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Revision as of 18:28, 31 March 2015

Insects Project‑class

This page is within the scope of WikiProject Insects, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of insects on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.InsectsWikipedia:WikiProject InsectsTemplate:WikiProject InsectsInsects Project This page does not require a rating on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.

Archives

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Ant task force tagging

Hello everyone! The number of ant articles is growing every day; time has come to add an ant task force parameter to Template:WikiProject Insects. I've requested project tagging help from User:Yobot here. The change should be fairly straightforward, but if you have any objections, please voice your concerns.

A sandbox version of the improved template is available at Template:WikiProject Insects/sandbox (thanks to Redrose64).

Ping: satusuro, Burklemore1, Kevmin

Thanks, jonkerz ♠talk 16:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

As there seems to be no opposition I've updated the banner. jonkerz ♠talk 13:51, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Missing insects: the 20 most written about

These insect species are the most commonly found scientific names in Google books which we don't already have articles or redirects for. I welcome you to create articles for these (or redirects if necessary).

Each of these 20 scientific names is found in at least 516 books or volumes. They are all within the top 6000 most common scientific names of any kingdom (out of 2,485,495 binomial species and synonyms searched).

1. Glossina morsitans, Glossina (Glossinidae, Diptera)
2. Calliphora erythrocephala, Calliphora (Calliphoridae, Diptera)
3. Chironomus tentans, Chironomus (Chironomidae, Diptera)
4. Glossina palpalis, Glossina (Glossinidae, Diptera)
5. Rhopalosiphum padi, Rhopalosiphum - bird cherry-oat aphid (Aphididae, Hemiptera)
6. Drosophila subobscura, Drosophila (Drosophilidae, Diptera)
7. Simulium damnosum, Simulium (Simuliidae, Diptera)
8. Schizaphis graminum, Schizaphis - greenbug (Aphididae, Hemiptera)
9. Thrips tabaci, Thrips (Thripidae, Thysanoptera)
10. Empoasca fabae, Empoasca - potato leafhopper (Cicadellidae, Hemiptera)
11. Melanoplus sanguinipes, Melanoplus - migratory grasshopper (Acrididae, Orthoptera)
12. Sitobion avenae, Sitobion - english grain aphid (Aphididae, Hemiptera)
13. Hypera postica (provisionally_accepted_name).
14. Anopheles maculipennis, Anopheles (Culicidae, Diptera)
15. Acanthoscelides obtectus, Acanthoscelides - bean weevil (Chrysomelidae, Coleoptera)
16. Aedes taeniorhynchus, Aedes (Culicidae, Diptera)
17. Eriosoma lanigerum, Eriosoma - woolly apple aphid (Aphididae, Hemiptera)
18. Teleogryllus commodus, Teleogryllus - black field cricket (Gryllidae, Orthoptera)
19. Megoura viciae, Megoura (Aphididae, Hemiptera)
20. Chironomus riparius, Chironomus (Chironomidae, Diptera)

I've also uploaded the top 1000 missing insects so that you can search through for your favourite order. —Pengo 08:29, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Excellent target identification. Some years back I was quite shocked to notice the lack of Helicoverpa armigera, which although not a red link is still in need of work. Shyamal (talk) 10:14, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Scratch Megoura viciae off the list. Its not huge but its a start. Man Over-bored (talk) 11:40, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

You can scrub Chironomus riparius as well :D Man Over-bored (talk) 12:16, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I've nominated both for DYK. cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:35, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

So I saw, nice one, thanks Man Over-bored (talk) 13:41, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

And Acanthoscelides obtectus is down too Man Over-bored (talk) 14:34, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Help Identifying this beetle

I saw this beauty in France, Loire Valley region whilst on holiday last year, about 4 to 5cm long in the body. I've looked at various on-line gallery resources but can't find an exact match. Any ideas? Pahazzard (talk) 11:39, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

please try to check at insecte.org

Hello, you might try to check at www.insecte.org (specialized forum on insects from France) or check directly on their picture gallery at www.galerie-insecte.org/

best regards User:Tonton Bernardo I'm so tired (talk) 15:24, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Seems to be correctly identified as Aegosoma scabricorne (User:Vitalfranz is a cerambycid specialist who runs http://www.cerambycoidea.com/ and sometimes checks ids on commons) Shyamal (talk) 15:37, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Photinus pyralis

Hi! I tagged a page, Photinus pyralis, as B-class. I am still not sure whether it qualifies as B or C. Please tell me so that I could change the rank if necessary. Also please use the ping feature (ex. @Example:) when replying. Gug01 (talk) 23:37, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

@Gug01: I'm pretty reluctant to tag articles as B-class, so I usually look for reasons why an article might fail to be B-class. The assessment guidelines for B-class at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Arthropods/Article Classification (which are linked by the Insect and Beetle project banners) are quite a bit more liberal than the general ones at Template:Grading scheme. Arthropod B-class says article can be missing an important section, while the Grading scheme says B-class shouldn't have any "obvious omissions". I'd call P. pyralis C-class as it lacks a couple important sections. There really should be some discussion of its geographic distribution and habitat. A physical description of the species would also be helpful (although it can be very difficult to write a description at a level appropriate to a general audience; technical jargon should be avoided). And what about their larval stage? Adults don't feed, so what do the larvae eat and where do they live? Plantdrew (talk) 00:14, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice, Plantdrew. I will tag it back as C-class. Do you think that after a section on their larval stage and geographic distrubition and habitat are created, it could be a B-class article? Gug01 (talk) 21:00, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

B-class might indeed be appropriate at that point. I've got a couple more thoughts. Maybe larva could be covered in a Life Cycle section? That would also give a place to talk about what time of year the adults are active. The Light Production section is really more appropriate to Photinus; nothing wrong with discussing it at the species level as well, but the genus article should certainly have something on physiology of light production. The second paragraph in the Defense describes the results of a single study in greater detail than is necessary. Predation of Photinus by Photuris is certainly an important topic to cover (which again, should also be mentioned on the Photinus genus page). However, Photuris using lucibufagin to protect against jumping spiders is marginally relevant to the P. pyralis article, and would be more appropriate in Photuris. My impression is that Photuris females attack Photinus males primarily for food/nutrition, but as the article is written, it convenys the impression that obtaining lucibufagin for defense is the primary driver of predation by Photuris. Plantdrew (talk) 16:27, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Pageview stats

After a recent request, I added WikiProject Insects to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Insects/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the Tool Labs tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 04:38, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Primary host for cimex antennatus

If someone has a chance to take a look at the question on Talk:Cimex antennatus, it would be much appreciated!--CaroleHenson (talk) 15:36, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Tagging projects

I've been seeing some people removing the WikiProject Insect tag from article talk pages and replacing with the specific order (e.g., ). I would think that this project should be included on all insect pages to link to a central project, but am I missing some conversation related to this? I'm a bit concerned we're getting too specific in Wikiprojects we list on the talk page otherwise, so I'm just curious what others think. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:59, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I think it would be better to include both project tags (Insects and Beetles). Part of the point of having the projects is to enable collaboration, and it doesn't help when the pool of potential collaborators is narrowed. Collaboration is probably more effective when more narrowly focused, so subprojects like Beetles, Vespidae and the Ants task-force are a good thing, but people who are interested in working on insects in general are presumably still interested in beetles, vespids and ants.

In practice though, there are quite a few narrowly focused organismal biology projects on Misplaced Pages that have kept "their" talk pages free of the parent project's banner. Most Lepidoptera articles don't have a WikiProject Insects banner. Turtles aren't tagged for the Amphibian and Reptile project. Sharks aren't tagged for the Fish project.

Mammals were recently segregated among six subprojects: Cats, Dogs, Cetaceans, Equines, Primates and Rodents. A few months ago I went through cats, dogs, cetaceans and equines and added the mammal banner to all the species articles. I did catch some flak from somebody who apparently thought I intended to tag all articles under the scope of WikiProject:Equine with the mammal banner (I had no intention of tagging stuff like "saddle" or "reins" as relevant to mammals).

On the other hand, I don't think all insects should tagged for WikiProject Arthropods (which is effectively pretty much WikiProject Crustaceans) or WIkiProject Animals, but I don't really have any logical justification for that stance. Plantdrew (talk) 21:04, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I definitely see the a various ways of approaching this. For us, insects in general are really the unifying factor, so I think we are diluting ourselves too much as well if we starting removing the Insects banner. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:43, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@Kingofaces43: and @Plantdrew: I don't see anyone being diluted here, and nobody will. Look at various moths and butterflies from WikiProject Lepidoptera. All of the species are marked with WikiProject Lepidoptera only, not both. So, in short I will suggest to remove WikiProject Insects from those that are either Butterly/Moths or Beetles. There is no reason for keeping it, since users will sign up for whatever project there is (or sub project for that matter). Look at it this way, we have roughly 85,000 articles on butterflies and moths. We also have 40,000 Insect related articles. Why we need to keep them as insects if we don't do it for Lepidoptera? Infact, the smaller the category the easier it will to find anything. Honestly, even alphabetically its sometimes hard to find what you need. Plus, we don't add WikiProject Sports to every athlete even though that they are related. Now, I don't completely removing it, I live it for ants, leafhoppers, bugs, and other insects that are not butterflies/moths or beetles. Is that fair?--Mishae (talk) 01:47, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I'd actually look to add the Insect tag to the Lep articles as well for the reasons listed above. We generally don't make decisions in articles because others do the same (there's a guideline on that somewhere), so we can't really argue that because Lep articles don't have the tag that that should be the standard. I'm also concerned about the Statistics section here as we can use that to track the status of insect related articles. When it comes to these articles, people are generally going to be interested in insects in general, so we should try to maintain that overarching connection. I don't see any reason to exclude the insect banner from any insect page since that's where the community really lies. Any less than that and we're specializing a bit too much in an already specialized topic. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:14, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Also, WP:PROJGUIDE#OWN is helpful here. Essentially, we don't remove banners when a Wikiproject claims it's within its scope. I don't see any danger of overtagging here either, so it seems best to mesh with our Wikiproject guidelines by just including both. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:21, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@Kingofaces43: O' yeah, how about you will read this, where it clearly says that over tagging is disruptive, which means screw WP:PROJGUIDE#OWN!--Mishae (talk) 02:28, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Like WikiProject Insects, just like Lepidoptera is huge. So my suggestion would be to change WikiProject Insect to WikiProject Beetles for beetles, and then we can create beetle task forces, like it is with ants. I think this sounds like a good plan. Maybe users @Ruigeroeland:, @Oculi:, @Ser Amantio di Nicolao:, @Dawynn:, and @Notafly: have something to add?--Mishae (talk) 02:24, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to exclude the insect banner from any insect page since that's where the community really lies. Any less than that and we're specializing a bit too much in an already specialized topic. - You don't see a reason but I do. WikiProject Insects is too broad already and therefore for the ease of navigating I will remove that project banner from butterflies/moths and beetles. Really, how would you find a beetle in a WikiProject Insects? I would suggest a vote. Some users already started adding WikiProject Greece to the animals that are endemic to it, I don't think there was consensus on that.--Mishae (talk) 02:33, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I referenced that overtagging wouldn't be a problem (it'd likely only be two tags at most for most). If the beetle people want to tag the article and do things within their own project that's perfectly fine, but we should be following the guidelines for Wikiprojects and not removing other's banners. That's all. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:38, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@Kingofaces43: Some editors are not even a part of those project, so why should you care? The other reason I do it (and will continue), is because majority of them were written before WikiProject Beetles became active again. As for it'd likely only be two tags at most for most, that's right, most not all. As I stated above some editors already started to tag insect articles for endemism, so in this case it will be 3 tags, and it will be too much.--Mishae (talk) 02:48, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

WP:PROJSCOPE is very clear on this, "if a WikiProject says that an article is within their scope, then do not edit-war to remove the banner." Saying you will continue to remove the banner is not the way to approach this at this time. The rest of that page indicates how to handle multiple projects with interest in an article, so I highly suggest reading that. Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:02, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@Kingofaces43: Am I edit warring? If so where? Either way, I will wait till other folks will come here. I already read that pile of foo, and I am well aware of it. However, while it applies well to biographies because a lot of people do have multiple professions and origins, insects are different. Insects have only order/family and distribution. Because really if lets say an athlete is a football player should we add both Football and Sports template, just because some folks might want to join Sports project rather then its subprojects? I think I stated a reason for it removal very clear on top We have zillions of articles on insects and its hard to find in this template what you are looking for even alphabetically Is that CLEAR?--Mishae (talk) 03:19, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

The point is not to remove banners when you've been made aware there is opposition to it. The issues you are bringing up now are fixed by simply adding the Beetle template rather than replacing the Insect one. Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:44, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@Kingofaces43: The opposition is one (you). Either way, I already stated my point. Lets wait till other folks will join this discussion. Sounds fair?--Mishae (talk) 05:11, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Stepping back from what has been said so far, there are several purposes or functions to a WikiProject. Misplaced Pages:WikiProject lists a few:

• "as resources to help coordinate and organize the group's efforts at creating and improving articles"
• " advice for editors, use bots to track what is happening at articles of interest to the group, and create lists of tools and templates their members commonly use"
• " a convenient forum for those involved in that project to talk about what they are doing, to ask questions, and to receive advice from other people interested in the group's work"

The question, really, is how are these aims best served. In the case of WP:Beetles, I can't see much on the project page that wouldn't apply to all insects, and certainly not so much that it couldn't be accommodated in a larger project. Similarly, I doubt that WT:Insects would be swamped by all the discussions that currently occur at WT:Beetles. I'm sure the split was well-intentioned, but I think it was probably unnecessary. I think my personal view is that for the discussions that matter, it's best to have as many voices as possible from a wide range of relevant backgrounds, and for that, a more inclusive project is a better project.

One final point: I would argue that article count is a very poor guide to the amount of quality that a project covers. WP:LEP may have 88,839 articles, but only 1.2% of them are rated above stub-class. This is very, very low for a WikiProject, even a large one. WikiProject History is large, and more than a third of its articles are above stub-class. WikiProject Biography is enormous, and just under a third (c. 32%) of its articles are above stub-class. Even the neonate WikiProject Beetles manages 2.6%. WikiProject Lepidoptera does not seem to have had great success in improving the quality of articles, and I am unconvinced that WikiProject Beetles will be any different in the longer term. Just because WikiProject Lepidoptera exists, that does not make it a model to be aspired to. Editors are free to create any WikiProject they like, of course, but that doesn't mean it's always a good idea, and they are not free to disrupt other WikiProjects. If the people at WikiProject Insects want to keep track of the beetle articles (or the lep. articles, for that matter), then they should be allowed to. The people to ask, then, are those who are members or active participants at WikiProject Insects and not members or active participants of the subproject(s). --Stemonitis (talk) 07:05, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@Stemonitis: For the first time ever, I need to agree with you. However, the split was necessary. Both Lepidoptera and Beetles have over 10,000 articles. Yes, most of them are stubs, but so it goes with the Insect project as well. Lets focus on Insects, Beetles, and Lepidoptera, not biography and Sports, which, and you are right, have over 32% of articles that are above stub class. As for Editors are free to create any WikiProject they like, of course, but that doesn't mean it's always a good idea, and they are not free to disrupt other WikiProjects., this disruption is only concerns Kingofaces43, because prior to his issue of a concern everything was going well. I hope you are not trying to side with him and accuse me of disruption? I doubt that WT:Insects would be swamped by all the discussions that currently occur at WT:Beetles. - O' there shouldn't be any doubt about that. Every concern about a butterfly or moth is being taken care of at WikiProject Lepidoptera, not Insects. My suggestion, we should continue on removing this project from beetle related articles because beetle project is a s huge as Lepidoptera. Just because it only have 4 participants, doesn't mean that it should be scoffed and ignored. Lets see what user @Shyamal:, @The Earwig:, @AshLin:, @Burklemore1:, and @Gug01:, have to say about the whole thing.--Mishae (talk) 08:57, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

To clarify, I didn't accuse anyone of disruption, and only meant that it might occur inadvertently. Apologies if that wasn't apparent. --Stemonitis (talk)

@Stemonitis: So in this case, the sooner we will rename beetle articles from WikiProject Insects to WikiProject Beetles the sooner the apparent disruption will end. If not for this debate, I would have finished it and began editing the articles so that wouldn't be a one-sentence stubs.--Mishae (talk) 09:19, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Mishae, you don't appear to be hearing what we're saying, but you need to stop removing the banners at this time. You seem to be plowing ahead with this regardless. It is up to this Wikiproject where their banner goes. The existence of Wikiproject Beetles does change that. Seriously, just add the Beetles tag without deleting the old one. It's as simple as that. Kingofaces43 (talk) 09:54, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@Kingofaces43: I wont listen to an ultimatum. I said why the tag should be changed, and you are the only one who object this. I see that people issued an opinion not an ultimatum like you did. WikiProject Lepidoptera doesn't use it, why should this? And why should I listen to you if other editors might have different opinion. Either way, yes, I will stop, because its past my bed time, but tomorrow I will read what consensus came too. Sounds fair? Also, please sign your name. Thank you.--Mishae (talk) 09:53, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

• @Mishae: Imho, in what way is an article in particular and the encyclopedia in general served best by adding both tags of the mother & daughter projects? I do feel that the WikiProject Insects tag by itself may not add value to the article in all cases of articles of WikiProject Lepidoptera. However, WikiProject Insects would be definitely concerned with systematics, so at least down to family level could bear the tag of WikiProject Insects where an entomologist doing a taxonomic sweep could find these conveniently & add value to these articles. Similarly articles on physiology, ecology, ethology and general topics would benefit from having both tags. The species pages, tens of thousands of them may not get any tangible benefit from being counted as an article under WikiProject. AshLin (talk) 13:09, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
• @AshLin: To answer your first question, I believe that using both sister and moth projects is redundant and I believe that we should follow WikiProject Lepidoptera example: just use WikiProject Lepidoptera and that's it. It was like that for centuries so why change it? Because of it, I decided to change WikiProject Insects to WikiProject Beetles for beetle related articles. I don't do anything against the rules when I do so, yet user Kingofaces43 finds my edits undesirable and find me undesirable as an editor as well.--Mishae (talk) 13:21, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

They way you are pursuing this is what I've been calling out on your talk page. Please refrain from taking this way too seriously as the "undesirable as an editor" comment is not appropriate here nor anything I said. It looks like you're reading way too much into this. We need focus on the issue at hand here following WP:TPG to tackle this calmly. When someone reverts an edit or calls it out, that's the time to stop making the edits and discuss to reach consensus. That's Misplaced Pages 101. Right now, a fair number of folks here are concerned about removing the Insects banner, while some are ok with it. We don't have a clear consensus to be removing the Insect banner right now, so if we are going to be removing the Insects banner, this project simply needs to reach consensus on that. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:04, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@Kingofaces43: I responded on my talkpage why I sometimes behave like this, but if you don't get it, bare in mind that my native language is Russian I sometimes think one thing and write something completely else. To be honest this is my first discussion where consensus plays a key role, so bare with me, I am new to this. Just because I was here for a while doesn't mean that I was engaged in every activity. a fair number of folks here are concerned about removing the Insects banner - there is one person who is concerned and that's you and @Plantdrew: (who didn't bothered to show up after I pinged him). Users Stemonitis and AshLin are neutral from my stance (although they are closer to agree with removing it). I might be wrong though. As for consensus, I maybe don't understand its function. What I know is that we have an editor here who thinks that WP:ILIKEIT is appropriate here and ignores the proposed suggestions until I need to write it all caps, and then it turns out that I am a bad guy? Wow. Look, here is another reason why we should remove this template: Both {{WikiProject Beetles}} and {{WikiProject Insects}} use Insects portal therefore a sister project should be enough.--Mishae (talk) 18:28, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

• Project-Class Insects pages
• NA-importance Insects pages
• WikiProject Insects articles