Talk:? Nycticebus linglom

? Nycticebus linglom has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
January 23, 2011	Good article nominee	Listed
February 25, 2021	Good article reassessment	Kept

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on January 26, 2011.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the fossil primate ? Nycticebus linglom is known from a single tooth, which is said to be the smallest known prosimian molar?

Current status: Good article

Explanation of the question mark

I think there should be an explanation of the question mark in the name, it is a strange addition for the layperson. Maybe there could also be a section on their use in species names on the question mark page? Cheers, Jack (talk) 16:41, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I added a little explanation to the lead; there is also something in the body. The problem is, though, that the authors of the species don't explicitly mention why they added a question mark (they just say the assignment to Nycticebus is less than certain), so I feel uncomfortable discussing it explicitly.

I think we need an article on open nomenclature (which this question mark is an example of); this is a good source. Ucucha 18:23, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unless you want to create the article, I'll create a brief stub citing this ref and leave a note on its talk page stating that the article could be expanded by further exploring the cited source. I'll check back here before posting the stub. – VisionHolder « talk » 18:40, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll want to work on the article, but likely not today. Feel free to create a stub for now, though. Ucucha 18:42, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Stub created. If you want, I think you can use a short footnote on the two articles that have ? in the title and link to the article. If you want to go for DYK, let me know and I'll work with you on it over the next 5 days. (I think DYK would be great because of its informational value.) In the meantime, though, I need to get back to helping out with Bornean Slow Loris and try to finish Slow loris conservation. – VisionHolder « talk » 19:26, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good. I'll try to find time to expand it. Species affinis probably needs to be merged in. I don't quite like the current wording of the lead of this article; I think there's too much discussion of the taxonomy, but can't think right away of a more concise wording that makes all the essential points. Ucucha 19:39, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the page name.

The question mark in the page's title, as well as in the animal's description, is not appropriate taxonomically. Just because this loris' genus is unknown doesn't mean that it should be referred to with a question mark. As far as I know, no other animal article does this, so there's no reason for this to be the exception.

Ddum5347 (talk) 20:41, 31 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, you are incorrect. This uses open nomenclature, and the ?Nycticebus format was used by the authors in their original paper, as clearly this taxon allocation to the tooth is regarded as highly inconclusive. I agree it's unusual, but your page move was reverted with good reason, I feel. It's fine to come here to ask about it, but please don't try this again without prior discussion. Please remember, as I asked your previously, to keep trying to use those edit summaries - and not just for the really major changes. Thanks. Nick Moyes (talk) 23:42, 31 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The link you showed is dead. And if it is highly inconclusive, then I think it should be changed to a different name altogether. Also, edit summaries are not required, but thanks for the tips

Ddum5347 (talk) 00:16, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oops. My typo. Now fixed. The one used in the article links to an infected site. I'll be changing it shortly. Nick Moyes (talk) 00:32, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just returning to add that, having read up a little further on open nomenclature for uncertain and invalidly published taxa, there could be a case for renaming the article back to an earlier redirect of Nycticebus? linglom to indicate the genus attribution is uncertain (but it seems a sp. nov. is being erected in that article, but of uncertain generic attribution) so I will withdraw my total opposition to a name change at this time, but suggest the matter is delved into more deeply, including looking at Matthews (1973) and the recommendations of Bengston (1988). I've been unable at this point to ascertain if the latter were actually adopted by the ICZN (see here), but, clearly, the question mark in taxonomic nomenclature has been widely accepted and used in similar circumstances, though where it most correctly goes within the name seems up for further investigation. Nick Moyes (talk) 01:24, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just saw this. There's a fair amount of variation in the literature about how exactly to spell names in open literature, so I simply followed the exact spelling used in the source. There's another example that I also wrote an article about, ?Oryzomys pliocaenicus, but there the sources don't use the space, so the article doesn't either. (Somebody moved that article to add the space for consistency with this one, but I just moved it back.) Special:PrefixIndex/? doesn't show any other articles with such a name, though there's a few redirects for dinosaurs. There are also no articles with names like "cf. Nycticebus linglom, another form of open nomenclature.

I suspect the spacing may just be because the authors wrote in French, and in French question marks get a space next to them. We could make an editorial decision in Wikipedia to not space the question mark, or to put it between the genus and species names, if we wanted to. For what it's worth, the only other mention in print of the species that I'm aware of spells it "?Nycticebus linglom" with no space. (Harrison, T. 2010. Later Tertiary Lorisiformes (Strepsirrhini, Primates). Pp. 333–349 in Werdelin, L. and Sanders, W.J. (eds.). Cenozoic Mammals of Africa. University of California Press, 1008 pp.) Ucucha (talk) 03:15, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]