Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mammals/Archive 7

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Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:22, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

I moved this discussion from Talk:Platypus. Before commenting, please read the above text, collapsed for convenience. Personally, I believe the vernacular names should rename lowercase in the vernacular because normally platypus is not considered a proper noun. Post your opinions below. Part of this thought is based on what the MOS says in Wikipedia:MoS#Animals.2C_plants.2C_and_other_organisms. "Common (vernacular) names of flora and fauna should be written in lower case..." --Mikemoral♪♫ 05:39, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

This has been discussed at nauseam and beyond before. The current status quo mostly uses sentence case, but never really had consensus. I think Wikipedia should follow what most reliable sources do, which is using sentence case, but feel that we have many better things to do than enforcing that. Ucucha 05:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

That's what essentially I see as being best. Anyway, uniformity is a nice thing especially for related articles. --Mikemoral♪♫ 05:56, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

This has been discussed quite a bit, but the last extensive discussion that I am aware of was in early 2008: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mammals/Archive 3#Capitalization re-visited. Perhaps enough time has elapsed that it is time to revisit and see if we can come to a consensus. My personal preference is more towards capitalizing the species name, although that is a mild preference. I originally was in favor of using lower case, but have found the upper case useful in identifying the species within the article. And some of the previous discussions have suggested that this may be grammatically proper, although I am not sure. For those interested in the points raised in other previous discussions of the issue, the ones I am aware of arer listed below:

• Talk:Iriomote Cat#Edit warring (2–4 March 2008)
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#misapplication of WP:BIRD (declined as content dispute) (2–4 March 2008)
• Talk:Bobcat#Capitalization again (29 February – 1 March 2008)
• Talk:Fishing Cat#Capital Common Name (29 February – 1 March 2008)
• Talk:Canadian Lynx#Name (29 February 2008)
• Talk:Cougar (June–August 2007, 25 September–10 November 2007)
• Talk:Cheetah (5–10 February 2007,11 August–7 October 2007)
• Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style -- Discussion and consensus at WP:MOS about animal common names and the capitalization issue (July 2007 - August 2007)

Rlendog (talk) 16:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Some more previous discussions of the subject:

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rodents (Jan.-Feb. 2010)
• Talk:List of bats (October 2008)

WolfmanSF (talk) 15:32, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

From what I see in earlier discussions, specifically this, it seems the early discussion pointed to unwritten polices that both were acceptable. A external link to Wordbirdnames.org, points out bird name should be capitalized and is oppisite to the standard capitalization of other animals. I agree that community consensus should be made and it has been nearly 2 years. --Mikemoral♪♫ 20:16, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Hello Mikemoral. I must correct one statement which you make. The source which you cite (IOC World Bird List, version 2.3 Wordbirdnames.org) does not state that the convention for the names of birds is "opposite to the standard capitalization of other animals" [my italics]; it states that it is "contrary to the general rules of spelling for mammals, birds, insects, fish, and other life forms" [again, my italics], that is to say it does not distinguish birds from other animals, but rather distinguishes the writing of what it calls "official" names from the way in which names are written in general usage.

The source goes on to give the rationale for the convention by quoting one Jon S. Greenlaw (in litt.):

The value of capitalizing the English names of animals [again, my italics] seems obvious to me.

Somewhere deep in the history of our language, we came to regard vernacular and "common" names as second-class citizens. Thou shalt not capitalize them.

I believe that it has something to do with the (mis-)perception of species by folks in the humanities as "categories" or "classes" rather than as real entities (to the extent that we can know them). Well, biology has come a long way from that typological view. The standardized English names now have graduated from the realm of "common/vernacular" names.

From my perspective, the strongest argument for capitalizing the English names of birds is that we now have a single, unique name [...] for each of the biological entities that we call bird species. These names must be regarded as proper nouns (thus receive capitals in all English publications), rather than as common nouns (vernacular names). My unabridged dictionary defines a "proper noun" as (1) a word that is not necessarily preceded by an article (e.g., "the," "a") and (2) denotes a particular person, place, or thing.

A species is a particular thing or biological entity. We have other proper nouns in the English language that are composites as well. We talk about the "Great Lakes," the "Rocky Mountains," and the "Alps." In the same way, "American Robin" says it all. No "the" is necessary except as grammatical stricture in a sentence may require one for proper nouns.

Old Father Time (talk) 16:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to add my two cents worth here. Greenlaw does not understand the concept of a proper noun, and his arguments are incorrect. A proper noun is a noun that refers to something for which there is only one example. The "Rocky Mountains" is a proper noun because it refers to a single specific geographically distinct mountain range. Conversely, "stratovolcano" refers to a type of mountain and is a common noun. A species represents a type of organism for which millions of examples can exist. Whether it is a "unique biological entity" is irrelevant. A noun representing a type can never be a proper noun. Otherwise, "primate", "mammal", "vertebrate", "red blood cell", etc. could all be considered proper nouns. They aren't. WolfmanSF (talk) 02:04, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

"Lincoln Continental", "Ford Mustang", "Toyota Camry", etc. Certainly the first part (the manufacturer's name) is a proper noun, but so is the second part. Are you telling me there's only one Ford Mustang? I'm pretty sure I've seen a bunch of them.... - UtherSRG (talk) 02:30, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's the model of a car, right? --Mikemoral♪♫ 04:38, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

"Ford Mustang" is a brand name, which is considered a proper noun. However, (and this is a subtle point) a brand name is not the same as a type. For an automotive example (which may not be perfect), basically the same Volkswagon was sold as the Passat in Europe and the Dasher in the U.S. There is no reason an identical product could not be sold under two different brand names in one market. At any rate, the connection of brand names to species common names seems a bit tenuous. WolfmanSF (talk) 06:40, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I must have misread that. Anyway, after looking at 3rd party sources, this 2004 book uses lowercase "platypus" on so does a this New York Times article. I found a 19th century book using uppercase platypus. It seems that lowercase is more modern, while uppercase is older. Thoughts anyone? --Mikemoral♪♫ 04:52, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I have just noticed that, in the Platypus article which prompted the present discussion, occurrences of "Platypus" in some but not all sections of the article have been changed to "platypus" by Aaadddaaammm with a request not to revert, on the grounds that "that's the consensus that was reached with most of the discussions". Has any consensus been reached?

I should like to ask some questions.

If a consensus has been reached, what are the implications? That all articles which do not conform to the convention that is agreed should be edited? That individual articles can be edited ad hoc? How many articles would be involved? Who would do the work?

If no consensus is reached, what are the implications? That the status quo should be maintained for all individual articles? That individual articles can be edited ad hoc? Old Father Time (talk) 13:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I haven't seen any evidence of a consensus, and until a consensus is reached, maintaining the status quo seems most appropriate. Rlendog (talk) 19:32, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Father Time, it seems Aaadddaaammm (talk · contribs · count) has vandalized a few times. However, the most recent upper- to lowercase made by xem was not discussed properly. I'm guessing this discussion will eventually become that consensus or not. After looking at Adam's (I'm not typing that all) it seems Platypus venom lowercases all uses of platypus. That make Wikipedia seem not too consistent within articles in my own opinion. --Mikemoral♪♫ 20:12, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree. There are inconsistencies within Wikipedia on this issue. And unless a consensus emerges, I suspect there will continue to be inconsistencies. For example, even if the Platypus article moves to lower case, it will then be inconsistent with the Echidna article, and so on. Rlendog (talk) 20:40, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a propasal? Something among the lines of "All articles about mammals should have their vernacular (common) names upper/lowercase unless there is a proper noun within its vernacular name." --Mikemoral♪♫ 21:14, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

It is easy to find (recent) publications which use different conventions: I opened three different ones earlier today and found, for example, Short-tailed Vole, Short-tailed vole and short-tailed vole, respectively. It is really a matter of what convention editors want to use.

I am accustomed to reading names with initial capitals in a range of animal and plant groups; so, that convention does not make me feel uncomfortable, while it does seem to have that effect on some other editors. Nevertheless, I do not have a strong preference and am content to accept whatever convention editors want to use.

I should still like answers to my earlier questions about the implications of reaching or not reaching a consensus. Old Father Time (talk) 22:29, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

The "consensus" was at Talk:Platypus#Capitalization and I don't think that is really consensus. Just two anons agreeing it seems. A question asking about capitalization at Talk:Platypus#capitalization_2 and the origin of this discussion at Talk:Platypus#Edit-protected.3F. --Mikemoral♪♫ 23:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

First of all I want to dispute the claim that I've "vandalized a few times". I did so once recently as a joke, but if you look at my contributions you'll see I've been an on-the -whole positive contributor to WP since 2006. Please don't paint me as a antisocial vandal. I may have been a little premature at my changes, so I'm all for a full discussion. I am strongly of the opinion that capitalisation looks really bad - and that there is no grammatical reason to do so. It's not a proper noun, it doesn't get a capital IMO. The argument "(mis-)perception of species by folks in the humanities as "categories" or "classes" rather than as real entities" smacks of NPOV and soapbox violations to me. And how many Platypuses did I really miss? Aaadddaaammm (talk) 07:55, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Does no one read the guidelines? We already have a guideline. ZooPro 12:43, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm similarly surprised. Unless there is a clear preference for title casing in relevant literature, there is no reason to digress from that guideline. --Swift (talk) 14:21, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

We are talking about the English language here, which has a million and one rules and a million and one exceptions to every rule. (If only languages were like computer programming languages... <sigh>) Anyway, guidelines are probably the best we'll ever be able to do IMO. And by the way, if we're capitalizing the common names of species, does that mean every time we use "humans" in a sentence it now needs to be capitalized as "Humans"? (e.g. "The environmental impact of Humans on...") – VisionHolder « talk » 14:44, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, no, for "humans" refers to all of genus Homo, of which only one species is still living. *grins* If you are using "humans" in a way to mean al living Homo sapiens, then yes, I would have us use capitals. - UtherSRG (talk) 23:02, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

That guideline states that you don't capitalise common species names, yea? Aaadddaaammm (talk) 15:12, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you referring to the sentence that says "Insofar as there is any consensus among Wikipedia editors about capitalisation of common names of species, it is that each WikiProject can decide on its own rules for capitalisation"? Rlendog (talk) 01:08, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

It's true that English has many exceptions to rules on spelling and grammar. However, that has little bearing on the subject being debated here. The one exception that everyone recognizes is when a species is named after a country or person. Other than that, situations where species common names are capitalized don't represent exceptions to the rules, they represent cases where people have chosen not to follow the rules. In carefully edited publications where the rules of formal prose are followed (such as Britannica), all species common names, including birds, are lower case. How many other examples are there of an encyclopedia or similar unified reference work where different capitalization rules are applied to species common names in different taxa? WolfmanSF (talk) 22:49, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

So we should be like Britannica? We should formulate no new ways of making an encyclopedia? We should not be bold and daring? We should constrain ourselves only to subjects that can fit in the print volumes? Etc. I say no, we should be more modern than that. We should strike out boldly and say to all: "This, this usage we think works better for us. This is how *we* shall make an encyclopedia. This is how we shall list species' common names. Etc." - UtherSRG (talk) 23:02, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Hello ZooPro. Wikipedia:WikiProject Monotremes and Marsupials#Names and titles cross-refers to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Birds#Bird_names_and_article_titles, where initial capitals are used for species names. I imagine for this reason, articles about the platypus and echidnas, at least and probably those about marsupials as well (which I haven't checked), do use initial capitals. If this is not the standard used in WikiProject Mammals, should these articles be edited to conform to the standard that is used? That is the question to which we have been seeking an answer. Old Father Time (talk) 18:20, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I've just seen the answer under "Merger proposal" above. We don't change the convention used internally in monotreme and marsupial articles. Old Father Time (talk) 19:17, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

That is correct, it should remain how it is. In time i would idealy like a policy to be decided by the WikiProjects on what the correct naming conventions are, this will be a giant undertaking what will most likely take months to reach an agreement, until such time we should follow the guidelines and respect what each project has come to decide. ZooPro 02:55, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

No that's incorrect, it should be changed. Who here is actually supporting that it should be capitalised and for what reason. The strongest argument I've seen is "it's already like that, let's leave it". To be blunt, that's a retarded argument. It's WIKIPEDIA here - the free encyclopedia anyone can edit. When something is wrong, we can edit it to make it right. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 08:07, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

You are not reading the guidelines are you? NO, instead you are pushing your own opinion. We have a long standing consensus in place for a reason, Why should it be changed? Why fix something that isnt broke? If you have a problem with how the WikiProjects and WikiPedia decide on such matters then i suggest creating a policy discussion instead of wasting time about an issue that has been discussed many many many many many times before, the reason i didnt join this discussion earlier was because it is once again a repeat of past discussions, do you have any new reasons for a change, are you going to go against the Projects? ZooPro 08:24, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Of course I read the guideline you helpfully linked - I read the bit where it says "In general, common (vernacular) names of flora and fauna should be written in sentence case — for example, "oak" or "lion"", and that each Wikiproject can decide. The monotreme project [1] has for some bizarre reason listed that it wants to use the birds nomenclature. But this group is pretty darn inactive, and I see no discussion of this point in their project, it rather looks like 1 contributor (couldn't find it in the history, though), has whacked this link to birds in as a place holder. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 13:17, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

That sentence you quoted isn't very clear. For example, by "oak" do you mean a Black Oak, White Oak, Pin Oak, Bur Oak, Red Oak, Live Oak... or just the genus Quercus? In the case of "lion", it refers to the species Panthera leo, but if we make reference to a specific subspecies, such as the Asiatic Lion, West African Lion, Barbary Lion, Cape Lion... the capitalization rules change. Once again, "lion" becomes a general name for several distinct types. If I were to talk about lemurs or even ruffed lemurs, I can use sentence case. However, if I talk about the the Ring-tailed Lemur or the Gray Mouse Lemur, I cannot use the sentence case, despite the fact that the names are a considered common (vernacular). – VisionHolder « talk » 14:38, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I should like to make three points:

– there is nothing wrong about the system of naming either in monotreme and marsupial articles or in other mammal articles: they are simply different conventions, both of which are widely used.

– I think the matter of species names being common nouns and not proper names is a distraction. Any common noun or noun phrase can be formed into a proper name for a particular purpose: neither "white house" nor "pentagon" is a proper name, but both are formed into proper names to refer to particular entities;

– if the convention for species names in monotreme and marsupial articles were to be changed, the change should be implemented systematically through all articles created by WikiProject Monotremes and Marsupials, and not ad hoc for particular articles. Old Father Time (talk) 16:59, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I think this a rather ridiculous discussion, though it would probably be good to set a fixed standard for names. All that really should matter is what capitalisations are used, especially by reliable sources. The grammatical arguments here are bizarrely abstract, and it should be remembered that in these days, correct grammar and style is mostly nought but whatever is common usage and custom in standard language, rather than pedantics based on mediæval Latin. Overwhelmingly, reliable sources use sentence case, so for no other reason—I have no personal preference and often use both capitalizations—I think we should use this if we want to adopt a standard for consistency. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 17:43, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe that a poll should be taken regarding the capitalization. I set-up a poll below here. --Mikemoral♪♫ 01:16, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

===Poll===

(Example: Xe Said That}

1. What project is this Poll for?, WikiProject Mammals or WikiProject M&M ? Also please try to clarify exactly what you are polling for, As pointless as i think it is to have a poll every few years maybe we should be focusing more of developing a policy instead of a poll, i would propose a sensis of all the animal related projects and find what the most common decision the projects made and then adopt that as policy. ZooPro 01:26, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

• No to a poll. What for"? Why "proper case"? Since it is correct? I also find ZooPro's idea to be poor as well; title case is customary for, in example, birds, and sentence case for fish and others; hence these are used exclusively on Wikipedia. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 02:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

The whole point is to see what a general idea of editors is. --Mikemoral♪♫ 02:20, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

What is the poll for? —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 02:42, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

My suggestion was just that a suggestion dont read to much into it, i was merely giving some alternatives, i am with Innotata in wanting to know what the poll is for? ZooPro 05:05, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

The "general idea of editors" is irrelevant. Wikipedia isn't the collective preference of editors. It should reflect general use. We've just moved all of the cetacean articles to sentence case. Not because Wikipedians preferred it, but because that's the way they're written in just about every type of literature on the subject. I'm not familiar with conventions on the spelling of bird species names, but if they are universally written in title case, then so should Wikipedia (no matter what anyone's personal preference is). The Mammals WikiProject has a very large number of articles within its scope making any investigation into general usage cumbersome at best, contradictory at worst. If anyone wants to tackle this issue, I suggest they restrict themselves a smaller group that can be reasonably expected to have consistent spelling.

Finally, we already have a guideline on this. Species names should (note that it doesn't say "must") use sentence case as they aren't proper nouns. English being a collection of exceptions rather than rules (yes, I am being overly dramatic here) there will be cases where common use differs from the general case represented in the guideline — which is the reason why it's a guideline and not a policy.

And this is about as much time as I will waste on this matter... --Swift (talk) 10:23, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I struck the poll. --Mikemoral♪♫ 23:57, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

What is Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals/Bulletin Board? Why doesn't it ever have anything on it? —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 21:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why it never gets updated, but WP:MAMMAL is being featured in the 'post this week! I would check it out!! Belugaboy ^{Talk to Me!} 20:23, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The bulliten board was a great idea from The Arbiter, I sorta let him take care of that side of things, i was happy with the talkpage. I will (or if any wants to) "Announce" the singpost feature if Belugaboy could give me the exact dates here. ZooPro 23:27, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll begin putting things on now... The Arbiter^★_★^★ 15:10, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

This has popped up again, at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#WP:BIRD and the Effort to Capitalize "Rhesus Macaques". The bird and animal projects have been notified, but the matter may be most important here. —innotata 16:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Bear attacks needs some serious cleanup. Thank you.

(If this is not the appropriate page for this request, please move to appropriate page. Thank you.)

-- Writtenonsand (talk) 06:42, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

- I see that we also have an article Bear danger. Not sure that we need this.

-- Writtenonsand (talk) 06:45, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't know. They seem to require separate articles. Are you sure Bear attacks needs cleanup? It doesn't look too awful to me. The Arbiter^★_★^★ 15:11, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Greetings to all members of WP:MAMMAL! I would like to start collaborations again on articles involving mammals. Collaboration gives us all the ability to merge our time and abilities to improve an article greatly. If anyone has an article to nominate, please post it here. And by the way, please watchlist the bulletin board, as I will be posting announcements there. The Arbiter^★_★^★ 01:46, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Marmot probably in Canada for identification prior to upload to commons. Snowman (talk) 22:35, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Marmota flaviventris, yellow-bellied marmot. Ucucha 01:45, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Uploaded to File:Marmota flaviventris -Vernon, British Columbia, Canada-8.jpg on commons. I uploaded a fun video clip yesterday as File:Marmota flaviventris -near Kalamalka Lake, British Columbia, Canada-8.ogv. Snowman (talk) 09:54, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that the images on commons of the Hoary Marmot and Yellow-bellied Marmot need checking. Snowman (talk) 09:56, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

When I visited the crabeater seal earlier today, the lede had spent four days dutifully reporting something about a "maneater" that was a "little known mammal" somewhat less abundant than the "1.5 billion cows on earth" ... and so on. So I performed a major de-vandalization, rewrite, referencing, etc. Since this animal is clearly way off people's radar (its "importance" was set to "low"), may I make a case that this single most abundant marine mammal, with its bizarre krill-sieving teeth (proto baleen?) and expansive circumpolar distribution is, perhaps, worth flagging by a wider audience? Also, maybe someone can take a glance and see if it is still a "start-class" article. I hesitate to "promote" it myself. Thanks! Eliezg (talk) 14:36, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for helping remove the vandalism and creating a very informative page. I've performed the assessment, and left comments on the article's talk page. Please keep up the good work! Your contributions are greatly appreciated. – VisionHolder « talk » 20:59, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Just a note that the selection of MSW3 templates has been expanded. WolfmanSF (talk) 17:48, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I propose that there be a category for the following pages and others like them.

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing/Popular pages
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment/Popular pages
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals/Popular pages
  

-- Wavelength (talk) 23:44, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
I am considering the name Category:Lists of popular pages by WikiProject. It would be a subcategory of Category:Wikipedia.
-- Wavelength (talk) 15:17, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
[I am inserting a line break between my first and second messages. -- Wavelength (talk) 07:34, 14 June 2010 (UTC)]

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of life#Templates for external links. --Snek01 (talk) 17:21, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I have nominated Tasmanian Devil for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. --Malkinann (talk) 11:59, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I stumbled on Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals/mammal articles by size today. It looks like it was autogenerated, but there are no notes saying how and why. Most of the listed articles appear appropriate, but for some I wonder what is the intended scope (eg, Table of muscles of the human body, Angel) and others are clearly wrong (eg, History of human rights, Women in the American Revolution).  Randall Bart   Talk  22:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

They are wrong because some people like to tag willy nilly and claim its mammal related. I would encourage you to remove articles you would consider to not be mammal related. in regards to the category i have no idea why it was created or what purpose it would serve the project. ZooPro 00:08, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

It was worse. I think this could have some usefulness, but it hasn't been updated for years and therefore is now of little use. Ucucha 06:20, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes Ucucha, I do remember finding some strange ones in our unrated category. Got any ideas on what we could use it for? I would be happy to dedicated some time to cleaning it up if I could think of a good way to put it to use but sadly i have drawn a blank. Cheers ZooPro 07:02, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I checked some of the articles at the top of the list that didn't fit in, and none actually had the mammals banner; I suppose it's been removed. It's useful for seeing what the most developed articles of the project are, and which articles may need to be split up. Don't bother cleaning it up, though; that is a bot job, and we can do quite well without it. Ucucha 08:00, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi! Please comment: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_September_2#Category:Prehistoric_perissodactyls. - Kontos (talk) 16:13, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

There's a featured picture of this species that is currently not used in the body of the article. Unfortunately, the delisting process of FPs currently does not notify related articles and wikiprojects to sufficient extent to allow sensible remedies to be made, so its delist nomination at Featured Picture Candidates is now somewhat advanced. Preliminary opinions suggest that it is still the best image of the species on image quality grounds, and I'm confident it would be kept as an FP if found a reasonably prominent and useful place in this article. Feel free to contact me or go to its nomination on the FPC page if you have any questions or would like to express an opinion on the nomination. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 17:23, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

link to nomination

It has been brought to our attention that Sus seems biased towards the domesticated pigs and bears little information on wild pigs. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_life#Genus_Sus. Thanks, Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:44, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

The article about the genus Sus for now remains at the page name Pig. This is now contributing to an edit war over the lead, as some editors try to rewrite the article into a content fork of Domestic pig. I am sure the content forking is not intentional, but that is what it is. Help? 69.3.72.249 (talk) 20:09, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Giant Panda#Requested move. --Tesscass (talk) 22:44, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

See headline. I found it in some articles, in de: ("Vegetarier) and now in en:Malayan tapir. We should reach consensus whether to say an animal was "vegetarian" or better "herbivorous" --Eu-151 (talk) 13:54, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't see the word as problematic, but "exclusively herbivorous" presumably another, maybe clearer, way to phrase the usual intended meaning. The German Wikipedia is a different place, and the matter surely should be taken on a case to case basis if there are disputes. —innotata 22:53, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Vegetarian seems to be regularly used in the scientific literature. Perhaps "(exclusively) herbivorous" may be clearer, but I don't see much reason to limit our descriptive vocabulary. Ucucha 22:56, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Mammal articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Sunday, November 14th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of November, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

If you have already provided feedback, we deeply appreciate it. For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 16:34, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd like someone else to look at this image replacement, here. The user is replacing a decent image of the animal in it's natural environment with a cell phone image he shot through a window of the animal on a roof. Hes edit waring and making threats when I tried to replace it. Another party to review this would be helpful. — raekyt 05:50, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I've already reverted back to the old one with the reason given in the edit summary. The image that I reverted to is of a much higher quality and shows the animal clearer, since it's not half blocked. See Talk:Possum#Image for a discussion on this issue. Note: Followed here from WQA. Netalarm^talk 06:29, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Pictures of taxidermied specimens in Paris have recently been added to the respective artcles, but I noticed they depict the same specimens. The Commons description for each only mention one name, but in this page[2] (scroll down) it appears that there is one of each. Anymone have some better info on this? FunkMonk (talk) 00:14, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Both images are of Panthera leo leo. ZooPro 04:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Not that I doubt you, but do you have a source for that? FunkMonk (talk) 04:44, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I will find one to confirm 100% for you, Big Cats is my field of expertise. This image is by a different user and also identifies the animals as Barbary. I cannot read french so have limited ability to check the museums records (the advanced species listings is in french). In a purely observatory verification the animals in the image fail to display the distinctive deep black mane, that should extend to far behind the shoulders covering most of the animals back. There is also the obvious lack of black tips on the ears on the female, the males ears appear too damaged to confirm if they are indeed black, though this could be a result of the tanning process. I will attempt to confirm what specimens the museum houses to be used as a confirmation source. ZooPro 11:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort! The image you linked to was taken by the same person as took the second image here, by the way. FunkMonk (talk) 16:09, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Please see Template talk:Geological range#RfC: Rewording of "fossil range" for a proposal to modify the fossil range template. Thanks! Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 03:07, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, should be an interesting discussion. ZooPro 13:15, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Hey everyone. So looking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals/Missing mammal species, I noticed the Mongolian saiga. I started drafting an article, but checking the current IUCN redlist it shows it no longer as a separate species Saiga borealis, but as a subspecies of the main Saiga Antelope, listed as Saiga tatarica mongolica. There are quite a few sources just about the Mongolian saiga though. Should we generally avoid separate articles about subspecies, or it dependent on the size of the coverage and number of sources? Steven Walling 21:40, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it should depend on coverage. We certainly should have separate articles for the subspecies of the tiger, which receive much coverage on their own, but I've avoided creating articles for the poorly differentiated and rarely discussed subspecies of the marsh rice rat. Ucucha 21:54, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

That's my instinct too. Steven Walling 21:57, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

If you know anything about Cetacea or Artiodactyla, head on over to Template talk:Automatic taxobox#Cetacea, where we're requesting the input from people who know a little something about this strange and alien Cetartiodactyla taxon. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:44, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Hey everyone, I am back! I noticed the rest of you did a phenomenal job with Fossa (animal), and that it became a featured article. And yes, I admit with shame that real life got in the way for me, and I had to bail on that one. But now, I am fairly free in real life, so let’s start another collaboration! Visionholder has nominated a few other articles for collaboration…go ahead to the collaboration page and vote on some of them (preferably one of them, if everyone votes for every article there we won’t get anything done). Let’s get another one done! Cheers to all, The Arbiter^★_★^★ 23:27, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I voted for nearly everything long before I started taking a short Wikibreak, so I'm going to go through and strike one or two of my supports. We also need to make sure that those who voted before are still willing to participate. Otherwise, great to have you back! – VisionHolder « talk » 16:03, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks VisionHolder! Alright guys the voting ends TOMORROW! Then, back to work. The Arbiter^★_★^★ 00:08, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

And the voting is finished! The collaboration article will be Slow loris. See you there! The Arbiter^★_★^★ 17:02, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

If anyone is interested, I have been looking at the history of various collaborations among the wikiprojects I've been involved with. This one has been pretty amazing in its outcomes to date - of the six mammal articles chosen since the start of the collaboration in 2008, two have become Featured, two are now Good Articles, and two are rated as B-class...and many of them are pretty hefty articles indeed. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:37, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Animals.2C_plants.2C_and_other_organisms says not to capitalize, Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(fauna)#Capitalisation_of_common_names_of_species says don't do it unless the project thinks it is an exception, other pages like wp:TOL and WP:ANIMAL seem happy with no consistency, although I find that (the current state of affairs) fairly amateurish. But anyway the MOS is saying not to capitalize unless there is consensus at the relevant wikiproject. WP:BIRD for example, explains that ornithologists capitalize and has provided a source to back this claim up. Almost no other projects have done so other than primates, but it has no source. I asked for a source there, but nobody knew of any and I was advised to ask here. So - does anyone know of a justification for having a different convention for primates? I'm asking because, as WP:CAPS says, "Because credibility is a primary objective in the creation of any reference work, and because Wikipedia strives to become a leading (if not the leading) reference work in its genre, formality and an adherence to conventions widely used in the genre are critically important to credibility" and I haven't found many scholarly papers that capitalize any common names of mammals. Is there a move in the field to change that? Thank you, ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 09:57, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

This is a very long standing discussion, If you head over to WT:ANIMALS a number of users are attempting to sort this out, it will take months to come to some sort of consensus and project wide agreement. Every time I see the heading "Capitalization" I lose about 4yrs off my life expectancy. ZooPro 11:42, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Agree with ZooPro. What I have to repeat every time this comes up is that both capitalisations are used often, and thus are valid. The debate should be about the relative merits, largely considering what is common usage. —innotata 14:30, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

ZooPro, the WT:ANIMALS discussion isn't really going on now, is it? In any case, right now I'm really just trying to figure out if the exception for primates is justified by any source or if it's just on a whim. "Both capitalisations are used often, and thus are valid" - well, I disagree with your "thus", I think it would depend on who is using the various styles. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

The discussion is ongoing, it never really seems to stop, Anna has some things on her plate at the moment however has promised to return and try and finish what she started. Perhaps a short term solution would be to gather consensus on the primates project talk page and run with that until such time as its fixed wikipedia wide. If you have a number of users who are very active on the project and they all agree then I would think that it would be appropriate to decide which way to go. cheers ZooPro 02:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Just to but in on a topic I don't know much about, but what is the consensus in the literature? If there is a consensus, any discussion here is moot. Are you saying there is no consensus in the lit, so Wiki should be reaching its own consensus on the matter? I don't know if that would qualify as approaching OR or not... (especially given that this is only a stylistic issue). MMartyniuk (talk) 02:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

There has been an insane amount of discussion, and many people have made source surveys. My general impression is that title case rarely appears in prose, except in field guide-type books. Ucucha 03:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I was wondering when you might chime in Ucucha, seems we only get a month or so of peace before this topic comes up again :) ZooPro 03:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Although the ornithologists have formally mandated capital letters for the common name of a bird, primatologists have not done this and literature generally uses the lower case for the common name. A problem that I see is that many primates either do not have a common name or they have several common names. However, wikipedists confidently chose a common name, sometimes that may not be adequate. My vote as a primatologist is to write the common name with lower case letters. Huicocos (talk) 19:06, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

If anyone is short of things to do the cleanup listing for the project is here! At the moment of the 5375 articles in this project 736 or 13.7% are marked for cleanup. Some of the items are very easy fixes that anyone can do. Cheers, Jack (talk) 19:34, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

The article alerts page is back up and running too. Jack (talk) 16:29, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello. I've uploaded a number of mammals range maps with random colors of areals like this:

• File:Veldkamp's Dwarf Epauletted Fruit Bat area.png
• File:Peter's Dwarf Epauletted Fruit Bat area.png
• File:Hayman's Dwarf Epauletted Fruit Bat area.png
• File:Hammer-headed Bat area.png
• File:Franquet's Epauletted Fruit Bat area.png

In IUCN data I used each areal has 3 parameters: Presence (1 to 6), Origin (1 to 5) and Seasonality (1 to 5):

Presence

• 1: Extant
• 2: Probably extant
• 3: Possibly extant
• 4: Possibly extinct
• 5: Extinct
• 6: Presence uncertain

Origin

• 1: Native
• 2: Reintroduced
• 3: Introduced
• 4: Vagrant
• 5: Origin uncertain

Seasonality

• 1: Resident
• 2: Breeding season
• 3: Non-breeding season
• 4: Passage
• 5: Seasonal occurence uncertain

(see metadata document)

Totally 6*5*5=150 areal types, but actually exist only 20 of them: 111, 121, 131, 145, 151, 161, 211, 231, 245, 251, 311, 411, 421, 431, 511, 521, 531, 551, 611, 655. The majority of areals are of 111 type (Extant native resident). This type of areal I painted (with some exceptions) with random color. For 211 type I used always the same color as for 111, so this two types don't differ on my maps. For remaining 18 types I used certain fixed colors: red for 131, black for 511 etc.

Later I was recommended to use equal colors, and started to paint areals of types 111 and 211 with red color (ff0000 in RGB), as there:

• File:Greater False Vampire area.png
• File:Lesser False Vampire area.png
• File:Yellow-winged Bat area.png
• File:Small Mouse-tailed Bat area.png
• File:Lesser Mouse-tailed Bat area.png

Other 18 types are without changes. Possibly, other range maps I'll paint on this model.

Is it ok? If not, better tell now, not to alter. Chermundy (talk) 17:31, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Folks should think about this. Apparently the slow loris is evolving and choosing a big/ambitious article for the next one might not be that successful. Might be a good idea to think about a single species article or delay choosing for a couple of weeks. I don't know but have fun folks :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:42, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, it's now gone February 1st ...looks like Vampire bat is the winner. I'll leave it up to our coordinator to do the honours... :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:26, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Haha thanks Calisber. I need to hurry up on slow loris...I'm getting behind with the sickness I got. Cheers, The Arbiter^Talk 22:18, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

If you're interested in the capitalisation of platypus, please contribute to the discussion here. Cheers! Aaadddaaammm (talk) 11:16, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

This article seems very confused as to whether it's referring to Great Britain or the United Kingdom. I think that GB is the more sensible locale for a biological context (if it were UK it'd be a bit like "list of mammals which inhabit one big island and/or the northeastern portion of another big island") but I have no idea which species should and shouldn't belong on the list. Can this be fixed by someone knowledgeable? 86.6.193.43 (talk) 19:54, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

The article was moved from ...of United Kingdom to ...of Great Britain per consensus but the article was never updated to reflect the move. I've changed all references of Britain or the UK to Great Britain. The article still talks about species and subspecies occurring on the small islands around Great Britain and on the Channel Islands so I've added a little note. The article is not in great shape really, it desperately needs references and a clear decision over its aim. Cheers, Jack (talk) 20:16, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

....has been at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Lion/archive1 for some time. Can folks take a look and see what else needs to be done to keep its shiny star? There is a section I am not sure whether should remain in the article, so opinions on that are welcome. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:52, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I have opened a RfC concerning the capitalization of common names at WP:PRIMATE. I would like finally to resolve this matter for the project by gaining a formal consensus. Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Primates#Request for comment: Capitalization with primates. – VisionHolder « talk » 07:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

With a vote of 6 in favor of sentence case, 1 neutral, and 0 in support of upper case, WP:PRIMATES will now be following the standards set by the literature by using sentence case. – VisionHolder « talk » 20:38, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I made a short list article on the U.S. state bats. TCO (talk) 06:20, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes it is short :P ZooPro 07:10, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

i was just verifying that it's ok to replace {{mammal}} with {{rodent}} on relevant pages so that we can "A" take some of your backlog at places like Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of mammals, and "B" properly fill our project's categories in a way that is not supported by the taskforce extension in the current banner shell. Additionally, it would avoid silly redundancies and needlessly filling up stub talk pages with multiple project banners. If this parent project has any specific articles they would like to keep labelled with {{mammal}} in addition to {{rodent}} i welcome a list of those articles so we can keep everyone happy :) --ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 17:23, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

How about changing {{Mammal}} to {{Mammal|Rodents=yes}}? This way both projects get the page categorised. Jack (talk) 17:39, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Oops I think I missed your mention of the taskforce extension. What is the problem with it? Jack (talk) 17:40, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

well my biggest concern is that the template is meant to use taskforces, not related child projects and i'm not sure why this project decided to break the trend and put child projects in it's template. while theoretically more convenient, it limits child projects from being able to add functionality they require, and creates redunandant listings in categories (which are personally a pain to filter out when trying to parse 20,000+ articles). for example it only lets you assign a secondary importance, notably there are several hundred rodent articles needing images, that currently clutter up this project's category, i'd like have them all moved into a subcat easily. --ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 01:22, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

This was discussed some time ago, it was consensus that the rodent articles only have the rodent template, less work for the mammals project. ZooPro 10:45, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Where? –xeno^talk 14:27, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Not sure, though I also remember the discussion. It makes sense; it wouldn't be a good idea to put all of the Biology, Tree of Life, Animals, and Mammals projects on every rodent's talk page. Ucucha 14:33, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

so i guess a week is long enough to get an idea? i assume most contributors to the mammal project don't really care if we take the 1000+ stubs and such out of their worklists... :D --ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 02:11, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd say yeah go for it. I was initally cool to the idea but realised I've been party to the same thing with WikiProject Banksia - eg. the talk page of any species of Banksia. Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:09, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Last call for objections: a request filed by WikiProject Rodents has asked to remove the {{WikiProject Mammals}} banner en passent. In short: 986 articles are going to be unlisted from Mammals project. The list of articles that would have the Mammals banner removed is here: [3]. –xeno^talk 19:09, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

No probs from me. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:26, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

None from me also. ZooPro 01:31, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Sounds fine. The Arbiter^Talk 15:15, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Hopefully to expedite a process that took forever last time, I am asking for input on removing {{mammal}} from the remaining articles which have already been tagged with {{rodent}}. This is a completely different list of articles from the one above, as those articles had the mammal template removed. Keeping high profile articles under the scope of parent and child projects is common, so you may want to review this list for articles you think should be tagged in both. The main benefit to this is avoiding articles being unneccessarily placed in duplicate image-req and assessment categories. --ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 21:58, 2 April 2011 (UTC)