Flag for Taxon: Cricotopus sylvestris
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| benarmstrong | Cricotopus sylvestris |
the About page misleadingly indicates it's a european species, whereas BG says it's widespread in Europe and NA. https://bugguide.net/node/view/446939 |
Sep. 24, 2020 08:15:20 +0000 | maxkirsch |
edited range description on Wikipedia page, refreshed Wikipedia summary on iNat |
Comments
Sure. I'm aware it's on Wikipedia, but I'm equally aware some curators do fix Wikipedia pages. It's out of my comfort level to do so, as it takes work to find primary sources, etc. So should I not flag, and just add a comment on the Wikipedia page itself? It just seems that's not going to have the visibility to the audience that might actually be motivated to fix it, as a flag would.
I see your point, but I'm not sure this is the appropriate place to flag Wikipedia errors. If you think it's incorrect why not fix it?
I'm a fussy editor (and have ADHD which doesn't help) so, for example, a simple email that would take 2 minutes for one person might take me a half hour or more because I am loath to put something out there with typos or factual errors. So in this case, a brief break from work to check my iNat feed, spot a problem, and do the lowest effort thing (a quick flag) to try to get it attention would quite likely spin into a half hour or more of hyperfocused scouring the net to ensure I have everything right according to Wikipedia's standards ... Knowing this about myself, a couple of minutes vs. at minimum a half hour and quite possibly more? Nope. I'd rather do a low-effort flag (or some other action that you could recommend?) and let someone else deal with the rigor that Wikipedia's editorial standards demand than to do a half-assed edit myself.
Makes sense; I can sympathize with a lot of that. Which is why I didn't resolve the flag. :)
I think our community can do better, but am not sure what the best way forward is, so I've raised the visibility of the broken process as a comment on this forum thread: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/inaturalist-and-wikipedia/2680/58
all you had to do was ask me to unresolve it :) (or indeed Thomas could have easily unresolved it himself as a curator)
Hmm. OK, that fixes this particular flag but it doesn't give me a clear process going forward. Do I just keep flagging taxa with inaccurate Wikipedia pages and those should remain open until someone fixes it, or ... ?
That's why I took it to the forum, not to single out the actions of one particular curator, but to discuss with the community how to handle this in a way that is an accepted "best practice", as it is still unclear to me what the best practice is.
I think this is very appropriate for a forum discussion and would've recommended that if you hadn't already posted something. I personally don't really care either way.
ok. and btw, thanks for unresolving, thebeachcomber! further discussion can go into the forum thread.
There is a "Talk" page on every Wikipedia article. You can use that area to point out issues if you don't feel comfortable adding the content to the article itself. As well as WikiProjects, like WikiProject Plants, that have Talk pages where you can leave a note where many interested editors will find it. Also Wikipedia actually prefers secondary sources like BugGuide, not primary ones so that often makes it easier.
Ah, see. You've furnished one more reason I shouldn't be directly editing Wikipedia pages (yet?) ... ignorance of their editorial policy. :)
OK. I'll use Talk pages from now on, as that keeps curators from being needlessly bothered by something outside their scope of responsibilities, and a reliable enough way to eventually get a wiki editor's attention.
The about pages are imported from Wikipedia. You are more than welcome to change the Wikipedia page. Also, technically it doesn't say it's a European species, just that it's found in Europe. This could be true even if it was found in other places as well.