User talk:HerpSystematics

July 2016

Your recent editing history at Lithobates shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the article's talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See BRD for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. HCA (talk) 18:40, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Your recent editing history at Rana (genus) shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the article's talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See BRD for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly.
Learn to rules of WP. You will not be warned again. HCA (talk) 18:41, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

My edits to Lithobates and Rana (genus) follow the existing literature, and an existing author of the page thanked me for updating the page and fixing its inaccuracies. I followed the latest systematic revision of the group, and HCA reverted to a page that contained many errors, and did not even cite the latest paper on the group. That paper (by Yuan et al. 2016) represents a consensus of all the primary Rana systematists who have worked on this group, including the ones who used to use a previous taxonomy. If anyone is aware of a published paper that refutes Yuan et al. (2016), they should add the citation to my revision, but it makes NO SENSE to revert to an out-of-date page that does not even cite or follow the recent literature.HerpSystematics (talk) 19:14, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Since each of you appear to be editing in good faith, the appropriate way to deal with this is to discuss the situation on the talk page. It doesn't matter whether your edits are "right" or "wrong"; what matters is the means you're attempting to use to get them into the article. Edit warring is not allowed; since there's a dispute, you must discuss the situation. —C.Fred (talk) 19:19, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

User refuses to use the talk page, and clearly has not even read it. HCA (talk) 19:23, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Also, the convention for Wikipedia discussion is for it to read top-to-bottom, with new messages added to the bottom. That's why I've rearranged things here and at Talk:Lithobates. —C.Fred (talk) 19:26, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, but I DID discuss this on the relevant talk pages. I pointed out that the changes follow the previous discussion, as well as the current literature. The reversions by HCA were never justified; he simply deleted citations to the current literature and did not cite any published papers that refute them, OR attempt to discuss this on the relevant Talk pages. I spent a huge amount of time bringing these out-of-date and confused pages up-to-date. I kept all the citations to the older literature, and simply updated the pages appropriately, and discussed those updates on the respective Talk pages.HerpSystematics (talk) 20:07, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Check your timelines. After the initial edit, which I reverted, I added a note to the talk page explaining why. You followed by ignoring the talk page and engaging in an edit war, and refused to do anything else until the 3RR warnings. And now let's confine content discussion to the topic talk page. HCA (talk) 20:22, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Ok, I am giving you some benefit as your new at this. Making comments as you revert edits is not discussing the issue. Consensus is the consensus here on Wikipedia not between the authors of one paper. Please do not tell me to see the talk page when you have made a couple of comments that were hardly relevant and clearly did not notice that I did comment on the talk page. You have already been warned by user HCA above, do you think those warnings are light, they are not. I have no alternative but to request page protection and report both of you for edit warring and ignoring consensus. As I said on the Reptile and Amphibian page where complaints about this were made, it is a shame because the frog pages were finally getting some respect from biologists - because Lithobates was being accepted as a genus, but that has now been damaged again by the edits of just two people. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 23:47, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Ok actually right now I will not. I am not well on a lot of medicines. I may not be thinking straight. So I will revisit this tomorrow and see what I think. I am giving myself a timeout. In the meantime, learn how to use a talk page, justify your changes before you make them. That is the idea. Faendalimas ^talk 00:04, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry if my comments here were not clear. All I did was update the taxonomy to reflect the published consensus reached by the systematists who work on this group. I read the extensive Talk page on Rana, and the agreement seemed to be that all the different published viewpoints would be discussed clearly and fairly. The past disagreement seemed to be between the Asian herpetologists in Jing Che's lab, and the North American herpetologists in the labs of David Hillis and David Cannatella. Frost has an online list that uses Lithobates as a genus, but he said that the reason he followed his earlier proposal was to follow Jing Che. Given that the Asian and North American herpetologists (including Che, Hillis, and Cannatella) have all agreed that the new data show that the recognition of Lithobates is not warranted, it seems clear that the current data and taxonomic consensus do not support any arguments for its recognition. At the least, this fact should be represented and discussed fairly by citing and discussing the latest literature. I tried my best to present a fair view of all sides, and left in citations and discussion of the Frost list, which seems to be the only holdout. I don't know if Frost has simply not updated his list, or if he still disagrees, but I don't think there is any published evidence on that. If he does publish a paper disagreeing with Yuan et al. (2016), then of course that citation should be added as well.HerpSystematics (talk) 00:15, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I get what you have tried to do. For the record I have not edited the Rana page, except the reverts today. I specialise in turtles as a taxonomist/ paleontologist. I was asked to be involved in this as a neutral party. It has no effect on me if Lithobates is a genus or a subgenus. However I understand the issues, and I know most of the researchers. Frost followed his 2006 proposal because no one had presented evidence to change it, commentary papers complaigning about it are not nomenclatural acts. Now we have this 2016 paper by Yuan et al, which I cannot get I have tried because it is not available yet. What is available is the electronic pre publication version, so I am not inclined to follow that just yet. Consensus on Wikipedia is the consensus of the editors here, I do not care if Che and Hillis etc now agree it makes no difference. WP uses secondary publications so when the taxonomy of Che et al is adopted by further literature it will be followed here. The consensus despite Ranapipiens statements to the contrary is that the different genera would be followed for now. However full and fair commentary and citation of opposing literature should be done. As a Wikipedian of 10 years my view will be largely effected by the other WP languages, particularly the French, also Wikispecies (where I am an Admin) and WikiData. The French Wikipedia is considered the most detailed and up to date. So with taxonomic papers there is always a lag time between publication and acceptance, this should be respected, it prevents name flipping when there have been mistakes. This Yuan et al paper is hot off the press no one has had the chance to comment or review it yet. I certainly will not be changing wikispecies yet which recognises Lithobates as a genus, it is too soon. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 00:58, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

That is an odd stance, since the only published argument by Frost for supporting Lithobates as a genus in his online list was that Jing Che and her students once supported it! (Of course, he is also the one who first proposed it, which is why he has a clear COI in the issue). Now given the new extensive data, Che's lab does NOT support it (she is the senior author on the Yuan et al. paper), and it seems that there is no longer an argument on this issue between Asian and North American systematists. The Yuan et al. (2016) paper is indeed available; I downloaded it myself from the publishers website. So, what is the remaining basis for recognizing Lithobates? The published data are clear that recognition of Lithobates as a genus creates paraphyletic groups. I did not delete any of the references or discussion to the previously published viewpoints. One of the authors of the Rana page confirmed that my changes and citations were accurate and welcome. The old page does not even cite the current taxonomy, so it clearly had to be updated. Given that you (as you say) don't even work on this group, I don't understand why you want to block an update of the page that reflects the new-found and published consensus of experts in this group of frogs. I realize that re-writing the page represents a lot of work, but I already did that. Reverting to something that is outdated, biased, and unrepresentative of the current literature is really not appropriate.HerpSystematics (talk) 01:20, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Because it is how Wikipedia works for one, by the way you just reverted the edits of an Administrator for WP. They do not usually like that. No I did not ask them to be involved but pages that have been through the Arbitration Committee are on their watch list. It stops pages on what is essentially an Encyclopedia changing so often they become useless for their purpose. Just because you can download a work these days electronically does not mean it is finalised. COI is hard to avoid Dave Canatela works on AmphibiaWeb which has has it the other way for years, COI there too? As I said I cannot consider the agreement between Che and Hillis camps now as that is not what consensus on WP is about. On WP it is about the consensus between our editors. The problem with this page is it has an version that is accepted by WP, it may be wrong but the only way to change it is through the talk page. You keep changing the page it will lead to a block. Des´pite what many think, Wikipedia pages are controlled for content. To change it there is a process. When I see a code compliant finalised version of the paper I will consider my position. Until then the page should stay as the consensus and ArbCom version. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 01:38, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

The ArbCom resolution was to cite all the relevant studies, NOT to follow one particular online list. My edits followed the ArbCom resolution as well as the current consensus. If you have any citations to the contrary, please add them!HerpSystematics (talk) 02:02, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

You have been asked this before What Consensus? That is where has this been discussed on Wikipedia to reach a consensus the page should be changed? Your using a paper that has barely come out, who could possibly have discussed it yet? You can add the new paper, and that it disagrees, but you cannot change the taxonomy without consulting other editors, in particular all the editors involved in the ArbCom decision. Faendalimas ^talk 02:15, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Have you even read the literature? Che initially proposed Lithobates and various other taxonomic changes, but it wasn't until Frost's massive phylogeny in 2006 that there was really powerful support. This resulted in the rather sad excuse for a "rebuttal" published in 2009, which got conclusively smacked down by a response paper by Frost and two others (neither being Che). Since then, every phylogeny has shown that the only way to keep Lithobates in Rana is to expand Rana to include damn near everything in Ranidae, which appears to be precisely the strategy of Yuan 2016 (seriously, the paper literally applies that genus name to everything in the phylogeny except the designated outgroups). Now, feel free to cite Yuan et al., but WP requires secondary sources - once other people agree with Yuan, *then* change the taxonomy. But until then, rules are rules, and if you don't like them, you can leave WP. HCA (talk) 14:58, 7 July 2016 (UTC)