Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Environment/Environment by year

Contested deletion

This does not need to be deleted. I made the simple mistake of forgetting to add the "Wikipedia prefix. Putting it up for deletion was rather to hasty. The page is quite obviously legitimate and appropriate for project namespace. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 02:20, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Oops

It should be at Wikipedia:Environment by year project. Can an admin please remove the speedy so that it can be moved. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 02:16, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Use of a bot to add articles

It has been suggested that a bot could add entries to the article series from the IUCN red list database. The idea has merit but it all may be too "messy" for a bot. I would prefer that only species that have become extinct are added rather than a change in conservation status. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 18:56, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Given my experience with the use of a similar bot by User:ThaddeusB to generate articles from the paleobiology database I have to say this is actually a lot simpler and won't be at all "messy". It would be easy to test this in userspace or other safe settings before going live. Why do you oppose noting conservation status changes? If you're worried about the articles getting too crowded we could always fork the series if that happens and have, say, years in mammal conservation, years in plant conservation, or whatever since all of those subjects are perfectly notable in their own right. Abyssal (talk) 19:22, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I have no experience with using bots and I think my concerns and reluctance is based in part on historic use of bots creating a few issues. I think they are now well behaved. ("Heel". "Sit". "What a good bot!".) I would certainly want to test it user or project namespace before going live. Is a bot able to slot the entries in the appropriate place in the "Events" section of the article? Is a bot able to create a new page from scratch based on the current template? Your right in saying that if things get crowded some content can be split out. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 19:36, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I am going through Category:Species made extinct by human activities. It is quite difficult with the sources used to find a definitive date of extinction. I guess the IUCN Red List would be more exact. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 20:07, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to speak too much on Thad's behalf since he's the programmer, but in my experience based on his previous work I don't think we have to worry at all. One bot we started successfully made rather nice stubs solely based on a database about fossil life. I don't remember any meaningful errors at all. Abyssal (talk) 15:53, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

At this point, it is just a project idea. I am certainly open to whatever specs for the bot's behavior that are deemed most desirable. I will of course exhibit great care in the creation of the bot, as certain incidents such as the algae article bot have left a bad taste in many people's mouths when it comes to bots generating content. --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:49, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

How about the following as a structure for each entry:

The [common name], or [scientific name], was found to be [conservation status] by [names of the assessors] of [parentheses at the end of the assesors cell]. Its status [change] from its last assessment, in [year in the environment of its last assessment] and its population was found to be [change].

Information could be added to other year in the environment articles from the history cell with the following structure:

The [common name], or [scientific name], was found to be [conservation status] by [names of the assessors].

Abyssal (talk) 15:54, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I would prefer that we initially deal with species that have become extinct. The Red List has about 800 such entries. It might make it easier for a bot as well. Extinction a species is of a far greater noteworthiness than a mere change in conservation status. Perhaps the latter can be kept for a potential Years in species conservation series.

We can only use info that is clear cut so the bot does not stuff it up. Something simple like this:

"[Common name], ([Binomial name]) was declared extinct by the IUCN."

and:

"[Binomial name] was declared extinct by the IUCN."

if there is no common name.

We can always use actual humans to expand it later including deciding on whether it needs a ref and an seeing whether is is a WP article for the species. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:25, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I would expand your proposal to include extinct in the wild and critically endangered species and would tweak the phrasing slightly to something like "[Asessor] concludes that [species] is [extinct]". And to make sure to add entries for historical assessments to their appropriate year articles since even extinct species apparently continue to be assessed (to make sure no survivors were missed, presumably). Abyssal (talk) 21:59, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

A hierarchy of articles

I envisage a hierarchy of articles relating to this Environment by year project. From top to bottom it is:

• Articles in Category:Years - a scattering of environment-related articles.
• Articles in Category:Environment by year - major topics relating to the environment sorted by year
• List of years in the environment - an entry or two from every year (essentially a timeline).
• Individual environment by year articles (eg. 2011 in the environment) - more detail, but all on an even notability and with a regard to geographical balance.
• Portal:Environment/Current events - anything goes! It would be nice to build up Portal:Environment/Current events/Archive.

At this stage of the project the individual environment by year articles are quite short. I would want them to be relatively short and not cluttered with minor events. That would be a distraction from the major events. This is all very subjective of course, and there is still some time to go before articles need to be shortened! -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 05:35, 21 February 2012 (UTC)