Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chinese bird spider

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. per the discussion at the bottom of the AfD Black Kite 00:16, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese bird spider[edit]

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The whole thing is confused taxonomic nonsense, and is really just a collection of dubious factoids. "Chinese bird spider is an English name given to several species of old-world tarantulas", "The Chinese bird spider is a fairly large specimen", "The Chinese bird spider is a rather aggressive species" - so it's several species, a specimen, and a species? There is already an article on the genus Haplopelma, which lists the species mentioned, so any mention of "Chinese Bird Spider" should probably go in there (in fact, it is mentioned in passing as a reference back to this article). The stuff about its venom is largely generic and pretty much applies to tarantula venom in general - there is an unsourced mention in Spiders having medically significant venom, and I think that is sufficient (if indeed true), though I'd suggest rewording that bit (I'll be happy to do it myself if it is agreed to delete this article). The unsourced claimed size of 8" is very likely nonsense (H schmidti is nowhere near that big. I'm not certain about the others, but most Haplopelma species grow to around 4.5" max leg span). None of the claims is supported by the cited references, which are mostly just links to photos of the several named species. Once the nonsense, and the ~~unsupported and~~ irrelevant claims, are removed, there's ~~nothing~~ not actually very much left. -- Boing! said Zebedee 08:52, 28 February 2010 (UTC) (modified 06:54, 1 March 2010 (UTC))[reply]

Additional: I should mention that I'm a tarantula enthusiast, and have kept a couple of Haplopelma species. I'd be happy to fix up the related articles and make stubs for the named species (and expand the stubs later when I've consulted references), and I think this one should be deleted and redirected to Haplopelma -- Boing! said Zebedee 09:00, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Agree with above comments. There's nothing either factually correct and/or substantiated in the article. Anything actually factual about it can go in the correct species article, when it's written §piderJon (talk) 11:14, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 22:05, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organisms-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 22:06, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep There are numerous references to the chinese bird spider in toxicology, exactly as this article says. If there is some confusion about the species concerned then we should assist our readers by listing them, just as this article does. Deletion would leave a hole in our coverage of this notable topic and so would violate our editing policy. Note also that there is no discussion at the article's talk page and so this seems to be a drive-by contrary to our deletion policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:22, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Yes, there are references to toxicology (eg [1]), but the only reliable ones I could find refer specifically to Selenocosmia huwena (alternative name for Haplopelpma schmidti), which is only one species that has attracted the name Chinese bird spider, and I think that material should be referenced from an article on that species (which I am writing), and probably also from the Haplopelma genus article - there are no citations to any reliable sources in Chinese bird spider, so we wouldn't actually be losing any if we delete. The toxicology is briefly mentioned in the Spiders having medically significant venom article - Chinese bird spider doesn't really say any more than that does, and it seems pointless to have what little information there is duplicated. And yes, there is confusion over species (the term almost certainly doesn't originate with just one species anyway), and I'm suggesting that should be covered by the genus article Haplopelma (which should also cross-reference the toxicology information). I suggest Haplopelma should have a section describing the use of the term Chinese bird spider (but with new content, not the content of this article, which seems to be little more than unreferenced hearsay), this article should be deleted, and Chinese bird spider should be redirected there - so there would be no hole. As I say, I'm happy to do that myself and have taken a userfied copy of this article in case there is anything that can be salvaged - but I obviously need to see if we have a consensus first (and if the consensus is to keep this as a separate article, I'll be happy to improve this article in situ instead). As for WP:BEFORE, that doesn't say I have to discuss it on the Talk page first, just that I have to check the Talk page, which I did. And I have researched this, both in my general life as a tarantula enthusiast, and specifically now for this AfD as part of my general review of Tarantula-related articles as I start on some serious rework and expansion of them - there's certainly nothing "drive-by" about it. Looking back on my comment above, I can see I wasn't clear, so I've modified it (see strikes). To clarify, I'm suggesting expanding the Haplopelma article (with well-written and referenced material, not the confused and misleading content of this article), and then deleting this and redirecting the page. I didn't propose it as a merge, as I thought that was really about merging existing content rather than expanding better content elsewhere, but if the result of this is that a merge proposal would be a more appropriate route, I'll be happy to go with that. Also, regarding the relevant species articles, I have stubs for them them in my sandbox and I'm creating them as we speak. So, let there be consensus... -- Boing! said Zebedee 06:54, 1 March 2010 (UTC) (updated 07:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC))[reply]

Additonal The new H. schmidti article I'm working on is here (It's a long way from complete yet, but I expect to work on it more over the next few days), and a stub for H. hainanum is here (I'll start on that one when H. schmidti is closer to completion) -- Boing! said Zebedee 10:28, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect Mappings between common names and binomial names/formal taxonomies are so problematic. Clearly the way it is now is very broken - you've outlined the imprecision wrt species/several species/etc. If "Chinese Bird Spider" refers to the entire Haplopelma genus, obviously we want only one article there, so a merge/redirect would be appropriate. Even if it is only used to refer to a few Haplopelma species, it still might make sense to redirect to Haplopelma and just make it clear in the article which it refers to. If it's really just Haplopelma schmidti then I guess redirect to Haplopelma for now and then change to Haplopelma schmidti when nom is done with that page. I definitely think chinese bird spider should at least be a redirect, though - don't delete this notable term completely. In any case, thanks for taking this on; it would be great to fix the errors on these pages and get everything sourced. ErikHaugen (talk) 01:50, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It does appear to be used for H. hainanum too (and possibly other, as-yet unclassified, species), so a redirect would need to be to Haplopelma - and thanks for your kind comments -- Boing! said Zebedee 06:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JForget 00:28, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect -- we don't need two WP articles, one with a taxonomic genus technical slant and one with a less-technical slant, and titled by one of the informal names for this set of spiders. N2e (talk) 04:00, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The subject stands alone, the given reference supports notability . Rirunmot 23:18, 7 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rirunmot (talk • contribs)
Either merge and redirect to an article on the relevant genus if the designation "Chinese bird spider" can refer to several species but all in the same genus, or else keep and improve. The binomial names Selenocosmia huwena and Ornithoctonus huwena, although possibly outdated, appear to be still fairly common and should also redirect to the proper article. By the way, several sources state that they are the same species as Haplopelma huwenum and not H. schmidti; I cannot evaluate that but thought I should mention it. --Lambiam 21:04, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

H. huwenum and H. schmidti were synonymised by Zhu & Zhang in 2008, so all four names are currently considered the same species. I'm coming to the opinion that a short version of the article should be kept, explaining the confusion and linking to the appropriate genus and species articles - something like a slightly longer than usual disambig page (I really will get some time this weekend to get some articles up to publishable standard). I also like the idea of creating all the species names as redirects. -- Boing! said Zebedee 21:21, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is common solution to this problem, see for example Leaf-tailed gecko. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:59, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes, good example - main link in this case would be Haplopelma genus (with an extra bit added), with extra links for the relevant species. I'd be happy to make to so. -- Boing! said Zebedee 23:39, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Make it so. Tim Vickers (talk) 04:12, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So I understand the nominator withdraws the nomination, so that this discussion can be speedy closed. --Lambiam 23:24, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I withdraw the delete nom - I'm now happy that it's better to keep and rework it as per suggestions here. Very useful discussion - thanks for everyone who'd contributed. -- Boing! said Zebedee 18:56, 14 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: All animals should be notable enough to have encyclopedia articles. Dew Kane (talk) 16:27, 14 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.