Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (fauna)/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Previous discussion of these issues may be found at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (flora and fauna) and Talk:Spinifex Hopping Mouse.

What a perfectly ridiculous page of useless arguments. Everyone arguing about naming conventions. How like a bunch of academics with nothing better to do. In the meantime, despite all the endless arguments - many of you clearly failed to check your spelling, grammar and punctuation. Proof-read, darlings... before you go on endlessly about whether or not to use upper or lower case. The simple truth is, no matter HOW you treat the first letter of a common or proper name (English rules say Upper Case) - WE ALL GET IT, ANYWAY. [note all upper-case!] It's what you say that matters, not who is using the proper naming conventions. 24.119.88.214 21:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)Spencer III or iii

Well both matter: content and form. I'd agree that content is more important. But is this page a waste of time? If all of these guidelines were written for the production of just a few pages of text, yes, this would be silly. But English Wikipedia is millions of pages, and growing, and given that, devoting this amount of attention to naming conventions seems appropriate to me. No coercion has been involved in the production of these guidelines! Nor any violence. It's the product of volunteers who've been trying hard to be clear and careful. And in the interests of full disclosure, I've been involved in the production of nothing on this page, so I'm a disinterested party.

Is it long and dry? Yes, but I'm not sure what other intelligent alternative there is when tens of thousands of active editors, and hundreds of thousands of more casual editors (almost all strangers, mind you), from dozens of countries and languages try to produce hundreds of millions of words that can be understood by anyone who stumbles upon an article.

I understand your prickliness about people who argue over rules and then fail to catch every single error. I, of course, do this all the time. As, I might point out, have you. You write "HOW you treat the first letter of a common or proper name (English rules say Upper Case)", but this describes naming conventions in German, in which both common and proper nouns are capitalized, but not in English. Nonetheless, despite this slip in sentence structure, a case in which an error in form also means an error in content, I appreciate the time you took to make your comments. It wasn't a waste of time. Interlingua 15:50, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this page is ridiculous as I have to edit a Wildlife Trust Wales magazine, my local WT e-newsletter and the paper newsletter, I would like to be able to get the naming conventions right (you would not believe the letters of complaint I get if I don't!) However I am left bemused and confused, what I can understand (for the English vers. of a name) if it's a proper noun then yes sensibly capitalise it (Cetti's warbler), if it's not then leave it at lower case, but why would you capitalise sparrow? It makes sense an otter is ridiculous as an Otter...but I am still left puzzling as my colleagues send me articles with dormouse and Dormouse, Wood Mouse and wood mouse, Toad(!) and toad... My temptation is to correct them all and tell them to provide me with the Latin as well so that we at least get that element correct .. eg toad (Bufo bufo), but then I am not a scientist I am merely a communications officer who wants to have some consistency in her life!

(First post! :-) ). I think fish should never be capitalized. FishBase has nearly 200,000 common names, more than any source, and the only capitalizations I see are the German vernacular names, and the odd UK vernacular (which may just be database errors - hard to imagine how Apache trout, an endangered species found only in Arizona, would come to have a UK vernacular name of "Apache Trout" while UKers say "brook trout" like everybody else). Oh, and thanks for creating this page! Stan 06:09 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Stan, I'm in favour of capitalising fish:

• (a) becase it is the only way to resolve the ambiguity problem
• (b) because that's what all my fish field guides and references do, and
• (c) for the sake of consistency with other fauna articles

However, I'm not wedded to that as an article of faith. You seem to be the main man doing the hard yards on fish, and because of that I think your view should carry more weight than mine does. You'll notice that in my recent Short-finned eel article, I gritted my teeth and used lower case. I'll be doing more fish entries from time to time, and I can live with that if need be.

Yes, I would certainly prefer that we specify upper case across the board, and there is a great deal of rational support for that view, but in the end, I just want to get on with writing articles.

There is no way known that I'll put up with having the bird and mammal articles buggerised about the way they were recently. However, if it means a speedy and peaceful resolution, I'm prepared to sacrifice some technical accuracy in the fish entries to the cause of peace and quiet so we can all get on with what we do best - i.e., writing great content. Tannin 07:21 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Tannin, that there should not be different conventions for different animal classes. If we capitalise birds, it would be too confusing to set up another naming convention for fish. -- Cordyph 14:23 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

To quote from the

7.104 Common names of plants and animals are capitalized in a bewildering variety of ways, even in lists and catalogs having professional status. It is often appropriate to follow the style of an 'official' list, and authors doing so should let their editors know what list they are following.

7.105 In the absence of such a list the University of Chicago Press prefers a down [sic] style for names of wild plants and animals, capitalizing only proper nouns and adjectives used with their original reference [list of examples follows]

So it's clearly wrong to assert that capitalization is a matter of "technical accuracy"; our chief style authority has no doubt been scarred in fighting with rabid cappers and downers :-), and has left it up completely up to authors and editors.

BTW, I don't like the idea that just because I've done more fish articles, that my view should somehow carry more weight. We should be trying to sniff out standard practices, irrespective of who does the typing. If someone can convince me there is an authoritative assertion that common names of fish, or of all fauna, must be capitalized (perhaps FishBase lowercases because of a database bug!), then I will go through all the fish articles and change them, no problem. But so far, outside of birds, the authorities I've seen quoted seem more interested in avoiding the issue. :-) Stan 16:15 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I realized I didn't answer Tannin's points directly.

• Distinguishing names by capitalization alone is not that great of a solution to ambiguity - it depends on Wikipedia only doing a certain kind of canonicalization, and even now breaks down in the case of one-word names, Hagfish for example, which is both a class and a species (try to top that! :-) ).

• Field guides are not usually authorities, they're simplified works intended for consumption by the general public. Capitalization there is undoubtedly a house rule, perhaps thought to make it more readable, perhaps as a sort of
  CamelCase
  to identify cross-references, or maybe just one or two eccentrics in influential positions at the publisher. Field guides are widespread, and are familiar to the Wikipedia audience, which is a point in their favor, but their style is not universally accepted, or we wouldn't be having a disagreement.

• Consistency is always a strong argument. But is it more important to be consistent internally, or externally? In the case of icthyologists, would they sneer at Wikipedia for using uppercase fish names? (Ironically,
  American Eel
  therein.)

This is not a final opinion, I'm just weighing the options. Stan 16:42 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Just one more thought that I didn't see mentioned above; a Commonwealth vs American usage? Or a recent developing trend among zoologists in general? Can anybody track down an article or passage, perhaps under

When you get to trees, the whole common name system breaks down. There are heaps of species that share the same common name, and regional variations just add spice to the mix. Indeed, I think that for flora, we should give serious consideraton to throwing the common names out the window and using the botanical names as the article titles - what are we to do with Mountain ash, for example? It is interesting to note that (at least among the people I know here in Oz) hardly anyone knows the binomial names of birds or mammals, and yet keen gardeners tend to be pretty full-bottle on their botanical names. Same with the field naturalists society I belong to - if you point and say "what's that?", most times someone will answer "Black Wallaby" if it's got blood, but Eucalyptus maculata if it's got sap. (Well, in reality, they'd say "another bloody maculata" because they are a NSW species that's been planted all over the place and is threatening to take over - but you know what I mean.)

And then we get down to the microscopic things, which usually don't have common names at all.

Changing tack to the ambiguity problem now, I don't think it's too much of an issue when it comes to article titles. It's much more prone to popping up in the middle of a slab of text, where the species name and the modifiers in the sentence cause ambiguities. And here, canonisation doesn't apply. "There is a large, black rat" and "there is a large Black Rat" mean two quite different things. This is where capitalisation, aside from making things easier to read more generally, makes a real difference to the sense of a sentence.

Commonwealth vs American? Well, some contributors are dismissing that as utter nonsense, and others are proclaiming it as Holy Writ. (Or is that supposed to be "holy writ"?) I take a middle view: yes, I think that down style is substantially more practiced in the States, and I only have to read the comments of US contributors and then glance at my own bookshelf to see strong evidence of that. Of all my fauna and flora books, I have (I think) just one that does not capitalise. (Oddly enough, it's English, and from OUP, what's more, and all my other Oxford fauna books capitalise species - work that puzzle out if you can - maybe they printed it with an eye to the US market or something.) But although it is clearly US publications that are least likely to capitalise, and International English publications that are most likely to, it's equally clearly not a 100% black and white thing.

Time I went to bed. Hoolie Doolie! I just looked at the clock for the fist time since about 10PM and it's a quarter to 4! Well and truly time! Tannin 17:46 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

PS: class and species - that's neat!

My cynical explanation is that people, especially birdwatchers, revere Birds, and fish, well, their main purpose is to be eaten. :-) As a sniff test, try capitalizing in sheep and goat; it would look a little eccentric, eh? The remark in Chicago about religious capitalization is what got me thinking about that.

FishBase's accumulated data is especially comical for common names like

Yup, capitalising "sheep" and "goat" would look eccentric - for the very good reason that it would be wrong! There are five different species called "sheep", and three different ones called "goat", and about 20 others that belong in the "generalised sheep and goats" category which, now that I look it up, seems to be called

goat antelopes. And, seeing as I've looked it up, I might as well write it up .... :) Tannin

And here I thought Wikipedia was correct when it said that all sheep were Ovis aries - wotta pack of lies, I'll never believe Wikipedia again! Stan 03:29 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

All Domestic Sheep are. (That's what I love about Wikipedia - this time yesterday I didn't know that.) Assuming someone else doesn't get there first, I'll attend to that a little later on - no, I don't plan to make sheep an all-species-of-sheep page: when 99% of Western people think of a sheep they think of the thing you make woolly jumpers out of and roast with potatos and mint sauce, but an extra para mentioning the other sorts of sheep and linking to them is appropriate. Tannin

Some ambiguous thoughts:

• When I read
  Goat antelope
  , the capitalised species names immediately struck me as off.
• OTOH, remembering earlier discussions, this told me the useful info that we were now discussing individual species.
• OTOH, most readers won't have the benefit of having gone through those discussions.

-- Toby Bartels 11:08 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Having cranked up this debate when I made a few corrections, and having read through the matter, first in the mailing list then here, I still remain unconvinced about capitalizing the English species name.

1. I very much believe that the only official name for a species is the Latin binomial. I was on the losing side of that argument a little while ago when English vs. Latin name titles was up for argument, and if the matter ever came up again I would continue to support Latin names... but I don't seek to re-open that debate. That being said, I think that I can safely say that there is no such thing as an "official" English name for any species. The strongest case for such a list is from the ornithologists, where various ornithological unions have adopted what they call "official" lists complete with capitalization. From what I can determine, no other faunal interest group has adopted an official list, and some seem to carefully avoid the issue entirely. Thus, the only faunal group where the capitalizers are helped by an official list is the Aves.
2. The statement on the meta page that the lower case name should re-direct to the "correct" upper case name is an elegant piece of logical fallacy. It assumes that the subject of the entire argument has already been decided. "Correct" in that context is not "NPOV"
3. Putting the arguments in terms of American vs. British or Australian English usage only muddies the waters. It seems to me that the present argument cuts across both sides of that divide, and we should not be using such a distinction to support either side.
4. The argument to resolve ambiguity is not as strong as its proponents would maintain. It makes sense to have the distinction in certain sentences (such as this one) where the very distinction itself between a black rat and a Black Rat is at stake. In most instances the context will resolve the ambiguity. The Latin name is always available to be added parenthetically if necessary to clarify intentions. In article titles an article about the general concept of a black rat seems very unlikely.
5. Field guides and the general usage followed by certain individual works, authors and publishers are not definitive. If you have a subset of objects that all have a given characteristic, it is a logical fallacy to say that all such objects outside of that subset will have that characteristic.
6. I have noted three important comprehensive sources that use lower case, even for birds
   • Species 2000 http://www.usa.sp2000.org/AnnualChecklist.html
   • The NCBI taxonomy page http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi
   • The ITIS page http://www.itis.usda.gov/index.html
7. The fact that one contributor or a small group of contributors has made all or almost all of the recent contributions in a subject area has very little weight in the issue. We certainly thank them and appreciate their efforts, but that does not give them a monopoly of correctness.

☮ Eclecticology 18:56 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Tannin, Since June 18 I've left notes on your chat page asking for justification for similar changes you made on another page. Note that the capitalization wording here has remained mostly unchanged since 12 June, 2003. Mackerm 18:34, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I find the habit of capitalizing animal names very strange. Why should animals be different from any other article? --[[User:Eequor|ᓛᖁᑐ]] 00:55, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I completely agree with ???; it strikes me as a very odd practice. When I encountered the capitalizations in

Bottlenose Dolphin, I almost changed them instantly to lower case, just as I would correct any error. I happened to be visiting the Tree of Life project, and discovered this "controversy"—I also left comments there. I have read a large amount of scientific literature, although no works specifically dealing with ornithology, and I find no usage of capital letters for vernacular names. It would be helpful, for instance, if someone could point to a scientific journal that wrote "...the Bottlenose Dolphin is known to..." instead of "...the bottlenose dolphin is known to..." I can't imagine anyone writing something like "They had three Horses, although the white Horse was Mike's favorite."—it's not a proper noun, nor a scientific term. I know the Chicago Manual of Style (admittedly, American English) was quoted above, but I'd like to requote it, from a newer (15th) edition (it would appear that in the interim, lowercasing has become more widely accepted?): "8.136 Common names. For the correct capitalization of common names of plants and animals, consult a dictionary or the authoritative guides to nomenclature, the ICBN and the ICZN, mentioned in 8.127. In any one work, a single source should be followed. In general, Chicago recommends capitalizing only proper nouns and adjectives, as in the following examples, which conform to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary" (the examples given are Dutchman's-breeches, mayapple, jack-in-the-pulpit, rhesus monkey, Rocky Mountain sheep, and Cooper's hawk). Unless the name contains proper nouns or adjectives, I don't believe capitazliation is warranted. Formal scientific names, like Mammalia should be capitalized of course, but capitalizing vernacular names is completely unneccessary, in my opinion. Furthermore, I think that it makes articles look unprofessional. What do others think? — [[User:Knowledge Seeker|Knowledge Seeker দ (talk

)]] 07:15, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The problem is there is a difference between, for instance, a European Badger (Meles meles) and the other European badgers. Many animals named with a color have relatives that can bedescribed with their name. The

Golden Lion Tamarin but two could be called gold lion tamarins. Capitalizing the common name of the species - at least in the context of talking about a species and not in any other context - gives the reader the easy distinction between a general category (European badgers) versus a species (European Badger). Many diffrent kinds of literature use different kind of naming conventions, including all caps or mixed large and small all caps, or no caps at all, etc. I believe that the ornithologists got it right. Their solution makes it easiest on the reader to understand what is being discussed. It's ok that there is disagreement among and within the various other zoological fields as to how to do naming. We can pick the one the ornithologists use and not feel constrained by the disagreement in the rest of the zoological world. - UtherSRG

15:47, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

1. In Britain, the only English-speaking part of Europe, there is only one native species of badger. It is called the badger. That is its name. No-one would ever write "I was walking through the woods late at night and I saw a Badger", even though they are talking about a single well-defined species. Instead, they would write "I saw a badger". "European Badger", no matter how often it is printed in field guides and other works, is still a description, rather than a formal taxon name, and as such should not be capitalised (the word "European", of course, should be, but for different reasons). "Badger" is not a proper noun. The only reason they appear in Wikipedia as European badger and American badger is to distinguish them for a global audience. In either continent, the single word "badger" is sufficient.

2. Any problems of ambiguity are the result of sloppy writing; there is a big difference between "a golden lion tamarin" (a general description) and "the golden lion tamarin" (also a description, but one describing a single species). The best method is probably to write something like "The golden lion tamarin has a long tail" when you want to be specific and "All the golden lion tamarins have long tails" or "Both species of golden lion tamarin have long tails" when being general.

3. I would also warn against the trend towards inventing "vernacular" names for taxa. Where no name exists in a language, the scientific (binomial) name should be used instead, rather than trying to translate it into English (or any other language). I wonder why we have a name "golden lion tamarin" at all; it does not live in an English-speaking area, so why should it have an English name? Various Brazilian languages may have words for Leontopithecus rosalia, but why should English? I'm not suggesting we try to get rid of it now we've got it, but there's no point in making new "vernacular" names up. With birds and mammals, it's a bit different, but with all other groups, you quickly find many species have no vernacular names and you have to use the scientific names instead. This is to be expected, and not fought. Stemonitis 08:31, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"English" vernacular names for tropical species typically derive either from English-speaking explorers, particular during the pre-Linnean era, or from English writers translating material from naturalists in other languages.

OED is both useful and interesting in this connection. Also not unknown for scientists to invent vernacular names themselves - some of the family names in American Beetles strike me as being of recent invention by coleopterists. Perhaps not surprising, given that English is spreading into far corners of the world, while Latin is getting deader than ever. Stan

13:40, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it would be pretty odd to have to refer to panda as Ailuropoda all the time. And English speakers do go to these areas. in many cases they have adopted the local names (ie

mole rat), should also see scientific names used. I wouldn't object to using scientific names for all articles with redirects from the common name, but the system in place seems to work and is probable less intimidating for those with only a passing interest. --Aranae

15:16, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

Stemonitis 09:23, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Who is Oldroyd? I'm not into entomological literature, but I guess he's some authoritative scholar? --Menchi 09:49, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A quick web search reveals: Harold Oldroyd, born approx. 1914, an entomologist at the British Museum (i.e NHM), author of

• The Natural History of Flies.
• Collecting, preserving and studying insects.
• Elements of entomology; an introduction to the study of insects.
• The Ecology of Flies.
• Insects and their world.

and co-author of

• "Insects" by Chinery, Michael, and Oldroyd, Harold, and Whalley, Paul
• "The historical development of diptera" by Rohdendorf, B. B., and Hocking, Brian, and Oldroyd, Harold, and Ball, George E.
• "The insects in your garden : how to find out about them and start an insect zoo" by Oldroyd, Harold, and Halliwell, David
• "British Blood-Sucking Flies" by Edwards, FW, Oldroyd, H. and Smart, J.

I don't know how he is perceived in his field (or even if he's still alive), but he must have been a professional and capable entomologist.

Stemonitis 10:10, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Cool, enough material to start on Harold Oldroyd. :-) The convention of using a hyphen for semantic content is interesting (and worth mentioning at fly), but it's edging a little outside of our charter, which is to document things as they are, rather than as we might like them to be. It's an unfortunate consequence of the common name rule that sometimes they're not very logical, but then that's something to explain in the article. Sometimes, as in sardine, one has to throw up one's hands and make it a "switchboard" page saying to the reader, "pick one, we can't tell what's really meant". It's especially crazy-making for plants - we often stick with the Latin names because the "common" names are all regional. On the plus side, common names are not so subject to the changing fancies of the systematists - tiger doesn't move even if some cladist clearly proves its closest affinity is with the coconut crabs. :-) Stan 13:23, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree, Oldroyd's proposal, while it has evident merit, should not yet be followed by Wikipedia unless and until there's evidence that entomologists are actually switching over. Is there? AxelBoldt 19:30, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, entomologists are NOT using hyphenated or compounded common names for true flies (Diptera). True flies have the word "fly" as a separate word 100% of the time (house flies, stable flies, longlegged flies, crane flies, moth flies, sand flies, black flies, march flies, soldier flies, horse flies, deer flies, snipe flies, bee flies, robber flies, fruit flies, grass flies, flesh flies, tsetse flies, bot flies, blow flies, stiletto flies, dance flies, louse flies, humpbacked flies, rust flies, marsh flies, aphid flies, skipper flies, seaweed flies, beach flies, pomace flies, dung flies, small dung flies, shore flies, horn flies, face flies, catus flies, etc.). Other insects that have "fly" in their common name have it attached to the word (ex. dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies, whiteflies, snakeflies, dobsonflies, mantidflies, alderflies, fishflies, caddisflies, scorpionflies, hangingflies, earwigflies, mayflies, sawflies, owlflies, stoneflies, etc.) Every true fly page on Wikipedia needs to be updated to meet this standard. In addition, all content that is on those pages should meet that standard. Totipotent 23:40, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Yep, I agree. I got here through the improperly named housefly page. I couldn't believe the arguments that were used to support the belief that "housefly" was one word. I have a room full of scientific entomological texts. All list true flies, at the species level, as having "fly" as a separate word. Some fly groups do use hyphens in them, but this is as a group, such as a family. At the species level "fly" is a separate word. Forget a Google survey. Just because some third grader or a Ph.D. in history has a page that lists Musca domestica Linnaeus as "housefly" doesn't make it so in the final count. The people you should be asking are entomologists. I attended grad school in entomology at the University of Missouri. What I learned, and what I refer to as the profession's little secret, is that if fly is a separate word, then it is a real fly (i.e, house fly), if bug is a separate word than it is a true bug (i.e., sugarcane lace bug). Meanwhile, ladybug is not a bug, but is really a beetle; dragonfly is really in the order Odonata and is not in Diptera. Sure there is disagreement about two species being one or one species being two. I remember the uproar when California entomologists showed evidence that the sweetpotato whitefly (a false bug and not a true fly) people were trying to control was actually a different species now called the silverwinged whitefly. But this is at a different level than bug, fly, beetle, etc. True flies, at the species level have fly as one word. True bugs (not false bugs in what many hold are in the same order now), at the species level, have bug as one word. I think Wikipedia is doing a disservice to its users when it continues to let them believe, for example, that house fly can be spelled housefly. This is a shame as it is a greatly accessed and valuable reference. On the other had, I have an undergraduate degree in Wildlife and Fisheries and I remember being told, "Memorize the scientific names of mammals as the common names widely vary, but memorize the common names of birds as the scientific names often change." I remember losing a point on a test because I listed a lab specimen as a Canadian goose, when the correct name is Canada goose. Meanwhile, while I will add a comment to the "housefly" page discussion, I am not going to get involved in that page's naming controversy. Trfasulo (talk) 20:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I find this policy on capitalizing names of fauna to be extremely bizarre. Naming policies say 1) Do not capitalize after the first word, 2) use the most common name for names of articles if there is more than one name, 3) use spellings as dictionaries use them and not make up your own spelling... ALL of these policies point to mak,ing the article names lowercase. I don;t care is fome ornithologists decided they want to capitalize bird names to refer to a species, that's not how the rest of the world does it, it's not proper, and it looks ridiculous. Lots of professionals capitalize things in their own fields oddly, that doesn't mean that we have to copy them. All it means is the animal article titles are extremely screwed up compared to common usage, dictionary useage, and every other page in the encyclopedia.

Following some weird policy somebody came up by following what people in one minor subset of the sciences decided to do and applying it to all other animals on top of that is just ridiculous. This needs to be changed, and I'm shocked that it has been this way as long as it has. The only exceptions that should be made are those words that are normally capitalized in animal names for some other reason, like a country name inside of it or something. DreamGuy 19:17, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I concur. Neutrality^talk 01:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree as well. I've opened a discussion at

Talk:Bottlenose Dolphin#Requested move. — Knowledge Seeker দ

22:43, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Who cares if the scientific community has consensus or not? Normal naming conventions are to not capitalize unless they are proper nouns, and also to follow the most common form of the names, not what some small subset of people who study birds decide they want to force on everything else. You may feel it's a better policy, but it violates the rest of our policies and makes no sense. You are the first one who has even tried to defend it so far, and you apparently just want to try to lend it official weight without defended it. It needs to change, and it is long, long overdue. Tell me how you can possibly justify it based upon normal naming conventions here... it just doesn't work. It's inconsistent, ill-considered, and, frankly, bird-brained to follow such a narow rule created by people with no say in the matter in the real world. DreamGuy 05:34, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

DreamGuy, while I agree with you that the names should be lowercased, this it probably not the best way to to do it. When proposing to change, we must also keep in mind that the articles have been under their current names for a long time. Let's see if we can't figure out how to establish more discussion on this. We should be able to discuss our position here calmly and courteously, sticking to debate of the position without insulting those who hold different positions. There are people who feel strongly about this both ways. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

"That's the way we've done it for a long time now" is not an argument in favor of doing something. The problem here is that some people want to just go on doing things the wrong way, and then they want to have "discussion" and draw it out for like months and years, when all they are doing is not discussing but repeating that that's the way they do it and it had reasons while forgetting the fact that it violates the other policies and common sense. AT this point it just needs to get done. Are we a bunch of people trying to work on a project of educational value, or are we a bunch of beauracrats holdin up the old order when it's something as silly as putting capital letter where the main policies and the English language say they should not be? We need a Wikiproject or some bots and just take care of this right away.DreamGuy 22:10, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

This has come up several times and I have already posted a few notes concerning my opinion. I think the rules are very taxon specific; birds are accepted as requiring capitalisation whereas most others do not. I would propose that we put together a list of primary scientific journals, particularly taxon-specific ones, and note their choice of format for this question. --Aranae 18:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Primary scientific journals are not necessarily the best resource for this... People within specific field often make up their own capitalization rules and other standards for the prupose of people in their group, as well as accepted abbreviations, jargon, and so forth. Wikipedia naming policy says to use the most common name and spelling, which can and (in some case probably does -- like with these birds) contradict what some professionals took it upon themselves to call things. If you want to figure out proper spellings, try a general reference, like, say, Webster's Dictionary. DreamGuy 22:10, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Where do you think Webster gets its information from? The professional manuals of style (Chicago, etc), say that "it's up to the author and editor to make a decision". The crux of the problem is that our "authorities" are already inconsistent with each other. Webster does not list every known species anyway, so it's of no help for the many that it omits. Stan 22:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm totally with you, DreamGuy... but I've given up. The Wikipedia software needs better controls Mackerm 20:55, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I am quite pleased that we are able to discuss this so rationally. My thoughts: DreamGuy brings up an important point, that those in a field may adopt unusual spelling styles and so forth. However,

Talk:Bottlenose Dolphin. — Knowledge Seeker দ

06:23, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I know DreamGuy clearly disagrees with the notion of citing the biological literature in an attempt to deal with this problem, but I would still propose a list of sources and an overview of how they all treat the issue. I have organized them by primary vs. secondary literature. We should limit this to how these names are used within the text and not as entry titles. They may be employing distinct rules for capitalization of entry titles. I encourage others to add to this list. Again, I think things differ by taxon so I suggest splitting them. --Aranae 02:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your hard work, Aranae. I believe this confirms what others and I have previously suggested: that the common names of mammals are not usually capitalized in the literature. I also agree with the separation by taxon; overgeneralization will likely make it difficult to develop a broad rule. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:26, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

• Mammals
  • Primary literature:
    • Journal of Mammalogy: lowercase
    • Journal of Mammalian Evolution: lowercase
    • Mammalia: lowercase
    • Mammal Study: lowercase
    • The Canadian Field Naturalist: capital
  • Secondary sources considered to be standard-bearers
    • Mammal Species of the World, 3rd ed (2005): capital
    • Nowak's Wlaker's Mammals of the World: lowercase
    • Wilson and Cole's Common Names of Mammals: capital
  • Secondary:
    • Duff and Lawson's Mammals of the World A Checklist: capital (based on use in introduction)
    • Feldhammer et al.'s Mammlogy text: lowercase
    • Kingdon's Arabian Mammals: lowercase
    • Kingdon's Field Guide to African Mammals: lowercase
    • Kurta's Mammals of the Great Lakes Region: lowercase
    • McDonald's Encyclopedia of Mammals: lowercase
    • Roberts's Mammals of Pakistan: capital
    • Vaughan's Mammalogy text: lowercase
    • Whitaker and Hamilton's Mammals of the Eastern United States: lowercase
• MAMMAL TOTAL: capital=4, lowercase=12 (primary & SB 2ndary only: capital=2, lowercase=5)

• Birds
  • Primary literature
    • Auk: capital

In case this got lost in the verbiage above, check out [1] to see a bit of the ichthyologists' debate on the subject with respect to fish. You know you're in a difficult situation when your authorities are on the verge of calling each other bad names (or is that Bad Names? :-) ) over the point. Stan 15:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Ooh! Nice article, Stan. IT does indeed seem that capitalization is the direction professional societies ar emoving. The article you cite makes all of the points proponents of Wiki capitalization have made over the years. I'd like to see the above list of publications editted to include the publication year. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:29, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Nelson seems to have carried the day at Copeia (see [2]), but at the same time FishBase is strictly uncapitalized, and we use it as a source more often than the journal. I'm guessing that the experts are being too genteel to argue about it in public (like we do :-) ) - it can't be more than a couple hours of work to fix FishBase's database to capitalize all the common names they've recorded, and yet they don't do it. Stan 02:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

If you want academic authorities, stick with scholars of the English language. I'd trust a surgeon to perform rhinoplasty, but not to spell it. Mackerm 23:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

If you can find a recognized scholar of the language to issue a firm opinion, I would love to see the quote. My foray into the language section of the university library did not turn up anything unequivocal. Stan 02:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh, c'mon. I'm sure you can find something unequivocal... and dismiss it. Mackerm 03:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

What have I dismissed? Be fair, now. All I found was "some people capitalize, and others don't", not exactly a clear statement on what is supposed to be correct English. Stan 05:52, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Please, let's keep this discussion on-target. Mackerm, I agree with your ideas above; however, I am certain we can list our own unequivocal sources without asking others to find them for us. If I understand correctly, then, from the sources we have listed so far, a couple books and no peer-reviewed journals capitalize mammalian common names. Nor do the OED or Merriam-Webster. Nor does Chicago (anyone know what Fowler or any British English style guide recommend?). With this in mind, I would like to propose a modification to the capitalization text. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:14, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's talk a bit longer before we consider this solved and change all the articles. I personally think that usage of all caps in text looks pretty ridiculous and that comon names should be lowercase. That said, I think that the publication of Wilson and Cole's book on common names of mammals added a certain formality to the notion of a common name for mammals and much of the discussion may stem from that attempt to formalize mammal common names in the same sense as birds. If we were having this discussion 10 years ago, I think the story for mammals would be very straightforward: with the possible exception of primates and cetaceans, no one capitalizes. Wilson and Cole adopted the idea of capitalization and may be the origin for the argument that mammal common names should be capitalized. Wilson and Reeder's MSW presumably (according to UtherSRG - I don't have a copy yet) adopt this along with Duff and Lawson. This may be the first stages of a shift toward capitalization.

Incidentally, I've moved MSW to a different section (along with other highly cited secondary sources like Nowak, Wilson and Cole, presumably McKenna and Bell if they had used common names), because it does not constitute primary (peer-reviewed) literature. I think the important distinction is that scientific journals decide these things by committee and answer to a society of professional mammalogists. I can't track down the major Australian journal, but the Americans (Journal of Mammalogy and Journal of Mammalian Evolution), Europeans (Mammalia and J Mam Evol) and Japanese (Mammal Study) all use lowercase at present. Secondary sources are only subject to the decisions of the editor(s). My vote is still for lowercase for mammals until these journals start using capital letters. Birds, on the other hand are capitalized almost across the board (including in their most prestigious journal: Auk) and should be capitalized here. I'll try to start adding some dates. It's a good point made by UtherSRG. --Aranae 07:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sorry; I wasn't clear. I didn't intend to write a new policy yet; all I was going to do was clarify the statements about the case for mammals, to more or less summarize what you had found to be for and against capitalization. However, I will defer this clarification for now. — Knowledge Seeker দ 13:57, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

On of the pro-capitalisers’ arguments from the paper linked above is:

An even more compelling argument for capitalization of common names of fishes is that, when capitalized, the common name conveys recognition as a distinct, individual biological entity. Capitalization gives emphasis to the name and lets it stand out and be easier to spot in scientific publications, popular guides, aquarium and museum displays, and lecture slides, etc, while lower case names tend to disappear in the text and look, quite frankly, unimportant and common. Giving more prominence to common names, which are already used as proxies for scientific names in many journals, is a logical addition to assist readers in locating information in text. Further, the use of capitalized common names gives greater recognition (if not actual respect) for fishes from sport and commercial fishers, lawmakers, policy makers, resource managers, and the general public.

This strikes me as an agenda that does not mix with NPOV. Susvolans ⇔ 08:29, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

In the absence of any new comments, and given the preponderance of information here, I slightly revised the guidelines. Are there any comments? Please feel free to reword. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Gdr added this recently, but I don't see any prior discussion:

Fish in Sciaenidae are known as "drums", but drum is used for the musical instrument. (In cases like this, it's best to go straight to the scientific name, avoiding expedients like "drum (fish)".)

For general readers, such as anglers not versed in the latest debates of the systematists, this is not actually helpful. I'm reading Moyle's Inland Fishes of California right now, and for instance it's hitch, hitch, hitch, everywhere (they're a common species), with only one mention of Lavinia exilicauda. "hitch" + "fish" is still more meaningful than any systematic name, so while I see the logic in avoid the dreaded disambiguator, I don't think it serves our nontechnical readers. Stan 16:03, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. I removed the bit you objected to. Gdr 12:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

does have a common name, the fruit fly =S 203.218.86.162 12:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

No. Gdr 12:41, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Whoa there! Wikilink to Drosophila melanogaster. The article starts with the following intro:

Drosophila melanogaster (from the Greek for black-bellied dew-lover) is a two-winged insect that belongs to the Diptera, the order of the flies. The species is commonly known as the fruit fly, and is one of the most commonly used model organisms in biology, including studies in genetics, physiology and life-history evolution. Flies belonging to the Tephritidae are also called fruit flies, which can lead to confusion.

Given the above-mentioned [possible] confusion, surely the wiki thing to do would be to include a disambiguation? Can some really experienced wikipedian who also happens to be a biologist/genetician (?) please resolve this heated debate? Thanx. --Technopat 17:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Fruit fly is already a disambig that leads to Drosophilidae and Tephritidae, as well as Drosophila melanogaster. What needs to be cleared up? - UtherSRG (talk) 18:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The following statement: Drosophila melanogaster has no common name. (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna), the project page corresponding to this discussion page) seems to be too categorical (no pun intended). However, as I have no idea if it is technically (?) correct... . Regards, Technopat 09:40, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

What's with the capitalisation mass-moves? This page seems to have no clear-cut guideline supporting this (either way). Whichever way they end up, let's not turn this into another "highways" arbcom case. Alai 20:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

They're incredibly annoying, are usually not cleaned up after by the person moving, and can only be reverted (the simplest way of fixing double redirects) by an admin. I'd say on average a page that's been titled based on its common name will stay at its current capitalisation title for about 8 months. Any ideas on how to stop the never-ending cycle? --Aranae 20:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, an unfixed double-redirect is how I noticed this. In the first instance, try to establish an actual consensus (however ad hoc) for the capitalisation, either across the board, or on a case by case basis, or using some sort of "actionable" rule of them. Then ask people moving them away from such to desist. Then ask for admin enforcement. Without an actual convention, though, moves to-and-fro are merely pointless (and possibly double-redirect-causing), not anything worse. Alai 00:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

There is currently a debate over the capitalisation of animal and bird names at the main wikipedia manual of style. Whilst this talk page is unused for some time, if any editors would like to contribute to the main debate, go to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Common names of animals, as the end result of this may end up with this page being rewritten. Owain.davies 10:41, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The following is a proposal to modify

Suggested Change

The issue of the capitalization of the common names of animal species is unresolved on Wikipedia and our pages are inconsistent. A large majority of reliable sources do not capitalize and thus there is a strong descriptive argument against doing so. Capitalization will often not "feel" right for editors for this reason. Conversely, because species names are

1. Never capitalize.
2. Always capitalize.
3. Capitalize when the species itself is referred to, as this is proper noun usage, but not where the phraseology indicates a common noun. Thus: "The Tiger is a carnivore" but "three tigers were observed in the conservation area."

The third is most correct orthographically, but it is also the most difficult to maintain. In the absence of consensus:

• Respect the original or primary authors; do not change something without notification, as you may be reverted. See
  move
  }} template on the talk page prior to moving it.
• The form chosen should be used consistently across an article.

In some cases, individual WikiProjects reach a consensus for a single standard from the possibilities listed above. In such cases, articles falling within that projects scope should respect the established rules.

Regardless of the rules specified by individual projects, the following is always required:

• In a hyphenated name, the part after the hyphen is not capitalized. For example,
  verifiable
  . (added per discussion below)
• When you create a new entry, whatever the capitalization chosen, always create a redirect in the alternative case. For example, name the entry
  Bald Eagle but create a redirect to it from bald eagle or vice versa. Creating the redirect is not optional, but will not be needed for single word species names. (See Wikipedia:Redirect
  )
• There are some rare instances where lower case and capitalized versions have different meanings. Suitable links or disambiguation should then be used.

The only clear consensus on the issue of capitalization, is that there is no consensus. As such, there seems no particular reason for this guideline to give preference to one or the other, especially when it readily differs to individual WikiProjects anyway. Justin ^chat 06:27, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

This is

• I realize this is likely to introduce a lot of venom from both sides of the fence. I personally tend to favor always capitalizing, but there are very strong arguments for not capitalizing as well. I feel that by implementing this naming convention, we can meet "half way" as there is unlikely to ever be a Wikipedia-wide consensus on this issue. Compromise seems like the best course in this case. Justin ^chat 06:27, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I have no opinion about the general merits of this proposal. However it doesn't appear to cover species named for people or places. The proposal covers Steller's jay but not the (fictional) "Ringed Steller's jay". Presumably, a proper noun remains proper, even when it's used as part of a compound noun but perhaps there's a good argument on the other side. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 06:56, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Common names of animals are proper nouns themselves, however, there is still a great deal of disagreement whether or not to capitalize them. I imagine there may be some disagreement in your example as well. So, specifying specific solutions to examples such as yours are likely to be just as controversial as the entire topic itself. But, I think this change does provide a solution to your suggestion. If the project responsible for the article doesn't maintain a specific requirement, the best direction is to simply go through the {{

move}} process and hope a consensus is reached. It's not ideal, but that seems to be the current standard anyway. Justin ^chat

07:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

• So, is the current system not working? Personally, I think the current setup, which allows WPs to use the naming conventions standard to their fields, is a good one—though perhaps, give Justin's concerns, the projects need to be a little rigorous about applying what they decide to the articles within their sphere. I'm not sure a "one size fits all" solution would be a good choice (and I realize that's not what you're suggesting, Justin). MeegsC | Talk 09:37, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

The current system doesn't really seem to exist. As the naming convention stands now, it first gives the choice to individual WikiProjects, and then goes on to define a policy which seems to lean towards the lowercase argument. It seems rather odd to have a guideline (and indirectly a policy, since it's quoted verbatim at

WP:NC

) that says projects should pick by consensus, and then outlines why one of the three possibilities should be preferred.

In addition to that, a big concern is the relative commonplace arguments for and against capitalization on other guidelines (such as

WP:MOS, which seems to have them regularly). The only thing clear, is that there is no consensus on whether capitalization is appropriate or not. And the current guideline doesn't articulate that at all. I think guidelines, especially those that are quoted in policies should clearly reflect the consensus of participants. And since there is no consensus on capitalization, that's probably what this guideline needs to say. Justin ^chat

10:01, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

• I feel strongly that the common name of a species, or at least the official common name for a species, if one exists, is a proper noun and should be capitalized. Period. End of story. Even more importantly, though, is the logic at
  WP:BIRD about the reasoning for the elevation of the common name to a proper noun. To wit, many species are name with the formula <adjective-phrase> <noun>. This formula, by itself without capitalization, can lead the reader to confusion. If I say "There is a red squirrel in my backyard," am I saying there is a squirrel with red fur in my backyard, or a member of the species Sciurus vulgaris? Even worse, if I say it is a grey red squirrel, it is even more confusing. Capitalizing removes all of this confusion. "There is a Red Squirrel in my backyard," is unambiguous. And a gray Red Squirrel is now obvious as to what is meant. - UtherSRG (talk)
  13:13, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

So do I. However, failure to compromise means maintaining the current guideline. Justin ^chat 18:13, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

• Animal species' names are proper nouns, and unambiguous - Uther's example makes the point. leave the decisions up to the projects. Jimfbleak (talk) 13:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I would really rather this did not turn into a capitalize versus lowercase debate. There's no question that most have a particular preference, but given that none of those preferences have ever garnered a consensus, would it be possible to keep the focus on the changes I'm proposing? As it stands now, the guideline does let the projects decide, but then goes into detail on why the lowercase argument should be preferred.

Case and point, there is a

Cane Toad

is violating policy. That was the primary purpose for my suggested modifications.

I respect those wishing to stick to their guns, but the rewritten guideline still gives control to the individual projects, while not taking a particular side on the issue of what said projects SHOULD decide. Justin ^chat 18:13, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather not leave it up to the Projects. I think capitalization is the right thing to do, and there's no avoiding having this argument. - UtherSRG (talk) 18:42, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I think capitalization is the right thing to do as well. However, that will never become a consensus. It's been attempted, on numerous occasions, to create a single consensus for the capitalization, and it's all failed. This very page indicates a consensus was reached on the mailing list, which is an improper place to form a consensus for a policy anyway.

The question I have for those that indicate they want a specific policy (or want the projects to retain control), would you rather maintain the policy as it stands, or would you rather the policy be changed to my suggestion? If we refuse to compromise here, the current policy stands. Seems to be a rather efficient method of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Justin ^chat 04:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Several of us pointed out in the last installment of this never-ending debate (or is it Never-ending Debate) that, among plants, capitalization conveys an additional level of information: plant vernacular names are ordinarily not capitalized, and in fact in use they have no definite connection to any specific rank. But in a number of countries there are sanctioned lists of "common names" (and in other jurisdictions protected species have sanctioned names even when others don't), and these names are (1) ordinarily capitalized, and (2) applied to the species rank. There has been heavy debate in the past among plant editors about which common name to use (especially when they differ in different anglophone countries), and the ultimate result was to favor scientific names for plant articles. To force either capitalization or no capitalization, regardless of project preferences, is to take from us the ability to make these distinctions.--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

We're only talking about fauna here, Curtis. Your plant articles are safe and secure. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:39, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Oops, should look at the article name before posting. But it wouldn't surprise me if there weren't animal groups with similar usage.--Curtis Clark (talk) 18:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

• So, uh, why are species common names proper nouns, but not, say, genus names? Some of the fish genera and even families even have particular adjectives attached to their names, for instance
  armored searobin or bullhead shark. It can't be because they are groups of taxa, because then you wouldn't capitalize a species that had any subspecies or varieties. Stan (talk
  ) 15:26, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • For birds it would also be entirely illogical to require that their specific names were written in lower case, considering that upper case is the widely accepted standard. Hence, if writing the common name of a bird in lower case, you would, strictly speaking, fail to follow outside sources (
    Rabo3 (talk
    ) 15:37, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Given that, do you have a proposed change to the policy I've written that will take into account special needs cases such as the ones you mentioned? Perhaps adding "There are some cases where common names depart from this section of the standard. If this is the case, ensure that such deviations are
      verifiable by external sources."Justin ^chat
      04:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
  • And, just for the record, I'd strongly support Jimfbleak; leave the decisions up to the projects.
    Rabo3 (talk
    ) 15:47, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Apples and oranges. The style rules for taxonomic names are widely accepted, and already state that taxa higher than species should be capitalized, so whether or not it's a proper noun is really rather moot. I'm not really sure what the point of the analogy is (fallacious or not). I ask this in all seriousness, are you suggesting that perhaps assuming common names are proper names is an error? And if so, can you point to a sources that makes such an argument? Justin ^chat 04:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
    • I researched this one in the library a couple years ago, and I found no linguistic/grammatical source supporting the notion that species common names are proper nouns and should be handled differently from common names for other taxa (the accepted capitalization rule you mention is for sci names only). Capitalization of species common names is a somewhat arbitrary decision that has points in favor and points not in favor, and is periodically debated by experts in various specialties that haven't made a choice; for example, on some page here there is a link once I provided to an editorial by a leading ichthyologist. I can go either way for WP, but let's at least be accurate in our reasoning. If you have an authoritative source for the proper noun claim, what is it? Stan (talk) 15:29, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I have a feeling I know where this is going. "Proper nouns (also called proper names) are nouns representing unique entities (such as London, Universe or John), as distinguished from common nouns which describe a class of entities (such as city, well or person)." from

verifiability

.

By definition

prove it

. Obviously you can't prove a negative, but your implication here is that because no authoritative source describes a common name as a proper noun, we must assume it is not. You have failed to meet the burden of proof on such a claim. Where's the authoritative source that says we must assume a noun is a common noun unless proven otherwise? Furthermore, where is the authoritative source that states common names are common nouns?

Now, I've heard the argument several times that since

Mountain Bluebirds but I can't prove it. Justin ^chat

00:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

There are massive grammars of the English language that lay out the rules in excruciating detail, that's the kind of source I researched. But if you adopt the rule that a species is a "unique entity", what of a species that has several subspecies? Is it still "unique"? If so, then how is its uniqueness different from a genus' or family's uniqueness? That's one of the things that's always mystified me about the special status for species; while it's often the most finely-divided taxon, in reality it's just another point on the hierarchy of taxonomic subdivision. If everybody wants to do capitalization for species and subtaxa, fine, but it's an arbitrary decision, not one that has some kind of justification based in the structure of the language. Stan (talk) 07:34, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The rank of species is held as special in nearly everyone's view, although that specialness may be different depending on that view point. Those points fairly boil down to a species being the turning point between the larger groupings (higher taxa) and being an individual in a population (or a subspecies. The higher ranks are arbitrary; there is no reason for group 'a' to be a family ranking, while group 'b' is only a subfamily. Why not 'b' be the family rank and 'a' a superfamily or an order? That's arbitrary. The rank of species is not arbitrary, even with the multiple and competing definitions of what constitutes a species; those definitions are all attempting to codify why and how a species is a unique entity. While we may get it wrong sometimes, and lump multiple species into one, or split one species up into more than one, we're still trying to find a proper organization that says "this is a species". - UtherSRG (talk) 12:49, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it's more of a plant thing - going by the monographs I've read, there is little to distinguish the process of defining genus vs species vs variety. In many ways, the genus is more of the "natural" rank for plants, as the line beyond which hybridization is no longer happening (except for some orchids, ha ha). Stan (talk) 14:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

That may well be so. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:17, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

• Here's another suggestion. Set up a group of folks in
  WP:TOL who folks can come to when there's a capitalization dispute. - UtherSRG (talk)
  18:54, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

ArbCom is currently the only "group" I'm aware of that has the ability to create enforceable decisions. We already have several procedures in place to handle what happens when issues arise. The question is whether or not policy should take a particular stance on preference (as it does now). Unfortunately, creating a "policy board" whose decisions are unenforceable, is likely to create more problems than it is to fix them.. Justin ^chat 04:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Rabo3 (talk

) 17:52, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds great to me. I think any case where there is a set of

WP:BIRD editors. Justin ^chat

00:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

• The basic fact is that different areas of the taxonomic universe are treated by different standards, and they are not uniform. The existence of "standards" for birds is the most dramatic example of this inconsistency. Trying to apply those standards across the board is not going to work. I believe the most reasonable approach is this: for any group of organisms for which there is no explicit and verifiable standard that can override general policy, the general policy of non-capitalization should be in use. In other words, if individual Wikiprojects wish to use a policy OTHER than non-capitalization, they can do so, but must do so explicitly and with justification. This itself is a compromise, given the existence of a known standard to use non-capitalization which applies to the majority of known animals. Consider my perspective: the bulk of all known animals are insects, and while there is no standard convention for Animalia, generally speaking, what formal conventions exist for insects go with the non-capitalization option: there is an official list of "Common Names of Insects & Related Organisms" published by the Entomological Society of America, and ALL of the common names in that list are printed in non-capitalized form unless there is a proper name as one of the components (e.g. "common Australian lady beetle" or "European earwig" or "Pacific Coast wireworm"). Since insects comprise over 2/3rds of all described animal species, there is external evidence that for the majority of Animalia, non-capitalized form is preferred. The case could therefore be made that - by majority rule - non-capitalization would be the preferred choice if one is going to enforce a uniform policy across all of Wikipedia. If those who work with birds prefer a different standard, then let them do so, but a tiny minority group should not be used to set policy for the majority. Dyanega (talk) 18:05, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

That argument doesn't make much sense. We don't define policy at Wikipedia by majority rule, but by consensus. There is absolutely NO consensus within the scientific community on this issue. The fact that insects make up some 2/3rds of all animals is really rather moot. Suggesting that insect biologists should be determining stylization issues across Wikipedia because there's more insects than birds is silly.

Regardless, this isn't a "tiny minority". The entirety of

Wikipedia is not a democracy

.

Because this may not be sinking in, the current policy makes absolutely no sense. The policy gives full control to the WikiProjects. According to

WP:ANIMAL

.

So to run this down again. The current policy describes a non-capitalized preference, but starts by saying projects get to choose.

WP:ANIMAL

override the current policy).

Considering all of that information, are we still going to argue back and forth over what method is proper, and thus, leaving the empty policy in place, or can we compromise? Seems the former is happening, as ridiculous as that is. Justin ^chat 19:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

• In reading through this, there seems to be one fundamental consensus here: WikiProjects should be the final arbiters of what method is acceptable. For those that support this, but also want the policy to reflect preference for one or the other, can you describe why? If we are going to let the projects decide, then having a preference for one or the other makes absolutely no sense. Just for the purpose of appeasing me, let's ignore all arguments on why one method is more suitable. Let's simply focus on the fundamentals here.

Let's take a metric here. Here's a list of animal subprojects:

• • WP:ANIMALS
    - Either
    • WP:ARTH
      - Sentence case
      • WP:LEPID
        - Scientific
      • WP:PHAS
        - None
      • WP:SPI
        - None
    • WP:CEPH
      - Title case
    • WP:GAST
      - Title case
  • WP:AAR
    - Either
    • WP:DINO
      - N/A (Dinosaurs are known by specific and generic names, not common names)
    • WP:WikiProject Pterosaurs
      - N/A (See Dinosaurs)
  • WP:BIRDS
    - Title case
  • WP:FISH
    - Sentence case
    • WP:AQF
      - Sentence case
    • WP:SHARKS
      - Sentence case
  • WP:MAM
    - Either
    • WP:MaM
      - Title case
    • WP:CETA
      - Title case
    • WP:PRIM
      - Title case
    • WP:CLC
      - Either
  • WP:WikiProject Sea Monsters
    - None

So here we have the results, 4 projects allow either standard, 4 projects prefer sentence case (don't capitalize), 6 projects prefer title case (capitalize), 1 has adopted scientific names for article titles, and 3 don't have a standard. For those of you arguing in favor of projects choosing, yet want a preference for one or the other, it's probably notable you are arguing for 3 very small WikiProjects.

So are we going to argue this to death, or should we just have "no preference" on the policy page and let the individual projects do what they've already done, pick themselves? Justin ^chat 19:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

You ask For those that support this, but also want the policy to reflect preference for one or the other, can you describe why? - I would say because there are 4 projects that allow either, and 3 that have none; realistically, there should be a single default option when there is no formal standard (allowing both is not effectively adopting a standard, by definition). If a project specifies no preference, then there needs to be a higher authority to refer to. It just so happens that Wikipedia's general approach to article names is more in keeping with the "sentence case" option. Dyanega (talk) 01:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The fact that two options are available doesn't mean it isn't a standard. Not having a standard means there is no restriction. I could effectively end every article with "Monkeys Are Funny", because the lack of a standard indicates there are no rules against it. I write technical specifications for a living. And the standards for our company have a variety of options.

For the record, the definition of standard in this case is nothing more than a set of criteria or terms which something can be judged by. Care to point out where that definition implies there can only be a single set of criteria? Wikipedia policy, "in general" indicates that proper nouns should be capitalized, hence

New york city

. So again, I have to ask, is there a solid reason for avoiding multiple sets of criteria in a policy?

In reviewing the mailing list, I've had a great deal of difficulty finding the consensus that the present policy fell under. However, I did find this relatively humorous tidbit from a similar discussion in 2003:

"I don't much care about the outcome either way, but without a convention based on authority so great that no rational person would ever dare challenge, the argument is going to come up over and over. In fact it will likely get worse, if we succeed in attracting large number of new editors and are not able to convince them all to go along with the established conventions."

— Stan Shebs, WikiPedia Mailing List [3]

I won't argue that my proposed change in policy is unchallengeable, as that's absurd, but it's a tad enlightening just how hard and fast people from both sides of this argument are willing to stick to their guns. Seems we are destined to have years of perpetual arguments over this policy. Justin ^chat 05:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed, from glancing through a number of Gastropod articles, that the majority either use scientific names or sentence case (e.g. Flamingo tongue snail). Among the invertebrates, then, only the Cephalopod group seems committed to a genuine standard use of Title case. Dyanega (talk) 01:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

If you want to make it 5 to 5 for case issues, that's fine by me. It only proves my point more efficiently. Perhaps the better question to ask is where is the compromise here? It seems there is a deeply ingrained opinion on the issue for capitalization for the most part. So do we hold on to that tightly or do we accept that other opinions have merit? I'm a purist when it comes to the rules on proper nouns, however, I don't think that my opinion should pushed on

WP:FISH

.

• I must disagree with the suggested change. My personal preference leans strongly towards a single naming convention to be used throughout Wikipedia, with some very short set of applicable criteria, but that is unlikely to happen.
  The individuals who write these articles are usually experts or knowledgeable amateurs with respect to the groups they work on. As we all know, different groups of organisms have different naming conventions for common names -- some of them cast in bronze, many at least committed to paper, and some still a bit vague. The article authors are going to follow what they feel are accepted norms for "their" group, unless they are closely attuned to the minutia of Wikipedia editing, and will, at the least, be unhappy to see their perfectly appropriate usages being changed. In other words, a good deal of effort on the part of various editors will be needed just to ensure this proposed uniformity among common names. It's not worth it, in my opinion. As things currently stand, most of the groups of animals in which capitalization of common names is considered important already have WikiProject guidelines in place. This, I think, is sufficient.
  On a minor note, I am not entirely convinced by the "all common names are proper nouns" argument. It would be nice to think that the integrity of the species concept is that monolithic, but that is not so. As others have pointed out, species are not "unique entities" in the way that London or Mars is. They are made up of many individuals, often of different subspecies, varieties, forms, etc. My dog Jill qualifies, but dog does not. Tim Ross·^talk 13:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow at all. The suggested policy change is ambiguous for the very reasons you point out. You seem to be arguing in favor of an ambiguous policy, but are against the change. Although I don't think that makes sense, I won't ask for clarification because this is obviously headed to no consensus (at best).

However, your comment on proper nouns I do want to respond to. I've only rarely seen a definition of a proper noun require "uniqueness", and I tend to disagree with it on its face. If being "unique" is a requirement for a proper noun, then "tim" is a common noun. As is lewiston, but not Lewiston, Maine. Or, mimicking my earlier comments,

mcdonald's, Chevrolet corvette etc etc, must all be common nouns. There are many Oreo's, McDonald's, Corvettes, cities named Lewiston and Tim's in the world, but that doesn't mean they are common nouns. Justin ^chat

16:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

My apologies, Justin, for being less than clear. I believe we should stick with the status quo. I don't think the suggested change will be well-accepted or well-followed by technical editors.
Regarding proper nouns, my reference, not too surprisingly, is Wikipedia. The discussion of this topic, under "Noun", referenced back to "Dictionary.com", begins: "Proper nouns (also called proper names) are nouns representing unique entities (such as London, Universe or John)...".
Perhaps they would accept "Tim" as well as "John". :-). Tim Ross·^talk 17:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. I'm not sure that the proposed change doesn't reflect consensus of technical editors (given that projects are effectively evenly split on the naming conventions). The primary objective of the change is for the policy to reflect the actual consensus of the editors who write and edit the articles. And even split certainly implies that either method is appropriate, but unfortunately there seems to be two factions with this debate that feel their side is, for lack of a better phrase, absolutely correct.

I use the definition of unique, at least in this case, as one of a kind (as in art, or coins). Given that, the definition provided by Wikipedia (and by inference, Dictionary.com) simply doesn't make sense. They list "John" as a proper noun, and indicate a proper noun is unique. Is the definition of unique that I'm assuming they are using, one would logically follow a fallacy:

"Proper nouns are unique. The noun 'John' is a proper noun. The noun 'John' is unique." Perhaps there's another definition that is appropriate here, but we know "John" is not unique (as in art), because there is certainly more than one John. Justin ^chat 19:28, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

One of the fun parts about reading the scholarly grammars is to see all the exceptions to general rules that the experts have found. Some people have actually worried that WP's visibility gives undue weight to idiosyncratic usages decided on by one or two editors; certainly it gives me pause when one of my brain cramps manages to appear as Google's first hit... Stan (talk) 21:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I find the pattern of exceptions incredibly annoying. That being said, this isn't an issue of "one or two editors". This debate has been going on for years, and per the quote above, you were one of the editors involved early on. There have been a variety of folks arguing one way or another, and I personally don't find the argument "biologists use bad grammar so we should do" contains a lot of merit. IMHO, the reason for the vast idiosyncrasies in English IS the tendency for letting those with less than stellar grammatically skills defining the rules for grammar. I'm certainly not going to change it, but it certainly qualifies as one of my "brain cramps". Justin ^chat 21:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

To keep things in perspective, we are breaking new ground here - WP is now the largest single body of integrated and cross-referenced text ever produced, and so we inevitably bump up against longstanding inconsistencies between different disciplines. So we have the unenviable choice of following the experts and being inconsistent, or being more consistent but going against the experts. In practice, I think our best strategy is to be opportunistic - keep an eye out for areas of agreement and work to get those accepted and adopted encyclopedia-wide, but not get into time-consuming and draining arguments when agreement is not forthcoming. Stan (talk) 18:12, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree. I proposed this assuming that this was a very reasonable compromise for an issue that's debated quite often. Unfortunately, I was way off the mark with that assumption. At least, several of the projects didn't have such a contentious debate

WP:BIRDS have opposite policies, but it seemed to occur without nearly as much controversy as the "general" policy has. Unfortunately, the result is going to be more time-consuming and draining arguments at individual articles, since some will use User:Fluri's arguments to move articles one way, and others will use various other arguments to move them the other way. Although the policy doesn't (and is unlikely to) suggest it, perhaps the "don't fix it if it ain't broke" is appropriate here. Justin ^chat

18:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It looks absurd when a derivative source with no authority of its own like wikipedia doesnt follow established convention in a scientific field on style. Whether there actually is consensus within a field must be left to the editors working on the topics in that field, and thus letting the project decide appropriates is the only solution that has any chance of keeping us in line with more reliable sources elsewhere. Where there is no establish convention, the project will presumable follow the lack of convention, and let articles vary. Trying to tell subject people on an overall WP-wide basis how to handle technical points in their subject doesn't make sense to me. given that professional botanists and zoologists have been trying to harmonize their nomenclature for centuries without success, I don't see how we will have accomplish this here. DGG (talk) 01:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Hence the change in policy which reflects the lack of harmony within biology in the first place. Justin ^chat

To be frank, I'm not clear as to why this disagreement exists. Firstly, we need to consider whether a discussion at

WP:NC

policy page. Nonetheless, I think we need to keep in mind a few things.

1. The purpose of the policy is, without a doubt, to standardise the naming of articles within Wikipedia. The policy comes down in favour of lower (sentence) case. Within that, however, the policy recognises that there may be specific, contrary circumstances within the domain of specific Wikiprojects.
2. The policy permits specific Wikiprojects to establish their own naming convention that may or may not be in keeping with the default naming convention set in policy.
3. By definition, a naming convention established within a project must respect the general principle of the policy which in that there should be some sort of consistent standard around naming articles even though that standard can be different from what the policy anticipates.
4. Given 1, 2 and 3, above, and given that a project cannot override general policy, a project that says "We don't care what you do" is equivalent to saying, "We don't care" which leaves the dictates of policy.
5. Subsequent to 4, a policy cannot say "We think articles should be named whichever way people please" since that violates the drive for consistency anticipated by the policy.

In the end, the way I, personally, read this is that projects can choose a standard but that it must be a true standard that ensures some measure of consistency. A project can not say, "We don't care" without the original policy for consensus applying. — Dave (Talk) 02:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I linked the debate from

WP:NC

was derived from this guideline, which was in turn derived from a consensus on the mailing list. I don't think anything about this is conventional.

Second, your first point is something I take issue with. You have said (at

WP:MOS

and now here) that the policy only allows "specific, contrary circumstances". However, the policy does NOT say as much. It says inasmuch as there is a consensus, individual WikiProjects may choose their own standard for capitalization. It does not say there are specific rules said standard must conform to, it does not say it must respect the general principle of the policy, it does not say the standard selected must be consistent, it does not say what the policy chosen by the WikiProjects can't say (or for that matter, can). It does say, quite clearly, WikiProjects can choose their own standard.

Given all of that, your "reading" of the policy is based on a number of non-existent assumptions. The text of the policy is VERY VERY clear. The first sentence gives clear control to the WikiProjects, the second starts with a qualifier, "In general".

Now you seem to be claiming that allowing capitalized or not is akin to not having a policy at all. That is simply NOT true. Both

WP:TREE have existing guidelines in place. Those guidelines are clear, however, contrary to the guideline here (as allowed by the guideline). It's not a free for all, quite the contrary, it gives VERY specific rules on what is and is not allowed. With all of that said, I think your interpretation is WAY off the mark and entirely unsupported by the policy itself. Ambiguous terms like "by definition" and "the purpose is" really don't help a debate when they are used to effectively invent ways to enforce a policy, which by the very first sentence, is entirely unenforceable outside of the WikiProjects it covers. Justin ^chat

03:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Justin, I'm really interested in hearing your thoughts on precisely why the naming convention policy exists. What purpose, in your estimation, is it designed to serve? — Dave (Talk) 14:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Well,

WP:NC

describes its own purpose in the first paragraph and in the "nutshell" section. I think it does a very good job of describing why it exists, so I don't really feel the need to expand upon it. That being said, the policy should not reflect the absence of a consensus. Ambiguity is rarely a good thing for policy, but in absence of consensus sometimes it's necessary.

It appears you want to

WP:TREE

because you don't like the idea of a policy with two options. While I agree it's not ideal, it is how it works for now. Insofar as there is any consensus among Wikipedia editors about capitalization of common names of species, it is that each WikiProject can decide on its own rules for capitalization. WikiProjects can decide their own rules. Not rule. Not "WikiProject can decide on one, and only one rule."

That being said, clearly this change in policy was soundly defeated. I don't think there was a single vote in favor of the change. And the great irony is, neither side of the debate was willing to compromise. Keeping a policy that's inconsistent with 1/2 of the WikiProjects seems a poor practice, but that may be the way it stays.

As for your interpretation of the policy, I highly recommend you start a new section and argue your points there. I think you'd be surprised to find that many of the people that tend to agree with non-capitalized titles would probably disagree with how you interpret the policy. Justin ^chat 16:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's me trying to steamroller the discussion with my two posts, one of which is a straight question. I'm trying to steamroller the discussion by recommending which threads others should start and what they should post where. It may be superfluous but I see you've posted about 2 dozen messages in here. Anyway, thanks for your efforts. I truly appreciate what you did in trying to make a policy change. It's not easy and you've acquitted yourself well in this endeavour. Cheers! — Dave (Talk) 18:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I have posted a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Animals, plants, and other organisms. Please note that as the related essay states, this is not aimed at having individual projects change their policies. Ben MacDui 11:46, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

For a very long time, I've been treating article titles for organisms with multiple well-known English common names as a situation where the scientific name is preferred, as a compromise between opposing camps. This is most pronounced in cases where the AmE and BrE common names are different: choosing one over the other only offends and confuses the readers on the "losing" side, and it's more appropriate to set things up so that both factions, if they enter their preferred "common name" into the search box, will get redirected to the article. The worst case of this problem is the

The plant folks dealt with this issue by preferring the scientific name. That might seem like a prudent course for insects, as well. And of course all the alternative English names can and should redirect to the name chosen for the article.--Curtis Clark (talk) 21:06, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Curtis. First, I was thinking more in terms of the general policy statement (in this specific article), rather than looking to insert it as a clause solely in individual animal-based Wikiprojects. Second, while the "preferring the scientific name" policy is something I might personally support across the board, I imagine it'd be likely to achieve only controversy, not consensus (on top of which, the number of link changes it would entail is mind-boggling). I truly do mean to ask only about this very particular issue, and would argue that having it as the default policy for animal articles is desirable. I think it wisest to steer clear of the "scientific versus common name" issue itself, as this is hopelessly contentious, with insects being a prime example of how specific disciplines within entomology set up their own private rules of conduct (e.g., the hundreds of neologistic "common names" for dragonflies that were created by Dunkle - mostly in the year 2000 - and have no historical or scientific tradition of use). The insect articles are quite inconsistent, accordingly, as to whether or not they prefer the "common name" over the scientific name, and will presumably always remain inconsistent - but I'd like the "multiple common names" scenario to be addressed specifically. Dyanega (talk) 16:35, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

While I'm not suggesting adoption of the plant conventions, it was fairly contentious prior to the consensus.

A possible approach that occurs to me just now is to have a "trigger" policy: at the first sign of intractable disagreement on the correct common name to be used for an article title, it is moved to the scientific name, and that choice cannot be reverted except through a long, drawn-out consensus-building. Then maybe people will think twice before edit-warring, and in the more frequent cases where they don't bother to think, a solution would be imposed.--Curtis Clark (talk) 17:11, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I have no objection to Dyanega's suggestion as such - and I'd prefer the scientific name for insects as the default anyway. If consensus were reached now it doesn't mean anyone has to go and change the existing articles, but at least it would prevent the situation worsening. Ben MacDui 09:36, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Part of the dynamic here is use, for birds, of an authority to determine a single "accepted"

hatnotes on top of the articles to address multiple common names. Maybe this and this discussion can give some ideas on the issue. StevePrutz (talk

) 20:18, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Dyanega's idea sounds like a step forward to me. Personally, I despise the idea of using the googletest to settle cases where multiple common names apply. --Jwinius (talk) 01:58, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

There is a discussion going on at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (flora) that may eventually have some ramifications here. You might want to check it out and weigh in. I'd be happy to summarize if anyone were interested, but I can't guarantee my summary would be neutral.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:50, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (flora) is being assaulted for over two months now by two editors,

I suggest this be discussed in full at Wikipedia naming conventions. --KP Botany (talk) 19:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm in the "prefer common names" camp, I guess, but agree that there's a potential problem here in determining what common names actually are. I think how Tumbleweed came out isn't too bad... there's an article at tumbleweed that discusses the tumbleweed phenomenon and helps readers find the major plants that are considered tumbleweeds, but no particular plant gets the named article since it's not clear which one it should be. But in other cases it seems pretty clear that the common name is widely accepted, isn't it? For example dog leads to an article on Canis lupus familiaris with a hatnote to lead you to a dab for other uses of the term ... isn't that the right outcome in that case? ++Lar: t/c 19:30, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Lar, so was I. The Tumbleweed article is full on unnecessary crap that Una inserted to prove her point about the dab, as is the dab. And, actually, etymology wise, it's very clear what is meant by a tumbleweed, versus what is a tumbling weed. For example, plants in their native habit are not weeds, except on Wikipedia at tumbleweed. I'm more in favor of common names, but really, PBS and B2c have shown me that it simply has to be stopped on Wikipedia. Woof. I added the link to the primary discussion, Lar, above. --KP Botany (talk) 19:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I've seen the suggestion that we use Latin names in order to avoid conflicts over common names, but I don't think it will work. What is the proper Latin name for

Metriaclima zebra? I do not think this issue has been resolved. And then we have fauna whose Latin name changes regularly. For example, over the last few years this fish went from Cichlasoma nigrofasciata to Heros nigrofasciata to Herichthys nigrofaciata to Archocentrus nigrofasciatus to Cryptoheros nigrofasciatus to its current Amatitlania nigrofasciata (I may have the endings of the species name incorrect in a few cases). And during the Heros/Herichthys period, it was also known as "Cichlasoma" nigrofasciata, with the quotation marks. But throughout the period, one could always refer to it as Convict Cichlid, and almost everyone would know what you were talking about. While there could also be disputes and changes over common names, I think Wikipedia is on much firmer ground picking a particular common name, then attempting to adjudicate an ongoing scientific controversy in picking a Latin name. Add to that the fact that this is the English Wikipedia, and not the Latin Wikipedia, so people expect to see Human when they type "human" rather than Homo sapiens, and I think we should stick with common names whenever an appropriate one is available. Rlendog (talk

) 02:04, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Rlendog makes an excellent point about many scientific names being turned upside down with new taxonomic research. I am seeing this with lots of frog articles (e.g. Anaxyrus, poison dart frogs), and it's a real mess to un-memorize the old, easy names. I don't know if it will stabilize any time soon. Right now (at this moment) I am for common names as the title. I also try to keep in mind that this is English Wikipedia, and those weird Spanish common names (etc) should be on their respective interwiki. StevePrutz (talk) 02:42, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing strange about there being two scientific names organisms like sperm whales: one is valid while the other is a synonym. Which one is which should depend on the taxonomy we follow, or more preferably on the publications we find to be the more persuasive or influential. In my view, using scientific names for article titles actually goes some way to putting a damper on edit wars regarding these names; article titles can't be changes as easily, especially when the redirects for the synonyms are systematically categorized. The idea is to argue first on the talk page about the most recent relevant publications regarding the classification, after which a move request is submitted following the new consensus. In this manner, we work out our own taxonomy, synonymy and all. Doing it this way may not be easy, but in the end it's the most logical and orderly way to complete the task at hand. --Jwinius (talk) 23:45, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that one is valid and one is a synonym. The problem is that there is no agreement about which is which. Rlendog (talk) 01:20, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Then this information, that the ICZN considers there to be no resolution about which is valid and which is the synonym should be in the article, as cases like this are rare. --KP Botany (talk) 01:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

The ICZN has little to do with it. AFAIK, they exist only to ensure that the names are unique and to occasionally issue rulings in conflicts regarding which names have precedence of which. The rest is all up to us. You simply need to be up-to-date on the available literature. For example, there may be hundreds of older publications available with one particular name, but if a new one was suggested in a publication three or four years ago that by now all the experts in the field have been citing, then there can be no argument about the name change. On the other hand, if within a year or two we see the big names rejecting the proposal, then we need to leave things as they are, make a note of it in the article if necessary, and move on.

Anyway, the important thing here is to recognize that when scientific names are the default naming convention for articles on organisms, then the type of mind-numbing pointless disputes that we so often see associated with this business can be replaced by informed debate. --Jwinius (talk) 08:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm....I think the reason why the whole sperm whale naming question is an issue is because both names were published at the same time (as two different species that were consolidated into one), in the same publication. This means there's essentially no way to determine which takes precedence. IMHO, this is extremely rare and isn't really something that should affect the policy we're trying to generate. Shrumster (talk) 17:48, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually there is a way, and it was settled taxonomically, but the name is in use by other than taxonomists, and that includes the major animal reference used by Wikipedia. It's wrong. Only the one name is taxonomically valid. It's been settled, in just the way Jwinius describes. --KP Botany (talk) 06:45, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

It seems that the Sperm whale problem could be easily solved by having the article at Physeter while retaing the naming controversy section as is. The only issue would be the 1 or 2 described extinct species, but they would be at the binomial name.--Kevmin (talk) 02:42, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

So the ICZN recognizes/ed two names for the Sperm Whale? I'll have to look at the article to see that. All those weird Spanish common names for plants we use in California? We use them when speaking English, because the plants were first named by the Spaniards who settled the West, before it became and American state. English cannot simply throw away words from all other languages, because it is not a static language, as languages are generally not. Also, they're not Latin names, they're scientific names. You pick the scientific name according to the code of nomenclature that is about naming those particular organisms. Common names are simply not more stable than scientific names. They have variation not only in time, but great regional variation. Anyway, the discussion is at the link I pointed out, please, head over and make your same points there to localize the discussion for all interested editors. Thanks. --KP Botany (talk) 08:14, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry KP you've got me all wrong. I didn't mean ban all the common names that are loanwords from other languages (

Sapo Dorado). By the way, that species has had at least three scientific name changes in the past few years. StevePrutz (talk

) 18:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the original comment, then, or what loanwords from other languages have to do with it. Cobra is an English word, now, whereas Yerba mansa, the common name in California for the native Californian herb, Anemopsis californica, is Spanish, and not a loanword, but rather a "weird Spanish common name," and it absolutely belongs on en.wiki because it is the primary common name, according to the

Jepson Manual, for the plant. And it is used in English. This was kinda my point. There are other species that have had more than 3 scientific name changes in the past few years, this is why it is even more important to use scientific names, in my opinion, because this also keeps editors on the ball on scientific names. With the very high computer speeds for crunching huge numbers of data and the increasing speed in getting the molecular data this will become more common or more of a bother, depending upon your viewpoint. --KP Botany (talk

) 20:33, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify one point I made above before taking the discussion elsewhere, picking a common name for the title of an article is not OR, unless there is no source for it. The fact that there isn't necessarily one, single, "official" common name for a species works in Wikipedia. Since all the sourced common names are "correct", the one name out of the potentially several correct, sourced names is a decision that lends itself to consensus. All the correct common names would be linked to the appropriate article, and consensus can determine which of those names becomes the title of the article. But since there is theoretically one and only one unique Latin name for a species, and there are official mechanisms for validating which name is used, Wikipedia picking among multiple Latin names (either because of a current dispute or a recent paper proposing a change) really is OR. Rlendog (talk) 15:18, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

If there's nothing in the literature or research to justify picking one common name over the other it is original research. --KP Botany (talk) 20:33, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Under "redirects", this article says

There may be several scientific names that need to be redirected:

* Both Phascolarctos cinereus and Phascolarctos → Koala (since there is only one species in the genus)

In fact there is now a separate article for Phascolarctos, because the genus does have more than one species. The other species just happen to be extinct. Can someone can suggest a better example? Cheers, Cephal-odd (talk) 14:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Changed to Numbat. Maias (talk) 00:00, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I would say nothing, if I edited with bias, because this is my state's faunal emblem! Anyway, I'm not sure why a monotypic example is used, it seems a bit misleading to the point of the section. The redirection of valid names is touched upon in the line about redirecting the genus to the species. Wouldn't the "several scientific names" be better illustrated by giving examples of synonyms? In any case, Myrmecobius fasciatus (Numbat) has four other scientific names that might redirect to it, it has two subspecies that are redlinked. I would prefer to see them stay that way, and hope that it is expanded and split, but the example is potentially confounding to the user of this page.

BTW, the convention on which name to use monotypic taxa is confused, what should a user make of the following:

Except that for [?] extinct genera which contain only a single described species [monotypic], name the article after the genus.

• Nodocephalosaurus kirtlandensis
  )
• For monotypic [!] genera (ie. where the genus has only one known species), redirect the genus to the species article.

I'm guessing that it is assumed that an article on a species will be titled with some other name that may refer to the valid name. I appreciate the efforts made to clarify this page (esp. KP Botany and Jwinius), but it is more likely to confuse anyone seeking guidance in its current state. cygnis insignis 09:45, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Surely in the instructions on italicization, DISPLAYTITLE should be followed by a colon, not a pipe (applies to flora as well)?--Kotniski (talk) 15:17, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I fixed that and tried to make the whole lot shorter. It would be appropriate to add this to the first section on article titles. cygnis insignis 19:38, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks...it was especially difficult writing all that on the fly. I'm not one for writing guidelines...it's difficult to cover everything and still be clear. This looks much better. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:45, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Rodents will be discussing coming to a consensus on article capitalisation at

There seem to be an inconsistency between the category description for Category:Redirects from monotypic taxa and what is said at the bottom of Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(fauna)#Article_title about monotypic taxa. Which is correct? This would be a good example in the Redirects section on the project page. It seems to me like the category description and the template description should be correct while the project page is currently in error. For instance, suppose there's a common name for some monotypic species. Would you want something like "Red-bellied Grackle" to redirect to "Hypopyrrhus"? Probably not. Jason Quinn (talk) 15:27, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

There is no discrepancy; the relevant text on this page applies only when there is no common name.

As for your question: "Red-bellied Grackle" should redirect to "Hypopyrrhus" if it's just a name someone wrote in a book, and it should be the other way around if "Red-bellied Grackle" is actually the name people use to refer to it. Ucucha 16:01, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

There is an inconsistency. The description at the category never mentions a "common name" exception for fauna, only for flora. The template never mentions any exceptions. Is the convention the same for both flora and fauna? Jason Quinn (talk) 16:52, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't read it correctly. I changed the text on the category, and I think it now reflects general usage. Ucucha 17:13, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I will go ahead and changed the text on the associated template for the category too. I will also try to simplify the wording to preserve the meaning. If it is okay, I may contact you to double-check my changes when I make them (might take a few days until I get around to it). After you and I agree, I will then check the category to make sure only pages that belong are listed. The project page would benefit from some tweaking here to prevent misunderstanding. Cheers. Jason Quinn (talk) 17:51, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

There appears to be no formal naming convention for fish. My understanding was that we prefer the English version given in FishBase, but this doesn't appear to be written down anywhere. Should this be added to this naming convention? This has arisen due to a requested move at Talk:Southern platyfish. Skinsmoke (talk) 03:37, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:FISH says we usually follow FishBase, and use sentence case. —innotata

22:27, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to propose that the section at the bottom of the article - "Italicization of scientific names" - have a clause added that instructs editors that the text strings "sp." and "spp." should never be italicized, as they are not part of the scientific name. I see people italicizing these quite commonly, because they evidently don't realize that it's a mistake. Dyanega (talk) 00:22, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that it would be ideal to name subgenera like they're usually seen in text; ie,

OK, I see how to use DISPLAYTITLE to get italics, but still, the (subgenus) seems less than ideal. ErikHaugen (talk) 23:16, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand your point. If you are trying to say that the article title shoud be italicized in the case of

Mus (Mus)", I disagree, because the parenthetical is supposed to explain which "Mus" you are talking about. It should be title Mus (subgenus) as opposed to Mus (city) or some such; another article called "Mus". Chrisrus (talk

) 18:57, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm suggesting the latter; that it should be titled

Mus (Mus) instead of Mus (subgenus) because we should prefer natural modes of disambiguation to disambiguation parenthesis. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs

) 00:20, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure about this. While "Mus (Mus)" may be a natural mode of disambiguation, I think "Mus (subgenus)" is clearer. Ucucha 00:26, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

While Cygnus (Olor) is preferred in the world of academe (and I'm using this subgenus to help better emphasize what's going on), it pokes at the use of parentheses in the title which (on Wikipedia) usually imply disambiguation. Therefore, Olor (subgenus) seems more appropriate here, since its title follows the expected format of parentheses that all other parenthesized titles follow. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:01, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

P.s. For clarification-- the format used in taxonomy to indicate a subgenus is to use the genus name followed by the parenthesized subgenus name. For example, the trumpeter swan Cygnus (Olor) buccinator belongs to the subgenus Olor and the genus Cygnus. Now that we're all on the same page, let's continue... Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:07, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I see what you mean now. The conventions or writing subgenera are conflicting with Wikipedia's conventional use of parentheses. Geez, I donno, that's a tough one. I have no suggestion, but we do need a ruling because he's right about

WP:PRECISION, but on the other hand, it's got to be useful and workable for users like me, and Mus (Mus) is going to cause people trouble. Chrisrus (talk

) 01:21, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Well...we could cater to both audiences...though I'm not sure how appealing this would be-- to redirect a title such as Olor(subgenus) (or Olor, depending on whether there's any disambiguation to be done) to Cygnus (Olor), so that the landing title would be the correct title, but the article would still be accessible by searching for the subgenus name without providing the genus name. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:43, 24 February 2011 (UTC)