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Olive branch, and different approach

I'll extend the olive branch
Trying to "win" a fight with you is not my intent, and I hope to collaborate with you more peacefully.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:04, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

[Borrowing this template-of-sorts from Chris Troutman.] I'm going to endeavor to stop arguing with you so much on this capitalization thing, as we have better things to do (both separately and collaboratively), and we tend to agree on a lot of other things, which makes this doubly frustrating.

NB: I think I have a way out of the species common name capitalization morass (for anyone who cares about why capitalization was ever used in the first place, instead of fixating on the form that emphasis has taken): User:SMcCandlish/Capitalization of organism names#Proposed alternative solution.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:04, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, I agree we have much better things to do! In case it's not clear, I'm glad to see you back working on the MOS/Organisms page – it will be a step forward to have a single, carefully worked through page compared to the current situation – provided consensus can be reached, which is a big proviso.
As for small caps, I can only say "ugh!". The ICNCP recommends a different style for trade descriptions/selling names to separate them from cultivar names and cultivar group names, hence I constructed {{tdes}}, which is in some ways like your proposed "vernacular" template, in that if used consistently it marks out the text as special to editors, and will allow a single style in future, if we could agree on one. {{Tdes}} does allow small caps as one current possibility, and some editors have used it. But I can't bring myself to do it; small caps in running text look awful to me. The problem with {{vernacular}} is that capitalization/de-capitalization isn't algorithmic so it can't be left to CSS, whereas for {{tdes}} the choice of small caps, a different font, or nothing special could be made via CSS. Ingenious though it is, I think that this "solution" is a non-starter. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:35, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Well, rat farts!  :-) I wanted that to work, mostly so people would stop arguing (I don't care much for smallcaps either). I'll add {{tdes}} to the MOS:ORGANISMS draft. I wasn't sure recommending small caps in it was "right" just because ICNCP used that. The underlying idea for {{vernacular}} could still be useful. My solution for the complexity of the situation would be to have it use separate parameters for separate name-parts, which could be independently operated upon by user-level Javascript, e.g. {{vernacular|Texas|lizard|-|hawk|t4=y}} or something to this effect (the t4 here means "true" member of that bird family/kind or not in parameter 4, such that if you're an IOC fan, you'd capitalize after the hyphen, if a AOU fan, you wouldn't – if t4=y in that one). A max of 12 parameters ought to do it, but 20 wouldn't be too bad to code up. Might have to account for optional hyphens, though, too. (I know the cuckooshrikes are sometimes called cuckoo-shrikes).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:12, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Ah, right, I either hadn't read your proposal correctly or hadn't thought through how the template would have to work. If it is coded up in Lua, then string processing is cheap (which beyond a few simple operations is both tricky and costly in the standard template language). So I wonder about using a special character to indicate optional capitalization, something like {{vernacular|Texas ^lizard-^hawk}}. If you want to handle alternative capitalizations, you need two special characters, I guess, like {{vernacular|Texas ^lizard-$hawk}}. It could be done without Lua if each "word" is made a parameter, since checking the first character only is ok. Um... Peter coxhead (talk) 18:19, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Embarrassingly, I haven't even really looked into Lua much yet; it's another thing that happened here while I was gone (learning to use a lot of power tools, and picking up East Coast swing dancing, and doing everything but geeky WP stuff). Something like that would be simpler than my {{vernacular|Texas|lizard|-|hawk|t4=y}} stuff, especially if that had to be complicated into something like {{vernacular|Texas|lizard|-|hawk|h3=o|t4=y}} to account for optional hyphenation. In Lua, hyphens could be marked up with a character too, to indicate when they're optional. I'm pretty sure all the possible cases in various org.'s codes (and regular English) are lizardhawk (common in many cases), lizard-hawk (common in many cases), lizard hawk (probably deprecated), Lizardhawk (IOC + AOU in some cases), Lizard-hawk (IOC + AOU in some cases), Lizard-Hawk (IOC only, and only in some cases), and Lizard Hawk (maybe), but LizardHawk suppressed. I'd have to go over what HBW, etc., are doing again and re-read AOU's stuff and some other regional authorities, and see how flying-insect entomologists, the capitalizers among herpetologists, etc., do it. Anyway, such a thing could take care of English plants, and dragonflies and whatnot. It could also be used for breed names (maybe fork the template for that - I don't think it would need the same level of smarts). I think the only quarrel left would be over what the default display is, and of course I'd vote for lower-case. There's also the UK/US spelling issue to account for. Oh! It belatedly occurs to me that Lua can probably allow us to do the {{EngVar}} template I've been envisioning for years, where we can stop writing articles in one variety of English, and write them in several at the same time (defaulting to that of first major contributor still). Hmm... Double-hmm...  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:13, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Well, I only know about Lua, not how to use it. Here's a quick-and-dirty temporary illustration of the sort of way it could be made to work:
  • {{User:Peter coxhead/Test/T1|Texas|lizard|-|hawk}} →
Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. malvacearum
Cotton bacterial blight
Cotton bacterial blight
Scientific classificationEdit this classification
Domain: Bacteria
Phylum: Pseudomonadota
Class: Gammaproteobacteria
Order: Xanthomonadales
Family: Xanthomonadaceae
Genus: Xanthomonas
Species: X. axonopodis
Pathovar: X. a.  pv. malvacearum
Trionomial name
Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. malvacearum

--EMPTY--

  • {{User:Peter coxhead/Test/T1|Texas|^lizard|-|^hawk}} →
Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. malvacearum
Cotton bacterial blight
Cotton bacterial blight
Scientific classificationEdit this classification
Domain: Bacteria
Phylum: Pseudomonadota
Class: Gammaproteobacteria
Order: Xanthomonadales
Family: Xanthomonadaceae
Genus: Xanthomonas
Species: X. axonopodis
Pathovar: X. a.  pv. malvacearum
Trionomial name
Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. malvacearum

--EMPTY--

Whether the ^ characters are interpreted could, I assume, be made to depend on a JavaScript setting. I think if it worked on the name as a single string it would be much easier to persuade people to use.
Assuming you're serious about ENGVAR, it's a very different matter! Spelling is easy to fix, but subtle differences in grammatical use are just too difficult. Basically it would be a machine translation problem, and that's not doable at the required level of accuracy. Just consider whether you could automate the mapping of my use of "which"/"that" (I can mostly use either where "which" is not required, but tend to use "which" more than "that" in formal writing) into the semantically based rules recommended in US English. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:57, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
{{Vernacular}}: Definitely worth looking into further. The hyphenation and stuff need only be complicated for fields with weird capitalize-after-hyphen rules, which is probably only birds.
{{EngVar}}: Oh, I didn't mean full-scale machine trans. The idea originated as just a human-edited thing, like {{EngVar|us=cute hottie|uk=lovely bird|sc=bonnie lass|ir=fair colleen|au=pretty sheila|ca=attractive woman, eh}}, and user-level JS to pick a value based on a user setting. Maybe use a Lua trick to prevent it from being used for more than 20 or whatever characters at a time, to prevent vandal/POINT "versions" of entire paragraphs. What caught my attention about the Lua stuff is that it could actually be used to auto-trans some things put into it (-or/-our, etc.), maybe with an |auto= parameter.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:57, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Dioecy

Hi Peter, I don't quite follow your "proposal" on the talk page of Dioecy. Can you point to where you think changes are needed? Thanks. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 10:05, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Not surprising, since when I re-read it, it wasn't clear to me either! (Written too early in the morning, perhaps.) See my revised suggestion at Talk:Dioecy#Future of this article. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:35, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Template:R from English name listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Template:R from English name. Since you had some involvement with the Template:R from English name redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. BDD (talk) 21:31, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Organismal WikiProject parameters for redirect categorization templates.

Hi Peter. Since I can't edit protected templates, I was hoping I could persuade you to incorporate parameters into the redirect templates relevant to organisms, in order to sort the redirects into subcategories. You sounded amenable when I brought it up on the Tree of Life talk page a couple months ago (and we'll see what the Plant project people think about it now). I don't see myself going through all of the redirects already in the large categories to sort them into subcategories, but I'm continuing to add redirect templates, and it might be nice to have organism group subcategories set up going forward (I continue to work on plant related redirects, and have been doing a far amount with fish redirects the last couple of weeks). Plantdrew (talk) 20:10, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I think it's a very good idea. In reality, the plant redirects have a significantly different structure from, say, mammals or birds, because we make so much more use of scientific names. So separating them out is sensible. Did you just have in mind a generic ability to add a group, or should the template check that the group is an accepted one? Peter coxhead (talk) 08:33, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for doing it for {{R from alternative scientific name}}. I'm not quite sure what you mean by generic ability vs. template check. Does having the template check mean that the template displays an error message if an unrecognized parameter is used? If so, I'd favor being able to use a not yet recognized parameter (i.e. "|fish") in hopes that the subcategorization scheme is expanded. I do realize with unrecognized parameters there may be some variation in term used (i.e., some people using "|fishes"). I've come across a few cases where a template is frequently invoked with an unrecognized parameter: PolBot used "|needs-photo=yes" on {{WikiProject Fishes}}, although the "|imageneeded" is the parameter recognized by the project template. And I found a number of DAB/SIAs on common names for a group of animals that had the group name as parameter, although the DAB/SIA template didn't recognized the parameter (sorry, I can't recall which group of animals, or whether the pages were DABs or SIAs). Plantdrew (talk) 16:57, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
As I've coded it at present, {{R from alternative scientific name}} ignores anything other than "plant" (and the alternatives "plant", "Plant", "plants", "Plants") so you could put "|fish" now, and it wouldn't have any effect. My first thought was that if you put {{R from alternative scientific name|X}} it would create the category "Redirects from alternative scientific names of Xs", regardless of what X was but this wasn't a good idea, because:
  • typos and alternatives wouldn't be handled correctly
  • categories would be created for which there was no consensus
  • proper documentation wouldn't be created.
So if it is decided to have a subcategory for, say, birds, then {{R from alternative scientific name}} would be edited to provide the code to handle that case. No-one other than us seems interested in this at present, unfortunately. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:39, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Oh, that's what you mean by generic ability. I agree that automatically creating categories for any term entered as a parameter is not a good idea. I hope there will be more interest now that we have an example in practice we can point to. There aren't very many editors interested in/working on Tree of Life related redirect categorization. I don't expect to get more editors interested in organismal redirects, but perhaps those that already working on them will support subcategorization with an example in place. Plantdrew (talk) 18:10, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Diacritics RfC

Hello - I'm inviting you to be part of a small group to help devise a comprehensive RfC on the topic of diacritics usage on WP. I'm trying to include editors with a broad range of approaches, and openness to collaboration, in order to make it as strong a proposal as possible. If you're interested, let me know, or pop over to User:Dohn joe/diacritics to participate. Thanks! Dohn joe (talk) 17:09, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Auto images fix

So I have no idea why that worked, but it certainly did. Thank you! I am no longer watching this page—whisperback if you'd like a response czar ♔ 08:27, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

See my response at Template talk:Auto images. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:28, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Divison/Phylum Pteridophyta?

I may need taxonomic help with a little battle going on currently re: Equisetum. Editors wish to place this in Phylum Pteridophyta, and have reverted my attempts to call Phylum "Division". But Pteridophyta is not a valid taxon anyway. Are you up to speed with current views of the taxonomy of Equisetum? Ferns and other "pteridophytes" seem to be placed in Division or Phylum Pteridophyta here, which seems to me to be incorrect. Surely the status of any container group for ferns and fern allies should be declared as unranked taxon. What say you? Plantsurfer (talk) 20:27, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I say that high level classification of plants other than angiosperms is a very muddled area. Is there more recent research than this 2013 paper? If not, then traditional ferns+horsetails are confirmed as a monophyletic group. So what name to use? I don't know any more than when this was discussed at Talk:Fern#Outdated_classification. Both Monilophyta/monilophytes and Pteridophyta are used in sources; the latter is confusing because its traditional use is different, and it seems doubtful that either has been formally published as a division. At Fern we seem to have opted for evasion; at Plant#Diversity we use Division Pteridophyta. Confusion reigns!
On the other hand, we have consistently used Division rather than Phylum for plants, so on this issue I'm clear. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:15, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Addendum: looking at Fern again, it really needs quite a bit of work. The problem is that the description of ferns is largely based on the traditional definition excluding Equisetum. For example it starts "Ferns are vascular plants differing from lycophytes by having true leaves (megaphylls), which are often pinnate." However, older textbooks describe horsetails as having microphylls, and even if their leaves are reduced megaphylls, they are very different from the rest of the ferns. On the other hand, it's hard to write an integrated description until textbooks catch up, because the terminology used to describe horsetails is different from that used to describe traditional ferns. Sigh... Peter coxhead (talk) 06:12, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Assistance with controversy regarding scientific basis of accupunture

I notice you protected page edit request. I seems quite reasonable. I'm having great difficulties adding in recent research. Could you help support me in overcoming the kabal of editor hell-bent in white-washing all views that don't support the status quo? You help would be greatly appreciated. This struggle also has extended to referred itch and myofascial meridians where I've started a Rfc to help gain more viewpoints. - Technophant (talk) 10:00, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Um... I think I fall between the two "positions" exemplified by your comments at the MEDRS talk page and those of the "MEDRS regulars". Please see my latest comment at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Issues with alt med not being able to maintain NPOV. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:12, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
I'm not a fringe pusher. What you see here is the extent of my activities on Wikipedia regarding "pseudoscience". - Technophant (talk) 17:12, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Your agenda is pretty obvious and violates many policies. -- Brangifer (talk) 17:46, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Equally there's some POV phrasing at Accupuncture which suggests to me that others have an agenda which is not based solely on reporting the science involved. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:52, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Peter, I agree, and that's how it should be, since we report on far more than the science issues. Other than that, if there are particularly problematic wordings or issues with sourcing or weight, feel free to mention them on my talk page. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:24, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Cultivar Group

Hi Peter, I've just noticed a copyeditor down-casing the names of cultivar groups, and have made changes at Cultivar group and at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora) to emphasize that they should be capitalized. I wonder if there are other places where this needs to be stated, and also can't think of a systematic say to find them in wikipedia; they have forms like "Cynara cardunculus Scolymus Group". Would you have any suggestions on how to do better with this? (As an aside: I think that quite a lot of plant pages for economically important plants might benefit from changing to use a cultivar group name instead of something unofficial like Cardoon.) Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:30, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's a perennial issue (the capitalization of cultivar names is also not understood by some copyeditors). Both cases should really also be in the MOS at Wikipedia:MOS#Animals, plants, and other organisms. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:45, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, did that. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:04, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
On the aside, I agree, but the problem is that the ICNCP stresses (in Division IV) the registration of cultivar, Group and grex names. This seems to work reasonably well for ornamental plants (you can look up names for roses, lilies, hostas, etc.). However, for many economically important fruits and vegetables, it's often not clear who the Registrar is, or the list is not publicly available, so it's hard to tell what the correct cultivar group name is. We've been round this issue in great detail for bananas (including input from a researcher in the field): there's a system of group nomenclature that pre-dates the ICNCP; some sources have used ICNCP styling with pre-ICNCP group names; but there's no official registered list. It also seems that the ICNCP is deficient in dealing with crops like bananas, since its Groups are not exclusive (a cultivar can belong to more than one group), nor is there any kind of hierarchy (no "Subgroups"), whereas the standard banana cultivar nomenclature is (sensibly) properly hierarchical. So I've got a bit disillusioned with the ICNCP in such areas. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:44, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Oh. But my spam email tells me that they are meeting in Brisbane this year, so perhaps the code will improve. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:24, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Ah, interesting. I'll look out for updates! Peter coxhead (talk) 06:46, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

The quote

I just ran across the actual source of the quote. They deserve the credit. [1] ```Buster Seven Talk 05:55, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Ah, and I thought you made it up! Now credited on my user page. Thanks. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:34, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Opuntia ficus-indica

Hi Peter coxhead. The fruits are indeed all of the same species. The palnt has been domesticated for a long time, so, just like apples or mangoes, they have been bred/ cultivated into hundreds of varieties, with very different colours, shapes and sizes and surprisingly very different flavours. The texture is mostly the same too, though some varieties tend to be 'drier' with a mealy texture. It is quite common with informal sellers to present them grouped by colour (peeled or unpeeled) for extra effect. In South Africa they mostly grow wild and rural people sell them next to the road. Commercial farming was going well in the late 90s, but seems to have lost mometum - I guess it is impossible to compete with Israel and Spain. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 14:06, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

@Rui Gabriel Correia: interesting! It would be good to add this information to several articles, but of course it should be sourced. Do you know of any sources we could use? Peter coxhead (talk) 16:13, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Hi Peter coxhead. I just that it is briefly mentioned in Opuntia, "Prickly pears also produce a fruit, commonly eaten in Mexico, known as tuna; it also is used to make aguas frescas. The fruit can be red, wine-red, green, or yellow-orange.". Otherwise, try these

Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 20:i

8889

Hi PCh. I see that you are familiar with botanists databases. What would "8889" be a reference to here and here, pg 35. Correia was my father, who worked as botanist in Angola, Namibia and South Africa. Any help will be welcome. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 13:56, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Stalker here: Hi Rui Gabriel and beg-pardon Peter: That number would be the collector's number for the specimen(s), always to be attached to the names of the collectors "Barbosa & Correia, #8889", and extremely important for linking data together. Launert chose the specimens with that number to best represent the species. The herbaria where the specimens are stored would have their own catalogue numbers for the specimen as well. If you look here for specimens of that species, the isotype already seen is stored in the herbarium whose code is LISC, which Index Herbariorum shows is Jardim Botânico Tropical, Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, Lisboa. It has a catalogue number of LISC000719. The holotype is at the herbarium PRE, which is South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), South Africa, Gauteng Province, Pretoria, where its catalogue number is PRE0600315-0. There is another isotype at BM, the The Natural History Museum, London, with catalogue number BM000796190. These three specimens were given the number 8889 by the collectors, and would have been intentional duplicates, so that the information could be sent to multiple institutions. In the case of a tree or shrub, that would mean cutting pieces from the same plant, but for small plants the collectors have to judge that they are gathering plants of the same species (which causes lots of problems with mosses, where there's often more than one species in a clump and it's easy to overlook some of them).
It seems likely that your father and Barbosa collected at least 8889 plants together, at least some of the time as multiple copies as in this case. I have seen one person, though, who used the same numbering system no matter whether they were alone or collecting with other people. That's a lot of work to press, annotate, write notes about and mail, quite apart from the travel and botanical scholarship involved! Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:24, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Hi Stalker ;-) @Sminthopsis84:. Thanks so much for your extremely infomative and elucidanting post. And you have even answered what I did not make very clear - my father did not always collect with Barbosa and would sometimes be wrking alone, so you are right, my father probably had a numbering system for plants he collected by himself. As for the number of specimens collected, I recall as a child going with my father during school holidays and he would retur to base camp with enough material to fill about 2 or 3 presses, each press containing about 10 specimens, each between a few sheets of newspaper. He collected specimens from about 1960 to 1975 in Angola, 1975 to 1979 in Namibia and 1982 to 1999 in South Africa. I guess he must have collected many thousands of specimens. Thanks again. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 20:35, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
I wonder if you can solve a little puzzle, which I'll write about further on your talk page so as not to fill Peter's. Databases of botanical specimens are often quite inadequate (the one I know best has about 50% of the specimens recorded in any fashion in the database), and what is there may have errors. More anon. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:22, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Moricand, Moise Etienne (Stefano)

Hi there. In List of botanists by author abbreviation, yr reversal edit : ""Moric." is the abbreviation for Stefano Moricand". True. Look here pls : http://kiki.huh.harvard.edu/databases/botanist_search.php?id=129. The same site in this page give a "moricand?" search result with no Stefano, even though Stefano Moricand is better known (at least from me until yesterday, I don't go editing others' work without checking). Also here http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Mo%C3%AFse_%C3%89tienne_Moricand it says "Commonly cited as Stefano Moricand". Here: http://www.ansp.org/research/library/archives/0200-0299/coll0277/ says "MORICAND, STEFANO, 1780-1854... Swiss botanist and conchologist, whose full name was Moise Étienne Moricand..." The spanish wiki gives the same. So ? What you? Do you have a link to the page you say supports your reversal? (which may be exact, for all I know, just need to prove it). Basicdesign (talk) 11:26, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Apologies, after undoing your addition I meant to check and sort it, but got distracted and forgot. The reason I undid the addition at first is that the official source for all botanical author abbreviations is IPNI (see Moric. in IPNI). IPNI is the general reference for the Wikipedia list. However, we always put sourced alternative names, if it's clear that the same person is meant, as long as the IPNI entry is prominent, but at the time I hadn't found a source for the alternative name. Now corrected to include both names – your Archives of the Academy of Natural Sciences is a better source than I'd found. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:01, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Hi, it's definitely better like that, at least one can find him. Though the ref given is clearly incomplete, not indicating Moricand's name "of Moïse Étienne", and as the wikisource says, he is only "commonly known" as Stefano. Other sources:
I don't know. Adding refs that indicates both names seems the best bet to me. I'm adding the last 2 ones given here, if you find it's too much wld you pls leave at least one? Thanks.Basicdesign (talk) 12:26, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Boris Fedtschenko

Another Russian botanical author (of Iris Narynensis and iris albomarginata) but not listed on http://www.ipni.org/ipni/advAuthorSearch.do;jsessionid=AF48723248F887A3B1B50F78EE81B011?find_forename=Fedtschenko+&find_surname=&find_abbreviation=&find_isoCountry=&output_format=normal&back_page=authorsearch&query_type=by_query under different spellings ! But is listed on http://plants.jstor.org/person/k3153 and http://kiki.huh.harvard.edu/databases/botanist_search.php?id=1808 ! Just wanted to know if he should go on the list ! No wiki page but seems lots of links under google about him and his wife Olga :) so another article for me to work on ! DavidAnstiss (talk) 12:36, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

@DavidAnstiss: I searched for "B.Fedtsch." as the abbreviation and found him. If you look at the search you've given above, you've got "find_forename=Fedtschenko" but this is his surname. He's listed at List of botanists by author abbreviation_(B). One problem with having to split the lists over multiple articles is that you can't easily search by surname. There are three Russian botanists with this surname: see this search. Was Boris the son of Alexei and Olga? Peter coxhead (talk) 15:54, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
Thank you and yes was the son. User:DavidAnstiss/Boris_Fedtschenko Have much more work to do on it before publishing!

Meconopsis

Hi PC, point taken, you are right. How about "The species in the genus have attractive flowers"? Also, having looked at in more detail, how about removing "and have two distinct ranges, seeing that "recent studies suggest that" ... "the single species indigenous to England, Wales, Ireland, and the fringes of Western Europe" ... "does not belong in the genus"? Regards,

Well, the problem is that although it's agreed that M. cambrica should be in Papaver, it's the type species, so if it's formally moved, the genus can't be Meconopsis. I understand there's a proposal to conserve Meconopsis, so I suspect that only when this is approved will reliable sources actually make the move. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:59, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks

Dear Peter coxhead
Thanks for your edits on the article Hippeastrum
Regards
Aftab Banoori (Talk) 09:29, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Phormium colensoi

Hi Peter ... you effectively reverted an edit of mine on the above subject, where I corrected the attribution of the "hookeri" synonyms. Please note that the attributions I put in are according to IPNI, which is more up-to-date than WCSPF (as the latter admits it can be up to 2 years behind IPNI). Do you not agree? MisterCDE (talk) 08:34, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Sure. My recollection – apologies if I'm wrong – is that there wasn't a reference so I restored it as per a source. (Since the main secondary sources often differ, it's important to give the reference.) By all means fix it to IPNI + a ref. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:22, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Peter coxhead. You have new messages at Rich Smith's talk page.
Message added 17:50, 1 September 2014 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

RichT|C|E-Mail 17:50, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Douglas fir

  • Saw that you reversed my edit that added Douglas fir to Category:Trees of Oregon. Understand your concern that Oregon is covered by Trees of the Northwestern United States category. However, just so you understand my rationale, I thought since there’s a specific category for Oregon trees and because Douglas fir is Oregon’s official state tree and a Top-priority article for WikiProject Oregon, it would be appropriate to include it in Trees of Oregon even though it overlaps with another category. While I knew it would create category overlap, I thought this was reasonable/appropriate justification for overlap. Bottom line … I really don’t care one way or the other, but want you to be aware that there was a thoughtful rationale for putting Douglas fir into Oregon trees category.--Orygun (talk) 23:00, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
@Orygun: It's not a totally straightforward issue, I agree. There has been a problem with editors using categories such as "Trees of ..." as substitutes for articles such as "List of trees of ...", and this is not what the category system is supposed to be used for. Nor should an article be placed in a category and that category's parent. On the other hand, the category system is a mess, so it's not clear that "random corrections" like mine are really useful. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:05, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Like I said, it really doesn’t matter to me. Just wanted you to know there was rationale for creating overlap…i.e. official state tree was missing from Trees of Oregon category. Thanks for taking the time to put it right.--Orygun (talk) 22:40, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Blazing star barnstar
For stellar contributions to improving plant related articles.

Excellent technical work, excellent arguments at talk, excellent breadth of coverage of plant related topics, and excellent responsiveness to requests by many editors. I was surprised not to see more barnstars already on your talk page. FloraWilde (talk) 14:31, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks; appreciation is always nice! Peter coxhead (talk) 15:06, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Acupuncture source at WT:MEDRS

Hi Peter -- appreciate your having taken the time to comment on this. I made a small but important correction to the wording of the question at hand: here. It doesn't bear upon what the phrase "real acupuncture was no better than sham" refers to. But the difference between a statement being a conclusion of the paper vs. the conclusion of the paper is a difference worth noting, and may or may not impact how you choose to word your remarks at WT:MEDRS. Best regards, and a toast to scholarly pedantry, Middle 8 (POV-pushing • COI) 00:02, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree that in the paper, Ernst et al. make several statements which could be construed as "conclusions". The key question in relation to MEDRS is the conclusion reached from his review(s), which, in my reading, is the one in the summary and no other. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:31, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, and I agree with you. There's also some question over exactly what the specific phrase -- "real acupuncture was no better than sham" -- refers to; I agree with 2/0's conclusion [2] that he's referring to his ref#128, Suarez-Almazor et. al. 1990.
Some editors appear to believe that the phrase "real acupuncture was no better than sham" refers to the larger body of literature, and that my disputing their conclusion is a POV-push to make acupuncture look like it's more effective than it is. What can I say to that? Not much other than this. Happy editing, --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 02:35, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Rosa 'Peace'

Hello Peter coxhead,
as you are at least observing the Rosa Iceberg article, I'd like to ask if you could look over my changes to Rosa Peace - and if you have any suggestions what to do with information I can't verify (the story about Viscount Alanbrooke which seems to be incompatible with the naming by the US partner). I normally don't change more than a few sentences...
Best wishes, Anna reg (talk) 21:44, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

@Anna reg: great work! I was particularly interested in the use of the "ahnentafel" template, which I'd not seen used in this context in the English Wikipedia; I think it works well. I've made some copy-edits, but these are just minor formatting and English. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:48, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
I copied the template idea from the russian wikipedia, where it's used in a lot of rose articles - and was glad to see that this German named template works here as well. Thanks for your corrections - the down to instead of up to minus xx degrees correction makes sense and is already copied into my sandbox (where I'm trying to collect useful things for rose articles), as it appears in most rose cultivar articles. Thanks again, --Anna reg (talk) 17:04, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Violet

Hi Peter, I saw your contribution to the Violet saga, after I was considering asking your advice about it. I haven't had a chance to read all the MOS material in detail, after clearly misquoting it the first time. It's heartening that you also see what the style-enthusiasts are doing as flawed. I'm too tired right now, but am wondering if there's some awful confusion somewhere between redirecting and piping that may be leading to serious deterioration in disambiguation pages as people apply "the rules" without thinking about how to help the reader. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:28, 16 September 2014 (UTC)


Hi, Peter. I thought I'd better come over and explain why your edit to Violet was incorrect. (It wasn't me who undid it, but only because somebody beat me to it; I'd have done it if they hadn't.)

You are correct that "Redirecting may be appropriate ... when linking another disambiguation page"; however, that's irrelevant to the edit in question because it didn't involve redirecting (linking to a page that redirects to a different page), but piping (linking to a page using something other than the page's title as the link text). Piping is covered by different guidelines than redirecting, and they don't include an exception for linking to disambiguation pages.

It's also worth noting that in the specific case of List of plants known as violet, redirecting isn't possible, regardless of whether it's appropriate; there are no redirect pages that point to List of plants known as violet.

I hope this helps clarify the situation. — Paul A (talk) 01:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

So what you are saying is that if there is a redirect to List of plants known as violet (which is easily created) then we could use that link in the disambiguation page? An idiotic position in my view. How do you suggest that readers are directed to set index articles which are part of the disambiguation of a topic? Do we have to repeat the entire content of the SIA on the disambiguation page? Peter coxhead (talk) 07:08, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Bruniales category

Hi, Peter. Thought I'd leave a note to let you know that I restored Category:Bruniales. There is a difference between small categories that have no potential for growth and small categories that at this moment contain only a few articles but could potentially contain many more (WP:SMALLCAT). Sure, I'm usually all for getting rid of nonsense categories for extremely small genera, families, and orders, but Bruniales could have around 80 species articles some day and thus, it seems, WP:SMALLCAT suggests we keep them. I appreciate the work you're doing to upmerge other unnecessarily small categories from the hierarchy. Any thoughts or comments? Cheers, Rkitko (talk) 04:10, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, it would only have as many species articles if editors didn't create family and genus categories: in the extreme it would have three entries, a category each for the two families and the article for the order. But I take your point – it does have the potential for expansion.
I've actually stopped working on categories for the present. User:NotWith is currently creating large numbers of small categories, particularly for the "monotypic genera" hierarchy (e.g. Category:Monotypic Apiales genera, Category:Monotypic Solanales genera, Category:Monotypic Pandanales genera, Category:Monotypic commelinid genera). I and others have tried to discuss categorization on NotWith's talk page, but there's never a response. Not only are the newly created categories usually small, but moving things down to them makes the upper categories too small as well. What's more NotWith often "converts" a category "TAXON genera" into "Monotypic TAXON genera" thus reducing the size of the "TAXON genera" category. So I thought I'd pause until this phase of activity ceases. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:17, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
@Rkitko: Unfortunately in spite of polite and less polite requests at User talk:NotWith#Removing taxon categories, NotWith is still removing taxon categories, contrary to WP:PLANTS categorization guidance. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:10, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead: Thanks for your efforts on the categories. I've left messages on NotWith's talk page numerous times and I think I've only ever received one response. I left a note just now letting NotWith know that this behavior is unacceptable and to prevent further disruption s/he may be blocked if this continues. Give it some time and if you see any more edits that aren't clear mistakes, let me know and send along the link so I can apply a short block. I've struggled with what exactly to do with unresponsive editors; the disruption is minor enough and not exactly easy to understand that taking the issue to WP:AN/I or WP:RFC/USER might be dismissed.
Oh, and on the Bruniales category, I see what you mean - there are two families, one of which has the majority of the species. I suppose I'd much prefer keeping the articles together in a reasonably-sized order category with the potential to have about 80-100 articles than to skip the order rank category have a situation where Category:Bruniaceae would be a direct child of Category:Asterids and the few non-Bruniaceae articles would be included in Category:Asterids for lack of a lower rank category. That's just my opinion and I can certainly see a few benefits to the latter option. Is there a better way to go about it? Rkitko (talk) 00:02, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
@Rkitko: thanks re NotWith; what's annoying is that the time they put into Wikipedia could be so much more useful if they were willing to discuss their edits.
I too would prefer fewer large categories, so that editors could more easily predict where to categorize articles. There's no ideal solution given the very unequal sizes of taxa, but I think you were right to restore the Bruniales category and current entries in subcategories should be moved up to populate it. The real problem is that maintaining consistency of categorization requires quite a high level of cooperation among editors, which is unfortunately hard to achieve. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:39, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

taxobox question

I've been frustrated with the taxobox template and the accompanying articles for awhile. More of me not understand what is going on. So, instead of fixing a problem with what I think is right, I thought I'd ask you why it is being done. Hopefully I'll have a better understanding.

I was alerted to bad syntax with this edit. Can't start lines with "=" unless it is a section heading.

  1. What is a ref given (Lee & Brunton, 1986) and nothing else? How is a person supposed to find that?
  2. Why were the two extra lines added?
  3. Why the = at the beginning of the line?
  4. What does "synonyms" in the taxobox mean? I've encountered that before and wondered.

Bgwhite (talk) 05:17, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

  1. The "Lee & Brunton, 1986" isn't a reference, although it looks like one. It's the "author citation" – see Author citation (zoology) and Author citation (botany). It's used because quite often the same name is published more than once, so to distinguish the names the author(s) are added, and in zoology also the date. Thus Neocrania Davis, 1978 isn't the same genus/name as Neocrania Lee & Brunton, 1986. Only the first published name is (normally) valid. For a species, there may be parentheses round the name as in "(Smith, 1846)". This means that Smith first published the name of the species in 1846, but in a different genus. In botany, the name of the person making the transfer is always added afterwards, without parentheses.
  2. The taxobox for Neocrania is confusing in some ways. Because there is a single species in the genus, it's the taxobox for the genus and the species. This makes it tricky to know exactly where to put the information. I've tried a couple of layouts in the article; I prefer the one there now. The person who added the information was trying to make clear that the genus Neocrania Davis, 1978 isn't the same as Neocrania Lee & Brunton, 1986 but is the same as the genus Novocrania Lee & Brunton, 2001. Usually you'd just put this in the synonyms field, but in this particular case you need to say whether they are synonyms of the genus or the species.
  3. The = was a way of indicating a synonym; "Neocrania Davis, 1978 = Novocrania Lee & Brunton, 2001" is another way of saying "Neocrania Davis, 1978, synonym Novocrania Lee & Brunton, 2001".
  4. A synonym (taxonomy) is one of the set of names that have been applied to an organism. One will be correct/valid, the others not. However because different names may be used in different books, etc. it can be useful to list them all.
The extra question is "how do you know what the author citation is, or that the one given is correct?" For plants it's easy: there are some very comprehensive online databases. For animals, it's harder because there are many more of them; there are resources at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life#Taxonomic resources. I strongly believe that a reference should always be added for the author citation. See e.g. the plant genus Haptanthus.
I hope this helps! Don't hesitate to ask more questions if you have them. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:37, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Addition to cultivar article?

Peter, I'm curious as to your thoughts about the general concept of adding the material in landrace that currently discusses plants into a separate section of cultivar. (putting aside for a moment the drama that would be likely to ensue) I am absolutely not a plant expert (I was raised on a wheat/cattle farm/ranch, FWIW), but it seems that the "plant landrace" and heritage seeds/crops stuff is not particularly well covered in the cultivar article, so maybe there is a place for it. I originally tried to tone down the drama on the landrace article by suggesting a split of the landrace article into plant landrace and animal landrace as I think some of the disputes on that article stem from the very different definitions and uses of the term in the plant and animal kingdoms. But that proposal just generated even more drama and I really don't have the energy to put into that drama at the moment. (other fish to fry). But someone else suggested that cultivar would be an appropriate place to discuss the landrace thing in plants, so thought I'd ask your views on the matter. I have no interest in editing in the plant area other than to assist with a merge and assorted wikignoming. this version had a good separate section on plants that might make a good base. Just running the general idea up the flagpole. Montanabw(talk) 19:52, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

@Montanabw: the difficulty seems to be to avoid OR. To add material on landraces to the cultivar article there need to be sources that show the relationship between these concepts/terms. The International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants has introduced some pretty tight definitions of terms like "cultigen", "cultivar", etc. as applied to plants. Using these definitions, it's clear to me that applied to plants, "landraces" are cultigens ("deliberately selected plants that may have arisen by intentional or accidental hybridization in cultivation, by selection from existing cultivated stocks, or from variants within wild populations that are maintained as recognisable entities solely by continued propagation") but are not cultivars (i.e. not sufficiently "distinct, uniform and stable" in their characters to be treated as a single taxonomic entity). Zeven (1998) is a source for landraces not being cultivars ("a landrace is not uniform and stable, and thus is different from a cultivar", p. 129). However, I can't find a source that explicitly relates cultigens and landraces – Zeven doesn't mention the term "cultigen".
So I conclude that other than saying that landraces aren't cultivars, it doesn't make sense to try to discuss plant landraces within the Cultivar article. It would make sense to discuss plant landraces in the Cultigen article, if there were appropriate sources – but at present I can't find any. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:26, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
I see your point. The landrace article (which has a lot of problems, not the least being... well, never mind, AGF) notes a "working definition" from this source (which appears to be a peer-reviewed journal, but I cannot access full text without paying $40 which I don't want to do): "a dynamic population(s) of a cultivated plant that has historical origin, distinct identity and lacks formal crop improvement, as well as often being genetically diverse, locally adapted and associated with traditional farming systems." Does that fit with cultigen? Montanabw(talk) 23:40, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Unfortunately I can't access it either (I do have access to academic papers through a couple of institutions, but neither work for this one). A landrace defined in this way falls within the definition of a cultigen, but, again, that's just my judgement. It's actually a very weak definition, because the "often" means that a landrace could just be "a dynamic population(s) of a cultivated plant that has historical origin, distinct identity and lacks formal crop improvement" but is not genetically diverse or locally adapted or associated with traditional farming systems. I stand by the comments I made at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Organisms#Distinguishing formal breeds from landraces: both "breed" and "landrace" are "broad concepts" in the sense of WP:Broad concept articles. Each term has a number of overlapping definitions. The "centre of gravity" of each is slightly different: "breed" clusters around more precisely specified and selected populations, hence more genetically homogeneous; "landrace" clusters around less genetically homogeneous populations selected through traditional farming practices. However at the edges the terms clearly overlap.
I do see your point, and your comments at [3] are well-stated. Montanabw(talk) 18:37, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
What's worth doing in Wikipedia is another matter. Where editors disagree and cooperation and consensus are weak or lacking, I suspect it's a waste of time and energy to work on broad concept articles. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:54, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
You might be correct, but this becomes a problem with the OR, SYNTH and POV-pushing factions are the ones running everyone else off. Montanabw(talk) 18:37, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Alnus glutinosa

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:03, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Acacia pycnantha

we have it up at FAC - some botanical input would be greatly welcomed...only recently ventured outside proteaceae.....cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:05, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Stereospermum kunthianum

Hi, As you mention I haven't finished, but I would appreciate a more precise indication of the sentences you feel are verging on copyright vios. Bear in mind that some of the sources are in public domain by virtue of their age or origin....Paul venter (talk) 11:19, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Redirects to scientific name

I've been tagging redirects to scientific name with |plant starting at the other end of the alphabet from you. I noticed you're tracking progress on this task on your user page. So far, I'm through "Wi..." working backwards alphabetically (so everything between "Common" and "Wh..." still needs to be done). Plantdrew (talk) 17:10, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

To editor Plantdrew: Feel free to add to my user page where you've got to. I've noticed you coming behind me fixing errors I made (I have sometimes not noticed that the talk page of the redirect is itself a redirect and then incorrectly changed the talk page of the article); thanks!
Do you use AutoEd? The code at User:Peter_coxhead/common.js enables AutoEd, after which using it causes "|plant" to be added to {{R to scientific name}} automatically. Saves a bit of time. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:33, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, AutoEd looks like it might be useful. I'll give it a try. I've just been pasting template text with |plant so far. I tried to get AWB running a while back, but kept getting errors when I tried to install it.
I feel like I've seen some way to not follow redirects to their targets, but I can't find that now. Do you know what that might be, or do you have some other work around? The biggest time-suck for me editing redirects right now is waiting for the target page to load then clicking to get back to where I can edit the redirect. Plantdrew (talk) 18:12, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
I spent some time messing about with AutoEd before I could get it to work properly. If you copy User:Peter_coxhead/common.js from the bold "var" to the last "}" (assuming you don't want Ucacha's duplinks tool) and add it to the end of User:Plantdrew/common.js, you should find that when you open a page (e.g. a redirect) there's now an "autoed" tab at the top (it comes under "More" in my browser). This should cause a page to be opened with "&AutoEd=true" at the end of the URL. You seem to have to reload it, possibly several times (depends on your operating system/browser??) to get it to work the first time. You should see "plant redirect" already in the edit summary if it works. If the page contains {{R to scientific name}} then "|plant" should be added. [I'm going to fix the Javascript to work for {{R from scientific name}} and {{R to alternative scientific name}}. Done, but "R from scientific name" commented out for now.]
The only way I know of getting the redirect not followed is via a text link, like {{noredirect|Common hogweed}}. I did it this way for the intersection of Category:Redirects to scientific names and WP:PLANTS redirects (making a couple of lists by copy and paste into Excel and then doing some text manipulation to get the right list format).
Speed: I usually open say 10 tabs from the category (I use Firefox); open the redirect in each one, moving on before it actually opens; edit the redirect and save it, again moving on before it actually saves; then go back and close each tab. It's faster to repeat the same action for a number of tabs than doing each one completely.
We should be able to get someone to code a bot for the following task: if the page contains {{R from scientific name|plant}} (or one of the other two like it) and the talk page is empty, then create a new talk page with {{WikiProject Plants|class=redirect}} in it. This would save creating the talk pages manually. However, I don't get the impression that it's quick or easy to get a bot made. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:54, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
AutoEd is working well. I've been using the multiple tab trick for awhile when making a series of repetitive edits. Adding the talk page banner isn't adding that much time to the process (with AutoEd, I don't havethe redirect template occupying my clipboard, so I have the talk page banner in my clipboard and ready to paste). Plantdrew (talk) 20:30, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Crinitaria

It seems we were both working on the same species at once! (C. linosyris). Now I have my doubts! The species is not included in Clapham, Tutin and Warburg 1968. (An old print I know but then I too am retired.) However Keble Martin does give the synonym "Aster linosyris"! There could be an error as Keble Martin does give the common name "Goldilocks" to "A.linosyris" and just to confuse things "Ranunculus auricomus"!!! I was trying to use the same reference twice, but you got in first!Osborne 15:27, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

@Osborne: Stace (2010), New Flora of the British Isles, 3rd ed. – the current "bible" for the British Flora – calls it Aster linosyris, syn. Crinitaria linosyris, so it's reasonable to put both names fairly prominently in Galatella linosyris. The genus Aster has recently been split up; the RHS will be adopting the new names next year (see here for example). However, many current publications still use Aster of course, and it will be a while before the new names are widespread. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:49, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
I made another slight change; I think it's ok as it is now. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:13, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Without doubt your changes are correct and valuable. However if I had the info I would separate giving "Description" and "Distribution". Best wishes. Osborne 16:44, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, by "ok" I just meant the opening is ok. See WP:Plants/Template for how a complete plant article might look. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:49, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Reptiles and Frogs of the Eastern Highlands

I came across this new article. It needs help, but I don't what to do on these types of articles. Bgwhite (talk) 05:21, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Tricky. The single source used doesn't seem to be online and it's not clear how it could be accessed. You could try to tidy up the article without the source, but some English names of species and mis-spelt names will be hard to identify with certainty. Is the subject notable? I'd be inclined to propose deletion, I think. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:21, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
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