Hwamplero
Welcome!
editHi Hwamplero! I noticed your contributions and wanted to welcome you to the Wikipedia community. I hope you like it here and decide to stay.
As you get started, you may find this short tutorial helpful:
Alternatively, the contributing to Wikipedia page covers the same topics.
If you have any questions, we have a friendly space where experienced editors can help you here:
If you are not sure where to help out, you can find a task here:
Happy editing! Loopy30 (talk) 01:52, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
page creation
editHi. While it's great that you're creating new pages for various planthoppers, there are a few things that you should be keeping in mind that will improve the quality of these articles: (1) Author names for species are frequently in parentheses; this should be checked carefully! (2) The FLOW website is active, you should not use archived versions, but instead use the actual "live" links (3) COL and EOL links are not necessary when you already link FLOW and GBIF, which are more authoritative (4) there is no need to state in words how many species are in a genus; readers can count for themselves, and numbers are prone to change (5) when there is a need for disambiguation, the standard format for a disambiguated planthopper article title is "XXX (planthopper)" rather than "XXX (genus)" (6) by definition, any planthopper in the family Issidae is an "issid planthopper"; saying "issid" is redundant. Feel free to ask if you have other questions. Dyanega (talk) 18:07, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks for the advice! I am pretty new to editing Wikipedia so I was basing my pages on the Aplos simplex page (was originally listed as Thionia simplex). I will update my other pages to reflect that. Hwamplero (talk) 18:18, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
- A question, should author names be in parentheses in all situations including in speciesboxes? Hwamplero (talk) 23:05, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
- Author names are in parentheses when the species was described in a different genus than the one presently recognized, and this is especially common in Issidae. If you look in FLOW, it correctly shows which names are in parentheses and which are not. Authoritative sources usually have this correct, so always use the best sources. Dyanega (talk) 23:50, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
- For example, look atFowlerium acutum. The original name was Thionia acuta and the author's name is not in parentheses when cited alongside the original name, but when cited alongside Fowlerium acutum, then the parentheses must be used. Dyanega (talk) 23:55, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
- Understood! Hwamplero (talk) 00:16, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
- Welcome to Wikipedia and thanks for your contributions! Another suggestion from another editor, here. The FLOW database you're linking to seems to provide citations of description of the taxon. In cases where you have only "database" citations, even to ones that seem to be maintained by experts, like FLOW and GBIF, it would still be valuable to include a citation to an actual published work in the Wikipedia stub article as well. —siroχo 05:08, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Got it! Since FLOW and GBIF have citations to the original publication, is it okay to use one of their citations? What sort of citations would be helpful? I am not an expert on insects, so I have been mostly focusing on taxonomy and geographic range when I can find it. However, if there is any other critical data that I should be looking for, let me know! Hwamplero (talk) 16:09, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, it's fine to use their citations. The primary goal here is to make it easy for readers and editors to verify the facts of the article. Secondary goals including providing pointers at further reading for readers, and making sure Wikipedia isn't reliant on the database's continued existence for such information.
- I am not an expert on insects either, but if you are interested in investigating the reliable sources yourself and summarizing relevant aspects that is a general approach that works well across articles. At the very least, including the citation makes it just a bit more likely that another editor will decide to use that citation to expand the article in the future. (WP:IMPERFECT) —siroχo 20:21, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Got it! Since FLOW and GBIF have citations to the original publication, is it okay to use one of their citations? What sort of citations would be helpful? I am not an expert on insects, so I have been mostly focusing on taxonomy and geographic range when I can find it. However, if there is any other critical data that I should be looking for, let me know! Hwamplero (talk) 16:09, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Welcome to Wikipedia and thanks for your contributions! Another suggestion from another editor, here. The FLOW database you're linking to seems to provide citations of description of the taxon. In cases where you have only "database" citations, even to ones that seem to be maintained by experts, like FLOW and GBIF, it would still be valuable to include a citation to an actual published work in the Wikipedia stub article as well. —siroχo 05:08, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Understood! Hwamplero (talk) 00:16, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
- Another suggestion here, is remember to include some information that things like taxonomic databases don't provide; say something other than "A is a species of B described by C in D." Don't create WP:SUBSTUBs! Cheers, Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 19:59, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- I mean, substubs aren't that helpful to the reader; it's fine to create them, but remember to expand them. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 20:03, 9 September 2023 (UTC)