Commons:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 2011

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2011[edit]

Angiosperms main clade uppercase or lowercase in {{Taxonavigation}} ?[edit]

Hello, User:Brya always said 'Main clades angiosperms, magnoliids, monocots, commelinids, eudicots, core eudicots, rosids, eurosids I, eurosids II, asterids, euasterids I, euasterids II should be lowercase because it is now allowed (it was not in the past for Ordo,familia...) and because APG uses lowercase'.
I verified in APGIII document, and there are only EUDICOTS and eudicots, no Eudicots.
But when I look in commons, I find both:

What do you prefer in {{Taxonavigation}}? Cheers Liné1 (talk) 22:11, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Guys, any preference ? No ? Cheers Liné1 (talk) 13:42, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Vote[edit]

Fringillidae subfamilies[edit]

"Note: The systematics of the cardueline finches are contentious. Therefore wikicommons will avoid the Fringillidae subfamilies and simply follow IOC classification 2.6 => This category should be empty"

This makes not much sense; IOC does not use subfamilies at all. Also, systematics within Carduelinae are contentious, relations between subfamilies not really that much (basically it's the question of cardueline monophyly; Fringillinae are monotypic, Euphoniinae and Drepaninae are probably monophyletic). So even though the argument has a point, this would affect "cardueline" genera (Serinus etc), not fringillid subfamilies. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 01:41, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Species level categorization of extinct taxa[edit]

It was discussed a while ago and agreed that extinct taxa should be categorized to the genus level only. I was recently asked by user:Archaeodontosaurus about this and I think it may be time to rediscuss the topic. What are the project members opinions on categorization of extinct species? I would say that outside of a small number of Pliocene and Pleistocene species which are very well known and studied, most extinct taxa should be only categorized to the genus level. A major reason for this is the fluidity of extinct species identifications and that the species are often in flux with additions and/or lumping happening in most taxonomic papers that are published. This has resulted in a large number of the fossil specimens that are in museum collections being tagged with outdated names. Even at the genus level I find a number of images are misidentified. Opinions?--Kevmin § 20:42, 24 February 2011 (UTC) To clarify this its in regards only to extinct taxa described from the fossil record, apologies for any confusion. --Kevmin § 21:23, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think it depends on how extinct they are. E.g. The Yangtze River Dolphin is well known down to species level, and accordingly should have full taxinomic details. Similarly, various plants recently extinct have full taxinomic histories. These should have their descriptions to species level. Extinctions where DNA can be extracted can show to species level, e.g. Mamoths and Sabre toothed cats. I think it depends on whether they have indeed been classified to that extent. Further various species of the genus homo are well known and should be given species status. Once you get beyond that, it becomes more tricky. At a gut level, I would therefore suggest that:
If the species was fully classified before becoming extinct, it should retain its species status.- eg. the River Dolphin.
If is is already classified to species level, then this should remain. eg. the homo species.
If it is capable of more detailed classification, then it should be classified to the level it exists at already. eg mammoths.
If there is not sufficient information, then it should remain at genus level, until settled.

My own feeling is that it is easier to refine classification than to ignore it altogether. Kind regards Andrew massyn (talk) 20:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I should have clarified that this was in regards only taxa described from the fossil record, rather then including recent extinctions eg after the last ice age. Im rather confused by your specification of things that are "fully classified" the problem that arises with fossil taxa is that the opinions of various researchers often differ as to how to treat fossil species (many vs few). --Kevmin § 21:23, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good evening everyone. I am fully aware of the problem and I agree entirely-made hunting synonyms, too many, that we find everywhere. But I especially hope that we can freely create the category that seems useful. If there is a problem we solve piecemeal. Anyway, even for the genus Homo is not complete consensus. --Archaeodontosaurus (talk) 18:41, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think prehistoric species should be kept within the genus cat. Recently extinct species is another matter, their taxonomic status is always more stable. FunkMonk (talk) 19:14, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If I understand Llezs comment on Archaeodontosaurus talk page, the main reason for him creating the categories is so he can nominate images for valued image and quality image status? --Kevmin § 21:47, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's not the reason, it's a side-effect. It's also a question of practicability. As we have have genera which contain a lot of species - some more than hundred - we will get categories with a lot of pictures. These pictures are not sorted, but listed alphabetically. As not all photographers name their files in the same way, it would be very difficult, if I want to look for the pictures of a certain species. You loose the overlook. BTW: In recent species we have the same discussions about species and daily changes (I think, even more than in palaeontology). So we should instist on the genus as lowest category for the same reasons, too! But genera aren't stable at all, too. We have nearly every day a revision of a recent genus with changes. That means, genera are as variable in discussion as species. And families? The same... I think, the first relatively stable group are the orders with tousands of thousands of species. Do we really want such categories? We have good species both in palaeontology and in recent biology, we have a lot of daily change in both fields. Why to treat the one different from the other, although we have the same conditions in both (perhaps even more changes in recent species). Lets keep the good species, also per reasons of practicability, wherever they come from. --Llez (talk) 06:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • It is a very important substantive issue that affects the way we operate. It is very important to harmonize the contributions, particularly to ensure that there have not created category for synonyms. But it can not be "policing of knowledge. " Knowledge must remain free of pain dry the momentum of our work. --Archaeodontosaurus (talk) 13:32, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like there is not more imput coming in on this, so I will happily concede to the general majority for creation of Species level categories in fossil taxa. I will request that anyone who does creat the new categories please make all attempts possible to imitate the existing category structure and formatting. This means please do not just create a bare category with not information, but include the taxonavigation template, and the link templates for database entries such as The Paleobiology Database and /or World Resister of Marine Species. If you dont have the time or ability you can place a notification of categories to be fleshed out on my talk page and I will do what I can with them. Thanks!--Kevmin § 17:57, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay for me. I'll have myself familiar with the syntax, but it is a useful work. In general I inform you of creation on your talk page.Thank you for Spiriferina rostrata.jpg I'll rename it when a administrator may move. Such cooperation I like very much. --Archaeodontosaurus (talk) 08:08, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still against, but if it comes to it, one annoying thing I've noticed is the inconsistency in making categories for mono-specific genera. Sometimes the full binomial is used, and sometimes only the genus name. Then use the damn genus name. FunkMonk (talk) 19:12, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry guys, I did not understand the whole thread. Could you give us existing samples of the different possibilities ?
Best regards Liné1 (talk) 16:20, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

'geographic categories' vs 'pure endemic categories'[edit]

Hello,
I am concerned by the creation of hundreds of geographic categories like Category:Flora of North-Central United States (See its content category:Flora of Michigan...).
Certain plants are present in hundreds of countries and thousands of states, do we really want to add hundred+thousand of categories to those plant categories?
On the french wikipedia we decided a long time ago to forbid such useless categories, only pure enjdemic categories are allowed.
The allowed categories must contain the word endemic in their name like fr:Catégorie:Flore endémique du Queensland (meaning Category:Flora endemic of Queensland ;-)).
Shouldn't commons do the same ?
Best regards Liné1 (talk) 12:09, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

....a clear "yes" for the 'pure endemic categories'. Orchi (talk) 13:14, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I already guessed your answer my friend. Anyone else ? Look at Category:Waltheria indica. A shame. Liné1 (talk) 14:35, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Completely agree, but when taxa are generally categorized at their level of endemism only, it is not necessary to mark the categories as such. It will only conflict with specific files sorted there (see below). Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 03:43, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think that only categories that contain the word endemic in their name are useful. Ecozone categories would be useful but require knowledge and ability beyond the average user. Categorizing biota by political boundaries is unnatural and unhelpful, in my opinion. It may be difficult to obtain a consensus at Categories for Deletion. I remember a discussion last year.[1]
This list of prior discussions is incomplete, but provides some perspective on this matter. Please see MPF's 4 April comment at the first link below for cogent discussion of the problem with "biota of" categories. He reinforces Liné1's point above. Also, he points out that "many tropical countries have bird lists well in excess of a thousand species" making such categories not very useful.
--Walter Siegmund (talk) 16:42, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I just discovered that many of these have been created by User:CarolSpears. I am damned. Liné1 (talk) 06:05, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
National categories ARE useful and usable if a strict "area of endemism" approach is followed. Considering we have "Nature of [country]" categories rather completely done already, there is no harm done by keeping the country categories for country-endemic taxa. We'd need them anyway for the files of non-endemic taxa. E.g. if you have a fish species occurring all over Eurasia, you would place its category in "Fishes of Eurasia", but if there is a particular photo of this species taken in Sweden it would go to "Fishes of Sweden". This will help a lot in picking the correct content for Wikipedias.
That way we will keep down content in endemics-rich country categories (because if the taxon categorie is put under "[Taxon] of [country]" the files don't need to go there too) - Brazil and Indonesia particularly come to mind, but Category:Amphibians of Madagascar definitely is something to be tackled.
The tricky thing wil be the divisions. The WWF ecoregions are not bad, but they are very "botanical" (they are based on plant communities) and don't work well with other taxa.
Perhaps we could start by creating and populating the categories that are uncontroversial. I have already built a framework at Category:Birds by region which should work for most non-marine taxa (some plants, spiders etc are pantropical, but this can be added easily). Essentially, it starts with (mostly) multi-continents and breaks into progressively smaller units from there, until it reaches countries. Rather than ecoregions or similar small-scale divisions, I'd use biogeographic "regions of endemism" that are below continent but (usually) above country scale. E.g. in South America: Pantanal, Amazonia, Pampa, Andes, Atlantic Forest, Caatinga, Cerrado... (the latter three would all be in Brazil). But see Category:Animals of the Pantanal for how to deal with supernational-subcontinental categories.
Ecoregions or whatever else is to be used can be decided upon after we have sorted a lot of content in the higher-level geocategories (down to countries). Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 03:43, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(The approach of CarolSpears was feasible back when we had little content. But nowadays, it is not going to work. But as evolution is, and considering many national boundaries follow biogeographic obstacles, I presume it is possible to have categories of workable size if higher-level taxa are also treated according to their level of endemism. E.g. Category:Birds of Hawaii is manageable and always will be because Drepanidinae and Mohoidae are placed there, but their content files are not. And this example also shows why we cannot use "endemic" in the category names. When there will be so much content of nonendemic birds photographed on the Hawaiian Islands, we'll simply create subcategories "Birds of Kaua'i" and "Birds of O'ahu" and so on to disperse, and then the Drepanidinae and Mohoidae genera/species will receive their geocategories too.
And the added benefit will be that Commons will become a sort of biogeographic encyclopedia in and by itself. I for one would find this very useful ;-) ) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 05:24, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So you think that Category:Waltheria indica and its 16 very easely verified geographic categories is a good thing ? Or this one with 18 cat.
How strange. Liné1 (talk) 05:54, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I guess that the mentioned species can be categorised in a higher level Biocountry category, but the problem remains how to explain that to average users and automate such regrouping. The problem remains anyway, whatever better solution we might find. --Foroa (talk) 07:26, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To be able to regroup to a higher Biocountry category, you would need to check if the group is in all countries/states of the higher category. Which is not possible.
Again, there are a lot of species present in hundreds of countries/states without higher group. Imagine a frog present in many states of america except in 2-3 because there is too few water. What will we do?
Liné1 (talk) 08:58, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Biocountry" is a neologism of CarolSpears. It is unacceptable as a category name; it may have been justified back then but the "Nature of [country]" system is the one to use now as it is well established and proven to work: basically, "[Country] Biocountry" would need to be merged into "Nature of [country]", and the subcategories accordingly.Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 21:34, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think "Category:Waltheria indica" and "Category:Hamelia patens" would get no geocategory at all, but "Category:Waltheria" would be in "Category:Pantropical plants" (the other species is a Caribbean endemic) and "Category:Hamelia" would be in "Category:Plants of the Americas".
Whereas J.M.Garg's photos of Waltheria indica would belong in "Category:Plants of India" (not "flora" because the three-kingdom system of plants, animals and rocks is... kinda obsolete...). And the Starrs' photos of W. indica would belong in "Category:Plants of Hawaii". And the H. patens photos would belong in "Category:Plants of Florida", "Category:Plants of Mexico" and (presumably) "Category:Plants of Belize" (one in each).
This is along the lines proposed by User:Slaunger in 2008, and from a biogeographic standpoint it's the only categorization that is feasible, that will not end us with images with 1000s of categories and categories with 1000s of subcategories.
Consider File:Araneus_diadematus_qtl1.jpg, this is about about as "bad" (i.e. full of categories) as it can get, and eventually we might have enough spider photos from Ahlen that "Category:Spiders of Ahlen" will replace the "Category:Ahlen" and "Category:Spiders of Germany" and "Category:Animals of North Rhine-Westphalia". ("Category:Araneus diadematus" would go into "Category:Spiders of the Holarctic". It is absent from Asia, but it is still native to both sides of the North Atlantic. So the Holarctic is the biogeographic region to which the species is endemic.)
The only part of the world that will be slightly tricky will be the area between the Wallacea and Polynesia. This is because biogeography and political science define "Oceania" very differently. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 21:34, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Even better: Category:Aniseia martinicensis. Empty but 10 country categories. All 11 Categories created by....the same contributor. Cheers Liné1 (talk) 04:45, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ha, I can beat that! Category:Flora of India. Be careful, this one's quite a thing! (And what's with all those images of medial marihuana from California there?) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 13:49, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Soooooo... how about we tackle this? The first steps would be uncontroversial. For example, we could see that all "Fauna of [place]" is moved to "Animals of [place]". The Australians would object I presume, but they can simply be left aside for the time being. Their unilateralism is a problem to be tackled later, or they'll eventually adopt it themselves (they have not objected to or even themselves introduced "Fungi of Australia" which I did not dare introduce because they dissed me for proposing to change their weird category system).
While preparing the move, we can already survey the problem and remove nonendemic taxon subcategories from the "Fauna" categories.
As second step, we can start to populate Category:Animals by region, using invertebrates and fish first (which are noncontroversial too). It should work, but for fish we need to discuss suitable regionalization first (for ocean basins). But having done that, we should have a system that can be expanded for all taxa, to list any and all taxa at their level of endemism. Then we would have at most one geocategory per taxon category, while files are being handled according to the specific locality the photo etc was taken.
(NB: We cannot use "endemic" in the category names, because unlike Wikipedia, Commons has files which cannot be assigned unequivocally. E.g. the marine species of Category:Fish of South America are from offshore South America as per the source of the images, but they cannot be determined to country, and they are generally not endemic to South American waters.)
Things like how to deal with Category:Ecozones (useless for zoology) and Category:Neotropic (includes Southern Cone which by definition is not Neotropic) can be dealt with later. First, we need a proof-of-concept that a working system can be established. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 10:57, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, Dysmorodrepanis, I really think that 'non endemic geographic categories' are a very bad idea.
So, I will let you manage the current mess.
I am already dealing with that famous contributor's other mess: taxonomy
Liné1 (talk) 11:27, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, I have the same opinion!
I was only pointing out that since we get files and subcategories in any "[Taxon] of [location]" category, we cannot use the word "endemic" in the category titles.
But the subcategories should all be endemic taxa only.
Check out e.g. Category:Birds of Hawaii. You will see that all the subcategories are birds endemic to Hawaii.
But you will also see a lot of photos of nonendemic taxa which where taken on Hawaii. Thus, we can't call the category "Endemic birds of Hawaii".
Because if we did, we would have to make a category "Birds of Hawaii" for files such as File:Geopelia striata Big Island Hawaii.JPG, and the "Endemic" category would only contain subcategories, no files.. But this would cause the problems we want to avoid, and thus we shouldn't do it.
In brief:
  • subcategories of "Category:[Taxon] of [location]" are only taxa endemic to [location]
  • files in "Category:[Taxon] of [location]" are only taxa not endemic to [location] but photographed or recorded there...

If that is so, we should make a template creating a small banner phrasing what you just said. Everyone must know that they are supposed to put endemic subcategories only. If you want, I could create a proposal of template. Cheers Liné1 (talk) 07:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For example fr:Catégorie:Faune endémique d'Éthiopie contains a banner "Selon cette convention, cette catégorie ne doit recevoir que des taxons complètement endémiques de la zone indiquée (même si le taxon est éteint)." which can be translated in "Following this convention, this category should contain only subcategories corresponding to a taxon endemic to XXX + picture taken in XXXX".
"Following this convention" provides a link to the convention to allow contributors to find the voted text.
Cheers Liné1 (talk) 07:54, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure I understand this passus "In brief:
  • subcategories of "Category:[Taxon] of [location]" are only taxa endemic to [location]
  • files in "Category:[Taxon] of [location]" are only taxa not endemic to [location] but photographed or recorded there..."
Could you give an example for the endemic subcategory name ? --Foroa (talk) 08:08, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • It seems like part of the problem here might be that there is not a standardized way to record where the image was taken in the metadata. If there was, then categories that relate only to where the image were taken might clearly have no purpose since that information would be available and searchable in the location metadata of the image or the GPS data of the image if more sophisticated GPS coordinates searching was available.--Davefoc (talk) 08:25, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, another example. I have now cleaned up Category:Butterflies of Asia. You will see no files in there, because we have no photos of butterflies from an undeterminable location somewhere in Asia. If we had, they would be here.
Of course the species there are not at all a complete list of Asian butterflies. I simply took what I found already; the rest can be added by and by.
Now consider Category:Delias eucharis. This species occurs only in Asia, but it is not endemic to a particular Asian country. If it were, it would be in "Category:Butterflies of [this country]". It used to be in "Category:Butterflies of India" and "Category:Butterflies of Thailand", but with the regional category now available, these have been removed.
Then take File:Common Jezebel Delias eucharis by kadavoor.JPG. This is in "Category:Butterflies of Kerala", because it was photographed in Kerala, and we have the appropriate category. It is not in "Category:Butterflies of Asia" since we know the locality the photo was taken. And since we don't have Category:Kadavoor, it doesn't have a precise locality category yet. As soon as this category is created, it would also go there. And when we get "Category:Butterflies of Kadavoor" as a subcategory of "Category:Kadavoor" and of "Category:Butterflies of Kerala", this would replace the two (compare Category:Insects of Cologne).
For a slightly different example, consider File:Unidentified Butterfly 9357 - Doi Inthanon.jpg. This is in "Category:Butterflies of Thailand" because it was photographed there. But it is also in "Category:Animals in Doi Inthanon National Park", because we do not have a category "Butterflies of Doi Inthanon National Park" yet. But in any case, the species category (Category:Cethosia biblis) is again only in "Category:Butterflies of Asia" because it is neither native to any country outside Asia, nor endemic to any country inside Asia.
For an example explanation note, take Category:Near-cosmopolitan butterflies. I did it here because this is the most tricky category name, because species there could be completely absent from the Americas, as long as they are found in the Old World and Australia/Pacific. But I couldn't think of a better term. But in any case, Category:Vanessa cardui now has just one geocategory instead of 7, and eventually even this one category will be removed as soon as Category:Vanessa is placed in "Category:Near-cosmopolitan butterflies" (because the genus is itself found almost all over the world).
So, it's actually two simple rules: 1. categorize every taxon category at its region/country of endemism only (never more than one category), and 2. categorize every file in the most specific geocategory/geocategories that apply (these can be several - the most extreme case could be for example "Nature of [city/national park]" AND "Animals of [district]" AND "Insects of [province/state]" AND "Butterflies/Lepidoptera of [country]". But I do not think there actually are such cases (File:Swallowtail 05 06 07.jpg comes close though), and even if, this is only temporary and will improve as the more specific "[taxon] of [place]" categories are created: in the end it would ONLY be "Butterflies of [city/national park]").
In the last half-year or so I have tried this approach with a lot of birds, and it does work and it is very "clean" (the least number of categories, and the most precise categorization). Like I said, oceans are a bit tricky, but these too can be done. Following this approach, we will in the end have one geocategory at most for every file or taxon category, and still categorize everything 100% precisely! And this, I believe, is exactly what we want. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 10:53, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yet another interesting case: consider Limenitis arthemis.
As you can see, this species is almost endemic to North America, but one subspecies ranges into Central America. Consequently, Category:Limenitis arthemis is in Category:Butterflies of the Americas.
But Category:Limenitis arthemis arthemis and Category:Limenitis arthemis astyanax are both in Category:Butterflies of North America - they are both endemic to North America, but neither is a country-endemic.
On the other hand Category:Limenitis arthemis arizonensis has no geocategory at all, because it is found in North and Central America, and thus it would be in "Category:Butterflies of the Americas". Since the species is there already, there is no need to place the subspecies there too. (NB: the boundary between Central and North America is a bit tricky to draw and runs through Mexco. But we have worse cases - consider Turkey, or Russia, which are in Europe and Asia - and in any case I'd set the biogeographic boundary to be the same as northern limit of the Neotropics - subtropical Mexico is "North America", and tropical Mexico is "Central America") Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 11:37, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And another example: Category:Butterflies of Australia. Australia - interesting part of the world, many endemic taxa.
You will note that all subcategories are species/genera completely endemic to Australia (I am not 100% sure about Vanessa kershawi - it is also found in New Zealand but apparently only as a vagrant, not as a resident breeding species)
You will also note that all files are species not endemic to Australia. Some of them are apparently only vagrants of Asian species. But all were photographed in Australia or painted for a faunal list of Australia, so they are indeed "butterflies of Australia".
And you will note that the category is in "by country", as well as in the "Australasia" and "Oceania" regional categories. The reason is that Australian organisms - apart from pure endemics - are usually shared with either the Wallacea (i.e. Asia), or with New Zealand and Near Polynesia (i.e. the Pacific region). Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 12:16, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, to keep the things simple, a good start would be to categorize only files by location (e.g country where the specimen on photo was found) and not categorize plain "Category:<species>" by location as these often consist specimens from all over the world (or range) and in subcats of "Flora of <country>" I would rather see specimens that actually are flora of this country. Where more files by the same taxon and location have accumulated, create categories like Quercus robur in Poland. 90.190.114.172 09:18, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

agree. Otherwise, wouldn't we have several 10,000 of taxa per "Nature of <country>" category? --  Docu  at 11:46, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Re: Plants & Category:Flora of... - Wikimedia has an outstanding breadth of plant categories, with the majority of species unfamiliar to most viewers. I think of it as a freestanding visual encyclopedia - beyond wikipedia sister reference - that is independently navigable/researchable without the necessity of always returning to wikipedia articles/categories to use. It is a sister project, not a dependent child one. The ideas and opinions above about animal categories are not questioned, and are supported. Re: flora categories difference, plants migrate so much more slowly than animals, even with current climate change. The plant categories are for native (but only sometimes endemic) species, not introduced or naturalized ones, if using standard flora (& en:wikipedia) criteria. Flora species categories are helped when range distribution categories are present.
For example: a wikimedia viewer researching/traveling to the Italian Alps can see an image of a plant present there, even if the current uploaded images were photographed north in the Swiss Alps (having only [cat:Genus.species] & [cat:Flora of Switzerland] i.d.), by having [cat:Flora of Italy] i.d. on the [cat:Genus.species]. This assists in understanding the ecosystem, and recognizing/identifying what is seen in situ Italia (perhaps to photograph & upload). Regarding the reference above (Dysmorodrepanis 21:34, 2 May 2011) about the Starrs' images of the plant Category:Waltheria indica growing in Hawaii, they are of an invasive species (as many of theirs taken in Hawaii are), and the [cat:Genus.species] (and perhaps Category:Invasive plant species in the United States), and not Category:Flora of Hawaii, would reflect botanists' specific use of the term flora for 'indigenous only.'
Every viewer is not proceeding (post-seeing range info @ w.pedia ) on a one at a time {commons} link to a wikimedia [cat:Flora] window. Some viewers navigate in wikimedia and link back to wikipedia only when wanting more complete information. Many plant species cat.pages have only [cat:Genus], with no 'where in the world' help for w.media viewers. Unlike animals, cosmopolitan/pan-continental species are limited, and a range cat.clue is meaningful. Lastly, the nation/province-state flora categories are relevant for IUCN/EPA/etc. listed (often endemic) plants, their loss or protection is based on political boundary policies - not as any wiki eco-advocacy, but as an educational/visual example resource.—Look2See1 (talk) 22:30, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Your idea of giving visualization to travelers of what is's possible to find somewhere is in conflict with the main goal of categorizing images. Besides it's not clear at all that these are endemic or native categories. Also, readers who want to visualize the nature of a country are confused by loads of images in subcats that don't depict the nature of this country. The range of a species should be described in a Wikipedia article as accurately and unambiguously as needed. I don't find your idea useful nor worth messing up the logic of category system (subcats of "Nature of <country>" should consist images that depict the nature of this country). Plain species categories added into broader region categories like "Flora of Southwesters Europe" also seem kind of spammy and not so useful and again subcats of a region may consist images depicting nature of other regions that way. 88.196.241.249 09:39, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Look2See1; If your suggestion is to change the scope of Commons, that is better proposed and discussed at Commons talk:Project scope: "Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to all. It acts as a common repository for the various projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, but you do not need to belong to one of those projects to use media hosted here." If not, please explain how your proposal is consistent with the scope as written. I don't understand what you mean by "[cat:Genus.species] & [cat:Flora of Switzerland] i.d.), by having [cat:Flora of Italy] i.d. on the [cat:Genus.species]" Are you invoking the Cat Scan tool that finds 13 files?[2] Thank you, Walter Siegmund (talk) 19:34, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Look2See1; I think articles like en:List of plants of Atlantic Forest vegetation of Brazil would be useful and may serve the researcher/traveler that you posit above. I'd like to see more articles of that sort illustrated with images from Commons. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 20:11, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Walter Siegmund, thank you for the clarifying questions and responses. I have zero thoughts or suggestions to change the scope of Commons, but do want to clearly understand what it precisely is. It seems, by your clarification, thinking of it as a stand-alone visual encyclopedia project, that also supports international Wikipedias, is larger than its intended scope. Is the Project's educational scope not as a stand-alone research resource? If that is correct, my responses to your other questions and the topic are needlessly 'out of scope.'
I did create the en:List of plants of the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), to avoid over-categorization of every article on species present there, and define the range's different habitats. Needs illustration with images from Commons. The en:List of plants of Atlantic Forest vegetation of Brazil and other Brazilian ecoregion plant lists are excellent and a good idea/model to create other (illustrated) biogeography/phytogeography/political division list articles, especially if this project's scope is limited to visual support.—Look2See1 (talk) 22:26, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Uppercase vs. lowercase species sort keys[edit]

Hello,
You certainly remember that we voted here for 'lowercase species sort keys' (I was the last one to vote for ;-)).
But you certainly saw that during last wikimedia upgrade, the sortkeys are now all displayed uppercase (Look in Category:Ruspolia, Category:Ruspolia hypocrateriformis is sorted under H even if it contains [[Category:Ruspolia|hypocrateriformis]]).
Should we conplain about this behavior ? Who are we to complain to ?
Cheers Liné1 (talk) 13:10, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We'd have a better argument if we can find an example wherein entries that shouldn't be commingled are now lumped together. We might submit a bug report.--Walter Siegmund (talk) 16:56, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are probably few such cases; usually this should be prevented by piping (let's asume we have "Ruspolia sepals" which could go under "S" but better is piped to "*" or " " to appear before any and all species subcategories, like e.g. in Category:Lepidoptera).
But the point can be made that within COM:TOL, lowercase sort keys will always be reserved for species and should be treated as distinct, because they will constitute a group of subcategories that should appear as one continuous "block" after any and all "topical" subcategories no matter what. And this is only achieved by a) piping lowercase and b) treating lowercase pipping as distinct from uppercase piping. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 04:41, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Orchi, could you help me find a sample of category where there are uppercase species subcategories that should not be mixed with uppercase geographic subcategories? Cheers Liné1 (talk) 06:00, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Liné1, do you mean this: (Distribution) in Category:Cyclamen or sorting like this: Category:Cyclamen persicum?. Orchi (talk)
Solvable by piping with "•" (though I'd rather use "*" to appear at the start of the list, and use "!" for the unidentifieds). But even then, maintenance would be easier if uppercase and lowercase are treated as distinct. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 21:37, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There seems to be a new fashion for " " sort key. Liné1 (talk) 15:02, 6 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments wanted on gallery to category redirects[edit]

I have been having debate on my talkpage regarding the redirection of galleries to categories, and more view points are needed.--Kevmin § 07:53, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From how I read it, I think having galleries with basically the same content as the category is redundant. FunkMonk (talk) 08:48, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Galleries are never redundant. Aside from showcasing the best images from a category, a gallery is handy as it allows for extended file descriptions/comments which can be updated by bots. The Valued Images project e.g., automatically labels new VI's in the galleries concerned. These actions are not possible in a category. Categories and galleries serve different purposes and have equal right of existence IMO. Hans 09:47, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Here is the list of the galleries which are in question.
All have taxonomy errors/omissions in the taxonavigation, and nearly half are incorrect/misspelled names.--Kevmin § 15:41, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Those can easily be updated/deleted/recreated as necessary... Or am I missing something? Cheers. Hans 14:25, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the galleries I see are:
  • duplication of their category
  • outdated (the contributors mainly update categories)
  • not showing the best images (just a subset)
  • not providing additional info to images
Except in botanic:
  • where species galleries separate <gallery> for the different subsp. or var.
Except for birds:
So from my point of view, the bad galleries could be transformed in redirect to their categories.
Liné1 (talk) 15:00, 6 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirecting galleries to categories means they will probably not be recreated as galleries. It will just confuse new editors. Much better to leave them as galleries and add a tag saying "needs fixing" (with perhaps a few hints on what needs fixing) and a suggestion to see the category meantime. --Tony Wills (talk) 11:38, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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