Talk:Araneus angulatus

Year 1757 and other issues

The ICZN Code rules in its 4th edition (1999) that the year should be 1758, but the community has obviously not accepted this and has continued to use the 1757 date (for example wikispecies and EoL, but also other important sources such as Fauna Europaea, see also the documentation of this problem in Svenska Spindlar). We must be aware that before 2000 the Code did not regard Clerck's names as available at all, but arachnologists invariably used them, always with the 1757 date. WP should avoid conflicts (between the arachnological community and the narrow circle around the ICZN Commission) here, and simply reflect common usage. Most WP pages in the important languages use the 1757 date, for most species and for the genus Araneus. Might be useful to check this in all pages and have it consistently set to 1757. I am not an arachnologist and would not do this, but I guess doing this would be useful.

The Commission publishes the Code, but does not have authorship, this is the Editorial Committee, not the Commission. It was not the Commission that took this decision. I modified the reference and simply linked to the Code.

The leading language of Svenska Spindlar was Swedish, the Latin text was printed in a smaller font and was clearly only a translation (which means that in cases of doubts the Swedish text would be decisive). It is best not to cite the book as "Aranei Svecici", but as "Svenska Spindlar". In the current text of the Code it is cited as "Aranei Svecici", but I would expect this to be fixed in the Code's next edition. I guess that nobody of the 7 persons in the Editorial Committee had had access to the rare book in 1999 and checked the original, which is online since 2004. --FranciscoWelterSchultes (talk) 17:41, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Having explained that the code says the work is to be treated as published in 1758, it would be inconsistent for us to quote a date of 1757 without some explanation. Your argument that most arachnologists continue to use 1757 is a fair one, but probably constitutes original research. We do not cite a summary of usage by leading arachnologists, published in a reliable source, but we do cite the code. By the same token as your argument in favour of 1757, we should generally call the work "Aranei Suecici" if we refer to it by one name only, because that is what the large majority of authors do. I prefer the Swedish title, but that's just my [our?] point of view, and shouldn't affect our writings here. Maybe when the next edition of the code is published, with the change you propose implemented, we can start to change our usage. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:35, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

"Having explained that the code says the work is to be treated as published in 1758, it would be inconsistent for us to quote a date of 1757 without some explanation." - This was exactly why I had removed this detail from the text and replaced it by a more neutral phrase. This statement would leave too many questions open and provoke misunderstandings.

I have a different view on this issue. The Code has not allowed to use Clerck's names until 2000, but arachnologists have always kept using them (with the 1757 date). The Code is not a legal instance that taxonomists (and Wikipedia) are obliged to follow blindly. It is a proposal of a ruling that taxonomists are invited to follow. Most do follow the Code, but some do not apply certain rules (like for example the arachnologists who have used Clerck's names before 2000, and those who use the 1757 date today).

Wikipedia should reflect common usage, which in this case is not in accordance with the Code (you will notice that most significant sources in biodiversity informatics, like EoL, Fauna Europaea, AnimalBase and others (for references see the date chapter of Svenska Spindlar), have continued to use the 1757 date and have not shifted to 1758 - you will also note that most Wikipedia and Wikispecies pages (also German, French, Italian etc.) use the 1757 Date, probably as a consequence of the current usage). It is my understanding that Wikipedia shall not produce facts itself (and it is not an executive body that has the right or power to determine how taxonomists shall interprete or apply the Code). If you use the 1758 date you should do this on a well referenced base that demonstrates that very significant sources actually do use this date. I have not found such sources. Searching for spider names combined with 1758 in Google brings very insignificant hits. It will be difficult to justify sources to be more important in terms of usage of European spider species names than EoL and Fauna Europaea.

My proposal is to ask a third instance to help us solving this conflict (because I would propose to restore the 1757 date, this would be a ping pong game).

If you think that it is necessary to cite the Code's 1758 date here in this text (I would say this is not extremely relevant) - then you would in any case also need to add the discussion on the date usage as given in Svenska Spindlar, with the external references. We currently do not cite the Code as a reference for the 1757 date, we cite the Code as a reference for a slightly different statement. References for date usage are usually not given in Wikipedia's animal pages. I see no need here either.

It is usual practice today to cite a book title in the language in which it was written. In the past there had been different standards, so in old literature the book was known under its Latin title. It is certainly useful to add "Aranei Svecici" for those who are not yet familiar with the Swedish title, but I would generally tend to apply modern standards in Wikipedia. --FranciscoWelterSchultes (talk) 15:49, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I fear I didn't make myself clear. I am not necessarily arguing that we should always use 1758. Indeed, 1757 is in widespread use, as you point out. What I think is needed, however, is a reliable external source (I don't know the arachnological literature at all) explaining that although the code recommends 1758, popular usage maintains 1757. We shouldn't be the arbiters of popular usage, if at all possible. With that citation in place, and probably a footnote to explain it, I see no problems at all with quoting the date as 1757. (Actually, that's not true; I see one: Category:Animals described in 1758 is a reasonable category, but we might find it hard to justify a similar category for 1757, and the only alternative is to have the category for articles such as this appear to be at odds with the taxobox. I dare say there are solutions to that problem that I haven't thought of.)

On the issue of language, I think you have a weaker point. The differences in type size could (theoretically, at least) merely reflect the characteristics of the two languages. Bilingual texts, which this evidently is, always tend to emphasise how one language is terser than the other; applying different font sizes may simply have been a method to keep the two texts in sync. I think it is a little cheeky to suggest that "modern standards" favour the Swedish. A sizeable majority of the sources I've seen, even the most recent, favour the Latin. That may reflect a tendency among taxonomists to trust a Latin title more, and a greater familiarity with Latin, but those taxonomists are at the cutting edge of their field (even if its seems archaic and arcane to outsiders). --Stemonitis (talk) 16:11, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes I noticed that you are a specialist on crustaceans, not an arachnologist (not much different with me, I am a malacologist), but from some references you cited you seem to have good knowledge in the field of arachnology too. Platnick 2000-2010 seems to be an important database indeed, they cite expressedly Op. 2224 and Direction 104 (p. 89), which both say 1758, and deliberately use the 1757 date consistently (and Platnick is again used by others, like Blick et al. 2004, Checklist of the spiders of Central Europe).

Well, Clerck was a Swedish citizen and knew probably Swedish a little better than Latin, so we may assume that the text was written in Swedish and translated to Latin. I once have read the original book, and I recall that somewhere there was a note in the text that the Latin text was a translation, and I had also observed that the Swedish text was slightly superior because it had content in addition to the Latin text. But I can't remember exactly where. The Swedish title was printed above the Latin title on the title page. In the ICZN Official List the book is referred to as "Svenska Spindlar... Aranei svecici, descriptionibus et figuris illustrati". We should not forget that the old book is rare and has not been available to most researchers, so they had to rely on old citations. It might be better to cite the book as "Svenska Spindlar", give a link, and add "Aranei svecici" for those who are familiar with that title. --FranciscoWelterSchultes (talk) 17:16, 9 September 2010 (UTC)