[Cz-biology] Article names

[John R Moffett]

Hello All,

This question has been beaten about for awhile. As a biologist, I thought
that the main heading should be the common name, with the full scientific
name next to it. Whoever gets first billing is less important to me, as long
as both are given.

Having the common name first might be more user friendly, because even as a
biologist, I couldn't have told you that the giant panda was Ailuropoda
melanoleuca. However, I could tell you that Lycopersicon esculentum was the
tomato plant, but that's just because I use a lectin from tomatoes in my
research. 

John M.

___________________________

-----Original Message-----
From: cz-biology-bounces at voltaire.citizendium.org
[mailto:cz-biology-bounces at voltaire.citizendium.org] On Behalf Of John
Stephenson
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 11:53 PM
To: Cz-biology at voltaire.citizendium.org
Subject: [Cz-biology] Article names

Hi,

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Biology_Workgroup#Tree-of-life_subgroup

I'm not a biologist or an editor, so this is just a layperson's query: 
is the Biology Workgroup really going to rename all animal articles with the
scientific names? I see 'Giant Panda' is now 'Ailuropoda melanoleuca (Giant
Panda)', for example. This is a bit of a mouthful, to say the least, and
means most readers will be coming in from a redirect.

I would ask you to reconsider this policy - on CZ we tend to use common
names, and it makes us look slightly out-of-touch to put a lot of Latin at
the top of an article. The scientific designation is, I suspect, of limited
interest to CZ's potential audience.

John.
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