Talk:Banffiidae

Spelling of family name

Caron in the original paper spelt the name "Banffiidae", i.e. with two i's. This is correct according to Article 29 of the ICZN, in particular Articles 29.1 to 29.3. The type genus is Banffia, the stem of which is "Banffi-", to which is added "-idae" to give "Banffiidae", exactly in the way in which the example in the Code uses the genus name Reduvius to give the family name Reduviidae. Sources that use the spelling "Banffidae" are in error.

This could be explained in the article if it's felt to be necessary. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:38, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead I actually first set it up in Vetulicolia#Classification that way (probably in an unpublished draft), but most sources including Aldridge et al. 2007 "The Systematics and Phylogenetic Relationships of Vetulicolians", which is kind of the fundamental document for te group, as well as Li et al. 2018 "The enigmatic metazoan Yuyuanozoon magnificissimi from the early Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, Yunnan Province, South China", which is the more recent complete phylogeny, spell it Banffidae so I changed it to that. Same with Kummig, Liebach, and Lieberman 2020 "First occurrence of the problematic vetulicolian Skeemella clavula in the Cambrian Marjum Formation of Utah, USA"; in fact. The only use of Banffiidae I can find is in Conway Morris, Halgedahl, Selden, and Jarrard 2015 "Rare primitive deuterostomes from the Cambrian (Series 3) of Utah". I'm kind of impressed that PBDB has it correctly.

TBH it always bothered me- I was pretty sure Banffiidae was the correct form. Which I think would make "banffiid" rather than "banffid" the descriptor? Which I see you've already fixed :-)

I see you noted the discrepancy in the text. I think that's sufficient, no need to get into the grammar rules on this page.

Ixat totep (talk) 16:34, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Given that Caron published "Banffi-idae", why not "Banffi-ozoa" rather than "Banff-ozoa". However, the ICZN doesn't apply above families, so class names can be formed in any way. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:02, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Preference against of names of scientists

@Peter coxhead I've taken Caron's name out of the sentence you added and just noted the paper and its date.¹ I prefer not to have names in the text (except when referencing a paper by author, which I try to minimize as well), but I'm not trying to start an edit war so here are my reasons:

• Most people can't include names without it turning into a narrative about the people- that is not a problem with your edit, but it was a big part of why the Vetulicolia page was such a mess. The whole taxonomy section was "person A said this, and person B said that, and then person A replied and person C said..." which obscured the science and also made it impossible to just tweak- I had to research and rewrite it entirely.
• Ooedigera is the only WP:GOODARTICLE among the vetulicolian pages, and it doesn't mention a single scientist name. This is the one page I haven't created or substantially modified, and I think it should be the guide to polishing all of the stuff I've added.²
• I've gone through every vetulicolian page and (I think) removed all of this sort of thing, so this now really sticks out.

If there's some other style guide that contradicts this I'm happy to have it changed back, but I figure the Ooedigera article is the best objective style precedent.

¹ The date of that paper actually a bafflingly complicated question (see Banffozoa#Preference for Banffozoa over Heteromorphida), as it the publisher gives it a June 2005 date (under "Information") for issue with a formal date of "2006 (for 2005)", something I have never seen before. I adjusted the phrasing slightly for this ("dated" instead of "published in"). I've seen papers cite it as both 2005 and 2006, and Semantic Scholar uses the 2005 date. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

² Once I get the Vetulicolida page up later this week I'll be done building out this area and ideally it would all get some polishing

Ixat totep (talk) 18:32, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

@Ixat totep: you and I understand that the authority "Caron, 2006" in the taxobox means that Caron published the name in 2006 (where 'published' has to be according to the rules of the ICZN), but I don't think we should assume that every reader knows this, so I prefer to explicitly say in the taxonomy section who published the name. Also there are categories for "Taxa named by ...", and such statements support the use of the category. I don't think there's any policy though, so it's a matter of preference.

Re ¹, yes, the publication date is confusing. The PDF version of the paper has at the very top "Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences, 96, 95–111, 2006 (for 2005)". So I would say that the Caron paper is dated 2005 but was published in 2006. My understanding of the ICZN is that when the name was actually made public, i.e. published, is what matters for the purposes of priority. Looking at some later volumes, it's even more confusing, because the PDF versions have text like "2010 (for 2009)" but the HTML says "published online ... 2009". Peter coxhead (talk) 07:46, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead On the one hand I'm fine with having a place in the article where taxa are listed with that "Caron, 2006" in addition to the taxobox. That is what I did with every taxon in Vetulicolia#Classification. I'm fine with it there, because no one can turn a list into a narrative of who did what or give it a promotional tone.

On the other hand, when done in narrative I've just seen it go off the rails so often... if there were a clear convention for where that name always goes. vs putting other names in the text, then I'd support that. But isn't that what the taxobox authority credit is for? And those categories you mention which don't require the name to be in the main text? In fact, they are more searchable and browse-able than anything in the main text, and the taxobox is more immediately clear to anyone who has bothered to learn what it's for.

How much do we need to promote that information in text rather than relying on interested readers to learn how to read the information? I only started working with these pages recently and did not find it hard to figure out.

I suppose it's not a hill I particularly want to die on, I've just seen it done wrong and feel like the information is clear in its standard places (taxobox and "discovered by" templates). Also, people keep writing things like "by renowned paleontologist Whoever"... it's just so much easier to keep the tone neutral without names. Ixat totep (talk) 15:34, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead what about something like this:

Banffidae Caron 2006 and Banffozoa Caron 2006 were erected to in order to contain Banffia constricta in a redescription of that species, with Heteromorphus only mentioned as a possible home outside of Banffiidae for Banffia confusa.

Possibly with parens instead of small text, or whatever formatting makes the most sense. That's more like how such things are handled in papers. I am finding myself needing to discuss the difference between Vetulicolida Chen and Zhou 1997 (a class) and Vetulicolida Hou and Bergström 1997, (an order now renamed Vetulicolata Hou and Bergström 1997). This would seem to handle such a case without needing to say "Chen and Zhou did... and then Hou and Bergström did...".

Again, not a hill I care to die on, just trying out some ideas to see if we can find a consenus.

Ixat totep (talk) 19:21, 18 December 2024 (UTC) Ixat totep (talk) 19:21, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead To be clear, if you want to put the name back, feel free to do so. I have no intention of monitoring these pages closely enough to prevent people from doing that, and if the WP:GOODARTICLE status of Ooedigera isn't a sufficient indicator of preferred style then I'm not interested in dictating my own style. I've made my rationale clear but don't expect it to be treated like any sort of rule. Ixat totep (talk) 14:28, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

@Ixat totep: there's also a bit of a conflict between the rule that taxon authorities are put in small font to distinguish them from the taxon name (with the implicit view that for most readers they aren't important) and the general desire as per MOS:SMALL to avoid small text for accessibility reasons (as I get older, I have more and more sympathy for this!). When discussing homonyms, I agree that including the authority is often the most straightforward way to distinguish them, but in general, I do continue to think it better to avoid small font authorities in running text. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:24, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

to avoid small text for accessibility reasons (as I get older, I have more and more sympathy for this!)

You and me both!

That's an idea that I'm happy to drop, and thanks for pointing out the accessibility concerns. I think I did use it on Vetulicolida but I'll go fix it.

Ixat totep (talk) 15:28, 19 December 2024 (UTC)