Maybe off-topic, can a taxon page on Wikipedia have an ID section? Then isn’t Inat a great place to push identifiers to write their comments on Wikipedia?

I split off the posts above to their own topic. The answer is that yes, identification tips can be added to Wikipedia. Like all content there, the information must come from a reliable source. The content also needs to be phrased a certain way. Wikipedia isn’t a “how-to” guide, so content shouldn’…

[image] gcwarbler: Can I get some background on Wikipedia’s posture with respect to identification info? I can’t really speak to the history of most policies/guides on Wikipedia being established, but you can usually dig through old versions of articles and their “Talk” sections to see what w…

[image] bouteloua: So all that said, you can absolutely include information comparing taxa. For example, this is a “Featured Article” (the most highly ranked type) that has an astounding amount of information distinguishing varieties of this species: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphyotrichum_…

I’d put it on the S. lateriflorum page.

(Background: I’ve been a modestly active Wikipedia editor for 20 years.) While Wikipedia is not a guidebook , the other policy that may come into play is that Wikipedia does not host original research . At least in theory (although this isn’t always stringently or immediately enforced), you shouldn’t…

[image] choess: Morphological descriptions are often difficult for non-experts to understand and more likely to be in offline print or paywalled sources than distributions, habitat, etc. From my time reading Wikipedia’s species articles, I can say for sure that using the “Description” section…

To be fair, the impenetrability of morphological descriptions is a feature of scientific papers and technical manuals as well! When I write species descriptions, I make extensive use of links to entries in pages like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_leaf_morphology and parenthetical glosses…

[image] gcwarbler: Can I get some background on Wikipedia’s posture with respect to identification info? What is their logic in not allowing comparitive identification tips, keys, etc.? Why is the site so rigidly stuck on an “encyclopedia-style” presentation of information? I can’t find any sati…

[image] choess: That said, this has been somewhat controversial, as some editors are concerned this will give others license to flood Wikipedia with very short (“stub”) articles about species Why would that be bad?

I was thinking of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malephora_verruculoides ; the creator seems to be grinding out a lot of them without much information about the actual organism. Finding short articles like that in a favorite subcategory of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Biota_of_South_Africa a…

Can species identification tips be added to Wikipedia?

Nature Talk

DianaStuder October 18, 2025, 6:09am 15

The Wiki stubs are deliberately coming from iNatters

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/creating-missing-wikipedia-articles-for-inats-observations-of-the-week/18057/3

Topic		Replies	Views
Where do we share how to ID species? Nature Talk	44	1109	July 23, 2025
Are you fine with the current format of iNat’s species descriptions, or do you wish there was more info like how to identify the species etc? General	86	1877	March 16, 2026
Expand the Similar Species tab into an editable identification guide Feature Requests	68	5244	September 11, 2025
Adding useful ID info to taxon pages General	26	5097	June 30, 2020
Add Comments or Wiki-Like Functionality on Taxa Pages to Discuss Identification and Other Relevant Issues Feature Requests	16	2845	February 17, 2019

Can species identification tips be added to Wikipedia?

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