Disputatio:Sphenisciformes

There is some dispute as to how to best say penguin in Latin. Penguins are not limited to one genus, so there are many names to chose from, but none are particularly handy or apt for the whole family. There is also penguinus, but that raises the ire of pedants because in the actual attestations that word refers to the great auk (when that species went extinct, the vernacular languages transfered the name to penguins). As a result, the various modern Latin dictionaries give different names (The Vatican/PONS Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis gives aptenodytes f., as does Levine's Follett World-wide Latin Dictionary; Helfer's Lexicon Auxiliare gives spheniscus. Morgan leans towards pinguinus, with the implied argument that if the vernacular languages did this, then we can too.) With all this controversy, sphenisciformes is a surprisingly good solution. We can keep that as the title of the article, and add discussion of the various possible names. --Iustinus 03:28, 3 Februarii 2008 (UTC)

Exstare contra ex(s)istere

129.175.80.219, care amice, explicationem "orthographia correctio" praebens, hodie mutasti locutionem Multae sphenisciformium species exstant (Anglice 'Many penguin species are still in existence') in locutionem Multae sphenisciformium species existant (Anglice 'Let many penguin species come into existence!'). Cur? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 11:54, 15 Septembris 2016 (UTC)

Potius quam queri, corrigere melius mihimet videtur; hoc ergo feci, explicationem in summarium mittens. A. Mahoney (disputatio) 13:22, 15 Septembris 2016 (UTC)

Link in Wikidata

De: "this page is linked in Wikidata to Sphenisciformes, rather than to "penguin" -- which seems correct to me; if it isn't, it needs to be fixed in Wikidata." All penguins are Sphenisciformes, and all Sphenisciformes are penguins. "Sphenisciformes" in Wikipedia is a redirect to "Penguin." Howsoever our article should be linked, points hang in the balance, since this is one of the Myrias pages! Whoever knows what to do (not yours truly) should do it! IacobusAmor (disputatio) 23:01, 21 Novembris 2020 (UTC)

In :en, there are redirects from Spheniscidae and Sphenisciformes to Penguin. That page connects to a Wikidata item for Spheniscidae. But there is a separate Wikidata item for Sphenisciformes, not surprisingly since the family and the order are conceptually distinct. Estonian, Frisian, Russian, and a couple of other languages seem to have separate pages for Sphenisciformes and Spheniscidae, though in Russian one is in fact a redirect to the other (as in Latin), and there's a wikidata link on the redirect page (which isn't supposed to happen). If no Wikipedia version actually distinguishes between the order and the family, then the correct solution might be to merge the two Wikidata items and clean up the Wikidata links on redirects. If there is a meaningful distinction -- which, I assume, means if the order of Sphenisciformes contains more than one family -- then we should have a proper Latin page for Spheniscidae that's not just a redirect. I do not know enough about penguin-like birds to know whether the order and the family are actually distinct. And I don't read any of the relevant languages so I'm not comfortable going in to Russian WP (etc.) and mucking around with their redirects. You presumably do know about the birds, which is the important bit; now, who's fearless enough to go make edits in Estonian WP? A. Mahoney (disputatio) 13:31, 23 Novembris 2020 (UTC)

Si non recte feci, abrogatis. Spheniscidae est Vicidatum in Myriadem inclusum, ibi textum transtuli et paululum mutavi. Demetrius Talpa (disputatio) 21:42, 25 Novembris 2020 (UTC)

Another monotypical problem?

While we're at it, we may not be getting points for the article "Emberiza," again because of the problem of monotypy. (The family Emberizidae is monotypic, containing only the genus Emberiza.) Our article is linked to "en:Bunting (bird)," which is the same thing, but the official list wants us to link to "en:Emberizidae." What to do? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 15:44, 23 Novembris 2020 (UTC)

At some level the solution may be to have pages for all the levels in the tree, even if they're trivial. The underlying issue is that Wikidata and the 200-odd different Wikipedias don't all organize their pages in the same way. Wikidata has to make a sort of compromise among all the WPs, usually by representing more or less the union of all possible pages. I'd say our Vicipaedia should come up with what we think is a sensible organization (and, for birds and such-like, I'll leave "sensible" up to you and others who know what makes biological sense) and then either argue in the discussion pages at Meta about what should be in the lists, or adjust our Wikidata links and then carefully police them so other people don't mess them up based on guesses about what the Latin pages actually contain. A. Mahoney (disputatio) 15:47, 25 Novembris 2020 (UTC)

My first thought is to suggest that the main articles in such cases be at the lowest level on the tree (with higher-level articles mere placeholders if necessary), the reason being that biological research, especially palaeontological & genetic research, will sometimes be turning up new items at lower levels, so that a higher-level name, such as the family Emberizidae, may not be monotypical forever, and rather than having to move the bulk of the text to a lower level, that text will already be in its appropriate place. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 18:10, 25 Novembris 2020 (UTC)

Emberiza non monotypus est; si fontibus extravicipaedianis utamur, 1 et 2, multa genera Emberizidarum videamus. Nova pagina de iis componenda est, quae in Myriadem includi possit. Demetrius Talpa (disputatio) 11:52, 26 Novembris 2020 (UTC)

Familia Emberizidarum est monotypica; generi autem Emberizae sunt multae species. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:17, 26 Novembris 2020 (UTC)

Sic, inveni; anno 2018 alia genera exclusa sunt. Demetrius Talpa (disputatio) 12:46, 26 Novembris 2020 (UTC)