Talk:Lion/Archive 5

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Archive 5?

Would it be possible to get the first 23 sections of this talk page archived? Unless anyone objects? I just found that the bot that started archiving here is no longer active. Who knows how to trigger its replacement, lowercase sigmabot III ?? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 07:01, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

It can also be done manually, until the bot works. FunkMonk (talk) 22:31, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

I manually archived only sections that had no discussions any more since summer 2018. The section now on top, 'FAR probably needed', is so long that I'm tempted to also archive this one. Any thoughts? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 09:04, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

It should not be archived, because the discussion over whether this should go to FAR is still active and relevant. I continue to have concerns over the stability of this article. --Laser brain (talk) 18:08, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

The actual species of the Gaetulian lion is lost to history. It is noted in Greek and Roman classic texts based on where it is was captured rather than a species classification. We might reasonably speculate it is the Barbary lion due to the range location near the Roman Empire, but there are no sources. I would say it is unrelated to the rest more of a literary history article. -- GreenC 23:50, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Alright, is it notable enough as a standalone or would it be best in a Cultural depictions of lions page? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:57, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Indeed lost to history. I have never seen a mention of this one in any modern publication on lion. So if it was only mentioned in classic texts, then it may make sense to shift the content in abbreviated form to the section 'cultural significance' of the lion mainpage, and delete Gaetulian lion? Shifting to 'Cultural depictions of lions' is also a good option. But is there a pic? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 00:10, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

A merge to the culture history article would create a weight problem, unless it was reduced to a sentence or two which is doable but loss of information. Possibly could copy the quotes to citations, Wiktionary, Wikiquote. Or some combo. -- GreenC 03:30, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

This option sounds fine with me, to reduce and export quotes. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 07:10, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

A page titled Lion taxonomy is still my favourite, with info only about the historic purported subspecies that were described, in a list, not a table, without pics or at most a few old ones, but just who described when and on which basis. This info can be shifted there from the pages on Barbary, West African, Central African, etc. pages; and also include info about phylogeographic studies that are now repeated over and over again in the individual pages, but are surely worth being referenced. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 00:39, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

American lion should be kept as a stand alone article, though the article itself needs updating to reflect it being currently treated as Panthera atrox, rather then Panthera leo atrox.--Kevmin § 03:41, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Agree with both: stand alone and update. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 09:16, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, agree about this - I was listing this more out of completeness really. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:03, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

As I have said elsewhere, I do not desire to have articles for every described subspecies, but to keep the articles only for the regional populations, aside from the main article and those on prehistoric forms, and I agree with BhagyaMani about Panthera leo leo and Panthera leo melanochaita being stubs with links to existing articles, or if necessary, shifting them to a new page under the heading 'taxonomy', and keeping that as perhaps a merger of Panthera leo leo and Panthera leo melanochaita, but as BhagyaMani said earlier, there is relevant material about lions that wouldn't fit under the heading 'Taxonomy' or 'Phylogeography', so for such material, I would prefer to keep it in the articles of the regional populations. Leo1pard (talk) 04:40, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Which populations would you have separate pages on? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:04, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

A few weeks ago, I had started to collate content from West African and Central African lion pages into one, namely under Panthera leo leo. But one or two editors disagreed, argueing that it's worthwhile to keep them separate, also because West African lion has been IUCN Red Listed differently than the species. Therefore, i also kept Southern African and East African lion separate, but only added ref'ed info there that is not in the mainspace page. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 13:35, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

I was probably one of those editors. The Asiatic and West African lions are distinct conservation units and have been studied as distinct populations and/or subspecies since at least the early 1800s. Most scientific sources on morphology, ecology and bahaviour will refer to these lions rather than the new subspecies that subsumed them. At least for now it seems easier to keep them as separate articles, as they could yet be recognised as subspecies. If once the taxonomy has settled down the northern lion subspecies retains recognition, I wouldn't be adverse to merging the articles, although not keeping an article on the Asiatic lion would seem strange. A good sign of some stability in the taxonomy would be a common name for the subspecies.

The division of the southern subspecies is not so straighforward as there are several competing hypothesis. The most strongly supported, iirc, is the southwestern, south-east and northeast division. Unfortunately, its not always clear which traditonal subspecies/populations belong to these genetic divisions. I suspect that if this had been clearer there would have been six subspecies recognised by the CatSG (based on what the authors write in their research papers). Because of the uncertainty, there might be a stronger case for one article on the southern subspecies to cover the populations recognised in different studies.   Jts1882 | talk  15:01, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Fully agree to also keep Asiatic lion page separate, as it contains sooo much valuable info that it would be herculian to try integrating this into lion mainpage. that way, will also be easier to update in future. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 15:09, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

As to Southern African and East African lion pages, I tend at present to also keep them separate, once because there is a host of publications out there that have not yet even been mentioned in these pages, and i expect more to come up in future, so that both will grow. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 15:18, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

• Seems like a slippery slope to have separate articles for something as diffuse and arbitrary as "populations". But it seems a similar problem has also just occurred with plains zebras, where traditional subspecies do not correlate to actual populations. Probably best with an article about lion taxonomy/subspecies where it can all be merged into, until the dust settles. There is probably not much unique to write about each subspecies other than their histories anyway. As for the American lion, it is hardly ever considered a subspecies of lion anymore, so it shouldn't be affected. FunkMonk (talk) 17:46, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Due to the opposition that existed against all of this being in only 2 articles, what I was thinking was that these should be the articles:

• As BhagyaMani said, not all of the relevant information on the current lions can be merged under that heading, but I am hoping at least that it should be a merger of what is in Panthera leo leo and Panthera leo melanochaita. Leo1pard (talk) 18:09, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

African lion (partly to include information that can't be easily accommodated in articles of the subpopulations of lions in Africa: Barbary lion, Cape lion, Central African lion, East African lion, West African lion, and Southern African lion, and to make it clear what the different clades are for example), Asiatic lion, and History of lions in Europe, aside from articles on prehistoric relatives like Panthera shawi and Panthera spelaea, and to keep relevant information about lions which doesn't fit under the heading "taxonomy" or "phylogeography"; there is far more to lions that has been studied than just taxonomy or phylogeography, or may be studied in the future to the extent that keeping them all in one place would be pointless, like BhagyaMani said. Leo1pard (talk) 18:09, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

(Only reordered sequence of replies to Cas Liber's question re separate pages chronologically. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 22:26, 15 October 2018 (UTC))

Not every lion related article should be merged, obviously. The issue seems to be mainly the subspecies, none of which have particularly long articles anyway. FunkMonk (talk) 22:33, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

I think a different approach has to be taken to existing articles on concepts that have been in the scientific literature since Darwin's day and articles on new subjects. The Asiatic lion has been a subject of scientific study for centuries and its status as subspecies or population of a subspecies doesn't change the notability. If the lion was a newly described species then the two subspecies approach would clearly be the preferred approach (assuming enough material for several articles). If we go for lumping then the articles on the Siberian tiger and Bengal tiger would have to go, too. These subspecies divisions should also be treated as provisional as the next taxonomic revision might be written by splitters. However, as you suggest, the shorter articles would probably benefit from some merging.   Jts1882 | talk  08:04, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Which ones do you consider the 'shorter' ones? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 08:19, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

I was talking generally rather than thinking of specific articles. I think a lot of the short ones have already been merged (e.g. Ugandan lion). The four under Panthera leo leo are all sufficiently long and clear on subject matter. Similarly the three under Panthera leo melanochaita seem of reasonable length, but I have sime misgivings over the split. Both the east and south african lion articles seem to overlap with the south/east African clade of Bertola et al (2016), although they follow the split of the same authors a year earlier and probably better reflect the historic literature of where regional studies took place. There isn't such a clear answer as for the northern subspecies.   Jts1882 | talk  08:58, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Aah ok, I see; yes indeed, most of the pages on the old subspecies have been merged. There are currently some 40+ pages with regional and localised lion names that redirect to the African lion page. Re the two pages on melanochaita populations: these foremost merged the former Kalahari / Transvaal lion pages and the various former ones about lions in East Africa, respectively; both with some new info. They are not intentionally written along the clade lines of Bertola et al. (2016) and previous authors, but much more oriented to lion conservation efforts in these regions. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 09:29, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

That merger history explains things and keeps text and sources more closely related. I think this arrangement is fine for now as conservation efforts are likely to drive future changes to the taxonomy. The quirk that you have some lions of the southwestern clade in Kruger National Park suggests that conservation is effecting the historical distribution of lions.   Jts1882 | talk  09:49, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Re the African lion page, I see the following issues that imo need to be addressed: 1) a large part of its content has been duplicated from the main lion page: the duplicate detector found 176 matching phrases, see dupdet results; 2) it contains 175 phrases duplicated from the West African lion page, see dupdet results; 3) and 221 duplicated from the Central African lion page, see dupdet results; 4) and 239 phrases duplicated from the Southern African lion page, see dupdet results; 5) and 226 phrases duplicated from the East African lion page, see dupdet results; 6) and 167 phrases duplicated from the Cape lion page, see dupdet results; 7) and 210 phrases duplicated from the Barbary lion page, see dupdet results; 8) the edit history indicates that none of the duplicated content has been WP:PATTed. Even if all the references used are deducted from the dupdet results, there is still a substantial amount of content that is already available in the main lion page and subpages. – BhagyaMani (talk) 14:04, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Much of the 'duplicate' stuff are actually details of references like that of Bertola et al. or commonly used words or phrases like "extinction" and "East and Southern Africa", otherwise, there are major differences between what is in that page and the other ones. Leo1pard (talk) 17:07, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Okay, what about northern lion and Panthera leo leo - these seem synonymous to me and should be merged. Furthermore, looking online, the evidence for this being a common name assigned to this subspecies is tenuous (although logical) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:19, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

For that, considering the size of Northern lion, I am thinking of leaving relevant material in other pages where it can fit, such as information on the past distribution of Asiatic lions in the article Asiatic lion. Leo1pard (talk) 16:39, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Northern lion has 13kb prose size. It could be tripled and not be a problem. I have no problem with Asiatic lion being separate, but that is not what I am asking. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:25, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

The pages on Barbary, Asiatic, West African and Central African lions are unique, because they provide specific info about these populations. Whereas the Northern and African lion pages do not contain unique info: most of the content has been copy-pasted from the former four pages, i.e. already available info is repeated there. So both can also be reduced to int links, without loosing anything !! -- BhagyaMani (talk) 08:36, 4 November 2018 (UTC) Additionally, content of East African and Southern African lion pages has also been duplicated in the African lion page, at least large parts. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 10:43, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

African lion does contain plenty of information that at least you wouldn't want to have on other pages, and I already mentioned that much of the 'duplicate' stuff are actually details of references like that of Bertola et al. or commonly used words or phrases like "extinction" and "East and Southern Africa", otherwise, there are major differences between what is in that page and the other ones, and I am thinking of changing Northern lion, but first this issue of you constantly ignoring discussions, like what you did recently ([1] [2]), to fit in your POV, which may occasionally ignore what is in WP:reliable sources, and trying to distract people from that, needs to be addressed. Leo1pard (talk) 07:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC); edited 07:32, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I might be a little late to this discussion, but my thoughts are as follows: Leave Panthera spelaea and Panthera atrox out of it. Those aren't commonly considered lion subspecies, and they are more relevant to paleontology than lion taxonomy. On the proliferation of subpages: keep Asiatic lion, it is a stable and well-done page about a topic of some notability. And not everyone agrees that the Asiatic lion is the same subspecies as African lions, rather than its own subspecies. Also, merge some of those pages into the appropriate subspecies article, those being P. l. leo and P. l. melanochaita. Cape lion might need to stay (it has some notability from what I can tell). Gaetulian lion is a historical/legendary creature; the info on that page is distinctly different from the more biology-focused subspecies & populations pages. As for the rest, merge into the two subspecies pages and note the mixed population on the main Lion page. The current variety of pages about lions is confusing, to say the least. And for editors: please peacefully resolve your issues with each other. I am not interested in edit warring, or in getting involved in a massive argument, but I am interested in keeping the myriad Felid-related articles organized and properly categorized.--SilverTiger12 (talk) 19:27, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Edit: I have gone in and added my two cents to the merge proposals and the deletion nomination. Again, please avoid long arguments and edits wars.--SilverTiger12 (talk) 13:59, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment: How many subpages?

Right, there has been some discussion at Talk:Panthera_leo_leo#Merge? and sections below it over what and how lion taxonomy is discussed on wikipedia. Right now we have:

• lion - a Featured Article (recently genetic research has reduced the subspecies from lots to just two)
  • Panthera leo leo - a stubby article that is in effect a disambiguation page to:
    • Barbary lion
    • West African lion
    • Central African lion
    • Asiatic lion
  • Panthera leo melanochaita - a stubby article that is in effect a disambiguation page to:
    • Cape lion
    • East African lion
    • Southern African lion

We also have:

• African lion
• Northern lion - synonymous with Panthera leo leo (???)

• History of lions in Europe
  • American lion
  • Sri Lanka lion
  • Gaetulian lion
  • Cultural depictions of lions

Note that we do not have a Taxonomy of lions or Lion conservation page.

Please, can as many folks as possible look over the pages involved and give opinions below onto which pages should be separate or upmerged or split or rearranged? Some options include moving all material into a Taxonomy of lions page, plus just the two subspecies. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:21, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

We also have Mixed lion populations. Template:Long line Punetor i Rregullt5 (talk) 18:16, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Another superfluous page, in view of the efforts to reduce the number of lion subpages!! Most of this page's content is anyway odd ends copy-pasted from the meanwhile redirected African lion page, unnecessarily revisited. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 08:10, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

In that page that you call superfluous page, we can redirect Central lion as that population is genetically mixed between leo and melanochaita. Also, the information in African lion doesn't exist anymore! Template:Long line Punetor i Rregullt5 (talk) 19:07, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

References

Discussions on Central African lion and Central African lion clade

Jts1882 Once again, BhagyaMani is showing disregard for discussions. For a long time now, there has been discussion regarding what BhagyaMani does, and it was repeatedly said in there that Central African lion clade should be an article, and Central African lion redirected to another larger article with WP:reliable sources that cover subjects like that population of lions, and this was agreed between us, particularly after BhagyaMani got into arguments with Punetor i Rregullt5, which I said could have been avoided if BhagyaMani didn't turn Central African lion back into an article. Then, after I did the agreed changes, partly to stop any more arguments on that, and talked to them about it here, BhagyaMani once again showed disregard for discussions, by turning Central African lion back into an article, and Central African lion clade back into a stub, accusing me of edit-warring, when in fact I was doing something that was agreed in a discussion, and these comments of his which have similarities ([3] [4] [5] [6]) show that he doesn't want to be corrected on anything that he does, even if he has made edits which show disregard for what is in reliable sources, and I see that he wants to distract people from issues that he's responsible for, by making claims here and there about certain things which ignore the issues at large, such as accusing me of an "edit war" after I made an agreed change which he knows has been discussed for a long time. Central African lion (which was meant about lions in Central Africa in general, not any specific clade in Central Africa) is not supposed to be an article, but Central African lion clade is supposed to be an article about the 'Central' clade defined by Bertola et al. in northern Central Africa and East Africa, and Casliber, I am not Punetor, otherwise certain disagreements that occurred between us shouldn't have happened. I only met Punetor this year, as far as I can remember. Leo1pard (talk) 06:29, 6 November 2018 (UTC); edited 07:39, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

It was not "preeatedly said" ther should be any of these articles. Genetic mixing can be best explained by a few lines in lion. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:08, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely agree that a few sentences in the main Lion page are sufficient!! -- BhagyaMani (talk) 17:09, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Right, the unique encyclopedic information of Mixed lion populations could surely be condensed to a few sentences at most and merged to lion Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:16, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support- that article just seems flat out of place and rather, well, odd. Like a dog among cats.--SilverTiger12 (talk) 01:33, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose, this is going out of hand, this cannot be explained in just a few lines, and we have enough discussions already, see my message. Leo1pard (talk) 05:50, 17 November 2018 (UTC); edited 06:01, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

yes it can be explained. Much of the information in the Mixed lion populations is general and repeated elsewhere. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:30, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Is this information, which makes use of relevant sources, a few lines that can be repeated elsewhere?

In the 19th century, a number of subspecies were described for lions in Northeast Africa. For example, zoological specimens from Nubia and Somalia were described or proposed by zoologists under the trinomina Felis leo nubicus and Felis leo somaliensis. In later centuries, these trinomina were alternatively considered to be synonymous with the scientific names of the North and East African lions. A test done in 2012 on 15 lions at Addis Ababa Zoo and lions from 6 wild populations demonstrated that the captive lions were genetically different to wild lions in other parts of East Africa, but similar to wild lions from Cameroon and Chad. Among six samples from captive lions which were of Ethiopian origin, five samples clustered with other East African samples, but one clustered with Sahelian samples. ... Lions of northern Uganda have not been analysed genetically, and might belong to the Northern subspecies. In northern Uganda, lions are present in Kidepo Valley and Murchison Falls National Parks. The Central African lion is a population of lions in Central Africa that has been grouped under the northern subspecies (Panthera leo leo), but was also found to be related to the southern subspecies (Panthera leo melanochaita), depending on the subpopulation, and is fragmented into small and isolated groups since the 1950s. ... Its hair samples were collected for phylogenetic analysis by Barnett et al., and compared with tissue samples of lions from Gabon and the Republic of the Congo that were killed in the 20th century. Results indicate that this individual, besides extinct lions in Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of the Congo, is closely related to the ancestral lion population of the area, and that its DNA shows a typical Southern lion haplotype. It is considered possible that this lion dispersed to the area from Namibia or Botswana. A phylogeographical analysis conducted by Bertola et al. depicted a number of lions in places adjacent to East and Southern Africa as belonging to the southern group, with others in Central Africa belonging to the northern group. In particular, the northern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is adjacent to the East African country of Uganda, the Central African Republic and South Sudan, is believed to have both genetic groups.

Discussing information like this in any of the pre-existing discussions from the 6th of November has just made one more complicated, because of things like this, the pre-existing discussions haven't been solved, even though it is over a week since they were started, and they got more complicated as more people come in to say more things, which were not relevant to the discussions when they were created on the 6th of November. Before things get any more complicated, particularly in the discussions that were opened on the 6th of November, due to the haste in making discussions on articles that were not originally discussed there, based on the false premise that sorting things out would be simple, these new discussions on the genetically complicated lions must close, and the focus should now be on finishing what was initially under discussion. Leo1pard (talk) 15:25, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

To propose a redirect for a mixed population between leo and melanochaita in Panthera leo leo, it's like to say that 1+1=10 Template:Long line Punëtor i Rregullt5 ^{talk} 14:49, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

From what I can tell, the above paragraph of information could be condensed into a few concise sentences. In fact, as it is, it is far too technical in detail.--SilverTiger12 (talk) 19:17, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Agreed - Leo1pard the fact that you can't see that is troubling. Any information on subpsecies named can be elsewhere and the testing is in way too much detail. it needs to be summarised concisely. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:47, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Oppose, We create articles on Wikipedia, so different people who need information can read them, we shouldn't summarised a paragraph so detailed in few concise just because you want. People who read Wikipedia need much more informations than that paragraph that you want to summarise just with few sentence. Template:Long line Punëtor i Rregullt5 ^{talk} 05:49, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Comment, I would have wished that the initial discussions (Talk:Panthera leo melanochaita#Merger proposal and Talk:Northern lion#Merger proposal) from the 6th of November should have finished first, without attention drifting towards other articles, and though I warned ([7] [8]) that focusing on other articles would lead to complications, it was not heeded, and those discussions became focused on other articles that I wished should not be part of them, and new discussions have been opened up regarding them, so close to 2 weeks after those initial discussions started, they are not closed, and have become more complicated over time, with more people making more comments that were not initially relevant to the discussions, and mixing what was in the newer discussions with these older discussions. Leo1pard (talk) 07:55, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

It doesn't change the fact that >90% of the content of most of these articles is duplicated and unneccessary Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:11, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Comment : I appreciate that this merger discussion is about ALL lion subpages, thus addressing Cas Liber's initial question 'How many lion subpages?'. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 09:22, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

References