The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete.  Sandstein  15:37, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Syagrus atricolor[edit]

Syagrus atricolor (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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There is no such beetle of this Genus and species name. Syagrus is Genus of palm trees. Hmm. What is going on here? Shirt58 (talk) 13:59, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: This genus does exist http://insectoid.info/insecta/pterygota/neoptera/holometabola/coleoptera/polyphaga/cucujiformia/chrysomeloidea/chrysomelidae/eumolpinae/syagrus/ Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 19:00, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Doesn't this violate WP:NO#DICT? This is basically a dictionary entry with a redirect, apparently for no good reason. Is this particular species getting swamped with internet requests and in need of its own page with a redirect? If, for example, it is commonly confused with another species it might justify a one line entry with a redirect to some clarifying information. But the article gives no indication why it should be afforded special consideration in regard to Wiki's stated guidelines. A delete or merge seems the best solution. If you allow this for one species then you have millions more to deal with and for no good reason. So in the absence of any academic necessity it violates WP:NO#DICT in my newbie opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:445:8002:BC40:D881:6C8:35AC:EA7C (talk) 16:49, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Animal-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:17, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep Species are generally considered notable per WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES. As such, species very rarely appear at AfD and deletions are often snowclosed after several people cite SPECIESOUTCOMES related rationales. I haven't seen much discussion about the fuzzy edges of notability for species, and this really looks like an edge case. I haven't seen any species come to AfD with as poor an internet presence as this one. The only Google results for "Syagrus atricolor" are related to Wikipedia and Stefano Zoia's chyrosmelidae.it (which is the source cited in the article). Chrysomelidae.it has the disclaimer that it is "under construction and may contain unpublished data in relation to progress in my researches". From chrysomelidae.it, the original description of the species is apparently in Opuscula martialis which I can't view in detail. Nobody has really mentioned this species again since it was first described in 1940, though Stefano Zoia includes it in his work in progress. Given the absence of recent sources accepting the species, I'd guess Zoia will probably end up synonymizing it with another species, but without an explicit statement of synonymy, there's nowhere to redirect. If you dig deep enough into the taxonomic literature, there are thousands of species names that haven't been mentioned again since they were first described. Zoia is digging up some obscure stuff and the question remains whether an unchallenged original description satisfies the assumptions of SPECIESOUTCOMES as well as whether Zoia's work in progress necromancy of obscure names is a reliable source. Plantdrew (talk) 02:55, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• • Please let me offer, I believe that's a misapplication of WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES, and not in the spirit of its meaning. Notice that it says "Their names and at least a brief description must have been published in a reliable academic publication to be recognized as correct or valid." From that I wouldn't deduce that simply supplying such info in-and-of-itself justifies an article. What it says to me is, there must be species validation as the BASIS for any article. Is Wiki going to be a taxonomical dictionary for millions of species? (WikiSpecies already) Not trying to sound sarcastic, I'm really asking. Also, I would question the reliability of the source to begin with. Thanks. --J. M. Pearson (talk) 15:00, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep I'm generally one of those who point to WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES, and I don't see a problem with, eventually, having an article for every species ever recognized. However, just about any other case that has come up so far has had at least a few items of interest connected with the species; this one just seems randomly obscure (and as Plantdrew acutely notes above, may have surfaced from obscurity merely to be reclassified in the near future). As such it really is testing the boundaries of what is , after all, not a binding rule re notability. Rubbish computer, can you maybe comment on what prompted you to create the article in the first place?--Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:31, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Elmidae:, I assumed that a species would be notable enough in itself for an article. Thanks, Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 08:26, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• It's probably good that I'm not that bright, I can ask the dumb questions. If it's notable then why isn't that notable info in the article? It seems reasonable to assume any species would deserve its own article if sufficient information could justify it. If Maurice Pic described this beetle then do his sources provide any interesting or useful information about this species that could go on this page? If I thought I could help with it I would, but a cursory search found nothing to build from, no CC pics or previously written information on this species. If his works have been translated into English maybe they offer something. But in the absence of additional info on the article I don't understand why it exists. But I am new in here and accept I could be very wrong in my opinion.--J. M. Pearson (talk) 14:40, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@J. M. Pearson: That's not a dumb question. Pic's book "Opuscula Martialis" isn't available in full text on the internet, and isn't available in most libraries. Without access to it, there's nothing to write beyond the very limited information on Zoia's website. Pic's book hasn't been translated into English, I can guarantee. Even if the book were available, it's likely that it would provide very little useful additional information. Here's an example of the full description of another beetle species (Lema rufohumeralis) described by Pic in the 1940s:

L[ema] rufohumeralis n. sp. Sat latus, niger, elytris ad humeros transverse rufo notatis; thorace breve, paulo strangulato; elytris latis et brevibus, paulo impressis, minute lineato-punctatis. L. 5 m. Brésil - A placer près de excavata Pic.

The Latin could be translated, but it doesn't make a lot of sense without a knowing what the genus as a whole usually looks like; descriptions of species only need to provide information to distinguish them from the other members of the genus. "Colored black with red markings" is the only worthwhile thing I'd take out of the Latin description. The French bits provide slightly more useful information; it's from Brazil and is similar to Lema excavata. This is pretty typical of the level of detail provided in species descriptions for most of taxonomic history (say 1820-1970), and there's no reason to think that the description of Syagrus atricolor would be any more informative if we had access to it. SPECIESOUTCOMES says that the scientific description of a species provides notability, but I think there's an assumption that there will be some ongoing scientific coverage that builds on the bare minimum of information in the description. With the exception of Zoia's website, ongoing coverage for Syagrus atricolor is entirely nonexistent. Plantdrew (talk) 15:34, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• • • Right, thanks. Maybe I'm too new to be offering an opinion in the first place, I need to be more familiar with things in here before I go shootin' my mouth off. But let me say, there's already a WikiSpecies Directory, is this then the direction -pedia is meant to go? terse entries for every species, including this one with a dubious source? Hopefully I don't sound dumber than I feel, because I'm feeling quite dumb right now. I mean, am I at all making sense? or am I making a complete *&^ of myself? (stricken, don't like my own remark.)--J. M. Pearson (talk) 16:37, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• • • One has to wonder, if this is all it takes to satisfy the notability guidelines, a name with a dubious source, then why even have a guideline? Why not just say, "If you find a rock with a name on it, by all means, pin it up." Wouldn't it be better to stick it in a subfamily of the Leaf Beetle article with an asterisk? It can always be linked to credible material later if it can be found, as could any other species listed.--J. M. Pearson (talk) 20:07, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Nominator comment: A reasonable person might think that I seriously jumped the gun here by not first discussing this on the article's talk page, or first discussing this with the editor who started the article. Heck, I think that seriously I jumped the gun here by not first discussing this on the article's talk page, or first discussing this with the editor who started the article. (As for whether I am a reasonable person... well, if I was on Maury, I'd be quite worried that the DNA tests would prove that, in the matter of Syagrus atricolor, Shirt58... you... are... not a reasonable person!) Jokes aside, I haven't been able to find any mention of this species on the usual online reliable sources for entomology articles, such as this search of ITIS, and this search of GBIF. --Shirt58 (talk) 09:36, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't really call GBIF a reliable source. One of their goals is to include any string of characters that has been used to refer to an organism. That includes misspellings and unpublished provisional names from the labels of museum specimens. GBIF is a great resource for determining whether a particular string of characters exists, but isn't so good for determining which scientific name is correct for a given organism. Of course, this makes it all the more troubling that GBIF doesn't include Syagrus atricolor. Plantdrew (talk) 16:31, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Well, if this really is a Weak Keep because all species are notable, then it's the weakest imaginable, given that we barely know it's actually a species at all. But I guess it can become a redirect if Pic and co eventually decide it isn't one. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:51, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak delete. I'm all for WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES conclusions, and I've been known to bail terrible species sub-stubs out of AFD myself. However, in this case, it doesn't make the bar. Literally, without exaggeration, the only place this species has been listed in the published literature is in Pic's original description in the 1940 special issue of Opuscula martialis. That's made more problematic for the project's standards because Pic published the periodical in question; he described this (and a lot of other) beetles in his own journal. As noted above, a lot of Pic's descriptions are, um, sparse, and don't really serve to describe species sufficiently for modern taxonomy (bonus complication: a lot of these beetles are sexually dimorphic). Outside of that original publication (and Wikipedia mirrors), the only place poor Syagrus atricolor gets mentioned is at the cited website. But that's probably not an acceptable source for this for the project either. Stefano Zoia is unquestionably an expert in the field, but that website's listing of species is basically an online version of his in-progress research notes as he attempts a comprehensive revision of the relevant taxonomy; at this point, it's a self-published source. It's not even in super-low inclusion threshold databases like GBIF. If we had an article for Syargus (and we should), I'd have no problem including this on a list of species there (citing Pic), at least until someone publishes something—anything—clarifying the taxonomy. But we don't, and I don't think the available source-and-a-half clear the notability guidelines, WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES or no. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 15:46, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, Squeamish Ossifrage is right, this really is a terribly weak candidate. While we correctly have a presumption in favour of keeping species articles, there simply isn't a proper amount of information in the world about this possibly-a-taxon for it to have its own article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:30, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.