Talk:Regensburg Botanical Society

A fact from Regensburg Botanical Society appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 26 October 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Regensburg Botanical Society, founded on 14 May 1790, is the world's oldest extant botanical society?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2022/October. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Regensburg Botanical Society.

Wikipedia

Plants Low‑importance

	Plants portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Plants, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of plants and botany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PlantsWikipedia:WikiProject PlantsTemplate:WikiProject Plantsplant articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Fungi Low‑importance

	Fungi portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Fungi, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Fungi on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.FungiWikipedia:WikiProject FungiTemplate:WikiProject FungiFungi articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Academic Journals

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Academic Journals, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Academic Journals on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Academic JournalsWikipedia:WikiProject Academic JournalsTemplate:WikiProject Academic JournalsAcademic Journal articles
See WikiProject Academic Journals' writing guide for tips on how to improve this article.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by RoySmith (talk) 21:18, 23 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(

Comment or view
Article history

)

Plaque commemorating the founding of the Society.

... that the Regensburg Botanical Society, founded in 14 May 1790, is the oldest scientific society focused on botany that still exists? Source: In Wikipedia German page: http://www.regensburg.de/stadt-der-wissenschaft/lange-tradition-des-wissens Citizens initiated the Regensburg Botanical Society in 1790 – the oldest scientific society in the world still in existence today; also from Scholarly Societies Project - lists scholarly societies from 1323 onwards. See https://www.references.net/societies/history/ No earlier scholarly societies about botany still exist.
- ALT1: ... that the Regensburg Botanical Society was founded at the side of the river Danube in 1790? Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20140606230202/http://www.bibliothek.uni-regensburg.de/hoppe/gruendung.htm: Together with the two pharmacists he was friends with, Ernst Wilhelm Martius (1756 – 1849) and Johann August Stallknecht (1752 – 1797), David Heinrich Hoppe often went on botanical walks. During one of these hikes, on May 14, 1790, they stopped at a rock with a cave on the banks of the Danube not far from Regensburg. Hoppe read his friends an essay with statutes for a botanical association - the Regensburg Botanical Society was born. (https://web.archive.org/web/20140606230202/http://www.bibliothek.uni-regensburg.de/hoppe/gruendung.htm)
- Reviewed:

Created by MerielGJones (talk). Self-nominated at 20:31, 7 October 2022 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

Adequate sourcing: - The sourcing is broadly good but there are a few minor issues that need to be fixed. The URL for source 1 seems to redirect to [1], while source 2 links to a generic page (https://www.references.net/societies/history/) - I think maybe there's a subpage in there that should be linked to support the age of the society. Could you fix these so that the links point to the correct pages? Also, one minor (not essential to this DYK) confusion I had: The article says The society's ownership of the latter extended to 15.9 hectares by 2003; source 8 supports this claim but source 9 says The area acquired up to 2003 totaled 24.17 hectares (via Google Translate) - could you clarify this for me?
Neutral:
Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

Cited: - The citations for the hook are the ones I was having difficulty with above (sources 1 & 2). Alt1 is adequately sourced.
Interesting:

QPQ: None required.

Overall: I prefer the original hook to alt1 - being the oldest surviving society seems to me more interesting than just where the society happened to be founded. The hook does have a slight issue with sourcing but I expect that can be quickly cleared up. I might also slightly modify the hook to say founded in 14 May 1790. WJ94 (talk) 13:54, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: the image caption is not practical for the Main page, please trim. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:25, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Comments: About support that it really is the oldest surviving learned botanical society. @WJ94: You are correct that the page I had as ref 1 has vanished, and I cannot find it again, so I have deleted it. For the Scholarly societies project (now ref 2), I have changed the url to the page about the society. However, this does not explicitly say it is the oldest; if you look through the database for earlier botanical societies, none are still extant. I have therefore added a source that says it is the oldest, from an article in Global Plants, that I had previously used later.MerielGJones (talk) 15:02, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Comments: About area in Sippenauer Moor owned by the society in 2003. @WJ94: I agree that the sources conflict but I cannot find anything that resolves that. So I have deleted the statement about the area owned by the society in 2003.MerielGJones (talk) 15:02, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Comments: About picture caption. @Gerda Arendt:I have shortened it. Is it now practical?MerielGJones (talk) 15:02, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you but I meant here in the nomination, because this is what will go to the Main page. I'd like the version now used in the article here also. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:07, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@MerielGJones: Thanks for clearing up those issues. The hook is now adequately sourced. I'd propose a slightly modified hook:

Once the image caption issue is resolved (thanks Gerda Arendt for picking that up - I somehow missed it in my original review) then I'd say its good to go. WJ94 (talk) 15:18, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I boldly trimmed it. You'll have to approve the image or not. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:21, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so on reflection I am concerned that the image at 120px is not very clear - a grey plaque on a grey background, with a lot of the background in the frame. At this resolution, the words cannot easily be made out. This could perhaps be resolved by cropping the image. WJ94 (talk) 15:49, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

While right, a crop wouldn't help most of our readers who don't read German. Perhaps just say it's licensed, and let the prep builder decide. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:54, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, in which case the image is licensed and is used in the article - and the other minor issues are resolved - so I am happy to approve. For clarity, both hooks are acceptable but my preference is for the original. Since my change to the hook was very minor, I have struck my ALT2 and just edited the original hook myself, per the reviewing guide. WJ94 (talk) 16:07, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@WJ94:@Gerda Arendt: Many thanks for sorting out about the image.MerielGJones (talk) 17:46, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]