Commons talk:WikiProject Tree of Life

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Archives[edit]

2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 (broken up into several subpages due to length), 2010, 2011, 2012

2013[edit]

Fossil categories[edit]

For some reason the convention for images of fossils have become for example "fossil Dilophosaurus"[1], instead of simply "Dilophosaurus fossils". I'm not sure what the rationale for this is, I think the latter is more well formed, and it is also much easier to replace categories with hotcat, because you don't have to write a lot of stuff before a category turns up. Any thoughts? FunkMonk (talk) 14:04, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Same problem with for example "unidentified fossils of Reptilia", instead of simply "unidentified Reptilia fossils" or some such. FunkMonk (talk) 14:06, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, conceptually taxa or organisms can't be fossils. The rationale question is resolved by the taphonomy: Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of extinct organisms, while taxa are categories for the classification of all organisms (living and extinct), and organisms are living beings (now or in the past). Specialists often use "fossil taxon", but it is a conceptual impropriety. The extinct taxa or organisms of the past may not be fossils, they are not its own remains or traces. In other words, fossil is not a state that follows the extinction or death; making an analogy, we dont' talk about "the corpse Walt Disney" because he is dead, we talk about "the late Walt Disney". Then, for pictures of fossils should use "Dilophosaurus fossils" (as remains of Dilophosaurus) no "fossil Dilophosaurus" (as Dilophosaurus that are fossils). (Only exception may be ichnotaxa) --PePeEfe (talk) 10:53, 15 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect the creator of the original fossil categories did not have English as his first language. Luckily, Abyssal has begun moving categories. FunkMonk (talk) 11:11, 15 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Not necessarily, in Spanish I have the same problem, many scholars mixed concepts of fossil and taxon. Thanks to Abyssal, which will have a huge work. Regards, --PePeEfe (talk) 11:34, 15 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

{{Category redirect}} improvments[edit]

Hello my friends,
I added a new parameter |reason= to {{Category redirect}}
This to allow contributors to explain/justify the redirect.

If you look at {{Category redirect}} you will see that I created 3 templates that uses {{Category redirect}} but provide an automatic and translated reason for the 3 main cases in biology:

The last one can be complemented by a {{Single}} on the destination page.
Of course, all these template take usual biology parameters: source, source2, ref, accessdate.
Cheers Liné1 (talk) 11:08, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Photos_by_Jason_Hollinger[edit]

We could use help of knowledgeable people at Commons:Bots/Work_requests#Move_images_to_specific_scientific_category_from_Category:Photos_by_Jason_Hollinger_.28uncategorized.29 --Jarekt (talk) 15:42, 11 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Collaboration with Project Noah?[edit]

Hi, I've quite often stumbled over "Project Noah" (www.projectnoah.org), and always asked myself, why there is no collaboration between Wikipedia and Project Noah. Since they are trying to document/photograph as many life-forms as possible, and Wikipedia is basically doing the same, only more in written form, it seems only logical to share information. So I wrote an email to project Noah and indeed they would in general be interested to collaborate: 

 Hi Simon,
 we would be excited to collaborate with Wikipedia & are happy to share data
 & photographs from Project Noah on the basis that both the photographer and
 www.projectnoah.org are attributed.
 If you are involved with Wiki & could broker an introduction for us that
 would be appreciated.
 Kind regards
 Karen Loughrey

My question now is, if Wikipedia indeed is interested in such a collaboration (and if it's possible under the terms that Karen stated?) or is it just me thinking that's a good idea? And who would actually be the decision maker for such things here in Wikipedia? Cheers --Rockwurm (talk) 08:03, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, we are here in Commons, not Wikipedia, and policies are rather different :) Commons just uploads images and their associated metadata, and it is fairly liberal in what it is willing to import. Project noah images seem nice - though it would be even better if you could get higher-resolution versions that those publically available.
I am not sure about the license though. The suggested terms of use are pretty much in line with commonly used licenses like Cc-by-3.0, but those license are irrevocable, and photographer will no longer have the right to delete their images. U am not sure Noah is in position to accept that without the written content of its users. At least, that does not really seem to fit with its terms of use: "By contributing to the site, you are granting us a non-exclusive license to use your content. Your content will always remain yours and you can delete it at any time. Back-up copies may remain in our databases for quite some time, but will not be accessible to the public." If you can see about that, we can then work out the technical details and request a batch upload. --Zolo (talk) 08:59, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the quick answer :)

I wrote Project Noah with the new info in mind, asking if it would be possible for them to let their users decide whether or not they want to publish their pictures under commons. Let's wait and see...--Rockwurm (talk) 14:54, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes if their images were distributed under compatible license than we could copy them here. At the same time, they can copy any of the images from here to there, as long as they retain proper license, attribution and linking (we can help there). --Jarekt (talk) 15:29, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I received answer from Project Noah. They decided that they would not be able to provide a platform for uploads to Wikimedia. BUT they would very much like to recommend to their users to also upload their pictures on Wikimedia. And for this they are asking for a "short list of what a Project Noah user would need to do in order to submit their photo to Wikipedia and we can share that with our users. In fact, it would make for a great feature for the Project Noah blog." So my question is, is there a step-by-step guidance for uploading files to Wikimedia that I can forward to Project Noah?! Cheers,--Rockwurm (talk) 03:56, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the current version of the Upload wizard is the clearest thing we have, and is the default import page for English users for some reason, it does not seem to be the case in German). Commons:Commonist may also be of use for those who wish to import many files at once, but I think new users should have a first try with the Upload wizard first.
The main pitfall is copyright issues. That should be a major problem for self-made natural life photos, but if there are questions, they can always ask at the Village Pump. --Zolo (talk) 06:22, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

2013[edit]

Category:Asclepiadaceae has been reclassified as subfamily of Apocynaceae---[edit]

...please fix the subcats out. See en:Asclepiadoideae for info. --Pitke (talk) 20:14, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tomatoes[edit]

There are four tomato-related categories which I suspect could be consolidated into two categories:

Am I right in concluding that Solanum lycopersicum var. lycopersicum and Tomatoes of the United States should be converted into redirects? 68.165.77.12 01:02, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, merge the first two, under the first name. Pics of harvested fruit (I see there are some in the cat.) should be moved to Category:Tomatoes or subcats thereof. - MPF (talk) 19:30, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The second two should remain separate, with plants in Category:Solanum lycopersicum in the United States, and harvested fruit in Category:Tomatoes of the United States; they should be categorised under Category:Solanum lycopersicum by country and Category:Tomatoes, respectively. Borderline cases: foliage and fruit together -> Category:Solanum lycopersicum in the United States, fruit on stems but without leaves -> Category:Tomatoes of the United States. Hope this helps! - MPF (talk) 19:30, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Done - MPF (talk) 20:34, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

11,000 unsorted biology images at Category:Uploaded by Amada44 (unsorted)[edit]

There is a treasure trove (11,000+) of unsorted but well labeled images at Category:Uploaded by Amada44 (unsorted), which appears dominated by photos of insects, plants, and vertebrates. I've been chipping away at it using Cat-a-lot, (moving images out of the unsorted category and into a genus or species category) and any additional help would be welcome. Due to the shear number of files, perhaps a bot-assisted move could be implemented, since species names are in many cases present in the file name, but I'm less knowledgeable about bot-requests. Cheers! Animalparty (talk) 18:56, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Need for an "ID please" page for unidentified organisms[edit]

Hi all, I think we need a page for identifying unidentified organisms, including plants and fungi. It seems currently this project is not very active in Commons. So what I do usually is to post at relevant English Wikipedia (not my home wiki; but the only language I can write well other than Malayalam) projects like Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants. It works in most cases; but I hope many other language wikis like German and French wikis also have such projects. Unfortunately I can't participate there due to the language barriers. I wonder why we can't handle such requests here as we host most media here. We can make a community of all experts around the world here than in various language wikis.

Note that we decline a lot of images in COM:QI and COM:FP because they are not sufficiently identified. So currently people depend off-wiki forums like Facebook and Flickr groups and other sites. This is somehow drastically affect the smooth flow of images to Commons/wikis too.

I would like to hear you opinion. Pinging a few people I already know: @Shyamal, Invertzoo, and Sminthopsis84: @CorinneSD, Bugboy52.40, and AshLin: @Notafly, Dyanega, and Dysmachus: @MPF, Archaeodontosaurus, and Wsiegmund: ... I would like to bring the attention of some crats like 99of9 and Odder too to know how this can be worked out with more community support. Jee 13:38, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There just aren't as many morphology "experts" on Commons as on for example English Wiki. Most people here are into the taxonomy/categorisation end of biology. It would probably be most successful to have such a section on Wik projects at Wikipedia. I suggested such at the bird project a while back:[2] FunkMonk (talk) 13:53, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks FunkMonk for your opinion. But if there are some experts in some wikis, why not we can bring them to Commons? It may be difficult for a French speaking person to post at EN wiki and vice versa. Jee 15:54, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, what will make them come to Commons? People usually notice such ID requests because they have a certain talk page on their watchlist. If the users don't visit Commons often, they'll not see edits here. I'm not against an ID page, but what would make it different from all the Category:Unidentified organisms categories? FunkMonk (talk) 16:02, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think there is a difference. When people add an image to a relevant unidentified category, they only expect the ID at some point of time, perhaps, after a long time. But when someone made a request in a talk page of a project, they expect the ID soon. It is something like posting a reminder in EN FPC talk. It expects an immediate attention. Jee 16:14, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think you can go ahead and make such a page (the idea is good, even if it doesn't get used), but remember to make it visible on the project page, and perhaps from the unidentified organisms parent categories... FunkMonk (talk) 16:19, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just a comment that I don't think alerting specialists that an immediate identification is needed would get an enthusiastic response. Many photos are simply unidentifiable, and it is often not possible in general to identify the individual species within a genus. It is overwhelming to see that category Unidentified plants‎ has 24 C, 1 P, 2597 F. I, for one, don't have sufficient energy to take on such a task. I do sometimes check a smallish category of plants that I know well, but then sometimes get into arguments with the original uploader ... Sorry. It is actually quite irritating that too many photographers in botanical gardens just photograph the plants and discard the identification information; it is particularly difficult to identify plants from a collection of rare plants, such as one finds in botanical gardens. The "taxonomic impediment" is large when it comes to random photos. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:25, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Even worse, when (as happens far too often!) no location is given at all . . . MPF (talk) 23:05, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If the photos were organized in a different way, I think it could help a lot. An identification like "Unidentified Agathis" is really quite good, and I think it unlikely that anyone would ever get around to looking to see if they could figure out which species such a photo belongs to. There are a number of photos that probably belong in "unidentifiable" rather than "unidentified" categories (e.g., this). If I looked at category:Unidentified organisms and saw a subcat "algae unidentified to family", or "chlorophyta unidentified to genus", I would be more likely to look than if I knew that many would already have been identified as well as could be expected. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:43, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It seems a good suggestion. I'll try to create "unidentified <genus>" for photographs identified to genus level. Jee 02:02, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

One thing that would be very useful is a mechanism to sort category contents by date of addition to the category, so one can look at recent additions separate from the unidentifiable ones that have been there for years - that, more than anything, stops me looking through Category:Unidentified plants‎, searching through the 2597 files for the new ones you've not looked at before. - MPF (talk) 23:05, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think it works if we specify dates while adding that category into files. Jee 02:15, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I added date as sort key here and here. They came first at [3] and [4]. There may be better logic exists; hope Bawolff or Rillke can help. Jee 02:40, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
i wanted to add a category sort by date after zhcollation landed, but that never happened... we have support for sorting by date in the backend, but no interface for it. You can get date ordered category members from the api. Bawolff (talk) 13:42, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Sminthopsis84 and MPF for your comments. When I'm requesting an ID I do not meant a species level ID is must. Recently Dysmachus identified most of my robber flies to genus level which is the maximum possibility from photographs.
But one limitation of out category system is that when I add a genus to my photograph, some people remove it and add it back to "unidentified <order>'" which contains thousands of unidentified organisms.
I agree with both of you about the lack of information in photographs. I came to know that photographs of leaves are useful along with flowers to identify a plant. Similarly focus on some parts like anal appendages is necessary to identify odonata. Geolocation is important to identify the habitat. If experts can prepare a guideline about the requirements, I think it will be very helpful to the photographers. Jee 01:23, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Jebulon. And another reason for me to learn French. :) Jee 08:28, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you to Jee who always asks good questions. This is very complex. Because the interests of each other are not converging. It is a absolutely certain that we store in COMMONS large quantities of unusable image, which for most will never be useful. If we make an effort, it is in a pedagogical sense that it would be most useful. If we give the identification he will knew the caption and will forget immediately. There must have a minimum of effort on the part of the author of the photograph. In the seeking for himself he will glimpse the complexity of the taxonomy. And maybe he will be more interested in what he has photographed; and how he has to make images that are meaningful and useful. It is better to train a small number of photographer that sort thousands of photographs. --Archaeodontosaurus (talk) 08:06, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It should be noted that there is quite a difference between identifying pictures taken in nature, and pictures taken at zoos, museums, gardens, etc. In the former category, it is almost impossible for non-experts to identify to species level, but in the latter, the photos can be cross-checked with other photos from the same institutions, or with inventory lists. I've done that myself with dozens of unlabelled fossil photos, many of which proved to show very unique specimens. FunkMonk (talk) 08:10, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the reverse is normally the case. With organisms in the wild, if one has location data, it is usually easy to restrict the possible alternatives to just the one or at most very few similar species that occur there. Conversely, a picture from a zoo or garden is effectively the same as a picture with no location data, as the organism involved can be imported to the site from anywhere. Additionally, an alarmingly high proportion of such inmates are misidentified or wrongly labelled, or are of unknown or even hybrid origin. Most professional taxonomists will point out that captive plants or animals (and therefore also photos of them) are pretty much worthless, unless they are very well documented as to their wild source. - MPF (talk) 09:45, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
With the increasing use of DNA analysis on zoo animals, that concern is steadily diminishing, see for example the photos I added to West African crocodile[5], of specimens formerly identified as nile crocodiles. FunkMonk (talk) 10:16, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Though it'll be a very long time till that process is complete, the more so with plants ;-) MPF (talk) 13:06, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes; I had experienced several times how experts filter out species based on the location of natural habitat. Jee 13:50, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I know it is being done to other captive animal populations at least, for example, there's currently a project that aims to identify captive chimpanzee populations to subspecies to prevent future cross-breeding (and identify hybrids). I think we'll see a lot more of this being done in zoos at least. FunkMonk (talk) 14:05, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It is good if the zoo authorities can maintain data and photographers take time to collect it from them. It will be easier than simply adding photos here and our experts need to identify them based on photographs if a better resource already available. But as MPF commented, location data may not be very useful for zoo animals as the zoo is not their natural habitat. But there may be some other uses for the photographs from zoos. (Personally I'm not a fan of zoo photography; but I agree, there are other people like it.) Jee 14:14, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(Edit conflict) Thanks Archaeodontosaurus. So what we can do now? I think it will be useful, if can prepare a guideline on how to photograph, name, categorize, describe, etc. while uploading photographs or organisms. For example, an artistic view of an organism may not be the best view for educational use. If we can setup a team of amateurs under the guideline of experts (per your comments above), we may speed up sorting out the big queue of unidentified organisms. More thoughts?
FunkMonk, it may be difficult. But in my experience (I'm not an expert), I can solve some cases from my geo location. Jee 08:23, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In the collective approach one thing seems to me quite easy to do this is to ask newcomers to care for their captions. If we had good location many things would be easier to identify. Otherwise it is difficult. All who have spoken here are dedicated people, and no one ever refused an identification request made to him. It is useful for a newcomer, to identify an "old" and go to him for questioning. Those who made this approach became good contributors. If the newcomer remains passive putting in a category photograph and what awaits is identified, there is little chance he progresses. Our true richness is not, photograph, but the photographer.--Archaeodontosaurus (talk) 17:04, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that most individual uploaders just do "drive by uploads" of many images, and are never seen again afterwards. And most of these don't read the policies and guidelines hidden away on various pages before they upload, so such outreach will have little effect. FunkMonk (talk) 20:34, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
... or add loads of pics from Flickr which are equally lacking in useful data ;-) MPF (talk) 22:55, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Our true richness is not, photograph, but the photographer." Archaeodontosaurus, this is a great, wonderful, and appreciative thought compared to some people's attitude in Commons who only care photographs; not the people behind them.
I agree with FunkMonk and MPF that some people don't care our policies and advises. But it is not true at least for the COM:QIC participants. I experienced that most people there are willing to learn. The only thing lacking here is that they are not well guided. And they need to post in their local Wikipedia or external sites to get their subjects identified. It is stopping block for many photographers who are not subject experts. Jee 02:25, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • As well for the VN template maybe we can make a template for the all the categories and galleries, that relate to the living world (plants, animals...), with a text that says something like that :
    "Thank you for visiting this page, if your intention is to upload images for this category thank you to indicate in the file description the most accurate possible information on the location where the photo was taken, even the geolocation if possible. This is so that experts can identify species or subspecies represented. This information may also be useful for people trying to illustrate an article about the flora and fauna of a specific locations.".
    A kindly sentence in uploading tools like the Upload Wizard just above the description field could help too. -- Christian Ferrer 11:46, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Just to add to the discussion, I think just adding identifications is not enough - in many cases it helps if the method of identification is indicated - when I get images identified on specialist forums, I include a link to the discussion and indicate the person responsible for the determination - it makes an enormous difference to other researchers who need to establish confidence in the identification. In some cases the species may be determined from a specimen and based on dissections but the image itself may not have the features needed for the identifications and in some other cases one may identify on the basis of one field-guide or key and that determination may be in conflict with what another key might have to say. So an ideal a good-practice could be to indicate 1) determined by [Self|Expert name|Discussion link] based on [photograph|specimen|in field observation|accompanying expert|identification per specimen label] - in the case of [self] - based on [personal knowledge|name of book|published key]. When specimens are identified from photograph to genus level or family level, it often means that it cannot be identified any further without access to the specimen and the value of marking it in category:unidentified genusX is questionable - perhaps unidentifiable_genusX would be more accurate. Shyamal (talk) 04:57, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Shyamal for your wise comment. I made an attempt here. Jee 05:49, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Jee if you were good enough in German language, I would recommend de:Wikipedia:Redaktion Biologie/Bestimmung as they are good in such cases, but for Commons it is much more difficult as here are simply not enough people who do this kind of work.

I would add the template, which tells, what we want to know, to the unidentified species categories. (Category:Unidentified organisms and subcategories) and I think that it is a good idea to have room in the template to ask for other relevant information too. Geolocation is always interesting, as it is possible to look which species a zoo has, which specimens a museum has and which species live wild or as invasicve species there. Old scientific names are always interesting too, as I can find the actual name with Google in scientific texts in the web. Other information is specific for some taxonomic groups as for example the wing venation is relevant in many insects. --Kersti (talk) 15:56, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Kersti for the suggestion and link. But unfortunately, I can't type German or French even though read with the help of a translator. I don't think typing in English (which is also not my native language but I can live with it) in those wikis are appreciated. But in Commons, as this is a multilingual project, we can use any language. This is an additional advantage of Commons. Jee 03:10, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

<== Just a few thoughts/observations: I strongly support the installation of a "Please Identify" place on commons (as opposed to on the various wikis), but imho it should be organized as such that it functions only as an index to the images to be identified and the actual identification-discussion should always be on the talk page for the image itself (or on the first/main image of a series), not in any "identification" topic. Also, we could/should invite the other "please identify" projects on the various wikis to handle things this way from now on. They can keep their topics as an index to which images are being requested for ID, but move the answers/discussion to the talk pages with the images as this simply is where the discussion should always be. It is utterly silly to have images here with an interesting ID-discussion elsewhere that no one will even find again, especially as these discussions will later be moved around to archives etc etc. Let's try to persuade all projects to have their discussions (in whatever language they prefer!!) on the talk pages with the actual images as this is the only way that image and discussion will be held together for future reference!

As suggested by someone above, and in many discussions on various talk pages (mine, for one) before, commons needs to put a system for "trusted identification" in place. I have had discussions when suggesting a name change on an image, saying that I should prove my case, whereas the name provided by the uploader is not challenged in any way. That is downright silly. You either believe/trust anyone (and get poor ID quality - as is the case now) or you put a system in place that indicates who did the ID and how. Thought might be given to applying "trust levels" to certain experts, but I'm not a great fan of that because it would trigger endless discussions like "why don't you trust me same as mrs. X, boohoo"

I think the best way to go about it might be something like this: Treat images of life forms the same way you would treat specimen in a collection. Meaning:

1: Every image should carry a "collection data" tag that indicates standard things such as: Location; Date; Collector (=photographer/author); and probably some more Special circumstances. Technically this could be a template that should be treated as required input when uploading life form images. This should be made mandatory through various upload templates.

2: Name "tags" should be used to provide identifications and old name tags should be kept for historic reference. The first such name tag would be the preliminary ID provided by the uploader at the time of upload - also a mandatory template to fill in at upload time. There should be no restrictions on the level of ID and it may well boil down to "unidentified animal" or whatever. Crucial is that it contains the suggested ID, name of the identifier (autocompleted as uploader/user) and technique used for identification etc. Subsequent ID-(sugestion)s should be added in the form of additional name tags (most recent name tag first on page), also containing (best possible) ID, name of identifier, method/reason etc. The top level name tag should normally be the most adequate. Each name tag should also contain an indicator of "trustworthiness" according to the person providing the name tag. Trustworthiness is further regulated by people putting their name (or nick) to shame with wrong or overly "precise" IDs or some such.

When discussion arises this should be taken to the talk page, which of course is easily found with the image itself. Not somewhere else. Procedure something like: X adds a new name tag. Y comes along and disagrees (which is different from "improving preciseness"). If Y is really sure he/she just adds a new name tag (if not a question is posted on the talk page with the image and X is notified of this and invited to answer the question there). If Y has added a new name tag and X disagrees, X does not add a new tag with the previous ID (or remove the tag provided by Y) but now X starts a discussion on the talk page and invites Y to explain/defend. If they come to a mutual agreement the name tag corresponding to this is moved to top or a new one is created if called for. If disagreement persists it would be advisable to seek advice from a more renowned expert or if both X and Y are leading experts for the group a special "Identification disputed" template is put above the last name tags by X and Y (I strongly doubt that this situation would ever occur with true experts).

Links to external discussions providing the ID should be okay as an "ID mechanism" but as much info/detail from the original discussion as (legally) possible should be copied from the original source (to the talk page for example) as original sources tend to disappear over time (same as discussions on other wikipedia projects).

Well, something along those lines anyway. Crucial main idea: always keep all discussion-history about the ID bound to the image either by having it on the page (history) or on the talk page (history). My 2ct. for now Pudding4brains (talk) 22:28, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I like the idea of keeping discussion on file talk. We can also link ID discussions at talk or description if discussion is carried out off Commons (in another wiki or an external site). Jee 03:10, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I'm not too wiki-savvy but I was also wondering if it would be possible to have the discussion "physically" on the image talk page, but then bring it back in some "embedded" way to the old discussion pages on the wikis? Cheers, Pudding4brains (talk) 07:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure whether I understand your question properly. It is possible to continue the discussion either in file talk or in another place and link them for future reference. Jee 08:06, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That would be my "less than perfect" 2nd choice option. I would have prefered to have the explanation on the talk page with the image and a mere invitation to explain there on your talk page. In the past I have not applied this myself neither, but thinking about it now, that should clearly be the way to go.
The page we create for "ID please" or "ID-discussion" or whatever, imho should be a page that is entirely built of embedded image talk pages or some such of the relevant image pages. See my remark below in response to Kersti. Pudding4brains (talk) 11:33, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I would solve this problem in the following way:

  1. make up a page Commons:Identification of organims
  2. make up a guideline that every ID-diskussion concerning an organism schould be transferred to its own subpage of Commons:Identification of organims, like Commons:Identification of organims/File:xxx.png (It is possible to include the subpage like a template whereever you wish, like this [[:Commons:Identification of organims/File:xxx.png]])
  3. add a template Template:Identification of organims, which categorice the subpages in a category Category:Identification of organims and links them to the guideline.
  4. notify at relevant places (diskussion pages, file talk, Commons:Identification of organims) via template, that and where the diskussion takes place

--Kersti (talk) 08:41, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea and I will support it. We can add a button like this so that people can create a page with file name easily. But we need to ensure guaranteed support/participation of subject experts who are not so active in Commons now. We need to bring them from various wikis. Jee 10:35, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Howdy,
I would very much prefer to have the subpages/embedding work in such a way that the discussion is physically on a subpage of the image page (such as the talk page) and that this content is embedded as an template on whatever discussion page or rather maybe "index to discussions" page that we choose to create. I will try to create a clumsy example for this for discussion shortly, but as stated I'm not very adequate with templating and other wiki-coding stuff. Cheers Pudding4brains (talk) 11:33, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Make a try, please. When we can agree on a format, I think it is not much difficult to ask for help from the code experts. Jee 12:15, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

<== Very Q&D and obviously this should be templated as opposed to repeat hardcoding, designed differently (lay out) and coded such that empty talk pages are handled better etc. etc. I'll refine some of that later (tonight?). This is just to show how a general "ID-discussion" page might be created, while keeping all discussion on the image talk page itself and thus permanently bound to the image. So have a first look here: ID-requests_Tst-1, Cheers, Pudding4brains (talk) 12:44, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For some times, months ago, I spent a lot of time with Category:Unidentified plants. In many cases it is not too difficult to add a family or genus category. Moreover, adding a country category as "Category:Unidentified plants in XXX", in my opinion also is important, as such categories may attract people with special knowledge of the flora of a certain country. Anyway, a quick identification to species level, for my part is only possible for (Central) European plants. Other experts also will only be familiar with the plants or animals of "their" region, or with certain taxonomic groups. And for the rest of the world you have to consult some identification literature.
After some time, it ceased to be fun, as usually there is not much positive feedback, and the enormous amount of unidentified photos keeps growing. So, in my opinion, the most important reasons to have such an "ID please" page, are two: (1) To provide a focal point for everyone who is interested in the name of the organisms he had taken a photo. (2) Building a community of experts who are willing to contribute in identification work. For the second point, in my opinion, it is important to have the ID discussions at only one place, which easily can be added to a watchlist. (Or, maybe later, we may create subpages for important taxonomic groups or large regions, e.g. "North America" or "Tropical Asia".) If it will be organised as proposed by @Pudding4brains: and @Kersti Nebelsiek: , the discussions on certain images will be each at a separate (sub)page, and it is very likely that interested experts will not put all these pages to their watchlist and will miss (important) parts of the discussion. I expect, that this will result in a situation where activity will stay low. This is especially important here at Commons, as most of the experts will not have Commons as their home wiki. So, a casual visiting expert would miss most of the discussions, if these are dislocated at unwatched (sub)pages. My experience with putting comments on identification to a certain image talk page, is disappointing. Usually there is no reaction. If you put an image on your watchlist, you usually only receive notification of bot actions. On the other hand, of course it is necessary to have some link from the image to the respective talk. However, in my opinion, it is much better to put a link from the image talk page to the archived discussion. Moreover, often there is a series of photos of the same organism which have to be discussed together in one common talk. Even in a case like this photo it would work, if the ID discussions are archived somewhere. It was easy here to find the old ID discussion at de.wiki by usage of the photo ad this place. That's not a solution I want to promote, however. I propose to have an central archive of ID talks and putting links from image talk pages to the respecitve section of the archive. I suppose, archiving and actualising these archive links can be done by bots. --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:56, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Franz Xaver: , did you look at the example page I created? Imagine the German page de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt_Lebewesen/Bestimmung to be organized in a similar way. This would keep all those German discussions in one place, same as now, but the actual discussion/data is stored on the image talk pages and can always be easily found when you access the image (on it's talk page) - not just for people who know about the German "Bestimmung" page. This way there is no way of "forgetting" to link to the Bestimmung-discussion which will imho always happen when you have the discussion somewhere else. (Edit: And do remember that such discussions will be moved to archives, thereby invalidating the links that were added to the image talk page ah okay - I see the "File usage on other wikis" section on the image files has improved since a few years back :o).
So, yes I agree with some of your points, but if it is handled this way you can still create whatever regional or taxonomic subdiscussion that you wish for (such as having an "ID-please" page that only treats central European flora or some such), while at the same time keeping any actual discussion with the image(s) itself.
Yes I also think that if you wish to invite experts you would need to very quickly split things up from an general "ID-discussion" index into indexes for, say European mammals, Nearctic insects, etc etc. All these might well be linked from general pages such as "Unidentified Nearctic life forms" or "Unidentified Insects", but a true expert would probably much prefer to have a specific page such as "ID-discussion for European beetles" on his/her watchlist than any higher level (both regional and taxonomic). As suggested above by yourself, we might split this up as we go, and as stated by me local projects need not "suffer" but it would be very helpful if these would be organized technically (templates/embedding) in such a way that the discussions are stored with the images, not locally. Cheers Pudding4brains (talk) 14:22, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Franz Xaver: (again) in reaction to some of your other points: There is a difference between having "ID-discussion" pages/topics and just browsing through endless series of images uploaded by authors who are to lazy - or let's say "pressed for time" ;o) - to find a proper name themselves. Yes, the way you worked is not very satisfying. A total overload of very bad pictures with no "collection data" etc etc and hardly ever any response from the author or anyone else when you provide or correct an ID. But if someone takes the trouble of actively adding a request to an "ID-discussion" page there are quite a few things different: Now there is someone who is interested in the ID, be it the author or some wiki-editor who wishes to use the image. Chances are that now there will also be an effort to provide proper location and date or other info or even images upon request. Also, when a page like that lands on the watchlist of more experts it becomes more fun discussing the requested IDs with them (and learning from each other), which will hardly ever happen when putting effort into unrequested random pages. Just my thought on that though ... Pudding4brains (talk) 14:37, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with the way, how your example page is organised, in my opinion, is that putting it on your watchlist will only notify you that a new entry was added or another one removed. Following a certain discussion will require to put the respective image to the watchlist. Maybe this also will work, still being sceptical.
At beginning we should start only with one page with a general scope, and subdivide later. Some persons, me included, only will visit pages frequently, when there are freqent changes alerted by the watchlist. When we start from beginning with a lot of specialised pages, all of them will be low activity pages. Of course, specialists will feel comfortable in "their" group, but usually they can help also with rough identification of other groups. And, by the way, you learn a lot following discussions on taxa you are not so familiar. Better subdivide only later, when we recognise that there is overboarding activity in the general page. --Franz Xaver (talk) 14:50, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I like both options. 1. If we start with a single page as Franz Xaver, we can link it to file talk when the discussion is closed and archived. 2. If we are creating separate pages (talk page of file) for individual files and transcluding in the main page there is no need for further linking. The disadvantage is experts need to watch individual pages they interested. But still there is an advantage. Experts can ignore updates in pages/photos they are not interested. So it is tough to decide which is better. :( Jee 15:06, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Pudding4brains, what about starting a page as in your example? It seems this discussion is almost dead now. We can't expect more comments without any activity. Jee 03:11, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The test page looks conclusive, a single page for begening but it may will be necesary to create sub pages (bird, Lepidoptera, Odonata) as I just looked there is out of 3,917 images (without the subcategories) in Category:Unidentified Lepidoptera. -- Christian Ferrer 05:03, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Somewhat caught up in some other stuff that requires more "immediate" attention (documenting too many rearing projects), but I'll see that I'll improve on the example somewhat and then create a start page and we can take it from there. Pudding4brains (talk) 19:32, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Why not use the categories talk pages for that:
Category talk:Unidentified Lepidoptera will contains
{{Category:Unidentified Lycaenidae}} will contains File talks of the images of Unidentified Lycaenidae that have discussions of as you did in your exemple.
The advantage would be to have all discussions visible in each categories talk page, Category talk:Unidentified Lepidoptera will contains all File talks about Lepidoptera as all famillies category talks will be visible on it. -- Christian Ferrer 05:05, 11 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that this is a good idea. If a photo is recategorised, e.g. from Category:Unidentified Lepidoptera to Category:Unidentified Papilionidae, would the talk be relocated accordingly? --Franz Xaver (talk) 07:48, 11 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No; talk page will not relocated. I think Christian's suggestion is on the basis he think people can confirm the order at least in fist place. There are exceptions; sometimes we may end up in a different order too. So this suggestion seems complicated. Jee 08:03, 11 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Jkadavoor and Arp: I know I'm extremely late to this discussion, and it's a little stale, but if talk subpages are used, transclusion could be performed just like it is on DRs, which I believe would work better. Try, transcluding File_talk:Orchard_Oriole_(immature_male).jpg/Identification, for example. This would get around the problem of having to transclude potentially irrelevant content from the file talk page. Storkk (talk) 10:45, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

+1, as this also makes for easy watchlisting of single discussions. The system works well not only at DRs but also FPC and VIC (and compared to that QIC appears like utter chaos to me). But I'd prefer this to be subpages of the "ID please" page rather than the file pages for the simple reason that you often have multiple images of the same individual. Seems simpler that way and you can easily transclude the discussion to the talk pages of all files. --El Grafo (talk) 09:43, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Subspecies[edit]

I'm currently processing files in Category:Files uploaded by Josve05a (cleanup), and is having a little bit of trouble finding out how I should categorize subspecies. Should i add them to the species category, or create a new category, and if so, under which name? Take File:Cynara baetica maroccana (9341545741).jpg as an example. It is a "Cynara baetica ssp. maroccana". Thanks for your help. And btw, regarding the topic above, The people at de:Wikipedia:Redaktion Biologie/Bestimmung are totally cool if you use English, just fyi. Josve05a (talk) 14:25, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Usually images of subspecies are categorized in the species category. If there are a lot of images of one subspecies, you can create a new subcategory, like Category:Cynara baetica subsp. maroccana (for subspecies of animals without the word "subsp."). --Thiotrix (talk) 07:44, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'd urge some restraint in creating subspecies categories, and only create them if there are an excessive number of photographs in the main species category, and/or the subspecies ID is relatively certain. The more categories there are, the harder it is for a user to find any picture of, say, Cynara baetica; finer categorizing may be useful for taxonomists, but less helpful for general users. -Animalparty (talk) 21:46, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This is a good example where subspecies looks very different to the species. Here Crocothemis servilia mariannae has no black dorsal stripe. Jee 03:57, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
A category for subspecies may be useful for those taxa that are treated as own species by several authors. --Thiotrix (talk) 06:25, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Remember to add a taxonavigation when creating a new subspecies category! See e.g. Category:Larus canus brachyrhynchus. - MPF (talk) 17:09, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Some ssp.'s uses the format Category:Genus species subspecies while other uses Category:Genus species ssp. subspecies. Which one of these are "more" correct? Josve05a (talk) 21:51, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

According to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, Art. 24, the rank "subsp." has to be included in the name. For animals, according to International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, art. 5.2, the scientific name of a subspecies is a combination of three names. --Thiotrix (talk) 06:25, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yep; in summary, Category:Genus species subspecies for animals, and Category:Genus species subsp. subspecies for plants - MPF (talk) 17:09, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Templates news[edit]

Hello, just a quick message on the recent changes on our biology templates:

  • {{Taxonavigation}} has been rewritten in lua allowing:
    • to accept † with a taxon name (Like Familia|†Neopseustidae|)
    • to display disambiguation (Like Genus|Duvalia (Apocynaceae)|) with smaller font (Like Duvalia (Apocynaceae))
    • to suppress the limitation on parameter count
    • to allow automatic addition of categories like Category:Genera of Elachistidae
    • to allow clever changement of category/article title (Like for Duvalia)


  • {{SimpleTaxa}}, {{Taxa}}, {{Genera}}, {{Species}} have been rewritten in lua allowing:
    • to accept † with a taxon name (Like |†Neopseustidae|)
      • previous syntaxes are deprecated (Like |Neopseustidae|Neopseustidae=†)
    • to display disambiguation (Like |Duvalia (Apocynaceae)|) with smaller font (Like Duvalia (Apocynaceae))
      • |d50=(Apocynaceae)| is now a depredated syntax
    • to suppress the limitation on parameter count
    • to accept taxon notes (Like |Neopseustidae note:Family created in 2015| displayed , Neopseustidae (Family created in 2015),


I will keep you informed. Cheers Liné1 (talk) 19:33, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Solution for disambiguation at family level?[edit]

Howdy, (side note: I did not forget, just swamped, will work on the pages/templates for unidentified XYZ images soon)

Just stumbled (again) on some species of Lygaeidae where the messy (non)implementation of the (not always supported) split in the Lygaeidae into new families based on former subfamilies is causing problems when trying to locate or categorize files.

I have now hacked a quick and dirty "fix" as per Category:Eremocoris and its children abietis & plebejus.

Please have a look an tell me what you think (yes I know the template is horrifyingly ugly :o) as in: Do you think double classification such as implemented here (with some sort of note to the effect) might be a viable solution for ambiguous classification systems being in use "out there" ?

Cheers, Pudding4brains (talk) 11:29, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello my friend @Pudding4brains: ,
We usually do something more simple:
  • We choose one of the 2 parents as preferred for the {{Taxonavigation}} (putting both is ugly ;-))
  • We add {{Taxoconflict}} to list the preferences of different sources
  • We add a comment in the {{Taxonavigation}} that wan be copied in the subtaxa (here in species)
  • We put the category in both categories (if the sources are divided) or only in the preferred parent cat (if the sources are almost unanimous)
Cheers Liné1 (talk) 21:30, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, I tried to solve the split problem.
Could you check if I did the split correctly ?
Cheers Liné1 (talk) 22:27, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Follow WIkispecies' naming conventions?[edit]

Commons:Categories for discussion/2016/02/Category:Anemone pulsatilla may be of interest to some, feel free to leave a comment. It is about a taxon which is is described under a synonym on Wikispecis, but as the "accepted" name here. I know that there are no "accepted" taxas, but how else would you explain it? Josve05a (talk) 01:59, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Taxonomy files (check needed)[edit]

Like WikiProject Aviation's Category:Aviation files (check needed), we now also have such a category; Category:Taxonomy files (check needed). Josve05a (talk) 13:35, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer if you used a template with a description of the problem. Otherwise, before solving the problem, you have to guess the problem.
Like {{TaxonomyFileCheckNeeded}} with first param beiing the problem.
Cheers Liné1 (talk) 12:32, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New statistics: 220.000 Taxonavigation !![edit]

Cheers Liné1 (talk) 12:38, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Latests changes in templates[edit]

Hello, let me present you the latest changes in commons biology templates:

Cheers Liné1 (talk) 17:17, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Latests changes in templates[edit]

Now {{VN}} also adds Interwiki.
If a category Category:Kirkiaceae is linked to Q9482231 Category:Kirkiaceae which subject is Q132988 Kirkiaceae, then Category:Kirkiaceae receives the interwiki from Q9482231 Category:Kirkiaceae and Q132988 Kirkiaceae!
Cheers Liné1 (talk) 20:23, 16 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please, please, please delete this interwiki-adding funktion!!!! Or make up an similar template which doesn't add interwikis or add a funktion which stops the template doing this and which stops the template from giving error messages if VN is used for the species on the family page and there's no reason to start a category or gallery page. See Artamidae to see what the problem is. --Kersti (talk) 14:34, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

{{Interwiki from Wikidata}} included in {{VN}}[edit]

Hello,
Recently BotMultichill ran to add {{Interwiki from Wikidata}} to many categories.
You should know that {{VN}} does the same thing as {{Interwiki from Wikidata}}.
But {{VN}} does much more: retrieving and displaying vernacular names from the 2 attached wikidata items + checking the presence/validity of multiple properties on the 2 attached wikidata items.
The problem is that {{Interwiki from Wikidata}} (and its equivalent in {{VN}} ;-)) are quite expensive.
Could you help me remove {{Interwiki from Wikidata}} from pages having a {{VN}} ?
Best regards Liné1 (talk) 13:05, 11 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidata Infobox and taxons[edit]

Hi all. I've been bot-adding {{Wikidata Infobox}} to categories over the last few months. After a discussion with @Josve05a, I understand that a different taxon system is used here that doesn't match that used on Wikidata, and as such the bot has been coded to avoid adding the infobox to categories that directly use {{Taxonavigation}}. However, not all taxon categories use that template directly, and other editors have been adding it to categories that do use it. So I've added a tracking category to the infobox that adds Category:Uses of Wikidata Infobox for taxons to cases where the infobox is showing taxon information from Wikidata. I hope that helps you catch cases that aren't currently in your navigational structure. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 23:53, 28 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I also understood that the tax templates are preferred for species instead of wikidata infobx. There is huge number of templates missing however. Can these be added by a bot? Rudolphous (talk) 18:02, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
User:Liné1bot are doing that from time to time. Ping Liné1. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 20:57, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Peel, please note that many(!) insect taxon pages do not use template {{Taxonavigation}}, but instead a more special taxonav template {{Lepidoptera}} or {{Coleoptera}}. Pi bot should not add Wikidata Infoboxes to these pages either. Thanks, --Thiotrix (talk) 22:31, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I've added that to the list of templates to avoid. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 22:39, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Josve05a, Liné1, and Thiotrix: There are now >20k categories at Category:Uses of Wikidata Infobox for taxons. I'd encourage you to have a look through some of them to see how well the infobox is doing here and to assess whether it's useful or not in practice for these categories (bearing in mind that I can make improvements to the infobox code, but improvements to the data need to be made by you/others). But if you still don't want it for taxons, then I have a script that removes the infobox where another specific template is already present (originally developed for {{Finlandyear}}, which automatically includes the infobox), and I can set pi bot running that for the taxon templates if you want. It's up to you to sort out the cases where the taxon templates should be used but aren't at the moment, though! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 01:20, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello my friend.
I would say, you can leave the {{Wikidata Infobox}} on taxon caegories without {{Taxonavigation}}, {{Coleoptera}} or {{Lepidoptera}} (both using {{Taxonavigation}}) (Like on Category:Aaadonta fuscozonata).
For the rest, you really can remove {{Wikidata Infobox}} (like Category:Abantiades latipennis there are no additional info + image is redundant...)
Worst case scenario, we would modify {{Taxonavigation}} to use wikidata info (All our taxons template already use wikidata: {{VN}}, {{BioLib}}...).
Thanks for your excellent work and dedication (it is often hard, believe me I know).
Cheers Liné1 (talk) 09:12, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, something you could add in {{Wikidata Infobox}}: the link to wikispecies. (I don't see it currently). BR Liné1 (talk) 09:16, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Liné1: The Wikispecies link should already be there - can you see it at Category:Abantiades latipennis? If not, let me know which interface language you're using and I'll investigate. BTW, there are a bunch of authority control IDs at d:Q2820179 - would any of them be useful to display here? The rest sounds OK to me, but let's wait a couple of days for others to comment. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 11:39, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Peel: sorry, I see it now. Could you put a small wikispecies icon , perhaps (like the {{Wikispecies}} in Category:Abantiades latipennis) The we can remove {{Wikispecies}}. You can find the other official icons in Category:High-resolution or SVG official Wikimedia logos. Cheers Liné1 (talk) 13:44, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Liné1: The icons/logos are now in the infobox. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 14:47, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Josve05a, Liné1, and Thiotrix: You might be interested in the discussion/work going on at Template_talk:Wikidata_Infobox#Taxon to improve the infobox display for taxons, and also User_talk:Christian_Ferrer#Commons_galleries_from_Wikidata where there are some tests going on to auto-create galleries using Wikidata (that will automatically update over time). Comments/suggestions would be welcome. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:11, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Do you know Wikidata:WikiProject Taxonomy? Please look at their systematic infoboxes, that I use since long times at wikidata. --Thiotrix (talk) 17:29, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's been mentioned, but see the comments at Template_talk:Wikidata_Infobox#Module_Taxobox. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:33, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Christian Ferrer: Sadly the authority should display "(Koehler, 1900)". Parenthesis here means that the species was originaly named differently. I fought on wikidata for them to store the real authority string. But they would not. Sad. For example "(L.) Ferrey, 1800" means that L. (standard form for Linneus) described the species, by Ferrey renamed it. Liné1 (talk) 19:52, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Liné1: that should maybe be a text string field then. Christian Ferrer (talk) 19:58, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That's jargon that no-one out of the field will recognize/comprehend - it's much better to write it out in long-form so that lay-people will be able to understand it... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 23:00, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Peel: There you are worrying me. It means much. Your answer means "you don't care". If you are not interested in taxonomy, perhaps you should let more interested people work on taxonomic templates.
Wikipedia is ofter critisizm for poor scientific quality. Look at Category:Notocidaris mortenseni: all the sources are very clear about the authority: (Koehler, 1900)
If you want to know if a species here is the same as a species on internet, you have to match SpeciesName+AuthorityName. Exact AuthorityName!
Liné1 (talk) 16:50, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Liné1: Mike Peel is kind enough to try to help, nobody will blame him because he is not a specialist. I think I heard about the possibility to create potential properties when they are needed for the "Structured Data" for Commons. I guess it is the case here, isn't it? we clearly need a property "text string field", and if the Wikidata community don't want it (or don't want to change the existing one), then, normally we should don't care very much, and we create the one that we need. Christian Ferrer (talk) 17:23, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't blame anyone of not knowing, but I would prefer open naive question to negativ answers. Authority is important. In the french wikipedia, we have a whole team working on that. regards Liné1 (talk) 07:20, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Liné1: what is your opinion, would it be, in Wikidata, a property with "text string field" a good thing? Christian Ferrer (talk) 07:38, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Christian Ferrer, as a database developer, I don't see how the authority could be contructed by any lua module. So, yes, I fear that "text string field" is the only solution. The current storage is also to be kept because it provides interesting historical information.
I will write you a small page with arguments.
Regards Liné1 (talk) 08:44, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not a taxon person, but I am a scientist. So I can tell that this is a reference to work done by Koehler in 1900. I'm not sure if it's a paper/book published in that year, though, or something more general. So linking to the author and showing the year is better than the raw reference, as it at least says *which* Koehler is being referred to. If it is a published work, then it would be better to import that work as a separate Wikidata item and link to that (e.g., Detection of B-Mode Polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background with Data from the South Pole Telescope (Q27450018)). A raw text string does not help here (it's always better to link to the background info), and trying to provide extra context by the positioning of the brackets is a really bad idea. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 09:15, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. I don't mean to be negative, and it's not that "you don't care", I'm just explaining my viewpoint. I'm willing to change my mind if you explain/point to somewhere than explains why. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 09:38, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Liné1, currently in Wikidata, taxon author (P405) is used as a qualifier of taxon name (P225), then on the ontology side this is the "author of the taxon name" which currently is not wrong. Maybe incomplete, and different, in regard to the current scientific "practice of the bracket", but not wrong. Example Notocidaris mortenseni was indeed the name given by Koehler in 1900. Maybe a solution, on the database side, can be a second property in addition to the current one, a kind of "taxon discoverer" (the author who described the taxon).
"I don't see how the authority could be constructed by any lua module" → I tend to disagree, if you create a possible qualifier for taxon author (P405) that says if the taxon have been renamed or not, and then in the that case the taxon was renamed, the possibility to add another author (the one who described the taxon). You have your ontology, and you can of course built what you want with that. Christian Ferrer (talk) 14:06, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Mike Peel, Christian Ferrer, as I said, the link to the author is interesting, but please look at wikidata:User:Liné1/Why taxon authority has to be stored as string. About viewpoints: How can you have viewpoints if you don't know the depth of the subject (as a reminder children are not to vote before a certain age. But they ask question). Your answer made me cold because you kind of intended 'I won't go further on the subject' (I see that everyday when I look at the news. It is a new fashion). If you want to change my first cold reaction, look at my page. You will see the dept of the problem. regards Liné1 (talk) 06:22, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For botanical names, the first describing author is added to Wikidata by the link to the basionym. The basionym author appears in the Wikidata taxobox, e.g. Salsola foliosa (L.) Schrad. ex Schult. Can this be a model for the Commons infobox, too? (A temporary problem is, that in the majority of Wikidata pages, the info of the basionyms and their authorities are still missing...) --Thiotrix (talk) 07:45, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello my Thiotrix friend. You too believe in authority link ? In that case, you should first try to implement my 4 examples. I provided wikidata links. You will see some difficulties ;-) Liné1 (talk) 09:25, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Liné1, its not a matter of believe, I just told you, how they made it work at Wikidata. I do not know anything about their programming. So I edited the basionyms for the plant and the fungus of your example, and now the authorities (new combination, combination with ex author) are correct in the Wikidata taxoboxes. But I have no experience, how these things are edited in case of changing animal names at Wikidata. My question above was, if the Wikicommons infobox is able to read more than one item, or if the authority names have to be in the one item read by Mike Peels program? --Thiotrix (talk) 11:09, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A test for zoological names: the Wikidata-taxobox of Panthera leo shows the authority in parentheses. Here a separate page for the protonym is linked (like the basionym on botanical pages), and the scientific name is labeled as a recombination. I tried this for the example of Notocidaris mortenseni, but the authority is still shown incorrectly without parentheses. Mysterious and rather complicated... A "free text field" would make it easier for all users to edit the correct author string. Läter this info could additionally be managed by linked pages. As a taxonomist, I think that for the moment, Wikidata is not very well suited for complex taxonomical data. --Thiotrix (talk) 14:06, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thiotrix, sniff, it rejoice my old heart to hear you say that. Liné1 (talk) 14:49, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Liné1, Thiotrix, and Mike Peel: Hello, I made this property proposal. Christian Ferrer (talk) 15:37, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've followed up on this at Commons:Village_pump/Proposals#Adding_the_Wikidata_Infobox_to_Taxon_categories - please comment there! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 09:57, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Missing species[edit]

On commons we have currently photo's of around ~200.000 species. On flickr there are many photo's of species that are missing on commons. Is it an idea to make a list of missing species on a page and contact the authors if they might be willing to release the photo's under a compatible license. Maybe in this way we can get a few photo's of missing species. Would be nice if we can get our collection more complete. I'm willing to search for missing photo's and transfer files to commons. Maybe someone else can help with contacting the authors. What do you think? Rudolphous (talk) 05:30, 10 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Here is an example [6] that has a photo on [7]. Rudolphous (talk) 05:36, 10 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea, but a lot of work afterwise. BR Liné1 (talk) 14:33, 10 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidata links[edit]

FYI, I've just run through Category:Biology pages without wikidata link and Category:Infraspecies pages without wikidata link to add sitelinks to Wikidata based on exact name matches and instance of (P31)=taxon (Q16521), fossil taxon (Q23038290) or monotypic taxon (Q310890). That's reduced the category contents from ~14k and 21k down to ~1.5k and ~9k respectively. Hopefully I've not caused any issues by doing that - please let me know if I have. If anyone has any ideas for other automatic matches that can be done, I'm happy to investigate them - otherwise the rest will probably go through the distributed game for matching at some point. I'm thinking about auto-creating new Wikidata items for the remainder without candidate matches at some point (I'm currently working on doing that for people). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 12:52, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What is the limit ?[edit]

Hello,
User:白布飘扬, a new contributor, seems to have in mind to create a lot of higher taxa in wikicommons to mimic wikispecies.
For example he created the following taxa in bold:

Cladus: Actinopteri • Subclassis: Neopterygii • Infraclassis: Teleostei • Megacohors: Osteoglossocephalai • Supercohors: Clupeocephala • Cohors: Euteleosteomorpha • Subcohors: Neoteleostei • Infracohors: Eurypterygia • Sectio: Ctenosquamata • Subsectio: Acanthomorphata • Divisio: Acanthopterygii • Subdivisio: Percomorphaceae • Series: Eupercaria • Ordo: Priacanthiformes

Do we really want to implement so many intermediate ranks (Megacohors to infracohors + sectio to subsectio + divisio) ????
Regards Liné1 (talk) 15:42, 22 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I just try to implement the recent phylogenetic classification done by DeepFin version 4 (Betancur-R et al., 2017) for 72 orders of bony fishes.--白布飘扬 (talk) 16:07, 22 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but we are not a taxonomy website. We are a media website. For example, we don't create categories for monotypic taxa. Also we have a limited maintenance power. We are 10 contributors very actively maintaining biology categories (there are more contributors sorting biology images). So if we create endless categories, they won't be maintained.
Here you introduced 10 ranks between classis and order (5 cohors, 2 divisio, 1 series)! Why not 10 more between order and family and so on?
So your contribution is not incorrect but, I fear, not reasonable.
(Also you never provide any source of classification, except wikispecies that is an internal source. So no one knows where your classification comes from)
In most wikipedia there are a lot of rules. Sadly we don't have many. Liné1 (talk) 09:18, 23 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
User:Liné1 is right: Commons is a media website. And people usually search here for images and other media of biological species or genera. In my opinion, too much levels at higher ranks are of lower value here and could be omitted. --Thiotrix (talk) 13:58, 23 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The classification actually are used in some web-database like NCBI, Fossilworks, EOL, but as a user, I can't directly found those information here. It took time to search for the lower taxa to get the related images. And sometime, the classification are not longer up-to-date. So, I think it will be useful if Commons could link those information to the correct category.
As a Wikipedian, human resource might be limited for some project, but for me, it is not a reason for us to limit the knowledge in Wikipedia. --白布飘扬 (talk) 10:23, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Technically, I agree to redirect those monotypic categories into the main one, and keep those alternative classification system which are still widely in-used. Just to help users to get their images. 白布飘扬 (talk) 10:34, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note that the infos can be retrieved via {{Wikidata Infobox}} without you need to create the categories,example I putted it in Category:Priacanthiformes. Note that when the category don't exist the rank is retrieved in the infobox but no link is available. Regards, Christian Ferrer (talk) 12:04, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your information. It is really useful for searching upper taxa. But, by the way, how do i search for the lower taxa before creating a category, for example, Category:Carangaria? 白布飘扬 (talk) 14:47, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Something like that ( a list of all taxa below Carangaria)?
SELECT ?item ?itemLabel ?rankLabel ?cat_gorie_Commons WHERE {
  ?item (wdt:P171/wdt:P171*) wd:Q60617042.
  ?item wdt:P105 ?rank.
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en". }
  OPTIONAL { ?item wdt:P373 ?cat_gorie_Commons. }
}
ORDER BY ?rankLabel ?itemLabel

Try it!

Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:30, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Or more simplier a list of only the direct lower taxa
SELECT ?item ?itemLabel ?rankLabel ?cat_gorie_Commons WHERE {
  ?item (wdt:P171) wd:Q60617042.
  ?item wdt:P105 ?rank.
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en". }
  OPTIONAL { ?item wdt:P373 ?cat_gorie_Commons. }
}
ORDER BY ?rankLabel ?itemLabel

Try it!

Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:42, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but how to let other common users find the tools here? Isn't more simple by just create a category once and forever? Not only looking for taxa inform but also images & pictures. 白布飘扬 (talk) 19:27, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
One of the main issue with taxonomy that there are several taxonomic classifications, the latest taxonomic scientific breakthroughs are often reflected (sometimes not even reflected) with a lag time in the online databases and sources, as example that is clearly the case for the echinoderm classis Ophiuroidea that have been recently reworked by the specialists of the taxon in the last past years (they are still working on it), however the changes are not always seen in our external sources such as ITIS, NCBI, Catalogue of Life, ect... I discussed by mail with somoeone from ITIS who answered to me that some of their updates are older than several years. As you put the info in Wikidata, the deployment of Commons:Structured data will likely allow the kind of result that you want, a bit in the kind that I did above. And this should also concern image search. Therefore as pointed by my colleagues above, I think there is no special need to create here a category for each levels. A little dozen levels between the kingdom and species levels should be sufficiant here, example. Christian Ferrer (talk) 20:19, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
We still need some solution before the tools complete. The number of levels and their values are too subjective to discuss here. Any how I do compare Category:Homo sapiens and Category:Perca fluviatilis by using the {{Wikidata infobox}}, 20 levels was created for Homo sapiens, and about 24 levels, including the recent creation, for Perca fluviatilis. As fishes have much higher diversity than mammalia, the current number of taxonomic levels is somehow reasonable for me. 白布飘扬 (talk) 09:58, 25 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I'm not opposed that you create the categories you think relevant. I wish you good luck. Christian Ferrer (talk) 11:55, 25 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Please, Christian, this thread is not about wikidata. (you can have a separate conversation)
The question is: Do we allow contributors to add so many intermediate categoriesd: 10 categories between classis and order. For now I only have User:Thiotrix answer.
Also, the question is: What source is followed by User:白布飘扬. I fought for 10 years against contributors creating their own classification by picking from here, there and somewhere else. It is not science. (Except if you are a renowed taxonomist, in which case, we would also refuse your contribution, in fear that you try to enforce your studies).
Regards Liné1 (talk) 09:24, 28 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
First, I am not one of any author from the source stated about. I am simply just a Wikipedian. Why should we resist those category between class and order, even they are not empty? 白布飘扬 (talk) 12:14, 28 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikicommons is not a wikipedia nor a taxonomic site. Our only obligation/purpose is to manage species categories to hold pictures. I seemed obvious that we would manage the higher taxa as categories mainly to contain media of unidentified species and to sort a bit the species categories. So following a simplified classification classis/ordo/familia/genus came easely.
  • We don't have many contributors anymore. So the more intermediate categories we have, the more work there is to do once the classification changes. So, at the end, more intermediate categories means more outdated categories and more mess.
Regards Liné1 (talk) 15:28, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

External links in galleries/categories[edit]

I've noticed that many (most?) gallery and category pages for species begin with a bulleted list of external links (after Taxonavigation and vernacular names templates, and before any images). Examples: Category:Tulipa, Panthera leo, Paroaria. As a non-biologist, the names and acronyms given with these links (e.g. GRIN, ITIS, Kew list, NCBI, The Plant List, Tropicos, IUCN) don't mean anything to me, and it's not clear why these links are here, or what I'm going to find when I click them. Following them, they seem to contain information about the species and its taxonomy, aimed at a technical audience. Wouldn't these links be more appropriate for Wikispecies or Wikipedia? I don't see any mention of external links on this project page, nor in the list of information that a category page should contain at COM:CAT. I would just boldly start removing these links myself, except they seem to be so prevalent, that I wanted to check first to make sure I'm not going against some established consensus. Colin M (talk) 17:11, 17 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

These external links are very helpful for categorization as a reference that 1. the taxon name of this category is currently accepted, and 2. its name is correctly spelled. Some years ago, Commons had a lot of misspelled taxon categories. So please do not remove the links. For very long lists, it will be ok to keep the most relevant databases for that taxon group. For galleries, the list can be moved to the end of the gallery. --Thiotrix (talk) 09:16, 9 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Colin M and Thiotrix: Missed this discussion - I'd agree (strongly) with Colin M; Commons is not the place for endless lists of external links, some of them of dubious quality and often very out of date. The place for these is Wikidata, not here. All we need here is one or two, one for the taxonomy we follow (e.g. IOC for birds), and one for IUCN for the conservation status; not more. - MPF (talk) 17:23, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Need help updating taxonomy[edit]

Hi, I wish to update Commons' taxonomy of the beetle family Bruchidae to reflect its more recent classification as a subfamily of Chrysomelidae, which is used by most recent sources and databases (except for BioLib). However, it gets a bit awkward since 1) everything from family down to tribe is lowered down by one rank, and 2) the existing information on Bruchidae and its subcategories on Commons is a mix of both the old and new classifications. For instance, Bruchidae itself is now Bruchinae, but the old Bruchinae is now Bruchini, so "Bruchinae" can mean two different things. As a result, the Bruchinae category category lists two different sets of tribes depending on the source, and appears to have two parents – Bruchidae and Chrysomelidae – which is a misinterpretation of what is actually going on (sort of). To give a bigger picture of what I mean, this is what Commons has currently of each of the two classifications (mainly going by BRUCHBASE, which shows both of them):

Old classification New classification

You can see that most of the existing categories seem to fit the old system, yet some categories have been made for a few subtribes of the new one, making it unclear which classification is being used by Commons sometimes on top of what I've already said.

Since, for instance, "Bruchinae" can mean two different things, would it be a good idea to use disambiguation: e.g. "Bruchinae (Bruchidae)", which can then be a category redirect to "Bruchini" (or "Bruchini (Chrysomelidae)"? I've indicated the taxa that may need disambiguating in the above table, though I'm not sure if the new classification needs disambiguating if that's going to be used as the main one.

If anyone can help me sort out the best way to deal with this mess, that'd be great. This has been bothering me for months now, possibly years. Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:43, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Monster Iestyn: hello, I started to help you, I created Category:Acanthoscelidina and Category:Bruchidiina according to Wikispecies, though for the second the classification of the genera don't match with the Wikidata classification. As far I know disambiguation pages for taxonomy, i.e. providing several different classifications, is usually not done here, in all case I don't remember to have already seen that. And in a general way the disambigations for categories seems used/tolerated in Wikimedia Commons only from rescent time. Christian Ferrer (talk) 05:40, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Christian Ferrer: Bruchidiina is sometimes merged with Acanthoscelidina, which may explain some of that. Meanwhile, Wikispecies was updated by me already, though I forget how much I've updated on Wikidata. Otherwise, to be honest, just doing it for me wasn't what I was asking (though thanks so far I guess), I was hoping to figure out what to do with the problematic taxa like Bruchinae, Bruchini, etc. before doing anything. Monster Iestyn (talk) 15:45, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
So I think that you should not create disambiguation pages but change the parent taxa and the template when necessary. A thing that you can do is to cite your source and to leave a note saying there is an other classification e.g. "According to xxx Bruchini belongs to xxx". Hope that helps you. Christian Ferrer (talk) 17:05, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I was hoping not to have to do that to be honest, since I view Bruchinae/Bruchini/etc under Bruchidae and Chrysomelidae as homonyms in a sense, if that makes sense. Rather I'd have explained that According to xxx Bruchini is treated as the subfamily Bruchinae of Bruchidae. If there's no way around this problem though, fair enough, but it does make everything confusing to a non-expert potentially. Monster Iestyn (talk) 18:05, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Christian Ferrer: All done now, it's just a matter of tidying up and adding the sources etc now. Thanks for responding and helping. Monster Iestyn (talk) 05:13, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life&oldid=582356950"