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So long, and thanks for all the fish

Well, I was coming back after a period of burnout and real life stuff, and it seems I missed a victory by the grammar authoritarians. Ho hum. So, first off, sorry I wasn't here to help. I mean, I always knew they were going to win eventually, Misplaced Pages has been heading in the direction of minimum tolerance and maximum conformity for a while. But anyway, perhaps it could have been held off longer.

Second, that's all folks. I've had a a great time here over the years and have really enjoyed working here on the project. We've turned out some great articles and done a lot of stellar work. But the shift from the goal of this place being getting as much info out there as possible and the goal of making it all consistent to some arbitrary standard has been coming a long time, and this was the line in the sand I drew that represented as far as I was going. Maybe Misplaced Pages will again one day respect those that know, write and cite as much as it loves the minutiae of its rules. I really hope it does. But for the moment it will have to do so without me.

I owe a lot to Misplaced Pages and in particular this project. I realise this is a rather drama-ish exit, but then Misplaced Pages was always about the drama as much as the writing. And I really wanted to say goodbye to those of you I've been working with on this project for the last decade (you can always reach me by email!). Goodbye, and best of luck. Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:46, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, good luck - go and do some Original Research.. ;) Cas Liber (talk · contribs)

Good luck from me too. I've taken the less drastic step of chopping hundreds of pages off my bird watchlist to concentrate on species pages I've significantly contributed to, and those that are on the British list — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimfbleak (talk • contribs)

Sad to see but good luck. We have also lost User:MeegsC thanks to the increasingly rough editing environment. Shyamal (talk) 10:22, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Another keen editor alienated by the WP elite and they neither notice nor care. Sorry to see you go. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 11:24, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Tall poppy syndrome - the bird project has been too successful. It attracted the attention of those that felt threatened, a common organisational dynamic. Maias (talk) 13:44, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree that this was a terribly bad decision, but really, does it invalidate everything else we've achieved, as a project and as an encyclopedia? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:10, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm no, but the comments by various people at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_156#Bird_common_name_decapitalisation against anyone that supported capitalisation were pretty demeaning. And were I suspect the last nail in the coffin for the enthusiasm of some editors. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:54, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Even funnier, the editor that started the whole issue this time round was a sock of a blocked user Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:57, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I noticed one IP popping up from time to time with rather pointy edits on the crowed crane DAB, but I can not prove anything. Snowman (talk) 08:27, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I opposed the change and thought I could live with it. But when everything turning up on my watchlist is the down-casing of bird names, it just feels wrong. I'm not a big contributor so I won't be missed. But good luck to anyone left. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 08:12, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that, Chuunen Baka and Sabine's Sunbird. Sad losses, both. I too left, fed up with the hassle from a few people (you know who you are) who make it their business to piss off as many people as possible for no other reason than that they can. After cooling off, though, I've decided that I'm not going to let the bullies win, so I'll continue to contribute content — which, after all, is the most important part of the encyclopedia. And I'll just ignore and avoid those who make my blood pressure go up. Soldier on, everybody. Let's get back to what's really important here, which is building a great resource! MeegsC (talk) 15:06, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

I also opposed the decision, but has it actually been implemented in full? Maybe, I don't know. It is really very sad to see the impact on some really solid editors. Johnbod/ Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 22:04, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

It amuses me that those who have decided it is so important to change the capitalisation are spending so many hours doing it all manually, I assume they haven't actually got any content to contribute, or simply prefer form over substance. Perhaps we should request that they get a bot-bit for their accounts so that we can at least ignore their automaton-like edits which overwhelm watchlists. --Tony Wills (talk) 12:35, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't care about capitalisation at all actually, I'm merely saving others from burning out on such a massive task. Do keep casting aspersions though. —Xezbeth (talk) 17:14, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

I suspect that you are right, the people executing these changes have no great interest in or understanding of what they are part of - very sad. I'm not a member of this project, but have watched the way this change was bulldozed through, and now are apparently watching dis-interested parties participating in this destructive, pointless excercise. It is destructive of the community of people who are dedicated to maintaining the pages covered by this project because it dismisses their opinions and standards in the name of conforming to some other standard. I expect this project will carry on more or less as usual, but now with a little less enthusiasm, feeling their input is a little less valued. --Tony Wills (talk) 21:33, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Lets not get all maudlin about this, it's the content that is important not the style. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:52, 23 June 2014 (UTC).

Try telling MoS that. And we now have inconsistency because even the fanatics aren't prepared to downcase the big lists like list of hummingbirds and list of birds of Canada and the United States Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:07, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Jim, most of the loudest voices at MOS couldn't give a toss about those inconsistencies. They're now off harassing the horse people about their article titles, because everyone knows that the use of capital letters for animal names is the main reason most experts don't think Misplaced Pages is a reliable reference. Despite what you might have thought, the belief that Misplaced Pages might not be reliable has nothing to do with some articles possessing such gems as "Eric eats poop" or various snippets of patently incorrect information. It was all about those danged capital letters! *Rolls eyes*. MeegsC (talk) 03:09, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

And yet here I've been told that the fact that we have Aeshna cyanea (binomial), small tortoiseshell (lc English) and Red Underwing (capped English) isn't a matter for MoS! Predictably, they did the easy articles, and then moved on to persecute other content creators rather than tackle more time consuming stuff. On a more positive note, having 2000 less bird articles on my watch list makes life easier. Perhaps I should go the whole hog and just dot "i"s and cross "t"s, since that's more important than content? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I understand why having lower-case names imposed on the WP Bird project is the last straw for many. Being a armature in ornithology myself, I will miss the expertise of those who are leaving particularly in the "Birds for identification" series. I anticipate that I will find and upload more photographs that need identification probably in the late Autumn (September or August), when the weather starts to get wintery here in the UK. I hope that some of you will help me to identify birds for the fun of it and for the birds. For any of you that do return, I hope that we can make this project be a happy project again. I thought about leaving over the capitalization issue, but writing about parrots and illustrating bird pages has higher priority than capitalization for me. I am not promising anything. Snowman (talk) 08:27, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I note that the people who are changing to lower-case are sometimes just changing the page name without changing the capitalization in the body of the article. I have not seen anyone change the capitalization in lists of birds yet. I think that the people who want to deliver lower-case capitalization to about 16,000 bird pages do not have the machinery to do it properly. I think that we should complain about the inconsistent mess that this is causing. Does anyone want to go into battle (metaphorically speaking) over this saying that the change over to lower-case is not going well and that the upper-case tradition here should be kept? I am not promising anything. Snowman (talk) 08:13, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

On the positive side, I have heard (see below) that a kind professional photographer has donated about 300 good-quality videos of birds, some of them with sound, to Commons. Upper-case bird names are used on Commons. I am planning to process them all with a script to write in the English names, binomial names, and the taxonomy categories on Commons. I hope to see as many bird editors back here in the Autumn of the Western Hemisphere (August to September) to see if we can put every informative video in an improved bird species page. I am not promising anything. Snowman (talk) 08:13, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I feel bad now. I've only recently developed an interest in some of the bird articles, after the decapitalisation was already decided. So I've been merrily lowercasing names as I make other edits. Personally, I prefer uppercase (for me a "bald eagle" is a bird with a skin condition causing feather loss on its head, whereas Bald Eagle is something specific). But I thought I was doing the right thing by "following the rules". Sorry that you're leaving, Sunbird. Pelagic (talk) 23:50, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Noticing this discussion I just took on List of birds of Canada and the United States. It was a lot of work to do right. I never felt very strongly either way on the underlying issue of whether these moves should be done, but I have been involved in page moves (closing RMs and the like) for a long time and I think it's outrageous that people would move all these articles without attempting to address the content, as represented above. I'm wondering if they took on other necessary cleanup tasks attend on moves (noted at WP:RM/CI).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:34, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Southern boobook (Ninox boobook)

The Ninox page lists the southern boobook as a separate species (Ninox boobook), but our page just redirects to morepork. According to it is distinct, and indicates that they were formerly classified together, but are now considered distinct. There's more info about the taxonomical history here. Is this taxonomy generally accepted? If so, we should create a proper page for the southern boobook and link to it from morepork. Pburka (talk) 20:32, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

We take the IOC world list as our standard. The IOC owl list gives Southern as a separate species, so it should have its own article Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:46, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I was looking into this - there is some dispute going on, but am inclined to agree. There is a key paper I will have to get via library to clarify it. Just about all the info in the article is on the NZ taxon, so I think the correct thing is to rename it morepork and move it to preserve edit history and then back-create southern boobook. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:10, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Good to know that you give authority to the IOC list, Jim; do you also follow them for Latin names? (E.g. when there is difference of opinion about which genus a species belongs to?) Pelagic (talk) 00:51, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Good question. I suppose that I tend to do so except for species where I have to look closely at the taxonomy, for example at FAC. I would then discuss the options and the evidence for them. I have very little knowledge of these southern owls, and I would take the IOC on trust simply through ignorance Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:56, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Pburka, was N. boobook previously a subspecies of N. novaseelandiae, or vice versa? I can't access Christidis & Boles on Google Scholar (have already exceeded page allowance), and I don't have access to a paper copy. For what it's worth, I do have a copy of Simpson & Day (Field Guide to the Birds of Australia, 7ed., p. 156) on loan from the library: Simpson is sitting on the fence by listing Southern Boobook as "Ninox boobook (novaseelandiae)". That book is big on documenting races/subspecies: it lists 5 Australian races: boobook, ocellata, leucopsis, halmaturina, lurida. Pelagic (talk) 00:51, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Neither as such - the name N. novaseelandiae was used for the combined species as it is older that N. boobook - once split they are split along the lines of which subpsecies the specimens were types of. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:22, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

There are still some authorities which treat it as subspecies, e.g. Clements (2012). König & Weick (2008) treat it as species, HBW 5 (1999) too. According to Howard & Moore - Non passerines (2013) I can say more when I have this book in a few weeks. --Melly42 (talk) 06:28, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, there is by no means consensus on this one - and I need to read a paper I can't get online to get my head around it - issues with incomplete genetic sampling and one paper apparently misreading another etc. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:11, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I think, if the majority of authorities considered it as full species there is nothing said against an own Misplaced Pages article (and if you take a look in König & Weick and/or HBW 5 (resp. HBW alive) there is even enough stuff about this species --Melly42 (talk) 07:18, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

In H&M (2013) we have Ninox boobook with 10 subspecies and Ninox novaeseelandiae with 3 subspecies --Melly42 (talk) 17:02, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Rusty Blackbird

I have a question about the article on the Rusty Blackbird. It is in the "Habitat" section. The first few sentences read:

"Their breeding habitat is wet temperate coniferous forests and muskeg across Canada and Alaska. The cup nest is located in a tree or dense shrub, usually over water. Birds often nest at the edge of ponds/wetland complexes and travel large distances to feed at the water's edge."

I don't understand why rusty blackbirds "travel large distances to feed at the water's edge" when

• Their nest "is located...usually over water", and

• they "often nest at the edge of ponds/wetland complexes".

Perhaps the word "sometimes" (or "often", if necessary), should be added before "travel large distances". I'm not a bird expert, so I'm posting this here. CorinneSD (talk) 22:00, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Also, since the article says that males have an iridescent green head, it would be nice to have a photo showing that. The large photo that is there is nice, but it doesn't show the iridescent green head. CorinneSD (talk) 22:08, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

My reference books show that the nest is indeed often placed over water. They say nothing about the birds traveling long distances to feed, so I wonder if someone misunderstood something they read. Personally, I'd remove the sentence that begins "Birds often nest at the edge…" MeegsC (talk) 02:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I deleted the part about flying long distances to feed and re-arranged the sentence. I wanted to keep "Birds often nest at the edge" because that paints a clearer picture than the information in the previous sentence. I also reversed "often" and "usually". What do you think of it now? CorinneSD (talk) 18:33, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Red-winged blackbird

I'm reading the article on Red-winged blackbirds, and I have come across something that is unclear to me. It is in the second paragraph in the section "Taxonomy". The sentence reads:

"The taxonomy of this form is little understood, with the relationships between the two isolated bi-colored populations, and between these and red-winged, still unclear."

Maybe I missed something, but I don't know what "the two isolated bi-colored populations" refers to. The word "isolated" to describe red-winged blackbirds was used in the lead to refer to several populations in Central American countries, but it didn't seem like two.

The two bicolored populations mentioned are those of A. p. gubernator in California and central Mexico; they're discussed two sentences previous to the sentence you've pasted above. These two populations are discrete (the birds in California are separated by hundreds of miles from the ones in central Mexico) and both populations are distinct from other Red-winged Blackbirds. There are some ornithologists who feel these represent a distinct species—the Bicolored Blackbird. MeegsC (talk) 02:40, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Please note that I added a hyphen to "bicolored" because it appears in Edit Mode with a red line under it as misspelled. Also, I believe it should have a hyphen. If I am correct, then the caption that contains the same word needs to have the hyphen added, too. CorinneSD (talk) 23:01, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

For what it's worth, "bicolored" is in the Oxford dictionary, and the Merriam-Webster dictionary without the hyphen. It's also listed without a hyphen in the dictionary on my Apple. MeegsC (talk) 01:57, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

O.K. Thank you. I'll remove the hyphen. But what about my other question in this comment, above? CorinneSD (talk) 18:34, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I have another question. This may seem like a silly question, but why is the red-winged blackbird called a "bicolored" bird, or species? I just looked at the photo in the article and the bird is black with a stripe of red and yellow-orange on its wings. Red and yellow-orange are two colors, and if black is counted, that's three. Is black not considered a color? Or is the red and yellow-orange stripe counted as only one color? CorinneSD (talk) 18:40, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The black is ignored, it's to distinguish the (sub)species from the tricolored blackbird, which has white as well as red in its wing stripe Jimfbleak - talk to me? 18:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Jim. I just wonder, though, why the tricolored blackbird is named with "tri-". In the picture there is only a red and white stripe. Where's the third color? Maybe in the red-winged blackbird, the red and yellow-orange is considered one color, so that plus black makes two, and in the tricolored blackbird, the red and white are considered two, so those two plus black makes three. CorinneSD (talk) 20:19, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@MeegsC: Did you see my reply to your answer, above, re the spelling of "bicolored"? CorinneSD (talk) 20:19, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@CorinneSD: Yep; my answer to your first question is right underneath your question!  :) MeegsC (talk) 21:07, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I am so sorry, @MeegsC:. I just didn't see it. Maybe I assumed you would respond to both questions after my comment.

I've copied most of the paragraph here to make it easier to refer to:

"There are a number of subspecies, some of doubtful status, which are mostly quite similar in appearance, but the bicolored blackbird A. p. gubernator of California and central Mexico is distinctive. The male lacks the yellow wing patch of the nominate race, and the female is much darker than the female nominate. The taxonomy of this form is little understood, with the relationships between the two isolated bicolored populations, and between these and red-winged, still unclear."

I hear what you're saying, but the fact that those two bicolored blackbird groups in central Mexico and California are the isolated groups referred to two sentences later is not clear. I'm going to make a minor edit to make this clearer.

Also, I still don't understand why those two species are called bicolored. It says that the male of the species in central Mexico and the species in California "lacks the yellow wing patch of the nominate race". That means it has red, but not yellow, on its wing. So it is called bicolored because its colors are yellow and black -- two colors. That means black is counted as a color (see @Jimfbleak:'s comment, above, and my reply to him). Then the red-winged blackbird has three colors: red, yellow, and black, so is really tricolored. (In my comment, above, I asked why the tricolored blackbird was called tricolored if it had only red and white, if black was not counted as a color.) (Also see the section Talk:Red-winged blackbird#Bicoloured Blackbird. CorinneSD (talk) 21:48, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Those two populations (not species, as the two are populations of the same subspecies) are called "Bicolored" because the males only have two colors: red and black; they lack the gold bar on the epaulet. Most Red-winged Blackbird subspecies have black, red and gold — three colors, as you've mentioned. I'm not sure why Jim said the black didn't count as a color — you'd have to ask him! ;) MeegsC (talk) 22:01, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

So the regular red-winged blackbird is not a bicolored blackbird. CorinneSD (talk) 22:09, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Correct. The "regular" Red-winged Blackbird has three colors. MeegsC (talk) 23:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm out

I waited a while to cool down, but my thoughts have not changed. I'm done with Misplaced Pages. Fundamentalist dogma of those who have no knowledge of specifics topics has overridden long-established norms. But that's not why I'm posting.

I think we like-minded folks should devote our time an resources to a different wiki that will actually respect our decades (centuries?) of combined knowledge instead of calling us stupid. Is there not an online bird encyclopedia somewhere that we could all flock to? Surely, it could be better than anything here. Natureguy1980 (talk) 03:33, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

That would be a catastrophe - we want to appeal to (and spread knowledge to) general readers as well as bird enthusiasts - if folks set up a birdpedia, only a small fraction of people would read the articles there as[REDACTED] would trump it on google searches. Then we'd have worse[REDACTED] articles which lots of people would see, and birdpedia articles which only a few people would see. A loss all round. One of the benefits of this place is the sheer number of editors, we commonly benefit from copyediting and queries from other editors - that would all be lost if folks left. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:09, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is only at the top because there are no credible alternatives. Once there is a credible alternative for birds, and enough specialists are linking to it instead of Misplaced Pages, those pages will start showing up at the top of the top of search engines. The bigger issue is who is going to pay for the hosting and who is willing to write the governance articles so that the new Bird Wiki does not get overrun by the non-experts with too much time to harass the experts. Expert retention is abysmal at Misplaced Pages, and any wiki that can do a better job at that will be able to concur the top spots in search engines purely because of the improved quality of pages. 74.248.53.244 (talk) 16:56, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

If you are interested in being the subject of an exit interview for Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost, then I am willing to mention that fact at Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions. I am particularly interested in knowing what advice you have for new editors. You can contribute to Avibase - The World Bird Database.

Sure. My contact information is listed at http://www.aba.org/birdersguide/editor.html 98.223.105.116 (talk) 22:17, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

—Wavelength (talk) 04:53, 1 July 2014 (UTC) and 04:58, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

@Wavelength:, I think it would be a good idea to give exit interviews to several people who've left not just this project but Misplaced Pages altogether thanks to the attitude of some MOS folks. Given that the encyclopedia is hemorrhaging editors, it should be a real concern that lack of civility by some of the main MOS players is one of the major reasons these editors are leaving. Perhaps the article could be about more productive ways of disagreeing with other editors without alienating them. MeegsC (talk) 16:39, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry to see you go, but understandable given not only the jackboot approach to volunteer contributors and the entirely predictable wreckage left behind with, with hundreds of article either not downcased at all or, worse only partially downcased because the fanatics turned out not to be fanatical enough to do the hard graft required. Easier to move on and bully someone else Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:37, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

• Someone should make a notice of the damage this decision has done. I'm still puzzled why many domestic breed titles are all caps, and why many plant articles do not use common names in the titles. Seems this project was rather arbitrarily chosen for standardisation enforcement. FunkMonk (talk) 10:22, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Michael, I was going to leave for the same reasons—and with the same thought. But I came around the thinking about the effect our mass exodus would have on Misplaced Pages's readers, who — as Cas rightly pointed out — are not likely to follow us to some Birdpedia, unfortunately. So I'm gritting my teeth and putting up with the few jerks who are ruining the place for many of us (and who've now moved on to make the horse project's articles their battleground). And you're absolutely right, Jim. Only one or two of the MOS folks are actually changing the article text as well as the titles. The rest just tripped merrily along downcasing article names for a day or two (if they bothered to do that much), and then got bored with the lack of drama and went elsewhere. Predictable, really. MeegsC (talk) 14:03, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

If I may suggest, if you 1) focus on articles of specialized topics that have few people who can know the subject matter; and/or 2) focus on articles belonging to a WikiProject that projects a positive attitude, you might have better traction. (Or perhaps I should reserve this comment as a response to the published exit interview.) -- kosboot (talk) 00:08, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I am very sorry to see this happen too. The exit interview idea is definitely a good idea. I think some of the most zealous style-over-substance supporters may well be long-term detractors of Misplaced Pages whose main aim is perhaps to destroy the long-term editor-base. There is a rational basis but there is also tradition involved and it is unfortunate that some otherwise valuable contributors have taken the side of the rational basis for down-casing without noticing that some of the main detractors are opposed to the fact that specialists contribute to Misplaced Pages. Apparently there is now a brigade that is up against all those, mainly the substantial authors of shipping related articles, who use "she" to refer to ships and want the style-guide to rule the use of "it". Northcote Parkinson, who was a maritime researcher himself, would surely have seen the reason for those walls of text - Parkinson's law of triviality Shyamal (talk) 02:14, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

For the record, I'm sure people have left for other than the downcasing issue.....Pvmoutside (talk) 15:35, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right Pvmoutside, but the fact remains that we've lost at least three solid editors (Sabine's Sunbird, Chuunen Baka and Natureguy1980) over this particular issue. And that's important. In too much of the Misplaced Pages universe, there is subtle (and not so subtle) harassment of content experts, most of whom have far more profitable (and far less stressful) things to do than edit Misplaced Pages! Push hard enough, and they will leave. And all of Misplaced Pages's many readers lose out as a result. MeegsC (talk) 18:47, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

What is the Atlantic gull?

Question as topic. I heard this name mentioned the other day. Anyone know? Is it another example of one of those subspecies that some consider to be a full species? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 13:32, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

From the Birdwatch Magazine website

Another potential good species from the Azores, and much publicised after claims of individuals in Britain and Ireland, is Atlantic Gull, the highly distinctive local form of Yellow-legged Gull. This insular taxon seems close to the ancestral ‘Yellow-leg’ and has diagnosable plumages at all ages, but particularly in its first-year and adult winter stages.

This larid exists in its strictest sense only on the Azores. However, forms intermediate in plumage detail appear to make up a stepped or clumped cline across the Canaries, Madeira, Morocco, Spain and Portugal, implying that a ‘clean’ split may be tricky. Regular or intermittent genetic introgression through hybridisation may also hinder true divergence in this form, and the DNA of the Portuguese lusitanicus appears to be intermediate between michahellis and atlantis.

Obvious features include dense head streaking in typical adult winter plumage, forming a discrete diffuse dark grey hood. Juveniles are closer to Lesser Black-backed Gull or even American Herring Gull in appearance, but all ages and plumages really need good images and notes describing a wide combination of features to clinch identification and exclude aberrant plumages of other large white-headed gull species. There have probably been at least 30 reports in Britain and Ireland so far, but none yet accepted.

A potential split, but not recognized yet. MeegsC (talk) 13:41, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. So this would be the subspecies Larus michahellis atlantis then? If so, I'll add a little bit about the Atlantic gull name to the Yellow-legged gull article... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 15:27, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Yep, that's the correct subspecies. MeegsC (talk) 18:50, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Cheers. Info added and redirect created. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 20:43, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Laughing chicken

I can't find any online sources for this bird, other than the one source already listed (which is far for reliable). Does this bird actually exist? Does anyone have any more reliable sources? Sotakeit (talk) 12:59, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

It might be worth asking User:DrChrissy. He's a chicken guy of some description, I think. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 15:53, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Some googling managed to work out this 'laughing chicken' is Ayam Ketawa. id:Ayam ketawa. The Indonesian language article seems to be much more detailed and would suggest it is real. I suggest using google translate to let you have some grasp of what the article says. There are also quite a few youtube videos of this breed floating around. JTdale 16:05, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Afraid I can not really help on this one. I have never heard of the Laughing chicken, but I am sure there are many breeds I have not heard of. I will chat with a poultry expert friend next time I see him.__DrChrissy (talk) 16:59, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Of interest

ANI of possible interest to members of this project: Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Undiscussed_page_moves_by_SMcCandlish. Montanabw 18:48, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Amazon parrots

Just to confirm - the 'Amazon' in the species names of these parrots refers to the Amazon rainforest, and thus as a proper noun, should always be capitalized, correct? I think that this is the case...

I see that User:Julia W has today moved a few of the Amazon species articles to lower-case 'a' titles per the recent decapitalization decision, e.g. Red-lored amazon. Should these be moved back? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 21:58, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I wondered this myself and therefore looked and found that other amazon articles had been moved. I figured that they knew better than me and therefore was okay to move more of them. My knowledge of English says that they should be lower-case but happy to be corrected. Julia\ 22:02, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Julia, thanks for the reply - I was just about to put a message on your talkpage. I think that saying Amazon parrot would be just like saying American robin, or Malagasy kestrel (under the new caps rules), assuming that I'm correct on the etymology... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 22:10, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Generally, Amazon is a proper noun and should be capitalized. Certainly when used in an adjective form (e.g. Amazon duck) it would be. But when used as a noun that may not be the case. For example, when referring to hummingbirds, the word inca is not capitalized (at least in sources which don't capitalize every word in species name). The best thing to do is to find a source which uses lowercase names, and follow their example. A quick scan of Google books shows that most sources capitalize (e.g. red-lored Amazon parrot). (Although at least one does not.) Pburka (talk) 22:14, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

As another data point, Merriam-Webster suggests that upper- or lower-case is acceptable:

often capitalized : any of a genus (Amazona) of tropical American parrots typically having green plumage marked with other bright colors

Pburka (talk) 22:32, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Interesting conundrum. I would have thought the derivation was removed enough from Amazon River that the geographical upper case was not compulsory. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:58, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

And then you have willie wagtail and jacky winter... what a can of nematodes... Maias (talk) 08:26, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

When I think of (A/a)mazon parrots, my immediate thought is 'parrots of the Amazon rainforest' (even though some of them aren't!). How should we resolve this? Pburka says that most sources he's found do specifically capitalize it. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 16:09, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

I propose we capitalize Amazon:

1. A very brief survey indicates that more sources capitalize it,
2. A major dictionary accepts capitalized Amazon as correct (but optional),
3. It is (in my judgement) least likely to surprise readers, whether or not they are experts in the field.

(As for the wagtail and winter, examine the sources and tell us what you find.)

Pburka (talk) 17:25, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

The only really relevant results for this question will be from those sources that capitalise as white-fronted Amazon and Willie wagtail. Anything capitalised White-fronted Amazon and Willie Wagtail would be disqualified. A preliminary search of Google Books indicates that willie wagtail is very acceptable. The origin of Jacky winter is obscure; at least one source says that jacky is merely a common affectionate term, like willie, and winter is just because it sings all winter long, unlike other birds. Jacky dragon has no issues with lower-casing jacky. Julia\ 17:59, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Strix omanensis

• According to ICZN a nomen dubium http://iczn.org/simpletaxonomy/term/631 --Melly42 (talk) 13:03, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Bird names in lower case

At Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Archive 156#Bird common name decapitalisation (WP:BIRDCON), the closing decision at 01:33, 1 May 2014, contains this statement.

• Thus, bird names in WP should follow the general rule for animal names, which I understand to be lower case except when the word would otherwise be capitalized in English.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:51, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

So what's your point? Are you saying it's OK to lose good editors because style is more important than content? McCandlish, the leader of the MoS battle group makes no bones about losing editors being a small price to pay. His battleground mentality is why he is the subject of a move ban discussion at WP:ANI, since he has just ridden roughshod over good editors' contributions. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:15, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

My point is that converting bird names to lower case has community support. Good editors who have left might have stayed if editors who disagreed with them had communicated more gently with them. Style and content are both important. If SMcCandlish has converted bird names to lower case in conformity with the aforementioned decision, how does that diminish the contributions of other editors?

—Wavelength (talk) 17:37, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Community support is sometimes mob rule. The contributions of experts who actually know about the topic should not be discouraged by the capitalization trolls who make a moral issue out of something that isn't, particularly when, in the real world, there are reasonably compelling arguments for both sentence case and title case capitalization of animal names. Consistency is usually a good thing, but as they say, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Montanabw 18:21, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Editors presented their arguments for and against the use of lower case in bird names, and the editor who closed the discussion presented a detailed list of considerations and how they were weighed in the final decision. There is no indication that that editor was influenced by antisocial factors.

Ideally, members of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Manual of Style have expertise in matters of writing style, members of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Birds have expertise in ornithology, and members of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Fishes have expertise in ichthyology. At User talk:Wavelength/Archive 3#Sparsely-spotted stingaree (September 2010), I posted this comment: "If the leading authorities on the study of sharks and rays, because of their expertise in that field, have found what they consider to be a valid reason for using the hyphen in this expression, then I might be persuaded to accept that reason as a basis for agreeing with their decision about hyphenation. Otherwise, or until I know of such a reason, I believe that they have simply made an error in the use of the English language, and that someone with expertise in the study of the English language (possibly a copy editor or a linguist) should kindly tell them of their error."

(If "blue heron" and its capitalized version are both ambiguous in their own ways, then ornithologists can make a decision to use "blue-heron" or "blueheron".)

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) said, in his essay "Self-Reliance": "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." (q:Ralph Waldo Emerson#Self-Reliance) However, 1 Corinthians 14:33 (New International Version) says: "For God is not a God of disorder but of peace--as in all the congregations of the Lord's people."

—Wavelength (talk) 19:36, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Just a reminder, that it appeared from the presentation of material in the discussion that not all experts used upper case. If they all had, I might have had to discuss it somewhat differently, because the general question of which to prefer is not a simple matter. This is not a conflict of expert use vs. non-expert use, but of divided use, both by experts and non-experts. The essence of my argument for the close that divided use could not form the basis for an exception to a general rule. DGG ( talk ) 04:37, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

@ DGG I'm not criticising you for your conduct of the closure, or the many GF editors who participated in the discussion (and the odd sockpuppet). The bitterness comes from the behaviour of the Mos warriors, particularly McC. Birds were targetted because we had a consistent policy that he didn't like (three consecutive common butterflies in one of my FAs had their articles capped, lc and binomial, but apparently that's not an MoS issue). McC doesn't actually move the pages to lc himself, he leaves that to his minions and moves on to his next target, always one with a consistent policy like horses and sheep breeds. The reason he's at ANI is that he didn't even bother with discussion with those articles, just imposed the MoS policies that he creates without discussion. His standard response when challenged is that my policies are right, I'll implement them how I choose, if you don't like it, fuck off. Which is exactly what contributors are doing. Even I have taken 2000 bird article off my watchlist because it seems pointless bothering about content Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:58, 12 July 2014 (UTC)