Plants, fungi, and other organisms (510 designated out of projected 1,200)
Many articles have yet to be designated for Tree of Life taxonomic groups, with 1,942 outstanding articles to be added. Anyone can add vital articles to the list! Restructuring may be necessary, as the only viruses included as of yet are under the category "Health". The majority of vital articles needing improvement are level 5, but here are some outstanding articles from the other levels:
From October 2019 – December 2019, the top ten most popular bat articles fluctuated among 16 different articles, with the December viewership of those 10 articles at 209,280. For January 2020, three articles broke into the top-10 that were not among the 16 articles of the prior three months: Bat as food, Horseshoe bat, and Bat-borne virus. Viewership of the top-10 bat articles spiked nearly 300% to 617,067 in January.
While bats have been implicated as a possible natural reservoir of SARS-CoV-2, an intermediate host may be the bridge between bats and humans. Pangolins have been hypothesized as the intermediate host for the virus, causing a large spike in typical page views of 2-3k each day up to more than 60k in a day. Masked palm civets, the intermediate host of SARS, saw a modest yet noticeable spike in page views as well, from 100 to 300 views per day to as many as 5k views per day.
With an increase in viewers came an increase in editors. In an interview, longtime virus editor Awkwafaba identified the influx of editors as the biggest challenge in editing content related to the coronavirus. They noted that these newcomers include "novices who make honest mistakes and get tossed about a bit in the mad activity" as well as "experienced editors who know nothing about viruses and are good researchers, yet aren't familiar with the policies of WP:ToL or WP:Viruses." Disruption also increased, with extended confirmed protection (also known as the 30/500 rule, which prevents editors with fewer than 30 days tenure and 500 edits from making edits and is typically used on a very small subset of Wikipedia articles) temporarily applied to Coronavirus and still active on Template:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak data. New editors apparently seeking to correct misinformation continuously edited the article Bat as food to remove content related to China: Videos of Chinese people eating bat soup were misrepresented to be current or filmed in China, when at least one such video was several years old and filmed in Palau. However, reliable sources confirm that bats are eaten in China, especially Southern China, so these well-meaning edits were mostly removed.
Another level of complexity was added by the fluctuating terminology of the virus. Over a dozen moves and merges were requested within WikiProject Viruses. To give you an idea of the musical chairs happening with article titles, here are the move histories of two articles:
Awkwafaba noted that "the main authorities, WHO and ICTV, don't really have a process for speedily naming a virus or disease." Additionally, they have different criteria for naming. They said, "I remember in a move discussion from the article then called Wuhan coronavirus that a virus name cannot have a geographical location in it, but this is a WHO disease naming guideline, and not an ICTV virus naming rule. ICTV may have renamed Four Corners virus to Sin Nombre orthohantavirus but there are still plenty of official virus species names that don't abide by WHO guidelines."
Please describe how you went about creating WikiProject COVID-19. What made you think a project was needed?
I've been following the outbreak and editing related Wikipedia articles since January. I'm not particularly interested in infectious diseases or viruses, but I've been to China a few times and wanted to monitor the outbreak's impact on society as well as the government's response. For a while, I was casually tracking updates to the first couple pages about the outbreak. Then a pattern began to emerge as February saw the creation of separate articles about outbreaks in Iran, Italy, and South Korea. New Wikipedia articles continued being created in early March, and the outbreak was recognized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11. Knowing there would many more articles, lists, templates, illustrations, and other pages on Wikipedia, I created WikiProject COVID-19 on March 15. My goal was simply to create a temporary or permanent space for editors to collaborate, communicate, and focus specifically on content related to this ongoing pandemic. I'm a member of many WikiProjects and have created several before, but this one definitely felt more necessary and urgent. Most WikiProjects unite editors with similar interests, which is fine and serves a purpose, but I felt this project could have a much bigger real life impact. I don't think I was alone in my thinking; the project had 80 members by March 20 and 100 members by March 26.
Who or what was invaluable to getting off the ground?
If I'm being honest, getting this project off the ground required little work on my part. All I did was create the space and post invitations to existing talk pages related to the outbreak. Editors joined the project very quickly; 30 members joined on the same day I started the project, and there were more than 50 participants one day later. I've been a daily Wikipedia editor for more than 12 years, and I've never seen so much interest in a project or content added to Wikipedia about a specific topic in such a short period of time. WikiProject members worked expeditiously to build a framework and hang a barnstar, tagging related pages, assessing content, and starting talk page discussions about the project's goals and scope. I'm thankful to the many editors who pitched in to get the project established, and I look forward to seeing how editors collaborate in this space as we move forward.
What are the short-term goals of the project?
No specific goals have been posted to the project page yet, but I'd like to think members share a collective desire to ensure Wikipedia has accurate and reliable information about the disease and pandemic. Disinformation and misinformation seem rampant these days, so we're working to give readers around the globe access to accurate, objective, and possibly even life-saving information. Unlike some WikiProjects which may take a more historical approach to documenting certain topics, WikiProject COVID-19 members have the ability to mitigate the disease's spread in real time by arming communities with facts about outbreaks in their region as well as information about prevention, testing, vaccine research, societal impact, etc.Viewership of WikiProject Medicine, WikiProject Viruses, and WikiProject COVID-19 in the month of March 2020
What are the long-term goals? English Wikipedia has many of 'lumpers' who think there are too many projects already. The project has also inspired the creation of two portals, which I imagine caused some raised eyebrows in this trend of portal deletionism. What will come of the WP after the current outbreak subsides?
After creating WikiProject COVID-19, a couple editors said I should have created a task force instead of a standalone WikiProject. I wasn't bothered. The number of 'thank you' notifications I received for creating the page vastly outweighed these critical comments. I knew the page I created was much needed, and I would be fine if editors decide to call the page by another name. I understand some editors think there are too many WikiProjects. No one's required to join WikiProject COVID-19, but the 100+ of us who have already joined invite you to help with our efforts, if you're interested. As for the project's future, I would be fine if editors decided to convert the WikiProject into a task force, or even put the project into retirement if the time comes. Given the level of interest and impact the pandemic has already had on a global scale, I have a feeling the WikiProject will be active for a long time.
Another criticism of the project is its narrow focus. It is focused on only one strain of virus, and the disease it causes. Even WikiProject AIDS is about two species of virus. Is the scope of the project too small? What would an expanded scope look like? Why would including another virus strain in the same species, Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus which causes SARS, not be wanted? or is it wanted?
Narrow focus? I disagree. The project may focus on a single virus and disease, but the pandemic has resulted in the creation of hundreds of Wikipedia articles documenting outbreaks in most countries and territories. There are pages covering the pandemic's impact on aviation, cinema, education, politics, religion, sports, and television, not to mention others related to the resulting economic turmoil. Additionally, there are hundreds of templates, charts, and other graphics. Who knows how many thousands of images and other media will be uploaded at Wikimedia Commons by the time this pandemic subsides? There's also COVID-19 WikiProject COVID-19 at Wikidata, and I wouldn't be surprised if similar spaces are created for other Wikimedia projects soon. Even if the focus is narrow, there's plenty of content for Wikimedians to improve and protect.
In your opinion, what should be the guidelines for creating a new project, as opposed to creating a task force or working under an existing WikiProject?
I don't feel strongly about new project creation guidelines, or the differences between WikiProjects and task forces. Project members should decide what structure works for them and call themselves whatever name they prefer. I understand project construction requires maintenance and can come at an administrative cost, but we should be careful about discouraging editors from proposing new projects.
Ideally, editors would only create a new WikiProject if at least a few others were committed to joining. I created WikiProject COVID-19 without conferring with others because I assumed the interest would be there. I encourage people to be bold and create project pages, but maybe ask a few other editors for feedback first. I'll let other editors worry about the guidelines.
What tools (templates, bots, etc.) are essential, or even just really helpful, for organizing and maintaining a successful project? What is something every WP should do, that maybe isn't doing now?
I don't have any sort of medical background, and I'm more interested in the pandemic's impact than details about the disease or virus. Most surprising to me has been the lack of preparedness for combating outbreaks by governments around the world, including here in the United States. I don't know how COVID-19's spread compares to other infectious diseases, but as I've watched the outbreak develop I've continually wondered why governments did not start preparing earlier. What was happening in China, Iran, Italy, and South Korea should have prompted action sooner.
What important things about 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic do you think folks should know and maybe have missed in the deluge of information coming at people?
1. Know the most common symptoms: cough, fever, and difficulty breathing.
2. Learn what behavioral adjustments you should make to protect yourself and reduce transmission, and remember to wash your hands.
3. Get your information from reputable sources. I'd like to think Wikipedia editors are pretty good at this last bit of advice.
Note A: Total is off by one; not worth looking for the error.
Note B Three food biographies moved [1] per discussion at WT:FAC
Note: The very odd dates used in earlier years result from pulling old data from the talk page at WP:FAS.
Good Article Category as of
Feb 23, 2008
Sep 16, 2008
Sep 16, 2010
Dec 1, 2011
Jan 1, 2015
Jan 1, 2020
Pct chg Feb 2008 to 2011
Pct chg Feb 2008 to 2020
Agriculture, food and drink
27
34
37
55
113
226
104%
737%
Art and architecture
134
188
321
450
683
1022
236%
663%
Engineering and technology
256
396
882
1198
1828
2407
368%
840%
Geography and places
191
248
424
523
716
1052
174%
451%
History
261
312
651
825
1219
1894
216%
626%
Language and literature
173
215
377
462
686
982
167%
468%
Mathematics
19
22
27
30
36
67
58%
253%
Media and drama
403
658
1352
1300
3070
3961
223%
883%
Music
357
527
997
1437
2532
3892
303%
990%
Natural sciences
544
686
1275
1717
2404
3426
216%
530%
Philosophy and religion
134
174
244
294
365
557
119%
316%
Social sciences and society
468
549
790
998
1430
1854
113%
296%
Sports and recreation
384
546
1074
1402
2350
3802
265%
890%
Video games
168
220
373
443
684
1349
164%
703%
Warfare
155
241
989
1654
2544
3996
967%
2478%
Total
3674
5016
9813
12788
20660
30487
248%
730%
Organisms*
119
130
402
528
685
1017
344%
755%
*subset of natural sciences
Unsurprisingly, the number of GAs has increased more rapidly than the number of FAs. Organisms, which is a subcategory of Natural sciences, has seen a GA growth of 755% since 2008, besting the Natural sciences overall growth of 530%. While Warfare had far and away the most significant growth of GAs, it's a clear outlier relative to other categories.
Do you have any personal projects or goals you're working towards on Wikipedia?
As I said I like organisation and systems. So I find efforts like the automated taxobox system and {{taxonbar}} appealing. I would like to see more reuse of the major phylogenetic trees on Wikipedia with more use of consensus trees on the higher taxa. Too often they get edited based on one recent report and/or without proper citation. Animals and bilateria are examples where this is a problem.
Towards this I have been working on a system of phylogeny templates that can be reused flexibly. The {{Clade transclude}} template allows selective transclusion, so the phylogenetic trees on one page can be reused with modifications, i.e. can be pruned and grafted, used with or without images, with or without collapsible elements, etc. I have an example for the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification (see {{Phylogeny/APG IV}}) and one for squamates that also includes collapsible elements (see {{Phylogeny/Squamata}}).
A second project is to have a modular reference system for taxonomic resources. I have made some progress along this lines with the {{BioRef}} template. This started off simply as a way of hardlinking to Catalog of Fishes pages and I’ve gradually expanded it to cover other groups (e..g. FishBase, AmphibiaWeb and Amphibian Species of the World, Reptile Database, the Mammalian Diversity Database). The modular nature is still rudimentary and needs a rewrite before it is ready for wider use.
What would surprise your fellow editors to learn about your life off-Wikipedia?
I don’t think there is anything particularly surprising or interesting about my life. I’ve had an academic career as a research scientist but I don't think anyone could guess the area from my Wikipedia edits. I prefer to work on areas where I am learning at the same time. This why I spend more time with neglected topics (e.g. mosses at the moment). I start reading and then find that I’m not getting the information I want.
Anything else you'd like us to know?
My interest in the classification of things goes beyond biology. I am fascinated by mediaeval attempts to classify knowledge, such as Bacon in his The Advancement of Learning and Diderot and d’Alembert in their Encyclopédie. They were trying to come up with a universal scheme of knowledge just as the printing press was allowing greater dissemination of knowledge.
With the internet we are seeing a new revolution in knowledge dissemination. Just look at how we could read research papers on the COVID virus within weeks of its discovery. With an open internet, everyone has access, not just those with the luxury of books at home or good libraries. Sites like the Biodiversity Heritage Library allow you to read old scientific works without having to visit dusty university library stack rooms, while the taxonomic and checklist databases provide instant information on millions of living species. In principle, the whole world can now find out about anything, even if Douglas Adams warned we might be disinclined to do so.
This is why I like Wikipedia, with all its warts, it’s a means of organising the knowledge on the internet. In just two decades it’s become a first stop for knowledge and hopefully a gateway to more specialised sources. Perhaps developing this latter aspect, beyond providing good sources for what we say, is the next challenge for Wikipedia.
Delivered on behalf of Enwebb (talk) 16:33, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
Help with Dutch Wikipedia
Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi, I see you've identified yourself as an editor who speaks Dutch. Could you be of some assistance? Some editors discovered that we have a hoax article on English Wikipedia (more info here), Mustelodon. Dutch is one of the languages it's been translated into. I have no clue how to nominate something for deletion in Dutch, or let people in that project know of issues. It would be great if you could help get this hoax removed from Dutch Wikipedia. Thanks, Enwebb (talk) 23:02, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
Vale of Holmesdale
Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi Dick!
Just to let you know, I removed your remark about James Alexander Brewer from Vale of Holmesdale, for two reasons: I could not see a source for the "first secretary" assertion in the sources given, and more importantly, he's just not relevant to the article. However, I did find him interesting of himself, and so I created a page for him, from the sources I could find!
Vale of Holmesdale is unfortunately very inadequately sourced. I hope to add more references (and sourced content!) when I can. Aliveness Cascade (talk) 01:55, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
August 2020 Tree of Life Newsletter
Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply edit the submission and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.
If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.
Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia! —Nnadigoodluck🇳🇬 00:37, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Frank Southgate, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.
Congratulations, and thank you for helping expand the scope of Wikipedia! We hope you will continue making quality contributions.
The article has been assessed as Start-Class, which is recorded on its talk page. Most new articles start out as Stub-Class or Start-Class and then attain higher grades as they develop over time. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.
Since you have made at least 10 edits over more than four days, you can now create articles yourself without posting a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for creation if you prefer.
If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the help desk. Once you have made at least 10 edits and had an account for at least four days, you will have the option to create articles yourself without posting a request to Articles for creation.
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Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Content you added to the above article appears to have been copied from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/106939717901400301, which is not released under a compatible license. Unfortunately, for copyright reasons, some content had to be removed. Please leave a message on my talk page if you have any questions. — Diannaa (talk) 21:40, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
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An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Charles J. Patten, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Trinity College.
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I wonder if you can help me. I’m sorry, I do not speak Dutch. I am trying to create an article in Wikipedia EN about Dr Frans Vera (Draft:Frans Vera). I believe you played a significant part in constructing the Wikipedia NL entry. I have used this as a starting point, but most of the NL Biography section does not have citations of sources, and I cannot get my article accepted without verification of that section.I have not been able to find a biography or career profile for Dr Vera, nor can I find an interview where he talks about his background or career. I have found it very difficult to construct any time line for his career. Several of the past organisations where he worked seem to have disappeared, without leaving any internet trail.Can you help me with reliable, secondary sources for his biography (better than his own Linkedin entry, which is short, and not secondary)?Masato.harada (talk) 12:56, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
hi @User:Masato.harada! Of course I want to help you with that. I know Frans from a certain distance (my partner made the photograph you used). And I know his work. Very interesting and very important, though not always without controversy. I know that the standards for biographies of living people on en-wiki are (sometimes, not always!) high. And in general I agree with that. When I take a quick look at your (draft-)article, I can honestly say that it really looks good. I know that it is sometimes difficult to find good sources on living persons. But I'm gonna take a look at it. Good chance for me to enhance the quality of the Dutch article as well! But I'm quite busy with a few other things, so it may take a couple of days. Please, feel free to contact me, if you want to discuss something. I'm mostly working on English Wikisource as: s:en:User:Dick Bos. Greetings for now, --Dick Bos (talk) 13:20, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, Dick, I'd really appreciate some help, otherwise they only way I might this accepted is by deleting all the statements which can't be supported with references. I've marked up the draft with the statements which I think need citations - most are in the Biography, and most came from the original nl-wiki article. Thanks again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7F:F251:D900:EC21:25D6:4AC0:DBF3 (talk) 15:14, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
Dick, I've found some more sources and revised the draft, which I hope should now be enough to get it published. Do you have whatever privileges are required to accept and publish it? That would make things much simpler. Alternatively, I shall submit it again as an Afc, but with the first paragraph of the Biography removed, since I can't find supporting citations for several statements about Vera's youthful interests, activities and influences. I think you originally authored these, so perhaps you have sources? I'd really like to get this completed soon, so any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Books & Bytes – Issue 46
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Hi Dick Bos! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi Dick!
Thanks for attending the Pre-ISBN/ISSN bibliographic data workshop at WikidataCon 2021. It would be great to continue the conversation with you at Linked Pasts VII, a free online conference held 13-21 December.
Whether or not you can attend, if you're still interested in historical bibliographic data, could you please add your name and/or projects to this page I created for the wider initiative of getting people in academia and/or in the GLAM sector and/or in the Wiki communities to talk about how to model their historical bibliographic data (pre-ISBN/ISSN/ISMN):
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Oxley Grabham
Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hiya. I note your recent edit to Oxley Grabham - that they published in several journals, including the Zoologist. I had thought of reverting this citing AFG as its implicit in the text that they published in journals given the list of publications below, but I've left it in. The specifics of noting The Zoologist specifically suggests you are aware of work of Grabham in this journal; this being the case, would you reference it in the list of select publications? Much obliged. Zakhx150 (talk) 14:22, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
Hi @Zakhx150, thank you for your remark on my edit at Oxley Grabham. I now changed it a little bit. I can't immediately find The Naturalist. But I'll look after those refs as well. A (partial) list of his articles in The Zoologist is given on his Wikisource-authorpage. Most of these are small contributions. But some are larger. Do you perhaps think it's better to also mention the most important ones at the Wikipedia page? I will be glad to hear of you. Greetz, --Dick Bos (talk) 17:22, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
Books & Bytes – Issue 53
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The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes Issue 53, September – October 2022
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