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	::::Re 3, experience shared by WikiEd and some statements by FA writers suggests that both very new and very experienced editors often prefer starting a new article or rewriting articles from scratch. This likely differs per person of course, some will as you suggest prefer working from existing text. Either way I am not sure it matters too much to this discussion, as neither outcome will affect the existence of information on an article, so there is always a place to work off it. ] (]) 03:09, 31 October 2022 (UTC)		::::Re 3, experience shared by WikiEd and some statements by FA writers suggests that both very new and very experienced editors often prefer starting a new article or rewriting articles from scratch. This likely differs per person of course, some will as you suggest prefer working from existing text. Either way I am not sure it matters too much to this discussion, as neither outcome will affect the existence of information on an article, so there is always a place to work off it. ] (]) 03:09, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
	* A reminder that citing SPECIESOUTCOMES as a reason to keep ] as citing ] to keep (or delete) school articles. --] (]) 04:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)		* A reminder that citing SPECIESOUTCOMES as a reason to keep ] as citing ] to keep (or delete) school articles. --] (]) 04:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
			*'''Keep/oppose merger''' as unhelpful in building an encyclopedia. Many good arguments already made above. ] (]) 09:21, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Revision as of 09:22, 31 October 2022

Bothriospila

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The following are proposed to be redirected to Bothriospilini, with categories left intact, per WP:CONTENTFORK as they duplicate the content of that article.

This would not prevent them from being split off again in the future, in line with WP:WHENSPLIT.

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organisms-related deletion discussions. BilledMammal (talk) 23:49, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science and Animal related deletion discussions Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:35, 29 October 2022 (UTC))

— Note: An editor has expressed a concern that editors have been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)— Preceding unsigned comment added by BilledMammal (talk • contribs)

Strong oppose - No consensus established for this sort of wholesale merge of taxonomic articles. Dyanega (talk) 23:54, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
Redirect. There is absolutely consensus for redirecting microstubs that duplicate content from other pages; this is literally no different than what we do regularly for countless cricket players and footballers. Zero information is being deleted. If editors can find sufficient independent, secondary SIGCOV for a standalone they can go ahead and remake the articles individually, as they should have done in the first place. And if editors really want to have their own walled garden of database entries to add wikidata to or whatever they can go to wikispecies, which was created for this purpose. JoelleJay (talk) 01:04, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Delete or redirect The topics do not meet WP:GNG. Avilich (talk) 01:14, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Keep Species are, by definition, notable subjects. And detailed information to meet GNG can be found for every single one. Hence why every AfD nomination of a recognized taxonomic species fails, because they are notable. Anyone arguing otherwise is expressing their own ignorance of the topic as a whole. Silver seren 01:36, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Notability is not relevant here, WP:PAGEDECIDE is - and there is no guideline saying that every species must have a standalone article (there isn’t even one that says that species are presumed notable) BilledMammal (talk) 02:15, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Notability is not relevant here

Then you shouldn't have brought this to AfD. Merge discussions should happen on the talk pages or, since you're wanting to merge so many, at the relevant Wikiprojects. An RfC could have also been made for a broader decision if that's what you're going for. But AfD is meant to determine notability of subjects. Silver seren 02:48, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Comment: I am a bit confused by both of your statements: WP:PAGEDECIDE is part of WP:N. Is notability at stake here, and what is the connection of notability to a standalone article versus a merge? Is WP:MERGEREASON a subset of the considerations of WP:PAGEDECIDE? NeverRainsButPours (talk) 16:54, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

AFD is to determine whether an article should be kept, and it does this by determining that the topic is notable, that the article doesn't violate WP:NOT, and the article currently warrants a WP:STANDALONE article. If it fails to determine that any of these are true, then the article cannot be kept.

Here, the argument is that the article doesn't warrant a standalone article, and as such arguments that say "Keep, is notable" are useless and should be dismissed, just as the argument "Keep, doesn't violate WP:NOT" should be dismissed if the nomination was on the grounds that the topic was not notable. BilledMammal (talk) 05:15, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

As such, arguments that don't rebut the reason the article was nominated for deletion - such as "Keep, doesn't violate WP:NOT" when the argument is that the topic is not notable, or "Keep, is notable" when the argument is that the topic doesn't currently warrant a standalone article - are not relevant, as it doesn't matter whether what they argue is true.

Oppose merger merger of these articles will result in an excessively long and difficult to navigate tabular article if all the information is merged into Bothriospilini. This also appears to be a misapplication of WP:CONTENTFORK as these species level articles do not, in fact, only duplicate information already found in Bothriospilini.Jahaza (talk) 02:09, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
The information is already at Bothriospilini, and it’s only 6000 bytes. How is that “excessively long and difficult to navigate”? Further, what information is missing from Bothriospilini? BilledMammal (talk) 02:12, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Keep/Oppose merger, the topics are individually notable. Hey man im josh (talk) 03:23, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Keep (oppose merge). This is getting ridiculous. Long-held consensus is that species are independently notable and meet GNG by definition. Content fork is being completely misapplied. There is no possible reason for redirecting these stubs. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:57, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- "Long-held consensus is that species are independently notable and meet GNG by definition". Mind pointing out where such a consensus might be found? Avilich (talk) 19:04, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
  And how does anything "meet GNG by definition"?! By definition, nothing can "meet GNG" merely by verifiably existing. JoelleJay (talk) 21:53, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Keep (oppose merge). What BilledMammal has been doing is ridiculous, and I'd support sanctions. Species are notable, and mass redirecting hundreds of notable articles without discussion should not be allowed. BeanieFan11 (talk) 04:18, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Keep Every stub on a described species is expandable into at least a start class article. This is a disappointing doubling-down from an editor who seems unable to realize that they are not going to change established consensus extending to thousands of articles by creating POINTy mass AFDs. (Coming off some apparent participation at the ongoing mass creation/AFD discussion this is particularly tone-deaf.) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:54, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Redirect with the possibility of future splitting. "Scapanopygus cinereus is a species of beetle in the family Cerambycidae, the only species in the genus Scapanopygus" is a simple database entry, and not a helpful article to a reader. A reader looking for information will have to go through other wikilinks to find information as it is; better to take them somewhere at least a bit more comprehensive first. If/when these are expanded into start class articles, then they would be helpful standalone articles for a reader. It would also be beneficial if there was more sourcing than a single dead link; I'm sure these are actual species, but there is not much on the articles to show this. CMD (talk) 10:01, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Comment FYI, the Scapanopygus article is no longer a single sentence; it is now 4 sentences with 3 citations. Several others in this list have also had information and sources added. Esculenta (talk) 19:20, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Redirect per nom Argento Surfer (talk) 14:47, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Redirect all The common outcome that species are generally kept has become circular logic without a directive in a guideline. A single published article describing the species – or a database entry – fails GNG, and this line at WP:AFDCO does not actually override that to establish an absurd concept of automatic notability! Even if people believe individual species are notable, per WP:NOPAGE notable topics can still be covered in other articles. In these cases there is not enough content for stand-alone pages so they should be merged/redirected to the genus/other article, which could still have a couple sentences describing each one to be more useful than just a bulleted list of links that fail to actually provide additional information. I do not think Misplaced Pages needs literally millions of articles to be a database of species names that are redundant duplicates of a main article. Even if they could be potentially expanded to have a few sentences, there is no need to have this sort of microstub until someone gets around to doing so. If Bothriospilini has the potential to become long, merge to genus articles instead! Reywas92 15:39, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Keep all per my comments on the Adalbus AFD and also because this is far too long a list to review properly in the lifetime of an AFD. SpinningSpark 15:50, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Keep all. Per WP:NOPAGE: "an article may be a stub even though many sources exist, but simply have not been included yet. Such a short page is better expanded than merged into a larger page". I believe this applies to all of the articles listed here. I've spent the last bit looking for sources and information for some of these articles; they're out there, one just needs to spend a bit of time and add them. Esculenta (talk) 17:10, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
"is better expanded" So where's the expansion??? If no one's going to do this for tens of thousands of such one-line articles, they should be merged. Reywas92 15:03, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Do I really need to supply diffs? And we're not talking about "tens of thousands" of articles, just the ones listed in this Afd. Esculenta (talk) 15:08, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Keep per lots of arguments already. YorkshireExpat (talk) 17:41, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Redirect - Including these in a single list makes it easier for readers to find and compare species without clicking through to articles which contain no additional information. No objection to splitting out individually as articles are expanded. –dlthewave ☎ 18:17, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Redirect per CMD. Ajpolino (talk) 18:28, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Keep as to the genus-level articles on Chlorida and Ranqueles (beetle). Other species within the genuses could more appropriately be redirected there instead of jumping all the way upstream. Cbl62 (talk) 19:14, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Also keep as to Chlorida inexpectata which has now been expanded by User:Esculenta to include an acceptable level of sourcing and information to warrant a stand-alone article. Cbl62 (talk) 19:19, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Keep as a deletion or redirect would directly go against WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES. Species are inherently notable, and all that is needed for such an article is a reference that the species exists. Also, WP:MONOTYPICFAUNA is explicitly clear that the current state is the correct placement, and any change to the structure would have to be undone. In such a case, the ranks with identical member organisms should not be separated into different articles, and the article (if there is no common name) should go under the scientific name of lowest rank, but no lower than the monotypic genus. In short, we don't have separate pages for the species and genus, but instead they are merged at the genus level (the lowest unique rank). Going up to the tribe (Bothriospilini) would be inappropriate at best and just violate WP:NOTBURO policy. The nomination and redirect comments are just outright ignoring guidelines and aren't valid options here. KoA (talk) 20:54, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

I just realized this was a mass nomination, but the same concepts above would apply. I took a look through each species or genera, and none of those are even available for deletion or redirect. This is a very strange special case the nom seems to be trying to create. This is not the place to upend how standard taxonomy article structure is handled. I would encourage the nom and other supporters to learn how taxonomy articles are handled before shooting from the hip as this is definitely WP:SNOW and borderline disruptive. KoA (talk) 21:14, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Species are inherently notable

I don't see this supported by any policy or guideline (SPECIESOUTCOMES being an essay), and in fact it is directly contradicted by WP:N: No subject is automatically or inherently notable merely because it exists: the evidence must show the topic has gained significant independent coverage or recognition, and that this was not a mere short-term interest, nor a result of promotional activity or indiscriminate publicity, nor is the topic unsuitable for any other reason. JoelleJay (talk) 21:48, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

We do need to be careful of comments like this in terms of WP:WIKILAWYERING to avoid established community practice (and again NOTBURO policy). If someone is not familiar with how SPECIESOUTCOMES is actually used, they are welcome to look at all the species AFDs where consensus with it has been endorsed. Really the only time species articles are deleted or redirected is when there's a serious question on the sourcing or if it really exists. Either way, if someone tries to make wild claims about species being a short-term interest or somehow promotional, we do need to be careful about subject-matter competence and dismiss that outright. KoA (talk) 22:26, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Oh but it's not wikilawyering to invoke an essay in claiming community consensus for inherent notability? The exact same circular reasoning of "they're never deleted at AfD" was used to argue train stations are inherently notable--and now we have guidance at GEOLAND explicitly stating train stations must meet GNG because the community recognized AfD outcomes don't mean anything when they're always attended by a large cohort of wikiproject editors !voting keep. JoelleJay (talk) 22:43, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

JoelleJay, are there any of the articles listed above that you think actually don't meet GNG? Remember, sources not being in the article isn't an argument for deletion or an argument for not meeting GNG. Do you think any of the articles do not have proper sourcing that exists to meet GNG for them? Is that a serious belief you have? Silver seren 22:53, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

There are three issues here, GNG, PAGEDECIDE, and NOT. In my opinion being a named species does not guarantee secondary SIGCOV providing anything beyond a jargony list of attributes, most of which will be shared within the genus. We do not need separate pages on each of the one million+ insect species if they are just duplicating the tiny amount of known info on them from a dedicated professional database. That goes against NOT. For a similar reason, we don't accept sports stats databases as sources of athlete notability, even though they might include a large number of separable attributes, because the community considers inclusion in even pro sports DBs to be too indiscriminate for a general-purpose encyclopedia. A set with millions of members is hardly discriminating. JoelleJay (talk) 23:57, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

That seems to be at least a partial avoidance of my question. Do you think the only info available on these articles is biological information pertaining to the genus? And we generally don't use databases for sourcing in these either, the common databases are just used for the most general taxonomic info. Proper scholarly publications are the main avenue of reliable source coverage for species. If athletes had academic publications written about them, our coverage of sportspeople would be much more robust, I expect. Silver seren 00:10, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

It remains insanity that people treat SPECIESOUTCOMES as a policy rather than mere summary of what often happens, instead choosing circular logic of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS of keeping other species means all must have their own articles. There's no such thing as "going against" anything on WP:AFDCO because it's not a controlling directive. "Species are inherently notable" this is FALSE and has NEVER been established a guideline, so your claim of "outright ignoring guidelines" is BS. Nothing is inherently notable, but rather presumed notable in some cases, and topics about which there is little to say are welcome to be merged even if notable. Reywas92 15:09, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

The "insanity" is a small group of editors charging in wanting to change community norms for taxonomy articles, often barreling over some of the nuances specific to the subject. It goes back to the subject-matter competence issue mentioned above, especially when editors come in hot to the subject. Some of it is also policy violating mentality for WP:NOTBURO where it essentially boils down to saying you didn't formally encode this community norm in policies and guidelines, so it must be ignored. You still need to make a major justification for a special case of going against community norms, and there's nothing particularly special in that sense on this set of articles.

Not to mention that blinders approach has also led to violating actual guidelines like WP:MONOTYPICTAXON where we go down to the lowest unique rank. That means if only one species exists in the genus, then the species is housed in the genus, or if one species in the family, then the species article is at the family level, etc. KoA (talk) 21:15, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Additional comment Just to add on to my initial comment, but based on comments by the nom (and other support comments), it's very clear WP:BEFORE wasn't engaged in at all. Notability and decisions are not determined by the amount of content or sources currently present in the article in the manner the nom is trying to do. They need to actually look at sources rather than hand-wave about there not being enough material, especially for a mass-request like this. Here's just one example for Chlorida denticulata. If you go straight to one of the sources, you already get a summary of where it is found and what host plants it has for key biological information, but also a list of sources for more information:

Extended content
Chlorida denticulata Buquet, 1860 Type locality - Cayenne. (MNHN). Distribution - Guyana, French Guiana, Ecuador. Host plants - Eperua rubiginosa Miquel, Ormosia paraensis Ducke (Caesalpiniaceae), Hevea guianensis Aublet (Euphorbiaceae). Chlorida denticulata Buquet, 1860: 623; Thomson, 1878a: 17 (type); Williams, 1931: 224 (distr.); Tavakilian in Hequet, 1996: pl. 11, fig. 2; Tavakilian et al., 1997: 331, 338 (hosts); Monné, M. A., 2001b: 54 (cat. hosts); Monné, M. A., 2005: 566 (cat.); Monné Monné, M. A. & Hovore, 2006: 28 (distr.); Morvan & Morati, 2006: 8 (distr.); 2011: 14 (distr.); Touroult et al., 2010: 28; Giuglaris, 2012: 61 (distr.).

Extended content

Chlorida denticulata Buquet, 1860 Type locality - Cayenne. (MNHN). Distribution - Guyana, French Guiana, Ecuador. Host plants - Eperua rubiginosa Miquel, Ormosia paraensis Ducke (Caesalpiniaceae), Hevea guianensis Aublet (Euphorbiaceae). Chlorida denticulata Buquet, 1860: 623; Thomson, 1878a: 17 (type); Williams, 1931: 224 (distr.); Tavakilian in Hequet, 1996: pl. 11, fig. 2; Tavakilian et al., 1997: 331, 338 (hosts); Monné, M. A., 2001b: 54 (cat. hosts); Monné, M. A., 2005: 566 (cat.); Monné Monné, M. A. & Hovore, 2006: 28 (distr.); Morvan & Morati, 2006: 8 (distr.); 2011: 14 (distr.); Touroult et al., 2010: 28; Giuglaris, 2012: 61 (distr.).

It even gives you the citation to the original description, so heading over there (p 623-624). There's over a page of description in just that one source, much less all the other sources mentioned in the above list. I'd seriously advise the nom to work on expanding articles with these relatively easy to find sources rather than drive-by nominations that BEFORE is supposed to prevent. You could add things like how the species looks, identifying features, what species is similar to it, etc. You could even follow the sources to plates of the species even. That's just from a small amount of searching even. There should be a massive amount of this in terms of BEFORE for such a large nomination like this. KoA (talk) 22:21, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

By WP:BEFORE, I assume you are referring to D, which says Search for additional sources, if the main concern is notability? The main concern wasn't notability. BilledMammal (talk) 22:26, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

BM, I really suggest avoiding talking past people like that or the short hot-takes quickly after decent sized comment like mine. We are at AfD, and the species/notability question is what drives their page existence. No escaping that. The additional part I was commenting on in BEFORE in C (such as WP:CONRED) was that you are expected to fix these problems through normal editing if you feel strongly, and follow up on the talk pages, related Wikiprojects, etc. that could have helped you with the sources if you were having trouble with them. None of that. Instead, you're basically demanding a bureaucratic change and demanding the someone split that content out later again without actually digging into all the relevant sources yourself (or at least showing you did). Go expand the articles if you feel strongly about it. There are many insect species articles that need expansion and only so many editors out there, and this way of going about it is just a WP:POINTY use of AfD. KoA (talk) 22:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Page existence doesn't just require notability; it also requires compliance with WP:NOT, and it also requires that the topic currently warrants a standalone article.

There are many inspect species articles that could be expanded, and so few editors available to do this that almost none are expanded; the articles under discussion here haven't been expanded in eight years. As such, we should get the articles in a format that is usable by readers and then when someone has time split the content out. This also matches improving the article through normal editing, with one of the normal editing practices recommended being WP:ATD-M. The rejection of the subsequent redirection of the species articles then brought us to WP:BEFORE C#4, which requires an AfD be opened. BilledMammal (talk) 23:14, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Per our OR policy, articles must not be based on primary sources. Most databases and research articles are primary sources (although discussion of other papers within a research article can be secondary). Regardless, the matter at hand isn't whether each of the species at AfD or 1 million total insect species could meet GNG, it's whether including standalone articles on each of them is warranted per PAGEDECIDE and NOT. JoelleJay (talk) 23:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Keep/Oppose merger. In addition to the other objections noted above, there are some practical objections to up-merging existing species articles to the genus level:

1) While it can be relatively easy to merge articles, it is far more difficult to accurately revise the text following the split of a taxonomic article into separate articles. As a genus article develops, there are few instances of clearly identifiable sentences that pertain only to one of the species. Assessing each fact can entail having to verify the original source, not only for the presence of the fact, but also the negative of that fact for the genus as a whole before removing it. As a result, the splitting of a complicated genus article into new species articles results in more work than more creating a new genus article from scratch. However, if the genus and species articles are developed separately and in parallel, this difficulty will not appear down the road.

2) An existing species article may have many redirects from common names or other scientific names (synonyms and alternate combinations) that point to the species article title. After a merge to the genus level, and the species page converted to a redirect, these redirects will then be re-targeted by a bot within a few hours to avoid the double-redirect. After the bot has finished (12-24hrs after the page move), although the species level article could be restored, the redirects would now be lost until manually re-created.

3) A genus article is about the genus as a whole, and this deters editors from adding species information as a whole, especially as it may be impossible to add the information in an even manner. This will only serve to hinder the development of the article(s).

As well as the battleground mentality that is starting to appear, I see some opposition to stub articles, sometimes further denigrated as "sub-stub" or "micro-stub", that is based more on WP:IDONTLIKEIT than an appreciation that these are valid articles containing unique information. If we truly believe that we are creating an encyclopedia that will encompass all of this information for the future, then we should be building up the framework and not constraining ourselves by merges that would delete some of this information and organization. We need to look at our long term goals of what we want to build and what in time-frame our efforts are to take place (WP:DEADLINE). Think big. Loopy30 (talk) 21:54, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

1) What can be easily split is the elements that are clear refer only to a single species.

2) Creating a few redirects takes less than a minute.

3) Is there any evidence that editors are more likely to expand a low-traffic micro stub than they are to create a new article?

BilledMammal (talk) 22:05, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi BilledMammal,

1. Yes, it may indeed be easy to take an element that refers to the species and put it in the species article. But to complete the split, it is still necessary to review both that fact (and all the others in the genus article) to see whether it should then remain in the genus article. Determining what was true for the species is not the same as untangling what may or may not be correct for the rest of the genus.

2. In some cases there many (20+) redirects. It is often impractical (and undesirable) to list the synonyms for all of the species on the genus page. Also, when these redirects point to the species title, they also serve the purpose of alerting any future editor that an article already exists, thereby avoiding the creation of duplicate articles at different titles (yes, that has often happened).

3. Yes, several editors have noted that they are either overly intimidated or not as willing to create a new article compared to being able to add to an existing article. What I have not heard of is if there are any editors that prefer to start from scratch rather than add to an existing article (but I doubt it).

Loopy30 (talk) 23:09, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Re 3, experience shared by WikiEd and some statements by FA writers suggests that both very new and very experienced editors often prefer starting a new article or rewriting articles from scratch. This likely differs per person of course, some will as you suggest prefer working from existing text. Either way I am not sure it matters too much to this discussion, as neither outcome will affect the existence of information on an article, so there is always a place to work off it. CMD (talk) 03:09, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

A reminder that citing SPECIESOUTCOMES as a reason to keep is as circular as citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES to keep (or delete) school articles. --Izno (talk) 04:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Keep/oppose merger as unhelpful in building an encyclopedia. Many good arguments already made above. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:21, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

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