User talk:Kingdon/Archive 1

Welcome

Although you've been here since late last year...

Welcome! Hello, Kingdon/Archive 1, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  Edgar181 12:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for nuking the non-notable

Thanks for getting rid of the non-notable World of Warcraft material on Small matter of programming. I'm usually too chicken to get rid of text which I don't see as belonging on Wikipedia, but I'm glad someone takes care of these things. Kingdon 02:53, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

No problem. If you're not sure what is notable, it's probably wise not to delete stuff - WP:BOLD does have its exceptions! :) I might add that my own idea of notability has been enhanced by the deletion of the article on a relatively major student computer society of which I am a member: we thought it was notable for what seemed like good reasons, but WP consensus disagreed because there weren't enough independent sources of information. It's very much tied in with verifiability. I suppose the confidence to get rid of NN stuff only comes with such experience. Hairy Dude 16:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Fabaceae

Good work, and thanks for the help. If you're unsure of any future corrections to articles post on the talk page first, or go to [[1]] and ask, or ask Mr. Darwin or Curtis Clark, me or any other plant person on their talk page. Welcome, we need more plant folks, especially editors who realize that the turgid taxonomic prose is not accessible to the average reader. We realize that, but are unfortunately left with a lot of clean-up due to extensive problems from one editor. Also, my prose is rather turgid, but generally gets cleaned up right away. KP Botany 00:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, we have had some serious moments of contention, however, most of us work well together most of the time. It's, as you know, a rapidly changing field in exciting times. :0 KP Botany 03:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Agave syrup

Hello, your addition of reliable, scientific sources (which nobody could find previously) to the Agave syrup article is extremely greatly appreciated. If you could find more in the future, that would be excellent. Badagnani 22:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, learn something new every day. I learned about Google Books a couple of weeks ago, and Scholar Google today. One of the important issues now is which species are used by the producing companies. Also, is this a highly processed product (i.e. involving chemical solvents) or a fairly natural one? And is it true that there are only three producing companies? I'm not sure the producers would disclose any of this, although there may be Mexican trade journals where they give their information (which may be incorrect propaganda which some editors have been trying to insert into the article lately). Badagnani 23:39, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Screw ups

I'll let you know if you screw up the minute I figure out what I'm doing. Don't hold your breath. KP Botany 19:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Kingdon, did you actually ever read Einstein's book on Relativity since you removed the text which I added. It was a direct quote from an authorized translation of his famous book; Einstein evidently wrote this book in German. By calling it dubious text, you actually insulted the great man himself. I added the text just to see what people would do with it.Steinhauer 16:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Podostemaceae

Thanks for assisting with this article. Yes, I guess I was feeling a bit bitter when I made that comment! I was encountering far too many unreferenced classifications and lists--of genera, or species, or cultivars--that provided no source information whatsoever, and were often riddled with spelling errors, invalid or ined. names, and synonyms. In some cases I improved them (primarily by adding references) but at some point it is simply too time-consuming to clean up other people's messes so rather than simply deleting them (which is generally my inclination) I have made snarky comments in hopes of drawing attention to some of the problems with such articles. Alas, in most cases the editors who had originally inserted that information never came back. MrDarwin 15:54, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I completely understand. I've felt like that sometimes too. Qwertzy2 (talk · contribs) is still active, although he/she doesn't seem to have gotten any better in terms of citing sources despite at least two requests on the user talk page. (The other thing I noticed was Caropsis verticillatoinundata, regarding putting a monospecific genus article at the genus name). Kingdon 16:14, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Toxicodendron striatum

Thanks for the copyedit. KP Botany 05:41, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Ocreae

Just typed "ocraea" in Commons ;-) Thanks for appreciating other's work, it's so rare in Wikipedia! Aelwyn 07:28, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for your gracious comments regarding my article on Short's goldenrod. The truth is, I don't know beans about plants, and I just wrote the article because this plant is nearly exclusive to Kentucky. But I'm glad I didn't mess it up too badly. I had to teach myself about nomenclature authorities and things on the fly. I hope someone who knows much more about it than I do will continue to expand the article, and maybe one day it will even be GA or FA worthy. Right now, I'll settle for the DYK recognition if I can get it. Acdixon 11:59, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Quote Formatting

I only changed what I saw because of the problem you mentioned. It looks just fine now. HHermans 17:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Eudicots

Removed wrong messages--NAHID 19:49, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Uh, to a talk page? I'm not sure why you had a problem with that comment being on the talk page. Kingdon 19:06, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I posted a note to this user's talk page to warn, him/her that this edit could be considered vandalism, and I reverted the edit in order to disagree with you. KP Botany 19:46, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry Kingdon and KP Botany, actually the problem with the VP buttons. Sometimes it took me another page from the page which is recently vandalizing by the anon.Thanks for notifying me.--NAHID 19:49, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Award

		Furry Beast of Death
		In appreciation for all of the small (but quality) edits that you make to Wikipedia, I present you with this Furry Beast of Death. Always keep it caged at all times, lest it escape and eat a small child. SU Linguist

Thanks. I try to repay the favor by saying nice things about other good work I see, like putting a note on the talk page of Acdixon (talk · contribs), the first author of Solidago shortii. Kingdon 01:07, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for improving Digital Object Identifier

Hello Kingdon. That was on my list to get to some day, and you just fixed it! EdJohnston 14:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

No problem. It kind of stuck out like a sore thumb, and looking at the talk page I saw I wasn't the only one with that reaction. Kingdon 14:20, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Wolfberry

File:Dre-tsher-ma.jpg

Hi, here's the page, which was scanned by some traditional medicine people at the Tibetan Astro-Medical Instute in Dharamsala for Trausti, who runs the Tibetan Language Student website, at his request (following my request for information about what the name of this plant is in the Tibetan language. The general opinion is that the berry is known and used in Tibetan medicine, but not very much in contrast to other more important indigenous herbs. It's available in herb shops in Lhasa, but is acknowledged by everyone as a primarily Chinese herb rather than an indigenous one. Not surprising because it's that way in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam as well.

I hadn't uploaded the page before because there's currently a difficulty on WP with using fair use photos such as this, as you probably know.

Badagnani 17:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Trausti's email

Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:02:50 -0800 From: "The Tibetan Language Student" <trausti@...> To: Wikipedia User:Badagnani Subject: Re: The Tibetan Language Student

It was good I had them send the scan because my contact person got one letter wrong in the first reply :)

I have attached the scan they sent. It shows a drawing of the plant from a Tibetan medical book. The Tibetan text below reads "pe-ri" (example number), then the number 366, and the name of the plant in Tibetan, with Chinese name (I think) in brackets and the scientific name below.

I'm also sending you an image of the correct spelling, hope you can replace the one that is already out on Wiki.

The correct name in Tibetan is still roughly pronounced "dre-tsher-ma",

the changed spelling does not change the pronunciation much. In Wylie this will be 'dre tsher ma (note that the comma at the start, needs to be there, it indicates the silent prefix). The Wylie system is a standard method to write Tibetan using Roman letters. This is what an Tibetan language academic would understand. One can often not get the spelling from the phonetic representation. There is no standard system for this, mainly because Tibetan is spoken in so many dialects that vary greatly. The pronunciation I'm giving you is based on the Lhasa dialect, but one would never get it correct without hearing it. Again, the "r" part is not a full blown r-sound, but more of a kind of scrolling sound, added to the "d" sound.

I'm not sure what the "dre" part is derived from. There are few options. This could come from the verb "dre-wa", which means "to get mixed" or "to get jumbled together". In old Tibetan this was also noun that had the meaning of "bring out of faint/unconsciousness", maybe the usage of

the plant is there in the name, I have no idea. "dre" is also a noun and then it means "ghost", so maybe the name of the plant is "Ghost Thorn".

These are just wild guesses, don't put that last part out on Wiki :)

Armed with the correct spelling, I was able to find this word in my dictionary. It's translated "wolf berry" in that dictionary. So this name is well know in the Tibetan language. But it would not be surprising if it's also known by the Chinese name. The Chinese language

has had big effect on the Tibetan language, now that Tibet has been occupied by the Chinese for almost 60 years. So if it's used by the Tibetans inside Tibet today, then I would call that slang or foreign influence, not the real name (dre-tsher-ma is way more cool name anyway

). But then the more known name today inside of Tibet, might be the

Chinese version. That person you mentioned might also use the Chinese name just because that's known, nobody would know what dre-tsher-ma is.

The book that this came from is in Tibetan only. The name is long and a very quick translation resulted in something like "Cleaning and Usage of Tibetan Medical Substances".

As far as I know, they do not use this berry at the institute in Dharamsala. I was told it was becase it only grows in China\Tibet. Therefore they do not have access to it. However, I think that if this berry was very important to them, then they would find ways to get it. The doctor said that in the past this berry was used in traditonal Tibean medicine. It would not have found it's way into the book (where the scan came from) if this was not of some use to the Tibetan doctors.

The website of the Tibetan Astro-Medical Instute is http://www.men-tsee-khang.org/

All the best,

Trausti

Ununoctium isotopes

The edit I made meant this. Ununoctium is the atom, while the neutron count is the isotopes. There cannot be three different atoms of the same electron configuration, unless they are different isotopes. '''Styrofoam1994''' 22:22, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

NTP Pool edit

The total numbers of NTP pool servers is shown on the NTP Pool home page in the box that says "Active Servers". It currently states 1425 servers. See http://www.pool.ntp.org/ Could you please fix your citations? --Mperry 15:44, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the problem is that we won't be able to go back in time to figure out what that box said in the past (we could try citing the wayback machine at archive.org but that's different from citing pool.ntp.org directly). The wayback machine has a snapshot dated Jul 14, 2007 which shows 989, so I think we can say that 1000 was passed sometime between then and 8 September. Perhaps a bunch joined after the publicity (there is past precedent for that). There also could be a lag between when 1000 was passed and when reporters wrote about it. It is bad form to have an article which just cites the web site of the entity being written about (see for example Wikipedia:Independent sources). Given Wikipedia:Recentism, we're not really trying to be up to the minute, so maybe we should just say "mid-2007"?

Aside from the question of the number, those articles should provide references for many of the other facts in the article. Kingdon 16:41, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

DC meetup #3

Interested in meeting-up with a bunch of your wiki-friends? Please take a quick look at Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 3 and give your input about the next meetup. Thank you.
This automated notice was delivered to you because you are on the Wikipedia:Meetup/DC/Invite. BrownBot 01:23, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Uber Geek

Hi, Not sure If I'm doing this right. Still new to Wikipedia. Thanks for your comments, I strongly feel that Uber Geek to so much different to Geek that is does indeed require it's own page. It's almost like putting Chimpanzee and Gorilla on the same page if you know what I mean. Also the opposite 'Athleek' is such a new term that I was hoping an independent wikipedia page would help in the terms growth. Athleek (talk) 03:33, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

APG II

See Haston, E.; Richardson, J. E.; Stevens, P. F.; Chase, M. W.; Harris, D. J. (2007). A linear sequence of Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II families. Taxon 56(1):7-12. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 05:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for telling me. I'll ref it in. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 05:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Hieracium, quotes, 3RR rule, etc

When I talked about both of you keeping in mind 3RR I wasn't saying you had violated 3RR, just that you were getting close especially on Hieracium laevigatum where you removed the quote, re-removed it, and removed it a third time. Can't remember whether there were any others I saw with that many reverts. Anyway, you are right to take things to talk pages and let's hope that we get a response from CarolSpears (I have in mind giving her a chance to read what is there before adding a lot more which is why I'm posting this here rather than on User_talk:CarolSpears). She has made many valuable contributions, so it would be a shame to get things all clogged up based on some fairly minor points. Kingdon (talk) 06:07, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed on all points. I'm just about to go apologize for doing that on that page. That was the only quote I was really insisting on getting rid of since it's 1) not related and 2) part of an IP's contribution to another Wikipedia article. It may have given Carol a bad example, though, as she's now brought the quote back to the top of Hieracium caespitosum and another one as well. Not to mention going around to all the articles and removing the WP:PLANTS banner. I hope I explained well enough why she shouldn't do that at Talk:Hieracium caespitosum but please do jump in if I misrepresented anything. I will refrain from reverting her edits on the mainspace for now. I don't feel like we've gotten a good explanation on why WP:LEAD should be ignored in these cases or why the unrelated quotes should remain. I have a feeling it might be, at least in part, a case of WP:OWN. I don't want to scare her off since, you're right, she has many good contributions, but she seems protective of the content of the articles she's created, so I thought I should let her know about that policy. Well, on to the apology on her talk page. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 15:13, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

My error - removed

My apologies, I posted on the wrong user talk. Removed, sorry, Vsmith (talk) 02:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Who is Joe Weber?

i dunno....it wasn't i who made that edit, it was user:204.213.77.142 (talk · contribs). cheers! --emerson7 03:23, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Question about citation/reference style(s)

In my recent history here, I have really had a lot of fun filling out every possible option that was available to me in the various citation templates -- perhaps too much fun even (recently I added some wiki syntax to the citations for an article and it increased that article by at least one kilobyte); it was an exercise in fun, not in my opinion about citation style. I mention that now because I am interested to know about how citations like this one work. The strengths and weaknesses or what is gained and what is lost. There is a quote contained in the reference/citation style, but it can only be seen in edit mode (I think). I am confused and I was unsuccessful when I attempted to reference that way. Thanks -- carol 05:53, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for your comments on St. Barnabas Church, Upper Marlboro, Maryland as part of the peer review process. Kind words are sometimes few and far between on Wikipedia. I'll work on the introduction. As I am biased, having contributed most of the article, would you mind doing an assessment on the quality scale? Cheers. Toddst1 (talk) 15:22, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. I'd be a bit more confident about the assessment if I were more active in either of the two given wikiprojects. Higher than "B" might make sense, but I'm a bit unclear about what isn't included but might be (more photos including old ones, more about how this parish relates to the larger church, whatever). Kingdon (talk) 18:24, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Again, thanks! Toddst1 (talk) 08:15, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Ukkusiksalik National Park

Thanks for taking the time to clean that up. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 16:06, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

pipes and redirects

Which is worse, a piped link or a link to a redirection page? -- carol (talk) 06:54, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

After some thought, I have seen a bot run through and change links to redirection pages into piped links. I am very curious to know if there is a preference for one over the other? -- carol (talk) 07:31, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Not familiar with the bot you mention (I'd be a bit surprised, actually, because Wikipedia:Redirects which lists some cases in which piping is wrong). I'm not sure exactly how to write Corolla (disambiguation), but the main point is to refer to petal not head (botany). Kingdon (talk) 16:57, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Here is a sticky wicket for you: big pipe problem!! -- carol (talk) 01:49, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Hesperidium

The picture-diagram is about fruit anatomy, which everybody agreed on its necesity as a separate article, which was created and is now avilable, and is including this diagram. The diagram as placed in hesperidium article influenced the readers that the article is about fruit anatomy, and it has been suggested that the article should be merged into fruit anatomy, peel (fruit), citrus and berry. if you want the article to stay in place, you should replace the diagram with another one or picture which expresses the meaning of hesperidium, and not the layers anatomy which is the same by all kinds of fruit. Thanks for understanding, mean while I'll let the picture in place. - CitricAsset (talk) 19:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

DC Meetup on May 17th

Your help is needed in planning Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 4! Any comments or suggestions you have are greatly appreciated. The Placebo Effect (talk) 19:22, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Plants named after people

Hey, thanks for contributing to my (silly?) new category, but is Cronquistianthus indeed named after a person? If so, could you note that in its article? Jbening (talk) 04:26, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Never mind--figured it out and made the change myself. Jbening (talk) 04:35, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I actually did read WP:OC before creating the category, and by my reading the examples given there are all clearly more over-the-top than PNAP is. My first thought was to create a list, which would I think be of interest to some people and which I may still do (including a blurb on who each plant was named after), but creating a category is a more modest way of accomplishing the same end. Jbening (talk) 15:26, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Plants and green algae

I'm not much of a plant person, and don't really know exactly what plants are defined as. I thought green algae said that some are plants and some are 'protists', though upon closer inspection it seems that they are rather 'variously defined', presumably meaning some consider them plants and some don't. Perhaps this should be reflected in the definition of the plant article (or removed from the green algae article, if all consider them to be plants).

By the way, the lead of that article is really poor. Should be a number one priority for the plants project, surely. Richard001 (talk) 07:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Updates to Patent of Toleration

FYI, I moved your August 2007 addition to Patent of Toleration to Edict of Turda. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 20:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Change in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)

Hello. As the person who has modified the guideline on piped links on the aforementioned page, I believe that it should be you the one who lodges the change at User talk:Tony1/Monthly updates of styleguide and policy changes, the new, centralised venue for registering changes in the Manual of Style so that they can be more easily followed by the editors. It is something I fear I could not do myself. Regards, Waltham, The Duke of 19:26, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

For coming to the Rosette (botany) talk page and for the caulescent addition, : ) Julia Rossi (talk) 09:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Please consider joining the working group for the WMF DC Chapter

Please consider joining the working group for the WMF DC chapter. Since we have a very active and very community oriented DC/MD/VA area group of Wikipedians, it only makes sense to develop it as a chapter, especially given the recent changes to the Board of Trustees structure, giving chapters more of a vote. Hopefully we will be either the first or the second officially recognized US Chapter (WMF Pennsylvania is pending as well), and hopefully our efforts will benefit WMF Penn as well. Remember, it's a working group, and this is a wiki, so feel free to offer changes, make bold changes to the group, and discuss on the talk page! I hope to see you there, as well as Wikimeetup DC 4 if you're attending. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 16:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Great Thanks

You previously sent me a welcome note. I appreciate it and I enjoy wikipedia so much! I enjoy making sequence galleries in the articles. Thanks for the advice! Again, thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by ZooFari (talk • contribs) 21:59, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome

Thanks for the welcome Kingdon. This editing process is a little intimidating and it's nice to hear from someone. Confusedlittlepanda (talk) 19:47, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions

I thought and thought about how to respond to the RfQ. At this point, I have no idea if my Right for Question was over-thought or under-thought (or, more clearly did I think about it too much or too little for this RfQ which I don't really understand and have never had to compose a question for before).

I tried to come up with a question which would be interpreted as either defensive nor aggressive and one that shared my problems with facts and the relaying of them here. Perhaps you could assist me to refine my question?

I totally agree that I have no idea what is expected of me there.

Thank you for your consideration in this abbreviated thing I am in there (there being at the RfQ).... -- carol (talk) 07:08, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

My aim is to stay out of this. I've stopped watching the RfC page (at least for now). One of the people who volunteered to mentor might be more willing to advise. Kingdon (talk) 18:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Dendrosenecio

For large and complex families (like the Asteraceae), I would argue that the genus taxobox should retain the subfamilial rank. This would also apply to grasses, palms, and legumes. For those ranks above the family, I would certainly agree with you: the primary ranks are the important ones.¹ We really ought to develop a written policy where this is all spelled out, so that we can be consistent, I suppose. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:02, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

¹ Although including the subclass for moss taxa might be a good idea, since 95% of all mosses are in a single class.

Yeah, I wasn't sure about the subfamily. My reasoning was that tribes in the Asteraceae are better-settled than subfamilies. But I don't really object to the subfamilies (as long as they are based on something fairly recent like Panero&Funk or newer). Kingdon (talk) 20:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Legumes are a different case; definitely need the subfamily there, and I'm not sure whether I'd include a tribe (haven't read enough papers to know). Even though Caesalpinioideae is going to get broken apart before long, we're still better off mentioning a subfamily than not. Kingdon (talk) 20:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you think it would be worth the effort to formalize guidelines for including "minor" ranks in plant taxoboxes? (Subject, of course, to individual modifications based on common sense.) I envision a set of overall guiding principles, with a list of group-specific guidelines following. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The overall guiding principles are at Wikipedia:Taxobox_usage, specifically the paragraph:

Taxoboxes should include all major ranks above the taxon described in the article, plus minor ranks that are important to understanding the classification of the taxon described in the article, or which are discussed in the article. Other minor ranks should be omitted.

If this is lacking, I'd try to improve it for the whole WP:TOL, not just plants. As for specifics, I suppose I could see codifying something like the tribe/subfamily discussions above (with reference to specific plant families), but I guess I'm a bit wary in light of Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep. I don't know, no strong reaction pro or con, really. Kingdon (talk) 21:07, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

re Accessions

I intend to rewrite that sentence, unless someone beats me to it; it appears to claim that the genus has only been collected 40 times. Sample or specimen would be a suitable substitute for accession.

(I think that the whole evolution and adaption section needs rewriting; even if there's no factual errors or copyvios buried in there, it suffers from overwriting (and my fixes to the rest of the article haven't helped in respect to that section), which is why I haven't dealt with that particular section yet.) Lavateraguy (talk) 13:35, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed with all of that (the tone makes it look like a copyvio, but perhaps it is just a wikipedia contributor imitating dense scientific prose or paraphrasing a paper). Thanks for all you have done so far on this article. Kingdon (talk) 13:46, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Piperales

This is why it's good to have more than one pair of eyes doing the editing. Thanks! --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:54, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

No problem. At first I was worried that there was something controversial going on, but when I noticed that you only did it on that one page, I figured it was just a mistake. Kingdon (talk) 00:59, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Regarding an edit

Concerning [[2]] edit. Is there a way to better indicate Margaret's qualification to provide such a list? I know she is, but the way it's worded in the article she just seems to be "some person out there" keeping lists. And I probably haven't worded this correctly either. -- Nashville Monkey 06:49, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure focusing on her, rather than the plants or the list, is really best. I just thought it seemed kind of awkward to have an external link in the middle of the text with little explanation. What we would often do is put the information in wikipedia itself (often combining information from different sources), as in List of basil cultivars, but it is a lot of work to create and maintain such a list so I'm not sure that is the right solution here. The other issue with a list like this, which is on a personal webpage, is whether it is likely to remain at that URL for a long time, although we don't really need to worry about that until/unless it goes dead (see Wikipedia:Dead external links). There are generic formatting/citing/linking policies at WP:EXT and WP:RS. Kingdon (talk) 14:11, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Wilderness Diarrhea

I am currently soliciting comment on this page from people who have previously participated. So if you're so inclined, and have time, please compare current page with a proposed rewrite now on my personal page and comment on the article's talk page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Calamitybrook (talk • contribs) 20:21, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't really have the time/interest to spend a lot of time on this article, but both the current version and your proposal are a significant improvement over what the article was like when last I looked at it. You are right that we should focus on facts, rather than on who said what, although I didn't look carefully enough at the two versions to offer specific feedback on wording. Kingdon (talk) 22:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Discussion about the next DC Meetup

Greetings! You are receiving this message because you said you wanted to be reminded about future DC meetups on Wikipedia:Meetup/DC_4. We are planning the next DC meetup in late August/early September at Wikipedia:Meetup/DC_5, and would love to have your input. Staeiou (talk) 15:21, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Eupatorium linearifolium

Plants treated here as Eupatorium linearifolium were long treated under the name E. cuneifolium; the latter name was superfluous when published (K. N. Gandhi and R. D. Thomas 1991). Because there appears to be a continuous range of variation between diploids that were referred to by V. I. Sullivan (1972) as E. cuneifolium and the series of putative hybrids (with E. hyssopifolium suggested as the other parent) that she called E. linearifolium, these are combined here. The tendency for the plants to branch at or near the bases is distinctive within Eupatorium.[3]

Eupatorium semiserratum has been included within E. glaucescens (E. cuneifolium); it is distinguished by its consistently smaller heads and stems that branch only within the capitulescences. It differs from the similar and sometimes sympatric E. lancifolium by its smaller heads, leaves 3-nerved distal to bases (rather than at bases), as well as preference for wetter habitats. It has been proposed that E. rotundifolium var. scabridum (E. pubescens) represents hybrids between E. semiserratum and E. rotundifolium; it also apparently hybridizes with E. hyssopifolium. from [4]

What do you make of the two sections above in regard to E. cunneifolium plants divided up into the two respected specie? Hardyplants (talk) 18:32, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

The citation on the latter one had the wrong title, which threw me off the trail a bit. The other thing is that the sentence from [5] was a bit hard to parse, in the way that it compared recognized species with a nonrecognized name. I've tried a re-word, but I suspect that the real problem here is that the facts are rather complicated and probably not fully known yet, not a wording problem as such. I'm still trying to work through the North American Eupatorium articles, but progress has been slow. Kingdon (talk) 20:42, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Amaranthus brownii

Hi. I just saw this and had a question for you. Hopefully, you can help me improve the article. In the edit summary, you wrote: "The sentence as worded didn't make it clear what the other 8 were..." Did you see the {{Ref_label|A|a|none}} in your diff? You can view the note here. Now, the problem I am having has to do with the information. Wagner & Herbst 1999 list six species, leaving out Amaranthus retroflexus and Amaranthus graecizans; Evenhuis & Eldredge 2004 state that they have identified nine, but do not list them. Since I cannot find the ninth species, my guess is that it has undergone taxonomic reclassification. I'm thinking about just going with what I can confirm immediately, such as Wagner. What do you think? Viriditas (talk) 14:20, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what text you are proposing with respect to [6]; I don't see a problem with the wording introduced by that change, but if you have further suggestions for improvement, go for it. As for the sources on introduced species, just listing the six which seem to be in common would make sense, perhaps with a "and, according to some sources, several others" or some such. I wouldn't lose any sleep over a source which says 9 and doesn't list them; there is nothing much you can do with that short of looking for other work, perhaps by the same author or whoever they cite, which may elaborate. Thanks for all the work you have done on a fine article. Kingdon (talk) 15:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but there's lots more to do! :) Viriditas (talk) 22:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

How do you feel about this: "It is one of nine species of Amaranthus in the Hawaiian archipelago, but the only native species of its genus." Viriditas (talk) 06:59, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Kingdon (talk) 14:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

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Template:Biota

In case you're not watching; this is let you know that I've replied to you at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 September 16#Template:Biota. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:28, 17 September 2008 (UTC)