User talk:Peter coxhead/Archive 5

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Cladogram

Are you still planning to add this to the Botany article? 512bits (talk) 00:30, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I guess so, if no-one else does. I'll see if I can look at it later today. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:57, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

See Talk:Botany#Cladogram. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:57, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

thanks

Hi Peter. It seems you are coming around to the use of the chars. Like you, I had always believed such characters should be forbidden in titles, for the reasons you and others have elaborated. But the arguments of others convinced me that this was the clearest most natural way. So just wanted to say thanks for having an open mind and being willing to reconsider your position. Cheers, --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 12:38, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Ref Tags

It is not really the dot at the end of {{sfn}}, it is the removal of ref tags when {{sfn}} is used in place of {{harvnb}} that upsets some people. At the moment in the section Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Fixing repeat references, CBM (Carl) has put forward the argument that introducing names into ref tag pairs (to allow duplicate inline citations to be listed as one in the reference list) is a change of style. So obviously to Carl a change from <ref>{{harvnb|Smith|1933|p=101}}.</ref> to {{sfn|Smith|1933|p=101}} would be a change in style. -- PBS (talk) 14:12, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I had a quick skim of this discussion. He's not the only one to think like this. User:Stemonitis largely, but with a bit of assistance from me, fixed a set of references for an article which had short Harvard citations followed by a bibliography style list, but which didn't have links from the former to the latter. This improvement was vehemently rejected by a number of editors on the page on the grounds that changing from the visual appearance of plain text to blue link text was a change of style which was not allowed without consensus. (Some of them didn't like blue text.)

The leeway allowed by CITEVAR to produce wildly varying and non-user-friendly citations and then to refuse to change them is, in my view, utterly ridiculous. By comparison, allowing US authors to use TQ/AS is trivial. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:42, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

The disingenuous argument in this is "defer to the style used by the first major contributor", for many articles that are today developed articles, they started with a stub 10 years ago and the first in-line reference was probably added around 2005/2006 when the drive started for quality over quantity. As templates were not often used then and it was probably only one citation that was added--so it tends to be an unformatted long entry--, it allows those who oppose templates to clam the high ground on many articles (oddly enough apart from those with a large PD content that tend to have had a PD template from early on). At some point WP:CITEVAR will have to be radically altered as citation maintenance is an obvious area of automation, the problem is that there will always be a sizeable group who will favour the status quo and debates over changes such as this have a tendency to end up with "no consensus". -- PBS (talk) 09:50, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with you entirely: we wouldn't have started from where we are now; it needs fixing; it's doubtful that there is a consensus to fix it. It's the sheer triviality of the changes that get opposed that still surprises me. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:56, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Since I was pinged, let me say something briefly. The way I look at it, there are really three options:

1. We come up with a house style, so that editors can refer to that. This would say, for example, whether short citations should link from the footnotes to the references section.
2. We could just let people change the style in any article whenever they want.
3. We could tell people to leave the style as it is, like WP:CITEVAR does.

Option (1) is theoretically the best, from the point of view of consistency, but it seems very unlikely based on experience.

The problem with option (2) is that, because there is no agreement about which style is better (cf. 1), we would have different people making incompatible changes all over the wiki (some people would add templates, some would remove them, back and forth). This leads to a significant loss of productivity while people argue on each article about trivial stylistic matters.

Option (3) is not great, but it's better than (2), and it has the benefit of simplicity. On e.g WT:CITE, I often support citation styles I would not choose myself, because if I do not respect the styles others have used, there is no reason to expect others to respect the styles I have used.

The underlying moral, though, is that just me thinking something is an improvement or a cleanup isn't sufficient. I need to get consensus to make it part of the MOS or WP:CITE (and then bot/AWB operators will line up to implement it across the entire wiki). If there isn't consensus to put it into the MOS or WP:CITE, there probably isn't consensus that it's an improvement in the first place, and so I can't justify it by claiming it is an improvement. — Carl (CBM · talk) 10:25, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I understand this logic, but it doesn't put readers first. It treats Wikipedia articles as the property of groups of editors. I'm not arguing for a single citation style; there are different traditions in different academic disciplines which should be respected. However in an online encyclopedia, readers are best served by links. We don't allow a bare ^[1], for example, making readers look down the numbered list for the reference; we insist on a link. In the same way, if Harvard style refs are used, either in the text or in footnotes, they should be required to link to the full citation. Editors can use any method they like to produce the link, but the link should be required – for the benefit of readers. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:45, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I also like to see links from the Harvard cites to the full citations (although I have not found a way to achieve them that is completely ideal). But if I wanted to start adding them to articles that I don't otherwise edit, the first step would be to get the MOS to require them. If I can add the links solely because I prefer them, someone else can remove the links from other articles based solely on a different personal preference (e.g. against too many blue links). Then we are back where we started. There are even people who don't like to see ISBNs [1] added to their references! One benefit of CITEVAR is that it keeps those people from blindly removing the ISBNs from the articles that include them. The same holds for many other idiosyncratic ideas about citations. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:00, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

The template {{harv}} can be used for parenthetical citations and links to the general references section. ISBN issue can simply be address by recommending it in (as are page numbers and publisher). The main problem is that I think you (Carl) and others are defining style far more broadly than is commonly understood, and you make no allowance for the qualifications that are presented in the section such as "established citation style", and "merely on the grounds of personal preference".

The intention of the original wording was that one of "three systems" ie "Embedded HTML links", "Harvard referencing" and "Footnotes" should be retained unless there was consensus to change "Follow the system used for an article's existing citations. Do not change formats without checking for objections on the talk page" (see this version from early 2007) "three systems" was still in us on still in use on 7 June 2007 immediately before the word "style" was introduced by SV as part of a large edit on 10 June 2007 without any discussion on the talk page before the changes that she made. I for one and and I suspect others including SV did not anticipate that the change from "three [defined] systems" to a lose undefined word "style" would end up six years later where someone would extend the meaning of style to incorporate trivial changes such as whether a ref...tag has a name or not. The vestiges of the change can still be seen in the current wording "Switching between major citation styles," and I think that need to be emphasised in the lead paragraph of the section. -- PBS (talk) 15:31, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Interesting insight into the history of this issue. The problem with WP:CITEVAR as currently worded is that it doesn't define "established citation style". I've tried arguing in the past that it is effectively defined by the two bullet points, i.e. that it means the visible part of the style – the way the references appear in the text and the way the elements of a citation are laid out – plus whether or not this visible style is achieved via templates. However, this isn't stated explicitly and nothing prevents an editor arguing that the citation style includes whether ref tags are named or not. I don't believe there's now any chance of an RfC agreeing any worthwhile changes. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:10, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

stem groups

Hi Peter,

Obviously, if there is a Wikipedia page on stem groups, then the idea is acceptable (or at least worth thinking about) to some people. I do not think it is unreasonable or biased to add a statement to the discussion indicating that some systematists do not recognize the validity of paraphyletic taxa.

Andy BrowerAbrower (talk) 12:23, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Um, just because there's an article doesn't mean that the idea is acceptable now, e.g. there are articles on obsolete taxa. I think that if you are going to add a (sourced) note to say that paraphyletic taxa are considered undesirable by some biologists, in the interests of NPOV, you should also say (with a source) that they are accepted by others. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:34, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

THX & a beer for you!

No apologies, only thanks for your patience & guidance. Cheers! (PS. I'll start working on citations as soon as possible.) Cypella (talk) 09:48, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Musa template

I created a sub-template for the banana template for the musa cultivars to be more organized. Both can be seen from Template:Banana, the sub-template is Template:Musa (acuminata × balbisiana). Do you think Fe'i banana go under the same list with the acuminata × balbisiana cultivars? How do you think it should be organized? Thanks. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 03:58, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, the known facts seem to be these:

• The AA, AAA, and much rarer AAAA genome group cultivars, are not derived from M. × paradisiaca (i.e. M. acuminata × M. balbisiana) – they are pure M. acuminata.
• All the cultivars in the genome groups AB, AAB, ABB, AAAB, AABB and ABBB are derived from M. × paradisiaca.
• The possible BB and BBB cultivars are pure M. balbisiana.
• The Fe'i bananas are derived from an entirely different section of Musa, let alone species (probably M. lolodensis × M. peekelii according to recent research, although this isn't certain).

So I'm actually not very comfortable with your new template as it is, for several reasons:

• The ICN requires the genus name to be repeated (possibly abbreviated) when a specific epithet is mentioned. A form like "M. acuminata × balbisiana", although you will find it in the literature, is actually wrong; it should always be the formula M. acuminata × M. balbisiana or the name M. × paradisiaca.
• It implies that the AA, AAA and BB genome group hybrids are derived from M. acuminata × M. balbisiana when they are not.

I have taken the liberty of revising the title of the template accordingly.

It would certainly be wrong to add the Fe'i bananas under this heading. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:31, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

M. acuminata and/or M. balbisiana, of course. M. paradisiaca might be an obsolete naming, but it works. Fe'i is obviously different, but I was wondering if it could make the exception, then have a title name change to accommodate it. The way it is works. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 10:15, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually the issue of the name being obsolete is more complex. M. paradisiaca in the orginal sense of Linnaeus, i.e. as a separate taxon to M. sapientum, is indeed obsolete. M. × paradisiaca as the name for all hybrids between M. acuminata and M. balbisiana is not; on the contrary, it's the correct accepted name (see the WCSP entry for example). Unfortunately much of the literature has only caught up with the original use being obsolete (some not even that!) and not the modern acceptance of the hybrid name for all crosses.

If you want a scientific name for Fe'i bananas, it is M. × troglodytarum (as explained in the Fe'i banana article), so I really don't think that they should be included under a heading of the other scientific names.

What about naming the subtemplate differently and having two sections, one on the cultivars of M. acuminata, M. balbisiana and their hybrids, and one on the cultivars of Musa section Callimusa? Peter coxhead (talk) 11:04, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

That's a good answer. Separating by species relation makes sense, there may not enough to go into a Callimusa template. There may not even be enough for a non M. Acuminata non M. Balbisiana template. That part is not that much of a big deal. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 00:49, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:46, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Grand Nain claims (in an image caption) "Majority of the Cavendish bananas sold in the world market belong to the Grand Nain cultivar". Cavendish banana claims "main source of commercial Cavendish bananas along with Grand Nain". These claims aren't mutually exclusive, but a little confusing (and bananas in general are pretty confusing). What do you think about moving Cavendish banana to Dwarf Cavendish banana and redirecting Cavendish banana to the section in the main banana article (or the banana cultivar article). Or split out at Dwarf cavendish article from the present Cavendish article? Plantdrew (talk) 22:35, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll try to have a look at this today or tomorrow – a bit tied up in real life just now (and also trying to give some help with finishing off the Botany article). Banana cultivars are indeed very confusingly named; the system predates the ICNCP and continually violates it, by giving apparent cultivar names to groups and then to somaclones within the groups. Both "Cavendish" and "Dwarf Cavendish" seem to me to refer to groups/types of cultivar, rather than individual cultivars. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:30, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

The article should be split. The introduction and first two sections appear to be about dwarf cavendish bananas. The next two sections appear to be about cavendish bananas in general. Rather than get an administrator's help to move the page. I'll try to split the article manually. Someone may want to check the facts afterwards, or maybe want to make further improvements. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 09:02, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Yukka

Your edit summary accompanying your edit to Yukka is incorrect. The plant in the photograph is not "cultivated". It is a wild, self sown specimen. Such plants are sometimes seen in the northern part of New Zealand. Moriori (talk) 08:52, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, ok, thanks, I'll revert the change. It would be useful if you added this information to the photograph. In principle it would still be better to have a photo of a wild plant in its natural range – naturalized plants may not be typical. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:28, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Botany

Do you have anything left to do on Botany? 512bits (talk) 23:01, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I do, but if I don't do it today just go ahead with the next step. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:32, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Raising concerns about reliable medical sourcing

Hello Peter - I see you've pointed out a couple of pages which you feel require more reliable medical sourcing, in keeping with WP:MERS. I suspect you may not have spotted the carefully camouflaged request on the MEDRS guideline talk page to raise such concerns on pages such as WT:MED (WT:MEDRS is the talk page for discussions regarding the guideline itself). Cheers from a gf anonymous ip contributor, 86.130.63.47 (talk) 18:02, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

You're right; I hadn't seen this. Thanks. I'll go there in future. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:48, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Raising concerns about reliable medical sourcing @ Annonaceae wiki page

Please explain why medical journals - peer reviewed literature should not be considered "reliable"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Annonaceae Prokaryotes (talk) 09:45, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I suggest you ask this question at WT:MED. WP:MEDRS is clear that individual primary sources, like articles in medical journals, are reliable only if they amplify what has been established by secondary sources, such as reviews. I find this quite a difficult area in which to edit while respecting WP guidelines. The key is not to make any medical claims.

• "A large number of chemical compounds, including flavonoids, alkaloids, and acetogenins, have been extracted from the seeds and many other parts of these plants." – no problem; highly relevant
• "Flavonoids and alkaloids contained in the leaves and bark of several species of the family have shown insecticidal properties." – should be ok in my view; not a medical claim
• "Pharmaceutical research has found antifungal, bacteriostatic, antimalarial, and especially cytostatic capability of some chemical constituents of the leaves and bark." – this makes medical claims, and so needs to be supported by one or more reliable secondary sources, not primary journal articles. (The "especially" is not really encyclopaedic either – (e)special to whom?)

However, I repeat that I'm not an expert in this area of Wikipedia policy and guidelines, so ask at WT:MED for more definitive advice. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:02, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Kingdom (biology)

Hi Peter. I have a question: Cavalier-Smith's system is "supporting by a SECONDARY source with evidence that others accept it"? (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:30, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Whether you agree with Cavalier-Smith or not, there's no denying that he and his system(s) are widely cited by others (often to criticize them); he's been writing on this subject for a long time. Run a Google Scholar search. He also has his own article on Wikipedia, Thomas Cavalier-Smith, which explains his systems. It may be that the system you added will also be widely cited in future and hence equally WP:NOTABLE. However, at present, it's much less notable by any reasonable test. A short mention is fine, but an entire section seems disproportionate to me and contrary to WP guidelines. If you don't agree, we should move this discussion to the talk page of the article and see what others think. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:39, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

It is exactly irony - many years of career, and without scientific success. Publish a paper in a academic journal is easy with "brothers" (editors). However, acceptance of nonsense is difficult. Best regards, (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:37, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Sure, as a retired academic I understand what you are saying very well. But Wikipedia's role is to give balanced coverage of what has been published, not what should have been published. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:16, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Category syntax

I see that when someone adds a category like this [[Category:Hymenoptera| ]] instead of [[Category:Hymenoptera]] the article is not alphabetized in the list of articles in the category. What is the idea behind not alphabetizing, it seems to be random? --AfadsBad (talk) 16:03, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

The intention is to ensure that any "main" articles in the category go first. Thus if you look at Category:Roscoea, the article on the genus is first because it's categorized via [[Category:Roscoea| ]] – without the | ]] bit it would be under "R" which isn't logical. If there were an article "List of Roscoea species", I'd expect this to be categorized in the same way as Roscoea, because it's a "main" article for the genus, and not appear under "L".

One issue, as I understand it, is that the software handling categories used to need a nonblank character, so you will see things like [[Category:...|*]]. These should now be changed to remove the "*".

Category:Hymenoptera seems to be a mess. Since there's a set of subcategories which exhaustively divide up the Hymenoptera (albeit very oddly!) only articles which related to the Hymenoptera generally should be there. Agaonidae, for example, should be in Category:Chalcidoidea. (I did fix Hymenoptera genome database so it wasn't under *. But where should it be? At the top? Under "G" for "genome"? Who knows?)

My experience is that many of the categories are an equal mess. I question the value of the category system as it actually is, since so many articles are missing or miscategorized. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:11, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Hympenoptera is a surprisingly small category, even with all the subcats. I attempt to edit over there every once in a while. Usually give up. --AfadsBad (talk) 17:15, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, I did sort it out a bit. To me it shows the idiocy of using a mixture of scientific names and English names: it's not at all clear what some of the categories are really supposed to be ("Wasps" for example). Peter coxhead (talk) 18:54, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the common names often refer variably to different taxa, subfamilies, families, superfamilies, often depending upon whether you are dealing from a horticulture or agriculture perspective and sometimes whether ag as pest or ag as beneficial insect. Nightmare. --AfadsBad (talk) 19:15, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Time range template

Hi Peter, I would like the template in the Zamites article to give a range of from Triassic to Oligocene. I have tried a number of different things, and I can't figure it out. Can you fix it? --AfadsBad (talk) 19:27, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

The documentation for {{Geological range}} isn't very clear! The parameters |earliest= and |latest= represent the "outliers" in a kind of box and whisker plot if you're familiar with them. So:

• {{Geological range|Triassic}} produces

• {{Geological range|Triassic|earliest=Devonian|latest=Cretaceous}} produces

So your problem was that you just wanted:

• {{Geological range|Triassic|Oligocene}}, which produces

Or if the Oligocene has few fossils and most are Mesozoic, perhaps:

• {{Geological range|Mesozoic|latest=Oligocene}}, which produces

(There are some other very odd features of these templates; if you look at the source code of this response, you'll see that I had to include them in an HTML div to line up the text and the diagram. If you put them directly after a source ":" or a "*" in the wikitext, you get very odd effects indeed.) Peter coxhead (talk) 22:00, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I tried and previewed about a dozen attempts after the first failure. Yeah, template documentation is usually useless, but I couldn't find this time range or anything close in other articles with a quick look (couldn't think of the names of fossil plants in this range). --(AfadsBad (talk) 22:08, 29 August 2013 (UTC))

Always pleased to be able to help. :-) I've created quite a few articles on early embryophytes (see User:Peter coxhead/Pages created#Extinct plants), but not usually past the Devonian for some reason. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:20, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Pull of the non-recent? --(AfadsBad (talk) 22:53, 29 August 2013 (UTC))

Given the prevalent belief on Wikipedia that every article should be at some supposed "common" name, regardless of how ambiguous or confused it is, the longer the plant is extinct and the less well-known it is the more willing I am to write about it! :-) Peter coxhead (talk) 09:24, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Heads up!

Discussion you may be interested in about plant article importance assessments. Click! --(AfadsBad (talk) 15:17, 5 September 2013 (UTC))

nom. cons. in taxobox?

Should taxoboxes include "nom. cons."? I have been removing it, along the lines of dates. Is there already consensus for this that you know of? Thanks. --(AfadsBad (talk) 14:50, 6 September 2013 (UTC))

I don't know of any consensus either way. I can't really see the need for it in a taxobox, myself, as opposed to the conservation of the name being discussed in the text. For example, I wrote most of the Leopoldia article; Leopoldia Parl. is a conserved name, but I didn't put "nom. cons." in the taxobox, and wouldn't support its being added. I guess you could ask at WT:PLANTS but not many editors seem to be around at present, so I'd just carry on. :-) Peter coxhead (talk) 15:02, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll just remove it. The taxoboxes are easier for the general reader without the Latin, imo. --(AfadsBad (talk) 15:09, 6 September 2013 (UTC))

Botany, FA candidate

As a major contributor to the development of the Botany article, we would be very grateful for your opinion of it and for your support of its FA candidacy if you feel that is merited. Plantsurfer (talk) 19:48, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Rare editing from me

So, I was poking around and stalking people (I like seeing what interesting new content shows up) and I noticed the huge, hunking list of genera in Araceae. Since these are kind of my area of editing expertise, I've started converting it to the format I've used elsewhere before. You can see the current state in my sandbox, in case you wanted to keep an eye out. Circéus (talk) 22:25, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm very happy to leave this to you! Araceae aren't at all my main area of interest. Just out of interest, what will you use as the source for an up-to-date subfamily classification? Peter coxhead (talk) 07:21, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm actually mostly trusting the list of genera in the article, with ING/WCSP as my major sources of data to fill the details in. I'm sorry I seem to have missed you answering this over a month ago. I'll probably follow the World Checklist in case of any discrepancies (e.g. Heteroaridarum→Aridarum). Circéus (talk) 21:46, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Stinging nettle

I was about to change my edit and you beat me to it. The reference futher down about stinging nettles does make an unhelpful wl to a redirect called Urtica dioica. I want to fix that. I also think the wiktionary box looks a bit better where I had put it regardless of MOS. SlightSmile 21:33, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

There's still an unresolved issue over what "stinging nettle" refers to. It seems to be different in different countries – basically the commonest Urtica species or subspecies in that country which stings is called "stinging nettle". So I haven't been altering wikilinks until this is sorted out, but do whatever you think is most useful for readers. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:41, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. It's good to meet you. SlightSmile 21:45, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Gender and direct quotations

Thanks for your attention; please comment here. – Smyth\^talk 11:12, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Kew Rule

Hi Peter,

I've added a quick first draft of a Kew Rule page, but don't have much time to polish it just now. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:10, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Very useful – I wish the article had existed before I starting investigating the nomenclature of Brodiaea! I came across the term "Kew Rule" and had to do quite a bit of searching to find out what exactly it was. I've also been writing The Paradisus Londinensis, which I intend to expand to explain how Smith et al. behaved in regard to Salisbury's names, and the Kew Rule can be linked there.

One thing I don't know is whether the Kew Rule was in accord with the Code(s) of the time, or whether it was an extra rule used by Index Kewensis but not by other institutions. It would be useful to clarify this. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:47, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

A useful reference is Nicolson, D.H. (1991). "A History of Botanical Nomenclature". Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden. 78 (1): 33–56.; do you have access to that? Nicolson says the first mention of the Kew Rule was made in 1877; de Candolle objected to it in 1877 and 1888, but "supporters perceived it as applying the principle of priority by maintaining the oldest applicable (binomial) name." It seems to have been the basic, traditional, bun fight.

The Brodiaea battle was very early relative to any formal codes of nomenclature; International Botanical Congress gives a time line. It might be illuminating to go back to Linnaeus' Philosophia Botanica, or even to look at the first zoological code (gasp!). Nicolson says "The schisms began with the 1843 British Association for the Advancement of Science approval of zoological rules and became manifest with the 1867 Paris Congress approval of Alphonse de Candolle's botanical "laws."" I don't see any mention of exactly this sort of thing in de Candolle's Lois de la nomenclature botanique ..., which I suspect means that Linnaeus wouldn't be particularly clear either.

I haven't found the 1905 Rules, but the 1910 version (English starts on page 32) is (binding, except for the American Code which was still at odds with the international consensus, and) antithetical to the Kew Rule: Section 6, Article 48 "When a subgenus or section or species is moved into another genus, when a variety or other division of a species is moved into another species, retaining there the same rank, the original name of the subgenus or section, the first specific epithet, or the original name of the division of the species must be retained or must be re-established, unless, in the new position there exists one of the obtacles indicated in the articles of section 7."

Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:53, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Ah, interesting. I knew about the American Code (and indeed later disputes between US and European taxonomists, e.g. over Hippeastrum vs. Amaryllis). Not sure where, if anywhere, Canadian taxonomists stood!

Whoever wrote the bit on the IPNI page here seems to be of the view that the Kew Rule was knowingly deviant by writing "Jackson (1887) described and attempted to justify his use of this rule" [my italics]. It seems that Jackson felt it necessary to defend the Kew Rule given that de Candolle had objected in 1877 and then de Candolle reiterated his objections.

There is a logic to Jackson's argument. Suppose the names A b X and C d Y are independently published for the same species (homo- or heterotypically), and it seems that C (perhaps narrower in concept) is the better genus, then someone else has to correct C d to C b (X) Z, so there are now 3 synonyms to keep track of, instead of 2 under the Kew rule. On the other hand, keeping the epithet constant is very helpful in researching synonyms. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:40, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

PS: Yes, I can access the Nicholson paper, and have done so – thanks for the link. (Recently the University of Cambridge made its JSTOR access available to alumni, which is a fantastic resource as they subscribe to a much wider range of journals than my institution.) Peter coxhead (talk) 08:47, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

That's great about JSTOR access, I think that alumni here still only have access to Proquest. I'd have to side with the anti-Kew-Rule crowd because it takes a non-inclusive view of the field (our works are established monographs, but books from a publisher we haven't bought from are beyond the pale), or sees the nomenclature rules as non-binding. Of course, they are non-binding, but it makes sense to me that ignoring them destines one's work to oblivion. Independent publication of the same taxon must be becoming less of a problem as communication improves. I think that the problem of not having the books, so considering it unreasonable to chase up forgotten old names, was probably a bigger motivator. This is still a problem with the former Iron Curtain, and even very recently, James L. Reveal's list of overlooked suprageneric names in works from Eastern Europe caused a big problem. About the American Code, there's still a big divide on the continent between those who follow Asa Gray to the extent of using varieties, and those who (follow I know not whom, perhaps zoologists, and) use subspecies. Fortunately, that matter hasn't come to a war, but it's annoying, causing students to fail to find herbarium vouchers. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:37, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Canadian botanists don't care about Hippeastrum versus Amaryllis: we just leave them in the garden over winter and the problem is solved. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:40, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

:-) Peter coxhead (talk) 20:26, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Have you looked at Botanicus? A number of fairly recent journals are available there in addition to oldies, including the Annals and Novon (both up to 2010). Circéus (talk) 19:24, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually I'd never thought of Botanicus for recent journals; thanks for the hint. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:28, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Re overlooked books: that's not the only problem. Whenever I've seriously looked at old works now available in scanned form on the web I've found transcription errors. For example, I've been trying to match Salisbury's names in Paradisus Londinensis (I've just started the article) to currently accepted names. So far I've found three errors in the names in IPNI, etc. (deriving ultimately from Index Kewensis) which are clearly typos. Two are corrected in IPNI already – I'm always impressed by the speed with which Kanchi Gandhi corrects errors in IPNI if you point them out. Fortunately the names aren't currently accepted, but for example a web search will show up "Corybas aconitifolius Salisb." all over the place, whereas Salisbury actually called it Corybas aconitiflorus – the plate shows clearly that the flowers are like Aconitum whereas the leaves are not. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:41, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Nettles

On this: edit, I can see the BBC cut, but what is wrong with the Schulze PMID article as a reference? Can we reword what was in the article and use Schulze again? HalfGig (talk) 19:20, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm far from an expert on WP:MEDRS, but if you read it, secondary sources, i.e. reviews, are needed to establish importance before primary sources like Schulze can be used. So a review supporting the effectiveness of nettles or nettle extracts in the treatment of arthritis in humans is needed first. If in doubt, ask at WT:MED, I suggest. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:51, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Move of Plantain (cooking)

I strongly object to your move of this article without establishing consensus first. There have been substantial discussions over a long period which you have over-ridden.

You have also left the talk pages in a mess by not doing the move properly. Please at least complete your move by fixing them, in particularly moving Talk:Plantain (cooking) to Talk:Plantain to accompany the article move. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:47, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, you're right, my bad. I hadn't finished tidying up, and I hadn't looked at the talkpage for prior discussions. I have now completed the talkpage move. I will happily explain on the talkpage why I feel that plantain is the WP:Primary topic. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:59, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Manjushige (red spider lily)

Hello.. this is the first time I have ever written anything on Wikipedia, so I am very unfamiliar with terminology, etc. So please respond in layman's terms! haha.

In the page about Manjushage, there is a story about elves, Amaterasu and curses... Is there anyway to know who wrote that and if I can find a source to that information?

I am writing a news column about the flower and would like to use that information!

Thank you so much!

dkp — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.1.127.146 (talk) 00:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

If you look at the history of the page (there's a tab at the top of every page labelled "View history") you can click on a time and date to see the version at that time. By working backwards, you can find when information was added. Choosing a left and a right radio button and then pressing "Compare selected revisions" shows you the old version on the left and the new version on the right.

See this change. As the change wasn't made by a registered user, but by an anonymous "IP" 86.2.114.84 , we can't ask them for sources, and none are given in the article (but they should be). So it seems a dead end. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:54, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

GAs and DYKs

I started on the GA review because one of the editors who creates many GAs and DYKs made some errors that needed fixed, the cultivatiion sections are a seed packet how to. I thought I would work with the editor to guide him/her to proper cultivation section since I have worked in horticulture and soils. After the rudeness I then went looking purposefully for errors, little knowing what I would find. Many of the biology GAs and DYKs are just sections pasted out of context and in random orders from online sources, but clearly without the editor understanding what they are doing. The editors change a single word to make the, look not plagiarized, byt are clueless about meaning. I got into a fight about C4 stomata not opening at night. I knew damn well the source didn't say that, but got reverted and told off for insisting on science. Elsewher I learned that no cacti have leaves. In Jiddat al-Harasis trees thrive on 50 mm a year of rain. Every article by a small group of editors is wring, almost entirely. A few drainages expanded to the whole desert, which also became a fertile plain, feldspar had ammonium nitrate in it, you would not believe it.

What is going on here? Is this typical? --(AfadsBad (talk) 23:39, 2 October 2013 (UTC))

I'm not sure about typical, but it's all too common in my experience. There seems to be almost an "anti-science" culture among some editors; if you are an "expert" in a scientific subject, you aren't qualified to write in a "general encyclopedia". You see this sometimes in discussions about scientific names vs. English names as article titles: "I don't understand all this Latin, so it's not suitable for Wikipedia". Editors like this endlessly quote WP:COMMONNAME but never WP:PRECISION. They paraphrase or dump stuff from web sources with no real understanding. They especially like folk medical claims; articles like Aloe vera, Garlic, Onion constantly get such stuff added. You also get editors like cactus enthusiasts, who are knowledgeable about practical growing but not about botany, taxonomy, etc. Thus "everyone" knows that cacti don't have leaves, which is why I've ensured there are a perhaps disproportionate number of images of Pereskia at Cactus (which I did manage to get to GA status).

What happens very often is that knowledgeable editors are driven off Wikipedia. I can immediately think of three or four plant editors who have given up in frustration in the past couple of years. I've been on the verge myself. I hope you won't give up.

My solution is twofold. (1) Enjoy working in some less popular area where only people with specialist interests will engage. E.g. I became interested in growing Roscoea and have been working on getting coverage of all its species. (2) Don't bang your head against a brick wall. If there's a bad article you're not being allowed to fix, see if you can get help at WP:PLANTS. (This used to work quite well, but there are fewer people around now. User:Stemonitis was a great help to me in the past; he's a very experienced admin with a good botanical background. However, he seems to be working on invertebrates lately.) If you can't get help, just leave it. Often if you come back a month or two later, the problematic editors will have moved on. (But I'm not good at taking my own advice here!!) Peter coxhead (talk) 08:04, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Cucurbita peer review

I just listed Cucurbita at Wikipedia:Peer review/Cucurbita/archive1. If you have time, would you be so kind as to look at this article, especially the medical/pharmacological issues, which are in Cucurbita#Chemical_constituents? I'd greatly appreciate it. I appreicate any assistance you can provide. HalfGig (talk) 01:55, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I'm a bit tied up for the next few days, but I'll try to look at this.

The article as a whole certainly justifies its GA status, and probably more. My quick reaction, though, is that the ordering of sections isn't right. The WP:PLANTS template isn't optimal for crops, in my view (e.g. "History and domestication" is an important early section for a crop article), but I think it's right to suggest starting with the description. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:16, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

I'll go make description first and history second. Thank you. HalfGig (talk) 09:54, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Jiddat al-Harasis

Thanks! They both came by and did a lot of work on it, after you and the other editor, and the article is quite useful now. --(AfadsBad (talk) 16:31, 5 October 2013 (UTC))

Talkback

Hello, Peter coxhead. You have new messages at PinkAmpersand's talk page.
Message added 12:11, 17 October 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Template editor

Hi, I saw that you just received the protected template editor userright. Are there any full protected templates that you'd like to edit? Let me know and I'll downgrade the protection so you can do so. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 15:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

It was more that there are some templates I created that have been vandalized in the past (gone away for the present), and if I had asked for them to be partially protected, I wouldn't have been able to edit them myself. But if the need arises to edit fully protected templates, I'll certainly ask. Thanks. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:03, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Gallon

Please turn your attention to the talk page on gallon.Surveyor792 (talk) 22:05, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Article names

Just what is the rule on Wikipedia for species article names? As on Stinging nettle, there seems to be no standard. Some are common name, some use binomial. It seems a mishmash. (talk) 23:28, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, WP:PLANTS is clear that it prefers the scientific name; see WP:FLORA#Scientific versus common names. However, it is regularly a battle to get this policy implemented, because many other editors constantly quote WP:COMMONNAME as an argument that wherever possible (i.e. wherever they can dredge up an English name) the scientific name should not be used.

Other projects have different views. WP:BIRDS always uses English names. Other animals, such as butterflies and moths, are at English names wherever these exist by the decision of those projects.

So, yes, there is no standard; it's a mishmash, which we just have to live with. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:45, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Donatiaceae

Hi, Peter. I've been wondering what to do with Donatia for quite a while. I like APG III, but this is at least one piece I suspect they may reverse in the future. The authority on Stylidiaceae, Juliet Wege, wrote in 2007 that, "Reuniting [Donatiaceae and Stylidiaceae] as recently suggested would unnecessarily deprive Stylidiaceae of its defining synapomorphies." She goes on to describe how its morphology is clearly different from Stylidiaceae, and the geographic range includes South America, where Stylidiaceae is not found. This makes it all the more curious that APG III returned Donatia to Stylidiaceae with the following supporting text, "Expansion of Stylidiaceae to include the monogeneric Donatiaceae is supported by morphology and geography." And the phylogeny of the Asterales from 2003 suggested that Donatiaceae was sister to Stylidiaceae. So I'm torn - do we follow APG III even though their reason for moving Donatia to Stylidiaceae is contradicted by the person who might know best? Appreciate any thoughts you have. If you feel following APG III regardless of other info is best to the family level, I suppose the Stylidiaceae article would need to be updated to include Donatia. Thanks, Rkitko ^(talk) 23:43, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

It's tricky. On the one hand, there's a strong argument for following APG III until they produce APG IV. On the other hand, there are obvious cases where post-APG III changes are worthwhile. For example, the APG III paper says that Olacaceae as they define it is paraphyletic but they don't know how to split it. So when others later did, and APweb takes it up, we should too (and have partly done so).

My tendency is to follow Stevens at APweb. If he's gone beyond APG III, then follow. Otherwise, wait. I did check (see [2]) before changing Donatia. So I would personally include Wege's views in the text, but keep the classification in Wikipedia as Stylidiaceae.

The problem with following the expert here is where to stop. As I've noted elsewhere, the experts in the area are simply not accepting submerging Hyacinthaceae into Asparagaceae. The latest refs at Scilloideae all use Hyacinthaceae (even though some APG people are co-authors!). So should we go back to the optional families in APG II for the Asparagaceae? Meerow (an Amaryllidaceae expert) doesn't accept the merge of Alliaceae. Should we split here?

I suspect the wholesale merges in APG III won't survive, but should we anticipate this?

More questions than answers! Peter coxhead (talk) 23:58, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Obsolete orders

I've been considering putting the non-APGIII orders ending in "-ales" in a Category:Historically recognized plant orders (which seems a better descriptor than "obsolete"). I had been think of keeping the non "-ales" names (e.g. Microspermae, Liliiflorae) in the obsolete category, but after just now checking the code, it looks like these names are available, but can either be treated at any rank above family if descriptive (Microspermae), or any rank without a prescribed ending if typified (Liliiflorae, but with prescribed endings for division/subdivision/class/subclass/order/suborder, there's really not much you can do with it). And Liliiflorae when used, was an order. What do you think about moving the "-ales" orders to Category:Historically recognized plant orders, moving the non-ales "orders" to Category historically recognized plant taxa (since these name can be used at multiple ranks), and scrapping the Category:Obsolete plant orders? Though I suppose Glumaceae is well and truly obsolete. Plantdrew (talk) 19:35, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

As you might have noticed, I've been working my way through all the plant families we recognize here (APG III + some later splits and placements) trying to put them in the right category. An interesting exercise which has clarified my thoughts about categories.

Yes, I agree entirely now that "obsolete" is a bad choice of descriptor. I much prefer "Historically recognized". I had actually moved all the currently not used angiosperm orders to a new category Category:Obsolete angiosperm orders leaving Category:Obsolete plant orders empty. I do think, however, that it's worth having a separate (sub)category for angiosperms, rather than putting everything under plants. I also agree about "rank ambiguous" taxa.

So I would suggest the hierarchy:

Category:Historically recognized plant taxa – top level

Category:Historically recognized plant orders – non-angiosperm orders

Category:Historically recognized plant families – non-angiosperm families

Category:Historically recognized angiosperm taxa – anything not clearly and unambiguously an order or family

Category:Historically recognized angiosperm orders – this replaces the category "Obsolete angiosperm orders" I created earlier today, since I agree "Historically recognized" is a better title

Category:Historically recognized angiosperm families

I found some historically recognized angiosperm families categorized both as Category:Historically recognized plant families and under the relevant "ORDER families". I removed the latter; I think that these taxonomic categories (i.e. "ORDER families", "FAMILY genera", etc.) should only be used for current classifications, i.e. those we put in taxoboxes. What do you think about this?

Peter coxhead (talk) 20:18, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Your hierarchy looks good to me. I have no objections to having only current classification for "ORDER families"/"FAMILY genera" categories. I do think historic genera should maybe be retained in the "FAMILY" category (i.e. keep Azalea in "Ericaceae", but not "Ericaceae genera"). But there's only a handful of historic genus articles to worry about. For historic families, ordinal classification is likely pretty messy, and I don't think these can be easily be fit in a categorization scheme following a taxonomic hierarchy besides in a very general category (i.e. Category:Historically recognized angiosperm families). Plantdrew (talk) 01:24, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I went through and populated Category:Historically recognized angiosperm families, but just before I finished I realized and forgot to check for "ORDER families" categories to remove from the articles I was recategorizing. I'll try to get back to it later if you don't beat me to it. Plantdrew (talk) 02:13, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Please…

Please undo all edits, in good faith, of category removals and of deletion requests, to Pararistolochia genus and species articles and category, for obvious reasons given in many top class reliable sources. (For this genus The Plant List is even worse than a not reliable source, it has undermined information from the highest standard, scholarly reliable sources and the secondary sources which review them). It very much makes me distance myself, that it seems action was taken to remove the category(s) and request deletions without reading reliable sources, such as those referenced in the article(s) or those global highest standard, comprehensive, secondary and tertiary sources from the countries of the natural occurrences of Pararistolochia species. This example shows the risks of such actions to you know who (no risk to me).--Macropneuma 16:14, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I think you must have mis-understood my edits. All I have done (so far as I know) is to move the articles from Category:Pararistolochia to Category:Aristolochiaceae. This has nothing to do with the Plant List or any other source. It's just a Wikipedia housekeeping activity, required to ensure that categories are sufficiently large. When a category is too small, then it needs to be merged upwards. (I think that a minimum of 10 in a category is ok, others think more – see WT:PLANTS#Categorization question.) Peter coxhead (talk) 19:24, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Autotaxobox with Bullockia

I moved the ambiguous Bullockia to Bullockia (plant), but I'm not sure if I've fixed the incoming links from autotaxoboxes correctly. I made this edit [[3]] to an autotaxobox template. Will that edit propagate up/down the taxonomic hierarchy (eliminating the other incoming Template links to Bullockia)? Should I have done it differently to keep the (plant) disambiguator from showing up? Plantdrew (talk) 04:35, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The link field should be set as if it were a Wikilink but without the brackets. For the Wikilink you would use [[Bullockia (plant)|Bullockia]], so at the Template:Taxonomy/Bullockia you put link=Bullockia (plant)|Bullockia.

The automatic taxobox at Bullockia (plant) has taxon=Bullockia, which is recommended. However, if you omitted it, the system would pick up the page name, "Bullockia (plant)", strip off any parenthesized part leaving "Bullockia", and still look for Template:Taxonomy/Bullockia.

Suppose there is then a {{Speciesbox}} template with, say, taxon=Bullockia setiflora. It will extract "Bullockia" from "Bullockia setiflora", look for the template "Taxonomy/Bullockia" and find the link text Bullockia (plant)|Bullockia which will be put in the Wikilink to the genus.

(All statements made by me about the automated taxobox system are subject to the warning "so far as I understand it"!!) Peter coxhead (talk) 09:43, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#En dash vs. "and" for multi-state metro areas

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#En dash vs. "and" for multi-state metro areas. Herostratus (talk) 18:37, 11 December 2013 (UTC)