Talk:List of Odonata species of Great Britain

Counties or vice-counties? Explanation of revert

Wikipedia articles should be accessible to a general audience as well as to specialists. I can see some merit in including vice-county info for completeness when locations are mentioned, so that the needs of specialist entomologists are catered for. To the average reader however "East Norfolk" and "West Cornwall and Scilly" are pretty meaningless names; if these names linked to pages which explained the names and their context, that would help, but to add them and then link to pages that don't provide any such information doesn't seem to me to aid improving the understanding of the majority of the likely readership of this page. - SP-KP 19:23, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

capitalization

Is dragonfly normally capitalized in British English? If not, the article title should be changed. Tuf-Kat 23:34, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

• Good spot. Done - SP-KP 23:51, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Britain or Great Britain?

I appreciate that there's relatively little ambiguity between these terms (although "Britain" is often, incorrectly, used for the UK) but "Great Britain" seems clearer than just "Britain". Also, is there a way to get rid of the (brackets (within brackets)) (followed by brackets) in the lead, by rewording that section? TheGrappler 23:27, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Yellow winged-darter image

It is a great photo, but does anyone else also think that a more widely known British Dragonfly should be used as they main photo for the page? For the main Dragonfly page its fine but this page is after all about British Dragonflies. Samasnookerfan (talk) 17:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Taxobox colour

The new taxobox colour is so much better for the Dragonfly articles. That pink colour was crap. Samasnookerfan (talk) 17:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Improvements

This list shouldn't have the reference author stated in the main text, a citation note is all that's needed. For example:

• Scarlet Dragonfly, first recorded at Hayle Kimbro Pool, The Lizard, Cornwall on 7 August 1995 (Jones 1996 ), with a small number of further records at scattered locations throughout Britain

Should be:

• Scarlet Dragonfly, first recorded at Hayle Kimbro Pool, The Lizard, Cornwall on 7 August 1995, with a small number of further records at scattered locations throughout Britain.

The other issue is the naming of the article. Britain is highly ambiguous and should be replaced with Great Britain when referring to the island. In this case Great Britain seems to be the subject (although the Channel Islands are mentioned at the bottom), and the article should also be renamed accordingly. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Biota of Great Britain and Ireland. Cheers, Jack (talk) 12:44, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

References

Lookups by description?

One of the things Wikipedia is astonishingly bad at is helping someone who has seen something in the wild but does not know what its colloquial name is (let alone the taxo one), which makes it impossible to look it up here, other than by plodding, laboriously, through page after page until you chance upon the right one. What ought to be a 5-minute task, to put a handle on something so one can mention it in conversation (in fewer than five words), turns into a big time-wasting exercise. (Many is the time that Wiki's ability to spew forth yet more information has meant I ran out of endurance before I got my answer and have had to go away, disappointed and still ignorant).

Those who, like me, thought there were only a dozen or so UK species to flick through and that 10 minutes' searching might be tolerable will be sorely disappointed to discover closer to 40 articles to be read (including rarities, vagrants, complete one-offs, extinct varieties) and yet more due to come, which are still redlinks.

Of course, no sooner does a contributor load a series of images onto a page, in an attempt to assist the reader (an "ID parade", so to speak), some other smart-rear-end comes along and drops a boilerplate on it to say "Wikipedia is NOT a gallery". That may be so (policy is policy) but at least a half-decent reference book allows you to look at drawings or photos of several species all at once (side by side, none of this scrolling the page up and down nonsense). Identification is all about comparison and the process of elimination.

I am convinced that there are ways to get around the problem without resorting to a high image load. Textual descriptions like "dominant colour", "secondary colour", "other features" would suit a table layout with hotlinks to the relevant articles.

Regrettably, I am merely a passer-by in a hurry, with a time-saving suggestion. I lack the technical expertise with the markup, as well as the patience to read every article and collect the information required to make the table factually correct as well as functional. I wish good luck to whoever volunteers to take this idea on. EatYerGreens (talk) 15:07, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Dots

Should there be dots at the end of each line of some summing up, or shouldn't there? The different paragraphs are not consistent now. Scarabaeoid (talk) 22:03, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Out of date

This page is now seriously out of date with regards to willow emerald, southern emerald, southern migrant hawker and winter damselfly - (indeed the first three may now be breeding species.) Unfortunately I can't get my head around how to cite the references for these. cab anyone help? Harasseddad (talk) 16:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Replied on your talk page. Cheers, Jack (talk) 23:24, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Lower case for common names

Have we not long ago agreed to lower case for common names? And ought we not to carry this through on this page? Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:34, 1 February 2020 (UTC)