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Welcome to Requests for Comment. This space is for any conversations that might require the opinions of the community to decide policy or the application of policy. Start a new conversation. For general conversation, see Wikispecies:Village Pump.

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Archive

Atinga Genus

Should Atinga be created as a page? WoRMS states the genus as having no valid species, IRMNG says something different, what do i do? (i have the page majority finished already) Remis4000 (talk) 08:42, 14 November 2025 (UTC)reply

You could create the page using the {{Disputed}} tag and add a note explaining the differences between WORMS and IRMNG. Andyboorman (talk) 10:16, 14 November 2025 (UTC)reply
@Andyboorman @Remis4000 IRMNG's records for Atinga's species are likely outdated; they were created using WoRMS as a basis back in 2013. In any case, IMO it is better to use the actual scientific literature as sources rather than databases. Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:20, 26 November 2025 (UTC)reply
Some databases are as definitive and even more reliable (mostly) compared to scientific literature, for example IPNI for plants. Andyboorman (talk) 21:30, 26 November 2025 (UTC)reply
In this case, the scientific literature was also ambigious, so I went to databases to find a precedent that was agreed upon, but couldn't find one. Remis4000 (talk) 11:31, 27 November 2025 (UTC)reply
Typical disputed taxon. Rare, but not unusual and WS can not take sides when the name of a taxon is disputed. Andyboorman (talk) 11:45, 27 November 2025 (UTC)reply
@Andyboorman @Remis4000: According to {{Leis, 2006}} (page 83) Atinga Le Danois 1954 is a synonym of Chilomycterus (or rather specifically, "Atlantic Chilomycterus"), giving the following reasoning:
"The species upon which Atinga Le Danois (1954, ref. 6451) is based is unclear. The type species, D. atringa Linnaeus (1758, ref. 2787), is not identifiable (see above under C. reticulatus). It is clear that Le Danoisʼ (1954, ref. 6451; 1959, ref. 12003; 1962, 21440) concept of atinga included a species of the “Atlantic Chilomycterus” group, although which species is unclear as her illustrations of Atinga atinga atinga in the 1954 paper are of C. antillarum (identified as male) and C. spinosus mauretanicus (identified as female). In view of this confusion about the identity of the type species, use of Atinga Le Danois (1954: ref. 6451) is not recommended. It has been little used since its description."
Looking at databases other than IRMNG and WoRMS, Atinga is treated as a synonym of Chilomycterus on ITIS since 2017 [1], and in Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes (you will have to search for Atinga to see for yourself), and in Fishbase all Atinga species are now placed in Chilomycterus or Cyclichthys.
So the way I see it, this isn't actually "disputed" at all: Atinga is a synonym of Chilomycterus, IRMNG is just lagging behind (its current focus is on generic names and not species anyway) and WoRMS is clearly in error not synonymizing Atinga under Chilomycterus even though Atinga's type species is now a synonym!!! I actually have permissions to fix IRMNG's record myself, meanwhile you or someone else will need to email the WoRMS contributors to get their error fixed. Monster Iestyn (talk) 15:58, 27 November 2025 (UTC)reply
Actually, there is a possible catch, Leis, 2006 also says that "Atlantic Chilomycterus" could use the name Lyosphaera Evermann and Kendall (1898), but they recommend against the latter's use until a cladistic analysis of the species group has been undertaken. I haven't checked yet if such an analysis has been undertaken since this paper. Monster Iestyn (talk) 16:04, 27 November 2025 (UTC)reply
Thanks @Monster Iestyn for making the required IRMNG change. Actually (second guessing from the audit trail there) it looks like that record was originally created in IRMNG as a synonym, then later "auto adjusted" to be an accepted name per the WoRMS record which was erroneous, now it is correct again... these things happen! In any case, I would normally take the Eschmeyer/Cat. of Fishes record as representing/capturing the best available "current expert opinion" (unless one can spot a clear error there of course), and if a database does not conform, normally it will be for latency reasons as stated above. WoRMS is, of course, pretty good in its stated area of operation, but the odd error can always be spotted and as needed, referred to the admins for passing on to a relevant editor for action.
In this case the relevant entry in Eschmeyer (my "bible" for extant fish taxa) reads:

Atinga Le Danois [Y.] 1954:2356 [Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de l'Académie des Sciences v. 238 (no. 24); ref. 6451] Fem. Diodon atringa Linnaeus 1758. Type by monotypy; one species but four subspecies; type is the nominate subspecies. Le Danois apparently misspelled Linnaeus' species as atinga. See also Leis & Bauchot 1984:85 [ref. 12539]. Also Appendix A in Eschmeyer 1990 [ref. 20647]. •In the synonymy of a temporary category "Atlantic Chilomycterus" -- (Leis 2006:82-83 [ref. 28932]). Current status: Synonym of Chilomycterus Brisout de Barneville 1846. Diodontidae.

@Remis4000 per the above information in Eschmeyer, I would recommend either deleting the discrete WikiSpecies page for Atinga as not needed (do we create new pages for synonyms?) or alternatively turn it into a redirect. As stated above, the IRMNG pages for its previously assigned species are not maintained (since 2013) and not a reliable source in this instance (the history is explained above...). Regards Tony Tony 1212 (talk) 18:04, 27 November 2025 (UTC)reply

Poll about fossil, extinct, and extant taxa in taxon lists

Please note the poll at the Village Pump, to standardize the listing of fossil, recently extinct and extant taxa. You can read more and vote at: Wikispecies:Village Pump#"Paleospecies". Kind regards, Thiotrix (talk) 11:30, 30 November 2025 (UTC)reply

Poll closed on January 3, 2026. --Thiotrix (talk) 10:14, 4 January 2026 (UTC)reply

Categories on Redirects

As this is the issue in an Edit War here, what are peoples views on categories on redirects? Lavalizard101 (talk) 18:58, 19 December 2025 (UTC)reply

Categories on redirects are fine IMO. Taxa by author categories for instance are useful when you want to find out which taxon names and how many were named by a particular taxon author, even if the names aren't currently valid (which are currently usually treated as redirects on Wikispecies, though I have seen Village Pump discussions before suggesting they be treated as pages themselves). In some cases most of a taxon author's list of taxon names are currently synonyms (maybe all of them in some extreme cases?), so to get rid of all categories on redirects may inadvertantly clear out an author's taxa by author category entirely. Monster Iestyn (talk) 20:14, 19 December 2025 (UTC)reply
Did "Pierre Edmond Boissier" create the name (or equally the combination) which now is a redirect. I think the answer is yes? Therefore, even if the wikispecies entry for that is now simply a redirect, it's still ascribable to them [as a category] for names created by them surely? Sjl197 (talk) 20:41, 19 December 2025 (UTC)reply
Yeah, thats what me and Kevmin were saying but AbeCK is saying otherwise, btw I didn't realise but AbeCK had already opened up a discussion about this at VP: Village Pump#Redirect management. Lavalizard101 (talk) 21:11, 19 December 2025 (UTC)reply
Categories on Redirects are absolutely necessary: taxa by author of synonyms, obsolete taxa and others, are very useful and organizers. Why this discussion again?--Hector Bottai (talk) 21:50, 15 January 2026 (UTC)reply
This issue is resolved and categories can be added to redirect pages at the editors discretion. See Pump. Andyboorman (talk) 09:23, 16 January 2026 (UTC)reply

speedy deleting to make redirects

See discussion Wikispecies:Administrators' noticeboard#A Speedy Delete, a discussion is ongoing regaridng deleting articles just to recreate them as redirects. Lavalizard101 (talk) 19:00, 19 December 2025 (UTC)reply

Proposal to allow global sysops on this project

So, given because of Special:Contributions/HiroAkikun and User_talk:SHB2000#Abuse_filter_setup?, I would like to propose allowing global sysops on this project. Generally, they can quickly deal with clear cases of blatant vandalism and spam (such as blocking vandals/LTAs/spammers and deleting pages under speedy deletion) and non-controversial maintenance, but otherwise they will not have control over content or the community, nor will they handle controversial matters.

Wikispecies:Administrators can be eventually updated to include what global sysops can and cannot do. As such, I believe they should be permitted to act only in urgent situations when no local administrators are active.

Thanks. Codename Noreste (talk) 22:22, 9 January 2026 (UTC)reply

I don't object, but I don't see how Special:Contributions/HiroAkikun is particularly extraordinary: he was blocked by me within two hours. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:44, 10 January 2026 (UTC)reply
No objection. Any help is welcome, although I don't see a severe lack of reactivity from administrators, some of these global sysops might possess potentially useful technical skills. Christian Ferrer (talk) 08:15, 10 January 2026 (UTC)reply
No objections at all. Andyboorman (talk) 09:16, 10 January 2026 (UTC)reply
I don't disagree with allowing global sysops. I just don't understand how allowing global sysops have anything to do with block promote functionality in edit filters. OhanaUnitedTalk page 01:36, 15 January 2026 (UTC)reply
No objections here. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 07:17, 15 January 2026 (UTC)reply
 Changes requested to the stewards. As I am not a regular user here, someone else should feel free to update Wikispecies:Administrators regarding the expectations of global sysops, accordingly. Codename Noreste (talk) 15:46, 16 January 2026 (UTC)reply

Enable the abuse filter block action?

Given because of the everyday vandalism by the Notepad vandal, I would like to propose enabling the abuse filter block action in this project. In general, we should only use it on local filters which have virtually no false positives, and only in clear cases of LTA abuse. Thoughts? Codename Noreste (talk) 18:29, 20 January 2026 (UTC)reply

  • Strong support from me. I myself ask for it since a few time. This is clearly needed for the case like the vandal we have since now a quite ling time, e.g. [2]. I guess that this vandal seems so motivated that he might still manage to do these things despite a filter block action, however this would give us an additional chance to complicate his task. Christian Ferrer (talk) 22:04, 20 January 2026 (UTC)reply
  • I also agree in particular with the case mentioned who has been a problem. I have also thought the filters could be set to deal with cases like this. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 02:12, 21 January 2026 (UTC)reply
Also seems a good idea to me. Andyboorman (talk) 09:07, 21 January 2026 (UTC)reply
I concur that it seems a good idea, but should be used with care. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:00, 23 January 2026 (UTC)reply
That’s the whole point of my proposal – it should be used on filters that handle clear cases of LTA abuse. Codename Noreste (talk) 17:03, 23 January 2026 (UTC)reply
I went ahead and filed phab:T415802, since there is consensus in favor of enabling the AbuseFilter block action. Codename Noreste (talk) 17:03, 28 January 2026 (UTC)reply

Treatment of non-protonym/homotypic synonym pages on WS

I have seen several different ways that Non-protonym/homotypic synonyms of valid species are treated here on WS, and (contrary to statements that have been made) there is no documentation on a preferred method of handling them.

Method 1 is to simply create a categorized redirect to the current valid name, as seen with Aaronsohnia -> Otoglyphis. Quite frequently this method ignores the typification information as seen at Acer trilobum (Moench) wich is redirected to Acer monspessulanum subsp. monspessulanum

Method 2 is to created a stand alone article which employs one of the relevant page flag templates and a note in the body indicating that John Author in YEAR deemed the taxon a junior synonym/heterotypic synonym of Other taxon, As seen with Penthetria avunculus and Plecia curtula, where the protonym Penthetria curtula is a redirect, but P. avunculus is a stand alone page.

What do the larger editing community members think.--Kevmin (talk) 18:49, 4 March 2026 (UTC)reply

See Wikispecies:Village_Pump/Archive_66#What_is_our_place_in_International_Species_Lists, for an initial discussion on this subject, took place in 2023, but without practical effect since then. Burmeister (talk) 19:10, 4 March 2026 (UTC)reply
Method 1 perhaps with the typification of the synonyms, if appropriate and available. Method 2 is too impractical at the moment given the number of unfilled and incomplete pages for extant taxa. In addition, there are also complex synonymies, for example Silene (Caryophyllaceae) is comparatively simple, but with many red links. Please remember there are far fewer paleotaxa described and typified compared to extant taxa. Andyboorman (talk) 20:55, 4 March 2026 (UTC)reply
I think acceptance of a taxon is a workable criterion for an article. Unaccepted taxa should essentially have a redirect to the article with the accepted name, with categories, and maybe an author citation or other short notes. Taxonavigation, typification, synonymy, distribution and vernacular names should only be treated in the article with the accepted name, not in two or more, simply for economic reasons. -RLJ (talk) 09:36, 5 March 2026 (UTC)reply
  • Yes the concept was an idea I floated some time back. I have been slowly trying to develop it further and have for example within the Genus Chelodina done some of what would be method 2. I would prefer to continue this but I never mandated it. Its something that is going to have to develop over time. For example within names only for Zoology there are some 4.5 million names that can be linked to articles circumscribing them, of this only about 1 million or so represent species. Its a huge ask of people. Personally I prefer method 2 because it puts us on a path to presenting something unique, a list of available names basically. With all the appropriate metadata for each on. This is far beyond what Catalogue of Life presents. At present we have about 1 million taxa, whereas CoL has about 2 million, so they are ahead of us. But there is no single global list of names. Many of our species pages do not list all the available names for a given taxon. Meanwhile I think on this issue people should do what they are comfortable with. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 09:43, 5 March 2026 (UTC)reply
  • At the begining I was only creating redirects but since some times I listened Faendalimas' argumens and now, for synonyms, I aslo create pages with infos, e.g. Diadema globulosum. The only question I have about this method is, in case of mutilple combinations for a synonym, what combination to use for the page containing the content, e.g. I created a page for Echinocidaris incisa, but before to have been synonymised this specific name have been used within another combination: Arbacia incisa, I hesitated between those both combinations for the page name and I arbitrarily chose to display the content on a page named as the original combination (the recombination being now a redirect to the original name). Christian Ferrer (talk) 13:17, 5 March 2026 (UTC)reply

Reference name structure change needed.

Currently the written policy for naming reference templates is Please only use the author's surname when naming the reference template (no given names or initials), and always use comma and a space before the year of publication: not semicolon, space/comma without the other, or something like that. If a particular combination is already in use by an existing author template, say {{Smith, 2015}}, then simply add a trailing serial number in the form of a single lowercase letter.....No other variations are allowed.

This is problematic and a general miyasma and will only continue to grow more and more so as additional new authors are added to the project in coming years and older liturature is converted to templating. Looking though the Reference page history, Samuele2002 first added a section of template name formatting 4 November 2017, but did not give any links to a project discussion on the topic. The section was expanded by Tommy Kronkvist on 2 January 2018 where to edict to ONLY use a last name for the template was introduced, again no indication that a community decision was given. I have asked Thiotrix for links to any community polls on the template naming convention.

However, I feel that we should be more proactive about disambiguation of template authorities, and we should not be defaulting to "Smith, 2000ab", when A.B.Smith, 2000 defines the smith as a specific one and provides a much simpler way to determine if a letter operator is even needed.

As a preemptive note, please do not fall back on the argument of "but there would be so much work to fix this!" We are already looking at 20 years of different page formats, reference structures and other things that the community has deemed not good practice. There will always be more work then hands, and changes will always happen here on an "as pages get touched" basis".--Kevmin § 15:12, 16 March 2026 (UTC)reply

If it helps, I've been searching Village Pump's archives just now and found some discussions on this issue from February 2015:
The Reference Format poll discussion from December 2015 mentions an agreement on the reference template name format in January (this might have been mixed up with the February discussions I think).
Apart from those, there was also this discussion from 2020:
As far as I can tell there has never been an explicit poll on the template names themselves, only that we have generally accepted the template name format all this time? I could be wrong though. Monster Iestyn (talk) 22:43, 16 March 2026 (UTC)reply

Opinions on allowing for better reference template disambiguation

  • Allow for initials to disambiguate template names (H.V.Smith, 1938) [only Helen Vandervoot Smith article of 1938] (Smith H.V., 1938) [only Helen Vandervoot Smith article of 1938] Updated
  • --Kevmin § 15:12, 16 March 2026 (UTC)reply
  • continue current practice of all Smiths in one template name adding alphabetic tagging after year (Smith, 1938c) [Third 1938 paper by any Smith in any discipline or topic]

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