User talk:JonRichfield/Cobra

Jon,

I am thinking about the MOS suggestions regarding lead sentences of the lead paragraph, the one that says, "Don't say that something is a term for something, say the something is the something". Which is all very well and good until you come to something like "cobra". We can't say that "Cobras are poisonous hooded African and Asian snakes" because that doesn't include the lesser-known American cobra that has no hood and isn't an old world animal. Nor can we say "Cobras are poisonous snakes", because though true, so are many other snakes which are NOT cobras. We shouldn't start with "Cobra is a term applied to a number of different poisonous snakes, many of which have hoods", because it has that awful "is a term" part. How can we say this without falling down that hole? "Cobras are snakes"? Wow. That's a total dud. "Some kinds of snakes are cobras." Just as flat. "The cobras include many members of the Naja genus of snakes, all of which produce hoods, as well as a south american snake that only kind of makes a hood and an American snake that doesn't make a hood but ALL of them are poisonous though not all poisonous snakes are cobras." Genius! I should write for Britannica! Anyhow, this has been killing me for some time. How do we begin the lead with a sentence that states "cobras are..." or "A cobra is..." without going into "...is a term for..." or the like. Something to think about. I look forward to your own thoughts. KDS4444 (talk) 03:07, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

How about: Cobras comprise several species of poisonous snakes, including many of the elapid family and the only member of the colubrid family. They are widely characterized as being able to produce a flattened "hood" as part of a defense mechanism, though not all cobras produce such hoods (conversely, all hood-producing snakes are generally considered "cobras") and not all hood-producing snakes are considered "cobras". Though meanings vary, the "true" cobras include all of the approximately 20 members of the Naja genus of snakes while the cobras as a group include ten other species of elapid in six related genera and one colubrid.

...Which I am still not pleased with, but maybe it's getting better?

Ooooo, another thought, one on which I would like your opinion generally: I noticed that you created Wikilinks for each of the continents on which the cobra appears. The premise of such links is to provide the reader with easy access to the related article-- which perhaps the reader would like to also read. In this case, we are offering them the chance to read the article Africa... This is done in LOTS and lots of Wikipedia articles. But I wonder... Are readers actually going to read the article on cobras, come to the wikilink to "Africa" and say to themselves, "Oh, Africa... I wonder what that is about? I would like more information." My sense is that this actually never happens, and that editors (I am as guilty as the next person) simply create wikilinks to such topics out of habit, not because the readers need them or want them for linking to (I also suspect that many editors also use them for clarification within articles sort of like, "Oh, you mean that Africa" (not a good example) even though readers don't end up following them, which is not what they are intended for but which does serve a convenient purpose). I am a man who tends to believe that a lot of Wikipedia articles are overlinked, and I sometimes get the sense that adding links to words like "Africa" or "Southeast Asia" in biology articles is like adding links to the word "foot" and "leather" to the article on "shoes", as though the reader might not know what a "foot" was... If there were a particular African country or region that had any possibility of being unfamiliar, then I would say "Add a link!" But more often than not, we seem to get links to things we don't need to have explained. Anyhow, it is a minor point of style, and I don't expect to win you over with the above argument. But I did want your thoughts on it, because I catch myself doing it all the time and I am not sure it serves any point other than conforming to what it seems other editors do in other articles, which is the worst kind of reasoning sometimes (though not utterly pointless-- just as admitting that the cobra article should probably have a hooded cobra in the lead because people are going to expect that-- they are also going to expect wikilinks to Africa and Southeast Asia, so perhaps it's best we just add them in anyway). KDS4444 (talk) 07:41, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Turns out there is also am American cobra plant. We are so screwed. Can we just ignore that variant of the word's use? Please say, "Yes."

And is there any group or species of snake other than the hognose which can hood and is not a cobra? I am not finding any. KDS4444 (talk) 20:10, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Other articles as models

Jon,

I've been having a look at some other articles whose names have the same problem as "cobra". Here's what I've found:

• Eagle resorts to "...is a common name for..." There are "true eagles" and various other kinds.
• Whale also resorts to "...is a common name for..." and is considered a Good Article. There are no "true whales" vs. other kinds.
• Oyster goes even further and reads, "...is used as a common name for a number of different..." There are "true oysters", "pearl oysters", and "other kinds"
• Scallop takes a different tact: it begins by saying that scallops are pretty much all members of a particular family of molluscs (or rather that all members of the pectinidae are scallops), but that there are also some other families within the superfamily pectinoidea which are also considered scallops. The article then goes on to discuss only the pectinidae (this would be the equivalent of saying "most cobras belong to Naja. There are some exceptions, but let's talk about Naja"). There are "true scallops" (pectinidae, which the article is about) and "other scallops", but no "false scallops".
• Limpet goes with "...informally refers to..." and is a total mixup: lots of limpet-like gastropods are called "limpets", and the article never seems to make clear that the animal being described at any point belongs to this or that kind of limpet. There are "true limpets" and "false limpets".
• Widow spider redirects to the genus Latrodectus, and then goes on to explain that not all members of that genus are considered widow spiders; the Latrodectus group also includes the button spiders (with a separate article, despite the fact that they also include multiple species all within the genus Latrodectus-- I see a case for a merger there at some point by someone) and the redback spider, a particular Australian Latrodectus species not called a "widow spider." (Redback spider was once a featured article.) You yourself wrote on the talk page "The obsession with the "common name" rule for naming articles should not be permitted to extend past the cases where the common name is stable and matches the relevant taxa exactly" though what we have with "cobra" looks like it is just that kind of mess. There are "false" but no "true" black widows.
• Iguana is already a scientific genus (how nice for it!) though the article states that there are also several other lizards in the same family that are also called "iguanas" as part of their common names; there are no true iguanas (seems like there aught to be, given precedents, but no).
• Boa - First you have to get past the disambiguation page, but then you land at Boidae which is a family that apparently covers all of the boas. There are 43 species, of which 28 are considered "true" boas and the remainder are called boas by other adjectives ("Old world sand boas", "Madagascar boas", etc.) and are much smaller groups. For the pythons, Pythonidae, a similar situation exists: all pythons are apparently members of the discrete family, with only 8 genera.

Anyhow, just some thoughts. KDS4444 (talk) 23:48, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

@JonRichfield: Did I lose you?? I am thinking perhaps I lost you... In case I didn't, I keep getting the feeling that there is less and less we can really say about cobras as a group and have whatever is said apply to all members of that group. Even if we rationalize a way to exclude the American cobra and/ or the false water cobra from the discussion, we are still left with Naja, rinkhals, and the king cobra (among others) who are all elapids but have no closer overarching genetic relationship (and then, of course, not all elapids are cobras, which doesn't help either). KDS4444 (talk) 22:57, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

@KDS4444: Nossir, you did not lose me, but I am nearly out of circulation until mid November by reason of commitments. The good news is that there is a good deal to be said about "cobra" as common name, partly in mentioning close relatives such as rinkhals and king cobra that look like cobras and hood, the "American cobra" which is an elapid (a coral snake actually) and does not hood, and some not-so-related colubrids called cobras and that hood. You seem to have encountered much the same material, but a lot depends on its cross-implications, rather than its volume. As for the photos, I have a lot of what we need for Naja, but we still might like more on the other groups. I am badly frustrated in that a gorgeous local photo shows a cobra reared and hooded on calm water, but the author seems to have disappeared,so I have not been able to get copyright permission.
The article need not be long, but it also need not be obvious, such as having biological cladistic constraits, or otherwise lack interest. The functional value (and nuisance) of common names is not in their cladistic purity. If the article were to be a reflection of "naja" it would be a waste of time, but it also is a manifestation of the significance of common names and of convergence or divergence. I still am collecting material. If you can do the same than we shall be in a better position to look at the articles structure. I still have less material than I would like, dealing with the mechanism(s) of hooding for example, and the application of the name or of other names in other regions, but I am back-burnering collection operations, and if you run across either more material or more concepts occur to you, please do a bit of hoarding. See you! PS, your cllection of other articles with related common name problems suggests to me an important topic (apart from the current henwitted convention of making common names the default title of articles dealing with assorted taxa. I have to add to the common names article to cover such concepts as functionally valuable in proper context, but that too, must wait. JonRichfield (talk) 05:42, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Consider the bears

@JonRichfield: I am thinking (once again) about the problem of the outlier of the American cobra. Mostly I am thinking that the snake is 1.) almost never referred to that way by anyone anymore, and 2.) that species of snake is never referred to by anyone as a "cobra". If the word "cobra" gets used at all in reference to this snake, it is always preceded by the word "American"— because otherwise the reader would likely think the author meant one of the Indian or African species. If we accept this fact, then we do not need to include any discussion of the American cobra in the Cobra article, but can rather create a hatnote about it in the beginning and leave it at that (For the American cobra, see Micrurus fulvius). On the other hand, with no other context or qualification, the word "cobra" pretty much means one of the Indian or African snakes, and pretty much never means the American cobra (because if an author meant the reader to understand "American cobra", he/ she would write out "American cobra" and never say just "cobra" because "cobra" is not specific enough for the American variety.

The following is a stretch, but "bear" with me (oooo... pun). Consider the water bear. The article on Bears does not include the water bears! (how rude!). Because no one ever refers to a water bear as a "bear" because it isn't specific enough— one would always say "water bear" if one meant that kind of beast, whereas "bear" might mean any of the extant species of mammal. Just because the common name of an animal might, at first glance, seem to justify including it in the broader topic, the water bears and the other bears clearly do not belong together. I feel the same way about the American cobra and the other cobras, despite the shared identity as elapids: the American one has no hood, and the only thing it really has in common with the cobras is its venom. But lots of snakes have venom. The coral snake might just as easily have been called the "American asp" or "American viper" and still it would not really belong in the article on the asps nor the one on the vipers because it isn't in either group.

The question is, to what extent do you buy this argument??  :-) KDS4444 (talk) 07:42, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

(Also: likewise the Indian flying fox— a mammal, but hardly a fox, but still called a "fox", but never referred to with just the word "fox" because not specific enough, and not at all mentioned in the article on Fox.) KDS4444 (talk) 07:50, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

And then along came the black desert cobra, one not yet on the list; an elapid but not a member of Naja, it neither rears nor hoods before striking. KDS4444 (talk) 13:40, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

@KDS4444: Hi again; sorry for dropping out there for a while, but though life remains a bit fraught, I am now able to give "Cobra" something like serious attention. As for your question: "...question is, to what extent do you buy this argument..." yes, understood, but I think we should be able to make a worthwhile article of it, and I shall continue at User:JonRichfield/Cobra till further notice. It may be a couple of days before I next post anything, because at the moment it is all in fragments on my screen (and in my mind), so there is no point discussing it yet, and more items such as your black desert cobra pop up from time to time. Theupshot is that the article will be short, but coherent and helpful. Whether it is impressive enough for special article status is another matter of course, but useful is also good. JonRichfield (talk) 06:07, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

• @JonRichfield: I went ahead and replaced the cobra article with the version that existed on your subpage— it looked like I had lost you, and wanted to make sure something was done before I lost me too (too many pies, so few fingers to stick in them all). I think the current article now reads well, though it is shorter and I doubt would ever qualify for Featured Article status (due to its brevity). I look forward to seeing what changes you would like to see made to it now. Also, the article remains protected from IP users (thank God) who would otherwise vandalize it ad infinitum. Too popular a subject, I reckon, and too many elementary school children who want to "help" edit it somehow. KDS4444 (talk) 09:34, 16 November 2016 (UTC)