced. However, I have found two sources that provide otherwise; #1 and #2. If they are deemed trustworthy, I would like for you to review them. Thank you! 2003LN6 07:51, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@2003LN6: no, I didn't claim that they were unsourced as authors of botanical taxa, but that they do not appear in either of the two databases, IPNI and Index Fungorum. The names I removed do not have standard author abbreviations right now. The "List of botanists by author abbreviation" articles list authors by their standard author abbreviation and these can only be defined by the two official lists. If someone has authored a new taxon that falls under the the two official lists, but isn't in them, the right course of action is to contact whichever of IPNI or Index Fungorum applies and ask for the information to be added. When the authors are, then they can be added to the relevant list here.

If you look up in IPNI the individuals listed in the WoRMS reference, namely A.H.Hasan, P.Van der Aa, F.C.Küpper, D.Al-Bader and A.F.Peters, only "A.F.Peters" is present, and the taxon Kuwaitiella is not. It does take IPNI some time to process newly named taxa and authors, but we can't anticipate the author abbreviations they will make up. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:37, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

I've now e-mailed IPNI. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:44, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. 2003LN6 14:04, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@2003LN6: IPNI now has:

• A.H.Hasan – Amal Hajiya Hasan (fl. 2022)
• P.Aa – Pierrot Van der Aa (fl. 2022)
• F.C.Küpper – Frithjof C. Küpper (fl. 2022)
• D.Al-Bader – Dhia Al-Bader (fl. 2022)

So they can be added to the relevant pages. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:42, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Taxobox instructions (authorities)

WT:TOL#Taxobox authority instructions has brought to my attention that the taxobox instructions specify how to represent authorities for the kingdoms Animalia, Plantae and Bacteria, leaving fungi, chromists, and various other organisms in limbo. Would it be better to state this in terms of the relevant codes (with an indication of which taxa come under the various codes)? Also, should the equivalent information be added for the virus code.

PS: I was expecting you to comment further at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants/Archive76#Treatment_of_land_plants_at_Sex_article Lavateraguy (talk) 17:48, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Phintella parva

The article on Phintella parva is currently illustrated with a different species in the genus, which it would be great to replace with one of the species itself. There seems to be an image available in Openverse, from iNaturalist, here:[[1]] but when I have not been successful when I tried to upload it to Wikimedia. Are you able to help please? I have also nominated the article as a Good Article if you would be interested in taking a look. simongraham (talk) 15:23, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

@Simongraham: unfortunately the image is marked "CC BY-NC 4.0", i.e. not for commercial use. Commons doesn't allow this. See Commons:Licensing#Forbidden licenses. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:28, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

That makes sense, and probably one of the reasons for the lack of species images. Thank you. simongraham (talk) 18:05, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Virusbox/parameter chk

Template:Virusbox/parameter chk has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym (talk) 11:31, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Poaceae/Soreng III

There's a third version of Soreng et al's Poaceae classification, published in 2022. It recognizes Nematopoa. Elizabeth Kellogg is included as a coauthor in this version (Soreng II (2017) includes a comparison of Soreng I (2015) with classification independently published by Kellogg in 2015).

I don't know if you're planning to work more on Poaceae taxoboxes, but Soreng III might resolve some disagreements between Soreng II and POWO (I've barely looked at Soreng III). I don't think there were a lot of Soreng II/POWO disagreements though. The biggest issue with the remaining Poaceae taxoboxes is synonymized genera (per both Soreng II and POWO) with species lists including distributions. I've been hesitant to merge the synonyms without updating the species lists in the accepted genera (which also usually have distributions).

There are also a handful of monotypic genera where the (manual) taxobox gives a type species, but the type is treated as a synonym; Oxyrhachis was one of them. I wasn't sure what to about that I did most of the work for Poaceae automatic taxoboxes. I've since settled on put a note about the type species in the synonym list, but I haven't gone back through and converted the articles I previously skipped to speciesboxes.Plantdrew (talk) 20:18, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: I had thought of fixing more Poaceae taxoboxes, but after starting, I got more doubtful. It reminded me why my search previously excluded Poaceae! I think you are right that in many cases it would need to be done downwards from species lists in genus articles. I'll look at Soreng III first if I do decide to do more. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:04, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Noccaea montana

A heads up on Noccaea montana as I expect you will come across it soon. That article was started at the title Alpine Pennycress, and was originally about a North American plant and gave it the scientific name Thlaspi montanum. A couple of weeks after it was created, the scientific name given was changed to Thlaspi caerulescens (also known as "alpine pennycress"), and over the years additional content was added that was relevant to that species. So Wikipedia was getting mixed up by a common name applied to different species.

I created the article at the ''Noccaea montana title in 2015 with content for North America (that was mostly present in the original version of Alpine Pennycress) that I split from Noccaea caerulescens. POWO treats N. montana as a solely European species, but there is a long history of North America botanists treating it as being present in North America. Recent North American publications treat the species there as N. fendleri, but there is some ongoing confusion (iNaturalist has recent observations of "N. montana" in the Rocky Mountains). I was trying to sort out the Wikipedia mix-up by common name in 2015, but didn't realize at the time that there was a taxonomic mix-up as well.

I'll try to get around to creating an article for N. fendleri. The N. montana article needs to be overhauled, and the incoming links there all have a North American context. Plantdrew (talk) 20:45, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: thanks for the note; I'll steer clear of this article.

There are, right now, 40 articles with manual taxoboxes left in those I've been looking at (not Citrus, Poaceae, Fabaceae, Asteraceae or Marchantiophyta). They get more problematic and harder to sort out as the easier ones get fixed. There's probably a hard core of about 30 in this group that may be best left alone. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:35, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I've asked MtBotany to create an article for N. fendleri. I've looked at the search on your user page. Are you counting fossils in the hard core of 30? I've not been sure what to do with those. Should they have incertae sedis when relevant? Most of the (animal) fossils with automatic taxoboxes don't specify incertae sedis, but just have a parent at whatever rank/clade is known. And fossils often aren't linked from any higher taxon. I'm fine with leaving fossils with manual taxoboxes, but they are now the second-largest group of plants with manual taxoboxes (after Asteraceae). Plantdrew (talk) 16:53, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: I haven't really looked at the fossils yet. I agree that it's not necessary to include incertae sedis for missing principal ranks. I do have a couple of paleobotany books, so I did intend to get round to looking at them.

The problem cases for me are those like Grewia milleri. Although in the IUCN Red List as a Socotra endemic, it's not in PoWO and is "unplaced" in WFO and doesn't show up at all in Google Scholar. I've learnt to be cautious about Red List names; the lists regularly seem to use names not found in other sources (prepared by local botanists?). Peter coxhead (talk) 17:20, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I have Fabaceae just about done. 4 manual taxoboxes left (2 synonyms per POWO, 2 unplaced). I had to lower my standards, and give up on checking whether the tribe articles are up-to-date in terms of included genera, or whether existing taxonomy templates had parents consistent with what's stated in the tribe articles (~60 genus templates have Fabaceae as the parent). I did check tribal placement against GRIN/NCBI for tribal placement and added a reference for new taxonomy templates I created.

I figured since there were already a bunch of taxonomy templates in place that weren't up to my higher standards it was worth just doing the rest of them now, and potentially coming back later to double check areas where my standards weren't met. Plantdrew (talk) 18:38, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: well, I don't check for parents or taxonomic sources as carefully as I once did – it really eats up time.

I've a list of those that fit my current search criteria at User:Peter_coxhead/Problem plant species articles#Some articles with manual taxoboxes. Cases I'm often not sure what to do about are those like Pyrenaria buisanensis, which PoWO regards as a synonym of Pyrenaria microcarpa var. ovalifolia. I don't like creating articles for botanical varieties so I'm reluctant to just move it. There's an article at Pyrenaria microcarpa, so relevant content of Pyrenaria buisanensis could be moved there, I guess. What do you think about such cases?

If you have time, please have a look at Oreocarya suffruticosa. The tangle of pro parte synonyms makes the relationship between species names very confused/confusing and hence I found it difficult to write up accurately. For example, what taxon does the English name "James' cryptantha" refer to, given that PoWO has Cryptantha jamesii as a synonym of Oreocarya suffruticosa var. suffruticosa, while the varieties of C. jamesii are split among the other four varieties of Oreocarya suffruticosa? Peter coxhead (talk) 19:37, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't like articles for botanical varieties much either. But I don't think there is any relevant content from Pyrenaria buisanensis that should go in Pyrenaria microcarpa. The buisanensis species concept is a narrow endemic from Taiwan, and treating it in the article for P. microcarpa seems excessive for that article.

However, this is a pretty unusual case. I expected it to be a Polbot creation, but apparently it was first formally assessed for IUCN in 2017 (a decade after Polbot, and also a decade after the Flora of China treatment that is apparently the basis for POWO's synonymy). Catalogue of Life in Taiwan accepts it.

The IUCN treatment says the range (of buisanensis) is southern Taiwan (as does the paper describing P. buisanensis). Flora of China and POWO say the range (of microcarpa var. ovalifolia) includes northern Taiwan (but not southern). iNaturalist swapped buisanensis for ''microcarpa var. ovalifolia in 2020. I'm not sure how exactly taxon swap work on iNaturalist, but it looks like the Critically Endangered assessment got carried over in doing the swap (which of course is something you've dealt with in mentioning status of purported narrow endemics that are synonymized). Almost all of the observations post swap are in southern Taiwan (there were a few shown on the page for the swap itself in northern Taiwan that now don't show up on the map for microcarpa var. ovalifolia). Many of the iNat observations involve multiple photos (up to 20), which suggests to me that the observers were excited to see something special (i.e., a rare endemic).

I am skeptical that Sasaki's Camellia buisanensis (with no extant type) can be confidently said to be the same species as the plant described in 2004 as Pyrenaria buisanensis (maybe the authors should have treated it as an entirely new species with a new epithet). I am also skeptical that the time between the 2004 publication and the 2007 publication date of the Flora of China treatment was sufficient for the FoC authors to have considered whether Pyrenaria buisanensis deserved recognition as a species (versus just going with previous opinions about the possible synonymy of Camellia buisanensis, and assuming Pyrenaria buisanensis should be treated the same). Given the mistake about the range (north vs. south Taiwan) in FoC and POWO I don't think the FoC authors carefully considered the 2004 paper. I do think the 2004 authors made a mistake in not naming it as an entirely new species, which led to FoC authors to dismiss it.

In short, I think the best solution is probably to retain the article for Pyrenaria buisanensis and add a note to Pyrenaria that it is sometimes considered to be an additional species. Plantdrew (talk) 21:26, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

I created the redirect for "James' cryptantha". I suppose I could request deletion as the creator. Broadly I guess it is a name that refers to what is now Oreocarya suffruticosa. But I certainly don't like having vernacular names made up scientists based on translating the specific epithet that end up redirecting to a different epithet after synonymization. "Real" common names survive taxonomic reassignments; golden pothos, poinsettia. Plantdrew (talk) 21:43, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Peridictyon sanctum looks a lot like the situation with Pyrenaria buisanensis to me. There is a new combination based on a name with no extant type specimen. But the Peridictyon article has an explanation (heavily editorialized in Wikipedia voice) to justify the Index Nominum Genericorum position that the name is invalid. POWO accepts Peridictyon sanctum as do all of the other taxonbar links I've checked. Plantdrew (talk) 03:29, 22 April 2024 (UTC)