Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 62

Archive 55

←

Archive 60

Archive 61

Archive 62

Adherence to correct spelling of scientific names as determined by nomenclatural Codes

User:UtherSRG has, in the process of refusing to allow an uncontested move of an article from an incorrect spelling of a genus name to the ICZN-compliant correct spelling of that name, stated today that "We aren't beholden to the ICZN." As an ICZN Commissioner, I think it's important to establish, here, that third-party sources that are in demonstrable violation of the ICZN (or the other nomenclatural Codes) are not acceptable as sources for Wikipedia (except in the context of being cited as using the wrong spelling). Just because 9 out of 10 authors misspell a scientific name does not mean Wikipedia has to accept that as the correct spelling, if even a single authoritative source exists that demonstrates that a different spelling is correct under the relevant Code. Is it really necessary or appropriate to compel editors to submit a formal request to WP:RM every time they find an outright and easily-confirmed error in a taxonomic article in Wikipedia, instead of simply fixing it?

Scientific names are not a "popularity contest", and no organism can have more than one spelling of its scientific name; only one spelling is correct, and all other spellings are not, and need to be fixed if they appear anywhere, Wikipedia included. More to the point, there are no third-party sources that take precedence over nomenclatural Codes, so there should be no expectation that - as UtherSRG suggests - a scientific name shouldn't be changed in Wikipedia until and unless there are multiple third-party sources available for citation that use the correct spelling. That's certainly not how taxonomy works, and I don't really think that all the admins here would agree that this is how Wikipedia works, either. In fact, in taxonomic practice, species-rank scientific names can change spelling even where NO publication appears with the correct spelling: this often happens with mandatory gender agreement (e.g., when a genus is synonymized with a genus of a different gender, authors do not always publish the new spellings of all the included species names; it's "an exercise left to the reader"). It is therefore entirely possible for the correct spelling of a scientific name to have ZERO published citations - but the Codes tell us what the correct spelling must be, even if it is never literally published, and that same accepted principle certainly should cover Wikipedia. Is this really subject to dispute?

This isn't a petty matter, or personal thing, this is a really fundamental aspect of how the science of taxonomy works, and how it interacts with Wikipedia, and I think it's important to be clear whether or not Wikipedia acknowledges formally-accepted rules of science as having primacy, so I hope we can have a civil discussion about this. It affects ALL scientific names, which are governed by well-established nomenclatural Codes, and account for a very large percentage of the articles in Wikipedia. If there is nothing explicit in Wikipedia policy regarding the need for scientific names to comply with the relevant Codes, then maybe now is a good time to make a push to do so. Dyanega (talk) 20:19, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

If the original genus name is clearly verifiable in the original description, then i see no problem with changing it to that, even if the majority of taxonomic literature is incorrect. I would like to see evidence from the academic literature that the spelling error is acknowledged if available. The problem is though, why would researchers trust the spelling of species on Wikipedia over what other scientists are using in the academic literature? I certainly wouldn't on first glance.

I think a more significant issue is your mass changing of species names to correctly match the grammatical gender, which results in species names that have never been used outside of Wikipedia. That's essentially WP:OR, and it doesn't really do anything to correct what researchers are using, because why trust Wikipedia over the academic literature? This is something that needs to be resolved in academic venues, rather than the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:56, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I suppose that WP:COMMONNAME was the argument used, which would make it a Wikipedia issue. I would argue that (for extant species anyway) that binominal can hardly be described as common names. This would be different for dinos (e.g. T. rex), and I opened a can of worms by moving something boldly, but I do have move rights. If I'd have found an article about a taxon using the scientific name misspelled, I'd have probably just moved it without the RM. YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:27, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Preferrably changes like these would be done with reference to the proper ICZN communication and/or entry on the matter. The Morrison Man (talk) 21:51, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Adding self-made corrections to several species names in article space is not only WP:OR, as previously stated, but also extremely confusing to the public and should be avoided at all cost. If the ICZN has issues with a nomenclature, it should resolve these issues with the concerned researchers and avoid doing it via proxy encyclopedia. The nomenclature used on Wikipedia should reflect the current scientific consensus on the matter in the published sources, not the opinion of private individuals, be them ICZN consultants or New Latin amateurs. Any species names that you have changed in the past to satisfy the expectations of the ICZN should be moved back to their situation within the sources. Don't forget that Wikipedia is often used as a generalist and practical handbook, even for researchers, and can give to the people with power to change the nomenclature the false impression that the changes have been done in effect in the litterature, which is often not the case. By modifying Wikipedia articles arbitrarily to satisfy your opinion on the requirements of the ICZN, you're actively going against the interest of the ICZN in the long run, and spreading potential disinformation on the Internet.

When I tried, myself, to include an etymology for Stegotherium back on my early editing days, inferred on the etymology, in New Latin, of these terms, this addition was criticized, and I took it down, due to it never occuring in any sources consulted. Similarly, your expectations on spellings are in a quite similar situation.

If 9 out of 10 authors misspell a scientific spelling, this is a misspelling. If 10 out of 10 authors misspell it, this is a consensus. As an ICZN commissioner, you should be able to correct, by yourself, any infractions to the code, or at least to contact the respective authors. Wikipedia is not a proxy for a scientific dispute, but must observe the consensus. One paper would suffice, but we need at least one paper.

Mandatory gender agreement, or anything like that, only concerns scientific publications. Wikipedia should be a reflection of those scientific publications, not the scientific publication that makes the decision. The correct spelling of a scientific name can't be decided by one random editor here ; if we allow you to take these kinds of decisions, which we shouldn't, we would also allow any other editor to add their own interpretation of the correct New Latin name, which would quickly become, as we say colloquially around here, the Far West, and would end up doing infinitely more harm than good to public perception of scientific names, academic consensus, and naturally to the ICZN itself.

A really fundamental way of how Wikipedia works is by removing, by all means necessary, any original research, and to focus on substantiated observations in the sources. Contrarily to academic publications, Wikipedia is only a repository of information already available elsewhere, and as such can not be the support of any taxonomical change, even if a code comes into conflict with it. I'm entirely favorable with the ICZN's effort to standardize scientific nomenclature, but Wikipedia is not the place for such an effort. All modifications done to already existing article to correct its declensions or genderizations should be treated as original research if not substantiated by at least one published work.

In the case of Cyrtophleba/Cyrtophloeba, the ICZN doesn't matter much. What matters is that Rondani, the genus author, takes natural precedence, and that any subsequent author committed an orthographic mistake. If this name had not been effectively published, the ICZN would not take precedence, as the correct orthograph would be the only one present in the source material, Cyrtophleba, as far as Wikipedia is concerned. I've grown to know a bit a number of my fellow editors, and I know for a fact that, for most of them, knowledge of Latin, Greek, and the, often tricky, Latin-Greek fusion that is taxonomical Neo-Latin can be quite lackluster. Forcing them to systematically correct any scientific name they stumble upon to respect a code that is outside the general guidelines of Wikipedia will be a quite dangerous endeavor. Larrayal (talk) 00:55, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Now that a few people have weighed in, I hope I can be allowed to address a few of these points. The argument I was making was general, not focused on the specific case that triggered it, but since User:Larrayal raises that case, let's use it as an example. What it exemplifies is the conflict between authoritative and non-authoritative sources, and my argument is that an editor who is competent enough to distinguish between authoritative and non-authoritative sources should be allowed to act on that knowledge. KNOWING that a given source is spelling a name wrong, and another right, and acting accordingly, does not - I would contend - constitute "original research" any more than consulting a dictionary for the spelling of a word. I assume that Wikipedia accepts the spelling given in a dictionary before any other sources, no matter how many have it wrong. For example, when I Google Search for "tumeric", the exact match only, I get over 5 million hits. However, that spelling does not appear in Wikipedia except as a redirect to the correct spelling. If editors are able to exclude "tumeric" from Wikipedia because it is misspelled, then it should be just as easy to exclude a misspelled scientific name when there is an authoritative source that shows it is wrong, and create a redirect - just like for "tumeric". In the case of Cyrtophleba/Cyrtophloeba, the ICZN is crucial to the resolution. Why? Because Rondani spelled it both ways in the original publication, and only the ICZN gives explicit instructions as to how such a case is resolved. In fact, the list of misspellings is extensive: CRYTOPHOEBA, CYRTHOPHLAEBA, CYRTHOPHLEBA, CYRTOPHLEBA, CYRTOPHOEBA, CYRTOPLOEBA, and CYRTHOPLAEBA - but only Cyrtophloeba is accepted under the ICZN, because it was selected under ICZN Article 24.2.4 by the original author acting as First Reviser. There is one print source that explains this, and one online source, the BDWD. There are numerous other sources that use the wrong spelling, including some sources that people who don't know any better will generally consider authoritative, such as GBIF. Bear with me here, please, because this very, VERY intimately relates to the argument that several of you have made, that Wikipedia exists outside of the academic sphere. It most emphatically does not. Wikipedia is linked inextricably to all of those online resources like GBIF, ITIS, IRMNG, BioLib, Fauna Europaea, IPNI, WORMS, Fossilworks, etc., both directly and through intermediates like Wikidata and Wikispecies. Most of those sources, however, are not authoritative sources of either taxonomic data, or nomenclatural data. Some are aggregators, and accumulate both good and bad information, without discriminating, and most of the others are manually-curated by people who are not taxonomists. What this means is that a lot of misinformation exists, and persists, through this interactive network of online sources that are effectively immune to being corrected. Even a world authority is unable to go in and fix a misspelling in any of these sources. This directly contradicts the claim made above that somehow taxonomists could exercise control over the appearance of misspellings online. They CANNOT. Aside from taxon-specific resources like the BDWD, the majority of online sources of scientific names are NOT screened by taxonomic experts, and most are unresponsive to external feedback. The name Cyrtophloeba is a perfect example of the problem - there IS a definitive published source that very explicitly gives the correct spelling and explains it, as well as the BDWD, but only a few of the many online sources have incorporated this information. GBIF, for example says that Cyrtophloeba and Cyrtophleba are BOTH "accepted" names, which is literally impossible, but because GBIF lists the latter misspelling as "accepted", other sources have picked it up and propagated it. Wikidata does not include Cyrtophloeba at all, because Wikidata is generated from Wikipedia, and until recently, Wikipedia used the wrong spelling. The point is that PRINT PUBLICATION of the correct spellings of names typically does little - or nothing - to impact the appearance of these names in the various online sources, because that's not how these online sources work. There is either a time lag, or a labor lag, or some barrier, so what appears in print may or may not eventually find its way into these sources. That's where Wikipedia is different, and crucially important to the scientific community. Wikipedia (and Wikispecies) is perhaps the only venue where new scientific knowledge can be disseminated immediately and accurately. You don't seem ready or willing to acknowledge how important that is - the claim that Wikipedia is not used by academics is utterly disingenuous, as it ignores how little reliance modern scientists place on print publications, and instead rely primarily on finding information online. I've been helping train taxonomists for the past 25 years, and they now use Google Search for essentially everything, and most have never used a library. For almost any scientific name you type into Google Search, Wikipedia is going to be the first result. The next most common results are going to be these other online sources like GBIF, ITIS, IRMNG, BioLib, IPNI, and such. Since Wikipedia is the only one of these sources where errors in scientific names can be fixed directly, it is essential that Wikipedia ALLOW for misspellings to be fixed there. Otherwise, scientists - yes, scientists, not just laymen - are generally going to accept the results of a Google Search uncritically; in a very large number of cases, they won't know when a name they have typed in is misspelled, or what the correct spelling is, UNLESS there is an entry in Wikipedia that explains it. In other words, a misspelled name that has found its way online is going to propagate, proliferate, and confuse people until and unless there is an entry in Wikipedia that sets things straight. I am going to ask those of you who think I'm overstating the case to try an exercise: without referring to Wikipedia or Wikispecies, how easily can you determine, definitively, which of these two spellings is correct: Lepisma saccharina or Lepisma saccharinum? It's one of the most common insects in the world, so it SHOULD be easy, right? This demonstrates exactly the opposite of the claim that academia can keep its own house in order - academics use online searches to do their research, and especially for things like the spelling of scientific names, the majority of authoritative sources are online, and NOT in print. Wikipedia is supposed to present facts, not misinformation, even when that misinformation is widespread. Do people honestly feel that an editor who discriminates between misinformation and fact is engaging in "original research" by doing so, and therefore prohibited from fixing errors? To use one of the examples above, it IS original research if you manufacture an etymology that does not appear in a dictionary, but NOT original research if you're consulting a dictionary that does contain it. I don't see how consulting any of the nomenclatural Codes, and citing that Code, is fundamentally different from consulting and citing a dictionary. Dyanega (talk) 17:35, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Personally I'm with Dyanega on this one. The fundamental issue, I think, is what is meant by "verification", given that "verification not truth" is the requirement here. The most reliable source for the correctness of a scientific name that is governed by a nomenclature code is that code, not usage, whether by professional biologists or others. Of course we must mention widespread orthographic variants, but our articles should be titled and should use the name that is correct under the relevant code, always provided this can be clearly sourced to the code. (An advantage of the areas in which I mostly edit, plants and spiders, is that there are taxonomic databases regarded as authoritative for these groups, which usually have the correct names under the Codes and will make corrections if they are told and accept that there are errors. Also correcting botanical names seems to be less controversial – botanists have only recently abandoned Latin descriptions, so are still expected to know some Latin and follow gender agreement, etc.) Peter coxhead (talk) 12:09, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I also agree with Dyanega perpetuating clear errors is not in keeping with the concept of providing accurate information. I also do not consider such corrections as WP:OR there are afterall references with either spelling. As such the editor here should make their decision between those publications based on an assessment of compliance to the ICZN Code. It is also risky to accept incorrect spellings as, although possibly not the case in this situation, it can lead to unnecessary homonyms being apparent (pseudo-homonyms as they are not really homonyms they are incorrect information) and as an Encyclopedia striving for accurate information should be a priority. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 16:59, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Im NOT with Dyanega. If a spelling is not found in any source, we here at wikipedia can never, at any point be the source that first publishes it. I would highly suggest reading OR and deeply contemplating the repercussions if this dicussion were happening at the wider village pump forums. I suspect that Dyanega would at the very least be chastised, if not outright topic banned for violation of POV COI editing rules. Its problematic that Dyanega continues to introduce "corrections" in instances where there IS no reference to the orthographic variation being used.--Kevmin § 19:15, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Well, there are two distinct issues here. The thread started over a case where there were multiple spellings in the literature, and there was a source that explained which spelling was correct under the provision of the ICZN. When there are multiple spellings in the literature and a code-based argument for which spelling is correct, we should follow the code-based argument. UtherSRG's argument that we should determine the spelling to use by application of WP:COMMONNAME is nonsense. That's not how Wikipedia does taxonomy. If a species has been placed in different genera we don't decide which genus to place it in by looking at the number of Google hits for every combination. We follow recent sources that have coherent genus concepts. And when the IOC changes the vernacular name of a bird (usually due to a change in circumscription, but sometimes with no change in circumscription), Wikipedia changes the vernacular name (IOC vernacular names for birds are not WP:COMMONNAMEs, but COMMONNAME is not the sole thing to consider in titling articles).

The other issue, that Dyanega has brought up before is whether Wikipedia should correct spellings when there is only one spelling in the literature, and the spelling in the literature is incorrect under the provisions of the ICZN. This happens a lot with lepidoptera because lepidopterists don't care about gender agreement. Wikipedia should not be the only source for a spelling that is found nowhere else in the literature. I do see species epithet that I suspect don't agree with the gender of the genus. But I'm not certain that the gender of the genus is what I suspect it to be. And I'm not certain that the species epithet isn't a noun in apposition that doesn't need to agree with the genus. I guess it would be a little less OR if I changed a spelling while providing a reference that explicitly gave the gender of the genus (but I suspect a big part of the lepidoptera problem is that such references don't exist). Plantdrew (talk) 21:11, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I was referring to the case at hand specifically where there are multiple publications. The original spelling is always published it's in the original description, subsequent spellings are erroneous unless a nomenclatural explanation has been given. Which would mean you would have at least two publications to choose from if there are two spellings. I do appreciate that WP as an encyclopedia cannot make the first move on this I totally agree with Kevmin on that but this is unlikely to be the case in most instances. The reason I do not consider it WP:OR is because in the absence of a publication justifying an alternate spelling for a species name the only correct spelling is the one in the original description. That is not original research, you are following the original description. If there is a justifiable spelling change in a publication that is still not original research because again you are just following a review publication and should be doing so. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 21:48, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

The issue I was involved with there was only one known primary source and no known tertiary srouses using the corrected spelling at the time. Later it was found there were more tertiary sources. And while I'd called out COMMONNAME, what I intended was to wait for multiple tertiary sources to confirm the spelling correction. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:27, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Having thought more fully about this, I no longer have an opinion one way or the other about correcting onwiki, but I think the correct action for incorrect emendations made in recent scientific papers is that a request for correction should be made to the relevant scientific journal. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia follows taxonomic precedents set by the existing literature, Wikipedia should never itself attempt to set precedents; we follow, don't lead. We have clear rules about that at WP:OR and WP:synth. This is not the right venue to emend names, that should be done through publications or petitions within the relevant fields. Only when such a process is finalized and accepted, then we can change it here accordingly with no problem if it can be cited. FunkMonk (talk) 09:52, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

At no point have I said anything about emending names. Let's be perfectly clear about that. Changing the spelling of a species epithet from "striatus" to "striata" when it is transferred into a feminine genus is not emending the spelling - under ANY of the nomenclatural Codes, these are gender-mandated spelling variants of the same name, and changing one variant to another is not an emendation; an emendation is a change that results in a different name, like changing "striatus" to "stratus". What I am and have been referring to in this thread are - primarily - these mandatory spelling changes that, under the various Codes do not ever need to be published in order to take effect. Gender agreement is simply the most common mandatory case, but there are other similar situations (such as when there are two spellings of a name in the literature and only one is valid). I will give the most common and broadest example that occurs: a genus-level phylogenetic analysis is published, in which genus A and genus B are synonymized, and/or genus Y is separated from genus X, of which it had previously been a synonym. Each of these genera may have dozens to hundreds of constituent species, but since the paper is about the generic classification, the authors do not list all of the re-combined species names. Hundreds of papers like this are published each year. MANY times, the species affected by the generic reassignment are moved into genera of a different grammatical gender, and MANY times, this means the spelling of some species names will need to be changed because they are adjectives. The point I am trying to establish here is what policy should apply, in Wikipedia, in this sort of situation; if Wikipedia adopts the new classification, then I argue that editors should also comply with the relevant nomenclatural Code and adopt the necessary revised spellings of the species names, even when the individual spellings have never appeared in print. If a botanical revision comes out that says that the genus Gonolobus is now a subgenus of Asclepias, that would mean over 100 species presently treated as masculine need to be moved into a feminine genus. If an editor changes the present Gonolobus article so it appears as a subgenus of Asclepias, they should make the required changes to all the affected adjectival names in the list, and move any bluelinked articles to a new, correct title. In such a situation, it is entirely possible that it could take several years before anyone published all of the new spellings in a citable source, so a policy that insists on waiting for a citable source to appear is, I would argue, entirely inappropriate in such cases. A rare species like Gonolobus barbatus might not have its new name (Ascepaias barbata) appear in print for decades, if no one is actively publishing about it. It does not make sense to me to say that editors would be forced to make an article titled "Asclepias barbatus", a spelling that directly violates the ICBN and misleads readers, just because the name Asclepias barbata had never been published. Here's the thing about this example: in this basic scenario, the name Asclepias barbatus would never have been published anywhere, either, so if the principle is to never use unpublished names in Wikipedia under any circumstances, editors would be unable to do ANYTHING whenever genus affiliations are changed without the publication of a new species list. Such a strict policy stands to do more harm than good, and that's why I would instead argue that we need a policy that allows editors to adhere to the nomenclatural Codes when contending with lists of species and titles of articles whose spellings are demonstrably incorrect - i.e., that an editor who changes the spelling of a name to comply with a relevant nomenclatural Code is NOT violating the prohibition on "original research", and NOT going to have their edits reverted. Dyanega (talk) 16:54, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

It is still not our job to do. We report what is written elsewhere. Nothing more, nothing less. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:01, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Sure, we can and must report when mis-spellings are common – but this doesn't stop us saying that they are mis-spellings. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:12, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Actually, if UtherSRG's comment is taken at face value, editors are NEVER allowed to say something is misspelled until and unless there are mutlitple published sources that say it is misspelled, and those sources are cited. Dyanega (talk) 17:18, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Indeed. Correct. Anything else is WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. It is not our job to correct errors in publication. It is only our job to report what has been published. If no publication has used what the ICZN calls correct we should not use any unpublished spellings. To use an unpublished spelling is OR and SYNTH. If there are multiple spellings in one or more publications, we can note this. We are not to make the determination as to which is correct. Less strictly, we do have to make some editorial decisions, such as what to put in our taxoboxes, etc. However, we should make some note in the body of the article along the lines of "most publications use X spelling, while some (fewer) publications use Y spelling". We can point to the ICZN and note what the code says is correct. But we should not make the correction beyond this. Again, to go further than this is OR and SYNTH. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:27, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Going further - when a publication specifically calls out a mispelling and makes the correct and then later papers adhere to this correction, we can at this point drop the misspellings. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:29, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

UtherSRG - I'm not trying to badger you, honestly, I do understand where you're coming from, and why you might perceive "granting an exception" as a "slippery slope" instead, but my not-so-hypothetical example above is one I would like to know how you would address, given the strict prohibition your policy entails. To reiterate: if a paper came out that sank the genus Gonolobus into the genus Asclepias without providing a list of species, and no one published an updated list that included all of the new name combinations for, say, 10 years, are you saying that Wikipedia editors would have to wait for 10 years to list the Gonolobus species under the genus name Asclepias simply because there was no published literature placing any of those individual species into Asclepias? If so, does that not seem like a policy that is detrimental to the goals of Wikipedia? Dyanega (talk) 18:30, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Question 1: Yes. We report what has been published. Question 2: No, for OR and SYNTH is more detrimental. It just isn't our job to do that work. The paper that makes that change should note the gender change required. (Not that we can make that happen...) I don't even think they would have to list all 100 species; they can simply say that they note the gender change of the genus and perhaps list a small number of actual changes. (Even that smells too close to OR and SYNTH now that I re-read it.) I suspect they would be referring to some of those species anyway to make the determination that the genus should be demoted to a subgenus; if they do refer to some species and continue to use the older spelling, it is even harder to justify making the change. But no, I doubt we'd have to wait 10 years, as I'd expect other sources to pick up the gender change and start using the appropriate new names, and then we can point there. Basically, if there is no primary, secondary, or tertiary source we can point to, we are out of bounds to make a change. Pointing to the ICZN's code is not sufficient; to do so would absolutely be SYNTH. Either the original paper should note the change in some way (preferably by a full listing of the name changes), or later papers or other secondary publications would have to use the newer spellings, or some reliable tertiary source such as a database would have to make those changes. If none of those happen, we can't point to some place for a reader to verify the change, so we should not make the change.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that we do go and make the change to those 100 species in Gonolobus and then 10 years pass and still no one else has published anything about any of those 100 species, then Wikipedia looks like we don't know what we are talking about, that we make stuff up on our own. Wikipedia has no deadline. We can wait as long as we need to have a source note the change and then we can pick it up. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:01, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Okay. Now let's say that in those ten years, the type species of Gonolobus, Gonolobus macrophyllus, has had a new publication about it which squarely places it within Asclepias, but the remaining Gonolobus species have not.

Are you then arguing that we should move Gonolobus macrophyllus to Asclepias, while retaining all the other species at Gonolobus—in spite of the fact that the status of the genus is tied to its type species, and our acknowledgement of the new placement of the type species therefore inherently means Gonolobus cannot be the correct name for any of these lingering species?

Because if anything would make Wikipedia look like we don't know what we're talking about, it's that sort of thing... AddWittyNameHere 19:44, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@Dyanega:, I feel like I must be misunderstanding your example, because that's not how the ICBN works. You can't publish a paper saying "Gonolobus is a synonym of Asclepias and all Gonolobus species now have combinations in Asclepias". Well, technically I guess you could publish such a paper, but it would not establish the combinations in Asclepias. You need to actually publish each combination and make it explicit that you are doing so: "'Gonolobus is a synonym of Asclepias... Asclepias barbata comb. nov., basionym Gonolobus barbatus...". The person who invokes the magic words "comb. nov." then get credited in authority citations (following the parenthetical name of the author of the basionym). As far as I'm aware, if it was published as Asclepias barbatus, that would still count for establishing the combination, but would be a correctable error.

POWO (and Wikipedia) treats Genyorchis as a synonym of Bulbophyllum. We have an article on Genyorchis macrantha; the POWO record states "This is name is unplaced". Nobody has ever published Bulbophyllum macranthum (and maybe nobody will ever need to; if somebody says that Genyorchis macrantha is a synonym of Bulbophyllum fooianum, POWO could go with that synonymy and get rid of the "unplaced" flag).

Purely for the record, a replacement name has now been published for Genyorchis macrantha, namely Bulbophyllum deshmukhii. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:54, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

I also hadn't understood the ICZN to work like you are implying. You can just lump a genus without explicitly publishing new combinations for the species (and you can split!!! a genus by just saying "some of the species should go in this other genus" without enumerating which species are affected)? Lumping may lead to secondary homonyms. Wouldn't those need to be dealt with by explicitly publishing replacement names? Plantdrew (talk) 19:54, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

That was my fault for forgetting - in an attempt to make this not PURELY about the ICZN - that in botany, new genus combinations have independent authorship. Let's pretend, then, that they're animal genera. And no, the ICZN does not at all require that you have to indicate which species are being lumped or split. That's taxonomic, not nomenclatural, and up to the editors and reviewers of a journal to insist upon or ignore. Dyanega (talk) 21:43, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

yeah this comes down to what people can do and should do..... Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 20:45, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with the idea that Wikipedia's "no original research" policy means we should not change specific epithets, but Dyanega brings up a good point around what to do if a change in generic classification doesn't explicitly deal with all the species involved.

I have a non-hypothetical example. Ferran et al. (2022) sank the otter genera Aonyx, Amblonyx, and Lutrogale into Lutra. They discussed the extant species, but said nothing about fossils. What if Wikipedia accepts that reclassification, and I want to write an article about the fossil species Amblonyx indicus Raghavan et al., 2007? If I use the original combination, Wikipedia looks inconsistent because Amblonyx is a synonym of Lutra. But if I recombine the species name, fix the gender agreement, and use Lutra indica, I have made up a name combination, which goes against our policies. (And in this case, I've also created a secondary junior homonym, which is another matter that needs sorting out.) I don't know what the right answer is. Ucucha (talk) 15:33, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

You should use the older combination fir the article title, while in the article you can discuss that Ferran et al 2022 did what they did, and note that the ICZN rules say the name should be changed. Are you consistent with all existing publications on that taxon? Yes. Are you avoiding OR and SYNTH? Yes. Are you indicating there's an inconsistency between the existing taxon publications and the publication that made a changed? Yes. Are you maintaining the integrity of Wikipedia? Yes. Are you creating new problems? No. Would you create new problems if you did something other than this? Yes. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:59, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

There has been a lot of interesting discussion about this, but I think it comes down to whether nomenclatural codes or Wikipedia rules take precedence when choosing the name for the title of a Wikipedia article. Doesn't this dichotomy fall under WP:TRUTH and more specifically Wikipedia:Wikipedia is wrong? Esculenta (talk) 19:35, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

well Dyanega they do have the issues of OR and SYNTH here on Wikipedia, personally I think the slippery slope could be avoided but the intracies of policy and how to impliment them is a difficult discussion on Wikipedia. On Wikispecies we would alter all the names accordingly as we update the new combination, however in saying that we have no OR or SYNTH policies and hence do not face that issue, plus as a smaller wiki with all our editors being at least somewhat involved in taxonomy it is possibly a little easier for us. This of course means it will be parsed to Wikidata and can eventually end up on Wikipedia anyway. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 20:51, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Deletion of Eunectes akayima

I have made a suggestion for deletion of the page on Eunectes akayima Here as the name is not going to stand in anyway that can use this name and it is premmature to try. When new taxa come out it is better to give a little time before creating a page to let the dust settle. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 03:19, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I would not endorse wholesale elimination of the content, especially the extensive discussion. I might, however, support a merge of the content into the article for Eunectes murinus, with maybe a greater emphasis on the critical reviews (those suggesting that while there may well be a separate northern species, it should probably be called Eunectes gigas, of which akayima is likely a junior synonym, if it's even an available name at all). There is already one paper that says this and can be cited now, and I imagine there are going to be other similar papers or reviews published to support that particular outcome. At that point, when there is community consensus as to the splitting of the species, the appropriate content could be removed and placed into its own article, with E. gigas as the scientific name, and the history of the name discussed. Dyanega (talk) 14:55, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps you would consider stopping by and giving your opinion on the talk page of the Northern green anaconda article, where there's more discussion The Morrison Man (talk) 16:11, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

April lichen task force newsletter

The April issue of the lichen task force newsletter is available here. Delivered by MeegsC (talk) 21:17, 1 April 2024 (UTC)