Talk:Monarch butterfly

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 3 April 2019 and 7 June 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Byeology. Peer reviewers: Atrinh6.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:24, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

New reference

Please excuse the following reference in its 'raw' and without the correct 'wiki' mark up language that is required to include it in the article. The following reference is from a very reputable organization - Monarch Watch. The map that exists on the webpage: http://monarchwatch.org/tagmig/spmap.htm suggests that some monarchs migrate northwest from Mexico during the spring and actually end up in California. Discussion?

Life cycle math check

In the "Life cycle" section, the description of the egg includes this: "The eggs weigh less than 0.5 mg." In the larvae section is this: "Fifth-instar larvae increase in weight 2000 times from first instars" and this "weighs about 1.5 grams" The weight of 1.5 grams is 3000 times 0.5 mg, not 2000. Perhaps the 1st instar weight used to calculate the 2000 times was after some growth occurred? SlowJog (talk) 22:08, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Images (again)

It seems we get a recurring issue every now and then with pictures accumulating in the article that do not particularly add much to the article. It's been a little while since the last cleanup from the looks of it seeing what has accumulated. I've included the template as a warning to readers for now. Here was the last version I had that tried to remove at least some superfluous images.

From MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE When possible, find better images and improve captions instead of simply removing poor or inappropriate ones, especially on pages with few visuals. However, not every article needs images, and too many can be distracting.. WP:INDISCRIMINATE policy comes to mind, especially with Monarch_butterfly#Pictorial_life_cycle. Ideally, encyclopedic articles should cover key life stages, not try to document every nuance of development. It seems a little too tempting to throw any image into there without associated text to base it on, so my last edit above was an attempt to integrate some of the relevant images into the text. If you look at that subsection and the images on the right, many of those are directly redundant. On the right, there's also a few like two images of 5th instars and the one above of a 3rd that doesn't really show anything unique. Similar for some chrysalis images. The recent blanket reverts lately didn't help much in trying to fix some that either.

So what else can be done to help focus the article in terms of images? KoA (talk) 03:53, 30 September 2021 (UTC) I have removed redundant images and moved other images from text to gallery showing the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly. Images in a gallery are not distracive.

No known WP policy limits the number of images in a gallery. The selected images do not "document every nuance of development". They illustrate the most important phases in the butterfly's metamorphosis and live cycle. Corker1 (talk) 05:20, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

That just made it worse by throwing everything into the pictorial section, which I explicitly said was a problem by increasing the disconnect from the text. You were already made aware that edit would be an issue before you made it, so please undo it and work collaboratively on this talk page rather than continuing to make disputed edits without discussion. KoA (talk) 05:37, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

@KoA: @KoA: I have reverted my most recent edits to this article. Now it's your turn.

Please make the changes that you desire, including changes in the locations of images and in the text of image captions. Please do not remove images that are not redundant.

In my opinion, the images that I added served to illustrate the major stages in monarch's metamorphosis and life cycle. I consider that the number of images are not excessive when they do not interfere with the article's text. Images located in a gallery do not produce such interferences.

After you make your changes, please discuss them in this Talk page. Corker1 (talk) 07:43, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

First, remember that WP:ONUS applies for images you've been adding, and that isn't on me to justify their significance.

I already included a link to the core edits above. If you recall, you did revert those yourself, so you should be aware of what you need to address here already without me needing to repeat them again. KoA (talk) 14:17, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

@KoA: @KoA: I do not concur with your edits that deleted images that I placed in this article. I also do not concur with your recent addition of Template:Too many photos to this article.

We therefore at an impasse. To help achieve consensus, I have requested a third opinion. See Wikipedia:Third opinion:Active disagreements. Corker1 (talk) 21:49, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

The first part of that comment amounts to WP:JDLI in terms of consensus building. We don't need concurrence, we need consensus to include the images you added at a minimum per policy. You've completely glossed over the content issues to the point of WP:BLUDGEON or WP:IDHT and misrepresented myself at the 3O. Please keep in mind impasse does not mean keep edit warring in your content without gaining consensus. I already gave you the opportunity to remove those images even though I could have done so myself without exceeding 3RR, but you did not. Please slow down. KoA (talk) 02:01, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I'll provide a third opinion without recourse to the formal procedure; the present version (as of my typing this) seems perfectly fine to me, and does not have too many pictures, since most of them are in the "pictorial life cycle" section. An article has too many pictures when they cause the blocks of text to squeeze into strange shapes, or create large blank spaces, or when the photos extend well beyond the lower boundary of the text. So, I'd say this article looks just fine, especially by comparison to pages that really ARE overloaded with images. Dyanega (talk) 22:06, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

So the reason the too many picture template was posted was not simply because of the number. It was the number of redundant images coupled with overrelying on the pictorial section and not using images in the text very well. It's a multifaceted issue that gets to what you speak about. How many pictures do we need of adults on a flower? How many of larvae on different plants? Why not start to focus the images so they actually fit into text per WP:IMAGELOCATION as opposed to the current throw as many minute difference pictures as we can approach and the newer throw more in the pictorial section approach.

It actually is possible to get rid of the current pictorial section and integrate into the article where the images are more accessible and relevant. This started as an attempt to get that ball moving on improvement for effective image use, but that hasn't been able to coherently be discussed yet. This has been a commonly discussed issue since 2008 actually. I'm going to see if I can get things fixed up a bit later that hopefully in that regard. KoA (talk) 02:40, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

All images are presently located within their appropriate sections. No images substantially overlap into adjacent sections. Corker1 (talk) 05:38, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

They are not in their appropriate sections, and that response amounts to more of a strawman than anything misrepresenting what's going on. Part of the edit warring that wasn't undone was violating WP:IMAGELOCATION by throwing all the images into the pictorial section when we're supposed to try to work them into the text. That occurred here

That also ties into WP:GAMING. I asked you to undo the edit warred content, which you eventually did in these two edits, but then reinserted them again that same day in these two. I'll work on fixing that in a later update, but as others have mentioned, the intervening edits make it difficult to get back to the status quo now. This is making it extremely difficult for editors to work on this page and it needs to stop. KoA (talk) 23:11, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

• Comment There have been too many edits in the history for me to follow this without a headache. The 3O description is confusing, too, because it says that the editor who who added the too many images tag is also the editor who liked the version with all the photos. That's confusing. For what it's worth, I think the photo additions and the captions are good additions, and I see no version that has too many of them. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 22:51, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, the 3O posting was an inappropriate mischaracterization. Similarly, I'm also dealing with other issues on their talk page where they insist something like Change ordinances so herbicides, insecticides, or other chemicals used in the community are not harmful to pollinators. absolutely doesn't exist in this source, so confusion being interjected in is leading content discussion off course. KoA (talk) 02:01, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Response to comment by Pyrrho the Skeptic: Wikipedia:Third opinion:Active disagreements has been updated to clarify that section (See Update of 23:20, 30 September 2021 (UTC)). Corker1 (talk) 05:00, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Since Third Opinions have now been provided by both Dyanega and Pyrrho the Skeptic, the listing has been removed from the 3O request list. (Or, if you want to see it in another way, there are now more than exactly two editors involved in the dispute and it no longer qualifies for a Third Opinion.) If additional dispute resolution is desired or needed, consider DRN or RFP. — TransporterMan (TALK) 19:13, 1 October 2021 (UTC) (3O Volunteer)

Captions

@KoA: @KoA: Please stop reverting my edits to captions of images on Monarch Butterfly#Pictorial life cycle. In case you have not noticed, I have recently added to Monarch Butterfly#Larvae a citation to a definitive reference that has text, photographs and images of each instar in the caterpillar's life. (The section previously lacked any such reference and was therefore unreliable.) I added information that the reference supports and removed information that the reference lacks. I then changed the captions of the images of the caterpillars Monarch Butterfly#Pictorial life cycle to reflect the verifiable information that I had added to Monarch Butterfly#Larvae. (This was not WP:NOR, as my revised captions used only information in the cited reference.) When I was done, each image of a caterpillar in Monarch Butterfly#Pictorial life cycle had a caption that correctly identified the instar of the caterpillar. However, you then reverted all of my recent edits, thus changing Monarch Butterfly#Pictorial life cycle so that the images no longer identified the instars. Your reversions defeated the major purpose of Monarch Butterfly#Pictorial life cycle. The section no longer completely illustrates the life cycle, but instead provides irrelevant information about the plants on which various caterpillars of unknown instars are feeding. If you agree to stop reverting my edits, I will restore my captions and add an in-line citation to each that identifies the cited reference. However, I do not wish to engage in edit warring. I will therefore not make any changes to Monarch Butterfly#Pictorial life cycle without your agreement. Without your agreement, the section will then retain your captions, regardless of their lack of relevance to the section's title. Corker1 (talk) 01:18, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

First, I'm not sure what you're trying to do with the double ping. Only one is needed if you were going to ping me, but I already warned you to stop pinging me at all here since this page is on my watchlist. Continuing to do so is generally considered harassment.

WP:IMAGEOR is policy, and it specifically calls out that captions are not different than the text with respect to original research. While I can roughly identify instars as a WP:EXPERT editor, even I don't get the privilege of engaging in original research by determining that for Wikipedia content. The same would apply to all editors. Especially in terms of WP:NOTJOURNAL, we don't need to give detailed info on how to identify specific instars anyways, but unless an image is coming from a trusted source, we shouldn't be trying to call out instars as anonymous volunteer editors. If you tried to add citations that do not use those pictures as you suggest, that would be another WP:SYNTH violation. Even if I did that for you, it would still be OR.

Instead of demanding others not undo your edits, please slow down and look at why your edits are being reverted instead of insisting in plowing ahead. I'm not going to remove the images right now until I have the replacements ready, but for the time being, this is about as much as we can do with the pictures you want to include. That's just the limitation we have to deal with regardless of who reverted your edits. KoA (talk) 01:43, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Minor typo correction in the third "Vision" paragraph.

In the third paragraph in "Vision", I changed "This is may be because flowers..." to "This may be because flowers...". But I haven't studied whether the consensus of the reputable scientific community considers the matter uncertain or certain. If the later it should be changed again to "This is because flowers..." of course. Cheers. --H Bruce Campbell (talk) 07:15, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

The look slightly different in Australia

Here in Australia, as far as i can tell, the wings dont have anywhere near the amount of white and black as shown here. I will try to get some images and put them up. 120.153.220.134 (talk) 12:23, 6 January 2024 (UTC)