Strobilomyces
Changes to fungus taxon names edit
I am mainly interested in WikiData in relation to fungi. At present due to DNA tests the genus names (and sometimes names at other levels) are changing at an enormous rate, this rate has been accelerating for the last 10 years, and rapid changes will continue for the foreseeable future. This is a terrible problem for the treatment of fungi in all the Wikimedia projects, and especially in WD.
Each mushroom species has numerous synonyms - that is clear - but it is necessary to choose a tree of "current" names in order to unite the links for a given species. This is unavoidable because otherwise the Interwiki links between Wikipedias in different languages (and Commons) will not work. It is not possible for different languages to have their own rival trees. Also we should choose one name for each species category and gallery in Commons.There are many versions of the current names tree; the one in WD (linked through parent taxon (P171)), the category tree in Commons, the one in Species Fungorum, and other external tree of life projects which have properties in WD. WD and the German Wikipedia tend to be rather conservative, using names which were current up to about 2000, whereas Commons category editors and often English WP editors are keen tomove on to the latest names. But there is a big batch of brand new genera dated since about 2015 in Species Fungorum which have not been incorporated.
Some good rules are given in the tutorial, but I think this needs to be much extended. The system for deriving the author string from the WD items is very complicated in the general case. Perhaps it would help if it were recognized that there is a "Wikimedia tree" which is not necessarily up to date, or definitive in any real way. Synonym links should go both ways; it should not be necessary to say that another name is obsolete in order to define it as a synonym. It is difficult to make changes (given the constraints which are enforced). Strobilomyces (talk) 14:04, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
taxon author citation edit
Hello, I see that the current proposal is not yet adopted, a pity. Have you already though to a dialog box that would allow us to do the formatting we want? Example:
- Ophiopsila multipapillata (Q3276448), the citation should be Ophiopsila multipapillata Guille & Jangoux, 1978
- The part that interests us is "Guille & Jangoux, 1978"
- We have "Guille" space "&" space "Jangoux" "," space "1978"
- Or more precisely Alain Guille (Q58840847)→stated as "Guille" space "&" space Michel Jangoux (Q3309975)→stated as "Jangoux" "," space "1978"
- Try to think of the author citation as a set of thing.
- We have :
- some punctuation marks, usually (),&
- spaces
- names or abbreviations of names of authors items
- year
- We have :
- Now imagine a dialog box where each things listed above have to be written separately in differents fields that accepts only the possibilities above : one of the punctuation marks listed above, or a space, a year or an item. And if you chose an item so you are compulsorily asked how it should be written.
In summary:
- When you want to enter a value for the property "author citation", you have a dialog box with an empty field. In this first field you can only write "(" or an item, if you chose "(" then a second field appears to allow you to continue typing. But if you have chosen the item then it is asked to you that you write the exact form where it should be displayed, example Alain Guille (Q58840847) → Guille.
- each time you fill a field, another appears
- we can also imagine that a display of what you are writting be available.
What do you think? feasible? I remain perplexed by the complexity of the different nomenclatures, which therefore require different algorithms? A kind of solution as the one above have the advantage to be as flexible as a plain text, and allow that the author items be connected to the citation. Christian Ferrer (talk) 10:36, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
- Hello. Don't forget that apart from the things you mention, there is also sometimes the "ex" author section. The overall syntax at least for plants etc. is as follows in Backus Naur form.
<author citation> ::= <current author citation> ", " <year> | "(" <basionym author citation> ") " <current author citation> ", " <year>
<current author citation> ::= <basic author citation>
<basionym author citation> ::= <basic author citation>
<basic author citation> ::= <author list> | <author list> " ex " <author list>
<author list> ::= <author abbreviation> | <comma-separated author list> " & " <author abbreviation>
<comma-separated author list> ::= <author abbreviation> | <comma-separated author list> ", " <author abbreviation>
- But I would have thought that part of the idea of the new field would be to allow a free-format string in contrast to the current very highly structured format. So I would avoid imposing lots of rules when creating the field, but instead rely on automated checking later. Strobilomyces (talk) 14:16, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
- yes, don't worry. I don't talk about the current useful property proposal that is indeed for a free-format string. I think aloud about how we could combine the freedom of the string fields combined with the structuring of the data, one of the possible way for the future. The above analysis is not exhaustive it's just an example, a different way than complex algorythmes for each nomenclature. I mean if it is too hard to make such algorythmes, then a solution may be the decomposition of what is only text and what should be connected to an item. This is why I talked about a dialog box with a possibility of several fields. It's better that I give you an exemple, I precise again that this is not exhaustive it is just a quick and simple example :
| Author citation dialog-box | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| String format | taxon author (P405) | year of publication of scientific name for taxon (P574) | |||
| Field 1 | Alain Guille (Q58840847)→stated as "Guille" | ||||
| Field 2 | & | ||||
| Another field? | |||||
| The author citation will be displayed as | Guille & | ||||
| Cancel | Save | ||||
| Author citation dialog-box | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| String format | taxon author (P405) | year of publication of scientific name for taxon (P574) | |||
| Field 1 | Alain Guille (Q58840847)→stated as "Guille" | ||||
| Field 2 | & | ||||
| Field 3 | Michel Jangoux (Q3309975)→stated as "Jangoux" | ||||
| Field 4 | , | ||||
| Another field? | |||||
| The author citation will be displayed as | Guille & Jangoux, | ||||
| Cancel | Save | ||||
| Author citation dialog-box | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| String format | taxon author (P405) | year of publication of scientific name for taxon (P574) | |||
| Field 1 | Alain Guille (Q58840847)→stated as "Guille" | ||||
| Field 2 | & | ||||
| Field 3 | Michel Jangoux (Q3309975)→stated as "Jangoux" | ||||
| Field 4 | , | ||||
| Field 5 | 1978 | ||||
| Another field? | |||||
| The author citation will be displayed as | Guille & Jangoux, 1978 | ||||
| Cancel | Save | ||||
Just to be clear, I'm not able to do such a thing, it is just a thing that I think about. Note that I have not included the spaces, but I I hope you understood at what I think, and note also that I putted links to other projects just for convenience of the display. Christian Ferrer (talk) 15:33, 30 December 2018 (UTC)