Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Ongoing disaster: a heads-up

Modified from Talk:Sepiidae#Reclassification:

A [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-023-04195-3 paper] by Kubodera et. al. has proposed a new classification schema for this family, which has been accepted by WoRMS[https://marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=11723 ,] its child project MolluscaBase, SeaLifeBase[https://www.sealifebase.ca/summary/FamilySummary.php?ID=1897 ,] and iNat[https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/67960-Sepiidae .] However i'm not aware if this is accepted as consensus by malacologists and therefore whether the pages and associated taxoboxes should be amended. Does anyone else have a better idea on this? Anthropophoca (talk) 05:12, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

: The Gastropod Project follows WoRMS/MolluscaBase as its guideline taxonomy (i.e. for determining articles and taxobox classification), so I think updating the articles to reflect the new classification would get consensus.  —  Jts1882 | talk  07:19, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

:I've added the new genera into the Sepiidae article along with their respective taxonomy templates. There are still dozens of unreviewed species though, which are still retained in Sepia as per WoRMS, and i'm pretty sure a number of them are synonyms, but i'm not great with reviewing taxonomic history. Anthropophoca (talk) 08:45, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

::I've created the page Ascarosepion by moving the page Metasepia to there and moved all the species pages included, but there remains several dozen more species and the rest of the genus pages, many of which still redirect to Sepia. Help will be appreciated Anthropophoca (talk) 06:03, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

There is an attempt at Template talk:Taxonomy/Vertebrata to garner consensus and make this subphylum "always display". This is to welcome editors to click that link and render your opinion. Thank you very much! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 10:01, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

The taxobox in the Virus page says that the taxon "Virus" is unranked but it's an informal, polyphyletic group. So I proposed to rank it as an "informal group". See: Talk:Virus#"Unranked" or "Informal Group"? Jako96 (talk) 18:54, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

You're invited to the Philodendron Garden Party!, which seeks to create and improve Wikipedia's coverage of the genus Philodendron from April 15 to May 31. Feel free to share ideas and results!

Happy editing and happy gardening! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 14:17, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I'd like to draw attention to two merge proposals that have been open for some time where there are two separate articles for the same taxon, one using the common name and one using the scientific name: one on abalone/Haliotis and one on cone snails/Conidae. Per WP:NOTDICT, I think it is clearly inappropriate to have two separate articles on the same group of animals under different names. Ornithopsis (talk) 03:41, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

:I agree here, it is both a waste and can lead to confusion. Which way they get merged should be up to discussion but a single artical can serve both terms. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 04:21, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

I've begun a proposal here to establish guidelines for what categories should exist to help clean up a lot of category mess and inconsistency, and create some standardizations that should be helpful moving forwards. There is a fair amount of previous discussion that can be referenced for background and differing opinions. If guidelines, as they are or in a revised state, get accepted, there will be a lot of work to do so it would be appreciated if any and all input can be given so that it can be used as a reference for consensus when recategorization begins. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 23:38, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

The amount of non-prehistoric species are negligible, as most if not all species of organisms originated far earlier than 3200 BC (the conventional end of Prehistory). It seems that these categories (e.g., {{cl|Prehistoric eukaryote genera}} and so on) were made with the intention of writing "Extinct" instead. We should correct it. — Snoteleks (talk) 18:26, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

:This idea does sort of fall into the discussion linked to in the section above. In those recommended guidelines these categories would be deleted since they don't really serve an encyclopedic purpose. Relabelling them as "extinct" is a possibility, but are they really that useful? Eg. :Category:Cambrian life is probably more useful to cover both extinct genera and groups or even living groups that evolved in the Cambrian (the latter use is uncertain per the discussion). IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 18:57, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Category:Extinct animals say that it "lists animals who are extinct according to Wikipedia's Conservation status categories" (and has done so since it was created in 2004). Articles aren't categorized 100% consistently, but the extinct categories are largely directly populated with recent extinctions, not prehistoric ones (although the prehistoric categories are often subcategories of extinct categories). :Category:Prehistoric animals was created in 2005, with "Animals existing before recorded history". I don't think the prehistoric categories were "made with the intention of writing "Extinct" instead".

::I think a distinction between recent extinctions and prehistoric ones is worth making (Wikipedia has both Wikipedia:WikiProject Extinction and Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology). There is redundancy between the extinct categories, :Category:IUCN Red List extinct species and :Category:Extinctions since 1500. The IUCN category is populated automatically via taxoboxes parameters, and I don't think it would be possible to break it down by different kinds of organisms; the "since 1500" categories allow a break down by different kinds, but are underpopulated compared to the IUCN category. 1500 is the cutoff for what the IUCN considers extinct (it's a round number at the start of the Age of Discovery, when European naturalists would have had an opportunity to document organisms before they went extinct, 1500 also is near the end of "prehistory" globally if we're defining prehistory by there not being people present with a written language).

::Maybe the solution is to make sure the "since 1500" categories are fully populated, and get rid of the prehistoric categories. But the original intent of the prehistoric vs. extinct categories seems clear to me, even if it hasn't been observed subsequently. It would be a lot of work to get rid of the prehistoric categories. There's also a :Category:Fossil taxa to deal with, which isn't very populated aside from having :Category:Fossil taxa by year of formal description and it's subcategories. Plantdrew (talk) 19:41, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

:::I agree that the original intention was clearly different, but that's definitely not the case anymore. I'll check the above section to see if the discussion includes this topic. — Snoteleks (talk) 18:46, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

::::I think a potential solution to this could be classifying by age as in :Category:Dinosaurs by age as it would break down something like :Category:Prehistoric birds into things like Maastrichtian, Paleogene etc all the way up to Pleistocene without issue, with a small area of potential conflict around "Holocene birds" where we would either have to chose to only apply that category to fossil/subfossil birds (with the IUCN categories for recently extinct birds) or some other compromise. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 05:17, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

If a species is naturally found only in a limited geographic area, but has been artifically introduced to other locations e.g. during the 20th century, is it still accurate to call it 'endemic' to its region of origin? YFB ¿ 09:21, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

:I'd say, yes, still endemic of its original area. - Kweetal nl (talk) 09:53, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

:'Native' would be better in that context. Loopy30 (talk) 11:52, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

::'Native' needlessly loses information. - Kweetal nl (talk) 12:19, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

:::I think it's fair to say "endemic to X and naturalized in Y and Z". But I don't think anything would be lost by saying "native" instead of "endemic". Endemic is more jargony than native and I frequently see endemic being misused on Wikipedia (taxon articles describing/categorizing something as endemic to more than one place). Plantdrew (talk) 19:28, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

::::It just means something else, doesn't it? Native means 'occurs naturally in area X'. Endemic means 'occurs naturally in area X and not anywhere else'. The information loss is undeniable. *shrug* Kweetal nl (talk) 19:36, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

::::In the case I had in mind, the species is a plant from the Cape Floristic Region where endemism is a notable characteristic, and it's also somewhat interesting that despite the plant being very easy to grow and tolerant to a reasonably wide range of conditions in cultivation, it is only found naturally in a quite restricted geographic region. So 'endemic' feels like the correct word to use, but recent (deliberate) human introductions of the species from cultivation to other (very distant) habitats, where it has become invasive, mean it's no longer only found in at its place of origin. My intent was to say "endemic to A but has also been artificially introduced to Y and Z" if that's not considered contradictory. YFB ¿ 19:50, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::"endemic to A but has been artificially introduced to Y and Z" seems perfect to me. (Maybe 'artificially' can be left out too; after all, that's implied in 'introduced') Kweetal nl (talk) 19:57, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Agreed - thank you. YFB ¿ 23:33, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

:By definition, an endemic species is that which does not naturally exist outside its geographical region. Therefore, artificial introductions do not count. — Snoteleks (talk) 03:00, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

The article for the pangolin species Manis indoburmanica was moved recently to Manis aurita. There is evidently no published source, only [https://www.mammaldiversity.org/taxon/1006934/ this entry] in the "mammaldiversity.org" website. Is this considered an acceptable source, or should the article be moved back until the synonymy is actually published? Dyanega (talk) 21:16, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

:The Mammal Diversity Database is run by the American Society of Mammalogists and can generally be considered a reliable source. The guideline generally followed at WP:MAMMALS is to follow the taxonomy of Mammal Species of the World 3 or Mammal Diversity Database and the IUCN Red List (if the two are in agreement), but that doesn't really apply here: MSW3 is outdated in this area (my reading of it is that it recognises M. auritius, basionym of M. aurita, as a subspecies of Manis pentadactyla[https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/biology/resources/msw3/browse.asp?id=13900015], though I believe aurita is correct per the genus gender?), and there is no Red List assessment for this taxon. My reading of this situation is that this move seems to be a purely nomenclatural issue, where the specific epithet aurita has priority over indoburmanica. MDD is likely the best and most recent source on this taxon, and I think it makes sense to follow its taxonomy here, but it would be best to discuss this at the WP:MAMMALS. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 02:06, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

: Agree with {{u|Ethmostigmus}}. Definitely a reliable source and the only alternative for all mammals is the IUCN, which is much slower. The MDD name is consistent with MSW3 with a gender change. It might be worth checking why the authors came up with a new name rather than using the existing subspecies, but presumably the MDD editors checked this. The article creation might have been premature, but the move is appropriate.  —  Jts1882 | talk  07:08, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

::Taxonomic databases are not a reliable source because they are not the scientific source to begin with. Ideally, a database should be well-maintained through the use of peer-reviewed sources, but it is never peer-reviewed itself. I feel like we should be really careful when claiming a specific database is reliable and another is not, because there will come a moment where editors refuse to make changes according to peer-reviewed articles due to the preferred database not yet being up-to-date. This is my point of view after much contact with databases that are both reliable and unreliable depending on the taxon group, such as WoRMS, IRMNG, AlgaeBase, and most recently [https://eukmap.unieuk.net/ EukMap]. They will inevitably always be worse than peer-reviewed sources, because they are one degree of separation ahead at best and completely neglected at worst. — Snoteleks (talk) 11:53, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

:::In this particular M. aurita situation, the article clearly has no peer-reviewed source supporting its new title; all references refer to the species as M. indoburmanica except for the database reference. The explanation is that {{tq|the name aurita {{small|Hodgson, 1836}} has priority over indoburmica}}. The database itself provides this explanation as a 'taxonomy note': {{tq|recently described under the name indoburmica as a new species based on populations previously attributed to M. pentadactyla, but based on the populations attributed to this species, the name aurita Hodgson, 1836 has priority over indoburmica and is used for the species here; the exact distributional limits between M. pentadactyla and M. aurita are currently uncertain and require further research}}. So sure, there's somewhere a (probably) taxonomist that made a well-meaning decision "{{tq|based on the populations attributed to this species}}" and merged the two taxa in this database. But he did not publish that decision in a peer-reviewed journal supported by other taxonomists. These could be different species for all he knows, and for that matter, for all any reader knows. — Snoteleks (talk) 12:02, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

::::In conclusion, I disagree with the move and would consider it WP:OR if I was involved with mammal articles. If anything, I would simply state in the original article that "the Mammal Diversity Database considers this species to be a synonym of M. aurita based on its distribution" and cite that with the database until another, actually peer-reviewed source comes out claiming the same thing. — Snoteleks (talk) 12:10, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::I'm tempted to agree with Snoteleks here, in that the move/renaming is premature but it's absolutely fine to cite the MDD as treating aurita as a junior synonym. I'll note, for Ethmostigmus' benefit, that the nomenclatural gender of Manis does in fact appear to be feminine; it is an obscure feminine Greek noun meaning "wrath" - and this is an example of why I hate WP articles that make up etymologies where the author provided none. Even though that etymology doesn't really make sense, the ICZN insists that it be treated as feminine, and people shouldn't speculate about why Linnaeus chose it. We don't know, we'll never know, but I suspect it was NOT because pangolins are wrathful. ;-) Dyanega (talk) 18:20, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::: Isn't MDD treating aurita as senior synonym (or whatever the correct term is for the name with precedence)? They aren't the first to use aurita over auritus (see Waterhouse, 1838; Ellerman & Morrison-Scott, 1951)

:::::::There was historical confusion over the gender, but the ICZN rules settle that dispute, so aurita is correct. Dyanega (talk) 16:03, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::: While I have some sympathy for the view that the move was premature and the approach Snoteleks suggests, it definitely isn't WP:OR to use Manis aurita. We would be following MDD as a secondary source, which is considered reliable by the project. The question is do we follow the primary source describing the species (which on its own is insufficent for an article) or the secondary source that evaluates the species proposal. I find it a bit strange that the paper describing the new species didn't consider previous descriptions and names for pangolins from the area and just went for a new name without discussion.  —  Jts1882 | talk  08:31, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::There is no basis for synonymizing M. aurita and M. indoburmanica except for assuming that their distribution is the same, which is exactly what the MDD taxonomy note suggests. We editors should be critical of the sources we use, not just write them out as reliable just because of prior history. And, again, it is a scientific topic, which should require scientific standard. Not to mention, talking about other bibliography matters little when the Wikipedia article itself does not even cite those.

:::::::I cannot access the Wangmo et al. (2025) paper right now (I have asked for it at ResearchGate), but every news source talking about this paper ([https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/scientists-unveil-potential-new-pangolin-species-highlighting-conservation-challenges/], [https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/zsi-scientists-discover-new-species-of-indo-burmese-pangolin/article69085347.ece], [https://currentaffairs.khanglobalstudies.com/new-species-of-indo-burmese-pangolin-discovered/] for example) seems to suggest that M. indoburmanica is a cryptic species, meaning that it may look like the same species at first but is genetically distinct from others (particularly from M. pentadactyla). Moreover, they talk of this species as "proposed", "potential", etc. which makes sense due to it being very new. I even found an opinion article on the same journal where the author supports M. aurita instead.{{cite journal|vauthors=Zijlstra JS|title=Manis aurita Hodgson 1837 as a valid species of pangolin: a comment to Wangmo et al. (2025)|journal=Mammalian Biology|date=25 April 2025|doi=10.1007/s42991-025-00495-x}} But MDD simply paints over all of that. So instead of having an article that goes:

:::::::* Manis indoburmanica is a proposed species of bla bla bla... one author has suggested that it could be equivalent to the species M. aurita, because bla bla bla... although M. aurita is generally considered a subspecies of M. pentadactyla bla bla bla...{{cite journal|vauthors=Hua Y, Wang J, An F, Xu J, Zhang H, Gu H|title=Phylogenetic relationship of Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla aurita) revealed by complete mitochondrial genome|journal=Mitochondrial DNA. Part B, Resources|date=22 June 2020|volume=5|issue=3|pages=2523-2524|doi=10.1080/23802359.2020.1772693|pmid=33457850|pmc=7783056}}

:::::::We have an article that goes:

:::::::* Manis aurita is a species of bla bla bla... it was described this year as M. indoburmanica,{{sup|[insert 1 peer-reviewed citation and a news article]}} but it's definitely the same as this one.{{sup|[a website that we like and is not peer-reviewed]}}

:::::::It's just a matter of where the priorities lie. My priorities lie with reflecting peer-reviewed research and how scientists take time to reach a consensus, not with parroting whatever a specific website says, no matter how accurate it may be other times. — Snoteleks (talk) 12:28, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::{{ping|Snoteleks}} the 2025 paper is available through WP:TWL - if you have access, that will likely be faster than waiting for the authors to approve your request on RG. I'm heading to bed now, but let me know if you can't access it through TWL and don't hear back from the authors and I can email it to you tomorrow.

::::::::From my reading, the paper concludes that this pangolin is a taxon split from M. pentadactyla and {{tq|distributed in the westernmost distribution of the Chinese pangolin range with its possible presence from Eastern Nepal, North-East India, and North-West Myanmar}}, but did so without checking if other authors had previously identified this western population. The authors don't seem to have sought out existing specimens attributed to M. pentadactyla in the region, (rather, obtaining {{tq|seven large seizures of pangolin scales i.e., five from northeastern India and two from western India}} and a holotype/paratype from Arunchal Pradesh) which is a very problematic oversight. Hodgson's M. auritus (treated as a subspecies of M. pentadactyla) is attributed [https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/8722515#page/228/mode/1up here] as a subspecies defined by its range, which encompasses that of M. indoburmanica. Ergo, if M. indoburmanica is a new name being attributed to the morphologically similar but geographically distinct westernmost populations of M. pentadactyla, the name Manis aurita takes priority. The 2025 paper may be peer reviewed, but the proposal of a novel species with no mention of the earlier literature is a big red flag, and brings the name Manis indoburmanica into doubt - certainly enough doubt that it should not be the title of a page on the taxon. I'm not sure of exactly what to do in this case, but the MDD editor appears correct to place this into synonymy with M. aurita in the absence of any proof that M. indoburmanica is distinct from it. Seems like a pretty classic case of newer authors creating a heterotypic synonym for an existing taxon based on genetic evidence, and given that the authors of the M. indoburmanica paper make no mention of, much less attempt to disprove synonymy with, M. aurita, it seems like we as editors should err on the side of caution and not adopt the name M. indoburmanica yet, at least not as an article title. Not sure if the best course of action here is to redirect back to M. pentadactyla or something else, but we shouldn't take the M. indoburmanica paper at face value. Nevermind, Zijlstra (2025) provides reasoning for this synonymy and its adoption at MDD. I am happy to leave this article at its current title until further analysis is published.

::::::::Apologies if I'm missing something obvious here, as I said I am about to hop into bed, and I'm certainly not a mammalogy expert so there may be some nuance I'm missing. Cheers, Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 13:35, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::I hadn't known about WP:TWL until now, thanks for the info, I will definitely be trying it out — Snoteleks (talk) 16:46, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::: {{tq|We editors should be critical of the sources we use}}. Indeed, especially when we haven't even read the paper. As Ethmostigmus says, the paper has a clear flaw in not considering other pangolins found in the same area, which is standard in any taxonomic analysis. Wangpo et al even say the haplotype of their samples shares the same lineage as field collected samples from Nepal, where the type of aurita was located. They conclude it is a new species without considering the obvious alternative, that it's a previously described species/subspecies from the same area. We don't even have to make the decision ourselves, we just have to follow reliable secondary sources, which the MDD is considered to be by the project.  —  Jts1882 | talk  14:52, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::Our discussion right here provides far more information than the M. aurita article. My argument is not that we should blindly follow the peer-reviewed source (just as I refuse to blindly follow the database source), but that the Wikipedia article explained nothing in the first place, and it almost exclusively cited the sources it went against. There's also much more sensible information poured into this discussion than in the MDD taxonomy note, which grossly oversimplifies the situation that you and Ethnostigmus adequately just explained. — Snoteleks (talk) 16:22, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::: Incidentally, Jelle Zijlstra, the author of the paper arguing that aurita is the correct name, which was published within the last couple of weeks, is the editor of the Hesperomys Project and has regular discussions with the MDD editors on their GitHub site. He may even be one of the editors now. So saying "MDD simply paints over all of that" is not entirely accurate. It is likely this paper is the result of the discussion that led to them favouring the older name.  —  Jts1882 | talk  15:09, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::Since there is a paper saying that aurita is a valid species name, we do have something that can be cited; it's not simply an unpublished synonymy, as it had appeared initially. I'd be fine with citing this paper in both the Manis and Manis aurita articles, since synonymies are subjective and taxonomic, they do not have to fulfill the same criteria for publication as new species descriptions. Dyanega (talk) 16:03, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::MDD's taxonomy note is absolutely not sufficient, I still stand by that. Jelle Zijlstra's opinion (I feel like it's still necessary to point this out) paper is an entirely different thing and probably has very respectable conclusions, just like the ones we came to here. You can't just cite a database's comment and be done with that. Adding Zijlstra's paper adequately reflects at least a bit more scientific consensus, and Ethmostigmus' observations would be the ideal addition. We can't just go along with either M. aurita or M. indoburmanica unless we justify it properly. — Snoteleks (talk) 16:32, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::All taxonomy is opinion, but Zijlstra's taxonomic opinion is the most recent, most thorough and evidence based, and is the one that has been adopted by the ASM - adoption in MDD is the best reflection of consensus we have on the synonymy and valid name for taxon at this moment. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 05:58, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::I somehow entirely missed the section of {{u|Snoteleks}}' comment that mentioned Jelle Zijlstra's paper as I wrote my previous comment last night... Zijlstra does confirm my reading of the situation, and explains the MDD editors' decision to place these names into synonymy. I'll strike some of the more uncertain sections of my previous comment - until further developments, I'm of the opinion that the article should stay at M. aurita, given the evidence presented by Zijlstra and the MDD's adoption of M. aurita as the valid name for the taxon. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 05:39, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

{{reftalk}}

Template:Taxonomy/Viroid should be moved to Template:Taxonomy/Viroids and Template:Taxonomy/Viriform should be moved to Template:Taxonomy/Viriforms. Just like Template:Taxonomy/Subviral agents and Template:Taxonomy/Satellite nucleic acids. Jako96 (talk) 19:40, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

:And they should be ranked as "informal groups" instead of "(unranked)". Jako96 (talk) 20:07, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

::I don't often dwell on informal groups, but I don't think template page moves are necessary if all you want to do is change from singular to plural. You can just render the displayed name as plural. — Snoteleks (talk) 00:55, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:::I know we can change the displayed name but there is no reason not to move. It would be weird if template names and displayed names were different. But they should be ranked as informal groups (not like the "Virus" case) because there is no source that proposes a "taxon" called "Viroid" of "Viriform". Jako96 (talk) 15:06, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:::: I've changed the "ranks" to informal group and the displayed names to the plural.  —  Jts1882 | talk  15:58, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Nice. But why not move them instead? Jako96 (talk) 16:07, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I genuinely do not understand the necessity of these categories. All articles found in "Category:X unranked clades" (where X is the name of a taxon) can just as fine be transferred to "Category:X taxa", there is no need for an additional subcategory because all the ranked clades are already found neatly within subcategories. — Snoteleks (talk) 03:11, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:Another thing that I agree with and would be deleted per the category discussion at WT:PALEO. All "clades" are unranked, but note that a clade is mutually exclusive with ranked nomenclature (families, superfamilies etc) so there are cases where both are applicable. See for example :Category:Dinosaur clades since clades are a common term in dinosaur taxonomy, but might not be as applicable in other groups like :Category:Birds by classification where linneaen is still used. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 05:14, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

::Good to know, I'm honestly all in favor with the proposals at WT:PALEO. — Snoteleks (talk) 23:33, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:Caftaric created most of these back in 2016/2017, including :Category:Unranked clades itself. So this may be just another instance of a categorization system Caftaric created without any discussion. The remaining categories were likely created to build on this category tree, with the exception of :Category:Mammal unranked clades which apparently has been around since 2009. Monster Iestyn (talk) 16:42, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

::Interesting. Thanks for the info — Snoteleks (talk) 23:32, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi all

I've been looking at working with a native French speaker who is also an expert on some flies to translate missing French articles from English, however it seems like all the templates break and it looks like the same thing happens from French to English as well. This seems like an important thing to get right for translations between the first and third largest Wikipedia communities. Currently the process makes it look like everything works perfectly and the translation tool doesn't complain but then when a user publishes the infobox and I think other things don't work. Does anyone know if its broken between other languages as well? I am not a technical person and my French is optimistically B1, so I've no way of fixing this myself, does anyone know how it might be possible to fix and who could do it? Or where we could ask on French Wikipedia?

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 08:46, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

:{{ping|John Cummings}} different language wikipedias use different sets of templates. The taxoboxes in the English Wikipedia now almost all use the automated taxobox system. The taxoboxes in the French Wikipedia use an entirely different set of templates, relying on each article setting up the taxonomic hierarchy. It's never going to be possible to map one to the other – and even if it were possible, it would be wrong, because for legitimate reasons, different language wikipedias sometimes use different taxonomic classification systems. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:56, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

::Hi {{u|Peter coxhead}} ok, thanks, so just to make sure I understand, is this correct?:

::# It is not possible to use the translation tool to translate species articles between English and French and there is no plan to make this possible.

::# There is no warning for users of the translation tool that you can't translate species articles and if you publish them they will be broken. I assume that the user will also break rules on the other language Wikipedia for publishing a broken article.

::# There are no additional instructions for helping people manually translate them.

::I guess my basic question is how does a user translate a species article from English to French, is it simply not done at all and all articles are created from scratch independently? Is this unique to species articles?

::Thanks

::John Cummings (talk) 09:10, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

:::{{ping|John Cummings}} the displayed text of articles can be translated. However, if any part of any article uses a template, and the tool tries to 'translate' the source wikitext rather than the displayed text, then it's almost guaranteed that it won't work. So no, it's not unique to species (or other taxon) articles. Look at, for example, Eugène Simon and fr:Eugène Simon. Our article uses Template:Infobox scientist for the infobox, the French article uses fr:Modèle:Infobox Biographie2. They work in very different ways and have different parameters (fields). You certainly can't just 'translate' "Template:Infobox scientist" into "Modèle:Infobox Biographie2".

:::Another part of an article that can't be translated automatically is the categorization, since different language wikipedias use different schemes.

:::You simply can't translate an entire article complete with all the 'techy' bits from one language to another. You can use the tool to translate the displayed text. This must then be fitted into the new language wikipedia, which will almost certainly have different conventions for infoboxes, section titles and ordering, categories, etc. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:27, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

:::[Edit Conflict] To answer your questions to my limited understanding:

::::1. Not "in one fell swoop" for the reasons Peter coxhead has explained in detail above. Since on fr.Wikipedia taxoboxes are (it seems) individually constructed rather than relying on a standard template, the coding to translate all possible invented Fr variations would be formidably large and complex even if it were possible at all.

::::One answer (it seems to me) is to translate the article thus producing the 'broken' taxobox/es, delete that/those broken item/s, insert the En standard taxobox template/s, and fill it/them in manually.

::::2. It might be appropriate to compose and add a specific warning to the translation tool documentation, but such a problem is probably not confined merely to taxobox templates, and to me such problems seem so expectable that a warning is almost superfluous.

::::There is no question of 'breaking rules' by producing a draft with mistakes, whether broken taxoboxes or anything else – mistakes of one sort or another are near inevitable, but this does not matter because the 'broken' translation is a work in progress, a draft, and preferably a WP:DRAFT. The translating editor's job is not to create perfection with one click, but to correct mistakes and either (a) not move the Draft to Article space before this is done or (b) publish to article space but with the "Work in Progress" template at the top.

::::3. Given that there are different approaches to taxonomy (classical Linnean, cladistic and all sorts of blends) This surely is always going to be a task requiring human knowledge, research and ingenuity.

:::Hope this helps, or at least stimulates others to provide better and more correct responses (often my goal in commenting). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.101.226 (talk) 09:34, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

::::To start a taxon page on French Wikipedia, use fr:Projet:Biologie/Taxobot. It handles the templates, taxonomic hierarchy, synonyms according to a specified source, categories, etc. Any prose content can be translated from another language and added to the skeleton produced by Taxobot. Plantdrew (talk) 15:58, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

:One contribution to making cross-wiki translations of species articles easier could be to explore whether it's feasible for other language wikis, particularly the larger ones, to adopt (a version of) the automated taxobox system? That would make automated mappings of taxonomic data easier, although I have no idea how much effort it would take to implement or what pitfalls there might be. YFB ¿ 12:39, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

::I'm glad this is getting talked about. One of the big reasons I don't contribute to the Spanish Wikipedia is that there is no automated taxobox system. If there was, I'd happily be translating my protist articles and the whole WikiProject Protista into my native language. — Snoteleks (talk) 13:05, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

::: We've had this discussion before. The problem with the automatic taxobox system is that there are 110,000 taxonomy templates that are needed for the full system. It provides great flexibility here on Engglish wikipedia but is a daunting prospect to install elsewhere. Replacing them with a series of modules was considered. Ideally templates could be used across different language wikis or be placed on Commons, but that is something needing a WikiMedia solution.  —  Jts1882 | talk  13:50, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

::::That does sound daunting. Given the auto taxobox solution is intended to reduce editor effort, though, it would be interesting to estimate how many manual taxoboxes are being edited/maintained across the other major language wikis - as I suspect the ROI for that effort could be quite quick especially if WM support could be obtained. YFB ¿ 14:00, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

::::: Hi {{u|Jts1882}} could you link to a discussion? I was expecting a big number but wow, that's a lot. This seems like a job for Wikidata fed infoboxes but honestly I'm not technical enough to know about it in practice. John Cummings (talk) 14:10, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::I'm on my phone now, but will get back to you with some links.  —  Jts1882 | talk  15:06, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::There's quite a bit of diversity in how taxoboxes work across different Wikipedias. Wikidata items get created to link taxonomy templates for automatic taxoboxes when they exist in multiple languages (see :d:Q55437591). There have been taxonomy templates created on Chinese Wikipedia before they existed on English Wikipedia, but other major languages aren't using English Wikipedia automatic taxoboxes. I'm not sure what the actual uptake of automatic taxoboxes is on the other Wikipedias that have imported taxonomy templates; Ukrainian and Vietnamese have imported versions of most taxonomy templates. I am pretty sure Scots is using automatic taxoboxes in most articles.)

:::::::French Wikipedia is the only one I'm aware of that uses multiple templates to build a taxoboxes. This is a system that English Wikipedia was using in 2004, and was replaced I think around 2006 with the single template manual Taxobox.

:::::::Most languages use versions of Taxobox with specified parameters for every rank that is displayed. Catalan (and Hebrew?) pull the taxonomic hierarchy from Wikidata. Some languages pull some elements from Wikidata, while keeping the taxonomic hierarchy locally specified in an articles taxobox (Cebuano pulls images from Wikidata). I'm not sure how Russian Wikipedia's taxoboxes work (see e.g. ru:Крестовник). Russian pulls several taxonomic database IDs from Wikipedia, and has a parent parameter. Is the parent parameter there fetching the taxonomic hierarchy from Wikidata (curiously, the Russian taxobox parameter names seem to be entirely in English, even though they have features that were never in English Wikipedia's Taxoboxes). Plantdrew (talk) 15:44, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Here is a related discussion Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life/Archive_50#The_automatic_taxonomy_system

:::::::For Wikidata issues see User:Peter coxhead/Wikidata issues  —  Jts1882 | talk  17:38, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks all, is there a place on wiki that this could be discussed across different languages communities equivalent to this one? This is clearly a complex problem but many people are motivated to find a solution. John Cummings (talk) 14:10, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

:Outside of those here who also participate on other language wikis weighing in, I doubt you'll find a good place for discussion between the different sites. The Morrison Man (talk) 15:29, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

::French Wikipedia is very attached to their fiddly system of multiple templates (I say fiddly, because to make an family display above a genus, the family template must be above the genus template on the page; in Wikipedias that have adopted a single template Taxobox, the order of parameters doesn't matter, the Taxobox "knows" to display family above genus).

::French Wikipedias has recently rejected proposals to add automatic taxoboxes and taxonbars (see fr:Discussion_Projet:Biologie/Le_café_des_biologistes). There are some serious misconceptions there about how these templates work. French editors think automatic taxoboxes get the hierarchy from Wikidata, and aren't aware that the IDs displayed in a taxonbar can be customized.

::However, there is a tool that can be used to start a taxon page on French Wikipedia: fr:Projet:Biologie/Taxobot. Plantdrew (talk) 15:55, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

:Lack of interoperability and common policy between Wikipedias (and other sister projects) is a perennial issue, and something that we're bad at handing). You could start a discussion on Meta, but you'd be likely to hit this issue: https://xkcd.com/927/ Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:18, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

A small update, it seems that trying to tranlate a species article from English to French which includes the taxobox (I guess it could be another template but seems unlikely) completely breaks the translation tool, nothing works, you just get a blank page. What do people think about me starting a phabricator task as a first step? That would provide a central place to discuss the issue. I could be ask specific as 'fix translation between English and French species articles'. John Cummings (talk) 11:21, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

: You could copy the article to a user subpage and remove the taxobox. You could also do the translation piecemeal by section, which would increase the chance of success. I don't think a phabricator task will go anywhere as translating a large article with complex templates is a very difficult and probably of limited utility.  —  Jts1882 | talk  11:58, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Is it my imagination, or has the automatic taxobox formatting recently been adjusted so that the "domain" field is now indented to the left? Esculenta (talk) 16:27, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

: I recently made some changes to the display that should only affect narrow screens in desktop view on non-mobile skins. I don't think they shouldn't be relevant here, but mistakes happen. Can you provide some more information? Example page, skin, etc.  —  Jts1882 | talk  17:42, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

::It's indented for me too, both on my pc and my phone (when on desktop view). I'm using Firefox on both devices in case it matters. —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 18:27, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

:::But it looks like it only affects the new Vector (2022) skin, since it rendered fine when I switched to the old style (which feels surprisingly antiquated now). —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 18:31, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

:::: It also appears in the monobook skin. I think the cause is the addition of class taxonrow in [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1289058087 this edit] by {{u|Peter coxhead}}. Iirc, I added the class in a test a while back but reverted it. It seems to have found it's way back, possibly due to a sandbox mismatch.  —  Jts1882 | talk  18:58, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

::::: I've removed the offending CSS.  —  Jts1882 | talk  19:03, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Yes, it was caused by not checking that the sandbox and live versions matched exactly before updating the sandbox. My error – thanks for the fix. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:40, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Please comment below saying whether you support or oppose making the domain rank a main rank in the automatic taxobox system. This would make Domain Eukaryota display always in eukaryotic taxoboxes (plants, animal, fungi, and protists). It would be consistent with the Bacteria and Archaea domains being always displayed. — Snoteleks (talk) 20:30, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. Whether to use a one or two domain system, with eukaryotes embedded in Archaea is disputable. There's no real advantage that I can see going beyond kingdoms for plants, fungi and animals.Peter coxhead (talk) 21:49, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
• :Fungi and animal taxoboxes already display Eukaryota. Adding it for plants, if anything, would be the only noticeable change outside of protists. — Snoteleks (talk) 01:23, 7 May 2025 (UTC)
• oppose - I don't deal much with very high phylogenetic ranks, but from what I know, there is, as Peter says, dispute as to two versus three "domains" and it feels like we'd be picking a proverbial side without a community consensus as to which system is correct. As things stand now, the two taxa that indicate domain are the two that are not dependent on which system prevails. That seems appropriate and prudent. Dyanega (talk) 22:15, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
• :That dispute is an entirely different topic from this one. But I'll bite. How would you suggest displaying eukaryotes in the taxobox system, if not as a domain? — Snoteleks (talk) 01:25, 7 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::In the two domain system, eukaryotes do not form a domain; the domains are bacteria and archaea. So to display Eukaryota as a domain is to pick a position in the dispute. Is there a consensus for this? Peter coxhead (talk) 05:49, 7 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::Well, judging by this thread, there is no consensus. I think I'll open a different topic here to discuss this. — Snoteleks (talk) 16:33, 7 May 2025 (UTC)
• Support, with the following arguments:

1. All animal and fungal taxonomy templates already display Domain Eukaryota due to {{tl|Taxonomy/Amorphea}}. The only non-protist group left would be plants. If consensus is reached to oppose showing Domain Eukaryota, only plants would be affected. What makes them so special?
2. If said consensus was reached, at least 17 taxonomy templates would still need to individually display Eukaryota due to being protists related to plants: {{tl|Taxonomy/Sar}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Haptista}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Pancryptista}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Incertae sedis/Archaeplastida}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Glaucophyta}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Rhodelphidia}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Picozoa}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Prasinodermophyta}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Chlorophyta}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Charophyta}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Mesostigmatophyceae}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Chlorokybophyceae}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Klebsormidiophyceae}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Charophyceae}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Coleochaetophyceae}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Zygnematophyceae}}, {{tl|Taxonomy/Anhuiphyton}}. This means that we would continue using 5 parallel templates where Eukaryota is displayed, due to the intermediate clades Diaphoretickes, CAM, Archaeplastida, Viridiplantae and Streptophyta. This seems unnecessarily complex, so I must ask again: why are plants so special?
3. The question of whether or not Eukaryota should even be a domain falls out of the scope of this discussion. There is currently no scientific consensus to classify eukaryotes as not-a-domain, regardless of their archaeal ancestry. Moreover, there is no taxobox where Domain Eukaryota is a child of Domain Archaea, therefore no rank repetition would occur.
4. Most importantly, the only reason why we haven't simply used {{tl|Taxonomy/Eukaryota/displayed}} for specific groups yet is that we did propose it, but the template editors themselves suggested making the domain rank mandatory instead (for example, here and here). I am not going to sit idly between neither of those options.

:— Snoteleks (talk) 01:52, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

• :{{tq|why are plants so special?}} – my answer is that they are not, but without full discussion and consensus, a few editors have expanded the upper levels of the classification. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:49, 7 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::Yes, I see that now. On the other hand, it seems that animal and fungal editors have been content with it? — Snoteleks (talk) 16:32, 7 May 2025 (UTC)
• :Most of the listed templates display either Archaeplastida or Viridiplantae (and have one of those displayed down to the level of species articles). The introduction to those articles explains that they are equivalent to broad circumscriptions of Plantae. The Plantae discusses the other circumscriptions, although it is largely focused on the circumscription also referred to as embryophytes. Archaeplastida/Viridiplantae are effectively substitutes for kingdom rank in taxoboxes for articles on non-embryophyte plants. Plantdrew (talk) 20:44, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
• Comment. The primary issue for me is whether there is consensus on how to handle the classification of the upper levels of the tree of life in taxoboxes. If there is, we can consider technical issues, such as having displayed and not displayed versions of taxonomy templates versus making domain a principal rank. I cannot see that there is yet such a consensus. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:49, 7 May 2025 (UTC)
• Comment. Historically, the animal and fungi taxoboxes didn't display Eukaryota and there was consensus for stopping at the kingdom established early in taxobox history (before my time). The change happened with [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Taxonomy/Amorphea&diff=prev&oldid=1166641046 this edit] by {{u|Pppery}} in response to an edit request by {{u|Snoteleks}} on the template talk page. Before the display of Eukaryota had to be forced with {{para|display_parents}}. As a result many of the non-Kingdom Fungi/Animalia lower taxa didn't display Eukaryota or needed {{para|display_parents}} with a high number to do so. The change meant animals and fungi always displayed the domain.

: I think in general that Eukaryota should be displayed, especially for the higher taxa. While I don't think it is needed for taxoboxes in articles on species of birds, mammals or flowering plants, if it is to be excluded it should be an opt out basis. Currently only six eukaryote taxonomy templates don't have {{tl|Taxonomy/Eukaryota/displayed}} as the parent.  —  Jts1882 | talk  08:30, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

::Thanks for the explanation @Jts1882. It's notable that Pppery's comment in reply to the talk page post was "I'm assuming you know what you are doing and have gotten proper consensus here". I tend to agree with @Peter coxhead and @Dyanega that it's not clear that consensus exists. For lower ranks where there are many taxa, some debate about the proper placement of a particular lineage doesn't place a question mark over display of the entire rank. Given that the contention with domains is whether there should be three or two, and also bearing in mind that we presumably have vastly more articles on eukaryota than the other domains, displaying domain on eukaryote taxoboxes does seem me a potential violation of NPOV. YFB ¿ 08:59, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

::Wow, I had no idea that I was the one to cause that. Now I feel like I've been unintentionally pushing an agenda nobody agreed on or even knew about. — Snoteleks (talk) 16:32, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

::: That's why care should be taken making changes to the higher taxa. What makes a lot of sense for some groups, notably protists, might make less sense for more well-knon and specious taxa, and the consequences of a change are not always obvious. It doesn't help that talk pages of taxonomy templates have so few watchers. It would be better if they were redirected to a project page or at least the talk page of the taxon.  —  Jts1882 | talk  16:46, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Yes, I should've definitely used a project page first. I also have seen that they have very few watchers. — Snoteleks (talk) 11:42, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

It looks like there isn't much enthusiasm for displaying Eukaryota in Animal/Fungi/Plant taxoboxes, although not very many people have commented. I was looking at the upper level taxonomy templates and came across Template:Taxonomy/Amorphea/showdomain, which I created, but had forgotten about, and that led me to a discussion I'd forgotten about. They way I had it set up, [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Taxonomy/Amoebozoa&oldid=990728908 Template:Taxonomy/Amoebozoa] was linked to Amorphea/showdomain, and that was linked to Eukaryota/displayed, resulting in Eukaryota being displayed for Amoebozoa, but not other Amorpheans. It seems like this is a solution that could be extended in order to not display Eukaryota for Animal/Fungi/Plants while displaying it for other eukaryotes.

As it stands now, there are 6 clades between {{tl|Taxonomy/Animalia}} and Eukaryota, 4 clades between {{tl|Taxonomy/Fungi}} and Eukaryota (but 3 of them are shared with Animalia), and 3 between {{tl|Taxonomy/Plantae}} and Eukaryota, so we would need 10 variant taxonomy templates with showdomain to accommodate all the other eukaryotes. Plantdrew (talk) 20:43, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

:{{Ping|Plantdrew}} Wouldn't it be more convenient to make skip templates for animals/fungi/plants then? —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 21:10, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

::I may not have grasped how skip templates work (I'm finding the documentation a bit opaque). Does the skip template set a higher level parent? If so what would it be that's higher than domain - just 'life'? YFB ¿ 21:20, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

:::{{Ping|Yummifruitbat}} yes —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 21:21, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

::::btw, I've already created Template:Taxonomy/Animalia/skip, just to test if this solution would actually work (and it does!) —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 21:23, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Yep, it works. Now you would need to have the (currently) 18 templates that have Animalia as a parent be changed to have Animalia/skip, and the only place the regular Animalia template would be used is in the article for animal itself. (P.S. anybody reading this who is interested get User:Jts1882/taxonomybrowser.js if you don't already have it; it makes it possible to browse downward through the tree of taxonomy templates, although it does sometimes have trouble with variant templates). Plantdrew (talk) 21:38, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

:::That is a potential solution, but skip templates make it impossible to displayed the skipped taxa. I don't think anybody objects to the plant article showing Eukaryota (via {{para|display_parents}}); the objection is to showing Eukaryota in the articles for every plant species. I guess we could achieve that with just 3 variant templates (one each for Animalia/Fungi/Plantae), where the articles for the three traditional kingdoms use the regular template, and the articles for everything below the kingdom use a skip template.

:::But I'd like to keep things simpler for the majority of the templates (i.e., those in the traditional kingdoms) and keep the messier bits restricted to the minority of templates that are outside of the traditional kingdoms. Plantdrew (talk) 21:31, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

:@Plantdrew this seems like a reasonable solution. YFB ¿ 21:21, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Judging by the above discussion, there is currently no editorial consensus on whether the taxon Eukaryota should be displayed as a domain or as something else entirely in the taxonomy template, due to the fact that eukaryotes diverged from within the already-domain Archaea. Please comment your support or objection to using domain for Eukaryota, and, if possible, the reasoning behind your opinion (including scientific literature). — Snoteleks (talk) 17:23, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

:Support. I think it's a similar occurrence to both Reptilia and Aves being class-level taxa, so it would not be unheard of. It is now undisputed that Eukaryota evolved from Archaea,{{cite journal|vauthors=Williams T, Foster P, Cox C, etal.|title=An archaeal origin of eukaryotes supports only two primary domains of life|journal=Nature|volume=504|pages=231–236|date=2013|doi=10.1038/nature12779}}{{cite journal|vauthors=Eme L, Tamarit D, Caceres EF, etal.|title=Inference and reconstruction of the heimdallarchaeial ancestry of eukaryotes|journal=Nature|volume=618|pages=992–999|date=2023|doi=10.1038/s41586-023-06186-2}} and the domain rank has been challenged in a philosophical sense,{{cite journal|vauthors=Stephanie-Jane N, etal.|title=Eukarya the chimera: eukaryotes, a secondary innovation of the two domains of life?|journal=Trends in Microbiology|volume=30|issue=5|pages=421-431|doi=10.1016/j.tim.2021.11.003}} but there's still no scientific consensus to stop using the domain rank in classifications, and in fact this is still the norm.{{cite journal|vauthors=Staley JT|title=Domain Cell Theory supports the independent evolution of the Eukarya, Bacteria and Archaea and the Nuclear Compartment Commonality hypothesis|journal=Open Biology|volume=7|issue=6|date=2017|doi=10.1098/rsob.170041|doi-access=free}}

:However, the use of the domain rank at all in classifications is more infrequent than ever. In eukaryote-only classifications, there is either 0 mention of the domain rank at all (not to mention other ranks), or, in the latest one, the domain rank is used to designate the Amorphea and Diaphoretickes groups: {{tq|Eukaryotes now form two Domains called Amorphea and Diaphoretickes, with several additional clades that do not group into a third Domain}}.{{cite journal|vauthors=Adl SM, Bass D, Lane CE, Lukeš J, Schoch CL, Smirnov A, Agatha S, Berney C, Brown MW, Burki F, Cárdenas P, Čepička I, Chistyakova L, Del Campo J, Dunthorn M, Edvardsen B, Eglit Y, Guillou L, Hampl V, Heiss AA, Hoppenrath M, James TY, Karnkowska A, Karpov S, Kim E, Kolisko M, Kudryavtsev A, Lahr DG, Lara E, Le Gall L, Lynn DH, Mann DG, Massana R, Mitchell ED, Morrow C, Park JS, Pawlowski JW, Powell MJ, Richter DJ, Rueckert S, Shadwick L, Shimano S, Spiegel FW, Torruella G, Youssef N, Zlatogursky V, Zhang Q|title=Revisions to the Classification, Nomenclature, and Diversity of Eukaryotes|journal=Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology|date=2019|volume=66|issue=1|pages=4-119|doi=10.1111/jeu.12691|pmid=30257078|pmc=6492006|display-authors=3}} In prokaryotic classifications, eukaryotes are simply ignored.{{cite journal|vauthors=Rosselló-Móra R, Whitman WB|title=Dialogue on the nomenclature and classification of prokaryotes|journal=Syst Appl Microbiol|date=2019|volume=42|issue=1|pages=5-14|doi=10.1016/j.syapm.2018.07.002|pmid=30017185}} There is just one relatively recent, ranked classification that includes both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, and it uses superkingdoms instead for both prokaryotes and eukaryotes.{{cite journal|vauthors=Ruggiero MA, Gordon DP, Orrell TM, Bailly N, Bourgoin T, Brusca RC, Cavalier-Smith T, Guiry MD, Kirk PM|title=A higher level classification of all living organisms|journal=PLoS One|date=2015|volume=10|issue=4|pages=e0119248|doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0119248|pmid=25923521|pmc=4418965}}

:In conclusion, I believe we should keep the Domain rank for Eukaryota for historical reasons & consistency purposes, just like for Reptilia/Aves, because there will be no alternative (it is incredibly unpopular to use superkingdoms or claim that Amorphea and Diaphoretickes are domains) until scientists eventually come to a consensus on their own. It's also more convenient for educational and reading purposes.

:Also, perhaps this would be a good time to mention that the taxon itself is generally written as Eukarya, not Eukaryota, as shown in the various refs. — Snoteleks (talk) 18:31, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

:: Eukaryota is much more widely used in general, although Google scholar is marginally in favour of Eukarya. But Eucaryote is the older term and it probably should be [https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/41893#page/69/mode/1up Caryota], which is older still. It's not clear why Chatton added the eu- or where the "k" came from. Woese used Eucarya.  —  Jts1882 | talk  10:02, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Good point. I think leaving it as Eukaryota for now is best. Maybe in a few years, if Eukarya takes over in Google Scholar, if anything. — Snoteleks (talk) 11:40, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:Comment I'm fine with us using 'domain' for Eukary(ot)a in article text where we can provide or easily link to the context of that usage. I feel a bit more conflicted about it appearing unqualified in tens of thousands of taxoboxes. YFB ¿ 08:33, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

::@Yummifruitbat Just to clarify, are you conflicted about it appearing in the taxoboxes entirely, or about it appearing in a specific portion of them (animals, perhaps)? — Snoteleks (talk) 11:37, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:::I guess my perspective would be that, while the status of Eukarya as a domain is in question, we would want to minimise the extent to which we refer to it without qualification as a domain. So it would follow that we wouldn't use it in taxoboxes except those where it provides significant value. For animals, plants and fungi I would argue it's not essential so we should omit it. I don't know enough about protists to offer an informed point of view. YFB ¿ 12:12, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

::::And would you consider using it in taxoboxes if its status was something else entirely? Such as "Organisms", "Life group", or even "Clade"? — Snoteleks (talk) 16:58, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Yes - but for animals, plants and fungi I'd probably still omit it. YFB ¿ 17:29, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

::::As a follow-up from a protist perspective, it is absolutely essential as protists do not form a natural kingdom, their "kingdom" is essentially Eukaryota. — Snoteleks (talk) 16:59, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:Comment I'm fine with the status quo using 'domain' for Eukarytota and on the fence on removing it from Animal and Fungi apart from the top level taxon articles (i.e. the status quo ante) or adding it to plants for consistency. It's actually difficult to source with a general taxonomic reference. Cavalier-Smith uses superkingdom or empire Eukaryota, Ruggiero superkingdom Eukaryota. Adl used domain in a unique way: Domains Amorphea and Diaphoretickes. Woese's formal phylogenetic taxon uses Domain Caryota, which is rarely used elsewhere. My personal view is that it is a domain in Woese's original domain of organisation sense (the cytological division of others) and this generally seems to be how it is used.  —  Jts1882 | talk  07:34, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

::I agree most with this opinion. It's pretty much the educational usage than anything else. — Snoteleks (talk) 17:53, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

{{reftalk}}

• Support treating as a domain. Eukaryotes being archaeans is the same situation as birds being reptiles. Plantdrew (talk) 20:31, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
• Support treating as a domain. See my comment at the very end of this talk. --Petr Karel (talk) 06:50, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Seeing as the editorial consensus seems to be initially seemed to be going towards not using the "domain" rank for Eukaryota in taxoboxes (see the two discussions above), we should probably come up with a usable alternative soon I imagined there could be a usable alternative. I have some suggestions:

• Clade: while this is accurate, I personally think it would give an unfinished feel to taxoboxes.
• Organisms: a more textbook approach, doesn't go into detail, but might be unappealing due to being plural?
• Life form: I would say this is the more intuitive of the options. I think it sounds alright in singular.

Comments? Suggestions? — Snoteleks (talk) 20:49, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:There is no other way around, I think. Just use "Clade". Jako96 (talk) 19:00, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

::Ohhh they later supported domain, I see now. Jako96 (talk) 19:10, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

While working on lichen articles I have come across (and made articles for) several species—Lecanora perpruinosa among them—that were effectively published but invalid under the Codes (e.g. missing mandatory Latin/English diagnosis, no type designation, unregistered post-2013 names, etc.). These taxa are treated in the secondary literature, so their pages satisfy WP:N, but there is no precise category for them.

I suggest :category:Nomina invalida, a sibling to :category:Nomina nuda. The new category would house pages whose names:

• were effectively published (ICN Arts 29–30 / ICZN Art 8);
• fail one or more validity/availability requirements (ICN Arts 32–35, ICZN Art 11, registration, etc.);
• remain the subject of reliable secondary discussion.

Related categories already exist—Nomina nuda, :category:Undescribed species, :category:Taxa that may be invalid—but they serve different cases (naked names, yet-to-be-described material, or a broad "possibly invalid" catch-all). The proposed category would keep "invalidly published but discussed" names together without conflating them with these other situations. Comments? Esculenta (talk) 20:00, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:I support this. I also come across numerous nomen invalid taxa when researching protist taxonomy (e.g., Chrysoderma, Giraudyopsis, Ulva olivascens...). And {{cl|Undescribed species}} is definitely a different topic altogether. {{small|(Offtopic, thanks to this I found out about the hilariously named Dermophis donaldtrumpi)}}. — Snoteleks (talk) 20:43, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

While this is somewhat related to other discussions at WT:PALEO I think its best to bring this to the larger view here with a question of where the various subprojects of WP:TOL draw the line at their included content. Specifically I'm concerned about where the line it drawn between WP:BIRD and WP:DINO but there's also things to consider about projects like WP:FISH or WP:AAR among others where there is some questions to be asked about inclusivity or exclusivity. I think the case of Birds and Dinosaurs is probably the most complex though, so can be used to model for others.

In general, it looks like we try to have WikiProjects be as mutually-exclusive as possible under the TOL umbrella, so that we don't tag something like the Dodo as a Bird, Dinosaur, Amphibian and Reptile, Fish, Animal, Paleontology, and Tree of Life all at once. But some of these lines are harder to draw than others, especially because of differing views among literature. WP:DINO distinguishes its included content as "dinosaurs ... covering Mesozoic birds". WP:BIRD on the other hand includes "birds ...extant and extinct". Both of these ideas overlap in the area of "Mesozoic birds" but also in what is counted as a "bird". The Bird article associates the term with crown-group Aves, but also with crown-group Neornithes since Aves is used inconsistently. Neontologists tend to place Aves as more inclusive (including for example Archaeopteryx) with Neornithes for the crown-group, while palaeontologists (including the PhyloCode) tend to place Aves as less-inclusive, at the crown-group. This creates a very broad area where some animals are "birds" to some authors, but are not "birds" to others. There are some 100 taxa between Avialae and Neornithes (the two alternatives of Aves), all of which are Mesozoic, and thus would be under both WP:DINO and WP:BIRD. That may be acceptable, but the two projects focus on different topics and would present information similarly but also differently. Every single genus under WP:DINO has an article, but the articles on extinct birds are roughly half-created, given the focus of WP:BIRD on topics that cannot be determined in extinct organisms: behaviour, conservation, range, habitat etc.

It is my experience that the articles on extinct taxa are left out of the work of the neontology projects (except somewhat WP:MAMMAL) and are only really worked on by the editors of WP:PALEO, so I wonder if it is worth reconsidering where projects draw their lines of the goal of a project is to be a "focused group effort to improve a section of wikipedia" and sections are being left aside. And if these boundaries get re-drawn, would it be best to fold the extinct "birds" between Avialae and Neornithes into the dinosaur project or just the paleo project? IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 23:42, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:As someone who is not an active participant in any of those projects, two things:

:# I think it would be nice to set boundaries. It's clear that WP:FISH is centered on fish, which means no tetrapods, and WP:AAR is centered on the science of herpetology, which usually excludes the dinosaur clade. WP:DINO should be the intersection between WP:BIRDS and WP:PALEO, if anything, and it would be the appropriate project for extinct birds given what you said about the focus of WP:BIRDS.

:# I also think that overlapping can happen in some cases, and that's okay. It should be expected. WP:PROTIST, WP:ALGAE and WP:MICRO overlap quite frequently, but it makes sense, because most algae are microscopic protists. Hell, sometimes even WP:PLANTS and WP:FUNGI are present in articles that are neither plants nor fungi, but that were about taxa historically regarded as such. In the same manner, I would probably expect the non-avian to avian dinosaur transition articles to overlap WP:DINO and WP:BIRDS, just like I expect the fish-to-tetrapod transition articles to overlap WP:FISH and WP:AAR and WP:PALEO, and so on. WP:DINO and WP:BIRDS should collaborate with each other when they overlap, not necessarily exclude each other.

:In a way, it reflects the real branches of science. Yes, the articles on extinct taxa are only really worked on by the editors of WP:PALEO, but that's how science is distributed among people too. You would not ask a herpetologist about ichthyosaurs; you would ask a paleontologist. Just as similarly, you could probably not ask an ichthyologist about tetrapodomorphs, but, again, paleontologists come to the rescue. And probably very few ornithologists regularly answer questions about the first mesozoic birds. — Snoteleks (talk) 00:40, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

::How far do we go though for these things? Would all birds under WP:PALEO be under WP:DINO as well? or would we say that only birds outside Neornithes, or outside Avialae, are part of WP:DINO and other extinct birds are only WP:PALEO? While for the most part projects themselves should be determining what is under their "jurisdiction", there has to be some level of assignment of articles so that they don't fall through cracks. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 02:02, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:My personal view is that WP:DINO is basically completely within WP:PAL, and the wikiprojects are really only separate by convention. Many of the editors are shared between the two wikiprojects and edit both dinosaur and non-dinosaur paleo articles. Obviously, any discussion of dinosaurs cannot really be divorced from paleontology writ large, and the separation is mostly just a reflection of popularity among laypeople and the number of enthusiasts that dinosaurs as a subject attract. According to this framework I've suggested, there isn't really a difference between Mesozoic birds being part of WP:DINO and WP:PAL vs only being in WP:PAL. In practice, most editors interested in dinosaurs will mostly be interested in non-avian dinosaurs because Mesozoic birds are not really conceptually different from modern birds (in terms of the interest they draw).

:I would generally expect extinct animals to be the general purview of WP:PAL first and foremost, with involvement from other wikiprojects only occurring insofar as individual editors become interested in participating. In those cases, the guidelines, conventions, etc of WP:PAL would be the primary mode of resolving any editorial disputes. I think in practice, Mesozoic birds should be part of WP:DINO just so we don't have to bother coming up with an arbitrary delineation. But for all intents and purposes, the boundary between WP:PAL and WP:DINO is only a formality. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 04:10, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I think we should add clade Biota to the automated taxobox system. Jako96 (talk) 11:02, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

:Why? It's a category with a single entry. There's no information value there. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 11:35, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

:What Elmidae said, why exactly? — Snoteleks (talk) 13:53, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::Because Biota is a valid clade and it should be added. And I didn't understand what Elmidae said. Jako96 (talk) 15:04, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

:::But something being in the automatic taxobox system to begin with already means it's alive, what clarity is added by displaying that? Life is already the root of the taxonomy template, are you suggesting that both life and biota be used? Gasmasque (talk) 16:13, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::::MGEs are not included in the Biota clade. The Life template contains both cellular life and MGEs. Jako96 (talk) 16:46, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Are there any taxoboxes for mobile genetic elements (it took me a couple of minutes to work out what MGEs were)?

:::::If not, as a practical matter it doesn't seem to make any difference whether the root of the taxobox system is interpreted as Biota, Pan-Biota or life. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:59, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Of course there are taxoboxes for MGEs. For example see Riboviria page. But MGEs are not united in a single taxon, if you're asking that. Jako96 (talk) 17:02, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Google Scholar returns [https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/107186/Kevin%20de%20Queiroz%20-%202020Wiemann%26othersBiotaPhylonyms.pdf a single use] of the name Biota as a clade. It also returns a single use of [https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/107185/Kevin%20de%20Queiroz%20-%202020Wiemann%26othersPanBiotaPhylonyms.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Pan-Biota] (and 2 or 3 more for the orthographic variant Panbiota).

::::All known life is inferred to belong to a single clade, which is the one named Biota above (avoid confusion with the noun biota, which is a term coordinate with clade, grade and guild). Biota and life need not be coterminous; on the one hand life may be paraphyletic if some or all viruses are nested within it (the highly reduced parasite and rogue gene hypotheses) and are not considered living. On the other hand stem-groups to Biota (branching before LUCA) are living but not part of Biota. There is also the possibility (likelihood if the universe as a whole is considered) of multiple occurrence of abiogenesis, which would make life not a clade. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:55, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::: Is Biota a valid clade or taxon? Is what is included well-defined like a taxon, e.g. what about viruses? Can it be a proper clade if there is no outgroup in the analysis?

::: Incidentally, the reference phylogeny for the phylocode definition is unrooted. How can that define a clade (common ancestor and all its decendants)?  —  Jts1882 | talk  17:19, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Biota is defined as "The largest crown clade containing Homo sapiens Linnaeus 1758." in the PhyloCode's official name repository, RegNum. See: https://www.phyloregnum.org/?term=Biota And of course it can be a proper clade without an outgroup. Also, [https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/107186/Kevin%20de%20Queiroz%20-%202020Wiemann%26othersBiotaPhylonyms.pdf this paper] from Phylonyms: A Companion to the PhyloCode accepts Biota as a valid clade and also defines it as "The largest crown clade containing Homo sapiens Linnaeus 1758.". Jako96 (talk) 17:38, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

To summarise: Life (the root of the taxobox) is the parent not only of the cellular domains but of various virus groups, and as such is closer in concept to Pan-Biota than to Biota. Its children would be Biota and various groups that are Pan-Biota incertae sedis or even ?Pan-Biota. As such there's a case for inserting Biota between life and the different cellular domains. If that is done than perhaps it would be a good idea to add an article Biota (clade); perhaps even Pan-Biota Lavateraguy (talk) 17:32, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

:Pan-Biota is not accepted as a valid clade by the scientific consensus. It's not certain that MGEs share a common ancestor with cellular organisms. Jako96 (talk) 17:46, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::What I don't understand is what benefit to readers would follow from adding yet another high level taxonomic unit to the hierarchy on which virtually every taxobox is based. If this level is not to be shown in taxoboxes, what is the point of it? If it is to be shown, what does it add? Taxoboxes are, I thought, meant to give a summary. Why the target reader of Wikipedia needs to be shown that Tyrannosaurus is a member of Eukaryota is already beyond me, let alone showing that Eukaryota belongs to some higher unit such as "Biota". Peter coxhead (talk) 06:14, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Biota would not be always displayed. They would probably see it in only Eukaryote, Archaea and Bacteria pages. Jako96 (talk) 07:55, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

::::{{ping|Jako96}} but what would be the benefit to our readers? Peter coxhead (talk) 16:43, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::For example, the Algae classification is changed to include also cyanobacteria in the taxobox recently. That means now the Algae taxobox does not show any taxon in the scientific classification section. But for example, "Fish" is a non-monophyletic group and it does show Vertebrata. If we add Biota, the Algae taxobox can show Biota.

:::::Apart from that, why should we not add a valid clade to the wiki? Jako96 (talk) 17:11, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Hmm that is a good point. The Algae taxobox is completely devoid of taxonomy, which is the main purpose of taxoboxes. On the other hand, we could maybe just use a normal infobox, like in the Unicellular organism article; it's maybe more fitting this way, since it's not a taxon.

::::::I personally don't think we need an article for Biota; that's what the article for Life is for. The notion that Biota is exclusively for the descendants of LUCA and not life in general is very uncommon, and, like I explained in this previous discussion above, modern taxonomists don't deal with/don't care about such higher taxa. It's safe to assume that the average reader also does not care. — Snoteleks (talk) 18:13, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::I don't think algae needs a taxobox. It is a concept much like tree or mushroom.

:::::::Many article using {{tl|Ichnobox}} don't have any higher taxonomy (e.g. Oldhamia and Treptichnus), but adding Biota wouldn't really be an improvement to those (some ichnotaxa once had a higher taxonomy from an unreliable source that was deleted, and most are produced by animals (or a more specific group within Animalia), but there were some concerns about mixing ichnotaxa and regular taxa in taxboxes at [[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Palaeontology#Taxoboxes_and_trace_fossil_classification). Plantdrew (talk) 22:43, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::Okay, I changed the algae taxobox for an infobox. — Snoteleks (talk) 03:27, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::Maybe we should abandon the paraphyletic group template now and just use infoboxes for such? Jako96 (talk) 13:16, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::No — Snoteleks (talk) 14:09, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::So let's add Biota. It's a valid clade and there is no reason not to add. Jako96 (talk) 15:13, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::By the way, Biota would also include cellular organisms' acellular ancestors. Jako96 (talk) 15:20, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::So far nobody wants to do that. And Biota does not appear (nor needs to appear) in any paraphyletic group template. — Snoteleks (talk) 16:29, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::::No, I'm saying we should finally add Biota to the automated taxobox system. Jako96 (talk) 16:49, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::::Again, nobody here wants to do that. Ask more people and maybe the consensus will change. — Snoteleks (talk) 16:57, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

As many of you know, [https://inaturalist.org/ iNaturalist] uses Wikipedia articles as its main source to populate the "About" tab on its pages about taxa. When no Wikipedia page exists, the "About" tab gives a link to create the page on Wikipedia and generates a template with a speciesbox, section headings, and reflist. At present, this template includes one reference, to iNaturalist itself. Unfortunately, as user-generated content, iNaturalist does not constitute a reliable source from our perspective.

I am thinking of filing two bug reports in the iNaturalist Github system:

1. Remove the part of the template that creates a reference to iNaturalist. Stubs created via the iNaturalist template, without further additions, will then easily be recognized as unsourced and shunted to draftspace via WP:NPP.
2. Add a taxonbar to the template, so the new stub will have links to many possible sources, making it easier to rescue. (I'm splitting this into a separate bug because the development team there is probably stretched pretty thin, and I'm not sure how easy it is to pull up the corresponding Wikidata identifier for a given iNat taxon.)

I'd be interested in input from users here about these proposed changes, particularly from anyone who is making use of the iNaturalist template to start articles. Choess (talk) 15:32, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

:Good idea. But it took me a couple of years to get iNaturalist to remove {{para|parent}} from the Speciesbox in their template (parent is only used to display ranks between genus and species, which is pretty rare). Admittedly, I brought that up on their forum, not Github; maybe Github responses are faster.

:Wikidata is what really drives the iNaturalist links to Wikipedia, so I don't think a taxonbar would be too hard to pull up. iNaturalist users (at least some of them) know they may need to edit Wikidata to ensure the right article is linked (I think there is some capability for iNat to find a Wikipedia article via title matching before a Wikidata link is made, but it can be the wrong article if there is a hemi-homonym, and Wikidata must then be edited to get the right article linked).

:I doubt anybody who uses the iNat template to create articles is watching this talk page (or any others in Wikipedia space). Plantdrew (talk) 16:42, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

::The turning point on your issue seems to have been a third party (richardlitt) making a patch and pull request; once that existed, one of the staff developers was able to help refine it and get it committed. I don't speak Ruby; I think I could figure out how to do that for removing the reference to iNaturalist, but adding the taxonbar to the template is probably beyond me. (The relevant file is [https://github.com/inaturalist/inaturalist/blob/main/app/views/taxa/_description.html.haml here].)

::I agree that most of the people using this feature probably aren't en.wikipedia power users, but I know we do have some article creators that I think may have come here via iNat over the past several years, and I don't know if this represents the start of anyone's workflow. From dabbling around in the New Articles reports and in draftspace, I don't think this is generating stubs at a rate that would cause serious problems for WP:NPP, but I'm trying to be vigilant about any mechanism that might fill us with one-line stubs and undermine community support for WP:NSPECIES. Choess (talk) 17:55, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

:::I try to monitor all the new taxon articles on a daily basis (via reports such as User:AlexNewArtBot/PlantsSearchResult). I would say that the majority of new articles are produced by a handful of editors that usually produce multiple articles a day (and these editors produce articles with no problems). There's another group of editors that produce maybe an article a week whose names I recognize, and for most of them I have a sense of whether they produce articles with zero problems, sometimes produce articles with problems (e.g. forgetting to include a category), or consistently produce articles with problems (there are two editors who contribute articles where I know there is always going to be some cleanup needed). I'd guess between 80 and 90% of new articles are made by editors whose names I recognize. For the articles by editors I don't recognize, a significant number of those (20% at a guess) are produced via the iNat template. It absolutely is the start of a workflow for some inexperienced editors, even if it's only a couple percent of all articles. Plantdrew (talk) 19:20, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

:Absolutely support this, iNaturalist citations are an issue I've come across a few times before and it is very unfortunate that the iNat team encourages their use. I actually got interested in editing Wikipedia because I noticed the empty "about" sections for taxa on iNaturalist, and I think the template on iNat is a great way to introduce people to editing Wikipedia, but that circular citation has always annoyed me. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 09:52, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

There was a discussion about cyanobacterial taxonomy. Please further discuss it: Talk:Cyanobacteria#"Cyanobacteria-Melainabacteria group"? Jako96 (talk) 22:30, 23 May 2025 (UTC)