Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Agriculture

Dark mode problems

For some reason, this article displays black text on black text when viewed in dark mode. It is very hard to read, in fact, it's practically impossible! And I'm not even sure why. I'm guessing it's a markup thing? Someone who knows better, please help. Drunk Experiter (she/her) (talk) 08:28, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Doubtful if it's anything to do with this WikiProject, which doesn't use any strange settings. And you've not indicated which article is affected, either. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:42, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I said article, but I really meant page. The affected page is Wikipedia:WikiProject Agriculture. It appears that this thing is the culprit:

“ The quote inside this box, as well as everything inside the larger box, becomes black text. ” — Drunk Experiter This Very Talk Page When using the beta dark mode, it becomes invisible without squinting really really hard.

I have found that removing the green box gets rid of the readability issue. But I don't know if that's a good option. Any ideas? Drunk Experiter (she/her) (talk) 08:48, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

We don't need it. Fixed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:57, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Ahah, that's quite the decision. Unfortunately, uh... There's more boxes. There's like a half dozen other boxes on the page that have dark text. Participants, Project tasks, Current projects, New articles and New article archive... And worst of all, the entire sidebox has been teleported to the bottom of the article, with a bunch of markup artefacts left at the footer. I don't quite think this is as simple of a fix. I think we're better off keeping the spirit of the original, but figuring out how to make the text visible in dark mode. Surely it's just a markup code thing! It must be in there if we just look closely and carefully! Drunk Experiter (she/her) (talk) 09:10, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

In that case we can just make the background white. Something odd must be going on because the boxen have been there for many years without incident. The Divbox template is used on some 440,000 pages without difficulty. Anyway, I've put the thing back, barring the green background. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:40, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

The green background isn't the issue - the problem still persists. I'd advise putting Template:Dark mode problems back on the page until someone can figure it out! If you want to see how the dark mode looks for yourself, you can find it in Special:Preferences#Appearance#Skin, then pick Vector (2022) and change Color to Dark. You don't have to though! Good luck with whatever you decide is best! Drunk Experiter (she/her) (talk) 10:25, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Good news - I asked around on the Discord, and it looks like the issue was in "background: transparent,", a CSS code I suppose. The fix was easy - I just had to remove that line wherever I found it in all the pages that use it that are linked to this one. I also had to edit a bunch of Template:Project* pages. But it works now! I can see it just fine. I brought back the green background on the quote though, I hope that's fine. Drunk Experiter (she/her) (talk) 19:20, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

How remarkable, a systemic issue. Well done with the fix. I've noticed that transparency is an issue with images, too. Chiswick Chap (talk) 01:03, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello, Please note that Crop, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 10 November 2025 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team

Discussion at Talk:Indonesian Racing Horse § WikiProject tagging

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Indonesian Racing Horse § WikiProject tagging. It is on the topic of tagging horse breed articles with wikiprojects equine, horse racing and/or agriculture.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 17:25, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Discussion about WikiProject banner templates

For WikiProjects that participate in rating articles, the banners for talk pages usually say something like:

• "This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale."

There is a proposal to change the default wording on the banners to say "priority" instead of "importance". This could affect the template for your group. Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council#Proposal to update wording on WikiProject banners. Stefen 𝕋ower ^{Huddle • Handiwerk} 19:37, 6 December 2025 (UTC) (on behalf of the WikiProject Council)

Extension resources unreliable?

Has anyone ever run into cases of people claiming that university extension resources are unreliable for Wikipedia, especially when it comes to areas of health sciences they work on like pesticide safety and food? I'm asking this more broadly than the example I've been dealing with lately, so I'm not going to link to it and keep this discussion broader rather than asking people to participate in current disputes.

The main thing I'm seeing is that unless editors (and the public) are familiar with agricultural topics, they're often not very familiar with what extension does when it's science outreach from the university itself in academic sources. The other issue is illustrated when thinking of someone saying, "They're just an agronomist, they have expertise on X." when X is maybe soil health, plant physiology, or weather-related science. The first is tied to not knowing what Extension does, and the other is more on not knowing what disciplines an extension professor/specialist covers. Has anyone run into examples of either here, or is this likely something that just hasn't really been addressed before given the reduced attention agriculture topics sometimes have? It might a good reason to develop articles on the subject more, but maybe someone has examples they've used in discussion for the more meta-wiki side of things? Thanks. KoA (talk) 21:52, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

If they're just agricultural, I think they're fine. The medical effects of pesticides is a case where ag. strays across the line into WP:MEDRS territory, where quite different sources are needed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:58, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, that was one of the main issues I was running into where one of extension's areas of expertise if on medical effects of pesticides, so it seems very contradictory as someone who as worked with MEDRS for years to say those experts on pesticides and health (or Extension overall really) are not reliable on their topic area like this example.

On the broader scale for this discussion though, I'm partly wondering if anyone had run into anything like I initially outlined in the policy and guideline realm, but also if there's any content areas they've noticed where more attention on this would help clear up confusion? I know Agricultural extension definitely needs some work at least, but if there are other related articles on the extension component (the lesser known compared to research and teaching appointments among editors it seems) they might be worth tackling at the same time too. KoA (talk) 23:47, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

No Domestication of (plant) articles?

I was contemplating starting an article on the domestication of squash, so I searched "Domestication of" to see if there were any plant articles I could use as reference, and I couldn't find any - the best I got was some redirects to sections of articles on major crops. Does this imply that 'Domestication of (common crop)' articles generally do fail Wikipedia:Notability? Would I be better off expanding on the domestication of squash in the Cucurbita article? AspiringGnome (talk) 05:23, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. Cucurbita already has a detailed and quite long enough section with a dozen sources, so the topic of its domestication is notable. I suggest you start Domestication of squash using that cited text, and add new sources in the subsidiary article. You can then add a 'main' link back at Cucurbita. Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:38, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! This came up while trying to fix Domesticated plants of Mesoamerica#Staple Crops by doing as you suggested in the squash section. I probably should have been less specific - I can see three justifiable options for expanding on this type of content:

1. In the species articles, under History sections. This would limit how much I can include, because of WP:DUEWEIGHT
2. In separate articles. This might run into WP:N problems. (If this is how I should proceed, I'd also need some technical help on how to move the content the correct way with just copying and pasting)
3. In the Domesticated plants of Mesoamerica article. This might get long, but would probably be more notable as a whole.

I'm not really sure which of these options would be appropriate, and I appreciate any more experienced input. AspiringGnome (talk) 06:07, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

As I already said, the domestication of squash easily clears WP:N as it is discussed by a dozen sources at least, and I suspect that is just scratching the surface. Therefore we can certainly have a standalone article, which I see you have not yet created. You can freely copy-and-paste the existing section to get started: just put "Start by splitting from Cucurbita, see there for attribution" as your first edit comment, or put a similar note on the talk page. I hope it goes without saying that this would make no sense unless you swiftly go on to extend the new article with additional content, or you'll find it at AfD being deleted or redirected back where it came from. If the original coverage had been too much for Cucurbita, then one would quickly cut down the section there, but since that is not at all the case, I trust you won't do that.

As I also said, the Cucurbita article definitely has a long-enough coverage of the subtopic, or, to stress it repeatedly in best belt-and-braces style, it would be grossly WP:UNDUE to overburden a Featured Article with a WP:COATRACK in one section: please don't go there, it would be WP:DISRUPTIVE.

Domesticated plants of Mesoamerica is a list of 26 plants or plant groups; the total readable prose size was 1200 words before your recent intervention, 1500 words after it. That does not sound catastrophic; but most of the length is made up of Maize, Capsicum, Squash, and Vanilla, while the rest (such as Tomato, Potato) have uncited single-line entries, so balance is already an issue there. The whole article is very poorly WP:Cited, so if you have a mind, finding sources to Verify the claims made there would be a useful piece of work, and you might like to extend the barely-documented plants listed at the same time.

In sum, I'd say that a stand-alone article would be best, if you are in the mood to develop the history of plant domestication, while developing the list would be a worthy job too. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:11, 15 January 2026 (UTC)