Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tristis (2nd nomination)

Tristis

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Tristis (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This nomination is a test case. It was prompted by a recent and open discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Specific epithets, to which contributions are welcomed. I know of similar pages to this one, but it seems simplest to discuss this one as a typical example; not least because it has been discussed before with inconclusive results, as detailed blow.

There were related AFD discussions to the present one in 2008, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Canus, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Miserabilis and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vulgaris. Those resulted in deletion. There were related discussions in 2011, at Talk:Tristis#Useful or not?, Talk:Tristis#List? and Talk:Tristis#Consensus?, which did not result in WP:CONSENSUS. Those discussions led to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tristis, which resulted in no consensus.

This is a courtesy-ping to every editor who took part in any of those discussions. I apologise if I've missed anyone out. It is in no particular order, it is the order in which I collected the names. The size of the list suggests that there may be various opinions. @Anetode, Wloveral, Atyndall, Zetawoof, Abtract, Deor, Bkonrad, Neelix, Lenticel, Good Olfactory, Itub, LAAFan, Danski14, Sandstein, Shoessss, Tim Ross, JeremyMcCracken, Ron B. Thomson, Shyamal, Phlegm Rooster, Lankiveil, Carlossuarez46, Metropolitan90, SP-KP, Danger, Hesperian, Obsidian Soul, Invertzoo, Lavateraguy, Rkitko, Peter coxhead, Bob the Wikipedian, Abyssal, Petter Bøckman, Antarctic-adventurer, Guettarda, Snek01, JoJan, EncycloPetey, Xymmax, Whpq, Nipsonanomhmata, Unscintillating, Jnestorius, Plantdrew, and Certes: I am aware that some of those editors may no longer be active. I am also aware that some of those editors may be well-known, for good reasons or bad, unrelated to the present topic. That is neither here nor there: my desire is for a full discussion and (if possible) CONSENSUS on the basic point; to which, with the preliminaries out of the way, I now turn to set out my opinion.

A binomial name consists of two parts: the genus and the specific epithet or name. The formal rules differ in detail between botany and zoology, but for present purposes I do not think that that matters. A genus name is unique within each biological kingdom; duplicates are suppressed. Specific epithets, however, need only be unique within each genus in any kingdom. As a crude analogy, a genus name is like a surname, and a specific name like a given name.

Narky Blert (talk) 22:29, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Further by nom - this is what can happen when you accidentally press Save in the middle of an extended argument, and the bot catches you. The missing part of my nomination is:

Specific epithets are never, or almost never, used on their own in scientific discourse. Once Genus species has been mentioned, it is common to abbreviate its name as G. species, but not to species. I can only think of two exceptions: casual communication between naturalists who are in no doubt as to what genus they are talking about, and some few rare cases where a specific epithet has become a WP:COMMONNAME (Plantdrew has identified some in the ongoing WP Talk:DAB discussion). It would be like describing, say, an election campaign using only the given names of everyone involved.

It follows that a DAB page which consists of only of specific epithets consists of nothing but WP:PTMs, and should be deleted. It also follows that more complex DAB pages should not contain binomial names whose only relation to the title is the specific epithet. Finding those is what things like the searchbox and {{intitle}} and {{lookfrom}} are for. The fact that specific epithets are in what looks like a learnèd language should not make any difference: they are adjectives. For example, vulgaris (deleted in 2008, but since recreated) means "common". The idea that the DAB page common should include, for example, common carp, common gull, common krait, common warthog, common wheat, and all the rest, strikes me as absurd.

In conclusion, I submit that Tristis should be deleted.

(I do not in any way argue that standalone or embedded lists of species named after a specific person or thing should be deprecated or deleted. They can have encylopaedic value; see for example List of things named after Barack Obama#Biota and Carlo Antonio Fornasini#Taxa named in honour. My argument is solely about specific epithets on DAB pages.) Narky Blert (talk) 23:33, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

• Narky Blert, I don't really know what this is about or what if any relationship I have to this page or issue, but as long as I'm here: could you tell us why exactly you think that this page should be deleted? Sandstein 22:38, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

@Sandstein: the issue is whether pages on specific names/epithets are of any real value in an encyclopedia. Genus names correspond to taxa (i.e. groups of organisms), about which there can be articles. Sometimes genus names need disambiguating (e.g. because the same genus name can be used under different nomenclature codes), but each undisambiguated genus name corresponds to a taxon, a topic worthy of an article. A specific name/epithet has no such correspondence. There's no inherent connection between the taxa with tristis as the second part of their binomial. It's as if we said that because there are organisms called "greenfinch", "green woodpecker", "green crayfish" and "green spider flower", we should have an article at "Green" that disambiguated them. To me, articles like this make no sense, and should be deleted. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:55, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

@Sandstein: My apologies. I pressed Save in mistake for Preview, which left my argument incomplete. I mentioned you simply because you were the closing admin in one of those AFDs in 2008. Narky Blert (talk) 23:38, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

• Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2020 February 19. —^{cyberbot I}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 22:56, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
• Delete. As I said, almost twelve years ago, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Miserabilis:

Miserabilis is merely a Latin adjective meaning 'wretched'; it has no scientific significance in itself. We don't have articles with adjectival titles, and we shouldn't have such dab pages either. I've never seen species names 'used by themselves', except perhaps in a journal article discussing multiple species of only one genus, and even then the almost invariable practice is to abbreviate, rather than omit, the genus name (as, for example, 'A. miserabilis' for Andrena miserabilis). Organisms' binomial names are, in effect, inseparable compounds.

I'm still of the opinion that this dab page, and ones like it, are in violation of WP:PARTIAL—see especially the second paragraph, dealing with generic and specific parts of names. Deor (talk) 23:15, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

• I agree that it makes no sense to have a Disambiguation article for adjectives like tristis that form part of a name. However, I could see this fitting comfortably under the guidelines for a stand-alone List article, i.e., "List of binomial names with tristis". Either delete or convert to a list. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:21, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
• Comment by nom. @Peter coxhead, Deor, and EncycloPetey: I had a bout of FFS, and you commented on my incomplete argument. I suspect that the missing bit may not change your opinions; but am pinging you out of courtesy in case it might. Narky Blert (talk) 23:54, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
• Delete; PTM. Hesperian 00:14, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

• Delete after a look at the page, my opinion is the same as from the first AFD. -- Whpq (talk) 00:15, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
• delete my view is still the same about this type of AfD. --Lenticel ^(talk) 00:27, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
• Comment just throwing it out here. What if we soft redirect it to its wiktionary entry instead? --Lenticel ^(talk) 00:29, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
• Delete probably best handled through the search function; If deleted, I would recommend salting it to avoid someone 'helpfully' redirecting it to his or her favorite species and allowing the search function to work. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 01:33, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
• Delete Like I said 9 years ago: "I also don't think it's very practical to disambiguate specific names unless they are actually used widely to refer to the organism. If we did, we'd probably get thousands of articles listed under dab pages of more common specific names like major, minor, sativum, vulgaris or for colors/patterns like rubra, viridis, alba, flavus, punctatus, variegatus, etc. etc". As stated, however, we must acknowledge there are exceptions where specific names have entered common usage and should be retained for the particular species they apply to (but only for them), like arabica. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 02:08, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
• Delete - this is something Wikidata could handle much better. Guettarda (talk) 04:15, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. This is the biological equivalent of the situation I described in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2.2.1: "if you're looking for information about The Godfather Part II, you don't go to the Part II page (and, in fact, you won't find anything about The Godfather Part II there)." --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:03, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. and my post above – along with all similar articles. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:56, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. The entries are all partial-title matches, so the page is not useful for disambiguation (there don't appear to be any eligible articles among those that contain "tristis" in their title), and it can't be reworked into a list, as the inclusion criterion will have no encyclopedic value. However, its talk page should be preserved somewhere (a subpage of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation, or better – of this AfD), as it contains extensive discussion that's likely to have continued relevance to how we treat species epithets. – Uanfala (talk) 11:19, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

I endorse Uanfala's proposal to archive the Talk Page somewhere. Those 2011 discussions are valuable. Narky Blert (talk) 14:27, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Note - Retaining the talk page is a good idea. There is no need to move or archive it. It can be tagged with {{G8-exempt}} -- Whpq (talk) 14:41, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Even better. Narky Blert (talk) 16:34, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

• Comment. I favor a Soft Redirect, as proposed by Lenticel, above. For good or ill, this is a term that gets used - and the number of places where it pops up is extensive, if the list is any indication. Deleting this, while justified, will not prevent someone else from coming along later and recreating it, thinking that such a term should have an entry. A soft redirect would solve that problem. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 15:14, 24 February 2020 (UTC)