User talk:0DF

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Hello

Just curious who you are? Your history starts Jul 15 but you don't appear to be a new user. Benwing2 (talk) 23:29, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@Benwing2: No, indeed. Until recently, I edited here as Fruitless Forest. Unfortunately, my old laptop went kaputt in June; because I used browser-generated and -saved passwords for that Wiktionary account and its associated e-mail address, I concomitantly lost access to them both. Slightly annoying, but not a big deal (I'd made fewer than 500 contributions with that account. I actually wanted the username User:0DF, but the system wouldn't allow me it because of the prior existence of User:O.d.f., User:ODF, and User:Odf. Do you know whether it's possible for my account to be manually renamed 0DF, by any chance? 0D foam (talk) 00:22, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Mostly likely yes. User:Chuck Entz or User:Surjection can you comment? I tried Special:RenameUser but it says my admin account doesn't have permissions to do this. Benwing2 (talk) 00:28, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

@Benwing2: Back when the Unified Login system came into effect, there was apparently some connection between bureaucrats and renaming rights. Not any more: see M:Global renamers and M:Steward requests/Username changes. I should also mention that one can even have one's user name changed to that of an existing account such as your old one (something called "usurping"), but I'm sure the requirements to be allowed to do that are pretty strict. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:14, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz Hmm, OK, thanks, looks like this user will have to file a rename request. Benwing2 (talk) 01:26, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

@Benwing2, Chuck Entz: Thank you both. I'll look into that. 0D foam (talk) 14:04, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

@Benwing2, Chuck Entz: FYI, I've just made the request via M:Special:GlobalRenameRequest. It was very straightforward. (And regarding usurpation, it seems that is only possible in cases where the account name to be usurped has made no edits whatsoever, so that wouldn't've been possible in my case.) 0D foam (talk) 23:17, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

@Benwing2, Chuck Entz: Et voilà le travail ! 0DF (talk) 10:20, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Awesome! Benwing2 (talk) 11:23, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

plūrennis

You are of course right in that English plurennial is closely related to Latin plūrennis, however it is not a direct descendant. A direct borrowing would be *plurenn (compare solemn). Instead, the form plurennial was formed in English analogously to other adjectives in -ennial, which form however is not simply achieved by applying -al to a Latin adjective ending in -ennis, but via a substantive -ennium, as in mīllennium->mīlleniālis->millennial. You can leave it in there, but you should add a comment that takes into account that plūrennis and plurennial are not the same word, unlike in e.g. formōsus and hermoso. Imbricitor (talk) 14:25, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

@Imbricitor: How do you feel about this solution? 0DF (talk) 18:35, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

thats good :) Imbricitor (talk) 21:12, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

@Imbricitor: Cool. :-) 0DF (talk) 01:45, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

German surnames and toponyms

Hi, {{de-ndecl}} has been cleverly designed to take the exact same parameters as {{de-noun}} and {{de-proper noun}}, so you can use {{de-ndecl|toponym}} and {{de-ndecl|surname}} just like {{de-proper noun|toponym}} and {{de-proper noun|surname}}. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:43, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

@Mahagaja: Thanks for that. I did know that they have a lot of shared functionality, which I used on Treptow an der Rega and its abbreviations. I know most German surnames are m or f by sense and most German toponyms are neuter, but I've been worried that I'd stumble upon exceptions to those rules (like die Schweiz). Can I be confident that, wherever I see {{de-proper noun|toponym}} or {{de-proper noun|surname}} used, adding {{de-ndecl|toponym}} or {{de-ndecl|surname}} (as applicable) will yield a correct declension table? 0DF (talk) 17:54, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Probably, yes. In cases where you know a toponym is nonneuter, just follow the examples at Schweiz or Türkei or Irak or Iran. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:05, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

@Mahagaja: Thanks. Unfortunately, that's a big "if". Are there classes of nonneuter toponyms? For example, Rega, a river, is feminine and Wostasberg, a mountain, is masculine (and presumably takes its gender from Berg). Cities and countries are usually neuter, but are rivers and mountains usually not? 0DF (talk) 19:30, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Rivers in Europe tend to be feminine, with some notable exceptions like Rhein; outside of Europe they tend to be masculine to match Fluss. Mountains tend to be masculine, to match Berg, unless they're obvious compounds of feminine words, like Zugspitze. If in doubt, you can double-check on German Wiktionary (or another German dictionary, though many dictionaries eschew place names) or German Wikipedia. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:41, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

@Mahagaja: Thanks for the advice; I'll keep all that in mind. And failing all that, there's always article-plus-noun phrasal searching on Google Books. 0DF (talk) 22:29, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Polish toponyms and entries

If you can't get things like gender right or follow standard formatting for other Polish toponyms, you might not want to make them. It's better to not leave a mess that other people have to clean up, even if you have good intentions. Vininn126 (talk) 10:59, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

@Vininn126: Which part of what I wrote was a mess? Granted, you fixed my silly mistake, but so did I yours. 0DF (talk) 11:13, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

1. Lack of gender in the translation and headword.
2. Not using {{pl-p}}, and the use of {{pl-IPA}} was wrong, no asterisk.
3. Lack of declension
4. Using "Poland" in the t-box

I recommend looking at some other Polish toponyms. I'm not trying to come across as aggressive or scolding, but that is a significant number of mistakes and I'm trying to inform you. Vininn126 (talk) 11:19, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

@Vininn126: I am more than happy to receive recommendations to improve my editing; I thank you for your corrections. However, what you wrote initially came across as “You’re doing it wrong. Stay in your own lane.”, though I believe you that that was not your intent. Yes, writing “Poland” instead of “Polish” in the t-box was a stupid brain fart on my part that I’m grateful to you for catching; that was wrong, no asterisk. (I’m sure you’d concede that your deleting those two braces was likewise an unintentional lapse.)
Regarding the omission of gender, declension, and {{pl-p}}, I would contest your assertion that doing so was wrong. Certainly, it was suboptimal, but I did not thereby introduce any potentially erroneous assertions; I merely left the entry less complete than it could have been and now, thanks to you, is. What’s better, that I omit gender and declension, such that the entry simply lacks that information, or that I guess the gender and declension but get them wrong, such that the entry contains incorrect information that misleads readers? I believe it is the responsible choice not to include information of which I am not confident.
As for the use of {{pl-IPA}} instead of {{pl-p}}, again, {{pl-IPA}} didn’t introduce any erroneous assertions, so I would not call that wrong, and certainly not wrong without qualification. Of course, the entry is more complete thanks to the specification of Pasterka’s rhyme fragment, syllabification, and homophone by {{pl-p|hh=pasterka}}, which you added. If it is always appropriate to do so, I shall try to remember to use {{pl-p}} instead of {{pl-IPA}} in future. (But if it is always appropriate to use {{pl-p}} rather than {{pl-IPA}}, why does the latter template exist, may I ask? That seems to be a recipe for the kind of suboptimal editing I contributed.)
Three related questions:
1) Is Pasterka a use as a proper noun of the common noun pasterka, and, if so, what’s the derivational logic there?
2) Shouldn’t Pasterka’s {{pl-decl-noun-f}} specify |tantum=s?
3) Re one of your changes to Góry Stołowe, should I always use nvir instead of f pl and n pl in Polish entries and for Polish terms?
Thanks. 0DF (talk) 12:09, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Generally there is consensus in the community that if you cannot answer basic questions of gender and such then you shouldn't. Leaving it empty is indeed theoretically better, but it's indicative that you aren't sure what is right or wrong in general. Yes indeed it should have tantum=s. It's hard to remember everything when it's all left out, which is part of my original point. Yes, we do not use f-p and the like. Vininn126 (talk) 12:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

I just wanna say that I appreciate that it seems you've taken the effort to learn about things like gender and what-not. If you are interested in more toponyms and etymologies, the sadly incomplete {{R:pl:NMP}} is a good source, and don't forget to leave links to other dicts when appropriate. {{R:pl:PWN Encyclopedia}} might be best. I'd comment, however, that alt spellings like on machowski probably shouldn't count as homophones, unless there's a secondary meaning or etymology. It's the same word, after all. Vininn126 (talk) 22:06, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

@Vininn126: Thank you. I appreciate your noting that. And thank you for directing me to those sources. I’ll use them in my future Polish contributions. 0DF (talk) 22:12, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Пенчев

Hi! If you ever need a Bulgarian entry - be it for a proper noun or another word - feel free to drop a request on Wiktionary:Requested entries (Bulgarian). We monitor that page for changes, so someone should be able to pick it up in not too long.

Alternatively, if you'd like to create Bulgarian entries yourself, our minimum current expectations can be found at Wiktionary:About Bulgarian#A very simple example. Notably, you need to be able to provide correct lexical stress - both to the IPA template and to the headword template - and you need to have some sort of dictionary reference (unless the word is rare/neologism/etc). I've updated the entry I refer to in the subject to have both of those. If you are unable to provide that information, I'd appreciate it if you use the "Requested entries" page instead.

Thanks,

Chernorizets (talk) 22:20, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@Chernorizets: Thanks for sprucing up Пе́нчев (Pénčev). I was pretty sure the stress is on the first syllable (hence my writing {{rfp|bg|{{bg-IPA|Пе́нчев}}?}}), but I wasn't absolutely certain. I also correctly inferred the derivation from -ев (-ev), but didn't know about Пе́нчо (Pénčo), unfortunately. I was also unaware of {{R:bg:LIFUB}}; I'm sure that will be a handy resource in the future. If ever I am uncertain, however, I shall indeed make use of Wiktionary:Requested entries (Bulgarian), now that you have invited me to do so.
On the topic of Пе́нчев, I notice plenty of uses of a plural form, Пе́нчеви (Pénčevi), which has carried over into English as Penchevi, which is actually a lot more common even in English than the Anglicised plural, Penchevs (which only occurs in the August 1960 source I cited s.v. Penchev, AFAICT from Google Books). Пе́нчев appears not to inflect for case (from what little reading I've done on the matter, I get the impression that case inflection in proper names is restricted to the vocative case for given names, with mores restricting that further to male given names), but the feminine Пе́нчева (Pénčeva) and plural Пе́нчеви are alive and well. I infer from the fact that you didn't add {{bg-ndecl}} (the seventh conditio sine qua non of the simplest Bulgarian entry) to Пе́нчев that the surname does not decline for case and from the fact that you didn't remove |f=Пенчева from its transclusion of {{bg-proper noun}} that it is desirable to list the surname's feminine form in the entry's headword line. Wouldn't it also be desirable to list the surname's plural form in the entry's headword line? If so, shall I add a |p= parameter to {{bg-proper noun}} to enable surnames' plurals to be listed?
Before creating Пе́нчев, I looked at several members of Category:Bulgarian surnames to work out what form my prospective entry should take. Unbeknownst to me at the time, it appears that most of them fail to reach the standard required of them by Wiktionary:About Bulgarian#A very simple example. For example, Търно́вски (Tǎrnóvski) needs a citation, as do Бальови (Baljovi) and Димитрова (Dimitrova), which also need lexical stress and hyphenation, as do the following, which also need IPA: Занешеви (Zaneševi), Монова (Monova), Паница (Panica), Раковски (Rakovski), Странски (Stranski), Чекови (Čekovi), and Шалдеви (Šaldevi). I hope I can therefore be forgiven for not achieving the prescribed standard on my first attempt.
By the way, I have not forgotten about your response to me in Wiktionary:Votes/2023-11/Ordering of etymologies within an entry and I do intend to respond to it. 0DF (talk) 17:14, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

@0DF As you've probably guessed, Пе́нчеви (Pénčevi) is the Bulgarian way of referring to a family whose members share the last name Пе́нчев (Pénčev) (or its feminine counterpart) - so "the Penchevs" per English tradition. It's also used e.g. when talking about 2+ related people with the same last name, so Ivan and Martin Penchev becomes Иван и Мартин Пенчеви.

I admit I'm not sure how we ought to represent that in entries, since it's not an individual's surname, but rather a family's name. That's why there is no declension table as for regular nouns. It does give me something to discuss with the other Bulgarian editors, though. As for case, it's virtually non-existent in Bulgarian - given names have vocative forms (usually older, more traditional names, and nowadays it's less common for female names), as well as certain masculine and feminine nouns denoting people. I also want to think harder about how much information should be in the headword vs. the definition - for example, while we do list the feminine equivalent in the headword, the {{surname}} template also has the option for specifying that.

There are, unfortunately, a number of proper name Bulgarian entries that aren't well-crafted. The minimum standard on WT:ABG was recently updated by me; before that it looked like this, so our older entries comply (to an extent) with the lower previous bar. We have a project to improve existing entries, but it will take some time.

For now, hold off on making changes to the template/module - let me think of how we'd like to represent these 'plurals" more generally and discuss with others, and we'll figure out a path forward.

Thanks,

Chernorizets (talk) 20:59, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

binduga‎

I am aware of the historic label and I am more than relatively certain those particular senses are not in use, unless they are dialectally in some dialect I do not have access to. Vininn126 (talk) 23:05, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@Vininn126: Cool, thanks for the confirmation. I just thought I'd check, since it's fairly common to confuse the two labels, and timber rafting is a rather rarer practice than it used to be. 0DF (talk) 23:13, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Gomphocarpus filiformis

Note that the way you entered this has put it in Translingual maintenance categories. I would have entered it the same way, so there is a problem in the legitimacy of the maintenance categories IMHO. This is not a one-off and occurs in several of the maintenance categories. What should be done about it, apart from some rectal tonsillectomy-type solutions, link reconstructing deleted {{taxlink}}s (an effort now in process)? DCDuring (talk) 18:05, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

@DCDuring: Sorry, I'm not sure what you're referring to. The synonyms, maybe? Or something else? BTW, re Special:Diff/78188140/78281078, I left some of those unitalicised on purpose, since the pages to which they link don't italicise the term; I don't mind if you italicise them, but I thought you should know that I didn't for the sake of being faithful to the sources. 0DF (talk) 18:22, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Before my changes of today, the entry appeared in Category:Translingual links with redundant wikilinks and Category:Translingual links with redundant target parameters. It still appears in those categories, apparently because there are piped items in {{syn}}. DCDuring (talk) 18:29, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

@DCDuring: Is the only solution the creation of entries for those taxa and the subsequent removal of the {{taxlink}} transclusions, or would inclusions like [[Asclepias filiformis var. buchenaviana|''Asclepias filiformis ''var.'' buchenaviana'']] continue to cause Gomphocarpus filiformis to be added to those maintenance categories? 0DF (talk) 20:43, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Or would ''Asclepias filiformis ''var.'' buchenaviana'' work like it does in {{desc}}? 0DF (talk) 20:46, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't really know. It is not satisfactory to not use {{taxlink}}. If anything, there will be more use of {{taxlink}} or of a similar template. I think the logic of more templates has to treat " ' ' " as meaningful whenever it would be meaningful in wikitext or we need to have a formatting-only version of {{taxlink}}. Such may be forthcoming soon. I hope it will solve the problem. I really don't know what to do if it doesn't. DCDuring (talk) 20:58, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

@DCDuring: Well, in good news it appears that {{syn}} does indeed work like {{desc}} in the relevant way, and that that edit of mine took Gomphocarpus filiformis out of those two maintenance categories. 0DF (talk) 22:57, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

That probably means we could cause those that handle these things to modify those templates that don't work that way. DCDuring (talk) 23:22, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

@DCDuring: I agree. From my position of admittedly almost complete ignorance, it doesn't seem like it would be a particularly onerous change to make. I'd gladly do it myself if someone in the know were to point me to an example of the change(s) that must be made. 0DF (talk) 13:35, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

There may be a workaround as a byproduct of the effort to restore taxlink for all taxonomic names, whether the name has been added or not. But its formatting may be overridden by the templates in which it would be embedded. We should know by the end of next week. DCDuring (talk) 13:44, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

@DCDuring: Why, what's happening by the end of next week? 0DF (talk) 15:06, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

We should have a template that formats all instances of taxonomic names, mostly automagically. If that template can function inside other templates, then we don't need to ask for anything other than forbearance: no regression in that capability. Not that I really expect forbearance. DCDuring (talk) 15:32, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

@DCDuring: Great stuff. Whom do I thank for that? 0DF (talk) 19:10, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

@JeffDoozan has taken an interest in the matter. See Template talk:taxlink. DCDuring (talk) 21:58, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

@DCDuring: I have thanked him accordingly. 0DF (talk) 00:36, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm sure he appreciates any recognition for working in this corner of Wiktionary. It's a way to get some insight into the techno-infrastructure revolution taking place here after a long period of relative stability/stagnation. DCDuring (talk) 01:23, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

@DCDuring: All I see happening is conversion from wikicode to Lua. Am I missing something? 0DF (talk) 02:11, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Also mentioned is the substitution of {{taxfmt|taxonomic name}} for bare-linked taxonomic names. DCDuring (talk) 18:02, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

@DCDuring: And {{taxfmt}} won't need the taxon type in |2=? I still think {{l|mul-tax}} or a more cleverly-coded {{l|mul}} would've been a better solution for that, but never mind. 0DF (talk) 19:08, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

The taxonomic rank enables automatic formatting for most cases, the exceptions being suprageneric ranks in Archaea, Bacteria, and Virus, wich are all italicized by "i=1". DCDuring (talk) 02:33, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

@DCDuring: Indeed, but I'm not entirely convinced that it wouldn't be easier to use mul-tax, |i=1, and pairs of double typewriter-apostrophes to achieve the italicising results sought, but if JeffDoozan and you are willing to put in the work, then that is admirable. 0DF (talk) 00:42, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

The problem is mostly with subgeneric names that have elements that are supposed to not be italicized: subgenus/subg., section/sect,, subsection/subsect., subspecies/subsp., variety/var., serovar, etc. It also helps me find entries for which I am likely to find improvement possibilities, especially in languages other than English or "Translingual". DCDuring (talk) 01:28, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

@DCDuring: Actually, having given it more thought, I think the dedicated {{taxfmt}} is the better way to go. Am I right to understand that {{taxlink}} is for links to taxa without entries, and that once a taxon's entry is created, any {{taxlink}}-enclosed links to it should be changed to use {{taxfmt}}, but that there is otherwise no difference between the two templates? 0DF (talk) 01:01, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

That's the idea. I don't know whether the Tranlingual-L2-existence checking is completely disabled, but it should be and categorization should be differentiated or, preferrably, disabled. DCDuring (talk) 01:12, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

@DCDuring: That seems nice and easy. Might it not be useful for {{taxfmt}} still to check for Translingual-L2 existence and to add an error category in cases where the check returns a negative? That would catch misuses of {{taxfmt}} by editors unfamiliar with the {{taxlink}}–{{taxfmt}} distinction. 0DF (talk) 19:23, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Probably so. Lots of errors in this stuff. DCDuring (talk) 19:30, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Gorni-Studen

Germans tend to suppress the /ʃt-/ pronunciation of word-initial st- in unadapted borrowings. I doubt Gorni-Studen was ever well enough known among German speakers to get a Germanized pronunciation. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:34, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

@Mahāgaja: Indeed, I'm sure you're right. It just shows why it's worth my adding {{rfp|de}} when I'm not completely sure. Similarly with my inclusion of {{rfdef|de}} at the creation of Zahlenbedeutung, which I had suspected had some specialised numerological sense until you informed me otherwise. 0DF (talk) 13:21, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Module:Quotations/la/data

What purpose does adding abbreviations serve? There are real improvements to be made—from my time editing Latin I remember a few Cicero works in need of relatively complex implementations, many Pliny the Elder books which do not conform to the format of the module, as well as authors such as Martial or Suetonius which were almost impossible to implement as things stand—but otiose abbreviation lists do not help anybody. ―⁠Biolongvistul (talk) 05:00, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Edit: My impression that the bulk of those additions were performed by you was somewhat mistaken. ―⁠Biolongvistul (talk) 05:19, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@Biolongvistul: I assume you're referring to Special:Diff/80529447. I added those abbreviation-extensions so that the citations I copied from L&S and Gaffiot to Latin diastolē would be less baffling to the average reader. I still need to sort out adding their works etc. Module:Quotations/grc/data is much more complete than Module:Quotations/la/data. 0DF (talk) 22:48, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Алеѯандръ

Aлеѯандръ is o-stem noun, genitive is ending in -а. What do you mean by other forms are attested on googles? Chihunglu83 (talk) 11:42, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

@Chihunglu83: I searched for each of the declined forms on Google Books and Web searches, and every one of them occurred at least once in what appeared to be legitimate sources. Accordingly, I am quite confident that the declension table I added is the correct one, but I wanted someone with more expertise to corroborate it if possible. 0DF (talk) 12:13, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

yes, but do you mean by genitive forms such as Алеѯанди, Алеѯандоу, Алеѯандрꙗ occurred? I see nothing from my side so I am a bit confused. Please provide links if you can, thank you :)Chihunglu83 (talk) 12:20, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

@Chihunglu83: No, I mean Алеѯандра (Aleksandra), Алеѯандроу (Aleksandru, as dative, presumably, rather than genitive), Алеѯандрови (Aleksandrovi), Алеѯандромъ (Aleksandromŭ), Алеѯандрѣ (Aleksandrě), and Алеѯандре (Aleksandre). I didn't check whether the forms that would occur only in other declensions are attested, however. 0DF (talk) 14:12, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Czech toponyms and other entries you made

While it is true there is no policy where to put the wikipedia link, the argument such as: {{wp}} is a bad template, it makes Wiktionary entries seem like soft redirects to Wikipedia and thus put everything into further reading sounds more like your personal taste. You have already been told to follow standard formatting of a certain language, just like some language editors decide not to use {{inh+}} and {{der+}} template. If you want to change the present convention, first, discuss it on Beer Parlour (btw, I'm against it). I don't care if you do it in Bulgarian, Polish or other Slavic languages, but just don't bring your taste into Czech. Chihunglu83 (talk) 07:57, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Creightonella

I've stopped caring about the unitalicized parentheses. If someone ever implements unitalicized parentheses for taxonomic name puposes, then, if we have uniformity in the way we handle the relevant taxon names, we can easily use a bot to switch to the new system.

Do you prefer unitalicized or italicized parentheses for two-part subgenus names for ICZN taxa? I don't remember dealing with the matter for any other taxa. DCDuring (talk) 03:31, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

I also don't know what the ICZN code or zoological practice favors. DCDuring (talk) 03:32, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Please excuse the delay in response. I was planning to research this to ascertain the situation, but then the issue came up in the process of my creating Paroecus, which genus has the synonymous subgenus Lepturguncus (Chaeturguncus), whose type species is Lepturguncus (Chaeturguncus) vittulatus. It's a tiny survey, but species:Paroecus#Synonyms italicises the parentheses, Elphinstone Forrest Gilmour's protologue for the species italicises no part of the species name, whereas this 1995 checklist italicises the parentheses; notably, not one of the three italicises the name whilst leaving the parentheses unitalicised. As for my own preference, I initially felt that italicising the parentheses in, for instance, Lepturguncus (Chaeturguncus) looked unprofessional; however, seeing the parentheses left unitalicised in Lepturguncus (Chaeturguncus) vittulatus looks odd in contrast with the template's standard behaviour of italicising the whole thing as Lepturguncus (Chaeturguncus) vittulatus. So my considered preference is to italicise the parentheses. That being said, it's a really minor matter, so I can't say I'd object to a standard of not italicising the parentheses, especially if that turned out to be some regulatory body's preference. However, it doesn't seem like that's the case. I wonder why the template has this behaviour of not italicising the parenthetical subgenus name in subgeneric binominals; do you suppose it might have been intended for the taxon's authorial abbreviation, e.g., Paroecus (Bates)? 0DF (talk) 03:54, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

A complication: I note that E. F. Gilmour writes “Lepturguncus (subgen. Chaeturguncus) vittulatus, sp. nov.” (litteratim). 0DF (talk) 04:00, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Here's a link to a PDF on the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature website that might be helpful. The articles they cite are in the International Code for Zoological Nomenclature, and Appendix B to the ICZN has some recommendations (same link, at the bottom of the sidebar). Chuck Entz (talk) 05:55, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, Chuck Entz; those links are very helpful. I believe I've found an implicit answer in The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, article 6.2 (“Names of aggregates of species or subspecies”), which gives this example (litteratim):

• Example. In the butterfly genus Ornithoptera Boisduval, 1832 the species O. priamus (Linnaeus, 1758) is the earliest-named member of an aggregate of vicarious species that includes also O. lydius Felder, 1865 and O. croesus Wallace, 1865. The taxonomic meaning accorded to the O. priamus aggregate may be expressed in the notation "Ornithoptera (superspecies priamus)", and the members of the aggregate by the notations "O. (priamus) priamus (Linnaeus, 1758)", "O. (priamus) lydius Felder, 1865", and "O. (priamus) croesus Wallace, 1865".

Whence I infer that the Code prefers the parentheses unitalicised as in, e.g., Ornithoptera (priamus) priamus, Ornithoptera (priamus) lydius, and Ornithoptera (priamus) croesus. More's the pity. BTW, DCDuring, parenthetising “Linnaeus, 1758” but not the other two authorial citations in that example is not an error of inconsistency on the Code’s part; “Best practice in the use of the scientific names of animals: Support for editors of technical journals”, page 316 states (again litteratim):

• Use of brackets around author name – If a species has been transferred to a genus other than the one in which it was originally described, the original author’s name and date are put in parentheses (curved brackets). The lion, for example, was originally described by Linnaeus as Felis leo, in full Felis leo Linnaeus, 1758, but as knowledge of the cat family developed the genus Felis was split, the lion was placed in the new genus Panthera, and so the name is now Panthera leo (Linnaeus, 1758) (Article 51.3).

So that may help to explain these templates' exceptional behaviour when it comes to appended, but not interpolated, parenthetical terms. 0DF (talk) 12:38, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I think it is a waste of time to track the author details for taxa, even in the cases where the same name is used with multiple definitions. IMHO, disambiguation is better using family, order, class, phylum, or kingdom names. And we provide links for taxonomy pros to follow. The pros would be nuts to follow us for that kind of thing. Purportedly Wikispecies was going to do that, but their coverage is not so good and not up to date either. WP is better, but the taxonomy databases are best. In practice, context almost always resolves the ambiguity. And, of course, no general-purpose dictionary bothers with author details. It would be better if we concentrated on doing things that we can do better than the taxonomic databases: gender, etymology, derived terms, images, vernacular names, all stable. These need to be within the taxonomic hierarchy, kept up to date as best we can. DCDuring (talk) 15:04, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

@DCDuring: At no point herein did I advocate “track[ing] the author details for taxa”; I merely suggested that the exceptional way in which {{taxfmt}} and {{taxlink}} format appended parenthetical terms may be explained by their designers’ intention that those templates accommodate such tracking. 0DF (talk) 16:38, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

We could ask, but I don't think such matters were a concern. They were probably trying to fit these onto a Procrustean-bed module. I'm a little touchy about author detail because some contributors add such. There has been someone(?) adding such detail in Kikuyu. See hatha#Kikuyu for an example. DCDuring (talk) 21:38, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

@DCDuring: You're probably right. It does a poor job of it regardless, since {{taxfmt|Paroecus (Bates)|genus}} doesn't pipe the link as [[Paroecus#Translingual|''Paroecus'' (Bates)]] as it should if that were the intention. I can't say I object to others adding authorial information as long as it's in an unobtrusive manner (as in Kikuyu hatha), but I won't be bothering myself; as you wrote, the standard presentation of hyper- and hyponyms that you've established provides ample context to dispel any ambiguity. AFAIK, the only time I've cited taxa with authorial information is in the etymology section for the epithet ruda, but that was to refer specifically (no pun intended) to the taxa's publications. Moreover, in their cases, Pellicia ruda and Unio rudus have both been superseded by senior synonyms and, since neither is a basionym, I can't imagine any non-historical circumstance in which they'd be cited. 0DF (talk) 02:28, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I wouldn't fight for the '#Translingual' since Translingual is always at the top of the page. DCDuring (talk) 03:25, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

@DCDuring: True, but now the system appends #English to bare links, which means Translingual entries may be skipped; however, that's a lesser concern than the fact that (if this were the intention behind the exceptional behaviour) the template doesn't strip the authorial information from the link (generating, say, [[Paroecus|''Paroecus'' (Bates)]] in this case). Anyway, that's a mere speculative tangent of mine; the important take-away is that the issue of italicising parentheses looks to be resolved: it seems they should never be italicised. Are we agreed on this? If so, I think I know enough to make that change to the module. 0DF (talk) 11:39, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

At least clicking on the link takes you to the right section.

If you can make the right changes to the module for unitalicized parentheses, go for it. If you have a problem, you could consult TT&O or others. DCDuring (talk) 17:11, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

@DCDuring: OK. Unless I'm mistaken, the change that must be made to prevent the italicisation of parentheses is to add the code , ["("] = true, [")"] = true to the end of line 40 of Module:italics (permalink to the relevant version). Unfortunately, since I have neither the editing rights of a template editor nor those of an administrator, I can't make this change myself. The exceptional behaviour of not italicising appended parenthetical terms is a function of the module “italiciz[ing] a title while not italicizing a parenthetical disambiguator”. The example given of that is “Argentina (plant)”. {{taxfmt|Argentina (plant)|genus}} generates Argentina (plant), which is useless. The only mainspace instance I found of the string Argentina (plant) on the English Wiktionary occurs in the Translingual References section of Argentina, where it occurs in {{pedia|'''''Argentina''''' (plant)}}; however, switching out that code for {{pedia|Argentina (plant)|i=1}} displays the link as Argentina (plant), not Argentina (plant), so it doesn't look like {{pedia}} uses Module:italics. So I don't see what the use case is for “italiciz[ing] a title while not italicizing a parenthetical disambiguator”. Perhaps that function should be removed, since it seems more hindrance than help. 0DF (talk) 04:02, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Italicizing taxonomic names while not italicazing disambiguators for wikimedia project pages seems perfect wherever taxon naming conventions do not apply, which seems to be usually. DCDuring (talk) 17:13, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

@DCDuring: Indeed, so the function would make sense if any of the interwiki templates used Module:italics, but they don't seem to (I may be wrong, but I don't care to check all sixty-six of them to make sure). Wikispecies doesn't have “Argentina (plant)” or “Argentina (fish)”, but it does have “Argentina (Rosaceae)” and “Argentina^[sic] (Argentinidae)”, disambiguated by parenthetical nomina familiaria; we could link to those with {{taxlink|Argentina (Rosaceae)|genus}} and {{taxlink|Argentina (Argentinidae)|genus}}, which yield Argentina (Rosaceae) and Argentina (Argentinidae), but the problem with doing that should be immediately obvious: {{taxlink}} should always point to pagenames that Wiktionary should have, creating fallback links to Wikispecies in the interim; but Wiktionary should never have entries at the pagenames *Argentina (Rosaceae) and *Argentina (Argentinidae). So again, I don't see what the use case is for “italiciz[ing] a title while not italicizing a parenthetical disambiguator”. 0DF (talk) 18:16, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Wikitext piped links or equivalent features built in to the templates address the no-such-entry problem in {{pedia}}, {{specieslite}}, {{comcatlite}}, {{taxoninfl}}, {{taxon}}, {{taxlink}}, and {{taxfmt}}. DCDuring (talk) 20:52, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

@DCDuring: I've already shown above (04:02, 20 February 2025) that this feature of Module:italics isn't used for {{pedia}}. For the second-through-sixth and eighth templates:

• {{specieslite|Term (Disambiguator)}} yields Term (Disambiguator) on Wikispecies.Wikispecies ; {{specieslite|Term (Disambiguator)|i=1}} yields Term (Disambiguator) on Wikispecies.Wikispecies . This feature of Module:italics isn't used for {{specieslite}}.
• {{comcatlite|Term (Disambiguator)}} yields Category:Term (Disambiguator) on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons ; {{comcatlite|Term (Disambiguator)|i=1}} yields Category:Term (Disambiguator) on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons . This feature of Module:italics isn't used for {{comcatlite}}.
• {{taxoninfl|head=Term (Disambiguator)}} yields 0DF; {{taxoninfl|head=Term (Disambiguator)|i=1}} yields Term (Disambiguator). This feature of Module:italics isn't used for {{taxoninfl}}. By the way, conducting this test prompted me to find and fix a problem with {{taxoninfl}}, so this exercise has proven not to be a complete waste of time.
• Calling |i=1 in {{taxon}} has the same effect as defining its |2= as |2=genus or |2=species: it italicises the argument in |3=. You can see that from reading lines 31–32 of Module:taxonomy (permalink to the relevant version), which {{taxon}} invokes. Less abstractly, calling |i=1 and/or defining the parent taxon's rank as "genus" or "species" italicises the parent taxon name. By the convention you have established, the parent taxon of any subfamiliar taxon should always be of the "family" rank, whereas any higher-ranked taxon will always have a parent taxon of superfamiliar rank. To my knowledge, none of those parent taxa should be italicised unless they are virus or prokaryote taxa, so the use of |i=1 is in principle limited to such cases. Besides that, since the advent of {{taxfmt}}, the |i= parameter in {{taxon}} has become redundant to the |i= parameters in {{taxlink}} and {{taxfmt}}. Moreover, the salient feature of Module:italics isn't used for {{taxon}}, so the whole point is moot.
• {{taxfmt}} is only for intra-Wiktionary links, so it should not ever use parenthetical disambiguators because they are not part of an entry's pagename.

Finally, because {{taxlink}} uses |1= to generate the pagename of any link both to a Wiktionary page and to a Wikispecies page, piping the link breaks either the link to Wiktionary or the link to Wikispecies. Take, for example again, Argentina (Rosaceae). {{taxlink|Argentina (Rosaceae)|genus|Argentina}} yields Argentina, which correctly links to Wikispecies but not to Wiktionary, whereas {{taxlink|Argentina|genus|Argentina (Rosaceae)}} yields Argentina (Rosaceae), which correctly links to Wiktionary but not to Wikispecies.

For the third time, I don't see what the use case is for “italiciz[ing] a title while not italicizing a parenthetical disambiguator”. 0DF (talk) 02:27, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

On an unrelated note: when you're trying to figure out the gender from the specific epithets, you need to eliminate all the nouns and proper nouns, both in the genitive and in apposition. Those only agree in gender with their referent, not the generic name. In the list of species on Wikipedia, there are the names aesacus, croesus, euphorion, priamus, tithonus (people in Greek mythology) as well as chimaera and goliath. Then there are victoriae (Queen Victoria), rothschildi (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild) and alexandrae (Alexandra of Denmark) that are in the genitive to show that the species is named after the referent. That leaves richmondi and paradisea, which are nouns or proper nouns made into adjectives by means of suffixes- and both of those are feminine. You'll notice that I didn't mention meridionalis- that's an adjective, but the -is declensions are the same for masculine and feminine, so it's irrelevant. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:11, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: Yes, I'm familiar with the rather unhelpful phenomenon of nouns in apposition being used as epithets, as well as with the less objectionable phenomenon of genitive epithets. The species of Ornithoptera make excessive use of both, and especially of appositive nouns. I already knew the Chimaera, Croesus, Goliath, Priam(us), and Tithonus; I mistook euphorion for a neuter common noun in apposition, rather than the masculine proper noun Euphorion in apposition; I recognised Alexandrae, Rothschildi, and Victoriae as genitives; as you wrote, merīdiōnālis is definitely an adjective, though its declension only rules out the genus's being neuter; I mistook aesacus for a masculine adjective, so I created Aesacus to disabuse anyone else of that mistake. Richmondia is the Latin name of Richmond, London, which I suspect gave its name to the places of that name in Australia, for one of which I suspect the Richmond birdwing was named; consequently, Ornithoptera richmondia may also bear a noun in apposition as an epithet. The situation is unclear, and if commons:Category:Ornithoptera richmondia’s list of synonyms is to be believed, the existence of Ornithoptera priamus richmondia, Ornithoptera richmondius, Papilio richmondia, and Troides priamus richmondius all together makes it hard to know what to infer. Finally, paradīsea may prove our sole salvatrix if we can be confident that du Cange is right that paradīseus and paradīsicus are synonyms of paradīsiacus (which it certainly looks like they are). 0DF (talk) 02:28, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

And when you add in the fact of numerous errors in gender agreement and inflection by those who do the naming, it can be very hard to draw a firm conclusion. Usually we can come to a good (not definitive) conclusion about gender for genera. For species names with conflicting evidence, we can hunt for more evidence, eg, recent corrections, which may not be sufficient, or declare the gender to be uncertain ("g=?" in {{taxoninfl}}). I think getting the genus gender right is potentially a real service to taxonomists, not that very many taxonomists are likely to be using Wiktionary at its current level of coverage. Some taxonomic databases (eg, MycoBank) do offer gender information, but most don't. DCDuring (talk) 17:11, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

@DCDuring: Ornithoptera’s gender is clearly uncertain, but I think Chuck Entz is right that it's most likely feminine (that's what the specific epithets, even if not the subspecific epithets, tenuously indicate). Ideally, we could show this by specifying |g=f? in {{taxoninfl}} but, unfortunately, “[t]he tag ‘f?’ in the gender specification ‘f?’ is not valid”. Or maybe Deslisle & Sclavo rule conclusively on the matter in their 2015 Outstanding Birdwing Butterflies, volumes one and two. IMO, the genus should really have been called *Ornithopteron. How many other genera terminate in -ptera? How many other genera have names that are etymologically plural? 0DF (talk) 04:02, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

“[t]he tag ‘f?’ in the gender specification ‘f?’ is not valid” One can insert {{g|?}} after {{taxoninfl}}. That Wiktionary is descriptive means that we should not get too crazy about "correct" gender. Acknowledging the conflict between etymologically based correctness and (wrong-headed) actual usage in usage notes would seem like the way to go. Any taxonomic author who makes the effort to fully discuss the gender issue for a particular genus would be worth offering as a reference. I don't think other authors, no matter their other authority should get the same credit.

"How many other genera terminate in -ptera?" Enwikt has 27, to be found via this search. Wikispecies has more that I could find (There are probably more.). DCDuring (talk) 17:01, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

@DCDuring: Adding {{g|?}} after {{taxoninfl|g=f}} was such an obvious solution that I'm embarrassed I didn't think of it! Thank you for that, and thank you for the well-specified Wiktionary search. Glancing at those results, I note that every one of those -ptera genera are marked as feminine, excepting Notoptera, which is unmarked. Right now, that's good enough for me. What you describe is indeed the right solution and exactly what we should do, but I confess that I am too indolent to do more work on this term at this time. Perhaps my interest will be rekindled in the future. 0DF (talk) 18:16, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

When the list of offending entries is short (< 500), I sometimes do something very systematic to extirpate the problem, though my enthusiasm and the likelihood of completion declines with the length of the list. I try to make sure that the list is sorted by the number of incoming links and not too clogged with links from outside principal namespace. Otherwise I just clean things up as I visit entries for whatever reason. It helps that I focus on taxonomic entries and other entries that use {{vern}} and {{taxlink}}. Such entries, despite our very modest coverage of taxonomic names have lots of inadequacies. Most contributors only provide stubs for whatever happens to strike their fancy or just seek to increase their count of new entries. DCDuring (talk) 20:46, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

@DCDuring: I guess the systematic solution in this case would be to write a Translingual usage template that discusses reassigned singular genders for etymologically plural generic names which could then be added to all entries for -ptera genera and other etymologically plural genera. I may get round to writing such a usage note, unless you or someone else beats me to it, but I'm not promising anything. 0DF (talk) 02:27, 21 February 2025 (UTC)