Talk:Outline of lichens

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Outline of lichens is a featured list, which means it has been identified as one of the best lists produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
October 29, 2023	Featured list candidate	Promoted

Outlines Low‑importance

	This article is an outline, a type of article that presents a list of articles or sub-topics related to its subject in a hierarchical form. For the standardized set of outlines on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines. Outlines are within the scope of WikiProject Outlines, a collaborative effort to improve outlines on Wikipedia. For guidance on building and maintaining outlines, see Wikipedia:Outlines.OutlinesWikipedia:WikiProject OutlinesTemplate:WikiProject OutlinesOutlines articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale.

Fungi: Lichens Low‑importance

	Fungi portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Fungi, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Fungi on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.FungiWikipedia:WikiProject FungiTemplate:WikiProject FungiFungi articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by the Lichen task force (assessed as High-importance).

Lists Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Lists, an attempt to structure and organize all list pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.ListsWikipedia:WikiProject ListsTemplate:WikiProject ListsList articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Section sizes

Section size for Outline of lichens (36 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	1,397	1,397
What type of thing is a lichen? markup removed; cannot link (help)	1,794	1,794
Nature of lichens	916	6,253
Morphology	3,378	3,378
Ecology	1,959	1,959
Types of lichens	23	40,280
Lichen lists	51	51
Lichen taxonomical classifications	1,226	35,147
Classes	527	527
Orders	1,846	1,846
Families	3,689	3,689
Genera	27,505	27,505
Species	354	354
Lichens, by growth form	2,110	2,110
Lichens, by substrate	1,749	1,749
Lichens, by region	337	1,200
Africa	117	117
Antarctica	59	59
Asia	79	79
Australia	97	97
Europe	80	80
North America	265	265
Oceania	50	50
Pacific	54	54
South America	62	62
Photobiont	542	542
Lichen metabolites	1,220	1,220
Study of lichens	950	950
Threats	635	635
Lichens in culture	726	2,235
Lichen organizations	1,061	1,509
Independent lichenological journals	448	448
See also	47	47
Citations	29	33,565
References	33,536	33,536
External links	531	531
Total	89,449	89,449

Gaps in the coverage

I have found outlines useful for identifying gaps in our coverage. For example there does not appear to be an article or redirect for ascolichen. I am not a specialist, but it sees that this is a search term that could be used, and a general search does not identify an obvious target, though a redirect with possibilities to somewhere in Lichen might be suitable.· · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 15:52, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Peter. That's one we should definitely add, so I've done so. MeegsC (talk) 20:26, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Lichen organisations

The final pages of the International Lichenological Newsletter (e.g. see recent issue here) contains a complete list of lichen organisations (and the journals/bulletins they publish); not sure how thorough this article should be in listing them. Esculenta (talk) 15:29, 8 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Heading phrased as a question

@MeegsC: Pinging you about the "What is a lichen?" heading. Per MOS:HEADINGS headings should not be phrased as a question. Does this perhaps not apply to outlines? —Alalch E. 19:57, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's an undocumented exception to the MOS:HEADINGS guideline. Standard practice for non-location outlines, is that most non-regional outlines' first subheading is a question of the form: "What type of thing is x?" That's for identifying the parent classifications that the topic belongs to, to help identify what it is. A dog is a canine which is a mammal which is an animal. Fluid dynamics is a branch of physics which is a branch of science. And so on.

We've experimented with non-question formats for that heading, and so far, we have not found a less awkward one than the question. Other headings that have been tried tend to leak, being broader in meaning, to overlap semantically with the lead section or other subsections.

In Outline of lichens, that heading somehow got reworded to become the very question that the lead is supposed to answer, an example of the leakage I just mentioned. But, the body of the section still answers the question "What type of thing is a lichen?, so, it still works.

If you browse the outlines, you'll find the question in most of them that are not regions (countries, provinces/states, counties, and cities). I hope this answer helps.

That the exception is not included in the Outlines guideline, is an oversight. Thanks for bringing attention to this. — The Transhumanist 21:26, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: For further information about headings in outlines, see Wikipedia:Outlines#Section headings in outlines.

That's a lot, that's a very helpful answer.—Alalch E. 21:34, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]