Wikipedia talk:Notability (species)

Summarize Timeline Top Qs Fact Check

A year ago, we had an RFC underway to adopt this guideline. This morning, my calendar beeped at me and told me that I'd wanted to follow up with an assertion that this guideline would "inevitably" result in mass creation of species articles.

I haven't seen any of that myself, but I wanted to check in with any talk page watchers: Has anyone seen evidence of the predicted mass creation? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:47, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Is there some sort of category or list to look at new pages in biology subjects specifically? That would make it easier to check. Silverseren^C 18:56, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

See User:B33tleMania12's creations over the past couple of months (and their previous user name, User: BlaUser234). This is the only case of what I would consider to be mass-creation of taxon articles since around May of 2021. (BilledMammal's definition of mass-creation, i.e. creating more than 25-50 articles in a subject area EVER has been met by many editors, but none of them have created more than 5 articles per day on any regular basis). You can also look through User:AlexNewArtBot/SpeciesSearchResult which catches most new species articles (User:505noscope has also been actively creating numerous species articles in the past few days, but their activity is very intermittent). Plantdrew (talk) 20:20, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Even a generous reading of Wikipedia:Editing policy#Mass page creation wouldn't find their >100 articles last Wednesday compatible.

@B33tleMania12, even if your articles are perfect, the Wikipedia:New pages patrol and other editors need time to review them. Can you please slow down? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:59, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Ok, I am not that plugged in to the inner workings of wikipedia. I just want to contribute articles about a subject that I find interesting. And yes, I am aware that I can be fast (I kinda pride myself on efficiency if nothing else). However, I don't want to stress out others. I tried to incorporate all tips/remarks into the template I use when creating an article. If being autopatrolled would help: please go ahead, although if I read the discussion above, some would be horrified if I would be creating tons of beetle articles. Fast or slow: I intend to do so though... B33tleMania12 (talk) 21:24, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

To add to this: besides creating articles, I also improved quite some sub-par articles created by bots, that apparantly were ok to add. So I am a bit surprised that articles that have been created and checked by a human are that much of a problem to people. B33tleMania12 (talk) 21:29, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Times on Wikipedia have sadly changed since I first joined in 2010. I am an inclusionist that does not mind stubs, but they need to be done right. Time will improve that, but I understand that other editors do not feel that way. Part of me wonders if we could limit the creations to 20 articles per day or do a WP:AFC restriction as a worst-case scenario. The Knowledge Pirate (talk) 21:46, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

@The Knowledge Pirate, your intuition seems just about on target. The recommendation in WP:MASSCREATE is that if you want to create more than 25 to 50 articles (it doesn't say "per day", but that's the context of the original discussion years ago), then you should seek permission in advance. I think AFC would really rather not have hundreds or thousands of simple species articles to review.

@B33tleMania12, species articles are generally pretty quick to review, but if you're doing this over a sustained period (and given how many beetle species there are, you have years of work ahead of you), then aiming a little lower will help the reviewers keep up with you. Wikipedia:Autopatrolled would help one group of reviewers but not the rest. We need a sustainable pace for this ultramarathon even if you request autopatrolled.

In the meantime, I love how you're taking on ideas and advice from other editors, and I hope you're having some success with finding a second source. BTW, editors who are interested in species articles usually hang out at Wikipedia:WikiProject Insects, Wikipedia:WikiProject Beetles, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life. Those may be good places if you have questions or need help. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:04, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words and your tips. I was logging in to wikipedia to add some more species, but I restrained myself, so the discussion here helped at least a little :) I am not going to pursue autoatrolled myself. I will let the community decide if they trust me with that. I will try to limit my creation, but some sources are just that easy to use (i.e. a whole genus review with cc-by 4.0). That kind of sources allow you to mass-create. Also something to keep in mind: many scientific articles themselves are based on a whole list of sources themselves. So an article having only one source is in fact not true.. one ref might actually in fact be many sources in one. But still, I understand you need more refs in the article.. just wanted to make that point. B33tleMania12 (talk) 22:17, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

A couple of years ago, I did a sample article from a single ref (worse, in the eyes, of many editors, a single database ref). You can look at it here: User:WhatamIdoing/Database article As a result, I certainly understand what you're saying about a single ref often being enough to prove that more sources exist in the real world, and that a single ref can have a lot of information in it.

BTW, one of the things I liked about that one was providing a ==Further reading== citation to the original publication. It was listed in the source I was using, and I thought – why not? Maybe someone will be interested. (I don't plan to turn that sample into a real article. We already have an article on that particular little fish.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:58, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

This is my first time hearing about pacing being an issue, do you have any estimate of what article creation rate could be problematic? Assuming, of course, that it's at least start-level quality. — Snoteleks (talk) 23:43, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

According to the footnote in MASSCREATE, the article creation rate that could be problematic is 25 to 50 articles per day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:04, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Oh that's sensible. I already struggle with 1 a day — Snoteleks (talk) 21:49, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

I understand that seeing the amount of discussing is involved in doing stuff on wikipedia :P B33tleMania12 (talk) 22:20, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Discussing has never stopped me, I just do not have that much free time and I prefer bringing articles to at least C-class. — Snoteleks (talk) 01:56, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Well, I started adding articles because I was under the impression that every species deserves (and is allowed) to have an article on wikipedia. The question is quite simple in my mind: if every species deserves an article (which seems the case because there are many articles on obscure species), then it would be ok to add an article about any species (with refs off course) and as many as you want, because they are not only allowed, they are helpful. If you have the time and will to add many: great (and if you dont have the time to add that many: still great off course) B33tleMania12 (talk) 22:09, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

The community (or, at least, a vocal part of it) is leary of high rates of creation of new articles because many such mass-created articles have turned out to be about topics of doubtful existance, and long and stressful (and often still ongoing) campaigns have been necessary to clean them up. Please go slow, at least until the community is satisfied that you are consistently creating decent articles. Donald Albury 00:39, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

And, honestly, 20 a day isn't really that difficult of a limit to stick to, is it? Silverseren^C 02:21, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi @B33tleMania12, just to clarify, there's nothing wrong with the creation of these articles and I think everyone in this discussion appreciates all the time and effort you are putting in - thank you for helping to build the encyclopedia! The reason that the volume of pages created can be problematic is because new page patrol has a large backlog and large numbers of pages created in a short period can overwhelm the patrollers. As Donald Albury says, in the past the mass creation of articles has led to huge amounts of time being wasted on cleanup, so it's something many editors are very wary of. It seems like the vast majority of your articles have no issues, however, slowing down just long enough for your recently created articles to be reviewed before starting on the next "batch" allows reviewers to stay on top of the backlog and would be greatly appreciated. As a side note, if you're not familiar already, you may also be interested in contributing to Wikidata or Wikispecies in addition to English Wikipedia. I hope this discussion hasn't discouraged you from editing at all - if you would like any assistance with your articles, please feel free to leave a message on my talk page! Cheers, Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 04:42, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Overload on new page patrol is not the only reason. The other reason is that in past spates of high-volume article creation, the articles were often very low quality and poorly sourced sub-stubs, in need of careful editing that the creators did not provide. So people who remember those problems are leery of anything that might bring back the same problems. And nowadays, high volume often comes from AI-written content which has its own serious problems, so much so that we have a new speedy deletion criterion for obviously AI-written articles. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:34, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Ok, I was not aware of all the past problems, but I think I have seen some stuff created in that period. Although not factually wrong, these articles were not very helpful besides having a lot of refs. They basically just stated a species existed and the continent they are to be found, next to a taxobox. Anyway: I will follow your suggestion and wait until a 'batch' has been reviewed before starting a next. However: this might still allow me to go fast, because sometimes pages are reviewed in a few seconds... Is there a place where I can see which pages are still awaiting review? B33tleMania12 (talk) 06:49, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't understand these mass creations of microstubs at all. All the info on them could very, very easily be included in a list one level higher up (all we have extra is the name and year of first scientific description, and countries or region the species lives). An article should have more than this, and if your creations are just dozens of nearly identical pages, you save yourself, reviewers, and readers a lot of time or effort by putting it into a list. Anyone can then still create an actual article with contents later on. Fram (talk) 08:29, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

@Fram What is wrong with this if I might ask? Cephaloleia tenella? B33tleMania12 (talk) 08:35, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

In other words: I am just making articles too fast it seems. I am not creating microstubs. Please read the discussion before accusing me of creating rubbish. B33tleMania12 (talk) 08:36, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

I am talking about the articles I talked to you about last week, or series like Octuroplata uhmanni, Octuroplata terminalis, Octuroplata sinuosa, Octuroplata octosignata, Octuroplata bonvouloiri, Octuroplata bohemani and Octuroplata bella and the many similar series you have done. IF you have stopped creating articles like these, great! Oh, and iNaturalist is not a reliable source and should not be used as a reference, it is listed in WP:RSNP for this reason. Fram (talk) 08:54, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Ok, fair enough. And I will not use iNaturalist anymore. B33tleMania12 (talk) 08:56, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

I do plan to add to these though! B33tleMania12 (talk) 08:57, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. Fram (talk) 08:59, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

No need to bite - B33tleMania12 only joined fairly recently and has clearly put a lot of time and effort into their contributions. That is not a constructive thing to say to someone who is, by their own admission, still learning the intricacies of editing Wikipedia. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 08:49, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

They joined in January, and have more than 7000 edits (previous and current account combined). Fram (talk) 08:59, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

And they received the same requests and gave the same assurances of improvements already months ago, see User talk:BlaUser234. Fram (talk) 09:02, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

There's still no need to be short - clearly they are still learning. It doesn't seem like it was well explained to them why creating large amounts of articles is discouraged until recently. Please assume good faith. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 09:06, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't see the need to change anything in how I posted here. If you really feel that my posts where BITE violations, unconstructive, or ABF violations, feel free to raise them at WP:ANI. I doubt that they will see my comments as problematic though. Fram (talk) 09:43, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Don't do anything like that. It's all good, I can take some criticism. B33tleMania12 (talk) 10:11, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

I think I expanded substubs that had fewer info than the short articles I created at least as much as I made new articles. Including 100's of articles about North American beetles that were added by QhugBot (I think) that just stated species XX is a beetle found in North America. I think there is merit in an article having a species name, taxobox, synonyms and distribution, however, others seems to disagree so I will not add those anymore (at least not en masse). If I can write a decent article on 90% of the species in a genus, I probably can't resist adding the last ones that have fewer info. B33tleMania12 (talk) 09:11, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Many thanks for all your good work - qualified person much better than bot generated articles IMO. Just to add my two-pennyworth: I think it would be better to focus on the many missing genus pages (which you can put into taxonomic context and make general geographic statements e.g. "North American beetles"), rather than lots of, often very similar, species stubs. Roy Bateman (talk) 11:32, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Well, I was doing that for a while, but got flack on that as well (not saying that the comments were unjustified though). It seems article creation for taxa is a bit of a contentious topic on wikipedia for some reason.. possibly because of a history with both creations in the past. Anyway: I am going to finish this genus I am working on now, and will indeed do some work on genera next (because I found a source related to the work I am currently doing detailing some taxonomic changes to the tribes/genera of this subfamily) B33tleMania12 (talk) 11:52, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Understood - and also note your good work on Hybosispa spp. - I have also found there are some unhelpful editors around. Out of interest, what sort of 'flack'? My approach is to check sources, placement and 'child taxa' are correct, then treat such people as just wrong (until further evidence is presented of course!). An important aspect of genus pages is that tax. templates are created: these can always be modified if there are any revisions or errors. As we progress away from N American & European organisms, I find that I am having to set-up Wikidata items, which involves more work and needs to be done carefully. Roy Bateman (talk) 14:59, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Like I said, it wasnt unjustified. What I did was taking the high level taxonomy from wikispecies where (an) editor(s) already figured everything out up to Tribal level (i.e. it includes all taxa down to genus level, but the actual genus articles are not there, or only have a few species). I then took the species from NL wikipedia, who used a list years ago and pumped them all on that wikipedia. I know it is not perfect, but I wanted to use it as a starting point to work from there. However, editors were worried about using that old source (which also isn't available anymore to double-check) B33tleMania12 (talk) 16:59, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

And to elaborate: after making the genera I wanted to make species pages with basic info (name, synonyms, distribution). That way: all old taxonomy would be updated. Finally, I wanted to flesh out the species articles. However: reviewers only see the new article with very little info and understandably raise concerns. Hence: that way of working (although it would be most efficient) is not going to work. B33tleMania12 (talk) 17:24, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure I fully understand the process, but would you be able to maintain efficiency by creating the basic info in draftspace before the fleshing out step? That might neatly sidestep putting them onto reviewer queues until they have more info. CMD (talk) 17:42, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Yeah.. I would not have thought of that.. not sure what people would think about 6000 draft articles though.. not to mention the work of then setting them all to Live. B33tleMania12 (talk) 18:24, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Setting them to live is theoretically four clicks and one backspace, depending on how accurate your third click is. CMD (talk) 01:06, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Most of the work comes before you start clicking, namely deciding whether to WP:MOVE to page to the mainspace.

And when ordinary editors move an article out of the Draft: namespace, then all the separate page patrolling and reviewing starts happening. It doesn't actually prevent any work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:21, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

One way to "kill all of the birds with one stone" is to have numerous pieces of information in the initial article. I glanced at a few of yours and they seem to have this, but I only looked at a few. Multiple sources, an image, multiple pieces of information about the species etc. North8000 (talk) 18:36, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I use a template with all the 'static' info off course. B33tleMania12 (talk) 19:24, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

I think that no matter what you do (or anyone else), if you're creating separate articles about species, there will be someone who simply doesn't want these articles to exist, and therefore will find a reason to complain about them. This isn't unique or special to you, beetles, or species. The same thing happens to people who write about books, films, actors, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:01, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

True, but when the articles have more content like I describe, much fewer people will oppose it. And what goes hand in hand with that is a majority of people factor in / have respect for when they see that the creator put more time into the creation of the (each) article. And it shows having built what we are, an encyclopedia of encyclopedia articles. IMO a database dispersed into zillions of micro-stubs does zero building of that. North8000 (talk) 20:43, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I try to do that now from the start. I might still add the occassional substub though.. especially if there is difficult taxonomy involved (i.e. species that have moved between different genera several times). Other than that: I will stick to articles of at least start level B33tleMania12 (talk) 20:48, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

A little fact that might interest you is that median Wikipedia article has about 350 words and 4 refs. So if you write something of that size, you're writing something longer than half of Wikipedia's existing articles. If you're only hoping for the article not to be in the bottom quartile, then try to have more than 125 words and 2 refs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:58, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Ok, good to know. I can easily get to 4 refs for most, but I really dont see the point of adding refs with no added value. Its just checking some peoples boxes to do so. B33tleMania12 (talk) 21:13, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

If you get to 3 refs that is less checking people's boxes than hitting the general community-box in a way that's obvious to reviewers. I've written one of two articles with fewer decent sources than that, but it's deliberately playing right at that edge of notability, which is not always a community-minded thing to do. CMD (talk) 01:09, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I am not saying that you should not use more if good sources are available, I was just trying to say (in a bit clumsy way) that there is no point in reffing something that is already proven in a ref already added to the article. Such as reffing an author to a taxo database, when that author is already clearly stated in other refs you are using B33tleMania12 (talk) 06:41, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

No disagreement there. CMD (talk) 07:23, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

A good logical argument, but it's aside from my point. Which (more briefly) was that if you are making a large amount of articles, the more content that there is in an/each article (whether it be information, text, images, references) the fewer people will criticize it or you for mass creation. North8000 (talk) 14:35, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Coming to this discussion late, but I have also posted several times on B33tleMania12's talk page urging them to slow down and create fewer but higher quality articles rather than lots of low quality stubs. My suggestion was the same as Fram's. In many cases, the reader would be much better served to have a high quality list of all species in a genus, rather than a huge number of stubs to read. Just because this guideline says that you can have an article about every species does not mean that we should — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:16, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Comment: I have draftified 27 of Beetlemania's articles he created today, and given them a final warning, given their steadfast refusal to understand our guidelines. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 16:23, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

I think your threat of ANI is maybe not going to work out the way you hope.

There is no requirement for newly created articles to be "higher quality". Subjects are notable, and therefore the articles are not delete-able, even when the current version of the article is "lower quality". A personal preference for "a high quality list" over "a huge number of stubs" is just a personal preference. Some readers will be better served by one approach, and others by the other approach. Wikipedia is allowed to have both the list and the stubs.

And you might have trouble making a case that these are actually "lower quality". I looked at one article Cremastra draftified, claiming it was among "the worst ones". It cites a book (ISBN 9546422010, though the citation doesn't list the ISBN) and a PDF from the Smithsonian Institution. This is hardly a case of someone scraping an online database to duplicate the database here.

I think if you're going to make a case, it's that we need to pause and follow the instructions at WP:MASSCREATE, which say "Any large-scale automated or semi-automated content page creation task must be approved by the community" and that this approval may be obtained via a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). NB that beetle species are not required to meet the WP:GNG and that therefore the MASSCREATE policy does not require the resulting articles to "cite at least one source which would plausibly contribute to GNG". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:08, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

I am fine with requesting masscreate permission, but I am not creating anything automated or semi-automated (I do use a template, but I think a lot of people do that. B33tleMania12 (talk) 20:59, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

What template do you use? It could count as semi-automated. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 21:19, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

I just have a basic article setup in notepad. It just has the static info (taxobox, headers, categories, etc.). Nothing fancy. B33tleMania12 (talk) 21:50, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't think that most people would consider that semi-automated. It's not really any different from copying the wikitext from a similar article, blanking what you don't need, and typing the new information in.

We have, in the past, had people do some not-so-good things with Excel spreadsheets that take a pre-made list and spit out the wikitext for a series of nearly identical articles ("[Name] was an athlete in the [Year] Olympics.[database]"). That sort of system is what we mean by semi-automated. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:08, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Ok, I did not know that. I actually do check all of the species myself and not just let some script create a bunch of articles. B33tleMania12 (talk) 22:12, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Even if it's 100% manually typed, then if you get permission (and stick to the terms of the agreement), then people should stop complaining if you create more than the ordinary limit of 25–50 articles per day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:21, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Ok, I guess I should pursue that if that helps. I do go back and expand articles, but I can't promise that I can expand all of them. Some could be expanded, but if the species description is in French or German that might be somewhat challenging for me (I can understand some basic French/German, but not enough to translate a species description). Reason for creating the short ones (which still have distribution, food plant, synonyms) is that there is no world 'list' for beetles, and if there are good sources that do include all this info, this really helps. Also: seeing the cuurent state of affairs in the US, salvaging info from US government sources (such as the one I am using now) seems a good idea, before someone decides to pull the plug and it is gone. B33tleMania12 (talk) 21:56, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Ok, done, feel free to support me or shoot me down here: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Permission_to_create_beetle_articles_at_a_pace_that_exceeds_the_normal_limit B33tleMania12 (talk) 22:33, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

RE: salvaging info from US government sources (such as the one I am using now) seems a good idea, before someone decides to pull the plug and it is gone, you might have seen me archiving your references to Staines' Catalog of Hispines on some of your hispine articles - if you weren't already aware of how to do this, The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine allows you to easily preserve webpages. If you're worried about losing these sources (which I think is reasonable - recent funding cuts have led the Smithsonian to cease hosting Biodiversity Heritage Library and left it in the lurch) I would highly recommend archiving them as you go. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 03:52, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Ok, thanks, I will have a look next time I start on a new tribe (at which time I will try my hand on using Wayback Machine) B33tleMania12 (talk) 13:25, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

The Official Wayback Machine Extension is available for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari, and as apps for Apple and Android. It simplifies submitting pages for archiving and searching for archived pages. Donald Albury 14:10, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Could you link the draftified articles? I am happy to put a bit of time into improving them myself, though I echo WhatamIdoing's point that creating stubs is not itself a sanctionable offense. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 03:59, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

—David Eppstein (talk) 04:40, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Update: Now all back to article space. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:18, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

AS well as the beetle maniac, we also have a spider enthusiast who is rapidly creating new articles (see ). Courtesy ping to Sarefo — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:20, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

And a new editor creating moths: — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:29, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

The new editor has only created about 14 total, but we should keep an eye on it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:36, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I've left a friendly note on their talk page. The moth stubs are super short. I think we should consider a general rule such as "new articles on species should be at least XXX bytes or YYY words of prose, otherwise you should expand and update the article on the genus with additional information" — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:41, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I'd rather see the community create a minimum length rule for all articles, and not to single out species. If two sentences isn't enough for a species (a subject whose notability is almost guaranteed), then it shouldn't be enough for a 19th-century athlete or a 20th-century book, either. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:47, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes, well agreed. But the second part of my suggestion would not apply :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:02, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I took a quick look at a few articles by @Sarefo: Ariadna similis has 189 words and three sources. Scytodes triangulifera is 213 words and three sources. Cangoderces globosus, which has an empty ==Description== section, has only 107 words and three sources. Overall, I suspect that the community will be satisfied with the quality of these articles.

However, WP:MASSCREATE still says that if you're creating more than 25–50 articles per day, you really do need to clear things with the community first, so that's something Sarefo should be considering. Either slow down, or get permission to be speedy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:42, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I agree with your analysis and comments — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:03, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I have been looking at the spiders, Sarefo does a great job! I am a bit enveous of the great cc source for these African spiders. But yeah, I guess he/she should also get the speedy waiver, although these articles do not warrant any criticism besides the speed in which they are created. B33tleMania12 (talk) 21:12, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

hi guys, didn't know there's such a thing, thanks for the notification! this is a massive effort, I'll be happy when it's over and I can get some decent sleep again. I'll have around 500 more articles to complete the species in the existing SANSA guide. after/during that, I'll upload the around 3,000 high-quality photos they have of a lot of these spiders. I'm happy to slow down to around 50 per day and focus on the photo upload. By the way, I established the backbone of spider wikipedia around 20 years ago in a similar massive effort, when I started WikiProject Spiders; it's good to be back for a while. Sarefo (talk) 21:31, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Wow, if you dont get a truck-load of barnstars, I dont know who will. B33tleMania12 (talk) 21:41, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

well, let's see how this all turns out. I just want South African spiders to exist on wiki with great photos and good information. anyway, here's the master document for the project. I won't be doing the families in the TODO section at the very bottom, as they don't have SANSA guides yet. would be nice if I could wrap this up soon. Sarefo (talk) 21:45, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

this is the collection of photos I'm going to add, by the late Peter Webb, courtesy of ADS. all these were ID'd in the lab afterwards, so while not great for the spiders, this is an exceptional treasure for spider wiki. Sarefo (talk) 21:57, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

(hence Project Spider Webb, bringing Peter Webb's photos of our webby friends to the world wide web, WWW² haha) Sarefo (talk) 22:10, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

It looks like those will have to be uploaded locally, because they're CC-BY-NC-SA. Commons won't take anything with the "NC" restriction. We should probably have a conversation in advance about uploading them all, so that we can reduce the risk that someone will try to delete then en masse. I think Wikipedia:Media copyright questions is probably the right place to ask.

Geni, is Template:Non-free file with no commercial use license the template they'll need for these photos? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:24, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I didn't realize we allowed different licenses for images locally than on commons. Wikipedia:File copyright tags appears to imply that non-commercially-licensed images can only be uploaded under our fair use guidelines, which among other things require that no free equivalent could be created. Is that true for these? —David Eppstein (talk) 22:34, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

For the ones labeled as "research-grade", it's at least probably true. It'd be best for a species article to be illustrated by an image that is definitively known to be that exact species, instead of risking the chance that it's a photo that looks the same but is different in some (not always visible) point. A discussion in advance should be able to settle that point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:52, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Definitively known to be that exact species would strictly mean photos of Type specimen. We managed to get photos of them before and will do so again in future.©Geni (talk) 09:18, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

the specimens in Peter Webb's photos were actually collected and dissected later on. that's part of what makes this collection so special. no, you don't need the type specimen, luckily :D the type specimen is just used to compare other specimens to. Sarefo (talk) 16:28, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

We aren't going to accept non free images of non extinct species. See Wikipedia:Non-free_content#Non-free_content_criteria. The assumption is that for an existing species a free equivalent could be created, that would serve the same encyclopedic purpose.©Geni (talk) 22:41, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Does "random person on the internet claims this spider is this species" serve the same encyclopedic purpose as "expert verified this specimen in the lab"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

But CC-licensed "expert-verified" pictures could also be created in the future. I don't like the NFC guidelines, but that's how they work. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 23:05, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I think it would be appropriate to have a discussion about this at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions instead of on this talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:53, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't think it's likely to go any better there for the "but experts" attempt at claiming the impossibility of someone making a freely licensed version. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:22, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

What about the images in this tool. The wording seems to suggest they are ok to use? Copyright, citation, and disclaimers | Southeast Asian Ambrosia Beetle ID B33tleMania12 (talk) 10:12, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

please read my comment above. these were actually verified in the lab by ADS and colleagues.

so to clarify two points which seem to be the basis of this sub-thread:

• these are cc-by
• these are verified by dissection in the lab by the top experts of SA arachnology

Sarefo (talk) 16:29, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

these are cc-by, not cc-by-nc-sa. not sure where you got that idea from. Sarefo (talk) 16:25, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

ah, I see where you got that from now. ADS is in her mid-sixties and not great with computers :D I managed to show her to set the photo licenses to cc-by, but she must have missed doing that for the observations themselves. she expressedly wants the photos to be on commons! I don't think the observation license will affect my photo upload? but I'll ask her to fix this anyhow, because it's just an oversight. Sarefo (talk) 16:37, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

Great to hear you can use the images, would be a shame if you were not allowed to..! B33tleMania12 (talk) 16:46, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

@Sarefo, if she expressly wants these images on Commons, then there's a process for her to tell Commons this. Museums and other groups use it all the time. The basic process looks something like you upload an image (just one's usually enough to start the process), then she sends an e-mail message to the c:Commons:Volunteer Response Team to say that she legally owns the copyright for [exact list of images] and approves of them being uploaded under [name of exact license], and they give her a "ticket number". That code number then ends up on all the File: pages for the images. See, e.g., the description for File:Leuchtturm Roter Sand, 2008.jpg. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:16, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

I already started the bulk upload using pattypan though (paused until she manages to change the license on iNat), so I think we'll just finish it like that this time. but good to know in case something like this crosses me again in the future, thanks! Sarefo (talk) 21:10, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

This is a bit concerning to hear. Sarefo has already stated they would slow down on these following the finding of llm-hallucinations. If these articles are being generated at mass-create levels, production does not seem very slowed down. Even these have a couple of strange inclusions, "It has been illustrated" in Scytodes triangulifera is for example the llm trying to generate some text out of the text saying the illustration to the right on the source is of a female. CMD (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis That's extremely alarming to hear. Could you please link to the potential LLM hallucinations and the discussion around them? If Sarefo has been using an LLM, autopatrolled should be removed and our guidelines around the damn machines explained. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 14:20, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

The discussion and examples are at User talk:Sarefo#AI content?. CMD (talk) 14:23, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing - the discussion here so far did not make it clear that these new articles were being generated by a LLM. I am similarly alarmed by this and second Cremastra in calling for Sarefo's autopatrolled right to be revoked immediately. I have no problem with human users creating short articles on notable topics, but I take major issue with users outsourcing article creation to LLMs with virtually no oversight. Very disappointing to see. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 14:54, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

see here for the current discussion, especially my response at the bottom. let's keep this constructive please. "virtually no oversight" is an assumption you're making, I'm not sure on what basis. Sarefo (talk) 16:23, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

If using automation to create seemingly large numbers of new articles without disclosing that the content is machine generated while bypassing new page patrol's review process isn't a lack of oversight, what is? Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 18:23, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

I thought you're talking about oversight on my part, sorry for the misunderstanding. I've been away from wikipedia internals for a while. the last time I mass-created articles was about twenty years ago. Sarefo (talk) 21:59, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

yes, I'll be taking this slower. I'm currently uploading the images and improving parts of my process. I'm happy to hear all the constructive criticism, and hear about where I can improve the process. Sarefo (talk) 16:31, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

»"It has been illustrated" in Scytodes triangulifera is for example the llm trying to generate some text out of the text saying the illustration to the right on the source is of a female.«

this assumption is not correct. please refer to the actual source before making assumptions like this. isn't that exactly what we want to avoid, making assumptions instead of statements based in fact?

Here's what's actually happening. The source says »Not revised known from only the female, illustrated.« I find that relevant for readers (while you may not, but that's a different topic). so I left this in on purpose. I'm obviously reading through a *lot* of these descriptions currently :P some species are so obscure that nobody every bothered to illustrate them. this species is not one of them. Sarefo (talk) 16:48, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

EDIT: sorry for the harsh tone. it's just quite stressful to see this scenario being painted for any reader of these discussions, when the reality is much more complex and nuanced. there *will* be mistakes generated by LLMs in my past output. but I really took a lot of effort in proof-reading any output, and I'm confident it is quite a low number. yes, we'll be able to argue about specific wordings until the end of times, but let's not do this please. I think we all have better venues of productivity. if you find something that's actually wrong (LLM-assumed or not), please point it out to me! but let's also see that a list of say ten mistakes that you see does not show you the massive amount of *correct* data. not everyone wins the lottery, although you'll "read about one in the newspaper every day" (historic reference ;). --Sarefo (talk) 17:12, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes, the tribe of beetles I am working on now has these issues as well.. some have been described from one specimen (male/female) and since have only been reported from other locations, but not re-described. That, and the fact that most original descriptions are in Latin, French, German or even fr*ckin' Italian B33tleMania12 (talk) 16:54, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

I specifically quoted the actual source. Multiple people have left plenty of points but they appear to have gone unheeded. You cannot expect others to point out all the errors for you, especially when you have continued to generate multiple articles minutes apart. CMD (talk) 18:03, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

Again I kindly suggest we'll take this down a notch with the confrontational tone.

the source says it's illustrated, the page says it's illustrated, it cites the source. you can have me defend every single word all day long, but I don't think that's a good use of either one's time. yes, you looked at the source enough to see a picture. not enough to read the entire paragraph though.

on what bases are you making your "unheeded" claim? there have *not* been plenty of points. most of the points made here have nothing to do with LLM usage, which I pointed out where it occurs. there *are* problems, and I've gotten better at avoiding these. also because of your contributions earlier. I can't stress enough that I am taking this seriously, and have improved the process in the meantime. I'll go over earlier pages once I'm finished. for example, the synonym generation python script seems to have had a bug in a small number of edge cases. no big thing, but I want to do this right.

where am I implying I expect others to point out all the errors for me?? please don't build this image of me on no actual basis whatsoever. I am saying that I'm happy to address any *real* issues that others bring to my attention, as you did a while ago. I'm also happy to do the work myself.

And as I stressed elsewhere, article uploading != article creation. I upload these in batches sometimes, after I created and proofread them.

We all have the same motivation here. We all have good intentions. Let's work together instead of throwing allegations at each other. Sarefo (talk) 21:57, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

I agree with Sarefo here. Not nice to bash someone who is clearly trying to contribute in a tremendous way here. Point out errors where you see them and help him improve. B33tleMania12 (talk) 22:02, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

I'm not blaming any of you guys, I understand your general worries. But I think we all need to do better here. Take a second to put yourselves in my shoes. From my perspective, this is a sudden influx of a considerable number of indifferent to slightly hostile people I know nothing about. It's a highly stressful experience. I feel threatened and cornered. I don't think it has to be that way. Sarefo (talk) 22:04, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

If anything the internal process should change I guess. You probably got auto-patrolled ages ago, and when you restarted working on wikipedia did not know about the AI worries (and probably problems that have been happening in relation to it). I guess there is a good reason to be weary about AI generated texts, but I think this does not apply to you. Anyway: I would suggest autopatrolled should be revoked after a while (a year?) of inactivity, because the world (and rules on wikipedia) change B33tleMania12 (talk) 22:11, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

oh, absolutely :D it's trivial to let an LLM run wild on nonsense slob. which is fascinating and super scary. I wouldn't be using claude 4 as part of my toolkit for this, which is why it's frustrating to be bunched into this pot. that said, I *was* made aware of problems with my approach, and am confident we'll end up with a section to SA spiders which wikipedia won't need to be embarrassed by (at least :D ). Sarefo (talk) 01:07, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Suggestions of toning things down would be easier to believe without asserting someone who has taken substantial time to actually look through the sources of a couple of these articles is not referring "to the actual source". I don't think this is a good use of time, which is why it's concerning the articles are being generated as mass create levels when there are apparently problems that will require going back over to find. Article uploading not always being the same as article creation is technically true, but it seems quite minor when the articles are being created at mass create levels. It took quite awhile to look through the article which had the wrong scientific name and text that needed removal, and that was after the llm tag was removed without explanation. CMD (talk) 02:31, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

to address the point you're making above: after our last discussion, I changed the process of creation and revision. then cranked it up to a level where I feel the quality is fully acceptable. sometimes, there are genera with many species with not much information in the guide. these can go very fast. sometimes I take half an hour on one article, especially if there is pre-existing content. Sarefo (talk) 22:02, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

You may have already seen some of my edits if you have all these articles on your watchlist, but I have begun the process of going through and removing incorrect |status=/|status_system= parameters from the speciesboxes of your articles. I've tried to explain what I've done and why in my edit summaries, but I wanted to give a more in depth explanation. IUCN statuses should be included in the speciesbox when an actual Red List assessment exists (ie. a proposed assessment has been written by researchers, submitted to the Red List for review, and placed on the Red List website once it has passed review), not just when a status has been proposed by an author (this is worth mentioning, but should be explained in the body of the article instead and treated with due weight). SANBI statuses (when used in a speciesbox) apply specifically to the taxa on the Red List of South African Plants, not to any taxon assessed by authors working for SANBI (again, this should be noted in the body of the article instead). If you could please exclude status parameters from the speciesbox of future articles (except in the case of species actually listed on the Red List, or SANBI actually developing an actual index of conservation statuses for non-plants) it would be much appreciated. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 08:23, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

thanks for the clarification, will do! there's probably a way to automatically include these statuses for IUCN if they are in the list? and no, I now realize my past articles are not on my watchlist! I just assumed this is automatically on (because I've used iNaturalist massively for the last years, where it is; so it didn't even occur to me that it would not be the case on wiki :P). there's probably no simple way to add all articles I created to my watchlist retroactively? Sarefo (talk) 13:02, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

You can set it for future creations in Special:Preferences.

If you turn on WP:NAVPOPS (gadget tab of prefs), and go to Special:Contributions, then you can hover over the title and get a box with drop-down menus, one of which is to un | watch the page you're hovering over. That's the fastest way I can think of to add all of these to your watchlist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:03, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Sanity break, recent AN case

• Comment - Just pinging in here to see that we have already seen cases of mass-creation using LLMs in this field reported at AN that was, yes, enabled by this guide. So yes, it did inevitably lead to mass-creation issues. FOARP (talk) 07:49, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

  I see 61 new articles on 7 October, which clearly exceeds the 25 to 50 per day in WP:MASSCREATE (the rest of this month, they didn't exceed the limit). The ANI thread seems to be primarily about LLM misuse instead of creation speed, though. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:00, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

  You mean except for the mass-creation that occurred, there was no mass-creation? That's good to know. We can rest at ease. FOARP (talk) 08:30, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

  Seems like a rather disingenuous summary of the situation, Its clear from conversations that have been had with Sarefo that they did this type of work early in wiki history (circa 2006), have been on a fairly steady wikibreak until recently, and just returned to editing without any knowledge of the groundswell changes in opinions and policies on article creation rates and tool usage. To directly say that this situation was caused by this Guideline is a notable leap in logic.--Kevmin § 17:47, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

  can someone link me to some place summarizing these groundswell changes in opinions? :) thanks! Sarefo (talk) 17:56, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

  @Sarefo:, there isn't really any one place that the groundswell is documented. The archives of this talk page contain links to various discussions where this groundswell can perhaps be seen developing (particularly with regard to article subjects that are not species of organisms).

  WP:MASSCREATE is based on a discussion from 2009 (with mass creation of articles about orchid species being one thing that prompted that discussion). But the first attempts to get approval for (non-automated) mass creation were in 2022 (Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive_17#Dams_articles and Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_194#Mass_creation_of_pages_on_fish_species). B33tlemania12's current thread (Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Permission_to_create_beetle_articles_at_a_pace_that_exceeds_the_normal_limit) is the first case where approval for mass creation has been sought and hasn't (yet) attracted significant opposition.

  A couple significant moments in the groundswell are Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Carlossuarez46, concerning creation of articles on Iranian "towns" that turned out to be not to be towns (there are also discussions about using GNIS for American "towns" that turned out not to be towns), and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability regarding notability of athletes (with WP:LUGSTUBS as a followup that led to deleting some athlete articles). Plantdrew (talk) 19:53, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

  thanks! I can assure you that the spider species I added are all real :DD just to report that I'm mostly wrapping up this project, and I'm quite happy with the result; and so is the SA spider community on iNaturalist. I'm only adding photos and cleaning up existing articles for species that aren't in the ADS guides yet. there will probably be a couple hundred more species coming in over the next years, when ADS completes the rest of the guides. at which point, South Africa will have a beautifully illustrated resource of comprehensive spider information. Sarefo (talk) 20:06, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

  If you want to get an idea of some of the temperature, I'd skim this discussion which was held among biology editors a couple years ago. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 20:54, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

  No, I mean that there was a definite violation of the WP:MASSCREATE limit on that day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:01, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

  Considering this policy has (a year on now) still not been finalized to include mention of paleontology's much more restrictive species notability guidelines, is it probably worth giving this a thorough rethink? I don't know nearly enough about entomology, botany, etc. to say whether these mass-created articles can all/mostly be expanded into "proper" articles, but is there really just so much more that can be said about an extant taxon than a fossil one that it needs to be inherently considered notable? I was never particularly satisfied with the resolution of this policy, and checking in only to find it's (potentially) resulted in multiple LLM-fueled/poorly fact-checked mass creations is very concerning. Gasmasque (talk) 18:01, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

  I supported the change to the SNG because it was based on the fact that a species does not get listed as valid in one of the established databases unless a description of the species has been properly published. That published article can be used to create an article that includes a description of the species, where it was found, who found/described it, what genus/family/order/class it belongs to, etc. Personally, I would never create a new article for a species without finding the original descriptive article or an article that re-describes the species and incorporating the essential details into the WP article, but I don't believe the community is ready to adopt that strict a standard. But I stand by the principle that a species being accepted by one of the recognized authorities is sufficient to establish notability. Donald Albury 19:26, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

  Since palaeontology has no recognized authority for acceptance, that still does not resolve that aspect of the discussion. Also, in my experience the descriptions of incomplete fossil species are often extremely lacking with only a couple of sentences dedicated to them, especially historic ones. I don't know to what extent this also applies to descriptions of extant species of plant or arthropod, for example, but if there are examples of accepted extant species with similarly brief descriptions to these fossil ones I would have a hard time justifying giving these separate articles. Gasmasque (talk) 19:43, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

  A couple of stubby articles I've touched (I concentrated on improving the genera articles) are: Wekiwa siltsnail and Crystal siltsnail. They definitely need to be expanded. My personal standards these days are reflected in Zamia magnifica. Donald Albury 20:13, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

  @Gasmasque, if you're interested in fossil species please jump up to #Drafting the fossil question and join the #Discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:40, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

  @FOARP as far as I can tell, the problematic issue at AN was undisclosed LLM use, not mass creation. One day of mass creation has occurred, but I can't see how that is even an "issue" (much less a "groundswell"). Newimpartial (talk) 20:05, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, as the person who started the AN thread, my concern was less that articles were being mass-created (I think I'm in the minority of users who doesn't actually mind mass creation/stub creation all that much - when done with care, I think it can be beneficial) but that they were being mass-created with a tool that had a higher likelihood of error, that the use of an LLM was not appropriately disclosed, and that the articles were not undergoing review by NPP. I take little issue with, for example, the large number of articles created by B33tleMania12 - besides some teething issues as they were learning about Wikipedia's sourcing standards, those articles are fine by me, just in need of expansion. I don't consider either B33tleMania12 nor Sarefo's articles to have been problematic on notability grounds, only on finer points around sourcing and quality, and I think virtually all of them would survive at AfD even if NSPECIES had not existed.

  More to the point, I don't think this glut of articles can be attributed to this guideline. It seems like (and please correct me if I'm wrong @B33tleMania12/@Sarefo!) both B33tleMania12 and Sarefo weren't actually aware of this guideline when they started creating their articles, but rather held the common view that species can generally be presumed notable enough for Wikipedia. This is the kind of mass creation that could (and did - see Category:Taxonomy articles created by Polbot) happen with or without NSPECIES. Cheers, Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 01:57, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

  yes Sarefo (talk) 02:07, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

  No, I was not aware of it either (just like a lot of other wikipedia guidelines I quickly learned about) B33tleMania12 (talk) 15:42, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

This may be a bit off topic here, but I want to state that, while I am not particularly concerned about the rate new articles about species are created, I am concerned that such articles should only be created about species recognized as valid by accepted authorities. Some databases are too broad on which species they list as accepted. The example I am familiar with is Tropicos, which accepts 45 species of the cycad Zamia which are not accepted by any of the other four databases I consulted. (There are currently close to 90 species of Zamia accepted by at least three of the five databases.) After all, the premise on which I supported the current NSPECIES is that if a species is listed in a database maintained by an accepted authority, then there must be a published description of the species. On the other hand, a published description does not guarantee that the described species is currently considered valid, as many described species have been synonymized to other species or were not validly named or published. - Donald Albury 15:39, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't believe Tropicos prescribes a single taxonomy as POWO or WFO do. The "Accepted Names" and "References" tabs will show lists of sources that synonymize a given name with something else, and sources that accept the name as that of a recognized species, respectively. That may expalin the discrepancy. Choess (talk) 16:31, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

I should add that the overall issue you've identified is an important one. Citing a strictly nomenclatural entry (i.e., a name in Tropicos or IPNI) does not mean that a species is accepted by the taxonomic community. That's a subtlety that is easy for NPP to miss; it's important for individual WikiProject to keep an eye on their new articles feeds to make sure no one is churning out articles that don't cite a taxonomic opinion (a well-curated database or literature recognizing the species). Choess (talk) 17:44, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

While I don't think users mistaking entries in nomenclatural databases as evidence of taxonomic acceptance is a major issue (I don't know of any users creating articles based on that misconception, and certainly not at scale), but it is definitely worth noting. I would certainly support adding something to the guideline to emphasise this distinction, something like "Be aware that some databases such as APNI, IPNI, and ZooBank are primarily nomenclatural databases and do not necessarily indicate taxonomic validity"? Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 03:41, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Summarize Timeline Top Qs Fact Check

I'd like clarification (and possibly improved wording) around the guideline's use of "accepted by taxonomists" and what counts as "taxonomic acceptance" for WP:NSPECIES purposes. The guideline currently says: "This guideline uses the taxonomic acceptance of the species' name as a simple and practical indicator of the existence of published sources, because achieving a name accepted under the relevant nomenclature code requires, at minimum, a significant description to be published in a reputable academic publication. Therefore, by definition, the article about any accepted species could be sourced to at least one academic publication even if that source is not currently cited in the article. The key publications relied upon for taxonomic acceptance, and often many other sources, can be found in many species databases."

I’m not clear whether "accepted by taxonomists" is intended to mean: (A) "validly published under the relevant nomenclature code" (i.e., the name and description satisfy the Code's requirements, so the taxon exists in the formal nomenclatural sense); or (B) "treated as accepted in a secondary/tertiary synthesis" (checklists, catalogues, curated databases, review treatments, etc.), i.e., some degree of uptake beyond the describing authors; or (C) something else.

This ambiguity matters in practice. At this AfD, several !voters argued that publication in a reputable peer-reviewed journal by established specialists should be treated as sufficient "acceptance", and therefore sufficient notability, even though the only usable source for the article at present is the describing paper itself. Others read "accepted" as implying some external synthesis/uptake (often reflected in standard databases), because many newly described taxa are later revised or synonymised, and because WP should ideally be written from more than a single primary description. Could the talk page clarify which of the above interpretations WP:NSPECIES intends, and (if it's closer to A) whether the guideline is effectively treating "a significant, code-compliant, peer-reviewed description" as the operational threshold for "acceptance by taxonomists"? If it's closer to B, it would help to say explicitly what sorts of sources count as evidence of acceptance (e.g., curated databases, monographs, checklists, review literature), and whether database listing is merely a convenient signal rather than a requirement. Clearer language would be helpful so editors can apply the guideline consistently in AfDs and article creation without talking past each other. Esculenta (talk) 21:10, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

@Esculenta, the answer is "it depends". Using Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Porphyrio claytongreenei as an example:

• It's a fossil species, and this guideline doesn't directly address fossil species (yet). That suggests that the GNG would be an appropriate (but not necessarily required) model for assessing Porphyrio claytongreenei. In that case, it wouldn't matter whether there was taxonomic acceptance.
• In the past, the community has often (but not always) followed this approach to fossil species: If a genus has only fossil species, all of them will be merged up to the genus; if a genus has both fossil and extant species, then all of the species will get separate articles. That would suggest that Porphyrio claytongreenei should be a separate article.
• If it were an extant species instead of a fossil species, then you would probably look at the unofficial advice on Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/References to get some idea of whether it has achieved taxonomic acceptance. But: the advice on determining whether taxonomic acceptance has happened is going to vary significantly from one branch to another. Knowing how to figure this out for birds is not going to help you figure it out for bacteria.

Ultimately, there are no universal "hard" requirements that apply to all species. Editors are expected to use their best judgement. Part of "best judgement" probably includes not rushing to delete an article when the next update of the IOC Bird List is due in July, and people realistically expect that bird to be included in it. It'd be silly to delete a factual article in February, only to undelete it in July. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:12, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

I agree fossil taxa complicate things, and that "acceptance" can be group-specific. But my question was narrower: for extant taxa, when NSPECIES says "accepted by taxonomists", is the intended threshold closer to (A) "validly published under the Code" or (B) "treated as accepted in a secondary synthesis (checklists/catalogues/curated databases/review treatments)"?

Right now editors seem to argue both readings at AfD. A short clarification would help: if it's (B), say plainly what kinds of secondary sources normally count (taxon-dependent); if it's closer to (A), say so directly.

Also, even if secondary sourcing is nonexistent right now, that doesn't mean the page needs to be deleted — it could be kept in draftspace (or userfied) until it appears in the relevant syntheses and better secondary coverage is available. Esculenta (talk) 22:22, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I think if it's been published in a reputable journal and is nomenclaturally valid, we should assume it's an accepted species until a secondary source says otherwise. If taxonomists publish what they believe to be a new species and it's passed peer review, I don't see why we should doubt them just because the databases have yet to update. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 23:48, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

I've always understood it to be (B), and I think that understanding is shared by most editors who actively work on taxon articles, including the editors who create the vast majority of taxon articles. My sense is that most articles on taxa created before secondary (taxonomic) sources pick them up are vertebrates where the author's institution issued a press release that was picked up by news sources and an editor with little experience with taxonomy articles decided to make an article (Dendrogramma is one of the few non-vertebrates that got an article based on press coverage since I've been active on Wikipedia). The guidance for WikiProject Birds and WikiProject Mammals is quite explicit that a species needs to be listed in particular secondary sources that are vetted by committees before it can have a Wikipedia article.

There does seem to be some exception to this (waiting for secondary sources) for fossil vertebrate genera. Wikipedia has articles for every dinosaur genus, and gets new articles pretty much as soon as a new dinosaur is described. Looking through Category:Taxa_described_in_2026 is quite instructive. There are 36 articles in the subcategory for fossils. Aside from the fossils, there is one bird species, 11 echinoderm species, 2 plant species, and 4 spider genera. The articles for the echinoderms, plants and bird were all created by 3 different editors who have been on Wikipedia for less than 2 months each. The spider genera were created by an experienced editor, and are listed in a secondary database. Plantdrew (talk) 00:07, 11 February 2026 (UTC)

I think the thing is that experienced taxonomy editors are well aware of Wikipedia lacking articles for species that were described years ago, and are not necessarily in any hurry to add articles for newly described species (there are plenty of species with no articles that are more relevant to the public at large than species that weren't even recognized by scientists until this year). Dinosaurs (genera), birds and mammals (species) are the only groups of organisms where Wikipedia has (close to) complete coverage with articles for all known taxa. Plantdrew (talk) 00:20, 11 February 2026 (UTC)

As usual, I agree with everything Plantdrew said. When I hear the phrase "taxonomic acceptance", I interpret it as to the acceptance of a taxon (not merely a name) by others in the field - that is, agreement from another reliable source that the taxon exists and that the name given to it is the correct/valid name for that taxon, rather than agreement that a name is merely nomenclaturally valid, which tells us nothing about the validity of the taxon itself. Newly described taxa can be nomenclaturally valid, authored by respected researchers, published in reputable journals, and still fail to be accepted as taxonomically valid by other researchers - this happened with the northern green anaconda (see the redirect talk page for the relevant discussion), a purported new species which had an article created and brought to GA only to fail to gain acceptance among herpetologists and relegated to synonymy within months of its description. In my opinion, publication in a reputable peer-reviewed journal by established specialists does not constitute taxonomic acceptance - acceptance entails recognition from a qualified third party (of a scientific nature - coverage in media by laypeople contributes to GNG, but has nothing to do with taxonomic acceptance) such as a species catalogue or reliable database.
Setting aside the question of if/how notability guidelines should be applied to fossil taxa, the A approach would entail that any nomenclaturally valid name be presumed notable under this guideline, which is something I and others explicitly noted should absolutely not be the case in the discussion that led to the adoption of this guideline. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 02:04, 11 February 2026 (UTC)

I would generally agree with Plantdrew and Ethmostigmus. NSPECIES refers to option B, not option A. The language is vague because there's a lot of variation in different branches of taxonomy as to how explicitly the rest of the community indicates its acceptance of newly described species, and I think we should generally track the practices of those subject matter experts rather than getting too entrenched in Wikipedia-specific epistemology. In this particular case, fossils were, IIRC, omitted from the scope of NSPECIES because our palaeontologists indicated that it was common practice for fossil species to redirect to a genus, as there was often less to say about than there might be for an extant species. Choess (talk) 14:05, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

Choess Not quite, there is plenty to say about fossil species, the rational on fossil specis in a fossil genus is that there is frequently a large amount of overlapping information between the species and the genus, so ostensibly having individual articles for each Agnostus species trilobite would be a rife with the near copy/paste versions for each article. The other issue that Plantdrew and Ethmostigmus miss when it comes to the situation at the Porphyrio claytongreenei AFD is that as an extinct species taxonomic review OR appearance in any database of birds is not guaranteed to happen at anywhere near the same speed that an extant species will. Fossil taxa are frequently explicitly excluded from databases (too "messy"), and reviews of fossil taxa are actually pretty rare. Priscacara aquilonia is the northern and western-most occurrence of the genus. It was described in 1977, but has not been reviewed yet as the only work on Priscacara has been focused on the species from the type locality Green River Formation. Trying to apply the exact same timeframes as used for extant species ignores the very distinct differences between extant biologists and paleontologists.--Kevmin § 17:25, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

On the "A or B", I'd like to suggest a variation on Postel's law of communication: You should be generous in what you accept from others, and narrow in what you do yourself. A classic example of this is that if someone uses profanity to describe a problem they're having, then focus on their problem instead of their choice of words. But if you have a problem, hold yourself to a higher standard, and don't use profanity when you describe your problem to others.

The application in this area would be: When you are creating an article, use more the restrictive interpretation. But when you are at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion or otherwise evaluating an article created by someone else, use the more permissive interpretation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:19, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

I agree with this. Personally, I wouldn't create an article on a species so newly described it hasn't been picked up by the more reliable taxonomic databases yet. But per my comment above I don't see anything inherently wrong with that approach. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 18:43, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

Summarize Timeline Top Qs Fact Check

Hey all, this is an old-fashioned straw poll. The idea is just to get a general notion of where you're at, so we can craft a proper proposal later.

The context is that Wikipedia:Notability (species) only applies to "extant" species. We said that we'd talk about fossil species later. Well, now it's "later". Here's the main three options:

1. This notability guideline should say nothing about fossil species.
2. This notability guideline should treat fossil species the same as extant species.
3. This notability guideline should encourage editors to merge fossil species up to genus article.

Fine print: I have no opinion myself, and I don't know enough about the state of our articles to form one. Whatever the group wants, I'll help turn it into a solid WP:PROPOSAL. This is non-binding; the only decision we're making here is whether we need to write a full proposal for all three, or only one or two of them. You don't need to explain or justify your preference; it's enough for me that you have a preference that you're willing to share. These are broad categories, and the ultimate proposal(s) could be more complex. That said, details can come later (though if something's on your mind, please feel free to pop up to #Drafting the fossil question and join the discussion there).

WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

• This misses the distinction between fossil species and fossil genera. Most people at WP:PALEO think that fossil species should often be merged up into articles if they belong to genera with no living species, but think that articles on extinct species of living genera should be kept separate. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:18, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

  I'd assume that this would still broadly fall under 3 and that species of extant genera (and those with extensive, specific literature perhaps?) would be an exception to the general guideline. The Morrison Man (talk) 22:25, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

  @Hemiauchenia, that's the point: Do we want in #2 to treat fossil species the same as extant (in which case, genera with no living species would be WP:SPLIT to separate articles), or do we want #3 to encourage editors to merge fossil species up to the genus article (in which case, genera with no living species would [continue to] be candidates for WP:MERGING to the genus article)? Complications like some of the species in a given genus being extant and others not can come later. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:44, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

  I think #3 is the best option but agree with Hemiauchenia that articles on extinct species of living genera should be kept separate and of course that there should be some nuance. African Mud Turtle (talk) 02:41, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

2 and 3 are pretty similar to what paleontology focused people I am familiar with have been doing for a while. Extinct genera are put to genus level while extinct species of modern genera get a species level page similar to extant species. SeismicShrimp (talk) 22:21, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

It's worth noting that this is not a hard and fast rule though. I don't think anyone would be in favour of merging woolly mammoth into mammoth for example. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:25, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

Also, the question here is really about what we want to do, rather than what we have been doing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:45, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

I at least bring it up due to the fact that it works well, not just because it's what we have been doing. SeismicShrimp (talk) 23:22, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

I think the answer by default should be 2 unless the majority of the information in the species article is just about the genus, in which case 3. But I am not well versed in fossil taxa. Is it a universal experience that there's never enough information to cover separate species articles? — Snoteleks (talk) 23:22, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

AIUI there is no "universal experience", because fossil species include everything from microalgae to charismatic megafauna. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:26, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing Then, taking this variability into account, I maintain my position that 2 should be encouraged but 3 should be expected if there is not enough coverage for 2 (that is, more than start-level). I would not have 3 stated as the default guideline but I would not be surprised if most articles end up as 3 due to a lack of coverage. But I guess this is not any different from just the regular Wikipedia:Notability guidelines...? — Snoteleks (talk) 23:36, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

Currently 3 is kind of the "unofficial guideline", with only a small handful of exceptions where species have enough coverage to warrant seperate articles (i.e. the two species of Edmontosaurus, E. regalis and E. annectens). Outside of a number of "high-profile" genera there often simply isn't enough material to justify species articles being a thing. When possible, it should obviously be done, but we don't want an influx of low-quality articles on extinct species either. The Morrison Man (talk) 00:07, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

I tend to veer towards 3 with 2 only being used for extinct species of extant genera or for species with more coverage. Lavalizard101 (talk) 00:05, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

I honestly think that it is in fact an almost universal experience, as even fossil megafauna often don't have enough to justify splitting them into species articles. African Mud Turtle (talk) 16:46, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

To be entirely honest I personally lean towards 2, although 3 is perfectly reasonable. The reason I say this is, at least for fossil vertebrates, and particularly avemetatarsalians (where my specialties lie), generic assignments for species can be extremely subjective, and tend to vary from author to author based on proposed relationships and opinions on distinctiveness. As a result, I feel having fossil species be their own articles (where possible) would help minimize need for significant edits, since as it stands articles will at times be created, deleted, and created again as the scientific opinion on whether a certain species belongs in x or y genus shifts back and forth (see Nanotyrannus). Definitely NOT Dilophosaurus (talk) 00:29, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

This may be the case for avemetatarsalians, but outside that field (particularly with invertebrates) there simply is not enough information for individual species to get their own articles. In any case, in situations like that I would argue that species articles are justified. African Mud Turtle (talk) 16:53, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

As a regular writer of fossil plants and insects, I will outright say this statement is false for many cases. What exactly are you quantifying as "infromation" to say there is not enough detail to create a stand alone article with?--Kevmin § 17:19, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

At least for trilobites and graptolites (since I have the most experience with them) the diagnostic traits for species come down to things like different distances between thecae or differing glabellar lengths without any knowledge of the morphology of finer details like the appendages (for trilobites) or the zooids (for graptolites). In addition, particularly for graptolites, they are usually preserved as carbonaceous compressions which means that even finer details of the tubarium are lost. For these taxa, there is not enough of a difference between species to justify separate articles entirely. African Mud Turtle (talk) 19:31, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

I'd like to add to this that some genera out there are also trivially simple, take Vaveliksia for example. The only difference between each species is one has a crown, one has polyps, and one is round, thats it, nothing more nothing less, and all contained into singular lines in the article for each.

This is what we mean by not enough information, where there is little difference between each species. Sure, these could be split into three separate species articles, but they'd be helplessly short in the information that actually differs, whilst the rest will just be a copy and paste. And in my opinion I'd rather sink my time into making new genus articles that pressing "ctrl + c" and "ctrl + v" over and over.

Of course, there are cases where there are enough differences between species to warrant a separate article, like they're from different countries, went through different research processes before being named, etc. Take Spinosaurus as another example here, the current page already has a wealth of information it, and a brand new species has just been described, S. mirabilis. But, the Spinosaurus article has already got alot on it, and this new species has quite a bit of history since it was found in 2022 (like being nicknamed "Scimitar"), a lot of differing features like the crest, and comes from a different locality to S. aegyptiacus, amongst other things. Here we would definitely make a brand new article for this new species as not to over-bloat the current article, but because there's enough differing information to where it makes sense to do so. DevonHalDraedle (talk) 19:49, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

I suppose 'information' is not entirely accurate, similarity is a more accurate term African Mud Turtle (talk) 19:50, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

@African Mud Turtle and DevonHalDraedle: But the issue you are putting forth is, from what I can see, hyperfixating on a single aspect of a species, the morphological description, while ignoring every other aspect of a fossil species. Those aspects are just as notable and important to discuss, age, formation, number of type specimens, repositories, known ecology, faunal/floral associations, research history. These all lead to at least a start level article if not a C, B , or GA class article. You also have to consider this guideline is for every taxon from pre-edicarian all thr way though 1499ad, more recent taxa and more modern paleontology papers are regularly producing detailed data. I could have done at least C class articles for each of the three Republica species in the genus.--Kevmin § 18:48, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

Well I did hint to some other aspects beside morphology "there are cases where there are enough differences between species to warrant a separate article, like they're from different countries, went through different research processes before being named, etc.", and the things in which you mention I certainly agree with are important and are things I very much try to include in every article I make/overhaul.

But the issue I'm trying to point out is whether there is enough of those things to warrant writing separate genus articles. For example there is the Nimbia genus N. paula which has barely anything going for it even in its description paper, and is seldom mentioned at all, but even then does that mean I now need to make what would amount to a stub for it because its a distinct species from a different formation, is notable because its smaller? (And that is literally all there is for N. paula)

Sure, there may be few to a lot of species out there that could get their own articles, but there are ab awful lot of things out that, even if we know they're distinct, just don't have much information to make them not copy-pastes of the genus (or other related species) article due to a multitude of factors. This is not something you can just blanket apply to every genus/species, because even though yes more recent taxa have more in-depth and detailed data, palaeontology didn't start in the 21st century, and as such a lot of not-so-recent genera, let alone species, that were described just a few decades ago (like N. paula) to a few centuries ago have barely anything to go off of, again due to many factors like no one else looking into them or it was before things were properly standardised and people had to give more information than a single line in a paper (And I have seen some new genera/species being described in a single line before, one even in a plate explanation, something that obviously isn't allowed today, but was back then). DevonHalDraedle (talk) 23:12, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

As an example, many species of Megistaspis are described in only one paper and not mentioned further in detail and even in those descriptions aren't described beyond a few paragraphs and a sentence for locality, which can be as simple as 'Volkhov stage of Sweden'. Sure, a few species have more going for them but even then, they are only mentioned by one or two papers. The Treatise of Invertebrate Paleontology volumes are only detailed up to genus and don't even list the species of a genus, so there is precedent for fossil species being ignored even in specialist sources designed to serve as references for people studying those taxa.

You also have to take into account the sheer number of species; Megistaspis alone has has over 50 species and there are far more egregious examples than this. There are over 22,000 described species of trilobites, and making articles for every species would both be practically impossible and flood the wiki with low-content stubs, which I can't see being beneficial at all. African Mud Turtle (talk) 23:41, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

I would say 3 is the most used, at least from what I've seen from other people and myself, and as such would make the most sense to do. Although just to make note, there are some rare cases where a species has enough information on it to warrant a separate article (Either due to its popularity or because it just has so much more material than other species within the same genus), which would be of course be 2, although again, much rarer, so most of the time its 3. DevonHalDraedle (talk) 02:06, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

I'm broadly in agreement with everyone else who has opined here so far that 2 is generally preferable, with 3 also being reasonable - basically exactly what Snoteleks said, 2 should be encouraged but 3 should be expected if there is not enough coverage for 2. The WP:LOCALCONSENSUS within the paleo editing community seems to line up best with 3, but I think the best approach here broadly falls under 2: (eukaryotic) fossil species with secondary coverage to indicate taxonomic acceptance can be presumed to be notable enough to have their own article (noting that this is not the same as being required to have their own article), while fossil species with no secondary coverage ought to be merged to the genus article until further coverage is published. This is more or less the way this guideline treats extant eukaryotes. WP:PAGEDECIDE naturally still applies: very similar or poorly understood species in small genera, extant or otherwise, may be better treated together at the genus article rather than duplicating mostly the same information across two or three short species articles + the genus article. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 02:08, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

The problem is that the vast majority of extinct species lack enough information to get useful pages and 2 would cause a lot of pages on, for instance, species of Illaenus with the same information duplicated across multiple species. While in some cases extinct species can be notable enough to get their own pages, this can be treated as a very rare exception rather than the rule. African Mud Turtle (talk) 02:44, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

I think the WP:PALEO method works fine. So basically 3, but 2 when there are extant living species. Honestly, the distinction between 2 and 3 when it comes to fossil species is murky in general. Silverseren^C 02:13, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused at what the origin of this poll is, the currrent system of treating them like extant species per Wikipedia:Notability_(species) (as we've been doing) has worked perfectly fine and keeps the overall Wikipedia project more consistent and cohesive. Sauriazoicillus (talk) 02:23, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

The point is that the guideline currently doesn't say that, so if we want to say "all species, extant or fossil, work the same", then we should agree to say that, instead of having an unwritten rule. And, of course, there's a good chance that the rule will be different from that (e.g., that it will be like Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Guidelines#Which articles should be created instead). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:33, 15 February 2026 (UTC)]]

The PALEO guideline is at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Palaeontology/Guidelines. Essentially #3 with exceptions for extinct species of extant genera and fossil species with substantial species-specific information. For fossil genera with multiple species, the first step would be sections on the species and splitting would only happen when these sections became large enough to unbalance the genus article (which means no stub articles). This guidance seems reasonable and I see no reason to change what is generally working and is familiar to editors of fossil articles. It could be linked, imported or expanded into the NSPECIES guidance.  —  Jts1882 | talk  10:05, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

Currently, I favor 3, except for a few notable cases where a split is justified due to amount of research (I know its already been said, but Edmontosaurus and Wooly Mammoth are prime examples). However, if a fossil species belongs to a living genus, I think keeping it consistent with how the living genus is split (I know some living genera just have one article for the genus, while others have articles for each species). So, #3 with exceptions. --Montanoceratops (talk) 20:09, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

#2

TrueMoriarty Talk | Contribs 09:47, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Honestly speaking, people have less chance to search for unimportant extant species than for comparatively important extinct species.

TrueMoriarty Talk | Contribs 11:36, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

What I'm hearing so far is: Nobody likes Option 1. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:18, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

One option would be to just link to the WP:PALEO Which articles should be created section.  —  Jts1882 | talk  10:09, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps that would be the easiest solution, but making a note here explicitly about notability (and linking there for further context) could be beneficial. The Morrison Man (talk) 16:01, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

• Support 1 - we don't need to have the same guidelines for extant and prehistoric species, as they are very different ball-games. FunkMonk (talk) 11:24, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

  @FunkMonk, do you think that we need to have any WP:SNG about the notability of fossil species? I'm not sure whether you're saying "we need different rules (but they could be in a separate section on the same page", "we need separate rules, so let's create a WP:Notability (fossil species)", or "we don't need any written rules". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:48, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

For palaeo articles we've long followed more case by case guidelines than what is needed at TOL, so I think if anything, this distinction should be mentioned here, with a link to the paleo-project guidelines. FunkMonk (talk) 12:15, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

A WP:PROJPAGE is not a WP:GUIDELINE. This means, in practice, that no matter how good and relevant its advice is, there's going to be someone at AFD who holds a different opinion and says that it's unimportant and should be ignored when determining consensus.

I'm trying to figure out if you like the contents of that group's informal and optional advice (and maybe it would be even more useful if it had an official {{guideline}} tag at the top), or if you like the fact that it is informal and optional advice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:43, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

• Support 2 with exceptions for 3 when needed. I've mostly used option 3 in my editing until now, BUT the problem is that its a local consensus, and raises issues any time a non-Paleo member wants to write on a fossil species, eg like at Ctenobethylus. It was a single genus article until last month when a new paper came out. At that point ant editor @2003 LN6: split it into genus and two species pages (with much information duplication between the three) as that would be normal practice if the taxa were living. Now the articles are in limbo with a merge discussion needing people to comment on them. I more and more am unconvinced by the assertion that there is not enough information to write species level articles for extinct genera, the geologic contexts, known fossils and descriptive histories are enough for C level plant and insect articles already.--Kevmin § 18:17, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

  You took the words right out of my mouth. I think the local consensus at WP:PALEO (and other WikiProjects - WP:BIRDS and WP:MAMMALS are two similar cases I know of) is problematic for this very reason, even though the rationale behind it is reasonable. When this was brought up initially I was happy to defer to WP:PALEO, but the more I think about it the less convinced I am that that's a good idea. As you note, editors outside of the WikiProject will not necessarily know or agree with the local consensus - I would argue that these sorts of unofficial guidelines exist in no small part because editors who disagree with it are discouraged from participating. These kinds of WikiProject guidelines are not officially adopted guidelines, so they has relatively little weight as far as AfD/merge discussions are concerned, and accepted practice within a WikiProject is not necessarily in line with the expectations of readers or the wider editing community. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 03:14, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

  @Kevmin: Support 2 as a contributor to WikiProject Insect/Ants task force. Fossil ants typically have less natural history information possible than extant ants, however considering the vast majority of extant ant species have almost nothing known about their biology there is functionally no difference between the two when it comes to notability. 2003 LN6 17:43, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

• I am very torn in this discussion, and I think it is because I feel the article here is overreaching. I support Option 2 with regards to what this article is about, Notability, but I also think I support Option 1 in regards to what this article is not about, whether articles should be created or not. In my mind all species are notable, but not all species need articles. Lack of notability should not be a reason to merge species articles into the genus space (note that I say merge rather than delete because I believe they are notable), the decision to merge species into the genus-rank article is simply based on utility: articles that are very large should can be split, and the species can be where that split is done (but not always); if species are questionably referred, consistently in between genera, or have large bodies of literature then a split could be justified; if an extinct species is part of an extant genus where its content could not naturally and easily be incorporated then a split is justified. None of these arguments are hinging on the notability of the species itself: the species is presumed to *always* be notable, and what is up for discussion is whether that notability and availability of information merits a unique article. This policy should not attempt to dictate what articles can or should be created, it should only be used to determine what topics are or are not notable. For these reasons, I strongly oppose option 3 as outside of this policies scope. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 18:37, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

  Just for clarity, what do you mean by "article" when you say I feel the article here is overreaching - do you mean the notability guideline, or something else? FWIW, I completely agree with you when you say In my mind all species are notable, but not all species need articles [...] the species is presumed to *always* be notable, and what is up for discussion is whether that notability and availability of information merits a unique article, and I don't think there's any incompatibility between this sentiment and the guideline as it currently stands. I think (particularly in AfDs) there is a common misconception that a notable topic must have a standalone article, but that's a misunderstanding of WP:N, which states Often, understanding is best achieved by presenting the topic on a dedicated standalone page, but it is not required that we do so; at times it is better to cover a notable topic as part of a larger page about a broader topic, with more context (and doing so in no way disparages the importance of the topic). Perhaps we should link to WP:PAGEDECIDE in this guideline to make this nuance more obvious? Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 02:38, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

  I think there is an element lacking in the notability guideline about clarifying its purpose: as a baseline for whether an article can exist and not as a determination for whether it should. I think linking to WP:PAGEDECIDE as well as things like WP:WikiProject Palaeontology/Guidelines with the express statement that those are resources to determine appropriateness of a standalone article would be a necessary improvement. Or we just steal the quoted sentence from WP:N for here as well, to emphasize that notability is not the only thing to consider at AfD or in merge discussions. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 05:48, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

  Would something along these lines capture this sentiment?

  "All fossil species are notable on the same grounds as any extant species, and a separate page for each species is allowed. However, when all of the species in a genus are extinct, editors usually prefer to merge all extinct fossils up to the genus page. This is primarily due to the limited information available about many fossil species and the amount of identical information that would have to be repeated on each separate page." WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:03, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

• When it comes to solely notability, I support option 2. As IJReid mentions above, the question of what articles should be created is a different matter entirely, covered by the WP:PALEO guideline mentioned further up. The Morrison Man (talk) 20:12, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
• Support 1, 2 and 3 both make sense in different situations. Fossil species is a very large category. CMD (talk) 03:25, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
• Support 1 in the sense of redirecting to WP:Paleontology guidelines or a future WP:Notability (fossil species). Otherwise, if something must be mentioned in this guideline, option 3 makes more sense than option 2. Pagliaccious (talk) 17:15, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

  @Chipmunkdavis and Pagliaccious: My issue with option 3 is that the wording used there could very easily be used to imply that ALL fossil species articles should be merged up. Thus the over 134 fossil Prunus species all would be covered in the Prunus article, or in a massive sub article on Fossil history of Prunus, where the only uniting factor is that the 134 species were found as fossils. option 2 seem much better for this where the diverse geological, preservational, descriptive, and implications of each species is elaborated in a stand alone article. The European fossils alone often have 200 years of nomenclatural history to cover for a species, as significant as any European vertebrate fossil.--Kevmin § 18:31, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

  @Kevmin, have a look at the table in Wikipedia talk:Notability (species)#Drafting the fossil question. All of these options are oversimplified versions from that discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:45, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

  @Kevmin: that is not the result I had in mind, and indeed the table linked by WhatamIdoing better explains my position: there is no need to merge everything up to the genus if the genus is large and extant. Of course, I'm not a very active WP:Paleontology contributor, so merging or not is less important to me than having a clear distinction between extant and fossil species notability guidelines, so I support the first option in that sense. Kind regards, Pagliaccious (talk) 20:10, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

  Based on earlier discussions, fossil species is very likely to be defined as "extinct before 1500". This (I've been told) is the ordinary cutoff date, and it gives us a pretty clean answer to questions like whether the Dodo is an "extinct" or a "fossil" species. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:38, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

  This is exactly why several of from the palaeo side don't really want a hard rule entrenched here either way. Option 3 is, by far, less destructive, but just letting us keep the option one status quo seems better for everyone. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 16:29, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

• Finally have some time to comment here as a WP:PALEO editor - I lean towards Option 1, but moreso like IJReid I kind of disagree with the premise here and think it is far healthier if we're allowed to manage ourselves and judge practicality case by case instead of being beholden to a policy. If I must pick a side though, I think Option 2 as interpreted as "all species should have articles" (rather than IJReid's agreeable "all species are notable, but don't need articles per se) is a non-starter. Not only do I think this would indeed lead to a lot of redundancy (having Triceratops, T. prosus, and T. horridus articles would be a nightmare when they're so indistinct as topics), but it would also leave the project in a very sorry state. We've based twenty years of writing on the idea of genus-level articles, and if suddenly every species needs its own article there's going to be a lot of underwritten articles. Already we've got a backlog of old FAs that need updating to modern standards, and many of those genera are multispecific. Now we want to double, triple that workload? Make one Parasaurolophus article into four, perhaps soon five? It gets only worse with non-dinosaurs - Dimetrodon becomes over a dozen articles, and the existing one already sucks! All for what, just to match living animal articles when the current system functions fine? What I ask of Option 2 supporters is this - what do we actually stand to gain from doing this mountain of work to change systems? Additionally, unlike modern species which are broadly stable, fossil species are far more often disputed. It's one thing to say that a clearly distinct animal like Daspletosaurus horneri deserves its own article, but does the disputed Daspletosaurus wilsoni really? What of Styracosaurus ovatus, and Lambeosaurus clavinitialis, and Scolosaurus thronus and its one controversial paper of material? Do we really think these are best discussed on their own as opposed to in the context of their genus and possible synonymous species? I am unconvinced. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 16:24, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

  I also have to add that even Dimetrodon is a tame example compared to some invertebrates; the graptolite genus Dictyonema has over 200 reported species only differentiable on the basis of things like thecal spacing and with very poor documentation, and Megistaspis which I finished recently has over 50 species. I have to ask Option 2 supporters whether they really believe that 200 or more species stubs are a better option than one more comprehensive genus article. If anything, species articles should be handled on a case by case basis as 99% of the time, fully extinct genera can go just fine without being split into species articles. I think the WP:PALEO guideline is good for this. African Mud Turtle (talk) 16:39, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

• Mix of Option 2 + 3 - that is, how it's been handled for a while. I agree that option 1 is not appealing; regular repeats of discussions like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Porphyrio claytongreenei are not a productive use of anyone's time. For fossil species, I think we will be best off with following the same philosophy that led to the wording of Wikipedia:Notability (species), that is, enshrine current and well-tested best practice. In this case, that is separate articles for species in extant genera, but for fossil genera, merge up to genus level. One could go into various pros and cons of this, as several editors have kindly done above, but in the final analysis, this has worked nicely for a good long while and is the structure of the current corpus of thousands of articles (which I think no one is keen on reworking without a very good reason). --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 11:13, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Summation

• So:

  1. A fossil species is any species that went extinct before 1500 CE.
  2. If any of the species in a genus are not fossil species, then ordinarily each species (fossil or otherwise) has a separate article.
  3. If all of the species in a genus are fossil species, then ordinarily all species are merged to the genus article.
  4. However, if a significant amount of unique information is available for one or more species in that (fossil-only) genus, then a separate article may be created for some or all of the fossil species in that genus.

  How much information is "a significant amount"? It sounds like some species have such limited information that the articles would be near-duplicates throughout, except changing the geographic location and one number (Exempla exemplorum is a fossil species found in Ruritania with 4 mm head → Exempla speciminis is a fossil species found in Oceania with a 3 mm head), which isn't wanted per WP:NOPAGE. Are there any general rules of thumb that people like? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:39, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

  None exist as far as I'm aware. Most of those before have been done on a case-by-case basis iirc. The Morrison Man (talk) 23:36, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

  Some editors don't cope well with notability rules that require editors to use their best judgment. Are there any themes at all to previous decisions? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:56, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

  I think that the best guideline would be that if there is a significant corpus of information related to one species that cannot be extended to other species or the genus as a whole, then it should be split into its own article. African Mud Turtle (talk) 00:58, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

  I think that this is a good rule-of-thumb for fossil articles. @2003 LN6 @Kevmin @Ethmostigmus What are your thoughts? African Mud Turtle (talk) 00:56, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

  This is more or less my thinking, yes, with the stipulation that species covered in only a single source (eg. only their original description, with no further mentions or recognition in any other scientific literature or databases) should always be covered at the genus article until further sources exist - this should really apply to all articles, regardless of topic area. I think this is primarily a WP:PAGEDECIDE matter that should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 02:48, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

  That approach doesn't work for the smaller sciences, such as most any paleontology field outside of LSVs (large sexy verts). There are valid species of arthropods, plants, and microfossils described from 200 years ago in Europe that have not had any further papers on them, because the fossil community does not see a need, and the workers that may be studying that specific group or time or formation (etc) could fit into an outhouse with the door closed. Being actively discriminatory to small sciences because one area of science (MED) is profitable and rife with publishing researchers is not within the spirit or outcomes of WP.--Kevmin § 04:32, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

  If a topic has not attracted any mention in any other reliable source in 200 years - not literature reviews, not catalogues, not database entries, not conference papers, nothing - it is safe to say it is not notable enough to warrant an independent article yet. This being common does not change the fact that a topic which has attracted no external attention is, both by Wikipedia standards and by the definition of the word "notable", non-notable. It's not discriminatory to small sciences, it's the most basic essence of WP:N. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 05:07, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

  In this model, do we create redirects for the species names? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:46, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

  I think it could work either way. I don't usually do that because I'm lazy but even if we do, we can always change it later if necessary. African Mud Turtle (talk) 02:14, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

  I always create redirects for the species, plus any species synonyms, that way people searching for any relevant binomial will reach the right genus page. I additionally use the species names and/or synonyms in the YEAR in paleontology listicles which provides more robust article interlinking and a timeline based structure for names (EG 1926 in paleontology and the entry for Diospyros? microcalyx, which I will be writing an article for soon enough at its new monotypic genus Remberella).--Kevmin § 04:32, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

  I also think that if we don't want discussions like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Porphyrio claytongreenei to happen again, we also need to formally note what we consider a primary source as that was the crux of the issue. African Mud Turtle (talk) 01:10, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

There is a danger of conflating primary source and primary literature. A peer-reviewed academic paper is primary literature, but the contents can be a mix of primary and secondary sources. As WP:PSTS says, "A source may be considered primary for one statement but secondary for a different one" and "a scientific paper documenting a new experiment conducted by the author is a primary source for the outcome of that experiment". Introductions often review the literature to place the study in context (hence are secondary). Discussions deal with how the outcome of the experiment fits in with other work and thus can be consider a secondary source. I've seen this stated explicitly in some WP guideline but can't find it now. In the context of this discussion, I'd say the description of the fossil specimens is the primary source. The discussion of the material and relating it to other studies and consideration of whether it is an existing or new species would fall under secondary (or at least a mix of primary and secondary.  —  Jts1882 | talk  13:24, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly the problem. WP:MEDRS defines the primary literature as being a primary source (and I think it's not incorrect to do so), and that way of thinking has been widely adopted for all scientific (or even scientific-adjacent) sources. So if we want to avoid that problem, we should probably address that problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:30, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

I don't think WP:MEDRS guidelines are applicable. They are substantially stricter than the general Wikipedia guidelines because of the risk of misinformation about medical conditions. Bad medical information can have real life consequences, while recognition of a species that is later reevaluated causes no harm and is just how taxonomy works. Look at how some bird species get split, lumped and split again as new information comes to light. There would be no taxonomy articles if we waited for the definitive taxonomy.  —  Jts1882 | talk  09:43, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

You're not wrong, but I think MEDRS also had a bit of motivation to avoid cherry-picked studies. This isn't as relevant when the subject area has very few sources, but it can be a real problem for some medical conditions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:06, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

I do agree in this case. African Mud Turtle (talk) 00:53, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

I'll open a separate discussion for this at WP:TOL talk African Mud Turtle (talk) 02:25, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Posted. Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Guidelines_for_reliable_sources African Mud Turtle (talk) 02:33, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

I do want to ask again if Option 3 should even be listed as a possibility here given it is focused on whether a page should exist per WP:PAGEDECIDE rather than on whether a topic is notable as in WP:N. I support option 3 as a way to deal with whether topics (in this case species) should have a standalone article, but I do not want that enshrined in a guideline that is specifically about whether species are notable. Option 1 is okay as status-quo, but if we want to make things easier for ourselves in future, choosing Option 2 here, and then refocusing AfD or Merge discussions onto WP:PAGEDECIDE or reliability of sources should be the best outcome. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 04:23, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

PAGEDECIDE is part of notability. It's not part of the GNG, but it's part of Wikipedia's idea of what qualifies for a separate, stand-alone article. As the lead of WP:N points out, editors' judgment about splitting/merging questions matters a lot. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:51, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Ahhhh I guess I disagree with whoever made PAGEDECIDE part of NOTABILITY but that's already been gone and done then. I will continue to disagree that the decision process for whether a page should exist is part of the criteria for whether it can, but without overturning everything I agree with the four bullet points and suggest "have a discussion on the talk page" as a suitable way to determine "significant amount of information" and nothing more specific that could be turned into nitpicking later on by others. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 05:32, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

I proposed last year that the GNG be split to its own page, so that other parts of WP:N (such as PAGEDECIDE and NEXIST) would not get mentally subsumed to the GNG, but it was an unpopular proposal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:29, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm kind of split here. Part of me worries about entrenching some guideline and being beholden to it - WP:PALEO has functionced perfectly well on its own and can continue to - but I worry too about having no guideline to point to in the case of future challenges from outside of the project. Should we feel the establishment of a guideline is necessary, I think these four guidelines work well to enshrine the current local consensus on the topic. I agree with IJReid that a "significant amount of information" be dicussed at talk pages case by case, in similar fashion to rulings about redirects. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 16:12, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

The redirect Isla Vista virus to the article Orthohantavirus has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 May 8 § Orthohantaviruses until a consensus is reached. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 17:03, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Note: This discussion concerns two redirects, Isla Vista virus and Muleshoe virus, and the intersection of NSPECIES and guidelines for deleting redirects, specifically WP:RETURNTORED. The discussion may be of interest to editor here, both for the question at hand and in thinking about the full scope and implications of this notability guideline. NSPECIES has been invoked in a number of recent WP:RFDnominations, usually uncontroversially. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 17:08, 9 May 2026 (UTC)