This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Outline of lichens article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
This article is an outline, a type of article that presents a list of articles or sub-topics related to its subject in a hierarchical form. For the standardized set of outlines on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines. Outlines are within the scope of WikiProject Outlines, a collaborative effort to improve outlines on Wikipedia. For guidance on building and maintaining outlines, see Wikipedia:Outlines.OutlinesWikipedia:WikiProject OutlinesTemplate:WikiProject OutlinesOutlines articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Fungi, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Fungi on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.FungiWikipedia:WikiProject FungiTemplate:WikiProject FungiFungi articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Lists, an attempt to structure and organize all list pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.ListsWikipedia:WikiProject ListsTemplate:WikiProject ListsList articles
Latest comment: 2 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I have found outlines useful for identifying gaps in our coverage. For example there does not appear to be an article or redirect for ascolichen. I am not a specialist, but it sees that this is a search term that could be used, and a general search does not identify an obvious target, though a redirect with possibilities to somewhere in Lichen might be suitable.· · · Peter Southwood(talk): 15:52, 18 August 2022 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
The final pages of the International Lichenological Newsletter (e.g. see recent issue here) contains a complete list of lichen organisations (and the journals/bulletins they publish); not sure how thorough this article should be in listing them. Esculenta (talk) 15:29, 8 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
It's an undocumented exception to the MOS:HEADINGS guideline. Standard practice for non-location outlines, is that most non-regional outlines' first subheading is a question of the form: "What type of thing is x?" That's for identifying the parent classifications that the topic belongs to, to help identify what it is. A dog is a canine which is a mammal which is an animal. Fluid dynamics is a branch of physics which is a branch of science. And so on.
We've experimented with non-question formats for that heading, and so far, we have not found a less awkward one than the question. Other headings that have been tried tend to leak, being broader in meaning, to overlap semantically with the lead section or other subsections.
In Outline of lichens, that heading somehow got reworded to become the very question that the lead is supposed to answer, an example of the leakage I just mentioned. But, the body of the section still answers the question "What type of thing is a lichen?, so, it still works.
If you browse the outlines, you'll find the question in most of them that are not regions (countries, provinces/states, counties, and cities). I hope this answer helps.