How can I contribute to genus accounts?

General
1

I have information relevant to “about” entries for a couple of genera - most commonly it is more recent peer-reviewed articles (not included in references section) that are useful in distinguishing among species. Maybe this is better framed as: how do I discover and reach out to the appropriate curator(s)?

3 Likes
2

Welcome to the forum :)

The ‘About’ tab text on each taxon page is automatically imported from Wikipedia, so if you wish to include more info, references, etc., you would need to edit the Wikipedia articles themselves.

5 Likes
3

Two things. It is a violation of Wikipedia policy to include “field guide” type information in the articles. So if you add content of this nature there, you risk it being deleted if found. I can try and find the link on Wikipedia where this is stated, but like so much Wiki documentation it is buried.

If the articles are open source and not paywalls, you can add them as links in the “more info” section of the about tab on the taxa page. This is something all users can do.

3 Likes
4

Hmm, so in two cases I have references that could be added but they are paywalled & peer reviewed. In one case I would like to add field-guide type information. These are insects, should I go to BugGuide to implement that instead?

1 Like
5

Not a violation. Articles about species and other taxa on Wikipedia are encouraged to have information about what the organism looks like.

Just don’t phrase the section like this:
“Look for the purple spots under the wings to identify this organism.”

Phrase it like this instead:
“It has purple spots under the wings.[citation here]”

6 Likes
6

But information useful to id included in tons of Wiki pages, e.g. "it has longer wings (15mm) comparing to the more common species X. vulgaris (10mm) ".

2 Likes
7

Note I said may be deleted, just because it has not been found yet does not mean it wont be.

8

This is also acceptable content that shouldn’t be deleted, as long as it’s properly referenced.

1 Like
9

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.