Franz Xaver

Welcome to Wikidata, Franz Xaver!

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Best regards!

--Leyo 16:15, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Franz Xaver,

Good to see you at work on the Ochnaceae, any added depth to any taxonomic group is very welcome! However, I see that you put in "taxon name" (etc) for Planchonella Tiegh. (1904) and Meesia Gaertn. (1788) after I had removed them. The way I see it, "taxon name" is to be used for a) a scientific name (according to a Code of nomenclature) that can be used as the correct name for a taxon (in some taxonomy, somewhere) and b) a clade name that is used in scientific papers and books to indicate a taxon.

It should not be used for names that cannot be used as the correct name for a taxon (no matter what taxonomy is used), as this will lead to all kinds of confusion. This would give up on achieving any kind of data quality, as all the Wikipedia pages on homonyms, combinations with homonyms, etc will find validation in Wikidata, and will never be cleared out. It will likely also lead to a miraculous massive creation of taxa, if some user will go and make genus-pages and species-pages for anything that has a Wikidata item with a "taxon name".

The solution chosen so far, of just putting in author and date in the label is an inelegant one. What really is needed is a new property, but it does not exist as yet. - Brya (talk) 05:35, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

@Brya: That's a difficult matter, as it requires an understanding, that taxa and taxon names are two different issues. The relation between both can be compared to the relation between boxes (= taxa) and the labels (names) on the boxes. In my perception, WD actually does not make a clear separation between both spheres. Actually, wikipedias are describing exclusively taxa, whereas WD largely is organised on names, where some of the names claim to be taxa. An example: The data item Badiera heterophylla (Q15574494) claims to be both: It is on the taxon name Badiera heterophylla, established in 1915 by Britton at species rank in the genus Badiera, and it is on the taxon named Badiera heterophylla, as circumscribed by anyone, who prefers to treat is as separate from another taxon named Badiera oblongata. So, circumscription of taxa, i.e. shaping the boxes, is something different, that is done more or less independently from nomenclature, i.e. putting the correct label on the box. Anyway, when Britton in 1915 described Badiera heterophylla, he did both circumscribing a taxon and establishing a name for this taxon. Although taxon circumsciptions from protologues quickly are getting outdated, and establishing the name usually being the only long-lasting effect of the description of a new taxon, every name at its origin was representing a certain taxon, as conceived by its author. That's true, even when this author created an illegitimate name, according to the present version of the respective code.

When I stated, that WD is largely on names, I was referring to the fact, that I am forced to create a new data item, when I want to enter data connected to a basionym, without which a botanical author citation would be incomplete, i.e. in order to produce the name Brackenridgea madecassa (H.Perrier) Callm. both Brackenridgea madecassa (Q15385843) and Pleuroridgea madecassa (Q38034725) are necessary, where both data items are referring exactly to the same plant species. On the other hand, when someone is using the name Polygala oblongata (Britton) S.F.Blake or Badiera oblongata Britton respectively, this may refer eigher to a species in a narrow circumsciption, excluding Polygala punctifera as conceived by S.F.Blake (1916), or it may refer to a broadly defined species, as e.g. in Catalogue of seed plants of the West Indies (2012). The taxon name only is telling, that the nomenclatural type is included in the circumscription of the taxon, but it does not tell, if the taxon is defined narrowly or broadly. This means, the same label can be used for two different boxes.

After this introduction, giving some background thoughts, back to the original points: For me it is hard to understand, that a data item, that claims to refer only to a name and not to a taxon, e.g. Meesia Gaertn., must not include properties as there are taxon name, author, date, rank and nomenclatural status, which all belong only to the nomenclatural act, where the name was established, and which have nothing to do with the (current or previous) definition of the respective taxon. Isn't it odd, that a taxonomic data item looses properties belonging to the taxon name, when it is restricted from claiming to be both on a taxon and a name to claiming to be on a name only?

I started intensified editing here, after some discussions in Wikispecies, when I recognised, that I will have to learn more about the possibilities of WD. It was mentioned, that WD could be used for automated creation of taxoboxes. OK, if this is the plan, it will be necessary to add the basionyms for all the names in current use, as these are necessary for a correct botanical author citation. In WS I did Ochnaceae, Menispermaceae, Marcgraviaceae, part of Polygalaceae, so I started here with the same families. Planchella was added by me in order to accomodate Planchonella disticha, the basionym of the current name Krukoviella disticha. If the data item on Planchonella disticha is changed as you prefer, automated taxobox creation from WD will be impossible for this species, as far as I can see. OK, my first objective, i.e. learning about WD, will be accomplished, but the second objective, i.e. adding basionym data, seems to be unachievable. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 14:06, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your extensive and thoughtful response, which touches upon quite a few basic issues.

• That basionyms / original combinations require a separate item each is quite true. As far as I am concerned, it would be more practical to have a property "author citation" with as data type a "string" for the whole author citation at once: this would allow author citations to be copied straight from Wikidata. As it is, there must be a separate item for each basionym / original combination and a separate item for each author. In the long run, this will be better, but it will take a long time before this will actually work. But if there is a requirement to have basionym information present, it is not all that much extra work to put this in a separate item. If the basionym information (and the information on homotypic synonyms) were to be put in the same item, this would cause extra complications as it would then be necessary to add qualifiers to all the properties to indicate to which name they belong (say four links to Tropicos each to a different name, four links to ITIS, etc). This will become very cumbersome very quickly. - Brya (talk) 16:36, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
• Your point that a name by itself does not necessarily imply anything about the circumscription of a taxon is very true. At this stage (and maybe permanently), information about taxa is organized in items about taxon names. To a considerable extent, information about circumscriptions can be added by adding taxonomic papers as references. For example, APG, APG II, APG III and APG IV have been added for families, orders, and clades which makes it possible to read out the various circumscriptions of all the orders (or clades). If this addition of taxonomic papers as references is done consistently for all "taxon synonym" and "instance of:" "synonym" relationships (and "parent taxon", where this is not a genus), it will become possible to read out all those circumscriptions, as well. Any "taxon synonym" and "instance of:" "synonym" relationship (or "parent taxon", where this is not a genus) that is not referenced by a real taxonomic reference (book or paper) should be considered as "just pencilled in". It will be obvious that in this respect Wikidata is mostly very, very empty. It would be very good if you can add as many good references as possible. - Brya (talk) 18:55, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
• It is possible to have items in Wikidata that deal with a single taxon (one particular circumscription), but so far these are rare. I am not sure if there is great need to have many of these, as Wikidata is a NPoV-project, as compared to Wikispecies which aims to be SPoV-project (Single Point of View).
• Indeed Q38051240 Meesia Gaertn. (1788) deserves to have nomenclatural data, but this should not include a "taxon name" as it is not the name of a taxon, but an illegitimate name that cannot be used as a correct name (no matter what taxonomy is used). We need a new property to be able to include this name, but we don't have one yet. At the moment the emphasis should be on dealing with the influx of non-existing taxa that so many Wikipedias have pages on, and on making it clear that a name by itself does not make a taxon. - Brya (talk) 12:12, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

@Brya: Interestingly, Meesia Gaertn. was made illegitimate by conservation, at a much later date.

I am convinced, that it would be much better to make a more clear separation between taxa and names. The different wikipedias are free to choose one or the other taxonomic solution, even an outdated one. That's up to their internal processes. When WD is used for administration of interwiki links, it has to account for the fact, that e.g. Acacia (Q81666) is following a different circumscription in es.wiki or fr. wiki compared to de.wiki. (Interwiki links to en.wiki are an odd matter here anyway.) In my opinion, a solution would be to use one kind of data items for taxa and another one for names: Interwiki links to and between wikipedias would only be contained in the taxon items. The same taxon name could be used for two different taxon items. For example, you may have one taxon item for Acacia in the old tradional sense and another one for the modern circumscription equivalent to Racosperma. The name item Acacia Mill. (and possible homotypic synonyms) will be linked to both taxon items, but these will differ by a different set of heterotypic synonyms linked to them. References connected to nomenclatural acts will be linked to the name items, and reference concerning circumscirption of taxa to the taxon items. You may be interested to read also the following paper: Behrendson (1995) JSTOR PDF. The present discussion and some previous experiences have convinced me, that for me with the present structure it does not make much sense to invest much time in WD. Regards --Franz Xaver (talk) 13:22, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for that: Meesia Gaertn. (1788) is not an illegitimate name, but a name that has been rendered "unavailable for use" by the conservation of a later name by that spelling.

        I have read through the paper by Behrendson, and it seems there is not much there that is surprising. What he proposes is possible in Wikidata and in fact is already being done, except the linking to a parent taxon in a certain circumscription (we may need a new property for that). It is just that what has already been done amounts to such a tiny proportion of the whole, that effectively Wikidata is mostly empty. The reasons for that are entirely practical: Wikidata is filled for a very great part by the influx from other WMF projects, so that much of the work is eliminating errors.

        Maybe there will come a point where Wikidata will need to have separate items for taxa, but at the moment I don't see it. My guess is that this will become desirable only when there will be many properties describing features of taxa (descriptions will vary along with circumscriptions). An example like Acacia is not very convincing, since there will be many users who like to have as many sitelinks connected together as possible, no matter if two differing circumscriptions are involved. This can be argued both ways. - Brya (talk) 19:05, 2 September 2017 (UTC)