Talk:Mayfly

Example farm concerns

@Chiswick Chap and Nikkimaria: I have three issues with the {{examplefarm}} tag added and quickly removed (and just readded). First, the tag was applied to the "In human culture" section as a whole, not to the "As a spectacle" subsection specifically, so the issue might not have been in the latter. Second, even if it were, I reduced the three examples to this single sentence, which was reverted to the Iowa Wisconsin example which had been there prior. Third, "spectacle" is ambiguous; I'm not sure if it refers specifically to tourist attractions or just something worth witnessing. (Also, an unrelated template was removed, which I've restored.)

My initial goal was to include the nearly annual reports of the hatches around the North American Great Lakes which can be massive enough to interfere with daily life and tourism (mayflies and their carcasses crowding business entrances, clogging storm drains, covering vehicles, etc.), backed up by RSs; that's the origin of the streetlight example that I introduced. This is alluded to in the Ontario photo and at the beginning of the "Ecology" section, but isn't addressed directly, and now I'm not sure where it should go. I do think that it should go somewhere because I believe it to be notable. Mapsax (talk) 04:14, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

It was intended to apply to the whole section, including that subsection. I don't think "something worth witnessing" is specific enough to be a reasonable inclusion criterion for the section. I can't speak to whether there may be another section more appropriate for this content. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:18, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria and Mapsax:

Mapsax, you will appreciate that seeking to include yet more examples when the chapter has been tagged is at best difficult. On the masses of mayflies, I feel that the Hungary/Serbia example is sufficient; if we are to include the Wisconsin "slimy mess" as well, we are definitely both pushing against the too-many-examples tag and at risk of straying off the tourist-spectacle topic of the subsection. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:44, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

Nikkimaria, you can see I rather agree with the addition of yet more examples, so we are presumably mandated to remove or to do without the Mapsax additions.

On the bigger picture, the chapter has passed formal review, so multiple editors feel that what I'm sure you will agree are well-organised, clearly-themed sections ("In art", "In literature", "In fly fishing", "As food", etc). Too many examples? Well, let's analyse how many there are:

5.1 In art: 3

5.2 In literature: 8. This encompassed the theme "Brevity of life" which deserves to be a separate subsection. It happens to be probably the most important of all the Mayfly-in-culture themes, so we certainly should not delete it. I've accordingly WP:BOLDly made "Brevity of life" a separate subsection.

New 5.2 In literature: 5

New 5.3 Brevity of life: 3

5.4 In fly fishing: 3

5.5 As a spectacle: 2, including the "slimy mess" sub-theme.

5.6 As food: 3, from a single source.

5.7 As a name for ships and aircraft: 3

5.8 Other human uses: 4

Personally I don't find any of this excessive (barring the "slimy mess"), and nor did the FAC reviewers. Picking and choosing among them is at best difficult and at worst damaging, as it will simply weaken the article. You will see that the "examples" are in fact never numerous except in the "In literature" section. That section is exceptional in that it goes right back to Gilgamesh, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome, before very briefly touching on "moderns" like Gilbert White, George Crabbe's famous "Ephemera" poem", and Douglas Florian's brief life poem. The final paragraph also touches on the brief life theme.

I rather feel that the premise that the chapter contains "excessive or irrelevant examples" is simply mistaken. An "example farm" as the title of this thread names it is, I understand, an unstructured list of random accretions of the form

"And another fascinating fact about mayflies is that they blocked a road in Thingumyopolis in 2021.[91][92][93][94][95]"

With the possible exception of some recently added-and-removed material, the chapter is not like that. Instead, it briefly describes sharply-distinct themes as I've noted above, and cites the leading authorities in each case from Dürer to Crabbe to Isaak Walton to make each theme concrete. That is not "irrelevant", nor an "example farm", but a tightly-focussed analysis of a well-documented and diverse topic.

If you insist that the chapter is wrongly-constructed and the FAC was wrong in its judgement, then we can hive off the chapter as a new "Mayflies in human culture" article and leave just a brief summary here. I have done that on other topics, but I feel that would be a pity here as the rich diversity of the mayfly's roles in human culture would be lost to the article. If I understood a little more of what your concern actually is, we'd have a better basis for action. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:44, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

I definitely would not agree that "as a spectacle" is clearly themed, and I think the discussion demonstrates that - there is not clarity around what should be in that subsection, nor why the examples in that section are the ones that warrant being there. The latter I would consider also an issue with the rest of the section. For example, it is true that Crabbe included mayflies in his poetry, but is there sourcing suggesting that is more than a mere mention? Nikkimaria (talk) 23:50, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

I think both sides here have some point. On one hand, I'd like to remind that WP:EXAMPLECRUFT is an essay, not a guideline, a policy or a style guide. The template, on the other hand, links to MOS:LONGSEQ (which has to do with lists and tables, and as such it is not relevant here) and WP:UNDUE, which might be relevant but it is not clear how. As such I wouldn't give the tag too much weight; it's not even clear it comes out from consensus. This is not to wikilawyer, it's just to make it clear where we stand. Personally, I agree with @Chiswick Chap: that we're not dealing with example cruft, the information is pertinent and valuable, and it would be a loss, in most cases, to lose it. However the section, as it is, indeed reads more as a sequence of examples than as a series of articulated paragraphs. I believe it can be reworked to make everyone happier. First of all I would put human uses (e.g. as food or for fishing) in a separate section from e.g. artistic or literary mentions. I would also condense the art and literature sections in something more compact and coherent. If you allow, I can try to restructure along these lines and see if it works. --cyclopia^speak! 13:13, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

I've separated out 'Practical uses' from the 'In culture' chapter, restructured the art and literature sections, and reduced the number of instances discussed to the best and clearest. If the material wasn't much of an example farm before, it's still less of one now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:07, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, I think it looks much better now! cyclopia^speak! 14:33, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Do you think we can lose the "slimy mess" paragraph? Not sure it adds anything worth having to the article: the paragraph above it already celebrates the mass-of-insects spectacle. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:36, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

I have no opinion either way; I believe perhaps the two episodes can be condensed. cyclopia^speak! 20:44, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I've condensed all the examples; that led me to place the 'spectacle' into the Natural history section where it fits well (which answers Nikkimaria's comment above). I've also added sources and led in to each section, so the material is strongly thematic and contains no extravagant blockquotes. Given that this presents a radically sharper aspect than before, I've been so bold as to remove the tag. If there's anything else that's troubling people, just say so and I'll fix it (if possible). Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:27, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

Great work!! Thanks a lot again. cyclopia^speak! 10:00, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

Mayflies as disruptor

Now that some things have been settled, I want to expand on what I initially wrote. I found some news reports from the last ten years that articulate what I want to convey. It's not that I want to use all of these, or even any of these (or their HTML equivalents), as RSs, but I'd like to find a RS or two that summarizes them, and possibly mentions areas outside of the U.S. (or, if the Ontario photo is included, parts of North America). [Edited 2026-06-10 to mask bare URLs and provide titles, links unchanged]

• "Millions of mayflies make a mess in Port Clinton" (2024, WTVG)
• "Gross! Millions of mayflies captured on radar and with photos" (2019, WEWS)
• "Millions of mayflies hatching along Ohio's Lake Erie shoreline" (2021, WKYC)
• "Mayflies invade Vermilion" (2014, WJW)
• "Mayflies Invasion Leaving Massive Mess" (2017, WCCO)

(There's also the blatant OR of my experience as a Cedar Point Amusement Park employee in 1996, but I know that doesn't count)

Note that these were all found quickly by searching YouTube with "millions mayfly mess", so there might be other possibilites. The first three are about Port Clinton, Ohio, the fourth about nearby Vermilion, and the fifth is actually near the "slimy mess" location along the Mississippi in the just-deleted ref, three years later.

Again, just a summary discussing this seems appropriate to add, though not necessarily with the same title as this subsection. Mapsax (talk) 22:55, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for looking for sources. Unfortunately YouTube is not considered a Reliable Source by Wikipedia policy. We can possibly use news sources, in which case the challenge is to find a way of mentioning the mess without re-entering the listy mess state that the section was felt to be in before, which includes finding a place to put it. One option is to create a subsidiary article based on the extended content we had before, with extra sources and the new structure I'll have a quiet think about it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 23:56, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

NB: YouTube is a RS in this context because the video clips are all local TV news reports, but that's also why I mentioned the HTML/web browser equivalents. I wouldn't bother with mentioning non-RSs, other than my silly parenthetical.

I don't feel that a fork is necessary for any of this, new content or not, just a continued effort to summarize well. Mapsax (talk) 00:14, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

True, but that wouldn't stop other editors continually hassling this article about non-RS, however (with an implicit need to explain and argue every time anyone complains); and every bit of additional content makes the chapter more like a crufty list. I'll see if I can fit this thing in decently, but it won't be YouTube-based. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:10, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Right, I've added a sentence on the hatch of Hexagenia bilineata in the Upper Mississippi Valley, with a Washington Post ref. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:48, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, something like this is what I had in mind, thank you.

I can't help but think, though, that an element of cultural identity is missing, like being a harbinger of summer in said areas (perhaps it's already there in the Post article past the first paragraph, I don't have a subscription). There might be some media hype mixed in, but it still seems to me that more can be said, if minimally. Maybe I'm biased. Perhaps this would be more appropriate on the Hexagenia bilineata and/or Hexagenia limbata articles, though to some extent it already is, especially on the former. Of course, it probably wouldn't be verifiable, barring a scientific paper as a source(s), since the species name probably wouldn't be identified, only stated as "mayflies". (I assume that the latter species is the one in the Ohio videos, but I'm still not sure.) Mapsax (talk) 03:28, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

[Add] OK, I know that this is redundant, but how appropriate that this was broadcast even as this discussion was going on: "Fish flies are back along Lake St. Clair, experts say that's actually good news" (WXYZ) Well, they didn't call them "mayflies".... Mapsax (talk) 04:26, 12 June 2026 (UTC)