Taxonomy section - standard format needed? (1 Viewer)

(First off - I did do a quick look through all 8 pages of Opus discussion threads to see if this was addressed. If it has already been addressed then please disregard)

Because every bird species entry should have a taxonomy section, I think a standard template should be created for displaying the species taxonomy.

Something standardized into
Classlink to page for class Aves showing all orders)
***Orderlink to Opus page for the Order to which the species belongs showing all families in the order)
******Familylink to Opus page for the Family to which the species belongs showing all genuses in the family)
*********Genuslink to Opus page for the Genus to which the species belongs showing all species in the genus)
************Species:Species name non-linked

I tend to disagree, but am open for more arguments. We currently do not have a page with general information on each of the taxonomic classes that you list. So the "link to" items would at least for now all go to empty pages. I have seen a few pages where the pattern of information that you think of have been included, except for lack of links; I dont think many of us like to read such a listing.

The taxonomy section is mostly for detailling recent splits (which species was split from this one), lumps, etc, and also for detailling which splits have been proposed without yet being accepted. It could also be good to mention which family a given bird belongs to, I just dont think that has been done on a consistent basis so far.

Cheers
Niels

njlarsen said:

We currently do not have a page with general information on each of the taxonomic classes that you list. So the "link to" items would at least for now all go to empty pages. I have seen a few pages where the pattern of information that you think of have been included, except for lack of links; I dont think many of us like to read such a listing.

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Assuming that the pages existed for each taxonomic division, I think it would be useful for people that have "favorite" families (like I love woodpeckers) and would be able to go to that familie's page and see links to all of the woodpecker genuses.

I know I have spent a lot of time exploring Wikipedia's taxonomy areas.

But I agree that many pages need to be created. Coming up with a standard taxonomic template would link to non-existant pages but that is one of the features of the wiki - it encourages people to create the missing pages.

If the consensus leans towards a standardized, linked taxonomic placement template then I would be willing to put in some time creating the pages.

Still in the mode of exploring your thinking: if you put in e.g., Woodpecker in opus, you should have a listing that has all the woodpeckers which have that word included in their name in the results page. The advantage of that is that any taxonimic changes would be reflected in the search immediately after the change was made. Due to the fact that opus does not like to search for words less than four letters long, there have been a few pages with listings created, like this one: http://www.birdforum.net/opus/Owl. The disadvantage is that such a page should be revised each time there is a taxonomic change, or it would loose some of its use.

Do you imagine that such pages should look like the owl page, or do you imagine some additional text telling about things that are common for the group of birds?

Cheers
Niels

It's an interestibg idea this, Terry.

Niels I was wondering if it may be linked like this
which would mean of course, setting up some new categories.

D

njlarsen said:

Do you imagine that such pages should look like the owl page, or do you imagine some additional text telling about things that are common for the group of birds?

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I was thinking of it being structured more like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird#Modern_bird_orders

Each taxonomic entry would contain general info about the taxonomy and then links to all of the pages in the next level of taxonomic detail.

So the pages wouldn't be so much about types of birds (like the Owl page - which is a great page but would hopefully be edited to point back to the taxonomic pages where mentioned), they would be about the biological taxonomy.

Down at the species level, the Taxonomy section would include all pertinent taxonomic information about recent splits/merges, open proposals, notes of interest, etc. and should uniformly contain a taxonomy tree with links to all levels in that species taxonomy.

delia todd said:

Niels I was wondering if it may be linked like this
which would mean of course, setting up some new categories.

Click to expand...

I think this would lend itself well to the categories approach (assuming a category still allows descriptive text and images, etc. and isn't just a list of links).

While I agree on it being potentially very useful, I suspect it is beyond the realistic goal at this point. We are only slowly modifying which species to recognize (largely following an earlier post, where the standards for this were discussed), and families are at least as messy, with the added problem that many (or more likely most) OPUS editors lack the full-text versions of the various World check lists, which are needed for families (avibase only lists families that, unless things have changed, follow the old Sibley & Monroe, so most have no way of checking what the remaining World check lists do). I suspect most are unaware of the great problems involved in certain families, but they are far from static: Two relatively well known examples are euphonias (finches, not tanagers) and woodcreepers (ovenbirds, not their own family). These two are relatively easy to deal with, but when we enter all the incertae sedis and things like Emberizidae, Cardinalidae and Thraupidae (nope, those "standard" US tanagers are not tanagers, but on the other hand a large percentage of the Neotropical "Emberizidae" are!) it becomes seriously messy. While these last three are the extreme, there are several other problematic family level issues. So, in my opinion the idea is good and something that certainly should be seriously considered in the future, but at present I think the work needed to start and (even more problematic) keep it up-to-date is beyond what is realistic, as many species entries still need even the most basic. However, if somebody with a bit of basic knowledge of family level taxonomy has some time to spare and wants to take a stab at it...

I think it is too big for us to take on at this time.

Added to which, I thought copying wikipedia was a huge no-no?

Kits said:

Added to which, I thought copying wikipedia was a huge no-no?

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Copying text from Wikipedia is a big no-no. Getting inspiration to make something from Wikipedia, and then make it better than Wikipedia would be OK

Niels