Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mammals/Archive 3

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Missing mammal species

Just for fun, I wrote a script to see how many of the 5418 species of mammals listed in the Mammal Species of the World database are covered in Wikipedia. Amazingly, there were only 652 species not covered (assuming my script worked correctly). I dumped the output list to a wikipage: Wikipedia:Missing mammal species. Feel free to do with it what you will. Kaldari 16:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC) (visiting from WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles)

You know, there's a bot that actually generates bird articles. Has it been at work on MAM? I just looked at Rat and found all bluelinks. In June it was mainly red. People do fill out categories—I made a point of finishing deer earlier this year—but I can't imagine that Rattus has been done by humans alone... Ah wait, see User:Polbot. Marskell 20:59, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Er, see the massive thread a few up, actually. Marskell 21:04, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

From a cursory search it looks like the 600 or so redlink mammal articles left are species not included in the IUCN database (and often not in ITIS either). Unless Polbot can be reconfigured to pull data from the MSW site, I imagine those articles would need to be created by hand. Shell Kinney has already started! Kaldari 21:13, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I don't currently have access to more recent copies of the Journal of Mammology; there was a lot of great work done by Braun and Mares in 1999/2000 that would help flesh out the stubs I'm creating. Since I can glance at the abstracts at least, the full citations are being included in the articles if someone wants to take a gander and help expand these poor sentence long stubs. Shell ^babelfish 18:38, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merger with WikiProject Primates

I was thinking that, considering the project deals basically with a subsection of the articles this project deals with, that it might be a good idea to merge the two, possibly taking on the above project as a task force/work group or other subproject to permit common usage of a banner and assessments. John Carter 17:06, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

No. there are other, active mammalian WikiProjects. These should stay separate. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree in opposing this merge. If anything we have reason to think about splitting off more subprojects, not merging things back to this one. --Aranae 02:59, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Actually, if we were to merge it back in as a taskforce/workgroup, as I proposed, which might follow the models of WP:MILHIST, it would make it easier for further subprojects to be formed, not harder. In fact, my own basic agreement with the last statement above was why I proposed these mergers in the first place, as people would be more likely to try to create taskforces if there were an existing precedent. Also, by having taskforces, we could ensure that such groups would be less likely to be deleted for inactivity, which I think would be of benefit to all. John Carter 14:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merger with WikiProject Monotremes and Marsupials

I was thinking that, considering the project deals basically with a subsection of the articles this project deals with, that it might be a good idea to merge the two, possibly taking on the above project as a task force/work group or other subproject to permit common usage of a banner and assessments. John Carter 17:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

No. there are other, active mammalian WikiProjects. These should stay separate. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree in opposing this merge. If anything we have reason to think about splitting off more subprojects, not merging things back to this one. --Aranae 03:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I also dissagree, maybe we should name this Project Placental mammals? Enlil Ninlil 04:36, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Actually, if we were to merge it back in as a taskforce/workgroup, as I proposed, which might follow the models of WP:MILHIST, it would make it easier for further subprojects to be formed, not harder. In fact, my own basic agreement with the statement of Aranae above was why I proposed these mergers in the first place, as people would be more likely to try to create taskforces if there were an existing precedent. Also, by having taskforces, we could ensure that such groups would be less likely to be deleted for inactivity, which I think would be of benefit to all. John Carter 14:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Speaking of merges, you might want to merge the above two sections; they appear to be very alike in content and responses, and the irony is considerable. Richard001 23:53, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Archive

This talk page needs to be shortened and older talks archived. Enlil Ninlil 04:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

And even more so as of 17 Nov. :-) -- Writtenonsand (talk) 13:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Project banner

I've reworked the project banner to include info for the Mustelids work group and Pocket pets work group at Template:Mammal. Anyone mind if I either cut and paste that banner into Template:MaTalk or something similar to create assessments for these two groups? John Carter 13:49, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Mammal Featured Articles..setting the ground for a mammal collaboration

Here's the list as it stands, a very interesting spread. Note lots of whales. Some were promoted some time ago and may need a bit of a clean up before any possible FAR. Note that Platypus was repromoted. I moved this thread to here as there is no current collaboration page (though may be in the future). cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Featured mammal articles

• Blue Whale - also under WP Cetaceans
• Bobcat- also under WP Cats
• Elk
• Fin Whale - also under WP Cetaceans
• Guinea Pig
• Hippopotamus
• Homo floresiensis
• Humpback Whale - also under WP Cetaceans
• Island Fox
• Jaguar - also under WP Cats
• Lion - also under WP Cats
• Orca - also under WP Cetaceans
• Platypus
• Pygmy Hippopotamus
• Right whale - may need a bit of sprucing; also under WP Cetaceans
• Sei Whale - also under WP Cetaceans
• Short-beaked Echidna - may need a bit of sprucing
• Sperm Whale - also under WP Cetaceans
• Tasmanian Devil
• Thylacine
• Whale sound - also under WP Cetaceans

FA Candidates

• none currently

Former FAs

• Cat - also under WP Cats
• Gray Wolf
• Human
• Mixed-breed dog

Good Articles

• Arabian Horse
• Blue Wildebeest
• Bottlenose Dolphin - also under WP Cetaceans
• Dingo
• Dog - also under WP Dogs
• Elephant
• Nicobar Long-tailed Macaque
• Philippine Tarsier
• Pug- also under WP Dogs

Standing list of of largish articles which may not need too much work to get to FA

• Giant Panda
• Giraffe
• Horse - BIG one this
• Llama - I worked on this a bit and added a checklist on the talk page. --BlindEagle^{talk~contribs} 19:45, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
• Leopard - also under WP Cats
• Tiger - also under WP Cats
• Brown Rat
• Chimpanzee - also under WP Primates
• Walrus

I noticed you didn't make any references to WikiProject Dogs above, although I don't know if that means anything. Another option would be to nominate some decent articles for WP:ACID. Has anyone done so recently? John Carter 19:33, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Just forgot is all...mammals ain't really my forte. I generally stick with birds, dinos, fungi and other stuff..cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:56, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Why don't we "get together" and find some obscure mammal species article and just rock the socks out of it with research and images? It will be kind of fun, rifling through the e-journals and library books -- think of it as a barn raising...with a barnstar to cap it off. One after another until we get tired of it. Every mammalogist knows rodents and (likely) cervids up to wazhoo, and the databank is rich with info. What I've done elsewhere on Wikipedia is expand a stub article by adding and ref'ing every sentence. Then, I'll add a sources section below the ref's section to allow others to build off that research if they feel so inclined, or I'll go back and dig through it and add to the article without having to search much. Even if a perfect article doesn't come out of it, the student who use Wikipedia to start their research will have some material to search out, thus making us a better service for humanity. (See tremble dance for example.) Any takers article makers? TeamZissou 02:45, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

....well, there's odd-named ones like Tiger Quoll..and big 'uns like Brown Rat....umm....or a real challenge like the recently discovered Sir David's Long-beaked Echidna....cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:54, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

...now there's a good stub...Northern Smooth-tailed Treeshrew...cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:58, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

There is the matter of being able to dig up enough research on the species... I'm going to try and tackle those suggestions a bit, at least with a source list. I'll get back to the project when I've made some progress -- please, anyone who's savvy with your university's journal index or Google hop in! Let's see what happens. TeamZissou 05:09, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I wrote some featured articles on quite obscure mammals on nl.wikipedia (nl:Apomys gracilirostris, nl:Archboldomys kalinga, nl:Hipposideros diadema); it is actually possible. Ucucha 06:45, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Update -- Tiger Quoll seems possible, but the echidna and treeshrew don't seem to have enough info available. I may work on the quoll article later, but for now...sleep. Nights! TeamZissou 07:32, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Um

Um... can we put the sources either in a comment or on the talk page? If they aren't currently used in the article, they don't belong there. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:35, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

What about changing section title from "Sources" to "Further reading"? That would benefit the reader who needs to go farther and the editor who doesn't know where to begin, all without confusing anyone. TeamZissou 15:15, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Decent enough. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:18, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikisource thesis

There is a thesis on Wikisource s:Image:Aardvark.pdf that we need to work out what to do with. Wikisource does not to my knowledge host many recent thesis, but it isnt totally beyond the scope of the project. If this thesis is considered very useful, we could convert it to wikitext and use it as a reference on Aardvark, which is in need of sources. John Vandenberg 08:57, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Bat taxonomy

I've just created a Glauconycteris page to satisfy red links introduced by deletion of the previous redirect. When I went to List of placental mammals to update that in line I found that most of those species were already there under Chalinolobus, but redirect to species pages that use the genus Glauconycteris. Is there anyone familiar with bat taxonomy who can sort this out? Lavateraguy 22:48, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Here"s what Simmons says in Mammal Species of the World. Apparently most of Glauconycteris was once considered part of Chalinolobus. --Aranae 05:38, 2 November 2007 (UTC):

• Glauconycteris
  • G. alboguttata
  • G. argentata
  • G. beatrix
  • G. curryae
  • G. egeria
  • G. gleni
  • G. humeralis
  • G. kenyacola
  • G. machadoi
  • G. poensis
  • G. superba
  • G. variegata
• Chalinolobus
  • C. dwyeri
  • C. gouldii
  • C. morio
  • C. neocaledonicus
  • C. nigrogriseus
  • C. picatus
  • C. tuberculatus

Fictional animals

Is there any reason why Bugs Bunny is tagged by WP:MAMMAL? It seems absurd that a serious scientific project should care about cartoon animals...--Nilfanion (talk) 23:55, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the tag is specifically for the Pocket pets work group. The tag was added because the article is included in the Category:Fictional hares and rabbits, which is a subcat of Category:Lagomorphs, and thus falls within the explicitly stated scope of that work group. So, for that matter, does the List of fictional rabbits. In fact, I think it is probably the only group that latter article entirely falls within the scope of. As the person who added the tag, I would certainly welcome seeing the other projects the article relates to, including Television, Comics etc., tag the article as well. All the articles tagged by the work group are added to the work group's watchlist to check for recent changes as well. I personally wouldn't mind seeing the project's banner being perhaps one of the smaller ones on the page, and maybe even included in one of the banner shells, but there aren't enough of the other tags from projects which hold the article to possibly put in the shell yet. John Carter 14:45, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I actually came here to say the same thing about the article Pikachu. I think the real problem is that Category:Fictional hares and rabbits shouldn't be a subcategory of Category:Lagomorphs. The latter is about biology - something that has little relevance to, say, Pikachu. The category Lagomorphs just doesn't seem to apply, nor do such articles sensibly fall into WP:MAMMAL or any other biology/sciences project. --Cheeser1 07:43, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

So is anyone going to address this concern? --Cheeser1 (talk) 20:58, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

You would be free to address this concern yourself, although it probably would have been more appropriate to place the message on the talk page of the work group. The primary purpose of placing such tags on articles about fictional mammals is the List of fictional rabbits, which contained links to these articles, and which in its entirety falls only within the scope of the work group. You are free to remove any tags you find inappropriate, and recategorize categories as you see fit as well. However, I cannot guarantee that doing so might not result in the links from the list page ultimately not connecting to the articles. Also, should there ever be a portal for that group, which is still an open question, removal of the tag would almost certainly ensure the article never appear on that portal. Considering that new portals for this subject area have recently been created, I can't say one way or another whether portals for this project's groups will ever be created or not. John Carter (talk) 21:44, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

No, apparently, I'm not free to remove any such tags. I was reverted, and if memory serves, I was reverted by you. --Cheeser1 (talk) 23:47, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, as I remember, you simply took it upon yourself that you were in a position to decide things for everyone, without prior consultation. That is not acceptable anywhere in wikipedia, and possibly/probably a violation of WP:OWN. You have now raised your points, and, though I personally consider them frankly not particularly valid or reasonable, I have been given an opportunity to respond, which I believe I was denied before. Personally, if you can think of another project which considers that article significant, then you are free to add that banner as well. It is certainly possible that the Pokemon project will become markedly less active over time, and the other relevant extant projects which may replace or supplant it might place even less importance on that article than that workgroup would. However, as stated, if the project is in effect told by you that they have no place or input in that article, including preserving links in articles which they seem to be most likely to maintain, I don't think that anyone could object to their not continuing to maintain such content. And, as stated before, there actually is a place for discussion of the specific work groups, which is the specific talk pages of those groups. Norms of conduct indicate that discussion take place at the most appropriate spot, which this is not. Personally, I have gotten the impression that you as an individual have decided what you will and will not allow to exist on what you seemingly consider "your" article. Based on that impression, I cannot see how there would be any benefit to this project to even attempt to maintain it, given the impression you have given that you consider yourself and your group the only people who are even remotely qualified to edit it. So, yes, I cannot see how any input regarding reversion of vandalism, improvement, or anything else we might have regarding that article would be something you would agree to, so there is no reason to keep the banner in place. However, if the banner is removed, then I think you can reasonably understand that the article will be removed from the watchlist. I cannot see any real benefit to such action on your part for doing so, but then I have never understood any such claims of exclusive input at all. John Carter (talk) 00:05, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

You have got to be kidding. I'm acting like I own the article? I removed an inappropriate tag when it was added - you reverted my revert, and I even let it stay to avoid an edit war, and brought my concerns here politely. You're the one who asserted your personal authority over some sort of workgroup/project when reverting me. If you want to completely and blatantly assume bad faith against me because I've asked that the group address my question, that's just absurd. I am a minor contributor to that article, and have no intention of forcing you or your friends to not be able to watch it. Good lord, this is the most elaborate and irrelevant tirade I've ever seen. Pikachu is not an animal, it is a fictional character. I asked to discuss how the categories/projects wound up including it, and while you insist that my points are invalid or stupid, you have said nothing to explain yourself or your position and have immediately jumped into accusations that I am my tyrannical reign over an article that I barely edit instead of discussing the issue. What on Earth is your problem? --Cheeser1 (talk) 07:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Re: Rat (Pearls Before Swine)

I'd like to point out that the article which you added to this section under the "pocket pets" workgroup is absolutely, 100% irrelivent to the actual animal and only conserns a character from a comic strip (whom, if he was real, would be very angered over being labeled a pet, let alone a pocket one.) As, not being part of this project, do not think it would be very polite to remove the tag without varifing with you that the article is irrelevant to your project (or at least that specific workgroup), I have started discussion here. I would greatly appreciate it if you would explain to me how the article fits under the scope of anything even related to pets. I do not feel that the fact that the article in question is about a character who happens to be a fictional rat is a good enough reason to assume he is a "pocket pet." Tenk you veddy much. --Wack'd ^{Talk to me! • Admire my handiwork!} 23:50, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd just like to add, for the record, that I noticed after posting this that you are getting similar complaints from people involved with other fictional-mammal-related articles. I would suggest doing some large-scale cleanup. Tenk you veddy much. --Wack'd ^{Talk to me! • Admire my handiwork!} 23:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

The name of the group was chosen on the basis of the definition of Pocket pet. Actually, it was initially proposed at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals apge, and that name was ultimately chosen because it is about the only name available which covers rodents and lagomorphs. That work group's defined scope includes all articles in the Lagomorphs and Rodents categories and their subcategories. This article and the others are all included in at least one of those categories or subcategories. Basically, that group is the only one whose scope includes all the articles in the List of fictional rabbits, List of fictional mice and rats, and similar lists, and it is in the group's interests to know which articles exist so that the links can be kept current. If you were to look at the work group's page, you would also see that all the articles are being added to the groups watchlist, to be monitored for vandalism, improvement, questions, etc. It might have made more sense to actually post these questions at that page, though, as it actually is more relevant to that particular group. John Carter 00:06, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Evolution of mammals: very good article

IMHO Evolution of mammals is a very well-done article. I would suggest it as a model of the sort of thing that Wikipedia is trying to achieve. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 13:49, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Stubs needed for some ancient mammals

From Kollikodon: "Kollikodon would be a contender for the largest Mesozoic mammal known, along with other possible giants such as Repenomamus, Schowalteria, and Bubodens. --- Anybody care to start stubs for those redlinks? -- Writtenonsand (talk) 13:53, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Neglected family of articles

The articles for the animals in Procyonidae seem to have been somewhat neglected by the project, most were not even tagged on the their talk. VanTucky ^Talk 05:01, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Tagging of articles is unfortunately one of the most time intensive and, generally at least, regarded as one of the least rewarding aspects of wikipedia. I can well understand that many such articles haven't been tagged yet. For what it's worth, it looks like my primary actions in wikipedia into the indeterminate future is to try to tag and assess articles for the various relevant projects, as so few others show any real interest in doing either. I would however welcome any other parties who might be willing to do so to do whatever they saw fit to do in either regard. John Carter (talk) 14:38, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Paleo-mammalogists needed...

See doi:10.1126/science.1149267 for a fantastic discovery. So if you folks can get access to Science journal... Kharmerungulatum needs an article I'd say :D (Kharmerungulatum vanvaleni would be redirect). Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 18:03, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

List of placental mammals

Hi all,

Mbisanz (talk · contribs) has shown some initiative and split List of placental mammals into more digestible chunks. However, the names for the articles, as generated from the split, seem to me, (a non-biologist) to be redundant. For example List of placental mammals in Order Chiroptera. All sub taxa of Eutheria are placental mammals by definition and for the title to read "List of placental mammals in..." seems to indicate that some species of Chiroptera are not placental.

I would go ahead and fix it except I have no idea what an appropriate title would be for these articles or what the convention is when using the names of different ranks such as orders. Your help would be appreciated. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 01:58, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Scope of pocket pets work group

Somehow giant hutia, giant beaver, Laotian Rock Rat, Anomaluromorpha, and Castoridae along with just about all rodents and lagomorphs have been placed into the pocket pets workgroup of this wikiproject. I have a hard time seeing how an extinct rodent the size of a bear, a recently discovered rare endemic rodent, or higher level taxa of rodents at all fit the definition of pocket pet. I'm all for a rodent/Glires/rodents & lagomorph subproject/workgroup, but the notion that every rodent/lagomorph is a "pocket pet" is absurd and borders on irresponsible. Pocket pets includes rodents, lagomorphs, and other small mammals that are kept as pets such as guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, Oryctolagus, ferrets, and even exotics such as giant pouched rats and prairie dogs. Fossil taxa, endangered species, and higher level taxa are never kept as pets and don't belong there. --Aranae (talk) 02:13, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Not to mention Pikachu, Bunnicula, Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, Roger Rabbit, etc. --Cheeser1 (talk) 04:21, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

The scope of that group includes all rodents and lagomorphs at this point. I grant that the name is not the best. If anyone can think of a better name for such a group, which received sufficient members on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals page to start as a group, they are more than welcome to suggest it on the talk page of the work group. However, that was the name the group was proposed under, and even the banner tab for the work group says it includes all lagomorphs and rodents, so it's scope should be somewhat clear. Like I said, though, it probably makes more sense to discuss that on the talk page of the work group, as it is the more appropriate place. If you can think of any better names, of course, feel free to propose them. John Carter (talk) 15:12, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

"Pocket pets" refers to hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils, fancy rats, gerbils, domestic rabbits, sugar gliders, ferrets, etc. Specifically, animals that are pets. Many of these pages are in desperate need of work. When the pocket pets group was brought up here, I assumed it concerned pocket pets. It would be great to see a lot of these pages about animals kept as small pets transformed the way that guinea pig was some time ago. My objection is to the notion that the term "pocket pets" is somehow being defined as a synonym for Glires. As I say above, 90% of these articles do not have anything to do with the term pocket pets. For a group pertaining to the taxon Glires the terms "Glires" or simply "Rodents & Lagomorphs" would be sensible. --Aranae (talk) 03:09, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Eastern Small-footed Bat needs your help

Eastern Small-footed Bat was created 5 December 2007. It is almost completely lacking in necessary info. We may want to redirect this to an existing article, or for all I know it could even be a joke. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 00:30, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Here we go -- existing article on Myotis leibii at Eastern small-footed myotis -- Writtenonsand (talk) 00:34, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Smilodon needs review / cleanup

Smilodon could use review / cleanup. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 18:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Greenspun illustration project: requests now open

Dear Wikimedians,

This is a (belated) announcement that requests are now being taken for illustrations to be created for the Philip Greenspun illustration project (PGIP).

The aim of the project is to create and improve illustrations on Wikimedia projects. You can help by identifying which important articles or concepts are missing illustrations (diagrams) that could make them a lot easier to understand. Requests should be made on this page: Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project/Requests

If there's a topic area you know a lot about or are involved with as a Wikiproject, why not conduct a review to see which illustrations are missing and needed for that topic? Existing content can be checked by using Mayflower to search Wikimedia Commons, or use the Free Image Search Tool to quickly check for images of a given topic in other-language projects.

The community suggestions will be used to shape the final list, which will be finalised to 50 specific requests for Round 1, due to start in January. People will be able to make suggestions for the duration of the project, not just in the lead-up to Round 1.

• General information about the project: m:Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project
• Potential illustrators and others interested in the project should join the mailing list: mail:greenspun-illustrations

thanks, pfctdayelise (talk) 13:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC) (Project coordinator)

Proposed change to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)

There is a current proposal to change an animal-related naming convention, which directly effects the the Manual of Style guideline, and the naming conventions policy. If you are interested, your input would be appreciated. Justin ^chat 06:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Indohyus

Indohyus. In the news, article needs work. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 13:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Elephant GA Sweeps

I've placed the Elephant article on hold as part of the GA Sweeps. Relevant comments may be found on the article talk page. Corvus coronoides _talk 23:59, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Cuscomys, Cuscomys ashaninka, Cuscomys oblativus

Cuscomys ashaninka and Cuscomys oblativus are very short stubs. Do we want to merge both of these into Cuscomys?
(Cuscomys currently redirects to Cuscomys ashaninka; if we merge we should change this.) (And we may also need to throw Abrocoma / Abrocoma oblativus into the mix here.) -- Writtenonsand (talk) 10:15, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Taxonomy is a mess

Has anyone else noted that taxonomy in wikipedia is totally messed up? Different taxons have totally different schemes for the taxa below them, and different sources seem to be used to a great extent. It seems to me that we ought to follow the most recent general taxonomies for our main boxes, and then indicate controversies and recent discoveries in article text. As it stands, everything's a total mishmash. john k (talk) 17:55, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Quite a lot is in good order. I worked my way mostly through volume 1 of MSW3. (Vol 2 is all of Rodentia.) I believe I left off somewhere in Carnivora. Would you like to pick up where I left off? - UtherSRG (talk) 04:55, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Which parts are in good order? Whenever I try to browse through the taxonomy, I find that each article I click on has a somewhat different list from the others. The Carnivora article gives a different taxonomy from Felidae, and so forth. Carnivora also lists Prionodontidae as a separate family, whereas everywhere else it's Prionodontinae and a subfamily of Viverridae. Levels between Order and Family always seem particularly confused and inconsistent. Also, we pretty much never cite sources for the taxonomy we give. john k (talk) 17:25, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Check it against the MSW3 website. Any article that cites MSW3 should be correct. - UtherSRG (talk) 18:55, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

It is good that you point out specific examples of inconsistencies. Now that you have identified them, you can fix them - and cite the taxonomy appropriately. MSW3 is as good and up-to-date a resource as any. Otherwise, it is not particularly helpful to generalize. I can't speak for all mammals (I don't know that anyone can) but as Uther points out there is much that is in fine shape. Much work has been done lately, for example, to improve the Pinniped taxonomies. Yes, there is a lot of inconsistency in a lot of articles, and many other problems. That is the nature of a work-in-progress. But it should also be clear that taxonomies are not carved in stone. They are in some sense estimates of phylogenies and are constantly being revised, especially as molecular data is continually being used to inform divisions originally made based on phenotypes. The elimination of the fur seal and sea lion subfamilies (Arctocephanlinae and Otariinae), for example, was fairly recent and is still not reflected in all sources. There will inevitably be some lag and periods of lack of consensus in the literature - I wouldn't be surprised if some of the examples you point to above are examples of that. But you are right that taxonomies should be current, up to date and cited. That is something that we can all work on. - best, Eliezg (talk) 19:29, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

My general feeling is actually that efforts to get fully up to date are part of the problem. We ought to try to follow the most recent comprehensive sources, rather than changing everything when someone publishes a paper. C.f. Eastern Canadian Wolf, for instance, which is listed at Canidae as its own species. A major source like MSW3 appears to be is a good place, but we ought to clearly rely on it, and to cite it when appropriate. Disagreements found in other sources can be reported and discussed, and new papers that suggest reorganizations can be talked about, but the basic infoboxes and discussions ought to follow one source. john k (talk) 00:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Another example from the Camelidae - MSW3 gives the Guanaco as a subspecies (L. glama guanicoe) of Lama glama, also including the domestic llama (L. glama glama). Our article gives the Guanaco as a separate species, L. guanicoe. It also gives the Alpaca as Vicugna pacos, which is not listed in MSW3, although it does mention that the Alpaca is often now considered a member of Vicugna (the Alpaca, so far as I can tell, is not specifically listed in MSW3). I'm not even sure how to address this, especially the Alpaca issue, since MSW3 doesn't list the alpaca at all. ETA: I see that MSW3 actually sees Vicugna pacos as a synonym for Vicugna vicugna. But it doesn't list a subspecies, and the Alpaca really does seem lost in the mist here. The Domestic Pig seems even more lost in MSW3 - Sus scrofa does not list "Sus domestica" as a synonym, nor does it list a subspecies for Sus scrofa domestica. john k (talk) 06:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Alright, some more examples:

1. Canidae - beyond including various cladistic subdivisions not included in MSW3, we use Pseudalopex for the South American foxes, whereas MSW3 uses Lycalopex. We also list the Cozumel Fox as a third member of Urocyon. Canis lycaon, the Eastern Canadian Wolf, is listed as a separate species, as is the Red Wolf - both are considered subspecies of C. lupus in MSW3. MSW3 considers the arctic wolf to be Vulpes lagopus.
2. Felidae - MSW3 lists Felis catus as separate from Felis silvestris, we consider it a subspecies. The Bornean Clouded Leopard is considered a subspecies in MSW3, not its own species.
3. Ursidae - MSW3 recognizes no subfamilies
4. Mustelidae - MSW3 recognizes only two subfamilies, Mustelinae and Lutrinae. MSW3 includes Mydaus in Mephitidae
5. Procyonidae - We list Procyon insularis as a separate species - MSW3 considers it a subspecies of P. lotor. We don't include P. pygmaeus, which MSW3 does consider to be its own species. We include Nasua nelsoni as its own species - it's considered a subspecies of N. narica by MSW3. We give two subfamilies not recognized by MSW3
6. Hyaenidae - We put the Brown Hyena in its own genus, Parahyaena. MSW3 lists it as Hyaena brunnea.

So, anyway, tons of issues in Carnivora, and I'm not sure how best to deal with all of them, as they're generally not restricted to family articles, but go down to the genus and species articles, as well. john k (talk) 18:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Again, a reminder that many taxonomic divisions, especially intermediate ones like "suborder", "superfamily", "subfamily" etc. are ultimately fairly arbitrary. Even "species" isn't an entirely unambiguously defined concept. The divisions correspond neither to a specific percentage of difference in DNA or a specific era of speciation or any other rigorously quantifiable measure of difference in traits. The main purpose of the whole system is to conveniently summarize phylogenies. Pushed to the extreme, every branching of a species or groups of species could technically be classified as another taxonomic division. Just because MSW3 doesn't have a subfamily subdivision for the Ursidae doesn't mean the article is wrong - or the reader is misled - by having the three major groupings of bears identified as subfamilies in the article: It is informative to know that Pandas (Ailuropodinae) separated away from the Spectacled Bears (Tremarctinae) followed by the more closely related group (Ursinae) that includes the Brown Bears, Polar Bears, Black Bears, Sloth Bears, etc. If that information is presented in terms of "subfamilies", then so be it. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to discourage a cleanup of inconsistencies or an updating of the sources, but the very nature of taxonomy is going to make fixing EVERYTHING at once something like hammering a dent out of the bottom of a pan - you're liable to go crazy. My own feeling is that the most useful information is graphical presentations of phylogenetic trees. Best, Eliezg (talk) 04:13, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

ps - Here is a brief discussion on these topics by someone other than myself.

(Response to John Kenney) I think the biggest question is why are they different. Certainly new discoveries and species descriptions warrant changes. The same would hold true for published elevations and synonomies that are not refuted. There are also cases where the authors of MSW3 clearly state that they are just putting things in certain groups as a guess pending any real data. Again, if there's no real refuting of new studies that provide these data, I see no reason why we should wait another decade for MSW4. As for specifics: Lycalopex appears to have priority; having an article for an as yet undescribed species is awkward (the authors could change their mind - if they had a 100% case they would have described), but once it is described, Cozumel Fox is valid; wolves are a mess and I think we should use MSW3 for taxoboxes, but discuss alternate opinions in the text; molecular data supports Vulpes alopex - MSW3 is more up to date than wikipedia; many MSW3 authors chose to intentionally not deal with domesticated taxa and that's a separate issue; Neofelis diardi is a post MSW3 elevation and is therefore valid (to my knowledge it's not controversial); I see nothing wrong with recognizing intermediate ranks where MSW3 has no opinion - we certainly do it above the order level; I think this may be a case where our editors can argue that there's a sufficient opposition in the literature against this taxonomy that the carnivoran folks should talk about it - Taxidiinae and Melinae (at least the core of Melinae) are basal to both of these subfamilies; Mydaus should be a mephitid; the remaining issues are situations where unless there are compelling new studies (as was seen in N. diardi), we should probably go with MSW3. --Aranae (talk) 05:17, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Obviously, it's all arbitrary, especially which levels are used, and such. My main view is essentially Aranae's - for taxoboxes, use MSW3, but discuss alternative/newer information in the text. In terms of subfamilies and suborders and such that aren't recognized by MSW3, we should a) be certain to actually cite what source we're getting it from; and b) in general, be careful about when we use this - I'd prefer discussions of prospective cladistic organizations, rather than muddying about the species lists with them. Keep the basic lists fairly clean, with only well-recognized divisions, and keep detailed discussion of phylogeny to other parts of the articles. john k (talk) 06:27, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

Hey. I created a barnstar to be awarded to people who contribute greatly to improving and/or creating mammal-related articles:

Image	What to type	Description
File:Mammal barnstar.png	{{subst:Mammal barnstar|your message ~~~~}}	The Wikiproject Mammals Barnstar is the award given to Wikipedians recognized for their efforts to improve and to develop, including their contributions to mammal-related articles.

Have a nice day. -- Leptictidium (talk) 19:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Great work - I have a suggestion though, can you tweak it a bit so the star is paler as it looks a little indistinct on my monitor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Casliber (talk • contribs) 19:46, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Discussion over "List of mammals in (or of) Foo" articles

A discussion has started at Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)#List naming dispute: "in" vs. "of" about whether "List of mammals of Foo" or "List of mammals in Foo" is more appropriate. The discussion brings up broader points about how Wikipedia editors should name lists. Interested editors, please comment there. Noroton (talk) 21:08, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Adding synonyms to taxoboxes

Dear all, I should like to add some generic synonyms at the bottom of the taxobox of Raphicerus; however, I cannot figure out how to add another "sub-box" after the "subdivision" sub-box. Can someone advise me, please? Thanks—GRM (talk) 17:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Use "| synonyms =". - UtherSRG (talk) 15:58, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals/mammal articles by size

Hey all, I was pondering where to place this link. useful? 'nuff said..cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:21, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge articles on Pacas?

We have an article on the Paca (Cuniculus paca), as well as a stub on the Mountain Paca (Cuniculus taczanowskii). Would it be logical to merge these? -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 21:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

No, every species warrants its own page. Even if it is only a stub now, there is always enough information out there to eventually make these pages full articles. --Aranae (talk) 22:29, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

"Every species warrants its own page." - I am 100% fine with this (after all, the project only covers some 5,400 species) however, I'd like to point out that

(A) This policy/guideline/whatever does not appear on the main page of WikiProject Mammals

(B) Said WikiProject Mammals main page says "Right now policy is covered by Grandmother project Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life", and

(C) Wikipedia:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Article_titles says "Not all species need have separate articles."

Therefore, in order to clarify this for the future, may I suggest that we add something to the main page of WikiProject Mammals to the effect that the policy of WikiProject Mammals is that "every species warrants its own page."

-- Thanks. - 201.37.229.117 (talk) 04:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

List of animals displaying homosexual behavior AfD

List of animals displaying homosexual behavior is up for AfD. Benjiboi 17:44, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Collaboration heads up?

It struck me that maybe more than other animals, there are several mammal articles which have the potential to be very hefty articles indeed, in the manner of lion. I feel that these more herculean tasks may be best improved by collaboration rather than single editors. Anyone up for collaboration to see if some of the biggies can be improved? I'm not a huge mammal person but have been really impressed with efforts over at WP:dinosaurs and WP:birds. I can help set it up and start the ball rolling. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Reminder of the Philip Greenspun Illustration project

Hi. You may be familiar with the Philip Greenspun Illustration Project. $20,000 has been donated to pay for the creation of high quality diagrams for Wikipedia and its sister projects.

Requests are currently being taken at m:Philip Greenspun illustration project/Requests and input from members of this project would be very welcome. If you can think of any diagrams (not photos or maps) that would be useful then I encourage you to suggest them at this page. If there is any free content material that would assist in drawing the diagram then it would be great if you could list that, too.

If there are any related (or unrelated) WikiProjects you think might have some suggestions then please pass this request over. Thanks. --Cherry blossom tree 16:39, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Range maps

Can someone point to those handy template maps used to make range maps? I can't remember where I last found them. Marskell (talk) 16:07, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

For SVGs I use Image:BlankMap-World6, compact.svg and crop. Looks like Image:BlankMap-World-alt.png would work in a standard picture editor. Is that what you were looking for? --JayHenry (t) 07:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Jay. I was looking for something else and found it: Brion VIBBER's maps at http://leuksman.com/misc/maps.php. Very helpful stuff. Marskell (talk) 19:35, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Cream the Rabbit

Do you guys really call that fictional character a mammal? Cream the Rabbit, i'm sorry but if your seriously covering fictional characters you forgot sonic —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gaogier (talk • contribs) 20:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Making a to-do list for California Sea Lion

Bobisbob is looking to work on this article. I started a to-do list on the talk page, so if anyone else could think of any material the article should cover, place here so we can get comprehensiveness sorted out first before reffing, copyediting and more copyediting. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:20, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Sea otter Peer Review

Hi everyone. I've started a peer review for Sea otter, Wikipedia:Peer_review/Sea_otter/archive1, and would appreciate your input. Cheers, Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 06:18, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Now at FAC: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sea otter. Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 07:27, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Gerbil article

There is a discussion at the Gerbil article on the inclusion of pet keeping information. Can we have a view from the project please? SpinningSpark 20:29, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

This discussion is over whether or not the material should be deleted. Opinions from project members are badly needed. SpinningSpark 11:12, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Category:Mammal articles needing photos

This category is getting too big to be useful. Suggest splitting into smaller categories on specific taxa. Richard001 (talk) 01:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Image dispute on Procoptodon

User:Apokryltaros has asked for my assistance on an edit dispute on the prehistoric mammal article Procoptodon. The dispute is over which is the more useful and appropriate and accurate image A) Image:Procoptodon BW.jpg or B) Image:Procoptodon goliah.jpg. Apokryltaros, who signs as Mr Fink, feels that image A) is not accurate as Procoptodon had a single large toe. User:UtherSRG feels that image B) is not attractive. Other images of this creature are [1], [2], [3], [4], and [5]. Please give your views here. SilkTork *^{What's YOUR point?} 22:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Your description of the dispute doesn't seem to be accurate. Kaldari (talk) 22:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. The edit summaries for image A): "better image", "revert - it's still a superiour inage to your cartoon", "it's a better image". Edit summaries for image B): "does not show its distinctive fingers", "that image is wrong", "Procoptodon had only one toe per foot, this picture has three toes per foot". SilkTork *^{What's YOUR point?} 01:04, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization re-visited

I would like to initiate discussion regarding whether or not mammal species should be capitalized or not. The desired outcome is to reach a formal consensus that this WikiProject can agree upon and use as a reference to quote when editing articles. The issue has gone way too long without a formal, binding consensus, and there's a storm a-brewing.... Regards. --Old Hoss (talk) 00:08, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Capitalized

1. I off two arguments for capitalization. A species is a singular entity. The name of all singular entities in English are proper nouns, and proper nouns are capitalized. Therefore, the official common name of a species should be capitalized as it represents a singular entity. Furthermore, the logic laid out in WP:BIRD#Bird_names_and_article_titles demonstrates that even when viewed as a non-proper noun, capitalization helps the reader understand that the phrase in question, in many cases, is in regards to a species and not a description of a more general variety. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:25, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
2. It has been the de facto standard for years on Wikipedia, and the majority of the thousands of mammal articles are written in this style. Those pushing for change need to consider the vast amount of work needed to make the changes. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:53, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
3. Ugg. My first argument, remains, that ornothologists present a prima facie example in favour of capitalization: it is simply not true that no professionals view species names as proper nouns. It's also not true that one cannot find sources for mammals that use upper case. I view species names as proper nouns and it's actually become increasingly helpful to me to use upper case versus lower case when I want to create an appropriate difference in a sentence (between family and species, for instance). Common versus proper noun is not a discreet category—there is no single definition—and we can talk about it 'til we drop. But I'm not going to stop. I will capitalize when I know the page has no minders. I will leave caps where I find them. If you only care about a page because you happened across the upper case, I will wait a week or two, and then revert you. Until this part of the MoS becomes a policy, I will upper case where I can—while always avoiding revert wars. Marskell (talk) 22:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

   The problem with your argument here is that bird species have a bijective mapping of formal common names onto species. It is this justification that makes birds a specific case in which capitalization makes sense. But, with other species, there is no strict, formal agreement for exactly one common name for each species. I mean, just look at Cougar. There is no single correct English common name for that species, which is what makes it pointless to try treating common names in these situations as proper nouns. Clearly, a common name shouldn't be capitalized when it refers to multiple species, but how do we actually differentiate between TRUE common names for a species, and common names that are too vague? This is why it is safe to capitalize for birds (there has been a formal, sweeping effort to standardize their common names), but not other species, where no such initiative exists in the scientific community. I mean, look at Brown Bears. How do we treat Kodiak bear, grizzly bear, and brown bear? These are all subspecies of the brown bear. It's just a mess, and a mess that I think is better reflected by lowercase naming than trying to impose some kind of false order or formality on what is in reality unordered and messy. Nik-renshaw (talk) 06:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

   Actually, there is a growing concensus among scientists as to the official common name for mammals. It's the single common name listed in MSW3. Many birds are called by alternate common name by common folks, but bird enthusiasts and ornithologists use the official common name or the scientific name. While this isn't as true with mammals, it is becoming so. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:25, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

   Beyazid's compelling argument about MSW3 aside, I think that it is rather impractical to expect editors to follow the capitalization guideline: "If there exists an official common name, capitalize that." With birds, every species has one, but with mammals, I cannot imagine trying to convince people on an article-by-article basis that "this instance here is the formal common name, but that is just a common name," and then people say, "Why isn't _____ capitalized? We're supposed to capitalize common names," and we must respond, "That's because that species doesn't have any formal common name at all." It seems to me that it is far too messy of a guideline to put in place without the bijective naming scheme that birds can rightfully claim. However, I do see the value in the way that they do it over in the birds realm. I just feel like--even if MSW3 is giving it a start--mammals cannot yet be said to be in the same situation, and should thus follow standard English practice of lowercase common names. Nik-renshaw (talk) 23:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

   Also, taking MSW3 as the best guideline for capitalization, that means we should be capitalizing the formal common name of this mammal as well: Human. Does that present a problem for anyone else here? Nik-renshaw (talk) 23:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

   This is a non-issue. For one, we're not asking that all editors do the right thing... just that those of us who know what the right thing is, be allowed to do it. Also, on non-biology articles, the capitalization can be ignored, as stated elsewhere. MSW3 *is* the most official listing of names. There is no disputing that. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:24, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

4. Assuming MSW3 is accepted as Wikipedia's guideline for mammal naming conventions, then the names should be capitalized accordingly. Ex.: the North American Porcupine (but - the porcupine), the Polar Bear (but - the bear), the Leopard (but - the big cat). I thought I would rather see lower case, but after working with MSW3 for awhile, I see the points Uther is making. If this were Simple English WP, then I would still think lowercase is better. But since this is a big people's encyclopedia, we should follow the conventions used by the experts, IMO. It is not as if a glossary is required to translate jargon, it is just a method of capitalization that does not impede the article's readability. A hatnote might be appropriate to add to the top of each page (using a bot) stating the capitalization conventions used in the article. --Old Hoss (talk) 18:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

There is an old meme from past discussions on this topic that MSW3 in some way is a style guideline for whether mammal common names should be capitalized, and that it supports capitalization. Actually neither of those is the case. MSW3 is a highly specialized publication that is basically data listings of taxonomic information. On that score it's authoritative. In the listings, among voluminous other info, it presents common names in the format "COMMON NAME: Eurasian Badger". But it isn't a publication that is like an article, book, or encyclopedic entry. It isn't regular writing. Yet, that being said, in some places here and there it was necessary for the writers of MSW3 to explain their data listings by resorting to regular prose in "Commentary" sections. And what does the writing look like there? The commentary virtually always uses the lowercase (I looked over a random sample of 100 pgs out of the 1600 to be unbiased in evaluating this; out of about 30 contributing writers, there was one author, Peter Grubb, who occasionally used uppercase, but he was quite inconsistent). If you would like to look up for yourself and see examples, here are a few: pg 1488 "lion-tailed macaque", pg 1559 "green acouchi", "green acouchies" , pg 1395 "house mouse", pg 1591 "West Indian spiny rats", pg 12 "gray four-eyed opossum", pg 1034 "muskrat", pg 1593 "The common name coypu is preferable to nutria, since nutria in Spanish means otter."

Arguing that MSW3 is a reason to capitalize is just as much an argument that the phrase COMMON NAME needs to be capitalized just so. It turns out that the fine folks who produced MSW3 -- edited by Don Wilson, published by Smithsonian, produced in association with the American Society of Mammalogists -- have put out other publications which are in fact regular writing, such as The Smithsonian Book of North American Mammals. Arguing that we should follow the lead of the editors and publishers of MSW3 as the experts is really an argument that we should be using lowercase, because that's what they use. You can see for yourself by reading free samples of the book here through books.google.com. Beyazid (talk) 20:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Not capitalized

1. Common names should not capitalized except at the beginning of a sentence. Bugguyak (talk) 00:19, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
2. An awfully comprehensive discussion took place at the end of 2007 to settle on the current WP:MOS language, the archive is here. Result? Aside from when an animal common starts a sentence or has a true proper noun in it (eg, Bengal tiger) animals are to be lowercase. There also is acknowledgment that "there are specific rules of capitalization based on current and historic usage among those who study the organisms" for some animals, for example birds, and those are acceptable. Mammals do not have "current and historically usage" that implies anything other than lowercase. The current WP:MOS style guidance on its main page is the same as what Chicago Manual of Style goes by and what you'll see from books, print encyclopedias, dictionaries, and professional science journals. On and on and on. - Beyazid (talk) 00:45, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
3. personally, i find capitalization a tad distracting. but, big picture, i don't really care. WP:BIRDS does it, and that's no skin off my nose; maybe, in the long run, the individual projects should be the ones deciding after all. my MAIN concern is that -- per Beyazid's commentary -- if the issue was settled, and a consensus already reached, why are articles still being reverted, and by an admin no less? - Metanoid (talk, email) 02:30, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
4. It is standard in the academic and literary world outside of Wikipedia to use lowercase for English common species names, with birds being an established exception in the scientific field (due to each species have one and only one English common name ascribed to it). Therefore, it makes sense--as an encyclopedia--to follow standard practice, rather than attempting to blaze new trails. Furthermore, I don't feel that amount of work is a great concern. Any consensus one way or the other is better than the current mess of some up and some down. Even if it takes a while to transition, a semblance of uniformity is better than utter ambivalence. Nik-renshaw (talk) 23:49, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
5. I not have extreme views on this topic, but even putting aside the unanimous consensus in the English language scientific literature, I haven't come across any serious non-bird editors on Wikipedia that are pro-capitalization. As a person who is supposed to be contributing regularly to the published scientific literature on several species of animals, and definitely one whose desk is drowning in stacks of other articles on even more animals - including the occasional lost bird - it is a bit jarring to switch to capitalizations when writing here. I understand the arguments for capitalization can be compelling, but so are the arguments for the Shavian alphabet, and it is probably beyond the pale of whatever passes for Wikipedia's mission to impose either on the hapless readership. Eliezg (talk) 00:54, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

   Well, Marskell and UtherSRG both do a lot more work on mammal articles than bird articles. They're serious mammal editors; I don't know if this makes them serious non-bird editors ;) Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 07:48, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

   Ah, sorry, but I had to add a "no shit" here. If you haven't noticed Uther's fifty thousand edits to mammals, then you don't follow mammals. Missing my FAs is forgivable, but to miss Uther is to miss the greatest shit reverter mammal articles have. Marskell (talk) 23:04, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

   Well said. Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 05:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

   Sorry, sorry, sorry. I stand properly chastised for ramming my paw up my muzzle. I meant no offense. The impression above came from the fact that almost all of the other discussions that I've seen (including this one) boil down to a few people saying "this is what we in Birds do and therefore what everyone should do", and a bunch of other people saying "But no one in mammals (or fish (or reptiles (etc.)))) does it that way!..." which remains mostly true. Also (having now just browsed through a couple more of these debates) and with the greatest possible reverence/respect for Sabine and Uther and Marskell (whose FA's I most certainly have noticed!), these three (as far as I can tell) remain the only persistent (and eloquent and faithful) advocates for capitalization, whereas the numbers of people that just find it sort of strange are, well, uncountable. Of course, those people that care more about content than formatting debates are very likely in the plurality. The fact remains that unless a consensus is reached for capitalization, which appears very, very unlikely at this point, I, for one, and many, many others are going to blithely pursue what they feel is appropriate (almost always lc), and be fully in their rights, and fully in conformity with standard English usage. Eliezg (talk) 08:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

   Point of order, I only stridently defend capitalisation on bird articles. When it comes to mammals, while I've fired a few broadsides at the massed forces of anti-capitalisation for old time's sake, I don't actually have a massive preference and have made that clear (or at least I hope I have). I'm mostly just here to help defend the interests of specialists. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:17, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

6. Short and sweet rationale: Nearly every source outside of Wikipedia uses lowercase. Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 07:27, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

   Another thought: This poll will probably demonstrate a moderate consensus in favour of lowercase. However, because capitalization is such a trivial aspect of what we do here, we would need an extremely strong consensus - which isn't going to happen - to justify making the minority unhappy about it. Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 05:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

   Exactly. Marskell (talk) 09:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

   Amen! In fact, that's part of the point people miss about consensus: the majority needs to convince the minority to come along for the ride. Y'all haven't been able to do that on this since day one. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

7. Agree with others in this section. Common names are, well, common, and should not be capitalized. — Dulcem (talk) 01:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

   Not so, when it is the official common name. See WP:BIRD. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

   Not according to my dictionaries and style manuals. I stand by my opposition to capitalization. — Dulcem (talk) 02:24, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

   See this. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

8. I agree with the WP:MOS - no capitalization for mammal common names except for special circumstances (e.g., proper names within common names). That is consistent with all the scientific writing I have seen for mammals. Perhaps there are occasional exceptions - even in some highly respected sources - but those are still the exceptions not the rule (for mammals anyway).Rlendog (talk) 01:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
9. As per Talk:Cougar. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 06:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't care/Either

1. The old Blue Whale (species)/blue whale (a whale that is blue) argument, where the capitalization is being used to distinguish between a species and a more general grouping is the only strong argument for capitalization (and in that case a more careful examination of the article is required before the alteration of the capitalization to ensure that those distinctions are not lost). Aside from that case, as with so much of the MoS, it honestly doesn't matter. Will anybody be injured by seeing an uppercase or lowercase species name? Will hospitalization be required for somebody who chanced across Bobcat? As long as the capitalization is consistent within the article it makes not one jot of difference. While there are so many articles in need of accurate content and readable prose there are better things to do with your time than converting the cases on articles or worrying about the minutiae of the MoS. Yomangani^talk 10:13, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
2. Yep, beginning to agree with preceding. Heck did we make sure we had to mention just how toxic polar bear livers are, make sure that anyone hiking in Greenland is able to check on their laptop after killing one before eating it and just stick to the safe muscles, heart, brain etc...Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:13, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

   Also, watch out where the Huskies go, don't you eat that yellow snow. --Old Hoss (talk) 15:06, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

3. Get back to work! <whip cracks> Kaldari (talk) 22:22, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
4. Just to clarify my position, I don't mind either way, just don't be mean to the mammal editors. Unless it is a whipping them to produce more articles kind of mean. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:18, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I fail to see how this option is helpful to the debate. Obviously, many editors, myself included, don't really care which way the discussion goes — the whole point of the discussion is to settle on some way. If an editor does not have a view to support one way or the other, then stating as such, while well-meaning, is not really constructive. --Old Hoss (talk) 22:51, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Not having it presupposes the requirement for settling on one option or the other - a requirement that doesn't exist ("Would you like to be killed by a)stabbing or b)burning?". "Errr...c)Not at all") If 99% people don't care then we can forget about this and just 1% of people will be unhappy when they come across an article that is formatted contrary to their preference. I wasn't suggesting that people who would be apathetic to the outcome should vote here (since I naturally assumed they would be too apathetic to vote) but rather those that thought whether to use capitalization or not was somewhat less important than having a decent article. Yomangani^talk 23:29, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I do care very much, and I very emphatically support "Either". Unfortunately that wasn't a separate option, so I was forced to choose "Don't care/Either". Kaldari (talk) 00:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If I may vote twice, let me concur. Marskell (talk) 09:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yomangan is totally missing the point. If you were going to be killed, no matter what, then there would be no "c)Not at all". Just as this survey has no "Either" - because the whole point of the survey is to decide which one to use. So these opinions are legitimate in that they do want a consensus one way or the other, but they themselves are not actually helping in deciding that consensus. That was the point. No offense meant. It's sort of like the child who asks his parents if he should or should not commit suicide only to have his parents tell him whatever he decides they will support -- well, that does not help one iota. --Old Hoss (talk) 18:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I see. I did miss the point then. Can you point me to the discussion where it was decided that we must choose one or the other? Or is this discussion pre-empting that one, so if we decide that we do need to use one or the other we will already have an answer? Yomangani^talk 18:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

"[A]ll observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!" --Tombstone (talk) 03:27, 12 March 2008 (UTC) —formerly User:Old Hoss

I think that Yomangan has a completely valid point. If the vast majority of people say that they don't care, then it is clear that there is no need for any kind of consensus, because it would not represent any majority anyway. In that case, everyone should just keep doing as they wish. Nik-renshaw (talk) 00:15, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

You mean, proactively going through each article and then changing the case, only to have their edits reverted back to how they were, only to have those edits reverted, only to have those edits reverted, only to be blocked for 3RR? Again, while well meaning, I fail to see how that is a productive stance. This would not be an issue if pages were left as they were, but they are not. Therefore, an agreement one way or the other is necessary to go forward. If the policy is to never change the case once the article is created, fine; but none of the above have stated that – or stated they would abide by it. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 00:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

"Never change the case" is implied (you've pointed to the outcome if that is ignored). "Either" can be just as binding as one of the other choices and seems the obvious solution. We have precedents: British English and American English coexist quite (well, moderately) comfortably together; we allow more than one type of citation style; many of the MoS guidelines offer a number of alternative but acceptable styles. "Either" is the de facto standard anyway, as after years of discussion it is obvious that consensus for one or the other will not be reached any time soon. Yomangani^talk 01:09, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Now you are saying something I can sink my teeth into. If the guideline is to be something similar to "There is no preferred capitalization standard on mammal articles, however the case should not be changed on a particular article once the article is written.", then at least we can come to some kind of an agreement between authors. But I might point out that to a drive-by reader, it might be very confusing to see one article called "Eastern Grey Squirrel" and then another article called "Western grey squirrel". Some school teacher may be inclined to fix one article for consistency, only to be reverted. While at least this would be a guideline to follow, I can only foresee further complications. And then we end up right back here doing this again. :) --Tombstone (talk) 01:46, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

We have the same thing with varieties of English now, but it is not a big problem. Passers-by are always changing "Behaviour" to "Behavior" or vice versa, but it doesn't normally take long for somebody to flip it back. What would be nice to stop is the edit warring between authors. Yomangani^talk 02:23, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the inconsistency between articles is confusing to the reader. We have inconsistency as a pragmatic compromise between the sides that cannot agree on whether to capitalize. Considering the eccentricities that tend to come out of other experiments in collaboration, it is surprising that the wiki collaboration model doesn't produce more weird inconsistencies. I don't think the rule is strictly "never change capitalization" but rather it is, "put content development way way ahead of flipping the capitalization". If someone improves an article significantly and also changes the capitalization, I think their change is quite likely to be accepted. Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 05:55, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

As a devil's advocate, in theory if an editor significantly improves an article, but messes up a few things, the positive would outweigh the negative and another editor would clean up the mistakes. However, in practice, what happens is editors on RC patrol only see the mess and revert the entire edit – good and bad. That frustrates well-meaning drive-by editors (been there, done that, on both the giving and receiving end). Even though this is a wiki, it is still an encyclopedia, and standardization gives the average reader more confidence in the reliability of the information they read, IMO. On a side note, I think the AmEng and BrEng (mentioned above) is a different concept than capitalization here, which I could expand on if necessary. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 16:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

What do you perceive to be the salient differences between American/British English spellings and capitalized/non-capitalized common species names? Nik-renshaw (talk) 18:50, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

By "significant" improvements to an article, I wasn't thinking of things like the fivefold expansion needed to bring a stub to WP:DYK level, or bringing an article to GA or FA status. In other words, enough of an improvement to make oneself a primary contributor to the article. Make an article good and you can switch it to lowercase. Given that most contributors favour lowercase, the result should eventually be a large number of good articles that mostly use lowercase. Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 04:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Comments

This discussion is a frequent source of heated debate. Please try to keep a cool head when responding to comments on this topic. How about a nice cup of tea?

The biggest, most extensive discussion on a talk page where I've participated was at Talk:Cougar#Pic_plus_caps. The sources and votes were an overwhelming landslide in pointing to lowercase as the standard to go by. In clicking through articles I see this has been played out and repeated on many other pages, almost always with a single editor issuing reverts and insisting on WP:BIRD to be followed and refusing to give any other substantive reason.

Right now, I don't like that I'm being dealt reverts left and right for following WP:MOS. See also my comments at Talk:Bobcat#Capitalization_again. Beyazid (talk) 00:45, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Other discussion on the project level and on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (fauna) (both of which supercede WP:MOS) were left inconclusive. Hence my view that such changes on a scale such as you made should not be done until a consensus is reached. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:25, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Those conversations meandered around for a little while, didn't go too far, and trickled out, they don't have any relevance. It's not like somehow there is a mysterious absence of consensus on wikipedia on whether to capitalize or not capitalize animal names, it is on the front page of WP:MOS what the wikipedia consensus is. My view is that the belief on your part about what hypothetical changes to the consensus style may or may not occur in the future doesn't in any way restrict the many other editors in the here-and-now who already have the amply-argued-over and settled consensus style of WP:MOS to edit by. I've read through the archives of many discussions on this topic, you've pushed for years over it and still after all these years you have nothing more than WP:BIRD as a reference. You can't enforce other editors to wait until some other imaginary style becomes consensus (which in the case of the style you are so attached to, could very well be never -- it certainly was brought up in the conversation for the current WP:MOS language and had almost no support). WP:MOS is 100% legit to edit by and you have no basis for issuing reverts as if me and other editors are vandals when we're actually just aligning articles with WP:MOS. Beyazid (talk) 02:31, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

An inconclusive discussion that did not go anywhere does not have relevance and is a poor excuse for all the reverts. Bugguyak (talk) 20:26, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Beyazid that we should follow WP:MOS. Birds are an established exception to the common practice in English scientific and professional consensus to leave common names lowercase. That means, when one is not dealing with birds, one should not capitalize common names (each non-bird species does not have a scientifically established and agreed upon English common name). I have run into wide inconsistency among (and even within) the articles on bears, and we need to go one way or the other, because the reverts and internal inconsistencies look tacky and make the articles look ill-informed. I believe until there is a higher-level consensus established that runs counter to WP:MOS, the Manual of Style should be followed, and it gives full license for editors to enforce its conclusions. Nik-renshaw (talk) 01:34, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Full license to enforce a guideline? Per our own definition of guideline it is never mandatory to follow, they are more advisory in nature. I realize that perhaps I'm digging at what is simply a poor choice of words, but talk of enforcement of "one size fits all" non-negotiable rules is not something many people like. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:31, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

That is exactly the point here, "enforcement of "one size fits all" non-negotiable rules is not something many people like." Enforcement of WP:BIRD as a one-size-that-fits-all rule and wielding abusive reverts to achieve that is wrong. The WP:MOS guidelines on this a) have been developed from lengthy discussion and represent broad consensus, b) are grounded in real-world sources and actual publishing standards, and c) are available on the WP:MOS front page, which is prefaced "Editors should follow it, except where common sense and the occasional breach will improve an article." WP:BIRD is none of those things and it doesn't make sense that editors should be forced to adhere to it on pain of reverts for non-bird articles. Beyazid (talk) 17:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

• I should also point out that having mammal species in capitals has been the de facto standard on Wikipedia since I've been around (2004). I personally don't care one way or another, but if it is going to be changed there are ways and means of achieving change without riding roughshod over long time mammal project editors and generally being rude to them. It requires a new concensus, seeing as how the old consensus (established before there was even a project and derived from the choices made by the bird project via the cetacean one) exists and would need to be overturned. Simply the MOS in our faces and telling us to obey is not the way forward. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:44, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

jeez, i just don't get how you all figure out what stands where with the maze of rules/standards! i'll let you have it. if i had the time and energy it took to learn them, i'd just go to law school. - Metanoid (talk, email) 05:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I said de facto standard. As in, "for as long as I can remember it has been done that way. I don't recall it being set in stone. The fact is that all the older articles were written that way, the articles that aren't have been changed recently. This never used to be an issue, it is now. As for the maze of standards, well, it is a regrettable outcome of the size of the project. Unfortunately there are two kinds of editor, those that add content and those that dream up new rules that the first kind of editor has too follow. I can't keep track of the rules and they always come and bite me on the arse when I submit something to FAC. Like the m-dash bullshit. What the fuck is up with that? But we have to jump through these hoops because some bureaucratic types thing it looks good. And then these same types of people decide to enforce their views on grammar on areas that have plowed their own furrow for many years and then get all bent out of shape when they encounter resistance (Christ, you should have seen the moaning when WP:BIRD fought to keep its standards against editors who couldn't tell a tit from a booby). So, like, think about the other side for a bit, eh? Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The mammal species articles don't really have a de facto standard, they have mishmash of some articles being uppercase, some being lowercase, some being both. What's rude and "riding roughshod" is when an editor refuses to give any source for his view beyond WP:BIRD, and yet enforces his personal opinion with reverts. UtherSRG is the one blocked for 3RR violations from the other day over this, by the way. In places such as Talk:Cougar where things went so far as to hold a vote on whether that one article should be lowercase as the sources overwhelming showed (and as they show for all other mammals from everything I've seen), the vote was not even close, it was 10-2 in favor of lowercase. What's rude is when an editor refuses to acknowledge things like this, that is the pattern of behavior. UtherSRG continued to insist on enforcement of WP:BIRD style with reverts after the vote at cougar and clear consensus contrary to his views, it resulted in the article needing 14 days of full protection. Same rudeness, disregard for real-world sources, and disregard for other editors' judgments contrary to his own at cheetah, Florida panther, bobcat, etc. I don't see why "it requires a new consensus" in order for editors to edit right now in accordance with WP:MOS. The discussion at WP:MOS took place in late 2007 and it was fully advertised on the various animal project pages, it drew on participants across the gamut (including UtherSRG himself, whose views were fully discussed and decided not to be followed). Beyazid (talk) 17:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

You've both been blocked for edit waring recently, so drop the holier than thou attitude, m'kay? Besides, UtherSRG has many years of contributions to mammal related articles, whereas yours are simply about enforcing your grammar preferences. Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Sabine's Sunbird, there is no need to fall into ad hominem here. I will freely admit that my edits are primarily grammatical and anti-vandalism. Does that make me a lesser contributor with an invalid opinion, or an expert in the field of grammar? Either way, who cares? Let's ALL drop our holier-than-thou attitudes and listen to each other here. I apologize for my "full license to enforce" comment, but I certainly feel like it is within an editor's rights to change to WP:MOS unless there is a valid reason not to, especially if an article is internally inconsistent. It makes no sense to leave an article as it is when half of it is lowercase and half upper. And what better guidance is there--without relevant broad consensus--than the Manual of Style? Also, I have a feeling that whatever conclusions we may reach here are going to do nothing, as this discussion is not large enough to represent any meaningful consensus. But I guess we'll worry about that later. Nik-renshaw (talk) 23:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I too have to apologise, I got snappy. The comment about contributions was with respect to mammal contributions, not overall contributions, in essence, a plea for the specialists not to be ganged up on by the people from outside the project. As I've said above I sometimes feel that content writers are the least respected group on Wikipedia, and I do not wish to see what I consider to be a valuable editor driven away because of something so petty. As I've stated before here I don't actually care what the conclusion is. I just wanted to make the point that 1) There is an existing de facto standard (which as observed has been much less followed of late leading to the confusing mishmash) and 2) having a go at Wikiprojects for not conforming creates ill feeling, which in turn generates ill feeling amongst the MOS crowd which in turn creates ill feeling in those who've just wandered in to observe. You all want to make headway?

1. Tone down the rhetoric. It doesn't help. Don't create a wedge between the grammar editors and the science editors by talking down at them, it'll just create bad feeling, which in turn spurs resistance to change.
2. Don't treat a poll or consensus on one article as a precedent to make massive sweeping changes. It suggests that consensus might well lean one way, but that is all.
3. Don't treat a lack of consensus as an excuse to ignore it and do whatever the hell you want. A consistent position can me found, it may simply take time.
4. I notice that no opinions have been sought from any of of the project's daughter projects (primates, cats and cetaceans) yet any consensus reached here would affect those projects too. I suggest leaving notes on their project talk pages there asking for thoughts.
5. Think about how you would implement a changed consensus. There are, what, 6 thousand species of mammals that would need their articles changed, along with genus articles, family and order articles. Plus any faunal lists. How would these changes be made in order to achieve consistency? State how this might happen, that may help allay fears.

Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

As for number 5, I feel like this is not quite as much of a concern as you make it out to be. Reaching a consensus here does not require that we make sweeping changes to follow that consensus, it only means we have something to work off in the future, when the question comes up. In the creation of new articles, and new work to done articles, we will follow that consensus, rather than go willy-nilly. When we come upon articles that don't follow it, we will adjust them. The problem is that right now, every new article that is made does whatever it wants, refers to a species in another article in the uppercase, even though in the main article for that species it is always lowercase, and so on. I think reaching some kind of consensus is necessary for consistency in the future, but I don't think it necessitates immediate full-scale rearranging of existing articles. It just aids in building consistency here on out, and gives some kind of standard when the question arises. And I agree that the sister projects should be notified of the debate. Nik-renshaw (talk) 18:38, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Other discussions

I just stumbled into this hoo-ha and found it very difficult to follow who was acting in good faith and who was not properly seeking consensus because it's split over a bazillion different pages, mostly about cats. Now this discussion has sprung up here I suggest we keep it all centralised here to make it easier. I'm posting to that end on all the other recent sites of the discussion. To further make it easier, the sites of past discussion in question are listed here: --BigBlueFish (talk) 23:45, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

• 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)

Also: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style -- Discussion and consensus at WP:MOS about animal common names and the capitalization issue (July 2007 - August 2007) Beyazid (talk) 01:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Dead again?

Has this died again without a clear consensus? What a shock. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:13, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

What is the standard for "clear consensus"? Is it even possible to obtain a clear consensus in this kind of discussion?Rlendog (talk) 01:31, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

It is fairly clear that the common practice is preferred: "Whatever case you see in an article is incorrect and should be changed to the other case as soon as you can, and as many times as you can." The reasons for the current policy are many-fold: 1) I ♥ WikiDrama!; 2) WP:3RR is not tested enough; and, 3) getting 24-hour blocked builds character. There might be other reasons, I just haven't observed them yet. I can safely speak for everyone when I say your policy is wrong, mine is right; let's leave it at that! For cripe's sake, have Jimbo flip a damn coin and be done with it. Regards. --Tombstone (talk) 03:26, 12 March 2008 (UTC)—formerly User:Old Hoss

Good old-fashioned "we should follow the conventions used by the experts" should be just fine in pointing the way to best practice. This isn't an esoteric topic. With self-referential arguments like "My way is more logical" put on the scale as having weight equivalent to dictionaries, style guides, print encyclopedias, virtually all professional publications by biologists (peer-reviewed journals like Science and Nature, Smithsonian books, Walker's Mammals of the World, etc.), professional publications by career writers & journalists (newspapers, magazines, etc.), WP consensus at MOS... then, yeah, it becomes a tricky and thorny topic to accommodate. Without unusually-weighted self-referential arguments, sources do weigh down the balance heavily in one direction. Beyazid (talk) 01:04, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, you've got 4 for capitalization, 8 against, and 4 inbetween. If you had more people in the same proportions, I would call that consensus. Nik-renshaw (talk) 15:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Many more people with similar proportions can be found at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_87, a very large discussion on this same topic that reached the same consensus, resulting in the language presently on the front-page of WP:MOS about how lowercase should be used for animal common names except in a few situations. Beyazid (talk) 01:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

For the sake of accuracy it should be noted that one of the four "pro-capitalization" votes (Sabine's Sunbird) appears to have switched to "do not care," or is at least being double-counted. This makes the little straw-poll count 3 pro, 8 against, 4 other. Still not "consensus" sensu stricto, but in the off-chance people are swayed by the difference between 25% and 20%, there it is.... Cheers, Eliezg (talk) 01:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• Sigh* Clarification, when I first posted it looked like it was collecting a range of opinions on why one position should be favoured over another, so I provided a reason. When it because clear it was a vote, not an attempt to discuss anything, I simply registered my feelings with 'don't care/either' (more either, but whatever). Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The convention proposed for the scientific community is a bit more complicated than what the birders here and several of us other biology article editors use. The fact is, that MSW3's listing of common names would qualify as the official list as per the proposal and, as such, should be capitalized. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:34, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

The link is to a request/proposal by a particular scientist. If the capitalization were widely accepted in the scientific community there would be no need for such proposals. Most scientific papers and sources that I have seen do not capitalize common names within the narrative text. Lists and titles may include capitalized common names, as does MSW3. But even with MSW3, is there narrative capitalizing the common names? I don't have the book, but all I see in the web links is the capitalization where they state the common name, but I don't see any narrative with capitalized common names.Rlendog (talk) 02:28, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, generally, with Rlendog. UtherSRG, you are taking what is a proposal among the scientific community and trying to make it the rule here, on an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia's job is to present established information, not to break new ground. We should not be trying to adopt capitalized common names, when the scientific community doesn't even do it. If that changes, then we can change. But, in the meantime, we should follow the same conventions as the fields that we are describing: science, academia, publishing, etc. You are ahead of your time, or, possibly, taking up a cause that is doomed to fail in every arena. In that case, so much the better that we do not get involved. Nik-renshaw (talk) 17:03, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Grison

Both the Lesser Grison and the Greater Grison have the same picture in their taxoboxes. I don't think that can be right.Dixonsej (talk) 16:31, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

That is a lesser grison in the picture. Bugguyak (talk) 16:55, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of animals

I note that there are a good amount of mammals on the general animals page which could be moved to the mammals subcategory. It generally just requires changing from a {{reqphoto|animals}} to a |needs-photo=yes field in the mammals banner. Have fixed one but there are quite a few others, and I have to get to bed now. If anyone from the project would like to help tidy this up that would be great. Richard001 (talk) 10:47, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I've spent a few hours cutting it down to size, though there is still a little more to do. By the way, the mammals category for requests seems awfully full - wouldn't it be better to have some subcategories for the major orders? Richard001 (talk) 07:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

English Spot

I am currently working on an article about a breed of rabbit, the English Spot. I believe this article may fall in to the WikiProject Mammals. I was looking to further improve this article and was wondering if I could get some feed back on what sections the article is missing or which sections could use further expansion. The article is still missing a picture, and I'm currently working on trying to get one put up. If anyone from the project would like to help that would be great. Trio32 (talk) 19:46, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Article name of American Beaver/Canadian Beaver

Input from the Project would be appreciated on whether the article on Castor canadensis should be titled "American Beaver" or "Canadian Beaver" (forget the capitalization for a moment!). Please reply at Talk:Canadian_Beaver#Requested_reversal_of_undiscussed_move. Regards. --Old Hoss (talk) 15:10, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Gus Honeybun? Really?

I was doing a bit of touch-up at Gus Honeybun and noticed that it comes under the purview of your WikiProject. Are you really covering the article on this much loved and historical, but ultimately puppet television rabbit? Vashti (talk) 15:00, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

LOL! No. I've removed the banner. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:12, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

FAR for Sperm Whale

Sperm Whale has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:58, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Nearing time to choose a second collaboration....

OK, its 24 hours till the next collaboration is chosen. Lots of people chipped in to Polar bear and Clayoquot is making a fine effort making sure it has all the ingredients before having its final mixing (ie, copyedit) and baking, before going onto the gustatory table that is FAC. I am keen on finding some Cultural references as tehy are elusive online, and will chip in with copyediting soon. Other input still welcome! Brown rat is still the frontrunner for next collab, so have a last think about it and vote with your feet fingers. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Requested article: Afrochoerus / Afrochoerus nicoli

Requesting an article on Afrochoerus / Afrochoerus nicoli -- extinct giant African suid, described by Richard Leakey. See http://www.originsnet.org/hk19ab/pages/q)%20suids%20illus.htm . (I can't figure out which of the various "requested article/animal/species/mammal" pages would be best for this -- if anyone wants to place this request on one or more of those, please do.) -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 19:18, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Agriotherium needs cleanup and content

Please take a look at Agriotherium -- article could use cleanup and more content.
Article says: "Agriotherium ... may have been an ancestor to some of today's carnivores, including the wolf." Is this right?
-- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 19:22, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Polar Bear

Polar Bears: I recently read in a newspaper that DNA research has shown that the Polar Bear is the largest member of the Weasel family. I quoted this at a Rotary meeting recently and have been shot down in flames:species Ursus Maritimus. Am I right or am I right? Perrypie (talk) 22:50, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

You are incorrect. Weasels and bears aren't even in the same superfamily in Carnivora. - UtherSRG (talk) 23:30, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Brown Rat collaboration

I've been watching Brown Rat for 12 days and haven't seen much work done. I'm assuming people are revamping the article somewhere -- I've added a few good parts to it thus far. Where is the collaborating occurring, and am I invited?TeamZissou (talk) 02:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Not as far as I know. Generally if someone were editing an article such as this (especially a collaboration) in userspace, they would notify on the article talkpage so as not to conflict with other improvements. I set up the collaboration as I reckoned the size of many of the more prominent mammal articles would scare off single editors. The first was Polar bear which is shaping up nicely and I have been impressed at the tinkering with Brown rat. I was unsure how many would get really stuck into it. I know VanTucky was keen on a smaller critter rather than a bigger one...I'll have a look soon :)

So in answer to your question, the collaboration is on the page and by all means you're invited...Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I should have done this before...I'll set up a to-do list so everyone can add all the material they think should be in the article, and comprehensiveness can be comprehensively addressed before copyediting etc. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Polbot categories that still need to be fixed

As many of you may remember, back in August 2007, Polbot created a whole bunch of mammal categories based on family and genus names rather than common names (as they were automatically generated based on MSW2 taxonomy). Most of these categories were fixed, for example Category:Sciuridae was migrated to Category:Squirrels, and so on. Some of the larger categories, however, were never fixed (since they have to be fixed by hand). Maybe it's time we revisit these and knock them out. Here are the ones I know about:

• Category:Ochotona -> Category:Pikas
• Category:Dipodidae -> Category:Dipodoid rodents or Category:Dipodids (suggestions?)
• Category:Spalacidae -> Category:Fossorial muroids or Category:Spalacids (suggestions?)
• Category:Caviidae -> Category:Caviids Category:Cavies
• Category:Bovidae -> Category:Bovids

Feel free to others if you find them. Kaldari (talk) 23:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the moves. As stated above. I'm fairly neutral on all the situations where there are two options of where to move to. --Aranae (talk) 03:35, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Same, although with a slight preference to Dipodids and Spalacids, but only very slight. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

In addition, Category:Caviidae should be flattened. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC) Scratch that... it should be merged into Category:Cavies, which needs some serious work. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Articles should be divided by species or genus? A definite answer, please.

Hi. At least twice that I know of in the last few months, the issue has come up as to whether we should merge articles on various species of the same genus into one article (the genus) or keep them separate (under genus+species name). I assume that this must also have come up numerous other times that I'm not aware of.
The two cases I'm speaking of are discussed at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mammals/Archive3#Merge_articles_on_Pacas.3F and Talk:Smilodon#Too_many_Smilodon_articles.
At the time of the Pacas discussion, I asked that the policy of WikiProject Mammals on this question be posted to the Project's main page. As far as I can see, this has not been done.
Therefore, in order to forestall future problems with this, could the Project please (if necessary) arrive at a consensus on this and post it to the Project's main page? Thanks much. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 02:39, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I have worked on many biological articles and the consensus seems to have been species for living animals, except for some closely related species complexes, and genera for prehistoric animals. Almost all bird species have separate pages.

These reflect nicely how these things are divided in books, the basic 'unit of currency' as it were. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:50, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I think each species definitely warrants its own page. They should not be lumped. --Aranae (talk) 03:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Casliber: species level for living taxa, genus level for extinct, although I caveat this with treating extinct species that can be more than a stub should have their own article. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:09, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree with the above. If a topic warrants its own article it is better for it to be a stub than a redirect, to encourage expansion. Very, very few people know how to turn a redirect into an actual article. See, for example Weaning, which was a redirect for three years. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 07:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I almost can't understand why there wouldn't be a page for each species? I'm personally behind a page for each subspecies as well, but I don't know how many would agree with me. As for extinct species, again there should be an article for each species, as extinct species are often very important in a full understanding of a genus and the relationships it has with others. The only time a redirect should be used is where there is only one species (extinct or extant) in a genus, thereby making the genus article unnecessary. Jack (talk) 15:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted that I'm only referring to mammals, other classes may agree on different criteria though it seems WP:BIRD uses these standards. Jack (talk) 15:59, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

There is no universal policy on this. It must be decided on a case by case basis according to WP:N. For some animals the most granular article will be at the genus level, for others the species level, and for others the subspecies level. Kaldari (talk) 16:09, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I've gone through practically every extant mammal article adding navigation templates and, save for some of the many rodent articles recently created by PolBot, they all have plenty of content for their own article. The only mammal articles that weren't species-specific were several Cetacean articles, which was disappointing because those combined articles were rather cumbersome and harder to filter out the individual species while reading. Also, I've noticed that within a year or so of creation, someone has come along and transformed the stub into a decent article and I doubt that would happen with the species combined into a genus article. WP is still a W.I.P. so it is natural to assume not every article is as of yet a quality article, but given time it will be. Subspecies articles should be a separate discussion. I have no opinion on extinct animals, however. I will alert WP:WHALE to provide input regarding this, too. --Tombstone (talk) 16:40, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to all for good discussion on this so far. Awaiting further developments. :-) -- Writtenonsand (talk) 01:55, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Individual subspecies pages are good if there is enough information particular to that subspecies (and would unduly swell the main article). Barbary lion and Asiatic lion are two that come to mind, Dingo and of course Dog are others (from Grey wolf). No doubt there are others. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

personally i think it should be case by case but if there's enough info on a species, go for it! there are, however, lots of reptile species that are poorly studied, tho, and so remain stubs for long stretches of time. i thought the same with many sciurids/murids, but i could be mistaken... again, maybe a clade by clade approach would work where there isn't already consensus. - Metanoid (talk, email) 03:07, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with UtherSRG and Casliber. I think that with the extinct mammals it woulde be better to follow WP:Dinosaurs, an article for each genus and only spinning of species if the page gets too long. While Smilodon is a popular preditor most of the extinct mammals are not well known to the public, and even the species of Smilodon are not well known. As they are now Smilodon gracilis is a two sentences stub which repletes what is already said in theSmilodon article. Smilodon populator while a larger article, again repeats a large amount and has no citations for the remaining material. Looking at the other Genera in the Machairodontinae, three of the nine genera do not have an article at all and of the other six Smilodon is by far the largest an the only one which has species articles. Machairodus has 19 species listed, none with articles, and the genus article itself is 4 sentences long. For the state of extinct mammals in general look at Brontotheriidae; the Nine! extinct families of Perissodactyls; Astrapotheria with nothing below Order with no articals. The vast majority of prehistoric mammals are not going to have enough information for an article for every species, there just isn't enough known from the fossils.--Kevmin (talk) 03:28, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The way I see it is mammals which have been identified as extinct through fossil study will have quite a lot of information because they are extinct and therefore will have been studied thoroughly to be identified as a species of a certain genus. Archaeologists do actually work and publish their findings: lots of peer reviewed research = good! While recently trying to find information on a few extinct species of titi I found lots of information from journals because a lot of work goes into classifying each species.

As for "not well known to the public", surely that's not a factor? I would believe 90%+ of Wikipedia is not well known to the public. Jack (talk) 10:55, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

A couple of points. I looked through the Titi sister genera articles. They show the trend the the more recent the extinction the more focus there is on the taxon. Also the more recent the description the more information there is to be found in the literature. many of the Fossil taxa were named in the 1800's and early 1900's and locating the actually description of the species (often based on a few fragmentary bones), can be extremely difficult. Also until the establishment of the ICZN the descriptions would be only one or two pages long. This means there is very little information known about many species described from the fossil record.

My point about being well know was to point out the difference between those Taxa which capture the general publics interest verse thous which do not. A great example is that of Mammuthus, a popular mammal for which there is enough ready info to create species pages. Compare that to the Order Condylarthra which only has articles for two of its six families.

Also remember that Archaeologists study humans and the rise of human culture. Paleontologists study all fossil life apart from humans. The fossil record for mammals dates back to the Mesozoic and so the material to work with is much less complete then that of modern mammals. --Kevmin (talk) 14:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the post by Kevmin (03:28, 5 April 2008 UTC), i.e.: the default level for extinct mammals and mammaliforms should be genus; we should drill down to the species level only for species where there is too much detail to fit in the genus article; other species should be covered in the genus article. Jack's proposal (10:55, 5 April 2008 UTC) is too much like counsel of perfection, as there will at any given time be many extinct species for which Wikipedia does not contain enough info to justify separate articles. The case for making genus the default level becomes even stronger as we go further back in time - few known Mesozoic mammal and mammailform genera consisst of more than one identified species; Repenomamus is the sole exception I can think of immediately, and the 2 recognised species are covered in the 1 genus article.

BTW Jack's comment "I would believe 90%+ of Wikipedia is not well known to the public" amused me. I would hope that 90%+ of Wikipedia is not known to me - where else could I look for info on the vast range of things I know nothing about? Philcha (talk) 14:01, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Oops yeah, I didn't really work out that the 10% that they would know equates to 230000+ articles!!! In all truth I would have no idea how much Joe Public knows. Maybe it's more like 0.1%? Jack (talk) 18:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad I posted about this -- I've seen a lot of good opinions.
The "species level for extant mammals, genus level for extinct ones" suggestion was sounding very good to me, but then I thought, "But on the other hand we have cases like Mammuthus, with nine species listed (eight with existing articles); possibility of more to be added (I think); and differences great enough to make lumping say, M. imperator, M. lamarmorae, and M. primigenius together in the same article seem an inappropriate choice.
Personally, I would really like a simple general rule for this issue. But I'm not sure that I could be satisfied with one. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 14:12, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

My guess, and it's just a guess, is that maybe that shouldn't be the basis for determining what has an article, but rather the amount of reliably sourced, verifiable information available on the subject. Basically, if a given species doesn't have enough such information specific to it for it to have a reasonably thorough separate article, then it doesn't get one. If it does have enough such information, it does. There will be problems in some cases, where for instance the degree of differentiation between a few different species is really minimal, but I think we should probably be guided more by the quality of the content of the articles we do create rather than the external factors. John Carter (talk) 14:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Thought I'd throw this out there: One unintended consequence of having an article for every species does leave the genus article rather bare and, in some cases, nothing more than a list of species articles. In those cases, the genus article in sometimes utterly pointless. --Tombstone (talk) 16:45, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

In a nutshell: Extant species: all should have articles. Extant genus: (with only one species) redirect, (with multiple species) own article, (with one extant species, multiple extinct species) own article. Extinct species: (with enough published research) own article, (older, less researched) multiple species in genus article. Extinct genus: own article. Subspecies (enough published research) own article, (less research) merge to species article.

Is this the consensus? Jack (talk) 17:52, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, any species or subspecies warrants its own article, as Aranae already stated. There is always information, even if it's only a type locality, a hypodigm and an original description (even if it's a not-quite-diagnostic 19th-century description). This information may not easily be found on the Internet, but I don't think that should be an important criterion. The solution to stubs is expanding them, not deleting them. Ucucha 18:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

"The solution to stubs is expanding them, not deleting them." - I'm not necessarily arguing with that, but in practice it does mean that stubs, even ultra-short ones, will frequently persist for years and sometimes permanently. If the consensus is that we don't have a problem with that, then I don't have a problem with that. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 21:28, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. There's nothing wrong with having a stub. When someone is able and ready to expand it it will get expanded. Until then it is there to offer the opportunity, and possibly provide a bit of information.Rlendog (talk) 06:22, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Mammals

i have nominated portal:mammals for FPOC. your comments are most welcome. Sushant gupta (talk) 11:19, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Panda redirect

thought i'd drop this here for the Project folks... currently, Panda redirects to Giant Panda. given that, while Giant Pandas are more popularly known, the Red Panda was the first of the two to be described by science, wouldn't Panda be more appropriate on its own as a disambig page? - Metanoid (talk, email) 06:55, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 07:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I read a Tetrapod Zoology blog on this a few days ago, but I still think panda should redirect to giant panda because I think the vast majority of users will be attempting to find giant panda if they search for panda. A panda (disambiguation) page is appropriate, but "panda" should go to "giant panda". I think common usage trumps etymological age. --Aranae (talk) 14:36, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Panda (disambiguation) has existed for a few years now and there is a hatnote at the top of Giant Panda as follows:

"Panda" and "Panda Bear" redirect here. For other uses, see Panda (disambiguation) and Panda Bear (disambiguation).

For the Red Panda, see Red Panda.

This seems to be already appropriately addressed. --Tombstone (talk) 14:50, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, that makes sense. I had been thinking that we often end up on a genus or family page when a common name is overwhelmingly used for a particular species (e.g. Gerbil) but since the pandas are apparently unrelated we don't need a real Panda page. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. - Metanoid (talk, email) 16:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Equus Taxonomy

Our taxonomic organization of Equus (horses) looks nothing like the organization in Mammal Species of the World 3. Compare:
http://www.bucknell.edu/msw3/browse.asp?id=14100003
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equidae#Classification

What a mess. Should we reorganize those articles based on MSW3 or leave them how they are? Kaldari (talk) 20:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

The two examples aren't equivalent. One gives living taxa in alphabetical order. The Wikipedia article includes extinct taxa, and groups taxa into infrageneric groups. The latter is more current in reducing the quagga to subspecific rank; however I have my doubts as to the use of Equus ferus. Lavateraguy (talk) 21:28, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I realize they aren't equivalent, but some sections don't seem to match up at all. For example the taxonomy of zebras and quagga are very different in the two lists. Right now our list has no reference at all, so it's impossible to tell if it's based on antiquated taxonomy or more up to date than MSW3 (as you state). Kaldari (talk) 22:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

The species Equus ferus is actually a valid name retained for the extinct ancestor of the domestic horse Equus calibus per the ICZN, see here--Kevmin (talk) 05:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

It's old. Please update it to MSW3. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:38, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

After looking further I've corrected the classification for subgenus Equus, Prz...'s Horse is a separate species, with a different chromosome count, and I'm pretty sure that Equus caballus has priority over Equus ferus.

Merging Equus asinus and Equus africanus into a single species doesn't seem unreasonable, but I'd expect that E. asinus has priority. I don't know where to check this out. I recall that E. quagga and E. burchellii were merged, and I seem to recall that E. quagga has priority.

There's related problems scattered through articles on Equus - for example there's a Wild Horse article which perhaps should be pared down to a disambiguation page, with its contents split between Feral Horse, Mustang, Brumby, Tarpan and Przewalski's Horse.

Breaking the redirection of Equus to Equidae would also be a good idea - there may be only one living genus, but there's plenty of fossil genera. The list of species and subspecies count be moved there at the same time.

The inconsistencies extend to List of placental mammals in Order Perissodactyla Lavateraguy (talk) 00:52, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

This link provided at the top of the discussion should answer at least some of your questions. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:12, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Various issues...

I'm looking through the list of missing mammal species. This space will be used as a scratch list for problems, and for us to discuss what to do.

1. Forest Tuco-tuco - MSW3 says Ctenomys sylvanus for the Argentine population. The taxonomy at Forest Tuco-tuco is Ctenomys frater, which is now listed in MSW3 as the Reddish Tuco-tuco (the Bolivian population).
2. Burchell's Zebra - dicussed above in the Equus issues.
3. Red-fronted Gazelle and Thomson's Gazelle need to be updated to be in genus Eudorcas.
4. Culpeo, Darwin's Fox and Pampas Fox need to be moved into genus Lycalopex.
5. Merriam's Pocket Gopher and Zonser's Pocket Gopher need to be moved to genus Cratogeomys.
6. Grant's Gazelle and Soemmerring's Gazelle need to be moved to genus Nanger.
7. Maxwell's Duiker and Blue Duiker need to be moved to genus Philantomba.
8. Thorold's deer should be moved over redirect White-lipped Deer, and moved into genus Przewalskium.
9. Barasingha, Eld's Deer, and Schomburgk's Deer need to be moved into genus Rucervus.
10. Philippine Spotted Deer should be moved over redirect Visayan Spotted Deer and into genus Rusa.
11. Sambar should become Sambar (disambiguation). Sambar Deer should become Sambar, and moved into genus Rusa.
12. Rüppell's Broad-nosed Bat should be moved into genus Scoteanax.
13. Western Broad-nosed Bat, Little Broad-nosed Bat, and Northern Broad-nosed Bat should be moved into genus Scotorepens
14. Humpback Dolphin should be moved to humback dolphin, and split into multiple articles for each species.

For now.... (items 1-4) - UtherSRG (talk) 09:56, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

And more... (items 5-14). I think I've caught everything from the Missing Species list that needs work. It looks like all of Artiodactyla (particularly Cervidae) needs to be checked against MSW3, but I'd say Caniformia, Chiroptera and Rodentia need some work, too. - UtherSRG (talk) 23:27, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

A note about the humpback dolphin taken from the WP:WHALE page: "Most species have their own article with the exception of Mesoplodont Whales - too little information known for separate articles - and Humpback Dolphins - the lack of consensus from the taxonomists makes difficult to know what species to choose. Better to do at the genus level to avoid making a judgement." --Tombstone (talk) 04:14, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

No judgement needed. Follow MSW3. (PS. check my recent contributions... some of your templates need to be changed now....) - UtherSRG (talk) 04:25, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, we should just follow MSW3 when possible, so that at least we have a consistent reference. Kaldari (talk) 18:36, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I've added a note about using MSW3 to the project page. Feel free to edit as necessary. Kaldari (talk) 19:21, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Me likee. n_n - UtherSRG (talk) 23:37, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Reference Desk question

Someone has asked here on the Science Desk what to call the young of the Red deer, "fawn" or "calf". I have pointed them to the talk page for the article, but I was hoping that someone here knew the answer and would reveal it at the link above. --Milkbreath (talk) 15:27, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposed breakup of Pocket pets work group

I propose that the Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals/Pocket pets work group be broken into two distinct groups, for rodents and lagomorphs. Would there be any opposition? John Carter (talk) 21:46, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good, though the rabbits may disapprove... :) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:57, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I have never understood the rationale for inclusion of articles into the pocket pets workgroup. Pocket pets are animals like hamsters, guinea pigs, sugar gliders, and hedgehogs, but there seems to be some thought that it is a taxonomic designation. Somehow capybaras, and extinct taxa such as Ailuravus macrurus have been categorized as pocket pets, something I truly cannot wrap my head around. I would be happy to see (and join) a Glires workgroup or mammal workgroups split by order. I'd also love to see some major work done on the real pocket pets (have you seen the state of gerbil or hamster?), by pocket pet enthusiasts such as those who worked on guinea pig. --Aranae (talk) 22:30, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

As someone involved in its creation, all I can say is that it got the necessary five supporters to be started at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals page, despite similar reservations being expressed there, and it did provide a bit more specificity than "Mammals", but it seems to be inactive, more or less, and it does seem to make more sense to split. Maybe, as an interim measure, I'll create two groups, one for lagomorphs and one for rodents. The pocket pets group might be able to be adjusted to being a general "mammals as pets" group or be deactivated later. Would that be acceptable? John Carter (talk) 22:43, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Kill the hamsters!!! Oh wait... ahem... yes, I believe we can call the project defunct, and reorganize for a better approach. - UtherSRG (talk) 23:39, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Evolution of mammals

Heads up and a shout out to all. Evolution of mammals is at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:12, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

What happened to IUCN status in tax-box?

Has someone changed something in the general taxo-box template? Unless my memory is fooling me (which is entirely possible), until recently the IUCN illustration with EX, EW, CR, EN, etc, automatically appeared under Conservation status in the taxo-box (as it still does in Jaguar), which was logical, considering that this is the authority used in the vast majority of species articles (indeed, many species articles were initially started by a bot based on species listed by IUCN). Now this standard has disappeared, see e.g. Tiger. Are we forced to add status system to all the relevant articles (many 1000s) to get it back? RN1970 (talk) 01:08, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and many of them already have it. The conversation here provides the rationale for this, but basically the fact is that all articles should have the status system anyway, and the change was made and agreed to as an incentive to do so. Otherwise, how does one know whether it's the IUCN or someone else assessing the status (as in Tasmanian Devil and Black-footed Ferret)? It also ensures the proper graphic (either including Conservation Dependent or not) for the IUCN codes. I've already fixed all the marsupial ones and it didn't take very long. Frickeg (talk) 01:26, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Coincidentally, I just undid your edit here, which presumably applies, as its status is based on Mammal Species of the World rather than IUCN. The problem is, however, that the link still leads to an article that essentially deals with IUCN status (e.g. if Endangered appears in the taxo-box, regardless of the source, its wiki-link still leads to Endangered species). RN1970 (talk) 01:33, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

That is a point, and perhaps it should be mentioned on the Endangered species page. Frickeg (talk) 01:35, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

You can find articles that need to be fixed in Category:Taxoboxes needing a status system parameter. It should be fairly trivial to pull the mammal articles out of that, e.g. using WP:CATSCAN. Hesperian 04:13, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Spiny rats need luv

This came to my attention over at WP:RM: We have a Palid Atlantic Tree Rat (Phyllomys lamarum) and a Pallid Atlantic Tree Rat (Echimys lamarum). The two articles appear to be the result of a synonym issue and some bad spelling, but a quick look around seems to indicate that there's some taxonomic shuffling in those genera. Could someone with a more expertise than I (i.e., any expertise at all) take a look at these? Both articles are bare stubs, so the main issue at the moment is sorting out the taxonomy. Mangoe (talk) 15:43, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

The correct spelling in English is, of course, "Pallid", but Phyllomys is definitely the correct genus. I merged the two articles. Ucucha 16:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Coydog could use a look

Coydog could use a look.
(1) Stub.
(2) Has no cites.
(3) Makes the assertion that "A coydog is the hybrid offspring of a male coyote (Canis latrans) and a female dog (Canis lupus familiaris). Together they are genetically capable of producing fertile young. The dogote, a similar hybrid, is the result of breeding a male domestic dog with a female coyote. Where the cross-breeding of animals is concerned, the father's species gives the first part of the offspring's name." -- Is this okay or not?
-- Writtenonsand (talk) 18:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)