User talk:Evolution and evolvability/Archive 2019

Catalytic triad of TEV protease

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THOMAS SHAFEE

Evolution and Evolvability

Nominate article for WikiScience Journal

Dear Mr Thomas Shafee

I am interested to improve and publish article "Immune systems" to WikiScience Journal. I have added on Nomination Page. Please kindly to evaluate it. Thank you Helito (talk) 04:33, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

@Helito: Hello. We typically put the article through academic peer review after the submitter has made significant contributions to improving the article to make sure it is up to date. After you have done so, we will be happy to start organizing the invitation of experts to critique the article. You are also welcome to approach the other authors of the article to update it with you. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 05:49, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

• • Thank you for your response. Now I am improving the original article and put it on here. https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_Preprints/Immune_system (I just finished making the outline) Helito (talk) 06:46, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 20 – 31 January 2019

Facto Post – Issue 20 – 31 January 2019 The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page. To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer. Back numbers are here. Everything flows (and certainly data does) Extended content Recently Jimmy Wales has made the point that computer home assistants take much of their data from Wikipedia, one way or another. So as well as getting Spotify to play Frosty the Snowman for you, they may be able to answer the question "is the Pope Catholic?" Possibly by asking for disambiguation (Coptic?). Amazon Echo device using the Amazon Alexa service in voice search showdown with the Google rival on an Android phone Headlines about data breaches are now familiar, but the unannounced circulation of information raises other issues. One of those is Gresham's law stated as "bad data drives out good". Wikipedia and now Wikidata have been criticised on related grounds: what if their content, unattributed, is taken to have a higher standing than Wikimedians themselves would grant it? See Wikiquote on a misattribution to Bismarck for the usual quip about "law and sausages", and why one shouldn't watch them in the making. Wikipedia has now turned 18, so should act like as adult, as well as being treated like one. The Web itself turns 30 some time between March and November this year, per Tim Berners-Lee. If the Knowledge Graph by Google exemplifies Heraclitean Web technology gaining authority, contra GIGO, Wikimedians still have a role in its critique. But not just with the teenage skill of detecting phoniness. There is more to beating Gresham than exposing the factoid and urban myth, where WP:V does do a great job. Placeholders must be detected, and working with Wikidata is a good way to understand how having one statement as data can blind us to replacing it by a more accurate one. An example that is important to open access is that, firstly, the term itself needs considerable unpacking, because just being able to read material online is a poor relation of "open"; and secondly, trying to get Creative Commons license information into Wikidata shows up issues with classes of license (such as CC-BY) standing for the actual license in major repositories. Detailed investigation shows that "everything flows" exacerbates the issue. But Wikidata can solve it. Links Wikipedia:Wikipedia Day for 18th birthday celebrations WMUK video page, with "fake news", Jimmy Wales, Wikidata and more (health warning for those with tune allergy) Why Wikipedia’s Medical Content Is Superior, Stephen Harrison, 28 January 2019, Slate Olivia Colman reveals struggle with Wikipedia over age, Naomi Gordon, 28 January 2019, harpersbazaar.com Making Wikidata visible, Martin Poulter blogpost, 24 January 2019, Bodleian Digital Library Inventory, Magnus Manske blogpost, 24 January 2019, on Wikidata tech support for an image donation by Cleveland Museum of Art If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:53, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

atp and ketons

Yes, I did not notice regulation section was continuation of glycolysis. Thanx for fixing! As for what is more common, I maybe have more info later AlexM202020 (talk) 10:11, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

@AlexM202020: Great! I look forward to it. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 12:42, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Merge

Hello TS - just to note that your recent merge tag for Parasitic life cycle does not bring up an area for discussion - it needs to be tagged using Twinkle. Would do this myself but then it would be my request - i would support this proposal. Best --Iztwoz (talk) 12:57, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

@Iztwoz: Thanks for reminding me! I've made the entry here. I got completely side-tracked and forgot. I'll have to actually get into twinkle at some point - it's perpetually on my todo list! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 13:14, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Ways to improve Small protein

Hello, Evolution and evolvability,

Thanks for creating Small protein! I edit here too, under the username Boleyn and it's nice to meet you :-)

I wanted to let you know that I have tagged the page as having some issues to fix, as a part of our page curation process and note that:-

Please add your references.

The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, leave a comment here and prepend it with {{Re|Boleyn}}. And, don't forget to sign your reply with ~~~~ . For broader editing help, please visit the Teahouse.

Delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.

Boleyn (talk) 16:20, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

@Boleyn: Thanks for the ping! I've added in refs and removed the tag. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 22:49, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Brilliant, thanks. Boleyn (talk) 07:45, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 21 – 28 February 2019

Facto Post – Issue 21 – 28 February 2019 The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page. To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer. Back numbers are here. What is a systematic review? Extended content Systematic reviews are basic building blocks of evidence-based medicine, surveys of existing literature devoted typically to a definite question that aim to bring out scientific conclusions. They are principled in a way Wikipedians can appreciate, taking a critical view of their sources. PRISMA flow diagram for a systematic review Ben Goldacre in 2014 wrote (link below) "[...] : the "information architecture" of evidence based medicine (if you can tolerate such a phrase) is a chaotic, ad hoc, poorly connected ecosystem of legacy projects. In some respects the whole show is still run on paper, like it's the 19th century." Is there a Wikidatan in the house? Wouldn't some machine-readable content that is structured data help? File:Schittny, Facing East, 2011, Legacy Projects.jpg 2011 photograph by Bernard Schittny of the "Legacy Projects" group Most likely it would, but the arcana of systematic reviews and how they add value would still need formal handling. The PRISMA standard dates from 2009, with an update started in 2018. The concerns there include the corpus of papers used: how selected and filtered? Now that Wikidata has a 20.9 million item bibliography, one can at least pose questions. Each systematic review is a tagging opportunity for a bibliography. Could that tagging be reproduced by a query, in principle? Can it even be second-guessed by a query (i.e. simulated by a protocol which translates into SPARQL)? Homing in on the arcana, do the inclusion and filtering criteria translate into metadata? At some level they must, but are these metadata explicitly expressed in the articles themselves? The answer to that is surely "no" at this point, but can TDM find them? Again "no", right now. Automatic identification doesn't just happen. Actually these questions lack originality. It should be noted though that WP:MEDRS, the reliable sources guideline used here for health information, hinges on the assumption that the usefully systematic reviews of biomedical literature can be recognised. Its nutshell summary, normally the part of a guideline with the highest density of common sense, allows literature reviews in general validity, but WP:MEDASSESS qualifies that indication heavily. Process wonkery about systematic reviews definitely has merit. Links Evidence-Based Practice: Appraise, resources page from Duke University Medical Library & Archives. What should Cochrane do next?, Bad Science blogpost 5 November 2014, Ben Goldacre. Cambridge (UK) Science Festival event, How do scientific discoveries become clinical medicine?, ScienceSource workshop for ContentMine 23 March 2019, with systematic review process diagram. Also on Eventbrite for tickets, taking place in Makespace, 16 Mill Lane. PROSPERO database of PRISMA, for registration of systematic review protocols. Process wonkery thread, wikien-l mailing list, September 2006. Meta-Analysis, xkcd cartoon. If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:01, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Share templates

Template:Share templates has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:43, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 22 – 28 March 2019

Facto Post – Issue 22 – 28 March 2019 The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page. To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer. Back numbers are here. When in the cloud, do as the APIs do Extended content Half a century ago, it was the era of the mainframe computer, with its air-conditioned room, twitching tape-drives, and appearance in the title of a spy novel Billion-Dollar Brain then made into a Hollywood film. Now we have the cloud, with server farms and the client–server model as quotidian: this text is being typed on a Chromebook. File:Cloud-API-Logo.svg Logo of Cloud API on Google Cloud Platform The term Applications Programming Interface or API is 50 years old, and refers to a type of software library as well as the interface to its use. While a compiler is what you need to get high-level code executed by a mainframe, an API out in the cloud somewhere offers a chance to perform operations on a remote server. For example, the multifarious bots active on Wikipedia have owners who exploit the MediaWiki API. APIs (called RESTful) that allow for the GET HTTP request are fundamental for what could colloquially be called "moving data around the Web"; from which Wikidata benefits 24/7. So the fact that the Wikidata SPARQL endpoint at query.wikidata.org has a RESTful API means that, in lay terms, Wikidata content can be GOT from it. The programming involved, besides the SPARQL language, could be in Python, younger by a few months than the Web. Magic words, such as occur in fantasy stories, are wishful (rather than RESTful) solutions to gaining access. You may need to be a linguist to enter Ali Baba's cave or the western door of Moria (French in the case of "Open Sesame", in fact, and Sindarin being the respective languages). Talking to an API requires a bigger toolkit, which first means you have to recognise the tools in terms of what they can do. On the way to the wikt:impactful or polymathic modern handling of facts, one must perhaps take only tactful notice of tech's endemic problem with documentation, and absorb the insightful point that the code in APIs does articulate the customary procedures now in place on the cloud for getting information. As Owl explained to Winnie-the-Pooh, it tells you The Thing to Do. Links Wikidata as a semantic framework for the Gene Wiki initiative, 2016 paper by Andrawaag and others, commenting inter alia on the role of the API on Wikidata Working With Wikibase From Go, Digital Flapjack blogpost 26 November 2018, Michael Dales, developer for ScienceSource using golang, with a software engineer's view on Wikibase and the MediaWiki API Dealing with the Rust, Magnus Manske blogpost 12 March 2019, on the Rust language and the MediaWiki API mw:API:RecentChanges, mediawiki.org page on the API for access to "recent changes" on a wiki wikitech:Analytics/AQS/Pageviews, wikitech.wikimedia.org for the Pageview API, giving Wikimedia traffic information xkcd cartoon, API Guide If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:45, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Three years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:36, 2 April 2019 (UTC) @Gerda Arendt: Thank you - By coincidence, it also comes whilst I'm at the WikiMedia Summit in Berlin! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 12:18, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 23 – 30 April 2019

Facto Post – Issue 23 – 30 April 2019 The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page. To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer. Back numbers are here. Completely clouded? Extended content Cloud computing logo Talk of cloud computing draws a veil over hardware, but also, less obviously but more importantly, obscures such intellectual distinction as matters most in its use. Wikidata begins to allow tasks to be undertaken that were out of easy reach. The facility should not be taken as the real point. Coming in from another angle, the "executive decision" is more glamorous; but the "administrative decision" should be admired for its command of facts. Think of the attitudes ad fontes, so prevalent here on Wikipedia as "can you give me a source for that?", and being prepared to deal with complicated analyses into specified subcases. Impatience expressed as a disdain for such pedantry is quite understandable, but neither dirty data nor false dichotomies are at all good to have around. Issue 13 and Issue 21, respectively on WP:MEDRS and systematic reviews, talk about biomedical literature and computing tasks that would be of higher quality if they could be made more "administrative". For example, it is desirable that the decisions involved be consistent, explicable, and reproducible by non-experts from specified inputs. What gets clouded out is not impossibly hard to understand. You do need to put together the insights of functional programming, which is a doctrinaire and purist but clearcut approach, with the practicality of office software. Loopless computation can be conceived of as a seamless forward march of spreadsheet columns, each determined by the content of previous ones. Very well: to do a backward audit, when now we are talking about Wikidata, we rely on integrity of data and its scrupulous sourcing: and clearcut case analyses. The MEDRS example forces attention on purge attempts such as Beall's list. Links Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-03-31/In focus#The_Wikipedia_SourceWatch by Headbomb. Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Journals cited by Wikipedia/Questionable1 d:Wikidata:ScienceSource project/Beall's list: Beall's list, final version, matched into Wikidata. SPARQL query for Quackwatch: query to find items on Wikidata for articles subject to the Quackwatch blacklist of "Nonrecommended Periodicals", under "Journals (Fundamentally Flawed)". SPARQL query to find retracted articles on Wikidata. d:Wikidata:ScienceSource project/NCBI2wikidata dashboard, metadata for biomedical articles being built up, sourced from PubMed and PubMed Central. If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:27, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Email?

I had an alert that you had emailed me, but I don't seem to have actually received anything (and I've checked the spam folder too). Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:37, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

@Jimfbleak: Huh, how odd. Nvm, I've now posted the email text to your talk page instead. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 23:29, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

And another email

Hi Thomas. Thanks for the email. I have no objections in principle to submitting an article as you suggest. I have been rather casually considering this for one of the areas I am currently working on. (But have shelved the idea on the basis of ignorance of the procedure.) However, I was a little confused by the topic you suggested. It is not an area where I could usefully contribute at this level. I suspect that you may have been misled by the "Authorship" stats, which include my contributions to ensuring that web links and similar are secured against link rot. This inflates my character count considerably, without necessarily demonstrating that I have an advanced grasp of the subject matter.

So, sadly, I shall decline; but await a similar email in any area in which I may be adequately equipped .

Gog the Mild (talk) 14:56, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Aha, that makes sense. I'd wanted to make sure that I contacted all the high-contribution editors for the article so as not to exclude anyone who did a lot of work on it. Now that I double-check with the whocolor tool I see what you're saying. Rather an oversight on my part given the array of FAs and GAs you've worked on in a far more extensive manner, and are within-scope of what the WikiJournal of Humanities tackles. Do you have any favourites that you've worked on? The articles on the Siege of Berwick (1333), Battle of Neville's Cross, Battle of Auberoche, or Battle of Bergerac are possibilities, but that's only based on articles that you've already worked on extensively, rather than new ones you might be interested in doing, so it's certainly only a suggestion. Feel free to move the conversation thread to your talkpage if you prefer to keep it there. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 00:10, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Continued on my talk page. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:24, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 24 – 17 May 2019

Facto Post – Issue 24 – 17 May 2019 Text mining display of noun phrases from the US Presidential Election 2012 The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page. To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer. Back numbers are here. Semantic Web and TDM – a ContentMine view Extended content Two dozen issues, and this may be the last, a valediction at least for a while. It's time for a two-year summation of ContentMine projects involving TDM (text and data mining). Wikidata and now Structured Data on Commons represent the overlap of Wikimedia with the Semantic Web. This common ground is helping to convert an engineering concept into a movement. TDM generally has little enough connection with the Semantic Web, being instead in the orbit of machine learning which is no respecter of the semantic. Don't break a taboo by asking bots "and what do you mean by that?" The ScienceSource project innovates in TDM, by storing its text mining results in a Wikibase site. It strives for compliance of its fact mining, on drug treatments of diseases, with an automated form of the relevant Wikipedia referencing guideline MEDRS. Where WikiFactMine set up an API for reuse of its results, ScienceSource has a SPARQL query service, with look-and-feel exactly that of Wikidata's at query.wikidata.org. It also now has a custom front end, and its content can be federated, in other words used in data mashups: it is one of over 50 sites that can federate with Wikidata. The human factor comes to bear through the front end, which combines a link to the HTML version of a paper, text mining results organised in drug and disease columns, and a SPARQL display of nearby drug and disease terms. Much software to develop and explain, so little time! Rather than telling the tale, Facto Post brings you ScienceSource links, starting from the how-to video, lower right. ScienceSourceReview, introductory video: but you need run it from the original upload file on Commons Links for participation http://sciencesource-review.wmflabs.org/, review tool link in the left-hand sidebar at http://sciencesource.wmflabs.org/wiki/Main_Page The review tool requires a log in on sciencesource.wmflabs.org, and an OAuth permission (bottom of a review page) to operate. It can be used in simple and more advanced workflows. Examples of queries for the latter are at d:Wikidata_talk:ScienceSource project/Queries#SS_disease_list and d:Wikidata_talk:ScienceSource_project/Queries#NDF-RT issue. Please be aware that this is a research project in development, and may have outages for planned maintenance. That will apply for the next few days, at least. The ScienceSource wiki main page carries information on practical matters. Email is not enabled on the wiki: use site mail here to Charles Matthews in case of difficulty, or if you need support. Further explanatory videos will be put into commons:Category:ContentMine videos. If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:52, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks very much for those edits to Rosetta Stone. I was intending to do it, but I had a rush of work connected with other forthcoming publications -- things somehow have to happen at the same moment -- and hadn't yet been able to give the time to it. Andrew Dalby 08:38, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

@Andrew Dalby: No problem at all, I enjoyed the read. The accompanying pdf will be formatted soon. It's now the 38th such article! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 10:19, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Wikijournal question–

Hi Thomas, thank you for bringing this excellent project to my attention. It is exactly the direction that I believe Wikipedia/Wikimedia should be going, driving further convergence with the academic world.

I have one question regarding WikiJournal_User_Group/Ethics_statement#Confidentiality_2: can I avoid disclosing my identity post publication? The Balfour Declaration article, which I believe would be a good fit for WikiJournal Humanities, is in a contested topic area in which most editors consider confidentiality a prerequisite to editing. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:42, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

@Onceinawhile: So in general it is by far easier from a journal point of view to use named authors, since one of the ICMJE Authorship criteria:

"Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved."

However, journals have published by pseudonymous authors in the past and there are provisions. We've aimed to avoid it as much as possible so far, since it could be an added layer of complication. However I'm happy to bring it up in the upcoming meeting next weekend. The journal would have to hold your identity confidentially to show that accountability can be maintained (there may be some OTRS-based or {{Committed identity}}-based solution) and could be indicated in the authorship declaration form. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 02:04, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Thomas, that makes sense. I was just reading something similar at Academic_authorship#Anonymous_and_unclaimed_authorship.

It would be great if you could raise at your upcoming meeting.

Onceinawhile (talk) 08:00, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

@Onceinawhile: No problem, I've added it to the agenda for Saturday. I've also contacted a couple of editors I know at other journals to ask their take. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 11:15, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

@Onceinawhile: Apologies. We didn't get around to discussing this. A pity, because I think it's a key question (meeting notes). I'll be at the top of the discussion list on next month. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 11:50, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the update. By the way, the professionalism of your approach to this is very impressive. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:12, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

@Onceinawhile: Thank you for being patient with this. The initial discussions within the WikiJournals was to avoid pseudonymous submissions for now in order to to be cautious in establish accountability and credibility as the journals start up (Meeting notes here). You're welcome to raise the question at this talkpage to initiate more extended discussion though. Threre's is a somewhat related discussion going on about experimenting with officially publishing the peer review comments, but not the wikipedia article itself. This was initially proposed for important wikipedia articles where the main contributors are no longer on wikipedia and no current wikipedia editors step forward to submit the article (I guess a bit like WP:FAR rather than WP:FAC). T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 06:45, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi Thomas, thanks very much for the update. Your approach at this early stage seems eminently sensible. I look forward to following the future success of the project, and perhaps will be able to contribute in future. Onceinawhile (talk) 09:37, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

June 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

June 2019—Issue 003

Tree of Life

Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content

Masked booby by Casliber and Aa77zz, reviewed by Jens Lallensack Rook (bird) by Cwmhiraeth, reviewed by J Milburn Vernonopterus by Ichthyovenator, reviewed by Super Dromaeosaurus Campylocephalus by Ichthyovenator, reviewed by Super Dromaeosaurus Unionopterus by Super Dromaeosaurus, reviewed by Ashorocetus Big Cat, Little Cat by Barkeep49, reviewed by J Milburn Félicette by Kees08, reviewed by Nova Crystallis

Newly nominated content

Masked booby by Casliber Adelophthalmidae Plains zebra by LittleJerry Letter-winged kite by Casliber

Relative WikiWork

Project name	Relative WikiWork
Cats	4.79
Fisheries and fishing	4.9
Dogs	4.91
Viruses	4.91
ToL	4.94
Cetaceans	4.97
Primates	4.98
Sharks	5.04
All wikiprojects average	5.05
Dinosaurs	5.12
Equine	5.15
Bats	5.25
Mammals	5.32
Aquarium fishes	5.35
Hypericaceae	5.38
Turtles	5.4
Birds	5.46
Australian biota	5.5
Marine life	5.54
Animals	5.56
Paleontology	5.57
Rodents	5.58
Amphibians and Reptiles	5.64
Fungi	5.65
Bivalves	5.66
Plants	5.67
Algae	5.68
Arthropods	5.69
Hymenoptera	5.72
Microbiology	5.72
Cephalopods	5.74
Fishes	5.76
Ants	5.79
Gastropods	5.8
Spiders	5.86
Insects	5.9
Beetles	5.98
Lepidoptera	5.98

Spineless editors overwhelmed by stubs

Within the Tree of Life and its many subprojects, there is an abundance of stubs. Welcome to Wikipedia, what's new, right? However, based on all wikiprojects listed (just over two thousand), the Tree of Life project is worse off in average article quality than most. Based on the concept of relative WikiWork (the average number of "steps" needed to have a project consisting of all featured articles (FAs), where stub status → FA consists of six steps), only seven projects within the ToL have an average rating of "start class" or better. Many projects, particularly those involving invertebrates, hover at an average article quality slightly better than a stub. With relative WikiWorks of 5.98 each, WikiProject Lepidoptera and WikiProject Beetles have the highest relative WikiWork of any project. Given that invertebrates are incredibly speciose, it may not surprise you that many articles about them are lower quality. WikiProject Beetles, for example, has over 20 times more articles than WikiProject Cats. Wikipedia will always be incomplete, so we should take our relatively low WikiWork as motivation to write more articles that are also better in quality.

Editor Spotlight: Showing love to misfit taxa

We're joined for this month's Editor Spotlight by NessieVL, a long-time contributor who lists themselves as a member of WikiProject Fungus, WikiProject Algae, and WikiProject Cephalopods.

1) Enwebb: How did you come to edit articles about organisms and taxonomic groups?

• Nessie: The main force, then and now, driving me to create or edit articles is thinking "Why isn't there an article on that on Wikipedia?" Either I'll read about some rarely-sighted creature in the deep sea or find something new on iNaturalist and want to learn more. First stop (surprise!) is Wikipedia, and many times there is just a stub or no page at all. Sometimes I just add the source that got me to the article, not sometimes I go deep and try to get everything from the library or online journals and put it all in an article. The nice thing about taxa is the strong precedent that all accepted extant taxa are notable, so one does not need to really worry about doing a ton of research and having the page get removed. I was super worried about this as a new editor: I still really dislike conflict so if I can avoid it I do. Anyway, the most important part is stitching an article in to the rest of Wikipedia: Linking all the jargon, taxonomers, pollinators, etc., adding categories, and putting in the correct WikiProjects. Recently I have been doing more of the stitching-in stuff with extant articles. The last deep-dive article I made was Karuka at the end of last year, which is a bit of a break for me. I guess it's easier to do all the other stuff on my tablet while watching TV.

2) Enwebb: Many editors in the ToL are highly specialized on a group of taxa. A look at your recently created articles includes much diversity, though, with viruses, bacteria, algae, and cnidarians all represented—are there any commonalities for the articles you work on? Would you say you're particularly interested in certain groups?

• Nessie: I was a nerd from a time when that would get you beat up, so I like odd things and underdogs. I also avoid butting heads, so not only do I find siphonophores and seaweeds fascinating I don't have to worry about stepping on anyone's toes. I go down rabbitholes where I start writing an article like Mastocarpus papillatus because I found some growing on some rocks, then in my research I see it is parasitized by Pythium porphyrae, which has no article, and how can that be for an oomycete that oddly lives in the ocean and also attacks my tasty nori. So then I wrote that article and that got me blowing off the dust on other Oomycota articles, encouraged by the pull of propagating automatic taxoboxes. Once you've done the taxonomy template for the genus, well then you might as well do all the species now that the template is taken care of for them too. and so on until I get sucked in somewhere else. I think it's good to advocate for some of these 'oddball' taxa as it makes it easier for editors to expand their range from say plants to the pathogenic microorganisms of their favorite plant.

My favorite clades though, It's hard to pick for a dilettante like me. I like working on virus taxonomy, but I can't think of a specific virus species that I am awed by. Maybe Tulip breaking virus for teaching us economics or Variola virus for having so many smallpox deities, one of which was popularly sung about by Desi Arnaz and then inspired the name of a cartoon character who was then misremembered and then turned into a nickname for Howard Stern's producer Gary Dell'Abate. Sorry, really had to share that chain, but for a species that's not a staple food it probably has the most deities. But anyway, for having the most species that wow me, I love a good fungus or algae, but that often is led by my stomach. Also why I seem to research so many plant articles. You can't eat siphonophores, at least I don't, but they are fascinating with their federalist colonies of zooids. Bats are all amazing, but the task force seems to have done so much I feel the oomycetes and slime moulds need more love. Same thing with dinosaurs (I'm team Therizinosaurus though). But honestly, every species has that one moment in the research where you just go, wow, that's so interesting. For instance, I loved discovering that the picture-winged fly (Delphinia picta) has a mating dance that involves blowing bubbles. Now I keep expecting them to show me when they land on my arm, but no such luck yet.

3) Enwebb: I noticed that many of your recent edits utilize the script Rater, which aids in quickly reassessing the quality and importance of an article. Why is it important to update talk page assessments of articles? I also noticed that the quality rating you assign often aligns with ORES, a script that uses machine-learning to predict article quality. Coincidence?

• Nessie: I initially started focusing on WikiProject talk page templates because they seem to be the key to data collecting and maintenance for articles, much more so than categories. This is where you note of an article needs an image, or audio, or a range map. It's how the cleanup listing bot sorts articles, and how Plantdrew does his automated taxobox usage stats. The latter inspired me to look for articles on organisms that are not assigned to any ToL WikiProjects which initially was in the thousands. I got it down to zero with just copypasta so you can imagine I was excited when I saw the rater tool. Back then I rated everything stub/low because it was faster: I couldn't check every article for the items on the B-class checklists. Plus each project has their own nuances to rating scales and I thought the editors in the individual projects would take it from there. I also thought all species were important, so how can I choose a favorite? Now it is much easier with the rater tool and the apparent consensus with Abductive's method of rating by the pageviews (0-9 views/day is low, 10-99 is med, 100-999 is high...). For the quality I generally go by the ORES rating, you caught me. It sometimes is thrown off by a long list of species or something, but it's generally good for stub to C: above that needs formal investigation and procedures I am still learning about. It seems that in the ToL projects we don't focus so much on getting articles to GA/FA so it's been harder to pick up. It was a little culture shock when I went on the Discord server and it seemed everyone was obsessed with getting articles up in quality. I think ToL is focusing on all the missing taxa and (re)organizing it all, which when you already have articles on every anime series or whatever you can focus on bulking the articles up more. In any event, on my growing to-do list is trying to get an article up to FA or GA and learn the process that way so I can better do the quality ratings and not just kick the can down the road.

4) Enwebb: What, if anything, can ToL and its subprojects do to better support collaboration and coordination among editors? How can we improve?

• Nessie: I mentioned earlier that the projects are the main way maintenance is done. And it is good that we have a bunch of subprojects that let those tasks get broken up into manageable pieces. Frankly I'm amazed anything gets done with WikiProject Plants with how huge its scope is. Yet this not only parcels out the work but the discussion as well. A few editors like Peter coxhead and Plantdrew keep an eye on many of the subprojects and spread the word, but it's still easy for newer editors to get a little lost. There should be balance between the lumping and splitting. The newsletter helps by crossing over all the WikiProjects, and if the discord channel picked up that would help too. Possibly the big Enwiki talk page changes will help as well.

5) Enwebb: What would surprise the ToL community to learn about your life off-Wikipedia?

• Nessie: I'm not sure anything would be surprising. I focus on nature offline too, foraging for mushrooms or wild plants and trying to avoid ticks and mosquitos. I have started going magnet fishing lately, more to help clean up the environment than in the hopes of finding anything valuable. But it would be fun to find a weapon and help solve a cold case or something.

June DYKs

June DYKs

• ... that the deep-sea coral species Gersemia juliepackardae was named for Julie Packard, executive director of Monterey Bay Aquarium, for her work as an ocean conservationist? (1 June)
• ... that despite a genus name referring to its dull leaves, Astilbe chinensis was celebrated as the most important new hardy perennial by the Royal Horticultural Society in 1902? (2 June)
• ... that the pea crab Tunicotheres moseri lives inside the water-filled chamber of a sea squirt? (4 June)
• ... that the primrose family and the evening primrose family are not closely related? (5 June)
• ... that Calma glaucoides has such a rich diet of eggs that it does not need an anus? (6 June)
• ... that the pea crab Calyptraeotheres garthi effectively castrates its slipper limpet host, but breeding resumes if the crab is removed? (11 June)
• ... that if the disc coral Cycloseris cyclolites gets buried in sediment, it can "float" itself free? (16 June)
• ... that the sea cucumber Leptopentacta elongata has a U-shaped or S-shaped body and occupies a burrow in the seabed? (17 June)
• ... that Al Hoceima National Park is one of the few locations where the ribbed Mediterranean limpet survives? (18 June)
• ... that the marine worm Themiste pyroides is unusual in that it forms swarms when breeding? (20 June)
• ... that cut branches of the small tree Erythrina berteroana are used to make living fence posts? (26 June)
• ... that the ripe seed pods of Brachystegia eurycoma burst explosively and throw out the large disc-shaped seeds? (28 June)
• ... that Swedish entomologist Carl H. Lindroth suggested that more than 40 species of North American ground beetle were inadvertently transported from Europe in ship's ballast? (29 June)
• ... that the sea hedgehog is a cannibal? (29 June)

Discuss this issue

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sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:29, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Re: APCs

Yes, the open access article has been cut very heavily by moving rather important parts elsewhere, while large chunks of texts were incorporated from a valid but outdated source. I was considering whether to integrate it with the text of https://peerj.com/preprints/27580/ , whose references would enrich the article significantly as well. Nemo 07:48, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

DYK for De novo gene birth

On 12 July 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article De novo gene birth, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that de novo gene birth was once thought to be impossible but has now been observed in every species that has been systematically examined? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/De novo gene birth. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, De novo gene birth), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

valereee (talk) 00:03, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Editing News #1—July 2019

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Did you know?

Did you know that you can use the visual editor on a mobile device?

Every article has a pencil icon at the top. Tap on the pencil icon to start editing.

Edit Cards

This is what the new Edit Cards for editing links in the mobile visual editor look like. You can try the prototype here: 📲 Try Edit Cards.

Welcome back to the Editing newsletter.

Since the last newsletter, the team has released two new features for the mobile visual editor and has started developing three more. All of this work is part of the team's goal to make editing on mobile web simpler.

Before talking about the team's recent releases, we have a question for you:

Are you willing to try a new way to add and change links?

If you are interested, we would value your input! You can try this new link tool in the mobile visual editor on a separate wiki.

Follow these instructions and share your experience:

📲 Try Edit Cards.

Recent releases

The mobile visual editor is a simpler editing tool, for smartphones and tablets using the mobile site. The Editing team has recently launched two new features to improve the mobile visual editor:

1. Section editing
   • The purpose is to help contributors focus on their edits.
   • The team studied this with an A/B test. This test showed that contributors who could use section editing were 1% more likely to publish the edits they started than people with only full-page editing.
2. Loading overlay
   • The purpose is to smooth the transition between reading and editing.

Section editing and the new loading overlay are now available to everyone using the mobile visual editor.

New and active projects

This is a list of our most active projects. Watch these pages to learn about project updates and to share your input on new designs, prototypes and research findings.

• Edit cards: This is a clearer way to add and edit links, citations, images, templates, etc. in articles. You can try this feature now. Go here to see how: 📲Try Edit Cards.
• Mobile toolbar refresh: This project will learn if contributors are more successful when the editing tools are easier to recognize.
• Mobile visual editor availability: This A/B test asks: Are newer contributors more successful if they use the mobile visual editor? We are collaborating with 20 Wikipedias to answer this question.
• Usability improvements: This project will make the mobile visual editor easier to use.  The goal is to let contributors stay focused on editing and to feel more confident in the editing tools.

Looking ahead

• Wikimania: Several members of the Editing Team will be attending Wikimania in August 2019. They will lead a session about mobile editing in the Community Growth space. Talk to them about how editing can be improved.
• Talk Pages: In the coming months, the Editing Team will begin improving talk pages and communication on the wikis.

Learning more

The VisualEditor on mobile is a good place to learn more about the projects we are working on. The team wants to talk with you about anything related to editing. If you have something to say or ask, please leave a message at Talk:VisualEditor on mobile.

PPelberg (WMF) (talk) and Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Image crediting

Thanks for your email about image credits in WikiJournal Preprints/Hepatitis E, but I think I'm probably the wrong person to be credited with the map in question. The map in question is a replacement for one I created (still around at File:LocationNamibia.png), and I guess the mention of me in the file information for the newer map is to acknowledge the earlier one. However, I don't think any of the newer map is my work -- it seems to have been made by User: Rei-artur. (In the event that I need to be mentioned anyway, though, I'm fine with just my username.) -- Vardion (talk) 01:21, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

@Vardion: Ah, that makes sense, thanks for the info. Sometimes the history of older images takes quite some unpicking! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 05:46, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Update to Template:Space station size comparison

Hello! IP editor 95.224.95.166 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) has been very, very keen to remove Template:Space station size comparison from articles because Tiangong-2 has been approaching the end of its orbital life; now that that station has actually been deorbited, I wanted to humbly ask you to update the template in the way that seems most fitting to you; once it's back up to date, I think it should probably be added to the articles of all the stations it depicts, as well as Space station, where this issue has been playing out. Thank you for your work! -Bryanrutherford0 (talk) 18:19, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

@Bryanrutherford0: No problem. Thanks for letting me know! Since Tiangong-1 and -2 had the same layout, I've removed Tiangong-1 from the top section and changed the bottom section to indicate it refers to both Tiangongs. I've updated both the svg image and the interactive template. I've also added a note on talk:space station so that there's a comment there. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 00:24, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! -Bryanrutherford0 (talk) 15:20, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Tree of Life Newsletter

July 2019—Issue 004

Tree of Life

Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content

List of felids by PresN Masked booby by Casliber Letter-winged kite by Casliber, reviewed by Jens Lallensack Plains zebra by LittleJerry, reviewed by starsandwhales Ornithogalum umbellatum by Michael Goodyear, reviewed by Jens Lallensack

Newly nominated content

Letter-winged kite by Casliber Megabat by Enwebb Onychopterella by Super Dromaeosaurus Dvulikiaspis by Super Dromaeosaurus Kosmoceratops by FunkMonk Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee by Hunter Kahn Giant golden-crowned flying fox by Enwebb Myxomatosis by Rabbit Vet

Two Tree of Life editors in WikiCup round of 16

The WikiCup, an annual editing competition, is now in its fourth round. Casliber, consistent participant since 2010 and winner in 2016, is currently dominating Group A with 601 points. Largely responsible is the successful Featured Article nomination of Masked booby. The other remaining Tree of Life participant, Enwebb, is participating in her first ever WikiCup. In this round, she has a grand total of...5 points. But with the recent Featured Article nomination of Megabat, she stands to gain 600 points if successful. As it stands, though, it appears that at least one ToL editor is headed to the fifth and final round of 8 contestants, which begins September 1.

Thus far, all participants in the WikiCup have generated 17 Featured Articles, 116 Good Articles, 16 Featured Lists, and 57 Featured Pictures. The Good Article Nominations backlog has been reduced as well, with 286 Good Article Reviews.

Editor spotlight: Photographing the tree of life

For this month's editor spotlight we're joined by Charlesjsharp, a longtime contributor to Wikimedia Commons with a plethora of featured pictures on English Wikipedia.

1) Starsandwhales: How long have you been editing Wikipedia, and how did you get interested? How did you begin your journey of photographing wildlife?

• Charlesjsharp: I uploaded my first pictures to Wikipedia twelve years ago for fun, to show my kids how it works. The pictures of my daughter (static trapeze), my son (Revell), my dog (Border Terrier) and my parents’ home (Tealing) are all still in the articles! I then started to upload wildlife images.

I’d got my first camera aged eight and went on my first safari in the Kruger Park, South Africa in 1970. I was hooked. I switched to digital in 2004, but didn’t buy any high-end lenses till 2014. Such a shame that hundreds of great photos I took before then look so dreadful by today’s quality standards. My 100-400mm lens transformed mammal and bird photography opportunities and when I got my 100mm macro lens in 2016, the whole new world of insects was open for business.

Pied kingfisher eating a chick, photographed by Charlesjsharp

2) S&W: Over the years, you've taken photos of many different organisms from birds to insects to big cats; you have an extensive list of favorite images. Which animals have been the most exciting for you to photograph?

• Charlesjsharp: The trophy animals the hunters used to shoot are the ones I like to shoot too: it was lion, elephant and baboon in 1970. More recently, hunting for tiger by jeep in Kanha National Park in India was exciting and so was searching for jaguar by boat in the rivers of the Pantanal in Brazil. Our encounters with the mountain gorillas in Rwanda and Uganda was amazing, but the actual photography was no challenge.

But photographing animal behaviour is the most exciting and challenging. There’s usually movement and it all happens so fast, like when a bird captures its prey. Every now and then you snap something really unusual – like the cannibal kingfisher

3) S&W: Many articles under ToL have requests for people to add images that can go unanswered. What can the community do to improve the coverage of different organisms on Wikipedia, especially when it comes to images?

• Charlesjsharp: It’s a very time consuming process because the Wikipedia code is cumbersome (*see below). It take an age to upload to Commons: to describe, categorize, geocode. Many of the categories don’t exist so have to be created. If the image is of a subspecies, then all the images have to be checked before you can nominate an image for VI. It’s also takes ages to nominate images for VI and QI on Commons. May be some users use sophisticated tools to lighten the load, but I don’t know if they exist. In other words, Wikipedia is OK, but Commons is a nightmare. Hundreds of really poor quality photos clog up the system and some users are too lazy to filter and edit their nominations.
  

Recently, some thoughtless editor added a ‘caption’ box to Commons. A waste of time. The image title should act as the caption.

I applied for a grant to attend Wikimania, but was unsuccessful. Not much can happen without some funding to kickstart and then drive improvements forward.
Here was my response to the question: "How can we increase the quality and diversity of images being uploaded and, in particular, improve the Featured Picture, Quality Image and Valued Image projects?"

Panther chameleon male, photographed by Charlesjsharp

1. Work together on pre-defined projects to develop a team spirit that will help us develop a set of shared values

2. Through brainstorming, Identify what we need to do to improve the quality and diversity of images being uploaded and, in particular, identify what we need to do to improve the credibility of the Featured Picture, Quality Image and Valued Image projects

3. By sharing our photographic skills, find ways to share skills with the community. Knowledge transfer is time-consuming and we need to set limited objectives and realistic time frames. This will require compromise as individuals have to listen and find ways to agree. This is going to be much easier through face-to-face meetings

3. Identify what we need to do to improve the quality and diversity of images being uploaded (diversity of contributor and diversity in subject) and, in particular, identify what we need to do to improve the credibility of the Featured Picture, Quality Image and Valued Image projects

4. Spend more time talking about values and knowledge transfer than sharing photography tips amongst delegates, then getting all delegates to agree to DO SOMETHING WHEN THEY GET HOME to take things forward.

4) S&W: What advice would you give to people new to photographing wildlife?

• Charlesjsharp: An impossible question unless you know what someone’s objective is. So you’re on your first safari? Borrow or rent a decent camera and a quality 300mm lens. Then read a few of the dozens of free advice pages on the internet. Then when you’re out and about, take the lens cap off and set the camera to fully automatic sports mode. Be ready. If you’ve time, get in the right place (sunlight/background). Watch the animal’s behaviour. Point and shoot. Glance at the screen. If OK, repeat. Only then start playing with the settings to optimise shutter speed, F number and ISO.
  

5) S&W: What would the Tree of Life community be surprised to learn about your life off-wiki?

• Charlesjsharp: I used to be a high-end stamp collector (early USA). My photography is a sort of collecting. And I’m a keen bridge player.

* An example of cumbersome code: getting the layout of my responses to your questions. So dated, and no online spellchecker.

July DYKs

• ... that the wildlife of Senegal includes a critically endangered subspecies of the giant eland and the common Senegal one-striped grass mouse? (July 1)

Cycloseris distorta

Tiny the Wonder, killing rats
at the Blue Anchor Tavern

Episcia cupreata flower

• ... that the free-living, solitary coral Cycloseris distorta (pictured) can subdivide its stony skeleton and form two new individuals? (July 4)
• ... that the wildlife of Nigeria includes 940 species of bird and all eight known species of West African mangrove? (July 6)
• ... that Hypericum olympicum , an Award of Garden Merit winner, is toxic to dogs, cats, and horses? (July 10)
• ... that flyways used by migrating wetland birds have traditional staging points where they can rebuild their energy reserves? (July 12)
• ... that in two species of megabat, males have been observed to produce milk? (July 13)
• ... that the cave-nesting rockwarbler has also been called the "hanging dick" because of its nest? (July 15)
• ... that Strombosia pustulata is one of over two hundred species of tree growing in the Omo Forest Reserve? (July 16)
• ... that Tiny the Wonder (pictured) could kill 200 rats per hour in London's rat-baiting pits? (July 17)
• ... that the clingfish Diplecogaster bimaculata has been photographed cleaning a moray eel? (July 17)
• ... that in South Africa, the mosquito Anopheles funestus used to breed in fast-moving streams but now prefers swamps? (July 18)
• ... that while the leaf shape varies among hybrids of Episcia cupreata (pictured), the flowers always have the same form? (July 19)
• ... that Sommen charrs are a relict population that has survived because of Lake Sommen's great depth, and its cold and oxygen-rich waters? (July 20)
• ... that the extinction of the Bramble Cay melomys was described as the first for a mammal species due to anthropogenic climate change? (July 21)
• ... that Félicette, the first cat in space, was subjected to 9.5 g of acceleration and five minutes of weightlessness? (July 22)
• ... that the fly Phytobia betulae is just 5 mm (0.2 in) long but the tunnel made by its larva inside a birch tree may reach 17 m (56 ft)? (July 23)
• ... that rooks are intelligent birds and can rival or even beat chimpanzees in puzzle-solving tests? (July 24)
• ... that the Guinean striped mojarra is one of the fish caught in the less polluted part of the Ébrié Lagoon (July 27)
• ... that a new disease which is deadly to corals is spreading from the Florida Keys to other parts of the Caribbean? (July 28)
• ... that the yellow-footed honeyguide probably includes beeswax in its diet? (July 30)

Discuss this issue

You are receiving this because you added your name to the subscribers list of the WikiProject Tree of Life. If you no longer wish to receive the newsletter, please remove your name.

Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:59, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Myxomatosis

Hi Thomas, I see the Myxomatosis article has just joined the list. I passed it at GAN this morning, and was startled to see it jumping straight to WJS. I suppose there is nihil obstat but I'd have thought there was an a priori assumption that more development or review might be advisable before this step. It's nom's first GA and indeed his sole article to date. On the plus side, his username does imply a certain expertise in the matter! All the best, Ian Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:47, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I understand it was by invitation, not a bad thing. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:06, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:RSCB PDB logo.png

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:RSCB PDB logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:46, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Teladorsagia circumcincta

On 12 August 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Teladorsagia circumcincta, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that sheep infected with the parasitic nematode Teladorsagia circumcincta may suffer from protein deficiency? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Teladorsagia circumcincta. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Teladorsagia circumcincta), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Maile (talk) 00:01, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

A psycho barnstar for you!

		The Psychology Barnstar
		For your invited address at the American Psychological Association and for welcoming one of those wacky psychologists to the WikiJournals enterprise!   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I am a man. The traditional male pronouns are fine.) 23:44, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you so much! The size of the conference was a real 'thrown in at the deep end' to the community, but people seemed to really appreciate the value and importance of keeping the information on wikipedia as accurate as possible and expanding it. The number of Top and High importance stub/starts in WP:PSY seemed to really hit home! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 00:43, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Gene Wiki articles by importance

A tag has been placed on Category:Gene Wiki articles by importance requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:25, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

This category is clearly NOT empty and the tag has been removed. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 16:25, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Guest column about WikiJournal of Science?

Hi Evolution and evolvability, as you may know, I recently created the Tree of Life Newsletter. With the recent proposal about whether WikiJournal should be its own project, I was wondering if you would be interested in writing a piece for this month's newsletter. Basically, why should Tree of Life editors care about WikiJournal of Science? What do they and the public gain from submitting articles through this process? Let me know if you'd be interested. Enwebb (talk) 15:30, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

@Enwebb: Absolutely - I'd be happy to do so. What length would you prefer? There was a recent article in the Signpost that was aimed at a broader wikipedian audience, so something written for a biologist reader could be useful. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 02:17, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Probably 3-4 paragraphs. It would be good to link to the Signpost article about WikiJournal so that people can get a more general background if they'd like, so you can focus more specifically on biology content. I think it would be advantageous for you to frame it as a persuasive essay, but that's obviously up to you. Many of the people subscribed to the newsletter are heavyweights in ToL in terms of content production, GAs, and FAs, which can be very time intensive. Why should they spend their time on WikiJSci? You can put the draft here when you're done. It's really open-ended but let me know if you have questions :) Enwebb (talk) 18:07, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Ping @Chiswick Chap, Elmidae, Edwbaker, and Faendalimas: As the most biology-focused participants - feel free to also jump in on this. Here's the drafting link. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 11:27, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

@Enwebb: I just wanted to add a note to say thanks for suggesting the TOLN post. I love what you've done with it and it's been great to see it flourish. Perhaps the 'Newly recognized content' and 'Newly nominated content' and 'this month's DYKs' sections will be automatable in some way to allow you to focus on the interviews and such like? I could ask over at Wikipedia:Bot_requests if you like. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 12:52, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, happy to hear that you enjoy it! And thanks to you for agreeing to guest write a column. As far as automation, I wouldn't be opposed to that. I'm mostly pulling from the various article alerts pages, which I've watchlisted. It doesn't take too much time to do manually, though, so it's alright if it isn't doable. Enwebb (talk) 17:54, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

August 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

August 2019—Issue 005

Tree of Life

Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content

Letter-winged kite by Casliber Megabat by Enwebb Rock parrot by Casliber Adelophthalmidae by Super Dromaeosaurus Giant golden-crowned flying fox by Enwebb, reviewed by Starsandwhales Myxomatosis by Rabbit Vet, reviewed by Chiswick Chap Tylopterella by Super Dromaeosaurus, reviewed by Starsandwhales and Enwebb Kosmoceratops by FunkMonk, reviewed by Jens Lallensack Slender glass lizard by SL93, reviewed by Casliber Guano by Enwebb, reviewed by Chiswick Chap Dvulikiaspis by Super Dromaeosaurus, reviewed by Casliber Rock parrot by Casliber, reviewed by The Rambling Man Leptospirosis by Cerevisae, reviewed by Ajpolino Hepatitis E by Ozzie10aaaa, reviewed by Casliber Cardabiodon by Macrophyseter, reviewed by FunkMonk Clostridium tetani by Ajpolino, reviewed by Chiswick Chap

Newly nominated content

Kosmoceratops by FunkMonk Western yellow robin by Casliber Pekarangan by Dhio270599 Hibbertopterus by Ichthyovenator

What's the relevance of WikiJournals to WP:TOL?

WikiJournal of Science is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal

One publishing pipeline for WikiJSci

Guest column by Thomas Shafee (Evolution and evolvability), Editor in Chief of WikiJournal of Science

The Tree of Life WikiProject and its sprawling phylogeny of daughter projects is one of the largest and most active communities in Wikipedia. It encompasses approximately 570 Featured Articles and well over a thousand Good Articles (second only to military history). The WikiJournal of Science (one of three current journals in the user group) has a few aims that may closely align with the interests of the ToL community.

Review of existing articles

Firstly, WikiJSci can be a complementary system for FA review (getting external review, input, and validity). When an Wikipedia article is nominated (via WP:JAN), journal editors go out to non-Wikipedian academics and researchers who have published on the subject on the last five years and invite them to give feedback comments (e.g. Peripatric speciation and Baryonyx). The resulting changes can then be integrated back into the Wikipedia article.

Attracting new articles and contributors

Getting more editors involved in Wikipedia is always a high priority. WikiJSci can also be a way to encourage new people to contribute articles (especially on missing/stub/start topics). An example of an article that was written from scratch by a group of non-Wikipedians is Teladorsagia circumcincta. This not only resulted in a new Wikipedia page on an underdeveloped topic, but introduced the idea of Wikimedia contribution to a group of people who had previously never considered it.

Images, videos, sound and galleries

The journal can be a way to get multimedia content reviewed or encourage contribution. The same approach could be easily adapted to sounds (e.g. frog mating calls) or videos (e.g. starfish feet motion). It also allows for tracking of those images in new articles via Altmetric (this example has >200, which is bananas). There aren't any biology examples in WikiJSci yet, but the sister medical journal has published a few summary diagrams, photography, and image galleries. Examples include this gallery by Blausen Medical or the diagram of cell disassembly during apoptosis.

Other projects

For those interested in other Wikimedia sister projects, there's also broad scope for interactions with the WikiJournals. Perhaps peer reviewed teaching resources could be useful to sit alongside sets of Wikipedia articles and be integrated into Wikiversity courses (like this or this)? Can sections of Wikidata & Wikispecies be peer reviewed? What are the potential avenues for integration with WikiCite, WikiFactMine, Scholia, etc.? Currently, WikiJSci is aiming to be very flexible and try out different formats so long as they can be externally peer reviewed.

For more info, see the 2019-06-30 Signpost article and the current sister project proposal.

Editor spotlight: Cwmhiraeth

1) Enwebb: You're very prolific with DYKs, with over 2,000 nominations credited (in fact, I'll highlight which DYK nominations this month were yours below). What made you become so involved in this part of Wikipedia? Why should Tree of Life editors nominate articles for DYK?

Cwmhiraeth: I became aware of the WikiCup in 2012 and entered the contest. The scoring structure seemed to me to favour DYKs, and I went to considerable trouble to identify short stubs that could be expanded into qualifying start class articles with multiple bonus points. Casliber introduced me to preparing articles for FAC and Sasata helped me with my first solo FA. I won the WikiCup that year, and repeated that success the following year, after which the Cup got a bit more competitive. By that time, nominating articles for DYK was an ingrained habit, and I have continued doing so ever since, but at a rather slower rate. I do more work behind the scenes at DYK now, reviewing other people's nominations in excess of my QPQ requirement, and building prep sets ready to go on the main page, and I retired from competing in the WikiCup and became a judge instead. I would encourage ToL editors to nominate suitable articles for DYK because it gives great satisfaction to know that hundreds or even thousands of people have appreciated your work, and it provides a foil for the biographies and historical articles that predominate there.

2) Enwebb: I noticed that your DYK nominations reflect a diverse array of flora and fauna, from trees, marine invertebrates, birds, fishes, and mammals. How do you decide what to work on?

Cwmhiraeth: As I look around different articles I keep a note of things I might work on, red links, stub articles that need expanding or places in articles where I would like to add a wikilink but no suitable _target page exists. So I have this list, but more often than not I choose a new article to work on based on a Google book that I have been using in a previous article. I like Google books; some of them are really useful for species articles, the main annoyance being when certain pages are permanently unavailable, although I am quite good at tricking the books into revealing pages that they were trying to prevent me from viewing. Eventually I get bored with African rodents, or whatever my present topic is, and move on. I am particularly interested in organisms living in extreme habitats, endangered species, invasive species, pest species, parasites or creatures with interesting behavioural traits.

3) Enwebb: Which of your Wikipedia accomplishments are you most proud of?

Cwmhiraeth: Well, Sea really. Again that was inspired by the WikiCup, and working in collaboration with Chiswick Chap, we took it from virtually nothing, little more than a list of seas, through DYK and GA, culminating in a really tough FA. That was very satisfying (as were the 1000 odd points it gained me at the WikiCup). In complete contrast was the article Tree. I completely rewrote it in a sandbox as an entry for the "Core contest". The previous version had been quite short with a section on "Record breaking trees" which I hived off into a separate article. My new version was immediately challenged and an edit war would have erupted had I not decided to retire from the fray. My version had some serious flaws, I had never studied botany and I had used a book source which misled me. However, after corrections, my version largely remained in place and I later joined Chiswick Chap in bringing the article to GA status.

4) Enwebb: What motivates you to keep contributing? What's your 10,000 ft view (pardon the non-SI) of the community and Tree of Life?

Cwmhiraeth: I think Wikipedia is a really great project. The idea of Wikipedia as a pool of knowledge contributed to by thousands of individuals in hundreds of countries is inspiring. It would be nice if we had no vandalism and everyone co-operated with everyone else in an amicable spirit, but as we are all human, it does not quite work out like that. I like to think of my efforts as a legacy that will continue in existence after I am gone.

6) Enwebb: How did you first become interested in natural history?

Cwmhiraeth: When I was young I had an elderly aunt who used to come to stay and who would take me for walks in the countryside, during which we would watch birds and identify wild flowers. She would take me out at weekends from my girls-only boarding school and we would search for orchids on the Wiltshire Downs. My school was not geared up for science, we just did general science for O-levels, and when it came to A-levels, I was the only pupil in my year to do zoology and chemistry, and one of only two to do physics, for which we had to cycle off to the grammar school on the other side of town. I wanted to be a vet, but was discouraged by my father, obtained a BSc in biochemistry and ended up in an unrelated job. If I were to live my life again, things might work out differently, but then I dare say we could all say that!

August DYKs

Weebill

Nanhaipotamon macau

P. lutzii (yeast phase)

Cannonball mangrove

Ruspolia nitidula male

Female kob and calf

• ... that falguera, a plant known from only one valley in Spain, is threatened by rock climbers and by road maintenance? (1 August)
• ... that Dioscorea chouardii is known from a single crag in the Pyrenees and has been monitored using scaffolding and telescopes? (3 August)
• ... that the tree Humbertia madagascariensis, whose durable timber is used in heavy construction, is a member of the morning glory family? (4 August)
• ... that the new pine knot-horn is a serious pest of maritime pine plantations? (5 August)
• ... that William Pope created "the first comprehensive, well executed pictorial record of Canadian birds"? (7 August)
• ... that fronds of the seaweed Halimeda tuna each consist of a single cell? (8 August)
• ... that Elongatoolithus, Macroolithus, and Nanhsiungoolithus were the first types of fossil eggs to be given names in the modern classification system? (9 August)
• ... that the maple Acer beckianum was described from a piece of petrified wood found near Vantage, Washington, in 1954? (10 August)
• ... that the queen parrotfish feeds on the algae it scrapes from corals and other surfaces, resulting in bioerosion? (11 August)
• ... that the weebill (pictured), measuring 8 to 9 cm (3.1 to 3.5 in) long, is Australia's smallest bird? (12 August)
• ... that sheep infected with the parasitic nematode Teladorsagia circumcincta may suffer from protein deficiency? (12 August)
• ... that the Sahel bush sparrow, found in the Oti Valley Faunal Reserve, is one of 676 species of bird recorded in Togo? (13 August)
• ... that the Ethiopian white-footed mouse and the Ethiopian forest brush-furred rat are two of the most abundant rodents in the montane forests of Ethiopia? (13 August)
• ... that Dardanus deformis is one of at least 24 species of hermit crab that transfer sea anemones to a new shell? (14 August)
• ... that the ornate rainbowfish can survive in water as acidic as orange juice? (14 August)
• ... that the African giant shrew was first described from a mummified specimen found in an ancient Egyptian tomb? (15 August)
• ... that the brown-cheeked hornbill is among the eleven species of hornbill native to Ivory Coast? (15 August)
• ... that among the many uses of Erythrophleum ivorense and Lannea welwitschii, trees growing in Assagny National Park, are rope-making, canoe-building and to poison fish? (16 August)
• ... that the densely-populated territory of Macau is home to a recently discovered, endemic species of freshwater crab of the genus Nanhaipotamon (pictured)? (17 August)
• ... that the crimson seedcracker has two morphs, large-billed and small-billed, but this trait is not related to sex, age, body size, or location? (18 August)
• ... that the large leaves of Marantochloa purpurea are used for wrapping cola nuts to prevent them from becoming desiccated? (18 August)
• ... that the sea anemone Anemonia sulcata is known as ortiguilla in southern Spain, where it is a popular seafood? (19 August)
• ... that the Sorana bean is grown in such small quantities and is in such demand that it commands prices six to ten times higher than those of other cannellini beans? (19 August)
• ... that antelope grass can recover quickly after wildfires even in the middle of the dry season? (19 August)
• ... that the Namib brush-tailed gerbil uses ultrasonic whistles and foot drumming to communicate? (20 August)
• ... that deforestation in Brazil could be linked to higher rates of the severe fungal infection caused by P. lutzii (pictured), a neglected tropical disease?
• ... that in Cameroon, edible caterpillars are cultivated on dwarf red ironwood leaves? (20 August)
• ... that the lesser seedcracker enjoys rice and the large, hard seeds of carrycillo? (21 August)
• ... that despite their names, the greater Egyptian gerbil and the lesser Egyptian gerbil are found across much of North Africa? (21 August)
• ... that it is not known whether larvae of Deretaphrus beetles spin their cocoons from their mouths or anal glands? (22 August)
• ... that the toxic bark of a Madagascan tree species has been used as a poison in trials by ordeal? (23 August)
• ... that the cannonball (pictured) and white-flowered black mangroves are among the ten species of mangrove listed as occurring in Mozambique? (24 August)
• ... that strips of bark from the West African copal are used to make beehives, while the flowers are attractive to bees? (24 August)
• ... that the swamp musk shrew scrambles around among aquatic vegetation in the dark? (25 August)
• ... that the rock parrot often nests in the old burrows of seabirds? (26 August)
• ... that the bush cricket Ruspolia nitidula (pictured) is commonly eaten in Uganda, where the price per unit weight is periodically higher than that of beef? (26 August)
• ... that despite its reported disappearance from Britain and other European countries, the fountain spleenwort is still considered to have a stable population trend? (27 August)
• ... that the African hut tampan can transmit relapsing fever in humans and African swine fever in pigs? (28 August)
• ... that in 1946, entomologists E. B. Pinniger and Cynthia Longfield were the first to identify the dainty damselfly in Britain? (28 August)
• ... that the Argus tortoise beetle is named after the mythical Greek giant Argus Panoptes? (28 August)
• ... that Pollichia campestris was first described in 1789 by the Scottish botanist William Aiton in the publication Hortus Kewensis, a catalogue of all the plants then being cultivated at Kew Gardens? (30 August)
• ... that the wildlife of Uganda includes the Ugandan kob (pictured), the Uganda mangabey, and the Ugandan musk shrew? (30 August)
• ... that the blue korhaan favours habitats with short grass, dwarf shrubs, and termite mounds, but few trees? (31 August)
• ... that forests in the Guineo-Congolian region of Africa include patches dominated by a single species of tree, such as Brachystegia laurentii, Julbernardia seretii, Michelsonia microphylla, or Gilbertiodendron dewevrei? (31 August)
• Highlighted DYKs were submitted by this month's spotlighted editor, Cwmhiraeth

Discuss this issue

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Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 15:43, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Preloaddraft

Hey! I am working on a piece of documentation in my day job and stumbled upon you creating Template:Preloaddraft in 2015! What instigated that originally? What was the origin story? I know that @Pharos: adopted it pretty early on for the met, by you appear to have been building it before then. Sadads (talk) 17:20, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

@Sadads: Thanks for the ping. I originally built it for an extended editathon on women antarctic researchers (editathon page, Signpost writeup). Originally I was just going to make a small skeleton draft template (this one) for new editors to fill out to avoid the paralysis of a completely blank new page. However, I noticed that we would have problems if we were recommending for them to write in draftspace and use the AfC process, because a list of redlinks don't detect if a draft is present and people might accidentally duplicate work rather than collaborate on a single draft. So in the end I tried to write something that solved both at once. That's why I tried to make it a bit more versatile in loading different blank template articles for other editathons or redlink lists. I was thrilled that it started to be used by a few other groups! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 02:16, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Very cool! I am going to mention that story in a blog post I am writing :) If I have more questions, I will make sure to reach out. Sadads (talk) 02:57, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

@Sadads: omg, I only just came across the {{User sandbox+}} template (by ManosHacker) which also some some similar stuff to {{preloaddraft}}. Much of them should be folded together into a single system (e.g. their page templates). T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 05:54, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

that would be awesome. consolidation into one best practice is always a positive idea.Sadads (talk) 12:51, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Copying licensed material requires attribution

Hi. I see in a recent addition to Origin of replication you included material from a webpage that is available under a compatible Creative Commons Licence. That's okay, but you have to give attribution so that our readers are made aware that you copied the prose rather than wrote it yourself. I've added the attribution for this particular instance. Please make sure that you follow this licensing requirement when copying from compatibly-licensed material in the future. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 13:46, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

@Diannaa: Thanks for the note. I thought I's add the the {{Academic peer reviewed}} but looking back I must have lost it in an edit conflict. I've added this now for completeness. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 23:48, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

That's not an attribution template, not sure what its purpose is. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 23:52, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

@Diannaa: Thanks. I'll aim to include the equivalent wording inside the ref tags in future per your diff. Initially the {{Academic peer reviewed}} template (originally called {{Pubmed indexed}}) was intended as a combination of page-wide attribution license (similar to {tlx|InterPro content}}) crossed with content-quality notices (like {{Expert needed}}). T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 02:54, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

You've sent me a email

You've sent me an email, but I didn't receive it.

Please write to my talk page or mail directly to porton@narod.ru --VictorPorton (talk) 15:47, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

@VictorPorton: No problem. I've done both. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 01:53, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

QID

In answer to your question about qid - no I don't have one. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 03:08, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

@Whiteghost.ink: No problem. I've created one at Whiteghost.ink (Q69024245). I assume you want it unlinked to your real world life, but feel free to add any info relevant to your role as a WiR. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 06:58, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

2013 Wikipedian in residence for the Music Museum of Barcelona

Thanks for the work you've been doing, and for bringing me such good memories :) Here you have the websites that better describe the work I did at the Music Museum of Barcelona: This is the official Auditori website (The Music Museum is part of the Auditori), here you have the post at the Amical Wikimedia website, and here you have the Europa Press piece of news. You can also find some more links in my user's page. Moltes gràcies! --Marionaaragay (talk) 21:36, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

@Marionaaragay:! Your item is Mariona Aragay (Q69027188). Feel free to add any information to it. I'm looking forward to using the dataset to do some nice graphics. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 23:14, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

September 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

September 2019—Issue 006

Tree of Life

Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content

Kosmoceratops by FunkMonk Onychopterella by Super Dromaeosaurus Western yellow robin by Casliber Western yellow robin by Casliber, reviewed by Josh Milburn Apororhynchus by Mattximus, reviewed by Chiswick Chap Pekarangan by Dhio-270599, reviewed by Cerebellum Fritillaria by Michael Goodyear, reviewed by Chiswick Chap Embioptera by Chiswick Chap and Cwmhiraeth, reviewed by Vanamonde93 Durio graveolens by NessieVL, reviewed by Dunkleosteus77 Big brown bat by Enwebb and Gen. Quon, reviewed by Dunkleosteus77 King brown snake by Casliber, reviewed by Dunkleosteus77 Staffordshire Bull Terrier by Atsme, reviewed by FunkMonk Ambush predator by Chiswick Chap, reviewed by Enwebb Belemnitida by Dunkleosteus77, reviewed by Chiswick Chap

Newly nominated content

Apororhynchus by Mattximus Meinhard Michael Moser by J Milburn St. Croix macaw by FunkMonk Paleocene by Dunkleosteus77 Orcinus meyeri by Dunkleosteus77 Snakefly by Chiswick Chap and Cwmhiraeth Tricolored bat by Enwebb Halloween darter by Enwebb

News at a Glance

• An end in sight for the WikiCup

The 2019 WikiCup is in its fifth and final round, with two of the eight remaining contestants from the ToL community. The 2016 winner Casliber is in first place as of 1 October, and Enwebbb is in seventh place.

• Getting spooky for Halloween

It's the most wonderful time of the year...Halloween, that is. With articles on skeleton frogs, ghost bats, and Satanic nightjars, Wikipedia has more spooky taxa than a graveyard has ghosts. In the new Spooky Species Contest, Tree of Life editors are turning Wikipedia into Spookypedia, working from a crowd-sourced list of taxa. There's still time to sign up! How can you let an article like Draculoides bramstokeri pass you by?

• The never-ending article title

September saw the creation of (takes deep inhalation) Cneoridium dumosum (Nuttall) Hooker F. Collected March 26, 1960, at an Elevation of about 1450 Meters on Cerro Quemazón, 15 Miles South of Bahía de Los Angeles, Baja California, México, Apparently for a Southeastward Range Extension of Some 140 Miles. Just two characters shy of Wikipedia's limit on article title length, Cneoridium dumosum...140 Miles now has the longest article title of any on English Wikipedia. In contrast to its verbose title, the journal article that is the subject of the article is only five words long.

Welcoming WikiProject Diptera and Project Creation Trends

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•   Active
•   Others

Tree of Life subprojects and task forces by start year and whether currently considered active or not

This month saw a vanishingly rare occurrence for the Tree of Life: a new WikiProject joined the fold. WikiProject Diptera, however, is also unusual in being a classroom project. Whether or not this project will stay active once the semester ends remains to be seen. It does not bode well, however, that WP:WikiProject Vespidae—a creation from the same instructor at St. Louis University—faded to obscurity shortly after the fall semester concluded in 2014. WikiProject Vespidae is defunct and now redirects to the Hymenoptera task force of WikiProject Insects.

Since 2014, the Tree of Life has seen a string of years where one or zero projects or task forces were created. The only projects and task forces created since then are WikiProject Animal anatomy (2014), Hymenoptera task force (2016), Bats task force (2017), WikiProject Hypericaceae (2018), and now WikiProject Diptera (2019). The year 2006 saw the greatest creation of WikiProjects and task forces, with fourteen still active and the remaining six as "semiactive", "inactive", or "defunct".

September DYKs

Enischnomyia fossil in Dominican amber

Lebombo wattle in the sand forest

Betula leopoldae leaf fossil

Pholiota squarrosoides

Lady Burton's rope squirrel

A child picks chili peppers in an Indonesian home garden.

• ... that the Natal cycad and the dune false currant are among the 1,900 endemic plant species found in the Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Hotspot? (1 September)
• ... that the Ethiopian epauletted fruit bat uses its hind feet to comb its fur and its tongue to wash its face, wing membranes, and genital region? (3 September)
• ... that the scaly ground roller mostly eats earthworms and centipedes, but has been known to also eat frogs, lizards, and shrews? (4 September)
• ... that Kihaule's mouse shrew is named after the medical-entomological technician who collected the type specimen from the Udzungwa Mountains in Tanzania? (5 September)
• ... that the bat fly Enischnomyia (pictured) was first described from a specimen fossilized with Vetufebrus malaria in its gut? (5 September)
• ... that Duthie's golden mole and the long-tailed forest shrew are among the wildlife of South Africa that are both endemic and "vulnerable"? (7 September)
• ... that the Lebombo wattle (pictured), the water ironplum, and the Zulu coshwood grow in the Southern African Sand Forest, where they are often swathed in pinhead orchids and other epiphytes? (8 September)
• ... that Zenker's fruit bat often forages in areas of forest where Haumania liebrechtsiana grows, a plant favoured by gorillas and chimpanzees? (8 September)
• ... that the hard seeds of the Guinea plum are dispersed by elephants, and crushed and eaten by Sanje mangabeys? (9 September)
• ... that the extinct birch Betula leopoldae (leaf fossil pictured) is named after conservationist Estella Leopold? (10 September)
• ... that the Namib day gecko can sprint at 2.5 m/s (8 ft/s) in bright light? (10 September)
• ... that there are believed to be fewer than 100 mature specimens of Dacrydium guillauminii, which is considered critically endangered? (11 September)
• ... that the parasite Enteromyxum scophthalmi causes a severe illness in farmed turbot for which no cure is known? (13 September)
• ... that the nymphs of the mayfly Ephemera simulans are able to burrow? (14 September)
• ... that the Asian garden dormouse can enter torpor, a state in which it may remain for several days? (14 September)
• ... that Alexander's bush squirrel is named after Lieutenant Boyd Alexander, a British Army officer, explorer, and ornithologist? (15 September)
• ... that the mushroom Pholiota squarrosoides (pictured) has decayed logs of the trees Acer saccharum and Tilia glabra in the Great Lakes region of the US? (15 September)
• ... that a dark form of the Angolan slender mongoose is found to the south of the Cunene River and a pale form to the north? (16 September)
• ... that clover grass used to grow in the Pacific Ocean, but has not been seen there since a severe storm in 1996? (16 September)
• ... that despite the Zulu serotine bat having a widespread distribution in Africa, it is not known where it roosts during the day? (17 September)
• ... that Lady Burton's rope squirrel (pictured) was named in honour of Isabel Burton, wife of British explorer Sir Richard Burton? (17 September)
• ... that there is a myth that the pieces of the broken tail of the slender glass lizard can grow into new lizards? (18 September)
• ... that Thomas's rope squirrel can communicate with other squirrels vocally or by stamping? (18 September)
• ... that the cut flesh of the bitter tooth mushroom smells of watermelon? (19 September)
• ... that although honeynut squash originated about forty years ago, it has only been in markets for four years? (19 September)
• ... that the phloem sap of Phyllanthus balgooyi contains up to 16.9 per cent nickel by weight, giving it a bright green color? (20 September)
• ... that although Schreber's yellow bat is believed to be an insectivore, the related white-bellied yellow bat has been observed to eat dead bats in captivity? (20 September)
• ... that nests of the black-tailed tree rat resemble those of the red-billed buffalo weaver? (21 September)
• ... that jackfruits and chili peppers (pictured) are among the many crops planted in Indonesian home gardens? (22 September)
• ... that the African tropical tree Pouteria adolfi-friedericii was named after a German explorer? (23 September)
• ... that the Celebes warty pig has been domesticated and introduced into other Indonesian islands? (23 September)
• ... that the metabolic rate of Rhoptropus bradfieldi is about a quarter of that of other desert lizards? (24 September)
• ... that the dune hairy-footed gerbil locates its burrows close to plants, where the roots stabilise the shifting sand? (28 September)

Discuss this issue

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Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 22:26, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Helen Barchilon Redman

Hello, Evolution and evolvability. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Helen Barchilon Redman".

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 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! CptViraj (📧) 09:18, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Plese remove my wikidata item

Dear Evolution and evolvability,

Please remove my wikidata item. I am sorry, but i told you i was still pondering this matter. We have privacy laws in Europe, so i should be able to get this unwanted WD item removed. I trust you can remove it, thank you, Hansmuller (talk) 16:55, 13 October 2019 (UTC) PS I never create WD items for living and not very public persons before getting their permission.

@Hansmuller: No problem. I've nominated the current item for deletion. I may still have to create a WD item for 'Anonymous wikimedian' to fulfil the structural need of recording that there was a WiR at e.g. Naturalis Biodiversity Center Naturalis Biodiversity Center (Q641676). If you need your information removed from the outreach:Wikipedian_in_Residence table, let me know or you can delete the relevant rows at this link. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 23:24, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

interesting

so what's the background on - or where are you going with - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:WiR_table_row - it would be interesting as there are so many dimensions to the different versions of it all... JarrahTree 01:56, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

@JarrahTree: The aim is to automate, and make queryable, the old outreach:Wikipedian_in_Residence table. You can see the work in progress so far here. The idea is to be able to e.g. map where all the current WiRs are, or which regions are underserved, or what time of institutions, or what the most common length of time has been. Once the date fro mthe old table has been added to Wikidata, it should also be much easier to maintain across multiple sites. If you have a spare minute or two, feel free to add a row or two of the WiR table to wikidata! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 02:17, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the info - some were short, and very one dimensionsal, some quite long and multidimensional, and even some more mysterious - one big problem is that outreach people have no interest in maintenance or consistency in their material here on wp en - and really should have a project at least - but its like the lightglobe and the social workers, its not whether the social workers can or not change it, its up to whether the lightglobe want to be changed... So in view of that, for you to even work towards and create a consistency to their information might be a bit of a shock to some of them...  :) JarrahTree 02:47, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

@JarrahTree: I hope that recording the info in wikidata catches on, since it'll make it so much more useful. I'm a big fan of the WiR format so I'd be happy to see at least a part-time a WiR in most major unis, libraries and museums. There was also a little discussion here about the wikidata item itself. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 03:02, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Editing News #2 – Mobile editing and talk pages – October 2019

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Inside this newsletter, the Editing team talks about their work on the mobile visual editor, on the new talk pages project, and at Wikimania 2019.

Help

What talk page interactions do you remember? Is it a story about how someone helped you to learn something new? Is it a story about how someone helped you get involved in a group? Something else? Whatever your story is, we want to hear it!

Please tell us a story about how you used a talk page. Please share a link to a memorable discussion, or describe it on the talk page for this project. The team would value your examples. These examples will help everyone develop a shared understanding of what this project should support and encourage.

Talk Pages

The Talk Pages Consultation was a global consultation to define better tools for wiki communication. From February through June 2019, more than 500 volunteers on 20 wikis, across 15 languages and multiple projects, came together with members of the Foundation to create a product direction for a set of discussion tools. The Phase 2 Report of the Talk Page Consultation was published in August. It summarizes the product direction the team has started to work on, which you can read more about here: Talk Page Project project page.

The team needs and wants your help at this early stage. They are starting to develop the first idea. Please add your name to the "Getting involved" section of the project page, if you would like to hear about opportunities to participate.

Mobile visual editor

The Editing team is trying to make it simpler to edit on mobile devices. The team is changing the visual editor on mobile. If you have something to say about editing on a mobile device, please leave a message at Talk:VisualEditor on mobile.

Edit Cards

What happens when you click on a link. The new Edit Card is bigger and has more options for editing links.

• On 3 September, the Editing team released version 3 of Edit Cards. Anyone could use the new version in the mobile visual editor.
• There is an updated design on the Edit Card for adding and modifying links. There is also a new, combined workflow for editing a link's display text and _target.
• Feedback: You can try the new Edit Cards by opening the mobile visual editor on a smartphone. Please post your feedback on the Edit cards talk page.

Toolbar

The editing toolbar is changing in the mobile visual editor. The old system had two different toolbars. Now, all the buttons are together. Tell the team what you think about the new toolbar.

• In September, the Editing team updated the mobile visual editor's editing toolbar. Anyone could see these changes in the mobile visual editor.
  • One toolbar: All of the editing tools are located in one toolbar. Previously, the toolbar changed when you clicked on different things.
  • New navigation: The buttons for moving forward and backward in the edit flow have changed.
  • Seamless switching: an improved workflow for switching between the visual and wikitext modes.
• Feedback: You can try the refreshed toolbar by opening the mobile VisualEditor on a smartphone. Please post your feedback on the Toolbar feedback talk page.

Wikimania

The Editing Team attended Wikimania 2019 in Sweden. They led a session on the mobile visual editor and a session on the new talk pages project. They tested two new features in the mobile visual editor with contributors. You can read more about what the team did and learned in the team's report on Wikimania 2019.

Looking ahead

• Talk Pages Project: The team is thinking about the first set of proposed changes. The team will be working with a few communities to pilot those changes. The best way to stay informed is by adding your username to the list on the project page: Getting involved.
• Testing the mobile visual editor as the default: The Editing team plans to post results before the end of the calendar year. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist: VisualEditor as mobile default project page.
• Measuring the impact of Edit Cards: The Editing team hopes to share results in November. This study asks whether the project helped editors add links and citations. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist: Edit Cards project page.

– PPelberg (WMF) (talk) & Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

re WiR table

Hello. I was also a WiR in Muzeum Miasta Łodzi (Museum of the City of Łódź) from October to December 2017 (Wikiproject page). For other WiR in Poland, the best person to contact is our GLAM coordinator Celina Strzelecka (pl:user:Celina Strzelecka (WMPL)). Regards. Gytha (talk) 13:02, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

B chromosome Suggestion

I was reading B chromosome and came across this prose stumble under "Function":

"In some cases, B chromosomes act as In other cases, B chromosomes provide"...

where

"In some cases, B chromosomes act as XXXXX. In other cases, B chromosomes provide"...

shows at XXXXX where apparently the trailing part of a sentence was intended to be. This happened in this April edit by you which was generally a quite good improvement of the article. The problem sentence was in the middle of a move and revision of an existing paragraph. That earlier paragraph had a sentence I'm guessing corresponded to this one; it said "In general it seems unlikely that supernumeraries would persist in a species unless there was some positive adaptive advantage". I'm not knowledgeable enough to concoct something good for XXXXX, so perhaps you could revisit that sentence and fix it up. Thanks. --R. S. Shaw (talk) 18:20, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

@R. S. Shaw: Thank you so much for spotting this! I've now gone in and fixed it. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 22:46, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

October 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

October 2019—Issue 007

Tree of Life

Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content

Meinhard Michael Moser‎ by J Milburn Paleocene by Dunkleosteus77, reviewed by Casliber Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee by Hunter Kahn, reviewed by Valereee Halloween darter by Enwebb and Cwmhiraeth, reviewed by J Milburn Deathwatch beetle by Cwmhiraeth, reviewed by Enwebb

Newly nominated content

King brown snake by Casliber Paleocene by Dunkleosteus77 Megarachne by Ichthyovenator List of canids by PresN Devils Hole pupfish by Enwebb Dryomyza anilis by AnuBalasubramanian Plasmodium knowlesi by Ajpolino Black coral by Aven13

News at a Glance

• The first Spooky Species Contest wrapped up this week. Two articles were promoted to Good Article as a result (Halloween darter and Deathwatch beetle) and three Did You Know hooks on Halloween were related to the contest (Halloween darter, skeleton frog, and Coffin Cave mold beetle. Two new articles were created, including Longan witches broom-associated virus and Boophis popi, the skeleton frog species that appeared at DYK.
• The 2020 Community Wishlist Survey is live (focusing on non-Wikipedia content projects), with two proposals so far for WikiSpecies. The Wikimedia Foundation will prioritize the top 5 proposals across all sister projects.
• The 2019 WikiCup has finally concluded, with Casliber taking home the bronze. The bulk of their points this round came from two Featured Articles: rock parrot and western yellow robin.

Alphabet Soup: Explaining DYK, GA, FA, and More

By request from another editor, this month I wrote an overview of ways that content is featured on Wikipedia. Below I have outlined some of the processes for getting content featured:

Did You Know (DYK)

What is it: A way for articles to appear on the main page of Wikipedia. A short hook in the format of "Did you know...that ___" presents unusual and interesting facts to the reader, hopefully making the reader want to click through to the article

How it works: The DYK process has fairly low barriers for participation. The eligibility criteria are few and relatively easy to meet. Some important guidelines:

• To be eligible, article is either new (newly created or moved to mainspace), a 5x expansion, or passed a GA review. Its creation, expansion, or promotion to GA must have been in the past 7 days.
• Article must be long enough, with more than 1,500 characters of prose (this doesn't include embedded lists)
  • I find Shubinator's DYKcheck script useful in determining whether an article is eligible for nomination.

The process for creating the nomination is somewhat tedious. Instructions can be found here (official instructions) and here ("quick and nice" guide to DYK). Experience is the best teacher here, so don't be afraid to try and fail a few times. The last few DYK nominations I've done, however, have been with the help of SD0001's DYK-helper script, which makes the process a bit more streamlined (you create the template from a popup box on the article; created template is automatically transcluded to nominations page and article talk page)

Once your nomination is created and transcluded, it will need to be reviewed. The reviewer will check that the article meets the eligibility criteria, that the hook is short enough, cited, and interesting, and that other requirements are met, such as for images. If you've been credited with more than 5 DYKs, the reviewer will also check that you've reviewed someone else's nomination for each article that you nominate. This is called QPQ (quid pro quo). You can check how many credited DYKs you've had here to see if QPQ is required for you to nominate an article for DYK.

Good Article (GA)

What it is: A peer review process to determine that an article meets a set of criteria. This adds a symbol to the top of the article. About 1 in 200 articles on Wikipedia is a GA.

How it works: You follow the instructions to nominate an article, placing a template on its talk page. Anyone can nominate an article—you don't have to be a major contributor, though it is considered polite to inform the major contributors that you are nominating the article. The article is added to a queue to await a review. In the ToL, it seems that reviews happen pretty quickly, thanks to our dedicated members. Once the review begins, the reviewer will offer suggestions to help the article meet the 6 GA criteria. Upon addressing all concerns, the reviewer will pass the article, and voilà! Good Article!

Advice to a first-time nominator: Look at other Good Articles in related areas before nominating. If you're unsure about nominating, consider posting to the talk page of your project to see what other editors think. You can also have a more experienced editor co-nominate the article with you.

Featured Article (FA)

What it is: An exhaustive peer review to determine that an articles meets the criteria. This adds a to the top of the article. About 1 in 1,000 articles on Wikipedia is a FA.

How it works: You follow the instructions to nominate an article, placing a template on its talk page. Nominated articles are usually GAs already. Uninvolved editors can nominate, though the article's regular editors should be consulted first. Several editors will come by offering feedback, eventually supporting or opposing promotion to FA. A coordinator will determine if there is consensus to promote the article to FA. For an editor's first FA, spot checks to verify that the sources support the text are conducted.

Advice to a first-time nominator: The Featured Article Candidate (FAC) process is a bit intimidating, but several steps can make your first one easier (speaking as someone who has exactly one). If you also did the GA nomination of the article, you can ask the reviewer for "extra" feedback beyond the GA criteria. You can also formally request a peer review and/or a copy edit from the Guild of Copy Editors to check for content and mechanics. First-time nominators are encouraged to seek the help of a mentor for a higher likelihood of passing their first FAC.

Good and Featured Topics (GT and FT)

What it is: It took me a while to realize we even had GT and FT on Wikipedia, as they are not very common relative to GA and FA. Both GT and FT are collections of related articles of high quality (all articles at GA or FA, all lists at Featured List). GT/FT have to be at least 3 articles with no obvious gaps in coverage of the topic, along with other criteria. For GT, all articles have to be GA quality and all lists must be FL. For FT, at least half the articles must be FA or FL, with the remaining articles at GA.

How it works: Follow the nomination procedures for creating a new topic or adding an article to an existing topic. Other editors weigh in to support or oppose the proposal. Coordinators determine if there is consensus to promote to GT/FT.

Advice to a first-time nominator: There are very few GT/FT in Tree of Life (5 GT and 11 FT). Most of the legwork appears to be improving a cohesive set of articles to GA/FA.

October DYKs

Female apple maggot

• ... that the silk made by webspinners is produced from glands on their forelegs? (1 October)
• ... that falguera, a plant known from only one valley in Spain, is threatened by rock climbers and by road maintenance? (1 October)
• ... that the nudibranch Tritoniella belli is avoided by several predatory starfishes but is inefficiently preyed on by the sea anemone Isotealia antarctica? (5 October)
• ... that larvae of the drain fly can be found in trickling filter systems used to process sewage? (6 October)
• ... that the correct spelling of "liliifolia" in the name of the orchid Liparis liliifolia has been debated for decades? (7 October)
• ... that Polish entomologist Sergiusz Toll amassed a collection of about 8,000 bird eggs and 12,000 butterflies and moths while in Bydgoszcz? (10 October)
• ... that the female garden symphylan stores sperm in its mouth? (11 October)
• ... that adult apple maggot flies (example pictured) use their wing patterns defensively to mimic spiders? (15 October)
• ... that Hildegarde had a bat, a mouse and a shrew named in her honour? (16 October)
• ... that the naked-rumped tomb bat is among a number of species of bat that roost in different parts of the Karnak Temple Complex in Egypt? (17 October)
• ... that the cause of the decline in hornleaf riverweed, a foundation species in swift-flowing rivers in North America, is unclear? (18 October)
• ... that botanist Betty Flint continued research in a voluntary capacity at Lincoln University and Landcare Research until she was 100 years old? (23 October)
• ... that the gut bacteria of Drosophila subobscura can influence its mating behavior? (23 October)
• ... that the warehouse beetle usually develops within about two months, but may enter an active diapause and take two years? (24 October)
• ... that the nectar-rich flowers of the African locust-bean are visited by bats, dormice, and pottos? (25 October)
• ... that populations of the russet rice rat have been shown to have a monogamous mating system? (30 October)
• ... that infestations of the common plaster beetle have caused hygiene problems in a hospital? (31 October)
• ... that a tree at least 700 years old, reputedly planted by Robert the Bruce, was destroyed by an arson attack in 2004?
• ... that structural biologist Erica Ollmann Saphire traveled to Africa to observe rodents in the field in order to study how viruses like Ebola are spread? (31 October)
• ... that the Coffin Cave mold beetle may not actually be found in Coffin Cave? (31 October)
• ... that the skeleton frog Boophis popi can be identified by its bright red irises? (31 October)
• ... that the common name of the Halloween darter refers to the orange and black coloration that individuals develop during the breeding season? (31 October)

Discuss this issue

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Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 03:34, 3 November 2019 (UTC) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk)

A survey to improve the community consultation outreach process

Hello!

The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking to improve the community consultation outreach process for Foundation policies, and we are interested in why you didn't participate in a recent consultation that followed a community discussion you’ve been part of.

Please fill out this short survey to help us improve our community consultation process for the future. It should only take about three minutes.

The privacy policy for this survey is here. This survey is a one-off request from us related to this unique topic.

Thank you for your participation, Kbrown (WMF) 10:44, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 election voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:16, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Google Code-In 2019 is coming - please mentor some documentation tasks!

Hello,

Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.

I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!

From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.

If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.

Thank you!

--User:Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Eukaryote hybrid genome

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.

You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

A tag has been placed on Eukaryote hybrid genome requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G12 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page appears to be an unambiguous copyright infringement. This page appears to be a direct copy from https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/handle/1893/30398#.Xd_IsuhKhNA. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images taken from other web sites or printed material, and as a consequence, your addition will most likely be deleted. You may use external websites or other printed material as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. This part is crucial: say it in your own words. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing.

If the external website or image belongs to you, and you want to allow Wikipedia to use the text or image — which means allowing other people to use it for any reason — then you must verify that externally by one of the processes explained at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials. The same holds if you are not the owner but have their permission. If you are not the owner and do not have permission, see Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission for how you may obtain it. You might want to look at Wikipedia's copyright policy for more details, or ask a question here.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. S Philbrick(Talk) 13:17, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

You obviously put a lot of work into Eukaryote hybrid genome, but the initial edit, which formed the basis for the lead, is copied from this which does not have a license compatible with Wikipedia. Of the material you added to this article comes from appropriately licensed journals. Can we discuss how to fix the problem?S Philbrick(Talk) 13:24, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: Thanks for the notification. The content of the lead was adapted form the released version of the STORRE repository "Fulltext - Accepted Version" that was only embargoed until the publication date of the journal article. That embargo should lift now that the PLOS genetics page is published doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1008404 (under CC-BY). For earlier provenance, see the draft on plostopicpageswiki. I think it is therefore compatible with Wikipedia's licenses, despote the repository not having indicated the embargo lift yet. I'm happy to add a note at the article talkpage if that's a more useful venue. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 00:39, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Evolution and evolvability, I think a note would be helpful in case someone else notes the comparison between the text and a source apparently not licensed acceptably. S Philbrick(Talk) 12:40, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: Very good point. I'll add something on the talkpage summarising, and might do something similar as a standard step in future simlmlar situations. Thanks for your engagement in this! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 01:02, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

November 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

November 2019—Issue 008

Tree of Life

Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content

King brown snake by Casliber List of canids by PresN Tricolored bat by Enwebb, reviewed by Cwmhiraeth Alopias palatasi by Macrophyseter, reviewed by Dunkleosteus77 Deep biosphere by RockMagnetist (DCO visiting scholar), reviewed by Jens Lallensack

Newly nominated content

Eastern green mamba by Casliber A History of the Birds of Europe by Jimfbleak Anastrepha ludens by OstapKukhar Castorocauda by Dunkleosteus77 Aedes taeniorhynchus by XuLily Drosophila silvestris by Mmhua Dryopithecus by Dunkleosteus77 Christmas Island flying fox by Dunkleosteus77 Christmas imperial pigeon by Dunkleosteus77 Drosophila subobscura by Andrewoh29 Ceratitis capitata by Nikhilaggarwal123 Woolly rhinoceros by Thylacinus cynocephalus Ooedigera by Dunkleosteus77

News at a Glance

• The Wiki Science Competition has begun on Wikimedia Commons. Several flora and fauna images have already been uploaded (the image at left is my current favorite).

• 
  Several copepod species
• 
  Red deer
• 
  Teucrium polium
• 
  Ants cross chasm via body bridge
• 
  Sarus crane duet

• NessieVL created a Decemberween contest to improve taxa related to winter holidays. Loopy30 is out to an early lead, but with the bonus system for page views, there's still time for GA writers to hit a couple of home runs on some of the bigger articles like reindeer and mistletoe.
• Though it didn't make it onto the main page in time for Halloween, Satanic nightjar made a splash nevertheless, cracking the list of non-lead DYK hooks with at least 15,000 views. The article was viewed nearly 17,000 times while on the main page (a typical day for the article is 10-15 views).

Class is in Session in the Tree of Life

In an interesting turn of events, this month's guest column is by my alter-ego, Elysia (Wiki Ed):

*Puts on Wiki Education hat* Hi everyone, I'm Elysia and I work for Wiki Education. You may know me as Enwebb. I got a request last month to let you know how Wiki Education is intersecting with the Tree of Life subprojects. As one of Wiki Education's major goals is to improve topics related to the sciences, leading to our Communicating Science initiative, we end up supporting quite a few in the biological sciences. Here are the TOL-related courses active this term:

• Advanced Ecology and Evolution
• Animal Behaviour
• Aquatic and Marsh Plants

• Bacterial Physiology
• Behavioral Ecology
• Development and Evolution
• The Evolution and Ecology of Sex
• Graduate Seminar in Conservation Biology
• Mammalogy
• Mammalogy
• Microbial Symbiosis and Microbiomes
• Microbiology
• Microbiology
• Plant Diversity
• Research and technical writing in Biology
• Wetland Ecology

What is the impact of student editors in Tree of Life?

A Wiki Education resource for students editing species articles

Altogether, these 16 courses have 347 student participants. As the end of the semester hasn't come yet, these numbers are still growing, but these students have:

• created 50 new articles
• edited 516 articles in total
• made over 11.3k total edits
• added over 470,000 words
• added 5.9k references

Some of our best student work this semester (of any kind, not just biodiversity) has come from Agelaia's Behavioural Ecology course—you may remember this as the course that created WikiProject Diptera. The students have several Good Article nominations, including Dryomyza anilis, Anastrepha ludens, Aedes taeniorhynchus, Drosophila silvestris, Drosophila subobscura, and Ceratitis capitata.

And while long-term participation from students is low, there's always the chance that we'll discover a Wikipedian. I had never edited before my Wikipedia assignment in 2017 and I'm still here nearly 20,000 edits later! After I poked around in the beginning of the semester, I had the realization that not many people write Wikipedia, and very few of those have a special interest in bats. If I didn't stick around to write the content, there was no guarantee that it would ever get done.

Why are species articles suitable for students?

Writing about taxonomic groups is a great fit for students, as it keeps them away from areas where new editors traditionally struggle. The notability policy is generous towards taxa, and there is little danger of a student's work getting removed for lack of notability; this is to be expected when students write biographies. Students may struggle with encyclopedic tone for biographies and stray towards promotional writing, but this is much less common when writing about a shrew or algae!

Additionally, we're never going to run out of species to write about. Students have a bounty of stubs and redlinks to pick from. Creating a new article or expanding an existing one also takes a fairly predictable structure, with plenty of articles that students can model after.

Don't students just create messes for volunteers to clean up?

Our sincere hope is that, no, they don't, and we take several steps to try to minimize the burden on volunteer labor. With automatic plagiarism detection, alerts when students edit a Good or Featured Article, and notifications when students edit an article subject to discretionary sanctions, we try to stay ahead of problems as much as possible. We also review all student work at the end of each term. Ian, Shalor, and I are always happy to receive pings alerting us to student issues that need to be addressed.

November DYKs

Brants's whistling rat

Female black-capped tanager

• ... that Brants's whistling rat (illustration shown) seldom ventures more than 30 cm (12 in) from one of the many entrances to its burrow? (4 November)
• ... that the assassin bug Rhynocoris longifrons will feed on moth larvae in preference to sap-sucking pests? (5 November)
• ... that poison devil's-pepper has been used both as rat poison and as a traditional medicine for humans? (6 November)
• ... that the lamenting grasshopper seems to be expanding its range northwards in Italy, possibly as a result of climate change? (10 November)
• ... that each Xyloterinus politus larva has its own individual cradle? (12 November)
• ... that the assassin bug Rhynocoris marginatus injects venomous saliva into its prey to paralyse it? (13 November)
• ... that botanist George R. Proctor collected more than 55,000 specimens, had 31 species named after him, and was convicted of a conspiracy to murder his wife? (14 November)
• ... that the bark of Guibourtia tessmannii is much esteemed in traditional medicine and is often removed from living trees? (15 November)
• ... that the female black-capped tanager (pictured) moulds her nest by vibrating in it? (18 November)
• ... that the Satanic nightjar can make a growling noise when disturbed? (21 November)
• ... that infestations of Leptoconops torrens biting flies have halted construction and farming projects in California? (22 November)
• ... that the male of the hoverfly species Syritta pipiens darts sharply in flight to facilitate mating? (23 November)
• ... that the tree Drypetes gerrardii was named after William Gerrard, who collected plants in southern Africa in the 1860s? (25 November)
• ... that in Nova Scotia, the tricolored bat roosts exclusively in the dangling fronds of bony beard lichen? (26 November)
• ... that the southern black korhaan, native to South Africa, is becoming rarer due to loss of its natural habitat to agriculture? (27 November)
• ... that the green spruce aphid often continues breeding throughout the winter, but the nymphs become dormant in the summer? (28 November)
• ... that the ambrosia beetle Euplatypus parallelus cultivates fungi in the galleries it creates for its larvae (29 November)
• ... that the parasitic wasp Lathrolestes luteolator has adopted the amber-marked birch leaf miner as a new host? (30 November)

Discuss this issue

You are receiving this because you added your name to the subscribers list of the WikiProject Tree of Life. If you no longer wish to receive the newsletter, please remove your name.

WikiJournal of Humanities

Hi E&E.

Six months ago you suggested that I submit an article to the WikiJournal of Humanities and flagged up several possibles from "my" FAs. I replied "not now, but I will get back to you". This is me getting back. I would like to submit Razing of Friesoythe, an article I created and which should be coming out of FAC soon. I believe that it adds a modest something to the sum of human knowledge.

I wonder if you could direct me to someone at the WikiJournal of Humanities for me to ask a couple of questions? (Around the mechanics of the submission process; and the extent to which I could, should or may tweak the article prior to submission.)

Thanks

Gog the Mild (talk) 17:28, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: Hi. The main relevant talkpage is v:Talk:WikiJournal_of_Humanities and there should also be a contact email listed here. The page for nominating existing Wikipedia articles to go through the process is WP:JAN. In case they're useful, there are also some additional general guidelines here. Aside from a few cosmetic differences (e.g. numbered figures with attributions in fig legend), it's also possible to include a section of OR (perspectives/outlook/etc) in the journal version that is omitted from Wikipedia. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 00:05, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. Just what I needed. I shall get on with it. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:34, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Merry XMAS!

Merry Christmas everybody!!!

"And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold,

I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."

Luke 2:10-11 (King James Version)

Ozzie10aaaa (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas.

This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove.

Spread the cheer by adding {{Subst:Xmas4}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:57, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for December 18

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Nucleoid, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Longitudinal axis (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 08:51, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Moving text between articles

Hi, please see {{Copied}}. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 11:48, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

December 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

December 2019—Issue 009

Tree of Life

Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

Newly recognized content

Apororhynchus by Mattximus Eastern green mamba by Casliber Christmas Island flying fox by Dunkleosteus77, reviewed by Enwebb Devils Hole pupfish by Enwebb, reviewed by Jens Lallensack Castorocauda by Dunkleosteus77, reviewed by SUM1 Ocelot by Sainsf, reviewed by Dunkleosteus77 Snakefly by Chiswick Chap and Cwmhiraeth, reviewed by Sainsf

Newly nominated content

Cactus wren by CaptainEek Drosophila mettleri by Jillian Shah Boring Billion by Dunkleosteus77 Calliphora vomitoria by Y.shiuan Pubal by Samotny Wędrowiec Poinsettia by Enwebb Steller's sea ape by Dunkleosteus77 Christmas darter by Enwebb and Cwmhiraeth Egyptian fruit bat by Enwebb and Asanc445 Paranthropus by Dunkleosteus77 Segnosaurus by FunkMonk Argentinosaurus Slate Weasel

News at a Glance

• On December 10th, the IUCN updated 8,225 species assessments, including 6,722 that were added to the list for the first time. All eucalypt species have officially been evaluated by the IUCN with this update. Several birds were newly declared extinct (poʻouli, cryptic treehunter, Alagoas foliage-gleaner) and one declared extinct in the wild (Spix's macaw). The official press release is here.
• Sign-ups are open for the 2020 WikiCup, a months-long competition where editors score points by improving articles. Sign-ups are open through 31 January.
• The Winter Holidays Contest is wrapping up. Christmas Island flying fox was promoted to GA, and there are several pending GANs (Christmas darter, poinsettia, and Christmas imperial pigeon). Images were added to 36 articles that were previously lacking them, and 125 articles were converted from taxoboxes to speciesboxes.
• The Tree of Life was featured in The Signpost as a WikiProject report, eight years after it was last featured. This marked the return of the WikiProject report after a year hiatus.

Editor Spotlight: Plantdrew

We're joined this month by long-time editor Plantdrew, who's currently engaged in streamlining the taxonomic structure of Wikipedia articles via the automated taxobox system.

How did you become a Wikipedian? What are your particular interests (besides the obvious of "plants")?

My first job out of school in was working for ITIS; entering new species, mostly fish. At that time, ITIS was the single largest taxonomic database, and I was enthusiastic about the prospects for the eventual completion of a comprehensive global taxonomic resource. I moved on to other things, and fews years later I became aware of Wikipedia and eventually Wikispecies. At that time (~2007), It seemed to me that Wikispecies might be the best prospect for a comprehensive global taxonomic resource. ITIS had a team of 5 data developers when I worked there, while Wikispecies had a substantially larger editor base and was growing faster than ITIS (although still smaller than ITIS). I did a little bit of editing at Wikispecies at that point, but stopped after being frustrated that a project that easily could have been a structured database had little consensus for any particular standards or structures.

As Wikipedia grew, I found myself using it more and more as a reference. Eventually I started making occasional editing as an IP to fix errors I noticed. I finally registered an account when I needed to create an article; there was an article purportedly about an insect genus, but all the information pertained to a particular species, so I created an article for the species and moved information there. I started finding more cases where Wikipedia was conflating different topics; plant product derived from multiple species with a taxobox for one species, the common name for a fairly well known fruit needing disambiguation against an obscure French town. At that point I was hooked and started making more substantial contributions. It also was apparent that while the English Wikipedia might not outpace Wikispecies in article count, it had better representation of organisms that more people were interested in, and was attracting far more readers. For the first few years I was active, I focused on adding redirects for (unambigous)) vernacular names, and resolving ambiguous vernacular names.

Aside from plants, I'm interested in slime molds, fungi, and various sessile and slow-moving animals (I like things that can be observed without them running away). I've had some short term work experience with fishes (ITIS), mammals, birds and insects.

What projects are keeping you busy around the 'pedia at present?

Well, I'm not much of a content creator. I mostly do gnomish edits.

Every day, I try to look through the all the new articles for the ToL subprojects that have new article reports set up (which reminds me, we should really get a ToL-wide new article report going). Many new articles are created by experienced ToL editors whose names I recognize, and I don't do much to check their work. For unfamiliar editors, I tag articles for the appropriate WikiProject, and check for formatting, grammar, etc. A couple years ago, I was just about the only person checking new ToL articles, but recently other ToL editors have stepped up.

Since early 2017, my main project has been converting manual taxoboxes to automatic taxoboxes. That has me going through articles systematically, and since I'm editing them anyway there are a bunch of other changes I make as necessary. Checking that classification is up-to-date, standardizing formatting, adding inline citations, refining categories, adding images if any are available on Commons, adding additional IDs to taxonbars in cases of monotypy, creating/categorizing redirects. I've slowly been working through plant articles, with occasional forays into other groups of organisms. Some of these tasks weren't part of my work flow when I first started, and there are some tasks that I could be doing, but haven't bothered with (short descriptions, certain types of categories). I expect it'll take about another year for me to finish up with plant automatic taxoboxes, and then I'm sure I'll have to find something else to do.

What's your favorite plant?

I couldn't pick just one. Pseudotsuga is the dominant tree where I grew up, and it always makes me happy to be back in a Douglas fir forest. Asimina triloba is my favorite wild edible plant that grows where I live now. I studied Berberis thunbergii as an invasive species in grad school, and have a love/hate relationship with it now (mostly hate, but it remains interesting). Belgian endive is my favorite vegetable without a Wikipedia article. I'm fond of Lamiaceae in general, and while many species are used as herbs, I'm particularly interested in mints with other uses; Salvia hispanica as a pseudo-cereal, Plectranthus rotundifolius as a root crop, and Salvia divinorum as psychoactive plant with mysterious origins (is it a cultigen?).

What's your background like? How did you come to have a special interest in biology?

I grew up in a rural area and spent a lot of time playing in the woods and working in the garden, so I interacted a lot with plants as a child. My mother's parents were (insect) taxonomists (and a great-grandparent had a keen interest in natural history). My mother was pretty comfortable with scientific names, and after my parents settled in a part of the country with many plants they hadn't been familiar with, she learned the new plants by scientific names. I knew a bunch of plants by scientific names from an early age long before I realized that other people had different names for them. When I was a little older I became interested in edible wild plants. I remained interested in plants in general, and when I was in college and discovered the discipline of ethnobotany, which really tied together the general botany side of my interests with the edible plant side.

What's something that would surprised TOL editors about your life off-wiki?

Birders have life lists of species they've seen. I have a life list of plant species I've eaten. I enjoy shopping at international grocery stores, looking for new plants to try (or different preparations of unusual plants I've already tried). I've made two trips to a city 5 hours away just to shop at a store that I'm pretty sure is the largest international grocery store in the United States. My best Christmas gift this year was a box with little sample packs of 14 different species of dried fruits and herbs from Australia. I'd prefer to try the fruits fresh, but without making a trip to Australia, this is my best opportunity to try some of the major bushfoods.

Anything else you'd like us to know?

Editing Wikipedia has been a rewarding hobby for me, and although I haven't done a lot of direct collaboration with other editors, the ToL community seems pretty friendly and relatively conflict free. ToL is a good bunch of people.

December DYKs

Member of genus Chrysomya

Mekong Bobtail

• ... that the tapping sound of the deathwatch beetle has long been considered an omen of an impending death? (1 December)
• ... that Chinese virologist George F. Gao led a test laboratory in Sierra Leone during the peak of the 2014 Ebola outbreak? (1 December)
• ... that the chirps of the snowy tree cricket can be used to estimate the temperature? (2 December)
• ... that research on pain in fish by Victoria Braithwaite resulted in new rules in the UK, Europe, and Canada to make fisheries more humane? (2 December)
• ... that plant physiologist Hu Dujing cultivated Eucommia ulmoides to produce a substitute for rubber? (3 December)
• ... that Rhagoletis juglandis is a species of fly that infests walnuts? (3 December)
• ... that the granulate ambrosia beetle is native to Asia but has spread as an invasive species to Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Oceania? (5 December)
• ... that the Peleng tarsier, a small carnivorous primate, can rotate its head nearly 180 degrees in either direction? (7 December)
• ... that Chrysomya putoria (genus member pictured) and other flies that feed on decomposing flesh are used as important tools in forensic entomology to establish the post-mortem interval? (9 December)
• ... that a moth is being used in biological pest control of the sugarcane planthopper? (12 December)
• ... that because photomicrographs of Longan witches broom-associated virus were not published, the virus was not initially accepted as the cause of the eponymous disease? (13 December)
• ... that infestations of the cotton jassid can be reduced by growing a cotton cultivar with hairy leaves? (14 December)
• ... that Coelopa pilipes fly populations can live at temperatures of 40 °C (104 °F) within piles of kelp, even in areas covered with snow and ice? (18 December)
• ... that Hirtodrosophila mycetophaga mate on bracket fungi, selectively choosing those with a lighter surface to enhance the visibility of their courtship displays? (19 December)
• ... that Appasus japonicus (pictured), a species of giant water bug, provides an example of insect paternal care? (20 December)
• ... that the banana weevil is considered the most serious insect pest of bananas? (21 December)
• ... that the Christmas Island flying fox matures more slowly than nearly all other bats? (26 December)
• ... that in the absence of males in North America, the female woolly alder sawfly reproduces through parthenogenesis? (26 December)
• ... that the Christmas darter is considered a priority species by the state of South Carolina, but of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature? (28 December)
• ... that after laying its eggs on a leaf, the female mango leaf-cutting weevil severs the leaf near its base and lets it fall to the ground? (30 December)
• ... that Mekong Bobtails (example pictured) were among 200 royal cats given to Nicholas II of Russia by King Chulalongkorn of Siam in the 19th century? (31 December)

Discuss this issue

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