Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spiders

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• Please also check out the General discussion page on Wikipedia:WikiProject Spiders/General.

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Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:42, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Articles on nomina dubia

While working on converting the last few spider articles to automated taxoboxes, I came across the following, all of which are considered nomina dubia by the World Spider Catalog. All are stubs, and almost all were created by the now blocked NotWith.

• Alopecosa reimoseri
• Alopecosa strandi
• Avicularia alticeps
• Meta nigra
• Pardosa bernensis
• Pardosa kratochvili
• Pardosa palliclava
• Philodromus depriesteri
• Philodromus micans

My inclination is to nominate them for deletion. Views please. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:45, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, please nominate for deletion. Kaldari (talk) 14:50, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

These in particular have little to no information besides an infobox. I'd say delete or redirect to genus- many of these species are mentioned in multiple sources. That's not a blanket yes for all nomen dubium, however. I'd be more hesitant about something like Tliltocatl aureoceps, which has a bit more about the history of the original species and type description as well as how it got its current status. Sesamehoneytart 16:00, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Sesamehoneytart: see Stenaelurillus setosus, a nomen dubium that I expanded, so I don't mean all nomina dubia for sure. Just ones like those above that are stubs with no useful information.

I've been in correspondence with the WSC about some other problematic names which appear in some Indian sources but are not in the WSC. Some seem to be cases like "Bavia kairali" in which published descriptions don't meet the requirements of the ICZN, so the species itself is probably ok, but it doesn't have a valid name and so won't be put into the WSC. They are still pursuing these.

An issue in all these examples is that the existence of a Wikipedia article that gets mirrored and copied on other websites lends spurious legitimacy. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:03, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: Actually I guess redirecting them all to the corresponding genus might be the best solution. Kaldari (talk) 00:12, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

@Kaldari: it's certainly simpler; a problem at AfD is often that editors there don't understand taxonomy. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:48, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

@Sesamehoneytart and Kaldari: following your suggestion, I've redirected Alopecosa reimoseri and Alopecosa strandi to Alopecosa § Dubious names. I don't think we should create such redirects, but if an article has been created, this is a way of dealing with it. If everyone is happy, we can do the same for the rest of the list above. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:22, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

That looks good to me. Kaldari (talk) 15:47, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree- no need to go out of our way to create redirects, but if they exist, I think this is the best way to deal with them. I used to ignore the doubtful names, but more recently, I've been listing them at the bottom of the species list with a link to what "nomina dubia" means. For a couple of examples, see Walckenaeria#Species and Heriaeus#Species. I started listing synonyms and nomen dubia at the bottom of species lists to show that the name isn't forgotten, but isn't in the species list for a reason. Sesamehoneytart 16:37, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

No manual taxoboxes?

As far as I can tell, based on searching for hastemplate:Taxobox "Order Araneae", there are now no spider articles with manual taxoboxes. All use one of the automated taxoboxes now that I've fixed the last few "odd" ones. Or does anyone know otherwise? Peter coxhead (talk) 20:04, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I've been trying to hunt them all down too. There are still some taxa without articles at all, for instance Laminion (Laminion), but it's rare that I find a manual taxobox on existing ones. Sesamehoneytart 15:35, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sandbox organiser

Sandbox Organiser A place to help you organise your work

Hi all

I've been working on a tool for the past few months that you may find useful, especially if you create new articles. Wikipedia:Sandbox organiser is a set of tools to help you better organise your draft articles and other pages in your userspace. It also includes areas to keep your to do lists, bookmarks, list of tools. You can customise your sandbox organiser to add new features and sections. Once created you can access it simply by clicking the sandbox link at the top of the page. You can create and then customise your own sandbox organiser just by clicking the button on the page. All ideas for improvements and other versions would be really appreciated.

Huge thanks to PrimeHunter and NavinoEvans for their work on the technical parts, without them it wouldn't have happened.

Hope its helpful

John Cummings (talk) 11:20, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

New spider articles that need checking

QatarStarsLeague created a very large number of sub-stub spider articles in a short time, which can be found from here, that need checking:

• The authority was always in parentheses, regardless of whether these are needed – this needs to be checked against the World Spider Catalog in each case, which is tedious; in at least one genus, Spintharus, the authorities were actually wrong
• No taxonbar was present
• (minor) Double blank lines before the stub template are needed
• Distribution category/ies absent – I haven't always been fixing this
• Citation is a bare URL, and is to the species list in the WSC, not to the species, which means it is not a source for the distribution for which it is used; I haven't been fixing this

Some articles already had taxonbars added, but not necessarily the authorities fixed. The genera involved are (list may not be complete):

• Plesiolena  Done
• Missulena  Done
• Actinopus  Done
• Molione  Done
• Styposis  Done
• Spintharus  Done – authorities sometimes completely wrong
• Simitidion  Done
• Selkirkiella  Done
• Hentziectypus  Done
• Helvibis  Done
• Hadrotarsus  Done
• Yunohamella
• Wirada
• Wamba (spider)
• Takayus
• Tomoxena
• Icona
• Yoroa  Done
• Chrosiothes
• Paidiscura
• Ohlertidion
• Campanicola
• Carniella checking 11:51, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
• Coscinida
• Craspedisia
• Chikunia  Done
• Anatea  Done
• Nipponidion  Done
• Ariamnes (spider)
• Audifia
• Asygyna
• Asagena

All assistance appreciated! If you do work on any of them, please add above so we avoid duplicated effort. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:47, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

A couple of years ago, I did a similar thing- mass produced genus articles by using regular expressions to extract critical details from the World Spider Catalog. The patterns here are similar, and there's a lot of mistakes to be made. I get it, because I've gone through it. If you see anything wrong on one page- like the incorrect use of parentheses- it's likely wrong in other articles where applicable. I remember having problems with parentheses and diacritics as well because I didn't have a widely enough distribution of test cases. The sooner you find these errors and notify QatarStarsLeague, the fewer articles will be affected and fewer to articles to review later. Sesamehoneytart 22:00, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Just for the record, QatarStarsLeague has been notified. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:49, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

I found some incorrect use of parentheses, incorrectly directed citations to the catalog should be revised by the creator or another bot. With that and other concerns they are rightly referred to as sub-stubs, objectionable without improvement, and certainly more effort to fix than creating from scratch. ~ cygnis insignis 12:37, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

@Cygnis insignis: certainly more effort to fix than creating from scratch – absolutely; they are a pain. I haven't been fixing the citation to the species list in WSC, rather than to the species, but it really should be fixed because it's used as a reference for the distribution, which is not in the list. Sigh... Peter coxhead (talk) 09:05, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: What prompted the moan was a ref that was completely wrong, but I haven't seen that again. ~ cygnis insignis 09:37, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

• @QatarStarsLeague: The article Carniella weyersi, the first I clicked when starting another round of improvements to your creations, contains a link to the species list of another genus – https://wsc.nmbe.ch/specieslist/3469 "Species list for Coscinida" – and that the entire set needs to be checked and fixed by the creator. That revision would need to be regardless of whether they have been edited for other problems, users might rightly assume that the sole reference is correct. ~ cygnis insignis 12:05, 9 May 2021 (UTC)